by Kelly Gay
“Docking directions received,” Spark’s voice came over comms. “We’re heading in.”
“We’ll get her ready for transport,” Barnes said, his gaze lingering. “Thank you for getting us this far. It won’t be forgotten.”
She gave them a curt nod and prepared to head for the bridge. Southwell stopped her. “Captain. You saved our asses back there, and Yuri’s too.”
“And you and Barnes saved mine.” Her look spoke volumes. “I say we’re even and leave it at that.”
Southwell weighed her suggestion. Finally he dipped his head. “Agreed.”
At some point they’d have to report in and tell what had happened, but right now it was enough.
CHAPTER 35
Ace of Spades
As soon as the mining outpost was in the rearview mirror, Rion called on her last reserves and crossed the hold to Niko and Spark’s worktable and asked the first of two big questions that had been burning through her brain since she saw Spark standing on the loading ramp on Erebus VII: “So where the hell is my crew?”
The story he told was more bizarre than she’d imagined. It knocked the wind out of her somewhat, and she had to park herself on one of the supply crates nearby. “Jesus. How the hell did that orbital platform even see you?”
“The Mongoose was tagged with a small emitter while you were on Sonata.”
And the hits kept on coming, didn’t they? She pressed both palms over her tired eyes, rubbing out the sting. Excuses for her mother rose to the surface—anything to justify the betrayal. Her throat felt sore and a hollow ache filled her chest.
“I am sorry,” Spark said.
So was she. “Keep going.”
“The emitter stayed inert in the Ace of Spades’s hold until we reached Sonata’s exosphere. There it activated and signaled a satellite in orbit. The signal was disguised as simple thruster radiation, quite ingenious. The satellite then relayed a signal to a highly sophisticated stealth telemetry device in high orbit, which I believe had been there for several months. A basic analogy, and different principles, of course, but envision the emitter as a magnet and the telemetry device as iron. It latched on to our hull and went with us into slipspace.”
“You didn’t detect it?”
“Not initially. It mimicked the composition of Ace’s hull perfectly, just as its signals mimicked the thrusters’ energy emissions, which means the device was created with intimate knowledge and access to your ship at some point.”
Of course. “On the Taurokado,” she told him. “Before we picked you up on Geranos-a. Ace was confined inside their hold.”
“That would have been an excellent opportunity to take readings on systems, engine output, record data, and measure the exact composition of the hull and ablative coating. The telemetry device caused some havoc with Little Bit, but all is well now,” Spark said, hesitating before adding, “I know what you are thinking. But we cannot go back to New Carthage.”
“Okay. And why is that?”
“ONI knows the ship left New Carthage without its crew,” he said. “So they must turn to Ram and Niko and Lessa to get to us. Their efforts will be concentrated in Pilvros. They will have brought in reinforcements by now and will most assuredly count on us returning to help them. If the crew has been able to stay out of sight, our going back there now could put everything into jeopardy.”
“And if they’ve been caught? Am I to do nothing?”
“Yes. For now. We agreed to meet on Myer’s Moon, in three to four weeks’ time.”
While Spark’s position was perfectly logical and in line with what Rion would have done herself, waiting was never her strong suit. “I don’t like it.”
“That is protocol, is it not? I have read your logbooks. Any imminent danger to the ship or the crew, and the ship leaves until it is safe to return. Anyone left behind knows this, and they are aware of what to do in order to stay safe. Please understand, Captain, there was no other choice. Staying together, leaving the Ace of Spades vulnerable. Risking capture meant leaving you alone on Erebus VII for an undetermined amount of time, perhaps indefinitely.”
And Yurman would be dead, and Rion and the other survivors would be living on borrowed time. Still, the thought of waiting, the idea of her crew fending off ONI…
“They are not amateurs; they have decades of collective experience in evasion tactics,” Spark said, reading her mind. “They sent me and Ace to you. Going back now when ONI operatives are firmly entrenched in Pilvros, to risk capture, might make it all for nothing.”
He was right. How many times had she done the same thing, had sent Ace away from a dangerous situation to protect the ship and the crew? She’d had little opportunity to recover from the portal and then from the anglers and was feeling the effects a thousandfold now. But, she didn’t want to cut this briefing short because once her head hit the pillow, there was no telling when she’d get up again.
“We need to discuss what happened back on Zeta Halo.” The memory of reaching out to him for help and being rejected was still a hard pill to swallow. Spark’s presence on Erebus VII had ultimately been an enormous relief; until that moment, she wasn’t sure where his loyalties lay.
“The portal was already pulling you in. I could not save you. But I could take the key. Without it, we never would have found you. I believe it was the Librarian who created the portal, perhaps as a direct path to the key’s final destination.”
“Erebus VII. Where is the key now?”
“Right there, in my workstation.”
It didn’t make any sense. “But… why create the New Carthage key, why two different options to get to Erebus? A failsafe?” She rubbed her temples.
“Captain…”
The word hung in the air, the tone serious yet daring to hope. Funny how, at times, he could be so completely transparent. He was worried she wouldn’t want to proceed.
