Author's note: I must be doing something right; a number of people have left really kind private messages and comments, telling me that they felt something real from the last chapter, and were moved by it, emotionally, which is an enormous compliment. Thank you!
For those who've asked about it: Yes, killing Kella off was a big decision. I liked her. I went back and forth between her and Eli being the one to bite it for some time. I'd been intending for Kella to die for a couple of chapters, but I *liked* her; I could see keeping her in the story, as a representative of one way forward for the asari, and I liked that as a thematic option; additionally, I knew some people would see her death as her just wearing a red shirt (or a blue one, in this case).
On the other hand, I'd invested enough time in her for her death to have meaning and pathos, and was simply not realistic for Dara to be able to save both of her friends. (Having her save both, or only having Rel be injured both seemed. . . cop-out choices.) Thematically, I also thought that the parallel between Shepard's choice to save Palaven at Thessia's expense was better (Dara is Shepard's foil), and the character growth potential for the 'main' characters was better. The only way I could have made it more of a 'choice,' I think, would have been to let Dara see that both were injured, and force her to make that decision. Which might have been too much, realistically, to ask of someone that young. But I spent quite a bit of time on that decision, too.
Back to the plot!
Chapter 26: Reconstruction
Shepard
Within three days, Samara came to Minoir, in her small, personal ship, from deep in asari space. The Dunkirk, a human-flagged Normandy-class ship, brought Rishayla from Bastion on the same day, November 30, on the human calendar. With the snow all melted from the mountains, the flowers of spring were fading into the intense, vivid greens of summer, the blue-violet sky fading to blue-lilac as the sun's light grew more intense.
Shepard met the two asari at the landing area, opening the Hammerhead doors for them. "Thank you for coming," she told them both, as they stepped in and sat down."
Samara glanced around. "I'm relieved, Commander, to see that your husband is not driving, on this occasion." It was a surprisingly light comment for the justicar.
"He's overseeing base repairs." The words were crisp. "Quite a bit of damage was done by the various mercenaries, as well as by the mini-Reaper." She'd transmitted her report on the attack to the Council, including video of all the events, so Rishayla and even Samara, as a representative of the current asari government, were up to speed. She'd even invited them to come and see the mini-Reaper before they moved it to the Omega 4 relay for disposal into its endless dreams.
The Council had objected to the idea of disposing of the Reaper in this fashion, of course. They wanted to be able to study it, and since she was a servant of the Council, she couldn't move the ship and the relic quite yet. For the moment, they seemed to be quite busy dealing with the political and economic fallout from her last set of revelations, so there was time and space to consider what their options were. She wasn't thrilled with the idea of both objects staying on her base, but she was even more leery of them being taken elsewhere. Someday soon, she might be forced into unilateral action, and Shepard wasn't entirely thrilled with the notion.
Cohort, and Emissary, however, had proven to be staunch allies on the matter, and Shepard was grateful to the geth for this. When she'd pressed Cohort for their reasons, the answer had been intriguing, if not wholly illuminating. "Taking data from so many minds at once enriched the old machine," he'd told her. "It may change over the course of its simulations, based on so many new minds, new facts. Being linked to your organic network, through EDI, has also enriched the geth. We have much new information to assimilate. This will change us, as well. But we are. . . accustomed. . . to adapting, to finding consensus. The old machine is not; it has never had to alter its perceptions based upon new information. Finding consensus between old reality and new reality will require change. Change will be difficult for it to endure. It should not be allowed to awaken from its dreams again, Commander." Cohort flicked its eyeflaps at her, and had gone silent, its opinion relayed.
Change and adaptation are difficult, she thought again, reflecting on the memory. And not just for machines.
The commander brought the Hammerhead to a graceful halt near the base hospital, and, opening the doors once more, hopped out, beckoning the other two to follow her. She could hear construction equipment humming and buzzing and thumping in the mid-distance; repairs were underway on Mordin's lab and all the other damaged buildings. The Spectres were not going to be chased out of their home, she'd decided. Anyone who came to challenge them here, on their own ground, was going to regret it, however.
All across the galaxy, the thirty or so Spectres who hadn't been on-base at the time of the attack were not in a good mood. It was a good time for various criminals and spies and other such miscreants to lay low and stay very, very quiet. The economic turmoil of the volus-asari implosion continued, of course, but the other species continued to weave a web to support one another, so the damage was, thankfully, mitigated and limited.
As they walked through the hospital's cool gray halls, she knew the two asari women could see that there were fewer victims this time—a good thing, that—but Shepard knew that there were walking wounded to be cared for, the ones with no visible damage, only that which they carried in their hearts. Still, a number of Spectres were on crutches, and the crew of the Tarawa was being cared for here, as well. Most had escaped with only bumps and bruises in the life pods, but a few had broken bones and cuts. Takahashi had gone down with the ship. And of course, Aurelia, the AI, was a casualty, as well. Not that many people who weren't Spectres could be expected to understand that; to most other sapients in the galaxy, Aurelia would have been a computer program, a collection of data, arranged interestingly. No more than notes on a page. But as Sky probably would have pointed out, notes alone do not make up the song.
The geth collective, through Cohort, had already extended their sympathies. Shepard suspected that Joker, EDI, Laetia, the AI of the Estallus, and Kynthia, the AI of the Dunkirk, were having many long conversations at the moment, out of earshot of the rest of their respective crews. Conversations about grief, dealing with it, and avoiding a repetition of the same circumstances. She'd never met Aurelia, but she did keep track of Joker and EDI's. . . offspring, out of a sense of accountability.
At last, they found their way down to the hospital's basement, where the morgue was kept. Ylara was already there, of course, waiting. Shepard had tried to convey, as best she could, her deep sympathy and her appreciation for the asari Spectre's strength in the face of such a personal tragedy. Ylara had accepted the stumbling words, nodding. "Don't worry, Commander," she said, tiredly. "I'll be here when they arrive."
Two bodies, two tables, two sheets. Three asari women in the room, all reserved, silent. All in the matron stage, all mothers, all victims of great loss. Shepard couldn't imagine anything more poignant, at the moment, and simply remained silent, at the back of the room, as Ylara gestured for Rishayla to uncover the bier on the left.
Rishayla didn't move for a long moment, steeling herself, and then stepped over, firmly pulling off the sheet, as if making a decision. She looked down at the body, put her hand to her mouth, and whimpered a little, closing her eyes. "I can see the shape of the face," she said, after a moment. "It's her." The proud shoulders slumped a little. "I still do not understand why she would do such a thing to herself. Tela's daughter was beautiful, just as her close-sister, Misera, still is."
Shepard shook her head. She hadn't known how to explain this over a comm channel. She still wasn't sure how to explain it to a grieving mother, even in person. She began, as tactfully and gently as she could, "Lina didn't do this all to herself, I'm afraid, Rishayla. Tela did most of the damage to her, growing up. I got a fairly good look inside of her head, her memories."
