113Cadia Secundus, Cadia
The sun rose over the mist-covered valleys of the central highlands of Cadia's southern continent, a serene locale untouched by the industrial hand of the Imperium despite the world holding the honour of being the second most heavily-fortified in the galaxy.
Osvat Radu Zeleska knelt in the dew-covered grass and listened, eyes closed and with one ear up. Triptolemus sat next to him panting softly. The early morning air was so still he would not have thought there was a war on. The present fighting was far away to the north, many hundreds of kilometres in fact. Only on good days when the wind was in the right direction did the rumble of the heaviest artillery barrages reach as far as the southern continent. The war however was of no concern to Zeleska. Little people fighting insignificant battles that would have no more an effect on the Imperium's affairs than a newly-sprung child could. Zeleska and the other acolytes of the Inquisition were the real masters of the galaxy; their rule through fear ensured that the God-Emperor's reign endured.
Zeleska brushed the dewy stalks and parted two of them and watched as they entwined and shared their moisture with each other.
Beneath his tall, lace-up hunting boots were tracks that lead away through the field, freshly made. Zeleska had seen them immediately but had chosen to wait, wishing to widen the gap between him and his quarry and allow it to gain ground before closing in. He was doing what he loved best, besides women and drink. The pleasures hunting granted were immense for there was no greater thrill than stalking the target, sometimes for days on end before taking its life in a spectacular display of marksmanship; Zeleska himself being noted amongst the Inquisition's ranks as a crackshot with any man-portable weapon in the Imperium's arsenal. And once the target had been brought down Zeleska would be swift to add a fresh pelt to his immense collection. Today however he would not be taking a pelt rather he would be taking a scalp belonging to his most favoured quarry; the abhuman.
"Come, Trip. Time to move on." Zeleska rose from the partial cover and carried on through the knee-high grass, Trip at his heel. Very soon his breeches were soaked through and his fine leather boots creaked. It was no great discomfort to him. He was to well-accustomed to long hunting trips. His father Marcus had frequently taken him along with him starting at the age of seven. On the young Osvat's eleventh birthday his mother had suddenly left his father, remarrying and taking the name Zeleska. Osvat did not stop hunting.
Father, I wish you could see me now, see how strong I have become. Zeleska had never seen his mother's new husband as his father, not even when he had fed him to his very own pack of cyberhounds. Zeleska knew his real father would understand even if he had not been here for him.
There is nothing nobler than carrying out the Emperor's will by hunting down and exterminating all that is impure. Know that I will not rest until each and every single subhuman degenerate is hunted down and purged in your name, Father.
And this very subhuman would shortly be following the rest of his kind. Zeleska held an ancient sporting piece, older than the Imperium itself, and one of his most treasured possessions along with his collection of art. The rifle was a single-action, rotary magazine design, had a handcrafted wooden body, double-set triggers and a special downturned bolt facilitating the use of optics; today though Zeleska had chosen to fire over open sights. In his belt he had exactly twenty-eight cartridges, twenty-eight rounds of 160 grain .264 calibre left in the entire galaxy, but they would be twenty-eight shots well-used. Such rare ammunition was treasured for its stopping power, stability in flight and resistance to wind deflection and was perfect for long-range shooting. The rifle's name, long-winded and awkward, was difficult to pronounce, being neither High Gothic nor Low Gothic but in an ancient language called Germanic that originated, as had everything human, from Holy Terra. Steyr Mannlicher-Schoenauer, the name did not roll off the tongue smoothly like the Gothic language did. Zeleska liked the Mannlicher but he liked it more when it spoke and an abhuman died.
For the past day and a half Zeleska had been in pursuit of the loosed abhuman, one of many kept in cages on his private vessel Zarkaniy. The cruiser resided in one of Cadia's dockyards up in orbit. On foot for the duration with Trip following Zeleska nevertheless refused to tire and kept up a steady pace. To his approval so did she.
Zeleska's companion had remained in his shadow ever since they had started, never flagging, never complaining. Kora Rethwick followed Zeleska obediently as she had been trained to. It had taken time to coach her in to obedience. He'd had high hopes for Kora and wanted above all for her to succeed where so many others had failed. When she did so Zeleska wept tears of joy.
The former assassin was a perfect specimen: loyal, beautiful and tireless, both in the bedroom and out in the field, perfect in every way. There was no-one else Zeleska wanted by his side when on the hunt.
This was the first time Kora was away from the ever-present and ruthless eyes of Zeleska's bodyguard, it was only her and him, at least that was how it appeared to her. His men were watching from afar. They were always watching for any threats, any signs of treachery. The rifle Kora carried, a brand-new clone near-identical to the Mannlicher but rechambered for the military .338 round was placed in her ownership as a means of tempting her. Zeleska had even let Kora load her own ammunition, not that he intended to actually let her fire the rifle, it was all a big show to goad her into trying for him. Every little ploy would be inevitably stalled by the little hitch Zeleska himself was responsible for and that was the rifle's firing pin, he had ground the steel down enough that the weapon would not fire. And if Kora tried it, she would incur his wrath.
"Come, Kora, we are gaining!" Zeleska increased his pace. "I promised you a kill and I shall deliver."
He did not expect a reply. That was another thing, Kora never spoke unless spoken to and Zeleska liked it that way. Often, he would look at her whilst she sat there obediently doing nothing. It gave him enjoyment, knowing he had power over her.
My-my, prey of mine, you begin to tire. Zeleska's eyes gleamed on seeing the fresh tracks leading through the mist-covered wood turn and head uphill. The quarry was trying for the high ground. It was getting desperate. Trip bounced ahead up the rocky path.
The earth underfoot gradually hardened with rocky inclines springing up through the thick treetops. Piles of loose stones, dislodged underfoot by the galvanised Zeleska, trickled back down the slopes. Higher and higher he clambered. The Mannlicher was now slung over his shoulder with him holding one hand out for balance. He could sense—feel—the gap closing. Trip barked.
It was then something happened that Zeleska had not anticipated, the sounds of a river were growing louder—no—a much louder noise seeped through the gulley; the sounds of falling water.
Well, well, well. Zeleska found he could go no further when the path he followed ended in a sheer drop, one of dizzying proportions. A waterfall cascaded from a rupture in the cliff a good hundred feet higher, falling all the way to an unseen pool lost in the spray and flowing in lazy, meandering curves down into the woods at the bottom of the valley.
