"We've written plays about you, you know," Lantaya looked around the room, taking everything in as if this moment were the definitive, dividing line between the past and her future. She did not expect an answer, and the three men in the infirmary with her had nothing to say that would be worth interrupting.
"Great plays, attracting crowds that filled the theatres to capacity, and spilled out onto the streets. Those of us who managed to get a seat would leave and let a friend sit for a while, taking turns. And afterwards we would come together, and share what we all had seen, sit and discuss with one another. When our people discovered the truth of the galaxy beyond our homeworld, it grasped the imagination of my people and held it up to the light. And such discussions they were."
Lantaya closed her eyes and raised her head, so it was pointed towards the ceiling, as if she was back there once more, sequestered safely away in a memory of the past.
"We argued over what you would look like, what you would sound like. Whether you would have art, or music Whether you would look up into the sky on a distant world and wonder about us, like we wondered about you. One of the very few times I ever heard Matriarchs bickering like a gaggle of over-enthusiastic Maidans, was when a particularly ambitious playwright attempted to rewrite the story of Lusia T'Vin."
She received nothing more than blank looks as she opened her eyes to gauge their reaction, and she clarified, realising then that expecting aliens to know the cultural references of your species was slightly absurd. "One of our most well-known romantic epics, of two lovers from rival tribes embarking on an adventure together to discover mysteries of the past. The playwright attempted to adapt it with an alien character as one of the lovers…"
On the toes of the previous realisation came the distinct feeling that explaining the plot of a romantic play chronicling the love that bloomed between a Asari and a member of a fictitious alien race might be a bit too much of a verbal obstacle course, present company considered. Although she wanted nothing more than to fill the uncomfortable silence with something that might let her avoid the long and difficult process of diplomacy between herself and her new acquaintances, even if it was a long and detailed plot analysis of her favourite romances.
"It became very popular among a certain demographic," she finished, rather abruptly.
Looking to the only one of the aliens she felt she had any mutual understanding with, she watched the Courier as he boiled something on his portable stove. He had vacated the part of the bed he had occupied during her reawakening, letting the alien with the brightly coloured fur on his head, the fur was called hair she reminded herself internally, check her over for any ill effects. The conversation had been kept sparse, aside from a few odd comments from the Courier to his companions about his disdain for the science of conventional medicine, and his firm belief that it could kiss his 'arse'.
The strange, cryptic alien was humming a tune to himself, occasionally muttering the words of a song that had something to do with a 'big iron'. She was curious, but not enough to enquire.
The alien with the lightly coloured long hair was now bustling around, looking like an academy student frantically trying to clean up their room as to make a good impression on their professor. Medical equipment and supplies were packed away into corners from where they had been deposited, their locations and bearings implying that they had been used in her treatment.
And then there was the alien with the obvious cybernetic enhancements. She had no clue as to this races' understanding of the concept of beauty, or whether they even understood it in the same way her own race did, but this being was most certainly not beautiful by Asari standards. In fact, it was quite hideous. Vague recollections of what transpired in the Cryofacility she had first awoken to filtered back into her mind, and the knowledge of what those cybernetics could accomplish gave their unwholesome appearance a more sinister bent.
Despite this, the atmosphere was almost homely. Nothing should have felt less safe, or less like home than a medical area filled with sharp implements and bizarre aliens she knew nothing about, or barely anything at all in the case of the Courier. Most likely on a foreign planet as well, or if not that, then on an unknown craft sailing through the vastness of space on-route to an equally unknown destination.
The uncertainty was indescribable. She attempted to describe it anyway, for her own sanity.
"You would not believe how many questions I have, or how lost I feel when I try to ask them. I don't even know how to describe… how much I don't know how to begin."
She laughed nervously, covering her mouth to disguise the peculiar mix of a grimace and a grin her mouth was attempting to conjoin together. "My word," she said, by way of a roundabout apology for her rambling, "That sentence was a complete and utter travesty. My professor in oratory would have been ashamed of me."
"I must confess to being slightly lost myself," the hideous alien commented, sitting in a peculiar seat made from flexible fabric of some description, stretched over a metal frame.
"Our prior experiences with alien life left us with little indication of how a peaceful first contact should be handled."
She filed that little detail away for later. So this race had made first contact with another race already? And it had gone poorly?
Before she could ask after this, Light Hair relaxed against one of the benches lining the walls and questioned, somewhat guardedly, "And not to look a gift horse in the mouth or anything, but how is it you speak English? I thought you said she couldn't understand you?"
This last question was directed at the Courier, who was now pouring his new creation into two sperate metal mugs, and a clean graduated beaker that he had managed to purloin from Light Hairs' attempts at cleaning. The word 'horse' echoed strangely in Lantaya's ears. Sound faded out for a moment, and in its place images and feelings ricocheted around her mind.
They were clearer now than they had been in the Courier's Dream.
More of the strange aliens, hairless and adorned with black markings and sparse clothing. War clubs and primitive firearms held up high to the sun, listening to a prophet wreathed in fire, flesh bubbling under a thick coating of pitch. A young man, following the signs laid down by those who came before. 'Owslandr utman zookuh, Joshua Graham?'
