I shrugged. No sense arguing. Beacons across the wheel, sending out conflicting signals . . . Not impossible.

“You’ve fed us and let us rest,” I said. “What do you intend to do with us? Add us to your specimens?”

Genemender regarded me steadily. I almost felt my thoughts and memories projected like shadows on a tight-stretched skin— nothing could be hidden from this one.

“You’ve come upon evidence of the Shaping Sickness,” he said.

“That’s what humans caled it.”

“The Flood? My old spirit certainly thinks so,” I said—then wondered if I had revealed too much. But Genemender was not surprised in the least.

“Indeed. Your old spirit, as you cal it, one of the archived warriors stored in your genetic material . . . How many of them have come awake within you?”

Genemender paused, listening closely for my answer.

We had walked to within a few meters of the smoothly reflective mass suspended above the wal of tree trunks and branches.

“One, I think,” I said.

“No more?”

“I might have felt others at first . . . now, there’s just one. What use are such things to Forerunners—or to the Master Builder?”

“Let us begin with Erde-Tyrene,” he said. “A young Manipular was led to your birth-world by his ancila.”

“The blue lady,” I said.

“Yes. When you met Bornstelar, part of your own imprint, given to you by the Librarian, was activated. You and the smal Florian named Riser led the Manipular to Djamonkin Crater.”

I wasn’t about to tel him the Florian was here. I stil wasn’t convinced myself.

“A deeper imprint was germinated when you met the Didact, and flowered when he took you to Charum Hakkor. There, the imprint took on a distinct shape—a personality was revived. A species is not just the record of how to make a male and a female. History and culture are also part of the whole. The greatness of humanity has been stored within you, and so very little is actualy lost.

Briliant!”

His admiration bothered me. I was alowed to feel, to worship, on the Librarian’s behalf, but for a Forerunner to share those deep- held opinions—to look upon me as a marvelous bit of craft, simply fulfiling my design—I found that disturbing, even disgusting.

Genemender stepped through the branches and trunks—not between, but through. I tried to folow but came up short, convinced I would be bruised or poked in the eye.

“Come along,” he caled. “It’s safe.”

I closed my eyes and walked through, feeling just a suggestion of hard bark and twigs.

“The great anthropoid could not do what you just did,” he informed me. We stood under a high, round ceiling, at the origin point of radiating corridors lined with tal, twisted cylinders. The cylinders had an odd, translucent quality that came and went, sometimes foggy and shifting—sometimes solid. I folowed him down the middle aisle. A steady glow accompanied us.

“I’ve never seen an ape as big as that one,” I said, talking just to hide my worry. I wondered if these cylinders were containers, instruments—or perhaps some kind of ceremonial sculpture. I did not know whether Forerunners engaged in that kind of art.

“The last of her kind,” Genemender said. “She once lived on Erde-Tyrene, not so far from where you were born. Even at their pinnacle, her people seldom numbered more than a thousand.

When the Lifeshaper came to Erde-Tyrene to gather what could be saved, she found only five. Now, unfortunately, the others are dead.”

I could not bring myself to ask how they had died. Perhaps in the Palace of Pain? “Are you not in the habit of wearing armor?”

“Al armor and ancilas on this instalation have been corrupted.

Not even the monitors are completely trustworthy, but those that remain are essential to maintaining the reserve.”

“What corrupted them? The machine with the green eye? Or— the Captive?”

There—I had blurted it out.

Genemender made a strange face—half-stiff, half-concealing. My flesh crawled. He did not have a smel and he did not know how to react to certain questions.

Incapable of telling a lie, but unwilling to reveal all? This is no Forerunner!

I stil reserved judgment—but I was definitely unhappy in Genemender’s presence, however much he seemed to want to keep me calm.

“In good time,” he said. “Let us begin at the beginning. Halos were the primary weapons in the Master Builder’s proposed defense against the Flood, which was already ravaging parts of the Forerunner realm. These Halo instalations, constructed on great Arks outside the margins of our galaxy, were designed to destroy life in milions or even bilions of star systems, should the Flood spread out of control.

