Halo: Primordium (37 page)

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?”

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.

Those of us that had survived were acting in desperate concert to salvage what they could. “Not al can be saved,” we acknowledged. “Stresses can be relieved by shedding mass. The most damaged plates are likely choices.”

With the power from the remaining dreadnoughts, the wheel began to lock in stasis its most important segments. We watched as thousands of kilometers of the band were wrapped in reflective protection, preserved for the moment—but only briefly—against the effects of the passing planet. The controlers in these regions were temporarily removed from the Cartographer’s grid.

The wheel continued to rotate, even increasing its rate, while the planet finished its passage, missing any direct colision.

The hub and spokes were no longer in evidence. Strangely, the Cartographer could not tel us if their mechanisms had been damaged or destroyed. Information about weapons status was withheld even from this crucial functionary.

There was nothing more to be done where we were.

“We must transport this instalation to the greater Ark immediately,” the Didact said.

Lightly damaged instalations might have been sent replacement parts from one of the two Arks that had created them in the first place—but such shipments had been discontinued for years, even if we could create a portal to receive them.

“There is just enough power to open a portal of a certain size, and no larger. It wil remain open just long enough for paralel passage. I am instructing our ships to supply the necessary power, and to sacrifice their own slipspace drives if necessary.”

What I could not understand was why the Didact had decided to save one of those very weapons whose creation he had so decisively opposed.

Perhaps it was not the wheel he wanted to save.

The Didact’s motivation, however, was one thing he was not sharing—not with me, at any rate.

The wolf-faced planet went on its way, little changed.

The Halo continued to turn while, one by one, the sections locked in stasis were released. The energies of their return to normal physics were diffused around the system as intense, out-roling, wavelike cascades of infrared and higher-energy photons.

“Cartographer!” The Didact’s voice brought the surviving controlers, and the faculties of the Cartographer itself, to ful attention. “Saving al possible biological specimens—including those infected by the Flood—is the desired goal. Plan for the instalation’s reduction. We must fit through the portal. Reducing its size also alows us to use the lesser Ark to make repairs. Report!” That explained everything, then. The Didact was on a mission from the Librarian. He could save at least a few of the many species the Librarian had placed on the instalation.

The Cartographer quickly made its report. We studied the optimum configuration for passage through the limited portal, and conveyed our instructions.

Power was temporarily shifted from creating the portal. Thinner, brighter spokes shot inward toward the axis to join a spherical hub .

. . the entirety of which suddenly seemed to convert to dark gray solidity. As segments were discarded, to keep most of the remaining specimens alive and their environments at least minimaly protected, the spokes would act as both slings and counterbalancing braces.

Al around the wheel, segments deemed expendable—bare foundation, unfinished habitat, or too damaged to be saved—

separated from their wals and were released into space. They flew outward, slowly tumbling as they shed more debris.

Despite my absorption, I alowed a moment of grief for the dead Despite my absorption, I alowed a moment of grief for the dead and dying on the heavily damaged plates. Cities, forests, mountains

—al lost? I could not tel and there was no time to taly—those decisions had already been made and new ones were quickly piling up.

The wals themselves now folded like accordions, puling in the remaining segments, then joining them at their edges, shaping a much smaler wheel.

This might have taken hours, or days, I did not know—

Not important.

The wheel completed its sacrificial reduction.

The spokes flickered, testing the new configuration. Al seemed wel. . . .

And then, one more segment broke loose and flew outward.

Again, more spokes formed, fastened to the edges of the adjoining plates, and again, the wals accordioned to join the plates along their edges.

The wheel now rotated with hardly a shimmer. We became confident of its integrity.

“Divert al power to formation of the portal,” the Didact commanded. “Controlers wil stand down. Your work is finished.” With deep pride and sorrow, he was addressing the Forerunners who had stayed loyal to the Council during the rule of Mendicant Bias—and who had continued to serve even in their infected state.

The wheel roled on, its plates now covered in dense cloud. I caught some final glimpses of refined joining, weather control, atmospheric tempering, cooling or heating—protecting cargo to the Didact’s wife, to the Librarian.

But also precious to me, for my own reasons.

I did not witness the passage through the portal. I suppose I was grateful for that.

In al the time since I had falen from the sky and landed on the wheel, I had been exposed to far more than I had ever been born to understand, or withstand.

“You may stand down, as wel, young human,” the Didact said and with a twist of his arm, he broke the gossamer between us. The Cartographer’s space faded to embers, then gave way to darkness.

The darkness was a mercy.

It was also a time of changes. I was not yet aware of how much had already changed—for me.

THIRTY-FIVE

CHAKAS, YOUNG HUMAN,
” the Didact said. “Riser is here. We are together again.”

I rose like a drowning man bobbing in thick black water. My body was stil numb. I had difficulty seeing—shifting, unfamiliar colors, crazy, unfamiliar silhouettes.

Then my sight focused enough that I could look up into a broad, grotesque face—and realize that it looked younger, smoother, less ruggedly patterned than I remembered.

Was this truly the Didact himself?

I had no idea how Forerunners aged or might repair themselves.