Surveying the alcove formed by the screens, the matriarch confirmed once again that the medbay on this ship was relatively small.
It fit the vessel’s proportions perfectly.
She thought it would be nice to get at least some current information about the events of the last fifty years.
But then, looking at the hospital bed, she decided that since she was a patient, Chakwas was unlikely to give her access to the Extranet.
Or to the ship’s internal open data banks.
Walking through the alcove, Benezia felt her body getting used to freedom, responding keenly to her brain’s commands.
Free.
Now she was free.
Now she could decide for herself what to do, how and when to do it, what to think about, what to say.
Until very recently, such freedom had been practically unattainable for her.
Of course, Karin wouldn’t show her the implants removed from her body, wouldn’t tell her about how she’d operated on her.
Already now, in these minutes, Benezia was sure and even convinced — she would talk about a great many things with Karin.
She trusted her…
a strange thing for an experienced asari matriarch.
She trusted her far more than she trusted other people.
With the exception of Captain Shepard.
The alcove-ward wasn’t equipped with screens and keyboards that provided access to information banks and resources.
So getting even basic information about this man…
would require talking to Chakwas again, and maybe more than once.
It was unlikely that she, an elderly asari, could have been saved by merely removing a multitude of implants.
Her fractures hardly hurt at all.
The elder T’Soni was sure — Chakwas had used the best, most effective drugs, the most effective treatment methods.
Only because of that did she, a matriarch approaching the thousand-year mark, feel neither particular pain nor particularly unpleasant sensations.
No, she definitely needed to talk to Karin.
Talk to her alone.
Talk when Saren was able to leave the medbay and, without a doubt, would sequester himself with Nihlus in the cabin provided to the junior Spectre.
Now Benezia understood that even for her, on this ship, however small, there would be a cabin or a simple alcove: she needed solitude, she needed to think about many things, because ahead of her lay a meeting with her daughter.
Fifty years…
Once upon a time, she had treated such intervals of time quite easily and casually.
After all, it was too little compared to the thousand years of life guaranteed to any representative of the asari race.
Little.
Once, even for Benezia, it had been too little.
But now, when the matriarch’s consciousness constantly reminded its owner that she hadn’t spoken to her only daughter for fifty years, those years no longer seemed to Benezia like too small a span, and therefore unworthy of attention.
For her, those five decades had suddenly become a very large and very significant number.
A number that now contained far too much.
Yes, asari are very cold toward their children; they let them go free early and barely help them afterward.
Even if there were no particular quarrels between them.
That’s just how it’s done.
Although…
What difference did it make now how and why other asari she didn’t know had acted that way?
She, Benezia T’Soni, an elderly asari matriarch, had been in complete subjugation to a Reaper.
And that circumstance gave her both the right and the opportunity to look at many things differently.
Let her fellow tribeswomen, even those close to her in age, treat their children as they saw fit.
She was now too different from her peers.
And so she would do everything to restore, strengthen, deepen, and improve her relationship with Liara, her only biological daughter.
Fifty years of silence, fifty years of estrangement must become a thing of the past, become history.
If a war with such machines lay ahead…
She had to do everything so that Liara would now have a complete family: both a mother and a father.
And in this renewed, united family, there should be no room for quarrels.
No room at all!
If a war with the Reapers lay ahead…
Then every day of family unity took on critical importance and value.
None of the three of them knew exactly how their individual or family fate would unfold in wartime.
And so…
So, if the Normandovtsy weren’t joking and would really help her find and regain her daughter, she would do everything so that Liara would have not only her, her mother, but also Aethyta — her father.
She had to end this tradition of silence.
End it.
Leave it in the past.
You couldn’t enter such a war with such gaps in understanding.
She, Benezia T’Soni, had been restored, strengthened, given the opportunity to be alone with her thoughts.
Yes, certainly, the Terrans, humans, had little contact with asari of her age.
In most cases, humans interacted either with maidens or with matrons, but with matriarchs…
For various reasons, humans had no great practice in dealing with elderly asari.
And now…
Now, if her foresight didn’t deceive her, it was she, Benezia T’Soni, who would have to change this tradition a little.
Change it, perhaps, for the better, in an unusual direction.
She had ended up on a Terran military warship whose crew had managed to pull an elderly asari out of a Husk state.
