Mendez just stood his ground and took a drag on what was left of his cigar. "Yes, sir." Then he walked back to the tower entrance and went into the lobby.

Halsey stood there for a moment, expressionless, then looked up at Fred. Lucy could see that her neck was flushed bright red. That was something she couldn't hide.

"He's right, I'm afraid," Halsey said. "Why else do you think I went slightly crazy and brought you all here? Late onset of menopause?"

"Preserving vital assets, ma'am."

"Salving my conscience," Halsey said, and walked away toward the river.

Lucy's mad moment seemed small and forgotten by comparison. Everyone was looking either in the direction of the tower entrance or toward the river, which she took as a sign of whether they were more worried about Mendez or Halsey. A split was forming. If the Engineers didn't find them a way out of here, that was going to become a major problem. Fred might have been the ranking officer but there wasn't a lot he could do to keep Halsey on a leash.

"That's really sad about her daughter," Kelly said at last. "Miranda Keyes? I'd never have guessed. She's so much like her father."

"And what about your parents?" Olivia asked. "What did the Chief mean about clones?"

Kelly shrugged as if she wasn't bothered about it at all. With a helmet on, Spartans could hide a lot of turmoil. "You'll need to ask him about that."

Tom nudged Lucy with his elbow and steered her away for a walk. If Lucy had a close buddy in the squad, then it was Tom. They'd been the only two survivors from the raid on the Pegasi Delta refinery. She knew that was where she'd started to come unraveled, while Tom just kept on going, dependable and unflappable as ever. Sometimes she wondered why he could handle it and she couldn't, but by the time that thought started to form in her mind she was past the stage of being able to have a discussion about it. The doctors said that sooner or later, given enough pressure, shot at enough times, isolated and deprived of sleep for long enough, almost everyone would succumb to traumatic stress. Everyone reached their individual tipping point, and hers just happened sooner than Tom's.

But she could still function in combat. And that was all that mattered to her, because her punishment had been to survive her friends, and that meant she had some duty to perform before life would let her off the hook.

"Talk to me, Lucy," Tom said. "You know the last thing you said to me? To anyone? How do we know we're still alive. Yeah, living's hard after all that."

Lucy pursed her lips, making a conscious effort to shape the word. "Sorry," she said. "Sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry for, Luce. Nothing at all."

She knew it was going to take a lot more effort to get back to the person she'd been, if she ever made it at all. In the meantime, she was satisfied that she would be able to say enough to be a more useful member of the squad. She walked around for a while with Tom, searching for edible plants, until a shout from behind made them turn.

Mendez had come out of the lobby, walking behind Prone to Drift. The set of his shoulders had changed and it looked like there was some news. Lucy and Tom jogged back to the others.

"You've got a persuasive way with you, Petty Officer," Mendez said to her. "Your friend has something to say."

Prone was still clutching the small sheet of white glass, his message pad. He held it in front of her.

YOU MUST BE FULLY REPAIRED. MAKE THE CALL.

Maybe he was trying to encourage Lucy to speak. But if he wanted her to send a signal and was prepared to risk alerting whatever was lurking out there, she wasn't the person for the job. Halsey was best qualified to do this stuff. Lucy gestured.

"Her," she said. "Ask her."

Halsey plunged straight in. "Thank you, Prone." She was doing her "mommy" voice again. "The worst that can happen is that someone realizes we're in here, but it's a Dyson sphere in another dimension. We're still safe."

Prone drifted back inside and everyone followed him. The rest of them seemed to have gone into hiding again. He tapped a couple of the symbols on the wall and beckoned Halsey forward.

The word SPEAK appeared in the white glass in front of her. She didn't hesitate.

"This is Dr. Catherine Halsey," she said. "All UNSC callsigns, this is Dr. Catherine Halsey, ONI, and I require assistance. Respond to receive coordinates."

There was no crackling static or any sound of dead air. Either Forerunner comms equipment was as perfect as their masonry, or there was no signal. Halsey repeated the message a couple of times and then a voice filled the entire room-an old woman's voice, slightly husky with age and authority, but as clear as if she was standing there with them.

"Hello, Catherine," the voice said. Lucy could hear something in it that sounded more like satisfaction than genuine warmth. "It's been a long time, hasn't it?"

