The Spartan stil had its knee on his throat, staring into his face. He could see his own reflection in its visor as the other soldiers bound him and one put a boot on his face to hold him down.
And if they shoot me, ‘Telcam will hear.… He had no idea of how long he lay there, but he fought to stay conscious. He had to escape. He had to stop ‘Telcam.
The humans are manipulating you, ‘Telcam. Whatever they’ve promised—they won’t keep their word. What kind of fool are you? You think you can handle them? Fool. Idiot. Traitor.
But he heard the distant rumble of a ship starting its drives, a ship he could identify, the Contrition class transport, and then the sound peaked and faded. ‘Telcam was gone. The Spartan put a pistol to his head. He could feel the cool metal resting between his eyes.
Jul made one last effort to get up and scream defiance, but he couldn’t move and his only sound was a gurgle. He waited for the shot to come and put an end to his shame.
Only then did he think of Raia, who had no idea where he was. What would become of her?
The female shipmaster appeared, looking down at him. “Wait one, Naomi. Let me just check with the boss.”
He had no idea what that meant. The Spartan pul ed off its helmet with its free hand, and that was when he realized it was a woman, as bloodless and translucent as a hologram, her hair as pale as her skin—yes, a corpse brought back from the dead. He’d been taken down by females.
The shipmaster walked away. Jul, stil struggling to breathe, couldn’t hear what she was saying but she came back a short time later and stood over him. He could see her boots next to his head as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other. Her whole stance seemed casual, as if she had plenty of time to decide his fate and linger over his humiliation.
“Sorry, Staff, the Admiral says she’d real y like a live prisoner for a change,” she said. “Let’s get him into the dropship. Then find his transport, rip what you can from it, and destroy it.”
“This is like the voyage of the bloody Beagle, ma’am,” said one of the male soldiers. “Another specimen for the menagerie.”
The Spartan withdrew her pistol and shoved it in her belt before hauling him off like an animal, dragging him through the dirt with her two comrades.
Jul ‘Mdama realized he had suddenly ceased to exist. He’d al owed himself to be taken by the enemy through his own stupidity, and as the humans hauled him toward the dropship, grunting and complaining about his weight, he understood that he was alone, and lost, and that nobody would ever come for him.
FORERUNNER DYSON SPHERE, ONYX: LOCAL DATE NOVEMBER 2552.
In an empty world the size of a solar system, al you could do was look and keep looking.
Mendez would have dismissed Halsey’s suggestion to look for a garage as too vague to be useful, but he was prepared to try any damn thing if it helped them find Lucy.
Hell, it’s not as if we’ve got anything better to do with our time, is it?
Fred had reminded him just once that the mission was to acquire Forerunner technology for the UNSC. He knew damn wel that however sensible a plan that was, it was only to keep them occupied—and if they found some handy gizmo, then they stil had to work out how to cal home and get it col ected. Courier services were a little hard to come by in a dimensional bubble.
And there was no mission more important than finding a missing Spartan.
“Goddamn it, we will find her,” Mendez said, as if anyone had suggested otherwise. It was his mantra to make sure it happened. The whole squad trailed down the road behind him in silence on yet another fruitless recon. “She’s only been gone four days. She’s a survivor. She knows we won’t stop looking for her.”
Mendez knew that no matter how disciplined troops were, their morale would take a hammering if they didn’t stay busy. The Spartans had gone from what HIGHCOM described in its mealy-mouthed way as “high tempo” operations—fighting pretty wel every damn day, every week, every year —to a dead, silent stop. Basic survival was going to mop up a lot of their energy, but al they could do was stay alive for as long as possible until they worked out this place for themselves or until someone came along and found them.
Mendez needed to keep them busy.
Halsey might have been convinced the Earth had lost the war already and that they were the only sentient life left in the galaxy, but Mendez wasn’t buying any of it. He’d believe that he’d lost when he heard the first clod of soil hit his coffin.
When they got back to the camp, Halsey was stil in the lobby of the tower, going over the Forerunner symbols with her fingertips. “I’m wondering if there are more slipspace bubbles in this structure,” she said absently. “You have to admit they’re very effective shields for containing pathogens.”
