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248
HALO: FIRST STRIKE
"Do you have any data from your subsequent gravity-influenced
translation to correlate?"
There was a two-second pause, and then Cortana finally an-
swered, "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
ab-sentmindedly, 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 in-
terested 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 exe-
cuted the program—destroying the AI's memory of this conver-
sation, 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."