Whispers
Chapter 14
Crichton was still in the same position, staring at the moss between his boots, when Tulev returned. The hvisk
eased into the garden area, placing his feet carefully so he wouldn’t make any noise. He stopped when he
reached the edge of the moss-covered area, and fidgeted indecisively, clawed toes rasping quietly against the
stone. John raised his head to look at him. He had long since lost track of time, and had no idea how long he
had been sitting there like that, huddled in on himself with his arms on his knees. However long it had been,
sufficient time had lapsed that his neck and back were stiff from sitting in the single position without moving. He
shrugged his shoulders several times, loosening the muscles.
“Question,” he said to Tulev. He had spent much of the time alone integrating Hox’s memories into his own,
and considering them from several perspectives. “Why did they all have to die? Couldn’t the ones who had
been infected become a new offshoot of your species? Plenty of us folks wandering around the universe are
stone deaf. We get by.”
Gathering his robes around his legs, Tulev sank down to sit beside John. His cross-legged position looked far
more comfortable than the way it felt in leather pants. “You observed for yourself what The Mindlessness does
to our species. Would you condemn my people to a future of viciousness and barbarity?”
“You’re assuming they wouldn’t adapt. You murdered billions, for God’s sake. That’s enough people to start a
couple hundred new civilizations.”
Tulev cocked his head to one side and scrutinized Crichton with a very Hox-like stare for several microts.
"Adapt into what sort of beings?” Beings like your companions?
There was no musical accompaniment to the second portion of his comment. John wasn’t sure if Tulev had
intended for him to hear it or not. In four unspoken words, Tulev had handed down a harsh judgment of all
non-telepathic species.
John’s next assertion was going to be: “We manage to muddle by without hearing each other’s thoughts.” But
it had been his ‘muddling by’ without actually hearing what was meant that had cost Hox his life, so he turned
his head away from Tulev’s bright-eyed inspection and didn’t say it. He was tired and wanted little more than to
sleep undisturbed for two or three cycles.
“What happens now? Unless you’ve got some other lunatic aboard your ship that needs to be tracked down, I’d
like to get this crap in my head turned off.”
“There are no others to be located. Now that we have Klamik in custody, the search for those who have been
infected may begin without fear of spreading the affliction.” Still seated, Tulev made an embarrassed-looking
little bow. “ All but the most necessary personnel have been asked to leave the medical facility so we may treat
Klamik without endangering the minds of others. Would you be willing to delay your own --”
“Yeah, that’s fine. Give me a holler when you’re ready for me. I’ll hear you.” John got to his feet and headed
for the walkway leading out of the garden. Halfway there, he stopped and turned back. “Hey, when your
brainiac experts take this away, can they leave Harvey on ice?”
Tulev’s look of confusion was almost identical to the one John was accustomed to seeing on D’Argo’s face
whenever he exceeded the luxan’s familiarity with Earth-isms. “The Halloween spook inside my head -- the
second personality in my brain -- your people locked him up when you made me telepathic. I want you to leave
him that way when you change things back. Better yet, take the ugly bastard out. I’m sick of him waltzing
though my life like he owns it.”
Staring toward the leafy wall of the garden, Tulev scratched his beak for several moments. It turned out he was
consulting someone else aboard the Kyelligg. “They say that they did not do this thing that you describe. Our
specialists believed the secondary presence was a normal portion of your personality; therefore they did not
restrict its actions. If it has been sequestered, you have done this on your own.”
“I stuffed him in the ice box. Me. This is my own personal dream come true without anyone else’s help.”
“Correct.”
Crichton considered Tulev’s claim a bit longer, comparing it to when he first noticed that the clone had gone
missing. “Before or after you did the cranial overhaul?”
He had to wait through another silently conducted hvisk conference before he got an answer. “Unknown. The
ones I speak to can only be certain that the ability to sequester this other being resides within you. It is
unrelated to the procedure they performed.”
“What happens when you turn off the juice to the supercharger?” Tulev cocked his head to one side and let
out a squawk. John rephrased. “What happens when your specialists lobotomize the telepathy? Will I still be
able to keep Harvey in the cooler?”
“There is no reason you should not be able to continue in this manner. You have the mechanisms necessary
to perform this small feat; you simply have never chosen to utilize them. It only requires that you learn how to
control the process.” Black eyes gazed unemotionally at Crichton, providing no additional commentary about
the human’s capacity to locate and control the latent ability that Tulev was talking about.
Without guidance from someone like Hox, it was going to be like learning to fly the module with his eyes closed:
there would be a quick and catastrophic end to his first attempt. John returned Tulev’s enigmatic stare, trying
to decide whether or not to discuss it any further. What he needed was several solar days worth of lessons
covering the in and outs of how to keep the clone imprisoned. It was a luxury that he knew he wasn’t going to
get.
Tulev said, “Trust yourself. You have the ability. All you require is faith that you can do it without assistance.”
Crichton didn’t know how to answer that. Finally, he settled for a nod. Too much had happened over the last
several arns, and he needed more time to think -- both about what had happened aboard the Kyelligg, as well
as about this latest revelation. Giving Tulev one more quick nod, he strolled into the street, chose a direction
at random, and started to walk.
* * * * *
Several arns later, John was standing on one of the Kyelligg’s massive loading docks. He was staring out into
space, a scant half-motra from the knee-height light-barrier that marked the perimeter of the forcefield
maintaining the hangar’s atmosphere. The view was every bit as impressive as the one he was treated to on
the rare occasion that he visited Moya’s Terrace. He thought it might have even been a little more spectacular
considering that the intricate structure of the Kyelligg loomed overhead. If he chose to crane his neck upward,
he was provided with an awe-inspiring backdrop to light years worth of star-filled scenery. From his vantage
point, the station was a hulking, primordial, many-horned creature, lurking half-seen in the dark until some bit of
light struck it. It was always there, hanging over his shoulder, invisible a majority of the time … like his
telepathy.
When he left Tulev and the moss garden, he had hoped to lose himself for a while among the throngs of hvisk.
He didn’t want to spend his last few arns as a telepath on board Moya. There was too much pain and regret
there. From Aeryn’s steely control, to D’Argo’s enduring grief for Lo’Lann, past Rygel’s stockpile of losses,
onward to Chiana’s sakmars worth of emotional baggage, and more of the same for Pilot and Moya and Jool --
everyone on board had lost something or someone they loved. Every one of them had left a life behind that,
while they dreamed of returning to those moments of happiness, they knew could never be recovered. That
wasn’t the company he wanted to keep while he waited for the hvisk to finish with Klamik.
So he had begun to walk, intending to spend the free time idly exploring the Kyelligg. Within a matter of
microts, he had discovered that it wasn’t going to work the way he had hoped. Every single person on the
nomadic space station knew of Hox’s death and of the human’s grief. No matter where he went, there was
someone there to let out a quiet note of sympathy, usually accompanied by a fluttering little pat. The first
dozen times it was comforting. After a hundred such moments, he had been ready to strangle the next person
who offered him a whistled condolence.
In the end, he had snared a passing female and asked if there was some place where he could be alone. She
had led him to one of the aerobatic elevators and indicated a specific touch panel.
“No, I don’t want to go to the other side. I want some place where no one else ever goes,” he had said to her.
She had indicated the touch panel a second time. “This is the place you wish to visit.”
After hesitating for several microts, he had shrugged, trusting that she really did understand what he was
looking for, and entered the ‘Traveling-Both-Up-And-Down-And-Switching-In-The-Middle-Due-To-Manipulation-
Of-Gravitational-Influences’ gazebo. When he smacked the touch panel, the elevator car had done its usual
trick of falling straight up. But when it came time to flip end for end, it had stopped in the middle, aligned itself
along the center axis of the interior of the Kyelligg and had taken off down the length of the station at a velocity
that he guessed was just shy of supersonic. By the time it completed the wildest flight he had ever taken --
some hair-raising tests of the prototype module included -- and came to rest at the loading dock, he had a
greater appreciation for D’Argo’s grumbling reaction to the conveyance.
It had brought him accurately to the type of place he had requested though, and that was all that mattered.
The loading area and its associated hangar were not being used. He had a leviathan-sized expanse all to
himself where he could let his thoughts wander without being interrupted.
Tulev had dumped more of Hox’s memories into his mind than John had originally thought. It was taking time,
solitude, and a moderate amount of concentration to wheedle them out. He had discovered several layers
concealed beneath the childish memories, each from a different era of Hox’s life. Initially he had assumed that
Tulev had shared those moments intentionally. It was when two intensely private moments had emerged the
John began to suspect that it had been an accident. It was as if Tulev -- the person who would someday
become Hox -- hadn’t known himself what was inside his own brain, and had mistakenly spilled more than was
needed when he shared one small bit of Hox’s knowledge.
It was an unexpected gift; one that would require careful unwrapping, slowly pulling away one layer of rustling,
delicate paper after another until all the small, precious trinkets were revealed. John had already discovered
the first such treasure. Tulev’s error had allowed him to relive the moment when Hox met his lifelong mate for
the first time, a moment that felt a great deal like the instant when he knew for certain that he loved Aeryn. It
had been a shocking, dizzying revelation that had turned his universe sideways, rearranging everything he
thought he knew about life. His memory and Hox’s merged into a single amalgam of experiences, nearly
identical in the sensations coming from their stomachs, their hearts, and the way it was difficult to think straight
whenever the focus of their affection was around.
