Ascension

and her companions Hendel Mitra and Gillian Grayson.'

'You and your friends are welcome aboard the Idenna,' the captain said, extending his hand to each of them in turn. Once again, Gillian didn't flinch or shy away from the contact, though she didn't find the courage to speak this time.

It has to be the enviro-suits, Kahlee thought.

Captain Mai looked, to Kahlee's eye, exactly like every other male quarian she had met. She knew her observation was more than just interspecies bias. Even accounting for the fact that many of the physical differences were obscured by their environmental suits, it was a safe generalization to say that quarians all tended to look pretty much the same. They were of an almost uniformly similar size and build, with far less variety than what was found in humans.

Apart from Lemm, who was easy to identify because of his boot, she had learned to rely on specific subtle differences in their clothing to tell the quarians apart. For example, Seeto had a small but noticeable discoloration on the left shoulder of his enviro-suit, as if it had been rubbed or worn at constantly over many months. However, if Hendel and Grayson were both wearing enviro-suits, it would have been easy to tell them apart without relying on similar tricks— Hendel was half a foot taller and seventy pounds heavier than Gillian's father. That same degree of variance simply didn't exist in the quarian population.

It's like that with all the other races, Kahlee thought to herself. For some reason, humans just have more genetic diversity than the rest of the galaxy. She hadn't really noticed it before, not consciously, but here on the bridge of the Idenna it seemed to strike home.

It's happening to us, too, she realized as Hendel shook the captain's hand. The big man's mix of Nordic and Indian ancestry was the norm on Earth now, and the inevitable genetic by-product was a more physically homogeneous population. In the twenty-second century, blond hair like hers was a rarity, and naturally blue eyes were nonexistent. But with hair dye, skin toning, and colored contact lenses, who really cares?

'I extend to each of you the warm welcome of my ship and her crew,' the captain was saying, causing Kahlee to snap her mind back to the present. 'It is an honor to meet you.'

'The honor is ours, Captain Mai,' Kahlee replied. 'You have taken us in when we had nowhere else to go.'

'We are wanderers ourselves,' the captain replied. 'We have found safety and community here in the Migrant Fleet, and I offer that safety to you now, as well.'

'Thank you, sir,' Kahlee replied.

The captain bowed his head in acknowledgment of her gratitude, then reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder, drawing in close so he could speak to her in a tone so soft she could barely hear it through the voice modulator of his mask.

'Unfortunately, the safety of the Migrant Fleet is a false one,' he whispered.

Kahlee was caught off-guard by the cryptic warning, too surprised to give a reply. Fortunately, he didn't seem to expect one. He took his hand from her shoulder and stepped back, resuming the conversation in his normal voice.

'Representatives from the Conclave and the Admiralty are coming to the Idenna to speak with you,' he told her. 'This is a great honor for my ship and my crew.'

From the tone of his voice, Kahlee suspected he felt the honor was more of an inconvenience.

'Sir,' one of the crew members informed the captain, 'the Lestiak is requesting permission to dock.'

'Send them to bay five,' Mai replied. 'We'll meet them there.

'Come,' he said to Kahlee and her companions, 'we shouldn't keep such important visitors waiting.'*

Twenty-one

Once again Kahlee and her companions were led through the ship by three quarians. This time, however, their escort consisted of Isli, Lemm, and the captain.

They took them back down to the lower levels and over to the docking bays. Instead of going back to Grayson's shuttle, however, they made their way to one of the other occupied bays, where the Lestiak, along with its crew of VIPs, was already waiting for them.

Considering the political status of those on board, Kahlee was surprised to see the captain didn't request permission before opening the airlock and entering the vessel.

'I guess the captain gets to go wherever he wants on his own ship,' Hendel whispered to her, making note of the strange behavior as well.

Inside the shuttle they were brought into a large conference room that appeared to be set up for what looked to be some type of official inquiry. Or a court-martial, Kahlee thought. There was a long, semicircular table with six chairs behind it. Five of the chairs were occupied by quarians, though one on the end was empty. Several armed guards stood at the back of the room, behind the seated dignitaries.

Mai led them to the center of the room, where they stood while he made a full round of introductions. Kahlee didn't bother trying to remember all the names as they were tossed out. She did, however, make a point of noting which three of the quarians in attendance were elected representatives from the civilian Conclave, and which two were members of the military's Admiralty board.

She also noticed that when Mai introduced Lemm, he referred to him as 'Lemm'Shal vas Idenna'; apparently the young quarian's Pilgrimage was officially over, and he had been accepted into Mai's crew.

When the introductions were finished, Mai went over and sat down in the lone unoccupied seat at the table. Isli went and stood behind him, joining the other honor guards watching over the scene from the back wall. Lemm didn't move, but stayed with the humans who remained standing in front of the table.

'Kahlee Sanders,' one of the Admiralty representatives asked, beginning the proceedings, 'do you understand why we have brought you here?'

'You think I might know something about Saren Arterius and how he was able to control the geth,' she replied.

'Could you describe your relationship with Saren?' another representative asked, this one from the civilian Conclave.

'There was no relationship,' Kahlee insisted. 'I only met him briefly two or three times. As far as I knew, he was just the Spectre assigned to investigate the activities of my mentor, Dr. Shu Qian.'

'And what were those activities, exactly?'

'Qian had discovered some kind of alien artifact,' she said, choosing her words carefully. 'It might have been Prothean. Maybe it even predated them. None of us really knew.

'He thought it was the key to creating a new kind of artificial intelligence. But he kept the rest of us in the dark; we were just lab monkeys for him, running data he gathered from his tests and experiments. Qian was the only one who knew any of the details about the artifact: where it was, what it was, what it did.

'But Qian went missing, and he was never found. Neither were his files.'

'Is it possible Saren found his files?' one of the Conclave asked. 'Is it possible he found this artifact, and used it to gain control of the geth?'

'It's possible,' Kahlee answered, somewhat reluctantly. The idea had occurred to her before, but she didn't like speculating that she had played some role, however small, in the devastation wrought by the geth.

'Have you ever heard of a species called the Reapers?' the first quarian wanted to know.

Kahlee shook her head.

'There is word coming from the Citadel that Saren's flagship, Sovereign, was actually an advanced AI. It was alive; just one of an entire race of enormous, sentient ships called the Reapers.'

'Those are just rumors,' Hendel interjected. 'There's no proof to support those theories.'

'But it could explain why the geth followed Saren,' the quarian countered. 'An advanced AI might have been