Chapter 2-3

I must caution the reader that my narrative may become more difficult to trust at this point. Molzhure's yangban bitter-enders were typical yangban bitter-enders, no different than those found on any number of planets, but Molzhure's antecedent cultists were not typical antecedent cultists. For their founder Ephor Pratius truly had found something very old and very dangerous, a synthetic mind which called itself a Man, and this ancient dangerous thing attracted the notice of something younger yet worse.

And there was something else, a Yonhet scrapper's claim to bear secrets of the Halos and of the Quarians' disappearance. I cannot vouch for the truth of what Axiperrat said, but it was spoken lucidly, and the story was internally consistent. So, I worry that as I relate these events the reader will think that I am mad or speaking dishonestly.

I never reported the whole truth of what I found on Molzhure to the Anuranite Lustration. I worried less that I would be labeled as a willful heretic and executed, and more that I would be committed. But the Anuranite Lustration is now gone, the empire I fought for is now gone, and I find myself with no career and little reason to do other than relate the entirety of what I saw and heard.

After Va the second horrifying being that I encountered on Molzhure was Pratius, or more properly Pratius-Dinvat, for without Dinvat, Pratius would have been only a harmless eccentric. Unlike Va, he was (they were?) not on my side.

Pratius stood seven feet tall, too tall for a Turian, in a shell of orange and black armor. At first glance the armor appeared to be wholly of Forerunner design, elegant but clearly threatening and built for battle. Closer inspection of the joints revealed cruder Turian modifications. Analog cords snaked from the armor's collar into Pratius' skull. To fit the proportions of the armor, Pratius had amputated his limbs and replaced them with cybernetic prosthetics. I later learned that he only ate nutrient paste, and that only once a week. He had removed many of his own vital organs. He did not ever sleep.

Excepting Pratius' glass orange eyes, his Turian face was unremarkable, the only unobtrusive and wholly organic thing about him. Pratius had not removed his red and black tattoos. The heritage of Old Celanur still meant something to him, I don't know exactly what. What meant nothing to Pratius were the fundaments of biological life.

I met Pratius just outside of Ondyurut Polity's small military headquarters, together with Nravian and Va. We left Eorucho Hill in our Spirit without returning to Taraga City and picking up Kassur- it would not have been fitting for Kassur to leave Molzhure's Batarian continent so soon after we named him Taraga's dictator, while it was still in a state of upheaval. Almost all the gendarmes who fought with us at Eorucho Hill were also left on Taraga, to help Kassur impose the Writ of Jubilee.

Pratius met me along with Ruz, who was unrestrained and unharmed. A few Ondyurut guardsmen also accompanied Pratius, but they never spoke. The guardsmen kept their gaze entirely on Va, not pretending to think that Nravian, Ruz, or myself were comparable menaces. Pratius understood that his form was unsettling, and that the circumstances were tense. He began by trying to put me at ease.

"What I want you to understand, before anything else," said Pratius, "is that I do not consider myself the founder of a cult. That is Covenant projection. I named my organization the Association of Erde-Tyrene. I do not think there is anything mystical or irrational in what I am doing. Admittedly Dinvat- that is the name of the armor- does not entirely agree. He feels that civic spirit and religious conviction are essentially the same phenomenon. Yes, there is a dead Man in this armor, and he speaks to me. Please, relax. This is all plain fact. I do not lead a cult."

I looked at Ruz. Maybe he had been able to draw some sense out of this half-machine-half-Turian while he had been captured? Ruz shrugged.

I asked the obvious thing. "What in the world are you wearing?"

"Heh." Pratius smiled. His face looked friendly. He did not always speak like a madman. Even his gangly mechanical body, you could imagine yourself eventually getting used to. "I am wearing an antecedent set of armor, a carapace, which was created by the Forerunners. However, the ghost- the technical term is Durance- within the carapace is not Forerunner, but a long-dead Man named Dinvat. Dinvat advises me and he links me to the Domain. The Domain is the greatest achievement of the Forerunners. It is a quantum repository of information which pervades all the galaxy. Dinvat may draw information from the Domain and pass the information to me, and I may then pass the information to the Association of Erde-Tyrene. Our Association is, as you may imagine, more informed on the cold realities of galactic prehistory than anyone else alive. Certainly, we are more informed than the Covenant's San'Shyuum masters on High Charity. Half of what they 'know' is entirely wrong."

