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“How?” I whispered.
Turn their power upon them. Here, they are the ones weak or dead.
“Here, nothing is real!” I cried. Riser lifted his finger to his poked-out lips, then winked—not in humor, but giving sound advice. No sense encouraging our old spirits at this stage of our journey.
We folowed as Vinnevra crossed to a path on the right, and then another—this one long and straight. Behind, the ferry grew smaler and smaler, until I could cover it with my thumb . . . and then the center of the web went dark and the ferry with it.
Behind us, below us, darkness. Above . . . the inner surface of the wheel might be up there, its false landscapes just barely painted on—deserted cities, blasted plains covered with ashen dust, dead Forerunners, al that we had left behind, including our felow humans.
Or perhaps that had been smudged out as wel. The wheel itself might be gone, and that would mean there was only this glowing web.
Too often, in a dream, you can never go back to where you were, and if you try, it’s not what you remember. If our ultimate destination was to be Erde-Tyrene—Erda—that would violate this most basic law of al dreams.
And where there is a web, there might very wel be a spider.
Now I realy wanted to piss myself or loose my already-empty bowels, to disgust any predator with my stink—humans can make such a great stink!—and run, run, or leap over the edge and fal.
Faling, perhaps I would come awake and jump up from my rough bed of grass and wood slats, hear my mother clinking pots in the next room—stretch, yawn, plan for another day doing whatever Riser thought would be best for us to do.
Happy times, those. Best of times.
No going back.
And if I had died, if I was already across the western waters, clearly I had not found favor with Abada.
We walked. The dead, some of the old stories say, walk forever and never know where they are going.
Riser was the first to see the spider. He poked my hip—hard.
Looking to our left now I saw the jagged, spiky blue leg—and then another. Riser yawped and tried to climb my torso as if I were a tree. I let him.
Clutching my friend and turning slowly, awkwardly left, I saw Mara, and beyond her—far beyond her—yet another long, jagged leg, moving and dropping to touch part of the web-maze.
Completing my turn, I saw dozens of legs prancing slowly and delicately across the web.
Just as I had feared.
It took al the courage or foolishness I possessed to lean back and look up. Above, supported by those flashing, sharp-angled blue legs, hung a mass of close-packed crystals, big as a city but upside- down and pulsing with a deep, shadowy light. The facets of the crystals crawled with intense glowworm stars, drawing luminous threads behind.
By flashing and flexing, the legs had revealed they were not legs, but more like solid lightning supporting the crystal mass. The legs vanished, reappeared, then flexed and bowed as if under a great weight.
The crystal city lowered over us. At its center, an emerald green glow thrust out, brighter than anything around it—and extruded the most watchful glow of al.
A single, central green eye cast down a darting, baleful light.
Riser clutched me al the tighter. Vinnevra stood immobile with an expression of forlorn, final hope, hope about to give up and die— while Mara rose to her ful height, squared her considerable shoulders, and opened her mouth to roar. . . .
The crystal city decorated itself with more threads of light, and the entirety swung back over us, behind us, then down and through the web, where it paused at right angles to the pathways.
The threads merged with the paths and avenues.
We faced directly the jutting wal of crystals, at a level with the huge green eye. The green eye had become the center of the maze.
The smel of food became stronger. Despite my terror, my mouth watered. I was being tugged along like an animal, helplessly lured on by my most basic drives.
Vinnevra swung around. Her face was ghastly green in the reflected glow. “We’re home!” she cried.
The great green eye lifted. The web of paths was slowly extinguished by darkness flowing from the cobwebbed crystal mass.
We have seen this before, Lord of Admirals informed me, and I realized the old spirit was not in the least frightened, and not because he was already dead. He could feel harm coming to his old enemies, harm being done to the Forerunners—and that was far more important than his own welfare, or mine. This is the one who betrays Forerunners, their own greatest monster. We know this one. Remember?
But I did not—not yet.
Wals 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.
Stil, 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. Al sober judgment and thought was squeezed tight, then crammed down.
The wals finished sketching, painting, then projecting a place in which we could al be comfortable and at home.
An even greater lie.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
WE WALKED THROUGH a forest of old, dignified trees, then over a meadow of sun-dappled grass, luled 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 al the glorious foods we had smeled before, when we rode on the . . . the what?
Vinnevra ran ahead and took a middle seat on a bench, then smiled sympatheticaly at Mara. The ape ambled forward wilingly enough, but she gave me a look that seemed both wise, cautious— and doubtful.
Stil, 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 thoughtfuly.
I walked around the table and sat across from Vinnevra. Puling forward a large bowl, and then a smaler 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 al the others?” I asked around the
table.
Riser—off to one side—did not answer.
Vinnevra kept smiling. “They’re here, too. We’l 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 roled 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 ancila, a very different sort from the lesser monitors and servile ancilas.
The ancila proudly informed me—and by transfer, the Lord of Admirals—that it had indeed been placed in charge of this wheel, and ultimately of al Forerunner defenses.
It informed us it was quite capable of lying.
And then it played.
Whether it actualy moved us about the wheel and made us live through other journeys, or simply scratched over our memories with fabricated dreams, I wil 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. Stil, the master of the wheel distracted me—did not alow me to use my powers of reason.
Al 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. ”
Chapter 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 recaled certain memories. Some were acceptable; others were not, and I pushed them back down.
Finaly, I opened my eyes to a great stretch of star-filed space, at the center of which hung a huge, red and gray sphere, tormented by craters—an icy planet. Impacts over milions of milennia 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 caled the Silent Cartographer—the complete and living record of the Halo. Those who would help rescue and then use the wheel were alowed 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 wals 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 chalenge.
I felt nothing—took no breath, experienced no sensation. Only cold thought left me any hope of stil being alive. Stil, 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 smaler shadow came close, stretched out a blurry hand—and al came into focus. I looked out upon dozens of people—humans al, 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 shalow hole my fingers found. I puled them back, expecting to see blood—but they were dry.
Male and female, we were al 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 tal, elderly, brown-skinned felow 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. “Al . . . others . . . little ago, little time. But you last. ”
Then she turned and revealed that in the smal 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.