Tomorrow’s a bonus, BB. She said that quite a lot these days. “So I want to find her alive. It’s keeping me going, believe me.”
BB had access to every record in the ONI archives, and in the six months since his creation Parangosky had answered every question he’d put to her. Even so, it was hard for an AI to extract as much data from a human as he needed, even from an articulate and succinct one like Parangosky. Flesh and blood was so very, very slow. The question that most fascinated him had stil to be ful y answered.
What made you dislike Halsey so much, Admiral? ONI has plenty of unpalatable, unlikable, dangerous people in its ranks, but you tolerate them. What did she do?
She had answered, in a way. Halsey had lied to her, she said.
But ONI was al about lies. They were now about to tel some more.
“So, on to today’s business.” Parangosky shut down the holoimage. “BB, are they al here now?”
“Yes, ma’am.” BB checked on the monitors in each separate waiting room, where the candidates sat isolated by specialty. “Staff Sergeant Malcolm Geffen, Corporal Vasily Beloi, Sergeant Lian Devereaux, Naomi-Zero-One-Zero, and Dr. Evan Phil ips.”
Osman didn’t say a word for a moment. Sometimes Parangosky didn’t tel her everything. But then Phil ips had been a last-minute change of mind on Parangosky’s part, and BB stil wasn’t convinced that the professor understood what he’d agreed to in a matter of seconds. Phillips craves knowledge, like an AI. Can’t exist without it. Gorges on more and more every day. I think we’ll get on just fine. Phil ips had rushed to Bravo- 6 so fast that he was stil repacking his holdal in the waiting room.
“I didn’t know he was coming,” Osman said at last.
Parangosky looked almost apologetic. She always took care not to offend Osman, but BB knew there were things she didn’t tel her for her own good. The time was approaching, though, when she would need to be told everything, and when the name Infinity would final y mean something to her.
“He’s a gamble I took two hours ago,” Parangosky said. “You might need his expertise, even with BB around. I’l worry later about how I get him to keep his mouth shut.”
She eased herself up from the chair and reached for her cane. She needed it for the walk to the elevator down into the core of the HIGHCOM complex, but somehow she made it look like a weapon she had every intention of using.
“Time to put Kilo-Five together, then,” she said. “BB, you’re formal y assigned to Captain Osman as of now. Lead on, Captain.”
PRIVATE QUARTERS OF FORMER SHIPMASTER JUL ‘MDAMA, BEKAN KEEP, MDAMA, SANGHELIOS: JANUARY 26, 2553 IN THE HUMAN CALENDAR.
Nothing had changed since the Covenant had falen, just the deceptive surface of events, but Jul ‘Mdama despaired of making the Arbiter listen.
“They’l be back,” he said, running a polishing cloth over his armor for the tenth time that morning. “They’re like the Flood. They expand to fil every available space. They devour everything in their path. Except they can plan and wait, and persuade our more gul ible brothers with clever argument, which makes them even more dangerous.”
Raia didn’t say anything. She was stil looking out of the window, jaws moving slightly as if she was talking to herself, and passing a stylus from hand to hand. The sound of youngsters squabbling in the courtyard below rose on the breeze as Great-Uncle Naxan waded in to restore order, yel ing about discipline and dignity.
“And even you don’t listen to me,” Jul said. He stopped short of seizing Raia’s shoulder to make her look at him. Within the family keep, her word was law. “Am I the only one who can see that the humans are just catching their breath? They won’t forget, and they won’t forgive. They certainly won’t stop their colonization.”
“Jul, we face far more immediate problems than humans,” Raia said. “I want you to look at something.”
She stepped back from the window and gestured to him with the kind of weary patience she reserved for smal children. Jul humored her. From the third-story window, he had a good view of the landscaping that surrounded the keep. To the east, the hil s were stepped with terraces of fruit vines, designed to catch the sun. Looking west, he could see fields in a neat mosaic of green and gray-blue on either side of the lake. Set against the gold midmorning sky, it looked exactly like every image he’d ever seen of this landscape; it hadn’t changed for centuries, and generations of his clan had worked hard to make sure it didn’t. He had every expectation that it would look that way to his sons’ children and their grandchildren too.
The Sangheili might have been betrayed and defeated—temporarily—and their faith upended, but Mdama never changed.
