He rarely knew how she’d felt about things, though. The records didn’t cover that, which was why many of his little chats were eye-wateringly intrusive. It was al that was left to real y talk about.
“You’re right,” she said. “There’s only one bigger blight on a girl’s social life than being ONI brass, and that’s being a Spartan. Have you had this conversation with Naomi?”
“Not while my data chip is stil lodged in her head.…”
“Very wise.”
Osman almost asked if he knew anything about his donor, but lost her nerve. BB was now her closest confidant. She wasn’t sure if that was sad or miraculous. “I’m going to grab a coffee while I can,” she said. “I’l take root in that damn chair if I don’t walk a few more decks during the day.”
Port Stanley felt bigger and emptier than ever. In the wardroom, one of the few communal spaces that was smal enough to feel comforting for a crew of six, she poured herself a cup of the best Jamaica that Parangosky had laid on for the squad and smiled at the memory of Adj endlessly tinkering with the coffee machine until he’d perfected it. But the next thought leapt back to Phil ips, and that was nothing to smile about.
It’s just a few days. The rebellion isn’t affecting every city. He’ll come through it.
She shut her eyes and sipped. For a few moments she was so far away that BB’s voice almost made her choke.
“I thought you’d like to know that I’ve located ‘Telcam,” he said, “or at least some of his crew.”
Osman slammed the cup down on the counter and set off back to the bridge at a jog. “Can you get a cal in to them?”
“I’m trying right now. His ship’s burning, but he seems to have set up an operating base outside the keep.”
By the time she got to the bridge, BB was talking to someone in Sangheili. She could also hear the simultaneous English translation.
“Shipmaster, I insist,” BB was saying. “We must speak to ‘Telcam. Get him.” He dropped one voice to a whisper. It was impressive to hear him speaking with three voices simultaneously. “I’ve fed them bogus data to make us look like a Kig-Yar ship. I’m clever like that. And you’l sound convincingly authentic to them.”
Osman sat down and tried to think like a mercenary heron. There was no point banging the table and tel ing them that their ONI quartermaster had arrived. “Shipmaster,” she said, trying to project Kig-Yar disdain. “I demand to speak to Avu Med ‘Telcam.”
BB formed a smal yel ow note and positioned it in her eye line. IT’S FORZE, it read. REMEMBER FORZE? JUL’S FRIEND.
“And who are you?” Forze snarled.
“Al you need to know is that I’ve kept him supplied. ”
“Unless you have a spare warship at this very moment, then I suspect he’s too busy to talk.”
“Tel him,” Osman said quietly, “that he’l need me very soon when ‘Vadam’s al ies show up.” It was worth a gamble. It was only words. “Get him.
Or is he dead already?”
The channel went silent. Osman waited: BB rotated slowly, his equivalent of finger-drumming. Then a familiar voice came over the audio. It was ‘Telcam, and he wasn’t amused.
“Where is Pious Inquisitor?” he demanded. “We’ve been signaling you for an entire day.”
The question was both unexpected and utterly fascinating. BB had played the Kig-Yar card very wel indeed. In one sentence, ‘Telcam had revealed a world of information, the most significant of which was that the Kig-Yar had control of a battlecruiser. Damn it, they had Inquisitor.
“This is Osman,” she said. “Where’s Phil ips? He’s missing. My people went in and he was gone.”
‘Telcam took a couple of breaths. He couldn’t admit he had human al ies, not with the company he was keeping now. He’d keep his mouth shut.
“We don’t have him.”
“Then damn wel find him, or you’re on your own.”
“We are winning. ”
“For the moment.”
“What are you tel ing me?”
I’m bluffing. Almost. But you’re in chaos, lucky or not, and you can’t afford to ignore me. “I want Phil ips back. Put the word out. Do whatever you have to do to find him, and I’l do what I can if the battle turns against you.”
“You know something.”
“Find him. And tel your people not to fire on my team, understood? Osman out.”