Sad and funny, Hox when he was young and when he was old, hvisk laughter and their equivalent of tears, love
and sorrow, mundane moments and tragedy: hundreds of freeze-framed moments were there for the viewing,
inadvertently tipped into John’s mind by the inexperienced Tulev. It wasn’t all eight hundred cycles of Hox’s life;
it was a moving slide show of many of the moments that Hox treasured most. The hatching of Hox’s first child
was part of the gift, as were scattered, randomly chosen hatchings across dozens of generations. Hundreds of
his progeny walked the streets of the Kyelligg, including the most recent of Hox’s descendents to attain
adulthood: Klamik.
The resemblance he had noticed the first moment he had seen Klamik hadn’t been a coincidence after all, and
the extent of Hox’s anxiety suddenly made more sense. The old man had been both proud of his descendant’s
abilities and immensely distraught over what that genetically endowed talent was doing to their people. And
Hox had been worried that his family might lose Klamik forever. He had been distressed to the point that his
control over his own thoughts had begun to lapse, which explained why John had been able to catch the rare,
occasional thought leaking from Hox when the old man hadn’t intended it.
“You frelling secretive bastard,” John said to the person who could no longer hear him on any level.
Discovering that Hox had hidden certain facts right through to the very end helped to ease the aching loss. For
the first time in arns, logic made a small amount of headway against the unrelenting stream of guilt. Anger
helped as well. Encouraging the small remaining portion of resentment over being used by the hvisk like some
sort of convenient tool drove the emptiness back even further. That discovery led him to another revelation.
Since she had returned to Moya, Aeryn was constantly angry whenever he was around her. Or so it had
seemed.
John fingered the side of his head where Jeckle’s cockspur had dug the furrow above his ear, finding and
repeatedly tracing the evidence that there had been an injury. Although the laceration had been healed by the
hvisk, it would take longer for his hair to grow back. Until then there would be the nearly undetectable four-
dench long crease that could only be found by touch, hidden from sight by the overlying hair. Aeryn’s wounds
were like that. Her scars were invisible, coming to light only when some action on his part touched the ragged,
half-healed wound, and in doing so, caused her more pain.
For the first time since Aeryn walked down the steps of the transport pod, he saw her anger for what it was. On
the rare occasion that her emotionless shell faltered, and she snarled or lashed out at him, Aeryn was doing
her best to cauterize the wounds, using the heat of her temper to buy a short reprieve from a more lasting
discomfort.
“Round and round we go.” John’s low mumble was lost in the cavernous emptiness of the hangar. “He rips you
to shreds, so you put me through the wringer, and I lash out at you. When does it end, Aeryn?” He looked
behind him, inexplicably concerned that Aeryn might be standing there to overhear the words he would never
say to her. “Stop talking to yourself, you moron. You’re asking the wrong person for advice.”
Wandering along the edge of the force-field from one edge of the massive loading area to the other, John
concentrated on paying more attention to his surroundings than what was going on inside his head. The
hangar bay was unlike any portion of the Kyelligg he had seen so far. There were no plants here, no waterfalls
or decorative plantings; there was only bare, utilitarian gray metalloid plating, and machinery for loading and
unloading cargo. The floor was marred by the criss-crossed scars of hundreds of landings, gouges driven
deep into the reinforced, hardened surface by the weight of massive ships. He stopped and traced a portion of
one such mark with the toe of his boot, wondering at the mass that had cut a four-motra long, V-shaped groove
into the plating. Whatever had landed here must have been as large and as heavy as a fully-grown leviathan.
“That must have been one big sucker,” he whispered. The simple comment reminded him of the one being he
hadn’t thought about since regaining consciousness an arn or two earlier. “Damn. I should have checked on
Moya and Pilot.”
John glanced up. It was a mindless sort of thing, merely giving action to the belated concern over the leviathan
and her pilot. He hadn’t expected to actually see her. Moya was docked directly above his head, nestled
comfortably in against the Kyelligg. She was belly-down to him, nearly invisible unless he was standing in one
particular spot so she was silhouetted against the station, quietly gleaming gold resting against sparkling silver.
Moya was less than a third of the way up the Kyelligg from where he stood: far enough that he could see all of
her without strain, and yet close enough that he could make out every small detail of the streamlined, elegant
hull.
“You are gorgeous, Moya,” he said in her direction. A whim fluttered past, tempting him to do something
stupid. John lectured himself to be reasonable. “Don’t be a jackass. It’s almost over. Don’t frell your brain
now just because you think it would be fun one last time when no one’s life depends on it.”
The idea wouldn’t go away. He wanted to reach out and touch Moya one more time. Not to merge with her so
completely that he could hear every separate note in the overwhelming stream of her awareness, but just
enough to be a leviathan for a few more microts before he willingly lost the ability forever. The events of the
last day and a half hadn’t given him a chance to use the telepathy solely for himself. There had been moments
when he almost felt comfortable with it, and had benefited from the insights he had managed to wheedle out of
other people’s thoughts, but he hadn’t had a chance to use it entirely for himself for no other reason than
because he wanted to do something he had never been able to do before.
The temptation was too much for him.
“Grandma always said the menfolk on the Crichton side of the family were pigheaded imbeciles. I wish she
could be here to watch this so she could say ‘I told you so’.”
The risk was enormous. Hox was dead. If he screwed this up and couldn’t find his way back to his body, there
was a chance that his awareness might cast adrift in space forever. John didn’t care. He spent one last
moment debating whether he should comm D’Argo to let him know what he was about to do, and then
shouldered aside the responsible, logical portion of his conscience, and released the tight grip he had on his
mind. He looked up toward Moya and let his consciousness stream outward.
His first destination is reached without difficulty. The bulk of the leviathan’s sentience takes up the entire night
sky, drawing him in without effort on his part. He floats wraith-like through the corridors, renewing his
knowledge of her sights, sounds, and smells, reverting for a few microts into a peaceful beast that was born to
swim the galaxies. A tightly woven bundle of thoughts draws him forward. Drifting upward to the place where
two mesh into one, he finds the effortless symbiosis of ship and pilot, and pauses there to sample the quiet give
and take of information that continues arn after arn throughout the eternal night of space. They are content
now, happily conversing in languages, colors, textures, shapes, and sounds that he can barely comprehend,
secure in the restored companionship that they will share for the rest of their lives.
Recognizing a signal from a single DRD, he follows it back to its source to find a rebellious, light-hearted spirit
that is filled with fear at the idea of what lies ahead. The bright spark of life isn’t alone. There is another
accumulation of complexities nearby, a firmer personality that is concerned for everyone around it and is
involved in reassuring the other one in Command at that moment. They merge in a duet of ricocheting
reactions, their thoughts and feelings bouncing off each other without merging, just as synchronized as the ship
and pilot but in a process that feels more like a duel than a dance.
He spins away from Chiana and D’Argo, probing into the tiers, feeling the pulses of life that are Moya, following
her energy flows until he comes across the grumbling hunger that hides the fortitude born of cycles of captivity
and its requisite perseverance of spirit. Monarchy did not go amiss when it chose this strange vessel; an
indomitable spirit has found a new purpose. The intention to carry out a new commitment fills the aching loss
that comes from being deposed. There is something else there, kept deeply hidden from the eyes of those
among whom he resides: a carefully stoked and banked flame waits for the right atmosphere to blaze forth,
promising to burn out the corruption and decadence of his empire because now he knows what it means to be
trodden upon.
His consciousness leaves Dominar Rygel XVI to his latest meal, and soars on, seeking out another only to find
a sharp bitter taste of scale-hided aggression. He veers around the scarran, distaste thrusting him forward at a
speed he didn’t intend, and runs into a mind that is filled with orderly ranks and files of knowledge, packaged
inside a hastily assembled gathering of emotions and ethics. It is a wildly spinning whirlpool of tumbling
feelings, allegiances, and loves cast about without an anchor, never completely abandoned, never completely
embraced. Complexities rage, spiral upward, burst into incandescent, unexplained passions, gutter and flicker
to glowing warmth to wait the next inferno outbreak. He offers up a small mental smile to the personality that so
perfectly matches the scream that melts metal, and moves on, daring disaster, leaving the leviathan behind.
He brushes across the blossoming traces of what had once been a sentient entity called Hox. It is underlain by
a younger, wilder mind that knows what it is like to be insane, imparting new insight to the older wisdom, arn by
arn finding the inherited knowledge so that nothing might be lost. His mind lingers there for a microt, for the
last time touching the generosity that had offered him a refuge, using the moment to grieve, and then drifts
along. There is a new tune in the rippling rhythms of the aggregate, hearing and sanity restored, and he
discovers the one who is no longer known as Klamik. They rejoice at his return and welcome him back into
their flock without anger or recriminations. He is whole now. All past transgressions are forgotten.
