"He's kept his word, then," Osman said, sounding surprised. "Phillips, I'll drive. Corporal, you're top cover."

Vaz settled behind the gun and hung on as Osman bounced the Hog over every dip and boulder. The heavy trailer didn't help its handling at all. At three hundred meters, with a bit of help from his visor's optics, Vaz could see 'Telcam's face. Bastard. Well, at least he didn't have to smile at the thing.

Osman brought the Warthog to a bumpy halt thirty meters from the welcoming committee and glanced over her shoulder at Vaz. "Give him a bit more latitude than you usually would before blowing his head off."

Vaz hadn't quite worked out the line between Osman's humor and her sarcasm yet. It mattered. "How much more, ma'am? Seriously."

"Whatever happens, let him get away with the weapons." She was definitely serious now. "That's what matters. Stoke the fire. You hear that, Staff?"

Mal sounded a little reluctant on the radio, but the captain had spoken. "Understood, ma'am."

Phillips didn't say a word. Maybe he was used to taking risks with Elites now, but the meaning was still clear: even if the hinge-head gutted Phillips-and her-then Vaz and Mal had to hold fire, or at least not slot all the Elites.

That was a lot to ask of him, and even more to ask of a civvie.

Phillips volunteered. Look at him. He loves it. But even so ...

Osman climbed out of the Warthog and started walking slowly toward 'Telcam, but the Elites appeared to be on an intercept heading anyway. She stopped. Vaz tilted the gun slowly, making his target clear, just to give the hinge-heads something to think about. When he checked Mal's icon he found he was looking at the feed from the 99-D's optics. Mal had the crosshairs steady on 'Telcam's head.

"He wouldn't dare." Mal's voice was just a breath in Vaz's earpiece. "He's not in a rush to meet his gods."

'Telcam stalked over to the Warthog with his bagman in tow and wandered around the back to the trailer. He didn't seem to take the slightest notice of Vaz, but at least Osman had the grace not to offer a handshake. Vaz pivoted the gun slowly so that it was facing the trailer. He couldn't turn his back on 'Telcam. The last time he'd been this close to anything in Covenant uniform, it had almost severed his jaw and only a quick-thinking combat medic had stopped him from choking on his own blood.

"I suppose you'll want to check out the consignment," Osman said. "Rifles, assorted grenades, and antipersonnel mines."

'Telcam tilted his head back and forth as he surveyed the crates. Then he gestured and his sidekick ripped the lid off one of the crates like paper.

He reached in and pulled out a plasma rifle. Vaz held his breath as 'Telcam spent far too long examining it. Could he spot the tag? Vaz had grown up believing that the Covenant was technologically invincible. They weren't, or at least 'Telcam wasn't. He either didn't know or didn't care, just like Naomi had said.

"You're most generous, Captain." It was hard to tell if 'Telcam was sneering or not. "And most frugal of you to retrieve Sangheili weapons. I have adherents in many keeps, and more join us every day."

"If you're asking if there's more to come, there is," Osman said. "If there's anything specific, I'll see what else I can do."

'Telcam looked down his snout at her. "You cannot procure warships for me."

"Yes, I realize that lending you a carrier would be embarrassing for both of us."

"I shall distribute the arms, then, and see how much progress we make."

"I'll be around."

"Yet we see no ship, Captain."

"Nor will you. This is still hostile space in too many ways."

Phillips seemed to be listening intently, but then Vaz realized from the man's shifting focus that he was actually concentrating on his audio channel. He was getting the intercepted voice traffic from the Elites. Had he heard something that worried him? Vaz glanced at Mal's icon to check he still had a shot on 'Telcam. He did. Vaz leaned back casually and made sure the Warthog's gun was at just the right angle to take out the Elite's bagman.

Just in case.

Osman suddenly got a dawning realization look on her face. "Do you really need a ship?"

"Probably not," 'Telcam said. "The initial target is the Arbiter, seeing as he's foolish enough to be visiting each state to put his case for peace. Once I kill him, then any fighting will be keep by keep. Not the kind of battles fought by capital ships. Unless an entire colony world decides to stand by him."

