Part III

Lucien Ix fancied himself a collector, a procurer of artifacts great and small. Acquisition was what mattered. And there had been so many acquisitions over the cycles: Casvialian blood stones. Hynerian skulls. Delvian artifacts.

It did little to explain the real nature of his trade. For these riches were nearly always the result of darker dealings. The truth of the matter was, Lucien Ix's business was war. And in the Uncharteds business was always good.

If there were ever a universal depository for stolen weapons, the halls of Ix's garrison-like villa was probably it. His name was known to insurrectionists and decorated military leaders alike.

Ix was wise enough to stay one step ahead of the local magistrates, however crooked they might be. The Peacekeepers that happened by this system valued him enough to keep him far from any prison keep, lest they lose a means of brokering their ill-gotten wealth from the sacking of worlds. As a result he existed without fear of retribution, his powerful influence a thick shadow over the planet he called home.

Out of all the fine things of which he could claim ownership, Ix lacked patience. It showed as he paced the steps to the great room. Distractedly his misshapen fingers plucked at the blood stone affixed to his jacket. He would have gladly given it for the prize that was coming to him on this day. Its name was Asher Korbyn.

The Peacekeeper deserter had been operating in the system for quite some time, without the paying the proper restitution due a man of Ix's station. Ix loathed Peacekeepers, deserters or not. To him they were the lowest of the low, but to make matters worse, he had held Korbyn under his employ. Betrayal was an ultimate offense. As a consequence it had become personal.

"Lucien," a teasing feminine voice interrupted his silent fuming. "Your pacing is making me dizzy."

He turned to the B'Nai inclined across a thick pallet of fire-silk pillows. Her generous mouth pulled into a playful pout at his attention.

"When I want you to be dizzy, I will tell you," he replied and resumed pacing.

"You have waited for nearly two cycles to catch Asher Korbyn," she sighed, clearly bored with the topic. Her clever amber eyes narrowed. "Certainly you can wait a few more microts."

Lucien did not pause as he answered. "Neesa, you fail to understand that Asher Korbyn lets others get ideas. Dangerous ideas. I need to make an example of him. Otherwise… chaos would result."

"Yes, Lucien." She said in a sing-song voice. "I'm sure it's your civic duty that's the most urgent and not the fact that Korbyn used to work for you. It would look very bad for one of Ix's own--"

"Enough, Neesa…" He threw a dismissive hand over his shoulder at her. "Or I'll send you back to that horrid little commerce planet where I found you."

There was a rattle at the massive doors to the great room. The bolts were thrown and the doors swung open. Four of Ix's personal body guards entered, flanking Korbyn and a rather disheveled young Sebacean female.

"Asher Korbyn," Lucien mocked, watching the ragged party approach. "It appears the gods do have a sense of humor."

"I'm looking at one of their jokes right now," Asher returned. The butt of pulse rifle connected abruptly with his sternum. He instantly doubled over.

"Thanks, Enid," Asher said in a winded groan.

"Don't mention it." The towering henchman returned, thumping Asher soundly on the back.

"You know these… people?" The female rasped at Asher. She turned baleful green eyes to Ix, measuring. "Never mind. Why am I even surprised?"

"What is this… girl?" Lucien demanded, striding forward. "You said nothing about this one."

"She's his little tralk, Luc," Liet answered with a sneer. "Bonus, I'd figured."

"I am not his… tralk. I am not his … his anything!" The girl blurted angrily, either suicidal or oblivious to the pulse rifle resting in the crook of Liet's arm.

Ix regarded the girl. She was deathly pale. Too thin. Dark hair hung in matted tendrils around her face. Her eyes were glassy, filled with some feverish stupor. At one time she may have been an attractive diversion, but nothing to even consider now. Not when there were more important matters.

"Unimpressive. Unnecessary. Get rid of her," he spouted. He made a shooing gesture "I don't care how."

Liet instantly grabbed for the girl's arm. But Enid's fist was wrapped around her wrist much faster. They exchanged scowls. Soon Liet released his grip to the larger Zenetian. It was an unspoken understanding in their hierarchy. Lucien's table scraps thrown to his loyal dogs. The bigger ones usually won.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." Korbyn returned. He stepped forward a little too eagerly and the muzzle of a pulse rifle was instantly pressed against his neck. "You're gonna need her, Luc."

"Offering advice, now?" Lucien laughed. "I think not."

