As the audience sat and digested this revelation, I reflected on the actual events at the base. According to the records, the source of the infection was the computer itself. Exactly it caused a problem in one of the capsules, put its occupant into a coma, and then used a medical droid to transfer his body to the operating room and turn him into a husk - a hybrid of a living organism and a machine. Then this zombie took on all the labor work, dragging the bodies.

The triggered emergency wake - up system was a surprise even for the central computer. Inusannons quickly identified the cause of the crash and decided to destroy the computer. But it overloaded the reactor, killing its creators. As for the huskies, most of them were destroyed by the explosion, but the couple survived and continued their activities to turn the dead into techno-zombie.

I did not tell the details of this story, because it would significantly reduce the value of the computer in the eyes of others. As it was, I was hoping to get to the Citadel for free, and then get a good amount of money.

"Since this happened a hundred thousand years ago, is the end of the current cycle approaching?" Tria expressed her doubts.

"Yes, I do. Actually, the harvest has already begun. You all know that the Geths attacked the Citadel. That's the first call. It's going to get worse. However, the harvest may still take tens or even hundreds of years, so you will still have the opportunity to enjoy the agony of your civilization.”

“What about your civilization?” Rina asked.

"My civilization is myself. And I'm not in danger of being destroyed. I'm too small a fish for the Reapers to hunt me down.”

"If this is true, we need to report it to the Citadel Council. Put information about this to the extranet.” Rina asked.

"What's the point? Everyone who needs it already knows about it. But politicians makes them close their eyes and ears. Because the Reapers will arrive tomorrow, but turmoil and unrest can throw them off from the political olympus today. So, no one is going to do anything.”

"I suggest we think about it after we get to the Citadel." Tria said sternly. "Right now, we need to focus to get through the relays unharmed. So, I suggest that everyone now to disperse and take up their main responsibilities for long-distance flight protocol. And you, Atman, I'll ask you to stay.”

“Oops Stirlitz.” I chuckled inwardly.

"What did you want to talk about?" I asked when we were alone.

"I want us to record your promise to share the computer revenue as a formal contract.”

"I don't have any documents." I disavowed.

It doesn't matter. Let's just write you down as anonymous intelligent being. The contract is necessary not only for us, but also for you, because it will legalize the computer as a commodity. It is one thing if we sell our find, and another if we act as intermediaries between you and the buyer. Believe me, the second option will be much more attractive for traders on the black market. At least there's a lot less chance that they'll try to trick us. After all, my team will act only as a guarantor of the honesty of the transaction, and the attempt to put pressure on us will not give a guarantee that you will agree to sell the goods with unfavorable conditions. In general, it is a cunning trade policy of the Citadel space. If you see that someone else has already cheated on a sucker, you will be less tempted to cash in on this deal. After all, you will have to deal not with the victim, but with another shark.

“It's clear. Well, let's make a deal.”

Then there was a bureaucratic procedure with the drafting of the text of the contract, signing, bringing solemn oaths and so on. In any case, I was going to act on the principle: money in the morning - chairs in the evening.

Four hours later, the ship left earth and began entering orbit. We had to fly a three-day flight at superlight speed to the nearest relay in another star system. From there began a chain of six jumps, which was to take us to one of the worlds controlled by Azari. There was to be another week flight to another branch of relays, from where we could get to the Citadel in two dozen jumps.

Just in case, I memorized the map of the galaxy and the location of the relays. I was able to dislodge the protocol of communication with the ship's computers from Okren, so now I downloaded all the information I was interested directly to my 'brain', which is essentially an advanced computer working on the architecture of the Ancients. While there was no Reaper, this option was the most productive.

While we were flying to the first relay, I studied mass effect technologies in detail. The Zero Element turned out to be a banal virtual atom made of positive tau-lepton and negative muon. The Zero Element did not enter into direct chemical reactions with ordinary matter, but it could be mixed with it in the form of neutral interatomic impurities. Because of this, cleaning the Zero Element was an extremely difficult technical process.

The essence of the Mass Effect was the unconventional behavior of the Zero Element atoms in the static electric field. Spin polarization of virtual atoms led to a change in the metric of space, because of which the motion speed of matter in such a space could exceed the speed of light. And since the hyperspace engine itself was part of the ship, it seemed to drag itself by the hair, like Baron Munchausen, creating a non-inertia craving.

The funny thing is that such engine needed fuel. The core of the Mass Effect always flew towards a positive charge and was repelled by the negative. Because of this, the back of the ship constantly leaked electrons, which gave the ship a positive charge.

If you fly long enough, the lack of electrons began to negatively affect the work of the technician and the health of the crew. Therefore, from time to time the ship had to turn off the engine and get rid of the 'extra' positrons, dumping positively charged matter into space.

To organize this 'leak' need fuel. As a rule, it was either helium, which was simple enough to ionize, depriving both electrons, or beryllium, which could also lose two electrons, but at the same time was much easier to store and more expensive in production.

The second effect of the zero Element was to neutralize the gravitational interaction when it was placed in a magnetic field. This effect was used to reduce the weight of the ship during takeoff, as well as to increase the efficiency of jet and ion engines. Oddly enough, for all technology in the galaxy, a chemical jet engine with a weight neutralizer was the cheapest way to organize the launch of cargo into low orbit.

These were the simplest ways to apply the zero Element. But the combination of electric and magnetic fields, plus the cunning shape of the nucleus itself allowed to make quite complex tricks, such as the creation of artificial gravity on the ship or stable plasma clots in the blaster.

By the time we got to the first relay, I was already an expert on Mass Effect technologies and could have built a simple engine and plasma emitter on my knee. The only question stood in the receipt of a sufficient quantity of Zero Elements. Okren had a couple of grams for conducting experiments, but this was not enough to create more or less powerful equipment.

The first jump gave me mixed feelings. During the superlight flight, I felt the metric of space inside my body distorted. Immediately I felt myself literally rolled up into a tube and pushed through the eye of a needle. The relay was doing the fact that it 'twisted' the ship at the point of departure and 'unwrapped' it back to the point of arrival.

At the same time, in multi-dimensional space, the 'astral tails' of passengers rolled up somehow, which gave rise to all sorts of unpleasant sensations, and sometimes hallucinations. To feel a part of you 'catching up' with the main body, moving hundreds of light-years, was still a challenge. Well, at least in Astral the distances were quite conditional. By the second jump I had time to prepare, having gathered in a multidimensional space in as compact a bunch as possible.

Usually, relays in the same system were located in different orbits, and therefore it was sometimes necessary to fly between them across the entire solar system. This flight could take from a few minutes to an hour, while it was necessary to stop at times and adjust the flight course to not fly through the asteroid belt or star, but through more or less free space.

As a rule, it was on such flights that the pirates intercepted ships. This fate has not passed us. At the exit of the fourth jump, we suddenly found ourselves inside a minefield set by enterprising knife and axe workers. The nearest mine immediately detonated, transferring the Core of Mass of our ship to emergency stop mode.

After that, we could only watch helplessly as a pirate ship, more than a kilometer in size, approached us. It could be called a dreadnought if it was not exclusively a civilian cargo platform designed for processing and transporting metals. Several frigates and one cruiser hovered nearby.

Our trough was classified as a frigate, but in fact it was an average cargo ship, converted into a kind of battle station with a bunch of massive and clumsy guns. That's only after the failure of the Core of Mass, all the equipment was disabled. So, we were taken literally warm without a shot being fired. The dreadnought opened the huge hatch, and then we were pulled inside of the pirate ship.