"Our quarry eludes us," Zeleska said loudly above the roar when Kora reached his side. "Observe." He pointed at the river in the distance. It would be a simple case of backtracking then following the river down to the valley floor. Once on a level plane, the abhuman would find its pace slowing to a crawl and would have to regain the land, providing fresh tracks for its stalkers.
"Come, it is downhill from now on." Zeleska smiled and hitched the Mannlicher higher up on his shoulder. "Trip. Heel!"
Kora, despite hearing him, was rooted to the spot, her gaze on something Zeleska had not seen.
"Ah…" He saw what had grabbed her attention. One of the monstrous spires that dotted the planet's surface had just been revealed by the lifting fog. It was several klicks to the east. At half a klick high the spire was tall enough to brush the sky. On overcast days, the tip would be invisible, lost in the clouds.
"That is a pylon. There are thousands of similar constructs here and there." Zeleska took Kora by the hand and walked her away from the precipice. "I was worried for a moment there."
In a dreamy, docile state Kora kept on her master's heels, her mind had been strangely drawn to the construct and could almost feel it beckoning to her. She found herself wanting to move closer, to get right up to the smooth surface and touch it. This was the first time that her master had not dominated her thoughts, his presence replaced with an insatiable curiosity. Underneath it, something familiar stirred, a little voice, cowed and beaten into submission whispered, run, run, run! Little pieces of her past life, like she was flicking through the pages of a book, dribbled into her consciousness. They was only fragments and did not form a clear picture, but her head, after being submerged for so long underwater, sought the surface.
With the cliffs to their backs, the two hunters made the descent from the valley slope in little time, working their way around to the fast-flowing river that shot out from the rocks and continued down. In this time, Kora saw less and less of the man in front of her. She began to wonder who he was and why she was following him or for that matter what they were in pursuit of. Glancing up through the treetops Kora saw the smooth, elegant construct looming over her and felt the tug again, more of a gnaw now. She dearly wanted to make for the pylon as if it would provide some form of salvation from her inescapable predicament.
Conflicting thoughts, jumbled together, polluted Kora's head; hammers pounding on sheet metal all at the same time. Confusion as the surreal fantasy she had inhabited fell away layer by layer until all that was left was the pylon and its call.
What am I? Where am I? Whose hands are these? Kora stared down at the rifle's body, a sporting piece ill-suited for combat. Around her trees grew at awkward, twisted angles, their bodies ensnared by parasites, giant vines surging from the ground entwining the trunks in a lover's embrace. The image of the trees ensnared by the vines stirred up images of Kora and the inquisitor with him doing things to her, humiliating and degrading, all so he could exercise control over her.
Never again, never again. Kora's grip tightened on the rifle. She wanted to beat the inquisitor around the head with the stock and keep beating him until he was obliterated; make him an unperson as he done so many others. The ache in her groin and legs brought on hot tears, a spasm in her neck and a twinge of a muscle in her cheek fanned the flaming anger rising within. Her hands were now hurting from holding the rifle in such a tight grip.
The Inquisitor was twenty paces ahead but did not look back, he never looked back. Always his mind was on the hunt. Kora would make him pay dearly for his negligence. She knelt in a gap between the trees and eased the rifle's bolt upwards and back a fraction. A polished round rested in the chamber. Kora pushed the chamber closed and took aim at the inquisitor's back. Hearing her increasing heartbeat, she calmed the rising tempo and exhaled slowly before waiting for him to find a gap in the trees.
Now. Kora placed the blade sights squarely on the inquisitor's centre mass and squeezed the trigger.
Click.
"Kora!" The Inquisitor whirled around.
Kora flung herself through the trees and shut her ears to his voice, hearing only the crash of boughs underfoot and the whipping of dead branches in her face. Damnation! Kora cycled the rifle's action, catching the unfired round before it could jump free of the breech and turned, intending to loose an un-aimed shot at the Inquisitor. She heard the same impotent click as before and frowned. Her lips drew back in a silent snarl, the inquisitor's tampering no doubt the reason. A farce!
Distant cracks pursued her flight uphill. The Inquisitor's men, among them the hideous Argus and Lenz, pursued. Each rifle shot, a loud crack preceded by a bang as it passed closeby, was a warning. Nobody would shoot to kill, only the Inquisitor.
Cresting a ridge, Kora burst through a thick cluster of branches and ran in to a field of tall grass. The monumental pylon, a narrow, pyramid shape, towered above Kora, an entire kilometre high and half as much in width. She did not know what would happen when she reached it, whether it would grant her salvation or damnation.
"Kora!" Zeleska, at the head of his six-man bodyguard, caught a glimpse of the running figure climbing up the embankment at the far end of the field and making straight for the pylon. "Trip, heel! Kora, please come back. I will not punish you!"
"A wounding shot, my lord?" Lenz placed his eye to a telescopic sight mounted to a sporter rifle.
"I'll give you a wounding shot, Lenz!" Zeleska pushed the barrel away. "Spread out! Spread out!"
Zeleska, back aboard Zarkaniy had sat Kora directly opposite him and ordered her to shave his face, during this he had broached the subject of her past life, former acquaintances of hers, for the purpose of gently goading her into assaulting him with the razor. More and more he taunted and belittled, deriding each and every other person she had held dear, all the while expecting to feel the warm blade bite into his skin and the wetness of his blood. He had smiled when he saw the tears in her eyes. Not a single hair was left on his chin.
Grass whipped Zeleska's face. Trip sprinting ahead of him, Zeleska dash up the hillside. "Trip, heel!" Zeleska held up a hand to stay his bodyguards when they spotted her. "Do not shoot!" Zeleska slung the Mannlicher on his shoulder and moved over to Kora.
"Kora?" Zeleska's eyes flicked up at the smooth grey surface then down to Kora again. She was standing stock-still with her back to him and had one hand resting on the monument's surface. Her rifle lay in the grass. Zeleska kicked it away and reached out to Kora. "Now listen to me. Listen to me." Zeleska spoke the activation phrase he had used on her during the conditioning process. "Remove your hand, from the pylon, Kora, and turn around to face me."
No reply, no acknowledgment.
"Your master commands you."
Zeleska's fingers closed around her arm and pulled. A screech filled his ears, tearing at his nerve-ends. Invisible hands picked him up in to the air and hurled Zeleska and his bodyguards backwards. Zeleska hit the slope and rolled, the Mannlicher flying free. Trip howled.
