Cryptum Read online

  “They are not,” my ancilla said resentfully. “I am fully capable.” She then dimmed and shrank to the back of my thoughts, as if these armed artificial intelligences overwhelmed her with their presence and power.

  I tried to still all curiosity, all expectations, all concerns. Think nothing.

  I failed.

  The amphitheater remained quiet as a second platform shoved through a gate on the far side of the bowl. Here was the accused, presumably—the Master Builder himself, shrouded for the moment behind iridescent green curtains, preserving decorum if not all dignity. I actually looked forward to witnessing the Master Builder’s discomfort when those curtains faded and pulled away. Abject. Humbled.

  The ceremonies of induction and oath were brief. A metarch-level monitor rose from the floor of the amphitheater, its single sensor sapphire blue. When it had ascended to a level with the platform supporting the Master Builder, still concealed behind the curtain, it fixed in place, and a brief series of chiming notes spread outward in sweet, silvery waves.

  The First Observer of the Court—the very councilor who had accompanied me from my family’s world—raised his arm. “The Council recognizes the authority of the Builder and Warrior Servant Corps of the Capital Court in the matter of multiple indictments against the Builder known as Faber, once entitled Master Builder. All appointed makers of Law sit now in orderly and considerate judgment. Witnesses have been gathered. Be it noted that the accused has yet to formally acknowledge the Council and these proceedings.”

  A murmur of disapproval. Again, silence fell over the amphitheater. Then, from behind the green curtain, a much smaller monitor floated into its appointed place. It appeared older than any of the structures around us—older perhaps than the capital world itself, which would have made it more than twenty-five thousand years old. Its eye glowed a dull vegetal green. I had heard of this embodied ancilla, of course—all Forerunners had. Simply the thought that I was within range of that fabled sensor eye sent a ripple of cool expectation and reverence through my body.

  This was the Warden, both prison-keeper and guardian of mercy, for every accused Forerunner expects that those who confine must also be those who will in time defend and perhaps release. Such is the ancient law, which has as its foundation the Mantle itself.

  The green curtain now drew aside. I was disappointed by the simple dignity of it all—no humbled, bowed figure, no chains, no chants of disapproval—but of course that last would have been unthinkable.

  Faber stood within a confinement field, still as a statue, only his eyes moving as he surveyed the amphitheater, the members of the Council—and his judges. The sleek gray and blue head with its fringe of white hair seemed little changed. Adversity—such adversity as he had faced—had left him unbowed.

  The Council in turn silently examined the subject of their proceedings.

  Faber’s eyes continued their slow sweep, as if seeking someone in particular. The steady gaze finally fixed on me. His recognition was obvious, though he did not move a muscle. He observed me for a moment from across the amphitheater, then turned aside to await the oath-taking of the panel of six judges.

  Of the judges, two were Builders, one a Miner, one a Lifeworker—a male, the first Lifeworker I had seen since I was a child—and two were Warrior-Servants. These were arrayed in the armor of security.

  Thus were all the rates represented, except for the Engineers, of course.

  The Warden dissolved the field around the Master Builder—Faber, I corrected myself.

  No need. He has lost none of his power.

  The Council remained standing. The First Observer now lowered his arm and began to speak. “It has been the policy of some high Builders, including the previous Council, to carry out their plans without fully informing all Forerunners. It is the policy of the new Council that no Forerunner shall remain ignorant of the peril we face, and have faced for three hundred years … of an assault from outside the boundaries of our galaxy, intruding through the outer reaches of the spiral arm which contains our glorious Orion cluster. Of the remedies that have been designed and deployed, and now are recalled. Of the current strategic situation, and how that must change as we adapt to new threats. For the heart of any indictment against Faber must be that he sought power through deception, and manipulated the emotions of key Forerunners to push through a scheme in direct contravention to the Mantle itself.”

  The Master Builder—for so my other memory insisted on still thinking of him—returned his gaze to meet mine, and gave the merest nod, as if in invitation.

  Soon, young Forerunner. He cannot carry out his plans without you.

  The proceedings continued with a bone-dulling litany of ritual observances and purifications. The various monitors were rotated around the court and formally sworn in by the First Observer—absolutely unnecessary, I knew, since no ancilla had ever betrayed instructions or loyalty to Forerunners.

  Hours seemed to pass.

  At what I hoped was the end of this endless procedure, a small murmur again rose from the Council seats. The armed monitors that had returned to their places beside me rotated as if seeking something.

  Their sensors seemed to darken. Their motions slowed.

  Then, as one, they all brightened and returned to normal. For a moment, nothing seemed amiss; all was as before. But finally I saw the anomaly attracting attention and comment from the councilors and judges.

  A small green point of light maneuvered until it hovered like some improbable firefly just beneath the display spheres. At first, I thought it must be part of the ritual, but no one else seemed to share that opinion.

  Now the green point brightened, crossed the center of the amphitheater, and hovered before the Master Builder, who looked puzzled. Almost immediately, his eyes grew large in alarm and he raised his hands as if in defense, before he brought his body and expression back under control. Yet his eyes continued to follow the moving point. I wondered what could possibly cause the Master Builder such concern.

