Chapter 110: You Don't Want Them to Know Either, Miss Carpé
"The idiot! That contemptible, reckless fool! I will pull his head off with my own hands!"
In the deepest level of a grand mansion at the heart of Klassya, the sound was bouncing off the walls of a sealed underground chamber.
A middle-aged man in elaborate silk and velvet, his figure carrying the particular build of someone accustomed to the best of everything, was pacing the centre of the room like something that had run out of directions to direct its anger. The veins in his well-maintained face were standing out prominently. As the patriarch of a Rogue Trader dynasty that commanded a substantial commercial fleet and held a Warrant of Trade granted by the High Lords a thousand years ago, he showed this kind of expression rarely.
Before him, at the edge of the light, two figures stood with their heads lowered, their breathing deliberately suppressed, positioned like people who understand that the wrong word in the wrong moment can produce a very bad outcome.
"Look at what your brother has done!" The patriarch stopped pacing, turned, and drove the words at both of them. "That brainless animal! For the sake of positioning himself for succession, he threw out every principle he had and put us in contact with Chaos servants!"
He turned away again and resumed pacing, both hands working at his temples.
"There is still time. There must still be time." The muttering carried the particular quality of a man either convincing himself or arriving at a very cold decision.
In a Rogue Trader dynasty, the concept of family was largely a matter of operational vocabulary. What remained was power and the calculation of it.
He stopped again. He looked at the two heirs remaining.
"Tarik has not been apprehended. The Adeptus Arbites believe our peripheral smuggling network was corrupted by Chaos contacts. They have not traced it to the family's core. The situation is recoverable."
The patriarch's voice dropped. The intent underneath it was not warm.
"Before the Arbites and the Inquisition's dogs find him, you will find him first. And then you will kill him. Clean. Untraceable. Remove him from existence entirely."
"Understood, Father."
Venus Carpé and her fourth brother answered in unison and withdrew from the chamber with the measured quiet of people who have received very specific instructions.
The heavy blast door sealed behind them. The corridor's cold air produced a slight physical release from the weight of the room.
"Father appears to be particularly displeased this time." Ulysses Carpé stopped walking. He turned to look at his younger sister, and on a face that was ordinarily associated with effortless composure, a smile was forming that had nothing effortless about its origins.
Venus glanced at him. The translation was immediate.
For the dynasty, this was a crisis of the kind that ended families. One careless step and the Inquisition's attention would reduce the Carpé name to a historical record. The stakes were as high as they could reasonably be.
For the heirs, the same event was a door that had just opened.
There was one position at the top of the family. Whoever sat in it was determined entirely by their ability to use what was available to them. Tarik had removed himself from the game with spectacular finality. The succession contest was now between two.
Whoever found him first, closed this crisis most completely, and delivered the cleanest possible result, that person would own the patriarch's assessment in a way that no subsequent competitor could challenge.
"Good evening, Venus." Ulysses offered her a gesture of entirely formal courtesy, precise in every particular, turned without adding another word, and disappeared down the corridor at a quick step with his personal attendants. His search network was presumably already deploying.
Venus stood where she was for a moment.
She did not waste time on the observation. She turned and walked directly to her quarters.
She stripped off the elaborate silk dress, changed into dark, unrestricted clothing, and took her thrusting blade from the weapon stand. The scabbard fastened to her belt with a practiced snap. The blade was not decorative.
It was deep in the Klassyan night, and the Cold Quarter's wind was at its most cutting. But that was precisely the period when those who conducted their business away from official notice were most active. She could cover ground herself, pull threads from her own intelligence sources, and reach Tarik before Ulysses's people formed a coherent picture.
Find him. Remove the family identifier from his neck. Burn what remained.
She was walking toward the mansion's main gate when she heard voices.
"What is it?" She stopped and addressed the armed household guards at the gate, her voice carrying the particular pitch of someone accustomed to receiving answers without delay.
The guard saw who it was and came to attention. He pointed toward a shadow standing outside the iron gate in the cold.
"My Lady Venus. This individual claims to be from the Ash Watchers 112th Regiment and is requesting to speak with your father."
The 112th.
Venus's heartbeat produced one hard, irregular beat. The regiment that had launched the Cold Quarter operation this evening, secured the warehouse, and shut down Tarik's network, that was exactly who this was. She knew it with certainty before she confirmed it.
She walked to the gate and studied the figure outside.
It was not an armed soldier. It was a slight-framed teenager in plain Cold Quarter clothing, looking back at her with an expression that was assessing whether it had found the right person.
