Menae, half-full

Do not apply more than two coats to the same area. Covering the designated area in a single stroke is optimal in practice.

The stripes over his cheekbones were too thin, but he dared not paint over them a third time. They would become thick and matte, like the ruined pattern over his left ear. A stifling coat that ill suited the texture of his youthful, scarless plates. 

Saren leaned back and crossed his arms, inspecting his handiwork. 

“It’s the best I could do,” he admitted after a pause.

Nihlus grinned. “Paint me surprised, Saren. Didn’t know you had the theory, if not the practice.”

Saren flicked a mandible. “The theory was taught. At least on Palaven.”

“Now I just have to hope you didn’t really paint arches on my brows,” Nihlus chattered, blissfully ignorant of the state of his colours. “Doesn’t matter if you did, though. At least it’d set me apart from the Councillor. You wouldn’t believe how often I get called by that title, walking around the Presidium under broad daylight. You’d think they would’ve learned by now, a millennium after first contact, but I still can’t wear a blue shirt without being accosted by at least three times more reporters than normal.”

“Only an alien would make that mistake.”

“Yes, but a turian could assume I --” he gestured around his face, as if to smear the pattern into an amorphous mass “-- represent any of this. But they’d be wrong. These colours have always been my own. And today, mine with your help.”

Saren tucked his chin into his folded hands. The leftover paint was drying in the well. He should wash it. And the brush.

“I know you get different sorts of trouble,” Nihlus added pensively. “Maybe it’s worse.”

He lifted his eyes. “Hm?”

“They mention it often, how similar you look.”

He should wash the brush before they both forget, and it dries out overnight. A replacement would be several days away, and Nihlus would want touch-ups of his own in the interim. If not tonight, then certainly in the morning.

“A factual statement.”

“You don’t mind the comparison?”

He picked up the slender brush and dragged it over his fingertip, leaving an uneven trail across pale skin. It stung. It would sting less on the thick plates of his face, but he had never experimented, never worn such a disguise, never unsealed that bottle in the back of his box of keepsakes. There could be no comparison. Saren was only a Spectre. 

The screens in the cockpit flickered like the flames in his memory, but without warmth. That came courtesy of the vents on the ceiling, roaring in overtime. A yellow ribbon fluttered in the stream. The thermochromic fabric had turned white at the knot, his favourite litmus test for the temperature of home. A pleasant 310K, long attached to a bill he couldn’t afford. He put his feet up on the console. And now? Who’s got the last hearth now?

A syringe fell beneath his chair. He picked it up. It was capped in red plastic. 

“Hey,” he said, “catch.” 

Saren caught it without looking, and tucked it away in a pocket.

Nihlus leaned back into the cushioning. “How’d she treat you? Good? Put her through her paces against the Zero Regrets? I’m gonna dock at the Citadel in a few days. If there’s a single scratch on her, you’d best be having some regrets, then. Expensive ones.”

“She performed admirably. As was expected of a seventh-generation Venthalus-class.” Saren took the syringe out again and rolled it between his fingers. His hands were steady, Nihlus noted. The self-correcting paths of the diverted comsats rippled across his silver fringe. “Even one whose torpedo bays haven’t been inspected in--”

“Come on,” Nihlus chuckled.

Saren turned around, pinning him with an icy glare. “You should keep yourself in better shape, at least.”

“What?”

Briefly, Saren’s eyes flicked to his brow. Painted a damning line down his chin. Nihlus traced the path with his own palm, warm and damp from the shower, and unsteady from the stims. Didn’t know if it was a blessing or a curse to have no tolerance for that stuff. Probably a blessing. Helped him stay sharp. And besides, nanobots inside his bloodstream sounded like an awful, awful idea, especially after the last forty hours.

“I will,” Nihlus replied. “Once, you know.” His talons clicked against his cheekbone, providing involuntary punctuation.

Saren sighed. Nihlus splayed his mandibles, and added: “Why don’t you help me?”

The syringe stopped spinning. The label was stuck warning-side up, framed by long fingers in a white glove. Not to exceed 2 doses in a 20-hour timeframe.

