What there was left of the tech-priest's skin was wrinkled with age. Of course there was no way of accurately determining the man's age. His face might physically appear to be that of an octogenarian but the Iron Hands were more aware than most of the anti-aging effects cybernetic augmentations had on the human body and it was common knowledge that the acolytes of the Cult Mechanicus extended their longevity beyond the natural span through the use of juvenat treatments.

It was rumoured that the masters of the Adeptus Mechanicus were able to extend their lives for hundreds, possibly even thousands, of years by means of ancient genetic replication vats. In this way they maintained their stranglehold on the secrets of technology that lay buried beneath the Cult Mechanicus's planetary realm of Mars. According to the technomagi of the Machine Cult, knowledge was the supreme manifestation of divinity, and all creatures or artefacts that embodied knowledge were holy and worthy of veneration as a consequence. So it was their belief that an individual's worth was only the sum of his knowledge, the human body simply an organic machine capable of preserving intellect - and an imperfect one at that.

Hence the servants of the Machine God manipulated their own bodies, replacing parts wholesale with archaic bionics, implanting cogitator chips directly into their brain tissue, the better to retain the information they so voraciously hunted and jealously hoarded.

The dark irony of the matter was that the minds of the technomagi continued to decay no matter what life-extending techniques they applied. As the endless centuries wore on, the masters of the Cult Mechanicus grew increasingly mentally unstable, their grip on reality slipping into a haze of superstition that had more to do with blood sacrifice and madness than archeo-science and occult technology. Such was not the way of the Sons of Ferrus.

Gdolkin's two service studs denoted over two hundred years of service to the Imperium, fighting the enemies of mankind on all fronts, wherever, and whatever, they might be. The Omnissiah alone knew how long Magos Thule had been bound to the service of Mars, searching for lost archeotech treasures across the countless worlds that fell within the all-encompassing Imperium of Mankind.

'And are you in charge here?' Gdolkin asked.

'Unfortunately not,' Thule replied bitterly.

'No, that is my responsibility' the other tech-priest said emphatically. A white-feathered cherub-familiar, its face a mass of brass finished implants, descended from the darkness of the bridge's vault to alight on one of two additional robotic arms the shorter magos had grafted to his shoulder blades. His train, however, was longer than that of Magos Thule's and another infant-homunculus bore it up in grubby hands, in an attempt to keep the ornately embroidered cloth off the ground. 'I am Arch-Magos Cthulius Helphasian Schrodinger. And what brings you here, Iron-Father? Are you here to break the heretic siege of great Gehenna?’ The half-skull, half-machine face of the Machina Opus gazed at Gdolkin with a hollow-eyed, soulless stare.