[Ciaphas Cain 05] - Duty Calls Read online

  A WARHAMMER 40,000 NOVEL

  DUTY CALLS

  Ciaphas Cain - 05

  Sandy Mitchell

  It is the 41st millennium. For more than a hundred

  centuries the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden

  Throne of Earth. He is the master of mankind by the

  will of the gods, and master of a million worlds by the

  might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass

  writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of

  Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for

  whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that

  he may never truly die.

  Yet even in his deathless state, the Emperor continues

  his eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the

  daemon-infested miasma of the warp, the only route

  between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican,

  the psychic manifestation of the Emperor’s will. Vast

  armies give battle in His name on uncounted worlds.

  Greatest amongst his soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes,

  the Space Marines, bio-engineered super-warriors. Their

  comrades in arms are legion: the Imperial Guard and

  countless planetary defence forces, the ever-vigilant Inqui-

  sition and the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to

  name only a few. But for all their multitudes, they are

  barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat from

  aliens, heretics, mutants—and worse.

  To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold

  billions. It is to live in the cruellest and most bloody

  regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times.

  Forget the power of technology and science, for so much

  has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the

  promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim

  dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst

  the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and

  the laughter of thirsting gods.

  Editorial Note:

  Cain has alluded on many occasions, in the portions of his memoirs that I have so far had time to edit and disseminate, to the fact that from time to time he became embroiled in Inquisitorial matters, usually at my behest. Not unnaturally the circumstances under which he became an active, albeit invariably reluctant, agent of His Majesty’s most holy Inquisition have become a matter of some speculation among my fellow inquisitors, and it is with this in mind that I chose the following extract from the Cain Archive to circulate next. Here, in his own words, is his account of the first occasion on which I was able to make use of his somewhat dubious talents following our initial meeting on Gravalax a couple of years before.

  Astute readers will realise that some elements of this present narrative were foreshadowed in my previous selection, Cain’s account of his activities during the first Siege of Terlia. This extract, However, deals with events that occurred a dozen years later than that, early in his period of service with the Valhatlan 597th; when Cain refers Bade to his previous experiences, it should be remembered that he’s doing so With a considerable degree of hindsight (though not as much as he was to acquire later, during the Second Siege of 999 9A41, at the height of the Thirteenth Black Crusade).

  As always, Cain’s account of events tends to concentrate on his own part in them to the virtual exclusion of any other considerations, and, as always, I’ve attempted to redress this by interpolating material from other sources whenever it seems appropriate. Unfortunately one of the most reliable., and least readable, eyewitnesses from this period of his career continues to be Jenit Sulla, whose redoubtable martial skills are once more unleashed on the defenceless Gothic language. Readers possessing any more than the most rudimentary appreciation for literature may wish to omit these passages, feeling that the additional clarity they provide is scant recompense for the ordeal of wading through them.

  Despite my own involvement in much of what follows I have resisted the temptation to comment directly at any great length, confining myself as usual to such footnotes and occasional ether interjections as seemed appropriate, and breaking the original unstructured account into chapters for easier reading. The bulk of the narrative, as always, remains unadulterated Cain.

  Amberley Vail, Ordo Xenos

  CHAPTER ONE

  If I’d had any hopes of a quiet life once we got to Periremunda, they didn’t last for very long. Mind you, these things are relative. By the time we arrived the regiment had spent almost half a year in the warp, with only a few days spent in real space on Simia Orichalcae and a rather longer period being comprehensively debriefed by Amberley and her Inquisition lackeys on Coronus Prime after our unexpected return there,[1] so even the fact that the entire planet seemed on the verge of imploding into anarchy wasn’t able to diminish the troopers’ enthusiasm at finding themselves back on terra firma for the foreseeable future. In fact the prospect of getting stuck into a flesh and blood enemy, instead of the blank-faced metal horrors we’d faced on their frozen tomb world, was a positive bonus so far as most of them were concerned. [1. Cain and the 597th had stumbled across a necron tomb on the ice world they’d been sent to defend from an orkish incursion. It’s a testament to Cain’s considerable resourcefulness that so many of them survived the experience.]

  “At least these bastards can bleed,” Major Broklaw said, summing up the mood of the regiment in his typically forthright manner.

  Colonel Kasteen, commanding officer of the 597th, nodded judiciously, concurring with her executive officer’s assessment. “Anyone know what they’re revolting about?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “Haven’t a clue,” I admitted. As usual I hadn’t bothered reading the background briefing provided by the Munitorum, and, as usual, it seemed, I hadn’t missed much. I knew that Broklaw was punctilious about such things, if only to save Kasteen the bother of wading through the verbiage herself by providing her with a cogent summary, and if neither of them was aware of the reason that half the planet seemed on the verge of erupting into armed rebellion the answer clearly wasn’t to be found among the data files. “These situations are so fluid that all the news we had when we left Coronus will be completely out of date by now anyway.”

