Nemesis

what it means.” He tapped his lapel in the same place where Perrig’s brooch was

pinned.

Yosef saw that the eye design was subtly repeated in among the woman’s tattoos.

His first reaction was denial; it was common knowledge, even on the most parochial

of worlds, that psykers were forbidden. The Emperor himself, at a council called on

the planet Nikaea, had outlawed the use of psionic sensitives, even among the

Legions of his own Space Marines. While some stripes of psyker were approved

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under the tightest reins of Imperial control—the gifted Navigators who guided ships

through the immaterium or the telepaths who carried communications between

worlds, for example—most were considered mind-witches, dangerous and unstable

aberrants to be corralled and neutered. Yosef had never been face to face with a

psyker before this day, and Perrig unnerved him greatly. Her gaze upon him made

him feel like he was made of glass. He swallowed hard as at last she looked away.

“My lord baron has sanction from the Council of Terra to employ an indentured

psionic,” Hyssos explained. “Perrig’s talents are extremely useful in my line of

work.”

“And what work is that?” said Daig.

“Security, Reeve Segan,” he replied. Hyssos’ manner made it clear he knew the

name of every person in the room.

Yosef nodded to himself. He knew that the Eurotas clan wielded great power and

influence across the Ultima Segmentum, but he had never guessed it had such reach.

To be granted dispensation against so rigid a ruling as the Decree of Nikaea was

telling indeed; he couldn’t help but wonder what other rules the Void Baron was free

to ignore.

“I had expected you to go straight to the Eurotas compound,” Laimner ventured,

trying to recover control of the conversation. “You’ve had a long journey—”

“Not so long,” replied Hyssos, still sweeping the room with his gaze. “The baron

will arrive very soon. He will want a full accounting of the situation. I see no reason

to delay.”

“How… soon?” managed Skelta.

“A day,” Hyssos offered, his answer drawing Laimner up short. “Perhaps less.”

The Reeve Warden licked his lips. “Well. In that case, I’ll have a briefing

prepared.” He gave a weak smile. “I will make myself available to the baron on his

arrival for a full and thorough—”

“Forgive me,” Hyssos broke in. “Reeves Sabrat and Segan are the lead

investigators in the case, are they not?”

“Well, yes,” said Laimner, clearly uncertain of how he should behave towards the

Eurotas operative. “But I am the senior precinct officer, and—”

“But not an investigating officer,” Hyssos went on, his tone level and firm. He

gave Yosef a brief glance through his monocle. “The baron prefers to have

information delivered to him as directly as possible. From the men closest to it.”

“Of course,” the warden said tightly, catching up to the realisation that he was

being dismissed. “You must proceed as you see fit.”

Hyssos nodded once. “You have my promise, Reeve Warden. Perrig and I will

help Iesta Veracrux to bring this murderer to justice in short order. Please pass that

assurance on to the High-Reeve and the Landgrave in my stead.”

“Of course,” Laimner repeated, his smile weak and false. Without another word,

he left the room, shooting Yosef a final, acid glare as he closed the door behind him.

Yosef felt wrung out by the events of the day even though it had hardly begun.

He sighed and looked away, only to find the woman Perrig watching him again.

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When she spoke, her voice had a melody to it that was at odds with the fire in her

eyes. “There is a horror here,” she told them. “Darkness clustering at the edges of

perception. Lies and murder.” The psyker sighed. “All of you have seen it.”

Yosef broke her gaze with no little effort oh his part and gave Hyssos a nod.

“Where do you want to start?”

“You tell me,” said the operative.

* * *

Ultio drifted into the gravity well of the gas giant, crossing the complex web of orbits

described by Jupiter’s outer moons. It was almost a solar system in miniature, with

the gas giant at its core rather than the blazing orb of a sun. The cloud of satellites

and Trojan asteroids surrounding it were full of human colonies, factories and forges,

powered by drinking in the radiation surging from the mammoth planet, feeding on

mineral riches that in centuries of exploitation had yet to be fully exhausted. Jupiter

was Terra’s shipyard, and its sky was forever filled with vessels. Centred around

Ganymede and a dozen other smaller moons, spacedocks and fabricatories worked

ceaselessly to construct everything from single-crew Raven interceptors up to the

gargantuan hulls of mighty Emperor-class command-carrier battleships.

In a zone so dense with spacecraft and orbitals of every kind, it should have been

easy for the Ultio to become lost in the shoals of them; but security was tight, and

suspicion was at every point of the compass. In the opening moves of the