Nurture

By Dominie Mirik

I am Dominie Hiri Mirik, she who brought enlightenment to the Vorcha people. My husband is Murshid Ertad Mirik, formerly the Terminus Exarch, he who brought the Daughters of Palamok through the Haivattan Gate. Together we are the figureheads of the Heshtok Covenant, which promises protection and justice for the Vorcha and Yanme'e of the Shrike Abyssal. This is not a life we planned, but it is the life that the Forerunners intended for us.

I cannot say that I am able to relate to the Vorcha, though I do try to love them. And my husband cannot say that he is able to relate to the Yanme'e, though I think he really does love them. The two peoples are both strange. They are strange in opposed directions.

The Vorcha are born as complete blank slates. A young Vorcha can be molded into anything. No, I am being delicate, and it will not do for the Dominie of the Vorcha to be delicate. A young Vorcha can be beaten into anything. They are highly adaptive, you see. They can regrow limbs, their lungs can adapt to exotic atmospheres, they never grow sick. And, if they are forced into a Gymnasium and provided with the appropriate negative reinforcement, they can be made into brilliant Emeriti. It is painful for them. I made the Vorcha, some of them at least, into a civilized people. But they are still always Vorcha.

Yanme'e are the reverse. A queen is born a haughty genius, a drone is born with no creativity or ambition to speak of, and that is all there is to that. My husband, the great friend of the Terminus Yanme'e, has not changed them one iota. If he had, they would no longer be Yanme'e. They would be something else entirely.

I should be explicit that the Heshtok Covenant was not my husband's idea. Nor was it mine. Our subjects seized us and dragged us onto these thrones. Our command of the situation is minimal.

I will relate the meeting of Emeritus Hrukt and Queen Tahrasp, which may illustrate something of our peoples' respective characters. This was shortly before the Utter Disintegration began. It was at a soirée for the Court of Ilium that I had arranged as part of a charitable drive, with donations going to the construction of more of my Heshtok Gymnasiums. I had invited Emeritus Hrukt to Ilium. He was a star pupil of the already-existing Gymnasiums, which were first erected at my direction ten years earlier. The soirée was, to everyone's surprise, fully attended by the Court, for our resident Yanme'e recluse had deigned to make one of her rare appearances. She even looked, to the extent that Yanme'e expressions are interpretable, excited to be there. Tahrasp barreled right toward Hrukt. She towered over the Vorcha.

"Emeritus," she said, her antennae twitching. "I read your Heshtok's Imperial Generation. I found it insightful."

"Oh…" said Hrukt, who was nine years old, had never left Heshtok before, and was visibly uncertain how he was meant to address this gigantic alien insect. "Thank you."

Tahrasp took this as a prompt to start quoting Hrukt's own dissertation at him. "Vorcha are only educable through imperialism. This is something that has been said about other peoples, and not only in interstellar or interspecies history. For instance, in their terrestrial period most Salarians believed this to be perennially true of their subaltern Lystheni minority. That once-hegemonic viewpoint is, ironically enough, now itself considered to be a primitive fetishization, a bigoted derangement, a rationalization for practices of savagery. Today, the distinction between Salarian and Lystheni is understood to be entirely a matter of social construction. Within the Salarian Union itself this is now a closed issue. The Terminus worlds where the subject is still a matter of contestation are some of the most insular and underdeveloped worlds of the known galaxy."

"You memorized that word-for-word?" Hrukt asked, wearing an uneasy expression.

"I wasn't finished. Vorcha are not Lystheni. We are not subaltern as a consequence of ignorance, arrogance, or as a convenience of material interest. We are subaltern because our peculiar evolutionary development and cell structure produced a people with a twenty-year lifespan, a people with a congenital predisposition to violence, a people genuinely ill-equipped for any complex society. Though the Vorcha have been a sapient toolmaking people for longer than any other extant and natural species, possibly excepting the Lekgolo, Heshtok never developed any sustainable agriculture. We would certainly never have developed the steam engine, much less space travel, without alien interference. The initial interference was not carried out by the Council states (which wanted as little to do with us as possible), but by the peripheral powers of the Relay Ecumene, chiefly Batarian slaver cartels which exploited us for unskilled labor and deliberately taught us nothing. The secondary interference of Asari philanthropic outreach proved far too soft for the task it set for itself. Only the tertiary interference of Covenant conquest compelled real advancement. Emeritus, I have a question for you."

"…What question?"

"Do your parents know basic arithmetic? What is the extent of their vocabulary?"

Hrukt looked sour. "I don't know why you would ask me that. I don't know why you would read my dissertation. I meant it for other graduates of the Heshtok Gymnasiums. I didn't expect that any alien would find the… dilemmas… educated Vorcha face to be of interest. Why are we having this conversation?"

