To my loyal reviewers: you have my undying gratitude. I have no BETA. You are my sounding board. Your comments, questions and suggestions have been invaluable and have led my imagination into paths I had not considered.

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To those reading but not reviewing: Come join the party. I know you're sitting out there with wonderful ideas that I would appreciate having.

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THE MOTHER LODE BY ABRAXIS

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Chapter 16 - Hyper Space

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As the vortex of the pipe hit him, Riddick gasped. Aaaaahhhh, ffffuuuucccckkkk!!!! It had been soooo long, too long since he had felt this. He couldn't stop his head from falling back into the cushioning of the slot and his body from arching upwards. It was like his first jump all over again. There was nothing but the total mental, physical, emotional and sensual high created by the massive alien energy surging around him. The clarity, the control would come but the moments before it did would seem like an eternity. He cursed himself for not realizing that this might happen as he felt Jenna jerk her wrists free from his weakened grasp. With a great effort he threw his arms up trying to catch hold of some part of her before she escaped him completely. But his hands encountered nothing and, his ability to control them completely depleted, his arms continued their swinging arc until they were wrapped around his chest.

But that wasn't his chest against his arms. Not his arms against his chest, either. He forced his eyes open. He was staring into other eyes, Jenna's eyes. His mind must be clearing a little because he understood that her body was stretched along his and she was facing him. He briefly wondered how she had managed that maneuver but had no time to dwell on it. Every cell in his mind and body screamed its need for her. There was nothing in his universe but the sweet smell of her, the heat of her body against his, the sight of her hungry eyes and the play of her tongue across her lips. His arms tightened around her and he tried to lift his lips to take hers.

All this accomplished was to cause his arched body to collapse, folding him awkwardly into the slot with his face buried between her breasts. He discovered that he couldn't breath very well but he didn't care. With a hungry growl he extended his tongue and tasted her. Such a fantastic taste; slightly salty, pheromone laced taste. She seemed to urge him on with a low throaty moan then confused him by struggling to pull away from him.

Suddenly the back of the slot fell away and Jenna was holding herself above him, her elbows on either side of his head. The damned expensive command slot reclined! What a freaking fantastic waste of credits. He spread his legs, drawing them up on either side of Jenna. Placing his boots on the edge of the console, he pushed himself backward until he felt the edge trim of the backrest against the top of his head. It surprised him that his legs were fully extended. She must have moved the console when she lay down on top of him. His time sense was really screwed. Jenna had slid back a little during this. He had lost her breasts but found those hungry eyes and lips again. He reached for her lips but she pulled back.

"Are you in any condition to tell me if there is anything else I need to do at the controls?"

Her voice gave him a focus point, something for the clarity to build on.

"Huhuh."

"Huhuh, what? You're not in any condition or there's nothing else to do?"

How the hell could she be so in control her first jump? Well, she said she could feel it most of the time. That put her way ahead of him, it had been twelve years since he had felt it.

"Nothing else to do. Can't maneuver in hyper......... Well, 'you' could, my beautiful little pathfinder. But for now, we just ride the pipe."

"Good. Lights fifteen percent."

She gently removed his shades and stared into his eyes.

"I'd rather ride you."

Before Riddick could think of a reply she lower her face toward him. But, instead of kissing him, she ran the tip of her tongue around his slightly open lips. With an animal sound, he buried one hand in the soft curls at the back of her head and forced her lips against his. Sucking her tongue deep into his mouth, he lashed it with his own. When he finally release it, he expected her to escape quickly. Instead, she began stroking his tongue slowly, languidly, then teased the tip with her own; enticing, luring flicks that led his tongue into her mouth to be captured in turn.

Unlike his almost savage assault, she sucked him gently; her stroking tongue remaining serpentinely subtile. She tasted of surrender. He began slowly tongue fucking her mouth; pausing between thrusts to explore the sharp edges of her teeth, the soft skin of her cheeks or resting the tip of his tongue against the roof of her mouth as she massaged the underside of it and sucked him. It was heaven; it was hell. He desperately wanted that mouth around his dick but couldn't give up what she was doing to him now. Finally they had both re-breathed each others breath too many times. They simultaneously broke away, panting for a new supply of oxygen.