Saren looked at him then; really looked at him, the intensity of his gaze betraying all the admonishments he’d tossed aside: shouldn’t have helped the rescue crew, didn’t need you for triage, the fires will burn out on their own. Nihlus knew them like the insides of the torpedo bays, which didn’t fucking need an inspection every three weeks. Really. He smirked. Three weeks! If only. What he’d give to see him every three weeks! He’d give his ship and his stash and -- and more, to see him, to be with him, to hear him say --

“May I?” Saren’s hands were still steady but his subharmonics trembled like paper, like the little yellow ribbon tied to the air vent. 

Which was fine, because he didn’t need his voice to paint Nihlus’s face. 

Nihlus shrugged with one shoulder. “That’s what I’m asking, yeah.”

Saren stumbled gracefully out of his seat, casting a looming shadow in the tiny room. Nihlus narrowed his eyes. Stumbled gracefully, ha. What a paradox. He’s about the only turian Nihlus knew who could move like that, even after exceeding recommended doses several times over. Each step is a drumbeat, thunder trapped in a bottle. Saren crouched beside his armrest and laid a hand on his shoulder. 

“Is it? You don’t use stencils.”

“And you’ve never done this before.” Nihlus smiled. “Just a lucky guess.”

Saren pressed his cheek against his own. Both their faces were burning hot. 

Saren set the pointed steel tweezers aside. He picked up a can of DFE and tossed it lightly, testing its weight. “Need some adjustments. Get me another can, Nihlus. Second row, fifth bin from the left.”

Aside from the tweezers, there were an assortment of screwdrivers and little flat knives resting in the gullies surrounding the antistatic mat. Nihlus stopped by the far end of the bench and leaned over, studying the amps. They were unblemished. Newer than others he’d seen, including the ones Saren kept in the red box, but that was all he could tell. There were two smooth bumps, or contact nodes, at the end of each amp; the rest of the metal was matte, including the familiar latches that would adhere to the waterproof seals. The metal was faintly teal in colour. He wanted to turn them over, but Saren’s eyes flashed a bright warning in the fluorescent light. 

“Ever since you showed me that Deccretion Disk, I’ve been reading about biotics,” he said, retracting his hand. He crossed his legs under the table, putting a bit more weight on his folded arms. Nice and casual. I mean confident. Ah, fuck it. Left mandible twitching, he studied Saren’s expression. It was blank, but strained. Not in a bad way. 

“Have you,” Saren muttered.

“Yeah. The asari are the experts when it comes to making amps -- big surprise there -- but I read it’s specifically the Serrice Council that’s considered the industry leader. Has been for three centuries. The Armali Council and the Zhirian Collective are the runner-ups. They’ve got products for practically all races, but they aren’t cheap, and they’re choosy about their clients.” He skewed his brows. “Bet Spectre privileges come in handy there.”

“They might.” Saren was distracted, untangling the wires on a voltmeter. Weird. Nihlus swore he’d folded those properly when he’d put it away a couple of days ago. 

“I’ll wager the salarians must be close behind, even though they haven’t gone public with any of their work. The krogan are the best evidence. Models developed for krogan shock troops back during the Rachni Wars are still in use in the hinterlands, so imagine what they’re doing for their own operatives back home. Gotta give the asari a run for their money.

“And the Hierarchy… The Hierarchy isn’t the most transparent about this. Even less than the salarians, if you can imagine. But I do know that Armax has a basic line, probably a separate experimental one, too, that’s limited to troops on active duty. Osanus Group and Lantiirix Medical partner with the Cabals. Must be a few other state-owned companies out there who want to keep a low profile. Would you happen to know them?”

Saren gave a noncommittal harrumph. “Have you seen the rubber ties for these?”

“They’re grey, right?” Nihlus rubbed the back of his head. Play it cool. “Same as the bench. And most of the floor. Look,” he added quickly, ducking out of the way of a metaphorical bullet, “just tie the ends around the whole bunch. No fiddling with the tiny-ass button, saves mass…”

Clank. 

The gas-duster can was set before him. He picked it up, stuffed it inside the dirty water filter, and sighed. “I’ll get you another. I wanted to see what make your amp was, all right? But it’s none of the ones I know. Definitely not asari.”