BB cut the comms. Osman expected her pulse to be racing, but it wasn’t. She was in control again. It felt good.
“Remind me never to play poker with you, Captain,” BB said. “And not just because I haven’t any hands.”
“Wel , that flushed out some surprises. Good spoof, BB.”
“And he’s misplaced a battlecruiser. Oops. Don’t you just hate it when that happens?”
Osman had backed herself into a corner over Phil ips, but it was a position she realized she would have found herself in sooner or later. Kilo-Five was there for one purpose: to keep Sanghelios divided, and that meant there could be no outright winner.
So … Pious Inquisitor . Now, what do the Kig-Yar want with her?
“I have a feeling that we ought to keep an eye out for her,” Osman said. “Just in case.”
ONIRF TREVELYAN Dr. Magnusson held out her hand. “I think we should do a blood test,” she said. “You’re not improving.”
Jul sat on his bunk and struggled to hold his head up. It was a disgrace to show weakness in front of a human, but he hadn’t been able to keep down food for two days and he was finding it harder to stay alert.
“You don’t know what you’re looking for,” he said. “What do you know of Sangheili biology?”
She folded her arms. It took her a few moments to speak. “Quite a lot now, actual y. You can learn a lot from dissection.”
“So you found a use for our fal en.”
“Wouldn’t you?” She held out her hand again, palm up. “Come on. It won’t hurt.”
She held a smal stylus in her right hand. He thrust out his palm, not sure what to expect, and she simply touched the stylus against one of his fingers. There was a brief feeling of suction, nothing more.
“There,” she said. “Al done. We’l take a look at that and see if we can find out exactly why you’re so sick. In the meantime, I’m going to put you back on your old diet. Gas has to be preferable to diarrhea and vomiting.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You wil be, sooner or later.” Magnusson leaned over him. He wasn’t sure that he stil had the strength to throttle her even if he decided to. “Now, you said something about going outside.”
She’d made a half-hearted promise, but he never expected her to try to keep it. Humans lied so easily that they didn’t even seem to realize they were doing it.
“Are you going to tel me it isn’t possible?”
“I did promise,” she said. “But I have to take security precautions.”
“I can’t escape from this world.” Right then, he’d have had trouble trying to escape from a warm bath. “You said so yourself.”
“You could stil cause a lot of damage, and you could certainly meet with an accident on Trevelyan. And I do mean an accident—we don’t know most of what’s out there yet. Think of it as a compromise.”
She stood back and went to open the door. A Huragok drifted into the room carrying something al too familiar. It was an explosive harness of the kind that the Brutes had sometimes fitted to Huragok to stop them from fal ing into enemy hands.
Jul doubted that the creature enjoyed the irony or even understood it. It approached him with the harness and stopped just in front of him with it draped over its tentacles, like a servant waiting for him to try on a new tunic.
“The device wil only be detonated if we can’t find you for an extended period,” Magnusson said. “And we now have complete satel ite coverage, so there’s no escaping it.” She went to the window and looked out, one hand flat on the toughened pane. “What a gorgeous day. It always is, though. It’s a very impressive climate management system.”
Jul was repel ed by the idea of the harness but the more he looked at it, the more an idea began to form, a new possibility—not the one he wanted, but a fal back position that might achieve his aim if al else failed. How many Huragok were there? Could he contrive a way of getting them in one place and somehow triggering the device?
But I don’t want to die. I want to go home. I want to see Raia again, and my keep, and my kin.
“I refuse to wear this,” he said. “I’m not an animal.”
“It’s the only way you’re going outside. Would you do any differently if I were your prisoner?”
Getting out of this cel was his priority. The rest was detail that he’d have to work out as he went. The opportunity was too important to let pass, and he knew his resolve was being eroded hour after hour by this painful, debilitating il ness. He debated whether to submit quietly. That would either placate her or make her more wary, but in the end, he wasn’t sure that it mattered.
