Birthright
Part 5-3/4: A Mid-Story Epilogue (Is there such a thing?)
Aeryn sat up and pushed the golden thermal sheet to the foot of the spare medbed, unable to sleep. The quiet
susurrence of the Kallimitri machines was sufficiently hypnotic to lull her to the edge of sleep, but it wasn’t
enough to carry her past the point where her imagination took over to fill her mind with dozens of possibilities of
what the future held for her. Sleep fled before the visions again and again, leaving her exhausted and
ill-equipped to cope with the demands of the new day aboard Moya.
“Aeryn?” the near-whisper broke into her thoughts. Chiana slid into the medical bay one hesitant step after
another. Aeryn waved her in, pulling her braid loose with her free hand. “I can watch for a while if you’d like to
go to your quarters,” Chiana suggested, wandering to the edge of the medbed where Crichton continued to
sleep through the Kallimitri treatment.
“I’ve tried. I wind up wandering between our quarters, the hangar bay, and here,” Aeryn admitted. “I lie down to
get some sleep, and the next thing I know I’m standing in the hangar, waiting.” It had been eight solar days
since Ian had disappeared into the wormhole to take Jack back to Earth, and there was no sign of the luxan
ship. Aeryn wandered about the chamber for a few microts, eventually orbiting back to John’s side as though
drawn to an irresistible gravity source.
“Ian will show up,” Chiana tried to reassure her. “You remember what happened the last time Crichton dove
into a wormhole. That trip took nearly thirty solar days before he reappeared, and he thought he’d only been
gone four.”
Aeryn gave an uncomfortable shrug, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with the possibility that her son would
magically reappear. It had taken cycles for her and John to learn to communicate openly, but once the last of
the barricades had been torn down, they’d shared virtually every moment of their lives, regaling each other with
anecdotes, memories, and long tales of moments both good and bad. His stories had informed her all too well
of what sorts of problems and beings Ian might have encountered while transitioning a wormhole.
“He’s got Nerri and Hendlah with him. There isn’t anyone I trust more to take care of him,” Aeryn answered at
last. “Except maybe you or D’Argo.”
She glanced at her long-time friend, trying to remember what the nebari woman had looked like that first day
when Durka and Salis had towed the captive onto Moya, comparing that memory to the person who stood next
to her now. There was more self-control and restraint overall, but little else had changed over the cycles. The
odd angular twitches had never disappeared, and the shaggy white ruff of hair was as thick and lustrous as it
was twenty-five cycles earlier. The weight of their experiences together seemed to settle onto Aeryn’s
shoulders, not as a burden, but as a reminder that there were good friends on board Moya who would help her
to continue even if both Ian and John were lost.
“Has he said anything more?” Chiana’s careful inquiry broke in on her musings.
“No.”
John had awakened several times over the past days, but each interval had been depressingly brief and had
revealed no improvement in his condition. The second phase of the Kallimitri treatment had begun by inflicting
two entire days of muscle cramps on the patient, requiring that someone stay with him at all times to keep him
quiet and still. He’d had spent much of the two days muttering small complaints in such broken, slurred
syllables that even Aeryn couldn’t decipher the fragments of English. The physical symptoms had faded
gradually, yielding up the same unending coma interspersed with occasional confused ramblings.
“What about the furry frelniks?” Chiana asked, using the term she preferred instead of the species’ true name.
“What do they say?”
“They think everything’s going wonderfully,” she said sarcastically, referring to the brown-furred visitors. “But
they still can’t predict how well this will work.” Aeryn took several long steps away from the medbed and eyed a
small storage container, wondering if she could kick it all the way into the corridor without hitting anything on the
way out. She’d refrained from that type of frustrated outburst ever since Ian was five and had begun copying
her tendency to lash out at inanimate objects, but it seemed a reasonable alternative at the moment.
“Aeryn?” Chiana’s short inquiry drew her back to her surroundings yet again. “Why don’t you go for a walk,”
she suggested, her gaze flicking between Aeryn and the blameless container. “Take a few microts to wander
around and get some exercise. Get something to eat.”
The tension drained out of Aeryn faster than it had built, leaving her trembling with fatigue. “You might be
right. I could go say hello to Pilot while I’m at it.”
“I’ll stay here,” Chiana said. “And …” Aeryn made a small gesture with her head, encouraging her to continue.
“Well … I checked with Pilot before I came down here. There’s still no sign of Lo’La anywhere. Moya’s still
flying the pattern they set up to check the entire nexus. They’ll find him when he shows up.”
Aeryn’s stomach spasmed unpleasantly as Chiana’s reassurances forced her to consider that Ian might not
show up at all. She nodded and turned away, swallowing hard against the all too familiar discomfort. She’d
known it was a possibility when she’d watched Ian pilot Lo’La out of the hangar bay, but despite her precaution
of sending Nerri and Hendlah with him, somehow she hadn’t really believed he’d get lost.
Ian’s uncanny ability to navigate through time and space had made itself known when he was just four cycles
old. They’d had no inkling of his inheritance until the day that Moya, in an act of desperation, had allowed
herself to be flown into a wormhole. Ian had been in Command with them when the fiasco had begun, and had
wound up standing beside his father, one small hand hooked securely into the tie-down strap of John’s holster
to steady himself as he gazed happily at the twisting tunnel spooling out ahead of them.
“Crap!” John had exploded as they’d gyrated toward a four-way branching of the undulating corridor.
“Which way?” she’d yelled at him. Moya had agreed to dive into the anomaly as a last ditch effort to escape a
nebari ship that had been intent on capturing the resistance leader who had taken refuge aboard the leviathan
arns earlier. Aeryn was flying the huge ship manually, taking care of that single task while Pilot devoted all of
his attention to helping his enormous partner adapt to the rapidly changing conditions in the wormhole. “Which
way?” she called again with more urgency as they spun toward the branching choices.
