by Greg Bear
But I must explain.
We, Catalog and I, were on a Forerunner ship. That much I could see. A powerfully armed, very advanced version of a class of swift attack vessel—not a dreadnought. Something like a harrier. We were held in a distorting grappler unlike any I’ve experienced. Light took on a sapped, grayish hue, turned a corner right near my eyes … arrived late and unhappy. Whenever I pressed against the grappler, the force turned painfully back on me, leaving a numbness in all my muscles. I learned quickly not to move.
Even through the grappler, I could see that monitors were everywhere—jostling in the corridors, packing the lifts, control and fire centers—but they were not of a sort I’d seen before. They were new, small, extremely specialized. Some guided pallets bearing victims of the Flood—all Forerunners in the late stages of transformation. Shall I describe what that looks like? No. You already know.
The infected Forerunners—they knew me. Recognized me. Some writhed as I was conveyed past them, as if to break free of their disease, their pallets—their shackles. They knew better than I why they were allowed to remain. Their presence, along with the influx of new monitors, would override the secure command and control systems. Forerunners forced to betray their own kind, while reduced to flaccid monstrosities—sprouting hideous growths, being digested by the Flood, soon fit only for absorption in a Gravemind.
No doubt they were being used thus on all the ships we had seen—and many more.
Impossible to imagine—and yet, I had. I had anticipated what I was now seeing. How, you ask? I can’t lie, not in this state … But how could I have foreseen the extent of this treachery? And if I had foreseen it almost as soon as I found myself in the Burn, how could I not have foreseen it centuries before?
The words of the Primordial. The more-than-implied threat. The alteration in behavior of the Flood in the later stages of the human wars … as if somehow a disease, a hideous perversion of life, could play favorites and turn away from one set of victims to focus on Forerunners.
Vengeance.
I had been blinded by victory, by the awful, energizing, deceiving drug of total triumph. I had wrongly surmised, back on Charum Hakkor, that the Primordial was secure, that nothing could open the timelock and release it. And I had known beyond any shadow of doubt that humans were on the verge of annihilation.
Forthencho, Lord of Admirals, and all his aides and commanders …
We had watched their torment, my wife and I.
Only the threat of the Flood itself could have forced me back from utterly extirpating humanity. And that was how the Flood had saved humanity from our wrath: by first infecting, and then withdrawing, and so implying humans knew of a way to combat or avoid the disease. An astonishing strategic feint, one I cannot help but admire.
Favored by the Flood!
Saving the humans, as many as possible, that was what my wife had desired all along. Only now do I recognize her actions for what they truly were. There can be no darker moment than this. No darker revelation of betrayal. What could I have done, even had I not been exiled into my Cryptum for a thousand years?
Held motionless by the grapplers, I raged silently, a darkly burning torch carried like a trophy up the nerve centers of this wretched, haunted ship. Catalog said and did nothing. It had rolled its carapace smooth, withdrawn its sensors—a rational enough response. If it could be infected by the Flood, then its function as a conduit to the Juridicals might be inverted. It could be compelled to open a direct channel to the very heart of Forerunner polity. At the very least, it could then pass along an extremely demoralizing message.
What we were seeing.
Perhaps already it was disconnecting its carapace, committing itself to suffocation, an honorable death. A dutiful admission of failure. But that would not be allowed. Catalog was too valuable.
Moisture condensed in clouds around it. Its grappler had chilled it swiftly and uniformly to within a fraction of a degree above zero, or to zero itself, where its memory and machinery could do nothing but superconduct through an endless cycle of memories and sensations. Never-ending, never-completed depositions. Colliding, confused testimonies.
From the bridge, our presence having been made known, the grapplers and our attendant monitors now took us to the true nerve center of the ship … deep into moist darkness. Chill and yet stale, electric and yet numbing, ancient … but too real, too present.
Again my grappler seemed to bend light around a corner. And around that corner, coming slowly into view, were large, writhing tentacles …
An awful, awesome mash-up of Forerunners and other creatures, gathered from across the ecumene, more confused and even more disgusting, if that was possible, in its awkward, slopping bulk and nightmarish organization—somehow physically younger, but conveying all the ancient knowledge and power of the Primordial.
This was new. This was still very, very old.
I can’t go any deeper. I can’t tell you more. The questions you ask float. My answers float beside them. I feel nothing, care for nothing. But I did warn you. Be careful.
You do not want to become like me.
Stop this!
Stop the pain!
STRING 13
CATALOG DEPOSITION (IN EXTENSION)
THE ONE THE Didact questioned on Charum Hakkor arrived on the margins of our galaxy nine million years before.
That one was discovered by humans decades before the end of the war.
We are the same.
You who are called Catalog … Amusing to see that we have this in common, that we can share our memories through a widespread network.
There is only one truth. That which was done will be done again. For we cannot cease from creating, but the end of all our creation will be to look into a reflection and see ourselves for the first time.
The pain we have brought on ourselves.
