“Weekly?” Janae gave her a skeptical look. “I’ll believe that when I see it.”
“I will! And you have to send me messages, too, even after I’m asleep.”
“Messages. To another galaxy.”
“Yes. I want to know all about the other Daughters, and the coolest missions you get to go on, and whether you ever get that Ariake Tech mod you’ve been saving up for, and whether you finally settle down with anybody…” Cora grinned.
Janae’s smile faltered. “You sure you want that, Cora? You might end up hearing all about how I died.”
That did sound… terrible. Cora looked away, troubled.
Janae sighed and patted her arm. “Think about it. But until you leave, write. And I’ll write, too.” Then she stepped back, deliberately. “Goddess keep you safe, my friend.”
“And you, Janae.”
It hurt to pull away. They both knew from experience that it was best to keep these things brief, make the cut quick… but it still felt like breaking another arm as Cora took a deep breath and walked up the shuttle’s ramp. Janae moved to where Cora could see her through the front viewport, as Cora sat down in the pilot’s chair and started working through the disembarkation sequence.
“I do appreciate you, Lieutenant,” SAM-E said, almost shyly.
Cora frowned at the apparent non sequitur, then remembered Janae’s warning: These people better appreciate you. The shuttle began to lift off. Cora held up a hand in farewell, and Janae kissed both hands and flung them back.
“That’s good, SAM-E,” she murmured. “I’m glad.” But she watched Janae until she was only a bright blue speck on the docking platform, eventually dwindling away to nothing.
CLASSIFIED: ALLIANCE SIENNA ALERT NOTICE INTERCEPTED PIRATE RADIO AD WITH DECRYPTED CORRESPONDENCE
Ad: Have you been to the Citadel lately? Illium? How does it feel to stand shaking while some alien looks down its noses at you, and says the word “human” like a curse?
Decoded: Our patron has ceased communications. Our mandate has been rescinded.
Ad: Do you know what Earth is becoming? A backwater. Do you care about that? Want to stop it? Want to make Earth better so that all of our kids, not just the ones in the shining, alien-funded Alliance nations, have a chance at the good life?
Decoded: All operatives; execute last orders. Then await further instruction.
Ad: Homeward Sol’s demands are simple: An end to extrasolar colonial expansion, divestment from alien business ventures and Prothean research, mandatory registration and isolation for the dangerously contaminated individuals called biotics, stricter controls on alien immigration. Put all that money back into this planet, for human purposes!
Decoded: Your dedication will be remembered. Your sacrifices will be honored.
Ad: HOMEWARD SOL: Humans, for humankind!
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
By the time Alec walked into the level-five gym of Theia Station, he was already pretty sure that Cora Harper was angry. It had been almost three months since her return from Tamayo, after all, and she’d spent much of it avoiding him, sending only a series of terse mission reports to let him know she was back.
Upon reading the reports, which had been full of words like “consultation” and “collateral damage,” he’d gotten his SAM to speak to her SAM-E—who had rather sheepishly explained that Cora actually meant “consultation with an angry information broker” and “collateral damage like having to pay for hotel repairs after an assassination” and needing a replacement for her lost Acolyte pistol, among other things.
At which point Alec had decided to leave Harper alone for a while. It was going to take her some time to get her body, and mind, rehabilitated. In the meantime, he made sure her SAM-E was getting Cora up to speed on everything she needed to know about the Initiative’s plans. In hindsight, it might’ve been better to give her that education before he’d sent her on a mission. But he’d needed to know she could adapt… work with whatever was given to her. And she’d proven more than capable.
Today, however, Alec had business to take care of—business for which he thought he might need the help of an extremely competent ex-marine and high-spiking biotic. So after checking the station map and determining that Harper wasn’t in the quarters she’d been assigned since returning to Theia, he followed her employee ID trail to the gym.