John closed his eyes and she knew he was trying to ‘feel’ his way to the correct route. She yanked the control
column over hard, the flooring shuddering through her boot soles as Moya’s drive system attempted to comply
with the directive to loop around in the confined space: a desperate move designed to give John time to find
the right alley. They spun around fast, Moya switching end for end in a tight circle, and then they were sliding
toward the multiple choices again all too soon, accelerating rapidly.
“That side down, Daddy,” Ian’s high voice had piped as he indicated one undulating funnel. He hadn’t quite
learned his lefts and rights yet, and resorted to pointing with one small finger.
“What?” both parents exploded together, the strain of the situation goading them both into over-reacting.
“Which one?” John barked at his small son, sounding harsh due to the danger inherent in their current
situation.
“That one?” Ian said anxiously, still pointing. The grayish eyes flickered between his stressed parents, tears
welling up in response to their unthinking yells.
“Go down and left!” John instructed her, picking Ian up in the crook of one arm while he clung to a console with
the other, all of Command bouncing violently as Moya ricocheted off a snaking wall and slid into the indicated
branching. “You da man,” John reassured his anxious son, holding him tight. “How’d you know?”
“Was that the correct one?” Aeryn asked more moderately, fighting to hold the steering column steady.
“Sure was, but he got it before I did. How’d you know? Oh frell, here comes another one!” John exclaimed
before he could get an answer from the child. “Six choices!? Why isn’t anything ever easy? It shouldn’t be this
hard. Which one, Ian?” he asked, never questioning that his son would know which way to go.
“Middle middle,” the small wormhole expert instructed, pointing.
“Go for it!” John yelled as Moya spun along her axis. Their trajectory steadied, headed for the center of the
cluster at near-starburst velocities.
“Daddy said frell!” Ian giggled into a quieter moment, steadying himself against his father by hanging on to an
ear.
“He’s gonna say more than that before this is over,” John exclaimed, detaching the hand and directing his son
to hang on to his collar instead. He sat Ian on the console, holding the four-cycle-old securely while bracing
himself as well. “Okay Junior Einstein, Moya needs to get out of here, but we want …”
“Left!” “That way!” John and Ian yelled simultaneously as Moya arced around a bend to face a split.
“We want to go back to the same time we started. We want a place where it feels the same as when we left.
Get us out, Ian,” John ordered.
“There!” the boy pointed.
“Are you sure?” Aeryn challenged the speed of his decision.
“There!” Ian yelled louder. “Now … now!” Moya curved to the right, spun along her axis twice, and flew out of
the chaos into the relative peace of normal space.
“How does it feel?” Aeryn asked John, relinquishing the control stick and watching it sink into the vertical column
where it was normally stored. The floor shuddered once as Moya coasted on imparted momentum, the groans
of strain dying away in stages to leave Command almost unnaturally quiet.
“Perfect,” he responded without hesitation. He spun Ian around to face him, lowering his head until their noses
touched and he had to cross his eyes in order to look at the clear gray-eyed stare facing him. “Okay, little
dude. We need to talk,” he addressed his son cheerfully. “How’d you managed to beat your Dad at the
find-the-wormhole game?”
Aeryn emerged from her reverie to find herself standing in Command, leaning against the console where John
had faced Ian that day. He’d been forced to admit that the knowledge he’d tried so hard to eradicate from the
universe had been passed on to the most vulnerable member of the growing community aboard Moya. Only
Nerri had been privy to that conversation, listening from the corner where the wounded fugitive had sat huddled
against one of Moya’s ribs; and he had sworn to keep the secret no matter what, assessing in an instant how
dangerous it would be for the child if anyone knew what Ian’s genes contained.
“Where are you?” she called in a whisper to her missing son. The stars shifted across the view screen, drifting
incrementally as Moya continued her patrol of the nexus. “Come home, Ian. I need you.” Aeryn scanned the
view one more time, watching for any stray bit of light that might turn out to be starlight bouncing off the
gleaming metallic hull of a luxan ship, and then walked slowly from Command.
* * * * *
Two more days passed without any sign of the missing ship, and aside from some disjointed mumbling there
had been no change in John’s condition. The Kallimitri spun happily around the leviathan, visiting the medical
bay from time to time to chatter amongst themselves in tones that indicated their pleased approval of the
experiment. The third phase of their process had begun, they announced, and it was proceeding as they had
planned. The test subject continued to lie silently; all of his energy apparently devoted to coping with the
invisible changes.
D’Argo eased into the medical bay one careful step at a time, letting his weight ease down onto his insteps
gradually so his boots didn’t make any noise. He was trailed by Jothee and the young sebacean Vellum, both
moving with as much care as the big luxan. Aeryn was asleep for once, curled on her side so that she faced
John; her mouth gaping slightly as she finally gave in to her mounting exhaustion. D’Argo backed away,
motioning to his two shadows to retreat from the chamber.
“Let her sleep,” he hissed in a whisper, shooing them before him. Jothee turned to leave immediately, but
Vellum paused, watching the sleeping pair for several microts. D’Argo grabbed him by the back of the neck
and dragged him toward the door, showing little compassion for the Peacekeeper deserter. Vellum took a deep
breath in preparation for a complaint, and D’Argo slapped a large hand across his mouth, stifling any outburst.
“Be quiet,” he ordered into one ear, “or I will gladly break your neck!”
“Officer Sun!” Pilot’s excited shout burst over the comms, shattering the quiet D’Argo had been striving to
maintain. Aeryn snapped upright in a microt, looking disoriented and bewildered.
“Aeryn!” Pilot called a second time as his image appeared in the clamshell.
“Yes, Pilot?” she answered, rubbing at one eye with the heel of her hand. She checked on John first then
peered at the trio standing in the doorway.
