Chapter 476 - Far Future Ch. 186 – Voids and Vortexes (1/2)
”Arranged marriages?! Mother, this is the far future and grimdark, where they treat people like shit and... oh!” Jonah's grin got lopsided.
I beamed. ”Glad you understand that you're going to be spending a lot of time with some very athletic women who can't get enough of you.”
All three of them coughed and looked elsewhere. ”Hadn't crossed our minds at all, Sama.”
”You're just so pure-hearted and kind, I know, I know.” They all beamed together, and I swear the light gleamed off their teeth.
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Sister Eloise sat down across the table from me, and Jonah sat to the side, his Source Aura covering all of us. Sisters Elanis and Emerta were at another table, conversing with the garrulous Elijah and Noah, who were acting like big hams for the two of them. The Silent Sisters were trying really, really hard not to smile at their antics...
Sister Eloise had a lot of lines carved into her face, and looked older than her years. As a Ten with at least a hundred extra years, and the Empire having age-rejuvenation alchemicals available, that was saying something.
Still, she looked to be a lot more relaxed than she was normally, and couldn't help glancing at the Ancient sprawled in an over-sized chair nearby.
”You have a purpose for bringing us here, Marquise,” she said, but her voice didn't have the sting to it that it might. ”Tell me what it is.”
”I am aware that Vortices, and Voids, are dangerously intelligent people. What I do not know is what you have been told, versus what you have seen and can deduce yourselves,” I answered promptly. ”Thus, what I wanted to tell you was best shown first, allowing you to make your own assessments, and then contrast them with what you have been told, and what I am going to tell you.”
She nodded slowly. ”Fair enough, as long as it involves no blasphemy, or treachery against the Empire.”
”It very well might, from the perspective of those who give you orders.” Her eyes flashed once. ”First of all, you are not an anti-psion, or a psion-killer, or whatever you have been told you are, juxtaposing you as the opposite of the mentalists who run the Empire. You are a Vortex, a naturally if rarely occurring member of the Forsaken... who are simply everyone else who is not a Psion, but has their psionic potential Awakened.”
I help up my hand before she could say anything. ”Every living thing has life energy. Every thinking creature has emotions. Every sentient creature has thoughts. These three things make up the full sum and total of psionic energy. You do not need to be a psion to have psionic energy, as any necroleech draining hapless civilians of their lives and mental energy can confirm for you.”
She paused, and then slowly nodded. ”That... is true, from that perspective.”
”The vast majority of people have little psionic potential. Those who have active psionic potential, the psions of all calibers, have something else... they have flexible souls.” I kept her eyes. ”Surely you have felt the difference in how they feel from the vast majority of others. Elusive, vibrant, shifting, moving, fluid, energetic... in contrast to normal people, who are like dim light bulbs; Sources like Jonah, who are steadily burning fires,” she had to give him another glance, ”and Nulls, who are like rocks.” Her unseen vortex swirled up to and past me, and could get nothing off me. ”Vortexes are like holes, and Voids... are like filters. Vortexes and Voids are two sides of the same coin, separated only by gender.”
She frowned. ”We have been told that freeborn Sisters and Brothers are great dangers to themselves and others.”
I tapped the table as I looked up. ”Hmm. Well, were a freeborn Vortex born, I believe they would generally die within ten years, without any training, nor the filters of your armor. In that, I could see how they would be a danger.
”Void Brothers, however, do not have the issue that you do. They go insane if they are not permitted to do as they are compelled... so I imagine the Voids you know of also go inevitably mad as their conditioning wars with their primal drives.”
She blinked at me. ”You know of freeborn Voids?” Her interest was like a razor.
”Three,” I admitted. ”On the other side of the Rift.” Her nostrils flared. ”They are the greatest natural xenos hunters we have ever seen, and so cold stone sober it is scary.
”Their natural drives are exactly like your own, removing threats that are out there. However, I imagine yours are focused on negative energies, psionic taint, and Warp contamination. Void Brothers... sense it all.”
”All?” she asked hesitantly.
”Time travelers. Things from outside dimensional space. Defilement of nature. Corruption of the ecosystem. Imbalance in hierarchies. Exploitations of faith. Abuse of the spirits of the dead. Disruptions of the cycle of nature. Extradimensional intrusions. Aberrant infiltrations of the Akasha. Degradation of the human spirit.
”Freeborn Voids obey no master but the Land... and so they are dangerous to those in power. Their sensitivity to those making deals with aliens, Aberrants, the warp, and psychic entities, as well as those betraying humanity or the Land for their own gain, means they kill those in power as ruthlessly as they do lowborn scum seeking to better themselves with the same kind of deals.
”And those in power naturally do not like that a whit. Thus, freeborn Voids are a huge danger... to people like them.
”To you or I? We're just tools to be used, to get done what they are compelled to do... which in the end isn't much different from what you do.
”If you enslave a Void and compel him by whatever means to unnatural purposes, such as serving a human hierarchy and killing at the whim of other humans, they will go mad and die. It is unstoppable.
”If they wear a suit like yours, it is only to stop them from hearing the will of the Land. I imagine if they do take it off and hear that voice, they are promptly compelled in outrage to kill those who took them from their purpose, which makes them a huge threat to those in power and using them as their personal throatslitters.
”The shelf life of madness also means they won't remain a threat for long, unlike freeborn Voids, who can easily live for centuries, if they don't die in their duties... which most of them naturally do, given what they face.”