Farscape Fan Fiction ❯ The Right of Skin: Book 1 ❯ The Right of Skin: Book 1 (Chapters 1 to 7) ( Chapter 1 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

By: GeeLady

The Right of Skin

Setting/Spoilers: Slightly pre-Season One I guess.
Rating:. Non-con, hetero’ and some minimal slash. Go away if any offends.
Pairings:John/Various shipmates
Summary:AU. John Crichton is caught on a ship. Aliens are present, and his so-called life aboard Moya begins.? Summary: AU. John Crichton is caught on a ship. Aliens are present, and his so-called life aboard Moya begins. Basically this starts out at episode One with changes, and then more changes as it goes along. I love the show, but I wanted to do something of an alternate Farscape, where Crichton does not fit in so easily and where he is not so readily accepted, and where things don’t work so smoothly. For example: The translator technology (where I use a intelligent chip rather than microbes) - As a bilingual person, I understand the sometimes great differences in how information is communicated from one language to another, and I don’t believe even the sophisticated technology of the Peacekeepers (or those aboard Moya) could wrap itself around a totally new language imbedded in an alien brain and then in seconds begin to correctly interpret it with hardly a mistake. Not without weeks of first learning and hearing (or “seeing” – however the chip accomplishes it), the language and relative cultural references that are so great a part of any language. When they use the chip on John here, it does not immediately solve all communication problems with him. Certain language barriers remain. Plus I’ve taken liberties with some of the characters beliefs and physiological systems, and their reactions to John’s presence and why, yet have tried to maintain the essential natures of the characters. I have also found myself needing to make up a few new Farscape Peacekeeper–or-Other words here and there (and had great fun doing it!), the chapter by chapter glossary of which will appear at the end of each posted chapter.
So, if you dare, read on.
Disclaimers: Farscape and its characters are the property of Jim Henson Productions, and a bunch of other folks who made $$ from it. Me? I make fun.
Note: Please remember that in this version of Farscape there are some details that have come from memory while others I am making up as I go along - I’m “tweaking” canon to suit this AU.
FSFSFSFSFSFSFSFSFS

From the beginning...

It was a major snafu, this mission. Alien ships, alien stars and planets. Aliens.

Angry aliens. Ready, it seemed, to do him harm at the slightest provocation. So he sat in the corner of his cell and nursed the gash on his temple and the pounding in his skull - his only steady friends of the moment. The floor was cold but not space-cold, just not warm enough to bring any real comfort. He could feel a thrumming, a motion, a puzzling underscore of a vibration that felt somehow alive beneath his naked feet. His uniform they had stripped from him and greying rags given in its stead. He shivered.

Boots approach. Heavy and rhythmic - a death march? He hoped not, but probably the big guy. The most alien-looking of the foursome who had captured his ship, taken his uniform, bush-wacked him with a blue ray of agony from the metallic little soldiers he saw scooting passed his cell door now and again, and tossed him, bruises and all, into this now most familiar cell. He assumed he had hit his head on the way to the hard floor.

John Crichton, lost in space Earth astronaut, couldn’t understand the strange looking creature of course, when the big fellow stopped at the cell door to growl. John just stared back for a few seconds then looked away. No sense in pretending he could make out that grating gibberish, the beast always sounded mad. He himself already made his attempts to be understood, and they had only stared back as well. No, there would be no afternoon chat with tea and cookies today. He was thirsty, too. An ache had set itself up in the back of his throat and he figured maybe a hand gesture or two might score him a drink.

The big guy was turning away, seemingly already frustrated with his inability to elicit any response from his prisoner, when John slapped the floor beside him with his right palm, snapping the big guy’s head back around, his eyes dark with suspicion. Whatever. John raised his hand, cupped to appear as a drinking vessel, to his lips and made the needed motion. “I’m thirsty.” He said uselessly. “Get it? I need water.”

Thick, tapering fleshly locks atop a wide brow whipped around to show the back of a tattooed skull. The alien’s lips snorted and he walked away.

Failure number whatever-number-it-is-now. But then the alien returned after a moment with a tall cup of what John hoped was apple juice. Trailing him was a short female with skin the color of volcanic ash. Even her hair was cigarette-ash-grey. The cup-or-whatever was thrust through the openings in the stylishly pattered cell “bars”, and rolled across the floor to him. The lid was screwed on. A comfortable handle and a flashy logo and it would have passed for a travel mug. John sniffed.

Water. Ice-cold and refreshing and he drank its entire contents in one go, soothing dry mucus membranes. A violent coughing fit came at the end as his throat, in shock at the wetness, went into spasms. John was surprised to see the slightest flicker of concern cross the woman’s face. But then it was gone, and she and the big fellow, neither saying anything more, left.

John sighed. He wondered what was for dinner. With luck he himself was not on the menu. He could hear them arguing, though. A long way away, somewhere in a room that echoed. Their words just audible above the background hum of the ship. The loud back and forth was about him probably. What to do with him. Kill him outright? Torture and then kill him? Eject him into space and let that cold bitch do the job? He wished they would just get it over with.

FSFSFSFSFSFSFSFSFSFSFSFSFS

Zhaan, the ninth level priestess from the planet Delva, her blue skin shimmering in the overhead lights Moya so kindly provided, frowned at D’Argo’s suggestion. “Kill him without knowing who he is, or what he is? Seems a tad premature, don’t you think?”

Sometimes D’Argo hated the Delvan’s patronizing manner. “No I don’t think. That creature flew his pathetic ship into Moya and damn near blew a hole in her side.” He reminded them. “We could have all been killed along with her. The alien is obviously on a suicide mission from the Peacekeepers.”

Aeryn Sun, a former Peacekeeper herself, fielded that one. “Except that he isn’t a Peacekeeper, his module is crap, and Peacekeepers do not run suicide missions.” She explained, no doubt about it in her own mind. The invader, the little she had seen of him, was not acting like one of her kind at all. Besides they couldn’t understand his language. “You said it yourself, D’Argo, he’s an alien. Probably not from this sector of the galaxy at all.”

Chiana, her soft spoken way of pointing out the obvious, said to the group “Okay, so just how alien is the question, isn’t it? I mean if Pilot can’t find his type in Moya’s data-base – “ She looked at Aeryn who shook her head.

“No then.” Chiana continued. “And not in the public libraries he’s been able to hack into either, then where is he from?”

D’Argo was bored with the whole question and threw his arms up, tired of the whole debate. “What does it matter?”

Zhaan answered the rhetorical question for him, much to his irritated look. “It matters because we are not executioners, and he has done nothing to harm us. The crash could simply have been an accident.”

D’Argo huffed. “Mightily well-aimed accident if you ask me.”

Chiana shook off any doubts as to what they ought to do. It was clear what the consensus was going to be. “Well, let’s go try and talk to him. Get some answers. If he’s an assassin we can just as easily kill him later as now, can’t we? He can’t hurt us. He’s the one in a cell.”

The diminutive Hynerian Rygel, floating nearby on his skimmer, furrowed his ear-brows, clearing his throat. “That does seem to settle it. Good luck, I’ll be in my chambers. Call me if you decide to kill him after all. I haven’t seen a juicy execution in a hundred cycles and I’d hate to miss this one.”

The group ignored the small shipmate’s words and walked to the detention block where their visitor was locked down in cell number One.

Chiana squatted down to get a better view of the creature she had so far seen only twice. When the alien had stumbled from his tiny, smoking ship and almost immediately been dispatched by the DRV’s who had got there first, blasting him with a series of energy bursts and dropping him where he stood, she had been the second of two people to arrive at the commotion. Pilot had detected the danger moments before and warned them about an incoming unidentified ship on a collision course with Moya. All nearby crew were to attend to the docking bay at once. There they, she and D’Argo, had found this creature.

The alien was harmless now, wrists cuffed in chains and fastened to the wall behind him. He sat on the narrow cot, legs bent at the knees and drawn up, regarding them passively.

Chiana twisted her head to look up at D’Argo towering beside her. “Do you think he’s only pretending not to understand us?”

D’Argo grunted. “Of course.”

“Well, what about the translator chip?” Aeryn suggested. It made the most sense. Why all this blather about what to do when the only possible course was clear?

Zhaan put forth her more reasoned thoughts. “Because until we know what species he is, it could do irreparable damage to his brain. We only know what he isn’t. We need first to know what he is.”

“What about Moya’s internal scanners?” Aeryn asked.

“They only provided a cursory look. That’s why we know that though he appears to be of the Peacekeeper breed, he is not.” Zhaan narrowed her eyes. “There is something different about the shape of his skull and the compactness of his form that does not fit with Peacekeeper physiology. I mean something beyond what would be expected from normal variation in the species.” She pointed out the few small details that she had noted. “You see? There, the width of his skull, the lie of the cheekbones and the shortness of the neck.”

“Let’s get him to the infirmary then.” Aeryn said. She was tired of guesswork. It was ridiculously inefficient to stand around and speculate. A DRV was called and a short bolt of energy later, the alien was unconscious.

“Remove his clothes.” Zhaan nodded to Chiana who nodded back and then looked at Aeryn because she had not moved from the nearby wall. “You’re not sitting this one out.” Chiana said.

Aeryn sighed, uncrossed her arms and assisted Chiana in removing the much aged prisoner uniform of raggedy pants and shirt from their prisoner. It did not take more than a moment until the creature was divested of all coverings.

Zhaan glanced at the wall. Though Pilot would not appear there, it was where the internal communication node was located. “Pilot. Record please.”

¡°Recording.¡± Said the disembodied voice.

Zhaan switched on a hand-held scanner, the only one in the ship’s medical stores, a narrow device the length of her own forearm, and passed it slowly over the unconscious form of their visitor. A wide beam of soft blue light told her what it was discovering beneath the skin. Zhaan recited her findings aloud, and paused to add details when she came upon something curious.

“Interesting. As I thought, not a Peacekeeper.” Though she had just been proven correct, there was no mockery in her tone, simply stated fact. “His heart is located upper center chest cavity. And he has,” She paused to count, her lips moving silently for a few seconds, “four partial ribs, two on either side of his spine, unlike the Peacekeeper species, or any other I am familiar with. Two organs that appear to process liquid waste, a single chambered stomach, and two ancillary digestive organs as far as I can tell.” One glance was sufficient to determine the nature of his sexual status. “His sex organs appear to be male standard and intact. No obvious injuries. Musculature is well developed and as far as I am able to determine thus far, his over-all health appears good.”

Zhaan put away her first instrument and picked up a second one. This small, round object she passed back and forth across his face and skull. “Hmm, an unusual brain formation. Smaller than your average Peacekeeper but multi-faceted, several multi-layers starting with a smaller core heavy with nerve structure. I would guess that is what controls his baser functions; motor-control and involuntary responses.”

Zhaan put away the second instrument and produced a third from the small table beside her. This she switched on and shone into his eyes, lifting one lid with her thumb, then the other. “Blue irises. Responsive to light but rather sluggish. Color perception is indicated I would think.” She shook her head. “He possesses poor capacity for night vision. Where ever he comes from, he is for certain diurnal.”

Chiana looked over at Aeryn. “What does that mean?”

“It means he’s a day creature.” Aeryn explained. “Sleeps at night, like us.”

Chiana shrugged off the suggestion. “Except for me.”

“Yes Chiana,” Zhaan said. It came out as an afterthought as her mind was on her work, “except for you.”

