Whispers - Chapter 12
John’s quick resolution to the search didn’t materialize. It didn’t turn out to be the simple task of zeroing in on
the emptiness of Klamik’s diseased mind as he had imagined; D’Argo’s skeptical complaint was closer to the
truth. An active, alert mind like Hox’s was easy to locate. Without that radiating presence, the diseased minds
had to be sieved out from the millions of healthy hvisk one by one. And that meant he had to locate and touch
every single mind aboard the Kyelligg. Even after allowing for the steady increase in both the strength and
control of his telepathy, it wasn’t a simple or a quick process.
Four arns had passed and they continued to walk, following a Peacekeeper-designed search pattern laid out
by Aeryn that would cover all thirty-two of the Kyelligg’s major avenues in the least amount of time. John didn’t
want or need to travel through every street and alleyway; that sort of search would take solar days to
complete. But he had found that changing his location helped ferret out more minds. Similar to adjusting the
angle of a radar antenna, moving about the station allowed him to find and search areas of the station that he
hadn’t already covered, as well as providing an overlap that helped illuminate the bundles of intellects wherever
there was an assembled group or any sort of gathering.
“Got another one,” John said. He had found another of the mental blank spots in the hvisk society. In a two-
person version of mental ‘Pin The Tail On The Donkey’, he guided Hox’s awareness to a female adult standing
outside one of the shops lining a secondary street. It was fifty-sixth such mind he had located in the four arns.
Once he was certain Hox knew where to find the female, John broke away. The hvisk authorities would arrange
to have her escorted to a rapidly filling detention center where she would be held until the repairs to the
machine were completed and the victims of The Mindlessness could be treated.
“It is spreading” Hox sang in a minor key. “We must find Klamik. It is spreading more quickly.”
“Doing my best.” Crichton rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Right now, I need to take a break.”
Hox clacked his beak several times, worry and impatience radiating from him, then he paused and looked at
Crichton more carefully. “Once again you are feeling unwell, are you not?”
John glanced to one side. Aeryn was waiting two motras ahead, pulse rifle propped on her hip, eyes tirelessly
scanning the crowds. D’Argo was coasting along the same distance behind them, the second half of Crichton’s
personal guard. Their self-appointed task of protecting him was going to be a difficult one since only John
could detect which of the pedestrians milling about them was a potential threat. Until someone actually made
an aggressive move, Aeryn and D’Argo wouldn’t be able to tell friendly hvisk from demented, and that
uncertainty was making both of them irritable and jumpy.
“My feet are tired,” John said to Hox. He wasn’t going to say anything about the other symptoms as long as
Aeryn was within earshot. The chill and the unsettled feeling were back, along with a mild case of nausea. As it
had before, his body was rebelling against the unaccustomed task his mind was being forced to undertake.
Hox looked between John and Aeryn several times, tipping his head to the side with each back and forth swivel.
Whatever conclusion he drew from the examination remained hidden behind a tightly woven barrier. If Hox had
picked up the reason behind John’s evasion or the true reason why he needed to rest, he didn’t show any sign
of it. After one additional inspection of both John and Aeryn, Hox motioned toward a fountain surrounded by a
number of flat-topped pedestals. All four made their way to the far side of the fountain where they could keep
an eye on the other pedestrians, and sat down.
“What’s the latest on Pilot?” John asked. He had seen Aeryn ducking down toward her comms several times
over the past arn, and assumed she was checking on his recovery.
“He’s almost back to normal. Chiana says that the only DRDs remaining on his controls are the ones guarding
the comms channels.”
“Good.”
He couldn’t think of anything else to say to her. There were dozens of things he wanted to say to Aeryn: things
like what it was like to be able to feel someone’s emotions the way he experienced a sunburn or a skinned knee
or being tickled, what it was like to become a leviathan for half an arn, or how exciting it was to discover, after
decades of science fiction and conjecture, that humans had the latent ability for telepathy after all. There were
tens and hundreds of small observations and moments he wanted to share with her, and all he could say was
“Good.” Anything else had the potential to reopen raw wounds … both his and hers.
Over the course of the four arns, she had gradually disappeared as an emotional entity. With each passing
microt, Aeryn had slowly tucked her feelings back into whatever metal-strapped cage she had built to keep
them imprisoned, blunted the random spikes of anxiety and concern, and capped the uncontrolled geysers until
there was little left than the quiet hum of her hidden, inner thoughts. He wanted to turn on his seat, grasp her
by the shoulders, and shake her until each one of the locks and binders sprang open. He would willingly
accept the sandpaper-rasping discomfort of her grief over the currently painless but dull lump of denied
emotions sitting next to him.
Give her time, young one. Her grief is a labyrinth. In time she will find her way out. Then she will return to you.
John glanced to his left. There had been no accompanying tune from Hox. The message had been sent solely
on a mental level. I miss her, old man. I want to share things with her.
Hox gave him a single down-up bob. I know, youngling. Give her time. She is confused.
Aeryn’s voice interrupted the silently conducted conversation. John jumped. For a microt he was irrationally
convinced that she had overheard them talking about her. It turned out that she had been thinking about
something he should have been considering as well. “Why aren’t any of these hvisk trying to attack you?”
“What?”
“One of the sick ones was no more than four motras away from us when you located him. Why didn’t he try to
attack you?”
Crichton stared dumbly at Aeryn. What she saw so easily, undoubtedly as a result of her soldier’s training, he
had overlooked completely. It would have been easy to blame it on the confusion of the last several arns -- the
fight with Heckle and Jeckle, the chase, the loss of mental control, followed by his mind-bludgeoning visit to
Moya’s psyche -- but what she had picked up on was so obvious, he couldn’t help but feel like an idiot.
“Hox? You feel like explaining this little tidbit?”
It didn’t seem possible, but the purple crest feathers managed to droop even more flatly against Hox’s skull.
With Crichton translating for D’Argo and Aeryn, Hox explained, “The newly afflicted ones would not do this on
their own. Only those who have suffered from The Mindlessness the longest become a danger to all -- those
such as the one you visited in the detention area.”
“Once they begin to act like that, you’re able to find them and cure them,” D’Argo said.
Hox bobbed a small, seated bow in the luxan’s direction. “Correct. Most of those that we locate today are more
recently afflicted and do not present a physical threat. Despite their illness, they would never willingly attack
another. Only when the insanity drives them further from their true nature, only then would they threaten
others.”
John could feel that Hox was skirting some portion of the issue. It was like trying to keep up with a hummingbird
while walking on ice. Each time he got close to whatever Hox was hiding, the hvisk’s thoughts flitted sideways
and he was left scrambling for traction, unable to follow. By the time he caught up again, his target zipped off in
a new direction. After several such futile attempts to hear what Hox was avoiding, Crichton abandoned the
game of mental tag and resorted to a non-telepathic solution. He asked.
“What aren’t you telling us, old man? Cough it up.”
Hox treated John to a ten-microt enigmatic stare, and then dropped his gaze to where clawed fingers were
slowly picking the weave loose from a frayed portion of his robes. It was the first time since he had met the
elderly hvisk that John had seen him mentally off-balance. Some portion of the situation was bothering Hox
enough that his control lapsed for an instant. This time John was able to catch a flash before Hox managed to
recover.
“It has something to do with the two that attacked us earlier,” he said to D’Argo and Aeryn. “It has to do with
Heckle and Jeckle.” He turned back to Hox. “They haven’t been sick long enough to start behaving like this,
have they? You know who they are and you know when they were infected, don’t you Hox? Don’t you!” His
accusation ended in a bellow loud enough that Hox cringed away from him. John took a moment to get his
temper under control before trying again. “You’re hiding something, Hox. I saw it for a split-microt. Whatever it
is, spit it out!”
