“So the civvie contractors end up playing cards a lot, ma’am,” he said. “Or relaying the carpet. I’m expecting union objections about aliens taking their jobs any day now.”

“Ah, they’re getting paid hard-lying al owance and extra overtime. Just remind them they can be replaced by gas bags that work for yeast extract.

Speaking of which, how’s Halsey behaving?”

“You’ve not received the updates?”

“I have, but I want to hear it from you.”

Lasky glanced at Del Rio for a moment, as if asking permission to divulge the unvarnished truth. He got the faintest shrug in response.

“Wel , she got the idea eventual y,” Lasky said. “But she’s stil griping about not having access to the Spartan-Fours.”

“She’d better not have access to anybody except crew authorized to know she’s stil alive.”

“No, we’ve nailed it down tightly, ma’am. I had to give her back her computer to extract some Huragok translation software, but I’ve removed it again. I got Perfect Density to check it out for any program she could possibly use to bypass security.”

“And you monitor every system for breaches, whether she has official access or not.”

“Constant surveil ance. If she can hijack a ship and kidnap a Spartan, I treat her as an enemy prisoner who’s making herself useful. Sewing mailbags, so to speak.”

Del Rio said nothing and beckoned to Parangosky and Lasky to fol ow him to another hatch in the deck, a much larger square one with black and yel ow warning tape adorning the removable grab rail around it. Del Rio pointed down. Parangosky peered over the coaming to see the top of someone’s head four or five meters directly below, gray hair pul ed back taut in a pony tail.

Catherine Halsey was working at a screen with a notebook and old-fashioned pencil to one side of her workstation. She didn’t look up. Waving and cal ing coo-ee Catherine seemed out of the question. Perhaps she couldn’t hear what was happening above her: the hum of the aircon and the assorted noises from adjacent compartments might have left her in her own little world. She certainly didn’t look up.

“She’s security chipped,” Del Rio said, stepping back from the hatch. “If she tries to enter areas off limits to her, the doors won’t open.”

“And if she wants to remove the chip,” Lasky said, “she’l have to gnaw her own leg off.”

Parangosky wondered how long it would be before she tried to persuade a Huragok to remove it. “I wouldn’t put that past her. How does she get on with Glassman?” Parangosky didn’t like the choice of chief engineer either, but he was the best technical man for the job. “Any pissing contests?”

“Yes, ma’am, and they’re pretty wel matched,” Lasky said. “She doesn’t like being tasked by anyone below admiral. She’s obviously used to a lot more gold braid at her beck and cal .”

“So … she’s secured, everyone including the Huragok have been warned not to let her con them, and she’s getting results.”

Lasky looked pained. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Good. I don’t want her here any longer than she needs to be. The moment she’s done, ship her back to Ivanoff.” Halsey was less of a risk locked up on an ONI research station. The more people who knew, even those with top security clearance, the greater the chance of the news leaking.

There was never a monopoly of information, not even for ONI. “Stil no dedicated AI?”

Del Rio started to shake his head but seemed to think better of it. Someone had obviously told him never to actual y say no to her. “I’m going to keep Aine until I find the right one. She’s used to ships in refit and she does things by the book. That’s al I need right now until we start working-up.”

“Wel , you’d better choose a permanent one soon, Andrew, or you’l get one assigned,” Parangosky said. “Top-level AIs are my part of ship. And they don’t grow on trees.”

Del Rio nodded but he didn’t look her in the eye. He was probably thinking it was time she retired or had the grace to die, but even that wasn’t going to save him from her scrutiny.

Or Serin Osman’s, when the day comes.

“So where’s this coffee?” she said. “Let’s see how the command bridge is shaping up before Terrence wolfs al the pastries. Lead on, Captain.”

Del Rio forced a smile and led her to the elevator, flanked by Lasky. Parangosky caught the XO’s eye and just did a slow blink. You’ve got it all under control, Tom. This ship was al power, al refinements, her capability now far beyond the Covenant’s even before its fal .

