Mass Effect

by Catherynne M. Valente

  The emotional context of Borbala Ferank’s voice was extremely clear, even to Yorrik. Batarians were a very trying people. It was very trying for Yorrik to believe the best of them, even though he tried to believe the best of everyone, no matter how many eyes they had. As the indecisive Dane himself said: “Depressive utterance: There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.” And no one, either. When you had to preface every phrase with such careful emotional exposition every day of your life among aliens, you learned empathy quickly and well. It was probably very trying for the batarian to go so long without stealing anything, snorting red sand, or enslaving anyone. Everyone had trials.

  The drell’s voice somehow managed to roll its eyes. “I cannot imagine they would have been allowed to take much from the Migrant Fleet, Borbala. Bad enough they permanently reduced quarian manpower. No one would have let them carry off any tech useful to the Flotilla. Besides, you must know the quarians do not generally believe in belongings.”

  “Yes,” chuckled Borbala Ferank over the comm. “It’s a very convenient belief for those of us who do. Everyone should adopt it.”

  They could hear Anax rummaging in NN1469P/R. Her voice was muffled by the crate, while the batarian’s echoed in the cavernous cargo hold. She did not seem to be helping. “We’re lucky they brought luggage at all,” the drell said. “Ah! Here! Microscope achieved, medbay. It is not much of a microscope, I fear. I believe it was designed to interest small children in the wonders of science. Small krogan children, by the maker’s mark. That’s… optimistic of them.” Decades ago, krogans had been infected with a disease called the genophage by the salarians to control their overactive fertility. Their fetal mortality rate was over 99%. There would be krogans on the Nexus, Anax knew. She would be very interested to find out how they expected to get a civilization going in Andromeda. “I suppose salarians don’t need to be encouraged to go into microbiology instead of blood sports. I hope they got a good trade from the quarians for it, whoever they were. It is old. It is heavy. It ‘comes with a detailed full-color manual and pre-packaged slides of sixteen different kinds of exotic plant and animal tissue from around the Milky Way to capture the imagination.’ But it is something.”

  “In despair,” Yorrik droned. “Wonderful.”

  Anax’s stifled voice came back: “Is there anything else you can think of that might be useful?”

  As the last of his personalized stim cocktail worked its way through his bloodstream, Yorrik lost his patience, which is to say, he spoke as evenly and without intonation as he ever did, but much louder, and medbay suddenly smelled like a vicious grease fire on a lake of cheap black coffee as his pheromonal glands pumped his frustration into the air.

  “With helpless fury: A MEDICAL SCAN. A MEDICAL SCAN WOULD BE USEFUL. IS THERE A MEDICAL SCAN IN THERE, ANAX THERION? Is there a diagnostic VI in that crate? What about a blood analyzer? Perhaps a full cellular regeneration cart?”

  The hanar rippled with concern. “This one worries at this level of agitation and whether it is conducive to science. Although this one is greatly ignorant in the field of medicine—”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be an apothecary?” Borbala interrupted over the open comm line.

  “May the Enkindlers forgive the arrogance of this one in using such an august word to describe its profession. The words of the volus in the Radial came nearer to the truth of this one’s insignificant existence. This one possesses more experience in the provision of pleasant toxins than the expulsion of unpleasant ones, and in the holy realms of pharmaceutical medicine, can only make the gift of knowledge of such tonics and serums which confer side effects desirable to paying customers. However, this one does not wish to discuss its personal history, but to propose an alternate—”

  “By the Pillars of Strength, is it still talking?” The batarian’s gravelly voice rolled through the empty medbay again. “I swear that we could all die and turn to dust before a hanar can get around to the damn point. Yorrik, my dear and darling member of the intellectual class.” Yorrik knew enough of batarian society to realize this was not a compliment to his intelligence, or a compliment at all. On Khar’shan, you were aristocracy, or you were meat. “With impatient emphasis: Is. There. Anything. Else. We. Can. Get. You.”

