'No!' shouted the Extractatorian. 'Forbidden by the tenets of our faith! The Emperor might not be the Omnissiah. The argument is irrelevant! Without Him, Mars was a dying empire, tempted to dabble in things best undisturbed. Your display here has swayed the more impressionable among us, but not I. I know it for what it is. This is not technology you employ. It is darkness. It is you who betray the Machine-God.'

Sota-Nul laughed, a moist, rasping sound that was as inhuman as her mechanical body.

'So be it, servant of the false Omnissiah. If destruction is what you desire, the Warmaster has a plenitude to spare.'

The hololith gave out with a bang. The machines hosting it burned out, sending electrical feedback racing around the chamber's circuitry. Servitors moaned. The lights went out.

A whiff of brimstone hung on the air. Emergency lumens flickered on.

Immediately the Viceroy Extractatorian began issuing orders. 'Cleanse this place! Remove all machines that have partaken in any of the projected energies and have them destroyed. Eliminate all servitors who helped process this signal. Sigma-Sigma, if the enemy have utilised the hololith, they are close. We must prepare for war, and guard against infiltration. All military assets are to be activated immediately. All extraction operations are hereby suspended.''Why come here?' said Cawl to Sigma-Sigma. He interrupted her. She was busy with three inferiors present and probably remotely.

'What?' she said angrily. 'I do not think you understand how this relationship works. I speak, you are silent.'

'No, no, no, no, no,' said Cawl. 'You are not listening to me. Listen! Why does the Warmaster come here? We're nowhere. We have nothing that he might need. You have a military mind, domina. Why?'

'So you seek to suck my knowledge from me as you have your previous masters?' she said.

'I am asking for enlightenment from one with greater comprehension,' said Cawl as humbly as he could manage.

Sigma-Sigma gave a metallic sigh.

'We offer a point of resupply for any Imperial forces who might threaten the Warmaster's rear,' she said.

'But his armies are on the other side of us, galactically speaking.'

Aspertia Sigma-Sigma bent down over Cawl. 'Yes. But when he moves to take Beta-Garmon, we will not be.'

Quick as a whip crack, her long serpentine body looped around and she sped away, her mechapeds rattling. Scattering smaller techpriests she headed off on some mysterious errand of her own.

Or maybe, thought Cawl, she doesn't want to answer any more of my questions. If Cawl possessed a shred of self-doubt, he might have thought her annoyed by his ignorance, and been humbled. But if Cawl was blessed with a surfeit of anything, it was self-belief. His question was valid.

According to data traffic, four out of five of Trisolian's highest ranking Taghmata officers after Sigma-Sigma were in the room. So why had she gone?