Turning away because he can’t be that forgiving, and reaching out even farther, enveloping it all, for no other
reason than he can. Expanding, filling his senses, reaching farther, wondering if the Hvisk explore the universe
in this manner, or if he is something different, something stronger and more capable than they ever expected
when they rearranged the inner functions of his brain. He stretches out again, finding and brushing across
dozens of species, some familiar, some unknown, feeling the quiet hum of millions upon millions of minds.
Delvians, sheyang, hynerians, charrids, sebaceans, and dozens of others; war-makers, peacemakers, clothes-
makers, ship builders, farmers, and hermits; priests, thieves, lovers, killers, thrillers, and the forever
bewildered: he finds them all, touches them lightly with galaxy-sized fingertips, and soars on, seeking he knows
not what.
Could he find Earth this way? he wonders in a star-dazzled, distracted haze. If he honed this star-walking
talent with assiduous care, if he practiced, meditated daily and gained strength, could he reach far enough to
hear his own people? It would mean weekend visits home, rummaging through the borrowed sights and smells
of an entire species. His divorced personality might be able to sit in his father’s kitchen sipping coffee on a
slanting-sunlight morning when the coolness of night first gives way to morning warmth, feel the pleasant rasp
of jeans against his legs, and the toe-curling chill of not yet sun-warmed tiles underfoot.
He would never come back. If he ever found Earth, rifled his way through the galaxies until he heard the
millions of thoughts that he could define as exquisitely his own, his body would sit forever abandoned, gazing
vacantly at the pleasant, well-lit surroundings of the Kyelligg, and he would never return to occupy that deserted
vessel. He turns, willingly headed back to where he now belongs. Spiraling in, taking his time because he
knows he’ll never do this again, he swerves to one side long enough to run mental fingers through what looks
like a dust cloud and finds something far more familiar. ‘Monarch,’ he greets her and her brood, and wafts on
undetected, much in the same way that they travel the emptiness of space.
Something gone awry. A flashing impression, not knowledge, flits across his mind, and he veers away, distaste
rank and sour in his mouth. But it is familiar in its strangeness, and he turns back, seeking that imbalanced
complexity of two minds, bound together artificially through something that hums mechanically, feeding each
other’s --
“JOHN?”
John staggered and nearly fell down. He had snapped back into his body with a velocity that felt like a bursting
balloon. One moment he had encompassed an entire galaxy and the next he was inside a leather-encased
container that was a couple of denches over two motras tall. The transition was immediate, shocking, and
radical. Starting with the questionable assumption that the human brain could eventually adapt to being
telepathic, he was certain it was never intended to do what he had just done.
“Good god … Humans aren’t supposed to implode.” His body didn’t want to respond to commands at first. It
took several microts before he could turn around to see who had disturbed his mental spin around the
universe.
She moved out of the shadows of the hangar, stepping into the dim starlight. “Hey.”
“Aeryn.”
Fast judder of dismay … He never explained what I’m supposed to do if he doesn’t say ‘hey’ back. Frelling
annoying human.
The thought felt better than most of what he had been receiving from her over the past two days. It felt normal.
He greeted her a second time, giving her the answer she would know how to handle. “Hey. What’s up?”
“You had been gone for so long, I was D’Argo was starting to get worried starting to get worried.”
John fingered the small furrow along the side of his head for a moment, giving himself time to formulate an
answer. The double-layered message distracted him. The unintentional comment beckoned to him the
strongest, urging him to say something designed to comfort Aeryn, and it was the spoken message that needed
to be answered. A distant thought about him arrived in time to keep him from saying something that would let
Aeryn know he had overheard her thoughts.
“They just finished up with Klamik. They’re in the process of adjusting the equipment so it works in reverse.
After that they’ll be ready to fritz with my brain.”
Aeryn stared out at the stars. “What will happen to him?”
“Do you remember what Rygel said when we first saw the Kyelligg?”
It felt like that conversation had occurred a half cycle ago. John counted backward, trying to figure out how
many solar days had passed since the moment when they had stood on Command and watched the Kyelligg
crawl out of the shadow and into the sunlight for the first time. At first he came up with a little over a day and a
half. Then he remembered the six-arn chunk of time he had lost toward the end. It had been closer to two
solar days.
“You mean the part about how art equates to destruction?” Aeryn was saying.
“That’s the one. It turns out Slugworth, Jr. wasn’t all that far off. Before he went nutzo, Klamik was the
Kyelligg’s celebrity superstar. They,” he jerked his head to indicate the hvisk in general, “think he might be the
most important hvisk that has ever lived. They’ve welcomed him back with open arms.”
She glared at him. John reviewed what he had said, searching for whatever had set off the reaction. After a
microt he realized he had misread her expression. The spiky, bristling energy she was giving off said that
Aeryn was trying to figure out whether he was making some sort of joke and she had missed the punch line, or
if she had misunderstood his explanation completely.
“I’m serious. If this were New York, they’d be throwing him a ticker-tape parade to welcome him home. They’re
ecstatic to have him back.”
“But by doing that, they are inviting this to happen again. That is --” Aeryn searched for a word.
“Insane?”
Aeryn made an awkward sideward nod with her head. This time John didn’t need telepathy to know what she
was trying to express. The familiar gesture meant that she didn’t agree his choice of word, but didn’t see any
reason to search for another one. ‘Insane’ was close enough to whatever word she would have chosen that
she was willing to let it slide.
“No argument here! But guys like Klamik only come along once in a blue moon. All three and a half million
souls aboard this floating rest area are receive-only telepaths. Klamik is the only sender. When he isn’t sick
and insane, he can transmit and receive. There have only been three or four in their entire recorded history.”
She made the correct conclusion. “Without him, the disease can’t spread.”
John nodded. “It was how they knew they had a sender among them. The ability is so rare they don’t bother
checking for it at birth. When they discovered that people were going deaf, that’s when they realized there was
someone aboard the Kyelligg who could send thoughts … or in this case, shut them down. They tried looking
for him, and that only made things worse.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “He’ll be watched for the
rest of his life, trained to handle the ability wisely, cared for so this problem never happens again. Starting a
couple of cycles from now, there will always be someone like Hox with him who can help him control it.”
The answer had been part of the data-dump of memories he had received. It would be Tulev, in Hox’s place,
who would eventually become Klamik’s constant companion -- always there in case the rare, once-in-a-
millennium ability again turned toward silence and insanity. The great-grandfather several times removed had
been looking forward to taking on that role. Hox had been bursting with pride and eagerness at the prospect.
The dream had filled his thoughts right from the first moment when he had been told that the hvisk had located
a sebacean-like being who they believed could help them find Klamik.
Except Hox had sacrificed his life for that unique being and would never take his place at his descendant’s
side.
“What?” John had been so mired in Hox’s memories that he had been missed whatever Aeryn had just asked
him.
She repeated the question far more patiently than he had anticipated. “I thought you said they could hear each
other. Why do they need someone like Klamik?”
“Just because they can hear each other doesn’t mean they all work toward the same purpose. They’ve
got a --”
“That sounds familiar.” A shouting match conducted over Last Meal in the Center Chamber, debating what to
do about a pregnant leviathan. No two people want the same thing. Moya starbursts …
“Anarchy,” John summed it up.
“A single voice to give them some direction,” she said.
John nodded and began wandering toward the back of the hangar, toward where the transportation ‘elevator’
was located. “A single voice for when they need it. In emergencies or when there is a matter that has to be
decided quickly. He won’t be a dictator. They’ll form a council of sorts to advise him, and if everything goes
right, he’ll abide by their decisions.”
“And if it doesn’t go right?” Aeryn asked.
“In that case, it’ll go pear shaped in a rush.”
Aeryn nodded. They walked along in silence until they reached the doorway leading out of the hangar.
“Where are you going?”
“The medical facility.” John decided that attempting to explain Heckle’s transformation into Tulev-to-be-Hox
would only result in a headache for him, and one of Aeryn’s patented ‘this is ridiculous’ glares. Without
mentioning any names, he said, “I can hear one of them thinking that he’s waiting for me.
They’re ready to shut this off.”
Aeryn spun around and headed back toward the edge of the loading dock. The fast moving figure wasn’t
leaking any thoughts or emotions. There wasn’t a single clue, mental or physical, trailing off Aeryn that he
could use to figure out what was bothering her. No jerky, angry stance; no telepathically detected volcanic
firebombs sailing off at odd angles; no kicking of inanimate objects; no energetic aura: there was nothing but
the fast retreat toward the place where John had located some solitude.
John took a moment to let Tulev know that it would be a while before he showed up, and then went after her.
He caught up to her at the edge of the forcefield.
Aeryn stood silently with her back to him long after he had come to a stop behind her. The silence stretched
out, broken only by the subliminal hum of the energy shield that kept the atmosphere contained and the
occasional quiet ping of the metal walls. The bulkheads were in a constant state of flux, forever caught
between the warmth of the interior of the hangar and the chill of space, letting out quiet complaints about the
contrast.
John had given up on waiting her out and was searching for something to say when Aeryn finally spoke. It
wasn’t what he wanted to hear.
“I don’t want … ” I don’t want to talk about it …
There was no way to batter down that sort of doubly reinforced rejection. He spun around and started to leave,
convinced that he had misread the physical cues that said she wanted some time alone to talk to him.
