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How could she get an answer out of Prone that she could understand? She shared one common unit of time with him, and that was this artificial world

HOW LONG? she asked again IN ONYX DAYS WE CALL THIS PLACE ONYX

The years had been longer here, but the days were very close in length to Earth’s, one of the factors that got the colonists’ interest Earth-bred crop varieties could grow in their natural cycles without much modification

Does Prone know there was a planet outside here, though? Co a Forerunner bunker Of course he knows

She wasn’t sure what the length of the day was inside the sphere, but she kneasn’t ten hours or anything that would give her an answer that was too far off the lass

37000000 She counted the zeroes That couldn’t be right IN WORDS, she responded ONE, TWO, THREE?

Prone got it right away THIRTY SEVEN MILLION

Lucy had to stop and reread it Was he real y saying 37 mil ion days? That was … she shut her eyes to h idea of the years

She made that a hundred thousand

Oh God Oh God, no We’ve been in here that long?

It hadn’t been much of a world, and her life had been miserable, but she wasn’t ready to turn her back on al that it had been Now she definitely had to ot this information

I HAVE TO GET OUT, Lucy wrote NOW

She could feel her throat tightening and an awful pressure building up at the roof of herto burst into tears She’d alwaysripped out of ti she was prepared for at al

Prone seeht just have been trying to take samples of her tears because he didn’t knohat they were, but she preferred to think that he was being kind

I MUST RESTORE YOU, he wrote

They were colish, but that didn’t necessarilywords the sa sense, however sane she sounded to herself

RESTORE WHAT? she asked

RECLAIMER, he said

Prone drifted away to gaze at his own screen for a while Then he flashed up soht he was bored and that his attention had drifted back to machines, but every few minutes he would float across and put the flat paddlelike end of one tentacle on her cheek She felt a tickling sensation every tiht the Flood hadn’t overrun the galaxy and the Halo hadn’t fired, he seemed to believe the crisis was over-- one hundred thousand years over

Wel , hers wasn’t She had toto grab hi at the sche hi loom, a closed syste, ht Souely familiar

Lucy took a few steps back so that the detail blurred and she could get a sense of the overal shape Then it struck her She had to cast heron Onyx She was seven or eight years old, grappling with subjects she’d never had to worry about at school, and she was trying to copy a diagray text

Human circulation It’s the human circulatory systeated figure of eight or an infinity syram that had appeared in anatoed at one of Prone’s free ar screen

WHY CIRCULATION? she wrote

TO HELP ME REPAIR YOU

Lucy nohere this was going Prone reached out to one side of the workshop, a flurry of tentacles and cilia, and whipped out a sray cylinder exactly like the ones that had been stalking the squad outside She was ready to trust hi now

HOLD OUT YOUR HAND, he wrote

She had nothing to lose The more he knew about her, theher situation She thrust her hand out, palray cylinder drifted free and hung in front of her for a few seconds Then it ht was just a walProne turned away and studied the circulation diagra on it, one at ti the display change, then turned to her,noises like a strea out what to say

YOU ARE WELL WHY ARE YOU SILENT?

He reached out and put a tentacle on the top of her head Lucy took it as a co, but then she had another thought: Is he analyzing ineers’ tentacles obviously provided more than just a sense of touch at what seemed to be a molecular level Maybe they could detect electrical activity through the kind to her

He withdrew and wrote on the screen again NOT BALANCED, BUT SPEECH CENTER IS UNDAMAGED WHY CAN I NOT REPAIR YOU?

It was a very good question Lucy chewed over the not balanced bit before responding I’M NOT BROKEN

YOU ARE VERY BROKEN LUCY-B902 RECLAIMERS SPEAK

It was one thing trying to explain things she understood Al she had to do was find the words, and that was co back to her faster than she’d expected But her inability to talk was soave herself didn’t explain why she couldn’t snap out of this when she absolutely needed to

NOT BALANCED? she asked

MORE SCARED AND ANGRY THAN YOU NEED TO BE BUT WHY DO YOU NOT TALK?