Broken Circle (14 page)

His father had often said,
Whatever arises, the wise ones meet with a calm face.

Mken looked at the sky again, saw nothing but a veering bony-winged
rakscraja
, its pale wings reflecting starlight. He tugged at a wattle, thinking,
First things first.

The excursion team would take the dropship to the grotto of the Great Transition. And then, the village of Trellem.

Mken tried to remember what he'd read about the grotto. He knew it was associated with iconography of a legendary goddess, a mysterious Forerunner his people had long associated with rebirth. He assumed she was mythical—a symbol, merely. But who knew for certain?

Mken felt an attenuated, almost ghostly thrill, considering the possibility of entering the grotto of the Great Transition. Long ago it had been protected as sacred, and forbidden, by the Stoics. Remote-control Eyes sent to the planet from the Dreadnought suggested the grotto was now forgotten, overgrown and abandoned . . .

But there was the risk that it was still defended, after all this time.

He heard an odd fluting sound, and turned to see the Huragok floating along, like a sea creature somehow transferred to the air as it returned to the dropship—it had been checking the stealth field. Vil ‘Kthamee was walking close behind the creature, as if gently herding it along. Certainly the young Sangheili—who didn't seem in the least inconvenienced by planetary gravity—had a peculiar rapport with the Huragok.

Trok ‘Tanghil was already loading up the turret, while standing
on guard with directed-energy rifles. Vervum was entering the vessel, preparing to pilot the humpbacked vehicle.

It remained only for Mken to follow them. With one more nervous look at the sky, Mken directed his chair through the small hatch into the excursion vehicle and gave the order to head for the grotto.

Vil ‘Kthamee was strapped into a seat along the bulkhead, across from Loquen ‘Nvong, who looked back at him with quiet, condescending amusement.

Turning away from Loquen, Vil peered out of a viewport. A rolling landscape of trees and other foliage—green and argent and turquoise—went unreeling below as the dropship flew just over the treetops. The stars glowed brightly overhead, lending a blue-white sheen to the colors. In the distance were the lights of a town. He saw one road, cracked and weedy. It was there, and gone. They passed over a river, where some massive, glossy amphibian rose into view, shook itself, then descended from sight. They flew onward.

“You're enjoying the view?” Loquen asked gruffly as he fingered his plasma rifle. The bifurcated rifle was pointed upward, but a quick motion of Loquen's hand could turn it toward Vil.

Glancing at Loquen, Vil flipped his hand noncommittally. “New world. I am as curious as the next Sangheili.”

Vil was coming along to translate for the Huragok. He'd been surprised to see Loquen ‘Nvong along on the dropship. Vil had understood the expedition was to avoid conflict of any kind. This was to be a clandestine mission. So why the large and dangerous Loquen, who was always spoiling for a fight?

Though Loquen was fairly young, the Sangheili warrior was arrogant—and Vil had seen him sacrifice other soldiers for his own glory. Loquen kept his mandibles half closed much of the time—a symbol, to a Sangheili, of warning:
Do not threaten me. I am on the alert.

Vil heard Floats Near Ceiling tootling to get his attention. He glanced up, and, as it happened, the Huragok was in that moment truly floating near the ceiling of the dropship's fuselage. The Engineer organism flapped and flashed its tentacles—a question of some kind, rendered too fast for the Ranger to read. Vil signaled
Repeat
.

When the Huragok repeated its question, Vil had already touched the wrist holo interpreter. The device scancammed the Huragok, and holographically translated the symbols to Sangheili runes.

<> the Huragok was saying. <>

Vil understood. He had heard how the San'Shyuum had broken up into two major factions, one leaving for the stars, to unravel the puzzle of every Forerunner relic discoverable out there, the other group remaining, now stifling any advances in technology, inheriting a world in which there were countless cryptic Forerunner relics, most needing repair. And somehow the Huragok had already sensed those mechanisms, outside. But how?

“How do you know what is out there?” Vil asked the Huragok. Vil had a scientific side that many Sangheili didn't share. The others were all technologically capable, but the more pragmatic—and that was most Sangheili males—lacked much curiosity as to the underlying principles of that technology.

<> the Huragok responded.

“Call to you? How?” Vil tapped the translator module fixed to his hearing lobe to make it translate for verbal on his end.

<>

Creator-designed
. Meaning the Forerunners. Vil's cousin K'ckel had told him about it—cousin, or possibly brother, since Sangheili were raised in a way that made murky the identity of one's real father. K'ckel was a junior researcher in an armory on Qikost, one of Sanghelios's two moons. He had spoken to Vil about the distributed intelligences, found partly intact, machine intellects who had referred to “the creators.” The term “creator” had helped increase the numinous aura of the Forerunners. Who were the final creators, if not the gods?

“The Prophet of Inner Conviction has his own plan for you,” Vil told the Huragok at last.

Floats Near Ceiling fluted discontentedly. <>

Vil could feel the dropship slowing. He looked out the viewport, and saw that it was descending into a ravine.

Just a few moments later, they were filing out the air lock into a muggy night. The air seemed without breeze—yet the plants about the dropship rustled as if wind-stirred. Something screeched as it flew overhead; smaller, insectlike creatures hummed near, away, and then nearer still.

Like the others, Vil had been treated with antibiotic, microscopic nanoagents, which protected them with astonishing efficiency, destroying all local antigens invading their system before any harm could be done. The air was breathable on Janjur Qom, the gravity bearable, at least to Sangheili. But the insectlike flying creatures grew bolder, and soon sucked at Vil's skin—they were
tiny, almost diaphanous organisms that seemed to combine legs with wings. They died almost instantly when they drank his blood, not from nanoagents, he supposed, but because Sangheili blood was so very alien to this world.

