Cryptum Read online

  “A cage built by Precursors, maintained and strengthened by humans before our war with them,” I said. “But a Halo destroyed those protections—I think—and the captive it held was released.”

  My father lifted his hands in dismay, then turned away. His armor attempted to follow. “That was never a possibility in my design. They changed its tuning. It’s the negation of neural physics, far beyond…” His voice trailed off.

  “What is a Halo?” This time it was my mother who almost screamed the question. She removed herself from his grasp and stood apart.

  “A final defense,” my father said. “I designed them. The Master Builder commissioned twelve. Our guild built them.” He turned back to me. “Is it the Didact who sends me a message?”

  I made contradictory motions, but said, “Yes.”

  “Have you information about this captive? Have you seen it?”

  I shook my head, then nodded—again confused by an upwelling of memories not my own. “I’m not sure. The Didact might have communicated with the captive once. I think it was originally preserved by humans and San’Shyuum as a threat to be exercised in case of their imminent defeat—an ultimate weapon, like your Halos.” I firmly met my father’s defeated gaze, feeling a deep familial pain that would never heal. At this moment, I hated the Didact beyond all reason.

  “Well, messenger, here is a message for you. A request has come from first-forms serving on the Council,” Father said.

  “First-forms? That young?” Mother asked, astonished.

  My father said it was the way now in the Council, as many elders had resigned in protest or disgrace. “They want you to return with them to the capital. I denied that request, as is my right as your father. I had hoped we might find a way to reclaim you, rework you … return you to being our son. But I see now that that is impossible. I hardly see any remaining son at all, only a mouthpiece for the Warrior-Servants.”

  “Who made these requests?” Mother asked.

  “After an exile of a thousand years, the Didact has apparently once again been placed in charge of Forerunner defenses,” my father said. “He asks for Bornstellar. And from far outside the galaxy, a Lifeworker called the Librarian has also requested our son. They seem to work in collusion. I no longer have the standing to deny them. I myself may soon be indicted by the Council.”

  Both my sister and my mother looked at him in dismay. “But you assist the Master Builder!” my mother said.

  “His time of power is finished, I’m afraid.” My father stooped to one knee, a posture I had never seen him assume before, and faced me fully, his eyes narrow and dimming with inner pain. “I am ashamed not to have been with you to serve as your mentor.”

  “It was not our choice, Father,” I said.

  “That does not diminish my shame. There are great changes to be made, long past due. My generation and generations before me have made serious mistakes, and so it is right for our traditions to pass. But I would have liked to have my son bear our family’s deepest and most precious patterns. Perhaps when you return, with your permission, I can remedy that.”

  “The honor would be mine, Father.”

  “Still and all, it’s likely our son will soon understand more of what happens in the Council than do I. Our guild itself faces interdiction.”

  My mother stood again beside my father and clasped his arm. My sister took a position closer to me.

  “ ‘All but one,’ ” I quoted. “What does that mean?”

  “We have only eleven Halos accounted for. One is missing.”

  “Along with a metarch-level ancilla?”

  “Apparently. All part of the Master Builder’s indictment. You are scheduled to testify against him. The Council will send its own vessel to pick you up.”

  “When do I leave?” I asked.

  “Very soon,” my father said. “Our time grows perilously short.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  THERE’S FOOLISHNESS, THEN there’s recklessness, and soon after follows madness. My father’s words seemed to set off sparks throughout my brain and body. I had worried that the Didact might have been executed. Now … he was in power! Not in exile, but restored.

  They would not do this except in the worst possible circumstances. A missing Halo.

  I bid farewell to my mother and sister, then sought out my father in his north-facing studio, where he was surrounded by project models both virtual and physical. They now brought him no comfort, that much was obvious.

  He accepted my embrace. We rubbed cheeks as of old. Once, my skin had been softer than his—now it was rougher.

  “You are the bastion of our family,” he told me. “You will redeem all. You go with my hopes, my dreams, and my love.”

  “I go proud of my family—and of my father,” I said.

  A streak shot across our sky, and our planet’s protective shields opened a glittering gate, like a ring of precious stones, through which that streak now passed, slowed, turned upright …

  Hovered above the nearest disk-sea: a Council ship, ornate and supremely fast and powerful, its shape like a double upsweep of winds cast in gold and bronze. I had not seen one in five years, and had never traveled in one.

  A transport flier blipped from the side of the Council ship and covered the distance to our sky dock in a few minutes.

  My father and I parted without further words. I looked back only once, to see my mother and sister on one parapet, wearing ceremonial gowns that hovered about their armor, blue and silver with streaks of vibrant crimson. And on another parapet, I saw Father, tall and steady against the red and violet sky.

  My eagerness to rejoin the Didact and perhaps meet the Librarian felt perverse, even cruel. I look back now, and wish my memory of those last days on my family’s planet would leave me forever, for they bring only an extraordinary pain. I never saw my family again—alive and free.

  THIRTY-TWO

  NO ONE COULD ever call a Council ship luxurious or frivolous. Members of the Council served for a thousand years, and during that time took vows of personal abstinence and austerity. But at no point did power elude them, and that was the prime character of a Council ship: silken, immediate, unconstrained power.