Recovery was quick. Jenna began sensuously dragging her sharp edged teeth along his jugular as her hands slipped under the vest and began massaging his sides and chest. Damn, her hands were so soft and gentle but their strokes over his naked skin were powerful and sure; not irritatingly ticklish but demanding and lustful. Riddick had just formed the intention to return the favor when he was momentarily paralyzed as clarity slammed into him pinning his mind to the back of his skull. With the return of reason came a new understanding of the situation. Hell, how was he supposed to know this would happen? He'd never been in hyper with a woman before. He hadn't even been tempted to do for himself in hyper. His laughter was unpleasantly sardonic. Jenna's head popped up. Her brow was deeply furrowed with a small dose of irritation and a large one of insecurity.

"Am I that inadequate?"

"Oh no, sweet thing. You're fantastic. But this just isn't happening because..."

"What?!"

Suddenly Riddick had his arms around a very pissed off woman. Fists, knees, elbows, anything she could move, she was using to try to do serious damage to him. The only reason she wasn't doing it was that his own hold on her head and body and the arms of the slot kept her from getting any real power behind her blows. Even at that, he was going to have some interesting and painful bruises.

"You dirty rotten bastard! It's all been a joke to you, hasn't it. Just a cruel, stupid joke! Just something to keep from getting bored, to boost your infantile male ego! I'll kill you! If it's the last thing I do, I'll kill you!"

Damn! He'd had women react this way because they thought he was going to rape them but never before one who wanted to kill him because he wasn't going to put it to her. He chuckled. Not a good move. She redoubled her efforts and managed to land a fairly solid blow to the side of his head. Enough of this shit. He let go of her body, grasped the top of one of the slot arms and flipped over, pinning her beneath him. Capturing her flailing arms, he forced her to stop her attack.

To his surprise, she continued to struggle against him. His muscular bulk didn't deter her the way he had expected. She was arching her body from shoulders to heels and carrying his with her. If it hadn't of been for the height of the slot arms, she could quite possibly have been able to buck him off of her. He had known that there was good muscle under that luscious soft exterior but he hadn't realized just how good. He was relieved when she finally accepted the impossibility of freeing herself and quieted. He didn't like it that she had her face turned away from him as far as was physically possible.

"Get. Off. Of. Me!"

"Not until I finish what I was saying."

He waited a moment. She answered him in a way. She stayed motionless and silent.

"This isn't happening because we're both whacked out on hyper."

No reaction. He gathered both of her wrists into one hand. He forced the fingers of the other under her face, prying it away from the upholstery of the slot. The pressure of his grasp was almost brutal as he forced her to face him. Then, he relaxed his hold enough to be able to stroke her cheek with his index finger.

"Don't you have any doubt, sweet thing, it is going to happen this way. It's just not going to be this time; not the first time. The first time you moan and beg me for more it's going to be me doing that to you, not some freaking energy field."

"Oh! ........."

Her eyes were little-child wide and she was blushing furiously; her voice was breathy and unsteady. He felt his control slipping. He began to lift himself off of her.

"But you're staying on New Mecca?"

Riddick had thought that he was still struggling with that decision. Her question caused him to realize that he had already made it. He stood up and pulled her up to stand beside him.

"No. I always finish my contracts. You're not ready to survive on your own yet."

He saw disappointment on her face. Did she just want a quick roll and to be rid of him? Her next question put the lie to that thought.

"It's just the contract then?"

He blurted out the truth.

"The only thing that damn contract is doing is keeping me from stuffing you, Ben and Jeeter into the BC and taking our best chance for surviving this. Now, turn that thing back into a chair so we can sit down and have some conversation to pass the time."

This answer seemed to shock her. Well, yeah. The idea of deserting the others wasn't something she would ever have considered. He could feel her withdrawing from him; like a saint would shy from the devil.

"Wouldn't it be better ..... under the circumstances, I mean .... shouldn't we take separate slots?"

She wasn't going to escape him that easy. He knew what buttons to push. He gave her a smirky leer.

"What's wrong, sweet thing, afraid you won't be able to control yourself?"

She took the dare. Oh, hell. She could look really wicked when she wanted to. Not a side of her he had seen before.

"Me not control? Just who started this?"

"You did. Running your tongue over my lips like that, what did you expect to happen?"

"Oh, really? Your treating me like a lolly-pop doesn't count? If it wasn't eighteen caret gold, the catch on my shirt would be rusting. Did you really think you could open it with your teeth?"

"The one I put on there I could have. What did you replace it with? A combination lock?"