Continuing to shrink away from Crichton’s anger, Hox confessed. “Your perception is accurate. The two young
ones are known to us. They fell prey to The Mindlessness a very short time ago. Insufficient time has passed
for them to behave in this manner on their own. Klamik sends them. He does not want to be found, so he
sends those who are physically closest to him, those who are the most affected by the instability of his mind, to
stop you.”
“So it wasn’t a random attack just because I’m the one doing the searching. It was deliberate. Klamik is out to
kill me and you didn’t think this was worth mentioning, old man?”
“Sounds familiar,” Aeryn said behind him.
“Aeryn,” D’Argo admonished her. “That does not help the situation.”
He does it to me, and then has the nerve to be angry when someone does it to him.
“I’m not ang--!” Crichton started in a furious yell, intending to deny that he was angry. He stopped mid-word
once he realized how he had received the message. His control had been rock solid, the barrier against
unwanted thoughts was thorough, and every one of Aeryn’s offhand mental quips had the ability to pierce the
shield effortlessly.
Confusion and frustration, when mixed together with someone else’s intrusive thoughts, felt like the first stages
of permanent psychosis. John turned to the person who held the power to make it stop. “Damn it, Hox, I need
this crap out of my head! Humans are not built to handle this sort of thing. You’ve got to let me off the hook.”
John -- Crichton -- he’s cracking up -- No -- I didn’t mean for him to -- my friend needs -- there is a job to -- to
hear that -- my help -- be finished.”
The two extra mental commentaries snuck past his defenses piggybacked on Hox’s reply to his plea; three sets
of thoughts arrived at once, tangled into a cat’s cradle of emotions and ideas. The added burden was all that
his over-stressed physiology needed to justify a full out rebellion. John hunched over on his seat, shivering
and close to being sick. Less than one solar day had passed since the moment when he saw the hvisk for the
first time, which was far too little time for his body and psyche to adjust.
“John?” Aeryn’s and D’Argo’s voices combined to form an anxious unified query. It didn’t help that it was an
aural input rather than a mental one; the result was just as bad as the intertwined thoughts he had received a
microt earlier.
“I need a minute.” Getting to his feet, he stumbled away from the others. An aura, projecting concern and
protectiveness, floated along behind him. Crichton didn’t need to turn around to know who was following him.
“Give me a couple of microts alone to get my dren together, D’Argo,” he said to the hovering luxan.
“And what if those two we were talking about, the one with the blue and the green,” D’Argo waved a hand above
his head, indicating Heckle and Jeckle’s crests, “are somewhere nearby, John? Would you be able to locate
them in time to warn us?”
Crichton shook his head. “Not unless I’m actively looking for them, and believe me, I’m not doing any searching
right now. I need a little peace and quiet, D. This is slowly driving me nuts.” Twelve motras from the fountain
there was a small grove of trees with a circular bench all the way around it. John flopped down in the shade
and stared back the way they had come. Aeryn and Hox were where he had left them. Both were looking in his
direction, but neither one had followed or had even gotten to their feet.
D’Argo stood next to John fidgeting indecisively for several microts. Then he made his way slowly around the
small stand of trees, carefully surveying the surrounding area and the constant streams of hvisk hurrying along
the street before wandering back to where John had laid down on the bench. After several more microts of
consideration, the luxan chose a spot three motras to one side of John and stationed himself there, arms
crossed and looking fierce. His guard post placed him between Crichton and the flood of pedestrians. No one
could approach the segment of bench where John was sprawled on his back without first passing close to
D’Argo.
John watched the process without offering any suggestions. His attention was being distracted by a new
phenomenon had begun to occur with increasing frequency since he had become trapped in Moya’s psyche;
and he didn’t know if it was another sign of his strengthening telepathy or if a portion of his brain had been
damaged by that merging. If he looked at other beings in the correct manner, he could see their emotions …
only it wasn’t exactly ‘seeing’. It didn’t matter if he had his eyes open or closed, and it didn’t require that he
listen to D’Argo’s thoughts in order to set it off. Lying on his back, staring up over his head at the glowering
luxan sentry, it happened again.
There was a shivering, energized layer of tension and worry surrounding D’Argo’s body, hemmed in by a hot
metal-tasting shell of self-discipline. That outer casing was lined with fissures and cracks, through which bursts
of anxiety and concern escaped at steam-jet velocities. Closer to his body glowed muted tones of compassion,
sunset shades of red and gold, intertwined and shimmering. The warrior was both worried about him and
equally confident that John Crichton could handle anything that the universe threw his way. The mélange was
complex. It defied description with any medium so limited as words. Perhaps Moya and Pilot, with eight senses
instead of five, could comprehend what he was detecting.
Before he could sneak a mental peek at Hox and Aeryn, his thoughts were interrupted. Noises -- clumsy
syllables dropping one by one like wooden mallets striking stone -- arrived on sparking, scintillating sheets of
yellow and white concern. The emotions were far more tangible than the simple query. “John, are you all
right?”
Crichton opened one eye to see what had his friend so worried. D’Argo had moved closer and was staring
down at him. “What’s up, Big D?” he asked.
“You looked --” D’Argo fidgeted for a moment then started to move away without answering.
“Looked what?” John asked.
Several microts passed before he received an answer. “Empty. You looked the same way you did in Moya’s
corridor. I thought perhaps you had gotten lost again.”
John sat up and shook his head. “Just taking a short mental vacation. My neurons are approaching overload
status.” He rubbed his eyes, feeling as though he hadn’t slept in a week. “How long was I zoned out?”
“A little over a quarter of an arn.”
It hadn’t felt anywhere near that long. He would have guessed that he’d had his eyes closed for no more than
one or two hundred microts. Wherever he had drifted to in that interval, the break had helped. The sense of
encroaching insanity had eased, and he felt more in control of his own mind.
John looked toward where Aeryn and Hox were still sitting next to the fountain. They had barely moved. Hox
had drawn his feet up beneath his robes again, and was watching the passing traffic with placid interest. He
looked like an oversized Buddhist parrot: serene, patient, and avian. Beside him sat his antithesis: every
muscle rigid, back straight, eyes constantly in motion, Aeryn looked like she was about to explode at the
slightest provocation. The only similarity between the two was that they were both sitting still.
Their emotional signatures were every bit as disparate. Where Hox glowed with an even, sun-like radiance,
Aeryn was a volcano spewing out flaming projectiles. The hvisk was interacting with those passing by, reaching
out with his control, touching, nurturing, and receiving emotions in return. The ex-soldier sitting beside him had
her molten core well encased in a stony exterior; she was Mount Saint Aeryn slowly building up pressure,
sometimes venting ignited jets of volatile compounds, and other times simmering along behind a façade of
peaceful containment.
Crichton wondered which outcome was more likely. Krakatoa-sized explosion? Or a more gradual easing of …
“John?” D’Argo interrupted his silent introspection.
“Give me a microt, D.”
“No. We don’t have a microt.” D’Argo grabbed him by the front of his jacket, hauled him forcibly to his feet, and
aimed him away from the fountain and the two people sitting there. “There, John. Is that who I think it is?”
Two hvisk -- one with a brilliant green crest, the other with a brilliant blue one -- stood to one side of the street,
their heads together, beaks nearly touching. Two pairs of black eyes flitted left and right, watching the crowds
and occasionally shifting toward where John now stood beside D’Argo. That they looked like hired thugs from a
third rate gangster movie told most of the story; the emptiness in their minds told John everything else he
needed to know. It was Heckle and Jeckle.
