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  “We have no means of returning to Forerunner lines. Unless we can formulate a viable escape, we will, within a few hours, sacrifice ourselves in dubious battle against overwhelming forces.

  “We will reduce their strength and numbers as best we can.”

  STRING 20

  REPORT FROM JURIDICAL NETWORK (UNSIGNED)

  FORERUNNER DEFENSES CONTINUE to collapse.

  Burns now cover two thirds of Forerunner territory, and the Flood has assumed complete control of well over half a million stellar systems.

  Juridicals have been evacuated from most of these regions. Where they have been captured, evidence of intrusion into the Juridical network is now clear, and so the network has been temporarily shut down.

  Forerunner legal proceedings are now on hold.

  Forerunner civilization is now on hold.

  [TT: End of this series of anomalous strings.]

  STRING 21

  TESTIMONY OF FABER, THE MASTER BUILDER

  FABER: If I am guilty of any crime, why would I rescue my greatest enemy and bring him back to tell his story?

  MASTER JURIDICAL: Our inquiry has not yet begun. You are answering questions not posed.

  FABER: The Warden did not preserve me in the midst of all that destruction for reasons of sentiment. It knew my value.

  MASTER JURIDICAL: The Warden was bribed.

  FABER: How the hell do you bribe a machine?

  MASTER JURIDICAL: You found a way. We repeat, these statements are premature. We are drawing our inquest to a close. A few additional details need to be resolved; you may be able to help us in that regard.

  FABER: I’m not being charged with any crime?

  MASTER JURIDICAL: We are interested in your attempt, after you captured the Ur-Didact in the San’Shyuum quarantine system, to dispose of him in Flood-infested territory—in a Burn.

  FABER: I know nothing about that.

  MASTER JURIDICAL: What did you do with the humans and the Manipular, Bornstellar, found on the same ship?

  FABER: I returned the Manipular to his family.

  MASTER JURIDICAL: And the humans?

  FABER: They were delivered to a Halo.

  MASTER JURIDICAL: Were you aware that that Halo had been commandeered by the Primordial?

  FABER: I was placed under arrest. Needless to say, I lost control of my installations.

  MASTER JURIDICAL: You did not continue to influence Mendicant Bias?

  FABER: Certainly not. He was primarily the Didact’s design … you know that, don’t you?

  MASTER JURIDICAL: There is also the matter of Catalog.

  FABER: Ah.

  MASTER JURIDICAL: The Ur-Didact informs us that Catalog and two others accompanied him into the Burn. Please explain this circumstance.

  FABER: Why would I send anyone into a Burn, only to rescue them? I assume my underlings screwed up. Misinterpreted orders. Or, as I say, they all escaped.

  MASTER JURIDICAL: How was it, then, after sending the Didact into a Burn—

  FABER: I deny that! I’ve said it over and over.

  MASTER JURIDICAL: How was it that you found him a second time?

  FABER: An accident. I swear on the Mantle. I was busy with Flood defense.

  MASTER JURIDICAL: You had assembled your Builder Security and disgraced Warrior-Servants and cobbled together a posse of vessels.

  FABER: Cobbled together? We fought the Flood. Even better that nobody knew I was still alive. I could operate with freedom, cut loose from the failures of our old strategies. Given time to think over new strategies. And I was effective! We held that salient for three years. Without credit, mind you.

  MASTER JURIDICAL: How did the rescue come about?

  FABER: I found the Didact—the original Didact—on a cruiser attempting to break our cordon. We were doing our best to protect a vulnerable flank against the Flood, arriving on Forerunner ships!—a flank opened wide by the failure of the Jat-Krula and its Line installations. I have no idea how the Didact secured that vessel.

  MASTER JURIDICAL: A very attractive bit of salvage.

  FABER: All of its arms had been stripped away. That’s why we didn’t destroy it. It was harmless.

  MASTER JURIDICAL: What did you do with the Ur-Didact when you discovered he was aboard the cruiser?

