Cholak's Demon
Chapter 8
Lieutenant Braca waited for the sharp summons, then marched through the doorway, snapping to attention in
front of Commandant Grayza’s work surface. “Ma’am,” he acknowledged, and then waited for a signal from his
superior.
“Report, Lieutenant.” Her voice slid into the room like a viscous fog, sliding slickly around every person and
object within its reach.
“The … operation,” he allowed a miniscule hesitation to precede the word, “has been completed as you
ordered, ma’am. Here is the casualty list for this mission.” Another small pause before his last word drew a
look from his commanding officer.
Grayza pulled the readout from his hand and surveyed it quickly, slowing as she scanned the list of names a
second time. “Lieutenant, you originally advised me that there were twenty-six killed in this engagement. This
list carries thirty-five names. Explain.”
“Yes, ma’am. When I reviewed the names of the officers killed in the hangar, I noted that there were no pilots
listed among them. This appeared suspicious. I cleared the hangar bay prior to loading the Marauders,
assigned our top three pilots to the detail, explaining that it was top secret, thus their selection for duty. The
operation also required two troopers per Marauder to load the bodies. I regret to inform you that all nine
additional personnel were lost when Crichton and his associates escaped our custody.” The lieutenant pulled
himself up straighter, a hint of a grin appearing as he waited for her response.
“Very good, Braca,” she oozed. “I believe there may be some sort of commendation in this for you. Report to
my quarters this evening, and we’ll discuss it.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” he inclined his head, a wider smile appearing.
“Transmit these statistics to High Command,” Grayza order, handing the transparency back to her subordinate.
“No need, Commandant Grayza. The representative from High Command docked five hundred microts ago,
and should be here himself very shortly.” Braca’s small smile had turned into a pleased smirk.
“Someone from High Command?” she demanded, instantly in a coldly dangerous rage. “Why wasn’t I
informed?” she snarled as the doors to her quarters slid open.
“Because I ordered Captain Braca not to advise you,” the smooth cultured voice slid into the conversation,
placing a heavy emphasis on the new rank.
“Scorpius,” Grayza sneered as the black-suited figure strolled into the room. “So they finally allowed you back
into space -- admirable considering your last debacle. Only two cycles spent answering a tribunal’s questions.
That may be a new Peacekeeper record for someone who lost a command carrier.”
Scorpius smiled at her, inclining his head to one side before looking down his nose at the commandant. “Yes,”
he hissed in agreement. “However, I am not the only one in this room to lose a command carrier. You, for
instance, have just lost command of this one.” He perched on the corner of her desk and began leafing
through the printouts and schematics. “High Command feels that your inability to even locate, let alone capture
John Crichton is proof that my methods were correct from the beginning. You have been reassigned to assist
me now.”
Grayza leaned back in her chair, watching him without a trace of emotion, the cold eyes calculating her next
move. “Very well, Scorpius. I will have my things moved --”
He stilled her with a gesture. “High Command has become aware of your rather unique interrogation
techniques,” he said. “They feel these methods have merit. You will remain in these quarters since they …
facilitate such questionings. You will be expected to conduct interrogations whenever High Command dictates.”
The half-breed leered his most dangerous smile at her.
The commandant sat up straighter as the implications of his orders sank in. “I will not serve as High
Command’s enlisted tralk!” Grayza hissed angrily.
Scorpius leaned across the desk, his tone even more dangerous than hers. “You have used the implant to rise
to your present position, demonstrating a particular willingness to manipulate anyone whose position serves
your ambition. Your superiors have decided to put that talent to their use. The first prisoner requiring your
attentions will be arriving by Marauder within the arn.” He sat up straight, resuming his customary assured
half-smile and continued in a more relaxed manner. “I should tell you, Commandant Grayza, that this first
individual is not sebacean. I hope that your distaste will not impair your effectiveness.”
“I will not be used in this manner, Scorpius!” she insisted. “Tell your superiors that I refuse.”
“Very well. High Command will be happy to convene a Tribunal to examine your failure here, including the
rather puzzling loss of thirty-five elite troops and three Marauders to three escaped prisoners.” He examined
one glove with exaggerated interest, waiting for her response. Behind him, Braca’s smirk faltered as his part in
the deception became a liability. Grayza stared at Scorpius for several moments, watching the assured
movements for any change before subsiding into her chair. After fifteen microts she nodded, accepting her
new role aboard the carrier.
“Captain Braca!” Scorpius turned his attention to the other person in the room.
“Yes, sir!” the smiling aide stepped forward.
“Braca. Who is assigned the next largest living quarters aboard this vessel?” Scorpius asked, watching the
newly promoted officer with proprietary interest.
Braca’s smile disappeared completely. “Why, myself … sir,” he stammered uncertainly.
“Very good, Braca. Move out immediately, and then assign personnel to unload the equipment I have brought
with me and install it in those quarters. You know my needs.”
Braca looked between his two masters indecisively, snapped to attention, and inclined his head toward each of
them, no longer looking pleased by the turn of events. “Right away, sir!” he responded and hurried from the
room.
“What now, Scorpius?” Grayza demanded, her anger still evident. “More wormhole research?”
The half-breed got to his feet and wandered toward the sleeping area, eyeing the expanse of the bed for
several microts before turning to face her. “While you were chasing John Crichton, we were pursuing the new
drive system. We secured a rhotarri equipped courier ship over a quarter cycle ago. Our scientists have
evaluated the system and have pronounced it irreparably flawed for the purpose of travel. I have read your
reports concerning its use as a weapon. Sacrificing a vessel the size of a fast attack destroyer would allow us
to remove, at best, ten scarran ships. The scarrans now outnumber us nearly fifteen to one, Commandant
Grayza. We would lose the coming conflict to your strategy.”
“The last figures I saw indicated that we were outnumbered eight to one,” she countered.
“Propaganda for the rank and file,” Scorpius sneered. “In either case, the best weapon remains wormhole
technology.”
“Which means John Crichton,” she concluded.
“Who you so inconveniently let escape.” Scorpius sat down on the steps, lounging back as he considered
Grayza’s once again calm demeanor. “Isn’t it interesting that both the folded space weapon and wormhole
knowledge reside in the brain of a single unique individual?” he postulated.
“There is no way of tracking a ship using the rhotarri drive,” Grayza reminded him. “We have no means of
determining where he has gone.”
Scorpius got to his feet and wandered back to her desk, sorting through the thin transparent readouts for
several microts. “There is no way to track the path a craft has taken,” he agreed, folding the sheet along a
diagonal and creasing it with his fingers. “That is because there is no path to follow. Crichton’s system relies
on manipulating space itself to fold two points against each other. When the transition is completed, the fabric
of space snaps back into its original configuration.”
Scorpius flattened the synthetic sheet out, pressed it open for several moments, and then handed it to Grayza.
The commandant fingered the altered flimsy for a microt, then laid it on the desk and poked the crease with a
single finger. The sheet folded over on itself, closing into the double thickness Scorpius had arranged.
“You have learned how to detect the folds,” she concluded. “This is useless, Scorpius. He will have moved on
by the time we reach the next point in space. If he reaches the leviathan and she starbursts, we will have no
trail at all to follow.”
Scorpius smiled down at her. “It is a starting point. It may take time, but we will find him again.” His gaze
wandered around the quarters. “In either event, the fate of John Crichton is no longer your concern. Your
duties will be somewhat more limited, captain.” He announced her demotion with the same lack of pomp as
when he’d notified Braca of his promotion.
