The Blind Gods
Copyright© 2025 by Wau
Chapter 8: The Nomad
Sol, equipped with her psi pin, had gone to fetch Ada, who hadn’t taken anything with her except Léon, still chained.
At the reception, the administrators of the complex had almost formed an honor guard—somewhat intimidating—for her departure. This annoyed her: by what right did they know her, feel respect for her when she knew nothing about them? By what right did they congratulate themselves on releasing her from a prison they had put her in?
Ada had let go of Sol’s hand. She walked ahead of her on one of the large bridges crowded with hurried humans and lost Xenos. This one led to the walls of the chasm, where massive storage caverns had been dug. A bridge-elevator, loading a wide Ozymandias-type ship amid swirling smoke—a sort of manta ray roughly sculpted from dark steel—carried them up to the ship platforms.
A dozen Ravens, some equipped with pods, others not, all painted in unique colors and sometimes covered in prayers. A few Ozymandias. Occasionally, a Xeno draped in a shiny cassock would ask them to change their path as a ship launched its vertical propulsion. The noise was intermittent, always violent. Singing AI-animated robots unloaded numerous goods from the pods attached to the Ravens.
In this vertical symphony, they made their way toward a black man wearing a headscarf knotted in place. He didn’t look like a conventional pilot, dressed in loose and comfortable clothing, with a tool belt slung across his body like a bandolier. From it, he drew a treat, which he ate as Ada and Sol approached. Ada noticed a sinister-looking automagn in his bandolier—a handgun.
“This is Sky, your pilot, Ada,” said Sol.
“Hey. And here’s the Nomad,” Sky replied.
He pointed to the closest Raven: a cockpit large enough to accommodate either a corpulent Xeno or two humans accustomed to planetary gravity, with a wide viewing bay at the front and two bulky engines at the rear. A standard pod—a six-meter-long, four-meter-wide, and four-meter-high reinforced plastic container—was attached to it. On its side, the word “Nomad” was painted in slanted letters alongside a disturbing face of a man striped like a tiger.
“Not the best ship in the world, but it’s the only one connecting Clelia and a few forgotten worlds to Ariel, the Distant Great Gate, and therefore the HS. Look at this.”
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