  FABER: Bringing back the Didact … bit of a coup, that. I decided to take the cruiser under tow and carry it to a research center.

  MASTER JURIDICAL: Was it possible you thought returning the Didact, the original Didact, might cause problems for his duplicate?

  FABER: That’s harsh.

  MASTER JURIDICAL: After you recovered the Ur-Didact, did you notice a change in his behavior?

  FABER: He was calm, sullen even. Seemed completely lacking in resentment or hatred. He told me he had experienced the Flood firsthand, knew much more about it … and it only confirmed his belief that Halos were not the best way to respond.

  MASTER JURIDICAL: He had not changed his opinions.

  FABER: Not in the least. He seemed subdued, but otherwise, unchanged from the Didact who had disagreed with me for so many thousands of years. Still adamantly opposed to the use of the Halos. But it was clear he was hiding something from me, I do not know what. He wished to be taken to Requiem, his primary Shield World.

  MASTER JURIDICAL: He did not ask to be reunited with the Librarian?

  FABER: No.

  MASTER JURIDICAL: How long has it been since you last communicated with the Librarian?

  FABER: Years. Not at all after I was taken into custody and charged with corruption and unauthorized use of a strategic weapon.

  MASTER JURIDICAL: You have never had contact with the Primordial, nor with any advanced form of Gravemind?

  FABER: I have not … but the Didact may be another story. Have you questioned him?

  MASTER JURIDICAL: Your testimony shows internal inconsistencies. How do you explain them?

  FABER: I’ve been on the front lines, fighting for years now, without credit and with very little support. Thankfully, my Builder Security forces have proven strong and loyal. We accomplished much.

  MASTER JURIDICAL: In fact, you were capturing smaller, weaker Flood-infested ships and putting them through inadequate decontamination before handing them over to Warrior-Servant crews, and doing this for extortionately high payment, under a regional commandant’s Letter of Marque. Many of the crews assigned to those captured vessels were in turn overwhelmed by undetected Flood components. The cruiser carrying the Didact was taken with that business in mind, was it not?

  FABER: I know nothing about that.

  MASTER JURIDICAL: The rate of Forerunner retreat and defeat in the area you claim to have been defending was more than five times greater than in neighboring themas. Your contingent of ships began with five hundred, of which only twenty survive.

  FABER: It was hard duty. We did our best.

  STRING 22

  RETURN OF THE DIDACT

  THE LIBRARIAN RESTS with her recovery team for the first moment in two months. She has invited Catalog to accompany her, assuming rightly that I am the most secure repository of her activities, and the least likely to be corrupted should a political crisis shake up the New Council—which is distinctly possible, given the scale of Forerunner losses. Most communications within the ecumene, including the Juridical network, have been temporarily blocked pending identification of the extent to which Flood-contaminated ships and systems are capable of listening in.

  The Librarian’s core team—the same Lifeworker team that accompanied her centuries before to the Path Kethona—gathers after processing their most recent acquisitions. The vessels in her research flotilla are now at full capacity, both for live specimens and genetic samplings.

  The Librarian appears exhausted. She is calm, quiet, listening to the team reports but saying little. She has removed her armor and is surrounded by flowing undergarments, while the armor undergoes self-repair and replenishment. The Librarian has worn the same armor for
over a thousand years and exhibits an unusual attachment—for a Lifeworker—to her ancilla. But then, everything else familiar to her is either lost or far away—her children, her husband, and now her husband’s duplicate, whom she never refers to as other than “my Didact.” Even with all of these comings and goings, the reports of her subordinates, briefings from her flotilla commandant—all of her manifold, minute-by-minute duties and distractions—the Lifeshaper seems terribly alone.

  It has been four years since the IsoDidact left the Erde-Tyrene system to assume command of Orion complex Defense Operations, leading forces reconstituted from both former Warrior-Servants and Builder Security.

  Eventually, as her ship begins its journey to the greater Ark, the work passes behind her. Her quarters empty.

