Aeryn finds John standing guard at the entrance to the docking bay. When she tries to step past him, he takes her by the shoulders.
"Let me pass. You said there 's something in Bialar's prowler I needed to see, and I am here to see it." She stares straight ahead, refusing to meet his eyes.
"Aeryn."
When he says her name that way, he manifests a Pilot-like ability to imbue each syllable with enough meaning to fill a datachip. She used to love hearing her own name from his lips. Now that he no longer trusts her, the sound is like being struck anew with the knowledge that he isn't her John and doesn't want to be with her.
She forces herself to look him in the eye, knowing he won't say anymore until she has. "What?"
"I don't know what happened between you and Crais on Talyn, and it's not any of my business. I just know you look at the guy who flew here in that prowler, and you want to believe he's the hero from the command carrier."
"You're right." She knocks his arms aside and takes a step back. "You don't know what went on between Crais and me on Talyn. You didn't see the terrible way I treated him after you-- after John died. So whatever I see in there, I'm not going to make the same mistake and assume he's using us for his own ends."
She manages to take two strides before John catches her elbow. "Yeah, just-- Aeryn, if it turns out he's not who you think, I'm here for you."
"Fine."
She breaks free from him and enters the docking bay, where Chiana sits in front of the prowler, next to the prone form of a naked young man. The Nebari has her arms wrapped around her knees, and when she looks up at Aeryn, her eyes glisten with moisture. One of Moya's DRD's sits next to her, its antenni drooping in sympathy.
"Is he dead?" Aeryn looks from the man to Chiana and back.
"Yeah. I found 'im wadded up like dirty laundry and shoved under a floor panel in Crais's prowler. He just looks so alive until you touch him, and then he's cold. He's barely more than a kid, you know? And Crais probably killed him."
"We don't know that," Aeryn snaps, her eyes glued to the man whose face almost matches one from her memory. She kneels beside the body and feels for breath, then a pulse. Finding no sign of life, she lifts one of his eyelids. "Strange. His eyes aren't dilated. Could he be in some sort of suspended animation?"
"Might explain why he's not decomposing." John shrugs. "What else, Aeryn? What is it you're not saying?"
"He looks like someone I knew, one of the other prowler pilots, only much younger."
John sits down next to Chiana. "Anyone Crais would have a grudge against?"
"No, and anyway, he's far too young to be the man I remember. Tauvo Crais was a few years older than I am."
"Tauvo, as in Bialar's baby brother?" John runs a hand through his hair. "If it's not godlike aliens, it's dead guys doin' the time warp dance. On days like these, I almost wish I'd taken the blue pill and stayed outta the rabbit hole."
Aeryn looks at Chiana. "Did that make any sense to you?"
Chiana shakes her head. "Hey, you don't know how much I hate to say this, but maybe Sikozu would know something."
"Probably right," John agrees. "And I guess we should keep the captain in loop."
"No!" Aeryn reaches across the man's body and seizes John's wrist before he can reach for his comm. "D'Argo will over react." She taps her own comm. "Sikozu, we need your help. We're here in the docking bay."
I'll be there.
John twists his hand until he is holding Aeryn's and then squeezes. "Good call."
She yanks her hand away without responding. The silence is only broken when Sikozu enters.
"What's this?" Sikozu raises an eyebrow as she scans the lifeless body.
"We were hoping you could tell us," John replies.
Chiana chuckles. "That's all you can say? This poor kid's dead, and you look at him like you've just found a new game to play."
Sikozu kneels next to Aeryn. "Curiosity, by which I do not mean the compulsion to frell anything that moves, is not a crime, Chiana. Someone on Moya has to think analytically." She runs a finger over the burn scar on the young man's chest. "Do any of you have a knife? No, better yet, DRD!" She looks at the droid and utters a string of syllables that must be Pilot's language.
The DRD rolls up to the body and extends an arm with a small blade at the end.
"Just the part that's already damaged," Sikozu tells the DRD.
After blinking once, the machine plunges its blade into the ruined skin, which oozes a thin layer of blood.
