The Blind Gods - Cover

The Blind Gods

Copyright© 2025 by Wau

Chapter 50: Annexations

On this planet - a large ball of dried-up soil, as if rolled along by a stellar dung beetle around a distant neutron star, white in the dark sky - many dwellings had sprouted, for lack of a better description.

Ada, now well-versed in the quick practice of the stellar tongue, had asked for directions from village to village until she reached the temple of the Humble Epic of All Life. The “villages” were large termite mounds, ten to fifteen meters high, grouped in sixes or sevens, centered around a pile of refuse that seemed to serve as a canteen and gathering spot for the local Xenos. Hardened paths, carved through the cracked mud scales covering the entire planet, linked all these identical places, separated by just a few kilometers ... and this, all over the planet.

The landscape was uniform ... it kept giving the impression of returning to the same place over and over again. If, on their own planets, humans had turned everything into fields and cities, giving more or less the sense that everything looked the same everywhere, here the colonization by the dominant species had pushed that idea so far that it had become a form of art.

The Xenos here resembled beetles without chitin, elongated, about the size of a human, and they spent their days hanging upside down. At dusk and dawn, they gathered to murmur clicks around the waste pile. How they had conquered space, learned the stellar tongue, or integrated into the interstellar Xenos cults was a mystery.

Disappointed by the HS and the League, disgusted by the Aleph, she had decided to follow her destiny and find, with Alpha and Kukth, the Gates of Empyrean. But on HS planets, the cult of the Epic - her point of origin - had been dismantled overnight, and she had had to turn to other planets - Xeno planets. But where to find Xeno planets? The LE had directed her to a monograph, a work not yet digitized but on paper, deposited at the University of Lennox, which she had reached just as the HS was losing contact with the planet.

The UniNox was in great turmoil, and she had been received and guided by an old man with sparkling eyes, who loved the Xenos. He had entrusted her with a book signed by a certain “Andreï, Captain of the Stellar Fleet”, and she dared not imagine it was that damn captain who had once given her a Raven. The author had studied Xeno planets, inhabited or not. More than that - somehow, he had managed to calculate Drift coordinates. Thus, she had arrived on Void Planet, a lovely temperate world where she had wandered without finding a soul, and then had succeeded in reaching this one, Anqa. All names were assigned by the author at his own whim. Anqa itself was a Xeno colony of a mother planet that he believed lay very far away in the universe.

The Xenos here were not very talkative, but they had an outpost of the Epic cult, and she had progressed by giant leaps with her Raven. The white star was high in the sky, and Ada had a respirator that raised her oxygen to 20%, echoing her own breathing.

She made her way to the tallest termite mound, a large hourglass-shaped structure, and pushed open the entrance, which had for a door an obstructing plate of mud. Like all the other homes she had visited, it was strictly devoid of furniture or decoration, and the Xeno was asleep, hanging from the ceiling. She pulled herself up with Alpha’s help, planting her MAR into the soft soil of the walls.

The creature, awakened by the vibrations, slowly unfolded, and its ten - then sixteen - eyes, surrounded by complex mandibles, faced Ada upside down, back to Alpha. Kutkh whimpered from the heat on Ada’s shoulder.

They began a difficult dialogue for the young woman, because the Xeno was signing upside down, using all its mandibles simultaneously to form unique sentences, while she had to respond sign by sign. Once introduced, it confirmed:

- I RELIGION / CULT EPIC LIFE UNIVERSAL. ARMOR. PILGRIM. MESSENGER.

- I LOVE YOU, I SEEK GATES EMPYREAN, Ada signed.

- I LOVE YOU, I, YOU, ALL PEOPLE, SEEK GATES EMPYREAN

- YOU KNOW LOCATION GATES EMPYREAN, QUESTION

- NO

Ada grew discouraged. Behind him, Alpha’s vacant but ever-present gaze gave her back her faith.

- YOU KNOW INDIVIDUAL, INDIVIDUAL KNOW LOCATION GATES EMPYREAN, QUESTION

- YOU KNOW GATES EMPYREAN HOW, QUESTION

- I SEE, PAST SITUATION, DWELLING TRAVELER

- YOU SAINT, YOU GIVE GREAT GREAT HONOR ME

- I SAINT I MUST GO GATES EMPYREAN, Ada explained.

- DWELLING TRAVELER, NUMBER LARGE. DWELLING TRAVELER ON PATH GATES EMPYREAN

- PATH, LOCATION, QUESTION

- DWELLING TRAVELER ON PLANET, DWELLING TRAVELER, OTHER, ON PLANET OTHER, DWELLING AND DWELLING CREATE PATH

- Okay, said Ada to Alpha. You get it? Basically, he’s saying that the places with the strange Xeno house - which must be the Traveler’s - form a path. I think the Gates of Empyrean are there. GATES EMPYREAN AT END OF PATH, QUESTION

- YES

- I LOVE YOU, this is a fantastic discovery, Alpha! YOU KNOW GATES EMPYREAN LOCATION HOW, QUESTION

- I LOVE YOU, ALL PEOPLE KNOW

- Everyone knows? But then ALL PEOPLE KNOW LOCATION GATES EMPYREAN, ALL PEOPLE GO GATES EMPYREAN, QUESTION

- I DO NOT KNOW

- I WANT LOCATION PATH

- YOU, FOLLOW ME

The Xeno dropped to the ground. It rippled forward, moving on small legs, under the sunlight that seemed to repel it somewhat. Though the star was high in the sky, a few stars could still be seen, and it straightened. It waved its mandibles toward one star - perhaps the brightest.

- ON PLANET, FRIEND ME

- ON PLANET, TRAVELER, QUESTION

- NO

- ON PLANET, PATH, QUESTION

- NO

- He’s driving me crazy. YOU SHOW PLANET, REASON, QUESTION

- ON PLANET, FRIEND ME

- Yeah, you already said that. YOU TALK FRIEND, REASON, QUESTION

- FRIEND KNOW ALL

- Oh really? He knows everything? FRIEND KNOW ALL ALL ALL, QUESTION

- YES

- GRATITUDE, FRIEND

- I LOVE YOU

And the creature rippled back toward its home and the shadow. Ada pulled out a terminal that blinked under the rays of the deadly star. She thought she should probably see a doctor and recorded the stellar position of the star the priest had pointed to.

A blue-colored Ozymandias from the Stellar Fleet flew at low altitude, and Ada and Alpha pressed themselves against a termite mound-home. The young woman grabbed her MAR. A sound of deceleration ... the Ozy landed. A few indistinct words, sharp orders. She climbed to the outside of the hourglass-shaped mound, then, digging handholds, climbed to the roof. Lying flat, she held her MAR in her hands and observed the explorers. A group of six soldiers, rifles in hand. In their midst, a man in a blue uniform, like on Calchas-3. Some sort of bureaucrat.

- “Inhabitants of this planet!” he shouted. “I see you have an HS Raven. We come in peace! The HS wishes to offer you a chance to live alongside it!”

What bastards, thought Ada. She aimed her MAR and fired at the feet of the squad leader. All the soldiers pulled back behind a termite mound, dragging the bureaucrat who didn’t understand what was happening.

 
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