wore Imperial garb, so I assumed any other turncoats among the xenos contingent were being kept tactfully out of sight.
Leaving Jurgen to join Zyvan’s bodyguard, and investigate the refreshment table on my behalf, I claimed a seat between Donali and the Lord General, who smiled at my attempt to perch on the blasted thing without slithering off.
‘They’re comfortable enough, once you get used to them,’ Zyvan assured me, before wobbling a bit himself, and glancing sardonically at Donali. ‘So I’m told.’
The diplomat, of course, looked perfectly at ease, but since he’d spent half his life liaising with the tau, he’d had plenty of time to get used to their peculiar taste in furnishings. He inclined his head in greeting. ‘Commissar. We were beginning to think you’d got lost.’
‘I had an excellent guide,’ I assured him. ‘Au’lys Devrae. I take it you’ve met?’
‘Our paths have crossed,’ Donali said blandly.
‘And you never thought to mention there were human traitors among the invasion fleet?’ I asked, perhaps a little more bluntly than was polite. This was evidently news to Zyvan, as his eyebrows rose quizzically, and he gazed at the diplomat in a fashion most men would have found intimidating to say the least.
‘She isn’t attached to the fleet,’ Donali explained. ‘I gather there are humans under arms among the empire’s forces, just as there are vespid, kroot, and others, but they wouldn’t be deployed against the Imperium[30]. They fear the resulting bad feeling would impede efforts to find a diplomatic solution here.’
‘To say the least,’ I agreed. The abhorrence most Guardsmen felt for traitors and heretics would make it almost impossible to rein them in.
‘But there are humans here?’ Zyvan persisted.
Donali nodded. ‘They call themselves Facilitators. Not an exact translation of the tau phrase ku’ten vos’kla[31], but close enough. They move in after a world’s been annexed, helping what’s left of the local authorities to rebuild the infrastructure, and nudging everything towards promoting the idea of the Greater Good.’
‘So if Devrae’s already here, the tau must have thought Quadravidia was in the bag,’ I concluded.
‘Wrapped up, and ready to hand to the ethereals,’ Donali confirmed.
‘Which rather begs the question of why they changed their minds,’ Zyvan said.
‘Looks like we’re about to find out,’ I said, as a flurry of activity near the door caught my attention. A tau in an ornately decorated robe, its intricate intertwinings of multicoloured thread no doubt an indication of his status for those able to decode them, was just entering the room, surrounded by a retinue of lackeys thick enough to obscure most of him from view. Many of them clutched thin, flat devices I assumed to be data-slates, and all glanced in our direction with varying degrees of curiosity, apprehension, and disdain. None of them had anything which looked like a weapon, but I knew better than to take that at face value. ‘Our host has arrived.’
Donali nodded. ‘Someone senior from the water caste. Not sure who, but a fast courier boat arrived in-system last night. I’m told they’ve brought the latest information with them.’
‘But not, I presume, what that information is,’ Zyvan said sourly.
Donali shook his head. ‘The water caste like to keep the cards in their hands hidden for as long as they can,’ he said.
I turned, leaning as far as I dared on my precarious seat, trying to get a better view of the half-hidden diplomat, but just as his face was about to emerge from the scrum the familiar figure and odour of Jurgen loomed up in front of me, blotting out what little I could see of the approaching delegation. ‘They’ve got tanna[32], sir,’ he said, in pleased surprise, handing me a delicately worked tea bowl brimming with the fragrant infusion. For want of anything better to do, I took it and sipped, savouring the delicate flavour[33] of the drink.
‘I remembered your fondness for that particular beverage,’ a tau voice told me, and I rose to my feet, extending a hand in greeting. If I’m honest, I hadn’t recognised the sound of it, all tau vocal cords mangling Gothic in pretty much the same way to my ears, but I never forget a face that’s nearly got me killed.
‘El’hassai,’ I said, the sixty years since I’d last seen the tau diplomat falling away like so many days the moment I got a clear sight of him. No doubt one of his own kind would have detected signs of aging, Throne knows I’d acquired more than my own share, but he looked