Mass Effect

“The Day of Extinguishment has come,” it whispered, and floated out into the long, open hall that led out into the screaming chaos of the unsuspecting ship.

I trust you to organize and conduct yourselves in a civilized manner in this time of crisis. Rest assured that all possible steps are being taken to discover the source of these problems and determine a quick and effective solution. Do not panic. With a little luck and ingenuity, we will all be safely back in our pods in a few days and the next time we open our eyes all we’ll see before us is the Andromeda galaxy in all its wonder and infinite promise. Everything is going to be all right.

This has been your captain, Qetsi’Olam vas Keelah Si’yah. Please remain calm and return to your respective environmental zones. May our ancestors be with us. Thank you and good luck.

The captain’s message began again. It cycled through and repeated on the hour, every hour, as the longest night in the history of the galaxy wore on.

PART 2

KEELAH SE’LAI

12. SYNTHESIS

The Radial had been beautiful in its own way. Once.

By the time Anax Therion and Borbala Ferank fought their way to the heart of the ship, it was no longer.

Now the flower arrangement that had seemed so important on Hephaestus Station, so necessary to their long journey into the unknown, lay smashed and shredded on the floor of the spacious blue-black hexagon, pollen and juices smeared all over the thick glass walls of the six converging environmental zones. Glass walls that did little to muffle the cacophony of voices on the other side, yelling and arguing and screaming, and the occasional firing of a biotic charge—and biotic accidents and biotic attacks sound much the same. The pale lerian ferns of Kahje lay torn to pieces, their tiny pods stripped off. The red usharet flowers from Rakhana had been pulped and wiped down the alcoves like blood. The elcors’ thick onuffri bulbs had been ripped off their stalks and carried off, the batarian spice cones dashed against the bolts between the hexagon’s walls until they shattered. Someone had trampled the volus’s carnivorous kympna lobes, leaving boot prints on their petals. And the quarian keleven roots had been utterly devoured, leaving only their tough, leathery cores strewn around the Radial.

Hello… everyone. This is your captain speaking. Please remain calm and return to your respective environmental control zones. There is not enough acclimatization equipment for everyone, and we must conserve the supplies we have.

A volus Anax did not recognize ran screaming up out of the fumy ammonia-riddled depths of his zone. He slammed his fists against the glass, shrieking in fury: “I’ll kill you both! You did this to me! You did this! It hurts! It hurts so much. It huuuuurrrrts—”

There was a sickening pop. Blue liquid sprayed against the inside of his yellow eye-goggles. The volus slumped to the ground.

“That is not good,” Anax said.

“That’s impossible,” Borbala breathed, her tone more of fascination than disbelief.

Anax shrugged. “Not really. The volus suit’s main function is to provide constant high pressure similar to that on Irune. If he were to develop severe edema, his limbs would swell considerably, and the equalization between pressures would become intolerable.” She smiled ghoulishly, trying desperately to hold on to some sense of humor. “Pop,” she said softly.

“No, I mean—how can the volus have it? Their suits… I don’t even know what one looks like under there. But shouldn’t it keep them safe? And shouldn’t they all have Yoqtan antibodies, if they get it as kids?”

“I’ll ask Irit next time I see her. I think for now we must accept that any of us are vulnerable, no matter how unlikely that might seem. As for antibodies… there is a human sickness called shingles. A human can only acquire it after surviving chickenpox. It is the same illness, but it only returns to an immune system which it has already compromised. An organic body is a strange and terrible place, Borbala Ferank.”

Unfortunately, all cases so far have been fatal. Please remain calm.

“If I have to hear that one more time, I am going to shoot the first audio array I see,” growled the batarian. “How did we get the world’s prissiest captain? Just say: We’re all going to die, you’re on your own, have a nice day and be done with it, woman.”

They peered down into the hanar section. Several of them were clustered around one preaching. One had open sores on its tentacles, but no one seemed to be moving away from it. The elcor hallways were dark and still. The batarian ones were a riot of accusations and shots fired. Therion put her hand on the drell-zone glass. The area within was awash with glittering blue light. She felt tears start in her eyes. My people are so clever, she thought. So much cleverer than we are credited for.

“What’s that?” asked Borbala.

“The drell biotics have captured the sick in Singularities. It knocks them out, gives them some peace, and isolates them from the healthy population. And it’s beautiful.” A few Singularity bubbles drifted into view, the dying drell inside looking almost as though they were meditating.

Borbala looked at the bubbles for a long time, catching her breath. She wiped a streak of blood off her thigh—what was left of another batarian who rushed them back in the maze of corridors connecting the decks. He’d been so angry, bellowing, trying to spit on them, ranting that if he had to die, they would too—they hadn’t wanted to take him down, but he was past saving. They’d shot him together, so neither had to carry the sin alone.

“I’ll be bad cop,” Borbala mused. “Obviously.”

The drell smiled without happiness.

Ferank and Therion let themselves into the quarian section. Therion’s air filter wasn’t strictly necessary here, since the quarian zone was set to common environmentals—Citadel standard. They never had any intention of leaving their suits, anyway, and a deep-space ship was home climate to a quarian. What sense was there in pumping their quarters full of Rannoch’s atmosphere? Wasted energy. The pair of them walked down the residential halls—it was quiet in quarian town. Of course, it would be. They alone had nothing particularly to worry about. Their suits would protect them. No one was sick. They waited patiently in their quarters for instructions—doors open to friendly traffic. Those quarians unfortunate enough to wake up in the initial cryopod failure were gathered six and eight and even ten to a room, despite there being more than enough space for them to spread out. On the Fleet, an empty room was very nearly a crime. They waved their gray three-fingered hands as the drell and the batarian walked by like guards in a prison, all but running a nightstick against invisible bars.

“I need to speak to Malak’Rafa,” Anax Therion said to each cluster of nervous but optimistic and healthy quarians. They shook their heads, speculated on where he might be, claimed not to know him, apologized. And they moved on down the corridor.

“I need to speak to Malak’Rafa,” Therion said again at the doorway to a smaller room, probably meant for a menial l

aborer or low-ranking nobody-in-particular. Four quarians were seated around the dining table, three male, one female, playing some kind of card game rigged up out of bits of repurposed scrap plastic. The taller male was clearly winning. Anax could see it in his posture.