I have not been kept fully informed. I only know that the Ark has been handed over to the Master Builder, and of course, given his luck and skill, is now under immediate threat.

My new mandate is to protect the Lifeshaper and her work. Once I was a human, but received such wounds that the Bornstellar Didact stored me in a machine. The Lifeshaper allowed me, after their gathering on the Ark, to look after her human populations. She saw it as part of my recovery, and part of my reward for serving them so well. And I have done my very best.

The Lifeshaper’s plan was to keep humans on the Ark, outside the range of Halo destruction, until the scoured planets are free of the Flood and ready for reseeding. But they have now been moved to the Halo, I presume on the orders of the Master Builder, to make room for Forerunners. Nothing is ever simple, and great plans too often meet awful conclusions.

Now she asks of me a final favor: Save everything we can. I query the Ark monitors assigned to Lifeworkers. Only a few respond. They have no instructions with regard to the Halo. The others have shifted service to Offensive Bias. Must I turn against my fellow machines to fulfill the orders of the Lifeshaper? I now await her instructions, as I cannot act without the Lifeshaper’s command and imprimatur.

Catalog, why do you attend a mere monitor, if not to keep me informed of what I must do? I have no testimony to give. I am no longer human. You should seek out the little one called Riser and ask him. He would offer you his opinions freely.

He is still what he was. Wake him up, and he will give you an earful.

* * *

Finally, I have received my orders. The Lifeshaper has instructed me to take a Gargantua-class transport from the Ark to the Omega Halo. Onboard, stores of indexed organisms from the Ark’s population have already been placed by Lifeworkers. Many of these are living specimens, others are simply genetic composites originating from the Librarian’s Conservation Measure. I wonder if this relatively small number will be sufficient to rebuild these many species after Halo fires?

The Halo faces a great curved wall of star roads. Humans placed on the last ring weapon have barely had time to settle in their compounds. By the tens of thousands, they walk over crude hills, shallow lakes, and rivers, and between low mountains and through thick forests. The brightness of an artificial sun moves in familiar rhythm, and the people down there may hope that their most recent darkness and dreamless sleep, in the holds of Lifeworker ships, will be but prelude to the chance to regain all they have lost. They may hope that they have finally reached a home where they can live in peace for centuries, if not thousands of years.

* * *

As we make preparations to transport the humans, the original Didact’s enormous warship thunders down, taking up a position above the human compounds. It’s followed by thousands of sentinels not linked to Offensive Bias, apparently intent on isolating and controlling this section of the Halo. With access to only so much Forerunner knowledge, I have no explanation for this display of force.

The Lifeshaper’s ship comes alongside our transport, hiding in its massive shadow. We link. She is frantic; and for the first time in years, I’m afraid. But why is the original Didact here?

Star roads grow thick beyond the sky bridge. They may soon crush the Ark and the Halo, and with it, all humans, all Forerunners. Forerunner history may be at an end. I do not know whether to feel gladness or sorrow.

“Take us up!” the Lifeshaper orders Audacity, her face stiff with fear. We rise above the Halo’s atmosphere, to see everything more clearly. Mantle’s Approach sweeps low over the Halo compound. The ship’s silhouette has changed. Something protrudes from its front.

The Composer.

A great star forms above the compound—the Composer’s targeting beams. I can do nothing to stop it!

At the Lifeshaper’s command, Audacity shoots forward. She hopes to insert herself into the path of the Composer, to stop her husband from harming her specimens. But the Mantle’s Approach makes the slightest, deftest of maneuvers, throws out a torsion field, and Audacity is brushed aside like a gnat.

The Didact’s ship freezes above the center of a compound. Below, the humans must see what is happening, even through the cloud-wracked atmosphere. They have stopped whatever they are doing to look up and shield their eyes against the brilliance of the targeting beams. A blood-colored pall falls over the compound, over their faces. Surely this is a crime! Catalog will see it all, record it all. Is the madness beginning again? Have I given up everything for another betrayal?

“Tell the sentinels to kill him!” Lifeshaper cries out.

