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Yes, ’Zamamee swore that the humans took prisoners, but what didhe know? Thus far, Yayap had been unimpressed with ’Zamamee’s plans. Yayap had seen Marines shoot more than one downed warrior during the battle on thePillar of Autumn , and saw no reason why they would spare him. And what if they discovered the signaling device that had been incorporated into his breathing apparatus?
No, the odds were against him, and the more he thought about it, the more the Grunt realized that he should have run. Taken what he could, headed out onto the surface of Halo, sought shelter with the other deserters who lurked there. The dignity of his eventual suffocation when his methane bladder finally emptied had considerable appeal.
It was too late for that now. Yayap heard the crunch of gravel, smelled the musky, unpleasant meat odor he had come to associate with humans, and felt a shadow fall over his face. It seemed best to appear unconscious, so that’s exactly what he did. He fainted.
“It sounds like he’s alive,” McKay observed, as the Grunt took a breath, and the methane rig wheezed in response. “Check for booby traps, free that leg, and search him. I don’t see much blood, but if he’s leaking, plug the holes.”
Yayap didn’t understand a word the human said, but the tone was even, and no one put a gun to his head. Maybe, just maybe, he was going to survive.
Five minutes later the Grunt had been hog-tied, thrown into the back of an LRV, and left to bounce around back there.
McKay recovered two saddlebag-style containers from the wrecked Ghost, one of which contained some clothes wrapped around what she took to be rations. She sniffed the tube of bubbling paste and winced. It smelled like old socks wrapped in rotting cheese.
She stuffed the alien food back into its pack, and investigated the second. It held a pair of Covenant memory blocks, brick-shaped chunks of some superdense material that could store who knew how many gazillion bytes of information. Probably a kilo’s worth of BS? Yes, probably, but it wasn’t for her to judge. Wellsley loved that kind of crap, and would have fun trying to sort it out.
If they were lucky, it would distract him from quoting the Duke of Wellington for a few precious minutes. That alone was almost worth recovering the devices.
As the humans got back on their vehicles and went up over the pass, ’Zamamee watched them from a carefully camouflaged hiding spot on a neighboring hill. He felt a thrill of vindication. The first part of his plan was a success. The second phase—and his inevitable victory—would follow.
Finally, after battling his way through wintry valleys twisting passageways, and mazelike rooms, the Master Chief opened still another hatch and peered outside. He saw snow, the base of a large construct, and a Ghost which patrolled the area beyond.
“The entrance to the Control Center is located at the top of the pyramid,” Cortana said. “Let’s get up there. We should commandeer one of those Ghosts, we’re going to need the firepower.”