Title: Written on a Thumbnail
Author: cofax
Email: cofax@mindspring.com
See Part 1 for complete headers.
Note: Rather than make everyone wait for the finale, I decided to just post the end and be done with it. This part is in 2 sections.
*Part 7: The One That Got Away*
I awake to the realization I'm cold. But as I become aware of that, someone pulls a blanket over me and rests a hand on my cheek. The skin is soft; it's unlikely to be Aeryn, for a number of reasons.
Everything hurts: my head, my feet, my chest. But it's glossed over by the drifting numbness of one of Zhaan's more powerful painkillers. I lever my lids up to see Jool's bright eyes looking at me with unfamiliar compassion.
"Jool," I say, and cough. She lifts my head and gives me a little water. I'm in the medical bay on Moya.
So I'm alive. They got me out after all. I don't remember much of the last hours on the carrier: it's a haze of pain and dizziness and the slow horrified realization that Harvey had lied to me. I wait for the expected wash of anger, but all I feel is unease. I didn't really hope to survive the escape, and I owe Crichton my life. I'm less resentful of that than I expected to be.
But now I have to live. I'm not sure I know how. I'm not entirely sure I want to. Harvey lied. He lied, and I'm here, and I'm him too. He's *not gone*, he's just part of me. I can feel the rage and the casual malice coiled inside, the condescension waiting behind my teeth, the assumption of superiority filtering the very light in the room. I'm never getting rid of Scorpius now.
The irony is almost enough to make me laugh. If the cavalry had arrived just a little sooner; if Supay had had just a little more time; if Scorpius had been just a little less desperate, or a little more angry. But it didn't work out that way, and here I am instead.
I've seen enough of the roof of this room over the past few years, so I roll my head to the side. The bed against the other wall is occupied as well. D'Argo is asleep or unconscious; the number and variety of medical equipment on the table next to him indicates he's in worse shape than I am.
Jool smoothes my hair and steps away to putter about the bay, cleaning and sorting equipment, but blissfully silent. Her black leather bustle occasionally jostles one of the rolling carts. "Jool," I say again, and wave a hand towards D'Argo. "What -- what happened to D'Argo?"
Her hands stop moving and her expression sombers. "He was shot during your escape. He should recover but it will take some time."
"But he will improve?" It seems important.
"He'd better," says a voice at the door. "Someone has been into my belongings, and I expect full restitution!" Rygel enters the room and hovers at head-height. He looks uneasily around, his gaze skittering off Jool, D'Argo, the medical equipment.
It's weirdly good to see the little guy. "Dominar! How generous of you to favor us with your presence!" I didn't actually miss him, after all, but the atmosphere on Moya without Rygel was -- off. Without Rygel as a target we turn on each other too easily.
"Yes, well, don't get up, Crichton. Good to see you too, I suppose." He grumbles a bit but brings his thronesled closer to the bed. He peers at my face, then sits back. "Badly injured, were you?"
"Yes, he was," snaps Jool. "John was tortured for days, broke several ribs, sustained severe lacerations on his feet, hands, and back, and many of the wounds are infected. He's also concussed, and I expect he has brain damage but we don't have the facilities here to address that."
She shoves the thronesled away and hands me a cup of something green. I try to put it down but she wraps my hands around it and glares at me. It's disgusting.
"You mean he didn't have brain damage when he left here?" Yet another voice, and Chiana ducks under the sled to sit on the bed. She jostles my feet, and I wince. Nebari tralk -- no. I don't say that. I'm John now, I'm John. John.
"According to you folks, I had brain damage when I *got* here, Pip." She giggles.
"But it's more than brain damage, too, isn't it?" asks Rygel, and he's got that sly tone in his voice that I've never liked. "Something changed."
I grit my teeth. I don't want to know who told them all. But it's clear they know: Chiana slides off the bed, cocks her head and swivels her shoulders. The old behaviors, the ones that signal she's unhappy, uncertain.
"Crichton? That true?"
Chiana remembers Scorpius too clearly. And I can't lie to her, not even now. "Yeah, Pip, it's true. Things are different inside my head now."
"Different how?" She cuts to the chase, as always. Rygel leans forward in his chair.
There's no good way to say this, no way to tell them that will make it sound all right. "I have Scorpius's memories. Part of his personality, too. I can read Scarran and Sebacean, I know all about Peacekeeper politics and command structures, I can build an Aurora Chair from spare parts in the cargo bay, and I know sixteen different ways to kill a Scarran using only kitchen ware."
Chiana can't pale; but she draws her head away. "What -- what happened to Crichton?"
