Disclaimer: Farscape is not mine. This is not for profit.
Note: This is actually a backstory for Singularity, but it stands on its own. Set pre-show.
"You don't mind if I sleep here, do you?" The short-haired brunette hovers on the edge of the bed as if ready to pull on her uniform and leave, having done her duty, but her eyes plead with him to let her stay.
Lieutenant Bialar Crais grabs her upper arm and pulls her toward him. "I insist you do. It will make you easier to find in the morning, when I need you again."
His new recreation partner giggles and settles back into bed with a contented sigh.
He remains propped up on one elbow, staring at the vague shape of her body in the dim light. A nagging lack of information is worrying at his brain, preventing him from relaxing like the young woman beside him. The longer he waits, the harder it will be to ask.
He decides to blurt it out and be done. "I have forgotten your name."
"Don' worry about it." She yawns and rolls away from him.
"Then when I want to find you again, I will just have to ask for the technician who is willing to--"
"Larell!" She sits up and punches him playfully on the shoulder. "Darinta Larell. And I don't do that for everyone."
"And I warrant such an honor because-- what?-- I was in the command carrier's social lounge?"
"Because you were in the command carrier's social lounge on sixthday at tenth arn." After a pause, she groans and says, "Because I like you, frellnik!"
This time, when she tries to hit him, he catches her wrist. "Darinta Larell. I won't forget again."
"You won't find me again. Not for a half-cycle. I-- I'm sorry. I didn't think it mattered, or I would have told you..."
"That is disappointing." On impulse, he adds, "I could dispute your reassignment. There are always technical positions on the carrier--"
"You wouldn't!" She snatches her hand away from him and shakes her head. "I only wanted company for the sleep cycle. I didn't think you'd try to keep me as a pet."
"So this reassignment is something you requested. I will not interfere." He leans back on the pillow, now too irritated to sleep. "I only thought it would be convenient to have access to you. One technical position is much the same as another, so why the insistence on leaving?"
"It's not just another position! It's a Leviathan!" She says the word "Leviathan" with a note of reverence, as if she were some ignorant primitive mouthing the name of a deity. "I'm going to learn all about them-- how to control them, how to care for them, even how to breed them."
"I see." He makes a mental note to select his next recreation partner more carefully. This one, however talented, is clearly fahrbot.
"I don't see how anyone can not be interested in Leviathans!" Though he can't make out her face in the near-darkness, her tone tells him she is probably rolling her eyes.
"And I cannot understand how any sane person would willingly board a transport that is entirely unarmed! It's ludicrous. And, yes, I understand High Command's rationale about the advantage of speed. The risk is still too high."
"They weren't always unarmed, you know." All traces of sleep have gone from her voice. Darinta leans over him, her face close to his, as if she is imparting a secret of momentous importance.
He looks at her with a mixture of pity and irritation; the woman is not only fahrbot, but delusional as well. He wonders if he should bother reporting her for evaluation and decides to hear more of her story before deciding. "No, I don't know."
"And the race we now call 'Pilots'? They weren't the original Leviathan symbionts."
"Fascinating," he murmurs, referring more to his own lack of judgment when choosing women than to her story. "And you know this because..."
"I heard it from Velorek."
"Then it must be true."
"You're making fun of me. Stop it!" She hits him in the stomach with enough force to make him wonder whether or not she is truly upset.
He clamps his hands around her wrists, wondering if she will turn out to be violent as well as fahrbot and delusional. He could—and should-- simply send her back to her own quarters, but he finds himself perversely drawn into her story. "This Velorek, he talks to Leviathans?"
"Or course not!" She jerks both of her arms, probably hoping to free them so she can hit him again. "He is the leading expert on them, though. Not only does he understand the mechanics of the Pilot/Leviathan bonding process, he's collected volumes of sociocultural data gathered from his conversations with Pilots. He doesn't publish, but only because the Peacekeepers have classified all of his work."
"Understandably. It would be disastrous if the Scarrans or the Nebari were to obtain sociocultural data regarding Leviathans."
She shrugs. "You know how paranoid High Command can be."
He also knows that a perfect delusion always revolves around a non-negatable hypothesis, but instead of saying something to that effect, he says, "Tell me more about the armed Leviathans and their original symbionts."
"There's not much to tell, really. It's a story handed down from Leviathan to Leviathan, so many generations old we don't have any idea when it originated. The Leviathan's original symbionts were supposedly more like us; the Leviathans only call them two-legs-two-arms, so they could have been Scarrans or Kalish, or well, any number of races, if they even still exist today."
