Author's note: I think this needs a few quick words of introduction. Don't worry, I won't be long!

'Sideways to Zero' is a speculative prequel to the Mass Effect series. It concerns the discovery of the prothean beacon on Thessia, and the subsequent decisions and events surrounding that. I am not suggesting that the events of this story are what did happen, but rather that they are one possibility regarding what could have. In terms of dates, this story is set sometime around 600 BCE, in our terms, or thereabouts, but obviously no-one on ancient Thessia would be talking about BCEs or ADs or whatever!

Another significant conceit of this piece is that it tries to take the science background at least semi-seriously - because let's be honest, that slipped a bit in 3, didn't it? (With this in mind, I've taken a few bits of slight artistic license with the details of how Element Zero works/what it is, to try to make things a little more consistent with General Relativity.)

Finally, one last point, regarding units of measurement ... I don't imagine that ancient asari would be using kilograms, miles or whatever. However, thinking up a consistent alien units system would be a major task, and probably rather confusing to the reader. I have rendered the characters' discussion into the metric and imperial equivalents, in the places that seemed appropriate; they wouldn't actually be talking in joules and kilometres and pounds, anymore than they would actually be speaking English!

Anyway, without further ado, let's join our main character, Dr. Nassana T'Saith, as she struggles to navigate the murky political waters that surround science funding...

(Also, for some reason, the chapters drop-down box doesn't seem to be appearing on Ch. 1 here. I have no idea why; everything looks normal at the back-end! However, you can get to Ch. 2 via my profile page; click on the '' next to the Sideways to Zero link, and that should take you there. Hopefully this is just some glitch that will soon resolve itself...)

'If you'd just let me speak, I'd tell you what the point is!'

Dr. Nassana T'Saith - Nass to her friends - regarded the woman before her with frustration and perhaps a small amount of panic. The meeting was not going well.

Sat on the opposite side of the desk, Matriarch Reanne was sipping a strongly-scented cup of herbal tea. The fruity aroma filled the small space of her office. Behind her, mid-afternoon sunlight was streaming in through the long gallery-window. The graceful towers and spires of Armali were picked out against the bright Thessian sky.

The matriarch herself was a contrast with the beautiful view. She was a complacent, elderly woman with a figure that Nass had described to friends as 'dumpy'. Every time Nass had met with the woman, Nass had found it ever harder to hide her growing dislike. Reanne was short, loud and entirely convinced of her own self-worth; everything about her personality seemed tailored to grate against Nass's.

'I'm sorry, Dr T'Saith,' the matriarch said with little sincerity, 'but you're asking a lot. You want me to intervene with the City and ask the voters for money on your behalf - and for this! This pointless trainwreck of a proposal!' The woman waved a dismissive hand at the papers lying on the desk. Unable to help herself, Nass winced. The irritated matriarch continued, 'All you've done is gibber at me - all that jargon about resolutions and pixel scales and what was it! You've yet to show me what's new or interesting about this idea. Honestly - at least give me something I can work with here!' The matriarch shifted her weight; the chair underneath her creaked.

'Yes,' Nass said, trying to sound focused and earnest, 'this is a novel and unique proposed program of scientific research, which will bring much benefit-'

'A program of stamp-collecting, you mean,' Reanne said bluntly.

'A detailed and rigorous program of data-gathering which will fill in the gaps in our knowledge of the outer asteroids and greatly advantage our studies of planet formation-'

'But it won't greatly advantage the voters of Armali, will it?' Reanne said. She put the cup down on the desk. The porcelain clinked on the polished wooden surface. The remaining liquid sloshed inside the cup.

'Everyone benefits from science,' Nass said. 'I strongly believe that.' She was starting to feel angry with Reanne as well as angry with the situation. Nass was doing her best not to show her rising temper. She had a feeling her best just wasn't enough.

Her hands were balled at her sides, she realised. With a conscious effort, she relaxed the fingers.

'You want a stipend of seventy thousand credits,' Reanne said with a cold glint in her eye, 'to go and take photos of asteroids.'

'Not photos - it's all digital these days. It says all about the method, just there.' Nass waved a hand helplessly at the documents. As far as she could tell, Reanne hadn't even looked at them.

'How do you expect me,' Reanne said, 'to ask the people for money for glorified holiday snaps? And of worthless lumps of rock, as well. Think what else the money could be spent on. You haven't given me one convincing reason why I should waste any further time on you.'