I let out a breath. "I'm still here, Chi. It's just . . . there aren't two separate people in my head anymore. Just one person, with two sets of memories."
She nods, but doesn't look like she accepts the distinction. The Nebari have never appreciated ambiguity. It may take some time for her to adjust.
I turn to Jool, instead, putting on a cheerful expression. "So what's been going on here?" I ask. "Things back to normal?"
"Mostly," she says, with a glance at D'Argo. "After the others went to the Command Carrier after you, a Scarran dreadnought showed up. That distracted the Peacekeepers enough for Talyn to come find us. He towed Moya deep into this asteroid belt, and Rygel and Stark came over to help. Pilot's mostly recovered now, but Moya's can't Starburst yet."
"And we received precious little thanks for our efforts, either, let me tell you," grouses Rygel. Jool leans up and plants a kiss on his cheek, and he grumbles, but looks a little pleased nonetheless.
"So what's the plan now?" I feel restless; I need information, even if I can barely move.
"The plan is to leave this system as soon as we can, in case the Peacekeepers come back. The other plan, " adds Jool, and flaps her hands at Chiana and Rygel, "is for you to get some more sleep. You're not going anywhere for a while. The others can come visiting again later." Jool's not a nurse, she's a guard-dog.
Chiana rolls her eyes, but leaves the bay, not without a doubtful backward glance. Rygel soars out as if he's on an imperial parade. I flop back onto the pillow, and stare at the ceiling.
Some arns later, I think, I'm woken by another touch on my face.
This time I know it's Aeryn even before I open my eyes: something about the honesty of the hand that traces the contusion on my cheekbone. As if I am something she has a right to.
She sits on the stool Jool uses to reach the top shelf of Zhaan's pharmacopoeia, her feet propped high on the rungs. One hand dangles loose between her knees while the other traces the lines of my face. She doesn't stop even when she sees I'm awake.
D'Argo is snoring softly, the rumble in counterpoint to Moya's all-encompassing hum. We are lit only by a dull blue lamp on the table nearest the door. Jool left it for a nightlight but my dreams are no worse in the dark. There's a blue cast to Aeryn's features as a result; she looks like something from one of those French art films Alex used to love. She's changed since she left; I can see a new openness in her face, a happiness in repose I've never seen before. He did this, while I was getting drunk and rolled, and fighting with D'Argo and Pilot, and having my brain filleted by Scorpius.
I've always considered Aeryn stunning by human standards, but Scorpius and Harvey never looked at her with those eyes. So she is now both the woman I love, and a Sebacean Peacekeeper, lethal member of my mother's species. It's a dichotomy that I'm having some difficulty resolving.
Aeryn stands up and reaches a tentative hand to the blanket drawn up to my chest. She looks uneasy: Harvey killed her once, killed her cheerfully, with the throwaway arrogance that was everything I hated about Scorpius. Her breath settles, though, and she draws my blanket down, to reveal the mess Supay left. Supay and her team enjoyed discovering the different geography of the human nervous system. I'd thought, once, that Aeryn would -- I cut that thought off; it hurts, even now. Harvey didn't care, but I still do.
After staring at the wreckage for a few microts, Aeryn starts to touch me. She skims her hands over my neck, chest, arms, belly, her callused fingers raising goosebumps, setting my nerves quivering. She touches the older scars she knows from his body, the proof of our shared history, and documents the newer ones: the line below my rib from a Charrid on Cabri Station, the scar on my shoulder from that business in the Bearrat Nebula. The really new damage she leaves alone, running her hands around the many bandages and patches Jool applied.
My body doesn't care about Harvey; my body remembers what this means, begins to respond, despite the drugs and my lingering exhaustion. She skips my crotch, moves on to my legs and feet, her fingers surer now, mapping me, comparing me to the other. But a stray finger touches a raw burn on my hip; I hiss, and my incipient erection wilts.
"Aeryn." Still flat on my back, I catch her hand in one of mine. "It hurts."
"Yes," she agrees solemnly. "It does." She drops back onto the stool, props her elbows on her knees, and gives me a faint grin. "Look what happens when I leave you alone, Crichton."
"Yeah, but you should see the other guy -- " I roll my head toward her, try to scare up a laugh and wince instead. Damned ribs. Stupid joke anyway.
She shifts on the stool, and I think that visiting hours are just about over. Instead she leans forward and kisses me. I free my left hand, smooth it over her tightly bound hair; her weight is supported by her hands propped against the bed. I haven't forgotten what she tastes like, how cool her lips are -- but it's different now. She's smoother, subtler; as if she knows just how to kiss me. She's been practicing.
