Broken Circle (10 page)

“I am not unhappy, but perhaps I'm a bit disturbed by something Enduring Bias said—the way boiling blood is disturbed in a cauldron.”

Ussa closed his jaws in a Sangheili smile. He liked the way Sooln expressed herself. Always a touch of the poetic. It was one of the qualities that endeared her to him. “Tell me what has your cauldron bubbling, then.”

They were walking in a place that Sooln called Ussa's Garden. It was an arboreal, rugged setting on the secondary shell of the shield world, far beneath the metallic sky, the high, curved protective surface, concave from this vantage beneath it. Enduring Bias had imparted to them that the Forerunners built the sheathing to protect this world from more than one sort of danger—and it had more than one sort of protection.

There were variously shaped plants here—some twisted, some like frozen bomb-bursts—and there was an artificial breeze sighing from outcroppings of gray and gold stone. Ussa felt a great comfort in walking with Sooln in such a place. Somehow it felt like traveling with her through the landscape of their life together. After all, she was his mate, the layer of eggs—though his son, Ossis, who had been killed in battle, was the only product so far of that laying—and even when Ussa had to go into battle, she was never far from his thoughts.

At last Sooln said, “Enduring Bias, Ussa, has told me that this world indeed has hidden possibilities. This is the last of many shield worlds created, an effort that apparently ended prematurely. It had a fail-safe setting, a possibility of surviving even if it broke apart. This was not something the others had. But this one was special. Only, the necessity of firing the great Rings came before it could be completed . . .”

“So—it is as we guessed? As in meta analysis?”

“Yes. Enduring Bias claims that properly triggered, this world can disassemble itself—and its disparate parts can survive.”

“Would you care for a visualization?” asked the intelligence in a gentle voice, dropping down from above. The flying machine hummed lower, situating itself in front of them, as if wishing to be companionable, its three lenses flickering.

Ussa growled within himself and demanded, “You were
watching
us, up there? Following us?”

“Of course, Ussa ‘Xellus! I am here to oversee this world, after all,” Enduring Bias replied. There was a casual whimsicality in its tone that always annoyed Ussa.

Ussa knew a good deal about Covenant beliefs—he had not discarded their teaching lightly. He had heard, monitoring High Charity transmissions, that the San'Shyuum had a damaged distributed
intelligence, rather like this, a thinking device they called the Oracle. It was rumored to be mostly mute, only on occasion relinquishing sacred clues. But Enduring Bias, though capable of fantastic feats of intellectual calculus, seemed without gravitas, to Ussa—without real dignity and certainly without the power of divination. All of which was more proof that the Covenant was wrong.

“It's all right, husband. Enduring Bias has chosen to work with us now,” Sooln said, touching Ussa's arm. “He has assured me so—and I believe him.”

“He?”

“The voice sounds male to me. Yes, Enduring, please do provide visualization. Unless—is he allowed to show the image here, Ussa?”

Ussa glanced around. They seemed to be quite alone. “Yes.”

Instantly a beam of blue light lanced down to sketch in a holographic image in front of them: a globe in lambent three dimensions. It was this very shield world—the Refuge, as his followers called it—as it would look from space.

“Here you see Shield 0673, which you now inhabit,” intoned Enduring Bias. “I was brought here shortly after its completion—but before its testing. When the Ring installations were used, no one returned for me. I determined that I was on my own. Which is why it was possible to access my prioritization and control system, since I was, you might say, at loose ends, without clear-cut purpose after the activation . . .”

“Less about yourself and more about this shield world,” Sooln said.

“Wait,” Ussa put in. “The Ring installations. Do you know
where
these Rings are?”

“That information was taken from my memory when I was brought here. There were security concerns. I have only a partial
knowledge of the Rings now. Much was eliminated. It's very disagreeable, having a gap in your mind. I don't recommend it. One always comes upon the gap and one probes and finds nothing where something should be. It has always seemed to me—”

“Try to stay focused,” Ussa said.

“I do apologize. Many millennia here, with no one to converse with, left me overtalkative and perhaps a bit on the senile side, if the term can be applied to a machine.”

