'But has it really brought you anything?' interrupted Cawl. Again. 'Apart from a succession of fungal infections?' He smiled, a quick, nervous, wholly condescending flash of white teeth, and gestured with his cup at Friedisch's inflamed skin.

Friedisch sighed. Cawl's lack of conversational etiquette was maddening. Once he began talking, it was exceptionally difficult to break into the datastream until he had delivered whatever point he had to make, often several times over.

'No,' he said. 'But it will. This augmetic is just the start.'

'Exactly,' said Cawl, agreeing without agreeing. Again. 'Now, let us suppose that the domina felt the same way about her first implants and still feels the same way? Why do you think she upgrades herself constantly? What has she gained? Nothing!' he said, answering his own question.

'Well, nothing except a five hundred-year lifespan, the ability to control a battlefleet by thought alone and more cogitative power than there is in every thinking unit in the system. Not much utility at all,' Friedisch said sarcastically. 'She controls all the military assets of Trisolian. I would not say that is nothing.'

Cawl ignored his jibe, leaving Friedisch put out.

'Let us not even touch on what she has under those robes,' Cawl said.

They shared a little shudder. 'Well, my friend,' said Cawl. 'Mark my words, you will never find me altering myself to such an extent. I am human. I know what I am. There are far more efficient ways of increasing ones lifespan, powers of thought and the other innumerable facilities the Machine God has seen fit to gift us without mutilating the original body beyond recognition.'

'You are a heretek, Cawl. Biogenesis is not the Machine-Gods doing.'

'I believe it is. And if it isn't, so what? All this metal is counterproductive. Inefficient. If I am to be enhanced, let it be by the science of the pure biologians, not the genetor-mechanii. You'll never catch me becoming like the domina.'

Friedisch was flustered by Cawl's standpoint. 'The human body is inefficient. Melding with the machine is the best way forward.'

'I say improving on the marvels nature has provided is. Machinery is the inefficient part, and once bonded, it is far from freeing - it is limiting. The battleplate of the Legions is a better solution. Put it on when needed, take it off when done. Replace according to role and function.'

'You're obsessed with the damned Legions!' Friedisch attempted a laugh to cover his annoyance. It came out forced.

'My dear fellow, we're adepts of the Mechanicum. Mechanicus. Whatever. My point is we're all obsessed with something. Oh, are you finished?'