A Beer and a Killing - The Final Part of Chapter One

It was dark and cold, all around him was emptiness. With a flash, he was aware of thousands of volleys of bright light below him. It seemed to Dirva that he was flying above these lights, gliding effortlessly. He struggled to orientate himself, gradually becoming aware of his limbs once more, the ends of his fingers twitching. He felt an aching sensation throughout his bones. Suddenly a white light seemed to appear in the distance. He became aware of a low gruff voice, speaking indistinctly. As he struggled to make out the words, he became dimly aware of a grim, tight jawed visage, teeth clenched, lank dark hair encircling a pinched face. His memory trickled back into the fuzzy caverns of his throbbing brain, as he slowly began to focus. The wiry man, his arm bound with swathes of bloodied cloth, was keen eyed Praen.

They were both lying on the leather upholstery of what appeared to be the rear seat of a surface vehicle. Lobor, seated facing them, was glancing with darkened brows from one to the other. In the cab up front Nidval was in the control seat, while Vostur was beside him, providing the conspiratorial whispering that had greeted Dirva’s return from the unconscious. He began to piece together elements of what was being said. “-a provincial backwater. That said they’ll know what to do by now and by the time we depart every chapterhouse in the province will have been notified. Maybe the neighbouring ones also. That rules out heading anywhere too nearby. Codushpur would have been ideal, but not anymore.”

Lobor interjected. “Dirva’s conscious.”

Vostur turned in his seat and half smiled at the young man. “Welcome back to the world of the living, O ferocious fire eating one!”

Dirva smiled back weakly and attempted to raise his arm. Vostur continued. “That was and interesting display back there. We’ll have to discuss that further, a bit later. Not of course, that it’ll have you won you any friends among the Servants. Or have been a great career boost to a long life farming Tresha. I’m afraid you’ve put yourself in an interesting position. Anyway, you’re going to have a lot of thinking to do now.”

Dirva nodded. He was vaguely becoming aware of what he had done and the position it put him in. Weakly he cut in.“Where are we going?”

Vostur smiled sadly. “Away. Another province. I think Baleus. For my own reasons. We’re going to our vessel now. You, my son, can’t stay here either, I’m afraid, not after what you did. Your life and property will be forfeit to the Empire. You’re an outlaw, young Dirva!”

Dirva was silent for an instant, allowing his head to clear, watching the road sweep by beyond his window, punctuated at regular intervals by pale ultraviolet beacons. After a while he asked “Who are you, anyway? Lobor, who are these dubious friends of yours, with illegal artillery stored in your crop stores?” What have I got myself involved with? Traitors? Why are the Servants after you – and me now?”

Lobor did not reply, looking to Vostur who turned to face Dirva once more. “A just query. I will not deny that you have right to expect answers to those questions. It’ll have to wait however. I hope you will accept my oath that I do not mean to put you off, I will answer you in full. But it happens now that we have almost reached the carrier park and we really will have to play it cool here. The alarm may have been raised.”

The vehicle pulled up outside the Marsh Creek carrier park, a vast aerodrome ten miles outside the town where small vessels could be landed and stored in relative security. It was surrounded by a high aluminium wall permanently pulsating with a powerful electric current, punctuated at only one point by a single metal barrier, the thickness of a man, designed to withstand all but the most highly equipped military machines. Beside the barrier, jutting out from the wall on either side, was a scruffy aluminium shelter, provided for the watch out of the generosity of the consortium who owned the property. Nidval sounded the hooter.

A door raised in the side of the shelter and a man shot out, as if disgorged from it. Short, middle aged with a red face and a uniform to match which seemed ill fitted about the waist, he strutted self importantly and with slight unsteadiness towards the vehicle. Vostur opened his window. “Good evening, friend. We have to depart now, I’m afraid. Space seventy-four, V. Cadban.”