After a few more moments she pulls away, frowning. She loves John Crichton, and she'll keep looking for him in me, expecting the human responses that are no longer quite instinctive. She'll compare me with the other guy, and find me wanting, and she'll grieve for what's not her fault.
I roll my head back to stare at the ceiling, which is dark and hard and sharp, too. "It doesn't work, Aeryn."
She stands up suddenly, shoves the stool away with a squeak across the floor. D'Argo mutters in his sleep, and then falls silent again. "Why? Why doesn't it work?" But she doesn't disagree. Instead she stares at me challengingly, her feet apart, her face twisted in grief, as if I could fix this, if I tried hard enough. As if there were a way out of this hole.
If I died she would mourn me, and even now I don't want to cause her that kind of pain. If I stay she'll come to hate me, for choosing to survive by embracing her enemy. I may be tainted now, but I don't think I could survive having Aeryn hate me.
Someone once told me that in some cultures a widow was required to marry her late husband's brother. But even merging with Harvey isn't enough to make me willing to share with myself. The thought is bitter in my mouth.
"Because they broke me," I finally answer. And there's nothing she can say to that.
When she leaves, I'm whispering nursery rhymes to myself in the blue dimness.
Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall.
Humpty Dumpty took a big fall.
And all the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty Dumpty together again.
***
We slipped out of the system as soon as we could, limped away with Talyn's help, and hid ourselves deep in an asteroid field three light-cycles away. It's been four days now, while John and D heal and the rest of us work like dogs getting Moya back into shape. There was nothing left but debris where the carrier was; Crais thinks the dreadnought destroyed it.
A dreadnought is twice the size of a carrier, and thousands of people live on a carrier, some of them children. Aeryn grew up on a carrier. She and Crais both say the damage we did to the docking bay wasn't enough to make any difference; if the carrier could have run, it would have, but perhaps the Scarrans had them trapped. There's no way to know if anyone got away. All because Talyn decided he had a better idea. It's going to take me a while to forgive him, but he's not the first to have a good plan go into the toilet.
Moya still can't Starburst but at least now she can get to an inhabited system where we can find some supplies. More chromextin and irescentent fluid. That immobilizer pulse did a hell of a lot of damage to her, even more than to Talyn. Poor girl.
I pat her wall as I walk down the hall towards the medical bay, and imagine I can hear the hum in the wall change pitch. It's good to be back home, even under these circumstances. It's pretty late; most of the rest are asleep, but Aeryn took the Marauder out on a scouting run a couple of arns ago, and I still have a job to do.
One I need a very small audience for.
Thankfully Jool is gone, and D'Argo looks like he's asleep. The lights in the medical bay are low, but John lies on his side, scribbling in a notebook. I know he's been doing a lot of work with the data we got from Scorpy's lab, but I've been too busy working on Moya to give him any help. I want to sit down and hear what he's got so far. But not tonight.
He looks up at me as I lean in through the door. I put my finger to my lips and cock my head towards the hallway. He purses his lips, then nods. I step back, and a moment later he limps into the hallway, wearing some brown drawstring pants Chi found in the upper tiers, and a stained T-shirt.
"What is it?" he asks with a frown.
I answer as I lead him slowly down the hall toward quarters. "I've been thinking about how you guys got captured. About what it would take for Peacekeepers to be able to track you from place to place."
"Because you can't follow a leviathan in Starburst." It's not a question. His eyes are narrowed as he follows this train of thought, and then they flash open between one step and the next. Eureka. "How did I miss that?"
I laugh grimly; that was exactly my response. "Other things on your mind? Come on, let's go have us a little chat."
Rygel is asleep, flat on his royal back in a large bed, surrounded by trinkets, blankets, and bits of food. I'd think he was having a party but this is what his quarters usually look like. He hated Talyn's DRDs because they cleaned up after him. Moya's know better.
John stays in the hallway and I step carefully into the chamber. Sparky's got good ears; he mumbles something and begins to stir as I approach the bed, so I spring forward and whip the bedclothes around him, trapping him in a jumble of blanket.
"Wha-- what -- Hey! Criiiichton! What are you doing!" His voice is muffled by the bedclothes: I know better than to let his mouth anywhere near me. I bundle him under my arm and rejoin John in the hallway.
"Shut up, Sparky," I hiss, "or I'll drop you on your head. We're going to have a little talk, you and us. Okay?"
The response is unintelligible to my microbes, but there is a hiss as of gas releasing. I make sure to breathe shallowly and say nothing until we get to Pilot's den.
"Commander," says Pilot in some surprise as we approach. He looks in perplexity from one of me to the other. Is this the first time he's seen us both in the flesh?
