Nemesis

sensor modules sweeping the crowd. The revellers lost some of their good humour as

the threat inherent in the maniple of machines became clear.

Koyne knew what would happen next; it was inevitable, but at least the hesitation

would buy the assassin time. The Callidus searched for and found a side corridor that

led towards an observation cupola, and began pushing through the people towards it.

This was the moment when the machines opened fire on the crowd. Unable to

positively identify their target among the group of people, yet certain that their

master’s murderer was in that mass, the Crusaders made the logical choice. Kill them

all and leave no doubt.

Koyne ran through the screaming, panicking civilians, laser bolts ripping through

the air, cutting them down. The assassin vaulted into the corridor and ran to the dead

end of it. Red light from the giant Jovian storm seeped in through the observation

window, making everything blurry and drenched in crimson.

Time, again. Little enough time. The Callidus concentrated and retched, opening

a secondary stomach to vomit up a packet of white, doughy material. With shaking

hands, Koyne ripped open the thin membrane sheathing it and allowed air to touch

the pasty brick inside. It immediately began to blacken and melt, and quickly the

assassin pressed it to the glassaic of the cupola.

The robots were still coming. The shooting had stopped and the Crusaders were

advancing down the corridor. Koyne saw the shadows of them jumping on the curved

walls, lurching closer.

The assassin sat down in the middle of the room and drew up into a foetal ball,

forgetting the face of the civilian, forgetting Gergerra Rei and the Queen Jocasta,

remembering instead something old. Koyne let the polymorphine soften flesh into

waxen slurry, let it flow and harden into something that resembled the chitin of an

insect. Air was expunged, organs pressed together. By turns the body became a mass

of dark meat; but still not quickly enough.

The Crusader maniple advanced into the observation cupola just as the package

of thermo-reactive plasma completed its oxygenation cycle and self-detonated. The

blast shattered the glassaic dome and everything inside the cupola was blown out into

space. Rei’s guardian machines spun away into the vacuum even as safety hatches

fell to seal off the corridor. Koyne’s body, now enveloped in a cocoon of its own

skin, went with them into the dark.

Outside, the Ultio hove closer.

91

SEVEN

Storm

Warning

An Old Wound Target

Yosef Sabrat was out of his depth.

The audience chamber was big enough that it would have swallowed the footprint

of his home three times over, and decorated with such riches that they likely equalled

the price of every other house in the same district put together. It was a gallery of

ornaments and treasures from all across the southern reaches of the Ultima

Segmentum—discreet holographs labelled sculptures from Delta Tao and Pavonis,

tapestries and threadwork from Ultramar, art from the colonies of the Eastern

Fringes, triptychs of stunning picts in silver frames, glass and gold and steel and

bronze… The contents of this one chamber alone shamed even the most resplendent

of museums on Iesta Veracrux.

Thinking of his home world, Yosef reflexively looked up at the oval window

above his head. The planet drifted there in stately silence, the dayside turning as

dawn passed over the green-blue ribbons of ocean near the equator. But for all its

beauty, he couldn’t shake the sense of it hanging over him like some monumental

burden, ready to fall and crash him the moment his focus slipped. He looked away,

finding Daig by his side. The other reeve glanced at him, and the expression on his

cohort’s face was muted.

“What are we doing up here?” Daig asked quietly. “Look at this place. The light

fittings alone are probably worth a governor’s ransom. I’ve never felt so common in

my entire life.”

“I know what you mean,” Yosef replied. “Just stay quiet and nod in the right

places.”

“Try not to show myself up, you mean?”

“Something like that.” A few metres away, Hyssos was mumbling quietly to the

air; Yosef guessed that the operative had to have some sort of communicator implant

that allowed him to subvocalise and send vox messages as easily as the jagers of the

Sentine used a wireless. It had been clear to him the moment the Consortium

shuttlecraft had landed in the precinct courtyard, the elegant swan-like ship making a

point-perfect touchdown that barely disturbed the trees; Eurotas’ riches clearly

bought the baron and his clan the best of everything. Still, that didn’t seem to sit

squarely with the neglect he’d seen at the trader’s compound a day ago. He thought

on that for a moment, making a mental note to consider it further.

92

The shuttle had swiftly brought them into deep orbit, there to meet the great

elliptical hulk of the Iubar, flagship of the Eurotas Consortium and spaceborne