Chapter 20

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Close people are the most annoying. A stranger can be unpleasant, harmful, dangerous - anything. However, it is only those who are near, at arm's length, and closer that truly infuriates. Inquisitor Schmettau had pondered this paradox on more than one occasion, having been forced to tolerate the Pale's company. Yes, Essen was useful, efficient, comfortable, after all. And yet...

Annoying! Especially since the inquisitor's back hurt again, so much so that mild anesthetics did not help, and strong drugs Schmettau postponed for the time being, intending to maintain a crystal clear view of the situation. Kalkroit habitually put on a mask of bored indifference and prepared to listen to another batch of 'nothing' from the executive, though not shining with imagination assistant. And then asked him caustically what vicious demon had possessed Essen to waste time and resources on a voyage from planet to ship (and with a view to his imminent return) without newsworthy of attention. He must say, at first the faithful confidant went strictly in line with expectations, but then he twisted the report in an unexpected direction.

"So... and what is it?" The inquisitor asked. He already had a rough idea of what it was about, but now he was waiting for a detailed explanation.

"The expenses of the extensive and complex bureaucratic paperwork," Essen explained pompously. "The fact is that the manifestations of... uh... hostile manifestations are recorded by several departments at once. And they have reflected in the reports accordingly."

"Manifestations are manifesting," muttered Schmettau. "Of course, they are. And?.."

"I started checking all the planetary reporting forms."

"So-o-o-o," stretched out Schmettau. "Next."

Now the inquisitor was interested. Yes, Pale's imagination was very, very poor, but his inhuman stubbornness and head-on pressure often yielded results, as if no more effective than cunning analytical combinations.

"Law enforcement officers tend to keep their documents secret, to withhold information for reasons of investigative secrecy and inter-corporate rivalry. But I discovered that there is an agency that also reports regularly on matters of interest to us, and its reports are the most comprehensive and up-to-date."

"The power supply system," Schmettau thought aloud, looking at the thick folder Essen had delivered from Beacon. A poor, hastily made copy, printed on old hardware and recycled paper. But a lot and fast. Looks like Essen managed to pull quarterly, annual and special reports for a hundred years or so.

"Yes, sir. Since Beacon is a planet of strategic importance, its power supply is managed centralized, and planned. All sources, transmission lines, and reserve capacities are inventoried, accounted for, and written into mobilization plans. If an insidious enemy were to strike..."

"...planetary defense will wipe their asses with these plans and begin heroically overcoming. As usual," Kalkroit continued for him. "Next."

Even the inquisitor's back stopped hurting, the inquisitor had already understood in general terms, where the assistant was leading, and a predatory flame of excitement lit up in his soul.

"Accordingly, any unscheduled outages, accidents, and other malfunctions are always investigated and summarized in regular reporting forms. However, since electricity is hardly relevant to departmental struggles and investigations by authorized agencies, the usual rules of secrecy apply to the document flow."

"So minimal censorship?" The inquisitor straightened up, disregarding the prick of pain. Kalkroit was too curious.

"That's right," Essen showed appropriate deference and admiration for his patron's intelligence.

"And as a result?"

Essen unfolded the very first sheet in the monumental folder with a majestic look. It was of very thick paper, more like thin cardboard, and folded several times. Essen unfolded the very first sheet in the monumental folder with a majestic look. It was of very thick paper, more like thin cardboard, and folded several times.

"Well, well," muttered Schmettau with an uncertain intonation, squinting myopically.

From an outsider's point of view, the text was unreadable, representing something like a summary metric, some were printed by a portable typewriter-stamp, some were handwritten (although quite legible), the illustrating diagrams were also mostly drawn. However, Schmettau had worked with documents for many, many years, and was used to analyzing, 'covering' the text with his eyes, immediately picking out the key points.

"So," said the Inquisitor softly. "So... Is this as of...?"

