As long as Janus wasn't a repeat of Rykad Minoris, I would be happy. Unlike a Chaos uprising, a rebellion against Vyatt's rule I could deal with (and perhaps even understand, since the woman appeared to be an insufferable aristocratic good-for-nothing that got her position by plotting instead of being good at her job). Her politics explained the volume of Janus exports I had found recorded in Theodora's office — confirmed and updated by Vyatt's data — but I knew first-hand that pressuring a world to such levels, be it of Imperial tithe or just exports, could lead to such violent consequences. And Janus was pressured indeed. On the way down, I had seen a whole hemisphere taken over by the radiant circles of mega farms. The rest was made of oceans, mountains presumably too high and hostile to convert into arable land, and wide continental forests that still wouldn't be enough to sustain a biosphere in the longterm. The Imperium might be able to extract everything from a planet, destroying it in the process, and move on to the next without problem, but it had millions of such worlds where I had only the one. Janus deserved taking care of.

Whatever the state of the rest of the world, the palace gardens were lovely. The palace itself was way too luxurious, suggesting possible embezzlement, and while the assortment of terraces, ponds, topiary and flowering groves screamed of outrageous wealth, too, I couldn't bring myself to hold them scandalous. It had been a long time since I had breathed such fragrant air or marvelled at views sculpted from leaf and branch. Some sort of swallows danced in the sky. Two of the Emperor's Mercy shuttles now stood over the landing pad, one with its engines idling, and thankfully the wind carried the burnt promethium fumes the over way. The perimeter was secure.

The estate was large, and I purported a wish to recon it to justify my need for a lengthy walk. That assassination attempt had rattled me way more than I would have admitted. While it was certainly not the first time I had been shot at, I was used to impersonal wars where my uniform and allegiance were what made me the target — not me, myself. As we walked, Abelard took upon himself to teach Cassia the names of flowers and insects, and her joy shone like a beacon of gold. She had saved my life when I had been caught recharging: my sword had been in its scabbard, and I would have been reduced to using the lasgun as a club, like an ork with a grudge. Had someone taught her to use her third eye as a weapon, or had it been instinctive? She never spoke much of her education on Eurac-V. Since she could obviously defend herself, I would perhaps relax my stance on her staying aboard the ship whenever there was danger — but she was young, so young.

Older than you were when they sent you out to the battlefield, a little voice whispered inside my head. But I had trained for it. I had known what to expect — roughly. I had also had no choice in the matter. Cadet commissars fight like lions, they say; cadet commissars are a blessing upon the units that receive them; a squad of cadet commissars is a gift of the Emperor, they say. Cadet commissars, in my experience, were either dogmatic brutes with a stick up their arse and a hard-on for summary executions, or people who'd very much like to be anywhere else in the galaxy, except that would be the pointy end of the drill abbot's hammer and, well, at least the enemy might miss. No one in the Schola Progenium chooses their path. From what I gathered, I had been deemed not religious enough for the Adepta Sororitas or the Ecclesiarchy, not subtle enough for the Administratum, and not blood-thirsty enough for the Tempestus Scions. The Inquisition would have been a laughable choice, even in my eyes. So that had left the Commissariat, since I had proven fairly good at following orders without question once I had understood the alternative was a swift death.

'You are pensive, Rogue Trader.' The voice of van Calox, by my side, brought me out of my self-wallowing.

I lied. 'Merely wondering why each planet I land on lately has a minor civil war going on.'

'An unfortunate risk in the Koronus Expanse, that lacks strong reminders of the laws more civilised sectors bow to, I gather.'

'At least this time, there doesn't seem to be heresy involved. They fought like soldiers, not barmy cultists.'

'A consolation, of course.' He appeared detached as always, his profile uncaring in the pale ambient light that suffused through the fronds over our heads. My seneschal and my mutant ward had fallen back, taken with Cassia's thirst of discovery, and the pair of us ambled slowly together. What a recon team we were — tourists.

'Once we know more of whatever the hell is going on here,' I said, 'would you be willing to interrogate Vistenza Vyatt for me, should the necessity arise?' There, I had to ask.

'Of course. But I thought you found my methods, how did you put it once? Unpalatable.'

'I do. Which is more, I hate that you take pleasure in them.'

We walked a few paces in silence, gravel crunching beneath our feet. 'You're wrong: I don't', he replied evenly. 'No more than Commissars enjoy shooting down their own.'

