‘It’s not been easy for me, either.’ She squeezed his hand, just as Vasteva had done the night before. ‘I have thoughts I ought not to have. Every day, more bodies to stitch up, more bad things seen and heard about. I think about what we’re told to think, told to believe. And then my daughter tells me I don’t believe in anything, and I wonder if she might be right.’

Zidarov could have told her the full truth, then. He got very close. He wanted to, and this was the opening, the first admittance of doubt. He could tell her the cult was called Salvia, and it had been on Alecto for thousands of years, long before the ships had come bearing the insignia of the early Imperium. It had been what had kept the first settlers alive, and now, as was the way of such things, it had been realised that they had been worshipping the Emperor all along without knowing it, for the Emperor was in all things, in many forms and shapes, and always would be. And it helped, for it was born of the soil of this world, not the corrupt structures of the Adeptus Minist­orum, which were empty vessels of control and coercion, imposed by a distant and uncaring bureaucracy.

‘So I went to the chapel,’ Milija said. ‘I prayed for the first time in ages. Properly. To the Angel. I asked him to keep her safe. To keep you safe. That’s the best way, I think. Go back to living properly. To trusting in Him. I think He’ll protect us, now.’

The moment passed.

‘I’m sure you’re right,’ he said.

‘You need to pray, as well.’

‘I’ll try to find the time.’

‘And just… tell me, if you need something? That’s what we’re for. Each other.’

He nodded. ‘I have to be reminded, now and again.’ He pulled his hands back. ‘We’ll talk again, all together. Maybe we should do some listening to her. She’s not a child.’

‘I’d thought the same thing. But not the Guard.’

‘There’ll be a way.’ He got up, reached over, kissed her on the forehead. ‘There’s always a way.’

That was true, but he still needed to find it.

He travelled the way he’d gone before, past the Goliath Munitions shell, out to the receiving yard for the incoming long-distance passenger haulers. He got out into the driving rain, and made his way to the supervisor’s office. It was a tiny cubbyhole perched high up on the edge of a rundown-looking comms-tower. The walls were filled with lumen-panels, each one tracking the progress of another hauler. Down below, in the holding yard, the big mag-transports gouted and hissed in the drizzle.

‘Probator Zidarov, Bastion-U,’ he said, flashing his seal at the operator behind the desk. ‘I need to look at your passenger records.’