Chapter 1

John Crichton paced. He had been unable to sleep, what with the baby river dancing on his left kidney, so, not wanting to disturb Aeryn, he had retreated from their quarters to a less-inhabited tier. Here he could pace in peace and not disturb anyone else's sleep if he happened to crash into a wall – the pregnancy was frelling with his sense of balance as well as his sleep.

For the past couple of weeks, his equilibrium had been totally shot, which he might be able to understand more readily, had they still been floating on the Qujagan sea, but they had left the planet some time ago, when the Qujagan Guard began to pick up stray Peacekeeper communications with greater and greater frequency. A vote had decided that it might be safer for all involved if they didn't stay in one place for too long.

As for the dizziness, Tikrel had told him earlier that day that it was a side effect of the pregnancy, but the Diagnosan had no idea how long it might last. Something to do with where the baby was situated in relation to some nerve or other. There wasn't much Tikrel could do about it with drugs, or – heaven forbid – Grandma's magic potions.

John's restless and occasionally off-kilter pacing was interruptedby a blood-chilling shriek echoing up and down Moya's corridors. The scream stopped him in his tracks. After the first realization that it was not issuing from Aeryn Sun – he couldn't imagine such a sound coming from her throat – his mind made the connection between current location and the distorted voice: Chiana.

John ran headlong toward the end of the corridor, but forced himself to slow down and use Moya's walls for support when he skidded round the corner and into one of Moya's ribs, just about breaking one of his own. "Sorry, sweetheart, Daddy'll be more careful," he whispered to the sprog, who probably had a bit of a headache right now. Moving more deliberately in an attempt to still the spinning in his head, he swung around the next corner and slid to a stop at the door to Chiana's quarters. "Chiana!" he shouted, pounding on the wall outside the closed cell door.

"John, she's all right," D'Argo's voice came to him from the darkened chamber. "Lights."

As the lights came up in the room, John could see D'Argo, through a gap in the privacy curtains, cradling a clearly frightened Chiana in the middle of her bed. "What the frell was that? It sounded like a friggin' banshee." Since his friends were not exactly dressed to receive guests, John turned away from the doorway and leaned back against the wall, relieved that neither of them seemed to be hurt. Closing his eyes, he tried to get his breathing back under control – he used to play football, for crying out loud – and willed the vertigo to take a hike.

"She had a dream," D'Argo's calm voice drifted through the cell door. "She hasn't told me what about it frightened her, yet."

"Captain D'Argo, is everything all right?" Pilot's voice through the comms was full of concern. "Moya said that she heard Chiana screaming. She is very worried."

"I'm – I'm okay, Pilot." Chiana's voice was a little shaky. "Tell Moya I'm okay."

John peeked through the opening in the privacy curtains again, to see if there was any less skin showing, only to discover that, because Chiana had shifted, there was perhaps a bit more. "If you're okay, Chi, I'll just move along, then. Nothing to see here."

He started back down the corridor, intending to return to his own quarters and try to go back to sleep, but Chiana's voice, no longer muffled by the privacy curtain, stopped him after only a couple of steps. "Don't go yet." He turned to see that she was standing in the middle of the now open doorway, wrapped in one of the bed sheets. "I don't think I can…can go back to sleep right now, anyway."

"Hey, you kids don't need me here. You and D'Argo—"

D'Argo, no longer naked, joined Chiana in the doorway. "I don't think we'll be sleeping again for a while." He looked down at the still visibly shaken Nebari then back over to John. "We need to talk. Why don't you meet us in the center chamber in half an arn, John?"

Chiana looked up toward the sound of D'Argo's voice through her white, sightless eyes, then over toward where she knew Crichton to be. "Yeah. We need to talk." She needed to tell Crichton about her…dream. His perspectives were always a little bit different from those of everyone else, and she needed those different perspectives right now. "Crichton? You wanna…you wanna come in?" Chiana felt D'Argo stiffen at the suggestion, but she couldn't wait for half an arn to talk about this, just to protect his sense of privacy. "You sound like you need to sit down."

Stepping carefully into the room, Crichton sat, or rather flopped, into a large, overstuffed chair Chiana had brought back with her from Earth. Sighing, Chiana made her way toward the bed and her discarded garments at its foot. She felt D'Argo's eyes on her as she dressed – she was certain that Crichton was deliberately not looking.

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Looking anywhere but at the image in the mirror of the gray girl dressing behind him, John picked up a necklace that rested on the table under the mirror. It looked like the one she had recovered a couple of cycles ago, that last time Maldis had played mind games with them. "So, what's with the nightmare, Chi?" he asked, watching the play of light and prismatic color in the otherwise unremarkable piece of jewelry.

