Over and over again in my experiments I have confronted a stubborn streak in all vital systems, an almost perverse delicacy, as if, beyond or within their physicality lies a field or over-spirit, which supplies a living population with amazing strength, but at a certain point, under overwhelming loss and pressure, can suffer and grow weak beyond saving, like a candle flame in a high wind, where once there was a roaring furnace.

Humanity may be at that point.

The burden placed upon Lifeworkers is extreme. Without us, the galaxy will be a mutilated waste, and whatever rises from the remnants—depending on how effective the Halos are —may take hundreds of millennia to revive the glory we have seen in all our explorations.

“Lifeshaper, we have to leave now!”

My ancilla agrees. Both the keyship and the research vessel have detected star roads forming around the system, a small presence to be sure, but harbingers of more to come. The Flood has taken the bait.

“I am staying,” I say. “You will take our humans back to the Ark—you’ve served the Mantle brilliantly, and for that, I confer my title upon you.”

She is astonished. “Lifeshaper … I cannot accept. You are still—”

“No longer. Our ancillas will confirm the transfer. You are Lifeshaper. No arguing. It’s time to save our humans.”

“I am confused, Lifeshaper—what about you?” She paces around me in desperate uncertainty and agitation. She knows me well enough to see that I have a plan, but for the life of her, she cannot reason what it might be.

“There is another vessel on its way here as we speak,” I tell her. “Large enough to deploy assemblers and to create a portal. If I succeed, then those who are re-seeded here will have a hope they should have been granted long ago. They will have access to our history. Our legacy. The Ark.”

Chant-to-Green—the new Lifeshaper—stands very still. A long, low sigh of wind blows around us, wistful and beautiful; I have always loved this world, for all its changeful ways and harshness. There is great beauty here.

“All is said. This keyship is the last that will be allowed to leave and soon even that will be risky. Hurry. Take our humans to the new Ark. Watch over them; watch over him. If I join you again, I will serve you, I hope as well as you have served me.”

She refuses to accept. “Lifeshaper, you’ve lost your reason!”

“Go. In time you will know why I have done this.” She does not move. She seems rooted to the dirt.

“Go!” I cry out. “Save our specimens! We are done here!”

Chant-to-Green retreats, slowly at first, and then at a run.

Her research vessel rises, streaks up through the sky toward the keyship’s command station.

“Lifespeed,” I whisper. “Eternity for you all.”

* * *

I spend a day and a night on the ground, after Bornstellar’s massive carrier ship unceremoniously arrived. In order to be disassembled and reconfigured, this vessel required my presence and oversight—at least during the initial stages. It is a worthy time, a sad time. Animals approach. Gazelles and wildebeest, buffalo and ibexes, come to inspect me. They have little fear; humans have been removed. A two-meter high brontothere nuzzles my hand, gentle but forceful, telling me I am out of place, perhaps I should move off somewhere and not bother this peaceable realm.

“How Riser’s people would love to hunt you,” I whisper.

The wind rises, and I huddle in my armor as night falls, and with it, I see the sky is full of huge ships and star roads.

* * *

With sunrise, he appears before me, and along with him come three of his warriors. They stand between me and the orange sun. I am not sure they are real, solid, but I am not imagining them; that my armor assures me.

This is Forthencho, Lord of Admirals. And there is only one way that can be. The Gravemind is playing another cruel trick.

“Librarian,” he says. One look at him, as he steps forward, and then around me, into the full light, confirms my suspicions. His face is contorted by deep pain, ravaged, darkened by blotches; his flesh is rotting from within.

Composer-gathered essences have been imprinted over living humans; and those essences are now rotting the bodies from within, maligned by the Flood parasite. Despite this fact, I’m shocked that he can communicate.

“We have been allowed to come here to die. The Gravemind…” He coughs and can barely recover his voice. “The Gravemind is on its way to the secret Ark, preparing to devour whatever hope you’ve laid up there. But it has sent us to you with a final message, Great Mother.”

