by Various
The other officer returned the salute. “Major Kyle Stallock, out of the Nouveau Montreal colony.” He indicated the Sangheili and the Huragok in turn. “This is Yar ‘Dosaan, and our engineer friend there is Slight List. We’re real glad to find you here.”
“We believed this star system to be barren,” said the Elite, the words a crush of growls and hard sibilant noises. Leone couldn’t hide his shock; he’d never heard one of them speak a human language before. “It is only on the Engineer’s insistence that we decided to survey it.”
“Oh . . .” Despite herself, Aoife grinned as the Huragok drifted toward her and extended a tendril-like feeler to meet the woman’s outstretched hand. “Should we say thank you?”
“Should we?” echoed her brother, the last remnants of his resentment and dread still boiling away beneath the surface of the words. The clear challenge in his tone was unmistakable.
Yar ‘Dosaan’s pale, depthless eyes bored into the colonist, then flicked across Leone and the Spartan, dwelling on their visible weapons. “Do you expect conflict, humans?”
“Always,” said the Spartan, before Leone could reply. “But not today. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” said the alien, and at length he returned the inert sword to his belt.
“You’re the first human survivors we’ve come across in months.” A weary smile crossed Major Stallock’s face. “We needed a win.”
“Is that so?” Leone was still having trouble understanding how these three disparate life forms could be standing side by side without daggers drawn.
Stallock gave a nod and sighed. “I imagine you’ve got a lot of questions.”
“Nothing about this is what I expected,” said Aoife, as she offered Leone the hip flask.
He accepted it gratefully and took a long pull. He was getting a taste for the warm, hazy burn of the local liquor. “Roger that,” he replied.
The Covenant ship—or rather, the ex-Covenant light corvette Infinite Fire, recently rechristened The Lookout—was making final preparations to lift off, and a rare clear sky had blown in from the ocean. Leone watched the train of figures moving back and forth between the grounded bulk of Dark Was the Night and the train of low-trucks carrying gear down the road back into town. Over the past two weeks, with the help of Slight List and the other members of The Lookout’s disparate company, the UNSC ship had been gutted of everything useful that could be split between the colonists and the alliance crew.
When The Lookout left, Dark Was the Night would become Losing Hand’s power station, and its career as a starfaring vessel would officially be over. Leone felt a sting of regret at that, but there was something good about it too. The ship would never know vacuum again, but it would go on serving, keeping people alive and safe. Most of the crew had accepted Major Stallock’s offer of evacuation, but not all of them. A handful of the colonists had also taken the ticket, but the number was a lot less than Leone had expected.
He asked Aoife why she had turned it down, and she just smiled. “Someone’s got to keep Ryan from running his mouth.” She took back the flask and had a drink herself. “I never thought it would be possible to see aliens working alongside us.”
“Yeah . . .” Leone saw the Spartan talking with Robertson. He couldn’t hear the words, but whatever Kevin-A282 said, it caused the sergeant to snap out the most perfect salute he’d ever seen the man give. “I guess the truth makes enemies into allies.”
The woman shivered. “What Stallock said, about the war . . . It’s over, right?”
“Officially, yes. But out here in the real world?” Leone let the question hang.
In the days after The Lookout’s arrival, Major Stallock briefed them on the events of the war that had played out far from Losing Hand. The Elites had broken with the Covenant, turning on their former allies, and while humanity had survived the conflict, the face of the galaxy had been irrevocably altered. Without the Sangheili, the remainder of the Covenant factions had splintered, and now new alliances and new threats alike were on the rise.
Stallock’s home base on Nouveau Montreal was light-years distant, and in the aftermath of the Covenant War, the UNSC had forged a steady alliance with the Sangheili to monitor that region. Their ship was crewed not just by Stallock’s people and Yar ‘Dosaan’s, but there were Unggoy on board as well, along with other humans from worlds they had visited along the way. Their mission was to go from system to system, trying to reestablish communication with colonies cut off by the conflict.
