Part 4

Mom was sitting up when we got there, which was a good thing. But her knees were drawn up and her hands were locked in tight little fists pressed into her thigh. She was trying to hide the shakes, but I knew what to look for. When she saw me, she tried smiling. She didn't quite pull it off.

"D'Argo. You're all right?"

"Yes ma'am."

"The ship? The cargo?"

"Frelled."

"But salvageable?"

"Think so. I'm glad you're okay, Mom."

"And I'm glad you are here," she said. "Perhaps you can explain to this charming diagnosan…"

"Doctor," the bald man corrected.

"Very well. Perhaps you can explain to this charming DOCTOR that there is no need to keep me here any longer, because I am perfectly fine."

Oh boy, had I heard this one before. Even the diagnosan---doctor, I mean---could see that she was feeling like dren, and he didn't even know her the way I did. She looked, as Dad would say, a little peaked, and she is not nearly as good at hiding it as she thinks she is. Still, I knew my job here.

"Does she really need to stay?" I asked the doctor.

"As I have already explained to her, it's just for observation," the doctor said. "I've never treated her species before, and I want to monitor her recovery until I'm sure she's out of danger."

"But I can't stay here," Mom complained. "I have to get our comm system fixed, or we'll never…"

"But that lady who saved us is already working on it," I said.

"You let a STRANGER work on our ship? D'Argo!"

"What? You were sick, and I was the co-pilot, and I wasn't sure how long you'd be, so I had to do something, didn't I?"

Her fist was twitching a little. "Yes," she said after a moment. "I suppose you did. But I'm fine now, D." She straightened some, trying not to look nauseous. "I'm perfectly fine. Completely fine. I don't need to stay here."

"Oh, for heaven's sake," the doctor snapped. "It's for your protection!"

"Protection? PROTECTION? I am Aeryn Sun! I don't need ANYONE to protect me!"

It was clear I would have to step in here. "Well," I said. "You don't need to worry anyway, Mom. I have a plan!"

"You have a plan? YOU have a PLAN? What sort of plan could you possibly have?"

"We stay here, they try and fix our comms, then we wait for Dad to come save us."

"So we just…we just sit here, that's your plan? We sit here, and…wait?"

"Well, I'm good and all, but I've only passed sims at level two, and I know how women are with heat delirium, so…"

"Women? WOMEN? D'Argo Sun-Crichton, you know perfectly well that Sebacean heat delirium has NOTHING to do with that!"

I shrugged. "I don't know that many Sebacean women."

She considered this for a moment, the flush creeping back into her cheeks and her fists tightening a little. She looked like she was about to collapse again.

"Well, fine," she said with a defiant pout. "I'll sit here and let you do your little plan, D'Argo, and do you know why? Because NOTHING excites your father more than getting to play the big hero. And there is nothing like a post-rescue FRELL for making LITTLE SISTERS!"

With that, she slumped back down onto the bed, face red and breath struggling. "I'm fine," she managed as the doctor picked up his scanner again. "I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine…"

Naomi looked at me. "Dude. Your mom…"

I sighed. "Yeah. I get that a lot."

It took nearly half an arn to get Mom settled again. Naomi's mom had to go back to work, so Naomi decided to hang with us in the sickbay place.

"I'll be the doctor's assistant for today," she said. "We don't have a school on Voyager 'cause I'm the only kid, so I get to do projects and go be people's assistant."

"We don't have a school on Moya either," I said. "But I get lessons. And every summer we go on holiday and I go to camp. Dad thinks it's important for me to be around other kids, even if they are just Sebaceans."

"But what's wrong with Sebaceans?" Naomi asked. "Isn't that what you are?"

"Well, I'm half. But Mom isn't just Sebacean, she's PK…well, she was…and that's different. I remember they had a huge fight about it, when they first had the idea for me to have camp, cause Dad has a thing about PK's, and Mom told him it isn't that simple and for better or worse it's part of her, and she wants me to know my stuff."

"Was she right?"

"Well, it's a funny thing, cause there aren't many PK halfs, and people didn't like that about me. But they were all like 'oh, he's Aeryn's son, and she's hard-core' and everyone left me alone cause of that, and then I did stuff and they knew my thing and then they were all like 'oh, he's D'Argo, he's cool' and they left me alone cause of that."