“The Didact opposed their construction and planned instead a very different campaign of containment and isolation by building and positioning Shield Worlds—even more massive and in some respects more powerful than Halos, but capable of carrying out more selective campaigns of destruction.”

Star-hopping, the Lord of Admirals said within me, and I was distracted by a sudden vivid burst of charts and maps showing the rippling membranes and expanding spheres of an interstelar war. It was his way to isolate, besiege, and lay low, at the most opportune moments, only those points of greatest strategic importance, and ignore the rest.

“The Master Builder convinced the Council that the emergency was already too extreme,” Genemender continued, “and that the Didact’s Shield Worlds were not the answer. The Didact’s plan was denied. In protest, and to avoid serving the Master Builder, he went into exile, entering his Cryptum, where you and Bornstelar found him a thousand years later. The Halos were built, to the great profit of the Master Builder and his kind.

“But after concealing her husband’s location, the Librarian went to the Council and invoked the Mantle—the fundamental duty of Forerunners to nurture and protect life. The Council forced a bargain with the Master Builder and decreed that Halos would also serve as sanctuaries for species from across the galaxy, to preserve them against almost universal destruction, should the instalations be forced to carry out their mission.

“The Librarian has always favored humans, much to the dismay of the Didact. As part of the Council’s agreement, the Librarian was given space on several of the Master Builder’s instalations. Humans were brought to this one—over one hundred and twenty varieties, many hundreds of thousands of individuals. Others were placed on the great Arks where Halos are built and restored. Al were designated as reserve populations, not to be tampered with. But the population of imprinted humans on Erde-Tyrene were not made part of that plan. No humans from your planet were brought here— until recently.”

Not even the Librarian would risk my presence on such a weapon!

I objected, “But Gamelpar, the old one—and me—”

“The Master Builder altered the Librarian’s plans.”

How like gods and devils everywhere—Forerunners scheming, lying, denying their firmly held principles. My head reeled.

Very human, actually. Makes you wonder, no?

“Why?”

“Back then, the Flood was known to some Forerunners, but kept secret until its nature and extent could no longer be concealed.

Almost immediately after the Forerunner victory over the humans, many of their captured records were translated, and Forerunners learned that humans had already encountered this strange life-form, and that with the arrival of the so-caled Shaping Sickness from outside the galaxy, humans had essentialy fought on two fronts.

That may have hastened their defeat.

“But before that defeat, humans apparently discovered ways to both prevent and treat the disease. They had orchestrated a program of research that depended in part upon massive sacrifice— including deliberate infection. Humans, it seems, had their own Palaces of Pain. Methods of containment and even prevention were discovered and implemented. Their battle commanders were trained in these methods. Fuly a third of al human colonies were destroyed during this purge.”

Some among us had hoped to carry the Shaping Sickness to the Forerunners and infect them. But those who believed in this strategy were denied. It seemed some would face defeat rather than perpetuate such an atrocity, even on our worst enemies.

Now I became very uncomfortable, wondering just who or what was within me: human, monster—or human monster?

It makes no difference in war.

“Upon learning of this, the Librarian’s imprinted humans suddenly acquired immense value. The latent memories of those ancient warriors likely carried the secrets that could save us al. But not al humans carry the necessary imprints—the proper old spirits, as you say. And so a search was begun by both the Master Builder and the Librarian, while Forerunner research on the Flood continued.”

So much the Lord of Admirals had already conveyed. I stil had difficulty sorting out the complexities.

“But then, the Master Builder reneged on his agreements with the Librarian. Over the last few hundred years, reckoning by the years you know, the Master Builder’s forces took command of the instalation’s human specimens. Lifeworkers lost control of most of the reserves. In contradiction to specific instructions from both the Librarian and the Council, beginning just over a century ago, humans from the Librarian’s special population were transported here from Erde-Tyrene. New and isolated communities were created. That was when the Master Builder began his own experiments. Many humans were subjected to excruciating tests to see if they were truly immune to the Flood. Some were. Others were not.”

