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great bowl of the moonlit desert. Sky and land alike, both dark, had a sheen across them, a haze produced by airborne dust. ‘My men were used as a tactical sacrifice to break Tel Utan open. Lon and a few others know, but I’ve told them to stay tight-lipped. I’ve kept the information quiet for reasons of morale.’
    ‘How do you know this?’ asked Bronzi.
    ‘Because the men who sacrificed us told me to my face,’ said Soneka.
    ‘And me,’ Bronzi replied. ‘You saw them, then? The specialists?’
    ‘The Alpha Legion,’ said Soneka. He looked at Bronzi. ‘So many stories, over the years, and then to meet them, the most secret and cunning of all the Astartes.’
    ‘I was this close to him,’ Bronzi said, ‘as close as I am to you. He warned me off, and told me why, and then told me to keep my mouth shut about the whole thing.’
    ‘Who?’
    ‘Alpharius!’
    Soneka smiled. ‘They were all called Alpharius, Hurt.’
    Bronzi shook his head. ‘This was the primarch, Peto. I swear it! I saw his face.’
    ‘I believe you,’ said Soneka. ‘Terra, but what kind of war are we fighting here?’
    ‘A war of lies and disguise and dissembling,’ Bronzi answered. ‘Why else would that Legion be involved?’
    ‘I’ M NOT ENTIRELY sure of the significance,’ said Koslov, the post commander. He was a brigadier in one of the Crimean support regiments charged with running the campaign’s rear party operations.
    ‘Neither are we,’ said Bronzi, ‘but the fact remains that we have the body of an unidentified combatant showing signs of non-standard anatomical work and a brand mark like a reptile.’
    ‘We know that subversive and covert tactics are being employed in this zone,’ said Soneka.
    ‘How do you know that?’ asked Koslov.
    ‘That’s classified,’ Bronzi said carefully.
    ‘If the Nurthene have infiltrated our companies, high command needs to know about it,’ Soneka went on. ‘The body needs to be examined, so that others like it can be identified. This could break the war, man. This could be one of the key reasons those devils have us on the back foot all the time.’
    Koslov took a deep breath and stood up behind his camp desk. The habitent was sparsely equipped, and lit only by a pair of lumen packs.
    ‘Far be it from me to argue with two frontline hets,’ he said. ‘What do we do?’
    S ONEKA AND B RONZI agreed that Honen Mu was the first point of contact. If infiltration was widespread, they had to tread carefully. They had to start with someone they knew they could trust; someone, as Bronzi pointed out, who had dealt with the specialists and therefore understood the gravity of the matter.
    Koslov granted them access to the Visages post’s main vox transmitter, and personally activated the command-grade cryptogrammics using a biometric key he carried around his wrist.
    ‘The channel is secure,’ he told them, and left the chamber.
    Bronzi picked up the speaker horn and threw the transmit switch.
    ‘CR23, CR23, this is Joker Lord broadcasting in encrypt, stop.’
    The vox speaker emitted a series of dull, metallic clicks, and then settled into a deep background hiss. Bronzi repeated his signal.
    Ten seconds passed and then the answer came. ‘Joker Lord, Joker Lord, this is CR23 reading you encrypted, stop.’ The voice was cold and clear, as if the speaker was standing in the next room. Apart from a slight trebly quality caused by the cryptogrammic coding, they couldn’t have asked for a stronger, purer link.
    ‘CR23, I need to speak to Uxor Mu urgently, Code Janibeg 5, stop.’
    ‘Confirm code, please, stop,’ the vox answered him. The connection was so clean, the words sounded as if they were polished.
    ‘Confirm Code Janibeg 5, stop.’
    ‘One moment, Joker Lord, stop.’
    Another wait. Two minutes of liquid hiss this time. Bronzi glanced at Soneka.
    ‘Joker Lord, Joker Lord. This is Honen. Bronzi, this had better not be one of your entertainments, stop.’ The tone was