SquidgeWorld Archive

Lost and Found
by Daniel Thurs


We stand on a mountain pass in the midst of a whirling snow and blinding mist, through which we get glimpses now and then of paths which may be deceptive. If we stand still we shall be frozen to death. If we take the wrong road we shall be dashed to pieces. We do not certainly know whether there is any right one. What must we do? 'Be strong and of a good courage.' Act for the best, hope for the best, and take what comes. . . . If death ends all, we cannot meet death better.
-Fitz-James Stephen



John Crichton peered into the viewscreen.  A dim star occupied its center.  "57 planets?" he asked, shaking his head and making a incredulous face.  "Can that happen?"

"It apparently has.  But it's almost certainly not a natural arrangement." Pilot replied smoothly.

Aeryn stepped next to John, her arms folded tightly across her chest.  "I've never heard of such a thing.  Could it be a trick of some kind?  Is Moya seeing things?"

There was a brief pause.  "No," Pilot said, "But there is a great deal of interference from the central star.  It seems to be going through a highly active period in the final stages of its stellar life."

"So, it is an old star?"  Rygel asked, hovering serenely.  "That bodes well for finding an advanced civilization.  The home sun of my own people is extremely old…"

"I would estimate it has only a few million cycles of life left," Pilot concluded.

"What about the planets?" Zhaan asked from behind the crowd.

"As I said, there are 57 objects of planetary size here and perhaps several million smaller bodies.  The stellar activity makes it very difficult to tell."  Smaller windows began to multiply around the edges of the screen, containing images of planetoids and small moons.  All were a dull gray, like chips of fossilized bone, some with enormous craters or ridged scoops cut into their sharply shadowed faces.  "Most seem to have been thoroughly mined of any potential resources.  The cometary Oort cloud is entirely gone.  Likewise, what were probably gas giants have been largely stripped of their atmospheres."

"Looks like someone really wrung this place dry," John whispered.

"All the larger planets I've been able to examine," Pilot continued, "appear to be largely artificial, consisting of anywhere from 30 to 80 percent of what seem to be manufactured structures.  In addition there are several very large structures near the sun, but Moya can't see them clearly."

An image flickered to life near the center of the screen.  It was a planet, mostly gray, with irregular streaks of brilliant orange and red.  Most of its surface looked fuzzy, as if covered by a coat of down, except where a huge crater or hole gaped in its side.  John thought for a moment that he could see a star inside—or through it.  "The one on the screen now seems to be hollow," Pilot commented.  A second planet appeared, much smaller. Except for a regular grid-work of black lines, no detail marred its deep blue face.  "One of the others may contain a black hole"

"Contain?" John asked.

D'Argo leaned against the entranceway.  "If any of you care, I suggest we leave this place now."

"Think of what we could find here," Rygel protested, stroking his chin thoughtfully.

"It doesn't look like there's anything left," D'Argo rumbled back, his eyes narrowing at the viewscreen, "nothing we should disturb, at least."

"No sense of adventure, D'Argo?" John asked, looking back and grinning.

Aeryn shook her head and answered for him, her voice ringing with mirth.  "Not today, apparently."

"Pilot?"  John was serious again.  "Where is that black hole?  Can we get there easily?"  Aeryn glanced at him incredulously.  He could only imagine D'Argo's expression behind him.  "What?" he prompted the room around him.  "If there's something in this system, I bet that's where we'll find it."

"The planet is in a strange orbit."  Pilot plotted a yellow line around the star on the viewscreen.  "It is currently 62 degrees outside the ecliptic.  But we could reach it with a minor course correction."

"Wait," Aeryn interrupted.  "Is there any activity here?  Any starships?  Any energy sources?  Any sign of life?"

"Any sign that the owners are still home…" John concluded for her.

There was a longer pause this time.  D'Argo shifted restlessly.  "No.  All the artificial structures appear to be inert.  Wait."  Another long pause.  "A ship might be very hard to detect, but I don't think any are present.  However, the twelfth planet seems to have a very small energy source on it—or rather on the planet's moon."

"Can you show us?" asked Aeryn, leaning into the viewscreen.  Behind her, the others did the same.

A blue-white orb appeared amidst the strange worlds nearly filling the screen.  Green and brown shapes were just visible beneath a veil of wispy clouds.  The moon, a gray, cratered ball, hung in the background.

"That looks like earth," John whispered, but he could see that it was not.  The shapes of the land masses weren't quite right.

"Its atmosphere and gravity do tend toward the limits you prefer, John.  It has a very strong magnetic field—perhaps to compensate for its sun's increased activity—which is partially blocking my scans.  But, from what I can tell, it is completely natural.  I can see no sign of major structures. How odd," Pilot mused.

John and Aeryn looked at one another.  "We should pay them a visit," he said.  "But first, I think we ought to take the grand tour.  We may find something worthwhile."

**********

Moya swept through the system in a long, lazy arc, passing near to some of the most interesting structures as they made their way toward the blue-white world. Several times, John became impatient looking at one completely mystifying planet after another, and he had to remind himself that the long route was his idea. Once when he was a child, his grandfather had taken him to a Catholic mass in what appeared then like a gigantic cavern of a church. He had never been to church much and never a mass, and felt lost among the unfamiliar sights and sounds and smells. Perhaps because he had been with his grandfather, the building and the people, the words and the music, had seemed so old, so much larger, so much more than him. Just like this solar system. Pace yourself, he thought, watching the disk of the earth-like globe grow in their screens. Soon enough, you'll be someplace where things make sense. Besides, there was important work to do before they got there.

Despite misgivings, Pilot and Moya assumed a parking orbit around the planet with a presumed black hole in its core. The planet itself was enormous. Up close, its deep blue had become a swirling mass of cloudy shapes, the smallest of which were several billion times larger than Moya. It was difficult for John to comprehend, even after having seen Jupiter. The dark black lines showed no additional detail, only the glint of the dim sun. John thought they might be walls of some sort, the way they contained the blue turbulence into neat squares. Moya's scans confirmed his guess, but could not reveal what either the blue mist or the walls were made of. She did, however, detect a large structure, a high, black tower, located at one of the gridwork's intersections.

Aeryn found a suitable landing place for the pod near the top of the tower, on a gigantic oval lip that jutted out from its smooth side. She, John and D'Argo sat for a moment, looking into a wide cavern of shadow that gaped in the tower wall before them. Once she had cycled down the pod's engines, Aeryn muttered, "You'll have to remind me why I agreed to come along."

"When are you going to see a black hole somebody tamed ever again?  This is by far the most interesting thing you'll see for a long time," he said, unfolding a thin environment suit behind her.  "Besides, exploring is good for the soul.  We just need some kind of computer console and we're out of here.  There's no telling what kind of data they've got locked up in this place." Unlike the kind he once called all but home, this suit was transparent, and he barely felt the weight of it as he slipped it on. Even the helmet seemed to float just above his shoulders without pressing down.

D'Argo took Aeryn's place at the command console as she put her suit on. Then she and John dropped down from the pod's lock onto the slick, black surface below. "D'Argo, can you hear us?" John asked.

The reception was relatively clear. Pilot said it would get much worse as they proceeded into the system. "Yes, Crichton," the Luxan answered.

"I'm here too, John," Zhaan said from Moya. There was more interference in her transmission and a sudden burst of static punctuated her sentence.

Aeryn began to walk forward, stepping carefully. The gravity was much lighter than she would have expected with a black hole lurking somewhere under their feet. Sometimes, she mused, Crichton could be crazy, but his enthusiasm was infectious and she felt a little like a child taking her first spacewalk. She couldn't help but smile at him.

She smiled back, but her eyes were distracted by something far away.  "In battle, you depend on those around you or you die.  And fighting is easy.  Making sense of it afterwards is hard.  You need other people for that too."

Moya hadn't been able to penetrate the tower with any sort of sensor so they proceeded into the cavern cautiously, swinging lights ahead of them like canes. For a long time, the smooth black surfaces showed no hint of any features. Eventually, the cavern flared out and slanted down. When they reached a choice of directions, they angled off to the right. Aeryn left lighted beacons on the floor behind them so they could find their way back.

"Can you still hear us up there?"

"Yes," D'Argo replied, clear a bell.

They walked for some time in silence. The tower's corridors narrowed and began to take on a maze-like character, a development that worried John. He glanced at his suit display. Nearly a third of his resources were gone. They would need to turn back soon.

"John," Aeryn said, placing a hand on his shoulder, her voice hushed. She motioned ahead with her beam of light.

John followed it. Their surroundings widened again. He strained to see the walls of their new enclosure, but either they were simply absorbing Aeryn's beam or the room ahead was big. Aeryn switched to radio waves and waited patiently for a signal to bounce back. None did and she raised an eyebrow at John.

They stepped forward until Aeryn once again grabbed John's arm. She pointed down. Several paces away, both of their beams played over the surface of a ridge. Beyond, there was no hint of a floor. John edged forward. In the darkness of the hole that opened before them, he could see a ghostly blue light, like a dim star. The black hole. Distance was impossible to estimate, but he could guess at how far below the light was and how long—weeks perhaps—a person might spend falling toward it. He felt the hair at the back of his neck stand on end and his skin tingled as if it were new. Heights had never bothered him, but he imagined how they could. He felt giddy and a little out of control, as though he might jump at any moment. "There it is," he said, his words slow with amazement.

"Over here," Aeryn called and John trotted over to where she stood. A black square, perhaps as long as John was tall, jutted out into the abyss. There was a large round hole in its center. Aeryn's light beam revealed another structure beneath it and a little to the right, and below that another and another like the steps of a staircase.

They walked out onto the platform. The hole was large enough for John to slip through so he did, dropping the last few feet to the dull black surface below. Another hole beckoned him from several steps away, but he waited for Aeryn before proceeding. "I'll admit, Crichton. You have a knack for finding strange places," she said when she had dropped beside him.

"All part of my boyish charm."

When they had reached the fifteenth such platform, John stopped. In the wall, there was a large square. A blue mist like that on the surface curled and churned within its borders. John could detect a certain amount of depth. He reached out a hand toward it, but jerked it back when he felt a small electrical jolt. Aeryn began to run her hand around the outside of the square. When she reached the top, the blue disappeared. Beneath it was a complicated looking console of black disks, multicolored lights and thin strands of white filament. "Eureka," John whispered to himself.

Aeryn looked at their discovery cautiously as John unpacked some equipment from his belt. "Be careful, Crichton. If you manage to eject this black hole somehow, we're all dead."

John had removed a number of small devices and turned them over in his hands uncertainly. "I'm not an idiotic earthling, Aeryn. I'm not going to rip through anything. I just want to get a little data. If the technology's too complex, I'll back off. Otherwise, binary is binary." He smiled up at her, a sheepish look on his face. "Now could you show me how to use this data recorder?"

She assembled the various components for him. "Besides," he said as he watched her, "isn't it just nice to explore a little and not to be hunted by some alien wacko for a little while…present company excepted, of course."

"Wacko?" Aeryn put too much stress on the end of the word.

"A lunatic."

"There's only one of those on board Moya, as far as I know," she grinned back at him. D'Argo laughed in his ear.

"You guys are a riot. I'm so happy I got booted half way across the universe to get laughed at."

Aeryn handed him back the recorder. Her voice was serious again. "If there are any digital data stores in this thing, you should be able to pull something off them. Just hold the recorder like this," she instructed, guiding his hand into place, " and move it slowly over everything. That light on the top should tell you if you've found anything."

John stood for a moment, Aeryn beside him, saying nothing. He glanced over his shoulder. The giddy, out-of-control feeling hadn't quite disappeared. He felt a little like he had already jumped and was falling. Before he realized it he had spoken. "Doesn't being out here make any of you think?"

"Out where?" Aeryn asked, matter-of-factly.

"In space," John replied. He looked at her, but she was focused on the recorder in his hand.

"I hate to break it to you Crichton, but space is mostly empty. There's not a lot to talk about." He could hear the edge of humor in her voice and he felt like giving her a friendly shove, but decided their locale didn't favor such a move. So he just shook his head and continued, undaunted.

"That's the point. It's all so big. Being out in the middle of it doesn't make you wonder why we're here or who we are? I used to think about that stuff in orbit a lot. Space travel is mostly boredom anyway," he mused.

