Mass Effect: The Complete Novels 4-Book Bundle (8 page)

Not that Anderson had to be concerned about any of that. As an Alliance officer his private extranet account received official bursts every fifteen minutes. Piggybacking personal messages onto the official bursts was one of the perks of his rank.

There was only one message waiting for him in his in-box. He frowned, recognizing the sender’s address. It wasn’t exactly a surprise, but he wasn’t happy to see the file. For a second he considered ignoring it, but he knew he was being childish. Better to just get it over with.

He opened the file, downloading a series of e-docs and a short prerecorded video message from the divorce attorney.

An image of Ib Haman, his lawyer, appeared on the terminal’s screen as the video began to play. Ib was a portly, balding man in his sixties. He was wearing an expensive-looking suit and was seated behind his desk in an office Anderson had become all too familiar with over the last year.

“Lieutenant. I won’t bother with the formality of asking how you’re doing … I know this hasn’t been easy for you or Cynthia.”

“Damn right,” Anderson muttered under his breath as the message continued.

“I’ve sent you copies of all the documents I had you sign the last time we met. Cynthia’s signed them now, too.”

The man on the screen glanced down and shifted some papers on the desk in front of him, then looked back up at the camera.

“You’ll also see a copy of my fee. I know this isn’t much consolation right now, but just be glad you two didn’t have any children. It could have been a lot worse—and a lot more expensive. When custody becomes an issue the proceedings rarely go this smoothly.”

Anderson snorted. Nothing about this mess had felt “smooth” to him.

“The marriage will be officially absolved on the date indicated in the documents. I suspect that by the time you get this message your divorce will be final.

“If you have any questions please feel free to contact me, Lieutenant. And if you ever need me for—”

The message terminated abruptly as Anderson deleted it and dragged it into the trash. He didn’t plan on ever talking to Ib Haman again. The man was a good attorney; his prices were reasonable and he’d been fair and unbiased throughout the divorce. In fact, he’d been nothing but the model of efficiency and professionalism. And if he was standing in the apartment right now, Anderson would have punched him in the face.

It was a funny thing, Anderson thought as he shut the terminal down. He’d just participated in two of humanity’s oldest and most enduring customs: marriage and divorce. Now it was time for an even older tradition: he was going to the bar to get drunk.

SEVEN

Chora’s Den was the only bar within walking distance of Anderson’s apartment. It wasn’t exactly a dive, though it did have a certain seedy feel to it. That was part of its charm, along with supple dancers and stiff drinks. But what Anderson liked most about it was the clientele.

At any given time the Den could be busy, but it was never packed. There were plenty of more popular clubs in the wards where people could go to be seen … or to be part of the scene. People came here to eat, drink, and relax; average, everyday people who lived and worked in the wards. The common folk, if you could call such an interesting menagerie of aliens common.

Of course, even humans were alien here. Anderson was instantly aware of this as he came through the door. Dozens of eyes turned to look at him, many staring with open curiosity as he paused at the entrance.

It wasn’t that humans were particularly strange-looking. Species like the hanar, translucent beings that resembled three-meter-tall jellyfish, were the exception rather than the rule. Most of the space-faring species in the galaxy were bipeds between one and three meters in height. There were a number of theories to explain this resemblance: some were mundane; others highly bizarre and speculative.

Given that most species at the Citadel had ascended to interstellar flight through the discovery and adaptation of caches of Prothean technology on planets within the same solar system as their respective home worlds, many anthropologists believed the Protheans had played some role in evolution throughout the galaxy.

Anderson, however, subscribed to the most generally accepted theory that there was some evolutionary advantage to the biped form that resulted in its proliferation across the galaxy. The caches of technology were easily explained: it was only natural for the Protheans to study intelligent but primitive races that bore some similarity to themselves. The various species, such as humans, had evolved first, and then the Protheans had arrived to study them, not the other way around. The theory of parallel evolution was further supported by the fact that most life-forms on the Citadel were carbon-based, highly dependant on water, and breathed a mixture of gases similar to those found on Earth.

