Primordium, p.21
Primordium, page 21
Symbols and curving lines surrounded the wolf-faced planet. All of us tried hard to understand, as if our lives depended on that understanding—as very likely they did.
The lines swept like an expanding tunnel toward the far curve of the wheel—a point of intersection.
Now appeared a dizzyingly strange and complicated set of instructions for creating a portal—a broad gate like a hole in space, through which great distances could be shrunk to almost nothing.
I watched a detailed record—reality, simulation, or reenactment, I could not tell which—of the Halo shedding damaged bits, leaving behind broken ships and a spreading, radiating cloud of atmosphere, ocean, terrain—and then opening just such a portal, and beginning a passage to comparative safety, where it would repair itself—or be supplied with materials transported from another installation, much greater in scale and much farther away—to rebuild, if necessary.
At the same time, from all around, I heard a low moaning sound, as if from a gathering of frightened livestock.
“After this wheel was transported to the Forerunner capital system, and the metarch-level ancilla prepared to unleash its energies on the capital world itself, it was attacked by Forerunner fleets and defended by its own sentinels—a battle that resulted in much of the destruction we see around us. The wheel was moved again, a tremendous effort, but the Lifeworkers and many of the Builders who had survived continued to fight. They did all they could to destroy this installation from within. They failed. One and all, they were finally infected with the Shaping Sickness.”
Much of this I had learned from Genemender. Still, the implications plunged deep. The green-eyed intelligence knew us too well. My hatred against Forerunners reached a pitch of intensity that almost blew me out of the presentation.
The Lord of Admiral’s voice gathered certainty and strength. “Now that the Forerunners have succumbed, either in battle or from the Shaping Sickness, they have left behind just a few confused servants—and many, many humans, awaiting a new time, a new mandate.
“And that mandate is: avenge the fallen. Rise from defeat, rise from the dead!”
A great resonance hammered us with ancient instincts, reawakened emotions—and a desire to rectify ten thousand and more years of death, misery, and near extinction.
“The promise is simple,” the Lord of Admirals announced. “Freedom. Support. Weapons unimagined in all our previous wars. Humans will fight Forerunners again—and defeat them!”
THIRTY
WHAT A RABBLE these words were addressed to! The elders and the few young stood alike in stunned silence, staring at the ghosts, projected and contained by machines much like those that had once populated Genemender’s reserve.
We had all carried one or more of these warrior spirits; we had all become acquainted, more or less, with their natures and opinions. Now we were being asked to accept them as commanders—to follow them into battle.
My first question was, why? What value, these old ghosts, to Forerunner machines? What value could I have?
Worse, I knew that the green-eyed master of the wheel was not actually in command—had not been in charge of the wheel for many decades. I knew, but could not act on my knowledge.
To do so would be to remember the encounter that had cost me a chunk of flesh and bone. The encounter with the child.
The Lord of Admirals seemed to hold the highest rank in this unnatural assembly. His ghost stepped forward and addressed me as if we were both physical.
“It’s our final chance to reclaim history,” he said. Had he been real, I think he would have tried to grasp my shoulder. As it was, his hand swept empty air. I saw in his faltering expression that he perceived himself fully capable of reaching out and touching.… And I felt pity.
For a moment, the illusion broke.
I knew that the green-eyed machine was itself evil, and not just to humans. It had betrayed its own creators. It was in league with the Primordial. But how was that possible? In the years since the devastating test at Charum Hakkor, how could the Primordial have done so much to subvert this wheel-shaped world and its mechanical servant?
A few meters away, Riser faced off against the projection of a blocky-looking female, stout as a bull. Yprin Yprikushma, no doubt. From his wry, white-lidded expression, I could tell he was not impressed.
I always trusted Riser’s judgment.
The unreality of it all made me sick. We had been through too much to fall for more illusions, Riser and I. We knew that before now, all Forerunner magic—all of the tricks and wonders they called engineering or technology—had been used to reduce and then destroy humans—yet we were now being asked, commanded, by our ancestors, these old ghosts, to believe that in this one instance, we would carry out the will of a greater Forerunner machine, simply because it had gone mad and set out to destroy its masters.
My weakness almost brought me to my knees. I wobbled before the projection, holding out my hands to keep my balance. “You aren’t real,” I told the Lord of Admirals. “I wonder if you were ever real.”
Suddenly I could not hear what the others were saying. The air around us became tight and still. We—the projected ghost and me—seemed locked in a box.
“I’m as real as I have ever been,” Forthencho told me.
“Since you died?”
The air became harder and harder to breathe. The walls of the “box” were getting misty as if from the fog of my breath. I couldn’t see the others, only this one projection, and his monitor in shadow behind him.
More tricks—more persuasion. Would I be suffocated if I did not comply?
“Why do they need us?” I asked.
“Not even a machine as powerful as the wheel’s master can do its work alone. You are alive. You can serve.”
“Humans? The last dregs of us that remain after so many Forerunner victories? We became animals. We were devolved—and only the Librarian thought enough of us to raise us back up again!”
