Whispers
Chapter 6
YD whistled urgently, gesticulating in time with his notes. John was on his feet again, backing away from the
advancing hvisk one unsteady step at a time, ill-directed hands motioning for him to stay away. The pair
worked their way gradually around the enclosure in that manner until the pursuer drew to a stop, ending the
slow motion chase. John placed one hand against the slender trunk of a tree to steady himself, and eyed the
hvisk warily.
“He keeps saying ‘Not kill’,” John translated for D’Argo after no one had moved for several microts. “Just find
and … and show them where this one person is hiding.” He propped himself up against one of the segments of
wall enclosing the meeting area. “That doesn’t justify doing this to me. Take …” His knees buckled under the
weight of whatever he was hearing inside his mind and he began to slide down the wall.
D’Argo lunged forward, grabbed Crichton, and jerked him upright. “Concentrate, John,” he said in a quiet
growl. He kept a wary eye on the hvisk. “You did it before. You can shut them out again.”
“Whatever they … did, it’s getting … it’s getting worse, D’Argo. It’s getting stronger.” John turned away from
D’Argo in order to address the hvisk. One wavering hand gestured in the general direction of his own temple.
“Undo this or … or …”
“Or you get nothing from any of us,” D’Argo finished for him.
An explanation from YD followed. The melodic language flowed for nearly forty microts, broken by pauses to
allow John to respond. He nodded each time as if on cue, all the while clinging to D’Argo’s shoulders, relying
on the luxan to compensate for his failing strength and balance.
“Okay. You win,” he said at the end. The hvisk edged forward and made contact. John sighed and stood up
straight. “Thanks, D. Take a load off, and I’ll try to make some sense out of what he just told me.”
The three males made themselves comfortable. YD perched next to Crichton where he could maintain the
critical contact merely by leaning against the human’s body. D’Argo selected a seat half way around the
circular area where he could watch the pair.
“They’ve got a kind of infection aboard the Kyelligg,” John started. “Only it’s not exactly a disease; it’s a
person.” He received a sharp nod from YD; the chipped and faded beak bobbed down and up a single time.
“This guy, critter … guy, I guess. This guy is their equivalent of insane, only they don’t know who he is or
where he is, and anyone who gets close enough to find him winds up catching whatever he’s got. So it’s
spreading, and if they don’t stop it, the entire population is going to be infected.”
“Why do they need you?” D’Argo asked, glowering at the hvisk.
“Your mind is immune to the disease," the answer drifted into John’s head in time with YD’s complex whistling.
John parroted the words, providing the answer to D’Argo as quickly as he received it himself. “All we desire is
that you find the source of the insanity. Those who have been infected cannot transmit ‘The Mindlessness’
themselves. They carry only the symptoms, not the source, although they sound the same as the one we
seek. If any one of us delves deeply enough to determine if it is the one who spreads the disease, we will
succumb to it. I beg you to help us.”
John pulled off one of his gloves and ran his bare hand through his hair several times, scrubbing at his scalp.
“He said that they can’t shut this thing inside my head off right now. Something to do with the machine being
damaged, and I caught a flash that they wouldn’t do it even if the -- Aeryn stands with her pulse rifle raised,
face pale with strain, Crichton’s body laying curled beneath him as he turns to call to her -- machine worked.”
He raised his head slowly to stare at D’Argo, taking several microts to sort out whose perspective he had just
witnessed. The image flicked by a second time, faster than before but clear enough for John to untangle what
he had been seeing.
“Why the hell did she do that?” His voice rose to a distressed yell.
D’Argo’s eyes widened. He realized that Crichton had caught his leaking thoughts, and he began shaking his
head. “You have to understand, John. We were sure they were hurting you. They wouldn’t stop what they
were doing.”
“So she shot the damned machine?” John jumped to his feet, started to take one infuriated step forward, then
backed up, waiting for YD. The old male remained seated, forcing John to stay close to the bench.
“She was worried about you!” Aggravation began to replace the luxan’s initially embarrassed response.
“Hell of a way of showing it. This entire mess is Aeryn’s fault.” It was a harsh, angry accusation.
The first hint of anger welled out of the pit of John’s stomach, generated by his helplessness. He was
dependent on the individuals who had done this to him, unable to direct his own life, and the one person he
desperately wanted beside him during the fiasco could barely stand to look at him.
Frustration continued to mount with every passing microt. It was choking the linkage between him and YD,
threatening to override the borrowed control of his newly acquired telepathy. With every additional voice that
crept into his head, his unhappiness increased, damaging the mental blockade even further. He tried to fight it
down. He closed his eyes to help him concentrate, and instead all he could focus on was that Aeryn -- the
beautiful Aeryn Sun who had finally returned to Moya and yet was barely there -- had caused the problem. Her
rash decision had left him saddled with an ability that he didn’t want and couldn’t shut off.
Fury and hurt won out over reason. He took three long, angry strides across the stone-paved flooring. “God
damn it! Why the frell didn’t she --”
Aeryn lunges through a door, pulse rifle at the ready, then she is lost to view as he moves past her and plows
into the next room where he scares the occupants into chirping alarm. He reverses course, moving into the
hallway as she runs past and hits the next door with her shoulder, ignoring the handle in her haste. She comes
close to falling as the flimsy latch gives way. Her motions are jerky, angular, full of aggression, screaming out
that she is anxious to the point of shooting anyone who gets in her way.
“Okay,” John admitted slowly, shutting out the rest of the memory that D’Argo was trying hard to hide. YD was
alongside him, fingers tightening on the shoulder of his jacket to restore the link between them, helping to bring
the images to an end. “She couldn’t have known what would happen when she blew the gizmo up, and she was
as close to freaking out as Aeryn ever gets. You’re right; she couldn’t have known what would happen.”
“Now what?” D’Argo asked.
“Now I’ve got no choice. We find Typhoid Marty because he’s wandering around infecting everyone, and in the
meantime Gonzo the Great here and his fine feathered friends are going to fix the machine.” John turned to
face YD. “All I do is locate him. I don’t have to kill him. Right?”
“Correct,” came the answer. “We do not desire his death. The Mindlessness can be cured. We only wish to
stop the spread of the disease before it destroys our society.”
One at a time, the threesome filed through the narrow exit from the meeting place, then stood side by side
watching the masses flow past them. John glanced left and right, then looked straight up, staring down into the
street on the other side of the station’s inner surface, gauging how many people might be in this single massive
cylinder. “How do we do this? And what am I looking for? There have got to be a couple thousand people
within shouting distance alone. How am I supposed to find one ostrich in the middle of a herd this size?”
“We will walk. And I will show you what you are looking for,” he was told.
They moved into the crowds. D’Argo took up a position on the far side of YD, which put the hvisk in the middle.
It required no more than ten steps through the whistling masses for John to realize that D’Argo was deliberately
trying to scare some of the hvisk out of their path; the luxan was hovering protectively to make sure that YD
wasn’t inadvertently pushed away from where his scrawny shoulder pressed against John’s sturdier, black-clad
shoulder.
John asked D’Argo, “Do you want to head back to Moya while we take care of this? It looks like this may take a
while. We’re going to do some hiking.”
“I’ll stay with you,” D’Argo said, finishing quickly so he could snarl quietly at an oncoming group of five males.
The group gave him a startled look and veered to one side to let the strange trio pass by. “If this person you’re
looking for is insane, you may need help when you find him.”
John is incapable of protecting himself right now.