Nass scowled. Her breath was hissing in and out in short, hard gasps. She briefly wondered if punching the patronising matriarch would really be such a bad thing.

'Well?' Reanne asked. 'Do you have anything else to say for yourself?'

Nass took a deep breath, releasing it slowly. She barely managed to ease her temper down a notch or so. However angry and insulted she might feel, shouting at a matriarch wouldn't do her any favours. She deliberately set aside her momentary fantasy of landing a fist right in the middle of Reanne's face.

'I see that you've made your choice,' Nass said. She spoke in a tight, tense voice, but she remained composed. Nass felt a moment of unexpected pride - given how twisted and tense she felt inside, not spouting obscenities was an achievement.

Reanne snorted. 'You've met with me five times, girl. And you haven't once managed to land a single blow. Now get out, before I laugh the blue off your arse. Oh, and stop lighting up like that. You just look silly.'

Nass looked down. There was a faint smell of ozone in her nostrils. A bluish biotic corona was creeping in fitful blotches over her body. To add to the day's humiliation, her unusually-weak biotic faculties had manifested themselves in their typical inadequate style! She managed to force the uneven crackling glow to subside.

There was an unwelcome hacking noise from the other side of the desk. Reanne was laughing, Nass realised.

Scowling, she grabbed up the sheath of papers and stuffed them under one arm. She strode out of the office without a further word or a backward glance. The soles of her shoes clicked sharply on the wooden floor.

As the door closed behind her, Nass took a moment to lean against the wall and close her eyes. She breathed deeply, trying to ease the sooth the storm of frustration and humiliation that was raging inside.

'Excuse me,' she heard a voice say, 'Dr. T'Saith? Do you need me to schedule a new appointment?'

Nass opened her eyes. The new speaker was Reanne's secretary. The woman was smartly-dressed and immaculately-groomed, and was sat behind another expensive-looking desk on the far side of the lobby. Her work-station was flanked by two thoroughly-manicured pot-plants, neither of which had so much as a single leaf or flower out of place.

'Thank you, Seata,' Nass said, 'but I don't think that's going to be necessary. I'll be going now. I dare say I shan't be back anytime soon.'

She walked quickly toward the elevator, trying not to run.

A short while later, Nass was outside, still clutching at her papers. She was stood on the pavement, in the shadow of Reanne's headquarters. The building was one of Armali's central towers, rising many floors into the sky. Its exterior was clad in well-polished glass and gleaming chrome, reflecting the sky and the cityscape around it. Nass couldn't help but think that it also reflected the arrogance of its builders. The tower was obviously worth considerably more than the mere seventy thousand or so that Nass needed. When it came to spending on the matriarch's own political movement, apparently cost wasn't an object. When it came to spending on anything else, it seemed things were different,

Nass hurriedly broke that chain of thought, lest it release a flood of rage.

Nass realised she had somehow managed to dislike the matriarch even more.

She sighed. Time to try and pull herself together and figure out a new strategy. With her free hand, she dug out her phone and called for a cab.

Ten minutes of taxi journey later and she arrived at the grounds of the University of Armali. The Faculty of Science was still her employer, at least for the next two months, and the Physics Department was still her workplace, at least for now. She walked through the campus grounds, trying not to think about how much extra job security that seventy thousand could have bought.

Feeling a need to distract herself, Nass surveyed her surroundings. She stopped walking by the side of one of the paths. She looked around her.

It was a bright, sunny afternoon. Parnitha was high in a sky marked only by a few thin cirrus clouds; overhead, birds circled and chirped. The air was moderately warm and in the University's gardens, the air smelt of flowers. Everywhere were people, scurrying to and fro and striding confidently from one place to another. In the middle distance, some undergraduates were sat chattering near the big ornamental fountain. Behind them, jets of water hissed and played through the air.

They all looked dreadfully young, she thought. None of them appeared to be so much as a day over thirty. Briefly, she wished she was that age again, back while her parents had still been alive and life had seemed simpler than it was now. The irony of the situation, she reluctantly had to note, was that asari like the matriarch would regard Nass herself as very young. After all, Nass was barely ninety-two.

Ninety-two, and her chosen career was already dead in the water.

'Better start working on my CV, then,' Nass said to herself, feeling bleak. 'It's not like I'll be here much longer, is it?'