“You can tell?” Saren asked, sounding genuinely curious.

“Yeah. I’ve flipped through a lot of catalogues recently. I’m not surprised, really. Every mercenary I know swears by their personal supplier, usually some license-less fixer out in the Traverse running their business out of a freighter. I heard there’re a lot of geniuses out there, and just as many crooks. Still, that’s how they like it.” He glanced at Saren’s amps again, then at his face. Their eyes did not meet. “Not that I’m suggesting yours are illicit, but…”

“Spectre privileges can extend to many areas.”

“Basically.”

“Were these mercenaries turian?”

“No -- mostly. First biotics I remember seeing were a pair of asari maidens, waiting outside the door while my dad grabbed an omni and a drink from our prefab. I was six, I think. I never spoke with them, but my dad talked about them a lot after the job was done. It was a hit on a sand shipment; the competition wanted their own people on the squad. He complained about ‘the xenos’ taking a big cut of the payout, but still praised them for ‘nice supportive waists’.” Nihus shook his head. “Back then, I didn’t even know what that meant.

“But I’ve met a turian, just the one. At a bar on Invictus, in fact. He said he used to be in the Cabals, but he quit as soon as his service was up. I didn’t know mandatory service lasted six years longer for biotics. No waivers. Considering everything, it seems unfair.”

Saren was looking at him. Nihlus scrutinised the inscrutable. Not anger, definitely not anger. Exhaustion?

“The Cabals are the only branch where soldiers are admitted by birth, not by merit,” Saren said at last. He nudged the twin leads with the back of his hand, pushing them parallel to one another.

His tone was strange. Mechanical, yet unsteady somehow. Familiar, like an echo of Nihlus himself. Nihlus stood up, arms folded, legs straight, and loudly cleared his throat. “Pardon me, sir, but that’s a load of crap.” 

There was another long pause. Nihlus didn’t so much as shuffle his feet.

He shouldered his pack, pulling the straps tight around his cowl, and checked behind him one last time. His ship was hidden beneath a giant sheet of camo-cloth. Careful observers would never be fooled; even without the ragged holes, the cloth was only a pale imitation of the surrounding alien landscape, so bright and beautiful it made him want to burst into song. He was panting from creatively tying the cloth around every fin and strut of the excessively angular vessel, but one look at the rosy skyline reinvigorated him, filled his chest with awe, and massively improved the quality of his recycled oxygen.

The grass in the valley below was orange; in the setting suns, it transformed into a sea of fire that extended to the horizon. When the wind rustled through the broad valley, streaks of cyan materialised in that sea like gentle waves; evidently, the hidden stalks were that brilliant blue. The mountains ahead started off gently, but soon rose into vertical ochre cliffs, almost three hundred metres in height, topped by ring-shaped formations that stuck out over the edge. The sculpted remnants of some undersea eruption, maybe? Or erosion around meteorite cores? He scratched the gravel with his hiking staff, wondering if he’d stumble upon any clues.

“It’s been two centuries since its discovery, with remarkably few incidents of this nature,” Saren said as he passed by. Nihlus felt the scrutinising glare, and shrugged it off like dust.

There were grasses growing here, as well, though their leaves were broader, smaller. Little clusters of stout red plants, strongly reminiscent of Northern Palavenian night-flowers, sprouted in perfect rings. A stubby, brownish-grey plant with white blooms spilled out from the cracks of boulders. Every five metres or so, there was a tuft of pearly stalks, each bearing an iridescent ball, rising from the earth. They bumped against one another in the breeze, producing a sound like that of windchimes. 

Nihlus knelt by one such clump. Each ball was the size of an old-school gambling chip. They were covered in a mesmerising array of tiny scales, hard to the touch, and topped by a reflective, gelatin-like bead. The stalks were surprisingly tough; he had to saw through them with his combat talons. He raised his little bouquet against the light. They’d make a wonderful dried arrangement. Now, if he could find a ribbon...

“By the way,” Saren called from a distance, “a salarian research team published a paper about those just last week. They called them lakas. They’re sentient.”

