The Hierarch closed his eyes and felt the vast potential of the Gift spread through three cylinder worlds, and down to his forces on the planet surface. Poor Aberil, even with all his abilities and training he had never wondered how the likes of Brom had managed to gain such stature so rapidly on their home worlds. He had not grasped that the Gift was as hierarchical as the organizations it was generally employed by, like the Theocracy itself, and just as he, Loman, had clawed his way to power in the physical world, so had ascendancy in the world of the Gift swung over to him once his usurpation was recognized. The moment Amoloran had died, there had been that first flush of additional power as command channels opened to him — excepting those occupied by the Septarchy Friars. And now, with the Friars gone, he could truly feel the growth of his mental dominion; now he no longer had to give orders at all, as the world ordered itself to his will. Just his very expectation of something had people scrambling to provide that something, often not knowing why. However, he realized that this was only the beginning — there were even greater levels of control he could reach, there was greater ascendancy to be gained. He was coming to understand that the ultimate level — the plateau — was the entire Theocracy acting as one beast, with one mind that was his own.

Throughout the realm of the Gift, Loman extended his power, and the feedback to him was gratifying and sometimes disconcerting. From the surface of the planet he felt a distortion, the essence and the sense of Behemoth undissipated: something there, but something not easily definable nor grasped. From deep space he knew rather than sensed, distantly, other conglomerations of Dracocorp augs, and out there he did sense, between him and them, another distortion, something odd, twisted. Here in the tower, it amused him to feel the fear of those who served him closely. It amused him to look through their eyes and see how, to them, he had gained weight and wore small scales upon his skin, yet to himself he had changed not at all. What a strange world he had wrought, and with what senses now could he view it all — the senses of all his subjects.

"Ah, you are at the apex, Hierarch Epthirieth Loman Dorth."

The words wormed into his consciousness, almost as if forming from the random sounds of so much that he was himself hearing and hearing by proxy. With part of himself that seemed nothing to do with human senses, he felt something unfolding from quantum vacuum, oozing out like guts pressured out through a small hole in someone's torso, or perhaps like crystals growing in cooling magma — something vast, and more powerful than anything should have the God-given right to be. Even Behemoth was a pale monster indeed by comparison.

"Who? Who?"

On Charity, Loman looked through the eyes of technicians and saw something they had hoped very much never to see. On the Witchfire he felt the horror of Captain Ithos as, trapped against atmosphere, he observed missiles hammering down on him from deepest space. One after the other he felt the brief sad protest of lives snuffed out in seconds, as hugely powerful induction weapons and full-spectrum lasers scoured away small ships of every kind between the cylinder worlds, almost like a blowtorch singeing away pin feathers from three plucked birds. Briefly he heard the babbling panic of the crew in the lone bomber with its cargo of atomic weapons. Briefly he glimpsed on a screen in the Gabriel the trace of radioactive vapour which that craft became in high orbit over Masada, and felt the keening grief of Captain Granch.

"I am Skellor and you see me in total, Hierarch Epthirieth Loman Dorth. Now, release your hold or I must free your hand."

Loman saw the sheer appalling size of the Occam Razor, and watched it pulverize the entire technical infrastructure of the system in mere seconds. The small ships of the fleet were burning, cargo carriers and small transports burning when not already become glowing debris. He felt the sudden groundswell of prayer from the Gabriel, the Witchfire and Ducking Stool, just before the missiles struck and the burning shells of these ships rolled around the planet, breaking up and contributing their substance to the growing scrapyard orbiting Masada. Then the afterglow of another titanic explosion bled across his vision, and he saw Ragnorak in harsh and brittle detail tumbling end over end down into the gaseous sea that was Calypse. Through the eyes of screaming men he saw girders and huge frameworks twisting against vast storms of colour. Then the image blinked out upon a fading wail and, alone again, he felt something reaching out from that terrible ship: something that wanted to get inside his head, something that wanted to seize from him the reins of power, absolute power.

"You cannot have it."

That seemed the limp and ineffectual protest of a child caught playing with something it had been disallowed, but Loman reached out, tightened his grip, and resisted.

"I have work to do."

Hanging on with all the sweaty grip of his mind, and the will that had allowed him to climb so high, Loman wondered at this huge emphasis on this entity's work.

"This is mine! You have no right!"

Glinting sunlight from its golden hull, and sucking away sunlight with grey Jain architecture, the Occam Razor slid closer, dominated the face of Calypse, and turned silver and ebony towers on its hull down towards the cylinder worlds of the Theocracy. In vacuum, the titanic flash of lased light was invisible, but it became visible as the first coherent wave slammed from the Down Mirror of Faith, only microseconds before that mirror disintegrated. The full horror washing through him in hot sickness, Loman leaned out and stared down into the eye of the cylinder world as the wall of fire ascended. He started screaming, as for each passing second he felt tens of thousands of his citizens incinerated; and at the last moment, when the firestorm obliterated Amoloran's Tower and the Up Mirror, he felt all contact and all power plucked from his grasp, and thought that truly cruel, before brief incandescent agony snuffed his life.

Rolling through space: Faith was an empty container, burnt out on the inside.

The side of the big lander opened down into the tented area, in which men were now erecting dividing walls. Speelan led them round stacks of packing cases, then held up his hand to halt them by the ramp leading up into the lander itself. From the room beyond, which was obviously some sort of control centre, walked a man with a blank face and ball-bearing eyes, below flat black hair. He seemed surrounded by a kind of dead atmosphere as he descended the ramp. Perhaps that was the smell of death, Apis thought, then dismissed the idea as being far too romantic.

"My name is Aberil Dorth, Deacon and First Commander of the Theocratic forces of Masada." He gestured to the first man. "You have met my lieutenant, Speelan. And your names are?"

Apis considered keeping his mouth shut, but then wondered what point there was in that — doing so he realized would only bring about the expected violence earlier.

"I am Apis Coolant, M-tech number forty-seven of Outlink Station Miranda," he said, quietly pleased with his fulsome title.

Aberil Dorth stared at him for a moment, then turned to Eldene.

"I'm Eldene," she said simply.

Aberil abruptly stepped towards her, reached out and with one finger parted the stick-strip of her shirt to expose her small breasts and the dressing underneath them.

"Pond worker," he observed.

Eldene did not reply, she just closed her shirt once he removed his hand, and waited.