"Interesting." This time, his sentiment is sincere. Despite the inherent military folly of using unarmed craft, the thought of piloting something capable of starburst speeds has a visceral appeal.
"Yes," Darinta agrees. "Sadly, they were warlike. Not like the Peacekeepers, of course. We only fight when we're paid to, or to protect our own interests. These beings, they sought conquest for the sake of conquest, and they exploited the Leviathan's natural weaponry in order to conquer other races."
Bialar snorts. "That's more fantastic than one of my father's bedtime stories!"
"So you don't believe it?"
"How could any rational person believe it! A race with an army of armed Leviathans would be unbeatable, nearly god-like!" He smiles in spite of himself, remembering boyhood fantasies in which men rode fantastic beasts and fought battles with magical weapons.
"And that's why it took gods to subdue them! The Builders-- those are the Leviathan gods-- they grew disappointed in their children. They called the Leviathans home, one by one, and they removed the symbiont beings. They altered the Leviathans as well, taking away their natural weaponry and leaving them helpless. Supposedly, the Leviathans prayed for forgiveness, and after hundreds of cycles, the gods relented."
"But Leviathans still have no defenses," Bialar reminds her.
"That's not what they prayed for. It wasn't the loss of their weapons that hurt them the most, it was the loss of their guides. The builders answered their prayers by making them compatible with the Pilot race."
He lets go of Darinta's wrists and strokes her hair absently, musing on her story. After a few macrots of silence, he says, "It's the same story of sin and redemption we see in all rudimentary cultures. I just never thought of biomechanoid transports as having any sort of culture at all."
"Mmm. That's not even the most interesting part of the story."
"Then what is?" He prods her gently in the ribs.
"Well, the builders suppressed the Leviathans' ability to use their natural defenses, and they did it at a genetic level, but supposedly, the ability is still there. According to Leviathan mythology, when they have paid the full price for their past transgressions, one will be born with the ability restored. They refer to that Leviathan as the Atavist."
"And-- let me guess-- it will lead all the other Leviathans to glorious victories?" Bialar chuckles. "I should have expected as much. That's always the way the story goes."
"Not exactly, not in this case. The Atavist's offspring will all have their natural abilities unlocked, including the ability to bond with one of the original symbionts. The Atavist will lead a fleet of others like him, and bring on a new age of peace."
"With his two-leg-two-arm pilot at the helm." Bialar puts an arm around Darinta and squeezes her. "You have been even more entertaining than you look. Tell me, do you believe in the Atavist's return?"
She elbows him hard enough to make him wince. "You really do think I'm fahrbot, don't you? Of course not, not any more than I believe in the Blue Planet and the Eidelons. It's just a story. At least, the parts of it about gods and punishments. Whether the Leviathans have some sort of latent ability, that's a valid scientific question."
"Irrelevant." He makes a gesture with one hand as if brushing the idea away.
She laughs. "Irrelevant? Weren't you just complaining that Leviathans are unarmed transports? If they weren't always, and if it's possible for them to evolve--"
"I don't care what they used to be. All that matters is whether or not they can be something more. If their characteristics are at all malleable..." He smiles and then shakes his head as if to clear out the far-fetched fantasies. "Now you have me getting fahrbot ideas."
"You could come with me tomorrow. I don't mean for the half-cycle voyage, I just mean you could visit the Leviathan and meet Velorek."
"Meet him?" Bialar chuckles. "So your conveniently unpublished scholar really exists?" He clamps her arms to her sides to avoid being hit.
"It's not convenient for him to be isolated from the scientific community-- Oh. You're making fun of me again." She rams a knee into his thigh. "Suit yourself. I thought perhaps you were interested."
"I am. In fact, I order you to arrange a meeting."
"Understood. I told you Leviathans were interesting." He doesn't need to see the smug grin on her face to know it's there.
"Potentially interesting." He releases her from his grip, folds his hands behind his head, and stares at the blank ceiling, seeing an endless vista of stars and planets in his mind's eye. For cycles now, he has striven for the power that comes through the tedious process of accumulating rank. Not since he was a boy has he dreamed of the sort of power that can be seized at once, the kind found in tales of heroes and prophecies.
Forgetting the woman beside him, he closes his eyes and dreams of a living weapon whose soul is melded with his own.