Night Walker
Chapter 9
John held his hand in the stream of late day sunlight, turning it from one side to the other, allowing the intense
rays to illuminate the greenish hue of his skin. “Green blood,” he stated for the third time, still trying to cope
with the sight of the emerald-colored blood substitute working its way into the vein in his arm. “The name’s
Crichton, not Kermit.” It was supposed to be funny, but the weak, rasping voice emerging from his throat took
most of the edge off the humor. “Rest of the damage?”
Aksal was doing the explaining while Vossmarr got some much needed sleep, the victim of a well executed
feltisk-plot. “Both of your legs were broken in several places, and the surrounding tissue was badly crushed.
We have a technology however, and we can …”
John interrupted in a rush. “If you say anything about rebuilding me, I’m getting up and leaving.”
Aksal struggled for a new phrase, perplexed by the objection but trying to comply anyway. “The … uhh … We
repaired the tissue damage, and the technology is re … is …” He scratched his head with one of his index
fingers.
“Ignore him,” ordered D’Argo.
Aksal started to pull the covers aside. “Perhaps if I show you how we rebuild the bones.”
“No!” John managed to get a little more force behind his voice. “I’ll take your word for it. I don’t want to see
what you’re doing under there. Everything will work like it did before, right? That’s all that matters.”
“Oh, yes. The bones will be restored by tomorrow, and in ten or twelve solar days you won’t even know you
were ever injured. A little weakness in the muscles perhaps, but that will pass quickly. Your friends can assure
you.” Aksal watched the drooping eyelids and shaking hands, using a less-evolved method of diagnosis to
determine that John had coped with enough for one day. “You require rest. We will leave you for a while. Be
well, John Crichton.”
“Aeryn? Stay for a bit?” John waited while the rest of the group offered small assurances and filed out before
reaching for her hand. “Sorry.”
“For what?” She perched on the side of the bed.
“Not keeping my promise.”
“You were a little late, but you showed up.” There was something bothering him. It had showed from the first
moment after his memory bounded back. There’d been a confused half an arn when he’d been unable to
remember anything after standing at the edge of the lake, inviting Rygel to come with them. Some small
promptings had unlocked the entire episode, leaving him pale with shock from the memory of the desperate
underwater scuffle.
He looked out the window, staring blindly at the lengthening shadows in the garden. “I screwed up worse than
usual, Aeryn.”
“I didn’t think there was any room left on the scale,” she teased.
John wrestled with his conscience, tempted to let her small joke end the discussion. “I should have told you
sooner. I …” He needed to tell her about the night in the marsh because of something else, but he couldn’t
seem to find the correct way to launch into the subject. He fixed his gaze on the brownish-gray covers over his
lower body, more of the insulating fungus cloth, and blurted, “That night in the marsh, I saw Thing Number Two
and could have shot it and didn’t.”
When Aeryn’s silence stretched into its tenth microt, he looked up from his careful examination of the covers.
She was watching him, her expression a strange mixture of tolerance, residual anxiety, and what he thought
might be a dangerous level of anger.
“It wasn’t your fault that Chiana and D’Argo got hurt,” she started slowly. “I hit Thing Number One more than six
times. You couldn’t have killed it.”
“I might have turned back the attacks,” he argued. She remained close to detonation. “What else?” His
prompt was met with more silence. “Talk to me,” he smiled grimly. They’d told him about the two days of one-
sided conversations that had injected the voices into his stream of warped dreams.
“You listened to advice from that … that …” she gestured toward his head, “abomination, didn’t you?”
“No!” he denied it sharply. “Only when I couldn’t get D’Argo’s wound to run clear. I was desperate and he,”
John gestured toward his head as well, unwilling to name the clone in the face of Aeryn’s lingering anger,
“suggested how to hit him harder.” He decided that Aeryn never needed to know that he’d been so
overwhelmed by guilt that he’d started to panic, letting that uncontrolled reaction shut down his thinking. If he’d
stayed in control, he never would have needed Harvey’s help.