As if to add the final insult, the weather was insisting on being lovely and sunny. Given how Nass felt, driving rain and a thunderstorm would be more appropriate. She allowed herself a quick glower in the direction of the sun - sadly, the brightness of the light turned her glower into more of an intemperate squint. She quickly looked away, blinking at the weirdly-coloured after-images. She felt briefly annoyed with herself - as an astronomer, she should know better than looking straight at the sun!

Nass shook her head and started walking again. She supposed this was all a sign that she needed to get moving. At least once she was inside her windowless office, she couldn't be annoyed any further by the nauseatingly-good weather.

A few moments later and Nass approached the Physics Building. It was a surprisingly-ugly concrete slab, all rectangles, sharp corners and narrow windows. Nass thought it looked like nothing so much as an above-ground nuclear bunker. Quite what the University's architectural team had been thinking, she had no idea. It was entirely out of sorts with the graceful arcs and curves of the other structures. The physics complex was also the furthest of the departmental buildings from the centre of the campus. It was almost as if the institution itself was trying to send a message that her activities weren't quite wanted.

Heels clicking on the smooth concrete, Nass entered the main lobby. Her plan was to go to the lab and have a look at the eezo samples. She didn't have any teaching scheduled for this afternoon, and there was some work she could do. Maybe if she could get just a bit more data with the existing set-up, then perhaps she could get enough data analysis done for a short article. That idea made Nass smile. Yes, that seemed like a plan. An extra publication would help a lot right now. It would give her more ammunition to argue for a contract renewal. It wouldn't be enough to get her a faculty position, but it might get her a few months' breathing-space. That would help.

Nass dared to allow herself to feel somewhat better. Perhaps today hadn't been quite the unmitigated disaster she'd feared!

'Nassana! There you are!'

Momentary happiness collapsed into sudden dread. That voice - it was the Professor Chianis, Head of the Physics Department.

Nass's boss.

Nass turned. Chianis had emerged from a side-corridor and was stood behind her, blocking the exit. 'It's good that I caught you,' Chianis said. 'Do you have a minute? We need to talk. About your renewal application. For your post-doctoral contract.' Her tone was mild but there was something predatory in the woman's eyes, like a hungry animal circling its chosen victim.

Nass's blood turned to ice in her veins. Dread filled her. She'd always had the vague feeling that Chianis didn't like her; that feeling intensified as she stood there. 'Okay,' she heard herself say. 'Perhaps in my lab? It should be quiet right now.'

Chianis nodded. 'Very well.'

Moments later, they were in the lab. It was a narrow space, the walls lined with benches covered in equipment. The walls were painted in a bland, institutional shade of beige. Pipes ran up the sides of the room and across the ceiling, part of the Physics Building's central heating system. A radiator chugged away to itself on the far wall. The room was filled with the steady hums of processor-fans and lit with an artificial, neon glare. There were no windows. Nass shared it with two other post-doctoral researchers; her lab-mates were both currently teaching classes.

The small space smelt of dust, ozone and chemical cleaning agents.

'What can I do for you?' Nass asked.

Like Reanne, Chiannis was another matriarch. She'd been at the University of Armali in various capacities for the last five hundred years. The woman's skin was a sun-weathered shade, more purple than blue, and her head-tendrils had a distinctly asymmetrical cast. Her eyes glittered coolly; she was known to look down on the department's younger members. She'd been at Armali since before there was a Physics Department - in fact, the woman had been here since before physics had existed as professional discipline. The woman was three hundred years older than Thessia's Industrial Revolution. Departmental rumour among the junior postdocs had it that she'd started out as an alchemist, only later switching to natural philosophy and then modern science as dubiously-effective magics had slowly drifted from intellectual fashion over the long centuries.

'Nassana,' Chianis said, 'this is difficult for me. I have a problem.'

Up overhead, one of the pipes groaned as an air-bubble worked its way through the building's heating system. Nass twitched, startled by the sound. She breathed deeply, trying to relax.

'There's a problem with my application?' Nass asked. She vaguely heard people walking outside, feet clicking on the concrete and muffled voices muttering at each other. The sounds of the outside leaked in through the half-open door behind Chianis.

'Well, more than that,' Chiannis said. 'It's your research impact metrics. I want to keep you, really I do. But we're just not getting enough papers out of you. Last year the department averaged three point seven papers per staff-member - in full peer-reviewed journals, I mean! We're not counting popular-press stuff and online citations. But you - well, there was only the one.'

'I have two more,' Nass said, waving a hand at her processor. The computer displayed a shifting, fractal pattern as its screensaver.

