第151页

　　Cortana  was  silenced  as  the  worm  burned  through  her  memory  and  obliterated  all  inquiries  and  recordings  pertaining  to  Ser?geant  Avery  Johnson.
　　"Cortana,  give  me  an  update  on  your  core  memory."
　　"Recompiling  of  routines  has  resulted  in  a  memory-processing  footprint  reduction  of  sixteen  percent,  Doctor.  Thank  you.  That  gives  me  a  little  more  room  to  think."
　　"I'm  afraid  that's  all  we  dare  risk,"  Dr.  Halsey  said.  "The  Halo  and  Covenant  AI  data  could  become  corrupted  if  I  do  more.  And  there  is  no  place  safe  enough  to  store  that  information."
　　Dr.  Halsey  loaded  mission  reports  from  Admiral  Whitcomb's,  John's,  and  Fred's  teams.  She  frowned  at  the  official  UNSC  inci?dent  forms  as  their  highlighted  time,  date,  and  location  stamps  scrolled  across  her  screens.
　　"Are  you  done  with  the  temporal  analysis  of  these  logs?"
　　"Yes,  Doctor.  You  were  correct:  There  is  a  discrepancy  be?tween  the  Halo  team  and  the  team  on  Reach.  The  time  stamps  are  off  by  an  average  of  three  weeks.  I  hypothesize  that  this  was  caused  by  my  gravity-influenced  Slipspace  transition."
　　The  corners  of  Dr.  Halsey's  mouth  flickered  into  a  smile.  "I'm  disappointed,  Cortana.  That's  a  guess  ...  and  an  incorrect  one  at  that."
　　"Really?"  Cortana  replied  with  a  hint  of  challenge  in  her  tone.
　　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.