Birthright
Part 2
“Sweet Jesus,” Jack gasped as the spacecraft bucked and shuddered, veered to one side, and punched into
normal space. “I’ll never be able to tell anyone about that ride, but if I could design a rollercoaster based on
that, I’d make millions.” Ian’s ‘uncle’ was slapping the young man on the back, growling at him in what he could
now see was approval, then he turned to Jack and pointed out the front of the cockpit, bestowing more of the
almost-English sounding syllables on him.
“Moya,” Aeryn Sun said from behind him.
Jack ducked down to look where the alien was pointing, taking several moments to pick out the designated
object. He missed it the first time simply because it was too big. He’d been looking for something the size of an
aircraft carrier, somehow equating the idea of landing this spaceship on another one with the concept of
landing a jet aircraft on a large boat. A fast estimation as they accelerated toward the golden behemoth
suggested that he’d been off by at least three or four aircraft carriers as far as length was concerned and a hell
of a lot more in terms of mass. In a single instant his calm acceptance of everything that had happened to him
that evening was shattered. His mind balked at the sight, yipped and scrambled around inside his skull trying to
cope with what his eyes were transmitting to his brain. “That thing is a living creature?” he stammered.
“That’s Moya,” Ian grinned over his shoulder at him. “She’s kind of pretty, isn’t she?”
Ian looked so much like John in that instant, it helped Jack get a grip on himself. This was John’s home, he
reminded himself. It was a gentle beast, according to Ian, that had provided John with refuge, safety, and even
love.
They were approaching the leviathan from slightly above her, giving him a good view of what appeared to be
dorsal openings and the wandering patterns that traced her hull. At first he thought Ian was realigning their
trajectory to bring them alongside the beast’s flank, but he realized belatedly that the stars beyond Moya
weren’t shifting. He clamped his teeth together to keep his jaw from gaping open as the living ship rolled along
her axis, looking much like a whale turning in the water as she made the adjustment to welcome them into her
hangar bay.
His impression of whales and water strengthened as the spacecraft jolted once and then moved smoothly
toward the maw of the hangar, feeling no different than when a strong current grabbed a boat. Jack was going
to compliment Ian on his approach to the huge ship, but both pilots had their hands off the controls, ignoring
their trajectory. Jack grabbed convulsively at the edge of his seat, bracing himself for an impact as they arced
toward the opening without slowing.
“Dock-ing net,” Aeryn said from behind him.
“Web,” Ian offered automatically without looking around, and she repeated the correction.
“Incredible,” Jack added as they were sucked inside. The process of getting landing gear deployed and the
actual touchdown was lost on him as he peered out at the arching bronzed walls, gleaming ribs, and the vast
empty expanses.
“Pilot brought us into hangar bay two. Mom’s old Prowler and the other ships are all over in bay four. If we
have time, maybe I can show them to you.” Ian maneuvered lithely between the seats, leading Jack toward the
rear of the ship.
“Are you very ready for this?” Aeryn asked as the rear-facing hatch opened and the steps extended
automatically. “Moya has many species living aboard.” Jack nodded, feeling more uncertain than he was
willing to admit, and let her lead the way.
‘How did John cope with this?’ was the thought that kept running through his head as he was assaulted by a
mob that wouldn’t have fit in even at Mardi Gras. A fast count came up with a dozen individuals hemming them
in before they could move ten feet from the ship. And if the discussion on the floor of the U.N. was polyglot,
then this was mega-glot. No two languages even resembled each other, ranging from D’Argo’s barking grumble
to the clacking tones of two brown-furred creatures with six limbs. They were all talking at once, arguing about
something from the looks of their body language, or perhaps only distressed about something.
“They’ll quiet down in a few microts,” Ian said next to his shoulder. Jack jumped, startled by the quieter voice,
and turned to look at his interpreter. Ian was fastening a holster about his lean hips, giving a quick twitch with
his leg to shift a heavy looking pistol into position, and then securing it against his thigh.
Jack wanted to voice a protest about his teenaged grandson wearing a weapon as though it were part of his
body, but his tired brain refused to come up with words sufficient to the moment. “Is …?” was all that came out
of his mouth in the end as he was completely overwhelmed by the events of the strangest Halloween of his life.
He tried to form another question but at that moment the crowd swirled and shifted, the jabbering currents
disgorging two aliens who came to circle around him in bobbing, clattering excitement.
“The Kallimitri have the best geneticists in the universe,” Ian raised his voice over the chaos. “This team has
developed an experimental process that they claim will restore a patient’s genome to an earlier condition,
provided they have a template to map the sequences.”
The quadrupeds looked disturbingly similar to a rather ugly antique chair his great aunt had owned. Their leg
joints and feet pointed in four cardinal directions, making it difficult to figure out just which way was forward at
any particular moment. Trying to anticipate their movements was futile because although their upper bodies
jutted up from between two of the legs suggesting a ‘front’ to the creatures, their waists were so flexible they
were able to turn their shoulders in any direction. Their heads and shoulders would be facing to the right, and
their feet would suddenly scramble to the left, as though some indecisive ghost were rearranging the furniture.
The mixed species group encouraged Jack to follow the pair of scientists toward a workbench, their hand
signals reassuringly uniform despite the continuing linguistic furor. The confused human allowed himself to be
herded to the corner where a blood sample was quickly and painlessly extracted. The armchair aliens clicked
cheerfully at him for several seconds, then the brown-furred whirlwinds spun erratically out of the large
chamber with more than half of the gathering trailing along behind them. Jack put a hand on a workbench,
waiting for his whirling brain to come to a stop, using the sudden silence as a steadying influence.
Something squeaked next to his hand and he jerked to one side, stumbling over several pieces of machinery
strewn across the floor. Gathering his balance and his wits at the same time, he examined the small yellow
object that was quietly chirping at him. Two flexible antennas waved about, pointing lights at him and he
stepped cautiously to one side, concerned that it might be some sort of defensive machine.
“It’s a DRD,” Ian yelled from the other side of the chamber. “They do maintenance on board Moya and they’re
harmless.” The explanation ended there as the teen turned back to his conversation with Aeryn and another
woman. Jack split his attention between the yellow sphere and the hushed discussion, noting the drooping,
splinted antenna on the device and the slumping shoulders on his grandson.
“Hello there,” he offered to the ‘DRD’. It blinked at him. “Nice to meet you,” he tried. It blinked once.
“You’re talking to Moya,” Ian said, coming to stand beside him. “These are mechanoids. They’re sort of like
little automated repair shops that can reach most anything that needs to be maintained on the ship, but they’re
directed by Pilot or Moya. They’re not sentient.”
“Cute,” Jack offered, at a loss for words after everything he’d seen so far.