He reached forward to run a gloved finger up her chest, rubbing the oily residue thoughtfully between thumb
and forefinger before sniffing it several times. “Fascinating that so many species are susceptible to this
substance. It is a shame that scarrans are not … we might have learned so much from the few scarran
prisoners we have detained.” He smiled humorlessly at her one last time, and strolled from her quarters.
* * * * *
Aeryn took several slow breaths, gathering herself for the physical effort, and then pulled her shirt over her
head, taking her time getting it down into place. It was one of the most difficult motions she had attempted so
far, requiring movement from almost every one of the healing muscles in her midsection. Too many had been
sliced and damaged when the fragments of armor had been forced out of the uniform jacket and into her side
by the pulse blast. Wearing a different shirt would have been easier, but she didn’t like giving in to the injuries
when she knew they were healing. She pulled the shirt down and fastened her pants carefully, feeling awkward
and undressed without her pulse pistol.
She’d tried wearing the holster as soon as she’d started walking again, and the healing lacerations had become
inflamed from the weight and friction of the heavy belt. Jool had treated the swelling only after demanding a
promise that she wouldn’t wear it until the interion gave her permission. Aeryn pulled her vest on, gazed for two
microts at the prohibited weapon, and limped slowly toward Crichton’s quarters.
“Can I come in?” she inquired, reaching the door to John’s cell.
“Yes,” came the disgusted reply from within.
She waved her hand past the sensor, waited while the doors slid open, and ducked through the curtains, an
addition that John had never used in the past. His tone of voice warned her that he would be in no better mood
than the previous mornings, and the look of exasperation that greeted her confirmed it. Limited to the use of
his left hand, John been forced to admit that he could barely dress himself, and that many other routine tasks
were completely impossible. His frustration with the situation was mounting with each passing day, his familiar
stubborn behaviors reappearing now that he’d had some rest. There’d been no further display of emotional
distress or any discussion of what had happened to him since that first day in the maintenance bay.
She’d sat on the floor with him curled into her lap for almost half an arn after he’d fallen asleep that day,
unwilling to disturb their first moment of peace together since being pulled into the command carrier. Her own
exhaustion had started to wear on her in the end, the cool air of the maintenance bay chilling her motionless
body until she was on the verge of shivering, which would have been agonizing with the freshly sealed wounds.
That was the moment she’d realized that she wasn’t wearing a comms. She’d waited close to another quarter
arn, hoping that D’Argo would reappear to check on them, but had eventually resigned herself to waking John
by shouting for help.
Fortunately, before she could gather the air for a yell, she’d spotted a DRD sitting in a dark corner near a parts
bin, Moya watching out for them mere arns after their return. Her request for a rescue had been relayed, and
D’Argo and Gallenn had appeared within microts, suggesting that they’d been waiting somewhere close by.
Despite their efforts to lift John gently, he’d woken up and refused to be carried, disappearing into the corridors
supported by D’Argo’s strength alone. She’d tried to follow in the same manner, leaning on Gallenn. He’d
snorted once at her attempt to walk and had picked her up before she could voice a protest.
By the time Gallenn had set her down in the medical bay, John was unconscious again. This time it was the
result of a mild sleep shot, and Jool was doing what she could to treat his shoulder. The interion’s growing
medical expertise had been enough to repair skin, tissue and muscle, but had fallen short when it came to the
broken bones. She’d settled for binding John’s arm and shoulder tightly enough to restrict all movement,
strapping his right arm to his chest in the process. She’d scanned him several times to ensure that the breaks
were aligned, and then had asked Pilot to look for a planet with a medical facility that might be able to do
something more.
John’s initial disgust at the prognosis of ‘your body will have to repair it on its own’ had turned to dismay and
then anger the first morning he’d tried to get dressed with only one hand. Getting his shirt on over the
bandages was difficult at best, he couldn’t fasten the heavy leather pants and belt, couldn’t lace his boots, and
had stopped shaving altogether. She’d expected him to settle into the routine after several mornings, but after
five days he was, if anything, more aggravated by his dependency on her.
“Good morning,” she greeted him calmly.
“This sucks,” he grumbled. “And good morning.” He was trying to turn his shirt around to get it on, fumbling
with it and getting nowhere. She waited patiently and he finally handed it to her with a sigh of resignation. She
snapped it open, held it for him while he ducked into it, and yanked it into place with an economy of movement.
John tucked the bottom into his pants while she folded the empty sleeve neatly inside the shirt.
“Ready?” she prompted, hiking his pants up onto his hips. He stuffed his shirt down one more time, then held
his hand out of the way to indicate he was ready. She fastened the waist and zipped them up, feeling the same
jerk away from her hand that she’d felt when she’d done this for him every other morning. Too many forms of
contact had begun to cause flinches and startled jumps, no matter who was touching him or why. If he saw it
coming he could control it, standing rigidly still until the person withdrew, but he was managing to prevent most
forms of contact by maintaining a two-motra clear-zone between himself and every other person on board
Moya, including herself.
He was fighting it; that was obvious. She’d been standing behind him the day before, holding clean bandages
while Jool checked his wounds and re-bandaged his shoulder, and had seen his knuckles go white when she’d
run a hand gently down his back. It had been intended as an encouragement as he endured the discomfort,
and had served as another small torment instead. The hand that clenched the edge of the medbed had been
a fist of restraint, not pain, holding him in place when he would have preferred to bolt away from the drifting
touch down his spine. She’d stepped away from him, watched him relax despite the fact that Jool was shifting
his right shoulder at that moment, and wondered if there was any small scrap of his body that didn’t harbor
some hideous memory involving Mele-On Grayza.
“Sit down,” she ordered, gesturing to the sloppy, unlaced boots. John sat on his bed, leaned back, and kicked
one foot up to rest on her thigh so she wouldn’t have to lean over. There were a number of things that she
couldn’t do yet, and leaning down was one of them. Between the two of them, they barely constituted one
functional person.
“How you doing this morning?” he asked, sounding less temperamental.
“Almost back to normal,” she answered, letting his first foot drop away. He lifted the second one up for her
attention. “Does your shoulder still hurt?”
“No, it’s settling down, probably starting to knit together. But I’m still not willing to wait for this to heal. Pilot has
got to find some place that can do something more!” She finished tying the laces, checked for his nod to make
sure they weren’t too tight, and ran her hand up his shin, testing for a reaction. The muscles in his jaw
bunched, but he didn’t pull away.
Aeryn stepped away, letting his foot drop to the floor. “Pilot’s trying to find a healing facility of some sort,” she
said calmly. “You know he located one --
“Where they said they could immobilize it until the bones healed on their own. Thank you, that’s no better than
this.” He got to his feet, stepped away from her to reestablish his buffer zone, and motioned for her to lead the
way.
Aeryn stepped toward him instead, intending to do nothing more than pull his hand down from where he was
starting to scratch at his beard again, resuming the habit that had driven her to threats during their time on the
rhotarri ship. John jumped away from her, tripping over a seat and nearly falling in his haste. She froze,
certain that if she tried to help him regain his balance that he would only retreat further, making it worse.
“Aeryn … ” he started, once he was steady on his feet again.
“Don’t apologize, I understand,” she cut him off. But she didn’t really understand it, and having him run away
from her seemed like a poor prize for what they’d gone through in order to stay together. “First Meal,” she
suggested shortly, stepping aside to let him lead this time, giving him plenty of room. John shuffled by her,
looking as though it was taking a large measure of self-control to keep from bolting out of the cell.
He stopped once he was in the corridor, stepped back, and took her by the hand. “I didn’t mean to jump,” he
said in lieu of an apology.
