A Taste Of Tomorrow
Part 4
John yawned and stretched, hearing the resulting muted crackle as much through his bones as through his
ears. He unstrapped his pulse pistol and hung it on the rack in the corner of his cell, then slowly pulled his shirt
off, pausing halfway through as though stuck in the garment before yanking it the rest of the way over his
head. He tossed the shirt into the growing heap of dirty clothes piling up in one corner of his chamber, then
flopped down face first onto his bed with a long groan.
The day was supposed to have been an easy one, consisting of nothing more than a run to pick up some
supplies, but their usual luck had prevailed. They’d spread out through the merchandizing sector of a
moderate sized town, seeking various supplies, and everything had progressed smoothly until a slave trader
had climbed onto an auction platform towing a young delvian female. John had spotted D’Argo and Aeryn
watching the proceedings from different spots around the market area, had watched the bidding begin with a
sharp pang of anger, and had turned his back on an event he couldn’t prevent. A microt later he’d heard
Rygel’s angry snarl, and had turned to find a riot already underway.
If he’d had to guess ahead of time, he would have predicted that it would be Chiana who would have started the
melee, not the diminutive Dominar. The delvian, it turned out, was barely full grown, a mere child. She’d been
traded from one owner to the next for more than five cycles in a slow journey away from where she’d been
abducted. Kept on the brink of starvation in order to make her docile, deliberately deprived of sunlight, she
was thin, covered in oozing sores, and her hair had been cut down to a fuzzy ruff that scarcely covered her
scalp. During the flight back to Moya, Rygel had admitted that he had somehow managed to see something of
Zhaan in the pathetic creature, and he’d flown his throne sled up onto the auctioning stage, hurled several foul
epithets at the slaver, and tried to take the youngster into his own custody without bothering to bid on her.
John had seen Rygel’s head zig-zagging above the mob, making his way out of the chaos that he’d started, and
had assumed from the erratic course he was flying that the hynerian had the delvian girl in tow. He bolted in
the direction where he’d last seen Aeryn, muscling his way through the crowd, and nearly ran into her coming
the other way looking for him. What had been a placid marketplace microts earlier was now a jammed-packed
battleground filled with brawling individuals who seemed to be fighting for the fun of it. Aeryn linked an arm
through his so they wouldn’t get separated, and they began fighting their way toward where they’d left the
transport pod.
“How the frell did this start?” she yelled over the noise.
“Well …” John stopped long enough to duck a wild punch from what looked like a well-muscled ostrich with
arms instead of wings. “Two guys punched each other, then each of them punched two guys more, then those
four …”
“Shut up, Crichton,” she demanded, but not without humor. Aeryn kicked the ostrich-man between the legs,
stepped over the squirming suffering creature, and led the way toward an exit from the market sector. From
four or five motras away they could see D’Argo standing head and shoulders above the crowd, and battered
and shoved their way to link up with him and Chiana. It was at that point that the bickering inhabitants stopped
their fighting long enough to decide that the companions of the hynerian must be at fault for the riot, and a
microt later they were running for their lives with more than a hundred angry townspeople pursuing them.
With Chiana leading the way, they dodged through a gap between two of the buildings ringing the open-air
market, and fled through one trash clogged alleyway after another, trying to make their way toward where
they’d left the transport pod. They were within shouting distance of their goal when they rounded a corner to
face a wall too high for any one of them to climb over on their own.
“Quick!” John yelled, cupping his hands in front of him. One strong heave boosted Aeryn high enough for her
to catch the top of the wall while D’Argo came close to tossing Chiana clear over the barricade. The two men
turned and stared at each other, both of them trapped on the wrong side with the crowd approaching fast.
D’Argo cupped his hands, ready to fling John upward next.
“You first, then pull me up,” John ordered. “Even with three of us pulling, we’ll never be able to get you up
there.” He braced his back against the wall and pointed to his upper leg, indicating where D’Argo should step
first.
“Aeryn!” he yelled, intending to ask for covering fire as the first of the incensed mob poured around the corner
at the end of the alley. Before he could finish his desperate cry, Aeryn and Chiana, both perched on top of the
wall, opened up with their weapons, driving the crowd back.
D’Argo took a running start toward Crichton, and went up his friend in two bludgeoning steps. One foot
smashed against John’s thigh, the next landed on his shoulder nearly driving him to his knees, and the crushing
weight was gone. He turned to find D’Argo’s hand reaching back for him, just out of reach. Two fast steps and
a leap, his hand slapped into D’Argo’s, and it felt like he’d been snatched off the ground by an over-stretched
elastic band. Three microts later they were all standing on the far side of the wall, panting and disheveled, but
safe. The rest of the retreat was hasty but uneventful by comparison. Rygel, who had made his way
uneventfully out of the disturbance he’d started, was waiting with the pod’s engines already running, the young
delvian cowering in a corner as the four crewmates tumbled noisily into the cockpit.
What should have been an uneventful afternoon of shopping had turned into another exercise in danger,
confusion and near disaster.
John was yanked out of his reverie by the sound of the heavy doors of the converted cell swinging shut with
their distinctive metallic grinding. He lifted his head, watching with a visceral swell of pleasure as Aeryn flipped
the curtains into place with an easy flick of the shimmering fabric and turned toward where he lay on the bed.
She detoured to hang her pulse pistol next to Winona then came to sit next to him, slowly unfastening her boots
one buckle at a time, sometimes fumbling for several microts in order to release what should have been an
easily opened clasp.
“How’s our new addition to the ship’s roster?” John mumbled, continuing to lie facedown. “Still out on the
terrace getting sunlight?”
“Yes. Moya is going to stay in orbit around the system’s primary for another twelve arns. Pilot has her angled
so the terrace isn’t in direct sunlight -- we think that would be too much after so many cycles without enough
solar exposure. She’s scared half to death, eating everything Rygel takes to her, and she refuses to talk.”
John watched with amusement as Aeryn pitched her heavy footwear into a corner, followed by her socks and
shirt. She normally positioned everything neatly, squared to the shelves running along the wall, militarily
precise even when undressing. The fact that she’d adopted his method of discarding apparel meant that she
was as tired as he felt. “Give her time,” he said.
“Are you going to get undressed, or do you plan to sleep like that?” Aeryn asked.
“In a microt. I’m trying to find enough energy to take off my boots.”
“You’re going to bruise,” she observed, leaning over his back to run her fingers across one of his shoulders.
“It’s a perfect footprint.”
“D’Argo’s heavy,” he answered, and sat up with a quiet grunt. “Really heavy.” John unlaced his boots and
heaved them into the corner to join Aeryn’s. She was sitting on the side of the bed, as motionless as he’d been
a moment earlier.
“Are you going to get undressed, or do you plan to sleep like that?” he asked, mimicking Aeryn’s question.
“Like this,” she answered tiredly, and let herself tip over onto the bed.