And now the humans were unlikely to let her leave the ship quickly.
If they really helped her find and regain her daughter, it would take not a day or two.
Maybe several decades.
It was quite possible that even here, on this planet, the Normandovtsy would stay for a long time.
At least a decade.
That’s what Benezia’s rich life experience told her.
She didn’t doubt its hints — there was no reason for mistrust.
None at all.
None.
The situation was too unusual.
And so little from the old preparations, the old patterns of understanding could help her determine things more precisely.
Benezia felt that what had happened to her and Saren, what had happened here, on this planet handed over to the Terrans decades ago, broke out of almost any framework.
Because peace and war were too incompatible.
There had been an attack by an Earth ship on a Reaper.
A successful one.
The Reaper wasn’t destroyed.
And not completely ruined.
It was immobilized and temporarily disarmed — of that Benezia had no doubt.
This immobility and this disarmament didn’t allow the elder T’Soni to clearly calculate the options for further developments.
And at the same time, they gave her additional food for thought.
The screens of the remote medical monitoring system glowed with a steady, greenish light, pleasant to human eyes, confirming that the health of the two most complex patients in the medbay was within normal limits.
Chakwas, sitting in her favorite work chair, was filling out medical “forms,” occasionally pausing for a routine check of the expiration dates of medications in the bulky packs stored in the cabinets surrounding the doctor’s desk.
She could, of course, rely on the automation, on the VI that faithfully recorded a multitude of data, but…
Karin always wanted to do a great many things herself, not rely on automation, on the perfection of the VI.
Maybe the reason was her loneliness in the medbay, maybe something else.
But always, when the intensity of work dropped below a certain limit that Chakwas felt internally, she wanted, almost instinctively, to raise that intensity to a sufficient height.
Now, when the frigate was hanging next to the Reaper, she wanted it even more — she felt that peacetime was coming to an end.
And that meant ahead lay not just ordinary injuries — cuts, sprains, bruises.
Ahead lay wounds, ahead lay amputations, ahead lay heavy abdominal surgeries.
Military field medicine in all its power and, at the same time, its unseemliness.
For the uninitiated.
The ship’s doctor felt the agitation of the asari matriarch, who had refused to lie down and sleep.
Undoubtedly, Benezia was now thinking about a great many things, thinking differently than before, coming to other conclusions, even if unexpected for herself.
She had been…
a Husk.
For a VKS military doctor who had undergone special training courses before being awarded a unique qualification, it was no secret that Benezia was now also thinking differently about the prospects of her maternal relationship with her daughter.
It was good that the porthole was closed by an armored shutter, and that there were no screens or keyboards connected to the ship’s information network in the alcove.
This gave the patient the opportunity to avoid unnecessary worries and the urge to burden herself with information that was completely unnecessary at this stage of the recovery period.
Although, of course, the very fact that Benezia had refused to lie down and sleep indicated that she had recovered to a much greater extent than Saren.
And not only because she was an asari matriarch and he was a fairly elderly turian.
A few dozen seconds ago, Anderson had sent Karin a text file informing her of what was happening aboard the shuttle flying to the place Captain Shepard had identified as the location of a unique artifact.
Karin herself could see from the data displayed on the screens of the system monitoring the health of the frigate’s crew members that Shepard hadn’t fully recovered from those two undoubtedly unique manipulations he had performed.
He was dozing, almost sleeping, exhausted beyond the permissible limit.
And yet, as Anderson had written, through his doze, through his sleep, he was giving the driver instructions on which course to hold and, at the same time, giving instructions to the driver of the lead transport in the column of vehicles belonging to the archaeologists.
Such a load…
For Karin, as a doctor, it was obvious that by any standard, Shepard shouldn’t have left the medbay in such a condition.
If it had been anyone else, not John Shepard, Karin, with the firmness characteristic of her in such cases, wouldn’t have let him out of the medbay, but John…
He was special, and special people, without a doubt, had to be treated differently.
Yes, he was tired, yes, he hadn’t recovered.
Yes, he was now balancing between light doze and deep, sound sleep.
But…
without him, it was unlikely that such a problem could be fully resolved.
Chakwas shuddered almost imperceptibly, just for a few seconds imagining the frigate Normandy entering orbit around Eden Prime and the sensors, habitually “surveying” the area of the upcoming operation, stumbling upon the “prawn.” And the “prawn,” detecting a threat, starting to…
fire.
