Silentium: Book Three of the Forerunner Saga by Greg Bear

Author:Greg Bear
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gallery Books
Published: 2019-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

UR-DIDACT DEPOSITION PAUSED

SUBJECT REFUSES TO CONTINUE

CATALOG: You are claiming to have had a second conversation with the Primordial.

UR-DIDACT: It wasn’t a conversation. More like a malediction. This time, the Primordial was in complete control. I assume the IsoDidact has told Catalog what happened to me on Charum Hakkor.

CATALOG: Is there more to the story?

UR-DIDACT: The Librarian has no doubt changed his thinking. She can be persuasive.

CATALOG: The IsoDidact tells us that the Primordial claimed to be the last of its kind. It seemed to believe that Forerunners were the reason why all of its kind, but for itself, had perished. And it seemed to bear Forerunners ill will.

UR-DIDACT: The whole concept of will, good or ill, is irrelevant when speaking of such beings.

CATALOG: Here is where we have difficulties with your story. In his deposition, the Bornstellar Didact describes how he killed the Primordial on the rogue Halo. He placed it in an accelerating chronological field and forced it through millions of years. In the process, it disintegrated to dust. He was acting on your behalf . . . under the influence of your imprinted instincts and emotions. So it was not the last . . . ?

UR-DIDACT: This being was not the Primordial I encountered on Charum Hakkor, but something else entirely—though it retained the Primordial’s motives and thoughts and memories. It was a Gravemind—the Gravemind, more accurately. It was the Primordial’s final act of revenge.

CATALOG: Are you convinced that the Primordial was a Precursor?

UR-DIDACT: That’s what it claimed.

CATALOG: And during your second interview?

UR-DIDACT: Not an interview. A deep, burning brand. An upwelling of hidden genetic contents . . . So many things I would never have imagined. Things I cannot repeat, lest I lose what remains of my sanity, my Warrior soul.

CATALOG: Can you convey some of that to the Juridicals?

UR-DIDACT: Telling would punish me more than anything you can do.

CATALOG: Was your experience similar to the process that perverted Mendicant Bias?

UR-DIDACT: I wouldn’t know. I feel a coldness in my head. You’re doing something. What is that?

CATALOG: Calming encouragement. If necessary, we can compel testimony, but we cannot alter its contents. The testimonies are not yet clear on key points. You may hold the key to our final judgment.

UR-DIDACT: You’re trying to make me feel at peace with all that happened . . . Like I’m somebody else, standing outside, watching . . . ripping open a scab. I can’t relive what the Primordial did to me! Stop now!

CATALOG: There is no real danger. Let’s continue.

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