"Not with you along," Aeryn said. "Sometimes I wish it were."

"I'm serious here," John protested.

D'Argo's voice chided him from the pod. "He's beginning to sound too much like Zhaan…"

"Is that a bad thing?" Zhaan asked smoothly, cutting him off like a sharp knife. "You ask some good questions, John. But I don't think there are any answers."

"Then why ask?" D'Argo shot back.

John glanced down at the recorder before Zhaan answered. It was doing something, though he wasn't sure what. "The future, the past, the present…they are all just now," she said. "All the answers we need are in the experience of the moment."

D'Argo made a sound deep in his throat. "The past is the past. It's done. We choose our future in spite of our past. They're different." His voice was touched by a note of finality.

"The past is part of who we are," Aeryn interjected.

"There's a saying I learned as a child," D'Argo continued. "You can wash away the past with a little blood."

Aeryn shifted beside John. There was an unusual somberness in her voice. "Blood can stain, too, D'Argo."

Then, after another instant of silence, Zhaan spoke. John thought he could detect a grimace behind her words. "I've had blood on my hands. And after, I spent an entire cycle cloistered in a cave chanting ‘no past, no future' before I realized the truth. The past is here always. Blood doesn't help anything. You can't be the warrior all the time, can you D'Argo?"

For a moment John wondered if he should have said anything. There was only silence in his ear, broken occasionally by a little crackle of static. As he waited the sensation of falling intensified and he had to look down to make certain his feet were still securely on the platform. What's going on, he wondered? Where is all this soul searching coming from? Was the black hole making them all a little crazy? Was it this solar system that seemed to him like a deserted cathedral? Had they made some kind of confessional out of their comm beams?

Aeryn glanced up at him, a curious expression on her face. "D'Argo, you still up there?"

"You're right," D'Argo said finally. His voice was just barely audible, even with the good reception. "You're right. But neither can you be a priestess all the time. You take the saying too literally. Shedding blood is the ultimate choice, one you can never take back. And it is in such choices that our future is made."

"Perhaps," Zhaan answered after a heartbeat. "But there are thing that are larger than out choices."

Aeryn turned to John again, a spark in her eyes. "Looks like you've turned D'Argo into a philosopher."

"But not a good one," D'Argo's voice chirped in John's ear.

Suddenly, the recorder beeped and John stopped moving it over the face of the console. Aeryn studied the device's display for a minute. "We may be getting something," she said, her manner all business again.

A wall of vibration, a deep rumbling that shot up his legs and into his stomach, hit John like a shockwave. He dropped the recorder. It struck the black floor soundlessly, skidding to the edge of the platform. John lunged after it, but it teetered and fell just before his fingers swiped at the space it once occupied. Then Aeryn's hand was tight on his shoulder. He turned. The console was covered by a blue mist, swirling more wildly than before. He had to shake his head and concentrate to be able to focus past the vibration. Beside the console, Aeryn's mouth was moving. She was shouting, but he couldn't hear any words. She gestured insistently toward the wall in which the console was set. "I know. We must have tripped something," said John. But when he tried to focus a little harder, he noticed that the wall was creeping closer to him. He realized in a flash that the platform was retracting. Adrenaline anchored a little part of his mind against the rattling boom of the vibration. It was probably, he guessed now, an alarm.

He helped Aeryn through the hole in the platform over them. Then she did the same. This one was also receding into the wall. They continued to clamber up, one after the other, until by the tenth platform, the center holes were too narrow to fit through. From then on, they moved carefully up the outside edges.

Finally, they reached the last platform. All that was left of it was a tiny ridge. John felt his feet slipping off as it retreated into the wall. He boosted Aeryn up with a free hand and saw her disappear over the lip above. She reappeared an instant later, stretching her hand toward him, her face framed by the lighted helmet. The thrill of falling had disappeared. All that was left was a dull sense of panic. He focused on her face and reached up, feeling Aeryn's fingers brush his own. He was on the tip of his toes now. For an instant, he felt the rush of free fall, then a firm grip around his wrist. Before he could think, Aeryn had lifted him over the edge of the abyss.

They both sat still for a moment, breathing hard. The vibration had ceased, but John had a sudden vision of the black hole roaring past them like a shrieking, angry newborn. He gathered the courage to peer over the edge and stared down at the faint blue star below. It didn't seem to be growing any brighter or dimmer.

"Don't try to convince me of anything for a cycle or two, Crichton."

He looked back at her, an eyebrow raised. "Why not?" he asked. "We make a good team."

**********

As Moya dove through the system, the interference from the sun increased.  It made John uncomfortable.  Static meant being cut off and he kept imagining long drives down lonely highways with only white noise on the radio to keep him company.  He thought he detected a certain tension in the others too, as if the hiss and crackle outside were reaching into their heads.  Everyone seemed to be spending more time apart from one another.

That really didn't bother John.  He had taken to walking at random through Moya to work off some of his own tension.  The night before reaching the blue-white world, he found he couldn't sleep and so dressed and slipped out of his room to lose himself in Moya's winding passages.  After what seemed like a long time, he heard muffled bangs drifting toward him and, out of curiosity, turned toward them.

In a long room he discovered Aeryn, pulling at an unmoving access panel to one of a dozen conduits that clustered on the floor.  She looked up at him, annoyed.  "Are you going to help me or just stand there?"

"Sorry," he said and knelt beside her.  The access panel was warm as he tried to wedge his fingers underneath it and he had to repress a shudder.  He hadn't quite gotten used to being on a living ship.

"The sun's activity has been doing a little damage to some of Moya's neural fibers.  They'll heal on their own…."  She interrupted herself with a grunt and she and John pulled on the panel.  It didn't move.  "But there's no reason not to help things along," she finished a little out of breath.

John wished for a moment that they were again suspended over the black hole again.  Things seemed so much easier then.  "I didn't think you'd want my help," he said.  "You act like the tough soldier-girl enough, like you don't need anyone or anything."

She stared back, the corners of her mouth twisted down.  "I'm not the person you think I am all the time." she answered sharply.  "Peacekeepers aren't killing machines and we're…they're not wackos.  You haven't been lucky in those you've met, Crichton."

"One's OK," he smiled at her.

She smiled back, but her eyes were distracted by something far away.  "In battle, you depend on hose around you or you die.  And fighting is easy.  Making sense of it afterwards is hard.  You need other people for that too."

They gave one more tug on the panel.  There was a short groan, then a pop.  All at once, it slid back freely.  John had to check himself to keep from landing on his back.  A black spot marred the shimmering white material beneath.  Aeryn laid a gauzy cloth over it and sprayed on a substance from a thin cylinder.

"I told you we make a good team."

She looked up at him.  "Don't get used to it, Crichton."

**********

Aeryn stalked through the halls of the moon base silently.  They had located it from orbit—it was large enough so that they could not have failed to find it.  There was definitely a power source here, but it was difficult to pinpoint, and she, John, and D'Argo had split up after landing to search.

She moved among giant, vaguely menacing structures, half-hidden in the darkness, their geometry nothing a humanoid might conceive.   There was a sharp, metallic odor in the air, though it was surprising enough that she could breath it.  The strange shapes around her seemed to swallow every noise.  She could only guess at the age of this place.  It felt old.  Everything was a dark, dead gray, lit by occasional harsh white lights that she slipped quietly around.  But, despite the alien surroundings, she felt comfortable, almost happy, moving silently, straining to listen for the slightest noise, a rifle solidly in her hands.  She would have preferred the control of a fighter under her fingers, but a rifle was just fine.  Being on Moya wasn't bad either, but this was familiar, and familiarity seemed in short supply these days.  It was comforting.  This she could do.  She hadn't lied to Crichton before.  But ultimately, she thought, this was who she was.

"Anyone see anything?" John's voice, distorted by static, sounded in her ear.  "No," answered D'Argo.  Even with the interference, she could hear his tension.  "Nothing here," she replied.  She knew that her own voice was preternaturally calm and took pride and a little joy in that.

She glanced down at the scanner in her hand.  "Wait a minute.  I think I've found it."  An indicator blinked urgently, directing her forward.  The corridor widened ahead, to such a degree that the word "corridor" seemed no longer to apply.  She hadn't noticed anything that might have been a door until now, when a square of lighter gray, perhaps twice as tall as she was, appeared on her right.  She glanced at the scanner.

"Strange readings," she heard Zhaan say from inside Moya.  Aeryn's scanner was linked to the ship's.  "You seem to be near a neutrino and neutron source."

"Meaning?" John's voice buzzed.

"It most likely indicates a fusion reaction," Pilot answered.  "Perhaps a leaky generator.  The levels are not high."

"Nevertheless," Zhaan counseled, "I suggest you wait for the others before proceeding, Aeryn."

Aeryn examined the scanner's readout.  She knew what deadly levels of radiation looked like and these weren't it.  She hefted her rifle.  If there was anything behind this door, she'd probably have a better chance of dealing with it without John or even D'Argo along.  "I'm just going to take a look."

"Aeryn, wait," she heard John say.  "Dammit," he muttered, and began to run, or so Aeryn judged from his suddenly rapid breathing.

She stepped toward the door.  It opened soundlessly before her.  Shadows gathered thickly and she quickly entered and slipped into the darkness within.

"The neutrino source has disappeared," Zhaan announced, a lilt of curiosity in her voice.  John broke in.  "What's going on?"

Aeryn glanced down at the scanner.  The readings had disappeared so she tucked it into her belt. She was inside a chamber, roughly circular, whose edges she could only dimly make out.  A starship might have fit in here.  Several lonely shafts of light struck down from the ceiling.   Most of the opposite wall was transparent, a huge window, slanted inward and supported by buttresses whose tops she couldn't see.  To her left, the thin crescent of the planet below hung like a ghostly rib among the stars.  Quietly, she stepped forward, a little uncomfortable in the open.  Her rifle swung constantly from side to side.  She felt for a moment as if she were moving through a dream.  Then, to her right, she saw a figure move, nearly lost against the starscape.  Her rifle snapped in its direction.  It seemed to be humanoid.  A bit of stray light touched its face.  She paused.  There was something oddly familiar about that face.

"Hello, Aeryn," the figure said softly.

John and D'Argo burst in through the open door, glancing quickly around.  John gave Aeryn a stern and questioning stare as he passed her, but she ignored him.  He followed her startled gaze to the figure.

He felt a jolt of surprise himself.  "Ah…Hello, my name is John—"

"Crichton.  I know."  The figure examined the stars in the window.  His voice drifted across the vast open space.  "You've come a long way."

John exchanged a frown with D'Argo.  The face seemed human enough.  He continued to study the figure, trying to ignore the huge, vaguely menacing shapes rising in the distant gloom.  "Yes, I have.  We all have.  How do you know?"

"I know a great many things, John Crichton."

"Who are you?" D'Argo's voice rumbled, unexpectedly loud, through the silent chamber.

"No patience for small talk, I see.  Or perhaps you were expecting more tentacles?"  The figure chuckled and glanced, grinning, toward the Luxan.  "My people were old when the universe was young.  You've seen what we were once," he motioned beyond the window, "what we could do."

D'Argo glared skeptically.  "And where are the others of your kind?"

"There are no others.  I'm the last."  The figure placed a hand lightly on the window.  "You've come to a dying place, this star system and everything within."  He sighed.  "Sounds so morbid, doesn't it?"

John narrowed his eyes at the figure silhouetted against the starscape.  "I'm sorry," he said warily.

"Don't be, John Crichton.  Everything dies."  For the first time, the figure turned away from the window and faced them.  He was dressed simply, all in black.  The fashion hardly seemed alien enough.  His dark hair, streaked with gray, rose in some disarray from his lean face, a wry smile on his lips and pale blue eyes, dark rings beneath them, lazily examining his visitors.   John heard Aeryn take a sharp breath behind him.  "Now, why are you here?" the figure said.

From the corner of his eye, John examined Aeryn briefly.  Her expression was now blank.  Beside her, D'Argo shot him a puzzled, half worried look, either about Aeryn or their situation, probably both.  "We thought there might be a civilization here.  We were hoping to find a place to rest and to gather some basic supplies—hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, that sort of thing.  If you insist, we'll leave."  Then, under his breath, "Maybe even if you don't insist."

The figure smiled and leaned casually against a nearby buttress.  "You're lost, aren't you?"

