Chapter 6
Crichton's face held a look of determined concentration as he carefully carved a heart around the "John 4 Aeryn" he had embedded in the wall with one of their eating utensils. After their emotional reunion they had spent several arns sleeping a little and just talking through all the things they never seemed to have enough time to talk about. They had both been separately interrogated again about their associations with the Peacekeepers and then the aliens had questioned them together. Now, two days in to their captivity, boredom had set in until John had started on this project to brighten up the décor a couple of arns ago. He looked down at Aeryn and grinned. She was equally carefully carving flowers around his heart with her tongue caught between her teeth in studied concentration: who would have thought he'd see the day when Miss bad-ass Peacekeeper commando would be happy drawing flowers! After a little while they sat back to admire their handiwork.
"So tell me again why we're doing this, John"
"Back on earth, when I was in high school and I'd just started going out with girls, you would write this sort of thing on the cover of your school books. Actually, it was mainly the girls that put it on the covers of their notebooks, us guys tended to be a bit more circumspect and put it on the inside cover unless our current girlfriend was like the hottest babe in the school! At that age being hung up on just one girl wasn't particularly cool. Of course, my heart really belonged to Debbie Harry at the time"
"Yes I think I saw her on the Muppet Show; hmm, blond, pretty. What about Cher?"
"Oh no, I didn't really appreciate her until later. Much later in fact, like when I saw you in that purple outfit"
He had just started to carve a "Crichton was here" on one of the other walls when the door panel slid back and the head alien entered the room.
"Hey, dickhead, how's it hanging?" Crichton cried in friendly fashion. They had decided that, as their captors seemed to be taking their time over any decision on their future, co-operation was the best policy. Aeryn eyed John nervously; she wasn't sure a full frontal dose of Crichton bonhomie would go down well with this particular species. However, their captor seemed to take it in good part and motioned them through the door.
"Oh great, must be time for exercise duty. Twice round the yard; last one back to the cell's a sissy." Aeryn looked apologetically at the alien
"I'm really sorry. If it helps I don't have any idea what he's talking about most of the time either"
"He really is a very strange being." She looked at Crichton's departing back fondly
"Yes, but he's worth it"
They weren't in fact going for any exercise, but were shown into a room much larger than any they had seen previously. It contained a large table that perhaps a dozen of the strange aliens were sitting around. Dickhead (Crichton now couldn't think of him as anything else and as he didn't know his real name had decided this one fitted) sat in the vacant chair in the middle and indicated two seats for them on the opposite side. John sobered somewhat as he realised the moment of truth had arrived. He took Aeryn's hand in a tight grip.
"John Crichton and Aeryn Sun, we have considered your case carefully. Based on the evidence provided by you and the information we have gleaned from outside sources, we have concluded that you are not Peacekeepers or Peacekeeper spies and should not be terminated"
"Thanks, thanks very much, we really appreciate it. Now if you could just drop us back at our ship we'll get out of your hair," said John, a relieved grin on his face
"Whilst you will not be terminated, we cannot let you leave. You know too much about us. You can live but you must remain here indefinitely"
"But we've deliberately not found out anything about you. We don't even know what species you are or where we are" interrupted Aeryn
"That's as may be Aeryn Sun, but we cannot take the risk. You both appear to be fugitives from the Peacekeepers, as well as the Scarrens. If we let you go and you are captured by either of them you may be forced to reveal what you know about us under torture"
"Believe me, you are the last thing either of those guys are going to be interested in if they manage to get hold of us"
"Our decision is final. Further argument would be fruitless. That's unless you wish to choose death?" At Crichton's look of alarm he continued, "I thought not. I do not believe that you will be unhappy here with us. We have a similar cultural structure to that which you describe exists on your earth. We also form monogamous life-long unions such as the pair of you wish to enter into. You will be able to live here in peace and raise your child in safety." John was going to protest further, but a yank on his arm from Aeryn stopped him
"Thank you, you are most gracious in your hospitality to us," she said with a forced smile.
"Resistance is futile. You have been assimilated by the Borg," John muttered under his breath, as they were lead away. Aeryn gave him a pointed stare that said "shut up or you'll get us killed".
They weren't taken back to the cell but to another part of the complex. As they walked John checked for any windows or other openings that might give them a hint on their location, but there were none so he still had no idea where they were. The area they were taken to seemed to be living quarters for the people in the complex. They were shown to a suite of rooms; a reasonably large living area, a bedroom and a bathroom, but still no view of the outside. The rooms were very sparsely furnished but definitely a step up from the cell.
"These will be your quarters" said the guard and left them
"And we'd just re-decorated the other place, but I suppose it's an improvement. They obviously got a job lot of 'dull grey' on special from Home Depot. Man, I wish I had my TV with me"
"What are we going to do?"
"Not a clue just yet. We don't know where we are. I haven't seen any ships, exits or any other method of escape. We're just going to have to bide our time for the right moment" he slid his hands around her waist and gestured his head in the direction of the bedroom, which at least had a double bed in comparison with the narrow bed they had been sleeping on up until now.
