Mass Effect. Chapter 37 (Patreon)

Interlude. Naris Des'sit, Researcher of Clan Des'sit, Biotics Specialist.

When I was told that the clan had rated my work highly and offered me a transfer to another research complex, I had time to imagine a new laboratory and the faces of colleagues who had called my calculations overly bold. The chance to continue my research with good equipment interested me far more than the appointment itself. For some reason, I did not think at the time about where that equipment was located or how long the journey would take.

Our previous laboratory had been located on a nameless asteroid orbiting a gas giant, two weeks' travel from the nearest mass relay. We had considered that distance a sufficient precaution and sometimes complained that even replacing a failed instrument took far too long because of it. Now, in those same two weeks, I had merely crossed several clusters through the relay network, after which I was transferred to a ship capable of independent faster-than-light travel.

Twenty light-years per year under its own power! I knew such vessels existed, but I had never expected to travel aboard one. During the first few days I was almost disappointed that the passenger compartments looked no different from ordinary ones: I wanted at least a glimpse of the drive that let us move so quickly. My escort, however, answered every question by saying that the ship's design had nothing to do with my work. As if one visit to the engine room would make me change professions.

The new station lay five light-months from the nearest mass relay, deep inside Salarian Union territory. The independent leg of the journey took a little over a week, and by the time we arrived I had grown tired of wondering why anyone had needed to build something so far away. When our destination appeared on the observation screen, the first thing I noticed was the escort vessel.

The station was guarded by a whole, dalatrass-damned dreadnought!

I enlarged the image to make sure I had identified the ship class correctly. Nearly a century had passed since the victory over the rachni, and I could still understand why a dreadnought might be stationed near an important world or major shipyards, but here it was guarding a research complex that most ships could not even reach within any reasonable amount of time. And the dreadnought itself had no independent FTL drive either. How had they brought it here?

I started calculating before the image had even finished zooming in. At a maximum speed of one-tenth of light speed, crossing five light-months would take four years and two months, not counting acceleration and deceleration. Its endurance was only ten months. So if it had made the journey under its own power, someone must have supplied it along the way, which meant additional flights by those same expensive FTL transports. I tried to imagine how much such an operation had cost, then wondered whether the ship could have been transported in sections, and decided to leave that question to the engineers for now.

In any case, beside the dreadnought stood a station one and a half kilometers long, with docks that made our two-hundred-meter transport look tiny. Judging by what I could see, building it alone must have cost roughly as much as five such warships. Scientific equipment was not even included in that estimate, nor was the constant supply effort: everything needed here was brought in aboard ships capable of crossing interstellar space independently. During the flight I had heard enough to estimate the cost of even one such trip.

The sealed laboratories studied, among other things, viruses whose release outside the complex would amount to a crime against the state. The remoteness itself did not surprise me; I was trying to understand what could justify such enormous expenses for construction, security, and transportation. The answer began to become clear on my very first day of work.

The asari screamed while I was still standing at the laboratory entrance. Her head was secured inside a massive apparatus, and the casing and bundles of connections hid most of the back of her skull. She tried to jerk her arms away, but straps held her wrists in place. The salarian at the nearest console did not turn at the scream: he watched the readings while two colleagues compared projections appearing above the apparatus, and a fourth checked the prisoner's condition.

"Naris, come here," Veiran Des'sit called, beckoning me toward an unused terminal. "Have they already given you access to our materials?"

I placed my palm against the scanner and waited for the work sections to appear on the screen. Veiran was well known in our clan, and I had more than once listened to him dissect colleagues' mistakes at scientific meetings. I hoped my own work had made a better impression on him; otherwise, I doubted I would have been invited here.

"I have access. Which record should I open?"

"The asari's baseline examination, before the experiment began. The number is here. Put it beside the current recording so we can compare the changes."

I hurriedly found the correct file, but before opening it I checked the examination time once more. Mixing up the baseline data on my very first assignment would have been a poor start. At that moment, the salarian at the console called Veiran over: the apparatus had produced the desired reaction, and now it needed to be recorded.