D’Argo could barely contain his impatience. “Yes, yes, yes, we’re all fascinated, but what does all of this really tell us?”

Zhaan’s eternal patience was wearing thin. “It tells us that he is a living creature who thinks, D’Argo, and we shall not summarily put him to death.” She said stubbornly to him and to the rest of her shipmate’s.

D’Argo was not one to have his will dictated to him. “Well, I disagree. I believe he poses a danger to this ship and crew. For all we know those who sent him here are tracking him right now.”

Zhaan knew it was pointless to argue with a Luxan warrior once he has made up his mind. One may as well try moving a black hole with a spoon. “I suggest a vote.” She offered. “Who wants to give us, and the creature, enough time to determine where he is from, his nature and possibly why he is here? Raise your hands.”

Chiana raised hers, as did Zhaan herself. After a few seconds, Aeryn also put hers up. At D’Argo’s disapproving glare, she shrugged. “I’m curious now.”

Gratified, Zhaan said “And who wants to kill him outright?” When no one stepped forward, she looked at D’Argo. “Look as if we’re short on volunteers for that particular task.”

Useless to press his wishes now that he had already been out-voted, D’Argo stormed from the room. “Go, do your little tests. Be fools about it, I don’t care. Just keep that damn creature out of my way or I will kill him.”

Chiana stared after him. She would have to find him later and calm him down. Damn moody Luxan. Damn stupid of her to get involved with such an emotionally charged species. Damn that he was also so frelling fun. “He’ll cool down.” Chiana circled the table to stand on the opposite side. She wanted to get a closer look at their new curiosity. “What else can you tell us about him? Like, maybe can he read minds or, uh, does he breathe something besides air.”

Zhaan raised amused eyebrows. ”I think that highly unlikely. No, if we are to learn anything more from him, I’m afraid we may have to risk the translator chip.”

Aeryn, content to return to her position by the wall “How do we know it’ll work on him? His species is in no known data-base. The chip could fry his brain.”

Zhaan nodded. “Or possible kill him. I’d like to do a more thorough examination first, to minimize the risk.”

“You just said you were done.” Chiana said.

“Done with our proper instruments. Now I need samples of him – “

“-Samples?” Chiana asked. “What samples?” She hated to think of scars on that star-frosted skin. Peacekeepers she’d seen, lots of them. Some up really close and personal. Black eyes, black hair, black clothes. White skin. Some Peacekeepers coloring was so white under certain lighting conditions, they looked almost translucent. White skin, purple veins. Odd. Dead-like. Not beautiful.

But this creature, with the blue eyes and the softly sun-struck skin. She favoured her own grey/charcoal cast but still, this alien was nice to look at. Real pretty. Like a desert animal or the glow from the largest satellite orbiting her home world where, on certain nights during the hot months, Nebari’s nearest moon took on the color of spun gold.

“I need samples of his skin, blood and internal organs. Don’t worry, Chiana.” Zhaan said to the Nebari’s expression, scrunched up with concern, “I won’t hurt him. The samples are very small. There won’t be any permanent damage, and the scarring will heal.”

“Yeah, but it’ll hurt, won’t it?”

Zhaan smiled reassuringly. “He’s still unconscious. He won’t feel a thing.”

Aeryn said “I’m going to sit this one out if you don’t mind.” and beat a hasty retreat.

Chiana watched Zhaan insert a long, thin needle into the alien’s right side. “This should be,” Zhaan explained as her probe took a tiny bite out of John’s liver, “the large organ just below his stomach. I think it not only provides a certain type of bile to aid in digestion but from the amount of blood cycled through it, it also acts as a filter.”

Chiana didn’t care for the scientific side of things. Her only response was to cringe as the alien lying on the slab twitched in his unconscious state. Seemed to her like he was feeling everything, but Zhaan was occupied, dropping the tiny chunk of flesh into an examination dish. Later, all the pieces would be placed one by one into the vaporizer where then the computer’s diagnostics software would analyse them for chemical composition.

Current events in the infirmary bay and Zhaan’s normally beautiful blue in places fading to white and in others shadowing over to the color of an over-done food cracker, reminded Chiana to ask. “How are you feeling Zhaan?”

“I’m fine, Chiana.”

That’s what she always said. “Did Pilot have any luck locating a planet? You know, where you can...” What was the way Zhaan put it? “Store up Kelid?” Zhaan’s body must be nearly depleted of it, the stuff vital to her continuing life, Aeryn had explained. But that was a third of a cycle ago.

“Not yet.” Zhaan offered her most reassuring smile. “But I’m sure he will soon.” Zhaan appeared pleased with her work. “There,” she said to none in particular, “all finished.”

As Zhaan put away the accoutrements of her pet hobby, Chiana excused herself from the room. Poor alien bastard, she thought, and then said aloud “He hasn’t been on board for longer than a few days and already he’s being divided up like so many crackers.”

Glad for some privacy to study, Zhaan seated herself comfortably close to the computer. It had taken a few moments to chew over the information fed into it and was now offering some preliminary answers. Her eyes on the viewing screen Zhaan was transfixed by the graphics and information now being displayed. “Pilot, record please.”

¡°Recording, Zhaan.¡±

“Thank you.” Zhaan gathered her thoughts. “The alien’s body chemistry is similar to many species, for example Aeryn, Sebacean, the Peacekeeper species, but it carries several unusual chemicals I’ve never seen before, most notably those derived from plant food sources.” Zhaan glanced over to her alien study and noted that one of the small bandages she had applied had become soaked through with blood.

She stopped her studies for a moment and, not bothering with protective gloves this time, removed the small square of material. Sopping up the still leaking wound with a clean rag she carefully folded a new bandage to apply. The alien did not stir.

“Frell.” She snapped at herself when she managed to smear the blood with her small finger. Zhaan moved to a small sink to wash it off when the most extraordinary thing occurred. The small droplet of blood almost immediately began to be absorbed into her skin. She watched fascinated as her own tissue mopped it up eagerly. She washed anyway. It was not the first time such a thing had occurred, as her Delvan skin had evolved to absorb light, moisture, even some types of food, through her stomata. Why just last year, she had managed to get some of Rygel’s unpleasant saliva on one of her knees as she brushed passed his habitual spot at their dining table. Some of that had quickly entered her system as well, to no harm. At any rate, there was nothing she could do about it now and if there was any bad reaction to come from the exposure, it would show itself eventually and she would deal with it then.

“Pilot. I’m finished for now. Would you call D’Argo and Aeryn to take our patient back to his cell?”

¡°Certainly.¡±

Zhaan returned to her own chamber pondering over what she had learned about their visitor thus far. There was much meditating to do.

FSFSFSFSFSFSFSFSFS

John awoke in more pain than he had felt since the crash. He even hurt inside, like something had crawled in and stung him in a few places, leaving behind some good bruises as reminders. He was back in his old spot, chained by the wrists to the wall behind the cot they had provided for him. Blanket. Pillow. Not much to call home. “Hey!” He yelled as loudly as his sore throat would allow. He wondered if he was coming down with something. He was on an alien ship after all, filled with aliens. They could be carriers for any number of space diseases that he most likely had no immunities to. He could be dead soon. His skin could blister up, his hair go purple and his nuts turn into blobs of alien goo for all he knew - a corpse by the end of the week.

“Hey! Bigfoot!” Plus his stomach was gurgling. ”How about some of those dry, tasteless crackers?”

Instead he got wrestled to the ground by Big Ugly Man and Hot Bitch, and a fucking computer chip or something stuck to the back on his neck. As he thrashed and cursed them, he heard the Little Grey Girl chatter on and on about what-the-fuck-he-didn’t-know.

“Can’t we put him out again?” Chiana asked as Zhaan held the chip in place on the alien’s neck, nudging it to what she hoped what the correct spot for his species while D’Argo and Aeryn held him in place.

“He has to be awake for the TC to do its job properly. If he’s asleep or unconscious, it’ll latch onto the wrong brain-waves and we’ll never understand this creature.” Zhaan said. “And we’ve come up empty on what species he is, so it seems we have no choice.”

The Translator Chip found its foothold and began bloodlessly cutting its way inside. Thousands upon thousands of gouges made into the flesh, then instantaneous healing of it behind, the TC quickly burrowed its way deeper and deeper until it found and linked its billions of artificial neural connections into his cerebellum and brain stem. Two final groupings of neural fibres snaked through his cranial fluid to what it determined was the seats of his language comprehension, small areas located on his right and left hemispheres. Through it all, their prisoner screamed at the top of his voice.

Chiana watched, both sorry for the new guy and transfixed by what was happening. They were finally going to be able to talk to him. “I got my TC arns ago but I don’t remember it hurting so much.”

Zhaan provided an explanation that was really not much of one. “You are a known species, Chiana. The TC was probably calibrated to your neurological system which we were unable to do with our guest.”

“Oh.” Still, the poor guy was screaming pretty loudly. Frell if he couldn’t get a break. She hated to see people locked up, chained, held down, things done to them that they didn’t want done. She was an escapee from Nebari and because of that she had managed to avoid the brain “cleansing” that almost all of her people were subjected to when they reached a certain age – whether they wanted it or not, so she couldn’t help but feel for him.

Finally he stopped thrashing and yelling and fell limp in their arms, sweating and apparently exhausted by the trauma.

“Chain him up again, and lock him in.” Was all Zhaan said.

“Now what?” Rygel asked. He had decided to observe this specific show in the hopes of some entertainment. He had not been disappointed.

Zhaan got to her feet. “Now we wait for him to awaken.” She said simply.

As she and D’Argo together lifted the unconscious creature onto a rolling cot, Aeryn added, “And hope we haven’t lobotomized the poor bugger’s mind.”

Zhaan didn’t voice her concern that destroying his brain was precisely what they had possibly just done. “Let him rest. I’ll check on him later.” Zhaan returned to her chambers to meditate the unpleasant episode away. She felt, however, oddly renewed by recent events, and there was a spring in her step that had been missing for a long time. Not that she had enjoyed his suffering of course but...it was most curious. She felt suddenly rested, perhaps even stronger. Funny, how the strangest things sometimes bring the most pleasing of surprises.

D’Argo strode onto the bridge with his usual manner of get where he was going as fast as possible. His huge sword/energy weapon was, as usual, slung at his side. “Your alien creature won’t eat his crackers this morning.” He growled, resenting that he had to share in the caretaking of the newest, and so far most useless, member of their ship-mates. The creature was no mate of his.

Zhaan sighed, trying not to look irritated. “I’ll mix up some more of my stomach treatment. It seemed to help the last time.” Their guest has thus far not attempted to answer any of their questions, despite the TC already having been in place for over a weeken.

“It’s not that kind of sick. His stomach hasn’t spilled, there was no shplep to clean up.” Thank any and all gods! “He just looks bad.”

Zhaan left D’Argo with the job of monitoring Moya’s systems while she checked on the alien who for all appearances of bearing good health when he came aboard, was rapidly deteriorating. He seemed to look bad, and had shplepood, an awful lot.

