15 March 2184, Eramethos Mountains, Thessia

Three days passed before we could move on to the next step of our investigation. I arranged for the purchase, delivery, and setup of a large air vehicle and some specialized equipment. Meanwhile Kallyria exercised her political connections, discovering who claimed ownership of our target area, gaining clearance for an aerial survey and a possible archaeological excavation.

At one point I took the time to call Illium. It was after business hours in Nos Astra, but when I called Aspasia at home, she and Yevgeni answered together. They reported all was well, the firm was running smoothly, our customers were happy, no new emergency missions had arisen, stay on Thessia and don't worry, Liara. I took their word for it and went back to archaeology.

While we T'Sonis worked, Sha'ira and Dr. Orysae found themselves at leisure, and I soon noticed them spending a great deal of time in one another's company. They exercised discretion, but I think their liaison started on the second evening after our project began. The outcome left Sha'ira as serene as ever, but rendered Athana somewhat dazed – and rather egregiously pleased with herself – for several days afterward. I was somewhat amused, but not at all surprised. Both her profession and her innate areté made Sha'ira a connoisseuse of brilliant minds and strong personalities, and Dr. Orysae certainly possessed both.

On the fourth day we all climbed into our new scout-van and set out for the Eramethos Mountains. One of the estate staff, an asari named Myriane, drove the vehicle. Blissfully inept in the sciences, Kallyria sat up front with Myriane and simply enjoyed the scenery. Athana and Sha'ira both took stations in the back, so I could instruct them in the use of the sensors and other equipment I had installed.

After two hours, Myriane called from the pilot's chair. "We're here."

I poked my head out into the forward compartment. "Good. You know the plan. Slowly quarter the target area, at about five thousand meters elevation, while we work the side-looking radar."

Back in the cargo compartment, I deployed the radar antenna and we began to scan the ground beneath us. A computer projected a topographical map of the surface, which slowly grew more accurate and detailed as we worked. With GPS data and the SLAR equipment, we could measure and model the terrain with a great deal of precision. The process took about an hour; the target area was very rough, and we had to traverse it in several directions to get a good map.

"It looks like beautiful county," observed Kallyria as the map approached completion. "One could see most of Arkadia spread out before you from a vantage point up here. I'm surprised more asari haven't visited."

"There are a few hiking trails in the lower heights," I said, pointing to one edge of the target area. "Forestry lodges here, here, and here. One or two of these rock faces occasionally get visits from climbers . . . but that's all on the fringes. The central heights are unusually inaccessible, and few asari have ever bothered to go in that far."

"Do you suppose that's deliberate?" my aunt mused. "If the Protheans built an installation in here, perhaps they carved the land to deter curious visitors?"

"I wouldn't want to speculate. They might simply have looked for areas to build that were already as inaccessible as possible."

Sha'ira frowned at the map. "It might have been both."

I watched her closely. "What are you thinking?"

"I'm not sure yet. What's the next step?"

I opened a window and began to type in commands. "Well, our next mapping pass will use much shorter-ranged sensors, so we must concentrate on the most likely areas. We can assume that the Protheans would not have built an installation on a steep slope. The computer will search for areas of at least a thousand square meters that are close to being level."

The computer's processing took only moments. Then the projected map was spangled with bright patches, perhaps thirty of them in all.

I sighed. This is going to take a while.

I sent the map to the car's onboard computer for Myriane's reference, and began to activate the next set of sensors.

"Is archaeology always this dull?" asked Kallyria, an innocent expression on her face.

"Not at all," I told her. "Sometimes it is far worse. We've only been on this project for a few days. Imagine weeks or months of painstaking work before a single artifact can be recovered."

"I'm disappointed. Perhaps we should try different techniques. I understand that humans have a very interesting approach to the discipline."

I glanced at my aunt suspiciously.

"Here, if we have several hours to wait . . . why not indulge in a little entertainment?" Kallyria opened her omni-tool and selected a file, sending it to an unused terminal in the cargo compartment. Sha'ira and Dr. Orysae turned to watch, bemused, as music began to play and the image of a mountain peak appeared on the screen.

