Speculum Enigmate Chapter 16
The noise grated, the boisterous barking and hooting of Mon-Keigh filling the street with ceaseless chatter. The lane was narrow and lined with booths that served hot foods. Bands of sullen Mon-Keigh gathered around, collecting fried meats and handfuls of bread rolls and chewing loudly. The light was dim and the air heavy with the scents of sweaty bodies and fried fats while the street was stained with traces of vomit and piss, evidence of the celebrations that had consumed the night.
Manaar found it thoroughly disgusting, the stench clinging to his nasal passages. How the species could live like this was a mystery, at least the Jade Citadel had aspired to nobility, in a clumsy way, but this was rank and offensive. He stepped over a slumbering drunk, only belatedly realising the man had pissed himself and walked onwards, following Inquisitor Vevara into the slums. Behind him came Eirk, Lumix and Mortula, all carrying their weapons openly. It was necessary for many eyes followed the unusual party. Even with the Sister of Silence nearby Manaar could feel them crawling all over him, the hostile inspection setting him on edge. Doubtless had they been foolish enough to enter these neighbourhoods unarmed they would be dead already, but thankfully Eirk's looming bulk and Hellgun were far better deterrents than Manaar's svelte form.
The Eldar longed for his Aspect Armour, then he could have skipped through these streets with ease but in doing so he would have set every soul against him. Crude and ignorant Mon-Keigh were conditioned to hate and fear the alien and the sight of a four-armed warrior skipping through the Warp would start a riot in the slums. So he wore his red suit, carrying a pair of laspistols openly as he stalked along. It was frustrating, especially after the encounter with the Space Marines. He had been so close to his target, but with three of them set against him he had no option but to wait for another chance. He couldn't sense the target with Mortula nearby but he had no doubt he would find his prey again, Koshano had told him it would be so.
As they walked Lumix kept his hands tucked into his sleeves and muttered, "Disgusting, I can detect faecal matter on the walls and ground."
"Welcome to the real Psacum," Eirk scoffed, "Forget those fancy palaces, the slums are where the truth of a world can be found."
Manaar could believe it, the slums were a world apart from the gleaming palaces of the rich and powerful. The buildings were shabby and dilapidated, the people malnourished and sickly, their clothes ragged and filthy. It was hard to look upon the destitute masses and accept they were of the same species as the humans he had met earlier. Yet in their eyes was a shared trait, the hungry gleam of one watching for a moment of vulnerability. Whether they were dressed in rags or fine robes the human instinct to take what another had for yourself was ingrained into their very genic code.
Mortula was glaring at the knots of men and women as they walked along, who stared back with equal hostility as she inquired, "Don't these people have jobs to go to?"
"No," answered Inquisitor Vevara, "This is the heart of the criminal-caste's enclave, their own district reserved solely for them. Everyone here is a pickpocket, beggar, mugger or whore."
Manaar was confused so asked, "They breed an entire caste of criminals, deliberately?"
Vevara replied frankly, "This culture believes if there is going to be crime on this world then it's damn well going to be organised properly. Which is why were are here."
Manaar sensed a knot of humans gathering in their wake, like a shoal of razorfins tracking a blood trace in the water. This was not some random gang of thieves, this was deliberate and focussed, a trained team of killers stalking their wake. The crowds before them began to dissipate as feebler vagrants fled from the coming bloodshed and the owners of the booths hurriedly ducked under their stalls. Manaar slid closer to the Inquisitor and whispered, "We are about to be attacked."
"Good," Vevara said, "I was waiting for this."
She paused before a feeble beggar woman, who had not fled and looked up at them with watery eyes as she pleaded, "Coins? Coins for a starving woman?"
The others spread out, facing outwards but Vevara took out a silver coin and held it up as she said, "Tell the Righteous Man he will see us."
Manaar had no idea what she was talking about but the beggar's eyes sharpened and became cunning as she said, "He don't see just anybody."
"Tell him it's an Inquisitor," Vevara stated firmly, "And if he doesn't meet me immediately I have a warship in orbit that will level ten square neighbourhoods."