But this morning he was wet with perspiration and Zhaan had encountered enough species who had exhibited that symptom to comprehend its meaning. Their alien was down with fever, and to Zhaan’s right concern, that meant an infection or virus. As ships went Moya was cleaner than most. Being a living-ship, her scrubbers circulated and cleaned the air every few arms or so, but that didn’t mean that one of her crew couldn’t be carrying something that the new creature had no immunity to. Under the two hundred, thirty cycle near universal rule of the Peacekeeper Armada’s, almost all species received vaccinations for almost everything truly dangerous. But the galaxy was a big place and this creature had come from somewhere so far away, his species was in no data-base anywhere, and it was unlikely he had received such inoculations as a child.

Zhaan opened the door to her patient’s cell. He was still chained, though a bucket and a curtain had been provided for him to evacuate when he needed to without one of them requiring to interrupt their work and come take him to one of Moya’s commodes.

Zhaan leaned over him. He was sleeping and was in, she suspected, a high fever. Her stomach drink would do nothing for this. Laying her hand on a fevered chest to check his heart rate, she found it faster than she recalled from her examination of him eight cycles ago, but whether that was good or bad, she had no idea. Going over her store of medicinal preparations in her mind she found nothing that might assault it. She tried not to think that it could have been one of her instruments, or she herself, who had introduced a virulent microbe into his body. Later, a confession to the Goddess and a cleansing meditation would be required. After that a long rest, for she was terribly tired today. For the present a consultation of the crew was in order.

“The question is what do we do about it?” Zhaan asked the group.

Chiana appeared upset at the news but other than the suggestion of dunking him in cold water, she had no ideas.

“I say let the fever take its course.” Rygel said with what was for him Hynerian high-mindedness. “If he lives, he lives and if he dies...” He shrugged.

Zhaan nodded her head, expecting little else from Rygel. He was not long on creativity.

D’Argo remained silent, his arms crossed in defiance of doing anything.

“I have an idea.” Aeryn said. When they were all looking at her, she continued. “I knew a man once, a Peacekeeper. He...hated the life. Rejected it - ran away. Last I heard he was hold up on a Glahk, a Peacekeeper base that was decommissioned cycles ago.”

“How do you know him?” D’Argo asked, very curious. It was well known that any Peacekeepers who consorted with rebels or deserters were considered criminals and deserving of death. If Aeryn knew this person, it meant she had acquired that knowledge prior to becoming a fugitive herself on Moya.

Aeryn cleared her throat. “He’s an old Peacekeeper commander named Yahbel Dob who lost his way fifty cycles ago. But he was a friend to Crais. Crais protected him.” She said, aware of their shocked faces. “Crais helped him escape.”

“How can he help our patient?” Zhaan asked.

Aeryn had forgotten to tell them the most important part. “He’s a doctor. A good one.”

D’Argo, ever vigilant when it comes to danger, asked “Where is this old base which Crais knows the where-abouts-of?” There was no mistaking the underscore of admonition in his tone.

“I can get it from Moya’s star charts.” Aeryn said.

“Wait a minute.” Rygel said, floating the inner of the circle. “We’re not really contemplating going to this place are we? An old Peacekeeper base means it’s in Peacekeeper territory. It means we’ll be flying through one of the Peacekeeper’s central systems, doesn’t it?”

Aeryn nodded. “An outer system, yes, but one that is still patrolled.”

“We have no choice.” Zhaan said. “But it doesn’t mean we all have to go. I could do it, with someone to assist me?” She looked around at the faces of her comrades.

D’Argo did not even twitch, making it clear what he thought of taking any such risk for one useless, probably dying alien.

Aeryn looked at her shoes. “I can fly you in the Transport but I can’t come to see Yahbel. Peacekeepers know the small break-away group is there but they also know the group broke away before Peacekeeper citizenship became legally mandatory for all Peacekeepers over the age of two. Yahbel’s group doesn’t bother anyone but if any one of them think turning in a fugitive might up their score with the Peacekeepers and keep their freedom for another few cycles, some just might do it.”

Zhaan accepted Aeryn’s offer with a small smile of gratitude. “I understand. When can we leave?”

FSFSFFSFSFSFSFSFSFSFSFSFSFS

Zhaan carefully forced her patient to drink a brew of Tannot Root. In sixty or so microts, he was awake but drugged up enough to be lead with little struggle to the transport ship, where he was once more chained. He mumbled a few unintelligible words, but his fever continued unabated. In fact, from the heat of his back across her right forearm, Zhaan was certain the fever was worse, and dragging him from his bed had hardly helped matters.

Aeryn was able to avoid the one Peacekeeper cruiser in the vicinity. It was armed and active, but seemed to be only listlessly fulfilling the perusal of its duty, orbiting an outer moon of the uninhabited pseudo-planet Koaal. There would only be trouble, Aeryn reasoned, if there were fighter ships out and about. With little trade and no enemy outposts anywhere in the system, there was no reason to have dispatched fighter ships anyway, and so nothing alarming ought to occur.

“I’m taking us to the main hangar of Uhl.” Aeryn said. It was the largely empty city on the small southern continent, where her acquaintance the doctor was supposed to have his doctoring business. “I’ll land and lock up the ship after you leave, and for frell’s sake whatever you have to do be quick about it.’

Zhaan nodded. “We will.”

Half steering, half carrying her patient to Yahbel’s antiquated shop proved less difficult than she’d anticipated, and arrived with almost her full strength intact. But she was on a planet, wasn’t she? Hand-made surfaces for walking and not a lot of trees or grass, but still she felt better somehow being planet-side, even if it wasn’t the right type of planet.

“Come on.” She said softly to encourage her patient to keep moving. Finally, they struggled through a glass door black with cycles of filth, entering a dark interior. There were three chairs, two broken, and a long, narrow counter supporting nothing more than dust. Had Aeryn been mistaken? Was the old doctor gone?

A hinged voice from the rear room answered her unspoken question. “Come in finally. Ya’ can’t expect me to do any healing in that dump, can you?”

Zhaan swept the dividing curtain aside with her left arm while supporting her patient with her right. “Are you doctor Yahbel?”

A very, very old Sebacean turned from his old fashioned printed books and regarded her as though she were retarded. “And who else would I likely be?” He narrowed incredibly wrinkled eye lids nestled in a face that had seen three hundred cycles at least. “Eh? Blue child?”

Zhaan recognised the old Sebacean nick-name that some had given to her race. It was meant as a derisive comment on their child-like belief in things that could not be seen, like gods and the hope for peace. She thought it wise to overlook the insult. “I am Zhaan. This creature is ill and I’m afraid my healing herbs have been no use.”

The old Sebacean’s eyes, two tiny black spots surrounded by a mess of black, straw-like hair, lit up as though he had not had a good medical mystery for some time. “Well, let’s have a look at him then. Lie him down there.” For a moment he returned to his books that were scattered in piles on every shelf. Jars of roots and mercurial liquids filled all the spaces in between. “What is he by the way?”

Zhaan made her patient comfortable. “He’s male.”

Yahbel turned around with a book in his hand. This one had no outer binding remaining and was written, as far as she could tell, in a language she had never encountered. “I can see that much without your help, you fool. I mean his species.”

Zhaan stared down at the creature’s pale, perspiring face. There was an ugly black half moon beneath each eye. “That’s just it – I don’t know. That’s why none of my elixirs have worked.”

That piqued his interest. “Oh. Well, then we must figure that out first, mustn’t we?” He chuckled, a soft giggle that sounded like the dying squeak of a drannit. “You wouldn’t want me to accidently kill him after coming all this way?”

Zhaan tried her best to smile politely but only managed a grimace at the old man’s coarse humour.

The fellow performed much of the same examinations as Zhaan herself had when the alien had first come on board, only with older instruments. He also did things like lean in and sniff the alien’s skin, peer into the depths of his ear-holes, and palpate his abdomen with his fingers, probing deeply in this place and that. “This is no Sebacean, that’s for sure.” He remarked. Yahbel took a small knife and cut a slice of skin from the upper arm, as well as a smear of blood. “I’ll just run these through my diagnostic computer.”

“Our own computers were unable to identify him.”

“But you didn’t use my computer, did you?”

“Well, no, but – “

“My computer, its data-base and its brain, isn’t from these parts at all. There are species in my data-base,” He turned to look at her pointedly, “and in my brain that no one’s ever heard of but me, and that includes your Peacekeeper protected data-base too, where people think they keep the addresses of the gods. Hah! Idiots.”

As his computer did its work, the old man spent a few more microts staring down at the alien patient, biting his lip. “His build is wrong. Well proportioned but...wrong.” He muttered aloud. “Not Sebacean, not Kibum, not Cerus-Das, not the eyes of a Sebacean Slave-Bred either. Five fingers so not a Marunee...” He frowned and shook his head. “No sign of Calnonod secreting glands below the navel...the coloring is wrong for a Prussh, the musculature is wrong for a Verandinda warrior, skin dyed for battle.”

His computer trilled for attention and Yahbel gave up his puzzled monologue for a moment, reading the results on a tiny hand-held screen large enough for only his eyes. When he was finished, she shuffled his bent body to the diagnostic analyser and checked the results of the blood work and skin sample. He muttered something to himself. “Boro...what? That can’t be. Nothing in this system produces it. Nothing in this sector.” He shrugged to himself. “Nothing in this galaxy. Except for one world.”

Zhaan was shocked when he turned to her and demanded. “Is this some sort of joke? Have you altered this creature to play a joke on me?”

“What? Of course not.”

“Well, if it is a joke, it’s a damn odd one. This creature isn’t from anywhere that I have heard of, or seen, or even dreamed about. But I’ll tell you one thing I do know, he carries a form of borocarbonate in his tissues. I can see why you’re so worried. Is he your mutant secreter? Your life-giver perhaps? If so, I have never heard of a beast created in such a way. It is an amazing feat of species bio-engineering. Congratulations.”

Zhaan’s head was swimming. Created? Bio-engineered? Boro..? Borocarbonate? How could it be? The very essence of her illness. The chemical soup she craved and had been lacking for almost a third of a cycle. Her physical life.

“Too bad he’s dying.” Yahbel started putting his books away.

“Wha- no, no. You can’t.” Zhaan stumbled over her words, trying to explain. “Please. We didn’t create anything. He crashed onto our ship, we have no idea where he came from or what he is.” Borocarbonate? The elixir of her own body, her flesh in its desperate need. And it – he – lay there melting in fever, now too sick to walk on his own, and too stubborn or too brain-ruined to speak to them. Had the TC caused this? Her instrusive examinations? The food cubes, the water, the air on Moya? Had they somehow been slowly killing him? “Please. I beg of you. You must help him.”

Yahbel shrugged again. “I can try.” He placed cool wet rags on his head and chest and administered an injection of broad spectrum anti-viral/biotics. He also doused the sleeping creature’s hair with a fowl smelling Oil-of-Peruut that Zhaan recognised as a wholly mythical healing ointment oft used by Delvan under-graduate priests.

Yahbel looked at her. “Eh.” He said. “It can’t hurt.” He waved her away. “Take him home now. There’s nothing more I can do.”

As she struggled to get her burden to his feet, Yahbel tucked a small data crystal into her robe pocket. “Here. This contains some more trivial information you might read sometime, if you want to.”

“What do we own you?” Zhaan handed him a small white purse. It jingled with coins.

Yahbel took it without opening it. “That’s fine. Nothing to buy on this planet anyway.”

As Zhaan made her way to the door she heard Yahbel’s final words. “Oh and, say hello to Aeryn Sun for me, will you?”

