He observed more of the same behaviour as he and his escort made their way through the station to the command hub. Coverall-clad workers stumbled around their machinery, fumbling at controls they had manned for most of their lives. Men and women with the badges of petty officers staggered from one post to the next, mumbling incoherently, struggling to find the words to cajole and admonish their lackadaisical charges.

Given the overall cleanliness of the station and the state of grooming of its inhabitants, the captain estimated that only a few days at most had passed since the soul-consuming effect had waylaid the Orestes System. Aboard the Ithraca’s Vengeance, it was still possible for Space Marine-supervised work crews to continue to operate under close scrutiny, but here it seemed that pure routine was the only force that compelled the people to act at all.

It was a four hundred-yard walk to the rendezvous, and the passage of the Space Marines caused some reaction among the afflicted. Most acknowledged their presence with stares and half-hearted salutes, but a few dozen trailed mindlessly after the captain and his warriors.

Coming to the main gate of the control hub, he found a squad of Intercessors surrounded by scores of Imperial Navy crew and civilians. The Space Marines were doing their best to repel the crowd without violence, but here and there they were forced to thrust back against the constant press of humanity trying to get to the doors.

‘Shift change was twenty minutes ago, brother-captain,’ the sergeant leading the escort explained. ‘The next crew and guard are trying to get to their posts, but there’s no aggression.’

‘Captain!’ Praxa­medes spotted Aeschelus as he ducked through the door into the command chamber. The lieutenant was looming over a red-robed figure no taller than his waist. ‘Over here.’

Aeschelus made his way past half a dozen Space Marines working at various terminals, most of which seemed as dead as the vox-channels.

‘This is Aesthetek Korsin, one of the tech-priests assigned to the station.’ The lieutenant gestured towards his diminutive companion. ‘She has been moderately helpful. It appears that her intellectual capa­city is less diminished than that of her more organic colleagues.’

The individual that looked up at Aeschelus was mostly copper and silver, without even the approximation of a face beneath the red hood. A grating voice blared from a grilled box hanging around the tech-priest’s neck.

‘Captain?’ Even through the artificial modulation the voice was hesitant, distant. ‘Captain?’

‘Captain Aeschelus,’ Praxa­medes said, slowly and loudly. ‘Our commander. Please show him to the vox controls.’

‘Vox?’ The tech-priest clicked and whirred for several seconds. ‘Vox this way.’

‘Augur readings from the station logs are inconclusive,’ Praxa­medes reported as they followed the tech-priest to the far end of the long, narrow control deck. ‘There were some massive disruptions about forty-seven hours ago. Probable arrival of enemy craft, but no warp signature detected.’

‘What is happening with the vox?’