As a child, Brielle had once asked her father about the Navigators, but had found him unwilling to discuss the matter in any detail, merely telling her that the Navigator families made warp travel possible, and that the Imperium would be no more than a disparate collection of isolated worlds without them. Only when she had come of age, and commanded her own vessel had she discovered at least a part of the truth of the matter. The Navigators were an impossibly ancient arm of humanity, one that had arisen on Old Terra at the time of the Emperor's rise to power. They were masters of an extraordinary gift, in that they could see into the warp, reading its currents, and thereby guide a vessel safely through it.

Such a gift came at a price, however, for it was rooted in the genes, and therefore subject to the vagaries of breeding. In order to keep their blood lines clean, and their abilities intact, the Navigator families were forced to control their breeding, selecting matches between Navigator clans that would result in 'pure' offspring. Even with such selective controls in place, the Navigators were shockingly prone to mutation, an affliction that, Bridle had gleaned, was wont to worsen with age. The most powerful of Navigators enjoyed a prodigious lifespan, but many grew increasingly mutated as their years advanced. Brielle had discovered that when this occurred, a Navigator who remained in service would retire to his chamber, hiding himself away from all but his peers, with whom he had scant contact, to serve in isolation.

Sagis's clan, the Locarno, had entered into partnership with the Arcadius before the dynasty had received its Charter of Trade, and the details of the affiliation were unknown to Brielle, although she suspected that her father knew the truth of it. She had guessed that old Sagis had become too mutated to leave his blister, although he had served with the skill and dedication for which his clan were renowned, despite this.

Absentmindedly, for the affair with Luneberg's xenos artefacts gnawed at her mind, Brielle read the communique. Transient conditions in the warp had been favourable for most of the journey to Mundus Chasmata, but had worsened the closer to the Damocles Gulf they had travelled. Sagis described the region as permeated with a tangible stain, an after-image of great spiritual turmoil and upheaval. The gulf itself was an area Sagis counselled vehemently against attempting to cross, for warp conditions were such that any vessel attempting to do so might be pulled violently off-course, or lost entirely to the raging tides of the empyrean.

Something in Sagis's words reminded Brielle of the voices she had half-heard, whispering just below the wind upon the surface of Sigma Q-77. It was as if he was describing a small part of the same phenomenon she had experienced, although in entirely different and subjective terms. The notion hit her that something had occurred in the region, something of stellar scale, something entirely alien and wrong. The fact that Luneberg had sent the rogue traders to the very edge of the afflicted region, to recover alien artefacts, filled Brielle with suspicion. She felt the spirit of her mother's people fill her — if Luneberg's actions brought woe to her family, Luneberg would pay. Brielle would see to that.

A harsh chime cut through Brielle's reverie, and she held the data-slate out to one side, the servitor descending once more to take it from her. 'Go ahead'

A moment later, her father's voice boomed from the speaker grilles mounted above the command throne. 'Korvane, Brielle, we have what we came for. We'll rendezvous at the prearranged point in Luneberg's system. My Navigator informs me it's a twenty-day voyage, subjective, although he tells me that he and Sagis both have concerns about the tides in the warp, so I want formation kept as tight as possible. The chances are we'll arrive together, but I don't want to take any chances on any unwelcome guests waiting for us at the other end. They knew exactly where to expect us last time. I don't want us to be caught off guard again. Is that understood?

Korvane answered before Brielle. He always did. 'Understood, Father'

'Brielle' Brielle's father addressed her. 'Is the cargo safe?

'It is safe, Father. It's stowed in number three stasis. Nothing can happen to it in there'

'Good. Now, I wish you both a dull and uneventful journey. The Emperor protects'

'The Emperor protects' Brielle heard Korvane repeat.

'The Emperor protects'

Brielle watched from her command throne as the distant form of the Oceanid broke formation, moving to a safe distance from which she would commence her dive into the warp. Such a manoeuvre was inherently dangerous, and in populated systems was subject to a plethora of ordinances, each designed to minimise the impact of any mishap on nearby vessels, or even worlds. Brielle had heard all manner of grisly tales of catastrophic warp drive malfunction, and had even witnessed the aftermath of one, at the world of Radina V. There, a bulk carrier had mistimed its translation, sheering off the gravity pull of Radina V's third moon. The carrier was caught in a slingshot as it dived in to the warp, pulled in too many dimensions by forces impossible to comprehend. The vessel had broken up, and been smeared across space in a debris field that engulfed the moon and part of Radina itself with fallout. It wasn't the sort of fallout that could be scrubbed by decontamination teams. It was spiritual fallout, the residue of the three thousand souls lost in the disaster, and it afflicted the minds of every man, woman and child upon the moon's surface, and several hundred thousand more upon Radina V. They were driven insane within hours, their souls touched by the warp as it leaked through the three thousand tiny warp portals created at the instant of the carrier's destruction.

The rogue traders had delivered an Ordo Hereticus strike force to Radina V, and Brielle had watched from orbit as the Emperor's mercy had been delivered to hundreds of thousands of afflicted subjects. An entire continent had been burned clean of the unclean stain of the warp, those driven beyond the limit of sanity by its touch delivered by cleansing flame.

Radina V was found to be the fault of the carrier's master, who had ordered the vessel to enter the warp too close to the world's gravity well. Although the official investigation had levelled no criticism upon the vessel's Navigator, Bridle's father had voiced the opinion that the fault lay chiefly with him, because it was his responsibility to override any order that would compromise the safety of the ship. However, the Navigator families were one of the Imperium's most powerful institutions and no blame would ever be levelled upon them.

Brielle had few concerns that such an incident might occur with the Navigators of the Locarno clan guiding the fleet. As the Oceanid accelerated away, Brielle knew that her father would be making his vessel ready for translation to the warp, while the Oceanid's Navigator entered a deep trance, in which he would guide the vessel through the unpredictable Sea of Souls. The Oceanid now far beyond visible range, Brielle watched as Korvane's vessel manoeuvred onto a similar heading, a course designed to ensure all three vessels remained in as coherent a formation within the warp as was possible.

Brielle reached to her left and pulled back a heavy lever, half a dozen pict-slates descending from the ceiling to surround her. Static buzzed from the screens, before each resolved into a different rendition of the immediate area of space. Across one screen scrolled entirely abstract columns of numerical data, while another represented the Fanlight's environs in a riot of machine-sight gradations. Brielle had acquired the knack of reading all simultaneously, for her bridge lacked the rare, three-dimensional holograph of the Oceanid. She noted how the Oceanid's number three drive bled wispy clouds of superheated plasma through its emergency venting, a symptom of the neglect of the fleet's vessels brought about by the dynasty's misfortunes.