“Please. You knew it was a weakness millennia ago. If you don’t have at least a working Point Singularity alternate at this time, I’ll eat my magnoscope. You won’t be able to Mock Gravity ride a phlogiston river, but you’ll still have fighting power.”

The fact that I knew they wouldn’t have their Dark Matter Core active and so their greatest power source meant I knew they would be vulnerable. They didn’t much like it, but there wasn’t much they could do about it. The fact I also knew how their best FTL worked also caused a beard-wave.

“Shut it down and begin filter replacement,” he noted to the engineers behind him, who began to get busy relaying the order and starting the procedures.

I nodded once. The Citadel wouldn’t be able to move anywhere near as fast, but it would still have full defenses.

“Second pointed question: Are you capable of manufacturing psi-tech?”

They both stiffened, complex emotions riffing through their beards. “No,” the elder stated instantly. “The corrupting technology of the Fallen is not allowed to be used!”

“Mmm. Active psi-tech could probably improve that filter you’re using a hundredfold.” I let that drop on them as I considered what to do, seeming to ignore their beard-signs. “The solution to the problem is to absolutely bathe the chamber in vivus during the period needed. It won’t suffice for active use, the quantities of Dark Matter and the level of runetech you are using to control it are too vast. But we should be able to keep it clean long enough to rescue the crew.

“Did you bring along a second power core to help the Grimshield return?” I asked pointedly.

There was silence. That probably meant they couldn’t make another power core. Their tech level had fallen, since they were so heavily dependent on the magitech of their ancestors.

“I see. We can sell you a Zero Point power core that should suffice to power the ship enough to get it home.” I flicked across the sales price in Energized Elements, and the power output of the Core, much to their surprise. “We can also sell you additional vivic generators.” I waved the prices of those over too. “You are going to need at least an additional thirty. You can provide the Disks they will need to be mounted on. The coverage array can be adjusted to fit them easily.”

They looked at one another. It was a solution, but not the permanent one they might have hoped for. Still... it was better than what they had.

“How many of these vivic generators would you be willing to sell us, Engineer Sama Rantha?” the Ruk king asked rather pointedly. Obviously, the E-Element cost I’d quoted him had not bothered him at all. They were a race of miners, after all.

“Our production of them is limited currently by our production of Light-Hafnium and Positive-Xenon. If you are willing to supply those two Elements, we can sell you as many as you like, at the rate of about ten a day for the vehicle-class, or five a day for naval-class.” I sent them the schematics with a flip, and both of them instantly went delving into the build of the generators, reading and going on with post-Ten speed and understanding.

“This is psi-tech!” the elder breathed uncertainly, glancing at his king.

“Vivus is a fundamental energy, like magic. It naturally requires a profound energy to manipulate it. As magic, which would be much better at the task, is barred to us, we fall back down to its forebear, naturally enough.”

Both Ruk blinked at me in astonishment. “What?” the elder blurted out, in a tone of admonishment. “This-this psitech came about far, far after our magitech was roving the stars!” he blurted out despite himself.

“Psitech has been around for millions of years. The Elder Things, the Mi-Go, the Greys, and the Yith, among others, have had it since long before magic was being used. It’s rather extraordinary that you made the jump right to magitech, and ignored psitech on the way. Magic is a transpsionic discipline, after all.”

“What?” they both blurted out in disbelief.

“Of course. Telekinesis, hydrokinesis, aerokinesis, pyrokinesis... manakinesis is more popularly called Spellcasting.”

They were staring at me as if I’d grown a couple extra heads. I was blowing their minds.

“Elders, if I may? I have heard through some other races that the Compact of the Black was responsible for the sundering and splintering of your race. I desire no other details about that event than this: which races of the Compact?”

They looked at one another, and their anger was rippling through their beards. This was clearly an old and sore point with both of them, and probably their whole race.

The older one was clearly deferring to his liege commander. “The Mi-Go and the N’Grth, Engineer Sama Rantha,” the Ruk-king stated with icy hate.

I nodded. “The Mi-Go are parafungoid creatures. The N’Grth basically grew from sea-crawling slugs. Any psionics they introduced to your kind would be alien, and furthermore, were probably specifically designed to be harmful to your people’s sanity.

“However, this can also be said of magic. Chaos Runes can also drive you mad... the key is to not learn or use them. There is necromantic lore that will literally rot your brain... don’t learn it.

“The Ruk have a massively powerful bias towards geomancy. There are naturally branches of psionics that are so suited for you, you’ll master them as easily as combing your beards. They are, in effect, the root disciplines for the geomancy your ancestors used to wield. Or, to put it another way...

“You can pound on something with your fist. Learning magic is like putting on a pair of gauntlets, then grabbing a hammer, and pounding on it that way.” I spread my hands, my hair pulsing behind me. “Using psionics is like losing the hammer, and keeping the gauntlets.”