'But where are they?' Chiannis asked. Over on the far wall, the radiator glugged to itself.

'They're being written at the moment,' Nass said.

'How written is written?'

'Uh - well, I'm having a lot of discussions with the co-authors,' Nass said, wringing her hands. She felt cornered, awkward. This was a topic she wanted to stay away from. 'There are some, uh, issues. You know. Just stuff we need to talk over.'

'Well,' Chiannis said, 'you might want to talk quickly. I've got fifteen applicants for the three-month position, and twelve of them have more papers than you.'

Nass winced. It was the papers, ultimately, that attracted the funding. The University had its network of matriarchs, some of them staff, some of them alumni, some of them just interested amateurs. When the City of Armali held its open parliaments, it was the allied matriarchs who went before the voters to argue for funds, all of the various departments competing for public largesse. One of the pieces of evidence the matriarchs used in their speeches and debates were the papers produced by the academic staff. Look at all the exciting things my friends are doing! they would say. See all the new knowledge we are compiling!

That was basic, cold equation of academia; no papers equalled no money.

In the last few centuries, as Thessia blinked confusedly into the Steam Age, and then the Electric Age, and now the Processor Age, science had become a bit fashionable. Lots of eager, bright young things wanted to make their mark, still full of energy and enthusiasm. A lot of people wanted Nass's job; she was not indispensable, and she knew it. It was the ages-old problem of supply and demand; too many eager and desperate young researchers, eagerly and desperately chasing too few jobs.

Now if only she could have landed that independent grant...

'I'm working on it,' she said to Chiannis. 'Really I am. I just need more time.' Up above, the pipes groaned again. The radiator clicked and pinged, almost as if the building itself wanted to note its disapproval of her parlous publication history.

What Nass needed was calmer and more agreeable co-authors. She was using data from several proprietary sources; consequently, she either had to have the data's eminent discoverers as co-authors or risk getting them as reviewers for the papers. Nass had figured it was better to have the eminences 'in the tent, peeing out', as she'd put it, 'rather than outside, peeing in'. But the grand old asari of science did so love to argue, and arguing they were - it had been going on for weeks, ever-more-minute debates about naming conventions and acronyms and all the other philosophical arcana beloved of academics. The two papers had been held back by all this for months. Nass was the first author, true, but she was also by far the most junior researcher on either author-list. She knew she had to tread carefully - the last thing Nass wanted was a political fight with one of the grand old women.

It was one of the paradoxes of academia; being first author on a paper could give one surprisingly little power over its development.

Talking of a lack of power, apparently Chianis wasn't done with Nass yet.

'There is one more difficulty,' the woman said. Her voice was diffident but her eyes were cool and challenging. Outside the room, someone walked past, their shoes squeaking and clicking on the concrete floor. Nass took a deep breath to steady herself, inhaling the lab's faint aroma of ozone and chemicals.

Chianis was regarding her closely. Nass twitched, feeling oddly naked under that gaze. 'That would be?' she asked.

'You've been trying to get grants,' Chianis said. 'For your hybrid project.' A disdainful light glinted in her eyes.

As an academic who pre-dated the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions, Chianis was an arch-traditionalist. One thing the traditionalists did not like were cross-disciplinary projects. Such works messed with their sense of categories and their notions of proper boundaries. To traditionalists, categories and boundaries were key markers of intellectual tradition, and to them, tradition was everything.

Sadly for her, Nass's specialism was highly interdisciplinary.

'We're supposed to seek supplementary funding,' Nass said, sounding defensive even to her own ears. 'And my idea of looking for Element Zero amongst the asteroids - it has both astronomy and particle physics implications. The project has to be cross-disciplinary; that's in its nature. Thessia's eezo had to come from somewhere, and the outer planetessimals seem as likely a place as any.'

'Yes, and it's good of you to look for the money,' Chianis said. Nass noted that the Head of Department had nothing to say about the science itself. Chianis continued, 'I understand you've visited all of the science-inclined independent matriarchs now. All of them, in Armali. And all of them have refused you.'

Nass blinked. She blurted, 'You already know? But I only just got back from Reanne's place!'

'You admit it, then,' Chianis said, affecting a sad look. 'The point is, Nassana, you're getting known. And not in the good way. People know your face, and they're starting to link it to us. That could have implications for our reputation. Combine that and the lack of papers?' Chianis shrugged, smiling apologetically. 'You can see how awkward it is for us, Nassana. Our city is a democracy; the reputation of public bodies is very important. We are a public body, of course. I'm sure you understand the difficulties.'