They gather around me. I am at once touched and horrified. They will indeed die soon. Such is the cruelty of the Composer; such is the barbarity of the Flood.

“This we were told by the Gravemind, the greatest of them, who has consumed ten thousand planets and brought entire galaxies to an end. This we were told…”

His warriors kneel at my feet, and I wither inside with shame as I recognize that, through their imprinted bodies, they look upon me as a last and redeeming vision, regard my face as equal to that of their own mothers, a face their descendants will see at birth and in all their deepest dreams …

“You are my children,” I whisper, and they respond in many tongues. I am ready now. I know they will not lie to me. They will tell me what they were told, and I will know the truth of it, or not. “I listen, Forthencho.”

He struggles to give voice to so many alien thoughts—in the language he knows, using the words he is familiar with. “The Precursors lived in many shapes, flesh and spirit, primitive and advanced, spacefaring and locked to their worlds … Evolved over and over again, died away, were reborn, explored, and seeded many galaxies … This I was told. I understand little.

“We are your children, Librarian. But we are also their children. And what they learned across many billions of years they stored in this galaxy. We do not know where. The Gravemind tells us something impossible to understand—that most of what has been gathered comes from before there were stars. We do not believe in such a time, but the Mind insists … The life-patterns and living wisdom of a hundred billion years.

“They tell me the immense field projected by this reserve is known to Forerunners, was once accessed by them. Is that so, Librarian?”

The Domain! I tell myself. He is describing the Domain. Could that possibly be true? The Domain was created by Precursors?

Forthencho’s Warriors clamor hoarsely. Their decaying hands reach out to stroke my armor, touch me directly, touch my flesh. I do not withdraw. I reach out to the crumbling cheek of the Lord of Admirals.

“I’m listening,” I tell him.

“The Gravemind no more understands the whole truth than we do. It is past all our understanding, from the greatest to the smallest. This reserve was wrapped in Precursor architecture, protected for many billions of years. Out there.” He lifts his arm and points to the bright blue sky. “Perhaps if there were enough time, we could find it. But when the Halos are fired, not only will sentient life across the galaxy vanish, but all that knowledge will vanish as well. The greatest treasure of all will be destroyed.”

The Organon! The Domain is the Organon!

A wonderful truth, about to be turned by Forerunners into an awful truth. And not far away, outside the circle, Catalog is listening, to this accusation, this testimony regarding what may be the greatest crime of all.

If the Halos fire, we will kill our own soul!

“I will send a message,” I tell Forthencho.

His lips crack as he attempts to laugh. “You don’t understand me, Librarian. The effects of Halo radiation are already felt.”

I stare around the circle of wretched humans. I refuse to accept this.

Lord of Admirals holds up both of his hands, holding on to me, then lets go and falls to his knees. He tries to smile. Blood streams from the cracked corners of his lips. Not a kind smile. Like the grin of a wolf.

“The Halos will be fired,” he says. “They are being fired. They have been fired!”

With an agonized grimace, he collapses face-forward into the dirt and grass. His blood returns to the soil. The others try to sing, but give out only a low, deathly howl—what might be an old battle song, or perhaps conveying a final message from the Gravemind.

Its laughter haunting me across thousands of light-years.

In minutes, they are all dead, not from the effects of Halo, still to arrive in my time, this system’s time. Not from Halo, but from the cruelty of the Gravemind, using them as embodied messengers. A flesh-borne warning to me that victory is not sweet, that our crimes will haunt us forever, that we are not and never will be the inheritors of the Mantle.

And that we are about to destroy the greatest thing in the universe.

I summon Catalog. “Is the Juridical network open? Are you cleared for access?”

Catalog affirms that communication is possible.

“I need to send one last message to the Ark, to the IsoDidact. Bear witness.”

“That is what I do, Librarian.”

“Tell them what we have heard. Tell them I believe it is true.”

I think of the Didact, locked in his Cryptum. If the Domain is destroyed, I have condemned my husband to an eternity of darkness, silence, with only his own rage and madness to keep him company.

