The Founding (Gaunts Ghosts) by Dan Abnett

Author:Dan Abnett [Abnett, Dan]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Games Workshop
Published: 2017-12-01T16:00:00+00:00

The Infirmary lay well back from the main embankment defence here on Monthax. Like Gaunt’s modular hut, it was raised out of the soupy ground on stacks. Long, swoop-roofed, the Infirmary’s wall planking was washed an arsenic green, while the roof was black with bitumen. Grey blast-curtains protected the doors and window hatches, and bunches of pipes and cables carried in air from the scrubbers and power from the chattering turbine behind the place. Symbols of the Imperium, and of the medical corps, were stencilled on the walls, for all that Chaos would notice them if they stormed over the bulwark. Gaunt climbed up a metal ladder next to the rush-ramp for stretcher parties, and pushed inside through the screens and heavy curtaining.

Inside he found a paradise and a surprise. It was by far the coolest and most fragrant place in the camp, probably the coolest, most fragrant place on Monthax itself. Sweet odours of sap rose from the fresh timber of the floor and the clean rush matting. There was a scent of antiseptic fluids, rubbing alcohol and some purifying incense that burned in a bowl next to the small shrine set near the western end. The forty beds were made up and empty. Pale, artificial light shone from gauze-hooded lamps.

Gaunt wandered the length of the ward and let himself through a screen door at the end. There, access led off into storerooms, latrines, a small operating theatre, and the Chief Medical Officer’s quarters. Dorden wasn’t in his little, tidy office, but Gaunt saw his distinctive handiwork in the careful arrangement of medical texts, chart folders, and the labels-front regimentation of the flasks and bottles in the locked dispensary cabinet.

The medic was in the operating theatre, polishing the stainless-steel surface and blood drains of the theatre table. Gleaming surgical tools, an autoclave and a resussitrex unit sat in corners.

‘Commissar Gaunt!’ Dorden looked up in surprise. ‘Can I help you?’

‘As you were. Just a routine walkabout. Anything to report, any problems?’

Dorden stood up straight, balling the polishing cloth in his hands and dropping it into a ceramic bowl of disinfectant. ‘Not one, sir. Come to inspect the place?’

‘Certainly an improvement on the last few facilities you’ve had to work with.’

Dorden smiled. He was a small, elderly man with a trimmed grey beard and genial eyes that had seen more pain than they deserved. ‘It’s empty yet.’

‘I admit that surprised me when I came in. So used to seeing your places overflowing with wounded, Emperor spare us.’

‘Give it time,’ Dorden said, ominously. ‘It unnerves me, I have to say. Seeing all those empty beds. I praise the Golden Throne I’m idle, but idleness doesn’t suit me. Must’ve polished and swept the place a dozen times already.’

‘If that’s the worst work you have here on Monthax, we may all give thanks.’

‘May we all indeed. Can I offer a cup of caffeine? I was about to light the stove.’

‘Perhaps later, when I come back this way. I have to inspect the magazines. There are stirrings beyond us.

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