Save for the ribbed cabling covering the elongated cone of his skull, the man's face was loathsomely organic, his skin waxy and his eyes saturnine, dark and reptilian. Melgator had sacrificed the gift of further augmentation since his role as Mechanic.u.m amba.s.sador often took him to the gilded halls of Terra. The fleshy rulers of the Emperor's realm were stupidly squeamish with those whose communion with the Machine-G.o.d rendered them strange and almost alien to their limited perceptions.

Behind Melgator came two of Kelbor-Hal's most trusted followers, adepts who had followed his lead in all things, who had sworn the strength of their forges to him: Adept Lukas Chrom and Adept Urtzi Malevolus.

Chrom was the larger of the two adepts, his wide-shouldered frame swathed in a deep crimson robe that did little to disguise the many mechanised enhancements with which he had been blessed. Ribbed pipes and cables looped around his limbs and linked into a hissing power pack that rose like a set of wings at his back.

His human face had long since been replaced by an iron mask fashioned in the form of a grinning skull. Wires trailed from the jaw and a pulsing red light filled both eye sockets.

Master Adept Urtzi Malevolus favoured a dark bronze for his face mask, and a trio of green augmetic eyes set into the metal illuminated the interior surfaces of his red hood.

The master of Mondus Gamma's red robes were fashioned from vulcanised rubber, thick and hard-wearing, and a monstrously large power pack was affixed to his back, its bulk held aloft by tiny suspensor fields. Remote probe robots darted back and forth from his body, kept in check by the coiled cables that connected them to the senior adept.

Current flowed between their three forges as a sign of good faith, shared freely and without recourse to monitoring. Of course the greater part of that current was directed to the Fabricator General's forge complex, but such was his right and privilege as master of Mars.

The final figure to join the Fabricator General in his sanctum was one who had not set foot on Mars for some time, an adept who had seceded his forge and all its holdings to Kelbor-Hal when he had left to accompany the 63rd Expedition to the furthest corners of the galaxy.

His robes were a deep red and gave no clue to what form lay beneath them, though Kelbor-Hal knew that little remained of his humanity.

His name was Regulus and this favoured son of Mars had returned with news of the Warmaster's campaigns.

*Fabricator General,' said Regulus with a deep bow, making the Icon Mechanic.u.m with clicking metal digits that unfolded from beneath his robes. *I welcome the flow of current from your forge along my limbs and within the primary locomotive engine of my body. Power whose generation comes not from Mars is bland and without vitality. It serves, but does not nourish. Each time I return to the wellspring of power and knowledge of Mars I realise how much poorer is energy generated beyond our world.'

*You honour my forge, Regulus,' replied Kelbor-Hal, acknowledging the compliment and turning his attention to his va.s.sal adepts. *Chrom, Malevolus. You are welcome here as always.'

The two adepts said nothing, knowing that Kelbor-Hal could read their acceptance of his dominance by the subtle fluctuations of their electrical fields.

*What news of the Warmaster?' asked Kelbor-Hal.

In the little contact he had with emissaries from Terra, the Fabricator General was often forced to indulge humans in needless oral formalities, protocols and irrelevant discourse until the subject eventually turned to the matter at hand. With adepts of the Mechanic.u.m such trivial matters were deemed irrelevant and quickly dispensed with. This entire conversation would be conducted in the binary fluency of the lingua-technis, a language that left no room for uncertainty or ambiguity of meaning.

*Much has happened since the Emperor took his leave of the expeditionary forces,' said Regulus. *Alignments shift and new powers emerge from the shadows, offering their aid to those with the strength of vision to heed them. Horus Lupercal is one such individual, and he is now a.s.suredly a friend of the Mechanic.u.m.'

Kelbor-Hal's language centres easily read the implications of Regulus' words and, though his emotions had long since been cut from him like a diseased tumour, old rancour rose to the surface as he recognised sentiments identical to those espoused in the bargain struck with Terra.