They had nothing left to throw at Earth now, not unless the Forerunners decided to rise from the dead.

She was going to enjoy that coffee.

ONIRF TREVELYAN, FORMERLY THE FORERUNNER WORLD KNOWN AS ONYX The perfect blue sky that Jul ‘Mdama could see from his cel was as big a lie as any the humans had told him.

Humans deceived. It was their defining feature, their strategy of choice, and it had brought him to this forsaken place. But it was also the key to how he would escape. He simply didn’t know exactly how yet.

His life was now lived in a room twenty paces wide by twenty-five paces long, with one large window that he was stil evaluating to see how easily it might break. This was no Forerunner building. It was a prefabricated box of steel-framed composite panels, created by humans, whose flimsy artifacts could usual y be smashed. But where would he go once he escaped this room? How would he find a ship to leave the planet? These things were possible, he was sure, but there was one fact he had gleaned by accident: this world wasn’t a planet at al . It was yet another Forerunner construct, an artificial world the humans cal ed a Dyson sphere.

One of the guards had told him that there was no point trying to escape because the sky he was looking at was a solid roof, its blue perfection and occasional clouds just an il usion. Jul recognized the word sphere because the guard had drawn a circle in the air with his fingers as he said it, and the translation device had provided the Sangheili word for globe.

Sphere. Jul practiced the sffff sound. It was easier to say than the ipsss he tried to make when pronouncing Phillips. Where was that little maggot now, and that arrogant AI that floated around looking like a box?

It didn’t matter. If Phil ips ever crossed his path again, he would kil him. He wasn’t even a soldier. And the AI—that was a device, a tool, of no more consequence than a hammer or a blade. It was beneath Jul’s dignity to even think of its destruction.

The humans got into this sphere. They must be able to get out again.

So I can, too.

Jul stood at the window, trying out that ipsss sound again while he stared up at the sky trying to picture a rust-red planet—home. If he shifted his focus a little, he could only see flecks of saliva on the glass. Then somebody rapped on the door. And that act was yet another lie: he wasn’t a guest whose privacy was respected, but a prisoner of the Office of Naval Intel igence, with no choice over who was admitted to his cel and who was not.

He concentrated on Raia. His wife would be frantic with worry by now. Would she talk to Forze, retrace his steps, make the link with ‘Telcam and his human associates? She was ferociously intel igent. She could do al this. But how would she know where he was now, if he didn’t even know himself?

Al he knew was that it was cal ed Trevelyan, and it was lies, lies, lies.

“Jul, it’s Dr. Magnusson.” The woman’s two voices were muffled by the reinforced steel door. He knew it was reinforced because he’d rammed it with his shoulder a few times. “Are you going to behave today?”

He paused. Magnusson would not be alone or defenseless. Jul understood her not because she spoke Sangheili, like Phil ips, but because she wore a translation device. She tended to whisper in her own language so that the synthesized Sangheili voice was more audible. Jul decided to humor her.

Thank you, Phillips. You taught me that there was no shame in submission if it served the longer game, the wider strategy. See how fast we learn? This is how you make us an even more dangerous enemy.

“I shal behave,” Jul conceded. He cocked his head and listened for the click of the lock as she deactivated it. “If you tel me why the sky’s blue.”

The door opened. Irena Magnusson, light haired and wearing a gray one-piece suit, was smal even by human standards. Their females were usual y markedly smal er than the males, but they stil took up arms and served on the front line. Jul had kil ed quite a few in his time and it had never troubled him, although he was aware of the human taboo against kil ing women and children. Throughout their history they seemed to have taken very little notice of that themselves, though. And both women and children were capable of kil ing, so they could never be ruled out as a threat. Jul decided that trying to understand human morality was a waste of time better spent on planning an escape.

“Rayleigh scattering.” Magnusson carried a pile of papers, a folio, and a datapad. She also had what looked like a smal walking stick tucked under her left arm—a weapon that would give Jul a powerful electric shock if he got too near her, exactly like the one the Spartan cal ed Naomi had used on him. “Perhaps you credit a Sangheili scientist for discovering the phenomenon, but we name it for John Rayleigh.”