“Wait! … John, don’t … I didn’t mean …” She sounded every bit as confused as he felt. “You have to stop
doing that. I wasn’t going to ask you to leave.”
Understanding dawned slowly. “You weren’t going to say what you were thinking,” he said. The one time he
most needed to ignore the unintended mental message, he had snapped it up like a hungry bass going after a
lure.
“No.” Aeryn wandered to one side, working her way along the edge of the loading dock the same way he had
earlier. She nudged the electronic warning barrier with the toe of her boot, setting the alarm to squealing in
small, tentative bursts. “It’s not fair when you do that.”
“I’m not real crazy about it myself, Aeryn. I never wanted this.” He considered hauling a cargo container over
and suggesting that she blow it to pieces with her pulse pistol. Maybe that would release some portion of
whatever she had penned up inside and would set her free to talk about it. “One arn and it will be gone. That’s
all it will take once I get up to the medical facility.”
Her next comment, when it came, nearly knocked him off his feet with surprise. “Maybe you should keep it.”
“Is that a joke?” He knew it wasn’t, but he needed a moment to recover from the shock. Aeryn wasn’t helpful.
She merely shook her head and then went back to her pacing, giving him no time to come up with any answer
other than a flat out refusal. “Bad idea,” he said.
“It could give us a tactical advantage against our enemies.”
“Sound Peacekeeper thinking, Aeryn. John Crichton, Early Defense Warning System. No thanks.”
“You’re ignoring the possibilities because I’m the one suggesting --”
“No, I’m ignoring an idea that is guaranteed to slowly drive me out of my gourd! Why the frell would I want this
crap inside my head for the rest of my life? Aside from cheating at cards and maybe,” he stretched the word
out over two full microts, “being able to figure out if the latest cannon-wielding mystery guest who starts
shooting at us before we can say hello is someone we’ve already managed to piss off or just the latest bad ass
in the universe who’s trying to make a name for himself, there isn’t a single reason to hang on to this curse.
Telepathy doesn’t let me hear the dead, Aeryn. I can’t bring him back for you!”
Aeryn’s anger hit him with the intensity of a physical impact. For an instant he thought she had punched him.
But she was face to face with him, nose four inches from his, hands at her sides, and there was no residual,
post-punch sting anywhere on his face or body.
“You frelling bastard!” she said. The quiet, furious half-whisper was far worse than having her yell at him. “You
miserable, frelling bastard. That’s not why I want you to keep the telepathy. But you’re so smart, John
Crichton, you can see what I want. So read my mind now. Look in there and figure out for yourself why I
wanted you to keep it. Better yet, just have them shut if off and then you never have to listen to anyone ever
again!” She ended on the shout he had initially expected, shouldered him aside with all the finesse of an NFL
linebacker, and headed for the door.
He was supposed to say “I’m sorry” at this point. It was his fault, it had been a stupid, mindless thing to say,
and he hadn’t meant it. So he was supposed to apologize. “I can’t read you,” he said instead. “When I try, I
can’t. When I try not to, you blow my socks right off. I never know what I should and shouldn’t say, and when I
think I hear what you’re thinking, that’s when I’m the farthest from the truth.”
The confession brought her to a stop. Aeryn stayed where she was, halfway across the hangar, but at least
she wasn’t running away from him. After several microts, she said, “It doesn’t sound very reliable.”
“It isn’t. I don’t control this, Aeryn; it controls me. The equipment panel they gave me has one big red On-Off
switch in the middle of it, and that’s about it. There’s no sighting mechanism on this sucker.” He waited until
her shoulders relaxed and her right hand released the butt of her pulse pistol, signaling that she was starting to
calm down. It took nearly a hundred microts. “I’m listening. Talk to me.”
“I want you to have an advantage when you go up against Scorpius.”
Fear for him. Fear for herself. She can’t bear losing him again. She can’t reconstitute Aeryn Sun a second
time. If he dies, the love will kill her.
It was another of the Scud missiles that could penetrate his defenses as though they were made of crepe
paper. He managed to stay on his feet this time, but when his vision cleared, Aeryn had him by the elbow and
was holding him steady. “What was that? What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing. Just an incoming Scud missile.” He pulled free of her grasp on his arm. The Patriot batteries were
having enough trouble without adding physical contact to make things worse. “Aeryn, nothing we do ever works
out the way we plan it. You think the ability to read Scorpy’s mind could be used as a weapon or to get to his
secrets. Putting aside the debate over whether I’d ever want to go inside his head in the first place, the way I
see it, he’d somehow figure out that I’m telepathic and turn it against us instead.”
“I don’t want you to get killed, John.”
He stepped close and dared to touch her. It wasn’t much; he simply brushed the backs of his fingers across the
smoothed-back hair at the side of her head, lingering for a moment to enjoy the radiating warmth of her body
against his, and then released her by stepping away. “I know you don’t. But asking me to do this isn’t the way
to prevent that. I can’t concentrate with this inside my head, Aeryn. Little stuff makes it through when I least
expect it, big jolts nearly knock me out, and it shortens my attention span into negative numbers.”
That convinced her. He could feel the change in her attitude. “Someone will notice.”
“They’re certain to. And then they report back to Herr Braca, who goose-steps right on over to Mr.
Megalomaniac himself, and the next thing we know, we get to find out what happens if you mix the Aurora Chair
with telepathy, and all of us can kiss our asses goodbye. Our plan to stop the Peacekeepers from using
wormholes as a weapon is over. Finito. Kaput.”
“I get the point,” she interrupted.
“Then you agree.”
“Not entirely, but I agree that you need to let the hvisk return you to normal.”
“As normal as I ever get,” he said, trying for a small joke. It earned him an almost-grin, and an infinitesimal
easing of her anxiety.
He knew that this was another interlude in Aeryn’s recovery, one that was passing even as he recognized it for
what it was. They turned together, if not in comfortable companionship, at least in physical partnership, and
headed for the door. He could feel her withdrawing before they had taken ten steps, pushing the few stray
emotions back into their lockbox, closing him out faster than he could ever hope to break his way into her
heart. Getting rid of the telepathy was going to be a blessing if it meant he didn’t have to feel her pulling away
every time he thought they had made a little progress.
Aeryn asked, “What about the information we came here to buy? Wouldn’t it be easier to ask them about that
before they reverse the process?”
He had forgotten all about their reason for coming aboard the Kyelligg in the first place. “It doesn’t matter
anymore. Crais and Talyn are on their way back. They’ve found Scorpius, and they’ve set up a time and place
for a meeting with D’Argo and Rygel.”
She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye several times before answering. “Where are they now?”
“You mean Talyn?” When he received a nod, he said, “They’ll be here in a few arns. Five or six.”
“You can reach that far out?”
“Yeah, but I can’t always come back. Remember that part?”
Crichton upon Crichton. One in Crais’ quarters aboard Talyn, the other sitting slumped in Moya’s hallway.
Unseeing eyes, blind gaze, forever empty. Never to return to her.
“Another scrub missile?” Aeryn said in his ear. She had her hand under his arm and was helping him up. He
was on his knees again.
John brushed her away and stayed where he was, waiting for the odd spinning inside his head to come to an
end. “Gotta get me some knee pads or I’ll be crippled by dinner time. And it’s Scud, not scrub.”
“I did that to you, didn’t I?” He’s been hiding this from me … to protect me. He loves me so much.
He nodded and clambered to his feet. “Don’t sweat it. You’ve always been able to knock me off my feet with a
single look, babe. I was head over heels for you from the first moment.”
Only because I threw him from one side of the cell to the other … Cholak, save me. “What now?” she asked.
“You go back to Moya. Send D’Argo to come get me in case I have trouble finding my way home. Same place
as before,” John said.
“I’ll have him meet us there.”
“Aeryn, you --”
She shut him down with the tone of voice that said she wasn’t going to tolerate any argument over the issue.
“No. I’m coming with you. I’ll comm D’Argo.”
They reached the flying elevator. When John tried to open the door, Aeryn stopped him. “I don’t know any
other way to do this, John. There are things that I have to do, and things that I can’t do, and they probably
don’t make any sense to you. It’s the best I can offer.”
Taking his time, enjoying her proximity even if it was for all the wrong reasons, he examined every visible bit of
Aeryn Sun from top to bottom, wallowing in all the familiar sights, mapping and measuring them to be sure that
he had them all firmly committed to memory. He returned to the grayish-blue eyes and stared into the
impassive depths, hoping to find a small glimmer of what once had been waiting for him there. It was missing,
expended on another man. He had to hope that given enough time, it would return. In the meantime, giving in
to his anger and frustration served no useful purpose. In the words of the man who had stolen what he
treasured most, he had to give her time.
“I’ll take it,” John said. “Whatever you can manage, I’ll take it.”
“I don’t hate you.”
“I know you don’t, Aeryn. But you need to know that I love you, and that’s not going to change. Ever. I am
never going to stop loving you.”