That made Zhaan hoist her patient along all the faster. She reached the transport module, practically threw the patient down on the wall shelf, not bothering to chain him at all. He was unconscious now, and wasn’t going anywhere. “Let’s go.” She barked at Aeryn.

Aeryn fired the module’s main engine. “What happened?”

“Please, let’s just go home.” Aeryn flew as fast as the small ship could manage and soon they were all safely aboard Moya.

FSFSFS
The Right of Skin - Chapter One Glossary:

Shplep; vomit, puke. “Usage: “I hate cleaning up shplep.”
Shplepood; the act of vomiting. Usage: “He’s shplepood. Gross!”
Shplepooded; the act of already having vomited. Usage: “Uh, oh, he already shplepooded. Get the bucket.”

Chapter II

FSFSFSFSFSFSFSFSFS

John woke up alone, unchained but still in his thread-bare clothes the nice aliens had provided. All he remembered from the last few days was some horrible dream of having his head cut off, and the big bald blue female looking down on him. He’d never seen white eyes before. Or blue skin. Or any of the strange things he had encountered during the last week or so for that matter.

From the corridor movement came and the blue creature touched a place on the wall outside the cell that was beyond his field of vision. The door slid aside silently and she entered with yet another smile. Always the smile.

“How is your body?”

John sat up, a little too quickly, grabbing his head to keep from falling over again. “What did you say?” Had he just understood her? Sort of?

“Is your body well?”

He assumed she meant his health. How he was feeling. “Like shit, thank you.”

Was she blushing - er, blueing? He tried again, keeping it simple this time. “Better.”

“I’m happy.”

Goody. “Where’s my uniform?”

He saw her mull over his question. How she was able to understand anything he was saying and vice-versa he didn’t know or care about right now. What he did care about was getting his space suit on, getting in his module and blasting the fuck out of this nightmare.

“Your clothing was soiled. It was incinerated.”

Oh right - space diaper. Flight Control had expected him to be gone for over fifteen hours and his module didn’t exactly have enough room for His and Hers. Shit! “Then how about fetching me some better clothes than this Oliver Twist ensemble?”

He could see she understood only a part of his request. “You want more clothes?” She asked, trying to clarify it for herself. “Soon we will bring you something else to wear.”

“How come – “ Keep it simple, Johnny. “Why do you understand me?”

“Your brain appears to have adjusted to the interpreter technology. It will continue to improve as we communicate.”

John sat up straighter and swung his legs over the side of the hard bed. “Interpreter – you mean that thing you stuck into the back of my neck?” That fucking thing that felt like a chain saw? “That really hurt.”

“Yes, I know. I’m sorry.” She clasped her hands in front of her flowing white robes, and wore a weave of golden something at her throat as though she were dressed for someone’s wedding. She also smiled again very patiently. He was already beginning to resent the hell out of that smile that seemed to say “But everything’s A-okay now, don’t you think?”

“The chip makes it possible for different species to talk to each other.” She moved to sit beside him and he shuffled to the end of the bed as fast as his aching muscles would move him.

She stopped mid-stride. “I apologise.” Looking disappointed, “I understand you must be confused, frightened.”

“Yea - yes.” He answered.

“We are not here to harm you.”

Damn funny thing to say. That’s all they had done to him since the crash.

“We simply want to know who you are. Where you are from.”

Uh-huh.

“May I start with names?” She placed her hands together between her ample breasts. “I am Pa'u Zotoh Zhaan.”

John tried to twist his tongue around it before settling on “Zhann. Got it.”

“And your name is what?”

May as well play along for now. “John Crichton.”

She repeated, saying it as “Jun Kritun.”

He shook his head. “No, it’s J-a-h-hn.”

She nodded, pleased as punch. “Are you hungry, Ja-h-hn’?” This time she said it with the correct vowel but with the incorrect accent.

Close enough. Actually he was starving. “I’m dying for some pizza.”

Zha-h-hn’s face went from pleased to fearful at the word “dying”. Whatever the technology was, it wasn’t perfect and it had obviously interpreted some of the words literally. He hastened to ease her fears. “I mean I am very hungry, yes.”

She nodded, still a small frown of what appeared to him as worry across her formerly perfectly smooth brow. Looks like he was going to have to spell out his meanings a little more carefully, so one thing was certain, small-talk was about to get a whole lot more boring.

FS

All they had to offer him was more of the food cubes. It was clearly their only source of nutrition at the moment and he tried to satisfy his hunger on them but it wasn’t easy. He found he needed to wash most of them down with copious amounts of liquid. “Thanks.” He said looking around at the faces seated at the table. The small gray girl was there, Zhaan the wedding dresser, and himself. The big guy was nowhere to be seen.

“Where’s the big orange guy?”

The girl, Chiana (the only recognisably normal sounding name other than his), spoke. “He’s at command.”

Bridge, then, or Control. Whatever. He didn’t care. It was time to go home. “I’d like to leave now.”

Chiana looked at Zhaan who looked back. “Where is home?’ Chiana asked.

“Earth.” What the hell? This was all a dream anyway. Had to be.

Zhaan whispered to Chiana. “Did he say soil?”

Chiana nodded.

John sighed and stood up. He swayed a bit, still not right in all his parts. “Earth is the planet’s name. I got to get back there now. Thanks for the food. Nice meeting you all. Goodbye.”

John started walking in the direction of what he hoped was the docking bay. He really didn’t remember too much, but since it was all a dream, he ought to be able to get there just by thinking about it. He wandered down the elegantly curved corridors, this way and that, aware that at least two of the figments of his dream-state were following him. Not caring what the figments did, he stopped and clicked his heels together three times, saying aloud “There’s no place like home.” He waited then opened his eyes.

Nothing. “Shit.”

Zhaan and the grey girl figments continued to follow him. Figment Zhaan was speaking. “John. Please don’t go yet. There is so much we want to know.”

Figment Chiana for a change spoke up with more than one word. “And it’s dangerous out there. There’s Peacekeepers and marauders.”

Peacekeepers?

“Please stay with us, John - for a while?” Zhaan asked, her hands wringing more with every step he took in the other direction.

He shook his head. “Sorry. Gotta’ report in. You know how bosses can be? They wanna’ know things; speed, distance, stars, planets, worm-holes, trippin’...”” Gotta’ get off this crazy bender I’ve been on.

Zhaan didn’t understand everything John was saying but she stopped following their spooked guest long enough to privately call D’Argo. “D’Argo, can you meet me? We have a problem.”

¡°Where?¡±

“ I’ll let you know when he gets there.”

D’Argo quickly found John who had somehow found his way to the door of the docking bay. He was occupied trying to figure out how to open it when D’Argo closed in on him. “Going somewhere?”

John recognised the big alien’s voice but did not turn around. Ignoring figments was probably the best way to get rid of them. “Since you’re here, Figment, how does this door open?”

D’Argo didn’t understand everything, but he understood enough. “My name is D’Argo, not Figment. If it were up to me, I blow you out an airlock, but since it’s not...” He lashed out with his tongue and struck John on the side of his neck. It was so fast and so silently executed, John didn’t even know anything had happened until he went down hard without a sound. D’Argo walked over and with his foot nudged the alien Zhaan had said was called John. “Nuisance.”

When Aeryn had heard what happened, she came to John’s cell. Zhaan was already inside sitting on the bed beside the unconscious John. Aeryn unlocked the door and stepped in. Zhaan acknowledged her with a backward glance but kept busy tying a thick string around his upper right arm. “What are you doing?”

Zhaan knotted the string right. “Taking another blood sample. I want to make sure he’s all right - from the sickness I mean.”

“Oh.” Zhaan was dragging quite a tidy amount into several old fashioned glass vials. “Why so much?”

“There are many tests to be done.”

“Chiana said he looked okay at dinner.”

Zhaan shook off Chiana’s medical opinion with a one shoulder shrug. “Chiana doesn’t understand these things. John may have sounded fine, but he is anything but fine. Not yet.”

Aeryn dismissed it. “So what now?”

Zhaan said sadly. “I don’t know. John wants to leave, but it’s dangerous out there for him. Strange, he appears to have no idea where he really is - that we are in deep space.” Zhaan sounded sad. “He seems so...” She searched for the correct word. “..primitive.”

“If his ship’s anything to judge by, he is. His planet must have very limited technology. I don’t understand how he could have gotten so far from any system with only sub-light engines.”

“We should convince him to stay.”

Aeryn thought that a little odd. “Why? If he wants to kill himself out there, we have no right to stop him, and Moya’s all right, so the crash was clearly an accident. His ship has no weapons anyway and he’s not a Peacekeeper. I say if he wants to go, we should let him.”

“Go where, Aeryn? You just said it yourself, there are no nearby systems. Where will he go? Where is his home world - this “Soil”?”

Aeryn shrugged. “I have no idea but we can’t keep him here against his will. If he wants to risk it, it’s his choice.”

Zhaan was annoyed at Aeryn’s visit, and her overly-casual attitude to another being’s life or death. Aeryn may be a fugitive but she was still Peacekeeper from her insignia to her holster. “He could die out there.”

True, Aeryn thought, but “So could we all, even on Moya.”

“Well, for now he has to recover from D’Argo’s tongue. I hope this doesn’t make him sicker.”

Aeryn thought that, other than being unconscious, the guy looked much better than before. He wasn’t as pale as Zhaan’s robes anymore and he appeared to be breathing regularly. “He’ll sleep it off I think.”

Zhaan nodded but did not turn around, and Aeryn left her alone to fret over her newest hobby.

Once Aeryn had gone, Zhaan locked John’s cell and retreated to her own quarters. There, she drew the curtain for privacy and sat down to stare at the prize she had just siphoned from John’s veins. Her priest’s conscience was having difficulty harmonizing her own behaviour with the ethical and moral edicts of her faith, but the power she suspected contained in John’s body fluid was too potentially helpful to resist. If what the old man had said was correct, and if what she herself had experienced in the medical bay and while touching John, these small vials of liquid could save her life. At least for a while, they could be her physical salvation.

She carefully un-stopped one and let a few droplets flow out onto her upturned palm. Already it was thickening, clotting. She would need to store it at a colder temperature she realised, or chemically treat it to prevent the coagulation. She wasn’t sure how the thickening blood might alter its absorption into her own tissues but now was as good a time to try as any. With the fingers of her left hand, she rubbed the cooling blood into the palm of her left hand, waiting for it to disappear as it had the first time.

But this time it didn’t. This time it simply lay on her palm as a gross looking wound, an alien’s blood staining her own blue over to white skin. Nothing was happening. She did not feel any different, even after almost an arn of sitting and waiting. Perhaps the clotting agent rendered The Kelid contained in the blood inert. Yahbel had called it something else, but she was sure it was the same substance as what her people called The Kelid, of which her planet Delva was saturated; the only know planet to be so. Her kind absorbed it all of their lives and without it they died. They could survive for years without setting foot on their home world but once their body’s stores of The Kelid dwindled, they were compelled to return home or face a slow and certain death.

Perhaps she had been wrong about the red blood? There was only one way to know for sure. While John was still unconscious she must make a small incision in his skin and allow the blood to immediately contact her own. She must not store it this time for even a microt. One way or another she would know.

Zhaan returned to John’s cell with a small knife tucked into her sleeve, and purpose in her eyes. She would ask the goddess for forgiveness later.

