“We take ‘Telcam down there and wait for his ships to drop out of slip,” Osman said. “Then we thin out so that he doesn’t have any embarrassing questions to answer. Prepare for a few dreary weeks of evaluating troop strengths and counting hul s.”

She patted al of them on the back and did a bit of gripping forearms, almost wil ing them to go and leave her to deal with the Sangheili. Phil ips didn’t. He looked her in the eye and tapped the damaged radio stil clipped to his jacket.

“I completed the mission,” he said. “I got the intel, Captain. I know it’s not been everyone’s top priority over the last few days, but I’m pretty damn sure I’ve got locations and other data we can’t even begin to guess at. Can I cal in some analytical support from Trevelyan?”

“Certainly.” Osman looked embarrassed. “I didn’t think you were sightseeing, Evan. Real y. I didn’t. And I’m glad we didn’t have to needle you.

Thanks.”

Phil ips’s mouth pursed as if he was going to say something, but looked as if it was going to be too difficult just then. He did a little resigned smile, lips pressed together, then handed her the radio.

“Mind your fingers.”

Naomi climbed back into the crew bay and Osman sat down opposite ‘Telcam and Naomi. He didn’t move a muscle. He wasn’t wearing cuffs, so the time for exploding in a rage had obviously passed. BB watched intently.

“I’m sorry about your ship,” Osman said. “But we got three of them clear, and put a dent in the Arbiter.”

‘Telcam paused a few moments as if he was picking his words careful y. “Why did you not warn me exactly what Infinity could do?”

“Because I wasn’t sure what she would do, but also because I’l be shut down if Hood works out what I’m doing.” That wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t whol y true. She knew she was doing it, though. The tension in her jaw muscles betrayed the effort. She seemed to want to hang on to that lifeline of self-awareness. “The deal stands. My life’s been complicated a little by needing to track down Pious Inquisitor before she becomes a problem, but I’m wil ing to carry on supplying you.”

“But am I wil ing to carry on trusting you?”

“You tel me, Field Master.”

“I believe I may need a ship now, or the ability to seize one from the Arbiter.”

“Okay. I’l see what’s around.”

“And Philliss has amassed a great deal of scripture.”

“You want that as wel ? Done. I’l see that we get a translation done for you.”

‘Telcam waited. Osman waited. Naomi looked as if she could have waited al week, but then she was a self-contained person in every sense.

“Take me to Laqil,” ‘Telcam said. “And leave me there. Don’t wait, just in case Jul ‘Mdama has shown up. He might wel know of this assembly point by now.”

“Friend of yours?” Osman asked.

“Associate.”

Osman just nodded and got up to leave. “We’l be discreet, then.”

BB took the precaution of locking down Tart-Cart’s systems just in case Naomi couldn’t hold ‘Telcam at some point, but he looked as if he was going to stifle his anger to get what he wanted. While BB kept an eye on the two of them, Osman was on the bridge, fussing over the rest of the squad and general y looking as if she hadn’t had a single doubt about any of this.

It’s easy, Captain. Just look in the mirror and tell yourself a lie every day. You think you have, but you’ve only just started.

And don’t worry. I’ll be here.

BB noted that she’d put the damaged radio in her pocket. Sooner or later, he’d have to look in that mirror, too.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

HE SPENDS A LOT OF TIME IN THE FORERUNNER STRUCTURES, BUT THEN I SUSPECT HE’S MORE LIKE A HUMAN THAN HE WANTS TO ADMIT. IN PRISON, YOU TEND TO FIND GOD MORE EASILY BECAUSE THERE’S NOTHING ELSE THAT CAN MAKE SENSE OF THE FACT THAT YOU’VE BLOWN YOUR ONE AND ONLY LIFE ON A STUPID INABILITY TO JUST PLAY BY THE RULES.

(DR. IRENA MAGNUSSON, ONIRF TREVELYAN, REPORTING ON JUL ‘MDAMA’S PROGRESS TO ADMIRAL MARGARET PARANGOSKY)

ONIRF TREVELYAN

The humans came in to Trevelyan, and—presumably—the humans went out.

