“Awaiting the inevitable. I am an individual truly now.”

“What were you, before you became Catalog?” I asked.

“Not a proper question,” it replied.

“I’ve heard that each Catalog has a certain history,” I continued, feeling less than proper as my fear mounted.

Catalog regarded me with its many sensors. Was it affronted? “That is no secret,” it said after a pause. “Juridicals are chosen from those who have done wrong. Awareness of the nature of guilt is our strength.”

“And what was your crime?” I asked.

“Not to be revealed. Expunged. I serve.”

“We’re not likely to survive,” I said. “You know my crimes, don’t you?”

“I am aware of your prior acts. Catalog does not judge. I observe.”

“So tell me. We’ll be equals.”

“You mock me.”

“Not at all.”

The sensors on its carapace shifted, and a low humming sound came from within.

“Before I assumed the carapace, I was a Miner,” it said. “I improperly set forward a planet’s destruction, to reduce it to space-borne rubble. Before a crew containing my crèche-mate could evacuate.”

“Crèche-mate … What did you have against him, or her?”

“Him. He was destined to bond with the heir to a powerful family, highest in our rate. I had been passed over. It was not just, so I felt.”

“You blew him up?”

“Utterly. And twelve of his crew.”

This put my stalwart companion in an entirely new light. “The Juridicals chose you anyway?”

“They did.”

“You must have a very special quality.”

“Yes.” Again the hum. “Depth of depravity.”

“I once tried to destroy an entire species,” I said.

“Perhaps you are destined to become like me,” Catalog said.

“Perhaps. I don’t judge. You don’t judge. We’re here to observe. And to do our best to survive.”

“Correct.”

“Glad to have that resolved.” I held out my hand and gripped one shoulder. Catalog raised one of its hands and we clasped palms, then each of us drew a Y with a finger, me, over my nose, Catalog, over the front portion of its forward sensor. A Warrior’s awareness of shame.

“Now, you’re an honorary Warrior-Servant,” I said.

“If you insist, Didact.”

We waited.

“You’re still connected with the Juridicals, aren’t you?”

“No,” it said. “All our channels have closed. The Domain is also blocked.”

“They’re moving Halos again?” I asked with a shudder.

“A possible explanation,” Catalog said. “Or that.”

We were approaching the middle of the tangle, nudged along by a coiling ribbon of star road, shoved toward an assemblage unlike any Precursor structure I had ever seen.

The star roads had combined to sketch out a great, parallel double-arc, like two arrow-shooting bows pulled from an ancient armory. And at the center of each double bow glowed a brilliant ring surrounding a pit of blackness deeper than space.

“It’s not a ship,” I said.

“Is it like the Ark?” Catalog asked.