@BCTheEntity That's not how telepathy works in 40k.
In 40k, the majority of warp powers reach into the warp to take something. It could be warp energy, daemons, etc. That energy is then drawn into the psyker casting the spell, shaped by the arcane aspects of the spell casting, and released into the materium as whatever it was made into. Other psykers can feel this as a siphoning of local warp energy within the warp, or as the presence of latent warp energy within the materium. However, both of those things have extremely limited range unless the psyker in question is actively looking for them, and that takes a great deal of concentration. There are also things that powerful, experienced psykers can do to hide themselves.
Telepathy, however, works entirely differently. Telepathy doesn't actually touch the materium. Whenever a psyker uses telepathy, they send their mind into the warp via the natural connection between the two. They then filter through the millions of minds near them in the warp, until they find what they're looking for. Unless a mind is actively sending itself into the warp, it would read the same as every other mind. Even psykers would just read as another mind within the storm.
When another psyker is using telepathy, however, that's different. At that point, they are still another mind among millions, but they are one of the extremely rare minds that's sending something into the warp besides emotions and energy. To other telepaths, this is a massive beacon. Astropaths can identify each other because of a ritual they all undergo before becoming official astropaths. So, when they see another telepath broadcasting into the warp, they know whether or not it's one of theirs.
A powerful and/or experienced telepath knows how to hide himself. However, it's highly unlikely that your toady knows how to do this, or is strong enough to pull it off, as most astropaths who have years of training and field experience aren't capable of it.
In this case, it's not a matter of power level. Lucius's little buddy is basically trying to hack the modern day Pentagon with a laptop from the 90s and a single software class under his belt. He's hitting above his pay grade.
@Sophrus You've basically said it yourself. Yes, atropaths regularly search the ship they're on for foreign psykers, chaos corruption, etc. Most astropaths don't even do it because they're ordered to, they're just bored and want to experiment.
However, they wouldn't be doing this during combat. Astropaths, while powerful as a choir, aren't particularly strong psykers. It takes time, effort, and concentration for them to pinpoint other psykers. When in a choir, they all need to be working towards the same goal. During combat, that goal isn't going to be psychic look out. It's going to be defending the ship, and sending/receiving information as fast as possible.
The problem here is, the information they're looking for, and the things they're defending the ship from (i.e. telepathic assault from foreign agents) are both on the spectrum of things they would be doing that will also make them see the telepathy beacon walking beside Lucius. Given he's searching for people he's never interacted with telepathically before, he's likely taking a great deal of time to brush over the millions of minds around him. That takes time, and makes him very obvious, as it wouldn't be clear to another telepath why he's touching on minds in their territory. Only that he is, and could use that connection to potentially try and mind control them.
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