Part 13

Fargo didn't move a muscle as Dylan stepped into his cell, giving no sign he'd even registered his arrival. Whether this was designed to throw the Captain off balance or not, he didn't know – but then again, he didn't really care either. He wasn't about to let it.

Though they'd found the correct sequence to get the ship's port open, it hadn't provided the instant cornucopia of answers he'd been hoping for. The inside of the vessel was all smooth curving bulkheads and utilitarian grey flooring, the walls inset with flat matt-surfaced screens that repelled all immediate attempts to bring them to life.

The compact cockpit, its banked control panels equally dark and lifeless, somehow still contrived to look spacious, but the living quarters to the rear would probably have tested a monk's tolerance for austerity. There were no personal items anywhere; no clothing, no carelessly abandoned datapads, no handy hyposprays of antidote – nothing to help explain the man and his true intentions. Or to offer hope for Rhade.

Of course, Harper had sworn on the bones of his sainted (though apparently, according to Beka, cremated) mother that he'd be up close and personal with the core systems in less time than it took Perosian mayflies to mate. But after half an hour, during which Dylan's increasingly impatient questions and seeming inability to keep out of the engineer's way in the confined space had obviously got seriously on everyone's nerves, everything still remained resolutely unresponsive. So he'd done them all a favour and taken himself away.

With no help forthcoming from that direction, and time being of the essence, he'd finally decided he had nothing to lose by going straight to the horse's mouth. And here he was.

"Sitting comfortably?" he asked from the entrance, waiting until the man blinked and looked his way before moving fully inside and letting the door hiss closed behind him. The broad hat and black cloak were gone, and with them much of the air of mystery that had surrounded their prisoner. There was nothing out of the ordinary about his dusty shirt and pants, and the close-cropped silvery blonde fuzz covering his strangely rounded head could not completely disguise the prematurely receding hairline.

But the face that greeted him was smooth-skinned and ageless, the almost colourless eyes hooded and watchful in contrast to the jovial tone that greeted him with, "Ah, Captain, finally. I was beginning to think you'd forgotten about me."

Dylan pulled another chair round so he could straddle it, resting his folded arms on its back as he stared passively back. "Oh, I think you know me better than that," he said pleasantly.

"Perhaps better than you know yourself," Fargo confirmed. "But then I've had the benefit of studying your life and times in some detail. Want to know what I've learned?"

"Not particularly. No, I'm more interested in what the hell you've been doing here."

"Straight to the point, I see. Well, I suppose that's only to be expected given your track record." The thin lips twisted into a derisive smile. "I assume the aberration is still hanging on to his wretched existence, then? Don't worry, he'll be out of our misery soon, along with all his kind."

"I see the Nietzscheans haven't lost their knack for winning friends and influencing people in your time," Dylan murmured, pleased to see a quickly suppressed look of surprise send a ripple through Fargo's composure. "Oh, come now. You didn't really expect we wouldn't find out, did you? Particularly once we got a good look inside that ship of yours."

"Bravo, Captain." A round of sardonic handclapping punctuated the words. "Though as you're here, and still obviously with no inkling of the momentous nature of my mission, it would appear your ragtag bunch of misfits has failed to unlock its secrets. Not that I'd expect anything else from them."

Dylan shrugged. "Secrets are over-rated anyway," he responded casually, not wanting to give anything away until he had to, "and definitely no fun unless you have someone to share them with. So why don't you just tell me what you've done to Rhade."

Long seconds went by, Fargo looking thoughtfully at him while obviously weighing up the pros and cons of doing what he asked. Dylan returned his gaze, waiting with an outward calmness at odds with how he was really feeling inside. But that patience was rewarded as, with a small gesture that clearly conveyed his view that it could do no harm now, the man spoke again.

"Our scientists call it the Delilah Complex, apparently a reference to some archaic Earth biblical tale or other," he said. "But all you need to know is that it's a genetically engineered virus that targets only Nietzschean DNA, then strips their bioengineered defences and leaves them with the same frailties as normal humans. But because of their ridiculous inbred need to prove their superiority at all times, that's more than enough to have them at each other's throats. And if one of their supposed betters doesn't finish them off, their own sense of inadequacy will drive them to do it themselves anyway." A smug smile spread across his pale face. "Simple in its genius, I'm sure you'll agree."

