The machine was a design of his own invention. His entrapment upon a distant world had shown him new ways to shape life through the Force, to meld technology and flesh in ways that made the Eradicators seem primitive by comparison. This was a construct of gleaming carapace and metal that flowed with organic texture, melded obscenely to the simple curves of Imperial construction. Chemicals churned through the machine, seeds of delicate flesh sprouted deep within protective tanks, unfurling as they cleansed him of sleep.

Yet his senses were still diminishing, curling and compacting into the suffocating shell of a body, back behind barriers. Before his hibernation, his mind had been an unnerving thing to others. No emotion escaped him, only power, like the meaningless energy flared from a black hole. Featureless and untouchable.

He had become no more open in the intervening centuries. The barriers were stronger than ever, and yet they carried over the chaos of the millennia he had observed. They curled and writhed in fractal complexity, bound tightly in uncounted layers.

He did not open his eyes behind the mask. They were useless. What he saw enter his vault was beyond the physical senses.

It reminded him of another. A leviathan, puppeting its flesh as a lure, watching from the abyss.

He breathed, and then spoke. "Why?" His voice was soft, throat dry, but he could still be heard.