Osman just gave him a nod. But Vaz could see the cogs grinding behind her eyes. There was no such thing as a careless word from her, and 'Telcam didn't seem the kind to announce his plans just to be sociable.

"Very well, have your people transfer these crates, then." Osman obviously didn't want him anywhere near Port Stanley, and they needed the trailer back. High-tech wars often foundered on small, dull detail. "I'll have more for you in a week."

She was drip-feeding him. Vaz thought of Naomi going all zen about knowing how much fuel to pour on a fire. A couple of Brutes emerged from the Elite dropship and began moving the crates, lumbering back and forth until the trailer was cleared. It felt like a shady drugs deal in a back alley. 'Telcam gave Osman a polite bow of the head and loped back to his ship.

Osman waited for it to take off before she moved a muscle.

"So he's waiting to see if I'm going to warn the Arbiter," she said. "Fine."

"Correct." Phillips climbed back into the Warthog and nearly brained himself on the gun. "The chatter from the fighters was all about what your actual game plan was."

"Ah well, he'll get his proof, so no harm done," she said. "And I'll find out where the arms actually end up. Win-win. Okay, let's bang out of here."

"Want me to drive, ma'am?" Vaz asked. "I'm used to Hogs."

Osman almost smiled. She climbed into the gun seat. "Okay. If it makes you feel safer."

Vaz started the engine. He wasn't taking any notice of Mal's HUD feed now, so he expected to be back in the dropship and off this rock in a few minutes. But then rapid movement in the icon caught his peripheral vision and he stopped to check it out.

"Jesus Christ," Mal said. "Where the hell did he come from?"

"Mal?" Vaz could see the jerking, rolling viewpoint of someone running down a steep slope, and then the horizon bounced everywhere for a few moments before the cam corrected for movement. Mal was running. "What is it, Mal?"

"Contact. Human. Wait one."

"What is it?" Osman asked. The pivot on the gun made a grinding noise. She was getting ready to fire. "What's he spotted?"

Vaz slammed his foot down and the Warthog shot off. "He's seen a human."

"Can't be. The Covenant glassed this place years ago."

Phillips hung on to the dashboard with both hands as Vaz raced for the escarpment. When the Warthog came around the edge of the slope and Vaz got a clear view of the plain beyond, he saw Mal jogging toward a heap of rags among the boulders and scrubby vegetation that had somehow found the will to grow again in the fissures.

Then the rags stood up and became a man.

"Oh, great," Osman said wearily. "That's all we need."

Vaz wasn't sure how to take that. He let Mal reach the guy first, just in case the sight of a Warthog bearing down on him made him panic, and came to a halt a few meters away.

The man was ragged and emaciated-about fifty, straggly gray hair and beard, clutching a wood ax-but he looked pretty alert.

"I saw the ships." He had a strong accent, and he sounded stunned. "I saw the dropship. I didn't think the Navy gave a damn about us. What's the Covenant doing back here? What are you doing here?"

"The fighting's stopped." Mal tried to check him over. "Are you alone, mate? Have you been here all the time?"

"Since they glassed the place. I'm the only one left. But what's going on? What's the Covenant doing here?"

Vaz looked at Osman. This wasn't convenient at all. It was written all over her face. They really didn't need a passenger, least of all one who'd seen things he couldn't explain. Vaz had the feeling that a lone witness didn't have much of a life expectancy under the circumstances.

Mal took off his helmet and caught Vaz's eye. They'd served together so long that there was a kind of telepathy at moments like this. Something had to be said.

Vaz steered Osman away discreetly and they stood with their backs to Mal. "We can't leave him here, ma'am," Vaz whispered. Dead or alive. "Let's take him back and drop him off at the next bus stop."

She looked as if she was in two minds about it. Vaz reminded himself that she was still ONI, and he hardly knew her, even if his instinct told him she was okay. Parangosky would have just shot the guy and moved on, he decided. It would have saved a lot of trouble. But Osman seemed to be weighing something up.

