"Did anybody get that? 'Cause I didn't."
"It was Pilot, but the transmission was garbled."
"I could only make out one word."
"Yeah, me too."
"Incoming."
"Your guests are causing trouble," the barkeep told Scorpius, and with a nod he motioned towards Crichton and Chiana in the corner of his establishment. His hands kept cleaning the counter as if they were programmed to do nothing else.
"They're lucky," Scorpius told him, and his eyes flashed. "I like trouble."
Crichton planted his foot on a stool as if he were carrying a flag and daring anyone to challenge his territory. The Peacekeepers in the cantina around him stood up and carried their plates someplace else.
"This isn't gonna end well," he told Chiana, his wingman, who eyed everyone remaining and didn't stop to agree until they were assured of some privacy.
"Yeah, well, happy endings are for other people. Didn't your father ever tell you that?"
"Nope."
"Mine did."
John took a swing of his drink. With his other hand, he flashed his pulse pistol to anyone looking. Finally, he put his foot down again.
A distant sound grew stronger, until a low flying roaring engine seemed to shake the building and landed not far away.
Scorpius finally walked over to them. "It's time," he said. "Stay here."
"New plan," John whispered to Chiana. "You and Rygel and Moya, you run. Get as far away from here as you can."
"Sounds great. But what about you and Aeryn?"
"I'll stay here. The kids are priority now."
"The kids need a father."
John knew she was right, but there was no other way.
"You don't want them to end up like me. They should end up like Rygel: fat, spoiled and with diplomatic immunity."
In a dark basement below the Peacekeeper compound, Scorpius had shown them the weakest link in his plan. Commander Deccan had arrived alone with the command chip ident required to open the door. No-one else was allowed to see it. They followed him into an elevator, that went briefly down and opened up to a red room. At the heart of it stood a long black cabinet, like a big black box, twice a man's size, that seemed to covered in random blinking lights. John whistled the five tunes from 'Close Encounters of the Third King' as he entered, but no-one heard him, because the noise the machine made was too loud. Deccan had to turn it down.
"This is a replica of a Command Carrier's Prime Command Node," Deccan explained. "We are not supposed to have this. Technology of this kind, especially in the wrong hands, might tip the balance of any war in favor of our enemies."
John appreciated how the Peacekeepers were already planning another war, after all the pains he went through to end the last one.
"No more Pilots, John," Scorpius said. "Think of it. An entire race saved from slavery."
Scorpius didn't care about slaves.
"So we're pitching a product now? That's the plan? We're gonna pitch an alternative to Pilot?"
"So, no Pilot?" Chiana asked. She still couldn't imagine this black machine standing in the place where Pilot sits.
"Pilots have proven to have an affinity to wormholes. Their species capability to multi-task and calculate on multiple dimensions are invaluable to understanding the properties of space/time, not to mention the Leviathan's compatibility to the weapon."
Did Scorpius want to build a Pilot think tank on wormholes?
John could barely restrain himself. He thought it was over. He thought he was out.
"I thought..." he said. "...you were done... with wormholes, Scorpy. Remember? We fought a war over this. Remember pretty please with a cherry on top?!"
"The events at Kar'Shagga have proven to me a different approach is necessary," Scorpius said.
Some people just never learn.
"The knowledge extracted from your Pilot's mind is still out there, John! You, nor the Ancients, no longer have the monopoly on wormhole weapons, but we do have the resources to police and monitor..."
"Cut the crap, Scorpy. WE'VE BEEN OVER THIS! FOR YEARS!"
"John..."
"SCREW YOU, SCORP."
"We have the wisdom... and the nééd... to discover it for ourselves, before anyone else does. We have the authority..."
John walked away, and Chiana placed a hand on Scorpius's chest plate, telling him to leave him be.
"I'll talk to him," Chiana said.
"I thought I was out..." John muttered to himself.
"What?'
"I THOUGHT I WAS OUT!" He threw his drink against the wall. The glass shattered, flying all over the place. Chiana was hesitant to approach him. She knew what he was like when he got angry.
"Now's nót the time..." she said, her hand on his shoulder.
"Scorpy's gonna use Pilots to get to wormhole weapons!" he gritted his teeth.
"You rather they spend their live as slaves under a control collar?"
John looked away.
"This way Scorpius has a valid reason for High Command to stop harvesting Pilots, ánd he's got a thing to replace them with. And when the creature has healed, Aeryn will get to leave..."
"No, don't you get it? He's got us now. We'll never get to leave. He's got us right where he wants us, stuck in his web, writing wormhole equations for the rest of our lives. But guess what? I'm. All. Out. It's gone, Chi. Einstein took it all."
"I know that. You know that. But the universe doesn't. Why not use that?"
"I'm done, Chiana. We had a home. We had a life, on Kar'Shagga. I'm done being hunted."
"Well, I'm not. Done, I mean."
She was about to tell him something she hadn't told anyone.
"Scorpius... you... you never asked why I work for him. It's not just you. It's not just wormholes and the taskforce, but that's part of it... Scorpius... he knows where Nerri is."
Chiana swallowed, and John calmed down.
"We all have our agendas," he said. "And I don't deny you yours."
"You have a family, I know that," Chiana said. "But so do I."
"Hey," He cupped her chin with his hand, turning her face so he could look into her eyes. "You're part of that family. You know that right?"
"Yeah," she said, and smiled.
When Scorpius returned through the large doors of the compound, something was wrong.
"That's not General G'dishi," John said. "And where's Deccan?"
It'd been raining outside. Mud stuck to the bottoms of everyone's boots. An entourage of six was lead into the building with their weapons confiscated one at a time, except for their unarmed leader, dressed in a soft gray cloak and hood, whose white hands were resting entwined, on his thin waist. There was a black ring around his finger.
John couldn't see their faces, until they entered the light. Facing Scorpius, the hood still obscured his face, until he lowered it. His hair was coal black, and his skin was white as snow. Nebari.
Scorpius was courteous in showing them around, but they remarked the place with a passive, smiling disdain, as if they thought this soldier's barracks as something cute, and primitive, a relic of a barbaric time.
"These 'Pilots', we understand, are peaceful creatures, without violent tendencies, so they will be perfect for our experiments," John heard the leader remark. "They will serve us well..."
"As if things couldn't get any worse..." John whispered to Chiana.
He hadn't noticed that she had frozen, as if in complete shock. She started walking straight up to Scorpius and the Nebari, and before John could stop her she was already right up into his face. The Nebari man smiled at her.
"Can I help you?" he asked, his smile a perfect picture of kindness, but his eyes were black holes.
"Chiana..." John tried to wrestle Chiana away, but at first she wouldn't budge. The party kept moving when Scorpius shot them a look, and the Peacekeepers escorted the Nebari and his entourage deeper into the compound.
"Chiana, what the hell's the matter with you?"
Glass crackled under her boot, but she didn't care. She was shaking, rocking back and forth, until suddenly she lifted her stool into the air and threw it at the bar. Within seconds, soldiers stormed towards her and John had to do everything in his power to reassure them she was just drunk, and that he was going to take her back to her room.
John grabbed her and held her close as they marched down the corridor, while everyone looked on, and he didn't let go until he reached his suite and locked the door behind him.
"Who was it?" John asked. "Did you know him?"
Chiana put all her effort into forming words.
"It was him," she said. "Right...right down to the lines around his smile. Oh, frell, I hope I'm wrong. Please let me be wrong."
"Chiana..."
"It was him. It was Nerri. And he didn't even recognize me..."