Ian scooped the unit off the workbench and set it on the floor. “Go play,” he ordered it. The unit zipped
between the lad’s feet and headed for the door. The pair watched as the yellow drone’s course curved to the
right, until it was no longer aligned with the door. It stopped, spun around clockwise until it was pointed toward
the left side of the opening and set off again, arcing out of sight, drawn inexorably to one side. Ian shrugged,
the brief motion seeming to comment on the uneven progress of the unit. “That one’s more of a pet than
anything else. One-Eye’s been banged around a lot over the past cycles, so he gets light duty. He was my
nanny while I was growing up.”
“Nanny,” Jack repeated in disbelief. “Son, you’ve got to give me a few seconds to catch up. My brain is
spinning.” He looked around the nearly empty bay, studying his new environment for the first time in an attempt
to accept what was happening around him. “This is all part of a living being,” he stated, waving at the arching
golden support ribs and echoing spaces of the large chamber.
“Yup.” Ian wandered around the various benches and arrays of tools. “How about a tour? We could go up
and meet Pilot, and the terrace will probably blow your mind. I can show you Mom’s Prowler. It’s a bit outdated,
but it’s still one of the dradest things to fly in the entire universe!” The teen was practically bouncing, exuding
energy as though he had his own personal power station providing megawatts to be expended freely.
Jack smiled, finding the youthful exuberance refreshing after the almost too-adult self-control exhibited by Ian
up until this point. “I want to see the whole thing, Ian, but first I want to see John.” The smiling excitement
disappeared in a split-second, replaced by an awkward discomfort. “I’m looking forward to having you show me
around this place, but I haven’t seen your father in over three years. Let’s start there.”
Ian made an odd sideward shrug with his shoulders, his upper body writhing with what looked like discomfort.
“All right,” he mumbled, looking down at his feet. “But I think my mother should take you to Quarters. She’ll be
up on Command.” He jerked his head and started away in a hurry, his thoughts obscured behind an enigmatic
mask that Jack wouldn’t have expected out of anyone other than a mature adult.
“Ian, I do want to see Moya,” he started, thinking that it was the young man’s disappointment over the rejected
tour that was causing the strain.
“It’s all right.” Ian began walking faster, accelerating to a pace just short of a jog. “I don’t like going down there,
that’s all.”
Jack abandoned his attempt to memorize their route after just three turns as they hurried through one identical
corridor after another, concentrating instead on the abrupt mood change of his guide. “You don’t like going
where? To see your father?” Jack asked, straining to keep up with the long legged stride. Ian shrugged and
accelerated.
“Stop!” Jack ordered sharply, resurrecting the barking tone he’d used on all three of his children when the
single-mindedness of youth had deafened them to milder commands. Ian jerked to a halt. “What’s bothering
you, Ian?” he asked more gently.
“Nothing.” The sullen reply was all too familiar, the stubbornness so reminiscent of the boy’s father that it
brought a lump to his throat. It was like having John back for one short moment, miraculously restored to him
through a trick of time.
“Don’t give me that bull. There was something more going on in that … that cavern place where we landed
than just a bunch of people welcoming you back. What’s happened?”
Ian didn’t turn to face his grandfather as he stood with one hip cocked, his hand resting on the butt of the
heavy pistol as he stared at his feet. They remained poised like that for almost ten seconds before the young
man turned around rubbing at one of his eyes with the heel of a hand. “Dad has good days and bad days. I’d
hoped that maybe he’d be better today, like maybe he’d have one of the good ones. But Chiana -- she’s the
one Mom and I were talking to earlier -- ” Jack nodded his recognition of the pale skinned woman who’d
lingered behind while he’d been talking to the robot. “She says that he’s worse today. She says it’s the worst
she’s ever seen.”
Jack watched him struggle to stay in control of his emotions. “He’s getting worse,” Ian quavered, starting to
cry. He smeared the tears roughly to one side with the back of his wrist, fighting to stop his outburst, then
yanked the bottom of his t-shirt out of his pants to dry his face more thoroughly. “I’m acting like a dren-head,”
he finished, taking a deep breath.
“Dren,” Jack prompted, focusing on the one thing that might divert the teen’s attention away from his fears.
“Would that be as in ‘bull-dren’?” Ian laughed shakily and nodded, a weak smile appearing. “Hang on a little bit
longer, Ian. Let’s wait to see what those geneticist creatures of yours have to say before you go deciding that
it’s hopeless.” His grandson nodded a second time while hastily tucking his shirt back into the waist of his
leather pants.
“We’re almost at Command,” Ian explained after clearing his throat several times. “Let me show you that and
maybe one of the others will be willing to take you to Quarters.” He glanced at his grandfather sideways,
checking for a reaction to his unwillingness to take him to see John.
“That sounds good. Lead on.”
* * * * *
Aeryn took two steps back, pulling out of the small group that had gathered on Command to wait for the
determination from the Kallimitri as to whether Jack Crichton’s DNA would fulfill the needs of their mysterious
procedure. Chiana’s news had been delivered gently, but it was no less devastating for the concerned tones or
the small amount of privacy the nebari had provided while telling her of John’s latest downward slide. She let
the discussion flow around her, watching the familiar gestures of the distraught group as they tried to cope with
the possibility of losing John Crichton. He’d saved every one of their lives at one point or another over the
cycles, often putting his own life at risk to accomplish the goal. Every person on board had grown attached to
the singular human, and they’d begun lashing out at each other as the situation had grown increasingly bleak.
“Mother.”
She spun around fast, recognizing her son’s guttural mumble that signaled a complete loss of emotional
control, expecting one of his rare breakdowns. He shambled onto Command looking sheepish for some
reason, his grandfather trailing behind. His fast glance in her direction revealed the reddened, blurry eyes, and
she wanted to hug him, knowing he’d been crying. His restraint had hardened over the past few cycles as he
approached adulthood, gradually depriving her of the moments when she could offer him a mother’s comforting
embrace or reassurance.
Ian turned half away from her as she approached, his hesitant motions exhibiting his discomfort with her
solicitous concern. “He wants to see Dad. I … ” He ran his hand through his hair, leaving much of it standing
on end. “Can one of the others take him down there?” he asked switching to Sebacean,
“I … I don’t want to go.”
Aeryn flattened his hair, letting her hand slide quickly down his cheek and then grasping him carefully by the
back of the neck. “Of course.” She gave him an almost imperceptible shake, trying to tell him that she
understood his anguish, then let him go, deferring to his recent requests that she not embrace him in public.
“I’ll take him myself.”
Ian turned away, beckoning to his grandfather. Aeryn watched as he jerked his head up straight and squared
his shoulders, doing his best to emulate both of his parents by facing the difficult moments in his life straight
on. He’d inherited his father’s stubbornness, displaying the same recalcitrant behavior regardless of whether
he was acting like an adult or indulging in one of his less mature moments. That obstinacy had gotten him in to
trouble with almost the same frequency as it had John, and she’d almost despaired of getting him through his
rebellious streak alive.
