A moment later, the two San'Shyuum were speeding toward the Dreadnought's pinched middle decks—a squat triangular core that connected its three support legs to a single vertical hull of similar shape. In the dome's wan light, the ancient Forerunner warship shone bone white.
Blackmail, the Minister sighed, was such a tiresome tool. But before his peerless record of service and the revelation of the reliquary won them their Hierarch's thrones, Fortitude knew the thrones' current occupants would have to move aside. And they won't do that unless I push.
Unfortunately, the Prophet of Tolerance and the Prophetess of Obligation had proven quite unassailable. The elderly Prophetess had just given birth to a pair of triplets. Because of her advanced age, pregnancy had been difficult. And while it was true that this had caused her to shirk some of her responsibilities, Fortitude knew it would be suicidal to try to smear one of the San'Shyuum's most beloved and prolific matrons. Tolerance, who served as Minister of Concert in the wake of the Unggoy Rebellion, had done much to promote better relations between the Covenant's member species; he still had the support of many in the High Council—both Sangheili and San'Shyuum.
But the third Hierarch, the Prophet of Restraint, was a different story. This former Prelate of High Charity (essentially, the city's mayor) was on the Roll of Celibates, a list that tracked all San'Shyuum not allowed to breed. Because of their ancestors' poor planning, these unfortunate souls would never experience the joys of parenthood because their genes were now too common, and the risk of spreading their negative, recessive traits already too extreme.
Fortitude was on the Roll as well, but it had never bothered him that much. He kept a few concubines for the rare occasions when he felt the need for sexual congress, but was otherwise perfectly comfortable with his involuntary impotence.
The Prophet of Restraint was not.
Not long before the Kig-Yar stumbled on the reliquary, Restraint had accidentally impregnated a young female. Not a problem necessarily (abortions were common in these sorts of situations), but the first-time mother had been furious that Restraint had lied about his status and demanded she be allowed to keep her brood. The aging Hierarch was overcome by a desire to see his exalted genes passed on and could not bring himself to kill his unborn offspring or their willful mother.
Fortitude had gotten wind of the brewing scandal, and arranged for Tranquility to give the birthing period's invocation before the High Council. In his speech, the Vice Minister offered praise for "all parents and their fruitful unions," and argued for greater investment in gene therapies and other technologies to "end the tyranny of the Roll." Tranquility's passionate performance convinced Restraint they were brothers in belief. And the desperate Hierarch (for his lover would soon give birth) approached the Vice Minister with an offer: Claim my progeny as your own, and earn the Ministerial posting of your choice.
As pleased as Fortitude was that his plan had worked, he was still shocked by the Hierarch's gall. If Restraint's offer ever came to light, his children would be killed and he would be dismissed—and likely sterilized as well. The San'Shyuum who enforced the Roll were zealous in their work, and Fortitude knew even a Hierarch was not above their censure.
Tonight, it had been Tranquility's job to give Restraint their counteroffer: Step willingly from your throne, and we shall keep the scandal quiet.
"You should have seen her." The Vice Minister shuddered. They were now much closer to the Dreadnought and had passed into the shadow of one of the large conduits that connected the ship's engines to High Charity's power grid. In this deeper darkness, the strongest light came from a ring of blue beacons just below the cable, bright holographics around one of the Dreadnought's yawning air locks.
"Who?" Fortitude asked.
"Restraint's whore."
The Minister cringed. Tranquility had become far too familiar as of late, often behaving as though he were already a Hierarch and Fortitude's equal. His present inebriation only made this problem worse.
"Attractive?" Fortitude asked, trying to keep the conversation light.
"A dull-eyed monstrosity," the Vice Minister said, reaching inside his robes. "If she had a neck, I could not distinguish it from her folds." To Fortitude's amazement, Tranquility produced a plasma pistol and nonchalantly checked its charge.
"Put that away!" Fortitude snapped, glancing nervously at the Dreadnought. "Before the sentries see!"
Though they were still a good ways off, the Minister recognized the hulking shapes of Mgalekgolo, the guardians of the sacred vessel and its cloistered San'Shyuum priests. At least twenty of the creatures stood watch on cantilevered platforms to the left and right of the air lock. Spotting the two San'Shyuum, the Mgalekgolo shifted into defensive formations, their fluted, deep-purple armor flashing in the beacons' pulse.