John grabbed her ankles and swung her legs up onto the mattress, then unfastened her belt and zipper.
“What are you doing?” she asked, peering down at him suspiciously. Whenever he began removing her
clothes, it always led to something requiring exertion and she was too tired tonight.
“Hang on,” he said. John grabbed the bottoms of her pants, and tugged the heavy leather off in a series of
jerks, nearly pulling her off the bed in the process. His pants followed hers into the corner, then he slid into bed
alongside her and pulled the covers over both of them.
“What should we do about our visitor?” Aeryn asked.
“Let her stay until she wants to leave, same as everyone else,” he sighed, rolling onto his stomach. John
propped his head on his forearm and gazed at Aeryn as she stared up at the ceiling. “You’re beautiful,” he
whispered after several moments of quiet.
“If we take in every pathetic lifeform we come across, Moya will fill up.” She reached across and tugged at his
hair, staring into his eyes with an intensity that matched his. “She’s not Zhaan.”
“I know she’s not Zhaan,” he snapped at her too loudly. Aeryn started to pull her hand away and he caught it,
trying to apologize with a small squeeze. “That isn’t why I think she should have the opportunity to stay. Our
luck has to be some of the worst in the entire universe, but we have managed to haul our asses out of almost
every disaster we’ve created over the past few cycles. There are a lot of people out here who do a whole lot
worse.”
“You want to turn Moya into a floating sanctuary, delivering every downtrodden soul from misery?” she
mocked. John released her hand and turned his back on her without answering. “That came out wrong,” Aeryn
said, trying to draw closer to him. “It was supposed to be a joke.”
John shrugged beneath the hand she’d put on his shoulder, refusing to turn toward her. “It’s okay. I knew you
didn’t mean it. Problem is … that’s sort of what I wish we could do. This isn’t an ark, and I know we can’t fill
Moya up with two of every species, but she’s got room to spare. We have room to …” He shrugged again and
didn’t bother finishing his explanation.
“Not all delvians are priests. Their soldiers are fearsome, and you already know what happens if they begin to
starve.”
“Which is why I though we’d put Sparky in charge of the sprout until we figure out what type of person she’s
going to blossom into,” he laughed. “If she decides she needs meat, we’ll hear his screams and know it’s gone
all wrong as usual.”
“The next miserable, cowed, pathetic being we bring on board could turn out to be a bounty hunter or an
assassin,” she warned, leaning her chin on his shoulder. “We know from the wanted beacons that High
Command has tripled the bounty for you and me. Until we get out of Peacekeeper space, there are going to be
plenty of hunters willing to risk their lives for that kind of wealth.”
“Grayza seems to be taking things rather personally,” John mused.
A brush with a Peacekeeper force a quarter cycle earlier had resulted in the discovery that Lo’la’s weaponry
could take out a Vigilante class destroyer. John had provided the bait for a trap by positioning the module
where the destroyer would find it without becoming suspicious and then deliberately discharged every power
cell so it appeared he’d been cut off from Moya by a malfunction. It had worked, luring the Peacekeepers into
range of D’Argo’s cloaked ship, but there hadn’t been a backup plan or a route for escape. If their plan hadn’t
worked, John would have been captured.
D’Argo had been almost as anxious as Aeryn over the horrible risk Crichton was taking, and he’d funneled
every last bit of power into the single blast. The Vigilante had simply vanished, transformed into a short-lived
haze of energy and unassociated molecules, and Lo’la had been turned into a cold, airless container. Moya
had emerged from where she was hiding behind a planet, kept safe from the destroyer’s immobilizer pulse, and
had snared first the powerless module and then Lo’la. The two men were cold, mildly oxygen-starved, and
unharmed, and they’d all rejoiced when they’d tapped into a Peacekeeper communication reporting that
Commandant Mele-On Grayza was being transported back to High Command to face disciplinary action for her
losses over the preceding cycle.
“How’d she get off so easily?” John asked disgustedly.
Twenty solar days ago, they’d found out that Grayza had returned to her command carrier, her position
restored albeit with a minder in the form of Captain Braca, who had been given extraordinary command
privileges to override her orders if he felt it necessary. The rumors they’d heard indicated that the shared
power was creating chaos and dissention aboard the carrier, but it hadn’t stopped the Peacekeepers from
looking for the fugitives or increasing the rewards to a staggering sum that was attracting every bounty hunter
in the Uncharted Territories.
“Probably frelled every officer at High Command,” Aeryn proposed drowsily.
“Mmmm,” he agreed, the conversation giving way before the first floating sensation of sleep.
Aeryn snuggled in against his back, a warm, soft presence that conformed to his body from shoulders to knees,
and he struggled back to full waking awareness to reflect on how much he liked the warm swirl of her breathing
against his shoulder, and the drifting tickle where her hair brushed across his skin. She kissed the back of his
neck, her lips soft against a point at the base of his skull, and he waited for what he knew would come next. A
moment later her fingers were there, slowly stroking one small point to the left of his spine, repeating a
sequence that had played itself out several times over the last two days.
“Does it hurt?” she asked for what he thought might be the twentieth time since she’d stabbed him. Her thumb
rubbed carefully across the healing puncture, then her fingers returned to stroke his neck to either side of it.
John submitted willingly to her nearly obsessive petting, well aware that it was Aeryn’s way of dealing with the
stress she’d been under when she’d created the wound. He reached behind him, found one of her hands, and
pulled her arm around him in an embrace.
“Stop feeling guilty about this,” he urged, kissing her knuckles. Aeryn’s fingers brushed through the hair
behind his ear, stroking his skull, then began their slow migration back to the point near his spine. He waited
through another round of the gentle petting, then tried again. “You did exactly what I wanted. It was perfect.”
She’d removed Harvey two days earlier, and it had been every bit as excruciating as when the chip had been
put in there, beginning the clone’s cohabitation of his mind.
It had taken Aeryn nearly forty solar days before she’d even admitted that she had the device. Scorpius had
tried to use the promise of the silvery spike to convince her to give him asylum aboard Moya, but she’d been
suspicious of his assurances and had turned him down. In the midst of her desperate battle with the stronger,
faster half-breed, she’d grabbed at the shining handle hoping for a weapon, and had hung on to it when she’d
realized what she’d plucked away from his grasp.
There had been no guarantee that it would work as promised though, and she’d agonized over telling John
about it for days. They’d examined it together, spending arns in the maintenance bay trying to determine if it
would perform as promised, and had been stymied by its circuitry. It had taken another quarter cycle before
they had come across a technician who could analyze the spike’s inner workings. The expert had declared it a
neural interface of some sort that was designed to interact with an extremely specific pattern –- but not destroy
it. At their request, he’d altered the device, swearing by all twelve of his deities that it would randomize only the
targeted pattern and not the patient’s entire psyche when he was done. They’d paid him for his efforts,
returned to Moya, and placed the spike on a shelf, unwilling to risk injuring John.