Nass had a sinking feeling in her stomach. Her earlier burst of optimism was fading away. It seemed she had been appointed the designated victim for the latest outburst of departmental politics. She wondered when Chianis had last had the opportunity to end some other young interdisciplinary upstart's career; thinking about it, it had been nearly half a year since the last round of contract terminations.

The pipes along the ceiling creaked and moaned as a bubble of air worked its way through the heating system. Startled, Nass twitched.

'I wanted to talk about this with you in person,' Chianis said. 'I didn't want you to think anything was happening behind your back.' With that, she turned and swept out of the lab. Her shoes made a sharp clack-clack-clack sound on the floor.

Nass watched the woman go, feeling despondent. That was the thing about academia - some people would knife you in the back, but they weren't the worst. No, the worst were the people who'd put the knife in your face. They'd knife you, and have such a nice, understanding smile while they did it. They'd tell you it was for the greater good and urge you to understand and smile sadly whilst they drove the blade in, but they'd keep going until only the hilt was sticking out from between your shocked eyes.

The sound of Chianis's shoes faded into the distance, blending into the background hum of the building.

Feeling bleak, Nass subsided into the chair before her computer. The bearings squeaked as she settled down. She rested her head in her hands.

The radiator glugged loudly.

Nass glared at it. 'You can bloody well shut up, too!' she snapped. She was tempted to get up, storm over and give it a kick. Then she felt a burst of embarrassment - taking out her frustrations on the appliances! Honestly! As if the machines were listening. She shook her head and sighed.

There was a knock at the door. 'Uh. Dr. T'Saith?' said a familiar and slightly timid voice. 'Are you ... uh, free?'

Nass had to stifle a groan. Of course she had a meeting scheduled today! In the drama of the day's events, it had entirely slipped her mind.

'Come in, Kia,' Nass said. 'I'm not doing anything right now.'

The door creaked fully-open and another, younger asari entered. Kiara Lexian - Kia for short - was one of the department's graduate students. She was doing a thesis on spectroscopy of asteroids and was partly-supervised by Nass. Nass wasn't Kia's main supervisor, but Kia appeared to prefer talking to her. From the young postdoc's point of view it was baffling - why would anyone want to talk to her? - but Kia seemed to get something out of their regular exchanges.

As always Kia was dressed unusually-smartly for a science postgraduate. She favoured surprisingly-expensive looking shoes and smart suits. Nass had never known any other graduate student who regularly turned up to the lab in a suit, but it seemed to work for Kia.

'Have a seat,' Nass said, waving a hand at one of the free chairs.

'Thanks.' The student settled herself into the chair. It creaked noisily. Kia winced. 'That didn't sound good.'

'I gather the budget doesn't stretch to new chairs,' Nass said drily. 'Let's face it, it barely stretches to paying the existing staff.'

An astute look crossed Kia's face. 'I passed Chianis on the way here,' she said. 'The professor looked - well, she looked smug.'

Chianis wasn't particularly well-liked within the department; her abrasive and confrontational manner had made her few friends. Sadly, no-one else was in a position to do anything about her. Nass had once heard a somewhat-drunk and somewhat-bitter colleague compare Chianis to bathroom mould; She'd said, "No-one much likes it, but once it's set in, there's basically no getting rid of it." It was an unflattering comparison, but Nass could understand the sentiment.

'We had a run-in,' Nass said guardedly.

'If you need some help,' Kia said, 'just ask. I mean, seriously.'

Rumour had it that Kia's family were old money. Certainly there was something in Kia's manner that suggested a wealthy background. She dressed unusually-smartly and where most of the other postgraduates lived in small shared flats in the cheap commuter-towns around Armali, Kia lived in a two-bedroom apartment right in the middle of the city itself. Nass had been there once, to a dinner party; the property actually had a view straight out over the river! There was no way that Kia's stipend alone could be paying for it. Even most of the staff lived outside of the central districts of Armali.

Then there were also these odd remarks Kia dropped every now and then, which seemed to imply that she thought she had some sort of influence. Nass had wondered about that a few times, but she supposed that at the end of the day, Kia's family and their circumstances really weren't any of her business.

'That's nice of you,' Nass said, 'but unless you can lay your hands on the fat end of a hundred kilocredits - no forget I even said that! My problem, not yours.' She ran her hands over her head, poking at her head-tendrils.