"Ah…yes, in a way," said John.

"A mismatched band of refugees, trapped together aboard a lost ship. How wonderfully original."  The figure laughed out loud.  "But, then, in such a big universe, I suppose without a little familiar cliche or a hackneyed path through the forest, we'd all be a little lost."

"Is that supposed to mean something," D'Argo growled.

"Perhaps.  But, then, I shouldn't really speak.  Dying gods are a dime a dozen on this side of the Virgo Supercluster.  That is the correct expression, isn't it?  ‘A dime a dozen'?"

"Yes," John said again, feeling increasingly uncomfortable.  In his mind, he urged Aeryn to begin backing out the door, but she did not move.

"Good.  You can take whatever you like from this system.  I certainly don't need it."  The figure straightened, and moved back toward the window.  Then he stopped as if he'd forgotten something, his face half hidden by shadows.  "Your ship is alive?" He asked.  "That's interesting, at least.  Would you mind if I visited her?"

John felt the Luxan beside him tense at the request and answered before D'Argo could say what he undoubtedly thought.  "Ah…maybe.  I don't know how long we'll be here and we have a lot to do."

"Fine," the figure laughed lightly without looking back.  "I expect you'll want to get back to your ship now.  Judging by the way your friend there is fingering his weapon"—John flashed a look at D'Argo who simply shrugged—"the décor here doesn't agree with you."

John and D'Argo began to back slowly out of the door.  After a moment, Aeryn followed them.  When all three were in the hall, the chamber door slid shut silently.  John let out a low whistle and eyed the two others.  "Feels like we just stepped into Dracula's castle."

D'Argo shook his head sadly.  "I don't know which of you makes less sense—him," he waved at toward the chamber, "or you."

**********

D'Argo is surrounded by darkness.  He tries to reach a hand out, but a dull force tugs his arm back to the floor, and for the first time he feels the weight of manacles on his wrists.  He shifts amidst the high pitched rattle of chains, trying to get his legs under him so he can stand.  Every move, however, seems blocked by another restraint.  He calls out.  Nothing but a gurgling wheeze escapes his throat.  There must be a silencer on the heavy collar that has been locked tightly around his neck.

Someone must have slipped into his quarters at night.  Perhaps he was drugged.  But, who?  Could another aboard Moya have done this to him?  Was he betrayed by someone so close?  Could Aeryn have given him up to the Peacekeepers?  He balls his fists at the thought that he had trusted her, even a little.  Had Rygel turned on him for a trinket or the promise of power?  Or was John Crichton something other than what he claimed to be?  But anger flares quickly in him, and soon gives way in the darkness to the rising and terrible thrill of panic.  He fights the urge to flail wildly against his chains.  The darkness suddenly seems like a thing, closing in on him, threatening to smother him.  His breath is coming more quickly now.  His chains seem suddenly heavier.  He could face any enemy.  He is not afraid of any foe.  But there is nothing here to fight except the darkness and the heavy weight of the restraints and the hammer blows of his own pulse.

Is this punishment for his crime?  The thought nearly unhinges him.  He looks around frantically.  Are those eyes in the dark, looking, accusing, threatening?  And was that laughter he heard?  And suddenly he is certain that he is going to die here, chained like an animal.  It is inevitable.

At that moment, he woke from his dream, his breathing quick and shallow.  Sweat dripped from his face.  His eyes stared wildly for a moment into the dim light, and as the dream dissipated around him, he began to pick out familiar objects and the comfortable contours of his room.  Just a dream, he thought.

All the same, he laid awake for a very long time.

**********

John is fitted snugly into the acceleration couch of Farscape One.  His inner ear and his gut tell him he is in zero g.  He twists inside his space suit and within the couch's grip, looking around the cockpit.  It is familiar.  He remembers the months spent in training simulators and then the weeks of orbital training surrounded by these same lights and displays.  Outside, through the ship's windows, he can see a sky filled with stars.  There, to his right, he thinks he can pick out Orion among the multitudes.  And there is the Milky Way, a broad road he has since a child longed to follow.

But there is something subtly wrong too.  He seems to recall something about the ship being a living thing.  Had he heard that in one of the pre-mission briefings?  It doesn't seem to make any sense.  How could the ship be alive?  He feels suddenly uncomfortable and an image of himself being eaten by the stubby bullet-shaped spacecraft, its jaws lined with shiny metal teeth, flashes through his mind.  Then, with equal suddenness, he knows that the ship, once alive, is now dead.  It is a corpse and he is trapped inside it, squirming against his harness like a bulbous headed worm.  He reaches for the radio controls and calls for mission control, but only static greets him.  He struggles to remove his helmet.  It pops off with a low hiss.  That makes him feel better.  Everything is going to be OK.  He is just imagining things.

Outside, he sees the blue-white limb of the earth rushing toward him at incredible speed, much too fast.  He swears under his breath, distracted from his fears by the call to action, and tries to angle the ship for a braking burn.  The crescent of the earth slips away as the ship pivots.  Without direction from mission control, this is going to be difficult, but he can manage.  He can always manage somehow.  He double checks his attitude and fires the engine.  A rumble passes through his abdomen, and the couch slams into his back.  He sinks into its embrace.  A sharp tone draws his attention.  His fuel level is low.  Only a few more seconds of thrust left.  He checks his position and velocity and frowns.

Then the engines are silent.  He works frantically to connect the reserve fuel supply, but the tanks appear to be empty.  He slams his fist into the control panel as the earth, now nearly a full disk, sweeps by beneath him.  He can feel himself receding from it.  What more can he do?  He surveys the controls frantically.  Nothing.  He sits helplessly, fighting a lump in his throat.  Amidst the black of space, he can not look away from the blue, the hints of green and brown beneath swirling white.  He feels cold and the numbness brings to mind days spent on the beach.  He felt empty and the emptiness brings to mind meals with family and friends.  His vision blurs and he imagines he hears voices, the voices of everyone he ever knew, saying good bye.

In a few moments, the earth is lost among the stars, and he knows that he will die out here, in the void, far from home.

When he awoke, the dream fell away but the lump in his throat did not.

**********

Aeryn stands before the airlock door.  She knows on the other side is a Peacekeeper ship, a large scout of a new design.  It will be ready to depart at any moment for unknown destinations.  She feels odd and looks down at her own hands.  They look different than she remembers them, less marked by delivering or deflecting blows, less worn by vacuum gloves and rifle grips.

Before her is the figure she saw on the moon.  He looks younger.  There is no gray in his hair and the circles under his eyes are gone.  His face is fuller and he is smiling, grinning broadly at her, with a touch of sadness in his bright blue eyes.  She knows him.  And she knows this place.

"Do you have to go, Ran?" she asks.  At first, a sharp sense of deja vu sweeps through her, but soon it disappears and she is lost in the moment.

Ran reaches out to take one of her hands in his.  He looks at her for a second, then laughs.  "Orders are orders, Aeryn."

"But…"

He jumps in, shaking his head slightly.  "I know, I know, I volunteered.  I can choose not to go.  But this is a big opportunity, one we can't afford to miss.  It'll mean the rapid promotion track and a lot more.  Why don't you come along?  You can, if you want to."

The thought has crossed her own mind many times over the past few days.  She could go.  It would be as easy as stepping through the lock doors with him.  She draws a long breath before answering.  "Secret assignments aren't me."

"No," Ran sighs, letting her hand go.  "No, I guess they aren't."  An announcement of the ship's imminent departure draws his attention, and he glances over his shoulder, then back.  "I have to go."

"Ran."  Now she takes up his hand in hers.  "What will all your promotions and all your power get you?  What can it get you that you don't have?"  She stares hard at him, hoping he will see that there is nothing more he could need out there.  But she knows what he will say, what he always says.

"The whole universe," he laughs, and spreads his arms wide.  He looks back down and strokes her cheek.  "And I'll give you whichever world you want."

"If you come back," she whispers.

"I will.  I promise," he whispers back and wraps his arms around her.  She tries to feel comforted by his embrace, but only wants to be away from this place, alone.

She begins to say good bye, but he leans back quickly and puts a finger over her lips.  "Do me a favor, will you?"  His eyes are full of mirth and sadness.  "No good byes."

Then, suddenly, she is on the observation deck.  She watches the ship slip away from the lock and out amongst the stars, until it is lost in the sky.  She feels something in her hand and looks down.  There is a message there, a bulletin telling her that Ran's ship has been lost and presumed destroyed.  She reads it several times before letting it drop to the floor.

**********

Moya drifted in the darkness, humming long radio waves to herself and listening to the crackling of the system's sun.  The rhythm of its snaps and hisses, and the low rumble beyond, piqued her curiosity.  It was something very new.  The unusual slow, dense pulse of the twelfth planet drew her attention too—though it was not as comforting as the smooth, familiar static of the spaces between the stars.  Still, when Pilot asked, she agreed quickly to take up a LaGrange point between the blue and white planet and its moon, feeling through the gravitational gradients until she sensed the right spot.  Now, she hung steadily between them, listening.

In the observation dome, Aeryn looked out on the same scene in fewer wavelengths.  Unlike Moya, she didn't really notice any of it, but felt lost in voices and images from her past.  When John entered, he saw her standing motionless against the starscape, flanked by the crescents of planet and moon.  "I hope you slept better than I did," he said, laughing a little.  But Aeryn simply shrugged without looking back.  "Is everything OK," he asked, then, his voice edged with concern.

Before Aeryn could respond, Zhaan stepped inside with D'Argo and Rygel close behind.  "You wanted to see us, John."

"Yes," he answered, glancing at Aeryn.  "I did.  After our little adventure yesterday, I think we've got some decisions to talk out."

D'Argo sat and folded his arms resolutely over his chest.  "I still think we should get out of this place as quickly as we can.  The death here gets into your dreams."

John raised an eyebrow.  "Did you have a bad dream?"

"Did you?" D'Argo shot back.

"From what I heard of your encounter with…."  Rygel hovered, bobbing for a moment, feeling around for the right word.  "Our host…I think I have to agree with my Luxan friend."  D'Argo grimaced at him, but Rygel continued on, unfazed.  "Whatever we could find here—if there is anything to find—isn't worth the risk of disturbing such a being."  He suppressed a shiver.  "He sounds rather menacing."

"That's a first.  I never though I'd see you two agree on anything," John chuckled.  "Be we do need volatiles, some carbon and oxygen at least.  We could probably get hydrogen anywhere."

"And," Zhaan drawled, "from what you said, we were given permission to take what we needed.  One trip to the planet's surface would be sufficient."

"Besides, if he is what he claims, maybe…our host can tell us exactly where the hell we are and how to find our way in uncharted space," John added.

Zhaan glanced up at the planet.  "It might also be nice to walk around a little."

"You can walk around all you want up here," D'Argo snorted.  "And as far as asking for help, that sounds as foolish as asking to count a skralt's teeth."

"What are you afraid of, big guy?"

D'Argo stared past John's playful grin, his face suddenly tense.  "Nothing," he growled.

John's smile disappeared.  "Take it easy, D'Argo," he said slowly.  Then he surveyed the faces around him.  "Looks like we've got a tie."  He turned to Aeryn, still staring out at the stars.  "You're the deciding vote, unless Chiana decides to show up."  He waited, but Aeryn did not respond.

"I hardly think a decision of this much importance should be decided by a vote," Rygel muttered in the silence.

"Aeryn?" Zhaan called softly, her voice making a melody of the word.

Aeryn turned slowly and faced them, a blank look still on her face.  "I know who he is, who it was down on the moon."

John blinked several times.  "What do you mean, you know who he is?"

The focus of Aeryn's eyes seemed very far away.  "We served together, a long time ago.  He was assigned to a mission in the uncharted territories and his ship disappeared.  His name is Ran."

D'Argo snarled.  "Just what we need, another Peacekeeper…."  John turned to glare at him, but he only stared back, frowning.

"And you think the being you met on the moon is this Ran?  It seems unlikely to me," Rygel commented gruffly.  Beside him, Zhaan looked deep in thought.

"Maybe his ship was wrecked here," John suggested, giving up on his staring match with D'Argo.  "If he were trapped, alone in a weird place like this for any length of time, I could see how that might make him forget who he was."  He examined Aeryn closely for a reaction, but could not read the hints of expression that had begun to cross her face.

