After a brief meeting, Guilliman bade the Phoenix Lord farewell and returned to the Glorious Humanity.
In the archives aboard the Glorious Humanity, a place Guilliman used for rest, the Primarch sat behind a massive square table.
He was not handling the affairs of the entire fleet as usual.
Nor was he dealing with the matter he had agreed upon with Morgul, of turning the Autansa Ark into a mobile supply starport.
Guilliman simply sat there, staring into empty space, his expression grave.
The Primarch recalled his meeting with the Father-Emperor.
As with every previous recollection, that single meeting now seemed to contain different conversations.
And in this memory, the Emperor's chaotic wills and voices all mentioned something concerning an apothecary.
"Fabius."
"Fabius Bile."
"New Humanity."
"Blasphemy."
"Genetic contamination."
Under the traitor Primarch Fulgrim, there had once been an apothecary named Fabius.
The Emperor had mentioned an apothecary, an insignificant traitor, because that apothecary had done something truly monstrous.
He had created a species called the New Humanity.
The New Humanity were exceptionally good at hiding. They were scattered throughout the Imperium, and the Inquisition had exhausted every means to find and purge them. They had even burned several discovered New Humans and the worlds they inhabited to ash during these purges, yet the cleansing remained painfully inefficient.
The Emperor believed the New Humanity would contaminate humanity's gene pool. To him, it was an intolerable blasphemy against mankind.
Guilliman's considerations were more practical. He believed the New Humanity were potential pawns of Chaos, and sooner or later, they would leap out and give the Imperium a "surprise."
For decades, Guilliman had worked with the Inquisition to deal with incidents involving the New Humanity, but they could neither be found nor killed off completely.
Under such circumstances, destroying the birthplace