The Emperor's Finest

TWENTY-THREE

I SPENT THE best part of a week under Sholer's care, recuperating from the effects of being yanked through the fringes of the warp by the scruff of my neck[146], and feeling vaguely resentful that I was suffering the worst hangover of my life without having had the fun which should have preceded it. Jurgen, to my surprise, seemed none the worse for the experience, recovering in little more than a day[147], and busied himself as usual with fending off unwelcome visitors and sorting out the administrative trivia I felt too groggy to deal with. Some things I couldn't avoid, of course, Gries among them, and I filled my time between sleeping and gradually diminishing bouts of nausea with compiling as complete a report as I could of our wanderings aboard the Spawn of Damnation, and the unpleasant surprises I'd found there.

Feeling I ought to make a show of taking my position of Imperial Guard liaison officer seriously, I got Jurgen to forward copies of my evasions and excuses to Torven, who passed them to Duque and Kregeen in turn, and all three passed the information down the line of their respective commands; the inevitable upshot of which was that rumour and exaggeration soon began to outpace the factual summaries, so by the time I was up and about again practically everyone in the system was convinced I'd seen off a greenskin invasion, and a swarm of genestealers, pretty much single-handed.

'It's no wonder the governor wants to see you,' Drumon told me, on his last visit to my quarters aboard the Revenant. Now that the immediate crisis was over, and I was feeling a lot more like my old self, I'd lost no time in arranging my transfer to the Imperial Guard garrison on Serendipita. I'd had more than enough of spacecraft for the time being, and just wanted to be somewhere away from metal corridors and shadows that might turn out to harbour a genestealer or two. True, it would have to be a very foolish 'stealer indeed to try boarding an Astartes strike cruiser, but every time I glanced out of a viewport, the ominous mass of the space hulk could be seen looming over us, and the further I could get from it the better so far as I was concerned. 'You seem to be the only man in the system more honoured than he is.'

'So long as he doesn't want to challenge me to a duel,' I jested, surprised, and a little touched, that he'd bothered to come and see me off.

Drumon smiled faintly. 'Small fear of that,' he said. 'The way the locals are talking about you, I think he would rather take on the brother-captain if he had a grievance.'

Jurgen fell into step behind us, hefting my kitbag along with his own, as we made our way through the corridors towards the hangar bay where our shuttle was waiting. As befitted the impression of modesty I endeavoured to cultivate, I'd asked for an Imperial Guard Aquila to collect my aide and I, rather than putting the Reclaimers to the inconvenience of dispatching a Thunderhawk - which meant I'd be able to sleep in peace, or catch up on some reading, without having to don the clumsy ear-defenders. As I'd saved him the bother of fending off a greenskin invasion, and the simultaneous infiltration of the system by ravening genestealers, Torven had been more than happy to indulge my whim, and I have to admit to feeling a warm glow at the sight of the sturdy little utility craft nestled in between the Thunderhawks like a fledgling among adult raptors.

At first, however, I barely noticed it, being too astonished at the sight of an honour guard of Reclaimers, their freshly burnished armour resplendent in the light from the overhead luminators, lined up between the doorway and the lowered boarding ramp of the Aquila. Gries himself was at their head, and he took a pace forwards as Drumon and I drew abreast of his position.

'Commissar. Your assistance has been appreciated,' he said, inclining his head to look down at me. Somehow he seemed to have got the impression that I'd been keeping the genestealers busy on purpose, buying the time for the boarding party to fight its way back to the Thunderhawk with the data Yaffel had managed to salvage from the Redeemer's cogitator core, and I wouldn't have felt comfortable disabusing him.

'The honour's all mine,' I told him, truthfully enough. 'Is the situation aboard the hulk stable enough to resume salvage operations?'

'Not yet.' He shook his head regretfully. 'But the conflict between the orks and the genestealers is diminishing slowly, along with their numbers. When reinforcements arrive, we should be able to cleanse the key areas at least.'

'I'm sure the magos will be delighted to hear it,' I said. 'As will the governor, when I report to him.'

