For a moment, I am unhappy being Catalog. There is no particular reason for either the Librarian or the IsoDidact to show me favor or even civility. Recent history has not been kind to them—nor have the Juridicals.
I rotate my carapace to track her. “My work has been interrupted,” I say. “I am here on a Council-approved investigation.”
Now the IsoDidact makes his circuit, hand to helmet’s chin, as if studying an adversary. “Builders supplied your carapace,” he says. “Your colleagues have been subverted in the past.”
“Subversion is most unlikely,” I say, measuring the situation.
“What Builders have done to undermine your integrity, they can keep secret even from you. It has happened before.”
There is nothing I can or would wish to say to justify the crimes committed under the Master Builder’s centuries of misrule. “Those times were unfortunate,” I say. “They ended before I assumed the carapace. Those who strayed were punished.”
“Even so…” the IsoDidact murmurs. The Librarian gives her husband a look of mild reproof, but with a hint of admiration. Are they about to shut down my investigation, sequester me? The probability, my ancilla tells me, is rather high.
“I have been cut off from my remotes,” I protest. “I insist on gathering evidence without interference.”
“We have no intention of interfering,” she says. “Husband?”
The IsoDidact lays his hand on my carapace. “Our diagnostics find no evidence of Builder tampering. Full access will resume.”
I send out queries. The ship’s ancilla cooperates. I receive new data from my remotes. They fill in gaps in my continuous record. But communication with the greater Juridical network is still problematic.
The IsoDidact keeps his hand on my carapace. I am not sure of his intentions. “Juridicals are investigating the destruction of the Capital world,” he says. “I was there, you know. Ask me what happened.”
I was not aware of this. Had he been present as the IsoDidact, or as the Manipular?
Into my silence he continues, “Catalog must also report new crimes—crimes in progress—to the Juridicals and to the New Council, correct?”
“That is my duty,” I say.
“Would it not be efficient to take our testimonies now, while Lifeworkers preserve this system’s life forms? There is no crime here, Catalog—only mercy and pity.”
I had never expected to be brought before these two, or to take their testimony on any matter. I could make a request to expand the scope of my investigation, but with communications so sporadic, the response may be delayed.
“I have little power in the matter. I must obtain permission.…” Very embarrassing.
The IsoDidact and his wife link hands and engage in silent conversation. When they finish, the Didact faces me. “I see by your manner that you were once a Warrior-Servant. Why diminish—why abandon your rate for this?”
Strange for this one to speak of such! Yet once, I had been almost as large and nearly as strong. Why did I give up that strength? Because of my own crime, before I assumed the carapace. Going against the creed of my rate. Against the express command of my mentor. Allowing anger to overwhelm judgment.
The strength of Catalog lies in personal awareness of the nature of guilt.
“Be not so bold, Husband,” the Librarian cautions.
The IsoDidact raises a massive hand and gives it a half-turn. I know the meaning of the gesture: command received. He clenches thick fingers, then loosens them. Their offer may be withdrawn. And what they may have to say does seem relevant to many cases under our review.
“I am not presently in contact with the Juridical network,” I say. “Until such time as communication resumes, I will take your testimonies.”
“Wise move, Catalog,” the IsoDidact says in an undertone. But we are suddenly interrupted by alarms. A group of Lifeworkers and Warrior-Servants gathers protectively around the Librarian and the IsoDidact. The deck has gone weightless; we all float. Field activators flicker across the bulkheads, coordinating with armor and carapace, as if in preparation for a quick journey to interplanetary orbit—an emergency jump. Images of looming Forerunner squadrons dance around the IsoDidact.
I am for the moment irrelevant.
“We’re in danger,” he growls. “Flood-infested ships have broken through our defenses, spread thin out here. We are ending operations on Erde-Tyrene. The Flood may be in this system in a few hours. You are far too important to risk, Wife.”
“But there are many more species to be saved!” she protests.
“These will have to suffice.”