The thought came through as clearly as if D’Argo had spoken out loud, overlain by a level of concern for his
safety that John never would have expected from the luxan warrior who had lifted him by the throat his first day
aboard Moya. John watched D’Argo out of the corner of his eye, splitting his focus between making his way
along the broad street, fighting to keep the last of the thoughts from seeping in around the barrier YD had
erected for him, and watching his friend stride along.
They had come a long way over the past cycles. From the moment when they had floated together above the
oil-covered moon hiding the Gammak Base and watched the oceans ignite, he would have willingly laid down
his life in exchange for D’Argo’s. He’d had a few close friends over the years he had lived on Earth, but with the
exception of his family, he had never valued anyone’s life as much as this alien’s. John examined his friend’s
features in a series of fast sideward glances, trying to remember when he had stopped seeing tanktas, braids,
and an inhuman beak-ish nose, and begun seeing the person beneath them instead.
“Thanks, D’Argo,” he said after several microts, meaning much more than a thank you for staying by his side on
this particular day. He turned to YD next. “You! Tighten it up a bit. I’m picking up stray transmissions from all
over the dial.”
“It cannot be done if you are to find the one we seek,” YD whistled mournfully. “You must listen for him. You
must listen like this.”
The roaring of a heavy spring rainstorm as it hammers on the roof and gushes through the downspout. The
autumn wind, howling with winter’s first promise, tossing every leaf simultaneously as he walks through the
woods behind the house; tree trunks creaking, limbs screeching under the strain, a cacophony of sounds
intertwines into a single, incomprehensible noise. He is directed to listen more carefully, guided to a new way of
paying attention, and a microt later he can make out each element within the chaos: every raindrop, every
water molecule, every leaf. The fist that encloses his mind loosens another finger, letting in more of the
sounds, and suddenly it’s too much.
“Stop!” Silence was restored. “That was worse than downtown Manhattan during rush hour. How much of the
population was I getting?” It hadn’t been rain and the wind in the leaves he had been hearing; it had been the
minds of hundreds or thousands of hvisk, each one discernable among the greater volume of the whole.
“No more than four thousand,” YD whistled. “You did very well for the first attempt. Exceedingly well. Your
mind is capable of much more than what you normally require of it.”
“John, are you all right?” D’Argo asked from the other side of YD.
“Yeah. Right as rain, but if I have to do that another thousand times or so, my brain is going to be leaking out
through my ears.” John stopped walking; several steps to one side took them out of the constant bustling
stream of pedestrians. “You get an A-plus for noisy demos, but you haven’t shown me what I’m looking for. I’ve
got to know what I’m listening for if you want me to find this infectious, mindlessness guy of yours.”
“I will show you,” YD agreed.
Expecting a demonstration like the previous one, John braced himself for another of the bludgeoning impacts
that occurred whenever YD loosened his control. Instead, he was left standing by himself for a microt, and was
forced to move fast to catch up. YD had turned back the way they had come and was walking with more
purpose.
“There,” YD said, pointing upward/downward toward an area of buildings on the opposite side of the station.
“We will go there. One of the infected is being held there until he can be cured. Once you feel what his mind is
like, you will know what to look for.”
* * * * *
There wasn’t enough to do.
Aeryn wandered into Command, checked one console, sauntered to the next and reviewed its displays.
Everything was normal. She had checked to make sure Naj Gil was securely locked in his cell, taking the
scarran something to eat while she was at it, and after that she had climbed down to one of the lowest tiers to
inspect the tanks that were filling with the nutrient slurry being pumped from the Kyelligg. No one had asked
her to check for leaks; it was simply something to do. It had been so long since she’d had an entire solar day to
herself that she didn’t know how else to spend the free time.
There was too much time to think. And thinking led to remembering.
Tapping into Moya’s sensor records, she punched up a holo-image of the Kyelligg at the strategy table and sat
down to study it. Her attention wandered as the ghostly image formed, ethereal structures building from the
center of the station outward until the entire bristling structure floated above the table in an iridescent green. It
took ten microts to complete, and in that short time her thoughts had returned to the same painful memories as
always.
“Pilot?” she called. “How are Crichton and D’Argo progressing aboard the Kyelligg?” Aeryn stared at the
holographic image of the space station while she waited for an answer, mentally cataloging the patterns of
increasingly narrow branches jutting out in ranks and rows, discovering the easily remembered symmetry and
memorizing the station’s layout. “Pilot?”
“Yyyyes, Officer Sun?” came a hesitant response.
“Is anything wrong, Pilot?” Aeryn crossed the distance to the nearest console in four long strides, and hurriedly
checked the long-range sensors to verify that they hadn’t been located by the Peacekeepers or any other type
of enemy. The uncertainty in his voice had her immediately concerned that they’d been found, possibly even
boarded.
“No. Everything is fine,” Pilot answered with more energy. “I am fine. Moya is fine. We are quite fine.”
“Fine, fine, fine,” she mimicked under her breath, scanning the readouts again, looking for anything out of the
ordinary. Everything appeared absolutely normal. There was the enormous energy signature of the Kyelligg,
the background glow of normal space, and nothing else. “Have Crichton and D’Argo met with the hvisk yet?”
she asked, wondering if Pilot’s distracted manner was a result of focusing on something more critical.
“I am not certain. I will ... check on them and get back to you.”
“Pilot! I thought we agreed that you were going to keep a comms channel open in case they ran into trouble.
You were supposed to maintain a watch on them.”
The tight feeling in her chest resembled fear for a microt, shifting almost immediately into something closer to
guilt. She had stood alongside the other John Crichton in the worst of situations, facing budongs, charrids,
colartas, Peacekeepers, and whatever else the universe could throw at them. When this one had needed
nothing more than someone to watch his back while he dealt with what seemed to be an outwardly peaceful
species, she had pulled away, leaving him to cope on his own. He had looked back as he left the Den headed
for his meeting aboard the Kyelligg, and she hadn’t needed telepathy to know that he would have preferred her
company over D’Argo’s. She had turned away from him -- physically to speak to Pilot and emotionally as well.
“Pilot? Where are they? Open a comms channel to Crichton and D’Argo!” Her anxious yell was met with
silence. “Pilot?” Aeryn waited another five microts, then spun and ran from Command, headed toward the
Den.
“Frell!” The exclamation burst out of her as she dodged around Chiana, very nearly running her over. “What
happened to you?”
The slender nebari was liberally coated with a viscous, dripping liquid, runnels sliding off her clothes to form a
spattered array around her feet. “This dren is seeping into Maintenance Bay Four. It’s begun flooding into the
corridors below and it’s as slippery as a Welphipian nine-legged lizard!” Chiana complained.
Aeryn took two steps away from the slow shower of droplets, then knelt down to examine the contents more
closely. “How deep is it? How did you fall in?”
“Not deep. Slippery,” Chiana repeated. “I took one step in it, and spent the next quarter arn trying to slither my
way out.”
Aeryn bent close to the floor, carefully examining the semi-opaque liquid. There was something suspended in a
clearer base material, suggesting that the liquid was nothing more than a transport method for whatever was in
suspension. She shook her head, baffled by the substance. “This doesn’t look like anything I’ve ever seen on
a leviathan. Where was it coming from?”
“From up,” Chiana said, gesturing to expand upon the vague description. “It’s running down the walls. Pilot
didn’t answer when I called him so I was on my way to the Den to see what’s happening.”
“PILOT!!” Aeryn yelled as she touched a single finger to the liquid. The comms remained silent. “He was
talking a few microts ago, then he stopped answering.” Her attention reverted to the slick material dripping from
her finger. Aeryn sniffed it cautiously, then rubbed it between her thumb and forefinger. “This might be that
nutrient slurry for Pilot that the hvisk are pumping on board, but why isn’t it going into the tanks?” She got to
her feet, frowning as she considered the mysterious malfunction.
