Whispers
Chapter 5
“What is the matter with you … people?”
His tongue slaps against the back of the intruder’s neck, the orange-suited figure turns to give him a one-microt
shocked glare, and then collapses at his feet.
He looks at John Crichton now, lying pale and unconscious, and can’t begin to imagine what his life would be
like if the human’s pathetic craft hadn’t appeared in the midst of the battle that fateful day. Both of his hearts
beat erratically, nearly at the same pace as Crichton’s distressed breathing, and his stomach clenches with the
fear that his friend may not recover from whatever has happened to him.
Crichton jerked once, thrashed weakly for an instant, battering against the two sets of hands that were
simultaneously supporting him and holding him in place, and then began coughing and wheezing. “I’m …
okay,” he croaked between coughs, feebly trying to roll onto his side. “I’m not that bad, D’Argo.” He took in
three more breaths before opening his eyes to look up at the worried luxan hovering over him.
“Not as bad as what?” Chiana was kneeling alongside his legs, watching him every bit as carefully as she had
during the last hideous days of the neural chip -- watching him as though he were losing his mind. “D’Argo
didn’t say anything.” The wary look faded, and she began pulling his ankles away from the drop-off into the
central neural plexus, working together with whoever was holding him under the arms to move him farther from
the edge.
“I’m not so bad off that I’m going to die.” John tried to sit up on his own, started to keel over to one side, and
was pulled upright. He spared a microt to reflect that people had been hauling him upright an awful lot over the
past day or so, then lost his train of thought when the floor performed a quick waltz beneath him. Strong hands
grabbed his shoulders and held him steady against the spinning that was going on inside his head. He
managed to focus his thoughts on D’Argo’s insults. “And my module isn’t pathetic. It’s an ass-kickin’, wormhole-
surfin’, first class, made in the U.S. of A. machine.” He took a breath, winded by the combination of whatever
had happened to him and his short diatribe. “What happened? What’s going on?”
“You tell us, John.” D’Argo settled onto one knee to peer at him levelly. “You had some sort of attack and
nearly fell.”
“Chiana’s flash,” John said. His first attempt at getting to his feet ended almost before it started. The Den was
being stubborn about resuming its usual placid immovability. The same strong grasp that had steadied him a
moment earlier caught him under the arms and hoisted him upright. He turned to see who was compensating
for his lack of coordination and strength. Still dazed by whatever had just happened to him, he hadn’t bothered
to tally the people standing where he could see them. Jool had joined the group while he was unconscious, as
had Rygel. The interion was standing behind D’Argo with Rygel hovering by her side, which meant that unless
Crais had returned a lot earlier than planned, there was only one person left who could be standing behind
him.
Surprised by who was there, and the fact that she was actually touching him and helping him to his feet, he
fumbled through his brief acknowledgement of her help. “Thanks … Aeryn.”
She nodded and took a half step away, remaining within arm’s reach in case he started to lose his balance
again. The entire group moved farther from the edge of the floor.
“Commander Crichton, D’Argo said nothing about dying or about your ship,” Pilot said.
John glared suspiciously at Pilot for a microt, then looked at each of his crewmates in turn, receiving a nod of
confirmation from one person after another. He argued weakly, “But I heard him! What the frell is going on?”
“What happened to you?” Chiana asked a second time. “One microt you were fine, the next microt you were
halfway into the neural plexus before Aeryn yanked you back.” She turned toward where Aeryn hovered two
motras to one side. “I’ve never seen anyone move that fast. That was magra-drad.”
Aeryn ignored the praise. “I couldn’t have gotten there in time if it hadn’t been for your vision. I didn’t hesitate
when he started to go. But since your vision turned out to be the one that came true, then what did John see?”
“I think maybe I saw Chiana having her vision. And I may have caught something from Hoover over there. I was
starving when I got to the Center Chamber this morning; then a microt later I felt full. And the hynerian garbage
disposal had been gorging himself as usual. This is absurd!” He shook his head, dismissing his own
conclusions before he even explained what they were.
“What else?” Aeryn asked, urging him to continue. “There’s something more, isn’t there?”
John pressed both palms to his temples and considered the question. In the end, he confessed, “I had a bunch
of weird dreams last night. I thought it was my headache working on my subconscious, but now I’m not sure.
And then -- this!” He waved at the chamber around them, indicating their quiet host. “It felt like I tapped into
Moya. It didn’t last long, but I swear I saw and felt and heard what Moya feels. I could tell what every single
DRD was doing, including seeing myself from the outside.”
“Crichton, your brain is not sufficiently evolved to process all of Moya’s input signals.” Pilot’s careful wording
managed to make it sound as though he were issuing a warning at the same time that he was denying the
possibility that Crichton had actually gone through what he had described. “It would not be possible for you to
integrate her entire sensory flow.”
“You don’t need to tell me that!” John resumed the nearly obsessive rubbing of his head. “I don’t think I got the
whole enchilada and that was enough to blow my mental doors right off. The only question is how the frell did I
manage to hook up with Moya’s sensors in the first place? Do leviathans have some sort of malfunction that
causes them to bleed neural energy like that, Pilot?”
“There is no such occurrence recorded anywhere in Moya’s databanks.”
“John, there is something you should know,” D’Argo began. He trailed off, showing unmistakable signs that he
was reluctant to continue, then took a deep breath and continued. “Yesterday, when you thought you heard
me say something … It was a stray thought, I swear! I did not truly think of you that way, but it was what was
going through my mind at the time. But I did not mean it,” he said desperately to Crichton, pleading with him to
understand.
Aeryn stepped out of the shadows, her head tilted slightly to one side in thought. When she spoke, her voice
was slow and hushed, just above the level of a whisper. “D’Argo, were you thinking something about John’s
module just before he regained consciousness?”
“No.” D’Argo stood with his mouth open, reconsidering his answer. “Not directly. I was remembering the first
day we met. I picked him up by the throat.”
John made an angry, frustrated gesture. “For god’s sake, someone please tell me this isn’t happening! Why
would they do this? What the frell do they think they’re going to accomplish by turning me into the Amazing
Kreskin?”
“You mean the hvisk?” Chiana asked.
“Who else has been messing around with the inside of my head?” John snapped at her. “Sorry. I’m sorry, Pip.
I didn’t mean to take this out on you.” He stepped toward her, reaching out to give her a small hug.
Worry. Concern. So much like Nerri. I love --
“Damn!” He jumped back, shaking out one hand.
“Another vision?” Aeryn asked, alarmed at his reaction. “So soon?”
Chiana shook her head and frowned, crestfallen at Crichton’s hurried retreat.
“No, that was me. Looks like bodily contact makes it worse. It didn’t do that a few microts ago but it sure as frell
did it just then!” John dodged away from D’Argo’s outstretched hand, nodded a fast acknowledgement that he
was too close to the edge of the floor, and made his way to a safer position, careful not to touch anyone. “I
didn’t mean to get that, Chi,” he apologized. It felt as though he had somehow violated her privacy by listening
to her inner thoughts.
“Why would the hvisk do this to you?” Pilot steered the conversation back to the mysterious transformation.
“Are we sure it was the hvisk?” Jool asked, entering the conversation for the first time.
“Who else?” John started to lean against one of Moya’s ribs, looked at the massive structure arcing overhead,
and stepped away. “Who else has had both the opportunity and the ability to screw with my head?”
“Is there any chance the clone did this?” Aeryn’s question emerged hesitantly, as though she didn’t want to
discuss the possibility. The entire group went silent, considering that unpleasant alternative. “He has the
ability to affect your physiology,” she suggested.
John shook his head vehemently. No one spoke. After several microts he relented. “Let me check.” He
glanced around one more time, made sure he was a safe distance from the edge of the drop-off, and then
turned inward to explore the unwanted addition to his psyche.
“Harvey! Front and center, bubba! You’ve got some explaining to do, swami!” John wandered down a silent,
empty corridor. Misty, indistinct walls stretched out of sight in several directions. It was silent except for the
sound of his breathing and the quiet slap of his sneakers on gray tiled floors. “Harvey, get your ugly butt out
here!” he yelled again, coming to a stop. It was the first time he’d had to actually summon the clone in almost a
cycle. When the familiar figure didn’t appear he didn’t know where to look for him.
“He’s not answering,” John said. A look of loathing on Aeryn’s face shifted into something more leery -- more
fearful. “I’m not sure where to look for him.” He turned toward D’Argo, seeking and finding the familiar steady
support he had come to count on from his friend.
“Is he gone?” Excitement raised D’Argo’s voice half an octave and at last ten decibels. Everyone winced at the
exuberant shout. He got his enthusiasm under control and continued more calmly. “Perhaps the purpose of
what the hvisk did was to get rid of him and this other thing happening is a side effect from some sort of energy
surge.” His eyes flickered in Aeryn’s direction.
“No, he’s in there. I can feel him but he’s clammed up for some reason.” John frowned as he struggled to put
an extremely nebulous sensation into words. “Let me try one other place.”
