Intech was a world on the edge of the Ultima Segmentum. If it had not been linked to a Forge World, perhaps no one would have cared about it at all.
The planet's environment was atrocious beyond measure, and as early as twelve hundred years ago, the Empire had declared it one of the uninhabitable worlds. That was rare. Mephisto knew how the Empire's bureaucrats operated.
As he saw it, even some death worlds, if necessary, would be approved with a sweep of a bureaucrat's pen, sending tens of thousands of men and women there to "transform the environment, in hopes of earning the Emperor's commendation." Then came, "rest and recuperate, so that you may fulfill your duty to reproduce."
Reproduce.
Mephisto mouthed the word, and abruptly felt a cold laugh wash through his veins. It was not a term he had invented, but one some bureaucrats truly used.
They used it in their reports, and they used it in everyday conversation. They said it casually, without the slightest concern, their words revealing contempt for mortals, as though they and ordinary men had already become two separate species.
Mephisto objected to this—seriously objected—but it had no effect. Whenever he thought of it, he felt a bitterness rising across taste buds that had long since lost their function. Now, that subtle ache had begun tormenting him again.
A keen Wolf noticed.
"Boy, are you cold?" Bjorn asked, laughter in his voice. His Walking Titan used a fully enclosed pitch-black helmet, with the mark of a pack of wolves beneath the goggles, making it look grim and murderous.
".No," Mephisto answered stiffly. "Also, could you stop calling me 'boy'?"
"You don't like it?"
"I dislike it very much, Elder Bjorn."
"All right."
Bjorn sighed and laboriously pulled his leg out of the