Even in a situation like that, with outrage piled on outrage without a thought for how far the ripples of misery would spread, it was still a shock to see what had happened to the Sentzkes.
Their daughter had been returned to them, or so they thought, and for a while they’d been relieved to have her back. Then she fell ill and spent eighteen months dying. The Sentzkes were told it was a genetic illness. The social reports tossed in the consequences of that lie as if it was just a footnote:
Mrs. Sentzke is concerned that the genetic abnormality will affect any other children she might bear. She has asked to be sterilized and the decision is putting considerable strain on the marriage.
The next page was a coroner’s report, an inquest, dated six months later. Naomi’s mother had finally slashed her wrists. There was a comment from the coroner about her inability to deal with her bereavement.
Vaz read it a few times, unable to get past that paragraph. Had Osman actually told Naomi all that? He’d have no idea until he asked, but if she hadn’t, the worst news of all would fall to him. Part of him resented Osman for not giving Naomi the full story right away.
God Almighty. How do I tell Naomi that?
Her father, Staffan, seemed to be made of more obstinate stuff, though. The social worker had included a number of police reports detailing how he insisted that the girl who’d come back wasn’t his daughter, and that it was all a dirty government conspiracy. There was no genetic abnormality like that in his family, he said.
Vaz was now riveted. This factory worker, this ordinary guy, hadn’t realized just how right he was. Vaz scrolled through the pages as fast as he could, but then he found himself reading Naomi’s service record. The trail went cold. There was no more mention of Staffan Sentzke.
“BB,” he said. “Quick question. Sitrep on Sansar, Outer Colonies.”
“Glassed,” BB said, not even materializing.
Vaz thought of that Staffan, screwed by his own kind and then glassed by the Covenant, and wondered if there was any justice left in the world. He lay on his bunk for a long time, staring up at the deckhead in chaotic, numb anger. More than seventy families had been through something like that, and the only thing that had put an end to their misery was the Covenant. How many of them had been as tragic as Naomi’s parents? How the hell was he going to tell her any of this?
He swung his legs off the bunk, determined to come back later and finish reading every last damn word. One thought wouldn’t go away, though. Halsey was still down there, one deck below. She’d led a charmed life, paid and praised and given nice big budgets, while all the time she was no better than any of the other war criminals throughout history who’d been tried and hanged, or who’d never faced justice at all.
Vaz knew a little about World War II because it was still compulsory history in the school he’d attended. Russia didn’t forget her wars. If he’d run into Dr. Josef Mengele five hundred years ago and known what the man had done, or would do, and if he’d shot him, then he’d have been hailed as a patriot. Everyone would have said he’d done humanity a favor.
Now he had a modern-day Mengele right here.
Vaz was halfway down the passage before the thought started crystallizing. By the time he got to the ladder that would take him to the deck below, he’d already kissed good-bye to his service career and his freedom. He found himself outside Halsey’s temporary cell with one hand on the door and the other resting on his sidearm. He thought of all the scientists responsible for wartime atrocities and how many of them made themselves too useful to hang, and died fat and rich and respected at a ripe old age. That was when he decided that the world could probably get by just fine without another Spartan program.
He put one finger on the lock override.
“Vasily,” said the voice behind him. No, it wasn’t behind him; it was somewhere overhead, in one of the ship’s broadcast speakers, like the voice of God. “Vaz, I told you it would make you angry, didn’t I? Come on. Walk away from it.”
“Nobody ever stops monsters until it’s too late,” he said. “We can’t claim we didn’t know about this one.”
“But there’s always another one to take their place, Vaz,” BB said. “And I think Naomi would be happier if you weren’t serving life for blowing Halsey’s brains out.”
Vaz paused for a good ten seconds, hating himself for hesitating when he knew this woman was probably never going to face real justice. What did he have to lose? No kids, no family. Not half as much as the colonists whose lives she’d wrecked.
“Vaz—leave her to Parangosky.” BB’s tone was firmer now. “She’s much more proficient than you at making people suffer. Go find Naomi. Go on.”