The red suited man peered through the window, his haggard eyes glazed and the fumes of a cheap, no doubt bootleg, leaf spirit filled the vehicle. “Sure. Not a problem. If you need to. Though, I mean. I don’t suppose you’re a bladeball man? I mean, the game’s in its last ten minutes – and what a game! Bronisos scored two just before half time, making it two all, three casualties so far. It’s close, I tell you. What a game! I tell you, the knives are really out today!” He burped. “Sorry. I want to say, you gentlemen could, like, catch the end of the match in my box here, with me, and then leave. Two all at the moment, like. I mean, have a drink before you fly off.” He glanced around them hopefully. Vostur laughed and patted the man’s arm. “Thank you friend. A kind offer, and another time maybe I’d take it up, but tonight we can’t. We’ve missed most of the game anyway and the league here doesn’t affect the Bladeball League in our province. Thanks for the offer all the same. We won’t detain you long. We’ll be out of here before the final horn, I promise.” The man blinked, puffing absently into the air, swaying on his feet, both elbows on the side of the window. After a moment he nodded and staggered off back into his cabin. Vostur clenched his teeth. “This is it. Does he raise the barrier or doesn’t he. Is he really as drunk as he seems to be or is he trying to delay us till the Servants get here?”

Moments passed. Nothing seemed to be happening. The barrier was not being lifted and the red uniformed officer was nowhere to be seen. Dirva was aware he could hear his own breathing. Lobor looked as if he was bout to be sick. Suddenly the barrier began to lift and Dirva heard a shared release of breath in the vehicle which glided through without need of a further signal. Lobor looked round, a beaming grin clearly broadcasting his relief. “Thank the stars. How come he hadn’t been notified to stop us?”

Nidval grunted. “He’ll have had the Intercom switched off so as not to interfere with his game. Servants’ll crucify him when they arrive.”

Vostur sighed. “Yes. That they will. I’m sure a lot of such officials must do much the same. It’s a quite lonely job, I’m sure and the occasional routine message from a bored and officious Senior Company Officer hardly competes with the excitement of Bladeball. Nice chap, stupid chap, crappy job, shame really, but we can’t complain. If he was an efficient bastard we’d have had to kill him and break in. That or be on our way to blood-eagling crosses. Which I can’t say I’m in that much of a hurry to experience.”

Dirva shivered. Blood-eaglings were mercifully rare, in Severa Secudna anyway. Occasionally, every cycle or so a couple of what passed for serious criminals on the asteroid were blood-eagled on the otherwise rather dull and poorly subscribed local holovision networks live from Kridoval Gard for the entertainment of the masses and a warning to would be criminals that the Empire was founded on justice, not mercy. It was not a pleasant way to die. Dirva watched one as a three cycle old child with Lobor when Lobor’s elder brother Elgo, who was supposed to be minding them was on the floor above seducing Emina Gorlias with a bottle of whisky. He had nightmares afterwards. The offenders were nailed to wooden frames erected in the division’s penitentiary, their stomachs split open and their ribs bent outwards until they were straight, like an eagle’s wings. This image alone had caused young Dirva to attempt to hold down his lunch, whilst still insisting on staring ahead with Lobor, neither able to admit the shock and revulsion they felt. After this, the offenders were emasculated and finally, gutted. Thus died traitors, pirates and all those who offended against the Canons of the Codex of Order. Dirva had no wish to die like that. Yet he had offended against the Canons, he knew, though he could not quote the exact text of that particular article. What he did know was that it was against Imperial law to kill, maim or any way harm or impede a Servant of Order in any circumstance.

The vehicle had stopped outside a medium sized purple coloured vessel, around the size of the main farmhouse on the Staser farm. Vostur spoke into the Intercom. “O Vasgas, you slumbering one, we’re back. We need to move fast. I trust you can manage that.” A strange, rich throaty voice returned down the speaker. “Preparing right at once, O Insolent Vostur.”

The voice was as good as its word, a gangway lowering almost instantaneously from the hull of the vessel. Vostur turned to the passengers in the back. “Dirva, Lobor. Welcome to our vessel. Both of you are, I’m afraid now members of our crew.”





