“I’m hoping it won’t come to that again.”

“Do you have a few minutes to walk with me, Terrence? I promise it’l be leisurely. It’s my only speed setting these days.”

Hood fol owed her out into the passage, hands clasped behind his back. The long, dimly lit, half-finished passage echoed with their footsteps.

Somewhere on a deck below, someone was hammering metal, a strangely old-fashioned noise in a state-of-the-art warship.

“Is this about Phil ips?” Hood asked.

“He’s stil missing. If he’s been kil ed, I’m going to take a very dim view of that.”

“How dim? Remember that we have a peace treaty with the Arbiter, Margaret.”

“But the Arbiter’s not immortal, and he’s facing another civil war. I need to find Phil ips.”

“I’m sure the Arbiter’s searching for him.”

Parangosky trod careful y. Hood knew she’d be monitoring everyone’s comms, but there was no point in ramming it down his throat. “I think I’d rather have our own people involved in that. If only to make it clear that we’re not the underdogs any longer.”

Hood didn’t say a word for a while and carried on walking, matching his pace to hers.

“That’s what they used to cal a very big ask,” he said.

“Yes, I’m asking. But I think you would be best placed to actual y raise it with him.”

“So you want to insert … who, exactly?”

“Kilo-Five.”

“This ask is getting rather large. What if he refuses?”

“I’m damned if I’m leaving a man behind. I need a body, dead or alive.”

“So you’re tel ing me you’l insert an extraction team whether he agrees to it or not.”

“Yes.”

“Quite apart from the size of the task, we can’t trample on their sovereignty like that.”

“Then why are you al ocating more than half the Fleet budget to Infinity? We don’t need her to handle human insurgents.”

Hood almost smiled. “Perhaps I want to stop you owning her outright.”

“You don’t trust the Sangheili any more than I do.”

“No, but that doesn’t mean I want to restart the war.”

Any political y aware man would have expected ONI to try to destabilize the Sangheili. Dirty tricks had long been the textbook method for neutralizing threats. He doesn’t want to know. He’d rather be able to look the Arbiter in the eye and feel he was technically telling him the truth.

Hood was a gentleman, but not an idealist. That was a relief.

Parangosky had covered a lot of deck today and her knees were kil ing her. She ground to a halt at the doors to the atrium, a vast transparent dome over a space the size of a park. When she held up her datapad and checked it against the schematic, oxygen-generating plants and ergonomic seating snapped into place to give her a three-dimensional impression of what a pleasant—and huge—area it would be. There were already some specimens basking in artificial sunlight, a few gingko trees and a Parana pine.

“Lavish,” she said, looking for a raw nerve she could twang. It was hard to find one in a seasoned horse-trader like Hood. “I realize habitability is important, but I hope none of our hard-pressed ODSTs or green-jobs see this.”

“The ship’s complement is more than seventeen thousand. Long deployments. Half the crew never even meet one another. We have to think in terms of the human dynamics of a smal city.”

“Of course we do.” They’d played this fencing game far too often and for too many years to fool each other, but Parangosky detected just a little defensiveness creeping in, a whiff of guilt. Hood didn’t like the suggestion that he gave some personnel privileges that ground troops didn’t get.

Good. That was the idea. “When do you want the Sangheili to know we have her?”

Hood ambled across an empty deck that reminded Parangosky more of the Coliseum than a plaza. “When we have those new drives online. So what are we going to do about Phil ips?”

“Osman’s on her way to Sanghelios. But if we don’t find him fairly quickly, I think that the presence of a very large warship might be helpful in a number of ways.”

“It’s far too soon. And it’s not as if the Sangheili are holding him.”

“Think of it as a work-up exercise. A Thursday War.”

“We’ve stil got contractors crawling al over the ship.”

“Just cosmetic stuff. Come on, Terrence. She can deploy.”

“She’s not ready. Or perhaps I’m not ready.”

Or Del Rio isn’t, you mean. Parangosky put on her it’s-al -your-fault-anyway face, a studied, sad regret with a hint of disappointment, and said nothing. Subconsciously or otherwise, most men were scared of upsetting their mothers. Parangosky pressed that primal button and Hood blinked first.

