Chương 51: Interlude - Clarice Caduceus - Part Two

"Sometimes, I wonder if I'm merely wasting away what little freedom and time I have," Clarice muttered under her breath. She held still, then applied a thin dabbing of makeup beneath her eyes. She had to hide the bags, make herself properly presentable. For what? She truly wasn't sure. Yesterday had been a bust. She had made contact with both of the other heirs as well as her uncle's seneschal, but a few letters with barbs beneath the silk didn't exactly make for a strong alliance.

Her other task for the day, sending out that Vena woman's little invitation, had been rather easy. The best part of that was the obvious confusion that rippled across the gossip networks for the whole of an hour before it was drowned out by more pressing drama. She was very much on the fence about that one. She had done as the young medicae asked, and some of that may have been that Clarice was instantly amused by the sight of her, but that interest was waning rapidly. If she didn't see results, she would be upset.

But she was already upset. Clarice supposed she would have to do something about that. Standing, she adjusted the front of her outfit. It was a naval jacket, cropped short just below rib-height, and worn over a dress that swelled out at the hips into a large but not too large set of skirts. All in the whites and deep burgundy reds of House Caduceus, of course. She had a few little touches of jewelry here and there. Diamonds and rubies, as was befitting a member of the house.

"What do you think, Gabriel?" she asked with a glance at the man through her mirror. The young man looked up, blinked a few times as though to refocus himself, then he shrugged.

"I don't know, ma'am," he said. He reached up and adjusted the edge of her psykana collar.

"Miss Venin is a strange one."

"How so?" she asked.

"Have you peered deeper?" He nodded subtly.

"She... displaces more than others around her do. I hadn't noticed in your presence the day before last, ma'am, as you also carry more import than a menial. But she... does as well. I noticed when she slipped by some of the servants."

"Hm. Would you say her presence is greater than my own?" she asked, truly curious.

"I couldn't say, ma'am," Gabriel replied. That was a yes, but her manservant was far too polite to admit it. She took no umbrage. Gabriel's service was a boon, and his gift was particularly useful in ferreting out spies and interlopers. It wasn't always precise, but he could feel--as he had described it--a ripple in the immaterium around every person's soul. People of greater import tended to have a greater wake.

Sometimes, a menial would as well, often before they made a choice that would shift the tides, so to speak. As far as anyone else was concerned, he was merely her well-paid bodyguard and occasional manservant, and that was all. She was careful to keep that particular talent of his hidden. In any case... that Miss Venin had a greater depth than expected was perhaps a sign that this evening's dinner was going to be more exciting than expected. She made accommodations for that.

Wearing a small bracelet that her uncle had given her which may well be xenotech and which she had chosen to never question the utility of, and increasing the number of guards in the adjoining rooms to the one where they would have their little meeting. Then she swept into the dining room to find Vena Venin idly scrolling through a dataslate. The young medicae glanced up, then stood.

"Lady Caduceus," she said.

"Junior Medicae Venin," Clarice replied. It was a slight. Technically, calling someone by their rank was only appropriate, but in this case, she could have chosen a more familiar mode of address, or simply called her 'Miss Venin.' Pointing out the lowliness of the woman's rank was a small smack on the cheek. Vena didn't react to it.

"A pleasure to see you again. Hopefully my erstwhile companions are the punctual sort."

"The erstwhile companions that you've never met," Clarice asked.

"Indeed."

"And you expect them to show up? Have you been in contact with them at all?" Vena shook her head.

"I have not. But I have confidence that they'll appear in due time." Clarice perked one delicate eyebrow upwards. Where had this confidence come from? She plucked a watch from the inner pocket of her jacket and glanced at it. It was synchronized to the ship's bells.

"Well, they ought to hurry. Time's almost up, Junior Medicae Venin." Unspoken was that with that loss of time was a loss of Clarice's confidence in the young woman. Unfortunately, the nearest airlock was quite some distance away. Besides, it was unwise to toss someone out when they were travelling through the warp, and Venin's demise might irritate someone on the medicae deck.

"Approaching," Gabriel said, his voice pitched low so that only she would hear. Judging by the way Venin perked, she had heard it anyway. Good ears on that one. Clarice moved to position herself next to the seat at the head of the table while Gabriel moved closer to the main entrance. He paused there, then nodded and touched something to the side of his ear as he no-doubt received information over her quarter's private Vox network.