What that would entail Dirva was now about to find out. The vessel was cruising away now from Severa Secunda, a gradually shrinking brown and grey clump of rock and soil perched in the sombre eternal night. They were heading away from the star of his nativity even, off into a great wide galaxy of which he knew only from his cosmography lessons. The sky seemed cold, even more so than under the most uninviting night sky he had ever seen at home, distorted as it was by the dusty clouds of lukewarm atmosphere continually pumped out by huge plants centred around the asteroid’s poles and without which the tiny rock would be uninhabitable. Here he could see many more of the stars than he ever could on the farm, but here they did not twinkle, they just blazed, slowly without haste, having all eternity in which to expend themselves. He tried for a moment reflecting on the great distances involved, remembering once ho Lobor's mother had said, that if one could drive in an ordinary surface buggy, if there was a road through the stars to drive on, it would take thirteen million cycles to drive to the province’s capital at Codushpur. Whereas, of course, it was reachable, even in a slow ship, in less than a Schedule. It was, if one actually thought about it, truly awe inspiring. Suddenly he realised to himself what an untenable idea it was, the whole idea of the road through the stars, until he reflected that it was a very good way to get children who rarely went further than Marsh Creek to understand distances. He tried to pick out the major planets of his system from amongst the wealth of other luminaries as they shrank further from his focus before he realised the futility of that exercise as well. He knew nothing really of cosmography. He was just restless.

“You and I need to talk.”

He turned to see Vostur standing behind him, stroking his cloak, a serious expression on his face. As soon as they had embarked onto the vessel, he had shown Dirva into the observation deck they were now in, before taking Lobor aside for a brief talk. Now he had returned to face the more difficult of his new passengers, one who as yet had literally no idea what it was they were involved in. Both men in the deck were aware that the ensuing conversation was likely to be highly significant.

The deck was in the upper part of the vessel, commanding a clear view of its progress, spacious and tastefully decorated, laid out with sumptuous furnishings, soft blue couches and a small, simply cut silver table. Small metal cabinets lined the walls and two holoscreens were placed on either side of the vast window which dominated the chamber. Vostur gestured to the couches. Dirva shambled uneasily over to one of them. He found he was relieved to be seated. His limbs still ached and his forehead still throbbed. Vostur opened one of the cabinets and brought out a crystal decanter and two polished goblets.

“Would you like a drink, Dirva? I feel it might help restore your youthful vitality, as well as help you adjust to your new situation, which, let’s be honest is not one your grandfather would have hoped for, I’m sure. It’s Kalarsiol Brandy, which I find has a fairly unique texture, but some say is an acquired taste.”

“Thanks. I’ve never tried, but yes. I could do with a drink.”

Smiling, Vostur filled both the goblets and handed him one. Dirva bent down and took a sip and then raised his eyebrows. It had a far mellower, sweeter taste than he was expecting from its ochre colouring and when it slid down his throat he felt a warm feeling infuse his veins. “Pleasant. I could grow to like this.”

Vostur fixed his eyes on him, nodding approvingly. “It travels well. In fact that bottle took five thousand light years to reach this table. But is one of the finer brandys. I doubt you would find a bottle in Marsh Creek, anyway. However, much as I might like to, I am not going to discuss the finer points of Kalarsiol Brandy with you at this juncture. I think to be fair, it is probably time I answered the questions you raised earlier. Who wr are. What you have got yourself into.” Dirva shifted forward in his seat, nodded tersely and sipped his brandy. “Yes. I think I had better know. Now it seems my old life has changed for better or worse.”

Vostur put his goblet on the table. “I’ll start by trying to be as level with you as I am to the rest of my crew here. Lobor has gone to rest in his cabin. Much has changed for him too and there are a lot of new realities for him to accept. But you, you have far more to accept in one go, much of it yet to come. In a very real sense Lobor has lost his family tonight. Lobor joined our cause recently, why he joined I am not at liberty to say. I’ll leave him to tell you his reasons himself, your friendship will have to learn to adapt to it. He was assisting us to procure artillery - we prefer to carry out such business in backwaters for obvious reasons. Unfortunately, it seems he probably got a little over confident. Or maybe not. I am not going to apportion blame at this point. I carelessly left much of the organisation of the deal to him, but it seems his source was unreliable, maybe even a sting planted by the Servants. That would certainly explain why the Servants would ransack a cropstore hours after the weapons had been stored there. The rest of Lobor’s family were, I need hardly mention, totally unaware of any of this. And this is where Lobor’s feelings of guilt begin, why he is currently mourning in his cabin. The Servants will already be interrogating his family.”

Dirva played with the stem of his goblet. “What will they do?”



