“It matters little. That will not happen to us,” said N’tho. “We were there and we are obviously none the worse for wear.” The translation device deftly handled the idiom.
Yes, but you’re Elites. It would take an elephant outfitted with dynamite to hurt you. Luther chose to keep that opinion to himself and simply smiled and nodded. He wondered what state the Ark was actually in since these Elites had last set foot on it. Hadn’t it been besieged by the Covenant, attacked by the Flood, and then blasted by a replacement Halo installation? He wasn’t sure they would even recognize it at this point. Nevertheless, he’d taken the time recently to pore over the cartographical information he had pulled together more than a year ago, captured by the passive sensors on the UNSC Forward Unto Dawn, the lone human ship that had been to the Ark and returned to tell about it.
Luther thought he might reach out to Casper or Richards or someone at ONI and ask why the hell he hadn’t been told about the previous expeditions. Seemed like critical information to him, even if they hadn’t been on a mission to the Ark, in order to stop Halo from firing. But then he immediately thought better of it—ONI wouldn’t leave them in the dark without good reason. That and making demands of ONI was never a good idea in any situation.
Strangely, though, he noticed Kodiak’s own response to this news. The Spartan just stared blankly at Henry Lamb with fixed, somewhat watery eyes. It wasn’t threatening at all, but more like Henry had piqued Kodiak’s curiosity and that he was on the verge of asking his own questions about these secret expeditions. But nothing came.
N’tho ‘Sraom turned to Luther and said, “We leave the Huragok in your hands, then, human, and will be back to check on you presently.”
“Thank you,” said Luther. The floating Engineer was already at work, its tentacles caressing the instrumentation on the walls as if greeting a long lost lover. Vale was following it.
Henry shrugged. “Okay, then. Guess I’m out of a job.”
“We don’t know that for sure,” Luther said. “Let’s see what our new alien friend comes up with anyway. Believe me, this isn’t a problem that will suffer from too many hands involved.”
“I am sure you are correct,” Usze ‘Taham remarked. “Furthermore, there may well be things that the Huragok needs accomplished that will go more swiftly with this one here to aid it.” He gestured to Henry.
“I’m not sure if you’re attempting to be flattering or not,” said Henry, “but I’ll take that as a compliment in any event.”
For some reason, N’tho glanced toward the Spartan, and Luther noticed that Kodiak was once again staring intently at the Sangheili. “Is something the matter, Spartan?”
“No. Nothing’s wrong,” said Kodiak, but his voice sounded low and husky, as if he had something caught in his throat. He must have been aware of it because he cleared it loudly and then said, “I’d best go check with the captain. See what she wants.”
“Yes. Perhaps that is a good idea,” said N’tho.
Luther didn’t know what to make of this interaction, or the Spartan’s strange behavior—but he felt that nothing good could come of it.
“You should have told me,” Captain Richards said, barely managing to contain her annoyance. The office located in the administrative quarters of the research facility was relatively light in furnishings. Indeed, the only major piece in here was a very elaborate, classic wooden desk that wasn’t exactly UNSC standard issue. It was larger than normal and had the initials AR carved in the corner. The desk had belonged to her father, and she still remembered to this day crawling around underneath and defacing it.
There was a wooden chair opposite it, but Kodiak was ignoring it and standing stiffly, his hands draped behind his back. “With all due respect, Captain, I did not feel it to be of any relevance.”
“The man cut off your arm!”
“Begging the Captain’s pardon, ma’am—he’s not a man,” Kodiak said, his voice flat. It was eerie, how detached he sounded.
Richards was behind her desk, drumming her fingers on the surface. “That’s hardly the point. If you have a conflict with someone—”
“I don’t have a conflict, Captain. It happened during war. Lots of things happen during war. You accept that and move on.”
She leaned back in her chair, staring at him suspiciously. “Why do I find myself having trouble believing you?”
“I don’t have an answer for that, Captain. Permission to speak freely?”
“Granted.”
“Frankly, it isn’t my problem if you don’t believe me. I have done nothing threatening, and said nothing threatening, to either Elite. That should be your only concern.”
“I’m your commanding officer,” Richards said stiffly. “I’m reasonably certain that I get to decide what is and is not my concern.”
He tipped his head slightly in apparent acknowledgment. “Whatever you say, Captain.”
She hesitated a moment, continuing to drum her fingers. “Can I trust you not to get yourself into trouble over this, Spartan?”
“I have already said that you can.”
And what about Spartan Holt? she thought. He sure as hell seemed concerned that you were ready to blow N’tho’s head off given the first opportunity.
“If I may ask, how did you discover this about my history?” said Kodiak.
