The picture looked like it was cropped from a wedding snap or something, with the man in question in a relatively tidy jacket. Mal couldn't work out from the fragment of shoulder to one side of him whether it was a bride or just a woman in a light dress, but it was a moment from a normal life. He was white-haired, maybe blond. No, Mal wouldn't have started a casual conversation him. It was those eyes.

"You still awake, Vaz?" Mal asked.

Vaz didn't move for a moment, and Mal dipped down to check he really was conscious. His eyes were shut. Then he opened them and stared at the pad for a while, not happy at all.

"I know him," Vaz said. "Or at least I know who he is."

"Shit, don't tell me you owe him money."

Vaz held the pad up for Mal, not looking at it. "We know his daughter. Check the name."

Mal tilted his head. He didn't know anyone by that name, least of all a woman. "Is she hot? Give me a clue."

Vaz turned around and even for a bloke who didn't smile much at the best of times, he looked devastated. Mal decided to cut the jokes. Spenser just straightened up and watched in silence.

"Sentzke," Vaz said quietly. "The file says Staffan Sentzke. His daughter's called Naomi."

ONTOM, SANGHELIOS: MARCH 2553.

BB was still undecided whether Phillips was a brilliant actor or genuinely thrilled to be allowed to wander around the ruins of Ontom.

"I think this is their equivalent of bella Firenze," Phillips said breathlessly. "There'll be wonderful galleries somewhere. Maybe a nice trattoria."

"Check your blood sugar, there's a good lad."

"Come on, get into the spirit of things, BB." Beneath all that excitement, he was scared. BB could detect the tremor in his voice. "Nobody gets to visit this place. Except me."

Phillips was sitting on the broad rail of a low balustrade next to the river that cut through the city, looking somehow less conspicuous by talking openly into his comms unit with his datapad clutched in front of him like a guidebook. Each time he moved, BB-locked into that narrow perspective from his comms cam-caught a glimpse of the audience that now gathered wherever he went. A huge four-jawed mouth with huge canine teeth suddenly filled far too much of the frame as a Sangheili leaned over to peer into Phillips's face.

"Is it true?" the Sangheili asked. "Can you speak?"

"Of course I can speak." Phillips started laughing to himself as if it was some in-joke. "I hold the Arkell Chair of Anthropology at Wheatley."

"Ah. Scholar. Yes, we thought you were too small even for a soldier."

Dear God, and he's still wandering around without his minder. He's going to get himself ripped apart.

BB debated whether to tell him to move on. But the locals simply seemed stunned by him. He'd collected a small crowd now, blocking out the sun and throwing deep shadows across his lap. BB decided that the locals thought he was recording copious notes. They couldn't have failed to notice him sketching furiously on his datapad like some demented tourist. Did they have any concept of human tourism? Nobody had bothered to record that in the database. They certainly understood pilgrimage, though, and BB got the feeling there was a lot of that in Phillips.

A huge four-fingered hand filled the screen. It was clutching an arum, this time made from pale polished wood instead of the usual ebony or mahogany type.

"Now let's see you crack this one."

BB had no idea how Phillips's reputation for arum wrangling had spread, but it had, and every time he was offered an arum to solve he did so in record time, and left them baffled. Now they were bringing him ever more complex ones.

There seemed to be a wide range of mechanisms, and so far Phillips had unlocked them all in less than half an hour. BB wondered whether to warn him that in the end, nobody really liked a smart-ass. He knew that better than anybody.

Phillips whistled tunelessly to himself. At one point he shook the arum and it made no noise. "Ah, this one's already empty," he said.

"I'd try a little humble incompetence if I were you," BB whispered in his earpiece.

While Phillips was taking an AI's eternity unlocking the arum, BB kept a careful eye on Port Stanley. Vaz and Mal were off-comms on Venezia, lurking somewhere with Mike Spenser and due to call in in an hour or so. Back at the Tart-Cart, Devereaux had her boots up on the console, carbine resting on her knees as she studied a service manual on her datapad. Osman was in her day cabin, poring over the schematics of Infinity with Naomi.