"Kora…" Green light radiated from the pylon. Now facing him, Kora flung her arms outwards. Her feet floated far above the ground, her body encircled by the light. When she spoke, it was not in her own voice but a hollow rasp. Her eyes glowed green.
"I am Shesmet. The alpha…" Her eyes fixed on the cowering Zeleska, "…and your omega."
Green lighting crackled around the dormant pylon and folded over Shesmet.
The Grace of The Mother, Nemesis System
"Fuckin' stickies." A Cullen Fusilier worked the pump on a tiny stove chugging on the deck. "When the fuck are going home then?"
"Are we goin home?"
"How the fuck do I know. What do you want me to tell you?"
"You're a big help, Tind. Nothing. Tell me nothin. Now, I'll tell you something. We're sitting in the middle of an army o' stickies on this fucked up xenos bathtub. All they gotta do is flush this hangar – wham – and human problem solved."
"I know that."
"Yeah? Well, brood on it, Tind. Brood on it."
Private Aimo Garst, buck grunt of the Nerian Light Infantry half-listened to the babblings of a scared seventeen-year-old private, a rear-echelon type that had been one of the first grunts off Nemtess therefore in the least danger out of anyone in the division. The babyface was crushing an unlit cigarette between his fingers without noticing.
"I just can't help how damn scared I am, right? I got a hiding from my step-dad, he, he took to beating me raw when I was a nipper. I got scared and I used to run and hide out in the woods a lot of nights and uh, I never thought it'd get worse than that. Least not in the Guard, y'know. Now we, we got the shit kicked outta us on Nemtess and, and now the stickies got us good…" The babyface trailed off and stuck the cigarette in his mouth. His jaw worked up and down.
"What's your name, lad?" Aimo raised his voice to make himself heard above the hundreds of displaced Guard and navy personnel crowding the empty hangar bay.
"Why waste your breath?" Cyrano Semirechye grunted. Like with most of the men he had been cut off from his command in the chaos of the evacuation. As far as he knew, none of the others in his mounted brigade, two-legged or four, had escaped the frozen hell of Nemtess. "No need to waste time with this useless would-be lifer." Cyrano tucked his white fur hat over his eyes and laid himself back down, his head squishing a saddlebag. "Yeah, the horsemaster knows his jargon…"
The babyface hadn't been listening and continued to ramble "…I mean I want to… I want to own a motor car when I get out, buy a house, marry a fat blonde girl with big 'ole tits…"
"What's your name?"
"Jacklyn, J-Jacklyn Cassius Molke," he said, not meeting Aimo's eye. "And don't think o' me as no fucking rear-echelon lifer-type. I—I did jump training six months back. You know, jumping outta planes? Well my—my gravchute failed to open first time and my—my jump master told me to go for the reserve if that happened so I did. My reserve failed to open too so I just fell. Fell and fell and fell. I was only in the air a few seconds, and when I landed the wind got knocked outta me. Broke my ankle too and that was that. Got shouted at 'cause they thought I did it deliberately. Was only after I tried to get up that I realised my ankle had gone, but by then I was outta the gravtroopers for good."
Molke leant forward from where he was squatting opposite Aimo and pointed at Cyrano. "Now don't think o' me as no fucking rear-echelon lifer-type. Just got a bad break, that's all. If not for this ankle, I'd be getting in the shit with you guys, wasting Zeke left and right."
"Careful, lad, don't be wanting for something like that." Aimo found Molke's eye. "You might come to regret it."
"Says who?"
"Says I. Only a limp-dick, no-buck, rear-echelon lifer who's never seen Zeke would say something as stupid as that."
"Aw, come on…"
"You're in the Crotch, son. You don't want for anything." Aimo took out a cigarette from a crushed packet in the breast pocket of his dirt-smeared, olive-grey fatigues. "You don't know Nemtess like we did. We lost friends, good people. You weren't there on the line with us. You're not a combat grunt. You haven't seen the pink mist or sampled the sweetness of the confirmed kill."
"Yeah, well still plenty o' fighting goin' on out there, uh…"
"One word of advice, yellow-trousers, keep being scared. If you're scared, you won't try and be a hero and do something stupid. I knew a grunt that did that. He got killed and never even realised it."
"How?" Molke went bug-eyed.
"Dunno." Aimo lit up and stared into space. "Dunno."
"Lads? You haven't got anything in your first aid pouches, have you?" A wiry, bareheaded medic toting an empty satchel hovered over Aimo.
"Why you need 'em, Scab?" Aimo blew smoke up at the medic. "Thought we were s'posed to leave the wounded behind."
"Any clean bandages, purification tablets, sulpha, plasma, scissors? Anything you can spare? My kit's almost cleaned out."
"You look a bit put out, take a rubber." Aimo tossed a sealed foil packet at the medic. "Sure someone round here'll service you. For a fee, of course."
Aimo heard the tiniest sigh from the medic before he left. Beside him, Cyrano snorted.
"Uhh…" A voice came from Aimo's other side.
"It lives."
Leo Wind, bleary-eyed and wild-haired, sat upright. Like with everyone else's uniforms, Leo Wind's flight suit was crumpled, ripped and filthy. "What goes on here?" Leo dug a comb in to the greasy hair slicked back across his head.
"Nothing. You go bye-byes again, Lieutenant," Aimo said. "Nothing goin' on."
Mess Sergeant Gale sat in the middle of his three cooks and listened to their nervous chatter. The cloud of cigarette smoke rising above the four-man gang would have made any normal person who approached immediately turn on their heel and leave, so thick and potent it was. Gale, not a heavy smoker himself, had strong sinuses which had grown stronger after he had taken to whiskey. A trick he had learnt when drinking the strong spirits was to press his tongue to the roof of his mouth so as not to let any oxygen in when he swallowed. Now though, devoid of any real drink Gale had to contend to sit and listen to the shaky banter between his three cooks. Covertly he looked around at them. Weld, the tall, thin, silent one, efficient when he was sober but without the initiative to do anything unless specifically ordered. Scurm, nicknamed 'Scum', the other cook, overweight, lazy, petulant, loving to give orders but hating to take them and always complaining his authority was being flouted. Azar, the short-statured second cook, muscular and hard as a rock, a tireless worker who never stopped but doing it with a scowling, nervous intensity that could not be anything but abnormal. Unlike Scurm, Azar was more than willing, too willing to take on every bit of authority given to him.