Kia looked at her with a speculative expression, but said nothing. Over in the corner, the radiator glugged.

'So,' Nass said, 'what can I do for you today?'

'Oh, the usual.' Kia produced a sheathe of paper; she'd had them tucked under one arm. 'I've got a new draft of my article, but I could do with having someone look over it.'

'I'm always happy to help,' Nass said, 'but have you heard anything from Delana?' Dr. Delana T'Koris was Kia's principal supervisor.

'No,' Kia said. 'She's still on holiday. And she said she wouldn't have any e-mail access till she got back.'

Nass blinked. Of course. Holidays. Those things that normal people went on, didn't they? Idly, she wondered when the last time she'd been on holiday had been. She had a feeling it had been a while ago. Possibly a few years. There'd been a few snatched days here and there, of course, but no actual, proper leave-and-go-elsewhere break. Nass would like a trip away, but damn it, she was just too busy!

Nass took the sheathe of papers. 'I'll do what I can,' she said. The front page declared, in prominent letters, SPECTROSCOPY AND CHEMICAL COMPOSITION OF METALLIC MAIN-BELT ASTEROIDS. Beneath it was an abstract, a central block of text dominating the page, and below that it switched to a two-column format for the introduction. The black text swam in Nass's eyes, dark shapes bold against the white background, like figures seen blurrily in a snowstorm.

'Dr. T'Saith? Are you okay?'

Kia was looking at her, seeming concerned.

'Oh, sorry,' Nass said. 'I've had a bit of a - you know, a rough day. I think I tuned out for a moment there.'

Kia looked to one side. 'Oh,' she said. 'All that hard work on the eezo again. You must be very tired.' Apparent understanding blossomed on her face. 'I see the clampstand's fallen over again.'

'What - oh, fuck! Not a-fucking-gain!'

Kia's gaze led Nass's eyes to the apparatus on her desk. She stared at it, aghast.

The 'apparatus', as Nass called it, was a scientific device she'd built herself. The thing sat on the workbench next to her computer. The apparatus was the fifteenth iteration of the design. The first eight had suffered various electrical faults; two of them had actually caught fire. Number nine had literally fallen apart, due to a dodgy batch of solder. Number ten had been thrown out by an overzealous cleaner. Numbers eleven through fourteen had succumbed to various fatal errors in their programming.

'That seems to keep happening,' Kia observed.

'I know,' Nass groaned. 'Sorry - I'll have to attend to this.'

With a loud creak from the chair and a protesting groan from its casters, Nass stood up. She walked over to the apparatus and prepared to try and sort it out.

The apparatus was an odd-looking thing. It had a thick, rectangular base-section. Cables and wires snaked out of the base section, connecting it both to Nass's computer and to a couple of the surrounding instruments. On top of the base section was an electromagnetic induction plate. Another one was supposed to be held in place some ten inches above the first, anchored to a clampstand. Between them was the belljar and its contents.

Today the clampstand was lying on its side, several inches back from the apparatus. The electromagnetic plate was stuck up in the air, like a fat metal digit suffering from rigor mortis.

'Oh well,' Nass said as she picked up the clampstand, 'at least this time it didn't crack the glass on the way down. So I don't need to worry about replacing the belljar. Or getting the air pumped out of it again.'

The belljar was supposed to contain a high vacuum, so as to minimise contamination for its actual contents. When it was fully-evacuated, the pressure inside the jar was about three hundred-thousandths of Thessia's usually surface air pressure. Those remaining three hundred-thousandths annoyed Nass no end, as but her budget didn't stretch to better pumps, she knew she was stuck with them.

'Mind you,' she heard Kia say, 'the eezo looks pretty today.'

'Well I'm glad someone else thinks it's interesting,' Nass muttered. However cynical she might be feeling today, she had to acknowledge that Kia had a point. The belljar contained a sort of swirling, bluish-white pseudo-mist. It writhed and coiled in a manner that looked almost alive, an animate smoke. The swirls were visibly-brighter and visibly-more active toward the bottom of the belljar. Nass added, 'It's being unevenly stimulated, you know, with the other clampstand knocked over.'

The eezo's light was strangely hypnotic. It was like watching sunlight underwater, always shifting and changing. Whenever Nass was near it, she could always feel a faint, electric tension, sort of like what she felt when someone else's biotics were alight.

Carefully, Nass replaced the clampstand. 'I think it keeps getting knocked over,' she said, 'you know, by peoples' elbows and stuff. No-one will admit it, but stands don't just move by themselves, do they?'