"Asher, do not do what I think you're going to do," the girl growled. She tried to peel her wrist from Enid's grip and ended up with the brute painfully pinning it behind her back.

"You've got property that belongs to her," Asher said. "Prowler tech… something you picked up from the debris field. Don't you?"

Lucien studied the pirate. A sinister doubt began to ebb at him, ruining his earlier elation. "And what if I do?"

"I knew it." Asher gave a brief victorious grin to the girl. The expression was not returned by her.

"You've probably not figured out how to make it work." He jerked his chin in the direction of the girl. "This one… she knows. She's got tech-smarts."

"He's lying!" The girl protested. Wide-eyed with horribly feigned innocence, she looked from Asher to Ix. "I don't know what the frell he's talking--"

Asher slapped a hand over her mouth. She turned to move away as he leaned against her ear, hissing some command to her. Her eyes were filled with a squelched defiance. Finally, he withdrew. She raised her chin, lips compressed in a thin line. Her argument magically had dissolved.

"This does little to help you, Asher," Ix seethed. "If this is some attempt to--"

"Lucien," Neesa purred at his elbow. Complications never failed to gain her interest. As a B'Nai she could not help the appeal of emotions that other species seemed to wave around like banners. She slinked a dark-skinned arm around his shoulders and leaned against his neck in a whisper. "Korbyn tells the truth. This little half-breed… she's thinking of that trinket you acquired even now."

"Neesa." Lucien muttered, rolling his eyes. He had never actually confirmed that he had the strange device in his possession. "You're not helping me..."

"Neesa," Asher nodded to the B'Nai with a knowing grin. "Nice to see you again."

Neesa gave a flirtatious laugh, revealing her prominent fangs. "Asher…"

She glided down the risers toward them. After granting Asher a sage side-long glance she turned a slow circle of the girl. The two were an odd contrast. Neesa was a well kept study of fluid, curving gossamer. The girl was a battered, pale and waif-like.

"You hold a great worry on these young shoulders… and that's nothing compared to the death that follows at your heels," Neesa hummed. She traced a hand over the girl's shoulder before pulling maliciously at a loose tangle of her hair. "You carry secrets… I like secrets. They're fun to find out."

"Neesa… " Lucien's voice flared with a warning. He had always enjoyed the benefits of her insights in his many dealings. He only wished she could be more subtle about announcing them.

Lucien nodded at Enid. "I have decided the girl remains… for now. See to her… accommodations."

He looked back at Asher. "Now… back to me."

#

The dimly lit interior of the marauder was filled with the copper smells of blood and charred flesh. But its lone living occupant barely noticed the stench. If anything, it did more to spur his agitation on at a primitive level.

As the auto-doc clucked and sighed to itself over the ruin that had become his body, the remains of Tristis's tattered intellect collapsed around a tiny kernel of obsession.

The prowler pilot now had a name. He had heard the male on the Zenetian vessel call her by it: Crichton. It meant nothing to Tristis, save it made her even more tangible. Something that could be named could be rendered, possessed, captured.

The prowler pilot…

He ignored the readouts on the med station as meaningless background noise. The auto-doc, had it the ability, would have disagreed. It was programmed into this strange patient.

Hectically it worried over the worst of Tristis's injuries with limited success. One of his lungs had a hole seared into it by the deserter's pulse fire. A great deal of the tissue was already growing necrotic. The eye that had once served a Zenetian was sufficient to restore the important point of depth perception, however unmatched in accuracy it was to its natural partner. His genetics had been altered, crystallized at the threshold of death. Yet Tristis existed. The apparatus did what it could with its patient's ruined body, tucking away this information as it went.

Leaving the auto-doc to puzzle to itself, Tristis lumbered over the still body of the Zenetian and stiffly fell into the command chair. His movements were labored and brute, nothing like the panther-like grace he had once possessed. But he noticed none of these things.

For whatever oddities the procedure had done to his form, it did nothing to the primitive thirst Tristis had known most of his adult life. As a Peacekeeper, he had been forced to keep it in check, fearing the inconvenience that incarceration would instill. This strange turn of fortune now worked for him, freeing him.

He relived the moment of his prowler pilot's thwarted capture for the hundredth time. Staring down at her sprawled on the deck of the gutted vessel. How deliciously pale and vulnerable. Soft fleshed and eager to be consumed. The great emerald pools of fear her eyes had been as she looked up at him, voicelessly begging to be claimed. Watching as her expression fell away to absolute terror and something… more. Recognition. She had known him.

