Whispers (G)

[KernilCrash]

Good Morning, Wonderful Scapers!

Welcome to ‘Whispers’ -- sometimes referred to as the ‘forever promised, never written’ fanfic.  I originally intended to bang this out over a year ago in one of my frenzied, marathon writing sessions.  I had one shift left to work, and then I had three weeks of vacation planned, during which I was going to write this story.  It was my bad luck to schedule that vacation to begin on September 9, 2002.     Such is life.  However, I never gave up on it, no matter how slowly it progressed, and here it is at last. 

I’d like to offer a collective ‘thank-you’ to GalaxyZero, Tiriel, Newscaper, and Pitdog for pitching in ideas on colliding gravitational fields.  This occurred over a year and a half ago on the Dominion Board, but thanks are owed despite the lapse in time.  Quantum gravity is far too complicated for my poor little brain, and although your input did not result in anything of story-shattering import, it did resolve a problem with how the inside of the space station was going to look.  Thank you.

Last comment, then I’ll get started.  When I was working on one of my earlier stories, ‘Cloths Of Heaven’, there were times when it was difficult to get myself to sit down and write because of the emotional pain involved in the John/Aeryn relationship.  This one was downright excruciating.  Let that be a warning.

Hope you enjoy it,

Kernil Crash
Purveyor of Hallucinations

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

 
     
Whispers
 

* * * * *

First posted at Kansas:  June 6, 2004.

Rating:  G. 
Disclaimer:  Farscape and all related characters are the creation of and are owned by the Henson Company.  The producers, cast, and crew are enormously talented, imaginative, and dedicated people who I hope will understand that I have no intention of infringing on their ownership or making any profit from their labors.  Thank you all for your extraordinary vision. 
Spoilers/Time Frame:  This story occurs between Fractures and I-Yensch, You-Yensch.  It contains a smattering of spoilers from everything up to that point. 
Angst Alert:  As I just said, this is post-Fractures.  It is rated O for ‘Ouch’.   

Beta-readers:  Scrubschick and PKLibrarian. 

Thank you, Ben Browder and Claudia Black, for making Farscape in general, and ‘Fractures’ specifically, such an engaging and enthralling show.  This story would not have gestated if it weren’t for your exceptional talents in bringing John and Aeryn to life. 
 
* * * * *

Give sorrow words:  the grief that does not speak
Whispers the o’er-fraught heart, and bid it break.
(William Shakespeare; Macbeth, Act IV, Scene 3)

Prologue

“I don’t hurt.  I … I did some good things.  I’m proud of my life.  And I’m with you.  Don’t worry about me.  I’ve never felt better.”

John Crichton bolted upright on his bed, sweating and inexplicably short of breath.  The words from his dream reverberated in his mind as though someone had just recited them in his quarters -- someone using his own voice.  The only noises around him however, were Moya’s thumps and rumbles, providing a steady, calming constant in his life that stood in stark contrast to the surreal imagery that had invaded his sleep.  He flopped back and pulled the thermal cover over his damp t-shirt.  The golden sheet, an effective insulator against the cool drafts, was useless against the dream-generated chill crawling about inside his body.  The uncomfortable sensation drifted along his arms and legs before taking up residence between his shoulder blades.  The dream had involved a memory that didn’t belong in his mind and yet his psyche insisted that it had been real.  It was, at best, a spooky, unsettling feeling. 

He had been observing from somewhere inside Talyn; somewhere that had allowed him to watch his own blue eyes staring sightlessly into an infinite distance.  As he watched the last bit of life fade out of that blind stare, a level of grief unlike anything he had ever experienced in his life had threatened to overwhelm him.  On a rational level, John knew that there was no way in the universe he could remember the death of the other John Crichton in this manner, and yet he was confident he had just seen what had actually transpired.  Crichton shifted restlessly.  He turned to lie on his side, jammed a pillow under his ear, and tried to make some sense of the image his brain had delivered to him unbidden. 

His half-directed, meandering deliberations were sidetracked by a new idea pressing in on him.  “Aeryn?”  He called out softly, unable to explain how he knew that she was close by. 

A shadow detached itself from the dark masking one side of the corridor, moved silently through the open doors to his cell, and drifted to the side of his bed.  “I was on my way to the Center Chamber to get something to eat.”  She looked uncomfortable.  “I was … I was about to come in to see how you were feeling this morning.” 

“Good.  I’m fine.  Still me.  No additions or subtractions this time as far as I can tell.” 

She moved about his chamber in a restless circuit, not quite touching each item as she moved past it:  Winona, his coat, his vest.  Her fingers drifted over each item in turn, first drawn to them and then apparently encountering a mysterious force field that prevented her from actually making contact.  “I … I wanted to make sure … after what happened yesterday,” she said, stumbling through the words.  “Chiana mentioned that you were sick.” 

He chose his words carefully, knowing that almost anything he said these days hurt her in ways he couldn’t begin to understand.  “I don’t know what they were trying to accomplish, Aeryn, but it looks like you got there in time.  I’m okay.  I promise.” 

The last two words seemed to work.  A ghost of a smile flickered across her face -- the first smile he had seen since she walked off the transport pod four solar days earlier. 

“I’m glad, John.” 

She gave him another thin smile, drifted past his bunk without getting too close to him, and hurried from the cell.  John watched the corridor long after she disappeared, dividing his attention between wondering about the forces that had drawn her to his quarters and trying to determine how a venture that was supposed to be so simple had once again turned into a chaotic disaster.  It was supposed to have been a fast, simple exchange of credits for supplies and information.  It was supposed to have been easy.  They should have known better.  Nothing they did ever turned out the way they planned it. 

* * * * *

[KernilCrash]

Chapter 1

A stray beam of starlight caught on the gleaming bronze hull for an instant.  It flickered across the uneven surface in an intricate pattern that highlighted the joints and grooves of her metalloid exterior, leapt free, and was swallowed by the dark.  The leviathan slowed long enough to ease past a large tumbling amalgam of ice and rock, taking care to allow plenty of room in case there was a sudden change in the rogue’s course.  Accelerating, Moya ducked beneath a glittering, scattered handful of asteroids, rolled playfully along her axis several times before realigning her trajectory, and then began the gradual spiral into orbit around a cloud-soaked planet.

Her sensors couldn’t detect sound in the vacuum of space, but the rustle of dust grains scratching along her hull were transmitted into her data stores, forever recorded along with the hiss of ion flow and the gentle roar of solar energy sweeping warmly across her hull.  Space wasn’t a cold, barren place to Moya.  It was full of migrating particles, charged matter, and pulsing waves of energy that told her where she was in each solar system and to which side of her hull lay the nearest star or gravity source. 

If she had been equipped with toes, perhaps they would have curled with exquisite discomfort for the length of time it took for her to wade through the shadow of the planet, shut off from the sun’s radiation.  Instead, she transmitted a tiny sensory shiver to her pilot, which arrived in his brain as a request to realign their orbit so she could bask in the energy restoring rays.  Mechanical levers and slides triggered the relays that would realign her trajectory; signals flowed from the Den to her drive system, shunting more of her calorics to maneuvering; and she curved gracefully into the new alignment within the planet’s magnetic field, sunlight streaming off her hull in shimmering halos. 

Only then, when the radiation warmed her, did Moya retune a portion of her sensors to her internal spaces, diverting more of her attention and that of her pilot to the activities of the beings who lived within her.  The human was once again engaged in one of his shockingly peculiar behaviors, and the pair watched the incoming signal with shared fascination.   

“No, no, no!  I am not going anywhere in a transport pod with a scarran, D’Argo.”  Crichton was yelling and yet he had his hands clamped over his ears.  It was a combination that made no sense to the pair of unseen observers.  The human proceeded to plug both ears with his index fingers, and began singing “la la la la” in a toneless chant.  Above Crichton’s head, a DRD spun around, swiveling its eyestalks to keep him in sight for as long as possible.  The recording of Crichton’s bizarre performance was diligently transmitted to both ship and pilot for their further consideration.  It didn’t provide any further insight.  A DRD stationed several motras from the entrance to Command picked up the remainder of the noisy conversation.   

“John!  Naj Gil has done nothing to betray my trust in him.  He did not try to escape while we were rescuing His Gasness, and he has been helpful ever since.”  D’Argo yelled louder and louder with every word, trying to make himself heard over John’s insistent drone. 

“Read my lips,” John bellowed back at him, fingers firmly lodged in his ears.  “No!  We are about to leave Moya for some floating service station full of a species that no one on board has ever seen before, whose alliances are unknown, in an attempt to find out where Scorpius’ Command Carrier is located.  I am not going to take a scarran along with us.  I don’t care what he claims about his current loyalties.  It wouldn’t be prudent,” he finished in a strange, nasal, almost mincing voice.  He dropped his hands and walked more quickly toward Command.  “What a truly fantastic idea, D’Argo.  Why don’t we just take on a Command Carrier and a Scarran Dreadnought at the same time?  Mighty Mouse of the frelling Uncharted Territories!”

D’Argo let out a quiet snarl and hurried after his friend.  He caught up with Crichton just as the human strode through the door onto Command.  Every muscle in the back of Crichton’s neck was rigid, shouting out his anger at the suggestion that Naj Gil might be of some assistance.  “John, he has information on the politics involved --”

Crichton waved him away with a flicking motion alongside his head and angled across the large chamber toward the navigation console.  Spotting Aeryn poised at that station, his confident stride broke into a stumble.  He turned away, moving more slowly to stand at a different console where he stared intently at the panel, refraining from moving his eyes to either side.  “What have we got?” he asked.  Every bit of energy and exuberance had been wiped from his voice.   

“It should be coming into view in ten microts.”  Aeryn was staring forward with the same intense focus that John was devoting to the readouts in front of him.  Poised at the console he had shunned, she was gripping it tightly enough that it looked like she was trying to keep either herself or the console from toppling over.

“Tell me again what this thing is called,” Rygel demanded imperiously.  He was floating near the view screen, managing to obstruct the view of every other person in the chamber. 

Aeryn repeated the information she had supplied several times over the past two solar days, showing no sign of impatience or irritation.  “It’s known as the Kyelligg.  It is the home of the entire surviving population of a species called the Hvisk.  The history I was taught said that a genocidal war eight hundred cycles ago left their planet incapable of sustaining any life, and they’ve been living on board this station ever since.  They move from one solar system to another, trading with anyone and everyone.” 

“Completely neutral.  A floating Switzerland.”  John’s interpretation yielded irritated glances from most of the gathered crewmembers.  It was a familiar reaction.  He ignored them, and prompted her for more information.  “So you’ve run into this species before.” 

“I only know what I was taught and I’ve heard a few additional stories over the cycles.  I wasn’t even sure the Kyelligg had moved into this portion of the Uncharted Territories.”  She paused.  “There it is.”  The migratory station was cast in shadow, looming alongside the planet they were orbiting.  Moya arced slowly toward the station, chasing it as it gradually lost ground to the spin of the planet below.  Sunlight hit the first corner of the construct and it moved into view bit by bit. 

“Great Caesar’s ghost,” John breathed.  “That thing is --”

“Sweet Hezmana,” D’Argo interjected. 

“-- enormous!”

Towers, extensions, platforms, canyons, and massifs moved into the sunlight one by one as the Kyelligg crawled out from behind the planet, a sparkling silver construct that shattered every stray beam of light into thousands of reflections. 

Crichton shook himself, recovering from his initial shock, and asked, “You said the entire surviving population.  How many thousands served is that?  We talkin’ the equivalent of East Cupcake, Michigan here, or all of Los Angeles?” 

Pilot’s purplish holo-image rippled into view in the clamshell.  “Moya’s sensors cannot make a precise determination, but the readings indicate approximately three point eight four six million life signs aboard that ship.” 

“Thank you, Mr. Data.”  He continued to gape at the behemoth that was expanding in the view portal.  Moya’s pursuit was rapidly closing the distance between them.  In a matter of microts, the assembled crew was able to make out the first details.  The trade station was an enormous, complex crystalline sphere, with hundreds of arms and protrusions reaching outward from an inner skeleton.  Metal flashed in the diffuse sunlight, scintillating as myriad surfaces reflected the light, angling it into the inner passages to burst in dozens of new directions. 

“Snowflake on steroids,” John said.     

“Where are we going, Pilot?” Aeryn asked. 

Her question was delivered before he could finish his quick comment, as if she hadn’t heard him or didn’t want to listen to what he had to say.  It triggered a resurgence of the too-familiar ache that had taken up permanent residence halfway between his stomach and his throat.  A flicker of more muted light caught John’s eye.  He turned toward the strategy table, deliberately smothering the stomach twisting reaction to Aeryn’s behavior.  It hadn’t taken him long to discover that if he concentrated hard enough on something else, he could ignore the pain for a short time.  A miniature representation of the Kyelligg appeared, with a tiny speck of a leviathan flying along a superimposed flight path.  Leaning closer, he could make out that the proposed trajectory led to a docking station located within a hollow between two branching arms. 

Pilot’s calm tones flowed over the comms.  “They have transmitted the displayed vector coordinates for our approach, and have assured me that the selected port is compatible with Moya’s treblin side hatch on the uppermost tier.  It will not be necessary to use the transport pod to transfer to and from the Kyelligg.”  The tiny speck above the strategy table was drawn along its light-displayed thread, rapidly approaching the larger image. 

The entire crew gathered around the holo-image, examining the reproduction of the Kyelligg in awed silence.  The top half of the station sprouted sixteen major arms, each of them giving way to rigidly symmetrical protrusions, branching into ever-smaller constructs until the outer surface was a bristling array of such intricacy that the leviathan’s imaging system could no longer reproduce the final details.  The outer extremities of the image were a blurred haze that couldn’t mimic the thinnest portions of the station.  The station’s waist wore a short, sturdy skirt made of landing areas and loading docks, each one flanked by doors that looked more than big enough to accept Moya.  The lower half of the hvisk’s home sprouted towers as well.  These were less ethereal than those on the top, being more solidly built and with fewer hollows passing between the branches. 

Chiana poked at one of the image’s recreated hangar doors.  “Pilot, Moya could hide inside the station, couldn’t she?”  She looked around at the others.  “Wouldn’t it be safer if the Peacekeepers can’t find her until we form some sort of a plan?” 

“The hvisk initially transmitted data that would have allowed us to take refuge inside the station,” Pilot said.  “However, Moya and I have agreed that we prefer a docking station that will allow a hasty departure should it become necessary.” 

D’Argo nodded and added, “We know nothing about this species.  They are rumored to claim complete neutrality, but none of us know what sort of allegiances they have been forced to make in order to travel freely through this region of space.” 

John ignored the short debate, glancing from the holo-image to the forward portal where the station had expanded until it blocked the entire view.  Moya had begun her final approach to the docking port, gliding in beneath the farthest reaches of the upper arms on little more than imparted momentum.  He walked to the front of Command where he took up a position beside Rygel to peer up at the thinnest branches.  “It’s beautiful.  And these people destroyed their own planet?  Seems hard to believe.”

Rygel lolled back in his airborne chair, fingering an earbrow.  “In my experience, the capacity for creating beauty has never precluded the ability for violence.  The greater the capacity for art, the greater the imagination for developing the means for destruction.  With an artificial habitat of such grandeur I would expect this species to be a collection of butchers and conquerors enslaving anyone they consider beneath their level of civilization.”

“That’s more your style, isn’t it, Rygel?” Chiana challenged the deposed ruler. 

“The Hynerian Empire never resorted to slavery, and any butchery was conducted solely in self-defense.”  It was an overly loud objection, delivered as he glanced around to confirm that everyone knew he was blameless. 

“Yep, I’m sure the folks on Acquarra would agree with you there, Buckwheat.  Getting trapped on a planet without the potential for technology just so they could idolize an overgrown frog couldn’t be considered slavery.”  Crichton bumped against the throne sled intentionally as he turned away from the forward view screen, sending the floating chair wobbling across Command for nearly two motras before its occupant got it under control. 

Rygel sulked for a microt, then turned toward Crichton, his eyelids half closed with a sly look of promised vengeance for the insult.  “If you feel that way about my people, perhaps you should negotiate with the hvisk without my assistance.  I’m sure you won’t do much worse than you did on Jocacea.  Since you’re seeking word of where Scorpius is located, if you do half as well this time, you should be able to pull the entire Peacekeeper force down upon us.” 

John turned, ready with a furious comeback, but Aeryn attacked the hynerian before he could get his mouth open.  “In that case, Rygel, you can stay on board Moya with Naj Gil.  Chiana and Jool will try to find the supplies Moya has requested, and I’ll accompany D’Argo and Crichton to determine if the hvisk have any information that might help us.”  She waited until the Dominar turned around to face her, then added, “You will, of course, welcome Crais aboard if Talyn returns while we are on the station.” 

Rygel gulped several times, considering his options and the proposal that he remain behind with their scarran guest.  “In the interest of acquiring the most accurate information possible, I will make the personal sacrifice and go aboard the Kyelligg,” he said, reversing his last proposal. 

“Thanks, Dominar.”  John managed to get some sarcasm into his voice, but he was watching Aeryn out of the corner of his eye and the sight of her had the power to leech every bit of energy out of his body in a split-microt.  She hadn’t looked his way once during her fast verbal attack on the hynerian, and she was staring steadfastly at the docking receiver while Moya crept into position beneath the designated hatch.  The past several days had been a string of similar moments. 

“That’s settled then,” Aeryn said.  Moya lurched to a stop.  “We’re docked.  I’ll stay here to watch over Naj Gil and wait for Crais.”  She spun toward the door, and marched out of Command. 

John leaned both hands on the console and hung his head, waiting for the ache in his chest to subside.  She had barely spoken to him since his brief moment of elation when she had moved to stand beside him in Pilot’s Den three solar days earlier.  The pain of being around her had actually become physical.  Every look away, every avoided touch left him with the same empty ache inside.

“Time to go, John,” D’Argo said behind him. 

John nodded and continued to stand with his head hanging, wondering what else he could do to break through to Aeryn.  There had to be some word, some touch, some look that would let her know that he was still here and still loved her as fiercely as ever.   

“Time,” his friend’s voice reminded him, intruding on his thoughts. 

“I know she needs time, D’Argo.  The problem is that she doesn’t need time, she needs an entire frelling millennium.”  He sighed.  The long exhalation did nothing to relief the uncomfortable tight spot in the middle of his chest. 

“I meant that it is time to go meet with the hvisk.  They signaled a time and place for an information exchange.  They treat everything as a trade agreement.  We should try to be on time.”  D’Argo waited patiently. 

“Yeah.  Don’t want to be late for your first date,” John said on another sigh.  Several more microts passed before he pushed himself away from the console.  “Let’s go.” 

* * * * *

Crichton adjusted his pace so Chiana could keep up with his longer stride.  They were working their way upward through the tiers, headed toward the hatch designated by Pilot.  The treblin side hatch on Tier One was an easy one to get through, but it was out of the way and required a lot of walking through Moya’s corridors just to reach it.  He checked Winona over as he strode along, his feet guiding him through the correct turns without any conscious thought.  He slapped the chakan oil cartridge back into place, holstered the pistol, and then asked, “You okay with this, Pip?” 

“What’s not to be okay with?”  She smiled up at him, cocking her head to peer out from under her bangs.   

“We don’t know the first thing about these critters, and we’re asking you to go off with just Jool for backup.  We could rearrange this so that D’Argo or I go with you instead.”  They reached the airlock and stopped, waiting for the others to catch up to them.

“Crichton, we’ve already agreed that Rygel and D’Argo are going to be the ones who negotiate with Scorpius when we find him, so they should go with you.  Jool and I will be fine.  All we’re doing is bargaining for some iriscentant fluid and a few other things for Moya and Pilot.  How hard can that be?” 

“Does the word chromextin mean anything to you?”  John wandered back down the corridor, listening for D’Argo and the others while keeping an eye on Chiana for her reaction. 

She laughed and gave him a gentle bump with one elbow.  “Yeah, but that was you doing the bargaining, Crichton.  Only you would get blown up while --”  She broke off, looking uncertain once she remembered exactly who had been injured in that blast. 

He turned his back, ducking his head so she couldn’t see his face.  The movement, meant to cut off any further discussion of Kanvia or what had happened there, backfired.  Behind him, Chiana offered an awkward attempt at an apology.  “It’s just that you’re so much … I mean.  It was hard to tell … Forget it,” she said, finally giving up when every explanation went wrong.   

“No problem, Chi.  If it was the other way around, it would have worked out the same.  You know that.”  John took a deep breath, trying to decide whether he would have preferred to be the one who got blown up and went on Talyn, or the one who got left behind.  He shook himself, using the physical movement to break away from the useless conjecture.  “I could try to get Jool to take a weapon,” he said, returning to his concern for her safety. 

She looked at him more seriously this time, humor muted by the verbal blunder.  “You know if she has a pulse rifle, she’s just as likely to shoot me in the hind parts as whatever she’s aiming at!  If anything goes wrong, I’ll give her one good slap and you’ll be able to hear the Princess screaming all the way to Moya.”  Chiana reached out to run one hand down his arm, offering a silent reassurance and an apology at the same time. 

The sound of multiple footsteps approached from further down the corridor.  John strode back to a corner and yelled.  “Big D!  Let’s move it!  You’re the one who said we had to be on time.” 

He spun around and returned to the hatch, reaching it just as D’Argo, Jool and Rygel joined them.  The heavy airtight door swung open easily when he pushed against it, Moya having equalized the atmospheric pressure shortly after they docked.  Crichton led the way, ducking his head out of habit in spite of the fact that the doorway was more than tall enough to accept his frame.  The group jostled their way through the multiple airtight doors separating Moya’s interior from the inside of the Kyelligg and emerged into the space station.

“Whoa!”  Crichton staggered his way out of the innermost doorway.  He called a warning back to the others.  “Watch it!  There’s a gravity shift.” 

What had been a vertical wall when he stepped out of the final hatch quickly became the floor.  He made his way unsteadily onto the new ‘floor’ and then took a moment to look back at where he had been microts earlier.  His eyes, brain, and inner ear fought a short battle for dominance as he looked back down the sloped ramp leading from his floor to the hatch.  Chiana was half way up the ramp standing at forty-five degrees to his own orientation.  Behind her was Jool, who appeared to be lying down while still on her feet.  “That’s cool,” he said in time with a stumbling loss of balance. 

Rygel was grousing his way through the transition.  “I abhor these variations.  They’re totally unnecessary and a nuisance.”  A further complaint from the hynerian turned into a yell of panic.  He had tried to match the orientation of the new floor too soon and the adjustment came close to pitching him forward out of his seat. 

“Ride ’em, Sparky!” John cheered him on.  The floating chair over-compensated; it rocked forward and back several times, very nearly ejecting its occupant before Rygel managed to level off. 

“Hvisk,” D’Argo said, nodding to a spot behind John. 

Crichton turned in the direction D’Argo had indicated, but he was still concentrating on the variable gravitational field and wasn’t ready for the sight that awaited him.  Aeryn’s glacial reception and incommunicative shell over the past days had continued to occupy almost his entire attention span, so he had been concentrating on anything except what he might run into aboard the Kyelligg.  It left him ill-prepared to deal with a new species.  For the first time in over two cycles, he jumped with surprise.  He’d been half-expecting a bunch of businessmen in suits.  The five individuals approaching them didn’t come close.   

“Whups.  Not exactly Lee Iococca,” he said to himself in what he thought was an inaudible whisper.  A fast, dismayed hiss from D’Argo let him know that his voice had traveled farther than he had intended.  ‘Big Bird’ leapt into his mind next.  That didn’t describe the hvisk any better than his first label.   

Fully a head taller than Crichton, the lead individual’s black eyes stared down into his from above a thick, short beak.  Pale greenish skin crinkled around the edges of its eyes in what might have been a hvisk-smile of good humor.  A crest of semi-translucent green feathers ran over the top of its head; the colorful collection straightened to a bristling ridge as the hvisk moved forward to meet them.  At first glance, the only difference between the five individuals was the color of their crests:  orange, reddish brown, green, blue, and a shade of purple so dark that it appeared black depending on how the light hit it.  John studied at the quintet more closely and managed to pick out a few subtle differences in their beaks and other features.

“Don’t ask me to pick this group out of a police line up,” he said quietly to D’Argo.  The comment earned him a hard shove forward toward their hosts. 

The leader, eyeing Crichton more warily than when they had first approached, extended a hand in a palm-forward salutation, simultaneously inclining its upper body, bowing toward the group in general.  The hand had three thick fingers, as did the creature’s feet.  A small flash of light ricocheting off a hard surface drew John’s gaze to a fourth appendage part way up the creature’s wrist.  ‘Cockspur’, he catalogued the sharp protrusion while he copied the gesture and the bow.  The hvisk squinted again, managing to look amused despite the limited facial movements caused by the beak. 

Smile, John decided.  It was probably smile … or maybe avian indigestion.  “John Crichton.  Nice to meet you,” he offered, hoping it was the right way to start. 

The lead individual whistled a three-toned trill at him, bowed a second time, and then stepped aside and motioned to his companions.  Each of the hvisk bowed slightly and gave a similar complex whistle. 

“Anyone getting a translation?” John asked over his shoulder. 

“No.”  D’Argo moved up to stand alongside him.  “Ka D’Argo,” the warrior tried, skipping the bow.  He was greeted by the same collection of multi-note trills.  “We can’t understand you.  Do you understand us?”  The five heads nodded to the accompaniment of a complex harmony of whistles and musical tones.     

“It’s a tonal language,” Jool said abruptly, sounding triumphant. 

“What?” John and Chiana asked simultaneously.  The whistles coming from the hvisk welcoming committee nearly drowned out their question.  Five crested heads ducked and nodded, clearly agreeing with the interion’s assessment. 

Jool shouldered her way past Rygel and D’Argo in order to get closer to the hvisk, and explained her initially cryptic answer.  “Their language is based on tones.  Each transition from a previous note or combination of tones is the equivalent of a word or an idea.”

“So you can understand them,” D’Argo said, starting to relax. 

Jool’s familiar impatience for the intellectual shortcomings of other species appeared in an instant.  “Of course I can’t.  Although I possess most of the qualities that distinguish more evolved species, I was not so fortunate as to inherit the gift of perfect pitch.  Only someone with the capacity for detecting absolute harmonic resonances would be able to understand their language.”  She ended with an accusatorial glare at her companions.  Each person looked at the others in turn. 

After several microts of exchanged looks, Crichton found himself the center of attention.  Everyone, including the hvisk, was looking at him.  “Don’t look at me for help!  It’s my eyes that are better than twenty-twenty, not my ears.  I use a bucket to carry my tunes.” 

D’Argo hissed in aggravation then activated his comms.  “Pilot!”   

“Yes, D’Argo?”   

“Do either you or Moya have the capacity for detecting absolute pitch of musical tones?” D’Argo asked.  John gave him a quick thumbs-up, silently commending his idea. 

“Not precisely.  However, between the two of us we have the capacity to analyze tones and make an assessment that approximates the ability you are describing.” 

“I think that was a yes.”  John was rubbing an ear vigorously in response to Pilot’s explanation.  He turned to the hvisk and beckoned toward their leader.  “Would you talk to our pilot?  We think maybe he can understand you.” 

“Commander Crichton,” Pilot interjected over the comms before any member of the quintet could respond.  “I attempted standard communications with the hvisk when we first contacted the Kyelligg.  Their language is far more complex than a simple tonal symbolism.”  The group turned as one to glare at Jool, who began to protest.  Pilot continued before she could get started.  “It seems that each individual begins a sentence with a personalized signature.  The subsequent sentence is then constructed from that primary signature.  Therefore --”

“-- it changes for every individual,” Crichton finished for him, seeing the beginning of a problem.  “Thank you, Pilot.  We’ll see what we can work out here.”  He turned toward the hvisk delegation.  “So there’s no way we’re going to understand you any time this century.  I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that you’ve got a way of working around this problem.” 

All five pairs of eyes squinted and a harmony of high-pitched chords wafted over him.  Smiles, he decided for certain, looking at the squints and the bobbing heads.

“The two women wish to trade for supplies for our leviathan,” D’Argo said. 

Two of the hvisk sang to them, beckoning, and Jool and Chiana followed them hesitantly into the main thoroughfare of the station. 

“Chiana?” John yelled after them.  Both women turned to look at him.  “Be careful.  Comm us if anything doesn’t seem right.”  They smiled tolerantly at his concern, waved, and disappeared around the corner. 

“We’re here to purchase some information, if you have it,” D’Argo told the remaining three individuals.  They ducked and nodded before he could add any specific details, motioning for them to follow.  The group stepped out of the dead-end alley where the hatch was located, crossed a wider street and moved into a bustling, chaotic thoroughfare. 

The hvisk led the way, the clatter of their triple-clawed feet against the metal flooring carrying clearly until they moved into the humming chaos of the larger circumference construct.  John stopped for a microt, his forward progress interrupted by shock.  They had emerged into what he guessed was one of the sixteen major arms of the Kyelligg.  The street was packed with bustling hvisk moving past them in unbroken streams.  With hundreds, perhaps thousands, of hvisk talking all at once, the sound of their musical language was nearly deafening.  Rygel’s sled hummed past his head.  The quiet whine drew John’s attention back to their chaperons, and he moved forward, hurrying to catch up. 

Smaller avenues and alleyways branched off at regularly spaced intervals, invariably projecting off the primary extension at some perception-twisting angle.  Crichton lagged behind to stare ‘up’ a smaller street that seemed to rise at an impossible angle from an opening to his left.  Both sides of the narrower avenue were lined with dwellings, each one bounded by lush gardens and gushing waterfalls.  From his perspective, the streams were performing a magic trick of running sideways, flooding away from him as they gurgled and splashed from top to bottom of the gardens. 

“Crichton!” D’Argo bellowed over the heads of the crowd.  Hordes of black eyes swiveled in the luxan’s direction, watching the loud individual who was beckoning for his friend to catch up.  John waved an acknowledgement and started after him, glancing overhead to see if this larger thoroughfare had proportionally larger waterfalls. 

“Whoa!  Crap!”  He staggered and started to fall over backwards.  Two strangers caught him; four hands propelled him effortlessly onto his feet.  He nodded his thanks to the pair of passersby, and looked up more cautiously.   

“Crichton, what is the problem?”  D’Argo had retraced his steps and was standing beside him.  He’d been so distracted, he hadn’t heard the luxan returning.   

“Look up … down.  Look at that!”  John fumbled through the words, awe depriving him of an adequate description.  He pointed up, looking down from above into an equally busy street on the opposite side of the enormous tube, completely disoriented by the conflicting views. 

D’Argo looked where John was pointing, sparing less than three microts on the view.  His response was both nonchalant and unimpressed.  “Flipped gravity.  Efficient use of space.  I would have expected them to use at least four surfaces for living space, but they seem to use the sides for vegetation.” 

“To generate oxygen,” John theorized, paying more attention to the forests and gardens that crawled up the sides of the enclosure.  “Closed ecological system.”  Holding on to D’Argo’s arm to steady himself, he looked up/down into the canopy of a small forest on the other side of the station, seeing movement both above and below the trees.  Flying fauna of some sort, possibly an equivalent of Earth’s birds, flickered across bluish-green treetops for a microt, disappearing into the branches in fast moving waves.  It was like flying inverted … except that his feet were firmly planted on the ground.  Crichton grabbed onto D’Argo’s sleeve more tightly, illogically convinced that he was about to fall upward. 

“Do you intend to stand here gaping all day, or can we go to this meeting?”  D’Argo pulled out of his grasp.  “You act as though you’ve never seen variable gravity fields before, John.  Surely you had something similar on Earth.” 

“Oh yeah.  Absolutely.  I used to ride the Round-Up at the carnival every year.  It was close to this.”  Crichton took one more look at the bustling street above/below him, managing to remain upright this time, then fixed his gaze firmly on the broad luxan shoulders bulldozing through the crowd and hurried after D’Argo. 

* * * * *

Aboard Moya, Aeryn traversed the empty, nearly silent tiers, setting each foot down with cautious deliberation.  For the first time in almost a half-cycle there was little in the way of threats to be considered.  For the moment, peace reigned aboard the leviathan -- although their planned assault on the Command Carrier promised an abrupt end to the interlude.  Each of her steps was planted on the burnished floors with exquisite care.  It wasn’t to avoid being detected.  It was an attempt to prevent the familiar ringing tones that echoed through the corridors when she moved with her usual lithe stride.  Returning to Moya had been just as painful as she had anticipated.  Every smell, every sight, and every tiny sound had the power to set loose a barrage of memories.  The warm muted light, familiar surroundings, and Moya’s rumbles calmed her in ways she would never have predicted; everything else, from the odors to the echoes of her own footsteps, seemed to trigger a memory. 

A DRD scuttled out of a maintenance hatch, scooted across the passageway and disappeared into another tunnel.  It was a familiar sight, entirely ordinary aboard a leviathan, and yet the fading whine reminded her of a moment when a different color DRD had approached a junction aboard Talyn.  They had been standing together, the mists of drexim swirling around them, caught up in a passion they’d denied for too long, until they had been interrupted by the DRD that had coasted toward them through the shifting chemical fog. 

Aeryn rested her forehead against one of Moya’s ribs for the time it took to force the memory back into the dark chasm where she had stored so many bits and pieces of recall.  She closed her eyes, envisioned wadding the moment into a small bundle, and pushed it down deep to join the growing collection of unwanted memories.  The hard cold knot in her stomach expanded to take up a little more space, spreading its discomfort so that every breath took slightly more effort.  It felt like that all the time now; it never eased. 

There had been a short time after Valldon when she had managed to make the sensation go away, leaving her empty but free of the pain.  It had lasted until the moment when their voices had chimed ‘I’ve got an idea’ in perfect synchronization and for a brief moment she had forgotten that it was not him.  A short time later, braced against the lurching of D’Argo’s ship as it sped in pursuit of the commandeered transport pod, she had struggled to remind herself that the black suited figure sitting across from her wasn’t John.  Each of his features was so familiar, every reaction perfectly timed to hers, and yet it wasn’t the person she wanted beside her.  Or maybe it was. 

Aeryn pushed herself upright, locked the internal cell door so that the memories couldn’t get loose, and continued toward the Den. 

She greeted the symbiote simply but with affection.  “Hello, Pilot.”  The chaos that passed for normal life aboard Moya had begun within arns after she had stepped off the transport pod.  There had been little opportunity for her to spend time with the large creature whose DNA remained inextricably integrated into her own.   

“Officer Sun,” he responded.  Pilot’s expression brightened to the closest version of a smile he was capable of producing.  “Aeryn.” 

“Are the docking arrangements suitable for Moya?” she asked.  “Is she satisfied that she can get loose in a hurry if it becomes necessary?” 

“Yes.  If she is forced to pull away without the docking clamps first being released, there will be some damage to her outer hull, but Moya is confident that she can free herself if it becomes necessary.”  Pilot attended to his controls for several microts then peered down at her, examining her more carefully than a casual physical inspection would normally merit.  “How are you?  Is there anything that either Moya or I can do for you?” 

“No, Pilot.  Thank you.” 

Aeryn turned her back on him, leaned back against the outer wall of his consoles, and gazed into the distant corners of the central neural plexus.  She could easily stand here for arns, she thought, listening to the quiet rhythmic sounds and staring into the dark.  It was almost like sleeping, only more peaceful.  Her sleep was frequently broken by the invasion of her memories in the form of dreams and nightmares; here there was little to consider other than the whirring of the DRDs, the hum of calorics flowing through conduits, and the underlying hush of air circulating through the cavern. 

“Both Moya and I would be more than willing to listen if there was something you would like to talk about,” Pilot suggested hesitantly. 

“You’ve been around Crichton too much,” she said, smiling to take any sting out of the accusation.  “Sometimes talking makes things worse, Pilot.” 

“Officer Sun … Aeryn,” he started over, looking mildly uncomfortable with the more casual address.  “When Crais first took Talyn away, Moya could think of nothing other than her offspring, as could I.  It took a very long time to adjust to his loss.” 

“Holding on to the chance that you might find him some day must have helped.” 

Pilot’s eyes receded slightly and he lowered his head, resulting in a mournful look.  He peered at Aeryn from under the front edge of his cranial shell.  “It made it worse because Moya felt that his development would be harmed if he did not have another leviathan to guide him through the maturation process.” 

“Well, he is a wonderful ship despite that, Pilot.  You saw how much he cares about Moya when he came to help after she had been burned.  He is strong and brave, and he’s learning more about compassion every day.”  There was a jailbreak in her soul.  The memory of her impassioned plea for the young gunship to let John back inside forced her to relive the decision to expose her inner heart to another living creature.  Aeryn turned away from Pilot to stare into the dark.  It took several microts to imprison the fugitive images. 

“The point I attempt to make is that it took many solar days for us to reconcile ourselves to the fact that Talyn was gone.”  Pilot drew her back into the conversation.  “It was not easy.”  Without bothering to face the sympathy she knew was hovering behind her right shoulder, Aeryn nodded her understanding.  “Moya wishes that there was something she could do to help.  As do I.” 

“How did you --?” she asked in a whisper. 

“We talked about it a great deal, Moya and I.” 

Aeryn shook her head more vehemently.   “I don’t think talking will help this time, Pilot.  I watched him die.  I felt him die.  There’s nothing more to be said.”  She leaned over the barricade to touch one of the shelled claws for a moment, trying to convey an appreciation of his offer that she couldn’t voice at that particular moment, and then hurried from the Den. 

Once Aeryn’s slim figure had disappeared from sight, Pilot spoke aloud to his large partner.  “Yes, Moya, I agree.  There is much that still needs to be said, but she must first find the right words to express what is breaking her heart.  It is doubtful that what she said here today is the source of the problem.”  He listened to the mournful reply streaming into his mind, grateful once again that he had a lifelong partner with whom he could share his every thought.  When Moya finished, Pilot nodded ponderously in agreement.  They would give Aeryn Sun more time before offering their help again. 

* * * * *

[KernilCrash]

Chapter 2

Crichton straightened his legs, stretched for a moment to restore the circulation, and then laboriously tucked his feet under his thighs again.  He squirmed in place for nearly ten microts in a vain attempt to get the heavy leather to stop creasing in several exceedingly uncomfortable places.  It didn’t help.  After one more futile effort to ease the pinching grasp of his pants, he gave up, reconciling himself to the non-damaging discomfort for as long as it took to complete their negotiations.

The meeting place they’d been escorted to had turned out to be nothing like the conference room he had been half-expecting.  Despite his three cycles living in the Uncharted Territories, he retained a tendency to envision Earth-type situations whenever he was proceeding into an unknown situation.  As usual, he’d had to cover up a fast mental scramble when they had been ushered into a shady circular depression surrounded by thick walls of shrubbery, and had been invited by gesture to take their places in the ‘chairs’ arranged there. 

Although they were barely five motras from one of the primary streets of the station, all but the loudest noises were muffled by the dense growth surrounding them, letting through only a hushed undercurrent of the tuneful hvisk chattering.  D’Argo’s low growl of disgust carried easily across the quiet enclosure.  John smothered a laugh.  The luxan fit into the furniture even worse than he did. 

The hvisk seating was nothing more than a round cushioned platform with a depression in the middle, which sat on a half-motra high pedestal.  Their hosts were far more limber than either humans or luxans.  The hvisk simply backed into the seats until the forward edge caught them behind their knees, and then sank gracefully into the cushions.  They tucked their feet in close to their bellies, and then arranged the draped folds of their robes to hide everything but their clawed toes.   

John had chosen to get into his seat by launching himself backward with a moderate sized hop.  Once situated in the center of the cushion, he had tried letting his feet hang off the front edge, only to have the raised lip knock him over backwards into an undignified sprawl.  In the end, he had chosen to sit in the center with his legs crossed, feeling very much like a solitary bit of food in the center of a large saucer.  Rygel had it easy.  He had simply grounded his throne sled in the middle of his seat, and then watched with sardonic humor while D’Argo circled his chair several times considering his options.  Eventually, D’Argo had shucked his Qualta blade, laid it near the pedestal base of his seat, and let himself down into the padding with all the control and grace of a swooning sheyang. 

“Any idea what’s going on, Rygel?” John asked.  They had been sitting in various levels of discomfort for almost an arn, during which very little had happened.  The hvisk nodded and sang to them from time to time, made small pushing motions that seemed to ask them to wait, and that was the extent of it.  There had been no other form of communication or negotiations so far. 

“I leave the musical portions of entertainment to my palace musicians,” the deposed Dominar said.  “I do not claim to understand these individuals.” 

“I thought you were the great negotiator,” D’Argo said, challenging the hynerian.  “So negotiate.” 

“One needs a second party in order to begin such a discussion,” Rygel said.  “So far they are only interested in sitting and chirping.” 

Two additional hvisk entered the meeting area.  They stood behind the other three for several microts, peered at the visitors, and then left.  It was the third time they had been surveyed in this manner and Crichton was beginning to feel uneasy.  The sensation of being sized up as a meal was growing more pronounced with each inspection. 

“Why are they looking at us like that?” he whispered to his comrades.  They were being scrutinized yet again. 

“They aren’t looking at us,” Rygel said, stressing the ‘us’.  “They are staring at you.” 

“They’re looking at all of us.  They’re probably trying to figure out how bad you would taste or what’s supposed to go with Cajun Hynerian Gumbo.” 

The latest set of visitors chirped at the three seated hvisk, bowed once and left.  John admitted to himself that all of the stares did seem to be aimed specifically in his direction but chalked it up to the fact that he was sitting between D’Argo and Rygel.   

“As though you’re a better catch.  Rack of Erp-man,” Rygel shot back.     

“How much longer will this take?” D’Argo demanded of the hvisk, drowning out the beginnings of a spat between his crewmates. 

Heads bodded, eyes creased into hvisk smiles, they were treated to a three-part harmony of untranslatable explanations, and nothing more happened.

“Perhaps there is some sort of ceremony of which we are unaware that is required in order to initiate these proceedings,” Rygel tried.  He received an almost identical response except that all of the hvisk heads swiveled from side to side instead of bouncing up and down. 

“I wonder if the girls are having the same problem,” John said.  He leaned down to talk into the comms clipped to his belt, trying to keep the communication somewhat private.  “Chiana.  Jool.  How you ladies doing?” 

“Aside from Miss Money-Bags trying to pay three times as much as necessary for everything, we’re doing great,” Chiana’s voice answered cheerfully.  Jool’s outraged response to the accusation could be heard screeching in the background.  “And this is drad, Crichton!  They can pump the iriscentant fluid right into Moya.  We don’t have to transfer it barrel by barrel.”  There was a short pause as a hvisk trilled in the background, followed by, “No, that’s too much just to hook up a frelling hose!  Try again, Bugle Beak.”

“You have any trouble getting them to start the bargaining, Chi?”  John leaned closer to his comms, wondering about the acuity of hvisk hearing. 

“They launched in almost before we could sit down.”  Chiana broke into laughter.  “You should have seen Jool trying to get herself in one of their seats.”  There was another strident shriek of interion outrage in the background accompanied by a rippling series of random notes that John decided might be hvisk laughter.  It sounded as though the other bargaining party was having a hell of a good time. 

“What means are they using to conduct the bargaining?” Rygel demanded loudly over his own comms. 

“They have data displays.  It’s slow, but not very complicated.  We tell them what we want and how much, and then they show us a price.  Then we refuse to pay that much currency.”  The trilling hvisk laughter said that they weren’t offended by the blunt description.  “How you comin’?” 

“A whole lot slower.  Let us know when you’re headed back to Moya.”  John waited until he heard the comms close then straightened up to face their team of bargainers.  “How about we get started?” he asked, focusing on the center of the three individuals.  It beamed at him, bowed, and that was the end of the response. 

“I give up.  Must be my deodorant or something.”  John unwound his legs, rolled to the edge of his seat and flipped his legs over the side.  He perched there until some of the circulation began returning to his feet.  “We’re still interested in some information if you folks want to deal.  Give our pilot a holler if you’d like to … talk,” he ended lamely. 

“John.  A little help,” D’Argo asked, extending a hand.  Planting both feet firmly to prevent himself from getting jerked into the seat on top of D’Argo, John grabbed the offered wrist and pulled the luxan upright.  When they turned around, the three hvisk were out of their chairs and were blocking the exit.  They clasped and unclasped their hands and kept bowing, looking nervous, and refused to move aside.   

Crichton approached them, anger stirring for the first time.  “Look … Guys!  You don’t want to bargain.  You don’t want to explain.  You don’t want us to leave.  You’ve got a nice setup here, but fish or cut bait.” 

“Crichton!”  D’Argo’s growling censure told him he had exceeded the limits of translator microbes. 

“Either start dealing or get out of the way,” he tried again.  The situation took on a surreal quality.  Their hosts continued to block the exit, obviously apologizing but refusing to move.  John put his hand on the butt of his pulse pistol and glanced to make sure D’Argo was beside him, thinking they might have to force their way out of the enclosure.  Just as he was releasing the latch holding Winona in place, a fourth hvisk scuttled in, glanced at the tension-filled group, and stepped close to sing to the others.  All four hvisk stepped aside. 

“We can leave,” Rygel translated. 

“No kidding, Guido.  Very perceptive.”  The Dominar soared past him without his usual acerbic response.  “Where you headed?” John called after him.

“A community this large is sure to have acquired some marjoules in their travels,” Rygel called back.  The throne sled accelerated over the heads of the crowds in the central artery.  A microt later, Rygel disappeared from sight. 

“Now what?” D’Argo asked.  They were working their way through the steady streams of pedestrians. 

“I don’t know.”  They had been counting on someone aboard the Kyelligg knowing where Scorpius’ Command Carrier and its associated fleet were located, based on the assumption that a trading society of this size would stumble across the information at some point in their many transactions.  “I guess we wait for Crais to get back and see if he’s located Scorpy and his mindless minions.”  They worked their way around the perimeter of a small lake, dodging smaller hvisk who were warbling and scampering about through the crowds.  “You ever been aboard a ship like this?” Crichton asked, gesturing toward the strip of parkland surrounding the lake. 

“Not one this big.  Some luxan ships are large enough to use variable gravity fields, but we don’t have anything big enough to utilize plants for atmospheric replenishment.” 

“Budgies,” John commented, pointing to a flock of almost thirty small hvisk, each no more than a motra tall.  Except for their size, the youngsters differed from the adults only in that their crests were more vivid.  The bright, nearly fluorescent colors merged into a huge psychedelic wave that shifted and flowed as the children milled about under the watchful eyes of four adults. 

“Buj-jies?”  D’Argo tried to mimic the word. 

“Budgies.  It’s a type of bird on Earth.  They don’t look like them really, but they’re kind of … You know what?  Forget it.  It doesn’t matter.”  For once it didn’t seem worth the effort to explain the odd association his mind had made between a small colorful bird and the flock of sentient creatures flowing around their legs.  That lack of enthusiasm had been happening to him more frequently with each passing day, compounding each time Aeryn went out of her way to avoid talking to him or looked away when he resorted to comparing some bit of trivia to his life on Earth.

John stopped walking long enough to allow the mass of children to flood around them on their way toward the lake.  Their ‘voices’ -- or what passed for voices -- were as undeveloped as a human child’s.  In a group, they sounded like an untrained orchestra made up entirely of kazoos.  One diminutive hvisk, smaller than all the rest, stopped long enough to look up at Crichton.  It tooted earnestly at him for several microts.  “Get movin’, scooter,” he told it.  “You’re getting left behind.”  It squawked one more note at him, swerved past his legs, and disappeared after its companions. 

“If you’re finished, could we go back to Moya now?” D’Argo grumbled, but not without humor.

John motioned him forward.  With D’Argo leading, they started to cut across the expansive primary arm of the station, headed for where they’d come aboard from Moya.  A knot of more than twenty adult hvisk suddenly coalesced to D’Argo’s right, sweeping toward him at a brisk pace, the individuals in the group bumping into each other as well as jostling and shoving the luxan as they moved past.  He stepped out of the tangle of pale-robed bodies, hissing with irritation at their behavior. 

“The entire frelling walkway and they have to run us over,” he complained.  He waited for John’s reply, expecting another of his untranslatable comparisons to Earth.  There was no response.  D’Argo turned to see what bit of trivia John was marveling at this time. 

He was alone amidst hundreds of the Kyelligg’s inhabitants.  Crichton was gone. 

* * * * *

Aeryn scrambled up one of Moya's oval-holed ladders, squeezed through an opening at the top, and perched a hip on the four-dench wide lip that ran along the wall, bracing herself between the flange and the ladder in order to remain in place.  Two DRDs were already in the confined work area, clinging to the ceiling on either side of a biomechanoid valve.  They swiveled their eyestalks in her direction and chirped a short greeting. 

“Pilot, I’m in place,” she called.  The leviathan’s systems for taking on fluid supplies had been used so seldom over the last cycles that the valve had become stuck, exceeding the capacity of either Moya or the DRDs to get it open.  Pilot’s tentative request for assistance had interrupted nothing more important than a non-stop pacing of the tiers.  Even working on a simple task such as this gave her something else to think about other than the scores of memories she didn’t want to revisit.   

“It will be several more microts before they are ready aboard the station,” Pilot commed back.  “Will you be able to wait there?” 

“It’s a little cramped, but I’m fine here.  Let me know when it needs to be opened.”  Aeryn shifted in the small opening, finally choosing to rest her butt on the narrow shelf and jam both feet against the ladder in an attempt to get comfortable.  Her thoughts wandered back to the exchange that had taken place half an arn earlier.  Her route to this spot had taken her past Naj Gil’s cell.  She had paused long enough to confirm that he was still incarcerated and that the door was securely locked, and then had begun to walk away. 

“Allow me to assist in some way,” he had called after her.  “There must be some task I can perform that would benefit ship or crew.” 

She had stopped with her back turned to him, unwilling to even look at a member of the species that had tried to acquire wormhole technology, leading to a sacrifice she could not justify.  “Let a scarran wander around Moya unwatched.  I don’t think so.” 

“My life depends on your survival,” he had argued.  “We are deep within Peacekeeper territory.  If I am recaptured, my death will be neither pleasant nor quick.”  She had heard him moving behind her, coming to the bars of the cell.  “It would not be in my best interest to sabotage this ship or harm its inhabitants.”

A DRD nudged her shoulder, bringing Aeryn out of her brief reverie.  “Officer Sun!” Pilot called.  From the mild distress in his tone, it was obvious that he had tried to get her attention more than once. 

“I’m here, Pilot.” 

“They are ready aboard the Kyelligg.  Please open the valve no more than half way.  Moya has not used these fluid conduits since she escaped from the Peacekeepers.  I cannot be entirely certain that there are no fissures in the lines.” 

Aeryn reached over her head, took a firm grip on the valve’s handle, and tugged.  She had expected that a sharp yank would break it free:  a motion requiring more force than a DRD could muster but nothing especially strenuous.  The valve didn’t budge.  She moved her feet up a rung, grabbed the lever with both hands and heaved at it with her entire body weight.  It jerked open half a dench.  “Pilot, how far does this need to move in order to be half open?” 

“From full recess to pointing straight down,” the voice responded.  It had another ten or twelve denches to go before it reached that point. 

“Frell … ing … scut … work,” she grunted in rhythm with each heave on the lever.  It crawled toward its destination and she could hear the first trickles of fluid crawling down the leviathan’s internal piping.  “Iriscentant fluid?” she asked in time with her battle against the recalcitrant mechanism. 

“Followed by a chemical nutrient slurry that Moya finds useful in the growth of new hull components; and thirdly, a liquid compound that will be converted into a nutrient mix for my own sustenance,” he replied.  “Chiana and Jool have bargained successfully for all items requested by Moya.”  The normally placid voice sounded ecstatic with pleasure and she expended several microts wondering how long a leviathan could survive without replenishing certain substances necessary for internal functions.

“New hull components,” Aeryn repeated, taking a break to catch her breath.  “As in --” 

“As in growing new tiers, Officer Sun,” he answered, sounding surprised by her inquiry.  “Moya’s size is not finite.  She is still young.” 

Aeryn smiled at the dark, nearly black walls around her, patted the leviathan’s inner hull briefly, and returned to her labor, gradually yanking the valve open to the prescribed limit.  “Is that enough, Pilot?” she called at last. 

“Yes.  It will take longer to complete the loading, but until the DRDs check for leaks, this is an adequate rate of flow.” 

Aeryn leaned back and watched four DRDs gather around the valve.  Small picks, probes, and tightly confined laser beams were plied, beginning the slow task of removing the build up of cycles in order to free the frozen mechanism.  It was peaceful in the small enclosure.  The quiet rush of fluids persuaded her to relax for the first time in several solar days.  She shifted to one side where the ledge wasn’t as narrow, made herself more comfortable, and thought back to the end of her exchange with Naj Gil.   

“It would not be in my best interest to sabotage this ship or harm its inhabitants.”  The scarran’s claim echoed in her mind.  She had started to turn around to face him, intending to say something to the effect that his race had already damaged one member of the crew irreparably, and the mere thought of voicing that sentiment had set loose a wave of anger she hadn’t suspected was hiding inside.  She had bitten down on the remark, seeing the futility in voicing the accusation.  The anger had receded, leaving her chilled but in control. 

Naj Gil had waited at the door to the cell, his breath growling behind her, his strength forfeited to the Peacekeeper surgery and more recent wounds.  He was a neutered specimen, worthy of nothing more than her distain and a reasonable amount of caution.  “No,” she had answered with finality, and stalked off without sparing him an additional glance. 

“Pilot!  Aeryn!” D’Argo’s alarmed transmission echoed in the confined space.  “Crichton’s disappeared.” 

Aeryn closed her eyes and shook her head in disgust, thinking of the number of times over the past cycles that he had gotten separated from them or had simply wandered off while gawking at the scenery on the dullest of commerce planets.  Crichton disappearing was a definition of his character.   

“This would not be the first time Commander Crichton became lost or got separated from the rest of you.”  Pilot’s enigmatic response gave voice to Aeryn’s private thoughts.  “Is there something more remarkable about this event that we do not understand?”   

“I don’t mean he disappeared, I mean he has been abducted.  He was right next to me and then we were surrounded by hvisk, and when they moved away he was gone.  They’ve taken him.”   

“This is ridiculous, D’Argo,” Aeryn called back.  She was unwilling to believe that the entirely apolitical inhabitants of the Kyelligg would compromise their neutrality by doing what D’Argo was describing.  She began making her way down the ladder.  “He probably just went to look at something.  The hvisk would not --”

“AERYN!!”  The angry bellow generated a squealing complaint from the comms.  “I cannot see or smell him.  He has disappeared.  Stop arguing and get to the Den.  Pilot!  Ask Moya to scan the station for lifesigns.  A human should stand out against these creatures.  Find him!”

The desperation and fury in his voice cut through the disbelief, slicing deep into something raw and hurtful inside.  An expanding knot in her stomach reminded her of what it felt like to look at the sightless eyes of a dead John Crichton.  She clung to the ladder for a microt, hands and feet suddenly numb, her grip on the rungs jeopardized by the lack of feeling. 

“Pil--”  Her first call to the symbiote rasped and cracked into whispering silence.  She cleared her throat and tried again, all the while scrambling down the ladder at high speed.  “Pilot, begin the scans.  I’m on my way.”  She abandoned the rung-by-rung descent, shifted both hands and feet to the outside of the ladder’s frame, pressed inwards, and slid the final fifteen motras to the bottom of the shaft. 

She reached the next lower tier at the same time that D’Argo was calling to Jool and Chiana.  She stumbled and fell to one knee from the force of her landing, staggered back to her feet, and began to run.  The two women answered, saying that they were approaching the hatch and would hurry to reach the safety of Moya.  Rygel was complaining at length about an abandoned meal of marjoules, but behind the griping was the high-pitched scream of a throne sled moving at its maximum velocity.  Rygel had already begun an aerial search pattern for their missing crewmate.   

“D’Argo!” she yelled, rounding the corner into the Den.  “How far are you from the docking hatch?  I’ll get the scans from Pilot and meet you there!” 

“I can be there in --”  The next sound wasn’t a word.  It was a long, drawn-out snarl of frustration. 

After three cycles of living shoulder to shoulder with D’Argo and getting to know how he reacted to most situations, interpreting the sound was a simple matter.  He would have already spent precious microts searching for John, using both sight and smell in an attempt to locate him, and had probably lost track of his location.  He would be turning left and right, scanning his surroundings, tanktas and braids flying, trying to figure out how long it would take him to reach the docking hatch.  The remainder of his message was bellowed at a volume that suggested he was trying to talk to her without the benefit of the comms.

“-- in one hundred microts!” 

Aeryn crossed the span to Pilot’s station at a pace barely short of hazardous.  Pilot’s arms were flying:  controlling the ship’s sensors, gathering the sheaves of transparent schematics, adjusting the comms, and searching through the readouts all at the same time.  Eyes bulging, mouth gaping open as he worked, he didn’t spare her so much as a glance when she came to a halt before him. 

“Keep looking for him,” Aeryn called to D’Argo.  “Pilot hasn’t located him yet.”  Another growling snarl said that he had been headed for the hatch and was reversing course again.  “Wait!” she transmitted a microt later.  The back and forth decisions were almost certainly pushing the luxan toward the uncontrollable onset of hyper-rage.  She ignored the possibility and concentrated on Pilot.  He was staring at a single flimsy printout, nodding ponderously.  “Pilot’s got him,” she said, interpreting Pilot’s stare.  “I’ll be there in two … make that three hundred microts.” 

Aeryn scrambled up onto the consoles.  Kneeling beside Pilot, she watched without comment as he laid out a series of more than twenty schematics.  One claw was devoted to tracing the path she would have to follow through the Kyelligg to reach a small blip with a red marker next to it.  She began tracing the route with a finger, shook her head when she lost her way, and he showed her a second time. 

“Got it.”  She confirmed the route a second time, preferring to take the extra microts if it meant she wouldn’t get lost once she was aboard the Kyelligg, and then stacked the flimsy transparencies in the order she would need them.  “Chiana!” 

“Right here, right here.”  The breathless nebari ran into the Den carrying a pulse rifle.  Aeryn snatched it out of her hands, didn’t bother to apologize for the hasty grab, and bolted out of the chamber. 