Small waves slapped up against the pilings, making a quiet slurp each time the water swirled and sucked at the
uprights. Crichton inhaled deeply, enjoying the familiar smells and sights of Sawyer’s Mill even if it was only a
figment of his imagination. “Harvey!” he yelled again. The syllables echoed across the water. This was where
he had first encountered the neurochip’s creation; he had been sure he would find the clone in this spot.
“Son of a bitch.” He was forced to consider that perhaps he was alone in his skull at last. The presence was
still there however, so muted as to be almost non-existent but present nonetheless. “This is not the right time
for hide-and-seek.” John retraced his steps along the dock, scanning up and down the shore for any sign of
the missing clone. He strode off the dock onto the gravel pathway, past the huge glass-front ice machine that
the fishermen depended on to stock their coolers, and started up the concrete steps toward the parking lot,
continuing to check in every direction. He kept expecting Harvey to appear wearing one of his ludicrous get
ups. Anything was possible when the clone was involved. Perhaps he would show up on water skis, skimming
along behind a boatload of scantily clad beauties, or roar into the parking lot on a Harley with a buxom babe
perched behind him.
“Where the frell are you, you miserable, ugly excuse for an imaginary lifeform?” he said.
John stopped with his foot poised to take another step. His subconscious was telling him that his eye had
caught something that hadn’t registered on his conscious mind. He walked backwards as far as the ice cooler.
A padlocked hasp had been added to the door. The ice machine had never been locked in all the years that
he had come to Sawyer’s Mill. Cash was left on an honor system. John licked his lips nervously, his skin
crawling with a prescient knowledge of what he was going to find. Then he stepped forward and wiped the frost
and condensation off the outside of the glass door.
Someone had put Harvey on ice. Literally
John banged on the glass, watching intently for a reaction from the black clad body entombed inside the
freezer. Frost and small icicles adorned the black cooling suit, lending a festive look to the frozen clone’s
garments. The pale skin was even whiter than usual, coated with a fine layer of crystals that caught and
reflected the stray beams of light streaming through the circle John had rubbed free of frost.
He stepped away from the freezer, pinched his lower lip between his thumb and forefinger, and spent some
time considering the unexpected turn of events. Sequestering the clone in this manner didn’t seem like a
reasonable explanation for his abduction by the hvisk. If they had asked, he would have willingly allowed them
to not only gag Harvey but remove him completely. None of what was going on made any sense. On the other
hand, very little of his life in the Uncharted Territories ever made much sense until all the shooting was over and
someone took the time to explain what had happened.
He yanked hard on the padlock, setting the entire ice machine to rocking and shaking. The lock didn’t budge.
Another violent jerk against the hasp confirmed that the door was going to remain closed. This time the
shaking spread from the freezer to the ground beneath his feet. John stumbled to one side, arms waving wildly
as he fought to remain upright. “Earthquake? Who has a frelling earthquake inside their own head!?”
“JOHN!” D’Argo’s anxious face bounced into view. The aftershocks continued, transformed into D’Argo
shaking him vigorously by the shoulders.
“Big D! Enough with the San Andreas gig! What’s the emergency?” John pulled out of D’Argo’s grasp. He
staggered for a moment even though the pummeling had stopped.
Aeryn said, “You hadn’t moved for over one hundred microts. It’s never gone on that long. We were worried
that the clone might have taken control.”
“No. Harvey’s out of commission.” John turned away from D’Argo’s immediately delighted grin to face Aeryn’s
more subdued reaction. “He’s still in there, but someone or something has tucked him away where he can’t
bother me.” Aeryn’s skeptical frown shifted into something that resembled regret. John decided that if she
wasn’t happy for him that she must have misunderstood his explanation. He tried again, using simpler terms.
“Aeryn, he’s gone. It’s just me!”
She spun away from him, but not before he caught a glimpse of a face that had suddenly gone pale. Aeryn
stumbled to the far side of Pilot’s station. Once there, she turned her back on him and gazed off into the dark.
And he knew without any doubt that he had managed to copy something that the other Crichton had said or
done. Once again, without any warning, he had stumbled into that lethal, shifting minefield of unintentionally
damaging remarks.
“He's gone... he's finally gone. It's just me.” Joy so intense, it summons tears. The feel of his head resting on
her shoulder, and the soft play of his hair between her fingers … Not again, she can’t go through this again.
The flash passed through him like a burst of light, illuminating his understanding and lending him a memory of a
horrible, aching emptiness in the center of his chest. He stared at the rigid shoulders, wishing that she could
be as happy for him as she had for the other John Crichton, equally angry that a quirk of fate had robbed him
of the celebration they should be sharing at that moment.
He was hauled back to his surroundings by a slap on the back that nearly propelled him into the neural plexus.
“John, this is wonderful!” D’Argo reeled him back before he could stagger too close to the edge.
JOY
John pulled away before the physical contact unleashed another blast of shared thoughts. D’Argo saved him
from having to apologize by raising both hands to show that he understood John’s reaction. “You believe the
hvisk did this,” the elated warrior added.
John checked on Aeryn. She remained in the corner behind Pilot’s raised island, as far away from him as she
could get without actually leaving the Den, but at least she had turned around to watching the small group and
was listening attentively to every word. He blew out a long breath and tried to concentrate on the mystery of
the clone’s icy imprisonment. “There’s no other explanation. It had to be them. But why? They’ve taken Harv
out of the picture, but now I’m hearing every other living creature around me instead, including Moya. I’m
thinking this wasn’t a good tradeoff.”
Something swirled about inside his stomach and chest. It was an unpleasant, uncomfortable sensation that
disappeared as quickly as it had arrived. He rested one hand against the outer wall of Pilot’s station, steadying
himself against the disorientation, and it happened again, worse than before. It had the same feel as his lack of
appetite when he had been around Rygel earlier that morning: clearly a borrowed sensation that belonged to
someone else.
“Who’s nauseous?” he asked, looking around. He received nothing but blank stares for an answer. “Pilot?
You and Moya feeling all right?”
“Yes, Crichton. All of Moya’s systems are operating at nearly peak efficiency, and both Moya and I are feeling
better than we have in several cycles. The nutrients and fluids purchased from the hvisk are exactly what we
have been craving for some time now.” Pilot tapped at his controls for several microts. “Everyone on board,
including our scarran guest, appears to be quite healthy as well.”
“Maybe I misinterpreted that one,” John admitted reluctantly. “Probably nothing more than Buckwheat over
there stewing up a supply of helium. It sure felt like a Pepto moment though.”
“What do you want to do now?”
Aeryn moved out of the shadows. Her disembodied face floated toward Crichton until she moved close enough
that he could see her dark clothes and hair. ‘Eerie’ didn’t begin to describe the effect. For the length of time it
took her to move into the light, Aeryn was little more than a set of eyes that watched him and a mouth that
occasionally made dispassionate comments, divorced from everything else that he had come to love about
her.
“John, what now?” D’Argo asked, repeating Aeryn’s question.
He had been standing there, staring at her, lost in his thoughts for who knew how many microts. John shook
himself back into the here and now, and snorted a quick expression of derision. “I’m heading back aboard the
Kyelligg and I’m going to kick some tail feathers until someone turns this off!” he said, indicating his head.
“I’ll go with you.” Without a moment’s hesitation, D’Argo headed toward a bridge leading out of the Den.
“Me too,” Chiana added. She bounded after the luxan before anyone could suggest anything different. “Count
me in.”
John called after them. “Wait! The less of us on board the Kyelligg, the better. We don’t know why they did …
Don’t let him go alone … what they …” He stared at his feet, trying to remember what he had been saying. It
took several microts for him to shoulder the stray thought aside so he could focus on the point he had wanted
to make. “D’Argo comes with me, and the rest of you stay here. Pilot can keep the comms open so the rest of
you can hear if we’re in trouble.”
“There’s strength in numbers,” Aeryn suggested, nodding towards Chiana. “It would be safer if there were
more of you.”
“And more targets for the hvisk if they’re after more than just me.” Crichton turned toward Pilot. “Contact the
Kyelligg and let them know we want to meet with them.”
“Already done, Commander,” Pilot replied. “They have responded with a set of coordinates that correspond to
a location not too far from where you last met with the hvisk.” A claw extended over the edge of his station,
offering one of the semi-transparent schematics showing the route to the specified meeting place.
Crichton snared the sheet without touching any portion of Moya and examined the spidery outlines, taking
several microts to make sure he could interpret the leviathan-generated map. “I can read it!” he snapped in
Aeryn’s direction. He raised his head from his study of the transparency, looking uncomfortable. “I can’t help
it. It’s getting stronger every microt. I don’t mean to do it,” he apologized, hoping she would understand that he
hadn’t intended to listen to her flickering concern that he might need help to interpret the schematic.
Aeryn ignored both his original sharp comment and the apology. “I’ll take care of things here. Naj Gil needs
watching, and Crais may check in if he’s found anything.”
