Then I was slammed to an abrupt halt. The green light flashed before me, spun about, seemed to come closer. My ancil a 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 hal 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 do with being a witness for the Council. That was likely al done with.

More monitors came into view. They clustered on the opposite side of the hal , rotating around each other like bal s in a magician’s invisible hand. Then a new, resonant voice spoke within my armor, lacking al 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 al -demanding: the hunger of an ancil a for knowledge. A tremendously powerful ancil a, with no apparent master.

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

“I protect al . 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 al 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 ancil a 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.”

“Shal 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 ancil a 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 ancil a’s secret key were expressed. At this point, I was just a passenger in my own body, control ed from without by hijacked armor, and from within by the Didact’s wisdom.

The struggle suddenly ended. The green ancil a vanished. My armor unlocked.

Run!

I ran as fast as the armor al owed—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 propel ed 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 fal for at least a hundred kilometers.

THIRTY-SEVEN

AS I FELL, my blue ancil a reacquired definition and control. “Apologies,” she said. “I am no longer connected to the metarchy or any other network. I cannot ful y 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. Stil , even in my armor, I felt sick as the tiny craft spun about—and then launched into ful evacuation mode.

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

The entire arrangement of the capital’s disks seemed to be slowly, painful y 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 uncontrol ed craft—the near boundary of the planet’s disabled protection.

Better to ask where we are going.

Glory pul ed 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.

Stil , I could not see any other Falcos—or for that matter any other escapees from whatever chaos had embroiled the capital. “Al 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. “Al 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 instal ations.

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 instal ations 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 instal ations,” 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, but useless against any single Halo. And very likely we’d end up being trapped in one of those fields.

My ancil a, 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 fol owed.

“There wil be no pursuit,” my ancil a said. “We are protected by the Librarian’s privilege.”

“Even in an emergency?”

“Not al 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 ancil a 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 wil respond to the Librarian’s key and open for us.”

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

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

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

That shut me up for a moment, but my mind was stil 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 ancil a seems to be directing our movements.”

“Bornstel ar’s ancil a?” the councilor said.

“At your command, I wil 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 final y 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.

The Halos were growing closer. At our present speed, the craft might actual y reach their vicinity in a half an hour—unless, of course, my ancil a knew what she was talking about, and there was a portal somewhere out here as wel .

Each Halo was about thirty thousand kilometers in diameter, a slender ribbon tied up in a perfect circle, the outer surface acquiring detail as we grew closer and as the sun’s light angled to create deeper shadows. The inside of the nearest ribbon was strangely mottled, partly green, partly blue—but mostly bluish silver. As wel , I could now make out waves of hard light rippling around the inner surface, occasional y shooting slender spikes toward the axis—then withdrawing them, as if trying unsuccessful y to spin out the spokes of a vast wheel.

Whatever its exalted status, Mendicant Bias still cannot control all of the Halos.

This one is resisting preparation to fire.

“What would the Librarian do with her own portal?” I asked.

“It is not solely for her use,” my ancil a replied. “The portal can also be shifted to deliver large constructions.”

“Halos?”

“Halos and the Lifeshaper’s work are part of the same contract. The Lifeshaper uses the portal to connect with the many worlds where she is gathering her specimens.”

“Like Erde-Tyrene.”

“As of my last update there are no longer portals that open to Erde-Tyrene.”

“How can you know that?”

“Specimens were col ected from Erde-Tyrene decades before you went there.”

The Didact within was strangely unresponsive—perhaps mul ing over the strange behavior of Mendicant Bias, or the col usion of the Librarian with the Master Builder.

“No advice from my other wisdom?” I asked out loud.

Out of respect. We may be witnessing the end of Forerunner governance.

“I can’t stand this! I can’t stand being ignorant, held prisoner—jockeyed around the galaxy, hosting a Promethean who doesn’t share even half of what he knows.… Riser and Chakas would be better company. At least they’d understand my frustration.”

More silence. We were al tightly focused on the nearest Halo, now less than a mil ion kilometers away. “What are those spokes of light?” I asked.

The installation seems to be adjusting to tidal forces from its proximity to the capital world. The position is not optimal for a large structure. Transport through a portal may also increase strain.

“It’s not getting ready to fire, is it?”

The defense forces won’t wait to find out. With the capital metarchy out of action, command now splinters to individual squadrons. Each has specific instructions how to deal with potential attacks.

“There is the portal,” my ancil a said, and gently nudged my gaze toward a silvery, slowly pulsing web, like a tremendous lacework constantly growing and overlapping curves and lines of hard light. Within the webwork, pits of blackness shot through with violet kept up a rotational cycle of growth and diminishment. Our sensors indicated the webwork was closer to us than the nearest Halo—about a mil ion kilometers.