Providence. Meant to be.

This excited him even more. Like the infection that now ravaged parts of his dying body, he felt the need stir in his soul, the black oily pit that was its den. She was to be possessed, consumed. He imagined the pale taut canvas of her skin, stretched over the angular lines of her body. The crimson warmth it housed, red and imperfect, the flesh that it fed.

Automatically his hands traced the hilt of the dagger, drawing it out. It was the familiar. His comfort. The silver blade sliced through his own skin, drawing a perfect maroon line. The pain was brief, part of the ritual.

Crichton, his prowler pilot. Another slice. Another perfect maroon line. A drop of blood pattered onto the toe of his duty boot.

It was a hunger, a want, a need. Yet it was also the phantom itch of a missing limb, irritating and exquisite in its own painful existence. Made flesh and bone in her. The soft-fleshed prey named Crichton.

More pain. Brief. Only enough to slacken the need.

A nagging sound disrupted the swirl and eddy of this dark exchange. An insistent voice interrupted from the outside. It was the baleful whine of the navigation console as it dutifully told of the nearness of their new destination.

A cheated rage began to surface. Scorpius must have his prize. The spheroid was still missing. The Zenetian had known. Those about to experience death often had phenomenal revelations. For them memory and clarity of reason become absolutes. This was something of which the Tristis of before and now shared a common appreciation.

The spheroid was in the keep of Lucien Ix.

Perhaps he would see his prowler pilot again. After all, it was meant to be.

#

"You!" Crichton's face crumpled into an irritated frown as she regarded him from the dirt floor of the holding cell. "I thought Nix…Lix…whatever is name is, wanted you dead?"

"Ix," Asher corrected as Enid pushed him inside. The door was swiftly shut behind him. "He does. Just needs to make a spectacle of it."

Ix, always a champion of the theatrical, had decided that Asher's death would be a public event. It would be a message to those who would defy his control in this corner of the Uncharteds. He had even been magnanimous enough to allow Asher a last request… which he promptly refused.

Experimentally he wriggled his jaw, feeling the insidious beginning of a welt there. Enid and Liet had always taken serious pride in their work as mindless pummeling machines. Former allies or not, they made no exception to their workmanship.

"And I'm happy to see you too, Crichton."

She only rolled her eyes and granted him her back.

"You don't have to thank me." Asher said, falling back against the damp stone wall across from her. Despite the dire circumstances, he found it was still amusing to needle her. She was almost always willing to take the bait.

"Thank you!? For what?" she mocked, turning on him with an incredulous stare.

"Saving your life… twice," he grinned. He laced his fingers at the back of his neck and stretched his legs across the narrow cell. "Getting you closer to this prowler tech. The night of fantastic sex."

She arched an eyebrow and glared at him. "Now, who's delirious?"

"Ok… maybe not that last bit," he added, nudging her with the toe of his boot. "At least you don't have to worry about having your head on a jinka pole. Ix wouldn't dare let anything happen to you now. I've done you a favor. You're his latest prize."

"Asher, do me another favor..." She slapped his leg away from resting against hers. "Don't do me any more favors."

He erupted into laughter. "I like you, Crichton."

"You're terribly cheerful for a condemned man," she returned.

"I'm not so worried," he said, shrugging. Then turned a secretive smile at her. "I'll think of a way out of this. I always do."

Her eyes narrowed on him. "The B'Nai… that tralk that pulled my hair."

"You're clever." He chuckled. "Neesa owes me. Even if she's jealous of you."

"Jealous? Of me?" But her sarcastic response trailed off. Her eyes squeezed shut as she succumbed to another bout of agony. She swallowed audibly, rocking back and forth. Her breath came in ragged hitches.

Apprehensive, Asher watched her for a moment. His own brief experience as a field medic could do nothing for her. The height of his expertise was administering kill-shots and treating pulse gun wounds. To say she was reluctant to explain her illness to him was an understatement. An annoying thought had begun to teethe at his edges: concern for her. Such things only ever offered complications. Regardless, he found himself edging toward her. "You… you have any other name? Besides Crichton,… Crichton?"

The girl did not open her eyes. Her body shivered under the ravages of her fever. "Why?" she hissed from a clenched jaw. "You don't want to know me… remember? I'm bad luck."

"Well… " he said. "I changed my mind."

"You are…s-s-singular." She laughed derisively. But it soon turned into a labored cough. Abruptly she fell to her side, forearms planted against the dirt floor. A low painful groan escaped her.

