At least it wasn't the Final Dawn, I had thought when confronting the late Vistenza Vyatt. This was no planet-wide corruption, despite what the eldar said, that risked pushing the world to Chaos. Just a small scale cult that had thrived because my predecessor didn't give a shit about her protectorate.

I nearly changed my mind when we got to their lair and those demonic things jumped us. Not to say a bellowing Chaos Marine would have been a more welcome sight, but at least there had been only one of those on Rykad Minoris, instead of a half-dozen creepy, sexy, undulating demons with pincers for hands. Heinrix protected us from the worst of their powers and I shudder to think we could have fallen to them without even drawing our weapons: their foul influence attempted to change us into meat puppets for their unholy rituals. And then one of those got Heinrix, and I may have over reacted. Ranged weapons work best from a distance and getting close had been a mistake, although it had felt damn right after seeing a giant pincer-claw pierce right through his thorax until it came out of his back. My brain had shut off, so to speak, and taken a step back as it watched me unleash upon those creatures everything I've ever learned on the battlefield — everything except the sensible notion which is that lasguns are, once again, made to be used from a distance.

After that fiasco in my quarters, Heinrix and I had played a very subdued game of regicide once in the very publicly safe observatorium (although people tended to clear the deck when they saw us), and then there had been the jungle trek, and then planning how to topple Vyatt's government without too much collateral damage so, while about ten days had passed, occasions to debrief what had happened had been inexistent. True, I could probably have made time for it, but burying my head in the sand is a strategy that had always worked in my personal life (or lack thereof), and there was always the chance a straight bullet might spare me the necessity of a chat. A pincer-claw from hell had, however, interrupted my plans of letting the situation slowly fade out.

And now I was escorting Heinrix to the chirurgeons, walking by the stretcher as if I didn't have a galaxy of more important stuff to do: find a new governor for Janus, organise grain and food shipments to Footfall, and the small matter of setting up trials for the many, many aristocrats arrested during the night. Summary executions do have the advantage that they don't take long to organise and then one can go on with one's business — however, the fallout for getting the wrong people before the squad could be heavy and I didn't want to begin my rule on Janus with too heavy a hand. Traitors would go the way traitors do, but I needed to be fair about it.

The chirurgeons' domain was a spotless place that reeked faintly of counterseptics and lacked the more obvious splendour crammed everywhere else on the upper decks, but it was nonetheless full of light and bright colours. A statue of the Emperor, in His healer aspect, greeted all those who walked through the doors and along the large corridor leading to a score of individual rooms, two operating theatres, and whatever fancy equipment they required. Only officers were treated there.

A woman in the green and white robes of a chirurgeon, two servo-skulls in tow, stopped me. She had patched me up, I remembered, after a sprain in the gymnasium, without complaining for the loss of her time. 'Lord-captain,' she said, 'if you intend to go further, I must insist that you change into clean attire.'

Of course: I was a mess, uniform covered in blood, ichor, and other dubious stains. Not to mention the soil my boots had been shedding along the way, because the emergency shuttle had landed on the lawn, the landing pad being already taken. Under the head chirurgeon's determined gaze, I had the grace to blush and declined following them beyond the pair of inner doors from which a cooler — cleaner — air came. I'm not squeamish, as a rule, but I had neither the need nor the stomach for witnessing the operation that was surely to come.

'I shall leave Master van Calox in your capable care, doctor,' I said.

'Mistress,' she replied. 'Not doctor. I am not a medicae, but a mistress of my art. Is there anything else you need?'

I nearly declined, but then I remembered to ask news of Argenta and where I could find her. My Sister of Battle had been put up in a room where the head chirurgeon intended to keep her until morning — more in an attempt to curb Argenta's enthusiasm for hiking with a broken spine than because it was strictly necessary. All the while we spoke, my hand was on Heinrix's shoulder, at the place where pauldron ended and collar began. The cloth was soft under my fingers; I could feel his chest rise and fall in too fast a rhythm, and his breath brushed against my wrist when he turned his head towards me. He was pale, so pale, despite the medi-kit plugged into his chest, brown flecks of blood in the crease of his cheek, and his expression was unreadable for repressed pain.

