He did a few mental rehearsals. This would be like detaining Rasputin. “How are we doing this, ma’am?” he asked. “Do you caution her while I put the cuffs on?” He fidgeted with a couple of microfilament cuffs strong enough to hold a Brute. “If she’s capable of abducting a bloody Spartan, then we better not take any chances.”
“We do this by the book,” Osman said. “If she doesn’t cooperate, you have full authorization to use whatever force you see fit. Just remember that Parangosky wants her in one piece and capable of answering questions.”
“Shame,” Vaz murmured.
The good thing about having a full-face helmet was that you could take a sneaky look around as long as you didn’t move your head. Mal glanced in Naomi’s direction. The feed from her helmet cam said she was staring straight ahead. There was no way of telling where she was actually looking.
“Anyone interested in the hull cam feed?” Devereaux asked. “Stand by for docking in five minutes.”
One of the icon positions in Mal’s HUD lit up and he could now see some of the surface details of the sphere. There were no seams visible, no solid shipyard workmanship that showed its construction, just an incredibly smooth and almost velvety surface that now looked chocolate brown. He still couldn’t get the scale of it yet.
“You know, it would really help if someone inside could talk me down,” Devereaux said irritably. “Just some damn numbers, people. Okay, I’ll do it the old-fashioned way from the coordinates.… Oh, now that’s what I call runway lights.”
Mal picked it up in his HUD at the same time Devereaux saw it. Beneath the dropship, the sphere had suddenly come to life. A riot of colored lights zipped out below them like a carpet being unrolled at high speed, resolving into blue, yellow, and coral stripes along its length. Then it started pulsing.
“I think I’m supposed to follow that down,” Devereaux said. “If I’m wrong, it’s been a blast serving with you all, and Vaz still owes me ten bucks.”
Judging by the camera angle, the dropship was now aligned right over the light strip. Every time Devereaux veered to port or starboard, the lights at the margins glowed bright red until she aligned with the central yellow strip again. Then cobalt blue discs began popping up at increasingly closer intervals. If that wasn’t a universal language, Mal didn’t know what was. If he’d been the pilot he’d have assumed the lights were telling him he was coming up on his target. Eventually pulsing coral bars appeared across the width of the strip before resolving into concentric rings. They kept pulsing until Devereaux brought the dropship to a hover vertically above them, and then they locked.
“Coordinates acquired,” she said. “I think I’m going to park here. Apologies for the sloppy RT procedure, but I don’t know what to call this.”
“On the nail. That’s what you call it.” BB’s voice interrupted. “Stand by for a novel experience, boys and girls.”
The landing strip lights disappeared and the world outside went pitch-black. Mal assumed the landing lights had been shut down and he was looking into the blackness of space again, but his gut did a somersault. Then the lights came on again, this time piercingly white in his HUD icon and throwing long shafts into the crew bay through the cockpit bulkhead hatch.
“We’re inside now.” Devereaux sounded very matter-of-fact. Mal always wondered if pilots squealed with delight when they opened birthday presents, or if they just grunted. “We’ve come through the shell of the sphere. This is the basement, more or less. I can see Engineers. Four of them, heading this way.”
The dropship’s drive whined down the scale and stopped. Osman popped her helmet’s seal and took it off, tidying her hair one-handed. Mal couldn’t read her expression at all.
“Okay, let’s do it,” she said. “She’s expecting an ONI tech team. I wonder if she’ll recognize me.”
“I did,” Naomi said. “And she will, too.”
Mal stepped down from the dropship and landed on pristine cream flagstones. It looked like the place had never been used. Vaz sidled up to him and switched over to their helmet-to-helmet comms link, triggering the red light in Mal’s HUD.
“I hope the other Spartans are as understanding about this as Naomi,” Vaz said. At the end of the long passage, Mal was sure he could see shafts of daylight. “We’re arresting their mother in front of them.”