"Three o'clock in the morning, today's twenty-four hours. I went to you, sir, as soon as I received it. The report is traditionally made at the moment of minimum load on the planetary system.

Although this is rather arbitrary, the power is mostly consumed by the factories, the spaceport, and the astropaths, and their rate fluctuates only slightly."

"Interesting," summed up the inquisitor. "Very interesting. So we can safely add new data to our graph. And, from what I see, the attenuation of chaotic disturbances does not correlate with the energy problems of the Ice Port."

"The lines are roughly the same..." the assistant pointed out. "Up to this point."

"Yes, and then they diverge... Chaotic manifestation drops to insignificant values, but the problems of energy networks, on the contrary, multiply with clearly visible progression... And now suddenly there is a spurt in both directions. Very interesting! Do you know what it's like?"

"No," Essen said. In fact, he had a hunch, but that's not what was required of the assistant at the moment.

"It was as if someone was stealing energy for something..." thoughtfully, with long pauses, the inquisitor pondered aloud. "Or they were performing some... action, the side effect of which was the problem of energy. After all, as my teacher used to say, in every socket there is a demon. And then, for some reason, we stopped seeing the process... perhaps it was well camouflaged, or perhaps it had entered a stage of concentration, like a fighter's before a decisive blow."

"The drop of chaotic perversions?"

"Exactly. But it was not possible to disguise the theft of energy. Or, if the second version is true, it failed to isolate the side effects... Although we now miraculously saw some connection. Maybe the mysterious 'they' didn't notice it either, that's why they didn't hide it."

"Perhaps the processes are not related," Essen suggested honestly. "You can always find some kind of correlation in a multitude of variables."

"Yes," Kalkroit agreed. "We can. But it's a string. It's like a string from a bell that invites us to pull it."

"We can pull it," Essen suggested. "Parallel investigations are neither encouraged nor forbidden. It's a question of the outcome."

"Yes, we can," agreed Schmettau. "The question is, do we need it? More specifically, do we need it now?"

"Before, you didn't reject this kind of..." Essen hesitated, unable to find the right word.

"My friend," Schmettau tapped his fingers on a large sheet of paper. "Before, we were investigating, and, accordingly, we were either hindered or assisted. Both directions implied active assistance. In the first case, it was necessary to cooperate, in the second to help the opponents stumble. But now the situation is different, we stand apart from other people's operations, in which we are interested solely on general grounds, as the Emperor's faithful guards. As inquisitors, we must intervene and help. On the one hand. As inquisitors, on the other hand, we must weigh the consequences of such an intervention. On the other hand. To publicize the fact that the energy map of the planet in dynamics gives an accurate reflection of all accounted manifestations of hostile forces? And no one even thought that it lies practically in the public domain, among the typical reports of the Beacon's utilities? That is, while Inquisition investigators and Arbitrators were scheming, hiding information, and vying for influence, the average energy clerk could know more than the elected guards of the Imperium put together. And with whom would he share this information? Were you the first person to get into this archive? And who, personally, was responsible for it?"

Essen smoothed the hair on his carefully brushed wig. He nodded silently, admitting that he hadn't thought about the obvious things and questions. The inquisitor, weary from his unusually long monologue, leaned back again, relieving his aching lower back, and finished his thought:

"That is why it is worthwhile to deal with the problem. But what to do and how to do it, so as to serve the common good and not to multiply the ranks of ill-wishers... That's the question. Eh..."

Schmettau sighed sincerely and heavily.

"Eh, if service to the Emperor and to humanity could be purged of the imperfections of human nature. Without intrigue, without struggle. A pure, distilled consequence, where only truth and just retribution matter..."

Pale sighed, too, just in case, showing the solidarity of grief.

"By the way, it occurred to me," Schmettau finished a moment of sadness about human imperfection and went back to work. "Surely there must be some kind of geological exploration here?"

"Yes, I think so," answered a slightly confused Essen, but immediately picked up the thread of thought. "Seismic sensors?"

