Lowink, my astropath, slumbered in his chamber, linked to the vox and pict systems, awaiting a summons.
Vibben lay shrouded on the cot in her room.
Betancore swung the cutter down towards the dome. After an exchange of telemetry, a wide blast shutter opened in the side of the dome. The light that shone out was almost unbearably bright. Betancore engaged the cockpit glare shields and flew us into the landing bay.
The inside surface of the vast dome was mirrored. A plasma-effect sun-globe burned high in the roof of the dome, bathing the town below in fierce white light. The town itself, spread out beneath us, seemed to be made of glass.
We set down on the wide bay, a twenty-hectare metal platform that overlooked the town. The surface of the platform gleamed almost white in the reflected glare. Heavy monotask servitors trundled out and towed us into a landing silo off the main pad, where pit-servitors moved in to attach fuel lines and begin fundamental servicing. Betancore didn't want anybody or anything touching the gun-cutter, so he ordered Modo and Nilquit, our two independent servitors, to take over the tasks and send the locals away. I could hear them moving around the hull, servos whirring, hydraulics hissing, exchanging machine code data bursts with each other or with Uclid in the drive chamber.
Aemos offered to find accommodation for us in the town itself, but I decided a landing berth was all we needed. The gun-cutter was large enough to provide ample facilities for our stay. We often spent weeks, or months living aboard it.
I went to Lowink's small cabin under the cockpit deck and roused him. He hadn't been with me long: my previous astropath had been killed trying to translate a warp-cipher six weeks before.
Lowink was a young man, with a fleshy, unhealthy bulk hanging from a thin skeletal frame, his body already deteriorating from the demands of a psyker's life. Greasy implant plugs dotted his shaved skull, and lined his forearms like short spines. As he came to the door, some of these plugs trailed wires, each marked with parchment labels, which led back to the communications mainbox above his cradle. Thousands of cables spilled or dangled around his tiny cabin, but he instinctively knew what each one did and could set and adjust plug-ins at a moment's notice. The room reeked of sweat and incense.
'Master/ he said. His mouth was a wet pink slit and he had one lazy, half-hooded eye that gave him a superior air quite belying his actual timidity.
'Please send a message for me, Lowink. To the Regal Akwitane.' The Regal was a rogue trader we had employed to convey the gun-cutter and ourselves to Hubris. His vessel awaited us in orbit now, ready to provide further warp-passage.