“Well, if they’re not,” Mal said, “I’m really going to miss my head.”
FORERUNNER DYSON SPHERE: FEBRUARY 2553.
Halsey looked at her watch, then at her datapad, and then at Prone to Drift.
“Is that it? Have we—ohhh…”
Her stomach flipped and her ears buzzed, a moment of flulike faintness. It lasted only a second. Scientist or not, she was expecting such a massive unraveling of space and time to be a little more momentous. She looked around to see where the Spartans were, but she was the only one left in the workshop now.
Prone to Drift spoke via the datapad. “The shield world is now back in the other space. Your friends have entered. Is there anything else you require from us?”
“Will you cooperate with our scientists?” Halsey asked. She wondered if there was any point leaving now. She could stay here and work, without any reminders of the world outside and the precious people she’d let slip through her fingers so carelessly. “They’ll spend years exploring this place.”
“We maintain this shield world. Allow us to do our duty.” It was one of those persistent Huragok non sequiturs. “We must maintain this shelter.”
Halsey had started to understand that these were actually precise responses, gentle warnings combined with earnest pleas. This was all they did, all they were created to do, and they would carry on doing it until someone killed them or they died by some other means. Were these sterile lives, or meaningful ones? Whatever they were, they were painfully like her own.
“I understand,” she said. “I’m driven, too.” So driven I can’t remember the last time I spoke to my own daughter, and now she’s gone. “Have you … created others for us yet?”
“We have constructed three to look after the Forerunner technology you wish to transport,” he said. “I will fetch them.”
Prone to Drift floated away and Halsey was left with no distraction to stop the bad news flooding back into the idle spaces. John’s gone, and Miranda. Cortana, too. The world would never return to normal. She found a reflective surface and bobbed up and down in front of it, trying to see enough of herself to tidy up before the ONI crew arrived. She was raking her hair with her fingers when Prone returned, sailing like a galleon ahead of three new Huragok, line astern.
“Perfect Density, Tends to List, and Leaks Repaired,” he said. “They are willing to accompany the artifacts.”
Halsey decided they weren’t so much concerned with helping humans as focused on looking after the technology that they’d been created to care about more than life itself. She should have been able to understand that perfectly. She wondered if that was exactly how she looked to people like Mendez.
And three of them means we can keep building our own if need be. I can’t help myself thinking like that. I really am a cold bitch, aren’t I?
“Thank you,” she said. “Your knowledge and skill are priceless. I respect that.”
Prone to Drift didn’t seem to know how to react. It took him a few moments to gather himself and reply. “We are here to serve,” he said at last.
“And you’ve served well.”
Halsey walked back down the passage to find the others, brushing through the inner slipspace barrier and emerging into the present day—the UNSC’s present, anyway—with the new Huragok following her. It hadn’t been a long exile. She hadn’t even been forced to eat the rest of the ration bars. Outside, Mendez stood in the center of a huddle of Spartans.
Kelly and Linda had taken off their helmets and their expressions were completely transparent. Like Fred, the news about John had hit them hard. Halsey could see it from the way the two women stood with their ey
es fixed on the ground. It had to be about John. If they’d known Miranda at all, it would have been no more than a passing acquaintance.
The Spartan-IIIs hovered on the margins of the gathering. It looked like those awful minutes before a funeral, when the more casual mourners milled around trying to find someone they knew as well as the right thing to say, but failed. Halsey debated whether to join them. It would only make them feel more awkward now, she was sure. She wondered what would happen to the rest of the Spartan-IIIs and how many of their comrades were also still missing.
What happens to any of them? What happens to any of us when everything that defines us is part of a war that’s now over?
She glanced over her shoulder at the Engineers. They seemed to be making adjustments to each other, looking like nervous job candidates picking lint off one another’s suits before the big interview. Perhaps she should have tried talking to them. But it was hard to know where to start a casual conversation, if that was possible at all with a Huragok. We’ll need simpler translation devices for the ONI technicians. That was another project she knew she could immerse herself in so that she never needed to come up for air. She could just bury herself in research until the day she died.