That had changed six days earlier when the clone, in a fit of paranoia over his possible eradication, had
stopped John’s breathing for almost one hundred microts. They’d decided then that he’d have to be destroyed,
no matter what the risk.
They’d tried to use it four times, and the clone had exerted the same control over John’s physiology that had
allowed him to alter his energy signature aboard Scorpius’ command carrier. Each time Aeryn got close to him
with the spike in her hand, John went into respiratory arrest, struggling vainly for air with muscles that were
under someone else’s control. She’d finally told him that they would have to learn to live with Harvey, the spike
had disappeared from his quarters, and Harvey had stopped interfering with the function of his body.
The night before last, Aeryn had commed John from the Den, asking him to come examine some bit of circuitry
on one of Pilot’s displays. The entire crew had been there when he’d arrived, which should have been a clue,
but he hadn’t suspected a thing … and neither had the clone.
Aeryn had been perched on the consoles to the right of Pilot, and had asked him to take a look at something
inside the station. When he’d leaned across from the outside to look where she was pointing, everyone,
including Pilot, had pounced on him, pinning him in place face down across the control surfaces. In one swift,
flashing move, Aeryn had driven the spike into the base of his skull, retaining the worst job for herself.
It had hurt like hell … and Harvey was gone.
“You did good,” he assured her again. “We couldn’t discuss it ahead of time, and I couldn’t even think about
you doing it that way, but that’s exactly what I wanted. It was the only way to sneak up on the bastard.”
“It didn’t feel like sneaking up on the clone,” she whispered, her voice suddenly thick. “It felt like attacking you
without warning and driving something into your brain. We all wanted to warn you first …”
“ … and you couldn’t because then Harvey would have been ready for it.” Her fingers were stroking his neck
again, slowly massaging the base of his skull as though she could smooth away the damage. “I know I was
screaming bloody murder, but that’s because you surprised me. It was perfect, Aeryn.” He rolled over and
pulled her onto his chest, rubbing her back in long, languorous sweeps.
“We thought if everyone was there, you’d know that we …” she began an explanation that he’d already heard
seven or eight times. He’d bellowed and fought back for one instant after the unexpected attack, but the choice
to have everyone tackle him had been the right one. He’d realized almost instantaneously that if they were all
involved, that it was probably something that needed doing, and he’d had a split-microt of relief before the initial
panic had turned into blinding agony as the spike did its job.
“Aeryn,” John stopped her before she could explain it again. He swept several loose tendrils of hair away from
her face and tucked them behind her ear. “Harvey’s gone, you’re here, it worked, I’m fine.” He stifled her next
comment with a kiss. “You can skewer me in the head any day of the week, gorgeous.”
“You like getting skewered?” she asked, relaxing for the first time since she’d done it.
“Actually …” he murmured, kissing the underside of her throat. “I like doing the skewering, if you know what I
mean.”
“I do know what you mean,” she laughed. “And speaking of skewering, that reminds me …” Aeryn grasped his
head in both hands and thumped it firmly into the pillows, interrupting a slow migration of kisses that seemed to
be headed down her chest. “You know Chiana and D’Argo have …”
“Yes, I know,” he answered before she could finish. “I saw him sneaking into her quarters six nights ago. He’s
a lot calmer and more balanced these days. It’s helping Chiana get over what happened to her. I’m glad they
made up. They’re good together.” John looked up at her with a grin on his face.
“What?” Aeryn asked, puzzled by his expression.
“We’re good together,” he answered, rubbing her back as though he couldn’t get enough of the touch of her.
Aeryn lowered herself into the warmth of his embrace. They lay quietly for some time, the gentle rumbles of
Moya the only sound in the chamber.
“Lumpy,” Aeryn commented at last, easing off him.
“Not exactly a featherweight blanket yourself,” he observed, shifting to one side of the bed. They shuffled
around until she was curled on her side, John tucked in close behind her with his arms around her.
He took a deeper breath, sighed, and then asked, “So what do you want to do about the suspended animation
tadpole? Do we wait for nature to let junior start growing, or is there somewhere other than a command carrier
where we can jump start his progress?”
“Her,” Aeryn said firmly.
“John Junior,” he countered.
“She’s going to have a tough time growing up with a name like that.” She kicked his shin lightly with her heel,
and twisted around to watch his reaction.
He laughed into the side of her neck, his breath warm against her skin, then leaned around her to give her a
light kiss. “Fine. It’s a ‘her’. Answer the question.”
Aeryn turned away from him, and spent several moments getting comfortable inside his arms again. The
silence continued for so long he raised himself up on one elbow to see if she’d fallen asleep. She was
frowning, staring into the gloom of the darkened chamber.
“You don’t want to release the stasis,” he said with certainty.
“Is this a good time to do this, John? Life hasn’t been easy this last cycle. My ability to fight will be
compromised during the pregnancy; you know everyone on board will begin concentrating more on protecting
me than on doing whatever is necessary to survive. We’re short on food again, Moya’s tired. We’re being
chased. It will be an incredibly dangerous life for a small child.” She turned to look up at him. “Is this a good
idea?”
“How long do we have to make up our minds?”
“I don’t know. Anywhere from a few days to several cycles. I’m fairly sure I know when this happened, but I
can’t be absolutely certain without a test.” She reached up to finger a rogue tuft of hair that was standing
straight up on his head. “And I want to be sure it’s yours.”
“His?” It was out before he could stop himself. He knew without any lingering doubt that Aeryn didn’t consider
him a copy, but the occasional stray thought of the other John Crichton bothered him in ways he couldn’t begin
to explain even to himself.
“John Crichton’s. There’s no difference as far as I’m …” She stopped and frowned.
Her mind and will remain strong, but her body is giving away before time. Her great-grandson sits to her right,
steadying her when the pain in her chest becomes most severe, and supporting her failing muscles when she
tires. It is her last day; she is sure of it. She sits at the table in Command aboard the aging leviathan named
Moya, with her family around her. The ships of The Family range out around them, already grieving for the
impending loss of the second half of the pair that gave this community life.
“John,” she calls to the latest of her descendants to wear that name. He is not yet thirty cycles old, a grandson
several times removed, and looks so much like her long-departed love on the day that she met him that she
nearly breaks down in tears. “Sit by me for a while.”
“Yes, Gran,” he says, tears streaking down his cheeks. He slides into place on the other side of her, and hugs
her carefully.
“Don’t cry, young one. It’s my time. He’s waiting for me.” Her family has gathered aboard Moya to be with her.
She is surrounded by the evidence that she was loved by the most special of individuals, dark brown hair and
blue eyes scattered throughout the assembled group. John has been with her every single moment since he
passed on, his genes close to hand as she tried to continue his traditions of compassion and fighting to keep
every one of the group safe, whether they be family or friends.
