She closed her eyes. “Weak—still there.”
“What was your function?”
“I helped design installations to fight the Flood,” she said.
“Halos?”
“Yes. In their later stages.”
I could not help myself, hearing this. I pounded my fist against a bulkhead and produced the strangest, most demented of grunts.
“You’re laughing!” the female said indignantly. “Only animals do that.”
“And humans,” I said, covering my mouth as another fit came upon me.
Sharp looked aside, ashamed for me.
At the last, Forthencho, the greatest human general, my most challenging opponent, as the Lifeshaper and I had prepared for his reduction at Charum Hakkor, had smiled—and then had made just such sharp, grunting noises.
In later years, I dreamed about that sound, that emotion. I came to understand and even appreciate it. Something had brought forth that human-like rictus, had made me smile as I entered the Cryptum, causing my wife to fear for my sanity, I suspect.
But why now? Something churned in the back of my thoughts … A dark complex of evidence and induction. Part of me understood something my intellect found repellent. The Primordial’s last statement to me from the timelock. The puzzling development of human resistance to the Flood. The Lifeshaper and the Council collaborating with the Master Builder to preserve human personalities, human memory and history, in part through the use of Composers …
The unprecedented destruction of Precursor artifacts at Charum Hakkor.
Before I could voice my suspicions, fortune turned direction.
“Ship is waking,” the Builder said, looking down at her hand as if it might be deceiving her. “We won’t have to rely on the damaged ancilla. I think my family may have designed this class of vessel—thousands of years ago. I’m asking it to survey its capabilities.”
* * *
The female Builder’s name was Maker-of-Moons. She came from an old family long involved in the manufacture of fast, heavily armed ships.
“I knew your father,” I told her. “He served the Master Builder—performed his dirty tricks. Your father was directly responsible for forcing me into exile.”
Sharp gave her a rueful glance.
Maker’s armor took an automatic stance, a defensive mode, but she stared me down and forced it to relax.
“He died ten years ago,” she said. “Assassinated at the orders of the Master Builder.”
“I did not know.”
“How could you, Didact? You abandoned us.”
I held back another useless grunt. Obviously, while waiting for the ship to assess, and our enemies to close in, there was little more we could do.
This was the time for stories.
Maker was less than two thousand years old. The Master Builder’s strengthening grip on the Council had led to difficult times even for Builders, especially those who, unlike her father, were not part of the general corruption.
Maker’s first assignment had been to improve upon existing plans for Halos. But she found a fatal flaw in the Master Builder’s original design. “They were too damned big,” she told us. “Transporting a Halo produces an enormous debt in reconciliation. There was no way the original Halos could all be sent to where they were needed with sufficient speed and flexibility. I could not follow through.”
This flaw, she said, had been discovered only during final testing of the first installations. Worse, the Ark built to manufacture them was not capable of making smaller Halos. A few of the deployed Halos were theoretically capable of shedding segments and thus mass and size, but for all their power they were remarkably delicate. Self-reduction entailed too many dangers—instability and collapse being the most obvious.
Nobody had listened to her. After decades of work and frustration, getting nowhere, she had resigned in protest.
She gave me a stern, searching look. “For my obstinacy, I was brought up before the Juridicals. My father intervened. On Faber’s orders, Builder Security executed him.” She nudged Catalog with her armored foot. It reacted like a sleepy insect. “This was my confessor. The Master Builder ordered us both placed in stasis.”
With a quivering groan, Catalog attempted to stand on three limbs and managed to extend a number of complicated looking eyes.
“I am Catalog,” it announced.
“We know,” Sharp said.
It looked around and wobbled before us, making those peculiar internal clicking and slopping noises common to Catalog and disgusting—to my sensibilities, at least.
This one did not look especially strong. It slowly rotated, two of its limbs tangling, and leaned toward Maker-of-Moons. “My assignment…” It nearly fell over, but righted itself at the last moment. “My assignment is this Builder.” It made stuttering noises for a few seconds, then apologized. “I appear to be damaged,” it said. “Something has attempted to access my processes.”
“Did it succeed?” Maker asked.
“Not that I am aware of. I may no longer be secure, however, and should not take testimony. As a precaution.”
“Wise,” I said. “Can you add anything further to this Builder’s story?”
“Is this ship capable of communicating?”
“No,” Maker said.
Catalog’s voice gained some strength. “There are Juridical channels available even out here. Unfortunately, their use for extra-Juridical traffic is forbidden.”
Obviously we would have to supply persuasion. I assisted Catalog as it rotated its carapace again and focused its many eyes on the approaching ships.
“Those are not allies, are they?” it asked.
“Almost certainly not,” I said.
It turned its eyes and other sensors on me. “You are the Didact, against whom the Council and the Master Builder lodged a formal complaint over a thousand years ago.”
“I am,” I said.
“That case has been dismissed,” Catalog said. “There are no longer proceedings against you.” It paused. “There have been dramatic developments since I was removed from the Master Builder’s presence. Many indeed. The Old Council was nearly destroyed by an attack on the Capital system. There is a New Council. But there is also…” It examined me more closely, with a suspicious backward lean. “Are you sure you’re the Didact? Because there is another, working with the Lifeshaper and given full authority.”
So Bornstellar survived!
“I imprinted a Manipular in case of my capture. That is likely him.”
“So much to catch up on…” Its voice dropped and its words slowed. “Oh, my. Juridicals have reorganized. We have been found wanting. There was corruption.”
“Indeed,” I said. I left Catalog to its catching up and asked Maker if this ship could be convinced to move to a more secure location while we studied our options.