“I don’t have time for this,” Jul said. “I have to go to the kaidon’s assembly. The Arbiter’s going to be here soon.”
“Then you make time,” Raia snapped. “A world needs more than warriors to survive. The San’Shyuum knew how to make their servant races weak—they confined us to one skil .” Nobody cal ed them the Prophets now. It was too painful, but it was also a hard habit to break. “And, of course, we lap that up, vain fools that we are. We al want to be warriors, nothing else. Now we have no engineers, no traders, and no scientists. How wil we feed ourselves?”
“I leave the estate management to you and Naxan.” Jul hadn’t noticed any food shortages. It had only been half a season since the Arbiter had kil ed the last treacherous Prophet of the High Council and every certainty in life had evaporated, but there was stil food on the table. “I know better than to interfere with my wife’s business.”
Raia drew back her arms, head thrust forward a little in that don’t-you-dare posture. He hadn’t seen her this angry for a long time. “That’s the problem!” She hissed. “Thousands of years doing the San’Shyuum’s bidding, each species made as dependent as children, and we never asked ourselves what would happen if it al fel apart. The San’Shyuum made us reliant on savages. Now we have to relearn their skil s just to restore basic communications. We built starships, Jul. We were a spacefaring culture long before the San’Shyuum arrived and turned us into their personal army.”
Jul could stil hear the youngsters in the courtyard. Sticks crashed against sticks. “No, not like that!” Naxan, Raia’s grand-brother, roared his head off, probably putting on the angry theatrics. “Control yourself! If that had been a blade, you would have taken your own arm off!”
Jul heard a loud thwack—fol owed by absolute silence—as if Naxan had rapped one of the children with his dummy weapon. There was no yelping or sniveling. It might even have been one of the girls; Naxan taught them al basic combat skil s, the young females of the keep as wel as the males. Daughters would probably never serve in the front line, but they had to be able to defend the keep if the worst happened.
Raia was right, as usual. Every Sangheili judged himself solely by his combat skil s. Jul definitely couldn’t remember any of his brothers or cousins saying they wanted to be an administrator or a cook. The shame would have been unbearable, and yet keeps and assemblies had to be run and food had to be provided. Sangheili had stopped thinking about how the Covenant kept itself running a long time ago.
“It’s only been half a season,” Jul said. “The world hasn’t ground to a halt yet. We can import food if the crops fail. We can hire engineers.”
“No, we can’t, ” Raia said. “We might find Kig-Yar traders wil ing to do business, but do you real y think Jiralhanae can maintain our technology now the Huragok have fled? And even if you don’t give a damn about the domestic side of things, at least worry about your fleet. What happens when our ships and weapons need replacing? Think of that before you choose to carry on fighting the war.”
“We’l discuss this later,” he said, picking his moment to escape. “I have to see the Arbiter.”
He heard her hiss irritably again as he made his way down the passage. It was a simple problem to fix. There were stil a few loyal Unggoy and Jiralhanae around, weren’t there? They could easily learn to be farmers or factory workers. Or engineers. It was simply a matter of giving them clear instructions and making sure they didn’t drug themselves into a stupor or start too many fights.
But it was far easier to vaporize every living thing on a planet than reform an entire culture from scratch.
The humans don’t have this problem. Clever little vermin. Backward, small, and not the best at anything. But good enough at everything.
Survivors.
That was al the more reason to make the Arbiter see sense and crush them before they started recolonizing.
Jul looked down over the windowsil on the stairwel to make sure that it wasn’t Dural or Asum who’d received the smack around the ear from Naxan for careless swordsmanship. No. It’s Gmal. Not my boys. They’re better than that. It was hard not to show his sons favor, but that would have told them who their father was, and no Sangheili male was al owed to know that. Jul’s sons had to make their own way in the world, judged solely on their merits and without any assumptions based on their bloodline.
But I still wish I’d known who my father was. I think we all do.
Sangheili mothers might not have been frontline fighters, but they certainly held the real power, the knowledge and selection of bloodlines. Being a Sangheili male could sometimes be lonely and uncertain.
