When Cleopatra Reigned As Queen, With Roman Leaders She Was Often Seen

Note: This takes place a week or so after the events of the preceding thread.: "Hannibal, Our Book Confirms, Tried Conquering Italy With Pachyderms".

...


"It's lucky the Capsatus are so keen on rebuilding their trade links with the Hierarchy". The turian cargo master turned to Xuumo-kalashasi with a toothy smile, evidently trying to be friendly. Or perhaps just naturally engaging. The alien's rictus was like a supernova of exaggerated expression. Turian faces were inflexible, so they were among the worst when it came to keeping things subdued. Broad in their mannerisms, very broad.

As he, Xuumo-kalashasi, was broad in size. A fact that had led him to his latest humiliation.

"Polite disinterest: It is lucky, yes. Slight bitterness: Otherwise I might have had to find an even smaller cargo bay to stand in".

The turian laughed. "We don't get many elcor passengers". He chucked a thumb over his shoulder at Alonso. "The kid doesn't seem to mind".

Indeed, Alonso was sitting atop a pile of secured goods, reading the manifest intensely and looking for all intents and purposes like he was quite at home. Xuumo hoped he wouldn't lapse into Duct Rat logic and start helping himself to anything less than perfectly secured. Even turians could be sloppy about that in times such as these...

Xuumo was mostly relieved that Alonso had stopped pouting. The boy had responded eargerly at first, when his elcor guardian had announced that he'd be sharing one of those long-promised revelations with him, grooming the boy to take his place in securing his late father's legacy. There was an unspoken understanding between them that Alonso wouldn't pester and that Xuumo would reveal things honestly, in what the elcor judged good time. Once Alonso knew they were going on a trip, though, he had grown stubborn. He felt as though he was abandoning his friends on the Citadel. Xuumo had tried to reason that the boy likely wouldn't see them anyway, but to Alonso it felt like he was turning his back on his makeshift family, his protectors and comrades. Gang mindsets were strong in humans, and Xuumo's own loneliness had made him at once sympathetic and quick to project his anger. Alonso hadn't spoken to him for an entire day.

Xuumo took in his cramped surroundings, the crates and stacks and spare parts filling the bay, save for a few empty spaces, one of which was no longer empty but occupied by himself. Perhaps the boy was right. Nothing is worth this embarrassment. He was glad his fellow "Councillors" couldn't see him.

"Wryly: Alonso has some experience in crawling through cramped spaces and making do".

"And you don't?"

"Annoyance: Does Farish Vey need all of this?"

The turian grinned again, a leering, craze-eyed demon of cheer. "The salarian government on Farish Vey is incorporating a lot of turian culture into its day-to-day operations. Some kind of social experiment. Good news if you ask me. Personally, I'm proud that the galaxy sees things worth emulating in us".

"Slight amusement: Indeed".

"The Cause is bigger than any of us, Mr. Zoomo".

"Bluntly: Xuumo. Xuumo-kalashasi". The elcor-specific thromb missing from the double vowel was a common mispronuciation among bipeds.

"Zoomo actually sounds like the elcor version of Blasto" chimed in Alonso, before affecting a sensationalist holovision voice "This summer: He's the fastest elcor in the galaxy! Zooooom-mo!!" The boy laughed. "I'm going to call you that now".

"With mocking delight: I'm glad you see fit to dishonour my name, Alonso. Let's see if I can find an elcor word that matches yours. As rude as possible".

"Yeah, yeah". The boy turned back to the manifest.

The turian, of course, was still smiling cheerfully. "Ah, kids, eh?"

That was an observation deserving an actual acknowledgement.

"Weary agreement: Indeed. I am...still new at this".

"Ah. I have three of my own. Well, two. One gave her all for the Cause". He said it so cheerfully, though not without a heavy cast to his voice and a downward glance. He was proud, and that pride vastly overshadowed his grief. Xuumo didn't know whether to be impressed or appalled.

"Uncomfortably: This same Cause the Capsatus are taking to pieces to splice into their own colony?"

