Chapter 17

* * *

"He's alive," Essen Pale thought for a moment and clarified just in case. "They are alive."

"Yes," agreed Schmettau. "But, to tell you the truth, that's the second thing I'm worried about right now. Or even third..."

Such thinking aloud had become habitual for an inquisitor many years ago. To speak out a question, to deconstruct and dissect a problem or a difficult subject. Moreover, be sure that what was said would never, under any circumstances, escape to the side, not even a half-word.

"I had planned to celebrate the end of Kryptman's life... But the Emperor," Shmettau raised his index finger meaningfully. "The Emperor."

Pale, as usual, stood at attention with his hands at his seams. Now that the inquisitor had removed his wig, the patchwork of scars covering his perfectly bald head became visible. Essen listened intently, knowing precisely his primary duty - to be a mute witness to the great man's great thoughts. To make pertinent remarks from time to time. And, in exceptional cases, to act as an opponent.

Kalkroit sat up, literally sprawled out in a chair perfectly suited to the anatomy of an old and sick man. He exhaled heavily, relaxing. It was not often that he could find time to rest his worn, but still native spine in peace, without unnecessary haste. And to think a little about a curious mishap.

The white tones of the small cabin were peaceful, the porthole overhead offered a view of the immensity of the universe and helped broaden the inner horizons.

"So what do we see..." The inquisitor continued to reason, both for himself and for the patient Essen. The apprentice listened patiently, understanding that the question was purely rhetorical.

"We see a planet without a name, but with the nickname Ice Port. Or the Beacon."

Schmettau raised a second finger.

"The dying sun, the only planet. Cold. Nothing useful. However..."

Third finger.

"The system is a navigational center of sectoral magnitude. Beacons, as well as astropathic towers, are placed on artificial satellites and asteroids. But the control center and all the accompanying structures are planetary. So this squalor is more populated than it justifiably deserves. And...

Schmettau paused for what looked like a theatrical pause but was not. The inquisitor was just thinking.

"And we see the clearest example of duality. One could even say the dialectical opposite. Why the beacon? Because here, due to the well-known events, the Materium's substance has thinned. Is it a good thing? Undoubtedly. Navigators, Imperial Tarot operators, and astropaths will cling to the Ice Port with their hands, teeth, and other parts of their bodies that suddenly grow occasionally. But is there a downside?"

Schmettau looked at Essen, who correctly interpreted the patron's gaze and said:

"Yes, it is."

"Exactly!" Kalkroit raised another finger. "Where Materium diminishes, increases accordingly... the other side. This means there's a lot of hostile forces, and the local services are working very hard. They've even tried to recruit me, and they're sure to try again. The cultists, the hosts, the rituals, the experiments of self-taught sorcerers... All are two or three or five times more frequent than the standard manifestations for planets of this class and level of population. But that's the price you have to pay for transport connectivity. Especially now, when the Sabbath grinder is just gaining momentum. Everything seems to be as it should be."

The Inquisitor pressed a lever, and with a quiet whirring sound, the chair turned into a couch. Now Kalkroit was almost lying there, staring up at the transparent ceiling.

"What do you think, my friend, is troubling me?" The inquisitor inquired, enjoying some peace for his worn backbone.

If he wished, Schmettau could have replaced the spine long ago, either partially or entirely. As time passed, however, Kalkroit shrugged off the euphoria afforded by highly advanced medicine.

Yes, it is possible to live long, it is possible to recover from such wounds as were fatal to the primitive people of antiquity. But by virtue of the same dialectic, when you acquire something, you inevitably give something in return. And already not young inquisitor began to appreciate humanity, expressed in quite real kilograms of living flesh. Too many prostheses, too much alien matter in his body... So much so that at times the Inquisitor wondered if he would ever cross the line that separates humans and 'cogs'.

"I think it's a haphazard fluctuation in the manifestations of the Immaterium," Essen allowed himself to speculate.

"Exactly, exactly," Schmettau nodded in time with the words. "Everything in the world develops in a sine wave, with ups and downs. But when we see an anomalous pattern..."

The Inquisitor looked in the direction of the only table piled with printouts and individual picts. All of them displayed intricate graphs of varying degrees of detail. All of them repeated in various variations the same picture - a jagged line like a curved saw, then a sharp drop with a flat plateau and an equally sharp rise, much higher than the previous peak.

