by Kelly Gay
“Come on, let’s go before he decides to go off half-cocked again,” Rion muttered, lowering her weapon.
Like the others, the monitor was spherical and made of similar alloy as the armiger, though the metal appeared subdued and time-worn. It bore striking similarities to the images of 343 Guilty Spark that Rion had seen, except its three sides were not concaved and open, but closed and bulging slightly outward. Its central eye, or lens, beamed a blue scan over first Spark, and then Rion as she approached, followed by Ram.
Ram went stiff as the light swept over him. “What the hell is happening?”
“I am scanning you, human,” the monitor answered with a pleasant female tone. Once its scans were complete, it focused on Spark. “You have no designation, construct. Please state your designation.”
“I have none because I need none,” Spark replied arrogantly. “But if you must know, I am former monitor 04-343 Guilty Spark.”
The blue beam from its lens scanned him again. “This form is most inappropriate. Where is your carapace? And why are you not attending your installation?”
“Installation 04 was destroyed. Where is 117649 Despondent Pyre?”
“Everywhere and nowhere,” it answered with a wistful note. “I am Submonitor Adjutant Veridity. You may call me Veridity.”
With the creatures gone, signals were restored on the ship. Rion’s comms and gauntlet lit up with data alerts as Ace’s ramp disengaged, spilling interior light onto the platform. Oh, thank God. The wave of relief was so strong it propelled her right past the monitor. She could feel Veridity’s eye on her as she passed. Spark, since he seemed keen on making critical decisions all by himself, could deal with the monitor. Rion was desperate to check on her crew.
Ram caught up with her. “You think he’ll be okay back there?”
“I’m sure he can handle it.”
As the ramp continued to lower, Lessa and Niko came into view, elbows linked, waiting to disembark. A dazed and shocked aura surrounded them, but they’d had the wherewithal to visit the locker room and arm themselves first. Pride filled Rion as they limped down the ramp, leaning on each other for support, and onto the pathway, getting their bearings, taking stock.
“You guys all right?” Rion immediately noticed the fresh bruise on the bridge of Lessa’s nose, and the blackening already under her eyes. Her hair was a wild halo of blond curls, and the freckles across her face stood in stark contrast to her pale skin. She started crying when she met Rion’s gaze.
Shit.
Rion’s throat tightened. “You gave us a scare.” It might be a lame thing to say, but she found words were suddenly hard to come by. Lessa threw herself in Rion’s arms, hugging so forcefully it sent Rion back a few steps. Part of her wanted to let her guard down, to hold on to both of them, but she moved Lessa back to get a good look at her instead. “You hurt anywhere else?”
Lessa’s baby blues were as wide as plates, the pupils dilated. “I think I have a concussion and my knees hurt my face or my face hurt my knees. I don’t know.…”
Ram was lifting Niko’s dark hair from his forehead to inspect a pretty nasty gash at his hairline. The kid looked lost, like he had no idea where he was or how he’d gotten there. His stunned expression would have been comical if he weren’t bleeding from the head and chin. His vest was hanging off one shoulder, and the extra magazines he’d brought along weren’t compatible with the plasma rifle he held in a death grip.
“Let’s get you two into the med bay,” Ram said, guiding Niko back toward the ramp.
“We were able to strap in right as we fell…,” Lessa stammered as Rion helped her into the ship.
In the hold, Ram pulled Rion to the side. “I got this. I’ll run them through the med scanner, tend their wounds, and start in on Ace. You should probably go check on Spark. The sooner we can deal with his key, the sooner we can get off Zeta.”
At Rion’s hesitation his eyes flashed with warmth. “I’ll take good care of all three of them, don’t worry,” he said with a wink.
When she rejoined Spark, he was already heading her way with the monitor, who was chatting up a storm.
“… and so the tullioc were brought here from their native world,” Veridity was telling him. “Only a few specimens had survived the war, and these escaped during the mists, the time after the firing of the array. The mists kept their numbers minuscule, but now their infestation has grown to tens of thousands.”
