I’m home. I’m home.
The first thing he had to do was get a message to Raia. He dusted himself down and set off toward the buildings, three or four modest stone keeps only a couple of stories tall, and saw the child running a long way ahead of him. He must have terrified the boy; it was understandable. He’d apologize to the clan and explain who he was and why he’d come, but he’d keep his views on the Arbiter to himself for the time being. These were troubled times, and he didn’t know where the lines were drawn in Sangheili society following the events of the last few weeks.
I did it. I got home, and now I can warn those on Sanghelios who’ll listen about the true threat the humans pose, the poison they’re spreading.
And I still have my self-respect.
But he had no weapon and no helmet. Perhaps the kaidon here would lend him equipment until he was able to get back to Mdama. He was still some way from the nearest building when he saw five or six adult males rush out of the entrance carrying pistols, followed by a group of children with wooden practice weapons.
It didn’t bode well. Whatever side they’d picked in the civil war, they seemed to think he might be on the other. A reasonable precaution; he would have done the same now if anyone had arrived uninvited at Bekan keep. He made the only sensible move an unarmed warrior could, and stopped in his tracks to spread his arms and show he didn’t have a weapon.
The small army bore down on him at a run. For a moment, he thought they weren’t going to stop. What had happened here? Why were they so agitated? He was alone and clearly unarmed. The warrior leading the charge slowed to a trot and then stopped six paces from him, aiming at his chest.
“Who are you, and why do you dare defile the holy gate?” The warrior was battle-scarred and elderly. “Rdolo says you stepped out of the sun. Answer me, because I want to know the names of the blasphemers I kill.”
“I mean you no harm.” All Jul wanted to do was to contact Raia and let her know he was safe. He didn’t care how much he had to grovel to get that favor granted. “I’m Shipmaster Jul ‘Mdama of Bekan keep, and I’ve been a prisoner of the humans. I have escaped.…” Here he picked his words very carefully, his diplomacy skills honed by contact with ‘Telcam. These were clearly deeply religious people. “The humans captured a temple site on another world, and the gods granted me the blessing of escape through a portal. I had no idea it would emerge here, but they delivered me safely to the faithful.” He paused, looking from face to incredulous face. The children were gaping, nostrils flared and jaws fanned open. “Where is this place? I was told it was called Kelekos. But that was the Forerunners’ sacred name for it.”
The elder lowered the pistol, but only slightly. “This is Hesduros, and I’m Kaidon Panom. Where did you think this Kelekos place was?”
“Sanghelios, of course.” It was the first time that Jul had taken note of the fact that the landscape in the distance didn’t look like anything he knew on Sanghelios. It wasn’t just the architecture. Now that he thought about it, even the daylight seemed a little different somehow. “But I have no idea where the mercy of the gods has brought me.”
“Our forefathers left Sanghelios generations ago.” Panom lowered the pistol, apparently satisfied that Jul was either harmless or too mad to do any damage. “We sent sons to the war, but we have heard nothing for a year or more.”
A year? They didn’t even know the Great Schism had happened, then, and they would know nothing about the Arbiter’s cowardly bargain with Earth. At least he could count on their outrage. That would buy him allies.
“The war is over,” he said. “Temporarily, at least. The San’Shyuum abandoned us and an Arbiter made peace with the humans. We fight one another now, but we should be fighting the true enemy. Humans.”
One of the males standing behind Panom leaned close to the old warrior to whisper something in his ear. Then Jul realized everyone was looking at his belt.
“Why do you wear the holy symbols?” Panom asked. “Are you a monk?”
This was where things might get dangerous. There was no point lying, because Jul wasn’t devout enough to know the intricate detail of ritual that a monk might. Every word counted now.
“I had common cause with the Servants of the Abiding Truth,” he said. “We rose up against the Arbiter, but I was captured by the enemy, and I’ve lost contact with my brothers. I’d consider it a great mercy if you let me contact my keep.”
Panom and the man who’d taken an interest in his belt stepped right up to Jul but they still weren’t looking him in the eye. It was the belt that riveted them. Panom reached out a finger, slow and wary, as if he was afraid the belt would burn him.