In fact, virtually all inhabitable planets in the galaxy were fundamentally similar to Earth in several key characteristics. They tended to exist in systems with suns that fit the type-G classification according to the traditional Morgan-Keenan system still used by the Alliance. Their orbits all fell in the narrow range known as the life-zone: too close to the sun and water would exist only as a gas, too far away and it would be permanently trapped in frozen form. Because of this, the time it took the home world of almost every major species to complete one orbit around its sun varied by only a few weeks. The galactic standard year—an average of the asari, salarian, and turian years—was only 1.09 times longer than Earth’s.

No,
Anderson thought as he crossed the floor to an open seat on the bar,
it wasn’t their appearance or unusual physical characteristics that made humans stand out. They were simply the newcomers, and they’d made one hell of a first impression.

A pair of turians fixed their avian eyes on him, following his every move like hawks ready to swoop down on an unsuspecting mouse. Turians were roughly the same height as humans, but much thinner. Their bones were slender and their frames were sharp and angular. Their three-fingered hands looked almost like talons, and their heads and faces were covered by a rigid mask of brown-gray cartilage and bone, which they tended to mark with striping and tribal tattoos. It flared out from the top and back of the skull in short, blunted spikes and extended down to cover the forehead, nose, upper lip, and cheeks, making it difficult to distinguish between individual members of the species. Looking at turians always reminded Anderson of the evolutionary link between dinosaurs and birds.

He met their gaze for a second then quickly looked away, doing his best to ignore them. He was in a foul mood tonight, but he wasn’t about to try and revive the First Contact War. Instead, he turned his attention to the asari dancer on the stage in the center of the bar.

Of all the species in Council space, the asari were the most widespread … and the ones who most closely resembled humans. Human women, anyway: tall and slender, with well-proportioned figures. The asari were an asexual species—the concept of gender didn’t really apply. But to Anderson’s eye they were clearly female. Even their facial features were human … although they had an angelic, almost ethereal quality to them. Their complexion was tinged with a blue or greenish hue, but pigment modification was a simple enough procedure that it was possible to see humans of similar skin color, too. Only the backs of their heads betrayed their alien origins. Instead of hair, they had wavy folds of sculpted skin … not entirely unattractive, but a disconcertingly alien feature on a species that was otherwise so human in appearance.

The asari were something of a paradox for Anderson. On the one hand they were an aesthetically captivating species. They seemed to embrace this aspect of themselves, and often took to the openly alluring or sensually provocative professions. Asari frequently performed as dancers or served as consorts for hire. On the other hand, they were the most respected, admired, and powerful species in the galaxy.

Renowned for their wisdom and foresight, the asari, by all accepted accounts, were the first species after the Prothean extinction to achieve interstellar flight. They were also the first to discover the Citadel, and they were a founding member species of the Council. The asari controlled more territory and wielded more influence than any other race.

Anderson knew all these facts, yet he often found it difficult to reconcile their dominant role in galactic politics with the enthralling performance of an asari on the stage. He knew the failure was his: a product of his human biases and ill-conceived expectations. It was stupid to judge an entire species on the basis of an individual. But it went deeper than an impression formed by watching a few dancers: the asari looked female, so they were victims of stereotypical human anti-matriarchal tendencies.

At least he was aware of his prejudice, and he did his best to fight against it. Unfortunately he knew there were plenty of other humans who felt the same way and were more than willing to give in to their biases. Just further proof that they still had a lot to learn about the rest of the galaxy.

As he continued to watch the dancer performing on stage, Anderson found the subtle differences in their physiology easy to ignore. He’d heard plenty of graphic tales of interspecies sexual relations, he’d even seen a few vids. He prided himself on keeping an open mind, but that kind of thing normally repulsed him. With the asari, however, he could understand the attraction. And from everything he’d heard, they were highly skilled lovers as well.

But that wasn’t why he was here, either.

He turned away from the stage just as the volus bartender waddled up to serve him. The volus home world had a gravity nearly one and a half times that of Earth, and because of this the volus were shorter than humans, their bodies so thick and heavy they almost appeared to be spherical. While the turians evoked hawks or falcons, the volus reminded Anderson of the manatees he had seen at the marine preserve during his last visit to Earth: slow, lumbering, and almost comical.

The atmosphere on the Citadel was thinner than they were used to, so they tended to wear rebreather masks, obscuring their faces. But Anderson had been in Chora’s Den enough times to recognize this particular volus.

