Halo: Primordium by Greg Bear Read Free Book Online Page A

like ants from a cup. None were hurt; we drifted like fluff to the dirt and rocks.
    “Then, so I was told, we stood together, holding each other, and looked up, and saw the sky bridge, the way the land rose up, and there was much wailing. Finaly, we separated into families and smal tribes, and wandered this way and that—”—he swung his arms—“outward. We came to forests and plains and we made our homes there, as we were used to living. For this while, in my youth, we were tended like cattle, but because there was little pain and we were fed, we came to believe this was where we should be.
    “The Forerunners gave us bricks. We used the bricks and made wals and houses and great buildings. We lived in peace and raised children, and the children were touched by the Lady, and when they could speak, they told us of this beautiful Forerunner, so tal, who spoke to them in their first days and filed them with light. I already knew her. She had come to me on Erda.”
    “When you were born?” I asked.
    Gamelpar nodded. “But it was not the same, how the Lady touched those from Erda and how she touched the children born here. As I grew up, I sometimes remembered things that I never lived.” His voice grew thin. He lifted his gnarled hand, pointed in a broad sweep, up toward the center of the Halo’s spin, then down, as if poking his finger through to the other side. “So many memories,” he whispered. “Old, old memories—in dreams, in visions. Weak and frightened . . . old, lost ghosts.
    “But years later, the old memories became stronger—after we finished the city, long after I was husband and father. After the sky changed five times. Those were great darknesses, long, long nights.
    Different suns, different stars, came and went.
    “Each time, glowing bars climbed across the sky and a big, pale blue disk appeared inside the hoop, like the hub of a wheel. Each time came the white brightness, then a great darkness. . . .” He swept his hand across the welkin. “Spokes shot out from the hub, and glowing fires burned on the ends of the spokes, to warm us in that darkness. And twice we saw something other than brightness and darkness—something terrible that came out of the hub and the center of the wheel—something that gave us fits and hurt the soul.” He rubbed his forehead and looked away from the fire. “But we did not die. We moved again. Under the orange sun, where Vinnevra was born.”
    Vinnevra stared intently at her grandfather.
    “It was under that sun that the Forerunners came in their boats and carried us off to the Palace of Pain. They stole away my daughter and her mate, and many, many others. They came so often we were afraid, and we abandoned the city, crawled back out onto the plain. And there, as we huddled in fear, the beast came among us and pointed its awful arms, and raised its jeweled eyes.” I started at this. “Beast?”
    “Bigger than men, bigger than Forerunners. Many arms, many smal legs, curled up like a shriveled spider. It sat on a big dish, flying this high over the ground.” He raised his arm as high as he could. “Beside it flew a large machine with a single green eye.” He laced his gnarled, knobby fingers together, shaping a kind of complicated bal. “These two spoke in our heads as wel as in our ears—teling us of our fates. The Primordial and Green-eye were deciding who would live and who would die.
    “But some who had been taken to the Palace of Pain returned.
    At first we were happy that they were back, but then we saw how some had changed. Some grew other skins, other eyes, other arms.
    They broke apart and joined together, then made others sick. They wailed in pain and tried to touch us. These poor monsters died, or we kiled them later.
    “And Green-eye said to the Beast, ‘Not al resist . . . not al survive.’ But most do. Why? Why do many survive, but some do not?” Gamelpar shuddered. “Twisted death. Death that spreads like spiled blood. Those who