"Serin, may I ask you a question?"

Osman didn't look comfortable with the familiarity, but Halsey had never known her as Osman. "Go ahead," she said. "But you might not get an answer."

"Why now? After all that's passed between me and Parangosky, why did she decide to come for me now?"

Osman was a pace ahead of her. Halsey could see her expression in profile. She didn't smile, and she didn't seem remotely satisfied. She looked as if she'd finally put an aging, incontinent dog out of its misery as humanely as she could, but didn't want to dwell on the deed any longer.

"Because you couldn't flout the law and human decency one minute longer, Doctor," she said. "You were always on borrowed time, whether you realized it or not."

Halsey digested that as she turned the corner and saw the dropship with its stealth coating and a bristling array of ELINT masts extended from their protective housings. Her time had finally run out. At least she'd managed to make it coincide with the end of the war. And there were still four of her Spartans left standing.

She could face whatever came next.

CHAPTER.

SIXTEEN.

WE'VE PUT EVERYTHING WE'VE GOT INTO INFINITY. AND NOW WE CAN PUT IN A LITTLE SOMETHING EXTRA.

(REAR ADMIRAL SAEED SHAFIQ, UNSC PROCUREMENT).

UNSC PORT STANLEY, ON STATION AT FORERUNNER SHIELD WORLD TREVELYAN.

Jul had counted the days he'd been locked in this compartment by scratching a number into the bulkhead every time his human captors switched on the lighting and placed food in the service hatch.

It was a regular cycle. He assumed they brought up the ship's lighting to correspond with Earth daylight, and that meant that he had been here for eight days.

Raia would know by now that something was wrong and that he hadn't simply been delayed on one of his gun-running expeditions. He wondered if 'Telcam was looking for him, or if he'd known about the human ambush all along.

What do they want with me?

Jul had expected to be questioned. But he'd just been left to rot, cooped up in this tiny space with its ridiculous water supply and baffling toilet. The small comforts he took for granted at home, like clean clothing and space to stretch his legs, had been ripped away from him and he wondered if this was all part of their elaborate interrogation procedure. But they genuinely seemed to have lost interest in him. There was a great deal of activity in the ship, and none of it appeared to be about him.

He hadn't felt slipspace drives engage for several days now. The ship could have been anywhere. There were no viewscreens so he couldn't even look at the stars and work out which system he might be in.

Perhaps this is going to turn into a hostage game. But what am I worth, and who would they exchange me for?

His anger had now exhausted itself and he'd settled into an obsessive determination to find a way of getting word to Sanghelios. It frustrated him even more that Phillips, the only human he'd ever met who could speak Sangheili dialects with any degree of fluency, had disappeared and he was now reliant on the abomination that called itself BB.

AIs were meant to be servants. This one did not know its place. But it did speak Sangheili.

Jul hammered on the cell door. "What is our position?" he demanded. "Where are you taking me? I want to speak to Phillips." It was hard to say the end of the word, the P and the S together, so he had to settle for filliss. "Get Phillips for me."

The AI materialized in the cell. It was tempting to take a swipe at it, but it was ludicrous to vent his frustration on a hologram.

"Phyllis is busy," BB said, mimicking his pronunciation. "Look, you're going to be the guest of the ONI in a rather pleasant location. It'll be just you and a few hundred humans on a brand-new world. Lots of lovely countryside and unspoiled views."

"You haven't answered my question."

"Well, let's just say you're an awfully long way from home."

"I'll tell you nothing," he said. "What's the point of all this?"

"Well, they really wanted a live Sangheili prisoner, so who am I to deny them? All I know is that there are a lot of scientists and other people in white coats down there, figuratively speaking, and I'm sure you'll all get on famously."

Jul didn't understand what white coats signified. The avatar disappeared again, but then it popped back right in front of him. "Phillips is going to be a guest of the Arbiter, by the way. Is there any message you want me to pass on to your boss?"

"Thel 'Vadam is not my boss," Jul snarled. "He's a weakling who spends too much time worrying whether humans like him instead of exterminating them."

It just slipped out. It didn't matter what a human-or its computer-thought of his lack of allegiance to the Arbiter, but it dawned on him that the devious little AI had simply flushed out a fundamental answer: they just wanted to know if Jul was one of the Arbiter's agents. He was furious at himself for providing the answer so easily simply because he couldn't control his temper.

Or perhaps not. Humans are so twisted that they might think I'm simply saying that to deceive them.

"I'll just send your best wishes to Professor Phyllis, then," BB said, and vanished.

Jul roared with fury and punched his fist hard into the bulkhead. It was slightly dented now from constant pounding, but even if he ripped open the whole compartment, he was still marooned on a ship deep in space, and his chances of escape were dwindling every time more humans arrived. He sank back on his bunk and tried to calm himself.

The biggest threat he faced was that the isolation would slowly break him.

