Broken Circle

by John Shirley

  A mec-missile caught the elderly Tup’Quk in his mouth as he opened it to shout, the imprecation never to be voiced. He fell back, dead, the shaft jutting from the back of his head.

  Bal’Tol spoke into a communicator on his wrist, sending it out wide. “This is the kaidon, outside the Hall of Godminds, we’re under attack—” There was no time for more, and he spun around, his hearts feeling as if they were banging against each other as he witnessed C’tenz grappling with Norzessa, his friend struggling to keep the quartermoon blade away—even as C’tenz’s burnblade was carving its way into Norzessa’s side. The floatfighter seemed to ignore the searing blade, snapping at C’tenz now with his mandibles.

  Acting instinctively, Bal’Tol drew his own sword, the weapon for the most part ceremonial, and drove it at Norzessa’s side.

  The floatfighter broke loose from the clinch as the second blade came at him and shoved C’tenz away. C’tenz stumbled into Bal’Tol—inadvertently saving his life. A mec-missiler’s bolt hissed by Bal’Tol’s head so close he felt the friction of its passing.

  One of the patrollers had rushed to protect Bal’Tol and put himself between the kaidon and the floatfighter. It was an act of courage and a tragic one, given Norzessa’s reputation. Almost instantly the protector’s head flew from his shoulders, trailing dark blue blood, as Norzessa used his quartermoon blade with masterly skill.

  Bal’Tol rushed in, furious now, and struck at Norzessa before he quite had the quartermoon blade back in play, and drove his long light ceremonial sword through the floatfighter’s throat, twisting it to make sure he took his enemy down.

  To his amazement, Norzessa kept fighting, slashing with his curved blade, barely missing as C’tenz pulled Bal’Tol out of the weapon’s way. Bal’Tol lost his grip on the bloodstained sword and Norzessa came, gargling lifeblood, but his eyes alight, with the kaidon’s blade still stuck to the hilt through his throat.

  C’tenz struck hard at Norzessa’s blade arm and cut through his wrist, just above the armor. The sword and severed hand fell, and Norzessa, spitting thick blue-purplish blood, went to his knees. C’tenz stabbed him twice more, cursing him, and Norzessa fell, convulsing, as Bal’Tol turned and saw that Tirk ‘Surb was also down . . . two razor-sharp bolts in him, one just above the breastbone, one in the groin. The old warrior was dying. Bal’Tol instinctively sidestepped as a bolt came his way . . . but not quite far enough, as the mec-missile caught him, low on the right side, penetrating and passing through.

  Wrenched with pain, Bal’Tol searched for a weapon—and looked for ‘Kinsa. Where was he? Where had he gone? If they could kill ‘Kinsa . . .

  He threw himself flat as another short spear zipped at him, flying over his head. He saw a patroller slashing at the mec-missiler—

  A shrill trilling cut through the battle shouts and cries of pain—it came from the hallway entrance of the sculpture garden.

  Bal’Tol looked up to see ‘Kinsa standing at the entrance, blowing in a long whistle of some kind, made from scrap tubing. He lowered the whistle and shouted, “Troops are arriving!”

  There was a contingent of patrollers at the shuttle bay. That must be them—it would take time to get others from the other sections.

  There were eight of ‘Kinsa’s fighters left alive, along with ‘Kinsa himself, calling orders to them. Launching a few more of their kinetic bolts, they then rushed out, under fire from the two surviving patrollers. They made it to ‘Kinsa, and followed him, running into the hall.

  “My Kaidon!” C’tenz said, his voice choking, helping Bal’Tol to his feet. “Are you badly hurt? You bleed!”

  Bal’Tol clutched the injury, felt blood pumping between his fingers. “It is not a mortal wound. It passed right through, just under the skin—I’ll surely survive. But we’ve lost Tirk and these others. A fine battle was fought. Honor shone brightly here, C’tenz. But make no mistake. This was also a tragedy. More than you could possibly realize.”

  High Charity

  Trial Court for Tools of Conquest

  Gravitational Refinement

  2552 CE

  The Age of Reclamation

  Zo Resken, the Prophet of Clarity, had been fairly certain he could handle this little interlocution with the Prophet of Exquisite Devotion. It was odd, though, that he had been brought here to the Trial Court, a weapon-testing facility, where he’d never been before. Few were permitted.