Vaz felt as if he’d suddenly sobered up. It didn’t stop the anger or the seething hatred, but he felt both stupid and justified, which was hard to handle.
BB was looking out for him, though. That was what friends were for.
“Thanks, BB.” He rubbed his face with both hands and started walking away. Coward, a voice said inside him. Coward. “Yeah, I’ll do that. I hope I never have to regret this.”
“You know you already do,” BB said. “Now go press your best pants. We hand over Halsey, and then we go home for the memorial ceremony.”
Vaz had plenty of people to commemorate. It still seemed pretty lavish to slip back to Earth in the middle of a mission. “They really need us there?”
“Yes. The Arbiter’s attending.”
Old enemies normally left it a decent few years before they showed up expressing respect. This was just months. It was still all way too raw, but then today was a very raw kind of day all around.
“Great,” Vaz said, realizing that every step he took away from that door was proof that he was just like everyone else, compliant and gutless, unable to do what his conscience demanded. “Let’s forgive every evil bastard in the galaxy.”
VOI MEMORIAL, KENYA, EARTH: MARCH 2553.
“No Army?” Margaret Parangosky, leaning on her cane, watched Hood taking his leave of the Arbiter. “He didn’t invite any brass from the Army? Well, that’s goddamn rude, even by my standards.”
She turned to Osman and did that little nod that always accompanied a tip on handling interservice politics. “Even if you think that the Navy and Marines were the only ones fighting the war, then you still treat the rest as if they were right there at the front. And an awful lot of them were.”
The coral-pink dawn had given way to a bright, crisp morning, and the memorial, the wing of a Pelican dropship inscribed with the names of the fallen, had lost its stark, monolithic look as the sun climbed higher. Osman hoped that the media had managed to get the best dramatic images of the lonely black shape silhouetted against a sky that was a convenient metaphor for shed blood. She wondered how anyone could possibly have inscribed all the names that should have been there in such a limited space, but that was the way history tended to play these things.
Something to address one day when I’m stuck at Bravo-6.
The ceremony was like any other social gathering. There were those who came for the main business of the day, which was grieving, and there were those who had come because it was a requirement. Chief Mendez looked immaculate in his dress uniform and also very pissed off. Osman could see why. She noticed the crowd part as the Arbiter took his leave of Hood—with a handshake again—and walked away to where his guards were waiting.
Parangosky watched with narrowed eyes, leaning on her cane. Osman couldn’t tell if her mind was on Hood or Halsey.
“So you think Phillips is ready to be inserted,” she said at last.
“Ready or not, ma’am, he’s the only person who can get into Sanghelios right now. And we really need intel.”
“‘Vadam’s not an idiot. He’ll expect us to send a spy.”
“But he probably won’t expect that spy to have contacts on the ground.”
“Indeed. And if the worst happens?”
“BB can deal with it.”
The
intelligence business was full of euphemism. BB would give Phillips a lethal dose of nerve agent if he was captured and interrogated. It was easier for the AI to decide when things had gone too far than for Phillips to make the call himself. Osman stood back from herself and watched her spook side not getting upset about the idea. It was sobering.
“I’ve sent Spenser to mooch around Venezia,” Parangosky said, gaze still fixed on the Sangheili shuttle. Its drives were powering up. “He was getting bored. Bad sign.”
“They’re still number two on our bugger-about list.”
“Glad they’re not forgotten. We need to focus resources on the Sangheili, so that means stopping the colonies complicating the issue. Keep an eye on that and give him a hand if need be, will you?”
“My pleasure, ma’am.”
“A Sangheili attack on them wouldn’t upset us at all.”
“I’ll do my best.”
Parangosky pushed herself upright and flexed her hands. “Now for dessert. I’ve got a conversation to have with my favorite scientist.” She’d waited a damned long time to get Halsey but she seemed more resigned than triumphant. “I wouldn’t call it an interrogation because there aren’t many answers I want from her. I just want to tell her a few things. And then she can make herself useful. But BB will brief you on that when Stanley’s under way.”
