Malika opened her mental eyes, and then closed them right away. She seemed to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Zhaan sensed the younger Delvian's growing panic.
"Concentrated on seeing with my eyes. You're too young and inexperience in the Seek to find the order in chaos," she told Malika.
Malika imagined herself inside Zhaan's head and using her eyes instead of her own. Immediately the place they had entered took on a sense of order her mind could comprehend. She suddenly found herself in a body again standing beside Zhaan. They were in a dark place surrounded by small spheres of different color lights. The globes traveled around seemingly at random, giving the place the effect of one of those loud taverns Crichton and the rest like to frequent except without the loud music or annoying drunken patrons.
"What is this place?" she asked. "I think I liked the last one better, at least you could see."
"This is where Berret's memories reside. For our purposes I simplified their appearance to make them easier to work with," Zhaan apologized. "Our task will be difficult enough without needless details to distract us."
"These little balls of light are his memories?" asked Malika.
"Yes," answered Zhaan. "Each one contains a memory. The memory could be as short as a nano-microt or as long as an entire cycle. There are no rules here as to the time they can cover. We have to locate one that is a recent memory. Once we do that we can follow the chain of events leading up to his separation with reality.
"What do you mean by a chain? There's just these glowing spheres all over," Malika said.
"It seems they are traveling around randomly put each event is connected to the one that proceeds it and the one that followed it. Once we capture the one that we want the others will be drawn to it," explained the older woman. "We than just determine which direction to go and follow the links until we get close to the bad memories. Once we feel we are close enough, we can sever the link and wall the remaining parts of the chain away. In theory, Berret should then awaken with his memory up until then intact and he will never have experienced the trauma that broke his mind."
"Almost sounds simple enough," commented Malika. "But why don't we just follow the links down to the instant his mind snapped and cut them off there?"
"That's where the danger lays for us. We are inside Berret's mind, thus if we get too close to what drove him mad... it could do the same to us," answered Zhaan. "And there will be no one who could try to bring us back. "
"I'm glad you finally decided to share that little tidbit with me," snapped the younger Delvian.
"I'm sorry. I didn't want to cause you undue stress on the journey to get here," apologized Zhaan. "In truth, I didn't believe it would be possible for us to get this far. If you now decide to leave this joined Unity, the others and I will understand. This is dangerous even for a Pa'u with more training than I. No one will fault you for not going where you don't have the training or skill to be yet."
Malika saw that Zhaan sincerely meant the offer for her to withdraw from the Unity. She also saw the grim determination lying underneath the older Delvians calm veneer.
"Even if I chose to leave the Unity, you're still going to stay here and try... aren't you?" Malika asked.
Zhaan nodded. "I have to try and bring him back. I can't leave him like this if there's a chance I could help."
"I'm not leaving you here alone. We've come this far," said Malika. "Just show me what we have to do."
Zhaan sighed in relief, which didn't improve Malika's confidence that the older Delvian was still worried.
"Watch and I will show you what to do, but you must do exactly what I show you and nothing more," she explained. Zhaan reached out toward a sphere pulsing with blue light.
"You must 'read' the memory like this. Hold out your hand and the memory will stop moving as your hand enters its aurora. You have to be sure that you reach only far enough to stop it. If your hand enters the sphere you will disrupt the memory and possibly damage Berret further. If it's a particularly violent memory you may receive physic feedback that might harm you instead. So you reach only far enough to sense what the memory is about." As she demonstrated, it appeared to Malika that she was cupping her hands around the sphere, which seemed to float between her palms. "If you find one that centers around Berret's time on Moya let me know and we will carefully move down the chain from there until we've gone as far as we believe we can safely." Zhaan smiled lightly as she read the sphere of light.
"This one is a memory of a holiday from his past life on his homeworld," Zhaan told her.
"Why don't we fix those too while we're here?" asked Malika.
