ALL NOVEL Chapter 17
I told the pod which arrival platform I wanted to go to, pulling its numbers out of my recently repaired memory, and stepped through the portal into a familiar, overgrown dome on Storage.
Immediately finding the gap in vines that lead to the main elevator shaft, I began floating down through it. The walls on all sides were far from me, but still felt claustrophobic due to the overgrowth. Any patches of metal were visibly wet, full of condensation from failed air conditioning units in the shaft. Whatever had shut the air system down in that particular part of Storage, it had led to an overgrowth of life.
Nozzle’s tribe would likely be near the ruins I had found on my last visit, given that only about a day and a half had passed, so I headed there first. I found signs of the gobbs, but the ruins were vacant. Part of them had been sold, but it seemed that Nozzle had decided to keep the rest intact. Perhaps as breeding grounds for the many tentacled cockroaches that nested in the area.
The dog-sized beasts scuttled to and fro, nuzzling through the dust with their extended proboscis. After my first encounter with the beast years prior, I had learned a bit about them. They were incredibly hardy creatures, capable of deriving nutrients from nothing but minerals and water if food was short. Otherwise they consumed literally everything they came across.
A green stain surrounded by tentacle-roaches confirmed this, as they snuffled the remaining gobb blood. One of Nozzle’s tribe had lost their life to the ravening bugs.
There were several shells still left from what I presumed to be a minor battle, or slaughter of the cockroaches. The remains were all being eaten by the other bugs.
I flew on, leaving the ruins behind and entering the shaft of the next elevator section. It housed some scattered plant life as well, and I started heading back up through the thickest portions of it. Nozzle had said he planned to take his tribe upwards, to avoid the slavers that constantly hounded them. In the next section I entered, great storage containers filled the entire multiple-kilometers long tunnel.
At the base of some I saw heavy wooden chunks of root, a sure sign the gobbs had passed through the area. Several of them had heavy notches, indicating they were recently used to hold open storage bay doors for gobb raiding.
That meant they were nowhere near the storage bays. They knew their methods could be used to track them and removed themselves from the area before resting or attempting to set up a settlement. Using a concentrated area for their salvaging meant slavers would only know of the general area of Storage they were in. Nozzle had said he was going to keep them higher up the superstructure of Storage, so I stuck to the upper levels. My flight pattern alternated between the second level and the first, nearest the cloud-tops.
After only traversing another ten of the oversized tunnel interiors, I found them. The tribe was huddled in another set of ruins, this one primarily composed of scorched bamboo structures. There were the standard converted storage containers commonly used for shelter in Storage, but they were few, and scattered throughout the long tunnel amidst the many tons of burnt bamboo structures.
Nozzle and his tribe were huddled around a series of fires, most of them in front of said storage containers. Babyeater was even tucked away in one, huddling under a massive torn tarp the spider used as a blanket. The tunnel they had chosen was on the first level and as such was the coldest region of storage aside from the landing platforms. They did appear to have life support and air control running, as I saw a sheltered fan near the top of the tunnel sipping the smoke from their fires, but it was still cold. The affiliate in charge of the structure looked at what temperature range was required for survival for the sapient species within Storage, and then kept it as cold as possible to save on energy costs.
I had to assume it was Silken Sands, or an associate they operated.
There was frost rimming the oversized windows up above, and it trickled into icy streams as it melted from the rising sun. Many gobbs were engaged in acquiring water by holding canisters and bottles up to the wall under the many streams of cold water.
One of the chunks of frost wiggled loose and plummeted toward the gobb below, a razor of ice the size of a person. I flew in fast and knocked it apart, shattering the thin pane of frost before it could impact the gobb below.
Nozzle jumped up and sighted at me through his long rifle’s small scope. Then he shouldered it on its sling and raised both arms as he shouted a cheery greeting.
“Tyson! Welcome back tribe-friend! Glad to see you again so soon!” Nozzle called. I hovered over and touched down in front of his cargo container. Babyeater was busy being creepy, tucked away in the back of it, a tangle of limbs and mandibles visible as it fed on an oversized tentacle roach. I noticed a large, ratty tarp hung on the inside of the container, probably to offer some insulation for the beast.
“Hi Nozzle,” I said. “Glad to be back.”
“What happened, I thought you were sad sack of crap, worried about putting us in danger and being in love us. Or something like that,” Nozzle laughed. “Gotta say, some of the ladies here would take you up on that. But those perverts like the tall-people.”
I snorted a laugh and nodded. “I am worried about putting you in danger, and I didn’t fall in love with your tribe you goon. It’s more of a generic kind of love, the kinship I feel for all people under this horrid system.”
“What system?” he asked, cocking his head.
“BuyMort,” I replied with a shrug.
“Ahhh, yes of course. BuyMort rules us all. Did you know, there are still some gobbs who worship it?” he asked, shaking his head. “Sometimes gobbs can be kind of stupid.”
I nodded. “I know a lot of people who used to worship it. It was one of my biggest hopes to change that, before.”
“Oh yes, your Warlord of BuyMort days, I know them well,” Nozzle exclaimed. “Got a book.” The gobb held up a hardcover bibliography of me.
“I didn’t know gobbs were big readers,” I commented thoughtlessly.
“Ha!” Nozzle barked. “Only some of us are stupid. My tribe does not read, but I got an implant. Helps me install upgrades on Babyeater.”
I nodded. “That makes sense. No way to learn to read if that opportunity is kept from you.”
Nozzle laughed again. “Yeah, you tall people really suck sometimes, you know that?”
“You’re not wrong there. I’m about to go on some kind of trial for breaking a statue of myself,” I replied.
The gobb scowled. “Why?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Because us tall people really suck sometimes.”
Nozzle burst out laughing and slapped my knee. “Good! You know it; you can change it. Help make things better for everyone, maybe.”
“That is exactly my plan,” I told him.
Nozzle nodded, his expression suddenly serious. He reached up and firmly shook my hand. “I’ll hold you to that, Windowpuncher.”
There wasn’t a lot of time left in the day, so after our talk Nozzle and I went out to talk with the rest of the tribe, and to make preparations for the supplies I planned to order. These gobbs were survivors, and something about them felt both utilitarian and admirable. They already had a considerable stockpile of goods, and Nozzle suggested we help them go through some of them before bringing in more.
He explained that pod deliveries could be dangerous in Storage. If the tunnel’s external pod airlock no longer functioned, or the stations above were paying close attention, their location would be compromised.
I couldn’t help but think of Nozzle as a hero to his people who, behind the strangeness of his ways, was just as noble and stalwart as Rayna.
So I went along with it. In a shrunken multiverse gone to shit, I’d take any friends and allies I could get a hold of.