“Wouldn’t you be more comfortable in your old quarters?” her great-grandson asks. “We made it up for you
the way it used to be.” Moya is not ancient, but she is aging. There is always a small contingent aboard her to
keep her company, for she enjoys the presence of others, but she is no longer required to carry any more than
the smallest burden. There are other, younger ships that are both pleased and proud to transport the
community.
“No, this is good,” she answers. “This is where it should happen. I like it here.”
There are two Talyns in this fleet. There is her great-grandson who sits beside her, a strong, capable man who
was the first of the blue-eyed descendents to inherit the generation-skipping genes that contain the knowledge
of wormholes; and there is the massive leviathan hovering protectively to the treblin side of Moya, the first of the
crop of youngsters born to their original gentle host.
“Yes, Gran,” he replies, his smile no stronger than the young John’s.
This is where her love had chosen to end his life, sitting in Command watching the stars wheel slowly around
him, looking into the darkness of space with the same active, inquiring mind that had brought him to her in the
beginning. Some careful tinkering by various diagnosans and other medical specialists had given John some
extra time, but his one hundred and eighteen cycles hadn’t been enough to match her own longevity. The day
had come when she’d held him as she was being held now, and watched him slip away. Alert and cheerful to
the end, he’d smiled and called her the radiant Aeryn Sun with his last breath. She’ll follow him in the same
manner, with their progeny all around her.
Heavy footsteps hammer in the corridor, heralding the one person who has stayed with her through all the
changes. Sikozu and Noranti had departed early on -- one to pursue a mysterious mission she’d never
described, the other one taking her leave muttering of a purpose that was no longer required. They’d said
goodbye to Rygel next. He’d eventually resumed his throne after a group seeking reforms had assassinated
his cousin, Bishan. The Dominar had grown into a corpulent but benevolent tyrant who was adored by his
subjects. Ruling from behind a pile of marjoules, he’d sneered at the concept of democracy, and had
dispensed a compassionate but firm autocratic rule, rarely speaking of the experiences that had taught him
about compassion. Chiana had eventually taken her leave of them as well, disappearing into nebari space to
join the resistance, trading one life of chaos and danger for another, always seeking out the thrills and
excitement.
“Aeryn!” D’Argo exclaims, hurrying in. Fully one fifth of the small fleet’s population is luxan. One tankta’d
straggler after another joined on after their territories fell to the scarrans, finding refuge and welcome. The
luxans are exuberant fighters, devoting heart and soul, if not always reason, to the safety of the migrating group.
“D’Argo,” she greets him warmly, gesturing for him to join her. Talyn slides out of the way, letting Aeryn’s old
friend take his place, and she sits much as John had sat on his last day. She has D’Argo to her right, a look-
alike of John Crichton to her left, and she is happy.
“It’s too soon,” her long-time comrade protests. “Don’t go, Aeryn.”
“I have missed him every single solar day since he died,” she says. “I never believed in an afterlife when I was
young, but I believe I’ll see him again very soon. I want to be with him, D’Argo.”
He nods, unable to speak, and hugs her carefully, mindful of her cycles. He swallows hard, and tries anyway,
his voice rasping and cracking with the strain of holding back the unshed tears. “Say hello to that upper
reasoning deficient excuse for a lifeform,” he whispers roughly. “Tell him I miss him.”
“I will.” She turns toward the clamshell next, and calls toward the person whose DNA she still carries after all
these cycles, their special bond unbroken by the passage of time or the birth of each successive generation.
“Pilot?”
“Yes, Officer Sun,” his aging voice returns the same reply as always.
“Thank you both. For everything.”
She thanks him for all the years that he and his huge partner have provided them with a home and watched
over them; for the good moments as well as the bad; and for those first few days after John’s death when they’d
let her drift aimlessly through Moya’s corridors with no one else aboard to disturb her meanderings through her
memories. There had been laughter and joy, and incredible sorrow during the cycles they’d lived within these
burnished golden walls, and she had revisited every one of them in the days that she’d spent wandering up and
down the tiers, working her grief out in her own way.
Then, as now, she’d been surrounded by the mental reminders of their life together -- the birth of their first
child; the cruel death of three of their grandchildren during an unprovoked attack by an unidentified alien ship;
life, death, laughter, anger, times of plenty, moments of near starvation. She had willingly faced it all because
John was by her side. Losing him a second time had been no easier for the cycles they had spent together.
The first had gone too soon. The second had spent his life with her, and she’d discovered that the loss was
more intense despite the peaceful circumstances of his death.
“Thank you,” she repeats to Pilot and Moya, because aside from D’Argo, they are the only ones who have been
here right from the beginning, and they know better than anyone else what type of life it has been.
“Thank you, Aeryn. Moya and I … love you. Find peace.”
“I believe I will,” she answers. “Goodbye.”
She hugs the young John, feeling his sobs through that contact, then turns to look at D’Argo one last time.
“The first day we met, he said I could be more.”
“He was right -- you are,” he assures her. “John was always so proud of you.”
She smiles, looks one last time at friends and family, and then she lets go, satisfied that this group will survive
and grow without her to watch over them. And she can feel him waiting for her.
“Change your mind about it being a girl?” John asked. He sat up straighter, watching with concern as her
expression eased from a frown to an anxious look of uncertainty. “Aeryn? What’s the matter?”
“I had one of those strange flashes you used to talk about when we first came back aboard Moya.” She shook
her head. “That is the weirdest sensation. Just for a microt … I could have sworn.”
“You’re crying,” he worried.
Aeryn let out a huge sigh, laughed, and wiped away the streams of tears. “I don’t know what happened. I don’t
like that déjà vu thing of yours though. That’s eerie. It’s like … it’s like getting a quick taste of what tomorrow
will bring, but not enough to know for sure.”
“What triggered it?” He started to get up, concerned by her tears, and she pulled him down. John subsided
slowly, still worried by the emotional outburst. Aeryn rolled onto her back to she could look up at him,
concentrating on the elusive moment that had disappeared faster than it had played out in her mind.
“I don’t remember. It was exactly the way you described it. It’s there, leaves you shaking, and then it’s
completely gone. I can see why you were glad when they stopped.” She tugged at his hand, trying to get him
to lie down beside her again, but he stayed where he was, sitting alongside her slowly fingering the loose
strands of her hair away from her face.
“Let’s take this junior thing one step at a time,” she suggested, returning to their discussion. “A diagnosan can
do the tests for us. Let’s find out how long we have, and make sure who the father is, then we can go from
there. Will that do?”
“That’ll do,” John agreed. He leaned down, placed his lips against the smooth skin of her belly, and growled to
the life waiting within her. “Who’s your daddy?”
“We have time,” Aeryn said on a laugh, scrubbing her fingers through his hair until it stood on end all over.
