[25]

216.738.M41

Near Velgrad

Naomi changed tactics again on the third day. Still no needles and blades, just a data-slate and her pistol. I don't think she would have tortured me, if her approach failed. Someone else would replace her, someone who wasn't philosophical and kind. I think she would grieve for me, the way she grieved for all the others her sect had hurt and killed.

She explained her philosophy again, made the same arguments as the first day. Again I focused on what they had actually done, and it was a kind of bunker against an intellect I couldn't face in open battle.

I did talk, but only to ask for water, and later for the toilet. I had asked for those the day before, too. The procedure was the same.

For the water, she would come to my side of the table and hold a canteen to my lips. For the toilet she would leave, and come back with at least two guards. Then they would disconnect my ankle cuffs from the table and take me past the door at the end of the hall, which opened on a short square room. There was a stairwell door on the far side, a table, chairs, cupboards, and a door to a toilet room on the left with a small shower. Today there were two men and two women playing cards at the table when my parade of armed men came stomping through with me clinking along in short cuffed steps. I didn't recognize them. The men had sidearms, but the women didn't. Naomi went in with me and tried to make pulling my trousers down as polite as pulling someone else's trousers down can be. My hands stayed cuffed behind my back throughout. I hated the indignity of it, but it wasn't cruel. It was almost kind.

After some more philosophy with countless questions that I ignored, Naomi came to my side of the table again and placed the data-slate in front of me. She turned it on. I turned my head and looked away.

"Look," she said. I didn't. I heard something from the slate like the sound of combat. Small arms and the familiar sound of bolters. It sounded like a platoon-scale engagement for a moment, but then it was over. Then there was chanting, and the words of the chant were the prayer of annihilation: 'May I take only vengeance, and leave only ashes. In the name of the Emperor, let nothing remain.' There were screams.

"Look!" she said. She tried to turn my head with her hands, but I didn't let her. She was too gentle to really try. She gave up and walked away. She stepped out into the hall. I bent and used my face to push the slate off of the table. It didn't break.

The chanting and screams continued for a while, and then there were other sounds, with a different timbre, as from a different recording.

Three guards came in with her. They picked up the slate and put it back in front of me. They grabbed my head and neck and face and forced my head around. They pried my eyelids open with their fingers. Now, at last, was something I was ready for, something I had been trained for. The snarling faces, the overwhelming strength, bruises and scratches and short hard blows.

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I looked at Naomi instead of the slate. For the first time she really looked beaten.

They pushed my head down so that the slate filled my vision.

I watched the Imperium of Man kill human children for an unending black eternity. They had one video—the first one, with the chanting—that was Battle Sisters. Up close, through a security-picter recording. There was a crowd of captives, and a flamer.

Afterwards, I worked out that it had been about an hour. It felt longer. At some point the men had left.

Naomi was talking. Laying out some well-reasoned argument in a calm, gentle voice. I didn't answer. What could I say? I knew she was telling the truth. Partial truth, maybe. Without context, without the fog of war and the horror of necessity. But true enough.

I put my forehead down on the table and she didn't try to force me up again. I wept. My nose ran. I had no way to wipe it.

She reached into her coat. "Handkerchief?"

Now she was going to wipe my nose, I thought. I thought about refusing, but I didn't.

She came over to my side of the table, but she didn't wipe my face. Instead, she crouched behind me. She was going to undo my cuffs and let me do it myself.

She was going to undo my cuffs.

My hands came free. She held my wrist firmly, the one that still had the cuffs attached. She made to move it around in front of me.

"Give me your other hand. I'll cuff them in front."

I might never get another chance like this.

She must have sensed the change in my body. She started to move back. I lunged to my feet, grabbing at her. My ankles were still cuffed to the table but I hurled myself into her, caught a fistful of her hair, and dragged her down. She reached for her pistol. I got my body on top of it. I struck her head against the floor.

She reached into her pocket. I grabbed at her wrist. I had her braid in my fist and I yanked her head up and slammed it down again. A small folding knife slipped out of her fingers and onto the floor.

I fumbled it open. She thrashed free of my control. I felt her want to scream. I pressed my hand over her mouth. She tried to protect her head and chest with her arms.

I stabbed her until she died.

I drew her laspistol and pointed it at the door, expecting the guard at any moment.

Half a minute passed. My heart rate slowed. My back was wet from lying in her blood with the gun trained on the door. She hadn't screamed. There had only been a few grunts and thumps.

The guard wasn't coming.

I found the key and removed my cuffs. I took the belt and holster.

Her feet were about the right size, but I didn't want to take her shoes.