The level-five gym was supposed to be only for senior staff of the Initiative—science team leads, Pathfinder team members, investors when they visited. It was small as a result, and not used as often as it should have been. Alec tended to do basic PT in his own quarters, or via daily jogs through the station before first shift. Wei Udensi had said something about there being a nice biotiball simulator somewhere in the station, and a lot of people apparently used that. Thus it was no surprise when he found the gym empty, except for Harper.
She’d taken advantage of the solitude to shove some of the equipment out of her way—possibly with biotics, since it was heavy—and bare a wide circle on the floor mats. At first Alec thought she might be performing some kind of martial arts kata, repeating movements and forms for practice as well as fitness. If so, however, it was no martial art he’d ever seen before… or was it? As he stopped, folding his arms and trying to parse the niggling familiarity of her movements, Harper spun in place and dropped to her knees, then arched back further in a painful-looking contortion.
She planted her arms and shoulders on the floor, then, and—from a kneeling position, astoundingly—slowly unfolded her lower half, scissoring her legs straight and exhaling as she lifted them into a kind of hovering backwards plank. She held this for several seconds, a quick, brief glimmer limning her legs and feet; easy enough to see that the same move performed quickly and with biotic force behind it would make for a deadly double-footed kick. But Alec’s abdominal muscles ached in sympathy.
An instant later, Harper whipped herself around into a forward plank, so fast that Alec realized she could perform the moves quickly, and probably did so in combat. Now she drew her knees under herself and uncurled her torso, adding a series of graceful hand moves—which were so familiar that Alec narrowed his eyes in sudden recognition. It couldn’t be. But then Cora flung a biotic-limned heel-of-hand thrust toward the ceiling, throwing her head back in apparent abandon and actual concentration, and that was the confirmation.
“You’re kidding,” Alec blurted. Harper started violently, flashing to her feet in a low, defensive posture, and belatedly Alec remembered that she was probably a little hair-triggered after Quiet Eddy. Luckily she hadn’t warped his head off. “Uh, sorry,” he said, as she visibly made herself relax. “I was just surprised. Asari dancing is actually a martial art?”
Harper shook her head, clearly annoyed at the interruption, though she straightened and went over to a cabinet for a towel. “What, you think asari put up with horny interspecies droolers just for money?” She scrubbed her face and exhaled. “It’s no different from capoeira or tai chi. Lots of human martial arts double as dance or meditation.”
“Point taken.” And it put some things he’d noticed in asari-managed clubs into new perspective. “Huh. Leave it to the asari to hide their bouncers in their dancers, so to speak.”
Harper nodded. “‘This, then, is a resonant truth of the universe: What is most beautiful is often most deadly.’”
“What?”
“Light From the Shadows. Chapter one, tranto seventy-two, pinchesa four. A martial philosophy manual some commando units require their maidens to read—like, their version of The Art of War. It’s also given to humans who decide to join asari commando units.” Harper completed a movement as she said it.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Alec said. “Not that I’m much of a club-goer, anymore.”
Harper eyed him sidelong. Sizing him up again, he suspected, and maybe trying to reconcile the reality of him with the opinions she’d formed while chasing down his illegal AI tech. “Were you ever?”
“Some. Back
when I first joined the military. For a while after Grissom’s first relay run, I needed those shore leaves.” He sighed. “The dancers weren’t asari back then, of course.”
“And now?”
Alec lifted his left hand and waggled the ring on it. “Now, I’m a married man.”
Harper’s expressions didn’t change much, he noticed. She maintained an air of coolness that might have come of extended time among judgmental aliens, or maybe it was something she’d picked up from the asari. He could tell by the way her gaze flickered, though, that she’d read his dossier, where his wife was listed as deceased. She said only, “Lucky woman.”
Alec chuckled around the tightness in his chest. “Not really. I was, uh…” He shrugged. “Not the best husband. Not the best father. Got better, some.”
Harper sat down, folding one arm into another to stretch out the shoulder. “Wouldn’t have figured you for the club-hopping type ever, really. You know. Scientist inventor and all.”
