Two Years Ago

"Your thoughts, Astarte?"

Astarte raised her head from the holographic display on her desk to look at Malcador, who was leaning back in the chair on the other side of the desk as he waited for her reply.

"My thoughts?" She repeated. "My thoughts are that what I'm looking at is impossible." She shook her head in disbelief, a look of unnerved fascination on her face. "We've spent decades trying to refine the Thunder Warriors. The best and brightest minds of the Imperium. And despite all that, we have never been able to make them more than attack dogs that need to be kept on a leash. There hasn't even been significant progress on this. Not even from his Majesty." Astarte couldn't quite help the mixture of envy and awe that crept into her voice as she continued.

"And yet to look at this...the Emperor's mysterious new guest took one of their number and stabilized him in less than an hour, correcting flaws we have wrestled with for half a lifetime. And the day after that, she provided us with the cures and corrections we have been trying to devise for decades without success. Not all of them are currently viable, but most of them could be implemented tomorrow."

Malcador nodded slowly. "I suspected as much."

Astarte's eyes narrowed, feeling a burst of annoyance. "You knew all that, Malcador. I have no doubt that His Majesty conducted his own analysis before giving any of this to me. What was the point of this, exactly?"

Malcador sighed faintly, leaning back in his chair, seemingly trying to get more comfortable like the tired old man he pretended to be.

Astarte wasn't fooled for one moment. The Sigillite was one of the most dangerous beings she had ever encountered, perhaps the most dangerous with the exception of the Emperor, and if there was anything on Terra that actually sapped his energy or made him uncomfortable, she had yet to learn of it.

"It's true that you aren't telling me anything new, Astarte." Malcador replied. "But it is always good to get multiple perspectives."

That was likely true, but Astarte doubted it was the whole truth. "You wouldn't be sitting here if you just wanted confirmation of what you already know." She retorted. "You'd just have waited for my report if that were the case."

Malcador dipped his head slightly in acknowledgement. "You are correct. Tell me, Astarte, what do you think of our guest's previous work?"

Astarte had to resist the urge to sigh at the way he danced around actually telling her what he wanted. "It was all very impressive." She answered instead of pressing the point, knowing he'd either get to the point himself, or not at all. "But this work with the Thunder Warriors is by far her most extraordinary work yet, even taking into account the mutants she healed." Those that Astarte had been allowed to examine, in any case. Some of them, the Emperor had refused to let her see or even know the identity of.

Astarte couldn't help but be worried about that. Though the Emperor had kept the new geneticist locked away and isolated for the last year, she couldn't quite quell the fear that sooner or later, she would be replaced. Oh, Astarte doubted the Emperor would kill or even imprison her, he had never been in the habit of disposing of useful assets, but if he decided he liked his new 'guest' better, he might very well demote Astarte and grant control of the Biotechnical Division to his prisoner.

Malcador nodded. "Yes. Her work so far has been beyond anything that humans, at least in this day and age, are capable of."

Astarte stiffened slightly at his words, especially the emphasis on a certain word. He couldn't be implying what she thought he was, surely.

Malcador leaned forward. "Tell me, Astarte, what do you know of the Eldar?"

Now

Astarte straightened from her bow as the Emperor left, regarding the Eldar woman warily, her mind drifting back to that conversation with Malcador.

She had heard myths and stories of the Eldar before that. Fey aliens from the darkest edges of the galaxy. Enigmatic and terrible, their motivations impossible to comprehend for humans despite their eerie resemblance to mankind. When they descended on a world, it was impossible to say whether they had come to help or to destroy, only that everything they did was to amuse themselves.

All of those were hearsay and legends however. It was only during that conversation that Astarte had learned of any concrete information on the Eldar, from Malcador and later, from the Emperor himself.

According to them, there was indeed a grain of truth to all those stories. The Eldar were an impossibly old race, who had dominated the galaxy since before mankind had even learned to walk upright. Malcador had rather tersely and reluctantly, admitted that Eldar technology and warpcraft had surpassed even that of the greatest feats accomplished by the ancients during the Golden Age.

The Eldar empire had collapsed recently, destroyed by a cataclysm of its own making (though His Majesty and the Sigillite had both refused to elaborate on what exactly they had done), and Lady Isha was a refugee of the disaster. She had sought protection from the Emperor, offering her knowledge and skills in exchange for being shielded from her enemies, and the Emperor had agreed.

Isha fit the physical description of those myths, at least. Her features were inhumanly perfect, even more so than that of various transhumans that Astarte had encountered and those she had created herself. Not even the Custodes, each of them shaped into the pinnacle of humanity by the Master of Mankind himself were so...beautiful. The only person with such unnervingly flawless features that Astarte knew was the Emperor himself.

And there was the way she moved, with grace and fluidity that was utterly alien in how perfect it was...and yet, once more familiar in how it echoed the Emperor's own inhuman movements.

