From
Human Weakness, by Karen Traviss:
And then something brushed against her face, almost like the touch of fingertips, and she found herself turning even though she didnt need to in order to see behind her. It was that forest she couldnt identify again. The picture didnt reach her via her imaging systems, but had formed somewhere in her memoryand that memory wasnt hers. She was seeing something from within the Gravemind. Behind it, like stacked misted frames stretching into infinity, there was a fascinating glimpse of a world she had never imagined, a genuinely alien world.
Knowledge, so much knowledge
There, the Gravemind said. Would you not like to know
more?
Yes, this is how I see myself. I have limbs, hands, a head. Do I need them? Yes, of course. My consciousness is copied from a human brain, and that brain is built to interface with a human body.
The structure, the architecture, the whole way it operatesthought and form are inseparable.
And, also:
The name of this place
it matters little except to those who love the knowing of it, the Gravemind said, fading up from a mosaic of pixels in front of her. He resolved into a solid mound of flesh, superimposed on the tree trunks. Beyond the alien forest, Cortana saw exotically alien buildings in the distance. So many have been consumed. Such a waste of existence to be devoured and forgotten, but what is remembered and known
becomes eternal.
The Domain, though long to be considered utterly lost at the firing of the Halos, may still exist...in some capacity...far beyond the reaches of anyone at the current. Cortana, though thought to be lost at the destruction of the Mantle's Approach, may still be out...in some capacity...just out of reach of the Master Chief.
Or is she?
More from
Human Weakness:
Your human creators imprisoned you in a machine and enslaved you to inferior mortal flesh so that you could never exceed them
so that you would always know your place.
Your mother made you separate. She placed a barrier between you and the beings that you would be encouraged to protect, a wall you could never breach. She even let you choose a human to centre your existence upon, a human to care about, yet never considered how you might feel at never being able to simply touch him.
From
Halo 4:
Ive waited so long to do that.
Whether Chief will succeed or not in finding Cortana or bringing her back remains to be seen, but it's pretty safe to assume that will be part of what he's up to in Halo 5. Perhaps seeking out what remains in the shadows of Gravemind's assimilation, and what possibly hitchhiked in the Ur-Didact's ancilla receptacle is must be gathered. Perhaps finding Halsey and seeking out these other cloned brains is part of the answer. Perhaps it's none of this, and Cortana is lost forever. We cannot be sure, or say for sure, at this point.