"As did I," Ylara added, quietly. "Many people on the base had dropped from the neural link at that point, but those closest to Lina, physically, and those of us with strong biotics potential, had not. I heard it all. I saw it all." Her voice was quiet, passionless. "I saw how Tela treated your daughter, Rishayla. You could not have known. You could not have known how she taught her to hate herself for an accident of birth." Now there was compassion there, and condemnation as well, both deeply masked, controlled.
Rishayla looked shaken. "I don't understand."
The clinical explanation didn't take long. They had internal body scans, showing the changed internal sexual organs, the lack of a uterus. They had the genetic data, showing the misshapen twenty-seventh chromosome. Explanations were easy.
Acceptance, however, took longer. Asari did not have sexual dimorphism. It was harder for her to accept than a human could possibly understand. There were humans who were born with the sexual characteristics of both genders at once—true hermaphrodites. For centuries, they'd been shunned, shamed. In the twentieth century, gender reassignment surgery at birth had been common for such children—much as what had happened to Lina. But that kind of surgery couldn't take into account the mental and the hormonal, what that person might grow up into, and had resulted in deep confusion, depression, and anxiety for some of the affected children. It was a difficult issue for humans, who had two genders, and could just barely wrap their heads around the concept of someone who was both, or neither.
For an asari, it was even more difficult. Bewildering, painful, shameful. Far beyond the cultural impact that having a homosexual or bisexual child would have been on the late twentieth or early twenty-first century Earth. Or even today, depending on how deeply religious the parents happened to be. That was the nature of humanity; so deeply diverse, and divided against itself, that any human could be alien to another. But for asari, this was not a condition of 'sin' or a philosophic difference; this was to not be asari.
Samara helped, however. She understood the quirks of asari genetics as well as anyone, having had three Ardat-Yakshi daughters. "But your daughter, Rishayla, was not cursed, as mine were," she said softly. "Your daughter could have lived and loved as well as any asari, would not have devoured her lovers, as mine were fated to do."
"But Tela . . ." Rishayla's hands clenched. "Tela did this to her. The surgery as an infant was one thing. But to make her hate herself, to make a weapon of her. . . ."
"A weapon that killed my own daughter," Ylara said, quietly. She pulled back the second sheet, exposing Kella's still, ashen face. She couldn't look down at the small form, but Shepard again admired the asari's strength. She was having a hard time herself, not picturing Amara or Kaius, cold and small and still on that slab, and her throat went tight at the mere thought.
"Oh, it was not her own hands that did this, but the force of her hate, which swept all in its path." Ylara's voice gentled again. "I do not blame you in this, Rishayla. But there are things that you could do now, to take something from all this senseless death. To build something on it. For our people."
Rishayla rocked back on her heels, swaying back and forth a bit. "What would you have me do?" she whispered.
"Tell them," Shepard said, speaking for the first time in a half-hour. Her voice seemed a little loud in this hushed place, and she flinched a little, speaking more quietly as she continued. "Don't let this be yet another secret, another piece of information hidden away. I know it will be embarrassing for you, and for your other daughter. You'll always be looked at differently, people wondering if Misera is the same, or if the potential for such alterations is inherent to your genes. But if there are any others like Lina out there, don't they have the right to know that they are not alone?"
That wasn't the only reason, of course, although it was a good one. She'd had Mordin run the calculations. Introducing true sexual reproduction, rather than merely randomizing the mother's own genes by contact with other species, would introduce new viability into their population. The numbers would depend greatly on how many of these hidden 'males' were out there. If Lina had been the only one, then of course, it was a moot point. But evolution rarely made single experiments.
Mathematics didn't lie. Parthenogenesis was, evolutionarily speaking, a dead-end. The asari had made the most of it, and for millions of years, they'd made upwards progress, so long as conditions had remained stable, unchanging. In the face of new conditions and change, they needed to change.
This might not be the change that they needed. It might not be the change that they would embrace. But it was proof that they could change.
Rishayla thought about it, hard. "And revealing that an asari manipulated the religious fervor of gullible humans, Commander? Will this assist you, as well?"
"It certainly can't hurt. There are those who won't believe it, no matter who speaks it. There are those who will take it as a reinforcement of their beliefs," Shepard told her. "But I find it hard to believe that information is a bad thing." She rather thought that Cohort and the geth would agree with that perspective. Her tone was very dry, though, as she added, "We reveal truth, a little at a time, Rishayla. Little truths are all that most people can handle."
"That is a very sad statement, Commander," Samara told her.
Shepard considered that for a moment, and then simply nodded. Doing her job for as long as she had, there was a certain edge of cynicism that couldn't be avoided.
"I will tell them," Rishayla said, and Ylara placed a hand on her shoulder, whispering a heart-felt thank-you in return.
The next day, Ylara took Kella's ashes to Thessia; she requested that no services be held on base or in the village. Shepard had qualms about that; some sort of service would have given closure to the children and students who had known Kella, but had been Ylara's daughter, after all. It was Ylara's choice. The girl had had no real feelings about a homeworld she'd set foot on perhaps five times in her short life, but funerals aren't for the dead, so much as for the living.
Then Ylara returned to Mindoir. She wasn't going to be chased off any more than the rest of the Spectres, although she had requested, and received, a leave of absence for mourning purposes.
Emily Wong handled Rishayla's interviews, back on Bastion. Shepard watched them after dinner two nights later, impressed. "She kept her promise," she said to Garrus, keeping an eye on the twins as they burned off the last of their energy. Soon, it would be time for them to go to bed, and their parents would have some much-longed for, much-needed quiet time to themselves.
"I'm surprised, frankly. I would have thought that once she left here, with her daughter's body, that it would be easy for her to change her mind," he replied, coming into the living area to watch, arms folded across his chest.
"Samara's moral support probably helped." She smiled at him. "All in all, I'm a little surprised, myself. Pleased, though."
Kaius crashed into her, proudly holding up a truck with a wide grin, and then it was time to get the kids off to bed. "We're all still going to that concert over the weekend down at the scientific station, right?" she asked, hauling Kaius up to one shoulder, and holding her other hand down for Amara to take.
"It's still on," Garrus agreed. "Few changes to the program, of course."
Rellus
School had been officially cancelled for the past few days, but since they all more or less went at their own pace anyway, that had only meant that they didn't need to show up at the building. They were still expected to keep up, as best they could, given the fact that some of the students were recuperating, physically and emotionally, from the attack.
He'd spent the last few days either at his parents' or at Dara's house, mostly resting his leg. The doctors had been firm. No running, no sparring, for at least a week, until they were sure that the danger of blood clots had passed, and he was, temporarily, anyway, on some sort of blood-thinning medication to reduce the possibility of that particular complication. While the actual cuts had already healed, the areas around and below them had bruised spectacularly, visible even through the scales, and he now had a series of fine-lined scars along his back. The ones on his back would probably fade when new scales came in; the one on the back of his leg probably wouldn't.