“D’Argo’s ship has just emerged from one of the wormholes. I am …” The remainder of Pilot’s message was
lost as Aeryn bolted out the door, scattering the three males in her rush. They looked at each other in shock,
then ran after her, leaving the image of a crestfallen Pilot to view the almost empty chamber. “They report that
everyone is fine,” he finished, then the hologram faded out of sight.
* * * * *
Most of the crew was already assembled in the maintenance bay adjacent to the hangar by the time Aeryn
turned the corner and slowed to a walk. The cluster of bodies separated as she approached and Ian turned to
face her, looking tired but otherwise healthy. He smiled at her, looking sheepish, and she felt giddy and
lightheaded, as though she’d been holding her breath for several days and was rediscovering oxygen. Aeryn
searched for something to say to greet the son she’d begun to think was lost forever. The only words that
came to mind were, ‘Where the frell have you been?’ She settled for a smile instead, hoping that no one would
notice the trembling that seemed to have infected her entire body.
“They told me it’s been ten solar days,” Ian explained, walking toward her. “I’m sorry, Mother.” He hesitated no
more than a half-microt, creating a barely perceptible pause in his forward motion, and then stepped close to
hug her. “The wormhole started to change earlier than I expected. We had to find a different route home.” He
pulled her close, indulging in a completely uncharacteristic display of affection.
“You’re safe. That’s all that matters,” she said into his shoulder, then pulled away and looked at him more
closely. “How long were you gone by your figures?”
“Two solar days,” he answered, frowning in concern as she took an additional step back and checked him over
head to foot. “What’s the matter?”
“You’ve grown again,” Aeryn smiled at him, seeing the man-to-be standing in front of her. She crossed her
arms in front of her, holding herself both physically and emotionally as the relief flooded over her again.
Several vertebrae in her lower back seemed to be inexplicably missing, leaving her wobbling unsteadily on
numb feet as the others crowded around for a few moments to welcoming Ian back. The furor settled down and
the rest of the crew streamed out of the maintenance bay. The excitement was over for them, normalcy
restored with the return of the wanderers.
“Why don’t you get some sleep?” she suggested when they were alone. “You look tired.” She wanted to touch
him, to check him over for bumps, bruises, or omissions, ensuring that every bit of her son had come home to
her intact. Aeryn folded her arms instead, tucking her hands under her elbows to keep from reaching out,
resuming the tightly enfolded position that seemed to help keep her various parts from flying off into space.
Ian gestured for her to lead and they walked together into the passageway, headed toward the center of the
ship. “What are you going to do now?” he asked instead of answering her question. Aeryn stumbled slightly,
the corridor seeming to undulate as fatigue moved back in to replace her waning excitement. “You’re the one
who needs some sleep,” he accused her. “Have you been awake the entire ten days?”
“Of course not,” she snapped at him, reacting to a censure that wasn’t present in his question. “You didn’t
deserve that,” she apologized quickly. “I wasn’t awake the entire ten days; it was more like eight.”
“Probably more like nine,” he countered, looking at her sideways. “Has there been any change?” His question
emerged in hesitating jerks, each word tumbling out with difficulty.
Aeryn shook her head. “The Kallimitri are happy, but they haven’t said one word about how well it’s working.
I’m beginning to suspect they have no clue whether or not this will cure him.” She stopped walking, turning
away from the youngster long enough to wipe the threatening moisture out of her eyes. Ian didn’t need the
additional emotional burden of watching his mother dissolve into tears.
“Mother?” the deeper version of his voice called to her. She retreated from the visions of despair, turning away
from considerations of life without John. “You’ll be all right even if it doesn’t work,” he asserted. “You’re
strong.” The tired eyes watched her carefully for her reaction, suggesting to Aeryn that something peculiar had
happened to him at some point over the past few days.
“I have my strength back now,” she agreed, linking her arm through his. “You’re absolutely right. I can survive
this.” Some sort of tension flowed out of his body as they turned together and resumed their course through
the tier, his frame somehow becoming more relaxed and yet more resilient at the same time, and she made a
mental note to conduct a motherly interrogation once they were both rested. “I’m hungry -- let’s go get
something to eat.”
“What about … ?”
“Chiana’s watching him. She’ll comm us if there’s even the smallest twitch. There’s nothing to do down there
right now, Ian.” He nodded and pulled her arm more tightly into his, maintaining the contact all the way to the
Center Chamber, pulling free only when they heard voices ahead of them.
* * * * *
“I’ll be back in a little while,” Ian told her as he slid off the workbench.
The lithe, black-clad form disappeared out the doorway of the medical chamber, moving more like his father
than ever before. Aeryn stared at the empty doorway for several microts, considering the subtle but distinct
change that had come over Ian in the two days since his return to Moya. He had always been somewhat
phlegmatic, accepting the oddities of his life without any apparent trouble, but he’d also shown flashes of her
own mercurial temper on a regular basis. The past two solar days had revealed a calmer person -- someone
who had magically fastened himself to a stable pedestal, resulting in fewer of his volatile outbursts. Her probes
had yielded no clues to explain the change so she attributed it to a natural maturing and tried to adapt to the
emerging adult.
The Kallimitri had answered their questions about the continuing treatments with smiles, assurances, and a
tangled explanation that no one on board could decipher. They’d tried blunt questions requiring no more than
a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer, and had left the conversation no more enlightened than when they’d started. Two or
three of the crew had been overheard grumbling about the currency sacrificed to hire the geneticists,
suggesting that it was wasted credits. D’Argo, still nominal captain after so many cycles, had invited the
malcontents to depart Moya aboard one of the spare ships, taking Vellum with them, and the grousing had
miraculously disappeared.
“Aeryn?” The baritone query that broke into her thoughts startled her more for its firmness of tone than for who
was speaking.
“John!” She was by his side without remembering the transition from one point to the other. “Hi there,” she
greeted him. “How do you feel?” His eyes locked on to hers for several microts, more focused than any of his
previous confused awakenings.