  Now that two Brutes squatted to either side of him, disabling his weaponry, ripping out wires with the blades attached to their spike rifles, he wished he hadn’t asked for the damned chair. Within it, he had stored Mken ‘Scre’ah’ben’s own records, treasures from his ancestor. In his most recent study of them, Zo had noticed hints of something he’d never before seen in prior observation, indications that some within the Ussan Refuge might have survived. He hoped the records were unmolested by the Brutes’ violence, but right now he had little certainty.

  “Really, isn’t that quite enough damage to my chair?” he asked sharply. “I must protest. You’ll interfere with its modulator.”

  “Yes, yes, quite enough, he is disarmed now,” said Exquisite Devotion, approaching in his own antigrav throne. They were in a hallway lit by a harsh overbright light from the viewing window. Light reflected from the golden fluting of his collar. The holograph of the Sacred Ring over his headpiece seemed to dim, as if ashamed.

  Zo Resken and Exquisite Devotion were not alone—they were under the watchful eyes of two bobbing surveillance drones drifting about overhead; guarding Exquisite were four Jiralhanae, including the one who’d brought him, and the two accompanying Mgalekgolo who stood at times either inert or twitching in the background, patiently awaiting an order to spring violently forward.

  To Zo’s left was a broad, high pane of glass in a metal frame, and beyond it a large white room, not quite a cube. Several Sangheili waited sullenly in the white room. At the room’s farther wall was a heavily reinforced blue-metal door. In the white room’s floor, at short regular intervals, were patterns of red dots, which looked to Zo’s inexperienced eye like gravitational nodes. “Look now, upon the chamber of Gravitational Refinement,” said Exquisite silkily, gesturing at the window into the white-walled room, as the door in the back of it opened. “Do you recognize any of those Sangheili?”

  Zo knew them all. There was Duru ‘Scoahamee, an Elite High Councilor—or formerly, before the recent Jiralhanae takeover—a tall Sangheili with a noble brow and, typically, clasped mandibles. He wore armor but no helmet, and was unarmed. Behind him were two others, K’hurk ‘Bornisamee and Tilik ‘Bornisamee. K’hurk and Duru were, until that very day, Elite High Councilors.

  Tilik had always been high-spirited. Now he looked despairing and haunted.

  “I know them,” said the Prophet of Clarity with a creeping feeling of dread.

  Melchus, the chief captain of Tartarus’s own Brutes, came into the chamber behind the Elites, carrying a very large unrecognizable weapon. Was that the one being tested here?

  As it happened, the entire room holding the Sangheili was part of the test.

  “Much has happened,” Exquisite said, “that, I would assume, you do not know about. Or we wouldn’t have spotted you strolling about in the gardens. A large group of Elite High Councilors, particularly those who opposed the replacement of the Honor Guards with Jiralhanae, have been, let us say . . . executed.”

  Zo blinked at him. “Executed?”

  “They did not find what they hoped to on the Sacred Ring. They found their deaths instead.”

  “You . . . killed them?”

  “We did. Mutiny is best put down before it gathers strength, and these were the tip of that spear. Do you know who was among them? Why, your friends Torg and G’torik who shambled about with you, no doubt babbling treason, in the Hanging Gardens!”

  “G’torik . . .”

  “We haven’t recovered his body. But I’m confident he’s dead, somewhere nearby. He could not have gotten very far.”
<
br />   “But . . . I . . . why am I here?”

  “For several purposes,” Exquisite purred. “First—look through the glass. Witness what happens to your friend Duru ‘Scoahamee.”

  Melchus directed the other two Sangheili to stand back—Duru was sent close to the window. Then the red nodes on the floor lit up, and suddenly Duru was slammed hard onto his back by an invisible force.

  “Look!” said Exquisite. His long bony two fingers and thumb hovered over the holocontrols of the throne. “I can hold him down. Just enough to keep him still.”

  Duru was spread-eagle on his back, on the floor, gasping.

  “What are you doing?” Zo asked, the dread taking command of him.

  “Why, I am controlling local gravitation,” Exquisite cackled. “And you would respond that is nothing new. But think of it. We have artificial gravity in our habitats. We have gravity-based weaponry and vehicles that use boosted-gravity drives. And yet how little we have explored the possibilities of gravitational refinement. What possibilities it has as a tool of influence and ascertainment. The problem, of course, is that it takes a good deal of energy to focus it. Our purposes in this chamber today are for”—he looked at Zo significantly—“interrogation.”