Sound faded back in in time for her to hear the Courier speak. "Not a clue, Tercorien. I've shared a Dream with others in the past, but never as clean, nor as clean. The lass has got a lot of world inside her, lived long. Seen many things, carries their Spirits with her still. I'm thinkin' it must 'ave been the Dream that did it though."
He shrugged as if it meant little to him in the grand scheme of things and went back to mixing the drinks he was preparing. Having the Courier's odd method of conversation confirmed as more than just a fabricated part of her catatonic mind was enlightening for Lantaya, and she looked at the other two aliens to see if they understood their companions ramblings any more than she did.
"What makes you think that?" The ugly alien asked, his face impassive. So, they do understand him, and they don't think he's crazy, she thought.
Tercorien shook his head and sighed, puncturing a hole in Lantaya's assumption before it had time to take on too much hot air, "You're not honestly considering this, are you Chauncy?"
The ugly alien, now named as 'Chauncy', regarded his companion with a considering expression, "And why not? I've seen many outlandish things during my life, Elliott. One of the many lessons I learned from the wastelands when I first came to the surface, is that not everything you encounter will be neatly encapsulated with your domain of understanding. The scientific method only worked because inspired men were willing to apply it as a tool, to make sense of things that could not possibly be understand any other way. In some sense, the application of that tool was a leap of faith. Faith in their belief that there was more to know than was yet understood."
"We cannot understand it because its tribal nonsense," Elliott replied sharply, then turned to the Courier with shrug, "No offense."
"None taken," the Courier replied without any significant pause.
"If all it took to learn an entire language from scratch was the taking of psychedelic drugs and sitting on a bed together holding hands, my years in medical school would have been a lot different than they were."
"Sounds a lot more fun that medical school in general though," the Courier said, in perfect Thessian.
Elliott pinched his nose and turned to Lantaya, who was looking at the rugged alien that had just started speaking in a posh, Academy-educated Thessian like he had just grown a second head from his posterior. His resigned expression told her everything she needed to know about his current state of mind. "I take it that was your language."
She nodded, removing her hand from her mouth where it had once more flown to conceal her expression of surprise, "He remarked that taking drugs and holding hands on a bed seemed more enjoyable to him than the prospect of medical school."
Elliott, who had been preparing to continue disagreeing strenuously with the continual state of madness the world around him insisted on remaining in, paused. He had been to medical school. It had left him with strong feelings on the matter. Finally, he shrugged and nodded reluctantly, "Well, he's definitely not wrong."
Lantaya cut in, feeling as though the aliens were missing the obvious explanation. "If Courier Six and I were holding hands during our…" She struggled to come up with a word that she could use in place of Dream, it being more spiritualistic than she would have liked. "…'communion', then the drugs you say we both ingested may have acted as a catalyst to provoke a melding. The practise is not uncommon among my people. I believe that would readily explain how I acquired a full working knowledge of your language. And how Courier Six gained the same in return."
Looks were once more exchanged, shrugs were simulated, and Elliott finally decided to voice the question they all had.
"I'm sure it would, but what exactly is a 'melding'? I'm a doctor, someone deeply concerned with medicine and practised in its use, and I've never heard that term used among humans," he paused, "I mean, our race, in this context."
Suddenly, the blank looks were even more prevalent to her eyes than before, and the feeling of being in over her head more pronounced. No melding? Then how did they reproduce? How did they explain complex thoughts and feelings without merging themselves together and sharing understanding in its purest form? How was she supposed to bridge the gap in understanding between herself and a race that could be so vastly different from her own?
Nevertheless, she was a Matriarch, and experience and the confidence of age pushed her forwards into her attempt at surmounting the challenge. "A melding is a process that my race utilises to link our nervous systems with each other. By doing this we can establish a…. I apologise, I'm not altogether sure how to explain a process that is so ubiquitous amongst my people in a way that would be understandable. Do you perhaps have any understanding of sophisticated computer science. I assume you do," she directed at Chauncy, who was already nodding as if he was fifteen steps ahead of her on the path to understanding.
"Fascinating," he commented, picking up her explanation and taking off with it like a running back in pursuit of a championship title. "You nerves are essentially the equivalent of high-quality data cable, and your brain possesses an unprecedented degree of neuroplasticity. Now that I know what purpose it serves, what I found makes perfect sense. If we consider the brain as a computer, and your nerves as connecting wire, then what we have in this instance is the first recorded case of direct, organic, peer-to-peer communication."
He shook his head ruefully, "I wish that Horace Pinkerton was still alive. He and I could have revolutionised cybernetic enhancement of the organic form by studying you."
Lantaya, realising that she had the good fortune to be in the presence of someone who could quite handily meet her halfway in the pursuit of shared understanding, smiled delightedly. "That is quite correct. I'm so glad there is someone present who I can turn to when explaining a complex subject matter. I could never have managed to explain the field of neuroscience to someone like him," she gestured to the Courier, "Umm, no offense."
"Again, none taken," The Courier replied, "Sure, I only read Dala's dissertations on humanoid anatomy several dozen times. I'll stay in this here corner and leave ye smart feckers alone, shall I?"
"So," Chauncy continued without addressing the Couriers remark, "You can pass on data through this connection? How does this work in practise?"