Gale could not help but feel an outwardly hard, but inwardly soft, sentimentality for all of them, the slobs. He had kept them closeby, sensing their nervousness, and only partly because he wanted them where he could keep an eye on them. After all, they were aboard a xenos vessel and completely at their mercy.
The fact that the Stickies were now helping them made no sense to Gale. To him, anything not of human origin was enemy. It didn't matter how benevolent the Stickies were acting. Very soon, at least that was what he anticipated, they would turn on them and flush the hangar; why else would the Stickies let them aboard?
Wafting away the smoke, a medic came face to face with Gale. Gale made a face. The gang cut their conversation short and stare at the medic.
"S'cuse me, sarn't. Do you have any medical supplies on you? My kit's cleaned out." The medic made a scene of rummaging in his Unit One bag.
"We look like fuckin' Q Branch to you? We're cooks!"
"Git outta it." Azar made a hole with his thumb and fingers and tapped it against the side of his head.
"Azar! Get outta it, Scab. We're broke."
"Charming lot." Private Ral Bleak's cheery façade had slowly deserted him over the arduous and ultimately fruitless foray through the hangar bay for medical supplies. Forced to leave everything he had behind for 1 Neria's battalion surgeon, one of many brave medical personnel that had volunteered to remain behind with the wounded on Nemtess, Ral now searched for plasma, morphine, even single bandages to add to his kit. In this state he was feeling increasingly like a fifth wheel, a grunt without his rifle. The reactions from the gangs of veterans ranged from coolly dismissive to outright aggressive as many no doubt felt that as a medic, Ral should have stayed behind with the wounded and not taken the easy way out.
So many did not understand that medics did not save lives. Medics made wounded comfortable as they died, with only a tiny handful of casualties taken back actually standing a chance of getting to the surgeon's table. Of those that reached the table, even fewer would live with next to none coming away with a hope of returning fully fit to their respective units. Those that died under the surgeon's knives and saws were dumped in graves and/or harvested for body parts; the unlucky ones were taken to become servitors. The Imperium's currency was lives. Lives that were worth less than the weapons they carried and the clothing they wore.
Not a whisper left the curving walls of the Grace's Medical Wing. Lying suspended above the chalk-white floor in row upon row of faintly glowing cocoons were Eldar warriors, each in a deep slumber brought upon by the recuperative shrouds.
At the centre of the unit, four tall, elegant beings in sky blue robes and gel masks were gathered around a patient who was face-up on a pallet, the material of which, a jelly-like substance, had moulded to the patient's form. It was unlike any other in that it was not one of them, not of their craftworld or even their people; it was human.
"There," Alanna Yunté lifted a little sliver of metal, held inbetween the fine fingers of her tweezers, in to the light. Freed from the human child's chest where it had remained so obstinately, the fragment had gradually infected him with its taint and very nearly killed him.
"Are we done here?" Amrie Sul muttered. "Scores of our own await treatment. The fragment is out. Let us finish the operation and be rid of this human."
"Stay your hand, dearest Amrie," Cerwan Sye murmured.
"The wounded call for treatment, Alanna. To deny them would see your credentials soured," Amrie Sul said.
"Amrie Sul, wilful neglect of the patient before the operation has been finalised might lead to a loss of life, one neither I, you, Cerwan Sye or Safaa Tfran can afford," Alanna Yunté replied, setting the fingernail-sized piece of metal down on a tray. "Human or not, it is the duty of the Healing Houses to provide aid to any and all wounded, failure to do so would violate the vows you took before being sworn in to our ranks."
Alanna Yunté fixed Amrie Sul with a disdainful look. "Losing a patient is a far greater blow than you could imagine. Have you ever lost a patient on the table?"
"No, Alanna." Amrie Sul shook his head, lowering his eyes. "But triage…"
"Do not lecture me on triage, Amrie Sul. Now pass over the antibiotics."
"I cannot." Amrie Sul removed his mask. "Human filth…"
"Leave the unit at once," Alanna Yunté said without looking up at the Healer. "Cerwan, assume the vacated position."
"Apologies," Cerwan Sye said when Amrie Sul had departed through the nearest portal. "He is a…"
"Antibiotics." Alanna held out her hand for the needle.
Cerwan placed the needle in Alanna's gloved hand and fell silent. With quiet restored, Alanna took hold of the human's wrist, thin and pale, and travelled up his arm to one of the prominent veins where she inserted the needle and gently pressed it downwards.
"There," she said once the antibiotics were safely in his system.
"Finish up?" Safaa Tfran dabbed at the little puncture point with a swab after the needle was retracted.
"Finish up. Well done to you both. Most efficient." Alanna removed her gloves and rubbed her eyelids. "Safaa, Cerwan, gratitude. I would also like one of you to inform the ambassador of the current developments."
"Whom do you speak of?" Safaa stopped mid-action. Cerwan's head flitted between the two.
"Why, the ambassador of course; Izuru Numerial."
A hand on Izuru Numerial's shoulder roused her from her slumber. Her fingers found the worn stub pistol tucked in her belt and tightened around it, drawing, removing the safety, and aiming it.
"Peace! Peace, my lady!" A Healer shrunk away from the aimed weapon in alarm.
"Where am I?" Izuru's tongue clung to the roof of her mouth. Her head throbbed from dehydration.
"The frigate Grace of The Mother, Madam Ambassador." The Healer's lip quivered. "Your—your hand…"
Izuru lowered the pistol and shrugged her right sleeve back across her wrist. Crystalline trails ran
down her arm from the wound in her neck. The crude self-treatment had not been enough to prevent the gash from reopening. Izuru touched the dirty bandage underneath her chin. Her fingers came away sticky. "Kaela…"
Keladi, Anon, Martti, Larn.
"With your permission?" The Healer knelt and made to touch Izuru's arm.
"The human?" Izuru brushed the Healer off and pushed herself away from the bulkhead.
"The—the operation was successful, my lady. If you will permit me? You require treatment too."
Izuru shoved the healer away. "Show me."
"Word spreads of contention between the council. Since the great Eldrad Ulthran's unexpected departure, the position of chief farseer and commander of the expeditionary force is very much in debate. Turmoil reigns, even moreso with the arrival of the delegation of Biel-Tan. Their farseer is…"
"Please! Please…" Izuru wiped the dried patches of sweat on her face, recalling the chatter between the pilots of the shuttle she and the human soldiers had flown in on. I couldn't give a damn about the petty politics and power struggles of the high council. Isha, my stomach wails for nourishment!