As the torrent of Jenna's laughter rolled over him, he realized what he had admitted to. It was the damn hyper. If you weren't constantly on guard, you blurted out every thought that crossed your mind. Fuck, she was laughing so hard she was bent double.

"Ok, ok, you get the points on that play but it's not 'that' funny."

Still giggling, she unbent and looked him in the eye.

"Oh, yes it is. I didn't change it .... and it is quite complicated to open; a double latch set up. I seem to have a guardian angel."

It took Riddick a second or two to get the joke. That meddling little weasel was going to be an angel for real if he wasn't careful. Now, 'that' was funny. It'd serve God right to have Jeeter loose on his turf.

"Just make us a chair."

He had tried to sound angry. Better angry than embarrassed. The slight quirk to Jenna's lips told him that he hadn't succeeded. Shit! Big Evil did not do embarrassed! What was she doing to him? No. It was just the hyper, that's all.

She reconfigured the slot and motioned him to sit and then to move to one side of it. There was no hesitating this time. Leaning in, she place a hand on each arm and swung herself to hover above him. Then she let herself down gently, her hips occupying the space between him and the furthest arm, her thighs across his lap and her lower legs trailing down his own. Damn, women must have different joints than men; the positions they could curl into.

Without thinking, he wrapped one arm around her shoulders, hooked the other hand around her knees and snugged her closer. When he realized what he was doing, it was too late to reverse it without making it look like he did doubt his own ability to control. He'd burn until he melted before he let her think that. The best way to control the body, pleasure or pain, was to keep the mind somewhere else.

"Now tell me about this Institute of yours and why the company shrink is helping the inmates escape."

This got him another round of laughter before Jenna started speaking.

"First, I'm not a company shrink. I'm an 'inmate' just like the rest. But I'd better start at the beginning. The Institute was created by Mr. Wallace Lackland, actually by the executors of his will. The bulk of his fortune was designated to be used to identify and monitor extraordinarily intelligent people for the purpose of providing funding and any other necessary support to any that were unable to find it in the general community. No reason for this was given in the will but it may have been due to the suicide of a extremely brilliant childhood friend of his.

"To receive this aid, a percentage of any income from their work was assigned to the Institute to maintain the trust and continue the program. As it turned out, this was very successful. One of greatest problems among genius level people is a lack of money sense. Their work is their focus. If the results of that work even get into the market place, they are usually cheated blind on the profits and then swindled out of what they do get by common con men. With the Institute providing marketing and accounting services, both the clients and the Institute flourished economically. The Institute was soon able to extend beyond the planet of origin and most of the Inner Cluster planets have chapters of the Institute.

"However, in the beginning,they had a very big problem. There were just too many deserving candidates that required a great deal more than a marketing partner and economic advisor. Super intelligence doesn't lend itself to adaptability to general society without a great deal of training. The end result of that led to the stereotypes of the 'mad scientist' and the 'needs a keeper to see that he puts his pants on before leaving the house'. Also, there is a fine line between genius and insanity. To much frustration or isolation and that beautiful mind goes up in flames. Since care and housing after the fact is very expensive and a lost of talent is an unacceptable waste, they decided to begin the location and monitoring process with children, through the educational systems. The idea was to catch any problems at the earliest stages and provide adaptive training, counseling and sheltering before it was out of control. The goal was to see that they didn't need the Institute by the time they reached adulthood. It was a very successful program.

"Since they did most of the aid to minors without charge, you would have thought that this would have eventually bankrupted the trust. However, along with the small minority that still required shelter residence for survival there were always those who preferred the sheltered life of the Institute to commercial employment. It relieves them of any menial concerns that would interfere with their work, the direction of their work is, was, not dictated and they were assured that their discoveries and inventions would be licensed only for socially and morally beneficial purposes. Consequently they were usually more productive, more cutting edge, than the norm and the Institute profits reflected that. That is what attracted the interest of the Company. The Institute court battles to refuse licensing of certain processes to the military, most of which they have won, is what allied them with Galactic.."

Riddick interrupted.

"Do you want me to believe that some trust fund social workers could take on the Forces and win?"

Jenna looked evil again. He decided he was beginning to really like that look on her.

"The Institute was big on publicity and public opinion and had a great deal of clout in high places. The political branch of United Worlds is very sensitive to all of those. They also don't trust their own military any farther than they can see them; do not want them having weapons superiority over the Patrol if push comes to shove. History is full of military take overs and United Worlds doesn't want another one.