She did not question the contact. An ordinary teenager would not have this information.
She stopped at the iron bars and addressed him directly. "I am Venus Carpé, one of the family's heirs. Whatever you have to tell us, you may tell me."
The teenager was Evan, operating on his instructions. He absorbed her identification, ran a brief internal check against what Duvette had told him before he left, and then raised one finger toward his own lips and pointed toward Venus's ear.
The request was clear enough. Venus held her pride aside, leaned forward, and brought her ear close to the bars.
Evan spoke at the volume of two people only.
"Our Commissar says: the person you want most is with him."
She straightened. Whatever she was feeling at that moment, she drove it below the surface with visible effort and presented nothing.
"Is your Commissar available to receive visitors?"
"I believe so." Evan nodded.
"Then I will come with you." No hesitation.
The 112th's billet in Klassya.
Duvette had chosen to remain here rather than return to the Polar Imperial and the suite that was presumably still waiting for him. The prisoner's location required his personal oversight, and comfort was not a compelling argument against risk management.
He was in a chair in a dim room near the detention block, eyes closed, when Evan's footsteps preceded him through the door.
The woman who came in with him was tall, with blond hair drawn back in a clean practical line and features that were sculptural in the way of people who have been well-fed and well-treated across every generation of their family's existence. Her bearing communicated several decades of elevated social position compressed into a default posture.
His assessment was brief. Objectively attractive. The sword at her hip drew one additional look. It had the refinement of a gentleman's dueling weapon, but it was seated on the belt the way a weapon is worn rather than the way an accessory is displayed.
He filed the distinction.
Before he could speak, she stepped forward, posture correct and voice clear.
"You are Colonel-Commissar Duvette. I am Venus Carpé, one of three heirs to the Carpé family."
Duvette leaned back in the chair with the relaxed quality of someone who has the structural advantage in the room and knows it. "I had expected your father to come in person when he heard."
"The patriarch has placed this matter in our hands entirely." Her eyes met his without deflection. "You sent for us. I think you already understand why I am here."
He gave a small nod of appreciation and stood. "Follow me."
He led her through the guarded corridor to the detention room door. He motioned to Evan to wait outside and pushed the heavy door open.
The room had nothing in it. No furniture. One white light from directly above.
On the cold metal floor, in the middle of the room, was a man. His legs were at angles that nature had not intended, the product of an interruption applied to his escape attempt by people with professional opinions on the subject. He was covered in bruising and dried blood. His clothing, which had once been elaborate, had been reduced to fragments. He was still speaking, the words cycling in a loop that had lost its connection to his situation some time ago.
"I am the rightful one... you crawling filth... I am the one with the right to it..."
Duvette did not need to look at Venus's face to know the identification had been made.
Because the woman beside him, who had maintained an impeccable surface composure since she walked through the billet door, produced a shift in her presence that was impossible to miss. It had the quality of something concentrated and very cold arriving at a decision.
Venus Carpé's ice-blue eyes were full of controlled fury.
Her right hand went to the hilt of her blade without any visible deliberation. The clean sound of the guard clearing the scabbard cut the silence.
She had the sword half-drawn.
A hand closed on the guard.
Duvette, standing beside her, applied a grip that left no category for negotiation. The force that came through that grip was well beyond what the hand's size suggested it contained, and the blade did not continue its arc. It went back, the scabbard caught it with a definitive click, and the motion stopped.
"Let's not rush." His tone was the same register he might use to pause an administrative discussion.
Venus's sword arm trembled slightly. The force she was feeling through the hilt communicated something about the person holding the other side of it that the conversation had not included.
She drew a breath and turned to look at him, her eyes steady.
"Colonel-Commissar. I would like to understand your intention."
"This is a very important witness." He released the guard and the pleasant expression he had been carrying since she arrived remained exactly in place. "My soldiers went to considerable effort, at genuine personal risk, to secure him from the heretics. I would hate to see that effort wasted."
"He colluded with heretics and brought shame to the entire dynasty." She held her position without yielding. "He dies here."
"That does put me in a difficult position." Duvette spread his hands with an expression of genuine regret, moved one step closer, and looked down at her from the height the distance now permitted. His voice dropped.
"From what I understand, the Inquisition is also looking for him. Everywhere. Very thoroughly."
He watched the colour leave Venus Carpé's face by a clearly measurable degree.
The smile that followed was mild and entirely unhurried.
"What do you think we should do about that, Miss Carpé? I imagine you and your family would prefer the Inquisition not find out where he currently is."