FSFSFSFSFSFSFSFSFSFS

“Zhaan.” Aeryn was not given to dishing out the compliments but seeing Zhaan’s radiant face and her face the shimmering blues of a quasar, she couldn’t help herself. “You look fabulous.”

Zhaan smiled back. “How kind, Aeryn. I feel fabulous.” The previous night she had experienced the sleep of the restored. The slumber of the newly born in body and spirit.

Chiana couldn’t stop staring either. “I don’t get it. You look better than ever. What happened?”

Zhaan busied herself with her duties at the sensors consol. “I enjoyed an especially deep meditation followed by a restful night. I suppose I’ve bounced back somewhat.”

“Did you check in on our guest, D’Argo?” Aeryn asked as the tall Luxon walked onto the bridge.

“Yes. He’s still asleep. Not only a useless creature, a lazy useless creature.”

Zhaan started.” Oh, I’ll go check on him.”

But Aeryn beat her to the punch. “Never mind, I’ll do it.” Now that his brain had adapted more fully to the translator tech’, she wanted to see what he was all about, if he was in the talking mood that is.

With misgivings Zhann watched her go. “D’Argo,” she said quietly, “may I speak to you privately?”

FS

He was awake when she arrived at his cell. Awake and demanding to be let out. Aeryn didn’t recognise all of the words he was saying but from the expression on his face she could guess a few of them were not particularly flattering.

“You do realise your ship probably won’t work anyway. Your landing wasn’t exactly top marks.”

“I’ll fix it. I’ll make it fly.”

Aeryn didn’t bother to correct him that, in the strictest of terms, no space ship “flew”. “Where will you go? We’re light years from any system.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

Which chances were exactly nothing above zero. “That wreck is sub-light. It’s practically sub-flight.”

“Are you going to stop me this time?”

“No, but it’s not up to me.”

“Got any spare parts I can use then?”

“Only for my fighter.”

“How about spare spare parts?”

“No.” Aeryn couldn’t think of any better argument but “It’s a one way mission to suicide. If you know anything about space you know I’m right.” She wished she was better with words. She was a soldier, not a diplomat and this creature’s stubborn illogic needed a talker, not a fighter. “Do you even remember how you got here?”

“No.” He looked away from her to the dim lights in the corridor outside his cell. “A little. Maybe.” He sat forward on his cot, the chains dangling to the floor, making soft music. “I remember a solar wave, bright light. Pressure. Blackness.” He looked at his fingers. “That’s it.”

Not much to go on. Wormhole? Maybe. It was theoretically possible, but whatever it was, it had dumped him in the middle of a battle in the center of an asteroid field at the shit end of the sector. Aeryn knew that deep down he knew he wasn’t going anywhere. “Maybe it’s no comfort but there isn’t a person on this ship who doesn’t wish they were someplace else.”

That was clearly a new thought to him. Aeryn came to understand from the few words they had just exchanged that he knew about as much of them as they did of him. Even less. She took a moment to explain a little about their fugitive status, the Peacekeepers wars with the Scarran and that they, and their ship Moya - a former prison transport, were being hunted by both.

He kept staring at his hands, sounding defeated. “Maybe I should lie low for a while...”

The TC had given her “Stay down” for “lie low”. She understood. “It isn’t so bad here you know.”

“Yeah?”

She was fairly certain the word was an alternate to “yes” which she had heard him say several times, no longer needing the TC to interpret it for her. She copied the words, a little like saying “Yes” without the “s”. “Yy-eh.”

“When can I get out of here?”

When he raised one arm to rub the tiredness from his blue eyes, Aeryn noticed it. “You’ve cut yourself.”

He tried to see where she was pointing. On the underside of his forearm was a small fresh cut, but it had already clotted well.

“How did you do that?” Just how fragile was this creature Aeryn wondered. Just how useful would he be if he got injured every time he walked down a hallway or cut himself in his sleep?

“I don’t know. In my sleep I guess. When can I get out of here?”

Apparently their personal time was now over. “I’ll talk to D’Argo.”

John called after her. “Great idea. Talk to the Bigfoot who hates me. I’ll get sprung sometime next year.”

It took a while for Aeryn to track him down, as D’Argo was not answering his communication link. Finally she caught up with him on his way to the bridge. “Why didn’t you answer me?”

“I was preoccupied.”

“With what?”

Aeryn was being nosey today. “With...just with things. What do you need, Aeryn?”

“Sorry, I just wondered what you and Zhaan think of letting our guest out of his cell now, on a permanent basis.”

D’Argo kept up his quick pace. “Fine.”

“Fine?” Aeryn kept pace right alongside him. He was in such a hurry. “Last night you wanted him gone worse than Rygel.”

“I changed my mind. The alien may stay and...” He looked at her to make it clear that though he had changed his mind, it was with reservations, “...prove himself useful. Zhaan agrees.”

As though Zhaan would ever kick anyone off the ship and still be able to live with her conscience. “Okay. I’ll let him out.”

D’Argo kept on to the bridge and Aeryn let him go, watching him put distance between her and himself with his massive strides. John was right about one thing she realised, D’Argo did have awfully big feet.

FSFSFSFSFSFSFSFS

“John.” Aeryn found him in his quarters, its previous use of a cell now transformed into a private place to sleep and whatever else humans do when no one was around. “D’Argo and I need your help with this one.”

“With what?”

She found John, now their shipmate for nearly half a cycle, busy moving things around in his quarters. Curiously he was tearing down the old curtain they had put up for him to hide the old slop bucket, it having been cleaned and long banished to the storage compartments. “What are you doing?”

“Redecorating.” He tossed it out into the hallway. “This reminds me of when this was a cell.”

When he was a prisoner. When they had chained him up and put things in his body including an infection that might have killed him if they had not located a doctor. When he was not John, their companion, but a mistrusted alien.

“Help with what?” He repeated.

“A mission.” Aeryn referred to any time off Moya as a mission even if it was nothing but a short jaunt to a planet or trade ship to gather supplies. “We need lots of things and we can use all the hands we can get.” John wasn’t as strong as D’Argo but he was about as strong as she was, and so would be of help. Even D’Argo couldn’t complain – much – about how hard John was trying to fit in and be useful.

“And D’Argo agreed to this?”

Aeryn understood John’s meaning. They were all becoming more adept at interpreting John’s words, beyond the translation the TC provided. But she was getting better at it than most. It was John’s meaning behind the question that she picked up on. John was reminding her of how hard D’Argo was on him even now.

“D’Argo been “riding roughshod” over you?” She was even proud of occasionally being able to mimic his own metaphors back to him in his own language – a confusing language entangled with idiom and metaphor, allusions and mis-directions, even inflections designed to convey ideas precisely the opposite of what was being said - multiple layers of focus the TC couldn’t make sense of.

John gave her that tiny smile she looked forward to seeing, one that she saw not enough of, a tiny up-curl at one corner of his mouth, though at those moments the real humour came alive in his normally sad looking eyes; like now - they were twinkling. “You’re getting better every day.”

At speaking his language, he meant. It wasn’t any long term goal of hers to learn a lot of his “English”, she only tried so to assist her own understanding of him and, once in a while, to see that twinkle. “Is D’Argo really so bad?”

John pushed his bed into the far corner, where the lights of the hallway had no reach. A creature of the day who liked to sleep in the darkest dark. Wiping his hands on his pants, he shook his head. “I’ve had bosses worse than him. I remember this one time...”

Aeryn saw the twinkle disappear down the black holes of his pupils. Whatever thing he had been about to say, and the quick humour behind it she had been suddenly anticipating, disappeared just as completely. John cast his eyes elsewhere and said “Nothing.”

Any reminder of home, his home world, still made him go quiet. Aeryn often wondered at his type – the dirt-dwellers. A being born in space, she had no planet to cling to. No memories of home and warmth or friends. No images of dinners together or treasured belongings. Her mothers and fathers were scientists and soldiers, politicians and other powerful people put in charge of raising the next generation of Peacekeepers, and the next, and the next after that. What had been his life, she wondered, on that planet called Soil or, to use his speech, “Earth”? But John was an explorer of space, wasn’t he? He claimed to be, so how dear to him could Soil really have been?

She knew she had no proper words to convey her sympathy to him about his lost world and lost self, so she simply asked “Are you ready to go?”

FS

The trading vessel Aeryn had picked was sympathetic to Peacekeeper rebels, and they had little trouble trading a pair of scrubbers for several months supply of food crackers. They even managed to talk the little Ferundut trading Master out of a crate of spiced and dried synthetic meat that would supply some additional tasty fare for their dinners for nearly a cycle, but she had to talk John out of something to secure the deal.

“You said it wasn’t running anymore.” Aeryn was referring to the shiny gold “watch” that John wore on his left wrist. She and D’Argo both recognised the material as a very rare and precious metal easily worth two crates of meat, though the Ferundut Master would not budge on just the one.

“It’s an heirloom.” He said. The TC struggled to bring something equivalent to their ears, but neither understood.

John saw their confusion and explained – “A family treasure and I’m not giving it up.”

Aeryn tried reason. “But John, it’s old and doesn’t work, especially out here.” However pretty or sentimental, practicalities were in play and it was an outdated, useless ornament that was robbing them of food. “And we need this.”

D’Argo didn’t pull his punches. “Everyone on Moya makes sacrifices and that means you. If you’re inclined to stay on Moya that is.”

A veiled threat - give it up or you’re out the door.

John’s silent challenge back to D’Argo only lasted seconds. Aeryn knew John understood that they really had no choice if at least for a while they wanted to eat something besides food crackers. He slipped the device off his wrist, turned it over and stared for a few microts at the small circular back-face where words and a tiny picture had been etched with a fine instrument, then wordlessly handed it to D’Argo.

D’Argo took it without a word in return, and handed it to the eager Ferundutian trader. Their crates of food cubes and meat were loaded onto the transport ship and Aeryn set course for their return to Moya.

FS

Zhaan was present at the docking bay to welcome them home. She appeared relieved, almost agitated, when John and D’Argo stepped off the ship, their arms loaded with the first of many crates. “I’m so glad you’re home, J...all of you.” She said breathlessly.

“Have you been running Zhaan?’ Aeryn noted her high color and her rapid breathing. The priestess was standing very close to John, as though he was a child coming home from a long trip away, as though she was his mother. She knew Zhaan was anxious to help John fit in, but this was getting ridiculous.

Even John felt the discomfort of Zhaan’s hovering and stepped two feet aside to give himself more breathing space. “We’re all good.” He said. “How’s the home front?” But D’Argo had leaned in to hear something Zhaan was saying to him, so John didn’t stop.

D’Argo nodded to her and they finished unloading.

FS

At a dinner of welcomed meat alongside the food cubes, Aeryn chatted about the trip to the trading vessel and Chiana brought them up-to-date on the happenings aboard Moya. John added a few words here and there but most often just listened, determined to learn as much as he could about his new companions and about Moya as possible.

John reached for a large piece of moistened meat. “Anyone want to split this with me?”

Aeryn grunted her approval, but it was Zhaan who reached for the knife. “Oh – here, let me.” She took up the knife and sliced into the synthetic flesh. As she drew the knife across the grains, it slipped and ran its blade across the forearm of the person beside her.

John jumped back with a small cry of shock. It was not a large cut but began to bleed enough that he would require a bandage. Zhaan dropped the knife and turned to John. “How very clumsy of me, I’m so sorry John.” Without missing a beat she wrapped the flowing sleeve of her robe around the cut and clamped her left hand down on it, allowing John no time to wave her off with no worries left behind. The material on the robes however was so thin it did little to staunch the flow and it soon began to ooze out between her fingers.

