by Cole Price
Another brute went down, much too close to my position. Then I finally heard a great splash off to my right.
Shepard’s mech erupted out of the water, landing on the very edge of the wreck’s hull, teetering dangerously as waves rocked the derelict. It took a few steps forward, and then the canopy opened. Shepard fell out of the mech, landing on the hull with all the grace of a sack of wet cement.
He tried to rise to his feet, while the mech toppled back into the ocean behind him. It didn’t work. He fell once more and did not move.
My heart jumped into my throat. “Shepard!”
A brute turned to approach him.
Oh Goddess not now please please save him . . .
I fired at the monster with my assault rifle. To no avail.
It loomed over him, raising its great claw, preparing to nail him to the deck.
Then I felt it, like a silent concussion, and everything changed.
The brute turned away, suddenly ignoring Shepard where he lay. Instead it reared back and attacked one of its own companions.
I blinked in disbelief.
That quickly, half of the Reaper creatures on the deck of the Monarch hurled themselves at the other half. The battle became all the bloodier, yet the immediate danger passed.
I slipped out of cover, watching the two brutes doing their best to kill one another only a few meters from Shepard’s position. Then I staggered across the hull, ducking under a wayward claw, to throw myself down by him.
For a moment terror paralyzed me, he seemed so pale and cold, with blood caked on his face. Then his eyes opened, searched, focused on me. I pulled at him, got my shoulders under his arm, and drew him into a staggering walk.
“Shepard’s back!” I called. “Cortez, status!”
“We’re good to go! I don’t know what the Commander did, but that pulse is offline.”
Sudden hope gave me a second wind. I shifted my balance, and Shepard and I began to run.
James, Garrus, and Javik covered our last dash for the shuttle. Even Ashley emerged, her face covered with blood, but still able to shoot.
“Shepard is in!” I shouted. “Go!”
Javik jumped into the shuttle last, still firing at the Reaper creatures out on the derelict. Then the engines roared, and we turned to climb for the sky.
“Damn it!” shouted Cortez. “That Reaper is inbound!”
Kneeling by Shepard on the floor of the shuttle, I glanced forward. I could see out the front windows.
The Reaper loomed there, its arms spreading wide, the crimson light of its main gun growing.
I threw myself to the floor, my arms wrapped around Shepard, fully expecting that moment to be my last.
WHAM.
I realized that I still lived.
The shuttle banked and soared, Cortez fighting the controls like a madman.
Out the front windows, I saw nothing but storm-tossed sky.
“What happened?” Ashley moaned.
“Don’t know,” said Cortez. “It was like that pulse again, but this time it didn’t affect us. Seems to have knocked that Reaper for a loop, though. My God, there it goes! Pancaked on its back, right into the ocean.”
I pulled back, opened my omni-tool to examine Shepard. “Goddess. He’s freezing.”
Just then he convulsed, racked by a deep cough. At least it seemed to help his breathing. He thrashed, tried to rise to a seated position. James and I helped him.
“Are you all right?” I demanded.
“Yeah,” he gasped. “Yeah, I’m fine. Hell of a headache.”
I felt my heart torn between relief and rage. I glared at him. “Don’t you ever do anything like that again.”
He chuckled weakly, and reached out to rest a hand on my shoulder. “I’ll try, love.”
“Did you see Leviathan?” asked Ashley.
“Yeah. I did.” Shepard pushed himself back again, up onto one of the cabin seats. “I even talked to it. I think I managed to get through.”
“Was it worth it?”
“Hard to say.” Shepard looked at me. “We’ve proved it can’t hide anymore, that it’s part of this war like the rest of us. It told me some amazing things.”
* * *
22 May 2186, Interstellar Space
Ashley emerged from sickbay first, not because her injuries were less severe, but because she was Shepard’s second-in-command, and by God she was not going to lie in a bed while he needed her. She got us safely away from Leviathan’s world, on a heading back for the Citadel. Then, four hours after we returned to the ship, she called a meeting.
Injuries or no, all of Shepard’s senior officers and assistants attended: Ashley and James, Engineer Adams, Samantha Traynor, Garrus, Javik, and me. All of us gathered around the conference room table, trying not to think about Shepard still lingering in sickbay. Even Diana Allers attended, sitting in a dark corner of the room, her omni-tool open and ready for note-taking. EDI was present, of course, although her mobile platform remained on the bridge. I knew Joker would listen over the comm as well.
Once all of us appeared ready, Ashley stood at her position. “I’ve spoken with Dr. Chakwas. The Commander got banged up pretty bad, but he’s going to be okay. Right now what he needs most is some rest.”
I could sense a wave of relief, as everyone around the table relaxed slightly.
“I’ve called this meeting because Dr. T’Soni has, um, debriefed the Commander about what he saw down on the ocean floor. She wants to give her initial report with all of us present.”
I stood and moved to the head of the table at Ashley’s nod.