"It may be the same body, but I don't think it's the same person you knew."  D'Argo's tone had softened considerably.  "Crichton's right.  Nothing could stay sane long surrounded by so much otherness."

"I never said he was insane…" John protested.

Before he could go on, Zhaan leaned forward and cleared he throat lightly.  "We may be jumping to conclusions."  She waved a slender hand toward the moon.  "Perhaps this higher being simply took an image from Aeryn's mind…"

"I wasn't seeing things," Aeryn snapped.  She met Zhaan's gaze with narrowed eyes and newfound spirit.

"I'm not saying that," Zhaan continued.  "Remember the sensor readings changed just before you entered the chamber in which you found him.  Possibly he changed forms to more easily communicate with us."

"But why that form?" John asked her.

"Aeryn was the first to see him…"

"None of this matters," Aeryn shouted, and when all eyes were on her, continued seething but somewhat subdued.  "And I don't have the desire to sit around here and frelling guess about something that doesn't matter.  If I'm the deciding vote, I decide that we go to the planet, get what we need, and then get out of here."  She stalked toward the exit.  "I'll be readying one of the pods if any of you want to come along."

There was silence for a few moments after she left.

"You can count me out," Rygel muttered to himself as everyone else got up to leave.  "It seems there is more than one being to avoid in this star system."

**********

Aeryn, John, and Zhaan all chose to land on the planet.  Zhaan said she looked forward to exploring the surface.  Aeryn said nothing.  Her oscillating mood worried John, but he stayed out of her way.  At the last minute, D'Argo decided to join them.  When John asked him why, he growled that agreeing with Rygel was not nearly as bad as hiding on Moya with him.

The trip was uneventful.  John quietly watched the blue-white globe grow slowly before them.  They encountered very little turbulence after the initial entry and descended smoothly toward the shore of a large lake, indistinct shadows of clouds like irregular islands on its surface.  The sky was pale and the sun much rosier and dimmer than earth's.  Illuminated by what seemed to John a bright twilight, steep, heavily forested valleys were cut roughly parallel to the lake's long axis.  The lake and valley streams fed into a broad river that wound through flat lowlands to the south.  The clouds on the southern horizon looked darker and John thought he could detect the telltale smudgy streaks of rain beneath them.  For a moment, he recalled the smell of the air on earth after a rain shower.  He did not dwell on the thought, but rather busied himself studying the more mountainous terrain to the North and East in case there might be something useful about them.  Though orbital surveys had revealed nothing—not surprising since the planet's strong magnetic field limited them to direct radiation scans—he continued to look for any sign of ruins, something, anything that could tell them more about this place, its past, and its present.  The more closely he approached this planet, the more certain he became that it held some valuable secret he could uncover, if he just knew how.

Once they had landed, the equipment was quickly set up to collect water and air and to store their atoms in a laser-cooled lattice.  Aeryn estimated that filling the lattice might take anywhere from 8 to 12 hours and might actually reduce the level of the lake by a significant amount.  Carbon they could gather from the surrounding vegetation, and while Aeryn made the final adjustments to the lattice, John and D'Argo set to work harvesting a bewildering assortment of branches, leaves, vines, and mosses.

Zhaan helped too, but every foray for another armful of plants carried her deeper into the forest until, walking slowly beneath a canopy of dense feathery leaves and the trill of unseen birds, she could no longer hear any of her companions.  She stopped then, and knelt down to examine some of the underbrush—a mixture of short, delicate looking tendrils that corkscrewed upward amidst a lacy net of thin leaves and tiny yellow berries, and sturdy, dark green woody fans with purple and pink flowers that grew in long, curving lines as far as she could see.  Young trees, or perhaps bushes of some sort, sprouted long, drooping leaves up to about her own height or a little higher.  Far above her, a variety of trees, many with leaves trimmed in bright reds and blues, met in cathedral-like arches.  She could hear a chorus of birds and possibly other creatures fill those arches with a dense web of sounds.  The scents of the place were even more complexly woven, and she felt a little dizzy after a deep breath.

She reached out to touch one of the flowers.  Her hand stopped short when she saw, starring up at her, a small gray-black animal.  Its back was streaked with red and purple, like the leaves of the tallest trees.  It had large black eyes that blinked sequentially, left then right.  At the end of a conical head, narrowest near the neck, its face was broad and round, sweeping out and downward to a blunt snout where a bulbous nose twitched in Zhaan's direction.  One of its paws rested on a yellow berry.  The two watched each other in perfect stillness, until a squawk in the distance prompted it to scurry behind a line of woody fans.

Zhaan watched it leave with a small smile on her face.  "Good bye," she said under her breath, and stood up.  She walked a bit more.  Almost certainly she was lost, though her sense of direction was extremely acute.  But the thought did not concern her.  Oddly, there was something a little comforting in the idea.  And she could always call to Pilot and Moya for directions.

The terrain became rockier as she continued, rose and then began to descend.  After a little while, she heard the hiss of flowing water and angled toward it.  She picked her way carefully through the rough gray rocks and scruffy bushes that grew between them, noticing that they had rows of sharp little thorns.   Eventually, she could see the tree line ahead, and stepped out onto the banks of a small stream, gurgling along a slick, stony bed.  She stepped a few paces along it's edge, breathing in the cool air, tinged with the sweetness of decaying vegetation.

Zhaan stopped short when she saw a figure sitting in the branches of a nearby tree.  He was dressed in green and black.  Two bright green eyes stared at her from underneath a cap of unruly black hair.  "You must be Ran," she said.

He put a finger to his lips and motioned off to the right.  There the stream widened and Zhaan could see a collection of animals, some short and gray like the one she had seen in the forest, others tall and lean but with the same pattern of purple and red on their backs.  What seemed to be a small family of squat, powerful looking dogs drank from the near shore, the small puppies splashing loudly in the shallows.  A few birds watched them curiously.  Then, on the other side of the water, the trees parted and an enormous creature lumbered down to the shore.  A line of mottled red ridges ran down its back, while swirls of color—a multitude of greens, yellows, reds and blues—dropped down its sides.  Muscles twitched beneath the colorful pelt as it stood, serenely looking at the pool.  It swung its head, nearly 3 meters across, and fixed two coal black eyes on Zhaan.  It regarded her for a long time with its large eyes, sad but lit by an inner fire as if there were a secret wisdom in its gaze.  The only sound seemed to be its rhythmic, slow breathing.  Then it nodded once, as if in acknowledgement, dipped it's snout in the water and turned back, disappearing into the forest.

Ran hopped down from his perch and began to walk downstream.  Zhaan hurried to his side.  "I was hoping to find you," she said.

He glanced at her, a wry grin on his face.  "I'm flattered, but I don't have anything to teach you, if that's what you are looking for."

A bird called in the distance before Zhaan shot back a small, mischievous smile and said, with a too innocent, falsely sweet lilt, "Really?  I expected that a being such as yourself would have achieved untold levels of enlightenment."

"Well, consider it a character flaw," he chuckled.  "Gods have those too, you know."

The sound of the stream increased abruptly as it tumbled over a small drop, frothing through several large, black stones.  Ran, first, and then Zhaan stepped carefully down the rocky slope.  "Perhaps true enlightenment," he said over the water's voice, "is realizing that there is no enlightenment at all.  Perhaps life is pointless and everything, like this solar system, is eternally dying."  His green eyes flashed as he watched her descend.

Zhaan stared at him, somehow managing to combine an impassive look with a skeptical frown.  He stared back until no longer able to contain his laugher.  "I didn't think you'd buy that."

They continued down the stream, walking slowly, listening to the water chime, and glancing often at the deep blue sky or into the dense murk of the forest.  "It is easy to believe in the pointlessness of life, you must admit that," Ran mused.

"It is, when one steps from the true path into the darkness."

Now it was Ran's turn to look skeptical.  "And what keeps you from getting lost in the dark?" he asked dubiously.

Zhaan stopped and motioned to the stream and the forest behind them.  "This place doesn't look like its dying."

"Everything dies," Ran answered.

"Perhaps."  Zhaan started to walk again.  "But life goes on."

Ran stood still for a few moments watching her go.  He struggled to keep a frown on his lips, but again burst into laughter and hurried to catch up to Zhaan.  "Good one," he smiled at her.  "I may have underestimated you."

"I'm sure you have," Zhaan replied calmly.

"So, do you want to exchange cliches all day?"  Ran asked, cocking an eyebrow at her.

"I should be getting back to the others."  She paused and stood still.  "Do you want to come?"

Ran looked back, an amused expression on his face.  His eyes flashed again and he held out an arm.  "I think I will," he said, jauntily.  She slipped her arm through his, and they walked back into the forest together.

**********

By the time Ran and Zhaan arrived at the lakeshore, the light had begun to fade.  A vibrant orange-red streaked the eastern sky while several bright stars had appeared on the opposite horizon.  John and D'Argo were sitting on a circle of logs around a large campfire—the residue would provide a good source of carbon.  Aeryn worked alone in the dying light near some bulky equipment beneath the pod.  All three noticed Ran immediately.  D'Argo stirred uncomfortably and John frowned deeply as Ran nodded to Zhaan and walked slowly toward Aeryn.

"Hello," he said when he was a within a step or two.

Aeryn stared for a moment more at his light blue, almost gray eyes, then returned her attention to the stubborn condenser valve she'd been working on.  She ignored him as he knelt beside her and leaned over the valve.  "I think you've got the wave guide modulation set too high," he offered cheerfully.

She stopped her work.  Her shoulders slumped for an instant, then straightened again, and she turned to Ran, a fire in her gaze.  Her voice was low, but vibrated with a barely contained rage.  "Why are you here?  What is it you want?"

"Nothing," he answered softly.  "I just remember that you had a tendency to set the modulation on these things too high."

Aeryn could feel D'Argo and Zhaan and especially John watching her, but she tried to shut them out.  She took a deep breath and looked to the horizon where the stars had begun to appear.  Rage was giving way to a sick feeling, a disorientation, and she felt suddenly as if she had been starburst into some new life where things no longer made sense.  She looked back at Ran with a growing emptiness in her chest.  "Are you really Ran?"

For the first time, Ran's placid expression broke.  His brow knotted and he sighed loudly.  "I don't know.  I really don't.  I'm sorry."  He watched her thoughtfully.  "Sometimes, questions don't have any answers."

The urges to strike him and embrace him rose up in her at the same time, and she felt paralyzed by a heavy sense of uncertainty.  Ran always loved to be a little cryptic, liked to have his daily interactions charged with a little mystery.  That was perhaps no less true in her relationship with him.  She had known him well, and not so very well at all.  He was so unlike herself.  She was always the soldier, always direct, always blunt, always ready to confront life head on as Ran snuck up behind it.  He had made the perfect intelligence officer.  But was this really Ran?  Or was this a figment of her own imagination?  She looked deeply into his blue-gray eyes, trying to extract some hint.  Perhaps these were a stranger's eyes, she thought, then turned away, partly to hide her uncertainty and frustration.

When she looked back, Ran had gotten up and walked over to the campfire.  It was genuinely dark now and she could see him only in silhouette, just like on the moon.  Watching him, and the flames beyond, listening to the cracking and twittering that rolled in from the forest around them, she had a sudden sense of deja vu—or something like it.  She had never been here, had never seen any of this before, but she felt a strange doubleness inside her, as if she were looking at herself look at Ran.  One part of her, she realized with a jolt, was still standing at the airlock, saying good bye, waiting for him to leave.  The other was lost out here among the stars.  And for an instant, she wasn't quite sure which one was real.  She stood briskly then, shaking off pointless reflections and strode over to the warmth and hiss of the fire.

"And so," John was saying loudly, "the bartender says to the horse: No, we charge a buck a drink."  He waited in silence, glancing with raised eyebrows from Zhaan to D'Argo to—and here, a worried expression drew down the edges of his mouth—Aeryn.  "Come on, a buck a drink," he repeated.

Aeryn took a seat across the flames from both John and Ran, who was reclining in the wide crook of a tree just outside the circle of logs.  Ran smiled at Aeryn then looked to D'Argo and asked, "Does he always make this much sense?"

D'Argo glanced back, a little surprised.  He regarded Ran for a few moments, then muttered, shaking his head sadly at John, "Not usually."