"Good evening, Pilot," John says, and pulls himself up painfully onto the console. I hold out the wriggling bundle of blanket and unroll it in midair, so his Eminence lands on his ass on the floor in front of Pilot.
"Crichton! I'm going to kill you! I'm going to kill *both* of you! You won't --" I lift the blanket threateningly and his voice dies away. He struggles over onto his feet and stands unsteadily.
Pilot's shocked. "Commander! What have you--"
John puts up a hand. "Don't be concerned for Rygel, Pilot. Although he should be concerned for himself, shouldn't he?" And he stares intently at the little toad, who draws in a sharp breath and looks around for support.
No help here, Sparky. You crossed the line.
"I -- I don't know what you're talking about, Crichton." Ah, he's going to try to bluff it out.
"Nice try, Buckwheat," I say, "but we've got the proof. You think you left no trail, but it's all there. Scorpy keeps comprehensive records."
Pilot's head draws back and his eyes narrow. "Scorpius? What has Dominar Rygel to do with Scorpius?"
"Rygel turned us in, didn't you, old friend? Old buddy?" The bile is rising.
"No, no, I didn't -- I wouldn't -- " Despite his impressive brain and fierce personality, Rygel's such a little guy at the end of the day. And he knows it. He looks from me to John to Pilot and back, the anxiety on his face growing with every microt. If I hadn't seen John huddled in the docking bay, bloody feet and all, desperate to kill Scorpius; or D'Argo, blood pooling black under him on the floor of the Marauder; or Moya, poor defenseless Moya, crippled and in pain -- well, maybe I would have had a little more sympathy.
"Dominar *Rygel* turned us in?" Pilot's voice has taken on an edge I haven't heard since the day he nearly killed Aeryn.
"He gave the frequency of Neeyala's beacon to Scorpius, didn't you, Dominar?" says John flatly. It isn't a question. His hands are clenched together around his knees, and his face is pale. Of all of us, John might have the most right to revenge here. Moya and D'Argo will recover, but John won't. Ever.
Pilot growls, his eyes flashing, and Rygel takes an uncertain step backwards. But there isn't much more "backwards" here in the den; one more step and he's into the abyss. It's a long drop to the lower tiers for a Dominar without his thronesled.
"No, I -- you must be mistaken -- I wouldn't -- "
"Bullshit, Sparky." I pull the chip from my pocket. Crais had given it to me this morning after he'd found one particular file in the data we'd stolen from Scorpy. "This has the message with the frequency, the proposal, and Scorpius' very accurate profile of the probable sender. Did you think you were dealing with an amateur? This is *Scorpius*, Rygel! Jesus, how could you be so *stupid*!"
That pricks him; a challenge to his ego will always get a rise out of Rygel. "I'm not stupid! But we were trapped, and it was all *your* fault, Crichton! The Peacekeepers would have forgotten the rest of us by now if it weren't for you and that damned wormhole yotz in your brain! Why shouldn't I cut a deal for us!" His earbrows are lowered, his voice fast and vicious. "After all, we had *two* of you! No one would even miss you!"
Two of us. I blink at John, whose face is dangerously composed. I can't control mine, though, and I begin to snicker helplessly.
"My god, Rygel, you figured it was all right because we had a *spare*?"
Pilot doesn't get the joke.
It takes a while to recover from that, and to hash out the probable repercussions. John thinks that Scorpius wouldn't have shared the knowledge widely, but I'm less convinced or more paranoid. Pilot and I decide the next major project will be figuring out how to remove or mask Neeyala's beacon. It's something we should have addressed a while ago anyway.
As for Rygel, well, we've got him pinned like a beetle on a board. He's lucky Pilot doesn't have the DRDs chuck him out an airlock, and agrees to damn near anything we ask. Besides, he knows he's shish kebab if we let a word of this slip to Aeryn or D'Argo. So he's going to be the perfect shipmate. His entire take from the Depository -- what's left of it -- will go towards supplies for Moya. He will work cheerfully and hard to help fix the damaged systems. And he has lost unrestricted access to communications; Pilot will be monitoring him very closely indeed.
He doesn't have a lot of options; if he doesn't agree he's off the ship, abandoned in this sparsely-populated sector of the Territories with no resources and no way to get home. But he's not gracious about it; I don't think he even realizes what a terrible betrayal it was. Not of me, or of John, but of Moya.
Still, nice to know some things just don't change. My boy Sparky is always thinking of the bottom line.
***
END Part 7a; continued in Part 7b
I am the darkness in your daughter
I'm the spot beneath the skin
I'm the shadow on the pavement
I'm the broken heart within
-- Yes Virginia I Am --
http://cofax.freeservers.com
Author: cofax
Email: cofax@mindspring.com
See Part 1 for complete headers.
