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The humans came back to peer at him from time to time

Jul could hear them outside even if he couldn’t see the to see if he was stil alive or plucking up courage to enter the cel again He had no way of knowing the layout of the ship, but how coars, he knew he’d been brought up fro his way back down there, seizing the shuttle, and sh the stern doors

It would breach the corvette’s hul and kil its occupants, almost certainly, but that was a welcoet out of the cel

The footsteps outside stopped and there was a slight hiss as a viewscreen opened in the door

"Shiphtly built than the others, with even less muscle than the tal female shipmaster, but he was clearly someone of importance to them "Jul ‘Mdama, your clan’s worried about you They don’t knohere you are Your friend Forze is searching for you"

Phil ips spoke a Sangheili dialect He pronounced it like an idiot child, the kind best cul ed for the good of the clan, but the words were understandable and his graainst his wil , Jul found himself drawn instantly into debate He knew he shouldn’t have responded but he found it impossible to resist

Poor Forze Poor Raia

He would have thought it was purely interrogator’s bluff if Phil ips hadn’t mentioned Forze’s na radio channels Hu around than they were at honest warfare, just like the Kig-Yar Those tere made for each other

"And he one froht up to the door and roared against the screen, jaide open Phil ips didn’t even flinch That was ree now, and one of the ar beside Phil ips, hel a short carbine Jul had looked into enough hue their feelings The soldier clearly loathed Sangheili to the depth of his being He had a conspicuous scar along his jaw and greenish-brown eyes that didn’t blink, those awful pale human eyes like a dead fish’s Jul doubted that the man wanted to ask hi down there?" Phil ips asked He was a co, alive, consu the monk?"

"Why don’t you let me out of here before I simply tear my way out?"

"Here’s the problem" Phil ips did that display of teeth which was supposed to be a friendly gesture in a huh Jul had always found that very odd What was the point of displaying your fangs if it wasn’t a warning? "If we let you go, you’re going to cause a lot of probleht even be helpful to us, and then one day we can hand you back to your clan"

"If you think you can threaten me, you should know better No ive me electric shocks"

Phil ips frowned for ato him that made him shake his head Phil ips leaned close to the viewscreen and held up the arum that one of the soldiers had taken

"This is wonderful It’s beautiful ywith it,the spheres around Jul could hear the clunk and tap of the stone inside "It certainly teaches you patience, doesn’t it?" Phil ips wassections of the spheresit up to his ear to listen to it with that bared-teeth expression "There … nearly got it … there!"

He held his palers of his other hand barely able to grip the sphere, and shook it

To Jul’s horror, the stone fel out

It was reen, like a little planet, like a tiny version of Earth, the world that had nearly been within the Covenant’s grasp Jul al a hu captured

"It took et there" Phil ips dropped the stone back in the slot and scras like that when I was a child"

Jul couldn’t work out if it was a psychological trick or genuine innocence, but whatever the intention it had shaken hiheili could unlock an arum within days, let alone hours

Phil ips tossed the sphere between his hands, back and forth "Jul, I’ive us answers

Many humans feel the same way But what do you think your brothers and your clan would think if we let everyone on Sanghelios know that you’d surrendered to us?"

Phil ips just looked at him, teeth now covered by his lips, but stil with that stupid upward curve of his ht have been amusement or an atteheili better than Jul had anticipated This was the worst possible shame, and Phil ips obviously knew it To be exposed as a traitor and a coward, so to trade his honor for histhat would not only soil Jul’s memory but also cast a massive stain on his entire clan Raia would never be able to remarry Al the children of the keep would be shunned, shut out of Sangheili society, in case he had fathered them It would be both the end of his personal bloodline and that of al his brothers It was beyond death

Yes, huled for a retort This wasn’t the way Sangheili dealt with an enerabbed the human by his scrawny throat and squeezed the life out of him, but that was a pleasure he’d have to reserve for later He had to think his way out of this

"But if you tel anyone that you have a Sangheili prisoner," he said, "how can your Shipmaster of Shipmasters make peace with the Arbiter?

That’s what you seek, isn’t it?"

Phil ips blinked, nothing more "Wel , that makes the assumption that ould tel the honorable If ere to say that you’d given yourself up while doing a deal with us to overthrow the Arbiter, how do you think that that would be received at hoot," Jul said "You just lie, don’t you?"

"So we do" Phil ips did that nauseating curve of his lips again "It saves on ammunition, my friend here tel s ive you," Jul said "Even if I was such a disgrace to my clan that I wanted to"