“What do you think they’l do with Halsey now, then?” she asked. “I mean, she’s dead as far as the world’s concerned.”

“Saves a fortune in pension contributions.” Mal shrugged. “Look, they can do anything they like with her. But I bet they put her to work on this Forerunner tech. They’l never stick her in front of a firing squad.”

The world disappointed Vaz on a daily basis, but never more than now. He realized that he was complicit in this. He had to keep his mouth shut about something when al his instincts said that it should have been on every news channel.

That was how decent guys ended up doing evil things—smal steps at first, then bigger ones until they’d covered the ful shameful distance.

Vaz wondered if he would know when he’d gone too far to turn back.

UNSC ICENI, SANGHELIOS SECTOR: FEBRUARY 2553.

“Captain Osman. How lovely to see you again.”

From anyone else that would have sounded sarcastic, but Admiral Terrence Hood could switch on a gracious patrician sincerity that was completely disarming. Osman held out her hand and he clasped it in both of his, pressing it more than shaking it. If he knew that she was Parangosky’s attack dog, then he did a very good job of hiding it.

“Good to see you, too, Admiral,” she said. “Let me introduce you to Professor Evan Phil ips. He’s been a big help to ONI on Sangheili language and culture. Just the man you want at your side when you deal with the Arbiter.”

Hood shook Phil ips’s hand, smiling. “I wonder if this feels as strange to you as it does to me,” he said. “I genuinely thought that if I ever reached these coordinates, then I’d have an entire task force behind me ready to annihilate Sanghelios.”

“I certainly never expected to be visiting their homeworld courtesy of ONI, if at al , Admiral.” Phil ips returned the smile. “I hear the Arbiter speaks excel ent English anyway, but it never hurts to have a xenoanthropologist on hand.”

Osman sized up Hood’s reaction and couldn’t quite work out if he was taking this at face value or if he was trying to work out Parangosky’s real motive for sending him an academic. “Would you excuse us, Evan?” she said. “I just want to brief the Admiral before we go.”

Phil ips understood spook-speak wel enough by now to get the idea. He had the grace to look slightly awkward, which she now knew was al part of the act, and looked around for a seat in the air group’s crew room. Osman took a couple of paces away, drawing Hood with her.

“I’m out here for a reason, sir, and you need to be aware that plenty of Sangheili don’t want peace, just as many humans don’t.” None of those points was a lie, at least not taken separately. “I’m sure you’re aware that the Arbiter doesn’t speak for the whole planet.”

Hood’s expression hardened just a fraction but he never lost his affability. She kept in mind that he was an old warfighter at heart, not an administrator.

“I realize that, but if I don’t start with him, who do I start with?” he asked. “And if one of them decided to assassinate me, however competent your team, there would be very little you could do to stop them.”

“Like you say, sir, if I don’t start with that—where do I start?”

That forced a smile out of him. “You’ve done remarkable things, Osman, even though I’m damned sure that I haven’t been told about half of them and never wil . I know how highly Margaret regards you. Are we going to have an interesting working relationship?”

He wasn’t hitting on her. He was asking her, in his elegant way, whether she was going to be as much of a pain in the ass for him as Parangosky when she final y got the top job. There was little love lost between ONI and Fleet.

“We’re both on the same side, sir.”

“We’ve just approved an extension for the ONI budget so Margaret can complete her Spartan-Four program. Or yours, I should say, given the timeframe we’re talking about. We stil don’t require the approval of the UEG to assign budgets, but now everybody thinks the war’s over, there’s a certain amount of hearts and minds to be done about reconstruction versus rearming.”

Osman was reassured that Hood was stil a realist, stil mistrustful of the Sangheili even though he was wil ing to talk to them, and wil ing to buy off Parangosky. Osman realized she stil had a lot to learn about the realities of admiralty empire building.

“It’s about preparedness,” she said. “What makes you think the Sangheili are going to be the only problem in the future? I assume you’ve been briefed about Venezia.”

“Yes, I fear the colonies wil be a far bigger part of my workload than the Sangheili or the other aliens.” Hood adjusted his col ar and picked some lint off his sleeve, turning to the door. That was usual y his signal that he wanted to take a different tack. “In a way, I’m tackling the easy jobs first. Shal we go, then, Captain?”