To Manaar's complete surprise the woman shifted and pulled a small vox-unit from under her rear. She began chattering away in some local argot dialect, one Manaar couldn't understand. He noted though that the pack of hunters hung back, unwilling to attack while they waited for a response. Manaar leaned closer to Vevara and asked, "Is this the one Koshano told you about?"
"Hush," Vevara hissed as they waited.
After a minute a tinny squawk came over the vox and the woman looked up at them to say, "Five doors down, the blue one, he's waiting for you."
Vevara turned and marched to the indicated door, which opened before she could knock. A pale-face man waited within and directed them to enter, closing the door after them. He led them up a rickety flight of stairs, which led to a room that had no place existing among the slums. The walls were the same rotten material as everywhere else but they were hung with tapestries and paintings, and fine wooden furniture decorated the interior. Chairs and cabinets that looked like they belonged in the Jade Citadel rested comfortably next to dressers filled with off-world knickknacks and valuable antiques. Crystal decanters filled with Amasec rested on low tables and a glassic window gave a sweeping vista of the city, marred only by the fact that it looked over the slums. It was bizarre to find such wealth in the slums of the city yet Manaar's eye was drawn to a portly man, sitting in a comfortable leather chair. His hair was receding and grey, he had many chins and his gut was wide, displays of the luxury he lived in. Manaar would have thought him soft and feeble yet his arms were corded with muscle, his fists were calloused and scarred from fighting and his eyes had the look of a merciless killer. One who had fought his way to the top and kept his position with ruthless determination. The man waved the party forward and Vevara sank into a chair across from him. Everybody else hung back, Mortula most of all, her Null Aura would cast a pall of suspicion and mistrust over the meeting.
Vevara eyed the man and said, "You are the Righteous Man."
The man nodded his portly head and said, "So my followers call me and I have been expecting you."
"You have?" Vevara inquired guardedly.
"When I heard an Inquisitor was coming to Pascum I knew it would only be a matter of time until you knocked on my door."
Vevara snorted in amusement, "You think I am here for you? You overestimate your importance. You run a petty criminal syndicate on a backwater world. Smuggling drugs, blackmailing nobles, fleecing drunks in back alleyways, gambling and thieving, this does not interest the Emperor's Left Hand. You are nothing to the Inquisition: Fysc"
"Petty tricks don't impress me," Fysc retorted, "Why are you here?"
Vevara lowered her head a fraction and said, "I seek bigger quarry than you. A conspiracy is afoot on your world. A threat to Imperial rule festers here and you know where it lurks."
Fysc grinned broadly as he said, "Ah… you seek that most valuable of treasures: information. Such things can be expensive."
Vevara's eyes narrowed as she hissed, "Defy me and I will tear your enterprises down to nothing."
Fysc snorted, "You can try, but I have agents across the planet and contacts across the sector. Rooting them out will take decades, time you don't have. Why fight when what I ask for is so small?"
Vevara leaned back and asked, "What do you want?"
Fysc laced his fingers before him as he explained, "What do you know of the ways of Pascum?"
Vevara answered, "You are a genic-planned society, divided into castes. From the highest noble to the lowest beggar, each soul happy to be in his assigned place."
Fysc snorted, "So it may look from the windows of the palaces and merchant halls but let me tell you it isn't so pretty in the slums. We live in a regime that dictates our lives, telling us what we can do and cannot do and how much we can earn. It's agreeable for the nobles, merchants and spacefarers but to those of us born poor and starving it's soul-crushing, a machine designed to grind us down to nothing. Our entire society exists to make the elite richer and keep the poor out of sight, so they can't see us starving."
Eirk spoke up, "I thought your world cherished its Genic heritage."
"Blame your vaunted Imperium," Fysc snorted, "You put ideas into our heads, showing us that there were other ways to live. Worlds where a man can rise from nothing to greatness, if he is cunning and bold."
From what Manaar knew of the Imperium that was a gross exaggeration, the worlds of Men were all equally tyrannical to him, but the criminal seemed to cherish his delusions. Vevara leaned in and said, "So what do you want of me?"