Aeryn frowned at Zhaan’s noble but pointless efforts. “Nice try Zhaan but your robe isn’t fit to mop up a sneeze. Chiana, are there any bandages in the infirmary?”

Chiana nodded and, still chewing, stood and took John’s uninjured arm, hoisting him to his feet. “Yeah,” she said to Aeryn. “I’ll take care of it.” Chiana led John to the small medical bay. She pointed a chair for him to sit in while she spent a few minutes letting the blood clot beneath a proper fold of gauze-like material. “I’m no doctor or anything but I think this might need stitching.”

John lifted the corner of the gauze. The cut was deeper and longer than he’d first thought, about two inches in length across his skin and deep enough into the underlying tissue that the flow of blood was taking its time about slowing. He remembered reaching for that piece of meat. He remembered Zhaan sitting next to him, wedging her way in, in fact, between him and Aeryn. And he remembered the knife. It had lain between them but not so close to Zhaan that she had better access to it than he did. So either Zhaan was trying to be extra nice to him and also, for some inexplicable reason, was acting extra clumsily or...

“Is Zhaan okay?” John asked Chiana.

“Sure.” Chiana had her mind on the small nursing job Aeryn had charged her with.

“I mean, before, a weeken ago you were all kinda’ freaked out about her – like she was dying or something, but now she looks okay, so is she okay?”

Chiana shrugged her shoulders. “I guess so. She must have figured something out, you know, about The Kelid.”

“The what? The Kelid?”

“Yeah. A thing Delvan’s need to keep them going when they’re on a long space voyage or something. She looks okay, doesn’t she?”

John nodded. Yes she did. But he didn’t recall her ever being so clumsy, or so clingy before. Not since he was really sick those first weekens on Moya anyway. But then how long had he known Zhaan, or any of them, really? Less than a cycle. “I guess.”

FS

But even after several weekens went by, the cut refused to heal. Zhaan went so far as to cut out the first stitches and then re-close it very carefully with the tiniest stitches she could make, and still it did not heal.

For the ninth time over three weekens John was under her gentle ministrations in the infirmary as Zhaan cleaned the by now old, angry looking wound. She never bothered with gloves anymore and explained to John that now they had all been exposed to him and him to them, it was clear he carried nothing dangerous in his body plus, while confined aboard Moya and surrounded by aliens his health had remained intact since that first illness, therefore there was likely no longer any need for such caution.

The edges of the wound remained raw and ragged and without a bandage the blood would quickly seep to the surface and run over his skin. Zhaan frowned. “I am at a loss to understand this.” But she applied more of her Delvan healing oil on the cut for him, very gently rubbing it in at the edges with one tender-loving finger-tip, all the time looking sad for his pain and endlessly apologetic that she had caused it.

John appreciated the oil part of the treatment most, as it soothed the soreness and prevented the skin flaps from drying out and pulling the stitches apart. Besides it was all she had and at least it was better than doing nothing. “Thanks Zhaan.” She never failed to get some of the fresh human red on her own hands, but assured him that she thoroughly washed it away once she was finished.

John stood and left the infirmary. He was glad she was feeling better. She certainly was looking better than he had ever seen her, her endless shades of blue and shimmer lovely in the dim light. She smiled after him, all the warmth and kindness she carried in her heart following him with every step. Yes, Zhaan had turned out to be one of his rooted supporters and it was clear she genuinely cared about him. Her concern for the welfare of her shipmates was equalled only by her extraordinary, though markedly alien, looks.

Zhaan was beautiful.

The Right of Skin - Chapter III

Aeryn met John outside the docking bay. For this mission it was him and her. She had given him her spare sidearm which he had taken much time to learn how to use - and had gotten pretty good. His aim was almost as polished as hers and he possessed a steady hand. He was also dressed for the occasion in the synthetic leather pants and vest that had been part of a recent treading mission’s spoils.

She was gratified to see that he was also fitted with what had become part of his daily ensemble, whether it was a stay at home day or a go out on a mission day, his home-made durable bandage consisting of several layers of gauze all wrapped in a dark stretchy material with metal clips to hold it in place. No matter the rough treatment it had proved well made and did not budge for many arns.

Chiana had put it together for John when, working alongside him in the storage units, she had noticed him repeatedly pulling the old bandages that had seen better days back into place until they were sopping, his ever bleeding wound stubbornly refusing to heal.

Even now the wound leaked with impudence. Today however was no trip to the market. Peacekeepers were near enough that Moya would soon be visible on their sensors, so Pilot had taken Moya into a small asteroid cloud orbiting a dwarf star and shut down everything but life support. Aeryn had fired up her Prowler and asked John to accompany her. To use his language he was after all an “astronaut”, so it was high time he learned how to fly the better ship; the ship with weapons. And since Moya only had energy shields, the Prowler’s guns were their sole means of defence. She hoped they would not have to use them.

Once they were space born, John asked “Who is this “Craise” you keep talking about anyway?”

“He’s the Second Fleet Commandant who declared me “Irreversibly Contaminated”. When I escaped, his rank was reduced to mere commander of a single patrol ship, and he’s been looking to pay me back ever since.”

“Seems to me he’d do better to spend his energies getting his career back in the grove.”

“That’s not how things work with Peacekeepers. Once he had Declared me Contaminated, my record would have been carefully examined by his superior. It was determined since Craise had somehow missed noticing that I was some sort of weakened sympathizer, and secretly disloyal to the Nation, the fault was his.

“In the Peacekeeper service it’s impossible to live down a blotch like that on your record. Once a serious mistake or misjudgement becomes known, you’re forever barred from any rank above commander. According to Craise I ruined his chances to ever make First Commandant, and it’s not something he’s likely to forgive.”

John thought it a particularly harsh nation but he did not voice his opinion. “So you can’t ever go back?” That was the part with which he could especially empathise.

“No.”

What had Aeryn said about Moya’s occupants wishing they could be elsewhere? Despite how he had been treated when first coming aboard, John had eventually understood that they had been correct to be suspicious about him. Thereafter he had decided to learn more about his shipmates and so slowly had begun to understand them better, even trust them - all except for D’Argo who remained aloof and uncompromisingly critical of his presence aboard Moya.

John had soon stopped trying to befriend the beast. When it came to working with the Luxon he did what he was told, when he was told to do it and although it was sometimes humiliating to have orders barked at him, at least he wasn’t bored anymore.

Plus now he had Chiana and Aeryn to talk to, both good companions despite their different approaches to life. Aeryn was all about discipline and work, while Chiana took life by a more daring horn and sometimes insisted on combining work with fun. Even Rygel was good for a few laughs now and then, when he deigned to talk to the newcomer at all.

But especially he took comfort in Zhaan, who welcomed him as though he were a long lost brother come home at last. He had also come to see how heavily the others also relied on her for her unwavering kindness, her patient wisdom and her extensive knowledge of the healing arts. No one thus far, though, had become his confidant. He did not feel enough at home here - not yet. Whether or not he ever would?

He was also aware that, though each of the others was alien to the rest in their own right, he was the only true outsider. He had no fantastic physical strength, no extra-special abilities, and no powerful weapons to offer to this gang of outer-world fugitives. When it came to the matters of space and exploration on Earth he had been at the top of his league, but here he was the tag-along, the last-comer who didn’t even know for sure how he had arrived. All others who had taken refuge on Moya brought something useful to the table of their combined struggle.

However, no other being on Moya possessed so little as he, and now and again it bothered John greatly that all he really had to offer them was a willing spirit.

“Pilot,” Aeryn called Moya. “From now on, communication silence until the patrol is gone.”

“Yes Aeryn.” To John, Pilot’s soothing voice sounded very remote.

John waited along with Aeryn in the Prowler, hoping the gods or whoever controlled this sector of space listened to their silent words for help.

Such was not to be, however, as the patrol ship abruptly changed course, heading straight for the fraction of asteroids where Moya was hold up hanging darkly in space and hoping to appear as just another oddly shaped space rock.

Aeryn watched the patrols slow advance on Moya’s location, trying to discern whether by blind luck it just happened to head Moya’s way or if it knew she was there and was making a stealth approach. “John?”

“Yeah?” John, occupying the rear seat, could see the edges of Aeryn’s monitors. He could not clearly see what was transpiring with Moya.

“Remember how I showed you to fire the secondary engines?”

“Yeah.”

“When I tell you to, I want you to fire them.”

John paused. “Aeryn, if I do that the patrol ship will see us for sure.”

“That’s what I’m counting on.”

“What-?”

“-We don’t have time to talk about it! They’ve already seen Moya, and I’m going to need all my primary engine power diverted to my forward weapons if we want to save Moya.”

He had to trust her. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“We’re going to draw their attention and make them chase us. If we’re lucky, Moya can starburst.”

“Great. What are we suppose to do in the meantime?”

“We’ll hide in the asteroid cloud. If I can find a large enough chunk of rock and land on it, we should be safe until Moya comes back.”

Should. If. Luck. He supposed he ought not to be surprised. “God watches over children and fools.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”< br>
Aeryn’s plan worked better than expected save for a hard landing on the asteroid and a slightly lesser hard landing back on Moya. When they climbed out of the Prowler, both aching from sitting for nearly ten arns and both needing facilities, food and sleep, in that order, Aeryn noted the only casualty of the entire mission. “Your head.”

The right side of John’s forehead was smeared with blood. “It’s just a small cut. I wacked it when we landed.”

“You didn’t have your face-plate down did you?” She admonished him. “How many times did I tell you during training to frelling always keep it down during take-off and landing?”

He waved off her reprimand with a good natured but slightly sarcastic salute. “Yes Captain. Yes s-i-i-i-r.” She was right of course as he headed to the infirmary, but he simply wasn’t use to the face-plate. He was used to his helmet that didn’t need to be frelled with once it was locked in place.

“Zhaan.” John called her as he entered the infirmary. Zhaan was often there when she wasn’t in her quarters. “I need your magic fingers.”

Zhaan was indeed there, preparing tea. “While in starburst, Chiana and Rygel spent the whole evening eating flin-flets.” She said as way of explanation for the stirring and fussing over her steaming pots. John guessed that this particular tea must be Zhaan’s special mix for an upset stomach, since Flin-flets were an especially sweet concoction made of plant sugar and heavily laced with Razlak, then flash-baked into a hard candy. None of the potent effect of the Razlak was lost when flash baked. “Chiana’s digestion did not fare as well as Rygels.”

John smiled at the scene of Rygel and Chiana getting drunk together. Neither enjoyed starburst, and neither handled stress very well. He would loved to have joined them.

When Zhaan finally turned around and saw his bleeding forehead, her skin of brilliant blue faded to nearly silver, as though someone had poured a large bucket of water over her and washed out the colours. “My goddess, John, what happened?”

Abandoning the tea pots, Zhaan swiftly gathered some clean cloth and her bottle of boiled down Fillip nectar which she used as an antiseptic.

“I hit my head.” John said. Where he was concerned she was always a bit of a mother hen but her reaction seemed all out of proportion to the small injury. “It’s just a small cut.” But ever since the accident with his arm, whenever she was able Zhaan had been keen to watch over his every move aboard Moya.

