Once again, now under the cooling hand of the erected canopy, Liara ran a delicate feather of a biotic field along the old book. Yes, the bound book. She recalled the excitement she felt at her friends' bonding ceremony. Seeing Lano pull forth a real book, with real pages, had tugged the idle threads of the romantic that still breathed its hopeful breaths within her. The shudder that weaved through her at the sight…well, she had found herself excited - truly excited - for something for the first time in years.

Liara's translator, now reinforced with the added knowledge of older Khelish script, had told her much. The title was "The Art of the Spirit", and it had been written by Zast'Urul. One of the quarians on her team had recalled a clan Urul, but they had been obliterated during the war. The archaeologist dared not rifle through the pages, no matter how well the book had been held together. No, that would wait until they were indoors and in a proper building.

Placing the book in a protective sheath, she set it carefully into the divider-lined crate sitting next to her. Her gaze lingered upon it for a few seconds more before replacing the lid overtop it.

It had been a long day.

Allowing a quietly satisfied smile to ripple across her face, she sat in a folding chair under the high canopy that they'd erected just outside the old town. The rest of her team were just outside of it, swapping stories of the Ancestors, or their families back home in other settlements or still serving on the Flotilla. Hearing some of them - the games they would play, or just the sharing of the odd story from their "regular" jobs brought a smile to her face. Remembering some of the stories that Tali would share with them on the Normandy, Liara had sometimes wondered if those stories had been a product of Tali's distinct experience and not really reflective of their people as a whole.

"…he was lucky I was there to catch him, the bosh'tet! The only thing worse than his singing was his balance!"

Liara smiled, picking up an old trinket that she'd cleaned off with delicate and deliberate care. She enjoyed its heftiness, its weightiness. It reminded her of some of the figurines that she'd had when she was just a small child. It was a quarian - not a particular or famous one, she'd been told - but the thing was solid on its base. When they'd first uncovered the little statuette, having never seen an unsuited or unmasked quarian before, Liara had initially blushed in a flash of embarrassment. She knew enough that to see a quarian's face was to be let into a very private and intimate world. Somehow, she felt unworthy of such a thing.

She still held it in her hands, the warm metal smooth against her skin. An idle finger traced along the shallow ridges that comprised the quarian's realk.

Gila'Batra, who had emerged as a team member and man that she was beginning to trust, shuffled his way from the others and stepped alongside her.

"What bothers you, Liara?"

Was she so obvious?

Sighing, she matched his gaze. "Oh I don't know, Gila." She looked down at the figure once more. Its dark green robes were accented by the woman's bright blue hood. "Tell me, was her hood called a realk even then, or did the term come after…?"

Pulling up a second chair, he sat down to face the asari that had so far been extremely respectful and professional in every single interaction that they'd had. If he was being completely forthright about this Liara T'Soni, she had been this way with everyone. He had actually expected the facade to fall away, and to see the usual disdain and subtle otherness to appear. He found the contradiction to be…refreshing. Clearly, Admiral Shepard chose her friends well.

Gila smiled despite the unspoken reference to the dreadful Morning War. "Yes it was. That term is not specific to simply the cloth over our helmets. Long ago, we would of course wear them as protection against the elements and heat. Over time, we began to see them as a means of personal expression, and they became more and more elaborate. Eventually they became symbols of our clans, our families. As for the suits, well the only thing that changed for us was the insertion of the helmet between our heads and realks."

That brought her pause. How could he be so cavalier? So damn nonchalant about their suits? Yes, they kept them safe and alive, yes they were technological marvels, but…once again she was reminded of something Shepard had said one time when they were trying to take out a thresher maw.

Two things, actually: discretion being the better part of valor, and that one should "pick your battles."

Flashing the subtlest of smirks at the thought, she continued on. "I see. Were they always worn by your people?" She walked her thumb over the head of the figure. Her eyes did not focus on the pint-sized quarian itself.

"As far back to at least the Awakening. You have to remember, we were a desert people, in a way. The 'walled garden' of Rannoch merely meant that the 'gardens' of our world were walled by an often arid landscape."

"I wonder who she was…?" Liara muttered a whisper of pure curiosity. A moment passed - a beat of quiet during which she lost herself.

"Hmmm," she began as she studied the figure's face - her cheekbones, the little markings that gently hugged her long neck. "You know, I feel a little embarrassed here."

He cocked his head. "Oh? Why is that?"

