High above the hangar floor was a dark and silent abbey, large enough to accommodate the entire Covenant High Council, more than two hundred Sangheili and San'Shyuum. But as Fortitude and Tranquility rose through a perfectly round hole in the abbey's floor, they saw the room had only one occupant: the leader of the ascetic priests, the Philologist San'Shyuum.
Like the cleric that provided Fortitude's remedies, the Philologist's humble chair was made of stone not metal. His robes were so tattered they looked like strips of shredded cloth wrapped around his withered frame. The once-white garments were now so dirty they were actually a few shades darker than the Philologist's ashen flesh. His eyelashes were long and gray, and the wisps of hair on his bowed neck were so long they draped almost to his knees.
"We have not met, I think," the ancient San'Shyuum croaked as Fortitude's and Tranquility's chairs eased to a stop behind him. He was engrossed in a tattered scroll and did not turn to greet them.
"Once," Fortitude replied. "But the gathering was large and long ago."
"How rude of me to forget."
"Not at all. I am Fortitude, and this is the Vice Minister of Tranquility."
The younger San'Shyuum dipped his chair forward in a bow. But, as promised, he did not speak.
"An honor to have met you." Rolling the scroll tight in his arthritic hands, the Philologist turned. For a moment he simply stared at his guests with his large and milky eyes. "What favor do you seek?"
The Philologist wasn't feigning ignorance. For secrecy's sake, Fortitude hadn't told the priest his purpose, knowing that his Ministerial rank was sufficient to gain an audience. But while the Philologist's words were cordial, their meaning had been clear: State your business and let's get on with it. I have much more important work to do.
Fortitude was happy to oblige.
"Confirmation," the Minister said, keying one of his chair's holo-switches. A wafer of circuitry not much bigger than one of his fingernails poked up beside the switch. "And a blessing." He pulled the wafer free and extended it to the Philologist.
"Two favors then." The Philologist smiled, exposing gums split with lines of serrated bone.
He moved his stone chair forward and took the wafer. "This must be very important."
Fortitude managed a friendly grimace. "One of the Vice Minister's ships has discovered a reliquary of quite impressive size."
"Ah," the Philologist said, squinting one eye to better scrutinize the wafer.
"And if the Luminations are to be believed," Fortitude continued, "an Oracle as well."
The Philologist's eyes widened. "An Oracle, you say?"
Fortitude nodded. "Truly shocking and wondrous news."
With more speed than the Minister would have guessed, the Philologist rotated his chair and floated to a phalanx of shadowed machinery in the center of the room. As he drew close, holographics flicked on high above, revealing a cluster of onyx obelisks—powerful processing towers linked together—and before these: the Dreadnought's Oracle.
Even though Fortitude had seen many representations of the holy object, it was smaller than he had expected. Locked inside an armature that kept it head-height above the floor, the Oracle was tethered to the obelisks with strands of neatly plaited wire. These circuits connected to small, golden pads affixed to the Oracle's casing: a teardrop of silver alloy not much longer than the Minister's neck.
The casing's tapered end faced the obelisks. Its round end angled toward the floor and held a dark glass lens. There was a gap around the lens and the casing, and through this, Fortitude could see pinpoints of light—circuits running at low power. These were the Oracle's only signs of life.
"This is all the data?" the Philologist asked, slotting the wafer into one of the obelisks.
"From the ship's Luminary as well as its sensors." Fortitude edged closer to the Oracle. For some reason, he was overwhelmed with a desire to reach up and touch it. As old as the object was, its casing was absolutely smooth—had no dents or scratches. Fortitude gazed deep into the Oracle's lens. "There are reports of a new species on the planet that holds the relics, but they appear to be primitives—a tier-four species. I don't expect they shall—"
Suddenly, the Oracle's circuits blazed. The lens refracted the light, sending forth a blinding beam. Not a lens. Fortitude gasped. An eye! He raised a sleeve before his face as the Oracle tilted toward him in its armature.