"Ah. It's remarkable, really. Say they want to understand their neighbours better, integrate us all more. Personally -" He leaned in closer, "I think they're ashamed over what happened during the War. Farish Vey was hit, but the Union, well, you know what they did, and didn't". For the first time a hint of displeasure in his voice. "I think the Capsatus want to distance themselves from the Union and get in closer with us".

Xuumo considered that. If he knew the dalatrasses, they wouldn't let an entire colony all but secede so easily. He thought of his own business on Farish Vey. Alonso didn't know it, but his most useful moment was - hopefully, surely - approaching. And as Xuumo reflected on the sorry little planet and its inhabitants, he wondered: when his business here was finished, one way or the other - could he disengage from Pietro's son in any meaningful fashion, as Farish Vey was alleged (by this smiling fool) to be disengaging from its own past entanglements, past embarrassments? His own, very personal Cause had released its potent scent, and Xuumo was ready to accept its lure. But just as he suspected that the situation on the planet he approached was a lot more complicated than the turian claimed, so he was weary of his own conflicting emotions, his own sense of responsibility.

I believed I was on solid ground. Have I instead sunk myself into the mud?

His pessimism grew, as the turian's inane grin grew wider.

They docked at Farish Vey's primary spaceport the next day. The busy little colony was fairly cosmopolitan, enough so for an elcor and a human child to blend in about as well as they could, which of course wasn't very. Nonetheless, their admittance was achieved without much in the way of fuss - likely, no doubt, due to their having arrived with the government's latest turian benefactors. Xuumo still had no idea what was going on there. If it kept everyone too distracted to idly ask after an elcor's business, though, he would count his blessings and be thankful. As the turian crew marched off to consult with local officials, following their volus spokesman like a bizarrely inverted family of Terran ducks, Xuumo took in the thick smells of the spaceport. He briefly amused himself watching the volus stride forth, the rotund alien taking point for its patrons like a child ushered forth to bargain for its parents. The turians hanging back, the mighty reduced to the meek. Or perhaps he was thinking of his own situation. His amusement faded swiftly.

"So where are we going?" Alonso asked, looking out at the surface with a gloomy expression, dangerously close to a pout. He hadn't minded being cooped up aboard ship - it reminded him of the Citadel's ducts, no doubt - but after two years without having seen the surface of a planet he was less than impressed with the vista he'd gotten. Xuumo didn't blame him. Farish Vey was a very salarian place, far more smothering than its light-as-air name would seem to imply. Damp and humid was the standard climate, with buzzing insects that he was certain some of the locals were eating as they went about their business. Whether this was normal for salarians or some local custom, he didn't know. Carnivorism of any kind made an elcor edgy; the jerking, swift-footed motions didn't help.

Thank you for this, Pietro. Your choice of planets is astounding.

After finding someone in uniform to speak to - salarians tended to blanch at the prospect of talking with an elcor, and went out of their way to escape being drawn in by one - he was given a code by which he could contact a branch of the local government, which, he was told, could point him to whatever he needed. "With great speed!" the man assured him, apparently unaware that he was painting his government as dangerously reckless. If it were possible, Xuumo would simply begin walking and investigate by himself, without involving the amphibians at all, but he hadn't any clue where the target might actually be. For that, he needed to know exactly where Pietro's ship had landed, where the halfway mark of its fateful journey might lie. He was thankful the planet had so few settlements.

Sending Alonso off with some credits, enough so that he'd be too awe-struck to realize he was being left out of the loop, Xuumo lumbered up to a communications terminal and put in his request.

After a few minutes, he was put through to the relevant office. A female salarian appeared onscreen, seated at a desk, her large eyes quizzical in that slightly manic way of her people, offering a porthole glance into the whirling rapidity of the salarian mind. A deranged people, in Xuumo's considered opinion, far too dangerous to have the influence they did. Thank sun and earth that the asari, a rather more sensible and slower-paced people, had always balanced them out. Behind the female, a male salarian stood while working on a small device, hands moving frenetically as though life or death hinged on whatever it was he was doing.