A bluish glow spread across the asari's skin. She arched as far as the restraints allowed, and her scream broke off for a moment. At the same time, the pattern of brain activity changed on the projection. Veiran leaned toward the screen and asked for the entire segment to be saved, beginning just before the glow appeared.

"Sarel, make sure the beginning wasn't cut off. Helis, is your recording complete?"

"Complete, but there's a section right at the start that we need to examine separately. I'll mark it now."

"Good. Meros, can we continue with her?"

The salarian beside the chair raised a hand, indicating that the next cycle should not be started.

"We're done with her for today. She needs time to recover before we repeat the experiment."

Sarel shut down the stimulus, and the glow faded. The asari remained lying there, breathing quickly and shallowly, while the monitoring equipment continued tracking her condition. Meros began working on the restraints as the others checked the saved recordings.

In my previous laboratory I had worked only with salarian volunteers, and no one would have allowed us to conduct an experiment like this on any of them. Here, the research was being carried out with Union authorization and funding. If advancing our biotics required studying something the asari possessed naturally, I considered the work justified. Now I could hardly wait to see what my colleagues had already learned.

Veiran pointed first to the baseline recording and then to the segment captured during the experiment.

"Look at how the brain activity changes at the beginning of the melding. Especially here. This pattern wasn't present at all before the stimulus."

I enlarged the marked region and only then understood exactly what state they had been trying to induce.

"You're forcing the Embrace Eternity?"

"Yes. With a voluntary melding, we'd depend on what the asari agreed to show us. She could alter the process or stop it, and we wouldn't know which features in the recording came from deliberate actions on her part. Here, at least, we can compare the response with what the apparatus is doing."

Helis turned his screen toward us. The same segment had been divided into a sequence of images.

"Start here and follow the markers. The change is almost lost in the full recording, but if you review this section separately, you can see exactly when it appears."

I followed his pointer, mentally comparing what I saw with published studies. Until now, I had mostly encountered conclusions and isolated diagrams that could not be checked against the original observations. Here, the full recording lay in front of me, and I could return to any part of it instead of wondering why an author had chosen to show one particular fragment.

"We're trying to understand what the nervous system has to do to make this kind of melding possible," Veiran continued. "The Embrace Eternity is a mental biotic technique that asari possess naturally. I want to find out whether we can reproduce a similar ability in our own biotics with an implant."

"So the implant would have to provide the ability to exert mental influence itself?"

"Exactly. We don't even understand the whole mechanism yet, so it's too early to talk about a finished device. But if we can connect these changes to what happens during the melding, we'll have a foundation for further work. Can you imagine what that would give the Union?"

The practical applications were obvious, but something else interested me more: the familiar set of biotic techniques would turn out to be only a small part of what a biotic could learn. I remembered descriptions of Aiterri abilities that had previously seemed too incomplete to take seriously enough for calculations.

"The Aiterri have their own techniques too, far beyond the biotics we're used to," I noted. "From the descriptions, they sound more like magic. Though I haven't heard of Aiterri being able to enter other minds the way asari can."

"Aiterri!" Veiran straightened as if he had been waiting for the conversation to turn to them. "Now there is a species I would place at the pinnacle of biological perfection! Longevity, physical capabilities, biotic power, mental abilities..."

"You're getting ahead of yourself again with the mental abilities," Helis said without looking up from the recordings. "They have nothing like the Embrace Eternity."

"And the longevity isn't that simple either," added a specialist who had approached from the other side of the apparatus. "Asari live for fifteen hundred years, while among the Aiterri only the Eternals can boast of lifespans like that. You're taking the best traits of different members of the species and combining them as if every one of them gets all of them."

Veiran looked first at one, then at the other. I instinctively moved back from the terminal, deciding he was about to demand room for some especially convincing projection.

"My dear colleagues, you're simply mistaken! Helis, I refuse to believe that an organism with biotic capabilities like theirs is incapable of reproducing what an asari can do. They have entire Houses devoted to particular disciplines, and I'm certain some of them study mental techniques. We may simply never have heard of them."