“That,” he said, “is the symbol of the holy warrior who will come to the aid of the faithful in their hour of need.”
Jul was so far out his depth now that he wasn’t sure if he’d genuinely found salvation—by a fluke or by the existence of gods he hadn’t begun to imagine—or if he was talking himself into a grave. He’d never heard of this Didact before the last week and now the Forerunner seemed to be everywhere he turned.
“How do you know about the Didact?” Jul asked. “He was never spoken of on Sanghelios.”
“How do you know that’s his name?”
This was his moment, his bargaining point. “Because I’ve come from the heart of a shield world, and I’ve been taught by the Huragok who’ve maintained the world for a hundred thousand years, waiting for the Forerunners to return.”
Everyone was silent, even the youngsters. The birds and insects were suddenly the loudest sounds Jul could hear.
“Come and eat, Jul ‘Mdama,” Panom said at last, beckoning him like a fond uncle. “Let’s talk.”
HANGAR DECK, UNSC PORT STANLEY: VENEZIA SECTOR, FIVE DAYS LATER
“Mal…” Vaz tried not to laugh. “Did you check the collar size? Because it’s a long way to send it back for a refund.”
Mal leaned on the gantry rail, staring down at the new kit being uncrated on the deck below. He didn’t even blink. “I could wear an extra jumper underneath.”
“Or you might grow into it.”
The prototype Mantis armor defense system had arrived, courtesy of the UNSC Fleet Auxiliary replenishment team. It stood on the deck, challenging them to come down and play with it. It wasn’t exactly a suit: it was a bipedal battle tank. It had a heavy machine gun on one arm and a missile system on the other, like some really, really ostentatious watch. It could have swallowed a Spartan in full armor. Adj and Leaks drifted over to it, bright with excited curiosity.
“Oi, you two!” Mal called. “No. Keep your tentacles off it, okay? BB, you better supervise them. I don’t want them turning it into a microwave.”
“I think it’d make a nice apartment block, though,” Vaz said. “Shall I cancel the order for camouflage paint?”
“Now you’re taking the piss.”
“You wanted it. Now you’ve got it.”
There was no use for the Mantis on Venezia, although it would probably have fetched enough on the black market to let the whole squad retire to a private island in the tropics. The thing was designed to be seen and to intimidate. Vaz and Naomi needed to keep a low profile and somehow blend in. That was going to be a challenge in itself.
Vaz ran his hand over his chin to check that he had the right degree of stubble and gestured five minutes to Devereaux, who was sitting in Tart-Cart’s open bay door and swinging her legs.
“Don’t worry about Naomi,” Mal said, reading his mind. “She’ll keep it together. Just settle in, think like the local scumbag community, and don’t try to fight a war on your own. We’ll relieve you in a week. Just gather intel.”
“I’m not worried about her keeping it together for the mission. I’m worried about what it’ll do to her.”
“Worry about trying to look like a couple of regular sociopaths, okay?” Mal leaned back a little to make a show of inspecting him. “The Russian gangster look. It’s very you.”
Footsteps clanged in the metal walkway behind them, too light to be Naomi and the wrong pace to be Osman. Vaz didn’t look around until Phillips joined them on the rail and gazed down at the Mantis.
“That’s not very stealthy,” he said quietly. “So where are we going to use that, Vaz?”
“No idea. That’s Mal’s problem. Any news on Jul?”
Phillips shook his head. He looked pretty grim for once. “Not a word. But you know that call I promised to make for him, about his wife? Finally got word back via ‘Telcam.”
“You asked him?”
“No, I’m not that stupid, am I? He’d asked me about Jul when it all kicked off, remember, so I asked him if he’d found him yet. And he said no, but that his wife had been killed when Cleansing Truth was shot down.”
“Christ,” Vaz said. “Bad timing.”
“Exactly. So if Jul’s alive out there and he’s found out, I’d brace for trouble.”
