Halo: Primordium

by Greg Bear

Page 6

 

  He could not finish. He looked at the ground and held up his hands, stretching his fingers to the sky. Then he began a low keening, like the wail of a weary, hopeless child.

  Vinnevra finished for him. “Gamelpar went to the Palace of Pain, but he did not become il. He never tels that tale. ”

  The old man stopped keening, straightened as tal as he could, and wiped his hands on his thighs.

  “We camped on the outskirts of the city. The little vilage, you have seen. Me. And my daughter’s daughter. Alone of al my kin.

  That is the truth of it. ” He stood and brushed sand from his long black legs, then pointed vaguely at the backside of the rushing shadow. “Then they pushed me out here, to be done with me. ”

  “I told them he had died out in the bush, but his spirit stil keens, and he wil haunt those who hurt me. Nobody touched me after that,” Vinnevra said. “He knows how to hunt and take care of himself. Stil, he is old. . . . ”

  I did not know whether to speak, their sadness was so profound.

  But Gamelpar was not finished.

  He looked fondly upon her. “Just before you fel, the sky changed again. As the machines fought and kiled each other, great ships passed over, splitting open and spinning away in flames, and smashing—up there. ” He pointed toward the black streak, or where it would have been, were it not now hidden by errant clouds.

  “And then came the last hurtful whiteness. ”

  “Tel me again about the Beast,” I said.

  His jaw grew strong again, and he held out both arms. “He flew on the large disk, and his eyes were like gray jewels, and Green- eye flew beside him, and they talked, and the People were taken away. After that time, no longer did we have children, and no longer was there enough food. The water turned bad. Forerunners fought each other and died . . . al because of the Beast . . . the Beast. . . . ”

  He repeated this over and over, as if it had been burned by a hot iron into his memory. Finaly he could stand it no more, and he seemed to fal into a brief fit, prancing around, shaking out his arms, babbling in a singsong, until he had cleansed himself. “Pfaah!”

  He spat, then jabbed his splayed hand at the darkness beyond the dying fire. “Let us leave this place. Nothing here but fools and twisted ghosts. ”

  Gamelpar eased back down on his haunches, then began to break up the rabbit. He handed the pieces to us. Vinnevra regarded me with caution and curiosity. I had almost lost my appetite. But not quite. The girl and I settled down to eating, and I thought: the Beast Gamelpar had seen, and the Captive from Charum Hakkor, were they one and the same?

  I say yes.

  My old spirit had seen the Beast; that’s how I could see it, as wel.

  The old man watched us as we gobbled down the rabbit. “Tel us what you learned in your travels,” he said softly.

  “Long, long time past,” I said, “we fought the Forerunners and nearly won. ”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “But then they defeated us and pushed us down. They turned us into animals. The Librarian raised us up again, and gave some of us old memories from dead warriors. ”

  “Why do they torture us?” Vinnevra asked. She did not like this talk of carrying ghosts.

  “Forerunners worry we wil become strong and fight them again.

  They wil keep us down any way they can—some of them. ”

  “You know about the Beast, I am sure of it,” the old man said.

  “I visited where it was once imprisoned. An ancient being older than humans or Forerunners. Forerunners freed it from its trap and it came—or was brought—here. ”

  The old spirit within approved.

  We ate for a while in silence while Gamelpar absorbed this.

  “Who rides you?” he asked.

  Without thinking, I said, “Lord of Admirals. ”

  We stared hard at each other. “We knew him,” the old man said.

  “My old spirit fought under his command. . . . ” His voice trailed off.

  Then he reached up and again swept his char-smudged fingers across the glittering sky. “The voices ride us,” he said. “They hope to live again, but do not know what we face. We are weak, like animals. There wil be no return to that old war. ”

  He looked away, but not before I saw a glint of tears on his cheeks. “Finish this poor rabbit before it gets cold. ” He pointed toward the near wal. “My daughter’s daughter tels me we should go over there, where the land stays in shadow longer. ”

  Vinnevra had already finished. She stood up, as if ready to leave right away. “You want him to come with us?” she asked the old man. I could never tel what she thought about me. Her eyes seemed dangerous, the way they peered and examined from under her brows.