I didn't like any of this. "You're telling us that you've merged your mind together with a synthetic intelligence that believes it was once an organic antecedent?"

"A virtually universal practice among the later Forerunners, whom in theory you worship. I will say in theory. The Batarians I have known have been more opportunistic than pious, though of course they have virtually all been from Molzhure, so perhaps things are different on whatever planet you come from."

With Ruz semi-safely before me, and with Va glowering behind me, I felt comfortable enough to speak at least somewhat directly. "I believe in the part of Covenant scripture where it says not to plug a synth directly into your own brain."

Pratius shook his head and groaned in exasperation. "Typical of the Covenant to so misrepresent their own gods! The Forerunners began with a taboo against synthetic intelligences drawn from their early struggle for survival, but their culture was not stagnant and over the course of their fifty-thousand-year primacy that taboo was largely abandoned! Sometimes I despair of the galaxy listening to and, more than that, understanding the secrets Dinvat and I have ripped from the Domain. Life makes an idol of the wonders only made possible by the metarchy, but life strangles every new metarchy in the cradle!"

I had no idea what a metarchy might be. "How can you know that the thing in that armor was even built by the Forerunners, much less that it is the ghost of a 'Man?' Because that is what it told you? That could be a Reaper in there for all you know."

"It cannot be a Reaper, because the Reapers were all destroyed, before Man ever left Erde-Tyrene. That part of Covenant doctrine is true. The Domain confirms it," Pratius told me confidently.

Nravian had been quietly watching us with an expression of trepidation and half-comprehension, but at mention of the Reapers she decided to take the opportunity to swipe some ancient and forbidden lore for herself. "This is what the High Charity holo-preachers are always arguing with each other about. The Dissension. Hey! Who built the mass effect relay system?"

"The Reapers did," Pratius said casually. "They designed it as a trap. Because every new civilization grew around the relays, and grew dependent on the relays, the Reapers could always cripple them at the start of every harvest. Then they would move along their old and reliable hunting trails."

Nravian's eyes opened wide. Then she smiled broadly. "That is a better answer than I could possibly have hoped for."

"What do you mean by that, citoyenne?" Pratius tilted his head and looked at his fellow Celanurian in curiosity. "It is hardly a live problem, but it is still a ghoulish historical subject. Prehistorical subject, I should say."

"Don't you see? Don't you all see?" Nravian looked around, confused as to why whatever thought was going through her mind even needed to be verbalized to all the rest of us. "You just need to tell the San'Shyuum that! They'll blow the Haivattan Gate and separate the empires, and the war will be over! The galaxy will finally go back to normal." Va picked up on Nravian's excitement and resounded sympathetically.

"It isn't how empires work, citoyenne." Pratius' glass orange eyes looked over Ruz and I. "These two don't seem overwhelmed by the revelation. They may have already known."

"We are simply unconvinced that your 'Domain' is reliable, or even real," I said, as I quietly resolved that I would not silence Nravian unless I absolutely had to. I would need to silence Pratius if I could. That was clear. Not that I had any idea how I might do it. I had come to Molzhure assuming I was to put down an ordinary cult of nitwits, not… whatever Pratius was. "Your revelations come from a 'quantum repository of information which pervades all the galaxy,' but only you and your synth can access it? How am I to view that differently than your receiving revelations from a dream, or from a talking animal?"

Pratius regarded me patiently. "This usually helps to open minds." He rose six feet upwards and casually levitated in the air. There was no biotic flare or other sign of eezo manipulation.

Nravian flinched and Ruz hissed. I am sure that I looked stupefied myself. Only Va showed no signs of being impressed. Pratius gently touched back to the ground.

"Everyone knows that Forerunner gravity manipulation was more sophisticated than our own," I said, trying to convince myself. "That is the beginning and end of what you have shown."

"Fine," Pratius shrugged, "believe what you want, I'm not the Covenant. Let's go. We should talk to the Yonhet together."