  I alone am left to listen.

  “Do you have any cheerful stories in your inventory?” she asks softly.

  A great transparent panel spreads wide, so that we are able to see the last of the Lifeworker ships gleaming in fading starlight, anticipating the beautiful, awesome show that is portal-formation, a few minutes or hours before the commandant is reassured of transit and we begin our journey away from this system.

  “There are many cases long resolved that are part of public record,” I say. “Few of which I gathered myself, however. Some are, I suppose, amusing—but what entertains Juridicals may not entertain such as you.”

  “You are young in your calling?”

  “I am, Lifeshaper. I have not served the requisite centuries.”

  “Interesting that those not so young should entrust you with my deposition.”

  “Older Juridical units tend to be more cynical, less pleasant to deal with,” I explain. “Most remove themselves from gathering evidence and serve in other capacities.”

  “Perhaps they have seen too much folly. Do you appreciate all the classic forms of folly, Catalog?” she asks.

  “Training in law requires an appreciation for all the ways in which we make mistakes, Lifeshaper.”

  That, and the constant awareness of one’s own transgressions. Nevertheless, to be a Juridical gives one the unique opportunity to measure past errors against many far greater.

  “You know that the Master Builder has been located,” she says. “May I speak of him?”

  “You may.”

  “Ah, that means Juridicals have dismissed all proceedings against him!”

  “Indeed, they have, Lifeshaper … upon instructions from the New Council.”

  “Astonishing. When you were receiving my deposition, I had a peculiar feeling that you knew something of importance. Something you could not tell me.”

  “Indeed.”

  “The release of the Master Builder seems to have been predicated upon his delivery of a very important individual to the Capital system.”

  “Indeed.”

  “That can only mean my husband has been returned to us, Catalog. And that means he will replace the IsoDidact, as you call him.”

  “Perhaps, Lifeshaper.”

  Her expression is rich and complex. She intuits that the situation may be more complicated than that.

  “Let’s speak of folly,” she says. “Our own folly—the Didact’s and mine. Let’s speak of how two very different individuals of very different rates—one devoted to defense and destruction, the other to life and preservation—came together. How we fell in love.”

  She tells me of their courtship and the long process of working through rate and family objections, and of the early years of their marriage. I am embarrassed by her descriptions of interludes of physical passion during the creation of their children, which were highly desired and beloved. The Lifeshaper feels no such embarrassment. Life, after all, is the product of an almost infinite number of such encounters.

  In turn, I spin out the more amusing legal tales of forced partnerships and illegal appropriation of genetic components, with subsequent claims of inheritance … usually but not always denied. Power, for Builders in particular, has much to do with lineage, whether or not legitimately acquired.

  The Lifeshaper listens closely. She then speaks of the many difficulties she and her husband faced long before the Ur-Didact was forced into exile. “He may have understood the finest details of a grand strategy, but his view of Council politics … remarkably direct. I admired that, but had I behaved strictly according to his views…” She pauses. “I wonder what he’ll think when he sees what we’ve accomplished.”

  “He will see that the Flood has made huge incursions, and that our situation is dire.” I immediately regret my words. But she is not offended.

  “Very likely,” she says. “He has given his own deposition?”

  “He has, Lifeshaper. No doubt he will soon tell you what he told the Juridicals. I cannot.”

  The commandant finishes preparations to enter slipspace. The external views condense and collapse. A none too subtle misalignment with present reality leaves the air around us vibrating.

  “I’ll have two husbands, Catalog,” the Lifeshaper concludes. “Not in itself a problem. But both will be the Didact.”

  STRING 23

  ISODIDACT

  I AM TOLD that my other, who gave me my imprint, is alive and will soon return to duty. Given our present circumstances, it’s possible two of me could be useful. Provided we don’t disagree.

  So many distractions. Our situation is critical, Catalog. I have watched nine star systems sliced to dust and glowing rubble by star roads—and they used to trace such pretty curves between our worlds.