"Our problem right now is that somehow they have gotten control of enough members of the Board of Directors to begin a legal take over of the Institute's sheltered facilities with Galactic out front and the military as a silent partner. Our's is the third they've taken. A colleague of Mr. Sen, who was a resident of the first, managed to get a warning to him. The others tried to stop it legally but with the Board of Directors corrupted they had no chance. Selling our contracts was a totally legal business transaction.

"Mr. Sen knew that from the beginning and began planning our escape immediately after receiving the warning. Blowing up the facility and seemingly committing mass suicide was to cover our escape but we also hoped that it would be news worthy enough to create questions about what Galactic was doing; perhaps enough questions to slow them down until we could find a way to stop them. But, since everyone knew about it, I'm sure they've prevented the explosion."

She fell silent; immersed in her own thoughts. Riddick didn't want her silent. While the information she had given him so far was valuable, it told him nothing about her.

"So, if you're just another sheltered genius, tell me why you decided to crawl into a hole and hide from the world?"

He had intended to provoke her. Angry she would be more susceptible to hyper's effect and blurt out things she wouldn't tell him otherwise. She didn't get angry. She laughed again.

"Oh, I'm an exception. So is Ben but not such a big one. We didn't run away from the world, we just haven't left home yet. We are exceptions because the Institute doesn't put children in sheltered facilities. They find them suitable foster homes when circumstances make it necessary to take custody of them. I'm the bigger exception because I'm not even a genius, much less a super intelligence. My father was that. My IQ is only 153 with differential IQs in some forms of logic and reasoning in the 160s; just short of regular genius and not at all close to super intelligent. But father had been a recipient of Institute counseling and later had chosen to live in a facility for nearly ten years. When he met mother, she was able to give him the companionship and support he needed and they decided to opt out of the Institute."

Riddick interrupted.

"Opt out? I thought you said the contracts were for life."

"They are but they can be voided if both parties agree to it. As I said some residents are in a sheltered facility because they can't survive otherwise. Unless the Board of Directors believe this has changed, they won't agree to voiding the contract. But they do allow spouses and children to reside in the facilities in a case like that. The same family arrangement can be made if a facility resident doesn't want to opt out. It's just a matter of assigning a little more of their income to cover the added cost to the facility."

Riddick wondered which side of that David and Sasha were on but knew better than to ask Jenna about it. Besides, it raised another question about her.

"Why didn't they put you in a facility with families, with other kids?"

"They're set up differently. They're really sheltered neighborhoods. One of the families would have had to foster me and, truthfully, they have too many problems of their own for that. The Institute doesn't foster except to extremely stable homes."

Riddick had trouble buying that. She had been born into that kind of family. Well, maybe not. Her father had been allowed to opt out.

"So what happened that you ended up back with the Institute?"

"I wasn't quite eight years old when mother, father and my younger brother were killed in a commercial skimmer crash. They had made the Institute my guardian in their wills and as an incentive for it to overlook my lack of IQ had reassigned the income from father's pattens to my physical guardian until I was of age. They also made it clear that they wanted me in a facility, not a foster home. After that, the income continued to go to the Institute if I remained and was to be paid directly to me if I opted out. I was the first non-genius facility resident the Institute ever had.

"Now, they have quite a few. It seems that in my fields genius is a disability. The few higher level IQs that are even interested in such soft science make fantastic theory technicians but lack the empathy components for actual therapy work. Because of me, the Institute discovered that having a resident near genius therapist in a group not only generated substantial income from the technical side and lowered the cost of the minor counseling program but also kept the group a great deal more stable; not so many requests for transfer to another facility because of personal disputes and internal friction and, more importantly, an extreme reduction in suicides and homicides.

"Of course the others can't know that the therapist isn't a genius nor that one of his assignments is inhouse. Adult super IQs are resistant to normal methods of therapy. You have to take the role of a peer and an interested and caring friend or they will distrust and resent you instead of confiding in you. The inhouse program was the reason Ben ended up living in the facility. He was extremely angry and vented it in very destructive behavior. He wasn't responding to the usual counseling and they had run out of foster homes that would take him. He also had no trust in adults at all. So, they gave him to me. He was almost ten and I was thirteen."