"Well, I know how your people valued the privacy of your helmets. I imagine that it was a result of living aboard the flotilla? And after the Council…"

After the Council what? Left them to die? Left them to rot? Left them to forever wander the stars - in the space between systems - until when? Until such time that their resources and ingenuity faltered? Until circumstances and Council inaction left these people to die?

Now, Liara had seen Shepard lose his temper before, not often of course, but often enough to have been able to keep something of a scorecard during the missions that she was present for. Overwhelmingly, it was the Council that was the target of so much of his ire and fury. And Sparatus? She knew without a doubt that there were times before Tali had rejoined him during the early stages of the war that Shepard would have strangled the man could he have gotten away with it. And seeing these people now? Working and living alongside them as she was?

Goddess, Liara would have gladly ripped the damned councilors apart limb by worthless limb herself. All it would have taken was a well-placed singularity, then a couple of precision-strike pulls and then…

She sighed heavily. "And now I am probably one of the few aliens - aside from Shepard - to have seen the face of one of your own, Gila. I…it is awkward for me, I suppose." She offered to him a wan smile in lockstep with the figurine in her hand.

With some hesitance, he took it in his own, curling his long fingers uncertainly around it. He studied it as he rolled it around in his gloved palm. "It is all right, Liara (she'd noted that it hadn't taken long for the others to call her simply by her first name). We have to shake off our old ways, I think, if we are to be a part of the new order."

The New Order. What a way to put it.

Liara grimaced. "Perhaps you are correct. But I…I do not like the idea of just…tossing away your culture so casually."

Laughing a little, he crossed his arms in front of him, the deep orange light bouncing elegantly off of his muted gray realk. "Oh, it is not being 'tossed away', Liara. Not by you nor anyone else. If anything, it is perhaps evolving." He returned the figurine to her hand. "And perhaps you are helping to lead some of that evolution a little bit here."

Placing the figure in its own protective sleeve, silence descended. It was not uncomfortable, but not entirely welcomed either.

Gila glanced back toward the others, who were cleaning up the various tubes of paste that had comprised their evening meals. "I, uh, should go make sure that they're ready for tomorrow. We've a big day ahead of us."

With a nod of acknowledgment, she gave him a crooked smile that disappeared nearly as quickly as it sprouted.

She leaned back in her chair for a few moments afterward before turning on her omnitool, activating the audio recording function. Liara took a deep breath, but before she spoke she closed her mouth again. Frowning, she shook her head before turning the thing off.

No, this would wait. Gila was right: they had a big day tomorrow.


The locations of these smaller settlements had fascinated Liara. At first glance, they seemed to have popped up at random. Unlike the major cities that remained, most of them were not situated along the banks of rivers that were blessed with constant availability of water. Instead, these settlements usually were found with wells that were fed by underground rivers or were even fed by aquifers. Old surveys and guides that had survived the sojourn of the Fleet indicated that for Rannoch's mostly dry landscape, there were a fair number of these havens to be found. It was no surprise, then, that every one of their excavation sites was found situated overtop such features. It was the underground circulatory system of the planet - delivering life giving "blood" to more areas than rivers alone could accomplish.

Including Nya'Hiatra.

Gila checked the pressure gauge on the last of their reinforcement devices. "Yes, these should buttress the ceilings some, but I wouldn't linger if we can help it." As if on cue, the building let out a low, painful groan as if personally affronted by the sudden intrusion. He glanced at Liara, who was beginning to learn his expressions through only body language and the shape of his bright eyes.

'Yes, Gila, I would tend to agree," she deadpanned with a slight rolling of her eyes. There was something in her voice that Shepard, Tali, or Garrus would have recognized and laughed at. He was neither of them and so went on with his work without recognition. As he stepped out of the doorway, Liara turned to the others. "All right everyone. This is the first home that we have found that is reasonably intact. As Gila said, we should still use caution. Stay on the ground level, utilize your scanners, and please watch your step." She was about to turn to enter when a thought struck her. "Also, please be aware that we may find…remains inside. If you do, please do not touch anything. I have special equipment for DNA sampling, and a beacon that can be placed for retrieval. If possible, I would like to bring these poor souls some measure of closure and their families peace. Understood?"

"Also, make sure your filters are on and at peak efficiency, people," Gila reminded the rest of them.

