Quaani returns several hours later and my Fleet Command officers each pop by over the next twenty-four hours to greet Quaani and express their enthusiasm at his return. Quaani checks out his new quarters on Iron Crane, but stays at mine for the first three days before moving out.

The remainder of our journey across the thirty-ninth system has no further significant events.

Quaani and I complete the following jumps together, letting us trade places and travel much further with each jump and learn from each other. I do not require sleep and have never learned the navigator power, Refresh and Revitalise, so it was interesting to see Quaani use it as well as take over when rest could no longer be suspended.

We put a lot of effort into learning A Cloud in the Warp, Pass Unscathed, and Obliterating the Immaterial Wake too.

A Cloud in the Warp, while maintained, makes it much more difficult for warp entities to detect a navigator. With enough power and practice, that can be extended to the vessel. We can’t use other powers while using this one, at least for now, but keeping it up as much as possible is a necessary precaution for any navigator or psyker.

Ylien has much to say on A Cloud in the Warp and is more helpful than usual when teaching the intricacies of shrouding powers and skills and goes to great efforts in applying his knowledge to our own. I expect it’s because he doesn’t want She Who Thirsts, as the Eldar call Slaanesh, to target him through us. A grisly fate for all Eldar who lose their soul stone. Regardless of his personal reasons, I have no objections to his dedication to this particular skill.

My personal gellar field performs a similar task to A Cloud in the Warp and practising the power gives me a much better understanding of how gellar fields function, as does working in tandem with Quaani.

Pass Unscathed allows one to directly interact with the Warp, pushing away its corrupting influence from both people and objects. With a little tweaking, we were able to use it to reinforce the gellar field for a few days at a time, whenever it started looking stressed. It is an exhausting power and is only necessary in an emergency, which is exactly why we practise it.

Obliterating the Immaterial Wake hinders other navigators or Warp entities from tracking our passage. It is even more tiring than Pass Unscathed and can knock out a navigator for half a day, or even kill them, if they push too hard and, for example, use it continuously for a week straight. We don’t know if anyone is tracking us, but like A Cloud in the Warp, it’s worth using this power at least one day in three as a standard operating procedure and it is an excellent way of building stamina and skill with handling large amounts of Warp energy.

Between us, we are able to get our travel time down to three weeks per system on average, from four. It’s still rather slow compared to travelling along established routes with a century old navigator, but we’ll reach that level of skill eventually. There is little we can do about the time spent crossing systems, we can only try to minimise the number of systems we need to cross, and that would take a fleet of thousands of exploratory ships to discover the most efficient route. The Imperium might be able to do that, but I certainly can’t.

During the seventy-third system crossing, two years after Quaani was restored, Envoy Lynu requests a meeting outside our scheduled diplomatic engagements. I join her at the xenos habitat on Distant Sun, in a dedicated room, set aside for official affairs. I hope it is important as this meeting is delaying Distant Sun’s undocking from Iron Crane. The Tau are still not allowed to leave the xenos habitat, and thus I must go to her.

The room is unusual, with a mix of Tau art and flora on a backdrop of Imperial neo-gothic architecture. The plants are a mix of desert grasses and thorny bonsai trees with tiny leaves. A sky high city, faced in white marble, is painted upon a large canvas piece with remarkable detail.

When I arrive, I find Envoy Lynu waiting for me in flowing, sand coloured robes and golden jewellery. She has gained a little weight since the Tau first took shelter with me, as well as a few wrinkles around her forehead and eyes. Her deep blue skin is otherwise incredibly smooth and, compared to a human, appears unnatural.

Lynu stands and greets me with a deep bow, “Magos Issengrund. Thank you for agreeing to meet with me on such short notice.”

I return her bow with a brief nod, “You’re welcome. You haven’t done so before, so I was willing to entertain your request.”

“Your time is appreciated, Magos.”

“How is your community faring?”

“We chafe at the restrictions and enjoy your hospitality.”

“A generic response. Give me some numbers. Have there been any new births? That is always something to celebrate, no matter the circumstances.”

“Our community stands at five hundred and thirteen strong. A mix of the first batch of prisoners, those who surrendered over the following years, and a paltry six births. There are also a few survivors of the Dark Eldar raid from other races. All personnel, regardless of caste, have retrained to work on the projects you have assigned, rather than languish with nothing to do.”

“How are the integration programs? Those that work on alternative interpretations of Tau values to bring them in-line with imperial culture?”

“We attend the classes for the bytes provided and pass the tests for a chance at sparse luxuries. Key indicators of acceptance, like use of Imperial loan words, are sneaking into scientific discussions but are not used in everyday life. Most Tau can now speak acceptable low gothic and a small, fluctuating percentage do interact with your crew in the simulated noosphere environments.

