Carn nudged the mug of Recaff in front of him, it was still warm, though barely. He contemplated drinking the beverage but he had no taste for it and frankly he just wanted to leave Hyrk as soon as possible. He had been delayed quite enough already.
There had been questions, of course there had been questions. He had endured them, the endless repetition and mind numbing monotony of standard enquiries around poor Larkarsky's demise. Carn had informed them that he had no idea why Larkarsky had done what he had, and that he had no previous contact with the Adept apart from his previous, documented visit. The thing is, he was lying.
Of course he couldn't tell them the truth, they would have detained him even longer and he needed to journey to Endomaw as soon as possible as per Larkarsky's message. For one thing had become abundantly clear to Alistae Carn, over the last day. He might have feigned ignorance, pretended that he knew little to nothing about the events in question, that he was nothing more than a witness to the tragic aftermath of Larkarsky's untimely death, but he knew the reality that lay behind the veil he hid behind. Larkarsky had been a Psyker.
Not just any Psyker either, to send a message such as Larkarsky had done, (for Carn firmly believed this is what had happened) he must have had no small degree of power and control. However, something much more potent had been hunting him and he had finally been bought low. But not before managing to contact Carn through his subconsciousness. Carn had ruminated over the experience while nodding with a blank expression to the continued probing. Though he maintained his facade of ignorance his professional mind was racing and analysing all of the information at hand. To tell of Larkarsky's true nature would only complicate matters, especially here. Such revelations were not likely to be well received in such a place.
A weary Doctor Speltz appeared from a door on the left, fresh from her own interview, and sat down opposite Carn.
"Hell of a night" she offered.
Carn just grunted, he couldn't disagree, even if he was sticking to his policy of noncommittal ambivalent interaction.
You drinking that? Speltz asked. She indicated the full cup of recaff, with a hopeful expression. Carn pushed it toward her and she accepted it gratefully, draining it quickly and letting out a satisfied sigh while visibly sinking into the chair.
"I've seen some things" she confessed. "when you have been doing this as long as I have it's inevitable, but I tell you, tonight is beyond my experience. Words in blood, that smile, not in 40 years have I seen anything quite like it. I'll not forget this night in a hurry and Emperor preserve me, I hope I never have to again.
He was fine the last time I checked you know, only a couple of hours before" she continued when no response was forthcoming from across the table. "Sitting there as usual, muttering. What could have happened within such a short space of time to drive him to do what he did? Don't think it escaped my notice that you happened to turn up around the same time, with that charm. What is it? I heard that noise you know, that keening from it, I know i didn't imagine it." Her words were coming faster and faster now as the recaff hit her system and did it's work. Her eyes blazed.
"There is something you aren't telling me, something about this whole situation that you are keeping to yourself. I can feel it, you KNOW something." She slammed a fist into the table with as much force as her aged frame could muster. "Tell me you bastard! what are you hiding?" Her voice rose in pitch, becoming strained and shrill. The guards over at the door looked over suspiciously and Carn reached out and grabbed her arm in an effort to silence her. Their eyes met.
"Trust me Doctor, when I say you are better off not knowing." Carn reached out with his other hand and placed it on top of the one holding onto the Doctors arm, turning an aggressive and restricting gesture into a comforting one. "I mean it" he added earnestly, "I could easily just say it is classified but in actuality I am sparing you by not telling you. Suffice to say, it is my burden and mine alone, the reason for me coming here is now clearly null and void and it is time for me to leave. I shall say no more." He looked at her earnestly, "You may voice your suspicions if you so desire but time is of the essence and I have much to do. I swear in the Holy Emperor's name that my motivations and aims are pure. I would ask you not to cause me any further delay. I do the Emperor's work and have tarried long enough." He released the Doctor's arm and sat back, clearly indicating she was free to act. He saw indecision and suspicion war in her eyes for a moment before she made her choice.
"Fine", she snapped. "I dont care, like I said, i've seen enough shit. Go, walk away and get on with whatever you think it is you have to do". the chair slid back with a screech on the tiled floor as she got up and stalked off to speak to some orderlies clustered in a corner.
"Thank you" Carn breathed, though he wasn't sure who he was thanking. He thumbed the Aquila in his pocket, it felt warm, comforting. "Thank you."
***************************************************
Two hours later the transport lifted into the air. Carn sent another quick message to both Ralscon and Endomaw, there was no point in secrecy. He had little hope of infiltrating Endomaw in any case. He said nothing of the psychic message to Ralscon and nothing of Larkarsky at all to the contact at Endomaw, instead only informing them of a rough ETA and making a number of small requests for his arrival. Best to keep his cards close to his chest he thought. He would offer up as little information to them as possible whilst gleaning as much as he could in return. In any event he had seven hours till he reached Endomaw (it was pretty much on the other side of Worth) and a lot of work and investigation to do. He pored over the dataslate, analysing all the text, replaying the vidlogs and trying to find a pattern in the data. He even refrained from drinking any Skee, (though he confessed to himself that that might have been a different matter had it not been the synthesised stuff) in order to keep a clear head. He accumulated a ream of papers writing down algorithms and potential codes and ciphers that might have been used to encrypt vital information but to no avail.