“It doesn’t care!” the Lord of Admirals said. “The machine will do everything it can to destroy Forerunners. It knows that I have fought Forerunners before.”
“And lost.”
“But also learned! I have spent my time within you going over and over old battles, studying all our past failures, and now, I have full access to their new strategies! This wheel is but one of the weapons at our disposal—if we join.
“Out there, awaiting our commands, in many orbits around thousands of other worlds, in other star systems, are reserves of tens of thousands of ships of war—and more Halos. We will be irresistible!”
The spirit’s enthusiasm had an acid tinge that almost made suffocation preferable to agreement. So be it, I thought. I held out my hand and then fell against the moist barrier that hemmed us in.
I seemed to see through this sham to the Captive, the Primordial itself.…
I was fading. Illusion passed into illusion—and I preferred my own.
Mongoose, the trickster, I remembered, had been responsible for creating humanity. It was Mongoose who had convinced Mud to mate with Sun and breed worms, and then teased and angered the worms until they grew legs to chase him over the grasslands.
Worms became men.
The wheel’s green-eyed master was a bit of a trickster, like Mongoose, playing jokes upon the humorless gods known as Tree and River, Rock and Cloud.
I choked out some words, I don’t remember what.
The mist and the closeness flew up and away, and all around I again saw stars—but no other people.
No other machines. The old spirit’s projected image and I were alone under the stars.
I could not help but suck in a breath as cool air swirled around me.
“I have told the great machine that you are willing,” the Lord of Admirals said.
“But I’m not … willing!” I cried. Maybe I had agreed. Maybe I did not want to suffocate. Maybe I was just curious. I have always been too curious, and Riser was not here to correct me.
“Thirty others who carried warriors have chosen to join us in taking command of the wheel. Their courage reminds me of the—”
“Riser?” I interrupted.
“Very canny, that small one,” the Lord of Admirals said. “I would have enjoyed having his kind serve under me.”
“You don’t understand him at all,” I said, voice rough. My deep unease had intensified. I did not feel at all well.
“He will play this game for as long as it amuses,” the Lord of Admirals said, “and for as long as he has a chance of causing Forerunners dismay and pain. He also wishes to attack the Didact personally. This has been conveyed to me by my old opponent, Yprin.”
I knew that was a lie. In my weakness, I did not much care. I took a few stumbling steps around the platform, then straightened and focused on the red and gray world.
It seemed about to brush the sky bridge.
“We will be stationed at key controls to help maneuver this Halo. We have much work to do, yet even then, our chances are slim.” The Lord of Admirals seemed to be having misgivings. His hatred, he must have known, was blinding him to the strangeness of this bequest.
“So … do we have a deal, young human?” he asked. “For now?”
“What will happen if we survive?”
“We will spread out to the fleets and launch an attack against the heart of Forerunner civilization, in the Orion complex. Never in all our battles did we come within fifteen thousand light-years of that prize!”
Madness, pride, shame, the delusion of a new opportunity … What ghost, I asked myself, could pass up such a thing?
“You lied to the machine,” I said. “You told it I was willing.”
“The least I can do, young human,” the Lord of Admirals said. “I need you. And if you ever wish to go home again—you need me.”
And why else, I asked myself—why else did the Lord of Admirals or the master of the wheel need me? One possible answer: everything here might still center on the future actions of the Didact. I had met the Didact himself, had helped resurrect him from his Cryptum on Erde-Tyrene. I had spent many hours in his somber company. I had watched his ship dissolve and the Didact himself be captured by the forces of the Master Builder—captured and, very likely, executed.
But the Didact had also served as a template for Bornstellar. When we parted ways, Bornstellar had been looking more and more like the old Warrior-Servant. I wondered how that had turned out. He had not seemed happy at the change. Had they taken Bornstellar aside, carved a chunk of flesh from his back, and installed the Didact’s ghost into a machine?
Would we encounter that ghost and that machine, somewhere out there among the uncountable stars?
* * *
Surrounded by this magnificence, this power, this deception and cruelty, all I wanted was to reach back to our days on Erde-Tyrene—to shield myself, my naïve, young self, from ancient grudges and eternal evils.
In a dream, one can never go back. It took some time for me to realize it was already too late. I can’t put into words all that I felt. To be truthful, I no longer feel much of anything.
All that I was, but for reflections in a cracked mirror, has been lost for a long, long time.
THIRTY-ONE
STANDING BEFORE THE image of Forthencho, I knew that something inside me had also changed. I felt weaker, older—fading.
I pinched myself hard and felt almost nothing—no strength in my fingers. Very likely, we had been deceived into believing we were alone, so as not to witness the destruction of the braver individuals around us—those who refused to go along with the old ghosts and the green-eyed machine. Just another level of illusion.
My whirling thoughts settled into immediate questions.
“Why would Forerunner machines let themselves be run by humans?” I asked. My voice sounded thin and weak.
“Maybe they can be fooled,” the Lord of Admirals said. “Some say that deep in our flesh Forerunners and humans are related.”
I did not believe that, not then. “Have you received your orders directly from the machine?”