"It is…. wearing on those who attempt it. By all rights, I should be experiencing a massive series of migraines as my brain struggles to reform itself to accommodate an entire languages' worth of meaning, association, and context. Words are not just sounds we make with our mouths. They contain generations of meaning, local and personal context, associated memories of times that these words bring to mind. Even during the course of this conversation, I've experienced flashbacks of ideas, images, and feelings that Courier Six seems to associate with certain words. My only explanation is that the drug you gave me somehow alleviated the strain on my nervous system."
She nodded slowly, considering this theory from all sides as a plausible explanation. "Yes, I think that must be it. Very few among Asari would attempt something like this without good cause. A student for instance, would never attempt to learn an entire academic course worth of material from her teacher through use of the melding. The shock of her brain reforming all at once to contain so much data would surely damage her brain. Cerebral haemorrhage, temporary to permanent memory loss, perhaps even neural degeneration on a larger scale…."
"Then for what purpose, and to what extent is it used?"
"We share thoughts, feelings, small memories. But primarily it is used to exchange genetic data for the purposes of reproduction."
"Reproduction," Elliott choked on his own spit in surprise. "You mean to say that your race reproduces through this process of merging consciousness?" He wheezed.
Lantaya nodded.
"So… we just watched the Courier and yourself have…?"
Lantaya, who once more had not thought how this could possibly be misinterpreted, worked quite hard to maintain her outward appearance of untroubled dignity, as she hastened to correct the doctor.
The Courier, however, looking smugger than even the most self-satisfied Matriarch, snorted with amusement, and passed around the drinks he had prepared, cutting her off as he pressed a mug into her grasp with a smarmy wink.
"Now lads, everyone knows that the ladies love me. They can't contain themselves when I'm around. Get that down ya, it's no elasa, but it hits the right spot, so it does."
They drank gratefully, all their talking having left the group quite parched. Lani, licking some of the pulpy mixture from her lip, frowned at the peculiar mix of flavours. It was quite nice, just as the Courier declared, but as would be expected from alien ingredients, almost entirely unfamiliar to her.
"It is very distinctive. I don't believe I have ever had anything quite like it."
"Trail cocktail," the Courier elaborated happily, taking a deep drought of the mixture.
"Mashed banana yucca fruit, jalapeño pepper, sunset sarsaparilla and a dash o' vodka. That'll put hair on your chest."
Lantaya raised her head in alarm and looked at the still shirtless Courier and his excessively hairy chest. She held the drink at arm's length, gingerly. "I take it you drink rather a lot of these, then?"
"Don't worry, it's just an expression. Nothing the Courier mentioned causes hair growth, on the chest or otherwise," Elliott reassured with a conciliating smile.
"Right," the Courier agreed, "It's the crushed up buffout that does it."
This time it was Elliott's turn to put his drink aside with a suspicious look. "Moving right along, and the Couriers inability to not dose his unsuspecting colleagues with steroids notwithstanding, there are probably more important matters to discuss."
"Indeed there are," Chauncy picked up the conversation immediately, having already finished his drink. "Before we make formal introductions however, I suggest a change of venue. The rest of the Zeta's crew will wish to be present while we discuss the circumstances behind your arrival here. Elliott, if you would, please inform the rest. The Courier and myself will escort our guest to the observation deck."
He stood up from his chair, as Elliott left the room with a backwards nod of acknowledgement. The Courier, pulling on a plain t-shirt from inside his duffle bag, which had been so extensively used and cleaned in the past that it was now a dull grey with many unidentifiable brownish stains, looked at her questioningly.
"Can ye walk, Lani? Or do ya need a hand?"
"I think I can," she confirmed cautiously. "If you could stand close to me in case I need support, that would be appreciated."
She watched as the Courier pulled on a sleeveless duster. On the coats back was emblazoned the number '21', against a black playing card spade. Once again, her sense of sound faded, and in its place, the visions…
A Lonesome Road, beset by countless perils. Forsaken humans with skin like blood, and hearts full of rage. A jaunty tune played by a floating robotic companion. Once more, the giants in the cathedral, this time eclipsed by a dark-skinned man with twisted hair, and a mouth covered in metal, but spilling with secrets. 'Whatever your symbol...carry it on your back and wear it proudly when you stand at Hoover Dam.'
"Lani, you alright lass?"
"Yes, my apologies," she smiled as sound returned around her. The two humans were patiently waiting for her. Getting off the bed, she followed them out as Chauncy led the way into the hallway. The Courier walked at her shoulder, towering above her like a giant, his ambling gait compensating for her shorter stride and uncertain health by taking comically small, shuffling steps. Chauncy walked at a brisk pace regardless, passing side hatchways and metal shelving upon which all manner of fascinating curios rested.
Looking at it all, however, she got the distinct impression that the humans did not belong on this ship. She guessed that it was a ship. The mention of a crew, and an observation deck seemed to bare out that assumption. The only other thing it could be was a space station or, ironies of ironies, a water craft of some description. But in either case, the humans did not seem to match the surrounding architecture. It was too clean, and shimmering, while they were rough-hewn and tarnished. The two were at distinct odds with one another.
She did not have time to dwell on this suspicion, however, before Chauncy led them into a side chamber offset from the hallway. Inside, a circular device built into the floor occupied the entire confined room no larger than a broom cabinet, glowing a bright neon orange. Their guide brought up his arm and entered in a few commands to the bulky device strapped to it. The room hummed in sympathy, and Chauncy walked to stand atop the apparatus. "If you would all step onto the teleportation matrix, I will take us to the bridge."