'I'll be with you when you wake,' I said. Promised, trying to smile and assure him that all would be right. His gloved hand — he grasped my elbow, clumsily, thumb hard against my arm. I let his shoulder go, running my fingers against the length of his arm until I could clasp his hand: fighter to fighter, in the immemorial hold which is meant to bring comfort and strength. And then he was gone, the gurney-carrying servitors following an injunction of the chirurgeon's, servo-skulls already cutting away Heinrix's clothes and armour.

A few people stood around me — mostly my aides, who had been alarmed at the vox-call for the head chirurgeon on our way back and had presumably written themselves tragic novels about my demise. I sent them to fetch me all documents relevant to the loyal Janus noble families and gave orders to set up a work station in whatever medical suite Heinrix would end up in. Gossip be damned, I intended to keep my promise. He had been quite the gentleman when, well, then. He deserved the attention. It was a matter of politeness; tit for tat and all that.

How long the chirurgeon would be, I had no idea, and while my aides scurried away to execute my orders I walked back to Argenta's room. Before I could cross even half the distance, however, Peri — the aide who was most often on snack duty — gave a small cough; she suggested I might like to get cleaned up before visiting the sister, and she pointed at my hands that were brown with dried blood. While a Sister of Battle on average saw worse each day before breakfast, I gave in to Peri's sensibilities and let her usher me to a bathroom where I could make myself presentable. She manifested a clean tunic out of thin air and only let me go once I was, if not parade-ready, at least fit for civilised society. I had a feeling that Theodora didn't do the dirty work herself: Peri might have been excellent at hiding her dismay, but she was still unused to this kind of things.

Argenta's room — suite — was a spacious affair that, unlike the rest of the medical bay, was adorned in the usual rich style of the upper decks, although it had that impersonal feeling common in hospitals around the galaxy. A small altar dedicated to healing saints occupied a corner, but it missed the personal touch of everyday worshippers who can be very particular as to where exactly candles are to stand. The few paintings on the wall were eclectic. Chairs, instead of being velvet or leather, were of some synth cloth easier to clean.

Yet someone had preceded me in Argenta's room; someone who, in a whirlwind of good humour, had brought flowers, a missal, cushions, and what must be Argenta's own rosary from her quarters. She couldn't have had more than a fifteen-minute headstart on me, as we had arrived on the same shuttle, but leave it to Jae to accomplish feats of the kind. When I entered, my fancy smuggler rose from her seat by Argenta's bed and cried: 'Shereen! I was just beginning to tell Argenta how we brought down those heretics; a proper bedside story to lull one of the Emperor's daughters to a nap full of sweet dreams.'

Argenta tried to rise in order to greet me, but Jae restrained her by a light touch on the chest. 'You are on bedrest until tomorrow, bright angel of the battlefield, or otherwise your spinal implant won't set in correctly. Can you believe she walked all that way with a vertebra broken in half? The bone stopped the lasbolt and split in the process. The chirurgeon said that, without her power armour, she could have ended up paralysed.'

'Medicae always exaggerate,' grumbled Argenta from her prone position.

Walking to her, I clasped her hand, saying: 'You look well. How does it feel?' Her silver hair was combed back; the dark circles below her eyes were nearly gone, and her pale irises locked on mine.

'I feel good, lord-captain. It is my utmost regret that I couldn't accompany you to confront the treacherous governor.'

'Don't beat yourself up,' I said genuinely. 'Here the chirurgeons reign absolute, and I would rather have you healthy tomorrow with me. We managed.'

With a wince, Argenta settled better against her pillow: despite her assurances, she definitely needed to take it slow. We went over the governor's death and the subsequent fight; Argenta gave a name to the creatures we had faced, calling them daemonettes and visibly regretting not having been there to shower them in bolter rounds. The grains of her rosary passed swiftly between her fingers as she stated how happy she was the von Valancius dynasty stood against evil and Chaos taint.