“I was a kid. In over my head—none of us knew what the hell we were doing on Grissom’s crew, we were just excited to be doing it. Except every once in a while when it would get overwhelming and… well, a drink helped, back then. And the clubs got me laid, back when I was young and dumb enough to think quantity mattered more than quality. Ellen broke me out of that quick.”
Harper laughed a little, and he guessed by this that she’d gone through her own “quantity over quality” phase. Most young marines did, though Harper seemed more standoffish than most. Then she sobered, and the unspoken tension he’d sensed hovering about her suddenly crystallized.
“Tell me again why we’re doing this,” she said.
“This?”
She waved a hand. The room. Theia Station. The Initiative.
“Ah.” Folding his arms, Alec leaned against a pommel horse. “Stop thinking about the galaxy, then, if that part isn’t speaking to you. Think about humanity.”
“What about us?”
Alec shrugged. “We’re weak, you know. Mediocre, by the standards of the Milky Way. You’ve seen the same thing I’ve seen: The asari have a ten-thousand-year head start on us, probably more, and there’s no way we can catch up… here. In another galaxy, though? With a fresh start? We have a chance.”
“Another galaxy isn’t a fresh start, though. There will be people there already, who we’ll have to interact with. What if we end up mediocre by their standards, too?”
“Then we do. But I don’t think we will.” Alec started to pace; he couldn’t quite help himself. “Here, we’re hampered by tradition, stuck trying to fit into a system that’s already biased against us. Like… nobody thinks there’s any way for organics and synthetics to get along just because it’s never happened before. Nobody’s willing to try. But I’m trying—and if the Pathfinder program succeeds, if each of the races traveling to Andromeda is able to establish a foothold and develop a thriving colony there, it will be the proof-of-concept that the Simulated Adaptive Matrices need. Proof that SAM can get along with us, and help us, and vice versa.
“And AI is the advantage humanity needs,” he continued. “I’m sure of it. We aren’t as strong as the krogan—but we could be, with AI. We’re not as smart as the salarians—but we could be, with AI. SAM might even be able to extend my life well past the hundred-and-fifty-year average that’s standard for humanity now. He can keep me healthy, too, for most of that. If—”
He cut himself off, realizing he’d been about to say If every human in Andromeda has a SAM. No, that wasn’t something Harper was ready to hear. She was doing well so far, accepting the idea of relying on an AI and even, to gauge by SAM-E’s reports, starting to bond with hers. But the idea of taking a quantum leap of evolution into a new posthuman reality? That was a scary thought. It was scary even for him.
So Alec tried a different tack. “Look. Just… Just think about what it will be like to live in a civilization that’s built around what humanity is now. Currently, that isn’t what we’ve got. We’re still too much of who we used to be. Here, we’re a society of barely technological apes that only three centuries ago was using telegraphs and smoke signals to communicate. Interstellar travel? Quantum entanglement? We’ve managed to incorporate these things into our society, but we’re bad at it. We’re like… like software that got rushed out before it was ready, and that wasn’t properly designed to begin with. We can add on all the patches we want, and maybe they’ll work, but wouldn’t it be better to have done it correctly from the get-go?”
Harper’s expression had turned skeptical. He was losing her. Okay, something she cared about. “Think about a society built around biotics.”
She blinked. Ah, that had gotten her attention. “Like Thessia?”
“Like Thessia. But us. Think about schools that offer biotics training as a matter of course. Maybe as an elective at first, but still part of the standard curriculum.” He’d read Harper’s dossier. She’d been home schooled aboard her parents’ freighter, and had been forced to join the Alliance to get training for her biotics. Would she have left, though, if she’d had a choice? “Biotic distance learning modules; train yourself at home.”
Harper slid a flat sidelong look at him, which he read as I see what you’re doing. Still, she said, “There aren’t enough biotics for that kind of thing to be cost-effective.”