"Grimly self-fortifying: Good day there. I hope I have been directed to the correct department".

The female nodded. "I am Farish Vey Seevanon Jiusu-ze'el-Capsatus Finle" she announced, "Sentry of Trade and Tourism".

No wonder they rush their speech, he thought with annoyance. As elcor wording went, names among his kind were surprisingly short; his own, traditional Ghorsuulan moniker was unusually lengthy, incorporating as it did a clan identity most elcor eschewed. But then he supposed the salarians, for all their flightiness, understood the importance of family origins, and of solid ancestral earth beneath your feet. Well, likely not solid here on Farish Vey...

"Politely: Thank you for agreeing to speak with me on such short notice. Formal: My haste is unseemly, but my cause is honest". Why was he justifying his rapid pace to salarians? He dismissed the notion with a wave of irritation. "Inquisitive: I am looking for information regarding the visit of a particular spacecraft to your colony. A human freight vessel, the -"

A pause; he couldn't help it.

"The?" The salarian wasn't so much impatient as simply eager for the rest of the sentence.

"Shameful reluctance: The Shittiest Ship"

"Was this pre- or post-war?"

"During".

"Ah. Emergency supply run, perhaps?" asked the male, tapping away on his stylus. "Lost or misplaced cargo? Commandeered goods?"

Xuumo had wondered about this, and whether he should pursue that line of thinking. It was a reasonably convincing cover; that cargo of his had been commandeered for the war effort and that he was now looking to determine if he might recover it. But alerting the local authorities to what the ship had (hopefully) unloaded might be a bad idea; some of them might know the cargo for what it was, even on description alone, and contact the Courts. Having his spotlight stolen by a cadre of hyperactive amphibians was not how this would end. If it did, he would probably kill someone.

"Slight embarrassment: The matter is more of finding the cargo in the first place. My friend, Mr. Cutri, the owner of the... of the ship in question... was not always above board when it came to visiting planets such as this. Explanatory: He had a tendency to put down off the radar if at all possible. Wistful: A strange paranoia, but it was one of his endearing traits".

"I see". The female's voice had dropped several degrees, but the male looked intrigued. Just as Xuumo thought he might have to threaten a lengthy, droning speech to put pressure on them, the male cleared his throat, evidently asking permission to respond. The female gave him a nod.

"Sir. Most docking facilities in the outer homesteads; staffed by Farish Vey Space Control affiliates. Not official, but report to us. No secrets here".

"Confusion: You would inform outsiders of this fact so casually?"

"Prior to war, no. In aftermath, yes. In this together. Lessons learned; on all sides, one hopes".

"Hopeful: Then you can point me to the relevant location, the point at which the ship touched down?"

"Not problematic. Records easily accessible; new government transparency. One moment". He tapped furiously, while Xuumo blinked at the apparent ease with which he was finding answers.

He had waited a long time for this, and he let the salarian's rapid confirmation of the Shittiest Ship's last landing point sink in without exclamation. He still felt the satisfying thrill, though, like fists around his hearts that had just unclenched, only to squeeze again tighter, pumping those hearts at a faster rate. Yes. This is it, for certain. Out there, in one of the satellite regions, was his ticket toward getting his life back on track, to reconnecting himself to the path he'd planned out prior to the racing Reapers ruining it. He wouldn't have the first clue how to access the Embalhoth Collection, but Alonso would, of that he was certain. And if Xuumo's subtle probing these last few months had been accurate, somewhere in Alonso's brain was the key to his dreams. He hoped he'd be successful in coaxing it out. If not... there were other avenues he could explore. He hoped he wouldn't have to.

He pawed at the floor as the familiar question turned over in his mind, like a bloated corpse in a waterhole. What to do about Alonso once he had what he wanted? At first the boy would surely celebrate, but when Xuumo's goal become clear the questions would arise. And then the suspicions. One thing was certain; his return to Dekuuna couldn't be accomplished with a human in tow.

Or could it?

No.

No it couldn't.

"Emphatically: The cargo is of great personal significance. I thank you for this".