“A technique aeons in the perfecting known as mindsacking. They will have their minds pumped with a potent chemical combination known as Emptier, which destroys all faculties such as reason, logic and inhibition and reduces them to a childlike state of honesty and innocence. They will find simply talking and telling the truth a great relief, while lying will agitate them. Not of course that they will any longer be able to think like you and me. But they will comprehend the questions asked of them. In this state they will be attached to a device which administers an electric shock when the pulse starts to race. As I said, in this state the effort involved in hiding truth will agitate them and set the pulse racing. They’ll find out all they need to know. However, when I say that in a real sense they are lost, I mean that. When they are released, which they will be, alive, they will be broken shells of their former selves, like dysfunctional children. The mind never recovers. The attention span is gone, the comprehension destroyed.”

Images flitted into Dirva’s mind of Lobor’s mother standing by the holoscreen, her arm outstretched to the image on it, her face blank and vacant, struggling to form sounds, while behind her Elgo, Lobor’s elder and haughtier brother, soiled himself. Then he imagined Lobor’s father crawling across the floor, dragging a piece of ripped cloth. He shivered, putting the vision from his mind. Vostur sipped his brandy. “There is something else you should know.”

Dirva sat forward. “What? Not Grandums! Not him too! Don’t say they’ll take him as well! Don’t say that!”

Vostur nodded somberly. “I’m afraid they will. They certainly won’t expect to find much, but won’t run the risk of omission. They need to cover every trail to pacify their masters. Five Servants died in that bar.”

Dirva stood up and paced the floor, biting his lip, feeling his face grow warm. He turned and pointed accusingly at Vostur. “How can you be so calm? It’s nothing to you, is it? Lives ruined just like that and you hardly react! What is it, just some part of some great galactic game of yours? Why should I trust a man who describes the willful mangling of my grandfather’s mind in such brief, unconcerned terms? I should go back there to him, give myself over to the Servants! I mean, who in the Emperor’s name are you? What am I doing here?”

Through all this, Vostur watched motionlessly, his expression grave, his brow furrowing. “Have you finished? Then sit down. You must know this. Understand this if you are to survive now. You may never learn to love these facts, but you must learn to live with them. Because those who will now pursue you do. Because it means nothing to them. They would do it to their own families if the believed it to be necessary. That is how they think, that is how the Servants of Order work. Anyone who does not hold a hallowed place in their ranks is, as the Emperor Cammarca said `The myriads of the great expendable.’ Only their goals matter. So sit down and listen. Or go and be expended. It’s your choice.”

Dirva sat down and drained his brandy. Wordlessly, Vostur refilled his goblet. “You asked us who we are and I said you had a right to know. We are known within our ranks as the Brotherhood of Liberty and Justice. According to the Servants, what we believe is heresy. In fact they label us the greatest of all heresies, for now they are actually starting to fear us. In every city, in every star, we have adherents now. Our teachings are spreading to every people the Imperial mantle covers.”

Dirva took this in. “You are the heresy of which Sestias spoke?”

“We are, Dirva. I am aware that the only reason you are here is because you saved your friend’s life. I am also aware that you have no knowledge of what we stand for, or why we do what we do. Yet I think you are an intelligent man. I also know you have something else, which we must also discuss.” He looked pointedly at Dirva. Shivering, the younger man remembered the burning officer. He wondered how long they would continue to skirt this subject. Vostur continued. “I am not going to force you to accept our ideals without having had time to think about them. I think you understand that in the short term anyway, your best option is to run with us. But I would not have you join us properly if your heart was not in it. I will not at this time ask for oaths from you. I will simply tell you things which are truths and leave the choices to you. Now tell me, what do you know of how the Empire is governed?”

Dirva frowned. “I know that Severa Secunda has a council which governs with a chairman. Many planets do. Some have other governments. On Privorsa, the natives have a prince, Elsewhere-.”

Vostur shook his head. “Immaterial. Your council decides nothing of more importance than t whose land is where, and where the new roads should go. Their sole real purpose is to raise the levy for the Empire. All the real power in the entire galaxy rests with the Servants of Order, and much of it in the hands of its chief officer, the Emperor.”

Dirva nodded. “The Codex of Order. The Emperor has absolute authority over all life and property within his domains, and the Servants uphold that authority, to enforce and expand it.”