“Just tel me this wasn’t part of your plan,” he said.

“I know I’m good, Terrence, but even I can’t set up something that convoluted. I genuinely fear for his life. And we do need his unique rapport with the Sangheili.”

“So what are our options?”

“Cal the Arbiter. Ask him a personal favor. If he refuses, then you know where you stand. We don’t even have to involve Infinity unless things real y deteriorate. But this is exactly why we commissioned her—to dominate space.”

Hood looked around the atrium as if he was lost, then indicated an exit on the port side.

“Very wel ,” he said. “I’l cal him. But we don’t push our luck on Sanghelios until we’re sure we can win. I wil not go to war again unless they come after us.”

“You won’t need to,” she said.

It wouldn’t be his decision, though. She knew it, and so did he.

CHAPTER THREE

ARBITER, I WOULD CONSIDER IT A PERSONAL FAVOR IF YOU WOULD ALLOW MY SEARCH AND RESCUE EXPERTS TO LAND AND HELP LOOK FOR PROFESSOR PHILLIPS. IN FACT, IF THEY ASSUME RESPONSIBILITY FOR HIS SAFETY, THEN YOU AND THE SANGHEILI WILL NOT BE MORALLY ACCOUNTABLE SHOULD ANYTHING HAPPEN TO HIM. I REALIZE THAT IT’S A MATTER OF HONOR FOR SANGHEILI WHEN THEY PROMISE SAFE PASSAGE TO A GUEST, BUT I FULLY UNDERSTAND THAT THERE ARE EVENTS OVER WHICH YOU HAVE NO CONTROL.

(ADMIRAL LORD TERRENCE HOOD, CINCFLEET, TO THE ARBITER, THEL ‘VADAM)

CURO KEEP, MDAMA, SANGHELIOS “You. ” Raia ‘Mdama swept into the keep, shoving aside some insignificant adolescent who tried to bar her way. “Fetch your lord. Tel him I demand to see him.”

The youth stumbled a few paces as he walked backward, stil trying to slow her down. He should have known better. She was the wife of a clan elder, and in his absence— temporary absence—she wielded his authority outside the keep.

And he’s my husband. Hang the conventions of society. I have a right to know where he is. I have a right to do whatever it takes to find him.

“Who are you?” The young male was slow on the uptake, and wives and daughters were seldom seen outside their keeps. “I have to tel my Lord Forze who wants to see him.”

“Child, I am Raia ‘Mdama, wife of Jul ‘Mdama, elder of Bekan keep.” She loomed over him, jaws parted and fangs bared. “Forze knows me. He uses my keep as a storage facility for his vessels. Find him and bring him to me.”

The youth final y realized she wasn’t going to back down and that he’d avoid a good cuff around the head if he simply did as he was told. “Yes, my lady.”

Raia stood in the courtyard trying to hold down a strange mix of anger and fear. Jul often disappeared for days now that he’d decided to overthrow Thel ‘Vadam, but this was exceptional. He’d been gone for weeks. Did he real y think that not disclosing details of his planned coup would save her from being implicated? The Arbiter wouldn’t look at those subtle details. She would be the wife of a traitor if Jul was caught, whether she agreed with his politics or not, and the whole clan would pay the price.

But I do agree with him. There can never be peace with the humans. They’ll always expand, encroach, colonize.

She could see faces at the smal windows set high in the wal s. The children of Forze’s clan were trying to catch a glimpse of this roaring, angry female who’d burst into their keep.

What about my children? I know who their fathers are even if they don’t. Dural and Asum don’t ask where Jul is. But he should be there for them.

Forze final y appeared in the doorway, arms held out in apology. “Raia, my dear respected friend. There’s no need to wait out here. Come in.

Please, come inside.”

“I stil have no answer from you, Forze.” She strode through the door, head thrust forward in a don’t-you-dare gesture, ready to barge him with her shoulder if he didn’t give her the right response. “I want to know where my husband is. You must have some idea.”

Forze ushered her into a room that looked as if someone had rushed out of it in a hurry, leaving chairs at odd angles and datapads on the table.

