Two arns later Crichton and Aeryn were up and serving a meal in the dining area. Everyone had gathered but the conversation was uncharacteristically subdued. The DRDs still lurked by the doors.
As she was putting the last of the food onto the table Aeryn felt two hands grab her and she found herself on Crichton's lap. His arms effectively pinned her to the spot while his mouth came close to her ear. "OK, Sunshine. You mocked my code. Let's see you do better." He kissed her noisily on the cheek and released her. "Listen up everyone. Aeryn's got something to tell you." She could swear that he was enjoying this.
All eyes fell upon her expectantly as she took her place at the table. "Well, it's nothing really. It's just…" Her mind raced. "I had a strange dream and I was wondering whether Zhaan could tell me if it had any significance?"
"I will do my best." Said Zhaan, inclining her head slightly.
"Thank you. Well…" She looked around the table and caught Crichton look of exaggerated interest, she quickly looked back at Zhaan. " I must have been thinking about John's weapons problem that he was telling us about before," she had everyone's complete attention now, except for Rygel who was eating noisily at the far end of the table " because I dreamt that I had taken the old pistol and thrown it away and bought John a shiny new rifle, but when I went to find John he was not in his quarters. So I went looking for him and I found him in Rygel's room, but we heard D'Argo in hyper rage outside the door and John disappeared before my eyes." She stopped looking for some sign from her audience that they were following her. D'Argo was concentrating very hard, but Chiana looked lost. Rygel seemed to be paying her no attention at all.
Zhaan smiled encouragingly. "Please continue."
" The next thing I knew a small… very small… yellow…um…child approached me saying that he had a message from an old friend who had lost an arm in the recent past." She stressed the words and D'Argo's look of discomfort satisfied her that at least one person knew to whom she was referring. " He said my friend was in good health and wanted to see John's new weapon. I said that we would go and visit him soon but I didn't know the way. The child said that my friend would throw his doors open to us when we decided to come, but gave me no directions to show me how to get there." She looked around once more and frowned "Then I woke up." She finished rather lamely.
"That was, indeed, an interesting dream." Said Zhaan, nodding. "I think it is full of optimistic signs. Tell me, did the child say when your friend expected you?"
"No."
"And you don't know where exactly this welcome will be?"
"No, but perhaps I will see it… the child, again. In a dream." She grimaced slightly. " And maybe he will tell me then." Aeryn resolved to smack Crichton in the face if he didn't stop grinning at her.
"I think the meaning of your dream will be clearer if that happens, but I would take heart from the positive signs. You are obviously travelling down the correct path." Zhaan smiled at her. Aeryn couldn't help but feel a little pleased with herself.
"I hope that in your dream, Crichton didn't touch anything in my room. I have some very valuable possessions there." Rygel huffed.
Crichton reached across and smacked him on the back of the head. "Relax, Sparky. What have you been up to?"
"The Cargo hold is in a mess. It looks as though someone has been looking for something."
"What?"
"I don't know"
"Did they find it?"
"I don't know."
"Thank you, Rygel! Very informative." Crichton rolled his eyes.
"Well, yotz! Maybe if I'd dreamt about it…" D'Argo's hand clamped over Rygel's mouth.
"That is enough, your Lowness." The Luxan's voice held the promise of violence.
"All the larger crates have been opened, but the smaller ones have been left alone." Chiana told them. " There is one large one on the hamman side that is completely empty – there is no sign of what it had in it, but all the rest have had their contents tipped out and scattered."
"And if we put the contents back in the containers…?" Zhaan asked.
"They would be full again." Rygel said. " We don't appear to have lost any of the content that came on board, except for that one crate."
"Interesting." Zhaan dropped her voice. "Maybe what he's looking for isn't here and that is why he is taking us back."
"I think you might be onto something there, Blue." Crichton nodded.
"So what are we all going to do now?" Chiana said, looking around.
