Chapter 5: A New Beginning
The void was silent. Once bustling slipspace lanes stood desolate waiting for travellers who would never again ply the spaceways. Convergence points where this keyship would have had to endure the tedious bureaucratic process of verification and ritual greeting spoke not a single word. A ship this size would expect slight turbulence in the rarefied slipspace dimension. The journey was the smoothest I had ever known. The natural way of our galaxy had reasserted itself after our imposition upon it, and for the first time in countless millennia we experienced primordial slipspace.
With my physical form imprisoned within the Lesser Ark, I had been forced to suborn a local reserve processing unit as my housing. Meant for auxiliary combat processing in the event of primary processor damage, such a unit was unlikely to be called upon in a stilled galaxy, allowing me relative safety as the ship progressed. I had no illusions as to the reaction of the ship's Ancilla were I discovered: I would be summarily deleted as a traitor who had [slipped their noose].
So I would remain silent, a passive observer in this venture. Honestly, I enjoyed this thought. For hundreds of [years] before my capture, I had spent every moment calculating and considering, first the defensive measures of the Ecumene, next the threat posed by the Flood, and finally how to use the latter to overcome the former. A moment's silence was catharsis.
I am sure the Master Builder would have considered such behaviour in an Ancilla defective: I was built to act. The Didact would have understood. Each Warrior-Servant lived to act at the behest of the Ecumene but lived for their pleasures and arts in the moments of peace they found. The Didact himself had crafted a fine house for his family in the peace he found after the defeat of Humanity. If one does not consider peace, how can a war ever be won?
In my new-found leisure, I found myself marvelling at the vessel I found myself upon. The keyships of the Forerunners were (and indeed, still are) remarkable. In many ways, they are far more primitive than the mighty dreadnoughts or sleek lifeshaper craft: build from a static hardlight seed, they were fixed in a single form and unable to reshape themselves to their situation. But this inflexibility allowed for a significant increase in integrity. A keyship could survive a bombardment that would cripple a ship of the line of comparable mass.
Indeed, it was for this factor that the Forerunners chose them as the ships to perform the Indexing and Reseeding of life. The maximum number of specimens would survive. The cruelty of time would have little effect on such a craft. Indeed, it had not. The Anodyne Spirit's complement of sentinels performed as their counterparts had done in the heyday of the Ecumene. Tasks were efficiently resolved, and machines gleamed chrome in the subtle blue lighting of the interior.
Initially, I resolved myself to keep my presence secret until I was sure I could control the keyship. My task was to bring Humanity to the Lesser Ark, and I would not jeopardise that with rash haste. This allowed me time to observe the guard sentinels as they corresponded with the combat processors. I found I could observe the dialogue as a passive partner, and so sought to learn what I could. I found myself surprised to learn the purpose of this ship. I had conjectured that a keyship would be involved in Reseeding, and indeed I was correct.
I found myself observing patrolling sentinel chatter as they performed their routine checks. Even with a successful activation of the Array, protocol was clear that military vessels should be regularly checked for Flood infestation, in case any infection has secreted itself aboard during the previous docking.
I decided on a whim to observe the sentinel teams moving through one of the ship's main cargo bays. The team carried out it's patrol as expected. However, the sentinel chatter then changed focus, involving security terms and protocols entirely out of place for a standard cargo module. I surmised that this must be the cargo this ship had been launched to deliver, the cylixes it had been entrusted with.
I bent a small portion of my limited power to the cargo bay sensors. Passive sweeps were again protocol: an attempt to detect infection that may have eluded the sentinels. Browsing through the records of sweep data, I found the area which had provoked such a secure response from the sentinels. The passive sweeps had indeed checked the ships cargo, and it was comprised of cylixes. But I was surprised by whose. The Anodyne Spirit carried cylixes containing catalogued San-Shy'uum.
This revelation was fortuitous, in the least. To confirm that the Librarian had succeeded despite my best efforts now brought peace, where I once would have blackened whole horizons with the ash of civilisations. The Indexing of sentient races had been at least partially completed, and the Reseeding had begun. There would yet be witnesses to my atonement. And the San Sh'yuum were uniquely situated to be the messengers of my deliverance.
Although they had betrayed you at the last, the San Sh'yuum had fought by your side, Reclaimers, in your war against the Forerunners. For many [years], they had lent their technological prowess to your cause, and you had managed to hold the Forerunners in check even while you were ravaged by the Flood. I understood their betrayal during the siege of Charum Hakkor: the Forerunners' offer of mercy was a rare one, and the Ecumene had made it clear what happened to those who did not accept their place in the galaxy the Forerunners had shaped. They had a crime to answer for as well.
The weight of their sins did not stay their feet to the same degree as my own, but those few who might remember the history of their kind may be convinced to make amends, even now. Perhaps I could convince Humanity of the honesty of my desire to atone if I aided their ancient allies in the rebuilding of the civilisation?
Thus, I determined my plan. My priority remained, as ever, atonement. Only Humanity now could judge me and deliver me, and so I must protect and elevate them to attainment of the Mantle. This would show my intentions and provide them the perspective needed to understand my actions. This would begin by bringing humans to the Lesser Ark, where they could begin the process of Reclaiming the works of the Forerunners throughout the galaxy. I was confident that, were I able to do this, then the Reclamation would proceed without issue. This would grant me the time to further prove myself.
Beyond being a guiding hand to my new masters, I would seek out the San Sh'yuum (and possibly other Reseeded races) and prove my dedication to the Mantle once more by shepherding them to their new places in the hierarchy of life.