Aeryn sighed, finally sounding relaxed. “That’s all right then. We all made mistakes this time. Everyone is
alive. We’re all going to heal. Get some sleep, John.”
John allowed her to settle him. He let her pull the detestable fungus covers up to keep him warm, and smiled at
her before she left the room. As soon as she was gone, he shoved the covers back down around his waist,
and stared out the window at the dim shadows of greenery outside, details disappearing in the darkening
twilight. He thought about the part that he’d meant to tell Aeryn, and had stopped short of confessing.
He hadn’t kept his promise. Winona had been sliding out of his grasp, about to sail off into the depths of the
lake, when he’d been hit with a surge of adrenalin unlike anything he’d ever experienced in his life. The pain,
the cold, and the fatigue had all bounded back in an instant, making his slow death an unpleasant prospect.
The artificial enervation and the discomfort had provided the impetus that steadied his hands long enough to
blow joint of the crushing claw into more boiled seafood bits, and to thrash his way ashore.
“Not yet.”
There was only one explanation for that unnatural burst of adrenalin. Harvey. There were few certainties in
life, but he was positive that Aeryn would not want to hear that the clone had saved his life by manipulating his
physiology. And she would never hear from him that, in effect, it was the clone who had kept the hand-signaled
promise.
* * * * *
“Doing all right?” Aeryn asked, waiting while he caught his breath. They were working their way slowly across
the field toward the transport pod. D’Argo had moved it closer to the village, but it still seemed like a very, very
long distance. John nodded, and continued the slow traverse across the weeds.
The morning had disappeared under a flood of visits from grateful villagers, Sellimarr and his wife, and from Niv
and his band of beaming technicians. Crichton’s threat to carry out his vow about feeding him the wetsuit had
yielded nothing more than a knowing smirk. Vossmarr’s light touch had proclaimed all of them ‘perhaps,
sufficiently recovered’, and the Aleph had accepted an offer from Rygel to travel by transport pod back to his
permanent posting at the planet’s Central Health Authority. It seemed that he too, was one of the great ones,
and would some day be interned next to his small cousin.
“Stop for a microt.” John let Aeryn steady him while he waited for his heart to stop pounding wildly in his chest.
“Little out of breath.” That was a small understatement, he decided belatedly. It was more a case of trying to
breathe in an atmosphere where someone had very inconsiderately removed all the oxygen. The last time he’d
felt this oxygen deprived, he’d just jumped out of a space ship without a suit. “Gotta a question … in a microt,”
he gasped.
“Take your time.” Aeryn waited patiently.
“So … Two of those critters.” He began moving toward the transport again, placing each foot carefully. He only
had to make it another twenty motras, and then he could collapse. He eyed the steps to the hatch, and tried to
estimate how many arns it would take to get up them.
“Yes. You already remembered that.” A few details had been lost to severe blood lost, but he’d been able to
put most of the memories back together.
“What do you think? Siblings, mother and son, or momma and poppa?”
They stopped again while he caught his breath. John hunched over with his hands on his knees and waited for
his environment to stop spinning. They were only ten motras from the transport. Aeryn looked toward the
marsh, toward where the lake was hidden behind the trees beyond. “You think …”
He grinned up at her and shrugged.
“No,” she rejected the thought.
“Nah.” He straightened up. His skin was still an odd shade of puce as his body filtered out the last of the
artificial blood, and the substitute didn’t seem to carry oxygen as well as the real stuff. “Definitely not.”
“They would have already. Wouldn’t they?”
“Don’t look at me. I don’t know the first thing about the breeding cycle of the Loch Ness monster. I was asking
what you think.” He almost had his breath back.
“Let’s get out of here,” Aeryn suggested. “Quick.”
“I don’t go anywhere quick these days.” They hobbled and limped toward the transport, both firmly refusing to
look back toward where the two creatures had resided for so many cycles.