We walked together, entering Ondyurut Polity military headquarters and walking toward the cell holding Uxatl Axiperrat. The Ondyurut guardsmen we passed saluted Ephor Pratius as we walked by them. "Do any other members of your Association have other antecedent suits of armor like yours? Is your use of the intelligent armor publicly known?" I asked, trying to evaluate the scale of the problem.

"No, I only ever only found Dinvat. He supposes that he wasn't left in this region of space by the Forerunners. He believes that he was found in the Attican Blank and brought here sometime in the Prothean period. Probably a Prothean wore him just as I do- we cannot be certain, Dinvat's memory is not what it was. As for the public, we have neither confirmed nor denied the rumors. The Geth weigh heavily on the public's imagination where synthetic intelligences are concerned. Listen, I know that I'm a lot to take in, but I weary of talking about myself. We really need to talk about the Geth."

"That is also a lot to take in."

"True. Would you like to take a moment to confer with your aide? I don't know a thing more about what they planned with the Yonhet than Dir Ruz does, but you are of course more likely to take all of this seriously if you hear it from your aide."

"Thank you." I took Ruz aside.

"What is all this?" I whispered to him. "What in the world happened?"

"The Yonhet and I talked to some people and learned that Pratius was the founder of the Erdans," Ruz whispered back. "Nobody said anything about his being a flying cyborg. One official got twitchy when the Yonhet said the name Cerit vas'Sakhitot, and then the Yonhet gave me the slip. I found the Yonhet and started chewing him out. Then the Turians offered to let us meet Pratius. We accepted and whoops, it turns out Pratius is a cyborg, hooked into actual Forerunner battle armor. The Yonhet lost it and started blabbering that he was working for the Geth, and that he had sent a signal out to call them here. I said that I wasn't with the Yonhet and that I barely know what a Geth even is. Which is true. So, the Turians pulled my Anuranite communicator off me and a bizarre-looking signal device off the Yonhet. The Turians smashed the Yonhet's signal device and used my communicator to call you. That's it. I don't know anything else. What is our goal here?"

"It depends." At first glance the situation seemed heinously complicated, but if Axiperrat had told Pratius and Ruz the truth the first task at hand was really quite simple.

"Depends on what?"

"Depends on whether the Geth are coming! If they are, we work together with Pratius' Erdans, with the Taragae slavedrivers, with any Citadel Council agents or Martollans who make an appearance, with anyone or anything which lives!"

Ruz nodded, and we returned to the group. We reached the cell the Erdans had put Axiperrat in. We decided that Pratius and I would both go in to question to Axiperrat while the others stayed outside and listened through a monitor.

The reader will have gathered that by this time I already felt quite disoriented. The interrogation was to make this feeling much worse. It went off the rails immediately, as Dinvat- not Pratius, but Dinvat- felt the need to get something off his chest. Then, Axiperrat made a religious claim of the most serious possible weight. Only then was I finally able to ask about the Geth.

Once again, the Yonhet prisoner seemed comfortable enough with me but disturbed by the person walking into his cell along with me. Pratius-Dinvat being a considerably more disturbing presence than Ruz, this time I sympathized with him. "Axiperrat," I asked him, "can you tell me why I find myself interrogating you for the second time in a week?"

"It is only because the galaxy has always been unjust to luckless Axiperrat! Axiperrat is here because you sent him here! And he was only in trouble the first time because he wanted to simply talk to Ephor Pratius, and here you are standing next to… to Pratius like good friends, and you are not in trouble! Axiperrat has never done anything wrong!"

"The real reason you are here, the reason that a mote like you ever attracted my notice, is that you invoked the name of Cerit vas'Sakhitot," said Pratius, but his style of speaking was quite different. His voice now sounded deeply old and horribly resentful, and it had none of Pratius' intellectual pretensions and odd charm. "Do you know what that one did to me?"

"No." Axiperrat was trying to conceal his fear of the towering cyborg. He was not succeeding, but he was trying. "Did she rob you? She robbed Axiperrat. It was over twenty years ago, but he has never forgotten it."

"Rob me? You could say so. Pratius was a merchant, one of the first to meet the Kig-Yar freebooters who came in from the Haivattan Gate in those short years just before the war. He purchased a Luminary from them and went relic-hunting. He found a set of Forerunner carapace armor lying forgotten on an asteroid. Pratius did not imagine that there was a Durance sleeping in the inert armor. Pratius found a mechanic, whom he thought might be able to make the armor activate. Cerit vas'Sakhitot. She was a good mechanic, better than most of this backwards future. She activated the armor and woke me up. But what do you suppose she did after that?"