“Maybe this is some way of attacking Moya. They did that thing to Crichton, maybe they’re after something
else.” Chiana ran a hand down her arm. More droplets flicked to the floor, adding to the collection that was
beginning to coalesce into a puddle.
“We have to stop them from pumping any more on board until we find out what’s going on,” Aeryn agreed.
“Rygel? Jool?” she called. There was no answer. “Comms must be down. I’ll head up to Tier One to shut this
off. You get to …”
“No, you have to go to the Den,” Chiana contradicted her. The rest of her explanation was lost in a squeal of
panic. She slid from one side of the corridor to the other, boot soles lubricated by the liquid, eventually fetching
up against one of the leviathan’s ribs with a loud thump. She went down in a tangle of arms and legs, cursing
the mysterious fluid, Moya, and life in general.
“You should go to the Den,” Chiana started over once she had come to rest. “I’ll go shut off the flow of this
dren.”
Aeryn eyed the nebari’s slender arms and slight frame, remembering the effort that had gone into getting the
valve open in the first place. If the DRDs hadn’t freed the mechanism, it was questionable whether Chiana
would be able to close it. “I should --”
“You’re the only one who knows how to make things work in the Den,” Chiana drowned out her protest. “You
can get the comms working and understand the readouts. I can’t.”
“You’ll never get that valve closed. It was jammed solid,” Aeryn argued. She ran through their options quickly,
reviewing the alternatives, and came up with only one that made any sense. “Get a pulse rifle and release Naj
Gil. He keeps claiming he’s willing to help. He’ll be able to shift that valve mechanism.”
Chiana was struggling to get to her feet, knees and elbows flying as she tried to scramble out of the thin layer
of slurry now coating that portion of the corridor. “Careful!” she warned as Aeryn edged toward her. The
former soldier leaned to the full extent of her reach, wrapped her fingers securely inside the shoulder of the
nebari’s short-sleeved outer bodice, and pulled hard. Chiana was levitated to her feet with a shriek of
surprise.
“If you see Rygel or Jool, tell them to head for the Den,” Aeryn commanded. Chiana was scuffing her feet on
the floor in an attempt to wipe her boots clean. “Just take them off!” she snapped after several microts.
Chiana’s reply was every bit as short-tempered as Aeryn’s impatient suggestion. “I tried that! It’s everywhere;
even inside my boots. What ever this dren is, it oozes.”
Aeryn turned and began jogging in the direction of the Den. “I’ll try to get the comms working first, then I’ll see if
I can figure out what’s gone wrong with Moya and Pilot.” The last few words were barely audible.
“If I see Rygel or Jool?” Chiana muttered in the direction of the vanished figure. “How the frell do you expect me
to find them when I can’t even stay on my feet?” She took three careful steps, skating more than a motra at the
end of each cautious transfer of weight before her feet began to adhere to the floors. The curses continued,
delivered in a quiet murmur as she headed toward her quarters to get a weapon.
* * * * *
John stopped walking, waited until he was sure that YD had stopped as well, and then turned in a circle,
surveying the great arcing sides of the station that rose from behind the buildings on either side of the avenue.
During the previous day’s journey through the Kyelligg, he had seen several gravity-defying walkways set into
the sides of the smaller tubes, leading from one usable surface to the other. He hadn’t seen anything like that
in the largest of the enclosures, and was beginning to wonder how they were going to make their way to the far
side where YD said the infected person was being held.
“This way, this way,” YD answered his unasked question, gesturing with both hands. He was almost two full
motras away from John, and the mental barrier hadn’t weakened a fraction. “We are almost there. You will see
in just a moment.”
“Is there a problem?” D’Argo asked, watching YD’s gesticulations.
“No. I was wondering how we’re going to get down there,” John explained, pointing above his head. “He says
we’re almost at whatever they use to travel from one side to the other.”
Four turns and three hundred microts later they stepped into a small courtyard with what looked like a glassed-
in gazebo sitting in the center. A family of hvisk was just leaving. They whistled cheerfully to YD and stepped
aside to let the mismatched trio pass by. The two youngsters bounded along beside what John assumed were
their parents, unformed toots giving voice to the excitement he could feel streaming off them. The adults were
dividing their attention between watching their children and rearranging their draped robes, fussing with the
bottom hems while they herded the youngsters out into the street.
“John!” D’Argo summoned him once again. “What is so fascinating this time?”
“Uh, nothing.” It had been the preoccupation of the adults with their robes that had caught his interest. It was
the first time he had seen a hvisk of either sex making any sort of adjustment to their clothing. The subdued
colors and absence of ornamentation suggested that the hvisk lacked anything resembling vanity, so the
uncharacteristic behavior had caught his interest. For a microt he was tempted to reach out with his mind, to
exercise his new talent and listen in on the thoughts of the departing adults. But the idea of eavesdropping on
another being -- be it luxan, human, or the bird-like hvisk -- had the taste of something perverted about it, and
he clenched his mind and turned to follow
D’Argo toward the gazebo.
YD ushered them inside, latched the door behind them, and then pointed to pairs of looped straps arranged in
orderly ranks across the floor. Copying their host’s example, they shoved their feet under the straps, D’Argo
struggling for several microts to jam his heavy luxan boots into place, then grabbed on to one of the many
handholds arranged around the inner wall of the structure. YD nodded in satisfaction and pressed a lighted
touch panel near the doorway.
They didn’t rise into the air; they fell upward. A startled laugh burst out of John as car and passengers lunged
into an inverted freefall, defying everything his brain insisted it knew about gravity. There was a three microt
interval during which he was able to capture a fast impression of his companions: D’Argo’s floating braids and
tanktas framing a startled, open-mouthed expression, and YD’s more composed features and the way he had
gathered the bottom of his draped robes in one hand in order to keep them from drifting upward.
“Yeeeeeehaw!” he cried, enjoying the radical transition. Something invisible snatched at the car, there was a
fast whirling blur out the windows as they flipped end for end, and then they were falling more normally,
descending floor-first toward the far side of the station. “Let’s go back and do that again!”
“I’ll wait for you here,” D’Argo grumbled. He was already standing by the door, ready to disembark even before
the car had settled into place.
“Oh, come on, Big D! That was great. With all the gyrations you’ve been through learning to fly that ship of
yours, don’t tell me a brief trip like this one bothered you.” John waited for YD to work his clawed feet loose
from the straps, adapting to the need to stay within arm’s reach of the hvisk, after which he stepped to D’Argo’s
side and clapped him on the shoulder. “Back and forth a few more times. Whatdaya say?”
“I say my stomach is still oriented to the other side of the station, and I’ll wait for you here.”
The teasing John had planned was cut short. YD whistled impatiently at the pair and led them away from the
elevator station. As they moved out of the courtyard into the wide avenue, YD rearranged his rucked-up robes,
twitching them into place with an exact repetition of the motions John had noticed on the other adults. It was
modesty, not vanity, he realized, generating the short-lived display of concern over their appearance.
“How do the little ones cope with Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride?” John asked. The excitement he had felt coming from
the two children made more sense now.
“The youngest are not allowed in the --” YD explained. His last sequence of notes refused to convert to
anything that could be expressed in English. John received a mental impression of a word that meant
something like ‘Traveling-Both-Up-And-Down-And-Switching-In-The-Middle-Due-To-Manipulation-Of-
Gravitational-Influences’, and decided that calling it an elevator would be close enough.
“When they are old enough,” YD continued, indicating a height at about waist level, “their parents take them on
a slower version to introduce them to the process. Until then, there are conveyances that travel more sedately
from one side to the other.”
