Warp travel does unpleasant things to the human body. For most men and women, they develop purple eyes and have an unsettling aura about them, one that makes them unwelcome planetside and many live and die aboard their ship for generations.

Some, however, gather small deformities. Poor diets, poisoned water, and constant exposure to the immaterium’s mutagenic properties all compound into a chopshop mash of bizarre mutations. Those that survive are shunned and banished, hiding in the bowels of vessels to escape persecution.

Imperial vessels often allow these communities to fester in their ships so they can press gang these unfortunate individuals into service when the voidship is boarded or wishes to assault another. Mutants are policed by crewmembers assigned as ‘twist catchers’.

Flamer wielding fanatics who corral mutants and hunt demons, twist catchers are among the few imperial citizens outside of the space marines and inquisition who are permitted a basic knowledge of chaos so that they can better recognise corruption creeping into a voidship.

From an imperial, a sneer is a kindness, continued existence, an expression of benign tolerance, yet as I depart these quarters, I am reminded these mutants are still imperial citizens.

In the one clean room I can find, scavenged candles and a bowl of purified water lie as offerings upon an altar of rusted metal and polished, deformed skulls. A large, handmade wire statue of the Emperor of Man looms over the altar, his wings spread and curved over the meagre table.

I bow to the altar and leave. This... this is a really shitty place to live. I haven’t even arrived yet and I already dislike the Imperium. Over the last decade, I’ve put significant time and effort into learning their history and customs, as well as practice their rituals, all so I can fit in amid this mockery of humanity’s final culture.

The Imperial Cult’s services are OK. No worse than being forced to Sunday church services by wobbly grandparents. They’re an odd mix of solemn gregorian chants and gun toting, evangelical spew.

Machine Cult rituals, however, are the absolute worst and I hate them with a passion. They’re little more than the operating instructions or troubleshooting guide for a piece of machinery, dressed up with repeated praises for the motive force and the Omnissiah.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I understand their genius. No one reads the manual, but if you want some superstitious hick to remember to plug in their equipment or check the fuel before they call customer service, turning it into a religious ritual is an absolute genius move to encourage compliance.

The reason I don’t like it is because nothing works if you don’t do the rituals. Not because I don’t know how to plug in a toaster, but because the machine-spirits in every device are stuffed full of sensors and listen to the key words. If you don’t say and do the right things, they assume an idiot is trying to use the machine and might hurt themselves, or worse, damage the machine, so they refuse to work.

Most machine-spirits are pretty limited, so if you don’t do exactly what they’re expecting, any slightly complex machine will fail to work. This makes total sense for, say, a fusion reactor or a tank, but is totally unnecessary for a data slate.

Thing is, because there are so many sensors, a person’s voice also acts as part of the security check, incense will trip the smoke sensor and put a device into diagnostic mode if you can’t remember the cogitator commands, and a splash of sacred oils is a really easy way to trigger a maintenance cycle if the machine is locked down for some obscure reason.

Not only is there a valid safety reason behind the rituals, but there’s a practical one too and this is the reason that annoys me the most as I have to repeat it all the time.

I take a few, deep breaths to try and calm myself down as I follow the mutants to the medicae deck.

Tech-priests are specialists and most don’t live long enough, or have access to the information they need, to really learn the how and why of everything they might be called to work upon. One ends up with this strange pseudoscience as a universal way of getting access to the basic levels of a machine so that, for example, your junior enginseer, who’s learned how to safely diagnose a faulty plasma conduit, doesn’t accidentally space themselves when they’re assigned to fixing the firing mechanism inside a sixty metre torpedo tube using a three thousand year old velum manual. Unfortunaly for the junior enginseer, the manual is for a mechanism which has been replaced with half a dozen different versions since someone last remembered to update the technical library, and said mechanism is barely functioning after multiple battlefield bodges.

Therefore, no matter how dumb it is, one does the rituals, because at least then they know the machine should work if you do. If it doesn’t, one can work out what the last person who fixed it was doing by repeating the ritual and following their logic. Without it, one cannot guarantee that the provided maintenance logs are correct. It's possible you might not even find them either.

After the mutants shuffle and limp into hospital beds, I sedate them without their knowledge or permission. As I watch these people lie helpless, the reason why I hate these rituals so much strikes me like a lightning bolt.

I like to think I’m better than the mechanicus. A man from a more enlightened time. I resent being forced to follow their doctrine to fit in, as it makes me feel stupid, because I can see how they ended up with them and hate that it is necessary, but a lot of the time I am forced to follow them, not to fit in, but because it works and I don’t know any better either.

Praise the Omnissiah, for today is a day of enlightenment and revelation! Glory be to the eternal Emperor of Mankind, for today he has blessed me with the knowledge that I am special, special like everyone else.

Blinking away the tears in my eyes, I examine the results of the medical scans; I’ve become pretty good at biology after spending a decade cloning servitors. I grimace.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

Praise the Emperor indeed. At least he didn’t make me a fucking mutant. Poor bastards.

I’ve no idea how to treat them and coming up with something usable is going to take repeated simulations, thousands of tests, and hundreds of prototypes. Each mutant is different too, so there’s no single solution, though I hope to create as many similar parts and interfaces as possible.