“Lots of time.”
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
Part 4
John yawned and stretched, hearing the resulting muted crackle as much through his bones as through his
ears. He unstrapped his pulse pistol and hung it on the rack in the corner of his cell, then slowly pulled his shirt
off, pausing halfway through as though stuck in the garment before yanking it the rest of the way over his
head. He tossed the shirt into the growing heap of dirty clothes piling up in one corner of his chamber, then
flopped down face first onto his bed with a long groan.
The day was supposed to have been an easy one, consisting of nothing more than a run to pick up some
supplies, but their usual luck had prevailed. They’d spread out through the merchandizing sector of a
moderate sized town, seeking various supplies, and everything had progressed smoothly until a slave trader
had climbed onto an auction platform towing a young delvian female. John had spotted D’Argo and Aeryn
watching the proceedings from different spots around the market area, had watched the bidding begin with a
sharp pang of anger, and had turned his back on an event he couldn’t prevent. A microt later he’d heard
Rygel’s angry snarl, and had turned to find a riot already underway.
If he’d had to guess ahead of time, he would have predicted that it would be Chiana who would have started the
melee, not the diminutive Dominar. The delvian, it turned out, was barely full grown, a mere child. She’d been
traded from one owner to the next for more than five cycles in a slow journey away from where she’d been
abducted. Kept on the brink of starvation in order to make her docile, deliberately deprived of sunlight, she
was thin, covered in oozing sores, and her hair had been cut down to a fuzzy ruff that scarcely covered her
scalp. During the flight back to Moya, Rygel had admitted that he had somehow managed to see something of
Zhaan in the pathetic creature, and he’d flown his throne sled up onto the auctioning stage, hurled several foul
epithets at the slaver, and tried to take the youngster into his own custody without bothering to bid on her.
John had seen Rygel’s head zig-zagging above the mob, making his way out of the chaos that he’d started, and
had assumed from the erratic course he was flying that the hynerian had the delvian girl in tow. He bolted in
the direction where he’d last seen Aeryn, muscling his way through the crowd, and nearly ran into her coming
the other way looking for him. What had been a placid marketplace microts earlier was now a jammed-packed
battleground filled with brawling individuals who seemed to be fighting for the fun of it. Aeryn linked an arm
through his so they wouldn’t get separated, and they began fighting their way toward where they’d left the
transport pod.
“How the frell did this start?” she yelled over the noise.
“Well …” John stopped long enough to duck a wild punch from what looked like a well-muscled ostrich with
arms instead of wings. “Two guys punched each other, then each of them punched two guys more, then those
four …”
“Shut up, Crichton,” she demanded, but not without humor. Aeryn kicked the ostrich-man between the legs,
stepped over the squirming suffering creature, and led the way toward an exit from the market sector. From
four or five motras away they could see D’Argo standing head and shoulders above the crowd, and battered
and shoved their way to link up with him and Chiana. It was at that point that the bickering inhabitants stopped
their fighting long enough to decide that the companions of the hynerian must be at fault for the riot, and a
microt later they were running for their lives with more than a hundred angry townspeople pursuing them.
With Chiana leading the way, they dodged through a gap between two of the buildings ringing the open-air
market, and fled through one trash clogged alleyway after another, trying to make their way toward where
they’d left the transport pod. They were within shouting distance of their goal when they rounded a corner to
face a wall too high for any one of them to climb over on their own.
“Quick!” John yelled, cupping his hands in front of him. One strong heave boosted Aeryn high enough for her
to catch the top of the wall while D’Argo came close to tossing Chiana clear over the barricade. The two men
turned and stared at each other, both of them trapped on the wrong side with the crowd approaching fast.
D’Argo cupped his hands, ready to fling John upward next.
“You first, then pull me up,” John ordered. “Even with three of us pulling, we’ll never be able to get you up
there.” He braced his back against the wall and pointed to his upper leg, indicating where D’Argo should step
first.
“Aeryn!” he yelled, intending to ask for covering fire as the first of the incensed mob poured around the corner
at the end of the alley. Before he could finish his desperate cry, Aeryn and Chiana, both perched on top of the
wall, opened up with their weapons, driving the crowd back.
D’Argo took a running start toward Crichton, and went up his friend in two bludgeoning steps. One foot
smashed against John’s thigh, the next landed on his shoulder nearly driving him to his knees, and the crushing
weight was gone. He turned to find D’Argo’s hand reaching back for him, just out of reach. Two fast steps and
a leap, his hand slapped into D’Argo’s, and it felt like he’d been snatched off the ground by an over-stretched
elastic band. Three microts later they were all standing on the far side of the wall, panting and disheveled, but
safe. The rest of the retreat was hasty but uneventful by comparison. Rygel, who had made his way
uneventfully out of the disturbance he’d started, was waiting with the pod’s engines already running, the young
delvian cowering in a corner as the four crewmates tumbled noisily into the cockpit.
What should have been an uneventful afternoon of shopping had turned into another exercise in danger,
confusion and near disaster.
John was yanked out of his reverie by the sound of the heavy doors of the converted cell swinging shut with
their distinctive metallic grinding. He lifted his head, watching with a visceral swell of pleasure as Aeryn flipped
the curtains into place with an easy flick of the shimmering fabric and turned toward where he lay on the bed.
She detoured to hang her pulse pistol next to Winona then came to sit next to him, slowly unfastening her boots
one buckle at a time, sometimes fumbling for several microts in order to release what should have been an
easily opened clasp.
“How’s our new addition to the ship’s roster?” John mumbled, continuing to lie facedown. “Still out on the
terrace getting sunlight?”
“Yes. Moya is going to stay in orbit around the system’s primary for another twelve arns. Pilot has her angled
so the terrace isn’t in direct sunlight -- we think that would be too much after so many cycles without enough
solar exposure. She’s scared half to death, eating everything Rygel takes to her, and she refuses to talk.”
John watched with amusement as Aeryn pitched her heavy footwear into a corner, followed by her socks and
shirt. She normally positioned everything neatly, squared to the shelves running along the wall, militarily
precise even when undressing. The fact that she’d adopted his method of discarding apparel meant that she
was as tired as he felt. “Give her time,” he said.
“Are you going to get undressed, or do you plan to sleep like that?” Aeryn asked.
“In a microt. I’m trying to find enough energy to take off my boots.”
“You’re going to bruise,” she observed, leaning over his back to run her fingers across one of his shoulders.
“It’s a perfect footprint.”
“D’Argo’s heavy,” he answered, and sat up with a quiet grunt. “Really heavy.” John unlaced his boots and
heaved them into the corner to join Aeryn’s. She was sitting on the side of the bed, as motionless as he’d been
a moment earlier.
“Are you going to get undressed, or do you plan to sleep like that?” he asked, mimicking Aeryn’s question.
“Like this,” she answered tiredly, and let herself tip over onto the bed.