“That’s them! Get them!” He jerked loose from D’Argo’s grip and bolted toward the pair of hvisk. Like brightly
colored compass indicators, the blue and green crests swung in his direction for a microt, and then spun about
and disappeared into the crowds. Behind him, John could hear D’Argo yelling to Aeryn over the comms,
sounding the alarm and giving her instructions. After that, there was little else than the sound of his own
breathing, the pounding of his feet, and the squawking from startled pedestrians that was guiding him along the
route the fugitives had taken.
The second chase was every bit as wild and exasperating as the first. No matter how brutally he shoved and
elbowed his way through the mobs of hvisk, Heckle and Jeckle were always a split microt faster. They fled up-
station at first, moving into narrower extensions, cutting into smaller streets, and eventually the smallest
alleyways. John gasped for breath, ignored the stomach twisting gravitational transitions, and pushed himself
to run faster. D’Argo was right on his heels, and he could hear a lighter set of footsteps further back. Aeryn
had caught up.
They barged out of a cross-avenue into the chaos of one of the primary arms, smashed their way through the
crowds, and plunged into another of the smaller streets, always following the bobbing blue and green crests.
“Short cut.” John crashed through a thin hedge, barely avoided running over two children, leaped over a
bench, and sprinted back onto the normal walkway. They had gained a scant motra on Heckle and Jeckle.
“Faster,” D’Argo panted behind him.
“I’m trying. Left my track shoes at home.” Heavy boots, leather pants, and a weapon tugging at one leg with
every step weren’t what he would have picked for a foot race.
A hvisk toddler waddled out in front of him. He swerved, tripped over the decorative border marking the edge
of a garden, and sprawled face-first into some bushes. D’Argo grabbed him by the back of the jacket, hauled
him up, and flung him forward. Aeryn had passed them both and was drawing further ahead.
John wasted some air on a question. “How come women can always run faster than guys?”
“Lifetime of running away from us,” D’Argo answered, equally breathless.
“LEFT!” John yelled ahead to Aeryn. Having lost sight of their quarry, she had slowed to a jog. At his cry, the
lithe, athletic figure banked to the left and accelerated in the new direction.
They were led up-station and down, through wild shifts of gravity, and down one corkscrewing alleyway that
spiraled around the inner walls of the tube before ending with a fast 90 degree shift from one surface to
another in a matter of steps. Throughout all the chaotic changes in attitude, and despite aching legs and
burning lungs, John managed to maintain a firm, even if tenuous, contact with the pair of blank, diseased
minds. Each time D’Argo and Aeryn let out a yell of frustration because they had lost sight of the blue and
green crests, John was able to take the correct turn to put them back on the trail.
“Are they taking us to Klamik?” Aeryn asked at one point.
“Don’t know. Can’t tell what they’re thinking,” John said between gasps.
“Don’t hvisk get tired?” D’Argo said.
John didn’t answer the question. Instead, he yelled, “Oh frell! Not again!!” and started to slow. Several motras
ahead of them, just as it had during the first chase arns earlier, the avenue split into two smaller streets, and
they were once again presented with the choice of taking either the left or the right wall of each of the narrower
passageways.
“Dren. Which one?” D’Argo asked.
“I picked wrong last time. You choose.”
D’Argo snarled, brushed past Aeryn, and took the more difficult of the transitions. Within four motras, they
were upside down to where they had been moments earlier. “I don’t see them,” D’Argo said.
“They’re ahead of us somewhere. I can feel them.” John spared a fast look over his head, and came to an
abrupt stop. Aeryn ran into him, unable to avoid him in the tight confines of the alleyway. They staggered,
clutching at each other for balance for several moments before regaining their footing.
“What’s the matter? Why did you stop?” she asked once they were steady.
“There. They’re down there.” No more than five motras above John’s head, Heckle and Jeckle had slowed to a
lazy stroll, deliberately taunting their pursuers by assuming a relaxed, arrogant saunter. “Frelling bastards,
they did it do us again.” John spun around looking for one of the walkways that would take them to the other
side of the enclosure. There was nothing in sight in either direction. There was only one way he could think of
to get to where Heckle and Jeckle were gloating.
“D’Argo! Heave me up there!”
“Where?”
“Up there!” John pointed over his head. “You’ve flung me farther in the past. Every time I piss you off,
I wind up getting tossed all over Moya. Both hands like this. Hurry!”
“You’re insane!” Despite her objection, Aeryn accompanied him when he took several steps back to get a
running start.
“Test pilot, except I’m doing it without a ship this time.”
John took four fast steps, slapped both hands onto D’Argo’s shoulders, stepped into the stirrup formed by his
friend’s interlaced fingers, and flew. It was a wrenching, stomach churning passage through the boundary
between gravitational fields. It was a tube-of-toothpaste squeezing process that began at his head, grasped
him tight and yanked hard against skin and clothes as his shoulders and upper body slid through, and then
snared him above his waist for a split microt. He had just enough time to think that he was going to stick
halfway through and be suspended in midair until someone could get a ladder and yank him down, and then
there was a sharp tug on his legs and he was falling head first toward the ground.
“Ohhhhhh … FRELL!”
For once in his life, his lack of planning worked in his favor. In his rush to follow Heckle and Jeckle, he hadn’t
bothered to check his landing area prior to his Luxan-provided liftoff. If he had thought to look, and had chosen
to aim for a walkway as he intended, the re-entry might have killed him. Crichton managed to get turned most
of the way over, plowed through the springy branches of several small trees, and plummeted into a thick
grouping of bushes. After rolling over twice, he was disgorged onto the paved walkway. “Bad plan, very bad
plan,” he said to himself, and clambered to his feet.
“Watch it!”
He looked up. Aeryn had followed him. She tucked into a ball, flipped end for end, and landed with a great
deal more grace than he had managed. “Show off,” he said.
Sparing half a microt to give him a mild glare of disgust before turning away, Aeryn unslung her pulse rifle and
scanned the alleyway. “Which way?”
“There!” Heckle and Jeckle were on the run again, with a larger head start than they’d had when the pursuit
had originally begun. John took the lead. Aeryn was close on his heels, transmitting directions over her
comms. From the snatches of conversation he managed to hear, Crichton was able to make out that D’Argo
had found a walkway from one surface to the other and was following them at maximum speed.
The remainder of the chase didn’t last long. Perhaps the two young hvisk were confused by the bizarre tactic
used by their pursuers, or perhaps it was another facet of the peculiar insanity that had overtaken them, but
they spent no more than two hundred microts trying to get away before they swerved into the street along the
front of a row of cubblings, and bolted straight in one of the open doors. John and Aeryn drew to a stop three
motras from the building’s entrance.
“How many are in there?” Aeryn asked.
He reached out with his mind, searching the small structure. “Three … I think.”
“You think or you’re sure?”
John was bent over with his hands on his knees, striving to catch his breath. “Give me a break. I’m about to
pass out from lack of oxygen. I’m pretty sure there are just three. Want to wait for D’Argo?”
“What about a back door?” she asked. “They could be getting away.”
“Sooner we’re in there, the sooner we’ll know.”
“No use putting it off then.” Aeryn led the way, pulse rifle at the ready; John followed close behind with Winona
grasped in both hands. Together they barged through the open door, splitting up to the left and right once
they were inside.
The interior of the building was quiet, tidy, and dimly lit. As with every other portion of the Kyelligg, there were
planters full of flowers and greenery on the walls and set in the corners. There was more of the circular, well-
cushioned hvisk furniture arranged around the room, most of it low to the ground -- a crop of circular futons
ready for harvesting. Every portion of the building emitted tranquility. It was hardly the hideout of a dangerous
psychopath. John hesitated, thinking that he had somehow gotten it wrong.