*I have heard words like that before,' he said, *when Verticorda led the Emperor to my forge over two centuries ago and I was forced to bend the knee to him. The ruler of the grubby Terran tribes promised us an equal role in his grand crusade of conquest, but where is that vaunted equality now? We toil to provide his armies with weapons of war, but receive nothing for our efforts but plat.i.tudes. Horus Lupercal is a warrior of vision, but what does he offer but more of the same?'

*He offers these,' said Regulus, as a silver-skinned arm rose from behind his shoulders, a delicate bronze calliper clutching a data wafer of silver and gold. Regulus reached up and took the proffered wafer with one of his primary arms before offering it to the Fabricator General.

*On the world of Aurelius, the Warmaster's Legion met and overcame a foe known as the Technocracy. Its armed forces bore a striking similarity to those of the Astartes and it was clear that they had access to functioning STC technology.'

*Standard Template Construction,' breathed Adept Malevolus, unable to keep the hunger from his voice. Kelbor-Hal had long been aware that both Malevolus and Chrom retained some unpleasantly human traits: avarice, ambition and desire to name but a few. Distasteful and unseemly in such senior adepts, but useful when it came to aligning their factions to his own.

*This Technocracy had access to a functioning STC?' pressed Malevolus.

*Not just one,' said Regulus, with more than a hint of theatricality. *Two.'

*Two?' asked Chrom. *Such a thing has not been seen in a hundred and nineteen years. What manner of STCs did they possess?'

*One for the construction of a hitherto unknown mark of Astartes battle plate and another for the production of lightweight solar generators capable of supplying the power needs of an Epsilon 5 pattern forge complex. Unfortunately, the actual Construct machines were destroyed by the rulers of the Technocracy before Imperial forces could secure them.'

Kelbor-Hal could see Malevolus and Chrom look hungrily at the STC wafer, an artefact that contained information worth more than both their forges combined, flawless electronic blueprints created from miracles of design and technological evolution: machines that could design and construct anything their operators desired.

Such machines had allowed mankind to colonise vast swathes of the galaxy, before the maelstrom of Old Night had descended and almost wiped humanity from existence. To discover a working Construct Machine was the greatest dream of the Mechanic.u.m, but to have fully detailed plans created by such a machine ran a close second.

Kelbor-Hal could feel their desire to s.n.a.t.c.h the data wafer from Regulus in the crackling spikes in their radiating electrics.

*Horus Lupercal sends these gifts to Mars together with a solemn promise of an alliance with the Priesthood of Mars. An alliance of equals, not of master and servant.'

Kelbor-Hal accepted the data wafer, surprised to feel a tremulous thrill of excitement at the thought of what he might learn from its contents. It was a thin sliver of metal, fragile and insignificant, yet capable of containing every written work on Terra a hundred times over.

No sooner had his metallic fingers touched the wafer than his haptic receptors read the data in a flow of electrons, and he knew that Regulus spoke the truth. Genocidal wars had been fought for information less valuable than was contained on this wafer. Millions had died in search of technology worth a fraction of its value.

In centuries past, the Mechanic.u.m had waged war on the tribes of Terra, despatching expeditionary forces to humanity's birth world to plunder forgotten vaults of ancient citadels and wrest the buried secrets of the third planet's ancient technology from those who did not even know it was there, let alone how to use it.

The Emperor had built his world on the bones of this long-buried science, and, unwilling to share it, had fought the soldiers of Mars and hurled them back to the red planet before travelling to Mars in the guise of the Omnissiah and a peacemaker, albeit a peacemaker who came at the head of an army of conquest.

The peace that was offered was illusory, a conceit designed to conceal a darker truth.

The Emperor offered peace with one hand while keeping a dagger behind his back with the other. In reality, the Emperor's offer was an ultimatum.

Join with me or I will simply take what I need from you.

Faced with a choice that was no choice at all, Kelbor-Hal had been forced to bargain away the autonomy of Mars and become a va.s.sal planet of Terra.