"What the hell?" John demands. "DRD, stop it!"
The droid complies, retracting the now-red blade so that it hovers above the incision.
Aeryn inhales through her nose, puzzled. "There's no smell."
"Exactly!" Sikozu nods to Aeryn and shakes her head at John. "Look, the burn scar isn't discolored. If he were a real Sebaccean, it would be. If he is what I think he is, he won't mind what I'm doing." She speaks another line of Pilot to the DRD, which resumes cutting.
"His eyes aren't dilated. We think he could be in some kind of stasis..." John trails off, looking slightly ill as the DRD removes the plug of flesh.
Sikozu leans close to peer into the resulting hole and grins. "Here, look! I was right. He's a bioloid."
John, Aeryn, and Chiana all bend forward to look at what appears to be a metal pipe, rather than the expected bone.
"Artificial biomechanoid life form," John mutters. "So, this guy's, what, a robot? Basically a suped-up DRD?"
Sikozu nods. "Only a very simplistic mind would equate the two, but if it helps you grasp the concept,then yes, he's a sophisticated droid. The blood is only there for verisimilitude, by the way. I haven't actually caused him to leak any critical fluids. "
Chiana laughs and slaps her thigh. "And here I was feeling sorry for him!"
Aeryn reaches out to touch the bioloid's skin, fascinated with how real it feels. "This explains Bialar's connection to the Kalish woman, the bioloid programmer. He had her make this, or he was transporting it for her."
"And I always thought he had a thing for you, Aeryn!" John grins. "Now I find out he's got a boy-droid hidden under his floor board."
"What you're implying makes no sense! No one would go to the trouble and expense of making a bioloid for such mundane reasons." Sikozu frowns. "The Kalish scientists at that research facility must be the ones manufacturing the Scarran bioloid spies. They've been using them for cycles now. Was there anything else on the prowler, any information?"
"I went back in and looked, but there was just this." Chiana reaches down the front of her blouse and pulls out a data chip, which she hands to Sikozu.
"What do you mean by spies?" Aeryn asks, dreading the answer.
Sikozu stares at the chip in her hand, eyes alight with curiosity. "Intelligence units. They replace someone with a passable likeness, programmed to act like the original. Speech, mannerisms, basic knowledge, it all gets programmed in."
Aeryn glances at John to find him already staring at her. When she stands up, he moves to block her path and takes her by the arms. "Aeryn, I know what you're thinking."
"Then you know that thing is probably calling all Scarran dreadnoughts in the Uncharted Territories down on our heads right now." She tries to break away, but he strengthens his grip.
"Hold on here. Chiana was ready accuse Crais of murder and you said you'd give him a chance to explain. Turned out you were right. What happened to not making assumptions?"
"That's when I thought he was Bialar. That thing used us, used me, John! I wanted so badly to believe he was alive that I didn't ask questions when I should have." She looks over her shoulder, hoping for support. "Chiana, Sikozu, you know I'm right! We have to destroy that thing."
"You're saying Crais is one of these?" Chiana points to the bioloid. "I don't buy it. He just seems too real."
"They're programmed to seem real." Sikozu sighs and shakes her head. "That doesn't matter. What does is the fact that we have data we have not yet analyzed." She holds up the chip and shakes it in the air for emphasis. "I can use the console in the prowler."
"Fine, read the chip and then I'll kill the bioloid. Go, go on!" Aeryn looks at Sikozu and jerks her head toward the open door of the prowler. John still holds both her arms in a grip that will make it difficult to get away without hurting him. She meets his eyes, glaring. "Well, I agreed to let her read the frelling chip. Why are you still holding onto me?"
"Look, not a day goes by that I don't think about what's been done in the name of wormholes, what's been lost because of what's in my head. I don't trust Crais. Hell, I don't like Crais, but when I think about what he did for all of us, I wish I had some way to pay him back.
"So right now, Aeryn, right now, I'm doing what I should have done the day I flipped that stupid coin. I'm making sure you don't do something I'll regret."