Nemesis

Renia was already opening the wooden case on the wall where the watch-wire terminal sat. She gave him a questioning look and he nodded. ‘Call it in.’

He snatched his greatcoat from the hook in the hall as she shouted after him. ‘Be careful!’

Yosef heard feet on the stairs behind him and turned, one hand on the latch, to see Ivak silhouetted in the gloom. ‘Father?’

‘Go back to bed,’ he told the boy. ‘I’ll just be a moment.’

He put his warrant rod around his neck and went out.

5

By the time he got to the road, they had started throwing punches at the youth on the ground. He heard yelling and once again, the name rose up at him, shouted like a blood-curse. Horus.

The fifth youth was bleeding and trying to protect himself by holding his arms up around his head. Yosef saw a particularly hard and fast haymaker blow come slamming in from the right, knocking the boy down.

The reeve flicked his wrist and the baton he carried in his sleeve pocket dropped into his palm. With a whickering hiss, the memory-metal tube extended to four times its length. Anger flared inside him and he shouted out ‘Sentine!’ even as he aimed a low sweeping blow at the knees of the nearest attacker.

The hit connected and the youth went down hard. The others reacted, falling back. One of them had a half-brick in his hand, weighing it like he was considering a throw. Yosef scanned their faces. They had scarves around their mouths and noses, but he knew railgangers when he saw them. These were young men from the loading terminals, who by day worked the cargo monorails that connected the airdocks to the vineyards, and by night made trouble and engaged in minor crime. But they were out of their normal patch in this residential district, apparently drawn here by their victim.

‘Bind him!’ shouted one of them, stabbing a finger at the injured youth. ‘He’s a traitor, that’s what he is! Whoreson traitor!’

‘No…’ managed the youth. ‘Am not…’

‘Sentine are no better!’ snarled the one with the half-brick. ‘All in it together!’ With a snarl he threw his missile, and Yosef batted it away, taking a glancing hit on his temple that made him stagger. The railgangers took this as a signal and broke into a run, scattering away down the curve of the street.

For a split second, Yosef was possessed by a fury so high that all he wanted to do was race after the thugs and beat them bloody into the cobbles; but then he forced that urge away and bent down to help the injured youth to his feet. The young man’s hand was wet where he had cut himself on the broken glass. ‘You all right?’ said the reeve.

The youth took a woozy step away from him. ‘Don’t… Don’t hurt me.’

‘I won’t,’ he told him. ‘I’m a lawman.’ Yosef’s skull was still ringing with the near-hit of the brick, but in a moment of odd perceptivity, he saw the lad had rolls of red-printed leaflets stuffed in his pocket. He grabbed the youth’s hand and snatched one from the bunch. It was a Theoge pamphlet, a page of dense text full of florid language and terms that meant nothing to him. ‘Where did you get these?’ he demanded.

In the glare of the streetlights, Yosef saw the youth’s pale face full on; the fear written large there was worse than that he had shown to the thugs with the bottles and bricks. ‘Leave me alone!’ he shouted, shoving the reeve back with both hands.

Yosef lost his balance – the pain in his head helping that along the way – and stumbled, fell. Shaking off the spreading ache, he saw the youth sprinting away, disappearing into the night. He cursed and tried to get to his feet.

The reeve’s hand touched something on the cobbles, a sharp, curved edge. At first he thought it was part of the scattering of broken glass, but the light fell on it a different way. Peering at the object, Yosef saw what it actually was. Discarded in the melee, dropped from the pocket of… who, he wondered?

It was a harvesting knife, worn with use and age.

THREE What Must Be Done / The Spear / Intervention

1

Stripped to the waist, Valdor strode into the sparring hall with his guardian spear raised high at the crook of his shoulder, the metal of the ornate halberd cool against his bare flesh; but what awaited him in the chamber was not the six combat robots he had programmed for his morning regimen, only a single figure in duty robes. He was tall and broad, big enough to look down at the Chief Custodian, even out of battle armour.

The figure turned, almost casually, from a rack holding weapons similar to the one Valdor carried. He was tracing the edge of the blade that hung beneath the heavy bolter mechanism at the tip of the metal staff, considering its merit in the way that a shrewd merchant might evaluate a bolt of fine silk before a purchase.