"So it was the frelling Scarrans, huh? Well, at least the stupid idiots didn't blow themselves up," John spoke, more to himself than to his companions. An hour and a half and another call to Earth later and they were still little further forward: The demand that John come down to Earth had been tempered into a request that he do so, but little more information had been forthcoming.
"You'd have thought someone would have mentioned Moya and us, if they were talking about Scarrans?" Chiana remarked, voicing all of their thoughts.
"Could this be one of these alternate realities?" Aeryn asked John as she fed D'Argo a spoon of strong-smelling, liquidised Sebacean mint stew.
"Possibly. Could explain a lot of things." He rolled his head noncommittally, aware that the gesture probably resembled one of Noranti's.
"You should have let me put more ginka root in that," Noranti fussed at Aeryn, indicating the baby's meal. Aeryn flashed a 'mind your own business' smile at the old woman and turned her attention back to John and D'Argo. Considering their troubled history, Noranti was lucky that was all Aeryn flashed her way.
"Frell!" Chiana looked around her nervously, like she was inclined to bolt from the room. She might well be, John decided. She didn't take well to this sort of thing these days. She didn't take well to very much at all these days, not since the death of her lover.
"I'm gonna have to go down." John said quietly, almost as though hoping to slip it in without anyone hearing him.
"Why?" Chiana asked softly. Aeryn nodded in support, her jaw set in determination, and spooned another mouthful of food into her son. Hell, they're ganging up on me John thought. If Noranti and Pilot join in I'm done for. No, scratch that, he thought, it's Aeryn and Chi, I'm already done for.
"It was your idea," he wheedled.
"Things have changed," Aeryn replied, fuming.
"But I still need to go..."
"Why?" Chiana repeated.
"Umm, well because I need to find out what has happened down there. What's happened to my family," John ventured. He saw Aeryn's resolve soften. Family. It was the one card he knew she wouldn't try to counter, knowing as she did how important it was to him. He felt a total rat for playing it.
"Fine." She snapped, not meeting his eye but rather shovelling more food into D'Argo. "I'll ask Pilot to ready the Prowler. Chiana, can you..?"
"No, Aeryn." She turned and stared at him, her countenance hardening again into a mask concealing who-knew-what emotions. It was her Peacekeeper-Aeryn expression, and that was never a good sign. On top of him saying he still wanted to go down and playing the 'family' card, Noranti had been winding her up for the last ten macrots about what the crazy old drug-pusher regarded as her deficiencies as a mother and a cook. If he didn't explain himself quickly Mount St Aeryn might just erupt.
"John..." her voice had that warning tone. Chiana was glancing nervously between them whilst Noranti seemed to have pulled out a sachet of herbs and looked like she was trying to pick a good moment to surreptitiously slip them into D'Argo's bowl. Aeryn pushed the bowl away from Noranti, in front of Chiana and passed the infant across to her young Nebari friend. John swallowed nervously at the thought that Aeryn seemed to be 'clearing the decks for action.'
"Look, it's a good bet anyone down there won't feel like rolling out the welcome mat for alien visitors right now. Including you." Freed from the encumbrance of her son, Aeryn shuffled around in her seat to face her husband, who was sitting only denches away, on the other side to Chiana. John writhed under her gaze. She could be frelling intimidating when she wanted to be, and this was definitely one of those moments. "Better if I go alone, in the module." His throat felt dry. He was sure she'd hear the nervousness in his voice. "When I get in dren up to my ears, that's when you can come riding to my rescue, OK, babe? Safest for everyone." He reached out to lay his hand on her belly to indicate that he wasn't just thinking of her, but of the child she carried, too. She batted his hand sharply away. They locked eyes, like a pair of cats each daring the other to look away first. He willed himself not to crumble, not to look away.
The outwardly calm silence was matched by a foreboding stillness, broken only by Noranti leaning across towards D'Argo's bowl and Chiana curling it into a protective hug. Aeryn didn't break John's gaze, but she did finally give an almost imperceptible nod. John breathed again. "You promise that you'll be careful. That you won't do anything stupid and you'll comm me at the first sign of trouble?"
