Ravenor: The Omnibus by Dan Abnett

Author:Dan Abnett [Abnett, Dan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Science Fiction
ISBN: 9781844167364
Google: 5eyYPwAACAAJ
Amazon: 1844167364
Publisher: The Black Library
Published: 2009-08-03T07:00:00+00:00

PATIENCE KYS BLINKED. She thought for a moment that she had actually been asleep, but her fingers were still striking the keys and the bright screen display was still scrolling.

She swallowed, recovering her wits, horrified to realise that she had zoned out for a moment. The repetitive function, the noise, the screen flicker had combined to swallow her into a sort of trance. She glanced around at the operators around her, saw their glazed eyes and slack expressions, and knew that, for a moment at least, she had been just like them.

According to her chron, almost an hour had passed since she’d last looked at it.

In that time, Ravenor had gone. She could no longer feel him. Something must have happened to make him—

She suddenly realised she felt sick. Her head was throbbing and the glow of the screen was making her nauseous.

She started to type again, but just glanced between her screen and the file she was meant to be transcribing made her gorge rise again. She put both hands to her mouth and closed her eyes.

‘Scribe Yevins, why has your process rate dropped to below twenty norm?’

Kys looked up. A male ordinate, so old that the augmetic implants in his withered face were starting to rust, gazed down at her.

‘I feel… unwell,’ she murmured.

The ordinate bent down at once, not to assist her but to inspect the information displayed on her screen. As he looked away from her, Kys desperately detached the plug-wire from the analyser Carl had given her and coiled it away into her jacket pocket before he noticed it.

‘Get up,’ the ordinate instructed her. He picked up the file she was working from, noted the page she was on, and tucked it under his arm. ‘Follow me.’

She walked after him down the aisle, unsteady on legs tingling with cramp, nausea swilling through her again.

Ahead of her, she heard the ordinate speak into a hand-vox. ‘G/F1. Suspected subliminal. Please attend.’

The ordinate led her out of the department hall, along the busy corridor and through a heavy side door into what Kys thought looked like a holding cell. Bare metal walls, tiled floor, a ceiling covered with acoustic baffles. There was a simple wooden table with two chairs on one side and a stool on the other. The ordinate pointed to the stool and Kys sat down. It was hot. She took off her coat and folded it across her knees, fighting down the bilious feeling inside her.

Two men entered the room. They wore robes similar to the ordinates, but Kys had no idea what rank or department they represented. She tried to focus.

‘Junior Scribe Merit Yevins, G/F1, station eighty-six. Work rate dropped, and she complained of feeling unwell.’

The men sat down across the table from Kys. One had a data-slate, the other a fresh copy pad and a stylus. ‘This is the file she was working from,’ said the ordinate, passing it to the man with the pad and stylus. ‘I’ve marked the page.’

The man studied the page.

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