Halo_ First Strike - Eric S. Nylund [112]
"Block removed," Cortana said with an exasperated sigh. "Are you going to answer my question?"
"I'm tired of sacrificing others for the 'greater good,' " Dr. Halsey replied. "It never stops, Cortana ... and we're running out of people to sacrifice." She tapped in a final command for the memory-wiping worm function and punched the ENTER key.
"What—" "I'm erasing your files on this matter. I'm sorry, Cortana, but with this, I cannot trust even you."
Cortana was silenced as the worm burned through her memory and obliterated all inquiries and recordings pertaining to Sergeant Avery Johnson.
"Cortana, give me an update on your core memory."
"Recompiling of routines has resulted in a memory-processing footprint reduction of sixteen percent, Doctor. Thank you. That gives me a little more room to think."
"I'm afraid that's all we dare risk," Dr. Halsey said. "The Halo and Covenant AI data could become corrupted if I do more. And there is no place safe enough to store that information."
Dr. Halsey loaded mission reports from Admiral Whitcomb's, John's, and Fred's teams. She frowned at the official UNSC incident forms as their highlighted time, date, and location stamps scrolled across her screens.
"Are you done with the temporal analysis of these logs?"
"Yes, Doctor. You were correct: There is a discrepancy between the Halo team and the team on Reach. The time stamps are off by an average of three weeks. I hypothesize that this was caused by my gravity-influenced Slipspace transition."
The corners of Dr. Halsey's mouth flickered into a smile. "I'm disappointed, Cortana. That's a guess ... and an incorrect one at that."
"Really?" Cortana replied with a hint of challenge in her tone.
"Do you have any data from your subsequent gravity-influenced translation to correlate?"
There was a two-second pause, and then Cortana finally answered, "Yes, Doctor. There are no temporal displacements on those later jumps."
"As I suspected." Dr. Halsey tapped her finger on her lower lip as she thought. "Plot the temporal irregularities on a space-time surface. Then call up my file on the spatial distortion generated by the alien artifact."
On the displays appeared two sets of nearly identical curved membranes that stretched about a central location and time: Reach and the recovery of the strange artifact.
"That thing not only bends space," Dr. Halsey whispered to herself, "but bends time as well." "That's not possible," Cortana said. "How could the artifact on Reach affect us on Halo—light-years away?"
"Don't think of it as physical distance," Dr. Halsey replied absentmindedly, staring at the monitors. "You and John were on an event path intersecting the crystal." She moved the curves over one another; the time and space surfaces were a perfect match. "You had to be there at that place and time to recover us and remove the crystal—time and space warped to make that event occur."
Cortana gave a derisive laugh. "That's circular logic, Doctor. It directly contravenes several well-established theories—"
"And it fits the known data." Dr. Halsey shut down the files containing her analysis. "I see now why the Covenant are so interested in this object. They mustn't be allowed to get their hands on it. Not them, and certainly not Section Three, either."
"Doctor?"
Dr. Halsey turned to the screen with her memory-devouring worm and moved it to a new pointer in Cortana's core. She executed the program—destroying the AI's memory of this conversation, too.
"Give me an update on SPARTAN-058's condition, Cortana." "Core temperature increasing at a steady point-two degrees Celsius per minute, attaining thirty-seven degrees in ten minutes." "Very good. Prep and move the flash-cloned liver and kidneys from storage and ready surgical bay three."
"Aye, Doctor."
Linda's medical data winked on a display along with the entire Spartan roster: a long list of every Spartan's current operational status. Only a handful was left, almost every one of them listed as WOUNDED IN ACTION or MISSING IN ACTION.
"No KIAs?" Dr. Halsey