Everything in the world has a cause. If you know the cause, you know the consequence. If you understand the consequences, you will prevent trouble," Schmettau freely quoted the 'admonition of the young inquisitor'. "And, I must say, I have a certain uneasiness..."

The Pale made the appropriate expression of concern, coupled with the utmost attention.

"... Because I see an anomaly that does not fit the statistics. First, a stable period of typical chaotic presence with ups and downs," Schmettau marked the movement with his palm, as if he were smoothing out invisible small waves. "Then the climax, when the Squad lost two-thirds of its manpower so that there is now one squad per radial and even less on the second category lines. The crap crawls out of the ocean, which ended up being disembodied, mobilizing almost half the planet, as well as the Fleet's forces. And then total silence. A drop-in activity to zero. In fact, remission."

Shmettau sharply held up the fingers of his left hand with a closed 'plank,' as if he had cut invisible threads.

"And now a new burst beyond statistical projections. How could it be?"

"The first option is obvious," Essen had studied his commander well, so he knew exactly when to push Schmettau's thinking in the right direction. "This is part of an even longer cycle that goes beyond observable and reliable statistics."

"And it's obvious, really!" agreed the inquisitor, staring out the window. "It makes sense. First a very long, well, by human standards, of course, a long band of ordinary disturbances, then a flash, and then a depletion reaction. Then now we are likely to see a long band of fading oscillations. And the beginning of a new cycle."

He sighed.

"It's a pity that there is little, too little, reliable data... And in their absence, once bitten, twice shy."

The inquisitor was eloquently silent, again giving his student and assistant the opportunity to speak.

"The second option," Essen said. "The unexpected factor."

"Which one?"

Essen spread his hands faintly, showing his empty palms.

"I don't know."

"Exactly," said the inquisitor thoughtfully. "As the ancients used to say, 'Ignoramus et ignorabimus,' that is, 'we do not know and will not know'... But we, like the guards of a besieged house, can only afford the luxury of not knowing, and that's only temporary."

Schmettau folded the chair back into its traditional position. He slapped his broad palms on the soft leather of the armrests, beating out a simple rhythm.

"And I don't like it," the inquisitor said into the white space. "I don't like it at all. The last time I saw something like this, there was a bloody pact on three sides. I don't think it's the same here, of course..."

Schmettau dragged himself out of the comfortable embrace of his favorite chair. The waist immediately responded with a prick of insistent pain. The Inquisitor mentally showed the weak flesh a fuck, recalling where the compensatory belt had gone.

"It seems to me that the Ordos forces in the Beacon system are quite professional and numerous," Essen suggested. "There's no point in doing their work for them."

"Your problem, my friend," muttered Schmettau, rubbing his kidney area. "Lack of fantasy. And a narrow imagination. Why should we care about any of that?"

The apprentice could hardly suppress a smile. It was very amusing to see the great and terrible Schmettau grunting and massaging his sore back in an old man's way.

"Maybe it doesn't. Maybe none of this means anything," Kalkroit elaborated. - Or maybe it's the other way around. The latter is evidenced by the disturbing movement of the Martians. The pot-heads are up to something, and their activity coincides so well with this... ...fluctuation... How bizarrely and strangely intertwined. The Beacon problem, Kryptman, the Martians. That girl, finally, for whom our conscientious hero has gone for the noose."

"Sounds like the actions of a lovesick man," Essen allowed himself to surmise.

"Oh, don't be silly," said the master. "Fidus had only one love, and we know her name. No. It was his conscience that drove him here. It was a sense of indebtedness. And whatever feelings I had for him, you must admit it was a worthy deed. A very decent thing to do. Though infinitely stupid."

Essen pursed his lips, making a grimace of disagreement and even a slight confrontation. But he remained silent.

"Maybe we were too hasty then?" Schmettau asked himself, walking around the chair as if kneading his joints, bent almost in half. "Maybe he shouldn't have gotten rid of the girl so rashly. Of course, she wasn't a heretic, but there was something about her... Something... ...about her. Strange. Unusual. And everything revolves around this... Olga-Olla. Kryptman is almost ready to perish, but then this little thing appears out of nowhere and saves him. And escapes from the Keymaster and his Soulseeker. If the interrogation sheets are to be believed, and I quite believe them. I also see the Beacon going into remission after a severe outbreak, but a new novice appears in the Squad, and almost immediately the planet is once again plagued by a series of unconventional manifestations. And it's clearly linked by the same network of perpetrators... And no one can tell what they want, throwing ordinary people to Warp without any system."