Vostur laughed for the first time. “A succinct summary of Articles Two and Three of the Codex. It seems you did learn something from Lobor’s mother.” The image of Lobor’s mother, separated from her mind returned to haunt Dirva briefly before he pushed it out of his thoughts. Vostur continued. “Yes, that is the basic ideal which drives the Servants. Millions upon millions of miles from here, in the holy city of Imperion, the Emperor and Arch Satrap rules supremely over all sentient life in the galaxy. Today in fact, that authority has passed from a hope into a reality: In my lifetime the last serious culture not under Imperial rule within this galaxy was destroyed. Now one man has absolute authority, in fact as well as theory over all life that you or I are ever likely to come across. It is important however to always remember that that power derives from his position as chief of the Servants of Order. That is the legal basis of his authority. You must understand the driving force behind the Servants. It is the cornerstone on which our whole civilisation is built. Its purpose is simply what it says; Order, Authority. It governs simply to maintain its own authority and expand it. That is why the rest of existence, which falls outside their own aims is expendable. They will govern for the benefit of others when it suits them, but when it does not-.”

Vostur got up and went over to one of the holoscreens, where he began to type in a series of instructions. After a while, Dirva saw what appeared to be a sphere materialise in video-relief in the projection window. Then, as he looked more closely at it, he realised that one side presented a carving of a human face, cut with a stern, wise and almost heroic countenance. The lips were tightly sealed, the eyes seemed to burn with zeal and authority and the nose was proud and properly proportioned. The whole face was framed by finely carved locks of hair. The face seemed to rotate away from him as he watched. Vostur turned to look at the face and then turned to back to Dirva. “The face of Dimalkar Villartion. The first person to hold the office which we now call Emperor. He reigned over fifteen hundred cycles ago and devised the Codex of Order, amongst other things. The sphere you see rotating is in fact, a planet. It is to be found in the same star system as the Imperial Capital, Imperion.”

Dirva blinked with amazement. Vostur continued. “The planet is not inhabited now, but it was once. The inhabitants were removed at the order of the Emperor Callior III, who commissioned this work, so the face of Villartion, the founding father of the dream of Empire would live for ever. Great power was used to create it, advanced technology used in its building, the greatest artistic minds the Servants could produce detailed to plan it. Those inhabitants who would not leave were forcibly removed or destroyed. Although care was taken in its construction, fourteen million workers of a variety of races died as a matter of course to create it. They are listed simply in the records as `Manpower wastage’. A small price, the Emperor and his court believed. They were, after all, the `great expendable’. If twice, three times, ten times that number had died it would still have been a price worth paying. It is a work of art, none could ever deny that. It is also a very potent symbol of vast unlimited power and authority. It is a symbol of that all the Servants stand for, in more ways perhaps than Callior realised. Or maybe he did. That you see is the way the Servants of Order think. It is comforting to console oneself with the thought that a man like Callior simply had no value of the concept of life. It is more frightening to think that he did, that he pondered all the lives concerned and still thought what he did. Billions of Servants of Order today follow Callior’s line of thought as they always have done. And Quadrillions of Imperial subjects simply accept. As they always have done. They do not notice the bars around their cage because they have always lived in that cage. For the most part they live their lives blissfully unconcerned. As long as they can feed their families and hope one day to impress the other folk they share their planets with, why bother? Your friend Sestias is a perfect example of this viewpoint.”

“You, I take it are opposed to the Servants of Order?”

Vostur permitted himself a smile and sat back down on the couch. “Yes. I am opposed to a group of men which, while billions strong, still comprises but a mere fraction even of our own species, and yet not only has dominion over thousands of intelligent species but believes this to be its undeniable right, unconcerned with the justice of such an authority, unconcerned with the welfare of those over whom it exercises it privileges. Phrases such as `Order is its own justification’ do not sit easily with me. I do not believe that all we have achieved, that all we possess is merely held by sufferance of the Emperor. I would like the Servants to serve all life, not just themselves. It is the avowed aim of our Brotherhood to see all peoples governing themselves with rulers freely chosen from their own, working together towards aims in which all would have a part. I believe that the resources that were put into that” He gestured to the holoscreeen “could be put to a better use.”

Dirva sipped his brandy and lit a cigarette. Vostur pushed an ashtray in front of him. After a pause he asked “You wanted to talk to me about my – what I did to the Servant at the Creek Palace.”

“Yes. I believe we had better. It makes you uneasy, does it not? What, if anything, do you know about it?”

