Mass Effect

“Who is inquiring after him?” said the tall winner, ticking his head to one side.

“My name is Anax Therion, this is Borbala Ferank. We’re part of the Sleepwalker team that discovered the pathogen. Malak’Rafa was part of the previous one.” She decided on a small lie. “We are seeking out all the members of Yellow-9. Someone on this ship knows what happened.” She shrugged. “It might be one of them.” Three of the members of that team were floating dead and frozen in space light years behind them.

“Then I am he,” said one of the shorter, less lucky card players, and turned to face them.

He crossed his arms over his chest. Malak’Rafa vas Keelah Si’yah looked like every other quarian—they were by far the most difficult interrogation subjects. Anax hated questioning quarians. You could not see their faces, their pupils dilating, their sweat response, the dryness of their lips. And they didn’t care about anything but their fleet, so threatening them was useless. The lights didn’t seem to be working in here either. Shadows and dim pale-blue emergency lighting turned Malak’Rafa into a dark statue. Until he saw Anax in her volus suit, shoved his chair violently backward, and leapt up.

“Keelah se’lai, what kind of a bosh’tet am I even looking at?” marveled the quarian medical specialist in a thick but not impenetrable and certainly not unattractive Fleet accent. He gestured at the drell in the volus suit.

“A drell, I assure you,” Anax said. “May we have the room?”

The other quarians nodded and drifted off calmly. It was not that they were not worried, for the ship, for the others—but they were not worried for themselves, and it made all the difference. None of these people were going to run at them screaming in the depths of space madness, firing whatever weapon they’d dug out of a locker or someone’s luggage, demanding to be fed. No one else could eat the quarian’s dextro-protein food anyway, so they were altogether in better shape than most.

“Listen, kid,” Borbala began, settling down on one of the other card players’ chairs. “This ship is under attack. You have to know that. Just because no one is torpedoing us out of the sky doesn’t mean we’re not under attack.”

“I really wish I could help,” Malak said, and he really did sound like he meant it.

“You can, Sleepwalker,” Borbala said casually. “Everything was fine until your team went on shift. So why don’t you tell us—what did you do while the rest of us were napping, you naughty boy?”

The quarian went ramrod stiff. Oh, Anax thought. How unexpected. What did you do?

“Am I the only one of my team awake?” the quarian asked, expending some effort to keep his voice calm. “Keelah Si’yah, locate Systems Analyst Soval Raxios.”

Illegal query. Soval Raxios is not on board the Keelah Si’yah.

Why does this seem to keep coming back to Soval? Therion thought. “The computers have trouble finding anyone at the moment. Senna is trying to fix it,” Anax apologized quickly. If he didn’t know she was dead, she might be able to use that. It was always to one’s advantage to know something another did not. “Why did you ask about her specifically?” Anax asked.

“She’s… She’s a friend. She can tell you that I didn’t do anything during our cycle but check life signs on 20,000 cryopods.”

“Just a friend?” Anax pressed. The quarian said nothing.

Borbala Ferank barged in as any easily bored batarian would. “Listen to me, Malak’Rafa. This ship is under attack. Someone on your Sleepwalker team did something to help that along and the captain says it was most likely you. We’ve been awake and dealing with your mess for some time now, so there’s no use lying about it. But everyone has their reasons. I’m sure you didn’t mean it. Let us help you.”

Therion winced. Risky. She would never have been so forward. This was why she detested the whole framework of good cop, bad cop. She had had quite enough of bad cops in her life. Bad cops were sloppy. Bad cops shot their clip too soon.

“Impossible,” said Malak, shaking his head. “I have known Qetsi’Olam since we were both children on board the Chayym. Since we were fitted for our first suits together. When the geth attacked our birth ship, only Qetsi and I survived. I know her better than the sister I never had. We took our Pilgrimages together at the salarian biodiversity station. When those racist little insects pulled their hazing stunt and compromised her suit on a group outing, I nursed her back to health. We developed the vapor-biotic to cleanse her lungs of that crawling yelik algae together, and brought it back to our home ship. We took leadership of the Nedas movement together, to find a new hope for our people. We took our first wounds together fighting the geth. And we took meetings together with the Initiative to build this ark and fly it beyond the visible stars. Twins are less close than we are. Qetsi’Olam would suspect her own two hands before she suspected me.”

Anax Therion was no novice. She had spent her time on Hephaestus Station reading personnel files while the others laughed and talked and drank and danced. Only on that last night had she joined them, joined Soval… She suppressed the memory. Soval didn’t matter now, except as evidence. She knew very well who Malak’Rafa was. She’d planned to use it in seven to nine minutes. But plans were easily enough changed.

Malak’Rafa shocked her. The quarian reached out and squeezed her hand tenderly. “If I knew anything, Anax, I would tell you, I promise. But nothing happened. Nothing at all unusual. I think maybe we should all go and see the captain. She’ll tell you I’d never do anything to harm any ship, least of all this one.”

“The problem is, something happened on your watch, Malak. And it’s enormously important that we find out what it was. Were you ever separated from your team, for any amount of time?” Therion asked. “Maybe it wasn’t you. Maybe one of your friends snuck off while you weren’t looking.”

“No,” Malak’Rafa said quickly. Too quickly. He hardly let the drell finish her question. “We were either in visual range of each other or on live vidfeed throughout the cycle. Yellow-9 follows protocol.”

Therion sat back. Interesting. She knew for a fact that was a lie. She’d watched all the teams on the security footage. She hadn’t expected him to lie. She didn’t think he himself was actually at fault, the way Borbala presumed everyone to be at fault for everything. She only assumed he had seen something the vids might have missed. That shadow in the shadows, that persistent movement just past the range of the cameras. But why was he lying?

Borbala got up and started pacing, embracing her role as an impatient, embittered policeman. “What about Jalosk Dal’Virra?” the batarian barked. “Did he seem normal to you? Any effects from cryostasis? Any odd behavior?”

“Jalosk? No. He’s… He’s a good worker, I suppose. Finished early. And then hung around Kholai like a lovesick puppy. I think he was actually starting to believe that hanar’s depressing drivel.”

“What drivel?” coaxed Anax, sitting up straight. “That Day of Extinguishment nonsense?”

The quarian nodded, glancing nervously at the pacing Ferank. “You must have heard it on Hephaestus, it’s just… constant. Like a broken vidscreen. But after we shared our final meal together, I noticed that Jalosk was really listening. On Hephaestus and on our cycle. I felt a great deal of pity for him. Kholai’s philosophy is… like alcohol. At first you are laughing, but soon enough you weep, and then you slide into the black and do not come out. The last thing Kholai said to me before it went back into stasis was: The only peace in the universe is entropy. I will see you at the end of all things, my brother. That’s one of their hymns. They say it to each other all the time. It’s not good for them. I hoped… I hoped beyond hope that in Andromeda, they would see the possibility of a new life rather than the certainty of death. How beautiful something new coul

d be. And then… And then, just before he left for the batarian cryodeck, Dal’Virra said the same thing to me. I will see you at the end of all things.”

“And that didn’t seem suspicious to you?” Borbala laughed.