He didn’t expect to hear the words he longed for her to say, and he didn’t get them. Aeryn merely nodded, and
let him open the door to the elevator. One by one they sidled through the narrow door, and took the wild,
exhilarating ride back to the place where the past two days worth of chaos had begun.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
Chapter 14
Crichton was still in the same position, staring at the moss between his boots, when Tulev returned. The hvisk
eased into the garden area, placing his feet carefully so he wouldn’t make any noise. He stopped when he
reached the edge of the moss-covered area, and fidgeted indecisively, clawed toes rasping quietly against the
stone. John raised his head to look at him. He had long since lost track of time, and had no idea how long he
had been sitting there like that, huddled in on himself with his arms on his knees. However long it had been,
sufficient time had lapsed that his neck and back were stiff from sitting in the single position without moving. He
shrugged his shoulders several times, loosening the muscles.
“Question,” he said to Tulev. He had spent much of the time alone integrating Hox’s memories into his own,
and considering them from several perspectives. “Why did they all have to die? Couldn’t the ones who had
been infected become a new offshoot of your species? Plenty of us folks wandering around the universe are
stone deaf. We get by.”
Gathering his robes around his legs, Tulev sank down to sit beside John. His cross-legged position looked far
more comfortable than the way it felt in leather pants. “You observed for yourself what The Mindlessness does
to our species. Would you condemn my people to a future of viciousness and barbarity?”
“You’re assuming they wouldn’t adapt. You murdered billions, for God’s sake. That’s enough people to start a
couple hundred new civilizations.”
Tulev cocked his head to one side and scrutinized Crichton with a very Hox-like stare for several microts.
"Adapt into what sort of beings?” Beings like your companions?
There was no musical accompaniment to the second portion of his comment. John wasn’t sure if Tulev had
intended for him to hear it or not. In four unspoken words, Tulev had handed down a harsh judgment of all
non-telepathic species.
John’s next assertion was going to be: “We manage to muddle by without hearing each other’s thoughts.” But
it had been his ‘muddling by’ without actually hearing what was meant that had cost Hox his life, so he turned
his head away from Tulev’s bright-eyed inspection and didn’t say it. He was tired and wanted little more than to
sleep undisturbed for two or three cycles.
“What happens now? Unless you’ve got some other lunatic aboard your ship that needs to be tracked down, I’d
like to get this crap in my head turned off.”
“There are no others to be located. Now that we have Klamik in custody, the search for those who have been
infected may begin without fear of spreading the affliction.” Still seated, Tulev made an embarrassed-looking
little bow. “ All but the most necessary personnel have been asked to leave the medical facility so we may treat
Klamik without endangering the minds of others. Would you be willing to delay your own --”
“Yeah, that’s fine. Give me a holler when you’re ready for me. I’ll hear you.” John got to his feet and headed
for the walkway leading out of the garden. Halfway there, he stopped and turned back. “Hey, when your
brainiac experts take this away, can they leave Harvey on ice?”
Tulev’s look of confusion was almost identical to the one John was accustomed to seeing on D’Argo’s face
whenever he exceeded the luxan’s familiarity with Earth-isms. “The Halloween spook inside my head -- the
second personality in my brain -- your people locked him up when you made me telepathic. I want you to leave
him that way when you change things back. Better yet, take the ugly bastard out. I’m sick of him waltzing
though my life like he owns it.”
Staring toward the leafy wall of the garden, Tulev scratched his beak for several moments. It turned out he was
consulting someone else aboard the Kyelligg. “They say that they did not do this thing that you describe. Our
specialists believed the secondary presence was a normal portion of your personality; therefore they did not
restrict its actions. If it has been sequestered, you have done this on your own.”
“I stuffed him in the ice box. Me. This is my own personal dream come true without anyone else’s help.”
“Correct.”
Crichton considered Tulev’s claim a bit longer, comparing it to when he first noticed that the clone had gone
missing. “Before or after you did the cranial overhaul?”
He had to wait through another silently conducted hvisk conference before he got an answer. “Unknown. The
ones I speak to can only be certain that the ability to sequester this other being resides within you. It is
unrelated to the procedure they performed.”
“What happens when you turn off the juice to the supercharger?” Tulev cocked his head to one side and let
out a squawk. John rephrased. “What happens when your specialists lobotomize the telepathy? Will I still be
able to keep Harvey in the cooler?”
“There is no reason you should not be able to continue in this manner. You have the mechanisms necessary
to perform this small feat; you simply have never chosen to utilize them. It only requires that you learn how to
control the process.” Black eyes gazed unemotionally at Crichton, providing no additional commentary about
the human’s capacity to locate and control the latent ability that Tulev was talking about.
Without guidance from someone like Hox, it was going to be like learning to fly the module with his eyes closed:
there would be a quick and catastrophic end to his first attempt. John returned Tulev’s enigmatic stare, trying
to decide whether or not to discuss it any further. What he needed was several solar days worth of lessons
covering the in and outs of how to keep the clone imprisoned. It was a luxury that he knew he wasn’t going to
get.
Tulev said, “Trust yourself. You have the ability. All you require is faith that you can do it without assistance.”
Crichton didn’t know how to answer that. Finally, he settled for a nod. Too much had happened over the last
several arns, and he needed more time to think -- both about what had happened aboard the Kyelligg, as well
as about this latest revelation. Giving Tulev one more quick nod, he strolled into the street, chose a direction
at random, and started to walk.
* * * * *
Several arns later, John was standing on one of the Kyelligg’s massive loading docks. He was staring out into
space, a scant half-motra from the knee-height light-barrier that marked the perimeter of the forcefield
maintaining the hangar’s atmosphere. The view was every bit as impressive as the one he was treated to on
the rare occasion that he visited Moya’s Terrace. He thought it might have even been a little more spectacular
considering that the intricate structure of the Kyelligg loomed overhead. If he chose to crane his neck upward,
he was provided with an awe-inspiring backdrop to light years worth of star-filled scenery. From his vantage
point, the station was a hulking, primordial, many-horned creature, lurking half-seen in the dark until some bit of
light struck it. It was always there, hanging over his shoulder, invisible a majority of the time … like his
telepathy.
When he left Tulev and the moss garden, he had hoped to lose himself for a while among the throngs of hvisk.
He didn’t want to spend his last few arns as a telepath on board Moya. There was too much pain and regret
there. From Aeryn’s steely control, to D’Argo’s enduring grief for Lo’Lann, past Rygel’s stockpile of losses,
onward to Chiana’s sakmars worth of emotional baggage, and more of the same for Pilot and Moya and Jool --
everyone on board had lost something or someone they loved. Every one of them had left a life behind that,
while they dreamed of returning to those moments of happiness, they knew could never be recovered. That
wasn’t the company he wanted to keep while he waited for the hvisk to finish with Klamik.
So he had begun to walk, intending to spend the free time idly exploring the Kyelligg. Within a matter of
microts, he had discovered that it wasn’t going to work the way he had hoped. Every single person on the
nomadic space station knew of Hox’s death and of the human’s grief. No matter where he went, there was
someone there to let out a quiet note of sympathy, usually accompanied by a fluttering little pat. The first
dozen times it was comforting. After a hundred such moments, he had been ready to strangle the next person
who offered him a whistled condolence.
In the end, he had snared a passing female and asked if there was some place where he could be alone. She
had led him to one of the aerobatic elevators and indicated a specific touch panel.
“No, I don’t want to go to the other side. I want some place where no one else ever goes,” he had said to her.
She had indicated the touch panel a second time. “This is the place you wish to visit.”
After hesitating for several microts, he had shrugged, trusting that she really did understand what he was
looking for, and entered the ‘Traveling-Both-Up-And-Down-And-Switching-In-The-Middle-Due-To-Manipulation-
Of-Gravitational-Influences’ gazebo. When he smacked the touch panel, the elevator car had done its usual
trick of falling straight up. But when it came time to flip end for end, it had stopped in the middle, aligned itself
along the center axis of the interior of the Kyelligg and had taken off down the length of the station at a velocity
that he guessed was just shy of supersonic. By the time it completed the wildest flight he had ever taken --
some hair-raising tests of the prototype module included -- and came to rest at the loading dock, he had a
greater appreciation for D’Argo’s grumbling reaction to the conveyance.
It had brought him accurately to the type of place he had requested though, and that was all that mattered.
The loading area and its associated hangar were not being used. He had a leviathan-sized expanse all to
himself where he could let his thoughts wander without being interrupted.
Tulev had dumped more of Hox’s memories into his mind than John had originally thought. It was taking time,
solitude, and a moderate amount of concentration to wheedle them out. He had discovered several layers
concealed beneath the childish memories, each from a different era of Hox’s life. Initially he had assumed that
Tulev had shared those moments intentionally. It was when two intensely private moments had emerged the
John began to suspect that it had been an accident. It was as if Tulev -- the person who would someday
become Hox -- hadn’t known himself what was inside his own brain, and had mistakenly spilled more than was
needed when he shared one small bit of Hox’s knowledge.
It was an unexpected gift; one that would require careful unwrapping, slowly pulling away one layer of rustling,
delicate paper after another until all the small, precious trinkets were revealed. John had already discovered
the first such treasure. Tulev’s error had allowed him to relive the moment when Hox met his lifelong mate for
the first time, a moment that felt a great deal like the instant when he knew for certain that he loved Aeryn. It
had been a shocking, dizzying revelation that had turned his universe sideways, rearranging everything he
thought he knew about life. His memory and Hox’s merged into a single amalgam of experiences, nearly
identical in the sensations coming from their stomachs, their hearts, and the way it was difficult to think straight
whenever the focus of their affection was around.
