Halo: Contact Harvest (26 page)

“Sensors registered high amounts of signal traffic during the parley.” Dadab’s muffled voice squeaked from the cabin’s signal unit; he had remained on the cruiser’s bridge. “The Luminary considered the data and passed judgment.” Then, after a pause: “An Oracle, just as we suspected!”

“Prophets be praised! Where?”

“The signals originated from the gardens’ white metal structure.”

So close!
The Chieftain groaned.
Were it not for the Unggoy, I might have laid eyes upon it!
But he quickly stifled his disappointment. He knew the Prophets alone had access to the sacred Oracle on High Charity, and thus it was the height of hubris for him, a low and recent convert, to covet such communion. But it was no sin to feel pride at the message he now felt compelled to deliver.

“Send word to the Vice Minister,” Maccabeus said, his chest swelling inside his golden armor. “The reliquary is even richer than expected. A second Oracle—one who speaks for the Gods themselves—has at last been found!”

CHAPTER

SIXTEEN

HIGH CHARITY,
WANING HOURS,
23RD AGE OF DOUBT

Nights in High Charity’s main dome were normally quite subdued. The guttural clamor of the Unggoy’s mass evening prayers sometimes filtered up from the lower districts, but otherwise the upper towers were quiet. The San’Shyuum who called the floating towers home preferred to spend the hours between sundown and sunup resting or in quiet contemplation.

But not tonight,
Fortitude thought. The Minister’s chair hung motionless between two empty anti-grav barges, idling near one of the Forerunner Dreadnought’s three massive support struts. The dome’s illumination disc shone with a feeble glow, simulating moonlight, which did nothing to warm the air. Fortitude gathered his crimson robes tight around his hunched shoulders, and stared at the rare commotion in the towers.

Lights blazed in the buildings’ hanging gardens. Rings of gaily dressed San’Shyuum glided from one open-air party to the next. There was music on the breeze; overlapping strains of triumphal strings and chimes. Here and there, fireworks crackled, blooming sparks in the prevailing darkness.

All this marked a momentous occasion, one that only came once or twice an Age. Tonight, all female San’Shyuum lucky enough to bear children were proudly showing off their broods. And as far as Fortitude could tell, the numbers were particularly good. Even though he himself had never sired a successor—and despite all that weighed upon him—he managed a satisfied smile.

There were a little more than twenty million San’Shyuum in the Covenant. Not a very large number compared to the faith’s billions of adherents. But it was significantly more than the thousand or so individuals who had fled the San’Shyuum’s distant homeworld long ago.

Fortitude’s ancestors had broken with the rest of their kind over the same issue that would eventually pit them against the Sangheili: whether or not to desecrate Forerunner objects to realize their full potential. In the internal, San’Shyuum version of this debate, the Dreadnought had become a key symbol for both sides—an object the majority Stoics would not enter and the minority Reformers were desperate to explore. At the climax of the fratricidal conflict, the most zealous Reformers breached the Dreadnought and barricaded themselves inside. While the Stoics debated what to do (they couldn’t very well destroy the object they so revered), the Reformers activated the vessel and took flight—taking a chunk of the San’Shyuum homeworld with it.

At first the Reformers were ecstatic. They had survived, and also escaped with the conflict’s greatest prize. They sped out of their home system, laughing at the Stoics’ bitter signals—claims that the Gods would surely damn them for their theft. But then the Reformers counted up their numbers and realized to their horror that they might indeed be doomed.

The problem was a limited pool of genes. With only a thousand individuals in their population, inbreeding would soon become a serious problem. The crisis was compounded by the fact that San’Shyuum pregnancies were, even under ideal conditions, rare. Females were generally fertile, but only in short cycles that came few and far between. For these first Prophets aboard the Dreadnought, reproduction quickly became a carefully managed affair.

“I had begun to think you might not come,” Fortitude said as the Vice Minister of Tranquility’s chair slunk in between the barges.

The younger San’Shyuum’s purple robes were rumpled, and as he bowed forward in his chair, the gold rings in his wattle became tangled in one of the many flowered garlands around his neck. “I apologize. It was hard to get away.”

“Male or female?”