Aeryn stepped closer, initially hanging on to him as he retreated out of instinct. It was as though he had lost
control of his body, reaching for her even as he backed away. He continued to tug at his hand and she
released him, watching with disappointment as he stepped away from her. He closed his eyes for a microt as if
looking at something inside his mind, then stepped back.
“Sorry,” he whispered, and pulled her into a one-armed hug. “It just happens.”
“It’s over,” she reminded him, using the words for the first time since the maintenance bay. He jumped, one part
of his body trying to pull away while the remainder tried to keep her close. Aeryn hugged him carefully, trying to
impart some sense of security while not enfolding him so tightly that he felt trapped -- a nearly impossible task.
“I won’t ever do that to you again,” she assured him.
“Do what? Hug me?” He stepped away, letting his hand trail behind him, still inside hers as they started for the
Center Chamber.
“Ask you to do something like that. Next time, if you want to space yourself, I’ll let you.” She’d meant it exactly
the way she’d said it, but the statement came out sounding like a lie or incredibly condescending. It was the
hard, cold lump in the center of her chest that said she was serious, the chilled stone lodged behind her
breastbone that felt like she’d just delivered a death sentence.
John stumbled to a stop, automatically taking an extra step away from her before turning to face where she
waited on the far side of the corridor. “You’re not serious,” he said. “You can’t be … what’s going on, Aeryn?”
“This is my fault,” she explained, gesturing to the gap between their bodies. “I asked you to let yourself be
captured. You wanted to do it differently. I had no idea that it was Grayza, or that she would -- ”
“I KNOW!!” he yelled quickly, cutting her off. “You don’t need to say it!” He recovered and continued more
moderately. “Neither one of us knew what was going to happen. They could have just as easily put me in the
Aurora Chair and turned my brain into nothing but goo, Aeryn. You could have brought back a slobbering,
gibbering idiot, and parked my mindless body in a cell for the next sixty cycles or so. This didn’t turn out so
badly.” John made the difficult transition across the intervening space between them, this time to gently finger
a tendril of her hair. “It’s over. Time for me to get over it and move on. We’re both alive. Come on, let’s get
something to eat.”
For a moment it was like having him back, healthy and whole. She smiled at him, and pressed his hand against
her cheek for an instant, momentarily confident that it had been the right decision after all. But his hand pulled
against hers even as it made contact, trying to escape her touch, and the loss and uncertainty returned. It had
been a good act, nearly convincing her that he was going to do what he said and move on. The generous lie
would have worked except for the reaction he couldn’t control.
“Good idea,” she said with forced cheerfulness, releasing him from the tiny torture of being forced to touch her.
“I’m hungry. Let’s get something before Rygel eats it all.”
* * * * *
Crichton sat on one of the bridges spanning the depths of the central neural cavern, slowly drumming his heels
against the side of the walkway while staring down into the abyss. He picked up a melvak bean from a small
pile beside him and dropped it into the plexus cavern, watching it spin and bounce until it disappeared from
sight.
“Commander,” Pilot growled for the third time.
“I thought you said the effluvium at the bottom would dissolve these,” he answered after a lengthy silence.
“Yes, it will, given enough time. However Moya does not consider it appropriate for you to use the central
plexus as some sort of waste dump for your leftover food. She would prefer that you either eat it or process it
through one of the waste funnels.”
“Sorry.” He swept the remainder of the pile into space, ignoring Pilot’s sigh of resignation and dusted his hand
off on the thigh of his pants. “Pilot, have you ever thought about what it would be like to be separated from
Moya? I know you can’t survive without her now, but have you ever just … sort of imagined what it would be
like?” John continued to stare into space.
“It would be a pointless conjecture, Commander Crichton. In order for me to be removed from Moya, it would
first require my death; therefore the premise is meaningless. And working in reverse, her death would mean my
death.” The large eyes watched him for several microts before he continued more slowly and hesitantly.
“There was the time that my consciousness was removed from this body though. It was somewhat similar to
what you are asking.”
“What was that like?” John drew his feet up and turned to face him, continuing to sit on the bridge.
“It was enlightening and wondrous to be alone in a body once again, to not have all of Moya’s thoughts and
impressions inside my mind.” Pilot’s expression faded from wide-eyed enthusiasm to a more somber look that
resembled grief. “But it was also very lonely. I missed her very much. I do not believe I would ever choose to
be without her even if it were possible. I felt empty, deprived of something necessary for life itself. It was a
yearning far beyond the simple physical need to be joined to her. To answer your question, I would never be
separated from her willingly.”
John nodded several times, then turned away from Pilot, dropped his feet over the edge of the walkway, and
resumed staring into the gloom.
“May ask, Commander Crichton, are you considering leaving Moya again?”
“What makes you -- ” He was interrupted before he could finish his question.
“Hey goober!” Gallenn called exuberantly, striding energetically into the Den. “Don’t jump!”
John shook his head, scrubbing his single free hand through his hair. “I really wish I’d never taught you that
word.” He leaned back to look up at the sebacean. “You are very scary looking. Anyone mention that yet?”
Gallenn gave him a light tap on his good shoulder and dropped down beside him, hanging his feet over the
edge as well. John started to edge away from him, and he shifted automatically, putting the two-motra gap
between them. He was still wearing the Peacekeeper uniform, minus the heavy armored jacket -- the only
clothes he had left. The light-brown hair was arranged more casually than he’d worn it aboard the command
carrier, but he’d cut it so short it was of little consequence which way he brushed it. Putting aside the relaxed,
casual manner, he looked as much like one of the military’s bred troopers as Aeryn did. “Don’t like the nifty
dudes?”
“The word is ‘duds’, and you might want to stop using English. It’ll get you killed, Gallenn. It won’t matter if you
look just like a Peacekeeper.” He looked his friend over head to foot and shook his head again. “Amazing.”
“I was a Peacekeeper, even if a lousy one,” the other man acknowledged his past and shrugged it off almost
immediately. “Secrets.”
“I had a few, too,” John admitted. “You’re leaving?”
“Yeah. Aeryn’s going to take me down to the planet.” Gallenn looked around the Den, examining the inner hull
with studied care. “Come along with us if you want. She’s only going to drop me off and come right back. In
and out, no problems.”
John leaned forward, looking toward the bottom of the drop. “See that?” He pointed into the depths.
“Thinking of jumping?” Gallenn asked. This time there was little humor in his tone, his entire body becoming
less relaxed as he looked between the sight beneath his feet and Crichton several times.
“Not the way you mean. Where I come from we had this sport called ‘bungie jumping’.” Gallenn shook his
head, letting him know that it didn’t mean anything to him. “The idea was to tie a long elastic rope onto your
feet, and jump off something like this head first. You go down, get snatched back up just before you hit, and
then bounce at the end of the line a couple more times.”
“This may explain some of your more peculiar behaviors, Crichton. They put too much stretch in your rope
once or twice, didn’t they?” He showed signs of relaxing as John laughed at the response. “That might be the
stupidest idea I’ve ever heard of on any planet.”
“The point is …” John broke into laughter again. He took a deep breath and became more serious. “The point
is that if I tried that here, no matter how many precautions I took, the line would break, I’d plummet to the
bottom, punch right through Moya’s hull into outer space, and everyone on board including Moya and Pilot
would die from decompression. Nothing I do ever seems to go right, Gallenn. Simple in and out on that planet
to drop you off would turn into a catastrophe of the first order. Probably wind up killing half the population. I’m
a jinx.” He rubbed at his eye with the heel of his hand, wiping something to one side.