Explanation completed, they traveled silently for more than four hundred microts, following YD’s gestured
directions through a twisting series of turns until they were walking single file down one of the smaller
alleyways. This one, instead of connecting to another of the Kyelligg’s gigantic arms, came to an end at a
doorway flanked by two glowering but unarmed hvisk.
“Guards,” John suggested.
“First we’ve seen on this station,” D’Argo agreed in a rumbling near-whisper. “I was beginning to think they
didn’t have the concept of aggression.”
No sooner were the words out of his mouth than the menacing looks dissolved into bobs and smile-squints.
The pair of ‘guards’ greeted YD cheerfully, warbling at him for several microts, then repeating the bows in John
and D’Argo’s direction.
“Say that again!” John blurted, hearing something in the way they had greeted YD. The sentries chirped an
inquiry at him and looked uncertain. “You didn’t say anything to offend me. Just repeat what you said to him a
moment ago.”
The salutation was replayed complete with bobbing bows. Once they’d finished, three pairs of curious black
eyes turned to watch Crichton. The tune they had sung was similar to the one he had heard when YD had
introduced himself barely an arn earlier, only this time it had been overlain with meaning and context. When YD
had sung his name there had been nothing more than the image of a label, a sequence that was attached to
this one particular hvisk as a designator. When the sentries had sung his name to him, there had been more.
There was respect and a minor degree of awe layered behind the brief tune, and more importantly, there was a
word in English that approximated what they were calling him.
“Hox,” he announced, turning to his minder. “It’s something on my world that modifies other things; it controls
them so they can perform tasks they couldn’t before the hox influenced them. These guys are calling you
Hox.”
The black eyes almost disappeared behind the squint of pleasure, the faded purple crest lifted to stand up
straight in added emphasis. Hox sang a pleased series of notes, telling John that although the small sound did
not translate into anything in the hvisk language, the concept displayed in his mind was correct. “I am pleased
to accept this noise as your version of my name,” Hox finished, giving him a little bow at the end.
“His name is Hox,” John translated for D’Argo, replacing the short-lived nickname that he now knew had
dismayed Hox.
In a stunning telepathic flash -- an uncomfortable event that felt like he had been hit over the head with a large
rock -- John learned that Hox had been disturbed not by the nickname, but by the fact that John hadn’t been
able to hear the explanation behind his name. Except when dealing with the very young, whose telepathic
abilities were present but undeveloped, the hvisk never experienced anything resembling conversational
misunderstandings. Hox had feared that their modification had been interrupted too soon for Crichton to take
on the role for which he had been chosen.
The sense of violation -- of being used as a thing rather than as a person -- blossomed and expanded,
renewing the wave of anger he’d had to fight down earlier. When he had first learned what had been done to
him and why, there had been scant time for a furious explosion. Dependent on staying in contact with Hox to
keep from being overwhelmed, his brain still throbbing with the self-inflicted bludgeoning by millions of hvisk
thoughts, he hadn’t had time or energy to get angry. There was a margin of freedom now, and a lull in their
search. The two factors worked together, urging him to give in to his frustration and anger.
From the moment he’d gotten flung into this portion of space, it seemed like everyone had used him. He had
gotten into a fair number of messes on his own, but from the moment D’Argo had lifted him by the throat,
hoping for some knowledge that would help the luxan escape from the Peacekeepers, he’d been used, abused,
deliberately confused, and generally frelled over by one species after another. From the Ancients’ implanting
of the wormhole knowledge to the Aurora Chair to the neuro-chip, from scarran mind-frell technology to nebari
chemical mind cleansing, through delvian mind games, the Maldis-mirror special, marriage by blackmail,
Traaltixx paranoia, and finally the hvisk, the list was getting too long.
“I am sick of this crap!” he exploded.
Hox took a shocked step away from him. His retreat was matched by the cringing of the two sentries.
“John?” D’Argo interrupted the rage that threatened to get out of control. “What’s going on?”
Crichton took a deep breath and managed to get a grip on himself. It was tenuous, needing only the smallest
additional strain to snap. “They don’t like what I was thinking just then. No one would.” He made a fast,
energetic gesture toward the door, too close to giving into the mounting frustration to form words. For the past
several arns he had managed to quash the flood of emotions by focusing on the task that would free him from
the unwanted alteration. Frustration and anger were taking over just when he needed a clear mind the most.
Hox snared him by one arm and held him in place. “Clear your mind. Be calm. Do not allow uncontrolled
emotions to distract you.”
John slapped the hand away. “Back off, Big Bird! You’re here to keep this in check, not order me around.”
Regret and a hint of embarrassment twisted into an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach when Hox
scuttled away from him. But the cramping knot wasn’t enough to dampen the anger he felt every time he
considered what they had done to him against his will. The bubble began to rise again, pushing a mass of
tangled emotions ahead of it.
He wanted to believe that it was the action of the hvisk that was causing the outbursts; either that or his
concern that destroying the Peacekeeper research might take any chance of finding his way back to Earth
along with it. But he knew that beneath everything else, provoking him into rash actions and even more poorly
planned comments, was the fear that no amount of time would ever be enough for Aeryn to love him again.
The remainder of his worries paled in the light of that single, overriding concern. With Aeryn by his side, he
could cope with this latest mind-frell; without her, he felt lost, degraded, and alone.
A heavier weight than Hox’s three-fingered grasp settled on his shoulder, drawing his attention back to the tight
confines of the alley. “John, give it time,” D’Argo’s hushed voice said close to his ear. “You will get through
this, we’ll find a way to destroy the wormhole research, and after that you’ll have time to work things out with
Aeryn.”
Crichton let out a shaky laugh, rubbed at his eyes with the heel of one gloved hand and nodded. “I thought I
was supposed to be the one who could read minds. You been taking lessons from Wild Bird Hick-Hox over
there?”
“The only time you have that particular look on your face is when you’re thinking of Aeryn,” his friend
explained. D’Argo straightened up and turned toward where Hox was hovering just out of arm’s reach. Hox had
remained close enough to assist John’s mental control despite the apprehension that flattened his crest and
had him emitting small squawks of concern. “I don’t suppose when you change his brain back you could do
something about his very annoying habit of saying things that no one else can understand.”
Hox looked back and forth between the two crewmates several times, then nodded, squinted, and addressed
D’Argo directly.
John grinned weakly and translated. “He offered to make you telepathic instead so you can see what I’m
thinking about when I say those things.”
“That’s assuming that whatever I find in your head makes any sense in the first place … which I doubt,” D’Argo
gently needled him. “There are few things I can think of more frightening than trying to understand the inner
workings of your mind. Can we get this over with so we can concentrate on a nice, simple problem like the
insane idea of taking on Scorpius and the Peacekeepers?” His last question was delivered in a hissing
whisper, too quietly for the hvisk to overhear.
“Yeah, I’m better now. Time and patience, right? I just need to give her enough time.” John took a deep
breath, let it out slowly, and focused on the search of the Kyelligg that he needed to complete. His encounter
with the infected hvisk had to come before everything else at this point. “Is that close enough?” he asked Hox,
referring to his emotional control.
“Anger will interfere with your ability to sense the differences,” Hox whistled. “You have only buried it. That is
not enough. You must --”
“--turn away from the dark side of the force,” John interrupted the carefully delivered melody. “I’ve heard it all
before from Obi-Wan. This is the best you’re going to get from me right now. It’ll have to do. Let’s go.” He
motioned toward the building, waited through Hox’s hesitation, then followed him through the doorway when the
old hvisk finally moved forward.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
Chapter 6
YD whistled urgently, gesticulating in time with his notes. John was on his feet again, backing away from the
advancing hvisk one unsteady step at a time, ill-directed hands motioning for him to stay away. The pair
worked their way gradually around the enclosure in that manner until the pursuer drew to a stop, ending the
slow motion chase. John placed one hand against the slender trunk of a tree to steady himself, and eyed the
hvisk warily.