Nihlus stabbed his staff into the dirt as he came to a stumbling halt, the bleeding stalks still clutched in his fist. "What?"

“They are the reproductive organs of ground-dwelling fauna.”

He scanned Saren’s impassive mask. Saren tilted his head towards the peak.

“You’re a precocious thing, but you should listen to her,” the man said. “Patience is key, remember.”

“The recommended exercises are all on the handbook,” the woman said gently, pocketing her instrument so she could clasp Saren’s hand in both her own. The scales on her right thumb were a different colour from the rest. “I’ve updated the community caretakers and systems with your new access level. Be a good soldier. Don’t make me revoke it.” She winked.

“I won’t.” Saren hesitated, and slowly winked back.

The door started to close. Desolas kicked it, forcing it to retract properly. All three people in the room turned to him.

“Who are you?” He asked, though he knew the answer. 

The man tapped a shiny card on his chest. “I’m Dr. Triden from C5 Arcology General Hospital, and this is--”

“I know, but you’re early.” His mandibles clacked.

The man and woman looked at each other. “Yes, traffic was light today,” the doctor said.

“We’ll be out of your fringe in just a moment.” The officer activated her omni-tool and began to type. She must have had implants that let her use the haptic interface without gloves. Saren was staring at her fingers, as if trying to see where the incisions had been made. For a moment, Desolas also tried to find them, tilting his head to see past the broad-shouldered doctor. He pulled back quickly. It was a standard procedure. He could look it up on the extranet, later.

The doctor hummed as he packed up his machine, secreting the vial somewhere deep in its innards. He folded up a stool he had been ignoring, and gestured for the officer’s seat. She passed it to him by the handle, sliding to a crouch in a single fluid motion, still engrossed in her screen. Saren tried to sneak a peek. The officer raised an exaggerated brow, and he shrank back.

When the doctor stood to clip the stools to an aluminum frame, he paused. The single beam of sunlight seemed to ignite the sterile white plastic in his hands. He turned to Desolas, squinting, and asked: “Why don’t you come in, then?”

Desolas kicked the door again, smiling apologetically -- or so he hoped. “I’m fine holding the door. Don’t rush on my behalf.”

It took both people to lift the machine in its cradle. He could almost see the nylon rope emerging from the padded handles stretch and fray, melting in the afternoon heat of late spring. As the doctor passed by, he transferred the weight to one hand and tapped the sigil on Desolas’s shoulder. “Five bars already? The future’s looking bright.”

“Yes,” he answered stiffly, caught unawares. “Seems that way.”

“The legions will be glad to have you, especially out there near the Traverse. See if you can sign on to one. Standards are high, but they won’t say no. You’ll both make great contributions to the Hierarchy.” The doctor patted the machine. “I have it on good authority.”

“What he means,” the officer said as she followed him out, “is to not worry. The Cabals can be generous with opportunities.”

“Thank you,” he said, and locked the door behind them. He dropped his shopping bag on the ground. 

Saren spun on his toes, staring at the shrink-wrapped sausages rolling across the floor, his tiny mandibles pinched to his jaw. “I can’t come over. I’m not supposed to move too much for the next eight minutes.”

“You said it yourself: it wasn’t a dream. I shouldn’t keep you,” Athusia replied after another long pause. The chair swivelled to the left as he stood. “I should return to my work.”

Saren picked up the datapad. It displayed a casual email exchange between Athusia and one of the physicists, Dr. Fono, concerning precautions the away team should take in order to shield themselves from the ill-understood radiation issuing from the dormant spaceship. A far cry from the horrors the neurologist had detailed not a half-hour earlier: the desolate battlefields; the wild beasts with a thousand snouts that stalked the crew through empty warehouses; the vacuum of space, the sheen of ice forming over swelling eyeballs; and the turian crewmembers’ own ancestral fears. But the EEGs showed only half the story, he’d said. If the spirits knew the other half, they weren’t telling.

“Explain it as if it were a dream.”

Athusia stopped, his back turned. Frozen as if one of the beasts he’d described from memory had caught his scent. “Psychoanalysis is an obsolete discipline, and I’m unfamiliar with its tenets. I can’t explain it any more than you can.”

