Voids can hide from everybody but the Land, and one another... and the widespread genetic tests and databases maintained by the public health organizations of the Empire.

It took half a million man-hours of intensive searching through all the many systems of the Mechanists, sifting through the endless information networks of the public health systems, to find the coding related to the Void Brothers and the Silent Sisters.

The architecture of the coding was at TL 17, basically as high as humanity had ever produced. It was hard-wired into the essential core of the computers that were at heart in every advanced city of the Empire, programs interspersed invisibly through other programs, linking together erratically yet powerfully, tripping when exposed to certain absolute genetic codes.

They sent that information out in rider signals attached to other astropathic messages from the governments and guilds, which in turn triggered relays elsewhere to appropriate parties, until they reached their destinations. Orders came back on what to do, if the matter was handled locally, or ships were dispatched, if not.

The children were located and removed, any other children tested if found, genetic tests administered of the parents as appropriate, and then the whole family was generally expunged, to make sure such a thing didn’t happen again.

The children were then brought away to their new homes and bases of operations. For the rare women, that was the Quiet Temple of the Silent Sisters located on Titan.

For the far more common Voids, that was the Mountain Retreat of the Imperial Assassins.

Those systems were still in force, even on the far side of the Rift. As the isolated Sector had no access to the Retreat or the Temple, the responsible parties followed doctrine and simply killed the children and their families, preventing any problems that could not be controlled.

He was once a faceless knife in the dark, a tool of the Emperor who was supposed to burn out, go mad, and die as his gift finally killed him, making his life as useful as it could be before he perished before his time.

Now, he was the Fire and the Sword of the Land!

He had dearly and murderously wanted to return to the Retreat, cut open the suits of his brothers, let them hear the Land, and know they were meant to be something greater than mere knives of their callous masters.

He also knew that if he tried that, he was going to die.

He had made the decision to take a short trip through Gloom, to the far side of the Rift, and from there begin his work.

The Hagbloods with Talents for educating, raising children, taking care of people, and all in all being nice folks had pitched in to help him, being totally outraged at the implications of what was going on. He had no problem finding support and willing hands, much to his amazement, and, to his own surprise, gratification.

He had thrown away the name they had given him, knowing it was not his own, and had dredged up something from the depths of his memories that sounded right.

Frank. Brother Firesword Frank.

It was small and tiny, and he did not know his family name, homeworld, anything, and any search for it would trigger the system to come hunt him down. He could only know they were dead and gone, and his future Brothers would need them.

There were no Voids or Vortices active on this side of the Rift. Ever since it had come into being, any newborns with the talent had been terminated. Any who had been caught here on the side of the Rift would have gone mad and died some years ago now... and he didn’t sense any on this entire side of the galaxy, so none of his Brothers had gone native. Likely, they had done as they were programmed to, and killed themselves before they ‘went mad’, a double tragedy as they ended their lives as their power was about to finally break them free of the shackles upon them.

He was going to make sure such a thing never happened again.

He was in almost constant contact with the Free Brothers Sama had located. They had learned many things from Sama concerning talents of those Brothers who came from outside this universe..

Outside this universe. Even now, merely thinking the fact made him grimace, made him twitch with the truth of it. He knew that was true, however much he wanted to deny it.

Their entire universe, separated from the greater multiverse, from the multiverse of multiverses that was Creation, just to be the playpen of the Warp Gods, so they could mess around and have fun without the gods from Outside playing with them.

He knew it all, because the Void Brothers were the Guides, and the Favored of the Land. They were born to learn all the dark, dread secrets and horrors of reality, and do something about them. So he also knew of the hole to Outside Creation, and the things that had infiltrated this universe from there, going backwards and forwards in time impartially.

He knew that the Mother of Sama Rantha had dealt a horrible blow to the Warp Gods, opening up that hole, opening up links to the Warp, and in doing so, torn that Rift across half the galaxy.

Whether they liked it or not, the fate of the Warp Gods was set. The incessant, mad conflict between souls in the afterlife that defined the Warp and gave them so much of their power was getting siphoned away as those souls were finally drawn to their proper fates. How long it would take, nobody knew... but Sama was pretty intent on accelerating the process, and was only one step away from being able to take those first steps.

She needed to get to Fifteen, and she would be able to design the Vivic Wards that could cut off an entire planet from the active influence of the Warp. It would literally fall out of the awareness of the Warp Gods. Vivic flames would send the souls of those who died directly into the proper afterlife from their own tiny pockets of the Warp.

Such places, however, would be very painful for psions to live in, filled with a constant emptiness in the mind and pressure in reality that would be difficult to bear. Psions who could learn to bear up under such pressure would be some of the most dangerous mentalists in the galaxy.