“Can’t you reduce their numbers?” Rion asked.
Veridity swung around swiftly. “We would never reduce their numbers.” Clearly that had offended the monitor.
“Even when they attack unprovoked, like what happened with my ship?”
“Oh, but you did provoke them. When you burned through the jarda leaves. The tullioc lay their eggs beneath the leaves. The eggs hatch and the larvae drop into the substructure, where they make their way to the crystals to feed. The minerals within the crystal are their food source. When they absorb enough, they cocoon inside the hollows they created during feeding. There they stay, developing their wings, gaining their luminescence, until they break free, becoming the long-tailed, winged tullioc that justifiably attacked your ship.”
Well, that certainly accounted for the attack. They had stirred up the creatures without meaning to. “It was not our intention to harm anything,” she told the monitor. “We came”—she wasn’t sure how much to reveal, but Spark gave her an encouraging nod—“to find the Cartographer.”
“Ah!” Veridity exclaimed happily. “Then it is quite fortuitous that you found it.”
“Well, we did… but it was in ruins.”
“Where is the current Cartographer?” Spark asked.
That’s right, Rion remembered. The Cartographer always survived, moved from facility to facility if necessary.
Veridity pivoted to indicate the ominous black towers. “Right there, inside the cluster.”
“Is it operational?”
“Fully. Shall I escort you, 04-343?”
Spark turned his blue gaze on Rion.
“We’re already here,” she said, answering the unspoken question. “Might as well finish it. Lead the way, Veridity.” As they followed the monitor, Rion hit her comm. “Hey, Ram, you copy?”
“Go ahead, Cap.”
“Status on the crew?”
“Some big bumps and bruises, but they’ll both be fine. Mild concussions. Took care of Niko’s gash, and Lessa’s nose is fractured, but we’ve already set it and they’ve gotten a good dose of nano-meds.”
“Good. And Ace?”
“Working on that too.”
She wanted to know particulars, but knew it would only weigh on her mind, so she tabled it until she returned. “Spark and I are headed into the cluster. Apparently, there’s a Cartographer site inside.”
“Roger that.”
As she walked past the length of her ship, she noted every exterior imperfection. Landing gear was busted, ablative coating shot all to hell, antenna and a few sensors snapped… Some obvious structural damage, though starships were meant to take a beating, and Titanium-A plating was as tough as they came. Hopefully, they could get her starworthy enough to make it in for repairs.
“She’ll fly, Captain,” Spark said beside her.
Surprised, she noticed he was also focused on the ship as they passed. “Let’s hope, or we’re stuck here until she does.”
And what a sobering thought that was.
“We would be happy to assist you,” Veridity said. “I shall send help immediately.”
Instant fear ground Rion’s forward momentum to a halt. She wasn’t letting anything she didn’t trust into her ship.
Spark stepped in. “Do not worry. I will handle this.”
If by handling, he meant staring at Veridity for several seconds as it stared right back.
“All settled,” he quipped as though it were a done deal. The monitor resumed its lead toward the cluster.
“What do you mean, ‘settled
’?”
“I have accepted help on your behalf, set guidelines for repairs, and notified Ram to expect assistance. I will remain in contact throughout, overseeing their work. There is nothing to concern yourself with.”
“Nothing to concern myself with? Are you serious?” It was her ship!
“Perhaps I could have said that better,” he admitted. “You have no reason to trust them, but you may trust me. You do trust me, don’t you, Captain?”
She was still getting used to the modifications that Spark’s upgrade seed had made, and the last thing she wanted was more changes. But, once they used the key, Rion wanted out of here pronto, and unless they had help, they’d be here too long for her liking.
“Fine. Just see that you remain in contact at all times. If we get any interference again, I want to know immediately.” Ram was going to love this new development.
“Of course.”
