< Once it’s no longer in contact with you, it’ll explode. > “I said a little.”
Prone didn’t answer, but he fiddled with the straps and Jul felt more comfortable as the pressure eased. It was loose enough to slide over his head. He wasn’t going to risk testing Prone’s warning, but he resolved to work out some way of exploiting that. In the meantime, he contented himself with scratching to relieve the itch.
But removing the harness was no escape on its own unless he found a way out of the sphere.
“Can you read al Forerunner symbols?” he asked.
< Yes. > “Surely they told you the places they might go if there was a crisis, if only to help you to help them.”
< There were locations they didn’t reveal for our own safety.> “Ah, because of the Flood.” That would steer Magnusson wel away from Jul’s plan. “Is the Flood more widespread than this galaxy?”
Prone didn’t respond. Unlike humans, they didn’t seem able to lie at al , just answer or not answer. And what was this Didact? Perhaps he was another form of the Flood, or some enemy of the Forerunners. The only place Jul would be able to ask Prone that question was in the underground chamber. He needed to thicken his smokescreen a little more.
“This world alarms me,” he said. “I get lost walking through doors that I can’t even see.”
< These are for safety in case the Flood contagion breached this shield world. There are many such barriers within barriers that we can use to contain contamination. > “Tel me if the Flood is stil out there somewhere.”
< I can’t. I don’t know. > “But the Forerunners must have known.”
Jul gazed at his belt, inscribed with the writing of beings that had died or vanished so long ago, and felt satisfied that Magnusson would be wel on the way to believing that his focus was on a spiritual mystery. He got up and walked slowly toward the spire, trying to remember what he’d done last time to trigger whatever kind of portal had taken him under the structure.
< Remember, > Prone said, drifting after him. That was quite devious for a Huragok. He real y didn’t want the humans to know about something.
< Remember not to stray too far. > Jul ambled up to the spire and wandered around, touching the carved stone until he felt the cobwebs brush his face again. He found himself back in the chamber, this time with Prone.
“Tel me why I must avoid the Didact,” he said. There had to be some portal connected with this. That was the name that had made Prone most anxious. Jul needed to know what the risks were when he worked out how to activate a portal and take the plunge into the unknown. “Is he the Flood? Is he another form of the Flood?”
< He was of the warrior caste. A Forerunner. He despised humans.> “So do my people. I don’t understand.”
< If he still lives, then he may return from exile. He only knows war. He tried to fight the Flood. He tried to destroy the humans. > This Didact sounded like a perfectly sensible person who knew a threat when he saw one. “How long has he been gone?”
< A hundred thousand years. > That was very disappointing. It was now dawning on Jul that this wasn’t making sense. That point in time seemed to be a watershed for Forerunner events. This wasn’t history; this was a myth. It surprised him that the Huragok would take a legend so seriously, but the names began to fit the pattern. The Didact and the Librarian sounded like the oldest sagas carved on the wal s of the earliest keeps on Sanghelios. There might have been a foundation of truth in them, but there was also much embel ishment to fil unexplained gaps or make up for unreliable memories, and one thing was always certain: they were far in the past. How much of what Prone told him was myth that had evolved into reality because of Onyx’s long isolation?
“I think the Didact wil be long dead by now,” Jul said kindly. He looked at al the potential portal signs on the wal s again, wondering what his chances were of emerging into an environment that wouldn’t kil him. “Even gods die.”
< We are not dead. > Jul pointed to the symbols that repeated most frequently. He took care not to look as if he planned to touch them in case Prone wrestled him to the ground again.
“Is there a portal to Earth? Show me.”
Prone hesitated, as if he was weighing up whether Jul would be rash or stupid enough to try using it.
< That one. It doesn’t work now. Not at all. > Ah, so he had some way of tel ing which ones were live. Of course: how else would he know the portals were faulty in the first place? Why didn’t I think of that before? Jul didn’t ask if one led to Sanghelios. He’d get around to that eventual y, but subtly.
“Did the Didact use a portal? And the Librarian?”
< No. He is hidden. > “You don’t know where he went.”