“Privileged information,” Richards replied immediately. She wasn’t about to name Holt as the source. “I report to the head of ONI. How do you think I got it?”
Kodiak looked momentarily suspicious, but clearly chose not to pursue it. Richards was relieved. She felt it was necessary to keep Holt out of this because she wanted to continue using him as an inside man, which would be useless if Kodiak started keeping him at arm’s length.
“All right,” she said finally. “Keep your distance from N’tho and everything should be fine.”
“You’ve already made that abundantly clear, Captain.”
She nodded. “Yes, I have, and I’m doing it again. Dismissed.”
He tossed off a salute. She returned it reflexively, but was left staring at the door long after the Spartan had departed. She did not, in fact, believe for a moment that Kodiak was going to keep his desire for vengeance off the table, but the truth was that she really didn’t have any basis upon which to relieve him of duty.
Richards would just have to hope that he was telling the truth, and further than that, if he wasn’t . . . she or Spartan Holt or anyone would have to intervene violently before Kodiak wound up killing N’tho ‘Sraom just on principle.
Luther, Henry, and Vale sat wordlessly, watching the Huragok meticulously continue its work. It had now been two days since Drifts Randomly had first arrived, and he had been working without stopping once since. Knowing the exact specifics of what the Huragok was doing was something of a challenge for Luther, as engineering was Henry’s venue. It was clear to him that the Huragok appeared to be studying the glyphs that indicated the start-up process and was busy not only implementing them, but either fixing or improving upon the technology in front of it. If he were to guess, Drifts, as they had started to call the Huragok, was attempting to bypass the many security impediments in place, which required the use of a keyship in order to spin up the portal’s ancient engines. Henry, for his part, was scribbling notes as he did so. Luther would be sure to sit down with him at the end of the day and have Henry walk him through it. For the time being, though, he was content to watch its tentacles working steadily, moving pieces, rearranging things in an endless stream of determined repair.
> Luther asked the creature, using a series of whistles and hand gestures.
> replied the Huragok.
That was it—the lengthiest response he’d gotten out of the creature thus far, since most of its replies to this point had been along the lines of >, >, and >.
> he said,
r we are to having this repaired.>>
>
>
>
Hardly a useful answer. >
>
>
>
It looked as though Vale was listening carefully, attempting to discern the entirety of the conversation by listening to Luther’s half, but he couldn’t be certain. >
For the first time in forty-eight hours, the Huragok stopped working. It didn’t lower its tentacles; they remained in an upraised position. It appeared to be pondering what he had just told it.
>
Luther was slightly surprised that was the critical piece of information the creature had taken from his little history lesson, but he didn’t allow it to faze him. “Yes. Many times.”
>
> he said. > He considered it. >
The Huragok just floated there. It wasn’t making any more repairs.
>
Luther didn’t understand the question. >
>
>
“Because you aren’t encouraging it to continue.”
Vale and Luther jumped slightly at the arrival of the new, unexpected speaker. Luther had assumed that they and the Huragok were alone. Henry was sufficiently distracted by the Huragok that he did not react at all.
Indeed, it was remarkable that Luther had not seen Usze ‘Taham approaching. Yet here the Sangheili was, big as life. Bigger, even.
“I’m sorry?” Luther said. “Encouraging it? Why should I have to? Doesn’t it just fix things by nature?”
“Yes, of course,” said Usze. “But you have expressed concern that, with the end of our conflict, your species may well descend into internecine warfare yet again. A supposition about which you may well be correct, for that matter.”
“All right, but how is that of interest to the Huragok?”
Usze ‘Taham contorted his mandibles in what may have been the Sangheili version of a smile at the floating creature. At least that was what Luther thought—it seemed more like a snarl, but his voice didn’t match up with any hostile intent, so he was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. “The Huragok feel compelled to serve, as part of their nature. That is why they repair things. It is a means of serving the Forerunners that created them. But you have introduced the concept that your race could fall back into warfare and possible self-immolation. The Huragok is now considering if you would prefer death to that possibility.”
“I can’t believe that a Huragok would be moved to inaction here by the possibility of civil war,” Vale said confidently.
Usze appeared slightly puzzled, but also intrigued at the definitiveness in her voice. “And you would be certain of that . . . why?”
She promptly switched to speaking in Sangheili. The reason was obvious: it was a gesture of respect to Usze, one that Luther suspected would not be lost upon the Elite. “Because it is not as if civil war is a practice that is restricted to humanity. Your people are presently enmeshed in their own civil conflict, and before that it was the Covenant, and we all know what they did. Those facts have never deterred this Huragok or any others from working in your service.”