Rion held up her hand to stop him from continuing. “Set a course back to Erebus VII. We’ll use the key one last time. Let’s hope it’s worth it.” She slid off the container and headed to the stairs. “Wake me up when we get there.”
“Rion.”
She paused, one foot on the stairs.
“Thank you.”
With a curt nod, she made for her quarters.
* * *
Rion couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. The hairs on her arms rose and her skin pricked, but every time she scanned the twisted woods, there was nothing. They were out there, though, lurking in the trees, crouched in the mist, staying at a distance while she and Spark trekked to the facility. “Dr. Mallory said she felt like the planet didn’t want them here… is that possible?”
“The creatures here are highly intelligent and possessing of near-perfect predation traits that would accommodate the slaughter of a wide variety of spacefaring species. Yes, it is entirely possible they were seeded here, designed or modified, to dissuade visitors to the planet and prevent discovery of the Forerunner site,” Spark said from behind her as they navigated a virgin path through the trees and rocks.
“It seems like an awful lot of trouble to go through.… Any theories what the key opens?”
A long pause preceded his answer. “Not yet.”
She spun around. “You hesitated, which means you do.”
“Perhaps a few theories. But there is no advantage in speculating when the answer is only a few meters through that wall.”
Rounding a large tree trunk, a rock face came into view with a flat alloy inset decorated with traditional Forerunner hieroglyphs. Trees grew on top of the rock face, fat roots with spikes reaching down the wall and into the ground like warnings to the unsuspecting traveler. As they approached, the metal automatically dissolved into a doorway.
Rion stepped inside. Light initiated at their presence, guiding them down a long steep corridor.
“Why did you agree to come back?” Spark asked at length, his voice bouncing off the walls and sounding more inhuman than ever.
&nbs
p; “Well… we had a deal. We’re already in the sector. The key is apparently complete, so this should be the last stop, and we went through a hell of a lot to get this far to give up now and not see what it opens. And”—she slowed and faced him—“you saved my life—and all the lives here—once again.”
“I am part of your crew. I did not have an option.”
Of course he did. “So what are we up to now? Two?”
“Two?”
“The times you saved my life?”
“Ah.” A pensive second passed. “Only a trillion more to go, perhaps…”
Oh, man. The words were unexpected and spoken with total resignation. What an enormous cross to bear. “No. Don’t say that. You can’t hold yourself responsible.” As 343 Guilty Spark, he’d fired his Halo in conjunction with the other rings, and sentient life in the galaxy went dark. But to take on the guilt of that action and carry it around was a crippling burden. Surely he knew this. Surely he had run the numbers.
Sometimes it was easy to forget his mind was still human in essence. And humans were true experts at taking on irrational, overwhelming, and crippling amounts of guilt and self-loathing.
“Let’s say you defied orders and didn’t fire your array,” she said. “What would have happened?”
He was quiet, and that was a good sign. Logically, he already knew the answer, but she wanted him to think about it; to see it not from the past perspective—which he was used to living in—but from the present. The moment stretched, so she answered for him. “The life we have now wouldn’t exist.” She let that sink in. “The life we have now wouldn’t exist. Try to remember that.”
While he hadn’t responded, Rion hoped he’d take her words to heart. They weren’t superfluous, but the simple truth.
The corridor led into the circular chamber she’d been dumped into upon arrival on Erebus VII. In the dark, it had seemed large, but she wasn’t quite prepared for how large. The light exposed a shining space of luminous sterling alloy and glowing blue light; clean and alien and vast, a chamber with a deep circular void in the middle.
Making their way across the wide expanse that ringed the central cavity, Rion noted the terminal set at the edge of the cavity, the human remains near the wall, and farther around the curve, the shaft she had used to climb to freedom. Spark moved ahead of her to inspect the strange pair of monoliths that stood guard to one side of the terminal. They were more impressive now, hard light pulsing through angled geometric lines and glyphs and the strange circular symbol on the fronts.
“Maybe you shouldn’t get too close,” she warned.
As Spark shifted away from the monoliths and stepped to the terminal, unease slid down Rion’s spine. She glanced around nervously. There was nothing in the chamber. No signs of danger at all. Yet all of her instincts radiated caution, the recent past and her last go-round on Zeta Halo still fresh in her mind. They had finally come to the end, about to discover the Librarian’s gift. It would soon be over.
Maybe it was her cynical nature, waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it sure as hell felt off in this place.
Spark accessed the terminal. With a centering breath, she approached and handed him the key.
Like on Zeta, a port manifested and accepted the key. She wasn’t sure what to expect, but she stepped back anyway.
Initially, nothing happened. Then light caught her eye, illuminating the cavity, and growing brighter, rising from far below in the circular void, faster and faster like a speeding train.
A bright flash and rush of wind exploded out of the cavity. Rion stumbled back, and even Spark retreated a few steps as a gigantic monitor rose from the depths and hovered high behind the terminal, its giant turquoise eye canted toward them.
And this would be that other shoe.
Spark, however, didn’t appear alarmed. His head cocked curiously and he moved forward a step. “What are you?”