  Our bastard child, his and mine.

  The point intensified and expanded. I tried to access my ancilla to determine what it might be. She appeared, but locked in an awkward position, arms raised—frozen in an attitude of warning. Then she winked out completely, and my armor seized up. It would not release me no matter how hard I struggled.

  For the moment, there was nothing to do but stand like a statue.

  The amphitheater was filled with councilors, judges, prosecutors—also frozen. One by one, the monitors and all the sentinels and other security units began to waver, their sensors winking out. As one, they fell, striking the walls and boxes, ricocheting, landing and rolling on the floor, inert—helpless—dead.

  In the center of the chamber, the brilliant green dot glowed steadily.

  I could not turn away.

  With a convulsive shiver, my armor began to move against my will, turning me around. The door to the corridor behind the box opened. My armor took me through. Everything beyond was dark. It seemed as if all Council chambers were without power. For the next few minutes, I felt my limbs being marched through the black corridors. I sensed forward and sideways motion but saw nothing. On occasion I could determine the size of a space I was in by the echo of my feet.

  Then I was slammed to an abrupt halt. The green light flashed before me, spun about, seemed to come closer. My ancilla reappeared in the back of my thoughts, but this time, she was ghastly green, her face smooth—no features whatsoever—and her arms and legs had been reduced to quick strokes as if by a young, clumsy artist.

  “What is this?” I asked. “Where are we going?”

  The green figure rotated, then pointed to my left. I shifted my eyes. A crack of light appeared—a hatch leading, I saw, to the hall of slipspace crystals. Through that crack shot a brighter, more focused glow.

  It was useless protesting. The Didact’s wisdom said nothing. It did not need to. I was being guided involuntarily toward a destination that had nothing to d
o with being a witness for the Council. That was likely all done with.

  More monitors came into view. They clustered on the opposite side of the hall, rotating around each other like balls in a magician’s invisible hand. Then a new, resonant voice spoke within my armor, lacking all implied gender or even character.

  “I have exhausted the Domain, and yet I am not complete. I require service. Are you of service?”

  “I don’t even know what you are,” I said.

  “I require service.”

  I sensed an almost physical pressure and had to resist having my thoughts, my mind, sucked into this sketchy green form. I had seen this kind of hunger before—but never so overwhelming and all-demanding: the hunger of an ancilla for knowledge. A tremendously powerful ancilla, with no apparent master.

  “Are you here in the capital?” I asked.

  “I protect all. I require service.”

  “Why come to me? The metarchy can serve you. Surely—”

  “I am Contender. I am above the metarchy. My designers built in latent control of all systems in the capital, should an emergency arise. It has arisen.”

  The Didact’s wisdom, silent until now, suddenly took control of my speech, my thoughts, and shunted me aside.

  “Mendicant Bias,” I heard myself say. “Beggar after knowledge. That is the name I gave you when last we met. Do you recognize that name?”

  “I recognize that name,” the sketchy green ancilla replied. Then the figure moved from the back of my thoughts and seemed to pass directly through my forehead—taking shape as a projected form directly in front of me.

  “Do you recognize the one who named you?”

  The green image briefly flickered. “You are not that one. No other knows that name.”

  “Shall I guide you to further service?” At this point, I had no idea who was speaking, or to what purpose.

  “I require further input. The Domain is insufficient.”

  “Liberate this armor and prepare a path. Do you know where the Master Builder resides?”

  “The Master Builder gave me my final set of orders.”

  “But I am the one who knows your chosen name, your true name, and who commanded your construction.”

  “That is so.”

  “Then I am your client and master. Release me.”

  “I have a new master. You are dangerous to my new master.”

  “I know your true name. I can revoke your key and shut you down.”

  “That is no longer possible. I am beyond the metarchy.”

  The Didact within me suddenly spoke a series of words and numbers. The green ancilla wavered like a flame in a high wind. Symbols appeared in the space behind my thoughts, swirling like a cloud of birds, combining, matching, then dropping into orderly columns as, one by one, the spoken and numerical symbols of the ancilla’s secret key were expressed. At this point, I was just a passenger in my own body, controlled from without by hijacked armor, and from within by the Didact’s wisdom.

  The struggle suddenly ended. The green ancilla vanished. My armor unlocked.

  Run!

  I ran as fast as the armor allowed—very fast indeed, through a sluggish maze of recovering monitors and sentinels, across the plaza surrounding the amphitheater hemisphere—up onto a broad ledge looking out over the rim of equatorial disk—where I was intercepted by a guard, who spun me into a constraint field.

  For an awful moment, I thought I was back in the hands of the Master Builder’s troops, until I saw the face of Glory of a Far Dawn, and noticed that on her other side, she was also dragging the First Councilor, the First Observer of the Court—Splendid Dust himself—in another field.

  Our trip across the plaza ended when, with a sudden leap, the female Warrior-Servant propelled us through the weakened buffer field—which threw a sparking glow around us—and beyond the gravitational gradient, out into empty space, with nothing to stop our fall for at least a hundred kilometers.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  AS I FELL, my blue ancilla reacquired definition and control. “Apologies,” she said. “I am no longer connected to the metarchy or any other network. I cannot fully serve you—”

  “Never mind that,” I said. “Find something to catch me.”