“Very wel .” He held his arms out from his sides. “I can’t stand these four wal s any longer.”
The Huragok hesitated for a moment, then rose to place the col ar section over Jul’s head. He could see its tentacles working frantical y and feel the slight movement of air that they generated. The creature was remaking the harness as it went. The col ar was heavier than Jul expected.
“Can this thing understand me?” he asked.
“He has a translation device, yes. Whether you want to understand him is another matter.” Magnusson glanced at her datapad, smiling. The Huragok was obviously communicating with her. “He says he’s heard that Huragok have worn them with no il effects. Until they go off, of course.”
Jul was stil coming to terms with human humor. He understood sarcasm a great deal better. Perhaps that observation had come from her, and maybe it real y had come from the Huragok, but either way they were mocking him. The idea of a Huragok with a sarcastic side was more than he could accept. They were machines.
The creature finished securing the harness. Jul could see no clips or closures, no obvious point at which to unfasten the straps, and he was sure that trying to cut or tear them would trigger the explosive.
“Ask it a question for me,” he said.
“Ask him yourself. His name’s Prone. Short for Prone to Drift.”
“If you insist.” Jul found it impossible to make eye contact with it. It had too many eyes. “If you can put these devices on, why couldn’t you remove them from yourselves?”
Prone floated over to the window and peeled Magnusson’s datapad from her hand. She seemed amused by it— him—and perhaps even a little fond. Huragok dismantled and rebuilt equipment so fast that it was hard to see exactly what they were doing. Prone’s cilia were a translucent blur for just a few seconds before he appeared to extract something the size of a claw from the screen of the datapad itself and returned the device to Magnusson. He drifted back toward Jul, holding the tiny fragment in one tentacle.
“What’s that?” Jul demanded.
Prone placed the object on Jul’s harness, where it merged instantly with the fabric and sat there like a decorative silver thread.
< A modification so that you can listen to me. > Jul didn’t so much hear the words as feel them. It was like having a communicator buried in his skul . “I understand you.”
< They tell me that my brothers were assured it was for their own good. They were told that the humans would force them to destroy Forerunner creations if they captured them alive. > Prone paused. < They now know that was untrue. > Jul wondered if he detected a little vengeance in there somewhere. No, Huragok cared only about repairing and building. If they had any emotion, it was a response designed into them by the Forerunners to ensure that they were moved to compassion by the plight of faulty machinery. Had they been human … he knew humans wel enough by now to realize they would exact revenge whenever servants became masters.
Magnusson checked something on her datapad. “Got you. I can track you anywhere.”
“May I go outside now?” Jul asked.
“Yes, but be careful of the traffic.” It seemed like foolish advice, but she started laughing. “Prone was one of the custodians of this place, so I’m sure he’l be your tour guide.”
The words didn’t translate into Sangheili, but their meaning seemed clear in context and Jul made a note of them. He was picking up English a word at a time. Hinge-head. He’d final y worked that out.
The armored guard stood back to let him pass with a completely blank expression, but his chin was drawn back a little as if he found Jul repel ent and was trying to hold his breath. The man would probably have kil ed him if he hadn’t had orders not to. Suddenly Jul was in a narrow, featureless corridor with a door at one end and a rectangle of bright, beckoning sunlight set in it. His stomach was cramping and sore and his legs felt unsteady, but he drew himself up to his ful height and strode toward the door with as much dignity as he could muster after vomiting and soiling himself for two days. The door opened as he approached it.
The air was so sweet and fresh that it tasted like perfume. Jul sucked it in grateful y. Now he was standing in a quadrangle of prefabricated buildings around a central area of grass dotted with wild flowers. Through the gaps between them, he could see open downs dotted with more gray and steel blue buildings, and, in the far distance, elegant towers that could never have been made by humans.
Magnusson shoved him gently in the smal of his back.
“Go on,” she said. “Go for a walk.”