“A little woozy,” he admitted. “What’s going on?” One hand crawled across the padded surface so that two
fingers could fumble at her hand, trying to draw her into a grasp. She fit her hand into his and pressed them
closed with her second hand, holding him tight. There was a hint of a squeeze against her fingers, the only bit
of motion coming from him other than the movement of his eyes as he looked around him.
“Are you going to stay awake for a little while?” she asked. His gaze wandered uncontrollably, flicking up and
down, left and right, before settling back on her face.
“I think so,” he answered at last.
“Pilot?” she called, assuming he’d be monitoring the chamber. “Tell Ian only, please.”
“He has already been informed, Aeryn,” Pilot’s hologram answered from the clamshell. “You do not wish the
others to be notified?”
“Yes, but not yet.” She turned back to John. He was staring at the purplish image in the corner, his brow
furrowed to the point that it looked as though he was scowling at the wavering face.
“Hi Pilot,” he said a moment later, the frown disappearing. Aeryn clung more tightly to his hand, bracing herself
as her knees threatened to buckle. It was the first time he’d remembered Pilot in almost forty solar days. John
turned back to her. “Want to tell me what’s going on, or do I have to play twenty questions?”
“I’ll tell you, I promise I’ll tell you,” she laughed. “I’ve got a question for you first.” Running footsteps pounded
down the corridor, a drumming that said she had only microts to find out if one critical piece of his memory had
returned. “John …” It was too late. Ian rounded the corner looking flustered, excited and apprehensive all at
the same time.
John craned his neck to look at the newcomer, the customary confusion appearing immediately. Ian saw the
expression and his shoulders slumped inside the black leather jacket. “It’s okay,” he said in a shaking whisper
to his mother.
“No, it isn’t okay, Ian,” John broke in. “I want to know why you’re wearing my jacket. Don’t you have one of your
own?”
Ian grabbed at a workbench, supporting himself with his arms as he slowly slid down to sit on the floor, jaw
hanging open as he stared at his restored father. Aeryn abandoned the hand in order to yank John into a hug,
startling a yelp out of him as she slid a hip onto the medbed so she could pull herself close against his chest.
“Would someone please tell me what’s going on?” the confused patient asked one more time as he did his best
to hug her back.
* * * * *
Nerri and D’Argo were the last of the crew to filter out of the medical bay, leaving Aeryn and Ian to watch over a
sleeping Crichton. He’d managed to stay awake through most of the excited greetings, remembering everyone
and even treating Vellum to an angry scowl. “Why hasn’t someone booted that little twerp off Moya?” he’d
asked Aeryn in a whisper at one point.
“We thought you’d like to do it yourself,” she’d smiled down at him. He had insisted that he was recovered
enough to have her sit next to him, one arm looped around her waist to hold her in place. “What’s the last thing
you remember about him?”
“Finding him mucking around inside the module,” he growled. “He almost went out the airlock that afternoon.”
Aeryn sighed in relief at the answer. That incident had occurred after John had begun to show signs of the
disease, suggesting that all of his memory might be restored.
John had lasted through most of the ecstatic reunion, finally surrendering to his growing fatigue all at once.
He’d fallen asleep right in the middle of a sentence, closing his eyes as though concentrating on something,
and never bothered to reopen them. The chamber had gone silent as he dropped off, each person frozen in
place as they waited for the second half of his remark. Hendlah had realized what had happened even before
Aeryn felt John’s body relax, her soft whispering laugh releasing the momentarily paralyzed group to drift quietly
out of the room.
“Has your heart started yet?” Aeryn whispered to Ian as they watched John shift slightly beneath the thermal
sheet. He’d resumed the twitches and small movements normally expected of a sleeping person.
“Just barely,” Ian admitted. “The way he looked at me, I thought for sure he didn’t remember. Leave it to him to
scare me to death over his frelling jacket.” He stepped to his father’s side to stare down at him. After several
microts Ian wrapped his arms around his ribs and hugged himself. Aeryn recognized the habit as one he’d
picked up from her; an indulgence he allowed himself only when he was distraught to the point of tears.
“What’s the matter?” she asked, moving to stand beside him. “He’s better. He’s going to make it, Ian.”
He shook his head vigorously, and then pointed to John’s chin. “Look at his beard, Mom. Look at where it’s
growing in.”
She glanced at the tears creeping down Ian’s cheeks and then bent closer to see what his youthful eyes had
picked up. John’s beard had begun turning gray several cycles earlier, first in a speckled pattern, and then
becoming almost pure gray. His response had been to keep it meticulously shaved, the signs of aging hidden
from everyone including himself. Aeryn peered at the twelve days worth of growth, seeing nothing but the
lengthening colorless stubble.
“It’s his beard,” she stated, puzzled by Ian’s emotional outburst. Ian reached past her, grabbed John’s jaw
firmly, ignoring the fact that he was sleeping, and tilted his head to one side.
The blue eyes opened, swiveling to check on the two heads examining him at close range. “Oh frell, what’s
going on now?” he asked, words distorted by the grasp against his lower jaw.
“Your beard is coming in brown,” Aeryn announced, finally seeing the demarcation that Ian’s sharper, younger
eyes had picked up. She replaced Ian’s hand with her own, rolling John’s head back toward her, and kissed the
startled subject. “It’s working. It’s all working,” she laughed through her tears. “They’re fixing everything!”
“I’m getting younger?” John asked, struggling to sit up. “No way.”
“Way,” Ian answered as his father had taught him, starting to laugh.
“We’re going to be all right,” Aeryn concluded, her tears disappearing, and something dangerously close to a
giggle rising up in her chest. “I’m all right, you’re all right. We’re going to be all right.” She pulled Ian to her
with her left arm, and then they leaned over together so she could embrace John with her right; the two men
that made her life worth living close beside her, keeping her safe.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
Part 5-3/4: A Mid-Story Epilogue (Is there such a thing?)