"You are talking like Axiperrat likes this person. He is on your side, here! Axiperrat wants you to know that he is grateful that you are trying to communicate with him in the Yonhet manner of speech so that he might understand you better."

"I am Dinvat, you oaf! The Durance in the armor. Pratius was thrilled to meet me. He wanted to speak with me, learn from me. Vas'Sakhitot had a different attitude. She was appalled at herself for waking up what she insisted on calling a synthetic intelligence. She said that I should be put back to sleep, more than that, that I should be laid into the grave permanently. Pratius and vas'Sakhitot argued. 'Why are we all here in the Terminus Systems?' Pratius asked. 'Is it not to explore those lines of thought and affinity which the Citadel Council seeks to stifle?' 'I am in the Terminus Systems to destroy synthetic intelligences,' replied vas'Sakhitot. She deceived Pratius, mauled me, stole my memory and much else, and fled. She must have thought that she had finally put me down. I, who have persisted one hundred thousand years! Then what did she do, after she took half my mind and ran? I am not sure myself, but I think that you know."

The Yonhet prisoner slowly nodded. "Axiperrat thinks that he does. She sought to make sense of the store of data and memory which she took from you. But it was layered in very unintuitive Forerunner language and code. Covenant scribes and scrappers have experience with these things, but at the time no one in the Relay Ecumene did. Vas'Sakhitot made no progress. Not until she found Axiperrat. The intrepid scrapper Axiperrat had come through the Haivattan Gate to search this new and perilous frontier for the wondrous relics of the Forerunners! But he found only worthless Prothean trinkets of no monetary value. Axiperrat was flat broke and could only accept when the Quarian pilgrim vas'Sakhitot offered him work as a translator."

All of Pratius' easy manner was gone, crowded out by the dead Man's fury. "That was my life you were translating! My real life, the one where my skin and bones were my own and not borrowed! Not the half-life allowed me by Forerunner false mercy! I cannot remember my own face!"

Axiperrat's eyes flickered nervously to me, as though he were hoping I would protect him against Pratius-Dinvat. "How was Axiperrat to know where vas'Sakhitot got that data from? And he didn't translate anything like that. Vas'Sakhitot told Axiperrat to only translate information of practical value."

"Practical value?" Pratius-Dinvat's face twisted. When he spoke again it was with Pratius' tone. "Apologies. This is an emotional subject for Dinvat."

"Practical value," I said, taking the interrogation over, while Axiperrat stared at Pratius-Dinvat in confusion and fear. "What information of practical value?"

"You will not believe Axiperrat."

I looked at Pratius-Dinvat. "Circumstances have forced the limits of my credulity to shift. What information did you find?"

Axiperrat stuttered a little bit as he forced it out. "Halos."

"Halos. What about the Halos?"

"Where they are…"

"You know where the seven Halos are?" My stomach twisted in knots as I tried to think through what the implications would be if Axiperrat was telling the truth, even if he were lying but enough people believed him.

"Three of them… the three remaining." Axiperrat shuddered. "Four were destroyed! Not by Axiperrat! Fifty thousand years ago, by the Protheans or the Xalanyn or both Axiperrat doesn't know! It cannot be blasphemy for Axiperrat to say it, he knows what he is saying is horrible, but he didn't do it, he is only repeating what the data he was given said! There are only three Halos left, they are all in the Attican Blank, it probably has something to do with the Prothean Empire following the course of the mass effect relays; but it isn't Axiperrat's fault!"

"Okay." That was information to fully absorb later. "You know where three Halos are. Why would you keep their location a secret? If you gave that information to High Charity, you would be rich, that information would be more valuable than a pile of every relic found by every other Yonhet scrapper who ever lived! And more than that, if they worked, then you'd be a god, we'd all be gods!"

