NINE

Discovered

Blayke

An Honest Counsellor

The Ferrum slipped through the bright corona of the Carollis Star, her shields keeping the worst of the electromagnetic hash from scrambling her systems as the crew hunted for the solar collectors of the Diasporex. Her hull had been patched and the ruptured elements of her superstructure repaired, though she would still need some time in docks to undo all the damage that had been inflicted upon her.

Captain Balhaan stood at his command lectern, the frustrating routine of disappointment his menial command consisted of having long grown stale. Iron Father Diederik stood at surveyor control next to Axarden, and though Balhaan knew that he deserved no less for his failure to protect his ship, the fact that he had to share command of the Ferrum with another still rankled.

Diederik oversaw every command decision and had glared pointedly at every order he issued, but Balhaan knew that his presence was a necessary reminder of the dangers of complacency. The Iron Father's body was largely augmetic, his organic parts having been replaced long ago to bring him closer to mechanised perfection and the eventual interment in the sarcophagus of an ancient Dreadnought.

'Is your surveyor sweep finished yet?' asked Balhaan.

'Just about, sir,' replied Axarden.

'How is it looking?'

'Not hopeful, sir. There is so much interference that we could be right on top of them and not know it,' explained Axarden, as much for the Iron Father's benefit as his captain's.

'Very good, Axarden. Let me know if there is any change,' ordered Balhaan.

He leant on the lectern, trying to remember periods of history where the great men of the age had been forced to endure such tedious duties. None sprang to mind, though he knew that history tended to leave out the parts between the heroics, and concentrated on the battles and drama of the passage of time. He wondered what the remembrancers of the 52nd Expedition would write of this portion of the Great Crusade, knowing that in all likelihood, it would not even be recorded. After all, where was the glory in scores of ships scouring the outer edges of a sun for solar collectors?

He remembered reading a passage in his Herodotus that spoke of a battle on the coast of an ancient land known as Artemision in northern Euboea, between two mighty fleets of ocean-going vessels. The battle was said to have lasted three days, though Balhaan could not conceive of such a thing and wondered how much of that battle had actually been spent fighting.

Very little, he suspected. In Balhaan's experience, battles at sea tended to be short, bloody affairs where one war galley would quickly gain the advantage and ram the other, sending its crew to an icy death at the bottom of the ocean.

Even as he formed such gloomy thoughts, Axarden said, 'Captain, I think we might have something!'

He looked up from his melancholy reverie and all thoughts of the long, empty stretches of history were banished at the excited tone he heard in his surveyor officer's voice. His fingers swept across the command console, and the viewing bay lit up with the brightness of the star beyond.

Immediately, he saw what Axarden had seen, the shimmering gleam of reflected starlight winking on the giant, rippling sails of a solar collector.

'All stop,' ordered Balhaan. 'No sense in letting them know we are here.'

'We should attack,' said Diederik, and Balhaan forced himself to mask his annoyance at the Iron Father's impetuous interruption. Hadn't the Ferrum fallen foul of just similar thinking?

'No,' said Balhaan, 'not until we have alerted the expedition fleets.'

'How many collectors are there?' asked Diederik, turning to Axarden.

The surveyor officer leaned in close to his plotter, and Balhaan waited anxious seconds as Axarden sought to answer the Iron Father.

'At least ten, but there are probably more I can't yet pinpoint,' said Axarden. 'The star's radioactive output appears to be highly concentrated here.'

Balhaan moved from behind his lectern, descended the steps that led to surveyor control and said, 'It does not matter how many there are, Iron Father. We cannot attack.'

'And why not, captain?' sneered Diederik. 'We have discovered the source of the enemy's fuel as Lord Manus ordered.'

'I am aware of our orders, but without the warships of the fleets to back us up, the Diasporex will vanish once more.'

Diederik appeared to consider this and said, 'Then what do you suggest, captain?'

Grateful that the Iron Father had deferred to his authority, Balhaan said, 'We wait. We send word back to the fleets and gather as much information as we can without giving away our position.'

'And then?' asked Diederik, clearly uncomfortable with the idea of waiting.

'Then we destroy them,' said Balhaan, 'and regain our honour.'

The Archive Chambers of the Pride of the Emperor were spread over three long decks, the gilded shelves stacked high with texts from Old Earth. The manuscripts of this magnificent collection had been painstakingly collated by the 28th Expedition's archivist, a meticulous man by the name of Evander Tobias. Over many years of study, Julius had come to know Tobias very well, and now made his way towards the old man's sanctum in the vaulted nave of the upper archive decks.

The marble columned stacks stretched out before him, a reverential hush filling the wide aisles with a solemnity befitting such a vast repository of knowledge. Tall pillars of green marble marched into the distance, and the shelves of dark wood bowed under the weight of scrolls, books and data crystals that filled the spaces between them.

Julius made his way along the polished marble floor, floating glow-globes throwing his shadow out before him. He had stripped out of his armour, and wore combat fatigues, over which he had thrown a mail shirt emblazoned with the eagle of the Emperor's Children.

He saw the beige robes of remembrancers down many of the sub-aisles, and barefoot servitors carrying oversized panniers of books passed him without so much as a glance.

In one of the open spaces of the archive chambers, he saw the distinctive blue hair of Bequa Kynska, and briefly considered pausing to speak with her. She sat at a wide desk strewn with music paper, her unbound hair wild and unkempt, and the headphones of a portable vox-thief clamped over her ears. Even from a distance, Julius could make out the strange music that had filled the Laer temple, the blaring sound rendered tinny and distant, though he knew it must surely be deafening in Bequa Kynska's ears. Her hands alternated between scrawling frantically across the paper and flitting like birds as she appeared to conduct some invisible orchestra. She smiled as she worked, but there was something manic to her movements, as though the music within her might consume her were it not poured onto the page.

So that is how genius works, thought Julius, deciding not to interrupt Mistress Kynska, and pressing onwards.

It had been some time since he had come to the archive chambers, his duties and the cleansing of Laeran leaving him little time to indulge in reading, and he felt the absence keenly. He had come to reacquaint himself with this place, though he had left instructions with Lycaon to contact him should anything arise that required his attention.

Numerous scribes and notaries passed him, each bowing deferentially to him as they went. He recognised some from his time spent here, most he did not, but just being back in the archive chambers gave him an enormous sense of wellbeing.

He smiled as he saw the familiar form of Evander Tobias ahead of him, the venerable archivist haranguing a sheepish group of remembrancers for some infraction of his strict rules.