"He told me that his mother was a whore and deserted him when he was nine. Is that true?"

Her expression became very sober. Riddick knew that she was having a debate with herself; ethics verses need-to-know. The only reason she had told them what she had about Syrus was to lower the probability of bloodshed. When she began to answer him, he knew that her reason now was to make sure that he had the straight of what Ben had already told him.

"Not completely. She did desert him but she wasn't a professional whore. She sold herself for emotional reasons not economic ones. She was well provided for by a trust but was a weak, needy, frightened woman who couldn't understand any way to survive but under the protection of a man. After Ben's father died, she went from man to man, totally terrified after one left her until she could find another. Being so desperate, she always made bad choices. They always deserted her as soon as they found out that the trust couldn't be broken. Finally, she found one who was willing to marry her but he didn't want Ben around. End of story."

If Jenna thought that was some sort of justification for what the woman had done, Riddick didn't.

"What happened to the bitch?"

She gave him a slightly censorious look but didn't take it any further.

"I don't know. The last record I could find, she and her new husband went off planet and she has never attempted any contact with Ben. When did he tell you about her? I've never known him to speak about her except to me."

"We had a little conversation after you fainted."

Her face glowed with curiosity. Riddick knew what was coming and began editing that conversation. Deciding how to tell her enough to satisfy her but no more than that.

"I though it must have been you. Please, tell me what you said to him. He should have been in crisis instead of apologetic and understanding. And later, he not only accepted but was pleased with how I looked in this uniform. The change in his maturity level is amazing."

"First I gave him an example of how his life could have been a lot worse than it was and then we had a discussion about clothing as camouflage. So, nobody in the group knows that you are their assigned shrink?"

She gave him a disapproving grimace then smiled.

"I know there had to be more to it than that but I'm too grateful for the result to be petty about it. To answer your question, Mr. Sen knows because he was the one who called the Board of Directors attention to the effect I had on the others and he and I worked together to develop the guidelines for setting up similar situations in the other facilities. That is no problem because he is the most centered and sane person imaginable. I am also fairly certain that Syrus is aware of it, too. But, that really doesn't matter, either. Syrus wouldn't confide anything personal to God, much less any other human being, friend or shrink.

"But, he likes me. Don't ask me why. I have always had the suspicion that he uses our verbal sparing matches as his own twisted kind of therapy; a touch stone with reality, venting session and attitude adjustment all in one. We also have a very close professional relationship. He accepts me as superior to him in my own field. I have been his assistant when he is into the human testing stages of his work since I was thirteen. I do the all the initial interviews and psychological evaluations and keep his subjects from fleeing in terror or trying to kill him during the medical procedures and evaluations."

Riddick had to laugh at the image this created.

"You're right. It could get very interesting. I also write the recommendation papers concerning the possible psychological effects and the methods for dealing with them that accompany his technical reports and medical recommendations. The double value of our combined work gained a considerable reputation in a very short time and increased both of our incomes considerably. I wonder if that would have happened so quickly if they had known that his co-author was that young."

"You were writing professional papers when you were thirteen 'but' you're not a genius?"

"That's right; just an over achiever. What else could I be raised by a super genius father and then passed on to a whole commune of them. When I started collaborating with Syrus, I was finishing my first degrees in sociology, psychology and pre-med. I now have Masters and PhD's in the first two and my Masters in psychiatry. I was almost three quarters done with the Doctorate in psychiatry when I dropped my studies to do the outside work for the escape."

Riddick tried to imagine what that must have been like. He couldn't get a handle on it.

"That had to be strange, going to college when almost everyone else your age was in grade school. How did the other students take it?"

"I don't know how they might have reacted. I never spent one hour on a campus or in a class room; never saw a professor face to face. I was self-study and did my work assignments and tests by data link. My work with Syrus and with children in Institute counseling served as my therapy internships and my pre-psychiatric medical internship. My psychiatric internship consisted of being assigned six cases in the local state institution. I was given their files, assigned a therapy room and was allowed to have as many vid taped sessions with each one as I felt necessary and any medical tests I required before writing my evaluations and recommendations. I received my certification papers by mail.