"Yes. There probably aren't many, the Port is very old and stopped shaking a long time ago. But there must be. If the reports of the power engineers lie so freely here, maybe the geologists will share something interesting, too...?"

Schmettau's gaze suddenly trembled and faded into a haze. The Inquisitor bowed his head and brought his fingers to his ear in an unconscious motion that gave off a hidden speaker. For a quarter of a minute Calcroyd listened in silence, then just as silently flicked the lever on the cabin's control panel. The white curtain covering the porthole thinned lost color, then disappeared altogether. In the huge circle, the Beacon was visible. The planet occupied three-quarters of the view, shifting quietly in step with the ship's rotation. Night reigned below so that one could see the extent of the Ice Port's power. The yellowish-orange lights scattered in thin strings, forming a sparse web with occasional nodes of more or less large centers. The picture demonstrated that the Lighthouse was quite developed and civilized, but it did not stand up to any comparison with the Forges or the big beehives, where night and day sides were almost indistinguishable.

"What's going on?" Essen looked at the master's slumped shoulders, appreciated the attentive tilt of his head, and realized that now the inquisitor had better ask a leading question.

Schmettau raised two fingers in a gesture of silence and said: "Something incomprehensible is going on..."

* * *

While Olga was chatting with Wakrufmann, a new locomotive was brought up to the 'Radial', apparently for maneuvering while the regular one was undergoing routine maintenance. The locomotive looked more like a railroad car, only very large - a wide platform, on which a similarly giant cylinder with rivets, valves, dials, and other machinery was suspended. It had no walls or roof, only a tarpaulin to protect it from wind and snow. The structure was asymmetrical, with a cylinder taking up the entire left side of the train, and a smoky chimney sticking out from the top. A locomotive seemed to be a steam locomotive; at any rate, there was a wagon or carriage, filled to the top with black gravel. Gray-white smoke billowed from the chimney, and several scrawny servitors wandered along with the cylinder with shovels and wrenches.

As evening approached, life on the train, and in the whole neighborhood, faltered by itself, as if it were stuck in syrup. A wistful apathy seemed to bend even the unyielding, the mentor and the monk. The afternoon's training had gone so well that they might as well have been wandering around the parade ground, and the strange thing was that no one got punched in the face for it. Bertha only waved her hand sorrowfully, ran everybody in circles, and promised a full marathon across the tundra tomorrow in full gear, and without transport, those who lagged froze. In general, there was no comparison with the hellish exercises of the recent past, when they exercised on the roof, and on the move. At the same time, the sluggish and general laziness seemed hardly more excruciating than the brutal training. There everything was simple and clear: the pain in the muscles, frostbitten face, stone fatigue, an honest, well-deserved rest with plenty of food. And now... not life, not death, but some viscous purgatory.

However, one could not say that life was so hopeless for Olga. There were two bright moments in it. The first, of course, was the new glasses. The field of view was strange - black and white, with three distinguishable zones, a circle in the center gave an almost undistorted picture, then there was a wide band of gray, and finally, almost black periphery, where only the contours of objects were distinguished. But still, the glasses worked, and worked well, at least, much better than the prosthesis. The Driver attached a wide band to the temples so that the frames would be secured to the back of her head without the risk of falling off her nose.

Bertha, Driver, and Kryp were very interested in the new thing, or rather more interested than the others. Bertha and Driver were clearly delighted, asking Olga at length about the techno-girl. Judging by their tone, 'Radial' was very lucky to get a real mechanikum (or mechanikus, the girl did not understand) at least for a while.

At first, Olga thought that serving the Machine was a figure of speech, but now she realized that no, it was real faith. It is amazing, however, that seemingly grown-up people sincerely believed that in every mechanism there is a real spirit, which actually drives the machine. Therefore it is not enough just to screw in the necessary and unscrew the superfluous, it is necessary to do it correctly, with a proper ritual and obligatory prayer. And reassembly of the engine was not an end in itself for the Driver, but a way to cheer up the machine spirit, to make it happier and, as a consequence, more capable of working.