“Explain it as a turian, then.”

“The dead stir.” Athusia’s left mandible lifted in a humourless grin. “Ill fortune shall soon befall this land. I think that’s right, that’s what they said. From that Fantasy promo two years ago.”

Saren leaned back in his chair. “Perhaps not too far off the mark.”

Athusia turned halfway around. “Is it?” He began to pace the measured steps of a man often confined to small offices, setting one foot only slightly ahead of the other. “So not all of it is coincidence? You’re right, it’s too unlikely. But I’m even less versed in mythology; spent my history classes dozing, I’m afraid. In my opinion, they dawdled on the ramifications of fiat currency for far too long.

“I’ve had many nightmares, just like the others. Used to get them every so often after studying troubled cases, but not every night.” He glanced at the ancient atomic clock Saren kept on a shelf. “That’s why I’m starting to believe there’s a cause, I guess, like a feedback loop. Like the unavenged have come to lay their claim on the living. That’s how the game adapted the story.”

“A video game is the source of all you know about our mythology?”

“Well, yes. But I didn’t think pre-spaceflight era tales would be relevant.” He caught Saren’s expression. “Are they?”

Saren offered him the datapad back. He took it hesitantly, and did not retract his arm when Saren let go of his end.

“Are they?” Athusia asked, more urgently.

Saren took his measure. His suppressed undertones, the movement of his throat, the tightness with which he pressed his mandibles to his jaw. How his nose twitched, how the reflections in his eyes shone brighter. 

“No,” Saren replied. “But the themes therein might be. In those days, our unwieldy, terrestrial armies warred against one another, committing countless atrocities. Cities were levelled, people were massacred, and entire cultures were wiped from the face of Palaven. The Unification War was simply our ancient conflicts writ large, across a dozen worlds. Yet the war did end; far more quickly, too, with far less bloodshed. The tales are a lesson. Even on the darkest of nights, our ancestors would light a spark to guide us.”

“When you fight for the Hierarchy, the Hierarchy fights with you,” Athusia recited. “Isn’t it all propaganda? Unless you’re implying--”

Saren shook his head. “Dr. Zol’Rafa and the other quarians would never obtain the clearance for a Hierarchy operation of such a sensitive nature.” 

“I don’t see how this constitutes a spark, but taking the long view on how far we’ve come does help, I suppose.”

After the neurologist had left, Saren remained at his desk and tried to concentrate on the quarians’ voluminous report. None of it boded well. The Hierarchy, with its rigid bureaucracy and comforting familiarity all wrapped into a flamboyant collection of medals tucked away in a crevice on his ship, had never felt so distant. Perhaps when Trebia itself grew cold, there would be another to light a spark. Billions of years hence, an echo of their fabled hope. 

Right on schedule, Saren peeks out from the bedroom, his unblinking eyes pointing from the empty flask, to the plate of gnawed ribs in front of Nihlus, to the six small dishes (and one soup, all proper and shit) laid out for him. Nihlus doesn’t wait for him to begin an interrogation. He spears a cube of the hitherto untouched blue pudding on his talon and slurps it down, raising a browplate at Saren’s frown. “Why don’t you come sit and eat so my hard work doesn’t go to waste? I had to take all this from the deliverybot and put it in bowls all by myself, you know.”

Saren drops into his seat with a grunt. “You turned up the heating.”

“Yeah, because I was freezing my ass off last night. Don’t make that face, I know you can afford it. Heck, you can probably afford to burn this building down and build a new one, legal fees and all.” He looks out at the storm. “You’d be doing this place a favour. I can’t believe there are people who want to live on Noveria.”

“The volus, as a species, are well-suited for these conditions. Krogan, of course, thrive here as they would almost anywhere else. What remains of their culture drives them to extremes.”

Nihlus flicks a mandible. “I mean you, specifically.”

“Only here for business,” Saren says, carefully peeling off a single layer of the hundred-layer loaf and dipping it in an elaborate concoction of ground spices. Nihlus follows suit, except he grabs a good quarter of the thing and rolls it around in the spice, making sure to give the ends a thick coat. Saren begins to sift out conglomerated chunks from the powder, setting them with the bones. Nihlus shrugs. Hey, at least he’d used a fork this time. 