“He keeps saying ‘Not kill’,” John translated for D’Argo after no one had moved for several microts. “Just find
and … and show them where this one person is hiding.” He propped himself up against one of the segments of
wall enclosing the meeting area. “That doesn’t justify doing this to me. Take …” His knees buckled under the
weight of whatever he was hearing inside his mind and he began to slide down the wall.
D’Argo lunged forward, grabbed Crichton, and jerked him upright. “Concentrate, John,” he said in a quiet
growl. He kept a wary eye on the hvisk. “You did it before. You can shut them out again.”
“Whatever they … did, it’s getting … it’s getting worse, D’Argo. It’s getting stronger.” John turned away from
D’Argo in order to address the hvisk. One wavering hand gestured in the general direction of his own temple.
“Undo this or … or …”
“Or you get nothing from any of us,” D’Argo finished for him.
An explanation from YD followed. The melodic language flowed for nearly forty microts, broken by pauses to
allow John to respond. He nodded each time as if on cue, all the while clinging to D’Argo’s shoulders, relying
on the luxan to compensate for his failing strength and balance.
“Okay. You win,” he said at the end. The hvisk edged forward and made contact. John sighed and stood up
straight. “Thanks, D. Take a load off, and I’ll try to make some sense out of what he just told me.”
The three males made themselves comfortable. YD perched next to Crichton where he could maintain the
critical contact merely by leaning against the human’s body. D’Argo selected a seat half way around the
circular area where he could watch the pair.
“They’ve got a kind of infection aboard the Kyelligg,” John started. “Only it’s not exactly a disease; it’s a
person.” He received a sharp nod from YD; the chipped and faded beak bobbed down and up a single time.
“This guy, critter … guy, I guess. This guy is their equivalent of insane, only they don’t know who he is or
where he is, and anyone who gets close enough to find him winds up catching whatever he’s got. So it’s
spreading, and if they don’t stop it, the entire population is going to be infected.”
“Why do they need you?” D’Argo asked, glowering at the hvisk.
“Your mind is immune to the disease," the answer drifted into John’s head in time with YD’s complex whistling.
John parroted the words, providing the answer to D’Argo as quickly as he received it himself. “All we desire is
that you find the source of the insanity. Those who have been infected cannot transmit ‘The Mindlessness’
themselves. They carry only the symptoms, not the source, although they sound the same as the one we
seek. If any one of us delves deeply enough to determine if it is the one who spreads the disease, we will
succumb to it. I beg you to help us.”
John pulled off one of his gloves and ran his bare hand through his hair several times, scrubbing at his scalp.
“He said that they can’t shut this thing inside my head off right now. Something to do with the machine being
damaged, and I caught a flash that they wouldn’t do it even if the -- Aeryn stands with her pulse rifle raised,
face pale with strain, Crichton’s body laying curled beneath him as he turns to call to her -- machine worked.”
He raised his head slowly to stare at D’Argo, taking several microts to sort out whose perspective he had just
witnessed. The image flicked by a second time, faster than before but clear enough for John to untangle what
he had been seeing.
“Why the hell did she do that?” His voice rose to a distressed yell.
D’Argo’s eyes widened. He realized that Crichton had caught his leaking thoughts, and he began shaking his
head. “You have to understand, John. We were sure they were hurting you. They wouldn’t stop what they
were doing.”
“So she shot the damned machine?” John jumped to his feet, started to take one infuriated step forward, then
backed up, waiting for YD. The old male remained seated, forcing John to stay close to the bench.
“She was worried about you!” Aggravation began to replace the luxan’s initially embarrassed response.
“Hell of a way of showing it. This entire mess is Aeryn’s fault.” It was a harsh, angry accusation.
The first hint of anger welled out of the pit of John’s stomach, generated by his helplessness. He was
dependent on the individuals who had done this to him, unable to direct his own life, and the one person he
desperately wanted beside him during the fiasco could barely stand to look at him.
Frustration continued to mount with every passing microt. It was choking the linkage between him and YD,
threatening to override the borrowed control of his newly acquired telepathy. With every additional voice that
crept into his head, his unhappiness increased, damaging the mental blockade even further. He tried to fight it
down. He closed his eyes to help him concentrate, and instead all he could focus on was that Aeryn -- the
beautiful Aeryn Sun who had finally returned to Moya and yet was barely there -- had caused the problem. Her
rash decision had left him saddled with an ability that he didn’t want and couldn’t shut off.
Fury and hurt won out over reason. He took three long, angry strides across the stone-paved flooring. “God
damn it! Why the frell didn’t she --”
Aeryn lunges through a door, pulse rifle at the ready, then she is lost to view as he moves past her and plows
into the next room where he scares the occupants into chirping alarm. He reverses course, moving into the
hallway as she runs past and hits the next door with her shoulder, ignoring the handle in her haste. She comes
close to falling as the flimsy latch gives way. Her motions are jerky, angular, full of aggression, screaming out
that she is anxious to the point of shooting anyone who gets in her way.
“Okay,” John admitted slowly, shutting out the rest of the memory that D’Argo was trying hard to hide. YD was
alongside him, fingers tightening on the shoulder of his jacket to restore the link between them, helping to bring
the images to an end. “She couldn’t have known what would happen when she blew the gizmo up, and she was
as close to freaking out as Aeryn ever gets. You’re right; she couldn’t have known what would happen.”
“Now what?” D’Argo asked.
“Now I’ve got no choice. We find Typhoid Marty because he’s wandering around infecting everyone, and in the
meantime Gonzo the Great here and his fine feathered friends are going to fix the machine.” John turned to
face YD. “All I do is locate him. I don’t have to kill him. Right?”
“Correct,” came the answer. “We do not desire his death. The Mindlessness can be cured. We only wish to
stop the spread of the disease before it destroys our society.”
One at a time, the threesome filed through the narrow exit from the meeting place, then stood side by side
watching the masses flow past them. John glanced left and right, then looked straight up, staring down into the
street on the other side of the station’s inner surface, gauging how many people might be in this single massive
cylinder. “How do we do this? And what am I looking for? There have got to be a couple thousand people
within shouting distance alone. How am I supposed to find one ostrich in the middle of a herd this size?”
“We will walk. And I will show you what you are looking for,” he was told.
They moved into the crowds. D’Argo took up a position on the far side of YD, which put the hvisk in the middle.
It required no more than ten steps through the whistling masses for John to realize that D’Argo was deliberately
trying to scare some of the hvisk out of their path; the luxan was hovering protectively to make sure that YD
wasn’t inadvertently pushed away from where his scrawny shoulder pressed against John’s sturdier, black-clad
shoulder.
John asked D’Argo, “Do you want to head back to Moya while we take care of this? It looks like this may take a
while. We’re going to do some hiking.”
“I’ll stay with you,” D’Argo said, finishing quickly so he could snarl quietly at an oncoming group of five males.
The group gave him a startled look and veered to one side to let the strange trio pass by. “If this person you’re
looking for is insane, you may need help when you find him.”
John is incapable of protecting himself right now.
