Ravenor the Omnibus by Dan Abnett

Author:Dan Abnett [Abnett, Dan]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2015-10-07T12:10:29+00:00

Five

Three and a half hours after Jader Trice authorised their use, the psykers unleashed by the secretists were called off. The five of them, exhausted from the huge strain of their search efforts, fled back to the flesh forms they had left floating in dank lead holding tanks in the basement levels of the governor’s palace, and rested there, moaning and whimpering.

It was late afternoon in Petropolis, the sky a dirty scumble of grey clouds and vapour. The moment the psykers ebbed away, a fierce thunderstorm broke out over the hive.

Revoke knew keeping the psykers active any longer would have been unwise. Quite apart from the fact that the psykers had come close to draining their energy reserves and he had no wish to burn out such a valuable resource, Revoke was aware of the civil issue. Though invisible and intangible to all but the most gifted or sensitive persons in Petropolis, such overt, proactive psy activity would unsettle the general population. As it was, the data reports were busy with stories of panic attacks, freak weather effects, unprovoked domestic violence, numerous suicides and reputed sightings of the manifesting dead. Formal complaints had been made by the Astropathic Guild, the Navis Nobilite and several other august Imperial institutions that utilised psy-adepts by legal covenant.

Trice had the Ministry issue polite responses, suggesting that another grave incident like the one at the diplomatic palace had taken place, but was now under control. Months of careful political manipulation and other more devious machinations meant that virtually all agencies and organisations in Petropolis were directly or indirectly under the control of Jader Trice, including the Astrotelepathicus and the Officio Inquisitorus Planetia. But most of them didn’t realise that fact, so it paid to be circumspect.

There was another reason the psykers had been put back in their boxes.

‘We’ve found him,’ said Boneheart, one of the senior lieutenants of the Secretists as Revoke entered the Counsel Room.

‘Show me,’ Revoke replied. He had brought Monicker with him and, like a heat-haze shimmer, she hovered at Revoke’s elbow as he examined the print outs Boneheart was unfolding.

‘Plenty of hits, as you can see,’ Boneheart said. He was a tall man with a craggy face pitted by old acne scars, his hair an oily, hard-combed shelf of grey. ‘Hive like this is a target-rich environment. Over nine thousand potentials, but you can rule out all the ones I’ve put a cross through. Low-level sensitives or latents who don’t even know what they’ve got. That leaves about two hundred higher grade returns, true actives. Most of them will be hucksters, faith healers, backroom clairvoyants, spiritualists, maybe even the odd sub-cult member. Some of them are interesting, and we should pass the locations to the Magistratum.’

‘But none powerful enough?’ Revoke asked.

Boneheart shook his head. ‘You said our guy’s major grade, didn’t you?’

‘From the briefs I’ve read, dangerously powerful,’ Revoke replied.

‘Well then, no,’ said Boneheart. ‘If we’re looking for a gamma or a beta, an alpha even, there are only a few hits that match.

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