The altar faced workstations, and each of them had its own crew. They were clad in the same primitive rags; there was nothing to differentiate them from their kin. Yet they had known how to bring the Chorale out to this heading. There was no data to salvage here. The cogitators were burned wrecks and the screens at every workstation were smashed. The crew had destroyed the bridge before killing themselves.

‘Where did you come from?’ the Lion muttered.

He moved through the rows of gutted pict screens until he was before the altar again, much closer now. His helm lamps swept over the carvings on the stone. He walked around the altar, sensing the risk he incurred in trying to understand what he saw, yet knowing that risk was necessary. On each side of the slab was a crawling density of runes. Lines of the figures had been chipped out of the rock with care and frenzy around the periphery of each face. They captured the eye, forcing the gaze to travel on insect legs. They circled engravings that the Lion recognised as star charts despite the presence of other lines suggesting monstrous beings and a galaxy caught in the claws of horror.

The Lion returned to the front of the altar, then walked around it again, counter-clockwise this time. The crawling of the runes was worse, and the engravings flowed one to the other. The altar stone was a narrative of travel. ‘This was a pilgrimage,’ he said. The word almost stuck in his throat. Its accuracy enfolded layers of perversity.

The Dark Angels and Khalybus gathered at the altar. They looked at the stone with a dispassion possible only through discipline.

The Lion pointed at the chart on the front of the stone. ‘Pandorax,’ he said. The positions of the stars were unmistakeable, despite the crude work and toxic embellishments. The work embodied the same paradox as the Chorale itself. The people aboard it appeared too primitive to pilot a void ship, yet they had. The Lion wouldn’t have believed they could map the positions of the stars in their home system, let alone their destination. Yet they had.

The Lion circled the altar again. Khalybus followed. They traced the corrosive vectors leading from Pandorax back to the first system. The effort made claws scratch at the Lion’s chest. The surface of reality felt a little thinner each time he walked around the obscenities. The charts would not click into place in isolation, though. He had to subject himself to the narrative.

Khalybus hissed in disgust as they walked the circuit. He was silent again as they looked at the start of the Chorale’s journey. Khalybus crouched, looking closer.

‘Do you recognise it?’

‘I do.’ Khalybus reached out to tap the world at the centre of the engraving. He stopped himself just before making contact, his bionic finger recoiling. ‘That,’ he said, ‘is Davin.’