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campaign ribbons. His close-shorn hair had a touch of gray at the temples. He was neither tall normuscular; he looked so ordinary for a man who had seen so much combat . . . except for his stride. Theman moved with a slow grace as if he were walking in half gravity. He paused before Dr. Halsey,awaiting further instructions.
“Up here, please,” she told him, gesturing to the stairs on her right.
Mendez mounted the steps of the platform and then stood at ease next to her.
“You have read my psychological evaluations?” Déjà asked Dr. Halsey.
“Yes. They were quite thorough,” she said. “Thank you.”
“And?”
“I’m forgoing your recommendations, Déjà. I’m going to tell them the truth.”
Mendez gave a nearly inaudible grunt of approval—one of the most verbose acknowledgments Dr.Halsey had heard from him. As a hand-to-hand combat and physical-training DI, Mendez was the best inthe Navy. As a conversationalist, however, he left a great deal to be desired.
“The truth has risks,” Déjà cautioned.
“So do lies,” Dr. Halsey replied. “Any story fabricated to motivate the children—claiming their parentswere taken and killed by pirates, or by a plague that devastated their planet—if they learned the truthlater, they would turn against us.”
“It is a legitimate concern,” conceded Déjà, and then she consulted her tablet. “May I suggest selectiveneural paralysis? It produces a targeted amnesia—”
“A memory loss that may leak into other parts of the brain. No,” Dr. Halsey said, “this will be dangerousenough for them even with intact minds.”
Dr. Halsey clicked on her microphone. “Bring them in now.”
“Aye aye,” a voice replied from the speakers in the ceiling.
“They’ll adapt,” Dr. Halsey told Déjà. “Or they won’t, and they will be untrainable and unsuitable forthe project. Either way I just want to get this over with.”
Four sets of double doors at the top tier of the amphitheater swung open. Seventy-five children marched
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in—each accompanied by a handler, a Naval drill instructor in camouflage pattern fatigues.
The children had circles of fatigue around their eyes. They had all been collected, rushed here throughSlipstream space, and only recently brought out of cryo sleep. The shock of their ordeal must be hittingthem hard, Halsey realized. She stifled a pang of regret.
When they had been seated in the risers, Dr. Halsey cleared her throat and spoke: “As per Naval Code45812, you are hereby conscripted into the UNSC Special Project, codenamed SPARTAN II.”
She paused; the words stuck in her windpipe. How could they possibly understand this?She barelyunderstood the justifications and ethics behind this program.
They looked so confused. A few tried to stand and leave, but their handlers placed firm hands on theirshoulders and pushed them back down.
Six years old . . . this was too much for them to digest. But she had to make them understand, explain itin simple terms that they could grasp.