The trip to Kamden took a little less than six weeks. The Prelate Voss' captain, a grey haired matronly woman named Lisel Rainer, boasted it could have been completed in four, but we had to maintain the illusion of running naval dispatches to a couple of ports along the way. Rainer, who's face had been replaced with augumetics after a shot gun blast had taken half of it in a boarding action, knew we were Ordos but maintained our cover, even going so far as to invite us to several dinners with her officers. At these dinners I was required to play the roll of Amaletta Sark. Hadrian had provided me with the Ordo files on her and I concocted several stories to tell at dinner. I even psychically simulated them based on the limited data I had, giving Hadrian and Strong a chance to add what they knew of hunting to my own knowledge to refine my cover and to provide us with shared memories. Hadrian and Clara were playing the role of gun hands, Selencia was my doctor, and Lazarus my Magos Biologos.  I even styled my hair in a utilitarian bun and dressed in expensive but somber dress to better match my role. Worst of all Clara insisted that I learn to use a hunting rifle, a great monster Krigewald that was nearly as tall as I was and kicked like a mule. At least in Clara's opinion, it was too long for me to easily shoot myself by accident.

At Kamden, a world of scattered manufactorums and trading houses, we transshipped to the Grief Von Burlikean, a small sprint trader which worked the country trade between Kamden, Havenos and a half dozen other worlds that exported pelts, timber and other raw materials. It was a trim ship and a good deal more luxurious than the Prelate Voss. Judging by the cages in its hold it also ran beasts to the Imperial pits on Cronstdat when opportunity permitted. As luck would have it the ship was already planning to head for Havenos, not that such plans prevented the captain from bewailing disruption and demanding a steep fee for the privilege of accompanying us. I placed Lucius in a meditative trance for this leg of the voyage and we set him in a safe which the crew supposed contained luxury goods. Once thy attempted to break in, but fortunately Lazarus intervened before they could get inside and rouse the thunder warrior to what certainly would have been a bloody slaughter. 

We arrived at Havenos the day after Candlemass 985M41. It was a picturesque place from orbit. A verdant world of green forests shot through with isolated mountain peaks. Uniquely there was almost no tectonic drift and so the mountains were exclusively the result of vulcanism, with tall cindercones dotted along cracks in the mantle. Imperial settlements were sparce and for the most part located in the fortified calderas of extinct volcanoes, whose walls provided excellent defenses and whose basalt plugs were ideal strata for atmospheric lighters to land. The population in these fortified outposts was perhaps 200,000 planet wide with three quarters of a billion savage natives spread out over the rest of the planet. Pelts, amber, and other goods, were brought to the outposts on designated festival days. Factors would establish large fairs outside the volcano settlements and ply the natives with joylic, crude iron tools and other trinkets in exchange for the bounty of the forest. Trade with the 'Star People' was as much ritual as commerce and attacks on the outposts were both rare and brutally repelled. 

We landed at the imaginatively named Crossing Town via a chartered lighter. Our brief time on Kamden had revealed that an individual fitting Nagrip's description had been landed their by the rogue trader Proximae Innominae six months before, mirroring the intel sent by Hadrian's lost agent. I took a deep breath of this new world as we headed from the shuttle, finding the aromas surprisingly rural despite the aftermath of promethum fumes from the lighter. Crossing Town smelled of wood smoke and leather withyou the hint of pine from the gently rising inner slopes of the caldera. Other than the Administratum Building, which was of black volcanic stone, and the warehouses which seemed made of corrugated steel, most of the buildings were of two story timber construction with flat rooves which often held gardens. There was a central road which connected a geothermal powerplant to the main gate, a great blockhouse hewed out of the side of the mountain and reinforced with oozlite pilings. 

"We should ask around at taverns and outfitters, if your agent or Nagrip left town, they had to have hired vehicles and local guides," I speculated.