'Some do.'

'But you never did.' His affirmation fell flat. I didn't care to dispute the truth, so I said nothing.

Hardly anyone was about, presumably scared stiff by the shooting, but we happened upon a gardener who had evidently decided that rose bushes needed to be pruned, outside events be damned. He was an old man — white hair, sun-carved skin — and gave us a hearty 'afternoon, ma'am, sir.' I saluted him back.

'Have you worked here long?'

'All me life, ma'am,' he replied. 'Is it your first time at Vyatt Estate? 'Reckon you must be one of those off-worlders that got shot at earlier.'

'That would be us, yes. The park is beyond lovely.'

At that, he beamed with pride, straightening himself. It transpired he was the head gardener; I suspect he felt it his duty to keep on working despite the unrest. When pressed, he agreed.

'Aye, so it is. What good is it to be the boss if ye're not exemplary, and those youngsters'll stay hidden away if I don't get down to work. Though we have it a bit easier on the grounds than those poor sods in the settlements outside, what with the gov'nor getting 'er tithe of warm bodies an' all.'

I shot a glance at van Calox. Janus had never traded in people, be it tithe, slavery, or population regulation. 'Is that a new thing?' I asked. 'I thought Janus was just an agri-world.'

'Ah, it's been a fair few years, methinks, ma'am. People are angry about it, don't mistake me, but when the Vyatt trucks arrive they don't leave until they're full.'

With practiced ease, van Calox inserted himself in the conversation, asking if it was recruitment for the local guard. In part, came the answer. Something was wrong with the world: more mutations, and wild animals attacking where they once had fled. Local guardsmen were kept busy — and, under van Calox's subtle needling to know who else than the guard needed recruits, the old man shut down like a clam. He all but buried himself in a bush with his shears, as if a particularly hidden branch was in urgent need of attention. When he realised we wouldn't be going anywhere, he reluctantly got out.

'I'm sorry, sir, ma'am, but I really can't tell you more. That's the gov'nor's privacy things an' she's quite particular about 'em.'

'But you want to tell us,' said van Calox. 'Otherwise you wouldn't have broached the subject.'

'Even if I wanted to, an' I'm not saying I do, I can't. Just, can't. So now would be a good time to go on with your walk. 'Ave a good day, sir, ma'am.'

By then, I was again on high alert. Had Vyatt tried to go, as one might say, rogue — were the rebels really loyalists rising against her own private militia? There was more to the situation than gubernatorial greed, there was more than unhappy workers. I had to know, preferably before meeting Vyatt's sniper.

'They didn't tell you,' I said, 'what ship the shuttle came from? They didn't tell you who came to visit?'

The old man gave me a sullen look and stayed silent. His rheumy eyes were full of defiance, so I removed my comm-bead and handed it to him, simply saying: 'I am lady von Valancius. Put this in your ear and tap it.'

As he did so, I knew Vigdis herself would answer. It was my imagination, but I thought I heard her 'lord-captain? Do you read?' A few instants passed, and he handed me back the bead. Voices drifted to us, carried by a freshening wind: Cassia's silver tones, incomprehensible, but happy — happier, perhaps, than she had ever sounded. The old man shuffled his feet and, sparing a look at me, went back to his roses. He looked at them with love, as one might look at a child, and pride, and chose the most beautiful branch: five small pink blossoms, barely open, their hearts of yellow powdery stamens half-hidden beneath petals so delicate a breath would have withered them. He cut it and, half-excusing himself, fixed it to the Aquila on my breast.

'I don't know everything,' he said. 'I'm jus' a gardener. But I see things and some things just aren't righ', an' someone ought to put a stop to it, an' if anybody can then it's Your Highness. Those people taken by the trucks, half of them they just vanish. Some, they get into experiments. The rest goes to the militia. But the others, no one knows for sure.' He took a deep breath and sheathed his scissors before wincing, as if in sudden pain. 'They go into the palace. I've seen 'em. None ever make it out. So I snooped. There's secret rooms. A whole aisle with no way in or out.'

The old man coughed, a pink froth on his lips, and fell to his knees. Van Calox rushed by his side and helped him stay upright, one hand against his back, one hand against his earth-stained apron. 'Poison,' he said.