Reluctantly, the Vice Minister slipped the pistol back inside his robes.
"What possessed you to bring a weapon?" Fortitude hissed.
"Prudence. In case Restraint rejected our new terms."
"What? Murder you?" The Minister was incredulous. "At the presentation of his children?"
"They're safely out. He doesn't need me anymore."
Fortitude once again recalled that Tranquility's work brought him in regular contact with Sangheili. It seemed the warrior species' maddening preoccupation with personal arms and honor had rubbed off on the naturally hotheaded Vice Minister.
"Think clearly. Your death would raise questions. Ones Restraint would rather not answer."
"Perhaps." Tranquility shrugged. "You didn't see his eyes."
"No, but I can see yours." The Minister's simmered. "And all I see is disobedience and liability."
"But—"
"Hold your tongue!"
The Mgalekgolo turned to track the two San'Shyuum as they passed through the air lock.
Each of the sentries held a faceted, rectangular shield and a ponderous assault cannon. Both were integrated into their armor—extensions of the suits rather than something the creatures carried.
With other Covenant species, this design would have been a way to avoid hand and finger strain. But the Mgalekgolo had no hands and fingers. And while they did possess what appeared to be two arms and legs, the truth was they might have had as many of these appendages as they liked. For each creature was actually a conglomeration of individuals, a mobile colony of glossy worms.
Through gaps in the armor around their waists and necks, Fortitude could see the individual Lekgolo, twisting and bunching like magnified muscle tissue. The worms' red, translucent skin shone green in the glow of the assault cannon's protruding ammunition: tubes of incendiary gel that could be fired in bolts or a searing stream.
"Restraint is an imbecile," Fortitude said once they were safely past the sentries. "And I know this because he put his trust in you." The Vice Minister started to retort, but the Minister plowed forward: "Thanks to my overriding discretion, he and the other Hierarchs know nothing of our plans. Tomorrow they will sit helpless as we announce our intentions before the Council.
But only if we have the Oracle's blessing!"
Fortitude swung his long neck sideways to face the Vice Minister, daring the youth to lock his narrowed eyes. "When we meet the Philologist, you will keep your mouth shut. You will not speak unless I ask it. Or, by the Forerunners, our partnership is ended!"
Glaring at each other, the two San'Shyuum waited for the other to blink.
Suddenly, the Vice Minister's expression changed. His lips firmed, and his eyes snapped into focus. "Please forgive my disrespect." His voice no longer slurred. The remedy had finally taken effect. "As always, Minister, I am yours to command."
Fortitude waited for Tranquility to bow before he relaxed into his chair.
Despite his strong words, the Minister knew dissolving their partnership was impractical.
They were too far down the path, and the Vice Minister knew far too much. Fortitude could have him killed, of course. But that would only aggravate the one problem with his plan that he had yet to solve: the lack of a third San'Shyuum for their triumvirate of would-be Hierarchs.
Fortitude had a few candidates in mind, but none he was willing to trust with foreknowledge of their plot. Without a third, they would seem less legitimate. But the Minister had resigned himself to making his selection after their announcement. It would have to be a San'Shyuum with popular appeal who could help deflect accusations of premeditation and ambition. And as such he was even willing to consider the Prophet of Tolerance or the Prophetess of Obligation. There were precedents for such a holdover. But while keeping one of the current Hierarchs on their throne might allow for a smoother transition, it wasn't an ideal long-term solution. Bitterness endured, even amongst seasoned politicians. Better to clear the boards and start fresh.
On the far side of the air lock was a door to the Dreadnought's hangar. This giant, round portal's overlapping shutters were irised almost completely shut, leaving just a small heptagonal passage in the center of the door. Two final Mgalekgolo guarded this choke point from a scaffold that rose from the air lock's deck, far below. These sentries displayed the shoulder spikes of a bonded pair—a colony with such a large population that all its worms could not fit inside a single suit of armor. The spikes rattled as the divided colony communed, confirming the two Prophets' identities and appointment. Then the pair shuffled apart with low groans—the noise of the worms' rubbery flesh knotting and unwinding inside their armor.
