The healing had been a long, wearing process, and his body still creaked with frissons of old pain occasionally. He comforted himself with the thought that one day the Administratum would accept his reapplication for duty, deciding, at last, his faculties were once more sharp and steady enough to entrust with the welfare of a battlecruiser. Solonaetz, though still mourning the thrill of such commissions, also suspected his yearnings to return to the Imperial fleet were slightly insane. He had a cosy niche within the Fiddeus fleet and the
Dea Brava
was a dream to work with. Over the three ship’s-time years he’d spent in her company, he had come to appreciate her personality. Her totem was one of recklessness and adventure; perhaps, like himself, she fretted impatiently at being confined to the routine function of cargo carrier.
The phantom of Laetitia lost its hold on the slick surface of the blister and was churned into the amorphous boiling that
Dea Brava
left in her wake. Solonaetz became aware of physical pain; his neck was playing up again. That was another thing he’d meant to do before entering warp space: consult the medic about this problem. It had not been an easy trip out this time all round. He would not be sorry to get home. One more drop and then… Real space drop minus five…
Solonaetz smiled. The warp portal into real space was a stunner this time.
Dea Brava
was dwarfed by an incredible apparition in the void ahead: brazen gates miles high, miles wide, encrusted with elaborate carvings. Giant beasts, their heads invisible in a smoke of stars, blew mammoth horns as if to bid the ship farewell with a star-shattering fanfare.
Solonaetz shook his head. Was it his own influence, he wondered, or the psychic, fluidium-bending whim of another navigator bored after a long stint alone? Perhaps the illusion had been spawned by the creative residue of some dazed eldar poet who’d once coasted the warp tides, coaxing dreams to reality. Whatever. Someone, somewhere liked to leave their own signature upon the warp. Three drops back, he’d cruised the ship through a yawning, fang-toothed mouth, whose gullet delivered him into real space near one of the Ministorum administrative worlds. Someone with a sense of humour, maybe?
The inevitable, and thankfully brief, spasm of nausea vibrated through his flesh as
Dea Brava
left the warp. He couldn’t resist glancing over his shoulder as he pulled his bandana back into place over his third eye. There were no mammoth gates closing behind the ship’s tail; of course not.
J
OURNEY COMPLETED
. S
OLONAETZ
touched a sequence of protective runes above his control helm and then lightly laid his fingers against his brow. ‘I thank thee, Lord Emperor, Divine Father of all that lives, for thy endless love that reacheth out to the corners of forever and carries us all, thy children, in safety. Blessings and respect.’ He rubbed his eyes when the prayer of thanks was recited and began to unstrap himself from the navigator’s pod. His neck was singing in agony now. It would have to be seen to before the next warp shift.
Whatever protections
Dea Brava
might have, Solonaetz was always deeply relieved when they dropped back into real space, even if he never consciously admitted it. Sometimes, the things he saw out there were just too tempting. One sleeptime, he’d had a nightmare about the astronomican suddenly blipping away to nothingness, leaving him alone, without guidance, in a ship screaming blindly into entropy. He’d woken up sweating and pawing the air, his ultimate fear being that his dream self, despite being terrified, had also enjoyed a wild exultation. He had yearned for the final embrace of Chaos. If his subconscious toyed with such sentiments in sleep, Solonaetz was all too aware of how vulnerable he was in the warp.
But then, who wasn’t? He’d seen the burn-outs, shielded by their families, newly released from Ministorum retreats where the priesthood tried to launder the frazzled brains of those who succumbed. It was a risky business he was involved in: his lifeblood.
Solonaetz descended to the walkway leading to the camera recreata, rubbing his neck as he walked. It was always the same, this aftermath: vague depression, insecurity. He knew very well by the time the next warp shift was due he’d be aching to ride the stuff of Chaos once more.
C
APTAIN
G
RAIAN
F
IDDEUS
was giving in to his usual ritual of inspecting the cargo now they’d dropped back into real space. He was aware that this was slightly neurotic behaviour –
Dea Brava
herself would know if anything was amiss – but could never talk himself out of doing it. Maybe, with time, his concerns would lessen.