Three hvisk stood in a loose huddle, eyeing the intruders with nothing more threatening than wary interest.
Heckle and Jeckle were closest to the doorway, half-facing a third male who sported a bristling, vibrant purple
crest. When Crichton reached out to confirm that this was their quarry, all three minds were equally silent.
They might have been three granite statues for all he was picking up from them. He was going to have to rely
on some other, non-telepathic method to confirm that this was the person the hvisk wanted him to find.
“Klamik,” John said, trying something simple. The hvisk with the purple crest whistled at him.
“Sounded like a yes to me,” Aeryn said.
He hadn’t known what to expect when he finally located Klamik. From the level of concern Hox had transmitted
throughout the search, John had cobbled together a hvisk-version of the emperor from Star Wars: black robes,
glowing red eyes, gnarled digits with extended, sharpened claws beckoning for his legions of evil underlings to
murder anyone who got in his way. What Crichton hadn’t envisioned was the healthy, intelligent-looking young
male wearing clean, unadorned robes. Klamik didn’t look sick or dangerous or abnormal. He didn’t look evil,
and he didn’t look like the sort of person who could endanger an entire civilization.
More than anything else, Klamik looked like Hox.
“Stay where you are!” Aeryn said. Heckle and Jeckle had begun to ease apart, breaking up the little group.
“Get back over there and just stand still,” John said, adding what he hoped was a menacing jab with Winona for
emphasis. It didn’t help. The three hvisk continued to drift further away from each other, and Heckle and
Jeckle no longer looked calm. If he had to pick a word to describe their expressions, Crichton would have
chosen ‘deranged’.
He tried again. “Don’t make us shoot you. Get back in the corner with Senor Psychopath there, and stay
calm. Troops are on their way. Don’t get stupid about this.” It had no effect. Heckle and Jeckle continued to
drift apart, showing no sign that they had heard or understood what he said.
“Are there?” Aeryn asked in a whisper.
“Are there what?”
“More troops coming other than D’Argo?”
“Yes,” John said. “I felt Hox thinking about us, so I let him know where we are. He’s not far behind D’Argo, and
he’s called for reinforcements to meet him here.” He lunged at the closest hvisk -- the blue-crested one he had
dubbed Jeckle -- trying to herd him back toward Klamik. Jeckle backed up half a motra, only to begin working
his way forward again the moment Crichton retreated.
“Pear-shaped,” Aeryn said quietly.
“Any microt now,” he agreed. “Don’t suppose we could get them to wait until D’Argo gets here?”
“Doubtful.”
It was the emotional context of the single word that caused him to make the mistake. The fast quips and banter
that had been flowing back and forth during the pursuit had become more relaxed with each exchange. From
the moment when Aeryn had taken the lead in the chase and had needed to follow his yelled directions, her
rigidly bound mental state had continued to ease microt by microt. By the time she used his term ‘pear-
shaped’, it was as though she arrived back at the spot beside him where he was accustomed to having her.
Aeryn was comfortable with him; she was confident and relaxed in his presence; and most importantly, she had
thought of him as ‘John’, not ‘Crichton’.
He only glanced at her for half a microt, and only because he was so pleased to have Officer Aeryn Sun back
at his side. When he looked back, Heckle had crossed half the distance between them, cockspur already
slashing toward him at head level, and the other two hvisk were headed for Aeryn.
Ignoring his own safety, Crichton slapped both of Heckle’s outstretched hands aside and barreled into the hvisk
with his full body weight. One barb hooked deep into the sleeve of his jacket; the other barely missed him,
nicking the leather as it sliced past his ribs. He ignored the warm trickle crawling along his forearm inside the
sleeve, got a good grip on the body inside the robes, and heaved the hissing, snapping creature to one side. It
freed him to help Aeryn with her two attackers. She had dodged Jeckle’s initial attack and was fending off
Klamik, parrying each of his jabs with a smash of the pulse rifle.
“Tongue!” John yelled at her. “Watch the tongue! It’s got --”
“Barbs,” she finished. Aeryn spun away from a kick that would have lacerated her leg from knee to hip if it had
landed, and drove aggressively toward Klamik, rifle leading the way.
One microt later Jeckle was all over him, wielding tongue, feet, and cockspurs with furious, demented intent,
and Crichton didn’t have time to worry about how Aeryn was faring against Klamik. He managed to stay on his
feet at first, dodging and ducking, slapping the needle-sharp spurs aside with Winona, sacrificing layers of
leather from his gloves and jacket whenever the darting tongue got too close. Heckle dove into the fray, nearly
slitting John’s throat with a cockspur, then he mysteriously disappeared from the fight with an alarmed screech.
A luxan bellow told the rest of the story. D’Argo had arrived and had started by yanking Heckle out of the
melee.
John tried to knock Jeckle’s feet out from under him only to get one leg tangled up in the hvisk’s robes, and
they went down together. Aeryn was yelling, at least two hvisk were squawking somewhere in the room, the
Qualta rifle fired, ceramic showered down in a dry clattering rainstorm, and he rolled over, taking Jeckle with
him. They smashed through a planter. The room was filled with the scent of cinnamon coming from the
crushed plants. Noise, smell, and physical effort blended into a single unified chaos.
Jeckle reared back and then lunged at him with the sharpened wrist barb. John rolled desperately to one side.
It gouged a burning, wet furrow along the side of his head. Blood trickled into his ear, blocking his hearing on
that side. Jeckle’s feet were scrabbling at his pants, trying to scrape through the leather.
“Watch it!” Aeryn yelled. The pulse rifle fired. Whatever was going on, it had nothing to do with him or his
fight.
John didn’t have time to check on the problem. Jeckle had managed to get on top of him, and had him pinned
to the floor. It was only a matter of microts before the larger, stronger hvisk either eviscerated him or drove the
cockspur into something vital. He was battered from every angle by a flurry of attacks, bleeding from a dozen
scrapes or small wounds. Crichton grappled with Jeckle, using one arm and both legs to try to still some of the
crazed flailing. His other hand, the one holding Winona, crept up between their bodies. Another barb sank into
his forearm, slicing the leather open this time; it ripped deep into flesh. Crichton ignored the fast rush of blood
slopping about inside his sleeve, and drove the pulse pistol in under Jeckle’s throat.
“Stop it!” The demand emerged on a gasp of pain. Clawed toes raked at his lower body; they scraped across
the leather without penetrating, pummeling the organs inside. Jeckle tried again, scouring the leather. “Don’t
make me kill you,” John pleaded.
“No, no, no, no!” someone screamed into his mind. “No killing. You must not kill! Do not, do not!”
Hox had arrived. His frantic whistling sounded every bit as deranged as the diseased hvisk were acting.
Jeckle snapped at John with his beak. Each clacking attack was aimed at his eyes. The tongue whipped out.
He ducked his head into his shoulder, incapable of escaping entirely, and took it across the cheekbone.
Cheese grater ridges bit deep, yanked away skin and flesh. John bellowed out a curse. Blood streamed.
Tongue, beak, claws, feet, and cockspurs struck at him. He lost his grip on Jeckle’s body. The hvisk had room
to strike with his feet. The hooking fourth toe would slice his midsection open.
“Crichton!” Aeryn yelled in the background.
Hox appeared behind Jeckle, hands outstretched and reaching for the diseased hvisk, but it was too late.
Jeckle was attacking again. Crichton jammed Winona in tight beneath Jeckle’s throat, the only angle he could
get that wouldn’t hit Hox if the pulse blast went straight through Jeckle, and pulled the trigger.
The cubbling and everyone in it disappeared.
