Part II

Brilliant blue light flooded Moya's command chamber, drowning the natural amber glow of the wall sconces. Several thousand metras beyond, the wormhole blossomed in an awesome swirl of azure wrought with white.

"It's beautiful." Aeryn whispered.

Only John heard the anxious jab of remorse in her voice. He regarded the others who had joined them. Their expressions seemed to mirror his own mix of sadness and wonder as well. This could be farewell… again.

John placed a hand on the smooth contour of Aeryn's shoulder. She turned to him, trying to sound stern.

"You should leave, Crichton. Before it's too late."

"Once bitten. Twice shy." His voice was grim as he thought about the false earth. "I'd like to know a little more about this baby before I go anywhere."

John turned back to Pilot's image. "Talk to me, Pilot."

"The phenomenon is destabilizing." The navigator's arms danced in an artful frenzy at Moya's controls. "An energy surge is imminent."

In keeping with his prediction, a great jolt of white intensity suddenly filled the swirling center of the vortex. A dark shape emerged, its threatening edges in sharp contrast to the elegant dance of light. Unmistakably, it was a ship. Then, just as quickly, the wormhole vanished, collapsing upon itself like a wilted flower, its passing unnoticed by the aloof stars. Only the newly-arrived vessel marked where it once stood.

"The vortex has vanished from Moya's sensors, Commander Crichton." Pilot stated the obvious, his head lowered in apology.

"I'm sorry, John." A hand squeezed his arm reassuringly. He looked up into the direct blue of Zhaan's sorrowful gaze. But, he admitted silently, there was a vein of relief woven through the disappointment that washed over him. This insane corner of the Uncharted Territories was, for the moment, home. Those on Moya, family.

"Pilot, what can you tell us about that vessel?" Asked Aeryn, fully entranced with the newcomer.

"Its design is unknown to Moya; however, it more closely matches a prowler's schematics."

"That's not like any prowler I've seen." She noted, jealousy frosting the words.

"Maybe that's the new S class." John muttered as he fell into place beside her. "Leather interior, heated seats..."

With an elegant curl of her lip, she granted him one of her patent-pending-John-Crichton-you-are-the-oddest-creature looks and turned her attention back to Pilot. "Are there any other peacekeeper vessels in the vicinity?"

"No other vessels within Moya's range. But you should know there is a rather strong energy signature coming from it for a vessel of its size." His incredulity was well transferred over the holographic transmission. "And the ship appears to have... no detectable weapons."

"No weapons? On a prowler?" Aeryn's stifled a smirk.

John drew in a deep breath and prepared himself for the reaction his next statement would no doubt illicit from his shipmates.

"Can we open a com to him?"

"You can't be frelling serious, right?" Chiana's liquid black eyes widened in disbelief. "That's a prowler and you want to stick around to chat?"

Zhaan nodded, seeming to guess where his thoughts were directed. "John, I know that learning about the wormhole is important to your journey home, but it could very well be a trap."

"I have to agree with Zhaan." Aeryn tore her wistful expression away from the vessel. For whatever intrigue the new prowler held, her peacekeeper discipline won out. "This is too… convenient."

"Okay! Time out!" With an irritated flourish, John raised his hands. "I know it's a prowler. It's alone. It has no weapons."

D'Argo leaned forward, giant hands outstretched on the console. "No detectable weapons. We should leave at once."

"Fine. No detectable weapons." John rolled his eyes. "It just plowed through a wormhole. I say it's worth a looksee."

"I don't care if it's worth the entire Hynerian treasury. Frell this." Rygel erupted from his sleigh-throne, careful to maneuver out of the human's reach.

"What are you suggesting, John?" Zhaan granted him a sidelong glance.

"I take a transport pod out to it and Moya hangs back while I check it out." John rubbed an impatient hand along the back of his neck and paced the length of the console. "Pilot stays ready to push the button and run like hell in case anything... happens."

"Wrong." Aeryn shook her head.

"Aeryn, come on-"

"We take my prowler." She folded her arms, eyes narrowed into a dare.

"That's my girl." John granted her a sly grin.

