A ship cleared its inspections and arrived in the sunlit realm, the heart of the Imperium of Man.
Holy Terra.
It was a pilgrim ship, carrying countless suffering faithful.
For many of them, this pilgrimage had begun at birth. They were undoubtedly among the fortunate few.
The journey might have begun with their grandparents. Only after enduring countless hardships had they reached the legendary Holy Terra, bearing the hopes of their parents and ancestors as they came before the holy Emperor in their stead.
Among these filthy, disheveled pilgrims stood a tall figure who seemed utterly alone.
He was enormous and powerfully built, but so consistently silent that everyone around him thought he might be unable to speak.
As for his only distinguishing feature...
Apart from his immense stature, his left arm had been replaced with a mechanical prosthesis.
The tall, mysterious man normally tended the D-4 Heater. The ship's Tech-Priest considered him well suited to such heavy labor, and he routinely used his mechanical arm to load raw materials into the square container.
After reaching Terra, they spent nearly another three years moored in orbit around Pluto.
In the past, the wait had only been a year, but since Roboute Guilliman's return to Terra, traffic between the Solar System and the outside had surged.
As a pilgrim ship with a low clearance rating, their vessel sat behind a queue of ships of every description. Almost any ship had higher priority than theirs; even grain transports could cut ahead of them.
Yet, strangely enough, the big man vanished. He simply disappeared without warning.
No one cared about his disappearance, except perhaps the Tech-Priest responsible for that section. After all, he had lost a rather useful piece of "wetware."
The big man, meanwhile, appeared on the Pilgrim's Way.
The pilgrims walked