QUARIAN EMBASSY

THE CITADEL

SOL SYSTEM

EARLY MORNING, NOVEMBER 15th, 2188

THE QUARIAN AMBASSADOR staggered into her toilet chamber using furniture and door-frames as crutches to get there. She'd been sick before but this surpassed all those other instances, a rolling continuous wave of nausea and muscle contractions that convulsed her lithe frame and occasionally threatened to knock her off her feet. Her quarters on the Citadel were as clean as they could be, sealed tightly against any foreign contaminants, even as her own immune system had been strengthened by her new suit regimen. It had been so successful that she was now sleeping without her suit at all. In her toilet chamber was a small room, roughly the size of a linen closet, that held an extensive "all-over" scan suite that could identify ninety-eight percent of every known pathogen, virus, radiation trace or dust-form contaminant. The scan suite also had a decontamination ability of considerable ferocity and thoroughness. Tali made it to the scan room without vomiting – something she took as a small victory unto itself – and fitted herself into the quarian-sized depression lined with fine instrumentality in the wall. The "door" held the other half of that depression and closed with a soft click and hiss. Tali sighed as the initial scan found nothing on her exterior and the preliminary sterilization mist filled the small space, a cooling sensation that helped her whirling head immeasurably.

"Level of scan?" The suite inquired, the VI's voice a flat drone in the confined space.

"Full. And give me an anti-nauseant," Tali told it and felt the soft pads and tubes attach and insert themselves as required, something every quarian was long used to. "It's a good thing quarians aren't claustrophobic," she told the VI, her mind ranging over just why she was feeling so ill so suddenly. The anti-nauseant kicked in and she suddenly felt much better.

"Yes," the VI replied blandly. The full scan took what seemed like a great deal of time. After an eternity or two for Tali, the VI finally came back. "Scan complete. Anomalies detected."

"Detail anomalies!" Tali ordered, her anxiety notching up.

"Hetragestin levels elevated by 21.34 percent from base." Hetragestin was the quarian version of estrogen. "Anodexline levels up by 1.756 percent. Monotestal levels risen by 2.98 percent. Mammary procellian production has increased by 31.2 percent..."

"Wait…" Tali interrupted, recognizing those hormones and their function. It was basic quarian biology. "Those are pre-natal hormonal changes!"

"Correct."

"That's impossible!" Quarian contraceptives were the finest in the Galaxy.

"All scans complete," The VI answered unhelpfully.

"Run them again!" She demanded.

"Stand by." Again the interminable wait. "Scan complete. Anomalies remain as stated."

"Transfer all data to my omnitool and let me out." The door hissed open and Tali made her slow way back to her bed chamber, sat heavily on her slingbed and opened her omnitool. Twenty minutes of reading and crosschecking – and doing that twice over – only served to confirm her fear.

Pregnant.

She was pregnant!

Tali was not against the idea and had in fact hoped to one day have children of her own, now that the old one-child rule of the Flotilla had been rescinded. But not now. Nor had she been exaggerating when she'd told the VI that it was impossible. Quarian contraceptives were almost foolproof. They had to be and she was a religious taker of said contraceptives. The thought crossed her mind that it could only be Kal's, not one she found particularly disagreeable but it complicated pretty much everything. The idea made her uneasy and brought up unpleasant thoughts of timing and necessity, of actions she would have to consider. Of course she had to tell Kal. First, though, she needed a second opinion. Someone who understood discretion.

"VI – find and contact Doctor Karin Chakwas."

"Acknowledged. Stand by."

Contact was made and Tali discovered that although Chakwas was no longer a full-time practitioner of medicine – she now taught it almost exclusively – for an old friend she'd make an exception. So it was a few hours later, a jittery Tali found herself fidgeting nervously on a med-bed in Chakwas' university hospital awaiting her results. The doctor had changed little since the War, save for a jagged scar that stretched from cheek to chin – the result of a rocket attack on a field hospital during the War. Chakwas could have had the scar removed easily enough but chose to keep it. It was her way of remembering her comrades who hadn't survived.

After another eternity, Chakwas looked up from her analyser and crossed to the nervous quarian ambassador, her face set in a professional smile. The doctor, it should be said, was aging very gracefully and Tali hoped she would season so well.

"It took a while – sorry, you did want it down to a genetic level – but I have your results, at last."

"Thank you, Doctor. I just thought it best to be as thorough as possible." Tali wore her breather and her sea-green nehoni'ja head scarf, a gift from Kal. She just didn't feel like aggravating anything.

"Of course, dear. Well, I have… interesting news. Some very strange things."

Tali blinked her opalescent eyes. She did not like the sound of that.

"Strange…?"

Chakwas made herself comfortable in the chair beside the med-bed.

"The first - my scan shows that you are pregnant." Tali sagged a little. "The second strangeness is that it also shows that your contraceptive blocks are in place and functioning perfectly."

"So being pregnant should be impossible!" Tali countered as Chakwas nodded in an agreement.

"Quite so. But the egg is firmly embedded in your uterine lining and your physiology is adapting as one would expect. After standard gestation, you will have a healthy child, provided you choose to keep it, of course." Chakwas hesitated. "You've no doubt been sexually active."

"I would have had to have been!" Tali shook her head, the revelation making her sharper toned than she might have been normally. Chakwas let it slide, as usual.

"I only asked in case a partner may have used some manner of contraceptive circumvention, although the strangeness remains."

"I've only had the one," Tali corrected her, "and he would never do something like that."

"I see. This leads to that strangeness. It's no small thing. Another impossibility, frankly."

"What is it?" Tali demanded, fear climbing.

"I'm just not really sure how to tell you this…" Chakwas laid her PDA down and fixed Tali with a steady gaze. "It's perfectly viable by every reading I can take…"

"Please, Doctor. I need to know everything."

"Of course." Chakwas stood. "Your pregnancy is biologically normal. Your body is reacting in expected ways and every scan tells me the egg is perfectly healthy. It has been fertilised, as you would expect."

"But that doesn't sound impossible…"

Chakwas just sighed and skipped any more preliminaries.

"Tali… the other DNA isn't quarian."

"What!?"