As they drew closer to the cluster, much of it blended into the darkness. What she could see loomed over them. Black fractal crystal rose in a multitude of heights, some hundreds of meters high with girths as wide as city blocks. A few tullioc clung to some of the lower peaks, allowing her to see their shiny black eyes and the softly glowing hue of their wings.
“Something this big had to have an equally big purpose,” she remarked.
“It once served as the old heart of Mendicant Bias,” Spark told her as they entered the city via a wide central avenue that appeared out of the crystal itself. It made Rion wonder if it possessed similar properties to Spark’s machine cells or to the pod they’d used. Some kind of advanced intuitive crystal seemed entirely possible when put in context.
“That is correct, 04-343,” Veridity said, overhearing. “The IsoDidact purged the ancilla’s core from the crystals long ago. The cluster had many uses and was part of the ring’s original design, long before that particular ancilla came along. Now that we are a third of our original size and many sites, facilities, and functions were shed, there is no need for a storage facility and power source of such magnitude, though we make use of it still.
“It serves many new functions, a place for the tullioc, the site of our new Cartographer, and as the archive we call the Monument.”
“The Monument?” Spark inquired.
The monitor spun in a circle, sending its light reflecting through the black crystals nearby as they passed. “Why, yes! Do you approve? The civil war on this ring left us with an overabundance of essences and imprints.” Veridity led them down another path, this one narrower than the wide avenue. “They were everywhere. Submonitors and custodians confined in damaged carapaces, roaming lost through the ring’s networks, trapped in ruined power stations and facilities… Composed humans loosed from damaged storage devices, their digital imprints overflowing into support systems, their memories and emotions causing havoc.
“After the firing of the array, we spent the ensuing centuries gathering them, giving them a new home large enough for all, a safe place to rest. Billions of lives lost over countless millennia are stored here in crystal, taken from data, logs, imprints, fragments, events, research, experiments… all of them collected, cataloged, and archived. As instructed, we have kept watch. Our only deviation in course was to purify the atmosphere and end the shroud of mist over our Halo.”
“Why did you do that?” Spark asked.
“To encourage the survival of the tullioc and other species. After careful study, we discovered that in feeding on the crystal, the creatures were absorbing some of the data stored here. There has been too much death, so we do not harm the tullioc, for in them now lies the memory of thousands.”
“Who instructed you to keep watch?” Rion asked.
“Creating and keeping watch over the Monument was a directive from the IsoDidact and the Librarian. This way. We are almost there.”
CHAPTER 16
Spark
After I survived the near collision with the wolf planet, my final days on Installation 07 and its subsequent arrival to the greater Ark are steeped in shadow. The Librarian and the IsoDidact reunited there for a time, and the Ark became my place to mourn and heal and come to terms with my newly acquired machine nature.
How does one heal a mind without a body?
Still retaining my human memories, I became Monitor Chakas, rewarded with the task of looking after the Librarian’s population of humans on the Ark while the IsoDidact eventually returned to the Council and the Librarian continued her conservation work across the galaxy. Of course, our tale was not over, and the tide of war would carry us into one another again.
Just as the tides have curiously returned me here to the old heart of Mendicant Bias.
I follow behind the cheerful Submonitor Veridity and Rion, intentionally hanging back, absorbing the past but also attempting to remember the shadow time I am missing.
I call ahead, “Tell us about the Librarian’s time here.”
“Of course! Much of her time was spent creating the Cartographer and setting the parameters for the Monument; giving us purpose after so much of our purpose was lost.”
“What was your purpose before?” Rion inquires.
“Most tended the living populations. Many species were spread across the ring, some very small groups… but others rose to great civilizations and built equally great cities. We had a very long history together, often caretaking our charges through numerous generations of families. Other monitors were station attendants, rail attendants, or held administrative and custodial functions. When the ring was brought to the Ark, the IsoDidact dictated that this installation would no longer continue human conservation measures. No humans meant no purpose.