"Sure. Of course." He nodded, looking away now, ashamed in his victory and avoiding her gaze. Without warning she seized his face between her hands and made him look her in the eyes. "You promise me!" she hissed at him, a tear in the corner of her eye. "Or I swear I will instruct Pilot to turn Moya around and head back to the wormhole this microt! I mean it, John!"
"I promise, babe," he laid his hands over hers. "No heroics. I'll be careful. I promise" He glanced at her pregnancy bump. "Don't worry, this time, I mean it. Truly. Trust me, everything's going to be OK."
She glared back at him, battling to hide her worry and frustration behind her usual stoical mask.
'~'
John circled Collins's rendezvous point in his module: It looked like a local, private airfield, not a military base at all. The only hint that he had got the right place was the pair of transport helicopters - old models, Loaches, if he remembered the name right, and a couple of camouflaged trucks that stood near the small cluster of buildings. Just like when he had flown over downtown Houston on his approach, no one was moving around, and there seemed to be no traffic other than him, on the ground or in the air.
He had brought the module in from orbit on a long, low trajectory, giving him plenty of opportunity to take in the devastation the Scarrans, or whoever was responsible, had wreaked on his home. Houston had been a mess. Seeing the damage from space was as nothing compared to seeing it more up close and personal. After a minute flying low across the ruined city John had felt compelled to interrupt his approach to the rendezvous coordinates in order to set down and take it in. He had needed a private moment to come to terms with what had happened, before he met with the reception committee.
It had been a struggle to find a place to set the module down in the ruins of Houston, even with its added alien manoeuvrability. Finally, he had spotted an area clearer than most and set down on the flattest, most stable looking pile of rubble he could find. He climbed out of the module, donning his leather coat against the unexpected chill. There was no one to be seen anywhere. He walked slightly away from the module, feeling the need to do something, anything, even if it was just walk a few paces, and stood nearby, on a more raised pile of ruins, taking in the jagged steel and concrete remains of tall buildings ripped asunder. His jaw clenched in grim anger. Someone was going to pay for doing this to his home.
He made one more pass over the airfield, just to be sure, then brought the module in to land for the second time that day, coming to rest 100 motras from the choppers and turning the module's nose to angle it back onto the open runway for a quick take off, just in case. He made one last check on Winona, his treasured pulse pistol which Aeryn had given him in his first cycle out in the Uncharted Territories, and on the Tarken body armour, half hidden beneath his long, black duster. Then he took a microt to quickly check in with Pilot and Aeryn and then popped the hatch.
It was warmer here than Houston, and the air had a more natural smell - flowers and grass, rather than ash and gas. John got the impression that this place was too unimportant for the Scarrans to bother with. As he walked towards the two Loaches a trio of men emerged from the nearest building. Two were in civvies and one in a plain green BDU. As they came within shouting distance the three men exchanged a few words and the soldier nodded.
"Commander Crichton?" the soldier called and saluted, not waiting for the obvious affirmative reply.
"Lieutenant Colonel Collins?" John replied, getting close enough now to see the markings on the man's uniform. He was tall, slim set, early middle-aged with the sort of rugged good looks that spoke to John of the typical lead male character in an action-packed TV show. Probably one involving wormholes, John's subconscious interjected.
"So, it really is you? John Crichton?" Well, at least he didn't have a ridiculously over the top Southern accent, nor was he wearing a long, blonde wig.
"Who else?" John shrugged and nodded, trying to hide an inappropriate giggle at the thought of Collins as the pwinceth from Chiana's game-blob.
"Welcome home. I must admit, none of us expected to see you, least of all... well, you'll see."
John pursed his lips, tired of all this pussy-footing around. When were they going to stop telling him they'd tell him everything later? Was 'later' ever going to come? "S'ppose you tell me what the frell...?" he demanded, growing more serious.
"Scarrans, Crichton." Well, he knew, or at least suspected that already. But at least they were starting to tell him something now. "The rest can wait till we've confirmed you are who you say you are. If you don't mind, we'd like to run a couple of tests, just to be sure, before heading on with the debriefing."
John considered Collins's latest statement for a second, reluctant to agree to anything involving medical procedures after his experiences in the UTs at the hands of Scorpius. But, he was home now, and if he wanted to find out what was going on, which he did... well, for now it was their ball game, their rules.
