Greg Bear - Forerunner Saga 1 Halo Cryptum

THE SHIPS MOVED slowly in a great, waving gray and black line from east to west, like a ribbon of steel and adamantium slicing the sky. So many!I had never seen so many ships in one place, even on ceremonial days on my familys homeworld. What I could not understand was the reason so many were necessary, if in fact they were here to capture and incarcerate just one old Warrior-Servant.

Even a Promethean, it seemed to me, did not merit such a show of force.

But everyone around me seemed to think I was a fool, even a simpleton. I kept to the inner beach, lying on the sand, watching the ships arrange themselves in tight whorls spiraling in toward Djamonkin Crater. At the center of the whorl, a great Builder shipthe largest I had ever seenand a great Miner vessel, easily outmatching anything owned by my swap-family, held steady in a dyadic cloud of buffer energies. The air itself began to feel stiff and harsh with the pressure of so many ships hanging in slow suspension.

A shadow of a nearer, darker sort crossed my face, and I angled my head to see a war sphinx just a few meters away, rising on its curved legs.

The Didact requests your presence, it announced.

Why? I asked. The entire galaxy is coming to a bitter end. Im just a piece of waste matter not worth flushing.

The sphinx took a step closer, unfolding upper arms tipped with tangles of flexible grapples. Hard light flashed blue along all its joints.

So its not a request, eh? I said, and pushed to my feet. Do I walk? Or are you offering me a ride?

Suck it up, Manipular, the sphinx intoned. Your presence will be useful.

I felt for the first time that there might be more than just a mechanical intelligence under its pitted skin. He wants me to witness him being arrested, I said. Is that it?

The grapples flashed like the agile fingers of a pan guth master. These ships are not here to arrest the Didact, the sphinx informed me. They are here to demand his help. He will of course refuse.

I had no response to this. Instead, I followed the sphinx quietly through the trees to the inner shore. Since the sphinx seemed to have found a new purposetelling me what was whatI ventured another question.

Whats with the mountain? Why tear it down?

It is the Librarians doing.

Oh. That told me nothing, of coursebut it was intriguing. Something big was happening, that much was obvious. Without my armor, I wasnt fit to meet my superiorsor even other Manipulars, for that matterbut the fact that the Didact still knew I existed and required my presence was also intriguing.

I looked around the inner shore. Then a glint caught my eye, and I looked up toward the base of the mountain, the cloud-piercing pillarsand saw the other war sphinxes flying across the inner lake, climbing rapidly to several hundred meters.

I looked around. The inner beach was deserted. Where is everybody? I asked.

The sphinxs control cabin hatch pulled aside with a fluid sigh. You will join the Didact. Get in.

I knew enough about the protocol of warriors and their machines to understand that I was not being recruited into a glorious, defiant fight to the finish. And then it dawned on methe humans might be riding in sphinxes as well.

Why were we so important?

I tried to crawl up the pitted ancient surface. The grapples extended around and aft, providing stirrups. I climbed in through the rear hatch, and it sealed behind me. The cabin inside was spacious enough for a mature Warrior-Servant, only slightly smaller than the Didact himselfgiving me plenty of room but no comfort because nothing was shaped to accommodate a much smaller and almost completely naked Manipular.

There were a bare seat, a variety of antiquated displays, and control tubes designed to hook up with armor. Standing on the seat, I could see through the slanted, forward-looking direct-view ports that gave the sphinxs features the illusion of a disdainful, downward gaze.

I felt only a little bump, and then we were away, wheeling about to join the general migration toward the dismantled mountain and the mysterious pillars. Above the island, the spiral of ships held position and did nothingperhaps locked in some sort of dispute.

Wherever the Didact was, there was likely to be trouble. I could not imagine the power he had once wieldedthat he could still, after a thousand years, provoke legions of Forerunners to seek him out and assemble their ships above the island.

We crossed the inner lake in minutes, a leisurely pace for craft designed to drop from high orbit, sweep continents, and decimate cities. The only thing these old machines lacked, I thought, was a direct connection to slipspace. But I didnt know that for sure.

The sphinxes circled the lower reaches of the pillars, then passed between and dropped to a central, octagonal platform. There, they settled in a protective ellipse, just as I had first seen them only a few days before.

The hatch opened. I emerged and slid off the rear curve. From another sphinx, Riser poked out, clearly agitated. Not tall enough to see out the ports, I thought.

The Florian ran over and stood close, wringing his hands and trembling. Something in there with me, he muttered, then smirked up at me and wiped his forehead with one hand. Not alive. Not happy. Very bad!

The greater, doubled war sphinx arrived last and settled in the center of the ellipse. As if at its touch, the platform vibrated under my feet, then began to rotate. All around, the pillars and the base of the mountainand the ships in formation high abovealso seemed to turn. The spiral of ships took on a hypnotic, whirlpool fascination.

We felt none of this motion, but still, Riser grunted in dismay.

The Didact descended from the doubled sphinx and walked on his trunklike legs to confront us. Youre being kidnapped, young Manipular, he grumbled as the pillars sped up. The humans have to come as well. Apologies to all.

I looked down to avoid getting dizzy, even without the sensation of spinning.

Why apologize now? I asked.

The Didacts expression did not changehe did not react in the least to my insubordination, whelp that I was, agitating against the Prometheans thousands of years of life and experience. He simply looked outward, drew his brows down in concentration, and asked, Wheres the other human?

Still hiding, Riser said. Sick.

Chakas chose this moment to poke his upper body out of the hatch of his transport. He looked woozy. His descent down the sloping back of the machine lacked any dignity, and he landed on bent legs, then slumped to one side and vomited.

Bad sky, Riser said stoically.

The Promethean regarded this sign of human weakness with the same emotion he had shown to my insubordination. In a few hours, all signs of my stay here will be erased. No one will be able to prove I was ever here.