She seemed to be waiting for an answer, because she turned around and looked at him with a slight frown as if she expected some scholarly debate about transdimensional physics.
“Wel , Doctor, we managed to get through one, so maybe we can get through another one as wel ,” he said. “I’m just not sure where the goddamn door is.”
Halsey spent a few more minutes messing around with the symbols, then hugged her datapad to her chest and walked out into the sunlight.
Mendez stood with his arms folded, staring at the symbols, not giving a damn what they said and just wanting to be left alone for a while. Fred stayed behind with him.
“Sorry, Lieutenant,” Mendez said. “I realize I’m a piss-poor example of leadership for you. But I need some bastard to shoot.”
“That’s what makes you so lovable, Chief,” Fred said. “When you’re kil ing something, we know you’re happy.”
Mendez turned around, about to tel Fred some of the things that were real y troubling him, but he found himself looking past the Spartan and into the gloom of the corridor behind him. Fred had turned around too.
“Yeah, I heard it as wel ,” Fred said.
He checked his rifle and edged into the darkness. Mendez switched on his tactical lamp and fol owed.
“Goddamn—”
He stared at the pale highlights of a smal face apparently bobbing along without any sign of a body. It took his brain a second to register that it was Lucy minus her helmet, and that her reactive camo was trying to match the shadows in the tunnel. Then he saw the constel ation of blue and violet lights behind her.
“Hey, Lucy, who’s your new boyfriend?” Fred asked.
Lucy walked out of the darkness like a ghost with a Covenant Engineer trailing behind her. Wel , that explained what she’d been chasing. As intruders went, an Engineer was a pretty useful one. Mendez savored the relief.
“Damn it, Lucy, we were worried sick about you.” He reached out and pul ed her to him one-handed to give her a reassuring hug, then took a step back to check her over for injury. “Are you okay, kid?”
She stared up into his face and nodded, wide-eyed and stil looking like a teenager. Then she put out her arm and beckoned to the Engineer. It floated up beside her and gave Mendez and Fred a thorough inspection, head tilting back and forth.
The realization began to dawn on Mendez. If the Dyson sphere had been sealed since before the first human landing on Onyx, then this guy probably wasn’t with the Covenant. He had to be descended from the Foreunner originals. Hel , given the weird way time worked in here, maybe he was an original Huragok left here.
“I think I’m going to break this to Dr. Halsey very, very quietly,” Fred said. He gave Lucy several pats on the back. “Good to have you back, Lucy.
We searched everywhere for you.”
The poor kid real y looked bewildered. It was going to be a chal enge debriefing a Spartan who couldn’t talk and an alien life-form that only used sign language. But that was what Halsey was for, and Mendez knew that she’d go crazy when Fred told her they had an Engineer in tow. It would keep her occupied and out of his face.
Yeah, that’s for the best. It really is.
Fred went on ahead, cal ing out to the others. “Hey, we found her. It’s okay, Lucy’s back. Panic over.”
Mendez wasn’t entirely convinced that Lucy was okay. He couldn’t see any injuries, but he knew that look in her eyes. Something had shaken her.
“Halsey’s going to check you over, if you’re okay with that,” he said. “Then we better get you something to eat and drink. You’ve been away for days.”
Lucy shook her head and pul ed her water canteen from her belt to shake it. Mendez could hear the water slopping around inside: no, she had plenty left, so she wasn’t dehydrated. When they got to the entrance, Halsey bore down on them like a missile. She was walking at a breakneck pace, swinging her arms, and then she broke into a jog.
At least she had the good grace to try to look more interested in Lucy than the Engineer. “Any injuries, Lucy?” she asked. “Wel , you’re probably dehydrated.”
Lucy shook the water canteen again to make the point and held out her hand for Halsey’s datapad. For a moment, Mendez thought that she was going to break the habit of years and actual y write a message. Lucy wasn’t like someone who’d just lost their voice. She’d stopped communicating almost completely, and that included writing anything more than map coordinates or the most basic information—no discussion, no explanation, and no complex questions. He waited for some breakthrough, for something amazing to appear on the datapad, but al she did was indicate the date displayed on it and shake her head, baffled.