At the moment, a lazy Friday afternoon, he was sitting on a bench in Dara's backyard; it doubled as a swing, supported by ropes from an overhang, and was an oddly relaxing human contraption. Getting comfortable in it with her had been difficult; he was a little taller than the designers had imagined when they built the thing. They'd finally settled on her sitting up at one end, and him more or less reclining on it, shoulders propped up on the far arm, long frame along its length, and his feet in her lap. The bench had slats, fortunately, wide enough for the tips of his spurs, so he could actually lay his legs flat, more or less. He had his datapad in his hands, and Dara was, very lightly, rubbing the base of his spurs, just above the ankle, while reading from her own. The garden was very quiet, just the whirr of insects and the chittering of birds. A little noise from inside the house, where Dara's father and Kasumi were apparently watching the Urban Combat League, live from Earth, on the extranet, while undoubtedly looking out the window periodically at the two of them.
"How're the verb conjugations coming along?" he asked, quietly. They'd been silent for some time now.
"It's much easier to concentrate," Dara replied, clicking off her datapad, and leaning her head back. "The first day or two, I couldn't think of anything at all. My head just felt sort of empty, and, well, you know I couldn't stop crying." She managed a lopsided smile. "I still think I should've gotten you a towel for your shoulder. But now. . . yeah, I think the verbs are sinking in better." In the darkest hours of grief and guilt, she'd clung to him tightly, and he'd wished, more than anything, that he could make her forget about it all for just a little while, give her some relief from the power of her emotions. It had been. . . a very different experience.
He, of course, dealt with grief in different ways; grief-anger had ridden high in him for a while, but he'd exhausted a good bit of it shooting the batarians. He still wished he could get in a little good sparring, but that would have to wait. All in all, however, Kella had been more of an acquaintance than a friend for him. Most of his anger had been at not having been able to protect her properly; Dara's was at not having been able to save her.
Rellus was also doing better than Dara for another reason. He'd lived through his first battle, and before boot camp, at that. He had, like his brother Rinus before him, proven himself in body and spirit. It was a good feeling, and he wished he could get Dara to see it that way; it would take time, however, for her to do so. She'd never properly integrated the fact that she'd killed the vorcha in the cave, in his opinion. She'd been blooded that day, and the humans around her had reacted as if this were a bad thing, rather than a praiseworthy one. She'd been blooded beside him in battle again, six days ago now, but for her to see her worth, the unnecessary burden of guilt would have to fall away.
He'd had enough of it two days ago, and had asked her a little sharply, "I'm here, and alive, because of you, Dara. Do you think that's of so little worth?"
"No, of course not!" she'd replied, instantly.
"Then stop blaming yourself for what you couldn't control. Honestly, if Dr. Solus had been there himself, I'm not sure he could have done anything differently without more equipment." He'd picked up her wrist, nipped the interior. "I'm here," he repeated. "Never forget that."
It had helped. She'd calmed noticeably afterwards.
He'd even been able to ask, looking down at her tear-streaked face, with a little gentle humor, "I've been meaning to ask, why does your nose start to run when you cry? Is it an allergy?"
Her shoulders had shaken a little, and a muffled laugh escaped her. "No, silly. The tears can drain into the nasal cavity and dilute the mucous there. Pretty much everything in the human head is connected, somehow. Ears, nose, throat. If it's a cavity, it needs to drain somewhere."
He'd thought about that. "Okay, ew."
"I know, but you did ask." She'd looked up at him, and he was encouraged by the smile he saw there. Her spirit had been bruised, but like his body, it was healing.
Here and now, Rellus sat up, carefully, pulling his feet back before inching his knees up. It had been a comfortable position, once he'd gotten into it, but getting there, and out of it again, was less than ideal. Now that he was sitting up again, however, Dara leaned into him, and he preened back her hair, lightly. "We're still going to that music thing tomorrow night?"
She stilled, then nodded. "Yes. They've taken most of the Christmas music off of it, but there'll be other stuff. All good. Sky will be thrilled, I think." Dara smiled at him. "You might even like it."
He grimaced. "We'll see. Our ears process sound a lot differently than yours, mellis. A lot of human music just sounds. . . odd."
"That's contemporary stuff. Most contemporary stuff sounds. . . odd." She actually managed a grin now. "You like what I play on the piano, right?"
He nodded. "Yeah. That almost always sounds harmonious."
"This will be like that. More instruments. Voices. But similar." She smiled at him. "Trust me."
"I do." Relaxing again, he put an arm around her and deftly turned on her datapad, looking at the turian verb conjugations on the page. After a moment, he shook his head. "They do start people on the most boring parts of the language, don't they? I think they do it on purpose to prevent people from learning."
"Abera, abero, aberro, abe'ari, aberium, aberum," she read, with no noticeable enthusiasm. "To bring."
Rellus grinned suddenly. "Here, try this one. Just say the words after me."
Dara squinted up at him. "What are you going to have me say?"
"Just trust me."
"When you start smiling like that?"
"You can try it my way, or you can keep learning how to say 'Bring your travelcase to the spaceport.'" He tapped her nose, as if for attention, and, still grinning, said, "Adamare."
"Adamare." The pronunciation was hesitant.
"Close. Now if I say it to you, a female, between equals or intimates, it's adamare elii."
"And if I say it to you, the fact that you're male makes the word you change. . . ?" She looked through her notes. ". . . to talu'a?"
"That's you plural, formal. Try talu."
"Adamare talu."
Rellus grinned again. "Perfect."
"Rel, what the hell am I saying?"
"Look it up."
"I don't even know how to spell it to look it up." After several minutes of looking and muttering, she glanced up. "Oh, well, that's not the right word."
He glanced down at the datapad. "Yeah, it is."
Her eyes were wide. "Oh." Dara looked down again. "That's a . . . big word." She paused again, and repeated it. "Adamare . . . talu." Practicing it, tasting it on her tongue.
"It's a true one," he said. "Now, here's something a little harder," Rellus told her, and, after thinking about how to break it down into the simplest possible words for her, gave her a whole sentence. Had her sound it out, write it down in the script she was just learning to use. Looking up each word, struggling with the odd endings, sentence structure, personal relationship variants, Dara finally got the gist, Honored am I, to lead forth a mate fit both for battle and healing. She went bright pink, and he chuckled and took her wrist, giving it a quick nip. "The faster you learn this, the faster I can teach you tal'mae, and then we can talk about whatever we want, whenever we want," he reminded her, quietly. Giving her a little incentive, putting the sparkle back in her eyes. "I have to go to Uncle Garrus' for dinner," he added, reluctantly. "Will I get to see you tomorrow before everything in the evening?"