“I need a drink, Maawda.”

“Of course, Lieutenant,” the bartender replied, his voice wheezing through the rebreather and the folds of skin at his throat. “What type of beverage do you desire?”

“Surprise me. Something new. Make it strong.”

Maawda pulled a blue bottle from the shelves behind the bar and a glass from beneath the counter.

“This is elasa,” he explained as he filled the glass with a pale green liquid. “From Thessia.”

The asari home world. Anderson nodded, then took a tentative sip. The drink was sharp and cold, but it wasn’t exactly unpleasant. The lingering aftertaste was particularly strong, and markedly different from the first sip. It was a bitter flavor, with an undertone of tangy sweetness. If he had to use one word to describe it, he would have said “poignant.”

“Not bad,” he said approvingly, taking another sip.

“Some call it Sorrow’s Companion,” Maawda noted, settling himself and leaning in on the counter across from his customer. “A melancholy drink for a melancholy man.”

The lieutenant couldn’t help but smile at the situation: a volus bartender spotting depression in his human customer, and feeling enough compassion to ask what was wrong. Further proof of what Anderson truly believed: despite all the obvious physical and cultural differences, at their core nearly every species shared the same basic needs, wants, and values.

“I got some bad news today,” he answered, running a finger around the rim of his drink. He didn’t know a lot about volus culture, so he wasn’t quite sure how to explain his situation. “Do you know what marriage is?”

The bartender nodded. “It is a formalized union between partners, yes? An institutionalized recognition of the mating process. My people have a similar tradition.”

“Well, I just got divorced. My wife and I are no longer together. My marriage is officially over as of today.”

“I am sorry for your loss,” Maawda wheezed. “But I am also surprised. In all the times you have come in before you have never mentioned any kind of partner.”

Therein lay the problem. Cynthia was back on Earth, and Anderson wasn’t. He was either here on the Citadel or out patrolling the Verge. He was a soldier first, and a husband second … and Cynthia deserved better.

He downed the rest of his drink in a single gulp, then slammed the glass back down on the bar. “Hit me again, Maawda.”

The bartender did as instructed. “Perhaps this situation is only temporary, yes?” he asked as he refilled Anderson’s cup. “Maybe in time you will resume this partnership?”

Anderson shook his head. “No chance of that. It’s over. Time to move on.”

“Easy to say, not so easy to do,” the volus replied knowingly.

Anderson took another drink, but he was back to sipping. It wasn’t wise to overdo it on a new drink; every concoction had its own unique effects. He could already feel an unusual sensation spreading through him. A numbing warmth crawled its way up from his stomach and out along his arms and legs, making his toes tingle and his fingers itch. It wasn’t uncomfortable, just unfamiliar.

“Just how strong is this stuff?” he asked the bartender.

Maawda shrugged. “Depends on how much you drink. I can leave the bottle if you wish to crawl out of here.”

The volus’s offer sounded like a hell of an idea. Anderson wanted nothing more than to drink until everything went away: the dull, aching pain of the divorce; the gruesome images of the dead bodies at Sidon; the lingering, indefinable stress that always dogged him in those first few days after he came off patrol. But he had a meeting in the morning with the human ambassador to the Citadel, and it wouldn’t be professional to show up with a hangover.

“Sorry, Maawda. I better go. Early meeting tomorrow.” He polished off his drink and stood up, relieved to see the room wasn’t spinning around him. “Put it on my account.”

With one last, lingering look at the asari dancer he turned and headed toward the door. The two turians glared at him as he passed their table, and one of them muttered something under his breath. Anderson didn’t need to understand the words to know he was being insulted.

He hesitated, his fists involuntarily clenching as he felt his temper rise. But only for a second. Showing up at tomorrow’s meeting hung over was bad; having to explain why C-Sec had picked him up for beating the crap out of two turians who didn’t know enough to keep their mouths shut was worse.

That was one of the burdens of being an Alliance officer. He was a representative of his species; his actions reflected on humanity as a whole. Even with a mind full of dark thoughts and a belly full of stiff booze, he didn’t have the luxury of kicking their asses. Taking a deep breath, he simply walked away, swallowing his pride and ignoring the harsh, mocking laughter coming from behind him because it was his duty.

Always a soldier first.