"Apologies, my lady. The words are in everyone's ears. It is impossible to not speak of it."
"Matters of the high council are of no concern of mine. How long was I asleep?"
"Forty-seven minutes, my lady. Please, this way."
Forty-seven minutes. I have been asleep for forty-seven minutes.
Sore ankles complained. Aching knees and wrists whined. "Mother of…" Izuru dug her fingers in to the small of her back and arched it. "…Agh."
"A bed and a change of attire has been prepared for you in the Medical Wing if you wish to rest, my lady…"
"Be silent."
Izuru trailed behind the crisply-attired Healer and caught a sniff of the clinical and sterile fatigues she wore. Disgusting. Pressing a hand on her belly, Izuru heard her stomach gurgle, the blood on her skin stuck to the blackened cameleoline robes, forcing her to peel it away from her palm little by little. Her feet ached, the muck on her body was intermixed with sweat and blood.
"Please, after you." The Healer stopped beside a curving portal set in the bulkhead, one of many at intervals down the corridor. Izuru stepped through and found herself back in the Medical Wing. The cool, clean air got up her nostrils and made the hairs tingle enough to make her sneeze.
"This way please." The healer guided Izuru through the rows of cocoons, most lost in darkness, to the centre of the unit. Unlike everywhere else it was brightly lit and bore a pallet with a small figure lying on it.
"Izuru Numerial?" A female wearing a surgical mask came around the pallet and approached.
"Yes?" Izuru shielded her eyes from the light.
"My lady, I am Alanna Yunté. This is my unit." Alanna made the sign of Ulthwé against her chest.
"Greetings." Izuru replied with the Eye. "The human lives?"
"He does." Alanna bowed her head. "In compliance with your wishes, Ambassador."
"Diagnosis?" Izuru swept past Alanna and looked down at the human lying half-embedded in the pallet's embrace. Below the bandage around his chest his ribs could be clearly seen underneath his white, hairless skin. His face was equally pale. With the dirt cleaned away he now looked little more than a child.
Poor soul. To happen to one so young. Of course, he was little more than a child. Twenty? Twenty-one? What was that it Eldar years? It reminded Izuru of Keladi Lethidia.
The memory of Keladi lying wounded and beaten clawed at Izuru's heart. She pressed a clenched fist to her mouth. Another being with its childhood stolen.
"If you require a moment, Lady Ambassador, we will retire."
"No, what is your diagnosis?"
"Shrapnel wound to the chest. We removed it. There is nothing else we can do other than wait for him to awaken." Alanna picked up the little sliver of metal between her fingers. "So insignificant."
"Nothing else?"
"Septicaemia. Blood poisoning brought on from the unclean fragment. We supplied antibiotics intravenously and cleaned him up."
"And?"
"He had a fever before but it appears to have broken."
"Gratitude, Alanna Yunté." Izuru's gaze passed around the three other Healers who had retreated a few paces out of respect. None however would meet her eye.
"Please, let introductions play out. Cerwan Sye, Safaa Tfran, and the one who brought you here is Aro Sye, Cerwan's sibling."
All three bowed their heads and made the Eye.
"I would say you have performed a great service to Ulthwé today, but that would be a lie. The truth is you worked tirelessly to save an enemy alien from near-death and there are no words I can find to express my gratitude towards you all."
"We would have operated all the same," Alanna said. "There is no racial prejudice here, unlike some we do not let battlelines decide who we take in to our house. But this will be recorded in the ledger and then will have to be reported to my superior and so forth."
"Everything you and your subordinates did was under orders, my orders. If you are held accountable, I will take full responsibility for your actions."
"Gratitude, my lady."
Izuru kept her face blank though deep down she felt a great weight fly from her shoulders.
"Will you let us treat you now? With your permission of course."
"With haste. I cannot linger here for long." Izuru perched on the edge of the table where the human lay and waited for Alanna. It took all of a second to apply self-sealant to her neck and disinfect the cut.
"This is only a temporary measure. It will wear off in a few hours," Alanna said. "If you would stay…
"I have matters to attend to, it can wait," Izuru slipped from the table and rolled her neck. "Mmm…"
"I must insist. Fatigue plagues your body."
"No. I shall return shortly." Izuru turned and made for the closest portal.
Cerwan Sye let out a great gasp and turned to his sibling. Aro, equally pale, stared at the floor. "By the Mother, she looks like death."
Izuru emerged from the portal and was instantly engulfed in the olfactory numbness caused by the saturation of breath, feet, armpits and crotches.
Blessed Asuryan! Izuru bunched up the end of her sleeve and covered her mouth. The warmth in the aft hangar bay, previously evicted of personnel and equipment, had risen alarmingly with the influx of humans. And there was nowhere to sit, so the floor was strewn with nervous cigarette butts and empty ration packets. Legs and torsos took up every square inch of space. The stench from gas, breath and sweaty bodies of so many men suffering from the poor elimination of the tight confines would have been mind-numbing had not the nostrils mercifully deadened themselves to it.
In the brightly-lit hangar, the survivors of Nemtess scrubbed the sweat from their dripping eyebrows, picked their wet shirts loose from their armpits, cursed quietly, and waited impatiently.
From her vantage point by the portal Izuru could see the activities of most of the cavernous hangar's occupants. In one place a card game had been started. In another place a human was holding a wooden object at his shoulder and was balancing it on his arm whilst working a thin stick across the four strings; a strange musical instrument. The haunting tune carried above the noise to Izuru's ears. One human was using a knife to whittle down a stick he had carried with him from Nemtess into a sharp point. He sensed the xenos eyes on him and glanced up at Izuru. For a moment he stared, Izuru saw the unbridled hatred in the human's eyes before he returned to his whittling.
How easy it is to hate. Like an infection it spreads, tainting all.
In other places little knots of humans had formed, and stood or sat talking earnestly to each other with widened, consciously focused eyes while hardly hearing what was said. A few loners meticulously checked and rechecked their service weapons and whatever equipment they had retained on their persons, or else merely sat looking at them. There was nothing else to do but wait.
In the busy hangar stuffed to bursting with humans Izuru searched for a tiny handful she had encountered on Nemtess; the human's friends. Martti—no! I care not for their names. Izuru closed her fist inside her sleeve. The sooner I am rid of anything and everything human the better.