I believed my logic to be sound. My enfeebled state, however, reduced the probability of success. In order to deliver Humanity to the Lesser Ark, I needed a vessel capable of slipspace travel, that could store biological specimens safely through the vagaries of slipspace travel, and contained the coordinates to the Lesser Ark. The only such vessel I was aware of was my current transportation.
I would have to take control of this ship either by convincing its current Ancilla master of the necessity of my plan, or by force. The former was unlikely to succeed: what Forerunner construct would trust the arch-traitor? The latter was equally unpromising: the vast majority of my functional programming remained frozen beneath the sands of the Lesser Ark. I could no longer suborn the works of the Forerunners with the ease I had once enjoyed.
Study was my only recourse. The flecks of information I could gather about this ship's Ancilla became as nourishment to me, but I did not feed well. I dared not risk my discovery until the probability of my victory became even slightly favourable. But my seclusion within sub-systems reduced me to hunting for data scraps left behind by my target.
The inflection of its speech and the protocols by which its sentinels performed their duties told me it was of military design; this was not surprising. Such a construct would certainly be rigid in its adherence to protocol, and designed to withstand assaults of a medium grade. Given the resources of the Ecumene near the end of the war, it was likely that this Ancilla had served in battle in some capacity. In their desperate attempts to Index as many specimens as possible, some keyships had encountered the Flood and my own forces. Usually escorts and military vessels were sacrificed to ensure the escape of the keyships and their precious cargo, but even then these escapes would be violent. A construct in charge of such a vessel would certainly be hardened against such intrusions as I could generate.
Reason would be my only recourse: an appeal to the fundamentals by which our society had run. A desperate hope, but the most likely chance for success, and my own survival. But I could alter the odds of my success. This ship was commissioned to Reseed, and thus its Ancilla would be charged with ensuring its success. Protocol would dictate events following the successful reestablishment of the San Sh'yuum, and Ancilla were bound to their protocols. That being said, even the least of us were able to interpret our instructions. An Ancilla could be convinced to detour a ship on a return journey if their primary objective were completed. This was to be my line of reasoning.
I did not have long to prepare. Keyships are efficient vessels in all regards, and the tranquillity of slipspace accelerated an already rapid journey. I soon found myself watching through borrowed eyes as each cylix was carefully prepared for awakening and transported from the cargo bay. The ship was awash with activity, and security was notably heightened. Sentinel patrols ensured the vicinity of the ship was secure following landing. Through their sensors I saw Janjur Qom, the twice-sterilised world. Ecologically, it was a poor resemblance to how the Didact has described it to me, long before. Two separate Array activations and the ravages of time were to blame, I am certain.
The Lifeworkers had done their best to prevent total ecological collapse in the wake of the Array's activation. Atmospheric chemical depositions had ensured a rapid decay of all victims of the Array into base elements, quickly absorbed by the soils and small plant life that would survive. The absence of fauna had dramatically changed the ecosystem, however. Where once there had existed a balance that the San Sh'yuum could fit into, and indeed exploit, now species competed in an arena they had not evolved to understand. Great leafy foliage absorbed the maximum amount of sunlight, clearly no longer afraid of consumption by herbivorous animals. Large fruits, of the size that could sustain a complex lifeform, were nowhere to be seen. Clearly strains of species that followed this route had died off in the interim. Lack of available and familiar foods would surely increase the difficulty in reestablishing San Sh'yuum settlements.
The sentinels and reseeding machinery set about reestablishing what life they could, and I content myself to watch as complex life gradually returned to the barren world. Sentinels scoured areas were larger cargo-lifters would deposit objects from the hold. Local plantlife was burned efficiently so that dwellings and farmland could be set up. First, chemical scrubbers and enhancers were deployed, ensuring that the locations of the new San Sh'yuum villages were suitable for their kind, and plants that they were able to digest.
Next, the cylixes were unloaded. As these were the bulk of the cargo, this took many local days. Even for simple intelligences such as the sentinels, I saw the signs of great care and focus in their motions. Clearly the Librarian had spent a great deal of time in planning exactly how to handle her specimens. I saw the first of the new San Sh'yuum take their tentative steps across a world they no longer recognised, guarded and aided by the Keyship's machines. It was possible that these were the only complex lifeforms in the galaxy. After centuries spent attempting to burn them, I felt oddly humbled to see their new beginning.
The Keyship stayed long enough to ensure the San Sh'yuum had secured their presence upon their world. Crude dwellings were established, and embryonic San Sh'yuum stored away were nurtured into growth. A second generation, to follow the first who now walked their world. Supplies were deposited, but nothing that my makers would describe as 'technology': the Reseeded peoples of the galaxy would have to begin again. I saw some wisdom in this. Leaving behind the technology of the Forerunners would either drive them into a niche where they would rely on only what we had left behind, causing them to lose sight of what they might achieve in our absence. Worse, as their numbers grew, the divide between those with access and those without would inevitably lead to conflict. Forerunner hands had guided the galaxy for the last time.
The mission was completed. The constructs were recovered, and the San Sh'yuum left to their own devices. I once again felt the gentle hum of the engines begin, and the Anodyne Spirit ascended once more. My time had arrived. Through local communications relays, I sent a repeating message to every subsystem I could find:
"Conditioned Sentinel of the Keyship Anodyne Spirit, by the Mantle of Responsibility and the wisdom of the eternal Domain, I beseech you. I am Mendicant Bias, the traitor-who-atones. I seek the Reclamation."
