Loken took a step forward. 'Commander.’ he said, 'I will own up to ignorance and embrace illumination, but I will not be laughed at.’

'Forgive me.’

Tell me why I should. Illuminate me.’ Tull stopped laughing and stared into Loken's face. His blue eyes were terribly cold and hard. 'Kaos is the damnation of all mankind, Loken. Kaos will outlive us and dance on our ashes. All we can do, all we can strive for, is to recognise its menace and keep it at bay, for as long as we persist.’ 'Not enough.’ said Loken.

Tull shook his head sadly. We were so wrong.’ he said.

'About what?'

'About you. About the Imperium. I must go to Naud at once and explain this to him. If only the substance of this had come out earlier...'

'Explain it to me first. Now. Here.’

Tull gazed at Loken for a long, silent moment, as if judging his options. Finally, he shrugged and said, 'Kaos is a primal force of the cosmos. It resides within the Immaterium... what you call the warp. It is a source of the most malevolent and complete corruption and evil. It is the greatest enemy of mankind - both interex and Imperial, I mean - because it destroys from within, like a canker. It is insidious. It is not like a hostile alien form to be defeated or expunged. It spreads like a disease. It is at the root of all sorcery and magic. It is...'

He hesitated and looked at Loken with a pained expression. 'It is the reason we have kept you at arm's length. You have to understand that when we first made contact, we were exhilarated, overjoyed. At last. At last! Contact with our lost kin, contact with Terra, after so many generations. It was a dream we had all cherished, but we knew we had to be careful. In the ages since we last had contact with Terra, things might have changed. An age of strife and damnation had passed. There was no guarantee that the men, who looked like men, and claimed to come from Terra in the name of a new Ter-ran Emperor, might not be agents of Kaos in seemly guise. There was no guarantee that while the men of the interex remained pure, the men of Terra might have become polluted and transformed by the ways of Kaos.’

"We are not-'

'Let me finish, Loken. Kaos, when it manifests, is brutal, rapacious, warlike. It is a force of unquenchable destruction. So the eldar have taught us, and the kine-brach, and so the pure men of the interex have stood to

check Kaos wherever it rears its warlike visage. Tell me, captain, how warlike do you appear? Vast and bulky, bred for battle, driven to destroy, led by a man you happily title Warmaster? War master? What manner of rank is that? Not Emperor, not commander, not general, but Warmaster. The bluntness of the term reeks of Kaos. We want to embrace you, yearn to embrace you, to join with you, to stand shoulder to shoulder with you, but we fear you, Loken. You resemble the enemy we have been raised from birth to anticipate. The all-conquering, unrelenting daemon of Kaos-war. The bloody-handed god of annihilation.'

'That is not us,' said Loken, aghast.

Tull nodded eagerly. 'I know it. I see it now. Truly. We have made a mistake in our delays. There is no taint in you. There is only the most surprising innocence.'

Til try not to be offended.'

Tull laughed and clasped his hands around Loken's right fist. 'No need, no need. We can show you the dangers to watch for. We can be brothers and-'

He paused suddenly, and took his hands away.

'What is it?' Loken asked.

Tull was listening to his comm-relay. His face darkened. 'Understood.’ he said to his collar mic. 'Action at once.’

He looked back at Loken. 'Security lock-down, captain. Would... I'm sorry, this seems very blunt after what we've just been saying... but would you surrender your weapons to me?'

'My weapons?'

Yes, captain.’

'I'm sorry, commander. I can't do that. Not while my commander is in the building.’

Tull cleared his throat and carefully fitted his visor plate to his armour. He reached out and carefully took hold of his spear. 'Captain Loken.’ he said, his voice

now gusting from his audio relays, 'I demand you turn your weapons over to me at this time.’

Loken took a step back. 'For what reason?'

'I don't have to give a reason, dammit! I'm officer of the watch, on interex territory. Hand over your weapons!'

Loken clamped his own helm in place. The visor screens were alarmingly blank. He checked sub-vox and security channels, trying to reach Kairus, Torgaddon or any of the bodyguard detail. His suit systems were being comprehensively blocked.

'Are you damping me?' he asked.

'City systems are damping you. Hand me your sidearm, Loken.’

'I'm afraid I can't. My priority is to safeguard my commander.’

Tull shook his armoured head. 'Oh, you're clever. Very clever. You almost had me there. You almost had me believing you were innocent.’

Tull, I don't know what's going on.’

'Naturally you don't.’

'Commander Tull, we had reached an understanding, man to man. Why are you doing this?'

'Seduction. You almost had me. It was very good, but you got the timing off. You showed your hand too soon.’

'Hand? What hand?'

'Don't pretend. The Hall of Devices is burning. You've made your move. Now the interex replies.’

Tull.’ Loken warned, placing his hand firmly on the pommel of his blade. 'Don't make me fight you.’

With a snarl of disappointed rage, Tull swung his spear at Loken.

The interex officer moved with astounding speed. Even with his hand on his blade, Loken had no time to draw it. He managed to snatch up his plated arms to

fend off the blow, and die two that followed it. The lightweight armour of the interex soldiery seemed to facilitate the most dazzling motion and dexterity, perhaps even augmenting the user's natural abilities, lull's attack was fluent and professional, slicing in blows with die long spear blade designed to force Loken back and down into submission. The microfine edge of the blade hacked several deep gouges into Loken's plating.

Tull! Stop!'

'Surrender to me now!'

Loken had no wish to fight, and scarcely any clue as to what had turned Tull so suddenly and completely, but he had no intention of surrendering. The Warmas-ter was on site, exposed. As far as Loken knew, all Imperial agents in the area had been deprived of vox and sensor links. There was no cue to the Warmaster's party, or to the Extranns compound, and certainly none to the fleet. He knew his priority was simple. He was a weapon, an instrument, and he had one simply defined purpose: protect the life of the Warmaster. All other issues were entirely secondary and moot.

Loken focussed. He felt the power in his limbs, in the suddenly warming, suddenly active flex of the polymer muscles in his suit's inner skin. He felt the throb of the power unit against the small of his back as it obeyed his instincts and yielded full power. He'd been swatting away the spear blows, allowing Tull to disfigure his plate.

No more.

He swung out, met the next blow, and smashed the blade aside with the ball of his fist. Tull travelled with the recoil expertly, spinning and using the momentum to drive a thrust directly at Loken's chest. It never landed. Loken caught the spear at the base of the blade with his left hand, moving as quickly and dazzlingly as the interex officer, and stopped it dead. Before Tull

could pull free, Loken punched with his right fist against the flat of the blade and broke the entire blade-tip off the spear. It spun away, end over end.

Tull rallied, and rotated the broken weapon to drive the weighted base-end at Loken like a long club. Loken guarded off two heavy blows from the ball-end with the edges of his gaundets. Tull twisted his grip, and the spear suddenly became charged with dancing blue sparks of electrical charge. He slammed the crackling ball at Loken again and there was a loud bang. The discharging force of the spear was so powerful that Loken was thrown bodily across the chamber. He landed on the polished floor and slid a few metres, dying webs of charge flickering across his chest plate. He tasted blood in his mouth, and felt the brief, quickly-occluded pain of serious bruising to his torso.