John grabbed her ankles and swung her legs up onto the mattress, then unfastened her belt and zipper.
“What are you doing?” she asked, peering down at him suspiciously. Whenever he began removing her
clothes, it always led to something requiring exertion and she was too tired tonight.
“Hang on,” he said. John grabbed the bottoms of her pants, and tugged the heavy leather off in a series of
jerks, nearly pulling her off the bed in the process. His pants followed hers into the corner, then he slid into bed
alongside her and pulled the covers over both of them.
“What should we do about our visitor?” Aeryn asked.
“Let her stay until she wants to leave, same as everyone else,” he sighed, rolling onto his stomach. John
propped his head on his forearm and gazed at Aeryn as she stared up at the ceiling. “You’re beautiful,” he
whispered after several moments of quiet.
“If we take in every pathetic lifeform we come across, Moya will fill up.” She reached across and tugged at his
hair, staring into his eyes with an intensity that matched his. “She’s not Zhaan.”
“I know she’s not Zhaan,” he snapped at her too loudly. Aeryn started to pull her hand away and he caught it,
trying to apologize with a small squeeze. “That isn’t why I think she should have the opportunity to stay. Our
luck has to be some of the worst in the entire universe, but we have managed to haul our asses out of almost
every disaster we’ve created over the past few cycles. There are a lot of people out here who do a whole lot
worse.”
“You want to turn Moya into a floating sanctuary, delivering every downtrodden soul from misery?” she
mocked. John released her hand and turned his back on her without answering. “That came out wrong,” Aeryn
said, trying to draw closer to him. “It was supposed to be a joke.”
John shrugged beneath the hand she’d put on his shoulder, refusing to turn toward her. “It’s okay. I knew you
didn’t mean it. Problem is … that’s sort of what I wish we could do. This isn’t an ark, and I know we can’t fill
Moya up with two of every species, but she’s got room to spare. We have room to …” He shrugged again and
didn’t bother finishing his explanation.
“Not all delvians are priests. Their soldiers are fearsome, and you already know what happens if they begin to
starve.”
“Which is why I though we’d put Sparky in charge of the sprout until we figure out what type of person she’s
going to blossom into,” he laughed. “If she decides she needs meat, we’ll hear his screams and know it’s gone
all wrong as usual.”
“The next miserable, cowed, pathetic being we bring on board could turn out to be a bounty hunter or an
assassin,” she warned, leaning her chin on his shoulder. “We know from the wanted beacons that High
Command has tripled the bounty for you and me. Until we get out of Peacekeeper space, there are going to be
plenty of hunters willing to risk their lives for that kind of wealth.”
“Grayza seems to be taking things rather personally,” John mused.
A brush with a Peacekeeper force a quarter cycle earlier had resulted in the discovery that Lo’la’s weaponry
could take out a Vigilante class destroyer. John had provided the bait for a trap by positioning the module
where the destroyer would find it without becoming suspicious and then deliberately discharged every power
cell so it appeared he’d been cut off from Moya by a malfunction. It had worked, luring the Peacekeepers into
range of D’Argo’s cloaked ship, but there hadn’t been a backup plan or a route for escape. If their plan hadn’t
worked, John would have been captured.
D’Argo had been almost as anxious as Aeryn over the horrible risk Crichton was taking, and he’d funneled
every last bit of power into the single blast. The Vigilante had simply vanished, transformed into a short-lived
haze of energy and unassociated molecules, and Lo’la had been turned into a cold, airless container. Moya
had emerged from where she was hiding behind a planet, kept safe from the destroyer’s immobilizer pulse, and
had snared first the powerless module and then Lo’la. The two men were cold, mildly oxygen-starved, and
unharmed, and they’d all rejoiced when they’d tapped into a Peacekeeper communication reporting that
Commandant Mele-On Grayza was being transported back to High Command to face disciplinary action for her
losses over the preceding cycle.
“How’d she get off so easily?” John asked disgustedly.
Twenty solar days ago, they’d found out that Grayza had returned to her command carrier, her position
restored albeit with a minder in the form of Captain Braca, who had been given extraordinary command
privileges to override her orders if he felt it necessary. The rumors they’d heard indicated that the shared
power was creating chaos and dissention aboard the carrier, but it hadn’t stopped the Peacekeepers from
looking for the fugitives or increasing the rewards to a staggering sum that was attracting every bounty hunter
in the Uncharted Territories.
“Probably frelled every officer at High Command,” Aeryn proposed drowsily.
“Mmmm,” he agreed, the conversation giving way before the first floating sensation of sleep.
Aeryn snuggled in against his back, a warm, soft presence that conformed to his body from shoulders to knees,
and he struggled back to full waking awareness to reflect on how much he liked the warm swirl of her breathing
against his shoulder, and the drifting tickle where her hair brushed across his skin. She kissed the back of his
neck, her lips soft against a point at the base of his skull, and he waited for what he knew would come next. A
moment later her fingers were there, slowly stroking one small point to the left of his spine, repeating a
sequence that had played itself out several times over the last two days.
“Does it hurt?” she asked for what he thought might be the twentieth time since she’d stabbed him. Her thumb
rubbed carefully across the healing puncture, then her fingers returned to stroke his neck to either side of it.
John submitted willingly to her nearly obsessive petting, well aware that it was Aeryn’s way of dealing with the
stress she’d been under when she’d created the wound. He reached behind him, found one of her hands, and
pulled her arm around him in an embrace.
“Stop feeling guilty about this,” he urged, kissing her knuckles. Aeryn’s fingers brushed through the hair
behind his ear, stroking his skull, then began their slow migration back to the point near his spine. He waited
through another round of the gentle petting, then tried again. “You did exactly what I wanted. It was perfect.”
She’d removed Harvey two days earlier, and it had been every bit as excruciating as when the chip had been
put in there, beginning the clone’s cohabitation of his mind.
It had taken Aeryn nearly forty solar days before she’d even admitted that she had the device. Scorpius had
tried to use the promise of the silvery spike to convince her to give him asylum aboard Moya, but she’d been
suspicious of his assurances and had turned him down. In the midst of her desperate battle with the stronger,
faster half-breed, she’d grabbed at the shining handle hoping for a weapon, and had hung on to it when she’d
realized what she’d plucked away from his grasp.
There had been no guarantee that it would work as promised though, and she’d agonized over telling John
about it for days. They’d examined it together, spending arns in the maintenance bay trying to determine if it
would perform as promised, and had been stymied by its circuitry. It had taken another quarter cycle before
they had come across a technician who could analyze the spike’s inner workings. The expert had declared it a
neural interface of some sort that was designed to interact with an extremely specific pattern –- but not destroy
it. At their request, he’d altered the device, swearing by all twelve of his deities that it would randomize only the
targeted pattern and not the patient’s entire psyche when he was done. They’d paid him for his efforts,
returned to Moya, and placed the spike on a shelf, unwilling to risk injuring John.
