*He's handsome,' said Severine. *Don't you think he's handsome?'

Dalia and Zouche shared a look of puzzlement. *Who?' asked Dalia.

Severine nodded towards the empath strapped into the throne of the enhancer. *Him, don't you think he's handsome. I wonder what his name is?'

*He's a psyker, he doesn't warrant a name,' said Zouche, his lip curling in distaste.

Dalia came around from the back of the enhancer and took a good look at the unconscious empath. In the days since they had first laid eyes on him, he had not stirred so much as a muscle, and Dalia had begun to think of him as just another component of the machine.

*I hadn't really thought about it,' she said, troubled at the thought that she had treated a human being in such a clinical way. *I suppose so.'

Severine smiled. *No, there's only one man occupying your thoughts, eh?'

*What are you talking about?' asked Dalia, though her eyes slid over to one of the metal workbenches at the chamber's edge where the robed figure of Caxton was rebuilding one of the emitter arrays.

*Ha! You know exactly what I'm talking about,' said Severine triumphantly.

*No, I don't,' said Dalia, but couldn't help smiling as she said it.

*He likes you too, I saw you holding hands when we first came here.'

*I don't like heights,' said Dalia, *Caxton was just...'

*Just?' prompted Severine when Dalia didn't continue.

*The lad likes you,' put in Zouche. *You're attractive enough and though I'm no expert, he seems like a handsome lad, though he could use a bit of fattening up. You'd make comely children and they would probably be clever too. Yes, you should pair yourself with the lad... What?'

Dalia and Severine looked at Zouche's pugnacious features and they both laughed. *No messing about with you, Zouche? Was that how they courted women in the Yndonesic Bloc?' asked Severine.

Zouche puffed out his chest. *The atoll-exclave of my clan didn't have time for courting.'

*Then how do you choose a wife?' said Severine.

*Or a husband?' added Dalia.

*Choose?' scoffed Zouche. *We don't choose. I come from Nusa Kambangan, where children are genetically mapped at birth. When they come of age, they are paired with a partner with compatible genes that offer the best odds of producing offspring that will benefit the collective.'

Dalia found the notion of such a premeditated selection process unsavoury, and tried to keep her feelings from her voice. *But what about attraction? Love?'

*What of them?' asked Zouche. *Are they more important than survival? I don't think so.'

*But don't people fall in love where you're from?'

*Some do,' admitted Zouche, and Dalia saw a shadow of some nameless emotion flicker across his normally stoic features.

*Yeah,' said Severine. *And what if a person falls for someone they're not matched with?'

*Then they will produce children who are of genetically inferior stock,' snapped Zouche. *And they will be punished. Severely punished. Enough questions, we have work to do, yes?'

Dalia flinched at the vehemence in Zouche's voice, and exchanged a concerned look with Severine, who simply shrugged and returned to her contemplation of the unconscious empath.

*Well, I think he's handsome,' she said.

AT LAST THE final iteration of the machine began to take shape, the various errors corrected and the refinements devised by Dalia and Zeth worked into the design. Under Mellicin's expert direction, the first working model was completed two days ahead of schedule and the golden throne on the dais was replaced with the new model.

Diagnostics were run on every piece of the machine, all without recourse to prayers, holy unguents, chanting or sacred oils. Every portion of the device functioned exactly as its builders had hoped and, in some cases, exceeded their greatest expectations.

Two days after Caxton a.s.sembled and installed the last circuit board, Adept Zeth declared that they were ready for a full test and ordered the empath to be woken from his drug-induced slumbers.

A thrumming, ba.s.s hum filled the chamber as generators powered by the heat of the magma lagoon diverted vast quant.i.ties of energy into the mechanics of the Akashic reader. The air within the great dome had a greasy, electric feel to it, and the emitters placed between the psykers' capsules embedded within the walls of the chamber crackled with silvery sparks.

A pair of muscled servitors lifted the unconscious empath from his gurney and gently sat him upon the padded seat of the newly-installed theta-wave enhancer. Dalia and Mellicin watched as Zeth bent to her ministrations on the man, plugging him into the device with eager, nimble fingers. Barely visible scads of light flickered in the noosphere above the adept's head, and Dalia wondered what manner of information was arriving in Zeth's skull and from where.