"Since proceeding at my own rate and on my own schedule was very beneficial, none of it bothered me until the psychiatric internship. Such internships always require the intern to undergo his own analysis with a fully licensed member of the staff. I asked Mr. Sen why I hadn't. His answer was a true revelation for me. The Psychiatric Certification Board had waved that requirement because they couldn't find anyone among their qualified members who would agree to do it. In his opinion, which I value highly, they were all terrified that I would somehow reverse the roles on them and it would be their deepest secrets that would be revealed rather than mine; that they would turn up as subject material in some later thesis of mine. Basically, my fellow therapists treat me like an alchemist treated his daemon; very useful but only when safely confined within its pentagram."

The tone of her voice and the expression on her face had become increasingly bitter during this last piece of her story. In Riddick's opinion, she had a right. Her colleagues treated her the same way people treated him. A contract killer and a contract shrink; now that was a combination to draw to. Suddenly he understood why the Company and the Forces would be as interested in her as in the others. What was it Ben had said ..... behavior modification ..... translate that 'brain washing' and 'interrogation techniques'. Fuck! She had lied to Jeeter. She wouldn't hang if they were caught. She would be a big prize to the military. But she wouldn't be caught. She 'would' kill herself before she let them use her that way. He had never really believed that suicide earring thing before. Now, he knew that it was a deadly certainty that she would use it. That thought hurt; it damn near tore him apart. He didn't want to analyze that; didn't want to know why. He changed the subject.

"Well if you aren't a company shrink, what are you?"

She rewarded him with a small smile.

"I'm the 'Caretaker Child' in a somewhat disfunctional family. Or maybe .. I'm the 'Mother' to Mr. Sen's 'Father'. I've never really decided."

Riddick had to laugh at that one.

"Caretaker, sure, but you're also the Peace Maker. So, who's the Baby? Ben or Sasha? And what is Syrus? The Delinquent? Jeff is definitely a jealous and abusive older sibling but not the Punisher. Maybe the Overachiever but inadequate for the role. And David ... silent and withdrawn, the Shadow but probably the real Overachiever."

The small smile became a very pleasant grin.

"You're totally on target with Jeff and David. Ben is the Baby. Sasha is an attention seeker, more specifically the Whiner. Syrus .... well, yes, he is a type of the Delinquent; the Runaway. He's the one who tells everyone he's an orphan. But, oddly enough, he is sometimes a Caretaker, too. ........ "

She went silent. Riddick's first thought was that she had suddenly realized how much she was telling him that could be unethical to share. Consequently, he was taken completely by surprise when she continued speaking.

"When you wouldn't let me see the titles of the library books you were returning .... I thought they might be things like 'Poison Through the Ages' or 'Sabotage For Fun and Profit', technical manuals, maybe mysteries or crime stories. I know, I know, stereotyping at its worst. Now, I know better. You recognized the significance of the names of the ships, you are knowledgeable in Space Law and have just demonstrated a knowledge in the psychology of the disfunctional family. So enlighten me further. What do you read?"

The sharp look in her eyes left Riddick no doubt that she expected some payback for the information she had been giving him. It was the same look she had given Jeeter when she was talking to him about 'trust'. If he didn't give her something in return, she was going to shut down communications. The problem was that he wasn't sure that he could let down his barriers just a little but no more under the influence of hyper. He'd already slipped up several times. Still, he didn't really have any choice.

"Non-fiction mostly; everything but Religion. Yeah, and lot of shrink stuff. I like to keep ahead of the yoyos. Fiction? The classics. When I was a kid, I liked mythology and fairy tales. But not much fiction lately. My eyes don't allow me much reading time so I have to make choices."

"Why not audio books?"

"A merc traced me that way once. The only reason that real books are safe is that no librarian would admit to letting them out of the building. They'd be fired. If I can't get that favor in a fairly short time, I find another library."

From anyone else, he would have read the look she gave him as pity. From her it was empathy.

"Once your eyes are corrected, you are going to have a wonderful time in the library and my private collection. But if you read Mythology and Philosophy you should read Religion. I could never understand why they were in separate sections. Religion is just mythology that is still believed and all three provide a study of human psychology at its deepest levels. The image of God that man creates doesn't define God, it defines man. The evolution of a religion throughout its history is a perfect side reference to the history of the society surrounding it."

"Don't you believe in God?"

His question surprised him as much as it did her. She was solemnly quiet for a time. The longer she was quite, the more important what she was going to say became to him. He didn't know why. He had spent a lot of energy avoiding this kind of conversation with Iman. Maybe that was it. All his life people had been preaching God at him, a God he couldn't do anything but hate. Someone as smart as she was who said that mythology and their damn God belonged on the same shelf just might be able to give him the words that could kill the fucker.

