Halo Cryptum

Halo Cryptum: The Forerunner Saga

By Greg Bear

Truly, the Deep Reverence seemed like a great tree riddled through by the wandering whimsy of a single, awful termite. The higher we progressed with the fortress – and progress is not the correct word – the deeper the sense the sense of undisciplined decay. I wondered if the Confirmer had for the last thousand years spent his time building useless follies throughout the decks, above and below, draining the ship's resources and perverting its original design.

We came finally to a space warm enough and with sufficient oxygen to relieve the burden of our armor. This hiss of replenishment was like a gasp as our ancillas sucked in reserves for what they, too, seemed to think might be a desperate time.

The Confirmer's command center was hung with tattered draperies of a design I could not recognize. Within the drapes, pushing up through or rising between, were dozens of sculptures made of stone and metal, some quite large, and all wrought with a grace and skill that was evident whatever their subjects might have been – abstractions or representations, who could tell?

But as a command center, this space was no more functional than the empty vault we had first entered. Clearly, the fortress had become a cluttered ghost of its former might.

The Confirmer ordrered up seatin arrangements. With creaks and groans, the deck produced only two chairs suitable for Prometheans, plus a small bump that might have been meant for me. Some of the drapes drew aside, rpping and falling in dusty shreds... and three sculptures toppled, one of them nearly striking me before it landed on the deck with a solid thunk and split in two.

The Confirmer carried bottles from a broad cabinet half-hidden in the drapes, walking with a left-leaning lurch. “The best I have to offer,” he said, and poured out three glasses of a greenish liquid. He sat and offered a glass to the Didact and one to me. Neither of the glasses were clean. “You remember kasna,” he said, lifting his own glass in toast. The liquid inside smelled sweet and sour – pungent – and left a stain on the glass. “The San'Shyuum have always excelled in the arts of intoxication. This is from their finest reserve.

The Didact looked at his glass, then downed it in a gulp – to the Confirmer's dismay.

“That's rare stuff,” he chided.

“You allow the San'Shyuum to travel between their two worlds?” the Didact asked, returning the glass to the dusty tray.

“They are confined within the boundary of the quarantine,” the Confirmer said. “There's no reason to hold them fast.”

“In many ways, there were worse than humans,” the Didact said.

 “You've not had contact with any other warrior in how many years?”

“The living? Centuries, centuries,” the Confirmer said. “The last shipment of...” He stopped himself, looked about with curtained chamber with eyes that had lost nearly all focus. “Many colleagues are brought here, you know. Exiled with less dignity than the Council allowed you. They've fought, and lost, many political battles since you vanished.”

“Where are they?”

“A few were allowed their own Cryptums. The rest... the Council shipped us their Durances.”

“The Deep Reverence has become a graveyard?” The Didact asked, the last color departing his already pale features.

“Missed and misguided, they now claim.”

Space ships. Illustration by Elena.