  Zo spoke, just to keep his mind busy, to stall the Prophet of Exquisite Devotion. “I have never heard of such a use in the Covenant . . .”

  “Oh, it is new. Very new, very experimental—perhaps it will not be practical for our needs with the humans, given their time is almost at an end. But for dissidents? For rebels clawing at us as we make our final steps on the Path?”

  Exquisite’s long slender fingers flutteringly adjusted a recently installed holocontrol over the arm of his throne.

  Duru’s right hand immediately flattened out to micro-width, blood and bone powder and marrow jetting out to the sides.

  Duru’s scream was muffled by the window, scarcely audible. But somehow Zo heard it echo loudly in his mind.

  “You see?” Exquisite asked, breathing hard with a sadistic joy. “I made his hand collapse under localized gravitational amplification. Gravity increasing—in just that spot! Discretely and separately. Imagine what can be done with such a device in the process of interrogation.”

  “Yes . . .” Zo’s throat seemed so suddenly dry, like the soil of a desert planet. “O Prophet, I was told you wanted to discuss something with me?”

  “There are indications that you have a relationship with the Sangheili that is something more than what might be appropriate for your official capacity. In fact, you were witnessed with these Sangheili in the Hanging Gardens, and they are now numbered among the heretics. It seemed, to my eyes, that you were having an intimate conversation with them.” He gestured to the whirring globes overhead—the drones watching them. “These probes were stationed outside the Hanging Gardens. Just close enough to catch a glimpse of those you talked to, those now guilty of sedition. Torg ‘Gransamee is dead—and G’torik will soon be confirmed dead as well. And for good reason. When I summoned you to my chambers, I imparted some troubling information to you about the Elites. I revealed facts I knew you might pass on, and I did it quite intentionally. It didn’t matter if that information leaked out; in fact, we wanted it to. And when we sent probes to watch G’Torik, later, we heard him repeat much of what I told you. Just as I supposed he would. And here you are. We knew, then, you are all too closely allied with these dissidents.”

  “Really . . . a misunderstanding, merely, Your Eminence.”

  “Don’t take me for a fool. Oh, and there are other rumors coming from the Ring. You are aware of the Supreme Commander of the Fleet of Particular Justice, now shamed for his loss of Alpha Halo?”

  “I am. It is Thel ‘Vadamee,” Zo replied. “But that is all I know.”

  “You must know, then, that he was given the mantle of the Arbiter by the High Prophets of Truth and Mercy, tasked with the acquisition of the Sacred Icon. Early reports indicated that his life was claimed at the Repository of Fate, the site the Forerunners referred to as the Library. That he died battling the parasite deep in the Ring’s quarantine zone and failed at retrieving the Icon.”

  “What does this have to do with me?” Zo asked.

  “Some reports from the surface of Delta Halo indicate that the Arbiter has . . . reappeared. That he’s somehow come back from the dead.”

  Zo didn’t know what to make of this. What was Exquisite suggesting? “Back from the dead? Hard to believe, Your Eminence.”

  “The Arbiter was seen leading a resurgence of Elites on the Ring, making war against our Brutes as they faithfully shored up our plans to activate Halo. So, you see my chain of thought and my concern? It may very well be that you are privy to information about the actions of the Arbiter, given that you fraternize with those who oppose us. We wish to know his whereabouts, what his forces are, and where your friend G’torik might be, if he lives.”

  Zo Resken looked through the window, where Duru was quivering in pain. “I don’t know anything about the . . . the Arbiter.”

  “You are lying to me. There is much you know that you keep concealed.”

  “I am telling the truth, I know nothing of his return or this resurgence you speak of! I know only that he was believed dead . . .”

  “Really? Watch.”

  Exquisite’s fingers flickered over the controls, and Duru’s right leg, from the knee down, was crushed by the sudden influx of high gravity. Sangheili blood spurted out a remarkably long distance, forced by the high pressure. The gravitational force went back up Duru’s leg to just above the knee, so that a bubble of blood appeared in his thigh, and then burst.

  Zo turned away, sickened. “My Prophet . . . I am loyal to the Covenant . . .”