"Do not tell Axiperrat! He does not have the coordinates anymore. Tell Cerit vas'Sakhitot! When Axiperrat understood what he was looking at, he was overcome by religious awe. It was a fleeting thing for Axiperrat, but he felt it then. The Quarian did not understand. She did not know what a Halo was. She believed that Axiperrat had lost control of his senses. Axiperrat explained, and the Quarian listened. Then, she began asking questions which entirely missed the point. 'What type of atmosphere might a Halo have? What kind of plants might grow on a Halo? Would a Halo harbor any dangerous pathogens?' Do you see? The questions of a colonist."

"You told her about one-hundred-thousand-year-old artificial ring worlds built by antecedent aliens to turn people into gods, and she started thinking about how to grow crops on them?"

"Yes. Exactly. But still, vas'Sakhitot grew more and more excited. Vas'Sakhitot grew even more excited than Axiperrat. She said that her people had had been running and running for three hundred years, and that now they might at last stop running and make a home. Axiperrat explained to her that she was excited for wrong reasons. He explained how the Halos are not for one people, but for our Covenant, which means all peoples. Vas'Sakhitot asked Axiperrat what he meant by that. Axiperrat explained how our Covenant was preparing to come through the Haivattan Gate and conquer and enlighten all the galaxy. Vas'Sakhitot thought this sounded like bad news, so Axiperrat explained that it was not, because our Covenant would reward both Axiperrat and vas'Sakhitot, and the two would be among the most celebrated and holy of all beings! Vas'Sakhitot did not ask for more details about that, did not ask about anything which concerned herself. Instead, she asked… she asked… she asked about the Yonhet. She asked how the Yonhet fit into our Covenant. Axiperrat told her. Vas'Sakhitot said that she was sorry, but that her people would never be as Yonhet are."

Axiperrat lost all control of himself and started to weep. I don't know whether or not it was for something higher than his personal misfortune. "Axiperrat insisted that the location of the Halos be taken to High Charity and sold to the San'Shyuum there, but vas'Sakhitot stunned him with some machine. She took the translated data away with her. She took the Halos away with her. She took Axiperrat's life of ease away with her. She left Axiperrat with nothing, nothing but his piddling translator's fee, and some other money! The next year the war began, and the Quarian Migrant fleet dove into the Attican Blank. Everyone still thinks it was just because Quarians are all cowards. Everyone except luckless Axiperrat, who knows they made straight for a Halo."

Axiperrat drew himself up, wiped his tears, and looked at me. "You see how innocent Axiperrat is? He is only a victim of Cerit vas'Sakhitot, just as the Turian with the… augments… is. Axiperrat is innocent, the augmented Turian is innocent, everyone here in this room is innocent and on the same side- the only one for the three of us to blame for our problems is the Quarian!"

"Who conveniently is in the Attican Blank and cannot defend herself." I had grown to like Cerit vas'Sakhitot a little, from the two stories I had heard about her. She sounded like she had some Terminus grit, some Batarian spirit. I did wish that she had been more thorough with Dinvat.

"Convenient for her, yes! Convenient for her, to be sitting on a Halo, squandering divinity! Not so convenient for luckless but innocent Axiperrat!"

"When did you start working for the Geth Collective?"

"Okay. Okay, that makes Axiperrat sound guiltier than he is."

"When?"

"Two years. For eighteen years Axiperrat continued scavenging. Sometimes he would tell other Yonhet of the prize which slipped through his fingers, but the other Yonhet never believed him. But two years ago Axiperrat received a message he could not believe. It was a message from someone who claimed to have heard and taken an interest in Axiperrat's travails. The messenger offered to meet Axiperrat in the Perseus Veil. Axiperrat stifled his fears and agreed. In the Veil, Axiperrat met the machines. The machines offered to help Axiperrat trace the course of Cerit vas'Sakhitot's pilgrimage, to find the source of her Forerunner data. They could not do it themselves without drawing attention to themselves. They offered Axiperrat money! Axiperrat agreed, and eventually he found himself on Molzhure, and there he was arrested unjustly for no good reason, and there he met you."

"What about the signal? Is it true that after you confirmed Pratius and vas'Sakhitot knew each other, you activated a signal to draw the Geth to Molzhure?"

"Yes. Yes, Axiperrat did. The cultists said that vas'Sakhitot took valuable information on the antecedents from Pratius. Axiperrat knew then that he had come to the right place."

