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"The top line says access, or pathway, or connection," he said "The row beneath that--I’m uncertain But the lines below that al contain the word for circle Loop Ring"

"Halos Please tel ht there were more out there, on standby to be activated and wipe out al life, but finding and deco them was another matter "With locations"

"It could wel be, but I can’t see any coordinates Just ordinal nus"

"So … one through seven, yes?"

"Correct"

"Why the symbols? Why are there two sets of symbols?"

"Location, perhaps, and the assumption of the person who created this was that others knehat that symbol was shorthand for Or status"

"You mean status status, or black, red, amber status? Like the security alert escalation?"

"I mean on or off, locked or unlocked, up or down--"

And then it hit Phil ips right between the eyes Status One of the Halo rings had been destroyed

He counted again, co the shapes No, there are six like this, one like that Did I reht?

But these symbols must have been here for thousands of years They were carved into the stone How could they ht they did?

How could they be indicators of functioning and nonfunctioning Halos when one of them had only been deactivated in the last year?

"Sorry, I was getting too excited," Phil ips said "I real y thought this ht be a status panel, but it’s just stone"

He reached out to touch the syht of as on-off switches The layer that he could feel and but not see yielded and he found his fingertips against the intricately detailed shape He could feel it

"I wouldn’t touch that if I were you, Professor," BB said

Phil ips stepped back "Yeah, if that was a big red button, I alactic core"

"Wel , you’ve activated so Look"

Phil ips felt his sto except the cartouche "What?"

"Look at the syed"

"They haven’t It’s just stone" Phil ips looked up at the ceiling and scanned 360 degrees in case he was ed"

"It has I can compare every microframe I’ve recorded" BB was persistent but polite "I don’t knohat the words ed, and now they say to find soher, or better I’ue Halsey left copious notes and some of them are a little too fulsoious text, so stone, stone that changed while he was standing right in front of it No, that was impossible But the Forerunners--if they could bend ti with stone was probably easy-peasy for theered? What did he have to strive for or aspire to? He was thinking in puzzle tere when an idea struck hiht out of the initial question he’d put to BB

Black, red, amber status? Like the security alert escalation?

He was an acadeence the hard way, and the way he thought was changing fro hi him he had to find someone senior to him

Maybe it was like any weapon of mass destruction on Earth They usual y needed more than one person to validate the launch and activate it, just to be on the safe side Maybe the garrison here hadn’t been trusted to fire Halos on their own How he’d been able to get the stone to react--and why the Sangheili hadn’t already tried this--wasn’t half as i out what the hel he’d done

"Oh, bugger it, BB," he said "I think I ht have just primed a Halo"

UNSC TART-CART, PREPARING TO ENTER SANGHEILI SPACE "So how oing to have a dissociative episode, are you?"

"Three," BB said Vaz thought he sounded irritable "And no And stopin her neural implant at the best of times"

Nao their way at a brisk pace "You know the rules, BB Do the translating, but don’t mess with my nervous system unless I’m in trouble"

"I behaved impeccably last time"

"Tourist"

"Oh, it’s al bitch, bitch, bitch You loveMal just raised his eyebrows The ODSTs put on their hel dropped on the deck, transformed by her Mjolnir aroldway from inscrutable, but that was one of the comforts of ful -face helmets Nobody could real y tel if you were scared, worried, or just checking your pay-slip

She settled down in one of the reinforced seats and folded her arms across her chest "Don’t worry, Vasya, I’ hi about her father or the fact that she now had a piece of BB on the loose in her brain, ready to enhance her reactions "Worry about Phil ips"

"I already did that"

She didn’t take the conversational bait and Vaz found hier on Staffan Sentzke Staffan needed to know he’d been right, and that his kid had survived He had to be told how she’d spent her life and what she did now, because he’d paid a hel of a price for it But Vaz didn’t know if that would give hio crazy I knoould No wonder the colonies hated us If all this ever goes public, the ones that are still left are going to hate us even more

Osman stuck her head into the crew bay "Just fol ow the Elite escort and don’t let the bastards provoke you, okay? Vaz, Devereaux--you’ve been there before Relax And remember to launch those comms drones, because that’s our only chance to monitor voice traffic down there"

"We’re very relaxed, ma’am," Mal said "But I hope you declined the civic reception and parade"

"I’l keep trying ‘Telcao crashing around the te UNSC troops on their patch would offendup in Kenya for the dedication of the Voi et moment Nobody lobbed bricks at him, but the expressions on their faces said they’d have real y liked to, given half a chance

The hatch closed with a hiss and Devereaux started the launch sequence