< We know the name but not the location. In case others used us to reach him. > The line between reality and myth seemed to be blurring again. It obviously troubled Prone, making his luminescence increase. Jul wondered whether to change the subject and get him talking about the nature of the faults the portals had. But that odd answer intrigued him.
“Very wel , what’s the name of the place he went? Not Sanghelios, and not Earth, obviously.”
< Requiem. > Jul had never heard of it. It sounded like another myth-word, as vague and meaningless as the Great Journey. “Which is the symbol for it?”
< That one. > It was one of the more distinctive ones that Jul had etched into his belt as a way of finding his path back to the chamber. “So he was sent to Requiem, but you don’t know where it is.”
< That’s what I said. We have to go back now. > Prone drifted back and forth until Jul stepped away from the wal and fol owed him. That was probably enough for today. Rushing it would simply make Prone reluctant to talk, and being out of contact for too long might make Magnusson suspicious and encourage her to come down here.
There were so many artifacts in this world that even the sizable number of humans now working here had hardly placed a fraction of them on a map, Magnusson had told him, as if this lack of knowledge was something laudable.
Getting back to the surface simply meant retracing his steps and steeling himself to walk into an inscribed wal that suddenly wasn’t there. Out in the sunlight again, he fingered his belt, intrigued by the symbol for the Didact. So the Didact didn’t like humans. A hundred thousand years ago. Jul realized the Forerunners had visited many planets and seemed to have something in common with humans that they didn’t have with Sangheili, but until today he’d thought of it as a positive connection, something to be envied, an unjustified fondness for the least worthy child in the clan. Now he saw an entirely new history of the galaxy: the humans had done something to provoke the Didact’s anger, and a god didn’t wage war on insects, not even a mortal god. The powerful dealt with threats.
Jul started to wonder what threat the human worms could have posed to such a massive, sophisticated empire, and reached one conclusion.
Humans bred. Humans spread and colonized, like the Flood, albeit in a more subtle and insidious way. They didn’t absorb what they touched into their biomass. They simply gave it no room to live.
< A vehicle’s coming, > Prone said. < Listen. > Jul could hear it, the familiar sound of a Warthog, a noisy, ugly machine that came in varied forms. The vehicle—a smal troop transport— bounced across the ground, and it took him a few moments to work out that it wasn’t passing but coming right at him. He’d done something foolish.
He’d given away his plan somehow, and now Magnusson was going to put him back in his cage. Should he fight back? No, he’d be kil ed. He stil had to work out a detailed plan of how he would access a portal and also how he’d remove the harness before Magnusson detonated it—which would involve the cooperation of a Huragok. He had to remain an obedient little hinge-head.
The Warthog transport drew level with him and stopped. Two male soldiers sat in the front while a female one sat at the back with a rifle aimed almost directly at him, pointing in his direction but tilted down, the humans’ way of saying that they didn’t intend to kil him but they would if they had to. And if you detonate this belt, you’re so close to me now that you’ll be injured. His chains were also his insurance.
“Sir, there’s a visitor for you,” the driver said. Sir meant nothing in the mouths of these men. It sounded respectful but Jul had observed it used almost as punctuation. “He’s not got much time. Come with us.”
So … not a punishment. Magnusson and I will continue to play our game.
It was a tight fit in the Warthog, and it would have been suffocating if it had a roof. Prone looked almost comical huddled on the seat next to Jul.
But there was nothing amusing about the shadow that fel across him from behind, the shadow of that rifle. As they drove into the base, Jul saw the pen of colos and noticed that half of them had gone. Half of the irukan grain had been cut, too.
“Prone, what happened to the animals?” he asked.
< They died, as planned.> Jul imagined an ice store ful of colo carcasses, enough to keep him fed for many years—many miserable years of imprisonment—to come. But they’d been sickly creatures, unlike the healthy ones that stil grazed.
You shouldn’t have gone to all that trouble, Magnusson. I won’t be staying long.
“And the grain?”