The arrest of Halsey and whatever followed would be a sideshow, BB decided. The real business of coming to terms with the old Spartan program was taking place here among the few survivors. It would be a footnote in the history books, like all the unsavory parts of Earth's wars, of interest only to students of medical ethics, and forgotten until the next time someone repeated it because it seemed like a really good idea this time.

"Wow," Phillips said. "Wow, will you take a look at this...."

BB was aware of everything that was perceived by each of his fragments, but some of his multiple viewpoints got his attention more than others at any given moment. Phillips had just grabbed the top slot.

He wasn't actually talking into his radio. He'd just made a comment to himself. BB could hear the whispering noise of wood surfaces sliding against each other like a jar being opened, and then Phillips straightened up a little so that the light fell on the arum he was grappling with. Eventually something tumbled into his lap.

It wasn't a polished gemstone. Phillips grabbed it, and the whole angle of the image tipped as if he'd suddenly stood up.

"Hey," Phillips called. "Tell me about this one. Hang on-where did he go?"

He was facing into a forest of Sangheili at weapon-belt height. BB could only assume that whoever had handed Phillips the arum had disappeared. BB's first thought was that it was booby-trapped, which would have been almost reasonable given the circumstances, but even Phillips would have reacted by now if he'd found an explosive device inside.

"Who was that?" Phillips asked. His official minder, Cadan, appeared in view. The surly pilot definitely wasn't cut out for hospitality work. BB could see him now, striding toward Phillips with his huge head rolling slightly as if to say that he hadn't realized where Phillips was and he was somewhat pissed off about it.

"Who was what?" Cadan demanded.

The audience was thinning out now. BB heard something rustle in Phillips's hand. "Never mind. Somebody gave me this arum and walked off before I could give it back."

Cadan examined it. "The monks make that type. They make them very hard to open, too, so are you cheating?"

"I'll show you how I do it," Phillips promised, "but can you show me where they sell them?"

Cadan let out a long, exasperated growl. "I swear I'll kill you before this duty is over. Our children are less trouble than this."

"Indulge me. Please."

BB could now see Cadan's back as he lumbered ahead of Phillips, heading toward the old market. Phillips trailed after him. Then he started unfolding a scrap of paper, holding it close to the lens.

"BB," he whispered. "You need to take a look at this. This is what came out of the arum."

It wasn't written in Sangheili. It was written in English, in awkward letters as if the shapes were unfamiliar even if the language wasn't. Few if any Sangheili could read English even if they understood some of the spoken word.

Stay off the streets. You were unwise to come here at a time like this. Wait for contact from the sanctuary of the Abiding Truth and we will shelter you.

It had to be from 'Telcam. Nobody else here would be sending Phillips notes in English. Ontom might have been too risky a lead to follow after all.

"Oh, shit." Phillips's voice shook a little. "How am I going to do that with Cheerful Charlie following me everywhere?"

"Just stay calm and stall," BB said. "If 'Telcam knows you're there, he knows you've got company, too."

Osman needed to be told right away. BB popped up between her and Naomi while he hived off a fragment to place a signal to 'Telcam.

"Apologies, Captain, but I need to brief you. It won't take long. Phillips has just had a message from 'Telcam that suggests they might make a move against the Arbiter soon. He's been told to wait for further contact in case they need to shelter him in the monastery."

Osman shut her eyes for a moment. "I should have seen that coming." She stopped in her tracks. "I ought to pull Phillips out now, but that's going to raise all kinds of awkward questions. I need to talk to 'Telcam."

"I'm getting him for you."

"Okay, give me Phillips's cam feed, too."

Osman stood up and started doing that slow pacing-one, two, three, turn-that was as near as she came to showing agitation. An ODST or a Spartan was a known quantity in a tight spot, but not an untested civilian like Phillips.

"Worse comes to worst, ma'am, I'll go and extract him myself," Naomi said.

The fact that Sanghelios was effectively impenetrable wasn't too much of a deterrent for a Spartan, but BB knew it was a stunt they could only pull once, and then the whole delicate relationship between the Arbiter, UNSC, ONI, and 'Telcam might come unraveled in an especially ugly way. Reigniting the war right after a peace deal wasn't quite how BB thought Osman should enter the history books.

And 'Telcam wasn't responding.

"That might not be an option," Osman said. "That's what BB's standing by for, I'm afraid."