From the bed, Mom made a small noise. I touched her cheek and found it cool again.

"One sec, I'd better get her something," I told Naomi. My water bottle was still on the table where I'd left it. I opened it and helped Mom drink.

"Feeling better?"

"Sweet boy."

"Honestly. Are you?"

"Not much better," she admitted. "It'll be a few arns yet. D'Argo, it's…it's hard for me, letting you see me this way. I…I don't do this well."

I knew it. Dad had explained it to me, the first time I'd seen this kind of thing, how Mom had come a long way and all that, but when she felt vulnerable, her first instinct would be to fight, and her second would be to hide and tough it out alone. He said you had to be real careful with her when it got to the point and make sure she was okay.

"Do you want to sleep for awhile?" I asked her.

"Can't. Too hot. Frelling head."

"D'you want a blocker? Can we…"

"Had two. Didn't help."

"What can we do?"

"Distract me," she said. "Anything."

I looked at Naomi. "Ideas?"

Naomi gave Mom a cheerful wave. "Hi. I'm Naomi."

"Hello."

"I'm sorry that you aren't feeling well."

"I'm perfectly fine."

"Uh huh. Well, sometimes, when I'm…like that…Neelix tells me a story. Do you want to hear a story?"

"Yes," I said.

We looked at Mom. She slowly nodded.

"Great! Okay, true story or made up one?"

"True," Mom said.

"Do you know any stories about Earth?" I asked her. "I've never met anyone besides Dad who knows about that."

"Earth. Um, okay…well, this is the story of first contact, I've been doing it for a project. So, you know about the space program, right?"

"What, like IASA?"

"No, that was ages ago, and that didn't work. They only managed short-range flights, and of course there was the famous Farscape disaster…"

Mom looked sick again. "The…what?"

"Farscape Disaster. An experimental ship got launched and accidentally made a wormhole. They lost the ship, and…"

"It came back," Mom said. "The…the pilot, he brought it back, didn't he?"

"Well, yeah, one time. But then he told them he had been stranded and tortured and experimented on and stuff. Nobody liked that that. So they shut down the program and folded IASA into SETI, which was this thing they were doing to try and find life on other planets. And the Vulcans, they heard the transmissions from SETI and started watching Earth."

"Why didn't they just come over?" I asked.

"The Prime Directive. You aren't supposed to interfere with the development of less advanced cultures. Until we achieved warp-speed spaceflight, they wouldn't consider us advanced enough."

"And I am guessing you did eventually achieve it?" Mom said.

"There was a man called Zefrem Cochrane. He was working on an experimental engine called the warp drive. Nobody believed in him. But he did it anyway. He built a warp drive and he launched it and it flew. And then the Vulcans came and made first contact with Earth, and that led to the founding of the United Federation of Planets, and that led to Voyager being here, like this."

Mom wasn't flush anymore, but she was pale, too pale, and her breathing was very careful. She was working much too hard at keeping herself together here.

"Did you like the story?" Naomi asked.

"Hmmm."

"Should we have the doctor check on you?" I asked.

"Hmmm. Hate doctors. Hate diagnosans. Hate needing them."

"I know."

"Hate frelling Scarrans. Wish your father was here."

"I'll get the doctor," Naomi said. She reached for her comm, but the doctor was already on his way over.

"Doctor!" Naomi said. "I was just coming to…"

"I set up an alert on her bioscan," he explained as he picked up his scanner thing. "I don't understand. Her thermal readings should be going down, not up."

"She should sleep," I said.

"I agree. I'll give her something that might help her." He picked up a probe thing and jammed it into her neck. She struggled for a second, then was out.

Naomi turned to me. "What's a Scarran?"

"It's a lizard alien thing that shoots heat rays out of its hands. They took Mom once and did stuff, bad stuff. Things like this, they make her remember, I guess."

The doctor adjusted his monitors. "She'll be out for awhile," he told us. "You can go if you want to."

"Go where?" I asked.

Naomi broke into a huge grin. "You ever see a holodeck before?"