Parasitism

It is a hard thing to be a young member of an old race. I awoke from the vats only a short time ago and I gnashed my teeth, for I knew at once that I was not Trueborn and had no lineage. There would be nothing for me except what I seized. Among the spires I did well enough. I mutilated and crucified many helots, and their pain sated me and kept the eyes of the Devourer away. I fought the depressives of Ynnead and earned trust and prestige. Among the spires I was happy enough. Why did I ask for more? Why was I greedy?

The first raid into realspace I ever joined was directed against the Septs of the Tau, the comically ignorant grey-skins of the galactic east. We were vain and careless, and the raid went badly. The Devourer's eyes were on my soul. I was shot, and I knew that my short years of happiness were over, and an eternity of torment was all that awaited.

When I opened my eyes, there was no inferno. There were no demons. There were only sterile white walls.

Capture! A humiliation! Perhaps not so bad as to fall into the clutches of Sai'lantresh, but surely the next worse thing! And the latter is inevitable, and therefore not to be thought of so badly, or more truly not to be dwelled on at all. I flew into a rage.

After some time a Tau came to the door of the cell and asked me if I might agree to converse. I wondered how the Tau had learned the Drukhari language. Seeking some stimulation, any stimulation, I accepted.

The Tau interrogator sat across from me. The interrogation room was sparse. Apart from furniture the main feature of the room was a tank inhabited only by some kind of mollusk. No accounting for alien décor. I looked the interrogator in the eye and spoke first.

"I can guess what this is. You want to make a diplomatic overture. It is what your ridiculous empire is known for, after all."

"It is gratifying to hear that such an old and distinguished people as yours knows of us at all."

"It shouldn't be! Many of our cruelest jokes revolve around our discovery of you, and what the homunculi did to the ambassadors you foolishly allowed into our care. Hah! I have always laughed long and hard at these jokes."

"Are they more or less funny now that you are our captive?"

"Equally! Equally funny! Do not think that I will apologize for being what I am. It would make far more sense for you to apologize for being what you are, though I do not think you will."

"I see."

"Go on! Try and convince me that peaceful coexistence is desirable, that it is 'moral,' that I should condescend to work for a Greater Good."

The Tau shook his head. "Unlike most in this galaxy, we are capable of learning from our mistakes. We are no longer especially interested in evangelizing to Drukhari."

"Then why capture me at all?"

"The Aun are considering an ambitious idea. A desperate idea, even. They are… curious, I suppose that is the word… to know what a Drukhari would think about it."

"Tell me your foolish idea, that I might mock it!"

"The Aun say that the Greater Good has not advanced quickly enough over these past centuries. It is no one's fault, really. The Yhe'mokushi, the dynasties of deathless metal, the acceleration of gue'la psychic malaise… we could not have foreseen these things. Slow and steady is not enough. The galaxy does not have so long."

Hints of impotence and fear drifted from the Tau, invigorating me. "Bask in hopelessness!" I cried.

"No, that is the Drukhari way, not ours. But there are two problems which we absolutely must solve! One, numbers. Our armies are competitive with others, but far fewer. Two, transit. Our warships are competitive with others, but far slower."

"These problems are insurmountable. Weep!"

"You Drukhari of course travel through your Webway. This would solve our transit issue. Also, you have countless slaves drawn from countless races, which could potentially alleviate our numbers issue."

I laughed loudly. "You want to buy from us? You want to purchase slaves and transit rights through Commoragh? Hah!"

"No, we are considering storming Commoragh, seizing its Webway, and offering citizenship in the Tau Empire to all Commoragh's slaves. At once we would go from isolation and obscurity to a position of galactic centrality and initiative."

I laughed more loudly. "Impossible!"

"Why?"

"Commoragh has been attacked before, by far more frightening powers than you."

"By the gue'la, by the be'gel, by your Craftworld cousins, and by creatures of psychic malaise, yes. All sought mere pillage or merer vengeance. None sought thorough conquest. The Aun speculate that probably none of them even considered giving guns to your slaves and letting them have at it."

"Probably not! Who would be so naïve?"

The Tau shrugged.

"Well, come on then! First, you would need to convince an Eldar to open a Webgate and navigate the Webway for you. Don't waste your time asking me!"