She returned her attention to the empath, watching as his eyelids fluttered and his consciousness began rising to the surface of his mind now that he was free of the drugs keeping him quiescent. In the time they had been working on the device, the empath had lost weight, and his once healthy physique now resembled the figures encapsulated in the coffers of the dome's walls.

Working beneath their sightless eyes it was easy to forget the psykers were human beings, albeit dangerous humans with powers beyond those of ordinary mortals. With the first full test of the enhanced Akashic reader upon them, Dalia felt an unexpected surge of protectiveness towards their silent audience.

*Will this hurt them?' asked Dalia, pointing towards the thousands of men and women above.

*The experience will be draining for them I expect,' said Zeth without looking up from her labours. *Some may not live.'

The coldness with which Zeth spoke chilled Dalia and she felt a knot of anger settle in her belly. Her lips tightened as she looked into the serene face of the empath.

*And what about him?' she asked. *Is he going to die to make this machine work?'

Zeth looked up from her work, her expression unreadable behind her studded mask. *Voice-stress a.n.a.lysis leads me to believe you are concerned for this individual's wellbeing. Am I correct?'

*Yes,' said Dalia. *I don't like to think that people are going to suffer for what we're doing here.'

*No? It is somewhat late in the process to be thinking of such things,' said Zeth.

*I know,' said Dalia. *And I wish I'd thought more about it sooner, but I didn't.'

*Then the matter is closed,' said Zeth.

*But this will kill him, won't it?'

*Not if your design works as I believe it will,' said Zeth. *The theta-wave enhancer should expand the empath's capacity for learning at an exponentially greater rate than he will be receiving information.'

Zeth gestured to the myriad of bulky vox-thieves and data carriers arranged around the dais. *In theory, the empath will simply be a conduit for information to pa.s.s from the aether to these recording devices.'

*Good,' said Dalia. *I don't like the idea of him suffering.'

*Nor I,' said Mellicin in a rare show of emotion.

*Your compa.s.sion is laudable, if misplaced,' said Zeth, as a stream of flickering data arrived in her noosphere. *Now finish the empath's revival process. Adept Maximal has arrived to observe and verify our results.'

Zeth straightened and descended to the chamber's floor, leaving Dalia and Mellicin alone with the empath on the dais.

*Well, you heard what she said,' nodded Mellicin. *Let's get finished up here, eh?'

*Aren't you concerned at all?' asked Dalia. *Do you care that he might suffer?'

*Of course I care, but that doesn't change anything does it? As the adept said, it is a little late to be having second thoughts. You designed this device after all.'

*I know that, but when it was just theoretical it didn't seem so... I don't know... real.'

*Well I a.s.sure you, this is very real, Dalia,' said Mellicin. *We have built it and we can't ignore the fact that this is potentially a very dangerous device. And not just to these poor unfortunates.'

*Who else is it dangerous to?' asked Dalia, puzzled.

Mellicin smiled indulgently, the human half of her features softening in a way Dalia had never seen before. *Ah, Dalia, you are so clever in many ways, yet so innocent in others. Think of what we will learn from the Akashic reader. With access to the secrets of the aether we will be able to lift humanity to a new level of understanding of the universe.'

*And that's a bad thing?'

*Of course not, but it is an inevitable fact that much of the information Zeth will glean from this device will be used to create weapons of war more powerful than anything we can imagine.'

Dalia felt her entire body go cold, as though the temperature of the chamber had dropped to that of a glacial plain.

*I see you begin to understand,' continued Mellicin. *It is the ethical question all devotees of science must face. We research in service of the furtherance of knowledge, but we cannot ignore the uses to which our findings are put in the real world.'

*But-'

*But nothing, Dalia,' interrupted Mellicin, taking her hand. *Adept Zeth is going ahead with this test whether you like it or not. So we'll do all we can to make sure our empath comes through it alive and well, yes?'

*I suppose so,' agreed Dalia, bending to increase the flow of stimms to the empath's brain. *But promise me that we'll only use the Akashic reader to learn things that will benefit the Imperium.'

*I can't make that promise,' said Mellicin. *No one can, but I have to believe that one day we will create a machine or force so fearful in its potentialities, so absolutely terrifying in its consequence, that even mankind, a race that was once h.e.l.l-bent on its own destruction, will be so appalled that it will abandon war forever. What our minds can create, I hope our character can control.'