"It won't come to that, Captain," he promised. "Although a plan B is always comforting."

BB projected the shaky, oddly angled footage onto the battle bridge monitor and Osman watched with her arms folded tightly across her chest. The view showed a street ahead, a wide boulevard lined with trees with quite a few Sangheili milling around. It was the kind of angle beloved of TV reporters who thought that kind of camera work made their undercover stuff look edgy when they'd had gyro-mounted, self-directing minicams for centuries.

Then BB recognized one Sangheili approaching Phillips on a collision course.

"Professor," 'Telcam said. "You've put yourself at great risk."

"I was invited by the Arbiter. Seemed difficult to refuse."

"But why here? Where's your pilot?"

"I left him at the inn with half the solution to an arum. He's quite engrossed."

The two of them started walking in another direction. There was an entrance ahead, a very old building that had to be the temple. Phillips walked through the gates and the camera went into sudden gloom.

"This is wonderful," Phillips said, swallowing hard. Keep going, Professor, BB thought. That's it. Steady. "This must date from before your first contact with the San'Shyuum."

"Correct, Professor," 'Telcam said. Figures scuttled around them in the gloom. They didn't seem to be in the building yet, just standing in the dappled shade of trees. "I'm glad you respect its antiquity and significance. Now ... tell me what you know about Jul 'Mdama."

For a terrible moment, Phillips's heart rate went haywire. BB confirmed that the radio unit was in close enough contact with the man's chest to eject the needle, and hated himself for his instant efficiency.

"Should I know him?" Phillips managed at last.

The two of them were walking slowly toward the temple. BB could see the entrance, but there seemed to be some crowd movement streaming past them, not the usual audience Phillips now gathered. Something else had seized their attention.

"What's that?" Osman asked.

Naomi didn't blink. "I think-"

Then the cam flared, pure white, as if Phillips had turned straight into the sun and the lens was struggling for a moment, followed by a split second of silence before a dull whoomp registered on BB's analytical audio as an explosion. The camera tipped: maybe Phillips had fallen or dived for cover, or perhaps 'Telcam had pushed him to the ground.

"Christ, what's going on?" Osman snapped. "BB, anything you can do with that image?"

"I'll try, but-"

He could hear 'Telcam's voice, a little distant but definitely shaken. "It's not us," he said in Sangheili. "It's not us. What in the name of the gods is happening?"

There was no sound from Phillips, but his heart was still pounding. That was something. Then there was another booming explosion, this time without light, and the cam feed dissolved in static. BB felt as if his arm had been torn off, a real physical pain. He thought he had no concept of himself as a corporeal entity, let alone one with limbs, until that moment.

The silence was sudden and complete. And he hurt.

Osman reached for the comms console faster than BB imagined a human could, even a Spartan. She didn't look at Naomi.

"Kilo-Five, this is Port Stanley," she said. "Devereaux, get everyone back here right now. We're heading back to Sanghelios immediately. Phillips is in trouble."

And if he was, there was nothing that BB, so used to being ubiquitous and all-seeing, could now do to help him or spare him, and he couldn't even assess the threat that faced him. He didn't even know if his fragment was still functioning. For the first time, the AI fully understood what a terrifying, uncertain world his human colleagues had to exist in.

"Let's move it, BB," Osman said. "Stand by to slip."

NOVELS IN THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING HALO SERIES.

Halo: The Fall of Reach by Eric Nylund.

Halo: The Flood by William C. Dietz.

Halo: First Strike by Eric Nylund Halo: Ghosts of Onyx by Eric Nylund.

Halo: Contact Harvest by Joseph Staten.

Halo: The Cole Protocol by Tobias S. Buckell.

Halo: Evolutions: Essential Tales of the Halo Universe by various authors/artists.

Halo: Cryptum by Greg Bear.

Halo: Glasslands by Karen Traviss.

ALSO BY KAREN TRAVISS.

GEARS OF WAR.

Aspho Fields.

Jacinto's Remnant Anvil Gate Coalition's End.

WESS'HAR WARS City of Pearl Crossing the Line.

The World Before Matriarch Ally Judge STAR WARS: REPUBLIC COMMANDO.