* * * * *
Crichton walked into Pilot’s Den slowly, still finding it somewhat disconcerting to be strolling about pain free,
when his legs had been broken only five planetary days earlier. His gait was still a bit erratic, his course
occasionally making wild detours as the healing muscles complained or even went out on strike completely for
brief moments. He took his time getting across the bridge, eyeing the narrow span with more concern than
usual, and completed the traverse with great care.
“Hey, Pilot!” he called his usual greeting.
“Crichton. I am very pleased to see you.” The large head tilted to one side, examining him judiciously. “It
would appear that you have taken on some decidedly Hynerian characteristics.”
“More Kermit jokes! Wonderful. Et tu, Pilot?” Everyone had been teasing him. Aksal had sworn vehemently
that it would only take one or two more solar days for his kidneys to filter out the last of the color-altering
substance, but his crewmates weren’t making that interval an easy one.
“I merely make an observation, Commander.”
“Rygel said all the supplies got stashed okay. No problems? No stowaways?”
A carefully placed comment by the Hynerian had alerted the Ashrei to the fact that almost all of Moya’s able-
bodied crew were interned in the healing center, and an enormous work gang of grateful villagers had turned
out to load and unload the supplies. They had returned from their visit to the gentle beast babbling excitedly
about the weaponless spacefaring creature that rumbled her welcome to them. They’d seen a kindred species
in the aggressionless Leviathan; one whose exceptional talent for running away through starburst assured
them that they were not cowards.
“The Ashrei were extremely appreciative. They provided far more than the agreed upon supplies, and
arranged for Moya to receive some components that will speed the last of her repairs.” Pilot tended to his
controls for several microts. “From what D’Argo and Chiana have told me, it seems that you provided far more
than the originally agreed upon services, also.”
“Those critters were evil, Pilot. They had to go.” John wandered closer to the edge of Pilot’s island, but left a
large margin to allow for weak muscles. “Pilot,” he began hesitantly.
“Yes, Crichton.” The large eyes watched as he continued to hesitate, the calm gaze finally goading him into
continuing.
“You said once that your species is incapable of space travel on their own. Do your people ever travel off your
planet by any method other than bonding with a Leviathan?” John wandered around the outer edges of Pilot’s
station, looking studiously at the floor, the neural cavern, the walls -- anywhere except at Pilot.
“No. Not that I know of, John.”
“Did your species ever travel off your planet? Sometime in the distant past? Or have you always lived on a
single planet?”
“The elders sometimes related a legend concerning a group that was exiled from our planet over six millennia
ago. The tale is considered to be a fiction made up to scare the young into better behavior. Even Moya’s
datastores have no indications that our species exists any place in the universe other than my home world.”
Three of the four arms continued working, while the other rested unmoving on a console, mottled shell
gleaming in the muted light of the Den. “Why do you ask?”
“Just curious, Pilot.” Two DRDs zoomed across one of the spans leading from the doorway to Pilot’s station,
circled around John’s ankles briefly to examine the biologic in their domain, and then continued on their way.
He watched their progress until they disappeared. “I just thought that a species that quested after star travel
might have gotten around a bit more.”
“Who might have gotten around what a bit more?” Aeryn asked, striding into the Den. “Hello, Pilot.” She smiled
broadly at the huge symbiote.
John watched the athletic, confident stride that contained only the slightest remnant of a limp, and felt the usual
rush of excitement in his chest. It was the warm feeling that weakened his knees, left him breathless, and
turned his thoughts into nonsense. Aeryn had changed into the black singlet she had taken to wearing while
on board, leaving her arms bare. He never understood why that sight thrilled him so much, but it did its usual
job on his brain, and cleared out every plausible explanation in a split second.
“Who might have gotten around what?” she repeated, coming to stand next to him.
“Nothing,” he said, feeling foolish. “It’s nothing important.”
“All right.” She let him off the hook, but watched him for a moment before turning back to Pilot. “Where are we
headed, Pilot?”