“Only key researchers have become fluent in high gothic and lingua technis, as they are the only Imperial languages with proper scientific terms. How your civilization can function when the predominant language and its multitude of dialects lacks many educational terms still baffles me.”

I grimace, “Yes, that is not an aspect of Imperial culture I am fond of. How can one identify those who can progress civilization if they do not have the words to express themselves to those in power? It is not a problem for the Stellar Fleet or Marwolv as my educational and social policies do not require such heavy levels of oppression.

“Krieg is a fine example of why one should not provide high technology and its destructive capabilities to everyone, yet had their commanders been able to calculate the yield of the bombs they dropped on their own planet, they may not have done so. It is hard to know what the right path really is. I can only continue to ram history, philosophy, and science down the throats of my tech-apprentices and expose them to enough experiences through simulation that the lessons stick.”

“A trouble for all civilizations.”

“Indeed, Envoy. Has there been any genuine progress on conversion to either the Machine or Imperial Cults?”

“We have one convert, our cybernetics specialist. He is most enamoured with his remarkable implants. Our commune is too poor to afford much augmentation and understanding is hard to come by. You do not provide the documentation on how these augmetics function so only our specialist has a vague enough of an idea to understand quite how outrageous they are. He is quite passionate.”

I grin, “You are yet to share much of your own either, nor do I have the authority to share technology just yet.”

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“I am aware. We have rehashed this argument multiple times.”

“So what is different today?”

“We have made some progress with our assigned task and I wish to bargain for better treatment.”

“Forward the files to me.”

Envoy Lynu frowns and her eyes unfocus as she focuses on her MIU and forward two papers to me. Like every file thrown my way it is heavily screened by my Advanced E-WAR Suite. There is no such thing as a trusted data source in the forty second millennium. My minds dissects it rapidly and I have fully understood the files before Lynu refocuses on me.

“A new way to make MOA and initial findings on mutations,” I say.

“Yes, Magos. Without access to fio’tak processing facilities and, being rather uncomfortable with Imperial tools, our Magos Biologis equivalent developed a way of forming MOA using a derivative of our Exo-womb technology and your food printers.

“We can now grow pieces in their final form over several weeks, removing the need for fabrication or lengthy biological reproduction. They are currently advancing the technology to scale it to industrial levels as well as alter the alloy for specific tasks during the deposition process, rather than resmelting it as you currently do.”

“Well now, that is certainly worthy of a reward.”

“I am glad you are willing, Magos.”

“It is our agreement.”

Lynu nods, “As for the mutations it has been explained to me it is a mix of factors: Incompatible atavism from the propagation of discontiguous genetic engineering, triggered by multiple responses to hostile environmental conditions.

“Your ancestors arrived at multiple solutions to identical problems. These have mixed over the millennia through the transfer of people between planets and the propensity for mutation is likely most prevalent in void ship crews, pilgrimage sites, and the Astra Militarum.

“There was clearly some regulation at one point as all alterations we have discovered, compared to the original samples you had on file, are designed to turn off when they are unneeded or if they conflict with each other. Mutation occurs when these mechanisms are confused by excessive exposure to triggering conditions, or simple chance.

“It is a fascinating study and one I would love to send back home to prevent similar issues in Tau populations. Looking at a possible consequence of our own future has inspired the researchers to work on mitigating this issue.

“The most favoured proposed solution to curing a heavily mutated individual and prevent further issues is to reset their genetics through a modified rejuvenat treatment. Right now, this would likely kill them and would have to be paired with a full cyborg conversion as keeping just the brain alive during the process is easier than sustaining a rapidly changing body.”

“Congratulations to you and your teams, Envoy. I am most pleased by these findings.”

“Thank you, Magos. I will pass on your praises.”

“I would like to note that there is little mention of the Warp’s mutating properties, or that of foreign hostile entities inducing mutation artificially.”

“That isn’t something we are in a position to study, nor could any of our scientists conceive of a manner to harden genomes against such manipulations. Either way the solution to curing it would be the same.”

“A reasonable problem. Studying hostile influences in a repeatable, controlled manner does require a coerced, cooperative Warp entity. It is not something I would permit under any circumstances. I imagine none of your scientists are keen to delve into such subjects after the fall of your Ethereal either.”

Lynu’s posture slumps ever so slightly. “Yes, it is a scar we are yet to recover from.”

“Scars, by their nature, only fade.”

“That was my implication.”