"Teleportation matrix?" She rushed forward, jostling the Courier to the side with a muffled apology as she stared down at the scientific marvel beneath her feet. "Is it truly a teleportation device? My people have theorised about such devices, but we never considered them to be possible. But not only is possible, and it can be used as a means of shipboard transportation? How does it work?"
"In regard to this particular type of device, we're not at all certain," Chauncy replied as he motioned the Courier to join them, "The teleportation matrix on this ship was built and designed by the same race of aliens who built the ship itself; the Zetan. Somah, our mechanic, has attempted to take apart some of the teleporters in non-critical locations to back-engineer their design. We've had little success."
He tapped in a command to his wrist computer, and in a flash of orange light they were suddenly in a different location entirely. They were now in another room, similar to the first, with a teleportation device built into the floor and little else. Chauncy picked up on his former line of elaboration as soon as her sense of vertigo had settled.
"The project has been put on hold since then, as my association with the Courier here has given us access to a working design for a long-range teleportation device, with all the accompanying schematics. As for how that design works, it employs a localised wormhole in spacetime, for predictable results."
Chauncy continued walking, out of the teleportation room and into a new hallway as if he hadn't just casually dropped a scientific bombshell on Lantaya that reshaped her entire understanding of theoretical physics in the time it took to order lunch. The Courier nudged his way past her and grinned at her flabbergasted expression. "What's wrong lass, you no know science?"
He gently guided her forwards, as she grappled with this revelation. "But…" She began, then stopped.
"How…" She stopped again.
"Where…."
"Will we continue this conversation once you have regained the ability to put one word in front of the other in a timely fashion?" Chauncy offered her an out, somewhat unctuously, "In either case, we are arriving."
They walked into a wide, circular room within which the cold and unforgiving interfaces and architecture of the former Zetan owners had been overshadowed by evidence of human occupation. Tables and chairs dotted the room, standing it stark contrast to the numerous alien control panels and interfaces. Rugs and skins covered the floor and hung from the walls, where railway spikes had been driven into the metal bulkhead walls to hang them.
The Courier's memories provided context for the billiards table that took up one edge of the room, shuffled to the side with the pool cues and balls neatly arranged on the faded green felt.
Along one wall there was a line of fridges, hooked up to a curious collection of wires and machinery, that if Lantaya had to guess, was the power source that kept them running. And in the centre, she saw what had clearly prompted the human crewmembers to use this room as their common area. An observation port, made from some type of transparent material fitted into a metal frame, that could also withstand the vacuum of space.
Through it she looked down upon a world like no other she had ever seen. Lantaya was more of an explorer and adventurer than the vast majority of her race, and this extensive pool of experience gave her some context to notice the oddities this world had on display.
It was clearly a garden world. Or had once been, at some indeterminate point in the past, a garden world. Now however, it was a dull brown husk. A pitiable orb drifting through the bleak darkness of space like a flying clod of dirt, a warning to all those that might gaze upon it to the follies of its occupants.
It had a roughly seventy percent coverage of water, and a robust accumulation of ice at its poles that said to her that the temperature range on this world should be perfect for supporting life. But for every small gash of green landmass, denoting the healthy development of local flora and fauna, there was almost three times as much empty, brown, crusted landscape. A world diseased with some manner of degenerating condition that caused its skin to rupture and ooze puss across its surface.
It was disturbing to her. An almost palpable aura of death hung around that world, a malaise of negative connotation and emotion. But fighting against this, like a steadfast wall holding up against the fury of a storm, she felt another one of the Courier's visions welling up within her.
Within herself, the old Matriarch decided enough was enough. Forging her will into an iron barrier of mental geometry, she erected barriers within her mind to stem the flow of emotional turmoil caused by the melding. It was something Asari learned when they first gained the ability to meld. The ins and outs of how to exercise control over the process and its unintended side-effects. Her control over her own nervous system, as a Matriarch with almost a full millennia of experience in its use, was bound in iron, covered in steel plate, impregnable.
The psychic intrusion parted the storm within to force its way right to the cusp of her conscious mind, and unlike the others it stood there in the chaos below, waiting patiently for her to allow it entrance.
Lantaya nodded in satisfaction, and then opened a crack in her defences. She would face the darkness within, but on her terms, and no-one else's.
Sound faded away, along with Chauncy's outline where he stood in the centre of the observation room, waiting for his companions to gather. The Courier's grinning face blurred into obscurity, his bright expanse of teeth the last sight to fade. The sight of the world far below, banished in a wave of sand.
Withered hands grasped at rocky stone, gnarled, and bent. A being, barely human under a thick layer of filth and the weight of the world that crushed down upon it. Age meant little to the decrepit shell that housed what little spirit it could scavenge from its surroundings. All it knew for sure, was that it likely had more past behind it than future ahead of it. But what little life it had, glowed brightly in the darkness.
Other scavengers came, looking to take the last thing this being had left in the world. Grasping hands and biting teeth, beasts dressed in the rags of humanity. Once the dust settled, it remained, its foes defeated, but its strength waning.