Halsey obviously wasn't expecting that. Her head jerked back and her gaze flickered across the walls as if she was trying to pin down the source. And she didn't look happy.

Lucy's peripheral vision caught the Chief shifting his weight and clasping his hands in front of him, head bowed. She looked straight at him and didn't recognize the expression on his face at all. It might have been amusement, or surprise, or just relief. She was normally tuned in to the attitudes of the people around her, but today she got the feeling that there was a parallel set of events taking place that she wasn't part of and never would be.

"Admiral Parangosky?" Halsey said at last.

"Do call me Margaret. You always did. I suppose we'd better get you out of there, hadn't we?"

The line popped and went on standby. Nobody spoke for a few moments.

"Who's that?" Tom asked.

"We're honored," Halsey said, but Lucy saw real dread on her face for the first time. "It's the Empress of Naval Intelligence. That's Margaret Orlenda Parangosky."

CHAPTER.

FOURTEEN.

BB, I THINK WE'RE APPROACHING THE POINT WHEN OSMAN NEEDS TO BE BRIEFED ON INFINITY. CHECK BACK IN TWENTY-FOUR HOURS FOR THE LATEST SCHEMATICS. I'LL GIVE YOU A NOD WHEN IT'S TIME.

(ADMIRAL MARGARET O. PARANGOSKY, CINCONI, TO AI BLACK-BOX).

UNSC PORT STANLEY, SOMEWHERE OFF SANGHELIOS: FEBRUARY 2553.

The humans came back to peer at him from time to time.

Jul could hear them outside even if he couldn't see them. He wasn't sure if they were simply checking to see if he was still alive or plucking up courage to enter the cell again. He had no way of knowing the layout of the ship, but how complex could it be? Ships needed hangars, he knew he'd been brought up from the hangar deck, and it was only a matter of finding his way back down there, seizing the shuttle, and smashing his way through the stern doors.

It would breach the corvette's hull and kill its occupants, almost certainly, but that was a welcome but unintended consequence. First, though, he needed to get out of the cell.

The footsteps outside stopped and there was a slight hiss as a viewscreen opened in the door.

"Shipmaster? It's me, Phillips." He was much more slightly built than the others, with even less muscle than the tall female shipmaster, but he was clearly someone of importance to them. "Jul 'Mdama, your clan's worried about you. They don't know where you are. Your friend Forze is searching for you."

Phillips spoke a Sangheili dialect. He pronounced it like an idiot child, the kind best culled for the good of the clan, but the words were understandable and his grammar was excellent. Against his will, Jul found himself drawn instantly into debate. He knew he shouldn't have responded but he found it impossible to resist.

Poor Forze. Poor Raia.

He would have thought it was purely interrogator's bluff if Phillips hadn't mentioned Forze's name. How did he know all this? He must have been monitoring radio channels. Humans were much better at spying and sneaking around than they were at honest warfare, just like the Kig-Yar. Those two were made for each other.

"And he may find me, vermin, but I expect to be long gone from the ship by then," Jul said.

He stepped right up to the door and roared against the screen, jaws wide open. Phillips didn't even flinch. That was remarkable in itself. Jul could see outside into the passage now, and one of the armored soldiers was standing beside Phillips, helmetless but carrying a short carbine. Jul had looked into enough human eyes in their final moments to be able to gauge their feelings. The soldier clearly loathed Sangheili to the depth of his being. He had a conspicuous scar along his jaw and greenish-brown eyes that didn't blink, those awful pale human eyes like a dead fish's. Jul doubted that the man wanted to ask him any questions.

"So what were you doing down there?" Phillips asked. He was a complete contrast to the other human. His eyes were burning, alive, consumed with the desire to know. "Why were you stalking the monk?"

"Why don't you let me out of here before I simply tear my way out?"

"Here's the problem." Phillips did that display of teeth which was supposed to be a friendly gesture in a human, although Jul had always found that very odd. What was the point of displaying your fangs if it wasn't a warning? "If we let you go, you're going to cause a lot of problems. If we keep you, we avoid those problems. You might even be helpful to us, and then one day we can hand you back to your clan."

"If you think you can threaten me, you should know better. No matter how many times you send that demon to give me electric shocks."

