Primordium, p.20
Primordium, page 20
But I did not—not yet.
Walls descended around us, at first reflecting the jeweled eye, but then scenes and images played across their pale surfaces like sketches for yet more dreams.
Still, the old spirit refused to be cowed. We are here because some humans are immune to the Shaping Sickness. We carry that secret. And we have not yet given it up to them. If we do, we die!
But the inner voice was overwhelmed by a blaze of animal hunger. All sober judgment and thought was squeezed tight, then crammed down.
The walls finished sketching, painting, then projecting a place in which we could all be comfortable and at home.
An even greater lie.
TWENTY-SEVEN
WE WALKED THROUGH a forest of old, dignified trees, then over a meadow of sun-dappled grass, lulled by the buzzing of passing insects—none of which tried to bite.
At the center of the warm glade rose a long, thick wooden table. Spread across that table were all the glorious foods we had smelled before, when we rode on the … the what?
Vinnevra ran ahead and took a middle seat on a bench, then smiled sympathetically at Mara. The ape ambled forward willingly enough, but she gave me a look that seemed both wise, cautious—and doubtful.
Still, there was food, there was sun.
The ape joined Vinnevra, squatting behind her, and the girl passed her a bowl of fruit, which she delicately pinched up with thick fingers, then chewed on thoughtfully.
I walked around the table and sat across from Vinnevra. Pulling forward a large bowl, and then a smaller one, I served up Riser stewed grain, vegetables, and sliced meat, roasted to perfection and sprinkled with salt. Hot, rich, delicious.
Riser, strangely, seemed only half-present, but for the moment that did not alarm me. From the corner of my eye, I saw him eating and was glad; but I could not make out his expression.
“It’s been a long journey, hasn’t it?” Vinnevra said, flashing me a happy smile.
This forest was little like the forests I had known, thornier and drier. The sun was high and bright and the sky was just the correct shade of blue, and there was no …
Sky bridge.
We ate until we could eat no more, and then decided to leave the table to sit in the shade of a broad-spreading, thick-leafed giant of a tree that rose almost high enough to touch the passing clouds. For a while, I knew we had indeed returned to Erde-Tyrene, as Vinnevra had suggested we would.
“Too bad Gamelpar couldn’t be here,” I said.
She gave me a quizzical look. “But he is.”
I accepted that. “Where are all the others?” I asked around the table.
Riser—off to one side—did not answer.
Vinnevra kept smiling. “They’re here, too. We’ll meet them soon. Isn’t this wonderful?”
The daylight turned to dusk as it always had on Erde-Tyrene, high clouds pink and orange, then purple, brown, and gray. Stars came out.
Look at the patterns of the stars. This is not—
The moon rose. The others found beds in the soft grass and moss and rolled up and slept, except for myself and Mara, who moved away from Vinnevra and closer to me, grumbling deep in her chest.
The moon, bright and green, watched over us until my own eyes closed.
* * *
And then the great green eye probed deep, reminding me, with a strange enthusiasm, that we had met before. The Master Builder had conducted that first interview, with the help of this green-eyed ancilla, a very different sort from the lesser monitors and servile ancillas.
The ancilla proudly informed me—and by transfer, the Lord of Admirals—that it had indeed been placed in charge of this wheel, and ultimately of all Forerunner defenses.
It informed us it was quite capable of lying.
And then it played.
Whether it actually moved us about the wheel and made us live through other journeys, or simply scratched over our memories with fabricated dreams, I will never know. It certainly had the power to do both. And the freedom. It no longer served either the Master Builder or Forerunners.
Whom does it serve now?
The orb was approaching—time must be short. Still, the master of the wheel distracted me—did not allow me to use my powers of reason.
All the journeys and years ended with a burst of pain—immense pain.
And then, the old spirit was gone.
SCIENCE TEAM ANALYSIS: Separate streams of data follow, differing substantially from those connected to the Lord of Admirals. Analysis not yet complete, but we suggest skepticism as to their veracity and usefulness.
ONI COMMANDER: “None of this seems to be trustworthy. It’s almost a sure thing that we’re being fed fabrications. And if not—how can we even begin to correlate these so-called memories with actual events, after a hundred thousand years?”
SCIENCE TEAM LEADER: “I cannot disagree, but we still find, scattered throughout, curious correlations with recent discoveries.”
ONI COMMANDER: “Little bits of bait making us swallow the whole damned lie, right?”
SCIENCE TEAM LEADER: “Possibly.”
STRATEGY TEAM ADVISOR: “We’re interested in the references to this ‘subverted AI.’ We already have records reclaimed—so to speak—from variations of what may very well be that Forerunner artifact.”
ONI COMMANDER: “Nothing but trouble!”
STRATEGY TEAM LEADER: “True, but we’re likely going to encounter more like it. Any insight this monitor can provide will be greatly appreciated.”
ONI COMMANDER: “I’d still like to focus on the Didact.”
SCIENCE TEAM LEADER: “Gentlemen, I’ve been skipping ahead a little. Let’s move forward in the record. I doubt any of you will be disappointed.”