  I learned upon arrival that this ship was named Seedling Star. Diminutives aside, it was the most extraordinary expression of Forerunner science I had ever had an opportunity to examine up close. The Didact’s memory quietly confirmed that in all but weapons, it eclipsed any of the ships ever allocated to Warrior-Servants.

  I was escorted along lifts and enclosed tracks by two guards of the Council’s own select security, designated by sleek black and red armor. Through translucent walls, I saw unfamiliar automatons speeding along their own tracks and tubeways; some were decorated in the most alarming insectoid carapaces.

  But more surprising still were the numerous embodied and heavily armored ancillas. I had heard of Warrior-Servants utilizing such during battle and for other special tasks, but we encountered hundreds spaced throughout the ship, floating in serene quiescence, in apparent low-power mode, their blue, red, or green sensors dimly aglow.

  They will come alive in an emergency. They can replace human commanders, if necessary. They are a vital portion of the Council metarchy—the overall network of ancillas that support the Council.

  But compared to a metarch-level ancilla, these are mere toys.

  I could not explain my reaction: they somehow repelled me.

  With polite firmness, the guards led me to elegantly simple quarters deep inside the ship. They then instructed the quarters to extrude a new set of armor, black with green highlights—the colors of a special advisor to the Council. My father had once been one, thousands of years before my birth. And now … it was my turn, unless these were mere spares being recycled for a peculiar guest.

  Not likely.

  “Acquaint yourself with your feeds and knowledge bases,” the senior guard instructed, pointing to me, then to the armor. “They are extensive.”

 
“Will I access all Council resources?”

  “I have no such answers,” the guard said with a glance aside at his fellow. “Old ways change rapidly now.”

  They departed, and I waited for a moment before allowing the armor to surround me. I was almost afraid to view the ancilla—afraid of finding more blocks and restrictions, more obstacles to prolong my agony of half-knowledge. But when she appeared in the back of my thoughts, I recognized her instantly.

  This was the Librarian’s ancilla, the one who had lured me, tempted me.… The one who had been loaned by the Librarian to my swap-family.…

  The one who had led me to Erde-Tyrene.

  My first reaction was anger. “You started all this!” I cried aloud, though that was hardly necessary.

  “Here, I am truly your servant. I am liberated from the metarchies of both the Council and the Librarian.”

  “And the Didact?”

  The ancilla flashed her confusion. This was somehow a difficult question to answer. “We are in dangerous circumstances,” she said, “but improving. I will assist you without prior instructions and answer any questions you may have.”

  “And who ordered you to do that?”

  “The Librarian,” the ancilla said. “But she is no longer my owner.”

  “We’ll see about that. Will you open the Domain to me, completely?”

  At this she flickered again with ancillary emotion. It seemed at first she was embarrassed, perhaps distressed … and then I read her display as expressing true frustration, something rarely witnessed in ancillas.

  “Is that a ‘no’?” I persisted.

  “The Domain is in flux,” she said. “No reliable connections are being made for any Forerunner, no matter their rate or form.”

  “Is somebody going to blame me for that?”

  “It seems to be symptomatic of a disturbance in our immediate past, or immediate future.…”

  She froze. Frustrated, I stood within the black and green armor for a moment, then flexed it, feeling its smoothness and strength, but wondering if in fact it was malfunctioning.

  Slowly the ancilla returned, steady again, calm and composed, and said, “No answers available for prior question. Apologies for my delay. There is a meeting scheduled in one hour. I have been told you need to prepare by being brought up to speed on current Council personalities and politics. You have already met the Master Builder, and witnessed a first-form Council member speaking with your father, have you not?”

  “You know I have,” I said. “You know all I know.”

  “Some parts of your memory that may be used in testimony before the Council are closed to me. And of course I have no access to that part of you which once belonged to the Didact. I hope it does not impede my usefulness.”

  “You won’t spy on me?”

  “No.”

  “Or ‘guide’ me according to the Librarian’s wishes?”

  “No.”

  “But you’re here to instruct me in Forerunner politics,” I concluded, feeling slightly queasy. I had never shown any aptitude or liking for such studies. In politics there might have been treasure for others, but never for me.

  “Yes, with apologies,” she said. “Now, let us begin.…”

  THIRTY-THREE

  THE FIRST-FORM COUNCILOR sent to escort me—the same one who had spoken with my father under the cupola—was only a little older than me, twenty domestic years at most. He strode onto the platform overlooking a direct-view panorama of my family’s world, addressed himself first to three members of the security team, then turned to me—and smiled.

  This unseemly rictus shocked me. The humans might have been capable of such, but a first-form Forerunner, and a councilor at that … I met his slight bow and chest-touch salute with one of my own, executing it, I must say, with practiced grace.

  “You are quite a sight, Bornstellar Makes Eternal,” the councilor said, regarding my (I thought) distorted form with actual admiration. “My name is Splendid Dust of Ancient Suns. My colleagues call me Dust. Is your mutation acceptable?”