Zhaan shook her head and released the orb. "We can't alter his past if we want him to return to us as he was. Imagine yourself suddenly awakening from a dream to find you're now taken from what you just remembered and thrust into a strange place full of alien beings. They have to stay buried and be recovered one at a time normally for him to make the adjustment. The shock would be too great for him and he needs the knowledge and memories he's developed while here in the Territories to help him survive."
Malika nodded. "So I guess we should get started on tracking a Moya memory down," she said and reached for a sphere just as Zhaan had showed her. Zhaan tried several and found them nowhere close to his time with them. She reached for a bright green one and then suddenly drew her hand back in a hiss of pain. Frowning she waited until another globe the same shade of green passed by her and she reached forward again. As her hand neared it she suddenly found herself inside Berret's body.
They were running through what appeared to be a junkyard for space going craft. In front of them was a humanoid being who was fleeing for his life. She felt Berret's muscles surge and in one powerful leap he had overtaken the being and slammed him viciously to the ground. The humanoid turned over and held up his hands defensively, pleading for his life. She snarled with Berret as the twin blades sprang from their gauntlet and sliced into the man. As the victim screamed, Zhaan cried out and pushed the burning light away from her, ending the vision.
"Malika!" Zhaan called out shakily. "Stay away from the bright green spheres," she ordered.
The younger Delvian turned to look at her in puzzlement.
"They are of death," Zhaan said in distress. Malika nodded in understanding and turned away to allow Zhaan a moment to compose herself in private.
A few microts later Zhaan returned to searching. Both Delvians careful now to avoid touching the bright green orbs of light, which Zhaan found there were far too many of. Malika reached out and caught a purple one. As her hand neared it she caught a glimpse of Berret inside a cell... one of Moya's cells.
"Zhaan! I think I found one," the girl exclaimed, backing her hand away just far enough to cut the vision but keep the sphere from flying away from her. Zhaan rushed to her side and placed a hand near the globe just above the other woman's. The memory came to her. Berret in his cell looking out at Chiana as she promised to bring him something to eat after they starbursted away from the planet she'd found him on.
"You did it, Malika. You found our first link," the Pa'u said with a smile.
Malika smiled in returned and then squeaked in surprise as the memory showed Berret regarding her in her cell. It was obvious by the look on her face in the memory that she didn't like been imprisoned so close to the Shrike. If someone had been staring at her the way she was at Berret then she most likely would have gone over and closed their eyes for them. She was amazed to find Berret didn't take offense at all.
"He-He thinks... I'm pretty," Malika repeated as she heard what the man had been thinking. She than lightly laughed as his next thought came to her. "But he finds my green eyes... disturbing."
"Stop eavesdropping," said Zhaan, "and keep looking."
Malika picked her head up and saw several spheres start to drift purposely toward them.
"There are the next links in the chain. Now we must be extremely careful," Zhaan warned.
The pair waited patiently for the spheres to float toward them. Zhaan reached out and snared another, this one dark blue. She saw Berret and D'argo facing off in her lab when she was running her test on the man.
"This one here is the next," she said to Malika. The younger Delvian set free the sphere she held and waited for the next batch to drift in. Slowly they progressed down the line of Berret's memories. At one point Malika caught a brilliant red one and then shuttered.
"Yuck!" exclaimed the girl.
"What's wrong?" asked Zhaan in alarm. Worried she'd found a new type of violent memory.
Malika made a face. "That one was of Chiana kissing him." She smacked her lips together as if tasting something unpleasant. "Talk about disturbing."
Zhaan released a pent up breath she didn't realize she was holding and then idly thought why should she be holding her breath when this wasn't really her body. She tossed the thought away and then said,
"If you're finished fooling around, can we get back to work?"
"Sure," said Malika, not the least bit put off by Zhaan's tone. "Just thought I'd warn you."