“I am the Precept, armiger,” it said with a resonating, artificial male baritone. “I judge those who come. I administer the test and open the way.”
“The way to what?”
“The human has been judged.”
Rion’s jaw went slack. Fear began working its way through her insides. “Judged… how, exactly?” she asked.
“I detected the mark in you and summoned you here for trial.”
“You’re the one who initiated the portal.”
“It is my prerogative to do so.… I grew impatient. Upon your arrival, your judgment began.”
So it had been observing her. Allowed her to risk her life—maybe even die. “And them?” She gestured to the remains. “Were they judged too?”
“They did not come here for the same purpose.”
“They were worth saving.”
“And the Eiyaa-Mahtuhaa are worth feeding. This is the cycle of natural competition.”
“Where I’m from, that’s called an unfair advantage.”
“Perhaps. The Eiyaa-Mahtuhaa were favored by the Librarian. They serve her purpose as do I.”
“We have the key,” Spark said. “Judgment and tests are unnecessary.”
“Anyone can steal a key. The thief in you should know this.” The monitor floated forward, hovering over the terminal, at least six or seven meters across, putting in stark contrast how tiny they were in comparison. “Chakas; 343 Guilty Spark. Human. Forerunner. Unintended success.” It was quiet for a long time. “You may proceed.”
The monitor turned its massive eye in Rion’s direction, enveloping her field of vision. It was like staring into a burning blue sun. She was forced to close her eyes, deciding it was probably best if Spark just continued on without her; she’d wait for him here.
“You have been judged. Now I must administer the test.”
Before she could even argue in her defense, her body went weightless, arms spinning as she was pulled toward the eye. The last thing she heard was the Precept’s voice saying, “Tissue tells the tale.”
* * *
Awareness returns, absent of any sense of time.
Rion stands in the blackness of space, alone, nothing around, above, or below, until a pinprick appears at an impossible distance, racing toward her. Her pulse leaps. She knows this scene.
Millions upon millions of ghostly forms rush by in two great lines, the force of their passing hitting her with the strength of a hurricane.
The sound rattles her teeth. She drops to her knees and covers her ears. And still they come.
Eventually, the lines slow, becoming different—scenes of life, cells, mutation, growth, civilizations rising and falling…
And then suddenly, it is over.
The Librarian, in her stained white dress, extends her hand. As soon as Rion takes it, the scene changes, and she is standing once more in front of the dark rift in the cliff wall.
She doesn’t want to be here.
The faint orange sun rises behind her; its first rays glide along the valley floor, lighting the wall in a golden-coppery glow and piercing through the cleft to reveal a chamber inside.
Rion wants to leave; it doesn’t feel right. Too much suffering and sorrow. “Let’s go back to the garden,” she says, starting to turn away, but the Librarian holds tight to her hand.
“No. We must move forward.”
Rion’s heart is racing—or is it the Librarian’s? The large hand in hers is warm, and she feels like a child being pulled along by its mother.
“When I arrived here, the elder of the settlement, Glow-of-Old-Suns, agreed to show me this valley. She said there was much to pass along—Old Bequests, Old Communications, and Old Instructions. Catalog never asked me what those were, and I never offered.
“But I listened and finally understood. Are you ready to see the rest?”
The Librarian gives Rion’s hand a reassuring squeeze and they stare ahead, together, working up the courage.
“This is my secret.”
The whisper fills the entire valley and reverberates through Rion with a cold shiv
er.
* * *
She woke on the floor in front of the terminal, gasping and shaking. She tried to swallow, but it felt like she was choking. Spark stood staring down at her, and behind him the massive turquoise eye of the monitor peered down from its lofty height. Her stomach contracted in a sick knot. “What… did you do to me?”
“I have administered the test and read the results of your biological memory.” The Precept moved back over the terminal to hover in the open space of the circular void. The key extended from the port. “The key now contains coordinates and access permissions for each of you, and no other.”
Rion pushed to her feet.
“Access to what?” Spark asked.
“Bastion, of course.”
CHAPTER 36
Pilvros / New Carthage / October 2558
Two guards entered Lessa’s small, temporary cell in what she guessed was a large storage facility, the only saving grace of it being that if she sat just right on her cot, she caught the reflection of the entrance through a strip of chrome on a stack of cargo bins. Warily, she stood. She couldn’t take another tedious interrogation; the same questions over and over with just the slightest change, designed to trip her up. Normally there was only one guard, so the presence of two had her suspicions rising. She hated being intimidated, hated the way they used their height and bulk to force her to step back against the plain gray wall. They each grabbed an arm and then one of them parked a black sack over her head.
Fear struck lightning hot.
The fight reaction rose on swift panicked wings as they pulled her forward. “Wait!” She dug in her heels, until they had to drag her from the cell. “Where are we going? Please tell me!” She’d been interrogated for nearly two weeks now, and no one had given her any information on where she was or what had happened to Ram. They’d been caught together, corralled into a dead-end basement parking deck in Pilvros. He’d been shoved into a van while she’d been lifted off her feet and tossed into another. She’d traveled an hour, maybe more—definitely less than two—before being blindfolded and off-loaded.
