Prone took it in silence, which could have meant that he didn’t want to talk or that he had no interest in metaphysical matters. Jul strode ahead of him, confident of the route. He couldn’t see any surveil ance devices but he was sure that they were around somewhere, and that meant he would do what he did every day now and walk confidently into the area around the spire until he felt the energy field brush him like an unseen cloud of flies.
The humans expected him to do that. Not deviating from his routine seemed to be the key to lul ing them into inaction.
Ahhh … The field washed over him and he was in the underground passage again. Half an hour. I have half an hour, perhaps, because that was how long the human was lost underground. Magnusson won’t think I’ve escaped. When he looked over his shoulder, Prone was about four meters behind him. Wel , he’d convinced him that he thought the structure was a holy relic. Now was the time to reinforce that charade. Jul squatted on his haunches in front of the panel that had made Prone so anxious when he’d reached out to touch it.
The symbols do something. They’re keys, buttons, switches, something like that, even though they look like part of the stone. I have to touch one and see what happens. The challenge is … Prone.
Jul stayed in his squat position, bowed his head, and closed his eyes. That would prevent Prone interrupting him for a while.
What would stop Prone from grabbing me if I were to touch the wall?
The harness.
Huragok grew distressed when Forerunner technology was damaged. If Jul threatened to destroy an entire panel, a wal of devices that seemed to be a hub for portal network in one of the Forerunners’ most critical instal ations, then that would surely persuade him to deactivate his harness.
But he needs to get very close to me to do it. Can I manage that? I’ve got one chance to do this, because if I fail, that ruse won’t work again. In fact … I’ll be marooned here, unable to remove the harness at all.
Jul opened his eyes a fraction. Prone was on the far side of the chamber, apparently gazing at inscriptions. Jul was two paces from the wal .
If I don’t make my move, I’ll die here eventually anyway. They’ll never release me. They can’t.
He had to do it in one move. And he had to do it very soon, before the loss of contact with him started a search. The harness was loose. Prone wouldn’t have thought that was a security problem because simply taking it off would trigger it.
Get to the wall, lift the harness—not too far, mind—and give him the ultimatum.
Show me a portal that works, or I’ll destroy this chamber. Have you ever seen an explosion in a confined space? You’d die too.
Prone might not care what happened to him, but he’d certainly care about the precious Forerunner facility. Jul crossed his arms on his chest very slowly, curled his fingers around the straps of the harness, and sprang up from a squat toward the wal . He hit it with a thud just as Prone spun around. As the Huragok came at him, he raised the harness to shoulder level. Prone stopped.
“I have nothing to lose, Engineer,” he said. “I’l die here either way. Show me the portal to Sanghelios, and remove this harness, or I’l detonate it.”
Prone edged forward. This was going to be awkward. Jul had to keep an eye on the creature, but he also needed to look at the symbols on the wal . He could already feel a tingling sensation throughout his body: the wal was active in some way.
< Sanghelios does not work, > Prone said. < It was not maintained at the terminal. > “I don’t believe you.” Jul reached out with one hand, holding the harness half-raised with the other. He wasn’t sure how much he’d have to pul it away from his body to trigger it, but he’d find out very soon. “So I’m going to carry out an experiment.”
< You might go nowhere. You might damage the portals by trying. > “Let’s see.” Jul reached into his pocket and gathered the shel s and stones in his palm. If he could open a portal, at least he could toss a stone in and see what happened before he tried it himself. Doing this one-handed was hard. He held one stone between two fingers, gripping the rest as best he could, and stood off to one side of the symbols so that he could both see them and keep Prone in his field of view. “What happens if I do this?”
He pressed the first symbol. Prone made a faint groaning sound. A panel in the wal dissolved, leaving a tal rectangle that looked like sunlight trying to penetrate a thick mist. Jul tossed the stone into the light, but a heartbeat later, it bounced back and clattered across the floor.
< I told you, > Prone said. < It doesn’t work.> Jul wasn’t going to give up that easily. Now he was committed: keep trying, or die. “Plenty more controls to press, my friend. Plenty more.” He worked another stone out of his palm and positioned it between his fingers, then tried the next symbol in the line. When he lobbed the stone into the portal this time, it didn’t bounce back. He held his breath, hoping this was his exit, then a light flashed and he heard something hit the floor on the other side of the chamber. It was the stone again.
< Some don’t go where they were intended, > Prone said. < Which I have also told you. > “But some do.” Jul prepared a third stone. His other arm was starting to ache from holding up the harness. “Some do. ”
He tried again. Again, the stone bounced out. He tried four more times, equal y unsuccessful y, and wondered if he’d run out of stones before he found a portal destination that worked. Every time he threw one into the void, Prone edged forward a little.
“I wil detonate this, Engineer. Believe me when I say that.”
< I do. > Jul stil didn’t believe there were any gods, but if he was wrong, then he hoped they would look down on this desperate moment and open a portal for him. It was a smal favor to ask of beings who could build entire stars. His mouth was dry and he wondered if he was being stupid rather than courageous. Sometimes it was hard to draw a line between the two.
He threw again, and there was silence.
The silence turned into seconds. Then it stretched into a long pause punctuated by his own heartbeat pounding in his ears. The stone didn’t bounce back, and it didn’t emerge in the chamber. Prone hung there, sighing like bel ows.
“This one works,” Jul said. “This works. Doesn’t it?”
< For the time being. It’s unstable. > “Where does it lead?”
< You mustn’t enter. > Jul lifted the harness up a little higher. His arm muscles were getting tired and beginning to twitch. “I’l enter anyway. I’l ask you again. What is this symbol?”
< Kelekos. > Jul had never heard of it. “Where is that?”
< I don’t know. There were many Forerunners there. > “Like you don’t know where Requiem is.”
< Requiem cannot be reached from here, because the Didact sleeps and must never be woken. Kelekos could be reached. If you can reach a place, we have no need to know its location. This terminal is for ingathering. > Jul was now beyond impatience with the Huragok’s half-explanations. Having explosives draped around him didn’t improve his mood. But he had a functioning portal, and he had to try. Kelekos would do. When he got there, he’d work out where it was. It was just a name. There was little chance that the Forerunner name bore any resemblance to what the world was known as now.
But before he stepped into freedom, even a terrifyingly unknown freedom, he had to get rid of the harness. Magnusson couldn’t detonate it, not here in this place that shut out al signals, but he couldn’t take it with him, because there would be no Huragok to remove it safely.
“Prone, come here and remove this harness,” Jul said. “Or I’l detonate it.”
< I was ordered not to. > “You know I’l do it. Remove it.”