Halo: Primordium (18 page)

But very likely a Lifeworker.

As I hung, the huge hand rotated me, alowing me to see, outlined by the glow of the flickering flame, three or four other figures. These looked human, male and female—but not like me and not like Gamelpar and Vinnevra.

As for what it was that dangled me like a child—

“Ah, finaly!” the Forerunner said in a thin, musical voice, light as a breeze. “We’d feared you were lost for good.” Then he addressed my captor in a gruffer, darker tone, ending with a chuff and a clack of teeth, and the clutching hand lowered me to the floor

—gently enough, though my wrist, fingers, and shoulder hurt.

“Your name is Chakas, true?” the Forerunner asked, waving the flame near my face.

Why
fire? Why not—

I stood up, stretching and massaging my sore arm, surrounded by extraordinary figures. The humans were not any variety I had seen before, but more like me than the Forerunner, and certainly more like me than the looming, black-furred shape.

I answered that was my name.

“He is not from here.” Vinnevra shoved through the circle and stood in front of me, arms extended, as if to protect me. I tried to push her off, to get her to leave—I did not want to be responsible for anything that might happen here—but she would not budge.

“Indeed he is not,” the Forerunner agreed, stretching out his hand and spreading those long, slender fingers. “His coming was anticipated. He was to be the Master Builder’s prize. Do not fear us,” he added, more for Vinnevra’s benefit than mine. “No one wil be taken to the Palace of Pain. That time is soon finished, and there is no need for punishment or vengeance. The Master Builder’s doom and the fate of his forces is worse than humans can imagine.”
MONITOR INTRUSION ALERT

Ship’s data accessed:
Historical/Anthropological Files, re: Earth Africa/Asia. Source determined to be Forerunner Monitor.

CAUTIONARY NOTICE FROM STRATEGIC COMMANDER:
“Any further break-ins to ship’s data and I’ll toss that damned thing into space. I don’t give a flying fortune cookie how much you’re learning! It’s a menace! Make it get to the point!”
RESPONSE FROM SCIENCE TEAM *DELETED FOR BREVITY*

*AI RECALIBRATION*

FIREWALLS PUSHED TO ^INFINITE RANDOM MAZE^

MONITOR STREAM NUMBER THREE (Nonrepeating)

In the morning light, we folowed in the train of the Forerunner, taking a winding vine-covered path to higher ground. The foothils to the mountains were also thick with jungle. The mountains themselves trapped the cloudy masses of moist air that echoed back and forth across the span of the Halo and forced them to drop their moisture nearly every night, and so the false rocks and ridges ran with cascades of foaming water, drawing silver-white streaks over the green and black. Those probably emptied into the sea behind us, but there was no way of knowing.

The air too was wet, and the ground beneath us warmer, steaming, as if great vents of hot water laced through the foundation (and perhaps they did).

Once, on Earth, there were many types of hominids, hominoids, and anthropoids who no doubt also thought of themselves as People. I was closest in form to those who now interrogate me; Riser was smaler, of a different species. Gamelpar and Vinnevra I suspect most closely resembled those you cal Aborigines, from the ancient continent of Australia.

The humans who accompanied this lone Forerunner bore some resemblance to those you now refer to as Denisovans. They were taler than me, chocolate brown, with spare bodies, reddish hair, and square heads. The males had copious facial hair.

The huge black shadow with long arms—a great ape like a gorila, but not a gorila—I believe is known to you only through a few fossil molars of impressive size. You cal it
Gigantopithecus,
the largest anthropoid ever seen on Earth, almost three meters at the shoulders and crest, even taler standing up.

And this one was a female. According to your records, the males could have been larger.

Frightening in countenance but gentle in behavior, the great shadow-ape seemed to have taken a liking to Gamelpar and Vinnevra and carried them for a time on her shoulders. Great bristling wings of gray-tipped dark red fur framed her broad, sloping face. Huge lips pouched down around squat, thick incisors large enough to chew through wood and crush bone—but in our presence she ate mostly leaves and fruits.

Gamelpar, riding high over us, clutched the dense fur on the ape’s shoulder and smiled al the while. Vinnevra looked happier than I had yet seen her. Several times she looked down upon me, walking among the Denisovans—three males and two females, laconic and moody—and said to me, each time, “It’s coming back to me now. This is my true
geas.
This is what I
should
have seen.” Eventualy, the ape’s loping gait and frequent passage under low-hanging branches forced Vinnevra and Gamelpar to the ground to walk on their own.

The Denisovans, who appeared to find Gamelpar’s age intriguing, studied his weariness with sympathetic sighs, then used vines to tie together a litter, and for a while he rode that way, Vinnevra walking by his side.

The old man’s lips drew back in a broad smile. “Much better,” he said.

There was something about this process—the regular way the litter swung, the smoothness with which it was carried—that caught my eye; but I dismissed my concerns, for now.

We climbed higher. The canopy thinned. We could see much of the sky. By the time the sun brushed the middle of the darkling band of the sky bridge, and shadow was equidistant from us to either side

—“noon”—we arrived at a plateau.

The Forerunner caled forth several hovering, round, blue-eyed machines, which met us at the thinning margin of the jungle. He addressed them with finger-signs, and the machines moved among us, paying particular attention to Vinnevra and Gamelpar—then to

me.

The Denisovans did not find these floating bals remarkable.

“They’re caled monitors,” the talest of the males said to me. He had chunky, ruddy features, a very large nose, and thin lips. “They serve the Lady . . . mostly.”

