Chapter Text
AGURIN CITY
AGURIN
THE PERIPHERY
21 MAY 3025
The steady purr of the Yufeng's engine did nothing to soothe Abury Morr's headache. He winced even as he pressed his forehead against the cool leather headrest of the driver's seat in front of him. Its occupant was too polite - and too career-conscious - to yet suggest the Protector of Communications should push off and do his job.
Not that Morr was entirely sure what that job even was. Agurin politics were freewheeling, as much of the Periphery was, with cabinet shuffles common. He'd been Protector of Law for the last six months, and had even begun to feel a little comfortable with the slim codices of communal precedent built over the few decades since Agurin's fractious city-states had federated. He'd even sat in the gallery under the Rock a few times, putting on a stern face as malingerers were sentenced to hard labour on the island expansions, but his only experience with communications was the knowledge that Agurin had a HPG facility and that it more or less ran itself. ComStar took its cut, and all was right with the world.
Now - now - he was expected to pile out in the government's finest landcar, imported at ten times its actual cost from the Capellans and greet a visiting delegation of the white-frocked priests who kept the whole Sphere talking.
'You better hurry up, sir,' the driver - and long-suffering aide - spoke softly. 'You know what ComStar does to politicians who show up late?'
Morr's gut heaved. 'What do they do?'
'No idea, sir. Thought you'd know.'
The Protector of Communications groaned and risked a glance out the tinted window. The small delegation waited politely just before the marbled front steps of the HPG fortress-facility. Aerials and arcane machinery thrust proudly out from towers and turrets, like the banners of some ancient order of warrior-monks waving in clear skies, declaring their faith and dedication to the cause. The delegation's leader looked as one might expect: a grizzled graybeard in severe frock, but the four other fresh arrivals veritably burst out of their white-and-red bodygloves. Three men and a woman who must be technicians, all hard muscle and close-cropped hair, the better to torque wrenches and wriggle into the labyrinths of technology they maintained.
Morr squeezed his eyes shut, praying for relief. Maybe they'd just blow the car up and end his suffering. He waited a moment to see if his prayers would be answered by a PPC from heaven. Salvation, alas, did not come.
'I better get on with it,' he said.
'You better,' replied his driver, utterly devoid of sympathy.
With that heartfelt support, Abury Morr tugged his black robes of state into something that suggested - if not authority - then at least that he had not been excavated from the lichyard for this meeting. The Yufeng's door opened with a whisper that was a pleasing countertone to the idling engine's purr. He staggered out into the midday sun, and - half-shielded by the groundcar's slim body - breathed out, straightened to his full height and put on a face that showed little of the green gills beneath.
The delegation did not move to meet Morr. The leader watched his approach as though deciding whether the bug crawling across searing ferrocement deserved the mercy of his boot.
'My apologies for the delay,' Morr opted for a cheerful, conciliatory opening tone. 'I was only just informed of ComStar's delegation to our humble world, and made all haste from a local engagement to welcome you. How may Agurin assist?'
The leader did not match that tone. He sneered. He was, Morr noted, extremely good at it.
'You have been lax in your duties, 'Protector'.' An outswept arm encompassed the HPG facility. 'We shared Blake's gifts with your 'humble' world, expecting that they would be treasured, respected and protected.' That word again. Morr's mind raced, but the leader went on with the inexorable weight of a 'Mech on the charge. 'This world owes us, functionary. Without the holy HPG, the resources you trade for prosperity would rot in the earth. Without Blake's forbearance, the ability to call for aid and succour, you would be easy prey for pirates and reavers and whichever miserable lance of mercenaries looked twice.'
Morr winced again and it had nothing to do with his quickening hangover. He held his hands up for peace.
'Sir, I do not-'
'No,' the leader cut him off, 'You did not. The harm is done, Protector. You stand before the temple and yet remain ignorant of your sin. If I were a violent man, I would demand your head and hands delivered to Terra as an apology.'
'On a fast courier, sir?'
Morr clapped a hand to his mouth, but the words were out. The leader sighed, more frustrated than furious, but the faces of three of the technicians hardened with the promise of wrath to come. One - a man - twitched a smile at one corner of his mouth.
'On a slow, slow boat,' the leader replied, 'so you would rot. It is thus written in the Book of Blake: it is the traditional punishment for malefactors since the fall of the Star League. We charter ships for the purpose.' A wintry smile. 'They are long voyages indeed, Abury Morr.'
The use of his name sent a chill down Morr's spine, despite the pleasant midday heat. ComStar was an ancient, near-omnipotent, near-godly organisation, and it was never reassuring to hear one's name spoken by the gods.