Helis finally turned toward him.

"You can suppose such Houses exist, but where does the certainty come from? Has any Aiterri ever told you about techniques like that?"

"What I've seen in their anatomy is enough for me. And what they've already shown us."

"It's not enough for me to start attributing the ability to enter someone else's mind to them as well," Helis replied. "You were just explaining to Naris how much we still have to learn even about the asari."

The second researcher settled at the edge of the console, and from his expression I could tell he had heard this argument before. Veiran, however, clearly expected support from him.

"Taren, surely even you understand how little we know about the Aiterri. They show us the abilities they don't consider worth hiding. Why did we decide that those are the limits of what they can do?"

"I was talking about lifespans," Taren reminded him. "My objections were quite specific."

"I remember your objections! But first let's deal with what's bothering Helis so much. Naris, before they cleared you for the station, did they ask about your contacts with the Blessed?"

"Several times. They even pulled up the attendee list from a conference where I gave a presentation and made me remember who I spoke to afterward."

At the time, I had assumed they were looking for a possible leak. Different officials asked the same questions, and by the end of the screening I was tired of explaining that I had not discussed my work outside the permitted channels.

"Exactly!" Veiran turned to Helis. "And they also try not to leave important officials, researchers, or commanders alone with the Aiterri. They check who met whom and under what circumstances. Do you think security started doing all this out of boredom?"

"Security is checking a possible threat, and I'm not arguing with that. But their concerns don't prove you've already identified the other species' abilities correctly."

"And I want to find out what they're capable of before the consequences show up in the decisions of one of our leaders!" Veiran raised his voice, then immediately glanced toward the chair where Meros was working. "That's why we're conducting what I will not hesitate to call torture on the asari. If there is a way to interfere with another mind, the Union needs to understand how it works and develop mental influence capabilities of its own. Precautions alone won't be enough."

I looked back at the recordings. During the security screenings, the possibility of someone interfering with my memory had never even occurred to me; I had simply tried to remember every conversation so I would not make a mistake in my answers. Now I understood more clearly why the security officers had been interested not only in what was said, but also in who else had been present. I still did not know whether Veiran was right about the Aiterri, but the reason for the state's interest in our work was becoming perfectly clear.

Meros freed one of the prisoner's hands and checked the restraints around her head. Veiran followed him with his eyes, then returned to Taren's unanswered objection.

"And as for longevity, stop reminding me every time how long the asari live. I've devoted almost my entire life to them, and I understand very well what we could achieve if we had the same amount of time. Their entire organism practically reeks of artificial intervention! The Protheans altered them so thoroughly that I'm amazed you still don't see it."

"Because you still haven't shown what exactly connects their biology to the Protheans," Taren replied. "We study asari traits together. You're the one drawing the conclusion about who created them."

"I'm trying to show you that connection yet again! Naris, open the comparative anatomy section. We need diagrams of the nervous systems of salarian biotics and asari."

I found the relevant images and opened them side by side. Among my previous test subjects, there had been biotics with similar total element zero content but such different abilities that no single relationship could describe them. What differed most was the distribution of the material: one had dense concentrations where another had almost none. Trying to account for those differences had become the basis of my latest work.

Veiran pointed to the salarian diagram and then to the asari one.

"In our artificial biotics, element zero ends up wherever chance puts it. One person gets enough from that distribution to develop considerable power, while another with the same amount of material can barely hold a barrier. And we're only comparing those born alive; a bad distribution can kill an embryo before birth. Now look at how the asari are structured."

In the neighboring image, element zero was distributed evenly along the nervous system, with concentrations at the nerve nodes. I enlarged the diagram and checked individual branches, but saw none of the imbalances I was used to in salarian examinations. It was easy to understand why Veiran found this organization so fascinating.

"This system develops in every asari along with the organism itself," he continued. "They don't have to overcome the disorders we encounter when biotics develop artificially. We've spent decades trying to achieve a stable result, and they're born with exactly what we need! Do you seriously believe all of this just happened on its own?"

