"There is, I believe, in every disposition a tendency to some particular evil, a natural defect, which not even the best education can overcome."
"And your defect is a propensity to hate everybody."
"And yours," he replied with a smile, "is wilfully to misunderstand them."
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
THERE WERE THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND PEOPLE living on the Enfidren Commerce Station and one, a Reni Landraviddioshedrihiddan was wishing mightily that he hadn't been one of them.
"Nine." The damn thing was jammed up against his throat, the heat of it searing his skin, his frantic eyes trying to avoid the blasted corpse of his partner cooling on the railing.
"Eight." It was the black eye that kept drawing him, that depthless thing filled with ice, the blue one next to it swimming with death.
"Seven." The woman behind him just look bored and that frightened Reni more than even the gun at his neck, like this was something routine, something that happened every day, a minor impediment on her way to somewhere better.
"Six. There were two of them."
"There was only one when it was found! I don't know where it came from!" He choked out. "It was the Fhishk Brothers! They said it was salvage!"
"You're lying." The voice was hard and grating. The worse part was how damnably calm it was. "Five."
"No, no! It was found halfway between Merirhisteum and Leridis! Completely dead! I swear! No lifeforms on it! "
"Between two resort worlds? You think I'm stupid?" Reni saw teeth then. "Four."
"They didn't touch it! It had some power, just enough, because they didn't board it because the internal defences fried one of the contractors!" He felt like he was about to hyperventilate. "It's intact!"
"Give it to me."
"What? Just give…?"
"Three."
"But the defences on it…!"
"Two."
"Take it! Take it! Get it away from me!"
Reni closed his eyes and clenched everything.
"Smart." The gun went away. "Warehouse codes."
"But…!"
The gun came back.
"One."
"Kruff's ass! Take 'em!" He hurriedly handed over his key-comm. The gun went away.
"Good boy." A gloved hand waved him away. "You can leave now."
Reni almost pissed himself in relief and scrambled out.
"Was that entirely necessary?" Nexus asked as she watched the Sebacean man nearly trip over himself in his haste to leave.
"Not entirely." A shrug. "Beats trying to negotiate." Crichton holstered his pistols and checked the codes. "C'mon. That little prick is gonna run straight to the station's bullies and we don't need any extended firefights."
Nexus followed him out into the Promenade of the place. In the ways of these out-of-the-way and less-than-savoury markets, the crowd had already forgotten the incident.
"Aren't you supposed to be revoltingly rich at this point? Couldn't you have just bought it?"
"It's the principle of the thing."
Nexus rolled her eyes as she shook her head and fell in next to him. The 'bullies' Crichton had spoken of didn't show until they'd arrived at the warehouse and Crichton was cycling codes to get the door open. Despite what he'd said, they approached him calmly, if cautiously.
"So you it is, then," one of them called as they neared, an enormous armored shell of a creature easily three metras tall, "The thought of Reni loosin' tiny cerebrum occurred."
"Cinnamon." Crichton acknowledged, not looking up from the door coder. It took Nexus a moment to identify the species. Archnardid, that was it. They'd been extinct in her Divergence. The 'bully' clattered to a halt.
"Cinna'moni'namomnitaristar," it corrected.
"See," Crichton tried another code, "you can pronounce that. I can't. Besides, 'Cinnamon' is something sweet and nice."
"Neither apply," it ground out. "You kill Borister?"
"He pulled a gun on me. Was I supposed to ignore it?"
A pincher waved toward the key-comm.
"Technically theft'."
The next code worked and Crichton grunted in satisfaction as the door sliced open.
"'Technically', the ship he 'salvaged' belongs to Shiv, so it 'technically' belongs to me." He looked at 'Cinnamon' for the first time. "Unless you want her to come get it."
Seven of its eyes regarded Crichton with suspicion while the other three swivelled to Nexus.
"That's all?"
"That's all."
'Cinnamon' used all ten eyes this time to regard Crichton while he waited patiently under the scrutiny.
"Eh - never liked that stuffed cloaca anyway." 'Cinnamon' turned and clattered away.
"How do you do that?" Nexus asked as she followed him into warehouse. Tucked in a corner, hanging from a gantry was Shiv's Bladeship.
"Do what?"
"Intimidate people that shouldn't be intimidated by you."
Crichton slowed to regard her with a straight face.
"I follow through."
"Like with Borister?" She slowed to examine the Bladeship.
"Like with Borister." He sniffed. "Don't have time for penny-ante shit."
Crichton reached into an inside pocket on his longcoat and pulled a small diamond-shaped comm from it.
"Hopefully it's got some power," he said, then told it his name.
The Bladeship powered up. Apparently it had been added to the internal power supply of the warehouse.
"She must really trust you."
Crichton sent her a dry look.
"Somebody should."
Behind him, Nexus made an exasperated face and waited until the Bladeship had disengaged itself from the cradle on the gantry and dropped to the floor, where it hovered. Crichton spoke three codes into it and the Bladeship extended its gear, touched gently down and opened its main hatch.