Sad and funny, Hox when he was young and when he was old, hvisk laughter and their equivalent of tears, love
and sorrow, mundane moments and tragedy: hundreds of freeze-framed moments were there for the viewing,
inadvertently tipped into John’s mind by the inexperienced Tulev. It wasn’t all eight hundred cycles of Hox’s life;
it was a moving slide show of many of the moments that Hox treasured most. The hatching of Hox’s first child
was part of the gift, as were scattered, randomly chosen hatchings across dozens of generations. Hundreds of
his progeny walked the streets of the Kyelligg, including the most recent of Hox’s descendents to attain
adulthood: Klamik.
The resemblance he had noticed the first moment he had seen Klamik hadn’t been a coincidence after all, and
the extent of Hox’s anxiety suddenly made more sense. The old man had been both proud of his descendant’s
abilities and immensely distraught over what that genetically endowed talent was doing to their people. And
Hox had been worried that his family might lose Klamik forever. He had been distressed to the point that his
control over his own thoughts had begun to lapse, which explained why John had been able to catch the rare,
occasional thought leaking from Hox when the old man hadn’t intended it.
“You frelling secretive bastard,” John said to the person who could no longer hear him on any level.
Discovering that Hox had hidden certain facts right through to the very end helped to ease the aching loss. For
the first time in arns, logic made a small amount of headway against the unrelenting stream of guilt. Anger
helped as well. Encouraging the small remaining portion of resentment over being used by the hvisk like some
sort of convenient tool drove the emptiness back even further. That discovery led him to another revelation.
Since she had returned to Moya, Aeryn was constantly angry whenever he was around her. Or so it had
seemed.
John fingered the side of his head where Jeckle’s cockspur had dug the furrow above his ear, finding and
repeatedly tracing the evidence that there had been an injury. Although the laceration had been healed by the
hvisk, it would take longer for his hair to grow back. Until then there would be the nearly undetectable four-
dench long crease that could only be found by touch, hidden from sight by the overlying hair. Aeryn’s wounds
were like that. Her scars were invisible, coming to light only when some action on his part touched the ragged,
half-healed wound, and in doing so, caused her more pain.
For the first time since Aeryn walked down the steps of the transport pod, he saw her anger for what it was. On
the rare occasion that her emotionless shell faltered, and she snarled or lashed out at him, Aeryn was doing
her best to cauterize the wounds, using the heat of her temper to buy a short reprieve from a more lasting
discomfort.
“Round and round we go.” John’s low mumble was lost in the cavernous emptiness of the hangar. “He rips you
to shreds, so you put me through the wringer, and I lash out at you. When does it end, Aeryn?” He looked
behind him, inexplicably concerned that Aeryn might be standing there to overhear the words he would never
say to her. “Stop talking to yourself, you moron. You’re asking the wrong person for advice.”
Wandering along the edge of the force-field from one edge of the massive loading area to the other, John
concentrated on paying more attention to his surroundings than what was going on inside his head. The
hangar bay was unlike any portion of the Kyelligg he had seen so far. There were no plants here, no waterfalls
or decorative plantings; there was only bare, utilitarian gray metalloid plating, and machinery for loading and
unloading cargo. The floor was marred by the criss-crossed scars of hundreds of landings, gouges driven
deep into the reinforced, hardened surface by the weight of massive ships. He stopped and traced a portion of
one such mark with the toe of his boot, wondering at the mass that had cut a four-motra long, V-shaped groove
into the plating. Whatever had landed here must have been as large and as heavy as a fully-grown leviathan.
“That must have been one big sucker,” he whispered. The simple comment reminded him of the one being he
hadn’t thought about since regaining consciousness an arn or two earlier. “Damn. I should have checked on
Moya and Pilot.”
John glanced up. It was a mindless sort of thing, merely giving action to the belated concern over the leviathan
and her pilot. He hadn’t expected to actually see her. Moya was docked directly above his head, nestled
comfortably in against the Kyelligg. She was belly-down to him, nearly invisible unless he was standing in one
particular spot so she was silhouetted against the station, quietly gleaming gold resting against sparkling silver.
Moya was less than a third of the way up the Kyelligg from where he stood: far enough that he could see all of
her without strain, and yet close enough that he could make out every small detail of the streamlined, elegant
hull.
“You are gorgeous, Moya,” he said in her direction. A whim fluttered past, tempting him to do something
stupid. John lectured himself to be reasonable. “Don’t be a jackass. It’s almost over. Don’t frell your brain
now just because you think it would be fun one last time when no one’s life depends on it.”
The idea wouldn’t go away. He wanted to reach out and touch Moya one more time. Not to merge with her so
completely that he could hear every separate note in the overwhelming stream of her awareness, but just
enough to be a leviathan for a few more microts before he willingly lost the ability forever. The events of the
last day and a half hadn’t given him a chance to use the telepathy solely for himself. There had been moments
when he almost felt comfortable with it, and had benefited from the insights he had managed to wheedle out of
other people’s thoughts, but he hadn’t had a chance to use it entirely for himself for no other reason than
because he wanted to do something he had never been able to do before.
The temptation was too much for him.
“Grandma always said the menfolk on the Crichton side of the family were pigheaded imbeciles. I wish she
could be here to watch this so she could say ‘I told you so’.”
The risk was enormous. Hox was dead. If he screwed this up and couldn’t find his way back to his body, there
was a chance that his awareness might cast adrift in space forever. John didn’t care. He spent one last
moment debating whether he should comm D’Argo to let him know what he was about to do, and then
shouldered aside the responsible, logical portion of his conscience, and released the tight grip he had on his
mind. He looked up toward Moya and let his consciousness stream outward.
His first destination is reached without difficulty. The bulk of the leviathan’s sentience takes up the entire night
sky, drawing him in without effort on his part. He floats wraith-like through the corridors, renewing his
knowledge of her sights, sounds, and smells, reverting for a few microts into a peaceful beast that was born to
swim the galaxies. A tightly woven bundle of thoughts draws him forward. Drifting upward to the place where
two mesh into one, he finds the effortless symbiosis of ship and pilot, and pauses there to sample the quiet give
and take of information that continues arn after arn throughout the eternal night of space. They are content
now, happily conversing in languages, colors, textures, shapes, and sounds that he can barely comprehend,
secure in the restored companionship that they will share for the rest of their lives.
Recognizing a signal from a single DRD, he follows it back to its source to find a rebellious, light-hearted spirit
that is filled with fear at the idea of what lies ahead. The bright spark of life isn’t alone. There is another
accumulation of complexities nearby, a firmer personality that is concerned for everyone around it and is
involved in reassuring the other one in Command at that moment. They merge in a duet of ricocheting
reactions, their thoughts and feelings bouncing off each other without merging, just as synchronized as the ship
and pilot but in a process that feels more like a duel than a dance.
He spins away from Chiana and D’Argo, probing into the tiers, feeling the pulses of life that are Moya, following
her energy flows until he comes across the grumbling hunger that hides the fortitude born of cycles of captivity
and its requisite perseverance of spirit. Monarchy did not go amiss when it chose this strange vessel; an
indomitable spirit has found a new purpose. The intention to carry out a new commitment fills the aching loss
that comes from being deposed. There is something else there, kept deeply hidden from the eyes of those
among whom he resides: a carefully stoked and banked flame waits for the right atmosphere to blaze forth,
promising to burn out the corruption and decadence of his empire because now he knows what it means to be
trodden upon.
His consciousness leaves Dominar Rygel XVI to his latest meal, and soars on, seeking out another only to find
a sharp bitter taste of scale-hided aggression. He veers around the scarran, distaste thrusting him forward at a
speed he didn’t intend, and runs into a mind that is filled with orderly ranks and files of knowledge, packaged
inside a hastily assembled gathering of emotions and ethics. It is a wildly spinning whirlpool of tumbling
feelings, allegiances, and loves cast about without an anchor, never completely abandoned, never completely
embraced. Complexities rage, spiral upward, burst into incandescent, unexplained passions, gutter and flicker
to glowing warmth to wait the next inferno outbreak. He offers up a small mental smile to the personality that so
perfectly matches the scream that melts metal, and moves on, daring disaster, leaving the leviathan behind.
He brushes across the blossoming traces of what had once been a sentient entity called Hox. It is underlain by
a younger, wilder mind that knows what it is like to be insane, imparting new insight to the older wisdom, arn by
arn finding the inherited knowledge so that nothing might be lost. His mind lingers there for a microt, for the
last time touching the generosity that had offered him a refuge, using the moment to grieve, and then drifts
along. There is a new tune in the rippling rhythms of the aggregate, hearing and sanity restored, and he
discovers the one who is no longer known as Klamik. They rejoice at his return and welcome him back into
their flock without anger or recriminations. He is whole now. All past transgressions are forgotten.