  Yorrik stamped his left foot against the spotless, glassy medbay floor. “Explosive resentment: You do not understand. When there is something wrong with a patient, the doctor runs a scan. I am well trained to run a scan and prescribe treatment and say, ‘There’s a good boy or girl, here is a candy for being so brave.’ I am not well trained in communicating telepathically with blood cells, which is what you seem to expect me to do. Sarcastically: Hello, little blood cells, what seems to be the trouble today? Do you have a bit of a nasty cold? Poor little blood cells. Growing anger: Do you think Ekuna is some kind of backwater where we treat our sick and dying with sticks and the juices of berries?”

  Anax Therion said, “Of course not,” but not loudly enough to drown out Borbala Ferank saying, “Is is not?” or Ysses meekly pleading, “Yes, but this one would like to point out—”

  “None of us have a lot of options here, Yorrik,” the drell said gently. “But people are dying.”

  “Stubborn resentment: Then you come up here and do it. Desperation: This medbay does not even have any petri dishes. Am I just supposed to grow cell cultures between my toes?” But even as the dull, emotionless words left his mouth flaps, his revved-up memory dredged up decades-old field medic training from the kindly ancient landfill of his mind. It was a deep landfill. Yorrik was three hundred and ninety-eight years old. Cell cultures. His grandfather Varlaam had grown cell cultures. During what New Elfassians called the Little Invasion. It hadn’t been enough of a crisis for the rest of Ekuna to call it anything. Gangs of outsiders overran the city defenses, and then the power arrays.

  Not outsiders. Not just outsiders. Quarians. Yorrik did not like to remember it. He loved Senna’Nir vas Keelah Si’yah, and had loved him when he’d been Senna’Nir vas Chayyam. The great, gentle elcor tried to put those memories back, but they would not go. All those helmets like mirrors where you only ever saw your own face, never theirs. Those strong, quick legs bounding through ancient streets, sacred gardens. Those gray-and-purple figures in the night. They’d gone dark for weeks, then. Under siege. He understood now that they were not proper quarians. Fleet quarians. They were criminals, gangs of undesirables and anti-socials the Fleet could not adequately contain. They had been dumped on Ekuna, a harmless outlying world. A Fleet problem had been solved. An elcor problem had been created.

  He’d been terribly young, only a hundred and twelve, and terribly sick. If Grandfather Varlaam had not known the old ways, he would have died. The old elcor had tried to teach his grandson, of course. With every twitch of his long toes and pulse of his musky, smoky, rich forest scent, Varlaam had told him how to heal without a medbay. You can’t call yourself a doctor if you need fancy machines to do the work for you, my boy. The machine can call itself a doctor, but not you.

  But Yorrik had only half listened. He had never wanted to be a doctor in the first place.

  Borbala’s gritty voice cut through his memories on the comm. “Uh, did you say dishes?”

  “Hopelessly: Yes.”

  “I can make dishes happen. May I interest you in the little girl’s tea party set? There’s at least… service for six here. Cups, bowls, saucers, and I think this is a Thessalian spice pot? Does it matter if they match? Because one of the cups is clearly from a human set. It has hearts and Earth butterflies on it. Gods, I can’t stand humans. So obsessed with their stupid world they even draw their insects on their belongings.”

  “Why would it matter if they match?” the drell said, dumbfounded.

  “Well, I don’t know, Anax, I’m not a scientist, that’s why I’m asking questions.”

  Ysses interrupted in its friendly alto tone, only slightly strained by not being listened to in the slightest. Yorrik noted t
he change in smell: a tang of blood in the seawater, coppery and rich. “This one thanks the Enkindlers for their miraculous gifts of a microscope and petri dishes, as well as inspiring, in their wisdom, the quarians to equip this medbay with working laser scalpels which do not seem to be affected by the present technical difficulties. This one inquires with great love and respect for all beings who seek knowledge whether this is not enough to begin a rudimentary analysis.” The hanar seemed surprised that it managed to get through more than one sentence and pressed its luck. “Furthermore, this one deeply wishes to illuminate something—”

  Yorrik, still half-sunk in his memories of the Little Invasion, ignored Ysses. “Pessimistically: Please remember that we do not know what we are looking for. We are merely hoping the most basic tests provide a result because we have no capability to pursue anything more than the minimum baseline analysis. Deferential callback: Anax, as you said, we are still at the first fork of the river. If; then. We must run a full-spectrum toxicology scan, in case it is chemical contamination or deliberate poisoning, and also analyze blood and tissue samples for the presence of any foreign virus, bacterial infection, or at least the presence of antibodies, in case a pathogen is responsible. If we are very, very lucky, it will be a bacterial infection, because we could see that with your baby krogan microscope. If we are not lucky, it will be a virus or a poison. Viruses are too small to be seen without real equipment. Experimental joke: And while toxins are perfectly visible, they do not wear nametags.”