< Harvested. > The rest of the irukan looked ripe too, but that hadn’t been cut. That was odd. “Were the colos sick? I don’t want to eat diseased meat. I was sick enough as it was.”
< Not diseased, > Prone said. < Starving. > Prone often didn’t make sense. It was sometimes like talking to a temple mystic, except with the added frustration that Huragok dealt in facts and there was some actual meaning buried in their pronouncements. Jul braced himself for the visitor and went back to his cel under escort. Prone disappeared.
I will cooperate. I will be calm. I will continue to present the face of a warrior seeking the gods.
The door opened. “Hel o, Jul. How are you?”
The greeting was delivered in perfect col oquial Sangheili but with that weak-minded child’s pronunciation. The last person Jul was expecting was Phil ips. The worm strode in with his teeth bared and face contorted as if he expected Jul to be pleased to see him again. He was smiling.
Magnusson accompanied him with an extra chair.
“Philliss,” Jul said. Contain your contempt. Be serene. He faced the two humans across the table. “I’m better now. Have you come to show me more puzzles?”
“In a way.” Phil ips leaned on his elbows and meshed his fingers. He seemed to have aged a lot in the brief time since Jul had last seen him. His eyes looked more weary of the things he saw, and he was wearing a faded black military working suit like the humans around the base, except it had no insignia. It looked as if he’d worn it for years. But Jul knew he’d been a scholar until very recently. “I’ve been to Vadam and Ontom. You knew that the Arbiter invited me to Sanghelios, didn’t you? Wel , I visited the temple in Ontom, and I’m translating the inscriptions from the wal s. So they’ve let me look around here for the last couple of days to see if I can work out some more.”
“Where’s your pet AI?”
“BB? He’s not here. If I start relying on an AI for everything, my brain wil rust.”
“You’re intel igent enough to cope without him,” Jul said. The last things he’d said to Phil ips hadn’t been flattering. He’d ranted, threatened, and cal ed him a nishum. If he was too kind to the human, suspicions would be raised. “But then you could always do tricks to deceive me. Did you solve many arum puzzles?”
Phil ips spread his hands and laughed. “Oh, dozens. People kept bringing them to me to see how long it took me to open them. I love those things. I even opened a portal in the temple with one.”
Portal. Jul tried not to react. This was the point of al this social nonsense, then, to flush out his intentions.
“And it led you here,” Jul said careful y.
“Actual y, I ended up in a field in Acroli, which wasn’t where it was supposed to go.” His half-smile faded for a moment then returned, a little less natural than it had been. “But it was educational.”
Jul felt the world change around him. He wasn’t prepared for his reaction. Phil ips tossed place-names around: Ontom, Acroli, Vadam. It hurt.
That’s my home. Those places are mine. You can’t have them. For a moment, he ful y expected Phil ips to come to the point—to reveal that he’d visited Mdama and been to Bekan keep, just to taunt Jul about meeting his clan and to watch Jul’s reaction.
He didn’t, though. He didn’t mention Mdama at al . He didn’t even ask Jul a sly but leading question to lure him into discussing such things. Jul felt very alone again, and missed Raia more than he’d ever imagined possible.
“And the uprising?” Jul asked.
Phil ips looked much more serious. “A lot of Sangheili have died. The Arbiter’s taken losses but he’s stil in charge. I imagine it’l continue.”
“My family don’t know where I am.”
“I can’t tel them, I’m afraid. You know that.”
“Find out if Raia is wel . I know you can use your contacts to ask.”
“If I can, I wil .” Phil ips tilted his head on one side and looked down. He seemed to be staring at Jul’s belt. “Did you decorate that yourself? I never noticed the symbols before.”
Jul leaned back and looked down at the belt. “I’m trying to read the language, too.”
“The teacher.” Phil ips pointed. “There was a lot about the teacher in the temple.”
Teacher? It was the Didact’s symbol. Phil ips was exceptional y clever with language and had access to sources on Sanghelios that not even a warrior like Jul had. It was time to turn the tables, as the humans would say. He would interrogate Phil ips, just as deceitful y, just as careful y, and see what else there was to learn.
