Every year, Decima holds another huge ball, and invites the socialites to preen themselves in front their new Governor.
By the fifth year, I am swimming among 50 concubines and even gain a third wife, from a Noble house with roots going to the Age of Strife and beyond.
Serena Rinne-Dolean is red-headed and kinda plump. Now a Lancefire by marriage. She is also about 80 years old, though due to anti-aging treatnts she looks about 25. And she will keep looking that age for a millennium or two.
Her family has founded the twin Hive city with sa na. One twin is called Rinne and the other Dolean, probably after the original founders. Now the cities are united into a large tropolis with over 1 billion people, although most of those are lower caste workers and servants.
Even outside the Empire, the hierarchies and the mode of operation remains largely similar, due to inertia.
You might change the Governor for a King or Prince, but the pyramidal structure of a Hive city will not change.
And below the factory levels, there's the underhive, a maze of pipes and conduits and sewage plants, all infested by gangs and criminals.
Not as nurous now, due to the chanicus tech-priests forcefully recruiting them for other purposes, like agriculture and mining and war.
But, they did find a few Blanks and where there is one there will be more.
A special compound is created for those with the blessing, and a dozen astropaths now scour the Hives for more Blanks.
The original Blanks are not very important by themselves, but they are sent to a remote mountain valley for training and breeding and schooling and other eugenic purposes.
My own kids will join the compound, to reduce the pressure on the Navigator and his astropath choir.
But only when I have to travel. I want to enjoy loving my kids, and nobody is allowed to interfere.
In real space Blanks are mostly harmless, not that Navigators are allowed in my nursery.
I am tempted to create a similar compound for Navigators, but they refuse. Either way, they do co to mingle at the Governor balls and eventually will spread their seed.
Decima has promised large rewards for any woman that manages to seduce a Navigator. Even bridge positions for her kids or similar boons. For a small rchant house it would be huge.
There is also a Navigator lady, but she never leaves her quarters on the Iconoclast destroyer. I suspect she has mutated beyond what's acceptable in society. The Warp just works that way, and flesh is weak.
An even better reason to want Blanks for officers, as many as possible.
Also, a reason to post ard guards around that Navigator quarters, most of them combat servitors. And a squad of void marines for every other Navigator. Just in case.
By the tenth year, we finally manage to unlock an Atomantic arc-reactor from the Fellblade, and copy the original design. Upgrading the thing will be even harder, as the tech is so advanced and complicated it might as well be magic.
Gyron heads that task, while I focus on the plasma guns from the Stormblade. Again, copying the schematic in original format is possible, but not useful.
Forge world and offer my support. And then share a dozen gifts equally with both, since we fought together and thus we are bound by blood honor.
The Marine almost refuses, before the Fabricator explains.
"Lord Donatos, such is the way of this Captain Pef Lancefire. Everything he finds out in the wilderness he gives away to the Imperium, mostly to Forge Worlds. We help him in turn with ships and tanks and tech-priests. But as we have fought together..."
The Space Marine towers over and shakes my hand in thanks. "We cannot produce these STC designs anyway, Lord Pef. Might as well give them to the Tech-priest so that they increase the arsenal of humanity."
I nod slowly. In truth, I don't have anything that could help a Space Marine Chapter. They have the best equipnt and priority to replacents.
Still, I do have a wild card. "I understand, Captain. But there is sothing you do need. The sa thing the Fabricator has tasked with. Blank genes, immune to the Immaterium." I hold my hand out to the tech-priest and he blurs into action, draining of a litter of blood and packing it into a dozen vials for the Space Marine.
Aphael loses composure for a second, before receiving the gift of blood with reverence. "Our geneseers and Librarians will need to test it, of course. But...if it does work."
"Yes, I have a hundred children out in the Fringe. And their children sotis receive the sa gift. It will take ti to spread out the genes to an entire Hive world, but not that much. Perhaps 10 generations. It is exponential growth after all. With no mutations." I explain softly.
The Space Marine blinks in surprise and hope. "The Emperor protects! Even the re hope is enough to sustain now. Thank you, Lord Pef!" he proclaims and bows a milliter.
This is unexpected. But then, fortune favors the bold.
"Inform the Fabricator General should the geneseed be compatible. In two decades I will assemble a hundred potential Blank recruits and bring them here at Antax. If they work, I will consider a permanent solution." I reply politely.
This might not work at all. Or it might backfire sohow.
All three of us hold hands and tentacles as a new pact if forged over my blood, and the blood shared in battle.
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