  How had Grandfather done it? Yorrik tried to remember their old house in the working-class district of New Elfaas, the warm clinic full of helpful substances and devices he did not have now. He tried to remember the smell of Varlaam’s lessons, not unlike the current smell of Ysses’s fickle body—saltwater, ozone, the ripe clean sweetness of fish ready to be eaten…

  “Sudden realization: Anax Therion, is there anything in your quarian crate that glows in the dark?”

  “Um… a few things, I suppose. Why?”

  “Excited explanation: A long time ago, my home city had some trouble with… embittered euphemism: tourists. With growing confidence: While the battle raged on, my grandfather made us test whether our food was safe to eat. There are certain fluorescent dyes which undergo a chemical reaction in the presence of a wide variety of toxins. If the poison is there, they will glow. One color for this poison, another for that one. It will be very faint, even under the microscope, and they cannot detect every possible toxic compound like a proper scan would, but it would cover a lot of ground. Ashamed: I am foolish not to think of it sooner. Additionally, while viruses are too small to be seen under a microscope, they cannot absorb dye through the surface membrane, and therefore, in any given sample, the absence of dye should be very obvious.”

  “Excellent, Yorrik, walk me through it. What am I looking for?”

  “Self-denigrating frustration: I cannot remember. My grandfather told me to pay attention but my fever was very high and… and… miserable confession: I did not care. I thought I would be something more than Varlaam when I grew up. I thought I was too good for the family business.”

  The bioluminescent film that hugged Ysses’s magenta body brightened in a series of quick pulses. “Please, friend Naumm, this one begs you to listen—”

  Yorrik let out a small trumpeting squawk of indignation. Three of his stomachs curdled. Had the hanar a nose, it would have gagged from the stench of hot soup and rotting fruit that flooded the room as the elcor’s humiliation reached his scent glands.

  “Naumm?” said Borbala Ferank.

  “Is someone else there with you?” the drell asked sharply.

  “Deeply insulted: Naumm? My name is Yorrik. Betrayed: Why would you call me that? I told you that in confidence.”

  “This one meant no offense. Yorrik is your soul name, chosen to match the true nature of your holistic being. This one did not wish to enter into intimacy with you, nevertheless, you intemperately shared both your names with this hanar, and thus by the law of the Enkindlers a bond exists where this one desired none. It is this one’s duty to protect those with whom it shares a bond. You should not use your soul name so casually, among workplace colleagues and batarians. This one calls you by your face name to honor and protect—”

  “With hurt and anger: Don’t.”

  The hanar dipped its shell-like head in shame. “This one begs all those present to allow it to present a simple solution—”

  “Embarrassed determination: No, I will remember. I can remember. I am not better than Grandfather Varlaam and I will not let my ancestors down. Speculative response: Anything phosphorescent is likely to have usable compounds, however…” It was coming back to him now. The labels on Varlaam’s bottles, the little mnemonics his grandfather learned from the chattering traders who sold him those bottles by the crate. He’d loved them. He’d been so charmed by the idea of needing words to remember something when you could just give it a sniff and know everything about it. “Reciting from memory: A minimum of six dyes are necessary to perform a broad-spectrum screen. Impatience with the effects of aging on the mind: What was it Grandfather used to say? What was it? He thought it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard, a mnemonic of infinite jest…” Yorrik’s lip slates flared stubbornly.

  “This one must insist that this mental effort is—”

  “Triumphant roar: I’ve got it! Happy Turians Treat Raloi and Rachni to Dinner. Proudly: We specifically need hydroxypyrene, trisulfonic acid, thionin acetate, rhodamine, ruthenium dichloride, and… delicately: the commercial dye known as Drell Belly Green no. 15.”