The old man leaned on his side in the litter while one of the machines passed a blue band of light over his skinny frame. The machine then did the same to me, and spun around to face the Forerunner, who accepted some communication we could not hear and seemed satisfied.

We had traveled some distance. The ape had found a little food suitable to the rest of us—fruit, mostly: strange green tubes with pointed ends and round, pulpy masses encased in reddish skins—

but we were stil thirsty. Worse, more insects had taken a liking to our blood and buzzed around us in annoying clouds.

“Why does the Lady alow such nuisances?” Vinnevra asked me in an aside while the machine was examining her grandfather.

I shook my head and swatted.

“This is a special reserve,” the tal Denisovan said. “We feed the flies, the flies feed the bats and birds and the fish. It is the Lady’s way.” But I noticed the insects ignored them and focused on us.

Vinnevra was not impressed. She swung and slapped and murmured, “It was better back in the city.”

“Back in the city, you were under the rule of the Master Builder,” the tal Denisovan said, as if that explained anything. “Was it better to be taken to the Palace of Pain?”

Vinnevra shuddered. “We are the
People
!” she said defensively, giving that last word the peculiar emphasis that denoted superiority.

“No doubt,” the tal Denisovan said with an understanding smile.

Vinnevra wrinkled her nose, took a deep whiff, and glared at me, but I was in no mood for her theatrics.

We stood on the edge of the plateau. For a moment, a breeze came up and scattered the insects, then—a profound stilness. I looked around at the others.

“What’s your name?” I asked the tal Denisovan.

“Kirimt,” he responded with a sweep of his hand. In turn he introduced the females, partners to the other males. One of the males did not seem to have a female in this group.

Vinnevra received these introductions with a haughty expression, unwiling as yet to admit any of them to her protected inner circle.

During al this I kept my eye on the Forerunner, and now he returned his attention to me. His focused interest made me uncomfortable; he seemed to look right through me. Then, his facial muscles altered slightly, his eyes crinkled up, and he bowed his head.

I had learned, during my time with Bornstelar, to pick up on some of the expressions Forerunners used, however strange and stiff their faces, and I thought I detected a hint of relief and something like pride. But this one was stiffer than usual, stiffer even than the Didact.

“With this group, the Librarian may have enough,” he said—or some word like “enough,” more technical.

Gamelpar held up his hand and climbed off the litter. He drew himself up straight, then took back his stick from Kirimt, who had carried it for him.

“Our capabilities are much reduced,” the Forerunner continued.

“The Master Builder’s security has suffered a great setback, but we who serve the Librarian have yet to regain our strength.” The ape reclined on the grassy ground. Vinnevra and Gamelpar knelt down next to her, then leaned back on her great round bely and rested. The ape cocked her head, as if capable both of listening and understanding.

“What’s your name?” I asked the Forerunner.

“I am Genemender Folder of Fortune,” he said, blinking eloquently. Something about his eyes—the smoothness of that quick motion of the eyelids—disturbed me.

“Are you going to set us free and return us to Erde-Tyrene?” I asked. The question just popped out of me, and it reminded me that despite al I had experienced, I was stil young and more than a little brash.

“I wish that were possible,” he said. “Communication has broken down and many of our facilities have been damaged. Power stations everywhere have been sabotaged. There are only a few damaged stations left to supply the needs of the entire wheel. They are not enough—yet.”

The breeze had slowed and the insects returned. The Forerunner waved his long fingers, and suddenly they al moved off to hover in a bal several meters away. “I advise you to stay here with us until stability returns. There is food, shelter, and an explanation I hope wil satisfy al as to our intentions.”

After a few minutes’ rest, the Denisovans and the Forerunner urged us to get moving again. The Denisovans took the lead, skirting the humming bal of frustrated insects and walking in a loose line toward the middle of the plateau.

“Wil you ever alow us freedom?” I asked Genemender. “Or are we like those insects?”

A quick flick of expression—embarrassment?

“Not our choosing,” he said.

We pushed through the edge of the jungle and saw a clearing ahead, a flat expanse of short-cut green grass. Huts raised on stilts surrounded the clearing on three sides but not where we entered.

“Come with us,” Kirimt said. “This is where we live.” The air at the center of the clearing shimmered and a silvery blue blob appeared, surrounded by a wal of tree trunks. From where we stood, it was hard to determine just how large the blob actualy was—its rounded contours were perfectly reflecting, in a distorted way, everything around it. Perhaps the blob concealed something else—perhaps it was what Bornstelar had caled a Dazzler.

The shadow-ape stood back for a moment with Vinnevra, but she supported Gamelpar, who now refused the litter. As he walked past me, arm over her shoulder, he said, “There is no other place to be. But
we
hear you.” And he gave me a direct gaze, one old soldier to another—neither exactly present.

Kirimt swung up his arm and jerked his head, let’s go, and I realized there was nothing more to say or do for the moment but comply.

The Denisovans escorted us over the lush grass to the huts. An empty hut waited in the middle. Al the huts were accessible through steps or ladders, but the shadow-ape lifted Gamelpar up and over the rail onto the porch. He stood there, gripping the bamboo rail, while Vinnevra and I climbed the rough-cut steps. From the porch we had a broad view of the clearing and of the Denisovans gathered below.

“Clean up, rest, and then we wil share supper,” Kirimt said.

Vinnevra wrapped herself in her arms and stooped to pass through the low door into the hut’s interior. Gamelpar seemed content to watch the shadows lengthen across the jungle and the clearing.

The ape reached out, gently nudged the old man’s hip with a thick-nailed finger,
whuffed,
then moved around to the left and vanished in the trees.