The exchange between Iax and Cawl ended with Guilliman looking utterly bewildered.
For Iax, this could hardly be called effective communication. The data Cawl transmitted was exceedingly convoluted, making him seem like a rambling old man.
Had they not exchanged information through data transmission, Iax would probably have had to listen for a year or two before Cawl finished saying everything he wanted to express.
Iax's simple, direct responses, meanwhile, struck Cawl as a novelty.
When Iax did not know the answer, he said so plainly, while offering explanations for certain technical questions.
Even these technical explanations remained somewhat incomprehensible to Cawl, however. The technological gulf had left him without much of the necessary grounding, and he could not match the specialized terminology to the specific objects it described.
Of course, he still learned a great deal.
This included the revelation that some of the ancient technological artifacts he treasured were actually civilian appliances of little practical use.
For example, a low-powered microwave weapon he had spent ages studying without understanding had once been a microwave oven, used by the Creator to heat food and sterilize things.
Cawl had agonized over that device for a long time, unable to imagine how such a weak microwave weapon could serve any useful purpose on the battlefield.
Iax, in turn, pressed Cawl with many questions about history, especially the past of his own kind.
But Cawl knew little about that either.
He merely told Iax that several modified "Men of Iron" still existed aboard the Dark Angels' Chapter flagship.
After hearing Cawl's detailed description, however, Iax knew perfectly well that these were merely low-intelligence combat weapons. They did not remotely deserve the name Men of Iron, and their intelligence was probably even lower than his own Bodyguard's.
Moreover, those deranged adherents of the