Jul sat in the long grass, trying to convince his eyes that the blue sky above him wasn’t the foothil s of infinite space but a very high, whol y unnatural roof. They refused to believe him. There were times in recent weeks when he wondered if this was al part of some human game and that this was actual y an ordinary planet after al , not a sphere. But the Forerunners had left other feats of impossible engineering across the galaxy, such as the Ark, and he could see no logic in using such a lie to lever something from him.

It could just have been malice, of course. Humans enjoyed tormenting things. He’d seen enough of them in their colonies and now on Trevelyan to know that. They were pointlessly cruel, as if violence had once been an essential part of their evolution but had now become a reflex and casual thing that they didn’t even notice or control.

But whether this was an enclosed sphere or an open sky, he was as marooned here as ever. He stil needed a way off the planet. That required a vessel. The aerial monitoring devices patrol ed high overhead, watching him, just as the device that helped him communicate with Prone sent back his position.

And there are birds up there, not just surveillance drones. I can see them.

Hijacking a vessel was a possibility. So was stealing one. Getting off the surface would be harder, though, because a sphere would have a complex airlock system. He had a great deal of intel igence to gather, and it was the kind he would have to glean layer by layer, innocent and incidental.

The Huragok would know al these things because they were the engineering custodians, but co-opting them was a guaranteed way of exposing his plan. They answered when asked. They answered anybody.

But the more of the world that I see, the better I’ll be able to plan an escape.

He lay back as far as the harness would al ow and thought of home to galvanize himself to begin his daily search for … what, exactly? He would recognize it when he saw it. How was the rebel ion progressing? Raia would be looking for him. So would Forze, and they would both be angry.

When he final y got home, he would have a great deal of apologizing to do. It would be especial y hard to treat his sons as if they weren’t unique and special to him. He missed them.

It was the second time in his life that he’d wondered if it was such a fine thing to let sons grow up not knowing who their fathers were. It wasn’t fine for him. He simply accepted it as necessary to sustain a society based on merit and ability.

Something rustled in grass nearby and a shadow fel across him. It didn’t startle him. If he didn’t begin the day by seeking out Prone, Prone would come and find him.

< Come and walk,> Prone said. < You told me you wanted to see more artifacts. > Jul got to his feet and stuck out his arm to indicate to the Huragok that he would fol ow him. “So, the Forerunners. Tel me how they thought.”

< Knowing about someone is not the same as knowing them. I won’t be able to give you the data you require. > Jul took a little time to pick his words and fol owed Prone through the ghost city that stil waited for inhabitants who would now never come. He had an unseen audience—probably.

“And what data do you think I require?”

< You still want to know if they were gods. So do some of the others here. > A theological debate could draw out al kinds of detail. Jul remembered extraordinary conversations with ‘Telcam and the monks who fol owed him, how they performed the most tortuous mental gymnastics to make black white and white black, how they could argue perfectly plausibly that a forbidden thing was al owed. Al examples of Forerunner technology were sacred relics, and the faithful weren’t supposed to defile them by using them, yet they managed to circumvent this by some elaborate argument that using holy items to defeat blasphemers was acceptable. At first he thought they were trying to fool their gods, like some Kig-Yar contract notary twisting every word and vowel in an agreement, but soon he realized they were simply trying to fool themselves. This was the only way they could live in the world they’d created. This was how they squared what they wanted to believe— needed to believe—with the fact that life, every moment of it, contradicted their faith and threw its impossibility and even its unpleasant pettiness back in their faces. They bent the world into a less confusing shape.

I refuse to believe that gods want to make mortals unhappy and torment them. That’s what humans do. And humans are very definitely not divine.

“I wanted to believe in gods,” Jul said, and meant it. “But the gods I was taught to revere didn’t seem to like mortals. They seemed to want the prohibition of the most simple acts. If you created the world, al that magnificence, why would you care who walked where, or who pronounced certain words, or who touched stone and metal?”

Prone didn’t say anything for a long time. Jul was happy to walk in silence because the conversation had genuinely started him thinking about the stranglehold that the San’Shyuum had placed on the Sangheili with their version of religion.

The Forerunners were no myth. They had existed and left a great deal of evidence. But they feared things that gods needn’t have worried about.