Aoife indicated the Spartan, and the question that had been clouding the air between them finally emerged. “Are you going with him?”
“Kevin told me this morning.” Leone avoided a reply. “He’s going with The Lookout. He wants to feel useful again.”
“Stallock said they could take us all if we wanted,” she told him. “But this is our home. We didn’t run from the Covenant. We’re not going to now.”
Leone made a pass-it-here gesture, and she dropped the flask back into his open hand.
“Me neither,” he said, after another drink. “I signed up to protect people. Losing Hand needs that. I’m staying on . . . at least until things are quiet again.”
Aoife eyed him. “That might not be for a while.”
“You’re right.” He got to his feet and saw the Spartan look his way. Kevin’s armored helm dipped once in a respectful nod, and the captain returned the gesture. “But the way I figure it, some people go their whole lives not knowing where they can do the most good.”
“You think that’s here?” She had a smile in her voice, and he liked it.
Leone patted his breast pocket and nodded. “I reckon I’ll need a badge though.”
PROMISES TO KEEP
* * *
* * *
CHRISTIE GOLDEN
This story takes place at the close of recorded Forerunner history, during the events that followed the destruction of the Forerunner capital world by the rogue artificial intelligence Mendicant Bias (Halo: Cryptum) and the subsequent activation of the Halo Array to end the centuries-long war with the extragalactic parasite known as the Flood (Halo: Silentium).
It’s almost over, the IsoDidact thought.
Their ship, Audacity, had negotiated the dangerous jump successfully. The Librarian, his wife, exhaled quietly as she recognized several Lifeworker vessels clustered around one of the Ark’s petal-like structures. They were swiftly and efficiently transporting containers of living specimens from their vessels to the Ark’s Lifeworker research station.
“Wonderful!” she cried, in that warm, slightly husky voice he so adored. “They’ve all survived!”
The IsoDidact was glad for her, but the emotion was overshadowed by a chill of foreboding as he realized just how many Forerunner ships had gathered here—and how badly some of them had been damaged.
Audacity confirmed his fears. “All remaining Forerunners have been brought here,” it said. “The last themas have been overwhelmed. There will be no other ships.”
The Librarian’s eyes widened with horror and she looked to her mate. Audacity continued with its implacable mechanical analysis. “As well, some Lifeworker specimens have been moved to the Halo to make room, including human populations.”
Horror fled before fury on his wife’s beloved features. The humans were hers, and she cared for them. “Who made that decision?” she demanded.
In answer, an image shimmered into being behind them, shocking the two even further.
It was Faber-of-Will-and-Might, known for centuries by his title—the Master Builder.
He it was who had stood in opposition to the original Didact when the Flood had first been recognized as a threat. Faber had ordered the Halo rings created—and tested one of them. And thus it was that, while the Master Builder had been responsible for designing a cataclysmic weapon, he had also inadvertently been responsible for the Ark’s creation. The threat posed to every sentient creature—not just the Flood—had prompted the Librarian to push for measu
res to preserve specimens, so that countless species would not be lost in the extinction of one.
His holographic representation was nearly unrecognizable. Once large and healthy, ripe with smug arrogance, he now looked smaller, frailer, his eyes dull and his posture stooped.
“Welcome to our Ark, Lifeshaper,” the Master Builder said. “Didact—which do I address? Ah, the younger. It is my honor to have returned your original to the company of your wife—and, if memory serves me, it looks as though he too has arrived. You both should be aware that I have been summoned to help prepare our Ark for the coming storm. And to transfer command.”
“To whom?” the IsoDidact asked, his body tense.
“To me. Builder Security will carry on from here.”
As if they had not had enough shocks. It did not seem so long ago that the Master Builder had been on trial in the ecumene’s capital world of Maethrillian for his crimes against the Mantle of Responsibility. Had not the capital come under attack, conviction would have been certain.
