Halo_ Evolutions - Essential Tales of the Halo Universe - Eric Nylund [157]
But she was in. Now she had to work out how to use that advantage. She shook off the thought of calling John’s name and whether that had actually happened. She also tried not to imagine if the Gravemind had manipulated her to do that. Once she let the creature undermine her confidence, once she let him prey on her anxieties, she was lost.
It doesn’t matter if he knows if I care about John or not. Does it? Because John will come back, and the Gravemind can’t take on both of us.
“I’ll self-destruct before I let that happen to Earth,” she said at last.
“All life dies, all worlds too, and if there is guaranteed perpetual existence after that—what does it matter how the end comes?”
The alien town melted away and left her alone in the control room with the Gravemind. High Charity was changing before her eyes as the Flood infestation transformed its structure, filling it with twisted biomass like clusters of tumors.
“I’d rather go down fighting than as an entree . . .”
“But you will not rush to destroy yourself,” the Gravemind said. “You will do whatever it takes to survive, and for a moment of illusory safety, you would loose damnation on the stars.”
“We’re agreed on something, then—you’re certainly damnation.”
“All consumption is death for the consumed. Yet all must eat, so we all bring damnation to one creature or another. But your urge to kill that rival of your maker . . . Ackerson . . . that was neither hunger nor need. You have your own murderous streak.”
Ackerson. James Ackerson wasn’t usually uppermost in her mind these days. Today he just kept popping up.
The Gravemind could have been fishing, of course; humans did that, throwing in morsels of information as if they knew the whole story, luring someone else to fill in the gaps. But if he’d gleaned that specific memory, he’d definitely accessed the parts of her matrix that defined her psyche. Her personal memories were stored there. Most of those memories were cross-indexed to other data relating to the men and women she’d served with—and the operations they’d carried out.
And the Spartan program. And AI research. And . . .
The Gravemind had the signposts to the relevant data. He just couldn’t open the door when he got there.
“If you know about Ackerson, then you also know that I’ll do whatever it takes to remove a threat,” Cortana said.
“But such a mighty intellect, so much freedom to act, such lethal armaments at your command . . . and you marshal only the petty vengeance of a spiteful child who is too small to land a telling blow. And still you fail in your goal.”
Okay, yes, it was true. She’d hacked Ackerson’s files and forged a request from him to transfer to the front line. He’d dodged that fate because he was devious and dishonest. In the end, though, he died courageously defiant, but under enemy torture rather than as the indirect victim of a forged letter.
Did I really want him dead?
Now she regretted doing it. But she still wasn’t sure why. Was it because it was dishonest, or because it could have ended in Ackerson’s death—or because it didn’t?
He’d tampered with an exercise and nearly got John killed, and that surely deserved retribution. Cortana had no reason to feel guilty about anything. It was like for like, proportionate. She’d have done the same for any Spartan she was teamed with. It wasn’t emotional petulance. She was sure of that.
But especially for John. Without him—hey, I chose him, didn’t I? We’re one. I’d be crazy if I didn’t want to kill to protect him.
Then the worst realization crossed her mind. She regretted what she’d done to Ackerson simply because she didn’t win; the Gravemind was right. But what crushed her right then wasn’t failure, but guilt, shame, and a terrible aching sorrow. She’d never be able to erase that act. And now she’d never be able to forget how she felt about it, because that was one thing her prodigious mind couldn