Aeryn pulled herself to her feet. She felt like an ice cube was stuck in the back of her throat. Who was she looking at here? Ally? Enemy? Both? Neither? Why Scorpius would continue to maintain any interest at all in John mystified her. He couldn't make the wormhole weapon anymore, and Scorpius knew that. The wormhole weapon was useless anyway, and he knew that. John's other skills were far beyond the ordinary, and they had clear military value. But John would die before he let anyone use him that way. Scorpius above all the others knew that if the variables lined up John was capable and would not hesitate.
So, what?
"The words you are looking for," said Scorpius, "are solider, survivor—and protector." He stood stiffly, and he had a fresh split lip and an old black eye. Still at war. Always at war.
She scoffed. "You're here to protect John?"
"I have always protected John."
This was odd. With Scorpius she always had to resist the urge to speak freely about her husband. Scorpius knew. How complicated John was; how resilient; how unique; how vulnerable. They shared too much knowledge and it made her nervous. Scorpius had every tool and skill necessary to destroy her beloved and it always reminded her: so did she.
"But, believe it or not, I do have other interests. Scorvians. Charrads. The future."
"There's always someone to fight, isn't there," said Aeryn.
Scorpius inclined his head at her in agreement. His gaze caught on Dar and lingered, and Aeryn pulled the wrapping around the baby and turned to hide him. A soft smile played on his lizard lips.
"Did you make that thing?" said Aeryn, nodding at the image on the telescope screen.
"Hardly," said Scorpius. "I have heard from reliable sources that Crichton is responsible for the Hynerian Anomaly. That he created it to support Rygel the Sixteenth's claims to the throne."
"It's not true," she said.
"Yes, I know." He looked up at the Anomaly and folded his hands behind his back. "I can't imagine that involvement in the minutiae of Hynerian politics would appeal to him. I personally suspect that it is either a natural phenomenon or an elaborate fraud perpetrated by the Hynerian royal. But there it is and there it has remained. So I knew that you must come. Eventually. I have been waiting for nearly half a cycle to speak to you."
"Well here I am," said Aeryn. "Speak."
But now that he had a captive audience, Scorpius seemed uncertain of where to begin. She sensed dark gaps and canyons in this talk of protecting and surviving. He hadn't spent the last six months on Premahyneria and Aeryn suspected that he wasn't even really here now. On the deck of a command carrier, more likely, projecting his image and his mind back here. He had some Scarran capabilities in that area.
"There are things you don't know," said Scorpius.
"There are things I don't want to know," she said. "That's why we left when we did."
"That's not how it works," Scorpius told her. "You don't get to choose."
"But we do get to try," said Aeryn. "And if you try long enough…" But her heart wasn't in it. John might hope that they could turn their backs on the worlds forever but she had been waiting for the truth to reach him for a long while now. She had formidable powers of patience and refused to push him but the stars didn't wait for you to wise up.
Scorpius said, "Commandant Grayza is fatally ill."
Silence. Aeryn found a folding chair and sat down in it. "So?"
"Did John tell you—"
She went to a frosty and predatory place in her head. She knew what Grayza had done to John. She knew how it had damaged him. There were moments, few and far between, but moments, when he couldn't touch his own child. When he could barely touch her. "Yes. So? She doesn't need to be alive to maintain the peace. I hope it takes a really long time and they bury her somewhere cold."
"Hypothetical," said Scorpius. "What would John do if his family was threatened? You. Moya. The… infant."
"What wouldn't he do," she said. "Are we threatened?"
"Mm. Would he make the wormhole weapon?"
"Of course," she said.
"How? I thought he no longer had that knowledge."
"John can have any knowledge he wants," she said. "He'd pull the universe apart atom by atom if he thought it would protect us."
"It's about choice," said Scorpius. "It's about trying. It's about what he wants."
"I think you should leave now," said Aeryn.
"I don't protect him for his sake," said Scorpius.
"Yes, that's the difference between us."
The old Peacekeeper spoke carefully, focused completely on Aeryn and the baby. "Who controls what John Crichton wants?"
Aeryn stared at him for a moment. Then she cracked. A snigger burst from her and then she started to laugh. She laughed so hard that her ribs burned and her face hurt and tears sprang to her eyes. "Oh, no," she said, still wracked with laughter. "You can't possibly think it's me."
His expression was stony.
She shook her head. "You poor man. All this time, all this pain and suffering and loss, and you still don't understand us." She wiped her eyes. "I have never been able to make John do anything or not do anything. All I do for him is… I stay. I know what he is I stay."
"It is that quality that is required now," said Scorpius.
"What quality? Love?"
Pause. "Yes."