“You’ve had a bad run, Crichton. Nothing more.” Gallenn glanced at Pilot, who was watching the two men
between performing his regular duties. “You’ve got friends here who are glad to have you back. There’s this
gorgeous bit of ruthless woman who has already gone to the limit to save your life, and who would do me some
bodily damage if she knew I said anything to you about it. Do you know what she did to get you out of there?”
John gave a one-shouldered shrug. “We’ve talked about it a bit.”
“A bit!” Gallenn yelled, then shrank in on himself slightly as the words echoed around the Den. “Crichton, you
idiot! Get out of your skull, you frelling imbecile!”
“Try ‘goober’,” John interjected, trying to slow the angry flood.
“That too,” his friend agreed, not calming down. “You spent nearly an entire cycle trying to drink yourself to
death because she left you. Then she comes back and mortgages her conscience by leaving a trail of bodies
behind her that would have embarrassed even Cholak’s demon. And she didn’t do it because of some
promise. She nearly took my head off when I suggested she was doing it casually.”
“Gallenn,” John tried to stop him.
“You’re a fool, Crichton. She would have died trying to get you off that carrier before she gave up and left you
there. And you sit here like a celibate flibisk, counting your woes. Aeryn hasn’t told me what happened to you,
only that you’d been interrogated. I’m not going to pretend that anything a Peacekeeper dreamed up was a lot
of fun, but would you please look around you for a microt and see what you’ve got here?” Gallenn got to his
feet and stalked toward the door and back. “Drannit brain.”
“I love you too,” John mumbled back. “Gallenn, it’s --”
“Gallenn?” Aeryn’s voice sounded over the comms, interrupting his protest. “I’m all set to go whenever you’re
ready.”
“I’ll be down in a little bit,” he answered. He shut off his comms, unclipped it from his shirt and walked over to
set it next to Pilot. “Thank you, Pilot. I’ve enjoyed my short residence here. I hope I run into you and Moya
again some day. Figuratively, of course.”
“We will miss you,” Pilot returned somberly.
“You don’t have to go,” John suggested, getting to his feet. “You could stay.”
“You’ve got people on your butt that don’t care about me yet,” Gallenn sighed. “They’ll execute me if they find
me, but they don’t usually go hunting for missing techs.” He waited for a response, finally adding, “It’s too
dangerous for me to stay. Although there are some aspects about staying that are more attractive than
others.” He grinned wickedly at John, inviting an answer.
“Yes, we kind of noticed that you and Chiana were going missing at the same time. You weren’t particularly
subtle about that.” John clapped him on the shoulder. “I’m sure she’ll miss you, too.” He stretched over the
edge of Pilot’s consoles, trying to reach something sitting on the inside of the station. Pilot carefully gathered
the object up between two claws and handed it to him.
“Here, take this with you.” John handed the object to Gallenn.
The sebacean eyed the metal box suspiciously, thumbing the catch but not opening the cover. “This isn’t going
to explode on me, is it?” He cracked the lid and cautiously peered in. “No, I won’t take this,” he said
emphatically when he saw what it contained. “It took you arns to build it. It’s yours.” He set the box down on
the outside of Pilot’s bulwarks and opened it all the way to reveal John’s chess set.
“I have one here. It got left behind when I got separated from Moya. You take that one. Teach someone else
how to play. You’ll kick their ass, you’re good at it.” Gallenn shook his head, refusing to accept the gift, but he
was fingering the polished hydrosteel pieces reverently. “I don’t have anything else to offer. You kept me alive
for a long time, Gallenn. You hauled my ass out of that bar more times than I can count.”
“Only because you never learned to count,” the tech quipped.
John ignored the gibe. “Please take it. Learn strategy from it and stay away from those Peacekeeper
bastards. Disappear from sight. Stay safe.”
“All right,” Gallenn finally agreed. He placed the white queen in its slot and latched the lid. “On one condition.”
He waited for John’s motion that encouraged him to suggest a bargain. “Talk to Aeryn. You’ve been shutting
her out. You agree to talk to her and I’ll take this with me.”
John glanced up at Pilot, who was watching the negotiations with interest. “Gallenn …”
“Yes, I know there’s a witness. Pilot? If he agrees, you hold him to it or else toss him out an airlock.” Gallenn
held the chess set out to him, inviting him to take it back.
“No … you take it,” John agreed slowly. “It’s a deal. Now get out of here. Stay safe.” He leaned his hip against
Pilot’s station, showing no inclination to accompany his friend to the planet. The two men stared at each other
for several microts, blue eyes staring into brown, then they nodded together. “See you around,” John broke
the silence.
“Take care of yourself, John,” Gallenn mumbled, turned and hurried out of the Den.
“No sign of Peacekeepers, right?” Crichton asked Pilot. He watched the empty doorway, as if expecting
someone to come through it.
“Nothing but commerce vessels,” the huge symbiote confirmed.
“Thanks, Pilot. Do me a favor and comm me when Aeryn’s on her way back?” He barely waited for an answer
before striding out of the Den, moving with far more purpose than he had at any time since returning to the
leviathan.
* * * * *
The small transport ship accelerated away from Moya, arcing smoothly toward the planet with only the slightest
adjustment to its trajectory in order to settle into the alignment requested by the planetary control facility.
Aeryn tapped another set of commands into the console, pulled the power back to stabilize the velocity and
turned to face Gallenn.
“You know you don’t have to leave,” she started.
“Crichton said the same thing,” he agreed. “You have too many nasty folks chasing you. It’s not the life I want
to lead. This is better for me.” He gestured toward the planet where they’d located a long-range cargo
transport that needed a mechanic. “This one’s headed a long way away. But thanks anyway. You’re
generous.”
“You’re John’s friend. He needs all the friends he can find here.” She turned to check on their course, then
slowly fingered one switch, her fingers moving idly as she hesitated over something. “Did he … has John said
anything to you about what happened after I got shot?” she asked.
“Nothing. You?” She shook her head. “He never said anything when we worked together, but he seemed to
have a thing about knives. It’s a problem isn’t it?”
“It could be.” Aeryn made another adjustment as they slid into the highest reaches of the planet’s atmosphere.
“Do you think he remembers what he did? You brought him on board. Did he know what he was doing?”
Gallenn leaned back in the co-pilot’s seat and watched as they plummeted down through the cloud layers,
breaking out beneath the overcast to a gray, rain-pelted landscape, their landing sight half obscured in the
downpour. He remained silent as Aeryn piloted the craft to a landing pad and set it down. “I don’t think so,” he
answered as the engines died to a whispering whine. “He was close to attacking me. I wouldn’t want to bet my
life on it, but I’d say he had no idea what he was doing. You know the boosters can do that to you anyway, and
he was … I never thought I’d see Crichton do anything like that.”
He got out of his seat, scooping up a small gear bag on his way to the cockpit hatch. “Not much to show for
eight cycles of work,” he observed sardonically.
“Our fault,” she offered.
“Oh, don’t worry about it too much.” Gallenn dug in a pocket and produced a data chip. “When you and I
tricked John off the planet way back when, I gave him some of the currency he’d earned from the business, but
I didn’t have time to convert all of it. The rest of his money is safe in an inter-system account.” He grinned and
shoved the chip back in his pocket, making it clear that he was going on his way well financed.
“Are you going to tell him what he did in the hangar?” He looked troubled by the thought.
“No, not unless I think he’s starting to remember anyway. There’s no reason to ever bring that up again.”
“And you’re not going to give up on him,” he suggested, the cockpit door half open against the rain.