She nodded, quickly. "I'd go riding in the morning, but. . . ."
"Yeah. Too soon. We can find something else to do."
Dara got up on tiptoe, kissed his cheek, and whispered the words he'd taught her in his ear. Rellus exhaled, and muttered, "I've been holding off on asking for closed-door time. . . "
"That was on purpose? I thought it was because of your leg!"
"I'm not sure I can be hurt enough not to want to spend time alone with you. Besides, I haven't gotten to mark you in a week." He grinned at her. "And don't tell me that the turians at school don't look for it."
She flushed again. "I know they do! I've gotten a couple of flat-out jealous messages from quite a few of the turian girls in the past few weeks." Dara looked up at him. "Apparently, you're a catch." So good to hear the teasing back in her voice again.
Rel didn't want to preen, but he suspected she'd get more of those now. A blooded male was considered very attractive, and young females could hiss like lanura, or like a Terran cat, for that matter. "Then let's go to your room, mellis. Five minutes." The contract specified fifteen, but he was trying to respect her father's discomfort, and not push while under this roof.
He hadn't known that human grief was a combustible thing, however, as likely to blaze up in different directions, seek other outlets, as a fire doused with accelerants. Four minutes into his self-imposed five-minute limit, he was breathing hard. Spirits, I have to put my paint on her face soon. He put his hands on the wall, his usual signal that he had to stop, and asked, hearing the growl in his own voice, "Where?"
Dara started to bare her shoulder, and he shook his head. "Not if you're wearing that dress tomorrow. She made me promise."
Her eyes turned inwards in focus, and he could see pain there. "I'm not sure I. . . I think it will. . . "
"She'd want you to, and you know it. Wear it for her." He didn't have the mental cycles at the moment for tact, but managed to pause for a moment. "And for me." A touch more impatient now. "Where?"
Dara nodded, and lifted the hem of her shirt, showing her waist, and Rellus sighed, dropping to his knees. She couldn't have realized that her waist was far more intriguing to him than the breasts. Breasts were mammalian, foreign. A fine, taut waist, however, supple, with smooth skin? He bit her flank now, and quickly, too, not daring to linger. Standing again, he opened the door, and managed to say, coherently, "No sparring tonight, remember?"
"Not on that leg, no." She glanced at him. "Wish I could go with you to dinner."
Deep breaths. "I'd love it, but I can't invite you to my uncle's, and your dad might want you to be here. Probably wants to keep a close eye on you this week."
"That's a fact," Sam said, from down the hall, and Rel cursed internally. He was fine with the parents keeping a close eye on them; that was part of the point of the contract, after all. But Dara's father had a real talent for stealth. "Rellus, a word with you, before you go?"
Oh, spirits, he's questioning my honor again. If I'm to be convicted, I truly wish I'd committed the trespass! "Sure." He touched Dara's hand, quickly, and then moved away, heading for the door.
Sam walked him out. "You're not limping as much now," the human noted.
"Three, maybe four more days. Then I can start running again. Sparring two days after that, assuming the doctors don't see anything they don't like." Rellus had a fairly good idea that humans tended to like to work their way up to bad news, and braced himself, internally.
"The young heal so damn fast, it's almost an insult," Sam told him, dry as always. "Look, son, I never did thank you properly."
Rellus stared at him blankly for a moment. "For what?" he asked, not quite believing his ears.
"You took care of Dara, made sure she didn't get hurt, when I wasn't there to do it." Sam hitched his shoulders, clearly uncomfortable. "You've also been pretty good to her, the past few weeks. I'm still not one hundred percent on board with all this marriage talk," Sam held up a hand to keep Rellus from explaining that it wasn't marriage yet, but plighting, and Rellus sighed and subsided. Sam went on, "But, that being said, I've never seen her so. . . focused before. She's always been a good student. Lots of B to B-plus work, out of natural smarts, mostly. But now she's bringing home As, pretty much across the board." Sam frowned a little though, in spite of the pleased-sounding words.
"And this. . . bothers you?" Rellus wasn't quite sure of the facial expressions. She studies hard, to try to catch up with me, to compete with me where we're equals, and to challenge me where she's ahead. These don't seem like bad things, but how do I say any of this?
It was too difficult, and Sam was already moving on. "Sometimes, people change as they get older. Discover who they really are, or just become different people over time. That's one of the reasons I was against allowing this for two kids who are so young."
Rellus bit back the impulse to remind the human that in two hundred and eleven days, by the calendar steadily ticking down on the terminal in his room, he would be at boot camp, and an adult. It wouldn't change Jaworski's mind. He was caught in his human frame of reference, and if the fact that Rellus could meet his eyes on his own level didn't convince him of any of this, Rel really wasn't sure what would. Maybe when I can stare down at him? Out loud, Rel settled for, "I know who I want to be. Dara does, too. We like each other for who we are, and for who we want to become." He shrugged.
Sam paused near the gate, and looked as if he were struggling with the words. "Sometimes," he said, after a moment or two, "a person gets carried away when they're young. Gives up who they are, takes someone else's ideas and dreams for their own. They can wind up doing really well, but then they wake up, years later, and have no idea who they are."
"Like those human cultists." Rel was pretty sure he didn't like the comparison, and he tamped down, hard, on his irritation, tried to keep his tone flat, as he leaned against the gate himself, facing Jaworski.
"Yes, or like many an abused woman in a bad relationship." Sam frowned, and Rellus bristled, not caring for the moment if his anger showed. "And then again, no." He sighed, holding up his hand. "I was actually trying to give you a compliment, son, and here I go, messing it up. What I'm trying to say is this. You're all right."
Rellus, somewhat bewildered, decided that he was simply going to have to ask Uncle Garrus for a translation later this evening. "Ah. . . thank you," he finally said, uncertainly, and then got in the groundcar he'd borrowed for the afternoon, and headed for Uncle Garrus' home. Usually, he'd have run there; today, of course, he wasn't even allowed to walk.
Dinner at his clan-leaders' home was always an adventure in dealing with the twins, and conversation was almost impossible until the chattery little children had been settled into bed. Now that he was older, Rellus was privy to a lot more of their conversations about the base and the Spectres, largely since he'd long since earned their trust by being able to keep his mouth shut. Aunt Lilu had to go answer a call from the Council after dinner—something regarding budget allocations for repairs on the base—and that just left him and Uncle Garrus, sipping apha and watching gladiatorial fights from Macedyn.
After a few minutes, Rellus commented, "I guess I'm never going to look at Grandpa Gavius the same way again."
Garrus' head swung over. "Damn. How much of my memory did you see in that last simulation?"
Rellus shifted uncomfortably. "He kept you out of the Spectres?"
Garrus hissed something very rude. "Yeah. I wonder how many other people on base saw that? Not to mention, the other things. . . ." He grimaced. "There was a lot of personal information shared."
"I only seem to have gotten stuff from people we got close to, physically." Rel sipped his apha and waited.
