Read Online Horus Rising by Dan Abnett - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Dan Abnett
Tags: Science-Fiction
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as she knew, one of the very first of the remembrancers to be granted access to the surface of the conquered world.
She turned to look at the distant city, taking in the panorama and committing it to her memory coils. She blink-clicked her eyes to store certain views digitally, noting that smoke still rose from the cityscape, though the fight had been over months ago.
‘We are calling it Sixty-Three Nineteen,’ the iterator said, coming down the ramp behind her. Apparently, his queasy constitution had been stabilised by planet-fall. She recoiled delicately from the stink of sick on his breath.
‘Sixty-Three Nineteen?’ she asked.
‘It being the nineteenth world the 63rd Expedition has brought to compliance,’ Memed said, ‘though, of course, full compliance is not yet established here. The charter is yet to be ratified. Lord Governor Elect Rakris is having trouble forming a consenting coalition parliament, but Sixty-Three Nineteen will do. The locals call this world Terra, and we can’t be having two of those, can we? As far as I see it, that was the root of the problem in the first place…’
‘I see,’ said Mersadie, moving away. She touched her hand against the bark of one of the pollarded trees. It felt… real. She smiled to herself and blink-clicked it. Already, the basis of her account, with visual keys, was formulating in her enhanced mind. A personal angle, that’s what she’d take. She’d use the novelty and unfamiliarity of her first planetfall as a theme around which her remembrance would hang.
‘It’s a beautiful evening,’ the iterator announced, coming to stand beside her. He’d left his sloshing bags of vomit at the foot of the ramp, as if he expected someone to dispose of them for him.
The four army troopers delegated to her protection certainly weren’t about to do it. Perspiring in their heavy velvet overcoats and shakos, their rifles slung over their shoulders, they closed up around her.
‘Mistress Oliton?’ the officer said. ‘He’s waiting.’
Mersadie nodded and followed them. Her heart was beating hard. This was going to be quite an occasion. A week before, her friend and fellow remembrancer Euphrati Keeler, who had emphatically achieved more than any of the remembrancers so far, had been on hand in the eastern city of Kaentz, observing crusader operations, when Maloghurst had been found alive.
The Warmaster’s equerry, believed lost when the ships of his embassy had been burned out of orbit, had survived, escaping via drop-pod. Badly injured, he had been nursed and protected by the family of a farmer in the territories outside Kaentz. Keeler had been right there, by chance, to pict record the equerry’s recovery from the farmstead. It had been a coup. Her picts, so beautifully composed, had been flashed around the expedition fleet, and savoured by the Imperial retinues. Suddenly, Euphrati Keeler was being talked about. Suddenly, remembrancers weren’t such a bad thing after all. With a few, brilliant clicks of her picter, Euphrati had advanced the cause of the remembrancers enormously.
Now Mersadie hoped she could do the same. She had been summoned. She still couldn’t quite get over that. She had been summoned to the surface. That fact alone would have been enough, but it was who had summoned her that really mattered. He had personally authorised her transit permit, and seen to the appointment of a bodyguard and one of Sindermann’s best iterators.
She couldn’t understand why. Last time they’d met, he’d been so brutal that she’d considered resigning and taking the first conveyance home.
He was standing on a gravel pathway between the tree rows, waiting for her. As she came up, the soldiers around her, she registered simple awe at the sight of him in his full plate. Gleaming white, with a trace of black around the edges. His helm, with its lateral horse-brush crest, was off, hung at his waist. He was a giant, two and a half metres tall.
She sensed the
She turned to look at the distant city, taking in the panorama and committing it to her memory coils. She blink-clicked her eyes to store certain views digitally, noting that smoke still rose from the cityscape, though the fight had been over months ago.
‘We are calling it Sixty-Three Nineteen,’ the iterator said, coming down the ramp behind her. Apparently, his queasy constitution had been stabilised by planet-fall. She recoiled delicately from the stink of sick on his breath.
‘Sixty-Three Nineteen?’ she asked.
‘It being the nineteenth world the 63rd Expedition has brought to compliance,’ Memed said, ‘though, of course, full compliance is not yet established here. The charter is yet to be ratified. Lord Governor Elect Rakris is having trouble forming a consenting coalition parliament, but Sixty-Three Nineteen will do. The locals call this world Terra, and we can’t be having two of those, can we? As far as I see it, that was the root of the problem in the first place…’
‘I see,’ said Mersadie, moving away. She touched her hand against the bark of one of the pollarded trees. It felt… real. She smiled to herself and blink-clicked it. Already, the basis of her account, with visual keys, was formulating in her enhanced mind. A personal angle, that’s what she’d take. She’d use the novelty and unfamiliarity of her first planetfall as a theme around which her remembrance would hang.
‘It’s a beautiful evening,’ the iterator announced, coming to stand beside her. He’d left his sloshing bags of vomit at the foot of the ramp, as if he expected someone to dispose of them for him.
The four army troopers delegated to her protection certainly weren’t about to do it. Perspiring in their heavy velvet overcoats and shakos, their rifles slung over their shoulders, they closed up around her.
‘Mistress Oliton?’ the officer said. ‘He’s waiting.’
Mersadie nodded and followed them. Her heart was beating hard. This was going to be quite an occasion. A week before, her friend and fellow remembrancer Euphrati Keeler, who had emphatically achieved more than any of the remembrancers so far, had been on hand in the eastern city of Kaentz, observing crusader operations, when Maloghurst had been found alive.
The Warmaster’s equerry, believed lost when the ships of his embassy had been burned out of orbit, had survived, escaping via drop-pod. Badly injured, he had been nursed and protected by the family of a farmer in the territories outside Kaentz. Keeler had been right there, by chance, to pict record the equerry’s recovery from the farmstead. It had been a coup. Her picts, so beautifully composed, had been flashed around the expedition fleet, and savoured by the Imperial retinues. Suddenly, Euphrati Keeler was being talked about. Suddenly, remembrancers weren’t such a bad thing after all. With a few, brilliant clicks of her picter, Euphrati had advanced the cause of the remembrancers enormously.
Now Mersadie hoped she could do the same. She had been summoned. She still couldn’t quite get over that. She had been summoned to the surface. That fact alone would have been enough, but it was who had summoned her that really mattered. He had personally authorised her transit permit, and seen to the appointment of a bodyguard and one of Sindermann’s best iterators.
She couldn’t understand why. Last time they’d met, he’d been so brutal that she’d considered resigning and taking the first conveyance home.
He was standing on a gravel pathway between the tree rows, waiting for her. As she came up, the soldiers around her, she registered simple awe at the sight of him in his full plate. Gleaming white, with a trace of black around the edges. His helm, with its lateral horse-brush crest, was off, hung at his waist. He was a giant, two and a half metres tall.
She sensed the
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