Halo: Primordium by Greg Bear

spirit fought under his command. . . .” His voice trailed off.
    Then he reached up and again swept his char-smudged fingers across the glittering sky. “The voices ride us,” he said. “They hope to live again, but do not know what we face. We are weak, like animals. There wil be no return to that old war.” He looked away, but not before I saw a glint of tears on his cheeks. “Finish this poor rabbit before it gets cold.” He pointed toward the near wal. “My daughter’s daughter tels me we should go over there, where the land stays in shadow longer.” Vinnevra had already finished. She stood up, as if ready to leave right away. “You want him to come with us?” she asked the old man. I could never tel what she thought about me. Her eyes seemed dangerous, the way they peered and examined from under her brows.
    “Yes,” the old man said.
    For her, that was enough. “Gamelpar, can you walk?”
    “Cut a big stick from the brush. With that, I can walk as wel as you.”
    “He fel a few days ago,” Vinnevra explained. “He hurt his hip.”
    “My hip is fine. Eat. Sleep. Then we leave.”
    He looked back up at the stars and the sky bridge. His face grew sharp again, more interested, and again he looked younger.
    As I tossed away the final clean-stripped rabbit bone, we felt something rumble beneath the dirt, far below us, like some huge, restless animal. The sound made the pebbles dance, but I folowed the old man’s upraised hand and trembling finger to the sky.
    High on the bright arc of the sky bridge, where the black mark and rays had once been, an emptiness had suddenly appeared—a gap in the continual sweep of the band through which I made out two bright stars, quickly hidden by the hoop’s spin.
    “I have never seen that before,” Gamelpar said.
    “That’s where the big boat crashed!” Vinnevra said.
    The grumbling continued, and we moved in close and hugged each other, as if together we might weigh enough to hold down the dirt. Finaly, the vibrations dropped to a faint trembling—and soon I wondered if I was feeling anything at al.
    The gap in the sky bridge remained.
    We did not say much for the rest of that night. Vinnevra curled up close to the dying fire, at the feet of Gamelpar.
    Even with the missing square, the sky bridge was as bright as a long ribbon of moon, and that made seeing the stars difficult.

FIVE

    PRETTY SOON, AFTER a smal and troubled sleep, sunlight crept down the band like a descending river and caught us. Clouds crossing the band took fire, rose up in mountainous bilows, and spread orange glow even into the tilt-shadow and wal-shade.
    Halo dawn.
    Then it was light al around, and after several loud thunderclaps and brief shower of warm rain, the old man got up and took his new long stick from Vinnevra, and we started our walk away from the vilage and the deserted city. Gamelpar did indeed walk faster and better with a stick, but Vinnevra and I slowed to alow him his dignity.
    We walked together just behind him.
    “Time to tel this one where we are going, daughter of daughters,” the old man said.
    “I’m going to find my friend,” I said.
    “The little one,” Vinnevra explained.
    “Do you know where he is?”
    I had to admit, I had no idea.
    “Vinnevra knows where to go.”
    “I have seen it,” Vinnevra said, with a sidelong and almost guilty glance.
    “Seen what?” I asked.
    We crested a low hil. “A place where I should go when I am in trouble,” she said. She turned to look back over the meadow and plain that held the scattered vilage, the hut where she had tended to me, and beyond that, stretching wide to either side, the brown mud and stone wals and towers of the city where she had grown up . . .
    and lost her parents to Forerunners.
    She pointed inland, away from the wal, then led us down the opposite side of the hil.
    Gamelpar folowed and did not look back.
    I had no idea which way Riser might be, so I folowed as wel—
    for now. “What kind of place