“Business requires you to live in a refrigerator?”

“The cold keeps me awake when the paperwork grows dull.” Saren offers him the soup; Nihlus refuses. “I should have changed the settings after you arrived.”

“Does it help you sleep, too?”

Saren looks at him over the rim of the bowl. A whiff of steam obscures his eye. “At times, yes.”

“How does that work, exactly?”

“It’s a habit. After I finally resolved the Virial’s heat dissipation issues, her HVAC system began to act up. Competent mechanics have eluded me.” Saren takes another long sip. “I know you don’t like satusan leaves, but this was a good choice. Thank you.”

It came as a set meal, but Nihlus had picked that particular set from a menu of dozens, so he feels justified to beam with pride before setting his mandibles at a more serious angle. “I think you might need medication more than a mechanic. Spirits know there are enough doctors on Noveria, crooked or not.”

“‘Crooked’ is euphemistic, extremely so, in ways I’d rather not discuss over breakfast.”

Or ever, really. But Nihlus shrugs and reaches for the loaf again. It’s mechanically prepared, has to be; they’d never turn a profit otherwise. It’s also the reason he’d picked this set over the others. Saren had cooked it for him once, cutting a small chunk of meat into dozens of paper-thin slices with a wicked silver knife. Not long after, Nihlus had bought the same trio of knives for himself, though it had ended up collecting dust at the bottom of a drawer, only opened on one memorable occasion for some impromptu surgery.

This restaurant’s offering pales in comparison to those he’d sampled on Tenebrae, and is not even in the same star system as what Saren had made. Still, he shortens the stack, five slices at a time.

Saren watches him eat, his expression blank. The soup bowl is empty, but the other dishes are practically untouched. The blue pudding wobbles as Nihlus takes a second cube. Saren seems fascinated by it, though he soon shakes his head and makes to stand. Nihlus pulls him down by the sleeve.

“I have messages at the console,” Saren snaps. “And need to find a matching shirt,” he adds more gently.

Nihlus raises his hands in mock surrender. “Nothing that can’t wait, right? Besides, all your shirts are grey.” Saren pointedly lays his wrist on his thigh to illustrate the difference, and Nihlus sighs. “It’s an expression. All cats are… Oh, never mind. I just want to talk for a bit longer.”

Saren scowls and the little voice inside his head, who can really be a fucking coward sometimes, mutters: this is how the hotshot Spectre’s life ends, with his mouth full of pudding. Nihlus swallows the food, stuffs the voice down the same pipe, and meets Saren’s eyes. The look is venomous, but it bears no fangs. 

“Have you heard about Avitus?”

“Avitus Rix?” 

Nihlus nods. 

“No. What about him?”

“He’s planning to retire. Gonna get out before he hits his limits, or so he says.”

Saren snorts. “He won’t.” 

Listen to those undertones, Kryik, and understand precisely why you should shut up and count your blessings. Won’t even consider it for someone else, never mind himself. In fact, when you wrangled him into civvies -- Nihlus frowns, his stomach fluttering. The voice is drowned, though it’s trying to claw its way back up. “Don’t be so sure. Look at you. You’re more of a businessman these days.”

“I have found my limits.”

“You have? And what’re you going to tell me next, that your plan is to become a broker? A venture capitalist, even?” He chuckles. “Or that you really like Noveria’s weather, and that the alpine regions aren’t so bad during the summer. That you want to settle down here, adopt a couple of baby krogan. Don’t lie to me.”

“That’s a vast misinterpretation.”

“Enlighten me, then. What’s the retirement plan?”

Saren looks at him like he’s a modern sculpture, the one in that Thessian gallery that’s just a solid block of granite. Very dense granite. “The Council and related authorities decide when--”

“The Council,” Nihlus interrupts, “spent three days on an agricultural tax bill for some asari colony, added hundreds of amendments, and just left it on the table for next month. Pardon me when I say that they shouldn’t be the arbiters of our lives.”

“I see you’ve acquired an interest in Citadel governance. Recent?”