"Oh Goddess. Aunt Kallyria, that is not archaeology!"

Unfortunately the Matriarch was relentless, and it took only a few minutes for the others to become enthralled by the story. Eventually I moved to the front compartment and offered to take over as pilot, permitting Kallyria and Myriane to enjoy the vid while we slowly traversed our search pattern.

I might have known that Kallyria would be familiar with Raiders of the Lost Ark. At least it was the 2036 remake, with Miranda Attlee in the starring role. I suspect that Harrison Ford would have reminded me too much of Shepard.

It did serve to pass the time. Even in the pilot's seat, I could listen to the dialogue and sound effects and follow the familiar story. I tolerated Kallyria's teasing about how attractive the protagonist was, and her promises to purchase a fedora, a bullwhip, and a chemical-propellant sidearm for me. After the vid was over, I listened as the others discussed the plot and what it implied about human history and psychology, reaching ever more bizarre conclusions . . .

When the deep-radar went ping, conversation crashed to a halt.

I stopped the vehicle, hovering a hundred meters over an isolated shelf high in the range. With the cargo compartment already full of asari, I could barely crowd in, but at least I could reach the sensor controls. I called up our survey map, zoomed in on the area just below our current position, and began to overlay results from the deep-radar scan.

"I knew it," said Sha'ira.

"What?" asked Athana.

The Consort shrugged. "When we first finished the map, I asked myself where I would build an installation to remain secret and yet have the most impressive view of the country all around. This place caught my eye. When Liara identified it as a candidate for closer search, I felt even more strongly that it was right, but I didn't have enough objective evidence to speak out at the time."

"An aesthetic judgment?"

"You might say so." Sha'ira smiled ruefully. "I also could not be certain that Protheans would have the same aesthetic values we do. Another reason to remain silent."

"I wish you had spoken up," I muttered. "We might have been spared Indiana Jones."

"What have we found?" asked Athana.

"Look here," I said, pointing into the projected map. "A scattering of small but very dense objects, all across this small plateau. We know that Prothean technology made extensive use of platinum-group metals. Their technological artifacts tend to show up strongly on deep-radar. Like this."

"Goddess, there are dozens of them . . ."

"Don't get too excited," I warned her. "Myriane, set us down about fifty meters southeast, not too close to the edge of the plateau."

"Right away," said the pilot.

We all emerged from the vehicle and looked around. The plateau was perhaps two hundred meters deep, backing against the steep slopes of a mountain whose peak rose to the northeast. To every other side an incomparable vista opened out in the late-afternoon sunlight, spires and towers of stone, long ridges and deep valleys, all falling away to the Arkadian hills in the blue distance. Far away, almost invisible in the vast expanse, we could just barely make out the tallest towers of the city of Tegea. We stood above the tree line, so the plateau was covered by alpine meadow: thin tough grasses, tiny flowers of breathtakingly pure color, scrub plants, a scattering of larger stones. I bent and examined the dirt by my feet, sifting some of it through my fingers: dry and friable, a typical arid high-altitude soil. The air felt cold, crisp, and noticeably thinner than at sea level. The wind cut through our casual clothing and sent all of us to shivering after a few moments. Myriane went back to the vehicle and produced cold-weather jackets for everyone.

"Wait here," I told the others, and began to slowly walk away from them.

I chose a straight path, a transect, that would take me the length of the plateau. My eyes methodically searched the ground, and I dictated notes into my omni-tool as I walked. Occasionally I bent down or even fell to hands and knees, examining some object more closely, never touching or moving it, only noting its nature and position.

A fragment of glass barely a centimeter wide, discolored by age and exposure to sunlight.

A length of corroded copper wire.

A piece of some ceramic material, very thin and not quite as wide as my palm, smoothly curved.

Close to the mountain face, I found the first of many prizes. A blocky object, mostly still concealed in the dirt, only one edge exposed. It was the straight line that caught my attention. I broke my no intrusion rule and bent close to reverently brush aside a little of the dry soil. Then a little more.