“Of course.” She did not sound reassured.

Poor Chiana. Rygel probably made a Who-Can-Eat-the-Most-and-Still-Stand? bet with her, and since Rygel had three stomachs it was no small wonder Chiana had lost. “Rygel could eat the shlock out of a Budong on his worse day and still sleep like a baby.”

Zhaan often found John’s crude way with words uncomfortable but today she did not appear to even notice the cursing. She quickly cleaned and dressed the cut, sending him on his way with a nervous smile.

FS

“How’s your head?” Aeryn asked him during their next target practise. The bandage on his forehead was gone and only a small, red mark remained.

“Fine. Healed right up.”

The bandage on his arm, she noticed, was still there. “Any luck with the other?”

He in fact had not removed to examine that old wound for many days, having grown so used to its presence that he often no longer felt it. It had become yet just another article of clothing. “I dunno’.” John holstered his weapon and sat down against the wall to remove the stretchy outer covering, and the bandage itself wound around his forearm.

Even he was surprised to see that it was finally, after more than eight weekens, healing. “Better.”

Good news yet his voice said the contrary. He was puzzled.

“What’s wrong?”

As she stood over him John looked up at her with those human blue eyes full of curiosity. “Why didn’t it heal?”

Aeryn wondered if the human was seeing things. “John, it is healed.”

He stood up. “No, Aeryn, why didn’t it heal before?”

Aeryn had no idea. He was a human, he was different. She supposed that his body didn’t respond to many things the same way as hers did. The same undoubtedly held true for Chiana or D’Argo, or Zhaan herself. “Maybe something was preventing it?”

“Maybe.” Maybe Zhaan’s healing oil wasn’t much of a healer, at least not for him. “I’ll show it to Zhaan, maybe she can explain it.”

“I’ll come with you.”

Zhaan examined the wound and smiled at John. Evidently she was greatly pleased by the news. “I am not sure why it took so long but I am very glad that gash has finally closed.” Leaving aside the healing oil, she applied some simple astringent and left the wound uncovered.

John nodded. “Maybe it was the knife. Something on it that affects me but not the rest of you?”

Aeryn didn’t think it likely. “Possible I suppose.” Did it really matter anymore? “Shall we resume the lesson?”

When her guests had departed, Zhaan searched for and found D’Argo and Chiana in his quarters. Chiana groaned when she saw who was visiting. She was anxious to get down and nasty with D’Argo and Zhaan’s visits never ended quickly. The Delvan was a talker. “I’m sorry Chiana.” Zhaan said when Chiana excused herself, mumbling all the way.

Even D’Argo appeared not to welcome the impromptu visit tonight. “What is it Zhaan?”

She turned frightened eyes on him. “The wound has healed.” Her eyes appealed to him, to the ceiling, to Delvan heaven itself. “What am I to do?”

D’Argo, thwarted libido still in overdrive, spoke the solution that him was obvious. “You must get it some other way.”

Zhaan searched his face. “How?”

He rolled his eyes. “It is contained in his tissues, yes? His body fluids?”

Zhaan nodded. D’Argo knew all that. “Yes.”

“Then...snurch it.”

Now she was thoroughly confused. “Snurch it?”

“From him.” To D’Argo his meaning was clear. “Borrow his body. His flesh, his whatever humans call mivonks.”

Zhaan stared as though the Luxon had gone mad. “You mean...bond with him?”

D’Argo rolled his eyes. “No, of course not. I’m not talking about mind-sharing or making a baby, I’m talking about your body and his doing znu-nu.”

He really was insane. “You mean use him as a-a tralk?”

“Well, no, you’re not paying him.”

“No, no, I’d only been thieving his flesh!”

D’Argo sighed. He was already tired of the conversation. “Listen Zhaan, you came to me. If it’s your sensibilities or his you’re so worried about, then make sure he doesn’t find out. But you need The Kelid, and he has it. Makes sense to me.”

Zhaan was outraged at the very suggestion. “Well, not to me. John trusts me, he is a friend.”

“He’s a mouth to feed that we can’t afford.”

“Nonsense. You hate him. I don’t believe you even know why, but you do.”

It was true. John was a weakling human, a species with no particular use in war or survival as far as he could determine. There was only one thing John Crichton was that set D’Argo’s eyes on fire – he was male. And another male on board Moya was a threat to his position here. The others had put him in charge and he’d be damned if another male, even one as weak as this human, was going to stay long enough to upset the balance.

The Luxon shrugged. He’d offered his suggestions, it was up to her whether to act on them or not. “Then cut him again.”

Zhaan shook her head vigorously. Already she had spent many arns asking the Goddess for forgiveness for that infarction. This, this would send her to the Luxon’s Hezmana for sure. “It’d look suspicious. I can’t lie to him.”

Damn the woman’s Delvanian religious proclivities. “May I remind you that you already have been? What’s the difference between those lies and one more? Is there a limit to your heaven’s forgiveness?”

Zhaan covered her heart. “This is impossible. It would be an abhorrent weight for both of us!”

“Only if you insist.” He said, and then his final bit of advice. “Unless you’re willing to die for those convictions, you’d better think about it. We need you here Zhaan.” It was unfortunate that she was in such distress over the idea of taking what didn’t belong to her, but it was a matter of her life and death. Life was the better choice. “It’s up to you, and that Goddess of yours I suppose.”

Zhaan nearly fell onto his bed, her need to suddenly sit taking away her power. “IF I were to do this...thing, how would I ...?”

D’Argo was glad to see she was at least considering the idea. “Easy. Give him a nice strong drink of Tannot root syrup or something on those nights when your need is great.”

“Just walk up to him and hand him a drink?” It was ludicrous.

“Don’t be an idiot.” No wonder the Peacekeepers so easily defeated the Delvans, a race possessing no imagination for strategy what-so-ever. “Put it in his food, in his drink. The effects are delayed by five or six arns so plan it carefully. Make sure you time it so he’s on board Moya and things are calm. When he goes to sleep, take what you require.” A Luxon warrior would. Luxons value survival and survival is what Zhaan faced. Besides it would not permanently harm the human. In his dreams he might even enjoy it.

“This is wrong, D’Argo. Wrong, wrong, wrong.”

D’Argo smiled to himself. Not “That would be wrong, I won’t do it D’Argo.” But “This is wrong.” Zhaan was already owning the idea. The pathetic human was as good as a znu-ed tralk. D’Argo was pleased.

FS

It was when her color began to fade again that Zhaan lit the many candles and sweet smelling smoke of her worship, stripped nude, kneeled on the floor of her chamber and begged the Goddess for forgiveness for what she was about to attempt. For hours she stayed in a single spot, breathing precisely one breath for every twenty-nine microts and reciting the many mantras as her Supreme Priestess Matron had taught her. If she could reach the state of a level ten Pa’u in the next few days, she would be ready to join with John in The Healing.

“Where’s Zhaan?” Chiana asked the group one evening when the priestess’s absenteeism at the dinner table had become conspicuous.

“Praying again.” Aeryn responded with the tone of the utterly bored. All this religious stuff made her itch for a good honest fight.

“Have we found a planet that might look good?” Chiana asked. She was ready to take a walk planet-side herself. They had been stuck aboard Moya for nearly a third of a cycle with no respite. “Or one that’s even close?”

John shook his head. The wound on his forearm that had taken so long to heal had finally fully done so. All that was left was a small white scar. “Not yet.” He didn’t understand all of the science behind it, although he had a pretty good idea, but he for one hoped they located a suitable world for her in the next weeken. Zhaan’s striking colors had faded once more and he for one was worried. Everyone had whispered their concerns in the dark corridors of Moya, almost afraid to speak them aloud as though doing so might make them reality all too soon. Only D’Argo remained silent.

But not speaking her name too much worked like a conjuring trick when Zhaan suddenly appeared in the dining chamber and sat down next to John. In her hand she carried a plate of sweet cakes. “To apologize for my absence.” She explained. “I made them this afternoon.” She placed them, in the center of the oblong table and everyone but D’Argo reached for them with pleasant grunts.

Only Chiana, though she reached out too, didn’t get a cake. She glanced at D’Argo who had grabbed her hand when it reached for the last one, holding it in place.

Chiana pulled away. “Hey!”

D’Argo shook his head. “You don’t need it, Chiana, you’re sweet enough.” The un-Luxon characteristic compliment rang so hollow even Chiana laughed, shrugged it off and went for the cake again only to have D’Argo snatch it up and toss it to John, who caught it.

John, seeing Chiana’s insulted face, he didn’t dare bite into it. Instead he waited as D’Argo and Chiana had a little tiff right there at the dinner table ending with D’Argo insinuating that Chiana was getting fat.

“You must see it for yourself, Chiana.” The Luxon insisted. “You are getting a full around the hips.”

Chiana threw down her fork and stormed away with D’Argo in tow, the tall Luxon trying to convince his sleeping mate that though he still loved her, he was right.

John thought it all very amusing and popped the tiny cake into his mouth. It was delicate and delicious. It was also satisfying that though the Luxon liked to lord it over others, he himself had a lord as well, a short self-minded female lord with a tongue of lava.

John said to Zhaan “You oughta’ to pray more often.”

Though not looking at him, Zhaan nodded her gratitude. She understood his human hidden meaning behind the odd compliment – not that she should actually pray more, but bake more wonderful sweet things.

Zhaan had not baked enough of the delicacies for her to enjoy a cake but nibbled at her own plain dinner of food cubes and sytha-meat, murmuring “You’re welcome John.”

Licking the sticky sugar coating off his fingers, with affection John watched her have her dinner.

Sweet Zhaan.

FS

D’Argo was waiting for her outside of John’s quarters. He made his wishes clear without hesitation. “No cakes for Chiana ever.”

Exactly comprehending his meaning - “Yes, I’m sorry D’Argo. Not for you, myself nor Chiana.”

Drugged sweet sleep only for those who might cause some real trouble: Rygel because he might seek to profit from any secret knowledge of Zhaan’s (or anyone’s), ethically questionable actions, Aeryn because she liked John rather a lot, and John for reasons even Zhaan did not wish to admit to herself; so he would not be hurt of course, but most of all so he should never remember what was about to happen to him this night, and would never suspect that it was his friend Zhaan who had brought it forth.

“I already feel tainted.” Zhaan said to D’Argo, a silent appeal beneath her words for him to reassure her once more that she was not about to make a terrible mistake. But D’Argo did not care to sooth the Delvan’s conscience, and left her alone to do as she willed.

Zhaan entered John’s quarters, finding them dark and quiet. Her Delvan ears could hear him in the corner of the room making the soft, even sounds of deep sleep. She made certain the curtains were drawn and knew she would have to remain quiet through-out the three hours of The Healing. It was longer than when one Delvan would heal another and share The Kelid of one’s replete body with one whose stores were dwindling, but John was a human and, possessing The Kelid or no, Zhaan had no idea how long it might take to absorb enough of The Kelid from his body or how long it might last in hers. This was The Kelid from a distant world she had never stepped foot on, and from a species with which she had never joined. There were variables to this undertaking, a journey that lay heavily on her mind and one that was already making her soul ache.

