'Thirty-three per cent, to be reviewed after the first shipment, I collect'

Luneberg placed his glass on the table before him, his movements calculated and deliberate. He made a show of studying the vessel for a moment before replying. 'Twenty-five, and you don't.

Lucian had known that the Imperial Commander would never accept his opening offer, but was curious as to how he would react to Lucian collecting the artefacts himself. Would he try to protect his source, did he trust Lucian enough to factor it into the deal?

'Thirty. I collect. Lucian heard Korvane cough at this. His son was no doubt trying, in his way, to warn him against pushing Luneberg too far. Korvane knew as well as Lucian how threatened the dynasty's fortunes were.

'I see you for a man who trusts only his own skill, Gerrit, and I can sympathise entirely. The burden of command of a world of the Imperium is perhaps not so different to your own position as head of your dynasty' If Luneberg was trying to get a reaction out of him he would fail, thought Lucian, although, despite himself, he felt his hackles rise.

Luneberg leant forward, locking eyes with Lucian. 'Twenty, and you may collect. That's my final offer.

Lucian held the Imperial Commander's gaze, acutely aware that his son was squirming with discomfort at the deal on the table. 'To be reviewed upon the first collection'

Luneberg raised his glass. 'To be reviewed upon the first collection'

'That's it, Father? Korvane almost stumbled as he ran to keep up with Lucian as he strode to the waiting shuttle. 'That's the negotiations over?

Lucian halted, turning to face his son in one fluid movement. 'Over? No son, that's just the beginning. Even now, we're deep in negotiations. What you just saw were only the opening moves. Luneberg's up to something. I know that, and he knows I know that. Depending on what we bring back from the first run, that's when we really start doing business'

'That's why you refused to be drawn on us collecting the goods? Korvane asked as Brielle caught up with him and her father.

'Correct. So long as he's open to reviewing the deal after the first run, I don't care what margin we make at this point. I need to ascertain exactly what we're dealing with before we make any commitments. Luneberg knows that too, so he's letting us do things on our terms for the time being'

Korvane considered this, while Brielle asked, 'Does he know what he really has, with this so-called archeotech?

Glad that at least one of his offspring was paying attention, Lucian said, 'I suspect not. Most likely that's for us to worry about. If we find he's on to something good, he'll know that by our negotiating stance.

Brielle nodded, her face thoughtful as a gentle wind stirred her long black braids. For an instant, Lucian was reminded of her mother. He dismissed the image as soon as it appeared in his mind.

As the breeze built, the three boarded their shuttle, to return to the orbital and their vessels. Lucian hesitated for a moment, however, before raising the ramp, compelled to cast a glance behind him at the brooding form of Culpepper Luneberg's vast palace as it dominated the jumbled skyline of Chasmata Capitalis. He was struck by the notion that all was not well on the Eastern Rim, and that events might soon get interesting. Not for the first time in his long life, Lucian savoured the thought that few led as remarkable a life as that of a rogue trader.

He slapped the ramp control, and stalked from the portal as the shuttle lifted off.

Lucian reclined in his command throne as he studied the star maps of the surrounding region of space. The flotilla had exited the warp, its Navigators maintaining formation with such skill that within half a day, all three vessels were inbound to the world upon which they were to obtain Luneberg's archeotech — Sigma Q-77.

The Q-77 system lay upon the very shores of an area of space referred to as the Damocles Gulf. Fifty thousand light years from Sacred Terra, the region had barely been surveyed, even ten thousand years into the Age of the Imperium. Many systems along the outer edge of the eastern spiral arm were isolated and inward-looking, wracked with self-interest and paranoia, as fearful of attracting the notice of the Administratum — the Imperium's impossibly vast bureaucracy — as they were of hostile alien attention.

Lucian considered such a mindset perfectly appropriate for the teeming, planet-bound masses. The common man had no business with space travel, Lucian held, and it was certainly true that a great many worlds within the Imperium kept their subjects in ignorance as to its nature. Some populations were so efficiently ruled that the common man had no inkling that the Imperium existed beyond his own, planet-bound horizons. Rogue traders however, had an Emperor-given right, indeed, a responsibility to pierce the outer dark, shining the light of civilisation into the vast, uncharted reaches of space, and, inevitably, to amass power and wealth beyond measure along the way.

The region into which Lucian and his flotilla travelled was one rarely visited by the agents of the Imperium. Few had any business this far out, except for outbound Explorator fleets and rogue traders such as he. Those that did pass beyond the Imperium's borders rarely returned, for horrors beyond imagining lurked about the ancient stars at the very galaxy's edge. The archives of the Arca-dius were full to overflowing wim accounts of contact with creatures the like of which the preachers of the Imperial Creed denounced as utter blasphemies. Yet Lucian's ancestors had always returned triumphant from such encounters, their cargo holds groaning with booty. Some had conquered through war, others through trade. To the Arcadius, each was but one side of the same coin. Lucian yearned for such days again, and held on to the precious notion that his fortunes would soon improve.

Yet, out here, such dreams rang hollow, thought Lucian, as he cast his gaze through the forward viewing port. There was something about the region that left a chill in the soul, a deep-seated impression that something was… somehow wrong. The stellar cluster that contained Luneberg's world, as well as the domains of several dozen other Imperial Commanders bordered the gulf on its coreward side. Then, to the galactic east, nothing, for light years — not even the most insignificant of nebulae. It was as if the galaxy itself shunned the depths of the gulf, only the light of the stars on its far side daring to cross it. Those stars were densely packed, but never surveyed, according to the archives of the Arcadius, although that did not mean an Explorator fleet had not passed through at some time in the past millennia. The records of the Imperium were simply too vast, too sprawling, too incomplete to record all such information.

'Entering upper orbit sir' called the helmsman, snapping Lucian out of his reflections.

As the Oceanid came about, entering her station-keeping orbit in as stately a manner as the most grand of Imperial Navy battleships, the world of Sigma Q-77 climbed into view. The archives spoke little of the Q-77 system, and Luneberg had provided most of the data that Lucian was expected to rely upon. That meant Lucian would not rely upon it — not yet at least. The records stated it was a barren, lifeless world, with an atmosphere only barely capable of supporting human life. What business life had needed Q-77 to support there, Lucian could not tell. From orbit, he could see that airborne particles choked the skies of Q-77, swept along in kilometres-high streams. The dust storms raging across the surface were so dense that not a scrap of land was visible, not even the landing zone, and that was apparently sited in the area least affected by the foul atmospheric conditions.