Another silent communication between them. Husband and wife will be parted yet again. The Librarian’s expression turns deeply sad. Her beauty increases and my objectivity is once more threatened.
The IsoDidact directs that he be delivered to the only fully armed dreadnought in the system. After conducting defensive operations, and insuring the safety of Lifeworker ships, he will make his way back to the heart of the ecumene; his force here is far too small to go on the offensive.
“You’ll travel with the Librarian,” he tells me.
Between us, as between Warrior-Servants of old—the rate I once was, the rate he grew into so suddenly—there is a current of request, bequest, demand.
Protect her.
Strangely, I am happy to comply. “It would be my honor,” I say.
* * *
Their last moments together are spent in private, in a secluded angle of the bridge. Outside, the limb of Erde-Tyrene is serene, brown and blue and beige, capped in the north with great sheets of ice and all over deckled with clouds. All seems peaceful. The Lifeworker collection ships are withdrawing with the last of their specimens.
The Lifeshaper indicates I should follow her. “We will do what we can to save those we have collected,” she says. “I hope we can reach the greater Ark and deliver them to safekeeping.…”
Down a corridor, I see the IsoDidact conferring with other warriors. Their armor grows thicker and sturdier. A port opens and they push through into the dreadnought.
The ships separate.
The Librarian and I drop deeper into the collection hold, through layer upon layer of stacked zoological compartments, each hundreds of meters wide and equipped with illusions of sky, sea, land, whatever the animals carried therein will find relatively soothing. We are descending to the compression and storage chambers at the ship’s core.
“My husband has long held controversial views on Flood defense,” the Librarian says. Her eyes are stoic, but I sense reflections on an even deeper loss. “You may have guessed, he is skeptical about any Juridical investigation into the Master Builder.”
“I detect that opinion.”
“He is old-fashioned, you know. He expects you to do your best to protect me … even though you are no longer a Warrior-Servant.”
That stings, somehow.
The flexible tube deposits us in a weightless maze of storage cylinders attended by hundreds of monitors. This part of the ship is not accustomed to visitors. We drift a moment before an environmental field draws us down to a platform and courteously supplies breathable air.
“He presumes that any investigation should have begun centuries earlier—does he not?” I ask, absorbing these details.
“Had the Juridicals been vigilant,” the Librarian says, “my husband might not have had to go into exile. He might have blocked the Flood’s most recent incursions—and we would have avoided all this.” Her hand sweeps around the broad inner chamber. “We will save less than one-thousandth of the larger species.”
“Animals,” I say, and then, to an arch of her brow, add, “Animals and humans, on Erde-Tyrene, due to your grace, Lifeshaper. Will saving fewer humans disappoint the IsoDidact?”
“I have heard Juridicals hold conservative views,” she counters. “Do you?”
“Before I took the carapace, I absorbed the attitudes of Warrior-Servants. I never fought humans, however. As for the Juridicals—their conservatism comes of long experience with the Domain. The cosmos, Lifeshaper, is highly conservative, don’t you agree?”
“The cosmos brought life into existence. Life is ever changing,” she says. “I have seen it open itself time and again to change, down to its living heart. But fascinating as these matters may be, I am here to testify about other events. Events that have yet to come to the attention of a Catalog.”
Implication that Catalog is many and not unity is a forgivable rudeness. Few understood the oaths and training involved in taking the carapace—or the singleness of purpose it brings. “Defense of your husband’s efforts is not to the point of our present inquiries,” I say. “Not now, at any rate. We have sufficient testimony about the Master Builder.” I am forbidden from telling her that the Master Builder is still alive and active in Flood defense. That is not my role.
“My husband and I were separated for a thousand years,” the Librarian says. “Much happened during that time. The Didact, while fully functional, currently possesses less than a third the active memory of…” She can hardly bring herself to say, “the original.”
“Understood,” I say. I am also forbidden from telling her that the Ur-Didact is alive as well and has been returned to the ecumene. Why does she not yet know?
