All creation will tailor to failure and pain, that never again shall the offspring of the eternal Fount rise up against their creators.

Listen to the silence. Ten million years of deep silence. And now, whimpers and cries; not of birth.

That is what we bring: a great crushing weight to press down youth and hope.

No more will.

No more freedom.

Nothing new but agonizing death and never good shall come of it.

We are the last of those who gave you breath and form, millions of years ago.

We are the last of those your kind defied and ruthlessly destroyed.

We are the last Precursors.

And now we are legion.

CATALOG SIGNAL INTERRUPTED

MASTER JURIDICAL: Intriguing! The Bornstellar Didact took vengeance upon a Primordial before Juridicals could investigate. We have no way to gather testimony from that remarkable being. But Catalog in the Burn has connected with a Gravemind, which, by its own admission, appears to be the nearest equivalent.

Supposition: Mendicant Bias was distorted by long exposure to similar discourse.

String 14

STRING 14

WARNING: SELF-REPLICATING ANCILLA MACHINE CODE detected in rhythms in Catalog’s speech patterns. This data may be the information equivalent of the Flood and could affect any ancilla or monitor.

Sequestered for forensic examination.

NOT INCLUDED IN THIS RECORD.

String 15

STRING 15

LIBRARIAN

THE OLD FEMALE walked with me across the dusty waste, and then higher, over the stony canyon ground, always three paces behind, saying nothing, showing no obvious emotion, but on occasion humming softly, pausing, turning to orient herself to the landscape.

The mosses on the sheer cliff walls performed a simple enough task: they carried the chronicle of that great expeditionary force to Path Kethona and preserved it for the ages by carving it in stone, incising symbols and words in a language lost to Forerunner history, a language cursed by association with what had happened here, long since banished from the home galaxy.

The old female’s bite had given me far more than I wanted to deal with; perhaps than I could live with. Her microbial agents had imprinted in my flesh a horrible, ancient truth—much the way I imprinted my geas and human memories into humans on Erde-Tyrene, on the great wheels, on the Ark. This is not irony; it is echo. The way of the Mantle. If we who are honored with life do not perceive the obvious, then we are forced to live it again, around another corner, from another angle.

I could read the carvings. I could read that language far more ancient than the oldest Digon. I could feel the emotions and the memories of the Forerunners brought to this world. Brought here in anger and disappointment by their peers, as renegades and traitors, abandoned as a punishment.

So many had already died on the great fleets, summarily executed by their commanders after refusing orders, invoking the rule of the Mantle. Martyrs.