The male perked up again. "Valuable?"

"Wearily: No. Only of emotional worth".

The female leaned forward, fixing those alien eyes on his. "Sir, you are not the first traveller to come here seeking lost personal effects. We are not a large colony, but we receive more than our share of traffic. It's possible what you seek has already been recovered and taken offworld". She let that sink in, a pause that must have seemed significant to her people but was a mere comma to an elcor. "Nonetheless, we will consent to your investigating the site. We will provide you with a guide. State your location and we can dispatch one of our people at your convenience".

Xuumo muttered a curse under his breath. "Displeased: Is that truly necessary?"

"Situation volatile" said the male, apologetically. "Transparency also required to work both ways".

Xuumo resisted the urge to drum on the ground in irritation. "Stoic acceptance: Very well. I am at Terminal 17-A at the central spaceport. I will have a human child with me. Do not ask" he added, as the male opened his mouth.

For how much longer, though? a part of him wondered. He didn't have an answer for it.

Less than five hours later, they were at the appropriate location. The place wasn’t immediately inspiring, but then even with the run of surprising good luck he’d been having, he wouldn’t have expected convenient sign-posts. He stood and considered how best to proceed. This might take several trips. I may need to find hired assistance. Not good that he was considering this only now. Not good at all. He was becoming less and less elcor the longer he was away from his own kind. This was all too unstable. Making it up as he went along; Anathema. He felt shame.

"This is it?" Alonso shot an accusatory look at his elcor guardian, something like disgust on his face. Xuumo certainly didn’t begrudge him his bad mood. For the boy's first trip to a planet in over two years, this was less than thrilling. It was starting to rain, too, and the general dampness was contributing to an overall sense of melancholy. The ruins before them were hardly inspiring; the former homestead was clearly no use to anyone.

"Thoughtful: Yes, this is it. Be at cheer, Alonso. You are very near to taking up the burden of your father's legacy. Was this not what I promised?"

"I guess. I thought you meant, like making money or contacts or something. This is just standing about in the rain". He gave Xuumo a dubious look. Xuumo narrowed his eyes in return.

They weren’t alone, of course, which made talking freely unwise. Their salarian guide, a male named Motlan, had already perked up with interest at the conversation, mostly out of curiosity. He liked to talk, and to involve himself in other people's business; hardly the sort of person Xuumo wanted involved. Motlan had been resolutely cheerful the entire journey out here, talking idly and at length about the increased economic profile of the colony, the exciting new innovations that had been introduced, the interesting manner in which Xuumo was seeking his lost cargo, and his delight in having an excuse to come out to the ruined settlements, and on duty hours at that. Xuumo wished he'd be quiet. It was a short journey out to the point where the Shittiest Ship had apparently put down, but the salarian's incessant nattering made it wearying. On top of that, Alonso had become increasingly edgy and surly the nearer they got; Xuumo could only imagine he was discomforted about the thought of retracing his father's last run, remembering times they shared before the war, and how his already reduced family had been whittled down even further, until there was nothing left. Alone. Alone and dragged out here looking for ghosts. Xuumo still didn't know enough about the intricacies of human socialization, but he was disquieted all the same. He knew what being alone was like. Perhaps the boy would have been better just staying with his gang, in the Citadel's ducts. Probably.

Irrelevant. That was the way of the galaxy; you did what you had to do to survive. Even the galaxy's universal hero, Commander Shepard, had acted as such. But then, Shepard had succeeded by adapting to situations as they came, by making surprising, even alarming decisions without hesitation. Curing the genophage. Making allies of the geth. Placing hope in the untested Crucible. Precedent would have warned against these moves, or had nothing to offer in the first place. But then so much of what had happened in the last few years couldn't have been anticipated by even the most dedicated lawmakers and strategists. Dekuuna had burnt; the old ways had failed to save them.

Could he even be sure anymore?

For now, he needed to focus. And he needed Alonso focused, too.

"With stoic respect: It was no doubt with regards to your future that Pietro chose to make this cargo run, in such dangerous circumstances".