Usze processed this observation for a moment and then nodded. “You appear to make valid points.”
“I had the opportunity to spend a good deal of time on Khael’mothka,” she informed him. “It is not Sanghelios, but that hasn’t kept it from your current war.” Luther had heard of the place before. It was a rough Sangheili frontier colony, just outside their complex of primary worlds.
“In what respect? To what keep were you attached?”
“I was attached to no keep. I simply wandered the planet for many months. I first learned your language when I was very young. Since then, much of my life has been focused on increasing my knowledge of your kind. This . . . personal walkabout, of sorts, was no different.”
Usze appeared genuinely dumbfounded. “And you remained alive? Yes, obviously you did, but . . .”
“I encountered many of your people who were genuinely tired of war,” she said, “and were intrigued by the concept of a human who was simply traveling the planet, attempting to perfect her command of the language. Granted, I did develop a knack for learning who to stay away from, but for the most part, my time there was uneventful insofar as personal jeopardy was involved.”
“I am . . .” His voice trailed off as he sought the right word. “Impressed, I think, would suffice.”
She shrugged. “I appreciate the enthusiasm, but would not make more of it than it was.”
“You are downplaying your achievements. Khael’mothka is not a place for the faint of heart.”
Quickly she changed the subject. “I do not know much of you, Usze ‘Taham. Only what I read in the preliminary materials that I was given. Would you do me the honor of giving me some detail about your background?”
Luther thought, Very clever. If there was one thing that dominant Elite males liked to do, it was to talk about themselves. By showing that she was interested, Vale gave Usze ‘Taham the opportunity to play right into that.
Usze inclined his head slightly. “Very well. I was born in the wilderness of Qivro, a place called Bothaes, in the Keep of Sumai. Our province was held in honor, as my uncle Toha ‘Sumai was considered widely to be one of the greatest swordfighters in all of Sanghelios. He has passed since, but I held him in esteem as a youth and trained under him aggressively for several years. When I was of age, as is the custom, I left our keep and moved to the military bastions of Yermo, where the most notable war college of our people once existed, though it has now been reduced to rubble since the breaking of the Covenant. I graduated this school with top honors, having refined my ability with the sword and other weaponry a great deal, drawing attention from those in high places. When I was placed on the Fleet of Faithful Ardor, several political officials sought me out and wished to bestow upon me the title of Honor Guard, putting me in the service of the High Council. I had only served a single tour, so I, of course, refused this request, despite warnings to choose otherwise. This would not be the last time I was approached for the position, but ultimately I have always been less interested in ceremony and title than in deed and action: I was born to fight, and I fight very well, so I have little affection for any role that would keep me from what I was made to do. Such refusals do not come without a cost, however. Prior to the Great Schism, others sought to punish me and even take my life, but they would not succeed. My actions in combat, in the war and against my enemies, silenced all those who would contend with my standing. And it eventually led me to the service of our ascetic warriors as a liaison for the Covenant, which is, I suppose, one reason why the Arbiter handpicked me for this task. That and my former experience on the Ark.”
“That is very compelling,” said Vale. She turned to Luther. “Did you get all that?”
“Between me and the comm device, I had it covered,” said Luther. Then he became aware th
at, during the entirety of the conversation, the Huragok had continued to do nothing but float there. He turned to the Huragok and said in its language, >
The Huragok stared in his general direction. Luther noted it had far too many eyes to all focus on him.
> it replied after what felt like an insanely long pause. Then the tentacles, which had never actually dropped down into a relaxed position, returned to their work.
“This has been . . . interesting,” Usze said, and then with no further words, he turned and walked away.
“That’s a very vague word for him to use,” commented Henry.
“Actually, no,” said Vale. “For the Sangheili, it’s a very important word, especially when it is referring to humans. If we say or do anything that interests them in any way, that’s a very good thing.”
Henry, who was still trying to figure things out from the notes he had been jotting down, turned back to watching the Huragok. “So what happens when it does get the portal opened?”
“We’ll be following the protocol Captain Richards has already set in place,” said Luther. “When the Excession is active, we scramble to her dropship immediately, which in turn takes us to her main vessel that’s orbiting overhead. Once we go through the portal, the real job begins.”
CHAPTER 6
* * *
Two Earth days had passed since his arrival and nothing had been accomplished at the portal artifact. This was particularly aggravating to N’tho ‘Sraom, who had fully expected that the Huragok would be able to finish the repairs to the portal more or less within a single daily cycle. Perhaps there was some truth to the humans’ concern that irreparable damage may have been done to the Ark’s end of the Excession, which might well mean that any effort on this end would be futile.