Twenty minutes and many careful steps later, Liara had ventured into a relatively small room. She had cast her eyes around, trying to determine simple things like what this room might have been used for. She allowed Glyph to scurry about, providing for her a detailed picture of the dimensions of the room. Currently, she was crouched down in front of what appeared to be a desk of some kind. She had equipped her breather mask as soon as they entered as a way to help filter any contaminants. She grunted a snorted laugh. Her knees hurt.

Goddess, her knees ached. She was barely past a hundred years old. She was still practically a kid. "Unbelievable," she muttered quietly. Shepard would undoubtedly be hearing about this. Maybe they could all commiserate over the failing states of their bodies?

With gloved hands, Liara sent a gentle biotic push, like a soft kiss of a breath across the top of the surface, clearing the dust and dirt that had accumulated there. She then turned her attention to the angled side drawers on the right of the desk. Noting a similar design to modern desks, she lightly placed a hand on the top corner and pressed against the solid frame. The face of the drawer indeed pressed lightly into her hand as it opened itself to her.

"Hmmm," she murmured pulling it open. In the darkness inside, there was a glint as light touched the flat, slate object. Gasping, it dawned on her what she was looking at. Reaching behind her, Liara pulled a clear protective sleeve from her case and rescued the object. She turned it around in her hand, and on its flipside there was a visible screen and a few orange buttons that ran along the device's right side. To Liara it looked quite a lot like a modern datapad. Just how much had technology changed in the intervening centuries? In any case, she carefully slipped it into the sleeve and tucked it into the cart behind her. Maybe the other drawer would -

"Liara! Come here please! I think we've found something…"


"Keelah, Liara…I have never seen a realk look like that before."

She took another bite of her lunch before responding. Frankly, she found it somewhat hard to believe, too.

"Chara, is that so? Having seen Tali's over the years, I always thought hers to be vibrant and…beautiful. What do you mean?"

It was a silly question to ask, of course. It was obvious what Chara had meant. While the cloth wraps that the quarians adorned themselves with now were beautiful and captivating in their own right, the one that they'd uncovered today was something else entirely.

A completely different level, in fact.

"Well, I suppose that I mean that just…keelah there is so much weight to it. It felt so heavy in my hands." The woman simply trailed off then, not really knowing what else she could add.

"I believe what she means," began Ziko, who nominally was a mining technician aboard the Frattil, "is that there is a level of decadence involved with the old realks that we simply had not seen in, well…a long time. The materials used in its construction were not limited by scarcity. They made them beautiful simply because they could."

It was a sobering thought, and Liara nibbled on her lip. She considered further the heights from which they had fallen - and now the heights to which they might rise. It was a sudden thought that struck her about how surreal it must be for them seeing this. Here they were, in the midst of tangible, real evidence that they were a people that had prospered. They had been a real civilization that had been defined by who they were, and what they could do. There was a path forward for them to once more be defined by who they were, and not who their ancestors had been or what they had done.

"…VI while we're out here? Do you think we could?"

The mention of a VI had pulled Liara back from her short meandering reverie. "I'm sorry…a VI?"

The others looked at Chara a little uncomfortably. It was obvious that they hadn't expected her to mention it here. Liara glanced in the woman's direction and it was clear that she realized too late that perhaps she had said too much.

Gila cleared his throat. "What Chara is referring to is another practice done by our ancestors, Liara. It was…our ancestors had become obsessed, in a way, with obtaining immortality. They wanted their children and grandchildren to be able to see them, talk to them, and to be able to gain knowledge and wisdom from them long after they had gone to meet their ancestors." He paused, and saw that Liara was paying rapt attention. "So they created VIs with basic personality imprints, and some important stories in order to pass their wisdom down through the ages. As time went on, they became more and more sophisticated."

"You speak of them in the past tense. What happened?"

"The…the…" Chara was nearly panting and growling as she attempted to speak. "The fre'egs…those det kazuats…" she was absolutely seething in her dull yellow realk, her food tube shaking in her hand.

Ziko finished for her, his hand resting lightly on the distraught woman's shoulder. She grasped it tightly, nodding in short, sharp bursts. With a squeeze, he removed it. "What Chara means is that the Geth made it a point to destroy them. As far as we know, none survived. Just another victim of the war I suppose."

"Bosh'tets," came the whispered reply from Gila himself.

Seeing them so upset, so distraught, caused a trembling knot to tie itself in Liara's stomach. Clenching her eyes shut, she realized what this would mean to them should they find one intact. She thought of Thessia - just before the one time that she'd seen Shepard fail. Liara had gotten a taste of real historical truth about her people then, and that pill had been jagged, bitter and it had turned her stomach.

