Halo: Primordium Read Online Free Page B

ring like water in a trough.”
    We thought this over for a while, stil resting.
    “You know my name. Are you alowed to tel me yours?”
    “My borrowing name, the name you can use, is Vinnevra. It was my mother’s name when she was a girl.”
    “Vinnevra. Good. When wil you tel me your true name?” She looked away and scowled. Best not to ask.
    I was thinking about the ring and the shadows and what happened when the sun went behind the bridge and a big glow shot out to either side. I could see that. I could even begin to understand it. In my old memory—stil coming together, slowly and cautiously
    —it was known as a corona, and it was made of ionized gases and rarefied winds blowing and glowing away from the nearby star that was the blue sun.
    “Are there other rivers, springs, sources of water out there?”
    “How should I know?” she said. “This place isn’t real. It’s made to support animals, though, and us. Why else would they put juicy scorpions out here? That means there might be more water.” More impressive by the moment! “Let’s walk,” I suggested.
    “And leave al these scorpions uneaten?”
    She scrambled for some more crawling breakfast. I left my share for her and walked around the rock pile, studying the flat distance that led directly to the near wal.
    “If I had Forerunner armor,” I said, “I would know al these words, in any language. A blue lady would explain anything I ask her to explain.”
    “Talking to yourself means the gods wil tease your ears when you sleep,” Vinnevra said, coming up quietly behind me. She wiped scorpion juice from her lips and taunted me with one last twitching tail.
    “Ai! Careful!” I said, dodging.
    She threw the tail aside. “They’re like bee stingers,” she said.
    “And yes. That means there are bees here, and maybe honey.” Then she set out across the sand, dirt, and grass, which looked real enough, but of course wasn’t, because the Forerunners had made this ring as a kind of corral, to hold animals such as ourselves. And it cupped the sky—a stil river of air on the inside. How humbling, I thought, but I don’t think my face looked humble and abject. It probably looked angry.

    “Stop grumbling,” she said. “Be pleasant. I’l take back my name and stitch your lips shut with dragon fly thread.” I wondered if she was beginning to like me. On Erde-Tyrene, she would already be married and have many children—or serve the Lifeshaper in her temple, like my sisters.
    “Do you know why the sky is blue?” I asked, walking beside her.
    “No,” she said.
    I tried to explain. She pretended not to be interested. She did not have to pretend hard. We talked like this, back and forth, and I don’t remember most of what we said, so I suppose it wasn’t important, but it was pleasant enough.
    I could not avoid noticing that the angle of the sun had changed a little. The Halo was spinning with a slight wobble. Twisting.
    Whatever you cal it when the hoop . . .
    Precesses. Like a top.
    The old memories stirred violently. My brain seemed to leap with the excitement of someone else, watching and thinking inside me. I saw diagrams, felt numbers flood through my thoughts, felt the hoop, the Halo, spinning on more than one axis. . . . What old human that came from, I had no idea, but I saw clearly that based on engineering and physics, a Halo would not be able to precess very quickly. Perhaps the Halo was slowing down, like a hoop roling along. . . . When it starts to slow, it wobbles. I didn’t like that idea at al. Again, everything seemed to move under me, a sickening sensation but not real, not yet. Stil, I felt il. I dropped to my haunches, then sat.
    I hadn’t earned any of this knowledge. Once more, I was haunted by the dead. Somebody else had died so that this knowledge would be left inside of me. I hated it—so superior, so ful of understanding. I hated feeling weak and stupid and sick.
    “I need to go back inside,” I said.