  “Yes,” the old man said.

  For her, that was enough. “Gamelpar, can you walk?”

  “Cut a big stick from the brush. With that, I can walk as wel as you. ”

  “He fel a few days ago,” Vinnevra explained. “He hurt his hip. ”

  “My hip is fine. Eat. Sleep. Then we leave. ”

  He looked back up at the stars and the sky bridge. His face grew sharp again, more interested, and again he looked younger.

  As I tossed away the final clean-stripped rabbit bone, we felt something rumble beneath the dirt, far below us, like some huge, restless animal. The sound made the pebbles dance, but I folowed the old man’s upraised hand and trembling finger to the sky.

  High on the bright arc of the sky bridge, where the black mark and rays had once been, an emptiness had suddenly appeared—a gap in the continual sweep of the band through which I made out two bright stars, quickly hidden by the hoop’s spin.

  “I have never seen that before,” Gamelpar said.

  “That’s where the big boat crashed!” Vinnevra said.

  The grumbling continued, and we moved in close and hugged each other, as if together we might weigh enough to hold down the dirt. Finaly, the vibrations dropped to a faint trembling—and soon I wondered if I was feeling anything at al.

  The gap in the sky bridge remained.

  We did not say much for the rest of that night. Vinnevra curled up close to the dying fire, at the feet of Gamelpar.

  Even with the missing square, the sky bridge was as bright as a long ribbon of moon, and that made seeing the stars difficult.

  Chapter Five

  PRETTY SOON, AFTER a smal and troubled sleep, sunlight crept down the band like a descending river and caught us. Clouds crossing the band took fire, rose up in mountainous bilows, and spread orange glow even into the tilt-shadow and wal-shade.

  Halo dawn.

  Then it was light al around, and after several loud thunderclaps and brief shower of warm rain, the old man got up and took his new long stick from Vinnevra, and we started our walk away from the vilage and the deserted city. Gamelpar did indeed walk faster and better with a stick, but Vinnevra and I slowed to alow him his dignity.

  We walked together just behind him.

  “Time to tel this one where we are going, daughter of daughters,” the old man said.

  “I’m going to find my friend,” I said.

  “The little one,” Vinnevra explained.

  “Do you know where he is?”

  I had to admit, I had no idea.

  “Vinnevra knows where to go. ”

  “I have seen it,” Vinnevra said, with a sidelong and almost guilty glance.

  “Seen what?” I asked.

  We crested a low hil. “A place where I should go when I am in trouble,” she said. She turned to look back over the meadow and plain that held the scattered vilage, the hut where she had tended to me, and beyond that, stretching wide to either side, the brown mud and stone wals and towers of the city where she had grown up . . .

  and lost her parents to Forerunners.

  She pointed inland, away from the wal, then led us down the opposite side of the hil.

  Gamelpar folo
wed and did not look back.

  I had no idea which way Riser might be, so I folowed as wel— for now. “What kind of place is it?” I asked.

  “I wil know it when I see it,” she said.

  “The Lady’s touch?”

  She nodded.

  “A geas. Al right. That’s a start,” I said. The Lifeshaper was kind. “If we get away from here, maybe you can remember more. ”

  “We are getting away,” Gamelpar said over his shoulder.

  “I don’t see any Forerunner machines,” Vinnevra said hopefuly.

  “Maybe they’re al broken. ”

  We walked for several kilometers through the forest of low trees, then beyond more hils covered with ditches and wide pits long ago dug out for their stone and clay. Then we paused.

  Vinnevra closed her eyes and turned her head back and forth, as if searching the darkness behind her lids.

  “Are we going in the right direction?” I asked.

  She wrapped her arms around herself and soberly returned my look. “I think so. ” Then her face fel and tears streaked her cheeks.

  “Everything’s changing! I don’t see it now. ”

  That stopped us for a time.

  An idea struck me. “Look around with your eyes closed and point at something. ”

  “What?” Vinnevra asked.