John had one microt to consider that maybe it was John Crichton who had evaporated, not everyone else, and
then he was swallowed up by a blackness that emanated from within his own body.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
John’s quick resolution to the search didn’t materialize. It didn’t turn out to be the simple task of zeroing in on
the emptiness of Klamik’s diseased mind as he had imagined; D’Argo’s skeptical complaint was closer to the
truth. An active, alert mind like Hox’s was easy to locate. Without that radiating presence, the diseased minds
had to be sieved out from the millions of healthy hvisk one by one. And that meant he had to locate and touch
every single mind aboard the Kyelligg. Even after allowing for the steady increase in both the strength and
control of his telepathy, it wasn’t a simple or a quick process.
Four arns had passed and they continued to walk, following a Peacekeeper-designed search pattern laid out
by Aeryn that would cover all thirty-two of the Kyelligg’s major avenues in the least amount of time. John didn’t
want or need to travel through every street and alleyway; that sort of search would take solar days to
complete. But he had found that changing his location helped ferret out more minds. Similar to adjusting the
angle of a radar antenna, moving about the station allowed him to find and search areas of the station that he
hadn’t already covered, as well as providing an overlap that helped illuminate the bundles of intellects wherever
there was an assembled group or any sort of gathering.
“Got another one,” John said. He had found another of the mental blank spots in the hvisk society. In a two-
person version of mental ‘Pin The Tail On The Donkey’, he guided Hox’s awareness to a female adult standing
outside one of the shops lining a secondary street. It was fifty-sixth such mind he had located in the four arns.
Once he was certain Hox knew where to find the female, John broke away. The hvisk authorities would arrange
to have her escorted to a rapidly filling detention center where she would be held until the repairs to the
machine were completed and the victims of The Mindlessness could be treated.
“It is spreading” Hox sang in a minor key. “We must find Klamik. It is spreading more quickly.”
“Doing my best.” Crichton rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Right now, I need to take a break.”
Hox clacked his beak several times, worry and impatience radiating from him, then he paused and looked at
Crichton more carefully. “Once again you are feeling unwell, are you not?”
John glanced to one side. Aeryn was waiting two motras ahead, pulse rifle propped on her hip, eyes tirelessly
scanning the crowds. D’Argo was coasting along the same distance behind them, the second half of Crichton’s
personal guard. Their self-appointed task of protecting him was going to be a difficult one since only John
could detect which of the pedestrians milling about them was a potential threat. Until someone actually made
an aggressive move, Aeryn and D’Argo wouldn’t be able to tell friendly hvisk from demented, and that
uncertainty was making both of them irritable and jumpy.
“My feet are tired,” John said to Hox. He wasn’t going to say anything about the other symptoms as long as
Aeryn was within earshot. The chill and the unsettled feeling were back, along with a mild case of nausea. As it
had before, his body was rebelling against the unaccustomed task his mind was being forced to undertake.
Hox looked between John and Aeryn several times, tipping his head to the side with each back and forth swivel.
Whatever conclusion he drew from the examination remained hidden behind a tightly woven barrier. If Hox had
picked up the reason behind John’s evasion or the true reason why he needed to rest, he didn’t show any sign
of it. After one additional inspection of both John and Aeryn, Hox motioned toward a fountain surrounded by a
number of flat-topped pedestals. All four made their way to the far side of the fountain where they could keep
an eye on the other pedestrians, and sat down.
“What’s the latest on Pilot?” John asked. He had seen Aeryn ducking down toward her comms several times
over the past arn, and assumed she was checking on his recovery.
“He’s almost back to normal. Chiana says that the only DRDs remaining on his controls are the ones guarding
the comms channels.”
“Good.”
He couldn’t think of anything else to say to her. There were dozens of things he wanted to say to Aeryn: things
like what it was like to be able to feel someone’s emotions the way he experienced a sunburn or a skinned knee
or being tickled, what it was like to become a leviathan for half an arn, or how exciting it was to discover, after
decades of science fiction and conjecture, that humans had the latent ability for telepathy after all. There were
tens and hundreds of small observations and moments he wanted to share with her, and all he could say was
“Good.” Anything else had the potential to reopen raw wounds … both his and hers.
Over the course of the four arns, she had gradually disappeared as an emotional entity. With each passing
microt, Aeryn had slowly tucked her feelings back into whatever metal-strapped cage she had built to keep
them imprisoned, blunted the random spikes of anxiety and concern, and capped the uncontrolled geysers until
there was little left than the quiet hum of her hidden, inner thoughts. He wanted to turn on his seat, grasp her
by the shoulders, and shake her until each one of the locks and binders sprang open. He would willingly
accept the sandpaper-rasping discomfort of her grief over the currently painless but dull lump of denied
emotions sitting next to him.
Give her time, young one. Her grief is a labyrinth. In time she will find her way out. Then she will return to you.
John glanced to his left. There had been no accompanying tune from Hox. The message had been sent solely
on a mental level. I miss her, old man. I want to share things with her.
Hox gave him a single down-up bob. I know, youngling. Give her time. She is confused.
Aeryn’s voice interrupted the silently conducted conversation. John jumped. For a microt he was irrationally
convinced that she had overheard them talking about her. It turned out that she had been thinking about
something he should have been considering as well. “Why aren’t any of these hvisk trying to attack you?”
“What?”
“One of the sick ones was no more than four motras away from us when you located him. Why didn’t he try to
attack you?”
Crichton stared dumbly at Aeryn. What she saw so easily, undoubtedly as a result of her soldier’s training, he
had overlooked completely. It would have been easy to blame it on the confusion of the last several arns -- the
fight with Heckle and Jeckle, the chase, the loss of mental control, followed by his mind-bludgeoning visit to
Moya’s psyche -- but what she had picked up on was so obvious, he couldn’t help but feel like an idiot.
“Hox? You feel like explaining this little tidbit?”
It didn’t seem possible, but the purple crest feathers managed to droop even more flatly against Hox’s skull.
With Crichton translating for D’Argo and Aeryn, Hox explained, “The newly afflicted ones would not do this on
their own. Only those who have suffered from The Mindlessness the longest become a danger to all -- those
such as the one you visited in the detention area.”
“Once they begin to act like that, you’re able to find them and cure them,” D’Argo said.
Hox bobbed a small, seated bow in the luxan’s direction. “Correct. Most of those that we locate today are more
recently afflicted and do not present a physical threat. Despite their illness, they would never willingly attack
another. Only when the insanity drives them further from their true nature, only then would they threaten
others.”
John could feel that Hox was skirting some portion of the issue. It was like trying to keep up with a hummingbird
while walking on ice. Each time he got close to whatever Hox was hiding, the hvisk’s thoughts flitted sideways
and he was left scrambling for traction, unable to follow. By the time he caught up again, his target zipped off in
a new direction. After several such futile attempts to hear what Hox was avoiding, Crichton abandoned the
game of mental tag and resorted to a non-telepathic solution. He asked.
“What aren’t you telling us, old man? Cough it up.”
Hox treated John to a ten-microt enigmatic stare, and then dropped his gaze to where clawed fingers were
slowly picking the weave loose from a frayed portion of his robes. It was the first time since he had met the
elderly hvisk that John had seen him mentally off-balance. Some portion of the situation was bothering Hox
enough that his control lapsed for an instant. This time John was able to catch a flash before Hox managed to
recover.
“It has something to do with the two that attacked us earlier,” he said to D’Argo and Aeryn. “It has to do with
Heckle and Jeckle.” He turned back to Hox. “They haven’t been sick long enough to start behaving like this,
have they? You know who they are and you know when they were infected, don’t you Hox? Don’t you!” His
accusation ended in a bellow loud enough that Hox cringed away from him. John took a moment to get his
temper under control before trying again. “You’re hiding something, Hox. I saw it for a split-microt. Whatever it
is, spit it out!”