Mud cacked lips cracking with thirst, stomach knotted with hunger, it knew the end of its road was fast approaching. But when you exist on the lowest strata of life, struggling to eke out a grim existence with nothing but the refuse of lives long lost to the passage of time, you learned to make do.
Teeth bit into flesh; red blood moistened cracked lips. Strength flowed in abundance if you were knew to accept the gifts offered to you. A scavenger consuming the flesh of other scavengers. Just another chapter in the life of nobody, from nothing, going nowhere fast. Quickly closed, never to be read again. But the light glowed within still, and the wasteland offered many paths, however gristly.
More scavengers came, seeking this treasure of light burning within, jealously guarded. Vermin fighting vermin in the dark. He grew larger, withered hands filling out to reveal the young flesh within, potential in raw form. Muscle grew, skin toughened, and it collected pieces of those it killed. Of their spirits, to carry with it. Lessons learned, scars received, tricks and lost knowledge from forgotten places.
It began its crawl upwards, towards what, it could not tell. The fire inside grew.
No longer scrambling or scrabbling in the darkness. Now tall and strong, flush with the strength of its fallen foes, carrying a fire inside. A message, born in the deepest depths of the world that spawned it, for who, the scavenger could not tell. It walked a road, now uncertain if it had more ahead than behind, but content to struggle its way forwards, in search of others like it, who could understand the message it bore.
It wasn't the Courier life, Lantaya realised. Not really. Not exactly. It wasn't historical fact. It was a metaphor, an abstraction from the whole. This was the Courier's Dream, at its very foundation, the bedrock upon which sat everything the Courier had ever built or believed. It was the story he told himself about his life, an epic drama distilled from concentrated suffering, to turn pain into triumph, adversity into strength, obstacles into tools. The story of the unstoppable force, looking for its immovable object.
The wasteland wasn't something he could hate. He loved it, as the source of all his triumph and distinction. If the wasteland did not exist, then neither would he. Not in the form he occupied now.
Vision and sound faded back into being, and she looked upon the tortured rock through subtly different eyes. Still hideous, but with its own distinctive beauty. She looked at the Courier, who was leaning against one of the control panels with knowing grey eyes fixed on hers. He winked.
"If I could have your attention, please," Chauncy's voice surged through the room, startling her from her thoughts. She turned her attention to the room at large, suddenly becoming aware that during her period of inattentiveness, several more humans had entered the observation deck.
Elliott had arrived, and was standing arm in arm with another human, this one of another morphological variation entirely, looking vastly more similar to a Asari than the three she had met so far. Dark skin, close cropped hair, and strikingly sharp facial features. Judging by the way this human, a female of the species she assumed, was leaning into Elliott, the two were bondmates of some description.
Idly, she wondered once more how humans reproduced if they could not meld? Was it a union of a more physical nature? Her studies into xenobiology made her aware that such things were possible. Still, she was likely the first Asari to discover a sentient species capable of such. At least something good came of all this, she thought.
Over to her right, another female human was orbiting around Lantaya with such a look of childish curiosity that the Matriarch felt her lips twitch up at the sides. Innocence was always so captivating.
Two more male humans had also joined them. A forbidding man, dressed in robes that looked markedly formal in appearance, with two sheathed blades tucked into a sash around his waist. His hair was cut strangely, both sides tied back into a cue, while most of the top of the skull was shaved bare, aside from another strip over the very top, that had gained an impressive degree of length. It hung down the man's back like a tail. He stood flanking Chauncy like a bodyguard, obviously deferring to the other human's words, and staring daggers at anyone who did not do similarly. That gaze was currently aimed at her.
The last new arrival was a dusty human in well-worn clothes, expressionless and grim in countenance. His hands held a rag, that he was using to polish a brace of deadly-looking firearms, handguns with long barrels and ornate engravings. When he noticed her looking his way, he nodded and tipped his wide-brimmed hat, expression never changing for a moment.
She focused her attention on Chauncy, as did everyone else present.
"I will begin by making introductions. For those of you who don't already know, our guest here is called Lani…"
"Matriarch Lantaya T'Rali," she corrected, "Courier Six asked me if he could call me Lani, and I agreed. But it is not my actual name."
Chauncy nodded and gestured to those present. "Then it may be best if you made your own introductions. We have known each other for less than a day, and much may have been lost in translation. If you could tell us who you are first, and once we have done the same, how you came to be here to the best of your recollection."
Lantaya nodded. "As I said, my name is Lantaya T'Rali. I am a Asari Matriarch, who like many others left my people years ago to explore the Mass Relay network that stretches across the galaxy."
They were barely into the conversation, and she could already see questions forming behind the eyes of all present, some shifting their weight and opening their mouths already. Chauncy cut them off, "Save all of your questions until the appropriate time. If we stop to elucidate upon each and every word spoken we will be here for the rest of the night."
He held up his wrist-mounted computer, "It is 2100 hours, eastern time. We aim to have this meeting adjourned by 2300. Continue, please."
"I visited many worlds over the course of several decades," Lantaya continued as requested, "Collecting data and cataloguing different lifeforms. During that time I met few of my own kind, save for others like me who had left on similar journeys of discovery. How I came to be here…"
She trailed off and shrugged helplessly. "My memories are somewhat unclear. I remember emerging from a relay jump into a region of space my people call…. the translation between your tongue and ours is not perfect, I apologise, I'm trying to think of an analogous word to use."
