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“Oh it’s a recent . . . arrangement. A little while ago it was decided that the new Ministry was a good idea and at that point . . . the anticipatory information was approved.”

  “Anticipatory. As in looking ahead. I see. Someone has been checking to see if they are pregnant—and this is of concern to me because . . . ?”

  “Because it was your mate.”

  Mken struggled to keep his equanimity. Do not lose your temper. “And what of it? We are not on the Roll of Celibates.”

  “Yes—about that. It seems to some of us who have looked into this matter that you might well have been on the Roll—except for some nudging here and there, perhaps.”

  “You are alleging corruption? You have not been Minister long—I did not expect you to go mad with power so quickly, R’Noh. Has it not occurred to you that you are making a very severe accusation?”

  “I am accusing no one of anything, Inner Conviction. But only consider what the nature of the new Ministry is. We must try to halt problems before they take root and grow. This means we must cast around for those problems. And casting around can include parsing rumors. Including rumors about you.”

  “And yet you claim you are not accusing me of anything?”

  “We are just . . . inquiring. Perhaps there is a shadow of suspicion. Perhaps not. But . . .”

  “I assert again—I am not on the Roll of Celibates. So no wrongdoing has been committed here. We are permitted to have offspring. It is no concern of yours if my mate looks into the possibility of pregnancy.”

  R’Noh made the gesture of One is but thinking aloud. “Ah, but one can, if there is sufficient reason for suspicion, be added to the Roll of Celibates at any time, Inner Conviction.”

  “And is that why you’ve reached out to me? Because I can expect you to advocate for this . . . this blight on my reputation?”

  Mken was working very hard to keep himself calm and motionless. He would not let this wretch see him with his wattles waggling with anger.

  “Why, Inner Conviction, no one has decided to advocate for any such thing. Certainly, information would have to be gathered. Interrogations made. Who knows how far it could take us? Even if nothing was found, the inquiry alone is a blot on one’s reputation. You know what our brethren are, so prone to jumping at assumptions. Rumors would redouble and would themselves reproduce and multiply.” R’Noh seemed quite pleased with his witticism.

  “All this is pressure, held over my head. There is something you want of me. State your true business. I have work to conduct.”

  “You are perceptive—I say that without confirming or denying your supposition. But, Inner Conviction, coincidentally there is something we want you to do for us.”

  “We?”

  “Yes. In fact, the plan issues from his eminence, Excellent Redolence, and myself, in a humbler way.”

  “The Hierarch. The High Prophet of Excellent Redolence. He approves this . . . this blackmail? This extortion?”

  “What? Am I hearing correctly? You would accuse Excellent of extortion? Surely not, Inner Conviction!”

  Mken grated his teeth. He wanted to say Direct extortion would take courage, so perhaps it would in truth be unlikely since Excellent is craven, is one who jockeys for power when others have their backs turned . . .

  Instead, Mken merely asked, “What is this ‘something’ you want of me?”

  “We merely want you to lead a covert team to Janjur Qom. Where you will obtain a certain object . . . and genetically healthy females for breeding purposes.”

  Mken was stunned. “You cannot be serious. I told you what I thought of that heinous plan when you first proposed it!”

  “Yes. I recall it clearly. You quite humiliated me in front of the Hierarchs.”

  “Oh. I see. And now this is repayment, revenge for that embarrassment?”

  “Perhaps there is an element of, as you say, repayment.” R’Noh’s nostrils flared again. His eyes narrowed. “But—I will tell you that plans of forced abduction have been discarded. It has been decided we will take only those females who will freely come to High Charity. We have sent Eyes to the homeworld, and we have found a settlement where we believe we will obtain willing prospects. A place called Crellum. A holographic message was shown to certain females. And there is something else—nearby is a place called the grotto of the Great Transition, in which we may find the Purifying Vision of the Holy Path itself. And with it—a Luminary.”

  Mken snorted. “There is no proof that the Purifying Vision actually exists. There are many tales of such a holy artifact—but none has been found.”