A single DRD whined slowly out of the dark behind Pilot.  It came to rest next to one of his elbows.  The eyestalks swiveled back and forth, alternately scanning the drooping, motionless armored head of Pilot, and the gray, panting figure that was bent over with its hands on its knees.  “Frell,” Chiana said on a deep breath.  She straightened up and looked at the empty doorway where Aeryn had disappeared.  “Not Crichton.  Not again.  And the hvisk seemed so nice.” 

   * * * * *

D’Argo was barely aware of the quiet chirp of the comms channel closing.  Too much of his attention was consumed by the combination of concern for Crichton and the impossible task of containing a mounting anxiety-generated rage.  The two feelings intertwined and goaded him closer and closer to an uncontrollable, mindless outburst.  He snarled at a passing hvisk, startling the inoffensive creature into a hurried retreat, and then turned toward the docking hatch and began to run, weaving between groups of startled hvisk and shoving others aside in his haste.  The motion and effort felt good; energy flowed freely, redoubling until he was barging through even the densest of crowds as though no one were in his way, leaving a squawking, hooting trail of upset citizens in his wake. 

Aeryn emerged from the floor-mounted door just as he approached the hatch.  She made the odd transition in a single leap, obviously familiar with the gravitational shift.  There was one fast, snapping shake of her head to help her adjust to her new orientation, and then she brushed impatiently past the worried luxan. 

“Left,” she ordered, comparing her surroundings to the top schematic in her hand.  “How the frell did he get separated from you in this place?  This station is a child’s playground.  No one could get lost in these streets.”  They were moving at a near run through the crowds. 

A whine accelerated toward them as they wound through a series of plantings and seating areas.  Rygel descended to join them.  “There’s no sign of him.” 

Aeryn threw a fast, irritated glance over her shoulder at the hynerian.  “Where have you been?  Pilot located him.  Haven’t you been listening?” 

“I had my comms turned off so I could listen for his voice.  I believed D’Argo from the first microt and thought Crichton might call out for help if he was still able to resist.”  Aeryn frowned and started to turn toward him, flicking an expended schematic in his direction.  The Dominar swooped beneath the spinning transparency then swerved away from her, glowering in return.  “Do not be angry at me because you refuse to think of him as John Crichton.  If it were the other one, you would have been on this station in under four microts, ready to shoot anyone who got in the way of your search.” 

D’Argo reached out, snared the throne sled, and hauled it down to waist level against the occupant’s attempts to escape.  “You are not helping, Rygel.  Go back to Moya!”  His shove sent the chair wobbling three motras across the narrow alley.  It banged into a wall, nearly ejecting Rygel before leveling out.  The two soldiers stood without moving as the throne sled steadied and turned away, carrying the complaining Dominar back the way they had come. 

“Rygel’s right,” Aeryn admitted in a shaking voice.  She looked up and down the empty alley as though she would find Crichton somewhere within its tight confines.  “I dismissed what you told us at first, thinking that he was foolish and irresponsible.  I wouldn’t have thought that about --” 

“Aeryn!” D’Argo interrupted her hesitant self-recriminations.  “There are moments when Rygel is exceptionally sagacious, displaying the qualities of a great ruler; and there are moments when the little pile of dren is a foul smelling imbecile.  This is one of the latter.”  She looked down at the maps in her hand and started to shake her head.  D’Argo tried again.  “You need to concentrate on finding John.  There will be time to debate this later.  Focus.” 

Aeryn took a deep breath, slung the pulse rifle over her shoulder, and used both hands to flip to the next depiction of the station.  She double-checked their position and headed further into the narrowing alley.  “How did he get lost?” she asked over her shoulder, accelerating to a steady jog.  The walls were getting further apart, widening out as they moved toward a cross street.   

“He did not get lost.  A mob closed in around us for several microts and when it broke up he was gone.  I’m sure they did it deliberately.”  Longer legs allowed him to match Aeryn’s pace with a fast walk.   

“Why?  Why take Crichton?  What do they want with him?”  Aeryn tossed another transparency aside and continued her headlong rush, guiding the pair flawlessly into one narrow street after another.  They emerged from one alleyway into another of the main arteries, and D’Argo realized they’d cut from one of the Kyelligg’s sixteen main branches across to another.  He followed her straight across the expanse and entered one of the arteries that was second in size to the primary arms of the station.   

“Left,” Aeryn ordered after several more intersections.  She slowed in order to study the readout in her hand, using her peripheral vision to track D'Argo's progress ahead of her.  “Try that opening.”  She pointed toward a pair of open doorways flanked on either side by a small crowd of hvisk.  The individuals were wearing the same pale robes that all hvisk wore, except that in every case they were trimmed with a single bright stripe that slashed from shoulder to hip along the draped edge.  Several whistled at the two intruders who had stopped in front of the buildings, letting out sharp, disharmonic tones. 

D’Argo hesitated, looking back and forth between two adjacent doorways, unsure which one Aeryn had been indicating.  She shoved past him to resume the lead, shouldering aside two adults who moved to block their way.   

“Which way?” D’Argo asked. 

Aeryn dropped another schematic; only three remained in her hand.  The interior of the building was light and airy, full of plants and rippling waterfalls that clung magically to the walls, the pleasant hallways packed with hvisk.  Their singing merged into a flowing, harmonious chorus.  The two crewmates shoved and bullied their way through the gathering, D’Argo’s drawn Qualta blade generating stares and nervous shuffles.  He pulled at Aeryn’s shoulder, urging her to let him lead the way through the crowds.  “Tell me which way and stay close to me.  I’ll clear a path.” 

“The corridor to the right,” she said, studying Moya’s scans.  “Hurry, D’Argo.  This is taking too long.  They’ve had him too long.”  She fell in behind him, stretching to match her strides to his longer paces. 

“Hurrying,” he agreed and hoisted the Qualta blade menacingly.  The masses parted before him, the larger hvisk pulling the smaller ones aside and tucking them protectively behind their legs when they spotted the weapon.  “Mothers,” he said suddenly. 

“What?”   

“These are mothers with their children.  The females must have the robes with the trim on them.  What kind of place is this and why have they brought John here?”  They paused to look around them, confirming D’Argo’s suspicions.  Every adult had one or more children pulled in tight alongside her legs, black eyes watching with intense suspicion.  The glares followed the two crewmates as they resumed their journey through the corridors. 

“Right and then right again,” Aeryn directed, flipping the last map aside.  “Start trying rooms on the left.” 

They leapfrogged down the hallway, bursting through one doorway after another to the shock of the individuals inside each room.  Squawks and whistles echoed in their wake, heads popping out of the open doors to watch their progress, crests bristling with either fear or outrage.   

“Medical facility,” Aeryn called, running past D’Argo to lunge into the next room.  “This is a hospital of some sort.  Why the frell have they brought him here?  Was he acting sick?” 

“No.  He was his usual irritating self.  Where is he?” D’Argo yelled in frustration, moving more quickly as each room yielded only more startled hvisk.  “This one’s locked!”  He grabbed Aeryn, arresting her dash past him.  Releasing her once she was stopped, he backed to the opposite side of the hallway, got a running start, and smashed through the door.  Aeryn was right on his heels, weapon ready.   

The scene inside was peaceful in comparison to their frantic search, the lights dimmed to a calming twilight.  Four older hvisk, all males according to their robes, stood near a control panel covered with illuminated readouts, looking relaxed and even a little cheerful.  The age-faded crests were standing straight up, a jaunty statement that they were pleased with whatever they were doing, while the black eyes were almost entirely hidden behind the squinting eyelids that passed for a smile among the inhabitants of the Kyelligg.  All four turned in alarm as the two rescuers stumbled into the room. 

The one person who didn’t appear to be enjoying himself was Crichton.  He was lying in a larger version of the hvisk seats, partially curled up, one hand hanging limply over the edge of the surface.  Several extra cushions had been tucked under his knees and around his sides to make him more comfortable in the cup-like bed, but despite the outward attempt at comfort, his face was pale and sweating, and a complex system of webbing had him securely netted into place.  His head, the focus of whatever they were doing to him, was cradled in a gleaming white apparatus.  One of the hvisk turned away from the weapons, ignoring the threatening postures, and made an adjustment to the equipment.  John’s eyelids fluttered erratically, accompanied by a quiet complaining sigh. 

“Stop what you’re doing!”  D’Argo rushed forward to stand between the abductors and his friend. 

“Let him go!” Aeryn yelled at the same time.  She leveled her rifle at them and stepped up to stand beside D'Argo.  The four beaks began opening and closing in distress, low whistles filling the room in a hair-raising harmony.  Aeryn took two steps back to stand beside Crichton and repeated her demand.  "Let him go.  Whatever you’re doing to him, stop it now and release him.” 

One of the hvisk crept forward, bobbing up and down, hands turned palm up in front of him as he chirped at them.  The whistles transformed into long, mournful hoots. 

Aeryn shook her head, frustration and anger encouraging her to resort to violence.  She fought down the urge and tried again.  “I don’t understand you.  Release him now.”  The hoots increased in volume and frequency.  “Watch them, D’Argo, I’m going to cut him loose.”  She turned toward Crichton and the hoots behind her turned into loud honks of distress. 

“What have they done to him?” D’Argo asked over his shoulder.  One of the hvisk approached and he snarled at it, scaring it back toward its companions. 

At first she couldn’t see anything to explain John’s pallor and rapid breathing.  It wasn’t until she knelt at the head of the round bed and leaned in close that she saw the source of the problem.  Dim light glinted on dozens of hair-thin wires running into his skull, piercing both skin and bone.  They were arranged around his head in odd groupings that lacked any discernable pattern:  six or more here, a scattered collection elsewhere, and then a tightly bunched concentration somewhere else.  There was no way to tell what they were meant to do.   

“Get these out of him now!”  More bobbing and distressed hooting followed.  But the machine went on humming and John let out another airy cry.  “No arguments, no whistles, no dances.”  Aeryn stepped forward and placed the muzzle of her weapon against one of their foreheads.  “Let Crichton go.” 

D'Argo hissed behind her.  She spared him a split-microt glance.  He was on one knee next to John, examining the wires.  He got to his feet, a growl of anger emanating from deep within his chest.  “I do not recognize any of this equipment.  What do you think they are trying to do?” 

Aeryn’s headshake was a brisk left-right snap that didn’t take her eyes off the hvisk for so much as an instant.  She backed away from the group, surveyed the banks of electronics behind them, and then barked an order.  “Either stop this now or step away.  I’m going to destroy your machine.”   

Four crests drooped; the color faded out of the feathers until they were almost transparent.  The hvisk spread out in front of the consoles, blocking her from firing at the machinery despite their fearful trembling.  Aeryn stepped past them in four long strides, tracing the cabling that ran from where Crichton lay back to a large panel.  “This one,” she determined, charging the pulse rifle. 

“Wait, Aeryn!”  D’Argo was watching the alarmed hvisk and their increasingly wild gesticulations.  They were all waving toward Crichton, drooping feathers and anxious eyes transmitting distress.  “Wait!  We don’t know what it’ll do to --”

Aeryn fired. 


* * * * *

[KernilCrash]

Chapter 3

D’Argo breathed shallowly as he leaned over Crichton trying to find a pulse.  The acrid smoke coming from the burnt circuitry caught at the back of his throat and struck painfully at his nasal passages, masking out all other odors.  Aside from being physically painful, the stench of blasted electronic equipment made it impossible for him to determine if John was giving off the unpleasant, mildly sour scent that the human normally exuded whenever he was injured.  D’Argo located one of John’s major arteries, pressed carefully against the side of his friend’s neck, and was rewarded with a slow and steady ticking beneath his fingertips. 

“Crichton,” D’Argo said, keeping his voice low.  There was no response to his quiet summons.  He shifted to the other side of the circular bed.  From there he could search for some way to detach the netting holding Crichton in place and still keep an eye on the other occupants of the room.  The hvisk were gathered in front of the destroyed equipment, whistling to each other in rapid arpeggios that began to intertwine into a single complex theme of distress.  One hvisk left the group and tried to approach Crichton, its crest lifting and falling anxiously.  A menacing swing from Aeryn’s pulse rifle stopped its advance. 

“How is he?” she asked, keeping her gaze fixed on the hvisk.  She trained the weapon on its chest and jabbed the muzzle in its direction.   The lone individual retreated reluctantly. 

“Unconscious.  But at least he’s breathing and his pulse is strong.  That was foolish, Aeryn.  There was no way to know what destroying that machine would do to him.”  D’Argo leaned closer, peering through the smog to see what had happened to the wire-thin probes.  “We’re in luck.  The needles have retracted.  At least we don’t have to figure out how to get those out of him.”  He went back to feeling around the edge of the platform for a release mechanism. 

Aeryn backed away from the hvisk until she could spare a fast downward glance at the unconscious figure.  “There might be more of them coming.  We need to get him out of here.”

D’Argo nodded, snatched his knife from his belt and slashed through the straps holding Crichton down.  The hvisk quartet began a new melody, bobbing nervously and gesticulating first at the door and then at Crichton.  D’Argo tossed the ruined netting in their direction and jostled the unconscious human, hoping for at least a mumbled complaint.  John’s body slopped from side to side.  There wasn’t even the most basic muscular resistance to the manhandling.  The fear that Aeryn’s abrupt solution had critically injured Crichton increased, squeezing his own two hearts until he thought he knew how Aeryn must have felt that horrible day aboard Talyn.  “He’s not waking up.”   

Aeryn didn’t seem to hear his comment.  Her focus on the hvisk didn’t waver for a microt.  “These four aren’t much of a threat, but if there were more of them, they might try to stop us.  Can you carry him?”

D’Argo settled on a quiet snort to let her know that it was a ridiculous question.  He had carried Crichton more than once, and if she had been thinking clearly she would have remembered and wouldn’t have bothered to ask.  It meant that despite her outward show of control, Aeryn was every bit as worried as he was.  His Qualta blade slid into its sheath with its familiar metallic rasp, and he gathered the limp body into his arms, struggling with the unwieldy burden until he managed to get John to the edge of the mattress.  “Let’s go,” he said on a grunt.  He levered himself and his cargo upright.  “When he wakes up after being hurt, he whines about it incessantly.  I want to get him back to Moya before that happens.”  D’Argo hefted his load, trying to get Crichton settled more securely in his grasp.   

“When was he whining about being hurt?”  Aeryn was maneuvering to let D’Argo reach the door first while she kept the hvisk covered with the pulse rifle.  The little group had stopped trying to communicate and was bunched together in the corner, watching mournfully as their captive was taken away.

“When he --”  D’Argo hesitated, too late considering that John might not want Aeryn to know about the accident that had almost killed him.  “I think John should be the one to tell you about that.”  He began to walk faster, hoping she would drop the subject. 

So much remained unsaid between his two friends, their relationship damaged nearly beyond comprehension, let alone repair.  D’Argo looked down at the motionless features resting against his shoulder and wondered how he would have coped if this John Crichton had been the one to die and the other one had returned to stand by his side -- whether he could have accepted that other person as the friend he had come to value so deeply or whether he, like Aeryn, would find it difficult to accept the other in this one's stead. 

“You should ask him yourself when he wakes up.”  If he wakes up, D’Argo added silently to himself. 

   * * * * *

Aeryn jogged along behind D’Argo, scanning the crowds around them for any further threat from the hvisk.  She was repeatedly distracted from her surveillance by the sight of John’s left hand swinging laxly from side to side in time with D’Argo’s stride.  The curled fingers brushed lightly across the luxan’s back on each pass, nudged the scabbard of the Qualta blade and then reversed course without so much as a hint of intervention from the person who was supposed to inhabit that body.  There was no guarantee that the situation would ever change, and much of her concentration was going into burying the thought that her hasty destruction of the equipment may have injured John … perhaps permanently.     

Despite his strength and stamina, D’Argo had been forced to stop within microts of leaving the medical facility to adjust the way he had been carrying John.  The unconscious body was too unwieldy to carry in his arms as they wove through the crowded streets.  The dangling legs had caught on every corner, shrub, and pedestrian.  She had helped him lower Crichton’s feet to the floor, then had strained to support his weight long enough for D’Argo to get one shoulder into his stomach and lift him again, draped over D’Argo’s shoulders this time.

John hadn’t stirred throughout the change, and there hadn’t been a single sign of life since she had pulled the trigger on her pulse rifle.  Prior to that instant, he had been making a few noises and small movements.  The first stirring of fear uncoiled deep in her stomach and wandered leisurely up her spine:  fear that D’Argo was right and she had injured John when she had rashly destroyed the hvisk machinery.  Aeryn shook her head, banishing the thought-warping concern.  John’s mind had been invaded too many times over the last three cycles.  She had seen the relief in his slowly expanding smile when the neural clone had been destroyed, and was certain he wouldn’t want another species meddling with his brain, no matter what it took to make it stop. 

“Almost there,” D’Argo said, breaking into her thoughts.  “Any change?”

She was about to say ‘no’ when John’s hand closed into an awkward fist.  “I think he’s awake.”  Aeryn moved closer to grab the reflexively clenched fingers.  The hand fumbled at hers for several microts, finally managing to close around just her thumb. 

“He doesn’t feel like a sack of raw Gelsarit wheat anymore.  He’s conscious,” D’Argo confirmed.  He stepped out of the stream of pedestrians and stopped near a cluster of shrubs. 

“John, can you hear me?”  Aeryn shifted her hand within his, turning it into a normal grip, and crouched down to see if his eyes were open.  His fingers closed more tightly around hers and he mumbled unintelligibly into D’Argo’s back.  “Can you stand?” she asked, slowly pulling her hand out of his.   

“I think so,” the inverted figure said weakly.  “Put me down.” 

D’Argo lowered John’s feet to the floor and started to move away.  He leaped forward again when Crichton’s knees buckled.  The warrior grabbed him around the chest and hauled him back up.  John grabbed at him drunkenly, trying to steady himself.  “Maybe not,” John revised his condition.  “What happened?” 

“You don’t remember?”  D’Argo propped the weaving astronaut against the wall and held him in place.  John’s his eyes crossed and he began to slide down the wall.  D’Argo grabbed him more securely and pulled him back up, shoving him against the wall with a thump designed to help him concentrate. 

“Thanks,” Crichton acknowledged the save.  He held one hand to his forehead, stilling his wobbling head by pressing it back against the wall.  “I remember … there … there was a cute little guy kazooing at me --”

“Ka-sooing?”  Aeryn’s microbes refused to translate the word even on the second try.  She shook her head in frustration.

Without moving his head, John swiveled his eyes in her direction and gazed at her.  It looked as though he had just noticed an object he thought was lost forever and had come across by accident.  He took a deep breath, went back to staring at D’Argo, who was still propping him up, and tried again.  “I remember walking by the lake, and then there’s nothing until I came to with your shoulder doing its best to give me a Heimlich.”  He stood up straighter, paying more attention to their surroundings.  “Where are we?  What’s going on?” 

D’Argo grabbed Crichton’s vest, arresting a slow left-right swaying that had begun to develop.  “Later, John.  We have to get off the Kyelligg quickly.  There’s been a problem.  Can you walk?” 

“I think so.”  Crichton pushed himself off the wall and stepped forward as his large friend backed away.  The simple process of walking went awry.  His foot somehow missed the floor entirely, and he started to go down, falling into D’Argo’s arms.  The pair floundering together for a moment before D’Argo could recover and get them both back on their feet.  John clung to the broad shoulder, relying on the grasp around his waist to keep him from tilting off to the side.  When he looked for Aeryn she was three motras away with her back turned. 

He turned away from the sight of the stiff, unmoving shoulders, choosing to focus instead on the person holding him up.  “Shuffle-oh on down to Buffalo,” he told D’Argo. 

“John, does that mean --”

“Yeah.  Sorry, D.  Let’s get out of here.  I’ve got one hell of a headache.”

Aeryn tucked the pulse rifle under her arm, scanned around them to make sure that no one was following the staggering pair, and moved after them.  She kept an eye on the shifting crowds, checking for any sign of pursuit, and used the otherwise unoccupied time to consider her lack of reaction when John almost fallen.  When one part of her had wanted to leap forward to catch him, she hadn’t moved a muscle.  She had stood rooted to one spot, and let D’Argo take the full brunt of John’s weight even though it had nearly driven both men to the ground.   

It was another of the many unbidden memories that had frozen her in place.  She had seen that sort of uncoordinated attempt by John to regain his balance once before, and the reminder had left her chilled and with a lump forming in her throat.  It had been too reminiscent of the moment when she had watched her John slide down the side of the module and collapse at her feet, bringing back all the dread and the sense of inevitability.  This time they might not know what the hvisk had done to him for arns or even days.  Until they determined what the hvisk had been trying to achieve with their machines, she would have to face the fact that the stumbling feet ahead of her might once again turn into something far worse. 

The thought made it hard to breathe.  The dread caught at her chest and her throat:  it tightened the first until she wasn’t sure she could draw another breath, and clogged the second until what little air made its way into her lungs whistled painfully through an impossibly narrow passageway.  “No,” she said to herself so quietly she barely heard the small word herself.  “He’ll be fine.”  He would recover. They had gotten there soon enough.  He would survive. 

The two men stopped so D’Argo could get a better grip on John.  Waiting impatiently for them to begin moving again, she realized that her hesitation was creating an unacceptable risk.  They would be able to travel much faster if she helped, and that would get them back to Moya and safety sooner.  She switched the rifle to the crook of her left arm, and moved forward to slide under John’s arm, bolstering him up.  He jumped when she moved into place, looking at her first in surprise and then with a quiet smile that showed mostly in his eyes. 

“We need to hurry,” she explained.  “We’re vulnerable to another attack.” 

“Of course.  Sound tactical reasoning.”  Crichton faced forward, eyes studiously averted from hers.  The hand that gripped her shoulder let go.  He continued to lean on her, but no longer held her securely in place against the side of his body.  A quick pang of disappointment lingered for a microt, then it was smothered beneath the need to concentrate on the route as they retraced the endless turns she had originally taken at a run.   

   * * * * *

Crichton was walking on his own by the time they reached Pilot’s Den, steadied by D’Argo’s hand under his elbow but otherwise recovered from the mysterious attack.  They had tried repeatedly to steer him toward the medical bay so Jool could examine him for injuries.  John had stubbornly refused, arguing that their first priority was to decide whether Moya should detach from the Kyelligg and leave.  Entering the Den, Aeryn stepped aside to let the two men go first.  She hung back to watch as John, with D’Argo following close behind, unsteadily traversed the long bridge to Pilot’s central platform.  Although the luxan’s hovering attentiveness was reassuring, he would not be able to keep John from falling if he stumbled and slipped off the walkway. 

“Careful,” she said.  He flapped a hand, casually dismissing her concern, and finished the journey without trouble.  Inexplicably, the motion annoyed her.  Aeryn turned her back on the center of the Den where the entire crew was gathered in front of Pilot.  Several deep breaths helped get the irritation under control, after which she went to join them. 

John was rubbing his temples with the heels of his hands, slowly massaging both sides of his head.  Without bothering to look up, John asked, “Pilot, any sign of bad guys out there?”   

“We are detecting nothing that would suggest a threat, Commander.  There are no unexplained transmissions, no coded communications traffic, no navigational pulses which would be used to guide a ship to the station.  Moya’s sensors are picking up nothing out of the ordinary.” 

“Finding you and getting you out of there was extremely easy, John,” Aeryn said quietly into the silence following Pilot’s announcement.  “If they meant to keep you prisoner, they aren’t very good at it.  Are you sure you didn’t do something to cause this?” 

“Do something to cause what, Aeryn?  We still don’t know what they wanted.  I say we get the hell out of here before we find out that they aren’t as inept as we think.”  He was leaning against the ridged outer bulwarks of Pilot’s station, now rubbing his forehead.  “It feels like you stopped another damned mind frell.  I’m glad you got there before it started.” 

D’Argo and Aeryn exchanged fast glances, silently sharing the thought that the hvisk attack, whatever its purpose, had been well underway by the time they had found him.

Jool was the next to break the short silence that had fallen over the Den.  “Are they still pumping fluids into Moya?” 

Pilot referred to his readouts.  “Yes, Joolushko.  When we first determined that Commander Crichton was missing, I signaled the Kyelligg and requested that they stop delivery, but it has continued without interruption.”  He tapped several controls.  “If they continue at the current rate, it will take just over twelve arns to complete the transfer.” 

Crichton raised his head, looking worried.  “Are they delivering the right stuff to Moya?  Maybe this was an attempt at a diversion so you wouldn’t notice if they slipped her a mickey.”

“Mickey?” several voices asked together.

“Something to knock her out.  Leviathan-sized Sominex.  Sleep formula of some sort,” he explained. 
 
“Moya has not detected any substances entering her systems other than the ones bargained for by Chiana and Jool,” Pilot said after a brief conference with the leviathan. 

Aeryn clambered up alongside Pilot to view the displays for herself.  “If there isn’t any sign of danger, then perhaps we should stay until Moya gets the supplies she needs.  The docking clamps are still secured to her hull.  Unless we can convince the hvisk to release the grapples, she would have to rip away.” 

“John was attacked!” D’Argo countered.  “We should leave now.” 

“We paid perfectly good currency for those supplies,” Rygel entered the conversation.  “It makes no sense to flee when no one is after anyone except Crichton.” 

“Thanks for the support, Buckwheat!” John spat out angrily.  “We are at risk, and more importantly, Moya is at risk.  I say we should see if we can get loose without injuring Moya and beat feet as soon as possible.  We can meet Talyn and Crais at the backup rendezvous spot.”

The discussion broke down into bickering, the combined voices merging into a single strident yammering.  Aeryn watched silently from her vantage point atop Pilot’s consoles.  Chiana, Jool, and D’Argo were moving about restlessly, arms, hair, tanktas, and red ringlets jouncing or flailing with the energy of their argument.  Rygel soared from one spot to the next, inserting caustic observations and self-serving suggestions whenever he could find a lull in the noise.  John continued to lean on the wall directly in front of Pilot, looking increasingly distracted and weary, but periodically finding the energy to interject his demand for a hasty departure.

Pilot placed one claw on Aeryn’s knee, drawing her attention away from the squabbling group.  “Officer Sun, Moya does not want to leave yet.  She is concerned for Commander Crichton’s welfare, as well as that of everyone on board, but she is very worried about the damage she will sustain if she pulls away, and would prefer to finish taking on supplies as long as the hvisk continue to provide what we purchased.”  He looked at the arguing crewmembers with his customary resigned dismay. 

“Then that’s what we’ll do, Pilot.”  Aeryn gave him a smile and left her perch, sliding down alongside Jool with a quiet thump.  “Moya doesn’t want to leave yet!” she yelled into the ruckus.  “We’re staying.” 

“Aeryn --” John began.

“Moya wants to wait,” she repeated more quietly, and turned to face him.  “She wants to stay.” 

John’s shoulders started to slump.  It was his body’s signal that he was giving in, transmitting the surrender long before he would be willing to actually say it.  “And what they did to me counts for nothing?”

“They attacked John!” D’Argo insisted, but he sounded less confident of his position than he had just microts earlier. 

John turned on the warrior angrily.  “Well, thanks a bunch!”

“I was agreeing with you,” D’Argo protested. 

“Sure you were.  Right up until the part about how I was over reacting to whatever the hvisk did to me, and I’m being selfish!” 

“I said no such thing, Crichton!”  D’Argo took a step back, retreating in confusion before John’s furious glare. 

“I’m not deaf, D’Argo.  I heard what you said!”  John flicked his hand at his friend’s gesture of protest, dismissing anything D’Argo had to say before he could utter the words.

“Crichton, you’re fahrbot!” Chiana entered the squabble.  “D’Argo didn’t say anything like that.”  She looked around at the others, seeking reassurance.  They were all beginning to nod their heads, a silent chorus of agreement.  “He didn’t,” she repeated. 

“Great!  Now you’re teaming up to play tricks on the deficient human,” Crichton said.  He rubbed his forehead, looking tired and depressed.  “Fine.  Do whatever the hell you want.  I’ve got the mother of all headaches.  I’m going to my quarters for a while and see if I can sleep this off.”  He stumbled slightly as he stepped around Chiana, caught his balance and pulled away from her attempt to steady him, yanking his arm away from her outstretched hands.  “Back off, Chiana,” he growled. 

The group watched without a word while John traversed the bridge and disappeared through the doorway, his shoulders bowed and head hanging under the combined weight of depression and the mystery of whatever had been done to him.  Silence continued to reign for several microts even after he had disappeared from sight, broken only by Moya’s pulsing rumbles and the quiet whine of Rygel’s hovering throne sled. 

“I do not understand what just happened,” Pilot inquired of the group.  “Ka D’Argo did not say anything remotely similar to what Crichton accused him of saying.”

“Jool, I think you need to check John to see what the hvisk did to him,” Aeryn said. 

“The scanner will only detect physical alterations.  If this is psychological, it won’t pick anything up,” the interion reminded her.

“Maybe he was just tired,” Chiana said hopefully.  “I do odd things whenever I get really tired, maybe that’s all it was.” 

“You do odd things even when you’re not tired.”  D’Argo’s accusation was delivered with a look of tolerant indulgence, letting everyone know that he was teasing her.  Chiana bumped against him with one hip, a tiny physical chastisement, and then turned back to the conversation.   

“Perhaps the clone has gained strength and has begun taking over his mind,” Rygel theorized.  “We should lock him up now, just to be safe.”   

Aeryn shook her head.  “That was not like anything the clone has ever done before.  Crichton has always known when the clone was communicating with him.  That was closer to an auditory hallucination.”  She looked over her shoulder at the now empty doorway where John had disappeared into the corridor, gnawing on her lower lip for a brief moment.  “Today may have been one attack on his mind too many for him to withstand.  Pilot?  Have there been any transmissions from the hvisk since we’ve returned?  Any clue why they took Crichton?”
 
“No, Officer Sun.  If anything, there has been a reduction in signals, but it may be coincidental.  There have been no events over the last arn that would require any sort of transmission.”  Pilot tended to his controls, watching his visitors simultaneously as he issued a new set of commands to a DRD.  One of the units sitting in a corner came to life, and zipped across the same bridge that Crichton had taken.  “I have instructed the DRD to proceed to Crichton’s quarters, where it will maintain surveillance on him for any additional abnormal behaviors.  It will send a constant video signal to Moya’s datastores.”

“That’s all we can do for right now,” D’Argo agreed.  “What about the information we were trying to get from the hvisk?” 

“I am not going back on that station again,” Rygel said.  “There is no information important enough to take a chance that another one of us might get abducted by those unintelligible excuses for barterers.” 

D’Argo folded his arms across his chest and peered down his nose at the hynerian.  “For once I have to agree with Rygel.  We should wait to see how John is when he wakes up, and what the hvisk do next.  After that we can make a decision.” 

“Agreed,” Aeryn nodded.  “In the meantime perhaps we should all get some rest.”  She turned and led the way out of the Den.

   * * * * *

[KernilCrash]

Chapter 4

Lo’lann turns, smiling, loosened hair flowing across her shoulders in shining sheets, Jothee perched on her hip.  He opens his arms wide to embrace them and she spins away, the pair laughing together as they dance away, giggling and teasing him.  He dodges around a pillar in pursuit.  Her graceful body sways to one side, effortlessly evading his hug one more time, and they are all laughing together.  The room twists, darkens, flows around him, and she’s lying on the floor in an expanding lake of blood.  Somewhere nearby his son is screaming for his mother.

Crichton took in a long gasping breath and woke abruptly.  “Whoa!  Too much.”  The dream had left behind a mild sense of impropriety, as though he had been eavesdropping on D’Argo’s life, sifting through the luxan’s storehouse of memories without permission.  The emotions he had encountered in the brief nightmare lingered, intruding on his waking world, every bit as tangible as the headache that pounded behind his eyes.  He had been able to feel D’Argo’s grief in the split-microt between sleep and waking.  The emotional agony transcended sorrow by several degrees.  It was as though someone had ripped his heart out, leaving only pain and longing in its place. 

He turned restlessly, trying to find a comfortable position.  His headache had started shortly after he had regaining consciousness upside down over D’Argo’s shoulder.  At first he had attributed it to just that:  being carried upside down.  Except the pain had continued to mount throughout the brief argument in the Den and had even increased while he was asleep until it now felt like someone had stuffed a star’s supply of heat and radiation into the tight confines of his skull.  John pulled a pillow over his eyes, blocking out the last vestiges of light filtering through his eyelids, and sighed when that adjustment provided a small measure of relief. 

“Don’t go there again,” he ordered his subconscious, instructing it to stay away from any further conjecture about D’Argo’s past.  He spent several microts finding something simple to focus his thoughts on, finally choosing the smells and sounds of his mother making breakfast when he was a kid, fixed it firmly in his mind’s eye, and fell asleep hoping he would feel better when he woke up. 

Kellor waits for him by the pool, dainty feet whispering on the stone walkway, the pastel green tones of her skin turned to silver by the cold light of Hyneria’s moon.  She turns to greet him, earbrows flexing upward with excitement because this meeting is forbidden, and then the light is suddenly gone, the moon obscured, the scenery morphing into a darker night when he finds her body floating there in the pool, slain by his father’s master-at-arms in order to ensure that the future Dominar does not squander his love on a commoner.  Shrubbery turns to buildings.  Where there were trees, there now stand hordes of nebari, and Nerri is turning away, glancing over his shoulder one last time, mouthing the word ‘sister’ at her, and then she is standing alone, surrounded by the crush of thousands on this heavily populated planet, and she doesn’t know what to do or how to live because he has always been there to take care of her.  Only she wakes to find out that she has been frozen for twenty-two cycles, and her cousins are dead, one murdered to save the life of a deficient species, and she is alone with no way of finding her way home.

Crichton turned in his sleep, wracked by the flowing collage of dreams, sighed deeply and descended into another strange collage of borrowed images. 

The collarbone rings are an agony, the bone and skin not yet healed from their insertion.  He bellows out his fury anyway, jerks against the chains until the blood flows from the wounds, deliberately battering himself as much to obliterate the memory of Lo’lann’s dead body as to announce his defiance to his jailers.  Leviathan walls fade, twist, glow, turn into the palace Throne Room.  His father sneers down at him from the vantage point of his jewel encrusted couch, calling him weak for falling in love with a mere servant.  He silently vows that he will learn the lessons of power in the quest to usurp the aging Dominar’s empire before the old man is ready to step down, but underneath, he wants only vengeance for Kellor.  Cold determination curls within, shifting over several notches to become chilly fatalism and a willingness to do whatever is necessary to go on living, because what was once fun is now business, and she has learned to survive on her own, but she always watches the faces, hoping that some day it will be Nerri’s smile coming toward her through the crowd.

John snapped awake all at once, his headache worse than before, barely able to see against the throbbing agony behind his eyes.  The lights in the corridor were dimmed, which meant that it was still ‘nighttime’ aboard the leviathan and everyone was most likely asleep.  He tried to organize his thoughts long enough to think of someone to comm for help, but the nightmarish collection of dreams and the unrelenting discomfort had combined to scattered his thoughts into tangled fragments.  Instead, he turned back into the pillows, one tiny protesting cry getting loose as another jolt of pain rocketed from temple to temple, and sought refuge in sleep.

   * * * * *

Aeryn finished buckling her pulse pistol into place, checked her braid one more time to make sure that it was tight and even, and waved her hand past the door controls.  She stepped into the corridor and almost ran into Chiana.  “Sorry,” she apologized in a mumble, disturbed that she had been so distracted she hadn’t noticed the other woman approaching.  Her training had taught her to be vigilant, always aware of her surroundings.  Coming that close to a collision meant that her thoughts were focused on something several light years away from her body.  She was preoccupied to a dangerous degree. 

“No farm, no foul!” Chiana said brightly.  Aeryn paused.  It brought Chiana’s headlong rush to a halt as well.  “What’s the matter?” 

Aeryn cocked her head, considering the mangled phrase.  “Isn’t that ‘No harm, no foul’?” she asked.  It was the first humanism she had repeated since her return to Moya.  The peculiar expression emerged like a second-hand sound, echoing the memory of John’s voice.  But the memory was one from Talyn.  She stuffed it back down where it had been stored, slamming the doors of her mind behind it.  Reliving those moments only caused misery.   

“Fowl belong on a farm,” Chiana was saying.  She confirmed her reasoning with an emphatic jerk of her head.  “So it must mean if there isn’t a farm, there aren’t any birds.”  She spun around and headed away.  After several steps she looked behind her to check that Aeryn was there.  “How’s Crichton this morning?  Feeling better?” 

“I don’t know.  I haven’t seen him.”  She had meant to stop by his quarters before heading to the Center Chamber for First Meal, but her feet had continued past the appropriate corridor without any inclination to turn down that passageway.  Her body had begun operating on its own in that manner with increasing frequency.  Reason said that it was her emotions getting the best of the more logical side of her mind, but it didn’t feel that way when her boots took over and continued past the corridor leading to John’s cell, not when she had originally intended to check on him.  It felt more like encroaching insanity; either that or a new form of cowardice. 

Aeryn took another step and nearly ran into Chiana again.  The nebari had stopped without warning; she whirled around, outrage radiating from the cocked elbows and twitching shoulders.  “Haven’t seen him?  You haven’t even bothered to check on him?”  She stalked even closer, glaring at Aeryn from a distance of barely two denches.  “You can’t be bothered to check on Crichton?  In that case, it probably won’t worry you that a few arns ago I found him sleeping on the floor next to the waste funnel.  He’s been sick most of the night, Aeryn, puking his guts out.  But maybe you don’t care about little details like that.” 

Chiana stepped away, surveying the stunned ex-Peacekeeper from head to toe.  “I know you’ve been hurt, but he deserves better than this from you.  If you won’t make sure he’s all right, then I’ll do it.”  She shoved Aeryn to one side and headed back the way they had come. 

Aeryn snared her by one arm.  “No, I’ll check on him.”  They remained that way for several microts, Chiana pulling away and Aeryn holding her in place, conducting a silent battle.  The smaller woman finally relented and stopped struggling to get loose.  Aeryn let go, and said, “You go on ahead to get something to eat.  I’ll go back.”

“You’re sure?”  It was an aggressive query, more challenge than question. 

Aeryn jerked her head toward the Center Chamber, silently ordering Chiana to continue in that direction.  A moment later the gray figure was gone, leaving Aeryn to retrace her steps toward Crichton’s cell.  Instead, she stood frozen in the middle of the corridor, stunned to immobility by the vehemence of the accusation.  She did care about Crichton.  She was worried to distraction about whatever the hvisk had done to him and his odd behavior in the Den.  But she had watched John Crichton lying weakened and sapped of energy once already, and couldn’t bear to travel that route a second time.  She looked toward the corridor leading to his room, the junction no more than five motras behind her, and couldn’t get herself to move. 

In the end, it was uncertainty that unstuck her boots from the floor, driving her step by slow step toward his cell.  Although Chiana had said he was sick, she hadn’t included any details and she hadn’t explained why she had left him alone if he was that ill.  Solitude was a balm under some circumstances, but being sick and miserable was worse if it had to be endured alone.  Aeryn decided that she would make sure John was comfortable and cared for, possibly with Pilot watching over him by way of the transmissions from a DRD, and then she could go back to her planned ritual of performing small chores around the leviathan.   
       
   * * * * *

“I don’t hurt.  I … I did some good things.  I’m proud of my life.  And I’m with you.  Don’t worry about me.  I’ve never felt better.”

John bolted upright on his bed, sweating and inexplicably short of breath.  The words from his dream reverberated in his mind as though someone had just recited them in his quarters.  But the only noises around him were Moya’s thumps and rumbles.  He flopped back, and realized with a small jolt of surprise that his headache was gone.  The lights in the corridor had increased to their usual ‘daytime’ intensity although his own cell remained dark, which meant it was Moya’s version of morning.  He looked deliberately into the glare of one of the lights in the corridor, expecting more of the stabbing, skull-splitting retribution he had experienced during the night.  Although there was a mild twinge as his eyes adjusted to the brightness, it lacked the radiating agony that had disturbed his sleep.  Whatever had caused the problem was over. 

He went back to staring at the ceiling, sorting out real memories from the avalanche of dream images.  Chiana had come in at some point, he remembered.  Caught up in the misery of vomiting, he hadn’t heard her enter the cell.  She had simply been there all at once, steadying him through a bout of retching, and had stayed alongside him providing what little assistance she could until it stopped.  She had helped him clean up, guided his stumbling progress back to bed, and then had stayed with him, slowly rubbing his shoulders and back until he had been able to go back to sleep. 

Some portions he remembered more clearly than the rest, such as her offer to get either Jool or Aeryn to help.  He had turned down both suggestions, wanting neither the interion’s chattering nor Aeryn’s stony silence near his bed as he rode out the nausea and discomfort.  The quiet drone of Chiana’s voice and her hand moving up and down his back had been all he had needed to get through it, providing the assurance that someone still cared what happened to him. 

John closed his eyes and replayed the image that had gripped him just before waking up.  He had been observing from somewhere inside Talyn, from a place that had allowed him to watch his own blue eyes staring sightlessly into an infinite distance.  He had watched the last bit of life fade out of that blind stare, and been utterly overwhelmed by grief.  He shifted restlessly, trying to make some sense of the stolen image.  It had been a memory that didn’t belong in his mind and yet a small portion of his psyche insisted that it was real. 

The meandering, half-waking deliberations were sidetracked by a new idea.  “Aeryn?” 

A shadow detached itself from the dark masking one side of the corridor, moved silently through the open doors to his cell, and drifted to the side of his bed.  “I was on my way to the Center Chamber to get something to eat.  I was … I was about to come in to see how you were feeling this morning.” 

“Good.  I’m fine.  Still me.  No additions or subtractions this time as far as I can tell.” 

Aeryn moved restlessly about his chamber, not quite touching each item as she moved past it.  She drifted to his overcoat.  Her fingertips brushed against the sleeve for a microt, and then she turned her back on it and focused on John instead.  “I … I just wanted to make sure … after what happened yesterday,” she said, stumbling her way through the small sentence.  “Chiana said that you were sick.” 

He tried to reassure her.  “I’m better this morning.  The headache got worse, but it’s gone now.”  He chose his words carefully, knowing that almost anything he said these days hurt her in ways he couldn’t begin to understand.  Every conversation with Aeryn was like trying to walk through a minefield where the mines constantly changed position.  There was no way of knowing what would or wouldn’t cause an explosion, and even if he did discover a safe comment, there was no guarantee it wouldn’t wound her the next time he used it.  He continued cautiously, hoping he was saying the right thing.  “I don’t know what they were trying to accomplish, Aeryn, but it seems like you got there in time.  I’m okay.  I promise.” 

“I’m glad, John.” 

It sounded as though some great force had squeezed his name out of her despite Aeryn’s best efforts to keep the single syllable from emerging -- as though she thought the sound didn’t belong in this chamber.  It was then that he understood how every one of his words, no matter how insignificant, had the potential to wound.  The two of them seemed to be spending all their time doing nothing but hurting each other; every movement and syllable carried the potential for another small bit of destruction. 

He watched Aeryn begin another orbit of his quarters, and considered the odd perspective of his last dream one more time.  His mind had played the scene from her viewpoint.  Somehow in his sleep, his brain had put together all the small comments contributed by Crais and Rygel and Aeryn, resulting in an approximation of what Aeryn had gone through.  He could still see his own dead body, propped up with one foot tucked beneath the other knee, and couldn’t begin to comprehend what it had been like for her to endure that loss. 

He opened his mouth to tell her something beginning with ‘I’m sorry’ -- something about how he wished she hadn’t had to live through that, or how he wished the other one hadn’t died before her eyes, or perhaps how he wished that he had been there to comfort her.  Aeryn turned to look at him, one of the few direct stares she had bestowed on him since she had returned to Moya, and he knew with complete certainty that she was praying to herself that he would say anything at all except ‘I’m sorry’. 

“First Meal?” he asked instead, although he was feeling distinctly not hungry.  Eating had become a chore since Aeryn had returned.  Food was a necessity to be swallowed quickly, barely noticing what he was forcing past the perpetual tight feeling in his chest or the occasional lump in his throat, for the sole purpose of keeping his body alive.   

“Do you need some help or can I meet you up there?”  She was already headed for the door. 

“I’m fine.  Go ahead.”  He waved her away.  She gave him another thin smile and hurried from the cell.  John watched the corridor long after she disappeared, wondering about the forces that had drawn her to his quarters to check on him when it was obviously not where she wanted to be.  His brain refused to provide any insights no matter how he looked at it.  Eventually he sighed and swung his legs over the side of his bed, sitting poised on the edge for several microts as the entire chamber seemed to spin around him several times. 

“Whoa,” he muttered, thinking that his ‘I’m fine’ assessment might have been overly optimistic.  Moya’s curved walls made one last erratic orbit and then settled back where they belonged, the wave of dizziness passing at last.  He made the transition to the shower cautiously, steadied himself against the wall long enough to pull his shirt and shorts off, then stepped under the floods of hot water and did his best to rinse away the last grief-laden dregs of his dreams. 

   * * * * *

By the time Crichton made it to the Center Chamber for First Meal, only Rygel remained.  It had taken John longer than he had expected to shower and dress.  His thoughts had been wandering across a wider gamut of topics than usual, which had repeatedly interrupted his progress.  More than once he had found himself standing motionless, some small revelation or insight consuming his full attention to the point that he came to a complete stop.  In the end, he had talked his way through getting his boots on and laced, coaching himself through the normally mindless process.  It wasn’t an entirely new phenomenon to him, but he had seldom been sidetracked so often in such a short period of time.  Lack of sleep and the previous day’s events was more than enough reason to excuse his absent-mindedness, however, and he shrugged off the vague sense of unease as the result of a bad night’s sleep.

“Hoover!” he greeted the Dominar.  “Suckin’ down the munchies as usual.”  The hynerian was sitting with the detritus of his meal scattered across a full motra of table to either side of him. 

“Who or what is this ‘Hoover’?” Rygel grumbled around a mouthful of food. 

“Vacuum cleaner.”  John stuck his head in the warmer, searching for something appetizing to eat.  “I suppose I should use the name of a garbage disposal, but In-Sink-Erator doesn’t seem to flow, does it?”  He rummaged through the selections.  A loud belch emanated from behind him.  John let the lid drop into place with a rap. 

“Nothing left?”  Rygel lolled back in his chair.  “There should be.  D’Argo threatened my life if I didn’t leave something for you.  Although, if you’re going to sleep late, I don’t see why we are required to save --” 

“Not hungry all of a sudden,” John said, cutting off the beginning of what he suspected would turn into one of the hynerian’s arrogant monologues.  The grumbling emptiness in his stomach had disappeared, buried under a mounting sensation that he was overly full.  Rygel began eating again, drifting up and down the table, scavenging the last remnants of the meal.  John contributed a quiet burp to the non-stop slurping symphony of Rygel’s voracious appetite, and left the chamber quickly, his appetite destroyed.   

He was halfway to Command before he remembered that Moya was docked with the Kyelligg.  It meant that their usual habit of monitoring their progress was unnecessary this morning.  John paused in an intersection of two corridors, considering his options.  After several microts of deliberation, he continued toward Command simply because there was nowhere better for him to go.  Their mission to buy information from the hvisk had been a failure, which meant that they’d have to wait for Crais and Talyn to return.  Assuming that the hvisk were no threat to them while they were within the confines of Moya, the time could be spent relaxing for once, providing some much-needed peace and quiet. 

Aeryn was sitting at the strategy table, staring out the forward view portal at the intricate, branching arms of the Kyelligg.  “Hey,” he greeted her with reserve. 

“You missed First Meal.” 

“Not hungry.”  His stomach growled.  It was a low-pitched testimony that his appetite had returned now that he was no longer near Rygel or the food.  “I wasn’t hungry when I got to the center chamber,” he rephrased in light of the grumbling.  Aeryn merely nodded and continued to stare at the Kyelligg. 

John watched the unmoving body for several microts, the ache building where her earlier guarded concern had restored a small measure of comfort.  The silence stretched out, becoming increasingly uncomfortable with each passing microt.  “I’ll go.”   

“You don’t have to.”  Aeryn turned toward him before he could retreat.  “Don’t leave.” 

Choosing a spot on the far side of Command where he could both watch Aeryn and still allow her all the space she seemed to need of late, he propped a shoulder against one of the thick bulkhead supports and waited.

“I don’t mean to be this way,” she said.

He couldn’t think of an answer.  Instead, John strolled toward one of the consoles and leaned on it.  The patterns shifting across the displays went unnoticed as he tried to understand what she was going through.  For a split microt he thought he could feel the tangle of her emotions:  loss, despair, worry that it might happen again, and a rigid self-control that said she would never let the tidal wave sweep her loose ever again.  It was there and gone in a flash, moving too quickly to separate out all the intricacies or even appreciate the depth of the heartache. 

There were no words in his lexicon that could offer comfort for that kind of sorrow.  He snuck a glance at Aeryn’s unmoving figure and understood for the first time that her coldness wasn’t dislike; it was a precarious balance between holding herself together and reaching out the small distance necessary just to be around him.  He searched for the words to let her know that he could wait until she was ready.   

F
A
L
L
I
N
G 

John grabbed frantically at the nav console.  His fingers scrabbled at the sharp edges for several microts before latching on, knuckles gone white as he gripped the surface desperately.  Aeryn turned to look at him.  She opened her mouth to say something.

Neurons fire in patterns never intended by genetics, sending mystical jolts through complaining muscles, jerking the long angular body into awkward patterns.  Stumbling.  The floor seems to shift beneath destabilized feet.  A flash, darkness, an awakening, another bright scintillation burrowing deep into the synapses, blindness, and then a vision.

Falling.  Someone’s feet teeter for a single microt; boot soles squeal as they start to slide over the edge.  Pilot calls out a warning.  FALLING.  Moya’s glowing neural energy turns to flickering indicators of acceleration as he heads for the bottom of the neural plexus.

Crichton shook his head.  His vision cleared slowly, eventually revealing that he was hugging the nav console with both arms.  Command waltzed from left to right several times, then executed a slow, elegant pirouette before settling down into its usual placid location beneath his feet.  Aeryn was four steps closer, watching him the way he had watched his neighbor’s pit bull the time the dog had gotten loose from its pen.  He had stood absolutely still, asking “Nice doggie … By the way, were you planning on ripping my throat out?”  Aeryn had that same look of frightened fascination. 

That look of enraptured alarm remained in place for the length of time it took him to unclamp himself from the console.  “What’s the matter?  What just happened?” she asked.   

“Chiana.  She’s -- I think she’s going to fall into the central neural plexus.”  He looked around, trying to sort out the fast images he had experienced.  “Chiana!” he called over his comms. 

“Crichton!” the nebari’s alarmed yell drowned out his transmission.  “I saw you falling.  Where are you?”

“Command.  There’s nothing up here to fall from, Chiana.  It’s you who’s going to fall into the neural plexus.  Stay the hell out of Pilot’s Den.  Where are you now?”  John pushed himself up straight and headed for the door, focused on the threat to Chiana’s life. 

There was a five-microt silence before she answered, “I’m in the Den.” 

He swore and started to run. 

“Don’t come up here, Crichton.  It was you I saw falling!”  But Crichton was already out of Command and headed toward the Den. 

Aeryn, mystified by the anxious exchange between Crichton and Chiana, stayed where she was for several microts, staring at the empty doorway.  Then she went after him, accelerating to a flat out run in order to catch up. 

   * * * * *

When John ran into the Den, Chiana was leaning against Pilot’s station, as far away from the edge of the platform as possible with D’Argo standing protectively between her and the drop off.  Crichton slowed as he approached the narrow span across the neural plexus, eyeing the void and comparing it to the confused vision he had experienced.  No matter who had gone over the edge, he was positive they had fallen from the side nearest Pilot. 

Aeryn came to a stop next to him.  “What’s going on?” 

He gave her a fast summary of their encounter with the Energy Riders, covering only the most basic details and the aftermath of being inhabited by one of the invasive creatures.  He finished the account with, “Chiana’s been seeing flashes of the future for about a quarter cycle.  It looks like it’s catching.  I’m sure I saw her falling into Moya’s neural plexus.” 

“Don’t!” Chiana called the moment he set foot on the bridge.  She started toward the edge of the platform, waving Crichton to stay on the other side.  D’Argo snared her around the waist and pulled her back.  John made the transition quickly and without incident with Aeryn following close on his heels.  Once on the other side, the pair moved a safe distance from the drop off. 

D’Argo grimaced and gestured at the small group with both hands.  “That was brilliant.  Now everyone is in the worst place possible instead of just half of us!” 

John shook his head.  “It was Chiana.  It’s her we have to worry about.” 

“No, it isn’t.  I saw -- I saw you, Crichton,” the distraught nebari insisted.  “I saw you off balance and falling.” 

“John, you’ve never had the visions before.  Are you absolutely sure of what you saw?” D’Argo asked.

“I know it was Chiana, and I know someone was falling.  Pilot, you had one of those things inside you almost as long as Pip.  Are you picking anything up?” 

“Nothing at all, Crichton.  Moya’s sensors detect nothing unusual either.  There is no reason that either of you should lose your balance or fall over the edge.  We remained securely docked with the Kyelligg.  Moya’s orientation is more stable than usual.” 

“It’s been almost a tenth of an arn since we both saw something,” John said.  “Pip, what’s the longest interval you’ve had between a premonition and it coming true?”  Chiana’s answer was lost to him, drowned beneath an unfathomable wave of confused impressions.   

His body transmutates into something made of living metals, seething with strange compounds and mixtures no anthromorphic biped has ever pumped through its veins.  A migrating burst of radiation strikes his outer skin, flattens as the particles impact, then oozes around him to rejoin on the other side of his body and continues its journey.

Crichton took a deep breath, held it for several microts while he waited for the strange sensation to fade, and then let it out on an extended sigh.  The dizzying flash had been so fast it was close to subliminal.  But it had lingered long enough for his brain to share its brief delusion with his arms and legs, imparting a fat, overly warm feeling to his fingers and toes.  His body didn’t feel right.  It felt weak and insubstantial.  He took another long breath and the peculiar sensation faded to the point that he could ignore it.   

“John looks like he’s ready to keel over.  Weak human.  He should get some more rest.” 

Crichton turned, intending to fire an angry, smart-mouthed remark at D’Argo.  The luxan had his head down, staring at the floor.  He was listening to Chiana, who was voicing another anxious argument that they all needed to be careful until the precognition was fulfilled.  Aeryn was watching John, looking concerned, and it was clear from her expression that no one in the group had been talking to him.  John wandered a motra to one side, wondering if perhaps the clone had perfected a new trick of emulating other people’s voices.  He started to turn his concentration inward to check.  But the idea that he might have to contend with a new form of deception was too much for him to consider at that particular moment.  He turned away from the area of his mind where Harvey resided, and took another step to the side, seeking a quiet spot where he could pull himself together. 

Moya’s internal rumbles soothed him, lulling him into a relaxed mental state.  He concentrated on the peaceful creature for several dozen microts.  Closing out the ongoing argument between his crewmates, he watched the flow of energy streaming through the maze of conduits and breathed in Moya’s complex fragrance of sharp metallic tang overlain by the more subtle, musty organic scents.  He let his senses spool outward, trying to take in every nuance of her peace and tranquility, and then, without conscious effort on his part, he seemed to expand even further to find more and more of her inner workings. 

He slides without friction between two gravity wells, finding the balance like a bird soaring between sun and earth, no effort required as he moves along the point where nothing pulls at him. He spins, flinging particles off his hull sliding sandpaper soft until they release with a quiet slurry of noise felt rather than heard leaving behind the tickling presence of subatomic particles piercing him to appear on the other side using the spaces between his molecules to move through him without hindrance.  But his body was never intended to experience these sensations, and he can smell the roar of the sunlight, hear the tickle of someone’s fingertips rapping the insides of his ribs as they walk through his tiers, taste the voices ringing inside his caverns as they argue and carry on their lives within him, and he can’t begin to surround the sensations as they blossom within his mind, expanding to fill every synapse with their energy.

Something slides along his skin, scraping him from shoulder to hip, then bounces away, spinning silently into eternal darkness.

What’s that?  What’s that? he cries inside his mind, senses overloaded by the single tactile sensation.  Debris, he knows suddenly, the knowledge formless inside his head.  It was a small bit of rock tumbling along his hull, a chance encounter with an inanimate interstellar traveler.  It’s gone, spiraling erratically toward the next star, and he remains, floating comfortably within a web of gravitational impulses that most living creatures can’t even detect.  Except his body doesn’t consist of a metallic outer skin grown over an intricate interlacing of biological and mechanoid parts, thrumming with energy, a non-living shell that grows with every passing cycle to encompass new tiers.  He isn’t a peaceful creature consisting of both living tissue and unfeeling construction.

And yet he is.

He flows through Moya’s systems, everywhere at once, a misty diaspora expanding too fast to hold on to himself, his awareness fragmenting even as it grows, until he’s unsure where his consciousness begins or ends.  His body stands frozen in the Den, hands tucked inside his belt as he stares unblinking into the dark cavern below, chest unmoving beneath the black shirt as he freezes, realizing that he’s looking at himself from outside his own body.  The DRD spins away, cutting off the view and he abandons that single viewpoint to search for a way back, uncertain exactly what is happening. 

He finds a DRD in Command that swivels its eyestalks to consider the barking laughter of the floating hynerian while two more work near the ion backwash chamber to replace a bit of worn inner hull plating with the quiet pang of soldering tin smell running in his mouth to be drowned out by the noise of the reclamation system which can’t overwhelm the wafting blues and greens of air circulation telling him that the vents need to be opened further and he can see every chamber with a DRD in it at the same time except his attention is held by the burning fire of starburst energy being held deep in his belly waiting for release and he’s confused because there are DRDs everywhere and he sees every one of them and there’s a mechanical burst somewhere within his bowels to goad the drive system only he’s docked so he can’t soar can’t stream with the lines of force encircling a planet to find the perfect trajectory only it’s restful here snuggled in where it’s safe for a few arns and every small sensation from the glow of radiation on his skin to the cramping pinch of the cold docking clamp is clear in the silence of his mind.

Moya!! he screams.  The sound bursts into silence, shattering before it is given form so the leviathan can never hear his cry of love.

“D’Argo!”  Pilot waved urgently with all four claws.  “Catch him, D’Argo!  He’s going to fall over the edge.” 

John’s eyes rolled back in his head, his body beginning to convulse, and he toppled toward the long drop to the bottom of the central neural cluster.