“The Palace of Pain.”

“Yes. But the essential differences stil could not be discovered.

Some Lifeworkers acquiesced to the hierarchy and carried out the Master Builder’s plan. Stil others—selected for their courage and discipline—did their best to keep the Librarian’s preserves intact.

They made what you might cal ‘a devil’s bargain.’ Warrior- Servants, at the bottom of the hierarchy, were forcibly recruited to serve and defend the instalation.

“Then—the instalation was moved to Charum Hakkor for its first major test. The Master Builder did not foresee the results.”

“The Captive,” I said.

“Yes. The Captive, as you cal it, was accidentaly released from its timelock. Builder Security then transported it to the Halo. The Master Builder ordered Lifeworkers, under pain of disgrace and death, to study and, if possible, interrogate the Captive. Some believed the Captive and the Flood were somehow connected.

Others did not. The Halo was moved again, to prepare for what the Master Builder believed would be his crowning triumph—when he would reveal his solution to the Flood.

“In extremis, the Didact planned to put al Forerunner defenses under the command of a metarch-level ancila. That ancila kept a primary extension on this instalation, as on al Halos. But it was not alowed to assume command except in dire emergency. The Master Builder, however, found another use for it—unauthorized, as usual.

“The Master Builder did not trust Lifeworkers. He ordered this ancila, the supreme intelect on the instalation, to take over the Captive’s interrogation. That questioning took forty-three years.

“At the end of that time, the Master Builder sent this Halo to a quarantined system, which held the last of the San’Shyuum. Against al Council instructions, he then used this most hideous weapon to suppress a mere rebelion.”

And then he had ordered the destruction of the Didact’s star boat, the capture of the Didact and Bornstelar, and of Riser and myself.

“The San’Shyuum system was stripped of al life. The Master Builder, in command of a weapon capable of destroying al life, had violated the deepest precepts of the Mantle. Many Lifeworkers and Warrior-Servants on this instalation went into open rebelion against the Builder and his loyal forces. They were suppressed.

“Then—a political crisis occurred in the capital system. The Master Builder was indicted for his breaches by the Council. There is strong evidence that the Master Builder’s ancila was subverted by its long discourse with the Captive. Yet this was unknown to the Council. With the arrest of the Master Builder, and with the class of Warrior-Servants in disarray, this ancila, subverting al of its corresponding parts, took charge of al the instalations gathering in the capital system. This Halo, and the others, then attempted to carry out the greatest betrayal of al—destruction of the Council and the capital.

“I do not know the extent of the damage they caused. But in defense, al of the instalations were fiercely attacked, some were destroyed, and this Halo barely escaped through a portal—to be brought here and placed in hiding.

“The battle between the subverted ancila, Builder Security, and Lifeworkers continued—continues, some say, to this day. But I am not kept informed. Mistakes were made, no doubt. Hideous mistakes.”

“So what is this wheel, now?”

“A ruin. But stil—a laboratory.”

“Whose laboratory?”

We had reached a gap in the rows of cylinders, within which had been arranged a circle of smaler, more intricate machines.

“In good time. First, I need to retrieve your awakened imprint, to better understand what the Librarian intended for you.” He walked around me, activating the monitors, some of which rose from the floor and approached, eager to begin the procedure. I did not relish the prospect, but I certainly did not want to show fear.

So I continued to talk. “We owe our lives to the Lifeshaper, al of us, whatever has happened since.”

“That is so.”

“But now we are caught in a fight between Forerunners—and some sort of mad machine.”

“That is so,” Genemender said.

I put aside these confirming facts—and decided to move on to other matters, testing how far this Forerunner was wiling to be truthful, or how much he knew after al.