“We’ll comm you if we need any help,” D’Argo said. He spun around and strode toward the doorway where
Crichton was already disappearing into the corridor, headed for the meeting with the hvisk.
* * * * *
Crichton hesitated. He stopped a motra short of the airlock and fidgeted while D’Argo stepped through to the
interior of the Kyelligg.
“What’s the matter?” D’Argo asked. Standing with one foot aboard the Kyelligg and the other inside Moya’s
airlock, he was forced to duck down in order to look back at John.
“I can hear their thoughts.” John took a step back, moving farther away from the connection to the hvisk
habitat. “All of them. Millions. Too many thoughts.”
“After the neural chip, you should be used to that,” D’Argo joked. John frowned at him, and he tried again.
“You’ve been blocking us out, you can do it again. Shut them out of your mind, John.”
Crichton closed his eyes, trying to envision the process of shutting his mind to the unwelcome deluge of images
swirling just out of reach of conscious awareness. The hurricane of stolen sights, sounds, and thoughts eased
and stopped. He was distracted by a sharp pain in his left forearm, and the flimsy barricade inside his mind
rattled, weak areas spreading until the racket of the hvisk began to seep through the fissures. He tightened his
control. Silence returned. The ache in his forearm transformed into something more intense, and he raised his
hand to check on the source of the problem. Knuckles shone whitely in Moya’s subdued lighting. His fingers
were clenched into a tight fist, generating the cramping muscles that had alerted him to the phenomenon.
John used his other hand to pry the fingers open one by one. Four small bleeding half-moons had been
carved into his palm by his fingernails. He flexed his hand to ease the taut muscles. “Damn. That’s a bit off
the wall, even for you,” he whispered to himself.
D’Argo called to him from inside the hvisk habitat. “Crichton, come on! You can’t get this fixed standing aboard
Moya.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Coming.” John swore under his breath, grasped his belt tightly with his bleeding hand as
though to anchoring himself to his own body, and took a step toward the airlock. He paused at the opening
then turned back.
“Crichton! Come on!” D’Argo yelled.
“Hang on. Chiana’s on her way up here.”
D’Argo threaded his way back through the hatches to rejoin him. “I didn’t hear anything over the comms,” he
said, eyeing John with a mixture of awe and suspicion.
“She didn’t call over the comms. I can’t turn this off, D’Argo. I’d like to but it keeps leaking through. It’s not up
to me.” Turning away from his friend, he took several steps back along the corridor. Chiana was hurrying
toward them. “What’s up, Chi?”
She held out his leather jacket and black gloves. “I thought these would help. You said touching people made
it worse, so you’d better have these in case you need to tralk-slap a few of those oversized feathered whistles.”
She watched while John slid into the jacket, snapped the bottom two fasteners, and tugged the gloves into
place. “Be careful, Crichton. Don’t let them do anything else to you.”
“Thanks, Pip.” John turned toward where D’Argo was waiting for him, and motioned him through the hatch,
following without hesitation this time.
It was like stepping into a mental sauna; the heat and pressure of millions of thoughts created a physical impact
against his mind. John stumbled and started to fall back into the airlock, doubly confused by the noise and the
change in gravity. He flailed wildly for two microts, trying to catch his balance, then was magically levitated to
land on his feet beside the ramp leading to the hatch. D’Argo held on to him for the extra microts it took John to
orient himself before releasing his arm in stages, making sure that Crichton had regained his balance.
“Thanks.” Caught up in the battle to separate his own thoughts from the cacophony inside his head, his brief
acknowledgement emerged in little better than a distracted mumble. D’Argo’s hand returned to its place under
his arm, and he was steered into the bustling main street of the station.
“Concentrate. You can block them out, John,” D’Argo said.
The thoroughfare was as crowded as it had been the previous day, forcing D’Argo to zigzag wildly to keep John
from bumping into any of the hvisk. The black-booted feet stumbled, poorly directed by their distracted owner,
and D’Argo looped his arm more securely under John’s to hold him upright. Several of the passing hvisk
stopped to stare at the pair as they made their erratic way past a small park. One individual stepped toward
them, hand outstretched. D’Argo snarled at it, and the hvisk retreated.
“He only wants to … he meant to help,” John explained. He gestured at the frightened creature, meaning to
offer an apology for his friend’s aggression. As with his speech, the motion went awry halfway through, turning
it into a poorly directed wave instead of what he had intended.
“Don’t you think they’ve helped more than enough?” D’Argo gave the now-stationary hvisk a final glare and
returned to his task of guiding Crichton.
John tripped over his own feet and nearly fell. D’Argo grabbed him with both hands and hauled him back up,
taking care to hold on to him only where the thick leather jacket provided an insulating layer. “Focus on your
own thoughts,” he insisted, steering John around a garden.
“I’m trying. It’s not as easy as it sounds. I’ve got the Mormon Tabernacle Choir inside here. It’s noisy.” John
ducked his head to press the heels of both hands against his temples, took a deep breath, and tried to envision
the barricade he had put up before leaving Moya. The confusion inside his mind eased. He straightened up
and began walking more quickly, although continuing to rely on D’Argo’s arm to steady him.
“Hurry,” he ordered. They accelerated toward the meeting with the hvisk.
* * * * *
She had meant to go to Command. Aeryn turned a corner in the corridor and was faced with a different
junction than the one she had been expecting.
“Frell,” she said under her breath.
It was the second time since she had returned to Moya that she had absentmindedly wandered off course while
lost in her thoughts. And that meant she had done it two times too many. To make matters worse, on both
occasions she had wound up in the same place. Aeryn stood uncertainly in the middle of the corridor for more
than ten microts before continuing toward the destination her subconscious had chosen for her. One hesitant
step followed another until she passed through the open door and entered John’s cell. She followed a course
similar to the one she had traveled earlier that morning, stopping first at the rack where he kept Winona --
empty now -- then continuing past the jumbled collection of energy cells and bits of circuitry littering the top
surface of the shelves.
She stopped when she reached his black overcoat, and buried her nose in the sleeve to inhale the scent of
him. It smelled of dust, seared sand, and the lingering, sweetly-sour odor of ignited chakan oil, overlaid by the
more recent fragrance that was John Crichton. Aeryn gathered more of the coat in both hands and took a
deeper breath, finding the last remnants of John stored in the leather and fabric. It triggered two sets of
memories. There was the man she would have willingly accompanied to Earth, and the one who lived in this
converted prison cell. Every small nuance of odor said that she knew the owner of this coat intimately, and yet
it belonged to someone she hardly knew anymore, estranged by a half cycle of separation. The one who had
been lost, and the one that she didn’t dare let herself know again. He was the same, and not the same.
“No,” she said, releasing the coat. She tugged at it until the wrinkles disappeared, removing the signs that she
had been here. It was John, but it wasn’t the person she had given herself to aboard Talyn. Him, yet not him.
“Moving in?”
The low-pitched growl startled her. Once again she had sunk deeper into her thoughts than she had intended.
Her vigilance had been severely compromised if Rygel could get this close to her before she noticed the whine
of his Throne Sled.
“No!” She headed toward the other door leading out of the cell.
“Perhaps you should try visiting when he’s here,” the Dominar tried again. He turned his floating chair to follow
her. “That would be more productive.”
“And perhaps you should try minding your own business. Don’t interfere, Rygel.”
“Whether you want to admit it or not, he’s Crichton.” Rygel had to accelerate to keep up with her. The shrill
whine of the Throne Sled mounted to an annoying pitch. “Just as --”
“Don’t!” she snapped. Aeryn whirled to face him, forcing Rygel to swerve to one side to avoid running into her.
“I know who he is. That’s the problem. Don’t tell me how to handle this. You don’t understand, so stay out of
it.” She turned on her heel, resuming her course toward Command, leaving the chastised hynerian hovering in
the middle of an otherwise deserted corridor.
Rygel watched the lithe figure disappear around a corner, earbrows drooping dejectedly. “Just as ignorant,
bumbling, heroic, and selfless,” he finished. “He’ll do anything you ask if you simply look at him the way you
looked at the other one, Aeryn.” The Dominar sighed, turned in the opposite direction from the one Aeryn had
taken, and decided to visit Pilot. It had been over a half cycle since they had done anything remotely like
holding a conversation, and he owed it to Zhaan to check on Pilot and Moya from time to time.
* * * * *
The meeting place designated by hvisk was similar to the one where they had met for the aborted bargaining
session, except that this enclosure had benches around the perimeter more suited to a bipedal humanoid than
to the hvisk. D’Argo sat hunched over, elbows on his knees, watching John pace from one side of the circular
area to the other.
“It’s only been two hundred microts, John. Be patient. They’ll be here.”
John ran his gloved hands over his head, scrubbing at his scalp until the short hair stood on end. D’Argo
frowned, remembering another time when a mechanical form of encroaching insanity had resulted in the same
disheveled appearance.
