He waved off the display. “We have to break cover and move in closer. It’s a risk, but I need to understand more. And I need al the help I can get.”

“But we tried…”

“There’s one more way. Your patrimony is buried deep, inaccessible to a Manipular. To absorb my knowledge, you must be able to access your patrimony and the ful richness of the Domain. To do that, you’l have to expand your capabilities. If you are wil ing … if you volunteer.”

“You mean … mutate to a higher rate.”

“As close an approximation as we can manage out here,” the Didact said. “It’s cal ed a brevet mutation. It’s not common, but it is within the Warrior-Servant code.

This ship is capable of supporting such a ceremony. Lacking that, I cannot supply you with my knowledge … and you cannot access what your ancestors stored within you, or access the Domain, which supplements al .”

“I’m supposed to unlock my patrimony with my father’s assistance.”

“Traditional y, that’s true. But since I’m the only Forerunner around and we’re unlikely to find any Builders nearby…”

He did not need to lay out the details. I was being asked to mutate and grow without my family or even my rate being present to assist. He would be my mentor.

And that meant I would receive the Didact’s genetic imprint.

“I’d mutate to a Warrior-Servant,” I said.

“At least in part. You could always petition for a correction, a reversion, once you returned to your family.”

“I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

I had heard of failed mutations, of individuals hidden in special family enclaves and restricted to menial tasks. Not an attractive prospect.

“It is a choice.”

Under the circumstances, it didn’t feel like a choice. “What … what would it feel like?” I asked.

“Al mutation is difficult. Brevet mutations are particularly unpleasant.”

“Is it dangerous?”

“We wil have to exercise caution. But once we’ve succeeded, we can venture down and see what the situation is on the Deep Reverence.”

“I haven’t volunteered,” I reminded him.

“No,” he said. “But the Librarian has always been a great judge of character.”

FIFTEEN

YOU DO NOT wear armor during a mutation. You do not accept the opinions or advice of an ancil a. Everyone and everything around you fal s silent and does not respond to your sounds of pain or need, except to provide pure water when you cry out that you are thirsty.

Every Forerunner advances through at least two mutations over their life span.

Many go through five or more. The number helps determine your rank within the hierarchy of family, Maniple, and guild. The col ective of guilds can be entered only after mutation to first-form. Which guild, which rate, would I belong to…?

The Didact led me to a smal chamber the ship had prepared on the point of the bow, for such a mutation by ritual law must take place under the direct light of the stars—or a reasonable approximation.

The bow became transparent. I stripped off my armor, as did the Didact. The pieces were transported aft, and the deck closed up beneath us. We seemed to stand alone and naked on the highest point of a narrow mountain, awash in the ancient light of mil ions of suns.… Intercepted only by me, the supplicant, and my mentor. For every Forerunner rate mutation had to be patterned after a mentor, and the Didact was the only Forerunner available.

None of the irony of this was lost on me. I had never consciously hoped for this moment and yet had always anticipated it, as if ful y aware that at the end of my foolishness was yet more privilege and advancement—and perhaps new methods of having fun, seeking adventure.

Never the notion of duty or responsibility. Yet now they were awakening. I felt inadequate, immature in the extreme—ready for change.

Stil , I could not stifle deep indignation at being mentored by a lower rate rather than one of my own Builders. In this, like my father, I was a true Forerunner after al .

“Brevet mutation entails risks,” the Didact said. “The ship is equipped to stimulate the proper growth factors, but you wil not be imprinted by your immediate relatives … some details of your development may be lost or distorted. Is this understood?”

“I accept … under pressure,” I said.

The Didact stepped back. “There can be no misgivings,” he said. “Mutation is a personal journey, not to be coerced.”

“If I don’t do this, you tel me the entire galaxy could be wiped out.… That isn’t coercion?”

“Al egiance to duty is the Forerunner’s highest instinct and purpose. It is what empowers us to defend the Mantle.”