Chiana flung the now unnecessary bed sheet over the back of a chair – this one from Moya's stores – and sat down on the end of her bed. Leaning toward John, she rested her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands. D'Argo sat down next to her, not quite close enough to be touching, even when the depression he caused in the bed forced her toward him.

"Guys?" Crichton prompted, tossing the necklace back onto the table.

Chiana took a deep breath and plunged ahead before she could talk herself out of it or convince herself that it had been only a dream. "It wasn't a nightmare, or, at least not…not a normal one. It was a vision. Moya was crawling with Nebari. She was terrified and in pain. And D'Argo—" She stopped, seeing again in her mind the horrific image of D'Argo lying in a pool of black blood, not moving. "You were dead…" she continued, just short of a whisper.

Abruptly, she sat up, and then tried to stand, but D'Argo pulled her back down next to him. He took her hand tightly in his and wouldn't let go when she tried to break away, instead forcing her to sit. She relaxed against his warmth as much as she could under the circumstances and stopped trying to pull away when he put his arm around her, gently pushing her head onto his shoulder.

"Hush, Chiana. I'm not going to die," he said in a low voice. "It's not yet my time."

There was still a panicked urgency to her voice when she spoke again, lifting her head from D'Argo's shoulder, but not willing to pull away from his comforting arms. "How do you know that?! We've got to…we've got to get out of here, right away." She could feel both men looking at her as though she were out of her mind. "Nebari…my own people are coming here. I don't know when they'll get here, or why they're coming, but…but…but they're going to kill you, D'Argo!" She felt the terror of her vision begin to engulf her again, even as she fought against it.

"They may try."

"Let me get this straight – this wasn't just a dream." Crichton paused, apparently thinking. "You're having visions, Chi? As in, you know, visions?"

"Yeah, Crichton. Visions. Flashes of what's going to happen and I…I don't think it's going to be too long before they get here, so we have to do something!"

D'Argo tightened his arm around her shoulders for a microt to quiet her. His deep voice rumbled through her when he spoke to their friend. "Yes, John, she has been having visions again. They seem to be stronger than ever. The last three she's told me about have been relatively minor things, but they were all at least a day prior to the event and seemed to be spit on."

"Spot on," Crichton absently corrected, chewing at his thumb. "A day, huh? Well, that's better than no warning at all."

As D'Argo and Crichton spoke, Chiana slipped back into the nightmare of her latest vision. Although she knew the visions she had were not always what they appeared to be on the surface, she was still terrified by what this one might mean. The image of D'Argo lying in a pool of blood, surrounded by Nebari, haunted her. The worst part of it was that they could only be coming here for her. Her presence alone was putting all of her friends in danger…

"Pip!" Crichton's voice broke through her ugly thoughts and she realized that both he and D'Argo had been trying to get her attention for several microts.

"Yeah, Crichton…?" Her voice sounded tentative, even to her own ears.

"Do you remember anything in your vision that might give you an idea of when this will happen? That might identify what part of space we'll be in? Anything at all that can help us make some sort of plan?"

She shook her head. "No, Crichton. I didn't see or…or…or hear anything. Not that I can remember."

"Okay… Any idea how long the time span will be between when you had the vision and when it might come true?"

"No." She shook her head, hair bobbing slightly, tickling her ears. "Sometimes it's only a couple of microts. The last few…like D'Argo said, it's been a day or two."

"But nothing that could be tracked? No difference in the feel of the vision that might indicate sooner rather than later?"

Again, she shook her head. As far as she could tell, there was never any kind of pattern to the visions when they came to her, nothing to say that it was more or less urgent. She could never seem to predict when they would come and she couldn't force them to come when she might want them, like she could when she slowed down time. They simply hit her with no warning and left just as quickly.

"Chiana and I have talked about that, John. These visions seem to be completely involuntary and just come on her in the blue."

"Out of the blue."

"Whatever." Chiana felt D'Argo tense a bit as he paused, only to continue on in a different direction. "Pilot, would you please wake the others and have them meet us in the center chamber in half an arn?" He stood, pulling away from Chiana in the process. She felt a chill at his abrupt absence out of all proportion to the loss of his body heat.

"Certainly, Captain D'Argo."

"Whoa, Big D. Where're you going?" Crichton voiced the question Chiana had been about to ask.

"I am going to Lo'La. Then I'll meet you in the center chamber with the others." The door opened with a slight whispering sound as he spoke.

"Lo'La?" Chiana asked, surprised.

"Yes. If Moya is to be overrun by Nebari, I want Lo'La under cloak and hidden. We may be able to use her later if the Nebari don't know about her." The door closed behind him before she or Crichton could say another word.