Continuing to shrink away from Crichton’s anger, Hox confessed. “Your perception is accurate. The two young
ones are known to us. They fell prey to The Mindlessness a very short time ago. Insufficient time has passed
for them to behave in this manner on their own. Klamik sends them. He does not want to be found, so he
sends those who are physically closest to him, those who are the most affected by the instability of his mind, to
stop you.”
“So it wasn’t a random attack just because I’m the one doing the searching. It was deliberate. Klamik is out to
kill me and you didn’t think this was worth mentioning, old man?”
“Sounds familiar,” Aeryn said behind him.
“Aeryn,” D’Argo admonished her. “That does not help the situation.”
He does it to me, and then has the nerve to be angry when someone does it to him.
“I’m not ang--!” Crichton started in a furious yell, intending to deny that he was angry. He stopped mid-word
once he realized how he had received the message. His control had been rock solid, the barrier against
unwanted thoughts was thorough, and every one of Aeryn’s offhand mental quips had the ability to pierce the
shield effortlessly.
Confusion and frustration, when mixed together with someone else’s intrusive thoughts, felt like the first stages
of permanent psychosis. John turned to the person who held the power to make it stop. “Damn it, Hox, I need
this crap out of my head! Humans are not built to handle this sort of thing. You’ve got to let me off the hook.”
John -- Crichton -- he’s cracking up -- No -- I didn’t mean for him to -- my friend needs -- there is a job to -- to
hear that -- my help -- be finished.”
The two extra mental commentaries snuck past his defenses piggybacked on Hox’s reply to his plea; three sets
of thoughts arrived at once, tangled into a cat’s cradle of emotions and ideas. The added burden was all that
his over-stressed physiology needed to justify a full out rebellion. John hunched over on his seat, shivering
and close to being sick. Less than one solar day had passed since the moment when he saw the hvisk for the
first time, which was far too little time for his body and psyche to adjust.
“John?” Aeryn’s and D’Argo’s voices combined to form an anxious unified query. It didn’t help that it was an
aural input rather than a mental one; the result was just as bad as the intertwined thoughts he had received a
microt earlier.
“I need a minute.” Getting to his feet, he stumbled away from the others. An aura, projecting concern and
protectiveness, floated along behind him. Crichton didn’t need to turn around to know who was following him.
“Give me a couple of microts alone to get my dren together, D’Argo,” he said to the hovering luxan.
“And what if those two we were talking about, the one with the blue and the green,” D’Argo waved a hand above
his head, indicating Heckle and Jeckle’s crests, “are somewhere nearby, John? Would you be able to locate
them in time to warn us?”
Crichton shook his head. “Not unless I’m actively looking for them, and believe me, I’m not doing any searching
right now. I need a little peace and quiet, D. This is slowly driving me nuts.” Twelve motras from the fountain
there was a small grove of trees with a circular bench all the way around it. John flopped down in the shade
and stared back the way they had come. Aeryn and Hox were where he had left them. Both were looking in his
direction, but neither one had followed or had even gotten to their feet.
D’Argo stood next to John fidgeting indecisively for several microts. Then he made his way slowly around the
small stand of trees, carefully surveying the surrounding area and the constant streams of hvisk hurrying along
the street before wandering back to where John had laid down on the bench. After several more microts of
consideration, the luxan chose a spot three motras to one side of John and stationed himself there, arms
crossed and looking fierce. His guard post placed him between Crichton and the flood of pedestrians. No one
could approach the segment of bench where John was sprawled on his back without first passing close to
D’Argo.
John watched the process without offering any suggestions. His attention was being distracted by a new
phenomenon had begun to occur with increasing frequency since he had become trapped in Moya’s psyche;
and he didn’t know if it was another sign of his strengthening telepathy or if a portion of his brain had been
damaged by that merging. If he looked at other beings in the correct manner, he could see their emotions …
only it wasn’t exactly ‘seeing’. It didn’t matter if he had his eyes open or closed, and it didn’t require that he
listen to D’Argo’s thoughts in order to set it off. Lying on his back, staring up over his head at the glowering
luxan sentry, it happened again.
There was a shivering, energized layer of tension and worry surrounding D’Argo’s body, hemmed in by a hot
metal-tasting shell of self-discipline. That outer casing was lined with fissures and cracks, through which bursts
of anxiety and concern escaped at steam-jet velocities. Closer to his body glowed muted tones of compassion,
sunset shades of red and gold, intertwined and shimmering. The warrior was both worried about him and
equally confident that John Crichton could handle anything that the universe threw his way. The mélange was
complex. It defied description with any medium so limited as words. Perhaps Moya and Pilot, with eight senses
instead of five, could comprehend what he was detecting.
Before he could sneak a mental peek at Hox and Aeryn, his thoughts were interrupted. Noises -- clumsy
syllables dropping one by one like wooden mallets striking stone -- arrived on sparking, scintillating sheets of
yellow and white concern. The emotions were far more tangible than the simple query. “John, are you all
right?”
Crichton opened one eye to see what had his friend so worried. D’Argo had moved closer and was staring
down at him. “What’s up, Big D?” he asked.
“You looked --” D’Argo fidgeted for a moment then started to move away without answering.
“Looked what?” John asked.
Several microts passed before he received an answer. “Empty. You looked the same way you did in Moya’s
corridor. I thought perhaps you had gotten lost again.”
John sat up and shook his head. “Just taking a short mental vacation. My neurons are approaching overload
status.” He rubbed his eyes, feeling as though he hadn’t slept in a week. “How long was I zoned out?”
“A little over a quarter of an arn.”
It hadn’t felt anywhere near that long. He would have guessed that he’d had his eyes closed for no more than
one or two hundred microts. Wherever he had drifted to in that interval, the break had helped. The sense of
encroaching insanity had eased, and he felt more in control of his own mind.
John looked toward where Aeryn and Hox were still sitting next to the fountain. They had barely moved. Hox
had drawn his feet up beneath his robes again, and was watching the passing traffic with placid interest. He
looked like an oversized Buddhist parrot: serene, patient, and avian. Beside him sat his antithesis: every
muscle rigid, back straight, eyes constantly in motion, Aeryn looked like she was about to explode at the
slightest provocation. The only similarity between the two was that they were both sitting still.
Their emotional signatures were every bit as disparate. Where Hox glowed with an even, sun-like radiance,
Aeryn was a volcano spewing out flaming projectiles. The hvisk was interacting with those passing by, reaching
out with his control, touching, nurturing, and receiving emotions in return. The ex-soldier sitting beside him had
her molten core well encased in a stony exterior; she was Mount Saint Aeryn slowly building up pressure,
sometimes venting ignited jets of volatile compounds, and other times simmering along behind a façade of
peaceful containment.
Crichton wondered which outcome was more likely. Krakatoa-sized explosion? Or a more gradual easing of …
“John?” D’Argo interrupted his silent introspection.
“Give me a microt, D.”
“No. We don’t have a microt.” D’Argo grabbed him by the front of his jacket, hauled him forcibly to his feet, and
aimed him away from the fountain and the two people sitting there. “There, John. Is that who I think it is?”
Two hvisk -- one with a brilliant green crest, the other with a brilliant blue one -- stood to one side of the street,
their heads together, beaks nearly touching. Two pairs of black eyes flitted left and right, watching the crowds
and occasionally shifting toward where John now stood beside D’Argo. That they looked like hired thugs from a
third rate gangster movie told most of the story; the emptiness in their minds told John everything else he
needed to know. It was Heckle and Jeckle.
