They didn’t go out for long, though.
He wasn’t on the surface any longer. He was standing in a stone-lined chamber with passages leading off it on al four sides, evenly lit, and each wal bore rows of engraved symbols. It was too quiet for him to know if the chamber was insulated from exterior noise or not, but he could hear nothing.
“Prone,” he said. “Prone, where are you?” He shouted in case the communications device had failed, although he doubted Huragok handiwork was that unreliable. “Prone! ”
There was no answer. He pressed the smal device but there was stil no response. He had no idea where he was, no idea of how he’d arrived here, and he wasn’t sure if this was a disaster or a way out. Only one thing was clear: he couldn’t stand here indefinitely. Al the passages looked much the same, so he made a note of some of the most noticeably different symbols on each wal by scratching them into his belt with his nails. At least he’d be able to tel which passage he’d already walked down if he retraced his steps.
“Prone? Can you hear me?” He walked down the passage to his left. The wal s were mostly plain, precisely made blocks with velvet-smooth surfaces, but some bore rows of symbols or even rectangular panels with a few single symbols within their margins. They looked very like the carvings on the ruins around Mdama. Eventual y he came to a dead end and stared at the wal for what felt like a long time, mesmerized by the symbols and what they might mean. Why put them down here? What were they supposed to do?
Why hide them down here?
He was guessing the intent of ancient aliens whose technology was stil far beyond anything modern societies could create. He was doomed to fail. Now he could hear a slapping sound that he recognized. Prone was rushing down the passage. He’d found an entrance, then. Now he could explain to Jul how he’d ended up down here.
Jul half-turned and reached out to touch one of the panels, more to feel how precise the edges of the inscribed symbols were, and then his comms device came alive.
< Don’t. Don’t touch the panel.> Jul’s fingers brushed it just as Prone gave the warning. The next thing Jul knew, Prone had cannoned into him and wrapped his tentacles tightly around his arm. Prone pul ed Jul backward so violently that he felt a tendon rip. He landed flat on his back, winded, and his head cracked against the stone floor. For a moment he lay stunned. It wasn’t just the force of the impact. It was the shock of being flung across the room by a Huragok. His reflex was to leap to his feet and strike down whoever struck him, but he was too shocked. It was like being struck in the face by a female. These things didn’t happen. They just didn’t happen.
Prone was like al Huragok, utterly passive, focused to the point of fixation on technology and repairing it. Some would become very agitated if Forerunner artifacts were damaged, and he’d heard of some Huragok defending their brothers against physical threats, but they didn’t start fights.
Jul turned his head to make sure that Prone wasn’t going berserk with some form of technology that nobody had imagined. He could see the Huragok huddling by the wal . For a moment he thought Prone was cowering from him, expecting punishment, but then he realized he was actual y shielding that wal —the wal that Jul had been told not to touch. The creature’s bioluminescence was now vivid, brighter than normal, a sign that he was afraid or stressed.
Jul had no idea Huragok were so strong. But then they had to handle machinery, and nobody ever asked them if they needed a hand. It had never occurred to him to wonder how strong they had to be to do that, even though it was staring him in the face: very strong indeed. Because their bodies were sacs of gas and they floated, it was easy to think of them as delicate and fragile. Forerunners were masters of design, able to defy time and space, and more than capable of combining delicacy and immense strength in one structure.
And a servant that powerful could only be control ed if they were designed to fol ow instructions closely and without argument. One of those must have been to use extreme force only in the most serious situation, even more serious than saving their own lives. Jul had simply never asked the question before, and never seen what was right before his eyes.
< Are you damaged? > Prone asked. < I didn’t intend to harm you. More harm would have been done if I had let you touch this. > “What did I do?” Jul asked.
< I warned you not to touch the panel. The portals don’t work as designed. There are none of us at the terminals to maintain them. > “You said they didn’t work.”
< I said they no longer worked properly. I said that none could come here. > “So they go somewhere, but not where they were intended to go?”
< Which is very dangerous. > “I’m sorry.” This was an incredible change in Jul’s fortunes. And in this structure, he was effectively shielded from Prone’s device, as wel as out of sight of the surveil ance drones. Magnusson couldn’t find him here. Even so, he needed to pursue this line of questioning very careful y.
“Prone, I didn’t mean to upset you. But they’d only go to other Forerunner structures, surely.”
< Some intended destinations we know. Some we were never allowed to know, only that they were there for those who had supplementary information.> Anywhere else was better than here—unless a portal took him into the heart of another artificial star, of course. Jul got to his feet with slow care, making no attempt to move toward that wal .
“And you’re not al owed to tel anyone what you do know.”
< No. You mustn’t tell the others. I shouldn’t have lost you and let you near this. > “I don’t want to get hurt. And I won’t tel Magnusson.”
< Good. > Jul folded his arms to make it clear that he wasn’t going to touch anything. He fol owed Prone to the surface, but stil wasn’t sure how he ended up back in the sunlight. Something brushed his face again and he was instantly outside.
He would memorize this place. This was his way home—somehow. And he hadn’t had to search for years to find it. If it was dangerous, then he’d face that risk.
Prone stopped and peered at Jul’s belt, head bobbing up and down. His tentacle snaked out and touched one of the symbols Jul had etched into his belt.
< Why did you inscribe that? > “In case I needed to find my way back. Why?”
< Do you know what it means? > Jul was intrigued, but tried not to look too interested. He had to assume he was back under surveil ance now. “No.”
< That’s something you must avoid,> Prone said, turning around again. < Never touch it.> “Why?”
< The Didact, > Prone said. < Hidden even from us. Hidden when the Librarian made her sacrifice. > Prone said nothing more during the long walk back. If he was seeking to quash Jul’s curiosity, he’d gone about it entirely the wrong way.
UNSC INFINITY, SANGHELIOS “Bandits at twelve o’clock, Wing Co,” BB said. “Break, break, break.”
Hood ambushed Osman as soon as she got out of the bridge deck elevator. She carried on walking down the passage, but there was no way past him: he was a big man and he could block a lot of passage.