“You’ve been in battle,” John started, changing the subject abruptly. D’Argo nodded. “Remem … You … Do
you remember what that … what that sounded like? All the … All the noises?” He shook his head vigorously,
as though he were trying a shake an insect out of one ear.
“This is a struggle for you. I understand.” D’Argo was talking slowly and clearly in the hopes that it would help
his friend separate his words from the sounds in his mind.
“No. That’s … that’s not it. Picture all those noises, D. Take every single one of …” He broke off, rubbing at
his head again.
“John,” D’Argo hissed. He got to his feet, wanting to offer some sort of help.
“Take all that … all that noise, stick it inside your head. There are … are … hundreds. Thousands, D’Argo.
It’s too much. I … I can’t handle this much longer,” John panted, rubbing the sides of his head with his fists.
“It’s … it’s getting too … there’s too much …” He stripped away one of his gloves and held the hand out toward
D’Argo, showing him the blood-encrusted gouges in his palm. “This is the only way … the only way to make it
stop. Where are they?” he finished in a desperate yell.
“John!” D’Argo barked at him. Crichton began hitting the side of his head as though he could jar the problem
loose and restore whatever had gone wrong. “Look at me, John. What can I do to help?” D’Argo stepped
closer, reaching for the punishing fist that was beginning to strike harder. He caught it easily and squeezed
hard, driving John’s fingernails into his palm and reopening the wounds.
“Enough.” John gasped in pain as the blood began to flow. He was suddenly more coherent. “That’s enough,
D. That’s good. It’s just that there are so many people here.” He tugged at D’Argo’s wrist, urging him to let go
of his tightly gripped hand.
“Then concentrate on me, John. Close them out and listen to only me.”
Crichton examined his friend’s face intently, searching for the miniscule physical cues that would tell him if
D’Argo was truly comfortable with the idea of another person listening to his innermost thoughts. The looming
body revealed only concern; nothing else. John nodded once, fighting against the chaos encroaching on his
mind, and reached for the armored fingers, seeking the contact that would allow him to focus on the single
mind.
Calm like a thin veneer over a core of learned aggression and enduring sorrow. A figure stands hunched
before him, shoulders bowed as though to shield him from a blow, pale and panting. Deep loving concern for
the human consumes him, not understanding but sympathizing just the same …
“No.” John broke away. The sight of himself filtered through D’Argo’s perspective was even more disorienting
than the millions of thoughts pressing against his psyche. “It’s too confusing. It’s making it worse.” He turned
toward the opening in the foliage that led out of the meeting place. “I have to … get … out of here. Maybe a,
um … a transport pod. Maybe if I get far enough away.”
Just as Crichton, clinging to D’Argo’s shoulder for balance, stumbled toward the exit, the light streaming through
the opening was obscured by someone. A hvisk entered the enclosure, gliding with an odd, relaxed gait that
held little semblance to walking. Its robes, although scrupulously clean, were faded and worn; long fibers hung
from tears and rents in the fabric. The confident ease of the individual’s movements bestowed it with a
dignified, regal air -- a thorough contrast to the shabby clothes and the nearly transparent crest feathers that
lay limply on its skull.
It moved toward John and D’Argo without either haste or hesitation, and laid its hand on Crichton’s shoulder.
The motion was so smooth and unthreatening that for a moment D’Argo didn’t realize that the hvisk had made
contact. He hissed, remembering what the last encounter had done to John, and reached to tear the hand
away.
“Don’t touch him. You’ve done enough harm,” D’Argo snarled as the old hvisk shifted away from his
outstretched hand.
“No,” John commanded. “Leave him alone, D’Argo.” Crichton was bent over -- head hanging, hands braced on
his knees -- with the hvisk’s hand resting on the back of his shoulder. John reached for D’Argo’s arm to steady
himself and stood up straight. He looked into the hvisk’s eyes. “It’s quiet. They’re gone. All the voices are
gone. What did you do?”
The elderly hvisk sang to him for several microts, producing a wavering, uncertain aria full of soundless hisses
and the occasional squawk that didn’t seem to belong in the flow of tones.
“He’s …” John stopped, his head cocked on one side, listening to something.
“What is he doing? Is he hurting you?”
“No. It’s okay, D. He’s controlling me.”
D’Argo let out a long growl of rage, and spun around Crichton in pursuit of the old hvisk. The creature let go of
John and retreated across the room.
“Stop it!” John yelled. “Leave him alone … I … I … he’s got to help …” He dropped to his knees holding both
sides of his head. “Let him help, D’Argo.” His final plea emerged on a sob.
Crichton began rocking forward and back. D’Argo could do nothing but watch, powerless to help. He looked
between the cringing hvisk and his crumpled friend, confused and uncertain what to do. “Help him!” he finally
bellowed at the hvisk, and stepped out of the way. The old creature scuttled past the luxan, glancing at him
fearfully as he slid past, but wasted no time in reestablishing contact with Crichton. The rocking stopped
immediately.
“John, you said he was controlling you.” D’Argo knelt down, started to touch the bowed head, and chose to
place his hand on the shoulder of the leather jacket instead. “I thought you meant he was causing this.”
“Sorry. Misunderstanding, D’Argo. He’s controlling whatever this is.” Crichton looked up. “That didn’t come
out right either. He’s fixing this, stopping it. He’s doing what …” John broke off, again pausing as if he was
listening to something. “Whatever they did to me, the process got interrupted. There should have been
something like brakes, like a control mechanism, put in place, but the machine got damaged somehow. He’s
doing it for me instead.” He looked at the hvisk and added, “Thank you.”
“John, how do you know this?” D’Argo asked. John reached for his shoulder and the three of them came to
their feet as one.
“He just told us. Weren’t you listening?” John turned to look at his friend, inadvertently pulling away from the
hvisk’s touch. As soon as the three-fingered grasp was released he staggered, close to falling down, and
clapped a hand against his forehead. The hvisk shuffled forward to reestablish contact, expressing its concern
in a slow, mournful piping.
“He said nothing. He was doing more of that frelling annoying whistling, but I can’t understand him. Do you
understand their language now? Was that part of what they did to you?”
John looked from the hvisk to D’Argo and back several times. “It’s more of what they did to me. I heard him as
clearly as I’m hearing you, only it must have been inside my head instead of my ears. Frelling telepathy.” He
turned to face the hvisk. “What is your name? What do I call you?” It sang to him, eyes squinting above the
chipped, faded beak. “I didn’t get a damned thing out of that. Try it again.” He listened to the melody a
second time then shook his head. “Nada. Nothing but the spiffy tune. It sounded a little like Yankee Doodle.
Can I call you YD for now?”
The already drooping crest somehow managed to lay even flatter against the pale, wrinkled skin. The hvisk let
out a long low trill and bobbed its acceptance of the designator.
“Great. Now undo this. Whatever you did to me, switch it back!” John demanded. His attempt to sound forceful
was compromised by his hovering proximity to the elderly hvisk. The creature shifted to one side and John
went with him, maintaining the contact that was silencing the unwanted ability. “No! No arguments!” When the
hvisk shrank away from him, he lowered his voice from a shout to a level closer to regular speech. “You
grabbed me against my will, and screwed with the inside of my head. Now take it out.”
The hvisk temporarily named YD gazed into his eyes and whistled a single note. There was no doubt that it
was a refusal.
“Frell!” John exploded angrily. He took several deep breaths, as though working himself up to an enormous
physical effort, and then deliberately stepped away from the hvisk, accepting the consequences that would
come with breaking the contact.
“Tell us why,” D’Argo interjected. “Explain why you did this to him.”
“Who the hell cares why, D’Argo? All I want to know is what it’s going to take to get them to turn this racket
off!” John stumbled. He was already looking confused and distracted after less than five microts of being on
his own. The hvisk moved after him, pursuing him slowly around the enclosure in an attempt to reestablish
contact. “Screw you,” John snarled at him, slapping one hand away. “I’ll go nuts with this in my head, then I
won’t be any use to you anyway. You lose. Shut it off.”
YD stopped, letting John drift away from him, and sang to him for several microts, watching the increasingly
uncoordinated movements with hvisk-ish concern.
“That’s not my problem,” John answered. YD sang some more. “Tough toenails. I’m not a hired gun. Get
some other patsy to do your dirty work. There’s a nasty piece of work in black leather named Scorpius
cruisin’ around this part of the universe; he’d probably be happy to help you out.” He took another step away
from the hvisk, tripped over his own feet, and staggered to one side, continuing to retreat from the offers of
help. “Get away … God, it’s noisy … D’Argo, help.”
D’Argo caught him, guided him to a bench and helped him sit down. “What do they want you to do, John?
What did he say?”
An unfocussed gaze turned in the luxan’s direction. John’s eyes pointed in two different directions for a microt
before latching onto the figure hovering protectively over him. “They want me to find someone … one certain
hvisk on this … this station. Someone they … I think they want me to … to kill him.”