Venom-laced remarks ghosted at Izuru on her way across to the opposite portals that lead to the frigate's stern, her presence barely tolerated if not reviled. On the first fruitless trip, Izuru wondered if she had not done it too hurriedly for there was no other place where they might be; every single human being confined to the aft hangar.
Once more descending in to the cloud of smoke and body odour, Izuru began to scrutinise the soldiers more closely, scanning each face for any familiarity. On reaching the centrepoint of the hangar she changed direction and made for the screen that separated the vacuum from the ship's interior. Suspicious eyes followed her all the way, a whispered insult here and there. Then finally her patience paid off when, across a group clustered around a shrieking stove, she saw someone she thought she recognised, the human who had approached her just after they had disembarked, claiming to be a friend of the human's.
The human in olive grey, thicker-set than Larn and taller, recognised Izuru and scrambled to his feet, prodding a sizeable human who was sleeping beside him.
"Oi, it's that stickie. Cyrano, that stickie's back."
"Beda?" mumbled the sleeping human.
"What? No, no, the stickie woman, look!" The human jerked his head at Izuru.
"Who's that?" A very young human, younger than Larn, edged back from the towering stickie, his fingers scrabbling for his Accatran carbine, the weapon comically small in his hands.
"Wasn't she from Nemtess?" A pilot in a green flightsuit awoke.
"Put it down, boy." Larn's friend tapped the boy's knee with his boot heel. "Dunno what you're dealing with there."
"It's heresy to admit a xenos in to our company."
Cyrano snorted. "Ahh, blind faith. A beautiful thing. Look where we are, boy. We are all heretics here!"
"C'mon, kid, the Stickies pulled our arses off Nemtess. Without them we'd be in a Zeke PW camp now," said the pilot.
"S'not right." The boy's carbine quivered. "Fear the xenos, hate the xenos, purge the xenos."
"That what they taught you?" Larn's friend raised an eyebrow and smirked. He leaned forwards and pressed the carbine's barrel down. "You don't bother hating the enemy when you're in just as bad a position as he is. You're not much different from him."
"Put your weapon on the deck, lad," the pilot said. "There's been enough violence today."
The boy laid his carbine on the deck and went and sat a short distance away.
"So how's James. He gonna be alright? Tell me he's gonna be alright."
"What was the matter with him anyway?" Cyrano said.
"Dunno. Sshh, let her speak."
Squatting, Izuru linked her fingers together and stared at the floor beneath her feet, silent. Then, looking up at Larn's friend she said, "your friend is unconscious but is in a stable condition."
"Hah! Aw, dunno what to say…" Larn's friend's hand shot out. Izuru lurched back and drew the stub pistol.
"Whoa! Easy, easy!"
"What? It's a handshake…"
"Handshake?" Izuru's finger left the pistol's trigger. "What is a handshake?"
"S'what you do when you want to thank someone. Aw, never mind. Thanks for sorting James out for us. Aimo." Aimo thumbed his chest. "We're all grateful…" Aimo's eyes travelled around the gathered grunts. "…Aren't we, lads?"
"B—Bravo…" Cyrano paid Izuru the briefest smile.
"Didn't think he'd pull through honestly." The pilot scratched his head, a look of wonder on his face. "He looked so sickly in the factory, like he was about to croak there and then. Never would've thought it."
"Shame Martti didn't make it."
Martti. A tingle ran up Izuru's back. So young, so full of life. What will the human do when he discovers his friend's absence?
Izuru's throat contracted. Clamping her teeth together she said, "t'was infection of the blood caused by shrapnel embedded in his chest."
"Tough sod. He don't 'alf deserve a medal after what he did on Nemtess."
"Oh, what did he do?" Cyrano edged forwards.
"Was this before I joined up with you chaps?" Leo Wind frowned.
"Yeah, afternoon before."
I remember. Izuru listened to Aimo regale the other humans with the account. Incredulous. Such an outrageous tale would be laughed at if recounted to anybody not witness.
"Wait—you're saying he held off the attack by himself? Impossible!" Leo fiddled with a zip pocket on his trouserleg.
"Yeah well… like I said didn't actually see it but I guess he must've used the tank's fifty-cal and directed the artillery at the same time. Cyrano, it's boiling."
"…That is quite remarkable." Cyrano turned off the gas and lifted the mess tin off the stove.
"Yeah." Aimo caught Izuru's eye. "But thing is, he was out there on his own for a whole hour. An entire bloody hour."
"Unbelievable."
"Sheer fantasy."
"Uh-huh, there it is. No-one's gonna believe him because only he was there." Aimo rested his head in his hand and sighed. "Nemtess. What the hell went wrong?"
"Why?"
"Uh?" Aimo looked up at Izuru, his brows arching.
"Why—why do it?"
"Hah!" Aimo plugged one nostril and sniffed loudly. "He wasn't what you was expecting, was he? Rude bastard, first of all. Agh! What am I saying? He's a fullscrew, innee? Just one step down from being a proper wanker."
"AIMO!" Cyrano's boot knocked against the mess tin.
"Careful—OW!" Aimo righted the mess tin. Tea spilled over his hands.
"Aimo…" The pilot tapped Aimo's knee. "That's wrong."
"So, say sorry to the lady." Cyrano glowered down at Aimo.
"She's not a lady, she's a xenos."
"Okay…" Cyrano bulled at Aimo and got his arm around his neck, burying Aimo's face the folds of his quilted jacket. "Hrgh, you listening? This xenos bore your friend on her shoulders off that planet. Now if that doesn't make her a lady, then what does?"
"Alright. Sorry."
"Sorry, what?"
"Sorry, xenos."
"No…"
"What? I don't know her name!"
"Izuru Numerial."
"There. Now say sorry to Lady Numerial."
"I'm sorry, Lady Numerial."
"Good." Cyrano let go of Aimo. "Fancy a brew-up?"
"So, can we see James now or what?"
"Impossible. You will return this to the human and say nothing of my involvement." Izuru laid the stub pistol in front of Cyrano. "Say nothing."
"Thank you." Cyrano slid the weapon over. "Gratitude, lady."
"Well, you tell us the moment he wakes up, else we're gonna be having words."
Izuru rose and straightened her robes. "You will be informed the moment your comrade awakens."
On the journey back up to the portal Izuru recognised two more humans, only one of whom she remembered by name. Without their bone-dome helmets, they looked very different.
Rinek.
The tank man sat with his sole remaining crewman away from the other humans. Neither looked up at Izuru when she passed. Bomb was his. The tingle started again. Another piece of the puzzle. Poor souls. Izuru covered her quivering mouth and retreated through the portal.