Turning away because he can’t be that forgiving, and reaching out even farther, enveloping it all, for no other
reason than he can. Expanding, filling his senses, reaching farther, wondering if the Hvisk explore the universe
in this manner, or if he is something different, something stronger and more capable than they ever expected
when they rearranged the inner functions of his brain. He stretches out again, finding and brushing across
dozens of species, some familiar, some unknown, feeling the quiet hum of millions upon millions of minds.
Delvians, sheyang, hynerians, charrids, sebaceans, and dozens of others; war-makers, peacemakers, clothes-
makers, ship builders, farmers, and hermits; priests, thieves, lovers, killers, thrillers, and the forever
bewildered: he finds them all, touches them lightly with galaxy-sized fingertips, and soars on, seeking he knows
not what.
Could he find Earth this way? he wonders in a star-dazzled, distracted haze. If he honed this star-walking
talent with assiduous care, if he practiced, meditated daily and gained strength, could he reach far enough to
hear his own people? It would mean weekend visits home, rummaging through the borrowed sights and smells
of an entire species. His divorced personality might be able to sit in his father’s kitchen sipping coffee on a
slanting-sunlight morning when the coolness of night first gives way to morning warmth, feel the pleasant rasp
of jeans against his legs, and the toe-curling chill of not yet sun-warmed tiles underfoot.
He would never come back. If he ever found Earth, rifled his way through the galaxies until he heard the
millions of thoughts that he could define as exquisitely his own, his body would sit forever abandoned, gazing
vacantly at the pleasant, well-lit surroundings of the Kyelligg, and he would never return to occupy that deserted
vessel. He turns, willingly headed back to where he now belongs. Spiraling in, taking his time because he
knows he’ll never do this again, he swerves to one side long enough to run mental fingers through what looks
like a dust cloud and finds something far more familiar. ‘Monarch,’ he greets her and her brood, and wafts on
undetected, much in the same way that they travel the emptiness of space.
Something gone awry. A flashing impression, not knowledge, flits across his mind, and he veers away, distaste
rank and sour in his mouth. But it is familiar in its strangeness, and he turns back, seeking that imbalanced
complexity of two minds, bound together artificially through something that hums mechanically, feeding each
other’s --
“JOHN?”
John staggered and nearly fell down. He had snapped back into his body with a velocity that felt like a bursting
balloon. One moment he had encompassed an entire galaxy and the next he was inside a leather-encased
container that was a couple of denches over two motras tall. The transition was immediate, shocking, and
radical. Starting with the questionable assumption that the human brain could eventually adapt to being
telepathic, he was certain it was never intended to do what he had just done.
“Good god … Humans aren’t supposed to implode.” His body didn’t want to respond to commands at first. It
took several microts before he could turn around to see who had disturbed his mental spin around the
universe.
She moved out of the shadows of the hangar, stepping into the dim starlight. “Hey.”
“Aeryn.”
Fast judder of dismay … He never explained what I’m supposed to do if he doesn’t say ‘hey’ back. Frelling
annoying human.
The thought felt better than most of what he had been receiving from her over the past two days. It felt normal.
He greeted her a second time, giving her the answer she would know how to handle. “Hey. What’s up?”
“You had been gone for so long, I was D’Argo was starting to get worried starting to get worried.”
John fingered the small furrow along the side of his head for a moment, giving himself time to formulate an
answer. The double-layered message distracted him. The unintentional comment beckoned to him the
strongest, urging him to say something designed to comfort Aeryn, and it was the spoken message that needed
to be answered. A distant thought about him arrived in time to keep him from saying something that would let
Aeryn know he had overheard her thoughts.
“They just finished up with Klamik. They’re in the process of adjusting the equipment so it works in reverse.
After that they’ll be ready to fritz with my brain.”
Aeryn stared out at the stars. “What will happen to him?”
“Do you remember what Rygel said when we first saw the Kyelligg?”
It felt like that conversation had occurred a half cycle ago. John counted backward, trying to figure out how
many solar days had passed since the moment when they had stood on Command and watched the Kyelligg
crawl out of the shadow and into the sunlight for the first time. At first he came up with a little over a day and a
half. Then he remembered the six-arn chunk of time he had lost toward the end. It had been closer to two
solar days.
“You mean the part about how art equates to destruction?” Aeryn was saying.
“That’s the one. It turns out Slugworth, Jr. wasn’t all that far off. Before he went nutzo, Klamik was the
Kyelligg’s celebrity superstar. They,” he jerked his head to indicate the hvisk in general, “think he might be the
most important hvisk that has ever lived. They’ve welcomed him back with open arms.”
She glared at him. John reviewed what he had said, searching for whatever had set off the reaction. After a
microt he realized he had misread her expression. The spiky, bristling energy she was giving off said that
Aeryn was trying to figure out whether he was making some sort of joke and she had missed the punch line, or
if she had misunderstood his explanation completely.
“I’m serious. If this were New York, they’d be throwing him a ticker-tape parade to welcome him home. They’re
ecstatic to have him back.”
“But by doing that, they are inviting this to happen again. That is --” Aeryn searched for a word.
“Insane?”
Aeryn made an awkward sideward nod with her head. This time John didn’t need telepathy to know what she
was trying to express. The familiar gesture meant that she didn’t agree his choice of word, but didn’t see any
reason to search for another one. ‘Insane’ was close enough to whatever word she would have chosen that
she was willing to let it slide.
“No argument here! But guys like Klamik only come along once in a blue moon. All three and a half million
souls aboard this floating rest area are receive-only telepaths. Klamik is the only sender. When he isn’t sick
and insane, he can transmit and receive. There have only been three or four in their entire recorded history.”
She made the correct conclusion. “Without him, the disease can’t spread.”
John nodded. “It was how they knew they had a sender among them. The ability is so rare they don’t bother
checking for it at birth. When they discovered that people were going deaf, that’s when they realized there was
someone aboard the Kyelligg who could send thoughts … or in this case, shut them down. They tried looking
for him, and that only made things worse.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “He’ll be watched for the
rest of his life, trained to handle the ability wisely, cared for so this problem never happens again. Starting a
couple of cycles from now, there will always be someone like Hox with him who can help him control it.”
The answer had been part of the data-dump of memories he had received. It would be Tulev, in Hox’s place,
who would eventually become Klamik’s constant companion -- always there in case the rare, once-in-a-
millennium ability again turned toward silence and insanity. The great-grandfather several times removed had
been looking forward to taking on that role. Hox had been bursting with pride and eagerness at the prospect.
The dream had filled his thoughts right from the first moment when he had been told that the hvisk had located
a sebacean-like being who they believed could help them find Klamik.
Except Hox had sacrificed his life for that unique being and would never take his place at his descendant’s
side.
“What?” John had been so mired in Hox’s memories that he had been missed whatever Aeryn had just asked
him.
She repeated the question far more patiently than he had anticipated. “I thought you said they could hear each
other. Why do they need someone like Klamik?”
“Just because they can hear each other doesn’t mean they all work toward the same purpose. They’ve
got a --”
“That sounds familiar.” A shouting match conducted over Last Meal in the Center Chamber, debating what to
do about a pregnant leviathan. No two people want the same thing. Moya starbursts …
“Anarchy,” John summed it up.
“A single voice to give them some direction,” she said.
John nodded and began wandering toward the back of the hangar, toward where the transportation ‘elevator’
was located. “A single voice for when they need it. In emergencies or when there is a matter that has to be
decided quickly. He won’t be a dictator. They’ll form a council of sorts to advise him, and if everything goes
right, he’ll abide by their decisions.”
“And if it doesn’t go right?” Aeryn asked.
“In that case, it’ll go pear shaped in a rush.”
Aeryn nodded. They walked along in silence until they reached the doorway leading out of the hangar.
“Where are you going?”
“The medical facility.” John decided that attempting to explain Heckle’s transformation into Tulev-to-be-Hox
would only result in a headache for him, and one of Aeryn’s patented ‘this is ridiculous’ glares. Without
mentioning any names, he said, “I can hear one of them thinking that he’s waiting for me.
They’re ready to shut this off.”
Aeryn spun around and headed back toward the edge of the loading dock. The fast moving figure wasn’t
leaking any thoughts or emotions. There wasn’t a single clue, mental or physical, trailing off Aeryn that he
could use to figure out what was bothering her. No jerky, angry stance; no telepathically detected volcanic
firebombs sailing off at odd angles; no kicking of inanimate objects; no energetic aura: there was nothing but
the fast retreat toward the place where John had located some solitude.
John took a moment to let Tulev know that it would be a while before he showed up, and then went after her.
He caught up to her at the edge of the forcefield.
Aeryn stood silently with her back to him long after he had come to a stop behind her. The silence stretched
out, broken only by the subliminal hum of the energy shield that kept the atmosphere contained and the
occasional quiet ping of the metal walls. The bulkheads were in a constant state of flux, forever caught
between the warmth of the interior of the hangar and the chill of space, letting out quiet complaints about the
contrast.
John had given up on waiting her out and was searching for something to say when Aeryn finally spoke. It
wasn’t what he wanted to hear.
“I don’t want … ” I don’t want to talk about it …
There was no way to batter down that sort of doubly reinforced rejection. He spun around and started to leave,
convinced that he had misread the physical cues that said she wanted some time alone to talk to him.