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
Chapter 5
“What is the matter with you … people?”
His tongue slaps against the back of the intruder’s neck, the orange-suited figure turns to give him a one-microt
shocked glare, and then collapses at his feet.
He looks at John Crichton now, lying pale and unconscious, and can’t begin to imagine what his life would be
like if the human’s pathetic craft hadn’t appeared in the midst of the battle that fateful day. Both of his hearts
beat erratically, nearly at the same pace as Crichton’s distressed breathing, and his stomach clenches with the
fear that his friend may not recover from whatever has happened to him.
Crichton jerked once, thrashed weakly for an instant, battering against the two sets of hands that were
simultaneously supporting him and holding him in place, and then began coughing and wheezing. “I’m …
okay,” he croaked between coughs, feebly trying to roll onto his side. “I’m not that bad, D’Argo.” He took in
three more breaths before opening his eyes to look up at the worried luxan hovering over him.
“Not as bad as what?” Chiana was kneeling alongside his legs, watching him every bit as carefully as she had
during the last hideous days of the neural chip -- watching him as though he were losing his mind. “D’Argo
didn’t say anything.” The wary look faded, and she began pulling his ankles away from the drop-off into the
central neural plexus, working together with whoever was holding him under the arms to move him farther from
the edge.
“I’m not so bad off that I’m going to die.” John tried to sit up on his own, started to keel over to one side, and
was pulled upright. He spared a microt to reflect that people had been hauling him upright an awful lot over the
past day or so, then lost his train of thought when the floor performed a quick waltz beneath him. Strong hands
grabbed his shoulders and held him steady against the spinning that was going on inside his head. He
managed to focus his thoughts on D’Argo’s insults. “And my module isn’t pathetic. It’s an ass-kickin’, wormhole-
surfin’, first class, made in the U.S. of A. machine.” He took a breath, winded by the combination of whatever
had happened to him and his short diatribe. “What happened? What’s going on?”
“You tell us, John.” D’Argo settled onto one knee to peer at him levelly. “You had some sort of attack and
nearly fell.”
“Chiana’s flash,” John said. His first attempt at getting to his feet ended almost before it started. The Den was
being stubborn about resuming its usual placid immovability. The same strong grasp that had steadied him a
moment earlier caught him under the arms and hoisted him upright. He turned to see who was compensating
for his lack of coordination and strength. Still dazed by whatever had just happened to him, he hadn’t bothered
to tally the people standing where he could see them. Jool had joined the group while he was unconscious, as
had Rygel. The interion was standing behind D’Argo with Rygel hovering by her side, which meant that unless
Crais had returned a lot earlier than planned, there was only one person left who could be standing behind
him.
Surprised by who was there, and the fact that she was actually touching him and helping him to his feet, he
fumbled through his brief acknowledgement of her help. “Thanks … Aeryn.”
She nodded and took a half step away, remaining within arm’s reach in case he started to lose his balance
again. The entire group moved farther from the edge of the floor.
“Commander Crichton, D’Argo said nothing about dying or about your ship,” Pilot said.
John glared suspiciously at Pilot for a microt, then looked at each of his crewmates in turn, receiving a nod of
confirmation from one person after another. He argued weakly, “But I heard him! What the frell is going on?”
“What happened to you?” Chiana asked a second time. “One microt you were fine, the next microt you were
halfway into the neural plexus before Aeryn yanked you back.” She turned toward where Aeryn hovered two
motras to one side. “I’ve never seen anyone move that fast. That was magra-drad.”
Aeryn ignored the praise. “I couldn’t have gotten there in time if it hadn’t been for your vision. I didn’t hesitate
when he started to go. But since your vision turned out to be the one that came true, then what did John see?”
“I think maybe I saw Chiana having her vision. And I may have caught something from Hoover over there. I was
starving when I got to the Center Chamber this morning; then a microt later I felt full. And the hynerian garbage
disposal had been gorging himself as usual. This is absurd!” He shook his head, dismissing his own
conclusions before he even explained what they were.
“What else?” Aeryn asked, urging him to continue. “There’s something more, isn’t there?”
John pressed both palms to his temples and considered the question. In the end, he confessed, “I had a bunch
of weird dreams last night. I thought it was my headache working on my subconscious, but now I’m not sure.
And then -- this!” He waved at the chamber around them, indicating their quiet host. “It felt like I tapped into
Moya. It didn’t last long, but I swear I saw and felt and heard what Moya feels. I could tell what every single
DRD was doing, including seeing myself from the outside.”
“Crichton, your brain is not sufficiently evolved to process all of Moya’s input signals.” Pilot’s careful wording
managed to make it sound as though he were issuing a warning at the same time that he was denying the
possibility that Crichton had actually gone through what he had described. “It would not be possible for you to
integrate her entire sensory flow.”
“You don’t need to tell me that!” John resumed the nearly obsessive rubbing of his head. “I don’t think I got the
whole enchilada and that was enough to blow my mental doors right off. The only question is how the frell did I
manage to hook up with Moya’s sensors in the first place? Do leviathans have some sort of malfunction that
causes them to bleed neural energy like that, Pilot?”
“There is no such occurrence recorded anywhere in Moya’s databanks.”
“John, there is something you should know,” D’Argo began. He trailed off, showing unmistakable signs that he
was reluctant to continue, then took a deep breath and continued. “Yesterday, when you thought you heard
me say something … It was a stray thought, I swear! I did not truly think of you that way, but it was what was
going through my mind at the time. But I did not mean it,” he said desperately to Crichton, pleading with him to
understand.
Aeryn stepped out of the shadows, her head tilted slightly to one side in thought. When she spoke, her voice
was slow and hushed, just above the level of a whisper. “D’Argo, were you thinking something about John’s
module just before he regained consciousness?”
“No.” D’Argo stood with his mouth open, reconsidering his answer. “Not directly. I was remembering the first
day we met. I picked him up by the throat.”
John made an angry, frustrated gesture. “For god’s sake, someone please tell me this isn’t happening! Why
would they do this? What the frell do they think they’re going to accomplish by turning me into the Amazing
Kreskin?”
“You mean the hvisk?” Chiana asked.
“Who else has been messing around with the inside of my head?” John snapped at her. “Sorry. I’m sorry, Pip.
I didn’t mean to take this out on you.” He stepped toward her, reaching out to give her a small hug.
Worry. Concern. So much like Nerri. I love --
“Damn!” He jumped back, shaking out one hand.
“Another vision?” Aeryn asked, alarmed at his reaction. “So soon?”
Chiana shook her head and frowned, crestfallen at Crichton’s hurried retreat.
“No, that was me. Looks like bodily contact makes it worse. It didn’t do that a few microts ago but it sure as frell
did it just then!” John dodged away from D’Argo’s outstretched hand, nodded a fast acknowledgement that he
was too close to the edge of the floor, and made his way to a safer position, careful not to touch anyone. “I
didn’t mean to get that, Chi,” he apologized. It felt as though he had somehow violated her privacy by listening
to her inner thoughts.
“Why would the hvisk do this to you?” Pilot steered the conversation back to the mysterious transformation.
“Are we sure it was the hvisk?” Jool asked, entering the conversation for the first time.
“Who else?” John started to lean against one of Moya’s ribs, looked at the massive structure arcing overhead,
and stepped away. “Who else has had both the opportunity and the ability to screw with my head?”
“Is there any chance the clone did this?” Aeryn’s question emerged hesitantly, as though she didn’t want to
discuss the possibility. The entire group went silent, considering that unpleasant alternative. “He has the
ability to affect your physiology,” she suggested.
John shook his head vehemently. No one spoke. After several microts he relented. “Let me check.” He
glanced around one more time, made sure he was a safe distance from the edge of the drop-off, and then
turned inward to explore the unwanted addition to his psyche.
“Harvey! Front and center, bubba! You’ve got some explaining to do, swami!” John wandered down a silent,
empty corridor. Misty, indistinct walls stretched out of sight in several directions. It was silent except for the
sound of his breathing and the quiet slap of his sneakers on gray tiled floors. “Harvey, get your ugly butt out
here!” he yelled again, coming to a stop. It was the first time he’d had to actually summon the clone in almost a
cycle. When the familiar figure didn’t appear he didn’t know where to look for him.
“He’s not answering,” John said. A look of loathing on Aeryn’s face shifted into something more leery -- more
fearful. “I’m not sure where to look for him.” He turned toward D’Argo, seeking and finding the familiar steady
support he had come to count on from his friend.
“Is he gone?” Excitement raised D’Argo’s voice half an octave and at last ten decibels. Everyone winced at the
exuberant shout. He got his enthusiasm under control and continued more calmly. “Perhaps the purpose of
what the hvisk did was to get rid of him and this other thing happening is a side effect from some sort of energy
surge.” His eyes flickered in Aeryn’s direction.
“No, he’s in there. I can feel him but he’s clammed up for some reason.” John frowned as he struggled to put
an extremely nebulous sensation into words. “Let me try one other place.”