Schmettau gritted his teeth and straightened, straining his back muscles like a corset around his worn vertebrae.

"I don't believe in coincidences, Essen," the inquisitor chided, once again straight, hard, and looking like himself as the rest of the world knew him.

"I. Not. Believe," he repeated as if to make the student understand even better.

"As you wish," Pale agreed. "My tasks?"

"Here's what we'll do," Kalkroit said. "First, try to pull old records from the local archives. The ones that have not been processed and summarized in the general statistics of abnormal occurrences. You might be able to pull something. I need a summary. Let's try to figure out if it's a 'long' cycle."

Essen nodded, envisioning a long day of work using stims

"Then we should talk to the potheads, but I don't want to, because it is pointless. Finding out the truth from these idolaters is like looking for brains in a servitor and soft-heartedness in a "host". Considering how many ironclads have piled their troops here, they are stubbornly waiting for something. And since they haven't shared their knowledge with the local Ordos, they're not likely to make an exception for me."

Schmettau inhaled deeply and exhaled long as if clearing his lungs of perfectly conditioned and purified air.

"We'll wait, too," the inquisitor finished firmly. "Patience is the lot of the strong and faithful. We'll wait and see how it ends."

"And then? If something does happen."

"Then?" Schmettau looked at the faithful Essen with mild surprise. "Then it's as usual. We'll improvise according to the moment."

* * *

Olga sat and looked sadly in the mirror, which reflected the haggard face of a blond girl with a very short haircut and a deeply sunken eye. The eye was red with tears and surrounded by a thick bruise. In the second eye socket was a black lens with a red dot, just like a terminator. A thin, ringed cable ran from the machine toward the temple and hid beneath the skin like an ominous drip. The temple itched and hurt, the prosthesis pressed against the orbit and hurt, too, and the optics didn't work. Service in the Squad was turning a new side of an asshole on a universal scale.

As the medics in the next wagon the grim 'hospitalers' ladies explained to the girl sparingly, in fact, she was fabulously lucky. Contact with the otherworldly essence instantly stopped all life processes in the affected area, so that if that thing had touched, say, her forehead, she would have been taken to the working chamber of an atomic locomotive, used as a crematorium. To lose just an eye is downright lucky and a clear indication of His mercy. Olga nodded, folded her hands aquiline, and only clenched her lips tighter, remembering that the heretic's tongue was his enemy. Her eye still ached, the camera remained a dead piece of iron. The pills that were supposed to be taken to block the rejection were terribly bitter and caused bouts of vomiting.

"Take it."

With a loud clatter, the Savlar slammed a mug of water on the table. Olga looked at the convict in silence.

"Drink," said the noseless man, and left, hurriedly, as if he feared he might be suspected of something good.

After the maimed girl returned from the hospital infirmary, she was visited by almost all of her comrades-in-arms. Without further ado, with small gifts or just stingy approval. Only Madman and Mentor Bertha avoided the girl, and the monk looked at her strangely. But Olga was used to it.

With a heavy sigh, the girl dissolved a glucose tablet given by Sinner in Savlar's glass. Sinner returned to his home wagon, put on a black pirate bandage, and left his mouth stitched shut, but replaced the unsanitary twine with disinfected fishing line. He took his food through a tube, driving Olga crazy with an ominous squelching sound that was all too reminiscent of the last days of her mother's life when the woman had already lost her mind and her ability to chew.

Olga added a couple of vitamins to the cup, sour but invigorating, a gift from the Holy Man. She drank, thinking of sad things and remembering how the squad had returned 'home' - without honor or ceremony, like obviously suspicious individuals who might have sworn to all the evil of the world wholesale by kissing the devils of warp under their tails. Otherwise, it was as if nothing had happened. The train was stuck for a long time in some complex, very similar to the previous station - solid shops, towers, and towers - officially for the scheduled maintenance of the reactor. The giant steam locomotive was unhitched and moved to a hangar so that the train stood motionless on the spare track as a monument to itself. A dozen more wagons were hitched to the train as if they were preparing multiple increases in personnel, but as a result, not a single man was added.

Even Smoker was said to have been found. By some miracle, he survived and, after wandering in the catacombs for a day or two, came out far beyond the district line, surrendering to the first patrol. However, the scout had not yet returned, apparently was under suspicion of unreliability.