  “Maybe you’re just getting your bearings, or something’s distracting you. Look around at anything—at the wal and the old city and where we are, then turn . . . just hold out your hand and point. ”

  The old man leaned on his stick.

  “That’s stupid,” Vinnevra said. The old man did not disagree.

  “The Lifeshaper—the Lady—touches us al for a reason,” I said.

  “Maybe she touched you with a sense of direction, not just the memory of a place. ”

  “Is it our reason, or hers?” Gamelpar asked.

  “I don’t know. She gave Riser and me a geas which we had to fulfil. She gave us old memories that come awake when we visit certain places. But I wasn’t born here, so she didn’t tel me what I need to know, or where to go when I’m in trouble. You . . . were born here. Try it. ”

  Vinnevra shook her head and looked miserable. I paced away, again wishing Riser were here; he was so much better with people —even big people—and so much older and more experienced. “If we don’t know where to go, we’l wander until we starve,” I said. I was petulant, hungry again, angry at being stuck.

  The girl dropped her arms and took a deep breath, then squinted at the sky. Gamelpar had raised his stick and seemed to be drawing a circle in the air.

  Then I saw he was pointing at something. A great grayness with a long, straight side was rising over the near wal, far above the wispy clouds. It cast a broad black silhouette across the clouds and the far land. We watched, shivering even before the black line moved over us and we were surrounded by almost complete darkness, darker than Halo night, for the gray shape had obscured nearly the entire sky bridge, seeming to cut it in two.

  Despite my fear, I tried to reason it out. There was a purpose here—there had to be. Something might have been detached from the outside of the wheel—a huge something, square or rectangular —and now it was being hauled along over the wal, angled inward, squared off— And then what? I tried to visualize gigantic blue hands passing this object from one to the other, or some other Forerunner tools . .

  . and failed.

  Whatever it might be, it was already larger than any star boat I had seen. The far side extended al the way to the opposite horizon.

  Having cast its shadow from one side of the band to the other, the great mass stopped moving. It was as wide as the Halo itself— perhaps wider.

  Then the great square mass moved again. The shadow moved in paralel with the edges of the band, sliding at some great distance— but a tiny distance for the Halo itself—and alowed light to return.

  I dropped to the ground and looked up at the sky bridge, swept my eyes along the curve—and found a second gap about a third of the way up. It might have appeared while we were walking and talking—paying no attention. It was twice as large as the first gap— many thousands of kilometers in length. Two parts from the hoop had been removed, one from the underside and one entire section from between the wals—and both, it seemed, were now being transported around the curve, perhaps a thousand kilometers above the inner surface.

  Repairing what has been damaged.

  I muttered at this inner voice, but kept watching. The Lord of Admirals was probably correct. The battle around the Halo had done significant damage and now repairs were being made. Pieces were being moved just as a mason cuts stone tiles to fit a floor and transports them to where they are needed.

  Gamelpar and Vinnevra were transfixed by the gigantic tile and the darkness it cast. Vinnevra wiped tears from her cheeks. “I am so scared,” she said. “Don’t they want us anymore?” The resentment in her tone was puzzling.

  “Don’t talk foolish,” Gamelpar said, but gently. He, too, was frightened, but the fear of an old man is not like the fear of a young female, or one would be afraid all the time.

  The Lord of Admirals again.

  “You should know al about being old,” I said under my breath.

  Then, out loud, “Their damned Halo is broken and they’re patching it up. That’s more important than we are—for now. ”

  Gamelpar leaned on his stick. His right leg twitched. The old man watched his granddaughter closely.

  “How could something they made break?” she asked.

  The shadow slid farther along the curve.

  “They’re not gods,” I said. “They make mistakes. They’re mortal. Things they build can be destroyed. ”

  I have destroyed many Forerunners and their ships, their cities—the things they made.

  Suddenly, the old spirit—so far happy to volunteer his opinions —seemed to hitch up and fade. For a few minutes, nothing—then, his abrupt return caused a tingling in my head.

  What is this—hell? But the body is young!

  The Lord of Admirals was slowly coming to grips with his true situation.