*These are great gifts indeed,' said Kelbor-Hal. *Given freely?'

Regulus bowed his head. *As always, my master, you cut to the heart of matters with the precision of a laser. No, such gifts are not given freely, they come with a price.'

*A price?' spat Chrom, the glare of his eyes flaring in response. *The Warmaster seeks to exact more from us? When we have already pledged him the strength of our forges!'

*You seek to back out of the bargain with the Warmaster?' demanded Regulus. *We knew great things would be asked of us, but the measure of us how we react to these challenges. Great reward comes only with great risk.'

Kelbor-Hal nodded, the blank face of his face mask slipping into the bland countenance of a conciliator. *Affirmation: Regulus is correct; we have come too far to balk at paying a price for such things. Already we and our allies strike at those without the vision to see that Horus Lupercal is the true master of mankind.'

*The things we have done,' said Adept Malevolus. *The schemes we have set in motion. We have come too far and committed too much to back away from the fire simply because we fear its heat, Lukas. The destruction of Maximal's reactor, the death of Adept Ravachol... were they for nothing?'

Chastened from two sides, Chrom bowed his head and said, *Very well, what does the Warmaster ask?'

Regulus said, *That when it comes to strike, we guarantee to have Mars firmly under our control. The dissident factions must be quashed so that the forces of the Warmaster may launch his bid for supremacy without fear of counterattack. Any factions loyal to Terra must be brought to heel or destroyed before the Warmaster's forces reach the Solar System.'

*He asks much of us, Regulus,' said Kelbor-Hal. *Why should we not believe we would merely be swapping one autocrat for another?'

*Horus Lupercal pledges to return the Martian Empire to its former glory,' said Regulus, with the practiced ease of a statesman. *Further, he swears to withdraw any non-Mechanic.u.m forces from the forge worlds.'

Amba.s.sador Melgator stepped forward, his black, mail-fringed cloak rustling on the smooth floor of the observation chamber. The amba.s.sador rarely spoke when any but he and the object of his attention could hear him, and Kelbor-Hal eagerly antic.i.p.ated his words.

*With respect, Adept Regulus,' said Melgator. *The Warmaster, blessed be his name, has already asked us for a great deal and we have delivered. Materiel and weapons are priority tasked to expeditions he favours and delayed to those not aligned with him. He now asks more of us, and are these, admittedly valuable, STCs all he promises us in return? What else does he offer as proof of his continued friendship?'

Regulus nodded, and Kelbor-Hal saw that he had antic.i.p.ated the question, the prepared answer flowing smoothly from his vocabulator.

*A shrewd question, amba.s.sador,' said Regulus. *Horus Lupercal has given me an answer that I believe will satisfy you.'

*And that is?' asked Malevolus.

Regulus seemed to swell within his robes. *The Warmaster will lift all restrictions on research into the forbidden technologies. To that end, I bring the protocols that will unlock the Vaults of Moravec.'

A heavy silence descended on the gathered adepts, as the weight of the Warmaster's offer hung in the air like a promise too good to be true.

*The Vaults of Moravec have been sealed for a thousand years,' hissed Chrom. *The Emperor decreed that they never be opened.'

*And that means what to us?' sneered Malevolus. *We already plot against the Emperor, what does one more betrayal matter?'

*The Warmaster has the power to open them?' asked Melgator.

*He is the Emperor's proxy,' pointed out Regulus. *What the Emperor knows, the Warmaster knows. All it will take to unlock the vault is your agreement to the Warmaster's designs.'

*And if we do not agree?' asked Kelbor-Hal, already extrapolating what great treasures and as yet unknown technologies might lie within the ancient vault. Moravec had been one of the most gifted of the ancient tech-adepts of Terra, a man who had fled to Mars to escape persecution at the hands of superst.i.tious barbarian tribes of the radiation wastelands of the Pan-Pacific.

*If you do not agree, I will wipe the means of opening the vault from my memory coils and it will remain sealed forever,' said Regulus. *But that will not be necessary, will it?'