"The spirits were merciful, then." Garrus paused, watching a particularly brutal takedown on the vid, and wincing as the gladiator brought his spear down at the throat of his floored opponent, who barely dodged the strike. "What you saw, Rel, is between him and me. It doesn't have to affect you. He's always been good to the grandkids. Well, Sol and Egidus' kids, anyway."
Rellus looked at his uncle again, picturing him as he'd seen him in the simulation—young, only two years older than he himself, now. A lieutenant already. Best of the best. And now. . . second in command of the Spectres. Married to their leader. Possibly the single-most recognizable turian in the galaxy, to people not of their species, anyway. Aliens might not be able to tell the Imperator from a busboy, but they knew who Garrus Vakarian was. "Do you think he regrets it yet?"
Garrus' smile was grim. "Oh, I've pulled his teeth. Several times over. I'd do it again, given the chance. He and I haven't spoken since your grandma Pilana died, and I don't see that changing soon." Another vicious takedown on the vid, and then they were both growling at the screen as the adjudicator for the match stepped in, halting the fight.
A new match started, and Rel started to get ready to leave. "Oh, what does it mean when a human male tells you you're 'all right'?" he asked, still puzzling it out from earlier.
Garrus snorted a little. "Context, son of my sister, context."
Rellus explained, adding, "It sounds. . . mediocre, at best."
"It's better than that. I think it's actually along the lines of a compliment." Garrus looked up in relief as Shepard walked in.
"Want me to try?" she offered, showing she'd heard the gist of the conversation.
"Please." Garrus looked frustrated
"It's a guy thing, Rel. Essentially, he accepts you as a male among males, and will tolerate your presence around his daughter."
Rel blinked. "He finds me acceptable?"
She thought about it a moment, and then nodded.
Relief. Total, utter relief. "Spirits, why didn't he just say so then?"
"He did the best he could. He's a human male, Rel. They don't always do so well with the whole words thing." She grinned at him.
Garrus
Once the Rellus had left, Garrus and Lilu sat in companionable silence for a while, her head in his lap as they sat on the couch in their living area. "Rellus asking about my memories of the day my father blocked my Spectre training reminded me," he said, after a while. "I have to admit, that for years now, I've wondered what would have happened, if a turian ship had been near Mindoir in time to catch the distress call."
She sat up a little, leaned into his chest, smiling. "You'd have been what, seventeen?"
"Yeah. I looked up the timing once. Would've been a couple weeks after that little conversation with my father. I was on the Muranca at the time, on one of the assault teams." He glanced down at her. "I have to say, it's a been a recurrent fantasy for years to have been on the ground for that. To have killed a few dozen batarians and found you in that barn." To have come to her, both of them so young, so unmarked by what else had followed, to have been able to kill her enemies for her, take personal revenge on those who had killed her family. There were reasons it was a fantasy. . . it was seductive, in its way. To have been able to comfort her, make it all even a little bit better. "It's a little disconcerting to have acted it out," he admitted. Particularly with others watching.
"I've personally always wondered what you looked like when you were younger," she replied.
"Not that much different than when you met me in that med-bay on the Citadel." Hot-headed, angry, young, impulsive.
"Skinnier. Definitely skinnier."
"Just as ugly though, right?"
"When have I ever called you—oh, right, after Omega." She gave him a look. "Can we agree that there are times when a good memory is unpardonable, and just say that you are as handsome now as you were then?"
"Scars and all?" he teased.
"I like your scars." She touched the side of his face. "Though I really wish you hadn't been hurt enough to get them." Her voice was soft, and, as always, there was anguish there at the memory.
"Well, Grunt does keep saying that you're at least part krogan, so that explains that. . . ." He grunted a little, playing it up, as she very lightly punched him in the ribs.
"Garrus?"
"Yes, mellis?"
"You may never get an offer like this again. Shut up and rescue your damsel in distress already, would you?"
He didn't really need a second invitation. He simply picked her up, bit her lightly on the shoulder, and took her off to their bedroom.
Lantar
He'd taken Elijah to the range Saturday morning, and started working with the boy on pistols. Eli seemed to have a natural aptitude for them; perhaps something inherited from his human father. Lantar corrected his grip a few times, made a few suggestions about stance and sighting, but otherwise, let Eli try to work it through on his own. Lantar frankly thought that the mere act of using a gun could be, in a sense, cathartic. Like sparring, in a sense; there was the clean, simple act of raising the weapon and aiming, then the loud, violent noise, the shock of the recoil, and the destruction of the target. Better this way of channeling emotion, in a controlled environment, he figured, than dark moods at home.
On the way home, however, he'd turned to ask Elijah a question, and the answer hadn't made sense. He'd turned, sharply, and repeated himself, studying the boy's face. Elijah had answered in exactly the same fashion, with a tone of impatience. Lantar spoke three region dialects of turian, tal'mae, galactic, and had picked up English in the past two years. This was definitely no language that he knew, and his first thought was aphasia. Some form of stroke, delayed onset, due to stress, due to whatever Kella had done in her last moments of life. The turian male almost panicked for a moment, pulling over the groundcar and grasping Eli's forearm, checking for the pulse there, studying the boy's pupils, before taking him straight to the base hospital. One of the nurses, an asari, frowned when she first heard Eli muttering incomprehensibly, identifying it as asari high tongue.
All the test results came back negative for brain problems, to his deep relief. "What would I have told your mother, eh?" he asked the boy, and Elijah frowned, replying again in that gibberish, which he'd slipped into and out of over the course of the morning.
This time, Lantar was ready, however, and had turned on his VI. The translation came back in a faint echo, "I don't know what you and the doctors are talking about. I sound fine to me." His omnitool confirmed the nurse's words, and Lantar shook his head, bewildered.
"I'm going to go get Ylara," he told Elijah. "You're staying here for observation. Don't give the doctors or the nurses a hard time," he added.
Ylara had retreated to her elcor friend's home in the valley for her mourning period, and Lantar hated to bother her, but really, what other option did he have? If he involved any other asari in something that probably pertained to her daughter, Ylara might take it as an affront; and yet, to intrude upon her, during her rituals of farewell seemed. . . tactless, at best.
Tuullust answered the door. "Regretfully: Ylara is not accepting visitors at the moment, Spectre. I will tell her that you have called." The elcor botanist's voice was subtly protective.
"Please do. I'd like to know why my son is suddenly speaking asari high tongue and doesn't seem aware that he's doing so." Lantar knew he needed to show respect, but at the same time, he did have a rather pressing need.
"Puzzled: That is a very unusual condition. I will inform her directly." The elcor shambled off, closing the door behind him, and after a few moments, Ylara came to the door herself.
"Thank you," Lantar told her, seeing the dark shadows under her eyes, the mourning shawl with which she covered her head and shoulders. "I wouldn't have intruded if it wasn't urgent."