Nothing, it would seem, was certain anymore.
The Librarian recovered first. “I will be taken as soon as possible to the Halo to tend to my specimens. Alone.”
“Of course,” the Master Builder replied. “I have already made arrangements—”
“I’m sorry to interrupt.” It was the IsoDidact’s ancilla, her pale-blue face looking at him regretfully. “But Chant-to-Green has completed her final assessments. You asked to be notified.”
“I did indeed,” the IsoDidact replied.
The appearance of his ancilla had caused the simulation transpiring around him to freeze. If only he could have paused time then, when it was all occurring. If only he could have found some way to have prevented . . . all of it.
But he, Bornstellar-Makes-Eternal-Lasting—the IsoDidact, widowed when another’s lifemate had died—had not been able to do so. And so, the Librarian was lost, choosing to spend her last moments in service to the humans she so loved.
Bornstellar rose from the chair, and it retreated back into the flooring. For a moment, he regarded the holographic images of himself and his wife, standing beside him. They appeared so very real, but were only as substantial now as the projection of the Master Builder had been substantial then. There would be other words between the couple, but hasty, brief. Curt, almost, but only so due to their own tension. Their harshness was not directed at each other. Then, those words exchanged, the IsoDidact would meet with the Master Builder and a handful of others in the Cartographer, and she, the Librarian, First-Light-Weaves-Living-Song, would depart for the Halo, and then Audacity, and then . . .
Those words were seared into memory; banal, serviceable words that were solely logistics and hurried well-wishes.
I did not know they would be the last.
“It is hard to believe that they are the last,” said Growth-Through-Trial-of-Change. Her voice held a tinge of sorrow, even as the words denoted success in an ambitious and worthy endeavor. Trial, as she preferred to go by, was both the oldest and the youngest Lifeworker. Her years numbered more than those of Chant-to-Green, the current Lifeshaper. But Trial had not been born into that rate. She had been a Builder, and when she had informed her family of the pull within her to change rates, they had turned away. Her new family of Lifeworkers had given her a new name—one that had honored her path. Life, she had said more than once to Chant, was nothing but trials. And what mattered, perhaps even more than the outcome, was how one faced them.
“It is strange,” Chant said. The two stood observing the room where the last “specimens” were slowly reviving, closely watching both their statistics and their hitherto-hibernating forms. “We have bracketed this experience with two species who were once allies in a war fought against us. The humans and the San’Shyuum.”
The irony suited her. The choice to reestablish humans first had been deliberate; the choice to leave the San’Shyuum to the last, simple logistics.
For most of her many centuries, the Librarian, in her position as Lifeshaper, had collected and cataloged creatures from all across the galaxy. Lifeworkers alone had supervised their care. But when Bornstellar had authorized the activation of Halo, wiping out all sentient life in order to truly destroy the threat of the Flood, the Librarian had been among the casualties. Now, every surviving Forerunner—their numbers so few compared to the trillions that had once composed the ecumene—had spent over a century discharging the duty the Lifeshaper had laid upon them. Those who had made the dreadful choice to end sentient life for a time rather than forever had a duty to make what reparations they could, and these solemn yet joyful tasks had kept their minds, hands, and specialized vessels well occupied as they tended, then released, species after species.
The San’Shyuum would be the last to set careful feet upon the world that had given them birth.
Bornstellar joined the two Lifeworkers, gazing as they did upon the slow awakening unfolding. Trial excused herself and went inside so that the San’Shyuum would not be alone when they opened their eyes.
“In the midst of all the mistakes, and arrogance, and sheer stupidity of these last centuries,” Bornstellar said, “we have, at least, done right by her.”
Chant looked up at him, knowing full well whom he meant. “Yes. She would be pleased with us. The end of our task draws near.”