Note: Rather than make everyone wait for the finale, I decided to just post the end and be done with it. This part is in 2 sections.
*Part 7: The One That Got Away*
I awake to the realization I'm cold. But as I become aware of that, someone pulls a blanket over me and rests a hand on my cheek. The skin is soft; it's unlikely to be Aeryn, for a number of reasons.
Everything hurts: my head, my feet, my chest. But it's glossed over by the drifting numbness of one of Zhaan's more powerful painkillers. I lever my lids up to see Jool's bright eyes looking at me with unfamiliar compassion.
"Jool," I say, and cough. She lifts my head and gives me a little water. I'm in the medical bay on Moya.
So I'm alive. They got me out after all. I don't remember much of the last hours on the carrier: it's a haze of pain and dizziness and the slow horrified realization that Harvey had lied to me. I wait for the expected wash of anger, but all I feel is unease. I didn't really hope to survive the escape, and I owe Crichton my life. I'm less resentful of that than I expected to be.
But now I have to live. I'm not sure I know how. I'm not entirely sure I want to. Harvey lied. He lied, and I'm here, and I'm him too. He's *not gone*, he's just part of me. I can feel the rage and the casual malice coiled inside, the condescension waiting behind my teeth, the assumption of superiority filtering the very light in the room. I'm never getting rid of Scorpius now.
The irony is almost enough to make me laugh. If the cavalry had arrived just a little sooner; if Supay had had just a little more time; if Scorpius had been just a little less desperate, or a little more angry. But it didn't work out that way, and here I am instead.
I've seen enough of the roof of this room over the past few years, so I roll my head to the side. The bed against the other wall is occupied as well. D'Argo is asleep or unconscious; the number and variety of medical equipment on the table next to him indicates he's in worse shape than I am.
Jool smoothes my hair and steps away to putter about the bay, cleaning and sorting equipment, but blissfully silent. Her black leather bustle occasionally jostles one of the rolling carts. "Jool," I say again, and wave a hand towards D'Argo. "What -- what happened to D'Argo?"
Her hands stop moving and her expression sombers. "He was shot during your escape. He should recover but it will take some time."
"But he will improve?" It seems important.
"He'd better," says a voice at the door. "Someone has been into my belongings, and I expect full restitution!" Rygel enters the room and hovers at head-height. He looks uneasily around, his gaze skittering off Jool, D'Argo, the medical equipment.
It's weirdly good to see the little guy. "Dominar! How generous of you to favor us with your presence!" I didn't actually miss him, after all, but the atmosphere on Moya without Rygel was -- off. Without Rygel as a target we turn on each other too easily.
"Yes, well, don't get up, Crichton. Good to see you too, I suppose." He grumbles a bit but brings his thronesled closer to the bed. He peers at my face, then sits back. "Badly injured, were you?"
"Yes, he was," snaps Jool. "John was tortured for days, broke several ribs, sustained severe lacerations on his feet, hands, and back, and many of the wounds are infected. He's also concussed, and I expect he has brain damage but we don't have the facilities here to address that."
She shoves the thronesled away and hands me a cup of something green. I try to put it down but she wraps my hands around it and glares at me. It's disgusting.
"You mean he didn't have brain damage when he left here?" Yet another voice, and Chiana ducks under the sled to sit on the bed. She jostles my feet, and I wince. Nebari tralk -- no. I don't say that. I'm John now, I'm John. John.
"According to you folks, I had brain damage when I *got* here, Pip." She giggles.
"But it's more than brain damage, too, isn't it?" asks Rygel, and he's got that sly tone in his voice that I've never liked. "Something changed."
I grit my teeth. I don't want to know who told them all. But it's clear they know: Chiana slides off the bed, cocks her head and swivels her shoulders. The old behaviors, the ones that signal she's unhappy, uncertain.
"Crichton? That true?"
Chiana remembers Scorpius too clearly. And I can't lie to her, not even now. "Yeah, Pip, it's true. Things are different inside my head now."
"Different how?" She cuts to the chase, as always. Rygel leans forward in his chair.
There's no good way to say this, no way to tell them that will make it sound all right. "I have Scorpius's memories. Part of his personality, too. I can read Scarran and Sebacean, I know all about Peacekeeper politics and command structures, I can build an Aurora Chair from spare parts in the cargo bay, and I know sixteen different ways to kill a Scarran using only kitchen ware."
Chiana can't pale; but she draws her head away. "What -- what happened to Crichton?"