The reckless bullheadedness had been epitomized the time he’d tried taking the Prowler for a spin before she’d
finished teaching him how to fly it, convinced that he could handle the craft on his own, and Moya had been
forced to follow the out-of-control fighter across an entire solar system before it ran out of fuel and they could
haul the ship and the defiant youngster back inside. His belligerence had driven D’Argo to the edge of hyper-
rage dozens of times, and only Ian’s ability to fit into unbelievably small spaces aboard Moya had saved him
from an enraged assault on at least three occasions over the past several cycles. She could see some of her
less admirable traits in her son as well. He was a perfect melding of his parents’ personalities, at times showing
the brilliance and discipline of their best qualities, and at other times descending into displays of their worst
behaviors.
She watched with pride as he showed Jack around Command, explaining each piece of equipment with an
expertise she hadn’t realized he’d mastered. He’d followed his father around the leviathan since he’d been old
enough to walk, watching as John repaired aging or damaged circuits, but until this particular moment she’d
never realized that Ian had become an expert in his own right. The idea of continuing his upbringing alone,
without John, sometimes kept her awake at night, but she watched the confident movements and told herself
that they’d be all right. She could do it as long as Ian was there. She could go on without John as long as she
had their son to remind her of what they’d shared over the last twenty cycles.
“There’s one question I didn’t think of until those scientists of yours were taking my blood,” Jack was asking
Ian. “Why couldn’t they use John’s own DNA to map this transformation process? Why me?”
Aeryn stepped to meet them even before Ian’s distressed look turned in her direction. He knew most of the
stories, but there were tales that they’d withheld from him until he was old enough to understand. “John has
been …” She searched for the word, finally resorting to feeding the Sebacean term to her son.
“Injured,” he translated, sounding puzzled, “or it works out to damaged depending on how you use it.”
“No. Not the same.” She searched for a term that would be more accurate, coming up empty. “There were
things that happened to him when he first gets here. It is not why he is sick, but it changes John. His DNA is
not good enough. The Kallimitri say it is, um … broken.”
“What happened to John?” his father asked, sounding worried. “What sorts of things?”
Aeryn thought of the chip, of the twinning, of death, and of hypothermia; of getting spaced without a suit, bitten,
frozen, stunned, shot, and knocked out more than once by a pantak jab, and didn’t know where to begin. He’d
been through so much, and every morning she woke up and wondered which of those assaults on his
physiology might have caused this slowly progressing disease and whether she could have stopped it. Had it
been heppel or lakka or wormholes or Scorpius? The Diagnosans hadn’t been able to determine the cause, so
she was forced to wonder if his problem had been caused by his foolish but selfless penetration of the Gammak
Base so many cycles ago and his brutal interrogation in the Chair -- the first time she’d truly understood how
much he loved her.
“Too much,” she whispered, fixing her gaze on her own son. A future without John wasn’t entirely bleak as long
as she could hang on to the thought that one good thing had come out of all the pain and sorrow. “Too many
things happen to him. He is not very often sick though. Not until …” She consulted with her son. “Not until six
month ago.”
Jack stared at her, his face unreadable, and she knew where John had learned to mask his thoughts. He
glanced once at Ian before coming back to gaze steadily into her eyes. “John is my son. I need to know what’s
happened to him and I need to see him now.” He stepped aside, motioning toward the doorway.
Aeryn hesitated both mentally and physically, trapped between trying to protect this familiar looking stranger
from the truth of John’s life, and his need to understand the life his son had been living. “Ian, give us a
moment,” she said in Sebacean, reaching for his hand to assure him that she wasn’t shutting him out. He
squeezed back briefly and went away willingly.
“John said always that life here is much more wonderful than Earth but it is very hard … very dangerous.” Jack
nodded so she continued, casting back to the first days she’d lived alongside the strange being known as John
Crichton. “When he gets here, he does not know how things work.”
“I can certainly believe that,” Jack smiled thinly, glancing past her toward where several of the crew had
gathered.
“Yes. He got hit, drugged, attacked, captured. He fights, he cares about all of us.” Aeryn took a deep breath,
remembering how much trouble John’s compassion had gotten him into at first. “Maybe this sickness is caused
by something that happened because he tried to save my life more than twenty cycles ago. He got caught by
someone named Scorpius and he gets …” She stopped, unable to say the word despite knowing its English
equivalent. When she looked up Jack was pale and quiet, a type of anguish in his eyes that she’d seen in
John’s eyes when Ian had been sick or injured. “John was tortured.”
“I don’t think you need to tell me any more,” the father said. “But despite all of this he chose to stay.”
“At first because he did not know how to go home. Later he stayed because of me.” And that had resulted in
even more violence and suffering. “He was given knowledge of wormholes by aliens. There was a time when
he almost decides to go home to you. But he stayed. For me.”
“I can see why,” Jack smiled at her. “I want to see him now. I need to see John.” Aeryn started to object. “Ian
warned me already. Take me to see my son, Aeryn Sun.”
“Excuse me everyone,” Pilot’s calm tones interrupt the subdued hubbub in Command. Aeryn turned to check
on Jack who was making a choking noise behind her, but he was only staring at the image floating in the
clamshell, his eyes wide with shock.
Pilot’s enigmatic gaze swiveled to gaze at the new human aboard the leviathan, and then continued. “The
Kallimitri have advised me that the genetic samples obtained from Jack Crichton are suitable for their
procedure.”
“Pilot, do they have enough DNA for the entire procedure?” D’Argo asked.
“They report that it is sufficient.” Pilot’s holographic image turned in Jack’s direction. “Thank you for coming to
help your son, Jack Crichton,” the large symbiote said to the human visitor. “He means more to Moya and me
than we can ever express.” The image disappeared from sight.
“What was that?” Jack breathed into the small silence following Pilot’s announcement.
“Pilot. He is one with Moya. He said thank you for coming to help John,” Aeryn relayed for him.
“One with?” Jack fumbled at a gleaming ovoid table and sank down onto a seat. The surrealism of his
surroundings assaulted him, pressing in with a nearly physical force. He closed his eyes and tried to
concentrate on the one item that promised to make this insane venture worthwhile -- a chance to see his son.
He was trembling slightly as he considered how ludicrous it sounded for a single human being to travel clear
across the universe in order to make a house call of sorts on his ailing offspring. “I need to see John now,” he
repeated, hoping the familiar sight would help him cope with the strangeness of his surroundings.
“We will go in a microt,” Aeryn said from behind him. “I must talk at the others. You are all right?” Jack nodded
numbly and she moved away.
He shut his eyes again, reminding himself that he had traveled to the moon and back at a time when some
people on Earth still thought the first lunar landing had been faked on a Hollywood set. His entire career had
consisted of pushing beyond limitations and expectations, seeking and achieving goals that most people only
dreamed about. “Well you found it this time, Jack,” he said quietly to himself, feeling marginally better. He’d
talked himself into going somewhere that very few individuals on Earth would be willing to admit even existed.
He’d demanded that they bring him here, so it was up to him to cope with the new environment.
“Okay?”