“Never.” Aeryn gestured a farewell as he waved and ducked out the door, then set about getting back to
Moya.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
Chapter 8
Lieutenant Braca waited for the sharp summons, then marched through the doorway, snapping to attention in
front of Commandant Grayza’s work surface. “Ma’am,” he acknowledged, and then waited for a signal from his
superior.
“Report, Lieutenant.” Her voice slid into the room like a viscous fog, sliding slickly around every person and
object within its reach.
“The … operation,” he allowed a miniscule hesitation to precede the word, “has been completed as you
ordered, ma’am. Here is the casualty list for this mission.” Another small pause before his last word drew a
look from his commanding officer.
Grayza pulled the readout from his hand and surveyed it quickly, slowing as she scanned the list of names a
second time. “Lieutenant, you originally advised me that there were twenty-six killed in this engagement. This
list carries thirty-five names. Explain.”
“Yes, ma’am. When I reviewed the names of the officers killed in the hangar, I noted that there were no pilots
listed among them. This appeared suspicious. I cleared the hangar bay prior to loading the Marauders,
assigned our top three pilots to the detail, explaining that it was top secret, thus their selection for duty. The
operation also required two troopers per Marauder to load the bodies. I regret to inform you that all nine
additional personnel were lost when Crichton and his associates escaped our custody.” The lieutenant pulled
himself up straighter, a hint of a grin appearing as he waited for her response.
“Very good, Braca,” she oozed. “I believe there may be some sort of commendation in this for you. Report to
my quarters this evening, and we’ll discuss it.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” he inclined his head, a wider smile appearing.
“Transmit these statistics to High Command,” Grayza order, handing the transparency back to her subordinate.
“No need, Commandant Grayza. The representative from High Command docked five hundred microts ago,
and should be here himself very shortly.” Braca’s small smile had turned into a pleased smirk.
“Someone from High Command?” she demanded, instantly in a coldly dangerous rage. “Why wasn’t I
informed?” she snarled as the doors to her quarters slid open.
“Because I ordered Captain Braca not to advise you,” the smooth cultured voice slid into the conversation,
placing a heavy emphasis on the new rank.
“Scorpius,” Grayza sneered as the black-suited figure strolled into the room. “So they finally allowed you back
into space -- admirable considering your last debacle. Only two cycles spent answering a tribunal’s questions.
That may be a new Peacekeeper record for someone who lost a command carrier.”
Scorpius smiled at her, inclining his head to one side before looking down his nose at the commandant. “Yes,”
he hissed in agreement. “However, I am not the only one in this room to lose a command carrier. You, for
instance, have just lost command of this one.” He perched on the corner of her desk and began leafing
through the printouts and schematics. “High Command feels that your inability to even locate, let alone capture
John Crichton is proof that my methods were correct from the beginning. You have been reassigned to assist
me now.”
Grayza leaned back in her chair, watching him without a trace of emotion, the cold eyes calculating her next
move. “Very well, Scorpius. I will have my things moved --”
He stilled her with a gesture. “High Command has become aware of your rather unique interrogation
techniques,” he said. “They feel these methods have merit. You will remain in these quarters since they …
facilitate such questionings. You will be expected to conduct interrogations whenever High Command dictates.”
The half-breed leered his most dangerous smile at her.
The commandant sat up straighter as the implications of his orders sank in. “I will not serve as High
Command’s enlisted tralk!” Grayza hissed angrily.
Scorpius leaned across the desk, his tone even more dangerous than hers. “You have used the implant to rise
to your present position, demonstrating a particular willingness to manipulate anyone whose position serves
your ambition. Your superiors have decided to put that talent to their use. The first prisoner requiring your
attentions will be arriving by Marauder within the arn.” He sat up straight, resuming his customary assured
half-smile and continued in a more relaxed manner. “I should tell you, Commandant Grayza, that this first
individual is not sebacean. I hope that your distaste will not impair your effectiveness.”
“I will not be used in this manner, Scorpius!” she insisted. “Tell your superiors that I refuse.”
“Very well. High Command will be happy to convene a Tribunal to examine your failure here, including the
rather puzzling loss of thirty-five elite troops and three Marauders to three escaped prisoners.” He examined
one glove with exaggerated interest, waiting for her response. Behind him, Braca’s smirk faltered as his part in
the deception became a liability. Grayza stared at Scorpius for several moments, watching the assured
movements for any change before subsiding into her chair. After fifteen microts she nodded, accepting her
new role aboard the carrier.
“Captain Braca!” Scorpius turned his attention to the other person in the room.
“Yes, sir!” the smiling aide stepped forward.
“Braca. Who is assigned the next largest living quarters aboard this vessel?” Scorpius asked, watching the
newly promoted officer with proprietary interest.
Braca’s smile disappeared completely. “Why, myself … sir,” he stammered uncertainly.
“Very good, Braca. Move out immediately, and then assign personnel to unload the equipment I have brought
with me and install it in those quarters. You know my needs.”
Braca looked between his two masters indecisively, snapped to attention, and inclined his head toward each of
them, no longer looking pleased by the turn of events. “Right away, sir!” he responded and hurried from the
room.
“What now, Scorpius?” Grayza demanded, her anger still evident. “More wormhole research?”
The half-breed got to his feet and wandered toward the sleeping area, eyeing the expanse of the bed for
several microts before turning to face her. “While you were chasing John Crichton, we were pursuing the new
drive system. We secured a rhotarri equipped courier ship over a quarter cycle ago. Our scientists have
evaluated the system and have pronounced it irreparably flawed for the purpose of travel. I have read your
reports concerning its use as a weapon. Sacrificing a vessel the size of a fast attack destroyer would allow us
to remove, at best, ten scarran ships. The scarrans now outnumber us nearly fifteen to one, Commandant
Grayza. We would lose the coming conflict to your strategy.”
“The last figures I saw indicated that we were outnumbered eight to one,” she countered.
“Propaganda for the rank and file,” Scorpius sneered. “In either case, the best weapon remains wormhole
technology.”
“Which means John Crichton,” she concluded.
“Who you so inconveniently let escape.” Scorpius sat down on the steps, lounging back as he considered
Grayza’s once again calm demeanor. “Isn’t it interesting that both the folded space weapon and wormhole
knowledge reside in the brain of a single unique individual?” he postulated.
“There is no way of tracking a ship using the rhotarri drive,” Grayza reminded him. “We have no means of
determining where he has gone.”
Scorpius got to his feet and wandered back to her desk, sorting through the thin transparent readouts for
several microts. “There is no way to track the path a craft has taken,” he agreed, folding the sheet along a
diagonal and creasing it with his fingers. “That is because there is no path to follow. Crichton’s system relies
on manipulating space itself to fold two points against each other. When the transition is completed, the fabric
of space snaps back into its original configuration.”
Scorpius flattened the synthetic sheet out, pressed it open for several moments, and then handed it to Grayza.
The commandant fingered the altered flimsy for a microt, then laid it on the desk and poked the crease with a
single finger. The sheet folded over on itself, closing into the double thickness Scorpius had arranged.
“You have learned how to detect the folds,” she concluded. “This is useless, Scorpius. He will have moved on
by the time we reach the next point in space. If he reaches the leviathan and she starbursts, we will have no
trail at all to follow.”
Scorpius smiled down at her. “It is a starting point. It may take time, but we will find him again.” His gaze
wandered around the quarters. “In either event, the fate of John Crichton is no longer your concern. Your
duties will be somewhat more limited, captain.” He announced her demotion with the same lack of pomp as
when he’d notified Braca of his promotion.
