They can freeze it. Ghosts of Onyx; ch. 36. Kurt flickered on his helmet's tactical lights, and panned them over the chamber. Organometallic appendages cradled each pod and radiated branches that connected to banks of two-meter cubes. On closer inspection, Kurt saw a faint light leaking from these cubes… and staring closer, he noticed they were not at all cubes—their edges distorted and radiated extra dimensions. He staggered back, hands reflectively grasping for his temples. Disorientation washed over him as he tasted the faint green light, inhaled the dusty odors of meaning from the symbols on the floor, and heard the bell like tinkling of the organic electronics of the pods. He sank to one knee and the tangled sensory input faded. "Stand back," Kurt warned the others. Over the COM he said, "Will, escort Dr. Halsey up here." Another wave of disorientation hit Kurt and his vision swam. When he again could see. Dr. Halsey knelt next to him. "Move him away from the machines," she told Will. Will dragged him back to the room's entrance, and Kurt's vision immediately cleared and the dizziness vanished. "What was that?" he asked Dr. Halsey. "Unshielded Slipspace field," she said. Her face was a mask of concentration, staring at the cubic machine housing. Frowning, she crossed to the pods. "Linda," she said, "your assistance please." Linda moved up to Dr. Halsey, her sniper rifle aimed at the floor. "Use your weapon's range finder; point at the interior of the pod." Linda nodded, raised her rifle, and aimed at the Spartan inside the pod. After a moment, she lowered the weapon, checked her Oracle scope's settings, and then repeated the procedure. She shook her head. "You are reading an infinite range?" Dr. Halsey said. "Yes," Linda replied, uncharacteristic annoyance in her tone. "There must be something wrong with it." "No," Dr. Halsey replied. "I'm afraid it is in perfect working order." She turned to Kurt. "I cannot revive your Spartans or the other three, Lieutenant Commander. They are not in cryogenic suspension." 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."