It didn’t matter where it fired — at the planet or at the arriving ship.
And then a confrontation would have begun, for which the frigate and the Eden Primers wouldn’t have been prepared.
Not at all prepared.
If not for Shepard, the frigate’s crew members wouldn’t have conducted the necessary training, the necessary exercises.
They wouldn’t have donned their suits.
They wouldn’t have understood that the jokes were over and what lay ahead wasn’t a drill, but real, actual, combat, military work.
If not for Shepard, then…
under pressure from Nihlus, they would have had to focus on stealing the Beacon.
And on carrying out the clearly illegal, unauthorized-by-anything-except-the-“wants-of-a-particular-group-of-Systems-Alliance-officials” transfer of the Beacon into the hands of the Citadel Councilors.
Yes, Karin didn’t forget that she was a servicewoman; for her, an order was not an empty phrase.
But…
she had never fully agreed that it was necessary to just give away the undoubtedly Prothean Beacon from Eden Prime into the hands of that trio of officials.
Karin was, first and foremost, a human being, and only then a servicewoman.
Therefore, internally, she protested against such a development of events.
She protested and was sure — now that a shuttle with the Systems Alliance Navy captain, N-Seven John Shepard, had headed to the location of the unique artifact, the situation with the Beacon could and even should develop not according to the scenario imposed on the crew of the military reconnaissance frigate by the Alliance officials.
It should, it must develop according to a completely different scenario.
But what kind…
Right now, Karin was sure of only one thing: the appearance of John Shepard in the ranks of the Normandovtsy would lead to even greater changes in the life and routine of the frigate’s crew.
Even greater than she could imagine now, in these seconds.
Benezia stopped by the bed.
She had absolutely no desire to lie down.
The matriarch was enjoying her physical and spiritual freedom, instinctively trying out more and more new options for activity, and she liked these trials more than the prospect of lying on a hospital bed, however comfortable.
Now, to her astonishment, the matriarch felt that she was capable of relating to such a phenomenon as time in a completely different way.
How many important things had happened to her in the last few hours?!
How much important, valuable, necessary information had she learned, understood, realized?!
Now she understood that you could cram so much into a few hours that ten years wouldn’t be enough.
And she…
She was already quite old.
Very old.
Her daughter, Liara, was now over a hundred years old, and she herself…
She was used to thinking that she was about the same age as Aethyta.
And Aethyta had turned 998 by this time, since she was born in 1185.
If so…
Then she, Benezia T’Soni, was certainly over eight hundred and ninety years old.
More precisely, she was now eight hundred and ninety-two years old.
And only a little over a hundred years remained until the thousand-year mark.
Among asari, it was accepted that after reaching the age of a matriarch, a blue-skinned beauty might no longer remember her family name and use only her first name everywhere, including for identification.
Yes, also because not every asari lived to such a venerable, multi-hundred-year age.
The thousand years of guaranteed life turned out to be a fiction.
Not every asari could reach the thousand-year mark.
Not every asari actually reached it.
Yes, everything in the world is relative; one of these “relativities” was lifespan, or rather, its calendar calculation.
In Citadel Space, since the formation of the Citadel Council, a new calendar had been introduced, which further confused the chronology.
That’s why Benezia didn’t particularly bother determining the real number of her age — according to both the old, pre-Citadel, and the new, Citadel calendars.
The “close” encounter of an asari matriarch with humans who had proven capable of pulling her out of a Husk state would, without a doubt, force her to accept a third option for chronology.
Maybe, indeed, a new life was beginning for her?
Yes, she was still a matriarch — both by age and by asari cultural traditions.
But she was now a very unusual asari matriarch.
Probably, in her non-standardness, she had approached Aethyta.
She had to restore, had to change her relationships with both Aethyta and Liara.
There was little time left.
And not only because she and Aethyta were almost a thousand years old.
Not only because of that.
First and foremost — because war lay ahead.
War with such “prawns,” called Reapers in most of the sources known to her as a religious leader of the race.
Ahead lay the Harvest.
Which had to be not only stopped, but — first and foremost — prevented.
Because once it began and then continued, the Reapers would bring it to its logical conclusion — the destruction of sentient organic life in the Galaxy.
Only bones would remain.