Jack jumped at the high voice, opening his eyes and refocusing on his surroundings. “What?” The white-
haired woman he’d seen talking to Aeryn in the hangar was standing next to him, head cocked at an angle to
look into his face.
She poked his chest lightly with a single finger. “Oh … kay?” It seemed they’d all learned some English from
John, adapting to his presence as he had certainly adapted to theirs.
“Yes. This is all a bit overwhelming though.” It took a concerted effort not to talk in pidgin English, forced to
remind himself every time he opened his mouth that they could understand everything he said. “Ian told me a
little about everyone on the way here. Who are you?”
“Chiana,” she stated, smiling. She began pointing to the others. “Nerri.” A man with the same gray skin, but
jet-black hair. She put her two fists together, curled thumbs bumping against each other.
“Your husband?” Head shake. She tried placing her palms together and then separating her hands.
“Brother?” Yes.
“Hendlah.” Next person, same species, a woman -- Nerri’s wife, as conveyed by Chiana’s clasped hands. She
introduced him laboriously to each of the individuals in the room, the process proceeding more quickly as they
worked out hand signals for various relationships. D’Argo’s son Jothee and his young wife, D’Argo’s fiancée,
which took five tries to convey, two other unrelated individuals of
Chiana’s species, three Sebaceans, and the hologram that he’d already been told was the pilot, were all
pointed out and labeled for him.
“Are there more aboard?” he asked her. She nodded and began firing out names, counting on her fingers as
she progressed. Another fifteen were added to the list. “Quite a collection. I’m glad John had so many good
friends to help him when he got here.” The woman at his elbow looked grief-stricken, and in a flash of intuition,
Jack knew that it wasn’t the prospect of losing John that was causing the reaction.
“Not so many at some point,” he suggested.
She pointed to herself, D’Argo, and Aeryn, adding Pilot at the last minute. Her high, chirping voice explained
something that he would never understand, then she added the others in the room one by one, working
through everyone present in the order that they’d joined the small community.
“Jack Crich-ton?” D’Argo called awkwardly, waving him to join the group.
“They say you can go back to Earth now,” Ian translated as Jack moved into their midst. “Since the Kallimitri
have confirmed that your DNA is close enough to Dad’s, they think you should leave to avoid any chance of
getting stuck here.” Ian scratched at the top of his ear, looking mildly embarrassed by the pronouncement, as
though he didn’t agree with the suggestion.
Jack folded his arms and glared at the assembled group. “Folks, I don’t know what John has told you about me
over the years, but if you think I’m leaving without seeing him, you are all out of your minds.” An argument
broke out immediately. “Wait a minute!” Jack yelled into the discussion. “Why exactly don’t you want me to see
John?”
“Melnatsa,” Ian said gently, “he isn’t the person any of us knew before. It’s not Dad anymore. They say you
should go home remembering him the way you knew him before.” Jack watched the son of John Crichton try to
offer him some comfort while coping with his own loss and grief, and knew that he had to see the man who had
raised this remarkable youngster, even if it destroyed his memory of John in the process.
“Take me to him,” Jack ordered. “I’m not leaving until I see John.” No one moved except to look at each other,
all appearing equally uncomfortable. “Aeryn Sun … take me to see my son now,” he ordered, turning in her
direction. “You’ve been stalling ever since I got on board. Either you show me where he is right now or I’ll start
searching this ship room by room until I find him.”
Aeryn turned on Ian, spouting an impassioned demand of some sort. One by one the others joined back in, the
argument escalating until they were all yelling at each other again, accompanied by wild hand motions. It was
truly incredible, Jack realized, watching Ian throw himself back into the discussion. His grandson, barely an
adult, was serving as the liaison between him and several other species. He watched as the young man looped
his thumbs behind the buckle of his belt, standing with one hip cocked as he babbled in what was now
detectable as several different languages, his body calmer than the rest of the group despite the fact that he
was talking just as loudly. Jack looked at the stance and recognized the habit he’d identified as familiar but
uncomfortable when they’d been standing in his kitchen. Ian was accustomed to standing like that, but he
hadn’t been wearing the weapon, and had resorted to hooking his thumbs into his trousers instead of behind
the belt to the holster.
For an instant, Jack was able to see John in the chamber, standing with his shoulders slightly rounded as his
focus moved inside his own mind, a stance his mother had tried to break him of saying it would ruin his
posture. He squinted his eyes, blurring the scene before him, and he was able to see his son, the heavier,
more mature body commanding more attention in the group, John arguing back, completely at ease living with
these … people. The image brought him back to the battle being waged, reminding him that they still hadn’t
ceded to his request. Jack counted slowly to ten then turned and headed for the doorway.
“Wait!” Aeryn yelled behind him, following up with a flood of her own language. The rest of the group went
quiet as she strode after him.
“I couldn’t understand any of that,” Jack returned. He waited, halfway across Command as she growled in
frustration then snapped something at Ian.
“We’ve been through this!” he yelled. “We can’t give him translator microbes. It creates too many problems!”
He fired off another long spiel, lapsing into something other than English.
Aeryn turned her back for several seconds, her shoulders squared and rigid, then turned back, eyes blazing
with something Jack thought might be anger. He took two steps away from her, concerned about the level of
emotions in the room and the weapon in her holster.
“Frell!” she screamed in frustration. A DRD zipped out of a maintenance hatch, headed for the doorway and
the corridor beyond on a trajectory that unfortunately took it within range of Aeryn’s feet. Jack dodged to one
side as the blameless robot sailed into the corridor with an electronic wail of dismay, coming to a clattering
impact against the curving wall. Aeryn turned to glare at Jack next, and he took another step back, moving
away from her.
“I am sorry,” she offered, the anger evaporating in a single second. “It is very … ” she clenched both fists and
shook them in front of her body.
“Frustrating?” he offered.
“Frus-rating,” she repeated. “We have germs in our heads that tell us what others say to us. John has these
too. If we give them to you, it will be bad when you go back to Earth.”
“Germs?” Jack asked, turning toward Ian.
“Microbes actually. We could inject you, but it might cause a problem in the wormhole going back, because you’
d be taking back something you didn’t arrive with, creating an imbalance of sorts. And if someone on Earth
were to find them –- ” Ian spread his hands, inviting Jack to theorize about the outcome.
Jack nodded, understanding completely. “Don’t even begin to speculate. The problems would be enormous.”
He turned to Aeryn. “We’ll muddle through without them. This is why you understood everything but let Ian do
all the explaining when we first met.” She nodded. “All this is fine and very interesting, but I want you to take
me to see John. Now.”
Aeryn nodded and gestured toward the doorway. Jack glanced over his shoulder as he left Command,
checking on Ian, but the youngster showed no inclination of accompanying them. Several members of the crew
were drifting along behind him, falling behind as Aeryn moved to take the lead, hurrying into the passageways.
