A Whole New Universe (of Problems)

Chapter 15 If We Could Just Communicate (Better…)

Please Read and Review. I'd like to know what I'm doing right (to keep doing it), and what I'm doing wrong (to correct it).

Tokyo-3 Bay

"Babe! You're a sight for sore eyes!" Crichton ran towards the small ship that had just landed on the beach they had all emerged from. It was not very far from the apartment building they occupied. Major Katsuragi and Harvey walking leisurely behind him. A tall and lean woman emerged, a kind of rifle in her left hand. Misato recognized the posture, the woman could be ready to aim and shoot in a split second. Still, Crichton didn't seem worried at all. He stopped, smiled at her, and walked briskly towards her, no fear in his posture or voice.

Misato recognized her from Crichton's descriptions. Aeryn Sun, former Peacekeeper and general bad ass.

Sun grunted a few words at Crichton. It was a clipped and guttural language. Then she switched to a broken English. "You will debrief me all events." She stabbed a finger on Crichton's chest, punctuating each word.

Crichton nodded, furrowing his brow as he rubbed his chest, "I'll tell you everything. In detail, but it would be better if we can underdrand what everybody is saying. Let me introduce my friends. She is Major Misato Katsuragi, he is Harvey." Misato bowed respectfully, while Harvey simply nodded. Aeryn looked at the guy in the colorful garments for several seconds, he was strangely familiar.

A moment later, Crichton turned towards the others, "Major," he hesitated a moment before continuing, "Harvey; this is Aeryn Sun, former Peacekeeper officer." The woman nodded brusquely, and bowed clumsily, imitating Misato. Her eyes always alert for any sign of hostility.

The woman nodded brusquely, looking at the two behind Crichton. "Ice to meet you."

Crichton corrected her with a whisper, "Nice, Aeryn, Nice." Then, at normal volume, he asked, "Did you bring the kids?"

"The DRDs, yes." She spoke into a kind of badge in her clothes. "Send them." A moment later, a man with a half-mask emerged from the ship, accompanied be a group of small things, they looked like yellow toys, with two snail-like "eyes" and a folding tool on the top. The things chattered with electronic beeps.

"Hey, Stark!" He greeted the man, who nodded back at him, not bothering to say anything.

John clapped once, rubbed his hands together in anticipation, and turned back to Misato, "Okay, people. I'll go first. It hurts like the devil, but it's worth it for the Translator Microbes." He nodded to Stark, who said something towards the toys. His words were long and a bit repetitive, as if his language was missing letters. (1)

Crichton sat on a beach chair, took one of his boots off, along with the sock, and stood up again, with his bare foot on the sand, closing his eyes. A DRD stopped next to him, extending its tool arm. It had a little flask with a sharp looking needle at the point. "Okay, I'm ready!"

The DRD stabbed him with the needle. "Ow!" Once the DRD had pulled the needle off him, Crichton began to walk around, barely putting any weight on his bare foot. "Ow! Ow! Ow!"

Misato noticed that Harvey just sighed, evidently annoyed, the strangely clad man said. "You are such a baby."

"Oh, yeah?"

Harvey nodded.

"Okay, your turn, wise guy." Crichton sat on the sand, to put his footwear back on.

Harvey advanced without hesitation, baring his foot just like Crichton had. He looked at Misato, "Not strictly necessary, Major Katsuragi; the needle can go through thick leather or equivalent material. Any DRD Is quite capable of adjusting the length of the needle and the force it applies, depending on the subject."

"Harvey, you are wearing sandals."

"With socks, yes. I am aware of that, John. What's your point?"

Crichton rolled his eyes. "Nothing. Keep on it."

A second DRD repeated the maneuver on Harvey's heel. "By the three moons of Ragashnak!" Harvey winced as he almost jumped back.

"Hah! I KNEW it!" The astronaut clapped with evident delight and amusement.

Harvey glared at Crichton. "Suddenly, I can respect you a bit more." But didn't elaborate.

Both the newcomers began to talk at the same time. Crichton raised his hands conciliatorily. "Woowoowoo! One at a time, Aeryn?"

She spoke again, Crichton smiled like a loon. "Perfectly! What a relief! Yoda speak hard to understand is." He said with a shrill and halting voice, that Misato recognized immediately. John turned to Stark, signaling him to speak, the Banik did so, with curiously musical words.

Crichton nodded approvingly, and turned back towards Misato, "Okay, Major, I can attest the microbes work. Aeryn just asked if I could understand her, and Stark wants to know if you are ready to meet our other friend. She's waiting in the ship."

