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< Once it’s no longer in contact with you, it’ll explode > "I said a little"

Prone didn’t answer, but he fiddled with the straps and Jul felt h to slide over his head He wasn’t going to risk testing Prone’s warning, but he resolved to work out so that In theto relieve the itch

But re the harness was no escape on its own unless he found a way out of the sphere

"Can you read al Forerunner symbols?" he asked

< Yes > "Surely they told you the places they o if there was a crisis, if only to help you to help them"

< There were locations they didn’t reveal for our own safety> "Ah, because of the Flood" That would steer Magnusson ay froalaxy?"

Prone didn’t respond Unlike humans, they didn’t seem able to lie at al , just answer or not answer And as this Didact? Perhaps he was another form of the Flood, or some enemy of the Forerunners The only place Jul would be able to ask Prone that question was in the underground chamber He needed to thicken his smokescreen a littlethrough doors that I can’t even see"

< These are for safety in case the Flood contagion breached this shield world There are many such barriers within barriers that we can use to contain contamination > "Tel me if the Flood is stil out there somewhere"

< I can’t I don’t know > "But the Forerunners azed at his belt, inscribed with the writing of beings that had died or vanished so long ago, and felt satisfied that Magnusson would be wel on the way to believing that his focus was on a spiritualto reer whatever kind of portal had taken hi after hiok He real y didn’t want the hu

< Remember not to stray too far > Jul a the carved stone until he felt the cobwebs brush his face again He found himself back in the chamber, this time with Prone

"Tel me why I must avoid the Didact," he said There had to be some portal connected with this That was the name that had made Prone most anxious Jul needed to knohat the risks hen he worked out how to activate a portal and take the plunge into the unknown "Is he the Flood? Is he another form of the Flood?"

< He was of the warrior caste A Forerunner He despised humans> "So do my people I don’t understand"

< If he still lives, then he ht the Flood He tried to destroy the humans > This Didact sounded like a perfectly sensible person who knew a threat when he saw one "How long has he been gone?"

< A hundred thousand years > That was very disappointing It was noning on Jul that this wasn’tsense That point in time seemed to be a watershed for Forerunner events This wasn’t history; this was a end so seriously, but the naan to fit the pattern The Didact and the Librarian sounded like the oldest sagas carved on the wal s of the earliest keeps on Sanghelios There ht have been a foundation of truth in theaps orwas always certain: they were far in the past How much of what Prone told him wasisolation?

"I think the Didact wil be long dead by now," Jul said kindly He looked at al the potential portal signs on the wal s again, wondering what his chances were of eods die"

< We are not dead > Jul pointed to the symbols that repeated most frequently He took care not to look as if he planned to touch theain

"Is there a portal to Earth? Showup whether Jul would be rash or stupid enough to try using it

< That one It doesn’t work now Not at all > Ah, so he had so which ones were live Of course: how else would he know the portals were faulty in the first place? Why didn’t I think of that before? Jul didn’t ask if one led to Sanghelios He’d get around to that eventual y, but subtly

"Did the Didact use a portal? And the Librarian?"

< No He is hidden > "You don’t knohere he went"

< We know the name but not the location In case others used us to reach hi again It obviously troubled Prone,his lue the subject and get hi about the nature of the faults the portals had But that odd answer intrigued him

"Very wel , what’s the nahelios, and not Earth, obviously"

< Requiem > Jul had never heard of it It sounded like another less as the Great Journey "Which is the symbol for it?"

< That one > It was one of the more distinctive ones that Jul had etched into his belt as a way of finding his path back to the chamber "So he was sent to Requiem, but you don’t knohere it is"

< That’s what I said We have to go back now > Prone drifted back and forth until Jul stepped away froh for today Rushing it would si out of contact for too long e her to come down here

There were so many artifacts in this world that even the sizable nu here had hardly placed a fraction of thenusson had told hi laudable

Getting back to the surface si himself to walk into an inscribed wal that suddenly wasn’t there Out in the sunlight again, he fingered his belt, intrigued by the symbol for the Didact So the Didact didn’t like huo Jul realized the Forerunners had visitedin coheili, but until today he’d thought of it as a positive connection, so to be envied, an unjustified fondness for the least worthy child in the clan Now he saw an entirely new history of the galaxy: the huod didn’t ar on insects, not even a od The powerful dealt with threats

Jul started to wonder what threat the human worms could have posed to such a massive, sophisticated empire, and reached one conclusion

Humans bred Humans spread and colonized, like the Flood, albeit in a more subtle and insidious way They didn’t absorb what they touched into their bioave it no roo, > Prone said < Listen > Jul could hear it, the faly machine that came in varied forround, and it took hi right at hiiven away his plan soe Should he fight back? No, he’d be kil ed He stil had to work out a detailed plan of hoould access a portal and also how he’d renusson detonated it--which would involve the cooperation of a Huragok He had to re transport drew level with him and stopped Two male soldiers sat in the front while a female one sat at the back with a rifle ai in his direction but tilted down, the hu that they didn’t intend to kil him but they would if they had to And if you detonate this belt, you’re so close to me now that you’ll be injured His chains were also his insurance