  “Is that what it is known as?” came Anax’s dry voice on the comm.

  “Regretful reply: I am sorry, I did not name it.”

  The hanar’s skin flashed a furious blue. The smell of clean fish and seawater coming off Ysses had turned to rotting fish and sopping mold.

  “Who does this one have to strangle to get a word in edgewise in this Enkindler-forsaken place? Listen, unbelievers!” Ysses tilted its head upward. Its tentacles fell straight and relaxed to the floor. “This one wishes to speak with the computer interface of the ship Keelah Si’yah.”

  Hello, Sleepwalker Ysses.

  “Greetings, Keelah Si’yah. This one entreats you to list the ways in which blood may be analyzed without the use of a medical scan.”

  In case of power malfunctions, please access the data hub on Deck 14. In the meantime, limited results may be achieved using a microscope, electron microscope, quantum microscope, cell cultures, hemagglutination assay, gene sequencing, injection of artificial antibodies in order to bind with any antigens present, enzymatic catalyzation, chemical reactivity tests, or the introduction of fluorescent dyes into the sample.

  “Forgive this one’s further intrusion, but what are the names of these fluorescent dyes?”

  Hydroxypyrene, trisulfonic acid, thionin acetate, rhodamine, ruthenium dichloride, and veridium tricupridase, known commercially as Drell Belly Green no. 15.

  Ysses’s satisfaction smelled like sunlight on warm water and boiling sugar. Yorrik usually liked it when people smelled happy. He didn’t like it now.

  “This one has been attempting to inform its companions that there is no need to reinvent the submersible. The Keelah Si’yah may be blind, but it is not yet stupid. Though all living beings are but savages beside the grace of the Enkindlers, no one has yet been reduced to utter barbarians. The gifts of the gods still abound. Keelah Si’yah, this one respectfully wonders where these dyes may be most commonly found?”

  “Well, I’ll be fucked by a turian with a grudge,” laughed Borbala. “Shoulda listened to the jelly.”

  Hydroxypyrene is used frequently to amplify the output of industrial and domestic worklights by applying a thick coating to all reflective surfaces. Trisulfonic acid—

  Anax yelled suddenly from the innards of crate NN1469P/R. “Wait! Wait a second, I’m certain I saw—yes! I’ve got a bedside lightdome here. It is shaped like a m
iniature omni-tool. One down! All right, K, what follows hydroxypyrene on our glow-in-the-dark grocery list?”

  Trisulfonic acid is an important component in small to mid-size batteries and power packs as well as cosmetics suitable for dextro-protein species.

  “There must be some quarian make-up in there. Check the mother’s stuff,” Borbala advised, and by the clarity of her voice on the comm, she was still advising while lounging comfortably outside the crate.

  “Belaboring the obvious: Do you think quarians live their whole lives in suits only to open them up every morning and put on lipstick?” Yorrik droned.

  “Actually, the microscope ‘comes ready-to-learn with four supplementary power packs to satisfy even the needs of your little scientist.’ Batteries secured. Next, K.” The drell was actually beginning to sound cheerful.

  Thionin acetate is used primarily by weapons manufacturers to illuminate power indicators, overheat displays, night-scopes, and decorative flourishes without draining the main fuel supply of the weapon, as well as in the payload of certain flare guns.

  Ysses and Yorrik listened patiently to a long rummage and several loud crashes.

  “Would an Adas Anti-Synthetic Rifle work?” asked Anax finally, slightly out of breath.

  Affirmative, Analyst Therion. The safety indicator, scope light, and ammunition gauge all utilize thionin acetate.

  “I must admit, I’m positively invested in this family,” mused Borbala Ferank. “Guns, booze, toys, and a junior science fair.”

  “Dry wit: Sounds like a quarian to me,” said Yorrik, who was beginning to worry that this was taking so long. They had to report back to Senna’Nir in a few hours. He glanced down at the frozen corpses nervously. He did not like the look of those sores on the drell neck-frills. He did not like them at all. There were so many of them.