  Both officers nodded in agreement, and as so often before I was struck by the contrast between them; Kasteen’s red hair and blue eyes stood out vividly against her pale complexion and the muted tones of her uniform, while Broklaw’s slate-grey irises almost matched the colours of his clothing, combining with his dark hair and equally pale features[1] to make him appear to merge with the shadows surrounding him. [1. A common characteristic of iceworlders, who, in the nature of things, tend not to get out much, at least if they can avoid it.]

  We were standing in the quietest corner we could find of what was in the process of becoming our command centre, leaning on the railing of a metal gantry overlooking the wide rockrete floor. Below us troopers lugged boxes and equipment around, arguing heatedly with one other over where they were supposed to go, and our enginseers connected cables with what seemed to me to be an almost wilful disregard of potential trip hazards or accidental electrocution. (Since most of them were at least as much metal as flesh, I don’t suppose the odd jolt of electricity would have bothered them too much in any case. Some of them even seemed to like it.)

  In other words our deployment was proceeding as efficiently as it ever did, and as usual I was content to stand back and let the lower orders get on with the grunt work while I considered the
wider issues, like how to ensure that my own stay on this peculiar world remained as comfortable as possible. In this I had the inestimable assistance of Jurgen, my aide, whose degree of indispensability was matched only by the power of his body odour. Secure in the knowledge that even now he was sequestering the most desirable quarters for my own use, and was setting up my office in a suitably inaccessible location, so that I need only be bothered with the most pressing of duties, I returned my attention to the conversation.

  “Why do the peasants ever revolt?” Broklaw asked rhetorically. It can hardly be denied that uprisings occur right across the Imperium with monotonous regularity, only to be put down with commendable vigour by the appropriate authorities, to the extent that in themselves they’re hardly a remarkable event.

  In general they tend to be spontaneous and barely organised, sparked by a particular grievance or sense of injustice, and easily contained by the local law enforcement agencies or Planetary Defence Forces. But the insurrection on Periremunda was different.

  For one thing, it was rare for a co-ordinated campaign of violence to break out across the entire surface of a planet almost simultaneously, without any of the usual warning signs like riots, protests, or the burning of the governor in effigy[1] cropping up beforehand. It was even more rare where the planet in question was, for the most part, quietly prosperous, with an unimaginative and Emperor-fearing population, and a governor who actually appeared to care about the welfare of his citizens. And for almost a dozen Imperial Guard regiments to be deployed in response was almost unprecedented. That implied that someone high up in the subsector command staff thought the PDF couldn’t be relied on to contain the situation if it continued to deteriorate, which implied in turn that their loyalty was suspect. And that, you may be sure, was enough to set the palms of my hands itching, in the uncomfortable fashion that they tended to do when my subconscious was joining dots and coming up with a picture that my forebrain really wouldn’t like at all if it had been able to bring it into focus. [1. Or occasionally in person.]

  “There’s bound to be a briefing,” Kasteen said, following the swearing, sweating troopers lugging her desk into the office that she’d earmarked for her personal use almost as soon as we’d taken possession of the jumble of warehouses that had been allocated to us as a staging area and makeshift garrison, on the periphery of the starport landing field. On the one hand that suited me very nicely; I always like to feel I’m close to a line of retreat if things turn out badly, and a pad full of orbit-capable shuttles within easy running distance is about as good as it gets. On the other, though, it meant we were nicely situated for rapid deployment by dropship to anywhere trouble might flare up, and if my itching palms were anything to go by, it wasn’t likely to take too long to materialise.

  Another gaggle of troopers scurried in and out of Kasteen’s cubbyhole with chairs to go along with the desk, and we all sat, looking out over the floor of the warehouse again. She’d chosen well, I thought, one of a line of glass-fronted cubicles on a mezzanine gallery roughly halfway up the wall facing the big doors fronting the loading docks. From here she’d have a commanding view of everything going on in the main body of the building.

  And outside it, too, at the moment; the doors were open, admitting a steady stream of laden troopers, lugging boxes from the backs of the trucks backed up to the loading bays, and a flurry of snowflakes from the open expanse of rockrete outside where our Chimeras were snarling their way through a thin film of freezing slush. By Valhallan standards, of course, it was warm enough, most of the men and women I could see still in their shirtsleeves, some of which were even rolled up. It was chilly for me, though, and I was as grateful as ever for my commissarial greatcoat, into which I huddled, trying to ignore the draught punching its way in through the open door. Abruptly the chill breeze became imbued with the odour of month-old socks left to marinade in compost, and my aide appeared in the gap.

  “Tanna, sir?” he asked, depositing a tray on the newly installed slab of wood between us.

  “Thank you, Jurgen,” I said, accepting the fragrant beverage gratefully, while he handed tea bowls to Kasteen and Broklaw, who held their breath almost by reflex as he moved closer. They sipped their drinks thoughtfully, and I tried to restrain the impulse to gulp mine, feeling the warmth spreading gradually through my body as I swallowed. Jurgen refilled my bowl.

  “You’re welcome sir.” He handed me a message slate. “This came in for you a few minutes ago.” I took and scanned it, and glanced up at the two officers.