I don't mind admitting to feeling a flicker of apprehension as Jurgen and I climbed the boarding ramp. Even though I knew Mira had left the Revenant aboard the governor's shuttle, along with the parasites she'd been herding, part of me still expected her to turn up at the last minute, as she had done before, ready to disturb my hard-won equilibrium again. She didn't, of course, and I took my seat with a faint sigh of relief, finally daring to hope I'd seen the last of her, and wondering why that thought came with a faint pang of regret. Despite everything, life with her around had been far from dull, I had to concede that at least.

I felt no such ambivalence about my last sight of the Spawn of Damnation, though, bidding the cursed vessel a hearty good riddance as it gradually diminished to a speck, and finally vanished completely among the stars.

MY FIRST SIGHT of Serendipita was every bit as spectacular as I'd been led to expect, the lush blue-green globe silhouetted against the mottled ochre hues of the gas giant around which it orbited, while the ring system laid a glittering diamond pathway beneath the Aquila's keel. I couldn't tell you how long I simply stared out of the viewport, while the world grew large enough to eclipse its primary, then occult it entirely, gradually growing to fill my field of vision. Eventually all I could see was the curve of a horizon, and the sprawl of a continent, encroaching on a cloud-flecked ocean; then the land expanded to encompass the whole viewport, its mottled surface slowly resolving into forests, plains and signs of habitation. Towns and cities became visible, roads appeared linking them, and the regular outlines of field boundaries began segmenting what, from higher up, had seemed to be nothing more than patches of foliage.

'That must be it,' Jurgen said, pointing to an expanse of parkland in the distance, its artfully natural landscape betraying the hand of human intervention. Before long he was proved correct, by the appearance of a palace, set on the shores of a lake which might once have been real before someone decided to tidy it up a bit round the edges. It was low, and well proportioned, as such buildings go, constructed of some local stone of a faintly pinkish hue, which echoed the colours of the gas giant about which the whole world orbited. The pilot brought us down neatly on a landing pad fringed with the same material, which partly obscured the more utilitarian rockcrete necessary to support the weight of a shuttle, and bordered with flowerbeds stuffed with some local variety of flora.

'And this must be the governor,' I agreed, as the boarding ramp descended and a distinguished-looking fellow in a formal robe, his neatly curled waist-length beard embellished with a bow of yellow silk, stepped forwards to meet us. The style here was evidently informal. If he had household troops or bodyguards with him, they were tucked somewhere discreetly out of sight.

'Commissar Cain?' he enquired, as if there might be some doubt as to my identity, and I nodded once, in acknowledgement.

'Governor Metrelle. My compliments on your garden - a real tonic to the spirit after so long in space.'

The man smiled faintly. 'I'm the governor's majordomo, commissar. His Excellency is waiting for you in the tea garden. If you'd care to walk this way?' He turned and began leading the way across a neatly clipped lawn towards a topiary arch in a head-high hedge.

'If I walked that way,' Jurgen muttered, in a voice I devoutly hoped was inaudible, 'I'd be singing soprano.'

Our guide stopped by the gap in the foliage and motioned us through. 'Commissar Cain, your Excellency, and...' his gaze rested on Jurgen for a moment, while his brow furrowed with the effort of attempting to formulate an adequate description, 'another person.'

'My aide, Gunner Jurgen,' I said, stepping through the arch. Beyond was a pleasant formal garden, scattered with comfortable chairs and small tables, at the largest of which sat a young-looking man of athletic build with a chin you could have used to chisel granite. He stood, smiling, and shook me firmly by the hand.

'Of course. Your indispensable right arm.' To the astonishment of both of us he shook Jurgen's hand too, wiping his own surreptitiously on the leg of his crisp white trousers as he returned to his chair. 'I've heard a lot about you.'

'All exaggerated, I'm sure,' I said, slipping easily into the modest hero routine. There were four place settings at the table, I noticed, although no other guests seemed to be here yet.