After a few moments of silence, John cleared his throat and turned toward Ran.  "So, Ran is it?"

"Good enough for now," Ran answered casually.

"What do you know about this system," John asked.  "We saw quite a bit on the way in."

"A lot," Ran said and no more.

"Ok.  Fair enough.  How long have you been here?"  John sipped some water from a cup as Ran seemed to consider the question.

"I don't quite know," he answered slowly, looking at Aeryn as he did.   "There hasn't been anyone else here for, oh, I'd say a million cycles or so.  So, I'd guess at least that long.  Time isn't something I experience in the same way as you."

"Well, let's try something easier," John said again, exchanging frowns with D'Argo.  "Do you know the name of this cozy little planet?"

"The universe isn't quite as straightforward as you'd like to believe, John Crichton," Ran answered, shaking his head.  "But I do seem to recall it.  Let me see…the sun was called Mongan.  The planet was named Shian."

Zhaan's smooth voice rose over the flames.  "Do you know what it means?"

"The heart of the universe, I think."  He chuckled to himself.  "I suppose the original inhabitants had something of an ego."

"Things haven't changed much," D'Argo commented, his voice barely audible.

Ran looked at the Luxan for a moment, then began to laugh in earnest.  "There's a sense of humor under all those muscles, eh?"  He laughed even harder at D'Argo's frown.  "I'd like to know how I replaced John Crichton as the butt of your jokes."

"It's a matter of seniority," John said, raising his cup to Ran.  "Welcome to the lonely heart's club."  His expression was, however, not very welcoming.

Ran leaned into the light of the fire.  "Here," he motioned toward John's cup.  "Let me see that."  When John hesitated, he mused, "As I understand most customs of this kind, the new member should give the others a gift."

"No," John said flatly.

"What do you have in mind," Zhaan asked with much greater curiosity.

"You'll see.  Give me your cup, JC."

John scowled.  "What's this ‘JC'?"

Ran reached out his hand a little further.  "Come on."

Slowly, John got up and set his cup in Ran's hand.  He swirled the contents a little, then handed it back.  "Try that," he said, a strange smile on his face.  He winked quickly in Aeryn's direction and for a moment she was sure he was the Ran she once knew.

John sipped tentatively.  Suddenly his eyes bulged and he spat a fan of liquid into the shadows.

"Careful," Ran laughed beside him.  "You don't want that getting near the flames."

"What the hell is it," gagged John as soon as he was able to speak.  He looked into his cup as if its contents might attack him.  "It tastes like rocket fuel."

"But slightly more volatile."  Ran grinned toward Aeryn.  "We used to live on this stuff when we were serving together.  Drink up, everyone."

Zhaan set her cup aside.  "I think I'll pass," she said.

"Then I owe you something else," Ran answered cheerfully.  "What about you Ka D'Argo?"

The Luxan glanced into his cup with a resigned look on his face, then took a long draught from it.  "I've had stronger," he said when he had set the cup back on the log.

"I expect you have," Ran said dryly.  "Now, what about you JC, care for a second try?"

"Cut the ‘JC,' will you?"  He stared at Ran for a moment, estimating him, then tipped his cup for another sip.  This time he grimaced, but did not cough.  "Maybe with a little rum, it'd actually be good," he said, licking his lips.

"Well then, let me propose a toast."  Ran stood, and held out his own cup—where he had gotten one was not clear—and began to speak in a deep, theatrical voice.  "May the stars smile on your first day, guide you surely to your last…"

"And keep you from the dark places in between," Aeryn finished for him.

"You remember," he said, a little surprised.

"Of course."  She sipped at her own cup, then smiled.  "But you know, don't you, that your drinking days weren't some of your best."  Her smile erupted into a broad grin.  She began to laugh hard.  "Do you remember the time"—she had to pause to compose herself—"the time we took leave on that commercial world near Tavri."

"I'd never seen a Tavran, before."  He was wheezing a little himself now, trying to catch stray breaths between the pulses of laughter.  "How was I supposed to know?  I swear it looked exactly like a bar stool…"

"Doesn't sound like much of a God," commented D'Argo.

Ran had slipped off the tree and was on his knees now, trying to catch his breath.  "I had to convince the damned things that sitting on one another was a traditional form of greeting."

"He almost started a war," Aeryn gasped, holding her sides.

The others exchanged amused glances.  Inwardly, however, John felt ill at ease.  Only a few days before, this Ran was a menacing figure.  Now, turning water in hard alcohol, he was a cross between Jesus Christ and a drinking buddy.  The shift felt too sudden.  He watched Aeryn carefully as the laughter died, replaced by an uncomfortable silence as she and Ran stared at one another.  He could feel Zhaan and D'Argo grow a little restless too.  "Hey, let's try something we used to do at camp when I was a kid," John offered.  "It's called a round."

"Are you sure they didn't kick you off your home world?" D'Argo asked in a gravelly voice.

"Very funny," John shot back.  "It's a song."  He felt a little relieved that Aeryn and Ran had broken their contact and were looking at him now.  "One person starts and then others join in with a little delay like an echo, and we keep going around and around."

Zhaan shook her head.  "I'm not sure I understand, John."

"Look, I'll sing the words once by myself—they're not hard—then I'll start again and when I point to you, start singing.  Aeryn, you and Zhaan start when I give you the go ahead, then D'Argo and Ran."  He took a deep breath and, a little uncertainly at first, stated to sing.  "Row, Row, Row your boat, gently down the stream.  Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream."  He paused and looked around.  "Everyone got it?"  Without waiting for an answer he continued.  "Good, now here we go."

At first, their attempts were embarrassingly bungled.  John had to urge Aeryn, Zhaan and D'Argo to be more enthusiastic.  It seemed hard to imagine Ran singing more loudly.  Occasional glances from Aeryn to Ran or the other way sent them into giggles or into strained silence.  Meanwhile, D'Argo grumbled and Zhaan asked John to explain the meaning of the words.  He felt as if he were a camp counselor again, trying to control a bunch of children up much too late.  But it was fun, though at least a part of that was the alcohol.  John even stopped watching Ran from the corner of his eye.  And after a little while, they could keep the round going for a few verses at least before something—or someone—went wrong.

John stopped singing when he noticed Zhaan motionless, watching the sky.  Slowly around them, a ghostly blue light grew, until John could see individual trees in the surrounding forest—not quite daylight, but bright enough to read by.  One by one they followed Zhaan's gaze.  Undulating sheets of light rippled across the sky, reflecting in shimmering lines on the surface of the lake.

"It's beautiful" Zhaan said dreamily.  The light played across her upturned face and she swayed slightly with the moving luminescence.

John's mouth hung open a little, but he closed it long enough to speak.  "They look like Northern lights.  I've seen them on earth, but never this bright.  Must be the stronger magnetic field here and the more active sun…."  His voice trailed off as the blue curtains had begun to curl into complex shapes, passing over and through one another.  Filaments of more intense light sewed them together, crossing the sky in long arcs, knots of green and purple flashing along their lengths.

Eventually, the show wound down, and the sky was filled with only a blue-white haze.  D'Argo had already retired into the pod.  Zhaan was, John could just barely see, walking by the lakeshore.  Aeryn had slipped off at some point too, and now sat in the harsh glare of a work light, pondering the compressor valve she'd been trying to fix.  John got up himself.  He glanced toward the rock on which Ran had been sitting.  It was empty.  But the rustle of vegetation allowed him to pick out Ran's form retreating into the forest.  "Are you leaving without saying good bye?" he called after him.

Ran stopped and turned.  "Maybe."

"I think you should leave Aeryn alone."  The suddenness of the words surprised even John.

"I'm not Dracula and this isn't Transylvania," Ran said from the deepening shadows.

"Ah, you heard that."

"Yes."  The forest sounds seem to grow louder in the silence.  "You were asking about the system before."

John looked a little confused at the change of subject.  After a moment, he nodded tentatively.

"You were interested in the planet with the black hole in it?"

Again John nodded.  "Do you know what it's for?"

"What you think," Ran answered, now completely hidden in the darkness.  "It was used to open wormholes."

"Does it work…"

Ran's voice drifted out of the darkness.  "I doubt it.  And if it did, you wouldn't want to use it.  Let me tell you something about wormholes.  They're tricky, but they're not capricious."

"Meaning what?"

"Meaning, Johnny Boy, that you might be right where you belong."

John heard a few steps on the grass and twigs, then nothing.  He turned, quietly.  Aeryn was still hunched over the valve in a little island of light.  Zhaan was nowhere to be seen.  For a moment, John hesitated, then made his way through the shadows toward the bulky silhouette of the pod.

**********

Moya hung in the cool space between planet and moon.  There had been a strange ticking nearby, but she could not tell precisely where or what it was.  The sun's constant and mercurial wash of noise covered the system like a blanket of snow, blunting and distorting the outlines of everything nearby.  As the ticking continued, a sense of uneasiness overcame her—being enveloped by the staticy thunder of this system had been new and interesting at first, but now began to feel constricting and she felt eager to leave.  A loud low moan from behind the moon drew her attention, but it was quickly swallowed by a solar outburst.

Then, suddenly, recognizable shapes—and fear.  A group of small spacecraft appeared over the gray limb of the moon.  She had seen these before and had run from them and she had an immediate impulse to do so again.  But they were too close and before she could flee, a sharp pain shot along her length, then another and another until she could barely hear anything but the dull throbbing of her wounds.

**********

"Aeryn, John, anyone?"

Aeryn opened her eyes slowly.  Her head hurt and her mouth felt dry, symptoms all too familiar.  They were a part of her past, and as she sat up in the bunk, she vowed to keep it that way.

"D'Argo, Zhaan?" then a squeal of static that tore through Aeryn's head.  It was Pilot's voice, but without the calm she was used to.  With a note of panic.  She woke up instantly and leapt toward a control panel.  D'Argo reached it an instant before her.

"Pilot?" he asked, the worry evident in his voice.  "What's wrong?"

Another screech echoed in the small space around them.  John was beside them now, and Zhaan.

"Pilot?" D'Argo said again, nearly shouting.

Static, then "...appeared from behind the moon and fired...."  A sharp rumble that sounded more like an explosion than interference.  Aeryn had heard such noises before.

"What's going on?" asked John, but Aeryn shushed him.

Pilot's voice rose and fell.  "...damaged...can't get away...."

"Moya's been attacked," Aeryn whispered to no one in particular.

"...Prowlers..."  The word drew forth a low growl from D'Argo and a short, violent string of expletives from John.  Then, suddenly the static cleared, and Pilot's frantic message burst out of the speakers.  "...a command carrier in orbit.  There are commandos on board.  Repeat, Moya has been badly injured.  She cannot starburst.  There is nothing...."  Finally the signal dissolved in one final peal of static, a standard jamming signal from what Aeryn could tell.

They all stood still for a moment until John loosed a sharp "God dammit," and stalked outside the pod.  Aeryn followed and as she stepped outside, she saw him just beyond the pod's shadow glaring up at the sky, not so long ago filled with a complex and beautiful net of soft blue light.  Now it felt like that net had fallen down on top of them.  John's muscles tensed, his hands planted on his hips, as if he could bring down the carrier by the force of his will.  "We need to get up there."  He swung around abruptly and made for the pod again.  "Get back inside.  I'll pilot us up.  If we can get to Moya..."

Aeryn grabbed his arm as he passed her.  "No.  If we lift off, they'll detect us for certain and we'll be ashes before we've cleared the trees."  Her eyes stared coldly into his.

"Look, if we can just get up there..."  He turned now to D'Argo and Zhaan who had stepped outside after Aeryn.

"She's right."

Aeryn turned to see Ran standing, leaning on a nearby tree.  He was dressed all in black again and looked tired to her, as if he hadn't slept all night.  For a moment, she wanted to comfort him and be comforted by him, but the rush of emotion embarrassed her and she suppressed it with a burst of rage directed upward.

Ran continued, once all eyes were on him.  "They'll shoot you down.  And if you did make it to orbit, you'd be captured...."

Before Ran could finish, John sprinted then lunged toward him.  He grabbed the collar of Ran's shirt and slammed him back into the tree trunk.  "You brought them here, didn't you," he hissed.  In a moment, Aeryn and D'Argo had pulled him back a few paces.

