6 574 938.M41
I stare at the ring for a moment.
"There is one thing I didn't consider."
Bo'ohk tilts his head downwards slightly. "In the entirety of the universe, there is one thing you did not think of?"
"Alright, there's one relevant thing I didn't think of while we were being questioned."
"Is it something we need to go in and tell them?"
"No, it's just-. I know that daemons can be bound to objects. Or… Turned into objects. I said that this ring could be a pre-Age of Isolation artefact-."
"But you did not say that it could be a bound daemon."
"Right. That might explain why it can draw power from the warp. And why travelling using it is so safe. Bound daemons… Sometimes they openly exert an influence on the people carrying them… There's a sword that a Space Marine called Garran Crowe uses that talks to him constantly. Others don't, or just create a general desire in the person using them. My ring only talks like a drone, but… Emotional impressions? That's basically what it does."
"Would an ancient human sorcerer really have bound a daemon simply to have something that worked a little like a fictional tool?"
"Yes. The surprising thing would be that they were successful, not that they tried it."
I sigh. Of course. Obviously it's a daemon. Good work whoever bound it; maybe the Emperor was into comics in his youth?
"But you have used it to destroy daemons."
"I've transferred power from one daemon and… I mean, if this ring is a daemon, I've transferred it from one to another. That's normal daemonic activity."
"Is there a way to find out for certain?" I wince, and I'm pleased to see that he picks up on the expression. "Other than freeing the daemon, of course."
"A psyker with experience in sorcery would probably be able to tell whether or not there was a binding in place without damaging it. Good luck finding one we could trust being this close to it."
Bo'ohk looks at the ring. "Do you really think that is what it is?"
"Occam's razor says 'yes'. But honestly, I don't know."
"Okham… The simplest explanation is the most likely one?"
"The one that requires least invention, yes."
"That is the way of thinking that led us to conclude that you were a psyker."
"It's not automatically right, it's just right quite a lot of the time. It's-."
One of the room's doors opens, and two fire warriors armed with pulse blasters enter and do a quick visual inspection. Once that's complete they step aside and the Kor'O from the meeting walks in. Bo'ohk and I make a gesture of respect and she makes one of acknowledgement before… Dismissing her guards.
Bo'ohk notes that, though I don't know if that's normal for tau or not. Tau don't really have the same sort of internal competition that humans do, so it isn't a matter of being concerned about them leaking to a political rival. As anti-Callidus measure, it.. seems ill-considered.
Scan her and scan the room.
Ave, Lanterna.
No, looks like normal tau desires, with none of the under layer that marked the Callidus I saw out as odd. Similarly, the room only has the monitoring devices that are supposed to be there, and no focuses of warp energy.
"Security is to your satisfaction, Lantern?"
"I limited my scan to this room, Admiral, but as far as that goes, yes." Is it rude to say 'well spotted'? It… Might be.
"How far could you go?"
"In theory, the only limit is my mind. In practice, I could manage a 'smart scan' over this building and the surrounding area without difficulty. Further than that and I'd need to be looking for something in particular, and the simpler that thing is the further I could go. I've noticed that for large warp distortions it will just notify me."
"There are so many things that could be achieved with a few dozen like you. I would send an exploration fleet, if we had the slightest idea where to send them."
"I could carry an exploration fleet to Segmentum Solar if you want, I just don't think that anything good would happen as a result."
"I was referring to the ring. Do your ancient stories say where they come from?"
"That's… Ah… A planet called 'Oa', which is supposed to be located in the centre of the universe. As far as I know, my species never made it that far."
"The centre of the universe. I don't believe that there is one."
"The writers at the time didn't know that. Though of course it relates to a fictional universe which could have one without it saying anything about the real universe."
"What did they look like?"
I generate a Guardian construct.
"The ones on Oa looked like that, but there were other political subdivisions of their species who looked different."
"They had castes?"
"No, the divides were political rather than functional. They changed their appearance to reflect their subculture."
"And what did the others look like?"
I generate Controller, both types of Zamaron and a Leprechaun. Oh, wait, Krona didn't look like them. Add one of him-.
The Kor'O… Is focusing her attention on that one.
"What are this faction's beliefs?"
"That's Krona. He wanted to peel back time to examine the start of the universe for himself. That resulted in him breaking it, and he was punished by being rendered incorporeal. He was the villain of his stories."
She continues looking at him.
"What was the first non-human intelligent species that humans encountered?"
"I'm not sure. Daemons, probably. I know that the Emperor was off gallivanting around the universe under his own power before the rest of us had steam power, and he met the c'tan Void Dragon. For the rest of us… Orks, I think, but that's based on one record and I… Probably couldn't independently confirm it."
"For the tau, we first gained confirmation that alien intelligences existed when we reached our innermost moon. There was a starship there, damaged, but functional."
I glance at Bo'ohk, but he looks just as surprised as I feel. Not common knowledge, then. That would have been… Two thousand years ago? Three? Three thousand years or so after the Imperium spotted that the tau existed and marked them down for extermination.
"After that, we encountered the nicassar and orks. The nicassar were conquered and incorporated while… I believe that you know of the orks. After the nicassar, the kroot and vespid were also incorporated. But none of the species we met as friends or enemies built ships like the first we discovered. We learned a great deal from that ship, though much of it was… Not anything we could use at the time. We still do not fully understand it. And we do not know the names of its creators."
She turns back to me.
"Did not know. Your new project will be to interface with the ship's computers directly and allow us to finally grasp the full extent of its lessons and history. Once that is done, you may return to your current mode of operation."
"Of course, Admiral. Is.. that the final word of the T'au Aun'ar'tol?"
"Were you concerned about your relationship with Lar'shi Tsua'm Raard?"
"A… Little, Admiral."
"It is strange, but worth accepting considering the gains. To be completely open, if you solve this problem for me I would be willing to perform intimate acts with you myself."
She's about half a metre taller than me, stick thin, and… In her forties, which is eighty in tau years.
"Thank you, but that won't be necessary."