There was no response, though, apart from a sceptically raised eyebrow, and the smile slipped just a little at the lack of the obviously expected approbation. "Well, that just goes to prove everything I've heard about you was true. You watched the Nietzscheans rampage across the Known Worlds leaving devastation in their tracks, and did nothing to stop them. Worse, you actively worked against our one true hope for genetic salvation, the one man prepared to make a stand for human genetic purity."

And suddenly the pieces clicked into place in Dylan's mind as he recalled Rhade's last words and put them together with the all too familiar phrases and sentiments he was hearing. "Oh, for God's sake, you have to be kidding me. You're a Templar? How the hell…?"

-o-

"Woo hoo! Take a look at this – am I good or am I good?"

Up on the mystery ship, Beka turned at Harper's triumphant crow to see one of the wall panels flickering into life, the static resolving to a familiar symbol that had the two longer-term members of the crew looking at each other open-mouthed.

"But… isn't that…?" stammered Harper.

"Yeah," Beka agreed. "Oh, that's just perfect."

"But how…? Why…?"

"If you'd stop gabbing and get working again, perhaps we'd find out!" she said explosively.

Without another word, he went back to tapping feverishly into his workpad.

-o-

Delighted by his audience-of-one's reaction, Fargo beamed. "At last, Captain, at last you understand. And now you know, you'll have to admit we've won. There's no way anyone can stop us."

Not prepared to admit anything of the sort, Dylan raised a hand. "Whoa, let's back up there a moment, shall we?" he asked in bemusement. "The Templars still exist in the future? Please don't tell me Stark somehow managed to regenerate again. I thought the Magog took care of him once and for all."

"Oh, the path of righteousness never wavers, even with the dimming of the light that guides us. Despite the disastrous events on that moon, despite our desperate losses, we have come back even stronger." Now he'd started talking, Fargo seemed unable to stop – the curse of the over-confident, Dylan thought, but was happy to let him ramble on for now to give himself time to absorb the shock of what he was being told.

"After the failure of the time bridge initiative, the remnants of the Templars and the families of those who perished there sought out shelter, somewhere to weather the Magog storm. Many more died, but the teachings of the Patriarch lived on through their children and their children's children. We've been steadily rebuilding over time, gaining members and support against the monstrous plague of Nietzscheans and other races who seek power through unfair genetic advantage that's sweeping the universe. And now we have both the infrastructure and the technology to do something about it, through Delilah."

Dylan couldn't let that go by. "But why play games like this? You've proved you can isolate their DNA, target them. So why not create a virus that just kills them and be done with it? It's what the Patriarch would have done, were he still here - what he tried to use the Genites to do."

"Yes, and would have succeeded had you not betrayed your heritage once again. I'm curious, Captain - what is this weakness that inhabits you? That blinds you to the true nature of the Nietzschean and their like, to allow them to serve beside you, hold your trust? They will not rest until humankind is reduced to the level of insects, something to be swatted aside, stepped upon without compunction. And they must be stopped!"

He punctuated his statement by punching a fist into his other hand. "But not through genocide – that would be too overt, too obvious, too much for the weak stomachs and minds of those in the ruling council of my time who have allowed our status in the greater scheme of the universe to be so eroded. That's the beauty of Delilah, though – with that there'll be no comeback on us. Our enemies will simply destroy themselves for us." The colourless eyes glistened snake-like as he leant towards Dylan to finish triumphantly, "Then the natural order of things can resume!"

-o-

"You what…?! Did you see that? What the…!" Pointing a wavering finger at the images playing on the monitor, Harper flashed an indignant glance Beka's way only to find her gazing at it in stunned delight.

"Oh my," she grinned. "I know you've managed to aggravate a lot of people in the past, Harper, but I always thought it was a natural side-effect of meeting you. Seems like you've found a way to make the future hate you sight unseen - that's pretty good going, even for you."

Harper scowled, "Oh, ha ha, very funny I don't think!" then went back to glaring at the screen. "Where do they get off saying this stuff? It's all a pack of lies – whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty!?"