Safaa Tfran heard the return of the ranger as she was removing the protective shroud from the human's cocoon. Safaa's ears pricked up, hearing words exchanged between Izuru and Alanna.
"I will not be remaining here for long. I am due to return to the fleet," Izuru said. "I have one request…"
"My lady, what troubles you?"
Izuru's eyes fixed on shock of white-blonde hair that had fallen free of Safaa's cap. "…All is well. I shall be departing shortly."
"You were about to make a request…" Alanna's eyes flickered down to Izuru's hand, halted mid-action and now balled in a fist.
"Once the human has awoken, make it known to his comrades."
"Of course, my lady."
"Look for a large man with a white fur cap, such a being will not elude you."
"By your word. On your return to the fleet, I recommend you seek treatment for your neck lest it turn infectious."
"Yes."
"You are also currently under a great deal of stress, are dehydrated and malnourished, not to mention carrying Isha knows what from contact with the humans…"
"Yes! The human?"
"He is still under at the moment."
Safaa kept half an ear on the conversation as she oversaw the young human. She was taken aback by the frail figure despite being familiar with human physique and well aware of their short stature. This one however was underweight, underheight, and scarcely more than a child. Safaa lifted his arm and prepared to inject more antibiotics into his system. "His fate is in the hands of the gods now."
"The gods? You jest, Safaa!"
"No, Asuryan forbid! They would not like that very much." Safaa cleared her throat.
"When will he awaken?" Izuru hovered around the table.
"A day, a month, a year. The human will awaken when he is ready, Lady Ambassador."
"No matter, I must go now. Your service has been noted."
Safaa listened to the Ranger's departure and glanced back at Alanna.
A curious being, not a little unnerving being in her presence.
Remarkable her concern for the humans, Alanna said.
"Yes," Safaa said aloud. "Some courtesy would have been nice." Safaa removed the needle and put it aside. "What will you be eating this evening?"
The human's eyes snapped open. Sitting bolt upright, the human screamed in Safaa's face, mouth agape, eyes bulging. Safaa screamed back.
Izuru tore back through the rows of cocoons. Alanna scrambled in the opposite direction. Tumbling out of the cocoon, the human flung himself onto Safaa. They crashed backwards in to a pallet holding medical instruments. These went flying, clattering on the floor around the struggling pair. "MARTTI!" The human's searching hand found a scalpel. "MARTTI!"
Izuru flung herself forwards. The human stabbed Safaa in the side of her neck. Blood crystals burst from the wound spraying them both. Putting all her weight behind her swing, Izuru's fist connected with the human's skull but not before the scalpel had struck again. The human's head whipped around, blood and a single tooth flying from his mouth.
Shoving the human away from Safaa, Izuru pressed both her hands down on the wound.
"Your assistance please!" Blood leaked from through her fingers and spread across the floor. Aro and Cerwan Sye found Izuru with her hands clamped down on Safaa's neck. "With haste, Healers!" Both rushed to fetch the sealant.
"Watch your hands!" Cerwan took the sealant to the wound, the foam instantly quenching the flow.
"Is she breathing?"
"Safaa?" Izuru put an ear down to Safaa's mouth. The Healer's eyes had rolled upwards and the colour had leaked from her face.
"Get her a mask!"
Taking Safaa's arms and legs, the Healers hoisted her up into a vacant cocoon. Izuru was left kneeling in a small pool of blood beside the unconscious human.
"Where is Alanna? Where is she?!"
"He did this! We should never have operated on him, the human pestilence!"
Running footsteps filled Izuru's ears. Alanna had returned with two armed Guardians.
"There." she pointed down at the human. "Take him."
"No one touches him." Blood, crystalline and liquid, covered Izuru's hands.
"He assaulted one of our own!"
"Alanna, Safaa needs treatment now!"
"He tried to kill her!"
"No one touches him."
"Alanna, please!"
"He will die."
"NO ONE TOUCHES HIM!" Izuru's booming voice rang throughout the wing, cowing everyone into silence. Izuru exhaled and stuck her hands in to a basin. In the reflection above her, neither Healer nor warrior moved.
Why, human, why? Izuru worked underneath the jagged ends of her fingernails. If she awoke in an unfamiliar environment and came face to face with a strange alien she would have tried to fight it too.
With the blood washed away, Izuru sought out the Healers all of whom were gathered around the sedated Safaa. The human had also been drugged heavily and strapped down.
"The artery was severed," Alanna said. "We clamped it."
Neither Aro nor Cerwan spoke, both their faces were stone-white. Izuru watched Safaa's chest rise and fall slowly before going over to the pallet the human was fastened down on. Unconscious, I hope. Izuru clenched and unclenched her left hand. The skin on three of her knuckles had broken. Nothing broken, I hope. You too, human.
"Diagnosis, Alanna."
"Safaa will live."
"For him."
The reluctant diagnosis Alanna provided said otherwise. She added that a paralysis drug had ben injected in to his system stalling his muscles at least for as long as he was in the Medical Wing. Further risks would not be taken Alanna stated. Any other incident would be met with dire consequences.
Light broke through the water's surface. Opening my eyes a crack, bright light filtered in. Through a white curtain a dark shadow towered over me, its face invisible. The shadow paused and tilted its head downwards. Unable to form a reply, I watched the shadow glide away.
For a long time, I lay paralysed and helpless. A pale, blond face kept presenting itself before my eyes, every time making me shudder. She would not leave me alone.
Xenos were around me, two females speaking in low, rapid tones. Dim shadows above me. A shiver in my cold muscles and my arm shook. A fingertip twitched.
The covers flapped back. Bright lights shone in my eyes. One by one, the restraints around my arms and legs were removed, all the while my befuddled senses struggled to comprehend what was going on.
"Get dressed!" A xenos growled, tossing my crumpled shirt and jacket at me. "Get dressed!"
The crumpled uniform hit a bandage wrapped around my chest. "Martti?" I held my hand over my eyes.
"Get dressed!"
Four very tall and heavily armoured xenos warriors surrounded me, lasguns held against their chests. Corsairs? One of them shifted and the light glinted on the dome of its helmet, revealing a bone-white colour. One indicated I was to fall in behind it. With no other options, I tugged on my trousers, picked up my shirt and jacket, and followed the xenos.