Small waves slapped up against the pilings, making a quiet slurp each time the water swirled and sucked at the
uprights. Crichton inhaled deeply, enjoying the familiar smells and sights of Sawyer’s Mill even if it was only a
figment of his imagination. “Harvey!” he yelled again. The syllables echoed across the water. This was where
he had first encountered the neurochip’s creation; he had been sure he would find the clone in this spot.
“Son of a bitch.” He was forced to consider that perhaps he was alone in his skull at last. The presence was
still there however, so muted as to be almost non-existent but present nonetheless. “This is not the right time
for hide-and-seek.” John retraced his steps along the dock, scanning up and down the shore for any sign of
the missing clone. He strode off the dock onto the gravel pathway, past the huge glass-front ice machine that
the fishermen depended on to stock their coolers, and started up the concrete steps toward the parking lot,
continuing to check in every direction. He kept expecting Harvey to appear wearing one of his ludicrous get
ups. Anything was possible when the clone was involved. Perhaps he would show up on water skis, skimming
along behind a boatload of scantily clad beauties, or roar into the parking lot on a Harley with a buxom babe
perched behind him.
“Where the frell are you, you miserable, ugly excuse for an imaginary lifeform?” he said.
John stopped with his foot poised to take another step. His subconscious was telling him that his eye had
caught something that hadn’t registered on his conscious mind. He walked backwards as far as the ice cooler.
A padlocked hasp had been added to the door. The ice machine had never been locked in all the years that
he had come to Sawyer’s Mill. Cash was left on an honor system. John licked his lips nervously, his skin
crawling with a prescient knowledge of what he was going to find. Then he stepped forward and wiped the frost
and condensation off the outside of the glass door.
Someone had put Harvey on ice. Literally
John banged on the glass, watching intently for a reaction from the black clad body entombed inside the
freezer. Frost and small icicles adorned the black cooling suit, lending a festive look to the frozen clone’s
garments. The pale skin was even whiter than usual, coated with a fine layer of crystals that caught and
reflected the stray beams of light streaming through the circle John had rubbed free of frost.
He stepped away from the freezer, pinched his lower lip between his thumb and forefinger, and spent some
time considering the unexpected turn of events. Sequestering the clone in this manner didn’t seem like a
reasonable explanation for his abduction by the hvisk. If they had asked, he would have willingly allowed them
to not only gag Harvey but remove him completely. None of what was going on made any sense. On the other
hand, very little of his life in the Uncharted Territories ever made much sense until all the shooting was over and
someone took the time to explain what had happened.
He yanked hard on the padlock, setting the entire ice machine to rocking and shaking. The lock didn’t budge.
Another violent jerk against the hasp confirmed that the door was going to remain closed. This time the
shaking spread from the freezer to the ground beneath his feet. John stumbled to one side, arms waving wildly
as he fought to remain upright. “Earthquake? Who has a frelling earthquake inside their own head!?”
“JOHN!” D’Argo’s anxious face bounced into view. The aftershocks continued, transformed into D’Argo
shaking him vigorously by the shoulders.
“Big D! Enough with the San Andreas gig! What’s the emergency?” John pulled out of D’Argo’s grasp. He
staggered for a moment even though the pummeling had stopped.
Aeryn said, “You hadn’t moved for over one hundred microts. It’s never gone on that long. We were worried
that the clone might have taken control.”
“No. Harvey’s out of commission.” John turned away from D’Argo’s immediately delighted grin to face Aeryn’s
more subdued reaction. “He’s still in there, but someone or something has tucked him away where he can’t
bother me.” Aeryn’s skeptical frown shifted into something that resembled regret. John decided that if she
wasn’t happy for him that she must have misunderstood his explanation. He tried again, using simpler terms.
“Aeryn, he’s gone. It’s just me!”
She spun away from him, but not before he caught a glimpse of a face that had suddenly gone pale. Aeryn
stumbled to the far side of Pilot’s station. Once there, she turned her back on him and gazed off into the dark.
And he knew without any doubt that he had managed to copy something that the other Crichton had said or
done. Once again, without any warning, he had stumbled into that lethal, shifting minefield of unintentionally
damaging remarks.
“He's gone... he's finally gone. It's just me.” Joy so intense, it summons tears. The feel of his head resting on
her shoulder, and the soft play of his hair between her fingers … Not again, she can’t go through this again.
The flash passed through him like a burst of light, illuminating his understanding and lending him a memory of a
horrible, aching emptiness in the center of his chest. He stared at the rigid shoulders, wishing that she could
be as happy for him as she had for the other John Crichton, equally angry that a quirk of fate had robbed him
of the celebration they should be sharing at that moment.
He was hauled back to his surroundings by a slap on the back that nearly propelled him into the neural plexus.
“John, this is wonderful!” D’Argo reeled him back before he could stagger too close to the edge.
JOY
John pulled away before the physical contact unleashed another blast of shared thoughts. D’Argo saved him
from having to apologize by raising both hands to show that he understood John’s reaction. “You believe the
hvisk did this,” the elated warrior added.
John checked on Aeryn. She remained in the corner behind Pilot’s raised island, as far away from him as she
could get without actually leaving the Den, but at least she had turned around to watching the small group and
was listening attentively to every word. He blew out a long breath and tried to concentrate on the mystery of
the clone’s icy imprisonment. “There’s no other explanation. It had to be them. But why? They’ve taken Harv
out of the picture, but now I’m hearing every other living creature around me instead, including Moya. I’m
thinking this wasn’t a good tradeoff.”
Something swirled about inside his stomach and chest. It was an unpleasant, uncomfortable sensation that
disappeared as quickly as it had arrived. He rested one hand against the outer wall of Pilot’s station, steadying
himself against the disorientation, and it happened again, worse than before. It had the same feel as his lack of
appetite when he had been around Rygel earlier that morning: clearly a borrowed sensation that belonged to
someone else.
“Who’s nauseous?” he asked, looking around. He received nothing but blank stares for an answer. “Pilot?
You and Moya feeling all right?”
“Yes, Crichton. All of Moya’s systems are operating at nearly peak efficiency, and both Moya and I are feeling
better than we have in several cycles. The nutrients and fluids purchased from the hvisk are exactly what we
have been craving for some time now.” Pilot tapped at his controls for several microts. “Everyone on board,
including our scarran guest, appears to be quite healthy as well.”
“Maybe I misinterpreted that one,” John admitted reluctantly. “Probably nothing more than Buckwheat over
there stewing up a supply of helium. It sure felt like a Pepto moment though.”
“What do you want to do now?”
Aeryn moved out of the shadows. Her disembodied face floated toward Crichton until she moved close enough
that he could see her dark clothes and hair. ‘Eerie’ didn’t begin to describe the effect. For the length of time it
took her to move into the light, Aeryn was little more than a set of eyes that watched him and a mouth that
occasionally made dispassionate comments, divorced from everything else that he had come to love about
her.
“John, what now?” D’Argo asked, repeating Aeryn’s question.
He had been standing there, staring at her, lost in his thoughts for who knew how many microts. John shook
himself back into the here and now, and snorted a quick expression of derision. “I’m heading back aboard the
Kyelligg and I’m going to kick some tail feathers until someone turns this off!” he said, indicating his head.
“I’ll go with you.” Without a moment’s hesitation, D’Argo headed toward a bridge leading out of the Den.
“Me too,” Chiana added. She bounded after the luxan before anyone could suggest anything different. “Count
me in.”
John called after them. “Wait! The less of us on board the Kyelligg, the better. We don’t know why they did …
Don’t let him go alone … what they …” He stared at his feet, trying to remember what he had been saying. It
took several microts for him to shoulder the stray thought aside so he could focus on the point he had wanted
to make. “D’Argo comes with me, and the rest of you stay here. Pilot can keep the comms open so the rest of
you can hear if we’re in trouble.”
“There’s strength in numbers,” Aeryn suggested, nodding towards Chiana. “It would be safer if there were
more of you.”
“And more targets for the hvisk if they’re after more than just me.” Crichton turned toward Pilot. “Contact the
Kyelligg and let them know we want to meet with them.”
“Already done, Commander,” Pilot replied. “They have responded with a set of coordinates that correspond to
a location not too far from where you last met with the hvisk.” A claw extended over the edge of his station,
offering one of the semi-transparent schematics showing the route to the specified meeting place.
Crichton snared the sheet without touching any portion of Moya and examined the spidery outlines, taking
several microts to make sure he could interpret the leviathan-generated map. “I can read it!” he snapped in
Aeryn’s direction. He raised his head from his study of the transparency, looking uncomfortable. “I can’t help
it. It’s getting stronger every microt. I don’t mean to do it,” he apologized, hoping she would understand that he
hadn’t intended to listen to her flickering concern that he might need help to interpret the schematic.
Aeryn ignored both his original sharp comment and the apology. “I’ll take care of things here. Naj Gil needs
watching, and Crais may check in if he’s found anything.”