I let out a breath. "I'm still here, Chi. It's just . . . there aren't two separate people in my head anymore. Just one person, with two sets of memories."
She nods, but doesn't look like she accepts the distinction. The Nebari have never appreciated ambiguity. It may take some time for her to adjust.
I turn to Jool, instead, putting on a cheerful expression. "So what's been going on here?" I ask. "Things back to normal?"
"Mostly," she says, with a glance at D'Argo. "After the others went to the Command Carrier after you, a Scarran dreadnought showed up. That distracted the Peacekeepers enough for Talyn to come find us. He towed Moya deep into this asteroid belt, and Rygel and Stark came over to help. Pilot's mostly recovered now, but Moya's can't Starburst yet."
"And we received precious little thanks for our efforts, either, let me tell you," grouses Rygel. Jool leans up and plants a kiss on his cheek, and he grumbles, but looks a little pleased nonetheless.
"So what's the plan now?" I feel restless; I need information, even if I can barely move.
"The plan is to leave this system as soon as we can, in case the Peacekeepers come back. The other plan, " adds Jool, and flaps her hands at Chiana and Rygel, "is for you to get some more sleep. You're not going anywhere for a while. The others can come visiting again later." Jool's not a nurse, she's a guard-dog.
Chiana rolls her eyes, but leaves the bay, not without a doubtful backward glance. Rygel soars out as if he's on an imperial parade. I flop back onto the pillow, and stare at the ceiling.
Some arns later, I think, I'm woken by another touch on my face.
This time I know it's Aeryn even before I open my eyes: something about the honesty of the hand that traces the contusion on my cheekbone. As if I am something she has a right to.
She sits on the stool Jool uses to reach the top shelf of Zhaan's pharmacopoeia, her feet propped high on the rungs. One hand dangles loose between her knees while the other traces the lines of my face. She doesn't stop even when she sees I'm awake.
D'Argo is snoring softly, the rumble in counterpoint to Moya's all-encompassing hum. We are lit only by a dull blue lamp on the table nearest the door. Jool left it for a nightlight but my dreams are no worse in the dark. There's a blue cast to Aeryn's features as a result; she looks like something from one of those French art films Alex used to love. She's changed since she left; I can see a new openness in her face, a happiness in repose I've never seen before. He did this, while I was getting drunk and rolled, and fighting with D'Argo and Pilot, and having my brain filleted by Scorpius.
I've always considered Aeryn stunning by human standards, but Scorpius and Harvey never looked at her with those eyes. So she is now both the woman I love, and a Sebacean Peacekeeper, lethal member of my mother's species. It's a dichotomy that I'm having some difficulty resolving.
Aeryn stands up and reaches a tentative hand to the blanket drawn up to my chest. She looks uneasy: Harvey killed her once, killed her cheerfully, with the throwaway arrogance that was everything I hated about Scorpius. Her breath settles, though, and she draws my blanket down, to reveal the mess Supay left. Supay and her team enjoyed discovering the different geography of the human nervous system. I'd thought, once, that Aeryn would -- I cut that thought off; it hurts, even now. Harvey didn't care, but I still do.
After staring at the wreckage for a few microts, Aeryn starts to touch me. She skims her hands over my neck, chest, arms, belly, her callused fingers raising goosebumps, setting my nerves quivering. She touches the older scars she knows from his body, the proof of our shared history, and documents the newer ones: the line below my rib from a Charrid on Cabri Station, the scar on my shoulder from that business in the Bearrat Nebula. The really new damage she leaves alone, running her hands around the many bandages and patches Jool applied.
My body doesn't care about Harvey; my body remembers what this means, begins to respond, despite the drugs and my lingering exhaustion. She skips my crotch, moves on to my legs and feet, her fingers surer now, mapping me, comparing me to the other. But a stray finger touches a raw burn on my hip; I hiss, and my incipient erection wilts.
"Aeryn." Still flat on my back, I catch her hand in one of mine. "It hurts."
"Yes," she agrees solemnly. "It does." She drops back onto the stool, props her elbows on her knees, and gives me a faint grin. "Look what happens when I leave you alone, Crichton."
"Yeah, but you should see the other guy -- " I roll my head toward her, try to scare up a laugh and wince instead. Damned ribs. Stupid joke anyway.
She shifts on the stool, and I think that visiting hours are just about over. Instead she leans forward and kisses me. I free my left hand, smooth it over her tightly bound hair; her weight is supported by her hands propped against the bed. I haven't forgotten what she tastes like, how cool her lips are -- but it's different now. She's smoother, subtler; as if she knows just how to kiss me. She's been practicing.
