‘Perhaps,’ I said, slowing. ‘But they are my trinkets, and I do not answer to you either. Unless there is something else you wish to say to me?’

‘Of course there is,’ she said. ‘But it involves language inappropriate for a medical setting.’

‘I meant about the flight,’ I replied, my back still to her. ‘Why I was brought along.’

‘Because those were my orders. And your request.’

‘I was there because Mizar can perceive the ork energies,’ I said. ‘I’d wager you had a fair idea there was some base out there in the swamps. But you couldn’t find it. Not without Mizar.’

‘Huh,’ Shard said. ‘That’s a possibility. You’d have to take it up with high command.’

‘I could have died.’

‘You asked to fly.’

‘Yes, and if that cost me my life then so be it. But you owed me the truth about why I flew.’

I turned, glaring at her. She was framed by the doorway, arms still folded, staring intently at nothing in particular.

‘Well?’ I said.

She looked at me. There was a spark in her eyes, something akin to anger. But then she smiled, and all I could see was the sneer.

‘You have the audacity to play the victim?’ she said. ‘Because I risked your life to fulfil my duties? This from someone whose raison d’être is watching others suffer so he can collect their final moments and turn them into picts? So he can bask in the reflected glory of their demise?’

She was no longer smiling, her eyes cold as the void.

‘Hypocrisy becomes you, Propagandist Simlex.’

Chapter nineteen

CHAPTER NINETEEN

I avoided her from then. Perhaps she avoided me too. Then again, there was little time to fraternise, for we had our duties. She flew her missions whilst I revised my footage. Despite my bluster, it was soon necessary to extract Mizar from the Marauder’s fuselage, just to access its data-memory. Plient was still unconscious and, fearful of causing damage to the integrated systems, I requested that the entire panel was cut from Hephaestus and relocated to my quarters. I could not face going back to Plient’s hangar.

I toiled there for days, lost in fashioning image and sound from data-scraps, as I wove the tale of the Aeronautica Imperialis’ raid into ork territory. The result was dramatic, and inspiring, providing one romanticised sacrifice over success. But I thought the work a questionable recruitment tool. The destruction of the ork edifice provided cinematic spectacle but, no matter how I spliced it, few would see the appeal of being caught in that nightmarish battle.

Still, I was content in near seclusion, cloistered within my quarters. I ignored all messages from my superiors requesting updates, and even a bespoke invitation from Governor Dolos was laid on my dresser, unopened. Two further invitations arrived in the following days. Both were ignored.