“That’s them! Get them!” He jerked loose from D’Argo’s grip and bolted toward the pair of hvisk. Like brightly
colored compass indicators, the blue and green crests swung in his direction for a microt, and then spun about
and disappeared into the crowds. Behind him, John could hear D’Argo yelling to Aeryn over the comms,
sounding the alarm and giving her instructions. After that, there was little else than the sound of his own
breathing, the pounding of his feet, and the squawking from startled pedestrians that was guiding him along the
route the fugitives had taken.
The second chase was every bit as wild and exasperating as the first. No matter how brutally he shoved and
elbowed his way through the mobs of hvisk, Heckle and Jeckle were always a split microt faster. They fled up-
station at first, moving into narrower extensions, cutting into smaller streets, and eventually the smallest
alleyways. John gasped for breath, ignored the stomach twisting gravitational transitions, and pushed himself
to run faster. D’Argo was right on his heels, and he could hear a lighter set of footsteps further back. Aeryn
had caught up.
They barged out of a cross-avenue into the chaos of one of the primary arms, smashed their way through the
crowds, and plunged into another of the smaller streets, always following the bobbing blue and green crests.
“Short cut.” John crashed through a thin hedge, barely avoided running over two children, leaped over a
bench, and sprinted back onto the normal walkway. They had gained a scant motra on Heckle and Jeckle.
“Faster,” D’Argo panted behind him.
“I’m trying. Left my track shoes at home.” Heavy boots, leather pants, and a weapon tugging at one leg with
every step weren’t what he would have picked for a foot race.
A hvisk toddler waddled out in front of him. He swerved, tripped over the decorative border marking the edge
of a garden, and sprawled face-first into some bushes. D’Argo grabbed him by the back of the jacket, hauled
him up, and flung him forward. Aeryn had passed them both and was drawing further ahead.
John wasted some air on a question. “How come women can always run faster than guys?”
“Lifetime of running away from us,” D’Argo answered, equally breathless.
“LEFT!” John yelled ahead to Aeryn. Having lost sight of their quarry, she had slowed to a jog. At his cry, the
lithe, athletic figure banked to the left and accelerated in the new direction.
They were led up-station and down, through wild shifts of gravity, and down one corkscrewing alleyway that
spiraled around the inner walls of the tube before ending with a fast 90 degree shift from one surface to
another in a matter of steps. Throughout all the chaotic changes in attitude, and despite aching legs and
burning lungs, John managed to maintain a firm, even if tenuous, contact with the pair of blank, diseased
minds. Each time D’Argo and Aeryn let out a yell of frustration because they had lost sight of the blue and
green crests, John was able to take the correct turn to put them back on the trail.
“Are they taking us to Klamik?” Aeryn asked at one point.
“Don’t know. Can’t tell what they’re thinking,” John said between gasps.
“Don’t hvisk get tired?” D’Argo said.
John didn’t answer the question. Instead, he yelled, “Oh frell! Not again!!” and started to slow. Several motras
ahead of them, just as it had during the first chase arns earlier, the avenue split into two smaller streets, and
they were once again presented with the choice of taking either the left or the right wall of each of the narrower
passageways.
“Dren. Which one?” D’Argo asked.
“I picked wrong last time. You choose.”
D’Argo snarled, brushed past Aeryn, and took the more difficult of the transitions. Within four motras, they
were upside down to where they had been moments earlier. “I don’t see them,” D’Argo said.
“They’re ahead of us somewhere. I can feel them.” John spared a fast look over his head, and came to an
abrupt stop. Aeryn ran into him, unable to avoid him in the tight confines of the alleyway. They staggered,
clutching at each other for balance for several moments before regaining their footing.
“What’s the matter? Why did you stop?” she asked once they were steady.
“There. They’re down there.” No more than five motras above John’s head, Heckle and Jeckle had slowed to a
lazy stroll, deliberately taunting their pursuers by assuming a relaxed, arrogant saunter. “Frelling bastards,
they did it do us again.” John spun around looking for one of the walkways that would take them to the other
side of the enclosure. There was nothing in sight in either direction. There was only one way he could think of
to get to where Heckle and Jeckle were gloating.
“D’Argo! Heave me up there!”
“Where?”
“Up there!” John pointed over his head. “You’ve flung me farther in the past. Every time I piss you off,
I wind up getting tossed all over Moya. Both hands like this. Hurry!”
“You’re insane!” Despite her objection, Aeryn accompanied him when he took several steps back to get a
running start.
“Test pilot, except I’m doing it without a ship this time.”
John took four fast steps, slapped both hands onto D’Argo’s shoulders, stepped into the stirrup formed by his
friend’s interlaced fingers, and flew. It was a wrenching, stomach churning passage through the boundary
between gravitational fields. It was a tube-of-toothpaste squeezing process that began at his head, grasped
him tight and yanked hard against skin and clothes as his shoulders and upper body slid through, and then
snared him above his waist for a split microt. He had just enough time to think that he was going to stick
halfway through and be suspended in midair until someone could get a ladder and yank him down, and then
there was a sharp tug on his legs and he was falling head first toward the ground.
“Ohhhhhh … FRELL!”
For once in his life, his lack of planning worked in his favor. In his rush to follow Heckle and Jeckle, he hadn’t
bothered to check his landing area prior to his Luxan-provided liftoff. If he had thought to look, and had chosen
to aim for a walkway as he intended, the re-entry might have killed him. Crichton managed to get turned most
of the way over, plowed through the springy branches of several small trees, and plummeted into a thick
grouping of bushes. After rolling over twice, he was disgorged onto the paved walkway. “Bad plan, very bad
plan,” he said to himself, and clambered to his feet.
“Watch it!”
He looked up. Aeryn had followed him. She tucked into a ball, flipped end for end, and landed with a great
deal more grace than he had managed. “Show off,” he said.
Sparing half a microt to give him a mild glare of disgust before turning away, Aeryn unslung her pulse rifle and
scanned the alleyway. “Which way?”
“There!” Heckle and Jeckle were on the run again, with a larger head start than they’d had when the pursuit
had originally begun. John took the lead. Aeryn was close on his heels, transmitting directions over her
comms. From the snatches of conversation he managed to hear, Crichton was able to make out that D’Argo
had found a walkway from one surface to the other and was following them at maximum speed.
The remainder of the chase didn’t last long. Perhaps the two young hvisk were confused by the bizarre tactic
used by their pursuers, or perhaps it was another facet of the peculiar insanity that had overtaken them, but
they spent no more than two hundred microts trying to get away before they swerved into the street along the
front of a row of cubblings, and bolted straight in one of the open doors. John and Aeryn drew to a stop three
motras from the building’s entrance.
“How many are in there?” Aeryn asked.
He reached out with his mind, searching the small structure. “Three … I think.”
“You think or you’re sure?”
John was bent over with his hands on his knees, striving to catch his breath. “Give me a break. I’m about to
pass out from lack of oxygen. I’m pretty sure there are just three. Want to wait for D’Argo?”
“What about a back door?” she asked. “They could be getting away.”
“Sooner we’re in there, the sooner we’ll know.”
“No use putting it off then.” Aeryn led the way, pulse rifle at the ready; John followed close behind with Winona
grasped in both hands. Together they barged through the open door, splitting up to the left and right once
they were inside.
The interior of the building was quiet, tidy, and dimly lit. As with every other portion of the Kyelligg, there were
planters full of flowers and greenery on the walls and set in the corners. There was more of the circular, well-
cushioned hvisk furniture arranged around the room, most of it low to the ground -- a crop of circular futons
ready for harvesting. Every portion of the building emitted tranquility. It was hardly the hideout of a dangerous
psychopath. John hesitated, thinking that he had somehow gotten it wrong.
Three hvisk stood in a loose huddle, eyeing the intruders with nothing more threatening than wary interest.