'Your lab-mates are probably just too embarrassed by their clumsiness,' Kia agreed. Over on the far wall, the radiator made a glugging noise. Nass shot it an irritated glance.

With the stand replaced, she checked the other stand. This one held a small spectrograph, pointed at the eezo sample in the belljar. That was the point of keeping the eezo in its electromagnetically-excited state; in that condition it would emit light, allowing Nass to map its spectrum. Or at least, that was the idea. With the regular clampstand problems, Nass was having trouble getting decent data out of it. She really needed to leave the apparatus running for a couple of days to gather enough signal, but during that time someone would inevitably disturb the apparatus. The best run she had so far before a clampstand collapse was only seven or so hours.

'Actually,' she said, 'I suspect it might be the cleaners, not my lab-mates. But getting them to confess to anything is basically impossible.'

'How's the data coming on?' Kia asked.

Nass shook her head. 'Honestly? Not so well. I don't have anything like what I need to calibrate actual observations. I mean, if I took an ice-planetessimal spectrum right now, I'd be able to recognise if there were eezo features in that spectrum - but I wouldn't be able to tell you how much there was, or whether it was excited or dormant! And if I put in a telescope proposal with that sort of vagueness, well, the time allocation committee would just laugh me out of town. Particularly for the big telescopes.'

'Do you really need a big telescope?' Kia asked. 'I mean, I'm doing my work a one-metre mirror telescope, and that's asteroids too, and I'm getting useful data.'

'Yes but you're working on the inner asteroid belt,' Nass pointed out. 'That's a lot closer to Parnitha, so there's more light for the rocks to reflect. I'm looking at the stuff beyond the orbit of Tevura. You know, twenty-six times Thessia's orbital radius and counting! There's not an awful lot of sunlight out there - it's dark and cold! That's kind of the whole point - the ice-planetessimals are the actual leftovers from the planet-formation process, and because it's dark and cold out there, they're basically still in their original form.'

'So if there is eezo anywhere else in our solar system, that's where you'd find it,' Kia agreed. 'I see your point.'

'But of course it's dark out there, so there's fuck-all light for them to reflect. So I really do need a telescope with a big mirror-diameter. I actually can't get by on a smaller one at all!'

Kia nodded. 'Because a telescope is a bucket for photons. Like putting out a bucket for rain, if you want to catch more photons, you need a bigger bucket.'

'And I need all the photons I can get,' Nass said. Someone walked past in the corridor outside, shoes clicking on the floor and echoing a little in the confined space. The sound faded as whoever it was walked away into the distance.

Nass didn't say it, but there was another problem: money. Research-class instruments with mirror-diameters large enough for her needs did exist, but there weren't many of them. Those that did exist were all horribly over-subscribed with other bright young asari scientists brimming with bright young ideas. Research-class telescopes needed a lot of maintenance and a lot of specialist technical support, none of which came cheap. Most cities didn't have a dedicated science budget; instead, their researchers got by on the inconstant stream of crumbs that the public might be willing to provide. Consequently, anyone seeking observing time on a research-class instrument also needed to have a budget in place to cover the costs of their work.

After today's events, Nass had run out of options for finding that budget.

'It sounds really difficult,' Kia said, looking doubtful. 'I mean, are you sure it would even work?'

Nass nodded. 'Oh yes. I've done all the feasibility stuff. And got it all double-checked with the collaborators.' She meant the co-authors on her draft papers. That at least had given her some hope. If even the ultra-argumentative grand old asari of science agreed that something was doable, at least in principle, then that meant it probably was. 'You know, we looked at all the relevant stuff. Spectral resolutions. Signal-to-noise ratios. Exposure times. Data-analysis pathways. If I could just get the fucking data, I could do the fucking work!'

Kia was peering at the belljar again. 'Do we even know what it is?' she asked. 'Element zero, I mean?'

Nass shook her head. 'Not really, no. The name's a bit of a misnomer - it doesn't seem to have internal structure, at least not like normal matter. There don't seem to be eezo atoms or eezo molecules. Rather it's almost like a sort of continuous fluid of mass-energy, denser in some places than others, but without any little solid nodules or anything like that. Stick it under a microscope and all you see is that ghostly glow, no matter what magnification you look at it with. I've heard some people say it's a bit like a sort of quantum condensate, but the problem with that idea is condensates are usually only stable within a few degrees of Absolute Zero.' She waved a hand at the belljar. 'This stuff is apparently quite happy at room temperature, and even higher.'

