Nemesis

‘I do not know, child. All we can be sure of is that it is the Imperial truth.’ She smiled again. ‘I grew up with that knowledge. For a long time, we and others like us lived isolated lives, ignored at best, decried at worst. We who believed were thought to be deluded fools.’

Soalm looked around. ‘These people don’t look like fools to me.’

‘Indeed. Our numbers have started to swell, and not just here. Groups of believers all across the galaxy are coming together. Our faith knows no boundaries, from the lowliest hiver child to men who walk the palaces of Terra itself.’ She paused, thinking. ‘The darkness sown by the Warmaster has brought many to our fold. In the wake of his insurrection there have been horrors and miracles alike. This is our time of testing, of that I have no doubt. Our creed is in the ascendant, dear child. The day will come when all the stars bend their knee to Holy Terra and the God-Emperor’s glory.’

‘But not yet,’ she said, an edge of bitterness in her voice. ‘Not today.’

Sinope touched her arm. ‘Have faith. We are part of something larger than ourselves. As long as our belief survives, then we do also.’

‘The people from the other worlds,’ Soalm pressed. ‘Tros said they were here on a pilgrimage. I don’t understand that.’

Sinope did not reply. They followed a patched metal staircase into the lower levels of the old ship, treading with care to avoid broken spars and fallen stanchions. Down here the stink of rust and dry earth was heavy and cloying. After a few metres, they came to a thickly walled compartment, armoured with layers of steel and ceramite. Four men, each armed with heavy-calibre weapons, were crowded around the only hatchway that led inside. They had hard eyes and the solid, dense builds of humans from heavy-gravity worlds. The assassin knew immediately that they were, to a man, career soldiers of long and lethal experience.

Each of them gave a respectful bow as Sinope came into the light cast from the lumes overhead, doffing their caps to the old woman. Soalm watched her go to each in turn and talk with them as if they were old friends. She seemed tiny and fragile next to the soldiers, and yet it was clear that they hung on her every word and gesture, like a troupe of devoted sons. Her smiles became theirs.

Sinope gestured to her. ‘Gentlemen, this is Jenniker.’

‘She’s the one?’ said the tallest of the four, a heavy stubber at rest in his hands.

Sinope nodded. ‘You have all served the Theoge so selflessly,’ she told them. ‘and your duty is almost done. Jenniker will take this great burden from you.’

The tall man gave a regretful nod and then snapped his fingers at another of the four. The second soldier worked the thick wheel in the centre of the hatch, and with a squeal of rusted metal, he opened the door to the cargo compartment.

Sinope advanced inside and Soalm followed warily behind her. It was gloomy and warm, and there was a peculiar stillness in the air that prickled her bare skin. The hatch closed with a crunch.

‘Dagonet is going to fall,’ said the noblewoman, soft and sorrowful. ‘Death is close at hand. The God-Emperor’s love will preserve our souls but the ending of our flesh has already been written. He cannot save us.’

Soalm wanted to say something, to give out a denial, but nothing would come.

‘He knows this. That is why, in His infinite wisdom, the Master of Mankind had you brought to us in His stead, Jenniker Soalm.’

‘No,’ she managed, her heart racing. ‘I am here in service to a lie! To perish for a meaningless cause! I have not even been spared the grace to have a truth to die for!’

Sinope came to her and embraced the assassin. ‘Oh, dear child. You are mistaken. He sent you to us because you are the only one who can do what we cannot. The God-Emperor turned your destiny to cross my path. You are here to protect something most precious.’

‘What do you mean?’

The noblewoman stepped away and moved to a small metal chest. She worked a control pad on the surface – a combination of bio-sensor bloodlocks and security layers – and Soalm stepped closer to get a better look. She knew the design; the chest was of advanced Martian manufacture, a highly secure transport capsule fitted with its own internal support fields, capable of long-term survival in a vacuum, even atmospheric re-entry. It was very much out of place here.

The chest opened in a gust of gas, and inside Soalm saw the shimmer of a stasis envelope. Within the ephemeral sphere of slowed time was a book of the most ornate, fantastic design, and it seemed to radiate the very power of history from its open pages.

‘See,’ said Sinope, bowing deeply to the tome. ‘Look, child, and see the touch of His hand.’