Disclaimer: I don't own Talyn or John, or make any money out of this story.
Author's Notes: Written for SA as part of the Farscape Ficathon. Thanks to Sabine for the beta.
Continuity: Set some time after Green-Eyed Monster.
Reconnaissance
By Andraste
Born into space, you have never seen the thing your pilot calls 'night' or known a sky that was not black and full of stars. Yet Bialar has explained to you that bipedal organic beings require something called 'sleep' and that they do this best in darkness. You cycle your lights on and off at intervals, for their benefit.
They do not always seem to appreciate it. It will be another arn yet before they come on again, but already the beings inside you are stirring restlessly. The Banik is rocking, murmuring to himself, or perhaps to you. The Hynerian is counting his possessions carefully, as he does at the opening and closing of each day, even though the equation always comes out the same. Bialar is lying on his bed, but his eyes are open. Aeryn, alone, is sleeping, her dreams closed to you both.
None of your thousands of eyes can see anything interesting; this area of space is dull and your sensors navigate it with no effort. Your systems work as well as they ever do, as you move with your dozens of tiny limbs to keep them functional while they expand within you.
The only potential object of interest is the human.
Crichton stands under the water in one of your showers, undertaking the strange morning ritual that is also performed by Bialar and Aeryn. One of the most puzzling things about your passengers is the way they continually lose pieces of themselves; shedding, secreting, producing liquids and cast-off cells that have to be sloughed away and disposed of.
You know yourself to be a more efficient system; once you have taken something into yourself you rarely let it go. The water spilling across the human's body will soon spin through the recycling system and end up in his mouth.
Unless ...
Every day, Crichton washes away dead skin and sweat, but unlike the others he makes noises while doing so. (Aeryn does too, you remind yourself, but only when she is with him. It is something that has passed between them.) Your translation banks have enough of the human's language stored to register when he is making words instead of just sound, but the words seldom make any sense. Not that anything about the human makes sense.
Aeryn said that she needed him, but you cannot understand what for. When she is with him your scans register indicators of pleasure and happiness, but her unity with him is so much shallower than her unity with you. The emotion she let you feel through the link made you understand that she wants him, but not why.
Bialar says that you must not hurt him, that you need him later to stop the Peacekeepers from pursuing you. Give them Crichton, he says, and we will be left alone.
You are not sure that you want to be left alone. So far you have survived by running, but you buzz with joy when you think of fighting them all. The Peacekeeper ships are cold, lifeless things, not beings like yourself and Mother. It is hard to even look at them without thinking that it would be better if the dead things were no longer allowed to fly.
You know that it would be much easier than that to kill Crichton. You would not even need to use weapons.
At first, you attempted to drive him away, but now you understand that you cannot do that without losing Aeryn as well, and you will never allow her to go from you for long. You no longer bother to turn the water cold, and now you watch as he bares his teeth under the stream in an expression of comfort. You have not taken his posessions again, or left him more files to view. If he was capable of understanding you, you would tell him to go away, but your voice is only noise to him.
You have considered how you would get rid of him. Leave him behind, as you attempted to do before. Poison him with the gasses you hold. Send a charge of electricity through his body. Throw him into space.
Experimentally, you begin to raise the temperature of the water. At first Crichton does not seem to notice, but then he touches the controls and tries to reverse what you have done. You ignore the signal, but do not make it any warmer. It is not hot enough to burn his fragile coating, but his skin is turning red.
You can read his face well enough to know that he is displeased, and he reaches over to turn the water off. You ignore that, too, and with a sigh he steps out from under it.
"OK," he says, "you win."
Once he is out, you shut of the water and observe as he rubs himself over with a piece of cloth to absorb the moisture, then wraps it about his waist. You do not understand why he covers himself; the room should be warm even for the human, and there is no-one here to see him except you.
He moves over to one of your ports, looking at the stars with his two pathetic sensors – how your passengers manage with just two, you do not know – and is silent for some time. You could tell him that there is nothing very interesting out there.
You send a DRD to clean up the water on the floor of the shower, to scrub away the mess he has made, and Crichton comes to crouch down beside it.
"Are you trying to tell me something, Talyn?" he says. "Is that it?"
You order the DRD to remain quiet, to continue its work, and the human gets to his feet. If he cannot see that you are telling him he is not welcome here, you cannot make it clearer. He forgets that he stands within you, and you will not be a home for him.