Only ruins would remain.
But there would be none of the representatives of the currently known races.
None.
Maybe Liara had been right even then?
Right to a much greater extent than the entire Council of Matriarchs, commonly called the Matriarchy?
Maybe Liara, who had taken up the study of the Prothean race, knew and understood, at her hundred-plus years, much more than her mother — an almost thousand-year-old asari matriarch?!
The blue-skinned beauties, renowned as galactic diplomats, had understood something very wrong.
More precisely — they had understood it completely wrong.
They hadn’t understood at all.
They hadn’t understood that they needed to study their predecessors, not engage in self-soothing?!
Those predecessors were the very Protheans, whose Beacon was hidden under the statue of the goddess Athame.
A Beacon?!
And maybe it really wasn’t a simple Beacon-transmitter, but a repository of information?
After all, it was from it that the asari had drawn, for centuries, a significant part of that wisdom which amazed, horrified, and forced even such stubborn partners-opponents as the salarians, for example, to acknowledge the superiority of the blue-skinned beauties.
The Protheans, not the mythical Athame and her followers, had been the educators, teachers, and mentors of the asari race.
In the Matriarchy, this was well known, but…
They preferred not to voice it.
And not to write it in files open to outsiders.
Not to mention plastopaper documents, which were, in principle, quite easy to copy or steal.
Living in a fairy tale…
even if imposed, was easier and calmer.
And now this fairy tale unexpectedly turned into…
the prospect of the destruction of the asari race.
And many other races…
None of the Council of Matriarchs had seriously thought about that…
It was natural for any sentient being to hope for the best until the very last moment.
To hope…
That was, of course, good, but…
As far as Benezia remembered the materials of the classified archives, not a single Harvest had ended in the defeat of the Reapers.
Not a single one!
All had ended in the defeat of many races.
All!
Thinking about this, Benezia shuddered all over, no longer doubting that the sensitive medical equipment would report to the medbay doctor that the patient was worrying excessively and for too long.
Medical sanctions might well follow.
Karin would most likely order her to lie down in an ultimatum.
Was it worth agreeing to lie down?
Benezia “scanned” herself.
No, she wasn’t going to lie down.
There was no need — she wasn’t that weak.
Yes, she had shuddered, shuddered all over, but…
It was unlikely to be the last such “shudder.” Unlikely to be the last…
Too much had changed…
The asari matriarch’s thoughts returned to Shepard.
If he…
had dared and managed…
to pull her and Saren out of a Husk state…
Then, maybe, his appearance on board the frigate wasn’t a coincidence?
Maybe his capabilities and abilities would help the current inhabitants of the Galaxy survive the confrontation with the Reapers?
And if he really could do something, even if not immediately, not all at once, that would help the currently existing races in the Galaxy to survive, and the Reapers…
The Reapers would be defeated for the first time and finally, would be destroyed?
If he had managed to pull two sentient organics belonging to the so-called Old Races out of a Husk state, then…
The matriarch understood that she was placing too much hope on the Terran, the human, the officer, too difficult a task, too heavy a role.
But something deep inside the very essence of her, an asari who had lived long and seen and understood much, whispered: if Shepard couldn’t do anything, then none of the currently living sentient organics would survive.
It was unlikely that the modern inhabitants of the Galaxy were ready, like the Protheans, to fight the Reapers for centuries.
It was obvious to her, one of the religious leaders of the asari race: almost no one was ready for such a struggle, such a war, such a confrontation.
Not ready in any sufficient measure.
At the same time, the matriarch understood: such sentient organics with such capabilities, with such abilities, didn’t appear just like that.
They appeared, providing, both by their appearance and by their real existence, the possibility of choosing a different path for the development of the situation.
Yes, Captain Shepard was young.
He wasn’t married.
He was an orphan, as far as Benezia could understand.
He was lonely.
And at the same time, he wasn’t lonely.
Karin…
She loved this officer, this human, this man.
She loved him.
And he…
He loved her.
Although…
Karin Chakwas was ready to give preference not to John Shepard, but to David Anderson, the commander of this frigate.
And not only because David was closer to Karin in age.
Love, as the supreme human — and not only human — feeling, didn’t ask about age.
It…
wasn’t interested in age.
It was interested in something else…
Many other things in the sentient being it visited and…
overtook.