Her brows furrowed, and she bit her lower lip as her hand came up to conceal her facial expression once more. The Courier, vastly more practised in observing and disassembling body language, took particular note of this. Lantaya had an odd habit of concealing what she felt through the blocking of her face and the conscious control of her outward expressions.
"Yes, I believe the best translation would be the 'Serpent Nebula', a region of the galaxy obscured by vast clouds of atomic particles drifting in space. I had picked up transmissions from others like me, speaking of a vast space station they had discovered. They needed assistance charting the Nebula to reach it. I was going to volunteer my services, and those of my ship. And after this, nothing…. The next thing I recall for sure is waking up from that cryogenic stasis pod in the hold of your ship, feeling so very cold and…"
She trailed off, her expression took on the facial equivalent of arctic ice and grim stoicism. "That is all I recall."
"Then, now that we know who you are," Chauncy continued on as if he were introducing business partners at a company meeting, "I will introduce those of us you don't already know first. Our mechanic, Somah."
He gestured towards the female human leaning up against Elliott, who returned the attention with a polite nod.
"Our pilot, Sally." The other female human grinned and waved, the other hand shoved deeply into her jacket pocket.
"My retainer, Toshiro Kago." The formally robed human with the oddly cut hair inclined his head and bowed.
"And Paulson. He handles our armoury aboard ship." The human with the wide brimmed hat nodded, not looking up from his weapons.
"Those of us you have met but might not have caught our full names: Private Elliott Tercorien, formerly of the United States Armed Forces at Anchorage, and our medical adviser for the ship."
She inclined her head to each in turn, treating all with an equal respect.
"You know Courier Six of course," he motioned towards the towering wastelander, who gave a lazy, one fingered salute in return, absentmindedly knocking some of his long grey hair as he did so. "The Courier is the King of New Vegas, a city-state of some repute on our planet, and a formidable man. He and I are collaborators on a number of different projects."
"As for myself, an introduction is a more complicated matter. I am not an individual, distinct human entity in the same way that the rest of those present are. I'm sure you have noticed my augmentations?"
Lantaya nodded her assent to the question, staring at him with a new level of curiosity and some small apprehension.
"I am a cybernetic platform housing two separate consciousness created by a man named Chauncy Littlewood, who was known by the moniker of The Lone Wanderer. The personality matrix you are speaking with now, my name if you will, is Alpha. My programmed area of expertise is that of a scientist, engineer, and diplomat. I also have functions related to planning and logistics. My counterpart is the Omega, who you met in the Cryobay. His function is combat. And to carry out whatever preprogramed orders I see fit to set for him."
He smiled politely, an expression that the Asari, who was now paying close attention to his facial expressions and body language, now realised looked distinctly fake, a facsimile of real life.
"Cybernetic? If you are a programmed intelligence, then what…. who… provided the organic material to create you?"
"My creator," the Alpha clarified. "Chauncy enhanced himself extensively over the course of many years, with the help of an accomplished scientist named Horace Pinkerton. The culmination of these efforts was my creation. He used his own body to create me, at the cost of his own life."
"Why would he do that to himself?" Lantaya asked, the horror plain and evident in her voice.
"I believe the correct word used to describe his reasoning is 'martyrdom'. To understand this choice you may need some more context. As an aside, feel free to refer to me in any fashion you feel comfortable with."
Ignoring the look of horrified fascination she was still aiming at him, he brought up his wrist computer and activated a hologram that sprang into life over the observation port. From her brief glimpses of the planet below, and its landmasses, she knew that this spinning orb was a holographic recreation of the planet they orbited.
"This is Earth. It's history, and the history of humanity as a race is a long one and would take significantly more time to divulge in its entirety than we have. So I shall confine us to the bare essentials."
Across the surface of the hologram, dotted lines spawned into being, arching up from the globe it depicted like a swarm of insects taking flight. They flew around the outside, orbiting it, surrounding it, blotting it out. And as they circled, so too did Lantaya notice the first of the simulated impacts. Red circles spread from each point the dotted lines terminated, covering the surface of the hologram with blotchy red marks.
She knew what they were. The Courier's Dream had already given her all she needed to guess at their purpose and provenance. "Missiles…" She whispered.
"Giants o' the old world," the Courier spoke up from his spot to her left. The giants she had seen in his Dream suddenly took on an entirely more sinister aspect.
"On October 23rd, 2077, the 23rd day of the 11th month of the year 2077, the Great War occurred. An exchange of nuclear armaments that lasted less than two hours, but the effects are still felt today, more than two hundred years later, in 2286. The world population, from census data I managed to recover from the ruins, stood at roughly ten and a half billion before the wat. From what I've gathered from sources since, I believe that after the long period of nuclear winter that followed the Great War, the human population stood at roughly twenty-five million. These are all estimates, of course. I don't have enough data to tell for certain."
His voice was detached, clinical. As if he wasn't talking about an entire race being almost obliterated, like the hands of the goddess had not reached down to take back the life she granted. It was unthinkable.