"Stay put until I can convince it you're not an enemy."
"It's difficult enough to convince you," she muttered to herself.
"Earn it," he returned, overhearing it.
"Just do what you have to," she grumbled at him and watched him disappear into the ship. She fidgeted, still feeling strained from the transition back into this Divergence, the Vengeance not the Indeterminacy but still handling it well. Returning a weeken after he'd left had irritated him significantly. The Vigilante was currently parked behind an asteroid in this system's cometary cloud awaiting their return. She'd been allowed to pilot it back, enjoying the ship under her hands, still amazed by it, though not as comfortable as she might have been, the disconnect from what she remembered compared to the current reality disturbing what might have otherwise been something she'd have enjoyed more. He'd sent the Vengeance to her current hiding place on its own. He'd given Nexus a comm, at least.
"You can come in, now,"he informed her and she carefully made her way in. The ship smelled antiseptic and had a faint acrid burned metal scent she recognized. The interior aesthetic was plain but handsome, efficient and intelligently designed. She found him up in the main living area, just behind the cockpit.
"Hardly ever see the insides of one of these things," she said as she stepped in.
"Few non-Thantados ever do," he agreed, a scanner in his hand, "no bacteria, no microbes, not a single living thing in here." He gestured to a panel on the wall. "Even the food's been turned to dust. Not an organic trace left."
"The Entropy Engine. The Maliform's chief weapon." Nexus said gravely. "It's adjustable," she said with a grim scorn.
"So it killed her," Crichton ground his teeth at the thought, angry at the thought she was gone, "and destroyed No'Halladan."
"It would seem… wait," she was looking over his shoulder at the scanner, "that's picking up some biological residue back there." She pointed toward the rear of the ship. Crichton tuned the scanner and nodded, then started for the strongest indicator.
"Rear hatch," he said when they'd gone down a level, "it's been forced and then closed again."
"Someone's been here between the attack and the salvage."
"Looks it," Crichton agreed, drawing the scanner around the hatch, "Faint Thantadosian cellular residue..." He felt a surge of relief. "Something else, can't resolve it enough. Getting as detailed a scan of the material as I can." He frowned. "More interested in her than the ship?" He mused. "Not impossible…"
"The Vengeance has better resolutions." Nexus offered. Crichton simply nodded and told the ship to get them out and into orbit. He found a seat back in the living area and bent to sift his scanner. When she stopped to look over his shoulder again, he pulled the scanner away. Nexus sighed inaudibly and found another seat opposite him.
"Itrust you, you know," she tried.
"Why would you?" His eyes were cold. "You don't like me, you want nothing to do with me - you made that pretty clear." He bent back to the scanner. "I'll do what I have to, and you can go back to whatever it was you were doing." Those cold eyes come back. "Better?"
"You don't like me," she accused and then grimaced at how lame it sounded.
"You could try giving me a frellin' chance," he growled. The ship announced it had reached orbit. It's SI had Shiv's cadences, calm and even with a similar quicksilver voice. He gave it coordinates and they felt it accelerate into space.
"Like I said, this isn't easy for me." Nexus tried again. "Relationships - any kind - are a new thing to me. I had hoped once, tried to…" she sputtered to a stop. "I've been so focused on other things, I've spent so much time indeterminate that I forget that time passes and people just…" She sighed a deep sigh that gusted out in a frustrated huff. "It sounds so stupid."
"What - no friends?"
"Sure, I… no, I suppose not. Recruits, converts, I guess the closest were Chief and Observer - two of you, by the way, but they fought me most of the time. They seemed to believe in me, just not in my methods."
"Crusades are tough." He didn't seem to care one way or the other.
"Don't you have relationships?" She asked tentatively. "What happened with the Aeryn here?"
He looked up briefly and then back down to the scanner.
"I don't do 'relationships'," he informed her, "and Aeryn doesn't like me, either,"
"It's just.. off." Again, she looked disturbed by that. "Even if the situation is really bad, and/or unless one of you is dead, there's always something there. I've seen so many Divergences and one way or another, there's a John and Aeryn."
"So there was here." He said without looking up. "On Earth, for three long cycles, all corralled and collared. So what's the problem?"
"I mean you - this Crichton - in every Divergence with one like you -" she gestured to encompass all of him, "is with an Aeryn! So why aren't you?"
"I told you. Besides…," he gestured to his inhibitor, "…I cheat, remember?"
That damn thing, she thought, wanting to yank it off his skull, you hurt everyone with it - and yourself the most. Stubborn bastard.
"Technically, if it's just about presence…" he continued, "I 'have' an Aeryn... Nexus."
Nexus shook her head at that, her white hair rippling, feeling a little discomfited by that. That's not the same thing at all.
"This Divergence's Aeryn," she emphasized. "She did come back. She obviously came back for you. Why else?"
He regarded her for a while. She merely waited.