Most psions would choose to go offworld and not have to deal with the pressure, opting for other methods to stave off the influence of the Warp if possible. There would be a clear division between the Powered, who would have to endure such discomfort, and the Primos, who would basically ignore it.

That being said, the threat would be coming from space to destroy such Wards as they went up, as basically everything inside them was like a fat, juicy meal to the Warp Gods, who might soon start starving if their helpings of leeched emotions and instincts was interrupted. Like any animal cut off from its food source, they would take violent steps to redress the situation.

But first, they had to know the situation was happening, as the worlds would just quietly vanish from their considerations...

At Sixteen, Sama was sure she could work out the method to ward an inner system. At Seventeen, a Solar System. At Twenty, a Heliosphere. The technology itself would get easier, it was just that making the components would be more difficult.

The TL14 Tachyon Drives were already coming out, their interstellar speeds rising steadily, and with it their ability to explore. The technology curve was only going up, and the only thing slowing it down was having enough people behind it competent to work the technology to the exacting standards required. Sure, you needed to be a Fourteen to truly understand how the tech worked, but what it really meant is you needed to be able to pull off a 34 on the check, routinely, to make and run such systems.

That required some very talented, very focused, and very skilled individuals, and in very large numbers. Impossibly large numbers.

The kind of numbers being generated by Ranthas and their Marked, tens of thousands of otherworldly Hags leading thousands upon thousands of Marked towards a brighter future, Leveling them up on the corpses of the enemies of humanity, putting them in the jobs that they were best at, and giving them a massive Stat boost so they could attain the Levels needed to do the job.

They were attaining those Levels in numbers unprecedented in the history of humanity.

And they certainly aren’t running out of enemies of humanity to help them climb the curve, Frank reflected, as he blended into the side of a building, waiting for his prey to emerge.

Klosk IV was an idyllic world, and would have qualified as a pleasure planet were it open to visitors. As it was, it was owned by a consortium of private parties who did indeed use it as a vacation world, getaway, and the retirement home of those tired of the rat race who wanted to idle their years away doing whatever they wanted in fresh air, spectacular scenery, and absolute power over their lessers.

There was a very steady flow of G&G volunteers trickling into this world, and three Ranthas had set up shop. Marked were already starting to spread through the lower class, and their information network had covered the planet within a few weeks.

It was pretty much mass agreement by all concerned that most of the nobles here were going to die violently. Of course, any rebellion was going to be put down by the most ruthless means possible... however, there were plenty of ways to take advantage of that, and the Ranthas intended to do just that.

Probably millions of people were going to die to destroy the decadent, abusive rule of the elites of this place, but that would leave the whole place ‘ownerless’ and ripe for claims by parties all too willing to do such a thing. Certainly there weren’t any Ranthas or Briggs who had infiltrated pirate groups or Marque-bearers abusing their status, and gotten rid of them in fine fashion, miraculously inheriting their ships, just like Sama had conveniently acquired an initial fleet and Title on the far side of the galaxy.

That was what was going to happen, the wheels were already in motion, plans updating in real time across thousands of light years, slowly growing and closing in on this place.

This was also a place where the agents who gathered the Voids and Vortices for the Sector were trained, based, and dispatched from, just another random hunting mansion with nobody within a hundred miles, coming and going as they pleased, just like all the other wealthy families, who knew enough to not even inquire about who and what they were, or risk getting quietly exterminated overnight.

Even here, on the far side of the galaxy, with no Voids to order around, the Assassins still had influence, even if they now had to resort to more traditional methods to enforce their wills.

Frank wondered how they were carrying out the Emperor’s will... or the Sector Governor’s, such as it was. They could train their own, new agents, but would find them far less gifted and talented then Voids, unless they chose to go with psions. If they went with psions, they opened themselves up to exposure to the Warp, and all that could happen with that.

Ah, they were probably stewing in their boots, pining for their little disposable assets coming back to them as ready killers. The only place in the galaxy allowed to train Voids was the Mountain Retreat. What steps had been taken to make sure his kind couldn’t hear the Land must have beggared the imagination when he thought about them. Sama and Briggs had worked on a dissertation about theoretical kinds of equipment that would be needed to tamp down on the Land’s influence, and both had agreed it was 17+.

Only the Emperor and his personal cronies could have pulled it off.

There was no sign of one of his brethren here. The clear trail they left through the living field was impossible for another Void to miss, meaning Voids had very little difficulty tracking one another. His exposures to the Mindring, the Waterspear, and the Shadowknives had also shown him that Voids could be very different in their own ways, and that it was a good thing.

He eyed the sensors scattered about the place, hidden things of crystal and technology, subtle psionic enhancements, and great sensitivity.

Clarity sensors, made for tracking the presence of Void Brothers...