A/N: I have to apologize in advance for the lack of action in the last chapter and this one, and I promise that things will be picking up soon. The chapter lengths will also increase as the action gets started. The rating is at T for now, but the way things are heading the story may get a bit more graphic in terms of violence and stuff in the future, so it may go up to M at some point. Thanks for reading and please, please give me some comments/criticism!

Lexx not mine, etcetera.

Chapter Two: A Discovery

Xev heard a thud and the sound of crushed glass squealing across the floor, and when she turned around she was met with the sight of Kai sprawled out on his back, his eyes closed and his pale hands limp. He bore an expression of puzzled distress on his face. This phenomenon unsettled Xev when it occasionally surfaced; it seemed to be indicative of real emotion, even though she knew that it truly wasn't. But it plucked a chord somewhere in the region of her stomach nonetheless, and she put down 790 to scramble over to the dead man.

"Kai?" she asked, grasping him by the shoulders and giving him a gentle shake. "Kai, are you all right? Stan, I don't think this is a protoblood failure, he was fine when we all went into cryostasis." She heaved him up into a partial sitting position and his head lolled over onto her chest.

"Speaking of protoblood," Stan said, "I think we have a big problem." He'd come up behind the two and was now staring down at the remains of the protoblood, which Xev had missed in the general confusion. She craned her neck to see over Kai's bun, and when she realized the extent of the spill she produced a cluster lizard shriek of frustration and tried to maneuver the dead man away from it.

Once Stan had bent down and helped her drag Kai to the wall and lean him against it -- where he promptly slid over until he rested awkwardly against one of the partitions – she set to work trying to collect the remaining protoblood in her cupped hands. After a moment she sat up and stared dejectedly at Stan. The artificial substance leaked through her fingers as she cast about for something in which she could deposit it.

"Here, Xev," Stan said quietly, removing his hat and holding it out to her.

Xev looked at the hat and scoffed. It was a conflicted noise, an amalgam of disbelief and grudging affection. Stanley was stuck in a state of perpetual adolescence; most of the time he only looked out for his own interests, and could be alarmingly superficial, but then sometimes he displayed such simple and childlike selflessness that she couldn't help but revise her opinion of the man. She knew how much that hat meant to him.

In fact, she seemed to remember a time in which he'd lost his hat and when she'd attempted to give it back to him, he mistook the gesture for a sexual proposition… and then he'd tried to kill her, and a mind-controlling spider had crawled out of his mouth.

Feeling suddenly less sympathetic toward Stan, she said, "No, the protoblood would just soak through. We need to find a real container."

"Yeah, you're probably right." Stan looked slightly put out as he began to pick through the rubble, searching for something more useful. Xev frowned at his jumpsuit-clad posterior as he bent over to pick something up. If they were really stranded, that meant that Stan possibly was the last man in the universe, at least for all functional purposes. It was a hypothetical situation they'd gone over many times, and one that she particularly dreaded. Having sex with Stan, she imagined, would be rather like bonking a hairless yet very excitable monkey.

"Hey, I think this might work!" In trying to avoid the spectacle of Stan's jumpsuit, Xev's eyes had fallen on a bit of the broken cryopod lid that had come loose when it'd hit the ground. She held it up. It was from the bottom portion of the lid that curved around to make a vague bowl shape, and although it was lopsided, it would hold the protoblood efficiently until they were able to find a better storage unit. She began to hastily scoop the gelatinous substance into its new makeshift container.

While she wrung the last of the protoblood from her fingers, which clung with a wet sort of tenaciousness to her smooth, bronze skin, she watched as Stanley tried to communicate with their ship.

"Lexx? Lexx?" he asked, and his tone became increasingly impatient each time he received no answer. "Lexx, can you hear me? This is Stan, your captain."

"I suggest you go to the bridge, Stanley," said a low, harsh voice from the corner. Xev and Stan whirled around to see Kai struggling to sit up, his eyebrows drawn together in concentration. "That is where your connection with the Lexx is strongest. In its weakened state, it may only be able to hear you if you are close to its nerve cluster."

Then he collapsed with a muffled groan back against the wall, losing whatever progress he'd managed to make. Xev pulled his arm over her shoulders and helped to lever him upright until he stood unsteadily, leaning against her. "What's wrong with you, Kai?" Xev asked, her lips pouted in concern. "You're not out of alignment again, are you?"