They trace a few more, carefully skipping over the bright green globes, it seemed that there were more and more of them being attracted with each link of the chain they discovered. Zhaan considered that her work trying to help Berret recover his past might have had something to do with the increased number of violent memories connected to certain parts of this end of the chain. A yellow ball of light caught her attention and Zhaan held out her hand to it. As the sphere's influence touched her, she had the mental of Berret in a half destroyed Transport Pod standing over Rygel. The blades from his gauntlet poised almost touching the Hynerian's temple. Chiana with a pulse rifle aimed at him in the background pleading with the Shrike to come to his senses. The Delvian woman understood that she was witnessing the events from their time trapped on the ice moon. She looked about and saw that the green and now the yellow spheres out-numbered the safer colored ones.
"Malika, do not touch anymore of the memory spheres," Zhaan instructed.
The younger woman looked around. "Are we done?" she asked.
"It is too dangerous for us to read them any further. I'll have to decide where to break the chain from this point on."
Zhaan looked around and spied a cluster of safer colored orbs amidst a flock of red, yellow, and a few green ones.
"There," she said pointing at them. "We will end it there."
The pair moved over to the location of the spheres. "Which one?" asked Malika.
Zhaan debated the question for a microt. The red ones seem to have mostly to do with Chiana so she didn't want to sacrifice one of them. The green and yellow spheres where too dangerous to work with so they were out of the question. Finally deciding she chose an orange one.
"This one," she said pointing out the globe to Malika.
"Do you know what it is?" asked the girl.
"It could be anything. Part of a text he's read, a chore he'd done... or maybe a friendship he'd developed. We may never know. If we are to save him this memory must be sacrificed."
"Okay. So what do we do now?"
"This is probably the most dangerous part. Cutting the link in the chain and blocking off the memories that are destroying him," Zhaan told her. "Move to the opposite side of the sphere from where I stand."
Malika did as Zhaan instructed and stood facing her with the orange ball of light between them.
"We must tear this memory down and rebuilt it in such a way as that it walls off the rest of the chain from the memories we want him to keep. Only I can reconstructed the sphere... you must only supply me with your strength while I do the work. Do not attempt to read the memory or you might be lost with it as it is reshaped." Malika nodded in understanding.
"Good. Let us begin," Zhaan said and then uttered a quick pray to the Goddess to help guide them. She held up both hands in front of the globe and Malika copied her. Caught between the two Delvian women the sphere began to pulse brightly. Malika expected Zhaan to chant a prayer while she worked but instead she remained silent. She realized that she felt Zhaan drawing strength from her and then suddenly the sphere flared into a dazzling white light. Malika flinched as it seemed the light should have been eradiating enough heat to burn her palms; instead she felt an intense cold on her hands. On the other side of the pulsating luminosity she could see Zhaan's face cast in alternating highlights and shadows. The radiance grew in size as Zhaan pulled more of her life force away from her to reinforce her effort to reshape the energy. Just as she felt she could give no more, Zhaan threw her head back and screamed silently. Malika knew that she also was screaming wordlessly, the brilliance of the sphere now louder then mere sound in their minds. Light surged outward and engulfed them both; the Delvians felt their psychic bodies being rent apart just before then fell into darkness.
Malika's real body slammed into her. She opened her eyes just in time to watch herself fall as her hands left Zhaan's temples. Almost in sync with the younger girl, Zhaan started to slip to the floor also.
"Whoa! Got ya!" exclaimed Crichton as he and Andar managed to get their arms under the Delvian girl before she could strike the ground. Crichton and the Sebacean man lifted up and carried her limp form over to the nearest spare med-bed. Just behind them came D'argo with Zhaan gathered up in his arms. The Luxan brought her to the next bed and gently laid her down. Malika felt like there wasn't a solid support fiber left in her body. A glance at Zhaan told her that the older woman felt the same way.
"What happen, Zhaan?" asked Aeryn as she came to the blue woman's bedside.