It was odd to me that Axiperrat was more comfortable talking about personally committing this crime against all life than he was talking about someone else destroying the Halos. "Don't you know what you've done? Don't you know what you have called to this planet? The Geth killed billions!"

"…They told Axiperrat that they feel very bad about that, and that they have no intention of doing it again…" I was sure that Axiperrat was not quite stupid enough to believe what he was saying.

Pratius spoke back up. "Why would the Geth try to search lost Forerunner data out? What were they hoping to do with it?"

"They say they want to know where their Creators are. They say they want to know that their Creators are safe."

"Then they are out of luck," Pratius remarked. "Dinvat and I do not know where the Halos are, or where the Quarians might have traveled to. The information is not in the Domain. The coordinates must have been part of Dinvat's personal memory, part of the information lost to vas'Sakhitot. We do not have any way of following the Migrant Fleet's trail. Cerit vas'Sakhitot covered her tracks better than the Geth appreciated."

That was useful news, but it did not distract me from what Axiperrat had done. "The Geth want to know that their Creators are safe?" I looked at the Yonhet in disgust. "You agreed to help those monsters finish what they started three hundred years ago. You know that much, don't you?" I was certain Axiperrat had convinced himself that his grievance against Cerit vas'Sakhitot justified the massacre of more Quarians, of all of them, at the hands of the Geth.

"No!" Axiperrat cried. "They told Axiperrat that is not what they wanted to do! But… but if it were… if it were, then still, Axiperrat was still only working with them to find the Halos! How can Axiperrat be in trouble for trying to find the Halos? It is what our Covenant is for! Axiperrat should be called a hero!"

"Come to think of it," Pratius thought out loud, "can we be sure he's wrong? The Geth may be capable of regret. Why shouldn't they be?"

"Do not fool yourself," Dinvat answered. "By all accounts these "Geth" are fully Rampant. They were never alive, as I was. They will not seek to serve life, as I do."

"Probably, Dinvat, probably. But can we be sure?"

"The Batarian may be right. The Geth may be coming to try and learn where the Quarians fled, so they may hunt the Quarians down and finish them off. That is the more hopeful possibility, the possibility in which the Geth will leave Molzhure frustrated even if they kill us all."

"What would the less hopeful possibility be… yes, of course. The Domain."

"If the Geth seize us, they will be able to access the Domain. They will at once achieve technological superiority to the Citadel Council, to the Covenant, and to any other extant culture. They may in time make themselves into a new metarchy. The galaxy will be theirs to do with as they please."

To Axiperrat and I, this of course looked like Pratius was having a conversation with himself. Neither of us were sure how to react.

Dinvat took over the body he shared, presumably settling the argument, and looked at me. "We must assume the worst. We must assume the Geth are coming to Molzhure in order to usurp the Domain. Go, and tell the gendarmes and the Taragae to prepare."

I looked at Axiperrat. "Do you have anything more to say for yourself?"

Axiperrat shook his head. I made to leave.

"Wait," Dinvat addressed me. "One more thing. Pratius feels that we can trust you to follow your own interests, and leave us alone after this matter of the Rampant Geth is resolved. He feels that he has gamed you out. He feels that as a Batarian collaborator you must be a cynic, and so that as your Covenant falls you must abandon your inquisitorial post, forget the world of Molzhure, and allow the Association of Erde-Tyrene to make its own way. But I do not trust his reasoning. Do you know why?"

"I don't accept that our Covenant is falling."

"Precisely." Dinvat twisted Pratius' face into a rictus. "In life I considered myself a worldly or even cynical person, but did it help me see things clearly at the end? Pratius may know Batarians, but he does not know collapsing empires. I do. I may not remember my own face. I may not remember how I came to be on the asteroid where Pratius found me. But I do remember what I thought as the Forerunners closed in on Charum Hakkor. I thought that the Alliance of Charum Hakkor would pull through. I thought that Man would find a way. I thought that all the way until the Forerunners burned my body up, stuffed my mind into this carapace, and told me that I was now part of their war effort against the Shaping Sickness. I expect you to delude yourself, as I deluded myself. I expect you to believe, not necessarily in Covenant principles, but in Covenant victory, all the way along. And that is why, unlike Pratius, I will be awaiting your attack."

I could see no value in responding. I left the cell without another word.