#

"You did not say you were going to steal it. I do not like this." D'Argo growled, surveying the strange new addition to Moya's bay. He folded his arms against the massive expanse of his chest and glowered at the smaller human.

"Don't worry, big guy. It's in the bag." John slapped a hand against the Luxan's solid shoulder and gave him a gleeful smirk. It was nearly impossible for him to feel wary.

"No." D'Argo maintained, unaffected by his enthusiasm. "It is in Moya's hangar. And I do not like it."

"What of its pilot, John?" Zhaan studied the prowler's menacing lines before returning her questioning eyes to him.

"Unresponsive. So far." Interjected Aeryn. "They made no attempt to avoid Moya's docking web."

"Let's see if that changes..." John nodded to Aeryn. She returned the gesture, raising her pulse rifle. With his own weapon drawn, he placed himself at the ready to activate the prowler's canopy.

Cautiously he triggered the release on the canopy's seal. It opened with a halted rush. The tiny blast of atmosphere condensed into vapor as it flooded from the cockpit to meet the cooler air of Moya's bay.

John felt the ripple of heat cross his face as he leaned warily over the darkened interior. The pilot lay slumped over the yoked control column. The helmeted head rested at a graceless angle against the instrument panel.

"Kentucky Fried Peacekeeper." He muttered.

"What?" Aeryn was instantly at his side.

"I think he's dead." He added, haltingly. "Or just as good as."

She swiftly withdrew as the draft of warmth met her skin. "Too hot."

John read his thoughts on her face. That answered the mystery of the unresponsive pilot. The environmental systems on the prowler must have malfunctioned, subjecting the luckless Sebacean to the living death as a consequence of such heat.

He righted the stooped body back into the seat. A muffled groan filtered out of the dark sheen of the helmet's faceplate. With numb fingers, he removed the pilot's helmet. It fell to Moya's floor with a hollow clatter. He brushed away arrant strands of damp chestnut hair to disclose the flushed face glistening over the staunch black collar of the flight-suit.

Their he was really a she.

"Jeez. She's just a kid."

The pilot's eyes were fixed in a vacant, jade green stare. Her spine suddenly constricted into great whooping gasps. Gloved hands weakly clasped his wrist in a mindless reflex. She began to mumble. He strained to hear her frail voice. Curiosity overpowered his fear of attack. It was a language he had heard a thousand times passing the dimly lit corridor before Zhaan's chamber. A Delvian chant.

"Ar bharr na dtonna's fa bheal na tra..."

#

You're ready to throw me off the ship for borrowing a tiny frelling bottle of oil. But he swipes a prowler and everyone's fine--

The circumstances are hardly the same.

Frell that! He brought a peacekeeper here!

The voices swam through the blackness, held aloft by the invisible currents in the warm tide. It was hard to deny the strong desire to stay there, floating in the gentle ignorance of this bleak, featureless horizon. To surface now would mean pain and the graceless bind of gravity on her battered body. But the voices would not let her rest. With a reluctant tug, she succumbed to their pulling and surfaced into the blinding, deafening world beyond.

L'Tan forced her eyes open against the great coil of pain in her skull. The light of the room was soft amber. Its glow seemed to permeate the dull copper of the walls and spines reaching into the dimness overhead. She had been in enough rooms like this to recognize it.

Leviathan.

Closing her eyes once more, she pressed her face to the cushion at her head. Muffled, the soft purr of the great beast's engines found her ear. And gently, far more delicate, the distant beat of a giant pulse.

Leviathan.

Her eyes snapped open. Abruptly she sat up, heart slamming her ribs as she looked about the chamber. Aside from their gentle curve, the walls were bare. No other furniture filled the expanse of floor. From beyond the sloped alcove at the head of the bed, the voices rolled on in the discordant tangle of an argument in its infancy.

"You are hardly in a position to judge John's actions."

"We have to trust him."

"Trust him? A few weekens ago he was ready to kills us over dehydrated food cubes!"