*No,' agreed Kelbor-Hal, his pallid features twisted in a grimace of a smile. *It will not.'

*NO, AT THAT length the pin can't be that thin,' said Dalia. *It'll melt at the temperatures we're expecting inside the cowl transformer.'

*But any thicker and it won't fit inside the cowl,' replied Severine, rubbing the heels of her palms against her temples and deliberately laying down the electro-stylus upon the graphics tablet. *It won't work, Dalia, you can't make it fit and if there's no pin, the cowl won't remain precisely locked in place over the cardinal points of the skull. Face it, this design won't work.'

Dalia shook her head. *No. Ulterimus knew what he was doing. This is how it has to be.'

*Then why is there no design for the cowl restraint?' demanded Severine. *There's no design because he knew it wouldn't work. This whole project isn't something he ever intended to build a it was a theoretical exercise.'

*I don't believe that,' persisted Dalia, turning to the wax paper drawings of the device that the long-dead Ulterimus had produced. As she had for the last five rotations, she pored over the plans and diagrams she had painstakingly copied and updated to fill in the blank spots where the design was incomplete. They were so close.

In the centre of the works.p.a.ce Adept Zeth had furnished them, a gleaming silver device that resembled a highly modified grav-couch was taking shape. Caxton lay underneath, a.s.sembling the circuit boards in the back support, while Zouche was machining the drum cylinders that would insulate the electrical conduits once the internal workings of the device were complete.

Mellicin circled the device, which was large enough to bear a fully grown human in a reclined position, her arms folded before her and one finger beating an irregular tattoo against her teeth.

It had taken them a full five rotations to get this far, and with only two to go, they were either on the brink of their greatest triumph or doomed to ign.o.ble failure. Despite the awkward frigidity of their initial meeting, they had worked well as a team, and relations had thawed in the face of each other's skills.

Zouche was an engineer of rare talent, able to machine working parts with great skill and precision in amazingly short times. Caxton had proven to have an intuitive grasp of how machine parts fitted together, which, together with his uncanny knack of appreciating the knock-on effects of even the smallest change in the structure of a circuit, made him the ideal candidate to a.s.semble the device.

Severine was a draughtsman extraordinaire, able to render Dalia's haphazard sketches into working drawings from which parts could be manufactured. Mellicin was skilled in all aspects of engineering and had a wide breadth of knowledge that covered the gaps that existed between the group's specialisations. Not only that, but her organisational abilities were second to none, directing their labours with domineering efficiency once she understood the breathtaking scale of Dalia's vision.

Contrary to her expectations, Dalia found herself warming to Mellicin, recognising the woman's initial frostiness as no more than a need for Dalia to prove herself.

Since Dalia had divined the purpose of the machine Ulterimus had designed, their work had progressed at an exponential rate, but they had run into a problem that threatened to prevent them from completing their project: a means of linking and supporting the cowl that would cover the head of whoever sat in the machine.

It seemed laughably trivial, yet it held the key to the entire device. Too thin and it would melt, breaking the connection to the skull; too thick and it would not fit between the precisely machined, necessarily compact, components and would provide a surface area from which current would undoubtedly flare a thus disrupting the delicate balance of electrical harmonics generated within the subject's brain.

To be thwarted by such a basic, yet fundamental, problem was uniquely frustrating, and Dalia began to understand why the device had never been successfully constructed.

As Severine held her head in her hands, Dalia's eyes wandered over the drawings, letting the lines and curves of the design wash over her, the notations and measurements swimming around like leaves in a storm. Each portion of the design spun around in her head, each part interlinked and each motion subtly affecting the next with its variation.

Dalia felt her hands moving across the wax paper (hearing the scratch of the stylus she wasn't aware she'd picked up) as she doodled without thinking. The portions of the design that didn't exist were grey patches in her mind, as though the solution to the entire problem lay shrouded in a thick fog.