   * * * * *

[KernilCrash]

Chapter 5

“What is the matter with you … people?”

His tongue slaps against the back of the intruder’s neck, the orange-suited figure turns to give him a one-microt shocked glare, and then collapses at his feet.

He looks at John Crichton now, lying pale and unconscious, and can’t begin to imagine what his life would be like if the human’s pathetic craft hadn’t appeared in the midst of the battle that fateful day.  Both of his hearts beat erratically, nearly at the same pace as Crichton’s distressed breathing, and his stomach clenches with the fear that his friend may not recover from whatever has happened to him.

Crichton jerked once, thrashed weakly for an instant, battering against the two sets of hands that were simultaneously supporting him and holding him in place, and then began coughing and wheezing.  “I’m … okay,” he croaked between coughs, feebly trying to roll onto his side.  “I’m not that bad, D’Argo.”  He took in three more breaths before opening his eyes to look up at the worried luxan hovering over him.

“Not as bad as what?”  Chiana was kneeling alongside his legs, watching him every bit as carefully as she had during the last hideous days of the neural chip -- watching him as though he were losing his mind.  “D’Argo didn’t say anything.”  The wary look faded, and she began pulling his ankles away from the drop-off into the central neural plexus, working together with whoever was holding him under the arms to move him farther from the edge.       

“I’m not so bad off that I’m going to die.”  John tried to sit up on his own, started to keel over to one side, and was pulled upright.  He spared a microt to reflect that people had been hauling him upright an awful lot over the past day or so, then lost his train of thought when the floor performed a quick waltz beneath him.  Strong hands grabbed his shoulders and held him steady against the spinning that was going on inside his head.  He managed to focus his thoughts on D’Argo’s insults.  “And my module isn’t pathetic.  It’s an ass-kickin’, wormhole-surfin’, first class, made in the U.S. of A. machine.”  He took a breath, winded by the combination of whatever had happened to him and his short diatribe.  “What happened?  What’s going on?”   

“You tell us, John.”  D’Argo settled onto one knee to peer at him levelly.  “You had some sort of attack and nearly fell.” 

“Chiana’s flash,” John said.  His first attempt at getting to his feet ended almost before it started.  The Den was being stubborn about resuming its usual placid immovability.  The same strong grasp that had steadied him a moment earlier caught him under the arms and hoisted him upright.  He turned to see who was compensating for his lack of coordination and strength.  Still dazed by whatever had just happened to him, he hadn’t bothered to tally the people standing where he could see them.  Jool had joined the group while he was unconscious, as had Rygel.  The interion was standing behind D’Argo with Rygel hovering by her side, which meant that unless Crais had returned a lot earlier than planned, there was only one person left who could be standing behind him. 

Surprised by who was there, and the fact that she was actually touching him and helping him to his feet, he fumbled through his brief acknowledgement of her help.  “Thanks … Aeryn.”

She nodded and took a half step away, remaining within arm’s reach in case he started to lose his balance again.  The entire group moved farther from the edge of the floor. 

“Commander Crichton, D’Argo said nothing about dying or about your ship,” Pilot said. 

John glared suspiciously at Pilot for a microt, then looked at each of his crewmates in turn, receiving a nod of confirmation from one person after another.  He argued weakly, “But I heard him!  What the frell is going on?” 

“What happened to you?” Chiana asked a second time.  “One microt you were fine, the next microt you were halfway into the neural plexus before Aeryn yanked you back.”  She turned toward where Aeryn hovered two motras to one side.  “I’ve never seen anyone move that fast.  That was magra-drad.” 

Aeryn ignored the praise.  “I couldn’t have gotten there in time if it hadn’t been for your vision.  I didn’t hesitate when he started to go.  But since your vision turned out to be the one that came true, then what did John see?” 

“I think maybe I saw Chiana having her vision.  And I may have caught something from Hoover over there.  I was starving when I got to the Center Chamber this morning; then a microt later I felt full.  And the hynerian garbage disposal had been gorging himself as usual.  This is absurd!”  He shook his head, dismissing his own conclusions before he even explained what they were.   

“What else?” Aeryn asked, urging him to continue.  “There’s something more, isn’t there?”

John pressed both palms to his temples and considered the question.  In the end, he confessed, “I had a bunch of weird dreams last night.  I thought it was my headache working on my subconscious, but now I’m not sure.  And then -- this!”  He waved at the chamber around them, indicating their quiet host.  “It felt like I tapped into Moya.  It didn’t last long, but I swear I saw and felt and heard what Moya feels.  I could tell what every single DRD was doing, including seeing myself from the outside.” 

“Crichton, your brain is not sufficiently evolved to process all of Moya’s input signals.”  Pilot’s careful wording managed to make it sound as though he were issuing a warning at the same time that he was denying the possibility that Crichton had actually gone through what he had described.  “It would not be possible for you to integrate her entire sensory flow.” 

“You don’t need to tell me that!”  John resumed the nearly obsessive rubbing of his head.  “I don’t think I got the whole enchilada and that was enough to blow my mental doors right off.  The only question is how the frell did I manage to hook up with Moya’s sensors in the first place?  Do leviathans have some sort of malfunction that causes them to bleed neural energy like that, Pilot?”

“There is no such occurrence recorded anywhere in Moya’s databanks.” 

“John, there is something you should know,” D’Argo began.  He trailed off, showing unmistakable signs that he was reluctant to continue, then took a deep breath and continued.  “Yesterday, when you thought you heard me say something … It was a stray thought, I swear!  I did not truly think of you that way, but it was what was going through my mind at the time.  But I did not mean it,” he said desperately to Crichton, pleading with him to understand. 

Aeryn stepped out of the shadows, her head tilted slightly to one side in thought.  When she spoke, her voice was slow and hushed, just above the level of a whisper.  “D’Argo, were you thinking something about John’s module just before he regained consciousness?” 

“No.”  D’Argo stood with his mouth open, reconsidering his answer.  “Not directly.  I was remembering the first day we met.  I picked him up by the throat.”

John made an angry, frustrated gesture.  “For god’s sake, someone please tell me this isn’t happening!  Why would they do this?  What the frell do they think they’re going to accomplish by turning me into the Amazing Kreskin?” 

“You mean the hvisk?” Chiana asked.

“Who else has been messing around with the inside of my head?” John snapped at her.  “Sorry.  I’m sorry, Pip.  I didn’t mean to take this out on you.”  He stepped toward her, reaching out to give her a small hug. 

Worry.  Concern.  So much like Nerri.  I love --  

“Damn!”  He jumped back, shaking out one hand. 

“Another vision?” Aeryn asked, alarmed at his reaction.  “So soon?” 

Chiana shook her head and frowned, crestfallen at Crichton’s hurried retreat.   

“No, that was me.  Looks like bodily contact makes it worse.  It didn’t do that a few microts ago but it sure as frell did it just then!”  John dodged away from D’Argo’s outstretched hand, nodded a fast acknowledgement that he was too close to the edge of the floor, and made his way to a safer position, careful not to touch anyone.  “I didn’t mean to get that, Chi,” he apologized.  It felt as though he had somehow violated her privacy by listening to her inner thoughts.   

“Why would the hvisk do this to you?”  Pilot steered the conversation back to the mysterious transformation. 

“Are we sure it was the hvisk?” Jool asked, entering the conversation for the first time.   

“Who else?”  John started to lean against one of Moya’s ribs, looked at the massive structure arcing overhead, and stepped away.  “Who else has had both the opportunity and the ability to screw with my head?” 

“Is there any chance the clone did this?”  Aeryn’s question emerged hesitantly, as though she didn’t want to discuss the possibility.  The entire group went silent, considering that unpleasant alternative.  “He has the ability to affect your physiology,” she suggested. 

John shook his head vehemently.  No one spoke.  After several microts he relented.  “Let me check.”  He glanced around one more time, made sure he was a safe distance from the edge of the drop-off, and then turned inward to explore the unwanted addition to his psyche. 

“Harvey!  Front and center, bubba!  You’ve got some explaining to do, swami!”  John wandered down a silent, empty corridor.  Misty, indistinct walls stretched out of sight in several directions.  It was silent except for the sound of his breathing and the quiet slap of his sneakers on gray tiled floors.  “Harvey, get your ugly butt out here!” he yelled again, coming to a stop.  It was the first time he’d had to actually summon the clone in almost a cycle.  When the familiar figure didn’t appear he didn’t know where to look for him.

“He’s not answering,” John said.  A look of loathing on Aeryn’s face shifted into something more leery -- more fearful.  “I’m not sure where to look for him.”  He turned toward D’Argo, seeking and finding the familiar steady support he had come to count on from his friend. 

“Is he gone?”  Excitement raised D’Argo’s voice half an octave and at last ten decibels.  Everyone winced at the exuberant shout.  He got his enthusiasm under control and continued more calmly.  “Perhaps the purpose of what the hvisk did was to get rid of him and this other thing happening is a side effect from some sort of energy surge.”  His eyes flickered in Aeryn’s direction.   

“No, he’s in there.  I can feel him but he’s clammed up for some reason.”  John frowned as he struggled to put an extremely nebulous sensation into words.  “Let me try one other place.” 

Small waves slapped up against the pilings, making a quiet slurp each time the water swirled and sucked at the uprights.  Crichton inhaled deeply, enjoying the familiar smells and sights of Sawyer’s Mill even if it was only a figment of his imagination.  “Harvey!” he yelled again.  The syllables echoed across the water.  This was where he had first encountered the neurochip’s creation; he had been sure he would find the clone in this spot. 

“Son of a bitch.”  He was forced to consider that perhaps he was alone in his skull at last.  The presence was still there however, so muted as to be almost non-existent but present nonetheless.  “This is not the right time for hide-and-seek.”  John retraced his steps along the dock, scanning up and down the shore for any sign of the missing clone.  He strode off the dock onto the gravel pathway, past the huge glass-front ice machine that the fishermen depended on to stock their coolers, and started up the concrete steps toward the parking lot, continuing to check in every direction.  He kept expecting Harvey to appear wearing one of his ludicrous get ups.  Anything was possible when the clone was involved.  Perhaps he would show up on water skis, skimming along behind a boatload of scantily clad beauties, or roar into the parking lot on a Harley with a buxom babe perched behind him.

“Where the frell are you, you miserable, ugly excuse for an imaginary lifeform?” he said.

John stopped with his foot poised to take another step.  His subconscious was telling him that his eye had caught something that hadn’t registered on his conscious mind.  He walked backwards as far as the ice cooler.  A padlocked hasp had been added to the door.  The ice machine had never been locked in all the years that he had come to Sawyer’s Mill.  Cash was left on an honor system.  John licked his lips nervously, his skin crawling with a prescient knowledge of what he was going to find.  Then he stepped forward and wiped the frost and condensation off the outside of the glass door.

Someone had put Harvey on ice.  Literally.

John banged on the glass, watching intently for a reaction from the black clad body entombed inside the freezer.  Frost and small icicles adorned the black cooling suit, lending a festive look to the frozen clone’s garments.  The pale skin was even whiter than usual, coated with a fine layer of crystals that caught and reflected the stray beams of light streaming through the circle John had rubbed free of frost.

He stepped away from the freezer, pinched his lower lip between his thumb and forefinger, and spent some time considering the unexpected turn of events.  Sequestering the clone in this manner didn’t seem like a reasonable explanation for his abduction by the hvisk.  If they had asked, he would have willingly allowed them to not only gag Harvey but remove him completely.  None of what was going on made any sense.  On the other hand, very little of his life in the Uncharted Territories ever made much sense until all the shooting was over and someone took the time to explain what had happened.

He yanked hard on the padlock, setting the entire ice machine to rocking and shaking.  The lock didn’t budge.  Another violent jerk against the hasp confirmed that the door was going to remain closed.  This time the shaking spread from the freezer to the ground beneath his feet.  John stumbled to one side, arms waving wildly as he fought to remain upright.  “Earthquake?  Who has a frelling earthquake inside their own head!?”

“JOHN!”  D’Argo’s anxious face bounced into view.  The aftershocks continued, transformed into D’Argo shaking him vigorously by the shoulders. 

“Big D!  Enough with the San Andreas gig!  What’s the emergency?”  John pulled out of D’Argo’s grasp.  He staggered for a moment even though the pummeling had stopped. 

Aeryn said, “You hadn’t moved for over one hundred microts.  It’s never gone on that long.  We were worried that the clone might have taken control.” 

“No.  Harvey’s out of commission.”  John turned away from D’Argo’s immediately delighted grin to face Aeryn’s more subdued reaction.  “He’s still in there, but someone or something has tucked him away where he can’t bother me.”  Aeryn’s skeptical frown shifted into something that resembled regret.  John decided that if she wasn’t happy for him that she must have misunderstood his explanation.  He tried again, using simpler terms.  “Aeryn, he’s gone.  It’s just me!” 

She spun away from him, but not before he caught a glimpse of a face that had suddenly gone pale.  Aeryn stumbled to the far side of Pilot’s station.  Once there, she turned his back on him and gazed off into the dark.  And he knew without any doubt that he had managed to copy something that the other Crichton had said or done.  Once again, without any warning, he had stumbled into that lethal, shifting minefield of unintentionally damaging remarks.     

“He's gone... he's finally gone. It's just me.”  Joy so intense, it summons tears.  The feel of his head resting on her shoulder, and the soft play of his hair between her fingers … Not again, she can’t go through this again.

The flash passed through him like a burst of light, illuminating his understanding and lending him a memory of a horrible, aching emptiness in the center of his chest.  He stared at the rigid shoulders, wishing that she could be as happy for him as she had for the other John Crichton, equally angry that a quirk of fate had robbed him of the celebration they should be sharing at that moment. 

He was hauled back to his surroundings by a slap on the back that nearly propelled him into the neural plexus.  “John, this is wonderful!”  D’Argo reeled him back before he could stagger too close to the edge. 

JOY 

John pulled away before the physical contact unleashed another blast of shared thoughts.  D’Argo saved him from having to apologize by raising both hands to show that he understood John’s reaction.  “You believe the hvisk did this,” the elated warrior added. 

John checked on Aeryn.  She remained in the corner behind Pilot’s raised island, as far away from him as she could get without actually leaving the Den, but at least she had turned around to watching the small group and was listening attentively to every word.  He blew out a long breath and tried to concentrate on the mystery of the clone’s icy imprisonment.  “There’s no other explanation.  It had to be them.  But why?  They’ve taken Harv out of the picture, but now I’m hearing every other living creature around me instead, including Moya.  I’m thinking this wasn’t a good tradeoff.” 

Something swirled about inside his stomach and chest.  It was an unpleasant, uncomfortable sensation that disappeared as quickly as it had arrived.  He rested one hand against the outer wall of Pilot’s station, steadying himself against the disorientation, and it happened again, worse than before.  It had the same feel as his lack of appetite when he had been around Rygel earlier that morning:  clearly a borrowed sensation that belonged to someone else. 

“Who’s nauseous?” he asked, looking around.  He received nothing but blank stares for an answer.  “Pilot?  You and Moya feeling all right?” 

“Yes, Crichton.  All of Moya’s systems are operating at nearly peak efficiency, and both Moya and I are feeling better than we have in several cycles.  The nutrients and fluids purchased from the hvisk are exactly what we have been craving for some time now.”  Pilot tapped at his controls for several microts.  “Everyone on board, including our scarran guest, appears to be quite healthy as well.” 

“Maybe I misinterpreted that one,” John admitted reluctantly.  “Probably nothing more than Buckwheat over there stewing up a supply of helium.  It sure felt like a Pepto moment though.” 

“What do you want to do now?” 

Aeryn moved out of the shadows.  Her disembodied face floated toward Crichton until she moved close enough that he could see her dark clothes and hair.  ‘Eerie’ didn’t begin to describe the effect.  For the length of time it took her to move into the light, Aeryn was little more than a set of eyes that watched him and a mouth that occasionally made dispassionate comments, divorced from everything else that he had come to love about her. 

“John, what now?” D’Argo asked, repeating Aeryn’s question. 

He had been standing there, staring at her, lost in his thoughts for who knew how many microts.  John shook himself back into the here and now, and snorted a quick expression of derision.  “I’m heading back aboard the Kyelligg and I’m going to kick some tail feathers until someone turns this off!” he said, indicating his head. 

“I’ll go with you.”  Without a moment’s hesitation, D’Argo headed toward a bridge leading out of the Den.   

“Me too,” Chiana added.  She bounded after the luxan before anyone could suggest anything different.  “Count me in.” 

John called after them.  “Wait!  The less of us on board the Kyelligg, the better.  We don’t know why they did … Don’t let him go alone … what they …”  He stared at his feet, trying to remember what he had been saying.  It took several microts for him to shoulder the stray thought aside so he could focus on the point he had wanted to make.  “D’Argo comes with me, and the rest of you stay here.  Pilot can keep the comms open so the rest of you can hear if we’re in trouble.”

“There’s strength in numbers,” Aeryn suggested, nodding towards Chiana.  “It would be safer if there were more of you.” 

“And more targets for the hvisk if they’re after more than just me.”  Crichton turned toward Pilot.  “Contact the Kyelligg and let them know we want to meet with them.” 

“Already done, Commander,” Pilot replied.  “They have responded with a set of coordinates that correspond to a location not too far from where you last met with the hvisk.”  A claw extended over the edge of his station, offering one of the semi-transparent schematics showing the route to the specified meeting place.   

Crichton snared the sheet without touching any portion of Moya and examined the spidery outlines, taking several microts to make sure he could interpret the leviathan-generated map.  “I can read it!” he snapped in Aeryn’s direction.  He raised his head from his study of the transparency, looking uncomfortable.  “I can’t help it.  It’s getting stronger every microt.  I don’t mean to do it,” he apologized, hoping she would understand that he hadn’t intended to listen to her flickering concern that he might need help to interpret the schematic. 

Aeryn ignored both his original sharp comment and the apology.  “I’ll take care of things here.  Naj Gil needs watching, and Crais may check in if he’s found anything.” 

“We’ll comm you if we need any help,” D’Argo said.  He spun around and strode toward the doorway where Crichton was already disappearing into the corridor, headed for the meeting with the hvisk.

   * * * * *

Crichton hesitated.  He stopped a motra short of the airlock and fidgeted while D’Argo stepped through to the interior of the Kyelligg. 

“What’s the matter?” D’Argo asked.  Standing with one foot aboard the Kyelligg and the other inside Moya’s airlock, he was forced to duck down in order to look back at John. 

“I can hear their thoughts.”  John took a step back, moving farther away from the connection to the hvisk habitat.  “All of them.  Millions.  Too many thoughts.”   

“After the neural chip, you should be used to that,” D’Argo joked.  John frowned at him, and he tried again.  “You’ve been blocking us out, you can do it again.  Shut them out of your mind, John.” 

Crichton closed his eyes, trying to envision the process of shutting his mind to the unwelcome deluge of images swirling just out of reach of conscious awareness.  The hurricane of stolen sights, sounds, and thoughts eased and stopped.  He was distracted by a sharp pain in his left forearm, and the flimsy barricade inside his mind rattled, weak areas spreading until the racket of the hvisk began to seep through the fissures.  He tightened his control.  Silence returned.  The ache in his forearm transformed into something more intense, and he raised his hand to check on the source of the problem.  Knuckles shone whitely in Moya’s subdued lighting.  His fingers were clenched into a tight fist, generating the cramping muscles that had alerted him to the phenomenon.   

John used his other hand to pry the fingers open one by one.  Four small bleeding half-moons had been carved into his palm by his fingernails.  He flexed his hand to ease the taut muscles.  “Damn.  That’s a bit off the wall, even for you,” he whispered to himself. 

D’Argo called to him from inside the hvisk habitat.  “Crichton, come on!  You can’t get this fixed standing aboard Moya.” 

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.  Coming.”  John swore under his breath, grasped his belt tightly with his bleeding hand as though to anchoring himself to his own body, and took a step toward the airlock.  He paused at the opening then turned back. 

“Crichton!  Come on!” D’Argo yelled.   

“Hang on.  Chiana’s on her way up here.” 

D’Argo threaded his way back through the hatches to rejoin him.  “I didn’t hear anything over the comms,” he said, eyeing John with a mixture of awe and suspicion. 

“She didn’t call over the comms.  I can’t turn this off, D’Argo.  I’d like to but it keeps leaking through.  It’s not up to me.”  Turning away from his friend, he took several steps back along the corridor.  Chiana was hurrying toward them.  “What’s up, Chi?”

She held out his leather jacket and black gloves.  “I thought these would help.  You said touching people made it worse, so you’d better have these in case you need to tralk-slap a few of those oversized feathered whistles.”  She watched while John slid into the jacket, snapped the bottom two fasteners, and tugged the gloves into place.  “Be careful, Crichton.  Don’t let them do anything else to you.” 

“Thanks, Pip.”  John turned toward where D’Argo was waiting for him, and motioned him through the hatch, following without hesitation this time.   

It was like stepping into a mental sauna; the heat and pressure of millions of thoughts created a physical impact against his mind.  John stumbled and started to fall back into the airlock, doubly confused by the noise and the change in gravity.  He flailed wildly for two microts, trying to catch his balance, then was magically levitated to land on his feet beside the ramp leading to the hatch.  D’Argo held on to him for the extra microts it took John to orient himself before releasing his arm in stages, making sure that Crichton had regained his balance. 

“Thanks.”  Caught up in the battle to separate his own thoughts from the cacophony inside his head, his brief acknowledgement emerged in little better than a distracted mumble.  D’Argo’s hand returned to its place under his arm, and he was steered into the bustling main street of the station. 

“Concentrate.  You can block them out, John,” D’Argo said. 

The thoroughfare was as crowded as it had been the previous day, forcing D’Argo to zigzag wildly to keep John from bumping into any of the hvisk.  The black-booted feet stumbled, poorly directed by their distracted owner, and D’Argo looped his arm more securely under John’s to hold him upright.  Several of the passing hvisk stopped to stare at the pair as they made their erratic way past a small park.  One individual stepped toward them, hand outstretched.  D’Argo snarled at it, and the hvisk retreated. 

“He only wants to … he meant to help,” John explained.  He gestured at the frightened creature, meaning to offer an apology for his friend’s aggression.  As with his speech, the motion went awry halfway through, turning it into a poorly directed wave instead of what he had intended. 

“Don’t you think they’ve helped more than enough?”  D’Argo gave the now-stationary hvisk a final glare and returned to his task of guiding Crichton. 

John tripped over his own feet and nearly fell.  D’Argo grabbed him with both hands and hauled him back up, taking care to hold on to him only where the thick leather jacket provided an insulating layer.  “Focus on your own thoughts,” he insisted, steering John around a garden. 

“I’m trying.  It’s not as easy as it sounds.  I’ve got the Mormon Tabernacle Choir inside here.  It’s noisy.”  John ducked his head to press the heels of both hands against his temples, took a deep breath, and tried to envision the barricade he had put up before leaving Moya.  The confusion inside his mind eased.  He straightened up and began walking more quickly, although continuing to rely on D’Argo’s arm to steady him. 

“Hurry,” he ordered.  They accelerated toward the meeting with the hvisk. 

   * * * * *

She had meant to go to Command.  Aeryn turned a corner in the corridor and was faced with a different junction than the one she had been expecting. 

“Frell,” she said under her breath. 

It was the second time since she had returned to Moya that she had absentmindedly wandered off course while lost in her thoughts.  And that meant she had done it two times too many.  To make matters worse, on both occasions she had wound up in the same place.  Aeryn stood uncertainly in the middle of the corridor for more than ten microts before continuing toward the destination her subconscious had chosen for her.  One hesitant step followed another until she passed through the open door and entered John’s cell.  She followed a course similar to the one she had traveled earlier that morning, stopping first at the rack where he kept Winona -- empty now -- then continuing past the jumbled collection of energy cells and bits of circuitry littering the top surface of the shelves. 

She stopped when she reached his black overcoat, and buried her nose in the sleeve to inhale the scent of him.  It smelled of dust, seared sand, and the lingering, sweetly-sour odor of ignited chakan oil, overlaid by the more recent fragrance that was John Crichton.  Aeryn gathered more of the coat in both hands and took a deeper breath, finding the last remnants of John stored in the leather and fabric.  It triggered two sets of memories.  There was the man she would have willingly accompanied to Earth, and the one who lived in this converted prison cell.  Every small nuance of odor said that she knew the owner of this coat intimately, and yet it belonged to someone she hardly knew anymore, estranged by a half cycle of separation.  The one who had been lost, and the one that she didn’t dare let herself know again.  He was the same, and not the same.     

“No,” she said, releasing the coat.  She tugged at it until the wrinkles disappeared, removing the signs that she had been here.  It was John, but it wasn’t the person she had given herself to aboard Talyn.  Him, yet not him. 

“Moving in?” 

The low-pitched growl startled her.  Once again she had sunk deeper into her thoughts than she had intended.  Her vigilance had been severely compromised if Rygel could get this close to her before she noticed the whine of his Throne Sled. 

“No!”  She headed toward the other door leading out of the cell. 

“Perhaps you should try visiting when he’s here,” the Dominar tried again.  He turned his floating chair to follow her.  “That would be more productive.” 

“And perhaps you should try minding your own business.  Don’t interfere, Rygel.” 

“Whether you want to admit it or not, he’s Crichton.”  Rygel had to accelerate to keep up with her.  The shrill whine of the Throne Sled mounted to an annoying pitch.  “Just as --”

“Don’t!” she snapped.  Aeryn whirled to face him, forcing Rygel to swerve to one side to avoid running into her.  “I know who he is.  That’s the problem.  Don’t tell me how to handle this.  You don’t understand, so stay out of it.”  She turned on her heel, resuming her course toward Command, leaving the chastised hynerian hovering in the middle of an otherwise deserted corridor. 

Rygel watched the lithe figure disappear around a corner, earbrows drooping dejectedly.  “Just as ignorant, bumbling, heroic, and selfless,” he finished.  “He’ll do anything you ask if you simply look at him the way you looked at the other one, Aeryn.”  The Dominar sighed, turned in the opposite direction from the one Aeryn had taken, and decided to visit Pilot.  It had been over a half cycle since they had done anything remotely like holding a conversation, and he owed it to Zhaan to check on Pilot and Moya from time to time. 

   * * * * *

The meeting place designated by hvisk was similar to the one where they had met for the aborted bargaining session, except that this enclosure had benches around the perimeter more suited to a bipedal humanoid than to the hvisk.  D’Argo sat hunched over, elbows on his knees, watching John pace from one side of the circular area to the other. 

“It’s only been two hundred microts, John.  Be patient.  They’ll be here.” 

John ran his gloved hands over his head, scrubbing at his scalp until the short hair stood on end.  D’Argo frowned, remembering another time when a mechanical form of encroaching insanity had resulted in the same disheveled appearance. 

“You’ve been in battle,” John started, changing the subject abruptly.  D’Argo nodded.  “Remem … You … Do you remember what that … what that sounded like?  All the … All the noises?”  He shook his head vigorously, as though he were trying a shake an insect out of one ear. 

“This is a struggle for you.  I understand.”  D’Argo was talking slowly and clearly in the hopes that it would help his friend separate his words from the sounds in his mind. 

“No.  That’s … that’s not it.  Picture all those noises, D.  Take every single one of …”  He broke off, rubbing at his head again. 

“John,” D’Argo hissed.  He got to his feet, wanting to offer some sort of help. 

“Take all that … all that noise, stick it inside your head.  There are … are … hundreds.  Thousands, D’Argo.  It’s too much.  I … I can’t handle this much longer,” John panted, rubbing the sides of his head with his fists.  “It’s … it’s getting too … there’s too much …”  He stripped away one of his gloves and held the hand out toward D’Argo, showing him the blood-encrusted gouges in his palm.  “This is the only way … the only way to make it stop.  Where are they?” he finished in a desperate yell. 

“John!” D’Argo barked at him.  Crichton began hitting the side of his head as though he could jar the problem loose and restore whatever had gone wrong.  “Look at me, John.  What can I do to help?”  D’Argo stepped closer, reaching for the punishing fist that was beginning to strike harder.  He caught it easily and squeezed hard, driving John’s fingernails into his palm and reopening the wounds.   

“Enough.”  John gasped in pain as the blood began to flow.  He was suddenly more coherent.  “That’s enough, D.  That’s good.  It’s just that there are so many people here.”  He tugged at D’Argo’s wrist, urging him to let go of his tightly gripped hand. 

“Then concentrate on me, John.  Close them out and listen to only me.” 

Crichton examined his friend’s face intently, searching for the miniscule physical cues that would tell him if D’Argo was truly comfortable with the idea of another person listening to his innermost thoughts.  The looming body revealed only concern; nothing else.  John nodded once, fighting against the chaos encroaching on his mind, and reached for the armored fingers, seeking the contact that would allow him to focus on the single mind. 

Calm like a thin veneer over a core of learned aggression and enduring sorrow.  A figure stands hunched before him, shoulders bowed as though to shield him from a blow, pale and panting.  Deep loving concern for the human consumes him, not understanding but sympathizing just the same …

“No.”  John broke away.  The sight of himself filtered through D’Argo’s perspective was even more disorienting than the millions of thoughts pressing against his psyche.  “It’s too confusing.  It’s making it worse.”  He turned toward the opening in the foliage that led out of the meeting place.  “I have to … get … out of here.  Maybe a, um … a transport pod.  Maybe if I get far enough away.” 

Just as Crichton, clinging to D’Argo’s shoulder for balance, stumbled toward the exit, the light streaming through the opening was obscured by someone.  A hvisk entered the enclosure, gliding with an odd, relaxed gait that held little semblance to walking.  Its robes, although scrupulously clean, were faded and worn; long fibers hung from tears and rents in the fabric.  The confident ease of the individual’s movements bestowed it with a dignified, regal air -- a thorough contrast to the shabby clothes and the nearly transparent crest feathers that lay limply on its skull. 

It moved toward John and D’Argo without either haste or hesitation, and laid its hand on Crichton’s shoulder.  The motion was so smooth and unthreatening that for a moment D’Argo didn’t realize that the hvisk had made contact.  He hissed, remembering what the last encounter had done to John, and reached to tear the hand away.

“Don’t touch him.  You’ve done enough harm,” D’Argo snarled as the old hvisk shifted away from his outstretched hand.

“No,” John commanded.  “Leave him alone, D’Argo.”  Crichton was bent over -- head hanging, hands braced on his knees -- with the hvisk’s hand resting on the back of his shoulder.  John reached for D’Argo’s arm to steady himself and stood up straight.  He looked into the hvisk’s eyes.  “It’s quiet.  They’re gone.  All the voices are gone.  What did you do?” 

The elderly hvisk sang to him for several microts, producing a wavering, uncertain aria full of soundless hisses and the occasional squawk that didn’t seem to belong in the flow of tones. 

“He’s …”  John stopped, his head cocked on one side, listening to something. 

“What is he doing?  Is he hurting you?” 

“No.  It’s okay, D.  He’s controlling me.” 

D’Argo let out a long growl of rage, and spun around Crichton in pursuit of the old hvisk.  The creature let go of John and retreated across the room. 

“Stop it!” John yelled.  “Leave him alone … I … I … he’s got to help …”  He dropped to his knees holding both sides of his head.  “Let him help, D’Argo.”  His final plea emerged on a sob. 

Crichton began rocking forward and back.  D’Argo could do nothing but watch, powerless to help.  He looked between the cringing hvisk and his crumpled friend, confused and uncertain what to do.  “Help him!” he finally bellowed at the hvisk, and stepped out of the way.  The old creature scuttled past the luxan, glancing at him fearfully as he slid past, but wasted no time in reestablishing contact with Crichton.  The rocking stopped immediately. 

“John, you said he was controlling you.”  D’Argo knelt down, started to touch the bowed head, and chose to place his hand on the shoulder of the leather jacket instead.  “I thought you meant he was causing this.”

“Sorry.  Misunderstanding, D’Argo.  He’s controlling whatever this is.”  Crichton looked up.  “That didn’t come out right either.  He’s fixing this, stopping it.  He’s doing what …”  John broke off, again pausing as if he was listening to something.  “Whatever they did to me, the process got interrupted.  There should have been something like brakes, like a control mechanism, put in place, but the machine got damaged somehow.  He’s doing it for me instead.”  He looked at the hvisk and added, “Thank you.” 

“John, how do you know this?” D’Argo asked.  John reached for his shoulder and the three of them came to their feet as one. 

“He just told us.  Weren’t you listening?”  John turned to look at his friend, inadvertently pulling away from the hvisk’s touch.  As soon as the three-fingered grasp was released he staggered, close to falling down, and clapped a hand against his forehead.  The hvisk shuffled forward to reestablish contact, expressing its concern in a slow, mournful piping. 

“He said nothing.  He was doing more of that frelling annoying whistling, but I can’t understand him.  Do you understand their language now?  Was that part of what they did to you?” 

John looked from the hvisk to D’Argo and back several times.  “It’s more of what they did to me.  I heard him as clearly as I’m hearing you, only it must have been inside my head instead of my ears.  Frelling telepathy.”  He turned to face the hvisk.  “What is your name?  What do I call you?”  It sang to him, eyes squinting above the chipped, faded beak.  “I didn’t get a damned thing out of that.  Try it again.”  He listened to the melody a second time then shook his head.  “Nada.  Nothing but the spiffy tune.  It sounded a little like Yankee Doodle.  Can I call you YD for now?” 

The already drooping crest somehow managed to lay even flatter against the pale, wrinkled skin.  The hvisk let out a long low trill and bobbed its acceptance of the designator. 

“Great.  Now undo this.  Whatever you did to me, switch it back!” John demanded.  His attempt to sound forceful was compromised by his hovering proximity to the elderly hvisk.  The creature shifted to one side and John went with him, maintaining the contact that was silencing the unwanted ability.  “No!  No arguments!”  When the hvisk shrank away from him, he lowered his voice from a shout to a level closer to regular speech.  “You grabbed me against my will, and screwed with the inside of my head.  Now take it out.” 

The hvisk temporarily named YD gazed into his eyes and whistled a single note.  There was no doubt that it was a refusal.   

“Frell!” John exploded angrily.  He took several deep breaths, as though working himself up to an enormous physical effort, and then deliberately stepped away from the hvisk, accepting the consequences that would come with breaking the contact. 

“Tell us why,” D’Argo interjected.  “Explain why you did this to him.”

“Who the hell cares why, D’Argo?  All I want to know is what it’s going to take to get them to turn this racket off!”  John stumbled.  He was already looking confused and distracted after less than five microts of being on his own.  The hvisk moved after him, pursuing him slowly around the enclosure in an attempt to reestablish contact.  “Screw you,” John snarled at him, slapping one hand away.  “I’ll go nuts with this in my head, then I won’t be any use to you anyway.  You lose.  Shut it off.” 

YD stopped, letting John drift away from him, and sang to him for several microts, watching the increasingly uncoordinated movements with hvisk-ish concern. 

“That’s not my problem,” John answered.  YD sang some more.  “Tough toenails.  I’m not a hired gun.  Get some other patsy to do your dirty work.  There’s a nasty piece of work in black leather named Scorpius cruisin’ around this part of the universe; he’d probably be happy to help you out.”  He took another step away from the hvisk, tripped over his own feet, and staggered to one side, continuing to retreat from the offers of help.  “Get away … God, it’s noisy … D’Argo, help.” 

D’Argo caught him, guided him to a bench and helped him sit down.  “What do they want you to do, John?  What did he say?” 

An unfocussed gaze turned in the luxan’s direction.  John’s eyes pointed in two different directions for a microt before latching onto the figure hovering protectively over him.  “They want me to find someone … one certain hvisk on this … this station.  Someone they … I think they want me to … to kill him.” 

* * * * *

[KernilCrash]

Chapter 6

YD whistled urgently, gesticulating in time with his notes.  John was on his feet again, backing away from the advancing hvisk one unsteady step at a time, ill-directed hands motioning for him to stay away.  The pair worked their way gradually around the enclosure in that manner until the pursuer drew to a stop, ending the slow motion chase.  John placed one hand against the slender trunk of a tree to steady himself, and eyed the hvisk warily. 

“He keeps saying ‘Not kill’,” John translated for D’Argo after no one had moved for several microts.  “Just find and … and show them where this one person is hiding.”  He propped himself up against one of the segments of wall enclosing the meeting area.  “That doesn’t justify doing this to me.  Take …”  His knees buckled under the weight of whatever he was hearing inside his mind and he began to slide down the wall. 

D’Argo lunged forward, grabbed Crichton, and jerked him upright.  “Concentrate, John,” he said in a quiet growl.  He kept a wary eye on the hvisk.  “You did it before.  You can shut them out again.” 

“Whatever they … did, it’s getting … it’s getting worse, D’Argo.  It’s getting stronger.”  John turned away from D’Argo in order to address the hvisk.  One wavering hand gestured in the general direction of his own temple.  “Undo this or … or …”

“Or you get nothing from any of us,” D’Argo finished for him.   

An explanation from YD followed.  The melodic language flowed for nearly forty microts, broken by pauses to allow John to respond.  He nodded each time as if on cue, all the while clinging to D’Argo’s shoulders, relying on the luxan to compensate for his failing strength and balance. 

“Okay.  You win,” he said at the end.  The hvisk edged forward and made contact.  John sighed and stood up straight.  “Thanks, D.  Take a load off, and I’ll try to make some sense out of what he just told me.” 

The three males made themselves comfortable.  YD perched next to Crichton where he could maintain the critical contact merely by leaning against the human’s body.  D’Argo selected a seat half way around the circular area where he could watch the pair. 

“They’ve got a kind of infection aboard the Kyelligg,” John started.  “Only it’s not exactly a disease; it’s a person.”  He received a sharp nod from YD; the chipped and faded beak bobbed down and up a single time.  “This guy, critter … guy, I guess.  This guy is their equivalent of insane, only they don’t know who he is or where he is, and anyone who gets close enough to find him winds up catching whatever he’s got.  So it’s spreading, and if they don’t stop it, the entire population is going to be infected.” 

“Why do they need you?” D’Argo asked, glowering at the hvisk. 

“Your mind is immune to the disease,” the answer drifted into John’s head in time with YD’s complex whistling.  John parroted the words, providing the answer to D’Argo as quickly as he received it himself.  “All we desire is that you find the source of the insanity.  Those who have been infected cannot transmit ‘The Mindlessness’ themselves.  They carry only the symptoms, not the source, although they sound the same as the one we seek.  If any one of us delves deeply enough to determine if it is the one who spreads the disease, we will succumb to it.  I beg you to help us.” 

John pulled off one of his gloves and ran his bare hand through his hair several times, scrubbing at his scalp.  “He said that they can’t shut this thing inside my head off right now.  Something to do with the machine being damaged, and I caught a flash that they wouldn’t do it even if the -- Aeryn stands with her pulse rifle raised, face pale with strain, Crichton’s body laying curled beneath him as he turns to call to her -- machine worked.”  He raised his head slowly to stare at D’Argo, taking several microts to sort out whose perspective he had just witnessed.  The image flicked by a second time, faster than before but clear enough for John to untangle what he had been seeing. 

“Why the hell did she do that?”  His voice rose to a distressed yell. 

D’Argo’s eyes widened.  He realized that Crichton had caught his leaking thoughts, and he began shaking his head.  “You have to understand, John.  We were sure they were hurting you.  They wouldn’t stop what they were doing.” 

“So she shot the damned machine?”  John jumped to his feet, started to take one infuriated step forward, then backed up, waiting for YD.  The old male remained seated, forcing John to stay close to the bench. 

“She was worried about you!”  Aggravation began to replace the luxan’s initially embarrassed response.

“Hell of a way of showing it.  This entire mess is Aeryn’s fault.”  It was a harsh, angry accusation. 

The first hint of anger welled out of the pit of John’s stomach, generated by his helplessness.  He was dependent on the individuals who had done this to him, unable to direct his own life, and the one person he desperately wanted beside him during the fiasco could barely stand to look at him. 

Frustration continued to mount with every passing microt.  It was choking the linkage between him and YD, threatening to override the borrowed control of his newly acquired telepathy.  With every additional voice that crept into his head, his unhappiness increased, damaging the mental blockade even further.  He tried to fight it down.  He closed his eyes to help him concentrate, and instead all he could focus on was that Aeryn -- the beautiful Aeryn Sun who had finally returned to Moya and yet was barely there -- had caused the problem.  Her rash decision had left him saddled with an ability that he didn’t want and couldn’t shut off. 

Fury and hurt won out over reason.  He took three long, angry strides across the stone-paved flooring.  “God damn it!  Why the frell didn’t she --” 

Aeryn lunges through a door, pulse rifle at the ready, then she is lost to view as he moves past her and plows into the next room where he scares the occupants into chirping alarm.  He reverses course, moving into the hallway as she runs past and hits the next door with her shoulder, ignoring the handle in her haste.  She comes close to falling as the flimsy latch gives way.  Her motions are jerky, angular, full of aggression, screaming out that she is anxious to the point of shooting anyone who gets in her way.

“Okay,” John admitted slowly, shutting out the rest of the memory that D’Argo was trying hard to hide.  YD was alongside him, fingers tightening on the shoulder of his jacket to restore the link between them, helping to bring the images to an end.  “She couldn’t have known what would happen when she blew the gizmo up, and she was as close to freaking out as Aeryn ever gets.  You’re right; she couldn’t have known what would happen.”   

“Now what?” D’Argo asked. 

“Now I’ve got no choice.  We find Typhoid Marty because he’s wandering around infecting everyone, and in the meantime Gonzo the Great here and his fine feathered friends are going to fix the machine.”  John turned to face YD.  “All I do is locate him.  I don’t have to kill him.  Right?” 

“Correct,” came the answer.  “We do not desire his death.  The Mindlessness can be cured.  We only wish to stop the spread of the disease before it destroys our society.”

One at a time, the threesome filed through the narrow exit from the meeting place, then stood side by side watching the masses flow past them.  John glanced left and right, then looked straight up, staring down into the street on the other side of the station’s inner surface, gauging how many people might be in this single massive cylinder.  “How do we do this?  And what am I looking for?  There have got to be a couple thousand people within shouting distance alone.  How am I supposed to find one ostrich in the middle of a herd this size?” 

“We will walk.  And I will show you what you are looking for,” he was told.

They moved into the crowds.  D’Argo took up a position on the far side of YD, which put the hvisk in the middle.  It required no more than ten steps through the whistling masses for John to realize that D’Argo was deliberately trying to scare some of the hvisk out of their path; the luxan was hovering protectively to make sure that YD wasn’t inadvertently pushed away from where his scrawny shoulder pressed against John’s sturdier, black-clad shoulder.

John asked D’Argo, “Do you want to head back to Moya while we take care of this?  It looks like this may take a while.  We’re going to do some hiking.” 

“I’ll stay with you,” D’Argo said, finishing quickly so he could snarl quietly at an oncoming group of five males.  The group gave him a startled look and veered to one side to let the strange trio pass by.  “If this person you’re looking for is insane, you may need help when you find him.” 

John is incapable of protecting himself right now. 

The thought came through as clearly as if D’Argo had spoken out loud, overlain by a level of concern for his safety that John never would have expected from the luxan warrior who had lifted him by the throat his first day aboard Moya.  John watched D’Argo out of the corner of his eye, splitting his focus between making his way along the broad street, fighting to keep the last of the thoughts from seeping in around the barrier YD had erected for him, and watching his friend stride along. 

They had come a long way over the past cycles.  From the moment when they had floated together above the oil-covered moon hiding the Gammak Base and watched the oceans ignite, he would have willingly laid down his life in exchange for D’Argo’s.  He’d had a few close friends over the years he had lived on Earth, but with the exception of his family, he had never valued anyone’s life as much as this alien’s.  John examined his friend’s features in a series of fast sideward glances, trying to remember when he had stopped seeing tanktas, braids, and an inhuman beak-ish nose, and begun seeing the person beneath them instead. 

“Thanks, D’Argo,” he said after several microts, meaning much more than a thank you for staying by his side on this particular day.  He turned to YD next.  “You!  Tighten it up a bit.  I’m picking up stray transmissions from all over the dial.”

“It cannot be done if you are to find the one we seek,” YD whistled mournfully.  “You must listen for him.  You must listen like this.”

The roaring of a heavy spring rainstorm as it hammers on the roof and gushes through the downspout.  The autumn wind, howling with winter’s first promise, tossing every leaf simultaneously as he walks through the woods behind the house; tree trunks creaking, limbs screeching under the strain, a cacophony of sounds intertwines into a single, incomprehensible noise.  He is directed to listen more carefully, guided to a new way of paying attention, and a microt later he can make out each element within the chaos:  every raindrop, every water molecule, every leaf.  The fist that encloses his mind loosens another finger, letting in more of the sounds, and suddenly it’s too much.

“Stop!”  Silence was restored.  “That was worse than downtown Manhattan during rush hour.  How much of the population was I getting?”  It hadn’t been rain and the wind in the leaves he had been hearing; it had been the minds of hundreds or thousands of hvisk, each one discernable among the greater volume of the whole. 

“No more than four thousand,” YD whistled.  “You did very well for the first attempt.  Exceedingly well.  Your mind is capable of much more than what you normally require of it.” 

“John, are you all right?” D’Argo asked from the other side of YD. 

“Yeah.  Right as rain, but if I have to do that another thousand times or so, my brain is going to be leaking out through my ears.”  John stopped walking; several steps to one side took them out of the constant bustling stream of pedestrians.  “You get an A-plus for noisy demos, but you haven’t shown me what I’m looking for.  I’ve got to know what I’m listening for if you want me to find this infectious, mindlessness guy of yours.” 

“I will show you,” YD agreed. 

Expecting a demonstration like the previous one, John braced himself for another of the bludgeoning impacts that occurred whenever YD loosened his control  Instead, he was left standing by himself for a microt, and was forced to move fast to catch up.  YD had turned back the way they had come and was walking with more purpose. 

“There,” YD said, pointing upward/downward toward an area of buildings on the opposite side of the station.  “We will go there.  One of the infected is being held there until he can be cured.  Once you feel what his mind is like, you will know what to look for.” 

   * * * * *

There wasn’t enough to do. 

Aeryn wandered into Command, checked one console, sauntered to the next and reviewed its displays.  Everything was normal.  She had checked to make sure Naj Gil was securely locked in his cell, taking the scarran something to eat while she was at it, and after that she had climbed down to one of the lowest tiers to inspect the tanks that were filling with the nutrient slurry being pumped from the Kyelligg.  No one had asked her to check for leaks; it was simply something to do.  It had been so long since she’d had an entire solar day to herself that she didn’t know how else to spend the free time. 

There was too much time to think.  And thinking led to remembering.

Tapping into Moya’s sensor records, she punched up a holo-image of the Kyelligg at the strategy table and sat down to study it.  Her attention wandered as the ghostly image formed, ethereal structures building from the center of the station outward until the entire bristling structure floated above the table in an iridescent green.  It took ten microts to complete, and in that short time her thoughts had returned to the same painful memories as always. 

“Pilot?” she called.  “How are Crichton and D’Argo progressing aboard the Kyelligg?”  Aeryn stared at the holographic image of the space station while she waited for an answer, mentally cataloging the patterns of increasingly narrow branches jutting out in ranks and rows, discovering the easily remembered symmetry and memorizing the station’s layout.  “Pilot?” 

“Yyyyes, Officer Sun?” came a hesitant response. 

“Is anything wrong, Pilot?”  Aeryn crossed the distance to the nearest console in four long strides, and hurriedly checked the long-range sensors to verify that they hadn’t been located by the Peacekeepers or any other type of enemy.  The uncertainty in his voice had her immediately concerned that they’d been found, possibly even boarded.   

“No.  Everything is fine,” Pilot answered with more energy.  “I am fine.  Moya is fine.  We are quite fine.” 

“Fine, fine, fine,” she mimicked under her breath, scanning the readouts again, looking for anything out of the ordinary.  Everything appeared absolutely normal.  There was the enormous energy signature of the Kyelligg, the background glow of normal space, and nothing else.  “Have Crichton and D’Argo met with the hvisk yet?” she asked, wondering if Pilot’s distracted manner was a result of focusing on something more critical.   

“I am not certain.  I will ... check on them and get back to you.” 

“Pilot!  I thought we agreed that you were going to keep a comms channel open in case they ran into trouble.  You were supposed to maintain a watch on them.” 

The tight feeling in her chest resembled fear for a microt, shifting almost immediately into something closer to guilt.  She had stood alongside the other John Crichton in the worst of situations, facing budongs, charrids, colartas, Peacekeepers, and whatever else the universe could throw at them.  When this one had needed nothing more than someone to watch his back while he dealt with what seemed to be an outwardly peaceful species, she had pulled away, leaving him to cope on his own.  He had looked back as he left the Den headed for his meeting aboard the Kyelligg, and she hadn’t needed telepathy to know that he would have preferred her company over D’Argo’s.  She had turned away from him -- physically to speak to Pilot and emotionally as well. 

“Pilot?  Where are they?  Open a comms channel to Crichton and D’Argo!”  Her anxious yell was met with silence.  “Pilot?”  Aeryn waited another five microts, then spun and ran from Command, headed toward the Den. 

“Frell!”  The exclamation burst out of her as she dodged around Chiana, very nearly running her over.  “What happened to you?” 
 
The slender nebari was liberally coated with a viscous, dripping liquid, runnels sliding off her clothes to form a spattered array around her feet.  “This dren is seeping into Maintenance Bay Four.  It’s begun flooding into the corridors below and it’s as slippery as a Welphipian nine-legged lizard!” Chiana complained. 

Aeryn took two steps away from the slow shower of droplets, then knelt down to examine the contents more closely.  “How deep is it?  How did you fall in?” 

“Not deep.  Slippery,” Chiana repeated.  “I took one step in it, and spent the next quarter arn trying to slither my way out.” 

Aeryn bent close to the floor, carefully examining the semi-opaque liquid.  There was something suspended in a clearer base material, suggesting that the liquid was nothing more than a transport method for whatever was in suspension.  She shook her head, baffled by the substance.  “This doesn’t look like anything I’ve ever seen on a leviathan.  Where was it coming from?” 

“From up,” Chiana said, gesturing to expand upon the vague description.  “It’s running down the walls.  Pilot didn’t answer when I called him so I was on my way to the Den to see what’s happening.” 

“PILOT!!” Aeryn yelled as she touched a single finger to the liquid.  The comms remained silent.  “He was talking a few microts ago, then he stopped answering.”  Her attention reverted to the slick material dripping from her finger.  Aeryn sniffed it cautiously, then rubbed it between her thumb and forefinger.  “This might be that nutrient slurry for Pilot that the hvisk are pumping on board, but why isn’t it going into the tanks?”  She got to her feet, frowning as she considered the mysterious malfunction. 

“Maybe this is some way of attacking Moya.  They did that thing to Crichton, maybe they’re after something else.”  Chiana ran a hand down her arm.  More droplets flicked to the floor, adding to the collection that was beginning to coalesce into a puddle. 

“We have to stop them from pumping any more on board until we find out what’s going on,” Aeryn agreed.  “Rygel?  Jool?” she called.  There was no answer.  “Comms must be down.  I’ll head up to Tier One to shut this off.  You get to …”

“No, you have to go to the Den,” Chiana contradicted her.  The rest of her explanation was lost in a squeal of panic.  She slid from one side of the corridor to the other, boot soles lubricated by the liquid, eventually fetching up against one of the leviathan’s ribs with a loud thump.  She went down in a tangle of arms and legs, cursing the mysterious fluid, Moya, and life in general. 

“You should go to the Den,” Chiana started over once she had come to rest.  “I’ll go shut off the flow of this dren.” 

Aeryn eyed the nebari’s slender arms and slight frame, remembering the effort that had gone into getting the valve open in the first place.  If the DRDs hadn’t freed the mechanism, it was questionable whether Chiana would be able to close it.  “I should --”

“You’re the only one who knows how to make things work in the Den,” Chiana drowned out her protest.  “You can get the comms working and understand the readouts.  I can’t.” 

“You’ll never get that valve closed.  It was jammed solid,” Aeryn argued.  She ran through their options quickly, reviewing the alternatives, and came up with only one that made any sense.  “Get a pulse rifle and release Naj Gil.  He keeps claiming he’s willing to help.  He’ll be able to shift that valve mechanism.” 

Chiana was struggling to get to her feet, knees and elbows flying as she tried to scramble out of the thin layer of slurry now coating that portion of the corridor.  “Careful!” she warned as Aeryn edged toward her.  The former soldier leaned to the full extent of her reach, wrapped her fingers securely inside the shoulder of the nebari’s short-sleeved outer bodice, and pulled hard.  Chiana was levitated to her feet with a shriek of surprise. 

“If you see Rygel or Jool, tell them to head for the Den,” Aeryn commanded.  Chiana was scuffing her feet on the floor in an attempt to wipe her boots clean.  “Just take them off!” she snapped after several microts. 

Chiana’s reply was every bit as short-tempered as Aeryn’s impatient suggestion.  “I tried that!  It’s everywhere; even inside my boots.  What ever this dren is, it oozes.” 

Aeryn turned and began jogging in the direction of the Den.  “I’ll try to get the comms working first, then I’ll see if I can figure out what’s gone wrong with Moya and Pilot.”  The last few words were barely audible. 

“If I see Rygel or Jool?” Chiana muttered in the direction of the vanished figure.  “How the frell do you expect me to find them when I can’t even stay on my feet?”  She took three careful steps, skating more than a motra at the end of each cautious transfer of weight before her feet began to adhere to the floors.  The curses continued, delivered in a quiet murmur as she headed toward her quarters to get a weapon. 

   * * * * *

John stopped walking, waited until he was sure that YD had stopped as well, and then turned in a circle, surveying the great arcing sides of the station that rose from behind the buildings on either side of the avenue.  During the previous day’s journey through the Kyelligg, he had seen several gravity-defying walkways set into the sides of the smaller tubes, leading from one usable surface to the other.  He hadn’t seen anything like that in the largest of the enclosures, and was beginning to wonder how they were going to make their way to the far side where YD said the infected person was being held. 

“This way, this way,” YD answered his unasked question, gesturing with both hands.  He was almost two full motras away from John, and the mental barrier hadn’t weakened a fraction.  “We are almost there.  You will see in just a moment.”

“Is there a problem?” D’Argo asked, watching YD’s gesticulations. 

“No.  I was wondering how we’re going to get down there,” John explained, pointing above his head.  “He says we’re almost at whatever they use to travel from one side to the other.”   

Four turns and three hundred microts later they stepped into a small courtyard with what looked like a glassed-in gazebo sitting in the center.  A family of hvisk was just leaving.  They whistled cheerfully to YD and stepped aside to let the mismatched trio pass by.  The two youngsters bounded along beside what John assumed were their parents, unformed toots giving voice to the excitement he could feel streaming off them.  The adults were dividing their attention between watching their children and rearranging their draped robes, fussing with the bottom hems while they herded the youngsters out into the street. 

“John!” D’Argo summoned him once again.  “What is so fascinating this time?” 

“Uh, nothing.”  It had been the preoccupation of the adults with their robes that had caught his interest.  It was the first time he had seen a hvisk of either sex making any sort of adjustment to their clothing.  The subdued colors and absence of ornamentation suggested that the hvisk lacked anything resembling vanity, so the uncharacteristic behavior had caught his interest.  For a microt he was tempted to reach out with his mind, to exercise his new talent and listen in on the thoughts of the departing adults.  But the idea of eavesdropping on another being -- be it luxan, human, or the bird-like hvisk -- had the taste of something perverted about it, and he clenched his mind and turned to follow D’Argo toward the gazebo. 

YD ushered them inside, latched the door behind them, and then pointed to pairs of looped straps arranged in orderly ranks across the floor.  Copying their host’s example, they shoved their feet under the straps, D’Argo struggling for several microts to jam his heavy luxan boots into place, then grabbed on to one of the many handholds arranged around the inner wall of the structure.  YD nodded in satisfaction and pressed a lighted touch panel near the doorway. 

They didn’t rise into the air; they fell upward.  A startled laugh burst out of John as car and passengers lunged into an inverted freefall, defying everything his brain insisted it knew about gravity.  There was a three microt interval during which he was able to capture a fast impression of his companions:  D’Argo’s floating braids and tanktas framing a startled, open-mouthed expression, and YD’s more composed features and the way he had gathered the bottom of his draped robes in one hand in order to keep them from drifting upward. 

“Yeeeeeehaw!” he cried, enjoying the radical transition.  Something invisible snatched at the car, there was a fast whirling blur out the windows as they flipped end for end, and then they were falling more normally, descending floor-first toward the far side of the station.  “Let’s go back and do that again!” 

“I’ll wait for you here,” D’Argo grumbled.  He was already standing by the door, ready to disembark even before the car had settled into place. 

“Oh, come on, Big D!  That was great.  With all the gyrations you’ve been through learning to fly that ship of yours, don’t tell me a brief trip like this one bothered you.”  John waited for YD to work his clawed feet loose from the straps, adapting to the need to stay within arm’s reach of the hvisk, after which he stepped to D’Argo’s side and clapped him on the shoulder.  “Back and forth a few more times.  Whatdaya say?”   

“I say my stomach is still oriented to the other side of the station, and I’ll wait for you here.” 

The teasing John had planned was cut short.  YD whistled impatiently at the pair and led them away from the elevator station.  As they moved out of the courtyard into the wide avenue, YD rearranged his rucked-up robes, twitching them into place with an exact repetition of the motions John had noticed on the other adults.  It was modesty, not vanity, he realized, generating the short-lived display of concern over their appearance.

“How do the little ones cope with Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride?” John asked.  The excitement he had felt coming from the two children made more sense now. 

“The youngest are not allowed in the --” YD explained.  His last sequence of notes refused to convert to anything that could be expressed in English.  John received a mental impression of a word that meant something like ‘Traveling-Both-Up-And-Down-And-Switching-In-The-Middle-Due-To-Manipulation-Of-Gravitational-Influences’, and decided that calling it an elevator would be close enough. 

“When they are old enough,” YD continued, indicating a height at about waist level, “their parents take them on a slower version to introduce them to the process.  Until then, there are conveyances that travel more sedately from one side to the other.” 