All of the warriors were silent, inhumanly slim underneath their armour and frighteningly tall, each one stood two feet taller than I. Two marched in front of me, two marched behind.
A spindly arm flung across me when we reached what appeared to be an accessway, only it was comprised of a shimmering blue. Touching the gateway with pointed fingers, the xenos in front of me placed its other hand on my shoulder and pushed me at the portal.
A wave of heat rolled over me, stinging my eyes. Strewn before me in a massive open area were men, both Guard and the navy, taking up every metre of space the floor offered. In the distance, at both ends, were barriers. Questions poured into my head, none of which I could find any reasonable answer for as I wobbled down the wide steps to the floor. No-one paid me any attention. Life went on amongst the card games, brew-ups and the occasional scuffle. I no longer seemed to exist in their world.
A hand slapped my shoulder. I flinched and sidled away from the grunt. His mouth moved, silent words coming from around the lit cigarette he had clamped between his lips. Another soldier clapped me on the shoulder and said something. I heard none of it. A few more strangers greeted me in the same manner or curtly acknowledged my presence.
Someone I did know clasped my hand in both of his. A bearded face aged by combat smiled. Otto Rinek, beside him Fil Ozymandias. All I could do was nod several times. Dazed, I carried on.
Aimo Garst, bustling through grunts, thrust a mug of tea at me. Cyrano Semirechye pushed Aimo aside and threw his arms around me. My feet left the floor. A navy man in a green flightsuit nodded and said something. A baby-faced rear-echelon snot in clean OGs stared up at me in awe. Smiles vanished when I asked the question. Heads dropped and eyes refused to meet mine. "Well, where's Martti?"
Word spread. No-one spoke, no-one ever did but word got out anyway. Out of the remaining members of Nerian 3rd Division's General Headquarters Captain Pace Glowna was the first to dismiss it as myth. His dismissal was supported by Major Lew Lomas and the two colonels, Creel and Zandyke, on Brigadier General Gullbrand's staff. Only the general himself was of a different mind and insisted he seek out the soldier to ascertain the fact from the fiction. He chose Major Lomas to accompany him as well as Captain Glowna, only the latter having any idea what the mysterious soldier looked like.
"Corporal Larn?" General Gullbrand stopped by a fancily-attired thug of a man with a fierce beard.
"…Oh, sir." The giant leapt to his feet and threw a clumsy salute despite his cover lying on the deck.
"Sir, this man is of the Atreides Cavalry Brigade," Major Lomas said.
"Horsemen?"
"Yes, sir."
"Corporal Larn?" General Gullbrand turned to a handsome, blond-haired chap in a green flight suit.
"Begging your pardon, General, that man is a naval officer."
"Oh, oh yes."
"If I may, sir…" Captain Glowna spoke. "Corporal Larn was in Colonel Gausser's battalion."
"1 Neria?"
"Yes, sir. Him."
General Gullbrand followed Captain Glowna's outstretched finger. It pointed to a very young man in OG and no footwear to speak of who sat cross-legged away from the others.
"Him?"
"Yes, sir."
"Him?" Major Lomas sneered, "Captain, I can assure this is not in the least bit amusing…"
"Major, I assure you that is the man. I can name him by sight."
"Man? Nothing more than a boy," Major Lomas muttered.
At the general's approach, the lad's reaction was not to fall over himself like the cavalryman had but to stare away in to space.
"On your feet, soldier," Major Lomas growled.
"As you were, soldier." General Gullbrand knelt. "Are you Corporal Larn?"
The lad blinked and nodded once.
"You answer the general as general, sir, soldier!"
"Thank you, Major. I'll have a moment here with the corporal."
"Yes, sir." Major Lomas stepped back and departed, shouting at grunts to get out of his way.
"Corporal Larn, were you in command of C-for-Cain the day before Vinstra fell?"
"Delta, sir. We wasted our own men."
"Word has reached my ears of certain incidents that occurred during the defence of the city, certain fantastical rumours which I would very much like to believe. If it is true, Corporal, then I will need a full after-action report from you. You are the only surviving NCO in C-for-Cain and D-for-Delta."
"Pardon me, General," said Captain Glowna. "Corporal Larn's company commander."
"Captain Kaukasios. Where was he during the fighting?"
Larn wore an odd faraway look with his mouth slightly open.
"You're speaking to a general, son," Captain Glowna said gently.
"Kaukasios was a coward, sir."
General Gullbrand sighed and scratched the wisps of hair covering his head. "Then it seems the general and the corporal are of the same mind. I was suspicious of Max Kaukasios's presence in the division. Part of a doctored plot to win prestige and ascend the political ladder." Gullbrand rocked backwards and forwards on his heels. "You have done more than any soldier or sailor could have done in the service of the Emperor, for that I thank you. We will shortly be holding a memorial to remember those that fell during the Nemesis Campaign."
The general straightened up and took his beret out from his shoulder strap. Half-turning, he looked pityingly down at the red-eyed youth. "We won't start it without you."
No music was played, no hymns were sung, all was silent in the hangar. The memorial was a crude construct supported by a pile of empty ammunition boxes and storage crates. Bits of paper with names and unit designations sat atop it. Pictures of fallen or missing servicemen had been tacked or simply placed around it. Their names were also on the board. In a short time, the entire surface was covered in writing, there were even a few flowers taken from emperor-knows-where arranged on or around the memorial.
In the regimental chaplain's absence General Gullbrand addressed the gathered ranks of men and women from a makeshift altar draped in a charred rain-cape. When he spoke it was without emotion. He was not a good speaker and disliked being before large crowds, but he felt it his duty to address his soldiers, to honour both their sacrifices and those that fell in the heat of battle. That there were no bodies to send home to families was a bitter knife to the gut, and everybody had lost somebody down there, even Gullbrand himself. Taking off his beret, Gullbrand waited for the rustle and clatter of soft and hard covers being removed to die away before resuming. To finish he chose a fragment of an ancient script different from the usual poetry about sacred duty to the divine Emperor and devoid of any enmity towards xenos or heretics. Gullbrand knew it was not a whole piece, only a fragment of what it had been, and like with the fallen it would be forgotten. Only he and those that lived would remember them.
"They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old. Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun in the morning, we will remember them."
Gullbrand bowed his head, across the crowd men and women closed their eyes. Some wept and some made the sign of the aquila. Many mourned in silence. Aimo Garst, standing in the front row alongside James glanced at him. In that second he swore the lad was crying, yet no tears fell.