'I am sure Theodora would have done the same,' I said, 'if she had taken a closer interest in what happened on Janus. I apologise, Argenta, if you find me mean, but I'm afraid your patron could have done more to prevent all of this. You had your spine blown and Heinrix got impaled on a daemonette's claw; that's a steep price to pay for another's laxness.'

'Lady Theodora was imperfect,' she acknowledged clumsily. A silence, and then she turned to Jae, who beamed at being grilled about the fight; to believe her, we had defeated wave after wave after wave of enemies, each crueler and more clever than the last, and I soon left the two of them to their enthusiasm for destroying heretics. It certainly was the first time I heard Jae glorify thus the dealing of the God-Emperor's wrath, and something told me my big-hearted smuggler would thank me for giving her unimpeded access to Argenta's ear. I tried not to see the conspiratorial wink she gave me when I said I would wait for news of Heinrix.

Peri and her acolytes had improvised an excellent mobile work station in a room much like Argenta's, and that was to be Heinrix's. It was handsomely furnished save for a bed: I supposed someone had taken it away to bring it closer to the operating theatre. Time crawled while I waited. I read a few briefings about potential candidates for the Janus governorship, without remembering much, going over paragraphs several times to make sense of them, and then I nearly discarded it all when I remembered this had been written by people who had been in Vistenza's pay. But bad information is still information, and I began making note of those she had held in disregard instead. The dinner bell rang; I wasn't hungry, but Peri nevertheless brought in a tray of cold meat and cheese, and when she left I discovered I was famished. What could take the chirurgeon so long?

The sudden chirrup of my vox made me jump. A call from Abelard was relayed from the surface: several of those taken into custody had committed suicide, hanging themselves in their cells in what he called an unspoken admittance of guilt. I couldn't blame them: burning at the stake is a terrible way to go, and they couldn't have known I would have granted them the mercy of a firing squad instead. Medical procedures aren't the only thing to make me squeamish. Fear of pain, as much as guilt, might have been enough to push them to a self-inflicted death, and I ordered to stay the seizing of their property until a trial could be held in abstentia. Abelard grumbled, but he would comply.

My back ached. I was tired and I stretched. Restoring order on Janus would take months, months I didn't know yet if I wanted to spare: there were two other planets to bring back into the fold, and if they were in the same sorry state time was of the essence. But who to trust to hold such a world for me? Time, maybe, to promote Traigg to sergeant-major and leave behind a cadre of non-commissioned officers from the Emperor's Mercy, to act as the backbone of the Janus PDF, or whatever they called themselves. I would have needed a Commissar, however, to keep the superior echelons on their toes, and the irony didn't elude me.

Walking around the room. Thinking of something else than my problems. The windows were trefoil shaped, as if the floor had been constructed midway up a taller space — which, to think of it, was probably what happened. Most voidships are old, centuries old, but I still couldn't wrap my mind around the fact that the Emperor's Mercy had been around for ten millennia. Her quirks were those of an old lady, and from Pasqal's reports seeped a feeling of wonder. I had given him a hand, once, in his investigation, as he needed to coax the central bridge cogitator into wakefulness. A gargoyle had sampled my blood and my word had accomplished what weeks of litanies of obedience had failed to do. This had unlocked a few data crypts, although their content would remain a mystery until I could find Theodora's encryption codes. So many things went on this ship; she was alive, in her own way. I was sure Pasqal's Category 3 techno-miracle would never be explained rationally because I felt that, somehow, the Emperor's Mercy was truly watching over me. Servitors looked at me — made room for me when I walked by, which they did for no one else and shouldn't even have had the ability to do in the first place. Lifts were always on the floor where I needed them, and never stopped en route to pick up other passengers. The Emperor's Mercy, an old and venerable Machine Spirit, knew who I was, and I would have sounded like a madwoman had I tried to explain it to anyone.

