The look of utter horror on his features unsettled my innards even more than the fluctuating gravity. “We don’t know that,” I said.

“The others … Still in stasis. They might be infected!”

“We don’t know that, either.”

“In the early stages of infection … all you might see would be a tiny patch, a blemish, a single tendril!”

He coughed and then doubled up in a spasm. Clearly he had been treated badly before being discarded. The air was getting worse. My own lungs and throat felt tight.

Sharp’s spasm subsided. “My weakness has passed, Didact,” he said. “It is good to serve you again. If you will have me.”

We regarded each other for a somber moment. Sharp-by-Striking in his best days had been a serviceable commander. Something of a talker, however.

“We are where we are,” I said. “Let’s learn what we can.”

He went to the controls and, muttering Warrior curses, pure and sweet to our ears, began to slam and cajole the controls, until the balky old hulk grudgingly did its best to respond. The direct view panels opened and we looked across the full expanse of Uthera.

“Not good,” Sharp said.

Slowly, an old ancilla struggled to revive, appearing first as a spinning disk, then as a headless torso with floating, staring eyes. “Pardon me,” it said. “I am designed to represent the combined intelligence of four vessels. I will respond only to a flotilla commander.”

“A flotilla sub-metarch is common,” Sharp explained in a weary undertone. “None of these ships had the resources to fight alone.”

“None of our other ships are responsive,” the ancilla said. “I am no longer functional. I am merely an incomplete residue—”

“Obviously,” I said. “Never mind that. What can this ship do?”

After an unpleasant interval, during which various portions of the ancilla’s anatomy reappeared, only to disappear again, the residue did its best to diagnose our situation. “We cannot leave the system. This ship cannot formulate a slipspace jump—the necessary components are far too worn, and besides, there is no longer any means to establish a legitimate request.”

“We could ignore protocol,” Sharp muttered.

The fragmented ancilla continued, “There are no local portals. All have apparently been withdrawn. I am only partially aware of this system’s status, but it appears that fifteen nearby suns and their attendant worlds have been quarantined. Perhaps years ago. This much can be recovered from ship’s history.”

“Check on the other two bubbles,” I murmured to Sharp. “Maybe they can tell us something … if they survive release.”

He agreed. Before he entered the transit tube, he looked back at me and said, “I may have some of the attributes of a Builder, but I renounce them. I would like to return to being a Warrior-Servant … in your thoughts, at least.”

“So observed,” I said.

“Thank you, Commander.” He vanished into the tube.

At least we knew where we stood with each other. A better way to die.

I focused my full attention on learning what the ancilla might still be capable of. It was reluctant to test the ship’s scanning capabilities. “I am not attuned to direct control of this vessel,” it said. “Anything I attempt may damage it.”

Uthera seemed unchanged from the last time I had visited this system, but without enhanced sensory input, there was no way I could learn more.

“I’m willing to take that risk,” I said.

“Yes, but I do not have you in memory as an authorized commander.”

“Then locate the commander,” I suggested.

“That will require activating ship’s internal and external sensors. And that may damage our systems. We seem to be at a stalemate.”

Its staring, floating eyes irritated me, so I suggested it revert to the spinning disk or no visual whatsoever. It chose the latter and its responsiveness immediately improved.

“This ship answers a light query. It tells me it no longer remembers its name or number,” it said. “It also informs me an internal report on operability will not damage equipment. That’s a relief, no?”

“Maybe,” I said, paying more attention to the world below, as if staring hard might reveal something I had not noticed to this point.

And it did.

“Ship says external sensors are corroded and barely operable,” the residue continued. “But properly coaxed, they may still supply some information. Shall I coax?”

I pointed to a grayish patch on Uthera’s limb, even now sliding into darkness—but still, as it did so, shaping a visible bump against the thin starfield beyond. “Try focusing on that.” I said.

“It is of considerable size,” the residue said. “Yet it does not appear to be a natural feature, nor a Forerunner construct. Ship will take a closer view.”

That view—grainy and shimmering, as if through a rising column of hot air—revealed what I had dreaded most and seen only once, ten thousand years before: a spore mountain.

The Flood.

“The object rises fifty kilometers above the planet’s datum and measures four hundred kilometers across the base, at its greatest diameter. It intersects many Forerunner constructs and appears to have arisen at the center of a major city, which city is, if memory serves—if this is truly Uthera—”

A matter of little importance to me at this moment. “Will ship respond to my commands? Will you?”

The residue considered, then flashed a geometric shape—a complex polygon. “Do you have proper codes for assuming command?”

The codes I carried in memory were over a millennia old—but they might appeal to this poor remnant, or the ship with which it was so delicately linked.

“Try this,” I said, and spoke a string of four hundred intricately looping nonsense words and numbers of the sliding, nonintegral varieties favored by Builder systems.

“Checking,” the residue said.

Sharp-by-Striking came up through the transit opening, but this time in proper fashion, rising slowly, accompanied by a sigh of freshening air. “Tubes and conveyors are working, sort of,” he said. “What did you do?”

“We’re waking up,” I said. “What about our comrades in the hold?”

“Murky, but clearing a little. Not long until they burst. One appears to be a high-ranking Builder,” Sharp said, confirming my observation. “Still has armor.”

“Not Faber—?”

“Not the Master Builder.” He grimaced in disappointment.

“Too bad,” I agreed. We shared a moment of darkness, touching the sixth fingers of our left hands in vengeful sympathy.

“But possibly one of his subordinates, fallen from favor,” Sharp said. “If the armor still functions, perhaps it can help control the ship.”

“And the other?”

“Catalog,” Sharp said grimly. “Carapace looks damaged. It may not come out alive.”