Osman knew something big was looming but had learned long ago that Parangosky would tell her what she needed to know when the time was right. She’d never left her in the dark without a good reason. “Have you spoken to her at all, ma’am?”
“Not yet. Just trying to locate my own moral high ground at the moment.”
“You’ve never actually said that you regret the Spartan program.”
“Regret’s an insultingly useless thing so long after the event, but I think it’s better than claiming you did what you thought was right at the time. Good faith. Ah, I can’t be doing with that nonsense—it’s a politician’s defense. I knew it was wrong and I still did it. So I’ll stand up and admit it.”
Osman wondered if Parangosky was getting ready to die. If the woman was ill, BB probably wouldn’t tell Osman. But there was a great finality about the admiral, a tidying up of loose ends, and it panicked Osman every time she noticed it. But no other admiral had served so long past their active service date, and she might just have decided to retire at last.
“You’re going to give a statement to the Defense Committee, then.”
“When my resignation won’t compromise security, yes.” Parangosky smiled. She did that more often than people imagined, but rarely outside her office. “You’ll be appointed rear admiral in the April list, by the way, and then the path’s clear.”
The news didn’t sound quite as good to Osman as she’d once thought it would. “What if I’m not ready for it, ma’am?”
“Then I’ll just have to stay alive until you are.” She glanced past Osman at her driver. “Good team, Kilo-Five.”
Osman nodded. “They’ve really gelled. A bit baffled and impatient without real fighting to do, but they’re adapting to intelligence work very well. Even Phillips. Good call, ma’am.”
“I’m glad that’s worked out.” Parangosky began walking back to the memorial. “You always need a core team who’ll do anything for you and you alone. Loyalty’s everything, Serin. But you know that.”
Osman followed her back to the memorial, more out of concern than to see what she would do. Parangosky contemplated one of the plaques in silence for a while. It was Halsey’s. It was almost as if she wanted to lock it in her memory to convince herself that something had finally come to pass. Then she moved along to the plaque commemorating the Spartans and laid her hand on it for just a moment, chin lowered.
“Sorry,” she whispered.
She looked back over her shoulder at Osman, half shrugged, then turned to where her driver was waiting. Everyone paused for a moment to watch her go. It was rare for her to appear in public.
Osman saluted and wondered if she would hold ONI together for as long as Parangosky had.
As if the Admiral’s exit was his cue, Mendez broke away from a conversation with the Spartan-IIs and Mal, Vaz, and Devereaux. Maybe Osman was reading too much into it, but there seemed to be a gap in the group, and Naomi was definitely standing with the ODSTs. Mendez headed her way.
“Looking good, Chief,” she said.
He patted his gut, self-conscious. “It still fits after all these years, ma’am. You’re back on patrol now?”
“No rest for the wicked. I expect we’ll see one another again fairly soon, though.”
“If it’s okay with you, Kelly, Linda, and Fred aren’t going to take you up on your offer of access to their files for the time being, but they’re grateful for the opportunity.” He slipped a white-gloved finger inside his collar as if to loosen it a little. Maybe it didn’t quite fit after all. “I think it’s too much too soon. And maybe thirty-five years too late anyway.”
“That’s okay,” Osman said. “They’ve always got the option.” She reached out for his hand and shook it. “Look after yourself, Chief.”
Mendez gave her one of his tight, regretful smiles. “And you stay out of trouble, ma’am.”
An event like this would normally have broken down into spotting old shipmates and sinking further into reminiscence, and then, once a few suitably bracing drinks had been taken in the wardroom, she would make her excuses for an early getaway before it all got too emotional and messy for her. But she had a very good excuse for absence today. She had a coup to support.
She jerked her head in the direction of the waiting transport and gave the ODSTs and Naomi a get-moving gesture, just a discreet tilt of her thumb. They’d made a lot of effort with the spit and polish. Vaz looked especially well turned out. Osman wondered if his feckless ex-girlfriend had bothered to contact him again, and hoped that he’d had the sense to tell her to sling her hook.