“Moya’s thermal condensers require extensive maintenance, Aeryn, which will take several arns. The Ashrei
kindly provided the components to complete the repairs. There is little anyone can do on board while this is
being performed, so I have found a planet where you may all spend some time while the DRDs are working.”
Claws manipulated controls, calling up information. “The planet Jocacea has an ancient monastery on it, which
contains a peace memorial dedicated to the actions of a Peacekeeper officer. I thought you would enjoy it,
Aeryn.”
“Pilot!” Aeryn’s smile held both excitement and appreciation for Pilot’s gesture. “Thank you. That’s very kind
of you.”
“After this last one, I think a peace memorial will be a nice relaxing change,” John agreed.
“How are you doing?” she asked, sliding under his arm and letting him lean on her a little. “How long did it take
you to get up here?” They moved together toward the doorway.
“Please. Only a quarter of an arn.” Pilot cleared his throat loudly. “Okay, half an arn.” The grumbling noise
behind them was repeated as they stepped into the corridor. “Uhhhh, …” Another huge throat clearing from
behind them. John turned around to look back at Pilot. “Do you have DRDs following me everywhere?”
“Goodbye, Crichton.” Pilot depressed a control surface and the door to the Den swung shut.
“It took the best part of an arn,” he admitted to Aeryn as they headed down the corridor. The bones were
healed, but like everyone else on board, his damaged muscles were taking longer to regain their strength. It
was a ship full of walking wounded, everyone moaning and limping as they waited for damaged tissue to
regenerate and stamina to return.
“You came all the way up here just to chat with Pilot.” It was a statement, but it was asking for an answer.
“I was just curious about his home planet. Nothing important. And I needed the exercise.”
“Mm hm.” She let him get away with the evasion again.
John looked at the dark hair next to his shoulder and thought that he might pass out from being that close to
her. She made him toe the line in so many ways, but then, just when he expected a well-justified explosion, she
let him off the hook. “I love you,” he told her.
“I know.” They moved on together, both limping. “I love you, too.” John knew he had actually died in that lake,
because he was in heaven.
Another DRD scuttled around the corner, looked the pair over carefully, and zipped out of sight. The scrutiny
broke the moment, and brought John back to the real purpose behind his questions to Pilot. He’d tried to
ignore it when he came back on board, but the niggling question in his mind had finally driven him to the Den.
He turned his mind’s eye inward once more, reviewing the collection of chaotic impressions that constituted his
memory of the frantic battle at the bottom of the lake. The water had been filled with muck, Aeryn’s and his
blood, and the inky innards from Thing #1. He’d been dragged close by the agonizing grip around his legs, the
pain blurring his vision as he was yanked up tight against the hulking dark body of Thing #2. He’d pushed
Winona forward and pulled the trigger. There were only brief flashes of recall, subliminal impressions warped
by injury, blood loss, and pain, no single image reliable enough to term a true memory.
Aeryn clutched him more tightly as he staggered, nearly banging into one of Moya’s arching bronze ribs. “Legs
bothering you?” She pulled him back on course.
“No. Just not paying attention.”
His mind replayed a dark, arching shell hovering above him as the massive crushing claw smashed his legs into
uselessness; heavy chitinous plates protecting the body except for where he’d jammed Winona into the
creature’s neck; a tiny jointed limb protruding from the wound seared by D’Argo’s Qualta blade; and a three
toed claw swimming out of the dark from his right to strike at him, the dark mottled shell and multiple arms
almost completely obscured in the cold swirling water.
John looked back toward the closed door to the Den, and knew that his memory had to be flawed. It was his
mind filling in the unknown portions of the event with pieces from his known past. That was it, he concluded.
His mind had filled in the missing gaps for him.
That was it.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
Chapter 9
John held his hand in the stream of late day sunlight, turning it from one side to the other, allowing the intense
rays to illuminate the greenish hue of his skin. “Green blood,” he stated for the third time, still trying to cope
with the sight of the emerald-colored blood substitute working its way into the vein in his arm. “The name’s
Crichton, not Kermit.” It was supposed to be funny, but the weak, rasping voice emerging from his throat took
most of the edge off the humor. “Rest of the damage?”
