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EPILOGUE

Borbala Ferank lay down inside her cryopod

“I’ll see you on the other side,” Anax Therion said, perched on the lip of the pod

“Will you?” said the batarian with some amusement “Tell me a truth, Anax I listened to all those lies Tell me one truth about yourself and I’ll see you there, I’ll even keep a house for you, waiting on whatever homeworld the Pathfinders find for the batarians Somewhere nice and dry”

Anax gazed doith her dark eyes

“They were all true”

“Tell me another one”

“All right I was never bonded to a hanar I have been alone all my life I watched other drell be chosen, but I had to carve my oay I was not wanted Except by the Shadow Broker, who only wanted the secrets I could send The stories are true, but the names are false It has always only been me, occasionally in company, mostly alone”

“Is that true?” said Borbala Ferank

“Perhaps,” smiled Anax Therion, and leaned down to kiss the batarian on her gouged-out, withered eye, and then, almost afraid to do it, on her lips “Sleep well Do not dream Find me in Andromeda”

Batarian skin looks almost white in cryostasis Drell skin, too

“Systems report, Grandmother,” said Senna’Nir as he activated the stasis cascade on his own pod He ian to feel the drowsiness overcome him

Call rrrrrr—all systems optimal, Commander

There It had begun She had lost her name By the time someone from the Nexus found them, his ancestor would be completely subsureat sea Not dead, not gone, but not Liat, either But perhaps… Perhaps he could visit her, still, from time to time In his old quarters, where she, so briefly, came very nearly alive

The cryostasis ca of her, a dream in which he had to decide whether to tell the others what had happened, or sihts until full decontaue story—unexplainable, devastating, over now Done The rest was a decision for the wariveness of sleep

If there was any forgiveness to be had

“Goodbye, Grandmother,” he whispered

Goodbye, ke’sed May flights of angels sing thee… sing thee… thee sing…

Incoe, Commander

But no one ake to receive it The Keelah Si’yah flew on in silence, a gliht in the dark, toward a ho to them