Jack lengthened his stride to keep up with her, all other concerns falling away as he focused on the fact that he
was going to see his son again.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
Part 2
“Sweet Jesus,” Jack gasped as the spacecraft bucked and shuddered, veered to one side, and punched into
normal space. “I’ll never be able to tell anyone about that ride, but if I could design a rollercoaster based on
that, I’d make millions.” Ian’s ‘uncle’ was slapping the young man on the back, growling at him in what he could
now see was approval, then he turned to Jack and pointed out the front of the cockpit, bestowing more of the
almost-English sounding syllables on him.
“Moya,” Aeryn Sun said from behind him.
Jack ducked down to look where the alien was pointing, taking several moments to pick out the designated
object. He missed it the first time simply because it was too big. He’d been looking for something the size of an
aircraft carrier, somehow equating the idea of landing this spaceship on another one with the concept of
landing a jet aircraft on a large boat. A fast estimation as they accelerated toward the golden behemoth
suggested that he’d been off by at least three or four aircraft carriers as far as length was concerned and a hell
of a lot more in terms of mass. In a single instant his calm acceptance of everything that had happened to him
that evening was shattered. His mind balked at the sight, yipped and scrambled around inside his skull trying to
cope with what his eyes were transmitting to his brain. “That thing is a living creature?” he stammered.
“That’s Moya,” Ian grinned over his shoulder at him. “She’s kind of pretty, isn’t she?”
Ian looked so much like John in that instant, it helped Jack get a grip on himself. This was John’s home, he
reminded himself. It was a gentle beast, according to Ian, that had provided John with refuge, safety, and even
love.
They were approaching the leviathan from slightly above her, giving him a good view of what appeared to be
dorsal openings and the wandering patterns that traced her hull. At first he thought Ian was realigning their
trajectory to bring them alongside the beast’s flank, but he realized belatedly that the stars beyond Moya
weren’t shifting. He clamped his teeth together to keep his jaw from gaping open as the living ship rolled along
her axis, looking much like a whale turning in the water as she made the adjustment to welcome them into her
hangar bay.
His impression of whales and water strengthened as the spacecraft jolted once and then moved smoothly
toward the maw of the hangar, feeling no different than when a strong current grabbed a boat. Jack was going
to compliment Ian on his approach to the huge ship, but both pilots had their hands off the controls, ignoring
their trajectory. Jack grabbed convulsively at the edge of his seat, bracing himself for an impact as they arced
toward the opening without slowing.
“Dock-ing net,” Aeryn said from behind him.
“Web,” Ian offered automatically without looking around, and she repeated the correction.
“Incredible,” Jack added as they were sucked inside. The process of getting landing gear deployed and the
actual touchdown was lost on him as he peered out at the arching bronzed walls, gleaming ribs, and the vast
empty expanses.
“Pilot brought us into hangar bay two. Mom’s old Prowler and the other ships are all over in bay four. If we
have time, maybe I can show them to you.” Ian maneuvered lithely between the seats, leading Jack toward the
rear of the ship.
“Are you very ready for this?” Aeryn asked as the rear-facing hatch opened and the steps extended
automatically. “Moya has many species living aboard.” Jack nodded, feeling more uncertain than he was
willing to admit, and let her lead the way.
‘How did John cope with this?’ was the thought that kept running through his head as he was assaulted by a
mob that wouldn’t have fit in even at Mardi Gras. A fast count came up with a dozen individuals hemming them
in before they could move ten feet from the ship. And if the discussion on the floor of the U.N. was polyglot,
then this was mega-glot. No two languages even resembled each other, ranging from D’Argo’s barking grumble
to the clacking tones of two brown-furred creatures with six limbs. They were all talking at once, arguing about
something from the looks of their body language, or perhaps only distressed about something.
“They’ll quiet down in a few microts,” Ian said next to his shoulder. Jack jumped, startled by the quieter voice,
and turned to look at his interpreter. Ian was fastening a holster about his lean hips, giving a quick twitch with
his leg to shift a heavy looking pistol into position, and then securing it against his thigh.
Jack wanted to voice a protest about his teenaged grandson wearing a weapon as though it were part of his
body, but his tired brain refused to come up with words sufficient to the moment. “Is …?” was all that came out
of his mouth in the end as he was completely overwhelmed by the events of the strangest Halloween of his life.
He tried to form another question but at that moment the crowd swirled and shifted, the jabbering currents
disgorging two aliens who came to circle around him in bobbing, clattering excitement.
“The Kallimitri have the best geneticists in the universe,” Ian raised his voice over the chaos. “This team has
developed an experimental process that they claim will restore a patient’s genome to an earlier condition,
provided they have a template to map the sequences.”
The quadrupeds looked disturbingly similar to a rather ugly antique chair his great aunt had owned. Their leg
joints and feet pointed in four cardinal directions, making it difficult to figure out just which way was forward at
any particular moment. Trying to anticipate their movements was futile because although their upper bodies
jutted up from between two of the legs suggesting a ‘front’ to the creatures, their waists were so flexible they
were able to turn their shoulders in any direction. Their heads and shoulders would be facing to the right, and
their feet would suddenly scramble to the left, as though some indecisive ghost were rearranging the furniture.
The mixed species group encouraged Jack to follow the pair of scientists toward a workbench, their hand
signals reassuringly uniform despite the continuing linguistic furor. The confused human allowed himself to be
herded to the corner where a blood sample was quickly and painlessly extracted. The armchair aliens clicked
cheerfully at him for several seconds, then the brown-furred whirlwinds spun erratically out of the large
chamber with more than half of the gathering trailing along behind them. Jack put a hand on a workbench,
waiting for his whirling brain to come to a stop, using the sudden silence as a steadying influence.
Something squeaked next to his hand and he jerked to one side, stumbling over several pieces of machinery
strewn across the floor. Gathering his balance and his wits at the same time, he examined the small yellow
object that was quietly chirping at him. Two flexible antennas waved about, pointing lights at him and he
stepped cautiously to one side, concerned that it might be some sort of defensive machine.
“It’s a DRD,” Ian yelled from the other side of the chamber. “They do maintenance on board Moya and they’re
harmless.” The explanation ended there as the teen turned back to his conversation with Aeryn and another
woman. Jack split his attention between the yellow sphere and the hushed discussion, noting the drooping,
splinted antenna on the device and the slumping shoulders on his grandson.
“Hello there,” he offered to the ‘DRD’. It blinked at him. “Nice to meet you,” he tried. It blinked once.
“You’re talking to Moya,” Ian said, coming to stand beside him. “These are mechanoids. They’re sort of like
little automated repair shops that can reach most anything that needs to be maintained on the ship, but they’re
directed by Pilot or Moya. They’re not sentient.”
“Cute,” Jack offered, at a loss for words after everything he’d seen so far.