Kai looked over at her dispassionately. "I do not know. I had a strange dream."

"I thought that the dead didn't dream," Stan hazarded, watching Kai with suspicion.

"No, they do not." Kai then made a rather odd face and turned his head to the side. "They do not… usually." His deep voice rasped on the last word, which Xev recognized as the manifestation of Kai's weariness – or whatever he had as an equivalent. She shot a sidelong glance at Stanley; they would deal with whatever was bothering Kai as soon as they'd figured out more pressing matters, such as whether or not they were going to survive the next few days.

xxx

The Lexx was visible for a very great distance on the planet. It was especially noticeable from one vantage point: a mountain, the only distinct feature that the entire moldering, gray-green globe possessed. It was a jagged spike of stone that rose like the fossilized remains of an ancient beast from the soft earth. And, with many eyes, it watched.

At night its sheer façade glimmered with lights, although they were muted and quickly withdrawn, as if hesitant to present themselves as targets. They were elusive. When the wind was right on a good evening, the sound of whispering accompanied them – but the susurrus of murmurs did not reach far, and there was no one to notice it. Until now.

Slowly, the mountain turned its covetous stare to the Lexx.

xxx

The disembodied handprint made its customary staccato whimper as Stan pressed down on it. Xev found herself appreciating the familiarity of the sound; it was a nice thing to hear after everything that had been going on, and at least it was a sign that the Lexx was still alive.

"Lexx, can you hear me?" Stan asked, raising his voice to nearly a shout.

A long pause ensued. Then the dark viewscreen flickered, and a white line threaded sluggishly across it. Finally, the Lexx answered; its voice had gone down several octaves, and it spoke slowly, as if its words were made of syrup, but it still retained its vacantly pleasant demeanor. "I am very hungry, Stan. I have not eaten in a very long time."

Stanley and Xev exchanged looks of profound relief.

"Ask him if anything on this planet is edible," Xev suggested, divesting herself of Kai, who seemed to be able to stand adequately now that he'd had some time to recover.

He swayed a bit in place and put out a hand to steady himself against the Lexx's neural cluster, but otherwise managed not to fall over again. After glancing briefly at Xev beneath furrowed eyebrows, he sent a steadier gaze toward Stanley, and said, "If the Lexx could have eaten, it likely would have already."

It wasn't without precedent for the Lexx to override Stanley's control and go searching for food by itself. In the Lexx's current state of deterioration, it was actually surprising that the large insect hadn't done so already – especially since its entire crew had been in cryostasis, and during that time it was basically operating on the express command to find itself a planet suitable for eating.

Stanley shrugged; it couldn't hurt to ask. "Lexx, you heard her. Is there anything you can eat here?"

"Yes… looks very, very tasty, but…" The ship's tone fluctuated. It went alarmingly high and then plummeted again, its voice eventually dropping so low that it seemed to fall off the register. "But I am very hungry…"

Stan heaved a sigh of exasperation and Kai looked at him again. "I believe that the Lexx is too weak to eat," the assassin said.

"That's a little ironic," Xev murmured, squinting up at the now-blank viewscreen, one hand resting on her hip. "Is the atmosphere outside breathable? It should be, if the planet has things Lexx can eat on it."

"There's only one way to find out," Stanley announced reluctantly, glancing toward the Moth-breeding chamber.

xxx

The original Moths were nothing more than shriveled husks. After their last experience with prolonged cryostasis, Xev and Stanley weren't surprised by this and watched with interest while Kai activated the Moth breeders and gave them instructions.

"Build more Moths," they said in unison, walking stiffly toward the dormant egg sacs.

Xev studied them, and found herself wondering how they managed to stay alive within their membranes for so many years at a time; maybe they were more machine than they were human? That possibility seemed likely to Xev, who remembered trying to comfort one while it died of heat exhaustion back on the planet Fire. It hadn't responded to her presence, and its last words had been, predictably, "build more Moths." Its death had aroused an inexplicable feeling of regret in her at the time, and even the memory of it brought back a faint twinge. After all, they were both victims of the Cluster; they'd both been altered irreversibly by the corrupt system.