What savages...

Or is it? The glasses are there, they work. And Olga had already seen for herself that demons existed. After the conversation with Berta and Driver, the girl began to look suspiciously at any mechanism, trying to understand if there really was a house spirit inside.

Maybe leave a cube of saccharin next to the glasses at night?

Fidus's interest in the priestess was also very practical. Though the Luct was solidly built, with a good margin, it still, like any machine, required regular maintenance. Naturally, the demoted inquisitor wanted to maintain the servitor in a good repair shop but assumed that the priestess could easily refuse. Still, the half-robot was not a train property. Olga thought Wakrufmann could handle it but vindictively suggested that Fidus go make the arrangements himself.

The pre-dinner prayer was also uneventful, and the priest, who usually lights hearts, muttered mumbled mundane stamps and seemed to be very nervous about not being able to get anything more energetic out of himself. Instead of munching on their usual fast and plentiful, purificators sluggishly mashed the rich porridge onto iron plates.

Savlar and Demetrius got into a small fight. Neither of them could explain later what had caused it. Bertha gave each of them a bruise, symmetrically, to the orderly under the left eye, to the noseless one under the right eye, and the incident was over. Olga waited for the Priest to drop by again with a new lecture on the world order, but he did not show up. The Sinner banged his head against the wall in the red corner for a long time, and then simply cried; there was no point in asking him about the reasons for such sorrow, for obvious reasons.

Fidus wandered in for a while and tried to make the neighbor talk, approving the new eye, but it looked forced and stilted, like a useless chore. It was like the whole of the past day. Olga and Kryp sat for a while, suffering from mutual awkwardness, then Fidus muttered something about taking care of Luct and went back to his room, curtaining the compartment tightly.

Here the novice Olga had a great time with culture, having been hooked on 'Knights' almost till late dawn, having slept for a couple of hours at most before her morning wake-up. To Olga's good fortune, the next day almost minutely repeated the previous one, only passed even more sluggish and dull. As darkness fell, the symptoms that had previously been banished-unaccountable fear and constant chills crept up. In the shadows, the burning grin of Smoker seemed to appear. Olga was afraid to even cough, any sudden movement sent cold claws through her joints. Anxiety gathered little by little, like thickened syrup in a pot, reminiscent of Satan's house, painted with ultraviolet ink. A distant, hopeless wailing sounded in my ears and it seemed that somewhere in the distance an unhappy and mad novice was crying out, 'Baby! Baby!!!!

Going to the infirmary for some pills made no sense; all train medicine was designed for rough and functional surgery. Nonsense like anxious moods and headaches amounted to attempted desertion, and insomnia would surely be considered a symptom of laziness, a sign of bad training of the purificator. Olga scrolled through a few more episodes of 'Zuen' and then decided that she needed to repeat the already proven remedy. Besides, the girl had accumulated questions about the series.

Before she knocked on Bertha's door, Olga wanted to cross herself discreetly, but her hands folded themselves into an aquila, so affected by the hundreds, maybe thousands of mechanical repetitions that quickly form a habit.

"What?" Bertha barked unfriendly, and the girl thought she saw her mentor quickly hide something small and rectangular in her pocket, like a photo card or, in local parlance, a 'piсt'. The menacing growl made the girl feel like a little dog who was about to puddle in a pool."

Despite the harsh start, the negotiations took a few minutes and ended surprisingly easily. Olga modestly asked permission to go to the third wagon again to put in a good word with the tech-priestess about the servitor and the tank. Bertha agreed at once, however, sternly warning her to return before the siren. That was all, really.

Quickly putting on her sweater, Olga tormented herself with the question - what was the picture of her mentor? Clearly personal and important. Picts with the divine face of the Emperor don't hide like that. Maybe, the angry woman has some family or even a comrade? Or maybe someone more intimate...?