The stained glass, all abstract patterns of red and blue, prevented me from looking down at the planet: the glass was old, contained bubbles, and was irregular. Without the layer of armourcrys outside, the window would never have held against hard vacuum. I was just contemplating getting a camp bed set up when noise — feet, and something rolling, and people moving around — came from the corridor. Someone opened the door, and a bed was wheeled in by servitors. I caught a glimpse of dark hair and a face less pale than I remembered. The head chirurgeon followed, servo-skulls still trailing behind her, and a nurse as well, who busied herself connecting some sort of cubic receptacle to a socket on the wall that made a suction noise. It must have been a drain of some sort, because it received a tube coming from under the covers. There was blood in it. Fine cables of several colours also linked Heinrix to a hovering servo-skull.

'Lord-captain,' curtly said the chirurgeon. 'I'm giving you back your psyker in better shape than he was four hours ago. What caused that wound in the first place? The entry wound made me think of a bolter round, but that would have just fragmented inside and shredded everything, instead of going straight through the lung and making a mess of the posterior chest wall too.'

From the bed, Heinrix groaned: 'Daemonette.' It was the first word he uttered since we had boarded the shuttle. The chirurgeon looked at me, puzzled, and I added for clarification: 'Monster with crab pincers for arms, if crabs had razors for pincers.'

'Oh? Sounds nasty. Anyway. He misses the inferior lobe of his right lung,' explained the chirurgeon, who failed to be suitably impressed by what we had faced, 'and I had to make some primitive skin flaps to cover the entry and exit wounds. Normally, I would have used implants to replace the ribs and then some neocol matrix over it, but a biomancer is bound to want to heal this himself.' From her tone, it was clear she considered Heinrix's abilities as ill-advised as they were below par. His answer, despite his being made groggy by the chirurgeon's drugs, still had some bite:

'Thank you,' he said. 'Next time, I'll refrain from doing your work for you.'

'You were lucky, van Calox,' snapped the chirurgeon. 'Pray to the Emperor there is no next time.'

He made a sound that could have been an attempt at a chuckle, only cut short by pain. I said, with a straight face: 'Only scum gets lucky,' and the look on the chirurgeon's face made it worthwhile. 'Thank you, Mistress,' I added. 'You can leave now.'

'Only scum gets lucky, but the faithful have the Emperor's grace,' finished Heinrix when the chirurgeon was gone. It had been a popular saying among the 12th Fusiliers of Nihra IV; it stood to reason that he had heard it before. These devout proverbs tend to spread through imperial ranks — Schola, Guard and others — like the plague, although civilians often don't have a clue. Heinrix closed his eyes, collecting himself; he looked tired, and suddenly I feared to be intruding. Surely he'd want to be left in peace: who would want the hovering presence of their — what was I to him? Commanding officer? Reluctant ally? Occasional crappy lover and regicide partner who played like an Astartes with a hangover? — of whatever I was — when they had just undergone surgery of this magnitude? My heart skipped a beat; a sinking feeling dragged me down in icy water. There was no way he could take comfort in my presence. And now he was again looking at me, the ghost of a smile hiding underneath the weariness, unless it was a trick of the light.

'Are you comfortable?' I asked. 'Do you need anything?'

'Thank you, Katov. I am quite fine. Although…' He stopped.

'Yes?'

'I am terribly thirsty. Would you… but I can call the nurse.'

'Oh, it's no problem,' I said, fetching the glass on his bedside table and filling it from my own jug. He had turned his head to watch me; his cheek rested against the pillow and I gave him an encouraging smile. But trying to prop himself up made him wince and clench his teeth.