Explanation completed, they traveled silently for more than four hundred microts, following YD’s gestured directions through a twisting series of turns until they were walking single file down one of the smaller alleyways.  This one, instead of connecting to another of the Kyelligg’s gigantic arms, came to an end at a doorway flanked by two glowering but unarmed hvisk. 

“Guards,” John suggested. 

“First we’ve seen on this station,” D’Argo agreed in a rumbling near-whisper.  “I was beginning to think they didn’t have the concept of aggression.” 

No sooner were the words out of his mouth than the menacing looks dissolved into bobs and smile-squints.  The pair of ‘guards’ greeted YD cheerfully, warbling at him for several microts, then repeating the bows in John and D’Argo’s direction. 

“Say that again!” John blurted, hearing something in the way they had greeted YD.  The sentries chirped an inquiry at him and looked uncertain.  “You didn’t say anything to offend me.  Just repeat what you said to him a moment ago.” 

The salutation was replayed complete with bobbing bows.  Once they’d finished, three pairs of curious black eyes turned to watch Crichton.  The tune they had sung was similar to the one he had heard when YD had introduced himself barely an arn earlier, only this time it had been overlain with meaning and context.  When YD had sung his name there had been nothing more than the image of a label, a sequence that was attached to this one particular hvisk as a designator.  When the sentries had sung his name to him, there had been more.  There was respect and a minor degree of awe layered behind the brief tune, and more importantly, there was a word in English that approximated what they were calling him. 

“Hox,” he announced, turning to his minder.  “It’s something on my world that modifies other things; it controls them so they can perform tasks they couldn’t before the hox influenced them.  These guys are calling you Hox.” 

The black eyes almost disappeared behind the squint of pleasure, the faded purple crest lifted to stand up straight in added emphasis.  Hox sang a pleased series of notes, telling John that although the small sound did not translate into anything in the hvisk language, the concept displayed in his mind was correct.  “I am pleased to accept this noise as your version of my name,” Hox finished, giving him a little bow at the end. 

“His name is Hox,” John translated for D’Argo, replacing the short-lived nickname that he now knew had dismayed Hox. 

In a stunning telepathic flash -- an uncomfortable event that felt like he had been hit over the head with a large rock -- John learned that Hox had been disturbed not by the nickname, but by the fact that John hadn’t been able to hear the explanation behind his name.  Except when dealing with the very young, whose telepathic abilities were present but undeveloped, the hvisk never experienced anything resembling conversational misunderstandings.  Hox had feared that their modification had been interrupted too soon for Crichton to take on the role for which he had been chosen. 

The sense of violation -- of being used as a thing rather than as a person -- blossomed and expanded, renewing the wave of anger he’d had to fight down earlier.  When he had first learned what had been done to him and why, there had been scant time for a furious explosion.  Dependent on staying in contact with Hox to keep from being overwhelmed, his brain still throbbing with the self-inflicted bludgeoning by millions of hvisk thoughts, he hadn’t had time or energy to get angry.  There was a margin of freedom now, and a lull in their search.  The two factors worked together, urging him to give in to his frustration and anger. 

From the moment he’d gotten flung into this portion of space, it seemed like everyone had used him.  He had gotten into a fair number of messes on his own, but from the moment D’Argo had lifted him by the throat, hoping for some knowledge that would help the luxan escape from the Peacekeepers, he’d been used, abused, deliberately confused, and generally frelled over by one species after another.  From the Ancients’ implanting of the wormhole knowledge to the Aurora Chair to the neuro-chip, from scarran mind-frell technology to nebari chemical mind cleansing, through delvian mind games, the Maldis-mirror special, marriage by blackmail, Traaltixx paranoia, and finally the hvisk, the list was getting too long. 

“I am sick of this crap!” he exploded.   
 
Hox took a shocked step away from him.  His retreat was matched by the cringing of the two sentries. 

“John?”  D’Argo interrupted the rage that threatened to get out of control.  “What’s going on?” 

Crichton took a deep breath and managed to get a grip on himself.  It was tenuous, needing only the smallest additional strain to snap.  “They don’t like what I was thinking just then.  No one would.”  He made a fast, energetic gesture toward the door, too close to giving into the mounting frustration to form words.  For the past several arns he had managed to quash the flood of emotions by focusing on the task that would free him from the unwanted alteration.  Frustration and anger were taking over just when he needed a clear mind the most. 

Hox snared him by one arm and held him in place.  “Clear your mind.  Be calm.  Do not allow uncontrolled emotions to distract you.”

John slapped the hand away.  “Back off, Big Bird!  You’re here to keep this in check, not order me around.” 

Regret and a hint of embarrassment twisted into an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach when Hox scuttled away from him.  But the cramping knot wasn’t enough to dampen the anger he felt every time he considered what they had done to him against his will.  The bubble began to rise again, pushing a mass of tangled emotions ahead of it. 

He wanted to believe that it was the action of the hvisk that was causing the outbursts; either that or his concern that destroying the Peacekeeper research might take any chance of finding his way back to Earth along with it.  But he knew that beneath everything else, provoking him into rash actions and even more poorly planned comments, was the fear that no amount of time would ever be enough for Aeryn to love him again.  The remainder of his worries paled in the light of that single, overriding concern.  With Aeryn by his side, he could cope with this latest mind-frell; without her, he felt lost, degraded, and alone. 

A heavier weight than Hox’s three-fingered grasp settled on his shoulder, drawing his attention back to the tight confines of the alley.  “John, give it time,” D’Argo’s hushed voice said close to his ear.  “You will get through this, we’ll find a way to destroy the wormhole research, and after that you’ll have time to work things out with Aeryn.” 

Crichton let out a shaky laugh, rubbed at his eyes with the heel of one gloved hand and nodded.  “I thought I was supposed to be the one who could read minds.  You been taking lessons from Wild Bird Hick-Hox over there?” 

“The only time you have that particular look on your face is when you’re thinking of Aeryn,” his friend explained.  D’Argo straightened up and turned toward where Hox was hovering just out of arm’s reach.  Hox had remained close enough to assist John’s mental control despite the apprehension that flattened his crest and had him emitting small squawks of concern.  “I don’t suppose when you change his brain back you could do something about his very annoying habit of saying things that no one else can understand.” 

Hox looked back and forth between the two crewmates several times, then nodded, squinted, and addressed D’Argo directly. 

John grinned weakly and translated.  “He offered to make you telepathic instead so you can see what I’m thinking about when I say those things.” 

“That’s assuming that whatever I find in your head makes any sense in the first place … which I doubt,” D’Argo gently needled him.  “There are few things I can think of more frightening than trying to understand the inner workings of your mind.  Can we get this over with so we can concentrate on a nice, simple problem like the insane idea of taking on Scorpius and the Peacekeepers?”  His last question was delivered in a hissing whisper, too quietly for the hvisk to overhear.   

“Yeah, I’m better now.  Time and patience, right?  I just need to give her enough time.”  John took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and focused on the search of the Kyelligg that he needed to complete.  His encounter with the infected hvisk had to come before everything else at this point.  “Is that close enough?” he asked Hox, referring to his emotional control. 

“Anger will interfere with your ability to sense the differences,” Hox whistled.  “You have only buried it.  That is not enough.  You must --” 

“--turn away from the dark side of the force,” John interrupted the carefully delivered melody.  “I’ve heard it all before from Obi-Wan.  This is the best you’re going to get from me right now.  It’ll have to do.  Let’s go.”  He motioned toward the building, waited through Hox’s hesitation, then followed him through the doorway when the old hvisk finally moved forward.     

   * * * * *

[KernilCrash]

Chapter 7

“Why is it that every time something goes wrong with Moya or Talyn, someone shoves me into a maintenance space and expects me to locate the malfunction?”  Rygel’s endless grousing flooded the comms channel.  Somewhere deep within Moya, he was maneuvering his Throne Sled through a tightly constricted access tunnel, headed for a rarely used chamber.  “Crichton fit in this passageway when Moya became pregnant three cycles ago.  Why can’t Chiana or Jool come down here and check?” 

“We saved the most important task for you, Rygel,” Chiana’s voice blared.  “You’re the expert on twisted internal organs.” 

“Neither one of those is true,” he shot back, sounding intensely insulted.  “You stuffed me into this tunnel because you knew I wouldn’t fight back.” 

Aeryn cut in before he could continue.  “We stuffed you into that tunnel because everyone else is busy!  Chiana’s on Tier One with Naj Gil, shutting off the flow from the Kyelligg, and Jool is backtracking the flood to figure out where the problem starts.  So shut up and make sure Moya’s not pregnant again!”

“I already told you that there has been no opportunity for her to become impregnated,” Jool’s high-pitched voice joined in insistently, rising to a whine by the end of her protest. 

In the Den, Aeryn started to depress the circuit that would shut off the comms, tired of the chatter and endless complaints.  Her hand hovered over the wide plunger then drifted away.  It had taken several hundred microts to remember the combination of controls that would activate internal comms without broadcasting their conversations into space.  The instinctual knowledge remained securely embedded in her DNA, but the correct sequences were proving elusive, coming to the surface stubbornly as a result of her half-cycle absence from Moya. 

The neural interface on Talyn had been so much easier to use.  It had required little more than a push of her mind, as though trying to flick away an insect using her thoughts alone, to access any portion of the gunship’s systems.  By comparison, Moya’s systems bordered on unwieldy.  Aeryn had never perceived them that way until she experienced the ease of control produced by the transponder.  John had hated that she had accepted the implantation … “Yes!  It's new!  It's improved!  It's the Finger of Friendship!  $19.95.  But wait kids, there's more!" … and had lashed out with his customary stream of incoherent comments. 

The errant thought was no less hurtful than a knife wound to the belly.  Larraq’s blade had not caused nearly as much pain or damage as the injury she had sustained more recently.  The desire to wallow in her memories plagued her day and night, whether awake or asleep, tempting her to revisit those heady, wonderful moments when love made every microt a paradise to experience.  And each memory brought with it the unendurable grief.  Aeryn shook her head and pushed the thoughts to the side, deliberately using her concern for Pilot to banish the memories. 

Her hand hovered over the slide that would silence the internal comms.  “Better leave that the way it is,” she murmured, and left the channel open. 

“Was that for us?” Chiana’s voice responded to her comment.  “I hope not, because Magra-Muscles already closed the valve and we’re on our way to the Den.” 

“No, I was talking to myself,” Aeryn called.  “Jool?  Any change?” 

“The main corridor on Tier Four is three denches deep with this hideous mess, and it’s oozing into every fissure and crevice.  It doesn’t seem to be flowing as fast though.”  There was a quiet yelp, several microts of rapid, frantic sounding squeals and splashes, and then a louder impact.  The Den was filled with the metal-melting scream of an outraged interion.  Too late to save her hearing from the entire assault, Aeryn clapped both hands over her ears and waited impatiently for the piercing shriek to come to an end. 

“I warned her three times.”  Chiana, still laughing over Jool’s mishap, hurried into the Den with Naj Gil trailing behind her.  The pulse rifle was propped comfortably against her hip, muzzle pointed toward the ceiling, ready to hand but no longer pointed at the scarran.     

“Aer –- Aeryn?”  Pilot’s heavy, shell-armored head came up slowly as the last of Jool’s shrieks echoed and faded into the depths of the neural plexus.  “Officer Sun,” he groaned, looking around in open-mouthed bewilderment.  “I will … I will open a comms channel to check on Commander Crichton and Ka D’Argo.” 

“We discussed that almost an arn ago, Pilot.”  Aeryn caught the wandering arm in both of her hands and guided the claw to one side where he couldn’t disrupt what she had accomplished so far.  “Tell us what’s going on, Pilot.  Is this an illness or is something attacking you?” 

Wide cranial shell wobbling from side to side, bulging eyes coasting across his displays without any sign of comprehension, Pilot pondered her question.  “Aaaa-attack?  Are we being attacked?”  His mumbles faded away in time with the increasing ill-directed movements.  All four arms slowly settled at his sides and his head sank down onto his shoulders, coming to rest in gradual stages. 

“He’s no use,” Chiana said morosely.  “We’re going to have to figure this out on our own.”   

“Pilot!  Pilot, wake up!”  Aeryn ducked under the forward edge of his cranial shell, craning her head to see if his eyes were open.  “Stay with us, Pilot.  We need your help to find out what’s wrong.”  There was no response.  “Frell!  He’s been doing that every four or five hundred microts.  I haven’t gotten a single coherent sentence out of him so far.”  She straightened up and glared at the displays ranged around her, faced with an overwhelming amount of data that would have to be deciphered if they were to help Pilot. 

“Aeryn?”  Rygel’s voice was calm, suggesting that he had forgotten his outrage and was working as hard as everyone else to remedy the mysterious problems plaguing ship and pilot. 

“Any luck?” Aeryn asked.

“That depends on what you were hoping for.  There’s no sign of a baby.  There are only a couple of  DRDs performing what looks like standard maintenance, and the first signs of that liquefied dren seeping into the chamber.  Do you want me to check anything else while I’m down here?”   

“No.  Why don’t you head for Command?  We’ll need someone to keep an eye on Moya’s sensors from there if I can’t get any help from Pilot.”  Aeryn eased past the motionless body to manipulate several slides and levers, consulting the readouts to check the results of her adjustments. 

“What about Moya?  Is this affecting her?” the Dominar’s gruff voice inquired. 

“She seems to be all right physically.  There’s no way of knowing how she is holding up emotionally.  There hasn’t been any outward sign that she’s distressed.” 

“What the frell is wrong with Pilot if it isn’t another pregnancy?  Is this just like the first time?”  Chiana ignored the hovering presence of Naj Gil and clambered up on Pilot’s consoles where she could see what Aeryn was doing. 

Aeryn gestured toward the scarran.  “Keep an eye on him.”   

“He’s not so bad.”  Chiana waved the pulse rifle carelessly in his direction.  “He hasn’t made the slightest move to get loose.  Where would he go anyway?  Concentrate on Moya and Pilot for now.  Why did you think she was pregnant?” 

Aeryn glared at Chiana in irritation, then softened her expression when she remembered that the younger woman hadn’t been on board the leviathan during the first days of her gestation.  “Moya shut down every system except those supplying energy and nutrients to the baby -- including life support, atmospherics, and the systems that keep Pilot alive.  This is similar, except Pilot is worse off this time and the rest of the ship is unaffected.  The readouts show that he is still receiving neural impulses from Moya, but he is being deprived of liquid nutrients.  He is starving to death and it’s not happening slowly.  If we don’t fix what’s happening, and fix it soon, he is going to die.”

“So what do we do?  How’d you fix it the last time?” 

Aeryn thought about that day, letting the memories stream past her, setting loose recollections of anger, laughter, sadness, and the overwhelming elation when they’d finally determined the cause of the mysterious ship-wide malfunctions.

“Crichton fig … John figured it out.”  At the thought of him, the uncomfortable knot in her stomach returned.  There was someone aboard the Kyelligg who looked and sounded and acted like the John Crichton she had been falling in love with all those cycles ago, and yet he wasn’t the same person she had spent half a cycle loving aboard Talyn.  Her thoughts descended into the familiar depressing spiral.  It was John, it wasn’t; it was, he wasn’t; he had been on Moya from the first day, he hadn’t, he had, she knew him, she didn’t.  It went round and round endlessly, never resolving itself, never bringing her any closer to making the decision that she didn’t want to have to make.   

“Call him.  Maybe he can help this time too.” 

Aeryn caught her lower lip between her teeth, resisting the desire to have him by her side.  She wanted his strength, his protective aura, and most of all, his sharp intellect beside her as she attempted to track down whatever was killing Pilot.  And she knew if he was there, she would be able to think of nothing except him, who he was, and who he wasn’t.     

“He’s trying to solve his own problem, Chiana.  We have to figure this one out ourselves.  Let’s see what we can do about providing some nutrients to Pilot directly.  We need to buy him some time until we can locate the problem.”  Aeryn pointed at Naj Gil.  “You!  Come with me.  I’ve got an idea how we might help Pilot.”

   * * * * *

Crichton, D’Argo and Hox wandered from one artery of the station into another, and then another.  They took their time, winding their way through the cheerful, tuneful crowds, searching for the elusive, abnormal touch of one infectious mind.  Hox continued to work with John, convinced that he had the latent ability to control his telepathy on his own.  The silent training was interspersed with mostly trivial conversations, Crichton serving as interpreter for D’Argo.

The visit to the facility holding the infected hvisk hadn’t accomplished what Hox had hoped.  No matter how hard he concentrated, John hadn’t been able to detect anything at all in the mind of the hissing, snapping prisoner.  Hox had tried repeatedly to guide him to the damaged thought processes, in the end exhibiting un-hvisk-like frustration with Crichton’s inability to discern the misdirected thought patterns. 

The trip had been an education in a different respect, however.  The prisoner had tried to attack his observers without any regard for the damage he was inflicting on himself.  He had lashed out wildly in their direction with the gleaming cockspur John had noticed during the first meeting with the hvisk.  Crazed black eyes fastened on Crichton and the next slashing swing was aimed at his throat.  John’s fast shuffle backward was instinctive, seeking to put more distance between him and the aggressive jabs even though he had been standing out of range to start. 

Hox sang mournfully, “You see now.  You see why we must do whatever is necessary to stop this from spreading.”

Until that moment, John had been treating the search as nothing more than a time consuming nuisance, a risk-free waste of valuable time during which he could be doing something more important if it weren’t for the psychic blackmail.  In a single microt, he discovered that the mild temperament of the hvisk was missing from those suffering from the disorder that had Hox so concerned.  Depending on how much of the population had been infected, he and D’Argo might need reinforcements before the search was over. 

“How sharp is that thing?” he asked, pointing at the cockspur.

The two guards waited for the next futile attack, then darted forward and captured the prisoner’s arms.  They turned one arm so the underside of the wrist was visible, and the furious squawks increased to a constant, ear-piercing screech.  John and D’Argo moved in together, quickly examined the projection of bone and then retreated.  It had been sharpened to a curved needle-sharp tip that looked as though it would slice through leather as well as flesh.  D’Argo hissed, shook his head, and pulled his Qualta blade out of its scabbard and began converting it to a rifle. 

Three arns later, the heavy weapon remained cradled in the crook of D’Argo’s arm, at the ready as they worked their way up another of the secondary avenues.  He had been carrying it tirelessly the entire time since they had left the holding facility. 

“Try again,” Hox encouraged John.  “The ability exists within.  You must only learn how to use it.”  The loaned control eased away in stages, pausing frequently to ensure that the human disciple wasn’t overwhelmed.  “There,” he confirmed as John felt the noise battering at him and pushed it away.  “That is the place where you will find the ability.  Do you feel that place in your mind?”

John shook his head.  “All I feel is everyone trying to get inside my skull.” 

A different kind of inquiry brushed across his thoughts, and he answered the question that D’Argo hadn’t asked aloud.  “He hasn’t given up on the idea that I can control it myself, big guy.  He’s still trying to show me how.”  The tsunami of thoughts gained strength, shoved his weak resistance side, and threatened to smash him under its weight.  Hox’s control exerted itself, quieting the roar to a whisper. 

“Again,” Hox ordered.  “Try again.”

The mental grasp eased away, no different than a fist releasing its hold incrementally.  Crichton closed his eyes to help himself focus and tried to envision pushing the encroaching bedlam away from him with his mind.  The sphere of sound and confusion hovered, neither contracting nor expanding, seemingly held at bay by magic rather than by something he was doing.  A small pang, resembling the first twinges of a headache, created an unpleasant metallic taste in his mouth.  John tried to concentrate on the location of that small flavor. 

“Is that it?” he whispered, fearful that a louder noise would destroy his scant control.  “Is that the part I’m supposed to be using?” 

Hox’s answer arrived without the usual whistling accompaniment.  It consisted of a mild pressure against his thoughts, encouraging him to move toward the metallic taste.  The silent voice suggested that he pay attention to it and backtrack to where the source was located. 

A large hand latched onto his arm above the elbow and steered him to one side, then yanked him back on course.  “Thanks, D’Argo,” he said without bothering to open his eyes.  He spared a sliver of concentration just long enough to assume he had been guided around a person or an obstacle, then returned to his quest.  The flavor of melted aluminum hadn’t dissipated.  John found it, sensed the thread leading from some portion of his brain to the sensors in his mouth, and carefully pulled himself along that fragile connection.  He arrived at the spot in his mind that Hox had been trying to show him for over three arns, and examined the tightly constrained knot. 

“Attempt to listen while keeping it under control,” he was silently encouraged.

His mind spun outward.  Pushing aside the invasive thoughts of millions of hvisk, he reached across the short distance that separated him from D’Argo, and tried to hear what his friend was thinking.  He sailed right past, unable to stop at his intended goal, and kept going.  For a split microt he was an arrow, loosed blindly into the air to find its own trajectory, seeking its own destination.  He felt something familiar and let himself fall into the target. 

John lies on the floor of Moya, supporting his weight on his elbows as he carefully dissolves purple adhesive from around her fingers.  “Happy place, Aeryn.  Go to your happy place,” he urges, making as little sense as usual.  She is impatient, annoyed, angry, and if her hand weren’t bonded to the floor she would be tempted to hit him if only to get him to shut up.  But his body heat radiates warmly against her shoulder as she crouches beside him, and there’s a tingling rush along her spine whenever he laughs.  The sensations are pleasurable, foreign, desired and confusing, and she doesn’t know how to react.  She wants to stay beside him, listening to his inane prattle for arns, and as soon as she can rip her hand free she hurries away, the muddle of conflicting emotions driving her away from him until she can figure out how she is supposed to respond.       

“Crap!”  John staggered, ripping his mind away from the inadvertent contact.  Everything went silent.  The shutdown was immediate and complete.  “Thanks,” he gasped to Hox.  “Must have had more than my fair share of Wheaties this morning.  I really over did it.”

“The silence is not mine.  This time it is your effort that quiets the voices,” came an amused reply.             

“I’m doing it?”  The walls inside his head wobbled, momentarily disrupted by surprise.  “Use the force, John,” he coached himself in a panting growl, struggling to recover.

“It’s going to be harder to doubt you in the future.”  Crichton grins in a way that leaves her short of breath with happiness and ready to explode with pride at the same time.  “I apologize for my strengths.”  She runs toward Command confident of her genetically-stored abilities, and strangely ecstatic that this disaster has occurred.  She is worried about Moya and Pilot, but she finds the challenge of responding to the crisis as exhilarating as flying the Prowler.  It has to do with Crichton.  He is having this peculiar effect on her more and more frequently.  She wonders how he might react if she starts calling him ‘John’.

Images, sounds, tastes, smells:  the memories are almost more real than her current surroundings for their intensity.  There is happiness waiting for her there, lurking in her recall, promising to banish the sick-making knot in her stomach that seems to be the only thing she can feel anymore.  The present holds the constant threat of tears, the tightness in her throat, and the unbearable knowledge that if he died once, he can die again.  The past soothes her, but her memories can’t ease her passage through the present.  She turns her attention to …

John tore himself away from the contact, frantic to stop the flood of stolen thoughts.  In his rush, he demolished the barrier it had taken him so much effort to erect, and had less than a split-microt to brace himself for the onslaught that always followed.  Erected in a heartbeat, the buffer flicked into place before the weight of millions of hvisk thoughts could crush him.

“You are improving,” Hox whistled.  “I only assisted.  You did most of that yourself.” 

“Getting better at this,” John summarized for D’Argo’s benefit, deliberately omitting whose thoughts he had inadvertently visited. 

They turned into a smaller street.  Their route took them through another of the perception twisting changes in gravity.  In five steps they were walking along what only moments earlier he would have considered a wall.  Top and bottom had become sides, and vice versa.  A waterfall tumbled through a lush, plant-filled ravine, plunged into a pool, and then flowed out at an impossible angle, feeding a stream in the portion of the station they’d just left. 

John paused long enough to turn in a circle, enjoying the mild disorientation that came from the oddly arranged landscape.  “Escher would have loved this place,” he said.   

Annoyance buzzes along his spine, mixed with tolerance because Crichton is under more strain than usual.

“Remember Who’s On First?” he asked D’Argo.

“All too well.”  It was a growl of remembered irritation. 

The comedy routine hadn’t translated well into Luxan.  He had spent arns trying to show D’Argo how funny it was once the audience understood the source of the confusion, only to have his friend treat him to the same look of disgust that he had given him before John had attempted the lengthy explanation. 

“Imagine that turned into a painting,” John suggested while waving his hand at the scenery. 

“It would make even less sense than you do, Crichton.  No portion would be completed correctly.” 

“My point exactly.” 

The warrior’s confusion was like getting slapped with a pillow:  there was the solid impact of D’Argo’s inability to understand what he was talking about, softened by his attempt to envision what that mind-twisting conversation might look like once it was placed on a canvas.  D’Argo stopped walking and looked around him more carefully, trying to match his surroundings to the annoyingly nonsensical dialogue that his human friend had taught him.  Crichton could feel every thought, as well as the battle to keep frustration from drowning the first hints of understanding.  John smothered a laugh and gestured for them to continue their search. 

   * * * * *

Aeryn scrambled up one of the ladders leading to the Den and vaulted up to perch beside Pilot.  She jostled the heavily armored head.  “No change,” she muttered when there was no flicker of a response, and slid down to stand alongside him.  Slides and levers were manipulated with little conscious effort, the embedded knowledge flowing without hindrance after arns of practice, and she consulted the displays once again. 

“Any improvement?” Chiana’s shout floated up from the level below the Den. 

“He’s stabilized, that’s all.  The flow we’ve created is keeping him alive, nothing more.  Whatever is causing this, it’s getting worse.”  Aeryn slapped a circuit shut, cringed when the loud crack of her palm against the surface echoed around the otherwise quiet chamber, and then consulted the readouts one more time.  “Come on, Pilot,” she exhorted the motionless occupant of the Den.  “All we need is for you to wake up long enough to tell us what’s wrong.  We can’t do this on our own.” 

An attempt to get the DRDs to lead them to the source of the problem had resulted in ten or twelve of the drones scattering in different directions, each one squeaking and chirruping with equal levels of mechanical distress.  Aeryn had recalled them and tried again, with almost the same results.  The only difference the second time around was that every single DRD in the Den at the time -- more than twenty-five of them -- had fired off into the tiers, each in a different direction.  Perplexed, the assembled group of biological crewmembers had waited impatiently while Aeryn recalled the DRDs, and this time ordered a single robot per person to lead them to the source of whatever was ailing Pilot. 

Each individual had been led to a different portion of Moya. 

“Should they stop?”  Rygel’s inquiry brought Aeryn out of her depressed reverie.  The hynerian was hovering to one side of the center island where he could view both Aeryn and the long drop to the bottom of the neural cluster. 

“No, have them keep going.  It’s the only thing keeping Pilot alive at this point.”  One tier below the Den, Naj Gil, despite his weakened state, was tirelessly pumping critical nutrients and fluids into Pilot’s circulatory system.  Setting up the hand pump and the lines to the tanks of recently loaded fluids had taken less than a quarter arn, and had been completed none too soon.  The shelled symbiote had turned an unpleasant shade of greenish-brown by the time they’d finished arranging the makeshift system, and Moya had begun letting out hull-shaking groans of distress. 

Another of the leviathan’s rumbling moans reverberated through the central neural plexus, echoed by the shrill cries of the bat swarms residing in the great cavern. 

“We’re not going to let him die,” Aeryn called to the ship around her.  “We’re going to figure this out, Moya.”  A single DRD appeared out of the shadows and coasted to a stop at her feet.  It let out a single short chirp, calling into question her ability to carry out her promise, and motored back into the gloom.  Aeryn sought to assure the mentality directing the small robot.  “Yes, we are going to figure this out.  I promise.  We need some help though, Moya.  There has to be a way for you to show us where the problem is located.”

Several DRDs appeared out of the dark and once again sallied out of the Den in different directions.  “No better than before,” Rygel said.  “She’s more confused that Pilot at this point.  It’s all very good for you to tell those lies to Moya, but what do we do now?”

Aeryn glared at the hovering Dominar for a microt, then turned her attention to the displays without indulging in a comeback.  “Those weren’t lies.  I meant what I told her.”  All motion behind the consoles stopped as she considered the dilemma.  “I have an idea, but I’m not sure it will work.  And it’s risky.” 

“What are you going to do?” Rygel asked.

“Not me.  It has to be Crichton.”

   * * * * *

The success was intoxicating.  John could tell to the microt whenever Hox relaxed his vigilance, and reveled in his own ability to manipulate the new talent.  He played with it, letting in the sound of a single hvisk mind, then another and another, until the rush and roar of their thoughts was deafening, and then shut them all out with only the smallest of battles.  For more than an arn, he had been searching the station with his mind alone, questing further away from his body with each successful foray.

Hox continued to coach him through each encounter, always riding along with John’s mind in case he lost control.  The whistling encouragement continued.  “Excellent.  However, you must not overestimate your ability.  You still have much to learn.  It will take very little for you to be overwhelmed.”  He cocked his head and stepped closer to John, black eyes peering into blue ones with curiosity.  “Explain this Obi-Wan Kenobi?” he asked on a four-note harmonious trill of humor. 

“Oh crap,” John mumbled.  It had been the cadence of Hox’s delivery as much as his choice of words that had triggered the images.  He hadn’t meant for that particular thought to get loose, and wasn’t sure if Hox had been insulted by the comparison.  As good as he was getting at hearing other minds, it remained an erratic capability.  Catching coherent images tended to be a hit and miss venture relying more on the strength of the sender than his ability to sort things out.

“Problem?” D’Argo asked.

John glanced at D’Argo.  His luxan friend paced along beside him without complaint, following him everywhere just in case his strength or protection was needed.  His friend was left out of a majority of the discussion, and yet there wasn’t the smallest hint of dissatisfaction or hurt feelings in the small flashes he was catching from the luxan.  D’Argo’s emotions were far easier to catch than Hox’s.  John had no idea whether that was attributable to Hox’s control or the fact that he was friends with D’Argo. 
 
Crichton didn’t realize how lost he had become in the wash of emotions and thoughts until the question was repeated.  “Is there a problem, John?”
 
He shook himself to clear his mind, and began walking again.  “Not really.  I’m having trouble figuring out how to explain Star Wars to him.”  It had taken endless arns of descriptions before D’Argo understood his references to the movie.  John wondered if his telepathic link to Hox could shorten that to something in the range of microts, and began searching for the right place to begin the explanation. 

“Thinking about that Degoba place?” D’Argo asked.  Fondness for his friend’s peculiar behaviors.  Pleasure that he knows something about Crichton that this bird-like creature does not.  Jealousy.

“No.  Old Ben.  The hermit, mystic guy living in the desert,” John explained, putting it into terms he knew D’Argo would understand.  “D’Argo --” 

He wanted to tell this gentle-spirited warrior not to envy the temporary mental bond he had developed with Hox, not to worry that their friendship might become less important because of what was happening on this station, and didn’t know how to put it into words.  He delivered a firm thump against D’Argo’s shoulder instead, letting his fist linger there for a microt before stepping away.  “I need you here.  I can’t do this without you, D’Argo.” 

He didn’t need telepathy to know that he had done and said the right thing.  The smile and D’Argo’s familiar way of looking down his nose at him was all John needed to know that he had dispelled the small insecurity.   

Desperation.  Concern bordering on full-blown anxiety.  Her knowledge is not enough. 

“There’s something wrong aboard Moya,” John blurted.  “Aeryn’s been trying to take care of it herself, but she can’t fix the problem.”   

“John?  D’Argo?”  Aeryn’s voice blared over his comms before he finished explaining what he had caught from her. 

“What’s wrong, Aeryn?”

“Have the hvisk fixed whatever they did to you yet?”

John glanced first at Hox, finding little insight in the black eyes above the expressionless beak, and then at D’Argo, locating no more help there than he had from Hox.  Aeryn’s question didn’t match the fast flash of emotions he had received from her just prior to her transmission.  He shrugged, assuming he had interpreted the overheard thoughts incorrectly, and answered her.  “No.  There’s been a little hitch in that plan.”   

“Then I need your help aboard Moya.  There’s something wrong with Pilot.” 

John looked up from where he had been staring at his boots.  D’Argo looked every bit as surprised as he felt.  No one knew more about the complexities of Moya and Pilot than Aeryn.  If she didn’t know what was affecting Pilot, then it was unlikely that either one of them was going to do any better. 

“What kind of wrong?” D’Argo asked. 

“He is being starved and he’s lost consciousness.  I’ve checked the neural readouts, and everything indicates that he is no longer interacting with Moya.  She’s starting to get worried.  If we don’t do something fast, she is going to start to panic.” 

John asked, “Aeryn, is there any chance she’s pregnant again?  Have you checked for a baby?” 

“That’s the first thing I considered,” she transmitted back.  “We’ve checked everything.  Moya isn’t doing this to Pilot, at least not deliberately.”  There was a pause.  “John, I can’t find the problem.  I need your help.  If this gets any worse, Pilot might die -- He’s so bright, so like the other one.  He knows how to figure things out, not like me.  He’ll know -- and if Moya panics while she’s docked with the Kyelligg, there’s no telling how badly she might injure herself if she tries to pull away.” 

“We’re on our way, Aeryn,” D’Argo called. 

Crichton turned toward Hox, intending to explain that Moya and Pilot had to come first, and that he would return to find the source of the hvisk infection as soon as they took care of their own crisis.  Before he could put together a coherent thought to depict what was going on, a motion six motras behind Hox distracted him from the latest crisis.  A pair of hvisk flitted from behind a pillar, glanced in his direction and then moved fast, coming toward them at a run. 

In the short time he had been aboard the Kyelligg, not once had he seen an adult hvisk move at anything more than a fast walk.  The smaller children scampered about in complex flitting patterns, but even they didn’t actually run.  They tended to bounce, intermixing odd little hops in with fast skittering rushes.  The two males coming toward them were lunging across the short distance with aggressive intent, shoving bystanders roughly aside in their haste.  John reached for D’Argo’s arm to get his attention, his eyes fixed on the rapidly approaching pair. 

“Hox!”  He had intended to ask for help touching their minds.  It wasn’t necessary.  The constantly improving ability lanced out on its own, touched one mind and then the other, and retreated. 

There was nothing to feel. 

The two figures -- one with a bright green crest and the other with a bright blue one that suggested they had barely attained adulthood -- had almost reached the spot where he stood with Hox and D’Argo.  They were alive, material and tangible, and yet there was nothing inside them.  They were empty shells with none of the roiling mixture of thoughts and emotions that he had come to expect from a living being. 

“Look out!”  Crichton shoved Hox to one side, away from the attackers, and grabbed for Winona.  Both pairs of black eyes fastened on him, and too late he realized that he had been the target all along, not Hox.  “D’Argo!”  The first hvisk barreled into him, the gleaming wrist-barb slashing toward his eyes.  They went down together under the force of the impact, pulse pistol pinned under the combined weight of their bodies, and he felt his attacker’s feet scraping along his legs.  It was trying to get its legs up to wield the hooked fourth toe, seeking to disembowel him.  He clutched the squirming body against him, trying to deny his assailant enough room to get its legs up between their bodies. 

The hvisk squawked a rasping cry at him.  Its beak opened wide and its tongue, nearly luxan in its speed and reach, lashed out toward John’s face.  Vicious overlapping layers of barbs struck at him, brushed against his cheek, and he rolled his head to the side, barely getting clear before it yanked back.  The hvisk lunged at him again, tongue flickering out too fast to be seen.  John threw one hand up to protect his face, willingly sacrificing a portion of his grip on the writhing body.  Barbs caught at his glove, bit deep, ripped away shreds of black leather.  The tongue lashed out a third time and tore more leather from his glove. 

“Barbs?” he yelled.  “Why doesn’t anyone tell me about these things?”  The rest of his complaint was forgotten, lost to the struggle to stay alive.

Feet and three-fingered hands thrust at him in concert.  The hvisk levered itself out of his one-armed grasp, tongue and claws continuing to search for an opening.  The space between them increased and Crichton grappled desperately at the squirming body, coming up with nothing more than a fistful of shifting robes, and knew that he was in danger of losing his intestines.  A hooked claw gouged at his belly, skittered with a squeal across his belt buckle and then raked across the thick leather of his gunbelt.  Claws swept upward with the same result, beating at his midsection seeking soft tissue and vulnerable organs.  The foot came up again.  Viciously slashing toes slid along his leathered thigh, and he rolled to one side, accepting lacerated muscles if it would save him from being eviscerated.  Bone squealed against metal and alloy.  The hooked claw screeched across Winona and snagged at the holster before breaking free with a fast snap.   

“D’Argo!” he yelled again, dodging his head to one side to avoid another attack from the hvisk’s darting tongue.  “D’Argo, get this guy off me!”  Somewhere beyond his own frantic battle, he heard the cracking boom of the Qualta rifle drowning out the non-stop squawking of an upset hvisk, then he was too busy avoiding claws, slashing spurs, and barbed tongue to register what was going on around him.   

John beat at the jabbing head with his free hand.  He hit only the rock-hard beak.  The heavy clawed feet were scrabbling at his thighs and lower body, sliding across the leather, one hard gouge away from slicing into his belly.  And in the midst of all the confusion, he saw the wrist barb coming at him again, swinging in from the side, this time aiming for his throat.

“D’ARGO!!!” 

* * * * *

[KernilCrash]

Chapter 8

The deep cracking boom of D’Argo’s Qualta rifle set off a second round of frantic squawking somewhere nearby:  a frenetic expression of alarm rather than injury.  Crichton didn’t have time to figure out who was making the noise or why.  He flung up a hand to protect his throat, lost another layer of leather off his glove to the lashing barbed tongue, and felt the cockspur sink into leather instead of flesh.  He rolled desperately to one side in an attempt to toss his attacker clear.  The glistening flash of the sharpened spur flicked by his eyes, missing him by no more than a fraction of a dench.  It snagged at the shoulder of his jacket and tore free, taking a chunk of jacket with it.  It lacked the vigor of the other strikes, delivered half-heartedly rather than with the furious strength of every other slash.  There was a final gouging pressure against his stomach without the lethal intent, the hvisk using him like a trampoline, and then the weight was gone. 

Crichton rolled to his knees, gasping from the kick he had just gotten in his guts, and saw the vivid blue and green crests of their attackers dodging through the crowd. 

“Those are …”  He wanted to yell to Hox that the two hvisk were infected and couldn’t find the breath to complete the short sentence.

D’Argo dragged him to his feet.  “We figured that out!  Go!” 

Hox fell behind in a matter of microts.  John barely noticed that they were leaving him behind, too caught up in the pursuit as he and D’Argo charged after the pair of would-be assassins.  The chase took them out of the smaller street were the scuffle had occurred, cut across one of the main avenues, and plunged into a secondary artery.  Dodging around most of the pedestrians, occasionally tripping over children or shrubs, sometimes shoving adults aside in their hurry, they snaked into one street after another, always moving up-station toward the outward fringes of the Kyelligg’s structure.  Their quarry began choosing increasingly smaller avenues, shoving their way through crowds more ruthlessly than John and D’Argo, leaving a twittering, whistling trail of concern behind them. 

“We’re losing them!” Crichton cried.  The two hvisk, although not fast runners, had a sinuous, slinking gait that carried them through the crowds faster than their pursuers.  He could see little other than the bobbing crests, and then even those disappeared from sight.

“Left!” D’Argo called.  The luxan’s greater height gave him an advantage.  He could see over the other pedestrians.   

Ten motras ahead of them, the street split into two of the smallest alleys they had encountered so far.  Each of their choices made one of the strange twists so common aboard the Kyelligg.  They were presented with a choice of taking what appeared to be either the left or the right wall of each of the narrower passageways. 

“Which left?” John asked.  “Left-left or right-left?” 

“Just pick one!”

There was no time to figure out which side of the tunnel the infected hvisk had chosen.  With D’Argo treading close on his heels, Crichton barged through a planting of shrubs and took what looked like the more ‘down’ side of the left-hand choice.  He stumbled, momentarily disoriented by the gravity shift.  D’Argo hauled him up, propelled him forward with a shove, and they picked up speed now that the crowds had disappeared.   

“Where did they go?” D’Argo asked.  There was no sign of the hvisk ahead of them.   

“Frell that!  Where did our walkway go?” 

Their side of the alleyway came to an end in a lushly planted embankment.  Thick shrubbery climbed upward for a distance of three motras then abruptly turned upside down.  No more than a motra above his head, hanging baskets of flowers and a trellis of vinery levitated into the air, dangling toward the surface on the other side of the structure.  This smallest branch of the station had become too narrow to allow for a surface on both sides of the interior, and they had chosen the wrong floor.

“Shit!” Crichton exploded in frustration. 

“There!”  D’Argo grabbed him by the shoulders of his jacket, swung him around and propelled him toward what he at first thought was nothing more than a garden.  Trusting his friend, he accelerated toward a narrow pathway, and discovered what D’Argo had already seen:  it arced around the curving side of the tunnel to reach the opposite side.  Fifteen microts later they were on the far side of the tunnel, upside-down to where they had been moments earlier, and searching for some sign of the fleeing hvisk. 

“They’re gone.  We lost them,” John said.  Except for the occasional hvisk lounging outside a living structure, the street was deserted.  “Can you smell them?”

D’Argo shook his head and let out a long sigh of resignation.  “Hvisk all smell the same.” 

Crichton spun around in a circle, looking for any sign that their attackers had passed this way.  Serenity reigned in every direction.  There were no trampled flowers, no shocked and twittering bystanders, no bobbing green and blue crests to be seen.  “Crap!  Heckle and Jeckle weren’t the ones we’re looking for, but they probably could have led us to the boss bird.” 

He gestured at D’Argo and moved off a fast walk, continuing in the direction they’d last seen the two hvisk headed.  Thirty microts later the narrow alleyway came to a dead end. 

“They waited until we got stuck and then reversed course,” John concluded. 

“Or ducked into one of the structures,” D’Argo said.  “They couldn’t have counted on us taking the wrong side of the tunnel.” 

Crichton lashed out at a small planter filled with blue bulbous flowers.  His kick sent the entire container sailing five motras into a garden, spewing dirt and vibrantly hued petals in every direction.  “I want this out of my head!  It could be over by now if we hadn’t lost them!”  He indulged in a growling shriek of frustration, sighed, reassembled his self-control, and started walking back the way they’d come. 

“Can you find them the other way, John?” D’Argo asked after several dozen microts of silence.  “With your mind?  They might be nearby.  Any one of these whatevers,” D’Argo gestured at the neat rows of hvisk dwellings, “might be concealing them.”   

“Cubblings,” Crichton provided the equivalent of the hvisk word for their residences.  It was a mindless comment provided to give him time to consider D’Argo’s query.  His control was so tenuous.  There was no way to describe to D’Argo the hair-thin margin between having it all neatly contained and a complete loss of command over his ability.  During the chaos of the fight and then the chase, the innate ability that Hox had sensed had taken over while he was busy with more important things.  Now that he had time to think about it, he could feel the pressure of millions of thoughts pressing against that instinctively erected barricade. 

Crichton bit his lower lip and considered the advantages of finding the elusive source of the hvisk insanity so quickly, weighing it against the risk of letting down the barriers in his mind.  The sooner he pinpointed the infection, the sooner the hvisk would agree to reverse what they’d done to him. 

They emerged from the narrow alley, hurried back through a larger street, and finally came to a stop where it intersected one of the second largest avenues.  There were hundreds of hvisk in sight, squawking and whistling as they went about their business.  One of the flocks of children flooded by, watched over by a single female, many of them greeting the comparatively odd-looking pair with cheerful toots. 

John surveyed the mass of living creatures and considered his options one more time, hoping that Hox would appear out of the crowd to help him with what he was about to try. 

“Never mind.  Don’t do it,” D’Argo said. 

“No, I can do it.  It’s just that --” 

It was just that if he lost control, he wasn’t sure what it would do to him.  The ability was getting stronger with every passing arn, allowing him to eavesdrop on more and more people each time he opened his mind.  If the recently bestowed talent broke loose, he wasn’t sure it would stop with just the occupants of the Kyelligg and Moya.  The idea of listening in on all of the Uncharted Territories without being certain he could silence it scared him.  John shoved that fear aside, and thought of everything he would gain:  the search of the Kyelligg might be finished in a matter of microts instead of arns, the unwanted telepathy would be shut down, and he could get back to dealing with relatively simple things like trying to destroy information stored on a Peacekeeper Command Carrier. 

“Aeryn needs us back aboard Moya.  I’ll do this, and if I come up empty, we’ll head back.  Don’t go away.”  He felt the unvoiced jolt of protest next to him, saying that the honor-bound warrior would never abandon him at a moment when he needed D’Argo’s help so much.  “You’re a good friend, D’Argo,” he assured his companion.  The borrowed pang of emotion evaporated. 

John started by envisioning a clenched fist, all five fingers crunched into an aching tightness, then eased the mental pinky away from the rest no more than a micro-dench.  The first thoughts oozed in, and he assessed them, searching for the chill he had felt for a split-microt before the attack.  The deluge washed over him, each element feeling normal, and he loosened the knotted grip on his consciousness another fraction. 

“Breathe, John,” he was reminded by someone else. 

He took several breaths, and then eased outward along the corridors of the Kyelligg, searching.  Joy, love, sorrow, someone on the verge of dying of old age; he slid past the emotions and kept going.  A couple celebrated conception, crooning over the bulge in the female’s abdomen that would become an egg.  John paused long enough for his imagination to create the ludicrous mental vision of a large egg sitting in a bassinette wearing a frilly bonnet, took time to smile, and moved on.  Streaming up-station, outward along the great arms of the Kyelligg, sliding in and out of alleyways, he spun through homes and businesses, sensing only the thrum of normal minds.

Reaching the limits of how far he assumed the two hvisk could have traveled by then, he reversed course, flowed past D’Argo, and tried in the other direction. 

“You’re not breathing,” said the deep-voiced guardian of his body.  Air flooded into starved lungs.  He dedicated several microts to the task of keeping his body alive, then resumed his search, moving down-station this time. 

He discovered what felt like a rock, as cold as a chunk of granite that stood forever hidden from the sun.  It was a dense spot of no emotion, of denied thoughts and feelings.  John targeted the abnormal mind and lunged toward it, seeking the owner.

His body has grown cold while she lies against him, unmoving, unfeeling, unseeing.  There are no tears left, and her head and throat ache from crying.  She sits up slowly, letting the shimmering thermal sheet fall away, and takes her last look at him.  The features are familiar, but the person is no longer there.  Half an arn ago she could have tricked herself into believing he was only sleeping, that she need only wait for him to wake and tell her it was all a hideous joke.  The time for denial is over …

“Crap!”  Far too late to save himself the shared despair, John realized who he had located.  He backed away with frantic haste, trying to get clear before any more of the remembered sights were loosed on him.  His focus began to fragment.  He fought against the encroaching bedlam, trying to reconstruct the questing locus he had been using to search the station. 

“What’s wrong?” D’Argo’s alarmed response sounded next to him. 

Aeryn, D’Argo, himself, remembering to breath, the Kyelligg, Hox was somewhere, he touched the vast awareness of Moya, there were millions of hvisk, Chiana was in the Den worrying about Pilot, Rygel was hungry as usual.  Desperate to locate some sort of safe mental haven, John widened out his reach … and lost control entirely.  He was allowed a single, final microt to reflect that this was exactly what he had been afraid would happen, and then the dam in his mind bulged, cracked, and gave way before the mass of thoughts.  He was aware of a painful grip on his upper arms to remind him that D’Argo was near his body watching over him, and then there was nothing but the impossible number of thoughts invading his mind. 

* * * * *

“Crichton, move your feet.”  D’Argo shoved the stumbling, disoriented human to one side until the black clad body came up against a wall with a heavy thump.  The impact had no effect on the unfocussed stare, nor did it change the irregular rasping breaths that seemed to take all of Crichton’s energy to produce. 

Jamming a forearm against John’s chest to keep him upright, D’Argo stripped the glove off his left hand, scowled at the already bloodied palm, then folded the fist in on itself and compressed John’s hand, deliberately trying to recreate the pain that had helped him regain control arns earlier.   This time it didn’t work.  There was no change except that John was having more trouble breathing.   

“Crichton!” he bellowed into John’s ear.  “Concentrate.  You can do this yourself.” 

“Duh … Duh … D’Argo,” came the stuttering, confused reply.  “Make … make it … it … Stop it.” 

Never in all his cycles of battle or imprisonment had he ever felt so helpless.  Not even the moment when he had found Lo’lann’s lifeless body had held this level of torment; she had been dead and beyond the reach of pain and suffering.  His friend had not asked for this burden, or done anything to bring it upon himself, and the injury -- the torture -- was beyond D’Argo’s ability to repair.  Battle injuries he understood.  Those could be bandaged, the flow of blood stemmed, the mangled portion of the body treated in some manner.  The damage to Crichton was hidden from sight and touch, and there was only one person D’Argo could think of who could help him. 

“John, where is Hox?  Listen to me.  Tell me which way to go to take you to Hox!”  His shouts yielded only a slow motion back-and-forth swing of the head.  D’Argo took Crichton’s head in both hands, trying to steady both it and the swaying body beneath it.  “Focus, John.  You were doing it a few microts ago.  You can get it back.” 

“Too … many,” Crichton gasped.  He had begun to shake, a shock driven palsy that was increasing with every passing microt. 

“Me, listen only to me,” the warrior shouted at him, trying to break in to wherever his friend was suffering.  “You said you were learning to control this.  Shut them out of your mind!  Do it, John!”  Nothing improved.   

A soft whistling sounded near his left knee, and D’Argo spared a fast, annoyed glance downward.  A young hvisk stood there, peering up at the shuddering human with curious eyes and a wilting crest.  Three more gathered around, all whistling an identical tune, gently patting both D’Argo’s and Crichton’s legs.  John started to moan.  His hands pulled weakly at D’Argo’s, trying to get free of the stabilizing grasp. 

“He’s suffering,” D’Argo snapped at the little ones.  “He’s hearing too many of you.” 

He had meant to scare them away with the barking growl, hoping to lessen the chaos in his friend’s mind, but the flock of youngsters that had passed several dozen microts earlier was suddenly swarming around them, compressing into a slowly surging wave of iridescent crests and gleaming black eyes.  The patting touches were constant now, battling to make contact as the whistling melody strengthened and grew louder. 

“Down.  Let me … sit down,” John demanded.

D’Argo turned him around, pulled him into a firm embrace beneath his arms and around his chest, then carefully lowered him in stages to sit in the space the flock had cleared for him.  The small three-fingered hands returned, patting at the bowed head and shoulders in time with their tune.  Hesitant to disturb the melody, D’Argo called quietly to the nearly buried human.  “John?” 

A quiet sob of relief reached him, followed by, “It’s better.  There’s only one noise now, and it’s kind of peaceful.”  The words were slurred, as though Crichton couldn’t hear his own voice speaking.  Instead of reassuring him, it served to make D’Argo more anxious.   

He straightened up and scanned left and right, searching for some sign of Hox.  The blue-crested female he had seen chaperoning the children was hurrying toward him, several other adults trailing in her wake, but there was no sign of the one individual who could control the runaway ability.  “Can you help him?” he asked the female when she reached the outer rim of the group gathered around his knees. 

She bobbed and nodded, gesturing toward the other adults clattering toward them.  The children greeted her, and the chorus began to break up into individual chirps.  She whistled sharply at the group, apparently ordering them to continue since the recital immediately resumed in full strength.  The other adults, all males, arrived.  They spaced themselves evenly around the group before wading carefully into the children to reach Crichton.  Their lower pitched warbling matched the tune two octaves below the immature serenade, taking over the chant.  Relieved of their rescue mission, the children scattered, tootling happily as they waved and scampered away. 

“Are they controlling it?  Is it quiet?” D’Argo asked.  The four older hvisk were pulling John to his feet. 

“No.  They’re sort of drowning it out.”  Crichton turned to look at his friend.  His eyes were wandering in separate directions.  It looked as though each eye wasn’t quite sure what it was supposed to be focusing on and didn’t know what the other one was doing.  “It’s a single noise, but …”  He staggered and was steadied by the hvisk before he could collapse.  “It makes it … it’s hard to think.  Loud inside.  Have them take us back … to … to …” 

“To Moya?” D’Argo finished for him.  John nodded wearily, continuing to look distracted.  “Can you take us to our ship?” the luxan asked the escort.  Four heads bobbed a response that allowed them to continue the song without a break.  They wheeled around, supporting John between two of them, and began a weaving, stumbling journey through the streets of the station, all the while continuing the repetitive melody that was blunting the assault on the defenseless mind. 

“You’re almost there,” D’Argo told John several hundred microts later.  He recognized some of the landmarks.

“Hox.”  John stopped walking. 

“What?” 

“Hox is close.”  The shambling, ill-directed movements came to a stop.  John straightened up and took several deep, relaxed breaths.  “Thank you,” he said, nodding to his escort.  The group chirped their response, bowed toward him several times each, and made their way back the way they had come. 

“He’s restored control?” D’Argo asked.  “From a distance this time?” 

John rubbed one temple with the heel of his hand and nodded.  “He’s not that far away, and it’s getting easier.  He didn’t do it for me this time.  He showed me how to do it myself.”  He shook his head deprecatingly.  “I kind of lost it completely that time.”

“Is there any damage from what happened?  How do you feel?” 

“Like the Roto-Rooter man got in there and scoured out the inside of my skull.  I’m okay, D.  A little rattled, and it feels like my brain got dry cleaned and pressed, but I’m okay.”
 
It was so like Crichton, D’Argo thought.  It was a perfect example of the way he somehow managed to keep slogging forward no matter what obstacles were set in his way, often summing it up with something that made absolutely no sense.  It had been a long and difficult three cycles since the day he had grabbed what he thought was a sebacean by the throat and threatened to kill him, and through it all, he had only seen Crichton ready to give up on three occasions -- each of which involved Aeryn.

Two realizations hit home with a nearly physical impact.  First, that John was every bit as distraught over his relationship with Aeryn as he had ever been in the past; and second, that Crichton very likely was listening to every one of his thoughts.  D’Argo glanced quickly to the side, checking on his friend.  A furtive flicker of blue eyes caught his own. 

“I’m sorry, John.” 

“It’s okay, man.  Nothing you can do about it.  She’s back on Moya, that’s all that counts.  We’ll figure it out eventually.” 

The heel of John’s fist thumped hard against D’Argo’s shoulder, the third time John had done that to him in a single day.  It was a sign of the degree of stress he was enduring.  He normally didn’t make that sort of contact without a great deal of cause, and never more than once per debacle.  D’Argo stepped aside and motioned John forward, then fell in behind where he could watch both Crichton and their surroundings.  The problem aboard Moya had to be resolved, after which they still had to find the mysterious source of the hvisk infection. 

* * * * *

Rygel hovered alongside Pilot’s motionless bulk, watching Aeryn’s efforts with uncharacteristic interest.  Jool was a half motra behind him and to one side, leaning over the consoles in an attempt to view the indecipherable displays.  “Any improvement?” the interion asked.

“Give her a microt,” Rygel growled.  “She’s checking.”   

Aeryn depressed another large button and watched the results.  Half an arn’s relentless work with the controls had finally yielded a reading that indicated a pressure buildup in some of the lines feeding Pilot’s circulatory system.  It meant that they had somehow become clogged.  Several attempts to clear them or reroute the flow had resulted in a momentary improvement in Pilot’s condition only to be followed by a relapse microts later.  The frustration mounted.  If only she had a neural transponder, she would be able to follow Moya’s impulses directly to the source of the problem. 

Moya groaned.  An extended, rolling rumble of emotional distress emanated from the walls themselves, reminding everyone present that the leviathan was unlikely to survive for very long if Pilot died.  Finding another of his species to take his place would involve heading deep into Peacekeeper occupied space.  The life expectancy of the entire crew would drop to fewer than one or two dozen solar days if Moya’s guide and partner didn’t recover and they chose to remain aboard her.  They had too many enemies in this sector of space.  Without Pilot, their fate would be transferred into the care of Crais and Talyn, and would hinge on the erratic pair’s willingness to take the entire crew on board the young gunship. 

“Where the frell is Crichton?”  Goaded by concern and impatience, Aeryn slapped at a lever.  The indicators flashed out a warning and she pulled it back to the correct setting.  “It’s the same as every other attempt I’ve made to clear the pressure buildup.  There was a fifteen-microt improvement and then it reverted.  He’s dying.” 

Moya let out another groan, longer and more distressed than the one microts earlier.  This time it didn’t end.  It changed into a moaning shriek and the entire chamber began to shake. The noise shifted up several octaves, turning into a howl of over-stressed biomechanoid plating. 

“She’s pulling away from the station!” Aeryn yelled over the din.  “No!  Moya, stop!”  She lunged to the far side of Pilot’s station and depressed several control surfaces, trying to shut down the leviathan’s flow of calorics to her drive system.  The tremors beneath their feet died away.  A moment later the noise and shuddering returned, even stronger than before.  It was getting hard to stay on her feet.  “Moya, stop!  Shut down your engines!” 

“Stop her!”  Jool lost her balance and toppled to one side.  Her desperate cry changed from one of mere concern over what Moya was doing to a scream of pain and dismay.   

Rygel’s deeper pitched voice joined the chaos, and then everyone was yelling at once, trying to break through the leviathan’s panic.  Chiana joined the cacophony, yelling over the comms first to find out what was happening and then adding her own entreaty for Moya to remain calm. 

Clinging to one of Pilot’s motionless arms to keep from being tossed off her feet, Aeryn opened a channel routed directly from her comms into the leviathan’s receivers and tried one more time.  “Moya, if you leave the Kyelligg we may never find out what is causing this.  To save Pilot, you have to remain calm and stay here!  You have to trust us, Moya!” 

It worked. 

“Frell me,” Chiana transmitted into the abrupt silence.  “What caused that?” 

“Moya is scared,” Rygel answered. 

“Well, she scared the dren out of me, so tell her she’s not alone in the frightened department and ask her not to do that again.  And there’s a huge frelling crack in the internal bulkhead down here now, just in case anyone cares.”  The comms channel let out a peculiar crackling chirp, suggesting that Chiana had either slapped it or crushed it under her boot, and went silent before anyone could ask about the extent of the crack. 

“Now what do we do?” Jool asked.  Her ringlets had cooled from an iridescent scarlet to a shade closer to its normal, eye-watering hue.   