"No," Ran said calmly, smoothing himself out.  "They found this place on their own.  An accident,  I suppose.  But that's what makes life interesting."

"You tried to distract us last night, you bastard. " John spat as he struggled against half hearted restraint.  D'Argo looked nearly ready to join in the fight.

"Again, no." Ran looked down at the ground, then up at Aeryn, his features completely unreadable.  She locked on his eyes and tried hard to burn her gaze into him.  "Last night was genuine.  But don't confuse good naturedness with the slightest care about you or your petty concerns."

John, who had ceased his struggle, shrugged off Aeryn and D'Argo and stepped forward stiffly.  "Go to hell," he said, his voice even, but strained.  Then he turned and stalked back toward the Pod.

D'Argo shot Ran a menacing glance and followed.  When Aeryn turned to fix Ran with her own angry look, he was gone.  His disappearance only intensified the fire in her chest.  She felt old habits kick in, siphoning off the rage and channeling it into synapses and muscles and she walked briskly after the others.  "We need to get out of here."

"I'll pilot the pod..." John said without stopping.

"No."  Aeryn's voice was low and crisp.  "We need to get away from the pod.  It's only a matter of time before they spot it from orbit."  She considered the surrounding forest with a few quick glances.  "We might be able to camouflage it with some vegetation, but that's only a temporary solution.  We can hide in the planet's forests and high magnetic field—most resonance scans won't work—but a big piece of metaloceramic like the pod won't stay hidden for long."

"What about Moya?" Zhaan asked.

"There's nothing we can do to help her now," D'Argo answered.  "And if we want to help her at all, we can't allow ourselves to be captured."

Aeryn glanced up into the sky.  "We don't have much time.  They'll figure out we're down here and start seeding observation sats in orbit and sending Prowlers and Hoppers down in surveillance patterns."  She motioned toward D'Argo and John.  "You two, go gather as much stray vegetation as you can find.  We can at least throw them off the trail for a while.  Zhaan and I will take whatever we can use from the pod."

"We can't stay down here and do nothing," John said angrily as she passed him.

Aeryn stopped and regarded him as she might have a reluctant recruit.  "We aren't," she replied coolly.  "We want to be out of here as soon as possible."  She started toward the pod and, once her back was turned to the others, cast a worried glance to the sky.

**********

Bialar Crais walked slowly down the Leviathan's corridor, a commando shadowing him on either side.  The lights occasionally flickered overhead but he did not notice.  A team should be doing some minor repairs to the ship's basic systems.  Besides, he felt too pleased to dwell on problems.  He had come close to finally resolving the matter of this rogue Leviathan.  Two of the criminals on board, the Hynerian and a Nebari, were being safely detained.  He made a mental note to move them to cells on board the carrier—they knew this ship too well—but for the moment, with so many troops here, things should be secure enough.  The other fugitives were, he was almost certain, trapped on the planet below, and it was only a matter of time before he found them.  Not only that.  Not only was justice for his brother's murderer within his grasp, but he had discovered a solar system full of wondrous constructions, whose potential technological fruits he was only beginning to fully understand.

The carrier's first officer appeared on his right.  "Captain," he said, quickly synchronizing the clack of his boot's on the deck with Crais's.  "We've managed to sedate the pilot.  We should have him fitted for a collar in twenty microts or so."

"Good," said Crais.  "Any word on the planetary search?"

"Not yet."

They stepped into the control room, and almost before Crais could react, the commandos beside him had leapt ahead and around, shielding him and holding him back with outstretched arms.  One had dropped to a knee.  The other remained standing.  Both aimed their pulse rifles at a figure near one of the command consoles.  "Don't move," one of the commandos shouted.

Crais peered over the large bulk of the two soldiers.  The only being in the room looked Sebacean enough, and he wore a black and red tunic of vaguely familiar design, but Crais didn't recognize him as a member of his crew.  His hair was dark with broad streaks of gray and his face, from what Crais could tell at his angle, was long and thin.  He had none of the crispness Crais sought to instill in his underlings.  Nor did he resemble any of the fugitives he knew about.  But they may well have picked up a few guests.  "Who are you," he asked, sharply.

The figure turned slowly and regarded Crais, the first officer, his own weapon drawn and aimed, and the two guards with an amused expression.  "Not who you think, Captain."  His smile didn't quite reach his eyes.  "I am the last of the beings who made this system and the things in it."

"Ahh," Crais smiled back.  "I see."  In truth, he was getting a little tired of Sebaceans who claimed to be something else.  "And why are you here?"

"Always that question, eh?"  He chuckled to himself.  The lights flickered once briefly.  "I was curious, Captain, about this ship."  He stroked the edge of the nearby console as he spoke.  "She is definitely...different."

Crais regarded the other man's words.  "Have others asked you the same question?"

"You mean John Crichton and his companions?  Yes."  And before Crais could open his mouth, he added, "I have no intention of telling you where on the planet they are.  I don't care about your petty concerns."

"We don't need you to intend to tell anything," Crais threatened, his voice full of menace and venom.  But the figure laughed out loud, sending a rush of anger to Crais's cheeks.  "You don't seem very wise for an advanced being," he hissed.

"I never claimed to be, Captain."  The figure's laugh quieted to a lopsided smile.  "This solar system, and everything in it, is dying.  You can do what you will with the corpse.  For my part, I have no intention of helping or hindering you."  His expression abruptly grew grave.  "Did you know, Captain, that this ship was pregnant?"  His eyes wandered around the room.  "She lost her child in the attack."

"We would have had to deal with that problem in one way or another," Crais said.  He tapped one of the guards on the back, indicating that he should begin to advance.

"I suppose so," the figure mused.  Then he regarded Crais with a cheerful smile.  "Good bye for now, Captain."

The light flickered, this time plunging the room into total darkness.  When illumination returned, the figure was gone.  Crais looked around quickly.  The commandos did the same, their rifles snug against their cheeks.  The intruder could not have left through the main door—Crais and his guards were blocking it.  But there was nowhere else to hide.  A secret panel or door perhaps?  It seemed unlikely but possible.  "I want a ship-wide search for a Sebacean fugitive.  Detain anyone who is without authorization," he barked into his headset.  Then he turned to his first officer.  "Take one of these soldiers to the medics.  I want them to pull an image of our intruder from his visual cortex.  Then compare that image with every image in the data stores—I suspect that our friend is less than he says.  He puts on a good show, though.  He may have stumbled onto some of the secrets of the technology in this place."  Crais's voice grew thoughtful.  "Perhaps his disappearance was a kind of teleportation.  He could turn out to be a valuable resource."

"Right away, Captain."  The officer tapped one of the guards to follow him and left quickly down the hall.

Crais watched them go, pondering this new development.  He knew that he should never underestimate his enemies, but he felt a thrill at the thought he might be much closer to both his goals—revenge and finding the power of this system—than he'd guessed.

**********

Aeryn led them deep into the forest.  Occasionally, they would hear the thunder of supersonic flight in the distance and she would order them onto the ground, covering their heads, as if the sound itself might find them.  They continued to march at a tiring pace for the whole day.  When it grew dark, they stopped for a cold, sparse meal, then continued on a little while in the shadows.  Finally, they could go no further.  Everyone was exhausted except Aeryn who seemed as full of energy as when they started.  She stood over them as they made their beds, smudges of dirt and bits of leaves on her clothes, stray strands of hair falling around her face, a rifle cradled in her arms, positively glowing John thought.  She said, "I'll take the first watch."

She sat quietly in the wide crook of a tree, listening to the wind rustle the leaves of the highest branches.  Between a gap in the canopy above she could see the moon, nearly full.  A new moon would have been better, she thought.

A shuffling noise startled her and her rifle snapped up.  Ran sat not far away, cross legged, on a fallen tree.  "I almost shot you," she said without inflection.

"That might have been an interesting sensation."  He waited for a smile, but none came.  "You don't need to be so jumpy. There's no one around."

She surveyed the surroundings once briefly.  "And I'm supposed to believe you'd tell me if there were?"

He sighed loudly.  "Yes, you're right.  I should have said something about the Peacekeepers.  I'm sorry."  His voice was quiet and he sounded tired, Aeryn thought.  "But I expect that everything will turn out all right.  You're more than a match for anyone I ever knew."

Aeryn lowered the rifle back to her lap and looked at Ran.  She tried hard to decide what she felt about him right now, but the determination to survive, to fight, made room for little else.  Then, all at once, she felt a tear on her cheek.  She brushed it off and regarded the spot of moisture on her hand in the same way she might have a newly sprouted sixth finger.  She wiped it away on her sleeve.  "Why are you here?"

Ran chuckled.  "Because...we're very similar, you and I.  We always were."

"We were never similar, Ran," she said, glaring at him, "if that's who you really are.  And if we were alike once, it was a long time ago.  A lot of things have changed since then."

"Maybe.  And maybe that especially binds us—we're both a little lost between worlds."  Ran glanced up toward the bright moon.  "Past and present, life and death."

This time Aeryn chuckled, her laugh edged with bitterness.  "Please.  Everyone on this frelling planet is a little lost."

"Yes."  An old tree creaked somewhere in the forest.  "But we two understand death, perhaps too well, perhaps better than anyone else here."  His voice was low and even, a note of sadness and seriousness in it that Aeryn had seldom heard from Ran.  "We've seen our share."

"Spare me," she snapped in a sudden burst of anger.  "If you are willing to die for absolutely nothing because it's fate or destiny or some other frelling thing, then be my guest.  But don't expect any sympathy from me.  The Ran I knew wouldn't have done that.  He was a lot of things, but not morbid."  She thought she felt another tear on her cheek, but brushed it away before she could be sure.  "Ran was willing to die for something important, at least."

"Really?"

Aeryn took a deep breath.  "Maybe not important to me, but to him."

"And are you willing to die for something?"

"Yes," she said abruptly, without even giving the answer any thought.  "Duty, once.  Maybe I'm not quite sure what, anymore.  But death should mean something.  It costs enough."

Ran shook his head at her steady gaze.  "You've seen too much pointless death to believe that…"

"Maybe I've seen too much to believe otherwise," she said, cutting him off.

He laughed, and an old lilt returned to his voice.  For a moment, listening to him, she felt a sudden certainty like a pain in her chest that this was really Ran.  "Oh Aery," he said softly, "you're an odd mix—soldier and idealist."

"I always hated that nickname," she laughed quietly herself.

"I know.  That's why I…."  He paused for a moment there and if distracted by something.  "That's why I always used it."  She could see his grin in the moonlight.  They sat together listening to the wind in the trees and the haphazard cracks and ticks of the forest noise before he spoke again.  "I'm sorry I left you, you know."

She watched him carefully as she spoke.  "You chose to leave, Ran."

"Yes.  And I know that I can't change what's happened."

There was another long pause.  Aeryn turned to the shadows, a little afraid that her face might betray her as she spoke.  "I grieved for you once, Ran.  I can't do it again."

His voice was barely audible over the wind.  "I'm sorry.  But maybe you don't have to grieve anymore.  Maybe you don't have to be Officer Aeryn Sun.  Maybe you don't have to understand death so well.  Maybe that's not who you have to be."

She frowned up into the trees.  "So I've heard.  And you?"

Ran sounded far away, as if he were receding behind her.  "Like you said, Aery.  I made my choice a long time ago."

"We're always making choices, Ran."  But when she turned back to look at him, he was gone.

**********

"We've been at this for days," John whispered, watching the Peacekeeper commandos walk slowly down the bottom of the shallow ravine.  "Sooner or later, we have to do something."

Aeryn peered over a patch of brownish grass at the soldiers.  There was something wrong here, she thought.  "I don't think now is the best time, Crichton."

A few feet away, D'Argo's hand twitched on the grip of his Qualta blade.  "They're not going away.  Crichton's right.  We'll need to confront them eventually."

"Look," John said rolling onto his side.  "If we can take that squad down there, we can maybe steal some uniforms, get onto a transport, and get to Moya somehow."

"It'd never work."  A sense of uneasiness tugged at Aeryn.  "But we can wander around forever.  Eventually, they'll start bombarding the surface, or they'll seed the whole area with Henta mines."  Her eyes narrowed.  "They could even use the mines to herd us where they wanted."

John hefted his rifle a little awkwardly, and nodded his head to D'Argo.  "On three," he said.