"You... nothing," Fysc replied, "It's your Magos I'm interested in."
"Me?!" yelped Lumix.
"Yes," Fysc said, "I've been trying to find a tech-priest for years, to examine our implants. Look at my servant here."
The pale-faced man stepped forward and pulled up his shirt, turning to expose his spine. For the first time Manaar noted a tiny bump in the base of the spine, some form of implant. Lumix extended a mechanical hand and waved it over the implant, scanning it in some manner as he mused, "Yes indeed, a small implant embedded in the spinal column. It extends tendrils into the nervous system, manipulating hormone production just enough to prevent conception. Simple, easy to manufacture and implant: exceedingly efficient."
"Well that explains a few things," Eirk muttered, "All this talk of planned reproduction; I wondered what they did about unwanted pregnancies."
"You all carry these?" Manaar asked, "Males and females."
Fysc nodded, "Implanted at birth, it's how the Genic council controls the population, only they know how to turn them off. Legend has it they made it to keep the whores from pumping out kids, but it wasn't long before they realised it could be used to keep all the castes in line. Control, that's what it's all about, control of the common man. They want to sit in their palaces and ivory domes and decide who gets to have children, who lives and who dies. We're born criminal-caste and we die criminal-caste, there's no other option for us. I've spent my life amassing wealth, more money than most nobles can dream of, but I'll never walk among them, never be accepted by even the lowest merchant traders."
Eirk asked, "Why do the other castes put up with it?"
Fysc replied, "Because they get to look down their noses at us. Sometimes when you have next to nothing the only comfort is that there's someone even worse off. Even the undertaker-caste looks down at us. But if you can show me how to break their hold over us…"
Vevara lifted a delicate eyebrow and asked, "Lumix, can you disable it?"
Lumix replied, "A low-yield electromagnetic pulse will confound the Machine Spirit."
Fysc eagerly yelped, "Tell me how."
"Not so fast," Vevara stopped him, "First you will tell me what I want to know, then I decide if it's worth anything."
Fysc's beady eyes glared as he spat, "You play a dangerous game, I can have fifty murderers in here before you can blink."
Vevara stated icily, "And I can slit your throat before one of them sets foot through that door. Let me be clear, I don't care about you, I don't care about your syndicate or your petty crimes. Your worthless dreams are nothing to me, all the crimes you have committed in your life wouldn't even lift an eyebrow in the halls of the Inquisition. I am here to find a threat far vaster than you can imagine and I will root it out by means fair or foul. I can buy the information I need off you, or kill you and then torture your underlings until one of them gives me what I need. I honestly don't care either way, so make your choice."
Fysc stared in disbelief then broke out into a grin as he said, "Girl, I like the way you think. Yes, I have noticed mysterious goings on. My boys have seen strange movements of goods and materials into the city, growing more frequent in the last two years. Drugs, rations, guns, it's being smuggled into the undercity and then disappearing. I don't know where it ends up, every lad I send into those depths disappears, but I can point you to the place they go underground."
Vevara pursed her lips and mused, "It's a starting point, show me where it is."
Fysc leaned back and said, "My boys can guide you there, but what about my price?"
"Lumix give him an encrypted data crystal," Vevara said, "You get the decryption key when I come back alive. Just in case you're thinking of steering me into an ambush."
Fysc grabbed the proffered crystal and quipped, "Damnation, I heard you Inquisitors can read minds. Oh well, plan B it is. My lads will show you the way, no tricks I promise."
Vevara stood up, walking out with stately grace. Manaar followed her out, bemused by the exchange and he asked, "You intend to let that cockroach live?"
Vevara continued walking out the door as she explained, "An Inquisitor has to pick their targets sagely, if we investigate every petty crime we'd never stop. He is a small fish in a small pond, my target is bigger."
Manaar sighed at the Mon-Keigh's twisted thinking but gripped his pistols tight. It looked like they would be heading underground and he suspected he would be needing them. More than ever he wished for his Aspect Armour, he didn't like the prospect of venturing into the unknown armed with nothing but a pair of pistols.