“To be honest, I don’t really know anything. But you – you have it as well – you sent out that beam thing.” He tapped his cigarette against the dish, his face pulled tightly in a frown. “My grandfather always said it was best not to talk about it. Said it was wise to leave it be. It’s just, I mean, I can do things. Things people can’t. Like set things on fire. I can sometimes open doors without touching them, or move objects, that’s it really. I don’t do it much, I don’t understand it. Sometimes it scares me. What I did tonight scares me.”

Vostur nodded gravely and drunk his brandy, his eyes fixed on the nervous youth. “That was no mean achievement. I meant that quite sincerely. I mean, fire is one of the first things most people learn, it’s one of the easiest. There’s no complex theory behind it. The same goes for lifting objects.” He leaned forward, his palms pressed together. “However, the force of what you did, the simple power behind it, was quite incredible, almost unheard of for one untrained, for one who has simply discovered their abilities by chance, unguided. Many highly practiced Servants could not hope to equal that.”

“What is it then, this, this thing, this ability that I am cursed with?”

Vostur pursed his lips. “Intrinsic Kinetic Potential. Now, I am being deadly serious with you for a reason. This is a serious matter. This ability is possibly one of the greatest single powers in existence. I am not a great physicist, so I can not explain it to you in all its exactitude, but I can explain the basic theory, I hope, in a manner you can understand as well as I do.” He leaned back on to the couch and flattened out his robe. “It is a basic law of the universe that things decay, dissolve from the complex to the simple, so the philosophers say. Yet the universe does not. As it has grown, it has increased in complexity. Species have evolved and become more advanced and developed, the universe has expanded, things move upwards towards perfection, rather than down towards chaos, whereas chaos, the physicists tell us, is the trend to which all forces naturally lead. The reason that this is negated, that the actual trend leads the other way, is due to the most powerful of all forces. This is that which philosophers call Animus, the force of life, an energy diffused throughout matter. This, we are told, keeps the stars burning, keeps the galaxies travelling farther apart, gives that spark of animation to living creatures. It is that essence of life which burns against the void of which the universe is so largely formed. This is, of course, a vast over simplification of volumes of research and philosophy. And I have skirted clear of those moot points which still divide the great minds of history. Anyway, the upshot of all this, the point on which all agree, is that the ability to somehow tap into this Animus is present in several of the species which inhabit this galaxy in various ways, some negligible, some purely in limited ways.” He paused to allow this strange new information, far from the everyday theories of pest control and fertiliser compounds, to sink in the unstretched mind of his new disciple. Reaching over to the table he refilled both goblets. “In our own species it happens that in some cases, proportionally few, that Animus can be tapped into by crossing what is called a threshold of will. A few, those strong in this field, can reach it and source, that is manipulate and control Animus to achieve their own ends. That is what you did tonight, even if you did not know it. In layman terms you directed your will towards the Animus present in the object, in this case a living one and therefore vibrant with Animus, and tapped through to it, causing combustion. As I say, it is one of the easiest tricks to learn. In every thousand of our race, on a balance of probability, around twenty five or so can be taught to master what you did. A small figure, you may think. An elite crowd. And in a sense it is, although in pure numerical terms there are still trillions of people in the Empire who come into this category, and the Servants of Order have always recruited exclusively from this pool.”

Vostur paused once more to let Dirva take this in. Dirva furrowed his brow as he took a gulp of brandy. “So what you are saying is that all the Servants who lie dead in the bar had this ability. Well, in that case, why didn’t they use it? Why didn’t they burn us straight away?”

Vostur shrugged. “I cannot answer that for sure. I can surmise. I can but suppose they were taken by surprise. They usually know in advance when to expect opponents who can source also. Most often that is when they face another with the white circles on his chest. Also, I can say without too much fear of error, that often the Servants posted to places such as Severa Secunda are rarely the brightest and the best. I don’t mean they are stupid men, the unintelligent rarely get to don the black cape, but they are usually those sent to gain experience, or those who have failed to live up to a glittering future. The one you killed was a prime example of a young officer, still waiting to prove himself worthy of a posting of real benefit. He was, self evidently, a man of ambition and promise, but I doubt he’d ever seen real combat or arrested anyone who argued back.”

Dirva paused for thought. His head was beginning to throb as his old life crashed down around him and new truths of which he had never even considered before towered up all around him. “If what you are saying is so, then I am one of those the Servants would recruit.”