“He’s just one hinge-head,” Mal said. “If he didn’t end up ported into some asteroid or something and he’s alive, he’d have hooked up with ‘Telcam by now if he’d wanted to.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve been through all that with Parangosky, seeing as they think I knew him best. Jul knows where ‘Telcam’s getting some of his equipment, so my money’s on him going it alone like some avenging superhero.”
“Jesus.” Mal folded his arms on the rail and leaned his head on them. “I hope Parangosky kicked some arses over this.”
“Dr. Magnusson has been replaced and has vanished from ONI. As you’d expect.”
“Arses encased in concrete, then.”
Vaz carried on staring in glum silence, wondering just how bad it might be if Jul showed up on hinge-head chat shows accusing ONI of fueling a civil war. But they didn’t have chat shows and he’d probably take some action rather than sit around bitching about it.
Eventually Naomi came down the walkway, and Vaz turned to inspect her civilian rig.
“So?” she asked, hands in her pockets.
She might have passed for a colonial refugee in a very mixed crowd. The slightly threadbare gray parka came to about midthigh length on her and actually made her look a little shorter. With the faded camo pants and frayed rucksack, she didn’t look very Spartanish at all, and now she was wearing regular boots there wasn’t such a big difference in their heights, perhaps just fifteen centimeters with his thick-soled combats. Maybe she could have dyed her hair, but there was nothing she could do about her posture and gait. She moved like the highly trained special forces soldier that she was. Slouching and scuffing along just wasn’t in her toolkit. It wasn’t in Vaz’s, either. They were deserters, if anybody asked. There were plenty of colonial militia and other armed units that had fallen apart. Vaz was pretty sure there were UNSC deserters, too.
“You’ll do,” Vaz said. He wondered how old people would think she was. The sun had never had much opportunity to give her any wrinkles, so they might pass as a couple. “How about a cap or something?”
“You think this is a bad idea.”
“I think it’s a risk. But then neither of us is good at this going gray thing. You know, looking inconspicuous.”
“We’ll have to settle for criminal or thuggish.”
“I can do thuggish.”
“Okay, I’ll do criminal. But the only civilian headgear we’ve got is bush hats.”
“Scarf?” Vaz leaned over the rail. “Dev, have you got any fabric in your box of tricks?”
“What, because I’m a girl?” Devereaux called back. “You think I keep a sewing box?”
“No, but you’ve always got clean rag and stuff in the tool locker.”
“Okay, let me check it out.”
BB drifted up from the deck and hung in front of the gantry. “You’re going to miss the Mjolnir. And me.”
“I’ll manage somehow, BB…”
Mal rippled his fingers in a little mock wave. “Bye-bye, you two. Be good. No fighting.”
Devereaux dug out a fifty-centimeter square of gray polishing cloth and handed it to Naomi. “I bet you won’t need this. The place is full of Kig-Yar and Brutes and all kinds, so I don’t think you’re going to stand out that much now.”
“Thanks, Lian.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean it like that. I meant that in a mixed environment, humans are looking at gross detail, like beaks and claws. The aliens think we all look like big, soft worms anyway.”
Naomi nodded. It was hard to tell if she was offended or not. Vaz still found it weird that the ultimate killing machine on two legs was self-conscious, but she was a pretty awkward woman and this wasn’t how Spartans usually operated. Vaz wondered if all the Spartan-IIs were like that when they were out of armor.
“You look like a deserter,” Vaz said. “I’m more than happy to be seen drinking with you.”
She started a weak smile but didn’t finish it. “I suppose it’s another way to work out who I really am.”
“Without BB revving you up.”
“He doesn’t get out much.”
“He’s always everywhere. He’s been more places than me and Mal have.”
She put her fingers on the nape of her neck and fiddled with the dock of her neural implant. “This doesn’t show, I hope. I got Leaks to reduce the profile a little.”
“No more than mine does. Even some of the militias had them. Not like yours, of course, but nobody’s going to look that hard or get that close.”
Naomi just crossed her long, deathly white fingers at him. “That’s a sad indictment, isn’t it?”
