I was completely aware of the survival mechanisms available to the Halo.
Later, much of what happened in the next few hours returned to a jumble of confusion and spectacle . . . but after tens of thousands of years, long reflection brings it back. I have of course defended Halo many times since. But you know that. . . .
Al these survival mechanisms required great amounts of energy —energy in short supply after the sabotage of so many power stations.
Perhaps most impressive was the ability to suspend much of the wheel in time, lock it in stasis, turning the instalation into a great, reflective ring immune to al changes imposed from outside.
But the energy cost of such suspension was immense—perhaps more than the wheel could muster. As wel, al around the system, energy that would have been absorbed by the Halo would have to be deflected through a fractal-dimensioned slipspace, creating a suspicious scatter of heat signatures and even high-energy radiation that could attract the attention of anything hunting us.
The wolf-faced orb was already exerting an awful pressure on the wheel’s integrity. The wals of the Halo glowed along their outer surfaces as they attempted to evenly redistribute the gravitational strain.
And the pitifuly few remaining sentinels and other vessels firing their drive motors in an attempt to move the wheel out of the way were having little success. The only result had been to slow the Halo slightly, dropping its stelar orbit a few hundred kilometers—into a situation where the red and gray planet would sweep right through the hoop without touching.
But before that was tried, the Halo’s hub and spokes activated.
The makeshift control team hoped to elasticaly absorb some of the planet’s energy as it fel into spokes and the hub, then transferring some of that momentum to the wheel—in effect, thieving the planet’s velocity to move ourselves into a higher orbit. This might prevent another colision should the orbits of Halo and planet again intersect.
We had no idea how far hub and spokes, al hard light structures, would behave under that sort of pressure—whether they could actualy stretch without breaking or vanishing.
Another eventuality Forerunners had never anticipated or tested.
And so we waited.
We did not have to wait long before there were additional complications. Two outlying war sphinxes detected ships approaching from opposite the course of the planet—a great many of them, some very large. From the distant green-eyed “master”
came a moment of sharp attention, concern—perhaps of recognition.
But for now, the ships had to be ignored.
The wheel’s wals had distributed al they could manage of the planet’s uneven gravitational tug. Now the foundation plates between the wals were warping and buckling, rising up and separating and in the process tossing loose or spiling great volumes of air and water, spewing long, silver-gray streamers into space.
The plates that had been stacked high earlier in preparation now began their slow shuffle to replace the damaged plates—but clearly the repairs could not keep pace with the destruction.
The Halo, barely keeping itself together, was squarely faced off against the red and gray planet.
The new ships came into our view.
Most obvious were the dreadnoughts—dozens of them spreading and swooping around the planet, flying close to the hub and spokes, then spreading along the spokes into a broad fan that might, if they chose to land, bring them down al around the wheel.
More concern—but we could do nothing if they were here to destroy us. Stil, it soon became obvious that these were not maneuvers of attack and destruction. What were they attempting?
Rescue?
Such ships could quickly insert their drives into the grid and supply power. That could save everything!
More exaltation—and then, suddenly, an abyssal plunge into a cold, mechanical something that my eclipsed humanity interpreted as rage.
The green-eyed master of the wheel did not find this intercession at al helpful. We had been found. The rogue Halo was rogue no more! The appearance of so many Forerunner ships likely speled an end to everything the perverted ancila was trying to accomplish.
A sickly glow of hope flowed from the serpentine Forerunner hooked up beside me. But very little time remained to act through any agency, no matter the source or the power.
The light of the star now came from behind the planet, casting eerie shadows through the fog of icy vapor streaming away from our wheel. The wal opposite our command center separated and bent outward like a metal strap in the hands of a burly blacksmith.
An uneven contest, to say the least. The mass of the Halo was tiny compared to the gray and red planet.