He reached forward to run a gloved finger up her chest, rubbing the oily residue thoughtfully between thumb
and forefinger before sniffing it several times. “Fascinating that so many species are susceptible to this
substance. It is a shame that scarrans are not … we might have learned so much from the few scarran
prisoners we have detained.” He smiled humorlessly at her one last time, and strolled from her quarters.
* * * * *
Aeryn took several slow breaths, gathering herself for the physical effort, and then pulled her shirt over her
head, taking her time getting it down into place. It was one of the most difficult motions she had attempted so
far, requiring movement from almost every one of the healing muscles in her midsection. Too many had been
sliced and damaged when the fragments of armor had been forced out of the uniform jacket and into her side
by the pulse blast. Wearing a different shirt would have been easier, but she didn’t like giving in to the injuries
when she knew they were healing. She pulled the shirt down and fastened her pants carefully, feeling awkward
and undressed without her pulse pistol.
She’d tried wearing the holster as soon as she’d started walking again, and the healing lacerations had become
inflamed from the weight and friction of the heavy belt. Jool had treated the swelling only after demanding a
promise that she wouldn’t wear it until the interion gave her permission. Aeryn pulled her vest on, gazed for two
microts at the prohibited weapon, and limped slowly toward Crichton’s quarters.
“Can I come in?” she inquired, reaching the door to John’s cell.
“Yes,” came the disgusted reply from within.
She waved her hand past the sensor, waited while the doors slid open, and ducked through the curtains, an
addition that John had never used in the past. His tone of voice warned her that he would be in no better mood
than the previous mornings, and the look of exasperation that greeted her confirmed it. Limited to the use of
his left hand, John been forced to admit that he could barely dress himself, and that many other routine tasks
were completely impossible. His frustration with the situation was mounting with each passing day, his familiar
stubborn behaviors reappearing now that he’d had some rest. There’d been no further display of emotional
distress or any discussion of what had happened to him since that first day in the maintenance bay.
She’d sat on the floor with him curled into her lap for almost half an arn after he’d fallen asleep that day,
unwilling to disturb their first moment of peace together since being pulled into the command carrier. Her own
exhaustion had started to wear on her in the end, the cool air of the maintenance bay chilling her motionless
body until she was on the verge of shivering, which would have been agonizing with the freshly sealed wounds.
That was the moment she’d realized that she wasn’t wearing a comms. She’d waited close to another quarter
arn, hoping that D’Argo would reappear to check on them, but had eventually resigned herself to waking John
by shouting for help.
Fortunately, before she could gather the air for a yell, she’d spotted a DRD sitting in a dark corner near a parts
bin, Moya watching out for them mere arns after their return. Her request for a rescue had been relayed, and
D’Argo and Gallenn had appeared within microts, suggesting that they’d been waiting somewhere close by.
Despite their efforts to lift John gently, he’d woken up and refused to be carried, disappearing into the corridors
supported by D’Argo’s strength alone. She’d tried to follow in the same manner, leaning on Gallenn. He’d
snorted once at her attempt to walk and had picked her up before she could voice a protest.
By the time Gallenn had set her down in the medical bay, John was unconscious again. This time it was the
result of a mild sleep shot, and Jool was doing what she could to treat his shoulder. The interion’s growing
medical expertise had been enough to repair skin, tissue and muscle, but had fallen short when it came to the
broken bones. She’d settled for binding John’s arm and shoulder tightly enough to restrict all movement,
strapping his right arm to his chest in the process. She’d scanned him several times to ensure that the breaks
were aligned, and then had asked Pilot to look for a planet with a medical facility that might be able to do
something more.
John’s initial disgust at the prognosis of ‘your body will have to repair it on its own’ had turned to dismay and
then anger the first morning he’d tried to get dressed with only one hand. Getting his shirt on over the
bandages was difficult at best, he couldn’t fasten the heavy leather pants and belt, couldn’t lace his boots, and
had stopped shaving altogether. She’d expected him to settle into the routine after several mornings, but after
five days he was, if anything, more aggravated by his dependency on her.
“Good morning,” she greeted him calmly.
“This sucks,” he grumbled. “And good morning.” He was trying to turn his shirt around to get it on, fumbling
with it and getting nowhere. She waited patiently and he finally handed it to her with a sigh of resignation. She
snapped it open, held it for him while he ducked into it, and yanked it into place with an economy of movement.
John tucked the bottom into his pants while she folded the empty sleeve neatly inside the shirt.
“Ready?” she prompted, hiking his pants up onto his hips. He stuffed his shirt down one more time, then held
his hand out of the way to indicate he was ready. She fastened the waist and zipped them up, feeling the same
jerk away from her hand that she’d felt when she’d done this for him every other morning. Too many forms of
contact had begun to cause flinches and startled jumps, no matter who was touching him or why. If he saw it
coming he could control it, standing rigidly still until the person withdrew, but he was managing to prevent most
forms of contact by maintaining a two-motra clear-zone between himself and every other person on board
Moya, including herself.
He was fighting it; that was obvious. She’d been standing behind him the day before, holding clean bandages
while Jool checked his wounds and re-bandaged his shoulder, and had seen his knuckles go white when she’d
run a hand gently down his back. It had been intended as an encouragement as he endured the discomfort,
and had served as another small torment instead. The hand that clenched the edge of the medbed had been
a fist of restraint, not pain, holding him in place when he would have preferred to bolt away from the drifting
touch down his spine. She’d stepped away from him, watched him relax despite the fact that Jool was shifting
his right shoulder at that moment, and wondered if there was any small scrap of his body that didn’t harbor
some hideous memory involving Mele-On Grayza.
“Sit down,” she ordered, gesturing to the sloppy, unlaced boots. John sat on his bed, leaned back, and kicked
one foot up to rest on her thigh so she wouldn’t have to lean over. There were a number of things that she
couldn’t do yet, and leaning down was one of them. Between the two of them, they barely constituted one
functional person.
“How you doing this morning?” he asked, sounding less temperamental.
“Almost back to normal,” she answered, letting his first foot drop away. He lifted the second one up for her
attention. “Does your shoulder still hurt?”
“No, it’s settling down, probably starting to knit together. But I’m still not willing to wait for this to heal. Pilot has
got to find some place that can do something more!” She finished tying the laces, checked for his nod to make
sure they weren’t too tight, and ran her hand up his shin, testing for a reaction. The muscles in his jaw
bunched, but he didn’t pull away.
Aeryn stepped away, letting his foot drop to the floor. “Pilot’s trying to find a healing facility of some sort,” she
said calmly. “You know he located one --
“Where they said they could immobilize it until the bones healed on their own. Thank you, that’s no better than
this.” He got to his feet, stepped away from her to reestablish his buffer zone, and motioned for her to lead the
way.
Aeryn stepped toward him instead, intending to do nothing more than pull his hand down from where he was
starting to scratch at his beard again, resuming the habit that had driven her to threats during their time on the
rhotarri ship. John jumped away from her, tripping over a seat and nearly falling in his haste. She froze,
certain that if she tried to help him regain his balance that he would only retreat further, making it worse.
“Aeryn … ” he started, once he was steady on his feet again.
“Don’t apologize, I understand,” she cut him off. But she didn’t really understand it, and having him run away
from her seemed like a poor prize for what they’d gone through in order to stay together. “First Meal,” she
suggested shortly, stepping aside to let him lead this time, giving him plenty of room. John shuffled by her,
looking as though it was taking a large measure of self-control to keep from bolting out of the cell.
He stopped once he was in the corridor, stepped back, and took her by the hand. “I didn’t mean to jump,” he
said in lieu of an apology.