Vaz wasn’t sure if she was being deadpan or letting a little personal pain leak out. Either way, he was seeing more of the real Naomi these days. He sat back in his seat as Tart-Cart maneuvered out of the hangar, and hoped he didn’t reek of the ship’s jasmine air freshener when he landed.
Spenser was waiting for them at the RV point in the gorge about thirty kilometers from the city. He stood leaning against the driver’s door of his old Warthog, having a smoke and just shaking his head. Vaz jumped out of the open hatch and walked over to see him, hands shoved in his pockets.
“Now that’s impressive,” Spenser said. He waved at Devereaux. “I could get you a really good price for that. Is that even the same Pelican?”
“Yes, that’s Tart-Cart after an Engineer respray. One careless lady owner, full service history.” Vaz was now far enough away from Tart-Cart to get the full effect of the adaptive camo. He had to admit it was pretty good. The shape of the airframe took some concentration to pick out, and a casual inspection from the air or the nearest road would probably have missed it completely. “We’re going to rotate the squad if we’re here for an extended period.”
Naomi jumped out and started unloading kit. Spenser stubbed out his cigar and put the flattened butt in his pocket. “Is that wise? Naomi, I mean.”
“She wants to do this.”
“It’s not my call, but I’d keep her out of it. For all kinds of reasons.”
Naomi walked right up to him with a heavy holdall of equipment tucked under one arm as easily as a purse, and held out her hand for shaking. Spenser took it and craned his neck to look up.
“I’m sorry it’s come to this, Naomi,” he said. “Have you got everything you need? Sling your bag in the back. You too, Vaz. Let’s not hang around.”
Naomi slid down in her seat, tied the scarf around her hair with a few wisps of fringe left sticking out, and suddenly didn’t look half as strikingly unusual as Vaz had feared. Maybe he’d projected the almost mythological Spartan image onto the reality of a very tall, very fit woman who just happened to be platinum blond as well. Yes, she was a lot more blond than gray. It took some effort to see it.
“So here’s your ID, in case you ever have to show it.” Spenser had a knack of driving, talking, shuffling paper, and observing everything around him at the same time. He reached around to hand the old-fashioned plastic chips to Vaz and Naomi. “It’s easier to stick with your actual first names
and just change the surnames. It’s not as if anyone can check UNSC records, but you never know who you’ll run into. Naomi Bakke and Vasily Desny. Your trades are recorded as comms operator and regular grunt. Before you jumped ship, that is.”
“People don’t change their names here, then,” Naomi said, taking the chip from him and leaning on the back of Vaz’s seat. “My father didn’t.”
She said it casually, as if there was no bizarre history at all. “Depends who they’re hiding from,” Spenser said. “Off-worlders or the local enforcers. Remember that this isn’t anarchy here. They’re organized. It’s easier to think of Venezia as an alternative society, just not the vegetarian peacenik kind.”
As they hit the outskirts of New Tyne, Vaz started seeing pickups, every variant of the Warthog chassis known to man, and quite a few Covenant ground transports. He’d passed the amazement stage on his last visit, short as it was, but Naomi murmured occasionally in quiet surprise.
“Damn, look at all those Brutes,” she said. “And Jackals.”
It was a small colony like hundreds of others had once been, except it had a huge amount of firepower and a population of miscreants and misfits from at least four species. The city was a regular-looking place with decent buildings and office blocks, and not a scrap of battle damage. Gun batteries sat at some of the intersections. Spenser pointed out landmarks and interesting features like a tour guide.
“And that’s the sewerage company over there … yeah, the war’s pretty much passed them by.” Spenser paused for a red light. Vaz wondered if they had proper renegade traffic cops to police their renegade society. There was a kind of mirror-world feel about the whole setup. “It’s the previous war that’s still gripping their proverbial shit. But you know that well enough.”
“Have you got a picture?” Naomi asked.
“Sorry?”
“Have you got a picture of my father? I don’t remember what he looked like.”
Spenser looked only slightly uncomfortable. “Back at the house,” he said. “I’ll show you his file. I’ll apologize in advance for any unflattering notes I might have made on it.”