On legs that felt like dead wood, L'Tan tested her weight. Ignoring the protesting jitter in the muscles of her arms, she pushed herself from the bed and took unsteady steps toward the doorway. When she saw the barred lattice of the door, a tremor of fright pierced the cluttered fog of her febrile brain. In the corridor beyond, stood the voices' owners, drawn into a tense triad, oblivious to her approach.

Nebari. Luxon. Delvian.

Her meager focus fought the milky swirl of thoughts and returned to the delvian.

"I... know you, Delvian." L'Tan's hoarse whisper cut their raised voices like a surgeon's knife. Crumpling, she fell heavily against the shallow arch of the threshold. Under the tumble of dark hair, her baleful green eyes remained pinned on the priest.

"My s'duhar had you killed. I watched you die, Pa'u Zotoh Zhaan."

#

Crichton balanced precariously over the lip of the new prowler's cockpit, penlight clasped between his teeth, as he fought an untidy coil of charred wires and circuit nodes. There was a sudden crackle. A wicked blue arc greeted his fingers.

"Damnit!" He cried, shaking his injured hand.

Aeryn poked her head up from the opposite side of the prowler's hull.

"That's the third time." The human muttered as he retrieved his penlight from the floor.

"Fourth." She corrected, with an arched eyebrow. "Are you trying to electrocute yourself?"

"Why, yes! I am." He cocked his head, voice dripping with sarcasm. "One painful jolt at a time."

"Here. Let me." She crawled inside the cockpit, shooing him out of the way.

He rested his chin on folded arms and watched her deftly gather the wires into a careful choreography.

Another sinister crackle. Zap.

Aeryn wordlessly drew her assaulted fingers into her mouth, glaring at the uncooperative bundle of components.

"Not as easy as it looks, huh?" He did not fight the sardonic grin that spread over his face.
She shot him a reproachful glance. Undaunted, she collected the wires once more.

"That's one way of saying it." The meter of her words were protracted, thoughtful as she concentrated on the charred connections. "I've never seen so many security overrides in one place. Even the DRD's are having problems. Activate one system. And another shuts down. It's all very…"

"Deliberate. Like a puzzle." John finished.
She nodded, briefly glancing up at him from her work.

"You haven't said anything about our guest."

"Haven't I?" Aeryn frowned, feigning ignorance. But she had expected this. Crichton could be irritatingly observant for a being with such obviously inferior eyesight. In all honesty, the pilot weighed heavily on her mind. No Sebacean, no matter how well conditioned, would have survived such heat. Their "guest" was demonstrating only some form of extreme exhaustion, and was expected to recover, according to Zhaan.

But, perhaps in keeping with his human failings, Crichton's thoughts were elsewhere than Sebacean physiology.

"She was praying, Aeryn. In Delvian. Zhaan said it's some kind of chant taught to children."

"Obviously some sort of delirium triggered by the heat." She squinted at the jumble of connections to avoid John's studying eyes.

"Is it so hard for you to believe she was really praying?" He was unconvinced by her lack of interest.

"Peacekeepers don't pray." With a defeated sigh, Aeryn turned to him. "Because there is no need for it. In conditioning we were trained to rely on ourselves, first and foremost. Ultimately, there's nothing beyond that. Nothing else is going to save you."

"That's kinda bleak. Do you still believe that?"

"I believe in luck." A wan smile decorated her face. "You're living, breathing proof of that."

"Thanks. I think."

In a sudden malevolent purr the console's tell-tales activated, filling the contours of the cockpit with delicate light. With a radiant smile, Aeryn awkwardly met John's extended palm with her own in the "high-five" gesture he had demonstrated to her on previous occasions.

"Way to go, Officer Sun."

Her smiled faltered. "Go where?"

She watched as Crichton shook his head dismissively and triggered the propulsion compartment latch. A lingering whine echoed through the bay as the panel opened along the brushed alloy skin of the prowler. He eagerly disappeared under the sharp angle of a wing.

His appreciative whistle soon punctuated the air.

She peered down at him, startled by his outburst.

"Um…. Aeryn, you've got to see this." His blue eyes were wide with amazement.

She squirmed over the prowler's side. As she moved to avoid a lumbering DRD, a small corner of blue jutting from along the pilot's seat caught her attention. With curious fingers, she felt along the small space and tugged at the colorful shape. The object came away in her hand. She slipped to the floor with her prize.