The truth.

It was all that she'd been searching for her entire life, in one form or another.

"Chara," she began softly, "if we are to find one, intact, it will be in places like this I think." She watched the woman's helmet softly nod. "And we are going to do everything that we can to try to find even one. I can make no guarantees, of course." Liara cast her head around, ignoring the sweat on her forehead that beaded from the heat of Rannoch. "Clearly the Geth did not give as much care to these smaller settlements as they did the larger cities. Our chances of finding even one are higher in places like this." She took another swallow of water. "Now we've got ten more minutes, then we'll begin work in building C3, okay?"

After their affirmative replies, Liara had then gotten up and taken a short walk around the dusty center of town. Melancholic were her thoughts as she sought to recreate this town in her mind. Where would the children have played, uncovered and free? What were their meeting places like? Taverns? Where would the spiritual places have been? Shepard had told her of the "ancestral temple" that he and Tali had gone to with Raan and Koris (and precious little else, she'd noted at the time), and she wondered just how prominent a feature they had been in places like this. As tightly-knit as the quarians were now, had it been the case here on Rannoch?

"Liara, thank you."

"Goddess!" Unaware of his approaching footsteps, Gila's voice made her jump. Unknowingly, the familiar blue glow pulsed around her hands. When she turned around, he was staring with wide eyes and hands raised in apology.

Quickly, he backtracked. "Keelah, I'm sorry, Liara! I didn't mean…" His countenance became crestfallen as he watched her with her eyes closed. She took long, deep breaths trying to steady her breathing. Slowly, the blue fire dissipated. He took a tentative step to her. "Are you…are you okay?"

Liara offered a tired, embarrassed smile. "Yes, Gila…it is…" she shook her head. "Damn this. When you have the chance, ask your Admiral Koris about it. He had a similar experience."

Uncertain what he should do, the man pressed. "It was the war, right?"

It was a simple question, nearly completely rhetorical. She could only nod with softly closed eyes.

"I'm…I'm sorry Liara. I never saw any…that is, I was stationed in patrol here around Rannoch. News of the war did not often filter its way down to us, you know? I wasn't even a proper soldier. Really just a humble scavenger." He offered a nervous chuckle. "So, I guess I never really understood. But you saw…all of it, didn't you? You and Tali and Shepard?" His tone conveyed a sense of caring wonder.

She pulled in a breath, desperate for it like it could be ripped from her at any moment. Her lungs clung to it in desperate hope.

Another soft nod.

"Again, I'm sorry. But, um…if you want…or need to talk about it…or anything really, I'm…"

Liara truly appreciated the stammered gesture, but -

"It's still," another deep breath, "it is a little raw, Gila. But thank you. I am glad you are here."

She watched in slow motion as he reached a tentative hand toward her. He squeezed her shoulder in friendship, in - if not in understanding - fellowship. He did so with a willingness to simply listen.

They exchanged unspoken yet understood nods.

"Okay. Let's get back to it, then."


"So, this note here," Tali indicated a point on her tenir that was on the top string and about a third of the way down what Liara recognized as that instrument's equivalent of a fret board, "is the same as this one?" On her omnitool's display, the quarian indicated to one of the keys on Liara's keyboard. On screen, Tali tentatively plucked the note, then pressed the corresponding key. The notes did not align perfectly, but it was not far off.

Liara smiled. "That appears to be very close. Maybe just a slight adjustment on your…teeneer?" On screen, her friend giggled.

"Keelah, that is really good, Liara! Have you been practicing your Khelish?"

Was that a blush? "Maybe a little, Tali." She leaned closer on her elbows. "So, how are you doing? Is Shepard giving you trouble?" She asked with a knowing smirk.

"Oh Liara, I've been busy." Tali looked away slightly, her voice dropping some. "Busier than I'd…than I'd hoped. But I love the work. And Shepard…" she heard her quarian friend let out a truly happy sigh. "He is so good to me, and we still have time to do things together. Like yesterday. I got back home and we went out exploring some more. So today he must have gone out and picked, um, flowers for me. We saw them yesterday and I…well I thought they were pretty. He knew that I can't really smell them yet, but…just seeing them was just wonderful." Tali was quiet for a moment, and even Liara recognized that she was lost for a moment - wrapped snugly in loving memory. "Oh! And we're working on my ship. You remember, right? The asari one that I was given?" Liara smiled, nodding. "Well, I renamed it! It's called the Tilgrap now." The quarian answered before Liara could ask, fidgeting a little. "It means a couple of things…but I like that it can refer to an animal on Rannoch and the female pack leader is, um, called that. I thought that…well maybe because I am one, in a way. Um, as an admiral? I don't know…it sounds silly now that I'm saying it out loud and maybe I should just change it back to -"

Liara's laugh bubbled up from deep within her, interrupting Tali in her tracks.

