'By Medusa, of course I wouldn't.’ Gdolkin snarled. 'I am no weak-willed oath-breaker!' His words reverberated from the adamantium bulkheads of the strategium.

'Well I call on those oaths now.’ Thule declared. 'Those oaths are still binding.’

The Iron-Father let out a growl.

"We still need to know what we could be going to face in there or this will become nothing more than a suicide mission. I doubt that is what our forebears had in mind when they made such a binding covenant. What do you really want with the world you call Crucible?'

'Isn't it obvious? To unlock the secrets it holds. To rediscover the lost technologies that have lain there forgotten for countless centuries.’ Thule was starting to sound like an Imperial preacher, so emphatic and evangelical was his speech. "To fulfil our quest for knowledge. After all, knowledge is life. It is our sacred calling as servants of the Machine God to preserve it.’

'And it is our sacred calling, as Space Marines, to protect the Imperium from the myriad threats that are so often brought about by mankind's obsessive search for forbidden knowledge.’ Gdolkin said sternly.

Librarian Melchor stepped forward.

'Magos Thule, perhaps there is one thing you could clarify for me. I must admit to being a little confused.’

'How may I help enlighten you?' Thule said through clenched teeth, becoming more frustrated the longer this pointless debate continued. He knew what course of action they should be taking and all of this constant arguing backwards and forwards was merely allowing the enemy to reach the target first. It was just like it had been on forge world Fornax, where he had been thwarted at every turn by the incompetence and indecision of those fools around him.

'It was the servants of the forces of Chaos who destroyed the artefact on Herod.’ Melchor began, 'and yet it was the Imperial forces who did so on Fornax. So either Imperial high command on the forge world was riddled with traitors or our own side inadvertently furthered the enemy's cause.’

Thule let out an audible, rattling sigh. ‘At first this quandary frustrated me no end.’ the tech-priest said, 'that Imperial forces had helped the Chaos army achieve their objective. The plague forces must have been preparing a rite to destroy the artefact in the Argentum Mountains, just as the Shinarii did on Herod. And when their plan came to fruition I felt that all was lost. That is until I witnessed the subsequent change in activity within the anomaly. I had misread the sources from the start. I must have been missing one vital part of the puzzle that would have unlocked this enigma.’

‘Then it would appear that, even considering the immediate effects of destroying the artefacts, the Chaos factions on Fornax Orbis Majoris and Herod were all prepared to sacrifice themselves to bring about the banishment of the warpstorm anomaly. If this is what the deranged servants of Chaos wanted to happen, then this prize you speak of, magos, cannot be something that the Imperium would want, surely?'