The thought came through as clearly as if D’Argo had spoken out loud, overlain by a level of concern for his
safety that John never would have expected from the luxan warrior who had lifted him by the throat his first day
aboard Moya. John watched D’Argo out of the corner of his eye, splitting his focus between making his way
along the broad street, fighting to keep the last of the thoughts from seeping in around the barrier YD had
erected for him, and watching his friend stride along.
They had come a long way over the past cycles. From the moment when they had floated together above the
oil-covered moon hiding the Gammak Base and watched the oceans ignite, he would have willingly laid down
his life in exchange for D’Argo’s. He’d had a few close friends over the years he had lived on Earth, but with the
exception of his family, he had never valued anyone’s life as much as this alien’s. John examined his friend’s
features in a series of fast sideward glances, trying to remember when he had stopped seeing tanktas, braids,
and an inhuman beak-ish nose, and begun seeing the person beneath them instead.
“Thanks, D’Argo,” he said after several microts, meaning much more than a thank you for staying by his side on
this particular day. He turned to YD next. “You! Tighten it up a bit. I’m picking up stray transmissions from all
over the dial.”
“It cannot be done if you are to find the one we seek,” YD whistled mournfully. “You must listen for him. You
must listen like this.”
The roaring of a heavy spring rainstorm as it hammers on the roof and gushes through the downspout. The
autumn wind, howling with winter’s first promise, tossing every leaf simultaneously as he walks through the
woods behind the house; tree trunks creaking, limbs screeching under the strain, a cacophony of sounds
intertwines into a single, incomprehensible noise. He is directed to listen more carefully, guided to a new way of
paying attention, and a microt later he can make out each element within the chaos: every raindrop, every
water molecule, every leaf. The fist that encloses his mind loosens another finger, letting in more of the
sounds, and suddenly it’s too much.
“Stop!” Silence was restored. “That was worse than downtown Manhattan during rush hour. How much of the
population was I getting?” It hadn’t been rain and the wind in the leaves he had been hearing; it had been the
minds of hundreds or thousands of hvisk, each one discernable among the greater volume of the whole.
“No more than four thousand,” YD whistled. “You did very well for the first attempt. Exceedingly well. Your
mind is capable of much more than what you normally require of it.”
“John, are you all right?” D’Argo asked from the other side of YD.
“Yeah. Right as rain, but if I have to do that another thousand times or so, my brain is going to be leaking out
through my ears.” John stopped walking; several steps to one side took them out of the constant bustling
stream of pedestrians. “You get an A-plus for noisy demos, but you haven’t shown me what I’m looking for. I’ve
got to know what I’m listening for if you want me to find this infectious, mindlessness guy of yours.”
“I will show you,” YD agreed.
Expecting a demonstration like the previous one, John braced himself for another of the bludgeoning impacts
that occurred whenever YD loosened his control. Instead, he was left standing by himself for a microt, and was
forced to move fast to catch up. YD had turned back the way they had come and was walking with more
purpose.
“There,” YD said, pointing upward/downward toward an area of buildings on the opposite side of the station.
“We will go there. One of the infected is being held there until he can be cured. Once you feel what his mind is
like, you will know what to look for.”
* * * * *
There wasn’t enough to do.
Aeryn wandered into Command, checked one console, sauntered to the next and reviewed its displays.
Everything was normal. She had checked to make sure Naj Gil was securely locked in his cell, taking the
scarran something to eat while she was at it, and after that she had climbed down to one of the lowest tiers to
inspect the tanks that were filling with the nutrient slurry being pumped from the Kyelligg. No one had asked
her to check for leaks; it was simply something to do. It had been so long since she’d had an entire solar day to
herself that she didn’t know how else to spend the free time.
There was too much time to think. And thinking led to remembering.
Tapping into Moya’s sensor records, she punched up a holo-image of the Kyelligg at the strategy table and sat
down to study it. Her attention wandered as the ghostly image formed, ethereal structures building from the
center of the station outward until the entire bristling structure floated above the table in an iridescent green. It
took ten microts to complete, and in that short time her thoughts had returned to the same painful memories as
always.
“Pilot?” she called. “How are Crichton and D’Argo progressing aboard the Kyelligg?” Aeryn stared at the
holographic image of the space station while she waited for an answer, mentally cataloging the patterns of
increasingly narrow branches jutting out in ranks and rows, discovering the easily remembered symmetry and
memorizing the station’s layout. “Pilot?”
“Yyyyes, Officer Sun?” came a hesitant response.
“Is anything wrong, Pilot?” Aeryn crossed the distance to the nearest console in four long strides, and hurriedly
checked the long-range sensors to verify that they hadn’t been located by the Peacekeepers or any other type
of enemy. The uncertainty in his voice had her immediately concerned that they’d been found, possibly even
boarded.
“No. Everything is fine,” Pilot answered with more energy. “I am fine. Moya is fine. We are quite fine.”
“Fine, fine, fine,” she mimicked under her breath, scanning the readouts again, looking for anything out of the
ordinary. Everything appeared absolutely normal. There was the enormous energy signature of the Kyelligg,
the background glow of normal space, and nothing else. “Have Crichton and D’Argo met with the hvisk yet?”
she asked, wondering if Pilot’s distracted manner was a result of focusing on something more critical.
“I am not certain. I will ... check on them and get back to you.”
“Pilot! I thought we agreed that you were going to keep a comms channel open in case they ran into trouble.
You were supposed to maintain a watch on them.”
The tight feeling in her chest resembled fear for a microt, shifting almost immediately into something closer to
guilt. She had stood alongside the other John Crichton in the worst of situations, facing budongs, charrids,
colartas, Peacekeepers, and whatever else the universe could throw at them. When this one had needed
nothing more than someone to watch his back while he dealt with what seemed to be an outwardly peaceful
species, she had pulled away, leaving him to cope on his own. He had looked back as he left the Den headed
for his meeting aboard the Kyelligg, and she hadn’t needed telepathy to know that he would have preferred her
company over D’Argo’s. She had turned away from him -- physically to speak to Pilot and emotionally as well.
“Pilot? Where are they? Open a comms channel to Crichton and D’Argo!” Her anxious yell was met with
silence. “Pilot?” Aeryn waited another five microts, then spun and ran from Command, headed toward the
Den.
“Frell!” The exclamation burst out of her as she dodged around Chiana, very nearly running her over. “What
happened to you?”
The slender nebari was liberally coated with a viscous, dripping liquid, runnels sliding off her clothes to form a
spattered array around her feet. “This dren is seeping into Maintenance Bay Four. It’s begun flooding into the
corridors below and it’s as slippery as a Welphipian nine-legged lizard!” Chiana complained.
Aeryn took two steps away from the slow shower of droplets, then knelt down to examine the contents more
closely. “How deep is it? How did you fall in?”
“Not deep. Slippery,” Chiana repeated. “I took one step in it, and spent the next quarter arn trying to slither my
way out.”
Aeryn bent close to the floor, carefully examining the semi-opaque liquid. There was something suspended in a
clearer base material, suggesting that the liquid was nothing more than a transport method for whatever was in
suspension. She shook her head, baffled by the substance. “This doesn’t look like anything I’ve ever seen on
a leviathan. Where was it coming from?”
“From up,” Chiana said, gesturing to expand upon the vague description. “It’s running down the walls. Pilot
didn’t answer when I called him so I was on my way to the Den to see what’s happening.”
“PILOT!!” Aeryn yelled as she touched a single finger to the liquid. The comms remained silent. “He was
talking a few microts ago, then he stopped answering.” Her attention reverted to the slick material dripping from
her finger. Aeryn sniffed it cautiously, then rubbed it between her thumb and forefinger. “This might be that
nutrient slurry for Pilot that the hvisk are pumping on board, but why isn’t it going into the tanks?” She got to
her feet, frowning as she considered the mysterious malfunction.