True, to some extent. And maybe it would provoke some memories; something more useful than miserable nostalgia.

Alonso blinked back tears. "It's just Reapers" he said. "It doesn't matter".

Yes it does, because if it wasn't for you I'd have had no idea where to begin looking. You bipeds and your hasty decisions ruin everything because you can’t follow a well-structured plan. But, again... had that biped haste and rapid capacity to adapt not been what had saved them all? Living in the moment, making moves on intuition, responding to change rather than consulting the records and deliberating at length? You could do it. You could thrive by diverging from the plan, by living on the edge.

No. Extraordinary events allowed for extraordinary actions. This was normal life. He must be true to himself, to the sensible ways of the elcor. Alonso was still accepting of the idea that Xuumo's tracing his father's ship had been a happy accident, rather than a concerted effort. He thought their arrangement was permanent. But that had not been the plan.

"Terrible business" said Motlan, more subdued. "I only hope you succeed in locating this, er, legacy, you said? What is it you think he was doing? Trying to keep his cargo from being commandeered for the war effort, hoping he could pick it up later"?

"Distantly: Something like that, yes".

"Xuumo, what are we looking for?" Alonso's voice was quiet.

"Patiently: I do not know. I know that when we see it we will... we will know what to do".

"It may not be here at all" said Motlan, in what he no doubt assumed was a helpful manner. Xuumo found the urge to swat at him rising steadily. "This place doesn't look very promising. Any offloaded cargo would likely have been retrieved by someone during the fight against the Reapers”.

“Irritation: Pietro would have wanted to retrieve it, and to keep it safe. I doubt it was easily found. He was skilled enough at what he did. Was he not, Alonso?”

"Yeah". The boy's voice was distant. Unhelpful.

Xuumo sighed, and took in their surroundings one more time.

The former port had been abandoned at the height of the war, the various people who called Farish Vey home following the example of so many other small populations and retreating en masse to the wilderness, trying to disperse and avoid death, or harvesting. It helped that this damp and humid place was a natural environment for salarians.

It's here somewhere. But where?

"Solemn: My people believe that the future can be anticipated by carefully regarding the past. To secure a better future is to follow the wisdom that has been accumulated by our forebears. With didactic emphasis: To understand the past, and to project through to potential futures based on the stored wisdom of the ages, is our calling as elcor.

Bitter helplessness: But if we have no memory of the past, we have no means of knowing how to prepare for our future. We become severed from our forebears, and we are lost. Isolated.

Alone.

With racial pride: The Reapers took much from us, but enough remains. The Code of the Ancients has shown us the way to recovery, but it is we who must act on those ancient records. Frustrated: The authorities here have made a record of Pietro's past for us, but it is we who must act on it. We who must unlock its secrets.

Solemn disappointment: Yet we have no clue where to begin. Our future is slipping away, and with it Pietro's only future, his legacy.

With great sorrow: It is appalling to me, that he should die all over again".

There was a lengthy silence.

The salarian fidgeted, apparently uncomfortable. It wasn't his reaction that Xuumo cared for, though.

Presently, Alonso tapped him on the arm. He looked into the young human's eyes, and they were wide, unsettled. The look in them was... significant, was the word that came to mind.

"Xuumo, I...I think I remember something. Something important".

Something you haven't been telling me?

"Do... do we know where the ship landed? I mean, more or less exactly?"

"Pointedly: That's your cue, salarian".

"Ah? Ah, yes, of course. Sorry, distracted. Let's see...yes, over there. I'll take you to the exact place".

"Satisfied: Let's go".

Alonso stayed close to Xuumo, apparently using the elcor's body to shield himself from the rain, but Xuumo suspected he was also drawing some degree of comfort. He spoke quietly, in explanation. "I remember something dad told me. He made me remember it. I don't know for sure or anything, but think I can find where the cargo is. He said I shouldn't share it with anyone, and I didn't, but he's gone now and you and I can continue in his place. So... I think you should know".

"With great satisfaction: Bless you, Alonso. Bless you".