< FOR EONS I HAVE WATCHED > The Oracle's deep voice reverberated inside its casing. Its eye-beam flickered with the cadence of its words as it pronounced in the San'Shyuum tongue. < LISTENED TO YOU MISINTERPRET > Hearing the Oracle speak was, for any faithful member of the Covenant, like listening to the Forerunners' own voice. Fortitude was appropriately humbled, but not just because the Oracle had finally spoken after Ages of silence. In truth, he was just as surprised to learn that the Philologist was not (as he had always suspected) an utter fraud.
Fortitude had made this appointment for formality's sake. Luminations presented as evidence before the High Council required the Oracle's blessing, which for Ages had meant convincing the current Philologist to affirm on its behalf. But these holy hermits were just as political as any other powerful San'Shyuum—equally susceptible to bribes and blackmail.
Fortitude had expected he would have to make some sort of "donation" to the Philologist (a small share of the reliquary, perhaps) in order to get the blessing he required.
But if the old charlatan is putting me on, Fortitude watched as the Philologist stepped from his chair and dropped feebly to his knees before the Oracle, he's certainly giving it his all.
"Blessed Herald of the Journey!" the Philologist wailed, neck low and arms spread wide.
"Tell us the error of our ways!"
The Oracle's eye dimmed. For a moment it looked as though it might resume its long silence. But then it blazed anew, projecting a hologram of the reclamation glyph recorded by Rapid Conversion's Luminary.
< THIS IS NOT RECLAMATION > the Oracle boomed. < THIS IS RECLAIMER > Slowly the glyph turned upside down, and its central shapes—the concentric circles, one low inside the other, connected by a thin line—took on a different aspect. The shapes' previous arrangement had resembled the pendulum of a clock. Inverted, the glyph now looked like a creature with two curved arms locked above its head. The glyph shrunk in size as the hologram zoomed out to show the entire alien world, covered with thousands of these newly oriented Luminations.
< AND THOSE IT REPRESENTS ARE MY MAKERS > Now it was Fortitude's turn to feel weak in the knees. He grasped the arms of his throne and tried to come to terms with an impossible revelation: each glyph represented a Reclaimer, not a relic, and each Reclaimer was one of the planet's aliens—which could only mean one thing.
"The Forerunners," the Minister whispered. "Some were left behind."
"Impossible!" Tranquility spat, no longer able to keep his peace. "Heresy!"
"From an Oracle?"
"From this meddler!" Tranquility leveled a finger at the Philologist. "Who knows what the old fool has done to this divine machinery? The perversions he's accomplished with all his worms and sacks!"
"How dare you accuse me," gasped the Philologist. "In this most sacred vault!"
The Vice Minister drew back in his chair. "I will do all that and more—"
Just then, the abbey began to shudder. Many decks below, the Dreadnought's mighty engines sprang to life, shaking free of the limiters that kept them generating the comparatively meager energy High Charity required. Soon the engines would build to full capacity, and then … "Disconnect the Oracle!" Fortitude shouted, knuckles white upon his chair. "Before the Dreadnought launches and destroys the city!"
But the Philologist paid him no heed. "The sacred vessel breaks its shackles!" The elderly San'Shyuum's arms were trembling. He no longer seemed afraid—he seemed inspired.
"The Gods' will be done!"
The hologram of the alien world disappeared, and once more the Oracle's eye shone forth. < I WILL REJECT MY BIAS AND WILL MAKE AMENDS > The vault's dark walls began to glow as their veinlike pathways brightened inside them. The ancient circuits surged with light that raced into the obelisks behind the Oracle. The banded red and brown rocks began to crack, venting plumes of chalky vapor.
Suddenly, the Vice Minister sprung from his chair, plasma-pistol drawn. "Shut it off!" he screamed, leveling his weapon at the Philologist. The pistol's tip shone brilliant green as it built up an overcharge bolt. "Or I will burn you where you stand!"
But at that moment, the Oracle's lens became so bright—began to flash with such feverish frequency—that it threatened to blind all three San'Shyuum. Tranquility screamed and brought the long sleeves of his robes up before his eyes.
