The movement seemed small on the surface of the planetoid. It was a minor rearrangement of its geography. Vangorich knew what it meant, though. He had told himself that he had nothing invested in Tull’s folly. He was wrong. He discovered that when he felt a vice crush something in his chest.
He thought of the reports that had come back about the star fortress over Ardamantua. How it had been a face. How it had spoken. He hadn’t thought about the scale involved in such movement. He did now. He pictured being on the surface of the moon, of being caught in that collision of mountain chains.
Of being so insignificant that so small a gesture extinguished him.
He sighed and left the Cerebrium. He supposed he should be present for the end of the farce in the Great Chamber. He would bear witness. If Wienand, or a saviour not yet present in the Sol System, produced a miracle, then there would still be a reckoning.
He encountered the silence when he entered the Great Chamber. The parliament was as full as it had been at the launch of the Crusade. The assembly sat, robbed of volition. A hundred thousand servants of the Imperium, empty. There were some sobs. The weeping was so scattered and weak that it made the silence all the more palpable.
The stillness extended to the dais. Juskina Tull had been the presiding presence on the dais for the entire duration of the Crusade. As word of the landings had arrived, she had grown even more in stature, her energy of speech and gesture reaching for the superhuman. Now she was shrunken on herself. Her face, wan, seemed to vanish beneath the dead hand of her robes’ glamour.
Vangorich thought of that moment, walking with Veritus in the aftermath of Tull’s first speech, when he had contemplated the assassination of Tull and all the Lords who had stood with her. He had judged the move pointless. He believed he had been correct. Even so, he regretted the decision, and thought, I carry my portion of the day’s shame.
The pict screens that had been installed around the dais showed static.
Vangorich mounted the dais. He evaluated the silence of the other High Lords. Tull’s allies were as defeated as she was. Fabricator General Kubik was looking from static to static on the screens. Now and then, he uttered a short burst of binary cant, as if making notes to himself. Veritus looked thoughtful, but far from defeated.
‘Are you going to share your optimism with the rest of the Senatorum, inquisitor?’ Vangorich asked. ‘Do you see a way forward?’
Veritus frowned. ‘Your levity is misplaced,’ he said.
‘Is it?’ He paused, then nodded. ‘I believe you’re right.’ He turned his gaze on Tull and her allies. ‘We’ve had enough of lunatic frivolities.’
The screen to the left of Udo’s throne flickered back to life. ‘It’s Lansung,’ the Lord Commander said.
Lansung’s image steadied. ‘We’ve picked up a signal,’ he said. ‘A ship has left the ork moon. It’s on a trajectory for Terra.’
‘The attack has begun?’ Verreault asked.
‘No. This is a single ship. It’s Terran, and transmitting identification codes. It’s a merchant vessel. The
‘What is your recommendation, Lord High Admiral?’ Vangorich asked.
‘To let it arrive. This can’t possibly be the invasion.’
‘Then what is it?’ Ekharth asked. The Master of the Administratum’s cry was childlike.
It snapped Mesring from his catatonia. The glow of inspiration suffused his face. He stood up. He began to speak.
Encouraged by the Ecclesiarch, Ekharth’s cry was taken up. It emerged from the silence, a reed-thin complaint from the depths of an echoing well.
Mesring’s sermon fed the question. It offered no answers. It took theories apart. The orks were not attacking. The ship could not be a doomsday weapon, because it was too small, and what would be the point?
‘Perhaps,’ Mesring said, ‘we are witness to a miracle. Perhaps, by the grace of the Father of Mankind, this blessed vessel has been delivered from our foe.’
An escape. The flight of a single ship could not offer true hope. But it was a dream.
The cry of frightened children was answered by a call to prayer. Summoned, the people came. Faith was the last refuge. They turned to it with a vengeance. The