For a moment, Halsey thought about the Spartans buried here. She couldn’t decide if it was more appropriate to leave them in peace or to repatriate them, but they had no true home now. She wasn’t sure that she did, either.
So I’ve got more in common with the dead and with aliens now than I have with the people around me.
But the Katana personnel … perhaps we can save them when they come out of stasis. I can’t face any more deaths. Not even people I don’t know.
There was always a priority, always something more urgent that needed doing rather than wallowing in grief and regret. Then she found her thoughts drifting to things that just didn’t matter a damn—what had happened to her equipment back on Reach, what had happened to her journal, what had happened to completely meaningless possessions—until Mendez looked up, stared past her, and started a brisk walk that turned into a jog. The Spartans turned around as well and started heading for the tower. When she finally shook herself out of the fog that seemed to be drowning her, and she looked, Halsey could see what had grabbed their attention.
For a moment, she thought it was John.
A Spartan was striding across the grass toward her. Even though the gait was a woman’s and she knew it couldn’t possibly be John, she couldn’t stop herself from reacting. She broke into a trot, then a run, and rushed to meet her.
Halsey almost didn’t notice two ODSTs and a woman in captain’s rig with the Spartan. She was carrying her helmet.
“Naomi?” Halsey pushed past Mendez, devastated that it wasn’t John but somehow elated to know that one more of her Spartans had survived. She hadn’t realized it was possible to experience both at the same time. “Naomi, is that you? Oh, thank God. I thought you were dead.”
Halsey realized she thanked God a lot considering that she didn’t believe in him. The Spartan took her helmet off as Fred, Linda, and Kelly went to slap her on the shoulder. It was Naomi, all right. But she didn’t look particularly happy to see them.
“I’m glad you made it,” she said stiffly. Halsey wasn’t clear who she was talking to, to her or to the other Spartans. Then Halsey started paying attention to the captain.
Halsey knew that face. She recognized the eyes. It was hard to pinpoint her age, but the woman was exceptionally tall and her expression said she recognized Halsey too. The woman stopped and looked her over, almost embarrassed.
Oh God. I know who it is.
She’s come back to see me. The first one who ever has.
Mendez cocked his head on one side. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said. “Serin, isn’t it? I knew you’d gone to ONI, but—well, good to see you, Captain. Good to see you looking so damn well, too.”
“Good to see you, too, Chief.” She didn’t hold out her hand to Halsey for shaking. If anything, she seemed more curious about the Spartans. “I’m Serin Osman now. If anyone else is still trying to place the face, I used to be Spartan-Zero-One-Nine. But that was a long time ago.”
Fred, Kelly, and Linda seemed to hold their breath for a second and then murmured.
“Oh … Serin!”
“We thought you were dead,” Fred said. “But don’t think for one minute that we ever forgot you.”
“I know,” she said quietly. “But now I’m back.”
Halsey could see it now. The glossy black hair had some gray streaks, but it didn’t take a lot of effort to roll back the clock and see a teenage girl, leggy and awkward from all those artificially induced growth spurts, huddled in a surgical gown and asking Halsey just how different she would feel when she woke up after surgery.
Halsey had told her the truth. All the children she’d chosen were emotionally robust and mature well beyond their years, and Halsey had seen no point in lying to them about how painful and how persistent the side effects of the surgical enhancements would be. It was better to frighten them with the truth than mouth platitudes and leave them feeling deceived and betrayed afterward.
Good grief. Listen to me. I worried about betraying them? I worried about deceiving them? The Chief’s right. You stop noticing the stench and after a while, the sewer smells perfectly normal.
Until you step outside.
Halsey had told her that if she survived the procedure, then there would be a lot of pain, and that pain would go on for months or even years. What she hadn’t told her—because she hadn’t been certain herself—was that there was another possible state, a limbo between life and death, and that was surviving with a catastrophic disability or never regaining consciousness.