Vaz was already in the shuttle when Osman stepped into the crew bay. He went to get up, but Hood motioned him to stay sitting.

“Relax, Corporal.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Beloi, isn’t it?” Hood always checked the roster and made sure he had something personal to say to the men. Osman noted that trick. “Fifteenth Battalion.”

“Yes, sir.”

“How are you feeling now? Ful y fit?”

“I had to give up my modeling career, sir, but other than that, I feel fine.”

Hood chuckled to himself. “Glad to hear it.”

Even though the shooting war had stopped, they were stil taking risks entering Sangheili space. Osman felt more anxious than she had for some time, but then she realized it wasn’t about the possibility of the Sangheili opening fire on them in a fit of pique but the double game she was now playing with an officer she respected and liked. It was like vandalizing a war memorial. For a moment, her mission seemed pointless and shameful.

Then Devereaux’s voice came over the broadcast system.

“Admiral, Sangheili traffic control’s sent up a couple of fighter escorts,” she said. “I’m just going to fol ow them in. Strict instructions not to deviate from the flight corridor and to fol ow them straight to the landing platform in Vadam.”

“No sightseeing or souvenirs, then,” Hood said. “I suppose it’s far too soon to expect them to be welcoming.”

So they didn’t trust him any more than Osman trusted them. But it was a big leap of faith to take after nearly thirty years—for both sides.

Sanghelios was probably the most hostile territory a human could enter. It looked more like a grubby version of Mars, though, deceptively familiar except that even its oceans had a strong red tint. The shuttle hit the atmosphere, shuddered slightly, and eventual y descended through thin wispy cloud into a ferociously sunny day. Osman caught sight of the tops of imposing buildings from the smal viewscreen opposite her seat and reminded herself that this was the first time humans had official y and voluntarily landed on Sanghelios.

That was the only glimpse she got of the planet. The shuttle dipped into a long tunnel and the bright sunlight turned to deep shadow. It was only when she felt the shuttle settle on its dampers that she realized they’d landed.

“I believe we’ve been directed to the tradesman’s entrance,” Hood muttered. “Stil , we did ask for discretion. And so did he.”

Hood wasn’t joking when he said this was the back door. Osman stepped out of the shuttle with Vaz and found herself in a cold, deserted landing bay that reminded her more of a parking garage at two A.M. She fought an urge to look over her shoulder for muggers. A Brute security guard at the entrance indicated with a jabbed finger that they should get their puny human asses through the doors. Osman watched Vaz slowly clench one fist, but he kept his arms at his side. The corridor that they walked into was completely straight with no doors to either side. There was no way they were going to get lost looking for the bathroom.

“Chin up,” Hood said, striding forward. “At least they haven’t asked us to check our weapons at the door.”

Hood certainly had the walk. Osman was proud of the old bastard. He was a meter shorter than any of the Sangheili standing guard along the corridor and the size of the architecture completely dwarfed him, but he strode down that marble passage as if he was on the bridge of his flagship, Admiral of the Fleet, nominal y the most powerful man on Earth. He came from a line of men who knew how to take responsibility and how to stand up to the enemy. Osman suspected he was afraid, but the things he feared were probably very different to the ones that plagued her.

He had a lot in common with Jul ‘Mdama.

The doors at the end of the passage opened silently, sending a shaft of light down the hal . Osman wondered whether it was a psychological trick, the equivalent of shining a bright light in a prisoner’s face, or maybe they’d just opened the doors to let him in, no more and no less. It was easy to become too paranoid in ONI. Hood didn’t break his stride and walked through the doors with Osman, Vaz, and Phil ips behind him.

She’d expected the Sangheili to pack the audience chamber with as many intimidating hinge-heads as they could dredge up, to make a spectacle of the humans coming cap in hand to talk terms. But the room was smal er than she expected, and deserted except for a massive figure in ful Sangheili armor standing silhouetted against the light of one of the long, narrow windows.

The Arbiter turned as if he hadn’t been expecting Hood so soon.