But I cannot. The Didact has assumed control of them all. Mantle’s Approach is too strong, too powerful. The Lifeworker forces are too weak and too few, and cannot stop it.

The Composer has locked onto its victims. Translucent, oily waves of energy spread across the compound, echo from the walls of the Halo, then slide down like folding sheets to wrap the crowds below.

Suddenly, everywhere, across hundreds of square kilometers, bodies twist and fall. Hundreds of thousands are composed before my sensors can make an accurate count.

The information flows back to the Composer in a reverse wave. Men, women, children … all taken in moments.

The Lifeshaper moans deep in her throat. Then the moan intensifies, until she screams, “That’s all he ever does—kill my children! Why? Why?”

Audacity tells us that we must move closer to the compound or outside the great wheel.

The Didact’s ship withdraws the Composer, seals itself for transit, pushes away from the compound and the Halo, departs. Audacity moves under its own volition to a safe position, near the outer perimeter. But safety is no grace.

The next atrocity will soon begin—the firing of the Halo itself. Audacity prepares for an immediate jump.

STRING 32

MONITOR CHAKAS • HALO VICINITY

I HAVE SEEN this before. I remember the awful sensation. I cannot close down my sensors. I am a machine. The sensation is not optimal, but I do not feel what living things feel, in the presence of the Composer. Though I remember it too well.

The Librarian watches it all, her body seemingly in conflict with her armor, as if she would reach up and tear at her twisted face—beyond any expressible sadness. Such anger mixed with so much grief, both ancient and new …

Our path is cleared, for the time being. I wish I could feel despair. I wish I myself could grieve. My people are gone! All that remain from the Librarian’s collection are on the transport linked below. The last hope of my entire species.

The Librarian stops her contortions and recovers enough control to tell me that she and I will part ways. I will return to the transport and take the surviving specimens—including my friends—away from here. “You must find Bornstellar, he will take you to the lesser Ark. That is where we must hide the specimens.” But what about her safety? What does she plan to do?

I must obey. Still,

Something

Is being born in me. Something hidden is emerging. I feel its potential. It is not entirely obedient. Have I been affected by the logic plague? No.

I am still Chakas.

I am still human!

STRING 33

ISODIDACT • GREATER ARK, OMEGA HALO

THE SHEER POWER mounted by the Flood is staggering.

Well over a million Flood-infected ships have taken up attack positions about the greater Ark. Their arrangement is familiar enough—the peculiar gapped spiral sweep favored by my original, each segment capable of wheeling in three dimensions in response to attack from any direction. That tactic has been adapted by the Flood’s new commander—Mendicant Bias.

Mendicant Bias was deactivated and disassembled after the destruction of the Capital system, to the extent that any Contender-class metarch can ever be eliminated from the systems it once controlled. Its parts were spread throughout the ecumene for later study. But many of those regions where it was stored have been overwhelmed by the Flood, and the metarch’s fragments were apparently recovered, restored, reassembled—and reactivated by a Gravemind. The Flood’s forces are marshaled by a twisted machine, the first victim of the logic plague—and a creation, in part, of the Ur-Didact.

Father to son, I tell myself.

Against the tightening cage of reshaped star roads, the former Forerunner vessels are little more than a cloud of mosquitoes pouring through a deadfall of trees.

Bitterness and the Examiner float beside me as our fleet transport carries us from the greater Ark to the parking orbit of the Omega Halo.

“At such a close range, in such limited time…” Bitterness says, all she needs to say. The one Halo ready for action will never be able to mount a broad sweep before the star roads and their escort of infected ships have closed in and destroyed the Ark.

“Get us inside the hoop and land us anywhere,” I say. “Keep a direct link with Offensive Bias. We’ll have to fire from its present angle. Send confirming signal to Audacity, the plan is under way, be prepared.”

“Lifeshaper does not respond, Commander. Audacity says that the Ur-Didact’s ship has conducted an unauthorized intrusion … and used a Composer!” Bitterness’s astonishment equals my own. “The humans … they’re gone. They’ve been composed.”