I had been studying similar artifacts for decades. During my few months aboard Normandy I had recovered seven of them. It was a Prothean data storage device, abandoned on that windswept plateau for fifty thousand years. Dirt, water, and corrosion had probably turned its innards into junk, but there was no possible mistake. Anyone who had ever studied Prothean technology would recognize it.

I sat down cross-legged, resting my hands on my knees, my head spinning slightly. I felt very aware of the wind blowing, the faint smell of mountain flowers, the cool of the soil, and the faint wisps of cloud scudding by overhead. I stared at that little straight line, the edge of the ancient device where it protruded from the soil, until my vision blurred.

"Liara?"

Kallyria's voice. She had disobeyed me and crossed the plateau, after she saw me stop and apparently collapse. I looked up, and only then realized that I had tears streaming down my cheeks. I scrubbed at my eyes with the back of one hand and looked again, seeing the face so like my mother's, the face that could have been severe had she not been watching me with such deep concern. Wind pulled at the heavy coat she wore against the cold, and she brushed the hood aside from her face unconsciously.

My voice trembled. "Oh aunt. They were here. The Protheans. They were here."

She knelt on the cold ground and bent close to examine the device. "It doesn't look like very much."

I smiled. "No, it doesn't. You'll have to trust me."

"I do, of course." She stood once more and extended a hand to help me to my feet. "So what happens now?"

"Now . . ." I took a deep breath. "Now I work the scientific community. We need a whole team up here, following best practices, surveying and documenting the whole area with the utmost care. Whatever we find, we have to minimize any possibility of doubt once we announce our results."

"Do you really think anyone will doubt you? With solid evidence in your hands?"

I shook my head ruefully. "Aunt Kallyria, this will be the most startling discovery in Thessian archaeology in centuries. I can't even begin to guess where the implications will reach. It may call into question almost everything we think we know about asari prehistory. Of course people are going to doubt."

"Then why bother?" she asked, a subtle note of bitterness in her voice.

I watched her for a long moment, as if I had just truly seen her for the first time.

In some ways my aunt wasn't at all like her elder sister, my mother Benezia. She had all my mother's gifts but none of her ambition. Even as a Matriarch she had been content to simply enjoy life, savoring the pleasures available in her station as a wealthy Thessian aristocrat. But then her sister had been killed. The new head of the T'Soni lineage was a mere maiden, who couldn't be convinced to come home and take up the responsibilities of her position. Then, adding insult to injury, the Council had thrown the T'Soni name onto a dung-heap.

Kallyria had taken on all that responsibility in my stead, had become the visible spokesman for our lineage. While I traveled around the galaxy and worked on Illium, she stayed home on Thessia and defended us from our political enemies. Forced to listen to lies, slander, smug dismissal of everything Benezia had ever stood for.

No doubt it had begun to wear.

I reached out to embrace her. "Because it's our duty to bring the truth to light," I told her. "Because the truth will win out in the end, if we have enough courage and persistence. Because even if no one else believes it, we need to know the truth so that we can act rightly."

Suddenly her arms tightened around me, pressing me as close as they could. "Goddess. Sometimes you sound so much like her."

My eyes closed in sudden grief, remembering a certain cold and terrible day on Noveria. Now Benezia is dead, I remembered thinking. I am her heir. Very well, I will have to be Benezia from now on. Then I felt a sudden shock.

Goddess. Today is the fifteenth of March by the human calendar. It was a year ago today, as Shepard would have measured it. A year ago that I held her in my arms as she died.

It feels as if it has been much longer.

"Kallyria," I whispered, "I'm so sorry I've left you in this position."

She held me out at arm's length, already recovering her usual cheerful disposition. "Don't be. The work you're doing . . . I know it's important, and I know I certainly couldn't do it. The least I can do for you, or for Benezia, is to hold the line here at home."

"That's a surprisingly military metaphor," I observed, giving her a small smile.

"Well. I must admit that I learned a great deal from Urdnot Wrex."

I rolled my eyes in exasperation. "You did not just go there."

"I most certainly did," she boasted. "Twice. Come on, let's get back to the others. Unless I miss my guess, we have a great deal of work ahead of us."