"You're not planning on strapping me down and sticking any probes where the sun don't shine? Because let me tell, you, I've had quite enough of that to last a lifetime."
"Yeah, I bet you have," Collins smiled, almost laughed at that. "No, not this time," he continued with a friendly smile, gesturing with an outstretched hand towards the nearby buildings. "Shall we?"
'~'
John perched on a low medical trolley, covered in rough blue paper, keeping a wary eye on the two white-coated medics, one male, one female, both military, as they fussed around him and scurried around the examination room, shining lights in his eyes and ears, taking blood, blood pressure, noting down his height and weight. There was a large, opaque length of glass along one wall, which John presumed was a one-way mirror, a main set of double doors, through which he had entered, and two single doors on other walls. He wondered who might be behind the mirror and what might be behind the other doors. No matter - if it became important, he'd find out soon enough. Hopefully the Tarken armour would protect him from most things and, if not, well then there was always Aeryn and her Big Frelling Guns.
A hawk-faced, unsmiling, slightly built man in a black suit and tie entered through the main doors, about thirty feet from where John was sitting. After staring at John with his best poker-face for a few seconds, he gestured Collins over to join him. The colonel complied as though his lead had just been yanked. John pretended to ignore them, feigning interest in the doctors but keeping an ear tuned in to anything the newcomer might say.
"So, this is the sonofabitch who led the Scarrans here?" the newcomer sneered softly into his fingers. Although the words had clearly not been intended for him to hear, John heard them just fine. Furious, he jumped down from the trolley, in his angry haste nearly knocking over the female doctor who had been standing in front of him.
"Hey, hang on just a microt! Where the frell d'you get that from?!" John was already half way across the room, but the newcomer didn't flinch or even show much emotion at all. He raised his eyes in challenge to Crichton. In that moment he reminded John so much of Braca. Collins seemed to brace himself to tackle the astronaut should things come to blows.
"What little we learnt from the Scarrans. What we deduced. And what Crichton told us." The newcomer replied in an offhand manner, defiantly staring John down whilst somehow managing to look down his nose at the taller man. He definitely reminded John of Braca now.
"What d'you mean?" John came to a halt two paces from the two men in order to make it clear he wasn't seeking a physical confrontation. At least not yet. He could only presume the newcomer was talking about the conversation John had had with Jack Crichton, his father, a year ago, telling him he was closing the wormhole to Earth to protect the planet from the Scarrans. "I only spent a minute talking to my dad, telling him I was closing up the wormhole. Before that you had my whole debrief on the lizards from the time I was here last year!"
"Colonel Crichton?" The newcomer frowned, for the first time showing signs of discombobulation. "No I mean the other..."
"Shh..." Collins nearly went cross-eyed with frowning at the Man In Black. John looked from one to the other for a microt. Well, at least all three of them seemed equally confused.
"Give us a moment, please?" Collins asked John. Crichton could tell it wasn't really a request and he reluctantly conceded, backing off towards the medical trolley and the two curious but conspicuously busy doctors, but he never took his eyes off the pair by the door. Collins and his compatriot looked at each other for a moment, going into a huddle. As they spoke, John played the last few minutes over and over in his mind, trying to work out the riddle. He didn't like the solution he was coming to.
The man in black nodded and left the room, whilst Collins shook his head, sighed, rubbed the palms of his hands on his trousers and strolled over to John.
"You're saying you've been here before?" Collins demanded, propping a nonchalant elbow on a nearby workbench.
"Last year. Twice. What Crichton were you talking about?" There was utter silence now. Even the two doctors seemed to have stopped what they had been doing and were staring at John in confusion
A sudden realisation hit John, something he had previously only suspected but which now seemed to be an inescapable conclusion. He hadn't been here before. And there was another Crichton, who wasn't his dad. "Frell! This isn't my reality. Close, but no cigar..." He muttered to himself. Everyone was still staring at him as though he'd grown two heads, one of them possibly Delvian. "How long has the other me been back?"
Collins looked too shocked, too out of his depth to comment. His mouth worked, open and shut, open and shut, like a goldfish.
"Nearly three years," a duplicate John Crichton answered from the double door from which he had suddenly entered in the company of the man in black. "And 'Frell' is right."