“But the Librarian, ever the great preserver and debater, said the dead and dying should not be forgotten or unattended; they would be gathered and stored here as a reminder and a record.” Veridity spins around. “There’s no reason for them to run amuck!” she says happily, then, “He called it a tomb. But she called it a Monument.”
All around us I begin to see the towers of black crystal differently.
They are alive with memories and essences like ghosts in a fishbowl of black glass. Only this glass rises as tall as skyscrapers, creating alleys and streets, intersections and wide avenues. We weave a mazelike path through this strange city, the tullioc and their glowing wings and cocoons casting the streets in the darkest violet light.
Rion’s head tips back repeatedly as she walks, trying to take it all in. Occasionally her hand reaches out and skims along the black surface where shadowy images respond—a bizarre mix of diaphanous code and picture, appearing and disappearing with a languid pace.
I want this place to feel wrong, so the anger and desire to raze it all to the ground is justified, but this so-called Monument is not what I expected. It is surprisingly reverent and considerate—another worthy and sympathetic program distinctly emblematic of the Supreme Lifeshaper.
We, too, saved lives, she and I. For a time.
But the number saved will never measure up to those we took, I’m afraid.
In a way, the essences stored here had reached their own version of the Sangheili Hall of Eternity, their names and history preserved in crystal while the monitors safeguard the site, tend the memories, and pay homage to the dead.
A somber shrine below while life flourishes above.
Ram was right. It is a true underworld.
I cannot help but view these archived remnants from my own strange mortality and wonder if this is what I have become as well. A relic. Memory survived. Not dead, not alive, but trapped somewhere in the middle. Is my place here in the past with them, or is it to walk among the living to only bear witness as they perish, while I endure? Is that my penance? Or my reward?
“Hey…”
Rion is gazing up at me, concern written in the buckled lines across her forehead. It is clear she has come back to question why I have stopped. I did not realize I had. The monitor is several meters down the violet-lit street, waiting.
“Yes. No.” I shake my head. “I do not know. This place…” I reach out and place the tip of my alloy finger on the crystal, increasing the intensity of my hard light. It illuminates outward, sending light through the surface, and revealing within floating code arranged in whimsical lines and images—moments in time—that appear and disappear. “It makes me question my existence, my purpose.”
I pull back from the wall as Rion steps closer and lays a hand on my arm. My heart aches, and I wish just this once that I could feel it. “She left the key to you. Across all this time and opportunity, it was you she chose.” Her lips purse with thought. “Aren’t you the Finger of the First Man, the keeper and protector of the record of humanity?”
“That does have a nice ring to it.”
“The ring of purpose,” she wisely replies. “This place is full of ghosts. It could bring anyone down. Come on—let’s get to this Cartographer and see what she left you.”
“Your memory is impressive, Captain,” I say, following. She has remembered the tale of Gamelpar I once told her and the crew. It was he, the elder I met on this very ring, who spoke of the First Human, he who carried the souls of all his descendants to come in a finger as tall as a tree.
She turns, grins, and taps her temple. “Memory like an elephant.”
“Mm.” Welcome to my world.
We reach the center of the cluster, where the alley spills us into a large circular area. Several hexagonal crystals seventeen meters high, spaced four meters apart, have been erected around the perimeter. In the center stands the familiar Forerunner architecture that serves as the Cartographer and a few structures that are new to me.
“This place was her idea too,” the monitor tells us. “There is another functional site closer to the surface, half a ring away. This serves as a silent cartographer.” Veridity spins so that her lens faces me. “An ideal place for such a name. Or is it an ideal name for such a place?”
I ignore her and approach the terminal. Access is immediate.
Instantly a map appears suspended in the air above us, showing a navigable blueprint of the entire Halo ring. The complete history of the installation resides here. Linked, as I am, the information flows like an unending feast, a long injection of nutrients to my hungry core.