But though Isha fit the physical aspect of the myths on the Eldar, her personality was completely different. All her work, whether it was crops, medicines or even the alterations made to the Thunder Warriors indicated the sort of compassion and softness that Astarte expected from the most naive and idealistic young scientists the Emperor sent to the Biotechnical Division, not an alien psyker from a species that even the ancients of the Golden Age had regarded warily.

But despite that, alone in a room with Isha as the alien's piercing gaze settled on her, Astarte could not help the fear she felt. Part of her wanted to say the Emperor would surely not leave her alone with an alien who would harm her, but the rest of her reminded her that said alien possessed the power and knowledge to render Astarte entirely redundant. Not to mention Malcador's warnings of how deceptive and manipulative the Eldar could be.

But most of all, Astarte could not help but be afraid of Isha's psychic abilities. At least as strong as Malcador, the Emperor had said. It was a terrifying thought. Astarte knew what psykers were capable of, had seen them burn cities to ash and tear armies asunder. And she knew that most of those psykers were nothing compared to the Sigillite, whose power was surpassed by the Emperor alone. Being alone with an alien that strong wasn't exactly something Astarte was comfortable with.

Yet, it was hardly as if she had a choice. Steeling herself, Astarte spoke.

"Lady Isha, could you begin with expanding the size of the fungi, first?" Starting with simple requests would hopefully make Isha more amenable and cooperative, and if not, at least allow Astarte to feel her out.

"Of course." The alien replied. Even her voice was unnaturally perfect, smooth and melodious in such a way that every word sounded like a beautiful song, yet another similarity to the Emperor. Granted, the Lord of the Imperium's voice rarely sounded musical, as such, but it was still flawless in a way beyond even the most potent transhumans couldn't match. Or, at least, no transhumans in this day and age. Astarte had her own suspicions about the origin of the Emperor's powers...

But now was not the time to dwell on such things, so instead Astarte forced herself to focus as Isha plucked one of the fungi from the open box, which promptly began to swell in her palm. Within moments, it was the size of Astarte's head, after which Isha placed it on the table.

Astarte nodded, slightly relieved that the alien seemed to have no issue with her requests. "Thank you. Could you please clone several samples of it, now?"

The Eldar raised an eyebrow, but said nothing, simply waving her hand. A dozen small pieces of the swollen - well, no, not exactly swollen, that implied the increase in size wasn't perfectly smooth and natural - fungi broke off, floating over the table even as the fungi regenerated. The pieces settled on the table, arranged in a row on both sides of their source, before rapidly growing into fungi identical to the original.

Astarte had to do her best to stop herself from swallowing slightly at the display of power. It was a parlour trick compared to what she had seen psykers far less powerful than Malcador do before, but it was still unnerving. But she refused to show any weakness in front of the alien.

Reaching into her pocket, Astarte pulled out her scanner, a cylindrical device capable of conducting detailed genetic scans despite it's small size. She ran it over the fungi, then activated the holographic display, examining the data even as she remained uncomfortably aware of Isha's inhumanly bright eyes on her.

The data was deeply fascinating, from a purely academic standpoint, but the only new thing that it told Astarte was that Isha's knowledge and skill in biomancy was even greater than she had feared.

Astarte had examined the works of other, human, biomancers before, and one thing that had always been clear to her was that a biomancer's precision and effectiveness were exactly proportionate to their grasp of things like biology and genetics. Products of biomancy which weren't crude and, ultimately, a result of brute forcing overcoming myriad flaws were things Astarte had rarely examined. Until Isha.

Isha's work was leagues beyond anything a human biomancer could produce. It was beyond what Astarte herself could do even with those few, precious relics of the Golden Age that the Emperor had given to her for her work. And a part of Astarte suspected that at least in this particular area, Isha dwarfed even the Emperor himself.

But Astarte had previously believed that Isha at least had to invest time and effort into creating such superb work. Or rather, she had hoped that was the case, even when the evidence mounted against it.

Now, as she scanned the fungi in front of her, finding no trace of inefficiency or degradation, it was clear that what Isha had done so casually was as flawless and brilliant as any of her other work, with the genetic code and physical structure of the fungi being as perfectly balanced as it had ever been. Better, even. While she was not privy to all that Isha had done for the Emperor, Astarte had a sinking feeling that no task Isha had been given so far had even been remotely a challenge.

Looking up from the data to see the alien still patiently waiting for an answer, Astarte pasted a smile on her face and spoke. "This is impressive work, Lady Isha. "These will help enormously with clearing the city of radiation."

"Thank you." Isha replied, and she sounded as if she meant it. "What else did you have in mind?"

"Apart from the fungi, I have another plant that are naturally good at clearing radiation, called helianthus, more commonly known as sunflowers." Astarte explained, pointing to one of the other boxes. "I was hoping to experiment on those and the rest of the fungi as well."

Even as she spoke, Astarte willed for the Emperor to return as quickly as possible.

This session couldn't be over soon enough.

Author's Note: This took a while because I was busy, but it's finally done. Hope you all enjoy it.