'They find it in ores, don't they?' Kia said.

Nass nodded. 'Eezo is electrically-active, somehow. It can hold a charge, even though it doesn't seem to have electrons or protons. Because it's electrically-active, it can bind itself to conductive materials. Like metal veins, in the planet's crust.'

'I heard something in the news a couple of years ago, about them finding it in people too.'

'And plants and animals,' Nass said. 'But yes. It's no surprise it's in us too, I suppose. I mean, it's present in the soil and the water and even in the air, in trace amounts. It's everywhere on Thessia, basically. So it's no surprise that it found its way into the body, I guess. They got excited a couple of years ago after they isolated it within the nervous system. There was a suggestion it might be something to do with our biotics.' Nass shrugged. 'It's possible, I suppose. Certainly if you light up, the sample over there tends to go a bit nuts.'

She should have realised Kia would take that as a hint. A bright bluish corona, much stronger than any of Nass's, suddenly blazed into life around Kia's body. Visibly concentrating, Kia made the glow pulse in intensity. Inside its belljar, the eezo started a matching oscillation, surging and fading in brightness.

Kia killed her glow. The eezo settled down. 'Well,' Kia said, 'that was quite something to see.'

Nass nodded. 'You see it a lot more with this sample. It's because of the purity. And its isolation from the air. Raw eezo, out there in nature, is a lot more sluggish. Probably because of all the boring-matter atoms it's tangled up with.'

Kia laughed. ' "Boring-matter". I like that!' She snorted. 'Are you ever tempted to, you know, just sit there and pulse at it?'

Nass shook her head. 'There's no point. My biotics are pretty feeble. I can just about light myself up, but that's it.' Privately, she had to admit that it was probably just as well. If she'd been one of those rare strong ones, there'd have been a risk that she would have Thrown Matriarch Reanne out of her window earlier.

'I can move things,' Kia said. 'Small ones, anyway. As long as they're within a few feet of where I'm sat. You know, glasses, plates, cutlery, that sort of thing.'

'You're lucky,' Nass said. 'My triumph in biotics class at school was the day I managed to shift a penny! It went nearly three inches. And by the Goddess, I had a rotter of a headache afterwards. I've never tried that again.'

Kia looked speculative. 'If there were some way to, you know, amplify our biotics. Feed them extra power, from an external force, focus the fields for finer control...'

Nass nodded. 'I've heard that idea, yes. That's partly why they were so briefly excited over eezo a couple of years ago. The Serrice team had an idea that maybe you could use eezo to do exactly that. Sadly, it didn't work. I gather their - what did they call it? an amp? - their amp exploded, and gave the testee some very nasty burns. Put the poor woman in hospital and everything. There was dark talk about health and safety and liabilities and people getting sued. I don't think anyone actually was in the end, but all that fuss...' She shook her head. 'It really put people off doing eezo research, basically.'

'That's a shame,' Kia said. 'Well, I think it's really interesting!'

Nass nodded. 'I'm glad someone else does. Particularly since it seems to be hinting that something's badly wrong with our current models of planet formation. I mean, Thessia is basically dripping with eezo - but not anywhere else. None of the other planets in our solar system show eezo features in their spectra. Space probes haven't found any in their crusts. Meteorites don't seem to contain any eezo. And there's no sign of it in the sun, either! If fucking Parnitha doesn't have any eezo, then what's it doing in one of her planets?'

Kia nodded and reached out to tap the top sheet of her printed paper draft. 'I'm not seeing any evidence of it in the main-belt asteroids,' she said.

'It's possible it might have evaporated off,' Nass said. 'They have no magnetospheres and no air. There's nothing between their surfaces and the solar wind.'

'Nor do the icy planetessimals,' Kia pointed out.

'True, but they're so much further from the sun. Dark and cold, remember? The solar wind is a lot weaker out there. We don't think their composition has changed much since the formation of the solar system. They're basically time-capsules from the proto-stellar nebula, coming down to us pristine after four and a half million lifetimes. It's quite staggering when you think about it.'

'If there is any other eezo anywhere,' Kia said, 'that's where you'll find it.'

'If I can somehow get a budget in place and get enough time on a telescope,' Nass said. The radiator made one of its noises again. Nass sighed. 'If. And it's looking unlikely at the moment. But anyway, this is getting away from the point, isn't it? Let's have a look at your paper...'