The bloodiest conflict in the history of her race had claimed close to two hundred thousand lives. It was still enshrined in their people's minds as the worst exemplar of conflict to have ever darkened their lives. Asari warfare was small, a war of surgical precision, fought with guerrilla tactics, that seldom devolved into pitched battles or sustained combat. Diplomacy was ubiquitously employed in any situation it could be applied to. The Republics had stood for hundreds of thousands of years, peacefully, and in perfect order.
Ten billion lives lost. In two hours. She had enough context from the Couriers memories to know what an hour was. Two hours. She had spent longer relaxing at the communal bathhouse.
"Chauncy Littlewood was born," the Wanderer continued, "In the year 2258. He grew up in a Vault, one of many pre-war bomb shelters constructed by the company Vault-Tec. He left the vault at the age of nineteen. In less than a year he had become a legend, a hero to the wasteland for numerous suicidal acts of self-sacrifice and bravery.
But during an expedition to a location in the former United States called Point Lockout, he sustained a brain injury that caused a rapid decline in his health. This resulted in a period of extreme depression. His bodies ability to produce several important hormones related to emotional regulation and mental stability was impaired. He eventually became suicidal.
Unwilling to shirk his perceived duty to those he had helped save, and equally unwilling to remain crippled by his condition, in 2280, he and Horace Pinkerton undertook an operation to compile his personality and memories into binary data, compress it, and write it to a positronic brain that would serve as a replacement for his damaged organic brain."
The Wanderer input a command, and the red globe vanished from the display.
"The positronic brain was not advanced enough to hold and run the personality matrix in its entirety, and so they decided to split it into two parts. Revelation, 21:6. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning, and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. And so," the Wanderer concluded as he spread his arms wide, his polite smile never wavering, "I came into being. That should provide you with sufficient context to understand who and why I am."
Utterly headless of the distress he was causing his guest, which she was once more concealing behind her raised hand, the Wanderer soldiered on in an attempt to finish communicating the essential information.
"Now, in regard to your missing patches of memory. I believe I may be able to clarify some of what you do not know, or perhaps have already guessed at. I believe you were kidnapped by an advanced species of aliens called the Zetan and kept in Cryostasis for a period of three thousand years aboard this vessel. There, that ties everything together quite nicely, don't you agree?"
Lantaya swayed slightly, but mastering herself, she provided a weak reply of, "Three thousand years."
None present could tell if it was a statement or a question. "Chauncy, I think you should slow down and give her some time to process. This is rather a lot of very shocking news to take in all at once," Elliott said, holding out his hand to stop the Wanderer's flow.
Somah left his side, and together with Sally, they led Lantaya to a seat and sat her down. The two of them comforted her as best they could, Sally going as far as to place her hand on her shoulder, as the Courier came over and knelt in front of her to get a look at her face.
"My apologies, sometimes my programming is not sophisticated enough to deal with social situations. Have I caused you distress?"
"Sure, she'll be grand Wanderer," the Courier gave his prognosis airily to those gathered there. "Got a strong spirit, this one does. It ain't the trivial sort who leave their home in search o' adventure and burn the bridge behind them. You hear me lass?"
Lantaya nodded in confirmation, "If you would give me a moment to collect myself, it would be appreciated."
They all remained where they were, as the silence stretched out over them like a blanket, walling them in with their thoughts and emotions. Finally, after some emotional effort expended to set herself to rights, Lantaya nodded and rose once more. Her expression was detached, like a scientist in a laboratory environment.
"Three thousand years is three times the average Asari lifespan. I am a Matriarch, so I was old even by the standards of my species. I suppose this means I am the single oldest Asari to have ever lived," She chuckled to herself at the untimely boast. "If I ever manage to make it back to my homeworld and to the Attena Academy, I shall have to submit my body for study."
She smiled at her own attempt at black humour.
"If it makes you feel any better Ma'am, you ain't the only one in this here boat," Paulson spoke up gruffly, "The Oriental over yonder is more than six hundred years older than he should be. I was taken by those stumpy Zetan bastards 'round 1950, there abouts. And they killed my family for good measure. Then you got Sally. She was nothin' but a child when she was taken before this 'Great War' of theirs kicked off. And Mister Tercorien was born before the war too. Hell, he fought in the war that caused it."
He tucked the rag he was using into his back pocket and tucked his thumbs into his suspenders. "The only one of us who looks as old as they are, is the Courier and the negro women. No offense," he added, remembering that he had been told never to use certain words that had been common in his time.
"None taken," Somah and the Courier both chimed in.
Lantaya, with the hand not currently occupied blocking her face from view, placed her hand over Sally's, a comforting wait pressing against her shoulder. To provide a measure of distraction from her thoughts, she asked the first relevant question that come to mind. "How long do humans live?"
"A difficult question to answer. A human generally lives no more than a hundred years, but there are so many methods of extending ones lifespan that the exceptions are no longer simply exceptions," The Wanderer answered in his polite, didactic voice, "Ghouls and Super Mutants can live almost indefinitely, being functionally immortal as far as our science has managed to determine. Though there are side effects. I, myself, am also functionally immortal by design. With no brain or nervous system to degenerate over time, and most of my organs enhanced or replaced, I cannot foresee a time when I would not be capable of recovery from harm, natural or otherwise."