The enthusiasm and slight shaking as she talked to the commander even made her forget about the voices in her head for a while. Those, however, did not wait long and returned under the open sky, in the cold breeze. Olga noticed that the lamps and lanterns were blinking strangely as if there were power outages in the neighborhood, weak but noticeable.

* * *

"There!" The inquisitor's short thick finger pointed to a certain point where, from Essen's point of view, nothing was happening. And... nothing again. The assistant was about to ask a leading question, but then it began.

In the scattering of yellowish lights, one flickered, so faintly that Essen thought, no, it was an illusion. Too much work and not enough sleep. For a moment the thought flashed through the assistant's unimaginative head that the elderly inquisitor had entered that age when honored grandfathers begin to go crazy, their eccentricity turning into foolishness and crankiness.

But then the orange-red dot flashed again. And went out.

"The Emperor's Wrath," Kalkroit whispered, clenching his fists.

And another dot blinked, flickered like a candle flickering in the wind, then disappeared. Then a third. A fourth. The black spot slowly and inexorably spread away from the center of the capital, like a grave blot.

"What is this..." whispered Essen. He had already served his patron for many years and had seen a lot, but this was the first time the picture of the disaster was so large, so rapidly evolving.

"I think the process has entered a stage where it needs more energy," the Inquisitor suggested with murderous equanimity. "Or there's been a blow-up in the center of the capital, a reaction that's been going around in circles."

"A blow up." Kalkroit said with such an expression that it was immediately clear the inquisitor was not referring to an explosion.

"Sir!" Essen exclaimed. "We must...!"

"Don't," Kalkroit raised his hand imperiously and held his palm out against the edge of his hand. "Once again the Emperor calls us to service and exploit, and we will, of course, obey the call. But let us hasten slowly."

"But..." Pale hesitated, remembering his place and his duties. The master is intelligent and experienced, he knows better than to say that if he says not to rush into something, then there is no need to rush into it.

"Now our intervention will multiply the confusion without demonstrable benefit," Kalkroit explained nonetheless. The Inquisitor spoke smoothly, very calmly as if he were watching a tape recording rather than witnessing a picture of some terrible calamity. "And it will harm."

"...?"

"Sabotage, or a side effect of the ritual, or something else, either way, we are not facing the improvisation of a lone sorcerer or a subversive group of xenos. The Guardians of the Beacon have missed a well-organized cult, perhaps a community of cults or a powerful Tau network, or maybe even the Eldar. The local Inquisition is now plunged into a puddle of epic proportions. No need to rush to jump in with them for company. Not to mention that victory comes from acting wisely in the execution of a good plan. And a good plan requires an understanding of what is going on. So let's be quiet and observe to get to the bottom of things. Let's wait to be asked for help. And then we'll show up fully armed to save the day. So first, bring up the entire radio intercept team. Also... yes, tell the captain to adjust the orbit. I want us to get as close to 'Radial' number twelve as possible."

"But, sir..." took the risk of noticing Essen. "Can we expect Kriptman to be so quickly involved in the investigation...?"

"Eh, my friend..." the old inquisitor sighed heavily. "It's hard to communicate with you sometimes... You are like a tank, you break everything strictly on the way and are blind to what is not visible in the triplex. Naturally, Fidus will not be involved, most likely he will not be remembered, at least at first, and then it will be too late and useless. The question is..."

The Inquisitor's finger pointed at the ink stain, which continued to expand, slowly and unstoppable.

"As I told you not so long ago, Kryptman Jr. has a unique ability to get into trouble. And with him that strange girl... Two people attracting trouble like a good fight attracts orcs. Let's watch from around the corner to see what Tarot cards come out for this amazing couple today. Maybe we'll find something of interest. In the meantime, wok and vox and only vox. Right now, there's an ocean of panic, terror, and confusion down there. We have to filter out this cacophony and draw, as much as possible, an objective picture of the disaster. We must do this very quickly. Let's do it!"

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