Aeryn sat up and pushed the golden thermal sheet to the foot of the spare medbed, unable to sleep. The quiet
susurrence of the Kallimitri machines was sufficiently hypnotic to lull her to the edge of sleep, but it wasn’t
enough to carry her past the point where her imagination took over to fill her mind with dozens of possibilities of
what the future held for her. Sleep fled before the visions again and again, leaving her exhausted and
ill-equipped to cope with the demands of the new day aboard Moya.
“Aeryn?” the near-whisper broke into her thoughts. Chiana slid into the medical bay one hesitant step after
another. Aeryn waved her in, pulling her braid loose with her free hand. “I can watch for a while if you’d like to
go to your quarters,” Chiana suggested, wandering to the edge of the medbed where Crichton continued to
sleep through the Kallimitri treatment.
“I’ve tried. I wind up wandering between our quarters, the hangar bay, and here,” Aeryn admitted. “I lie down to
get some sleep, and the next thing I know I’m standing in the hangar, waiting.” It had been eight solar days
since Ian had disappeared into the wormhole to take Jack back to Earth, and there was no sign of the luxan
ship. Aeryn wandered about the chamber for a few microts, eventually orbiting back to John’s side as though
drawn to an irresistible gravity source.
“Ian will show up,” Chiana tried to reassure her. “You remember what happened the last time Crichton dove
into a wormhole. That trip took nearly thirty solar days before he reappeared, and he thought he’d only been
gone four.”
Aeryn gave an uncomfortable shrug, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with the possibility that her son would
magically reappear. It had taken cycles for her and John to learn to communicate openly, but once the last of
the barricades had been torn down, they’d shared virtually every moment of their lives, regaling each other with
anecdotes, memories, and long tales of moments both good and bad. His stories had informed her all too well
of what sorts of problems and beings Ian might have encountered while transitioning a wormhole.
“He’s got Nerri and Hendlah with him. There isn’t anyone I trust more to take care of him,” Aeryn answered at
last. “Except maybe you or D’Argo.”
She glanced at her long-time friend, trying to remember what the nebari woman had looked like that first day
when Durka and Salis had towed the captive onto Moya, comparing that memory to the person who stood next
to her now. There was more self-control and restraint overall, but little else had changed over the cycles. The
odd angular twitches had never disappeared, and the shaggy white ruff of hair was as thick and lustrous as it
was twenty-five cycles earlier. The weight of their experiences together seemed to settle onto Aeryn’s
shoulders, not as a burden, but as a reminder that there were good friends on board Moya who would help her
to continue even if both Ian and John were lost.
“Has he said anything more?” Chiana’s careful inquiry broke in on her musings.
“No.”
John had awakened several times over the past days, but each interval had been depressingly brief and had
revealed no improvement in his condition. The second phase of the Kallimitri treatment had begun by inflicting
two entire days of muscle cramps on the patient, requiring that someone stay with him at all times to keep him
quiet and still. He’d had spent much of the two days muttering small complaints in such broken, slurred
syllables that even Aeryn couldn’t decipher the fragments of English. The physical symptoms had faded
gradually, yielding up the same unending coma interspersed with occasional confused ramblings.
“What about the furry frelniks?” Chiana asked, using the term she preferred instead of the species’ true name.
“What do they say?”
“They think everything’s going wonderfully,” she said sarcastically, referring to the brown-furred visitors. “But
they still can’t predict how well this will work.” Aeryn took several long steps away from the medbed and eyed a
small storage container, wondering if she could kick it all the way into the corridor without hitting anything on the
way out. She’d refrained from that type of frustrated outburst ever since Ian was five and had begun copying
her tendency to lash out at inanimate objects, but it seemed a reasonable alternative at the moment.
“Aeryn?” Chiana’s short inquiry drew her back to her surroundings yet again. “Why don’t you go for a walk,”
she suggested, her gaze flicking between Aeryn and the blameless container. “Take a few microts to wander
around and get some exercise. Get something to eat.”
The tension drained out of Aeryn faster than it had built, leaving her trembling with fatigue. “You might be
right. I could go say hello to Pilot while I’m at it.”
“I’ll stay here,” Chiana said. “And …” Aeryn made a small gesture with her head, encouraging her to continue.
“Well … I checked with Pilot before I came down here. There’s still no sign of Lo’La anywhere. Moya’s still
flying the pattern they set up to check the entire nexus. They’ll find him when he shows up.”
Aeryn’s stomach spasmed unpleasantly as Chiana’s reassurances forced her to consider that Ian might not
show up at all. She nodded and turned away, swallowing hard against the all too familiar discomfort. She’d
known it was a possibility when she’d watched Ian pilot Lo’La out of the hangar bay, but despite her precaution
of sending Nerri and Hendlah with him, somehow she hadn’t really believed he’d get lost.
Ian’s uncanny ability to navigate through time and space had made itself known when he was just four cycles
old. They’d had no inkling of his inheritance until the day that Moya, in an act of desperation, had allowed
herself to be flown into a wormhole. Ian had been in Command with them when the fiasco had begun, and had
wound up standing beside his father, one small hand hooked securely into the tie-down strap of John’s holster
to steady himself as he gazed happily at the twisting tunnel spooling out ahead of them.
“Crap!” John had exploded as they’d gyrated toward a four-way branching of the undulating corridor.
“Which way?” she’d yelled at him. Moya had agreed to dive into the anomaly as a last ditch effort to escape a
nebari ship that had been intent on capturing the resistance leader who had taken refuge aboard the leviathan
arns earlier. Aeryn was flying the huge ship manually, taking care of that single task while Pilot devoted all of
his attention to helping his enormous partner adapt to the rapidly changing conditions in the wormhole. “Which
way?” she called again with more urgency as they spun toward the branching choices.
