"What?!"
The blow was not entirely unexpected, but wholly unprepared for. Cawl was sent sprawling, his legs unable to find purchase on the smooth tile of the laboratory.
"You mean to tell me you disobeyed the one limit I placed on you?" Guilliman thundered, "you ignored my warning?"
"I did," Cawl vocalised defiantly, "the gene stock is not flawed, the Primarchs were." Guilliman drove the Hand of Dominion into one of the consoles, crushing it in a shower of sparks and groaning metal.
"And you thought you could hide this from me?" He growled, his eyes colder and harder than any of the machinery that was part of the Magos.
"Negative, there was only a 0.0000001 per cent chance that you would not discover this labour," Cawl said, his vocaliser robbing his voice of any emotion it may have had, "trying to ensure your ignorance for an indefinite period would be a vain effort. Instead priority was given to finishing the project before you were made aware of it."The Primarch growled, grabbing the Magos by the throat with the Hand of Dominion. Metal groaned in protest as the steel augmetics bent under the pressure. One squeeze was all the Lord Commander would need to destroy the wayward scientist.
Guilliman leaned close, so close his breath clouded Cawl's retinal lenses. His face was a mask of fury. If ever anyone present, only Cawl's retainers and assistants, had seen anything more terrifying they could not remember it.
"Give me a list," he snarled.
Four hours later Guilliman had pored over the list multiple times. It made for grim reading. Cawl had already made chapters from the geneseed of all the Traitor Legions, and even the Lost Primarchs, though he had already dispatched forces to deal with those particular heresies.
"Lord, are you well?" Calgar's voice interrupted the Primarch's bitter reverie. He hadn't realised that he was rubbing his temples.
"I am fine Calgar, thank you," he sighed, "we have to deal with these chapters. The Lost Legions' successors need eradicating, no doubt, but I think if we can control the traitors' then they may serve the Imperium as well as any other Chapter, maybe better."
"I feel like you have reservations," Calgar pointed out, earning a chuckle from Guilliman.
"Very astute of you, chapter master," Guilliman nodded, "look at this list. Tell me which you trust least."
"Well, I don't trust any of these..." he trailed off, and Guilliman knew he was seeing what he saw, "Throne of Terra."
"Exactly. They even fight the same way as their forebears," Guilliman dropped his head into his hands, rubbing his temples again, "can I rely on you to deal with this?"
"It will be done, Lord."