*I hope you're right,' said Dalia.

*Am... am I... dead?' groaned the empath.

Both women jumped, hands flying to their mouths and hearts as the empath's eyes fluttered open and he looked up from his restraints.

Mellicin recovered her wits first and bent down towards the empath. *No, you're not dead, you've just come out of a state of drug-induced neural stasis. Stimulants are washing away the last residues of pentobarbital now, so your higher brain functions should be restored soon.'

Dalia gave Mellicin an exasperated look and bent down over the empath.

*She means you'll be fine. You've been asleep, but you're awake now. Do you know where you are?'

The man blinked in the harsh brightness of the forge, and Dalia saw that his pupils were still ma.s.sively dilated. She shielded his eyes from the light with her hand and he smiled in grat.i.tude.

*Sorry, the light in here's a bit bright,' she said.

*Bright, yes,' said the empath, his eyes flicking from side to side as they lost the gla.s.sy texture of the recently woken. *This is the Akashic reader, isn't it?'

*Yes. You know what it does?'

*I do,' said the man as Mellicin lowered the cranial a.s.sembly over his head. *Adept Zeth explained it to me when she chose me to be the conduit.'

*My name's Dalia, what's yours?'

*Jonas. Jonas Milus,' said the man with a smile, and Dalia saw that Severine was right. He was handsome. *I'd shake your hand, but...'

Dalia smiled. The humour was forced, but she appreciated the effort, though it struck her as perverse that Jonas was giving her rea.s.surance while strapped into a device that had never been fully tested on a human being.

*Are we about to begin?' asked Jonas. *I a.s.sume you must be, what with me being awake.'

*Adept Zeth is about to begin the first live test of the new device, yes,' said Mellicin, fixing the last of the restraints in place.

*Excellent,' said Jonas, and Dalia was surprised at the relish she heard in his voice.

*You're not worried?' she asked, ignoring the irritated look Mellicin flashed her.

*No, should I be?'

*No, no, of course not,' said Dalia hurriedly. *I mean, I don't think so. The machine's pa.s.sed every test and all our simulated results suggest that it should work perfectly.'

*Did you have anything to do with it?' asked Jonas. *Well, yes, I kind of helped design the throne you're in.'

*Then I'm not worried,' said Jonas. *You're not?'

*No,' said Jonas, *because I can feel your compa.s.sion and your concern for me. I know you're worried for my life, but I can sense that you've done everything you can to make sure this machine works safely.'

*How do you know all that?'

*He's an empath, Dalia,' said Mellicin. *It's what they do.'

*Oh, of course,' said Dalia, feeling foolish.

*I'm looking forward to this, really,' said Jonas. *To use my gift for the betterment of the Imperium? What better way is there for someone blessed with my talent to serve the Emperor? I'll know everything soon, and I'll be part of something that helps humanity achieve its destiny. I know that sounds a bit grand, but it's what we're doing here, isn't it?'

Dalia smiled, relieved beyond words that they were not pressing some unwilling victim into the service of Adept Zeth's grand dream. *Yes, Jonas,' she said. *That's exactly what we're doing here.'

*ALL ENGINES FORM on Victorix Magna,' ordered Princeps Indias Cavalerio, nodding towards his steersman. *Keep us level, Lacus.'

*Yes, my princeps,' said Lacus, expertly walking the G.o.d-machine through the treacherous straits surrounding the heavily cratered northern reaches of the Ulysses Patera.

*And keep the auspex returns frequent, Palus, the ground here is weak.'

*Yes, my princeps,' came the response from the sensori blister atop the Warlord's crew compartment. The tone of his sensori's voice did not escape Cavalerio, and he knew he was being overcautious, needlessly telling the crew their jobs.

Victorix Magna was an old machine, patched, repaired and refitted a thousand times in her long life of battle.

Her fiery heart was proud, but it was old like his, and Cavalerio wondered how many more marches they would take together.

In truth, the Victorix should still be in the care of the Legio artificers, but since the attack on Adept Maximal's reactor, Legio Tempestus could ill-afford to take chances with the remaining reactors cl.u.s.tered on the slopes of the crater or positioned along the canyons of the Ulysses Fossae.