When there was nothing else to do except stare at the bulkhead and fantasize about the many varied ways to end a human life, a certain sensitivity developed to the subliminal sounds of the vessel. Jul could now tell when the ship's drives were maneuvering to hold station, and even when someone was ditching waste. There was a distinctive clunk overhead. He wondered how much could be heard outside the ship, because the AI had told him with insufferable smugness that this was a stealth vessel, and that nobody would know Port Stanley was there until they hit one of her mines.

Jul was also building up a picture of his environment from his sense of smell. On the occasions when a hatch opened, he could detect sweat, machine oil, burnt meat, and oddly floral scents. There was another smell that might have been a sterilizing agent or disinfectant, and now a new one-a sour aroma of human agitation, almost as pungent as their fear when he'd fought them-that got his attention. He tried to memorize it all, because one day this kind of intelligence might come in useful.

Sometime later, he heard the sound of boots, several pairs of them, thudding along the passage toward the cell. They might not have been specifically heading his way, because the cell was on one of the main passages running fore to aft in the ship. But he knew that sound.

Spartans. Demons.

Even without their heavy armor, they were much heavier than the average human and he could hear them stalking up and down the passage outside his cell, sometimes in silence and sometimes talking quietly among themselves as they went by. He recognized the voices. There were more females on board now, and an older male with a rasping voice who didn't seem very happy with life. The words made no sense to Jul, although he was starting to learn that the repetition of goddamn indicated a certain mood, and when voices were raised there were many more words with explosive consonants like F and sibilants like S. Even their anger lacked eloquence.

A conversation was now going on outside his cell door. He kept hearing a repetition of the word halsey, but he had no idea what a halsey was, only that the humans seemed particularly agitated about it.

"No, you can't talk to her." That was the female shipmaster, the one who'd had him imprisoned here. "Strict instructions from Admiral Parangosky."

"But what happens now?" That was a male voice he wasn't familiar with, neither the bad-tempered older male nor the two soldiers who were part of the ship's crew. "Where are they going to take her?"

"I can't tell you that," the shipmaster said. "But you're going to Sydney for debriefing."

Jul had no idea what they were talking about, but he could memorize the sounds and detect the emotion behind the words. There was a great deal of tension. He could smell their agitation again in their sweat, the acrid human scents that they pumped out when their stress levels were high.

The conversation stopped and the boots strode away. A few minutes later, the small viewscreen set in his cell door activated and he found himself looking at the female shipmaster-Osman-and an anonymous, helmeted Spartan. It was hard to tell the demons apart until they spoke.

"Okay, BB, read him his rights, if he has any," said Osman. Jul recognized the name BB. "We're going to have to move him now. Parangosky wants Halsey transferred as soon as Compton-Hall gets here."

The AI appeared in front of Jul. "Time to go, Shipmaster," BB said. He had as good a command of the language as Phillips. "We're going to disembark you. Now you can do this in a civilized way and walk out under your own steam, or we can do it the cattle prod way. You do understand what I mean by cattle prod, don't you?"

"Where are you taking me?"

"Like I said, it's quite a pleasant location. We'll transfer you by shuttle. Now, are you going to behave yourself?"

"I'm not a child."

"If you resist, they'll simply shoot you. I know you love the idea of death before dishonor, but if you force them to shoot you, nobody will ever know how courageous you were anyway. I don't suppose that matters to you, because you'll know that you did the decent and manly thing, and perhaps that's all you want. But if you want to take revenge at some future date, surviving is a pretty essential part of that strategy. It's your choice."

BB's logic was seductive. "Very well. What must I do?"

"They'll insist that you're handcuffed. Please don't resist."

BB was absolutely correct. To die resisting the enemy, with or without an audience to witness the event, was a noble thing. But returning to defeat the enemy was smarter and infinitely more satisfying. Jul waited for the door to open and presented his outstretched wrists without comment as the Spartan moved in to put restraints on his arms.

"You have a very persuasive way with you, BB," Osman said. "What did you do, threaten to tell his family that he cried like a girl?"

"You have to admit it's very effective," BB said. "A little trick that Phillips taught me, which I believe he dredged up from World War Two. That's anthropologists for you."

"Sometimes I think honor is vastly overrated," Osman said. She nodded at the Spartan. "See him off, Naomi."

It was the female Spartan again. She had the cattle prod hanging from her belt. Jul kept his word and walked beside her down the passage toward the hangar, where a group of six troops were waiting. Four other humans who looked like technicians were waiting there too, all clutching datapads and all far too frail or fat to be soldiers. The hangar was as crowded as a Kig-Yar bazaar with two dropships berthed and every available space behind the safety barrier filled with crates.

One of the technicians, a female with long pale hair scraped back from her face, looked up and smiled at him as if she'd never seen a live Sangheili before and didn't know how much damage he could do her. He suspected it was delighted curiosity rather than goodwill. She said nothing.

"Jul, I've instructed Dr. Magnusson's AI in the Sangheili language, so you should be able to communicate adequately," BB said. "Don't forget to send a postcard."

"Who is this Dr. Magnusson?" Jul demanded.

"You'll find out."