A dark smile still played on Aeryn's lips. "Leave my family alone." She stood and dusted herself off. It was getting late. Her baby needed food and rest and she needed to see her husband. "You don't have the chops. Thanks for the Galactic news bulletin though." She threw one last long glance at the projection of the Hynerian Anomaly. What a load of dren. "Goodbye, Scorpius."
He waited until her back was turned to drive the knife in. "Grayza has a daughter."
She looked over her shoulder.
"An infant," he said. "You do take my meaning."
No. Her stomach churned.
"You and your half-human offspring are not his only pressure point," said Scorpius.
"Frell you," breathed Aeryn, her head swimming.
"It isn't a secret," said Scorpius. "Anyway it is not well-kept. High Command knows. The Scarrans know—or suspect. Likely the Charrads as well. When Grayza dies the child will be unprotected."
She choked back nausea. "Do you have any idea what will happen if you try to—"
"Once again you misjudge me," said Scorpius. "I don't want to force him. I want to stop him. I have seen what happens when Crichton is motivated by love. I have no desire to live in a Galaxy whose existence is predicated on his fear, grief and rage. I think it wise to go to Peacekeeper High Command and assert your rights in whatever manner you feel would be effective. I advise running. Your denial and selfishness have already wasted time. And the next wisest course is to…" He smiled. "Well, it's to kill you all. Isn't it?"
She embraced her baby's tiny warm body and cradled his sweet head to her chest.
#
In Rygel's royal chamber Crichton was shifting.
When Scorpius first appeared Aeryn had tagged her coms, opening the channel between them. The half-Scarran's melodious voice commanded Crichton's full attention, and he had he had turned from Rygel, tipping his head, his mouth slightly open and a hard word lost on his lips. His hand gripping the butt of his pulse gun so tightly that his knuckles turned white. Rygel had buzzed away and kindled the firebowl, watching Crichton carefully. This Scorpius-Crichton-wormhole business was dangerous. It required precise and gentle handling, especially when Aeryn was not there.
And then Scorpius had said, in that controlled and clipped tone that overrode all of Crichton's normal defenses, Grayza has a daught-.
Rygel tapped his old Moya coms and said, "Pilot."
The voice cut off but far too late.
Crichton blinked. "Turn it back on."
Rygel only watched.
"Rygel. Pilot. Rygel, please. Where are they?"
"Steady, human," Rygel murmured.
"Did you know?" said Crichton, his voice wavering. He tapped his belt. "I have to go. Fix my coms."
"No," said Rygel, and Pilot must have been thinking because the room stayed silent.
"How did Scorpius—no. Whatever. I don't care. I need to… I gotta… I gotta…"
"No. Crichton. Listen to your dominar."
Crichton turned away and got down on his knees and threw up. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Turn my coms back on, Rygel, please, tell Pilot—"
"The child's name is Aya Telanor."
Crichton blinked and swallowed hard. "You knew?"
"Everyone knows, Crichton."
He put his head in his hands. "Oh, God."
"She doesn't belong to you," said Rygel.
"I don't have the time of day for your bullshit, Rygel. Fix my coms."
"She is the baby daughter of a dead general and a Peacekeeper Commandant and as far as the rest of the Galaxy knows, you work for me," said Rygel. "For once in your life, do the math."
The math. The math was that he was under attack from every angle and there was no safe place to go. The math was his heart was being carved out with a rusty spoon as the headline performance of an all-singing, all-dancing interstellar variety show. "Aya," he said.
"Yes. And she is not yours. That is propaganda designed to flush you out."
Crichton nodded and bit his lip, the predator coming back into his expression and bearing. He gave Rygel a shaky, cruel smile. "Oh, I think that's likely to happen, Rygel."
The old king narrowed his eyes. "If you try anything then I will have you locked up. Do not test me, Crichton. I have more children than you do."
"Scorpius knows," he said.
"Scorpius would be happy if the only voice you ever listened to was his. Tell me I'm wrong."
Crichton shook his head. "You're not wrong."
"He has every reason to lie."
"And I have every reason to trust you," said Crichton. "Is that what you're gonna say?"
"I am a pragmatist," said Rygel. "But even I wouldn't ask you to abandon a child."
"Mm."
"I wouldn't manipulate you into a political kidnapping either. I do have some principles. Settle down."
"It doesn't—"
"Settle down," said Rygel.
"It doesn't matter. If she is. If she isn't."
"Of course it matters."
"No," said Crichton. "It really doesn't. Not long from now she's going to be a baby girl with no parents and what people think is gonna matter a hell of a lot more than what is. We have to do something. She can't possibly stay with the Peacekeepers."
"She can," said Rygel. "If that's where she belongs."
"Nobody belongs with them."
"All right, then, since you've appointed yourself the arbitrator of where people belong, I'll muster an army and we'll liberate them all."
He rolled his eyes. "That's not what I'm talking about. Rygel, I've got to see her."
"I won't allow it."
"Sparky, I wasn't asking."
