Tarvitz backed away from the operating slab. The Emperor created Lord Fulgrim to be the perfect warrior and the Legion's warriors were moulded in his image. That image is what we strive towards. Holding a xenos race up as an example of perfecВtion is an abomination!'
'An abomination?' said Eidolon. 'Tarvitz, you are brave and disciplined, and your warriors respect you, but you do not have the imagination to see where this work can lead us. You must realise that the Legion's supremacy is of greater importance than any mortal squeamishness,’
Such a bold statement, its arrogance and conceit beyond anything he had heard Eidolon say before, stunned Tarvitz to silence.
'But for your unlikely presence at the death ot the Warsinger, you would never have been granted this chance, Tarvitz,’ said Eidolon. 'Understand it for the opportunity it represents,’
Tarvitz looked up at the lord commander sharply. 'What do you mean?'
'Now you know what we are attempting, perhaps you are ready to become a part of this Legion's future instead of simply one of its line officers,’
'It is not without risk,’ Fabius pointed out, 'but I could work such wonders upon your flesh. I can make you more than you are, I can bring you closer to perfection,’
'Think of the alternative,’ said Eidolon. You will fight and die knowing that you could have been so much more,’
Tarvitz looked at the two warriors before him, both Fulgrim's chosen and both exemplars of the Legion's relentless drive towards perfection.
He saw then that he was very, very far from perВfection as they understood it, but for once welcomed such a failing, if failing it was.
'No,’ he said, backing away. 'This is… wrong. Can you not feel it?'
Very well,’ said Eidolon. 'You have made your choice and it does not surprise me. So be it. You must leave now, but you are ordered not to speak of what you have seen here. Return to your men, Tarvitz. Isstvan III will be a tough fight,’
'Yes, commander,’ said Tarvitz, relieved beyond measure to be leaving this chamber of horrors.
Tarvitz saluted and all but fled the laboratory, feeling as though the specimens suspended in the tanks were watching him as he went.
As he emerged into the brightness of the apothe-carion, he could not shake the feeling that he had just been tested.
Whether he had passed or failed was another matter entirely.
SEVEN
The God Machine
A favour
Subterfuge
The cold sensation snaking through Cassar's mind was like an old friend, the touch of something reasВsuring. The metallic caress of the Dies Irae as its cortical interfaces meshed with his consciousness would have been terrifying to most people, but it was one of the few constants Moderati Titus Cassar had left in the galaxy.
That and the Lectitio Divinitatus.
The Titan's bridge was dim, lit by ghostly readВouts and telltales that lined the ornate bridge in hard greens and blues. The Mechanicum had been busy, sending cloaked adepts into the Titan, and the bridge was packed with equipment he didn't yet know the purpose of. The deck crew manning the plasma reactor at the war machine's heart had been readying the Titan for battle since the Vengeful Spirit
arrived in the Isstvan system, and every indication was that the Dies Irae's major systems were all funcВtioning better than ever.
Cassar was glad of any advantage the war machine could get, but somewhere deep down he resented the thought of anyone else touching the Titan. The interface filaments coiled deeper into his scalp, sending an unexpected chill through him. The Titan's systems lit up behind Cassar's eyes as though they were a part of his own body. The plasma reactor was ticking over quietly, its pent-up energy ready to erupt into full battle order at his command.
'Motivation systems are a little loose,' he said to himself, tightening the pressure on the massive hydraulic rams in the Titan's torso and legs.
Weapons hot, ammunition loaded,’ he said, knowing that it would take no more than a thought to unleash them.
He had come to regard the power and magnifiВcence of the Dies Irae as the Emperor personified. Cassar had resisted the thought at first, mocking Jonah Aruken's insistence that the Titan had a soul, but it had become more and more obvious why he had been chosen by the saint.
The Lectitio Divinitatus was under threat and the faithful had to be defended. He almost laughed aloud as the thought formed, but what he had seen on the Medicae deck had only deepened the strength of his conviction that he had chosen the right path.
The Titan was a symbol of that strength, an avatar of divine wrath, a god-machine that brought the Emperor's judgement to the sinners of Isstvan.
The Emperor protects,’ whispered Cassar, his voice drifting down through the layers of readouts in his mind, 'and he destroys.' 'Does he now?'
Cassar snapped out of his thoughts and the Titan's systems retreated beneath his consciousness. He looked up in sudden panic, but let out a relieved breath as he saw Moderati Aruken standing over him.
Aruken snapped a switch and the bridge lights flickered to life. 'Be careful who hears you, Titus, now more than ever,’
'I was running through pre-battle checks,’ said Cassar.
'Of course you were, Titus. If Princeps Turnet hears you saying things like that you'll be for it,’
'My thoughts are my own, Jonah. Not even the princeps can deny me that,’
'You really believe that? Come on, Titus. You know full well this cult stuff isn't welcome. We were lucky on the Medicae deck, but this is bigger than you and me and it's getting too dangerous,’
*We can't back away from it now,’ said Cassar, 'not after what we saw,’
'I'm not even sure what I saw,’ said Aruken defenВsively.
'You're joking, surely?'
'No,’ insisted Araken, 'I'm not. Look, I'm telling you this because you're a good man and the Dies Irae will suffer if you're not here. She needs a good crew and you're part of it,’
'Don't change the subject,’ said Cassar. 'We both know that what we saw on the Medicae deck was a miracle. You have to accept that before the Emperor can enter your heart,’
'Listen, I've been hearing some scuttlebutt on the deck, Titus,’ said Aruken, leaning closer. Turner's been asking questions: about us. He's asking about how deep this runs, as though we're part of some hidden conspiracy. It's as if he doesn't trust us any more,’
'Let him come,’
'You don't understand. When we're in battle we're a good team, and if we get… I don't know… thrown in a cell or worse, that team gets broken up and there isn't a better crew for the Dies Irae than us. Don't let this saint business break that up. The Crusade will suffer for it,’
'My faith won't allow me to make compromises, Jonah,’
'Well that's all it is,’ snapped Aruken. 'Your faith,’
'No,’ s.aid Titus, shaking his head. 'It's your faith too, Jonah, you just don't know it yet,’
Aruken didn't answer and slumped into his own command chair, nodding at the readouts in front of Cassar. 'How's she looking?'
'Good. The reactor is ticking over smoothly and the targeting is reacting faster than I've seen it in a