‘Oh, you remember the room do you? That’s nice,’ said the man. ‘Of course you remember this room. It’s where you brought them to. All of them. This room and a thousand like it. A room in which to talk. A room in which to slowly dismantle a man’s life. How many lives is it now? How many have you brought here? Not the notorious, vile ones, I mean the ones like me. The unfortunates. The ones who walked in off the street, troubled by some minor transgression, only to find they were going to be rendered down. Their pride. Their hopes. Their dreams. Their lives. Their livelihoods. Their possessions. Did you pause to care for any of them?’

‘I don’t remember you,’ said Eisenhorn.

‘Rather my point, interrogator,’ the man said. ‘Is it interrogator still? It was then. I’m sure it isn’t any more. What are you now?’

‘Nothing,’ said Eisenhorn.

‘Then we are turned about, sir,’ said the small man. ‘For last we met, I was nothing to you. My name is Imus. Does that stir anything?’

‘No.’

‘No, of course not. You have always been very good at your job, sir. Very good. You have excelled in your duties. Shall I tell you why?’

‘I feel you’re going to, Master Imus,’ said Eisenhorn.

‘Because you never care,’ said Imus. ‘You are without compunction. This allows you to perform your duty with intense purpose. No sentiment gets in the way.’

‘Drusher said that,’ murmured Eisenhorn.

‘Drusher?’ asked Imus. ‘Friend of yours?’

‘No.’

Imus grinned.

‘I knew the answer would be no, you see,’ he said, ‘because you have no friends. No one comes close to you. You do not allow them to. A connection with another soul would be weakness. Which is why a hundred thousand people have passed through this room, and you have disassembled them all, and you cannot even remember their names. Now, this heartless bearing of yours explains why you are very good at what you do. But it begs the question… why do it at all?’

‘Why do it?’ Eisenhorn asked.

‘Yes, yes! Keep up. Why devote your life to the protection of mankind, when you cannot abide the close connection of another human being?’

‘Ordo service is hard,’ said Eisenhorn. ‘One must put aside certain things. One must stand apart and keep to the shadows. It–’

‘Poppycock,’ said Imus. He drummed his bony fingers on the desktop. ‘The Ruinous Powers, sir, in your expert opinion, are they a contaminant?’

‘Yes,’ said Eisenhorn.

‘Like an infection? A disease? Once contracted, even from the briefest contact with a carrier, never cured?’

‘Yes,’ said Eisenhorn. The insect-tick of the clock was scratching at his mind. ‘It is the great horror of the warp. It never leaves a man once it has stained his hands. Corruption is inevitable.’

‘Yet you have touched it, sir.’

‘An obligation of my work,’ said Eisenhorn.