The pain was annoying. It was just strong enough to keep the person from climbing the wall on the one hand, but on the other, not to forget the sad fate of a cripple for a single moment. And it constantly itched where the metal went into the flesh.

"Turn around."

It was Demetrius who came in. Armed with the gifts of the 'Hospitallers' the ward attendant rubbed and smeared some ointment on the affected eye socket every three or four hours. This brought some relief, but little and only for a short time. Behind Demetrius loomed tall Kryp, but did not interfere in the communication, for which the girl was a little grateful. She did not feel like talking. Not with anyone.

Demetrius finished, collected the used swabs in a bag, and looked intently at the patient. The girl looked away. The orderly sighed and went to his room, not trying to reassure the cripple, for which she was also grateful. She had learned all the comforters on duty by heart from the hospital attendants. To hear once again that just an eye was a small price to pay for serving God the Emperor and other 'once is not a heretic' things would be unbearable.

"Inexpensive to pay for life."

"Fuck off, Fidus," said the girl, staring into the riveted steel where a window would have been in a normal wagon.

Kryp went in anyway and sat down on the creaking couch against Olga.

Don't you know what the "Fuck off" means?" Still not turning around, the girl clarified.

"I know. I'm also an inquisitor. And I know how people pay for such... ...contacts," Kryp said very seriously. "Believe me, you got off very cheaply."

"I'm so happy."

"Not at the moment. But you will when you get more experience."

"Maybe."

Olga did not want to quarrel or argue, she hoped that Kryp would get tired of one-sided communication and disappear somewhere himself.

"Believe me, it's really not so bad."

This time she said nothing at all, stubbornly staring into the wall below the embrasure with the screws screwed on tightly. Fidus seemed to want to say something else, but then the siren howled. Olga had never heard such a sound before, though she seemed to have learned by heart all the signals of an armored train, from the emergency readiness to the command to stand down. The sound was not as loud as the battle commands, but as dull and ominous as a Chopin march.

"Wow," said the Wretched Man in the hallway.

Olga wanted to ask what it was all about and then decided to let it be another surprise. One more, one less, nothing good will happen anyway...

"Put on your parade suit!" Berta commanded, as usual in a raised tone, with a solemn gloominess. "Everyone to the parade ground, five minutes to gather!"

Olga had not yet been issued a parade uniform, so the handler limited herself to a cleaned jumpsuit with taped rips. Crip and Demetrius dressed in the same way. The others wore uniforms, something they seldom wore. They wore leather boots, gaiters, a sort of uniform without shoulder straps, of coarse cloth, with a canvas belt, a stand-up collar, and very wide breast pockets. Adepto Purificatum death row prisoners were not allowed to wear headwear.

As she was descending the spiral staircase, an incident occurred - a crazed member of the crew, whom she had already begun to forget, suddenly rushed at Olga. The madman rushed at her out of the darkness, groped her, and screamed:

"The baby, baby!

Olga, in turn, squealed in fear, fighting back.

"Back off, you freak!"

It took a few moments to realize that the madman didn't want to hurt her. The maddened poor man clung to the girl and literally sobbed, repeating a single word. He seemed to want to break through some wall, to deliver a very important message, a matter of life and death.

"A baby... A baby!" persistently, over and over again the Madman repeated, grasping Olga's clothes with his bony and surprisingly tenacious fingers, tearing at the thick fabric. "A baby!"

He cried and screamed right in the girl's face. Through the combined efforts of Savlar and Driver, the unfortunate man has finally torn away and shoved back into the dark space between the levels of the wagon, where the Madman usually hid.

"Oh, my God..." Olga whispered, leaning against the wall. She almost crossed herself and held her hand up just in time.

"He's worried," Driver said, adjusting his hat. "He's been acting all weird since you fell in. But he was quiet before. Eh... I don't want to have to put him in a hospital."

Only now, when all the personnel of 'Radial-12' gathered on the parade ground, Olga fully realized how small the team really rode on the atomic train. The girl thought that each wagon is at least one tank and a compartment of 'infantry' plus the crew of the actual armored train. The impression was reinforced by the carefully cultivated insularity of the carriages. And only now Olga realize that Bertha's crew was essentially the only combat unit of the 'Radial'. Well, another wagon of 'hospitaliers', whatever that means. Another dozen people of purely administrative apparatus, headed by the commandant, a band, a train crew with stripes in the form of a split atom.

That's it.