“One of each.”

“Congratulations.”

“If I hear that one more time, I shall scream. It’s not as if I
made
the bastards.” Tranquility’s words were a little slurred, and his fingers fumbled as he pulled his wattle free, yanked the garlands from his neck, and tossed them aside.

“You’re drunk,” Fortitude said, watching the garlands flutter down into the darkness.

“So I am.”

“I need you
sober.”

Fortitude reached inside his robes and removed a small, pharmaceutical sphere. “How was our dear Hierarch, the Prophet of Restraint?”

“You mean the
Father
?” The Vice Minister sucked the sphere between his sour lips. “Glared at me the whole time.”

Fortitude raised a dismissive hand. “As long as we act quickly, there’s little he can do.”

The Vice Minister shrugged and lazily chewed his sphere.

“Come.” Fortitude tapped the holo-switches in his chair’s arm. “We’re late enough as it is.”

A moment later, the two San’Shyuum were speeding toward the Dreadnought’s pinched middle decks—a squat triangular core that connected its three support legs to a single vertical hull of similar shape. In the dome’s wan light, the ancient Forerunner warship shone bone white.

Blackmail,
the Minister sighed,
was such a tiresome tool.
But before his peerless record of service and the revelation of the reliquary won them their Hierarch’s thrones, Fortitude knew the thrones’ current occupants would have to move aside.
And they won’t do that unless I push.

Unfortunately, the Prophet of Tolerance and the Prophetess of Obligation had proven quite unassailable. The elderly Prophetess had just given birth to a pair of triplets. Because of her advanced age, pregnancy had been difficult. And while it was true that this had caused her to shirk some of her responsibilities, Fortitude knew it would be suicidal to try to smear one of the San’Shyuum’s most beloved and prolific matrons. Tolerance, who served as Minister of Concert in the wake of the Unggoy Rebellion, had done much to promote better relations between the Covenant’s member species; he still had the support of many in the High Council—both Sangheili and San’Shyuum.

But the third Hierarch, the Prophet of Restraint, was a different story. This former Prelate of High Charity (essentially, the city’s mayor) was on the Roll of Celibates, a list that tracked all San’Shyuum not allowed to breed. Because of their ancestors’ poor planning, these unfortunate souls would never experience the joys of parenthood because their genes were now too common, and the risk of spreading their negative, recessive traits already too extreme.

Fortitude was on the Roll as well, but it had never bothered him that much. He kept a few concubines for the rare occasions when he felt the need for sexual congress, but was otherwise perfectly comfortable with his involuntary impotence.

The Prophet of Restraint was not.

Not long before the Kig-Yar stumbled on the reliquary, Restraint had accidentally impregnated a young female. Not a problem necessarily (abortions were common in these sorts of situations), but the first-time mother had been furious that Restraint had
lied
about his status and demanded she be allowed to keep her brood. The aging Hierarch was overcome by a desire to see his exalted genes passed on and could not bring himself to kill his unborn offspring or their willful mother.

Fortitude had gotten wind of the brewing scandal, and arranged for Tranquility to give the birthing period’s invocation before the High Council. In his speech, the Vice Minister offered praise for “all parents and their fruitful unions,” and argued for greater investment in gene therapies and other technologies to “end the tyranny of the Roll.” Tranquility’s passionate performance convinced Restraint they were brothers in belief. And the desperate Hierarch (for his lover would soon give birth) approached the Vice Minister with an offer: Claim my progeny as your own, and earn the Ministerial posting of your choice.

As pleased as Fortitude was that his plan had worked, he was still shocked by the Hierarch’s gall. If Restraint’s offer ever came to light, his children would be killed and he would be dismissed—and likely sterilized as well. The San’Shyuum who enforced the Roll were zealous in their work, and Fortitude knew even a Hierarch was not above their censure.

Tonight, it had been Tranquility’s job to give Restraint their counteroffer:
Step willingly from your throne, and we shall keep the scandal quiet.

“You should have seen her.” The Vice Minister shuddered. They were now much closer to the Dreadnought and had passed into the shadow of one of the large conduits that connected the ship’s engines to High Charity’s power grid. In this deeper darkness, the strongest light came from a ring of blue beacons just below the cable, bright holographies around one of the Dreadnought’s yawning air locks.