The hangar beyond was an immense, triangular vault. Unlike the Dreadnought's bleached exterior, its walls shone mirrored bronze in the light of countless holographic glyphs. These explanatory and cautionary symbols (arranged in tight, vertical lines) floated near small holes in the hangar's angled walls. Although Fortitude knew what the holes were for, he had never actually seen them put to use.
Hovering near the holes were hundreds of Huragok. The buoyant, bulbous creatures' tentacles looked much longer than usual. But this was because they held individual Lekgolo and were busy either stuffing the worms into the holes or pulling them out. The Minister watched as four Huragok worked to muscle a particularly stout specimen from its hole, then carry it—like a fire crew on a hose—to a barge manned by white-robed and long-haired San'Shyuum.
These ascetic priests helped the Huragok feed the Lekgolo through a cylindrical scanning unit before returning it to one of many metal basins on the barge that contained its colony. The unit retrieved data from micro-sensors inside the worm that had collected all manner of useful data during its wriggle through the Dreadnought's otherwise inaccessible processing pathways.
These sensors caused the invertebrates no discomfort. The creatures ingested and passed the tiny devices just as they did their gritty food. The priests were nonchalant as they supervised the process. But there had been a time when the Prophets looked on the Lekgolo's eating habits with angry condemnation.
Soon after the Covenant's founding, San'Shyuum experiments with early copies of the Dreadnought's Luminary led them to a gas giant planet in a system near the Sangheili's home.
The San'Shyuum had hoped to find a treasure trove of relics and were disappointed when all they found were the Lekgolo, huddled in the planet's rings. But when the Prophets realized what the intelligent worms had done, they were appalled.
The icy rocks that made up the rings were in fact fragments of some obliterated Forerunner installation that once orbited the gas giant. And the reason the rocks were no longer rich with relics was because the Lekgolo had spent millennia ingesting them—chewing them up and spitting them out—as they carved their tight and twisting burrows. The odd thing was, the Lekgolo had discerning palates. Some colonies would only ingest Forerunner alloys; others dined exclusively on rock rich in crushed and compacted circuits. And a few, very rare colonies would avoid such foreign objects altogether, carefully cutting around battered remains of relics like paleontologists would a fossil.
Of course the San'Shyuum believed any unauthorized contact with Forerunner objects was heresy, punishable by death, and ordered the Sangheili to eradicate the worms. But the Sangheili were ill-equipped to fight creatures that had no ships or soldiers to speak of and whose fortifications were the very things they were trying to save. In the end, a particularly insightful Sangheili commander—one of the species' revered Arbiters—suggested it might be better to "tame" the Lekgolo and put their and habits to good use. As eager as they were to assert their moral authority, the Prophets begrudgingly agreed that the worms, properly trained, could be very useful in future reclamations, and they forgave the Lekgolo's sins.
After ages of experimentation on lesser relics, the San'Shyuum had finally gotten up the nerve to attempt an unprecedented exploration of the Dreadnought. Since their departure from their homeworld (and even during the darkest days of their war with the Sangheili) they had limited their studies to the ship's easily accessible systems. While the San'Shyuum had been desperate to explore the processing pathways in the Dreadnought's thick hull, they were terrified they might damage something vital.
And so it was with great care that the ascetic priests had carved their first, tentative hole and slipped in a carefully chosen Lekgolo. They had waited in mortal terror for the worm to dig too deep—and more than that, for what the Dreadnought's Oracle might say. But the Lekgolo emerged without incident, and the vessel's most high and holy resident hadn't said a word.
The Oracle's silence wasn't unusual. Fortitude had never heard of it speaking in his lifetime, nor had his father or his father before that. And when those pioneering priests had gotten no response, they gradually increased their Lekgolo probes until—as was now clearly the case— the once frightful process had become mundane. Following an angled piece of scaffolding to the very top of the hangar, the Minister watched as the San'Shyuum priests on the barge signed a series of orders to the waiting Huragok, and all parties made ready for the next retrieval.