"An' the spirits keep me tickin' along," the Courier said, thumping his chest with a grin, "You'll not see many others with grey hair doin' what I do."
"Also true," the Wanderer agreed, "The Courier has a number of mutations that keep his organic form in tolerable condition despite his advanced age. Though the effectiveness of these is determined by outside factors. The Courier is a documented Chronic Hematophage."
Lantaya blinked, "Hematophage? He drinks blood?"
"Among other things, yes. A Chronic Hematophage is a more polite term for a cannibal. His mutations allow him to derive certain physical benefits from the consumption of human flesh."
"It has been the way o' my clan since the Great War," the Courier confirmed, holding up his necklace with the reverence due to a religious icon. Two small, but recognisable sections of human finger bone hung amongst the other mementoes. "Our ancestors were the first. The spirits o' those we kill are ours, by right o' conquest. To consume and make a part of ourselves. The wise women say eternal life is one o' the gifts of the wastelands to those who continue to overcome."
She had suspected as much from her melding, and his furious assault on the green giant in the Cryobay. But to hear it confirmed out load was another matter entirely. To hear it confirmed to a room of people who then proceeded to continue with the conversation as if nothing were amiss, was bordering on insanity.
Fortunately for her, that train had left her station already.
"I hope you don't take offense to this," she said with a face so straight you could have used it for graphical design, "But your bedside manner could benefit from a little less… just a little less."
"A little less what?" the Wanderer queried.
"Yes," Lantaya agreed.
"I know this much be difficult," Elliott sympathised. "I was introduced to this guy when he was still human, so it wasn't so bad in that regard. But being unfrozen from Cryostasis in the middle of a prison break, then immediately participating in a prison revolt to take over a spaceship from hostile alien lifeforms is rough. Once everything slows down a bit you may be able to wrap your mind around it."
"Yes," she sighed deeply, "I am thankful to have been discovered by such earnest souls. Despite your," she looked between the Lone Wanderer and the Courier with a hesitancy unbecoming a Matriarch, "Oddities, you have all gone to great lengths to help me. Lengths that could have been taken on one of your own," she gestured to the stricken world far below, "In the midst of privation you deigned to provide alms to a lost explorer. I am deeply humbled. It would be ungrateful of me to ask more of you."
"Ain't ye gonna, though?" the Courier peered at her from underneath an expanse of windswept grey. His eyes were calculating, cold and bright. He saw something in her, in her story. Maybe it were her imagination, but she thought she heard the whispers of ephemeral voices in the silence, coming from a point just shy of the wastelanders broad shoulders.
She blinked. All of this spiritual foolishness was getting to her.
"Yes, I am," she admitted, loath to ask for help under these circumstances, but unable to see any other way past the obstacles arrayed before her.
"When I felt my home, it was with the intention of never returning. There were certain arguments and disagreements between the other Matriarchs and I. I felt as if my point of view, my way of life was threatened… perhaps, in some ways, it was the threat. So I left to explore the galaxy, content to spend the rest of my years on a journey of discovery.
I spent decades drifting from planet to planet, asteroid to rock, cataloguing minerals, plant life, animals, and insect life. Bacteria and fungal life. Never once regretting or feeling alone. But now," she took a deep breath in preparation for her next admission.
"Now I feel lost. I don't feel the brave and intrepid explorer that I dreamed myself to be. Maybe I never was. Maybe I was always just a soul marooned, deluding myself into believing I was lost by choice. In your words, Courier," she nodded to the large human as her hand once more blocked her face to avoid giving the full extent of her emotions away. His eyes seemed to cut through to her core regardless.
"In your words, I have lost my Road. It died in the rocks many miles back, and with nothing to follow, I've slowly come to realise that I set out with no particular destination in mind."
Lantaya gazed around the observation deck, meeting the eyes of all present. Paulson and Toshiro, faces impassive behind masks of cultural stoicism. Somah, ever the consummate engineer, uncomfortable in the presence of emotion but earnest in her desire to resolve problems. Elliott and Sally were heartfelt souls, naïve perhaps, but unquestionably kind.
And the two she felt held the most influence over all: The Courier, and the Lone Wanderer.
"I am without a ship, with nothing to give but my experience and knowledge in return, trapped far from a home that, in all likelihood, no longer remembers my name. You are the only ones I can ask for help. Please, help me get home."
The responses she received varied amazingly.
Sally, for instance, looked like she had just received an invitation to a marvellous party, and was looking at the other adults in the room excitedly, asking through shear non-verbal tension alone if they could go!
Toshiro and Paulson, on the other extreme, looked like they did not have an iota of emotion to share between them. The former stared daggers at her and everyone else in the room, which Lantaya was beginning to suspect was his default state of being. Paulson just looked at her. For a species as naturally expressive as the Asari, Paulson would be akin to a statue capable of independent locomotion.
Elliott was clearly eager to help in any way he could, held back only by the more practical Somah, whose seemed to be the more level-headed of the pair.
But these faces that said so much, were all pointed in one direction. At the Lone Wanderer, who was himself exchanging glances with the Courier.
Silence stretched, as they awaited the final word. Black orbs turned to face her, and cybernetic fingers rasped over the sparse stubble on its chin. A plastic smile spread across a ravaged face.
"Fascinating," the Wanderer replied.