Gaizka

Gaizka is an Elect-Master of the MINOS Lodge, an Extrasolarian sorcerer who sustains himself across centuries by transmitting his consciousness between bodies. He is not human: beneath the mirrored helmet his flesh is pallid orange stippled with white, his nose replaced by gill-like ridged slits, his ears vestigial, and his skull fitted with a black metal mechanism used to broadcast his mind offworld. Ramanthanu describes him as a witch who sheds his body as certain creatures shed their skin.

Gaizka first appears at a MINOS confrontation on Hypatia, acting as a moderating voice before being killed by one of Sharp's Dragonslayers. Having transmitted to a new body, he reappears on Sabratha as General Muzugara's minder, restraining Muzugara from killing Hadrian and attempting to manage the crisis when the Watcher destroys Muzugara. He flees the confrontation, and Hadrian deduces he needs a high-altitude platform to broadcast his consciousness through Sabratha's magnetosphere.

Gaizka's body is later found dead on the Mare Silentii, the neural transmitter in his skull burned out from the effort of projecting Ushara's energy pattern offworld. Ramanthanu reports that Gaizka transmitted to the ship Rugubur, escaping once more -- though at the cost of his current body.