“Wait! … John, don’t … I didn’t mean …” She sounded every bit as confused as he felt. “You have to stop
doing that. I wasn’t going to ask you to leave.”
Understanding dawned slowly. “You weren’t going to say what you were thinking,” he said. The one time he
most needed to ignore the unintended mental message, he had snapped it up like a hungry bass going after a
lure.
“No.” Aeryn wandered to one side, working her way along the edge of the loading dock the same way he had
earlier. She nudged the electronic warning barrier with the toe of her boot, setting the alarm to squealing in
small, tentative bursts. “It’s not fair when you do that.”
“I’m not real crazy about it myself, Aeryn. I never wanted this.” He considered hauling a cargo container over
and suggesting that she blow it to pieces with her pulse pistol. Maybe that would release some portion of
whatever she had penned up inside and would set her free to talk about it. “One arn and it will be gone. That’s
all it will take once I get up to the medical facility.”
Her next comment, when it came, nearly knocked him off his feet with surprise. “Maybe you should keep it.”
“Is that a joke?” He knew it wasn’t, but he needed a moment to recover from the shock. Aeryn wasn’t helpful.
She merely shook her head and then went back to her pacing, giving him no time to come up with any answer
other than a flat out refusal. “Bad idea,” he said.
“It could give us a tactical advantage against our enemies.”
“Sound Peacekeeper thinking, Aeryn. John Crichton, Early Defense Warning System. No thanks.”
“You’re ignoring the possibilities because I’m the one suggesting --”
“No, I’m ignoring an idea that is guaranteed to slowly drive me out of my gourd! Why the frell would I want this
crap inside my head for the rest of my life? Aside from cheating at cards and maybe,” he stretched the word
out over two full microts, “being able to figure out if the latest cannon-wielding mystery guest who starts
shooting at us before we can say hello is someone we’ve already managed to piss off or just the latest bad ass
in the universe who’s trying to make a name for himself, there isn’t a single reason to hang on to this curse.
Telepathy doesn’t let me hear the dead, Aeryn. I can’t bring him back for you!”
Aeryn’s anger hit him with the intensity of a physical impact. For an instant he thought she had punched him.
But she was face to face with him, nose four inches from his, hands at her sides, and there was no residual,
post-punch sting anywhere on his face or body.
“You frelling bastard!” she said. The quiet, furious half-whisper was far worse than having her yell at him. “You
miserable, frelling bastard. That’s not why I want you to keep the telepathy. But you’re so smart, John
Crichton, you can see what I want. So read my mind now. Look in there and figure out for yourself why I
wanted you to keep it. Better yet, just have them shut if off and then you never have to listen to anyone ever
again!” She ended on the shout he had initially expected, shouldered him aside with all the finesse of an NFL
linebacker, and headed for the door.
He was supposed to say “I’m sorry” at this point. It was his fault, it had been a stupid, mindless thing to say,
and he hadn’t meant it. So he was supposed to apologize. “I can’t read you,” he said instead. “When I try, I
can’t. When I try not to, you blow my socks right off. I never know what I should and shouldn’t say, and when I
think I hear what you’re thinking, that’s when I’m the farthest from the truth.”
The confession brought her to a stop. Aeryn stayed where she was, halfway across the hangar, but at least
she wasn’t running away from him. After several microts, she said, “It doesn’t sound very reliable.”
“It isn’t. I don’t control this, Aeryn; it controls me. The equipment panel they gave me has one big red On-Off
switch in the middle of it, and that’s about it. There’s no sighting mechanism on this sucker.” He waited until
her shoulders relaxed and her right hand released the butt of her pulse pistol, signaling that she was starting to
calm down. It took nearly a hundred microts. “I’m listening. Talk to me.”
“I want you to have an advantage when you go up against Scorpius.”
Fear for him. Fear for herself. She can’t bear losing him again. She can’t reconstitute Aeryn Sun a second
time. If he dies, the love will kill her.
It was another of the Scud missiles that could penetrate his defenses as though they were made of crepe
paper. He managed to stay on his feet this time, but when his vision cleared, Aeryn had him by the elbow and
was holding him steady. “What was that? What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing. Just an incoming Scud missile.” He pulled free of her grasp on his arm. The Patriot batteries were
having enough trouble without adding physical contact to make things worse. “Aeryn, nothing we do ever works
out the way we plan it. You think the ability to read Scorpy’s mind could be used as a weapon or to get to his
secrets. Putting aside the debate over whether I’d ever want to go inside his head in the first place, the way I
see it, he’d somehow figure out that I’m telepathic and turn it against us instead.”
“I don’t want you to get killed, John.”
He stepped close and dared to touch her. It wasn’t much; he simply brushed the backs of his fingers across the
smoothed-back hair at the side of her head, lingering for a moment to enjoy the radiating warmth of her body
against his, and then released her by stepping away. “I know you don’t. But asking me to do this isn’t the way
to prevent that. I can’t concentrate with this inside my head, Aeryn. Little stuff makes it through when I least
expect it, big jolts nearly knock me out, and it shortens my attention span into negative numbers.”
That convinced her. He could feel the change in her attitude. “Someone will notice.”
“They’re certain to. And then they report back to Herr Braca, who goose-steps right on over to Mr.
Megalomaniac himself, and the next thing we know, we get to find out what happens if you mix the Aurora Chair
with telepathy, and all of us can kiss our asses goodbye. Our plan to stop the Peacekeepers from using
wormholes as a weapon is over. Finito. Kaput.”
“I get the point,” she interrupted.
“Then you agree.”
“Not entirely, but I agree that you need to let the hvisk return you to normal.”
“As normal as I ever get,” he said, trying for a small joke. It earned him an almost-grin, and an infinitesimal
easing of her anxiety.
He knew that this was another interlude in Aeryn’s recovery, one that was passing even as he recognized it for
what it was. They turned together, if not in comfortable companionship, at least in physical partnership, and
headed for the door. He could feel her withdrawing before they had taken ten steps, pushing the few stray
emotions back into their lockbox, closing him out faster than he could ever hope to break his way into her
heart. Getting rid of the telepathy was going to be a blessing if it meant he didn’t have to feel her pulling away
every time he thought they had made a little progress.
Aeryn asked, “What about the information we came here to buy? Wouldn’t it be easier to ask them about that
before they reverse the process?”
He had forgotten all about their reason for coming aboard the Kyelligg in the first place. “It doesn’t matter
anymore. Crais and Talyn are on their way back. They’ve found Scorpius, and they’ve set up a time and place
for a meeting with D’Argo and Rygel.”
She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye several times before answering. “Where are they now?”
“You mean Talyn?” When he received a nod, he said, “They’ll be here in a few arns. Five or six.”
“You can reach that far out?”
“Yeah, but I can’t always come back. Remember that part?”
Crichton upon Crichton. One in Crais’ quarters aboard Talyn, the other sitting slumped in Moya’s hallway.
Unseeing eyes, blind gaze, forever empty. Never to return to her.
“Another scrub missile?” Aeryn said in his ear. She had her hand under his arm and was helping him up. He
was on his knees again.
John brushed her away and stayed where he was, waiting for the odd spinning inside his head to come to an
end. “Gotta get me some knee pads or I’ll be crippled by dinner time. And it’s Scud, not scrub.”
“I did that to you, didn’t I?” He’s been hiding this from me … to protect me. He loves me so much.
He nodded and clambered to his feet. “Don’t sweat it. You’ve always been able to knock me off my feet with a
single look, babe. I was head over heels for you from the first moment.”
Only because I threw him from one side of the cell to the other … Cholak, save me. “What now?” she asked.
“You go back to Moya. Send D’Argo to come get me in case I have trouble finding my way home. Same place
as before,” John said.
“I’ll have him meet us there.”
“Aeryn, you --”
She shut him down with the tone of voice that said she wasn’t going to tolerate any argument over the issue.
“No. I’m coming with you. I’ll comm D’Argo.”
They reached the flying elevator. When John tried to open the door, Aeryn stopped him. “I don’t know any
other way to do this, John. There are things that I have to do, and things that I can’t do, and they probably
don’t make any sense to you. It’s the best I can offer.”
Taking his time, enjoying her proximity even if it was for all the wrong reasons, he examined every visible bit of
Aeryn Sun from top to bottom, wallowing in all the familiar sights, mapping and measuring them to be sure that
he had them all firmly committed to memory. He returned to the grayish-blue eyes and stared into the
impassive depths, hoping to find a small glimmer of what once had been waiting for him there. It was missing,
expended on another man. He had to hope that given enough time, it would return. In the meantime, giving in
to his anger and frustration served no useful purpose. In the words of the man who had stolen what he
treasured most, he had to give her time.
“I’ll take it,” John said. “Whatever you can manage, I’ll take it.”
“I don’t hate you.”
“I know you don’t, Aeryn. But you need to know that I love you, and that’s not going to change. Ever. I am
never going to stop loving you.”
He didn’t expect to hear the words he longed for her to say, and he didn’t get them. Aeryn merely nodded, and
let him open the door to the elevator. One by one they sidled through the narrow door, and took the wild,
exhilarating ride back to the place where the past two days worth of chaos had begun.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