Aeryn could feel a headache coming on. She was tired of all of this whispering and ridiculous coded talking. She wanted to go to Pilot's chamber and blast the dren out of this Tarone. She was vaguely aware of the others talking around her. She hoped it wasn't another frelling code.
Crichton was similarly distracted. They needed to ditch the DRDs again, but he didn't think that he and Aeryn could go for another shower quite so quickly without drawing attention. D'Argo was too large to fit in the escape tunnel, as they had found out when he had been chasing Rygel that time, and any combination of Chiana, Rygel and Zhaan just wouldn't work…on any level. They would need something else…
" I'm going to go to work on my prowler." Aeryn's voice made everyone stop what they were doing and look at her. " D'Argo and John, I'll need your help if you are not busy?"
They both nodded.
"Well…what about me?" Chiana said indignantly.
"You can't fix prowlers." Aeryn said flatly.
"Go to your quarters, Chiana" D'Argo said softly. "We'll call you if anything happens."
"I will also be in my quarters." Said Rygel adding more softly to Aeryn as he passed, "the ones that used to be yours."
"As will I." Zhaan said, putting her hand on Chiana's arm and beginning to lead her away. "Goddess be with you."
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Aeryn lay on her back under her prowler, fiddling with some wiring coming from the undercarriage. Crichton lay beside her face down, pretending to help her and D'Argo crouched down to the side, effectively providing a barrier between their group and the DRDs.
"OK Aeryn, why have you got us here?" Crichton whispered.
"Because I've thought of a way of losing the DRDs." She raised her voice for the benefit of the DRDs "Hand me that solder will you?"
"This one?" He handed her the first thing that came to hand and whispered. "Well, don't keep it to yourself."
"We can trick Tarone by making him watch a recorded image through the eyes of the DRDs"
"We can do that?" Crichton sounded surprised.
"Yes. As well as instantly feeding back images to Moya, the DRDs record everything they see automatically. If we can access those recordings and play a pre-recorded image over and over, then…."
"Then Tarone will think that we are still here fixing prowlers, right up until the time we tap him on the shoulder and stick a pulse rifle in his ribs. And you know how to do this?" He looked at Aeryn as she nodded. "Outstanding, Aeryn." She grinned at the compliment.
"Tarone will know the moment that we interfere with any of the DRDs." D'Argo said unconvinced.
Aeryn shook her head. "Although Tarone probably has immediate access to the audio and visual feedback, most of the information will still go straight from the DRD to Pilot. If we do this correctly, only Pilot will know that we have done something.
"And he's probably not in the mood to share information with Tarone." Crichton reasoned.
"You better be right." D'Argo said. "All our lives depend upon it."
"Can you switch it on, D'Argo?" Aeryn said loudly. Then, "That's enough, thank you."
"D'Argo's face reappeared. "What do we need to do?"
"We need a diversion to make sure that Tarone isn't paying attention to our DRDs and we need to have an image to use that won't make it obvious that it is recorded. Then I will make a few simple modifications to the DRDs while Tarone is distracted and we can get out of here.
"OK, D'Argo. Chiana is a walking, talking diversion. Go to her and get her to pull some sort of stunt. Something loud and lengthy. Try and get all of the others to gather in her quarters so we know where you all are. And try and make sure that Tarone is paying attention – maybe call on Pilot to do something. Aeryn and I will put the DRDs' tapes on a loop and go get Pilot."
"DRDs do not have any 'tapes'." Aeryn frowned.
"I know, Aeryn." He looked at D'Argo. "Are you clear on what needs to be done?"
D'Argo nodded.
"Give us…" he looked back at Aeryn. " how long?"
"Six hundred microts, maybe."
"OK, six hundred microts and then set Chiana off."
"Thank you for your help D'Argo." Aeryn said loudly
"Yeah, thanks, big guy. Couldn't have done it without you." Crichton sat up and watched as D'Argo left the hanger.
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TBC