[Warhammer 40K - The Horus Heresy 25] - Mark of Calth by Laurie Goulding

Author:Laurie Goulding [Laurie Goulding]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Military Fiction, Science Fiction, Warhammer 40K
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2013-04-14T12:00:00+00:00

Major Devayne did not have a headquarters as such. But, as the senior officer in the arcology, with responsibility for all the lives within it falling to him, he needed a location where people could have a reasonable expectation of finding him. He had chosen the chamber adjacent to where the debris from the exit tunnel was being dumped, where the dig teams mustered. This put him close to the most vital operation in the arcology. If it failed, everything else became futile.

He had dozens of kilometres of tunnels and caverns to oversee, but Blanchot knew that if he waited long enough, Devayne would show up here. So he waited.

About two hours later, the major arrived. He was Verlun’s age, but carried his years and his fatigue with greater vigour. His posture and the lines of his movement were so precise that it was as if he had been assembled by a carpenter. He gave the impression that his uniform, as torn and stained as everyone else’s clothing, was still pressed and parade-worthy. While most of the other men in the refuge wore several days of stubble, he was clean-shaven.

Exhaustion had hardened his eyes into flints, and his expression was cold when Blanchot walked up to him. The adept understood: Devayne saw only a man who had been standing here, doing nothing. Idleness wasn’t a luxury in the arcology. It was treason.

Blanchot’s nerve wavered. He almost said nothing. But then Narya Mellisen entered the chamber from the side leading towards the cave-in, and the presence of another believer gave him the strength he needed.

He told Devayne everything. He tried to do so calmly, but he was so conscious of the man’s impatience that the words came in a torrent.

He sounded ridiculous.

Devayne did him the courtesy of looking to Mellisen for any sort of confirmation. ‘Have you heard these whispers, too?’

‘No, sir.’

‘And you’ve worked many of the same shifts as both men.’

‘Yes, sir.’

He turned back to Blanchot. ‘I don’t suppose a single other person heard any—’

‘They couldn’t have,’ Blanchot tried to explain, and heard himself making things even worse. ‘Except for once in the medicae centre, there has never been anyone else close by when they’ve been going on.’

‘I see.’ Devayne’s lip curled. He was about to dismiss a nuisance. ‘I hesitate to ask, but why do you suppose that is?’

‘I—’ Blanchot stammered. ‘I think Lassar Krudge knows I suspect him, and he’s taunting me.’

Devayne rolled his eyes. ‘Adept Blanchot,’ he said, turning each carefully enunciated syllable into the snap of a whip, ‘I would not be surprised to learn that there were traitors among us. Given the events that drove us to this location, there is very little that can still surprise me. But you are describing a conspiracy so ineffective, so trivial, I dearly wish you were right. We would be facing an enemy so incompetent that the war would already be over. But it isn’t, and if you take up another minute of my time, I’ll have you arrested.

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