“I felt their touch, their love. And yet, they were fading. The Domain is filled with sadness. A deep shadow has fallen over everything Forerunner. When I was pulled up from all that, pulled out of the Cryptum and revived … I couldn’t remember. But now I do—in part. Horror brought it back. The Gravemind returned it to me. It forced me to listen.”

My husband swiftly removes his hand from mine and stands to summon his armor, stretching to allow it to surround him. “I need to fight against what it told me, what it has done to me, to all of us. I need to fight with all of my might and will, and everything I can gather … every weapon and resource. But I have been undercut from the very beginning by that Manipular, Wife. The worst thing I’ve ever done was imprint him. And so, forgive me in advance for what I must do. And know why I do it.”

I am about to ask what this is, that requires any forgiveness, let alone mine—but alarms sound before I can speak. The Didact starts up, and for a moment, there is that old, brutal sharpness, that old readiness for battle. The ancillas gather around, foremost the image of the Offensive Bias.

“The Ark is under attack,” it says. “Large concentrations of star roads are emerging in near space.”

“How much time?” the Didact asks.

“Hours, no more,” the metarch responds.

The IsoDidact is doubtless already taking action, in concert with the Builder commanders—putting the entire Ark on full alert. I need to get to the Halo! My specimens, the last humans …

But what I see in the abyssal night around the greater Ark is enough to freeze me through and through. Somehow, the old artifacts have been transported in such amazing density that the galaxy beyond is barely visible, as if viewed through a weave of shadowy bars.

The Ark is surrounded, and every second the star roads squeeze in. Already our radius of action is down to a few million kilometers.

I can’t bear the thought of the loss of all my specimens, of the greatest concentration of our lifelong efforts, of all our work!

“How can we repopulate the galaxy if we lose everything here?” I cry.

The Didact’s look is strangely sly. Devious, as if he has a delicious joke he wishes to tell, but not yet. An expression I’ve never seen before. Horror compounds upon horror.

“After I finish my task, I will depart in Mantle’s Approach,” he says.