Aksal was doing the explaining while Vossmarr got some much needed sleep, the victim of a well executed
feltisk-plot. “Both of your legs were broken in several places, and the surrounding tissue was badly crushed.
We have a technology however, and we can …”
John interrupted in a rush. “If you say anything about rebuilding me, I’m getting up and leaving.”
Aksal struggled for a new phrase, perplexed by the objection but trying to comply anyway. “The … uhh … We
repaired the tissue damage, and the technology is re … is …” He scratched his head with one of his index
fingers.
“Ignore him,” ordered D’Argo.
Aksal started to pull the covers aside. “Perhaps if I show you how we rebuild the bones.”
“No!” John managed to get a little more force behind his voice. “I’ll take your word for it. I don’t want to see
what you’re doing under there. Everything will work like it did before, right? That’s all that matters.”
“Oh, yes. The bones will be restored by tomorrow, and in ten or twelve solar days you won’t even know you
were ever injured. A little weakness in the muscles perhaps, but that will pass quickly. Your friends can assure
you.” Aksal watched the drooping eyelids and shaking hands, using a less-evolved method of diagnosis to
determine that John had coped with enough for one day. “You require rest. We will leave you for a while. Be
well, John Crichton.”
“Aeryn? Stay for a bit?” John waited while the rest of the group offered small assurances and filed out before
reaching for her hand. “Sorry.”
“For what?” She perched on the side of the bed.
“Not keeping my promise.”
“You were a little late, but you showed up.” There was something bothering him. It had showed from the first
moment after his memory bounded back. There’d been a confused half an arn when he’d been unable to
remember anything after standing at the edge of the lake, inviting Rygel to come with them. Some small
promptings had unlocked the entire episode, leaving him pale with shock from the memory of the desperate
underwater scuffle.
He looked out the window, staring blindly at the lengthening shadows in the garden. “I screwed up worse than
usual, Aeryn.”
“I didn’t think there was any room left on the scale,” she teased.
John wrestled with his conscience, tempted to let her small joke end the discussion. “I should have told you
sooner. I …” He needed to tell her about the night in the marsh because of something else, but he couldn’t
seem to find the correct way to launch into the subject. He fixed his gaze on the brownish-gray covers over his
lower body, more of the insulating fungus cloth, and blurted, “That night in the marsh, I saw Thing Number Two
and could have shot it and didn’t.”
When Aeryn’s silence stretched into its tenth microt, he looked up from his careful examination of the covers.
She was watching him, her expression a strange mixture of tolerance, residual anxiety, and what he thought
might be a dangerous level of anger.
“It wasn’t your fault that Chiana and D’Argo got hurt,” she started slowly. “I hit Thing Number One more than six
times. You couldn’t have killed it.”
“I might have turned back the attacks,” he argued. She remained close to detonation. “What else?” His
prompt was met with more silence. “Talk to me,” he smiled grimly. They’d told him about the two days of one-
sided conversations that had injected the voices into his stream of warped dreams.
“You listened to advice from that … that …” she gestured toward his head, “abomination, didn’t you?”
“No!” he denied it sharply. “Only when I couldn’t get D’Argo’s wound to run clear. I was desperate and he,”
John gestured toward his head as well, unwilling to name the clone in the face of Aeryn’s lingering anger,
“suggested how to hit him harder.” He decided that Aeryn never needed to know that he’d been so
overwhelmed by guilt that he’d started to panic, letting that uncontrolled reaction shut down his thinking. If he’d
stayed in control, he never would have needed Harvey’s help.
Aeryn sighed, finally sounding relaxed. “That’s all right then. We all made mistakes this time. Everyone is
alive. We’re all going to heal. Get some sleep, John.”