“We wait for John.”  Aeryn ducked beneath the forward edge of Pilot’s cranial shell on her way to the far side of his station.  She could tuck herself into the shadows there, perched behind one of Pilot’s shoulders where there wasn’t enough light for anyone else to see her clearly.  Sitting in the gloom, half-obscured from view, gave her an opportunity to think without having to worry that the others might see her expression.  She could allow herself to get angry that John hadn’t appeared yet, be afraid of what he might pick up from her thoughts once he arrived, and she could take a few microts to wallow in the disorganized mixture of emotions that got loose every time she thought of John Crichton and didn’t know which one she was thinking about. 

It happened again the moment she made herself comfortable.  A stray thought about John, consisting mostly of impatience, billowed out of control.  The memory of one face, full of love and passion in the throes of the first night they had spent together aboard Talyn, was overlaid by another set of identical features, this time looking hurt and bewildered when she turned away from him and left the damaged transport pod without speaking.  The same.  Not the same.  John Crichton, and yet … John Crichton.   

As if cued by her thoughts, his voice burst from the comms.  “Aeryn?  We’re on our way.  There was a … sort of a problem here.  I’ll be there in forty microts.” 

It was less than that.  It was barely fifteen microts before Crichton jogged into the Den with D’Argo following close behind; which meant that he had been within range of her thoughts the entire time.  She ducked her head to check on a readout, giving herself time to organize and contain her runaway emotions.

“What’s the problem?”  John started to haul himself up on the consoles, looked more carefully at the raised wall around Pilot made of living leviathan components, and backed away without touching it.  “What’s wrong with Moya?”

“What’s the matter with you?” she asked, referring to his retreat.   

Rygel answered Crichton’s question, ignoring Aeryn’s query.  “It’s not Moya.  It’s Pilot.  He’s dying and no one knows why.” 

Crichton laid a gloved hand on the outer surface of Pilot’s station, paused for two microts, then climbed up to kneel beside the inert bulk of Pilot.  “Touching someone makes things worse.  I never know when it’s going to blow right through my ability to control it.”   He surveyed the controls for several microts, considering the problem, and then suggested, “Check with Moya.  See if she can help.”       

“We did that!” Aeryn snapped at him. 

John didn’t respond by getting angry or impatient the way she had become accustomed to over the past three cycles.  He simply looked away from her the way he had begun to with increasing frequency.  “Okay, I’ll assume you’ve already tried everything I could possibly think of.  You know more about Pilot and Moya than anyone else on this side of the universe.  So why did you haul my sorry ass back here?” 

“You have to listen to Moya.  You’re the only person who can hear her.” 

John slid down off the consoles and backed away from her, shaking his head.  “You’ve -- you have just got to be kidding, Aeryn.  Please tell me that this is your version of a really bad joke.”

Over the cycles, Aeryn had become accustomed to even the most peculiar of John’s Earth-behaviors, but the rapid headshakes that had begun looked more like the deranged behavior that had appeared when the neuro-chip had begun to take control than one of his usual quirks.  She tried again, more calmly.  “We don’t have any other choice.  Pilot is running out of time.” 

His reaction grew more vehement, not less.  “Try walkie-talkies, a cell phone, communicators from the Enterprise.  Try a couple of cans with a string between them, sign language, cue cards, or a teleprompter.  I don’t care what you try, but if I link up with Moya, she is going to toast what little remaining unaltered gray matter I’ve got left!” 

“John --”

“No!  You can’t ask me to do that.  She damn near blew every circuit breaker from my toes to my nose the last time I tapped in on her.  This is the Aurora Chair in reverse.  It takes every memory and thought on this side of the universe and jams it into my head!”  He emphasized the shouted description with a fast thrust of his hand, pantomiming stuffing an object into his ear, and then headed for one of the bridges leading out of the Den.  D’Argo reached to grab his arm, trying to stop him.  Crichton swatted his hand away, took two more steps, and then came to a halt, fidgeting indecisively.  “You tell her, D’Argo.  She’ll believe you.”

D’Argo dropped his voice to a whisper.  “John, you’re getting better at controlling it.  You said so yourself on the station.  We’re talking about saving both Pilot and Moya.” 

“Better doesn’t mean good at it, D’Argo.  You saw what happened the last time I tried a solo act.”  John touched both hands to the sides of his head for a moment then flailed outward, indicating his loss of control a quarter-arn earlier.  “I still feel like my brain got run through a food processor, and now you’re asking me to do it again.  Moya is … she is more than I can handle, D’Argo.  You have no idea what it’s like.” 

D’Argo slapped John lightly on the shoulder, accepting the explanation, and turned to face Aeryn.  “There has to be another way.  What else can we try?”   

“I’ve tried everything.  This is the only way,” she insisted. 

Crichton looked around the Den, first staring up toward the ceiling then down into the neural plexus.  He wandered to one side, working his way along the edge of the central platform, all the while staring down into the depths of Moya’s neural cavern. 

“Crichton,” Jool began. 

He waved her into silence.  “Give me a microt.  I’m thinking about committing mental hari-kari here.”

D’Argo moved to catch up to him.  “John, don’t do it.  You said it yourself.  It’s too much to ask.” 

“Aeryn’s right.  It’s Pilot.  We can’t just let him die.” 

“Then at least get Hox.  Just in case you lose --”

“Shut up, D’Argo!” John interrupted, stopping him before he could blurt out what had happened aboard the Kyelligg. 

Aeryn zeroed in on D’Argo’s concern and John’s reaction as if she were the one who could read minds.  “What happened?  What went wrong?”

“If you can call --” D’Argo started. 

“Nothing went wrong,” John cut in before his friend had a chance to reveal the unadorned truth.  “I’m not so sharp at aiming this talent in any particular direction, that’s all.” 

“You’re not so sharp with any talent,” Rygel interjected. 

“Shut up, Rygel!” Aeryn and D’Argo barked as one. 

“Someone has to do something, Crichton.”  Jool reentered the argument.  “If Pilot dies, we’re going to loose our home and our friend.  This isn’t about --”

“This is about more than Pilot!  I know that,” John snapped at the interion.  “And what if it kills me?  Or fries every neuron in my skull?”  He stumbled, caught his balance, and straightened up with one gloved hand pressed against his forehead.  When he continued, he was calmer.  “It’s like that all the time.  I can’t even spare a fraction of my brain to walk, let alone think.  There has to be another way to figure this out aside from asking me to do a Vulcan mind-meld.  If we figure out when this began, we’ll be able to work out what’s going on.”

“We’re out of time,” Chiana interjected before anyone could say anything else.  The slim nebari scrambled up one of the ladders leading to the tier below the Den and leapt off to land in the middle of the group.  “Naj Gil says it’s getting too hard for him to pump by hand.  He can’t force the fluids through anymore.” 

The group turned as one to look at Pilot.  In the few microts since the argument had begun, the symbiote had begun turning colors.  The normally mottled shell had already begun fading to a dull, lusterless brown that spoke of internal starvation. 

“I’ll see if I can help,” D’Argo said.  “Maybe with the strength of two of us --”  He disappeared down a ladder without finishing his sentence.   

“No time left.”  Aeryn’s whisper echoed briefly in the suddenly quiet chamber.  “We’re out of options.” 

Crichton paced from one side of the central platform to the other, stopped near the edge and looked down into the shadow-obscured depths of the neural cluster.  “Pilot has his own internal organs and circulatory system.  Why isn’t that keeping him alive?”

Aeryn jumped down from where she had been perched for so many futile arns and went to stand behind him.  He was clutching at hopeless possibilities.  She knew it because she had spent too many arns doing the same sort of thing, clinging to the empty hope that he would recover even as she watched him dying.  She tried to be patient despite the urgency of the situation, and explained what he already knew.  “Pilot gets all of his body’s nutrients from Moya.  It would be like you or me being deprived of every bit of fuel in our bodies all at once.” 

John nodded once.  “We’d faint, go into a coma, and eventually die.” 

Behind them, the remaining trio of Jool, Chiana, and Rygel had gone quiet, awaiting the outcome of the subdued discussion. 

“When Moya was pregnant, she was diverting most of her resources, but she hadn’t cut Pilot off entirely.  This is far worse.  His entire circulatory flow is being affected.”  Aeryn waited through ten microts of silence.  His reluctance was radiating off him, stiff shoulders and small jerky movements speaking as clearly as words how much he didn’t want to do what she was asking.  “If it were anyone but Moya and Pilot, I wouldn’t --”

John gave a fast shake of his head, as though flicking something away from him instead of the emphatic side-to-side denial that she had seen just a few moments earlier.  “Okay.  Fine.  What the hell, everyone else at this end of the universe has run their fingers through my skull, might as well let Moya come on in.”  Crichton turned and gestured at the assembled group.  “Take a hike.” 

“I think you --”  She wanted as many people as possible with him in case something went wrong. 

“No!  Everyone get out.”  John grabbed her arm and propelled her toward one of the bridges, shoving her toward where Jool and Rygel were already headed for the door.  “If I open up enough to hear Moya, I’ll get everyone else at the same time.  No audience.  You too, Chiana.  Out.” 

“No way, Old Man.  We all saw how blezzed out you were after you and Moya got it on the first time around.  I’m stayin’.”

“‘Got it on’, Pip?”  He grinned at her, then shook his head and steered her toward the door. 

“Yeah.  You, Moya, and a little meeting in the middle, right?  Just you and her and nobody else.”  She dodged around his outstretched arm and bounded toward the center of the Den.  “You two can’t be trusted alone.” 

Their easy bantering and humorous camaraderie freed something that Aeryn thought she had buried securely for all time.  A harsh, metallic-tasting flood of hurt washed over her, jealousy riding along to amplify the sensation.  It was a breathing-catching, agonizing, control-dissolving ache; one that begged for the numbing effects of any kind of alcohol she could get her hands on, for oblivion to make it stop.  Once freed, the emotions resisted containment; it threatened to drown her. 

Crichton slapped both hands to his temples and stumbled to one side, once again dangerously close to falling off the edge of the flooring.

“John!” she yelled at him.  Her shout was overlain by Chiana’s higher-pitched call of alarm.

He recovered, took three long steps away from the dangerous drop-off, and waved the two women away.  “I’m fine.”

“That’s exactly why someone’s got to stay with you,” Chiana resumed the argument.

“That’s exactly why I’m going to do this somewhere other than in the Den,” he shot right back at her.  “Now get lost, Chiana.  Your head is like the heap of trash behind my Granddaddy’s barn.  There was more damned junk in there, most of it useful at one time, all of it fascinating, and no two pieces fit together into anything functional.”  He jerked his head at her, indicating the direction toward the door.

She refused to move, unbothered by his description.  “Someone has to stay.” 

“I’ll stay,” Aeryn said.  Both heads came around fast in surprise.  She addressed John, ignoring Chiana for the moment.  “You don’t believe I can keep you from getting hurt while you’re listening to Moya?” 

“No, that’s not it, Aeryn.” 

“Not at all,” Chiana chimed in.  “It’s good that you’ll stay --”

“That’ll be fine,” John added.  All three were making the transition across the narrow span leading out of the Den. 

“Real good.  You stay here to make sure he doesn’t fall down a shaft.  I’ll see if I can do anything to help with Pilot … to give you more time, you know?”  Chiana gave them one last slanting look from beneath her bangs, nodded, and disappeared at a run. 

John spun around so fast Aeryn nearly lost her balance trying to stop in time.  He stepped out of her way and motioned for her to leave the Den.  “Thanks for getting Chiana to split.  You can take off now.” 

Aeryn shook her head.  “You might need help.” 

His fast reversal in attitude was every bit as puzzling as his change in direction had been surprising.  It added to the sense of unease that had begun the moment he had agreed to her request and had multiplied when he had stumbled.  So many of the usual hints, the small bodily reactions that told her what he was thinking and feeling, were hidden beneath an unfamiliar set of reactions that she didn’t recognize.  It was as if her translator microbes were functioning only half the time, sending through portions of unintelligible speech to jumble the segments she understood.  Only in this case, it was his movements that were being turned to gibberish instead of his words.

John continued to motion her out of the Den.  She tried again.  “Someone needs to be here in case you have trouble with this.” 

“What I need is a lot of silence, and that means I need to be alone.  Stop arguing with me and let me get this party started.” 

They faced each other in nearly identical stances, feet spread, hands on hips, neither one showing any sign that they were going to give in.  John would have called it a ‘stare down’.  It was that memory of one of his peculiar phrases that broke her determination to stay with him.   In the space of a microt, Pilot’s dilemma was forgotten, buried under a stampede of memories. 

She had wanted John beside her so badly when she’d had Talyn’s transponder implanted, and the discussion had descended into anger, shouting, and an unequalled level of misunderstanding.  Now their roles were reversed.  It was his turn to bond with a leviathan, although in an entirely different manner, and she wanted to be the one to yell, to stalk off in fury, punishing him in kind for the way he had treated her half a cycle earlier.  Only it wasn’t John and he wouldn’t understand.  And it was John, and they were acting exactly the same way they had before.  She wanted to be with him, and he was demanding that she leave him alone.  Two sets of blue eyes seemed to be watching her for a microt, one overlaid by the other:  one set of eyes remembered and the other set no more than a motra away. 

John closed his eyes, took a deep breath and let it out shakily, and the moment was broken.  She was standing in Moya’s corridor and he was turning his head to the side so he wouldn’t have to look at her. 

“I’m sorry.”  There didn’t seem to be anything else worth saying, and even less reason to bother asking if he had picked up what she had been thinking.  The look on his face said it all. 

“Go away, Aeryn.  I can’t do this with you here.”  His voice cracked and jumped the way it always did when he was battling to keep his emotions in check.  “You’re the one who asked me to do this.  Just go away.” 

She left, walking slowly and yet feeling like she was running away, headed into Moya’s corridors in search of a place where every sight and sound didn’t provide a constant reminder of John Crichton. 

* * * * *

[KernilCrash]

Chapter 9

Crichton didn’t move until Aeryn’s footsteps faded into the distance.  He let out the breath he had been holding ever since she had first turned to leave, and gradually released the obsessively tight grip he had placed on his mind the microt he picked up Aeryn’s thoughts about the other Crichton.  There was nothing but the subdued chattering that he had begun to hear most of the time.  It was the rushing grumble of a river of thoughts, an ever-present sound without any distinct portions.  It was the background thrum of sentience without any of the individual signatures.

“That’s better.  White noise I can handle,” he said on a long sigh of relief. 

He looked around him, trying to choose a spot far enough away from the drop-off in the Den that he wouldn’t be in danger of falling if he passed out but close enough to Moya’s neural circuits that he wouldn’t have trouble hearing her.  Remembering his first encounter with the leviathan’s overwhelmingly complex flood of thoughts, a near disaster which had occurred when the telepathy had been at its weakest, he shook his head in rueful disbelief.  “Who am I kidding?  Probably ought to do this from two or three light years away.”  Hearing Moya wasn’t going to be the problem.  Shutting her out would be the difficult part. 

He pulled off his gloves, tossed them into the corridor, and then followed, running his hand lightly over the mechanoid plating.  Nearly a half dozen DRDs drifted out of the shadows and trailed after him.  They watched with mechanical interest as he worked his way along the corridor, feeling for something that fingertips alone couldn’t detect.  “Here,” he said, patting a spot two motras from the door to the Den.  There was a neural transfer conduit hidden within the wall.  It was a flood of cold water streaming across the surface his mind, simultaneously chilling and refreshing, and strong enough that he could feel the invisible stream caressing his hand. 

Crichton licked his lips several times, looked around him once more to make sure there wasn’t anything that would injure him if he keeled over, and stepped closer to the wall.  “Moya,” he called to the massive being that surrounded him.  “You need to be calm.  You start freakin’ out and you’re going to put my brain through the cuisinart.  You understand?” 

Several of the DRDs at his feet chirped, alternating between blinking once and blinking twice. 

“Cuisinart means you’ll shred my neurons into useless fragments.  Too much juice and you’ll deep fry ‘em to a crackly crunch.  Get it?”  The group of drones gave him a single synchronized blink. 

“Okay.  Here we go.”  John rubbed the palms of his hands down the front of his shirt several times, then along the sides of his pants, nervously wiping already dry hands on the leather.  Three times he reached out to touch her, and three times he drew away before making contact.  “Damn,” he said quietly.  “This could hurt.  Nice and easy, Moya.  You’re awful big, so take it nice and easy, girl.” 

Something occurred to him.  An almost overlooked fragment of memory swam to the surface, and he stepped away from the arching metalloid wall.  “Moya?  Pilot once said that you have eight senses, right?” 

A DRD near his feet blinked once. 

“Can you block out half of them?  I’m a bit limited here, girl.  I’m used to five.  I’m going to blow a gasket if I tackle all eight.  You remember what happened the last time I tried the full orchestra.” 

There was a six-microt silence, and then the entire corridor sighed, as though the tier’s internal atmosphere had been vented to release some of the pressure.  Several of the DRDs chirped, and the one that had blinked last time gave him a single wink. 

“Okay.  Chill, darlin’.  Be calm.  This won’t hurt a bit.”  More prattling nonsense was perched on the tip of his tongue.  There was an avalanche of ridiculous references to various doctor’s exams begging to be spoken out loud, accompanied by the worst case of rattlers he’d ever had in his entire life.  He bit down on the comments, and tried to concentrate on the task at hand.  But instead of Moya and Pilot and the mysterious malady, all his thoughts were centered on the fact that the last time his stomach had felt this bad, he had been sitting in the Aurora Chair facing Scorpius for the first time.  If his current bit of mental exploration went as badly as that event, he would be lucky to ever put two coherent thoughts together ever again. 

“Damn.  I’m scared spitless here,” he whispered, admitting what emotion was creating his hesitation.  “Come on, Johnny boy.  If Spock can handle this, how hard can it be?”  Crichton took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and placed the palms of both hands against the gleaming surface.   

ALONE … SO ALONE.  SCARED.

“Crap!”  He pulled away in a rush.  “Moya?  You’ve got to tone it down a bit.  Can you do that?” 

Moya rumbled a long moan and the floor shuddered beneath his feet.  The herd of DRDs chattered at him, no two signals exactly alike.  Several began spinning in undirected circles. 

“No!  Don’t panic, Moya!  We’re going to save Pilot and you’re going to be fine.  You just have to be calm.  Listen to me.  Controlling the fear is like holding your breath.  Believe me, Moya, I know what it’s like not to have someone you love beside you.  It’s all you can think about day and night.  There’s nothing but that empty space where someone belongs.  It’s as if a piece of your own body has been ripped away, leaving nothing but the pain behind.  You need to push it to the side just far enough that you can concentrate on something else while it’s still there.  It’s like holding your breath and breathing at the same time.  I know it’s hard, but if you concentrate, you can do it.” 

He counted silently to ten, giving her time to make the adjustment, and tried again.

Loneliness.  Silence where there belongs another mind, another voice, another presence.  A missing entity where there should be a companion.  Missing, missing, missing the one that is always here to organize, to instruct, to assist, to fill the voids that must be filled.  There has always been another there.  Always.  There must be another, to ease the ache and calm the fears. 

“We’ll save him.  I promise.”  An electronic signal arrives, one of hundreds relayed from the drones.  He hears his own voice stumbling through the assurances, trying to calm the being that feels like himself now that he is listening to her.  It comes to him in an echo:  the first version is barely heard through his own ears, then it is received a second time, more clearly, through the data stream being transmitted by the DRD sitting at his feet.  “Moya, I’m here.  I’m listening to you.  Show me.  Show me where we go to help Pilot.”  He doesn’t know if he is human or leviathan after that.  He gets sucked into her conduits, the awareness that is Moya pulling him toward where the problem lies, surging in time with the flowing pulses of her body until he’s sure that he’s a living space ship. 

John Crichton, the human, the being who cares, who has always cared, who cares about everyone.  LOVE.  He is enveloped in the emotion, in Moya’s impressions of him, and he begins to dissolve into her, losing all sense of his own consciousness to the tsunami that is her emotions and senses.

“Love you too,” he hears himself say, and is puzzled because his voice is slurred and indistinct, as though he is having trouble forming the words.

Will he?  The thought becomes his, as if he had created it on his own.  But it’s larger, more complex, leviathan-sized, a super-sized meal of intricately entwined possibilities.  If Pilot does not recover, will he stay with her, take care of her, make sure she survives?

“You betcha,” his body responds without any assistance from his detached intellect.  Together they receive the transmission from the DRD, together they experience her relief, basking in the certainty that he loves her and will watch over her in Pilot’s stead.  It swells, growing exponentially until he understands that up until this moment she has been shielding him from the full strength of her intellect.  “Moya, you’re toasting my circuits.  Back off.”  The wave crashes over him, thunders past, and eases.  Once again he can concentrate on where she is taking him.

“Show me the problem,” his abandoned body requests.  He hears it through the multiple inputs of the DRDs.  Each unit transmits at an infinitesimally different frequency, allowing her to tell them apart, and the harmonizing dissonance is unlike anything his ears have ever heard.  It’s a beehive-buzzing symphony, atonal sounds combining into a melodious total that reverberates through his bones.  He tries to stop long enough to listen, but she is focusing on the problem and there’s only one option:  he has to go wherever Moya takes him.

He’s on a waterslide ride without end, slithering through power lines, conduits, and slurping wet fluid transfer pipes at hetch-speed velocities, knowing what it feels like to keep track of every synaptic discharge and corpuscle in a body the size of a small city.  Moya shows him.  She leads him to the problem, focuses her entire being on it, lets him see the uncomfortable churning feeling that he had felt in his stomach earlier that day, and he knows what is wrong.  They hover there for what might be one hundred microts or one hundred cycles, time flooding past him in waves that he no longer comprehends, and he feels where he is, where the problem is located within this miraculous body that clanks mechanically in harmony with the pulses of living tissue.

It’s time to leave.  He needs to tell the others what to do to save Pilot.  He turns, and has no idea where to go.  He is a leviathan now.  There is no need to go any particular place within this body because he is this body.  Moya needs to check on something having to do with her calorics, and she reopens one of the dampened senses -- one that his brain was never designed to perceive.  He takes it in, hovering on the brink of mental dissolution, and thinks he can almost understand what he is feeling.  His hull tingles from the brush of an ion wave, his stomach churns hot and overly full with the energy that moves a starship, he feels the comforting pinch of the docking clamps somewhere near the top of his shoulders.  Human and leviathan physiology become indistinguishable, and he begins to fragment.

Moya, I can’t find my way out.

His message goes unspoken.  The DRDs watch as the human’s body -- eyes gazing into an unseen distance, mouth gaping, muscles gone slack -- slides slowly to the floor and they don’t receive his message.  He is lost inside Moya, and he doesn’t know how to get back inside that small shell of a human body. 

   * * * * *

Chiana bounded from one console on Command to another on the far side of the chamber.  She checked the displayed data for the fourteenth time, worry transmuted into nervous energy, and then switched back to the first console, taking a detour to check the corridor along the way.  “Frell, frell, frell.  Where is everyone?”  She addressed her next, louder comment to the comms.  “D’Argo?  How you holding up down there?”

“These lines are frelling clogged solid!” came an infuriated answer.  “How much time does Crichton need?  We can’t keep Pilot alive this way much longer.”

“I don’t know.  Not much longer maybe.  I’ll check in a few microts if I haven’t heard from him or Aeryn.” 

Her assurances were met by a low luxan growl of combined frustration and intense physical effort.  “Check now, Chiana.  And tell them to hurry.” 

“Hurry, hurry, hurry.  Nothing aboard this heap ever takes place at anything other than an all out panic,” she complained in a half-whisper.  “Hurry is average.  To go any faster I’ll have to learn to starburst all on my own.” 

“Chiana!” D’Argo’s aggravated shout interrupted her brief monologue. 

“Checking,” she transmitted back, then reverted to a whisper.  “You’re wearing a frelling comms, D’Argo.  Why don’t you just ask her yourself?” 

“Ask who what?  What’s going on?” a voice asked from behind her.  Startled, Chiana spun around just in time to gape at Aeryn as the other woman hurried into Command.  “How is Moya holding up?” 

“She’s calmed down.  What are you doing here?  Did Crichton find the problem already?  So fast?  What did he find out?  What’s wrong with Pilot?”  Chiana took four gangling, skipping steps to the other console.  “The readings haven’t changed.  You haven’t fixed it!  What’s happening?” 

Aeryn shook her head and waved her hands, trying to still the flood of questions.  “Crichton is checking with Moya now.  I don’t know what’s wrong yet.  It’s been less than a quarter of an arn, Chiana.” 

Command went silent.  Chiana took two steps forward, glaring at Aeryn with a head-twitching combination of anger, concern and disbelief.  Several microts passed before she managed to form a word.  “He’s still checking?  You … you left him there by himself?  Alone?” 

“He insisted that he couldn’t listen to Moya with anyone else there.”  Aeryn’s body had gone very still, unnaturally so, hiding even the smallest signals that might have suggested why she had left Crichton alone or how she felt about Chiana’s reaction.  She crossed to the strategy table and sat down, perched on the edge of the seat.  Both feet rested squarely on the floor beneath her hips, deliberately placed where she would be able to get up in an instant, ready to attack … or retreat. 

Chiana spent two microts trying to decide what the stillness and preparation for flight meant, and then resorted to a more direct method of getting information.  “You said you were going to stay!  You told me you were going to stay with him!”   

“Crichton insisted that he wouldn’t be able to hear Moya if there was someone else --”

“Not ‘someone’, Aeryn.  Not anyone else aboard this boat.  You!  You’re all he hears because he keeps listening for your voice.  You are the only person he wants to hear speaking to him, and you can’t even stand to say his frelling name anymore!  You stopped calling him Crichton more than a cycle ago.  Now you can barely get ‘John’ out of your mouth unless you’re talking about the other one, you frelling heartless tralk.”  Chiana spun away from the temporarily speechless sebacean, awkwardly cocked knees and elbows shouting her outrage, and continued her alarmed yell.  “D’Argo!  Crichton is by himself and he’s talking with Moya.  You’re closer than anyone else.  You have to get up there right away.” 

A single luxan snarl answered her, followed by the sound of boots pounding on metalloid leviathan floors. 

Chiana turned back toward the strategy table, intending to deliver one more parting shot before heading off to join D’Argo, and was forced to take a fast step back.  Aeryn was beside her, almost touching Chiana’s arm, having crossed the short distance from the strategy table without making a sound.  Hand resting on the butt of her pulse pistol, the ex-soldier simply stood there, stock still, and stared into the nebari’s eyes.  Chiana took another cautious sliding step backward, considering that her tendency to say whatever came to mind had just brought her closer to disaster than at any other time in her life.

“You haven’t earned the right --” Aeryn began.   

Chiana took a deeper breath and got ready to run.  Under any other circumstances, she would have tried to appeal to Aeryn with a combination of humor and sly wit, perhaps going so far as to suggest that Crichton would be angry if Aeryn shot her.  In light of how she had gotten into her current mess, she decided that silence might be the best solution just this once.  She clamped her tongue between her teeth, the only way she knew of to make absolutely sure she wouldn’t say anything else stupid, and eased another four denches toward the questionable safety of the corridor.

Aeryn’s eyes flickered between the slow-motion retreat and the doorway, and then her shoulders relaxed half a dench.   

“You stay here and watch these indicators.”  Aeryn emphasized her instructions with four fast jabs at the displays that had been set to monitor Pilot’s life signs.  “If any of them drop below the lowest parameters, comm us.  If you frell this up and Pilot dies because you didn’t stay here, I will find you and I will shoot you.”  Without another word or twitch of expression, she turned and ran out of Command. 

“Frell me.”  Chiana began breathing again once the other woman was gone.  “I frelling spit in the eye of Cholak that time!”  She shook out her arms and legs, trying to rid herself of the mild, leftover buzzing that came with being scared for her life, and then settled herself at the console and stared intently at the readouts. 

   * * * * *

He was in trouble.  At some point during his attempt to backtrack toward his body, he had lost contact with Moya’s consciousness and he couldn’t find her despite the fact that he was coasting through her body.  Without that blazing waypoint to guide him, he had been set adrift, expanding out of control to the point that his consciousness was beginning to thin and dissolve.  Each attempt to find his way back to some haven of sentience, be it Moya or his own body, only resulted in more confusion and a further expansion of his psyche. 

Reason dictated that he was alive and well inside his own body.  Only his awareness had been divorced from the sprawled figure lying in the corridor outside the Den.  Unfortunately, that knowledge didn’t provide any substantial help.  John tried to reach toward the bipedal mammalian shell, seeking its familiar environs, and only managed to fragment even further.  He tried every trick Hox had taught him, from looking for the tightly wound collection of basic thoughts and reactions that uniquely defined him as ‘John Crichton’ to searching for the metallic taste that had first led him to the portion of his brain that could tame the runaway telepathy.  Nothing worked. 

‘Hang together,’ he ordered.  The command seemed to help.  Reason and logic returned, pushing back the encroaching nightmarish sensation that he was dissolving.  ‘I’m melting, melting.  Oh what a world, what a world …’  He wanted lips and vocal chords to voice the small parody. 

The return of humor drove back the threat of dissolution even further, giving him time to ponder his dilemma.  His brain, along with all its inexplicable workings, was residing safely within the confines of his skull.  It was only his awareness that had gone for a three-hour tour and gotten lost in Moya’s innards.  Mentally envisioning closing his eyes in order to concentrate, he tried to focus on being in his own body, what it felt like to lie on the floor half propped up against Moya’s curved wall, and did his best to will himself back into that small vessel.  It was just as futile as every other attempt. 

He didn’t know how to handle this particular situation.  Every other time he’d lost control, he had been crushed under the weight of millions of thoughts.  The arns with Hox had been spent learning how to shut out the sounds of everyone around him.  Moya was different.  She had so thoroughly welcomed him into her alien psyche that he couldn’t figure out how to tear away from that merging.  Hox, the person who held the answer to his problem, was out there, just a mind’s throw away.  To get help, all he had to do was project his thoughts -- an ability he didn’t possess.

Crichton continued to drift along an energy conduit, moving at the same pace as the surges of ions, destination unknown.  Without understanding where the knowledge came from, he recognized a branching neural transfer line as one that was headed in the general direction of the corridor outside the Den.  He flooded into the smaller opening and accelerated, surpassing the normal rate of flow, aware that he could loose his grasp on his tenuous control at any microt and needed to hurry.   

A signal concerning his status slid past him going the other way, headed for Moya’s data stores.  He ignored the flickering pulse, caring only that he was headed in the right direction, and kept going.  There was a quick jerk like someone had yanked his arm, except that it affected his entire being, and he was suddenly looking at his own body from someone else’s perspective.  Backtracking toward the source of the fleeting signal had led him to a DRD.  The drone was tucked into a corner formed by the inner bulkhead and one of Moya’s ribs, and was observing Aeryn and D’Argo standing over John Crichton’s slouched, deserted body.  It was the first television he’d seen in nearly four cycles and he had managed to find the most surreal programming possible.  ‘Discovery Channel meets Red Dwarf,’ he thought. 

The concern about dissolution continued to fade.  Coalescing in the smaller package of the DRD was almost familiar; the limited confines were far more comfortable than his temporary occupation of an entire leviathan.  His new set of surroundings was similar to being strapped in to the cockpit of the module:  low headroom, limited view, metal all around, and a steady incoming stream of electronic data.  ‘Except the way my luck has been running, this sucker will get flushed down a damn toilet this time around.’

Across the corridor, D’Argo was kneeling alongside his vacated body, gently shaking one shoulder.  He experienced the mild jostling like a borrowed, hand-me-down sensation.  One portion of his brain registered the grip and the movement; the remainder of his consciousness was quite happy with the idea that he was a DRD and refused to abandon that impression. 

‘Dorothy the DRD.  Click my heels together three times and repeat ‘there’s no place like John’,’ he joked silently to himself, and tried to leap across the three-motra gap.  He was stuck in the robot, impotently watching and listening through the drone’s circuitry, unable to act or respond.

“What should we do?” D’Argo asked.  “He’s been like this a long time.” 

“I’m not sure,” Aeryn answered, dropping onto one knee.  “I don’t know if he would want us to disturb him if he is still trying to find the problem.” 

‘YES!’ John screamed to her.  ‘Please disturb me!’  The thought went unvoiced; his body remained motionless.  Aeryn moved closer to him, ducking her head to check on him.  John tried to move the DRD forward, intending to bump into her leg to let her know that he was nearby.  The vacated body in front of him kicked out one leg in response.  The sole of his boot squealed across the floor.  The fast, abrupt movement upset his precarious balance and his body started to slump to one side.  D’Argo caught him, hoisted him up and slid in behind him to keep it from happening again.  Somewhere on the other side of the universe, the solid, warm weight of a luxan sitting behind him pressed against his back.

He wasn’t really in the DRD, John reminded himself.  He was a psychic limpet, firmly attached to Moya’s intellect.  It was her awareness of the drone that he was interpreting.  This was one small portion of her expansive stream of data that he had chosen to inhabit for the time being.  There had to be a way to shake himself loose and return to his own body.   

Something else was happening in the corridor.  Aeryn turned away from his body and rubbed her hand across her cheek.  With an entirely human sense of despair, he realized that she was wiping away tears.  The shock of seeing her cry nearly accomplished what logic and reason could not.  For a single microt, he was back inside his body with D’Argo holding him upright, then, like a bungie jumper reaching the end of his cord, he snapped back to the spot inside the DRD.  ‘Crap!’ he yelled inside his own mind.  He had almost made it home.  John considered the scenery in the corridor to determine what had upset Aeryn to the point of actual tears, hoping that another gut-clenching jolt might trigger a successful transition from Moya-limpet to Erp-man.

The DRD was watching the combined figures of D’Argo and John Crichton, so he reviewed that first.  He was reclining into his friend’s arms, the leg that had moved -- his right one -- lying across the ankle of his bent left leg, his eyes staring sightlessly in front of him.  A dream image of the dead Crichton’s body leapt into his mind, a not-memory that he had no right to possess, and the two views were nearly identical.  Dismay worked better than shock.  This time he had a full microt inside his own body before he rebounded to Moya and the DRD. 

‘FRELL!’ he screamed into nothingness. 

First things first, he decided.  To start with, more than anything else, he needed to let Aeryn know that he was alive, even if disembodied.  Aeryn had moved out of the DRD’s field of vision.  He sent a command to the robot instructing it to retrain its eyestalks to the side, to see whether she had left completely or was merely standing off to one side.  The robot remained motionless, but John Crichton’s head came up and his eyes shifted in the wrong direction:  away from Aeryn.  He tried to shift the DRD eyestalks the other way, and his eyes swiveled toward where she had disappeared from sight. 

The movement worked better than he ever could have hoped.  It took care of two problems at once.  Aeryn saw the movement and not only stopped crying, she made the fast leap in understanding that he had come to rely on whenever his plans started to go to dren.

“John?”  She crouched low to meet his stare.  “D’Argo, we have to do something now!  He’s in some kind of trouble.  JOHN!” she yelled louder, tipping his chin up to look into his eyes. 

The last Christmas he had celebrated on Earth, he had gone into Radio Shack to look for a receiver for his father and had tried out one of the radio-controlled dune buggies they had on display.  The speedy little model had zipped right out of the store into the mall and slammed into a woman’s ankle the first time he had tried it, and had plowed into a wall on the next attempt.  That had been simple compared to this endeavor.   

He tried sending a command for the DRD to extend its laser probe.  His right hand jerked forward instead.  It slapped limply against Aeryn’s knee.  She grabbed it, curled the fingers in and compressed it in both of her hands.  Across the chasm he felt a faint echo of the pain.  It wasn’t enough. 

This bizarre method of controlling his body couldn’t go on forever.  Sooner or later the DRD was going to be ordered to perform some trivial bit of maintenance task, and it would depart, taking him with it.  When that happened, he would surely be lost forever.  He had to let them know that he needed help, and he had to do it quickly. 

He tried to send an SOS in Morse code through the DRD.  ‘…  --- …’ he commanded it, once again forgetting that he wasn’t really inside the mechanical device.  “Help,” the body sitting in the tier whispered. 

“He needs something more,” Aeryn said.  John sent the Morse code again, compressing it into a single vigorous burst of information. 

“Help,” John Crichton said.  Although the word was louder this time, it lacked any vestige of emotion.  A voice synthesizer could have pleaded more passionately.  D’Argo pulled out his knife and handed it to Aeryn hilt first.  The razor sharp edge hovered over his palm and he braced himself mentally for the fast recall to an injured body.  She hesitated, switched her grip so that it would be a stab instead of a slice, and still didn’t strike. 

“Help,” his body insisted tonelessly one more time. 

There was a flashing communication from Moya to the DRD, too fast for him to follow.  It extended its laser tool, darted forward, and his view from the eyestalks was filled with the palm of his own left hand.  ‘Shit,’ he thought, realizing that the leviathan intended to save Aeryn the emotional burden of deliberately injuring him.  This was going to hurt even more than the fast slash of a sharp blade.  The laser fired. 
 
“Son of a bitch!”  He rolled out of someone’s grasp, clutching his seared hand carefully to his chest, and curled his body around the throbbing source of pain.  “Frell, frell, frell!  Damn that hurt!”

“Stay still.  Give me that.” 

Cool, firm fingers first coaxed him to unwind, tugged his head and shoulders into someone’s lap, and then pulled his hands away from his body.  One hand grasped his wrist firmly; the other one hooked its fingers into his and cautiously pulled his fist open.  His palm was burned and blisters were already forming, but to his relief the DRD had used a relatively low setting and hadn’t bored a hole clear through his hand. 

“That wasn’t exactly a walk in the park,” he said on the beginnings of a groan.  The pain was settling down to a steady misery.  It was good though.  The discomfort kept him focused, aware of his own body, and it helped him block out the usual residual mental noise.  For the first time in arns, it was almost quiet inside his head -- almost but not entirely silent.  Even if he hadn’t recognized the hands holding his, there could never have been any question who was behind him, holding him securely in her lap with one elbow.   

I shouldn’t have asked him to do this, leaked through repeatedly.  The refrain was circling through her thoughts, providing a constant baseline tone beneath the rest of the fragments he was picking up from time to time.  Images of Pilot, Moya, and John Crichton -- he wasn’t sure if it was him or the other one -- flickered by in subliminal flashes, too fast to be comprehended.  They began to merge into a single whole that felt similar to what he had just experienced while trapped inside Moya. 

“Let me sit up.” 

He tried to pull loose.  Aeryn wouldn’t release him.  She kept her fingers locked against his so he couldn’t make a fist and held him tighter, the opposite of what he had been trying to accomplish.  Something different washed over him, something that felt like a wave of sun-warmed water rippling over him while he lay on well-baked sand at the beach.  For a split microt, it felt like love.  It mutated before he could be sure, turning into a level of pain that easily drowned out what he was feeling from his injured hand. 

“Let go, Aeryn.”  He needed to break the skin-to-skin contact.  If he could do that, then his jacket might provide enough insulation that he would be able to shut out the rest of it.  John tugged harder, trying to free his left hand without adding to the problem by grabbing Aeryn’s wrist with his right.   

“Relax your fingers.  D’Argo has gone to get something for the burns.”  Her grasp on his wrist eased, silently offering a truce:  If he stopped struggling, she would release his imprisoned hand.  Ignoring the crackling discomfort of singed and blistered flesh, he stretched his fingers wide, showing her that he was cooperating, and she let go of him. 

They remained that way for dozens of silent microts:  Crichton with his head and shoulders resting in her lap, her leather pants providing just enough of a barrier that he could spend some time thinking about other things without having to fend off each of her stray, idle thoughts. 

He thought about all the things he wanted to tell her at the moment:  about how he was sorry that she was in so much pain; that he wanted to comfort her, and show her that John Crichton was still very much alive and wanted to restore her happiness; and that he hadn’t objected to using the telepathy to listen to Moya because he was afraid for himself, but because he had been rocked to his very core that she would risk his life in this manner when all she could think of was how the other one had died.  He wanted to ask her how she could mourn the other John Crichton so deeply, and in the next breath ask him to risk a similar fate.  He bit down all the things he wanted to say, comments about how he was every bit as much John Crichton as the other one, and tried to concentrate on Aeryn instead.   

“Sorry,” was all he said in the end.  It was a generic apology, covering what he knew she was feeling, as well as the slumped, unseeing position of his body that had moved her to the brink of tears. 

“I pushed you to do this.  I’m the one who should apologize.”  GUILT

“Let me sit up.”  He tried to roll to the side, needing to break the physical contact.  Just a few arns earlier, clothing had been enough to mute his mental hearing.  It wasn’t enough anymore.  The talent had grown too strong for simple solutions like leather and cloth.  He slid off her legs, hit the floor with a thump, and floundered for a microt, trying to get his arms underneath his upper body without putting his hand on the floor. 

Aeryn got to her feet, grabbed him under the arms and levered him up on to his knees.  “Give yourself some time.” 

John sits in his quarters and listens to his dead self.  “Okay, I’m gonna piss you off now, man.  Be smart.  Don’t push her.  She takes … time.”

John slumped forward, elbows on the floor, head hanging down between his arms.  He hadn’t realized she had been listening when he had played the recording.  Discovering that she had watched the one-sided exchange cast too many of his offhand comments and hesitations over the past several solar days in a new light.  In each case, he had thought his words and actions were hiding what he was trying to do.  And she had known all along that they were his feeble attempts to give her space when all he wanted to do was take her into his arms and hug her until all the hurt went away.  He shook his head, forehead rocking back and forth on the floor, and was able to feel little else than despair.  At no time since the day he had met Aeryn had so many different portions of their lives gone to dren all at once. 

“I’m trying … John.  But I don’t know how to do this.”  She touched his back lightly then stepped away from him.  “I … just … don’t know what I’m supposed to do.” 

On any other day, he wouldn’t have known if she was talking about touching him or curing Pilot or the wounds they were inflicting on each other.  He might have been able to make a wild ass guess but he wouldn’t have known for sure.  But on this particular day, there wasn’t any doubt.  It wasn’t a stray thought or her voice in his head that convinced him; it was the aura of confusion hovering behind him, lending its misery to every breath that he took. 

John straightened up, sat back on his heels, and stared down at his blistered hand.  He clenched it into a fist.  The pain billowed up his forearm, rushed past his elbow and shoulder, and radiated into his chest.  It felt better than what he had been going through a microt earlier. 

“You’re not supposed to do anything specific, Aeryn.  No one has a neat, convenient answer written down somewhere in a tactical manual that’s going to tell you how to solve a mess like this.  You do what you have to do, and when you’re ready, you let me know.”

“How can I not love him?”

“Sometimes we don’t have a choice.  Life is frelled like that.”  He realized too late that he was answering a question that he wasn’t supposed to have heard.  “Sorry.”  The two of them had been saying that to each other a lot since the hvisk had remodeled the inside of his head. 

“I don’t mind.” 

And he knew that she truly didn’t mind his inadvertent eavesdropping.  The hovering cloud of feelings behind him was relieved that she didn’t have to put it into words, or batter her way through the misunderstandings that were part of the inadequacies of language.  When he had answered her question, she had been pleasantly surprised that he hadn’t taken the thought to mean that she wanted to stop loving him.  If it had been spoken aloud, she was certain he would have heard a desire to find a way to close down what she felt for him, instead of the self-loathing she felt every time she looked at him and wanted to feel no emotions at all.

John twisted around to look at her.  For the first time since she had gotten off the transport pod, she met his eyes squarely and held his look.  There were no quick glances past him or to the side, no shuttering of her feelings, no closing down every bit of expression.  Aeryn was there, with all her complexities, assured facets, and desperate insecurities.  For a brief instant, they were together again.  He embraced the moment to the fullest extent possible, certain that it was going to have to last him for too long, and then released her by the simple expedient of looking away. 

Aeryn was nowhere near ready to resume their normal, bickering, chaotic relationship.  This was a momentary break in her grief, and he didn’t need telepathy to recognize it for what it was.  John hung his head, flexed his hand several times to provide a more pleasant sensation than the snarl of discomfort inside his chest, and struggled to be understanding.  He silently lectured himself that he had to take whatever she could give him for the moment, enjoy the respite, and be ready for the expected shutdown when it occurred.  The plan, when reviewed in his mind, sounded so reasonable; it sounded mature and adult.  But like so many of his other plans, the execution would probably go to dren before it was over, and he would undoubtedly wind up feeling like his emotions had been stripped down until there was nothing but raw nerve endings.  Just thinking about what lay ahead hurt.   

“John?”

He had been kneeling in the corridor long enough that his feet had begun to go numb.  “Help me up.  We’ve got some surgery that needs doing.  Pilot needs a bypass procedure.  He’s got hardening of the arteries.” 

She grimaced and shook her head:  the familiar signal that he had just totally flipped out her translator microbes.  He tried again, cutting it down to the most basic idea.  “Let’s go fix Pilot.”

Aeryn stayed where she was and gestured vaguely in his direction.  “Your hand needs --” 

“D’Argo can meet us there.  It’s closer to the maintenance bay anyway.”  He tried to get up on his own and wound up sprawling face down onto the floor, feeling more of the effects of the mental pounding he had taken by merging with Moya.  The corridor did one of its increasingly familiar loop-de-loops, danced back and forth sideways several times, and then did a new trick.  It felt as though he were floating in midair even though the floor remained firmly against his chest.  It was a nauseating sensation. 

“Uh oh.  Whirlies.  Leviathan-spins.” 

“Is that like those bed-spins things you described once?”  Aeryn helped him to his knees and then steadied him while he clambered to his feet.  She led him to the side of the corridor and started to prop him up against one of the walls. 

“Yeah, only way bigger.  No, not against Moya.”  He rested a forearm against her shoulder, relying on Aeryn for balance instead of the much larger and mentally overwhelming leviathan, and gestured in the direction of the closest ladder to the next lower tier.  “Down one level.  Right below Pilot.” 

“That’s where we’ve got Naj Gil,” Aeryn said. 

“He still pumping?  Trying to keep Pilot going?” 

“The last time I checked, he had given up.  We have less than an arn or Pilot won’t recover even if we manage to get the circulation restored before he dies.” 

“Better hurry then.”  Together, with Aeryn trying to provide some stability without actually holding on to him, they lurched and stumbled toward the access shaft leading down-ship. 

* * * * *

[KernilCrash]

Chapter 10

“D’Argo, cut that line.” 

Crichton was sitting on the half-height wall surrounding a vertical access shaft letting Aeryn treat his hand while he issued instructions.  The entire crew plus Naj Gil were assembled in the area directly below Pilot, standing around in varying degrees of anxiety.  More than a dozen pairs of DRD eyestalks peered around the edges of the doorways as well, evidence that Moya was equally concerned with the outcome of the next few moments as everyone else aboard.  John jabbed the forefinger of his right hand in the direction of one of the largest umbilicals connecting Pilot to Moya, indicating which item he wanted sliced open.  “You’re going to want to get out of the way quick once you do,” he added. 

“That’s the primary fluidic line to Pilot,” Aeryn said.  It was a quiet, un-emphatic reminder:  a mere suggestion that he might have forgotten what he was pointing at without any hint of accusation behind it.  She finished coating his palm with a thick layer of antiseptic burn gel, spared him a fast glance to check on his reaction to her comment, and began bandaging his hand. 

John tried to waggle his fingers, testing to make sure that he could still grab things.  Aeryn stopped, unwound the bandage, and began again, lower this time so it didn’t pin his fingers together.  He had already noticed how much care she was taking to avoid actually touching him with her fingers.  As little as half an arn earlier, he would have assumed that it was to spare herself the emotional cost of feeling his hand in hers.  But along with everything else he had been through in the last several arns, he had gained some insight and understanding.  As best she could while working within her self-imposed limits, Aeryn still cared about him.  Avoiding any contact was to spare him the uncontrollable blasts of telepathy.  She glanced up, met his eyes for less than half a microt, and then turned her attention back to making sure the burns were well protected.     

“He won’t live for much longer than a tenth of an arn once D’Argo cuts that line,” she said. 

“I know.  But it isn’t delivering much of anything to his body right now anyway, so we cut it, and we’ll hook things up in a couple of microts to compensate for it.”  He waved D’Argo forward with his free hand, commanding the luxan to proceed. 

D’Argo fingered the fibrous, reinforced conduit, testing the resistance of the substance.  “My Qualta blade won’t cut through this cleanly.  A ragged edge will be difficult to repair later.”  He turned and accepted a laser cutter from Chiana.  She was standing half a motra to one side with a fistful of maintenance tools at the ready.  Flicking it on, D’Argo adjusted the cutting area, took half a step back in preparation for Crichton’s recommended retreat, and sliced through the line in one fast, assured motion. 

“YECCHHH!” Chiana yelled, dancing back out of range.  The lower, severed end of the line wriggled about on the floor, spewing dribbles of the nutrient liquid and disgorging enormous clots of black glistening worm-like creatures.  Carelessly tossing the tools aside to free her hands, Chiana leaped up on the wall next to Crichton, and watched with revulsion as the line continued to belch out hundreds of the wriggling, squirming eels.  “What the frell are those?”

“I missed that episode of Zaboomafoo.  I haven’t got a clue,” John said.  He, like Chiana, had pulled his feet up off the floor.  It had been only microts since D’Argo had cut the line, and already more than a quarter of the area directly beneath Pilot was covered with the dark-colored writhing mass.  They continued to stream out of the line in surges -- a living, moving, repulsive leviathan vomit.  “They’ve been inside her for more than a solar day though.  I’m guessing they’ve been breeding and multiplying like crazy.”

“That would explain why Pilot got worse so rapidly.”  Aeryn secured the last of the wrappings around his hand and swiveled around to consider their newest problem.  She, like Chiana, was squatting on the wall, feet well out of range of the slick little invaders.   

“This isn’t any better than before,” Jool said.  She let out a screech as the leading edge of the pond of worms surged toward her, and she retreated toward the doorway.  “This doesn’t help Pilot.” 

“Yes, it does,” Crichton said.  He pointed at Naj Gil.  “Pump some of that goo-stuff for a microt.”

The scarran obediently swung the handle of the hand-pump they had set up earlier.  The line, disconnected from Pilot just microts earlier in preparation for D’Argo's fast surgery, belched out a burp of air and began streaming clear, unaffected liquid onto the floor. 

Aeryn caught on immediately.  “They haven’t gotten into the storage tanks yet.  We can feed Pilot directly.” 

John waved for Naj Gil to stop.  “Exactly.  We close off all the valves between Moya’s conduits and the storage tanks so they can’t get into the tanks, and then hook that line directly into Pilot.  You’ll have to keep pumping by hand for a while --”

D’Argo was already nodding his understanding.  “That shouldn’t be a problem now that the lines to Pilot are clear of these creatures.  It will be easy.” 

“And I’ll head back aboard the Kyelligg and find out if they know what these things are and how they got on board Moya,” John finished. 

“Is that wise?” Rygel asked.  The hynerian had swooped low to capture one of the creatures.  He had an eel in one hand and was licking the fingers of his other hand, sampling a little of the slime that coated the creature.  “Perhaps this was deliberate sabotage.  They may have put these inside Moya on purpose.”  He gave the slick parasite a delicate sniff, treated everyone to a voracious smile, and popped it in his mouth.  It took two gulps for him to get it down.  The limber black tail flickered madly from the corner of his mouth for an instant before he sucked it in and swallowed. 

Crichton turned away, his tongue extended in an exaggerated gag, and was met by nearly the same expression on Aeryn’s face.  She looked surprised, recovered, and gave him a look that, while not quite a smile, rekindled his hope that he would some day see that expression again.  He turned back to the deepening layer of squirming parasites.  The cut line continued to disgorge them without showing any sign that the supply might be running low.

“How many of these are in Moya?  Could you tell?” Aeryn asked. 

“They’ve spread all through her.  As far as I could tell from what she was able to show me, they’re only feeding on the stuff that keeps Pilot alive, which is why they kept clogging these conduits.”  He gestured toward where D’Argo, ankle deep in eels, had just finished splicing the temporary line into Pilot’s lower body.  “I was wondering how we were going to clean this mess up, but it looks like Sparky’s going to eat them all.”  Rygel had set his Throne Sled down on the floor and was happily sucking down as many of the unexpectedly provided delicacies as he could get his hands on without actually moving from his seat. 

“Repulsive.”  Jool spun around in a bouncing halo of iridescent red ringlets, and disappeared from sight, her judgment made and delivered. 

“Was she talkin’ about the squirmies or about Shamu the killer frog over there wolfing down the slippery munchies?”  John gagged in earnest this time, responding to the sight of four eels disappearing into the hynerian’s maw in a single gulp.  He spat on the floor, temporarily unable to swallow even his own saliva.  “Ugh.  That is a new level of gross.”   

Aeryn agreed.  “Rygel, even for you, that is disgusting.”

Rygel paused long enough to ask, “Does anyone else have plans for this food source?  They are very tasty and I am hungry.”  He returned to his feast. 

Aeryn grimaced and looked away.  “Hvisk and a solution,” she said, reminding everyone that the problem wasn’t fully resolved. 

“I don’t think this was deliberate,” John said. 

“What?” D’Argo and Chiana asked together.  They glanced at each other and did it again.  “Not deliberate?”

Crichton held up his hands, trying to still the duet.  “I know.  They haven’t been honest with us --”

D’Argo began arguing immediately.  “They abducted you against your will!  They haven’t told any of us the whole truth about anything, and they have the power to affect other people’s thoughts.  John, I believe --”

“No, they don’t, D’Argo.  They don’t have the power to influence what other people think.  Not the way you mean.  They can’t inflict their will on someone else, and they can’t put thoughts in a person’s mind.  It doesn’t work that way; it’s the other way around.”  Crichton gestured with his hands, flipping them from palm up to palm down to emphasize the reversal he was attempting to describe.  “None of them can avoid seeing what other people think of them.  It’s like walking around all day long looking in a mirror.  Every thought and every action has an impact on every person around you, and you can’t help but know how the things you do affect every other person in your society.” 

“It sounds hideous,” Chiana said.  “I couldn’t live in a world like that.”  She leaned against his shoulder for a moment, lending him her sympathy. 

John nudged her with a small, sideward nod of his head.  “You’d definitely have a problem, Pip.  You can’t go around stealing things when everyone in town knows who pilfered the goods.  But we can get into all this psycho-mumbo-jumbo later.  Time’s a wastin’.”  He stood up on the wall surrounding the vertical shaft, looked down at the ever-expanding tide of eels, and stepped onto the ladder, hanging on with his one good hand.  “I’m heading back to the Kyelligg to find out where these suckers --”  Rygel wolfed down another eel with a loud slurp.  Crichton shuddered then continued, “-- where these suckers came from, and whether the hvisk know how to get rid of them.” 

“I’m coming with you.”  Aeryn was similarly on her feet, balanced on the narrow parapet, one hand on the ladder. 

“I --” he began.

“I’m coming with you.”  Her tone made it clear that if he chose to argue, he was going to lose.  “I’ll need a quarter arn to make sure all the valves to the storage tanks are closed, and to check on Pilot.  Give me that much time.”  Please don’t say no.

The last portion startled him.  It was clearer and more focused than anything he had overheard from anyone so far, including Hox.  It sounded like an attempt to intentionally send him a message.  When he looked down to check on her expression, Aeryn had her head turned toward where Naj Gil had resumed his efforts to keep Pilot alive.  There was nothing there to suggest whether she had sent the comment deliberately or whether it had been the usual, inadvertently loosed thought. 

Aeryn, perched four rungs below where he had stopped on the ladder, looked up at John.  “Problem?” 

“Uhh … no.  No problem at all.”  He scrambled the rest of the way up to the Den, hindered by the use of only one hand, and made an awkward transition off the ladder.  Aeryn landed beside him with a great deal more grace, and was inside consoles standing beside Pilot almost before John could regain his balance. 

“It’s working,” she said.  “He’s better.” 

“Any sign that he was starved too long?  Any permanent damage?” 

“I don’t think so.  It’s going to be an arn or two before I’ll be able to tell for certain.  Moya could tell us if there has been --”  Aeryn’s head came up slowly, eyes wide with concern.  “I didn’t mean that.  I’m not asking you to --”

“It’s okay, Aeryn.  I know.”  Crichton waved away the last of her apology.  He had felt the fast lurch of guilt associated with the idea of him linking up to the leviathan again, and knew that it had been another of the stray mental wanderings that most people couldn’t keep contained.  There was something else contributing to his easy dismissal of Aeryn’s thought, however.  It was the look of confused mortification on her face, which exactly mirrored his own feelings whenever he accidentally listened in on someone’s thoughts.  There was something reassuring about discovering that he wasn’t the only one who felt that way, even if the source of the problem did reside inside his head.  It made him feel less like a freakazoid aberration and more like ‘John Crichton, Astronaut’.   

“I’m headed over to the Kyelligg.  We need to figure out how to get those ugly little dudes out of Moya.  Letting Rygel eat his way through them is going to take too long.” 

“John, wait for me,” D’Argo said over the comms.  “You should not go alone.” 

“Crap.  Forgot these things were open,” Crichton said, referring to the comms.  Damn, open channel.  He stumbled, disoriented by the echo, and then, for a microt, he felt like he was floating in zero gravity.  This time he went down on one knee before he could recover from the disorientation.  It happened again.  Moya’s walls disappeared for a microt and he saw himself floating outside an open hatch --Talyn’s hatch.  John slammed his left hand down on his thigh, deliberately pummeling the burns, and he was suddenly back in Moya’s Den with Aeryn poised halfway across Pilot’s consoles looking at him as though he had just thrown a wild foam-at-the-mouth fit.

He waved her back and finished what he had started to say.  “D’Argo, stay here and help Aeryn make sure those leeches can’t spread any further.  If they get into the main storage tank, Pilot is screwed.”

Aeryn opened her mouth with the beginnings of a protest.

“I’ll wait for both of you -- It’s dangerous.  They already attacked him once.  He’ll get killed … again. -- on board the Kyelligg.”  Belatedly, John remembered that no one had told Aeryn, or anyone else aboard Moya for that matter, about the search for the infected hvisk or about the unexplained attack by the blue and green crested males he had dubbed Heckle and Jeckle.  He rubbed his forehead with the heel of his good hand, and decided that the explanations would have to wait. 

