Page 5 (1/2)

We have traveled inward to the central hold There isa new selection of huned shoulder to shoulder in restraining fields Male and fe and old, they are briefly roused and released

"They believe they have been transported to a better place," she says, in the same tone of voice she used to describe the Douilt

I can barely discern the lues of the environment projected to keep them calm "An afterlife?" I ask

"They believe so I came to all of them at birth They believe when they see me next, I will lift theht appears over her head The humans in the hold turn as one and behold the Librarian Their faces transform The hold is filled with echoes of wonder as they crowd forward, trying to coht above the Librarian diain nuht

"Life is resilient--particularly human life," the Lifeshaper says I can barely hear her, she speaks so softly "They will be taken to the Ark"

I cannot stifle a sense of awe and even affront Such power--such hubris! And yet, without the Lifeshaper’s intervention, all hu before

She does what she can

"They feel no pain, no distress Coer used by any of our teaenetic patterns will be carried in the flesh of all their descendants, when Erde-Tyrene is repopulated In that way, they will touch eternity But their existence here is ending"

The hu around an i deep exao slack The bodies are then consumed by brilliant purple flares, and the remains compacted to be returned to the oceans of Erde-Tyrene--not as ashes, burned and degraded, but rich nutrients that will feed reat sweep of Halo radiation

When the hundreds of thousands of humans collected in the last few hours are processed, she lifts us fro darkness

"I pity future scholars They will notice nothing here to explain what happened--neither an increase in the fossil record nor any other evidence of a great die-off Now … the time has come to describe what I found in Path Kethona May I tell that story?"

No per

I listen

THE LIBRARIAN

Things did not iarded my partnership as a liability To maintain our status, such as it was, and to uphold our few rees, we needed to remain essential to both the Council and Builders

I proposed to the Council that we seek out the truth about the Flood: its origins, its vulnerabilities, its motivations--if any

For thousands of years, based on where the Flood struck in our galaxy, alaxies, Path Kethona, and in particular a huge, fila suns called the Spider [TT: Tarantula Nebula]

According to legend, Path Kethona was first visited by Forerunners during our greatest period of exploration, over ten e had ever happened Records had long ago vanished Not even Haruspis, entrusted with studying the Domain, could access those memories

In any case, the Domain, in ti of most Forerunners To establish the kind of truth we could understand, ould need to recreate that first great voyage

We would need to go there

I am not coalaxies My love and expertise lies in the iht-packed jostling of hundreds of thousands ofat once, all unaware that their activities, reater ialaxies are nothing without our inner iht, our senses to their ware

Stars I understand They shed light and give life It is the emptiness between that haunts me Space has its own textures and mysteries Forerunners draer frohostly particles that have no true existence--until they are harvested We draer as well from the interstices of space itself, where space and time form the tiniest little knots of uncertainty and dimension

But emptiness without sensation, the unobserved vastness between suns, bringsplanet, surrounded by aggressions and consu webs of observation and fixation Reality for ins with the se

Soon after the Didact was safely hidden, I went before the Council with a plan for an intergalactic fast transport, a vessel so extraordinary it would enrich Builders across the Forerunner galaxy

I had learned well how to play this particular game of Council politics For Builders, contracts e coreatness of our past, harnessing new technologies, and accessing the immense resources of the ecuoal was direct and co This would be a Lifeworker-sponsored expedition Neither the Builders nor the Old Council could deny that Lifeworkers werelife However strange, the Flood was a living thing, or s, and so it ithin our purview to study it and try to understand

And so my expedition--whether it was the second, or the first--was designed to once and for all confirin of the Flood That sealed the deal with both the Old Council and the Builders

Builders have always been superb shipwrights The construction took ten years Permission from the Old Council to make the journey took another ten

I understood their delay

Travel across even a few light-years through a portal or ju breaches in causality Forerunner ships crossing between syste effect that gradually limits both transport and communication--and may also interfere with access to the Domain When the buildup is eliminated--as reconciliations are round--le sht-years in just a few ju pauses, creates a monumental backup The journey to Path Kethona could slow or even halt transportation throughout the ecu history and solving one of the greatest e consensus, as I knew they would