Nemesis

He made a mock-solemn expression with the new face he wore, trying the look

on for size; but he had no mirror to see how it seemed on his new guise. Spear pawed

at a face that now resembled that of the Eurotas operative. It felt odd and incomplete.

The churn of new memories and personality sucked in from Hyssos was curdling

where it mixed with those of Sabrat, making him thought-sick. It seemed it would be

necessary to purge the stolid reeve’s self sooner rather than later.

With a deep sigh, Spear dropped to the floor and sat cross-legged. He drew on the

disciplines that had been beaten into him by his master and focussed his will, seeing

it like a line of poison fire laced with ink-black ice.

Reaching into the deeps of his thoughts, Spear found the cage and tore it open,

clawing inside to gather up the mind-scraps that were all that remained of Yosef

Sabrat. He grinned as fear resonated up from the shuddering persona as some

understanding of its final end became clear. Then he began the purge, ripping and

tearing, destroying everything that had been the man, vomiting up every nauseating,

cloying skein of emotion, little by little sluicing Sabrat’s cloying self away.

Spear gave this deed such focus that it was only when he heard the voice he

realised he was no longer alone.

Koyne’s hand flicked up and the toxin-filled stiletto hidden in a wrist sheath flew out

in a shallow arc, piercing the stomach of the man on the left. The liquid inside was a

consumptive agent that feasted on organic matter, even down to natural fibres and

cured leather. He fell to the floor and began to dissolve.

The other man was briefly wreathed in white light that glowed down the hallway

as Iota pressed a hand into his chest and shoved him back into the elevator. Koyne

watched with detachment as the Culexus’ dark power enveloped the man and

destroyed him. His silent scream resonated and he became a mass of material like

burned paper. In moments, a curl of damp smoke was all that marked the man’s

passing; the other hapless soldier was now a puddle of fluids leaking away through

the gridded decking of the elevator floor.

Content that the toxin had run its course and consumed itself into the bargain, the

Callidus kicked at the collection of inert tooth fillings, metal buttons and plastic

buckles that had gathered and brushed them away with the passage of a boot. Koyne

took a moment to break the biolume bubble illuminating the interior of the elevator,

and then pressed the control to send it downwards.

125

They travelled in dark and silence for a few moments, and for Koyne the Culexus

seemed to melt away and disappear, even though she was standing at her shoulder.

“His name was Mortan Gautami,” Iota said suddenly. “He never told anyone of it,

but his mother had been able to see the future in dreams. He had a measure of

postcognitive ability, but he indulged in narcotics, preventing him from accessing his

potential.” The skull head turned slightly. “I used that untapped energy to destroy

him.”

“I’ll bet you know the names of everyone you’ve terminated,” said Koyne, with a

flicker of cruelty.

“Don’t you?” said the Culexus.

The Callidus didn’t bother to grace that with an answer. The elevator arrived at

the sublevel, and the guards standing outside fell to quick killing blows.

There was a spherical containment chamber in the middle of a room made of

ferrocrete, festoons of cables issuing from every point on its surface. A heavy iron

iris hatch lay facing them like a closed eye, a short gantry reaching it from the

sublevel proper. Koyne stepped up and worked the lever to open it; there was a thin,

high-pitched sound coming from inside, and at first the Callidus thought it was a

pressure leak; then the iron leaves retracted and it became clear it was reedy, shrill

screaming.

Koyne peered into the depths and saw the corpse-grey astropath. It was pressed

up against the back of the sphere’s inner wall, glaring sightlessly towards Iota.

“Hole-mind,” it babbled, between howls. “Black-shroud. Poison-thought.”

The Callidus rapped a stolen pistol against the threshold of the hatch. “Hey!”

Koyne snarled in the officer’s voice. “Stop whining. I’ll make this simple. Give up

the information I need, or I’ll lock her in there with you.”

The astropath made the sign of the aquila, as if it were some kind of ancient rite

of warding that would fend off evil. The shrieking died away, and crack-throated, the

psychic spoke. “Just keep it at a distance.”

Iota took her cue and wandered away, moving back towards the elevator shaft but

still within earshot. “Better?”

That earned Koyne a weak nod. “I will tell you what you want to know.”

The assassin learned quickly that the astropath was one of only a handful of its

kind still alive in the Dagonet system. In the headlong melee of revolution, in the

process of isolating itself from the galaxy and the Imperium, the planet had begun to