The Engineer flicked out a tentacle and took the datapad from her. It appeared to be tapping out a message. Wel , the robotic Sentinels they’d run into on the surface could work out some English, so maybe this Engineer was going to surprise them too.
“I think this guy’s been here since the place was built,” Mendez said. “Or at least his forebears were. At the risk of pissing you off again, Doctor, I’ve been here for more than twenty years, and ONI started rooting around the planet sixty years ago, so I doubt this fel a’s ever worked for the Covenant.”
“If he’s a direct descendant of the ones built by the Forerunners, then imagine what information he can give us. Just imagine. ” Halsey sounded breathless. Damn it, she was excited as a kid and trying hard not to show it. “Not that I know how long these constructs last when they’re left to their own devices.”
Constructs. Halsey liked her dividing lines between people and nonpeople. The Engineer finished with the datapad and turned it so that they could see what he’d done. They now had an audience of Spartans gathered around them.
MY NAME IS PRONE TO DRIFT. WE HAVE WAITED SINCE THE BEGINNING. WHY DID YOU ACTIVATE THE CITADEL WHEN THERE IS NO FLOOD?
“Wel , I guessed right about the Flood,” Halsey muttered. “And he’s rather socialized and assertive for a Huragok.”
Mendez ignored her and concentrated on the Engineer. “How do you know there’s no Flood outside? Can you get a signal out of this place?”
The Engineer went back to composing his response.
THE MASTERS LEFT BEFORE THIS WORLD WAS COMPLETED. WE WAITED BUT THEY NEVER RETURNED. WE HAVE DONE WHAT WE CAN, BUT WE HAVE NO FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS.
“I said can you transmit and receive signals from outside this sphere? And what’s the problem with the date? What’s upsetting Lucy?”
OUR SPACE IS OUTSIDE THIS ONE. FOR HER, IT HAS BEEN HOURS NOT DAYS.
Halsey’s cheeks were flushed and her eyes sparkled like she’d fal en in love. Mendez wondered if she’d looked that way to Jacob Keyes or if she reserved her passion for objects and ideas. She repeated the question that Mendez had asked. “How can you tel what’s happening outside this sphere?”
THE SENSORS TELL US. WE CAN VIEW EVENTS IN THE OTHER SPACES. WHY? IS THIS ABOUT THE WAR?
“Yes, yes, that’s it, it’s about the war.” Halsey took a step forward, right in the Engineer’s face. “I’m a scientist. I need to know. And I need to let my people know that we’re al right. Have you any way of transmitting a message into the other space?”
“Before we start transmitting anything I want to be sure where this guy’s come from,” Fred said. “I don’t care if it looks quiet outside. We’re not going to give away our position until we’re absolutely certain what’s going on.”
Halsey raked her fingers through her hair, al impatience. “Wel , it looks like we’ve got another slipspace bubble within this one. It’s almost as if it’s made up of concentric bubbles. Like a Russian dol .”
Mendez glanced at Lucy, giving the datapad a meaningful look. Would she tel him anything more? Lucy took the hint, peeled the pad out of Prone to Drift’s grip, and started writing. Mendez wasn’t expecting what came next.
I KILLED AN ENGINEER, she said. SORRY.
The beginnings of an exasperated look formed on Halsey’s face, but it didn’t get any farther. Mendez glared at her. It was too damn bad about the Engineer, but they could always make some new ones. He couldn’t make another Lucy.
Just thinking that reminded him what Halsey had done with cloning, and it was another rebuke about those things he’d turned a blind eye to when he should have turned her in instead. But he’d worry about that later. Halsey was already hassling the Engineer, demanding that he show her inside the structure.
Prone to Drift didn’t seem much different from any human being who liked his job and was only too happy to show visitors around his office. He started floating back toward the tower with Halsey trailing after him.
“Linda, with me,” Fred said. He went off after Halsey. “Let’s make sure we don’t lose her as wel .”
Mendez decided things were looking up at last. Now they had the best possible assistant for milking every scrap of technology out of this place and getting it back to ONI. He took out his cigar, lit a taper of grass with his fire steel, and inhaled a damn good lungful of sweet, soothing, luscious smoke. Halsey was going to be some time.