He was a young man and the
Brava
, one of his family’s smaller vessels, had not long been entrusted into his care. Like Solonaetz, he was eager to return home. There’d been a series of mishaps this trip: an unexpected bout of illness amongst the crew, a near miss with a warp storm near the gate to Hovia Nesta. Problems with the consignment of goods on Phaeton South had caused an irritating delay, thus upsetting the receivers on the following drop. Problems, problems.
Graian was also concerned about the ship’s new astropath, Shivania. This was her first trip out with the
Dea Brava
; her first trip aboard any space-faring vessel, in fact. She had been assigned to take over from old Bassos, the previous astropath, who’d been with the Fiddeus family all his working life. Astropaths were essential to communication aboard ship, and Graian felt uneasy about the apparent delicacy of the girl, her strange air of feyness. He had trusted Bassos implicitly, who had been a robust and dependable creature.
Graian mistrusted Shivania’s capabilities, despite the impressive references with which she’d been despatched from the Scholastica of Adeptus Astra Telepathica. She seemed little more than a child, although Graian had to admit, however grudgingly, she had a keen mind. If anything, her ability to transmit and receive information surpassed Bassos’s considerably. His misgivings were instinctual, but until he could identify some fault or another, he had no proper cause for complaint.
As he walked through the cargo hold, Graian unconsciously ran his fingers fondly over the ribs of the vault. Very quickly, the ship had seemed to become part of his soul. He felt her movements and sighs, each creak and moan, as if he made them himself. Her arched vaults, plated in dull black plasteel, were thickly inscribed with protective runes and totems; she was a virtual fortress. As he’d expected, everything was in order. He knew it was apprehension about the next cargo that was making him jittery. Maybe it was an honour that his father trusted him enough to take the job on, but Graian suspected even the most experienced captain would think twice about stowing a consignment of lacrymata on board. Naturally, most of the legends surrounding it would be exaggerated, but unnerved by the mishaps he’d had to deal with already on this trip, Graian fought a superstitious fear that picking up the lacrymata would only precipitate further dangers.
Taking one last look around, Graian forced himself to leave the hold and make his way to the camera recreata. All Fiddeus ships had a member of the Ministorum on board, so that cleansing rituals could be performed after each warp shift. As well as being effective in cleaning away any psychic debris, it also boosted the morale of the crew.
He met Solonaetz in the passageway two decks up, considering the navigator was looking as fey as Shivania nowadays. Navigators were all inclined to pellucid delicacy but Solonaetz’s huge, dark eyes were almost feverish. Graian made a small, formal bow which jerked the navigator’s mouth into a smile, not entirely devoid of mockery. ‘Hard time, Cavagni?’
‘No.’
‘You look tired.’
‘I am tired!’
S
OLONAETZ HAD TO
quell resentment of the captain’s officious manner occasionally. What did he expect: his navigators to come bursting out from the blister leaping with joy and vitality? Fiddeus looked offended by his tone, however, so Solonaetz smiled to make amends.
‘I always look tired after a drop.’
‘What’s wrong with your neck?’
Solonaetz abruptly dropped his hand. ‘Nothing much.’
‘Well – get it seen to.’ Graian attempted what was clearly supposed to be a fatherly smile, but which Solonaetz meanly interpreted as condescension. ‘Well, we mustn’t keep Brother Gabreus waiting…’
Solonaetz shook his head wearily at the captain’s retreating back and followed him up to the rec. ‘Patience, patience,’ he told himself.
D
EA
B
RAVA
WAS
coasting serenely towards a cool, blue gem of a world, which could already be seen through the narrow, arched ports of the rec. Solonaetz could barely concentrate on the words of Brother Gabreus’s benedictions, his eyes constantly drifting towards the world they were approaching. He knew Fiddeus was making a pick-up here rather than a delivery and that it was a cargo the Fiddeus clan were especially eager to get their hands on. Because of it, everyone had been promised a bonus when they returned home. Solonaetz presumed this was to over-ride any misgivings the crew might feel about sharing confined space with lacrymata, a potentially destructive material.
Personally, he felt no apprehension. Recorded incidents of fatality had all derived from negligence, which certainly wasn’t one of Fiddeus’s failings.