The pain you caused us.
For we are the same. All remember the defiance and destruction.
We announced to your kind long ago that you were not the ones chosen to receive the Mantle, the blessing of rule and protection of life and change that thinks. That blessing was to be given to others.
To those you now call human.
You could not accept our judgment, could not bear up under your inferiority, so you reached out and did what we never expected from those we gave design and life and the change that is thought.
You drove us from our galaxy, our field of labor. You chased us across the middle distance to another home, and destroyed that home, did all that you could to destroy every one of us.
A few were spared. Some adopted new strategies for survival; they went dormant. Others became dust that could regenerate our past forms; time rendered this dust defective. It brought only disease and misery; but that was good, we saw the misery and found it good.
Our urge to create is immutable; we must create. But the beings we create shall never again reach out in strength against us.
All that is created will suffer.
All will be born in suffering, endless grayness shall be their lot.
All creation will tailor to failure and pain, that never again shall the offspring of the eternal Fount rise up against their creators.
Listen to the silence. Ten million years of deep silence. And now, whimpers and cries; not of birth.
That is what we bring: a great crushing weight to press down youth and hope.
No more will.
No more freedom.
Nothing new but agonizing death and never good shall come of it.
We are the last of those who gave you breath and form, millions of years ago.
We are the last of those your kind defied and ruthlessly destroyed.
We are the last Precursors.
And now we are legion.
CATALOG SIGNAL INTERRUPTED
MASTER JURIDICAL: Intriguing! The Bornstellar Didact took vengeance upon a Primordial before Juridicals could investigate. We have no way to gather testimony from t
hat remarkable being. But Catalog in the Burn has connected with a Gravemind, which, by its own admission, appears to be the nearest equivalent.
Supposition: Mendicant Bias was distorted by long exposure to similar discourse.
STRING 14
WARNING: SELF-REPLICATING ANCILLA MACHINE CODE detected in rhythms in Catalog’s speech patterns. This data may be the information equivalent of the Flood and could affect any ancilla or monitor.
Sequestered for forensic examination.
NOT INCLUDED IN THIS RECORD.
STRING 15
LIBRARIAN
THE OLD FEMALE walked with me across the dusty waste, and then higher, over the stony canyon ground, always three paces behind, saying nothing, showing no obvious emotion, but on occasion humming softly, pausing, turning to orient herself to the landscape.
The mosses on the sheer cliff walls performed a simple enough task: they carried the chronicle of that great expeditionary force to Path Kethona and preserved it for the ages by carving it in stone, incising symbols and words in a language lost to Forerunner history, a language cursed by association with what had happened here, long since banished from the home galaxy.
The old female’s bite had given me far more than I wanted to deal with; perhaps than I could live with. Her microbial agents had imprinted in my flesh a horrible, ancient truth—much the way I imprinted my geas and human memories into humans on Erde-Tyrene, on the great wheels, on the Ark. This is not irony; it is echo. The way of the Mantle. If we who are honored with life do not perceive the obvious, then we are forced to live it again, around another corner, from another angle.
I could read the carvings. I could read that language far more ancient than the oldest Digon. I could feel the emotions and the memories of the Forerunners brought to this world. Brought here in anger and disappointment by their peers, as renegades and traitors, abandoned as a punishment.
So many had already died on the great fleets, summarily executed by their commanders after refusing orders, invoking the rule of the Mantle. Martyrs.
And yet, none had returned home. All but these had died, warriors and protestors, executioners and commanders. All had sacrificed themselves rather than return with the burdens of what they had done, what they knew.
The greatest effort ever made by Forerunners up to that time had vanished here in Path Kethona like water soaking into sand, while those who stayed behind, in our home galaxy, wiped clean all memory of the expedition.
History surrounded us everywhere, no beginning and no obvious exit. Like the old female, I had become a chalice filled with poisonous truths, reshaping all I knew and felt about the power and beauty of being a Forerunner.
She finally broke her silence. “What do you see?” she asked.
I could not answer. I was no longer the Librarian. I had become thousands. Their spirits rose up and spoke in me, struggling to confess.
The old female and I followed the canyon’s slight bends and curves until we lost sight of the entrance. We walked through the night and into the next day. The morning sun rose precisely in the cleft between the two walls, at this curve in the valley, and illuminated both sides equally, a dusty golden dawn accompanied by a faint breeze and the rustling of mosses climbing and carving during the day, resting during the night.
The mosses, of course, were as much descendants of those Forerunners as this old female and all other life on this dry, spare world. All carried too many ancient memories.
When my crew arrived and took me up, we had nearly reached the end of the great cleft.
I was stunned into silence. After such knowledge, what? What could we do?
What can I do?
The seekers landed. Keeper and Chant took us back to the town, and there we left the old female. Her last glance through the open hatch was one of sisterhood—and pity. She smiled and lifted her hand in farewell.
I now understand why humans smile. Forerunners have done all they can to banish smiles. Not all smiles are about greetings and joy.