Studying the dingy rectangle of fabric, she paused mid-stride. It seemed… familiar.

Lines of red interspersed with white. A block of blue studded with angry white shapes, all identical.

"Hey, Sun! What's the hold up?" Crichton prodded.

Tucking the emblem into her waistband, she rounded the wing to join him at the opened panel, and quickly forgot her odd discovery. In place of the expected artful chaos of propulsion chambers and fuel conduits, a featureless spheroid balanced impossibly inside of an intricate cage of wires and circuits. A low level hum, more felt than heard, seem to permeate the air around it.

"Curiouser and curiouser." Crichton whispered.

Before she could utter a warning, he reached out and touched the odd lusterless curve of the sphere. There was a tiny protest of static as his fingers came into contact with it.

"Careful!"

"It's okay, Mom." He said over his shoulder. With a sharp tug, he withdrew his hand and experimentally wriggled his fingers.

"Wow." He looked up at her with a bemused smirk. "You've got to try that."

"Let's not and say I did." Aeryn borrowed a phase from his vocabulary of less than enthusiastic human responses. "What is it?"

"We'll have to talk to sleeping beauty to find that out." He shrugged. "It's hard to describe. It feels like this… gravity pulling my hand. The closer to the surface, the stronger it is. Sorta like a magnet."

Suddenly the com at Crichton's shoulder crackled with Chiana's voice: "Guys, the, uh, prisoner is awake… sort of."

"Is everything okay, Pip?" Crichton answered, concern creasing his brow at the uneasy quality in the Nebari's voice.

"Define... okay."

#

The prowler pilot was a crumpled knot on the floor. Eyes shut. Her face pressed to the heavy latticework of the cell door. A slender pale hand extended between the bars. It lay in vivid contrast against the cool blue of Zhaan's cheek. The Delvian was seated facing her, a folded fist resting on the high arch of the stranger's cheekbone.

"How long have they been like that?" John whispered to D'Argo.

"Too long." He answered. The apprehension was plain in his lumbering growl.

"Have they moved?" The human looked from the odd embrace to Chiana.

"Only if mumbling counts." She answered, clearly amused by the interesting turn of events. "She said something to Zhaan about her sooda-something--"

"S'duhar." Corrected Aeryn, studying the prowler pilot's motionless face. "It's an older peacekeeper tradition, seldom practiced. In warfare, the victor... the s'duhar, passes judgment on the first born of his fallen enemy, usually keeping them as a trophy."

"Tradition?" John quipped. "That sounds like a Hallmark moment."

He knelt next to Zhaan and snapped his fingers in front of her face. The peaceful expression remained undisturbed. He leaned forward, listening. A hushed chant carried from the her parted lips.

"Hey, Zhanny? Zhaan?" John threw a frustrated glance at his shipmates. "Come on, Blue. Wake up. You're scaring me."

But the prisoner was the first to awaken from their shared trance. She opened her eyes with a disjointed flutter at the sound of John's voice. Her passive features collapsed into a knot of fury. A flicker of recognition. Green eyes filled with malice peered at him through her tangled tendrils of hair.

Zhaan's head rocked back on her neck as her communion with the newcomer was abruptly severed. With amazing strength and agility, the priest was instantly on her feet, John in tow, roughly steering him away from the cell.

"Whoa!" John resisted, although not much of a match for her strength.

"You mustn't be here." Zhaan insisted with a frantic whisper.

Over the priest's shoulder, he watched the pilot throw her body at the gate. The dense metal rattled appreciably in its sturdy hinges. White-knuckled fists clutched the bars.

"YOU LEFT ME TO DIE!" The disheveled young woman screamed, her throat compressed into straining tendons. Her eyes streamed with tears. The anger they contained was fixed on him. "You abandoned me. You promised to return. Instead you left me to die!"

"What the hell is she talking about?" John turned to Zhaan.

"John, please-"

Angrily, he turned back to his accuser. "We just saved your nazi-peacekeeper ass! I didn't leave anyone to die."