They feared the Flood, or else they would never have built al this. The buildings were precise and beautiful, the straight lines true and the roads level, but this wasn’t a temple: it was a place for people to live, practical and of this world. The warmth of the sun bounced off those perfect white and silver-gray wal s and soothed him. It was like the solid masonry of a keep, a place meant to be lived in.

< They were concerned about dangers, > Prone said.

“I can see that.”

< There was more to fear than the Flood. They had to leave warnings so that mistakes weren’t repeated. > Now things were getting interesting. Jul had to probe careful y. They’d reached a crossroads, a smal square with a fountain in the middle. There was no water, but a central column rose from a low basin twice as wide as he was tal , and he could only interpret that as a fountain. He stopped and sat down on the edge.

“Did they believe in gods?” If Magnusson was monitoring this, then she would think he was simply groping for his inexplicable faith again. “Is any of this religious in nature?” No, that was the wrong question. It assumed too much about Prone’s opinion, if he had one. “Do you believe the Forerunners were gods?”

< They created us. > “Yes? No?”

< Gods are defined as eternal. Therefore gods can’t die. Forerunners could exist for very long periods, but they died. Therefore they were not gods.> Jul knew he could rely on Engineers for logic. “So … did they believe in gods?”

< They knew there were those who came long before them. > It wasn’t an answer, but it was interesting. He thought of the disappointing revelation that Prone had given him, that the Forerunners were more like humans than Sangheili. “Did the Forerunners have castes, like us? Were they warriors, priests, kaidons?”

< They had warriors. They had several castes. > Jul would have happily spent the rest of the day coaxing answers out of Prone. He needed those answers. But what fascinated him was something irrelevant that pricked at his pride, at his very identity: the idea that these near-godlike beings were like humans, vermin who knew nothing of the Forerunners until the war, not like the Sangheili who’d revered them and preserved their works. That seemed wrong and deeply unfair.

Stupid. Focus on getting out, not on what’s fair. Perhaps we have a shared culture. Perhaps we were given that gift instead.

“Did they have names?”

< Yes. And some had titles. Librarian. Logician. Didact. Master Builder. Esthetist. > That didn’t sound very Sangheili. Jul decided to retreat a little and think in terms of where docking facilities would be. They had to be nearby. He hadn’t seen ships landing, and the transports were smal vehicles, so materials and personnel were probably brought over a relatively short distance. Prone would know.

< Where are you going? > Prone asked.

Jul had no plan. “I thought you were going to show me something interesting. What’s inside these buildings? More empty rooms and corridors?”

< Yes. > “Show me something that’l help me to know the Forerunners better. Like the temples on Sanghelios.”

< They didn’t build temples. There are no temples here. > “Yes, I know that. I meant things I can learn from. Carvings. Writing. The holy symbols.”

< It’s a long way. > “I have nothing more pressing to do.”

Huragok were nothing if not literal. It real y was a very long way. Prone led him along a riverbank for an hour, two hours, then five: Jul could tel by the position of the sun and his understanding of how the humans divided their day. He could see a slim, charcoal gray spire protruding from the ground and nothing else.

It had to be a monument. Jul started reasoning that such a smal structure couldn’t contain much else, but he was dealing with Forerunners, and they could bend entire dimensions. As he approached, he could see symbols carved into the surface of the stone. There were few of them and they were large—a name, perhaps, a place, but probably not a great deal of information.

Prone circled the spire. < There are many like this. > “What are they?”

< Ingatherings.> “What does that mean?”

< The places where the dispersed would assemble. > Humans had those inside their complex. Muster stations, they cal ed them. If there was a fire or other emergency, they were supposed to report to them to be counted. Jul tried to imagine the mighty Forerunners doing something so mundane, but they’d built a shelter the size of a solar system, so it wasn’t inconceivable. Their sheer ordinariness was beginning to trouble him. He scuffed his boots around the base of the spire, trying to work out how they’d constructed it and how deep the foundations went in a world where the surface was a shel . Then he felt something brush his face like an insect or a cobweb. He put up his hand to bat it away, and that was when the lights went out.