Jul had to pass through the courtyard to get to his transport. The youngsters were stil doing weapons dril , taking the wooden sticks very seriously as Naxan stalked up and down in front of them, tapping his baton against his palm as he watched the parries and thrusts. He gave Jul a nod and didn’t break his stride. None of the children looked Jul’s way, either. Focus. It had to be taught and reinforced from the crib.
Jul was almost at the gate when Naxan cal ed out to him. “Tel the Arbiter to watch his back.”
Jul found that funny. He looked over his shoulder. “I don’t think he needs me to remind him of that.”
Jul’s young aide, Gusay, had been reduced to his personal driver now. Ships were in short supply and there were more crew than positions to be fil ed—and no tangible war to fight anyway. It was the first time in living memory that any Sangheili had to face the prospect of being idle and purposeless. Even the vehicles at the keep’s disposal were a painful reminder of the disarray and confusion the entire world seemed to find itself in. Gusay col ected Jul in a Revenant that stil had hastily repaired shel damage al over it, with a particularly spectacular gouge a hand-width deep running from the nose to the driver’s seat.
Jul wondered if the occupants had survived the attack that caused it. The plasma mortar was intact. He leaned over the open cockpit and stared at the seats, trying not to show his dismay.
“Did you raid the scrapyard? Making a virtue of frugality, are we?”
“Sorry, Shipmaster, but there are a great many Revenants around, and very little else.” Gusay always did his best. Jul tried to keep that in mind.
“Better that you arrive to greet the Arbiter in a vehicle that’s seen action, though, yes?”
“Is the mortar operational?”
“I didn’t think it was going to be that sort of a gathering, my lord.”
Jul could never tel whether Gusay was being literal or trying to be funny. He decided to take the comment at face value. “I’m sure we’l al listen reverently to what the Arbiter has to say.”
The Revenant swept north across land that was a lie in itself. Much of the landscape outside the cities looked like the neat agricultural terrain of an ancient Sanghelios long gone. Even the keeps—the regional assembly houses and the clan settlements—tried hard to at least nod to the old architecture. Jul had always thought of it as a splendid regard for tradition and lineage, but not now. We still pretend to be farmers, like we deluded ourselves that we were still warriors, when we were only cannon fodder for the San’Shyuum. Keeping up appearances wasn’t going to change anything. Sangheili needed to remember who they were long before the San’Shyuum came. They needed to reclaim their honor and independence.
Very well, Raia. You have a point.
“So we find ourselves like the humans,” Gusay said. “Licking our wounds and learning lessons.”
“We’re nothing like them,” Jul snapped. “Don’t let me hear you say that again.”
Gusay didn’t breathe another word for the rest of the journey. Jul settled back as best he could in his seat—the metal frame was buckled, he was certain—and inhaled the scents on the breeze, eyes shut. The smel of the ocean mingled with the sharp scent of roadside herbs bruised by the Revenant’s thrust. It was a fragrant and familiar mixture that he’d missed during his years at the front.
“The Arbiter’s drawn a good crowd, my lord.” Gusay slowed the Revenant to a halt and Jul opened his eyes. “I believe the humans would cal that a full house. ”
Every elder entitled to bear the ‘Mdama title seemed to be here already. An assortment of transports sat along the sweeping road up to the kaidon’s keep, mostly Revenants and Ghosts, but also a human vehicle, a hydrogen-powered thing of which he’d seen far too many: a Warthog. So somebody had brought home a battlefield trophy for his clan. Wel , there was no edict against tasteless eccentricity. It might even have belonged to Kaidon Levu ‘Mdama himself. Whatever his reputation in combat, old Levu had such vulgar tendencies that it made Jul wonder if his mother had consorted with a Kig-Yar.
“Wait here,” Jul said, climbing out of the Revenant. “I doubt this wil take long.”
Levu was a traditionalist, so Jul forgave him his undignified taste. The kaidon stil had a huge tiered chamber at the heart of his keep, the kind that ancient Sangheili warlords had once held court in, albeit with the latest comforts and technologies provided by the San’Shyuum. The wal s were an electric blue, almost painful y intense, and shiny with lacquer. Jul nodded at the clan elders he knew wel and caught the eye of those he didn’t, then took his seat. The purplish-black upholstery was just as glossy and awful as the wal s. He wondered if Levu was trying to emulate the leather cushions and lapis paneling of Old Rolam.