That had changed six days earlier when the clone, in a fit of paranoia over his possible eradication, had
stopped John’s breathing for almost one hundred microts. They’d decided then that he’d have to be destroyed,
no matter what the risk.
They’d tried to use it four times, and the clone had exerted the same control over John’s physiology that had
allowed him to alter his energy signature aboard Scorpius’ command carrier. Each time Aeryn got close to him
with the spike in her hand, John went into respiratory arrest, struggling vainly for air with muscles that were
under someone else’s control. She’d finally told him that they would have to learn to live with Harvey, the spike
had disappeared from his quarters, and Harvey had stopped interfering with the function of his body.
The night before last, Aeryn had commed John from the Den, asking him to come examine some bit of circuitry
on one of Pilot’s displays. The entire crew had been there when he’d arrived, which should have been a clue,
but he hadn’t suspected a thing … and neither had the clone.
Aeryn had been perched on the consoles to the right of Pilot, and had asked him to take a look at something
inside the station. When he’d leaned across from the outside to look where she was pointing, everyone,
including Pilot, had pounced on him, pinning him in place face down across the control surfaces. In one swift,
flashing move, Aeryn had driven the spike into the base of his skull, retaining the worst job for herself.
It had hurt like hell … and Harvey was gone.
“You did good,” he assured her again. “We couldn’t discuss it ahead of time, and I couldn’t even think about
you doing it that way, but that’s exactly what I wanted. It was the only way to sneak up on the bastard.”
“It didn’t feel like sneaking up on the clone,” she whispered, her voice suddenly thick. “It felt like attacking you
without warning and driving something into your brain. We all wanted to warn you first …”
“ … and you couldn’t because then Harvey would have been ready for it.” Her fingers were stroking his neck
again, slowly massaging the base of his skull as though she could smooth away the damage. “I know I was
screaming bloody murder, but that’s because you surprised me. It was perfect, Aeryn.” He rolled over and
pulled her onto his chest, rubbing her back in long, languorous sweeps.
“We thought if everyone was there, you’d know that we …” she began an explanation that he’d already heard
seven or eight times. He’d bellowed and fought back for one instant after the unexpected attack, but the choice
to have everyone tackle him had been the right one. He’d realized almost instantaneously that if they were all
involved, that it was probably something that needed doing, and he’d had a split-microt of relief before the initial
panic had turned into blinding agony as the spike did its job.
“Aeryn,” John stopped her before she could explain it again. He swept several loose tendrils of hair away from
her face and tucked them behind her ear. “Harvey’s gone, you’re here, it worked, I’m fine.” He stifled her next
comment with a kiss. “You can skewer me in the head any day of the week, gorgeous.”
“You like getting skewered?” she asked, relaxing for the first time since she’d done it.
“Actually …” he murmured, kissing the underside of her throat. “I like doing the skewering, if you know what I
mean.”
“I do know what you mean,” she laughed. “And speaking of skewering, that reminds me …” Aeryn grasped his
head in both hands and thumped it firmly into the pillows, interrupting a slow migration of kisses that seemed to
be headed down her chest. “You know Chiana and D’Argo have …”
“Yes, I know,” he answered before she could finish. “I saw him sneaking into her quarters six nights ago. He’s
a lot calmer and more balanced these days. It’s helping Chiana get over what happened to her. I’m glad they
made up. They’re good together.” John looked up at her with a grin on his face.
“What?” Aeryn asked, puzzled by his expression.
“We’re good together,” he answered, rubbing her back as though he couldn’t get enough of the touch of her.
Aeryn lowered herself into the warmth of his embrace. They lay quietly for some time, the gentle rumbles of
Moya the only sound in the chamber.
“Lumpy,” Aeryn commented at last, easing off him.
“Not exactly a featherweight blanket yourself,” he observed, shifting to one side of the bed. They shuffled
around until she was curled on her side, John tucked in close behind her with his arms around her.
He took a deeper breath, sighed, and then asked, “So what do you want to do about the suspended animation
tadpole? Do we wait for nature to let junior start growing, or is there somewhere other than a command carrier
where we can jump start his progress?”
“Her,” Aeryn said firmly.
“John Junior,” he countered.
“She’s going to have a tough time growing up with a name like that.” She kicked his shin lightly with her heel,
and twisted around to watch his reaction.
He laughed into the side of her neck, his breath warm against her skin, then leaned around her to give her a
light kiss. “Fine. It’s a ‘her’. Answer the question.”
Aeryn turned away from him, and spent several moments getting comfortable inside his arms again. The
silence continued for so long he raised himself up on one elbow to see if she’d fallen asleep. She was
frowning, staring into the gloom of the darkened chamber.
“You don’t want to release the stasis,” he said with certainty.
“Is this a good time to do this, John? Life hasn’t been easy this last cycle. My ability to fight will be
compromised during the pregnancy; you know everyone on board will begin concentrating more on protecting
me than on doing whatever is necessary to survive. We’re short on food again, Moya’s tired. We’re being
chased. It will be an incredibly dangerous life for a small child.” She turned to look up at him. “Is this a good
idea?”
“How long do we have to make up our minds?”
“I don’t know. Anywhere from a few days to several cycles. I’m fairly sure I know when this happened, but I
can’t be absolutely certain without a test.” She reached up to finger a rogue tuft of hair that was standing
straight up on his head. “And I want to be sure it’s yours.”
“His?” It was out before he could stop himself. He knew without any lingering doubt that Aeryn didn’t consider
him a copy, but the occasional stray thought of the other John Crichton bothered him in ways he couldn’t begin
to explain even to himself.
“John Crichton’s. There’s no difference as far as I’m …” She stopped and frowned.
Her mind and will remain strong, but her body is giving away before time. Her great-grandson sits to her right,
steadying her when the pain in her chest becomes most severe, and supporting her failing muscles when she
tires. It is her last day; she is sure of it. She sits at the table in Command aboard the aging leviathan named
Moya, with her family around her. The ships of The Family range out around them, already grieving for the
impending loss of the second half of the pair that gave this community life.
“John,” she calls to the latest of her descendants to wear that name. He is not yet thirty cycles old, a grandson
several times removed, and looks so much like her long-departed love on the day that she met him that she
nearly breaks down in tears. “Sit by me for a while.”
“Yes, Gran,” he says, tears streaking down his cheeks. He slides into place on the other side of her, and hugs
her carefully.
“Don’t cry, young one. It’s my time. He’s waiting for me.” Her family has gathered aboard Moya to be with her.
She is surrounded by the evidence that she was loved by the most special of individuals, dark brown hair and
blue eyes scattered throughout the assembled group. John has been with her every single moment since he
passed on, his genes close to hand as she tried to continue his traditions of compassion and fighting to keep
every one of the group safe, whether they be family or friends.