An armed guard fol owed her into the room and stood barring the door, hands clasped behind his back. Jul was beginning to filter out the human language and listen only to the Sangheili translation generated in a good approximation of Magnusson’s own voice, but he forced himself to pay attention to this English. There would come a time when he’d need to understand as much of it as he could.

“I meant this sky,” he said. “This isn’t a real world. It’s a hol ow bal .”

Magnusson laid out her papers on the Sangheili-sized desk. They seemed to have gone to some trouble to make him feel less uncomfortable.

“It’s a very big hol ow bal built around a star, and it has an artificial climate, so it’s stil caused by scattered light in the blue wavelength.”

“And the Forerunners made this.”

“Sit down, Jul.”

“They made stars. ” He sat, but not because she’d commanded it. He stil towered over her. He could reach out and snap her neck without even rising from the chair, although he knew the guard would cut him down a heartbeat later. “Are there not enough stars already? Bil ions upon bil ions.

Why build another?”

“We’re stil exploring,” she said. “Maybe the star was already there. It’s hard to be sure. But the sphere’s main purpose was as a shelter from the Flood or the Halo Array. It’s wel sealed.”

“And no sign of the Forerunners.”

“What makes you say that?”

“They’re long gone.”

Magnusson seemed more interested. Humans had these little gestures that gave everything away. She leaned forward a little, pupils dilated, and she blinked more frequently.

“They’re your gods.”

“Not mine,” Jul said. He’d lose nothing by tel ing her some truths. He wanted her to tel him some in return. That deal usual y worked on Raia.

“Gods don’t die or forget to return. Gods choose better prophets than the San’Shyuum, too.”

“Do you believe in any gods?”

“No, but I’m prepared to be persuaded if one should appear.”

Magnusson gave him that odd look, wrinkling her nose and pul ing her brows together, something that Jul associated with human disapproval.

But this was something different. Her lips curled. Then her teeth glinted.

Jul didn’t like human smiles. They were yet another lie, an expression of happy harmlessness that was actual y the baring of fangs.

“Very wise,” she said. “I’d ask for proof as wel .”

“What do you want from me? The Covenant has been destroyed. You hold peace talks with the Arbiter. What use am I to you?”

“Ah, you’re unique, Jul. A live Sangheili, off his home territory. I don’t think we’ve ever had one before. Who knows what we can discover about one another?”

“The last time humans sought information from me,” he said, “one of your Spartan demons used electric shocks to do it.”

“Yes, I’m sorry about that. Spartans aren’t known for their diplomacy.”

“You stil require something from me, or else you would simply have kil ed me to silence me. It’s usual y information. You tel me what wil happen to me if I don’t comply, or offer me some incentive if I do. That’s how you work, yes?”

“What intel igence would we need from you? We know where your homeworld is. The Arbiter’s hosting human guests in his keep. You no longer have a fleet. And we’ve acquired Huragok. Engineers. ” Magnusson sat back in her seat. “They’re living blueprints. Everything they’ve ever built or modified, every ship or weapon—we ask nicely and they give us every detail we need.”

Jul simply sat and stared at her. It wasn’t his job to beg for answers. She’d grow tired of the game and get to the point sooner or later. He used to think that he despised humans, but he’d come to realize that he was afraid of them: not because they were stronger, but because they were like bacteria, persistent and adaptable, breeding and multiplying and spreading until they overwhelmed by sheer numbers and infected everything. He dreaded them like a plague.

And the Forerunners feared the Flood would overwhelm the galaxy? They should have worried about the humans, too. Did they encounter humans on Earth when they landed and built their artifacts? They should have seen the warning signs.

Gods didn’t make that kind of mistake.

“Thel ‘Vadam is not entitled to cal himself the Arbiter,” Jul said at last. “He’s a traitor. He’l be overthrown. And then we’l come for you, and finish the job we started, because you’l spread across every planet just like the Flood if we don’t stop you.”