  “Well,” I said, trying to restrain my sudden flare of enthusiasm at the prospect of being able to skive off to somewhere a bit warmer for a while. “This might give us a few answers, I suppose.”

  “Who’s it from?” Kasteen asked, her surprise showing in her voice. We’d only been dirtside for a few hours, hardly long enough for anyone on Periremunda to be aware of our presence yet, let alone send us messages.

  “The local arbitrator,”[1] I said. I skimmed the slate across the desk, so she could read it. “He wants to discuss jurisdictional protocols, in case our boys and girls get a little over-exuberant in their off-time.” This was a common enough request when a Guard regiment or two pitched up on a planet somewhere, so that when the troopers started getting into mischief (which they invariably did, or my job would have been pretty pointless) everyone involved knew whether they should be handed over to the local courts, the military provosts, or directly to the Commissariat. [1. Like many provincial worlds, Periremunda had only one resident representative of the Adeptus Arbites, charged with overseeing the work of the local law enforcement agencies.]

  Of course you’d probably get as many different answers to that as there were commissars on the planet, but in my case I always asked for any of our troopers who got into trouble to be remanded directly into my custody, a habit I’d got into right at the beginning of my career with the 12th Field Artillery, and seen no reason to break in the years since. For one thing it fostered the impression among the troopers that I cared about their welfare, and would always go out of my way to take care of one of our own, which was good for morale generally, and for another it gave me a good excuse to leave the regiment in search of more congenial activities on a fairly regular basis. On the occasions I couldn’t be bothered, or was genuinely too busy, I could always rely on Jurgen to take care of the paperwork. I shrugged. “I suppose I could just call him back, but…”

  “You’re thinking of going in person?” Kasteen asked.

  I nodded. “I’m sure he’d appreciate the courtesy, and it never hurts to make a good impression.” Not to mention the fact that the planetary capital was a good couple of thousand metres lower, and a damn sight warmer, than Hoarfell, where we were currently stationed.

  Broklaw looked concerned. “Get some rest first, at least,” he counselled. “You’ve been on your feet since we made orbit.”

  “No longer than anyone else,” I said, contriving to look as if I was stifling a yawn. In truth I wasn’t all that tired, having managed to catch a short nap on the shuttle trip down, which had not only refreshed me a little but had conferred the added bonus of avoiding Jurgen’s inevitable discomfiture at being airborne in an atmosphere. I’d never known him to actually be sick, such a thing being beneath the dignity he fondly imagined was conferred on him by his exalted position as a commissar’s personal aide, but his anxiety about the possibility tended to combine with the physical nausea to make him sweat like an ork, which in turn would ripen his habitual bouquet to quite an astonishing degree. I shrugged. “Besides, it’s too good a chance to miss. If anyone can tell us what’s really going on here, it’s the local arbitrator.”

  “Good point,” Kasteen said. “If you think you’re up to it.” She looked at me narrowly. “Anything you can get out of him is bound to be more reliable than the pap we get through the usual channels.”

  “My thought exactly,” I said, “and the more we know about what we’re facing here, the better we’l
l be able to deal with it.” Words that were to have something of a hollow ring, in retrospect, but at that point I had no idea just how little anyone really knew about the true state of affairs on Periremunda, apart from a handful of people who knew altogether too much for comfort.

  Editorial Note:

  Although Cain is reasonably explicit about the topographical peculiarities of Periremunda, he only bothers to be so when they impinge in some manner on his own experience; something which is, of course, entirety consistent with his attitude throughout the archive. I have therefore interpolated the following extract, which I hope will make much of what follows a little more readily comprehensible.

  From Interesting Places and Tedious People: A Wanderer’s Waybook by Jerval Sekara, 145 M39

  Like many worlds with unusual characteristics, the early history of Periremunda is shrouded in conjecture and legend. One can be reasonably certain that it was originally discovered some time around the middle of M24 by the explorator Acer Alba, only to be promptly forgotten again due to his untimely demise, probably in an affair of honour over the affections of a courtesan. Following the rediscovery of Alba’s notes by Magos Provocare, a tireless challenger of the unknown whose unorthodox views frequently attracted the opprobrium of his peers, the planet was eventually colonised in the early years of the 27th millennium.

  What makes it worthy of the discriminating wayfarer’s attention, at least for a short while, is the fact that by any reasonable definition of the phrase the world as a whole is uninhabitable. The equatorial regions are not so much hot as literally molten, the rock itself bubbling from below the ground in a constantly shifting sea of liquid magma, while the rest of the surface is a desiccated desert in which nothing seems able to live. There are, however, scattered pockets of habitability, no less comfortable than other, more Emperor-favoured worlds. Vast plateaux, too many to count, soar upwards from this arid foundation to heights sufficient to take them into the cooler air where life itself is possible, and hundreds of the larger ones, which can stretch for tens of kilometres across, boast cities, farms, and manufactoria equal to those of the fairer globes most of us are pleased to call home.