The planet now pushed up against four of the spokes, and then, as the spokes stretched, it struck the hub itself. At this, rippling pulses of blue fire flew outward. The hub shimmered as the spokes grew longer, then fragmented—broke apart. They seemed to lay down across the planet’s rocky surface, then abruptly converted into curling, expanding beams of intensely blue and violet radiation.
Perhaps now the Halo was exacting some revenge—but only against bare stone. There would be no gradualy stretching net or snare, no capture of momentum and acceleration.
The world continued its passage.
The wheel now began to truly come apart—wals shearing, plates separating, gaps of many hundreds of kilometers opening up between, like pieces of a huge necklace being yanked from al sides.
Stil, the ecstasy of my connectedness shielded me from fear— my own fear. But not from the deep concern of the green-eyed master of the Halo, and then, rising behind it, something darker stil.
But this darker source of command felt no fear, was beyond fear.
I could feel its influence like the chil of a dark, dead star permeating, infiltrating us— Forerunner and human alike became frozen in place.
And what it now impressed upon me, even now, was the most frightening thing of al— Superior, intensely pure curiosity—far colder and more precise and disciplined than anything I had ever known. These entities were expressing an almost cruely isolated and lofty interest in the stages of an ongoing experiment.
Was there some sense of satisfaction at this melding of so many Forerunners and humans? Some triumphal revisiting of an ancient plan, long ago frustrated, then abandoned, but now possible once more?
Could Forerunners and humans be recombined and reverse their shivering asunder so many milions of years before . . . when the Primordial and the last of its kind decided on a larger, wider strategy, a greater plan that would no doubt bring about immense pain, but also a greater unity of al things. . . .
Through the Flood, the Shaping Sickness. The greatest chalenge and contest of al.
From that chalenge, humans had for a moment only emerged victorious, only to be decimated by the Forerunners—a second crushing defeat for the Primordial’s plans. Al of this had been laid out in detail to the coldly logical mentality that was the Halo’s master.
Even enhanced and combined, I—we—could only appreciate a smal portion of the depth and power of this plan, this argument, unveiled to us as if we were children peering through curtains at the
copulation of our parents. . . .
The Halo was dying, no doubt about it. Even as dreadnoughts attached themselves to the remaining intact plates, more gaps appeared, more sections twisted about and spiled their contents.
But a new voice laid itself over us, powerful, resonant, penetrating the Cartographer’s display, the overlay of the machine, even the cold analysis of the Primordial.
This voice rose in volume, assuming command, and at once— I recognized it! I knew it from that time we had spent on the island within Djamonkin Crater. A weary manner of speech once accustomed to complete command, but through circumstance withdrawn, set apart, lost . . .
But no more.
The Didact!
“Beggar after knowledge,” the voice said, swirling al around us.
“Mendicant Bias. That is the name I gave you when last we met.
Do you remember the moment of your inception? The moment I connected you to the Domain and you were ceded control of al Forerunner defenses?”
Al the images contained and controled by the Cartographer darkened and colapsed into a now much-simplified ancila. “That name is no longer secret,” it said. “Al Forerunners know it.”
“Do you recognize the one who named you?”
The green ancila burned like acid, yet I could not turn away, could not cleanse myself of its corrosion.
“You are not that one,” it said. “The Master Builder gave me my final set of orders.”
“I am that one—and you are not truthful.”
The acid quality of the green ancila’s voice became so intense it felt as if my insides were being eaten away.
“You take commands from other than a Forerunner,” the Didact’s voice said, “a clear violation of al your instructions. I am the one who knows your chosen name, your true name—”
“That name no longer has power!”
“Even so, I can revoke your inception, cal out your key, and command you to stand down. Do you wilingly pass control to me, your original master?”
“I do not! I have listened to the Domain. I fulfil the wishes of those who created us al. You do not, and have never done so.”
The green ancila had receded to an infinitely deep incision, an arc of pinpoints carved or burned into the blackness. Its tininess wavered like a flame.
Then came a complex sound that might have been words or numbers, a transmission of information or commands, I could not tel which.