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. He shifted to the side, then opened the door.

"Introducing Tech Acolyte Alexis Lambda-3," he said. The door was opened, but she was already thinking. A tech acolyte? She wasn't intimately familiar with the byzantine mess that was the organizational chart of the Adeptus Mechanicus, but it didn't take an expert to know that anyone ranked as an Acolyte was barely clinging onto the lowest rungs. Then a machine stomped into the room, ducking below a doorway that could have accommodated a Space Marine in full armour. The machine shifted its torso left and right.

She would be the first to admit that she knew little of the Mechanicum, but that thing looked terrifyingly large. Then a second slipped into the room. A feminine figure? Only no, this was another machine. Lithe, quick, and moving with a visible stutter, and most importantly, without any noise. The figure looked at her, then Venin, then Gabriel. It continued to stare at him before suddenly launching itself across the room and up into the rafters.

Clarice almost spoke up when the larger machine moved to the side as well and two more figures came in. One of them was a tech priest, the other a large, insectile machine with guns that likely outmassed Clarice herself. She focused primarily on the woman. As academic as her knowledge of the Adeptus Mechanicus was, she was not clueless. She knew that from the way these machines moved, they were guarding this woman, and that meant that she was the one in charge.

The girl's face was only partially covered by a deep red hood, but her face was open and smiling. It was disarmingly guileless. The blonde twintails didn't help any. The girl raised a mechanical arm and waved.

"Hi there!" she said with a voice pitched upwards into a range that read as innocent. Clarice didn't buy it for a moment. The woman had mechadendrites shifting behind her, her arm looked like the kind of clean, well-designed but not overtly decorated bionic that Clarice would expect to see in a very well-off noble trying to downplay their wealth. Her legs were more of the same, ending in inhuman points and moving with the casual grace of a dancer.

The amount of hardware on display was a good way of judging the strength and importance of a member of the Adeptus Mechanicus, and if this woman was an 'Acolyte' then Clarice was a professional potato peeler.

"Hello," Vena replied. She nodded politely.

"I'm Vena Venin, Junior Medicae. It's a pleasure to meet another Vanguard."

"Oh! Cool! Wow, you're tall! Ah, sorry, is it impolite to point it out? Gosh, I should have gotten legs that could extend more, then we'd be able to see eye to eye and you wouldn't strain your neck." Clarice was taken aback for a moment, especially at being ignored so thoroughly. Still, she glanced at Gabriel who gave her a subtle nod, then made a small gesture with a twitch of his fingers. Another with a strangely large wake?

Then Vena brought the young woman closer, and Clarice went through the usual polite introductions and greetings. She was a professional. It wasn't too long--though after the point where someone could claim to be on time--that Gabriel gave her another signal.

"Ah, it seems like the last of us are here," Vena replied.

"That's got to be Octavia!" Alexis Lambda-3 said.

"She's... interesting." Gabriel cleared his throat.

"Introducing... Sister Novitiate Octavia Glass." A sister novitiate? That meant another nobody? Clarice wasn't such a fool that she'd miss an obvious pattern forming before her. Vena Venin, the Junior Medicae who knew too much, who carried herself with undue confidence, and who wanted to use Clarice. The Tech Acolyte with more bionics than a magos and a trio of very dangerous-looking robots, and now a Sister Novitiate? She wasn't sure what she expected.

It wasn't a woman so short she barely made it to Gabriel's shoulder. It also definitely wasn't to see someone who was the spitting image of an Imperial Saint. From the golden laurel wreath to the immaculate armour. The girl looked around, then grinned a crooked smile that immediately painted her as a threat, more so than the guns or the sword on her hip. Then Gabriel bent over in half and vomited all over the floor.

"Oh, you good there, buddy?" the woman asked.

"You a psyker? Yeah, you might wanna not stare at me too long. It'll make you go cross-eyed."

"Hello," Vena said.

"One moment, please." She walked past everyone, and was soon bending down herself to look over Gabriel, gently touching and prodding him and asking basic medical questions in a low voice. Which left Clarice the task of handling the newcomers. Great. She had expected Vena to fall flat, and instead she was left with whatever this was. She didn't know if it was better or worse.