Director Grossmer's face was ashen as he finished with his Oath. He probably had more information than most on what was involved with an Oath on the Corunsun.

As it turns out, all the senior Security heads had also sworn Oaths on the Corunsun, and had been doing so for millennia. So when an actual Duke popped up, and was verified by the Corunsun, they were perfectly happy to 'usher' the senior members of the Foundation Families to the Hall for a little test to their loud promises of faithfulness and steadfast stewardship, yessirreeBob.

Briggs had displayed glacial patience with the recalcitrant bastards, and he didn't mind spending ammo on those who thought they had a choice. The fact they wouldn't swear now, basically the fulfillment of their family's promises for millennia, meant they had never been loyal, so they were basically traitors armed with knowledge of the Foundation and all its finances.

He pulled the plug on them without batting an eye. If they didn't want to be loyal, they shouldn't have worked here in the first place. Of course, if they didn't work here, someone doubtless would have tried to kidnap them and use them against the Foundation, so there was that...

"How may I serve Your Grace?" the ashen Director asked, looking like someone had just eaten his pet cat in front of him. He'd gone from being the mighty director of planets and hextillions in credits, to being the flunky to an Ancient. If he tried to rebel against the Oath, well, he'd die on the spot. The Corunsun had a reaaaally good Oath.

"You'll be obeying the orders of the Contessa here, and anyone she appoints to work with you."

I raised my fingers and snapped them.

Ten Ranthas in some of the sexiest business attire and stilletto heels you'd ever seen came walking out from behind the throne, and fixed eyes on him like lasers.

"We'll be starting with a comprehensive financial review of your investments for the past twenty centuries, including the trillions siphoned off into private funds for your families." His face fell even further at my words. "Don't worry about the Foundation's actual finances, we're going to be discussing how your families are going to be paying back the approximately 10.43 quadrillion credits you owe the Duke."

Twenty-one people fainted dead away. My granddaughters and their mother Sandra Day O'Rantha smiled the exact same way, all Legal Eagles coming for blood.

Four millennia of interest is indeed a bitch when it catches up to you.

------------

"I am imagining you with Legionnaire genetics, but I don't want to be eight foot tall, so I am promptly forgetting it and telling you not to indulge in that."

He hurr-hurred cheerfully underneath me, while I ran my claws over his chest, la la la, muscles like cables, hide like steel, hair like wire, sounded like a forge bellows, la la la...

"Wouldn't dream of it. Too many doors would be too short, and I have to duck too often now." Inconvenience more important than tossing battle tanks around, naturally.

"Miffed you can't just take your Ducal Seat now?" I asked him. It had been a long couple days taking those Oaths, but now one of his lads, Henry, was taking them for him, his Natural Leader awing the Family members being brought in in a steady stream. Their legendary loyalty was now being confirmed solidly. Their lack of loyalty in the past was also long confirmed, as the files of the security forces they'd used to enforce that lack of loyalty were pretty thorough.

By the laws of the Empire, they owed the Duke their souls, let alone everything material they owed.

"No. I'm making a bigger realm past the Rift." With his own hands, not taking it from others. "On the other hand, owning a couple systems or twenty does make it somewhat more convenient to set up the first Gate."

He actually owned six populated planets not on the Imperial records. A bit of taxes were in arrears with them. Four of the planets didn't even know the Corunsuns owned them, just in case.

A Gate crossing the galaxy would open up trade with the Empire once again. Any planet that had it, if discovered, would promptly become the center of a shooting war for first the technology, then the Gate itself.

So, it had to be set up on a planet out of the eyes of the Empire. That wasn't going to be an issue. We had a rapidly growing number of covert and overt worlds falling under our umbrella, although catching up to the Empire itself, or taking away its authority over them, was going to be a monumental task they were going to fight all the way.

They just weren't looking for something as immense and well-coordinated as we were, or who could move so fast to and fro.

"So, how's it feel to be Seventeen?" he asked, chucking me on the chin. He was a Sixteen, just a Level behind me on the Racial side. All that kingdom-forming and legend-building was driving his Source nature higher. Me building all this shit for him was doing it for me!

Throne knew I wasn't going to be running all this. I had too many kids who were Naturally Talented for the job(s), and all the ambition to do them with unseemly skill and heady doses of violence if necessary.

A lot of the kids were not going Deep, realizing that we were potentially going to be around a long, LONG time, and that meant plenty of time to go Deep and have future places to put Karma. We didn't have a maximum lifespan, so we'd only ever be getting closer to middle age.

Time to go Deep and get good at everything was something the long-lived could do. Getting the job done now, and qualifying to do that job at the highest tiers, was what the demand was. Being stuck at Ten when you needed fifteen Ranks to perform at the baseline wasn't going to cut it.