"I see a stable species trait whose origin we have not yet explained," Taren replied. "The fact that we still cannot reproduce it tells us nothing about who or what created it."

"And who before us understood element zero well enough to leave behind a mass relay network that still works? Why does the idea that the Protheans also worked with biology seem so unbelievable to you?"

"They may have worked with anything they liked. That still does not mean they created the asari. You still have no proven link between those claims."

Veiran shook his head impatiently and enlarged the projection. Taren seemed ready to hear the entire argument again, but the senior researcher remained silent for a while, studying the diagram. When he spoke, the earlier force had left his voice.

"Fifteen hundred years... Just think how much you could accomplish in a life like that. We get forty, and near the end we have to wrestle time away from our own aging bodies. An asari can work on one problem, spend centuries on another, and then return to the first when new information appears. Return herself, with all her experience intact, without handing anything down to the next generation."

I looked at the prisoner while Meros spoke to her and checked her condition. She did not answer, and I found it difficult to imagine how many years she might have lived before ending up here. I knew about asari longevity, but this was the first time I had thought about it so concretely: in the span of time that gave a salarian an entire life, from birth to old age, she might not even finish one major project.

"Our clan has studied them since our species first met," Veiran continued. "While an asari goes from maiden to matron, roughly twenty generations pass for us. I inherited the records of a researcher who was certain his students would see the result. Now his students have been dead for years, my mentor is dead, and I'm still trying to understand how to obtain what an asari is born with. I considered their organism the model for our work until I received the documentation from a postmortem examination of an Aiterri."

I remembered the enthusiasm with which he had just spoken about the species. If asari biology looked to him like proof of outside intervention, what did he think of those he ranked even higher?

"And the Aiterri?" I asked cautiously. "Do you think someone created them too?"

"And here, my young colleague, is the most interesting part: I don't know. Every instinct I have screams that an organism like that could not have arisen through natural evolution, but I have no proof."

After his heated argument with Taren, I had expected a more confident answer. Veiran, however, did not elaborate on his guess and instead invited me to examine the study itself.

An Aiterri nervous system appeared in the projection, and at first I did not even understand what was supposed to surprise me. Element zero was distributed through it just as evenly as in the asari diagram. I had time to inspect several areas before Veiran asked me to magnify one of the nerve nodes.

At higher magnification, what had looked like a uniform concentration broke apart into a multitude of fine branches. Several converged into a dense formation, others curved around it, connected farther on, and separated again. I rotated the image, trying to follow one branch from beginning to end, but soon lost it among the others. It felt as though several layers had been overlaid on top of each other when the model was built.

"Are you sure this isn't a reconstruction error?" I asked. "It looks as if adjacent tissue regions were combined."

"No, that was the first possibility we checked," Veiran replied. "Everything you're seeing is inside a single node. At lower magnification the fine details merged together, so we took this structure for an ordinary concentration of element zero."

Helis came closer and asked Veiran to show me a second sample. He displayed the node of another Aiterri beside the first, and I began comparing them. The overall dimensions were similar, but the intertwining branches looked completely different. I instinctively reached to save both models, then remembered that I now had access to the materials.

"At large scale the distribution really is uniform," Veiran explained. "But inside the nerve nodes, element zero forms complex structures like these, and each Aiterri has a unique pattern, like the pattern of the retina. One description does not contradict the other; we simply could not resolve the fine enough details before. The Aiterri call this substance Aether, and I admit that the longer I study their biology, the more willing I am to use their word."

"And is the total amount of element zero in the body much higher than in an asari?" I asked, returning the data from the first examination to the screen.

"This Blessed had only a little more than the Ardat-Yakshi in our comparative series. And according to the information that came with the materials, he was considered fairly average in strength among his own kind."

I checked again that the figures referred to the entire organism. Even that comparison was remarkable: on one side we had a highly unusual asari, and on the other a far from exceptional member of another species. Yet the quantity of the material still could not explain the abilities I had read about.

