Legion by Dan Abnett Page B

hated this fact. She was broken by the thought that she would soon be something else: a medicae, a Munitorum commander, a cartomancer, an uxor emeritus .
    Her powers were ebbing. Her ’cept was waning and weakening.
    ‘What do you have for me, sir?’ she asked.
    Quite a voice. Even the aides took notice. Husky. No, silky, like honey. Grammaticus knew he was a little in love with her, and allowed himself to relish the fact. It had been a long time, seven hundred years, give or take, since he had permitted himself to respond to a human female in any way other than physical need.
    ‘Well, I have plenty, uxor,’ he replied, taking out the document case from under his arm and opening it.
    ‘You’ve actually been in Mon Lo Harbour?’ asked one of the aides, looking right at him. Grammaticus felt a wash of admiring lust.
    ‘Yes… what’s your name?’
    ‘Tuvi, sir,’ the girl said. She was the most mature of Rukhsana’s aides, about nineteen. Tuvi clearly found the idea of a daring intelligence officer quite intoxicating.
    ‘Yes, Tuvi. I made cover as a merchant called D’sal Huulta, and spent the last four days gathering evidence in the inner quarters of the town.’
    Amongst other things, he thought.
    ‘Wasn’t that terribly dangerous?’ asked another of the aides.
    ‘Yes, it was,’ said Grammaticus.
    ‘How were you not unmasked by the infidel enemy?’ asked Tuvi.
    ‘Be quiet,’ Rukhsana told her girls. ‘Intelligence operatives are hardly required to give away their tricks.’
    ‘It’s all right, uxor,’ Grammaticus smiled. He looked at Tuvi and said, ‘El’teh ta nash el et chey tanay.’
    ‘What?’ Tuvi replied.
    ‘It means,’ Grammaticus told her, ‘ I speak the local language as a native does, in Nurthene.’
    ‘But—’ Tuvi began.
    ‘My dear, I’m not going to tell you how, so please don’t ask. If I might continue?’
    Tuvi looked as if she was going to say something else.
    ‘Let the man speak, Tuvi,’ Rukhsana snapped. ‘Heniker?’
    ‘Oh, of course. Well, the location itself… as we know, the Nurthene have no orbital or interplanetary technology, nor have ever possessed such means. However, the area known as Mon Lo Harbour, though flooded and used for maritime shipping, was originally constructed as a setting down point for starships.’
    Uxor Rukhsana blinked. ‘For starships?’ she echoed.
    He was taking a slight risk in sharing this information, but John Grammaticus’s mind was finely trained to sort and appraise data. He knew exactly what he could give up and what he couldn’t. He believed it mattered very little if the Imperials found out that Mon Lo had once been an extraplanetary set-down. It was a halting site, in fact. The Cabal used to visit here, long ago. That’s why they knew about the Nurthene culture.
    ‘For starships, uxor.’
    ‘Are you sure?’ Uxor Rukhsana asked.
    ‘Absolutely,’ Grammaticus replied. ‘I have excellent sources.’
    ‘And when you say “originally”, Konig, what does originally mean?’
    ‘It means something between eight and twelve thousand years ago, enough time for sea-levels to change, for flood plains to rise, and for a massive, stone-cut extraplanetary harbour to fill with water and become a harbour of a more traditional nature.’
    It was eleven thousand, eight hundred and twenty-six years, in fact, and the construction work had taken eighteen months. Grammaticus felt it wise to fudge the precision of his knowledge.
    The aides started speaking all at once.
    ‘That would place construction during the Second Age of Technology,’ said one.
    ‘Around the time of the First Contact Event, and the first Alien Wars,’ said another.
    ‘Is there any evidence as to which xeno form might have been responsible?’ asked another.
    ‘Do the Nurthene know of its provenance?’ asked Tuvi.
    ‘Tuvi frames the best question,’ said Grammaticus, shutting down the chatter. ‘Do they know? Well, I don’t believe they do. They