Aeryn stepped closer, initially hanging on to him as he retreated out of instinct. It was as though he had lost
control of his body, reaching for her even as he backed away. He continued to tug at his hand and she
released him, watching with disappointment as he stepped away from her. He closed his eyes for a microt as if
looking at something inside his mind, then stepped back.
“Sorry,” he whispered, and pulled her into a one-armed hug. “It just happens.”
“It’s over,” she reminded him, using the words for the first time since the maintenance bay. He jumped, one part
of his body trying to pull away while the remainder tried to keep her close. Aeryn hugged him carefully, trying to
impart some sense of security while not enfolding him so tightly that he felt trapped -- a nearly impossible task.
“I won’t ever do that to you again,” she assured him.
“Do what? Hug me?” He stepped away, letting his hand trail behind him, still inside hers as they started for the
Center Chamber.
“Ask you to do something like that. Next time, if you want to space yourself, I’ll let you.” She’d meant it exactly
the way she’d said it, but the statement came out sounding like a lie or incredibly condescending. It was the
hard, cold lump in the center of her chest that said she was serious, the chilled stone lodged behind her
breastbone that felt like she’d just delivered a death sentence.
John stumbled to a stop, automatically taking an extra step away from her before turning to face where she
waited on the far side of the corridor. “You’re not serious,” he said. “You can’t be … what’s going on, Aeryn?”
“This is my fault,” she explained, gesturing to the gap between their bodies. “I asked you to let yourself be
captured. You wanted to do it differently. I had no idea that it was Grayza, or that she would -- ”
“I KNOW!!” he yelled quickly, cutting her off. “You don’t need to say it!” He recovered and continued more
moderately. “Neither one of us knew what was going to happen. They could have just as easily put me in the
Aurora Chair and turned my brain into nothing but goo, Aeryn. You could have brought back a slobbering,
gibbering idiot, and parked my mindless body in a cell for the next sixty cycles or so. This didn’t turn out so
badly.” John made the difficult transition across the intervening space between them, this time to gently finger
a tendril of her hair. “It’s over. Time for me to get over it and move on. We’re both alive. Come on, let’s get
something to eat.”
For a moment it was like having him back, healthy and whole. She smiled at him, and pressed his hand against
her cheek for an instant, momentarily confident that it had been the right decision after all. But his hand pulled
against hers even as it made contact, trying to escape her touch, and the loss and uncertainty returned. It had
been a good act, nearly convincing her that he was going to do what he said and move on. The generous lie
would have worked except for the reaction he couldn’t control.
“Good idea,” she said with forced cheerfulness, releasing him from the tiny torture of being forced to touch her.
“I’m hungry. Let’s get something before Rygel eats it all.”
* * * * *
Crichton sat on one of the bridges spanning the depths of the central neural cavern, slowly drumming his heels
against the side of the walkway while staring down into the abyss. He picked up a melvak bean from a small
pile beside him and dropped it into the plexus cavern, watching it spin and bounce until it disappeared from
sight.
“Commander,” Pilot growled for the third time.
“I thought you said the effluvium at the bottom would dissolve these,” he answered after a lengthy silence.
“Yes, it will, given enough time. However Moya does not consider it appropriate for you to use the central
plexus as some sort of waste dump for your leftover food. She would prefer that you either eat it or process it
through one of the waste funnels.”
“Sorry.” He swept the remainder of the pile into space, ignoring Pilot’s sigh of resignation and dusted his hand
off on the thigh of his pants. “Pilot, have you ever thought about what it would be like to be separated from
Moya? I know you can’t survive without her now, but have you ever just … sort of imagined what it would be
like?” John continued to stare into space.
“It would be a pointless conjecture, Commander Crichton. In order for me to be removed from Moya, it would
first require my death; therefore the premise is meaningless. And working in reverse, her death would mean my
death.” The large eyes watched him for several microts before he continued more slowly and hesitantly.
“There was the time that my consciousness was removed from this body though. It was somewhat similar to
what you are asking.”
“What was that like?” John drew his feet up and turned to face him, continuing to sit on the bridge.
“It was enlightening and wondrous to be alone in a body once again, to not have all of Moya’s thoughts and
impressions inside my mind.” Pilot’s expression faded from wide-eyed enthusiasm to a more somber look that
resembled grief. “But it was also very lonely. I missed her very much. I do not believe I would ever choose to
be without her even if it were possible. I felt empty, deprived of something necessary for life itself. It was a
yearning far beyond the simple physical need to be joined to her. To answer your question, I would never be
separated from her willingly.”
John nodded several times, then turned away from Pilot, dropped his feet over the edge of the walkway, and
resumed staring into the gloom.
“May ask, Commander Crichton, are you considering leaving Moya again?”
“What makes you -- ” He was interrupted before he could finish his question.
“Hey goober!” Gallenn called exuberantly, striding energetically into the Den. “Don’t jump!”
John shook his head, scrubbing his single free hand through his hair. “I really wish I’d never taught you that
word.” He leaned back to look up at the sebacean. “You are very scary looking. Anyone mention that yet?”
Gallenn gave him a light tap on his good shoulder and dropped down beside him, hanging his feet over the
edge as well. John started to edge away from him, and he shifted automatically, putting the two-motra gap
between them. He was still wearing the Peacekeeper uniform, minus the heavy armored jacket -- the only
clothes he had left. The light-brown hair was arranged more casually than he’d worn it aboard the command
carrier, but he’d cut it so short it was of little consequence which way he brushed it. Putting aside the relaxed,
casual manner, he looked as much like one of the military’s bred troopers as Aeryn did. “Don’t like the nifty
dudes?”
“The word is ‘duds’, and you might want to stop using English. It’ll get you killed, Gallenn. It won’t matter if you
look just like a Peacekeeper.” He looked his friend over head to foot and shook his head again. “Amazing.”
“I was a Peacekeeper, even if a lousy one,” the other man acknowledged his past and shrugged it off almost
immediately. “Secrets.”
“I had a few, too,” John admitted. “You’re leaving?”
“Yeah. Aeryn’s going to take me down to the planet.” Gallenn looked around the Den, examining the inner hull
with studied care. “Come along with us if you want. She’s only going to drop me off and come right back. In
and out, no problems.”
John leaned forward, looking toward the bottom of the drop. “See that?” He pointed into the depths.
“Thinking of jumping?” Gallenn asked. This time there was little humor in his tone, his entire body becoming
less relaxed as he looked between the sight beneath his feet and Crichton several times.
“Not the way you mean. Where I come from we had this sport called ‘bungie jumping’.” Gallenn shook his
head, letting him know that it didn’t mean anything to him. “The idea was to tie a long elastic rope onto your
feet, and jump off something like this head first. You go down, get snatched back up just before you hit, and
then bounce at the end of the line a couple more times.”
“This may explain some of your more peculiar behaviors, Crichton. They put too much stretch in your rope
once or twice, didn’t they?” He showed signs of relaxing as John laughed at the response. “That might be the
stupidest idea I’ve ever heard of on any planet.”
“The point is …” John broke into laughter again. He took a deep breath and became more serious. “The point
is that if I tried that here, no matter how many precautions I took, the line would break, I’d plummet to the
bottom, punch right through Moya’s hull into outer space, and everyone on board including Moya and Pilot
would die from decompression. Nothing I do ever seems to go right, Gallenn. Simple in and out on that planet
to drop you off would turn into a catastrophe of the first order. Probably wind up killing half the population. I’m
a jinx.” He rubbed at his eye with the heel of his hand, wiping something to one side.