Heckle and Jeckle were closest to the doorway, half-facing a third male who sported a bristling, vibrant purple
crest. When Crichton reached out to confirm that this was their quarry, all three minds were equally silent.
They might have been three granite statues for all he was picking up from them. He was going to have to rely
on some other, non-telepathic method to confirm that this was the person the hvisk wanted him to find.
“Klamik,” John said, trying something simple. The hvisk with the purple crest whistled at him.
“Sounded like a yes to me,” Aeryn said.
He hadn’t known what to expect when he finally located Klamik. From the level of concern Hox had transmitted
throughout the search, John had cobbled together a hvisk-version of the emperor from Star Wars: black robes,
glowing red eyes, gnarled digits with extended, sharpened claws beckoning for his legions of evil underlings to
murder anyone who got in his way. What Crichton hadn’t envisioned was the healthy, intelligent-looking young
male wearing clean, unadorned robes. Klamik didn’t look sick or dangerous or abnormal. He didn’t look evil,
and he didn’t look like the sort of person who could endanger an entire civilization.
More than anything else, Klamik looked like Hox.
“Stay where you are!” Aeryn said. Heckle and Jeckle had begun to ease apart, breaking up the little group.
“Get back over there and just stand still,” John said, adding what he hoped was a menacing jab with Winona for
emphasis. It didn’t help. The three hvisk continued to drift further away from each other, and Heckle and
Jeckle no longer looked calm. If he had to pick a word to describe their expressions, Crichton would have
chosen ‘deranged’.
He tried again. “Don’t make us shoot you. Get back in the corner with Senor Psychopath there, and stay
calm. Troops are on their way. Don’t get stupid about this.” It had no effect. Heckle and Jeckle continued to
drift apart, showing no sign that they had heard or understood what he said.
“Are there?” Aeryn asked in a whisper.
“Are there what?”
“More troops coming other than D’Argo?”
“Yes,” John said. “I felt Hox thinking about us, so I let him know where we are. He’s not far behind D’Argo, and
he’s called for reinforcements to meet him here.” He lunged at the closest hvisk -- the blue-crested one he had
dubbed Jeckle -- trying to herd him back toward Klamik. Jeckle backed up half a motra, only to begin working
his way forward again the moment Crichton retreated.
“Pear-shaped,” Aeryn said quietly.
“Any microt now,” he agreed. “Don’t suppose we could get them to wait until D’Argo gets here?”
“Doubtful.”
It was the emotional context of the single word that caused him to make the mistake. The fast quips and banter
that had been flowing back and forth during the pursuit had become more relaxed with each exchange. From
the moment when Aeryn had taken the lead in the chase and had needed to follow his yelled directions, her
rigidly bound mental state had continued to ease microt by microt. By the time she used his term ‘pear-
shaped’, it was as though she arrived back at the spot beside him where he was accustomed to having her.
Aeryn was comfortable with him; she was confident and relaxed in his presence; and most importantly, she had
thought of him as ‘John’, not ‘Crichton’.
He only glanced at her for half a microt, and only because he was so pleased to have Officer Aeryn Sun back
at his side. When he looked back, Heckle had crossed half the distance between them, cockspur already
slashing toward him at head level, and the other two hvisk were headed for Aeryn.
Ignoring his own safety, Crichton slapped both of Heckle’s outstretched hands aside and barreled into the hvisk
with his full body weight. One barb hooked deep into the sleeve of his jacket; the other barely missed him,
nicking the leather as it sliced past his ribs. He ignored the warm trickle crawling along his forearm inside the
sleeve, got a good grip on the body inside the robes, and heaved the hissing, snapping creature to one side. It
freed him to help Aeryn with her two attackers. She had dodged Jeckle’s initial attack and was fending off
Klamik, parrying each of his jabs with a smash of the pulse rifle.
“Tongue!” John yelled at her. “Watch the tongue! It’s got --”
“Barbs,” she finished. Aeryn spun away from a kick that would have lacerated her leg from knee to hip if it had
landed, and drove aggressively toward Klamik, rifle leading the way.
One microt later Jeckle was all over him, wielding tongue, feet, and cockspurs with furious, demented intent,
and Crichton didn’t have time to worry about how Aeryn was faring against Klamik. He managed to stay on his
feet at first, dodging and ducking, slapping the needle-sharp spurs aside with Winona, sacrificing layers of
leather from his gloves and jacket whenever the darting tongue got too close. Heckle dove into the fray, nearly
slitting John’s throat with a cockspur, then he mysteriously disappeared from the fight with an alarmed screech.
A luxan bellow told the rest of the story. D’Argo had arrived and had started by yanking Heckle out of the
melee.
John tried to knock Jeckle’s feet out from under him only to get one leg tangled up in the hvisk’s robes, and
they went down together. Aeryn was yelling, at least two hvisk were squawking somewhere in the room, the
Qualta rifle fired, ceramic showered down in a dry clattering rainstorm, and he rolled over, taking Jeckle with
him. They smashed through a planter. The room was filled with the scent of cinnamon coming from the
crushed plants. Noise, smell, and physical effort blended into a single unified chaos.
Jeckle reared back and then lunged at him with the sharpened wrist barb. John rolled desperately to one side.
It gouged a burning, wet furrow along the side of his head. Blood trickled into his ear, blocking his hearing on
that side. Jeckle’s feet were scrabbling at his pants, trying to scrape through the leather.
“Watch it!” Aeryn yelled. The pulse rifle fired. Whatever was going on, it had nothing to do with him or his
fight.
John didn’t have time to check on the problem. Jeckle had managed to get on top of him, and had him pinned
to the floor. It was only a matter of microts before the larger, stronger hvisk either eviscerated him or drove the
cockspur into something vital. He was battered from every angle by a flurry of attacks, bleeding from a dozen
scrapes or small wounds. Crichton grappled with Jeckle, using one arm and both legs to try to still some of the
crazed flailing. His other hand, the one holding Winona, crept up between their bodies. Another barb sank into
his forearm, slicing the leather open this time; it ripped deep into flesh. Crichton ignored the fast rush of blood
slopping about inside his sleeve, and drove the pulse pistol in under Jeckle’s throat.
“Stop it!” The demand emerged on a gasp of pain. Clawed toes raked at his lower body; they scraped across
the leather without penetrating, pummeling the organs inside. Jeckle tried again, scouring the leather. “Don’t
make me kill you,” John pleaded.
“No, no, no, no!” someone screamed into his mind. “No killing. You must not kill! Do not, do not!”
Hox had arrived. His frantic whistling sounded every bit as deranged as the diseased hvisk were acting.
Jeckle snapped at John with his beak. Each clacking attack was aimed at his eyes. The tongue whipped out.
He ducked his head into his shoulder, incapable of escaping entirely, and took it across the cheekbone.
Cheese grater ridges bit deep, yanked away skin and flesh. John bellowed out a curse. Blood streamed.
Tongue, beak, claws, feet, and cockspurs struck at him. He lost his grip on Jeckle’s body. The hvisk had room
to strike with his feet. The hooking fourth toe would slice his midsection open.
“Crichton!” Aeryn yelled in the background.
Hox appeared behind Jeckle, hands outstretched and reaching for the diseased hvisk, but it was too late.
Jeckle was attacking again. Crichton jammed Winona in tight beneath Jeckle’s throat, the only angle he could
get that wouldn’t hit Hox if the pulse blast went straight through Jeckle, and pulled the trigger.
The cubbling and everyone in it disappeared.
John had one microt to consider that maybe it was John Crichton who had evaporated, not everyone else, and
then he was swallowed up by a blackness that emanated from within his own body.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15