Halo ─ Cryptum

Bornstellar Makes Eternal Lasting is a young rebellious Forerunner. A Manipular, untried--yet to become part of the adult Forerunner society, where vast knowledge and duty waits. He comes from a family of Builders, the Forerunners's highest and most politically powerful rate. It is the Builders who create the grand technology that facilitates Forerunner dominance over the known universe. It is the Builders who believe they must shoulder the greatest burden of the Mantle--as shepherds and guardians of all life.

Bornstellar is marked to become a great Builder just like his father. But this Manipular has other plans. He is obsessed with lost treasures of the past. His reckless passion to seek out the marvelous artifacts left behind by the Precursors--long-vanished superbeings of unknowable power and intent--forces his father's hand.

But powerful forces are at play. Forerunner society is at a major crux. Past threats are once again proving relentless. Dire solutions--machines and strategies never before contemplateds--are being called up, and fissures in Forerunner power are leading to chaos.

On a Lifeworker's experimental planet, Bornstellar's rebellious course crosses the paths of two humans, and the long-life line of a great military leader...forever changing Bornstellar's destiny...and the fate of the entire galaxy.

GREG BEAR is the author of more than thirty books of science fiction and fantasy, includingHull Zero Three, Eon, and Moving Mars. Awarded two Hugos and five Nebulas for his fiction, one of two authors to win a Nebula in every category, Bear has served on political and scientific action committees and has advised both government agencies and corporations on issues ranging from national security to private aerospace ventures to new media and video game development.