“Wouldn’t you be more comfortable in your old quarters?” her great-grandson asks. “We made it up for you
the way it used to be.” Moya is not ancient, but she is aging. There is always a small contingent aboard her to
keep her company, for she enjoys the presence of others, but she is no longer required to carry any more than
the smallest burden. There are other, younger ships that are both pleased and proud to transport the
community.
“No, this is good,” she answers. “This is where it should happen. I like it here.”
There are two Talyns in this fleet. There is her great-grandson who sits beside her, a strong, capable man who
was the first of the blue-eyed descendents to inherit the generation-skipping genes that contain the knowledge
of wormholes; and there is the massive leviathan hovering protectively to the treblin side of Moya, the first of the
crop of youngsters born to their original gentle host.
“Yes, Gran,” he replies, his smile no stronger than the young John’s.
This is where her love had chosen to end his life, sitting in Command watching the stars wheel slowly around
him, looking into the darkness of space with the same active, inquiring mind that had brought him to her in the
beginning. Some careful tinkering by various diagnosans and other medical specialists had given John some
extra time, but his one hundred and eighteen cycles hadn’t been enough to match her own longevity. The day
had come when she’d held him as she was being held now, and watched him slip away. Alert and cheerful to
the end, he’d smiled and called her the radiant Aeryn Sun with his last breath. She’ll follow him in the same
manner, with their progeny all around her.
Heavy footsteps hammer in the corridor, heralding the one person who has stayed with her through all the
changes. Sikozu and Noranti had departed early on -- one to pursue a mysterious mission she’d never
described, the other one taking her leave muttering of a purpose that was no longer required. They’d said
goodbye to Rygel next. He’d eventually resumed his throne after a group seeking reforms had assassinated
his cousin, Bishan. The Dominar had grown into a corpulent but benevolent tyrant who was adored by his
subjects. Ruling from behind a pile of marjoules, he’d sneered at the concept of democracy, and had
dispensed a compassionate but firm autocratic rule, rarely speaking of the experiences that had taught him
about compassion. Chiana had eventually taken her leave of them as well, disappearing into nebari space to
join the resistance, trading one life of chaos and danger for another, always seeking out the thrills and
excitement.
“Aeryn!” D’Argo exclaims, hurrying in. Fully one fifth of the small fleet’s population is luxan. One tankta’d
straggler after another joined on after their territories fell to the scarrans, finding refuge and welcome. The
luxans are exuberant fighters, devoting heart and soul, if not always reason, to the safety of the migrating group.
“D’Argo,” she greets him warmly, gesturing for him to join her. Talyn slides out of the way, letting Aeryn’s old
friend take his place, and she sits much as John had sat on his last day. She has D’Argo to her right, a look-
alike of John Crichton to her left, and she is happy.
“It’s too soon,” her long-time comrade protests. “Don’t go, Aeryn.”
“I have missed him every single solar day since he died,” she says. “I never believed in an afterlife when I was
young, but I believe I’ll see him again very soon. I want to be with him, D’Argo.”
He nods, unable to speak, and hugs her carefully, mindful of her cycles. He swallows hard, and tries anyway,
his voice rasping and cracking with the strain of holding back the unshed tears. “Say hello to that upper
reasoning deficient excuse for a lifeform,” he whispers roughly. “Tell him I miss him.”
“I will.” She turns toward the clamshell next, and calls toward the person whose DNA she still carries after all
these cycles, their special bond unbroken by the passage of time or the birth of each successive generation.
“Pilot?”
“Yes, Officer Sun,” his aging voice returns the same reply as always.
“Thank you both. For everything.”
She thanks him for all the years that he and his huge partner have provided them with a home and watched
over them; for the good moments as well as the bad; and for those first few days after John’s death when they’d
let her drift aimlessly through Moya’s corridors with no one else aboard to disturb her meanderings through her
memories. There had been laughter and joy, and incredible sorrow during the cycles they’d lived within these
burnished golden walls, and she had revisited every one of them in the days that she’d spent wandering up and
down the tiers, working her grief out in her own way.
Then, as now, she’d been surrounded by the mental reminders of their life together -- the birth of their first
child; the cruel death of three of their grandchildren during an unprovoked attack by an unidentified alien ship;
life, death, laughter, anger, times of plenty, moments of near starvation. She had willingly faced it all because
John was by her side. Losing him a second time had been no easier for the cycles they had spent together.
The first had gone too soon. The second had spent his life with her, and she’d discovered that the loss was
more intense despite the peaceful circumstances of his death.
“Thank you,” she repeats to Pilot and Moya, because aside from D’Argo, they are the only ones who have been
here right from the beginning, and they know better than anyone else what type of life it has been.
“Thank you, Aeryn. Moya and I … love you. Find peace.”
“I believe I will,” she answers. “Goodbye.”
She hugs the young John, feeling his sobs through that contact, then turns to look at D’Argo one last time.
“The first day we met, he said I could be more.”
“He was right -- you are,” he assures her. “John was always so proud of you.”
She smiles, looks one last time at friends and family, and then she lets go, satisfied that this group will survive
and grow without her to watch over them. And she can feel him waiting for her.
“Change your mind about it being a girl?” John asked. He sat up straighter, watching with concern as her
expression eased from a frown to an anxious look of uncertainty. “Aeryn? What’s the matter?”
“I had one of those strange flashes you used to talk about when we first came back aboard Moya.” She shook
her head. “That is the weirdest sensation. Just for a microt … I could have sworn.”
“You’re crying,” he worried.
Aeryn let out a huge sigh, laughed, and wiped away the streams of tears. “I don’t know what happened. I don’t
like that déjà vu thing of yours though. That’s eerie. It’s like … it’s like getting a quick taste of what tomorrow
will bring, but not enough to know for sure.”
“What triggered it?” He started to get up, concerned by her tears, and she pulled him down. John subsided
slowly, still worried by the emotional outburst. Aeryn rolled onto her back to she could look up at him,
concentrating on the elusive moment that had disappeared faster than it had played out in her mind.
“I don’t remember. It was exactly the way you described it. It’s there, leaves you shaking, and then it’s
completely gone. I can see why you were glad when they stopped.” She tugged at his hand, trying to get him
to lie down beside her again, but he stayed where he was, sitting alongside her slowly fingering the loose
strands of her hair away from her face.
“Let’s take this junior thing one step at a time,” she suggested, returning to their discussion. “A diagnosan can
do the tests for us. Let’s find out how long we have, and make sure who the father is, then we can go from
there. Will that do?”
“That’ll do,” John agreed. He leaned down, placed his lips against the smooth skin of her belly, and growled to
the life waiting within her. “Who’s your daddy?”
“We have time,” Aeryn said on a laugh, scrubbing her fingers through his hair until it stood on end all over.
“Lots of time.”
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