ONI COMMANDER: “None of us is pleasant company, Professor, when we’re disappointed.”
SCIENCE TEAM LEADER: “Duly noted, sir.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
I SPENT A hundred years walking in circles.
Questions were asked. I could not remember either the questions or my answers. I could not even remember who was asking. Slowly, however, I recalled certain memories. Some were acceptable; others were not, and I pushed them back down.
* * *
Finally, I opened my eyes to a great stretch of star-filled space, at the center of which hung a huge, red and gray sphere, tormented by craters—an icy planet. Impacts over millions of millennia had carved a wolf onto the surface. I might have been out in space, suspended just like this orb.
Then my point of view swiveled and dropped. I looked down over a wide swath of the wheel, the Halo, as if from a high mountain. I was told I was witnessing part of what was sometimes called the Silent Cartographer—the complete and living record of the Halo. Those who would help rescue and then use the wheel were allowed to explore and learn in this place.
More memories returned. The band below swept up and away in the familiar fashion to the sky bridge. Many hundreds of kilometers below, huge squares—plates of gray-blue Halo foundation material—were being maneuvered by machines over the limiting walls on either side of the band, stacking up through the atmosphere, while cloudy swirls of interrupted weather gathered around the lowest plates.
The Halo was preparing for its coming challenge.
I felt nothing—took no breath, experienced no sensation. Only cold thought left me any hope of still being alive. Still, I came to enjoy this isolation. No feeling, no pain—only education and watchful eyes.
Then I also heard voices. A kind of selective blindness lifted and I realized I was standing—leaning slightly to one side, but standing. The red and gray world blocking out the stars, so near to the wheel, remained—as did the stars and the wheel itself. But beneath my feet, I became aware of a dark platform, and then, of shadows—many shadows moving in.
A smaller shadow came close, stretched out a blurry hand—and all came into focus. I looked out upon dozens of people—humans all, some like me, many others different.
Riser gripped my fingers. I knelt and took him in my arms. He whined at my touch. “Hurts,” he said, and turned around to show a punched-out mark in his back—healed over, but furless, pink and angry looking. “Stung deep.”
I felt my own back and cringed at the shallow hole my fingers found. I pulled them back, expecting to see blood—but they were dry.
Male and female, we were all naked. Most looked as old as Gamelpar had been before he died. Only a few were as young as me. Few words passed. We stood out under the stars, caught in the light of the red and gray planet, rapidly closing the distance between itself and the wheel.
“Who brought us here?” I asked Riser. He circled his fingers and looped them in front of his eyes.
“Green-eye,” he said.
The closest male, a tall, elderly, brown-skinned fellow with a short jaw and thick neck, tried to say a few words, but I could not understand him. No old spirit rose up to interpret and Riser himself—master of so many human languages—didn’t understand, either.
A female gently pushed the elder aside and spoke simply and in broken phrases, like a child, but at least I could understand her. “You the last,” she said. “All … others … little ago, little time. But you last.”
Then she turned and revealed that in the small of her wrinkled, suntanned back, a chunk had also been removed … and healed over.
The younger members came forward. The elders parted and let them through, and Riser approached them, sniffing and judging in that way he had, which I never mistrusted.
Then he darted off and vanished for a moment among the crowd of elders.
These younger men and women—there were no children—gathered and compared their healed wounds. Some seemed embarrassed by their nakedness, others, not. Some were glassy-eyed, terrified into muteness, but others, as if at a signal, began chattering away. I was surrounded by five or six very communicative men and four or five women. Somehow I had been singled out, perhaps because I was the last to arrive, or the last to wake up.
Their faces fascinated me, but nowhere among them could I find Vinnevra. A few resembled Gamelpar, purple dark of skin and reddish brown of hair, with broad, flat faces and warm, intelligent eyes.
But Vinnevra was not here.
Age. Diversity. Very few young. That gave me my first shallow clue. Then Riser returned, dragging with him three other chamanush—a male and two females. On Erde-Tyrene, I had found females of Riser’s people to be quiet and reclusive, until they had made firm acquaintance—and then, all too familiar, quick to poke and make rude inquiries, nothing off limits, everything either wonderful or funny. I had never been quite sure how to deal with Riser’s women, or his female relatives—on those few occasions when I interacted with them—for Riser seldom invited me to his home, and seemed to prefer going out on jobs with me and his other young hamanush minions.
But now he had two females in tow, of that ageless puzzlement of chamanush years. Chamanush grizzled in their adolescence but seldom turned all gray or white, as my people did.
“Everyone is missing bits,” Riser told me. His companions stood a few paces back, nostrils flexing, watching the rest of the crowd. They held hands, and one gestured for Riser to join them. He backed away from me, but nodded meaningfully, eager to convey something important. We could barely hear each other in the rising babble, so he signed out: All from Erde-Tyrene. Younger fell from sky with us. Old ones brought here long ago.
Others gathered around, too tightly for my comfort, but I did not discourage them or express any distress—for the story was coming out, the familiar story, that within them they had all once had old spirits, old warriors, each distinctive and opinionated.
