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"Your tongue isn’t bleeding now Can you tel me what it’s like where you come froue, jaw Al were sore, but I could talk easily enough I propped myself up on h her nose and leaned forward to wipe " Later I would put this word in context and understand that it meant the People from Here, or just the People

"And this isn’t Erde-Tyrene"

"I doubt it Where we are is a place between other places

Where we ca, we do not want to be So we live here and wait Sometimes Forerunners take us away"

"Forerunners?"

"The gray ones The blue ones The black ones Or their machines"

"I know some of them," I said

She looked dubious "They don’t like us We’re happy they haven’t coht and filed with fire--"

"Where do they come from--these People?" I waved h the door, so sounds

"Some of us coathered frorass Soo, after they saw you fal from the sky in your jar One felow tries to make people pay to see you"

I heard a scuffle outside, a yelp, and then three burly gawkers shuffled in, keeping wel back fro bastard who fancies you?" I asked her

She shook her head "Another fool He wants more food They just knock him down and kick him aside"

She didn’t seele, rivercity, prairie Sounds like hoawkers with pinched disappoint to be fas too h to go outside?"

She pressed awkers out, looked back, and stepped through the hanging grass door When she returned, she carried a roughly carved wooden bowl With her fingers she spooned sorass seed It didn’t taste very good--what I could taste of it--but what I sed stayed in er

Then she said, "Tio outside, before someone decides to kil you" She helpedburst of bluish white glare dazzledof dread, of not wanting to be where I was, caht

But she persisted and puledup like a distant wal Turning slowly, swiveling an to curve upward, ever so gently I swung around The horizon curved upward to both sides Not good, not right Horizons do not curve up

I folowed the gradualy rising sweep higher and higher The land kept cli, until I could see both sides of a great, wide band filed with grassland, rocky fieldsular dark blue smear crossed almost the entire width of the band, flanked and interrupted by the nearest of those e body of water And everywhere out there on the band--clouds in puffs and swirls and spreading white shreds, like streaher and higher

I leanedover-- until the rising band crossed into shadow and slimmed to a skinny, perfect ribbon that cut the sky in half and just hung there--a dark blue, overarching sky bridge At an angle about two-thirds of the way up one side of the bridge, perched just above the edge, was the source of the intense, purple-blue light: a s my hand over the blue sun, I studied the opposite horizon The wal on that side was too far away to see But I guessed that both sides of the great ribbon were flanked by wals Definitely not a planet

My hopes fel to zero My situation had not improved in any way

I was not home I was very far fro-shaped weapons that had so entranced and divided my Forerunner captors

I was marooned on a Halo

Chapter Two

HOW I WISH I could recover the true shape of that young human I was! Naïve, crude, unlettered, not very clever I fear that over the last hundred thousand years, e has changed--I have no body to guide ht seehted down by far too e

I was not sophisticated--not in the least My ier, confusion, unchecked curiosity-- but no purpose, no focused ae, and now, he was gone

When I was born, the supreme Lifeshaper came to Erde-Tyrene to touch me with her wil Erde-Tyrene was her world, her protectorate and preserve, and humans were special to her I remember she was beautiful beyond measure, unlike o

My family farmed for a while outside of the main huht with a water baron’s thugs, and our crops failed, we moved into the city, where my sisters and I took up menial tasks for modest pay For a time, my sisters also served as Prayer Maidens in the temple of the Lifeshaper They lived away from Mother and me, in a makeshift temple near the Moon Gate, in the western section of the Old City

But I see your eyes glazing over A Reclai you yawn s and could yaith you You know nothing of Marontik, so I wil not bore you further with those details

Why are you so interested in the Didact? Is he proving to be a difficulty to hu I wil not tel you about the Didact, not yet I wil tel this in my oay This is the wayon

After the Librarian (I was only an infant when I saw her) the next Forerunner I encountered was a young Manipular na I set out to trick hi life

Back before Iinto trouble and stealing I liked fighting and didn’tand didn’tsmal wounds and bruises Others feareddreams that a Forerunner would come to visit me I made my dreas he carried--treasure that I could sel in themy sisters back from the temple to live with us

In the real world, I robbed other humans instead

But then one of the chamanune came to our house and inquired after me Despite their size, chamanush were respected and we rarely attacked them I had never robbed one because I heard stories that they banded together to punish those who hurt the eance They were smal but smart and fierce and mostly cah He said his name was Riser and he had seen so hauidance

In ive ood work if I didn’t cause trouble