I wasn’t about to argue the hypocrisy inherent in that. If the Mantle—the exalted preservation of life throughout the universe—was the core of our deepest philosophy, our reason for being, then why were Lifeworkers at the bottom of our rates?

Why did Builders, who worked mostly with inanimate matter, rank so high?

Truly, I was at least as fed up with Forerunner sanctimony as ever.… But if I could prevent my family from suffering, if I could prevent the devastation we had seen on Charum Hakkor and Faun Hakkor, if I could preserve the strange and compel ing beauty of Erde-Tyrene from being extinguished … al too clearly these possibilities, inevitabilities, presented themselves to my imagination … Then I would have to accept this procedure, no matter how clumsy or dangerous it might be.

The Didact looked me over through his narrow gray eyes. The pale fur on his scalp bristled. “You’re enjoying being a victim,” he said.

“I am not!” I cried. “I am ready. Proceed!”

“You stil believe you should be uniquely privileged to live your life in a certain fashion.” He looked defeated, then relieved, as if al hope had final y gone—and he was glad. “There can be no rise in rate without a modicum of wisdom. You do not demonstrate that wisdom.”

“I had no part in creating this disaster, but I’m wil ing to sacrifice my life to save my people! Is that not selfless and noble?”

“Mutation to a higher rate requires acceptance of the Mantle. The Mantle is in part awareness of what al life has sacrificed to al ow you to be. That arouses a deep kind of personal guilt. You do not feel that guilt.”

“I’ve violated the wishes of my family, I’ve involved these humans in my stupidity, and what wil happen to them when you’re done? I feel guilt! Al through me, guilt!”

“Only arrogance,” the Didact said. “To dare is to risk selflessly, not to waste your life because you see no other purpose to your existence.”

This struck me to my heart and I kicked at the deck, wanting to drop below the stars, go back, forget this awfulness. I reached out as if to strike him, and then saw the difference in our sizes, in our situation—saw his weary sadness and thought of the pitiful memories stil held in the war sphinxes that had protected his Cryptum for a thousand years … the last of his children.

The Didact knew no other duty but this. His wife was far away, he had not seen her in literal y ages, did not know whether she was using him for ends that might not have been foreseen when he was forced into meditative exile. Yet he trusted.

He served.

I pul ed back my tiny fist. “I don’t want your sadness,” I said.

“It is the Mantle.”

“You mourn.”

This set him back a little. “I spent thousands of years mourning and found no virtue in it.” He settled, crossing his great legs, leaning his torso forward until there was very little room left for me under the unwinking stars.

I got down on my knees beside him and crossed my own legs. “Tel me about your exile.”

“Not wise, perhaps, but rudely curious,” he said with a sigh.

“What did you experience in the Cryptum?”

“Let us just say I did not find peace. What al the great, higher Domains of the universe mandate for Forerunners is never peace, never solace, never rest.

Never consistency, logic, or even pure passion. Frankly, I envy your perversity, Manipular.”

I did not know what to make of that. “Your difficulty is, you regret al you have done. And you mourn.”

The Didact’s arms dropped, his shoulders relaxed, and I saw a glint of more than just acknowledgment, more than just recognition. He spoke in a low, grinding voice.

“My blood and seed … wasted. My life with my family, my wife, so brief. I felt so much hatred. Hatred is stil with me. Perhaps you are right to reject my imprint. The Mantle is as far beyond me now as…”

“You weren’t prepared to mutate either, were you? In combat, mutation was forced on you. A brevet mutation. Someone saw your potential even through your flaws.”

The Didact inspected me and for a moment, in that great stone visage, carved or artful y mauled by history and grief, he lifted his lips and almost smiled as if he were stil young. I did not know that was possible.

“Touched by your blade, Manipular,” he said.

“I accept my flaws as you accepted yours, and I wil transcend them … as you did.

I am as ready as I’l ever be, Promethean.” I was actual y trembling, but not with fear.