Power swirled on my hands, and I very pointedly looked at their power gauntlets, one after another. “They aren’t hammers, but they certainly suffice, do they not? And they are most appropriate.”

The analogy was not lost on them, but their suspicions came down hard. “You are offering us psionic powers, like those that damned the Fallen?” the king almost roared, but he couldn’t in the face of the mollifying effect of my hair.

“No. Every race approaches psionics differently, exactly like they do technology. There are some aspects of your technology I don’t understand, just as I’m sure I could show you aspects of ours you will fail to comprehend the fundamentals of.

“I would be able to show you some basic core concepts of psionics, and directions not to go in. But, you are already oriented to learning certain psionic concepts, just on the basis of your geomantic affiliation. The gloves of my people won’t fit you, but if you’ve retained any of the discipline of your ancestors, you’ll walk in their paths very quickly. You just won’t be toting a hammer as you do it.”

“The Fallen are twisted, corrupted!” the king spat, and was going to go on when I just nodded.

“You try and use a psionic discipline made for a self-important mushroom, and see how Ruk you remain. However, were your ancestor geomancers and priests twisted and corrupted?” I looked back and forth between them as words died in their throats. “I believe that without their hammers, they still had gauntlets on their fists!”

The two of them flexed the marvelously made metallic gauntlets they wore, despite themselves. The logic was too compelling.

“Engineer Sama Rantha.” His tone had faded back to neutrality. “If what you say is true, and it is very difficult to believe that it is, such knowledge is priceless to my people. What do you gain from helping the Ruk in this way?”

“Ah. Well, first of all, my soul is Gold.” I flicked up my mindclaw, and both Ruk blinked at it. “I am not sure you still know what this means, and I believe you are biased towards Silver and Sapphire, anyways.

“But, one aspect of the Gold is that we don’t really need self-interest to do the right thing.

“To put it another way... I could have just not fired up the anti-matter reactors, practiced our saber beam tech on that ship, chopped it up for E-elements in a solar furnace, and received an extraordinary fortune in so doing.

“Let us say that it will be difficult for you to compensate me in any form for the true value of that Citadel you are in, so any reward you could think of would be dross at best.” I waved away any words they had before they spoke them.

“On a personal basis, I believe it is time for the Ruk to return to the galaxy. Unfortunately, you have not taken the step back down from using magitech down to psitech. You want to stand on the top of the mountain, and will not be content with being just below the crown... so you are staying at the foot. Without psitech bolstering you, you simply are not prepared to return to the galaxy in any form, and indeed, I believe you will slowly be crushed without it.

“Be that as it may, the crew of the Grimshield poked a mighty thumb into the eye of the Warp, and I am totally inclined to reward them for outstanding bravery and ingenuity. While I am giving up the Citadel, my actual losses are limited, and I am willing to take them for getting the opportunity to speak to your people.

“As for what may happen from this time forward, that is, of course, completely reliant on your people and what they want to do. You can die a slow death over the millennia in the Core, or you can come back out into the galaxy and take a place once again. You will never take the galaxy back, things have progressed too far without you for that to happen, but you are still the elder statesmen of the galaxy... and I think you might be surprised who will follow your lead, if you choose to take a stand once more.

“I am also, I believe, one of the few humans around you might reasonably be able to trust. The engine of a nation runs on trade, and the trade between nations naturally drives both higher than trade within either one. I do not represent the Empire of Tellus, which I am certain you do not want to deal with, although they most certainly would love to find out the Ruk still exist, and where they are at.” My tone indicated that this wasn’t a threat; it was warning them of a threat, and the meaning behind it was quite dire.

“The proclivities of your Empire have naturally reached us,” the King said warily.

“The Empire is no more MINE than that ship is yours, Your Majesty,” I replied frostily. “The only way they would be ours is to take them from those they belong to.”

He was going to say something, thought better of it. “The Human Emperor,” he nodded warily. “You are... not loyal to him?”

“The Human Emperor died millennia ago. A psionic lich now sits on the Crystal Throne. I don’t give my loyalty to the undead, King Rittercrun, even if they are the mightiest psion in the galaxy. Ancestor veneration is fine, they built the world we stand upon. The living have no business serving the undead.”

“It would seem that a majority of your race does not agree with you, Engineer Sama Rantha,” the king pointed out quickly.

“That is absolutely correct. It’s like someone or something perpetrated an untruth and a road not to walk down which would cage our race into a death spiral of non-evolution for their own amusement and aggrandizement. I wonder what other species they might have arranged that to happen to.”

The silence yawned as they flinched. “You are saying... the Ruk have been led by the nose, like a miner in the dark?” the Ruk King snarled.

“You are makers of weapons. Tell me, what Weapons have you made to fight against the Warp in the last ten thousand years?”

Their lips clamped shut, and they stared at me.