John closed his eyes and she knew he was trying to ‘feel’ his way to the correct route. She yanked the control
column over hard, the flooring shuddering through her boot soles as Moya’s drive system attempted to comply
with the directive to loop around in the confined space: a desperate move designed to give John time to find
the right alley. They spun around fast, Moya switching end for end in a tight circle, and then they were sliding
toward the multiple choices again all too soon, accelerating rapidly.
“That side down, Daddy,” Ian’s high voice had piped as he indicated one undulating funnel. He hadn’t quite
learned his lefts and rights yet, and resorted to pointing with one small finger.
“What?” both parents exploded together, the strain of the situation goading them both into over-reacting.
“Which one?” John barked at his small son, sounding harsh due to the danger inherent in their current
situation.
“That one?” Ian said anxiously, still pointing. The grayish eyes flickered between his stressed parents, tears
welling up in response to their unthinking yells.
“Go down and left!” John instructed her, picking Ian up in the crook of one arm while he clung to a console with
the other, all of Command bouncing violently as Moya ricocheted off a snaking wall and slid into the indicated
branching. “You da man,” John reassured his anxious son, holding him tight. “How’d you know?”
“Was that the correct one?” Aeryn asked more moderately, fighting to hold the steering column steady.
“Sure was, but he got it before I did. How’d you know? Oh frell, here comes another one!” John exclaimed
before he could get an answer from the child. “Six choices!? Why isn’t anything ever easy? It shouldn’t be this
hard. Which one, Ian?” he asked, never questioning that his son would know which way to go.
“Middle middle,” the small wormhole expert instructed, pointing.
“Go for it!” John yelled as Moya spun along her axis. Their trajectory steadied, headed for the center of the
cluster at near-starburst velocities.
“Daddy said frell!” Ian giggled into a quieter moment, steadying himself against his father by hanging on to an
ear.
“He’s gonna say more than that before this is over,” John exclaimed, detaching the hand and directing his son
to hang on to his collar instead. He sat Ian on the console, holding the four-cycle-old securely while bracing
himself as well. “Okay Junior Einstein, Moya needs to get out of here, but we want …”
“Left!” “That way!” John and Ian yelled simultaneously as Moya arced around a bend to face a split.
“We want to go back to the same time we started. We want a place where it feels the same as when we left.
Get us out, Ian,” John ordered.
“There!” the boy pointed.
“Are you sure?” Aeryn challenged the speed of his decision.
“There!” Ian yelled louder. “Now … now!” Moya curved to the right, spun along her axis twice, and flew out of
the chaos into the relative peace of normal space.
“How does it feel?” Aeryn asked John, relinquishing the control stick and watching it sink into the vertical column
where it was normally stored. The floor shuddered once as Moya coasted on imparted momentum, the groans
of strain dying away in stages to leave Command almost unnaturally quiet.
“Perfect,” he responded without hesitation. He spun Ian around to face him, lowering his head until their noses
touched and he had to cross his eyes in order to look at the clear gray-eyed stare facing him. “Okay, little
dude. We need to talk,” he addressed his son cheerfully. “How’d you managed to beat your Dad at the
find-the-wormhole game?”
Aeryn emerged from her reverie to find herself standing in Command, leaning against the console where John
had faced Ian that day. He’d been forced to admit that the knowledge he’d tried so hard to eradicate from the
universe had been passed on to the most vulnerable member of the growing community aboard Moya. Only
Nerri had been privy to that conversation, listening from the corner where the wounded fugitive had sat huddled
against one of Moya’s ribs; and he had sworn to keep the secret no matter what, assessing in an instant how
dangerous it would be for the child if anyone knew what Ian’s genes contained.
“Where are you?” she called in a whisper to her missing son. The stars shifted across the view screen, drifting
incrementally as Moya continued her patrol of the nexus. “Come home, Ian. I need you.” Aeryn scanned the
view one more time, watching for any stray bit of light that might turn out to be starlight bouncing off the
gleaming metallic hull of a luxan ship, and then walked slowly from Command.
* * * * *
Two more days passed without any sign of the missing ship, and aside from some disjointed mumbling there
had been no change in John’s condition. The Kallimitri spun happily around the leviathan, visiting the medical
bay from time to time to chatter amongst themselves in tones that indicated their pleased approval of the
experiment. The third phase of their process had begun, they announced, and it was proceeding as they had
planned. The test subject continued to lie silently; all of his energy apparently devoted to coping with the
invisible changes.
D’Argo eased into the medical bay one careful step at a time, letting his weight ease down onto his insteps
gradually so his boots didn’t make any noise. He was trailed by Jothee and the young sebacean Vellum, both
moving with as much care as the big luxan. Aeryn was asleep for once, curled on her side so that she faced
John; her mouth gaping slightly as she finally gave in to her mounting exhaustion. D’Argo backed away,
motioning to his two shadows to retreat from the chamber.
“Let her sleep,” he hissed in a whisper, shooing them before him. Jothee turned to leave immediately, but
Vellum paused, watching the sleeping pair for several microts. D’Argo grabbed him by the back of the neck
and dragged him toward the door, showing little compassion for the Peacekeeper deserter. Vellum took a deep
breath in preparation for a complaint, and D’Argo slapped a large hand across his mouth, stifling any outburst.
“Be quiet,” he ordered into one ear, “or I will gladly break your neck!”
“Officer Sun!” Pilot’s excited shout burst over the comms, shattering the quiet D’Argo had been striving to
maintain. Aeryn snapped upright in a microt, looking disoriented and bewildered.
“Aeryn!” Pilot called a second time as his image appeared in the clamshell.
“Yes, Pilot?” she answered, rubbing at one eye with the heel of her hand. She checked on John first then
peered at the trio standing in the doorway.