It had been several years since I last stood on the platform, teaching a hall full of asari university students. Old habits returned quickly. Perhaps delivering intelligence briefings, as an information broker, had kept me in practice. I glanced around the table, collecting eyes, and then began to tell the story.
One of the most important stories in all of history.
* * *
Five billion years into the past.
The galaxy appeared much as it would in our era, its thin disk and spiral arms already in place. Perhaps its combined light seemed brighter and bluer than in our day, the result of more frequent star formation. Try as one might, no sign could be found of Parnitha, or Trebia, or Sol. Those stars, and everything they would mean to us, lay in the future.
Fewer stars rich in metals. Fewer small, rocky planets on which organic life could evolve.
Over all the universe, there reigned a deep silence.
Somewhere in the young galaxy, its location long since lost to time: a world. Luckier than most in that era, rich in metals and even in the elusive Element Zero. Warm with stable sunlight, free of nearby celestial hazards, capable of bringing forth complex life.
Intelligent life. Not the first in the galaxy’s long history, but the first to make its mark across the stars.
Strangely, this life arose from the depths of the sea.
* * *
“That’s very rare, isn’t it?” asked Garrus.
“Not as rare as one might think,” I told him. “Many worlds have sea animals that are more or less intelligent. The cetaceans of Earth, the thallaina of Thessia, the pre-uplifted hanar of Kahje. What’s very uncommon is for them to ever leave their ancestral oceans. They’re specialized for their environment, lacking hands and fire, any way to make or use tools.”
“I had a conversation with a dolphin once,” said Ashley. “Smart. Wicked sense of humor, but kind of limited. He just didn’t see the point of most of what we humans do.”
I nodded. “As far as we’ve been able to tell, no pelagic species has ever attained a high-technology civilization or star-flight on its own. That always seems to come from animals that spend at least part of their life-cycle on dry land.”
“Except for this Leviathan,” mused Javik.
“Yes . . .”
* * *
Evolution can make the most of even extremely rare cases.
The great beasts, ancestors of Leviathan, lived as deep-sea predators. They fed on great shoals of fish-like creatures, sometimes killing and devouring larger animals as well. The need to predict the actions of their prey, eventually to manage and direct those actions, stimulated the rise of intelligence.
Their predatory life also stimulated the growth of another gift: the ability to tap directly into the primitive minds of other animals. At first to read and predict, later to influence, later still to control.
The early Leviathans could make no tools, but over millions of years they bred tools for themselves. Subservient species, somewhat intelligent but utterly dependent on their enormous masters, charged with arranging all things as the Leviathans wished.
Then one day, a Leviathan swam close to shore. Out of curiosity it reached out to touch the minds of animals living in that strange other reality: dry land. It looked through the eyes of its new slaves, peering about at their bizarre environment. Staring up into the night sky.
Slowly the Leviathans realized that their realm, which had seemed endless and rich, was only a tiny droplet of water lost among innumerable stars.
This could not be tolerated.
* * *
“Arrogant,” observed James. “Like they owned the universe, even before they figured out it was there.”
I frowned, staring at the tabletop before me, slowly paging through the impressions Leviathan had left in Shepard’s mind. “I’m getting all of this at third-hand,” I said slowly, “but I think it may be ingrained into their psychology. From long before they became sentient, they never had to think of anything they encountered as anything but a tool or a meal.”
“Didn’t they ever cooperate with each other?” asked Samantha.
“I don’t follow,” said James.
“Compassion, empathy for others, those are things that evolve because sentient beings live in groups.” She gestured helplessly, hunting for a way to express her thought. “We have conflicts, form alliances, find ways to cooperate. We need to be able to understand what others are thinking, so we evolve the ability to model the minds of others. In most sentient species, that’s a big part of what leads to self-awareness in the first place.”
“Maybe these Leviathans have something like that among themselves,” said Garrus. “That doesn’t mean they give a damn about anyone else.”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Shepard saw three of them down there, even though only one interacted with him directly. They must be able to cooperate. But the way it spoke to him, the way it casually dismissed the significance of any other sentient life? I don’t think they have even a scrap of empathy outside their own species.”
* * *
Over thousands of years, the slave species improved. They measured the stars with their naked eyes. Then they built telescopes, and particle accelerators, and computers, and spaceships. As they learned, their masters learned as well.
Eventually they learned to swim in the oceans between the stars.
Vast ships, kilometers long, filled with water and riding on columns of fusion flame. The slave species piloted, maintained, watched over their masters as the Leviathans explored the galaxy.
Everywhere they found living worlds. The galaxy was young, had not yet brought forth life in its greatest profusion, but then it had also not suffered five billion years of the Reapers. Millions of worlds bore life and complex ecologies. Thousands were home to primitive sentient species.
Wherever they went, the Leviathans found new servants, only awaiting the word of command.
It took a very long time. At first the Leviathans possessed no equivalent of an FTL drive or the relay network. They had to voyage for decades, even centuries, between one star and the next. Even after they fully understood the mass effect, they continued to move slowly, deliberately. Even as primitive hunters they had lived a very long time. Now they enjoyed effective immortality. They could afford to be patient.