  “It is what it is,” I said, a puerile maxim.

  Again the rictus. I did not like it.

  “I have expert ancillas who can render you minimal adjustments … cosmetic, mostly. But I must say, this combination of traits has a distinct attraction.”

  “Combination?” I said.

  “A scan upon boarding confirms that you neatly combine mental and neurological structures of Warrior-Servants and Builders, with a touch of Lifeworker.… That makes sense. It was a Lifeworker who equipped the ship that guided your mutation, and, I understand, the Didact himself who supplied the imprint.”

  I listened and said nothing, judging that here was a Forerunner who liked to talk and liked to dominate a room quickly and easily. All at once, I had been admired, assessed, addressed in familiar tones, and put in my place—as someone who could use a good adjustment or two.

  But the Didact within me was not easily suppressed. “Which of my patterns derives from a Lifeworker?”

  “Let’s find out.” Splendid Dust—I could not bring myself to think of him as mere Dust—called up three tiny ancillas, who hovered behind me on the bridge and prepared to take samples and guide probes.

  “None of that!” I swung around in some alarm, but Splendid Dust smiled again, then waved them off.

  “Mysteries and surprises,” he said. “We can find out later, when it’s appropriate—when you decide. But we are not here to measure or understand you—we are here to transport you to the capital. You have been summoned by the Council to testify. What do the Didact’s memories tell you of Forerunner defenses, past or present?”

  “Very little, for now,” I said. “I remember and understand only what the Didact would have understood at the time of my mutation.”

  “No doubt your ancilla has informed you the Domain is experiencing difficulties.”

  “Yes.”

  “The Council has stored a great deal of archival and even accounting material in the Domain. Now we can’t reliably access any of it. Fortunately, a ship like this carries sufficient knowledge to serve us, for now.”

  “May I ask a personal question, Councilor?”

  “Ask away.”

  “Your smile?”

  “I am part of a new pattern. More … natural. Some call it atavistic. But rather than being subjected to many mutations over a matter of centuries, we undergo an economical series of changes over a single domestic year. Our endpoint is less rigid, less distorted and ornamental.”

  “Who’s we, Councilor?”

  “We come from Builder families, mostly, but a few among us are Warrior-Servants.”

  Be wary. The Didact would of course object to this deviation from tradition. At least, I presumed that was the cause of his reaction.

  Splendid Dust continued. “This leaves us with fewer inherent distortions of both anatomy and mind. Fewer prejudices … some say, less imprinted wisdom, as we have fewer mentors. We were in fact supposed to supplement that deficit with studious use of the Domain, but that’s difficult now. I feel the loss.”

  “How many more mutations will you undergo?”

  “None,” he said. “In a way, I am like you. We are what we are.” And he smiled again. In silence, we studied the curve of my family’s world.

  “Will I ever be allowed to return?” I asked after a few moments.

  “I wouldn’t forbid it. Practically, who can say?”

  I studied him. He did not seem to mind. In their range and flexibility, his expressions reminded me of both young Manipulars and human beings. I wondered if that was a good thing. No. I didn’t like it much. And yet I liked humans, mostly.

  Then we were shunted out of planetary orbit and my family’s world grew small. Within a few more minutes, the Council ship harnessed a great deal of vacuum energy to flatten the curve of our stellar orbit, and the planet where I was born vanished completely.

  “How did you become a councilor?” I asked.


  “A number of my peers have been given … you might call them brevet appointments. My appointment is temporary.”

  Revolutionary party. What about the Master Builder?

  “Are we in a state of war?”

  “Forerunners have been in a clandestine state of war since the Didact defeated the human forces at Charum Hakkor.”

  “War against the Flood?”

  “Soon enough, those details. Now, however, we are about to institute a Supreme Mantle Court. The Phylarch of Builders has reinstated the corps of Warrior-Servants, and joined with them to call for judicial proceedings. Matters both of law and strategy will be decided by the Council and the court.”

  No such proceeding had ever occurred in my father’s lifetime, much less my own.

  Not good.

  “Not good,” I echoed that internal judgment.

  “Perhaps, but necessary,” the councilor said.

  “When may I learn more about this state of war?”

  “Soon, I hope.”

  “Is the Flood upon us?”

  “Ah! The Flood. For ten thousand years, that threat has propelled the strategy and politics of Forerunners everywhere—and distorted some of us to the point where we would violate all we have stood for. We are now far more aware of what the Flood was and what it has become. Most knowledge gives strength, Bornstellar. This knowledge, however, has nearly driven us mad. And I’m concerned it may have the same effect on you … with your Warrior imprint and all.” He afforded me the same focused expression with which I had been scrutinizing him … and then smiled once more.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because we have been told to give you and your ancilla access to all the information carried in this Council ship. Information withheld from all but a few Forerunners for thousands of years. I myself have only been privy to key parts of it for a few months.”

  With that, the young councilor had two of the ship’s guards return me to my cabin to begin what he called, with a twist of his lips, my period of “enlightenment.”

  THIRTY-FOUR