‘Your posturing will not save you from the displeasure of the Silent King.’ Tholotep’s sneer could be heard in his tone, though the mouth of his abstract-fashioned death mask did not move. ‘Your claims to apparent bio-kinship are irrelevant and your worlds are ill-regarded.’

‘Nevertheless, I am overlord and you are but a herald. Your rudeness to me is a slight against the blood of the Silent King.’

‘Listen well, Overlord Simut, so that the will of King Szarekh is plain. Any more delays and you will be replaced. The Contra-Empyric Matrix must expand on schedule. No more excuses.’

The image blinked out of existence before Simut could respond, leaving the overlord coiled within his own energy-forms, brooding and angry. He stalked up the steps to his throne and sat down, fingers forming into fists and then unclenching. Around him the mastaba-chamber flickered with agitated energy, fronds of power lapping from the circuit lines, the display wall shimmering with ripples of rogue power.

Behind Simut, one of the alcoves flared into life, bringing its occupant to full wakefulness. Stepping down with a metallic tread, the warden advanced around the dais and stopped before the overlord, lowering to one knee at the foot of the steps. He offered his weapon, laying the gauss cannon upon the lowest step.

‘I await your command, Blade of Szarekh, Sunlord of the Dynasty, Rising Light of the Stars of Heloki,’ the royal warden intoned, eyes briefly dimming as a sign of subservience while his cortical field connected to the will of Simut.

‘Arise, Phetos.’ Simut gestured with a metal claw. The royal warden retrieved his weapon and stood. ‘Summon the plasmancer. I would know why we have not yet completed the installation of the trans-empyric resonator.’

Simut could have easily accessed the communications conduits directly, but it would be unseemly to perform such a menial task. He felt the brief surge of power flowing into Phetos as the warden directed the energies of the Barge of the Stormhawk, sending an invisible beam of tachyons across the vacuum to the plasmancer, Ah-hotep.

While he waited for his subject to attend, the overlord focused the sensor wall on the world below. He turned the attention of his tomb ship on a city on the largest continent, where the cryptektonik survey had determined the pylon needed to stand for maximum effect. Was it coincidence that the most populous habitation on the human world was also the same location, or a sign that unknowingly the ignorant mortals had gathered at the nodal spot, drawn to its empyric footprint as some creatures blindly follow magnetic fields or pheromone trails? With the eyes of his starship Overlord Simut scrutinised and studied, fascinated and disgusted in equal measure by the transient creatures that had swarmed and multiplied across the stars.