And Phillips had that rabbit-in-the-headlights look again. He'd never make a poker player.

"You're right," Osman said at last, lips hardly moving. "But we'll have to lock him up. I don't want a civvie loose on board, least of all on this mission. Quarantine him. Whatever excuse to stop him blabbing when we hand him on."

She turned and nodded at Mal, all reluctance. He nodded back, one thumb raised, and led the guy to the Warthog.

"We'll take you to the nearest UNSC base, mate," Mal said. "No luggage, I assume. What's your name?"

"Muir," he said. "Tom Muir. Are you evacuating me?"

Vaz gave him a hand up. "That's the idea."

"Then you're seven damn years too late," Muir said. "Where were you bastards when we really needed you?"

"You're welcome," said Vaz.

BEKAN KEEP, MDAMA, SANGHELIOS.

Raia was supervising the construction of a drying barn when Jul decided to break the news. It wasn't a task he'd ever undertaken, and he marveled at the fact that she could turn her hand to overseeing such a project. Mdama was a rural backwater in a world of urban city-states. Now Jul and his neighbors had suddenly realized that farmland was the new power in a society of city-dwellers used to importing much of its food.

Life in the Covenant under San'Shyuum oppression, as he understood it now, really had made the Sangheili too dependent on others for basic elements of survival, just as Raia had said, too reliant on what was provided for them, done for them, and given to them in exchange for their military skill. All they had now was a fortress world and nobody to run it.

But Raia was finding out how to manage food production by consulting ancient records, and he was working out how Sanghelios might govern itself as a global entity rather than a loose arrangement of keeps tasked by the Prophets. Their destiny was back in their own hands. They would learn to be great again.

Civilizations rise and fall. The Jiralhanae, the Kig-Yar-and us. Except we can rise again.

"Where are you going?" Raia asked, not looking up from a thousand-year-old architectural plan she'd dug up from the keep's vaults. The breeze buffeted the sheet of ancient vellum, snapping it like a sail. "Are you going to be away long?"

Jul couldn't remember ever lying to his wife, although he'd avoided telling her small things that he knew would make her angry. "Ontom. Just a few days. Do you want to know why?"

"Boredom. I realize it's hard to fill your time now the fighting's stopped."

"Governance. We're going to talk about how Sanghelios should be run. Forze's coming with me."

Raia rocked her head from side to side in grudging approval, then looked around at him. "Are you plotting, Jul?"

She knew him too well. There was no shame in challenging decisions made by higher authorities, but there was a consequence for failing to win. If Jul didn't succeed in overthrowing the Arbiter, the Arbiter would then come after him, almost certainly kill him, and seize his keep and assets. Raia and the rest of his family would pay the price.

"I am," he said, "but I won't start what I know I can't finish. Hence the need to gather like-minded keeps about me."

"We might have different priorities, Jul, but I do agree with you. There's no lasting peace to be made with humans. We've killed too many of them. This is just a lull in the war. It might be weeks or years or even centuries, but it'll never be truly over."

She went back to the plans. She'd had her say. The barn was starting to take recognizable shape, no doubt a simple thing to their ancestors, but something rather extraordinary to Jul. He walked back to the keep and stood by the transport to wait for Forze. It was a very old wave-skimmer, last used to ferry Unggoy laborers to the islands, but it would cope with an ocean trip.

I hope ...

He wasn't a good swimmer. Few Sangheili were.

But he'd pilot the skimmer himself to keep Gusay clear of any conspiracy. The young officer would stand a better chance of escaping retribution if Jul failed.

"So what's your plan?" Forze asked as the skimmer headed out over the coast toward Ontom. "How are you going to find the right monks? And do you always steer like this?"

Jul had been a shipmaster for too long. Others piloted for him. But Sangheili have always had to sail and fly. Our geography demands it. He wasn't sure if his faded skill was a tidy parallel with his homeworld's situation or simply random irony, but either way it was an excellent reminder of what he needed to do.