“All I’m going to do is find the guy we were dealing with over there and let him know we’ve got a problem.  You have to take my word on this, the hvisk aren’t a danger.  I’ll wait for you to catch up before I do anything other than talk to Hox.”  He has to promise or it doesn’t mean anything.  He does what he wants.  “I promise.”

“Quarter of an arn,” she said.  “That’s when I’ll be there.”

“Take as much time as you need.”  He grimaced, hearing the double meaning that he hadn’t intended to put into his words, and tried again.  “Make sure Pilot and Moya are okay.  Don’t cut things short on this end.  I’ll wait.  Comm me when you’re aboard the Kyelligg, and I’ll tell you where I am.”  He flapped a fast wave in her direction, and headed into the corridor at a run. 

* * * * *

John yanked himself through the hatch with a lunge, having discovered at some point during their wild pursuit of the two infected hvisk that momentum helped him make the transition to a new gravitational orientation.  Straightening up, he scanned his surrounding for some sign of Hox.  The hvisk was somewhere nearby; Crichton had felt him before he had even left Moya.  Hox’s presence smoothed out the inconsistencies in his control.  Without Hox’s assistance, the barrier he put up was a wandering, overgrown hedge:  full of lumps, thin spots, prickling thorns, and the occasional gap.  With the help of the elderly creature’s gentle guidance, it turned into something far stronger and intricate:  smooth and resilient when he wanted to shut everything out, and yet capable of letting through as much or as little noise as he needed when he wanted to listen for something specific. 

“Where are you, old man?” John whispered, craning his neck in an attempt to look over the heads of the crowd.  The faded purple crest was nowhere in sight.  “Is this cranial hide-and-go-seek?”     

A passing female, two youngsters bouncing along beside her, gave him a squinting smile.  One of the little ones tooted a squawking series of notes at Crichton and waved.  For the first time since the telepathy had been inflicted on him, John was able to feel their emotions without going so far that he intruded on their thoughts.  They liked him.  He reached farther into the crowds passing by, sampling more of the reactions to his presence.  In less than ten microts, he learned that with the exception of the very young and the very old, every single hvisk living on board the Kyelligg knew who the oddly dressed stranger was and -- despite his rather peculiar appearance and the unmelodious noises he emitted -- they all liked him. 

“That’s definitely a first.”  Two males, eyes glistening with good spirits, trilled a pair of rapid laughs in his direction.  “Sorry,” he said, apologizing for his leaking thoughts.  They bobbed a fast, cheerful response and continued on their way. 

“Who are these juveniles of your species that you see?”

“JEE-sus Christ!”  Crichton spun around.  Hox was standing a motra away, laughing at him.  “You frelling scared me half to death, old man.  You can’t be sneaking up on me like that!”  The dual surprise of the whistled message delivered in time with the mental translation had startled him worse than usual.  “How long have you been standing there listening to me make a jackass of myself?” 

“Not long,” Hox sang.  “I became aware that you were on your way, and was coming to meet you.  Who are the two juveniles pictured in your mind?  Are they your hatchlings?”

“Hatchlings?”  Still a bit shaken from his mild scare, it took John a moment to figure out what Hox meant.  “No!  No, I don’t have any hatchlings.  I was thinking about a couple of pint-sized know-it-alls who were in first grade with me.  I got along with everyone in the class except those two.  Probably the closest I’ve ever come to having everyone like me all at the same time.”  He was on the verge of launching into a description of the day he had managed to make a lifelong enemy out of Miles Ramsey by smearing a thin layer of glue on the other boy’s chair, thus adhering his classmate’s pants to the seat, when he realized that he had lost Hox’s attention. 

“What is this?  What is this?”  It was a fast, repetitive five-note combination sung twice without a noticeable break.  Suddenly serious, Hox stepped closer, and grabbed Crichton’s wrist.  He studied the bandaged hand carefully, head twisting left and right in order to view it independently with each eye.  “Your mind envisions a deliberate injury.  Why?  What occurred that required this mutilation?”

“Things got out of control.  Listen, we have a --”

“That should not have happened.  Not to the extent that this should be required.”  The hvisk’s distress came across clearly.  “Your ability to control your mind is more than adequate to prevent this necessity.  This is wrong.” 

“No, it’s not.  Stop freakin’ out over this and pay attention to me for a second, old man.  I tried to listen in on a creature that was too big for me to handle, that’s all.  Our ship is in trouble.  She’s been infected.”  He closed his eyes and created a mental image of him touching Moya’s wall, then backed his viewpoint away from that scenery to show the extent of the leviathan.  His reward was a soft jolt of surprise from Hox.  “Yes, she’s alive and she’s sentient.  And something -- we think it came from this station -- has gotten inside her.  It almost killed our pilot.” 

The chipped, aged beak clacked together several times without any accompanying whistles or notes.  Hox clattered several motras to one side, stared up at the street above/below on the other side of the station’s interior, and then made his way back to where John was waiting for him.  “I do not understand much of what you wish to explain to me.  There is great urgency.  Is this correct?”

“Humongous urgency,” John agreed.  “We need to get these critters out of our ship mucho pronto.” 

“Would you be willing to show me?  It will require that you relinquish a greater degree of privacy.” 

“Relinquish how?  You going to drag what you need to know out of my head?”  He felt uncomfortable even asking the question.  Everything he had learned of the hvisk said that they would never do anything that intrusive.  If the answer was yes, it was going to radically alter his opinion of the entire species, not to mention the person standing in front of him.  In the few arns that he had known Hox, John had come to like and respect him as much as his friends aboard Moya.  He didn’t want to find out that he had been wrong.

“No!  Never!”  The pale-greenish skin turned an unpleasant shade of yellow at the thought.  “No member of our society would ever do such a thing.”

Warm, gut-softening relief flooded through Crichton’s lower body.  For a moment, all he had been able to envision was a hvisk version of the Aurora Chair, perhaps consisting of a group of specially trained individuals ganging up on him to tear what they wanted to know out of his mind.  When he had assured D’Argo that the hvisk could not do anything like that, he had earnestly believed it.  For a brief interval, however, Hox’s request had left him uncertain about that assessment.

Hox let out a sharp, distressed clacking.  “What?  What?  What?”  He backed away from Crichton.  “What is this abomination?”

“It’s called the Comfy Chair.  I didn’t mean for that to get loose.  I’ll try to keep it locked up in the closet from here on in.”

Hox stepped closer to John than he had at any time, even closer than when he had needed to maintain physical contact to help control the telepathy.  Black eyes gazed intently into blue ones.  John took a step away from Hox’s too-close proximity, and did his best to bury his memories of the Gammack Base.  But trying to hide them meant thinking of those hideous arns in the Chair, if only for a fleeting instant.  That single flash was enough for Hox, the expert on controlling thoughts.  He let out a long, eerie hoot, followed by a mournful series of notes.  “Wrong, wrong, wrong.  It is wrong to do such a thing to another living being.  No hvisk would ever commit this crime.”

“Yeah, I know first hand about the wrong part.  Hox, old buddy, old pal, we need to concentrate on something else right now.  Focus.  Moya.  Our ship.  There’s a problem, and you need to understand what we found so your people can help us get these slippery slugs out of her.” 

“Come.  We require solitude in order to do this.”

Motioning for John to follow, Hox cut across the primary street, clattered down a narrow path between two walled gardens, and emerged into a secluded seating area.  Surrounded on all sides by thickly grown vines, with tree branches arching overhead to create a porous, natural roof, the enclosure was both quiet and emotionally soothing.  An occasional rustle in the undergrowth suggested that there were more wild creatures on board the station than just the flocks of birds John had seen on his first visit.  Instead of a stone-paved floor, the ground here was covered in ankle-deep moss of varying shades of blue and green, seeded in an intricate artful pattern. 

John hesitated at the edge of the moss, pressing lightly with his boot to determine how badly he would damage the growth if he walked on it. 

“There is no reason to withhold,” Hox whistled.  He gathered up the bottoms of his robes in both hands, exposing wrinkled, skinny knees, and began jumping up and down, deliberately mashing the moss.  The three-toed feet sank in deeply; the moss came close to obscuring the hooking fourth toe on the back of his leg with each impact.  The growth sprang up every time, no matter how heavily he landed.   

Crichton turned away from the sight of Hox hopping about the enclosure, desperate to smother the mental image he had conjured up of an old man in a nightshirt bouncing on his bed. 

“Think of something else quick!” he ordered himself in a whisper.  He managed to come up with a memory of his father in t-shirt and shorts doing flips on a trampoline when he was training for his first EVA.  It wasn’t a huge improvement, but it was better than … He slid back to the first image.  “Crap!”  Hox was sure to pick it up any microt.  He resorted to the one thing that too easily occupied his every waking thought.  Aeryn.  It worked perfectly.  The familiar ache returned, ending the short, cheerful interlude. 

When he turned around, he was relieved to find that Hox had ended his exuberant demonstration and was making himself comfortable on one of the carved benches arranged around the perimeter of the shady area.  John took a cautious step onto the ankle deep moss, testing to make sure there wasn’t a bog underneath.  Squashy but firm, springy, and far more stable than he would have guessed, he imagined that walking on an enormous marshmallow might feel similar.  He wanted to take off his boots and socks in order to explore what the surface felt like under bare feet.  But Pilot’s dilemma awaited a solution, and there was rarely enough time in his life for the simpler pleasures. 

“What do you want me to do?” he asked. 

“It is easiest if you would agree to sit here.”  Hox pointed to a spot on the ground at his feet. 

John poked a finger into the growth, checking for moisture.  The last thing he needed was to spend the rest of the day walking around with wet leather chafing his butt.  It was dry, and he flopped down by Hox’s feet and then swiveled around so his back was to the hvisk. 

“Is this going to be some Unity sort of thing where we merge into each other?”  He was willing to do almost anything if it would speed Pilot’s recovery, but the idea of entering a Unity-like state with Hox made him queasy.  Zhaan had been close to humanoid, and on that first occasion when he had badgered her into sharing Unity with him, he hadn’t yet learned that she was a plant.  Hox was an entirely different situation. 

“No merging.  You will think, and I will listen.  It is highly efficient.”

“Just tell me what to do.” 

Hox rested both hands on Crichton’s shoulders.  “Do not attempt to explain to me.  Before we begin, decide what knowledge is required if I am to assist you and your companions.  Organize it in your mind.  Then you must carefully remember when you yourself learned each bit of knowledge.  Attempt to remain focused.  Wandering is customary and is not considered offensive, but it is inefficient.”

“I’m giving you my memories.  Sharing them with you,” Crichton said, summarizing in order to make sure he understood what Hox was telling him.

“Correct.  This method is much quicker and more thorough than a verbal exchange,” Hox sang. 

“Okey dokey.”  John squirmed in place, discovering that his current position was every bit as uncomfortable as sitting cross-legged in the hvisk chairs, and gathered a mental list of everything Hox would need to know about leviathan physiology and the parasitic eels that currently infested her innards.  He would need to go back to some of his first days on board Moya -- days when he routinely got lost and was baffled by much of the alien world around him.  Showing Hox the moments when he had learned about Moya was going to be embarrassing.   

“What the hell.  Everyone else thinks I’m a bit of an idiot.  No reason you shouldn’t join in.”  He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and dove into his memories. 

It was almost like dreaming.  Suspended somewhere between idly revisiting his past and a waking dream state, he started with his first day on board Moya when Zhaan had proclaimed, “She's a Leviathan, a bio-mechanoid, a living ship,” and worked forward in time from there.  Feeling much as he had when psychically slipping and sliding through Moya’s conduits, he rushed forward to his first lesson in leviathan anatomy, once again tobogganed on his butt down the rough surface of an access shaft, and relearned about starburst, energy conduits, neural and energy nodal points.  Moya’s first pilot died in a mentally produced rerun, and he replayed the recording Chiana had found, seeing how a Pilot’s dead body had to be dug out of the surrounding matrix of living leviathan tissue, and how a new, eager young creature was artificially bonded into place.  He made the huge lunge forward in time and did his best to relive his brief residence inside Moya, complete with the nauseating internal churning he had shared.  And finally, together they watched Chiana bound out of the way in a hailstorm of thrown tools when the first deluge of eels gushed onto the floor. 

Hox broke the connection between their minds and John re-emerged into the tranquil, tree-lined park aboard the Kyelligg with a mumbled, “Whoa!”  The dim light and muted sounds were painful in the aftermath of his mental excursion, and Hox’s reason for bringing him to this hushed, deserted place became clear.  Emerging into the usual level of noise and confusion along the streets would have been agonizing.  Crichton wondered if this was the way a coma patient felt when waking up after a multi-year sleep.  “Did you do something to me?” 

“I assisted, nothing more.  It is normal in an endeavor such as this for the listener to assist in keeping the teacher focused.  Sit here while I explain to those who will resolve this situation.”  Hox patted the bench beside him. 

John obediently shifted from mossy spot at Hox’s feet to the less forgiving but more comfortable stone bench.  “Ma Bell long distance?  Semaphore?  How do you contact someone?” 

“I think about the person I need to reach.  When he notices my thoughts, he will think about me and I will then know that he is listening.  It is very simple.”

The idea of so many individuals thinking about each other all at the same time struck John as incredibly funny.  He laughed.  Once started, the mild case of the giggles refused to stop.  On top of the bubbling, inappropriate humor, he was feeling mildly disoriented and shivery.  It was shock, he realized.  Some element of the constant demands being put on him and his telepathy was driving him into a mild case of physical shock.  His mind was being asked to do something it wasn’t designed to accomplish, and his body was starting to object. 

He clipped the buckles of his jacket and tucked his hand under his armpits, doing everything possible to preserve body heat, and tried to concentrate on the things around him that were familiar.  There wasn’t much to choose from; even the trees and plants were peculiar looking.  He found one area of the vines that reminded him of the honeysuckle that had engulfed the fence behind their house when he was growing up, and kept his eyes fixed on it.  Beside him, Hox had stopped moving and was gazing off into middle space.  Crichton huddled in on himself, wondering how long it would take for the mental smoke signals to relay their problem to the correct person. 

He had barely finished the thought when Hox sat up straighter and scratched at the tip of his beak with one claw.  “You are correct.  It is our fault,” he whistled.  “Although we had heard accounts of such a beast, we have never encountered a living ship such as yours and did not take sufficient care to avoid this situation.  Please request of your crew that they reopen all internal valves.  The creatures will be summoned out of your ship.”

“That was quick.”  John hesitated with his hand hovering over his comms.  “If this process gets screwed up, you’ll kill our pilot and Moya will die along with him.  If that happens, we’ll be stranded here, and the way our luck has been running lately, everyone on board this station will either die or wind up imprisoned by the Peacekeepers.  Bad luck follows us around the way Boo-Boo follows Yogi.  You’re sure you can just Pied Piper the squiggly things out of Moya?” 

Hox tilted his head to one side, then the other, and back again, all without making a single note. 

“You’re sure your people can control them,” John said, clarifying the confusing reference. 

“Definitely.  The creatures have no ability for reasoning, but they can be drawn to a particular point when it is required.”  Hox placed a hand on Crichton’s shoulder, and instructed, “Listen carefully.”

There was a fast, painless, slamming impact against his mind.  It wasn’t an invasion; it was information arriving faster than he could separate it out.  When it was over, he blinked several times, feeling even more chilled and unsettled than he had before, and suddenly knew what the eels were, how they were used aboard the Kyelligg, and how they had gotten aboard Moya.  And he also knew for certain that it had been a genuine oversight by the hvisk, not some form of deliberate sabotage.  He activated his comms.  “Aeryn?”

“We’re on our way.  D’Argo and I are almost to Tier One,” she answered. 

“Turn around and go back to the Den.”  Frelling Crichton!  Why couldn’t he have told us this when … Dren!  He’s probably listening to me.  Crichton ducked his head to the side, covering up a grin.  There were aspects of the telepathy that were excruciating, and others that were close to comical. 

“Go back to the Den and reopen all the valves you just closed.  The hvisk are going to --”  He searched for a word that would describe what was going to be accomplished.  “They’re going to deworm Moya.  They need all the lines to be open so they can suck Rygel’s new food supply out of her.”  Neither ‘deworm’ or ‘suck’ was accurate, but they were the best terms he could come up with that had a chance of forestalling an argument. 

“This will take us at least another quarter arn.  Probably closer to half an arn,” she commed back. 

“I’ll wait.”  He remembered one of her earlier stray thoughts.  “I promise.” 

“We’re on our way back to the Den.  We’ll comm you when we’re ready for the hvisk to begin.” 

* * * * *

[KernilCrash]

Chapter 11

At John’s request, Hox led him to a different place where they could wait until Aeryn and D’Argo joined him aboard the Kyelligg.  This one was smaller and warmer, tightly bounded by steep embankments planted with foliage so dark that it appeared black, and was tucked in under an overhanging walkway so it had a roof.  To one side, just inside the entrance, a stream splashed its way down a rocky bed, and gurgled sideward into a culvert.  Steam rose off the surface.  The plants hanging over the sides of the rivulet dripped with condensation.  John held his hands in the vapor, warming them, and thought about the closed ecological system of the Kyelligg and why the water would be hot. 

“Cooling system from some sort of power plant?” he asked.       

Hox chirped a quick agreement, followed by a concerned query.  “You are feeling unwell?”

Crichton stretched, testing his body’s reactions.  He felt less wobbly and unsettled than he had earlier, but there remained a wandering, unpleasant chill to warn him that his body wasn’t going to tolerate much more in the way of psychic weirdness.  “My species doesn’t come with the equipment package for this sort of thing, and my body’s getting a bit ticked off at all this mental wizard crap.  It’s about to call a strike.”  He wandered about the close confines, examining his surroundings for several microts, then asked, “Why me?  Why did you do this to me specifically?  There are other species wandering around this portion of the universe better suited for this kind of modification.” 

Hox squinted a hvisk smile at him.  “You are accustomed to the silence in your mind.  It does not bother you as it does us.”

“I don’t understand.  Why does that matter?”

Hox drummed the toes of one food against the ground for several microts, producing a hushed clicking against the metallic surface.  Finally, he sang, “You felt the minds of the ones who attacked us -- the emptiness that was there.”

“Heckle and Jeckle?  Yeah.  No big deal.  I’ve felt it a bunch of times aboard the station.”  The purple-crested head swung from side to side several times.  The motions sorted themselves out into what Crichton was able to identify as dejection.  “I should have mentioned it, huh?” 

“For now, it is of little consequence.  Those are only the infected ones, the ones who have come in contact with the one we seek.  We cannot get close enough to his mind to be certain, but we believe the one we ask you to search for goes by the name of Klamik.  He was one of the first whose thoughts disappeared from among us.”

“Klamik,” John said, making sure his spoken version of the name matched what he had received from Hox.  “Again, why me?  Why can’t you search for him the same way you sent thoughts to other people a little while ago?”

Hox spent some more time tapping his toes, considering the question.  “Try to imagine what it would have been like to join your mind with that of your ship only to discover an absolute void of awareness.”  He beckoned.  When John went over to him, the hvisk took John’s bandaged left hand in both of his and held it up where they both could look at it.  “If you became that same nothingness, merged with it until there was only one set of thoughts, would even this have helped draw you back from that place?”

“I don’t know.  There was still me there, separate from Moya.  It’s tough to imagine what you’re talking about.” 

“That is because you naturally exist in solitude.  We do not.  If we find and merge with a damaged mind, we are unable to draw back from that void.  We succumb to The Mindlessness.  To locate Klamik is to doom the person who searches for him.  In desperation, we have sent several to find him.  Each time, they suffered the same fate.  Some were recovered and cured.  Others have been lost to us.  They cannot spread the infection, as does Klamik, but neither can they escape from its clutches without help.”

“Help as in the machine gizmo that did this to me,” John said, gesturing toward his head.  Hox nodded.  “Okay, that’s half the answer I’m looking for.”  John waved a bandaged hand at the station around them, indicating more than just the portions that were currently in sight.  “Your people come in contact with lots of species and individuals, most of whom aren’t telepathic.  Why me?  Why John Crichton?  My mind has already been messed up, messed with, messed around, and frelled into the ground.  I didn’t need another cranial overhaul, old man.  Why did your people pick on me?” 

“Because you are gentle,” came the answer. 

John barked out a surprised laugh.  “Gentle?  Man, if this is what gentle gets me, then I gotta work on growin’ me a mean streak.”  He boosted himself up to sit on the edge of the wall near the stream.  The air was warmer there.  “No, when I first got here maybe, but not anymore.  Sometimes a person has to change to survive.” 

“Yes.  Gentle.  It is your core, the thing that makes you unique.  You do not desire the death of others and you have compassion.”  Hox got up and went to stand beside Crichton.  He placed a hand on his shoulder and warbled another long series of notes.  “To take aggression and violence into our society would only worsen the affliction.  And we do not desire Klamik’s death.  We request only his capture.  You have learned to do what is necessary to ensure your continuation, but that part of you has not taken over your heart.”

John took several deep breaths and stared into out into the street, watching the passing throngs. 

“Surely you were aware of this?” Hox asked.   

John condensed his experiences into one short sentence.  “It’s been a bad couple of cycles.”

“You grieve for portions of your life that you have lost.” 

“More than you can imagine.” 

“You veil your thoughts and your words.  What do you hide from me?  What sickens your heart?”

John hopped down, walked to the edge of the small alcove, and looked up at the traffic flowing along the street on the far side of the station.  The Kyelligg was the most amazing piece of engineering he had encountered so far.  The station represented every good thing he had run into on this side of the universe.  He had found hatred, bigotry, violence and violation, abuses of the sort that humans couldn’t even begin to conceive of, and yet there was a degree of magnificence to the life he had found here that was almost enough to offset all the pain and suffering.  The hvisk habitat and its people embodied much of that positive aspect, demonstrating how much humanity had yet to learn and the wonders that lay ahead of his species.

He stared up/down into the happily integrated crowd, feeling the contented thrum coming from millions of minds existing in the constant security that they belonged and were valued and loved, and didn’t know if he was looking at heaven or hell.  Belonging to a greater whole was the heaven part; having every thought and action under constant scrutiny and his destiny predetermined by an entire society would be a living damnation. 

Hox was waiting, exuding a hopeful aura that he might get an answer to his question.   

“What sickens my heart?” John repeated slowly and deliberately.  He hesitated.  Another twenty microts ticked by before he decided to answer.  “For a while I thought I’d found the one single thing that I needed in order to feel that my life in this part of the universe was worth staying here.  When I first got here, all I could concentrate on was finding a way home.  Then one day I woke up and discovered that there was a better reason for staying.  Starting on that day, I didn’t care so much that I couldn’t figure out how to get back to my own planet.  I didn’t precisely give up on the dream, but if my efforts produced the Edsel of Wormhole Land, it didn’t matter quite as much.  I could stand it.”   

Hox nodded several times.  “Peculiar words,” he sang eventually.  “Many make no sense to any mind except your own.”

“Story of my life.  Tell me something that’s new.” 

“What has changed?”  Hox sat down on one of the benches.  Once seated, he tucked his knees up in front of his chest and arranged his robes so nothing but the hooked claws of his toes showed beneath the draped edge.  The similarities to a large bird perched on a roost increased to an unavoidable level.

Crichton turned away and focused on something other than the comparison.  “It’s too soon to be certain, but I think I’ve lost the one factor that makes life here bearable.”  He took a deep breath and said the most painful part out loud for the very first time.  “I can’t get home, I’m about to deliberately destroy some research that might help me get back where I belong, and I don’t feel like there’s any reason worth staying on this end of the universe anymore.  Hope isn’t enough when there’s no evidence that it’s going to be enough to get her back.”   

“You grieve,” Hox sympathized.   

“She’s not dead.  Aeryn’s alive.”  John looked away from Hox, hiding his face while he struggled to get his emotions under control. 

“You grieve for what has been lost.”

The question seemed to set everything loose in his soul, intermixing all of the equally painful emotions, braiding every thought about Aeryn into a single thick cable that tightened his throat and threatened to strangle him.  When he managed to speak, his voice was thick and guttural.  “This doesn’t help.  Let’s get back to business.”  He wandered two motras into the street, stopping near a long planter full of flowers. 

Hox didn’t follow.  He tapped one toe lightly against the smooth stone of the bench, and whistled in John’s direction, refusing to end the discussion.  “What do you desire most?  If you could have anything you have ever wished for, what would it be?”

Crichton squatted down to finger several of the plants.  The leaves were luxuriantly soft against his fingertips.  They had an overly plush, velvety surface that dribbled a dusting of tiny green fibers across his hand.  A gentle breath sent the swarm of detritus sailing into the air.  He watched the bits float away on the wind, and thought about whether he wanted to answer the question.  It didn’t matter whether he put his desires into words or merely envisioned them.  Hox would pick it up either way.  He tried to change the subject.  “Can we just drop this and get on with finding Klamik?  I don’t need my head shrunk.  I know what’s bugging me.” 

The elderly hvisk remained on his bench-perch, crest half-raised in curiosity, and watched Crichton with calm, unrevealing eyes.  “What is it that you desire most?” he asked again. 

The images were there, spilling about untidily in his mind, and he knew that if he couldn’t find something else to occupy his thoughts, that Hox was going to hear the answer anyway.  Once again, he was far too late.  The black eyes blinked at him several times, and Hox dropped his head, crest drooping in depression.  Two microts later, the words were tumbling out of John before he knew what was happening.  He heard his own voice, couldn’t bring himself to believe he was speaking, and had time to wonder if he had been wrong all along and the hvisk did, after all, have the ability to influence his thoughts. 

“What I want more than anything else is to go to sleep, and when I wake up I want to discover that I’m flaked out on the couch in my living room and this has all been some sort of bizarre dream.  I want to go back to a life that has cornflakes and pizza and mindless television shows and all the books I could ever hope to read.  I want the worse things I have to worry about to be remembering to renew my subscription to Playboy, whether the milk in the fridge has gone sour, and who’s going to make it to the Superbowl.  When someone gets pissed off at me, I want them to call me a dickhead instead of pulling out the heavy weapons in order to kill me and everyone I care about.  And most of all I want to crawl into my own bed, pull the covers up over my head, and sleep until the pain goes away.”  He thumped himself in the center of the chest, indicating where it hurt.

Crichton flopped down onto one of the benches, turned around so he was facing away from Hox, and covered his face with both hands.   

Hox was tapping one toe against the bench.  It went on for dozens of microts:  a rasping, evenly timed clack of nail against stone.  Except for that clicking reminder, the old hvisk had disappeared.  He had become a comfortable but impenetrable knot of thoughts hovering several motras to one side.  The whistle, when it came, was so quiet it was almost inaudible.  “You are not being truthful.  That is not truly what you desire.”

Crichton shook his head, refusing to look up at Hox.  “They’re coming,” he said instead of answering the accusation.  “I can hear D’Argo.” 

“They are not close.  There remains some little time to talk as yet.  And there is another one coming this time.  One I have not met.”  The tapping stopped. 

The silence went on long enough that Crichton finally raised his head and looked to see what Hox was doing.  The hvisk was staring toward where Moya was located with a look of puzzled regret. 

“Don’t!  Don’t read her and don’t presume you can understand.”  John lunged to his feet.  He wasn’t sure what he was going to do, but he was intent on stopping Hox from seeing who and what was coming toward them.  It was too late. 

“But you are alive.  You are not dead.”  Hox cocked his head to one side, then the other, still trying to work it out. 

“Leave her alone!  Aeryn just needs some time.”  John could feel it for himself now:  the overly controlled emptiness striding along beside D’Argo; the bundle of suppressed thoughts and feelings leaking out short-lived sparks of anxiety, concern, guilt, and desperation; and the underlying, nearly hidden portions that sometimes came close to feeling like love. 

Hox continued to stare down the street in the direction leading toward that conglomeration of emotions, looking both confused and intrigued.  Crichton lunged toward him, wanting to shove the hvisk or hit him or do anything to break into the intense look that meant Hox was delving into Aeryn’s thoughts and memories.  He pulled up short, incapable of hitting Hox, and then spun around in a circle, venting a small measure of frustration.

“Don’t!  Don’t do that to her!”  Crichton blurted out the only thing he could think of that might distract Hox’s attention away from Aeryn.  “That’s what I want, dammit!  That’s the one thing I can’t have, and it’s the only thing I want in this entire stinking, frelled up universe!” 

The black eyes turned his way at last.  Hox sang to him in a haunting minor key that raised the hair on the back of John’s neck and sent an uncomfortable chill racing down his spine.  “Young one, you both make the same error.  Grief cannot be denied.  You must embrace it, examine it in all its intricacies, and understand it before you can comprehend how to live with it.  Left to fester, it will destroy your soul.  Do not turn your back on it.”  Hox got to his feet and placed both hands on John’s shoulders, hvisk eyes staring down into human ones.  “You approached the question from two directions, and yet avoided addressing the true nature of your dilemma.  Answer it now.  What is the worst part about the prospect of losing the affection of this female?  What causes you the greatest portion of grief?” 

John slipped out from under the three-clawed hands and moved to the far side of the small enclosure.  He dipped his fingers into the flood of warm water, then flicked them, spattering droplets across the foliage.  “I have no where to go,” he finally admitted.  “I can’t imagine staying here without her, and I don’t want to go back to Earth if she doesn’t go with me.  Nothing has any meaning without Aeryn.  Without her I have no home.” 

“Can you find your way to your home?  Is it possible?” Hox continued to hammer away at him. 

“I don’t know.  I got here, I should be able to get back, but the knowledge is hidden and I don’t know if I’ll ever untangle it.  I need someone like you to get in there and pull it out in the open where I can make some sense of it.”  John glanced over his shoulder at Hox.  “Can you do that?  Is there someone on this station who can get inside my head and pull that crap out where I can use it?”

Hox whistled a soft negative.  “We do not have the ability to do what you request.” 

“Then I’m probably pretty much screwed.  If we manage to pull off the lunacy we have planned, I’m not sure I’ll ever figure out how to get back to Earth.”  He let out a brief barking laugh.  “Hell, I’m probably going to get killed in the process anyway.” 

The old man squinted at him, smiling benevolently at his pupil.  “You have a place, youngling.  If all else is lost, you may come and live with me in my cubbling.  You are welcome here.  Everyone aboard this living-place knows who and what you are, and they too would open their homes to you.  I believe you will find your way home some day, but should that quest end in failure, you have a place where you will be welcome and valued.  Your thoughts belong among such as ours.”

John stared at him.  Moya was his home in this particular universe, her burnished walls and eternal rumbles both familiar and soothing.  When he thought of her gleaming corridors and muted light, there was a warm sensation in his chest that used to be reserved for his room when he was in high school:  a place full of familiar, cherished possessions where he could be exactly who he wanted to be without worrying what anyone else thought of him. 

And yet Hox’s offer of a refuge was several degrees beyond attractive:  A floating space station filled with millions of peaceful individuals amongst whom he might have a chance of hiding, spending his days doing something more productive than killing, running, hiding, fighting, and fleeing from Scorpius and every other badass on this end of the universe who wanted to get at the knowledge stored in his brain.  He had been handed an option -- an alternative in the event that everything went horribly wrong over the next several solar days.  With the logical side of his brain insisting that he would never take Hox up on his offer, and that Scorpius would eventually find him here if he did, the frightened, emotional side that he rarely allowed to rule his actions relaxed a micro-dench, comforted that he had a choice even if it was an unrealistic dream. 

“Thank you,” he said after several microts.  There wasn’t any way to explain what Hox had just offered him.   

“I understand,” Hox said, nodding.  The thick beak swung up and down several times, confirming that the hvisk had overheard John’s thoughts and understood the significance of his offer.  He patted Crichton gently on the upper arm.  It was a more formal version of the pattering touches the flock of children had used several arns earlier to distract and reassure him. 

It was a kiss, John realized.  The revelation was like getting hit with a mild jolt of electricity.  It was the hvisk version of a gesture that was impossible for a species with a beak.  He had just been smooched by a six-foot-tall version of a sentient chicken, and an elderly male one at that.  He glanced at Hox, silently cursing himself for the errant images and praying that they hadn’t gotten loose.  The hvisk look of mild amusement that greeted his fast peek delivered the bad news.  “Crap.  Sorry.  I didn’t mean it that way.”

Hox hooted a long, good-natured laugh at him. 

D’Argo and Aeryn were no more than forty motras away, searching for some sign of him and Hox in the midst of the crowds.  John commed them, telling them to stay where they were and that he would come to meet them, then spoke to Hox.  “Let’s get a move on.  Now that I understand about the infection, I should be able to find Klamik pretty quick.”   

   * * * * *

Hox clattered along shoulder to shoulder with John, moving quickly but without haste toward the spot where Aeryn and D’Argo were wandering back and forth along the street a short distance looking for them.  They were ten motras away when Hox came to an abrupt stop and let out a two-microt stream of tuneless chattering.  The fast clicking refused to convert into anything worth calling a coherent sentence.  In spite of the lack of mental translation, John could feel concern and a small degree of alarm streaming off Hox. 

He came to a stop and asked, “What’s the matter?  What’s wrong?”

“My, my, my, my,” Hox chirped in a series of one-note bursts.  “When my mate felt like that, I found it preferable to find somewhere else to sleep for the night.  Much safer, yes.  Much, much less hazardous not to enter my cubbling when she was in this state of mind.  I believe your life may be in danger.”

John looked back and forth several times between Hox’s squinting expression of humor and Aeryn’s distant figure.  Before he could ask for an explanation, Aeryn turned and spotted him.  One microt later he was treated to a neuron-toasting blast of fury.  John cringed for a moment, both mentally and physically, then reached out with his mind, intent on finding out what had her so angry.  Diplomacy was always easier when he knew where the pitfalls were located, he reasoned, attempting to justify his decision to invade Aeryn’s thoughts.   

On the easily detected outer level, she was her usual, ultra-contained self:  focused, fierce, and ready to fire at the smallest sign of a threat.  Deeper inside, buried beneath several layers of defenses, he discovered a hurricane.  The tempest was mixing anger, concern, hurt, guilt, and a dozen other feelings into a tumultuous stew that he couldn’t hope to decipher.  One portion of that inner core was coming through all too clearly, however.  D’Argo had spent some of the extra time aboard Moya filling her in on the attack by the two infected hvisk, and she was furious that he hadn’t kept her informed.  She was intent on protecting him from another, similar assault, and was close to lashing out at him herself because, at least from her perspective, he had been keeping secrets.  D’Argo was being held blameless, and he, John Crichton, was going to take the brunt of Aeryn’s aggravation … as usual.

“Oh … dren.”

“Is this as perilous as I perceive?”  The thoughts arrived on a wave of hvisk mirth.  Hox was laughing at him and his predicament.   

Crichton managed a grin.  Inexplicably, getting laughed at made it easier to cope with Aeryn’s shift in attitude.  “She’s pissed and she’s armed.  It’s never a good combination.” 

Aeryn had gotten D’Argo’s attention; the pair was walking toward where John waited with Hox.  He looked at the pulse rifle cradled in the crook of Aeryn’s arm and idly wondered if he needed to worry about something more severe than a pantak jab.  The exterior bits of Officer Aeryn Sun looked as calm and repressed as ever; inside, the maelstrom of emotions had increased to an unequalled level.  He could feel it the same way he had felt Moya’s mental energy flowing across his hand.  The sensation was nowhere near as pleasant this time.   

The short-lived break in her unrelenting grief, the pleasant interlude when he could relax and enjoy Aeryn’s company, hadn’t ended with a return to her icy reserve.  Instead, it had been pre-empted by an all too familiar set of behaviors.  John discovered that he didn’t mind.  As difficult as it was dealing with Aeryn when she was in one of her more volatile moods, he would willingly accept it over the stony silence and averted gaze that had wandered Moya’s corridors for the last several solar days.

Hox continued to tease him.  “Should you run?  I can recommend some very good hiding places.  Some are quite comfortable if you should need to sleep there for several nights.”

John turned away from the approaching pair and looked at the person beside him instead.  Hox had progressed to full-blown laughter; purple crest fully erect with delight, beak open, he was emitting puffing little hisses of air.  John glared at him in mock anger.  “What do you know about being in the dog house with the little woman, you wrinkled old geezer?” 

“Again you use strange phrases.  Your thoughts, however, are clear enough for me to understand your accusation.”  Hox drew himself up straighter and squinted happily at Crichton.  “I was blessed to spend many cycles with my one and only beloved.  She was a terror when she was displeased, much like your mate, and I miss her very much now that she is gone.”

John assumed that Hox had picked up enough information to know how fragile his nearly non-existent relationship with Aeryn was at that moment, and elected not to debate the ‘mate’ portion of the comment.  Instead, he asked “How my cycles were you together?  And how old are you?”

“I was hatched over eight hundred cycles ago.  I cherished my mate for nearly six hundred of those cycles.”

Aeryn and D’Argo were four motras away.  John had time to ask one more question.  “How long do hvisk live?”

Hox patted him lightly on the shoulder.  “Perhaps nine hundred cycles.  Rarely more.  The string of my life grows short.”

“How is Pilot?” John asked as soon as his crewmates came to a halt beside him. 

“He looks like this,” D’Argo said on a relaxed laugh.  The warrior crossed his eyes, tilted his head from one side to the other, tanktas waving about with each change, and let his arms flop and dangle.  It was a masterful recreation of what a dopey, half-conscious Pilot might look like and more importantly, D’Argo’s humorous answer told John what he really wanted to know.  The crisis was over and Pilot was going to recover.  If the prognosis were in question, there would be no relaxed demeanor or joking about his condition.

Aeryn provided a more business-like answer.  “We left a swarm of DRDs in the Den with orders not to let Pilot touch anything.  Rygel, Chiana and Jool are taking turns keeping an eye on him until he begins to make some sense.”

“Good idea.  We wouldn’t want him instructing Moya to starburst while she’s docked.  But he’s going to be okay?  No permanent damage?”   

“It looks that way.” 

Without the telepathy, he might have made the mistake of thinking she was calm and under control; he might have even gone so far as to think that she wasn’t worried about either him or Pilot.  The recently added sense revealed a different reality.  Aeryn was fizzing like a well-shaken bottle of soda.  The random snaps and sparkles of more than a dozen different emotions radiated from her non-stop, drenching him in what felt like a shower of super-charged effervescence.  It was a marvel of self-containment, and he felt like he was within fallout range of a nuclear power plant in the first throes of a meltdown.  He clung to that knowledge and tried to steel himself to be patient, calm, and understanding -- all qualities that usually went right out the window within the first few moments of an argument with Aeryn. 

She stepped closer, turned her back on Hox, and spoke softly.  “Forget to tell me something?”  It wasn’t a question; it was an aggressive accusation. 

“We were busy.  It didn’t seem all that important at the time.” 

“You were wrong.” 

Crichton wondered if a matador about to be gored by a bull felt this way.  He was certain that no matter which way he turned, he was going to get skewered.  “We were busy with Pilot, and --”

“And D’Argo started to mention it and you stopped him.  I heard you.  Stop treating me like an idiot.” 

“That’s not what he started to mention and I’m not treating you like an idiot.  You’re the one who has it wrong.”  Behind him, he could feel Hox’s mental laughter.  The old man was enjoying the whispered battle.  This time providing entertainment for someone else didn’t help his attitude.  Crichton started to get angry.  “There wasn’t enough frelling time to discuss it!” 

“What about now?”  The emotionless mask dropped away.  Aeryn scowled at him.  The matador versus bull feeling grew more pronounced. 

He wanted to say, “What the frell do you care what happens to me anyway?”  It was pressing against the back of his teeth, demanding that he lash out with all the hurt and neglect he had suffered over the last few solar days.  Reason locked his jaw closed for the length of time it took to quash the impulse.  Throwing that in Aeryn’s face wouldn’t improve the situation; it was more likely to provoke physical violence.   

John looked over his shoulder, vainly searching for an ally.  D’Argo had prudently retreated to a spot several motras to one side, out of earshot of the whispered argument.  The warrior was studying a moss-covered statue with an un-luxan degree of interest.  John expended a single microt wishing that craven retreat was a viable alternative, then he turned back to Aeryn, and said, “Right now we’re not discussing it either.  You’re ticked and you’re beating me up over a judgment call.” 

“Your judgment puts the rest of us at risk by not telling us the dangers involved.  If you pull this sort of thing on the Command Carrier, you’ll get everyone killed.” 

“No one else …”  He stopped before he could finish telling her that he was the only person at risk.  Heckle and Jeckle had come straight at him.  There hadn’t been any detectable thoughts to tell him why, but it had been clear that he was their target.  Aeryn didn’t need to know that, he decided. 

Crichton ran through the various options available to him:  frontal attack, evasion, deception, or run like hell.  Going head to head with Aeryn rarely succeeded, deception was what had gotten him into this mess in the first place, and it was obvious that she wasn’t going to let him run away from the subject.  That left evasion.  He needed to change the subject.  “I was concentrating on what you were asking me to do to save Pilot.  Remember that part?” 

Liar. 

It was another of the ultra-clear messages that rivaled even Hox’s well focused thoughts, and again he wondered if she had sent it intentionally.  Either way, the silently delivered accusation hurt, and because she hadn’t said it aloud, it meant that he couldn’t respond to it without risking a denial or an angry backlash.  John bit down on the snarling retort he had come up with, and tried a different form of evasion:  the delaying tactic.  It was too much to hope that she would forget it completely, but if he was lucky she would be calmer in a few arns.  “Can we table this long enough to finish what we need to do here?  You can flog me over the head with this all you want once we leave the Kyelligg.”

He could feel her begin to relent several microts before it showed in her expression.  Aeryn glanced toward D’Argo first, taking several microts to sum up his overly nonchalant poise near the sculpture, then turned to one side, using the change in her position to invite both D’Argo and Hox back into the conversation. 

“What were those things inside Moya?”  She bestowed her special Aeryn Sun ‘I’m Angry’ Glare on Hox next.  The pulse rifle, still nestled casually beneath her arm, shifted so it pointed generally in the hvisk’s direction.  Hox’s amused grin disappeared.  He watched Aeryn and the rifle just as intently as she was regarding him. 

John let out a held breath.  Provided nothing else set either one of them off again, which was always a possibility, it looked like they had made it through the small argument without adding to existing injuries.  Starting with a minimal introduction -- “Aeryn, Hox, Hox, Aeryn” -- he provided the barest summary of what he had learned about the eel-creatures.  “The Kyelligg has more miles of pipeline to be maintained than all of OPEC put together.” 

Hox’s look of confusion matched D’Argo’s and Aeryn’s to perfection.

John rephrased.  “The station has hundreds of motras worth of fluid transfer conduits.  The wriggling Hynerian snacks are pipe cleaners.  They slither around inside the station making sure there are no build-ups in any of the pipes.  Since this place is purely mechanical, the hvisk can keep the population under control by restricting how much they get fed.”

Aeryn understood immediately.  “Except Moya is a living being and they found an unlimited food supply.”

John nodded.  “It was just our bad luck that the food supply they latched onto is what keeps Pilot alive.”  He felt the next question building in D’Argo’s mind, and answered it without waiting.  “The hvisk are luring them out with a chemical that mimics a natural pheromone.  Hox guarantees that Moya will be worm-free in a couple of arns.”

“Pheromone,” D’Argo said thoughfully.  “As in …” 

“As in eel sex.”  John leered at him.  “Big slithering orgy.”

“I could have lived the rest of my life quite happily without thinking about that sort of thing,” D’Argo grumbled. 

“Why did the hvisk put them inside Moya?”  Aeryn aimed her demand straight at Hox. 

John answered, “It was an accident.  A valve got left open that was supposed to be closed.” 

“You’re sure it was accidental, John?  There’s no chance it was deliberate?” D’Argo said. 

“Yeah.  No question about it.”  He indicated Hox with a jerk of his head.  “They’re actually pretty embarrassed by what happened.  They don’t usually screw up like that.  Frelling with visiting ships to the point of killing off customers is considered bad for business.” 

Hox added his own whistled apology. 

“All right, now what?” Aeryn asked.

“Now I go hunting for one specific person, and you tag along to shoot anyone who tries to stop me.”   

“You must not shoot them!” Hox’s protest emerged on a distressed honking.  “They will be cured.  Cured, not killed.”

John translated the anxious demand.  “No killing allowed.  Set phasers for stun.” 

Aeryn was gazing into street above her head.  She asked, “How long will the search take?  There are millions of hvisk on board this ship.  How long will it take for you to find a single person?”

John shrugged and made a wild guess.  “Couple of arns maybe?  I know what I’m looking for now so all I need to do is listen until I hear someone whose mind has gone silent.” 

D’Argo objected.  “How can you listen for something that isn’t there?  You’re not making sense.”

“When do I ever?  You’re just going to have to trust me on this.  Come on, walking makes it easier to pick out different minds.”  He gestured for Aeryn to take the lead, and the four of them headed down the street. 

* * * * *

[KernilCrash]

Chapter 12

John’s quick resolution to the search didn’t materialize.  It didn’t turn out to be the simple task of zeroing in on the emptiness of Klamik’s diseased mind as he had imagined; D’Argo’s skeptical complaint was closer to the truth.  An active, alert mind like Hox’s was easy to locate.  Without that radiating presence, the diseased minds had to be sieved out from the millions of healthy hvisk one by one.  And that meant he had to locate and touch every single mind aboard the Kyelligg.  Even after allowing for the steady increase in both the strength and control of his telepathy, it wasn’t a simple or a quick process.

Four arns had passed and they continued to walk, following a Peacekeeper-designed search pattern laid out by Aeryn that would cover all thirty-two of the Kyelligg’s major avenues in the least amount of time.  John didn’t want or need to travel through every street and alleyway; that sort of search would take solar days to complete.  But he had found that changing his location helped ferret out more minds.  Similar to adjusting the angle of a radar antenna, moving about the station allowed him to find and search areas of the station that he hadn’t already covered, as well as providing an overlap that helped illuminate the bundles of intellects wherever there was an assembled group or any sort of gathering. 

“Got another one,” John said.  He had found another of the mental blank spots in the hvisk society.  In a two-person version of mental ‘Pin The Tail On The Donkey’, he guided Hox’s awareness to a female adult standing outside one of the shops lining a secondary street.  It was fifty-sixth such mind he had located in the four arns.  Once he was certain Hox knew where to find the female, John broke away.  The hvisk authorities would arrange to have her escorted to a rapidly filling detention center where she would be held until the repairs to the machine were completed and the victims of The Mindlessness could be treated.   

“It is spreading” Hox sang in a minor key.  “We must find Klamik.  It is spreading more quickly.” 

“Doing my best.”  Crichton rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand.  “Right now, I need to take a break.” 

Hox clacked his beak several times, worry and impatience radiating from him, then he paused and looked at Crichton more carefully.  “Once again you are feeling unwell, are you not?”

John glanced to one side.  Aeryn was waiting two motras ahead, pulse rifle propped on her hip, eyes tirelessly scanning the crowds.  D’Argo was coasting along the same distance behind them, the second half of Crichton’s personal guard.  Their self-appointed task of protecting him was going to be a difficult one since only John could detect which of the pedestrians milling about them was a potential threat.  Until someone actually made an aggressive move, Aeryn and D’Argo wouldn’t be able to tell friendly hvisk from demented, and that uncertainty was making both of them irritable and jumpy.   

“My feet are tired,” John said to Hox.  He wasn’t going to say anything about the other symptoms as long as Aeryn was within earshot.  The chill and the unsettled feeling were back, along with a mild case of nausea.  As it had before, his body was rebelling against the unaccustomed task his mind was being forced to undertake. 

Hox looked between John and Aeryn several times, tipping his head to the side with each back and forth swivel.  Whatever conclusion he drew from the examination remained hidden behind a tightly woven barrier.  If Hox had picked up the reason behind John’s evasion or the true reason why he needed to rest, he didn’t show any sign of it.  After one additional inspection of both John and Aeryn, Hox motioned toward a fountain surrounded by a number of flat-topped pedestals.  All four made their way to the far side of the fountain where they could keep an eye on the other pedestrians, and sat down. 

“What’s the latest on Pilot?” John asked.  He had seen Aeryn ducking down toward her comms several times over the past arn, and assumed she was checking on his recovery. 

“He’s almost back to normal.  Chiana says that the only DRDs remaining on his controls are the ones guarding the comms channels.” 

“Good.” 

He couldn’t think of anything else to say to her.  There were dozens of things he wanted to say to Aeryn:  things like what it was like to be able to feel someone’s emotions the way he experienced a sunburn or a skinned knee or being tickled, what it was like to become a leviathan for half an arn, or how exciting it was to discover, after decades of science fiction and conjecture, that humans had the latent ability for telepathy after all.  There were tens and hundreds of small observations and moments he wanted to share with her, and all he could say was “Good.”  Anything else had the potential to reopen raw wounds … both his and hers.

Over the course of the four arns, she had gradually disappeared as an emotional entity.  With each passing microt, Aeryn had slowly tucked her feelings back into whatever metal-strapped cage she had built to keep them imprisoned, blunted the random spikes of anxiety and concern, and capped the uncontrolled geysers until there was little left than the quiet hum of her hidden, inner thoughts.  He wanted to turn on his seat, grasp her by the shoulders, and shake her until each one of the locks and binders sprang open.  He would willingly accept the sandpaper-rasping discomfort of her grief over the currently painless but dull lump of denied emotions sitting next to him.

Give her time, young one.  Her grief is a labyrinth.  In time she will find her way out.  Then she will return to you.

John glanced to his left.  There had been no accompanying tune from Hox.  The message had been sent solely on a mental level.  I miss her, old man.  I want to share things with her.

Hox gave him a single down-up bob.  I know, youngling.  Give her time.  She is confused.

Aeryn’s voice interrupted the silently conducted conversation.  John jumped.  For a microt he was irrationally convinced that she had overheard them talking about her.  It turned out that she had been thinking about something he should have been considering as well.  “Why aren’t any of these hvisk trying to attack you?”   

“What?” 

“One of the sick ones was no more than four motras away from us when you located him.  Why didn’t he try to attack you?” 

Crichton stared dumbly at Aeryn.  What she saw so easily, undoubtedly as a result of her soldier’s training, he had overlooked completely.  It would have been easy to blame it on the confusion of the last several arns -- the fight with Heckle and Jeckle, the chase, the loss of mental control, followed by his mind-bludgeoning visit to Moya’s psyche -- but what she had picked up on was so obvious, he couldn’t help but feel like an idiot. 

“Hox?  You feel like explaining this little tidbit?”

It didn’t seem possible, but the purple crest feathers managed to droop even more flatly against Hox’s skull.  With Crichton translating for D’Argo and Aeryn, Hox explained, “The newly afflicted ones would not do this on their own.  Only those who have suffered from The Mindlessness the longest become a danger to all -- those such as the one you visited in the detention area.”

“Once they begin to act like that, you’re able to find them and cure them,” D’Argo said. 

Hox bobbed a small, seated bow in the luxan’s direction.  “Correct.  Most of those that we locate today are more recently afflicted and do not present a physical threat.  Despite their illness, they would never willingly attack another.  Only when the insanity drives them further from their true nature, only then would they threaten others.”

John could feel that Hox was skirting some portion of the issue.  It was like trying to keep up with a hummingbird while walking on ice.  Each time he got close to whatever Hox was hiding, the hvisk’s thoughts flitted sideways and he was left scrambling for traction, unable to follow.  By the time he caught up again, his target zipped off in a new direction.  After several such futile attempts to hear what Hox was avoiding, Crichton abandoned the game of mental tag and resorted to a non-telepathic solution.  He asked. 

“What aren’t you telling us, old man?  Cough it up.” 

Hox treated John to a ten-microt enigmatic stare, and then dropped his gaze to where clawed fingers were slowly picking the weave loose from a frayed portion of his robes.  It was the first time since he had met the elderly hvisk that John had seen him mentally off-balance.  Some portion of the situation was bothering Hox enough that his control lapsed for an instant.  This time John was able to catch a flash before Hox managed to recover. 

“It has something to do with the two that attacked us earlier,” he said to D’Argo and Aeryn.  “It has to do with Heckle and Jeckle.”  He turned back to Hox.  “They haven’t been sick long enough to start behaving like this, have they?  You know who they are and you know when they were infected, don’t you Hox?  Don’t you!”  His accusation ended in a bellow loud enough that Hox cringed away from him.  John took a moment to get his temper under control before trying again.  “You’re hiding something, Hox.  I saw it for a split-microt.  Whatever it is, spit it out!”

Continuing to shrink away from Crichton’s anger, Hox confessed.  “Your perception is accurate.  The two young ones are known to us.  They fell prey to The Mindlessness a very short time ago.  Insufficient time has passed for them to behave in this manner on their own.  Klamik sends them.  He does not want to be found, so he sends those who are physically closest to him, those who are the most affected by the instability of his mind, to stop you.” 

“So it wasn’t a random attack just because I’m the one doing the searching.  It was deliberate.  Klamik is out to kill me and you didn’t think this was worth mentioning, old man?” 

“Sounds familiar,” Aeryn said behind him.

“Aeryn,” D’Argo admonished her.  “That does not help the situation.” 

He does it to me, and then has the nerve to be angry when someone does it to him.

“I’m not ang--!” Crichton started in a furious yell, intending to deny that he was angry.  He stopped mid-word once he realized how he had received the message.  His control had been rock solid, the barrier against unwanted thoughts was thorough, and every one of Aeryn’s offhand mental quips had the ability to pierce the shield effortlessly. 

Confusion and frustration, when mixed together with someone else’s intrusive thoughts, felt like the first stages of permanent psychosis.  John turned to the person who held the power to make it stop.  “Damn it, Hox, I need this crap out of my head!  Humans are not built to handle this sort of thing.  You’ve got to let me off the hook.” 

John -- Crichton -- he’s cracking up -- No -- I didn’t mean for him to -- my friend needs -- there is a job to -- to hear that -- my help -- be finished.” 

The two extra mental commentaries snuck past his defenses piggybacked on Hox’s reply to his plea; three sets of thoughts arrived at once, tangled into a cat’s cradle of emotions and ideas.  The added burden was all that his over-stressed physiology needed to justify a full out rebellion.  John hunched over on his seat, shivering and close to being sick.  Less than one solar day had passed since the moment when he saw the hvisk for the first time, which was far too little time for his body and psyche to adjust. 

“John?”  Aeryn’s and D’Argo’s voices combined to form an anxious unified query.  It didn’t help that it was an aural input rather than a mental one; the result was just as bad as the intertwined thoughts he had received a microt earlier. 

“I need a minute.”  Getting to his feet, he stumbled away from the others.  An aura, projecting concern and protectiveness, floated along behind him.  Crichton didn’t need to turn around to know who was following him.  “Give me a couple of microts alone to get my dren together, D’Argo,” he said to the hovering luxan. 

“And what if those two we were talking about, the one with the blue and the green,” D’Argo waved a hand above his head, indicating Heckle and Jeckle’s crests, “are somewhere nearby, John?  Would you be able to locate them in time to warn us?” 

Crichton shook his head.  “Not unless I’m actively looking for them, and believe me, I’m not doing any searching right now.  I need a little peace and quiet, D.  This is slowly driving me nuts.”  Twelve motras from the fountain there was a small grove of trees with a circular bench all the way around it.  John flopped down in the shade and stared back the way they had come.  Aeryn and Hox were where he had left them.  Both were looking in his direction, but neither one had followed or had even gotten to their feet.

D’Argo stood next to John fidgeting indecisively for several microts.  Then he made his way slowly around the small stand of trees, carefully surveying the surrounding area and the constant streams of hvisk hurrying along the street before wandering back to where John had laid down on the bench.  After several more microts of consideration, the luxan chose a spot three motras to one side of John and stationed himself there, arms crossed and looking fierce.  His guard post placed him between Crichton and the flood of pedestrians.  No one could approach the segment of bench where John was sprawled on his back without first passing close to D’Argo.

John watched the process without offering any suggestions.  His attention was being distracted by a new phenomenon had begun to occur with increasing frequency since he had become trapped in Moya’s psyche; and he didn’t know if it was another sign of his strengthening telepathy or if a portion of his brain had been damaged by that merging.  If he looked at other beings in the correct manner, he could see their emotions … only it wasn’t exactly ‘seeing’.  It didn’t matter if he had his eyes open or closed, and it didn’t require that he listen to D’Argo’s thoughts in order to set it off.  Lying on his back, staring up over his head at the glowering luxan sentry, it happened again.   

There was a shivering, energized layer of tension and worry surrounding D’Argo’s body, hemmed in by a hot metal-tasting shell of self-discipline.  That outer casing was lined with fissures and cracks, through which bursts of anxiety and concern escaped at steam-jet velocities.  Closer to his body glowed muted tones of compassion, sunset shades of red and gold, intertwined and shimmering.  The warrior was both worried about him and equally confident that John Crichton could handle anything that the universe threw his way.  The mélange was complex.  It defied description with any medium so limited as words.  Perhaps Moya and Pilot, with eight senses instead of five, could comprehend what he was detecting. 

Before he could sneak a mental peek at Hox and Aeryn, his thoughts were interrupted.  Noises -- clumsy syllables dropping one by one like wooden mallets striking stone -- arrived on sparking, scintillating sheets of yellow and white concern.  The emotions were far more tangible than the simple query.  “John, are you all right?”

Crichton opened one eye to see what had his friend so worried.  D’Argo had moved closer and was staring down at him.  “What’s up, Big D?” he asked. 

“You looked --”  D’Argo fidgeted for a moment then started to move away without answering. 

“Looked what?” John asked.

Several microts passed before he received an answer.  “Empty.  You looked the same way you did in Moya’s corridor.  I thought perhaps you had gotten lost again.”

John sat up and shook his head.  “Just taking a short mental vacation.  My neurons are approaching overload status.”  He rubbed his eyes, feeling as though he hadn’t slept in a week.  “How long was I zoned out?”

“A little over a quarter of an arn.” 

It hadn’t felt anywhere near that long.  He would have guessed that he’d had his eyes closed for no more than one or two hundred microts.  Wherever he had drifted to in that interval, the break had helped.  The sense of encroaching insanity had eased, and he felt more in control of his own mind. 

John looked toward where Aeryn and Hox were still sitting next to the fountain.  They had barely moved.  Hox had drawn his feet up beneath his robes again, and was watching the passing traffic with placid interest.  He looked like an oversized Buddhist parrot:  serene, patient, and avian.  Beside him sat his antithesis:  every muscle rigid, back straight, eyes constantly in motion, Aeryn looked like she was about to explode at the slightest provocation.  The only similarity between the two was that they were both sitting still.