“D’Argo’s ship has just emerged from one of the wormholes. I am …” The remainder of Pilot’s message was
lost as Aeryn bolted out the door, scattering the three males in her rush. They looked at each other in shock,
then ran after her, leaving the image of a crestfallen Pilot to view the almost empty chamber. “They report that
everyone is fine,” he finished, then the hologram faded out of sight.
* * * * *
Most of the crew was already assembled in the maintenance bay adjacent to the hangar by the time Aeryn
turned the corner and slowed to a walk. The cluster of bodies separated as she approached and Ian turned to
face her, looking tired but otherwise healthy. He smiled at her, looking sheepish, and she felt giddy and
lightheaded, as though she’d been holding her breath for several days and was rediscovering oxygen. Aeryn
searched for something to say to greet the son she’d begun to think was lost forever. The only words that
came to mind were, ‘Where the frell have you been?’ She settled for a smile instead, hoping that no one would
notice the trembling that seemed to have infected her entire body.
“They told me it’s been ten solar days,” Ian explained, walking toward her. “I’m sorry, Mother.” He hesitated no
more than a half-microt, creating a barely perceptible pause in his forward motion, and then stepped close to
hug her. “The wormhole started to change earlier than I expected. We had to find a different route home.” He
pulled her close, indulging in a completely uncharacteristic display of affection.
“You’re safe. That’s all that matters,” she said into his shoulder, then pulled away and looked at him more
closely. “How long were you gone by your figures?”
“Two solar days,” he answered, frowning in concern as she took an additional step back and checked him over
head to foot. “What’s the matter?”
“You’ve grown again,” Aeryn smiled at him, seeing the man-to-be standing in front of her. She crossed her
arms in front of her, holding herself both physically and emotionally as the relief flooded over her again.
Several vertebrae in her lower back seemed to be inexplicably missing, leaving her wobbling unsteadily on
numb feet as the others crowded around for a few moments to welcoming Ian back. The furor settled down and
the rest of the crew streamed out of the maintenance bay. The excitement was over for them, normalcy
restored with the return of the wanderers.
“Why don’t you get some sleep?” she suggested when they were alone. “You look tired.” She wanted to touch
him, to check him over for bumps, bruises, or omissions, ensuring that every bit of her son had come home to
her intact. Aeryn folded her arms instead, tucking her hands under her elbows to keep from reaching out,
resuming the tightly enfolded position that seemed to help keep her various parts from flying off into space.
Ian gestured for her to lead and they walked together into the passageway, headed toward the center of the
ship. “What are you going to do now?” he asked instead of answering her question. Aeryn stumbled slightly,
the corridor seeming to undulate as fatigue moved back in to replace her waning excitement. “You’re the one
who needs some sleep,” he accused her. “Have you been awake the entire ten days?”
“Of course not,” she snapped at him, reacting to a censure that wasn’t present in his question. “You didn’t
deserve that,” she apologized quickly. “I wasn’t awake the entire ten days; it was more like eight.”
“Probably more like nine,” he countered, looking at her sideways. “Has there been any change?” His question
emerged in hesitating jerks, each word tumbling out with difficulty.
Aeryn shook her head. “The Kallimitri are happy, but they haven’t said one word about how well it’s working.
I’m beginning to suspect they have no clue whether or not this will cure him.” She stopped walking, turning
away from the youngster long enough to wipe the threatening moisture out of her eyes. Ian didn’t need the
additional emotional burden of watching his mother dissolve into tears.
“Mother?” the deeper version of his voice called to her. She retreated from the visions of despair, turning away
from considerations of life without John. “You’ll be all right even if it doesn’t work,” he asserted. “You’re
strong.” The tired eyes watched her carefully for her reaction, suggesting to Aeryn that something peculiar had
happened to him at some point over the past few days.
“I have my strength back now,” she agreed, linking her arm through his. “You’re absolutely right. I can survive
this.” Some sort of tension flowed out of his body as they turned together and resumed their course through
the tier, his frame somehow becoming more relaxed and yet more resilient at the same time, and she made a
mental note to conduct a motherly interrogation once they were both rested. “I’m hungry -- let’s go get
something to eat.”
“What about … ?”
“Chiana’s watching him. She’ll comm us if there’s even the smallest twitch. There’s nothing to do down there
right now, Ian.” He nodded and pulled her arm more tightly into his, maintaining the contact all the way to the
Center Chamber, pulling free only when they heard voices ahead of them.
* * * * *
“I’ll be back in a little while,” Ian told her as he slid off the workbench.
The lithe, black-clad form disappeared out the doorway of the medical chamber, moving more like his father
than ever before. Aeryn stared at the empty doorway for several microts, considering the subtle but distinct
change that had come over Ian in the two days since his return to Moya. He had always been somewhat
phlegmatic, accepting the oddities of his life without any apparent trouble, but he’d also shown flashes of her
own mercurial temper on a regular basis. The past two solar days had revealed a calmer person -- someone
who had magically fastened himself to a stable pedestal, resulting in fewer of his volatile outbursts. Her probes
had yielded no clues to explain the change so she attributed it to a natural maturing and tried to adapt to the
emerging adult.
The Kallimitri had answered their questions about the continuing treatments with smiles, assurances, and a
tangled explanation that no one on board could decipher. They’d tried blunt questions requiring no more than
a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer, and had left the conversation no more enlightened than when they’d started. Two or
three of the crew had been overheard grumbling about the currency sacrificed to hire the geneticists,
suggesting that it was wasted credits. D’Argo, still nominal captain after so many cycles, had invited the
malcontents to depart Moya aboard one of the spare ships, taking Vellum with them, and the grousing had
miraculously disappeared.
“Aeryn?” The baritone query that broke into her thoughts startled her more for its firmness of tone than for who
was speaking.
“John!” She was by his side without remembering the transition from one point to the other. “Hi there,” she
greeted him. “How do you feel?” His eyes locked on to hers for several microts, more focused than any of his
previous confused awakenings.