'The gov'nor, she wants to play both sides, get rich from the crops an' serve Your Highness, an' keep forever young, with no rejuve…'

His words were cut as he started seizing. The air around us cooled as van Calox tried his best — in vain. The poison was a slow one, and painful.

'Move away from him,' I ordered, shouldering my lasgun before finding the words I had said so many times, long ago. I took two steps back. 'For all the good you did in your life, for all the fights you won, and for your steadfast faith, I grant you the Emperor's peace.' I shot the old man twice — once in the heart and once in the head — as is done to the dying on the battlefield: those no medicae can save, and who have served with honour. 'May you bathe in His light before the Golden Throne and your soul be reborn anew in His glory.'

'Ave Imperator,' said van Calox. For the mess it made, I needn't have bothered with that second shot. I slung my lasgun back on my shoulder and saluted the old man's body with the Aquila. His dark blood barely ran beside his body, the sandy alley absorbing most of it.

'No barmy cultists on Janus, you said?' added van Calox.

'I never knew his name.' A knot was in my throat. I shivered, taking a deep breath, just as Abelard and Cassia came running, alarmed by the shots.

We found, soon, Vyatt's sharpshooter, sitting cross-legged on a terrace were ferns taller than me waved in the breeze. A fountain sang; from its water grew vines that cascaded over marble and in which singing birds hid. Orange trees, precious things that were the distant descendants of groves on Terra, blossomed white and fragrant. Peace permeated the place, like a chapel of green and light. The sharpshooter's eyes opened at our approach, greener than mint, oddly shaped. She was a strange creature: mutant, had said Vyatt, but when she rose, unfolding her slender limbs with deathly grace, I knew her for what she was. I had never seen one without armour; I never knew their faces, beneath the masks, had that uncanny beauty, and for a moment I was breathless. I had seen, once, a night sphynx up close — I had been a cadet then, sent to the wild to survive or die, and the beast had passed me. It had been lithe and strong, silent and pale under the stars, walking as a ghost of some forgotten dream. I had watched, stricken by awe. The creature could have ended me with a single swipe of its claws, but it had spared me, occupied with other purposes, and the eldar now looked at me the same as I saluted her. Pale skin, pale red hair, tied up, flowing like a flag when she turned her head to me.

'Yrliet Lanaevyss greets you, elantach,' she said, her voice deep, her accent alien.

'Why do you call me elantach?' A silly question, that made no sense; not what I had come here to say. By my side, van Calox tensed. Abelard — no, being in the Navy, he would have shot at the eldar from afar, never seeing one that close, unless Theodora… No, there was no recognition in his eyes, and Cassia had only her eternally curious look, the one she had for everything and everyone new.

The eldar replied with the dispassionate patience one has for the untaught. 'It is what you are. Elantach means stranger from the darkness amidst the stars. You descended on flame-winged machines in a dark time, when the air of the planet is soaked in blood and pain. Will you be the one to bring peace to the Lilaethan?'

'You are not a mutant.'

She stared at me with her strange eyes, her expression difficult to interpret. I felt analysed, weighed, my soul bared naked to its threads; judged. What the verdict was, or even if there was one, I never knew, but when Yrliet spoke again her voice was subtly different. Unless it was the same and I pressed all the half-remembered myths about the eldar upon her, othering her, again and more.

'I have met souls like you before. You travel a path that offers you enlightenment — a rare gift among your limited kind. My soul in nothing kin to yours. Your kind call us xenos, as if we are all as one. I came here to protect the Lilaethan by assisting the governor against her enemies. Will you hear me, or be blinded to sense by your precepts?'

Memories flooded me, of a battle fought long ago, of slender warriors in colourful armour who carved through our ranks like reapers through a field. I remembered holding the line, steadying troopers' resolve, encouraging them to shoot — slapping a boy, barely tithed as I was barely commissioned, talking him from the daze that would have been his doom. When an eldar fell, another always stooped to them and, with the reverence we give our own fallen, took something from their body. It could have been dog-tags, but had felt sacred. And then, when we were about to fall, when I had been shot by something that had gone straight through my armour and into my flesh, a silent retreat had sounded. The eldar turned from us and left, and until a medicae had gotten to me, while I lay bleeding among the dead, I had wondered why. Afterwards, I had been too pumped up on painkillers to care.

'I will speak with you, Yrliet Lanaevyss,' I slowly said. 'But keep your hands where I can see them.'