Initially, I was thinking I could pop their brains in jars and build human bodies around them. That’s still the basic premise, but each mutant has a delicate balance of unusual parts that standard bionics and cybernetics are not designed to emulate and disrupting that will not help them in the slightest.

Option two is to design a custom virus for each mutant that can correct their faults, then clone their flesh and put them in new bodies, there’s so many ways for that to go wrong though and I don’t want a bunch of dead kids sliding out of the auto-doc.

It will likely take a mix of both solutions and many years, but I deem the work worth it as I will hone my skills, possibly discover something new, and ensure I do my best to improve, rather than degrade, a miniscule sliver of the Imperium.

I refuse to take actions that needlessly feed chaos.

I assign the servitors I have with me to keep the mutants asleep and to improve their health as best they can. This period of observation should help me better understand their biology and improve my chances of helping them. I intend for them to remain unconscious until I am ready. Putting them in stasis would be better, but I only have enough capacity for two mutants and would rather keep their time in sync with each other.

As I board the thunderhawk to return to the Distant Sun, I receive a communication request over vox on the official diplomatic channel.

“This is Magos Explorator Aldrich Issengrund. To whom am I speaking?”

“Greeting Magos Issengrund, this one is Por’Ui Dy’aketh Lynu. You can call me Envoy Lynu.”

Envoy Lynu speaks in high gothic, her voice is just low enough I cannot tell if she is male or female. Her tone is gentle and soothing. She has a slight accent, similar to japanese. It reminds me of someone who has spent hundreds of hours practising their diction to remove any traces of hesitation or inaccuracy and I wonder if she’s ever spoken with a ‘native’ speaker like me; Marwolv’s peoples only speak low gothic.

“Hello, Envoy Lynu. Why are you contacting me?”

“This one has heard you are open to exchanges. Would you be willing to aid us?”

“That depends on what aid you wish and what I will gain from it. We are competing species and I am not authorised to deal with xenos. It better be an excellent offer.”

“This one understands your hesitance, but we are not in the Imperium and their laws hold no sway here.”

“Neither do yours, though we are each accountable to our superiors and the safety of our homes. I heard yours crashed into the ocean.”

“Our vessel has suffered some mishaps. While it has been repaired, the return journey is troublesome. While our vessel does possess a ZFR horizon accelerator engine, we do not have an ether engine, our equivalent of an Imperial warp drive. Any return journey using an accelerator engine will take less than five years for us, but ninety thousand would pass for the rest of the galaxy. We were hoping you could solve this for us by selling us a drive or vessel we can use to get home.”

I’m guessing it’s a tiny ship if they don’t have a proper drive, a small escort less than a kilometre in size designed to attach to a larger ship for warp travel. There’s probably still thousands of them on the ship though, with all their war gear. I don’t want to fight that and there’s no guarantee I can hit them from orbit when they’re underwater.

A diplomatic approach is essential, but I should talk as if I’m from a position of strength.

“It’s much worse than that. You would have to cross the Great Rift, Cicatrix Maledictum, or whatever you call it. You can only do that at one spot, one nominally controlled by the Imperium and highly contested. This area is called the Nachmund Gauntlet and is centred around the Vigilus System.

“Envoy Lynu, I do not know how the Tau map the galaxy, but to us, Vigilus is in the Nachmund Sub-sector of the Nachmund Sector in the Segmentum Obscurus. The area is also prone to warp storms and the crossing is exceptionally hazardous, similar to the Maw between the Koronus Expanse and Calixis Sector. I have not personally confirmed this information, but I have found no reasons to discredit it either.

“My suggestion is you find a new home port.”

“That is not what this one hoped to hear, Magos Issengrund.”

“While you consider your options, I have three offers. I am willing to help your vessel launch into space. I am also willing to offer you all data I have on non-imperial worlds suitable for habitation within the Koronus Expanse. This is an imperial world and leaving you to assimilate it may bring the Inquisition’s attention to me and this planet, something neither of us want. You will need to offer something of equal value for these services.

“For now, I propose a non-aggression pact between my fleet and your grounded vessel, valid for thirty terran days, after which we shall negotiate again. The non-aggression pact, for now, is free and will remain so for as long as you continue to deal with me in good faith. Irritate me and I may insist on reassurances you will not enjoy. Do we have an agreement, Envoy Lynu.”

“We do, Magos Issengrund. Thank you for the information and your offers.”

“Good. Is there anything that is unclear or that you would like to discuss further?”

“No, Magos Issengrund. This one has a perfect understanding of your intentions.”

“Wonderful. We shall speak again in thirty days.”

“For the greater good, Magos Issengrund.”

“A fine sentiment, Envoy Lynu. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye.”

I end the call. The greater good, eh? As I understand it, the greater good, or Tau’va, is the Tau’s governing philosophy. They present it as self-sacrifice and harmonious choices for the protection and progress of all.

What they really mean is for the greater good of the Tau, especially their ruling caste, the Ethereals, insidious psykers that control the mixed races and castes that make up the tau with their mind influencing powers, powers that overwrite the individual will of their citizens.

Just as the thunderhawk lines up with the Distant Sun’s hangar, I receive an alert from the servitors I sent to the enclave.

The satellite was wrong. There is data flowing through the enclave.

It’s still active.