Their emotional signatures were every bit as disparate.  Where Hox glowed with an even, sun-like radiance, Aeryn was a volcano spewing out flaming projectiles.  The hvisk was interacting with those passing by, reaching out with his control, touching, nurturing, and receiving emotions in return.  The ex-soldier sitting beside him had her molten core well encased in a stony exterior; she was Mount Saint Aeryn slowly building up pressure, sometimes venting ignited jets of volatile compounds, and other times simmering along behind a façade of peaceful containment.

Crichton wondered which outcome was more likely.  Krakatoa-sized explosion?  Or a more gradual easing of …

“John?”  D’Argo interrupted his silent introspection.   

“Give me a microt, D.”   

“No.  We don’t have a microt.”  D’Argo grabbed him by the front of his jacket, hauled him forcibly to his feet, and aimed him away from the fountain and the two people sitting there.  “There, John.  Is that who I think it is?” 

Two hvisk -- one with a brilliant green crest, the other with a brilliant blue one -- stood to one side of the street, their heads together, beaks nearly touching.  Two pairs of black eyes flitted left and right, watching the crowds and occasionally shifting toward where John now stood beside D’Argo.  That they looked like hired thugs from a third rate gangster movie told most of the story; the emptiness in their minds told John everything else he needed to know.  It was Heckle and Jeckle. 

“That’s them!  Get them!”  He jerked loose from D’Argo’s grip and bolted toward the pair of hvisk.  Like brightly colored compass indicators, the blue and green crests swung in his direction for a microt, and then spun about and disappeared into the crowds.  Behind him, John could hear D’Argo yelling to Aeryn over the comms, sounding the alarm and giving her instructions.  After that, there was little else than the sound of his own breathing, the pounding of his feet, and the squawking from startled pedestrians that was guiding him along the route the fugitives had taken. 

The second chase was every bit as wild and exasperating as the first.  No matter how brutally he shoved and elbowed his way through the mobs of hvisk, Heckle and Jeckle were always a split microt faster.  They fled up-station at first, moving into narrower extensions, cutting into smaller streets, and eventually the smallest alleyways.  John gasped for breath, ignored the stomach twisting gravitational transitions, and pushed himself to run faster.  D’Argo was right on his heels, and he could hear a lighter set of footsteps further back.  Aeryn had caught up. 

They barged out of a cross-avenue into the chaos of one of the primary arms, smashed their way through the crowds, and plunged into another of the smaller streets, always following the bobbing blue and green crests. 

“Short cut.”  John crashed through a thin hedge, barely avoided running over two children, leaped over a bench, and sprinted back onto the normal walkway.  They had gained a scant motra on Heckle and Jeckle. 

“Faster,” D’Argo panted behind him. 

“I’m trying.  Left my track shoes at home.”  Heavy boots, leather pants, and a weapon tugging at one leg with every step weren’t what he would have picked for a foot race. 

A hvisk toddler waddled out in front of him.  He swerved, tripped over the decorative border marking the edge of a garden, and sprawled face-first into some bushes.  D’Argo grabbed him by the back of the jacket, hauled him up, and flung him forward.  Aeryn had passed them both and was drawing further ahead.

John wasted some air on a question.  “How come women can always run faster than guys?”

“Lifetime of running away from us,” D’Argo answered, equally breathless. 

“LEFT!” John yelled ahead to Aeryn.  Having lost sight of their quarry, she had slowed to a jog.  At his cry, the lithe, athletic figure banked to the left and accelerated in the new direction. 

They were led up-station and down, through wild shifts of gravity, and down one corkscrewing alleyway that spiraled around the inner walls of the tube before ending with a fast 90 degree shift from one surface to another in a matter of steps.  Throughout all the chaotic changes in attitude, and despite aching legs and burning lungs, John managed to maintain a firm, even if tenuous, contact with the pair of blank, diseased minds.  Each time D’Argo and Aeryn let out a yell of frustration because they had lost sight of the blue and green crests, John was able to take the correct turn to put them back on the trail.   

“Are they taking us to Klamik?” Aeryn asked at one point. 

“Don’t know.  Can’t tell what they’re thinking,” John said between gasps. 

“Don’t hvisk get tired?” D’Argo said. 

John didn’t answer the question.  Instead, he yelled, “Oh frell!  Not again!!” and started to slow.  Several motras ahead of them, just as it had during the first chase arns earlier, the avenue split into two smaller streets, and they were once again presented with the choice of taking either the left or the right wall of each of the narrower passageways. 

“Dren.  Which one?” D’Argo asked. 

“I picked wrong last time.  You choose.”

D’Argo snarled, brushed past Aeryn, and took the more difficult of the transitions.  Within four motras, they were upside down to where they had been moments earlier.  “I don’t see them,” D’Argo said. 

“They’re ahead of us somewhere.  I can feel them.”  John spared a fast look over his head, and came to an abrupt stop.  Aeryn ran into him, unable to avoid him in the tight confines of the alleyway.  They staggered, clutching at each other for balance for several moments before regaining their footing. 

“What’s the matter?  Why did you stop?” she asked once they were steady. 

“There.  They’re down there.”  No more than five motras above John’s head, Heckle and Jeckle had slowed to a lazy stroll, deliberately taunting their pursuers by assuming a relaxed, arrogant saunter.  “Frelling bastards, they did it do us again.”  John spun around looking for one of the walkways that would take them to the other side of the enclosure.  There was nothing in sight in either direction.  There was only one way he could think of to get to where Heckle and Jeckle were gloating.   

“D’Argo!  Heave me up there!”

“Where?”

“Up there!”  John pointed over his head.  “You’ve flung me farther in the past.  Every time I piss you off, I wind up getting tossed all over Moya.  Both hands like this.  Hurry!” 

“You’re insane!”  Despite her objection, Aeryn accompanied him when he took several steps back to get a running start.

“Test pilot, except I’m doing it without a ship this time.” 

John took four fast steps, slapped both hands onto D’Argo’s shoulders, stepped into the stirrup formed by his friend’s interlaced fingers, and flew.  It was a wrenching, stomach churning passage through the boundary between gravitational fields.  It was a tube-of-toothpaste squeezing process that began at his head, grasped him tight and yanked hard against skin and clothes as his shoulders and upper body slid through, and then snared him above his waist for a split microt.  He had just enough time to think that he was going to stick halfway through and be suspended in midair until someone could get a ladder and yank him down, and then the was a sharp tug on his legs and he was falling head first toward the ground. 

“Ohhhhhh … FRELL!” 

For once in his life, his lack of planning worked in his favor.  In his rush to follow Heckle and Jeckle, he hadn’t bothered to check his landing area prior to his Luxan-provided liftoff.  If he had thought to look, and had chosen to aim for a walkway as he intended, the re-entry might have killed him.  Crichton managed to get turned most of the way over, plowed through the springy branches of several small trees, and plummeted into a thick grouping of bushes.  After rolling over twice, he was disgorged onto the paved walkway.  “Bad plan, very bad plan,” he said to himself, and clambered to his feet.   

“Watch it!”

He looked up.  Aeryn had followed him.  She tucked into a ball, flipped end for end, and landed with a great deal more grace than he had managed.  “Show off,” he said. 

Sparing half a microt to give him a mild glare of disgust before turning away, Aeryn unslung her pulse rifle and scanned the alleyway.  “Which way?” 

“There!”  Heckle and Jeckle were on the run again, with a larger head start than they’d had when the pursuit had originally begun.  John took the lead.  Aeryn was close on his heels, transmitting directions over her comms.  From the snatches of conversation he managed to hear, Crichton was able to make out that D’Argo had found a walkway from one surface to the other and was following them at maximum speed. 

The remainder of the chase didn’t last long.  Perhaps the two young hvisk were confused by the bizarre tactic used by their pursuers, or perhaps it was another facet of the peculiar insanity that had overtaken them, but they spent no more than two hundred microts trying to get away before they swerved into the street along the front of a row of cubblings, and bolted straight in one of the open doors.  John and Aeryn drew to a stop three motras from the building’s entrance.

“How many are in there?” Aeryn asked. 

He reached out with his mind, searching the small structure.  “Three … I think.”

“You think or you’re sure?”

John was bent over with his hands on his knees, striving to catch his breath.  “Give me a break.  I’m about to pass out from lack of oxygen.  I’m pretty sure there are just three.  Want to wait for D’Argo?” 

“What about a back door?” she asked.  “They could be getting away.” 

“Sooner we’re in there, the sooner we’ll know.”     

“No use putting it off then.”  Aeryn led the way, pulse rifle at the ready; John followed close behind with Winona grasped in both hands.  Together they barged through the open door, splitting up to the left and right once they were inside.

The interior of the building was quiet, tidy, and dimly lit.  As with every other portion of the Kyelligg, there were planters full of flowers and greenery on the walls and set in the corners.  There was more of the circular, well-cushioned hvisk furniture arranged around the room, most of it low to the ground -- a crop of circular futons ready for harvesting.  Every portion of the building emitted tranquility.  It was hardly the hideout of a dangerous psychopath.  John hesitated, thinking that he had somehow gotten it wrong. 

Three hvisk stood in a loose huddle, eyeing the intruders with nothing more threatening than wary interest.  Heckle and Jeckle were closest to the doorway, half-facing a third male who sported a bristling, vibrant purple crest.  When Crichton reached out to confirm that this was their quarry, all three minds were equally silent.  They might have been three granite statues for all he was picking up from them.  He was going to have to rely on some other, non-telepathic method to confirm that this was the person the hvisk wanted him to find.       

“Klamik,” John said, trying something simple.  The hvisk with the purple crest whistled at him. 

“Sounded like a yes to me,” Aeryn said.   

He hadn’t known what to expect when he finally located Klamik.  From the level of concern Hox had transmitted throughout the search, John had cobbled together a hvisk-version of the emperor from Star Wars:  black robes, glowing red eyes, gnarled digits with extended, sharpened claws beckoning for his legions of evil underlings to murder anyone who got in his way.  What Crichton hadn’t envisioned was the healthy, intelligent-looking young male wearing clean, unadorned robes.  Klamik didn’t look sick or dangerous or abnormal.  He didn’t look evil, and he didn’t look like the sort of person who could endanger an entire civilization.   

More than anything else, Klamik looked like Hox. 

“Stay where you are!” Aeryn said.  Heckle and Jeckle had begun to ease apart, breaking up the little group. 

“Get back over there and just stand still,” John said, adding what he hoped was a menacing jab with Winona for emphasis.  It didn’t help.  The three hvisk continued to drift further away from each other, and Heckle and Jeckle no longer looked calm.  If he had to pick a word to describe their expressions, Crichton would have chosen ‘deranged’.   

He tried again.  “Don’t make us shoot you.  Get back in the corner with Senor Psychopath there, and stay calm.  Troops are on their way.  Don’t get stupid about this.”  It had no effect.  Heckle and Jeckle continued to drift apart, showing no sign that they had heard or understood what he said.   

“Are there?” Aeryn asked in a whisper.

“Are there what?” 

“More troops coming other than D’Argo?”

“Yes,” John said.  “I felt Hox thinking about us, so I let him know where we are.  He’s not far behind D’Argo, and he’s called for reinforcements to meet him here.”  He lunged at the closest hvisk -- the blue-crested one he had dubbed Jeckle -- trying to herd him back toward Klamik.  Jeckle backed up half a motra, only to begin working his way forward again the moment Crichton retreated. 

“Pear-shaped,” Aeryn said quietly.

“Any microt now,” he agreed.  “Don’t suppose we could get them to wait until D’Argo gets here?” 

“Doubtful.” 

It was the emotional context of the single word that caused him to make the mistake.  The fast quips and banter that had been flowing back and forth during the pursuit had become more relaxed with each exchange.  From the moment when Aeryn had taken the lead in the chase and had needed to follow his yelled directions, her rigidly bound mental state had continued to ease microt by microt.  By the time she used his term ‘pear-shaped’, it was as though she arrived back at the spot beside him where he was accustomed to having her.  Aeryn was comfortable with him; she was confident and relaxed in his presence; and most importantly, she had thought of him as ‘John’, not ‘Crichton’. 

He only glanced at her for half a microt, and only because he was so pleased to have Officer Aeryn Sun back at his side.  When he looked back, Heckle had crossed half the distance between them, cockspur already slashing toward him at head level, and the other two hvisk were headed for Aeryn. 

Ignoring his own safety, Crichton slapped both of Heckle’s outstretched hands aside and barreled into the hvisk with his full body weight.  One barb hooked deep into the sleeve of his jacket; the other barely missed him, nicking the leather as it sliced past his ribs.  He ignored the warm trickle crawling along his forearm inside the sleeve, got a good grip on the body inside the robes, and heaved the hissing, snapping creature to one side.  It freed him to help Aeryn with her two attackers.  She had dodged Jeckle’s initial attack and was fending off Klamik, parrying each of his jabs with a smash of the pulse rifle.   

“Tongue!” John yelled at her.  “Watch the tongue!  It’s got --”

“Barbs,” she finished.  Aeryn spun away from a kick that would have lacerated her leg from knee to hip if it had landed, and drove aggressively toward Klamik, rifle leading the way.

One microt later Jeckle was all over him, wielding tongue, feet, and cockspurs with furious, demented intent, and Crichton didn’t have time to worry about how Aeryn was faring against Klamik.  He managed to stay on his feet at first, dodging and ducking, slapping the needle-sharp spurs aside with Winona, sacrificing layers of leather from his gloves and jacket whenever the darting tongue got too close.  Heckle dove into the fray, nearly slitting John’s throat with a cockspur, then he mysteriously disappeared from the fight with an alarmed screech.  A luxan bellow told the rest of the story.  D’Argo had arrived and had started by yanking Heckle out of the melee. 

John tried to knock Jeckle’s feet out from under him only to get one leg tangled up in the hvisk’s robes, and they went down together.  Aeryn was yelling, at least two hvisk were squawking somewhere in the room, the Qualta rifle fired, ceramic showered down in a dry clattering rainstorm, and he rolled over, taking Jeckle with him.  They smashed through a planter.  The room was filled with the scent of cinnamon coming from the crushed plants.  Noise, smell, and physical effort blended into a single unified chaos. 

Jeckle reared back and then lunged at him with the sharpened wrist barb.  John rolled desperately to one side.  It gouged a burning, wet furrow along the side of his head.  Blood trickled into his ear, blocking his hearing on that side.  Jeckle’s feet were scrabbling at his pants, trying to scrape through the leather. 

“Watch it!” Aeryn yelled.  The pulse rifle fired.  Whatever was going on, it had nothing to do with him or his fight. 

John didn’t have time to check on the problem.  Jeckle had managed to get on top of him, and had him pinned to the floor.  It was only a matter of microts before the larger, stronger hvisk either eviscerated him or drove the cockspur into something vital.  He was battered from every angle by a flurry of attacks, bleeding from a dozen scrapes or small wounds.  Crichton grappled with Jeckle, using one arm and both legs to try to still some of the crazed flailing.  His other hand, the one holding Winona, crept up between their bodies.  Another barb sank into his forearm, slicing the leather open this time; it ripped deep into flesh.  Crichton ignored the fast rush of blood slopping about inside his sleeve, and drove the pulse pistol in under Jeckle’s throat. 

“Stop it!”  The demand emerged on a gasp of pain.  Clawed toes raked at his lower body; they scraped across the leather without penetrating, pummeling the organs inside.  Jeckle tried again, scouring the leather.  “Don’t make me kill you,” John pleaded.   

“No, no, no, no!” someone screamed into his mind.  “No killing.  You must not kill!  Do not, do not!” 

Hox had arrived.  His frantic whistling sounded every bit as deranged as the diseased hvisk were acting. 

Jeckle snapped at John with his beak.  Each clacking attack was aimed at his eyes.  The tongue whipped out.  He ducked his head into his shoulder, incapable of escaping entirely, and took it across the cheekbone.  Cheese grater ridges bit deep, yanked away skin and flesh.  John bellowed out a curse.  Blood streamed.  Tongue, beak, claws, feet, and cockspurs struck at him.  He lost his grip on Jeckle’s body.  The hvisk had room to strike with his feet.  The hooking fourth toe would slice his midsection open. 

“Crichton!” Aeryn yelled in the background. 

Hox appeared behind Jeckle, hands outstretched and reaching for the diseased hvisk, but it was too late.  Jeckle was attacking again.  Crichton jammed Winona in tight beneath Jeckle’s throat, the only angle he could get that wouldn’t hit Hox if the pulse blast went straight through Jeckle, and pulled the trigger. 

The cubbling and everyone in it disappeared. 

John had one microt to consider that maybe it was John Crichton who had evaporated, not everyone else, and then he was swallowed up by a blackness that emanated from within his own body. 

* * * * *

[KernilCrash]

Chapter 13

He was carried back to consciousness on the rocking waves of an incoming tide.  From a restful spot in a realm of unmarred solitude, he was wafted to a place where he could almost reach out and touch the thoughts of the people around him.  Whispers, both internal and without, disturbed him, and then the wave hissed into foamy nothingness and he dissolved along with it. 

The roll and boom of the breakers brought him back.  “Allow him to sleep,” someone said inside his head.  He was carried out to sea before he could tell them that sleep sounded like a wonderful idea.

“Radiation.  Massive radiation.”  He stumbles and falls into her arms.

John Crichton lies motionless once again, this time with arms outstretched.  Winona slithers out of a nerveless grasp and falls to the silvery metalloid flooring with dull clattering finality.  He is barely breathing.  A fine glistening sheen of sweat, a leftover from the chase and the battle, lights his features into a semblance of vitality, mocking her with the pretense that he is alive and will recover.  Two images tangle into one, Crichton upon Crichton, bound together by the emptiness in her chest and an aching clench in her stomach that this time carries the promise of permanence.

By the grace of Cholak, this can’t be happening.

Whatever was hovering just beyond his reach ached.  The pain defied description.  It beckoned to him, spattering fizzing suggestions that he needed to be somewhere else.  He hissed up the beach where he swept languid and fluid around obstacles, lacking the energy to grasp onto anything solid.  Without an anchor to hold him there, he listened to their voices for the space of three or four microts, mumbles and grumbles that might have been about him if only he understood what they were saying, and then he turned and rushed back into the dark. 

Not again.  I can’t do this again.  I love him too much to live through this a second time.

The tide was coming in.  Each small roller cast him further up the sandy grade, sucked him out to sea to wallow where it was quiet and he could rest in the rocking swells, and then returned him to the sun-baked grittiness and screaming of gulls.  With each return, he was carried higher onto the beach and had more time to think before coasting back into the depths.  There weren’t any seagulls, he remembered.  Something else was making the birdlike noise.  The darkness enfolded him once more.  In, out, in, out, and back in one more time.   

The summons, when it came, shattered his peaceful existence into irreparable fragments. 

CRICHTON?

“God … D’Argo, you don’t need to shout.  I’m right here.” 

John didn’t dare open his eyes.  He had joked about something like this happening whenever he tied one on in college and had a hangover -- this time he was certain that his brain was in danger of leaking out of his head.  What was going on inside his skull was so far beyond a headache, it didn’t qualify as ‘pain’ anymore.  It was a living presence that interfered with life, not to mention rational thought. 

“I didn’t say anything, John.” 

D’Argo had only been thinking about him, not shouting into his ear from a distance of one dench … even though that was how it felt.  John covered his eyes with his hand, carefully jacked one eyelid open, and peered out through a slit between two fingers.  Nothing catastrophic happened; his brain and his skull remained intact.  “There was a fight,” he said. 

D’Argo stared down at him with a combination of amused tolerance and impatience.  “You found Klamik and the other two that attacked us.” 

John closed his eye and let his memory reassemble itself gradually.  It took some time.  “Is Aeryn okay?” he asked once all the pieces fit into place.  There was a vague recollection of her voice somewhere nearby.  He couldn’t remember if that was real or part of a dream.   

“Aeryn is fine.  She left a few microts ago.  When it looked like you were waking up, she went to get one of their healers.” 

John took another surreptitious peek through his fingers.  He was lying in one of the round hvisk beds with nearly a dozen cushions tucked in around him in an attempt to make him comfortable, covered by what he decided was the largest, ugliest, feather boa in the universe.  “Where are we?”

“One of their medical facilities.” 

“What happened?  Did I get shot?  Get this thing off me.”  He was struggling with the fluffy, feathery blanket, trying to look underneath to see the extent of the damage.  It was tangled around his feet, and portions he couldn’t get a firm grip on were pinned beneath his body.  Pulling a blanket off wasn’t supposed to be this difficult.  The fact that his hands refused to do what they were told didn’t help.   

“You weren’t shot,” D’Argo answered.  “Crichton, what are you trying to do?” 

“I’m in a WWF Death Match with this frelling thing.”  His skirmish with the insulating layers, although unsuccessful, revealed something important.  His clothes were missing.  He got one leg free only to discover that the bottom edge of the covers was attached to the bed.  That didn’t explain the full extent of the difficulty he was having getting out of bed. 

D’Argo grabbed John’s wrists, putting a stop to the battle with the boa-blanket.  “When the fighting ended, we found you lying unconscious underneath the one you killed.  The hvisk seem to know what caused you to pass out, but none of us can understand what they are trying to tell us.” 

Crichton renewed his efforts to get up.  “I didn’t pass out.  Someone knocked me out.  D’Argo, get me out of this oversized cupcake tin.” 

“John!  Wait for one of their healers.  You’ve been unconscious for over six arns.” 

That put a stop to his uncoordinated attempts to get up.  Crichton sagged back into the cushions and stared at his friend.  “Six arns,” he said flatly, then repeated it.  “Six arns?”  Some of the fragments he thought were dreams suddenly made more sense.  If he had been unconscious for that long, then no matter how calm and collected her exterior, on the inside Aeryn would have been on the verge of flipping out.

“Six,” D’Argo confirmed.  “Wait for Aeryn to come back with one of them.  It shouldn’t be long.”

Crichton lay back and stared at the ceiling.  While they waited, he used the time to consider several inconsistencies between what he recalled and his current condition.  The fight had involved slashes, cuts, and blood.  He checked his hands and forearms, and then fingered the cheek that had been ripped raw.  There was no sign of damage.  Even his left hand, the one burned by the DRD’s laser, was unmarked. 

“They took care of all that while you were unconscious,” D’Argo said.  “They have a device that regenerates living tissue.  Your jacket wasn’t so lucky.” 

“Were either of you hurt in the fight?” 

For an answer, D’Argo stuck his fingers through several rents and tears in his clothing.  “Aeryn did better than either of us.”  He held up a hand to forestall an anxious demand.  “It was nothing more than a few scratches, and they healed everything.”

“Aeryn’s idea of what constitutes a few scratches is a bit skewed.  You’re talking about the woman who hiked out of the Barren Lands on a broken leg.  I’ll believe it was minor damage when I see her.”  John managed to yank the feathery covering to one side.  “Help me sit up … and where are my damned clothes?”   

Reluctantly, D’Argo put out a hand and pulled him to the side of the bed, then handed him a pile of clothing.  John discovered that the rents and tears in the leather had been mended, and the inside of his jacket, where most of the bleeding had occurred, had been washed clean.  The hvisk were being solicitously helpful now that he had completed the job they had thrust upon him against his will. 

Dressing took longer than normal.  Although the headache had first eased and then disappeared altogether, the rest of his body was being spectacularly uncooperative when it came to small things like getting his feet into his socks or his arms through the correct openings in his shirt.  It wasn’t so much that he felt wobbly or disoriented; it was more a case of not being able to control his limbs with precision.  John sat down on the edge of the bed to put on his boots and started to topple over backwards. 

D’Argo snagged the collar of his jacket before it went too far, merely holding Crichton in place until he regained his balance.  “I think you should wait for the hvisk to return,” he said.   

“I don’t.”  Laces were tugged tight and then stuffed down inside his boots.  Knotting them would have to wait until his fingers started to follow the instructions from his brain.  John tottered over to where his pulse pistol was lying in a snarl of belt, holster, and tie-down straps.  He had untangled the mess and was fastening the belt when the door swung open and three hvisk entered the room, followed by Aeryn.

He ignored the hvisk.  “Are you okay?” he asked Aeryn. 

Just as D’Argo had promised, she showed no signs of having been wounded.  Extending his thoughts carefully at first, taking his time to ensure that he still had control of the telepathy despite the unexplained blackout, he gently tested Aeryn’s thoughts to make sure she wasn’t hiding an injury.  He ran into an impenetrable wall. 

“I’m fine,” she said.  The small assurance, like her thoughts, lacked any vestige of emotion.  Aeryn was staring at a spot in midair a motra in front of her.

She was gone. Whatever small portion of healing had taken place over the past few days had gone missing while he was unconscious.  John turned away from that impassive statue and concentrated on fastening his holster.  He had known it might happen.  When he had seen and felt the first break in her painstakingly erected emotional barricade, he had told himself that he had to enjoy it while it lasted and be ready for Aeryn to retreat.  But he hadn’t expected such a thorough regression.  If anything, she was even more tightly constrained than when she had gotten off the transport pod several days earlier. 

“It isn’t fair,” he whispered to himself.  He was certain it was the six arns he had spent lying senseless that had caused this.  If it weren’t for the hvisk and their blackmail, this wouldn’t have happened.  Aeryn Sun had lost John Crichton only once.  He was being forced to lose her repeatedly and incrementally -- sometimes almost able to touch her only to have her disappear once again. 

“Give her time.  You must allow her sufficient time to discover how to live with prospect of loss.”

“Hox!”  John turned, starting to smile.  But Hox wasn’t there.  Instead, one of the three hvisk had stepped away from the other two and was cautiously making his way toward Crichton.  It was the stranger who had whistled to John and impersonated Hox’s familiar mental touch. 

“What the frell?”  He looked at the hvisk more carefully, summing up the bright green crest and the sharpened, shining cockspurs on the insides of its wrists.  Although the active mental presence was an unfamiliar addition, it was unmistakably Heckle.  Crichton moved away from him, scrabbling to get his pulse pistol out of its holster. 

“Please, do not fear me.  I will not harm you,” Heckle whistled. 

“Frell that!  Stay where you are, and explain what’s going on.  Better yet, get Hox in here. I’m willing to trust him.”  John maneuvered so the round bed was between him and the slowly advancing hvisk. 

“John, what’s going on?”  D’Argo was standing uncertainly, Qualta blade at the ready, watching the three hvisk and John’s retreat without intervening.  “What’s wrong?”

“That’s Heckle … only it’s not.”  John stopped moving.  The situation suddenly made more sense.  “Wait.  I get it.  You’ve been treated.  You’re cured.”  All the pieces, all the hints, all the misunderstood clues snapped into place at once.  John turned toward his two crewmates.  “They were deaf!  That’s all.  They simply couldn’t hear anyone, and once they weren’t able to hear, they became mute as well.”   

D’Argo made a half-mocking objection.  “When we first spotted them, they were talking to each other.  Or maybe you’ve forgotten that part.” 

“He means mentally,” Aeryn interjected quietly.

“You are correct,” Heckle whistled.  He didn’t look pleased with the breakthrough in understanding, however.  The green crest wilted under the influence of some invisible force. 

Crichton watched the puzzling reaction with a growing sense of unease.  He couldn’t catch a glimpse of the cause of Heckle’s depression, only the sense that it was something that the hvisk considered catastrophic.  His concentration on the small mystery was distracted by D’Argo’s strengthening desire to receive what the luxan would consider a coherent explanation. 

“The infected hvisk are telepathically deaf.  That’s why they didn’t show any reaction when Aeryn and I talked to them right before the fight began.  Normally, they don’t need translator microbes in order to interpret what other species are saying.  But without the telepathy, they couldn’t understand what we were saying.  It’s why they go insane and become violent.  The Mindlessness … It makes so much sense now that I understand.” 

D’Argo’s tone changed from simple confusion to a more familiar, disgusted growl.  He rolled his eyes in frustration and propped both fists on his hips.  “Well maybe you could share a little of your incredible insight with the rest of us, John, because I still do not know what you’re talking about.”

“Every single person in this society is a receiving telepath, Big Guy.  They live their entire lives wrapped up inside a single, civilization-wide moral code.  Every thought and every action they take from the first microt after they’re born has an impact on everyone around them, and they can hear how their behavior affects the others.  What would happen if someone flipped a big power switch and turned that off without warning?”  John glanced at Aeryn before continuing.  “Think of what it would be like to suddenly be cut off from the support and approval of everyone you’ve ever known.  They were more lost than I’ve ever been.  Both their moral and their emotional guidance disappeared all at once.”

“When Lo’Lann died, I believed I would go insane without her,” the warrior said, nodding his comprehension.

I had this life.  I liked it.  It had rules.  I followed the rules and that made everything right.  And then you come along and you frell everything up … You are like a plague, John Crichton.  And you have ruined my life.

John found himself on his knees, clinging to the side of the circular bed to keep from falling face first to the floor.  D’Argo and the hvisk were gathered around him:  one hovering, helpless to assist, while the other three whistled and chirped their concern.  Aeryn’s thought had lanced through his control like a heart-seeking missile.  The Patriot battery didn’t exist that could protect him from that sort of unexpected assault, and this time it had knocked him right off his feet.  He waved Heckle and the other two away before accepting D’Argo’s help getting up. 

“I’m okay.  It was just a little left over from the fight.”  Aeryn hadn’t moved a muscle.  She was right where she had first stopped when she entered the room, the squared-away Peacekeeper standing at attention.  Only her eyes had shifted.  She was watching him with every bit of the fierce intensity that made her such a good Prowler pilot.  John couldn’t decide if that was good or bad. 

“You must allow us to verify that you have not suffered any damage,” Heckle said.  He made several of the bobbing little bows, a supplicant seeking divine permission.  One of the hands that just a few arns earlier had tried to kill first Aeryn and then Crichton gestured toward the other two hvisk, indicating that they were there to examine him.  “Please allow them to make sure that you have not been injured.”

John overheard a more thorough explanation for their distress.  They wanted to check for neural injury.  He wasn’t supposed to be alive. 

“Why --”  He stopped.  Asking them why he was supposed to be dead right in front of Aeryn was possibly the stupidest thing he had started to do in the past four cycles.  Instead, he envisioned what he had just learned from their leaking thoughts, trusting that they were listening to him, and demanded, “Explain.”

Waves of confusion flooded off all three of the hvisk.  They were baffled by his lack of comprehension; they thought he should understand without any additional explanation.  If he rephrased the question to clarify that he was missing some information, it would mean revealing what he had just learned from Heckle.  John chose his words carefully, making sure he skirted far enough around the mystery of his not-death that Aeryn wouldn’t make one of her intuitive leaps.  “If you don’t want to clear things up, then get Hox in here and have him explain things to Crichton the Nitwit.” 

Heckle twittered.  It was a fluttering, disorganized series of distressed notes without any mental context.  He repeated the noise and turned around in a circle. 

“What the frell is going on?” John demanded.  “Just tell me!”  “If I’m going to die, just spit it out and let’s get it over with,” he sent silently.   

“Not you, not you.  You will not die,” sang one of Heckle’s companions. 

Heckle produced a wandering, haunting melody:  One that conjured up memories of a gray, raw day when John had stood alone before a freshly planted headstone that glistened in the rain, and couldn’t think of anything to say to his dead mother.  “Repeat that,” he said.  It didn’t matter that he had heard it clearly the first time; he needed to hear Heckle say it again before he was willing to believe it. 

Neither the tune nor the message changed as a result of being repeated. 

“Hox is dead.”

* * * * *

At John’s request, Heckle led him to the moss-carpeted, leafy enclosure where John had sat with Hox and taught him about leviathan anatomy.  Crichton wandered about the area for several microts before choosing a spot on a bench opposite where he had sat beside Hox only a few arns earlier.  There was a half-finished jigsaw puzzle in his head:  some portions were strung together in a discernable pattern, other portions were missing no more than one or two pieces, and the remaining expanse was a wasteland of information.  Although his life would go on without difficulty if he never learned the answers, Hox’s death demanded a full accounting.  He wanted to know how and why Hox had died, and that meant filling in all the missing chunks.  The only problem was that he didn’t know where to start.

Heckle solved the problem by starting first.  “Your companions have abandoned you here?”

Crichton had asked D’Argo and Aeryn to give him some time alone.  After a brief argument, they had agreed to return to Moya while he remained aboard the Kyelligg.  Rather than wasting the time to put the account into words, John replayed the remembered conversation in his mind, allowing Heckle to pick it up in its entirety.  The young hvisk merely blinked, and then gave the fast down-up bob that signaled his understanding. 

“Who killed Hox?” John asked. 

Heckle’s mind went as silent as when he had been afflicted by The Mindlessness.  The shutdown was remarkable in its thoroughness.  One moment there was a sentient, thinking person sitting next to John; the next moment Heckle disappeared as a living entity.  The body continued to sit on the carved stone bench, his crest bristling at random, disorganized angles, but the portions of Heckle that John had come to associate with a sentient creature winked out of existence.  The black eyes turned away to stare at the opening in the hedge leading to the street.     

John could reach only one conclusion.  It must have been Heckle who, in his disease-generated insanity, had killed Hox.  He got up to leave, unable to remain in the company of the person who had murdered the cheerful, peaceful old man.  But there were too many questions begging to be answered, and he paused and turned back before he reached the edge of the moss carpeting.  Heckle was sitting the way Hox used to:  feet pulled up on the bench, knees tucked in under his robes with nothing but his toes peeking out from underneath. 

The similarity was too much for him.  John turned to leave.  He would find some other hvisk to answer his questions. 

Heckle’s whistling stopped him.  “It was not I.  I did not kill Hox.”

“Then who did it?  Was it Jeckle?  The other one who was with you?  Or was it Klamik?” 

Once again, Heckle closed him out.  John tried something simpler, hoping that if he got Heckle talking, the truth might eventually emerge.  “What’s your real name?” 

After four tries, Heckle’s tune sorted itself into ‘Tulev’; it was a label that was somehow related to the future of the hvisk culture.  As with the name ‘Hox’, there was an underlying significance to Tulev’s name … one that continued to elude Crichton.  After six additional, futile attempts at providing an explanation that made sense to a non-hvisk, Heckle-Tulev gave up with an exasperated honk. 

John shrugged at him, content in his new role as ‘baffled’ instead of ‘baffler’.  “Why are you my new chaperone?”

Heckle-Tulev squinted a pleased smile at him.  “Because I will be Hox.”

The explanation deepened John’s sense of loss.  It didn’t matter whether Heckle was lying or telling the truth about killing Hox; what it all boiled down to was that if Heckle hadn’t been under Klamik’s influence, the elder hvisk wouldn’t have died.  It didn’t seem fair that the green-crested youngster had been assigned to take his place.  Anger started to build, turning his next question into an aggressive challenge.  “Hox was wise and gentle and had seen more cycles in this universe than anyone I’ve ever met.  Great-Grandad MacDougal was the oldest crotchety old fart I ever knew, and he only lived ‘til he was ninety-eight.  That doesn’t begin to hold a light to Hox.  What makes you think you can ever hope to take his place?” 

“No, no, no.  You do not comprehend.  I will be Hox.” 

The tune had changed, but the mental version coming through was the same.  John shook his head.  “I’m missing something.” 

Heckle-Tulev scratched the tip of his beak.  It was eerily reminiscent of Hox’s mannerism.  Then he tried again.  “Obi-Wan Kenobi,”  he whistled.

John felt like his heart had stopped beating.  There was a fluttering, crawling feeling under his breastbone, and his stomach was doing the jitterbug.  It was a very unpleasant experience.  He searched for a logical explanation.  “You could have picked that up from D’Argo.  The Big D knows about Obi-Wan,” he said slowly.

Heckle-Tulev considered for several microts.  Then, instead of whistling, he let an image loose.  The heat of thorough embarrassment crawled up John’s neck, wrapped around his ears, and inflamed his face.  The vision Heckle-Tulev had created was of an old man, scrawny bare legs protruding from under a nightshirt, bouncing gleefully on a rumpled bed.  Hox was the only person who could have overheard the original thought and passed it on to Heckle.  And John was convinced that Hox wouldn’t have shared that mental indiscretion with anyone else unless he was dying.     

John sat down, pulled his feet up onto the bench, and hugged his knees, considering Tulev’s claim.  It took him a while to figure it out.  “You can do a telepathic memory download, something similar to genetic memory.” 

“In a perfect existence, none would be lost.  We do not, as yet, have the ability to preserve all.  However, there are some who cannot be forfeited.  Hox was such a one.  It was determined long ago that he must be preserved.  It will take several cycles for me to integrate all that he was, but with the gift of time, I will become Hox.” 

“Why you?  How does that work?  The guy who kills him is rewarded by taking up his life?  There is something so incredibly wrong with that equation, it defies explanation.” 

“Not all have the capacity to become one such as Hox.  It is the one of the rarest of genetic qualities among our people.  My potential was identified at birth, and I was selected to become Hox many cycles ago.  It was because of my abilities that I was chosen to seek out Klamik.  Hox was too valuable to be risked.”

“That’s how Hox knew when you had been infected, and that you were hanging out somewhere close to Klamick … because you were sent to try to locate him to stop the spread of the disease.”  The pieces were falling into place one by one.  “And Jeckle, the other one who was with you when you attacked us, he was special also.  Otherwise he wouldn’t have been sent to find Klamik.”

Tulev’s entire upper body bobbed up and down.  “Correct.”

“And I shot him.”  John let his feet slide to the ground and leaned back against the shrubbery behind him.  He stared at the leafy walls in dejection.  “No wonder Hox tried so hard to stop me from pulling the trigger.  I killed one of your Mensa members.” 

“You form strange words,”  Tulev warbled. 

“Yeah, I know.  Hox mentioned it.  Damn it, why the frell didn’t Hox mention all this before the dren hit the fan?  He must have been able to hear that I didn’t understand the whole ‘no killing’ part of the mess.” 

John wandered across the moss, absentmindedly bouncing with each step, playing with the resiliency underfoot while he spent some time mourning Hox’s death.  There was a fast flicker of a thought from behind him.  Heckle hadn’t put up a total block, and while his control was impressive, it was nowhere as thorough Hox’s had been.  Except for when he had shut down his thoughts completely, he had been leaking small flashes from the first moment he had walked into the room in the medical facility.

John continued his slow tour of the garden, tightened up his own control until he felt like his brain had formed a muscle cramp, and listened carefully.  It was like chasing fireflies on a warm summer’s night:  a hint, a flash, a fast moving shadow, and then another blink of illumination.  John turned to face him.  “What do you mean that’s not the real reason for no killing?” 

Tulev looked like a canary that had eaten a cat:  simultaneously guilty and sick to his stomach.

Crichton attacked.  He crossed the garden in a rush and yelled at the cringing youngster, taking advantage of the small opening that had been created.  “Tell me what you’re hiding!  Tell me now.  Tell me what Hox and you and every other birdbrain on this frelling station haven’t bothered to explain to me from the very start.  You’ve all been covering something up, if not from the very beginning then at least from when I woke up an arn ago.  Tell me, damn it!” 

Tulev clacked his beak together several times.  He looked and sounded uncertain.  “I have not been given permission to enlighten you.  It is not allowed.  I cannot.”

“I’m going to find out one way or another.  I won’t quit until someone aboard this one-species ark tells me what’s going on.  There’s something big and ugly happening on here that I don’t know about.  You’ve got Godzilla or one of his city-stompin’ buddies lurking right around the corner waiting to trample me.  I can smell it.  Now tell me!” 

Tulev spent another thirty microts silently debating, then instructed, “Come sit here.”  He gestured toward his feet.  “I will allow Hox to teach you.  I will pass on his memories to you, and then you will understand what you wish to know.  That way, it will not be I who explains to you.  It will be Hox.”

Crichton looked at the moss between Tulev’s feet, hesitating.  He wanted an explanation so badly he was ready to slam the hvisk up against a wall and pound him into the surface until he broke down and answered his questions.  He wanted that outpouring of energy, the releasing of the anger and frustration in a hammering, bludgeoning orgy of violence.  Instead, he was being told that he would have to sit quietly and open his mind to the influence of another person.  For once he understood Aeryn’s occasional need to just shoot something.  Using Winona to incinerating an inanimate object felt like a wonderful idea at that point. 

He shifted the pulse pistol on his thigh, tugging it into a better position, and then dropped into an inelegant cross-legged huddle in front of Tulev.  “Hit me.” 

Confusion. “You request that I strike you?” Tulev asked. 

“It means go ahead with what you’re planning to do.  Fire away.  Go for it.  Have at it.  Engage.”   

Tulev’s hands cradled the sides of John’s head below his ears, clawed fingers resting with a protective pressure against his jaw and cheeks, and then he melted into another time and place. 

His father wakes him, telling him that it is time to leave, and then wraps him in his favorite warmth-covering and cradles him as though he were a tiny hatchling.  Hox hears the sorrow in his father’s mind, he feels the cold hard knot that has formed in his father’s chest, and doesn’t understand either one of the sensations.  They stop in the gathering-room to embrace his mother, and he finds the same chilly place inside her as well.  Hox chirps a reassurance at her, trying to find the reason for this sick, uncomfortable feeling.  She does not answer.  He tries again, and when he reaches out, seeking her assurances that everything will be all right, he runs into a mental block.  His mother has closed him out.

“No, no, no,” he whistles, trying to reach for her.  His father holds him tighter.  Hox can’t squirm free.  Now his father is blocking him as well.

Hvisk never block unless it is absolutely necessary.  He is old enough to know that.  Not once in his entire life have his parents blocked him out.  They are hiding something from him, and it is starting to scare him.  He warbles his concerns, becoming more afraid with every moment that the blocks stay in place.  They pat him, and then they pat each other, tender touches that go on longer than he has ever seen.  His father starts to leave, Hox in his arms, and then turns and goes back one more time.  His mother’s fingers work from Hox’s head to his feathery tummy, fluttering pats intermixed with firmer touches, as though she is memorizing him with her hands.  Then his parents turn to each other and do the same.  The blocks slip.  Although the images are vague, he can feel their love suffocating beneath the grief for something that has not yet occurred.

“What, what, what, what, what?”  He lets them know that he is scared and confused.  His mind is overflowing with unanswered questions.

“We must be on time,” his father sings to him.  “I will explain as we go along.”

“Both, both, both of you will explain,” little Hox sings.  He is frantic because his mother is standing at the opening to their cubbling, crest downlaid against her skull, and she is not following.  He warbles at her, squirming to get loose, straining for her to take him into her arms.  “Both, both, both will come.” 

“I will explain,” his father assures him.  He wraps Hox’s warmth-covering more tightly around the shuddering little body and he hurries toward the launchport where the great ship awaits.  “She is not among the select.  We will remember her.  You will remember her for all time, Hox.  We will never forget her.” 

His father tells him a story as they hurry toward the space ship.  It is a story of how a terrible madness has seized their world, spreading out of control, destroying everything that the Hvisk ever were or ever would be.  It is an awful story, unlike the usual bedtime tales that his father makes up.  Hox doesn’t like this tale, but his father goes on and on, explaining what is going to happen.

A disease has overtaken their planet.  There is only one solution whenever the madness has spread this far.  The annals contain accounts of smaller outbreaks in their past, when the ultimate sacrifice was made to preserve the species, but never before has it afflicted so many.  The madness will have to be eradicated, stamped out, destroyed … hopefully for all time.  A world of culture, peace, and knowledge, forty-three billion beings strong, must slaughter the more than twenty billion afflicted if the Hvisk are to survive as a gentle, sentient people.  The planet will be a befouled charnel house for centuries, uninhabitable until time consumes the wasted generations. 

His father shows him how it will be done.  One for one, mind to mind, hand to hand.  For each afflicted, already identified and located, one healthy mind will remain on the planet in order to kill them.  It will cost them almost their entire species, but it must be done if the Hvisk are to survive.  If any survive the horror, they will follow in the smaller ships. 

Little Hox begins to understand, in a childish way of understanding.  He knows that he will live while the rest will die.  He knows that his mother will stay behind and kill another to stop the disease.  The special ones, each one carefully chosen because they possess a critical skill or some unique, genetically endowed ability, will set out into space, to wander until the waiting is over and their planet is habitable again.  Hox is special, so he will live and remember.

“No, no, no!” he hoots.  “She will come.  She will come!  Some day she will come to be with us again.”  He fights to get loose, stretching his arms toward where he can no longer see his cubbling or his mother.

“She will not.  We will always love her, but she will not follow,” his father tells him.  And then he shows him what Hox should not have to learn at such a young age.  His father shows him why so very, very many of the Hvisk will die.

Sharing his father's thoughts, Hox watches the afflicted fall in droves, victims of violent, traumatic death at the hands of their own people.  Their mental energy is not absent; it has only been muted by The Mindlessness.  A fast, premature death releases every bit of that energy all at once to lash out and sear the mind of the person physically closest to them.  Psychic shock takes the healthy along with the diseased.  In a telepathically integrated society like that of the Hvisk, killing kills the killer.

Hox wails out his grief in long breath-robbing hoots, screaming for his mother, finally understanding that by staying behind to kill one of the diseased, she is committing suicide.

His father hugs him tightly, and explains how they and so many others will bear the agony of leaving their loved ones here to die.  The Hvisk will return home some day to carry on, always grieving, always remembering, to rebuild what was freely thrown away in pursuit of species survival.  Their lives are a day-to-day remembrance, a perpetual mourning for those who have given everything.  They embrace the sorrow, take it into themselves, dissect it until they can comprehend its every facet, and carry it with them into the next generation so that no one will ever forget the price that had been paid.  The Hvisk will survive.

The flood of memories came to an end.  John sat with his eyes closed, letting the shared information settle into place.  He drifted, putting a piece just so, turning another so it fit into place, until the pattern was complete.  Tulev had been right.  He understood.

“I’m not Hvisk.  It might not have killed me.” 

“Hox was convinced that it would.  He believed that because you are not accustomed to sharing thoughts, you are even more susceptible to the neural overload, not less.”  Tulev waited for a response.  After several microts of silence, he continued.  “If not for your presence, Hox would have succumbed to the shock immediately, and all that he ever was would have been lost forever.”

“If not for my presence, I wouldn’t have blown Jeckle’s head off, and Hox would be alive.” 

“No, youngling --”

“I’m not your frelling youngling!” John snapped at the young adult. 

Every word of explanation only made things worse.  The same thought kept circling in his mind no matter what Tulev told him:  If not for John Crichton, Hox would be alive.  It was his fault, his fault, his fault.  And hearing Hox’s casual endearment come out of this youngster’s beak only served to tear more deeply into the already agonizing wound. 

Tulev let out what sounded like a hvisk stammer:  a short, rattling noise like a woodpecker attempting to drill into concrete.  He started over, awkwardly skirting the missing term of familiarity.  “The shock was shared.  Both should have been killed in the backlash.  Instead, both survived.  A younger hvisk would have recovered if given sufficient time to heal.  Hox was not so badly seared that he would have died, but his mind was badly scarred.  He would have lived out his remaining cycles much as those afflicted by The Mindlessness:  deaf to those all around him.  He chose to let go of the string of life rather than continue in that manner.  You must be assured of this.  His passing was most peaceful.”

John covered his eyes with his hands and shook his head.  “Leave me alone.  Go away and leave me alone for a while.”

Without a word, Tulev rose and left the garden.  John stayed where he was, sitting on the ground, very possibly right where he had sat contentedly at Hox’s feet several arns earlier while they shared their thoughts and memories in a form of mental symbiosis.  But Hox hadn’t truly understood him any better than he had understood Hox, which meant that he hadn’t shown Crichton the one critical piece of information that would have saved the old man’s life.

From the first time he had met Hox, right through to the last moments of the struggle with Jeckle, the old man had kept repeating one thing:  “No killing.”  John had thought it was because killing was abhorrent to their culture.  The tragedy was that even with the questionable gift of telepathy, he had not understood what Hox had been trying to tell him. 

The magical, mental machine had been repaired, Heckle-Tulev had been cured in time to take up the mantle ordained for him since the birth, John had survived uninjured, and Hox -- kindly, generous, wise Hox -- had died.  Logic said that ignorance was to blame, that it had been the result of a misunderstanding, and that no one should have expected him to cross the cultural divide fast enough to understand the consequences of killing a diseased hvisk.  Logic told him that there had been too much confusion, too little time, and too many different problems all at once for him to have detected the inner nuances of Hox’s messages. 

Logic crumbled into a fistful of cold, lifeless ashes when it attempted to justify the loss of Hox.     

John lowered his head to rest on his knees.  “I am such a frelling stupid bastard.” 

   * * * * *

[KernilCrash]

Chapter 14

Crichton was still in the same position, staring at the moss between his boots, when Tulev returned.  The hvisk eased into the garden area, placing his feet carefully so he wouldn’t make any noise.  He stopped when he reached the edge of the moss-covered area, and fidgeted indecisively, clawed toes rasping quietly against the stone.  John raised his head to look at him.  He had long since lost track of time, and had no idea how long he had been sitting there like that, huddled in on himself with his arms on his knees.  However long it had been, sufficient time had lapsed that his neck and back were stiff from sitting in the single position without moving.  He shrugged his shoulders several times, loosening the muscles.

“Question,” he said to Tulev.  He had spent much of the time alone integrating Hox’s memories into his own, and considering them from several perspectives.  “Why did they all have to die?  Couldn’t the ones who had been infected become a new offshoot of your species?  Plenty of us folks wandering around the universe are stone deaf.  We get by.” 

Gathering his robes around his legs, Tulev sank down to sit beside John.  His cross-legged position looked far more comfortable than the way it felt in leather pants.  “You observed for yourself what The Mindlessness does to our species.  Would you condemn my people to a future of viciousness and barbarity?”

“You’re assuming they wouldn’t adapt.  You murdered billions, for God’s sake.  That’s enough people to start a couple hundred new civilizations.” 

Tulev cocked his head to one side and scrutinized Crichton with a very Hox-like stare for several microts.  Adapt into what sort of beings?”  Beings like your companions?

There was no musical accompaniment to the second portion of his comment.  John wasn’t sure if Tulev had intended for him to hear it or not.  In four unspoken words, Tulev had handed down a harsh judgment of all non-telepathic species. 

John’s next assertion was going to be:  “We manage to muddle by without hearing each other’s thoughts.”  But it had been his ‘muddling by’ without actually hearing what was meant that had cost Hox his life, so he turned his head away from Tulev’s bright-eyed inspection and didn’t say it.
He was tired and wanted little more than to sleep undisturbed for two or three cycles.
 
“What happens now?  Unless you’ve got some other lunatic aboard your ship that needs to be tracked down, I’d like to get this crap in my head turned off.” 

“There are no others to be located.  Now that we have Klamik in custody, the search for those who have been infected may begin without fear of spreading the affliction.” Still seated, Tulev made an embarrassed-looking little bow.  “ All but the most necessary personnel have been asked to leave the medical facility so we may treat Klamik without endangering the minds of others.  Would you be willing to delay your own --”

“Yeah, that’s fine.  Give me a holler when you’re ready for me.  I’ll hear you.”  John got to his feet and headed for the walkway leading out of the garden.  Halfway there, he stopped and turned back. 
“Hey, when your brainiac experts take this away, can they leave Harvey on ice?” 

Tulev’s look of confusion was almost identical to the one John was accustomed to seeing on D’Argo’s face whenever he exceeded the luxan’s familiarity with Earth-isms.  “The Halloween spook inside my head -- the second personality in my brain -- your people locked him up when you made me telepathic.  I want you to leave him that way when you change things back.  Better yet, take the ugly bastard out.  I’m sick of him waltzing though my life like he owns it.”

Staring toward the leafy wall of the garden, Tulev scratched his beak for several moments.  It turned out he was consulting someone else aboard the Kyelligg.  “They say that they did not do this thing that you describe.  Our specialists believed the secondary presence was a normal portion of your personality; therefore they did not restrict its actions.  If it has been sequestered, you have done this on your own.”

“I stuffed him in the ice box.  Me.  This is my own personal dream come true without anyone else’s help.”   

“Correct.”

Crichton considered Tulev’s claim a bit longer, comparing it to when he first noticed that the clone had gone missing.  “Before or after you did the cranial overhaul?”

He had to wait through another silently conducted hvisk conference before he got an answer.  “Unknown.  The ones I speak to can only be certain that the ability to sequester this other being resides within you.  It is unrelated to the procedure they performed.”

“What happens when you turn off the juice to the supercharger?”  Tulev cocked his head to one side and let out a squawk.  John rephrased.  “What happens when your specialists lobotomize the telepathy?  Will I still be able to keep Harvey in the cooler?” 

“There is no reason you should not be able to continue in this manner.  You have the mechanisms necessary to perform this small feat; you simply have never chosen to utilize them.  It only requires that you learn how to control the process.”  Black eyes gazed unemotionally at Crichton, providing no additional commentary about the human’s capacity to locate and control the latent ability that Tulev was talking about.   

Without guidance from someone like Hox, it was going to be like learning to fly the module with his eyes closed:  there would be a quick and catastrophic end to his first attempt.  John returned Tulev’s enigmatic stare, trying to decide whether or not to discuss it any further.  What he needed was several solar days worth of lessons covering the in and outs of how to keep the clone imprisoned.  It was a luxury that he knew he wasn’t going to get. 

Tulev said, “Trust yourself.  You have the ability.  All you require is faith that you can do it without assistance.” 

Crichton didn’t know how to answer that.  Finally, he settled for a nod.  Too much had happened over the last several arns, and he needed more time to think -- both about what had happened aboard the Kyelligg, as well as about this latest revelation.  Giving Tulev one more quick nod, he strolled into the street, chose a direction at random, and started to walk. 

* * * * *

Several arns later, John was standing on one of the Kyelligg’s massive loading docks.  He was staring out into space, a scant half-motra from the knee-height light-barrier that marked the perimeter of the forcefield maintaining the hangar’s atmosphere.  The view was every bit as impressive as the one he was treated to on the rare occasion that he visited Moya’s Terrace.  He thought it might have even been a little more spectacular considering that the intricate structure of the Kyelligg loomed overhead.  If he chose to crane his neck upward, he was provided with an awe-inspiring backdrop to light years worth of star-filled scenery.  From his vantage point, the station was a hulking, primordial, many-horned creature, lurking half-seen in the dark until some bit of light struck it.  It was always there, hanging over his shoulder, invisible a majority of the time … like his telepathy.   

When he left Tulev and the moss garden, he had hoped to lose himself for a while among the throngs of hvisk.  He didn’t want to spend his last few arns as a telepath on board Moya.  There was too much pain and regret there.  From Aeryn’s steely control, to D’Argo’s enduring grief for Lo’Lann, past Rygel’s stockpile of losses, onward to Chiana’s sakmars worth of emotional baggage, and more of the same for Pilot and Moya and Jool -- everyone on board had lost something or someone they loved.  Every one of them had left a life behind that, while they dreamed of returning to those moments of happiness, they knew could never be recovered.  That wasn’t the company he wanted to keep while he waited for the hvisk to finish with Klamik. 

So he had begun to walk, intending to spend the free time idly exploring the Kyelligg.  Within a matter of microts, he had discovered that it wasn’t going to work the way he had hoped.  Every single person on the nomadic space station knew of Hox’s death and of the human’s grief.  No matter where he went, there was someone there to let out a quiet note of sympathy, usually accompanied by a fluttering little pat.  The first dozen times it was comforting.  After a hundred such moments, he had been ready to strangle the next person who offered him a whistled condolence. 

In the end, he had snared a passing female and asked if there was some place where he could be alone.  She had led him to one of the aerobatic elevators and indicated a specific touch panel. 

“No, I don’t want to go to the other side.  I want some place where no one else ever goes,” he had said to her. 

She had indicated the touch panel a second time.  “This is the place you wish to visit.”

After hesitating for several microts, he had shrugged, trusting that she really did understand what he was looking for, and entered the ‘Traveling-Both-Up-And-Down-And-Switching-In-The-Middle-Due-To-Manipulation-Of-Gravitational-Influences’ gazebo.  When he smacked the touch panel, the elevator car had done its usual trick of falling straight up.  But when it came time to flip end for end, it had stopped in the middle, aligned itself along the center axis of the interior of the Kyelligg and had taken off down the length of the station at a velocity that he guessed was just shy of supersonic.  By the time it completed the wildest flight he had ever taken -- some hair-raising tests of the prototype module included -- and came to rest at the loading dock, he had a greater appreciation for D’Argo’s grumbling reaction to the conveyance. 

It had brought him accurately to the type of place he had requested though, and that was all that mattered.  The loading area and its associated hangar were not being used.  He had a leviathan-sized expanse all to himself where he could let his thoughts wander without being interrupted.

Tulev had dumped more of Hox’s memories into his mind than John had originally thought.  It was taking time, solitude, and a moderate amount of concentration to wheedle them out.  He had discovered several layers concealed beneath the childish memories, each from a different era of Hox’s life.  Initially he had assumed that Tulev had shared those moments intentionally.  It was when two intensely private moments had emerged the John began to suspect that it had been an accident.  It was as if Tulev -- the person who would someday become Hox -- hadn’t known himself what was inside his own brain, and had mistakenly spilled more than was needed when he shared one small bit of Hox’s knowledge. 

It was an unexpected gift; one that would require careful unwrapping, slowly pulling away one layer of rustling, delicate paper after another until all the small, precious trinkets were revealed.  John had already discovered the first such treasure.  Tulev’s error had allowed him to relive the moment when Hox met his lifelong mate for the first time, a moment that felt a great deal like the instant when he knew for certain that he loved Aeryn.  It had been a shocking, dizzying revelation that had turned his universe sideways, rearranging everything he thought he knew about life.  His memory and Hox’s merged into a single amalgam of experiences, nearly identical in the sensations coming from their stomachs, their hearts, and the way it was difficult to think straight whenever the focus of their affection was around.   

Sad and funny, Hox when he was young and when he was old, hvisk laughter and their equivalent of tears, love and sorrow, mundane moments and tragedy:  hundreds of freeze-framed moments were there for the viewing, inadvertently tipped into John’s mind by the inexperienced Tulev.  It wasn’t all eight hundred cycles of Hox’s life; it was a moving slide show of many of the moments that Hox treasured most.  The hatching of Hox’s first child was part of the gift, as were scattered, randomly chosen hatchings across dozens of generations.  Hundreds of his progeny walked the streets of the Kyelligg, including the most recent of Hox’s descendents to attain adulthood:  Klamik. 