“Reluctant. Has its own charms, but best appreciated when I’m no longer slogging through Omega on their behalf, I’m sure.”

“Politics won’t suit you. Perhaps you should revisit the works of those elcor poets you praised not long ago. Your voice brings them to life.”

“Are you saying that I should do poetry readings at local dives for a living? Do they even have those on Noveria? I didn’t think so. It’s all so… modern. Clean and corporate. It stinks here, Saren.” Saren hums his assent. “If you’re trying to correct things, if you think they’re better than the slavers in the Traverse -- well, that may be, but the roots of all evil are the same, aren’t they? It seems futile. And besides, every adoption agency’s going to take one look at your face and hide their babies, krogan or no.”

“I’m only here for business,” Saren repeats irritably. “If you want to announce your own retirement, stop avoiding the topic.”

“Like how you’re avoiding yours?”

Saren glares at him then, and he’s pretty sure the delicate display case behind his skull now sports a couple of cracks. The little voice trapped in his gizzard lets out a squeak, which he quashes by helping himself to a generous serving of the bevelled cake. It’s cold now, but meaty enough. As he drops it into his mouth, he glares right back into those cybernetic eyes. Nihlus won’t be the first to look away. “Yeah, I mean it. Call me cocky, but don’t call me wrong. I worry, you know.”

Saren flexes the fingers of his prosthetic, and clenches them into a fist. Shards of ice are beating relentlessly against the windowpanes. “We can put those worries to rest.”

“Gladly, after you finish,” Nihlus makes a sweeping gesture over the remaining food. “Not sparring when you’re hungry.”

Saren impales some cake with vehemence. “Your remarks on the Council can be interpreted as treasonous.” Nihlus opens his mouth to speak, but Saren holds up his hand, the ugly mechanical hand he’d earned in their service. “It’s important to maintain our reputation of loyalty, especially in these times. We must keep other powers in check.” 

Nihlus works his jaw. Need to divert that combustible train of thought to safer tracks. “I get it, Noveria is a bad fit. You could settle in the Traverse instead; that’s a better idea. I’m sure they’d be grateful if you just shot down some pirates from time to time, retired or not. And then you can tinker with the Virial all day long, no distractions, no dockworkers. Plenty of unclaimed planets out there. How’s that for personal space?”

“Nihlus,” Saren whispers, and Nihlus suddenly gets the impression that he is speaking from a great distance, from the future, perhaps, where Nihlus’s earnest pleas can find no echo. From the distant past, back when Nihlus had believed himself beneath the notice of that famous Spectre, the youngest turian ever inducted, and now the longest to hold that post. Those ageless eyes are still mesmerising, though they no longer reflect his face. 

But then, then -- he realises that he’s tired. He slinks out from that gaze and gently shakes his head. 

“I’ve heard it all before,” he says. You believe you were forged, not born. Saren blinks, and Nihlus smiles. Feels like he spent hours getting Saren into that shirt last night. Under the sterile lights of the dining room, its narrow stripes clash horribly with his differently-striped pants. “I know, it’s okay. But it only means you’ll have time to find the perfect LZ with your Spectre privileges. I’m counting on you, because I’m not making hundreds of decision charts to find a place to call home. Tropical climates only, please. And preferably not like Invictus.”

The shared memory is enough to lift Saren’s mandibles by a precious few degrees. “And if the search is fruitless?”

Nihlus looks outside. What were once icy flakes had turned into dice-sized hailstones, and the window’s noise-cancellation function had automatically engaged itself. So much for the Noverian summer. The gravy around the meat, too, had cooled to an unappetising jelly. He shoves it around with his fork, making a little pile atop the last remaining slice. 

“When Aluxil Kasran harnessed the power of nuclear fusion?”

“When aircraft were invented?”

“Surely, it could not have been when … when ancient turians carved the Tablets of Measure?” He said in disbelief, choking on a nervous, stillborn laugh.

In the gloom, a reddish glow began to spread.