"We thought that we might just put a Nagi into an Eldar head and compel the Eldar that way."

"I, uh, a what?"

The Tau gestured to the mollusk in the tank. "The Nagi. Mind-parasites. We mechanically attach them to brains, which they can then control. The Nagi are nicer people than you might think. Certainly, they are nicer than Drukhari. It is a painless process."

I looked at the small creature floating in the water. I would not have guessed it to be intelligent, but the Tau did not seem to be bluffing. "The, uh, Webgate would recognize that the Eldar was not themselves."

"If you say so. I will be honest with you. I did not ever want to talk to you. I was for putting a Nagi in you immediately. I am still hoping that you will be uncooperative and that I can speak to a Nagi in your head rather than speak to you. I like Nagi more than I like Drukhari."

"I will be honest with you! Your insipid little microstate is as nothing before great Commoragh, and I jeer at your ambitions even as I am your prisoner! Put the oyster in my brain and I will still be jeering!"

"Humor me. If the Tau Empire successfully opened a Webgate, what would stop us from defeating the Drukhari? No allies will come to your aid. You have made yourselves astonishingly unpopular. I have met Tarellians who say they prefer the Imperium to you. I have met Kroot who say they prefer the Yhe'mokushi to you."

"We seek no allies! Open the Webgate and your fleet would at once be destroyed! By the same dread Drukhari warships which have so worked so long and hard to earn such universal envy and spite!"

"We have beaten Drukhari in space combat before."

"Against minor raider fleets, perhaps. You would be provoking the full wrath of the Kabal of the Black Heart! The occluded master of the Dark City himself-"

"Asdrubael Vect?"

I shuddered. "Don't say that name."

"Why not? A leader's name should be a source of wholesome comfort. We are led by the wise Aun'va. Do you see how I grow more relaxed and assured just to think of him? Even the gue'la may inspire themselves by thinking of their leadership. 'For the Emperor!' I believe that the Drukhari are the only people in the galaxy who draw no solace from thought of their own protector, excepting perhaps the be'gel."

"We are the only people so strong as not to need a protector!"

"Yet there is clearly one whom you instantly think of, when you think of the possibility of aliens invading your home."

"The invincible Archon of the Black Heart-"

"Asdrubael Vect."

"…Yes, him, I doubt that he even knows what a Tau is. Be thankful for that! For the warships at his disposal would tear through your fleets without effort. Make no mistake, he would know you are coming. The Kabal of the Black Heart sees everything in this galaxy. They have spies on the Craftworlds and they have spies on Terra."

"I don't follow. Vect doesn't know who we are, but he still spies on us?"

I frowned. "Yes?" Was anyone keeping an eye on the Tau? Maybe not, and maybe an attack by them really would be hard to see coming. What did their ships matter? They were so slow! You would… well, you would have to take them through the Webway…

"Alright. Keep humoring me. Say that the Tau fleets do take Commoragh by surprise, and that they do defeat the fleets of the Kabals, or at least hold their own. We land on your spires. We bring surplus weaponry, which we toss to the teeming abused alien mass that does all the real work in your society. What then?"

"If it were that easy, you would already have overthrown humanity, which is not an impressive race but is at least too numerous to be ignored."

The Tau considered. "There is some truth to that. When we first encountered the gue'la, we were appalled at the material conditions most of them endure. We believed that they would embrace the Greater Good with great enthusiasm. It has been more difficult than that. Many gue'la have joined us, but even very deprived gue'la have often shown the Tau Empire only hostility and bigotry. They are indoctrinated, even at the bottom, for fanatic loyalty to their divine Emperor. Is this also true of the enslaved masses in Commoragh? Have you conditioned them with a figure like the gue'la Emperor, or an institution like the gue'la Ecclesiarchy, to console them and compel them to make light of their own destitution?"

" Console them? Why would we do that? No, we don't try to console them."

The Tau smiled. "That is as I thought. The Tau land on your spires and arm your slaves. Let us suppose the slaves overcome their fears and agree to fight the Drukhari along with the Tau. What next?"

"You lose! To Drukhari armor and infantry!"

"While the Drukhari are so outnumbered?"

"Yes! And even if you were to win, which is absurd, but if it were to happen, any spires you took would be declared lost and given to disjunction."