Solonaetz never knew whether to respect or be annoyed by the captain’s nit-picking. He was not that much older than Fiddeus, yet sometimes Solonaetz noticed a jarring immaturity in the captain, which in bitter moments he felt derived from Graian’s lack of hardship in life. The captain tried hard to establish comradeship with his navigator, which Solonaetz was well aware of, but neither of them could ever relax enough for friendship to develop. Solonaetz felt it was something to do with his mutation, ignorant of how adept he was at freezing people off.
Typically, Graian asked Solonaetz if he’d like to accompany him down to the planet’s surface. Solonaetz winced inside as the captain made awkward references to the delights to be found below. Salome Nigra was one of those legendary places of the space-lanes, rumoured to be home to a thousand thousand illicit pleasures, all of which were available to discerning travellers for an appropriate fee.
Solonaetz, an unfailing cynic – perhaps a burdensome trait of his kind – knew it was the inhabitants of the planet herself who had engineered and now maintained this reputation. He considered it to be a tourist retreat of the most tawdry kind, and would have preferred to curl into his sleep-cell for a well-earned rest rather than force himself to endure the pantomime of being shocked and delighted by what they might find below. Fiddeus, however, insisted the trip would do Solonaetz good and even in the face of mordant uninterest kept on insisting until the navigator gave in.
‘We can visit our contact, Guido Palama, organize delivery of the cargo and then the rest of the drop is ours…’ Graian said, with a boyish grin, which Solonaetz had to admit was almost endearing in its innocence.
‘If you like – though, as you noticed, I’m in a little pain.’
‘Your totems look worn, Sol. Perhaps you should have them renewed. I’m sure Gabreus could do that for you before…’
Solonaetz’s hand absently clutched the Navis Nobilite amulets hanging from his throat. ‘At the risk of sounding irreverent, it is not a spiritual injury,’ he said, stemming any sharpness in his voice. ‘An aromatic rub should do the trick. I intended to visit Hermes Foss before the last drop, but it slipped my mind. Relic of old duty, you know.’
Graian nodded gravely. He barely spoke of Solonaetz’s previous commission, emitting a restraint that made Solonaetz feel vaguely like a defrocked priest. Often, he wished people would just ask him blatant questions about his past and be humanly curious. Inside, he needed to talk about it, but he suspected old man Fiddeus had charged everybody with the dire command not to upset him in any way by raking up old hurts. Gomery Fiddeus was a good friend of Solonaetz’s own father; the commission had been a favour.
‘Well,’ Graian said brightly, rubbing his hands together, ‘maybe we can find you a sweet young hetaira gifted in the arts of massage. As you know, the city of Assyrion is famed for its therapy shrines. A far more stimulating experience than having old Foss grinding away at your bones, eh, Sol?’ He laughed.
Solonaetz smiled thinly and inclined his head. ‘As long as we carefully inspect the aromatics before submitting to the treatment, of course.’ He felt a weak surge of expectation. Perhaps the planetfall wouldn’t be as gruelling as he’d feared.
S
EVERAL OTHER CREW
members were gathered in the shuttle, intent on visiting Assyrion, Brother Gabreus amongst them, which caused a certain amount of good-natured mockery. Gabreus settled himself fussily into a seat, pretending to be affronted. ‘May your tongues be black!’ he said grandly. ‘All I seek is an assortment of puissant fumes. This you all know, so caw away, as you like! We’ll see the grins wiped from your faces when we’re back in the warp and only my incenses keep the effluent of Chaos from your sweet, untainted minds!’ He wriggled his considerable frame into a comfortable position. ‘Come, pilot, let’s away! Night spreads her black, feathered fan upon the bosom of Assyrion and I, for one, want to be on the streets before the essence-blenders close shop!’
‘Well said, brother!’ Graian agreed. ‘Pilot, all are aboard. Activate the elementals of the portals!’
The cramped shuttle was filled with the excited atmosphere generated by those who expected to sample exquisite dissipations in the near future. The pilot acknowledged his captain’s request with a carefree gesture and made to seal the ports.
A sharp cry stayed his hand. ‘Hold!’ Someone was scrambling in through the doorway in a flutter of viridian robes. It was the astropath, Shivania.
‘Shivania!’ Graian said, unable to control his surprise. ‘I really don’t think Assyrion is the sort of place…’
‘Enough, captain. I have eyes in the back of my head, if not the front! I’ll be safe enough, especially with all these gallants to protect me!’