Ascension

'I used to dream about her, too,' Pel admitted with a lopsided grin. 'Always wondered what she'd be like in the sack.'

Grayson tossed the pistol down on the table with the drug paraphernalia and slouched into the chair opposite the couch. He wasn't sure if Pel was joking with him or not. With Pel he was never sure.

He glanced over at the vid screen. They were showing images of the newly repaired Citadel. Two months ago the attack had dominated the media, along with the thoughts and awareness of every being in Council space. Now, however, the shock and horror were beginning to fade. Normalcy was returning, creeping in slowly but surely from all sides. Aliens and humans alike were falling back into their everyday routines: work, school, friends, family. Ordinary people moving on.

The story still had life in the media, but now it was left to the pundits and politicians to analyze and dissect. A panel of political experts — an asari ambassador, a volus diplomat, and a retired salarian intelligence operative — appeared on the vid screen, debating the political stances of the various candidates humanity was considering for the Council.

'You think the Man has any pull in who we pick?' Grayson asked, nodding toward the screen.

'Maybe,' Pel answered, noncommittal. 'Wouldn't be the first time he got involved in politics.'

'You ever wonder why he wanted Menneau dead?' The question was out of Grayson's mouth before he even realized he was asking it.

Pel shrugged indifferently, though there was a wary look in his eye. 'Could be any of a hundred reasons. I don't ask questions like that. And neither should you.'

'You think we owe him blind obedience?'

'I just figure it's done and there's nothing you can do to change it. People like us can't afford to live in the past. Makes a man sloppy.'

'I've got everything under control,' Grayson assured him.

'Clearly,' Pel snorted, nodding at the red sand on the table.

'Just tell me why you're here,' Grayson said wearily.

'The Man wants to hit the girl with another batch of meds.'

'She has a name,' Grayson muttered. 'It's Gillian.'

Pel sat up and leaned forward, his hands on his thighs as he shook his head in exasperation. 'I don't want to know her name. Names make things personal. You get messy when things get personal. She's not a person; she's just an asset on the inside. Makes it easier when the Illusive Man decides she's expendable.'

'He doesn't want that,' Grayson countered. 'She's too valuable.'

'For now,'¹ Pel grunted. 'But down the line someone might figure they can learn more if they cut her skull open and poke around inside her brain. Then what happens, Killer?'

An image of Gillian's butchered body lying on a medical gurney sprang to Grayson's mind, but he wasn't about to rise to Pel's bait.

Besides, that's not going to happen. They need Gillian.

'I'm loyal to the cause,' he said out loud, not wanting to argue the point with Pel. 'I'll do what's necessary.'

'Glad to hear it,' Pel answered. 'Hate to think you've gone soft.'

'Is that why you're really here?' Grayson wanted to know. 'Did he bring you all the way back from the Terminus Systems so you could check up on me?'

'You don't answer to me anymore, Killer,' Pel assured him. 'I'm just passing through. Had to come in to clean up some business on Earth, so I volunteered to stop by on my way back out to drop off the supplies.'

The big man pulled a small vial of clear liquid from his coat pocket and tossed it to Grayson, who caught it cleanly with one hand. There was no label on the vial; nothing to mark what it was or what it might do; no indications of where it came from.

His work done, Pel rose from the couch and turned to go.

'You going to report the red sand?' Grayson called out after him just as he reached the door.

'Nothing to do with me,' he said without turning around. 'You can get dusted every night for all I care.

I'm off to meet a contact on Omega. This time tomorrow I'll be up to my ass in aliens.'

'It's part of my cover,' Grayson added defensively. 'Fits my character. Troubled father.'

Pel passed his hand in front of the door panel and it swooshed open.

'Whatever you say, man. This is your assignment.'

He stepped out into the apartment hallway, then turned back to deliver a parting warning.

'Don't get sloppy, Killer. I hate cleaning up someone else's mess.'

The door swooshed shut, perfectly timed with the end of his words and cutting off any chance for Grayson to reply.

'Son-of-a-bitch always has to get the last word,' he muttered.

With a groan he pulled himself out of his chair and set the vial on the small table beside the bag of red sand, then wandered reluctantly back to bed. Mercifully, the only dreams he had for the rest of the night were of his daughter.

Two

Kahlee Sanders moved with quick, confident steps down the halls of the Jon Grissom Academy. A space station constructed seven years ago in orbit around the human colony of Elysium, it had been named after Rear Admiral Jon Grissom, the first man to travel through a Mass Relay and one of humanity's most revered and respected living heroes.

Grissom also happened to be Kahlee's father.

Her shoes, sensible, half-inch wedge heels, clacked softly as she made her way down the dormitory corridor, and her lab coat swished faintly with every step. It was almost an hour after supper, and the students were in their rooms, studying in preparation for tomorrow's classes. Most kept their doors closed, though the few who preferred to leave them open looked up from their e-books and computer screens as she passed, their attention drawn by the sound of her footsteps. Some smiled or nodded to her; a few of the younger ones even gave her an enthusiastic wave. To each she replied in kind.

Only a handful of people actually knew Jon Grissom was her father, and their relationship, if it could be called that, had nothing to do with her position here at the Academy. She didn't see her father often; the last time she had spoken to him was over a year ago. And that had ended, as every visit seemed to, in an argument. Her father was a difficult man to love.

Grissom was approaching seventy, and unlike most people in this era of modern medicine, he actually looked his age. Kahlee was in her early forties, but her appearance was that of a woman at least a decade younger. Average in both height and build, she was fit enough to still move with the spryness of youth. Her skin was still smooth, apart from a few tiny wrinkles around the creases of her eyes when she laughed or smiled. And her shoulder-length hair was still blond with darker, sandy streaks; she wouldn't have to worry about gray hairs for another thirty years at least.

In contrast, her father looked old. His mind — and tongue — were still as sharp as ever, but his body seemed dry and withered. His skin was leathery and hard, his features sunken and drawn, his face lined from decades of dealing with the pressure and stress that came with being a living icon. Grissom's thinning hair was mostly white, and he moved with the slow, deliberate actions of the elderly, even walking with the hint of a stoop.

Picturing him in her mind, it was hard to imagine the great hero the media and history books portrayed. Kahlee couldn't help but wonder how much of that was intentional, a facade Grissom maintained in order to keep others at bay. Her father had turned his back on his fame, unwilling to allow himself to be held up as a symbol for Earth or the Alliance. He'd refused to attend the consecration of the Jon Grissom Academy, and over the past seven years he'd declined dozens of invitations from the board of directors to visit the facility, despite the fact it