“Maybe this is some way of attacking Moya. They did that thing to Crichton, maybe they’re after something
else.” Chiana ran a hand down her arm. More droplets flicked to the floor, adding to the collection that was
beginning to coalesce into a puddle.
“We have to stop them from pumping any more on board until we find out what’s going on,” Aeryn agreed.
“Rygel? Jool?” she called. There was no answer. “Comms must be down. I’ll head up to Tier One to shut this
off. You get to …”
“No, you have to go to the Den,” Chiana contradicted her. The rest of her explanation was lost in a squeal of
panic. She slid from one side of the corridor to the other, boot soles lubricated by the liquid, eventually fetching
up against one of the leviathan’s ribs with a loud thump. She went down in a tangle of arms and legs, cursing
the mysterious fluid, Moya, and life in general.
“You should go to the Den,” Chiana started over once she had come to rest. “I’ll go shut off the flow of this
dren.”
Aeryn eyed the nebari’s slender arms and slight frame, remembering the effort that had gone into getting the
valve open in the first place. If the DRDs hadn’t freed the mechanism, it was questionable whether Chiana
would be able to close it. “I should --”
“You’re the only one who knows how to make things work in the Den,” Chiana drowned out her protest. “You
can get the comms working and understand the readouts. I can’t.”
“You’ll never get that valve closed. It was jammed solid,” Aeryn argued. She ran through their options quickly,
reviewing the alternatives, and came up with only one that made any sense. “Get a pulse rifle and release Naj
Gil. He keeps claiming he’s willing to help. He’ll be able to shift that valve mechanism.”
Chiana was struggling to get to her feet, knees and elbows flying as she tried to scramble out of the thin layer
of slurry now coating that portion of the corridor. “Careful!” she warned as Aeryn edged toward her. The
former soldier leaned to the full extent of her reach, wrapped her fingers securely inside the shoulder of the
nebari’s short-sleeved outer bodice, and pulled hard. Chiana was levitated to her feet with a shriek of
surprise.
“If you see Rygel or Jool, tell them to head for the Den,” Aeryn commanded. Chiana was scuffing her feet on
the floor in an attempt to wipe her boots clean. “Just take them off!” she snapped after several microts.
Chiana’s reply was every bit as short-tempered as Aeryn’s impatient suggestion. “I tried that! It’s everywhere;
even inside my boots. What ever this dren is, it oozes.”
Aeryn turned and began jogging in the direction of the Den. “I’ll try to get the comms working first, then I’ll see if
I can figure out what’s gone wrong with Moya and Pilot.” The last few words were barely audible.
“If I see Rygel or Jool?” Chiana muttered in the direction of the vanished figure. “How the frell do you expect me
to find them when I can’t even stay on my feet?” She took three careful steps, skating more than a motra at the
end of each cautious transfer of weight before her feet began to adhere to the floors. The curses continued,
delivered in a quiet murmur as she headed toward her quarters to get a weapon.
* * * * *
John stopped walking, waited until he was sure that YD had stopped as well, and then turned in a circle,
surveying the great arcing sides of the station that rose from behind the buildings on either side of the avenue.
During the previous day’s journey through the Kyelligg, he had seen several gravity-defying walkways set into
the sides of the smaller tubes, leading from one usable surface to the other. He hadn’t seen anything like that
in the largest of the enclosures, and was beginning to wonder how they were going to make their way to the far
side where YD said the infected person was being held.
“This way, this way,” YD answered his unasked question, gesturing with both hands. He was almost two full
motras away from John, and the mental barrier hadn’t weakened a fraction. “We are almost there. You will see
in just a moment.”
“Is there a problem?” D’Argo asked, watching YD’s gesticulations.
“No. I was wondering how we’re going to get down there,” John explained, pointing above his head. “He says
we’re almost at whatever they use to travel from one side to the other.”
Four turns and three hundred microts later they stepped into a small courtyard with what looked like a glassed-
in gazebo sitting in the center. A family of hvisk was just leaving. They whistled cheerfully to YD and stepped
aside to let the mismatched trio pass by. The two youngsters bounded along beside what John assumed were
their parents, unformed toots giving voice to the excitement he could feel streaming off them. The adults were
dividing their attention between watching their children and rearranging their draped robes, fussing with the
bottom hems while they herded the youngsters out into the street.
“John!” D’Argo summoned him once again. “What is so fascinating this time?”
“Uh, nothing.” It had been the preoccupation of the adults with their robes that had caught his interest. It was
the first time he had seen a hvisk of either sex making any sort of adjustment to their clothing. The subdued
colors and absence of ornamentation suggested that the hvisk lacked anything resembling vanity, so the
uncharacteristic behavior had caught his interest. For a microt he was tempted to reach out with his mind, to
exercise his new talent and listen in on the thoughts of the departing adults. But the idea of eavesdropping on
another being -- be it luxan, human, or the bird-like hvisk -- had the taste of something perverted about it, and
he clenched his mind and turned to follow
D’Argo toward the gazebo.
YD ushered them inside, latched the door behind them, and then pointed to pairs of looped straps arranged in
orderly ranks across the floor. Copying their host’s example, they shoved their feet under the straps, D’Argo
struggling for several microts to jam his heavy luxan boots into place, then grabbed on to one of the many
handholds arranged around the inner wall of the structure. YD nodded in satisfaction and pressed a lighted
touch panel near the doorway.
They didn’t rise into the air; they fell upward. A startled laugh burst out of John as car and passengers lunged
into an inverted freefall, defying everything his brain insisted it knew about gravity. There was a three microt
interval during which he was able to capture a fast impression of his companions: D’Argo’s floating braids and
tanktas framing a startled, open-mouthed expression, and YD’s more composed features and the way he had
gathered the bottom of his draped robes in one hand in order to keep them from drifting upward.
“Yeeeeeehaw!” he cried, enjoying the radical transition. Something invisible snatched at the car, there was a
fast whirling blur out the windows as they flipped end for end, and then they were falling more normally,
descending floor-first toward the far side of the station. “Let’s go back and do that again!”
“I’ll wait for you here,” D’Argo grumbled. He was already standing by the door, ready to disembark even before
the car had settled into place.
“Oh, come on, Big D! That was great. With all the gyrations you’ve been through learning to fly that ship of
yours, don’t tell me a brief trip like this one bothered you.” John waited for YD to work his clawed feet loose
from the straps, adapting to the need to stay within arm’s reach of the hvisk, after which he stepped to D’Argo’s
side and clapped him on the shoulder. “Back and forth a few more times. Whatdaya say?”
“I say my stomach is still oriented to the other side of the station, and I’ll wait for you here.”
The teasing John had planned was cut short. YD whistled impatiently at the pair and led them away from the
elevator station. As they moved out of the courtyard into the wide avenue, YD rearranged his rucked-up robes,
twitching them into place with an exact repetition of the motions John had noticed on the other adults. It was
modesty, not vanity, he realized, generating the short-lived display of concern over their appearance.
“How do the little ones cope with Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride?” John asked. The excitement he had felt coming from
the two children made more sense now.
“The youngest are not allowed in the --” YD explained. His last sequence of notes refused to convert to
anything that could be expressed in English. John received a mental impression of a word that meant
something like ‘Traveling-Both-Up-And-Down-And-Switching-In-The-Middle-Due-To-Manipulation-Of-
Gravitational-Influences’, and decided that calling it an elevator would be close enough.
“When they are old enough,” YD continued, indicating a height at about waist level, “their parents take them on
a slower version to introduce them to the process. Until then, there are conveyances that travel more sedately
from one side to the other.”