There will be, if every human has a SAM. Alec decided not to say that, pending a chance to analyze the data from Harper’s experimental unit. If he couldn’t solve the transfer decay problem… Later. “More biotics are being born every day,” he said, “even here in the Milky Way. Until we stop using eezo, biotics might be a minority, but they’re still normal for us. Hell, that’s half our problem now: we’re not willing to admit that the definition of ‘normal humanity’ has changed. We keep fighting to preserve a reality that’s already long gone, and maybe never existed in the first place.”
Harper had begun to pace, slowly. Listening. Alec pressed his case. “So think about a society built around a new normal. Where aliens aren’t the enemy, just the species next door. Where biotics can be more than human weapons—artists, maybe. Where we’re not still bogged down with the old nationalism and classism and—” He sighed in frustration. “Do you really need me to keep talking, or is any of this working for you?”
Harper sat down against the wall of the gym, then propped her elbows on her knees. “It’s working.” She tilted him a narrow-eyed look. “You really believe all that’s possible? It’s not just bullshit?”
Alec pressed his lips together and went over to a holo screen on the wall of the gym. It was just a dumb terminal, entertainment-only, but he linked his omni-tool to it and said, “SAM, show the preliminary curriculum that’s been designed for the first human children born in Andromeda.”
“Of course, Pathfinder,” SAM said, speaking through the room’s PA as well as to Alec. Alec saw Harper blink at the slightly different tone and accent of his SAM compared to her own. Then text and modules began to appear in the air above the terminal.
Harper got up and came over. “You actually planned out the schools?”
“If there’s one thing we can count on, it’s that human beings will start screwing, the instant they’re out of cryo,” Alec said, wryly. “Accidents happen. Bad planning happens. We need to be ready.” Then he stopped the scroll of modules, and tapped one, which moved to the center and enlarged. BIOTIC ADAPTATION AND CONTROL, it read.
She inhaled, and for the first time since he’d met her, there was something like wonder on Cora Harper’s face.
“SAM, send the selected file to Lieutenant Harper, please, so she can read it and offer suggestions as she sees fit.” Alec then wiped the display and turned to face her. “So what brought this on?”
A muscle in Harper’s jaw flexed. She said, “I don’t have a lot of ties, here, but I do have some. I just… needed to know whether this—” She gestured again, the Initiative. “—was worth it. Losing those ties.” And then she looked up, and
Alec found himself drawing back just a little at the intensity of her gaze. “Is it?”
Alec raised his eyebrows, taken aback. What a question. But… he frowned. An impulse had come upon him, and while he wasn’t normally the impulsive type—Ellen had always said he couldn’t take a dump without a plan—he’d learned to trust his instincts over the years.
So he pushed away from the wall, and signaled SAM about his intentions. “Come with me.”
Her eyes narrowed, but she straightened and followed.
He led her out of the gym and through the paramilitary unit level, past rooms of troops drilling for rapid response and rescue, or sitting through weapons-modding lectures. In the corridors, others lounged around chatting about whether Del from Human Resources had gotten over being mad at Par from Armory for something Par did in bed. Harper seemed to relax a little as they passed through here, which made sense; she’d spent most of her adult life among soldiers. HR had actually tried to steer Harper toward one of these teams, when Alec had first broached the idea of recruiting her. Grabby bastards. She was right where he needed her to be… if she chose to stay.
Because that was what all Harper’s questions meant right now, Alec understood. She’d done the job for him, hunting down his stolen AI tech and probably preventing it from ending up on some damned extranet forum, and saving twenty lives along the way. That wasn’t enough for her, though. Harper would never be the type who just wanted a job. She needed a calling—and Ryder had one to offer her.
All she had to do was accept it.
If this doesn’t work, he thought, nothing will.
The shuttle was the same one Harper had taken to Quiet Eddy and Tamayo. Harper settled on the crash couch while Alec used his own SAM to pilot. She looked relaxed, but her expression was closed. It made him uncomfortable that she didn’t break the silence, though that had also been noted in her dossier. Growing up on a spaceship, with no one but her parents to interact with, hadn’t exactly predisposed her to sociability. He was just going to have to get used to it.