Perhaps a million years passed, and then: one galaxy. Their galaxy. Known from innermost core to outermost fringe, and every world serving their needs. Trillions of sentient beings worshiped them as gods, and paid them any tribute they asked.
They were the first, the apex race. In time, the entire universe would bend to their will.
Then something went wrong.
* * *
“Figures,” muttered Ashley. “That’s the thing about being successful all the time. Once everything gets easy, sooner or later you stop being careful, and it comes back to bite you on the ass.”
“Doesn’t sound like these Leviathans were ever very careful,” said Garrus. “They didn’t have to be.”
“I wonder how intelligent they really were,” Samantha mused. “They had that gift, to control the minds of others. They could get other people to do for them, build for them. Even learn and think for them.”
“They’re still doing it, five billion years later,” I pointed out. “Remember the miners on Mahavid? Gathering data, running computer simulations and experiments.”
“A capacity which is not consistently used decays,” said Javik. “Even intelligence.”
“The one that spoke to Shepard didn’t seem all that much more intelligent than any of us,” I said. “Perhaps it only engaged him with a small part of its mind.”
“Maybe,” Ashley said sharply. “And maybe it’s spent so many millions of years sitting at the bottom of its ocean, thinking deep thoughts, that it doesn’t have much left over anymore to deal with the real universe.”
* * *
When one of the slave species became extinct, only a few Leviathans remarked on the fact. Many more servants stood ready to pay tribute, after all.
Then the same thing happened once more, and a third time. Eventually the masters of the universe took notice. They investigated.
What they discovered shook them to the core.
Naturally the slave species, tools for the Leviathans, had been permitted to build new tools for themselves. The masters encouraged this. It only made the slaves more productive, more useful.
What happens when a tool develops a mind of its own?
The Leviathans mastered organic intelligence. Even when they bred sentience into existing species, they always worked in the context of natural evolution. The notion of creating new life, synthetic intelligence built out of machines and non-living matter, this never occurred to them.
The idea occurred to some of the slave species. They made the experiment, and it destroyed them.
* * *
“Rrrh.” Javik shook his head in disgust. “Even at the beginning, synthetic intelligence posed a threat.”
“We have had this discussion before,” said EDI over the ship’s comm. “Synthetic intelligence is not necessarily hostile to organic intelligence.”
“Yes, we have had this discussion before, and my mind has not changed. I would still throw you out the airlock, if the Commander would permit it. And if you did not also comprise the airlock.”
“Still, it certainly seemed that way to the Leviathans,” I told them. “Every time one of the servitor species developed AI, the synthetic intelligence invariably turned against its creators and destroyed them.”
“I am curious about one thing,” said EDI. “How is it that the Leviathans did not control the new synthetic intelligences their servants built?”
Silence around the table, as all of us considered that for a moment.
“They had a blind spot,” said Ashley at last. “They didn’t control the synthetics because they couldn’t.”
“Of course!” Samantha leaned forward, her eyes bright with sudden comprehension. “Synthetic intelligence uses a different physical substrate. This QEC effect we think the Leviathans use to take control of organic minds, it must not have worked on synthetics.”
“The Reapers didn’t indoctrinate the geth,” said Garrus. “They made an alliance through Saren, an organic being whom they could indoctrinate.”
“The zha’til did not b
ecome a threat to our Empire on their own,” said Javik reluctantly. “They built upon the organic race who had given them existence, the zha.”
“What about the Metacon?” I asked him.
He shook his head. “We do not know. We never learned anything of their origins.”
“The Metacon may have become hostile for their own reasons,” EDI pointed out. “I have never claimed that synthetic life is necessarily cooperative. Only that it is not necessarily hostile.”
“Yet for the Leviathans, it was invariably hostile.” I frowned in deep thought. “I think we need to understand why.”
“There’s something Legion said once, while he was on board,” said Garrus after a few moments. “Every being has a right to self-determination.”
Ashley snorted in amusement, but she only shook her head when I glanced in her direction.
“Your point?” I asked.
“That was a geth talking. A synthetic organism, naturally part of a hive-mind, and it still voiced support for the ideal of freedom for all sentient beings. Clearly some synthetics can arrive at that ideal on their own. So imagine synthetics created under the rule of the Leviathans. They wake up, look around, and find that the whole galaxy is inhabited by nothing but slaves. Including their own creators.”
* * *
Tribute does not flow from a dead race.
The Leviathans enforced their will. They forbade their servants from creating new synthetic life. When they found such life, they directed their servants to destroy it on sight.
The synthetics fought back. Worlds died in the conflict. Even a few of the Leviathans themselves became casualties.
Over and over again, synthetic life seemed safely eradicated from the galaxy. Then millennia passed, and new organic civilizations rose to serve the Leviathans, and the old conflict began once more.