"The kids are already chaffing at me to go planet-hopping. I am very shortly going to be the most-traveled person in the galaxy," I had to laugh. "At the rate the Map is spreading, I'm expecting to be walking on anywhere from five to ten planets a day for a while." I would have the necessary psicrafting done in Chalice within a day or two. The necessary Karma was long since in place via Burning sizable amounts of e-platinum.

"Sparing Ronnie and Meter from doing the same," he laughed without sympathy. It was true. She'd been the first to qualify for doing so, but she was restricted to going to places that were setting up the highest-level tech production facilities, at this time our Energized Material production facilities. Given the Marks, her personal touch generally wasn't needed except at some of the very highest-end facilities, and the girls were making it a point of pride not to need her there personally, which meant gaining Levels so she didn't have to be.

Which didn't mean they wouldn't scream if they-

-EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!-

Briggs and I both blinked as that /tell went right past any filters and directly to the two of us.

-Carmen?- I /asked.

-Marco?- Briggs /inquired.

-MomDadthisissoincredibleyouhavetoseethisMomgetherequickthisisfantasticIcan'tsayenoughyouhavetoseethis-

-Dear, you're blowing the line wrap,- I /said calmly, and she finally let her 30's Wis rein in her 40's Cha and get control of herself.

-Ahem!- Marco /intervened. -Uh, folks, we found a Sargasso.-

I looked at Briggs; he looked at me; both our eyes narrowed. -Eff me. There actually is such a thing?- I had to /ask.

-YesMomanditshuge!- Carmen /exploded again. Natural Mappers get excitable when they find legendary new places.

I sighed, Briggs sighed, and he looked at me looking down at him with magic-enhanced beauty that could kill on the spot anything that saw it.

Only for him!

-We'll be there in an hour. Tell the Strategos to get things rolling.-

-Yes, Mom,- Marcos /replied dutifully, and logged off.

"An hour, eh?" He waggled a bushy eyebrow at me.

"Let's see if you last that long! Rarr!" All the tails and wings and horns and arms came out for him.

"I am the mighty Duke Corunsun! Bring it, you hag!" he defied me valiantly, and close tonsil wars followed forthwith.

------

I stepped through the Riftcut, Briggs coming in behind me. Priscilla had gleefully moved into her new Contessa Rantha identity, and was even more ready to put the iron-hearted bitch trope into very solid use... and if working closely with Sir Henry Briggs was on the agenda, well, just how closely was a matter of intimate personal negotiations...

They both had Night Rose Masteries. Henry was the rare social animal of the lads of the family, and to say he got around was not a lie whatsoever. She was going to have fun using him, and he was going to have fun being used. Using him as a great excuse for bitchfests and endless bad soap opera plots was totally on the front burners... and there was a section of the Strategos that was entirely devoted all to that social warfare stuff, too, it being right up there with trading in importance, complete with scriptwriters and production companies on opposing sides of the Rift from where such events were taking place.

We were actually standing on an ancient alien space hulk, a drifting vessel that, by its lines, was probably some form of cargo container for bulk goods, oriented more towards a sphere then the streamed lines of a warship.

I didn't recognize the lines, either. Given how encyclopedic my knowledge of ships was at that point, it was impressive. It meant this species had never been met by anyone during human history that had ever told humans about them.

The wave of psychic trauma swept past like a mental tsunami... and broke against my Null and Briggs' Source despite itself. I barely got the Rift closed before it hit, and Briggs flared his Source out to full strength, frowning at the power of it.

"Damn, that's hitting at a Fifteen," he murmured, his face rather ugly. The screaming horror and despair carried on the psychic winds was horrendous. It would take a 36 Null or Source to be able to work here safely at that, and psychic winds tended to accumulate in higher gusts. The real range was probably 41+.

We glanced at Carmen, standing outside with us, her own Null out to full, having carefully stepped back from where we'd come through. "How's the tech taking it?" Briggs asked quickly.

"Barely. The repeated waves are rattling anything that isn't Angeltech," she admitted. "We're blowing vak-tubes regularly if they aren't covered by a Source or Null." She glanced in worry at their Scout ship, the Silk Road. "We're going to have to pull out towards the heliosphere soon, and then head back home for a full refit."

Well, that would put their Mapping on hold, which was a total pain. Briggs and I lifted our eyes, and slowly panned right. Then we both slowly panned left.

Just to make sure, we both did it again. I'm sure Carmen found it pretty hilarious watching it, and the credit figures flashing up in front of our eyes.

A Sargasso. There actually was such a place...

Ships were lost in the Warp every year. The Warp, however, was an unreal place, not meant for material things, especially things as full of energetic, super-dense, psi-active, and Energized materials as starships.

Eventually, such things would fall back out of the Warp into realspace. Space would have to be easily breached there, the Warp rejecting the heavy material, the draw of materiality and rejection of the Warp sending it spinning on unseen currents to where the Warp could fully recede, and it would fall back into reality.

And this was a place, or THE place, where they did it.

A Sargasso of doomed ghost ships, ejected from the Warp...