"Yeah," put in Chiana. "You weren't in a trance longer then a micron when you both collapsed to the floor." Her gaze moved between the pair of Delvians and the sleeping Berret as if she couldn't decide which of her friends she should be more worried about. "It didn't work, did it?" she asked Zhaan a microt later.
Malika was stunned to hear that they'd only appeared to be locked in Unity for a single micron.
"It seemed like arns," she rasped out.
"Time is perceived differently in certain levels of Unity," Zhaan explained, her own voice dry and hoarse. "I can't be sure if we helped him or not, Chiana," she said to the Nebari woman. "Berret will sleep for a solar day or two if it has worked."
"What happens if it didn't work?" Chiana asked.
"In that case, he may never wake up," the Delvian told her honestly. "Only time will tell."
Berret opened his eyes... and moaned.
The room, or wherever he was, was a blur. A blue and a gray shape moved in to hover over him.
"Berret?" asked a female voice.
He squinted his eyes trying to bring the figures into focus. Somebody pried his eyelids opened further and shined a bright light into his eyes.
"Oh frell," he groaned and tried to fight them off, but he was too weak. "Stop it!" he begged his tormentor.
"Berret? Are you okay?" This time he was sure it was Chiana's voice.
"Pixie?" he asked and the gray shape leaned forward until his eyes brought her into focus.
"Yeah, it's me," she answered. "How do you feel?"
Berret ran his tongue along dry lips. "Like Rygel ran me down with his thronesled... several times." He got an odd look on his face and then asked, "Is that what happened?"
Chiana smiled as in the background he could now make out Zhaan checking his vital signs.
"No, no. You've been very sick," Chiana told him, staying with the story they all agreed upon to tell him. "Can you tell me what the last thing you remember is?"
Berret frowned as he tried to recall, everything was still too blurry in his mind. He had the feeling he'd been unconscious and unaware for a very long time. Suddenly something did occur to him and it centered on Chiana.
"The last thing I remember is that you cut all the toes out of my socks," he said in an accusatory manner.
Chiana got a tight look around her eyes and she pressed the fingers of one hand to her lips as if to prevent herself from saying something. Chiana remembered the incident; it was a prank she pulled on him a little more then half a cycle ago. The Nebari girl did her best to hide her disappointment that he didn't remember the recent closeness they'd shared.
"That's right," she said with a brave smile. "You got me cold on that one."
Berret seemed content that he'd caught her up on her prank and settled back onto his pillow. If he was aware of Zhaan and Malika's close interest, he didn't show it.
"So what happened to me and why do I feel so bad?" he asked.
"You came down with a bug of some sort," Zhaan stalled. "After you've gotten some rest we can fill you in on the specifics. Right now you are in no more danger, so rest assured."
After Zhaan and Malika had rested from their experience, the Pa'u had gathered the rest of the crew and instructed them they were to avoid discussing the missing time in Berret's memory. That she would have to explain to the Shrike in a slow and careful way. She was sure the knowledge of more lost memory would distress the man and undo what good she'd been able to do for him in recovering his identity.
"Zhaan's right, 'Ret. Get some rest and I'll be back in to visit you later," put in Chiana.
Berret was too tied to argue with the women and he felt his eyelids growing heavy again.
"All right," he said and as Chiana moved slightly to adjust his blanket he caught her scent. That in itself shouldn't have been anything unusual, but this time it stirred something deep inside of him. Sleep beckoned and he pushed the thought to the back of his mind to look over at a later time when he felt better.
As his eyes started to close, Chiana lightly brushed his cheek. Dozily, he caught the hand and lightly kissed the back of it before rubbing it against the side of his face. In the next instant he was asleep. Surprised, Chiana felt a tear escape and began to roll down her cheek. Zhaan was next to her before she realized the woman had moved. Chiana looked up at her and then Zhaan lovely drew the teary-eyed girl into her embrace.
"You see," the Delvian told her in a hushed tone as she stroked her head of wild white hair. "Somewhere inside he remembers. Have patience and you will find that part of him again."