Ian scooped the unit off the workbench and set it on the floor. “Go play,” he ordered it. The unit zipped
between the lad’s feet and headed for the door. The pair watched as the yellow drone’s course curved to the
right, until it was no longer aligned with the door. It stopped, spun around clockwise until it was pointed toward
the left side of the opening and set off again, arcing out of sight, drawn inexorably to one side. Ian shrugged,
the brief motion seeming to comment on the uneven progress of the unit. “That one’s more of a pet than
anything else. One-Eye’s been banged around a lot over the past cycles, so he gets light duty. He was my
nanny while I was growing up.”
“Nanny,” Jack repeated in disbelief. “Son, you’ve got to give me a few seconds to catch up. My brain is
spinning.” He looked around the nearly empty bay, studying his new environment for the first time in an attempt
to accept what was happening around him. “This is all part of a living being,” he stated, waving at the arching
golden support ribs and echoing spaces of the large chamber.
“Yup.” Ian wandered around the various benches and arrays of tools. “How about a tour? We could go up
and meet Pilot, and the terrace will probably blow your mind. I can show you Mom’s Prowler. It’s a bit outdated,
but it’s still one of the dradest things to fly in the entire universe!” The teen was practically bouncing, exuding
energy as though he had his own personal power station providing megawatts to be expended freely.
Jack smiled, finding the youthful exuberance refreshing after the almost too-adult self-control exhibited by Ian
up until this point. “I want to see the whole thing, Ian, but first I want to see John.” The smiling excitement
disappeared in a split-second, replaced by an awkward discomfort. “I’m looking forward to having you show me
around this place, but I haven’t seen your father in over three years. Let’s start there.”
Ian made an odd sideward shrug with his shoulders, his upper body writhing with what looked like discomfort.
“All right,” he mumbled, looking down at his feet. “But I think my mother should take you to Quarters. She’ll be
up on Command.” He jerked his head and started away in a hurry, his thoughts obscured behind an enigmatic
mask that Jack wouldn’t have expected out of anyone other than a mature adult.
“Ian, I do want to see Moya,” he started, thinking that it was the young man’s disappointment over the rejected
tour that was causing the strain.
“It’s all right.” Ian began walking faster, accelerating to a pace just short of a jog. “I don’t like going down there,
that’s all.”
Jack abandoned his attempt to memorize their route after just three turns as they hurried through one identical
corridor after another, concentrating instead on the abrupt mood change of his guide. “You don’t like going
where? To see your father?” Jack asked, straining to keep up with the long legged stride. Ian shrugged and
accelerated.
“Stop!” Jack ordered sharply, resurrecting the barking tone he’d used on all three of his children when the
single-mindedness of youth had deafened them to milder commands. Ian jerked to a halt. “What’s bothering
you, Ian?” he asked more gently.
“Nothing.” The sullen reply was all too familiar, the stubbornness so reminiscent of the boy’s father that it
brought a lump to his throat. It was like having John back for one short moment, miraculously restored to him
through a trick of time.
“Don’t give me that bull. There was something more going on in that … that cavern place where we landed
than just a bunch of people welcoming you back. What’s happened?”
Ian didn’t turn to face his grandfather as he stood with one hip cocked, his hand resting on the butt of the
heavy pistol as he stared at his feet. They remained poised like that for almost ten seconds before the young
man turned around rubbing at one of his eyes with the heel of a hand. “Dad has good days and bad days. I’d
hoped that maybe he’d be better today, like maybe he’d have one of the good ones. But Chiana -- she’s the
one Mom and I were talking to earlier -- ” Jack nodded his recognition of the pale skinned woman who’d
lingered behind while he’d been talking to the robot. “She says that he’s worse today. She says it’s the worst
she’s ever seen.”
Jack watched him struggle to stay in control of his emotions. “He’s getting worse,” Ian quavered, starting to
cry. He smeared the tears roughly to one side with the back of his wrist, fighting to stop his outburst, then
yanked the bottom of his t-shirt out of his pants to dry his face more thoroughly. “I’m acting like a dren-head,”
he finished, taking a deep breath.
“Dren,” Jack prompted, focusing on the one thing that might divert the teen’s attention away from his fears.
“Would that be as in ‘bull-dren’?” Ian laughed shakily and nodded, a weak smile appearing. “Hang on a little bit
longer, Ian. Let’s wait to see what those geneticist creatures of yours have to say before you go deciding that
it’s hopeless.” His grandson nodded a second time while hastily tucking his shirt back into the waist of his
leather pants.
“We’re almost at Command,” Ian explained after clearing his throat several times. “Let me show you that and
maybe one of the others will be willing to take you to Quarters.” He glanced at his grandfather sideways,
checking for a reaction to his unwillingness to take him to see John.
“That sounds good. Lead on.”
* * * * *
Aeryn took two steps back, pulling out of the small group that had gathered on Command to wait for the
determination from the Kallimitri as to whether Jack Crichton’s DNA would fulfill the needs of their mysterious
procedure. Chiana’s news had been delivered gently, but it was no less devastating for the concerned tones or
the small amount of privacy the nebari had provided while telling her of John’s latest downward slide. She let
the discussion flow around her, watching the familiar gestures of the distraught group as they tried to cope with
the possibility of losing John Crichton. He’d saved every one of their lives at one point or another over the
cycles, often putting his own life at risk to accomplish the goal. Every person on board had grown attached to
the singular human, and they’d begun lashing out at each other as the situation had grown increasingly bleak.
“Mother.”
She spun around fast, recognizing her son’s guttural mumble that signaled a complete loss of emotional
control, expecting one of his rare breakdowns. He shambled onto Command looking sheepish for some
reason, his grandfather trailing behind. His fast glance in her direction revealed the reddened, blurry eyes, and
she wanted to hug him, knowing he’d been crying. His restraint had hardened over the past few cycles as he
approached adulthood, gradually depriving her of the moments when she could offer him a mother’s comforting
embrace or reassurance.
Ian turned half away from her as she approached, his hesitant motions exhibiting his discomfort with her
solicitous concern. “He wants to see Dad. I … ” He ran his hand through his hair, leaving much of it standing
on end. “Can one of the others take him down there?” he asked switching to Sebacean,
“I … I don’t want to go.”
Aeryn flattened his hair, letting her hand slide quickly down his cheek and then grasping him carefully by the
back of the neck. “Of course.” She gave him an almost imperceptible shake, trying to tell him that she
understood his anguish, then let him go, deferring to his recent requests that she not embrace him in public.
“I’ll take him myself.”
Ian turned away, beckoning to his grandfather. Aeryn watched as he jerked his head up straight and squared
his shoulders, doing his best to emulate both of his parents by facing the difficult moments in his life straight
on. He’d inherited his father’s stubbornness, displaying the same recalcitrant behavior regardless of whether
he was acting like an adult or indulging in one of his less mature moments. That obstinacy had gotten him in to
trouble with almost the same frequency as it had John, and she’d almost despaired of getting him through his
rebellious streak alive.
