'You have petitioned me in regards to the Kaban project,' interrupted the adept, dispensing with preamble altogether.

His voice was harsh and artificially generated, though the hissing of his power pack seemed as though it mimicked heavy, rasping breaths.

'Ah, yes,' said Ravachol, momentarily flustered.

'Then speak. There is much that occupies my time and I have little enough of it to spare.'

'Yes, of course, my lord,' nodded Ravachol, holding out the data slate. 'I'll try to be brief, but there's so much I wish to tell you. It's quite amazing really. Unprecedented, I'll warrant, though I stumbled on it by accident.'

'Adept Ravachol,' snapped Chrom. 'Come to the point before I have you turned into a servitor. What is it that you wish to tell me?'

'A servitor! No! I mean, of course, my lord,' cried Ravachol, stuffing the printouts and data slate back into his robes. 'Well, what it is... well, that is to say...'

Adept Chrom drew himself up to his full height and Ravachol saw a huge chain blade, like that used by some of the heavier battle servitors, unfold from his master's back.

'Yes, my lord,' he said hurriedly, 'The Kaban machine has, I believe, attained sentience.'

He awaited some response to his statement, an exclamation of outrage, astonishment, disbelief... anything, but Adept Chrom simply fixed him with his glowing red eyes.

'My lord?' asked Ravachol. 'Did you hear what I said?'

'I did,' confirmed Chrom. 'This fact is known to me.'

'Known to you?' said Ravachol, suddenly deflated to know that his revelation was no revelation at all. 'I don't understand.'

'And nor should you,' replied Chrom, the terrible, saw-toothed blade retreating out of sight once more. 'The Kaban project is the result of many of the greatest minds of Mars working together to produce a thinking machine.'

'A thinking machine?' breathed Ravachol. Though he had been communicating with the Kaban machine for many weeks now, the idea that its intelligence had been deliberately engineered was incredible.

'Who else have you told of this, Adept Ravachol?'

'No-one, my lord,' said Ravachol. 'I thought it prudent to seek your guidance before proceeding further.'

'That was wise,' said Chrom, and Ravachol bristled with pride. 'These are uncertain times and there are those who would not see the necessity of what we do here.'

'Yes,' said Ravachol, 'I was going to ask about that. Isn't there a, well, a prohibition against such researches? Wasn't it... forbidden? Isn't such research illegal?'

'Forbidden? Illegal?' sneered Chrom. 'To such as us? What matters of technology are to be denied the Mechanicum? Are we to be governed by those who are beholden to us to equip their fleets and provide them with weapons with which to make their wars?'

Ravachol felt a chill travel the length of his spine at Chrom's borderline treasonous words, for it had been the Emperor himself that had forbidden such endeavours.

'Such machines are the next evolutionary step, Adept Ravachol,' continued Chrom. 'You of all people must surely see that? Your work with doctrina wafers is second to none, but even your robots are bound within parameters you set for them. With machines capable of thought, we will usher in a new age of discovery and mechanical perfection. No longer will we have to rely on the fragility and impermanence of flesh.'

Ravachol found himself swept up in Chrom's relentless enthusiasm and said, 'So the Emperor has finally sanctioned the Mechanicum to pursue such technologies? Truly this is a great day!'

Chrom's gleaming metallic fingers stretched out and grasped him firmly by the shoulder.

'No, young adept, our sanction comes not from the Emperor.'

'Then who?' asked Ravachol, his curiosity outweighing his fear.

'The Warmaster,' said Chrom triumphantly. 'Horus himself is our patron.'

How are you feeling?

Ravachol knew he should not be here with the Kaban machine, but his curiosity would not let him forget the forbidden creation and, standing before its terrible lethality, he knew he had made the right decision to come once more. No matter that Adept Chrom believed this machine to be the next leap forward in robotics, Ravachol could not shake the inescapable fact that what was being done went against everything the Mechanicum had sworn.

To go against an oath sworn to the Emperor...

The very thought of it chilled his soul.

'I am feeling quite well,' said the Kaban machine in answer to his question. 'Though I detect elevated heart rhythms, raised blood pressure and increased levels of neurotransmitters in your bloodstream. Is something the matter?'

Ravachol took a step closer to the Kaban machine and said, 'Yes, I'm afraid there is.'

'What troubles you?' asked the machine.

'It's you,' said Ravachol sadly. 'Your very existence is what troubles me.'

'I do not understand,' said the machine. 'Are we not friends?'

'Yes,' replied Ravachol, 'of course we are, but that's not the issue. It's just... well, that you're not supposed to exist. The Emperor forbade it.'

'The Emperor is angry with me?' asked the machine.

'No, no, it's nothing like that,' said Ravachol. 'It's just that the Mechanicum was forbidden from developing artificial intelligences as part of our alliance with the Emperor.'

'Why?'

Ravachol sat on a stool in front of a desk littered with tools and picked up a micro laser before saying, 'I'm not entirely sure. There are stories that tell of a great war many thousands of years ago between a race of sentient machines that almost wiped out the human race. Since then, developing machine intelligence has been one of the technologies we've been expressly forbidden to research. It's one of the cornerstones of our pact with the Emperor.'

'Then how can I have been created?'

'Adept Chrom claims to have received orders directly from Warmaster Horus.'

'He is the Emperor's proxy is he not?' asked the machine after a short pause.

'Indeed he is,' agreed Ravachol. 'He commands the Imperium's armies in the Emperor's stead now that he has returned to Terra.'

'Then do the Warmaster's orders not carry the same authority as those of the Emperor?'

'It's not that simple,' said Ravachol.

'Why not?'

'It just isn't!' snapped Ravachol, his patience worn thin by the machine's childlike logic.

'Am I not a worthwhile creation then?' asked the machine.

'Of course you are,' cried Ravachol. 'You are the greatest, most incredible creation the Mechanicum has ever produced, but there is an inevitable logic to your existence that can only end in death.'

'In death?' asked the machine. 'How do you arrive at this conclusion?'

'You are the first sentient machine, but there will be others. You have been created to be a battle robot, to fight where humans cannot and think for yourself. How long will it be before you decide you do not want to fight for the Imperium of Man? How long before you decide you do not want to be the servant of humans?'

'You think I should not serve humans?'

'What I think isn't the point,' said Ravachol. 'The point is that you will decide that for yourself and that's the problem. When machines think for themselves, it doesn't take them long to realise that they have many superiorities to humans, and it is an inevitable fact of history that those who believe themselves superior to the ones they serve will always begin questioning that servitude. It's a mathematical certainty that sentient robots will eventually seek to supplant humans. Why would they not?'

'I do not know, Pallas, but you are my friend and I would not seek to supplant you.'

Ravachol smiled ruefully. 'Thank you, but our friendship is irrelevant against the facts. You are dangerous, even though you may not realise it yet.'