“We’ll comm you if we need any help,” D’Argo said. He spun around and strode toward the doorway where
Crichton was already disappearing into the corridor, headed for the meeting with the hvisk.
* * * * *
Crichton hesitated. He stopped a motra short of the airlock and fidgeted while D’Argo stepped through to the
interior of the Kyelligg.
“What’s the matter?” D’Argo asked. Standing with one foot aboard the Kyelligg and the other inside Moya’s
airlock, he was forced to duck down in order to look back at John.
“I can hear their thoughts.” John took a step back, moving farther away from the connection to the hvisk
habitat. “All of them. Millions. Too many thoughts.”
“After the neural chip, you should be used to that,” D’Argo joked. John frowned at him, and he tried again.
“You’ve been blocking us out, you can do it again. Shut them out of your mind, John.”
Crichton closed his eyes, trying to envision the process of shutting his mind to the unwelcome deluge of images
swirling just out of reach of conscious awareness. The hurricane of stolen sights, sounds, and thoughts eased
and stopped. He was distracted by a sharp pain in his left forearm, and the flimsy barricade inside his mind
rattled, weak areas spreading until the racket of the hvisk began to seep through the fissures. He tightened his
control. Silence returned. The ache in his forearm transformed into something more intense, and he raised his
hand to check on the source of the problem. Knuckles shone whitely in Moya’s subdued lighting. His fingers
were clenched into a tight fist, generating the cramping muscles that had alerted him to the phenomenon.
John used his other hand to pry the fingers open one by one. Four small bleeding half-moons had been
carved into his palm by his fingernails. He flexed his hand to ease the taut muscles. “Damn. That’s a bit off
the wall, even for you,” he whispered to himself.
D’Argo called to him from inside the hvisk habitat. “Crichton, come on! You can’t get this fixed standing aboard
Moya.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Coming.” John swore under his breath, grasped his belt tightly with his bleeding hand as
though to anchoring himself to his own body, and took a step toward the airlock. He paused at the opening
then turned back.
“Crichton! Come on!” D’Argo yelled.
“Hang on. Chiana’s on her way up here.”
D’Argo threaded his way back through the hatches to rejoin him. “I didn’t hear anything over the comms,” he
said, eyeing John with a mixture of awe and suspicion.
“She didn’t call over the comms. I can’t turn this off, D’Argo. I’d like to but it keeps leaking through. It’s not up
to me.” Turning away from his friend, he took several steps back along the corridor. Chiana was hurrying
toward them. “What’s up, Chi?”
She held out his leather jacket and black gloves. “I thought these would help. You said touching people made
it worse, so you’d better have these in case you need to tralk-slap a few of those oversized feathered whistles.”
She watched while John slid into the jacket, snapped the bottom two fasteners, and tugged the gloves into
place. “Be careful, Crichton. Don’t let them do anything else to you.”
“Thanks, Pip.” John turned toward where D’Argo was waiting for him, and motioned him through the hatch,
following without hesitation this time.
It was like stepping into a mental sauna; the heat and pressure of millions of thoughts created a physical impact
against his mind. John stumbled and started to fall back into the airlock, doubly confused by the noise and the
change in gravity. He flailed wildly for two microts, trying to catch his balance, then was magically levitated to
land on his feet beside the ramp leading to the hatch. D’Argo held on to him for the extra microts it took John to
orient himself before releasing his arm in stages, making sure that Crichton had regained his balance.
“Thanks.” Caught up in the battle to separate his own thoughts from the cacophony inside his head, his brief
acknowledgement emerged in little better than a distracted mumble. D’Argo’s hand returned to its place under
his arm, and he was steered into the bustling main street of the station.
“Concentrate. You can block them out, John,” D’Argo said.
The thoroughfare was as crowded as it had been the previous day, forcing D’Argo to zigzag wildly to keep John
from bumping into any of the hvisk. The black-booted feet stumbled, poorly directed by their distracted owner,
and D’Argo looped his arm more securely under John’s to hold him upright. Several of the passing hvisk
stopped to stare at the pair as they made their erratic way past a small park. One individual stepped toward
them, hand outstretched. D’Argo snarled at it, and the hvisk retreated.
“He only wants to … he meant to help,” John explained. He gestured at the frightened creature, meaning to
offer an apology for his friend’s aggression. As with his speech, the motion went awry halfway through, turning
it into a poorly directed wave instead of what he had intended.
“Don’t you think they’ve helped more than enough?” D’Argo gave the now-stationary hvisk a final glare and
returned to his task of guiding Crichton.
John tripped over his own feet and nearly fell. D’Argo grabbed him with both hands and hauled him back up,
taking care to hold on to him only where the thick leather jacket provided an insulating layer. “Focus on your
own thoughts,” he insisted, steering John around a garden.
“I’m trying. It’s not as easy as it sounds. I’ve got the Mormon Tabernacle Choir inside here. It’s noisy.” John
ducked his head to press the heels of both hands against his temples, took a deep breath, and tried to envision
the barricade he had put up before leaving Moya. The confusion inside his mind eased. He straightened up
and began walking more quickly, although continuing to rely on D’Argo’s arm to steady him.
“Hurry,” he ordered. They accelerated toward the meeting with the hvisk.
* * * * *
She had meant to go to Command. Aeryn turned a corner in the corridor and was faced with a different
junction than the one she had been expecting.
“Frell,” she said under her breath.
It was the second time since she had returned to Moya that she had absentmindedly wandered off course while
lost in her thoughts. And that meant she had done it two times too many. To make matters worse, on both
occasions she had wound up in the same place. Aeryn stood uncertainly in the middle of the corridor for more
than ten microts before continuing toward the destination her subconscious had chosen for her. One hesitant
step followed another until she passed through the open door and entered John’s cell. She followed a course
similar to the one she had traveled earlier that morning, stopping first at the rack where he kept Winona --
empty now -- then continuing past the jumbled collection of energy cells and bits of circuitry littering the top
surface of the shelves.
She stopped when she reached his black overcoat, and buried her nose in the sleeve to inhale the scent of
him. It smelled of dust, seared sand, and the lingering, sweetly-sour odor of ignited chakan oil, overlaid by the
more recent fragrance that was John Crichton. Aeryn gathered more of the coat in both hands and took a
deeper breath, finding the last remnants of John stored in the leather and fabric. It triggered two sets of
memories. There was the man she would have willingly accompanied to Earth, and the one who lived in this
converted prison cell. Every small nuance of odor said that she knew the owner of this coat intimately, and yet
it belonged to someone she hardly knew anymore, estranged by a half cycle of separation. The one who had
been lost, and the one that she didn’t dare let herself know again. He was the same, and not the same.
“No,” she said, releasing the coat. She tugged at it until the wrinkles disappeared, removing the signs that she
had been here. It was John, but it wasn’t the person she had given herself to aboard Talyn. Him, yet not him.
“Moving in?”
The low-pitched growl startled her. Once again she had sunk deeper into her thoughts than she had intended.
Her vigilance had been severely compromised if Rygel could get this close to her before she noticed the whine
of his Throne Sled.
“No!” She headed toward the other door leading out of the cell.
“Perhaps you should try visiting when he’s here,” the Dominar tried again. He turned his floating chair to follow
her. “That would be more productive.”
“And perhaps you should try minding your own business. Don’t interfere, Rygel.”
“Whether you want to admit it or not, he’s Crichton.” Rygel had to accelerate to keep up with her. The shrill
whine of the Throne Sled mounted to an annoying pitch. “Just as --”
“Don’t!” she snapped. Aeryn whirled to face him, forcing Rygel to swerve to one side to avoid running into her.
“I know who he is. That’s the problem. Don’t tell me how to handle this. You don’t understand, so stay out of
it.” She turned on her heel, resuming her course toward Command, leaving the chastised hynerian hovering in
the middle of an otherwise deserted corridor.
Rygel watched the lithe figure disappear around a corner, earbrows drooping dejectedly. “Just as ignorant,
bumbling, heroic, and selfless,” he finished. “He’ll do anything you ask if you simply look at him the way you
looked at the other one, Aeryn.” The Dominar sighed, turned in the opposite direction from the one Aeryn had
taken, and decided to visit Pilot. It had been over a half cycle since they had done anything remotely like
holding a conversation, and he owed it to Zhaan to check on Pilot and Moya from time to time.
* * * * *
The meeting place designated by hvisk was similar to the one where they had met for the aborted bargaining
session, except that this enclosure had benches around the perimeter more suited to a bipedal humanoid than
to the hvisk. D’Argo sat hunched over, elbows on his knees, watching John pace from one side of the circular
area to the other.
“It’s only been two hundred microts, John. Be patient. They’ll be here.”
John ran his gloved hands over his head, scrubbing at his scalp until the short hair stood on end. D’Argo
frowned, remembering another time when a mechanical form of encroaching insanity had resulted in the same
disheveled appearance.
