'M-Midshipman. Uh. Vorgo. Ma'am.’ The man blinked wet, beady eyes. 'Please don't devour me.’

Lethe and Cassandra exchanged glances. 'Devour you?'

Miriya waved them into silence. 'What are you doing here, Midshipman Vorgo? Who sent you?'

'No one!' He became frantic. 'Myself! I just... just wanted to see...' Vorgo extended a finger toward the glass capsule and just barely touched its surface.

The Sister Superior slapped his hand away and he hissed in pain. 'Idiot. I am within my rights to have you thrown into the void for this trespass.’

'I'm sorry. I'm sorry!' Vorgo fell to his knees and made the sign of the aquila. 'Came in through the vent... By the Throne, I was only curious-'

'That will get you killed.’ said Lethe, her bolter hovering close to his head.

Miriya stepped away and made a terse wave of her hand. 'Get this fool out of here, then have the engi-neseers send a helot to seal any vents in this chamber.’

Cassandra hauled the man to his feet and propelled him out of the cargo bay, his protests bubbling up as he went. Lethe followed, hesitating on the cusp of the hatch. 'Sister Superior, shall I remain?'

'No. Have Isabel join me here forthwith.’ Vorgo's protesting form between them, the Battle Sisters closed the hatch behind them.

The cargo bay fell quiet. Miriya listened to the faint, irregular tick of metal flexing under the power of the frigate's drives, the humming motors of the

servitors, the murmur of bubbles in the tank. A nerve in her jaw twitched. She smelt a thick, greasy tang in the air.

'Alone at last.'

For a moment, she thought she had imagined it. Miriya turned in place, eyeing the two gun slaves. Had one of them spoken? Both of them peered back at her with blank stares and dull, doll-like sensor apertures, lines of drool emerging from their sewn lips. Impossible: whatever intelligence they might have once possessed, the machine-slaves were nothing but automatons now, incapable of such discourse.

"Who addresses me?'

'Here.’ The voice was heavy with effort. 'Come here.'

She spun in place. There before her was the capsule, the ebony metal frame about it and the spidery, hooded man-shape adrift within. The Battle Sister drew her pistol and thumbed the activation rune, taking aim at the glass tank. Vaun. How dare you touch me with your witchery!'

'Have a care, Sister. It would go badly for you to injure me.’ The words came from the air itself, as if the psyker was forcing the atmosphere in the chamber to vibrate like a vox diaphragm.

Miriya's face twisted in revulsion. 'You have made a foolish mistake, criminal. You have tipped your hand.’ She crossed to a pod of arcane dials and switches connected to the flank of the glass container. Rods and levers were set at indents indicating the amounts of sense-deadening liquids