During our planning phase we had discussed the possibility of using the Adeptus Arbities as a cover. That had, in fact, been where I got the idea for the leather great coat I was wearing, though it had been tailored to be significantly more form fitting than an Adept would wear once the role had been revised. We had rejected the idea on the basis that it would close as many doors as it might open and, given we had run into a real life Adept, that was just as well. I wondered what Ortega's real purpose was but I didn't try to read him. Arbites training included a certain amount of psychic conditioning, and it wouldn't do to get his hackles up by attempting to poke around in his brain. 

We had intended to hire transport at the lift bay doors. Indeed, there were dozens of ground cars drawn up in lines. They ranged in quality from psuedo-limosines with gleaming polish and gold and ivory inlay, to battered buses which looked like they were held together with omn-tape and devotion to the Emperor. As it happened, it proved unnecessary as Ortega had arranged for two vehicles, both servicible if unremarkable ground cars, for our party. Hadrian handed me in to the lead car and joined me, followed by Lazarus and Clara. Selenica and Urien's men took the second car. It wasn't an ideal division, I would have put Clara in the second car to act as a leader if there was trouble, but it would have raised suspicion if Hardian had deliberately seperated himself from an obvious security professional.

My first glimpse of the Lower Hive came as we left the lift bay and moved out onto the ground level transit way that fromed the arteries of the city. Great towers that served as both habs and structural members stretched up into the sky where a network of catwalks, some official and some little more than stolen cables and wood slats criscorssed the immense distances. Servo skulls and prayer drones, their ancient pict screens so broken that only the fact the devotional verses had burned onto the displays kept them legible, flittered above on their own purposes. The street level buldings were covered in gang tags that varied by color and creativity with district. Tatooed heavies lounged infront of favorite bars, eyeing passers by with predatory eyes. On one corner we saw a man whose face had been all but obliterated by a stubber round standing on a tower of stim-cola crates, screaming out praise to the Emperor with arms extended. Passersby shouted abuse and, less frequently, tossed small credit tokens into a plastic tub defended by a skeletal looking boy with a withered arm and an ancient looking shock maul.

Periodically bursts of greasy rain fell from the dim recesses above, and rubbereized wipers cleared it from our windshield. I found it excceding strange that it was raining inside a hive and repressed the urge to ask Lazarus about it, not wanting to draw any more attention to the tech adept than was necessary. Fortunately Ortega seemed to notice my interest.

"The hive has a system for maintaining air pressure througout the structure Madmoiselle...." he paused waiting for me to provide my name. It was a transperent tactic to dig information but one I gained nothing by evading.

"Krieg," I supplied in a clipped Scholar Progeneum accent, "Emalda Krieg." Emmalda Krieg was one of several generic identites Hadrian had run up for me before the mission. Inquisitors, at least those who act covertly, tend to collect them as they go through life, adding to them where they can. Most of my identies begin with Em or Emm in order to cover the fact that people will occasionally blurt it under stress.

"Madmoiselle Krieg," Ortega agreed, doubtlessly filing the information away for later analysis. Much good it would do him, Krieg being the third most common surname in the sub-sector and Emalda being current on thousands of worlds within six months transit. I had several more generic pieces of information I could supply about myself but I could ration them out.

"As I say, they maintain air pressure by periodically venting polutted air, and equallizing it with injections of scrubbed air from the outside. The new air is much hotter and more humid than the interior so everytime they do it they get a shower. Normally it is just a burst like this, but if there are fires or unusual discharge from the manufatoria, they can get a proper down pour," Ortega explained. They way he used the word 'They' instead of 'we' confirmed to me that he was an offworlder as he had claimed.

"Good to know," I replied a trifle stiffly to discourage further attempts at conversation.

As we moved deeper into the hive we began to encounter manufactoria. Massive squat structures that rose ten or a dozen stories into the skywith vast stacks that pumped pollutants into the heavy, bitumen scented, air. These were frequently surrounded by curtain walls, topped with razor wire or broken glass. The gang tags were fewer here and armed guards and the occasional combat servitor could be seen patroling the area. Massive pict boards were errected everywhere decrying such slogans as: Marcello Collective - Leading the Imperium in Worshipful Glass, and The Grolax Affinity - The Name in Compression Coils. Most of the pict screens had more than a few missing tiles, giving them a somewhat scabbous apperance. As we passed close to one of the manufactoria a great whistle blast split the air, and the doors opened, a line of exhausted looking men and women in green and grey uniforms slouching out, as an equally exhausted line began to file in. The daily shift change was evidently in progress.

"Did you have an itinerary of manufactoria you wished to inspect Sir Deckard? The information I recieved was fairly generic," Ortega probed.