'I have banished the shadow of doubt from your thoughts regarding my nature. Now you will answer my question: why have you sought me out?'

Sounding overwhelmed, van Calox exclaimed for me to be careful. I shut him up with a glance. His face was closed in distrust — his eyes narrowed in challenge, and he loosened his sword from its scabbard.

'I wished to give my thanks to the one who helped us keep the rebels at bay. Now that I see you are one of those often sworn to destroy my kin, my gratitude is renewed, but I wonder why you came to Janus in the first place and then lent your arm to the governor against the rebels.' Her speech patterns were infectious; I was falling back to the worst formality I had ever been submitted to.

'This world is in distress, the Lilaethan fighting an evil that has taken root in its very cradle.' came the answer. 'I wish to protect it from unnecessary suffering. There is much risk to this world should the ruler die.' Carefully chosen words, that felt like lip service and revealed nothing of the true intent behind.

'I am the ruler,' I said. Empty words. If to rule is to have the power to destroy then yes, they were true — if to rule is to know, to understand, to support and to help grow, I was nothing yet. 'Vistenza Vyatt I have imprisoned, under fear that her actions have allowed for the rebellion to grow and threaten the peace.'

The eldar sneered, a thin distaste spreading over her face. 'Fear. A common failing of your people. There is a malevolence here that drives your kin down the path of violence.'

This lead nowhere. Every subsequent attempt to coax information out of the eldar failed, and doing that I maybe told her too much about my misgivings about the rebellion, the governor… Despite her cryptic half-truths of answers, I felt the eldar knew more — knew it all, perhaps. And I was running out of time: van Calox was subvocalising something to Abelard on a private channel. Nothing I could hear unless I cared to override the channel, but their stance — the readiness of their fighter's balance — left very little to the imagination as to their project for the next few minutes. The eldar may not have carried visible weapons for the time being, her sniper rifle presumably stowed somewhere, but I remembered the knifes that had felled my soldiers.

'I have heard rumours, of prisoners being delivered to the rear doors under cover of darkness. Would you, as the governor's helpmate, know if anything evil is afoot?'

'I witnessed this, true, but what became of them I know not. And it is not my concern what you humans do to your fellows. As for evil, it is indeed afoot, deep in the jungles where the Lilaethan struggles for her life.'

'Stand down immediately,' I ordered. Abelard, more used to obedience, fell back at once, his hammer cluttering his hand, but I only had a split second to draw my own sword and block van Calox's strike. The buzz of his power blade made my own tremble, and I steadied my point with my free hand, the steel cool against my palm. I now stood between him and the eldar, and his opening had closed. After an instant, the pressure on my blade lessened. Van Calox gave me a fencer's salute and returned his weapon to its scabbard.

'That creature cannot be allowed to defile the soil of a human world,' he spat.

'Oh, spare me, please, and let's keep the bickering to a minimum. The smiting of the enemies of humanity will have to wait until I understand what's going on here.' An insufferable man, really — and to think we played regicide twice a week without fail. He accused my play style of being painfully heavy handed. It was time for him to accept my grasp on diplomacy could be better than his. Blade still drawn at my side, I turned back to the eldar. To my great surprise, she hadn't stirred before the threat.

'Yrliet Lanaevyss,' I said. 'I apologise for my companions. Would you be willing to help me uncover and cleanse the corruption at the heart of this planet?'

The eldar stood tall over me. Her squinting eyes, locked on mine, were greener for the magic of growth around us. The night sphynx in starlight — again. My only lead, for the moment, both for palace and jungle. Slowly, she nodded.

'Elantach, everything you have told me stirs doubt and alarm in my soul. I shall join you on this quest for the Lilaethan's soul. But I must take time to contemplate. Do not disturb me further.'

'I shall leave orders to the shuttle pilots, and be ready when you are.'

With this, I drew my little party back to the palace. Cassia had watched intently, taking in everything, and for once was silent. Abelard and van Calox I nearly had to drag away, as they wouldn't turn their back on Yrliet. My seneschal I sent to bring some order to the administrative mess. Cassia asked, timidly, if she could stay until sunset — of course, I accepted, and Abelard was shouldered with the additional responsibility of finding her dirtside dwellings. As for van Calox, I dragged him back to the ship. I needed a few words with him.