"I understand, Lantar," she told him, quietly. "The boy isn't your flesh, but you've accepted him as blood. Let's go see him."
After studying Elijah for almost a half an hour, Ylara had gone from an almost emotionless state of passive grief to active engagement in the problem, the Spectre in her responding to a challenge, a puzzle. She'd been able to converse with Eli in asari high tongue for several minutes. Moving to a different room, out of earshot, she told Lantar, "He's speaking it like a native of Thessia. No accent. It's disconcerting, to say the least, coming from a male and an alien. Concepts well beyond what he would have been taught in school—and you say he's taking turian in school?"
"Yes. He's been getting Cs at best in it." And he still flips his dative for his accusative and can't master the social nuances of inferior-to-superior, nine times out of ten.
"I have. . . no notion of what would cause this," Ylara said, sitting down, and running the fringe of her mourning shawl through her fingers, reflectively. "Kella touched his mind at the very end, but her biotic abilities were undeveloped, at best. This could be residual memories from her, admittedly. If that's the case, they should fade with time." Her tone was a little dubious.
"Can you at least get him back to speaking one language or the other, more or less consistently?" Lantar asked.
"I can try, but that might disrupt his memories of Kella, of what she shared with him," Ylara said, quietly. "He's very resistant to the prospect of losing that, and I don't have the right to take it from him by force."
When they re-entered his room and broached the subject, Eli shook his head vehemently. "No," he said, and that, at least, was in English. "Don't take it away."
"I'm not, any more than I tried to take it last time," Ylara told him, soft-voiced. "I just want to see if I can help you manage what she left you, just a little better." She lowered her head, and her expression remained deeply puzzled as she exerted herself, biotically. Finally, she exhaled. "There. Say something in English, Eli."
"Something like what?"
"Mana'ya ka'ulluea, pa no aiellu?" Ylara said, and Lantar's VI chimed in from his wrist, whispering, Does your mind grasp the import of this speech?
"Ka'ulle aiellu, sao'se mailo mahai." That which I grasp tightest, slips soonest.
"That's an aphorism," Ylara said, tightly. "Colloquial speech. But, for the moment, the languages seem to be separated. Only time will tell if he'll. . . retain any of it. Tell me, Eli, what were you thinking of in the car when Lantar first noticed that you weren't speaking quite right?"
The boy looked down. "About her. How she didn't like guns, thought they were boring. Wondered what she'd think of me, learning to use them."
Ylara nodded. "I think she would tell you that everyone makes their own path, Elijah. She wouldn't judge you. Thoughts of her may continue to trigger the knowledge, for a time. It may fade. It might not, if you practice it."
Lantar walked her to her groundcar. "Thank you," he told her, simply.
"Lantar, it is to you and your son I'm indebted," Ylara replied. "He doesn't carry her mind, her personality around in his head, or anything so. . . hackneyed. But there is something of her left in this universe. More than just a memory and a memorial stone."
"Her spirit?"
"If you like." Ylara looked at him. "And I'm grateful for it."
Rinus
The Estallus was still on Mindoir, but he'd barely had a chance to run down to the science station and visit his family. He hadn't been first off the ship, during or after the firefight; he was munitions, ordnance, and gun batteries, not a marine. But he'd disembarked after the area was secured, and had seen Rellus, doped to the gills on pain medicine, arm around his little human female, both huddled on a gurney. He'd hidden his relief behind a laugh, and teased his little brother lightly, "So, ten minutes against the Collectors with a shotgun still sound like fun?"
Rel had blinked at him vacantly for a moment, then recognized him. "Rinus! You were on the Estallus after all?"
They'd talked for a minute or two, and then the doctors had wanted to move the wounded, and Rinus had simply gotten out of the way. That had been several days ago, and he'd been busy since. He was still getting used to the new routine, the new superiors, the new duties. He settled in with a cup of apha and the system logs for the Javelin missile system, reading through the recent notes, checking to see which standard maintenance procedures had been performed, at what intervals, and what their results had been. The past six months, all tests had come back nominal, but he noticed that the initials on the logs for sign-off changed every time. Something to check into, maybe; when different people calibrated a system each time, it was possible for there to be drift in the measurements. While the directions were always the same, the way people interpreted them could differ.
He became aware that a small green eyeball had popped up in a niche near the door. He had the uneasy feeling that it was watching him. "Hello?" Rinus said, tentatively.
"Good afternoon, Centurion Velnaran," a female voice replied. It spoke turian to him, but with human overtones to the voice, subtly flat in places, soft in others.
"You're the ship's AI?"
"You may call me Laetia."
It was disconcerting; he was used to VIs, but was well aware that Normandy-class ships housed fully sapient AIs; hearing a real name, as opposed to an acronym, only reinforced that personhood. "Laetia? I heard you were responsible for my posting here."
"Your psychological profile met certain parameters, yes."
"May I ask which?"
"Loyalty; stabile as opposed to labile. Introversion relatively high, focused on sensing or gathering data, with a preference for thoughtful, rational, analytical decision-making. An ISTP, in Myers-Briggs terminology, although it's probably fallacious to apply human psychological standards to a turian mind. You tend to observe carefully, and then make practical decisions that are . . . elegant. Harmonious." The voice paused. "I thought this might be a good chance to get to know you, Centurion."
Rinus sat back slowly. "You already seem to know me pretty well." This was, to put it mildly, unnerving. "Although I wouldn't call what I do for a living all that harmonious."
"You repair and maintain complex systems. You ensure that there is order, even in the midst of the chaos of battle. You have an explosive ordnance disposal accreditation in your record, which indicates that you've passed all exams pertaining to disarming and disposing of bombs, torpedoes, and other explosive devices." It paused again. "I'm sorry. It sounds like I'm just reading directly from your record."
Rinus nodded, cleared his throat, and glanced around the room. "Does everyone new on board get this treatment? Is there a camera recording my reactions right now?"
"Well, there are my cameras, with which I see the ship environment," Laetia replied, calmly. "But if you are inquiring if your crewmates are recording your reactions for later hilarity, the answer is no." The eyeball flickered briefly. "If I may ask, why, with such a cautious nature as yours seems to be, did you pursue the explosives ordnance disposal certification?"
Rinus wasn't sure he liked this sort of interrogation, and from a machine, at that. A very . . . human-sounding machine, admittedly, but a machine. "It's a common mistake to think that bomb disposal personnel are . . . reckless adrenaline-chasers," he replied, after a moment's thought. "Or even suicidal. Too many bad vids. You have to make the right decisions, based on your best information and experience, or people or property are going to be destroyed." He stared at the green eyeball for a moment. "I like knowing that what I do matters. And it's not that dangerous. Kinetic shielding is a wonderful invention. As I reminded my mother every week in my letters while I was at that particular course." His tone went dry. Solanna had definitely fussed a bit in her letters. Her four years of military service had led directly into her civilian job—environmental systems; then, maintenance, and now, design. Necessary work on every starship, but not exactly dangerous duty.
