'I didn't ask what some Emperor-damned machine would make of it, girl! I asked what you think,’

She swallowed, resisting the urge to meet his gaze. Here, in the splendour of his guest suite at the heart of the governor's palace, he was as terrible and magnificent a figure as the legends made claim.

Well?'

'I... I think something is coming, my lord. Coming here, I mean,’

'"Something". Is that the best you can do?'

She bristled, fists clenching at her sides, struggling to keep the bitterness from her voice. 'Something from the stars, then. Something massive. S-something dark,’

For a moment there was silence. Dust motes circulated through the hard beam of a hovering illuminator, and at the periphery of her vision Mita could see the retinue shuffling its collective feet. Had her words struck a chord?

Kaustus shattered both the silence and her hopes with one deft exclamation.

'Emperor's blood!' he boomed, voice heavy with sarcasm, 'such detail] How did I ever cope without a witch at my side?'

Predictably the room exploded, acolytes and cowled disciples venting their sycophantic amusement in gales of laughter. Willing herself not to blush - unsuccessfully - Mita supposed she couldn't blame them. In shared cruelty lay acceptance, a bitter lesson she'd been slow to grasp.

For an instant she found herself hating them. Hating him, even; reviling her own master like some undisciplined child... But such thoughts were the gatestones at the head of a dangerous path, and her entire life had

been spent studying to ward off such heretical temptations. She willed herself to relax, bore the humiliation with good grace-

-and dug her fingernails so far into the flesh of her palms that blood oozed between her knuckles.

'Enough,’

Kaustus silenced the laughter, tossing aside the data-pad like some broken toy, its ability to entertain spent. An abrupt silence gripped the room and he watched the crowd with narrowed eyes, colossal shoulders squared.

'A mission,’

To Mita, bathed unwillingly in a tumult of psychic emissions, the phrase was like an icy wind. She tasted the hungry anticipation of the retinue; all forced amusements forgotten, minds focused and sharp. She gave them their dues: fools they might be, but they were obedient with it.

'Investigation and salvage,’ Kaustus cocked his head towards his staff, barking commands. Three teams, three transports. Division pattern delta. Now,’

The entourage divided like a machine, three groups forming in short order. Without the benefit of individual familiarity, Mita could nonetheless detect the more obvious distributions of resource: in each group there hulked the cowled form of a combat servitor; in each a medic fussed with triage apparatus and checked chemical proboscis; in each a hooded priest stepped from figure to figure, administering blessings and prayers.

Kaustus had been collecting disciples his entire life, amassing a crew to shame even the most luminary of fellow inquisitors. With a single command the capabilities and specialisms of the whole had been spliced evenly and instantly, without comment or question or