After a few more moments she pulls away, frowning. She loves John Crichton, and she'll keep looking for him in me, expecting the human responses that are no longer quite instinctive. She'll compare me with the other guy, and find me wanting, and she'll grieve for what's not her fault.
I roll my head back to stare at the ceiling, which is dark and hard and sharp, too. "It doesn't work, Aeryn."
She stands up suddenly, shoves the stool away with a squeak across the floor. D'Argo mutters in his sleep, and then falls silent again. "Why? Why doesn't it work?" But she doesn't disagree. Instead she stares at me challengingly, her feet apart, her face twisted in grief, as if I could fix this, if I tried hard enough. As if there were a way out of this hole.
If I died she would mourn me, and even now I don't want to cause her that kind of pain. If I stay she'll come to hate me, for choosing to survive by embracing her enemy. I may be tainted now, but I don't think I could survive having Aeryn hate me.
Someone once told me that in some cultures a widow was required to marry her late husband's brother. But even merging with Harvey isn't enough to make me willing to share with myself. The thought is bitter in my mouth.
"Because they broke me," I finally answer. And there's nothing she can say to that.
When she leaves, I'm whispering nursery rhymes to myself in the blue dimness.
Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall.
Humpty Dumpty took a big fall.
And all the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty Dumpty together again.
***
We slipped out of the system as soon as we could, limped away with Talyn's help, and hid ourselves deep in an asteroid field three light-cycles away. It's been four days now, while John and D heal and the rest of us work like dogs getting Moya back into shape. There was nothing left but debris where the carrier was; Crais thinks the dreadnought destroyed it.
A dreadnought is twice the size of a carrier, and thousands of people live on a carrier, some of them children. Aeryn grew up on a carrier. She and Crais both say the damage we did to the docking bay wasn't enough to make any difference; if the carrier could have run, it would have, but perhaps the Scarrans had them trapped. There's no way to know if anyone got away. All because Talyn decided he had a better idea. It's going to take me a while to forgive him, but he's not the first to have a good plan go into the toilet.
Moya still can't Starburst but at least now she can get to an inhabited system where we can find some supplies. More chromextin and irescentent fluid. That immobilizer pulse did a hell of a lot of damage to her, even more than to Talyn. Poor girl.
I pat her wall as I walk down the hall towards the medical bay, and imagine I can hear the hum in the wall change pitch. It's good to be back home, even under these circumstances. It's pretty late; most of the rest are asleep, but Aeryn took the Marauder out on a scouting run a couple of arns ago, and I still have a job to do.
One I need a very small audience for.
Thankfully Jool is gone, and D'Argo looks like he's asleep. The lights in the medical bay are low, but John lies on his side, scribbling in a notebook. I know he's been doing a lot of work with the data we got from Scorpy's lab, but I've been too busy working on Moya to give him any help. I want to sit down and hear what he's got so far. But not tonight.
He looks up at me as I lean in through the door. I put my finger to my lips and cock my head towards the hallway. He purses his lips, then nods. I step back, and a moment later he limps into the hallway, wearing some brown drawstring pants Chi found in the upper tiers, and a stained T-shirt.
"What is it?" he asks with a frown.
I answer as I lead him slowly down the hall toward quarters. "I've been thinking about how you guys got captured. About what it would take for Peacekeepers to be able to track you from place to place."
"Because you can't follow a leviathan in Starburst." It's not a question. His eyes are narrowed as he follows this train of thought, and then they flash open between one step and the next. Eureka. "How did I miss that?"
I laugh grimly; that was exactly my response. "Other things on your mind? Come on, let's go have us a little chat."
Rygel is asleep, flat on his royal back in a large bed, surrounded by trinkets, blankets, and bits of food. I'd think he was having a party but this is what his quarters usually look like. He hated Talyn's DRDs because they cleaned up after him. Moya's know better.
John stays in the hallway and I step carefully into the chamber. Sparky's got good ears; he mumbles something and begins to stir as I approach the bed, so I spring forward and whip the bedclothes around him, trapping him in a jumble of blanket.
"Wha-- what -- Hey! Criiiichton! What are you doing!" His voice is muffled by the bedclothes: I know better than to let his mouth anywhere near me. I bundle him under my arm and rejoin John in the hallway.
"Shut up, Sparky," I hiss, "or I'll drop you on your head. We're going to have a little talk, you and us. Okay?"
The response is unintelligible to my microbes, but there is a hiss as of gas releasing. I make sure to breathe shallowly and say nothing until we get to Pilot's den.
"Commander," says Pilot in some surprise as we approach. He looks in perplexity from one of me to the other. Is this the first time he's seen us both in the flesh?