"Goddess, Tali! It is a good name. Do not think of changing it." Liara had barked that last command - a chastisement taking both of them by surprise. Before she could apologize for it, she saw Tali look back over her shoulder. When her visor returned to view, Liara recognized the playful smile on her face.

"Oh keelah! Shepard's out of the shower! I'd better -"

It was at that precise moment that Liara heard a definitively excited squeak from her as Shepard did indeed spring up behind his bondmate and wrap his arms around her tummy. A loud snort of a laugh blurted out of the asari at the sight, as he nestled his face into Tali's neck. Still laughing, he looked up to the vid screen with an erupted grin and flushed cheeks.

"Hi, Liara! How are you doing?"

Tali was squirming and squealing as it appeared that Shepard was…what was that word?…tickling her. Liara tried to talk over it.

"I am well, Shepard. We've made a lot of progress out here, and the discoveries that we've made…" Liara did not try to hide her smile. "I am happy, truly."

At her statement, both of Liara's friends gave her their full attention. Tali was still a little hard to read, but Shepard had a look of satisfaction. He looked like a burden, even if a small one, might have been lifted from him.

They chatted for a few minutes more before realizing that it was actually pretty late, and Liara still had a log entry to make.

Liara looked around at the contents of her field "office" and sighed with no small measure of satisfaction.

She began recording.

"Liara T'Soni, research log. Day two at the site of Nya'Hiatra. It is now 2644 local time on this…Goddess, I can't keep track of these dates. Damn it, let's go with 'Human Galactic Date is 8th February 2187'. I really should have Gila explain it to me again. For now I'm going with the human standard since I'm still not certain of the quarian equivalent." There is the sound of a soft grunt. "Today was a successful day by any measure or metric that I know of. The team have worked hard and well, considering their unfamiliarity with this type of work. But they are dexterous, careful and capable in equal measure. I continue to be grateful for their help, and their enthusiasm is…contagious." A light, dry cough is heard. "I could do for a little moisture though. Was Therum ever this bad? I cannot recall it so well."

She got up, retrieving a thermos of water from the small solar-powered refrigerator before sitting back down. After a few swallows of the cold liquid, she smiled in satisfaction.

"Moisture concerns aside, it is very pleasant - for the most part - to do this work here. I still find it difficult adjusting to not being in imminent danger all of the time, but I can deal with that adjustment. I was able to catalog and study more items today. When we first got here from Muropa, I was not hopeful that we could make significant inroads here. Muropa, like Verli'a before it, did not yield as much as we - I - would have liked. There was little by way of safe passage, even when using biotics to get further into the town. There was too much…fragility, and the whole damn thing could have come crashing in on itself, damaging whatever might have been beneath. The Morning War did exhaustive damage. While the Geth clearly did extensive work on rebuilding most of the larger settlements, Gila tells me that the fighting in these smaller cities was very fierce and desperation was high. I am told that most of the evacuees and the victims both came from the larger cities. There were likely some smaller freighters out in these smaller towns and less populated areas, but I imagine that by the time they heard news of what was happening…" Another soft, sad sigh is heard. "Because of the speed of the war's escalation, and the way that the Geth attacked…many out here in the smaller settlements were left on their own."

Liara paused the recording again, hands rubbing at her forehead. She had let the certain, merciless, slaughter that would have come shortly for the people of those settlements remain explicitly unsaid. She really should get some sleep. Sighing, she resumed recording.

"As for today, we discovered an intact datapad. It is lightly damaged, but I am hopeful that its contents are salvageable. We have attempted to recharge its power unit, though I am not hopeful. We also found an old realk that was still largely intact. It differed slightly from those that modern quarians wear. This one was still vibrant in color, and as Ziko told me, is much weightier and made from higher grade materials. He suspects that it was because the pre-war quarians had less of a need to conserve material." There is another pause followed the sound of an unscrewing lid. A few moments later, Liara's voice returns. "We also discussed…the quarians' ancestral VIs. I'd never heard about them from Tali, or Admiral Koris when we spoke about this little expedition for that matter. But Chara said something today about hoping to find one. When I asked her about it, I got quite the lesson in old quarian culture. For a species that lives to perhaps a hundred and fifty, the pre-war quarians had devised a rather ingenious way of…preserving themselves for a longer life. According to Ziko, the Geth destroyed them all. Now, it is quite likely that this is the case. But, then again, I was told that the protheans were gone too."