The Didact’s voice filed the Cartographer—seemed to fil al space and time, and I knew he was stil alive, once again in control —perhaps more powerful than ever before. “Poor machine,” the Didact said. “Poor, poor machine. Your time here is done.”
The ancila leaped in the darkness as if startled—and vanished, along with almost everything else.
I found myself lying flat and exhausted, covered with sweat, on a cold, hard surface, while the last dul embers of the Cartographer’s display slowly dimmed. The pain in my back and side was awful. I could hardly move. I could not see anything but blurry shapes.
The link to my companion—the sick, tormented Forerunner— was sliced from my arm. The binding gossamer gave way like ripping fabric. I was being shunted aside, removed from the Cartographer.
The ecstasy of my connection became an aching loneliness.
Now I heard actual sounds—voices—and a startled exclamation.
Recognition of who I was—who I had been.
The voice in my head became more intimate and gentle.
“I’ve found you, young human. I’ve found both of you—and stil alive!”
A massive presence stood beside me, then knelt down and extended a six-fingered hand. The cut gossamer on my arm rose up like hair in a thunderstorm before lightning strikes. It connected and wrapped around a thick, powerful forearm—mottled gray and blue, the colors of a fuly mature Warrior-Servant.
“You have already been connected and trained,” the Didact said.
“We have only seconds to act. You know this wheel—help me save it.”
The connection to the Cartographer returned and grew suddenly briliant and joyfuly intense. Ecstasy flooded through me once more.
But now my partner was the Didact.
We observed the red and gray planet, halfway through its passage, and the wheel’s tormented plates barely held together by white-hot ribbons of wal.
The planet’s gravity—the suicide option of the Forerunners seeking to prevent further harm to their kind—had almost finished its work.
ONI COMMANDER: “Do any of you understand this?”
SCIENCE TEAM LEADER: “It’s abstruse—difficult to wrap our heads around, to be sure. I’d prefer spending weeks before making a decision . . . but combined science team analysis gives us considerable conviction that the related events are credible.”
ONI COMMANDER: “But they contradict everything we know about the Didact! Why save a Halo?”
SCIENCE TEAM LEADER: “There’s little time left—”
ONI COMMANDER: “We’re collecting the flow! But its value seems even more questionable. What we know about the Didact—from the Bornstellar Relation, if you believe that!—points toward his complete revulsion of the Halos and the Master Builder’s plans.
The terminal dialogs—”
SCIENCE TEAM LEADER: “The terminal dialogs may themselves be questionable, in the light of this testimony.”
ONI COMMANDER: “Only if there was more than one Didact, and we have no evidence of that.”
SCIENCE TEAM LEADER: “Yet! The Didact’s attitude toward the Halos obviously evolved over time.”
ONI COMMANDER: “I lodge my strong skepticism.”
SCIENCE TEAM LEADER: “Already noted, sir.”
ONI COMMANDER: “And where does any of this get us with respect to our present situation? This Halo is clearly headed for the rubbish heap!”
SCIENCE TEAM ADJUTANT: “Sir, pardon my interruption—we’ve been analyzing the fleet database, and we’re coming to a tentative conclusion that this installation still exists. It may be the most mysterious Halo of all, Installation 07. Its surface is wrapped in perpetual cloud—. Perhaps it was so damaged that the life support systems never completely recovered.”
ONI COMMANDER: “Nonsense. We’ve already been told that this Halo is thirty thousand kilometers in diameter. Installation 07 is no more than ten thousand kilometers.”
SCIENCE TEAM ADJUTANT: “The story isn’t over, is it, sir?”
Chapter Thirty-Four
EMBEDDED AGAIN DEEP within the Cartographer, we saw many points of direction and opportunity spread around many different fates predicting al possible outcomes of the wheel’s present dire situation.
I guided the Didact’s intelect toward the best course of action.
The words I heard myself speaking, if I spoke aloud at al, were transmitted to al the controlers. But their numbers had falen to just a few.