"I need to establish the limits of Vorcha mutability," Tahrasp answered blithely.

"Why?"

"To know what you might be made into."

Hrukt was silent for a long moment. "My parents cannot do basic arithmetic. Their formal vocabulary is perhaps three thousand words apiece, although that figure is somewhat reductive, as much traditional Vorcha communication takes the form of subtleties in nonverbal expression."

"Nonverbal expression here means hitting, kicking, biting?"

"…Largely."

"What are your forebears' thoughts on your education, on its effects on you?"

Hrukt briefly hesitated for one final time, then dropped into an imitation. "Not understand you! School make you strange! Why new aliens do this? Why new aliens make you strange? Old aliens make Vorcha angry, make Vorcha fight, but not make Vorcha strange!"

"Fascinating."

"Is it?" Hrukt asked. "To think of it fills me with humiliation."

"My condolences. Humiliation is a vertebrate sensation which I have never experienced, but it sounds positively ghastly."

Hrukt still spoke carefully, but in some way he seemed to have gotten past the anxiety that the Yanme'e queen simply wanted to embarrass him. "My earliest memory is of being kicked after misremembering the Forerunner character for wisdom. By the time I was two years old I was more adept with the Forerunner lexicon than any of my Sangheili tutors, which made them insecure, so they hit me harder, but of course that only made me learn all the better. What about you? How did you achieve erudition?"

"Oh, I just read a lot. I'm an autodidact, Yanme'e queens are all autodidacts."

"Well. Good for you."

"Thank you!"

I found myself with a foolish feeling of squeamishness. I slipped away, leaving Hrukt and Tahrasp to speak alone. I thought of the condition that I had found the Vorcha in when I first passed through the Haivattan Gate, until I was again certain that creating my Gymnasiums had been the right thing.

When I left High Charity the lowest Unggoy peon of the Covenant lived in more advanced conditions than the highest Vorcha of the Relay Ecumene. Consider that! Really consider that, you hypocrites of the Relay Ecumene, you who are so quick to denounce San'Shyuum governance! Most Vorcha could not speak in complete sentences. The lucky ones lived on their own world, in conditions of perfect barbarism, often lacking basic metallurgy. The unlucky ones slaved as Batarian chattel or as Krogan battle-thralls (in the Relay Ecumene it was an officially endorsed myth that the Vorcha first spread out from Heshtok as stowaways. Consider the mechanics of that for even two seconds. No, it was the Batarians. The Relay Ecumene, so proud of its tolerance, could never bring itself to face what it was tolerating). The unluckiest Vorcha of all were the station scavengers. No other creature capable of speech, no other creature capable of understanding the Great Journey, has ever been left so destitute of place and purpose as those miserable wretches. That was the position of the Vorcha in the Relay Ecumene before the Terminus Exarchate, before our Covenant.

I changed that! Yes, Vorcha can only be educated through pain! So yes, there was pain! It was worth it. I did it. I would do it again.

And the Vorcha were grateful to me. Dominie was what they called me; what Emeritus Hrukt had called me when he arrived on Ilium. It means teacher. They were grateful to me.

It distinguished the Vorcha, their gratitude did. No other relay race was ever properly grateful to us, even with all we did for them. My husband offered the Krogan an opportunity to avenge their Genophage. He emancipated millions of Batarian nobi. He forced the Salarians and the Lystheni together. He stopped the Prophet of Sagacity from glassing the Turians after the Molzhure Affair. What did he receive from the relay races in return? Only ever spite.

The Ilium Asari, they were the most shameless of all. They flattered us. They smiled at us. They knelt before our altars and professed our Great Journey with us. They were lying. The whole time they were lying. They never believed that the generous caste-rank we offered them was generous enough. The whole time the defeated witches believed they were still better than everybody else in the galaxy, Prophets included. The Terminus Asari were just waiting us out. For them, it's always an option to just wait everybody else out.

We San'Shyuum are an overly kind, naïve people.

Enough bitterness! The Vorcha were grateful to me. All the way through the Utter Disintegration, as every false friend I made over ten years abandoned me. Through all of it, the Vorcha were always grateful to their Dominie.

And the Yanme'e queens were always grateful to my husband, who granted them the Deeds of Settlement which served as a remedy to the antiquated Yanme'e pass laws. Or Queen Tahrasp was grateful, at least. I'd like to think that the others were too. It's often hard to tell with them. In truth, they never had any options apart from us. The Yanme'e queens have never been broadly well-liked. My husband's affection for them is often considered eccentric.

But it paid off for us in the end. I think.