"Good evening, Pilot," John says, and pulls himself up painfully onto the console. I hold out the wriggling bundle of blanket and unroll it in midair, so his Eminence lands on his ass on the floor in front of Pilot.
"Crichton! I'm going to kill you! I'm going to kill *both* of you! You won't --" I lift the blanket threateningly and his voice dies away. He struggles over onto his feet and stands unsteadily.
Pilot's shocked. "Commander! What have you--"
John puts up a hand. "Don't be concerned for Rygel, Pilot. Although he should be concerned for himself, shouldn't he?" And he stares intently at the little toad, who draws in a sharp breath and looks around for support.
No help here, Sparky. You crossed the line.
"I -- I don't know what you're talking about, Crichton." Ah, he's going to try to bluff it out.
"Nice try, Buckwheat," I say, "but we've got the proof. You think you left no trail, but it's all there. Scorpy keeps comprehensive records."
Pilot's head draws back and his eyes narrow. "Scorpius? What has Dominar Rygel to do with Scorpius?"
"Rygel turned us in, didn't you, old friend? Old buddy?" The bile is rising.
"No, no, I didn't -- I wouldn't -- " Despite his impressive brain and fierce personality, Rygel's such a little guy at the end of the day. And he knows it. He looks from me to John to Pilot and back, the anxiety on his face growing with every microt. If I hadn't seen John huddled in the docking bay, bloody feet and all, desperate to kill Scorpius; or D'Argo, blood pooling black under him on the floor of the Marauder; or Moya, poor defenseless Moya, crippled and in pain -- well, maybe I would have had a little more sympathy.
"Dominar *Rygel* turned us in?" Pilot's voice has taken on an edge I haven't heard since the day he nearly killed Aeryn.
"He gave the frequency of Neeyala's beacon to Scorpius, didn't you, Dominar?" says John flatly. It isn't a question. His hands are clenched together around his knees, and his face is pale. Of all of us, John might have the most right to revenge here. Moya and D'Argo will recover, but John won't. Ever.
Pilot growls, his eyes flashing, and Rygel takes an uncertain step backwards. But there isn't much more "backwards" here in the den; one more step and he's into the abyss. It's a long drop to the lower tiers for a Dominar without his thronesled.
"No, I -- you must be mistaken -- I wouldn't -- "
"Bullshit, Sparky." I pull the chip from my pocket. Crais had given it to me this morning after he'd found one particular file in the data we'd stolen from Scorpy. "This has the message with the frequency, the proposal, and Scorpius' very accurate profile of the probable sender. Did you think you were dealing with an amateur? This is *Scorpius*, Rygel! Jesus, how could you be so *stupid*!"
That pricks him; a challenge to his ego will always get a rise out of Rygel. "I'm not stupid! But we were trapped, and it was all *your* fault, Crichton! The Peacekeepers would have forgotten the rest of us by now if it weren't for you and that damned wormhole yotz in your brain! Why shouldn't I cut a deal for us!" His earbrows are lowered, his voice fast and vicious. "After all, we had *two* of you! No one would even miss you!"
Two of us. I blink at John, whose face is dangerously composed. I can't control mine, though, and I begin to snicker helplessly.
"My god, Rygel, you figured it was all right because we had a *spare*?"
Pilot doesn't get the joke.
It takes a while to recover from that, and to hash out the probable repercussions. John thinks that Scorpius wouldn't have shared the knowledge widely, but I'm less convinced or more paranoid. Pilot and I decide the next major project will be figuring out how to remove or mask Neeyala's beacon. It's something we should have addressed a while ago anyway.
As for Rygel, well, we've got him pinned like a beetle on a board. He's lucky Pilot doesn't have the DRDs chuck him out an airlock, and agrees to damn near anything we ask. Besides, he knows he's shish kebab if we let a word of this slip to Aeryn or D'Argo. So he's going to be the perfect shipmate. His entire take from the Depository -- what's left of it -- will go towards supplies for Moya. He will work cheerfully and hard to help fix the damaged systems. And he has lost unrestricted access to communications; Pilot will be monitoring him very closely indeed.
He doesn't have a lot of options; if he doesn't agree he's off the ship, abandoned in this sparsely-populated sector of the Territories with no resources and no way to get home. But he's not gracious about it; I don't think he even realizes what a terrible betrayal it was. Not of me, or of John, but of Moya.
Still, nice to know some things just don't change. My boy Sparky is always thinking of the bottom line.
***
END Part 7a; continued in Part 7b
I am the darkness in your daughter
I'm the spot beneath the skin
I'm the shadow on the pavement
I'm the broken heart within
-- Yes Virginia I Am --
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