Free Broken Circle by John Shirley Page B

right—or we are all lost. There is no middle ground.” ‘Crolon now glanced around to see if anyone elsewas listening. He clearly knew he was treading dangerous ground. “And suppose he is wrong? Will we not perish here, away from our homeworld, in a place we can never understand? Perhaps this world is a Forerunner temple! Perhaps we are defiling it by our very presence here!”
    Tersa squirmed inwardly upon hearing this. He was a youth, and he knew his place; he was expected to give ‘Crolon respect. But it was all he could do to refrain from a shouting argument. He took a deep breath, clasped his lateral jaws together firmly for a moment, to show smiling patience, and murmured, “ ‘Crolon . . . it is as Ussa said, we have crossed the Great Torrent. There is no turning back. We are committed. I believe we are rightly committed. There is nothing but shame in submitting to the Covenant. And truly that is our only other choice. What do you think would happen to us if we returned to Sanghelios? We’d be put to death for siding against the Writ of Union.”
    â€œOh, I am just speculating on all this for the sake of discussion,” ‘Crolon replied mildly. “Though—there might be another way. A deal could be struck, perhaps . . .”
    â€œWith whom? That sounds like treachery . . . !”
    â€œKeep your voice down, fool of a childling—you’ll have Ernicka after us both! I did not mean it that way. I am one who thinks logically and methodically, who looks at all sides of a dilemma.”
    â€œI see no dilemma here. I see only the path we’ve taken. Of all Sangheili, only we are honorable now.”
    â€œOh certainly, but . . . well, it was just a thought or two, nothing more. I hope I can count on you for discretion, my boy.” He cleared his throat and spoke more loudly. “Ah! Here comes the Scar-Maker! Greetings, Ernicka!”
    â€œYou two,” Ernicka the Scar-Maker rumbled as he wentstriding by, “are doing far more chattering than scanning. Ussa and Sooln must decipher these devices—we will need them! Set to work!” As if for emphasis, he had one hand on the hilt of a burnblade, sheathed on his hip.
    â€œYou are shiningly correct as always, Ernicka,” ‘Crolon said, exuding humility as he turned to the work at hand.
    Tersa kept his head down and said nothing. He went back to his task, thinking that with any luck he would not be appointed to work with ‘Crolon tomorrow. But Tersa felt as if in listening to ‘Crolon he’d ingested a subtle poison. What if they were sullying this sacred place? What if Ussa ‘Xellus was simply a misguided fanatic who’d led them into the hollow heart of an enigmatic world where they would wither away, where they would die blighted with Ussa’s growing insanity?
    By the Forerunners and all that was holy—what if Salus ‘Crolon was right?
    High Charity
    850 BCE
    The Age of Reconciliation
    Mken was in his private study, hunched over grainy holograms of ancient Forerunner sculpture. Some of the artifacts were not true sculpture, perhaps, but devices that only looked like works of art. It was often hard to tell.
    He caused the image to rotate, taking in its curves and hollows, its sweeping volutes. The shape seemed to suggest evolution, galactic spirals, a tower of swirling shapes all writhing together . . .
    His understanding of the Forerunners identified them asbeings who had maintained, for a time, organic, material form; they became somehow channelers of a divine inspiration that transformed them and made them suitable for the Great Journey to a higher realm, through the agency of the seven Rings. The Rings, set about the galaxy in spiritually significant positions, had been designed to summon sublime spiritual energies that burned away falsehood and freed the soul to speed rapidly to the heart of the