  “Are you, now? Watch again.” When Zo hesitated, Exquisite shouted, “I said watch!”

  Zo made himself look . . . and saw that the gravitational refinement device was now crushing Duru’s lower half . . . from the knees, upward, inch by inch. Slowly.

  Duru’s scream now penetrated the window quite clearly.

  “For the sake of the High Ones, please . . .” Zo breathed. “Enough of this. End his life!”

  But Exquisite took his time, using the gravitational force of a giant planet, focused on a small area, and crushed Duru bit by bit until his innards spewed out his mouth and . . .

  Zo, retching, could not continue to watch this savagery. The remaining Sangheili in the gravitation room with Duru tried to keep an honorable level of dignity. But when their eyes strayed to what was left of Duru, the horror contracted their faces, made their eyes bulge, their mouths drop.

  “Now,” Exquisite said. “That is what happens to traitors. Traitors to the Covenant, and to the Writ of Union. You should feel no pity for those who would sacrifice our ways at this late hour, when we’re on the very edge of the Great Journey’s consummation. Now . . . Melchus—push that young one, Tilik ‘Bornisamee, forward . . .”

  Melchus forced Tilik ‘Bornisamee toward the unrecognizable remains of Duru. Tilik’s relation cried out, begging to be taken instead—Zo could tell by his gestures, his face.

  Tilik’s uncle snarled in rage and turned to Melchus, crouching to lunge at him—and was knocked flat on his back with a stun-wave from the hammer Melchus carried.

  Tilik stepped defiantly forward, closed his eyes, and waited for death with as much dignity as he could muster.

  “Now, Clarity,” said Exquisite. “I would like to believe your loyalty, but the company you keep leaves much to be desired. Still . . . perhaps you can change my mind. Come, stand beside me and activate the device yourself. Prove yourself loyal to me—and then I will consider if you can perhaps be trusted.”

  Zo gaped at him. “Me?”

  “Yes, you.”

  “I cannot. That is . . . not . . . my . . .” Zo couldn’t think clearly. Couldn’t come up with an argument. “You can’t expect me to do so.”

  “You, Prophet of Clarity. You will do as I request.”

>   Zo moved his antigrav chair closer, closer, feeling that Tilik was watching him through the window.

  “You see? The magenta key? Press there. There is no alternative for you, Clarity. Or you will surely be the next one in that room. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” said Zo, almost whispering.

  Zo’s hand hovered over the controls. He thought, It’s a cruel universe. Just go along with it. He’ll kill them anyway. Survive. You don’t want to die that way. Exquisite Devotion will take extra time killing you . . .

  But after a long moment Zo said, “I . . . cannot. I am sorry, Prophet. It is unjust. It is not what the Great Ones would want of us. These Sangheili were faithful servants of the Covenant and . . . I simply cannot.”

  “Then you will follow them. You will perish in agony just as they have.”

  Zo’s own voice already sounded dead to his ears. “Yes. I understand.”

  “Do you indeed?” Exquisite seemed genuinely surprised. “You are reconciled to your fate and would accept death now, along with the traitors?”

  Reconciled? Hardly. But resigned. “I accept it.”

  “Very well, then.” Exquisite tapped the controls himself, and, taking his time, proceeded to murder Tilik.

  Zo felt dizzy, as if he might fall out of his chair. Then, after what seemed an eternity, he heard, quite distantly, Exquisite say, “Guards, take this former Prophet of Clarity, while I finish with these Councilors. We will not only then see what he knows, but witness how a treacherous Prophet faces such a death—I daresay it will almost be a privilege for him.”

  CHAPTER 18

  * * *

  High Charity

  Trial Court for Tools of Conquest

  Gravitational Refinement

  2552 CE

  The Age of Reclamation

  Trying not to think of the unspeakable death that awaited him, Zo Resken, escorted by guards, propelled his antigrav chair down the corridor that led to the rear entry of the gravity refinement chamber. Before him strode a helmeted Jiralhanae, contemptuously walking with his back to Zo—who was now without a weapon. Behind him, close enough to breathe down Zo’s neck, was another Jiralhanae; he could smell the rank odor of the Brute, hear his armor clanking. Just two to escort him to his death—a measure of how little the Prophet of Exquisite Devotion now respected Zo Resken.