Phillips frowned for a moment. The soldier whispered something to him that made him shake his head. Phillips leaned close to the viewscreen and held up the arum that one of the soldiers had taken.

"This is wonderful. It's beautifully made. It's an arum, isn't it?" He started fiddling with it, moving the spheres around. Jul could hear the clunk and tap of the stone inside. "It certainly teaches you patience, doesn't it?" Phillips was moving sections of the spheres more slowly now, one click at a time, and holding it up to his ear to listen to it with that bared-teeth expression. "There ... nearly got it ... there!"

He held his palm beneath the arum, the fingers of his other hand barely able to grip the sphere, and shook it.

To Jul's horror, the stone fell out.

It was marbled blue and green, like a little planet, like a tiny version of Earth, the world that had nearly been within the Covenant's grasp. Jul almost felt more ashamed at seeing a human solve the arum with such ease that he did at being captured.

"It took me a few hours to get there." Phillips dropped the stone back in the slot and scrambled the spheres again. "I used to love things like that when I was a child."

Jul couldn't work out if it was a psychological trick or genuine innocence, but whatever the intention it had shaken him to his core. Very few Sangheili could unlock an arum within days, let alone hours.

Phillips tossed the sphere between his hands, back and forth. "Jul, I'm well aware that you find it honorable to die rather than give us answers. Many humans feel the same way. But what do you think your brothers and your clan would think if we let everyone on Sanghelios know that you'd surrendered to us?"

Phillips just looked at him, teeth now covered by his lips, but still with that stupid upward curve of his mouth that might have been amusement or an attempt at friendliness. This creature understood Sangheili better than Jul had anticipated. This was the worst possible shame, and Phillips obviously knew it. To be exposed as a traitor and a coward, someone willing to trade his honor for his miserable life, was something that would not only soil Jul's memory but also cast a massive stain on his entire clan. Raia would never be able to remarry. All the children of the keep would be shunned, shut out of Sangheili society, in case he had fathered them. It would be both the end of his personal bloodline and that of all his brothers. It was beyond death.

Yes, humans were infinitely devious.

Jul struggled for a retort. This wasn't the way Sangheili dealt with an enemy. He should have grabbed the human by his scrawny throat and squeezed the life out of him, but that was a pleasure he'd have to reserve for later. He had to think his way out of this.

"But if you tell anyone that you have a Sangheili prisoner," he said, "how can your Shipmaster of Shipmasters make peace with the Arbiter? That's what you seek, isn't it?"

Phillips blinked, nothing more. "Well, that makes the assumption that we would tell them you surrendered while you were doing something honorable. If we were to say that you'd given yourself up while doing a deal with us to overthrow the Arbiter, how do you think that that would be received at home?"

"I forgot," Jul said. "You just lie, don't you?"

"So we do." Phillips did that nauseating curve of his lips again. "It saves on ammunition, my friend here tells me."

"There's no help that I can possibly give you," Jul said. "Even if I was such a disgrace to my clan that I wanted to."

Phillips hunched his shoulders up and let them fall again, possibly indicating that he didn't care. "You're going to be handed over to the Office of Naval Intelligence. If that doesn't worry you, then it should. They can do whatever they want with you. Now, I'll take a guess that you're working undercover for the Arbiter to keep an eye on those who want to overthrow him, which is all very honorable, but if word of that reaches Avu Med 'Telcam, then Abiding Truth knows where your keep is and where your children are, and they'll exact their revenge."

My children. My keep.

Jul had nothing left to say. He dissolved into a mass of rage and drew back his head to spit with all his strength against the glass. That was a gesture these humans understood as well any Sangheili. Phillips still didn't flinch. He just stared, smiling.

When Jul's rage and frustration subsided a little, something struck him that he could use to his advantage. Phillips didn't have all the answers. He had guessed wrongly about allegiance to the Arbiter.

That was something Jul could cling to and use, although he wasn't sure quite how yet. This bargaining business, this sly maneuvering, wasn't something he was used to.

Phillips was still looking at him, neither afraid nor angry, as if he had all the time in creation.