Asher rose, standing over her. Then, hesitantly, he knelt at her side. He placed a hand on her back. "Ix used to have a healer. I'll get the guard--"

She turned on him with surprising speed and clutched his jacket. "No… you'll do no such thing. No!"

It was Asher's chance to look incredulous. "So, that's it? I sit here and watch you hack up your insides?"

"You don't understand. I'm the only one… alive… here… now… that knows how the spheroid operates. It has to end with me."

He leaned back on his haunches and looked at her. "That's the most noble and most idiotic thing I've ever heard."

"Thank you," she grimaced. He watched her struggle to sit upright. She began to clumsily claw the battered black jacket from her shoulders. Her pale skin beneath held an unhealthy sheen of perspiration.

"What are you doing?"

"Hot… it's too hot in here." She growled in self-convinced delirium. "Too frelling hot."

"Let me know if you… um… want help taking anything else off," he said.

"Frell off," she cursed, ineffectually throwing the bundled jacket at him. It missed its target entirely and landed at his side.

Over the edge of her shirt, he glimpsed again the waxy pink brand between her shoulder blades. Vaguely familiar, it was oblong in shape with dissenting lines. Then he realized where he had seen it before. It was from a Scarran standard. The Scarran eye. Despite her complaints of phantom heat, he felt a cold wave settle over his heart.

"Ellie… Elenor." She panted. Her eyes rolled up to him, tearing with pain.

"What?" he looked away, as though caught in some guilty act.

"My name is Elenor Crichton," she swallowed, shutting her eyes. A desperation lingered in them. He had seen it before, in dying soldiers, intent to impart some knowledge of their faceless lives, however small, as they made a petty bid for immortality.

He settled on the packed dirt floor beside her, drawing his knees up to his chest. "That doesn't sound Sebacean."

"It's not. It's… human."

"Never heard of it."

"Not important. Not now." She maneuvered back into a seated position against the wall, energy spent, panting. Slowly she opened her eyes. "Talk to me."

Her request took him off-guard. He had become used to the notion of having her order him to shut up. "What do you mean? What about?"

"You were not always a pain in the eema." She prodded. "What were you before?"

Asher looked away for a moment, eyes turning toward the darkened ceiling, as though the answer were written there. "Syth Company. Black Star regiment. Mobile infantry."

"And so what.. what happened?"

He shrugged, distractedly tugging at the fasteners on his boots. It was suddenly hard to look at her. "I deserted. Got fed up."

"That's not a very good story, Korbyn," she whispered.

"Sorry, Crichton." He paused, turning a lascivious grin on her. "But I am better at… other diversions."

"Oh. Never mind." Annoyed, she turned away, hugging her knees to her chest.

They sat in a strange silence. The only sounds were her occasional jagged breathing. Asher watched her from the corner his eye. She was much worse now. Another emotion that he knew only on a nodding acquaintance joined the nagging worry taking root in his skull. Guilt.

"You've heard of Hedas?" The sound of his own voice startled him. She had given him something. Her name. A brief glimpse of her true fear. Her vulnerability. It would only be fair to offer this in exchange.

"Yes." She answered, her faced buried in her forearms as they rested on her knees. "Occupied by Scarrans twice. Ended when--"

"Ended?"

He sensed her stiffen, but she said nothing more. Asher filed it away as another curiosity about her. "Last I heard, Crichton. The bastards were still there," he said finally.

"What about Hedas?" she prodded.

"I was born there. Ten cycles after the first occupation. When it was still a resources mining colony. Peacekeepers recruited me when I was twelve."

"You were older," she murmured.

"Yes," he nodded, not fully understanding her comparison. "Old enough to remember the important things. Young enough to forget your family. Except I wanted to go. I remember being excited for it. Never cared if I came back to Hedas. It was just another rock. I was gonna be a prowler pilot. Peacekeeper. For the glory of all."

"But you didn't…"

"No. Fast. But not fast enough. Clever. But not the kind of clever they wanted, " he paused. "I don't know if you noticed, but I've got a problem of saying what I think. Got sent into to mobile infantry quick enough. Lucky me. I got to be a field medic."

"You? A field medic?" Her eyes narrowed, looking for some trick or a joke.

"Surprised, Crichton?" Asher shrugged. "Don't blame you."

"I was alright with it. Better than tech detail. Nothing worse than guarding a bunch of techs."

She drew her chin up. The words obviously contained some barb. But she said nothing.