'Allow me,' I said, barely remembering to put the glass down before helping him. They had given him one of those flannel robes that wrap upfront, in von Valancius blue, and the change from his usual severe attire was strange. Through the open collar I glimpsed, as I sat by his side, the chain that carried his rosette — and the electrodes, glued on his chest, that were linked to the servo-skull. I slid a hand under his shoulder and he gripped mine — and then brought my other arm across his back, sustaining his weight, embracing him. Layers of sheets and clothing separated us. I remembered the sickening feel of his lacerated chest under my hands, and pulled us up. I don't know if the faithful truly have the Emperor's grace, but I was glad Heinrix did. Getting him upright took more effort than I expected. When I succeeded, his hand tightened on my shoulder and perhaps my arm lingered against his back; I felt a grimace strain his face, resting against my own, and heard his sharp intake of breath. His skin smelled of counterseptics, of blood, and underneath all — of him, something that awoke a tingling, tightening, anxious and above all needy sensation deep in my chest.

'You're a terrible caregiver, Katov. Should you ever tire of being a Rogue Trader, please never get into that field.'

I moved away and — gently, lightly — tapped his shoulder before reaching for the glass. 'And you're a terrible patient. How dare you complain after everything I did for you today? Don't think only a daemonette can skewer you like a chicken on Saint Honoria's Feast.'

Heinrix took the glass from me and drank half of it before breathing again, holding his side where it hurt. 'Do the good people of Parinus celebrate a martyr's impalement with chicken skewers? I am horrified.' His eyes, crinkling with mirth, belied his words. We exchanged a few other unpleasantries until, looking at my makeshift work table, he asked what my plans were.

'Finding a new governor, first — someone who will avoid the excesses of too much zeal and still restore order. And then, I think, it will be back to Footfall in order to escort the first food shipment: I don't want to risk it being highjacked in some way or other.'

We were sitting side by side, my thigh against his, like old friends. It felt easy. Heinrix had none of the guarded condemnatory attitude he had trailed ever since I had made an alliance with Yrliet.

'Good plans, both,' he said. 'However, my question was more immediate.'

Oh. I think I blushed, for the shame of getting his meaning wrong, and the sinking feeling came back stronger than ever. Mortification, that's what it was. 'Of course. You must be tired; I'll get my things and go.'

Marking a pause, Heinrix covered my hand with his. 'I am tired,' he acknowledged. 'But please, do not let this chase you away — unless of course you wish to leave, as you must have several pressing matters to attend. You already have my deepest thanks for staying as long as you did. I… I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't think you would.'

Well, that was unexpected. I lifted his hand in mine. It was seldom that he was without his gloves: only when playing regicide, and in more intimate moments — I remembered how they had been against me and I turned his palm up, dragging my thumb against the lines that went across.

'I made a promise,' I just said. 'I am a woman of my word. And I can stay a bit longer, if it's no bother to you.' They say that, on some planets, soothsayers can read people's fortune in the palm of the hand. I turned his hand again and his fingers — strong, assured — grasped mine.

'It would be extremely kind of you.'

My heart was in my throat. My body wasn't mine anymore; my blood pumped in my ears, but it was not of my own doing, and my chest filled my lungs with air, but I knew not how. I brought his hand to my lips and kissed it briefly, the way he had kissed mine on rare, precious occasions when taking his leave. I moved as in a dream — a dream of falling down in an endless pit — but this time the spiral broke before the shaking moved in. The world, however, denied me the courtesy of falling back into place.

'You must rest,' I said. Unless it was an order. Hooking one arm behind his shoulder, I slowly pushed him to lie down again with the other, my hair falling against his face, hiding me from his eyes so I breathed in his smell again. Straightening up, I licked my lips and managed another smile. 'I'll stay until you fall asleep.'

Maybe he wanted to touch me — maybe I wanted him to, but in any case he didn't. His grey gaze — slate, storm clouds, or a lake wild as the sea — remained fixed on me at first and then broke away. 'Thank you,' he said again.

Knees stiff, I rose and went back to my workstation of sorts. The chair, when I pulled it, bumped inelegantly against the table and, when I sat, I grabbed the first data slate available. It was one I had already gone through, but it didn't matter because I read without registering a thing. The servo-skull ocular implant shone a slow pulsating red. Heinrix's pillow rustled as he settled more comfortably against it. I worked (or at least gave a good impression of it) for two hours before I left for my quarters: long after his breath had evened in the depths of restorative sleep.