He saw the shores of a placid lake, shimmering with residual heat as the sun descended beyond the hills. The first birds were emerging from their hidden nests, iridescent wings dancing in the breeze, biolights rippling on their flanks, trailed by scores of offspring. Short, hardy grasses grew in dense tufts; dark-veined orbs lay half-open, enough to glimpse the yellow flowers cosseted within their protective shells. Some distance away, in the brilliant water, a greater steeplefish displayed its fins. He had only seen their distinctive shapes in museums.

A woman walked by, her toes tracing the edge of the waves. She was both old and young. She barely came up to his shoulder, yet her overlarge facial plates were pitted and scratched, and her mandibles were very short. A discoloured patch of diseased skin ran from her armpit to her waist, around which she wore a braided -- he used the term loosely -- leather cord as her only garment. Bits of chitin were still stuck to it. They were the same species, yes, but only just. He had seen her, or someone of her stature, with her gait, in a museum as well, though the colouration had been all wrong. That holo had been fitted with amber eyes, but the woman’s small eyes were black, and they were fixed on the darkening sky. She dragged the tip of her slate-tipped spear in the gravel as she pondered the night. Her eyes glinted like the stars.

The woman behind the counter stood up when he approached. “What’ll it be?”

Saren pointed towards the rightmost tank. Nodding, she took up the net hanging over the glass edge and scooped out one of the fish, pure silver with a jade-green patch running along its belly. She slapped it onto a wooden block, slew it with a handheld shock prod, and began to clean it with a long, curved knife.

“Is it wild-caught?” He asked.

“Nope, farmed right here in the Widow,” she said, dropping the bloody entrails on a metal spatula. She rinsed her knife, and then started on the bones. “We get it from the same liveship that supplies Teucallix’s Market.” She flicked a mandible, indicating a location deeper in the complex. 

Good enough. “If I recall correctly, this used to be a liqueur store.”

She lifted up the backbone of the fish as well as all three sets of fin rays, tutted, and carved a bit more meat from the bone before discarding the lot somewhere behind the counter. “Yeah, we only opened four months ago. I’d say business has been booming, but that’d be a lie. My money’s on four more months before we close.”

“Not too much, thank you,” he told her when she started to rub seasoning into the pearly flesh. Eikul seeds were an acquired taste, and the mixture she used contained plenty, along with salt and boltweed. “Why do you say that?”

She splayed out the fish on an iron slab. As its edges curled and sizzled from the heat, she slid its organs onto the slab and stirred them with the sharp-edged spatula, cutting in a spoonful of sugar and dried berries. “There’s just not enough customers. Half the investors knew it beforehand, but three-quarters of them liked the novelty too much to give it up.” She flipped over the fillet. Its skull was singed a pale amber, promising a pleasant crunch. Even the smoke was heavy with the scent of spices. “Condiments?”

There were plenty to choose from, all neatly arranged in canteen-style tubs; chopped whitestrings, shaved meat, a dozen types of pickled fruits and herbs. He pointed out a few. “Add double the amount of pysal, please.”

She tipped heaping spoonfuls over the fish, smiled at him, and sprinkled an extra pinch of the wrinkled yellow cubes on top before folding it inside a paper sleeve. “Here.”

He tapped his credit chit with one hand and took the fish in the other. It was piping hot, though the temperature had not bothered the cook one bit. 

Saren held it over his shoulder, an acknowledgement of the reflection in the tiles. Slinking to his side, Nihlus sniffed it, nibbled on it, before backing away, chuckling. “I’d rather not sustain another tongue injury today.”

“How was the meeting?” Saren turned around.

Nihlus groaned. “I don’t understand. It was all in the report, but they insisted on making me clarify the casualty numbers no fewer than three times. Were they too low? And then Valern kept asking me for the detailed specs of the disguised transport before it got blown up. Probably suspects an illegal dock, but I don’t know those specs. Because the ship got blown up. And then Sparatus got worked up because I shouldn’t have double-counted the smugglers as casualties, apparently. You think Tevos likes me? You’re wrong, because she didn’t say a word until the end, when she told me to pack my ass to Illium next week. I’d almost made it to the elevator, too, but that reporter from Pulseline Daily got me.” He draped an arm around Saren. “All in all, I should’ve had breakfast before I left.”