Queen Tahrasp launched her coup about a month after the Battle of Panakut, two years after she met Emeritus Hrukt. The Court of Ilium had dwindled. Great Cheiftain Argurus had died on Panakut. Shortly before that battle, the noxious Volus mining magnate Gulsar Jiq had fled Ilium in the middle of the night. I still suspect Jiq of betraying Argurus, and of somehow sabotaging Argurus' attack on the Martollans.

With Argurus and Jiq gone, the Court of Ilium was down to myself and my husband, Queen Tahrasp, Fleetmaster Jalprukai, Matriarch Sarvirta, and the Anuranite agent Yor Dazyun.

"I have an announcement!" Queen Tahrasp told the assembled Court. "Our military position is one of absolute hopelessness, and I have embraced a philosophy of defeatism! I am seizing power over the government of Ilium and putting my new perspective into practice!"

This announcement was met by a long silence.

"That is treason, obviously," said Fleetmaster Jalprukai.

"Legally speaking, you are quite right, Fleetmaster. But there are times in which all legalities collapse! Do you not accept that? No? Ah, well. You may stand up and draw your energy sword. We will do this cleanly and with all possible formality."

"Hang on," my husband said. "Let's talk this out-"

"You dolt! She has just told you that you are deposed!" Fleetmaster Jalprukai stood up and drew his energy sword. "I am sick of listening to you. You are not a Hierarch. I am sick of listening to you as though you were a Hierarch." He turned to Tahrasp. "But I am going to defend this coward's authority, whether he decides to defend it himself or not."

"Wait," the Terminus Exarch pleaded, as Jalprukai and Tahrasp walked to opposite ends of the room. "Wait!"

Queen Tahrasp bowed to Jalprukai. Fleetmaster Jalprukai bowed in return. Then, Queen Tahrasp charged him. The duel was short but decisive.

"Powers of Khar'shan!" Yor Dazyun hollered. His face was splattered with Jalprukai's blood. "You call that clean?"

"Figuratively speaking, yes." Covered as they were in purple Sangheili gore, Tahrasp's chelicerae looked rather more menacing than usual. "I liked Jalprukai."

"Old friend," my husband muttered. "Why?"

"Exarch, Ertad, you know why. This war is lost. You know it. If the Citadel Council or the Martollans besiege Ilium, you could well die. Along with me. Along with my hive. Along with your wife! You know that. We are going to make sure that doesn't happen. And we are going to make sure that the three of us still have a Covenant when all of this is over, a truncated Covenant though it may be. Matriarch Sarvirta, you figure in this as well. Yor Dazyun, you are unimportant. You may leave, if you'd like."

Yor Dazyun immediately bolted out of the room. Matriarch Sarvirta nodded curtly.

"Exarch, Presvytera, the two of you are coming with me to Heshtok," said Queen Tahrasp.

My husband and I were both at an absolute loss for words. Matriarch Sarvirta nodded curtly again.

Sarvirta's manner was suspiciously blasé under the circumstances. "You're part of this?" I demanded of the Asari.

"Yes," she answered bluntly. "I have lived on Ilium since half a millennium before you were born. I have no desire to see it suffer the ravages of a siege. Much better for it to fall to the Citadel Council bloodlessly. Much better for everyone, yourselves included, if you leave Ilium now."

My husband looked at what remained of Fleetmaster Jalprukai. "There are other Sangheili soldiers on Ilium. Jiralhanae as well. You won't find them any more amenable to your 'philosophy of defeatism' than the Fleetmaster."

"My soldier drones and Sarvirta's intelligence network have already been tasked with this concern," Tahrasp assured him.

"Bloodlessly for the Asari, is what I suppose I meant," Sarvirta clarified. "Well, this is goodbye. Good luck to the three of you."

Tahrasp escorted my husband and I to a large shuttle. We flew upwards. I looked down at Nos Astra, glittering capital of Ilium. In a few places I could see flashes of plasma fire, where I knew Tahrasp's soldier drones and Sarvirta's people were ambushing unsuspecting Sangheili and Jiralhanae. It sunk in that this would be the last time that I would ever see Nos Astra.

The Terminus Exarch held my hand. No, that part of our lives was over. Ertad Mirik held my hand.

"What will happen to us?" I asked him.

"I don't know," he answered me.

"Purely good things!" exclaimed Queen Tahrasp, her chelicerae still stained with Jalprukai's blood. "I am making sure of it. Be without fear. I want you both to understand that the two of you are my best friends."

My grip on my husband's hand tightened. I realized that I was angry. I slowly came to feel more angry than frightened.

Our shuttle reached low orbit and was picked up by a frigate. I recognized the ship as the Kyzil Sardonyx. It was the first ship ever built on Heshtok, the first ship ever built and captained by Vorcha. I had christened it myself.

We emerged from the shuttle, where we were met by Emeritus Hrukt. It was the first time I had seen him since the Utter Disintegration began. He was kneeling. I realized that he must have stayed in contact with Queen Tahrasp after their meeting. I hadn't known that.