No sooner had that image come to mind than it was as if a stiff breeze sprang up within her, the clouds of fog thinning and golden lines of fire appearing in their depths. Each line linked the spinning parts of the design, drawing them in tighter and tighter, as though a spun web was drawing all the disparate parts together.

Dalia felt her excitement grow, knowing that she was on the verge of something important. She kept her focus loose with conscious effort, knowing that to concentrate too fully on this intuitive a.s.sembly would be to lose it. The leaps of logic her subconscious was making were fragile and could tear like fine silk were they to be tugged too insistently.

Her hands continued to scrawl on the wax paper as the golden lines in her imagination drew closer and closer, finally pulling the thousands of elements of the design together, and Dalia held her breath as they slotted home, one by one, into a harmonious, complete whole.

There.

She could picture it now, complete and flawless in its wondrous complexity.

They would need new parts, entirely redesigned schematics and fresh circuit diagrams.

Dalia could see it all, how it would fit together and how it would work.

TWENTY-THREE HOURS later, Dalia slotted the final piece of the machine home. The mechanism slid into place with a tiny hiss of pneumatics. Almost a full rotation ago, as she shook herself out of her intuitive reverie, she had looked down to see a fully worked out plan of the images that she had seen in her flight of imagination. The drawings were crude, to be sure, but with even a cursory check, she had known they were right.

With a cry of elation, she had rushed over to Severine and swept the current crop of drawings onto the floor. Over Severine's cries of protest, Dalia had called everyone over and begun to outline the scope of what the rough scrawls described.

The team's initial scepticism had turned to cautious optimism and then excitement as they began to grasp the significance of what she was showing them. Each one shouted out what now seemed so obvious to them, as though the solution had been staring them in the face all along.

As the new design began to take shape in the centre of the works.p.a.ce, Dalia realised that it had been staring them in the face, they just hadn't realised it. Each of them, herself included, had been working within the hidebound traditions laid down in the Principia Mechanic.u.m, the tenets by which all workings of the Machine were governed.

Aside from Dalia, the members of the team were grafted with shimmering electoos on the backs of their hands to indicate that they had pa.s.sed the basic competencies of the Principia and were thus members of the Cult Mechanic.u.m. Perhaps with this success she too might be fitted with such a marking, though it was through thinking beyond the Principia's prescriptive doctrines that Dalia had seen the solution to their problem.

*It's incredible,' breathed Severine, as though unable to believe what they had done. *We did it,' said Zouche.

*Dalia did it,' corrected Caxton, putting an arm around Dalia and kissing the top of her head. *She figured it out when no one else could.'

*We all did it,' said Dalia, embarra.s.sed by the praise. *All of us. I just saw how it could work. I couldn't have done it without you. All of you.'

As always, it was Mellicin who brought them back down to reality with a jolt. *Let's not be awarding ourselves the t.i.tle of adept yet, everyone. We don't know if it works.'

*It'll work,' said Dalia. *I know it will, I have faith in it.'

*Oh, and faith now replaces empirical testing, does it? Does it provide hard data to prove we succeeded? No.'

Dalia smiled and bowed to Mellicin. *You're right, of course. We need to test the device and run a hundred diagnostics to make sure of it, but I know they're going to be fine.'

*I'm sure you are right,' allowed Mellicin with a slight smile that surprised everyone, *but since we have to do them anyway, I suggest we take an hour's break before getting back to work and beginning the tests.'

*That won't be necessary,' said an authoritative voice from behind them.

Dalia jumped at the sound of the voice, turning to see Adept Koriel Zeth standing at the entrance to their workshop, her bronze armour reflecting the subdued lighting in gold highlights on the curves of her limbs.

Dalia followed the lead of her companions in bowing to Adept Zeth as she swept into the works.p.a.ce, accompanied by two red-robed Protectors who carried tall staves of iron and whose limbs were sheathed in augmetics. Dalia recognised the Protectors as Rho-mu 31 and smiled at the sight of... him... or was it them? She couldn't quite decide.