"Wait."  Aeryn grabbed John's arm suddenly.  Recognition dawned on her face.  "They shouldn't be down there.  No self-respecting commando would walk around at the bottom of a ravine.  That'd be giving the high ground to the enemy…."  Her eyes widened, and she began to scoot down the slope, away from the ridge.  "It's a frelling trap," she shouted as three orange bolts leapt from the forest murk behind them and exploded.

John dove through the cloud of singed grass and dust.  He clutched Zhaan by the arm when she stumbled beside him and heard D'Argo grunt as he fired several shots blindly into the trees.

Aeryn led them over a hill, then along the edge of a small gorge.  A stream washed through the rocks piled loosely on its floor.  John paused, giving Zhaan a small shove to keep her going, then turned.  D'Argo ran nimbly along the gorge's rocky lip.  John thought he saw a shadow move behind him and fired, kicking up a small cloud of burning leaves.  When the Luxan caught up, he and John both sprinted forward, accompanied by the popping and smoke of near misses.  A tree beside John shattered, and he felt the warmth of the explosion on his skull and the splinters of wood in his hair.

Up ahead, Aeryn stopped, crouching amidst the dry underbrush.  A bright orange streak flashed in from her right.  She fired back blindly.  Another leapt at her from the left.  They're converging on us, she though grimly.  She waited until Zhaan, D'Argo and John were nearly on top of her, then jumped up, spraying the forest to either side with quick bursts of fire.  Then she ran straight ahead.  Orange flames chewed at the trees and ground to either side.

Suddenly, she reached the tree line.  The terrain climbed upward to a rocky ridge.  There was no fire coming down from up there and it looked like a defensible position.  It would be vulnerable from the sky, but they only needed to catch their breath.  They wouldn't be there long enough for air support to arrive, she guessed.  The only problem was the long, treeless slope that rose from the forest's edge.  She ducked her head and burst through the trees.  Orange streaks passed her, splashing against the rocks above.  She turned and fired, pausing to let Zhaan and D'Argo pass her.  "Get to the top," she shouted at them.

John was nearly beside her when a bright flash blinded her and an unseen force knocked her into the gritty hillside.  Before her vision had fully returned, she fired haphazardly into the trees.  She could see bolts  from D'Argo's weapon join her own.  She glanced down then and saw John, sprawled limply on the ground.  Fear stabbed at her, a white hot pain that blurred her vision again, before she could regain control.  An ugly gash, red and black bit into his side.  His dull eyes glanced up at her, a chagrined look in them.  "Ow," he said, smiling weakly.

Aeryn tugged at him with one arm, firing almost constantly as she carried him toward the crest of the ridge.  He was barely able to stumble along, his heels dragging in the dusty ground, and once or twice seemed to lose consciousness.  After a few moments, D'Argo was on John's other side, and they quickly hefted him though two large boulders and laid him down near Zhaan.  She exchanged a worried look with Aeryn, glancing at the wound and shaking her head solemnly.

**********

"Captain, I have some news."

Crais rose as the tactical officer approached him, walking briskly from behind the fugitives' transport pod.  They had found it some time ago and Crais had decided to make it the center of the groundside operations.  "Yes?" he asked, trying to keep the anticipation out of his voice.

"One of the decoy squads reports an encounter.  They've chased the targets to a nearby ridge.  One may have been wounded—seriously—the male or female Sebacean, they're not sure.  Either way, they believe they have them trapped."

Crais couldn't contain his smile.  "Good," he said.  "Order the commandos to hold their positions."

"Sir?" the officer asked uncertainly.  "What about a fighter wing?  We could have one there in…."

"No," Crais cut her off.  A beep sounded in his ear, and he held up a hand to the officer.  "Yes," he said into his headset.

The voice of his first officer, distorted by static, greeted him.  "Captain.  I have some news on the intruder from the Leviathan."

This was turning out to be a productive afternoon.  "Did you find him?"

"As near as we can tell, he's not aboard anymore," the voice hissed.

"As I suspected."

"But I do have an identification."

Crais smiled.  "Really?  Who is he."

A burst of static drown out the first officer for a moment.  This static was getting worse, Crais mused.  It was a problem he should have some of his crew look into.  "…name is Ran Avlis.  He was assigned to a mission in the uncharted territories some eight cycles ago.  The ship was lost."

"That explains quite a bit," Crais muttered to himself.  "Very good."  Then he turned back the tactical officer.  "I don't want to scare them away.  As long as one of them is wounded, they won't get very far very fast, if they move at all."  He turned and pointed to a group of nearby soldiers.  "You," he barked.  "Come with me."  He turned and strode toward a large scout car.  The thrill of the end game, the last moments of the hunt ran through him.  "I intend to finish this myself."

**********

Aeryn watched the sky with concern.  Of course, if air support did appear, she'd almost certainly hear and see the explosion that killed her—killed them all—well before the craft that delivered the blow.  She looked back down at John.  His eyes were closed now, his breath shallow and uneven.  "Can we move him," she asked Zhaan.

"No.  I wouldn't suggest it."  She didn't say out loud how serious the injury was, but Aeryn could tell from the look in her eyes and the way her shoulders slumped.

Aeryn rose from her crouch, spun, and joined D'Argo behind one of the boulders that lined the ridge.  "Keep an eye on that gap over there," she told him, gesturing with her rifle to a deep interruption in the tree line on the left.  "They'll try to out flank us.  If you can, try and fell some of the trees, maybe make the gap wider.  Better yet, see if you can set the underbrush on fire.  It's dry."  To the right, the ridge curved away, cutting a line through the forest below.  It made for a poor route of approach, at least.  Aeryn surveyed the terrain behind them.  There the ground dropped away in a gentle slope, dotted by a few patches of forest.  It became rockier and less green until, in the far distance, she could see what looked like tall gray cliffs, and beyond that, the blurred peaks of mountains, seeming more a part of the sky than the ground.  Nearer, the ridge fell back into the forest and the gap in the trees.  Almost certainly, that was the way they would come, she thought.

"They've stopped firing," noted D'Argo, watching the treeline below.  "That worries me."

"Me too."  Aeryn felt the quiet gnaw at her.  The only sounds were the disturbed squawks of birds.  "It was a mistake to come up here," she muttered.

"There wasn't much of an option."   D'Argo aimed and loosed a few shots down the slope.  "I would have made the same choice."  They exchanged a long look.

Aeryn's energy was ebbing.  She'd been in sieges before, had been trapped before, but it was never her favorite part of battle.  And now, a tumult of feelings surged at the edges of her consciousness, threatening to overwhelm her.  She glanced at John one more time.  She should have seen the trap sooner.  She should have run the other way.  She should have stayed behind at the ravine and drawn the fire of the ambush.  She tried to shake off these nagging reflections—what's done is done, she thought—but a sense of regret tugged at her as she returned to watching the murk between the trees.

**********

Crais crouched in the underbrush.  He could clearly see Aeryn Sun with his oculars.  The Luxan was beside her, leaning against a large gray rock.  A little closer, the Delvian knelt by…aha, Crais thought.  John Crichton laid unmoving on the ground.  He slaved his occulars to the scope of the rifle in his hands.  A set of crosshairs appeared in front of him, weaving back and forth as he moved the weapon.  He fixed it on Crichton and a list of vital statistics—respiration, body temperature, pulse and the like—appeared below.  Temperature nearly ambient, pulse and breathing almost nothing, Crais noted.  A pity if he dies before I can kill him.  The crosshairs drifted toward Aeryn Sun.  "Ready to fire on my order," he whispered into his headset.  His finger tightened on the trigger.  "Fire," he said.

And nothing.  He looked down at his rifle.  The weapon appeared to be in working order.  He tried again.  There was only the dull click of the trigger and nothing else.  Again, he checked the rifle, made sure it's reservoir of Chakan oil was filled.  When he returned his gaze to the top of the ridge, it was eclipsed by a black and white blur.  Startled, Crais stepped down his occulars, focusing a few meters closer.  In a moment he was staring into the face of the intruder he knew to be Ran Avlis.   He tried to contact the troops on the far side of the ridge, but was met with only static.   "Damn him," Crais muttered and erupted from the underbrush.  Behind Ran, he could see Aeryn Sun and the Luxan check their own weapons with worried expressions on their faces.

Crais stepped up to Ran, his squad of six soldiers following him to the top of the ridge a little uncertainly.  "You said you wouldn't interfere," Crais shouted.

Ran smirked and crossed his arms over the chest of his white shirt. The wind tossed his inky black hair.   "I lied," he said.  "That's what we gods do, after all."

"God?" snorted Crais.  "Your name is Ran Avlis.  You were lost in the uncharted territories eight cycles ago.  You've discovered something about the power of this place, and I'll find out what.  But I have some other business to finish before I do."

"Looks can be deceiving," Ran said calmly.  "Besides, you're finished here.  This place has seen enough death for one day."

"I only need a few more," Crais hissed, unsnapping the strap across the knife at his side.  The commandos behind him did the same.

Ran smiled at them all.  Then he fixed Crais with his bright blue eyes.  "You're a man obsessed with death, Captain, and I've found that amusing.  It's the only thing that's kept me from reducing you to a bloody paste.  But right now, I'm not so easily entertained."

"Then do it," Crais shouted a few inches from Ran's face.  "Do it."  When Ran did not react, Crais turned and barked at his commandos.  "Secure the prisoners."  Then he turned back to Ran, a dark light in his eyes.  "You're no god.  All I've seen from you are tricks.  All you've done is play games.  You're a flesh and blood Sebacean, and you've obviously been as contaminated as your friend over there."  Crais nodded toward Aeryn.

"You have no idea, Captain," but before Ran could finish, Crais jabbed him in the face, knocking him back a few paces.

Aeryn watched Ran stumble, then saw Crais leap at him, his knife drawn.  To her right, four commandos had advanced on D'Argo.  They circled him, staying just beyond the arcs of his swinging Qualta blade.  Aeryn stepped in front of John and Zhaan and regarded the two Peacekeepers edging toward her with narrowed eyes.  One of them lunged forward.  Aeryn stepped aside and drove down on the back of his head with her elbow.  The commando landed, crumpled, on the ground near Zhaan.  The second grabbed her free arm.  She half turned and tried to jab him in the face, but he deflected her blow and tugged down on her arm, seeking to fold it up behind her.  Aeryn dropped to a crouch, unbalancing her attacker, and swept his legs from under him.  He hit the gritty soil with a dull thud.

Someone tackled her, and the two of them rolled down the slope a little way.  She tried to flip him over her head, but he tucked into a ball and punched her several times in the stomach.  By the time they came to a rest, she was fighting for air.  A kick sent a sharp pain through her, and she rolled away from it, trying to stand up.  She managed to get herself to a crouching position, long enough to see another of the commandos swing at D'Argo's head with a thick tree branch, catching him from behind.  D'Argo fell to one knee and swung his blade around, but the woman with the branch kicked at his wrists, sending D'Argo's weapon skidding in the dirt.

Aeryn was standing now and met one of her own attackers with quick punch to the neck.  His knees buckled, and he dropped, gurgling and clutching his throat.  But, before she could do more, two sets of hands grabbed her arms roughly.  She struggled and a knee flashed up to meet her abdomen.  She doubled over.  When she could raise her head, she saw Crais on top of Ran, his knife held at the end of rigid arms raised high.  Then, the knife sliced down and drove deeply into Ran's chest.  Ran looked surprised for a moment, then turned his head away.  Crais removed the knife, stood up, and stepped from Ran's body.

A weak "No" escaped Aeryn's lips and she felt a cold sting inside her own chest and the sensation in her legs fade away.  She slumped a little in her attackers' grips.  To her right, D'Argo kicked away one of the soldiers, but two others were on top of him, punching rapidly until he slumped limply against one of the large boulders.

"Not hard to kill for a god," Crais laughed, as he moved toward Aeryn, the bloody knife in his hand.  At first, she glared at him with open rage, but then her focus slipped to the side and fixed on a point behind him.  Crais watched the expression on her face change slowly, her eyes widen.  She took a sharp breath.  "Ran?" she said and Crais turned to see what was happening.

Ran stood there.  He was looking down at his shirt, a red stain growing outward from its center.  An eerie chuckle escaped his throat, and when he glanced up, Crais could see that his eyes had turned completely black, like two windows on deep space.  "Not very wise, Captain," he said, looking at Crais with an amused expression.  "I think it's time you go back now."

