Vaz peered into the bowl. "What's that?"

"BB's special recipe." Mal stuck his finger in the sludge and tasted it, but he didn't pull a face so Vaz took that as approval. "Actually, it tastes like yeast extract with sugar in it. Sort of salty and malty." He held out the container in Adj's direction. "Come on, Adj. Nom nom. Nummy yeast stuff."

Adj seemed tempted and floated across to take the container. He looked into it, cocking his head.

"You need a spoon or something?" Mal pulled one out of his pocket. "Go on. Dig in."

Adj took the spoon and the container and drifted into a corner behind one of the duct runs, enchantingly harmless. Vaz was starting to worry what would happen to him when he was handed over to ONI. A ferociously disloyal and undisciplined thought crossed his mind, but he pushed it away. Mal was right. If UNSC had grabbed a few more Engineers early in the war, things would have been very different. It was clear now that the Covenant wouldn't have been half so powerful without them. They were all struggling to change their own lightbulbs now.

Osman's door clicked, a warning that it was going to open. She emerged with an odd expression on her face that Vaz interpreted as a sort of wistful satisfaction, like some good news had arrived a little too late.

She caught him watching. "Why don't you all grab a coffee and close up on the bridge in five minutes?" she said, more of a friendly invitation than an order. "I've got some interesting information from Sydney."

Mal raised his eyebrows discreetly at Vaz and turned to whisper. "Phillips reckons that Admiral Hood's planning to visit the hinge-heads, judging by the chatter he's picking up. Maybe we'll have to provide close protection for him. I do love a bit of irony in my life."

BB must have been doing a discreet roundup. Naomi, Devereaux, and Phillips joined them on the bridge, looking as if they were expecting what Mal referred to as a serious bollocking. Vaz found it hard to imagine Osman bollocking anybody. Vaz suspected that her style was much more like Parangosky's: either a look of quiet disapproval for the small mistakes, or a single round that you never saw coming for the really big misjudgments. Shouting didn't seem to be the ONI style.

BB settled on the comms console and didn't say a word.

"Do you want me to give you a long explanatory preamble to this, or would you rather I just plunged straight in?" Osman asked. "You're free to stop me and ask questions."

"We're really good with plunging in, ma'am," Mal said. "As long as there's no complicated physics in it."

Osman almost smiled. "I'll add clairvoyance to your list of adquals, Staff. Yes, there's a little bit of physics. It's a mixed bag, so I'll deal with the bad news first." She looked at Naomi. "There's a memorial dedication at Voi next month, and you'll know some of the names on it. I'm afraid the Master Chief's one of them."

Vaz didn't know much about Spartan politics apart from the rapid acquaint of the last few weeks, but he did know who the Master Chief was. He could only imagine how hard that news hit Naomi. He tried not to stare at her, but it seemed cowardly not to look the woman in the eye and remind her she was among friends. She didn't move a muscle. It was hard to tell if any blood had drained from that porcelain-white face, but she glanced down for a second and clasped her hands in her lap.

"I thought he was listed as missing, ma'am."

Osman seemed to be picking each word with absolute precision. Vaz detected a slight shift in tone now, slowing and lowering pitch, like she was making a statement. "Yes, dead Spartans always are, and we can still hope that he's out there somewhere, but we've got to be realistic."

"I assume there's no news on Kelly, Linda ... Fred?"

"Nothing concrete that I can tell you yet. The other name that's going to bother you is Catherine Halsey. UNSC's now declared her dead so that they can release records. Nobody who was left on Reach could have survived. Anyway, I'm sorry that we've lost some good people."

Osman didn't indicate whether she thought Halsey was one of them. Vaz got the feeling that he was missing something. He turned his head as casually as he could, just to check if there was a spark of that same doubt on anyone else's face, but he couldn't tell. He was drinking too much of that ONI coffee. Maybe that stuff was specially blended to keep their field operatives at maximum paranoia.

Osman went on regardless. "Now, the rest of the business. Admiral Hood's planning to visit Sanghelios for talks with the Arbiter, so we'll be standing by to keep an eye on that. We might also end up diverted to the Onyx sector to assist with an anomaly." Osman seemed to be focused on Naomi, so maybe she was worried about her reaction to the news about the Master Chief. "Okay, Onyx isn't a secret. You've probably worked out one way or another that Parangosky quarantined it for our own extremely dodgy purposes, but the planet isn't there anymore. It broke up. It was a Forerunner satellite made of millions of defensive robotic constructs, but we think there's a slipspace shelter at the core that survived the destruction."