"Concentrated on seeing with my eyes. You're too young and inexperience in the Seek to find the order in chaos," she told Malika.
Malika imagined herself inside Zhaan's head and using her eyes instead of her own. Immediately the place they had entered took on a sense of order her mind could comprehend. She suddenly found herself in a body again standing beside Zhaan. They were in a dark place surrounded by small spheres of different color lights. The globes traveled around seemingly at random, giving the place the effect of one of those loud taverns Crichton and the rest like to frequent except without the loud music or annoying drunken patrons.
"What is this place?" she asked. "I think I liked the last one better, at least you could see."
"This is where Berret's memories reside. For our purposes I simplified their appearance to make them easier to work with," Zhaan apologized. "Our task will be difficult enough without needless details to distract us."
"These little balls of light are his memories?" asked Malika.
"Yes," answered Zhaan. "Each one contains a memory. The memory could be as short as a nano-microt or as long as an entire cycle. There are no rules here as to the time they can cover. We have to locate one that is a recent memory. Once we do that we can follow the chain of events leading up to his separation with reality.
"What do you mean by a chain? There's just these glowing spheres all over," Malika said.
"It seems they are traveling around randomly put each event is connected to the one that proceeds it and the one that followed it. Once we capture the one that we want the others will be drawn to it," explained the older woman. "We than just determine which direction to go and follow the links until we get close to the bad memories. Once we feel we are close enough, we can sever the link and wall the remaining parts of the chain away. In theory, Berret should then awaken with his memory up until then intact and he will never have experienced the trauma that broke his mind."
"Almost sounds simple enough," commented Malika. "But why don't we just follow the links down to the instant his mind snapped and cut them off there?"
"That's where the danger lays for us. We are inside Berret's mind, thus if we get too close to what drove him mad... it could do the same to us," answered Zhaan. "And there will be no one who could try to bring us back. "
"I'm glad you finally decided to share that little tidbit with me," snapped the younger Delvian.
"I'm sorry. I didn't want to cause you undue stress on the journey to get here," apologized Zhaan. "In truth, I didn't believe it would be possible for us to get this far. If you now decide to leave this joined Unity, the others and I will understand. This is dangerous even for a Pa'u with more training than I. No one will fault you for not going where you don't have the training or skill to be yet."
Malika saw that Zhaan sincerely meant the offer for her to withdraw from the Unity. She also saw the grim determination lying underneath the older Delvians calm veneer.
"Even if I chose to leave the Unity, you're still going to stay here and try... aren't you?" Malika asked.
Zhaan nodded. "I have to try and bring him back. I can't leave him like this if there's a chance I could help."
"I'm not leaving you here alone. We've come this far," said Malika. "Just show me what we have to do."
Zhaan sighed in relief, which didn't improve Malika's confidence that the older Delvian was still worried.
"Watch and I will show you what to do, but you must do exactly what I show you and nothing more," she explained. Zhaan reached out toward a sphere pulsing with blue light.
"You must 'read' the memory like this. Hold out your hand and the memory will stop moving as your hand enters its aurora. You have to be sure that you reach only far enough to stop it. If your hand enters the sphere you will disrupt the memory and possibly damage Berret further. If it's a particularly violent memory you may receive physic feedback that might harm you instead. So you reach only far enough to sense what the memory is about." As she demonstrated, it appeared to Malika that she was cupping her hands around the sphere, which seemed to float between her palms. "If you find one that centers around Berret's time on Moya let me know and we will carefully move down the chain from there until we've gone as far as we believe we can safely." Zhaan smiled lightly as she read the sphere of light.
"This one is a memory of a holiday from his past life on his homeworld," Zhaan told her.
"Why don't we fix those too while we're here?" asked Malika.