'Precentor,' the half-smiling man was at the leader's elbow of a sudden, not quite between the two men. His face was carefully neutral now. 'No need to sully yourself with this further. I'll see that the Protector is advised of the situation, the cause, and-' he glanced at Morr, expression unreadable, '-the consequences.'
The man turned without a word and gestured for the three remaining techs to fall in, leaving Morr utterly dismissed. They marched towards the facility doors and were welcomed with a solemn, processional dignity that belied the tension of a near-brawl erupting on the steps.
The remaining tech scratched the side of his nose. It was the first truly human thing Morr had seen one of the ComStar delegation do.
'I'm Adept Rader,' the tech stuck out a hand. 'And you're in a pit of piss.'
Morr grasped it like a drowning man clinging to driftwood. 'How deep?'
'Up to your neck. Got a holopad?'
'Um.' Morr had seen a holopad. Once. On a holovid beamed from the Capellan Confederation. 'In my other robes. We're not a backwater.'
Rader snorted a laugh. 'Sure. We can use mine.' The sleek device came out of one of the many tool-satchels belted to the man's waist. 'How familiar are you with resonance and interface theory?'
'Assume I know nothing.'
'Well. Look here.'
Morr admired the beautiful elegance of the holopad, the bright colours, the sharp contrast as it displayed sequences of data that were entirely wasted on him. He felt like a primitive seeing fire for the first time as Rader talked and talked, in a way that suggested he was generously limiting his explanations as he would when speaking to a particularly dim child.
'Yes,' Morr said when it seemed appropriate, or 'I see,' or made concerned noises and a serious face when Rader glanced up at him.
Finally, Rader threw his hands up and switched the holo off.
'Look, Protector,' he said, not unkindly, 'None of this is making an impact, is it?'
Morr nodded miserably.
'You're smarter than half the functionaries I deal with to admit it, at least.' The tech chuckled. 'Alright, simple as I can, then. Your HPG's been thrown off its bearings by repeated interference. I say it's environmental, but the Precentor thinks it's carelessness on your part, though he's going to shrive the crew here anyway.'
'Environmental?' Morr perked up. 'Like the cyclostorms?'
Rader blinked. 'Scuse me?'
'Cyclostorms. They build up behind the ranges, then come down like a, a magnetic avalanche.' Morr distantly remembered the phrase used in some dusty cabinet meeting. 'Could that be the problem?'
'You know…' Rader considered, tilted his head. 'It just might. I won't say an HPG is usually vulnerable to that kind of phenomenon, but I've seen stranger things doing this job. We'd probably need to see one in action, take in-situ readings to make sure, but I'd be happy to take that theory to the Precentor. And I'd make sure he knew you were the one who came up with it. Might save you a Terran vacation down the line.'
'So… it can be fixed?'
'Of course!' Rader clapped the Protector on the shoulder. 'Nothing out there ComStar can't fix. But we'd much prefer to treat the cause, not just the symptom. And if we manage that, well, we'd have you to thank for it, wouldn't we?'
Morr let out an enormous breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding. He hadn't taken the Precentor's threat seriously - not consciously - but having it lifted off his shoulders was a relief, all the same.
'We'll have to take the facility offline for a little bit to get the resonance back within parameters, naturally. We've put a hold on all messages for the duration: we'll scan and archive before we purge the buffers, of course, but Agurin will be going quiet for a bit. Any affairs of state will have to wait.'
The Protector of Communications nodded to let the Adept know he understood.
Whatever trade deals, support requests or poetry to offworld sweethearts the Ministry had planned would have to wait until their benefactors were done. Still: much better to lose a little money on coming late to trades now than having their messages inconsistent or corrupted, to say nothing of what would happen if Agurin lost the HPG entirely. What a relief that ComStar had seen the problem and dispatched a crew before anything worse happened. That was worth enduring a few threats, easily. They were just worried about their tech, that was all.
Rader patted Morr on the shoulder again and turned to go.
'Ah, Adept?'
'Yes?'
'I believe there's a cyclostorm due this evening or next, actually.'
Rader looked up into the perfectly blue sky and smiled. 'You'd know best, Protector, but all I see are clear skies ahead.'
The Adept entered the HPG facility. The doors closed without a sound behind him. The ComStar facility was secure again. Impenetrable. Inscrutable. And, soon, no longer to be of concern to Abury Morr. He returned to the Yufeng with a spring in his step.
He relaxed in the luxurious leather, sinking deep, worries draining away.
'Clear skies ahead,' he said to the driver.
'Really, sir?'
'Clear skies,' Morr repeated, jolly once more. 'And I think I've earned a tipple at the Confederate Club, don't you?'
The driver put the groundcar in gear, casting a discerning eye upwards as they pulled out into sluggish traffic, no citizen any more eager than their Protector to get back to productive ventures.
'Looks like rain to me.'