“A little woozy,” he admitted. “What’s going on?” One hand crawled across the padded surface so that two
fingers could fumble at her hand, trying to draw her into a grasp. She fit her hand into his and pressed them
closed with her second hand, holding him tight. There was a hint of a squeeze against her fingers, the only bit
of motion coming from him other than the movement of his eyes as he looked around him.
“Are you going to stay awake for a little while?” she asked. His gaze wandered uncontrollably, flicking up and
down, left and right, before settling back on her face.
“I think so,” he answered at last.
“Pilot?” she called, assuming he’d be monitoring the chamber. “Tell Ian only, please.”
“He has already been informed, Aeryn,” Pilot’s hologram answered from the clamshell. “You do not wish the
others to be notified?”
“Yes, but not yet.” She turned back to John. He was staring at the purplish image in the corner, his brow
furrowed to the point that it looked as though he was scowling at the wavering face.
“Hi Pilot,” he said a moment later, the frown disappearing. Aeryn clung more tightly to his hand, bracing herself
as her knees threatened to buckle. It was the first time he’d remembered Pilot in almost forty solar days. John
turned back to her. “Want to tell me what’s going on, or do I have to play twenty questions?”
“I’ll tell you, I promise I’ll tell you,” she laughed. “I’ve got a question for you first.” Running footsteps pounded
down the corridor, a drumming that said she had only microts to find out if one critical piece of his memory had
returned. “John …” It was too late. Ian rounded the corner looking flustered, excited and apprehensive all at
the same time.
John craned his neck to look at the newcomer, the customary confusion appearing immediately. Ian saw the
expression and his shoulders slumped inside the black leather jacket. “It’s okay,” he said in a shaking whisper
to his mother.
“No, it isn’t okay, Ian,” John broke in. “I want to know why you’re wearing my jacket. Don’t you have one of your
own?”
Ian grabbed at a workbench, supporting himself with his arms as he slowly slid down to sit on the floor, jaw
hanging open as he stared at his restored father. Aeryn abandoned the hand in order to yank John into a hug,
startling a yelp out of him as she slid a hip onto the medbed so she could pull herself close against his chest.
“Would someone please tell me what’s going on?” the confused patient asked one more time as he did his best
to hug her back.
* * * * *
Nerri and D’Argo were the last of the crew to filter out of the medical bay, leaving Aeryn and Ian to watch over a
sleeping Crichton. He’d managed to stay awake through most of the excited greetings, remembering everyone
and even treating Vellum to an angry scowl. “Why hasn’t someone booted that little twerp off Moya?” he’d
asked Aeryn in a whisper at one point.
“We thought you’d like to do it yourself,” she’d smiled down at him. He had insisted that he was recovered
enough to have her sit next to him, one arm looped around her waist to hold her in place. “What’s the last thing
you remember about him?”
“Finding him mucking around inside the module,” he growled. “He almost went out the airlock that afternoon.”
Aeryn sighed in relief at the answer. That incident had occurred after John had begun to show signs of the
disease, suggesting that all of his memory might be restored.
John had lasted through most of the ecstatic reunion, finally surrendering to his growing fatigue all at once.
He’d fallen asleep right in the middle of a sentence, closing his eyes as though concentrating on something,
and never bothered to reopen them. The chamber had gone silent as he dropped off, each person frozen in
place as they waited for the second half of his remark. Hendlah had realized what had happened even before
Aeryn felt John’s body relax, her soft whispering laugh releasing the momentarily paralyzed group to drift quietly
out of the room.
“Has your heart started yet?” Aeryn whispered to Ian as they watched John shift slightly beneath the thermal
sheet. He’d resumed the twitches and small movements normally expected of a sleeping person.
“Just barely,” Ian admitted. “The way he looked at me, I thought for sure he didn’t remember. Leave it to him to
scare me to death over his frelling jacket.” He stepped to his father’s side to stare down at him. After several
microts Ian wrapped his arms around his ribs and hugged himself. Aeryn recognized the habit as one he’d
picked up from her; an indulgence he allowed himself only when he was distraught to the point of tears.
“What’s the matter?” she asked, moving to stand beside him. “He’s better. He’s going to make it, Ian.”
He shook his head vigorously, and then pointed to John’s chin. “Look at his beard, Mom. Look at where it’s
growing in.”
She glanced at the tears creeping down Ian’s cheeks and then bent closer to see what his youthful eyes had
picked up. John’s beard had begun turning gray several cycles earlier, first in a speckled pattern, and then
becoming almost pure gray. His response had been to keep it meticulously shaved, the signs of aging hidden
from everyone including himself. Aeryn peered at the twelve days worth of growth, seeing nothing but the
lengthening colorless stubble.
“It’s his beard,” she stated, puzzled by Ian’s emotional outburst. Ian reached past her, grabbed John’s jaw
firmly, ignoring the fact that he was sleeping, and tilted his head to one side.
The blue eyes opened, swiveling to check on the two heads examining him at close range. “Oh frell, what’s
going on now?” he asked, words distorted by the grasp against his lower jaw.
“Your beard is coming in brown,” Aeryn announced, finally seeing the demarcation that Ian’s sharper, younger
eyes had picked up. She replaced Ian’s hand with her own, rolling John’s head back toward her, and kissed the
startled subject. “It’s working. It’s all working,” she laughed through her tears. “They’re fixing everything!”
“I’m getting younger?” John asked, struggling to sit up. “No way.”
“Way,” Ian answered as his father had taught him, starting to laugh.
“We’re going to be all right,” Aeryn concluded, her tears disappearing, and something dangerously close to a
giggle rising up in her chest. “I’m all right, you’re all right. We’re going to be all right.” She pulled Ian to her
with her left arm, and then they leaned over together so she could embrace John with her right; the two men
that made her life worth living close beside her, keeping her safe.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