“Who?” Fortitude asked.

“Restraint’s
whore
.”

The Minister cringed. Tranquility had become far too familiar as of late, often behaving as though he were already a Hierarch and Fortitude’s equal. His present inebriation only made this problem worse.

“Attractive?” Fortitude asked, trying to keep the conversation light.

“A dull-eyed monstrosity,” the Vice Minister said, reaching inside his robes. “If she had a neck, I could not distinguish it from her folds.” To Fortitude’s amazement, Tranquility produced a plasma pistol and nonchalantly checked its charge.

“Put that away!” Fortitude snapped, glancing nervously at the Dreadnought. “Before the sentries see!”

Though they were still a good ways off, the Minister recognized the hulking shapes of Mgalekgolo, the guardians of the sacred vessel and its cloistered San’Shyuum priests. At least twenty of the creatures stood watch on cantilevered platforms to the left and right of the air lock. Spotting the two San’Shyuum, the Mgalekgolo shifted into defensive formations, their fluted, deep-purple armor flashing in the beacons’ pulse.

Reluctantly, the Vice Minister slipped the pistol back inside his robes.

“What possessed you to bring a weapon?” Fortitude hissed.

“Prudence. In case Restraint rejected our new terms.”

“What?
Murder
you?” The Minister was incredulous. “At the presentation of his children?”

“They’re safely out. He doesn’t need me anymore.”

Fortitude once again recalled that Tranquility’s work brought him in regular contact with Sangheili. It seemed the warrior species’ maddening preoccupation with personal arms and honor had rubbed off on the naturally hotheaded Vice Minister.

“Think clearly. Your death would raise questions. Ones Restraint would rather not answer.”

“Perhaps.” Tranquility shrugged. “You didn’t see his eyes.”

“No, but I can see yours.” The Minister’s simmered. “And all I see is disobedience and liability.”

“But—”

“Hold your tongue!”

The Mgalekgolo turned to track the two San’Shyuum as they passed through the air lock. Each of the sentries held a faceted, rectangular shield and a ponderous assault cannon. Both were integrated into their armor—extensions of the suits rather than something the creatures carried.

With other Covenant species, this design would have been a way to avoid hand and finger strain. But the Mgalekgolo had no hands and fingers. And while they did possess what appeared to be two arms and legs, the truth was they might have had as many of these appendages as they liked. For each creature was actually a conglomeration of individuals, a mobile colony of glossy worms.

Through gaps in the armor around their waists and necks, Fortitude could see the individual Lekgolo, twisting and bunching like magnified muscle tissue. The worms’ red, translucent skin shone green in the glow of the assault cannon’s protruding ammunition: tubes of incendiary gel that could be fired in bolts or a searing stream.

“Restraint is an imbecile,” Fortitude said once they were safely past the sentries. “And I know this because he put his trust in
you.”
The Vice Minister started to retort, but the Minister plowed forward: “Thanks to my overriding discretion, he and the other Hierarchs know nothing of our plans. Tomorrow they will sit helpless as we announce our intentions before the Council. But only if we have the Oracle’s blessing!”

Fortitude swung his long neck sideways to face the Vice Minister, daring the youth to lock his narrowed eyes. “When we meet the Philologist, you will keep your mouth shut. You will not speak unless I ask it. Or, by the Forerunners, our partnership is ended!”

Glaring at each other, the two San’Shyuum waited for the other to blink.

Suddenly, the Vice Minister’s expression changed. His lips firmed, and his eyes snapped into focus. “Please forgive my disrespect.” His voice no longer slurred. The remedy had finally taken effect. “As always, Minister, I am yours to command.”

Fortitude waited for Tranquility to bow before he relaxed into his chair.

Despite his strong words, the Minister knew dissolving their partnership was impractical. They were too far down the path, and the Vice Minister knew far too much. Fortitude could have him killed, of course. But that would only aggravate the one problem with his plan that he had yet to solve: the lack of a third San’Shyuum for their triumvirate of would-be Hierarchs.