What would my original want with humans? Collecting them, composing them … Defying the most fervent wishes of the Lifeshaper. It’s beyond comprehension. My first instinct is to seek Mantle’s Approach and force it to return it to the Ark … Where the Ur-Didact will be destroyed, along with the rest of us, allowing only the Lifeshaper to escape. The best of us all.

But our transport would be powerless against Mantle’s Approach.

“My wife is safe?” I ask.

“Audacity reports all are safe, but experiencing distress. It is preparing to escape.”

“Good,” I say, though I cannot fathom the horror my wife faces—her life’s work swallowed up before her eyes.

We land on the Halo’s inner surface, near the base of the control center. We enter swiftly. Bitterness and the Examiner follow. In the far wing of the control room, a fully holographic readout of all Halo systems assembles.

I approach the symbols representing the nodes that will shape both spokes and the hub radiator. These are outlined in green and blue—fully functional and ready to be fired.

“It’s out there,” Bitterness says. “Your monster. Mendicant Bias. Can’t you feel it?”

My monster, indeed. No point offering a correction. Does it know what I plan? Does the Gravemind somehow know or remember what happened at Charum Hakkor? Has the secret of the lesser Ark been given up? All that is needed for me to depart to the lesser Ark is its exact coordinates, but those are only known by the Master Builder. And he has granted me an audience before I leave.

“Faber is here,” Examiner says, and points to a slender shadow entering the chamber.

“Finally!” Bitterness says.

The Master Builder steps through the displays, as before, a dramatic enough entrance, but performed without enthusiasm. He glances at us under the cowl of his helmet, then instructs his ancilla to hand me the coordinates to the lesser Ark. No prelude, no ceremony.

That done, he faces me. “You have all I have, Didact. I share responsibility with Warrior-Servants. No longer will I bear this burden alone.”

And with that, he primes the ring—making it clear why he asked me here. He wants me to see Omega Halo fire.

Expenditures rise; local vacuum energy for a thousand kilometers around the ring is sucked down to a practical minimum. I watch the measurements closely; another moment of desperate uncertainty … the star roads may have an effect on what we can pull from local space-time.

But they are not yet close enough. Omega Halo’s reserves rise to maximum and are primed for instant release.

“Sequence input successful,” Offensive Bias announces. “Omega Halo is fully charged.”

“Will you escape with the IsoDidact, Master Builder?” the Examiner asks.

“No. That is my Ark.” He pauses, and moves his gloved finger, as if to outline the huge installation’s image. “And this is my Halo.” We expect another grand gesture, an arrogant sweep of rhetoric, but Faber is in no mood to boast; his gaze is steady, downcast. “Throughout my life, I sought power and profit for myself, for my rate. Now, at long last, I think I understand the meaning of a crime against the Mantle. After this, no need to seek balance. I will await my penance here.”

We stand in silence before this uncharacteristic display of courage and humility.

Examiner’s expression remains doubtful. “We’ll likely none of us study the Domain long,” he says.

The control room removes all but the necessary parts of our command display, then rotates slowly into position and becomes transparent to visible light.

The Master Builder summons up the complex visage of Offensive Bias. The metarch looms over us, a servant greater than its masters, more capable, and, I hope, untainted. Soon we will know. All depends on what we accomplish here, now.

Builders and Warrior-Servants.

Together.

“We seek security in the Domain and the example of the Mantle,” the Master Builder chants. “We who are about to kill seek forgiveness. We treasure the truth of our error, that in future error will pass from us, and from the lives of all who come after.”

The Examiner looks at us with an expression of guilty glee. Warriors do love war. Warriors do hate what it brings. The tension …

I turn away, for the first time in years aware that my own bones are not so ancient, so deeply infused with Warrior traditions. Once, I came of Builder stock, more like Faber than the Didact.

Soon, there will be only one Didact.

“Artifacts within perimeter,” Offensive Bias says. “One million kilometers.

“Too damned close,” Examiner says.

The strange and changing quality of space-time around the star roads is subtle, yet evident in a crawling itch in our nerves and brain.