“I did not say that, but I believe it to be so, or would have been if you were not an outlaw on the run. Certainly you would fit the criteria. They insist on intelligence as an entry requirement, which I believe you to posses. Generally speaking it seems to work that those who can tap into Animus tend to be drawn from the more intelligent elements of the population, but it doesn’t always follow. You do find some morons who can. They are never admitted. In fact the Servants usually have them put tacitly down, believing that someone who has such potential power but lacks the intelligence to use it properly is a real danger. I won’t say I have strong opinions on that. But yes, I believe they’d accept you, if you could pass the entry rites. That’s the real hard part. That’s when you’re really made to become like them. It’s really a mental, rather than a physical training, adapting your mind to constantly work in terms of the Codex of Order. For example to carry out such actions as they are now doing with your grandfather.” Dirva winced, but Vostur carried on without pause. “To execute their duties according to the lights of the Empire. To put their Codex before everything, even the things they hold most dear.”

Dirva shook his head. “Can anyone really be made to think like that to their core? And never question, even at the back of their mind? Even when the things closest to them are at stake?”



Vostur nodded “The answer is yes, I’m afraid, in most cases. The authority of the Codex over the minds of most of its devotees is absolute. Those who cannot accept it in every part of their being are not accepted. Those who do make it through to that way of thinking – the conditioned – usually remain that way. The transition is permanent. They believe that it is that conditioning which makes them the representatives of life closest to perfection, dedicated not to matters of a subjective nature, but devoted ultimately to the service of the supreme authority they support. It is rare for a Servant to rebel against that.” He paused for a moment. “I did. There are others now in the Brotherhood who did. But they are few and far between. Maybe a hundred out of several trillion Servants of Order who span the Empire today.”

Dirva looked at him. The older man looked sombre, in a few split seconds he seemed tired and worn, a vague emotion appearing in his eyes. Dirva realised that the man, about whom he really knew so little, was sharing something with him that cut close to the bone, part of a turbulent and difficult past from which he could never quite escape. Softly he replied. “You were a Servant of Order?”

Vostur nodded, his eyes fixed on the observation window, as if remembering a scene from his past life. “When I said that during my lifetime that authority of the Emperor was made complete, I spoke from experience. I was there to see it. I fought in the last war of Imperial history, the last at any rate with external forces. I spent the entirety of my earlier life fighting to achieve those goals, a warrior of the Celestial Son of Heaven.” He smiled wistfully. “Somehow, however, something came through from within. I lost my conditioning. I no longer thought like those who stood beside me, who shared my moments of leisure, who cheered joyfully when those who opposed them decorated bloodeagling crosses along the Imperial highways. Servants have no loyalty to those outside their clique, no friends or family outside that which they serve and to which they perpetually belong. Therefore when I lost my conditioning, I lost all those I was close to. They were my family, till then. As some I had become very close to after cycles of fighting together for the Emperor, facing death side by side. They all remained within the institution which was their life. Their conditioning never failed, they never wavered. One friend in particular, one who was with me almost from the day I took the oath, one who was with me during the greatest and the darkest moments-.” He stopped to take a swig of brandy, his eyes narrowed. “To lose a friend in death is a loss. But it is a true loss, and thus it goes away. To lose a friend through the intricacies of life-.”

He broke off. For a few seconds there was an awkward silence. Dirva, understanding a little of this irregular man at last broke it. “Is he still alive, your friend?”

Vostur shrugged. “He is. And still devoted to the Codex. The me that was his friend is dead.”

“Would you fight him if you came up against him?”

Vostur looked at Dirva, his eyes steady yet his hands shaking. “I don’t believe we’ll ever stand face to face again.”

Dirva allowed his gaze to wander to the vast window. The cold white smudges hung limp across the mantle of eternity. The Empire, he thought. Millions and millions of worlds of it. Around every dot out there were men in black cloaks emblazoned with white concentric circles, men with great power. Men who stamped their faces across whole worlds. And he was running from them. Vostur looked at him once more. “We’re heading for New Amdion, in the Baleus province. It’s the kind of place to go to ground. A large industrial trading city. Since we won’t be there for a while yet, we can continue all this in more depth. Which we must, you have a great deal to learn about your ability. In the meantime, I think I had better show you your cabin.”

Dirva nodded, glanced once more at the awesome majesty of the Empire outside, and stood up. At a stroke the combined effects of the brandy and the night’s events hit him. He knew he needed to sleep.