The resemblance he had noticed the first moment he had seen Klamik hadn’t been a coincidence after all, and the extent of Hox’s anxiety suddenly made more sense.  The old man had been both proud of his descendant’s abilities and immensely distraught over what that genetically endowed talent was doing to their people.  And Hox had been worried that his family might lose Klamik forever.  He had been distressed to the point that his control over his own thoughts had begun to lapse, which explained why John had been able to catch the rare, occasional thought leaking from Hox when the old man hadn’t intended it. 

“You frelling secretive bastard,” John said to the person who could no longer hear him on any level. 

Discovering that Hox had hidden certain facts right through to the very end helped to ease the aching loss.  For the first time in arns, logic made a small amount of headway against the unrelenting stream of guilt.  Anger helped as well.  Encouraging the small remaining portion of resentment over being used by the hvisk like some sort of convenient tool drove the emptiness back even further.  That discovery led him to another revelation.  Since she had returned to Moya, Aeryn was constantly angry whenever he was around her.  Or so it had seemed. 

John fingered the side of his head where Jeckle’s cockspur had dug the furrow above his ear, finding and repeatedly tracing the evidence that there had been an injury.  Although the laceration had been healed by the hvisk, it would take longer for his hair to grow back.  Until then there would be the nearly undetectable four-dench long crease that could only be found by touch, hidden from sight by the overlying hair.  Aeryn’s wounds were like that.  Her scars were invisible, coming to light only when some action on his part touched the ragged, half-healed wound, and in doing so, caused her more pain. 

For the first time since Aeryn walked down the steps of the transport pod, he saw her anger for what it was.  On the rare occasion that her emotionless shell faltered, and she snarled or lashed out at him, Aeryn was doing her best to cauterize the wounds, using the heat of her temper to buy a short reprieve from a more lasting discomfort. 

“Round and round we go.”  John’s low mumble was lost in the cavernous emptiness of the hangar.  “He rips you to shreds, so you put me through the wringer, and I lash out at you.  When does it end, Aeryn?”  He looked behind him, inexplicably concerned that Aeryn might be standing there to overhear the words he would never say to her.  “Stop talking to yourself, you moron.  You’re asking the wrong person for advice.” 

Wandering along the edge of the force-field from one edge of the massive loading area to the other, John concentrated on paying more attention to his surroundings than what was going on inside his head.  The hangar bay was unlike any portion of the Kyelligg he had seen so far.  There were no plants here, no waterfalls or decorative plantings; there was only bare, utilitarian gray metalloid plating, and machinery for loading and unloading cargo.  The floor was marred by the criss-crossed scars of hundreds of landings, gouges driven deep into the reinforced, hardened surface by the weight of massive ships.  He stopped and traced a portion of one such mark with the toe of his boot, wondering at the mass that had cut a four-motra long, V-shaped groove into the plating.  Whatever had landed here must have been as large and as heavy as a fully-grown leviathan. 

“That must have been one big sucker,” he whispered.  The simple comment reminded him of the one being he hadn’t thought about since regaining consciousness an arn or two earlier.  “Damn.  I should have checked on Moya and Pilot.” 

John glanced up.  It was a mindless sort of thing, merely giving action to the belated concern over the leviathan and her pilot.  He hadn’t expected to actually see her.  Moya was docked directly above his head, nestled comfortably in against the Kyelligg.  She was belly-down to him, nearly invisible unless he was standing in one particular spot so she was silhouetted against the station, quietly gleaming gold resting against sparkling silver.  Moya was less than a third of the way up the Kyelligg from where he stood:  far enough that he could see all of her without strain, and yet close enough that he could make out every small detail of the streamlined, elegant hull. 

“You are gorgeous, Moya,” he said in her direction.  A whim fluttered past, tempting him to do something stupid.  John lectured himself to be reasonable.  “Don’t be a jackass.  It’s almost over.  Don’t frell your brain now just because you think it would be fun one last time when no one’s life depends on it.” 

The idea wouldn’t go away.  He wanted to reach out and touch Moya one more time.  Not to merge with her so completely that he could hear every separate note in the overwhelming stream of her awareness, but just enough to be a leviathan for a few more microts before he willingly lost the ability forever.  The events of the last day and a half hadn’t given him a chance to use the telepathy solely for himself.  There had been moments when he almost felt comfortable with it, and had benefited from the insights he had managed to wheedle out of other people’s thoughts, but he hadn’t had a chance to use it entirely for himself for no other reason than because he wanted to do something he had never been able to do before. 

The temptation was too much for him. 

“Grandma always said the menfolk on the Crichton side of the family were pigheaded imbeciles.  I wish she could be here to watch this so she could say ‘I told you so’.” 

The risk was enormous.  Hox was dead.  If he screwed this up and couldn’t find his way back to his body, there was a chance that his awareness might cast adrift in space forever.  John didn’t care.  He spent one last moment debating whether he should comm D’Argo to let him know what he was about to do, and then shouldered aside the responsible, logical portion of his conscience, and released the tight grip he had on his mind.  He looked up toward Moya and let his consciousness stream outward.   

His first destination is reached without difficulty.  The bulk of the leviathan’s sentience takes up the entire night sky, drawing him in without effort on his part.  He floats wraith-like through the corridors, renewing his knowledge of her sights, sounds, and smells, reverting for a few microts into a peaceful beast that was born to swim the galaxies.  A tightly woven bundle of thoughts draws him forward.  Drifting upward to the place where two mesh into one, he finds the effortless symbiosis of ship and pilot, and pauses there to sample the quiet give and take of information that continues arn after arn throughout the eternal night of space.  They are content now, happily conversing in languages, colors, textures, shapes, and sounds that he can barely comprehend, secure in the restored companionship that they will share for the rest of their lives.

Recognizing a signal from a single DRD, he follows it back to its source to find a rebellious, light-hearted spirit that is filled with fear at the idea of what lies ahead.  The bright spark of life isn’t alone.  There is another accumulation of complexities nearby, a firmer personality that is concerned for everyone around it and is involved in reassuring the other one in Command at that moment.  They merge in a duet of ricocheting reactions, their thoughts and feelings bouncing off each other without merging, just as synchronized as the ship and pilot but in a process that feels more like a duel than a dance.

He spins away from Chiana and D’Argo, probing into the tiers, feeling the pulses of life that are Moya, following her energy flows until he comes across the grumbling hunger that hides the fortitude born of cycles of captivity and its requisite perseverance of spirit.  Monarchy did not go amiss when it chose this strange vessel; an indomitable spirit has found a new purpose.  The intention to carry out a new commitment fills the aching loss that comes from being deposed.  There is something else there, kept deeply hidden from the eyes of those among whom he resides:  a carefully stoked and banked flame waits for the right atmosphere to blaze forth, promising to burn out the corruption and decadence of his empire because now he knows what it means to be trodden upon.

His consciousness leaves Dominar Rygel XVI to his latest meal, and soars on, seeking out another only to find a sharp bitter taste of scale-hided aggression.  He veers around the scarran, distaste thrusting him forward at a speed he didn’t intend, and runs into a mind that is filled with orderly ranks and files of knowledge, packaged inside a hastily assembled gathering of emotions and ethics.  It is a wildly spinning whirlpool of tumbling feelings, allegiances, and loves cast about without an anchor, never completely abandoned, never completely embraced.  Complexities rage, spiral upward, burst into incandescent, unexplained passions, gutter and flicker to glowing warmth to wait the next inferno outbreak.  He offers up a small mental smile to the personality that so perfectly matches the scream that melts metal, and moves on, daring disaster, leaving the leviathan behind.

He brushes across the blossoming traces of what had once been a sentient entity called Hox.  It is underlain by a younger, wilder mind that knows what it is like to be insane, imparting new insight to the older wisdom, arn by arn finding the inherited knowledge so that nothing might be lost.  His mind lingers there for a microt, for the last time touching the generosity that had offered him a refuge, using the moment to grieve, and then drifts along.  There is a new tune in the rippling rhythms of the aggregate, hearing and sanity restored, and he discovers the one who is no longer known as Klamik.  They rejoice at his return and welcome him back into their flock without anger or recriminations.  He is whole now.  All past transgressions are forgotten.

Turning away because he can’t be that forgiving, and reaching out even farther, enveloping it all, for no other reason than he can.  Expanding, filling his senses, reaching farther, wondering if the Hvisk explore the universe in this manner, or if he is something different, something stronger and more capable than they ever expected when they rearranged the inner functions of his brain.  He stretches out again, finding and brushing across dozens of species, some familiar, some unknown, feeling the quiet hum of millions upon millions of minds.  Delvians, sheyang, hynerians, charrids, sebaceans, and dozens of others; war-makers, peacemakers, clothes-makers, ship builders, farmers, and hermits; priests, thieves, lovers, killers, thrillers, and the forever bewildered:  he finds them all, touches them lightly with galaxy-sized fingertips, and soars on, seeking he knows not what.

Could he find Earth this way? he wonders in a star-dazzled, distracted haze.  If he honed this star-walking talent with assiduous care, if he practiced, meditated daily and gained strength, could he reach far enough to hear his own people?  It would mean weekend visits home, rummaging through the borrowed sights and smells of an entire species.  His divorced personality might be able to sit in his father’s kitchen sipping coffee on a slanting-sunlight morning when the coolness of night first gives way to morning warmth, feel the pleasant rasp of jeans against his legs, and the toe-curling chill of not yet sun-warmed tiles underfoot.

He would never come back.  If he ever found Earth, rifled his way through the galaxies until he heard the millions of thoughts that he could define as exquisitely his own, his body would sit forever abandoned, gazing vacantly at the pleasant, well-lit surroundings of the Kyelligg, and he would never return to occupy that deserted vessel.  He turns, willingly headed back to where he now belongs.  Spiraling in, taking his time because he knows he’ll never do this again, he swerves to one side long enough to run mental fingers through what looks like a dust cloud and finds something far more familiar.  ‘Monarch,’ he greets her and her brood, and wafts on undetected, much in the same way that they travel the emptiness of space.

Something gone awry.  A flashing impression, not knowledge, flits across his mind, and he veers away, distaste rank and sour in his mouth.  But it is familiar in its strangeness, and he turns back, seeking that imbalanced complexity of two minds, bound together artificially through something that hums mechanically, feeding each other’s --

“JOHN?” 

John staggered and nearly fell down.  He had snapped back into his body with a velocity that felt like a bursting balloon.  One moment he had encompassed an entire galaxy and the next he was inside a leather-encased container that was a couple of denches over two motras tall.  The transition was immediate, shocking, and radical.  Starting with the questionable assumption that the human brain could eventually adapt to being telepathic, he was certain it was never intended to do what he had just done. 

“Good god … Humans aren’t supposed to implode.”  His body didn’t want to respond to commands at first.  It took several microts before he could turn around to see who had disturbed his mental spin around the universe. 

She moved out of the shadows of the hangar, stepping into the dim starlight.  “Hey.”

“Aeryn.” 

Fast judder of dismay … He never explained what I’m supposed to do if he doesn’t say ‘hey’ back.  Frelling annoying human.

The thought felt better than most of what he had been receiving from her over the past two days.  It felt normal.  He greeted her a second time, giving her the answer she would know how to handle.  “Hey.  What’s up?”   

“You had been gone for so long, I was D’Argo was starting to get worried starting to get worried.”
 
John fingered the small furrow along the side of his head for a moment, giving himself time to formulate an answer.  The double-layered message distracted him.  The unintentional comment beckoned to him the strongest, urging him to say something designed to comfort Aeryn, and it was the spoken message that needed to be answered.  A distant thought about him arrived in time to keep him from saying something that would let Aeryn know he had overheard her thoughts. 

“They just finished up with Klamik.  They’re in the process of adjusting the equipment so it works in reverse.  After that they’ll be ready to fritz with my brain.” 

Aeryn stared out at the stars.  “What will happen to him?”

“Do you remember what Rygel said when we first saw the Kyelligg?” 

It felt like that conversation had occurred a half cycle ago.  John counted backward, trying to figure out how many solar days had passed since the moment when they had stood on Command and watched the Kyelligg crawl out of the shadow and into the sunlight for the first time.  At first he came up with a little over a day and a half.  Then he remembered the six-arn chunk of time he had lost toward the end.  It had been closer to two solar days. 

“You mean the part about how art equates to destruction?” Aeryn was saying.

“That’s the one.  It turns out Slugworth, Jr. wasn’t all that far off.  Before he went nutzo, Klamik was the Kyelligg’s celebrity superstar.  They,” he jerked his head to indicate the hvisk in general, “think he might be the most important hvisk that has ever lived.  They’ve welcomed him back with open arms.” 

She glared at him.  John reviewed what he had said, searching for whatever had set off the reaction.  After a microt he realized he had misread her expression.  The spiky, bristling energy she was giving off said that Aeryn was trying to figure out whether he was making some sort of joke and she had missed the punch line, or if she had misunderstood his explanation completely. 

“I’m serious.  If this were New York, they’d be throwing him a ticker-tape parade to welcome him home.  They’re ecstatic to have him back.” 

“But by doing that, they are inviting this to happen again.  That is --”  Aeryn searched for a word. 

“Insane?” 

Aeryn made an awkward sideward nod with her head.  This time John didn’t need telepathy to know what she was trying to express.  The familiar gesture meant that she didn’t agree his choice of word, but didn’t see any reason to search for another one.  ‘Insane’ was close enough to whatever word she would have chosen that she was willing to let it slide. 

“No argument here!  But guys like Klamik only come along once in a blue moon.  All three and a half million souls aboard this floating rest area are receive-only telepaths.  Klamik is the only sender.  When he isn’t sick and insane, he can transmit and receive.  There have only been three or four in their entire recorded history.” 

She made the correct conclusion.  “Without him, the disease can’t spread.” 

John nodded.  “It was how they knew they had a sender among them.  The ability is so rare they don’t bother checking for it at birth.  When they discovered that people were going deaf, that’s when they realized there was someone aboard the Kyelligg who could send thoughts … or in this case, shut them down.  They tried looking for him, and that only made things worse.”  He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.  “He’ll be watched for the rest of his life, trained to handle the ability wisely, cared for so this problem never happens again.  Starting a couple of cycles from now, there will always be someone like Hox with him who can help him control it.” 

The answer had been part of the data-dump of memories he had received.  It would be Tulev, in Hox’s place, who would eventually become Klamik’s constant companion -- always there in case the rare, once-in-a-millennium ability again turned toward silence and insanity.  The great-grandfather several times removed had been looking forward to taking on that role.  Hox had been bursting with pride and eagerness at the prospect.  The dream had filled his thoughts right from the first moment when he had been told that the hvisk had located a sebacean-like being who they believed could help them find Klamik.
 
Except Hox had sacrificed his life for that unique being and would never take his place at his descendant’s side. 

“What?”  John had been so mired in Hox’s memories that he had been missed whatever Aeryn had just asked him. 

She repeated the question far more patiently than he had anticipated.  “I thought you said they could hear each other.  Why do they need someone like Klamik?” 

“Just because they can hear each other doesn’t mean they all work toward the same purpose.  They’ve got a --” 

“That sounds familiar.”  A shouting match conducted over Last Meal in the Center Chamber, debating what to do about a pregnant leviathan.  No two people want the same thing.  Moya starbursts …

“Anarchy,” John summed it up. 

“A single voice to give them some direction,” she said. 

John nodded and began wandering toward the back of the hangar, toward where the transportation ‘elevator’ was located.  “A single voice for when they need it.  In emergencies or when there is a matter that has to be decided quickly.  He won’t be a dictator.  They’ll form a council of sorts to advise him, and if everything goes right, he’ll abide by their decisions.” 

“And if it doesn’t go right?” Aeryn asked. 

“In that case, it’ll go pear shaped in a rush.”

Aeryn nodded.  They walked along in silence until they reached the doorway leading out of the hangar.  “Where are you going?” 

“The medical facility.”  John decided that attempting to explain Heckle’s transformation into Tulev-to-be-Hox would only result in a headache for him, and one of Aeryn’s patented ‘this is ridiculous’ glares.  Without mentioning any names, he said, “I can hear one of them thinking that he’s waiting for me.  They’re ready to shut this off.”

Aeryn spun around and headed back toward the edge of the loading dock.  The fast moving figure wasn’t leaking any thoughts or emotions.  There wasn’t a single clue, mental or physical, trailing off Aeryn that he could use to figure out what was bothering her.  No jerky, angry stance; no telepathically detected volcanic firebombs sailing off at odd angles; no kicking of inanimate objects; no energetic aura:  there was nothing but the fast retreat toward the place where John had located some solitude. 

John took a moment to let Tulev know that it would be a while before he showed up, and then went after her.  He caught up to her at the edge of the forcefield.

Aeryn stood silently with her back to him long after he had come to a stop behind her.  The silence stretched out, broken only by the subliminal hum of the energy shield that kept the atmosphere contained and the occasional quiet ping of the metal walls.  The bulkheads were in a constant state of flux, forever caught between the warmth of the interior of the hangar and the chill of space, letting out quiet complaints about the contrast. 

John had given up on waiting her out and was searching for something to say when Aeryn finally spoke.  It wasn’t what he wanted to hear. 

“I don’t want … ”  I don’t want to talk about it …

There was no way to batter down that sort of doubly reinforced rejection.  He spun around and started to leave, convinced that he had misread the physical cues that said she wanted some time alone to talk to him. 

“Wait! … John, don’t … I didn’t mean …”  She sounded every bit as confused as he felt.  “You have to stop doing that.  I wasn’t going to ask you to leave.” 

Understanding dawned slowly.  “You weren’t going to say what you were thinking,” he said.  The one time he most needed to ignore the unintended mental message, he had snapped it up like a hungry bass going after a lure.

“No.”  Aeryn wandered to one side, working her way along the edge of the loading dock the same way he had earlier.  She nudged the electronic warning barrier with the toe of her boot, setting the alarm to squealing in small, tentative bursts.  “It’s not fair when you do that.”

“I’m not real crazy about it myself, Aeryn.  I never wanted this.”  He considered hauling a cargo container over and suggesting that she blow it to pieces with her pulse pistol.  Maybe that would release some portion of whatever she had penned up inside and would set her free to talk about it.  “One arn and it will be gone.  That’s all it will take once I get up to the medical facility.”     

Her next comment, when it came, nearly knocked him off his feet with surprise.  “Maybe you should keep it.”

“Is that a joke?”  He knew it wasn’t, but he needed a moment to recover from the shock.  Aeryn wasn’t helpful.  She merely shook her head and then went back to her pacing, giving him no time to come up with any answer other than a flat out refusal.  “Bad idea,” he said.   

“It could give us a tactical advantage against our enemies.”

“Sound Peacekeeper thinking, Aeryn.  John Crichton, Early Defense Warning System.  No thanks.”

“You’re ignoring the possibilities because I’m the one suggesting --”

“No, I’m ignoring an idea that is guaranteed to slowly drive me out of my gourd!  Why the frell would I want this crap inside my head for the rest of my life?  Aside from cheating at cards and maybe,” he stretched the word out over two full microts, “being able to figure out if the latest cannon-wielding mystery guest who starts shooting at us before we can say hello is someone we’ve already managed to piss off or just the latest bad ass in the universe who’s trying to make a name for himself, there isn’t a single reason to hang on to this curse.  Telepathy doesn’t let me hear the dead, Aeryn.  I can’t bring him back for you!” 

Aeryn’s anger hit him with the intensity of a physical impact.  For an instant he thought she had punched him.  But she was face to face with him, nose four inches from his, hands at her sides, and there was no residual, post-punch sting anywhere on his face or body.   

“You frelling bastard!” she said.  The quiet, furious half-whisper was far worse than having her yell at him.  “You miserable, frelling bastard.  That’s not why I want you to keep the telepathy.  But you’re so smart, John Crichton, you can see what I want.  So read my mind now.  Look in there and figure out for yourself why I wanted you to keep it.  Better yet, just have them shut if off and then you never have to listen to anyone ever again!”  She ended on the shout he had initially expected, shouldered him aside with all the finesse of an NFL linebacker, and headed for the door. 

He was supposed to say “I’m sorry” at this point.  It was his fault, it had been a stupid, mindless thing to say, and he hadn’t meant it.  So he was supposed to apologize.  “I can’t read you,” he said instead.  “When I try, I can’t.  When I try not to, you blow my socks right off.  I never know what I should and shouldn’t say, and when I think I hear what you’re thinking, that’s when I’m the farthest from the truth.”

The confession brought her to a stop.  Aeryn stayed where she was, halfway across the hangar, but at least she wasn’t running away from him.  After several microts, she said, “It doesn’t sound very reliable.”   

“It isn’t.  I don’t control this, Aeryn; it controls me.  The equipment panel they gave me has one big red On-Off switch in the middle of it, and that’s about it.  There’s no sighting mechanism on this sucker.”  He waited until her shoulders relaxed and her right hand released the butt of her pulse pistol, signaling that she was starting to calm down.  It took nearly a hundred microts.  “I’m listening.  Talk to me.” 

“I want you to have an advantage when you go up against Scorpius.” 

Fear for him.  Fear for herself.  She can’t bear losing him again.  She can’t reconstitute Aeryn Sun a second time.  If he dies, the love will kill her.

It was another of the Scud missiles that could penetrate his defenses as though they were made of crepe paper.  He managed to stay on his feet this time, but when his vision cleared, Aeryn had him by the elbow and was holding him steady.  “What was that?  What’s wrong?” she asked. 

“Nothing.  Just an incoming Scud missile.”  He pulled free of her grasp on his arm.  The Patriot batteries were having enough trouble without adding physical contact to make things worse.  “Aeryn, nothing we do ever works out the way we plan it.  You think the ability to read Scorpy’s mind could be used as a weapon or to get to his secrets.  Putting aside the debate over whether I’d ever want to go inside his head in the first place, the way I see it, he’d somehow figure out that I’m telepathic and turn it against us instead.” 

“I don’t want you to get killed, John.” 

He stepped close and dared to touch her.  It wasn’t much; he simply brushed the backs of his fingers across the smoothed-back hair at the side of her head, lingering for a moment to enjoy the radiating warmth of her body against his, and then released her by stepping away.  “I know you don’t.  But asking me to do this isn’t the way to prevent that.  I can’t concentrate with this inside my head, Aeryn.  Little stuff makes it through when I least expect it, big jolts nearly knock me out, and it shortens my attention span into negative numbers.” 

That convinced her.  He could feel the change in her attitude.  “Someone will notice.” 

“They’re certain to.  And then they report back to Herr Braca, who goose-steps right on over to Mr. Megalomaniac himself, and the next thing we know, we get to find out what happens if you mix the Aurora Chair with telepathy, and all of us can kiss our asses goodbye.  Our plan to stop the Peacekeepers from using wormholes as a weapon is over.  Finito.  Kaput.”

“I get the point,” she interrupted. 

“Then you agree.” 

“Not entirely, but I agree that you need to let the hvisk return you to normal.”

“As normal as I ever get,” he said, trying for a small joke.  It earned him an almost-grin, and an infinitesimal easing of her anxiety. 

He knew that this was another interlude in Aeryn’s recovery, one that was passing even as he recognized it for what it was.  They turned together, if not in comfortable companionship, at least in physical partnership, and headed for the door.  He could feel her withdrawing before they had taken ten steps, pushing the few stray emotions back into their lockbox, closing him out faster than he could ever hope to break his way into her heart.  Getting rid of the telepathy was going to be a blessing if it meant he didn’t have to feel her pulling away every time he thought they had made a little progress. 

Aeryn asked, “What about the information we came here to buy?  Wouldn’t it be easier to ask them about that before they reverse the process?”

He had forgotten all about their reason for coming aboard the Kyelligg in the first place.  “It doesn’t matter anymore.  Crais and Talyn are on their way back.  They’ve found Scorpius, and they’ve set up a time and place for a meeting with D’Argo and Rygel.”

She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye several times before answering.  “Where are they now?” 

“You mean Talyn?”  When he received a nod, he said, “They’ll be here in a few arns.  Five or six.” 

“You can reach that far out?” 

“Yeah, but I can’t always come back.  Remember that part?” 

Crichton upon Crichton.  One in Crais’ quarters aboard Talyn, the other sitting slumped in Moya’s hallway.  Unseeing eyes, blind gaze, forever empty.  Never to return to her.

“Another scrub missile?” Aeryn said in his ear.  She had her hand under his arm and was helping him up.  He was on his knees again. 

John brushed her away and stayed where he was, waiting for the odd spinning inside his head to come to an end.  “Gotta get me some knee pads or I’ll be crippled by dinner time.  And it’s Scud, not scrub.” 

“I did that to you, didn’t I?”  He’s been hiding this from me … to protect me.  He loves me so much. 

He nodded and clambered to his feet.  “Don’t sweat it.  You’ve always been able to knock me off my feet with a single look, babe.  I was head over heels for you from the first moment.” 

Only because I threw him from one side of the cell to the other … Cholak, save me.  “What now?” she asked. 

“You go back to Moya.  Send D’Argo to come get me in case I have trouble finding my way home.  Same place as before,” John said.

“I’ll have him meet us there.”

“Aeryn, you --”

She shut him down with the tone of voice that said she wasn’t going to tolerate any argument over the issue.  “No.  I’m coming with you.  I’ll comm D’Argo.” 

They reached the flying elevator.  When John tried to open the door, Aeryn stopped him.  “I don’t know any other way to do this, John.  There are things that I have to do, and things that I can’t do, and they probably don’t make any sense to you.  It’s the best I can offer.”

Taking his time, enjoying her proximity even if it was for all the wrong reasons, he examined every visible bit of Aeryn Sun from top to bottom, wallowing in all the familiar sights, mapping and measuring them to be sure that he had them all firmly committed to memory.  He returned to the grayish-blue eyes and stared into the impassive depths, hoping to find a small glimmer of what once had been waiting for him there.  It was missing, expended on another man.  He had to hope that given enough time, it would return.  In the meantime, giving in to his anger and frustration served no useful purpose.  In the words of the man who had stolen what he treasured most, he had to give her time. 

“I’ll take it,” John said.  “Whatever you can manage, I’ll take it.” 

“I don’t hate you.”   

“I know you don’t, Aeryn.  But you need to know that I love you, and that’s not going to change.  Ever.  I am never going to stop loving you.” 

He didn’t expect to hear the words he longed for her to say, and he didn’t get them.  Aeryn merely nodded, and let him open the door to the elevator.  One by one they sidled through the narrow door, and took the wild, exhilarating ride back to the place where the past two days worth of chaos had begun. 

* * * * *

[KernilCrash]

Chapter 15

Waking up this time had none of the wafting, dreaming moments that had marked his last journey from unconsciousness to awareness.  One microt he didn’t exist, and the next there was little in his life beyond a shattering headache.  Crichton took several shallow breaths, hoping that the pain would ease if he just gave it a little time.  It didn’t.  Every small twitch of his muscles, right down to the movement of his chest necessary for breathing, made it worse. 

Someone asked him a question.  It consisted of four small sounds clattering into his ears like wooden skeletons, stripped of the personalized nuances that gave a sentence texture and meaning.  How.  Do.  You.  Feel.  Interrogative.  With the exception of the diseased hvisk, every word uttered over the past solar day had been clothed in deeper meanings and complexities borrowed from the speaker’s mind.  Not anymore.  He could barely figure out what he was being asked.  John lay quietly, eyes closed while doing his best not to move, and pondered the adjustment that had been made to his hearing.     

“John?”  It was the same voice that had asked the first question.  “How do you feel?”

“Gonna puke.”  He had intended it as a joke.  A microt after saying it, he wasn’t so sure.  “The Aurora Chair felt better than this.” 

Something cold pressed against the side of his neck, startling him.  Unfamiliar fingers grasped one of his wrists and guided his hand to the object, pressing one against the other until he figured out that they wanted him to hold it in place.  A microt later, pure unadulterated relief flooded from the metal disk into the side of his neck, and from there ballooned into his skull.  The conflagration inside his head guttered and began to die out.  The relief was so intense he came close to losing his battle against the nausea. 

The voice asked, “Is that better?”

“Yeah.  Odds of me blowing chunks are down around forty percent now.” 

“Can you sit up?”

John tried opening his eyes.  He was lying on his back with a cluster of lights shining in his eyes.   His view was limited to an impression of several indistinct shadows moving back and forth beyond the blinding glare.  “D’Argo?”

It generated a lilting chorus of whistling hvisk laughter and a louder, equally amused comment.  “That’s the first time in my life I’ve ever been mistaken for a luxan.”

“Aeryn.” 

The last of the nausea and the discomfort faded away, replaced by a warm, liquidly uncontrollable crawling sensation that circled several times between his stomach and his chest.  It was a weak feeling that drained his body of strength and relaxed the snarl of tension between his shoulders.  He hadn’t expected her to be there when he woke up.  Standing idly, waiting while he lay unconscious -- regardless of whether it was the result of a hvisk sedative or an injury -- couldn’t have been easy for her.  When he had nodded to the hvisk medical specialists, giving them permission to put him to sleep, it had been with the expectation that only D’Argo would be there when he woke up.

“Are you going to go back to sleep?” she asked.   

He didn’t remembered closing his eyes … or dozing off for that matter.  “No, just taking a short mental vacation.”  Experimenting, he eased the metal disk, which turned out to be attached to a small machine standing next to the hvisk futon-bed, away from his neck.  The headache was gone.  The lights that were shining in his eyes were turned off, and the painkiller device was taken away.  Several sets of hands -- sebacean, luxan, and hvisk working together by the feel of it -- helped him sit up.

“He looks the way Pilot did when he first regained consciousness,” D’Argo said.     

John tried to put together a witty comeback to the mild, affectionate ribbing.  Unfortunately, his upper body was weaving back and forth every bit as wildly as D’Argo’s imitation of Pilot’s recovery, he wasn’t absolutely sure what century it was, let alone what he was supposed to do next, and the only thing preventing him from toppling off the edge of the bed was the comforting grip that D’Argo and Aeryn had on his shoulders.  Repartee was abandoned in favor of remaining upright. 

“Did it work correctly?  Did they do what they promised?” Aeryn asked.

“Dunno,” he said.  “Lemmee check.”  It was going to be difficult.  He barely had control of his body, let alone his mind.  Trusting that D’Argo and Aeryn would keep him from keeling over on to the floor, he turned his attention inward.   

For the first time in nearly two solar days, he relaxed his mental guard entirely and did his best to hear what anyone aboard the Kyelligg was thinking, deliberately risking a mental mugging if the hvisk hadn’t completed their job properly.  There was nothing but silence.  All the mechanisms necessary for telepathy were still intact; he could feel the various bits and pieces inside his mind, each in its proper place, but the circuitry that allowed him to use it had been disconnected as promised.  The overall effect was a peculiar one, suggesting that if he could simply reach out a micro-dench further he could grasp the controls and make it work.  But no matter how hard he tried, that final short distance could not be crossed. 

He didn’t want to be telepathic.  With the possible exception of Aeryn’s safety, there wasn’t an argument in the entire universe that could have convinced him to leave it in place.  And now that it was gone, he ran headlong into mild regret.  His universe had been stripped of a dimension while he slept.  He was a three-dimensional being in a cardboard landscape, surrounded by flat, nondescript settings.  A degree of vibrancy had been leached out of his life, depriving him of something that until recently he hadn’t even known existed. 

The loss felt familiar.  John looked at Aeryn.  She was leaning close to make sure he didn’t fall over.  He examined the impassive features and recognized where he had encountered that emptiness before. 

D’Argo drew him back to the here and now.  “John?  Is it turned off?” 

Crichton accepted their help getting to his feet.  The dizziness and disorientation were fading fast.  “Yeah, it’s gone.  I’m deaf as a stump.”  He turned to the hvisk specialists.  “Anything else?  Am I done here?” 

They whistled for several microts, bobbing and gesticulating first at him and then at the door. 

“What did they say?” D’Argo asked.

“I haven’t the foggiest notion, D.  We’re back to completely clueless,” John said. 

“In other words, we’re back to normal,” D’Argo said.

“Exactly right.”

“May we leave?” Aeryn said, trying a slightly different question. 

This time there was nothing other than the bobbing nods of agreement.  One of the hvisk stepped closer, sang to John briefly, and gave him a quick little pat on the upper arm. 

“Thanking you?” D’Argo theorized. 

“At this point, your guess is as good as mine, D’Argo.” 

John couldn’t bring himself to return the pat.  It didn’t matter that his companions weren’t aware that it was something more than an innocent touch on his shoulder.  Returning a kiss from an oversized ostrich was one intergalactic custom he was not going to observe.  Instead, he gave the two hvisk a brief bow that mimicked their upper-body bobs, and followed his friends out the door.

Despite some lingering dizziness that resulted in the occasional staggering foray off course, the trip to the docking hatch went much faster than Crichton’s first journey along that route, half of which had been spent hanging upside down over D’Argo’s shoulders.  Their progress was slowed only by the occasional hvisk who would approach and whistle an untranslatable message, sometimes accompanied by a brief pat bestowed on one or more of the crewmates.  After the fourth such address, all three agreed that they were probably being thanked for saving the Hvisk civilization. 

“This is the first time anything we planned ever worked out right,” D’Argo said. 

John dodged another approaching hvisk, bowed quickly to forestall another display of appreciation, and brushed past it without slowing.  “It wasn’t our plan and they didn’t ask.  Remember?  They just grabbed me and did whatever they wanted.”

“And Klamik is going to be one of their leaders,” Aeryn said quietly, “which means there is a chance this could all happen again.” 

Shocked to speechlessness, D’Argo turned to look at her and nearly collided with a tree.  Impact barely avoided, he looked first at John and then back at Aeryn.

Diagnosing stunned disbelief, John said, “It’s not a joke, D’Argo.  She’s serious.”  He repeated the conversation he’d had earlier with Aeryn, describing Klamik’s special ability and the safeguards that would be put in place to ensure that the unique individual would never again pose a threat to the mental health of the Hvisk. 

D’Argo came to a morose conclusion.  “It was for nothing.  What they did to you, John, and everything else that happened, was all a waste of time.  If they allow Klamik to live among them, they’re begging for it to happen again.”

“They don’t have any other choice.  Exile isn’t an option with these critters,” John said.  “They would never just cut Klamik loose, and they aren’t about to execute him just because he might get sick.”           

Aeryn said, “Something good may have come out of this.  What about the clone?”

It was a portion of his brain he had deliberately chosen not to visit since regaining consciousness.  Since leaving the medical facility, John had continually probed outward, repeatedly testing to make sure that the telepathy was truly disconnected.  The longer his world remained closed to the thoughts of everyone around him, the more convinced he became that the voices would gradually begin to seep through whatever sort of constraints the hvisk had put into place.  In response to what he knew was an irrational belief, he went on trying to activate the missing mental mechanisms … just to be sure they wouldn’t work.  But the one thing he hadn’t done so far was go in search of Harvey. 

“He is gone,” Aeryn said.  “They didn’t change that, did they?” 

He hadn’t told them about his role in the clone’s frosty entombment.  He had double-checked with the hvisk specialists to make sure that what Tulev had told him was correct, but he hadn’t shared the revelation with anyone else.  The hvisk had assured him that their tampering had nothing to do with what had been done to the neural clone, and that there was no reason why he couldn’t keep Harvey on ice permanently.  Until he proved them right, he was reluctant to tell anyone else that it was all up to him.     

“I haven’t checked,” John said.
 
He was bracketed by disbelief, hemmed in by D’Argo’s look of pleasant exasperation to his right and Aeryn’s glowering not-quite-angry impatience on his left.  It didn’t leave him much of an option.  They would keep asking until he gave them an answer.  “Hang on,” he said, and dove into his mind.

In contrast to most of his other mental excursions to Sawyer’s Mill, this time he arrived midday.  The sun was directly overhead.  John was standing at the end of the dock, both elbows propped on the railing, his back turned to the shore.  It was midday, mid-August, heat-wave type hot.  The sun shimmering off the water was malevolent in its intensity.  Putting the change in time of day together with the heat and the glare, he didn’t need to turn around to know that the change in climate was bad news.

John dropped his head and stared down at his feet, using every bit of expertise he had picked up from Hox to search for the part of his mind that the hvisk insisted could keep Harvey caged.  He built a realistic and detailed image of the ice machine in his mind, carefully added the frost on the window, and the hasp and the lock on the door, and then envisioned the entire thing frozen inside an enormous block of ice.  John held it there, perfect in its realism, and did his best to believe it.  Tulev had said that all he needed was faith.  He pictured the outcome he wanted, and hammered his disbelief aside until he felt as though he could reach out and touch the frost-coated window of the imagined freezer with his fingers.  He counted to ten, pausing between ‘nine’ and ‘ten’ for five additional microts, and then walked along the dock until he reached the ice machine.

The evidence of failure was soaking into the ground for six feet in every direction around the freezer.  The ice was melting fast.  Water was streaming from the drains in gurgling rivulets, adding to the existing puddles with every passing microt.  The hasp and lock that had been added by his own imagination were missing entirely.  It was only a matter of time until the clone was defrosted, and once he was, there was nothing to keep him from getting out of the ice machine.

“Harv’s back.” 

D’Argo’s response was immediate and furious.  “We’ll go back and tell them to do something about it.  After what you did for them --”

John grabbed D’Argo’s arm before he could reverse course.  “No, it’s okay, D’Argo.  They said this might happen.  Chill.  I can live with it.” 

“D’Argo’s right.  They owe you that much,” Aeryn said. 

They turned the corner into the street that held the docking hatch to Moya with John trying to shepherd the other two forward.  What was fast shaping up into an argument was interrupted by the presence of five hvisk standing in a small cluster near the airlock.

“Send off committee,” John said, pointing ahead. 

“Good.  We can tell them to get rid of the clone,” D’Argo insisted. 

“No!  Just drop it, D’Argo.  I talked to them about it.  They can’t do it, so just let it go.” 

Aeryn stepped in close, face to face with Crichton, and challenged him in a quiet whisper.  “More secrets?  What aren’t you telling us this time?”   

“Nothing, damn it.” 

“I know you, John.  I can’t always tell when you’re lying, but when I can, it’s obvious.  You’re hiding something.” 

He didn’t want to admit that he had the ability to rid himself of the clone and simply couldn’t exert the control necessary to accomplish the Scorpy-exorcism.  Even with Aeryn’s eyewitness knowledge of the extent of his struggle to master the telepathy, he didn’t want to tell her that it was up to him, and him alone, to keep Harvey in his place and that he had failed. 

“I talked to them, Aeryn.  They can’t do what you’re talking about.  End of story.  What I’m not sharing is all the boring psycho-babble about how Harvey ever got locked up in the first place.  They didn’t do it on purpose.  It was an accident.  It was a nice accident, but that’s all it was.  The vacation is over.”  He returned her stare without blinking, willing her to believe him and drop the issue.  It took ten full microts before she stepped away from him.  It didn’t look like she believed him though. 

“All right.”  With that, she spun away and headed toward the hatch, motioning to D’Argo with a jerk of her head. 

The hvisk were waiting patiently, watching the actions of the three crewmates with bright-eyed interest.  Tulev was there, as was Klamik.  The three standing behind them might have been the three hvisk who had escorted John, D’Argo, and Rygel to their first, unsuccessful barter session. 

“Full circle,” John said to himself, and went to meet them. 

Tulev stepped away from the others and greeted him.  He bowed and gestured, all in time with a lilting melody, finally gesturing toward Klamik.  It was an introduction to an honored citizen, Crichton decided, possibly with some sort of expression of gratitude thrown in for good measure.  “You know I can’t make heads or tails out of this, right?” 

Tulev bobbed a ‘yes’, and motioned toward Klamik a second time. 

“Fine.  Just so you know you’re wasting your energy on me.” 

He turned toward Klamik.  The resemblance to Hox was so strong it hurt just to look at him.  Klamik had the same facial features; the same jaunty, half-cocked, disarrayed crest that would, with the passage of hundreds of cycles, almost certainly fade to the same washed out purple; and the same habit of cocking his head to one side to look at Crichton more intently.  For a moment, it was as though a young Hox was standing before him, full of energy, strength, the confidence of youth, and with hundreds of cycles of life stretching out ahead of him.  This was the person who had skulked out of his cubbling when his mate was screeching with anger, wisely finding a place in one of the gardens to sleep until it was safe to come home.  Here was the Hox who had warbled out his delight at the hatching of his first child, had walked the streets of Kyelligg since the very first days the ship had taken to space, and had spent eight hundred cycles learning how to mourn the loss of almost his entire species.       

“You look like the old man.  You know that, don’t you?” he asked Klamik.  He got a head bob.  “He would have given up anything to make sure you were found and cured.  You live up to that.  Don’t waste his sacrifice.”       

Klamik bobbed and sang to him for several microts, gesturing gracefully with both hands.  The message was delivered with all the solemnity of a hymn, the pacing and inflection of the notes combining with his movements to create an aria that needed no words to convey its message.  It was a vow for the future and a gracious benediction on the person who had been forced into helping them. 

“Anything, John?  He’s supposed to be able to send thoughts.”  D’Argo had come back to stand next to him. 

“Not a flicker.  It must not work if the receiver is kaput.  It doesn’t matter.  I think I know what he’s saying.  It’s a thank you.”  Klamik beamed at them, pleased that the message had been conveyed successfully.  John nodded to him several times, searching for something to say.  He finally settled on, “Time for us to go.  Live long and prosper.”

Klamik chirped a final goodbye.   

John and D’Argo headed toward the hatch.  Aeryn had gone ahead; she was already disappearing through the first of the airtight doors.  Halfway there, John turned back.  “Tulev!”  The green crest swung around so it pointed in his direction.  “When you get there … when you get where you’re headed, put up something so everyone remembers who he was, okay?  I know you folks don’t put up memorials and that sort of thing, but for me, put a rock or a bench or a garden in the middle of town and let everyone know who Hox was.  Just this once.  Promise me.”

Tulev bobbed his willingness to carry out the task. 

Crichton turned and followed D’Argo through the airlock.  The doors clanged behind them, the final seal hissed shut, and they were back aboard Moya, very likely never to see or set foot on the Kyelligg ever again. 

“What was that last part about?” D’Argo asked. 

“Nothing important,” John said.  “I’m going to go check on Pilot and Moya.”  He swung onto a ladder and slid out of sight, ignoring the rungs in his rush to end the conversation.  He hit the floor of the tier below with a loud thud, nearly fell to his knees from the impact, and then headed down the corridor before D’Argo had a chance to follow. 

What had goaded him into turning back and making the sentimental request was one of Hox’s memories -- one more small piece of information laboriously gleaned from the heap Tulev had inadvertently transferred to him. 

The Hvisk were headed home.  Their time of waiting was over, small fast ships had already gone ahead to make sure their planet was inhabitable and to begin the process of rebuilding, and they were finally headed back where each individual aboard the Kyelligg knew they truly belonged.  Hox had spent the last fifty cycles of his life hoping that he might live long enough to see his planet again; four cycles ago he had received the good news.  It hadn’t mattered to the old man that the cubbling of his parents had long since turned to rubble or that the magnificent cities had crumbled to dust; and it hadn’t mattered to him that it would take forty cycles to finish their journey.  All he had cared about was that he was going home. 

Far too late to do anything differently, John had learned that Hox was the last of the hvisk to be born on their planet.  There had been younger hatchlings on board when he had gone with his father that terrible night, but he was the only one of the youngest children to survive the first hundred, difficult cycles in space.  That first ship, long since swallowed up by the ever-expanding structure, had been far smaller than the present-day Kyelligg, and far less sophisticated.  There had been critical malfunctions, several catastrophic losses of atmosphere, and some hvisk simply couldn’t adapt to living in space.  Hox had been lucky, his father had watched over him well, and he had thrived in the space-going habitat. 

As the number of cycles of his life mounted, passed the first hundred and moved on, his will to survive had been kindled in part by the hope that he might some day place a single small tablet in a garden in memory of his mother.  Among the hvisk, that sort of thing wasn’t done.  That was how John knew that they didn’t put up monuments.  Hox’s memories were his memories.  Like Tulev, except on a smaller scale, he would carry a piece of Hox within him forever.  So he had known of Hox’s secret desire to put a polished bit of stone in a shady corner to help him remember one person who had been left behind to face the fullest horror of The Mindlessness.  When Hox had reached for Jeckle with the intent of shielding John from the psychic backlash, he had given up not only his life but his dream as well. 

Something nudged at John’s foot, stirring him back to life.  He smeared the back of a hand across his eyes and looked around.  His flight had come to an end in the middle of a corridor several junctions short of the Den.  His body had been operating on autopilot while the operator’s attention was fixated on Hox’s past.  It had directed him without incident through most of his route, finally coming to rest just shy of his destination with one shoulder leaned against one of Moya’s internal ribs.  He had been so lost in his thoughts that he couldn’t even remember which vertical shaft he had used to descend from Tier Two to his present level. 

There was a gentle bump against his ankle, accompanied by a quiet mechanical chattering.  It was the same nudge that had interrupted him a microt earlier.  John looked down, expecting to find a DRD.  “What the frell?”  He had acquired a large entourage.  At some point since he left D’Argo, more than twenty DRDs had gathered around him.  It was possible that they had assembled while he was standing lost in thought, but it was unusual for this many DRDs to be working in a single area of the ship.  It was more likely that he had been picking them up along the way and hadn’t noticed the growing fleet. 

“What is this?  A fan club?”  He was treated to an extravaganza of clicks, chirps, whines, and blinking eyestalks.  “Yes?  No?  You’re right, that’s not the answer.  I think someone is saying hello and welcome back.  Aren’t you, Moya?” 

His guess received a single, synchronized blink.  “Good to see you too, babe.  Come on you guys,” he said to the collection of robots, “let’s go see Pilot.” 

He finished his journey to the Den at a run.  The corridor was filled with the hushed scream of motivator circuits trying to keep up, yellow robots weaving about gaily in every direction and on the verge of tripping him at every step.  He slowed long enough to make sure the bridge across the central neural plexus wasn’t loaded with more DRDs, and then crossed the final distance at full speed. 

“Pilot!  Yo, man!  How ya feeling?”  He went up the side of Pilot’s station in two long lunging steps and dropped down beside the once-again alert creature with the leathery ‘whomp’ of butt smacking against leviathan-grown consoles.  “You’re looking a hell of a lot better than the last time I saw you!”   

As much as it was possible with the features nature had given him, Pilot beamed at Crichton.  It was far more than the usual, quiet smile that he reserved for the happiest of occasions.  This was an all-over transmission of pleasure that affected every dench of the gleaming carapace from the top of his head to the tips of his claws.  “Commander Crichton, Moya and I owe you our lives.” 

“Don’t sweat it, man.  It was a group effort.  None of us was about to stand around and watch you die.  Aeryn did most of it anyway, Pilot.  It’s her you need to thank.” 

“That has already been done.”  Pilot regarded Crichton with a more customary, head-tilted look of curiosity.  “Officer Sun expressed similar sentiments of you.”

“Group effort, Pilot.  Everyone contributed for a change, which may go down as a one time only event.  Even big and scaly helped out,” he said, referring to Naj Gil.  John started to give the edge of Pilot’s cranial shell a quick pat.  He paused before completing the motion, feeling as though he was about to kiss the big symbiote, and settled for stroking the armored surface instead.  “No way were we going to let you and Moya die, Pilot.  I’m pretty sure one or two people might have had their own self-serving motives, but the end result worked out the same.” 

“Moya has told me what you did in order to save us.  You risked your life, Crichton, and we will not forget that sacrifice.  We owe you a debt.”  Pilot tended to his controls for a microt before continuing.  “What was it like, Commander?  How much of Moya’s sensory flow were you capable of comprehending?” 

“Too much and not enough.  You know better than anyone else what it was like, Pilot.  For a while, I was Moya.  It was … incredible.  The words don’t exist that can describe it.  But you already know that.”

“Not in the manner to which you refer.  Moya’s sensor inputs are routed through buffers before reaching my body.  In essence, they are filtered and translated into a form that is compatible with my physiology.  Although I experience everything that Moya feels, including pain and pleasure as well as the functions of her internal organs, I do not actually experience what she does.”  A claw tapped lightly against John’s knee.  “You are the only one who has truly merged with Moya and understands what she senses.  And …”

Crichton ducked down to get a better look at Pilot’s face.  For a microt, he could have sworn that his shell had darkened.  It looked as though Pilot was blushing.  “And what?  Don’t stop now, big guy.  It’s just you and me here.”     

“And until now, there has never been anyone with whom I can share my wonder at what I have encountered since bonding with Moya.  It would be very nice to talk about it with you sometime.” 

This time he did pat the shell.  Nothing else would suffice.  “Count on it, Pilot.”  John swung his legs around and slid off Pilot’s consoles.  “Are you absolutely sure all the pipe cleaners are gone?  Did the hvisk get every last one out of Moya?  Last thing we need is a repeat of this just because they missed two slippery little lovers.” 

“Moya and I are certain they are all gone.  To be sure, all primary conduits have been flushed with a mixture containing the nutrients they were feeding on.  If there were any left, they would have begun breeding several arns ago, and we would know they were on board.” 

“And there was no damage from the infestation?  No left over symptoms or problems?”

Pilot was beaming again.  “Rather the opposite, Commander Crichton.  Despite the threat to my own life, the creatures performed the task for which they were bred.  They removed extensive amounts of build-up from all of the fluidic conduits.  Moya informs me that she has not felt this good in many cycles.”

John laughed.  “Whoa!  Write this one down, Pilot!  Something that got screwed up had a positive outcome.  This is a moment in history for us.  It’s usually the other way around.”

“Not … entirely.” 

The hesitation in Pilot’s voice brought Crichton’s cheerful exclamations to an abrupt stop.  He turned fast, worried that there had been side effect that would threaten Pilot’s or Moya’s life.  Pilot’s look of sly humor put an end to his concern.  “Spit it out, Pilot.  What’s the punch line?” 

“The eels had an effect on Dominar Rygel similar to that provided to Moya.  Only after gorging for several arns did he discover that the creatures’ bodies contained a chemical that has a pronounced influence on Hynerian physiology.”  It didn’t seem possible, but Pilot’s smile widened even further.  “A DRD observed Rygel entering his waste alcove over eight arns ago, and he has not been seen or heard from since.”

“It’s my turn to be totally grossed out.  That’s a visual image I could have lived without sharing.”  John headed for the door, both laughing and shaking his head at Rygel’s misfortune.  “When do we leave to join up with Talyn?” he called back. 

“Within four hundred microts.  The final umbilicals are being detached now.  Rendezvous with Crais and Talyn will be in approximately two arns.” 

Crichton waved a hand in Pilot’s direction, made the turn into the corridor, and ran into Aeryn.  They grabbed on to each other, fighting for balance.  It worked at first.  The two bodies adjusted to each other in concert, moving just right when the other one shifted, neither pair of boots getting in the way of the other pair.  John slid a hand behind her back, holding her tight in order to keep her from falling, and she went rigid.  The duet stopped.  The dance turned into a confused, fumbling affair of stumbling feet and near disaster. 

He grabbed Aeryn by the shoulders, set her firmly on her feet, and then tripped and staggered away from her.  The whole thing had taken less than two microts, and it had summed up their entire relationship without a single word being spoken. 

“Sorry,” he mumbled. 

“I should have seen you coming.”  Aeryn turned to leave. 

Watching her walk away from him, John wondered if the pain in his chest was what it felt like to have a heart attack.  She continued along the corridor without hesitation, marching smartly toward wherever she was headed without any sign that she knew he was standing there, frozen in place by the aching need to talk to her.  He turned in the opposite direction, already trying to think of a task that would keep his mind occupied with something other than Aeryn. 
 
“How do you deal with it?”  The quiet voice stopped him before he had taken three steps. 

John turned around slowly.  Aeryn was five motras away with her back leaned up against the internal bulkhead, half hidden behind one of the reinforcing ribs.  “Deal with what?” he asked.

It took her a long time to answer.  “With the loss -- the pain.” 

He managed to stop a casual shrug before it got loose.  Meant to express indecision, he knew she would interpret it as being dismissive.  It left his shoulders tucked protectively beneath his ears, as though he was waiting to be hit.  Fighting against overly tense muscles, John lowered them until he felt more like the Hunchback of Notre Dame than an often-flogged whipping boy, and finally answered, “One day at a time.” 

Aeryn shook her head.  “That’s not what I mean.” 

“I know what you mean, Aeryn, and there’s no good answer to your question.”  They stared at each other across a gulf much greater than the five motras between them.  Her thoughts, like her expression, were unreadable.  There was no clue what she was thinking or feeling at that moment.  John spent a useless moment wishing for the insight that the telepathy would have provided, and then cautiously tried to inch his way back into her life.  “There doesn’t have to be any loss.  I’m right here.”   

Aeryn turned her back on him.

John took a deep breath then let it out slowly.  He took one more look at the back of Aeryn Sun -- close-fitting shirt hugging the rigidly squared shoulders, tight Peacekeeper braid lying perfectly aligned along her spine as though by regulation, head up, every muscle tensed -- and decided to leave.  This wasn’t helping either one of them.     

“I was told … ”  This time her faltering voice stopped him before he could take a single step.  “Someone told me that when the person you love dies, that you lose all of them.  That all the different pieces that were the best of parts of what you had together will disappear and you’re left with nothing.”

“It’s not true, Aeryn.  You have memories, and --”

“Let me finish!”  He stayed quiet and waited.  “But it didn’t work that way for me.  It did and it didn’t.  I lost everything.  You were gone, and now here you are here again.  And every time I look at you …”

“You see him,” John said. 

“I see everything that we had together.” 

Aboard Talyn.  Aeryn and the other Crichton.  They had been partners in the truest sense of the word, fighting side by side, living, loving … dying. 

The fatigue he had described to Hox made an encore appearance.  John wanted little else out of life than to burrow into his bed and sleep until the ache in his chest went away, even if it meant staying under the covers for a full cycle.  He just wanted it to stop.

But he had to say something; Aeryn was waiting.  “You and him.” 

“US!  Everything that we have been through since the first frelling day I met you.  And it’s you and it’s not you, and you’re … right here.”

They had already been through it several times.  They had covered this ground standing in a corridor with no more than two motras of space between them, and once with Aeryn perched on a seat in Command looking as through she was ready to flee, and again standing on opposite sides of the closed grates barring him from entering her cell.  They had brushed across the dilemma more than once, and it ripped him apart every time.  He looked for something different to say, searching for the key that would allow Aeryn to move on and stop tearing his heart to bleeding shreds every other day. 

“Hox gave me some advice about grief.”  She nodded, giving him permission to go on.  “He said that you need to make it a part of yourself and learn it inside and out before you can let go of it.” 

“I’m not sure I could survive that.” 

“I’m not sure I could either.  It doesn’t matter though, because he was only partly right, Aeryn.  What the Hvisk do doesn’t work for the rest of us.  The Hvisk share out their grief; they spread their loss across an entire civilization and even across generations.  They spread it so thin that it lessens the loss until it feels more like pleasure than pain.  They rejoice in it.  Based on something that happened to him when he was a child, I think Hox knew better, but he was so completely integrated with his people that he probably believed what he was telling me.” 

“Your point?” 

“You can’t swallow this budong whole.  If you try, it’ll swallow you instead.  Chop away at it piece by piece.  Find some part of it that you can handle and work with that, and when you can live with it, move on to the next piece.” 

“What about you?” 

 Hox’s voice seemed to speak to him one last time, every bit as tangible as it would have been if the old man was alive and standing next to him.  Give her time, young one.  Her grief is a labyrinth.  In time she will find her way out.  Then she will return to you.  John spoke some of the hardest words he had ever set himself to speak.  It wasn’t what he wanted and he said it anyway, knowing that it was the only answer that would work.  “I’ll be right here … waiting.” 

She gave him a shaking, trembling smile, tears threatening to spill over the dam of her eyelids with every flickering blink.  Then she was gone, footsteps hurrying along the corridor. 

He stood and listened, hoping she would come back.  It was a different voice that spoke to him next, putting an end to the suspended animation moment of futile wishes.  His comms came alive with a subdued crackle, and Pilot said, “Attention everyone.  We will be detaching from the docking clamps in five microts.  There is no need to brace yourselves.  Departure should proceed smoothly.” 

John counted off the microts in his head.  At ‘zero’, a shiver ran through the deck beneath his boots, transmitting a silent reverberation through the bottoms of his feet.  The unnatural stillness that had overtaken Moya since docking came to an end, and a note that he hadn’t known was missing was restored to her eternal background hum.  Gentle pitch and roll resumed; the individually subliminal noises of a healthy leviathan intertwined into a harmonious, audible whole; and they were headed straight into trouble as usual, taking on the bad guys with little more than chutzpah, a reckless disregard for their own safety, and their usual ill-conceived plan. 

Crichton looked down at the growing herd of DRDs waiting patiently by his feet. His motorcade had begun to reassemble as soon as Aeryn disappeared.  “My life is back to normal,” he said to the drones.  “Totally frelled.”  Several of them winked at him.

Talyn, Crais, Scorpius, a Command Carrier full of gun-toting Peacekeepers, and a heap of stolen wormhole knowledge were waiting for him, beckoning John Crichton forward to finish the job started by someone else.  “You ready to go kick some Peacekeeper butt, Moya?” he asked. 

A DRD blinked at him twice.  No. 

“Neither am I, but let’s go do it anyway.” 

Moya spoke to him.  It was a quiet susurrence of barely audible sighs that swept from one end of the corridor, passed over him in skin-tingling ripples of vibrations, and rushed into nothingness.  She could still communicate with him without an intermediary.  He hadn’t lost that.  John gently patted her inner bulkhead, letting the loving touches continue long enough that he was certain she would feel them and know them for what they were, and then he headed for Command.  He had a job to do, and he was unafraid. 

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

 



Thanks for reading.

Kernil Crash

Purveyor of Hallucinations


Just so you know it wasn’t entirely made up … “Homeobox: A short DNA sequence with an almost identical base sequence in all genes that contain it. Homeoboxes  … appear to determine when particular groups of genes are expressed during embryonic development.  A gene that contains a homeobox is called a Hox gene.”

In simpler terms (because my brain doesn't work in any other fashion), Hox genes enable or disable, i.e. “control”,  other genes.