"So the structure of these concentrations is the key? They let the same amount of element zero be used differently?"

"Our observations suggest that the amplification is connected to this," Veiran replied. "But we still don't understand the mechanism. Conventional calculations don't explain why an organism with this amount of material can do what we see in the Aiterri. If we account only for quantity and average distribution, the difference from asari should be much smaller."

I wanted to take the materials immediately and review everything the group had collected in peace. I had already encountered cases where identical overall readings concealed very different capabilities, and the familiar urge returned: to find the feature we simply had not accounted for yet. This time, however, I would have to compare structures unlike anything I had ever seen, even in images.

"Have you tried dividing them by recurring features?" I asked. "The overall pattern may differ in everyone, but some connections might perform the same function. If we compare those with known abilities..."

"We have," Helis replied, leaning toward my screen. "And I understand why that's where you want to start. I'll show you our comparisons and the places where the expected correlation failed. You can see whether we missed anything."

I liked that answer far more than a simple invitation to read the conclusions. Naturally, I did not expect to solve on my first day what experienced researchers had struggled with for years. But in my previous laboratory I had too often been told that some difference was insignificant to accept such an explanation now without checking it myself.

"Especially since they have entire schools," Veiran added. "People I know have told me about mentors, exercises, sequences of techniques taught to different Blessed. Every student has a unique Aether pattern, yet they can learn the same actions. I very much want to understand what that training relies on: what exactly a student has to feel or do to achieve the desired result."

"It would help to obtain recordings of the lessons themselves first," Taren observed. "So far we usually hear what the best graduates achieved."

"We've seen lightning and firestorms ourselves, not just heard about them," Veiran objected. "And teleportation too! We teach a biotic to push an object, hold a barrier, or create a singularity, while they can move their own body from one point to another. Of course, very few can do it; it takes great power and years of training. But they do it, Taren, and I'm not satisfied with recording another observation without understanding how it's possible at all."

I realized I was no longer looking at him, but at the model left in front of me. Veiran might exaggerate when he spoke of Aiterri perfection, but I understood his fascination. Even part of an answer to the questions being asked here could change how we studied biotics.

"Rachni research began with the same enthusiasm," Helis said quietly. "Back then, people also thought new observations would finally let us understand the mechanism."

"And we still haven't explained how a queen controls her soldiers," Veiran replied. "So many good researchers gave the best years of their lives to that question, and now the work has almost stopped. It'll remain one of the mysteries of the millennium unless someone finds a new approach. I've read the latest reports: observations keep accumulating, but our understanding of the control mechanism itself barely advances."

He enlarged one of the Aiterri nodes again and studied it for a while.

"There was a time when I thought alien biology would have a hard time surprising me after the rachni. Then they brought me this examination. Now I'd at least like enough time to understand where to begin."

Veiran was still talking when Meros announced that the asari could be transferred to the medical section. Sarel asked how long remained until the next experiment and called up the apparatus's working schematic. I saved the numbers of the examinations that interested me so I could return to them later, and stepped away from the terminal.

"All right, enough philosophy. Gentlemen, we have work to do!" Veiran checked the time. "Meet back here in half an hour. Our valiant protectors should be bringing a Blessed to the apparatus right about then."

***

The days of research that followed passed at faster-than-light speed. We studied every biotic organism we could gain access to and barely kept up with the data we collected. The asari and the Blessed took up especially large amounts of time: the moment we resolved one question, several more appeared. I increasingly caught myself thinking about results over meals and returning to work earlier than I had planned.

Comparative biology was not our only work, however. Together with engineers, neurobiologists, and element zero physicists, our group was developing new implants for salarian biotics. The recordings gathered during the Embrace Eternity research proved extremely useful here. We were still far from reproducing the melding itself, but we already understood better how the load of a complex biotic effect was distributed among different regions of the brain.

Those data became the basis for a neural implant that helped distribute the load and detected dangerous changes in neural activity. With the previous model, a biotic could kill himself by attempting a technique that was too complex. Our device detected signs of an approaching failure and limited amplification before the overload had time to damage the brain. Naturally, the technique itself could still collapse, but at least the biotic remained alive for another attempt.