"And we need to acquire the technology," Mal said.

"Probably, but we might have UNSC personnel trapped there in need of extraction, and I think that'll interest us more. Any questions?"

"Do we know who?" Devereaux asked.

"Maybe," Osman said, suddenly very ONI again.

Vaz decided to change the subject to something that was gnawing at him. "This business with Admiral Hood, ma'am. If this is all part of a peace treaty, how does that affect our mission?"

"It doesn't," Osman said. "And it doesn't make any difference if the Arbiter is completely genuine, shakes Hood's hand, and asks him to marry his sister. We know damn well that the Arbiter doesn't speak for all Sangheili, let alone the rest of the assorted rabble out there. So we carry on, and if Hood manages to charm the pants off of the hinge-heads, then that's terrific. But if he doesn't, then we're still there in the background making sure that we never have to go through this again."

"And should we know who Halsey is?"

"Chief scientist at ONI," Osman said. Vaz decided she had some serious issues with this Halsey, judging by the set of her jaw. "Creator of the Spartan program. It's only fair to warn you that there'll be some unpleasant revelations emerging about her. Brilliant, yes, and the Spartans changed the course of the war, but her methods left a lot to be desired. History might not judge her kindly."

Naomi wouldn't have made a very good poker player. She might have been able to keep up that unblinking Spartan stoicism for a while, but Vaz had learned to spot the small giveaway gestures. He could see her pressing her lips together more tightly with every mention of Halsey's name.

"And how will you judge her, Captain?" Mal asked.

Osman shrugged. "If I tell you, I have to reveal classified information-and I'm not keeping that from you because it's classified, but because it's extremely personal, and I think I'd like to talk to Naomi privately before the rest of you hear it."

You could have cut the tension on that bridge with a blunt plastic butter knife. Vaz interpreted it as a suggestion to get lost and leave Osman and Naomi to have a girl-to-girl chat.

"You're always pretty straight with us, ma'am," Devereaux said. "I'm not brown-nosing, but we want you to know that we appreciate it."

Osman folded her arms, not so much defensive as looking like she wanted to curl up and hide, and she wasn't the shrinking violet type. There was definitely something else going on here.

"If I ask you to put your lives on the line, the least I can do is to tell you as much of the truth as I can," she said. "I know I often ask your opinion rather than give you clear orders, but that's because you've all got a hell of a lot more combat experience than me, and I respect and trust your judgment. So if you ever think I'm screwing up on a biblical scale, I want you to tell me so."

Some marines liked cast-iron certainty in an officer, but Vaz was happy to settle for intelligent honesty. Officers who knew what they didn't know were rare gems. He realized he was willing to do just about any damn thing she asked him to. Maybe that was the intention. She was Parangosky's protege, after all, and he couldn't imagine the old girl picking someone who couldn't get the best out of her people.

No. Sometimes you have to accept that people mean what they say.

Likeable officer or not, she still had to do some difficult stuff with Naomi. "Okay, people, dismiss," she said. "We need a little while to talk, me and Naomi."

Mal herded everyone down to the hangar deck, as much distance as he could give anyone in this ship. Adj followed them and hung around, fondling the equipment in the small comms workstation that Phillips had set up to one side of the deck.

"I know you're there, BB." Mal looked up at the deckhead. "Just be a good mate and let us know what we can do for Naomi, will you? Because I know bad news when I see it."

BB's avatar appeared below the gantry. "Now you know why the captain's been telling you so much about the Spartan program. The end of a war's as good a time as any to take a serious look at the unsavory things we've done."

"Yeah, that's a lot easier now that this Halsey woman's dead," Vaz said, trying to imagine what could possibly be worse than kidnapping six-year-olds and shooting them up with hormones and ceramic implants. "Very convenient of her. Always best not to mention it while they're alive and can still name names."

"You're a rather cynical young man, Vasily," BB said. "Very well, I promise I'll keep you up to speed on Naomi-with her consent."

BB disappeared and the three ODSTs stood there in silence with Phillips. Vaz was suddenly aware of pinging and scratching noises coming out of Phillips's comms workstation. Whatever Adj was doing, he was un-vandalizing the equipment with enthusiasm.

"Busy little guy, isn't he?" Phillips said, going to check on the frantic remodeling. "Okay, okay, I'll keep him out of the main systems."