The reckless bullheadedness had been epitomized the time he’d tried taking the Prowler for a spin before she’d
finished teaching him how to fly it, convinced that he could handle the craft on his own, and Moya had been
forced to follow the out-of-control fighter across an entire solar system before it ran out of fuel and they could
haul the ship and the defiant youngster back inside. His belligerence had driven D’Argo to the edge of hyper-
rage dozens of times, and only Ian’s ability to fit into unbelievably small spaces aboard Moya had saved him
from an enraged assault on at least three occasions over the past several cycles. She could see some of her
less admirable traits in her son as well. He was a perfect melding of his parents’ personalities, at times showing
the brilliance and discipline of their best qualities, and at other times descending into displays of their worst
behaviors.
She watched with pride as he showed Jack around Command, explaining each piece of equipment with an
expertise she hadn’t realized he’d mastered. He’d followed his father around the leviathan since he’d been old
enough to walk, watching as John repaired aging or damaged circuits, but until this particular moment she’d
never realized that Ian had become an expert in his own right. The idea of continuing his upbringing alone,
without John, sometimes kept her awake at night, but she watched the confident movements and told herself
that they’d be all right. She could do it as long as Ian was there. She could go on without John as long as she
had their son to remind her of what they’d shared over the last twenty cycles.
“There’s one question I didn’t think of until those scientists of yours were taking my blood,” Jack was asking
Ian. “Why couldn’t they use John’s own DNA to map this transformation process? Why me?”
Aeryn stepped to meet them even before Ian’s distressed look turned in her direction. He knew most of the
stories, but there were tales that they’d withheld from him until he was old enough to understand. “John has
been …” She searched for the word, finally resorting to feeding the Sebacean term to her son.
“Injured,” he translated, sounding puzzled, “or it works out to damaged depending on how you use it.”
“No. Not the same.” She searched for a term that would be more accurate, coming up empty. “There were
things that happened to him when he first gets here. It is not why he is sick, but it changes John. His DNA is
not good enough. The Kallimitri say it is, um … broken.”
“What happened to John?” his father asked, sounding worried. “What sorts of things?”
Aeryn thought of the chip, of the twinning, of death, and of hypothermia; of getting spaced without a suit, bitten,
frozen, stunned, shot, and knocked out more than once by a pantak jab, and didn’t know where to begin. He’d
been through so much, and every morning she woke up and wondered which of those assaults on his
physiology might have caused this slowly progressing disease and whether she could have stopped it. Had it
been heppel or lakka or wormholes or Scorpius? The Diagnosans hadn’t been able to determine the cause, so
she was forced to wonder if his problem had been caused by his foolish but selfless penetration of the Gammak
Base so many cycles ago and his brutal interrogation in the Chair -- the first time she’d truly understood how
much he loved her.
“Too much,” she whispered, fixing her gaze on her own son. A future without John wasn’t entirely bleak as long
as she could hang on to the thought that one good thing had come out of all the pain and sorrow. “Too many
things happen to him. He is not very often sick though. Not until …” She consulted with her son. “Not until six
month ago.”
Jack stared at her, his face unreadable, and she knew where John had learned to mask his thoughts. He
glanced once at Ian before coming back to gaze steadily into her eyes. “John is my son. I need to know what’s
happened to him and I need to see him now.” He stepped aside, motioning toward the doorway.
Aeryn hesitated both mentally and physically, trapped between trying to protect this familiar looking stranger
from the truth of John’s life, and his need to understand the life his son had been living. “Ian, give us a
moment,” she said in Sebacean, reaching for his hand to assure him that she wasn’t shutting him out. He
squeezed back briefly and went away willingly.
“John said always that life here is much more wonderful than Earth but it is very hard … very dangerous.” Jack
nodded so she continued, casting back to the first days she’d lived alongside the strange being known as John
Crichton. “When he gets here, he does not know how things work.”
“I can certainly believe that,” Jack smiled thinly, glancing past her toward where several of the crew had
gathered.
“Yes. He got hit, drugged, attacked, captured. He fights, he cares about all of us.” Aeryn took a deep breath,
remembering how much trouble John’s compassion had gotten him into at first. “Maybe this sickness is caused
by something that happened because he tried to save my life more than twenty cycles ago. He got caught by
someone named Scorpius and he gets …” She stopped, unable to say the word despite knowing its English
equivalent. When she looked up Jack was pale and quiet, a type of anguish in his eyes that she’d seen in
John’s eyes when Ian had been sick or injured. “John was tortured.”
“I don’t think you need to tell me any more,” the father said. “But despite all of this he chose to stay.”
“At first because he did not know how to go home. Later he stayed because of me.” And that had resulted in
even more violence and suffering. “He was given knowledge of wormholes by aliens. There was a time when
he almost decides to go home to you. But he stayed. For me.”
“I can see why,” Jack smiled at her. “I want to see him now. I need to see John.” Aeryn started to object. “Ian
warned me already. Take me to see my son, Aeryn Sun.”
“Excuse me everyone,” Pilot’s calm tones interrupt the subdued hubbub in Command. Aeryn turned to check
on Jack who was making a choking noise behind her, but he was only staring at the image floating in the
clamshell, his eyes wide with shock.
Pilot’s enigmatic gaze swiveled to gaze at the new human aboard the leviathan, and then continued. “The
Kallimitri have advised me that the genetic samples obtained from Jack Crichton are suitable for their
procedure.”
“Pilot, do they have enough DNA for the entire procedure?” D’Argo asked.
“They report that it is sufficient.” Pilot’s holographic image turned in Jack’s direction. “Thank you for coming to
help your son, Jack Crichton,” the large symbiote said to the human visitor. “He means more to Moya and me
than we can ever express.” The image disappeared from sight.
“What was that?” Jack breathed into the small silence following Pilot’s announcement.
“Pilot. He is one with Moya. He said thank you for coming to help John,” Aeryn relayed for him.
“One with?” Jack fumbled at a gleaming ovoid table and sank down onto a seat. The surrealism of his
surroundings assaulted him, pressing in with a nearly physical force. He closed his eyes and tried to
concentrate on the one item that promised to make this insane venture worthwhile -- a chance to see his son.
He was trembling slightly as he considered how ludicrous it sounded for a single human being to travel clear
across the universe in order to make a house call of sorts on his ailing offspring. “I need to see John now,” he
repeated, hoping the familiar sight would help him cope with the strangeness of his surroundings.
“We will go in a microt,” Aeryn said from behind him. “I must talk at the others. You are all right?” Jack nodded
numbly and she moved away.
He shut his eyes again, reminding himself that he had traveled to the moon and back at a time when some
people on Earth still thought the first lunar landing had been faked on a Hollywood set. His entire career had
consisted of pushing beyond limitations and expectations, seeking and achieving goals that most people only
dreamed about. “Well you found it this time, Jack,” he said quietly to himself, feeling marginally better. He’d
talked himself into going somewhere that very few individuals on Earth would be willing to admit even existed.
He’d demanded that they bring him here, so it was up to him to cope with the new environment.
“Okay?”