“You’ve had a bad run, Crichton. Nothing more.” Gallenn glanced at Pilot, who was watching the two men
between performing his regular duties. “You’ve got friends here who are glad to have you back. There’s this
gorgeous bit of ruthless woman who has already gone to the limit to save your life, and who would do me some
bodily damage if she knew I said anything to you about it. Do you know what she did to get you out of there?”
John gave a one-shouldered shrug. “We’ve talked about it a bit.”
“A bit!” Gallenn yelled, then shrank in on himself slightly as the words echoed around the Den. “Crichton, you
idiot! Get out of your skull, you frelling imbecile!”
“Try ‘goober’,” John interjected, trying to slow the angry flood.
“That too,” his friend agreed, not calming down. “You spent nearly an entire cycle trying to drink yourself to
death because she left you. Then she comes back and mortgages her conscience by leaving a trail of bodies
behind her that would have embarrassed even Cholak’s demon. And she didn’t do it because of some
promise. She nearly took my head off when I suggested she was doing it casually.”
“Gallenn,” John tried to stop him.
“You’re a fool, Crichton. She would have died trying to get you off that carrier before she gave up and left you
there. And you sit here like a celibate flibisk, counting your woes. Aeryn hasn’t told me what happened to you,
only that you’d been interrogated. I’m not going to pretend that anything a Peacekeeper dreamed up was a lot
of fun, but would you please look around you for a microt and see what you’ve got here?” Gallenn got to his
feet and stalked toward the door and back. “Drannit brain.”
“I love you too,” John mumbled back. “Gallenn, it’s --”
“Gallenn?” Aeryn’s voice sounded over the comms, interrupting his protest. “I’m all set to go whenever you’re
ready.”
“I’ll be down in a little bit,” he answered. He shut off his comms, unclipped it from his shirt and walked over to
set it next to Pilot. “Thank you, Pilot. I’ve enjoyed my short residence here. I hope I run into you and Moya
again some day. Figuratively, of course.”
“We will miss you,” Pilot returned somberly.
“You don’t have to go,” John suggested, getting to his feet. “You could stay.”
“You’ve got people on your butt that don’t care about me yet,” Gallenn sighed. “They’ll execute me if they find
me, but they don’t usually go hunting for missing techs.” He waited for a response, finally adding, “It’s too
dangerous for me to stay. Although there are some aspects about staying that are more attractive than
others.” He grinned wickedly at John, inviting an answer.
“Yes, we kind of noticed that you and Chiana were going missing at the same time. You weren’t particularly
subtle about that.” John clapped him on the shoulder. “I’m sure she’ll miss you, too.” He stretched over the
edge of Pilot’s consoles, trying to reach something sitting on the inside of the station. Pilot carefully gathered
the object up between two claws and handed it to him.
“Here, take this with you.” John handed the object to Gallenn.
The sebacean eyed the metal box suspiciously, thumbing the catch but not opening the cover. “This isn’t going
to explode on me, is it?” He cracked the lid and cautiously peered in. “No, I won’t take this,” he said
emphatically when he saw what it contained. “It took you arns to build it. It’s yours.” He set the box down on
the outside of Pilot’s bulwarks and opened it all the way to reveal John’s chess set.
“I have one here. It got left behind when I got separated from Moya. You take that one. Teach someone else
how to play. You’ll kick their ass, you’re good at it.” Gallenn shook his head, refusing to accept the gift, but he
was fingering the polished hydrosteel pieces reverently. “I don’t have anything else to offer. You kept me alive
for a long time, Gallenn. You hauled my ass out of that bar more times than I can count.”
“Only because you never learned to count,” the tech quipped.
John ignored the gibe. “Please take it. Learn strategy from it and stay away from those Peacekeeper
bastards. Disappear from sight. Stay safe.”
“All right,” Gallenn finally agreed. He placed the white queen in its slot and latched the lid. “On one condition.”
He waited for John’s motion that encouraged him to suggest a bargain. “Talk to Aeryn. You’ve been shutting
her out. You agree to talk to her and I’ll take this with me.”
John glanced up at Pilot, who was watching the negotiations with interest. “Gallenn …”
“Yes, I know there’s a witness. Pilot? If he agrees, you hold him to it or else toss him out an airlock.” Gallenn
held the chess set out to him, inviting him to take it back.
“No … you take it,” John agreed slowly. “It’s a deal. Now get out of here. Stay safe.” He leaned his hip against
Pilot’s station, showing no inclination to accompany his friend to the planet. The two men stared at each other
for several microts, blue eyes staring into brown, then they nodded together. “See you around,” John broke
the silence.
“Take care of yourself, John,” Gallenn mumbled, turned and hurried out of the Den.
“No sign of Peacekeepers, right?” Crichton asked Pilot. He watched the empty doorway, as if expecting
someone to come through it.
“Nothing but commerce vessels,” the huge symbiote confirmed.
“Thanks, Pilot. Do me a favor and comm me when Aeryn’s on her way back?” He barely waited for an answer
before striding out of the Den, moving with far more purpose than he had at any time since returning to the
leviathan.
* * * * *
The small transport ship accelerated away from Moya, arcing smoothly toward the planet with only the slightest
adjustment to its trajectory in order to settle into the alignment requested by the planetary control facility.
Aeryn tapped another set of commands into the console, pulled the power back to stabilize the velocity and
turned to face Gallenn.
“You know you don’t have to leave,” she started.
“Crichton said the same thing,” he agreed. “You have too many nasty folks chasing you. It’s not the life I want
to lead. This is better for me.” He gestured toward the planet where they’d located a long-range cargo
transport that needed a mechanic. “This one’s headed a long way away. But thanks anyway. You’re
generous.”
“You’re John’s friend. He needs all the friends he can find here.” She turned to check on their course, then
slowly fingered one switch, her fingers moving idly as she hesitated over something. “Did he … has John said
anything to you about what happened after I got shot?” she asked.
“Nothing. You?” She shook her head. “He never said anything when we worked together, but he seemed to
have a thing about knives. It’s a problem isn’t it?”
“It could be.” Aeryn made another adjustment as they slid into the highest reaches of the planet’s atmosphere.
“Do you think he remembers what he did? You brought him on board. Did he know what he was doing?”
Gallenn leaned back in the co-pilot’s seat and watched as they plummeted down through the cloud layers,
breaking out beneath the overcast to a gray, rain-pelted landscape, their landing sight half obscured in the
downpour. He remained silent as Aeryn piloted the craft to a landing pad and set it down. “I don’t think so,” he
answered as the engines died to a whispering whine. “He was close to attacking me. I wouldn’t want to bet my
life on it, but I’d say he had no idea what he was doing. You know the boosters can do that to you anyway, and
he was … I never thought I’d see Crichton do anything like that.”
He got out of his seat, scooping up a small gear bag on his way to the cockpit hatch. “Not much to show for
eight cycles of work,” he observed sardonically.
“Our fault,” she offered.
“Oh, don’t worry about it too much.” Gallenn dug in a pocket and produced a data chip. “When you and I
tricked John off the planet way back when, I gave him some of the currency he’d earned from the business, but
I didn’t have time to convert all of it. The rest of his money is safe in an inter-system account.” He grinned and
shoved the chip back in his pocket, making it clear that he was going on his way well financed.
“Are you going to tell him what he did in the hangar?” He looked troubled by the thought.
“No, not unless I think he’s starting to remember anyway. There’s no reason to ever bring that up again.”
“And you’re not going to give up on him,” he suggested, the cockpit door half open against the rain.
“Never.” Aeryn gestured a farewell as he waved and ducked out the door, then set about getting back to
Moya.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