"Dominie!" Hrukt greeted me, "It is my honor to-"

"ENOUGH!" I screamed. "WHAT IS THE END OF THIS?"

Hrukt was struck. He had expected me to thank him, to praise him, to bless him. "Dominie… did… did you not… Tahrasp! Did the Exarch and the Dominie not… did you not inform them what we've been doing?"

"Not as such," Tahrasp admitted.

"Er..." Hrukt looked doubtful. "Dominie, I…"

"Enough." My husband's voice was tired. "Tahrasp, whatever you're trying to do, we're all on board with it. Just explain it to all of us."

She did.

The Shrike Abyssal lies along the galaxy's northwestern fringe. It is sparsely populated, with the Vorcha population of Heshtok constituting well over half of the cluster's population.

Queen Tahrasp's intent was to declare a new, breakaway Covenant, populated by Vorcha and Yanme'e, centered on Heshtok and occupying the whole of the Shrike Abyssal. She wanted us to bless this new Covenant, this Heshtok Covenant, and to serve as its substitute Hierarchs.

Tahrasp had sent messages out to other Daughters of Palamok throughout the Terminus, inviting them to migrate to the Shrike Abyssal. Queen Tahrasp believed that general massacres of Yanme'e hives were coming, and that migration to Shrike Abyssal would be the best way for other Yanme'e queens to stave off this dour fate.

Tahrasp had also arranged a diplomatic trick with Matriarch Sarvirta. Sarvirta had agreed to temporarily hold Ilium in the name of Tahrasp's new Covenant, so that Tahrasp could use the Terminus Asari planet as a ransom. Tahrasp and Sarvirta planned to "exchange" Ilium to the Citadel Council in return for a guarantee that the Heshtok Covenant's sovereignty would be respected afterward. I've never been able to firmly establish what it was Sarvirta got out of that arrangement.

In Queen Tahrasp's analysis, a victorious Citadel Council should not feel the need to directly govern the Shrike Abyssal. If anything, since the Citadel Council had no desire to govern Vorcha or Yanme'e, the notion of containing those two peoples within the Abyssal might strike the Citadel Council as convenient. The Heshtok Covenant would not be well-liked, but it would be tolerated.

When I first comprehended Tahrasp's plans, I was appalled. To declare a breakaway Covenant at first seemed to me schismatic, borderline heretical.

But today Queen Tahrasp stands entirely vindicated, for the High Charity Covenant is gone, yet our Heshtok Covenant persists.

What was it that compelled the Vorcha and the Terminus Yanme'e, so fundamentally unalike, to unite? Firstly, they were bound together by the lasting contempt that the relay races felt toward them both. Secondly, they were bound together by their oaths of loyalty to my husband and myself. Thirdly, they were bound together by true devotion to the Great Journey, or so at least I pray.

I remember how as the Kyzil Sardonyx descended to Heshtok's surface I looked over an arid desert of surpassing bleakness. There was no life to be seen besides hundreds of thousands of Vorcha, crowding dirt streets which ran through ramshackle huts, looking up at us as we came down to them. "DOMINIE!" they called. "DOMINIE! DOMINIE! DOMINIE!" They were ugly. On top of all their other handicaps, Vorcha are ugly. It took me some time to understand that this great mass of Vorcha was trying to make me feel welcome.

"Covenant," Hrukt murmured. "These people… we may not be up to empire. We have no armada and no industry to build one. We are building more Gymnasiums, but many of us are still just… feral. I believe in the Great Journey. It is what I was… taught. But to declare a new Covenant will be a provocation. Our neighbors will not…"

Tahrasp answered Hrukt before I could.

"In our Covenant much is made of the Citadel Council's aversion to open imperialism. The Citadel Council was originally a cooperative effort between the Asari Republics and the Salarian Union, which at the time were states of comparable force. A rhetorical commitment to cultural relativism was mutually convenient and perhaps earnestly felt, even if it suggested practical inconveniences so early as when first contact was made with the Leagues of Vol (known today as the Vol Protectorate). The early Citadel Council hence proclaimed itself as opposed in principle to imperial modalities- and in two thousand years it never stopped doing so, even as it exterminated the Rachni race, sterilized the Krogan, and exerted its reach in every part of the galaxy touched by the mass effect relay network. Really, the contrast with our Covenant's open pride in its annexations, its forcible conversions, its hierarchical mode of being, is superficial. Empire is the way of things in this galaxy, even among those who protest otherwise. It will always be so, for we Vorcha are not so special. Aliens, too…" Tahrasp trailed off, inviting Hrukt to finish.

Emeritus Hrukt spoke with renewed conviction. "Aliens, too, best learn through beatings."