Once more, Zhaan tried to lead him away from the cell. But he resisted.

"I shall explain later. John, it's best if you leave. You're presence will only agitate her."

"I'm gonna agitate her?" He felt a flush of indignation. "What the hell is going on, Zhaan?"

"She remembers you from her childhood." The Delvian's grip on his arm yielded slightly as her stern face softened. The expression there hinted to more of a disturbing discovery than the words could convey.

"I've never seen her before in my life." John countered.

Meanwhile, the prisoner collapsed into a tangle of limbs, arms and face pressed against the floor in a beseeching pose. Fierce, mournful sobs racked her shoulders beneath the mass of hair.

"S'duhar, forgive me! Forgive. Please." Her quiet moan was drenched in anguish.

It made a small chill form in John's heart. He capitalized on the momentary distraction to break away from Zhaan and warily approach the gate. The stranger did not stir beyond the painful, nonsensical mutter of her pleas to some absent master.

"John, please… don't make this harder." Warned Zhaan.

Suddenly, the woman rolled to her side, back arched in convulsive gasps as she frantically struggled to breathe. John acted on impulse and triggered the gate.

"Crichton, don't!" Aeryn called.

With blinding speed, the prisoner lunged at him. His arms were caught in her surprisingly strong grasp. A fierce momentum pitched him like a rag. He landed on his back. The air punched from his lungs in an agonizing rush. Before he could react, she was seated on his chest. His own pulse gun was pressed into the crook of his jaw.

"Do you know what they do to hybrids, John Crichton?" She hissed. Her maniacal glare, etched with accusation and loathing, did not waver from his face.

"Don't do this!" Zhaan rushed forward, kneeling as close to them as she dared. "No. We can help you."

The muzzle pushed harder into John's flesh.

"Do something else, Blue." He rasped, daring not to move. "I don't think the pop psychology is working."

Zhaan pleaded once more. "Please, don't-"

"Drop the weapon, now!" Aeryn's command cut the tense exchange. Cautiously she stepped into the cell, pulse rifle lowered on John's assailant.

Recognition flickered through the rancor on the young woman's face as she focused on Aeryn. The fury faded; replaced with a distressing mix of dreadful awe and reverence bordering on rapture. John felt the pressure of the pulse gun at his jaw lessen.

There was a small motion, barely perceptible. Suddenly, the young woman's limp body was sprawled on the floor beside him. A red welt from D'Argo's sting was already forming on the cool white of her neck. John looked up as the Luxan stood over him, hand extended. He took it and allowed himself to be helped to his feet.

"You know." D'Argo chided. "That happens to you far too often."

#

"You're joking, right? There's some punch-line here I don't get. Like Delvian candid camera?" John's derisive words reverberated in the nearly empty galley.

Seated across from him, Zhaan watched his outburst with her usual serene self-control and waited for him to look at her before she spoke again.

"John, I realize you're uncomfortable with this, but it's the truth.. I know what I experienced in my bond with her." The priest continued calmly. "I cannot explain how, but L'Tan Sun is your and Aeryn's daughter."

"Zhaan... I don't think the word uncomfortable comes close to covering this."

He stood and began to pace, hands interlocked behind his neck. This was no trick, no joke. It was written in the tensely set lines of the priest's shoulders and her earnest stare.

"I can show you." Zhaan said quietly.

His pacing stopped. He knew what she meant. Unity.

"I don't know if I want to do this, Zhaan." John bowed his head, his back turned to her. "Maybe I shouldn't know about it. Did you consider that?"

"John, I would not mislead you. She needs your help."

"She tried to kill me." He admitted, still feeling the slight sting to his pride. "That's not how people ask for help."

"I can show you." Zhaan repeated. "Then you can decide."

John walked to the doorway, but froze before he reached the corridor beyond.

Do you know that they do to hybrids, John Crichton?

The words hissed with such rabid fervor echoed, unbidden. The injured, accusatory glow in those murderous eyes forever etched into his memory.

He released a surrendering sigh. "What do I have to do?"