“You’ve been in battle,” John started, changing the subject abruptly. D’Argo nodded. “Remem … You … Do
you remember what that … what that sounded like? All the … All the noises?” He shook his head vigorously,
as though he were trying a shake an insect out of one ear.
“This is a struggle for you. I understand.” D’Argo was talking slowly and clearly in the hopes that it would help
his friend separate his words from the sounds in his mind.
“No. That’s … that’s not it. Picture all those noises, D. Take every single one of …” He broke off, rubbing at
his head again.
“John,” D’Argo hissed. He got to his feet, wanting to offer some sort of help.
“Take all that … all that noise, stick it inside your head. There are … are … hundreds. Thousands, D’Argo.
It’s too much. I … I can’t handle this much longer,” John panted, rubbing the sides of his head with his fists.
“It’s … it’s getting too … there’s too much …” He stripped away one of his gloves and held the hand out toward
D’Argo, showing him the blood-encrusted gouges in his palm. “This is the only way … the only way to make it
stop. Where are they?” he finished in a desperate yell.
“John!” D’Argo barked at him. Crichton began hitting the side of his head as though he could jar the problem
loose and restore whatever had gone wrong. “Look at me, John. What can I do to help?” D’Argo stepped
closer, reaching for the punishing fist that was beginning to strike harder. He caught it easily and squeezed
hard, driving John’s fingernails into his palm and reopening the wounds.
“Enough.” John gasped in pain as the blood began to flow. He was suddenly more coherent. “That’s enough,
D. That’s good. It’s just that there are so many people here.” He tugged at D’Argo’s wrist, urging him to let go
of his tightly gripped hand.
“Then concentrate on me, John. Close them out and listen to only me.”
Crichton examined his friend’s face intently, searching for the miniscule physical cues that would tell him if
D’Argo was truly comfortable with the idea of another person listening to his innermost thoughts. The looming
body revealed only concern; nothing else. John nodded once, fighting against the chaos encroaching on his
mind, and reached for the armored fingers, seeking the contact that would allow him to focus on the single
mind.
Calm like a thin veneer over a core of learned aggression and enduring sorrow. A figure stands hunched
before him, shoulders bowed as though to shield him from a blow, pale and panting. Deep loving concern for
the human consumes him, not understanding but sympathizing just the same …
“No.” John broke away. The sight of himself filtered through D’Argo’s perspective was even more disorienting
than the millions of thoughts pressing against his psyche. “It’s too confusing. It’s making it worse.” He turned
toward the opening in the foliage that led out of the meeting place. “I have to … get … out of here. Maybe a,
um … a transport pod. Maybe if I get far enough away.”
Just as Crichton, clinging to D’Argo’s shoulder for balance, stumbled toward the exit, the light streaming through
the opening was obscured by someone. A hvisk entered the enclosure, gliding with an odd, relaxed gait that
held little semblance to walking. Its robes, although scrupulously clean, were faded and worn; long fibers hung
from tears and rents in the fabric. The confident ease of the individual’s movements bestowed it with a
dignified, regal air -- a thorough contrast to the shabby clothes and the nearly transparent crest feathers that
lay limply on its skull.
It moved toward John and D’Argo without either haste or hesitation, and laid its hand on Crichton’s shoulder.
The motion was so smooth and unthreatening that for a moment D’Argo didn’t realize that the hvisk had made
contact. He hissed, remembering what the last encounter had done to John, and reached to tear the hand
away.
“Don’t touch him. You’ve done enough harm,” D’Argo snarled as the old hvisk shifted away from his
outstretched hand.
“No,” John commanded. “Leave him alone, D’Argo.” Crichton was bent over -- head hanging, hands braced on
his knees -- with the hvisk’s hand resting on the back of his shoulder. John reached for D’Argo’s arm to steady
himself and stood up straight. He looked into the hvisk’s eyes. “It’s quiet. They’re gone. All the voices are
gone. What did you do?”
The elderly hvisk sang to him for several microts, producing a wavering, uncertain aria full of soundless hisses
and the occasional squawk that didn’t seem to belong in the flow of tones.
“He’s …” John stopped, his head cocked on one side, listening to something.
“What is he doing? Is he hurting you?”
“No. It’s okay, D. He’s controlling me.”
D’Argo let out a long growl of rage, and spun around Crichton in pursuit of the old hvisk. The creature let go of
John and retreated across the room.
“Stop it!” John yelled. “Leave him alone … I … I … he’s got to help …” He dropped to his knees holding both
sides of his head. “Let him help, D’Argo.” His final plea emerged on a sob.
Crichton began rocking forward and back. D’Argo could do nothing but watch, powerless to help. He looked
between the cringing hvisk and his crumpled friend, confused and uncertain what to do. “Help him!” he finally
bellowed at the hvisk, and stepped out of the way. The old creature scuttled past the luxan, glancing at him
fearfully as he slid past, but wasted no time in reestablishing contact with Crichton. The rocking stopped
immediately.
“John, you said he was controlling you.” D’Argo knelt down, started to touch the bowed head, and chose to
place his hand on the shoulder of the leather jacket instead. “I thought you meant he was causing this.”
“Sorry. Misunderstanding, D’Argo. He’s controlling whatever this is.” Crichton looked up. “That didn’t come
out right either. He’s fixing this, stopping it. He’s doing what …” John broke off, again pausing as if he was
listening to something. “Whatever they did to me, the process got interrupted. There should have been
something like brakes, like a control mechanism, put in place, but the machine got damaged somehow. He’s
doing it for me instead.” He looked at the hvisk and added, “Thank you.”
“John, how do you know this?” D’Argo asked. John reached for his shoulder and the three of them came to
their feet as one.
“He just told us. Weren’t you listening?” John turned to look at his friend, inadvertently pulling away from the
hvisk’s touch. As soon as the three-fingered grasp was released he staggered, close to falling down, and
clapped a hand against his forehead. The hvisk shuffled forward to reestablish contact, expressing its concern
in a slow, mournful piping.
“He said nothing. He was doing more of that frelling annoying whistling, but I can’t understand him. Do you
understand their language now? Was that part of what they did to you?”
John looked from the hvisk to D’Argo and back several times. “It’s more of what they did to me. I heard him as
clearly as I’m hearing you, only it must have been inside my head instead of my ears. Frelling telepathy.” He
turned to face the hvisk. “What is your name? What do I call you?” It sang to him, eyes squinting above the
chipped, faded beak. “I didn’t get a damned thing out of that. Try it again.” He listened to the melody a
second time then shook his head. “Nada. Nothing but the spiffy tune. It sounded a little like Yankee Doodle.
Can I call you YD for now?”
The already drooping crest somehow managed to lay even flatter against the pale, wrinkled skin. The hvisk let
out a long low trill and bobbed its acceptance of the designator.
“Great. Now undo this. Whatever you did to me, switch it back!” John demanded. His attempt to sound forceful
was compromised by his hovering proximity to the elderly hvisk. The creature shifted to one side and John
went with him, maintaining the contact that was silencing the unwanted ability. “No! No arguments!” When the
hvisk shrank away from him, he lowered his voice from a shout to a level closer to regular speech. “You
grabbed me against my will, and screwed with the inside of my head. Now take it out.”
The hvisk temporarily named YD gazed into his eyes and whistled a single note. There was no doubt that it
was a refusal.
“Frell!” John exploded angrily. He took several deep breaths, as though working himself up to an enormous
physical effort, and then deliberately stepped away from the hvisk, accepting the consequences that would
come with breaking the contact.
“Tell us why,” D’Argo interjected. “Explain why you did this to him.”
“Who the hell cares why, D’Argo? All I want to know is what it’s going to take to get them to turn this racket
off!” John stumbled. He was already looking confused and distracted after less than five microts of being on
his own. The hvisk moved after him, pursuing him slowly around the enclosure in an attempt to reestablish
contact. “Screw you,” John snarled at him, slapping one hand away. “I’ll go nuts with this in my head, then I
won’t be any use to you anyway. You lose. Shut it off.”
YD stopped, letting John drift away from him, and sang to him for several microts, watching the increasingly
uncoordinated movements with hvisk-ish concern.
“That’s not my problem,” John answered. YD sang some more. “Tough toenails. I’m not a hired gun. Get
some other patsy to do your dirty work. There’s a nasty piece of work in black leather named Scorpius
cruisin’ around this part of the universe; he’d probably be happy to help you out.” He took another step away
from the hvisk, tripped over his own feet, and staggered to one side, continuing to retreat from the offers of
help. “Get away … God, it’s noisy … D’Argo, help.”
D’Argo caught him, guided him to a bench and helped him sit down. “What do they want you to do, John?
What did he say?”
An unfocussed gaze turned in the luxan’s direction. John’s eyes pointed in two different directions for a microt
before latching onto the figure hovering protectively over him. “They want me to find someone … one certain
hvisk on this … this station. Someone they … I think they want me to … to kill him.”
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