You have already told him everything, but he does not understand.
The End
Author's Notes: Written for SA as part of the Farscape Ficathon. Thanks to Sabine for the beta.
Continuity: Set some time after Green-Eyed Monster.
Reconnaissance
By Andraste
Born into space, you have never seen the thing your pilot calls 'night' or known a sky that was not black and full of stars. Yet Bialar has explained to you that bipedal organic beings require something called 'sleep' and that they do this best in darkness. You cycle your lights on and off at intervals, for their benefit.
They do not always seem to appreciate it. It will be another arn yet before they come on again, but already the beings inside you are stirring restlessly. The Banik is rocking, murmuring to himself, or perhaps to you. The Hynerian is counting his possessions carefully, as he does at the opening and closing of each day, even though the equation always comes out the same. Bialar is lying on his bed, but his eyes are open. Aeryn, alone, is sleeping, her dreams closed to you both.
None of your thousands of eyes can see anything interesting; this area of space is dull and your sensors navigate it with no effort. Your systems work as well as they ever do, as you move with your dozens of tiny limbs to keep them functional while they expand within you.
The only potential object of interest is the human.
Crichton stands under the water in one of your showers, undertaking the strange morning ritual that is also performed by Bialar and Aeryn. One of the most puzzling things about your passengers is the way they continually lose pieces of themselves; shedding, secreting, producing liquids and cast-off cells that have to be sloughed away and disposed of.
You know yourself to be a more efficient system; once you have taken something into yourself you rarely let it go. The water spilling across the human's body will soon spin through the recycling system and end up in his mouth.
Unless ...
Every day, Crichton washes away dead skin and sweat, but unlike the others he makes noises while doing so. (Aeryn does too, you remind yourself, but only when she is with him. It is something that has passed between them.) Your translation banks have enough of the human's language stored to register when he is making words instead of just sound, but the words seldom make any sense. Not that anything about the human makes sense.
Aeryn said that she needed him, but you cannot understand what for. When she is with him your scans register indicators of pleasure and happiness, but her unity with him is so much shallower than her unity with you. The emotion she let you feel through the link made you understand that she wants him, but not why.
Bialar says that you must not hurt him, that you need him later to stop the Peacekeepers from pursuing you. Give them Crichton, he says, and we will be left alone.
You are not sure that you want to be left alone. So far you have survived by running, but you buzz with joy when you think of fighting them all. The Peacekeeper ships are cold, lifeless things, not beings like yourself and Mother. It is hard to even look at them without thinking that it would be better if the dead things were no longer allowed to fly.
You know that it would be much easier than that to kill Crichton. You would not even need to use weapons.
At first, you attempted to drive him away, but now you understand that you cannot do that without losing Aeryn as well, and you will never allow her to go from you for long. You no longer bother to turn the water cold, and now you watch as he bares his teeth under the stream in an expression of comfort. You have not taken his posessions again, or left him more files to view. If he was capable of understanding you, you would tell him to go away, but your voice is only noise to him.
You have considered how you would get rid of him. Leave him behind, as you attempted to do before. Poison him with the gasses you hold. Send a charge of electricity through his body. Throw him into space.
Experimentally, you begin to raise the temperature of the water. At first Crichton does not seem to notice, but then he touches the controls and tries to reverse what you have done. You ignore the signal, but do not make it any warmer. It is not hot enough to burn his fragile coating, but his skin is turning red.
You can read his face well enough to know that he is displeased, and he reaches over to turn the water off. You ignore that, too, and with a sigh he steps out from under it.
"OK," he says, "you win."
Once he is out, you shut of the water and observe as he rubs himself over with a piece of cloth to absorb the moisture, then wraps it about his waist. You do not understand why he covers himself; the room should be warm even for the human, and there is no-one here to see him except you.
He moves over to one of your ports, looking at the stars with his two pathetic sensors – how your passengers manage with just two, you do not know – and is silent for some time. You could tell him that there is nothing very interesting out there.
You send a DRD to clean up the water on the floor of the shower, to scrub away the mess he has made, and Crichton comes to crouch down beside it.
"Are you trying to tell me something, Talyn?" he says. "Is that it?"
You order the DRD to remain quiet, to continue its work, and the human gets to his feet. If he cannot see that you are telling him he is not welcome here, you cannot make it clearer. He forgets that he stands within you, and you will not be a home for him.
You have already told him everything, but he does not understand.
The End