“There are many duplicates of command monitors, just as when humans fought Forerunners.”
My vision seemed to flick in and out from clarity to bright but foggy bars of light. “What convinced it to turn on its masters?”
I could not stop my damned curiosity from working even if it sapped my last remaining strength.
“Given too much power, or contradictory instructions. Full of itself, perhaps.”
Or convinced by forty-three years of intimate conversation with the Primordial.
Forthencho’s image wavered, then returned, larger and more solid-looking. “The machine does not hate Forerunners,” he continued. “But it knows they have been arrogant and need correction. And it takes an odd satisfaction in the prospect of having humans carry out that punishment.” The Lord of Admirals seemed to be growing into his role, just as I diminished. “This ancilla has more power than any previous command monitor. The Didact gave it complete control over Forerunner defenses. When the Master Builder assumed the Didact’s rank, he came to believe that he might be punished for his audacity as well as his crimes. If the Master Builder was to be arrested and imprisoned, then this ancilla would take revenge on his behalf. Perhaps it is doing so now.”
The Master Builder had layered safeguards within safeguards. The perversity of it all was dizzying. “Madness!” I said.
“But with much precedent in human history,” Forthencho said. “Many are the reasons we lost battles. Now, the machine acknowledges only one other who possesses the proper inception codes, and thus the power to stop it.”
“The Didact,” I said. And there it was again—the most likely reason I was being kept around.
“Perhaps. But the Didact appears to have been eliminated. And if he did not pass such knowledge on to you … then the machine is still safe.”
I wondered how much the ghost had studied my memory, how much he believed this to be true—and how much he was still holding back from the machine.
“Our first task is to reorient the wheel and survive the planet’s close passage. We have several hours to prepare, no more.”
Our illusion of isolation faded. We were no longer alone, but the platform was much less crowded. Flanked by monitors, we looked in dismay at each other. So few remained! The rest had defied the master of the wheel—and now they were gone. I caught a glimpse of Riser, many meters away, and was surprised he had chosen to cooperate—but also relieved.
Transports surrounded the high platform: sleek war sphinxes and other defensive vessels, as well as ships of different design—rounded, less aggressive-looking. These carried no obvious weapons and might have once been used by Lifeworkers.
“They are here to take us to command centers around the wheel,” the Lord of Admirals said.
“It can’t be controlled from one position?”
“Perhaps it can—perhaps it will be. But damage is inevitable and some of us must survive. We have a much better chance if we are spread out.”
“It’s going to be that close?”
“Far too late to avoid it completely. If the planet doesn’t strike one side or another and tear the wheel to shreds, it could still cause severe stress through its gravitational pull. Or—it could pass right through the middle of the hoop.”
“What are our chances then?”
“Unknown. Such a thing has never happened.”
The Lord of Admiral’s monitor pulled back his image and nudged me outward along the platform, toward a war sphinx. I had been aboard an older version of such a weapon, it seemed ages ago, and found this one familiar enough—a cramped but comfortable interior designed for a larger frame, but quite capable of adjusting itself to carry both me and the monitor.
The monitor found a comfortable cubby that opened in one bulkhead, and it settled in while I dropped back into the adjustable pads of a Forerunner couch.
Unlike the Didact’s war sphinxes on Erde-Tyrene, keeping vigil around his Cryptum, this one did not have a damaged warrior spirit. I detected no hint of personality in its cool, precise displays or its pronouncements and warnings. Forthencho’s monitor had either taken over those processes or they had been wiped earlier in the master machine’s purge of the Halo’s rebellious countermeasures. All previous loyalties, all trace of Forerunner ethics—such as they were—had likely been leached away, replaced by a devotedly bland yet singular madness.
We lifted from the platform, pushed through a barely visible membrane, and swept out and away over the inner surface of the Halo. For the first time, I was able to survey long stretches of the landscape between the parallel walls and track the overarching sky bridge from a rapidly moving and lofty perspective. But I was too numb, too cold inside, to see much in the way of magnificence or beauty.
If we survived, this Halo would return to being a killing machine. I could easily imagine the great wheel being sent to Erde-Tyrene.
And so, I reached my decision. I had to do everything in my power to make sure we did not survive. Of course, I could not tell Forthencho this. My understanding was now separated from his. Still, as he had suspected, his sophistication—his ability to judge complex situations—had stayed with me, along with, I hoped, a bit of his old courage, his old willingness to sacrifice himself for a higher cause.
If I succeeded, I would be killing many hundreds of thousands of our fellows.
I would be killing Vinnevra and Riser.
The war sphinx flew a zigzag, looping a course above and along the band. Wrapped in the pale couch, I felt no discomfort as we abruptly changed direction, rising and dropping—diving into the atmosphere, shooting up again like a leaping fish, spinning about to see our contrail twist and feather behind us in the upper air.
As we traveled, my weakness and numbness gave way to isolated, cool curiosity.
I did not care.
I admired the wheel. I saw how thick the walls were to either side, and how wide in proportion the great swath of lands between—brown or green, mountainous or flat, burned away or left as bare foundation material.