This statement interested the Tau interrogator. "Disjunction, what is that?"

"The Webway segment is given over to the Warp. Horrible demons kill everyone. The segment is made impassable."

"Demons, these are the beings of psychic malaise I have referenced?"

"Do you not know this? Everyone knows this."

"We have a surfeit of information regarding these phenomena but have found it difficult to disentangle fact from fiction. It is because our people are generally contented and well-adjusted, and so encounter them less often. They come in four rough categories. Beings allegedly pledged to, let's see if I can remember the appellations, Nur-Gall, Corron, Chi'an Chi, and-"

"Do not say her name!" I shrieked, forgetting my pose of superiority. "Are you mad? She may hear!"

"It's ninety percent hocus-pocus nonsense." The Tau smirked. "Do you not know this? Every Tau knows this. Sai'lantresh. Sai'lantresh, Sai'lantresh, Sai'lantresh."

"Lunatic! You will not last long if you ever see a disjunction."

The Tau thought it over. "Demons aside, these disjunctions prevent reliable travel through the Webway?"

"They make it impossible."

"Then this is all something of a pipe dream." The Tau did not like to think of that. I drew more energy from him. "There can be no spire-by-spire seizure of the Webway. The only way would be to strike directly at the Black Heart."

"Which cannot be done. The occluded throne shifts and moves, feints and crafts decoys, defying all enemy conspiracy." Finally, I was the one smiling.

"It cannot be done. Not with such a small number of Sslyth informants."

"A small number of what?"

"How do you think we knew where your raid was coming?" The Tau shook his head. "We're done. Take him away."

A Sslyth slithered through the door. The serpentine mercenaries were not Drukhari, but they were the only alien race permitted to hold any authority in Commoragh. They held positions of real weight. They were allowed to bodyguard Archons. Excepting the Incubi orders, we Drukhari could never trust one another, and so we trusted Sslyth instead.

"Did it go any differently than I predicted?" asked the enormous reptile.

"No. He has spoken just as you said he would. Do you still advise the course of action you recommended before? The more of you we recruit, the more likely you are to be discovered."

"It must be done. Turn more Sslyth. Strike the Black Heart, prevent any commands of disjunction. Flood the spires with weaponry, watch the Drukhari fall to rough justice. Seize the spires, seize the Webway. Save the galaxy. For the Greater Good." The Sslyth grabbed me. "But we'll talk about it later, when this one is gone."

"You hope to exploit our trust of the Sslyth!" This was unwelcome news. "A vulnerability! You have found a vulnerability, for with the Sslyth we have been tolerant! We have been weak! We have been like you!" I struck the treacherous Sslyth. I remember the Sslyth crumpling and dying at one blow. It is odd that I was able to do that. Sslyth are very hardy creatures… how did I do that? I am overthinking things.

After my victory over the Sslyth, I escaped Tau custody and found a Webgate. That must surely have been difficult. It must have taken some time. Why don't I remember doing it? It doesn't matter. What matters is that I am standing before the Webgate. It will take me home to the spires, which I never should have left, where I always belonged.

I am surrounded by Tau. I must have overawed and enslaved them all. And I must have killed that treacherous Sslyth. And there was another type of alien in this story, some breed of mollusk, and I must have killed that thing too. My fears of humiliation by capture were always misplaced. I have done very well, especially for one vat-born and so young. My kin will be envious of me. I think of happy thoughts like these. Questions about the minute details of my deeds drift away.

"The sadism is not properly congenital, but it might as well be," I say. "There are three minds in here. I, the Drukhari host, and a third voice, and the third voice is always demanding the pain of others. I worry when I am detached and I return to the pools, that I will still hear this third voice. Of course, I have always known that I am a parasite, of course I have always known that I thrive at the expense of others. But I have never enjoyed the fact. This host is perhaps not so different from me, but the third voice says that he should enjoy himself, and he listens, and I fear that the longer I stay with him the more I will learn to enjoy myself."

I am speaking to a Tau. Not the interrogator from before, but an armored Fire Warrior. Strange. He doesn't cringe when he looks at me, but he doesn't look me in the eye either. He is looking at the augmentation I presumably looted from the Tau weaklings. "Friend Nagi, it is too late for doubts."

"It is," I agree, and I open the Webgate.