"They have a temple," Jul said. "They never relinquished it. They kept the ancient rite and they have adherents all over Sanghelios."

"Backward idiots who love their secret societies and primitive rituals. If they'd had any potential to be dangerous, the San'Shyuum would have wiped them out long ago."

"But they're idiots with a network, and they now appear to be using it militarily. Prepare to do business with them, brother. And try to behave piously."

By the time Ontom loomed in the haze, Jul had begun to rediscover old skills and the flight was much smoother. He felt a certain satisfaction at being capable. It was like a coming of age, that same heady sense of transformation from child to warrior that he'd delighted in as a boy. He could refresh his piloting skills and the Sangheili could thrive without the San'Shyuum exactly as they had before the two species first met.

"Mind the turrets...." Forze murmured. The skimmer made enough height to swoop low over the city. Jul looked for the landing area nearest to the Servants' temple. He found it easier to land by sight than by instruments. "This is a very smug state. I never enjoyed visiting here."

Jul understood what he meant, Ontom was very old, very rich, and very keen to remind other states that it was superior in every way. The buildings were a blend of pre-Prophet magnificence and modern architecture that didn't even attempt to mimic a traditional style.

Let's see how superior you remain without the San'Shyuum providing food and technology.

Jul landed the skimmer, suddenly anonymous in a sea of random vessels and vehicles that had simply been withdrawn from the fleet or commandeered from factories. Everything he looked at seemed to be a summary of the Sangheili's predicament, arms and vessels reduced to soft idleness, the nation orphaned and needing to grow up fast. He felt in his pocket and realized he still had the arum he'd taken from one of the keep's children.

"It's a pleasant walk," Forze said, lifting his chins to squint into the distance. "If you like complacent architecture."

They strolled through the elegant gateway of the landing field and along an avenue of ornamental trees that were in the process of being trimmed and fussed over by a team of Jiralhanae. It was strange to see the brutish creatures doing something so painstaking, but at least they were obedient. Most of their kind had joined the uprising and turned on their Sangheili masters. Old hatreds and resentment had boiled over, and Jul barely trusted those that remained at their stations.

The Ontom residents who were going about their business in the avenue took no notice of the Jiralhanae or of Jul and Forze. The avenue was noisy, busy, preoccupied, oblivious of two insignificant elders from an unsophisticated rural state. The place smelled of blossom and interesting, rather foreign food. But dining would have to wait.

"Is that it?" Forze tilted his head to indicate direction. "Over there."

They stopped at the end of the avenue. Jul could hear water, so the river was close. Facing them across a crowded plaza, set back from the access road behind a modern wall, was a flat-topped, crumbling sanctuary with a curved facade and two cartouches of stylized creatures above an arched doorway.

It was a Forerunner building, hallowed ground. It didn't look like the angry, pulsing heart of a revolution. It looked like it wanted to be left alone to die in peace. Jul found himself with his hand in his pocket, rolling the arum between his fingers for comfort.

Easier to charge into battle than knock on a door.

"Let's see if the holy brothers are at home," he said, and set off across the plaza. As he wove between the locals, ignored, he realized where the sound of the river was coming from. The huge plaza was in fact a bridge. He stepped over a grating and found himself staring at a rushing white torrent a long way below. By the time he and Forze reached the other side, he felt as if he was in a wilderness and that the milling crowd was a continent away.

There was a heavy silence that seemed to seep from the outer walls. When he crossed the threshold and stood in the courtyard of cracked paving, the silence felt as if it was sucking the sound out of the air. Jul suspected it wasn't so much the effect of mystic devotion as some rather recent technology, a touch of theater to convince the doubting faithful. But even knowing that, he still felt he was in a new world that was beyond his grasp. When he glanced at Forze he could see his own wavering resolve mirrored in his friend's face.

"Will they get upset if we touch the door?" Forze asked. "You saw what they did to poor old Relon and his brother. If they maintain the old faith, they won't exploit Forerunner technology."