Ten million years ago, the Forerunners abandoned on this barren world had chosen to store history and memory not only in blood and flesh, but in these rustling, spreading, rock-climbing growths.

“What do they mean?” I asked.

“They tell our stories. And a greater, older story.” She moved closer, examining my face. “It’s coming a little slow in you. But soon.”

And it did arrive, but several days after.

I stayed in the valley, squatting on the fine, packed, stone-scattered soil, watching the fiery passage of the sun as it rose and set, tending now and then to functions my armor would once have taken care of—and by this process, I think, coming to better understand the old female.

As we waited, I felt a growing warmth in my body and brain as what the old female knew—what had been passed from generation to generation for ten million years—flowered within me.

One night, just as dawn cast faint beams over the easternmost wall of rock, I stood, stretched out my sore muscles, and began to walk to the beginning of the valley, several kilometers away. Here, I found the seekers, along with Chant and Keeper, who awaited me with looks of concern.

Chant approached and checked my health. “Are you well and fit, Lifeshaper?” she asked.

“So far,” I said. “The old female’s knowledge is growing. If it turns into something like a personal imprint—if I start looking and acting as she does…”

“We will be watchful,” Keeper said. “What should we do if that happens?”

“Put me back in my armor and reset me. Purge the old female’s knowledge.”

“That may not be easy, Lifeshaper.”

“I know. Let’s hope for the best.”

The old female had followed me, and squatted again at the head of the valley, watching us with her haunted smile.

“The script on the canyon walls is looking more familiar,” I said. “I’m going to begin over there.” I indicated the point where the wall reached its greatest height and the script became uniform and sharply carved.

“The mosses move and write,” Keeper said. “But do they change what they write? Do they erase and revise?”

“No,” I replied.

“Then this valley holds their entire history.”

“Maybe. But part of it, at the far end, consists of something so upsetting to them, so vitally separated, that they tasked these mosses to record it where they wouldn’t have to see.”

Chant regarded me with heavy-lidded eyes. “A crime greater than anything since? Why not let it fade completely?”

But a look at the old female confirmed this would be out of character. Other Forerunners might run from their histories—but not these.

String 12

STRING 12

UR-DIDACT

WE DID NOT get very far, in either case—in fleeing the twin bow made up of star roads, or in understanding what my wife was saying ten thousand light-years away, in orbit around Erde-Tyrene.