Explanation completed, they traveled silently for more than four hundred microts, following YD’s gestured
directions through a twisting series of turns until they were walking single file down one of the smaller
alleyways. This one, instead of connecting to another of the Kyelligg’s gigantic arms, came to an end at a
doorway flanked by two glowering but unarmed hvisk.
“Guards,” John suggested.
“First we’ve seen on this station,” D’Argo agreed in a rumbling near-whisper. “I was beginning to think they
didn’t have the concept of aggression.”
No sooner were the words out of his mouth than the menacing looks dissolved into bobs and smile-squints.
The pair of ‘guards’ greeted YD cheerfully, warbling at him for several microts, then repeating the bows in John
and D’Argo’s direction.
“Say that again!” John blurted, hearing something in the way they had greeted YD. The sentries chirped an
inquiry at him and looked uncertain. “You didn’t say anything to offend me. Just repeat what you said to him a
moment ago.”
The salutation was replayed complete with bobbing bows. Once they’d finished, three pairs of curious black
eyes turned to watch Crichton. The tune they had sung was similar to the one he had heard when YD had
introduced himself barely an arn earlier, only this time it had been overlain with meaning and context. When YD
had sung his name there had been nothing more than the image of a label, a sequence that was attached to
this one particular hvisk as a designator. When the sentries had sung his name to him, there had been more.
There was respect and a minor degree of awe layered behind the brief tune, and more importantly, there was a
word in English that approximated what they were calling him.
“Hox,” he announced, turning to his minder. “It’s something on my world that modifies other things; it controls
them so they can perform tasks they couldn’t before the hox influenced them. These guys are calling you
Hox.”
The black eyes almost disappeared behind the squint of pleasure, the faded purple crest lifted to stand up
straight in added emphasis. Hox sang a pleased series of notes, telling John that although the small sound did
not translate into anything in the hvisk language, the concept displayed in his mind was correct. “I am pleased
to accept this noise as your version of my name,” Hox finished, giving him a little bow at the end.
“His name is Hox,” John translated for D’Argo, replacing the short-lived nickname that he now knew had
dismayed Hox.
In a stunning telepathic flash -- an uncomfortable event that felt like he had been hit over the head with a large
rock -- John learned that Hox had been disturbed not by the nickname, but by the fact that John hadn’t been
able to hear the explanation behind his name. Except when dealing with the very young, whose telepathic
abilities were present but undeveloped, the hvisk never experienced anything resembling conversational
misunderstandings. Hox had feared that their modification had been interrupted too soon for Crichton to take
on the role for which he had been chosen.
The sense of violation -- of being used as a thing rather than as a person -- blossomed and expanded,
renewing the wave of anger he’d had to fight down earlier. When he had first learned what had been done to
him and why, there had been scant time for a furious explosion. Dependent on staying in contact with Hox to
keep from being overwhelmed, his brain still throbbing with the self-inflicted bludgeoning by millions of hvisk
thoughts, he hadn’t had time or energy to get angry. There was a margin of freedom now, and a lull in their
search. The two factors worked together, urging him to give in to his frustration and anger.
From the moment he’d gotten flung into this portion of space, it seemed like everyone had used him. He had
gotten into a fair number of messes on his own, but from the moment D’Argo had lifted him by the throat,
hoping for some knowledge that would help the luxan escape from the Peacekeepers, he’d been used, abused,
deliberately confused, and generally frelled over by one species after another. From the Ancients’ implanting
of the wormhole knowledge to the Aurora Chair to the neuro-chip, from scarran mind-frell technology to nebari
chemical mind cleansing, through delvian mind games, the Maldis-mirror special, marriage by blackmail,
Traaltixx paranoia, and finally the hvisk, the list was getting too long.
“I am sick of this crap!” he exploded.
Hox took a shocked step away from him. His retreat was matched by the cringing of the two sentries.
“John?” D’Argo interrupted the rage that threatened to get out of control. “What’s going on?”
Crichton took a deep breath and managed to get a grip on himself. It was tenuous, needing only the smallest
additional strain to snap. “They don’t like what I was thinking just then. No one would.” He made a fast,
energetic gesture toward the door, too close to giving into the mounting frustration to form words. For the past
several arns he had managed to quash the flood of emotions by focusing on the task that would free him from
the unwanted alteration. Frustration and anger were taking over just when he needed a clear mind the most.
Hox snared him by one arm and held him in place. “Clear your mind. Be calm. Do not allow uncontrolled
emotions to distract you.”
John slapped the hand away. “Back off, Big Bird! You’re here to keep this in check, not order me around.”
Regret and a hint of embarrassment twisted into an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach when Hox
scuttled away from him. But the cramping knot wasn’t enough to dampen the anger he felt every time he
considered what they had done to him against his will. The bubble began to rise again, pushing a mass of
tangled emotions ahead of it.
He wanted to believe that it was the action of the hvisk that was causing the outbursts; either that or his
concern that destroying the Peacekeeper research might take any chance of finding his way back to Earth
along with it. But he knew that beneath everything else, provoking him into rash actions and even more poorly
planned comments, was the fear that no amount of time would ever be enough for Aeryn to love him again.
The remainder of his worries paled in the light of that single, overriding concern. With Aeryn by his side, he
could cope with this latest mind-frell; without her, he felt lost, degraded, and alone.
A heavier weight than Hox’s three-fingered grasp settled on his shoulder, drawing his attention back to the tight
confines of the alley. “John, give it time,” D’Argo’s hushed voice said close to his ear. “You will get through
this, we’ll find a way to destroy the wormhole research, and after that you’ll have time to work things out with
Aeryn.”
Crichton let out a shaky laugh, rubbed at his eyes with the heel of one gloved hand and nodded. “I thought I
was supposed to be the one who could read minds. You been taking lessons from Wild Bird Hick-Hox over
there?”
“The only time you have that particular look on your face is when you’re thinking of Aeryn,” his friend
explained. D’Argo straightened up and turned toward where Hox was hovering just out of arm’s reach. Hox had
remained close enough to assist John’s mental control despite the apprehension that flattened his crest and
had him emitting small squawks of concern. “I don’t suppose when you change his brain back you could do
something about his very annoying habit of saying things that no one else can understand.”
Hox looked back and forth between the two crewmates several times, then nodded, squinted, and addressed
D’Argo directly.
John grinned weakly and translated. “He offered to make you telepathic instead so you can see what I’m
thinking about when I say those things.”
“That’s assuming that whatever I find in your head makes any sense in the first place … which I doubt,” D’Argo
gently needled him. “There are few things I can think of more frightening than trying to understand the inner
workings of your mind. Can we get this over with so we can concentrate on a nice, simple problem like the
insane idea of taking on Scorpius and the Peacekeepers?” His last question was delivered in a hissing
whisper, too quietly for the hvisk to overhear.
“Yeah, I’m better now. Time and patience, right? I just need to give her enough time.” John took a deep
breath, let it out slowly, and focused on the search of the Kyelligg that he needed to complete. His encounter
with the infected hvisk had to come before everything else at this point. “Is that close enough?” he asked Hox,
referring to his emotional control.
“Anger will interfere with your ability to sense the differences,” Hox whistled. “You have only buried it. That is
not enough. You must --”
“--turn away from the dark side of the force,” John interrupted the carefully delivered melody. “I’ve heard it all
before from Obi-Wan. This is the best you’re going to get from me right now. It’ll have to do. Let’s go.” He
motioned toward the building, waited through Hox’s hesitation, then followed him through the doorway when the
old hvisk finally moved forward.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