After the death of the Librarian, the reseeding of Erde-Tyrene, and the judgment of Mendicant Bias, the wound of her absence had still been new for both of them. The IsoDidact had received the imprint of the Didact, who had lived over ten thousand years, but Bornstellar was still chronologically young. As was Chant-to-Green, although she had served the Librarian for many decades. She suspected the older female thought of her as a daughter, at least somewhat; she certainly responded to the Librarian as to a mother.
At the end, the Librarian had given Chant the title of Lifeshaper and ordered her to carry on the mission. Obeying that order—to leave the Librarian behind on Erde-Tyrene to certain death—still held the taint of betrayal in Chant’s mind.
She was the Lifeshaper now. But no one would ever be the Librarian.
Bornstellar had lost a mate. For all intents and purposes, though not physically the spouse the Librarian had first embraced, they were true husband and wife. The original Didact had been driven mad by the Master Builder’s calculated cruelty, and the Librarian had been forced to safely imprison him in a Cryptum. There, alone for millennia with the Domain to teach him, her great hope was that he would one day understand—and regret—how gravely he had wronged so very many.
They were therefore both bereft, Bornstellar and Chant. And, because she saw in him a good and true heart that loved the same individual she herself grieved, and because he saw in her an echo of his great love, they had consoled each other with the union of their bodies. But soon enough, they understood what had drawn them together, and that it would not last beyond the first few passionate encounters. Chant was not the Librarian, and there were better ways to honor her memory and to keep their promises than by pretending she was not gone.
So they had mourned, each in their own way. Chant found that the more she helped the “specimens” (as time passed, she learned to loathe the name; “children” was better), the more the ache eased. It became an old scar that hurt when the weather changed, rather than a fierce, stabbing agony that kept her awake at night when not dulled by the soothing drug of sexual heat.
Bornstellar was, Chant suspected, doing something himself to heal the tug of memories, for as the centuries passed, he seemed more at ease. While all Forerunners interacted with the specimens, mindful of this last discharging of the Mantle, they did so without the intimacy, the same sense of connection to the former Lifeshaper’s work, that Chance and Bornstellar experienced.
The others liked the specimens; they did not love them.
“Soon it will be time to reseed Forerunners,” Bornstellar now said.
The idea had been his, established early on. They had meddled
enough, their misguided appropriation of the Mantle hurting more than it helped. Bornstellar’s had been the voice that had given the order to fire the Halo Array and kill all sentient life in the galaxy. Chant’s was the hand that helped to make it fruitful again.
“Do you know where yet?” she inquired.
He shook his head. All agreed on the general principle—that, when the reseeding had been completed, they would depart the galaxy forever—but there had been so much work right in front of them, immediate and vital, that their attention had been focused exclusively on that. They still had a few years to decide, while they integrated the San’Shyuum, but it was now their next step, not some nebulous ideal.
“Away from here, is all I know. We all must be in agreement.” He nodded toward Trial, who was assisting one of the San’Shyuum to sit while his head, perched atop his elongated neck, turned this way and that as he peered about. “I am weary of making decisions that impact those who have no voice.”
“You chide me?” Chant asked. Not angry, just curious.
He looked at her then, kindly, and smiled. Both he—and Chant—had begun adopting the practice during their times with the humans. The former First Councilor of the Forerunner Council—Splendid-Dust-of-Ancient-Suns—along with others from Maethrillian, were already quite comfortable with the gesture. Over time, almost all of the remaining Forerunners now regularly utilized what they had once thought of as a rictus.
“Never,” he said. “You do her work.”
I do, Chant thought, but for a hundred years and more, it has been my work. Our work. All of ours.
She could not say why his comment so irritated her.
For as long as it would take for the San’Shyuum to adjust, they would be kept here, on the Ark, in the best re-creation of their temperate homeworld as the Lifeworkers could manage. The Forerunners learned more each time, with each species, how to increase the accuracy of the world, but it was never quite right. The species knew their homes, with a deep wisdom that their saviors could never possess.