"You should get some sleep," he said
"I didn't think that was what you had in mind"
"I was talking about afterwards"
When they awoke the next day they found that they could leave the rooms quite easily. An alien posted outside their door showed them to what seemed to be the mess hall where they were provided with food under the curious gaze of the other aliens. They were even able to wander about the complex, but always under the watchful eye of at least a pair of guards and if they went near any sensitive areas they were immediately, if politely, turned away. They learned that this was a military compound and the reason for the lack of windows was that it was deep underground where sensors from any passing ships could not penetrate. There were other civilian colonies also underground on this and another near-by planet. However, as much as they learned there was still no obvious means of escape. Back in their quarters that night, Aeryn searched for surveillance devices; she found two in the main living area and one in the bedroom, which Crichton found a little disconcerting after the previous night
"Hope they weren't rating me on my performance"
"Surely you need to worry more about my rating John?" replied Aeryn with a smirk
"Honey, I could tell you had me down as a 5.9 for technical merit and straight 6's for artistic impression"
She just snorted in reply and dragged him into the tiny bathroom.
"There's no device in here"
"Yeah, but it won't be as comfortable as the bed"
"John, if you could just drag your mind away from the general area of your mivonks for a microt, we need to talk about our situation! We can't stay here John; we'll go mad. We have to come up with some plan of escape"
"Yeah, I sort of agree Aeryn, but we ought to think carefully about it. I mean it's as boring as hell, but at least no one is chasing our asses all over the place here. We have to consider it, Aeryn; it's not just us now remember" he said, gently rubbing her stomach. "It's safe here. If they even know we're still alive, I doubt if anyone knows where we are. We should at least think about staying until the baby's born."
"No John, I've fought too hard for this child for him to be born a captive," She said fiercely. He sighed wistfully
"You're right. You're absolutely right, as usual. I suppose it was just wishful thinking on my part that we could have a quiet life for a while. No one hounding us all over the galaxy, but come to think of it I think I'd rather be hounded on Moya than peacefully wasting away in this grey heaven. You gotta plan?"
"Not yet, but I know that it will have to be as quiet and surreptitious as possible. We can't give them any cause for suspicion and if we leave any clues as to where we've gone they'll come after us."
"Hmm, and then it'll be beam me up Scotty time again with no mercy shown this time"
"Besides, they haven't actually hurt us; it would be nice if we could return the compliment for once"
"Yeah, not like the usual trigger-happy psychos we attract!"
Over the next few days they surreptitiously observed the movements of the various troops. They finally figured out where the landing bay was; Aeryn even asked if she might see one of the ships that they had been retrieved with. The request was denied, but Crichton was more successful in his request for them to see how they knew that Moya had landed on the sea. They were taken to a command centre where various monitors showed the planets and surrounding space.
"This is the Quajagan Sea." Dickhead was acting as their guide. The display showed a vast nothing of blue ocean
"Is our ship still there?" John asked
"No, it left the planet one solar day ago. It is currently in orbit above a neighbouring planet." The display switched to a view of space. They were able to pick out Moya as she orbited a small red planet. Seeing her, Crichton felt a lurch of homesickness and knew he had to increase their efforts to escape. They feigned polite interest, but other than finding out that Moya was still in the vicinity and that these guys had a very sophisticated surveillance system which would be difficult to bypass, they didn't learn anything else that really helped plan their escape. As he seemed in an expansive mood, however, Aeryn though it was worth probing Dickhead a little further.
"Why do you hate the Peacekeepers so much?"
"Almost a thousand cycles ago our people inhabited six planets of this system. A Peacekeeper exploratory force found us. We were a peaceful, independent race with a thirst for new knowledge and contact with other species. We attempted to work with them but they refused. They just wanted to subjugate us to Peacekeeper control. We could never accept that and were forced to take action to prevent our people's enslavement. None of the Peacekeepers survived to get any message back to their world about our presence, but our worlds were largely destroyed. Quajaga was our main planet but the weapons used during that war altered the climate and caused the ice at the polar caps to melt and the planet was completely flooded. Now there is nothing left of the Quajaga we once knew; it is entirely covered by sea. The remnants of the race retired to underground cities on this neighbouring planet and have remained undetected by the Peacekeepers since. We learnt a hard lesson that alien races are not to be trusted and we have vowed not to make the same mistake again.
Aeryn was acutely uncomfortable by this history but she thought that she had never come across a more paranoid race. Their whole existence seemed to be dominated by the need to remain secret. She didn't get a chance to question further because just as he was concluding his story klaxons and alerts began to sound all around them. They turned to the visual display again, just in time to see a Peacekeeper command carrier glide into orbit close to Moya. The alien turned towards them. His face had opened out to reveal all his eyes and his voice was laced with anger as he shouted at them
"This is your doing. You have lied to us. You are peacekeeper spies and have brought them on us again. Guards, seize them"
"No, no, we knew nothing about this. We told you we're fugitives; they've just managed to find our ship again, that's all." Even as she said this, Aeryn knew they stood no chance in the face of this species overwhelming paranoia about the Peacekeepers.