#

Aeryn stood at the work bench in Moya's bay, dissected prowler components ignored, as she scrutinized the care-worn patch of fabric. It turned over and over between her fingers in an acrobatic tumble, teasing her memory.

"Oh, frell it." She muttered. Irritated, she tossed aside. Turning back to her work, she stopped.

Lips parted in a bemused gasp, Aeryn looked back in the direction of which she had thrown the strange trinket. In the distance beyond, rested the awkward mass of Crichton's module. On its dingy black and white hull was the same pattern of red and white lines. A blue field decorated with the angular shapes.

"Frell me." Aeryn said under her breath, reclaiming the insignia. She felt a small twinge of embarrassment. The answer had been in obvious sight all along, something she had looked at almost every solar day plastered across the hideous little vessel. The fabric emblem was from Crichton's jacket.

But...

Her satisfied grin faltered, hindered by a nagging thought. She had not seen the human wear his Earp uniform in well over a cycle. That did not explain how the decoration wound up in the prowler's cockpit.

"Aeryn... I'm glad you're still up." Crichton was suddenly at her shoulder. She suppressed the startled jolt in her spine and turned. The patch of cloth tucked behind her back, a precognitive reflex, as though she had been caught in some criminal act.

"I have to talk to you." His eyes were red-rimmed, distraught. An unnatural pallor had taken over his face as though he had glimpsed his own death.

"Crichton, are you alright?" She stepped closer. A shadowed corner of her mind told her that there was news she would not like.

"What I'm about so say is gonna sound really crazy." His hands trembled slightly as they settled onto her shoulders, his blue eyes seeking hers.

"How is that unusual?" Aeryn smiled thinly.

"Just for one microt, drop the close-minded peacekeeper mode and listen to what I have to say. Think of all the things... all of us on Moya have experienced... and all those things you thought impossible... until they happened. For once, just listen. Don't judge. "

#

She looked cautiously about the hangar for any sign of her father. The coast was clear. Quickly she darted along the wall of Moya's hanger and slipped into the transport pod. She wriggled behind the control console in search of a hiding spot.

Footfalls betrayed someone's approach. Suddenly, strong hands gently grasped her around the waist and she felt the smooth floor leave her feet. Despite her disappointment at being discovered, Ellie giggled wildly.

"Gotcha." Her father announced with a grin as he carried her back out into the hangar. "What do you think you're doing, Commando Eleanor?"

Ellie wrapped an arm around her daddy's neck and pushed her forehead to his beard-stubbled jaw. "I'm going with you."

He set her down and knelt before her. "Ellie, you know you can't go. It's very... risky."

Crestfallen, her chin tucked into her narrow chest as a pout pulled over her mouth. "If it's so risky, then why are you going?"

"It's complicated, hon." John struggled to keep the apprehension from his voice. But he could tell he was loosing ground by the unconvinced stare in her green eyes. "Besides, I need you here to help Zhaan. Who's gonna run mission control?"

"Yes, daddy. Mission control." Her tiny voice was on the verge of tears. The frown knotting her eyebrows deepened as a wave of adult dread filled her tiny body. She had overheard the halted whispering and the urgency in his conversations with Zhaan and Pilot. This was no ordinary excursion.

"Okay... part of this mission is really top secret." He said, with a conspicuous glance around Moya's bay. "I wasn't gonna do this until I got back, but... the IASA has authorized your promotion."

Eleanor nodded, sorrow momentarily forgotten by the intrigue in his voice.

"Close your eyes."

She complied, sooty dark lashes rolling down to meet the delicate pallor of her cheeks. His fingers trembled slightly as he attached the emblem to the soft-spun cloth of her tunic. The red, white and blue fell in discordant contrast to the elegant purple. He planted a gentle kiss on her forehead.

"Okay. Open 'em." Her father drew his shoulders into a formal line and placed his hands on her shoulders. His voice took on a flourish as he feigned an official tone. "I am placing you, Eleanor Sun-Crichton, in command of the Farscape project. It's your job to stay here and make sure Pilot and Zhaan are okay."

She looked down at the colorful rectangular patch, awestruck. Her dainty fingers traced the pattern of the same strange standard that decorated the skin of the module. Red stripe. White stripe. Red stripe. White. Fragile white stars in a blue field....