She heard the clattering of feet in the passage beyond. He’d obviously told his family to leave and give him some peace to talk sense to this enraged female. Did they even know what he was doing? Did they know he was part of the uprising? Wel , that was his problem to address, not hers.

She decided to remain standing. It was much harder somehow to keep her anger fed and functioning when she sat down.

“I’m tel ing you al I know, Raia,” Forze said. “I haven’t heard from him. I spoke with ‘Telcam, and he’s had no word from him either.”

“Do not tel me that everything’s al right.”

“I can assure you I won’t. I’m concerned, too.”

“He left to fol ow ‘Telcam, to find out where his rendezvous point with his arms supplier was. Yes?”

“Yes. But I didn’t dare mention that to ‘Telcam, in case Jul was right to be suspicious.”

“So you think ‘Telcam has silenced him?”

“If he has, he’s very convincing about being outraged by his absence.”

“This monk is an adherent of the Abiding Truth. Reason and rationality are hardly their watchwords. Look what they did to Relon and his brother.

Veteran warriors, honorable men, slaughtered for some imagined blasphemy against so-cal ed gods who never existed anyway.”

Forze looked pained. It was stil hard for many to abandon their beliefs, and the fact that the Prophets had been exposed as frauds didn’t convince them that the Forerunners weren’t divine and capable of noting the names of heretics and unbelievers. Raia didn’t care. If the gods wanted her to abandon her husband to appease them, they weren’t worth her devotion. She would spit on them—if there were anything to spit on.

“You might not trust my judgment,” Forze said at last, head lowered a little. “But I’ve spoken at length with ‘Telcam, and I think I would know if he was behind this. He’s angry. He’s always angry, but I do think it’s genuine, that he feels Jul has gone off on some jaunt and isn’t pul ing his weight.”

Raia had to ask the obvious. “And you’re certain that you never mentioned Jul’s unease about him.”

“I swear I never mentioned it, but Jul made his concerns fairly obvious.”

“Very wel .” There was only one lead she could fol ow: ‘Telcam himself. “You fools stil have ships laid up on my land. At some point, ‘Telcam wil need them. And he’l answer to me, or I’l have them destroyed. Where can I find him?”

“Don’t go looking for him.”

“I’l do as I please. Where is his keep?”

Forze might have been a courageous shipmaster, but he caved in fairly quickly when faced with her anger. There was probably some guilt at work, she thought, some feeling that he should have stopped Jul chasing after ‘Telcam.

“Ontom,” he said at last. “Which is why it’s a bad idea to go there. You must have heard about the Brutes detonating devices in the city today.”

“You’re better informed than I am.”

“That’s because … we’ve been told to be ready to attack Vadam.”

“Do not keep things from me, Forze.”

“What do you expect of me? I’m doing al I can to find Jul. He’s my friend. And he wouldn’t want you to be involved in this and put at risk.”

Raia couldn’t help herself. She hissed at him. It was vulgar and unladylike to hiss at someone outside her clan, a shameful loss of control, but she was at breaking point.

“Risk?” she said, feeling the saliva draining down her throat and feeling a little embarrassed by her outburst. “I’m without my husband, and I don’t know why. Our keep has no elder. What greater hazard can I face than being left alone?” Her mind was made up. She’d already started listing whose help she might cal upon to go with her. “I’m going to Ontom to confront ‘Telcam. I expect you to come with me, but if you don’t, that won’t stop me.”

“What if he’s not there?”

“It’s the only information I have, and the alternative to pursuing it is to stay at home and wait to be told I’m a widow.”

Forze had a wife, too. He might have had several for al Raia knew, but a keep elder always had a family to look after, a large one, children he was col ectively responsible for whether he sired them or not. He looked defeated for a moment. Then he dipped his head, giving in.

“It’s dangerous, and we might wel be turned back if the Ontom keeps have locked down the area, but we’l go together. I’ve been told to stand by —the uprising has begun. They’l be coming to col ect the vessels laid up on your land.”

“Then I’l be ready to go with one of those vessels.”

“You can’t.”