To a one, young and old, those inner voices were now silent.
I tried not to conspicuously stare at the missing pieces of their backs when they turned, raised their arms, gestured. But I could not help myself. All of us on that wide-open, elevated platform—under that looming planet and starry sky, looking out over the stretch of Halo that had been the home of so many for so long—every single one of us had been wounded, sampled—“stung deep.” We all limped, old and young—and we all cringed when we moved.
But the important question, immediate and crucial, was, why were we here? What did the machine master of the wheel intend for us? For I had little doubt that Riser was correct, that the green-eyed ancilla was behind all this. Did that mean it was now allied with the Didact, or with the Librarian, the Lifeshaper herself?
Had the wheel been reclaimed by the Lady?
Something else was missing in my thoughts, something that made all these theories pointless. I seemed to have misplaced a memory about a child. There was a child.… The child was in control … held sway over the green-eyed machine. We had been introduced!
But I could not remember its name, and I certainly could not remember its shape.
TWENTY-NINE
THE GROUP PARTED to open a passage. They craned their necks to see what was coming, rising over the edge of the platform. I caught a flash of brilliant green. A monitor—larger than any I had seen so far, at least two meters wide—came into view and moved between the parted humans.
“Welcome to our installation’s new command center,” it said in a beautiful, musical voice neither male nor female, nor much like a Forerunner’s.
All of us, young and old, were pushed back by invisible forces until a circle cleared in the middle, about thirty paces across. As Riser and I were nudged back, I remembered the moments on the Didact’s ship when the entire hull seemed to vanish, giving us the sickening sensation of being suspended in space.
At least here there was the gentle mercy of a floor—a deck, as the Lord of Admirals would have called it.
“All bid welcome,” the beautiful voice said, “to the new masters of this installation.”
At the center of our ring of frightened people, a number of hatches slid wide in the floor, and through these rose more monitors—smaller but otherwise almost indistinguishable from the large one. Each had a single glowing green eye. As they rose, the hatches closed up beneath.
There were now more than forty monitors crowded inside the circle, surrounded by humans old and young. All stood out in sharp detail against the deep backdrop of stars and the ever-growing red and gray planet, which now covered a third of the sky.
The nearest of these new monitors pulled up before Riser and myself. It projected an image I instantly recognized—though I had never seen him before, not through my external eyes.
Male. Human. I looked the image over cautiously, closely, noting that his shape was similar to mine, though broader in shoulders and thighs; arms long and powerful-looking; hands thick and backed with patches of hair. A flatter, broader head and a great, square jaw.
“A strange reacquaintance,” the image said.
Unlike us, he appeared in raiment traditional for a high-ranking commander in the old human fleets: a rounded helmet that covered all but the forehead and the ears, a short coat over armor plates, a wide belt cinched just below the ribs, and form-fitting pants that revealed a bulging shield around the genitalia, which might, it seemed to me, have been more than a little exaggerated.
Like the ancillas, he was translucent—a ghost of a ghost, a whispering within made manifest without, like Genemender back in the Lifeworkers’ preserve. Yet having carried him within me for so long, I would have recognized him anywhere.
This was Forthencho, the Lord of Admirals.
“We’re being given command,” the image said. “Believe this. It is true. The time for our victory has arrived.”
Riser touched my hand. I broke from my fascination to glance down at the little one. He clenched his jaw and made a small shake of his head. His meaning was clear enough. He was incapable of further judgment or action. We had both been carried so far beyond any human wisdom or experience that any move we made—anything we might say or do—was equally likely to produce a good outcome or a bad—equally likely to pull us deeper into Forerunner madness, or propel us out and up.
The image of the Lord of Admirals continued. “We have been carried by these descendants, our vessels, for many years. And now we are brought here, for this moment, by a machine that has long since turned against Forerunners. It wishes us to defeat them—to cause them misery and dismay. And so we shall!
“But there is no way yet to know our total strength, or how far we may go … with our new command, but this we do know, finally: after ten thousand years, we have a chance to avenge our cruel mistreatment.
“We have urgent work to do all around this infernal wheel,” the Lord of Admirals continued. “Forerunners have cocked things up magnificently before having the grace to kill each other or die of the Shaping Sickness they wished to communicate to us. The wheel itself is in jeopardy. There is little time, and so extreme measures have been authorized.”
The larger monitor rose up, a faint display of lacework energies playing across its features. It hovered over us all—the inner circle of machines and the outer of the humans.
All around, the apparent openness of stars and planet was overlaid by vivid, glowing displays. The sky became like the inside of one of the old caves, filled with instructive images and stories masterfully tuned to our ignorant needs. I seemed to both see and feel a sharply defined awareness of how we all needed to behave, to act in concert.
The image of the Lord of Admirals favored me with particular attention. “You have a decent mind, young human,” he said. “We have traveled well together. I will place you beside me at the center of this weapon’s control and command. If together we can save this Halo, then we will use it to strike against the heart of Forerunner defenses. But the time between now and then will be very difficult.”