But the San'Shyuum Prophet, up ahead and drifting along in his antigrav chair, was scratching at bites on his arms—his blood was a slightly exotic treat to the parasites.

With the floating Huragok beside him and a plasma rifle in his arms, Vil followed the San'Shyuum along a dark and dank trail that snaked from the center of the ravine toward the walls of stone to one side. The San'Shyuum, Inner Conviction and Captain Vervum, took the lead, with muted lights on their antigrav chairs. Loquen followed behind, and having the trigger-happy Sangheili in the rear made Vil a trifle nervous.

To either side was a high hedge of flexible-looking foliage that rustled as they came close to it; it quieted down when they were well past. Occasionally, tentacle-like shoots reached sinuously from the wall of foliage, and gently stroked at the interlopers, as if inspecting, perhaps tasting them. The San'Shyuum had warned them this might happen, but assured them the probes were harmless, merely investigatory on the part of the organisms—which were, actually, as much animal as they were plant. A large blossom lowered from somewhere overhead, opened wider, so that the eye within it could inspect them.

Unfamiliar smells barraged Vil's nostrils, some astringent, some cloyingly sweet, some hinting of decay. The familiar smells of mineral and water came to him, too. He felt the ancientness, the alienness of this planet. And something—as the plants shifted, the blossoms stared—that was almost a subcurrent of hostility from the world itself.

It was as if this entire planet, this Janjur Qom, was silently
intoning,
You do not belong here, Sangheili. You are invasive, you are foreign to my living body. I will enwrap you, dissolve you away . . .

Strange thought in a strange world. But he'd always been more imaginative than most Sangheili. His uncle had often taken him to task for it.

Suddenly the thin path opened out into a small meadow, knobbed with boulders. Beyond it, a beetling cliff loomed, its craggy embossments picked out by starlight.

They wended between the low boulders, approaching the base of the cliff wall. Above them, the top of the cliff was furred by another kind of plant—thick, dense, and brown.

As the expedition drew near, a cloud slipped away, somewhere overhead, and a little more light eased through to the rocky wall to expose a panel of somewhat eroded carvings, a kind of lintel above a roughly rectangular shadow so dark it must be the entrance to a passage. The Prophet of Inner Conviction aimed a light from his chair upward onto the images sculpted into the lintel. The bas-relief carving was divided in two, a row of figures seen on the right and left, in hieroglyphic profile, both groups facing inward toward a circular form enclosing a star.

The carven figures on the left were bipedal, vaguely hominid in shape. Their skulls and jaws seemed different from Sangheili or San'Shyuum, to Vil; it was difficult to see in the uneven light. The figures on the right were clearly San'Shyuum, though without antigrav chairs. They stood more upright than the San'Shyuum of the Dreadnought, and seemed more elegantly shaped.

Vil heard something move behind them—a heavy presence grunting as it shouldered through the undergrowth.

Loquen heard it at the same time. “Something's moving in that forest,” he declared suddenly. “Not those bothersome plants—something large.”

“There are many beasts on Janjur Qom,” said Captain Vervum. “The Stoics have retreated to relatively small areas, and given up much over to the wilderness. Stay alert, but do not fire your weapon without definite cause.”

“And keep your voice down,” Inner Conviction admonished them. “Both of you.”

And the Prophet of Inner Conviction directed his chair toward the darkness of the roughly rectangular opening ahead.

The Refuge: An Uncharted Shield World

850 BCE

The Age of Reconciliation

S
eeing Ernicka the Scar-Maker stalking across the high-ceilinged space of the Hall of Feasts, Tersa was tempted to simply walk up to him and report what he had heard ‘Crolon and ‘Drem saying at work.

It had seemed to Tersa that ‘Drem and ‘Crolon had been plotting insurrection there. Or perhaps they were only hinting at it, which was already dangerous enough.

The scarred Sangheili warrior—who always chose to be last to eat—was carrying a pot of protein mash from the synthesizer at the back of the Hall, setting it up on one of the makeshift tables. The room buzzed with conversation.

Still, Tersa hesitated. He hung back near the door, wondering if he would appear to Ernicka as a dishonorable informer if he told him what ‘Crolon had said—repeated the implications ‘Crolon had made suggesting that there was some obscure connection between Ussa, Sooln, and the San'Shyuum. ‘Drem had been even more forthrightly suspicious of the Refuge—and by extension, of Ussa.

But when Tersa considered reporting the talk, imagined himself repeating it to Ernicka, it all sounded like mere grumbling. Perhaps it was . . .

But he'd felt a chill, listening to ‘Crolon and ‘Drem speak that way.

At Tersa's right sat ‘Crolon and ‘Drem themselves. They were usually among the first to eat. Now they were huddled together over their meals in close conversation. ‘Crolon seemed to sense Tersa watching—he turned and looked directly at Tersa, then murmured something to ‘Drem.

‘Drem nodded, and the two of them rose and approached the young Sangheili. Attempting to ignore them, Tersa started toward the table area.

“One moment, young warrior,” ‘Crolon said affably. He and ‘Drem blocked his way. “Do you have time for some wisdom?”

“Much time for much wisdom, and little for little,” said Tersa, quoting his uncle. He looked back and forth between the two Sangheili. “Well, then?”

“It is the way you have been looking at us,” ‘Drem said. “Since the other day in that room with the talking shapes. And that damned machine—Enduring Bias.”

“And how have I been looking at you?” Tersa asked.

“ ‘Drem is prone to making subjective judgments,” ‘Crolon said. “But I did want to make sure you did not misunderstand us. You did not imagine we said anything disloyal to Ussa, I'm sure . . . ?”