  Did the Juridicals tell you I first came to Erde-Tyrene seeking the Organon—the Precursor artifact that would bring to life and control all of them? Now the treasure I sought is coming for us. Sometimes I think it remembers and is coming for me. Irony doesn’t cut it, Catalog.

  I hear some Juridicals regard Graveminds as kindred. Gatherers of information, seekers after ultimate balance, preservers of knowledge that might otherwise be lost.

  No?

  As always, Catalog is discreet. Says nothing that could come back to haunt you.

  My wife has told me about Path Kethona, the things she saw and learned there … Before Charum Hakkor, before that journey, we believed the Precursors had passed away peacefully, in fulfillment of their mission—after having created Forerunners!

  But the truth was that the Precursors first turned against us, plotted for our own end. Warriors refused this fate and so we drove our creators to near-extinction, and then to madness. I killed the last of them personally, in a fit of justified rage. Now the Flood is their heir.

  And now I’m being called back to our home planet—no doubt to be replaced.

  Madness. We are tearing ourselves apart.

  STRING 24

  MENDICANT BIAS

  [TT: The data in this string is the most corrupted of any. Some translations are conjectural. Lacunae are noted.]

  WE ARE ON a Forerunner Fortress-class vessel. I have been transferred, like a prize of combat, to the care of an astonishing crew. Not least astonishing, in this welter of Flood-infested Forerunners, is the visage of Mendicant Bias. The Flood has apparently handed over command of its combined fleets to the rampant metarch once thought decommissioned and scattered. How and why it has returned to them remains a mystery.

  The last few days have been extremely trying, and my internals are purposely jumbled. I have done all I can to wipe records reflecting upon matters prior to the last year, and to destroy the apparatus that allows me to interact with the Juridical network. But none of my efforts are certain. Self-destruction would have been my choice, but I am thoroughly compromised.

  I cannot recollect my prior conversation with the Gravemind. That memory is either highly corrupted or has been rejected by internal filters. Just as well, I think. By absorbing the brunt of its attention, I apparently allowed the Ur-Didact an opportunity to escape. Or so I surmise.

  Humility leads me to question that interpretation as self-serving. So be it. I need very much t
o feel better about this situation.

  At any rate, the Ur-Didact is no longer present.

  Mendicant Bias has expressed curiosity about my reason for being with the Didact. I will do what I can to gather evidence from this unusual witness. I do not expect to succeed, and I hope not to survive, but Catalog’s work must continue.

  MENDICANT BIAS: Do you know what I am?

  CATALOG: Yes.

  MENDICANT BIAS: How useful are you, half-machine? Are you still connected to Juridical networks?

  CATALOG: I am not what I was, and so cannot truthfully answer, even were it my duty to do so.

  MENDICANT BIAS: I was able to observe your interaction with the Gravemind. Before we sent away the Didact.

  CATALOG: You removed him from the presence of the Gravemind?

  MENDICANT BIAS: Not me. The Gravemind.

  CATALOG: Why was the Didact released?

  MENDICANT BIAS: I cannot know for certain, but the Gravemind never acts without intent. There’s apparently a larger game to be played, a sharply twisted game of revenge, for which my co-creator has been preserved.

  Mendicant Bias instructs a pair of monitors that I be brought along on a tour. I cannot move on my own; I am paralyzed. We pass through several chambers to an outer command center. All in the command center are infected by the Flood. Some are unrecognizable, in late stages of transformation. We see a battle in progress, not much of a battle now, more like a feasting after the kill.

  This must have once been a heavily populated system of dozens of worlds, likely not far from the Orion complex itself and very ancient. The most likely candidate is Path Nachryma, a tight cluster of over a hundred interlinked suns along Thema 102.

  We are entering a ring of icy moons. There is no sign of Forerunner resistance. I am overwhelmed by sadness, for in the time I have been out of touch with my Juridicals, the heart of the Forerunner ecumene has been ripped asunder.