John allowed her to settle him. He let her pull the detestable fungus covers up to keep him warm, and smiled at
her before she left the room. As soon as she was gone, he shoved the covers back down around his waist,
and stared out the window at the dim shadows of greenery outside, details disappearing in the darkening
twilight. He thought about the part that he’d meant to tell Aeryn, and had stopped short of confessing.
He hadn’t kept his promise. Winona had been sliding out of his grasp, about to sail off into the depths of the
lake, when he’d been hit with a surge of adrenalin unlike anything he’d ever experienced in his life. The pain,
the cold, and the fatigue had all bounded back in an instant, making his slow death an unpleasant prospect.
The artificial enervation and the discomfort had provided the impetus that steadied his hands long enough to
blow joint of the crushing claw into more boiled seafood bits, and to thrash his way ashore.
“Not yet.”
There was only one explanation for that unnatural burst of adrenalin. Harvey. There were few certainties in
life, but he was positive that Aeryn would not want to hear that the clone had saved his life by manipulating his
physiology. And she would never hear from him that, in effect, it was the clone who had kept the hand-signaled
promise.
* * * * *
“Doing all right?” Aeryn asked, waiting while he caught his breath. They were working their way slowly across
the field toward the transport pod. D’Argo had moved it closer to the village, but it still seemed like a very, very
long distance. John nodded, and continued the slow traverse across the weeds.
The morning had disappeared under a flood of visits from grateful villagers, Sellimarr and his wife, and from Niv
and his band of beaming technicians. Crichton’s threat to carry out his vow about feeding him the wetsuit had
yielded nothing more than a knowing smirk. Vossmarr’s light touch had proclaimed all of them ‘perhaps,
sufficiently recovered’, and the Aleph had accepted an offer from Rygel to travel by transport pod back to his
permanent posting at the planet’s Central Health Authority. It seemed that he too, was one of the great ones,
and would some day be interned next to his small cousin.
“Stop for a microt.” John let Aeryn steady him while he waited for his heart to stop pounding wildly in his chest.
“Little out of breath.” That was a small understatement, he decided belatedly. It was more a case of trying to
breathe in an atmosphere where someone had very inconsiderately removed all the oxygen. The last time he’d
felt this oxygen deprived, he’d just jumped out of a space ship without a suit. “Gotta a question … in a microt,”
he gasped.
“Take your time.” Aeryn waited patiently.
“So … Two of those critters.” He began moving toward the transport again, placing each foot carefully. He only
had to make it another twenty motras, and then he could collapse. He eyed the steps to the hatch, and tried to
estimate how many arns it would take to get up them.
“Yes. You already remembered that.” A few details had been lost to severe blood lost, but he’d been able to
put most of the memories back together.
“What do you think? Siblings, mother and son, or momma and poppa?”
They stopped again while he caught his breath. John hunched over with his hands on his knees and waited for
his environment to stop spinning. They were only ten motras from the transport. Aeryn looked toward the
marsh, toward where the lake was hidden behind the trees beyond. “You think …”
He grinned up at her and shrugged.
“No,” she rejected the thought.
“Nah.” He straightened up. His skin was still an odd shade of puce as his body filtered out the last of the
artificial blood, and the substitute didn’t seem to carry oxygen as well as the real stuff. “Definitely not.”
“They would have already. Wouldn’t they?”
“Don’t look at me. I don’t know the first thing about the breeding cycle of the Loch Ness monster. I was asking
what you think.” He almost had his breath back.
“Let’s get out of here,” Aeryn suggested. “Quick.”
“I don’t go anywhere quick these days.” They hobbled and limped toward the transport, both firmly refusing to
look back toward where the two creatures had resided for so many cycles.
* * * * *
Crichton walked into Pilot’s Den slowly, still finding it somewhat disconcerting to be strolling about pain free,
when his legs had been broken only five planetary days earlier. His gait was still a bit erratic, his course
occasionally making wild detours as the healing muscles complained or even went out on strike completely for
brief moments. He took his time getting across the bridge, eyeing the narrow span with more concern than
usual, and completed the traverse with great care.
“Hey, Pilot!” he called his usual greeting.