"Why should I even listen to you?" Jul asked. It was more a question he was asking himself, because at any point during this exchange, he could simply have turned his back and started ripping the cell apart again. Yet he was standing here, having a conversation with this lying little human insect, when there was nothing he needed to do or say except refuse to cooperate with them. "There is nothing in this for me. There is nothing in it for Sanghelios. So this is pointless. Have your sport with me now or kill me, whatever amuses you, but there's no way you can engage me in your plot."

Phillips cocked his head on one side, just like a Kig-Yar. It was tempting to think they had some common genetic ancestry. "I noticed that you've been looking at my friend Vaz from time to time. You can see he'd love to cut your throat and watch you bleed to death. He's a very nice man, but he's like almost every other human-most of us hate you because you've tried to wipe out our entire species. There's only three human beings who'd be sorry to see you go extinct, in fact, and that would be me and my two research assistants, because we study Sangheili. So remember that we're both a long way from home, Shipmaster, and the balance of power in the galaxy has just changed."

Phillips looked as if he was going to continue the conversation, but then he jerked back as if someone Jul couldn't see had interrupted him. The viewscreen and the audio link were still open. He caught one word that he understood in the garbled, mumbled human language.

It was Hood-the Shipmaster of Shipmasters. The other word that kept being repeated was onyx. He didn't know what onyx was, only that there were now several people outside his cell and they kept repeating the word as if they needed it confirmed.

Phillips put his hands to the viewscreen and tapped as if he was trying to get Jul's attention. "I'm afraid I've got to go, Shipmaster," he said. He looked a little confused. "Something's come up. Just think about our conversation, that's all I ask you."

Then the viewscreen closed, leaving the cell door an unbroken sheet of composite again, and Phillips was gone. Jul stood staring at the bulkhead for a few minutes, out of options and in danger of drowning in his own frustration, but there was one thing he could cling to.

He was definitely going to think about this conversation. He would learn from it.

BRIDGE, UNSC PORT STANLEY.

Vaz was fascinated by the strange spectrum of things that brought a glow to women's cheeks.

He'd been doing it all wrong. He could have ditched the chocolates and roses a long time ago and saved himself a lot of trouble. Naomi perked up when she was talking about military tactics, and Osman was now definitely radiant at the prospect of getting boots on the ground on Sanghelios.

"We're coming up to a busy few days," she said. "You spend months waiting for something significant to happen and then two interesting ops come along at once. Number one-Hood's visit to the Arbiter is on, and we're going to accompany him."

"Ooh," Phillips said, miming boyish glee. Or maybe it was real. "Can I volunteer for that, please?"

"He's been given permission to bring up to three minions with him, presumably because they think we're trouble in larger numbers. So that'll be me, someone who can drop a Sangheili with one shot, and someone who might give us an advantage when speaking to them. And that would be you, Evan. Any volunteers for the other position?"

"Me, ma'am." Vaz was itching to do something physical. He was used to being pumped on adrenaline and expending energy, not sitting around and waiting. He knew he wasn't cut out for the intelligence services. "They might find Naomi too threatening."

"You could take Devereaux," Mal said. "She's much more evil than she looks."

"I'll be driving the bus," Devereaux said, pinning up her hair again. A strand had started to work loose and was clearly annoying her. "So when is it scheduled for, ma'am?"

"Sixteen hours," Osman said. "And as soon as Hood's safely away, then we're heading for Onyx."

It had to be important for Parangosky to want to divert Osman there. Vaz reached out and took the arum away from Phillips to see if it was as easy as he made it look. Osman seemed very upbeat about Onyx, as if it was something she'd been looking forward to for a long time. She even perched her backside on the comms console rather than sitting down in the captain's chair. She kept looking at Naomi, but when she did she seemed almost nervous. But Osman didn't do nervous. Vaz realized something big was going down, and she'd said there were UNSC personnel stranded on Onyx.

So it had to be the Master Chief: they'd found him.

It was the only thing that would explain the excitement and urgency. There were plenty of ONI personnel around to deal with less critical situations. They would only send Parangosky's heir on a real showstopper.

"The anomaly at the Onyx coordinates is a Dyson sphere," Osman said. "And we've now had transmissions from it. Right now it's enclosed in a slipspace bubble and compressed to less than the size of a soccer ball in this dimension. But we're working on bringing it into realspace. Once our techies get in there, there's a lot of brand-new Forerunner technology that they're going to strip out and use. This is big stuff, people. Really big stuff."