"Identify yourself."

Her eyes snapped open. But her throat denied the startled gasp in her lungs. L'Tan had learned such discipline a long time ago. Control, adaptability were the keys to survival.

"Identify yourself." The gravel in the feminine voice was firmer, more insistent.

Still drowsy after recovering from the Luxan's sting, L'Tan had fallen asleep seated, arms wrapped around her knees, against the wall furthest from the doorway. She rolled her throbbing head up from her chest, hoping against the cold surety in her spine. But the room was the same. She was still on the leviathan.

On Moya. L'Tan allowed the thought, for the moment, as improbable as it might be.

Finally her eyes settled on her inquisitor. The same unimaginable wave filled her at the sight of her mother, Aeryn Sun.

An unvoiced loss.

Unabashed fear.

Empty.

Self-loathing failure.

L'Tan looked away with a shameful tremor. She refused to meet her mother's eyes. To see the loathe and hate housed there was unbearable. Aeryn Sun, whom she had worshipped and never known, clearly held nothing but venom in her heart for her.

Oblivious to L'Tan's internal torment, Aeryn stepped closer, deceptively delicate hand extended. In it rested the dingy, battered patch like an unspoken accusation. Although she felt an urge to snatch it away, L'Tan remained frozen by her mother's anger and contempt.

"I know you're not a prowler pilot." Aeryn continued in measured coolness.

The outstretched hand twisted slightly. The patch slid along the smooth skin.

"I've seen the brand on your back... Scorpius' mark."

The hand inverted, dumping the patch to the floor.

"You may have Crichton and Zhaan fooled. But not me. Identify yourself."

Aeryn wove a white knuckled fist through L'Tan's collar and pulled her to her feet. L'Tan, who knew countless ways to end an enemy's life, was helpless under her mother's reproachful glare.

"Aeryn! What are you doing?" Her father's voice, erupted from the open doorway.

#

"I want my own answers, Crichton!" Aeryn jerked her elbow from his grasp as they approached the galley.

"What were you gonna do?" John countered, shutting the door behind them. "Beat it out of her? Don't you think she's had enough of that?"

She would not face him, only watched his frosted reflection in the glass of the portal. Her back was a rigid line of anger.

"You want answers? Here. Here's answers." He waved a stack of transparencies and slid them across the table toward her. "Look at the energy signature from the wormhole. It's nothing like the ones I've seen before. Somehow, it's was different. The whole thing was shot full of tachyons."

With an arrogant wave, she lashed out. The pages were sent flying like a flock of startled birds. "I don't know what the frell a takeeon is! And I don't care how many readouts and figures you shove in my face. This is all dren! There's an explanation that doesn't involve what you're suggesting."

"Explain how she survived the heat, Aeryn. No Sebacean. No full-blooded Sebacean would have! She's a hybrid. Explain how she knows Zhaan, or Delvian prayers. Or, better yet." He tossed the emblem on to the table. "Explain how she got this."

Aeryn folded her arms pensively against her chest. There was no response.

"I saw it myself. In her memories. I gave that to her... or I will." John rounded the table and stood before her. "If you don't believe it, then why did you hide it from me?"

His fingers gently brushed her cheek. But she tore away once more.

"You and the Delvian have been frelling inside each others brains too much. You're both insane!" She said, angrily.

"Why? Why won't you believe it, Aeryn?"

But she fell silent, head bowed.

"Aeryn-"

"Is this what you meant by being more? I could be so much more?" Aeryn's voice wavered when she finally spoke. Her eyes had taken on the unmistakable shimmer of tears.

"I don't understand." But he did. He remembered.

An offer extended. A promise made.

"That being more means my death? And yours? That I, that we, would have a child who knows nothing but hatred or fear? That is the slave for a madman?"

But he would have never imagined the ending that had developed before them.

"We have a chance to change that. It doesn't have to end like-"

"Enough, Crichton." Aeryn shook her head. The fury had faded. "Enough. I refuse."

She strode away. Leaving him alone in the silent galley.

Part 3

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