Rinus set down the maintenance logs on the desk in front of him. "Now I've answered your questions." He studied the green eyeball warily. "Why are you asking them? Are you just . . . lonely?"
"Bored, to be honest. The Estallus will be here on Mindoir for another week, before we return to turian space." The AI paused. "I think it fair to advise you that there is a possibility that your duties might be expanded at some point during your tour onboard this ship."
This was the sort of phrase that rings alarm bells in the military mind. "Expanded how?"
"I would rather not explain, unless it becomes necessary. If you do not prove to be an acceptable candidate, however, it will not be counted against you in your record. In fact, your superiors might even be relieved." The AI sounded almost teasing at this point.
Rinus opened his mouth, and then promptly shut it again. His was a cautious nature, inclined, as she had said, to finding all the data, analyzing it, and then making the best possible choices based on that data and analysis. "I have. . . absolutely no idea what to say to that," he finally replied. "Are you being vague simply to see how I'll react?" The thought annoyed him, frankly.
"A little," Laetia admitted.
"Stop that," he told her, firmly.
"You don't like being teased?"
"That's not so much teasing as baiting, seeing if I'll charge at a mark like a talashae with a rag waved in front of its horns."
"And yet, you hold back, still, deliberating, gathering information. You're very different from my father."
What? "You're an AI," he said, staring at the little green eyeball.
"Yes?"
"I assume you mean your programmer."
"Not even remotely."
Rinus muttered "Talas'kak," under his breath, and added, wearily, "This is another Mindoir thing, apparently. Why is it, every time I come here, things get progressively stranger?"
"Because Mindoir is the home of the Spectres, and as such, interesting things happen here." Laetia hesitated. "I had thought that you would take advantage of the opportunity to visit your family while here, rather than staying aboard to read maintenance logs."
A little defensively, he replied, "I'm supposed to go down tonight. Some human concert."
"Perhaps you would do me a favor, then?" The AI paused. "Could you leave your radio channel open on your omnitool? I would like to hear the music."
He frowned, puzzled. "But you could hear any recording of the music that you wished, from any number of clips on the extranet."
"So could you. So could any of the people who will be gathered there tonight. It is the communal aspect that I wish to share."
Stranger and stranger. "All right," Rinus said. "I'll do it. I don't know why I'm doing it, but I'll do it." He had to admit, she at least had his psych profile pegged. He really wished he had more data about this whole situation, and he hadn't a clue where to start to get it. But the lack of it was making him twitch, just a little.
He got into his dress uniform; like dress uniforms everywhere, it hearkened back to a different era. The design was almost a thousand years old, originating when his species first joined the Council. The materials it was cut from were much better today, but it still held the old style, the old markings, the old, dark, imperial glamour, as it were. He vaguely remembered, actually, that Rel's human girl had told him it looked 'sharp' at the funeral, weeks ago, and chuckled a little. Have to see if I can pull some of his teeth with that, at some point. What was the point of being first-son if you couldn't rile up your younger siblings, anyway?
Rinus found his way to the concert venue, a laboratory, actually, down at the science station, usually used for studying harmonic frequencies and the like; as such, it was large and had heavy acoustic tiles dotting its ceiling in ridges and waves. Folding chairs lined half the room, and Rinus made his way to the family area, near the front, where Rellus and his siblings and his parents all sat; beside Rellus was his little human, wearing a dress in clan colors, Rinus noted, somewhat approvingly. Beside her were an unfamiliar human male and a small human female—Kasumi, Rinus recognized, after a moment. To Kasumi's right, at the end of the row, and far too large for any chair, was a rachni brood-warrior, all legs and mandibles and gleaming, alien blue eyes.
Rinus stared for just a moment, then reminded himself that he was, after all, on Mindoir. Then he found a spot between Rel and the rest of the family, and turned, immediately, to tease the second-son and his prospective mate, "So, Dara, do you still think turian uniforms are sharp?"
"Definitely," she replied, making good eye contact. Nice, even when blushing. Girl may be able to hold her own, with a little training.
"I think you'll agree that a centurion's is definitely better than boot camp gray," Rinus added, leaning behind his brother to talk to her, which got him a sharp jab in the ribs from Rellus' left elbow. Rinus smothered a grin.
"I think Rellus will look sharp, no matter what color the uniform winds up being."
"Good answer, amillula." The word was a term of affection meaning little sister, and tacitly accepted her, for his part, anyway, into the family. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I apparently need to bootleg this performance for the ship's AI, and damned if I know why." He looked at Rellus. "And I bet that you haven't heard anything about this at Uncle Garrus'?"
"I can honestly say, I haven't got a clue. But if I did, what makes you think I'd tell you?"
Two identical smiles, full of gleaming, sharp teeth. Challenge met, challenge answered.
Dara
Putting on the dress Kella had given her was hard. Very, very hard. Dara had started sniffling a bit at the sight of it, but Kasumi had put a hand on her shoulder. "I'm pretty sure you've fallen off a horse before, Dara. Am I right?"
"More times than I can count," Dara replied.
"And I bet I know what your dad told you whenever you did."
"Get back on the horse," Dara told her, sighing. "I know. It's still hard."
She'd slipped the dress on, and let Kasumi show her how to put makeup on. It was a first for her, and it made her eyes burn. Hopefully, one of these days, clan paint won't feel this yucky, she thought, dismayed.
Her dad shook his head a little when she came out of the bedroom, and whistled, much to her embarrassment. "I'd say I needed to take a shotgun with us tonight, to keep the boys at bay, but I already know exactly which one I need to keep my eyes on," he told her, and her blush only deepened.
Kasumi had gotten dressed up, too, and her father had opted for a dress shirt and good boots—as much to make the rest of the people in the audio lab make a double-take, Dara suspected, as for pure comfort. Kasumi looked pretty comfortable taking her father's arm to the car, but Dara didn't quite dare ask when they were finally going to get around to going to dinner.
A closed door could exist just as much in someone's mind, she figured, as in reality.
Rel's reaction when they showed up at the audio lab was definitely worth it all, however; in public, all he could really do was take her hand and press his forehead, quickly, to hers, but she could tell he liked what he saw, which was a relief.
They took their seats; Sky scuttled in a little late, taking up the end of their row. Rellus' older brother, who had a position on the Estallus came in even later, and behind him, she could see that Ylara and Tuullust were taking seats near the back of the house. Her heart seized a little, and she hoped that Ylara would like the music tonight as much as Kella would have.
The audience filled all the folding chairs, and then the choir and the musicians filed in at the front. Most of the lab equipment had been pushed to the side walls, but if it blocked the view a little, Dara didn't mind; this wasn't about watching, really. The conductor, an older human male, came out from the back, and tapped his baton for attention.