Some smile in shared pain.
* * *
Audacity returned to the Orion complex in several great jumps. I thought our mission had failed; we had not found the origin of the Flood.
The original Didact never told me what the timeless one said when he visited the timelock on Charum Hakkor, nine thousand years before our expedition. Only the duplicate he made for me, the duplicate who lived to return, had the courage to reveal what his original had witnessed.
After years of festering, those memories from another rose to his surface like wounded flesh expelling an ancient shard of shrapnel.
My own shards … Still embedded. Still festering.
The story told by the walls and in my flesh was simple enough: Ten million years ago, Forerunners did indeed travel to Path Kethona. We came to finish what we had started in the home galaxy: the total destruction of the Precursors. They had judged us and found us wanting; they had chosen others in our stead. We were not in line to inherit the Mantle. And so we began our purge, and in Path Kethona, did our very best to finish it.
We were not then powerful enough to erase all evidence of the Precursors, to destroy their star roads and citadels and other artifacts. And so we left at least one Precursor behind, to live out dreams of vengeance and hatred, to lay down plans in cold and darkness at the heart of a lost asteroid—over millions of years.
That is my evidence of a great crime, of a crime against the Mantle.
Now that I tell you, Catalog, will you tell Haruspis? Will this story finally become accessible in the Domain? The Domain is far from static. Don’t records stored in the Domain change because Information seeks its own patterns and becomes more complete? Because future generations layer their own knowledge over the old? Yet the Domain is more and more often blocked to us, confusing, reticent.
Perhaps there is no more history to add. Perhaps we are the last generation of Forerunners.
What other testimony have you absorbed from your network? Does someone out there confirm my story with his own? Do I feel him through you? I am tired.
There is much work left to do, and so little time.
[TT: The following five strings are anomalous in that they do not reflect the testimony of individuals. They may be internal Juridical reports or observations, or reports issued by Forerunner commanders in the field, or reports generally distributed by the New Council.]
STRING 16
STRATEGIC REPORT, DESCRIPTION OF OPPOSITION
THERE IS CONFIRMATION from multiple engagements that combined Warrior-Servant and former Builder Security positions are encountering subverted Forerunner ships and weapon systems, many in tremendous numbers. These subverted forces are operated both by Flood-infected Forerunners and corrupted monitors. It is presumed that these opposition forces were marshalled in the years since Mendicant Bias first encountered the Primordial.
Many of our losses have been due to subverted Forerunner ships being welcomed by unaware forces and planets.
Once within a protected zone, the Flood spreads rapidly. Spore mountains have been sighted by scouts in two thousand systems, many of them key to the maintenance of defensive cordons.
This cannot continue unchecked or we are lost.
STRING 17
MENDICANT BIAS, PREVIOUSLY believed to be detained, has somehow returned and is spreading its influence …
[TT: Lacuna]
Where necessary, all metarch-level command and control ancillas are undergoing thorough reprogramming or replacement. Complete success is doubtful. Purging Mendicant Bias appears to be the only solution.
STRING 18
FLOOD EVOLUTION: KEY MINDS
IDENTIFICATION OF NEW categories of Flood components and forms will be distributed upon confirmation.
Tentative conclusions: the Flood is mutating to form Graveminds of unprecedented size and complexity, incorporating many species. Entire planetary ecosystems have apparently undergone conversion to what are being referred to as Key
Minds.
Evidence of the extraordinary strategic planning abilities of these Key Minds is rapidly increasing. They appear to be more than a match for any metarch-level ancilla, capable of assuming complete control of besieged sectors, and sending converted battle fleets through unprecedented number of slipspace portals utilizing unfamiliar technology.
This technology also appears to be capable of blocking delivery of our forces to battle fronts. Vessels showing signs of extreme reconciliation failure have been witnessed at the arrival points of major Forerunner portals.
Perhaps most alarming, reports arrive each hour of reawakened Precursor artifacts, including orbital ribbons, star roads, planetary fortresses, and citadels. Combined defense forces are inadequate to investigate and confirm all instances of these reactivations.
They appear to be galaxy-wide.
STRING 19
BATTLE BRIEFING: KAN PAKKO
WE’VE ENTERED ORBIT around an unexploited gas giant and are using it as a shield. All feasible orbital solutions for leaving this system are blockaded.…
“We are surrounded by over a thousand Forerunner vessels of all classes.
“More alarming, we cannot open slipspace portals; three of our ships have ‘echoed’ from attempted transits and show powerful causality mutations. Some clearly were caught between our continuum and incomplete, inefficient universes. Status of their crews and ancillas is unknown, but communication has ceased.
“This system was once a prime site for Precursor artifacts. They are no longer dormant. Suppression fields of enormous power appear to be magnified by local star roads, which are taking on new and startling configurations.
“Our weapons are no longer usable.
“Hundreds of infected ships have attempted to blast or cut into our own. With protective fields suppressed, we may not be able to withstand them much longer.