I liked knowing that I had contributed to the result. Before this, I had access only to examinations of salarian volunteers; here I could compare them against recordings of nervous system activity from other species. Access like that alone had been worth the time spent traveling.

But the most important development came in the second year of my indefinite stay on the station. I was brought into a new project as the lead specialist in comparative physiology of biotics. It sounded impressive, although in practice I was continuing to study the same thing that had interested me before: the effect of element zero on organisms of different species. The new appointment pleased me for another reason as well: my results had evidently been considered significant beyond our own group.

Veiran and I attended the closed seminar together. Researchers from several departments had gathered in a large conference room, and I studied my colleagues with curiosity. Some worked on subjects so far removed from my own that I still had no idea what problem could possibly require all of us at once.

The seminar was led by the dalatrass who directed the complex herself. Her presence alone made it clear that this was not an ordinary exchange of results. When the first projection appeared above the table, the conversations stopped.

"The preparation we will discuss today was derived from samples taken from one of the moons under study," she began. "Cavities containing liquid were discovered beneath the ice, close to deposits of element zero. High pressure and natural mass-effect fluctuations made sample recovery considerably more difficult. The discovery justified the expense."

I studied the image closely. The preparation contained element zero, but that fact alone hardly justified gathering so many specialists. What mattered far more was how the substance interacted with living tissue.

"At first, the preparation's effects were attributed to the unusual composition of local organisms," the dalatrass continued. "Then we discovered that the effect was caused by a virus. Apparently, a mutation had given it the ability to use element zero as part of its life cycle."

I leaned forward to see the projection better. A virus? We were used to studying complex nervous systems and looking for explanations of biotic abilities in their structure. Here, element zero was being used by something that had no nervous system at all. I immediately wanted to see the complete observation records. A discovery like this could prove useful even for the research that had brought me to the station in the first place.

Veiran was interested as well. He enlarged the image on his terminal and carefully read the notes appearing beside it.

"In the cases observed so far, the virus caused no noticeable harm," the dalatrass said. "Moreover, at high concentrations, a preparation containing it increased the survival rate of embryos exposed to element zero. So far the effect has been confirmed only in model organisms.* But I don't think I need to explain to biotics specialists why this has attracted our attention."

Of course it had! We spent enormous effort studying biotics after they had already developed, even though some of the problems arose long before birth. If we could understand what exactly helped an embryo survive, we might be able to increase the number of biotics born. Naturally, actual application in salarians was still far away, but the possibility itself was worth pursuing.

"This is an interesting and promising direction," the dalatrass continued, "but you have not been gathered here to increase the number of our biotics."

Instead of examination results, a map of krogan territories appeared above the table. I looked up from the records; I had not expected the subject to change so abruptly.

"In the hundred years since the end of the Rachni War, the krogan population has tripled. Their fertility is well known to all of you, and peaceful life in the new territories has allowed far more offspring to survive. For now, they are occupied with settling the clusters assigned to them. But I ask you to pay attention to what is being built there."

Markers for shipyards, mining facilities, and processing complexes appeared on the map. Images of ships were displayed beside them. Some were already krogan designs.

"At the end of the war, most of the transports carrying their armies belonged to other species. Now they are developing their own industry and shipbuilding. They are still far from fully supplying their own needs, but the direction of development is obvious. And it greatly concerns the Union leadership."

Veiran listened without much enthusiasm. He considered the krogan too shortsighted to build a state capable of threatening us. In his opinion, the Union as it existed now could destroy their civilization without much difficulty. Judging by my mentor's expression, the figures being shown had not changed that view.

I, however, was interested in the combination of population growth and the development of their own industry. Like many others, I had previously thought of the krogan primarily as soldiers.

For now, the krogan still depended on foreign ships and supplies. But they were building their own shipyards and factories, which meant that within a few centuries they might be able to supply and transport their armies themselves.