She paused again. That had been a stupid thing to remind herself of. Liara exhaled slowly and was reminded that he wasn't going to truly be gone from her - not in that special and quiet place in her mind, anyway. The thought coaxed enough of a small smile from her to convince herself that perhaps time was indeed doing its level-best at making her wounds whole.

Standing up, she continued the recording as she inspected the slightly torn red and yellow realk they'd recovered earlier. It possessed a beautiful swirling mix of diamond and oval shapes woven into the fabric. Idly, she wondered about the person that it would have belonged to. They'd not found any remains near it…so maybe she'd escaped?

When she and Zaal'Koris were putting her team together, Liara had told him then that it was imperative that she have the most level-headed people he could find. This was going to be a far different excursion than the prothean digs she had been on. They had been gone for fifty millennia and were little more than mythical footnotes in the history texts. But anything or anyone they might be finding would be less than three hundred years old, so she needed people able to separate emotion from the work. Digging around in these old ruined settlements was not going to be an easy task, and they both had recognized that there would be a lot of emotion surrounding the work. Thankfully, the team she had with her had so far done an admirable job.

"At face value, all of this would seem to be just another footnote to the war. But as I think on it…it almost feels like more than genocide - which is what nearly happened to these people. It is as if…destroying the VIs was like destroying those that were already dead. Killed twice, in a way. While there is abundant evidence that the Geth did much to return Rannoch to its former state, there is nothing that could have been done for these VIs, nor the clans that were lost. Which based on the sheer numbers - multiple billions across several planets to now just about seventeen million - there are many, many clansfamilies that were murderedslaughtered. I…Shepard told us about what Legion had shown him, their recordings of the start of the war, and in truth I did sympathize. And how exactly does one answer a question like 'Does this unit have a soul?' But seeing this…this was not a 'reprisal', this was genocide. It is…unconscionable. It does not matter the 'care' that the Geth may have shown after the deed was done. Keeping a list of names of the victims does nothing by way of absolution. If anything…is it worse?

"Maybe I am compromised, in a way. It is difficult to be dispassionate here. I am reminded of the destruction we saw against the Reapers, yet this is different." There is the sound of her rueful, mirthless little laugh. "Of course it is different, Liara. There is no recency here. If anything, I should compare this to the prothean digs. Actually, I suppose it is a bit of -"

Liara stopped the recording, gasping as she held up the old datapad that had, for obvious reasons, been completely inert. Having connected it to one of their charging devices, the thing had finally kicked on of its own volition.

She turned the device over in her hands, inspecting it once more. She ran a finger along the scratches, and felt the shallow dent on the reverse side. With a sigh, she returned the device to a resting spot on the table. Glancing back over her shoulder, she saw Gila approaching her.

"Hey, Liara. Everyone has turned in for the night, and I am about to. The field barriers are in place and the proximity alert is set, too. Do you need anything else?"

Noticing the power light on the old datapad, he pointed to it in disbelief. "Keelah, it turned on?"

A ghost of a smile whispered on her face. "Hmph. Yes. It seems that it still had something left for us."

"What are we…I mean, are you going power it on?"

Her brow furrowed. Just what was she going to do with it?

"I do not think so. This is a bit more delicate than most of the other items we have recovered, and I would rather have it examined back in the city. They will have technical staff available."

He looked almost…disappointed.

Liara offered the datapad to him. He carefully wrapped his fingers around the gray slab before inspecting it himself. "Do you agree, Gita?"

"I cannot speak for the others. I suppose I would say that you are right to wait on this. Back it up on an external drive of course," he stopped to chuckle a little, realizing that she would have already thought of that, "and then just do nothing with it for now."

Handing it back to her, she deftly hooked it to one of the many OSDs they'd brought along. She watched him for a moment.

"Thank you. And…thank you for earlier. I may take you up on your offer."

A slight nod was his response. "Hmm. Good night, Liara."

She saw the small smile crease his glowing eyes. "Good night, Gila."