The Didact heaved himself up and waved his hand. “So be it, aya—and aya again.”

A column studded with smal spherules rose from the deck and slowly rotated to press against my side. The spherules twisted on stalks to touch my skin, access my points of nervous and genetic energy, of metabolic and catabolic reserves.… Memory, muscle, intent, passion, intel ect, stability—and that peculiar connection to the Mantle that al have but seldom know or feel.

The points of my being, as embarrassing as having my organs of sex examined and outlined, more so—for Forerunners were never shy about sex.

“Mentor and sponsor,” he said. Another column rose and more spherules surrounded and connected with his larger frame. “From my life let the best be taken. Let the growth inherent in this youth be examined and maximized. Let al that is potential and beloved of the Mantle be nurtured and encouraged. Let al that was past be put away, and al that is future brought forward, made real and physical.…”

The Didact’s words moved on. I no longer heard them, but I felt them. Transfixed, I could not speak.

My body was already responding.

SIXTEEN

THE DIDACT REMOVED the spherules by hand, it might have been hours later.

The stars rotated slowly to a new position.

I seemed to be at the center of the universe. I could neither reason nor believe that it was our ship that had moved.

I was taken aft and placed in a large cubicle that could have comfortably contained a squad of warriors: gray, a single light in the rear wal , empty of al ornament, clean, slightly cool.

“Eat nothing for a time but drink when you are thirsty,” the Didact told me, arranging my limbs on the bunk. The bunk was larger than I needed—for now. “Your body wil be upset. Not al the changes wil happen right away. It could take many days.”

“I feel a shadow in my head,” I said.

“The old you. Soon, you wil experience a cleaner, swifter mind. You wil feel an arrogant kind of exhilaration—and then, that, too, wil pass.”

In the solitude of that cubicle, I felt the first changes: a slow, careful ache throughout my limbs. My hands in particular hurt. I looked down upon them and thought they already looked larger, less pale, the skin grittier and grayer. I had always thought that higher rates were less attractive than Manipulars.

My youthful beauty was passing. I was growing uglier.

I did not care.

* * *

So, when did you realize that you had grown up?

I thought I saw Chakas stand beside my bunk, watching with a frown. How remarkable that I used to be like him. So much alike. I wondered whether the geas imposed upon him and Riser by the Librarian felt anything like this mutation.

I wanted to compare my experiences with his, but the room was empty.

I drank some water.

For a few minutes, I thought I experienced yet another voice in my head, not me, not my past me or any future me. It seemed to contain a great deal of knowledge, none of it of any use. It was knowledge that belonged to others from very far away, other existences where life and death were meaningless, light and darkness twisted together, where the twin fists of time uncurled their fingers and joined in a clasp, so that nothing changed or ever would.

Of course that made no sense. Later, even thinking about it repulsed me.

The Didact checked in on me and tested my limbs, thumped my chest, hummed over my prone body. I assumed he would declare the mutation a failure. I did not feel like any sort of Forerunner, young or old.

“Be glad,” he said. “You are not becoming a warrior. Not entirely. But you’l do.”

“What am I becoming?” I asked. If I was to live, I needed to know where I might fit in, what rate would accept my hideously distorted body.

“In a little while you wil be hungry,” he said. “The ship wil prepare special food.

When you’re ready, join me in the control center. We need to plan how we wil approach the San’Shyuum.”

“When wil I access the Domain? When wil I receive your knowledge?”

“The potential is already there, Builder. But take it slowly for now.”

* * *

I walked on my own to the control center. Chakas and Riser were not present. I wondered if the Didact had locked them away during al the time I was out of action.

He stood by a direct view of the stars. The control center’s wide curved floor had sprouted a number of instruments I did not immediately recognize. One of them, it turned out, was there to give me my special food.

The Didact pointed without looking at me. I sat and ate.

I ate a lot. And then the second round of pain began, but I was not al owed to hide away and lie down. Our work was beginning.