“I already find it fascinating that two species who evolved on different planets developed identical methods to healing from trauma. Common solutions lead to understanding and cooperation, I feel.”

“You have a strange way of comforting others, Magos.”

“Let’s move on then. Are you aware of the League of Votann? They are also known as Demiurg, Heliosi Ancients, Squats, and other names. They call themselves the Kin.”

“I have heard of the Demiurg.”

“Good. They are an offshoot of humanity from the Dark Age of Technology. One of their achievements was the creation of cloneskeins. This technology resulted in a rigid culture and castes, or guilds as they call them, of their own. Rather similar to the Tau, a fun coincidence, don’t you think?”

Lynu has a good straight face, but I know her well and she can’t hide from my sensors. I cannot tell if she is nervous or uncomfortable, though I do not think she is keen on talking about the League of Votann. She gives me a curt nod.

I continue, “There is some speculation among the upper echelons of the Imperium that much of Tau technology was purchased from the League of Votann and thus is human in origin. I’m not here to debate the law, sociology and philosophy behind that today. I wish to point out that it is possible to harden a race against uncontrolled mutation, though not without consequence. Doing nothing is also equally undesirable, however.

“Once the process for resetting a genome and transplanting the survivor to a new body has been refined to an acceptable degree, I would like your teams to look into locking set genomes down. I am pleased with the Marwolv genome and would like it preserved. Improving it is a long term challenge, one I likely will not give to the Tau, or I may leave it unchanged, given my cybernetics speciality. Should further research take place, the Tau will be credited and compensated for any previous research that my own teams will build off of.”

“Very well, Magos. Though first it is time to complete the current trade.”

“Upon completion of a viable industrial process for improved MOA manufacturing, I offer you four options. The first is that the Tau will have a new xenos habitat built on Iron Crane. It will include a promenade and be, in effect, a much smaller version of the city style quarters of my own crew. The level of amenities will depend on the thoroughness and value of the developed processes.”

Lynu smiles, “That would alleviate many of our developing social problems.”

“Option two is your own aquaponics system. I will set aside enough space for you to grow foods from your own biomes so that you can enjoy native Tau dishes. There will be sufficient space for one Tau based meal, per person, per week. If you move to the Iron Crane first, I could up this to one per person, per day. Either way, you would still have to pay for them, like any other meal.”

“You are making it difficult to choose, Magos. Will all these options remain available upon completion of the mutation project?”

“They will.”

“Thank you. What else do you have?”

“Third is a budget increase for your scientists. It would be sufficient for them to engage in more side projects like the MOA technology in their own time, providing you with a regulated manner to produce new technologies for the Imperium. Similar bonuses like the four I am offering would be offered for completed projects, but I would be paying for the research as well, rather than it coming from your teams’ private funds.

“Your scientists would have more leeway to choose their projects and have larger, better equipped facilities. I would also allow you to take these technologies with you, should a prisoner exchange ever be possible, or if you are able to save up enough funds to purchase a vessel from me once I have the required permissions to sell them.”

“That is quite the leap of trust, Magos. The Earth Caste does love its funding for grand projects.”

“I felt that as the primary drivers of your commune’s fortune, an opportunity tailored to them would be agreeable.”

“It is. You have offered social, luxury, and economic options. Would the last one be for me?”

“That is quite astute of you, Envoy. Yes, the fourth and final option is political trust. Like the Imperial and Machine Cult representatives you would be given a voice in Fleet Command.

“What this means is that you can access written meeting minutes on our discussions on non-security issues and censored from specific numbers. You will also be able to put forward a single proposal once a year that we would consider fully and you would be given a direct contact line to me for emergency use. I would note that these privileges are easier to abuse and thus much easier to lose as well. You would not be offered them a second time either, at least for a significant length of time, likely decades. The cults are under similar restrictions.

“Further, I will mention that the final choice for the MOA technology bonus will go to the team that developed it. I recommend that they take the improved xeno habitat as that would make providing bigger and better versions of the other options upon completion of the mutation project a possibility rather than straight out impossible. Distant Sun does not have as much space as Iron Crane.”

Lynu sighs, “You are as generous as ever, Magos. I will pass on your options and bring you our answer during our next quarterly meeting in seven weeks.”

“Bring the lead scientist at that time. I want to hear their answer directly from them.”

Lynu’s mask twitches for a moment, “That is agreeable, Magos. May I depart?”

“You may. I wish you a pleasant debate.”

“May the Warp currents favour you, Magos.”

Lynu departs while I try to work out if she was blessing or cursing me with her last words. It seems that despite her diminished circumstances and cooperative attitude, Lynu is as tricky as ever.