"Wait-"

Jul was slammed flat on the deck in the small shuttle, facedown, secured by clamps. He wanted to show them that the Sangheili didn't take this sort of treatment without protest, but it was pointless trying to educate humans, and there was nobody he cared about who could see him compound his shame by surrendering again. He would bide his time. Once he was on the surface of this planet, wherever it was, he would find a way home.

And he would also find a way to inflict great damage on these vermin.

But first he had to learn to think like them, and he realized that escaping from his new prison wouldn't require physical strength and daring, but learning to play the humans' games of lies and deceit.

It's shameful. But I can do it. There is a greater need that it serves.

He was expecting the journey to be much longer. It seemed that the shuttle's drives had only just run up to speed and left the ship behind when they powered down again and the ship settled on its dampers. He was certain he hadn't felt the vessel enter slipspace, and he was also sure from the distinctive sound of the drive that the ship wasn't slipspace-capable anyway.

The pressure lifted from his back as the securing straps were removed. Light flooded in behind him as a hatch opened.

"This is your stop, buddy." The troops hauled him to his feet. "Come on. Just be a good hinge-head and nobody gets hurt."

Individual words jumped out at him in the noise that made up the human language. He'd heard the word hinge-head a lot. He put it on his mental list of words to learn and understand. He walked down the shuttle's ramp with his wrists still secured, and into a bright, sunny day rich with the smell of green things on the air, the landscape all trees and rolling grassland with no buildings in sight.

A man and a woman in a uniform that he hadn't seen before were waiting for him. They smiled in that confusing human way as if he was welcome here.

"Shipmaster Jul 'Mdama," the woman said, nodding at him politely. He could hear her speaking her own language, but he could also hear a simultaneous translation in Sangheili. "I'm Dr. Magnusson. I hope you enjoy your stay here. Please don't think of it as extraordinary rendition. Think of it instead as helping to ensure that we never have to go to war again."

The man with her-hairless and unsmiling in the same dark gray fabric coveralls as the woman-looked Jul up and down and didn't seem impressed.

"Yes, welcome to ONI Research Facility Trevelyan, Shipmaster," his translation said. "This is where we gather intelligence to protect Earth. And this is where you disappear from the galaxy."

Jul understood him, too. It lifted his mood no end.

If he could understand what the humans said, then he was one step closer to working out how to get home.

"Temporarily, human," he said. "Just temporarily."

UNSC PORT STANLEY, IN ORBIT AROUND ONI RF TREVELYAN, ONYX SECTOR.

Vaz took his life in his hands and stepped into Naomi's path as she came thundering down the passage.

"You can't see her," he said. "Captain's orders. Parangosky's orders. Just leave it, Naomi. Please."

It took a lot of balls to try to intercept a Spartan who didn't want to be intercepted. Vaz expected her to roll right over him and break a few bones in her determination to talk to Halsey before she was transferred to Compton-Hall. Those were his orders, but that wasn't the only reason he was doing it.

He tried to imagine what it would feel like to live and fight under that kind of unnatural stress for more than thirty-five years, and then find the only person you thought of as a mother was in fact a monster who'd ripped your family apart. Spartans weren't machines. It had to hurt like hell.

Naomi hadn't known what had gone on back home while she was being whisked away to Reach with dozens of other unlucky kids whose only mistake had been to be born strong, smart, and a long way from Earth. Vaz could see her imagination was now working overtime picturing the misery that Halsey had left in her wake.

Halsey was a genetics expert. She should have known those cloned kids would stand a high risk of dying. What kind of a bitch would do that to another human being after kidnapping their real child?

"Vaz, I need to talk to her," Naomi said quietly. "I might not get another chance. I just want to know why she kept all that from us."

Vaz still blocked the passage, boots planted firmly and shoulders squared, although if a Spartan wanted to get past him there would have been nothing he could do about it. He had a pretty good idea why Halsey hadn't bothered to explain to her adoring trainees exactly what she'd done, but it would only make things worse if he said so.

"She didn't want to hurt you," Vaz lied.

"Nice try, but I want to hear it from her."

Now he could hear the stampede sound of the other Spartans heading his way. He wasn't going to let them past, either. He wondered if the brutal truth might actually be kinder than letting them think that ONI was extraditing some kind of saint.

The guy in front was a lieutenant, which made things doubly awkward: Frederic. Even that offended Vaz-that Halsey had given them just first names, as if they'd always be children. They had a right to their surnames. Okay, they didn't remember them, but they had lineage, and they had ancestors, and they came from somewhere.

"Corporal, we just want to talk to Dr. Halsey," Frederic said. What was Vaz supposed to call him, Lieutenant Frederic? What kind of a name was that for a grown man, let alone an officer? "I don't see what harm it can do."

"Admiral's orders, sir," Vaz said. "Please don't make me disobey my captain. She might be the next head of ONI and I value my nuts."

Frederic looked uneasy. "I'll make my representations to Admiral Parangosky, then."

Frederic turned back up the passage with the other two female Spartans. Naomi looked at Vaz and did a slow headshake that was more confusion than disagreement. She'd obey orders, but that didn't mean she wasn't having a hard time with it.