"Well, I guess if those things work as you say... let's leave the introductions for when I can understand, okay?" she sat down on a bench, took her boot off, and stood up, presenting her heel for the injection. A moment later, she received her dose. "Are there any medical reasons to inject these microbes in the foot?" She said as she rubbed her heel, her face twisted in pain for a moment.

Crichton looked at Aeryn, who shrugged, and then to Stark, who answered the question, "It has to be on a place with thin skin. With bone near the surface. But injecting the microbes in an articulation is a bad idea, the heel is ideal, walking a bit helps to distribute the microbes in the blood, until they reach the brain. Plus, there's another important thing to keep in mind."

Misato leaned forward, the Banik looked at her with his uncovered eye. "The DRDs are not exactly tall..." Stark smirked a bit, then he dropped the amusement. "Now that we understand each other, let's finish here." He struck the side of the ship two times.

A tall woman emerged from the back of the vehicle. Even forewarned by Crichton, Misato imitated a fish for a few seconds, closing and opening her mouth. She looked as Crichton had said, completely blue skin, no hair. She held a regal pose, wearing a blue tunic, and a golden collar around her neck and shoulders.

Misato shook her head, "Sorry, you must be Zaahn." Misato bowed again. "I am Major Misato Katsuragi. Although the Major rank is no longer valid, unless there's some other ranking officer around. So, call me Katsuragi for now, okay?"

To her surprise, the bald woman put her palms together, as if praying, and bowed gracefully. "Pau Zotoh Zaahn, My title and full name. As you have been direct with me, I must say that the Pau title might be in doubt; with some members of my order, at least. So Zaahn will suffice for now. Crichton told us you have a pair of younglings in need of medical help, yes?" Misato half expected her to raise an eyebrow, but Zaahn's head lacked hair almost completely. She had eyelashes, but that was all. Instead, her skin had delicate patterns of different shades of blue. Still, her facial features were very expressive.

"Yes. Please come with us, they are waiting at the apartment" She pointed at her building, at the approximate height their home was.

"Yo! Stark! We're gonna need a couple DRDs up there, for the kids!" John picked up one DRD. The small robotic creature chirped its protest, but John simply put it under his arm like a football and walked back into the city.

Ruins of Tokyo-3
Katsuragi-Ikari-Soryu Apartment
Living Room

"Hmm..." Zaahn looked at Asuka's eye, while the redhead Pilot observed the Delvian priest. "I see no sign of degeneration. The reddening of iris and schlera should fade in a few days, returning to their original shades. I'll just have to keep on checking the development. In the meanwhile, an eyepatch should be enough to protect your eye from both air and strong light."

Asuka sighed with relief. "What about my arm?" She pointed at the now exposed arm. A furious red line ran neatly from between her middle and ring fingers, up to the shoulder.

Zaahn stored her instruments in her bag. "The scar will fade almost completely. I expect it will be only a bit paler than the surrounding skin. Barely noticeable unless you tan like a sebacean. Like Crichton."

Asuka grimaced, "I'm not really able to tan. Thankfully I don't get sunburnt easily."

"Keep the bandages for three days more. Take a shower daily and examine the skin before applying a new set of bandages. I'll examine you again in the morning until your body has recuperated."

While Zhaan examined Asuka's wounds, Stark spoke to both Misato and Misao. Their story had arrived at the point of Instrumentality.

"That sounds... like a spirit trap." He said. "I... think I had a glimpse of it. I can't remember much. Whatever happened when we entered orbit, it almost fried my brain."

"What did you see?" Misato asked.

"I'm not really sure." Stark admitted. "It was more like I felt it. Souls by the millions, all together, lost without even knowing they were lost. Like a... a party in a ship drifting to a gas giant. Everybody is happy, no one realizes they are gonna stop existing soon."

Crichton put a bottle of orange juice on the table. "Well... that's kinda meta for me. Last thing I remember before waking up in that trap, was watching that weird blue haired girl who turned into the spitting image of my late Mom."

Misato gasped, "Blue hair?"

"Yeaup. Have you seen her?" Crichton took a long sip from the bottle.

"Short hair? Red eyes? Very, very pale? I worked with her!"

"And she looked a bit like the big giant head in the bay, yeah. Who is she?"