"If events develop unfavorably for us, then in a thousand years these territories will contain an enormous state with advanced industry and extremely great military power." The dalatrass placed particular emphasis on the word "extremely." "We cannot assume that the Union's current superiority will preserve itself. Therefore, in order to protect our citizens, we will develop a weapon against the krogan."

A thousand years was a span difficult to relate to one's own life. I could devote all my remaining years to this research and still never learn whether it had been needed. But the clan would continue after me; those who eventually took our places would use what we left behind. For the dalatrass, such a calculation was clearly no abstract exercise.

"We are interested in the possibility of limiting their reproduction," she clarified. "And this brings us back to another feature of the newly discovered virus."

The research results appeared before us again. This time, the dalatrass displayed images of hereditary material.

"Our biotic virus is capable of inserting its genetic material into the DNA of host cells, altering individual sequences. In some observed cases, changes were also found in the offspring. The next generation inherited something the parents had not possessed before infection."

It was becoming clearer why specialists from so many different departments had been assembled for the seminar. The virologists studied the new organism from their side; we would have to understand the unusual role played by element zero. And judging by what I had already seen, familiar explanations might not be enough.

"It is this property that we intend to use in the development of a genetic weapon," the dalatrass said. "I want to emphasize that this is the task you are expected to solve. At present, the virus can only insert itself randomly into the DNA of the worms we have studied. It causes them no noticeable harm, and we still cannot control the consequences of the change."

I looked at the results again. There was an enormous distance between these observations and an effect on krogan. But at least now there was something concrete to work with, and a clear reason to combine knowledge from several fields.

"The virus will become a priority direction, although many of you will also work on adjacent areas," she continued. "Veiran Des'sit, you will take charge of organizing the research."

My mentor nodded. I was glad I would be participating in the project with him. I had already grown used to his demands, and now they seemed far more understandable than they had during my first days on the station.

When the seminar ended, I was still reviewing the records that had caught my attention. My colleagues began to leave, and I took a sip of water.

"Naris Des'sit, stay. We need to discuss your new project."

I choked in surprise. The dalatrass waited for the others to leave while I ran through several guesses about what she intended to assign me. I have to admit, none of them seemed convincing. I had earned some reputation in my field, but that had not made me a virologist.

"I read your paper on Neitron," she said. "You presented the results in sufficient detail. Now I'm interested in your personal assessment. What do you think of the preparation?"

So that was what this was about! Neitron had interested me for a long time, even though I had never managed to understand its effects completely.

"If I did not know for certain that it was created in the Dominion, I would assume our best chemists and biologists had worked on it," I replied.

Flattering my own species at the expense of someone else's achievement would have been foolish in this case. The Aiterri had managed to increase the probability of Blessed births, and their preparation was used on the scale of an entire state. I would gladly have spent several years simply trying to understand how they had accomplished it. For us, a result like that would mean a great deal.

"You want me to develop a similar preparation for salarians?" I asked, no longer hiding my enthusiasm. "I'd be happy to-"

"No," the dalatrass cut me off sharply. "Other specialists have been working on that for a long time. I want you to create a virus that reduces the probability of Aiterri being born with the Gift to a negligible level."

I fell silent. A moment earlier, I had been imagining how I might continue studying Neitron and come closer to its creators, at least in understanding their work. Now the same knowledge was to be used to strip the Aiterri of their greatest advantage. Of all the assignments I had imagined, this was not one of them.

"You will receive separate funding and your own allocation of test subjects. You may begin research next week," the dalatrass continued.

It took me several moments to fully process what she had said. My own research direction and resources for a task assigned personally by the head of the complex. I still did not know where I would begin, but I already understood that my previous work had only been preparation for something far more difficult.

"Unfortunately, the project has been assigned the highest level of secrecy. Discussing it outside the research facilities is prohibited."

The dalatrass neglected to mention that we were expected to spend the rest of our lives on this station, with no right to leave it.

* Model organisms are species scientists use to study biological processes, such as worms, flies, or mice. Results obtained from them are then tested in other species.