"They sent us to Hedas as reinforcements. The Scarrans had withdrawn. We thought we had them on the run. Sent us in to secure the capital settlement. A lot of the colonists were dead. There were females they'd kept alive. Breeding experiments and the sort. They had been declared irreversibly contaminated. We had orders to get rid of them. On a sweep, I found some of the women hiding in this bunker. They thought I was there to frelling save them." He made a humorless smile and looked away into a dark corner.

"What happened?" She slurred. She pressed her face to the cool stones of the wall and regarded him.

He cleared his throat. It suddenly felt as thought it were growing tight. "I couldn't do it, Crichton. These were girls I'd grown up with. Even if they weren't, they may as well have been… if that makes any sense. I lied. I didn't say anything about them. But I was found out. Ended up busted down to sub-officer in stockade waiting for them to ship me back when our support came in."

"Oh…" her voice drifted away, lifting with a hint of surprise. "What… what happened to the women?"

Asher met her gaze. After a moment, she looked away, realizing his answer.

"Help didn't come. What came were more Scarrans. It was a slaughter. I was frelling lucky. The captain came to his senses, gave me a fighting chance, let me out of the cell. All the others in my detachment… all thirty-seven of 'em. Gone. Dead in half an arn. I got the chance. I ran. Been running since."

He was aware of a weight pressing against his shoulder. He looked over at her. She had either passed out or fallen asleep, her head resting at a seemingly uncomfortable angle against his arm.

Asher reached for her discarded jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders. He leaned back against the damp stone wall and chuckled to himself. It was hard to believe that this was the same woman that had attacked him in his quarters. He marveled over the strange twist that had brought him here, stuck with this peculiar creature that was Elenor Crichton.

Yes, Lucien Ix, was right. The gods did have a sense of humor.

Later, somewhere on the verge of sleep himself, Asher sensed her stir. He looked at her, A strange distressed expression came to her face. Her back arched. She hands fluttered to her throat, clawing. The girl turned wild pleading eyes at him. She collapsed back to the floor, writhing and unable to breathe.

Asher was immediately on his feet, rushing for the lattice of the cell door. He pressed his face between the bars and screamed into the long dark corridor. "Hey! Liet! Enid! You worthless frellers!"

"Quiet down in there!" Came the answer from their unseen guard.

"No. Not until someone comes back here and looks at this girl. She's sick!" Asher bellowed. He did not care that it was her wish to die. He could not sit there, doing nothing. No one deserved that.

"I'd be sick to if I had to look at the likes of you!" The voice seemed less groggy and more annoyed. "Shut the frell up, Korbyn!"

"That you, Liet?" Asher licked his lips and spared a glance back at the girl. She had stopped moving. "Listen to me you fat tattooed bastard, I'm sure Mr. Ix would not be happy to know that you let one of his pets die, especially as important as this girl."

A pensive silence.

"Hey!" Asher screamed again.

"Shut up. You'll get someone, Korbyn."

#

The world was gone. The lumbering tug of gravity. The nuisance of air. The pain. The heavy suffocating weight on her lungs. Gone. The exhaustion that had seduced her muscles had abandoned her. There was no name for this place. Words were mere shades to attempt description. After all, it was so much more.

There was light within darkness, but no forms or surfaces. The mechanics of the physical were nonsense here. Then either within an eternity or a mere moment, she sensed the presence of another approach within the infinite brilliant darkness. She felt an impossible elation with this knowledge. For it was a friend. She was the soft fold of fabric and cool calming hands. The sound of a chant on a hushed voice. The smell of exotic spices.

Zhaan… What is this place?

That is not important. This is not your place… not yet, Elenor. Not for a long time in fact.

She felt only a disconnected fear at this. The pain was gone. The hating. The anger. It would be agony to return to it.

It doesn't hurt. It doesn't hurt any more.

I know. But you have to go back now, my dear.

There was pressing, a tugging. As though a tide were moving her away, forcing her along and out of this brilliance. Back to the hurtful, pain-ridden world.

You are here.

She protested, floundering out against the force. In her graceless grappling she seized on an image: A powerful explosion of light. Then a fury of forces wrecking havoc. She focused on this, held tight, and pulled at it like a rope. A sacrifice made. A decision passed from greater hands. But all of it out of place. Some trade was made. Flesh for light. Life for life. And it centered around her this being that was her teacher, her mother, for so long.

It's not right that you are here… something has gone wrong.