“Crichton. I am very pleased to see you.” The large head tilted to one side, examining him judiciously. “It
would appear that you have taken on some decidedly Hynerian characteristics.”
“More Kermit jokes! Wonderful. Et tu, Pilot?” Everyone had been teasing him. Aksal had sworn vehemently
that it would only take one or two more solar days for his kidneys to filter out the last of the color-altering
substance, but his crewmates weren’t making that interval an easy one.
“I merely make an observation, Commander.”
“Rygel said all the supplies got stashed okay. No problems? No stowaways?”
A carefully placed comment by the Hynerian had alerted the Ashrei to the fact that almost all of Moya’s able-
bodied crew were interned in the healing center, and an enormous work gang of grateful villagers had turned
out to load and unload the supplies. They had returned from their visit to the gentle beast babbling excitedly
about the weaponless spacefaring creature that rumbled her welcome to them. They’d seen a kindred species
in the aggressionless Leviathan; one whose exceptional talent for running away through starburst assured
them that they were not cowards.
“The Ashrei were extremely appreciative. They provided far more than the agreed upon supplies, and
arranged for Moya to receive some components that will speed the last of her repairs.” Pilot tended to his
controls for several microts. “From what D’Argo and Chiana have told me, it seems that you provided far more
than the originally agreed upon services, also.”
“Those critters were evil, Pilot. They had to go.” John wandered closer to the edge of Pilot’s island, but left a
large margin to allow for weak muscles. “Pilot,” he began hesitantly.
“Yes, Crichton.” The large eyes watched as he continued to hesitate, the calm gaze finally goading him into
continuing.
“You said once that your species is incapable of space travel on their own. Do your people ever travel off your
planet by any method other than bonding with a Leviathan?” John wandered around the outer edges of Pilot’s
station, looking studiously at the floor, the neural cavern, the walls -- anywhere except at Pilot.
“No. Not that I know of, John.”
“Did your species ever travel off your planet? Sometime in the distant past? Or have you always lived on a
single planet?”
“The elders sometimes related a legend concerning a group that was exiled from our planet over six millennia
ago. The tale is considered to be a fiction made up to scare the young into better behavior. Even Moya’s
datastores have no indications that our species exists any place in the universe other than my home world.”
Three of the four arms continued working, while the other rested unmoving on a console, mottled shell
gleaming in the muted light of the Den. “Why do you ask?”
“Just curious, Pilot.” Two DRDs zoomed across one of the spans leading from the doorway to Pilot’s station,
circled around John’s ankles briefly to examine the biologic in their domain, and then continued on their way.
He watched their progress until they disappeared. “I just thought that a species that quested after star travel
might have gotten around a bit more.”
“Who might have gotten around what a bit more?” Aeryn asked, striding into the Den. “Hello, Pilot.” She smiled
broadly at the huge symbiote.
John watched the athletic, confident stride that contained only the slightest remnant of a limp, and felt the usual
rush of excitement in his chest. It was the warm feeling that weakened his knees, left him breathless, and
turned his thoughts into nonsense. Aeryn had changed into the black singlet she had taken to wearing while
on board, leaving her arms bare. He never understood why that sight thrilled him so much, but it did its usual
job on his brain, and cleared out every plausible explanation in a split second.
“Who might have gotten around what?” she repeated, coming to stand next to him.
“Nothing,” he said, feeling foolish. “It’s nothing important.”
“All right.” She let him off the hook, but watched him for a moment before turning back to Pilot. “Where are we
headed, Pilot?”
“Moya’s thermal condensers require extensive maintenance, Aeryn, which will take several arns. The Ashrei
kindly provided the components to complete the repairs. There is little anyone can do on board while this is
being performed, so I have found a planet where you may all spend some time while the DRDs are working.”
Claws manipulated controls, calling up information. “The planet Jocacea has an ancient monastery on it, which
contains a peace memorial dedicated to the actions of a Peacekeeper officer. I thought you would enjoy it,
Aeryn.”
