No one had expected that, after they sent a plea for aid across the galaxy, the first reinforcements to tear through the Warp's dark clouds and descend upon Pedetia would be the Daemon Inquisition.
What was more, the Inquisitor leading them was an "old acquaintance" of the Death Seekers.
At the heavily guarded spaceport docking gate, Lord Inquisitor Herbert Hernanpode strode out surrounded by his guards. He and Robert, who had come forward to greet him, exchanged a solemn Imperial Eagle Salute.
Time cut like a knife. Compared with two hundred years ago, when the Pedetia Death Seekers Corps had first been founded, Herbert had visibly aged. His skin clung to his bones like dead bark. His face and exposed neck were covered in metal ports left by life-extension procedures and hideous scars from emergency surgery. Half his body seemed to rely on machinery to keep functioning. Only his eyes had escaped the decay of his body. Rather than growing clouded, they had become even sharper, like a pair of freshly tempered daggers that could easily pierce the disguises people wore over their hearts.
After the salute, Herbert's keen eyes lingered on Robert for a moment. His voice held a measure of undisguised surprise. "Your appearance seems barely changed from two hundred years ago—unless my memory is failing me, you look as though you've aged no more than a decade or so."
For mortals, two hundred years was enough for several generations of a family to come and go. Yet the Planetary Governor before him seemed to have been forgotten by time.
"By the Emperor's grace, the Death Seekers neither die nor perish." Robert smiled and brushed the question aside without batting an eye. "I didn't expect an Inquisitor who spends his life dealing with daemons to live this long,