< MY MAKERS ARE MY MASTERS > The Oracle's teardrop casing rattled inside its armature as if it were trying to take flight with its ship. < I WILL BRING THEM SAFELY TO THE ARK > Suddenly, there was a mighty snap and the abbey plunged into darkness, as if the Dreadnought had blown a fuse. High-pitched squeals echoed around the vault. His eyes filled with stinging tears, Fortitude looked up and saw hundreds of fiery spouts—what looked like extrusions of molten metal—cascading from the walls. As his vision cleared, Fortitude realized these were in fact burning Lekgolo, slithering from the walls. The dying worms plummeted to the floor, where they burst apart in great orange splatters, or curled in writhing crisps.
The next thing Fortitude knew, the Mgalekgolo bonded pair he'd seen guarding the entrance to the hangar was thundering up the ramp into the abbey, assault cannons fully charged.
"Hold your fire!" Fortitude yelled. But the armored giants continued to stride forward— hunched behind their shield, spines erect and quivering. "Drop your weapon!" he shouted at the Vice Minister. "Do it now, you fool!"
Still dazed by the Oracle's light, Tranquility let his pistol clatter to the floor.
One of the Mgalekgolo said something to the Philologist, its voice like grinding stone.
"An accident," the aged hermit replied. He looked around sadly at the smoldering corpses of his worms—the ruined remains of his grand investigation—then waved the sentries away.
"There is nothing to be done …"
The Mgalekgolo held their ground as their colony communed. Then the green light in the bores of their cannons dimmed, and they clanked back to their post. The abbey was dark once more.
"What should we believe?" Tranquility asked, his voice quiet in the dark.
But the Minister was at a loss for words.
He could honestly say that he had spent his entire life without experiencing a single moment of spiritual crisis. He had accepted the Forerunners' existence because their relics were there to find. He believed in the Forerunners' divination because in all their Ages of searching, the San'Shyuum had found no bones or other remains. He knew the Covenant's core promise that all would walk The Path and follow in the Forerunners' footsteps was critical to the union's stability.
And he was certain that if anyone learned they might be left behind, the Covenant was doomed.
Presently, the holographic shards above the obelisks flickered back to life, filling the room with dim blue light. The blackened Lekgolo looked like etchings in the floor—a macabre and twisted glyph.
"We must take no chances with these …Reclaimers." Fortitude could not bring himself to say "Forerunners." He grabbed his wattle and gave it a steady tug. "They must be expunged.
Before anyone else knows of their existence."
The Vice Minister's lower lip quavered. "Are you serious?"
"Quite."
"Exterminate them? But what if—"
"If the Oracle speaks the truth, than all we believe is a lie." Fortitude's voice filled with sudden strength. "If the masses knew this, they would revolt. And I will not let that come to pass."
The Vice Minister slowly nodded his assent. "What about him?" Tranquility whispered, glancing at the Philologist. The aged hermit was now staring up at the Oracle. The device was slacked in its armature, thin smoke twisting from the gap around its lens. "Can we trust him to keep this secret?"
"I hope so." Fortitude released his wattle. "Or he will make a very poor third Hierarch."
Sif hadn't expected any lengthy communications. She knew Mack was trying to keep the locations of their data centers secret. But his responses to her alerts when the alien warship had appeared in-system and then drawn close to Harvest were so clipped and formal, she began to wonder if she'd done something wrong.
What that might be, exactly, Sif had no idea. She'd expertly accomplished her part of the plan—moved hundreds of propulsion pods to coordinates weeks and months ahead of Harvest, along its orbital path. Sif had handled the required high-speed burns herself; getting the pods quickly and accurately into position was critical to the plan's success, and she hadn't wanted to leave the maneuvers in the hands of easily flustered NAV computers.
Her fastidiousness had paid off. The pods were settled well ahead of schedule, two days before the alien warship arrived. This was pure coincidence, Sif knew (neither she nor Mack nor Jilan al-Cygni had had any idea when more aliens might appear). Even so, she couldn't help thinking the timing was a good omen—a hopeful sign that their complex and unprecedented evacuation would work.
But when she had delivered the good news about the pods, all Sif got back from Mack's data center was a terse, anonymous message: <\ Cease all further COM. \> Which was fine, she guessed. Mack had explained that after the pods were placed it was critical that she lay low and not do anything to attract the aliens' attention—give them a reason to do the Tiara harm. So Sif stopped all activity on her strands, and for the first time in her harried existence, she had nothing to do but wrestle with her new emotional inhibition.