She shook her head. Now was not the time to start getting sentimental. "Kai," she said softly, coming up beside him. He'd been standing and watching the Moth breeders impassively, and now he turned to look at her, waiting for her to continue.

"Whatever happened to you earlier," she resumed, "in the cryochamber. Do you think it could happen again?"

Kai tilted his head down and to the side as he thought about her question. "I do not know."

Xev frowned distractedly; that wasn't the answer she'd been hoping for. "What if something happens to us on the planet? It might not be safe out there."

"I will try to protect you and Stanley, as always," he replied. "However, it might be in your best interest to keep these expeditions as brief as possible, at least until I am able to discover the source of my malfunction."

"Hey, guys!" Stan called to them from across the chamber. The Moth breeders were just now affixing the bubble shields to the Moth's eyeholes, which meant that they were close to being finished. Kai began to make his way over, and after pausing for a moment and watching him go, Xev followed.

The Moth chirped agreeably as they took off several minutes later. Xev was driving, her fingers clasped around the fleshy joystick. Luckily the Lexx still had enough energy to open its portals for them as they flew, and the Moth trilled and bobbed forth with absolutely none of the reservations that Xev and Stan were feeling. When the last barrier contracted out of the way, Stan pulled a face and Xev frowned, directing the Moth lower so they could get a better look at the ground.

"Ugh," Stan observed. "It looks like it's all dead."

Xev privately had to agree, although the alien landscape had a certain sort of melancholy appeal. "Let's land and take a look around," she said, briefly catching Kai's gaze. He had no method of predicting if he'd have another blackout while they were down on the surface.

The Moth chirruped as it alit on the soft soil, and Xev and Kai hopped out first, followed more unenthusiastically by Stanley. "I don't suppose there are any people on this planet," he said tetchily, pulling up his pants legs as his shoes immediately sank halfway into the damp ground.

Xev was too busy absorbing their surroundings to notice Stan's complaints. They'd landed right in the middle of a great decaying forest – or at least what was left of it. The planet's floor was coated with fallen leaves, the sort that looked as if they were left over from last autumn; they were already pulpy and moldering, and grown over with patches of moss. She reached out to brush her hand across the trunk of one of the trees, which was bare-branched and thicker around than several Moths put together. Its bark sloughed off beneath her touch, thoroughly rotten.

"This doesn't seem like such a great place," she admitted, glancing around as she was seized with the sudden feeling that she was being watched. Kai too seemed to be on the alert; he stood with one hand resting on the forearm that contained his brace.

"Tell me about it," Stan agreed, oblivious to their wariness as he slogged over to them through the deep loam. "What's that over there?"

Xev followed his gaze and it took her a moment to understand what he was talking about. "The ground…"

"Yes," Kai said emotionlessly, but with a certain note of urgency nonetheless. "It has been disturbed."

For a moment all three were silent, staring at the earth. A patch dozens of meters wide seemed to have recently undergone a violent process; the soil was turned over and the moss was uprooted, and several trees clung crookedly to the tousled dirt as if they were about to topple over any minute. The effect was very localized, and nothing else around the enormous space showed signs of disorder.

"Primitive agriculture?" Stanley suggested, seeming to think that Kai's observation had been a little bit too creepily ambiguous for his taste.

"Before you and Xev awoke from cryostasis," Kai told him, "I felt the Lexx undergo a series of tremors, as if the planet was experiencing an earthquake. I believe this is related."

"That definitely wasn't an earthquake," Xev said, sashaying bravely over to the site of the disturbance. She squatted down and poked at the soil, and then lifted a piece of it and sniffed it.

"It seems to be the work of a… creature." The assassin stepped forward to stand by Xev's side. "Or the result of some kind of underground phenomenon."

"That'd have to be a pretty big creature, wouldn't it," Stan opined from several feet behind the two, glancing around nervously. "Um, Xev? Look at your hand."

She'd noticed it at the same time as Stan, and she lifted up her hand to get a better look. It was covered with a slick, mucus-like substance that had leaked from the soil she was examining. Far from being disgusted, she seemed interested; in fact, the material looked a lot like…

She ran one finger over Kai's lips. He paused, and then tasted the substance while Stan looked stunned and rather horrified. Kai closed his eyes for a moment. "Protoblood," he grunted in confirmation, before opening his eyes again.

All of them took a moment to reflect on what this meant.