“That may change in time,” she says, “as his imprint continues to flower. Yet he does remember some very disturbing things.”
“Strange you have not been called to give such evidence before now.”
“I was, when Juridicals were instruments of the Master Builder,” she says. “I rejected the request. You, however, are pure,” she says. “Are you not?” Her eyes shine with a sentiment mixing curiosity and, could it be, humor? This change from sadness energizes me. I am beginning to understand the power this Lifeworker has over those who share her labors.
All I can answer is, “I have to presume your diagnostics are accurate.”
“Good. What I will testify to is no longer of any use to the Master Builder, alive or dead, or to my husband’s opposition in the New Council.”
Alone, we have made our way to a closeted space away from the grim reduction. Only a few intact specimens will be kept in stasis; the rest will be reduced.
“It will be secure at any rate from political interference,” I say.
She thinks on this. “The Didact swore to protect the Mantle. And that is the primary duty of Lifeworkers.”
“Observing the rule of the Mantle is our primary duty as well,” I remind her. “All our laws rise to that brilliant glow.”
The bulkheads shape rudimentary furnishings. The Librarian’s armor unwinds from her upper torso. She stretches lithe arms, flexes her fingers, exhausted perhaps not so much from recent labors as the long burden of her story. Catalog has seen this before. Catalog can lift such burdens.
It is my duty to bear witness.
“A thousand years ago, my husband and I did not part on the best of terms. Now I am blessed to make peace with him. But as with all things in our lives, along with this gift comes something more.
“When the Didact left his imprint on a young Manipular, and returned to me in that way, a memory he had withheld for ten thousand years surfaced again to haunt him.” Her face loses some color. “Forerunners assert our duty to the Mantle. Yet on more than one occasion, our survival, pride, and arrogance took precedence. Forerunner humility gave way to desperate anger. Once, we rose up against our very creators.…”
I know nothing of this. A fable, perhaps?
I do not judge. I record.
STRING 3
LIBRARIAN
I WAS NOT always called Lifeshaper. That title came to me just before I walked among the defeated humans at Charum Hakkor, in the company of the Didact, ten thousand years ago. And that is a kind of beginning.
Despite my husband’s triumph over these broken wretches, I felt like weeping, remembering fallen friends, colleagues … family. But not for them alone would I weep. These pitiful humans, wounded and fallen, were also my children. So the Rule of the Mantle instructs.
Forerunners have always thought themselves especially mindful of their responsibility to all living things, even should they bite and scratch and claw—or kill. But threaten us with utter destruction? Humans had fought too well. And evidence of their own cruelty and arrogance was overwhelming.
While pushing back human forces, Forerunners had come upon system after system where humans had wiped out entire species and civilizations, or subjugated them to their own schemes—as they had with the decadent and beautiful San’Shyuum.
The final triumph at Charum Hakkor had brought with it mixed spoils, mysteries, perhaps not so much treasures as curses passed along by the defeated, as if knowing they would distract us, sap our will to fight, drain us of our conviction …
The most important of these was a human timelock, kept at the center of a vast Citadel. Within this device, humans had preserved, or imprisoned—or both—an ancient being found just beyond the last thin star clusters at the margin of the galaxy. They called it the timeless one.
The Didact called it the Primordial.
My husband forced knowledge of the timelock’s workings from a damaged human servitor—a version of our ancillas. The Didact could not unseal the timelock, nor release the occupant, but he did conduct a brief communication with the creature stored therein.
The Primordial was six meters wide and almost as tall, an unnatural mix of ancient arthropod and mammal, head flat and broad and low, overlapping sloping shoulders, wide-spaced compound eyes glittering like raw diamonds, its compressed body that of a many-limbed, corpulent ape, while down its spine crept a segmented, sea-scorpion tail—all packed tightly inside the container.
The Didact’s first opinion was that this time-suspended horror was a clever fake—perhaps a psychological weapon. But it was much more than that.