Offensive Bias’s vessels make their last sorties against the incoming attack ships, but can do nothing to prevent our destruction. The pent-up kinetic energy of the Halo will finish the job. Already we can feel heat rising from beneath our feet.

We have done what we can. My confusion must now end. There can only be one Didact, even should he be a traitor, even should he be mad.

I feel thick layers of my imprint parting, letting through the youthful and naive foundations of Bornstellar-Makes-Eternal-Lasting. I pay honor to my mother and father, to all my Builder ancestors going back millions of years, whose names I learned in my infancy and can recite from memory.… My mantra barely has time to finish. My armor attempts to protect me against the heat, the motion, the disassembly of the chamber.

I hear our ancillas perform their own mantra, and wonder if perhaps in the Domain there is any distinction between machine and living being. They have served well, to the best of their ability.

Catalog, beside me, sharing our fate, hear my confession …

The bottom of the control room falls from below us and the others pass from my sight. I can hear and see them no longer—I can’t tell if they’ve survived. My hands grasp a narrow column, searching for purchase—but it finds none.

And yet before I fall I can see a flare of intense radiation—the drive of a ship coming closer, carving a bright gash in the chaos, sweeping in toward the control center’s cracked and melting walls. As I slip through the cracks of a battered Halo, I hear a voice and recognize it immediately.

Chakas.

I rescued him once from the destruction of a Halo.

Now he will rescue me.

String 34

STRING 34

THE LIBRARIAN

AUDACITY IS NOW light-years away from the greater Ark. I sit shivering in armor that barely functions. Beside me, Catalog is quiet; whether it is still recording, I cannot know.

My entire body tingles, the air around me smells strange. I can dimly make out symbols describing in basic ancilla code something or other … so long since I have had to read such symbols.

Then they reform and translate into measurements I can understand. Despite the interference of the star roads, we have completed our transit. I can only assume that the Didact has survived as well.

Before making our jump, I ordered Monitor Chakas to proceed to the lesser Ark and deliver all that we managed to salvage. Against all odds, we managed to save a number of humans, including the small Florian, Riser, and the young female Vinnevra recovered from the rogue Halo. This seems to substantially improve the monitor’s commitment and energy. It still has friends to protect.