Stark froze, fingers poised above a terminal on Talyn's command deck. He had thought he would succeed in getting Talyn to the planet while they were sleeping, but they had caught him just as they arrived. He turned around slowly, all color draining from his face.
To say the least, things were tense upon Talyn. Normally, his companions merely yelled at Stark. At the moment, however, three guns had him in their sights, and, having only one eye, he didn't know if there were any others that he couldn't see.
"Do not worry, John Crichton, I can explain everything!" He nodded quickly, hands clasped nervously in front of him. "Everything will be revealed in due time! You must allow me to continue!"
"Stark," Crichton said once more in the same deadly calm tone of voice that usually meant he was about to start shooting wildly at anything that so much as twitched, "you had better be able to explain this now ." Aeryn was merely glaring at Stark, but looked as if she would be quite happy to trim the walls with his brain. Come to think of it, she usually looked like that.
"John Crichton," Stark began, then glanced at Winona and swallowed hard. "I have brought you here to--to--" He was starting to twitch, and that made him lose his concentration.
"To what, Stark? You changed Talyn's course to bring us to a dead planet?" Below them, a planet clouded in a thin, filmy grey atmosphere rotated slowly on its axis. "What the hell could be here?"
"Help," Stark whispered. "Someone to help us find Moya. Someone who can stop Scorpius." Crais snorted derisively somewhere to his left, and the Banik glanced around nervously.
"I am in earnest, John Crichton!" he said. "There is a being on this planet in possession of powers I can hardly comprehend! She will be able to help us!"
Crichton froze. It would be all too easy to write off Stark's
words as nonsense, but the strange glow that suffused Stark's being made
him think otherwise. He glanced at Aeryn, whose stony expression did not
change. She remained gazing straight at Stark, whose own gaze was flitting
between Aeryn, Crais, and
Crichton nervously.
"Are you sure, Stark?" he said softly. He had wasted too much time on false dreams to hope for much now.
"I am sure, John Crichton! I will call her, and she will answer!"
"Call her?" snorted Crais. "You're a fool, Stark, and I am personally going to make sure you never touch Talyn again, even if I have to blast your hands off myself!"
Stark whimpered, clutching his hands to his chest, and mumbled something under his breath. Crais was striding forward menacingly, and before Crichton or Aeryn could stop his deadly path towards the Banik, a growl shook the ship.
"I HEAR!" hissed a voice from somewhere behind them, and Crichton whipped around to see the air fold inward upon itself in a vague twist of light. The oxygen was sucked out of his lungs as a percussive booming began in the bowels of the ship, and everything faded towards black. When his vision cleared, he saw Stark hurtling towards a shape that was forming out of the air, crying for joy.
"You're here!" The Banik fell on his knees, clutching at the folds of a robe that spilled loosely over the floor. "You came!"
"I came, Stykera. What have you awakened me for?" The voice was
a woman's, low and clear, and very, very dangerous.
"I beg for help from your mistress, lady," Stark whispered in
a voice that was nothing short of reverential. He was about to speak once
more when a click
sounded behind him, and Crais fired.
The blast flew at the hooded figure, who merely reached out and caught it in a gloved hand. The pulse faded and went out, and the figure returned the hand to her side.
"Idiot," she said calmly, and laughed mirthlessly. "You have gathered stupid friends in your absence from us, Stykera. I hope for your sake you have not learned to share their habits."
Crichton was about to point out a few examples of how Stark's habits had placed them in danger many more times than theirs had endangered him, but the figure threw her hood back and he had to swallow hard.
She was tall, tall enough to be a rival for D'Argo's stature, had he been there, and even the Luxan would have been intimidated by this woman. She was pale as a star, her skin coldly flawless, her hair covered by a helmet that cut so closely to her head that it could have been her skull. A wide, thin-lipped mouth crooked upwards in a small smile as her eyes settled on each of them in turn.
"Two Sebaceans, one Banik, and another whose smell I cannot place." Thin eyebrows arched over eyes of a merciless, unsettling blue. "This fourth member must be John Crichton, the one with the wormhole information locked in his brain." She smiled again, and Crichton went cold.
"My mistress will be most eager to meet you, John Crichton."
The woman reached out a hand that snaked through the air towards Crichton's arm. She moved obscenely fast, and before he could react the cold material of her glove was pressed against his elbow.
"Come with me," said the woman, and pulled him towards her. Talyn's
familiar surroundings evaporated and sped away in a stomach-wrenching rush,
and John Crichton was gone.