“Pilot!” Aeryn’s smile held both excitement and appreciation for Pilot’s gesture. “Thank you. That’s very kind
of you.”
“After this last one, I think a peace memorial will be a nice relaxing change,” John agreed.
“How are you doing?” she asked, sliding under his arm and letting him lean on her a little. “How long did it take
you to get up here?” They moved together toward the doorway.
“Please. Only a quarter of an arn.” Pilot cleared his throat loudly. “Okay, half an arn.” The grumbling noise
behind them was repeated as they stepped into the corridor. “Uhhhh, …” Another huge throat clearing from
behind them. John turned around to look back at Pilot. “Do you have DRDs following me everywhere?”
“Goodbye, Crichton.” Pilot depressed a control surface and the door to the Den swung shut.
“It took the best part of an arn,” he admitted to Aeryn as they headed down the corridor. The bones were
healed, but like everyone else on board, his damaged muscles were taking longer to regain their strength. It
was a ship full of walking wounded, everyone moaning and limping as they waited for damaged tissue to
regenerate and stamina to return.
“You came all the way up here just to chat with Pilot.” It was a statement, but it was asking for an answer.
“I was just curious about his home planet. Nothing important. And I needed the exercise.”
“Mm hm.” She let him get away with the evasion again.
John looked at the dark hair next to his shoulder and thought that he might pass out from being that close to
her. She made him toe the line in so many ways, but then, just when he expected a well-justified explosion, she
let him off the hook. “I love you,” he told her.
“I know.” They moved on together, both limping. “I love you, too.” John knew he had actually died in that lake,
because he was in heaven.
Another DRD scuttled around the corner, looked the pair over carefully, and zipped out of sight. The scrutiny
broke the moment, and brought John back to the real purpose behind his questions to Pilot. He’d tried to
ignore it when he came back on board, but the niggling question in his mind had finally driven him to the Den.
He turned his mind’s eye inward once more, reviewing the collection of chaotic impressions that constituted his
memory of the frantic battle at the bottom of the lake. The water had been filled with muck, Aeryn’s and his
blood, and the inky innards from Thing #1. He’d been dragged close by the agonizing grip around his legs, the
pain blurring his vision as he was yanked up tight against the hulking dark body of Thing #2. He’d pushed
Winona forward and pulled the trigger. There were only brief flashes of recall, subliminal impressions warped
by injury, blood loss, and pain, no single image reliable enough to term a true memory.
Aeryn clutched him more tightly as he staggered, nearly banging into one of Moya’s arching bronze ribs. “Legs
bothering you?” She pulled him back on course.
“No. Just not paying attention.”
His mind replayed a dark, arching shell hovering above him as the massive crushing claw smashed his legs into
uselessness; heavy chitinous plates protecting the body except for where he’d jammed Winona into the
creature’s neck; a tiny jointed limb protruding from the wound seared by D’Argo’s Qualta blade; and a three
toed claw swimming out of the dark from his right to strike at him, the dark mottled shell and multiple arms
almost completely obscured in the cold swirling water.
John looked back toward the closed door to the Den, and knew that his memory had to be flawed. It was his
mind filling in the unknown portions of the event with pieces from his known past. That was it, he concluded.
His mind had filled in the missing gaps for him.
That was it.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
| His misery leapt the seas, was told and sung in all Men’s ears: how Grendel’s hatred began, How the monster relished his savage war On the Danes, keeping the bloody feud Alive, seeking no peace, offering No truce, accepting no settlement, no price In gold or land, and paying the living For one crime only with another. No one Waited for reparation from his plundering claws: That shadow of death hunted in the darkness, Stalked Hrothgar’s warriors, old And young, lying in waiting, hidden In mist, invisibly following them from the edge Of the marsh, always there, unseen. So mankind’s enemy continued his crimes, Killing as often as he could, coming Alone bloodthirsty and horrible. Excerpt from “Beowulf” Author Unknown circa 600 A.D. |