Ran brushed his hand in the air dismissively, and in a bright blue flash Crais and all the other Peacekeepers were gone.

Aeryn tried to blink away the flash's residue.  The hands holding her arms had disappeared and she stumbled forward, trying to compensate.  When she could see clearly, Ran was before her.  His eyes had turned back to a bright blue.  He had fallen to his knees, his chest heaving with shallow breaths, his white shirt soaked through with blood.  She reached him in time to help him reach a nearby tree and lean back slowly against the trunk.  Still, he had a grin on his face and when he was finally sitting he took Aeryn's hand in his.

"Aeryn, I need you," Zhaan called behind her.

She looked at him deeply, frowning, her brows knotted, a little moisture around the edges of her eyes.  "I have to go," she said.

He nodded his head as he replied.  "I know."

**********

Crais looked around at the bridge of the command carrier with a stunned expression.  Beside him, the first officer seemed no less surprised, his mouth open and eyes wide.  "C…captain?" he stuttered.

Rage flared in Crais, and he gripped the arms of his chair so hard he heard the fabric tear.  "Nevermind," he said to the first officer through clenched teeth.  "I want the carrier over the site where the fugitives were trapped and the Frag cannon ready to fire."

"Yes, sir," someone said.  He wasn't sure who.

Crais took a few deep breaths and felt some measure of calm return.  If he couldn't do it on the ground, he'd take his revenge from orbit.  Let it never be said that he was inflexible.

"Sir, I'm getting some odd readings from the sun."

**********

"Is anyone there?"  Pilot's voice sounded from D'Argo's wrist.  He exchanged a surprised glance with Aeryn and Zhaan, both hunched over John, and replied.

"Pilot?  What's going on up there?"

Rygel's voice pierced through the static.  "I told you we should never have stayed here."

"I see that his eminence is free," D'Argo muttered.

"Yes," Pilot said smoothly.  His voice contained none of the panic of his last communication.  "It appears that the Peacekeepers on board and all their equipment have…disappeared.  I do not know how."

D'Argo glanced at Ran, who smiled and waved from his spot beneath the tree and called, his voice weak and uneven, "Say hi from me."

"Is Moya all right?" Zhaan asked from the other side.

"Moya has suffered considerable injuries.  She could barely make it out of orbit.  The Peacekeepers did enough repairs to allow her to starburst."  Pilot's voice took a grave turn.  "But, she has lost her child.  It happened in the initial attack."

Zhaan bowed her head and sighed.

Aeryn looked away from John.  "What about the carrier, where is it?"

Pilot paused before replying.  "It's moving," he said.  "It appears to be heading for a spot directly above your position.  I'm detecting energy readings consistent with fire control and weapons activation."

D'Argo cast a worried glance heavenward.  But before he could say anything, Pilot spoke again.  "You may have a more serious problem, however."

"More serious?" D'Argo asked incredulously, exchanging puzzled looks with Aeryn.

Just then, the sun seemed to dim.  It's outer edge wavered then contracted inward and its face turned a deep, blood red.

"What's going on?"  D'Argo's voice trailed into silence.

**********

"It looks as if it is going to explode."  The first officer spoke without inflection, as if he had gone completely numb.

Crais watched the image of the shrunken, red sun in the viewscreen.  "How long do we have?"  He should feel some fear somewhere, he thought, but there was only a strange, quiet calmness in him.  Perhaps, he had been dazed by the last few moments, perhaps by the enormity of the news that had just reached him.

"I don't know.  The star's collapse isn't consistent with any stellar models we have."

"Prepare to leave this system…after we've acquired a target below, fired, and confirmed the kill."

"Captain?"  A bit of blood had returned to the first officer's face.  "We should leave.  The shockwave will kill anything on the planet.  This star could go at any…"

"We have something to finish," Crais said coldly.  "And we will, one way or another."

**********

In the red twilight, Zhaan had stepped over to Ran.  She laid a hand on his chest, but blood oozed out between her fingers.  His head hung low and his breath came in long, difficult gasps.  He looked up at her and smiled.  "I think Johnny Boy needs you more than I do."

Zhaan held his gaze for a minute and shook her head feebly.

"That bad?"  Ran asked.  His smile smoothed away and he turned to where John lay, Aeryn and now D'Argo sitting beside him.  Aeryn sat, slumped, her hand resting on John's chest.

"What's happening?"  Zhaan motioned to the sun as she spoke.

"It's going to explode."

D'Argo cast a sharp glance in their direction and stood quickly.  "We need to get out of here then, get back to the pod."

Ran shifted against the tree truck.  "You don't have time.  You've got 100 microts, maybe a little more until it ignites."

In a swift slicing motion, D'Argo swung his wrist upward, his gaze fixed angrily on Ran.  "Pilot," he called.  "Pilot, can Moya land on the planet?"

There was a crackle of static.  "No.  She would not survive the stress."

"Then can you remote pilot the pod to our location?"

"No," said pilot again.  He was drown out by a sudden burst of white noise.

Aeryn looked up for the first time.  "We might be able to make it to a Peacekeeper craft, if there are any left.  Ask pilot if he can detect any nearby."

"Pilot…." D'Argo started, but Pilot interrupted him.

"Yes.  There is a transport not far from you, to the northeast.  I think you could make it in time."

Aeryn rose and began to wrap her arms around John's chest.  "Someone help me."  D'Argo and Zhaan both stared at her.  When she glanced up at the Luxan he could only shake his head.  "Help me," she said again.

"We'll never make it trying to carry Crichton.  Besides…."  D'Argo looked away.

"Besides, what?"  Aeryn demanded, but she already knew.

"He's dead, Aeryn," Zhaan said, he voice quiet and slow.  "There's nothing more we can do for him."  Aeryn fell back to the ground.

"Can you stop this," asked Zhaan quietly, turning to Ran

"No.  I can't change what's already happened."

D'Argo stirred impatiently.  "If we want to live, we need to go now."

"There's not enough time," said Ran.  As he spoke, the face of the sun turned nearly black.

**********

"The collapse is accelerating," the first officer announced.

"Do we have the target, yet," Crais asked impatiently.  He sat, willing the ship to move more quickly, willing his goal to peek over the horizon.

"Almost.  But…."  The first officer paused and continued hesitantly, a note of fear in his voice.  "Captain, I'm getting some strange readings from the planet.  The magnetic field and gravitational fields and fluctuating."

"What now?" Crais asked, rolling his eyes.

**********

"For a god, there's not much you can do, is there?  So you suggest we stand here and wait to die?" D'Argo shouted loudly at Ran.  He could fee the darkness close in around him.  The wind had begun to blow, and the tops of the nearby trees were snapping back and forth.  The sound of rustling leaves seemed like a waterfall.

Ran laughed back and tried to get up.  His first attempt failed and Zhaan offered him an arm.  She helped him stumble a few paces forward.  "I can't stop the sun, but that doesn't mean there's nothing we can do."  He winked at D'Argo as they passed him by.

When he reached John's body, Ran turned to Zhaan and laid a hand lightly on her cheek.  His fingers left steaks of blood behind.  "Thank you," he said.  Then he dropped to his knees.

He stared over John's motionless chest at Aeryn.  She looked up at him, her eyes lined with red, her mouth a tight line.  "Good bye, Aeryn," he said, and took her hand again in his.  Before she could speak, he put a finger to her lips.  "Do me a favor, will you?"  Her heart seemed to stop for an instant as he grinned at her.  "Don't wear so much black.  I don't think it's you."

Ran looked down at John then back up again.  "One more thing.  Tell John that I still don't care."  His smile softened and he pressed his and Aeryn's hand down on John's chest.  She saw a dull glow seep through the edges of their fingers.  She felt her weight seem drop from her, as if she might fly away, before the light overwhelmed her completely.

**********

A target marker suddenly blinked on the viewscreen.  At last, Crais thought.  But as he looked, a pinpoint of white light grew under the crosshairs.  Its edges swept outward, beads of colored light playing along them, until it covered the whole face of the planet.  Crais had to cover his eyes before the dampers in the screen compensated.  Even so, he sat for a moment, blinking away momentary blindness.

He looked at the screen again.  It was nearly black, save for a scattering of small white points.  He waited for a few moments for the dampers to step down before he realized what he was looking at.  "Where's the frelling planet?" he shouted, gazing at the starscape before him.

There was a pause before anyone answered him.  "It's gone," whispered a voice.

Suddenly, the ship was rocked by a violent blow.  Crais felt his stomach drop away.  The lights went out and a shower of sparks erupted around him.  The emergency illumination turned on amidst a sea of alarms and klaxons.  "Shut those things off," he screamed.  When relative silence had returned he asked, "What happened?"

The fist officer looked dazed.  "The planet's disappearance caused a massive gravity wave."  He tried to focus on the readouts ahead of him.  "We've suffered severe damage.  All the Prowlers outside the carrier have been destroyed.  Several of the Chakon oil stores have exploded.  There's a fire near the main fuel tanks.  We've lost most primary systems.  The temporary data stores have been wiped clean.  If we leave the system now, we'll be temporarily lost."

Another voice shouted from behind.  "The core of the sun just reignited.  We have two microts until the shockwave reaches us."

Crais felt empty.  He didn't even have enough energy feel angry.  He looked again at the starscape where the planet used to be.  He felt that empty.  I'm sorry brother, he thought, then with an eerily calm voice, "It doesn't matter.  Get us out of here."

**********

From the moon, Ran watched the command carrier depart.  He laid a hand lightly on his chest.  There was no longer any blood nor sign of a wound beneath the black fabric of his shirt.  There was only a sense of calm, a stillness that expanded like the negative image of the boiling white ball of the sun beyond.  He could feel the wave front of the explosion racing toward him.  But he did not look at it.  Rather, he tracked up and to the left, and found a bright star, still visible through the glare of the sun.  If he squinted, he imagined he could see a new planet in orbit around that star, a pleasant blue-white world.  And one day, perhaps twenty cycles from now, the beings of that world would look up and notice a new star in their sky.  He wondered if they'd find its light familiar.  The thought made him smile and he was still smiling when the shockwave hit the moon and dissolved it like a patch of foam on the wild sea.

**********

"John?"

John blinked groggily.  There was a dull ache in his side, but he sat up without difficulty.  The first thing he saw was Aeryn's face, examining his.  Her familiar features were framed by a sky that seemed too bright and too deep a blue.  "How do you feel," she asked.

"Fine."  He glanced around.  D'Argo stood nearby, and Zhaan.  They were both watching him with an almost creepy intensity.  "What, do I have some food in my teeth or something?"  He stood up and surveyed the surrounding terrain.  It was lit by a sun that looked subtly too white, much more like earth's sun, lending an added sharpness to everything he could see.  "Last I remember we were sitting at a campfire."  John glanced around suddenly, a look of concern on his face.  "Where's the pod?  How'd we get here?"

"Your guess is as good as ours," D'Argo muttered.

"This isn't some kind of weird alien joke, is it?"

A beep sounded on D'Argo's wrist and he answered it.  "Pilot?"

"Yes," Pilot said, his voice clear and strong.

John had retired to a nearby rock, Zhaan and Aeryn on either side of him.  "How are things up there?" he shouted.

"Fine," Pilot replied.  "Moya's injuries have all been healed.  I'm not sure how."

"What about…"

Pilot's voice sounded unusually cheerful.  "Moya appears to be pregnant again."

"Again?" John blurted.

"We'll explain later, Crichton," Aeryn said, patting him on the arm and standing up.  "You missed quite a bit."

"The story of my life," John quipped.

"Now get up.  We've got a long walk ahead of us."  She started down the grassy slope toward the line of trees.  D'Argo and Zhaan followed behind her.

John rose, and stretched, grimacing.  "I felt like I've already walked a hundred miles.  It'll be good to get home."

Aeryn stopped and looked back, a curious smirk on her face.  "Did you say ‘home'?" she asked.

John thought about it for a moment.  "I guess I did."  Then he sprinted past her and the others.  "Last one to the pod is a rotten egg," he called back.

D'Argo shook his head sadly at Aeryn.  "I don't think he'll ever make sense."  Then they all made their way down the ridge and into the line of trees.

***The End***