Serin had been unlucky, like the handful of others who lived but would never serve as Spartans. Some went to ONI.
So much for never.
Halsey had decided it was kinder to tell the others that Serin hadn’t survived rather than say she’d been shipped back to Earth, in agony and unlikely to walk again. Serin Osman was walking now, though. Halsey couldn’t see any sign of abnormality.
“I admit it was hard knowing you were all out there and not being able to contact you.” Osman clasped her hands behind her back, boots spread. “But Admiral Parangosky made sure I was cared for. Which, I suppose, is what brings me here now.”
She looked Halsey in the eye. Halsey braced to hear some hurtful truths, a justified explosion of anger at a stolen childhood, but Osman seemed perfectly calm, as if Halsey was of no consequence to her and the life she’d made for herself was without regrets. To either side of her, the ODSTs, silent and anonymous behind their visors, moved slowly forward so that they were flanking her.
Naomi was now physically shut out of this conversation. It didn’t look as if that was what she intended. The Spartan took an awkward sidestep as if she was going to intervene, but the realization was already dawning on Halsey.
The ODSTs took off their helmets and clipped them onto their belts. Her gaze wasn’t drawn to the older, dark-haired staff sergeant but to his corporal. It wasn’t his close-shaven hair or the hard, lean planes of his face that made him look intimidating, but the expression in his eyes. He seemed to have reached his verdict on her.
“There’s an ONI scientific survey team waiting to enter this sphere after we’ve completed some formalities,” Osman said. There was no tension in her voice at all, just a hint of weary resignation as she recited the litany. “Catherine Elizabeth Halsey, I have orders to detain you and take you to the nearest secure ONI facility on charges of committing acts likely to aid the enemy. You are now under military jurisdiction and do not have the right to an attorney. The maximum allowable period of detention before being formally charged or released does not apply. Come with me, please.”
For a moment, nobody breathed. Nobody said a word. Halsey expected to be shocked, but all she felt was a strange, cleansing sense of relief. At first she thought that it was simple inev
itability after what she’d done to get to Onyx, but then she started to taste a sense of martyrdom, that she wanted punishment, and that she needed it to be public so that everyone could see just how very penitent she was.
I’m glad the Chief isn’t a mind reader. He’d say that I still think it’s all about me, me, me.
Halsey took an uncertain step forward, datapad in one hand. The young marine held out his hand for it.
“I need to secure that, Dr. Halsey.” He had a heavy Russian or Eastern European accent and looked as if he would have preferred to punch her in the face rather than just take her computer away. He glanced at her bag as if he could see right through it. “And the weapon, please.”
She’d forgotten she had her sidearm in her bag. “But you’ll need this to communicate with the Huragok.” The translation software seemed much more critical than a weapon. “Oh. Yes. This.”
She handed him the pistol on the flat of her hand so he was clear she wasn’t going to do anything insane this time. But as she handed the datapad to him, the Spartans came to life behind her. Kelly stepped forward as if she was going to defend her.
“Captain, this is Catherine Halsey. You know her. She’s not some common criminal. Do we have to do this?”
The older marine, the big cheerful staff sergeant who looked as if he would have been the life and soul of the party under happier circumstances, stepped to one side of Halsey, caught her left wrist, and snapped something around it. He did it so casually, so quickly, so gently that Halsey didn’t realize he was cuffing her until it was too late.
Kelly spun around. “Whoa, that’s not necessary—”
“It’s okay, Kelly,” Halsey said. “This had to happen. Nobody can be allowed to get away with what I did.”
“Got it in one, Doctor.” The sergeant looked up at Kelly as if he felt sorry for her, as if she was a child who had to be told as tactfully as possible that the tooth fairy had a criminal record as long as her arm. “Remember what happened the last time you turned your back on Dr. Halsey? And how you got here?”
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