93: Chapter 93 The Beginning of the Power Game (Part 2)

The New Lord Chancellor hesitated for a moment, then followed.

They passed through the side corridors of the Administratum, went through several secret doors that required the genetic imprint of the Custodian Guard to open, and finally arrived at a windowless room deep within the Terra Imperial Palace.

There were only two chairs in the room.

The walls were bare rock, without any decoration or markings.

Trajann Valoris gestured for him to sit.

Then, he spoke slowly, unveiling a secret he had never known: "The ostensible duty of the Department of Munitorum is to collect the military tithe, conscripting one-tenth of the planetary defense forces from various worlds to replenish the ranks of the Astra Militarum. You know this; it is one of the substantive subordinate agencies of the Administratum. But what you do not know is that the Department of Munitorum also has a parallel line of collection."

"The Adeptus Astra Telepathica issues decrees, and the nobility of Terra is responsible for maintaining the smooth operation of interstellar trade routes; meanwhile, the second-largest fleet of the Imperium—the Black Ships—visits every world of the Imperium once every century to hunt down those who have awakened as a Psyker.

They are the 'fuel' for the survival of the Imperium of Man and the key to keeping the Astronomican burning."

Trajann Valoris's voice lowered involuntarily as he continued; only the Emperor could elicit such a display from him.

"The Sisters of Silence act as overseers, escorting these Psykers throughout the journey. They are the Soulless, capable of shielding the Warp, thereby ensuring that they do not suffer losses from Warp corruption.

The Custodian Guard oversees every step of the process, and the crew involved in the harvesting are periodically 'brainwashed' to ensure the details of this operation are not leaked, and absolutely no political force existing on Terra is allowed to intervene."

"And the Chief of Staff is the key node in this secret line of defense—he does not belong to any faction; he is responsible only to the Emperor and to the three cornerstones of the Imperium that exist on Terra (the Custodian Guard, the Astropath, and the Adeptus Astronomica)."

The Master of Administratum's pupils contracted sharply; it felt as if the blood in his veins had frozen at that moment.

Now, he felt that merely being alive was a tremendous privilege, because no faction within the Imperium would ever admit that thousands of Psykers must be sacrificed to the Emperor every day as fuel to maintain the 'Astronomican' that guides the fleets of the Imperium of Man.

Because, under the guidance of those with ulterior motives, this situation could be twisted with a slight change of wording into something the Emperor needs, rather than something the Imperium needs.

And he had wanted to win over the Chief of Staff.

But the Chief of Staff happened to control the Department of Munitorum.

He had wanted to control the Department of Munitorum through the Chief of Staff.

And behind the Department of Munitorum lay that lifeline of Psykers that kept the Imperium running.

He had thought he was engaging in a routine political game.

In reality, he had unknowingly touched the most core taboo of Terra.

Trajann Valoris said nothing more.

He stood up, signaling that the meeting was over.

The New Lord Chancellor followed him out of the windowless room, through the secret doors, and down the long corridor.

When he arrived in front of the gate of the Hall of Political Views, Trajann Valoris said one last thing.

"You come from the sector. The power plays and rules you mastered in the sector do not apply on Terra.

This is not a magnified version of a Sector Governor's Palace.

This is the heart of the Imperium.

And the heart is not allowed to be touched."

Trajann Valoris disappeared at the end of the corridor.

The New Lord Chancellor stood at the entrance of the Administratum, feeling his own insignificance for the first time.

During his tenure in the sector, he had governed hundreds of millions of people, allocated resources across star systems, and signed suppression orders without batting an eye while besieged by mobs.

He had thought he was prepared, and that he understood the top-level operations of the Imperium.

But now he realized: the understanding that sector nobles and Sector Governors had of the political environment on Terra was severely distorted.

Things that were believed to be 'facts' in the sector—about how power operates, how allies are made, and how reforms are pushed forward—simply did not apply on Terra.

The information here was twisted, the rules were invisible, and the power network was more complex than he had imagined, so complex that he could not see the end of it.

The little information he had brought from his family had been crushed into useless archives within this system.

He began to re-examine the Administratum.

It was a massive system. Within the Terra Imperial Palace alone, there were over one hundred thousand internal affairs officers, millions of tax collectors, and countless other administrative officers, record-keepers, supervisors, and staff members. He had checked the relevant documents; besides those bureaucrats, there were tens of billions of clerks processing mountains of archives from all over the Imperium.

He had no way of knowing who was related to whom, which High Lord stood behind whom, or who was an informant sent in by the political families of Terra.

He couldn't even find the candidates his family had recommended to him.

In such a massive bureaucratic system, the connections and lists provided by his family were like a handful of sand scattered into the ocean.

And in this system, only one person could keep him from becoming completely lost—the Chief of Staff, whom he was dissatisfied with but could not replace.

Only the Chief of Staff knew which matters needed to be sent where for processing, and which matters needed to be discussed with which High Lord.

Only through his hands, and through the hands of the high-ranking staff within the administrative hall, could he convey his will.

He could not bypass the Chief of Staff.

But he also could not win over the Chief of Staff.

He had even guessed the true identity of the Chief of Staff, who always wore a gentle smile—the retired Custodian Guard, the 'Eyes of the Emperor,' of whom he had only heard legends in the sector but had never seen.

He did not lose heart.

Or rather, he told himself not to lose heart.

He spent three days re-examining his situation.

Then, he found a new way to break the deadlock—since he could not sort out the core layer for the time being, he would start from the periphery.

He would start cultivating his own people slowly from the middle and lower levels of Terra.

He pondered for a long time and finally selected a position.

It could not be too high; for one, it would incite opposition within the Administratum, and for another, he might unconsciously touch those red lines he was unaware of again.

It also could not be too low; if it were too low, it would lose its function of conveying his voice within the Administratum.

The Tax Office, Precision tithe Assessor and Auditor.

The Precision tithe collects all resources of the Imperium excluding manpower: grain, ore, and industrial goods.

This position seemed inconspicuous, and its power was not top-tier, but it had an irreplaceable role: it could conduct graded assessments of various worlds of the Imperium to determine the tax quota for each world; it could strictly audit the collected taxes to determine if they were qualified; more importantly, this position could legitimately obtain support from the Department of Munitorum, indirectly contacting and controlling part of the Department of Munitorum's military force; at the same time, it could obtain the spillover of some power from the Adeptus Arbites, possessing a certain degree of law enforcement authority.

A glint of sharpness flashed in the Master of Administratum's eyes, and a bold plan formed in his mind.

He envisioned that one day in the future, through this position, he would select a peripheral world belonging to a Terra noble, and on the grounds that the taxes were unqualified and the tax quota could not be met, he would have the Department of Munitorum mobilize the Imperial army to suppress it, bring the disobedient governor back to Terra, and hand them over to the Adeptus Arbites for public execution.

Through this act, he wanted to declare a fact to all the nobles and political forces of Terra—that he, as the Master of Administratum, since he had taken this position, was by no means a mere figurehead, and that what he said would definitely be effective.

He looked down at his palm, where a personnel appointment letter lay. It had been neatly folded into a square, following the usual customs of the nobles, and the seal was closed with wax, stamped with the ring seal representing the Master of Administratum of the Imperium.

Outside the window, the golden light reflected from the core area of the Imperial Palace grew more intense, stretching his shadow in the Hall of Political Views very long, inching its way onto the ebony table in the center of the Hall of Political Views, a table whose history was almost as long as that of humanity itself, and its name was 'Steadfastness'.

A power game regarding Terra had just begun at this very moment.