He patched in a link to a contact he’d taken from his terminal at the Bastion – the supervisor at Colossus platform, the suborbital receiver-cradle Borodina had mentioned. It was now late enough in the day that someone might feasibly be manning the veil-terminal.

‘Yes?’ came a voice at the other end. No vid-feed emerged.

‘Probator Zidarov, Bastion-U. I need to speak to the supervisor.’

‘Uh, y-yes, probator. Of course. She’s out on operat–’

‘Hora decimus, on the dot. I’ll meet her at her office. His Hand.’

‘Yes. Yes. His Hand.’

Then he settled down.

After a couple of hours, his console flickered into life. The scanner had detected movement at the mansion’s gatehouse, and a vehicle matching the profile had exited. A two-dimensional map of the local area glittered into life, hovering over the main display. The scanner gave Zidarov a trajectory for a few more seconds before the groundcar moved out of its range. He started the Luxer’s main engine and pulled out, letting the machine-spirit calculate an intercept course.

Once in tracker range, he made no attempt to catch up with it, just mark where it went. Unsurprisingly, its first port of call was close at hand – a flashy district filled with high-end eateries and commodities boutiques. The streets were actually flat, the surfaces unmarked by potholes and stress cracks. Every block was gated and fenced, with hover-skulls scudding from vantage to vantage, tracking and recording. The glossy chameleon-screens in such a place had fewer Ministorum injunctions and more commercial advertisements. The people on the sidewalks were a bewildering mix of colours, with skin tones ranging from violet to emerald, attended by clusters of security guards and baggage-servitors. They all went confidently, proudly, knowing that every corner of the district was overwatched and scrutinised, with lasguns trained on anything that looked, moved or smelled out of place.

Zidarov waited for Udmil’s transport to come to a halt. Only then did he close on it, powering smoothly through the bigger ground traffic around him. It had paused in the drop-off lane of an exclusive private members’ club, one with ferns clambering up the marble walls and solid-gold figures of the holy ­primarchs intermixed with more prosaic images of excess and luxury. That had presumably been to let Udmil herself enter in state; after that, the driver had taken it across to the next block, to an open compound where dozens of other vehicles waited, their engines kicking smog into the damp air, their drivers hanging around with cotin-injectors adding to the fug of smoke.

He pulled up alongside Udmil’s vehicle. Its driver, who leaned against the open door, wore a black uniform piped with ivory, with the leonine crest on the left breast. He had a holster at his hip, and the profile of his jacket indicated flak-protection underneath. His face was hatchet-mean, with dark eyes under a peaked cap. The steady rain ran down a waxed overcoat.