Zhaan shook her head and released the orb. "We can't alter his past if we want him to return to us as he was. Imagine yourself suddenly awakening from a dream to find you're now taken from what you just remembered and thrust into a strange place full of alien beings. They have to stay buried and be recovered one at a time normally for him to make the adjustment. The shock would be too great for him and he needs the knowledge and memories he's developed while here in the Territories to help him survive."
Malika nodded. "So I guess we should get started on tracking a Moya memory down," she said and reached for a sphere just as Zhaan had showed her. Zhaan tried several and found them nowhere close to his time with them. She reached for a bright green one and then suddenly drew her hand back in a hiss of pain. Frowning she waited until another globe the same shade of green passed by her and she reached forward again. As her hand neared it she suddenly found herself inside Berret's body.
They were running through what appeared to be a junkyard for space going craft. In front of them was a humanoid being who was fleeing for his life. She felt Berret's muscles surge and in one powerful leap he had overtaken the being and slammed him viciously to the ground. The humanoid turned over and held up his hands defensively, pleading for his life. She snarled with Berret as the twin blades sprang from their gauntlet and sliced into the man. As the victim screamed, Zhaan cried out and pushed the burning light away from her, ending the vision.
"Malika!" Zhaan called out shakily. "Stay away from the bright green spheres," she ordered.
The younger Delvian turned to look at her in puzzlement.
"They are of death," Zhaan said in distress. Malika nodded in understanding and turned away to allow Zhaan a moment to compose herself in private.
A few microts later Zhaan returned to searching. Both Delvians careful now to avoid touching the bright green orbs of light, which Zhaan found there were far too many of. Malika reached out and caught a purple one. As her hand neared it she caught a glimpse of Berret inside a cell... one of Moya's cells.
"Zhaan! I think I found one," the girl exclaimed, backing her hand away just far enough to cut the vision but keep the sphere from flying away from her. Zhaan rushed to her side and placed a hand near the globe just above the other woman's. The memory came to her. Berret in his cell looking out at Chiana as she promised to bring him something to eat after they starbursted away from the planet she'd found him on.
"You did it, Malika. You found our first link," the Pa'u said with a smile.
Malika smiled in returned and then squeaked in surprise as the memory showed Berret regarding her in her cell. It was obvious by the look on her face in the memory that she didn't like been imprisoned so close to the Shrike. If someone had been staring at her the way she was at Berret then she most likely would have gone over and closed their eyes for them. She was amazed to find Berret didn't take offense at all.
"He-He thinks... I'm pretty," Malika repeated as she heard what the man had been thinking. She than lightly laughed as his next thought came to her. "But he finds my green eyes... disturbing."
"Stop eavesdropping," said Zhaan, "and keep looking."
Malika picked her head up and saw several spheres start to drift purposely toward them.
"There are the next links in the chain. Now we must be extremely careful," Zhaan warned.
The pair waited patiently for the spheres to float toward them. Zhaan reached out and snared another, this one dark blue. She saw Berret and D'argo facing off in her lab when she was running her test on the man.
"This one here is the next," she said to Malika. The younger Delvian set free the sphere she held and waited for the next batch to drift in. Slowly they progressed down the line of Berret's memories. At one point Malika caught a brilliant red one and then shuttered.
"Yuck!" exclaimed the girl.
"What's wrong?" asked Zhaan in alarm. Worried she'd found a new type of violent memory.
Malika made a face. "That one was of Chiana kissing him." She smacked her lips together as if tasting something unpleasant. "Talk about disturbing."
Zhaan released a pent up breath she didn't realize she was holding and then idly thought why should she be holding her breath when this wasn't really her body. She tossed the thought away and then said,
"If you're finished fooling around, can we get back to work?"
"Sure," said Malika, not the least bit put off by Zhaan's tone. "Just thought I'd warn you."