"I believe that there is an existence after this. It's a natural law that energy is never lost; transformed but not lost. The energy that tells me I exist and that I am an unique existence must follow that same law. I believe that this existence is not a random accident, that there is purpose to it. Even the roll of die isn't random if you take a large enough sample. If there is purpose then there must be consciousness, intelligence. That is as far as I will presume to define God."

Riddick didn't want God defined. He wanted him dead.

"What purpose? Torture? Does the fuck take sadistic pleasure at what he does to us? Tell me the purpose for a baby being thrown away like trash as soon as he was born? The purpose of letting him survive that but never giving him a chance for a normal life but making him smart enough to know what he hasn't got? The purpose of letting him be turned into the perfect killing machine but giving him enough conscience to know what he's become? Or the first time he really tries to follow that conscience`sending him to Slam to cover a gold braid sell out?"

Riddick suddenly realized how much he was telling her. Most people would have quailed at the vicious snarl that escaped him. She didn't. Her expression was questioning and .... and thoughtful! Did this child-woman, raised in a luxury filled ivory tower, studying his kind, studying him through a computer terminal think that she had any idea of what his life had been like? Was she seriously going to try and give him some naive platitudes that would justify all that ugliness and pain. He softened his tone but let his anger strike out at her anyway. Let her explain away her own pain. Maybe then, just maybe, she might have something to say that he could stomach listening to.

"What was the purpose of giving you a life so lonely that you'd even talk to something like me, much less let me touch you? What was his purpose when he killed your family?"

The way her body tensed he knew he had hit his target. Then she spoke and he found out just how totally wrong he was about that.

"Since we are here, together, logic would dictate that both of our 'tortures' have prepared us to serve the same purpose ..... at least in this particular place and time. After the events of the past few hour, you can't deny that for all the differences in our previous lives we seem to have developed into very similar creatures in many ways; most of them not acceptable under current moral and social values. As for who is lowering themself to touch whom, compare our lives. I was very much the easier of us to mold, now wasn't I. It may be you are the one who is dancing with the devil."

She paused for a moment and then continued in the same soft, comforting voice.

"There's an old fable about Christ and the Devil; when the Devil tempted Christ in the wilderness. After Jesus had resisted all of the temptations, Lucifer smiled lovingly at him and said, 'I am the root of your existence and I am the goad that has forced you to your magnificent purity.' Jesus kissed Lucifer and murmured 'Father.' ..... Haven't you noticed that people who have had an easy life, people who haven't suffered, are very seldom of much value. It's the pain and the effort of conquering it that make us strong. Who knows, perhaps we are the ones that God loves the most and the ones with easy lives are the ones he has given up on; the ones who can never be anything more than what they are already. ...... At least, that's what I tell myself when it gets too painful."

Now it was Riddick's turn to be lost in his own thoughts. What she had said was like the stuff Iman was always preaching at him but not like it at all. Iman always sounded like he was quoting truth carved in stone and his unbending certainty irritated Riddick. Sometimes it pissed him off royally. What Jenna said wasn't stone truths. It was her thoughts, her reasons; thoughts and reasons that felt as comfortable in his mind as his own did. And there was no certainty; well, not the unquestioning kind that Iman had. She had found a level of peace about it that Riddick had never known but she was still searching as much as he was. And .... her God was just as dark as Riddick's was but she was playing the odds that he had righteous reasons for being that way. Riddick found something in that idea that he could grab onto. He wasn't about to put his money down on it but it was worth thinking about.

But he would think about that later. What occupied his first attention now was what she had said about them, most particularity about herself. He could understand how she could think that there was some resemblance between them but he knew better. She didn't know who he really was; he did. The only way to correct that was to tell her who he was. But before he could do that, he had to find a way to make himself stop wanting her.

He held her tighter. She leaned her head into his chest and her free hand slipped under the vest to lay easy over his heart. They sat like that, silent but together somehow; connected on some level that Riddick couldn't understand. He couldn't understand it and that should have bothered him. But it didn't and that should have bothered him even more. But it didn't. He put the brakes on this endless cycle of 'should have' and 'didn't' and allowed himself to sink into the warm pleasure of this totally alien experience. After all, it was just hyper intoxication, wasn't it?