“What do you know about the Rings, and the shield worlds?” Ussa said, gnashing his mandibles with exasperation.

“Only what I have told you before: that the Rings emanated a particular energy that would destroy sentient life—and yet the emanation was somehow intended to protect biodiversity across the galaxy. From . . . I don't know from what. I'm afraid that information was kept in what is now one of my gaps.”

“But what do you know of the so-called . . . Great Journey?”

“That term is not specifically familiar to me.”

Sooln looked at him. “I thought you didn't believe in the Great Journey.”

“I don't,” Ussa assured her. “But perhaps the Forerunners did. They went
somewhere.
I was just thinking that if I could prove the Great Journey is a myth, that the Ring installations were meant for something else . . . as weapons, as I suspect . . . then perhaps we could wrest some of the fools on Sanghelios away from the Covenant.”

“Ah,” said Enduring Bias. “I'm afraid information that would pertain to such an effort was kept in parts of my memory that—”

“Yes, yes,” interrupted Ussa. “Which are now gaps. Go on, then—show us the visualization of the shield world's meta purpose.”

“That is easily accomplished.”

The shield world in the hologram had seams in its metallic shell. The seams, as Ussa and Sooln watched, began to leak light—white radiance seemed to race around the seam lines, outlining all the segments making up the shell. The light grew in intensity . . . and then the seam lines grew farther apart. The shield world seemed to explode in slow motion, as if the massive metallic sphere had been made of three-dimensional puzzle pieces and a host of invisible hands were plucking those pieces away from one another, moving them, all at the same speed, outward from the center of the semiartificial world. It appeared like both a slow, fluid explosion and an organized disassembling, at once.

“This is happening more slowly than it would in real time,” Enduring Bias explained. “You will note that some of the atmosphere and fluids are being discharged, at least outwardly. Hence it does look like a real explosion. Within airtight components of the shield world, the atmosphere remains.”

“And from there?”

“From there, the components move to the next orbit out, which, as you recall, is largely made up of asteroids. The components would remain in communication. However, I cannot disclose with certainty that this process will work—it was not tested, and at this point the machinery may be faulty.”

“So—if we tried it . . .”

“For what purpose? Why would you want to try it?” Enduring Bias asked.

“I don't know that I would. But for my own reasons, it is a possibility. In some situations. But—it could end badly? Lethally?”

“Certainly. The outcome could well be negative. I would calculate a forty-nine percent chance that the outcome would be lethal for all biological organisms on this world.” After a moment it
added chirpily, “Shall we try it? I would be curious to know if it works.”

“No,” Ussa grunted. “We will not attempt it. Unless we have to.”

High Charity

850 BCE

The Age of Reconciliation

“Great Hierarch, Prophet of Excellent Redolence, it is an unbearable honor for me to be here.”

“An interesting choice of words, Inner Conviction,” said Excellent, with a fluttering, ancient
What means this?
gesture.

Mken had arranged the meeting, thinking that perhaps all the Hierarchs would be present to try to persuade Excellent Redolence against this mission. But judging by the setting and the Hierarch's pose, Excellent seemed to have guessed Mken's purpose.

They were in the San'Shyuum Hall of Sacred Guidance, where the Hierarch had positioned his elegantly articulated antigrav throne on a dais, so that he was looking down upon Mken. He was slouching a little, unconsciously expressing, it seemed to Mken, the time-honored overconfidence of those who rule and those who aspire to wider rule. His branching golden mantle glittered in the ambient illumination of the great hallway. The symbol of the seven Rings, in the Arrangement of Holiness, was projected in a holograph above him; a single Ring glowed from his crown at the center of his forehead. All this symbolism was of course meant to intimidate the Prophet of Inner Conviction, as were the Elite guards who stood, fully armed and shining in armor, to either side of the dais. The Hierarch was seated in the center of the
dais—when the other Hierarchs were there, Excellent was usually seated to the right.