"Osman's okay," Mal said. "Good sort."

Vaz shrugged. "She's half Spartan."

"Yeah," said Devereaux. "But the other half is purebred spook. That's not the kind of pet you can trust with your kids."

"I don't care," Vaz said. "I like her. And what the hell are we now, anyway?"

Vaz didn't know how long Osman talked to Naomi, but it was a couple of hours before the Spartan came down to the hangar. She looked as if nothing had happened. But then she was pretty good at battening down the hatches as long as she had a few moments to compose herself before she had to face everyone. It was all part of the psychology of spending a lot of time with your face obscured behind a visor, something Vaz understood all too well. He passed her on the way to the heads and gave her a you-can-talk-to-me look, holding eye contact for a few extra seconds.

"How's it going?" he asked.

"I'm still working that out," she said, and disappeared into the Mjolnir compartment.

"We're here whenever you want to talk," Vaz said, but he wasn't sure if she heard him.

For the next twenty-four hours everything fell back into the daily routine of monitoring voice traffic and gathering intelligence. Port Stanley was doing the ship equivalent of an ODST's "hard routine"-carrying out surveillance under the enemy's nose, hiding in the bushes in total silence for weeks at a time without even a smoke or a cooked meal for comfort-except that she didn't need bushes, she didn't get leg cramps, and she didn't get distracted by the need to take a leak. Vaz had carried out way too much recon and FAC behind enemy lines to feel less of a man for doing it the ONI way. He could brew a pot of coffee and have a good scratch while he watched the data come in.

It would have been better to have someone on the ground as well, on Sanghelios itself, but it was hard to pass yourself off as a hinge-head when everyone around you was a meter taller. Vaz tried to think creatively about ways to infiltrate the keeps.

He sat at one of the workstations on the bridge, noting the occasional movement of Sangheili ships between their various orbital shipyards and the two moons, Suban and Qikost. There was a lot of traffic, but certainly nothing to suggest that they were attempting to rearm or regroup. If anything it seemed more like a free-for-all, with ships disappearing to scattered locations across the planet, something that Phillips confirmed from the radio chatter.

"It's really quite sad." Phillips was lounging at the console a couple of seats away with his feet up on another seat, one hand to his earpiece. "They've been this amazing military culture for thousands of years, but now the San'Shyuum have gone they're running out of equipment and motivation. The kaidons are just taking whatever ships and equipment they can find and stashing it in their own cities."

"Can't stop fighting men from fighting," Vaz said. "That sounds like a recipe for civil war without any intervention from us."

Phillips shook his head. "Don't underestimate the charismatic power of an Arbiter, especially 'Vadam. What I can't work out is just how much fighting there was on Sanghelios itself when he split from the Covenant. 'Telcam says they're still factionalized, but he omits to tell me just how much damage was done in the fighting."

"You want to get down there and take a look, don't you?"

"Don't you?"

"Only through my scope. Just before I squeeze one off."

"But it's a fascinating, ancient culture."

"It's a fortress full of angry hinge-heads who still think we're bacteria."

"You know, travel broadens the-" Phillips stopped dead and swung his boots off the seat to lean on the console and concentrate on a transmission coming in. "Okay, Vaz, quiet. It's 'Telcam, and remember that he understands every word we say."

"Yes. Just like my gran's dog."

'Telcam called in as regularly now as any UNSC operating base. It seemed to take him a few days to collect arms, get them back home, and distribute them before asking for the next batch. Osman's policy was to drip-feed him anyway, and Vaz understood the wisdom of sneaking weapons in a few at a time in dozens of different vessels rather than risk losing everything in a single intercepted shipment.

But maybe his missus had told him that he couldn't store the stuff in the garage. Sangheili had wives too.

What's everyone else on Sanghelios doing? They can't all be in the army. Phillips has a point. I bet he'd wet himself with excitement if someone offered him a trip down there.

Phillips listened intently for a while, grunting "Yes, I'll do that," now and again, then pushed himself back from the console, brandishing his datapad. BB materialized beside him.

"You'd make a wonderful receptionist," BB said. "Go on, give the message to the captain."

Phillips looked at BB and smiled. "Pizza with all the toppings for Mister 'Telcam, I think."

Vaz wondered if Naomi fancied a run ashore after being cooped up in Stanley for so long. Even the glasslands were starting to look like a day out now, regardless of how well-stocked the wardroom galley was or how many creature comforts the ship provided. ONI didn't believe in roughing it. Vaz went to find her.