Instead of waiting for Hood to come to him, though, he took a few steps forward to close the gap. Maybe that meant something entirely different in Sangheili etiquette, but if the Arbiter had been a human, he would have been opening with a polite concession.

“Admiral Lord Hood.” The empty, echoing room made him sound like a faulty public address system. “I would offer you refreshment, but I suspect our menu wouldn’t be to your taste.”

And he actual y held out his hand for shaking. Phil ips sucked in a breath. Osman couldn’t work out if that was surprise or warning, but there was nothing she could do about it either way.

Hood took the Arbiter’s hand as if it was just another UNSC cocktail reception. The real history of the world took place out of the gaze of the media and without ceremony. Osman knew historians would argue about this event in years to come because there were so few witnesses, at least three of whom would probably never say what actual y happened. It felt more like first contact than the end of a long war.

Osman was struck by how smal Hood’s hand looked in the Arbiter’s grip and found herself thinking that it was just as wel there was no Waypoint crew here to capture that image. It just made Hood look unnecessarily smal , especial y as he had to crane his neck to look the Sangheili in the eye.

“I have no complex terms for you, Arbiter,” Hood said. “We’ve stopped fighting and I’d simply like to keep it that way. We both have our own problems to deal with now, and whatever started this war has now been eradicated.”

The Arbiter looked past Hood at Osman and the others. “You bring bodyguards.”

“Advisers. Captain Osman and Corporal Beloi, and Dr. Phil ips, who has a great scholarly interest in your people.”

The Arbiter beckoned them to step forward and seemed quite taken with Phil ips. He loomed over the professor. “Why are we of interest to you?”

“Because you’re an ancient and fascinating culture, sir.” Phil ips looked like he’d met a boyhood hero. Osman bristled as she realized how insulated Earth had been against the reality of hinge-heads. “And the better we understand one another, the less likely we are to clash again.”

The Arbiter’s nostrils flared slightly. Phil ips was a terrific actor, but he was genuinely thril ed to find himself in the heart of the culture he’d studied for so long, face-to-face with one of its greatest public figures, and the Arbiter could obviously smel that. Osman bet her pension fund that he’d never come across a human before who actual y wanted to be in his company.

Nobody’s immune to a little sincere flattery. Not even a hinge-head. Keep it up, Evan.… “You must return one day to visit our historical sites,” the Arbiter said. That was an astonishing offer. Even Hood blinked. Sanghelios didn’t welcome tourists: it just blew them out of orbit. “If the cease-fire holds.”

“So we have a cease-fire, do we?” Hood asked.

“There is dissent on Sanghelios, but as far as the forces I command are concerned, hostilities are over. I cannot guarantee that dissident factions wil obey me and the situation in our colonies is equal y unsettled, but nobody’s interest is served by continuing this war when we have so many other problems.”

“We have our dissidents too, Arbiter. But if you wish to formalize this arrangement, I’l honor it.”

It was such a small conversation to end a twenty-eight-year war. Osman wanted them to rerun it, to repeat that conversation so that it had the majesty and weight the moment demanded, but she’d blinked and missed it. Thirty seconds earlier, Earth and Sanghelios were technical y stil at war. Now they were not. The line between disaster and success was paper-thin.

“I learned to greatly respect some of your people,” the Arbiter said. “Perhaps we wil al learn to respect one another.”

“We plan to commemorate those who died. You’l be welcome to attend the ceremony and pay your respects to the Master Chief’s memory.”

Hood looked at the Arbiter expectantly, as if he’d just pushed his luck too far and had been too familiar in extending the invitation, but the Sangheili glanced out of the window for a moment as if he was considering it.

“I would like the opportunity,” he said. “But I am not exactly welcome on your world.”

Hood nodded. “Nevertheless, I wil welcome you, Arbiter.” But then there was a long and awkward silence, and al the things that Osman would have expected when two human delegations met simply weren’t there; no smal talk, no aides rushing in to take the delegates on sightseeing tours of the city, nothing. Hood had asked for an audience with the Arbiter, he’d received one, and the business had been done. There was nothing more to be said. Perhaps there needed to be more, but the Arbiter seemed as lost for something to add as Hood was.