Here again, the Master Builder’s ironic touch was evident. No doubt Catalog had been sent to him by Juridicals to conduct an interview—only to be frozen in stasis and dumped here with the rest of Faber’s garbage.

My wife had supplied me with fully updated armor after I left my Cryptum. That had been taken from me, so my knowledge of more immediate events was spotty at best. I had no idea what might have forced the Master Builder’s hand. Having captured me, he should have been inclined to bring me to trial before his corrupted Juridicals. He had not. That implied that even before my capture, his situation had already started to decline.

If Catalog came out alive, if it could still hook up to a Juridical network—and no doubt it would want to, after what it had experienced—we might reach out to the ecumene and report our status.

Uthera was infested. Any attempt to land and conduct repairs would end in disaster. None of the worlds here would be of use. How had it gone so far wrong?

“What do you know about the last few years … or however long I’ve been out of action?” I asked.

“Without armor, my knowledge has huge gaps,” Sharp said. “In the end, Faber took no one into his confidence. Except Mendicant Bias.”

“You know about that?”

“The Master Builder was under arrest, on trial. Without warning, Halos conducted an attack on the Capital. Some said Mendicant Bias was trying to rescue Faber, but I think not.”

The details were coming together. Sharp’s expression told me as much.

“Faber escaped. You went with him,” I said.

He marked a Y over his forehead and the bridge of his nose, a Warrior’s admission of guilt. “With the help of the Warden, who removed Faber from the capital and delivered him to me. I commanded a fast frigate, one of six that may have been carrying high-ranking members of Builder Security.… We were ordered to flee the Capital system, even though it was under attack.”

“And?”

“The Master Builder’s personal security overwhelmed our crew. I recognized them by his sigil. They killed all but me. That’s the last I remember.”

“I must have been on that frigate as well. Did you know?”

“None of our crew knew.”

Perhaps everything was already lost. Perhaps the Burn extended across the entire galaxy. If so, surely the Master Builder would have fired off his beloved wheels, his Halos! Unless they had all been damaged or destroyed while attacking the Capital.

Sharp said he knew nothing about that, or how many Halos might remain active. His ignorance of events that must have transpired while he fled with the Master Builder was not convincing. But we had little time to argue.

He pointed to the displays. “We’re attracting attention.” Tracking symbols flocked around tiny points of light moving into position along the limb of the planet, coming up from behind its curve—and then appeared far out in the system. The symbols blossomed into readouts of size, class, capability.

“Forerunner vessels,” Sharp said. “Newer. Powerful. Hundreds of them.”

The new ships were communicating with our own—perhaps trying to take command.

“They say they’re in control of this system,” Sharp interpreted from the battle displays. “They welcome us—invite us to join them.” He looked at me dubiously. “To surrender. What are they still doing here, in the Burn?”

“We need to release the others,” I told him. “They’re our last hope.”

The remaining stasis bubbles were in the final stages of depletion and decay. Sharp and I worked out means of forcing the issue. Warrior-Servants, exerting all their strength, can wreak real havoc—and we did just that. We grabbed for heavy, hard implements. Fortunately, the ship was old enough that its re-shaping capabilities were minimal, and it soon yielded pieces of interior framing, furniture, and console supports with sufficient mass to be swung with real effect.

We battered. Fully energized, a stasis bubble can resist almost any imaginable force. But weakened, they shimmered and radiated in the ultraviolet with each of our coordinated blows. We were desperate. And for once, we were in luck. The fields blackened, then popped with a burst of brilliant blue light.

We had just enough warning to avert our eyes.

The Builder sprawled across the deck—female. Her armor spasmed and she lay curled up like a dying insect, face beaded with sweat, skin dark and blotchy.

For a moment, we wondered whether she was infected.…

Her eyelids flickered, opened. We backed away. Then Sharp moved in and turned her over, gently twisted her head around, looked into her eyes.

“She’s not sick,” he concluded.

Catalog lay on the deck, twitching, unable to raise its five limbs. Its carapace was scarred and crazed. It had suffered a lot of punishment.

Neither looked strong. Nevertheless, Sharp grabbed up the Builder and I took Catalog, and we dragged them to the main bridge.

The ship was still working to revive and return to full duty. The effort was both noble and pitiful.

“Very old … hulk,” the female Builder observed, struggling weakly to free herself from my grip. I let her go, then caught her again as she fell forward. “How did I get here?”

“We were dropped into this ship and sent to a Flood-infested system.”

To this she responded with an unbelieving glare. “They wouldn’t do that!”

“Look for yourself.”

Sharp lifted Catalog, tried to set all its limbs under it, then let it down gently. Three of the legs held, the other two folded. It fell back with a heavy thud.

“I was giving testimony … to that one!” the Builder said, standing without help. Her skin color was also improving. “Faber’s personal security found us. They tried to stop a Juridical deposition! I couldn’t believe it—”

“Where were you?” I asked.

She struggled to concentrate. Her ancilla was not being much help, I guessed. “On Secunda,” she said. “An emergency Council. Many Builders were facing extradition and arrest. I was among them.”

“You were turning Council evidence to protect yourself,” Sharp suggested. He glanced at me and shrugged.

“What happened?” I asked her.

“We heard there was an assault on the Capital system. The most powerful Builders scrambled to find protection. Monitors turned against them. The last thing I remember is Catalog being thrust into stasis. I must have been next.”

My worst fears about the ascendancy of the Builders had never imagined this level of perfidy.

The female examined my face in disbelief. “You’re the Didact! We’ve spent a thousand years looking for you. You betrayed us in our time of greatest need.”

I have had long experience controlling anger. Mostly my efforts succeed. “Is your ancilla still working?” I asked, voice steady.