  “Nonetheless, the records of those who served on the Dreadnought before it departed mention the possibility of the relic in a certain place on Janjur Qom—they apparently received a sacred sign through the ship’s Luminary. If the relic is indeed there, it will provide additional gravitas—holy affirmation much needed in this time of spiritual turmoil so soon after the Writ of Union.”

  Doubtless much of that speech about the time of turmoil was R’Noh paraphrasing Excellent Redolence. R’Noh spent no appreciable moments contemplating anything spiritual.

  “Very well, send your expedition. But there’s no need to involve me.”

  “Oh, but there is—there are actually two reasons. First we have need of your learning with respect to the homeworld.”

  “I am unlikely to have practical information about anything that could apply to such an expedition—”

  “But you do have what we need!” R’Noh’s interruption was an outrageous breach of protocol. He went on blandly. “You have studied the area in question, O Prophet of Inner Conviction. You know a good deal about the southeastern edge of Reskolah.”

  “Reskolah?” Mken’s heart thudded at the storied name. An area rumored to contain many undiscovered relics. It was almost tempting. But absurd. “I’ve studied topographical maps—the most recent data I could unearth. But . . . there is much I do not know.”

  “You are still best suited—and the one chosen by Excellent Redolence—to lead the Appropriation Party.”

  “So that is what you call it? What a clumsy euphemism for raiding. We may have to kill San’Shyuum to make good our seizing of relics and this supposed recruitment . . .”

  “Kill San’Shyuum, Inner Conviction? Why, those are Stoics you are referring to! Heretics! They’re fortunate to be losing only a few of their females and a relic—and we simply must reproduce. The Roll of Celibates, the rarity of fertility cycles—our population shrinks. If the Sangheili were to take note of our low population count, it might embolden them to rethink their loyalty.”

  “Then why not simply relax the Roll of Celibates?”

  “It was created for a reason. It is necessary to keep our genetics from drifting into degenerency, Inner Conviction. We have reason to believe the Stoics, at least, are genetically sound. They are more numerous—not likely to be challenged with inbreeding. And again, the Purifying Vision of the Holy Path is valuable beyond calculation. We need to make sure the Sangheili are truly loyal, truly converted—the shine of such a holy relic will erase all doubt and inevitably unite them behind us!”

  “And if I am killed? Do you suppose, R’Noh, that the Stoic San’Shyuum of our homeworld will not detect us? Will stand cheerfully by while we snatch up their females and make off with them?”

  “I suppose nothing of the sort. We hope to avoid battle—to avoid detection entirely. But . . . we cannot be sure of it. You have studied Janjur Qom, at a remove. And you are not without military experience. You will go in clandestinely and escape with equal stealth. You will probably not be killed. If you are, I doubt if his eminence the Prophet of Excellent Redolence will be greatly saddened.”

  “I’m touched,” said Mken dryly.

  “. . . And he will then find someone else to send. The plan will move forward, however. Now, Prophet of Inner Conviction, you should prepare yourself to leave for Janjur Qom with all speed . . .”

  CHAPTER 4

  * * *
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br />   The Refuge: An Uncharted Forerunner Shield World

  850 BCE

  The Age of Reconciliation

  Sooln, you look concerned. Unhappy. What has the Flying Voice told you?”

  “I am not unhappy, but perhaps I’m a bit disturbed by something Enduring Bias said—the way boiling blood is disturbed in a cauldron.”

  Ussa closed his jaws in a Sangheili smile. He liked the way Sooln expressed herself. Always a touch of the poetic. It was one of the qualities that endeared her to him. “Tell me what has your cauldron bubbling, then.”

  They were walking in a place that Sooln called Ussa’s Garden. It was an arboreal, rugged setting on the secondary shell of the shield world, far beneath the metallic sky, the high, curved protective surface, concave from this vantage beneath it. Enduring Bias had imparted to them that the Forerunners built the sheathing to protect this world from more than one sort of danger—and it had more than one sort of protection.