"It's not obvious to me," he said at last. "Whatever they had on Earth… well... it just got worse when I showed up. All that chaos and Johnny tryin' to be god and have it all. The first time she saw me she was repulsed, worried the Creature was there to kill her Johnny-boy and ruin all their plans." A savage smile then. "Oh, wait - I did do that."
He returned his attention to the scanner, though it told him nothing new.
"I'm nobody's fuckin' runner-up," he muttered and she could hear, even with the inhibitor in his head, the ancient hurt and anger in his voice.
"Is that it?" She leaned forward. "Just a matter of your wounded pride? Some strange male ego?"
He jerked his head up at that, the realization that she heard him in his eyes, apparently forgetting the superior Sebacean hearing.
"She was with another man? Who just happened to be identical to you?"
"He is not identical to me!" he snarled suddenly, thrusting himself forward, a hard finger thrust in her face - and she knew she'd hit one of his very sorest spots. She was used to this anger though and it washed past her. She didn't fear him. She knew Crichtons too well. "We are nothing alike!"
"I never said you were," she replied calmly, "not on the surface. Experience changes people. Trust me, I know." She watched him bank those sudden fires. "This will sound like melodramatic dren… but at your core, down in your basic unvarnished Crichton self - your values and ethics, how and who you'll love, those are always the same." Crichton sat back. "Even if the particulars aren't."
"The 'an exact replica would not be a replica' argument, is that it?" His voice was calmer, though anger still boiled in his eyes.
"No. Yet, it remains a fact that the only person who does not believe you are a Crichton is you," she pointed out, with a firm finger of her own toward him, eyes steady, sure in the truth of her statement. "And you know it."
"I don't have an explanation," he said finally and he knew how lame it sounded.
"Sure you do," she said with certainty, "of course you do."
"You're too smart." He said and she saw the anger die further. "You sure you're not an Aeryn?"
"And if I say no?" She asked softly. "Sounds familiar, doesn't it?
"Too difficult to go back, is it?" he asked as softly.
"I'm the one that loved The Monster." She replied quietly. He could almost hear the capital letters. I don't want to be an Aeryn. I can't be.
"You all do that," he replied gently.
Nexus glared then looked away.
"All right… here," he stashed the scanner in a pocket and fished out some levithi candy, then flicked her one.
"A truce."
She caught it deftly and sniffed it suspiciously. They were roughly the size of silver dollars.
"No candy in Netherspace?"
Nexus tentatively tried it, then seemed to quite like it before popping the entire thing into her mouth.
"Uh…" he warned, "it's like peppermint - a bit burn-y if you've never had it before."
Nexus abruptly spat it out as the intense flavour hit her tongue.
"Small bites." He advised, doing so. She did as he did and found she liked it better in small doses.
"Thank you," she offered, "it's good." She smiled then. "A truce."
Crichton flicked her another.
"For later," he said. She tucked it in a pocket.
The SI announced a half-arn to the cloud and the Vengeance. Crichton leaned back, crossed his arms and stretched his legs out. He closed his eyes and put his head back. His body still ached from the transition.
"There is one thing I miss," Nexus tried after a few more bites of the candy, "fellip nectar." She saw him grimace.
"Can't stand the stuff," he said, "too tart. Like drinking salty grapefruit."
"Not the regular stuff. The Reflen-hathy variety, made on Denden IV." Another bite of candy. "Tastes like folla fruit."
He gave her a lazy shake of his head.
"Still too sour for me. Give me a cold Murmidion Raslak any time."
"Never developed a taste for it. Smells like old leather. Tastes like old leather."
Crichton put his hands behind his head.
"So do I, but I have my moments."
He cracked his eyes open as he said it, saw her gust a short laugh and roll her eyes. She caught him looking and shook her head.
"You don't smell that bad."
Crichton shrugged and closed his eyes again and missed the wider smile Nexus had as she aped him in her chair, leaning back and sucking on her candy, feeling slightly more at ease from the exchange.
The moment passed as the Bladeship reached the Vigilante's coordinates and Crichton had it dock with the Vengeance, wasting no time getting his ship's far more advanced SI onto the task of analyzing his scanner readings.
Initial analysis: Thantados female, minor abnormalities from crew database. Reason indeterminate. Positive identification; Vengeance Crew, position: Second in Command, Shivi'na Na'Carahad.
"If she left organic material, she was alive after the Entropy Engine hit her ship," Nexus informed him as the results scrolled up. "I don't recognize this genome," she added, pointing to another sequence below Shiv's.
Crichton leaned near the screen, narrowed his eyes at it.
"Identify DNA," he ordered. The SI took another moment to answer.
Closest genome match: V'rahn constructs, Ashkelon Dominancy. Precursor DNA, origin system: Skedditch'Jhor.
Crichton straightened.
"Most expedient course to system?"
Relka 966, Valka 221.
"Lay in - execute."
Affirmative. ETA to system boundaries, seven arns.
"So it looks like…"
"Someone found her ship." Crichton turned and headed to Command. "Took her."
"Appears so." Nexus followed. "What are you going to do?"
"Take her back."