“Before I continue, O Excellent Redolence,” said Mken with an assumed meekness, “should I wait for the other Hierarchs to arrive?” He knew perfectly well that Excellent had reserved the room, so to speak, for himself and his personal retinue alone, that the other two Hierarchs had not been informed of the meeting. But Mken wanted Excellent to be reminded of this violation of protocol.

“That won't be necessary; the other Hierarchs are fully briefed on the genetic restoration expedition,” Excellent said with a dismissive, magisterial wave of his hand.

R'Noh drifted into the big chamber, deliberately moving with stately aplomb, as if to bask in the reflected glow of the Hierarch's authority.

“Ah, there you are, Minister,” Excellent said silkily, with an
It is past time
gesture, but conveyed in a genial fashion. “You have consulted with the ship's captain?”

“I have, Great and Sacred Hierarch,” R'Noh replied, genuflecting. “The ship is still being charged and victualed, but he anticipates readiness within this daily cycle.”

“But—” Here Excellent turned his deceptively mild gaze upon Mken. “Is our Prophet of Inner Conviction in readiness?”

“I cannot be truly ready, O Hierarch, for a task I have little confidence in. I request consultation with the full triumvirate of Hierarchs, so that I may be of assistance in selecting another candidate for the expedition, if, indeed, the triumvirate approves—”

Excellent Redolence sat up straight, his long neck recoiling like a snake about to strike. “Mken ‘Scre'ah'ben!” The use of Mken's original name was intended to put “The Prophet of Inner Conviction” in his place. “Do I understand that you are accusing a Hierarch of the Sacred Search of breaching Council protocol?”

R'Noh made a pleased sniggering sound at this scolding.

Mken kept his temper in check. “I imply nothing of the kind, O Hierarch. I am suggesting that the purpose of this journey is beneath us—and is not necessary. It is past time for a review of the need for a Roll of Celibates. Instead of a mad and risky expedition, let us scrutinize—”

Excellent slammed a fist onto the arm of his antigravity throne—accidentally triggering a spray of random holographic images and making his chair revolve once in the air.

Mken wanted to laugh, but given the situation, thought it unwise. “They are, after all, San'Shyuum, worthy of respect as our people, even though—”

Pretending the throne-spin hadn't happened, though even R'Noh had to suppress another snigger at the sight, Excellent Redolence jabbed an accusing finger at Mken and demanded, “Have you forgotten that these so-called Stoics have appropriated our homeworld, Janjur Qom—stolen it from the holy martyrs? It is an act of liberation, not abduction, to acquire females from them! And the Purifying Vision of the Holy Path, the Luminary associated with it—these alone should justify the attempt!”

“If perhaps we could involve the other Hierarchs—”

Excellent made a quick, snappish gesture that was rarely used, meaning
Go silent or die silent.
“I will hear no more of this political casuistry! The triumvirate has agreed that I am to oversee a restoration of new breeding stock! The method was not specified—therefore, I shall specify it myself!”

Excellent seemed to realize that he was exposing himself—that the raging tyrant who was the
real
Excellent Redolence preferred the appearance of a somber, witty San'Shyuum of subtle wisdom. He settled back in his throne and absently stroked the fur on one of his wattles. “You have unsettled me. I will brook
no more insubordination. Here are my terms, ‘Prophet of Inner Conviction.' ” Mockery dripped from his tone as he used the title. “You may take your choice. You will suffer a severe, thorough, and perhaps not entirely unbiased inquiry into your exclusion from the Roll of Celibates—an exclusion that I believe to be fraudulently arranged—and you will suffer the legal consequences . . . or you will lead this expedition to Janjur Qom.”

“With all due respect, Great Hierarch, I am scarcely a military commander.”

“I beg to differ. You were in action on the Planet of Blue and Red, and in other places during the war. We have no one else available here with such experience. You oversaw purges and the appropriation of resources.”

“That was long ago.”

“Silence! Enough of this—make your choice!”

Mken took a long, deep breath. Then he bowed to the inevitable—as he bowed to Excellent Redolence. “I will lead the expedition suffused with an eagerness to serve you, Great Hierarch.”