Oh God. I know who it is.
She’s come back to see me. The first one who ever has.
Mendez cocked his head on one side. “Wel , I’l be damned,” he said. “Serin, isn’t it? I knew you’d gone to ONI, but—wel , good to see you, Captain. Good to see you looking so damn well, too.”
“Good to see you, too, Chief.” She didn’t hold out her hand to Halsey for shaking. If anything, she seemed more curious about the Spartans. “I’m Serin Osman now. If anyone else is stil trying to place the face, I used to be Spartan-Zero-One-Nine. But that was a long time ago.”
Fred, Kel y, and Linda seemed to hold their breath for a second and then murmured.
“Oh … Serin! ”
“We thought you were dead,” Fred said. “But don’t think for one minute that we ever forgot you.”
“I know,” she said quietly. “But now I’m back.”
Halsey could see it now. The glossy black hair had some gray streaks, but it didn’t take a lot of effort to rol back the clock and see a teenage girl, leggy and awkward from al those artificial y induced growth spurts, huddled in a surgical gown and asking Halsey just how different she would feel when she woke up after surgery.
Halsey had told her the truth. Al the children she’d chosen were emotional y robust and mature wel beyond their years, and Halsey had seen no point in lying to them about how painful and how persistent the side effects of the surgical enhancements would be. It was better to frighten them with the truth than mouth platitudes and leave them feeling deceived and betrayed afterward.
Good grief. Listen to me. I worried about betraying them? I worried about deceiving them? The Chief’s right. You stop noticing the stench and after a while, the sewer smells perfectly normal.
Until you step outside.
Halsey had told her that if she survived the procedure, then there would be a lot of pain, and that pain would go on for months or even years.
What she hadn’t told her—because she hadn’t been certain herself—was that there was another possible state, a limbo between life and death, and that was surviving with a catastrophic disability or never regaining consciousness.
Serin had been unlucky, like the handful of others who lived but would never serve as Spartans. Some went to ONI.
So much for never.
Halsey had decided it was kinder to tel the others that Serin hadn’t survived rather than say she’d been shipped back to Earth, in agony and unlikely to walk again. Serin Osman was walking now, though. Halsey couldn’t see any sign of abnormality.
“I admit it was hard knowing you were al out there and not being able to contact you.” Osman clasped her hands behind her back, boots spread.
“But Admiral Parangosky made sure I was cared for. Which, I suppose, is what brings me here now.”
She looked Halsey in the eye. Halsey braced to hear some hurtful truths, a justified explosion of anger at a stolen childhood, but Osman seemed perfectly calm, as if Halsey was of no consequence to her and the life she’d made for herself was without regrets. To either side of her, the ODSTs, silent and anonymous behind their visors, moved slowly forward so that they were flanking her.
Naomi was now physical y shut out of this conversation. It didn’t look as if that was what she intended. The Spartan took an awkward sidestep as if she was going to intervene, but the realization was already dawning on Halsey.
The ODSTs took off their helmets and clipped them onto their belts. Her gaze wasn’t drawn to the older, dark-haired staff sergeant but to his corporal. It wasn’t his close-shaven hair or the hard, lean planes of his face that made him look intimidating, but the expression in his eyes. He seemed to have reached his verdict on her.
“There’s an ONI scientific survey team waiting to enter this sphere after we’ve completed some formalities,” Osman said. There was no tension in her voice at al , just a hint of weary resignation as she recited the litany. “Catherine Elizabeth Halsey, I have orders to detain you and take you to the nearest secure ONI facility on charges of committing acts likely to aid the enemy. You are now under military jurisdiction and do not have the right to an attorney. The maximum al owable period of detention before being formal y charged or released does not apply. Come with me, please.”
For a moment, nobody breathed. Nobody said a word. Halsey expected to be shocked, but al she felt was a strange, cleansing sense of relief.
At first she thought that it was simple inevitability after what she’d done to get to Onyx, but then she started to taste a sense of martyrdom, that she wanted punishment, and that she needed it to be public so that everyone could see just how very penitent she was.
I’m glad the Chief isn’t a mind reader. He’d say that I still think it’s all about me, me, me.
Halsey took an uncertain step forward, datapad in one hand. The young marine held out his hand for it.
“I need to secure that, Dr. Halsey.” He had a heavy Russian or Eastern European accent and looked as if he would have preferred to punch her in the face rather than just take her computer away. He glanced at her bag as if he could see right through it. “And the weapon, please.”
She’d forgotten she had her sidearm in her bag. “But you’l need this to communicate with the Huragok.” The translation software seemed much more critical than a weapon. “Oh. Yes. This.”
She handed him the pistol on the flat of her hand so he was clear she wasn’t going to do anything insane this time. But as she handed the datapad to him, the Spartans came to life behind her. Kel y stepped forward as if she was going to defend her.
“Captain, this is Catherine Halsey. You know her. She’s not some common criminal. Do we have to do this?”
The older marine, the big cheerful staff sergeant who looked as if he would have been the life and soul of the party under happier circumstances, stepped to one side of Halsey, caught her left wrist, and snapped something around it. He did it so casual y, so quickly, so gently that Halsey didn’t realize he was cuffing her until it was too late.
Kel y spun around. “Whoa, that’s not necessary—”
“It’s okay, Kel y,” Halsey said. “This had to happen. Nobody can be al owed to get away with what I did.”
“Got it in one, Doctor.” The sergeant looked up at Kel y as if he felt sorry for her, as if she was a child who had to be told as tactful y as possible that the tooth fairy had a criminal record as long as her arm. “Remember what happened the last time you turned your back on Dr. Halsey? And how you got here?”
Kel y wasn’t going to let it go. “I was wounded. I’d been sedated. I wasn’t clubbed to the ground and dragged here by my hair.”
“My point exactly.” The sergeant looked Halsey over. His name tab said GEFFEN M. J. and his zap badge indicated A+/NO V-CIN. “That’s quite a black eye you’ve got there, Doctor. Vaz, put that on the DHR, wil you? Preexisting injury. I don’t want anyone thinking we beat up our prisoners.”