'Not in the least,' a warm contralto voice said, and my spine turned to ice. I'd have recognised it anywhere, even before Jurgen said 'Good afternoon, miss,' and I turned to see Mira smiling at me through the gap in the hedge.

I like to think I rallied quickly, responding with a formal inclination of the head, and returned the smile, as noncommittally as possible. I had no idea what she was doing here, and thought it best to bide my time until I saw how the land lay.

Metrelle smiled at her too, in the faintly simple-minded fashion of a man besotted with a member of the opposite sex, and not quite sure what to do about it. 'My betrothed is a great admirer of yours, commissar. You seem to have made quite an impression on her while you were travelling together.'

'How gratifying,' I replied automatically, before the full import of his words sank in, and I raised an eyebrow at Mira. 'Betrothed?'

'Since last night.' She smiled at the governor in a manner I remembered all too well. Then she turned to my aide. 'Jurgen, I wonder if I could impose on you for a minute? I managed to get hold of some of that Valhallan drink you're both so fond of, but our kitchen staff are a little unsure of the correct method of infusion.'

'You managed to get some tanna?' I asked, the full extent of the governor's wealth and influence starting to become clear to me. It was all I could do to maintain a small personal supply of the stuff, with the access my position gave me to the vast resources of the Munitorum. Emperor alone knew how Metrelle had managed it, at just a few days' notice, or how much it had cost him.

He nodded. 'Mira said you'd appreciate it,' he said.

'If your servants don't frak it up,' Jurgen said, oblivious as ever to the niceties of non-military protocol, but our hosts didn't seem to take it amiss. Mira was used to him, after all, and I was pretty sure Metrelle would go along with whatever seemed to suit her. 'I'd better go and show them how it's done.'

'Thank you,' Mira said, and smiled at the governor again, seeming as gooey as an eclair in a heatwave. 'Would you mind pointing him in the right direction, dearest?'

'Of course.' Metrelle heaved himself out of the garden chair, and led Jurgen through the archway. His voice diminished in the distance. 'Just down here, past the toad pond and across the courtyard...'

'I know what you're going to say,' Mira said, switching off the simper and watching me through narrowed eyes, 'but what did you expect? You went gadding off to that drifting mausoleum and let everyone think you were dead.'

'And why bother fighting for a throne back home when there's one here you can just help yourself to with a smile and a quick proposal?' I added.

'Precisely.' Mira nodded, looking more aristocratic than ever, even if she was still spilling out of her gown like a joygirl desperate for custom. 'Viridia's going to be a complete mess for years after all the fighting, and it's a lot more comfortable here. Besides, Metty's quite sweet really. I could do a lot worse.'

I smiled, feeling a rush of relief so strong it left me breathless.

'Then I suppose congratulations are in order,' I said.

Mira watched me narrowly, sifting my words for any hint of sarcasm.

'I take it you're not going to make a scene, then?' she asked at length, sounding vaguely disappointed.

'No,' I said gravely, trying to look as though I was holding my emotions in check, and firmly suppressing the impulse to start doing handsprings round the garden. 'I won't spoil it for you. Best man won, and all that.'

Her expression softened again, so I assumed I'd got away with it.

'That's very sweet of you,' she said, although she must have known me better than that by now. 'And speaking of the best man, I've got a little favour to ask...'

'By all means,' I said, distracted by the mingled odours of Jurgen and freshly brewed tanna. He and the governor were returning, with a small comet tail of retainers, all bearing trays. Things were definitely looking up.

'Can you find some excuse to frak off back to Coronus before the wedding?' Mira asked. 'You're not exactly low profile around here, and I don't want to be upstaged on my big day, do I?'

'Consider it done,' I agreed. In truth, I'd already made up my mind to leave as soon as I could, the idea of living on a planet under Mira's capricious and pudgy thumb being far too uncomfortable to contemplate. I raised the tea bowl Jurgen had passed to me in a toast to the happy couple. 'The Emperor protects.'

Well, He'd definitely come through for me today; it was only polite to say thank you.

[On which note of uncharacteristic piety, this portion of the Cain Archive finally meanders to an end.]