They trace a few more, carefully skipping over the bright green globes, it seemed that there were more and more of them being attracted with each link of the chain they discovered. Zhaan considered that her work trying to help Berret recover his past might have had something to do with the increased number of violent memories connected to certain parts of this end of the chain. A yellow ball of light caught her attention and Zhaan held out her hand to it. As the sphere's influence touched her, she had the mental of Berret in a half destroyed Transport Pod standing over Rygel. The blades from his gauntlet poised almost touching the Hynerian's temple. Chiana with a pulse rifle aimed at him in the background pleading with the Shrike to come to his senses. The Delvian woman understood that she was witnessing the events from their time trapped on the ice moon. She looked about and saw that the green and now the yellow spheres out-numbered the safer colored ones.
"Malika, do not touch anymore of the memory spheres," Zhaan instructed.
The younger woman looked around. "Are we done?" she asked.
"It is too dangerous for us to read them any further. I'll have to decide where to break the chain from this point on."
Zhaan looked around and spied a cluster of safer colored orbs amidst a flock of red, yellow, and a few green ones.
"There," she said pointing at them. "We will end it there."
The pair moved over to the location of the spheres. "Which one?" asked Malika.
Zhaan debated the question for a microt. The red ones seem to have mostly to do with Chiana so she didn't want to sacrifice one of them. The green and yellow spheres where too dangerous to work with so they were out of the question. Finally deciding she chose an orange one.
"This one," she said pointing out the globe to Malika.
"Do you know what it is?" asked the girl.
"It could be anything. Part of a text he's read, a chore he'd done... or maybe a friendship he'd developed. We may never know. If we are to save him this memory must be sacrificed."
"Okay. So what do we do now?"
"This is probably the most dangerous part. Cutting the link in the chain and blocking off the memories that are destroying him," Zhaan told her. "Move to the opposite side of the sphere from where I stand."
Malika did as Zhaan instructed and stood facing her with the orange ball of light between them.
"We must tear this memory down and rebuilt it in such a way as that it walls off the rest of the chain from the memories we want him to keep. Only I can reconstructed the sphere... you must only supply me with your strength while I do the work. Do not attempt to read the memory or you might be lost with it as it is reshaped." Malika nodded in understanding.
"Good. Let us begin," Zhaan said and then uttered a quick pray to the Goddess to help guide them. She held up both hands in front of the globe and Malika copied her. Caught between the two Delvian women the sphere began to pulse brightly. Malika expected Zhaan to chant a prayer while she worked but instead she remained silent. She realized that she felt Zhaan drawing strength from her and then suddenly the sphere flared into a dazzling white light. Malika flinched as it seemed the light should have been eradiating enough heat to burn her palms; instead she felt an intense cold on her hands. On the other side of the pulsating luminosity she could see Zhaan's face cast in alternating highlights and shadows. The radiance grew in size as Zhaan pulled more of her life force away from her to reinforce her effort to reshape the energy. Just as she felt she could give no more, Zhaan threw her head back and screamed silently. Malika knew that she also was screaming wordlessly, the brilliance of the sphere now louder then mere sound in their minds. Light surged outward and engulfed them both; the Delvians felt their psychic bodies being rent apart just before then fell into darkness.
Malika's real body slammed into her. She opened her eyes just in time to watch herself fall as her hands left Zhaan's temples. Almost in sync with the younger girl, Zhaan started to slip to the floor also.
"Whoa! Got ya!" exclaimed Crichton as he and Andar managed to get their arms under the Delvian girl before she could strike the ground. Crichton and the Sebacean man lifted up and carried her limp form over to the nearest spare med-bed. Just behind them came D'argo with Zhaan gathered up in his arms. The Luxan brought her to the next bed and gently laid her down. Malika felt like there wasn't a solid support fiber left in her body. A glance at Zhaan told her that the older woman felt the same way.
"What happen, Zhaan?" asked Aeryn as she came to the blue woman's bedside.
