Audacity, communicating with the installation’s metarch, Offensive Bias, explains their presence. “All remaining Forerunners have been brought here,” it says. “The last themas have been overwhelmed. There will be no other ships.”

The last of the ecumene! The last remnants of Forerunner civilization, all concentrated here. The implications stagger all of us.

“As well,” Audacity says, “some Lifeworker specimens have been moved to the Halo to make room, including human populations.”

The Librarian has barely accepted the first news, and now, faces this. She is outraged. “Who made that decision?”

An image is projected behind us in the command center—an additional surprise, and for these three, a most unwelcome one. It is the Master Builder himself, a haunted and hollow shadow of his former self. Is he on probation, but allowed to appear before his old rival? I wonder whether to commiserate—how mighty are we, the fallen!—or to gloat.

Neither, it turns out.

“Welcome to our Ark, Lifeshaper,” the Master Builder says. “Didact—which do I address? Ah, the younger. It is my honor to have returned your original to the company of your wife—and, if memory serves me,” he said, turning to another display, “it looks as though he, too, has arrived. You both should know that I have been summoned to help prepare our Ark for the coming storm. And to transfer command.”

“To whom?” the IsoDidact asks.

“To me. Builder Security will carry on from here.”

Obviously, a deal has been struck—a desperate deal on all sides.

A protracted silence in the command center.

The Librarian finally says, “I will be taken as soon as possible to the Halo to tend to my specimens. Alone.”

“Of course,” the Master Builder says. “I have already made arrangements.”

A possible setback in my gathering of testimony. But this is offset when to my delight, I realize that a local, highly secure Juridical network has been set up on the Ark, and that many fellow agents are here, sharing evidence, continuing investigations into the treatment of both specimens and prisoners … Into the return and elevation of the Master Builder.

Doing what Juridicals do so well! But to what end, now? I push aside all doubts. The network uses new tests to verify my identity and integrity. I then begin to quench my desperate thirst at that deep well of law and wisdom.

String 28

STRING 28

CATALOG

THE MASTER JURIDICAL arrived at the greater Ark shortly after the fall of the Capital system, in company with the last surviving members of the New Council.

All Juridicals now gather in his august presence. The Master Juridical first expresses concern about a continuing blackout of the Domain. “No agent or ancilla, of any scale, has been able to connect with the Domain for over a year. Our deepest and most sacred records are no longer available.”

Juridical proceedings are at a standstill, and not just because of that interruption.