  There were variously shaped plants here—some twisted, some like frozen bomb-bursts—and there was an artificial breeze sighing from outcroppings of gray and gold stone. Ussa felt a great comfort in walking with Sooln in such a place. Somehow it felt like traveling with her through the landscape of their life together. After all, she was his mate, the layer of eggs—though his son, Ossis, who had been killed in battle, was the only product so far of that laying—and even when Ussa had to go into battle, she was never far from his thoughts.

  At last Sooln said, “Enduring Bias, Ussa, has told me that this world indeed has hidden possibilities. This is the last of many shield worlds created, an effort that apparently ended prematurely. It had a fail-safe setting, a possibility of surviving even if it broke apart. This was not something the others had. But this one was special. Only, the necessity of firing the great Rings came before it could be completed . . .”

  “So—it is as we guessed? As in meta analysis?”

  “Yes. Enduring Bias claims that properly triggered, this world can disassemble itself—and its disparate parts can survive.”

  “Would you care for a visualization?” asked the intelligence in a gentle voice, dropping down from above. The flying machine hummed lower, situating itself in front of them, as if wishing to be companionable, its three lenses flickering.

  Ussa growled within himself and demanded, “You were watching us, up there? Following us?”

  “Of course, Ussa ‘Xellus! I am here to oversee this world, after all,” Enduring Bias replied. There was a casual whimsicality in its tone that always annoyed Ussa.

  Ussa knew a good deal about Covenant beliefs—he had not discarded their teaching lightly. He had heard, monitoring High Charity transmissions, that the San’Shyuum had a damaged distributed intelligence, rather like this, a thinking device they called the Oracle. It was rumored to be mostly mute, only on occasion relinquishing sacred clues. But Enduring Bias, though capable of fantastic feats of intellectual calculus, seemed without gravitas, to Ussa—without real dignity and certainly without the power of divination. All of which was more proof that the Covenant was wrong.

  “It’s all right, husband. Enduring Bias has chosen to work with us now,” Sooln said, touching Ussa’s arm. “He has assured me so—and I believe him.”

  “He?”

  “The voice sounds male to me. Yes, Enduring, please do provide visualization. Unless—is he allowed to show the image here, Ussa?”

  Ussa glanced around. They seemed to be quite alone. “Yes.”

  Instantly a beam of blue light lanced down to sketch in a holographic image in front of them: a globe in lambent three dimensions. It was this very shield world—the Refuge, as his followers called it—as it would look from space.

  “Here you see Shield 0673, which you now inhabit,” intoned Enduring Bias. “I was brought here shortly after its completion—but before its testing. When the Ring installations were used, no one returned for me. I determined that I was on my own. Which is why it was possible to access my prioritization and control system, since I was, you might say, at loose ends, without clear-cut purpose after the activation . . .”

  “Less about yourself and more about this shield world,” Sooln said.

  “Wait,” Ussa put in. “The Ring installations. Do you know where these Rings are?”

  “That information was taken from my memory when I was brought here. There were security concerns. I have only a partial knowledge of the Rings now. Much was eliminated. It’s very disagreeable, having a gap in your mind. I don’t recommend it. One always comes upon the gap and one probes and finds nothing where something should be. It has always seemed to me—”

  “Try to stay focused,” Ussa said.

  “I do apologize. Many millennia here, with no one to converse with, left me overtalkative and perhaps a bit on the senile side, if the term can be applied to a machine.”

  “What do you know about the Rings, and the shield worlds?” Ussa said, gnashing his mandibles with exasperation.

  “Only what I have told you before: that the Rings emanated a particular energy that would destroy sentient life—and yet the emanation was somehow intended to protect biodiversity across the galaxy. From . . . I don’t know from what. I’m afraid that information was kept in what is now one of my gaps.”

  “But what do you know of the so-called . . . Great Journey?”

  “That term is not specifically familiar to me.”

  Sooln looked at him. “I thought you didn’t believe in the Great Journey.”