“Does it offend you, all this focus on the Spartans?” she asked. The pool driver couldn’t hear them in the front compartment, and Naomi had turned to gaze out of the window as if to indicate she wasn’t taking part in this conversation. “I know the Master Chief played a pivotal role, but I wonder if the other side of all this adulation is almost dismissing the role of the ordinary guys who were killed and maimed to stop the Covenant.”
Mal looked as if he wanted to loosen his high collar too. They’d been stuck in those uniforms for more than seven hours. “At least it’s not all tea and medals for the senior command, ma’am. The Spartans were NCOs. No offense.”
“None taken, Staff.”
Port Stanley was close to an Earth orbit for a fast slip. Osman wondered if the detour had been worth it in lost time, because the Arbiter’s visit had been uneventful and she could have hung around Sanghelios after all. But she looked at the faces around her, and decided it had been no bad thing to give her ODSTs and Naomi a chance to grieve and remember.
She couldn’t think of it as closure. It was all very far from over, and there would be more names to engrave on plaques, both on Earth and on distant worlds.
CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN
FOR US, THE STORM HAS PASSED, THE WAR IS OVER. BUT LET US NEVER FORGET THOSE WHO JOURNEYED INTO THE HOWLING DARK AND DID NOT RETURN. FOR THEIR DECISION REQUIRED COURAGE BEYOND MEASURE—SACRIFICE, AND UNSHAKABLE CONVICTION THAT THEIR FIGHT, OUR FIGHT, WAS ELSEWHERE. AS WE START TO REBUILD, THIS HILLSIDE WILL REMAIN BARREN, A MEMORIAL TO HEROES FALLEN. THEY ENNOBLED ALL OF US, AND THEY SHALL NOT BE FORGOTTEN.
(ADMIRAL LORD HOOD, DEDICATING THE UNSC MEMORIAL TO THE DEAD OF THE COVENANT WAR, VOI, KENYA, MARCH 2553)
UNSC PORT STANLEY, EN ROUTE FOR THE SANGHELIOS SECTOR.
“Are you seriously going through with this?” Devereaux asked.
“How can I say no?” Phillips was fiddling with the arum and trying to look nonchalant, but BB knew better. He suspected that Devereaux did, too. “It needs doing. And it’s an incredible opportunity.”
“It will be, if you survive to write the paper.”
“Come on, I’m a guest of the Arbiter. I’ll be as safe as houses. It’s only for a few weeks.”
“And he’s really safe, of course. Because people like us aren’t trying to foment civil war all around him.”
“Most people say ferment,” Phillips said, winking at her. “Correct usage always impresses us academics.”
“Well, you better leave that toy behind or they’ll know something’s not quite right.” She took the arum from him. “Are you really okay about this?”
“I don’t know enough to be dangerous.”
Actually, he did. That was partly why BB was going along for the ride in fragment form, with just enough of his program installed in Phillips’s personal comms kit to be useful and to flag problems to Port Stanley, but with none of the core matrix accessible to those busy Sangheili fingers—or Huragok, if he was unlucky—if anything went badly wrong.
And if the worst happened, he would silence Phillips permanently if he couldn’t be extracted. He wasn’t sure if Phillips had fully grasped what a lethal injection did, because he’d hardly reacted to the news. But the man had a pretty good imagination, and he’d now settled into this dirty business with a speed and enthusiasm that made BB wonder whether he’d actually been planted within ONI by a rival agency.
But there are no rival agencies. We castrated them all. Left them cowering in our shadow. What am I thinking?
The natural state of paranoia affected even AIs, BB reflected. But it was a lot healthier than being a trusting soul. It certainly made for a longer lifespan.
Devereaux and Phillips hung around the dropship, waiting for Osman to show up and see him off. The captain came thundering down the gantry a few minutes later.
“All ready, then?” she asked. “Now remember what I said. However tempting it is, don’t get too clever. Just observe. Concentrate on the cultural stuff, not data gathering. Just be what you really are.”
Halo: Glasslands Page 40