She was tinkering with her helmet, something that really didn't need doing if that armor fixed itself. She glanced up at him.

"Lid okay?" he asked.

"Lighter than the old model. Mark Seven. New supplier."

"You get all the best kit."

Naomi took a breath. It wasn't impatience. It looked more like embarrassment. "Look, I know you're being kind," she said. "And just because I'm not very talkative, it doesn't mean I don't appreciate it."

"So are you coming?"

"Why not? They say Spartans need to get out more."

She'd tell him what was troubling her in her own good time. He just couldn't imagine what would disturb a Spartan.

But whatever it was, it had something to do with that Halsey woman.

BEKAN QUARRY, MDAMA, SANGHELIOS.

Raia looked over Unflinching Resolve from a distance but declined to step on board. Jul was a little disappointed. She'd never seen his world before and he'd hoped she might understand him better if she saw how he lived while he was away from home.

"Are you sure it's a good idea to move this ship?" she asked, turning to Buran and Forze. "Many shipmasters have reclaimed their vessels and taken them back to their keeps, from what I hear. I doubt anyone would find it suspicious now."

Buran shrugged and shot a glance at Jul. "Ask your husband. He's the one who's worried that traitors know these coordinates. The worst that can happen is that some worthless Kig-Yar and a few civilian humans know this location. So? What are they going to do about it?"

"They could trade the information," Jul said. "And they managed to board Piety and kill the crew, so we have no guarantee that they didn't make a note of her course from the nav computer."

Information was frequently currency, and it was always power, but there were times when Jul knew it could be both a weapon and a liability. 'Telcam said he picked up weapons shipments on a cleansed human colony world. It made sense to take the frigate there, wherever it was. Jul wondered if he was being selfish for putting his fear for his clan above the necessity of his duty, but there was such a thing as not risking the lives of the uninvolved any more than he had to. The rest of his brethren would face the Arbiter's vengeance if his coup failed.

"If you're asking me, I think it's a good idea to move her, too," said Forze. "There's no more defensible base than the one the enemy doesn't know about."

"So where is this secret hiding place, then?" Raia asked. Her tone suggested that she thought it was all a childish prank, that this brave talk of overthrowing the Arbiter was turning into a hobby to make them feel like warriors again. "Seeing as your revolutionary headquarters is a temple right in the middle of one of the most heavily populated states on the planet."

"I don't know where it is," Jul said. "But it's a planet that was cleansed of humans, so perhaps nobody pays any attention to it. I would still like to know where it is."

'Telcam was due to arrive shortly. Jul had begun to feel he spent his entire existence waiting for the monk to show up without explanation, but then he supposed that was the nature of an underground movement. There would come a point, though, when Jul would no longer be willing to take things on trust. He was a shipmaster: he was used to setting courses and giving orders, not trailing along in the wake of others. If things didn't start to move more rapidly, then he would reconsider his plans. The longer the Arbiter was left to soothe and cajole the population into accepting a false peace with the humans, the harder it would be to galvanize them into action before the inevitable happened.

"Well, I have real work to do," Raia said, turning to go back to the keep. "I'm sure you'll let me know when something decisive and manly has taken place."

Buran watched her go and turned back to Jul with a wary swing of his head. "Perhaps we should unleash our wives on the Arbiter," he said. "They could glower at him until he concedes defeat. It would certainly be effective against me."

It was Buran's ship and he could take it back any time he pleased, but he seemed persuaded by 'Telcam. Jul paced up and down, wondering again how the great Sangheili nation had come to this shambling indecisiveness. Eventually the sound of another shuttle rumbled in the still country air and announced the monk's arrival.

Jul identified it as a small military transport this time, one of the old but still serviceable Contrition-class. Seeing the ship appear over the top of the quarry and confirm his identification gave him a little satisfaction.

'Telcam stepped down from the shuttle and opened the cargo door. "I have just one warhead today, brothers. I believe we can move that without the assistance of Jiralhanae." He had a very eloquent way of telling them to roll up their sleeves and get working. "But I have another collection to make now, so we will have many more new rifles tomorrow."

"I think we should move Unflinching Resolve to another location," Jul said, walking up the loading ramp to take one end of the lift-loader.

'Telcam looked past him at Buran. "Do you share that opinion?"

Buran shrugged. "There's a lot to be said for covert bases, but it depends on how far your little hiding place is."