  “I don’t,” Ussa assured her. “But perhaps the Forerunners did. They went somewhere. I was just thinking that if I could prove the Great Journey is a myth, that the Ring installations were meant for something else . . . as weapons, as I suspect . . . then perhaps we could wrest some of the fools on Sanghelios away from the Covenant.”

  “Ah,” said Enduring Bias. “I’m afraid information that would pertain to such an effort was kept in parts of my memory that—”

  “Yes, yes,” interrupted Ussa. “Which are now gaps. Go on, then—show us the visualization of the shield world’s meta purpose.”

  “That is easily accomplished.”

  The shield world in the hologram had seams in its metallic shell. The seams, as Ussa and Sooln watched, began to leak light—white radiance seemed to race around the seam lines, outlining all the segments making up the shell. The light grew in intensity . . . and then the seam lines grew farther apart. The shield world seemed to explode in slow motion, as if the massive metallic sphere had been made of three-dimensional puzzle pieces and a host of invisible hands were plucking those pieces away from one another, moving them, all at the same speed, outward from the center of the semiartificial world. It appeared like both a slow, fluid explosion and an organized disassembling, at once.

  “This is happening more slowly than it would in real time,” Enduring Bias explained. “You will note that some of the atmosphere and fluids are being discharged, at least outwardly. Hence it does look like a real explosion. Within airtight components of the shield world, the atmosphere remains.”

  “And from there?”

  “From there, the components move to the next orbit out, which, as you recall, is largely made up of asteroids. The components would remain in communication. However, I cannot disclose with certainty that this process will work—it was not tested, and at this point the machinery may be faulty.”

  “So—if we tried it . . .”

  “For what purpose? Why would you want to try it?” Enduring Bias asked.

  “I don’t know that I would. But for my own reasons, it is a possibility. In some situations. But—it could end badly? Lethally?”

  “Certainly. The outcome could well be negative. I would calculate a forty-nine percent chance that the outcome would be lethal for all biological organisms on this world.” After a moment it added chirpily, “Shall we try it? I would be curious to know if it works.”

  “No,” Ussa grunted. “We will not attempt it. Unless we have to.�
�

  High Charity

  850 BCE

  The Age of Reconciliation

  “Great Hierarch, Prophet of Excellent Redolence, it is an unbearable honor for me to be here.”

  “An interesting choice of words, Inner Conviction,” said Excellent, with a fluttering, ancient What means this? gesture.

  Mken had arranged the meeting, thinking that perhaps all the Hierarchs would be present to try to persuade Excellent Redolence against this mission. But judging by the setting and the Hierarch’s pose, Excellent seemed to have guessed Mken’s purpose.

  They were in the San’Shyuum Hall of Sacred Guidance, where the Hierarch had positioned his elegantly articulated antigrav throne on a dais, so that he was looking down upon Mken. He was slouching a little, unconsciously expressing, it seemed to Mken, the time-honored overconfidence of those who rule and those who aspire to wider rule. His branching golden mantle glittered in the ambient illumination of the great hallway. The symbol of the seven Rings, in the Arrangement of Holiness, was projected in a holograph above him; a single Ring glowed from his crown at the center of his forehead. All this symbolism was of course meant to intimidate the Prophet of Inner Conviction, as were the Elite guards who stood, fully armed and shining in armor, to either side of the dais. The Hierarch was seated in the center of the dais—when the other Hierarchs were there, Excellent was usually seated to the right.

  “Before I continue, O Excellent Redolence,” said Mken with an assumed meekness, “should I wait for the other Hierarchs to arrive?” He knew perfectly well that Excellent had reserved the room, so to speak, for himself and his personal retinue alone, that the other two Hierarchs had not been informed of the meeting. But Mken wanted Excellent to be reminded of this violation of protocol.

  “That won’t be necessary; the other Hierarchs are fully briefed on the genetic restoration expedition,” Excellent said with a dismissive, magisterial wave of his hand.

  R’Noh drifted into the big chamber, deliberately moving with stately aplomb, as if to bask in the reflected glow of the Hierarch’s authority.