"Yeah," put in Chiana. "You weren't in a trance longer then a micron when you both collapsed to the floor." Her gaze moved between the pair of Delvians and the sleeping Berret as if she couldn't decide which of her friends she should be more worried about. "It didn't work, did it?" she asked Zhaan a microt later.
Malika was stunned to hear that they'd only appeared to be locked in Unity for a single micron.
"It seemed like arns," she rasped out.
"Time is perceived differently in certain levels of Unity," Zhaan explained, her own voice dry and hoarse. "I can't be sure if we helped him or not, Chiana," she said to the Nebari woman. "Berret will sleep for a solar day or two if it has worked."
"What happens if it didn't work?" Chiana asked.
"In that case, he may never wake up," the Delvian told her honestly. "Only time will tell."
Berret opened his eyes... and moaned.
The room, or wherever he was, was a blur. A blue and a gray shape moved in to hover over him.
"Berret?" asked a female voice.
He squinted his eyes trying to bring the figures into focus. Somebody pried his eyelids opened further and shined a bright light into his eyes.
"Oh frell," he groaned and tried to fight them off, but he was too weak. "Stop it!" he begged his tormentor.
"Berret? Are you okay?" This time he was sure it was Chiana's voice.
"Pixie?" he asked and the gray shape leaned forward until his eyes brought her into focus.
"Yeah, it's me," she answered. "How do you feel?"
Berret ran his tongue along dry lips. "Like Rygel ran me down with his thronesled... several times." He got an odd look on his face and then asked, "Is that what happened?"
Chiana smiled as in the background he could now make out Zhaan checking his vital signs.
"No, no. You've been very sick," Chiana told him, staying with the story they all agreed upon to tell him. "Can you tell me what the last thing you remember is?"
Berret frowned as he tried to recall, everything was still too blurry in his mind. He had the feeling he'd been unconscious and unaware for a very long time. Suddenly something did occur to him and it centered on Chiana.
"The last thing I remember is that you cut all the toes out of my socks," he said in an accusatory manner.
Chiana got a tight look around her eyes and she pressed the fingers of one hand to her lips as if to prevent herself from saying something. Chiana remembered the incident; it was a prank she pulled on him a little more then half a cycle ago. The Nebari girl did her best to hide her disappointment that he didn't remember the recent closeness they'd shared.
"That's right," she said with a brave smile. "You got me cold on that one."
Berret seemed content that he'd caught her up on her prank and settled back onto his pillow. If he was aware of Zhaan and Malika's close interest, he didn't show it.
"So what happened to me and why do I feel so bad?" he asked.
"You came down with a bug of some sort," Zhaan stalled. "After you've gotten some rest we can fill you in on the specifics. Right now you are in no more danger, so rest assured."
After Zhaan and Malika had rested from their experience, the Pa'u had gathered the rest of the crew and instructed them they were to avoid discussing the missing time in Berret's memory. That she would have to explain to the Shrike in a slow and careful way. She was sure the knowledge of more lost memory would distress the man and undo what good she'd been able to do for him in recovering his identity.
"Zhaan's right, 'Ret. Get some rest and I'll be back in to visit you later," put in Chiana.
Berret was too tied to argue with the women and he felt his eyelids growing heavy again.
"All right," he said and as Chiana moved slightly to adjust his blanket he caught her scent. That in itself shouldn't have been anything unusual, but this time it stirred something deep inside of him. Sleep beckoned and he pushed the thought to the back of his mind to look over at a later time when he felt better.
As his eyes started to close, Chiana lightly brushed his cheek. Dozily, he caught the hand and lightly kissed the back of it before rubbing it against the side of his face. In the next instant he was asleep. Surprised, Chiana felt a tear escape and began to roll down her cheek. Zhaan was next to her before she realized the woman had moved. Chiana looked up at her and then Zhaan lovely drew the teary-eyed girl into her embrace.
"You see," the Delvian told her in a hushed tone as she stroked her head of wild white hair. "Somewhere inside he remembers. Have patience and you will find that part of him again."