The message is sent.

I watch our powerful vessel splinter apart and bury itself deep, causing the ground to tremble around me while I wait with the remains of my poor humans, out on the dry grass in the heat of the afternoon sun. What is left of this ship will mine and leverage the raw materials of this vast savanna to build kilometer upon kilometer of portal. It may take a hundred years to complete, a process stretching out long after I am gone, well past even this world’s reseeding. But it will be worth it.

Who will use this portal?

Who will live to return here? And what will they think of this machine that I’ve buried? Those I have fought for, for so long. Those who, it is clear to me now, ultimately will and must inherit the Mantle. I can only hope that they will survive and upon returning, that they will find this portal and use it to travel to the Ark—in order that they might discover their rightful place in this galaxy, and the great responsibility they have finally inherited.

They are the last of my children. They must reclaim their birthright.

The sun westers. The air swirls and cools. Predators and scavengers come, but ignore me, and refuse the dead Warriors. The last gray and orange glow of day gives way to inky night. The air is very cold, the sky steady and clean. The stars have never seemed so many, never burned brighter.

Never branded my eyes as they do now.

STRING 38

ISODIDACT

THE TIME HAS come. The installations have been sent to their strategic positions within the galaxy.

A looming citadel on the Ark is now working as a command entity, sharing all resources with Offensive Bias. Once the order is given, it cannot be rescinded. The communication pathways are remarkably clear.

Almost nothing is moving out there.

Many questions remain unanswered. What we do know to a virtual certainty is that the power of the Flood and the reawakened might of the Precursors will be extinguished. The beam energy of the installations cannot travel slower than light, and ultimately, will propagate at near-infinite velocities. Already, two of our Halos report pre-echoes that suggest the combined discharge has already happened.

What choice remains to me, then?

Somewhere, sometime, I have already given the order …

Offensive Bias passes along more messages. Broken, fragmented, desperate—from individual ships, the survivors of decimated fleets, outposts finally able to send data, now that slipspace has resumed its mysterious liberation.

One purports to be from the Lifeshaper, but there is high probability it is fake. After all, it is signed Librarian. She would not willingly use that name to sign a message, not to me.

There is nothing to say, no way to respond to their cries for assistance, for attention, for one last chance to connect with what remains of the ecumene. No way to respond to their cries to give them time to make repairs, to move.

I take complete responsibility. It is my decision.

“Do we delay?” Offensive Bias asks.

“No delay,” I say.

“Check point for final abort, ten seconds. Installation 04—Alpha Halo, it shall be called—will initiate discharge, followed sequentially by the remaining installations. The rings will fire once their fields intersect.”

And then follow so many details, all handled superbly by Offensive Bias. The metarch has taken its final fleet back to the Line, running ahead to meet Mendicant Bias and the Gravemind—and a fleet of Flood ships larger than has ever been witnessed. That battle will delay our foes long enough to finish what has already been set in motion. Ironic that in this deadly act there is such grace and perfection of execution. This will be the greatest combined operation in the history of Warriors, in the history of Forerunners. It is proceeding flawlessly.

We will feel side-effects, how intensely, no one can tell. There has never been such power unleashed all at once. I press the activation plate and close my eyes.

“Forgive us,” I say.

Have said.

Will always say.

STRING 39

343 GUILTY SPARK • INSTALLATION 04

FOR A FEW hours, after I do my duty, I try to listen to all the communications, the final sounds. The channels are remarkably free and clear.

Would I fire Halo, if it were my decision?

Not my decision. It has been done, but the effects are out of sequence, smeared in time—ghostly.

There is one last patch of communication, somewhere below, within a great dense cloud—perhaps a star nursery. A new and precocious civilization acquiring its voice only now, having eluded both the Forerunners and the Flood … sending its first plaintive, hopeful signals.

Crying out for attention. Heed us!

I do not understand what they are trying to say. Do not know what they might have looked like, cannot imagine what they might have done, had they been born in more fortuitous times.