  “That has already been arranged.”

  I swung about and bumped into the field that held the First Councilor. Our fields merged with a distinct pressure pop. Also with us in the field—Glory herself, curling up as if expecting imminent impact.

  A Falco-class rescue pod slid in from my left, matched our descent, and blipped open a hatchway. Grapples reached out and caught us, then yanked us clumsily inside.

  The interior of the Falco rearranged to accommodate three passengers and cushion further acceleration. Still, even in my armor, I felt sick as the tiny craft spun about—and then launched into full evacuation mode.

  In a few minutes, we were away from the disk, the whole arrangement of slices—away from the planet itself, following an oblong orbit to observe from a thousand kilometers out in space.

  The entire arrangement of the capital’s disks seemed to be slowly, painfully realigning to the original sphere. The capital is under siege, the Didact within me said.

  “What is Mendicant Bias?” I asked, while closely watching our passage through a slow, stately rain of disabled sentinels, monitors, and uncontrolled craft—the near boundary of the planet’s disabled protection.

  Better to ask where we are going.

  Glory pulled herself up, then tugged upon the First Councilor, who seemed stunned. Crammed together as we were, I hoped we were not in this for the long haul—I hoped there would soon be other arrangements.

  Still, I could not see any other Falcos—or for that matter any other escapees from whatever chaos had embroiled the capital. “All right,” I said, “where are we going?”

  “Are you asking me?” Splendid Dust said, his face purple with dismay. “I haven’t any idea what’s just happened.”

  “The metarchy has been disabled,” Glory of a Far Dawn said. “All control has been moved to an external authority. I was instructed by my commanders to rescue at least two of the councilors.”

  Splendid Dust looked between us.

  “I seem to have rescued you, instead,” she said to me, deadpan.

  We were now in a position to see again the great rings of the orbiting installations. They were no longer arranged linearly but had spread out into a pentagon and a hexagon—along with another, outlying ring, slowly moving to join with the pentagon. It seemed that after forty-three years, the prodigal Halo had returned.

  Bearing what madness? The captive itself? Overkill beyond all reason. This is utterly pointless—what is its goal?

  “Whose goal? What’s goal?”

  The others stared at me. I was babbling to myself.

  Mendicant Bias. A Contender class, the first of its kind. It is as far above most ancillas as the metarch-level systems rise above our personal components.

  The axes of five of the installations now pointed directly at the capital world. One by one, the reoriented Halos were growing slender spokes of hard light.

  “What do you know about Mendicant Bias?” I asked the First Councilor.

  “Designed to coordinate control of some of the installations,” he said. “Also given the power, in emergencies, to coordinate the entire galaxy’s response to attack.”

  “Who authorized this?”

  “The old Council—with the input of the Master Builder.”

  “Mendicant Bias conducted the test at Charum Hakkor?”

  “Yes.”

  The Didact within me was stunned into silence.

  The capital world’s defenses were slowly cutting loose from their complete shutdown. Swift attack cruisers and other vessels were reassuming their formations in low orbit. Defensive fields lay across the surface of the capital’s new-formed sphere like ghostly flags, their edges knitting together to complete a dense shield—effective against enemy ships, b
ut useless against any single Halo. And very likely we’d end up being trapped in one of those fields.

  My ancilla, to my surprise, issued a code and took control of the Falco, then guided our craft away from the unfolding fields, up and away from the formations of battle craft—and toward the Halos themselves.

  We were not being followed.

  “There will be no pursuit,” my ancilla said. “We are protected by the Librarian’s privilege.”

  “Even in an emergency?”

  “Not all protocols have been voided. The Contender has caused considerable confusion in the metarchy, however. That was apparently its plan.”

  “Do we have any sort of plan?” I asked.

  “We are seeking an escape route,” the ancilla replied. “Apparently our duty here is finished. There is a special councilors’ entrance to the capital system’s dedicated portal. If the settings have not been changed, it will respond to the Librarian’s key and open for us.”

  “And what if this Mendicant Bias has scrambled all the keys?”

  But I knew better. It had responded to the Didact’s numbers.

  “I do not answer discouraging questions,” my ancilla said. “My resources are limited. I would appreciate some optimism.”

  That shut me up for a moment, but my mind was still racing.

  The First Councilor and the Warrior-Servant watched me closely. Glory of a Far Dawn leaned close to the councilor and said, “I can’t control the Falco. His ancilla seems to be directing our movements.”

  “Bornstellar’s ancilla?” the councilor said.

  “At your command, I will attempt to subdue him,” the Warrior-Servant said.

  “How? We can barely move in here.”

  “I have been trained—”

  “You idiot!” the councilor howled, his fear finally breaking loose. We were both shocked that such an enlightened first-form would choose an ancient Builder word used to put inferior rates in their place. “He’s got the imprint of the Didact! He’s ten thousand years to your twenty!”

  She withdrew a few centimeters, and regarded me soberly from under the curve of her headpiece. “I did not know that,” she said.