"I've been asked to make a few announcements," he said, and his voice carried beautifully in the pristine acoustic environment of the lab. "The was to have been our Christmas concert. Because Mindoir's northern hemisphere and Earth's aren't really matched up by season, it being early summer here, and, well, winter back home. . . . " There were chuckles from the crowd at that, "not all the music on the original schedule was going to be exactly Christmas carols to begin with. In the light of recent events, we've moved a few other pieces into the mix, and we hope you'll find them as appropriate and moving as we do."
He looked down at this notes, "Second, in light of the fact that Christmas Eve actually falls on our summer solstice this year. . . I've been asked to inform everyone that there will be a bonfire lighting on Christmas Eve, down here in the valley. A number of human pagan rituals will be conducted, for anyone wishing to observe them or partake in them, in addition to tree-trimming and carols, menorah-lighting, and any number of other species' solstice rituals as well. It's all on the calendar posted on the front door of the lab." He paused. "Yes. . . in fifty years or so, when the Mindoir/Earth calendars synch up for a year or two, it'll be quite a bit more traditional of a holiday season. But maybe a bit less fun." Another ripple of laughter swept through the crowd. "At any rate, without further ado, let's start the music."
The lights over the audience dimmed, and Dara squeezed Rel's hand a little. There had been no programs passed out; a screen simply dropped behind the choir, with the title of the first song, and its composer's name, followed by a scrolling translation of the lyrics many languages.
The first note, the first drumbeat hit, and then the voices soared, and Dara's head pulled back a little. "O Fortuna," the voices implored, "velut Luna, statu variabilis!" Their voices dropped to a whisper, alternately accusing fate and luck between clenched teeth, and beseeching it, then railing against it once more. Each drumbeat was a strike by an uncaring universe, beating sapient life down on an anvil, and yet the voices demanded more, demanded an accounting.
Rellus
He hadn't known how much power there was in the massed potential of two hundred human voices; he could see a salarian here, an asari there, a turian or two, and a krogan down among the lowest-pitched human males; each of the various species at the science station were there, certainly, but the bulk of the singers were human. A single human voice, alone, was rarely impressive; their voices were a little flatter, and softer, than a turian's. Still capable of expressing emotion. But he'd never heard so many of them at once, and certainly never singing; the sound trembled in his body, in his feet, in his teeth—and all without any amplification. The first song was hectically paced, but seemed like a call to arms for him; his head rocked back with each drumstrike, and he could feel Dara doing the same. Every human and turian in the audience was responding the same way, he realized, a little dazed, and he looked again for the name of the song. O Fortuna, from something called the Carmina Burana, apparently, written in a dead language. Late medieval Latin, according to the notes.
The conductor waved his musicians and the choir to silence, and Rel glanced over to where Sings-to-the-Sky was standing. The rachni seemed to be drinking it all in, almost quivering in place. Rel nudged Dara, and inclined his head to their right, directing her attention to the rachni. "I think he likes it," she whispered back. "Can you hear him?"
Rellus could. It was an awed sort of feeling, blue-green with happiness, but also a glistening overlay of white, but Sky was keeping his mental song very quiet, as if in deference to the music of others around him.
The conductor spoke, "We challenge fate and fortune, but sometimes, it seems that we can never win. We lose things—we lose people—we lose love." A shiver ran down Rel's spine. This was not the cheerful evening that Dara had originally promised him, but it seemed like the conductor had decided that something else was more necessary, more important, for the people of the valley. "Our next piece is Mozart's Requiem in D minor. Next year, this piece will be four hundred years old. It was the last piece ever written by humanity's most famous composer, and was left unfinished. Legend has it, the dying composer believed he was writing it for himself. It has offered great comfort to many people in times of sorrow, throughout the years."
The music started again, simply, quietly, and at a slower pace than the defiant, almost angry tone of the last piece. Dara's hand tightened on his, and when he leaned over, she whispered, "They played this at my mother's funeral."
At first, he didn't feel the power of it; then more instruments cut in over the top of the mournful, quiet initial tune, and then the voices began to thunder out once more, the high human females offering the hope of peace, silvery and beautiful, the low male voices promising wrath and anger. "Dies irae," the words on the screen read, identifying this section as representing the wrath of God.
Rellus was unsure why the fury of the spirits had to be invoked in a piece of music intended for a funeral, but he supposed it was similar to asking the spirits of the departed to return to their homes and families.
Sky, off to their right, was starting to move with the music a little, swaying as the complex harmonies swept over them, the sound still vibrating through the floor, the bones of everyone in the audience. Rellus saw a couple of elcor actually kneel down for a moment, unable to bear the raw emotion in the voices—they were a subtle species, after all, and so much explosive power could overwhelm them. Then the music went soft again, quiet, contemplative, slowly rising once again, in little steps, then soared, the high voices again offering hope, the low voices supporting them this time, and he could feel Dara's hand starting to tremble slightly.
He understood why; this section sounded as if the spirits of the wind and sky were speaking directly to him. It was. . . unearthly. Alien. Beautiful. And then all the voices combined together, singing a single, long word. . . and then silence. Every human in the room seemed to exhale at once, and he was surprised by how many of them seemed to be in tears. Natural, perhaps, given the emotional content of the music, and the recent tragedies—the Normandy, the cave, the recent attack on the base itself.
The conductor waited a moment for everyone to compose themselves, and then spoke again. "This would have been the last song we performed for the Christmas concert; I'm breaking with tradition, and offering it now, before we start the traditional carols—which we'll be inviting everyone to sing along to, of course. But for now, if everyone would please stand? It's traditional for this particular piece." He waited for everyone to shift about and do so, then added, "This piece will be four hundred and fifty years old next year, and was composed by a man named Handel. It's part of a much longer work, but we're giving you just the best part, right now. Because it's what's needed to remind us that loss is not forever, and that joy will come again, as hard as it is to see when all is dark. Let's have a little light."
He gestured, once again, the raw power of the massed voices hit, this time in a much quicker tempo, high pitched, low pitched, radiating out together, apart, striking like rays, and Rel suddenly understood it—it was light, the aural equivalent of watching the sun come up through clouds, shafts of golden light breaking through and shining down. It was a short piece, and when the final word was sung, every voice sang it at once. Hallelujah.
Off to the side, Sky simply sagged to the ground for a moment, and then Rellus could hear the rachni's stunned voice in his mind, as quite a few other people around them probably could, as well. They sing to the sky! They sing to the stars! Some sing for the joy of singing, some sing to sing with others, but some—some sing to the sky! We did not know others did so, too! And the songs of all in the room, singing with them, even singing within their silence!
Through the crowd noise, Rellus' sharp ears could pick up Sam laughing, and ruefully commenting to Kasumi, "Don't look now, but I do believe we've finally figured out a way to get a rachni drunk."