"Really? All lies?" Beka arched an eyebrow his way, enjoying this primo opportunity to wind the engineer up.

"Yes! Well, the way they're telling it, anyway – that's not how it happened! Or that! And that's just plain insulting…" Harper's increasingly incoherent protests rose in pitch until they almost drowned out the complacent tones of the documentary-style commentary that accompanied the pictures they were watching.

Unmoved by his complaints, his companion simply leant over and upped the volume – this stuff was dynamite and she didn't want to miss a moment!

-o-

Several decks below, exasperated by the one-track-minded verbiage he'd been hearing, Dylan shook his head as he broke in before Fargo could get started again. "Yeah, yeah, enough already. I get the picture – humans good, Nietzscheans bad. But none of this explains why you're here, in Seefra."

This was greeted with a disbelieving snort. "But surely that's obvious, isn't it? Even to your limited intellect. Like the good citizens we are, we thought it prudent to field test our creation, somewhere we could make sure there was no risk to humankind in general. And I had the most marvellous idea! I'd read about you and your crew being stranded here, and it seemed the ideal test site."

There was a small pause, before the man went on musingly, "Actually I'd hoped I might get here a few months earlier, and render the exercise unnecessary. If I could have killed Drago Musevni – or his target - before he could collect and leave with the means to create his abhorrent race in the first place, our job would have been done."

"Believe me, tried that," Hunt interjected. "But trying to alter time – past or future - rarely delivers the end result you expect."

Fargo pursed his lips, only a small sign of irritation but more than he'd shown so far. "Well, it didn't matter – everything was still perfect for what I wanted. A small, closed environment so the virus couldn't spread far if it didn't work, a limited population of predominantly losers, one Nietzschean and one control subject in the shape of Beka Valentine – expendable, all. Oh, and the personal pleasure of watching you and your crew, those responsible for the loss of the Patriarch, suffer too should the experiment fail." That thought evoked a wistful smile. "Admittedly it took no small effort to unearth the secret to the Route of Ages and necessitated some forceful persuasion to wrest it from its keepers. But once I had that, it was just a matter of a hop across time. And here I am!"

"And here you're going to stay," Dylan said grimly. "Not such a perfect plan now, is it? Now you're trapped here with us, you're never going to have the chance to spread this thing anywhere."

Fargo chuckled softly as he settled back on his chair and folded his arms. "You just don't get it, do you? And I was expecting so much more from the renowned Dylan Hunt."

"Well, I'm sorry to be such a disappointment to you. Guess you're going to have to explain it to me."

"You can't stop this, even by keeping me here. My comrades won't let my failure to report back stand in their way – there's far too much at stake."

"But… you said you needed to field test the virus, to be certain it worked. Surely they won't go ahead with it untried…"

Fargo shook his head, almost sadly. "You're not listening to me. I said this was the perfect site – not the only one. There are others which will suffice, and when I don't return one of them will be chosen. We will prevail, and there's nothing you or anyone else can do to stop us."

Although Dylan had no real reason to love the Nietzschean race as a whole, he still felt sickened and angered by the casual talk of their destruction. It was genocide, whichever hand delivered the killing blows, and that was something that simply couldn't be condoned. Worse, Rhade was right – it wouldn't stop at the Nietzscheans.

"Don't be so sure," he declared firmly, leaning forward to put his face inches from his prisoner's so there could be no mistaking his intent. "People have said that to me before, and lived to regret it. I will find a way."

"Stuck here? I really don't think so." The man's expression was infuriatingly self-satisfied, and Dylan toyed briefly with the idea of simply pinning him to the wall and punching his lights out. But he had to reluctantly acknowledge to himself that, apart from making him feel a lot better, it wouldn't really help matters much.

"So, any other revelations you'd like to share with me?" he asked caustically.

There was another longer pause, but in the end Fargo just shook his head. "No, I've already given you enough clues – you're going to have to work the rest out yourself." And with that he yawned delicately and closed his eyes.

Clinging desperately to what was left of his temper, and albeit hating the position he was being forced into, Dylan had little option but to get up and silently leave.

-o-o-o-