Jack jumped at the high voice, opening his eyes and refocusing on his surroundings. “What?” The white-
haired woman he’d seen talking to Aeryn in the hangar was standing next to him, head cocked at an angle to
look into his face.
She poked his chest lightly with a single finger. “Oh … kay?” It seemed they’d all learned some English from
John, adapting to his presence as he had certainly adapted to theirs.
“Yes. This is all a bit overwhelming though.” It took a concerted effort not to talk in pidgin English, forced to
remind himself every time he opened his mouth that they could understand everything he said. “Ian told me a
little about everyone on the way here. Who are you?”
“Chiana,” she stated, smiling. She began pointing to the others. “Nerri.” A man with the same gray skin, but
jet-black hair. She put her two fists together, curled thumbs bumping against each other.
“Your husband?” Head shake. She tried placing her palms together and then separating her hands.
“Brother?” Yes.
“Hendlah.” Next person, same species, a woman -- Nerri’s wife, as conveyed by Chiana’s clasped hands. She
introduced him laboriously to each of the individuals in the room, the process proceeding more quickly as they
worked out hand signals for various relationships. D’Argo’s son Jothee and his young wife, D’Argo’s fiancée,
which took five tries to convey, two other unrelated individuals of
Chiana’s species, three Sebaceans, and the hologram that he’d already been told was the pilot, were all
pointed out and labeled for him.
“Are there more aboard?” he asked her. She nodded and began firing out names, counting on her fingers as
she progressed. Another fifteen were added to the list. “Quite a collection. I’m glad John had so many good
friends to help him when he got here.” The woman at his elbow looked grief-stricken, and in a flash of intuition,
Jack knew that it wasn’t the prospect of losing John that was causing the reaction.
“Not so many at some point,” he suggested.
She pointed to herself, D’Argo, and Aeryn, adding Pilot at the last minute. Her high, chirping voice explained
something that he would never understand, then she added the others in the room one by one, working
through everyone present in the order that they’d joined the small community.
“Jack Crich-ton?” D’Argo called awkwardly, waving him to join the group.
“They say you can go back to Earth now,” Ian translated as Jack moved into their midst. “Since the Kallimitri
have confirmed that your DNA is close enough to Dad’s, they think you should leave to avoid any chance of
getting stuck here.” Ian scratched at the top of his ear, looking mildly embarrassed by the pronouncement, as
though he didn’t agree with the suggestion.
Jack folded his arms and glared at the assembled group. “Folks, I don’t know what John has told you about me
over the years, but if you think I’m leaving without seeing him, you are all out of your minds.” An argument
broke out immediately. “Wait a minute!” Jack yelled into the discussion. “Why exactly don’t you want me to see
John?”
“Melnatsa,” Ian said gently, “he isn’t the person any of us knew before. It’s not Dad anymore. They say you
should go home remembering him the way you knew him before.” Jack watched the son of John Crichton try to
offer him some comfort while coping with his own loss and grief, and knew that he had to see the man who had
raised this remarkable youngster, even if it destroyed his memory of John in the process.
“Take me to him,” Jack ordered. “I’m not leaving until I see John.” No one moved except to look at each other,
all appearing equally uncomfortable. “Aeryn Sun … take me to see my son now,” he ordered, turning in her
direction. “You’ve been stalling ever since I got on board. Either you show me where he is right now or I’ll start
searching this ship room by room until I find him.”
Aeryn turned on Ian, spouting an impassioned demand of some sort. One by one the others joined back in, the
argument escalating until they were all yelling at each other again, accompanied by wild hand motions. It was
truly incredible, Jack realized, watching Ian throw himself back into the discussion. His grandson, barely an
adult, was serving as the liaison between him and several other species. He watched as the young man looped
his thumbs behind the buckle of his belt, standing with one hip cocked as he babbled in what was now
detectable as several different languages, his body calmer than the rest of the group despite the fact that he
was talking just as loudly. Jack looked at the stance and recognized the habit he’d identified as familiar but
uncomfortable when they’d been standing in his kitchen. Ian was accustomed to standing like that, but he
hadn’t been wearing the weapon, and had resorted to hooking his thumbs into his trousers instead of behind
the belt to the holster.
For an instant, Jack was able to see John in the chamber, standing with his shoulders slightly rounded as his
focus moved inside his own mind, a stance his mother had tried to break him of saying it would ruin his
posture. He squinted his eyes, blurring the scene before him, and he was able to see his son, the heavier,
more mature body commanding more attention in the group, John arguing back, completely at ease living with
these … people. The image brought him back to the battle being waged, reminding him that they still hadn’t
ceded to his request. Jack counted slowly to ten then turned and headed for the doorway.
“Wait!” Aeryn yelled behind him, following up with a flood of her own language. The rest of the group went
quiet as she strode after him.
“I couldn’t understand any of that,” Jack returned. He waited, halfway across Command as she growled in
frustration then snapped something at Ian.
“We’ve been through this!” he yelled. “We can’t give him translator microbes. It creates too many problems!”
He fired off another long spiel, lapsing into something other than English.
Aeryn turned her back for several seconds, her shoulders squared and rigid, then turned back, eyes blazing
with something Jack thought might be anger. He took two steps away from her, concerned about the level of
emotions in the room and the weapon in her holster.
“Frell!” she screamed in frustration. A DRD zipped out of a maintenance hatch, headed for the doorway and
the corridor beyond on a trajectory that unfortunately took it within range of Aeryn’s feet. Jack dodged to one
side as the blameless robot sailed into the corridor with an electronic wail of dismay, coming to a clattering
impact against the curving wall. Aeryn turned to glare at Jack next, and he took another step back, moving
away from her.
“I am sorry,” she offered, the anger evaporating in a single second. “It is very … ” she clenched both fists and
shook them in front of her body.
“Frustrating?” he offered.
“Frus-rating,” she repeated. “We have germs in our heads that tell us what others say to us. John has these
too. If we give them to you, it will be bad when you go back to Earth.”
“Germs?” Jack asked, turning toward Ian.
“Microbes actually. We could inject you, but it might cause a problem in the wormhole going back, because you’
d be taking back something you didn’t arrive with, creating an imbalance of sorts. And if someone on Earth
were to find them –- ” Ian spread his hands, inviting Jack to theorize about the outcome.
Jack nodded, understanding completely. “Don’t even begin to speculate. The problems would be enormous.”
He turned to Aeryn. “We’ll muddle through without them. This is why you understood everything but let Ian do
all the explaining when we first met.” She nodded. “All this is fine and very interesting, but I want you to take
me to see John. Now.”
Aeryn nodded and gestured toward the doorway. Jack glanced over his shoulder as he left Command,
checking on Ian, but the youngster showed no inclination of accompanying them. Several members of the crew
were drifting along behind him, falling behind as Aeryn moved to take the lead, hurrying into the passageways.
Jack lengthened his stride to keep up with her, all other concerns falling away as he focused on the fact that he
was going to see his son again.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