"Rei Ayanami. She... she was one of us. I don't know what happened to her. I... I think I died just before things went right down to Hell. It was not a good way to go." She rubbed her belly. "I… I had been shot multiple times, and was bleeding out. I even hallucinated Kaji… my… my boyfriend. He had died some days before. Then Rei appeared, I heard an explosion, and next thing I know, I'm back at college, with Kaji, trying to sink the mattress into the floor." Misato covered her mouth with her hands, when she realized Misao was next to her, with an eagerly curious expression in her face.

Distracted, Stark scratched Pen-Pen under the beak. "Hmm…" He mused,

Aeryn struggled with a can of beer, Misato opened it for her as the firmer Peacekeeper watched her movements. "The girl looked at me and said I was not worthy of Instrumentality. And she didn't mention your mother, Crichton; but you said 'Mother', just before she touched you, and then your body turned into an orange liquid. I thought you were dead."

The penguin eyed a DRD as it patrolled the area. He warked at it, and waddled decidedly until he reached it, Pen-Pen warked again and raised a foot, pointing at it with his flipper, and extending a claw.

The DRD responded with a swift injection to the foot. A sharp And pained screech filled the apartment. The penguin ran around the place, flapping its small wings, knocking down a couple of pictures that rested on the coffee table.

Finally, he stopped. "THAT HURT!" He said.

Misato jumped, and pointing at the penguin, "I knew it!"

Pen-Pen stopped, and looked at her, tilting his head to look at her first with the left eye, then the right. "Provider! You can understand me!"

Crichton looked at the bottle of orange juice he had opened, then at Misato, at Pen-Pen, shrugged, and downed the whole bottle. Harvey raised an eyebrow. John shrugged again, "Meh, I've seen weirder things. And he seems nicer than most."

Ruins of Tokyo-3
Katsuragi-Ikari-Soryu Apartment
Shinji's Lovely Suite
17 minutes later

There was a bitter, disgusting taste in his mouth. Carefully, the former Third Child sat up on his bed, and looked around.

His room was a mess.

Not like Asuka's had been after she had trashed it. This mess seemed less random.

But the strange part was that somebody had tried to put things back in their places, but getting it all wrong.

With a start, he realized he was not alone. There was a strange man sitting on his chair, his one uncovered eye looking at him with an equally strange intensity, the other hidden behind a metallic half-mask. But there was pain and kindness in that look. "Uh... who are you? What are you doing here?" Shinji asked trying to get up.

"Hello." The Man said, tilting his head to look at him with his uncovered eye. "My name is Stark." Softly, the man pushed Shinji back to the bed. "I think you received a gift and a curse, just like I did."

"What?"

"I am a... I'm not sure if the translation will be right. It is a complex concept. But I'll try anyway." The man adjusted the half-mask. "I am a Skytera."

Shinji shook his head, "I don't understand, never heard that word…"

Stark sighed. "I thought so. I'll try to explain. I am... a kind of empath. Does that translate?" Shinji shook his head. "I feel what somebody else feels, I can ease their pain. But I suffer it too."

Shinji gasped, "How does that even work?"

Stark's hand played with one of the buckles of his mask. "I connect with the soul, I can take the pain into myself. If somebody is dying, I guide them to the other side. But as they pass through me, something is left behind. Sometimes, it's a feeling of peace, but most often... it's not. Depends on each person and the way they die. Most people die in fear, so they need a bit of company before passing through, a friend to comfort them in their last voyage. A few die in calm, without fear, they take a moment to look at the world a last time before they go. It feels like saying goodbye to a friend. So, a gift and a curse."

Shinji wet his lips. Suddenly his mouth was very dry.

Stark tilted his head, looking at Shinji. "I know. Most of the time, it hurts. One on one, it hurts. Several people at a time, it hurts a lot. I think you know, don't you?"

Slowly, Shinji nodded. "If you let me, I can help you. Teach you how to manage. If you'd prefer, I can show you how to block it, though it's not a complete block. And refusing to guide a soul hurts too, even worse in a way, because you'll know you have denied somebody the succor of guidance in their worst moment, when they are utterly alone and afraid. But, you have to choose by yourself. Whatever your decision, know I will help you."

The man looked at him with a patient look in his eye. Shinji felt it was okay to say yes or no. Somehow, his answer didn't matter to Stark. Or rather, it was him who mattered.

Stark stood up, and left Shinji to his thoughts.

Author Notes

(1) In the first scenes of Crichton in Moya, it is quite clear the languages of D'Argo, Zhaan and Rygel are very different from each other. By the time Stark is introduced, Crichton has been the proud owner of a colony of translator microbes for a good while, so we never get to hear his native tongue. I like to think it is very much like Austronesian languages (pacific islands), but with less vowels.