I have always existed here, child. Do not concern yourself. But it's not a place for you…not now. Zhaan soothed, her presence calming and dismissive. She was at peace. Part of this place, existing through it and beyond.

But I can come back?

Yes… that day is far away. There is so much for you yet to do.

I can wait.

Yes. I know. But not now… not now, my love.

Yes, Zhaan.

You always have the strength… remember that...

#

"Good girl! Come on… breathe!"

She obeyed the stranger's commanding voice. She drew in another painful breath, her lungs aching in protest. Ellie experimentally opened her eyes and squinted into a bright light overhead. Her eyelids snapped shut reflexively in response to their painful brilliance.

Red stripe.
White stripe.
Red.
White.
Angry white stars on a blue field.

The hard earned breath left her lungs in an excited rush. But the vision remained, burned to the scrim of her mind. The brief glimpse of the world beyond her shut eyelids. The patch like the one lost long ago, fastened to a dingy mustard colored garment hovered over her.

Another breath. In. Out. A simple act. Performed a trillion times in one's existence, now demanded such absolute concentration.

She opened her eyes once more. The light framed the figure hovering over her from behind. The stranger's face was obscured in shadows.

Another insignia on the clothing…IASA

And below that

Another dark colored circle: Farscape 2

She felt a tremor in her very soul. Her eyes shut, regardless of her will to keep them open. Suddenly she had the strange sensation that time was playing tricks on her, moving deceptively backwards. Somehow she was eight cycles old again, trembling with fear and cold in the huge bed in her room on the Leviathan. She half expected to see Zhaan's face loom over her when she opened her eyes.

But instead a beautiful dark skinned woman peered down at her. Her face was pulled into distressed lines. The subtle curl to her voice, held a barely detectible drawl.

"We need something to bring the fever down."

"You've got everything you need, Northway." This was another voice of someone lingering beyond the ring of light.

"I don't know what half this crap is. Hell, whatever I just gave her might kill her." The woman called Northway hissed. "I'd sell my soul for a bottle of Advil right now."

The light was a burning agony for her eyes. It was torture to keep them open and just as must to keep them shut. Ellie's eyelids forfeited the battle and brought her back to maroon darkness. All that remained were sound and touch. The blood whispering through her veins. The fold and refold of her lungs, each time the effort to breathe becoming less great.

Ellie swallowed several times, desperate to speak, but unarmed with words to form the myriad of questions. Her tongue was sluggish and thick, offering no obedience. The piteous noise that did escape her throat went unnoticed.

There were sounds of clacking glass vials. This was Northway again, rummaging nearby. Her voice was tense, urgent, but held a firm steel of control beneath. "I need an anti-pyretic… is there anything here like that?"

"Anti-what?"

"Something to bring the fever down."

This was Asher's voice. "Here… this."

"You're sure?"

"Absolutely."

Hands wound beneath Ellie's neck, holding her head up. She felt something press against her mouth. A bitter liquid. Immediately she began to gag against the strong taste.

"No. No." Northway commanded. A soft hand held Ellie's jaw. "You keep that down, hon."

Dutifully she swallowed the hateful substance, coking it down hurriedly.

"Daddy," Ellie rasped through a burning throat, forcing the words into order. "Are you here for him?"

A strange pause. "No, hon. I'm here to help you-"

"He said you'd come. He said so..." Ellie ranted. Half-blind by the dazzling light, she pushed up on one elbow, fighting the hands that sought to force her back down to the strange soft surface. The small speech took monumental effort. She relented to the hand at her shoulder.

"Jesus… she's delirious." Northway said, her voice full of pity. Ellie felt the woman's fingers encircle on her wrist, pressing into the flesh. There was a long, counting silence in which she was content to rest, trying to find logic through the encroaching grayness.

"What's your name?" she said, finally. She granted Ellie a slim smile, her warm brown eyes keeping their own fears private.

"El…" But it came out in a winded whisper, barely audible. The strength was leaving her voice. The gray was threatening at her edges and she fought desperately against it. But it was a losing battle. Ellie shut her eyes.

Asher answered, his voice oddly solemn and thin. "Elenor Crichton… she answers to that."

"What did you just say?" She sensed Northway's form move abruptly. A frank amazement rattled the once-steely voice.

"Crichton." Asher seemed closer. She felt his calloused knuckles brush her cheek. "She says it's a human name… whatever that is."

"Oh my God." Northway whispered.

Part 4