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The touch of its hands--repelent, pitiable, desperate Why both of us were necessary, I could not guess Yet al across the wheel, the adjustan to have an effect

The Halo, thirty thousand kilole in its orbit, facing off against the approaching planet, just under ten thousand kilo us to a rapid close, but long before the planet struck, its mass would severely torque the wheel, possibly even break it apart,

and so other systerating Forerunner--along with an educational residue from the Lord of Admirals--alowed

The Forerunner besidebeneath ine The distorted hand was exerting less and less pressure I thought it likely that the controls could not, after al, be operated with purely hu these pitiful creatures could avoid beco puddles of slime, whatever the Co Sickness--the Flood--had rearranged al their internal order, preparing these bodies for a new kind of existence in which the individual identity would be, for the h identity stil remained for it to wish to carry out its final duty, before it either disintegrated completely--or fulfiled that other destiny i, na&iuht be

For noever, the wires ande had found in the lake town, trapped in a Forerunner cage--, had caled it Graveed to that word in the Lord of Admiral’s experience was a half-buried awareness that the Pri, one creature, but three, four, five, six--a dozen! Forthencho had never learned the actual nu of past individuals and rebirth into so vastly more powerful, al these creatures had joined milions of years before into its own early Gravemind, far more than the sum of its parts

I see by your copious perspiration that you have witnessed such transforhtened children, you have not entirely understood their implications

I have, and I do

Chapter Thirty-Three

YOU HAVE ASKED me about the Didact I have not providedthe time in which I knew him, I was only minimaly educated and could not properly interpret what I saw and experienced

That changed as I accessed the e of the Lord of Admirals Yet even his experience of the Didact had been for the most part confined to re strategy against strategy, and ainst tactics--had provided Forthencho with an inner understanding of the Didact that likely only a few Forerunners possessed For the depth of the human-Forerunner conflict had led up to, and over, the brink of near-extinction, which revealed a kind of aniorous, yet co those of the sa those who are sane

We kil rain stores--kil them without mercy--but only the feeble-minded hate the mice

But there is yet one more occasion on which I encountered the Didact, and that propeledof what this Warrior- Servant was capable of on a new level

This insight is what you are after, above al I ae er hu for over a thousand centuries You wil not be able to preserve my experiences and memory from more than a smal fraction of that period, and yet, what I have been and done loo over a pebble

And it seenizant of the one great truth that I offer you--the truth that changes al the equations of our history

That amuses me

Al around, on al the platfores of transforht, if not to actualy dieawals blocking out hts of briliant sparks, and sharp

The linear sparks in the tunnel darkened to dul red, then died away like the embers of an old fire I felt only intense cold For a moment, I seemed to float in the tunnel surrounded by the last of the sparks

The tunnel then turned coray and lifeless

I tried desperately to perceivea point in space, a fixed position, and could not--there was only the tunnel andin line behind reen

The ancila came between this blurred-out, uncertain me and the pitiful remains of my companion My eyes suddenly focused--for the last time I raised one hand and looked at it, wondered at how beautiful it was,my wil, our wil--just like the wheel But so slowly!

Reaction tirapher," the ancila said

"This wil require interface adjustment"

The Forerunner turned aas left of its face, shuddering as if at some sacred violation

"We are instructed by metarch-level command to reveal al," the ancila said "We have no choice but to obey The Cartographer contains al designs and locations and circues are recorded here

"Preparations are necessary"

Another dart jabbed into h my body, rather than outside I felt pain everywhere, and then a startling clarity

Between my body and the decayed Forerunner’s bulk rose a suspended rod about as thick asstrands like spiderwebbing; the strands stitched up one side of ossamer, while more strands laid themselves down over the Forerunner’s upper torso

It squirony

The tunnel now cae with my companion, and even, for a ed in an ecstasy of total infore Both of us blended with the tunnel displays, farbefore

More surprising, I understood what I was seeing--al of it!

Coh the Forerunner--and suddenly I kne to act, how to coordinate with hundreds of other, similar pairs located around the wheel

We became the Halo I could feel the stresses, the peril--and thea predator feels the ground beneath his feet

Exalted! Godlike energy and power, like nothing I had ever known If this hat it ned ht me intense joy; al seemed supremely important, and perhaps they were, for a calculus of preservation was being made even now by thewhich syste to use them, and in what sequence to cut them off