"Useless," he muttered, casting the papers down on top of the dataslate. He reconsidered his abstinence, frustrated beyond belief. No, he needed to stay focused. He cast his eyes to the ceiling of the transport and exhaled deeply. A prayer to the Emperor came to mind and he closed his eyes and recited it reverently. Upon completion of the benediction he opened his eyes, calmed and centred. He looked down at the dataslates and his jaw dropped. He rubbed his eyes, not quite able to believe what he was seeing. No, it was, it had to be, there was no other possibility.
Through chance or divine intervention the papers had fallen across the activated dataslate in a way that showed exactly the first digit from each entry, what had seemed a nonsensical series of numbers and letters was suddenly revealed to be a sequence and a word.
619519 - HEART
There was no chance this was a coincidence, this had to be what Larkarsky had been referring to, but what did it mean? He wracked his memory, he had to be missing something, something that he had seen but had not grasped the significance of, but what? Time was ticking down and he was only getting closer to Endomaw, it was important that he got to the truth before he landed, he could feel it. The analytical part of his mind worked overtime as he worked on the puzzle.
"619519 - HEART, 619519 - HEART" he repeated to himself, as if each repetition would bring him closer to the solution. "Dammit Larkarsky, why did you have to be so obtuse?" even as he said the words, he knew the answer. Larkarsky had been paranoid, and with good reason, he had been compelled to hide the information as deep as possible in order to keep it from the wrong hands. Now it was up to Carn to find the answer. 619519 HEART... what did it MEAN?
Before long, the strain of analysis overtook him and he fell into a restless slumber. Inevitably thoughts of Larkarsky infiltrated his dream. A kaleidoscopic array of images and sequences rushing through his subconsciousness too fast to decipher. Too much, too much, a tidal wave of information that he could not hope to process. The bombardment continued as his unconscious mind attempted to compartmentalise and filter the information. Then abruptly it ceased and Larkarsky's face appeared in the darkness...
Alistae....Alistae....he taunted, his voice ethereal and lilting. Carn struck out in his dream, thrashing through Larkarsky's face which dissipated like mist, fading into the darkness and leaving only his voice....
"I thought i might write a book about this one day...."
Carn snapped awake as if he had been shaken roughly. His mind was crystal clear. He checked his chronometer, 16 minutes till arrival at Endomaw. He must have slept through the pilot's announcements, he had little time left. 'I thought i might write a book about this one day,' could it really be that simple? He rummaged around in the satchel by his feet, pulling out the other dataslate, the one full of literature. Was it pure luck that he had bought it with him? Or something else? He put such ruminations from his mind and powered up the slate. He scrolled through the meticulously organised entries, his excitement growing as he noted the filing format matched the code hidden in the indexing on the other slate. After accessing various subfolders and files he found the match. 6.195.19. Heart of the Imperium by Maximillian Vos Brynd. He stopped a moment, heart pounding as anticipation filled him, and then thumbed the access key...
Suddenly the dataslate was wrenched out of his hand as the transport was violently hurled to one side with a deafening boom. A second followed scant moments later and Carn was launched from his seat as the shuttle lurched crazily. An alarm began to blare and red lights flashed as yet another explosion rocked the craft. A sudden loss in altitude resulted in a moment of weightlessness and he saw the dataslate lift for a moment in front of him, the text tantalisingly illegible to his blurred eyes. Then the moment passed and he crashed to the floor painfully as the shuttle plummeted in an uncontrolled spiralling dive. He groggily crawled toward the comms panel on a nearby wall, calling up the pilot's recorded log. The pilot itself showed as uncontactable, so either it had been irreparably damaged or was fully devoted to the preservation of the shuttle. Slaved into the craft's systems it could quite easily be either. Carn scanned the entries, noting with gratitude the exceptional evasive maneuvers that the pilot had performed to escape certain death. And the cause of the pilots endeavours? A missile lock, from Endomaw. So that's how it was to be, he thought. He didn't have time to think much else, a shrill tone indicated that the altitude was bottoming out and he barely had time to grab both the dataslate and the Aquila in his pocket before the shuttle hit the ground and tore itself apart in a storm of twisted metal.
**************************************************************
"An accident", Persi Ralscon repeated as the screen flashed off and his dulled reflection stared back at him expressionlessly. The Endomaw Chief Administrator Geriok had been abject in his contrition, explaining that a guidance malfunction on the defence system had resulted in Prefect Carn's shuttle being erroneously targeted and destroyed. There were no survivors. Throne's sake, this was the last thing he needed. The resulting administration alone would be a nightmare, to say nothing of sending additional investigators to follow up on Carn's vague suspicions. Frankly it was becoming more hassle than it it was worth. Larkarsky had gone out there, something had happened and he had gone crazy, big deal. Carn? No big loss there, the man was an insufferable drunken arse, he'd not be missed. Ralscon could comfortably draw a nice thick line of finality under the whole thing and not have to think about it again. Yeah he could investigate further but he had no desire to, no one was going to thank him for it anyway, and he didn't want any plaudits in any case. He had no aspirations, no ambitions and no interest than doing anything more than he had to, his mid level bureaucratic existence would do him just fine.
"Screw it", he muttered and put all of Carn's materiel and reports into a file, a quick jab of a button and it would no longer be his problem. He prepared a cursory report and sent it off to his superiors on Celias IV. It was someone else's responsibility now, good riddance. As it was he had to fill Carn's position and he hadn't even got a replacement for Larkarsky yet. Shit, he should have added the personnel requisition request to his report, now he would have to send another. His mood soured even further, if there was one thing that he hated it was unnecessary work. Day ruined, and it was all Carn's fault. He was glad the bastard was dead.
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