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Kurt shook off the last traces of confusion. "Explain," he said.
"They are encased in a Slipspace field. The process to stabilize such a field in normal space is well beyond any technology we or the Covenant possess. Essentially these Spartans are here, but not, extruded into an alternate set of spatial coordinates and excluded from time."
"They're right here," Linda said, and pointed at the pods.
"No," Dr. Halsey said. "You are merely seeing their afterimage. It's like looking at a mass accelerated past the event horizon of a black hole. Its image may linger there forever, but it is gone."
"So they're gone?" Linda whispered.
"Oh no," Dr. Halsey replied. "They're right here."
Kurt said, "You just said they're gone. Which is it?"
Dr. Halsey considered a moment and then replied, "Both. The quantum-mechanical implications do not translate to simple, nonparadoxical, classical terms."
"Then let's stick to practical terms," Kurt said, growing annoyed. "Are they safe?"
She tilted her head, considering, and then replied, "You could detonate a nuclear warhead on these pods and because the extruded Slipspace within is not in this dimension, there would be no effect to their contents."
At this reference to "nuclear warhead," Ash shifted his pack, which held the two cut-down FENRIS bombs.
"Can we move them?" Kurt asked.
Dr. Halsey walked to the end of one pod. She examined the trunk line attached there and uncoupled it. There was a hiss and the pod rose a half meter off the floor.
"It appears they were designed to be moved," she said, her last words trailing off into deep thought.
Kurt motioned to the pods. "Teams Saber, Blue, get them uncoupled. We'll take them with us to the core-room entrance."
The Spartans detached the pods.
As Ash maneuvered one pod. Dr. Halsey held up a hand, indicating that he halt. She bent closer to the last pod and ran her fingers over the Forerunner icons along its side, translating as she did so: " 'That which must be protected… behind the sharpened edge of the shield… beyond the reach of the swords… for the reclaimed.' No, that's not quite the correct meaning."
"Reclaimed…" Ash echoed. "Maybe 'Reclaimers'?"
Dr. Halsey looked up, startled, at him. "Yes. A title. Specifically, an honorific."
"Yeah," he said, "that's what the Sentinel called us."
"One spoke?" Dr. Halsey asked. She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and moved to Ash.
"I'd forgotten it with everything else going on." Ash shook his head, embarrassed.
"What exactly did it say?" she demanded. "The precise wording. It may be important."
Ash shifted foot to foot. "… I don't remember, ma'am."
Chief Mendez came up and set a hand on Ash's shoulder. "Take a deep breath. Spartan. Go back and think: what were you doing just before the thing talked?"
"We'd moved to the edge of Zone 67," Ash said slowly, "to disengage from Team Katana and Gladius. That's when they started to blow up the ONI bunkers… and then one came after us. It chased Holly right to the edge of a cliff.