Immersed in unhappy thoughts, Olga did not immediately notice that an ugly structure, similar to a gallows cart, was being rolled from the far side of the hangar. Especially since it was being rolled from the side of the blind eye. When she noticed it, she hastily pulled her stomach in. For trying to be completely invisible, she gave thanks to the fact that her place was at the end of the line.

Behind the structure, accompanied by guards from the 'arbitres', a man in a prison jumpsuit, badly beaten, was pacing dejectedly. It took Olga a few moments, and a murmur slipped through the formation, to recognize Smoker. The scout - presumably already former - could barely move his legs, and at times he hung on the guards.

Silence reigned over the parade ground. A faint wind chased the snow, freezing her open cheeks. Olga could feel the growing hair on the top of her head. Beside her, the short form of Crybaby sniffled. A horn in the hands of a train trumpeter sounded soft, and a second musician banged on the drum. Bertha came out in front of the formation with a flamethrower in her hands.

Oh, my God, thought the girl, feeling the shivers spreading through her body. Olga had to imperceptibly - at least, she hoped imperceptibly - lean on the shoulder of 'her' flamethrower. Crybaby squeezed her fingers softly as if urging caution and silence.

The commandant, a tall old man with a wispy beard and lopsided sideburns, commanded something indistinctly. The formation tightened even more and stretched their chins forward in unison. Someone two or three men away from Olga was whispering a prayer. In the meantime, Smoker was dragged onto a wagon and chained to a pole resembling a miniature power pole. The scout moved his lips in silence, looking around as if he could not believe it was really happening.

Bertha turned the regulator and lit the burner. In the silence, the fuse hissed loud and clear, like an angry viper. The commandant still slurred out his short speech. Olga did not understand a word of it, concentrating on not falling on wobbly, trembling legs. She kept waiting for them to finally announce that it was all a harsh and fair demonstration, and now everybody disperses, unshackle Smoker, and go to the barracks, to probation. You can't kill a man - burn him to death!!! - just because he took a wrong turn when everyone was running panic-stricken?!

Or it's possible?..

A Priest came forward, holding a bible in his hand. The monk raised the holy book above his head and proclaimed:

"His chosen servants! Praise our Lord!"

"Praise Him!" The formation responded, folding their hands piously.

"This man shows a cowardice," the Priest went on, shoving his bible at Blunt. "He had been entrusted with an honorable duty, and he betrayed the trust!"

Olga wanted to scream at the top of her voice that the priest was crazy, just like everyone else here who was aligned in a single line on the frozen concrete. That anyone could have been in the poor scout's shoes, standing now in chains, licking the blood from his broken lips, under Bertha's gunpoint.

She wanted...

Crybaby, as if reading her thoughts, squeezed the girl's cold fingers tighter. Olga swayed and caught Creep's gaze, piercing, preemptive. The Inquisitor shook his head faintly. The girl bit her tongue for real, to the copper taste in her mouth. The bearer distinctly realized that now - and in the future in general - a couple of unfortunate words were enough to make her lean against the lattice pyramid of burnt metal.

"But his sin will be atoned for in the purging fire! The body will disintegrate into ashes, but the soul will ascend to the Emperor if it is the mercy of the Sovereign!"

"G-g-go..." Olga gritted her teeth, realizing that she could not even utter the word 'God'. And the Lord, whom she prayed for a miracle, had nothing to do with the evil deity of this world and these people.

"Repent, coward!" the monk called, and Smoker finally managed to squeeze out a few words.

"Forgive me," he mumbled softly, his lips struggling to move. "I'm sorry... I... didn't mean to..."

"Die with honor," the Priest urged sternly. "Die with dignity! Die with humility and prayer on your lips!"

He went to the pole and handed the book to Smoker. The condemned man kissed the edge of the bible with genuine reverence. He kept muttering something, the wind whispering isolated words:

"Forgive... mercy... I repent..."

The monk stepped back and nodded at Bertha, signaling. The guards also parted ways.

"Emperor!" Smoker cried at the top of his lungs, his chains clanking as if he could only stand on his feet because of his bonds. "My God, forgive me!"

Without further ado, the Mentor pressed the lever, and a bright jet of red flame pelted the executioner. The liquid promethium immediately turned the executed man into a living torch, and the heart-rending cry of the person being burned alive reverberated over the square.

Here Olga decided she'd had enough and fainted. Right in the arms of Fidus, who managed to notice how the girl's legs were buckling and ran out of the line.

* * *