Divesting herself from her single robe and, gratified to see that John was wearing nothing beneath the thick blanket, Zhaan swallowed her troublesome thoughts, crawled into his bed and spent a few microts considering how to proceed with him. She knew The Kelid ought to be secreted through his body fluids, sweat, oil glands, saliva and semen. Tonight she would focus on the simplest of sources for The Kelid; the wellspring of her health. She rolled over on top of him and took his face between her hands, kissing him gently, teasing his lips open and tasting the wetness within. It was surprisingly sweet to her palate. She did this for many minutes, imagining already that she was feeling better. Zhaan straddled him with her strong thighs and although she had no intent on coupling with his organ, she wanted to look at him to ensure he was all right. Of course he wasn’t so fragile as the others believed, still she had no wish to harm him in even the smallest degree.

In the near dark with her white eyes seeing everything to its finest detail she looked down at her unwilling partner in The Healing. So different than she, this human. Overall his skin was smooth, warm and softly golden in color, here and there fading over to near white where skin and sinew joined bone, and in the extremities – desert-sun pink. This red-blooded alien with the sand-flesh skin and the water-blue eyes; like a creature of a distant sea, was like none she had ever seen before.

How idiotic they had been to have first believed him to be Sebacean. That breed were starker in their bones, whiter in their fleshly cells, colder in their black eyes and, she now believed, harsher in their individual spirits. John, despite his sometimes crude speech and often puzzling alien thoughts, was a gentle creature who wished harm to no one.

Zhaan closed her eyes on the last thought, and understood to her core that what she was doing spoke the truth of it. She could only hope that his spirit was as forgiving as The Goddess.

But to appease the spirits of The Healing flight she would be gentle in return, and kissed him deeply, feeling the flush of his body as it responded, even in his sleep, to her Healing manipulations, as his temperature slowly climbed. He moaned and moved a little in his sleep - a welcome response. She could not help but let a small breath of delight escape her mouth. “A-h-h-h...” With closed eyes she imagined the red flush traveling across his skin as she offered warmth and rich caress to him in gratitude.

“Yes, John,” she said quietly in his ear. “Yes, I am here.” She whispered “You are Su’jen.” A word that meant “unique” and “borrowed many-thing”. She had come to humbly acknowledge that he was both alone and separate but also hers in this special way, for now.

“I love you for this.” Zhaan whispered even though he would not remember, and even though her act held nothing of love other than the touch of her ringed fingers and the friction of her eager body. John would understand - he was Su’jen. And he was much more.

John was beautiful.

FSFSFSFSFSFSFSFSFS

Three weekens into John’s second cycle aboard Moya and Zhaan had made a miraculous recovery. She appeared in vibrant health. “Perhaps my stores were not so depleted as I’d first believed.” Was her explanation.

John, although in relatively good health, was not faring so well. Chiana walked onto the bridge one morning with one thumb pointed over her shoulder and looking for an answer among her shipmates. “Hey, John can’t get out of his bed.”

D’Argo ignored the news while Arryn and Zhaan both questioned Chiana: Is he fevered? Pale? Was he shplepood?

“No. He just says he’s too tired and sore to do anything. I saw him walk from his bed to the door and back, he looked like a dried up Ruzgtan lizard.”
“Probably intestinal inflammation - Karee’us or possibly Ukad infestation.” Zhaan quickly surmised. “I’ll prepare an oral treatment.” She hurried off without another word.

Chiana grinned after her a little. “Nice having our very own doctor of sorts on board, huh?”

D’Argo paid a visit on Zhaan while she paid a visit on the sleeping, sick Crichton who was, she knew, not so much ill as physically worn beyond his threshold.

“Been riding him pretty good, Zhaan?” D’Argo leaned against the doorway, his arms crossed, laughter ready to split his face.

“Oh shut-up D’Argo, I have not been “riding him” as you so coarsely put it. I’ve been taking of The Healing too frequently and for too long a duration. He’s simply exhausted.” She stirred something in a small bowl, waiting for John to awaken when she would feed it to him. “I shall make my visits less frequent and take only what I immediately require and no more.” This is what she had feared most: John unwell because of her.

How difficult it was, though, to hold back once she had tasted the wondrous Healing power in his lovely body. It was almost like being home again. Almost like walking in the fields of C’Urrenee Sumja near the Sumja-Hah’na Monastery. “I shall be more careful.”

“And how are you going to do that?” D’Argo asked, a little scornful of her feathered ways with the human.

“I shall give him the drink tonight but not perform The Healing, so he will sleep deeply all night.” It was a rest he deserved and one she would be just fine without. Her stores of The Kelid were not full by any means, but she was a weeken at least from any symptoms of its lack. John would be fine.

Five arns after dinner and her sweet meats delivered to those specific shipmates D’Argo had outlined, Zhaan herself went to bed to rest the entire night undisturbed.

Aeryn had thanked her for the cake but tucked it away in a fruit basket once Zhaan had left to deliver her treats for the others. The Delvan had become a bit obsessed with them and had taken to making the damn things two and sometimes three times every weeken, and she herself for one was bloody sick of them.

John claimed prey to a “sweet tooth” and never refuse the offer of one of Zhaan’s little cakes. Rygel had eaten his and asked for more, then scooted off to bed in a foul mood when he discovered that Zhaan never made extras.

Pilot never ate anything that Moya didn’t already provide of course.

All was quiet and well on the ship until, in the midst of sweet cake dreams, Pilot raised the alarm. A Peacekeeper patrol had appeared not one solar day away from their position. Moya had not detected their presence until it was too late to avoid them, and she herself had been seen.

Aeryn called Pilot on the internal communications link. “Pilot, Is everything ready?”

“Yes, Aeryn. Minimal life support has been shunted to Moya’s outer hull on the third aft deck. The access-way will be sealed by the DRVs once you are all inside, and I will monitor your life signs from here.”

It was her and D’Argo’s contingency plan in case any Peacekeepers managed to get on board Moya and right now a patrol was fast approaching Moya for that very purpose. Moya was about to be boarded and there wasn’t a damn thing they could do about it except hide and try to figure out from there how to rid themselves of a Peacekeeper patrol crew and take back their ship. Weapons, food and water were already stored in the tiny compartments, enough for six persons for three days. Typically a Peacekeeper patrol frigate would spend one day arranging to man a captured enemy ship, leaving behind a crew of just five persons with basic firepower.

At least Moya had a one man advantage.

Aeryn looked around at the small gathering of her shipmates, each prepared to go into hiding. “Wait a microt. Where’s John and Rygel?”

No one appeared to have an answer as to why John or Rygel had not heard Moya’s ear-splitting alarm. “Oh frell!” Aeryn ran back to the crew quarters as fast as her legs could carry her.

John’s cell was empty. Rygel was sleeping in his skimmer right up against the ceiling. No amount of desperate whispers from Aeryn stirred him and he was well out of her reach. Rygel was out cold.

FS

John had heard the horrid alarm system. It had wakened him from a sleep so deep it had taken him a very long time to rouse enough to finally sit up and slip on a pair of his thin cotton pants, then stagger from the room. But instead of turning toward the predesignated hiding spot Aeryn and D’Argo had prepared, he turned toward the bridge. Something, some old memory in his tired mind, before he flew rockets to the stars but instead when he rode ships on the seas, had told him that when the alarms go off, you go to the bridge.

His eyes however did not see straight and true, blurring everything together in a blob, then splitting it all apart again into dancing floors and shifting walls. Shouldn’t there be ocean outside the window? Why do the stars look that way? And where is Captain Stubing and Doc’?

Aeryn searched for John until the last possible second, until in fact the Peacekeeper party was already on board and systematically searching Moya themselves for disavowed crew, rebels, contraband, smugglers holds and anything else they deemed illegal. Aeryn managed to avoid them all until she almost ran headlong into a group of three. Ducking behind one of Moya’s elegant internal support “ribs”, she barely saved herself from being captured. Still no sign of John.

By keeping very still Aeryn was able to peek out and see this new Commander. She sucked in a breath. He was The Walking Death man of her childhood nightmares. A skeleton all dressed in black with eyes the color of magma. This Peacekeeper commander was no one she had ever seen before. She hoped the others had crawled into their little holes-in-the-walls.

While she watched, the communicator of one of the sub-commanders called for attention. A small voice emanated from it. “Sir!” Excited. “Scorpius sir, we’ve found a crewman. A Hynerian. He’s accusing us of poisoning him - I think he’s drunk.”

Damn him! The stupid little – “And another sir. A half naked Sebacean, we think.”

Frell! They had found John. What the hell had he been doing since the alarm sounded? Knitting a Solar sail? Aeryn could see such sloppiness as getting caught while drinking from Rygel, pretty much expect it from him - but from John??

“Bring both of them to the infirmary.” Sir Skeleton Scorpius answered his minions. “We’ll set up there.”

Set up? Aeryn hated to think what they might be setting up but if it was necessitous to them bringing special equipment on board, it couldn’t be anything good.

FS

Aeryn kept to the air passageways to make it back to her tiny hidden band of brothers. “They got John and Rygel.”

Chiana asked “How? Why the frell didn’t they come with the rest of us when the alarm went off?”

Aeryn shook her head. “I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense.” ‘Half naked’ the soldier had said. John had been running around half naked in the wrong section of the ship.

At the news of John’s capture Zhaan looked stricken.

Aeryn tried to reassure her. “Don’t worry, Zhaan, we’ll get him back.”

D’Argo was listening into the passageway, trying to formulate a plan. “Never mind that now.” He told them. “We can’t help them if we can’t help ourselves first and that means getting out of here and taking out the stand-in crew once the commander and his patrol ship are gone.” Since she was all things Peacekeeper, he glared at Aeryn as he asked the next question. “And how in the frell did they find us again?”

They had spent weekens locating and disabling every tracker the Peacekeepers had installed on Moya. “I don’t know!” She snarled back. “We must have missed one. Maybe something designed to look like just another piece of Moya, maybe programmed to activate once we’ve dropped out of Starburst.” Or both or neither, she had no idea.

Aeryn recalled the horrible face and the lizard-like voice. “And that’s another thing. This commander – he’s not Sebacean. I don’t know what the frell he is, but I’ve never seen him before, or any-thing like him.”

“Not Craise?” D’Argo asked. Too bad his face seemed to say.

Aeryn knew D’Argo would love a chance to twist Craise’s head clean off. Well, he had her vote. “Definitely not Craise. They called him Scorpius.” And he looked like some very bad news.

FS

Scorpius’ efficient servants and crew had completed the preparations demanded of them. Once the not-Sebacean was strapped into The Chair, all personnel except for his trusted assistant Scorpius then dismissed with a wave of one, finger-clawed hand. All his nails were thick like the nails of a beast and he liked them kept painted and very, very sharp.

Turning the machine on at this point was unnecessary. This creature was asleep. He stirred for just a few seconds and mumbled things. Much of it the keen audience of two did not understand, but Scorpius listened very closely. He understood little of the language that his own translator technology built into his mammalian/synthetic brain attempted - and mostly failed - to decipher.

The creature in his dream state said more. “Z-zann, the ship,...danger,...Huston,...this is the explorer ship,...worm...hole,..where are you,..why,...why...?”

Things meant to be private Scorpius was certain. Highly curious, “What language is that?” He asked his pretty helper, already knowing she did not know.

She shook her head at him. Scorpius knew she wished she had the answer because she liked to know things like he did, and because she loved him. She was an excellent assistant for sure, but the sentiment was not at all mutual, though he kept his lack of feelings to himself.

“Send over my personal physician.” He ordered.

While he was waiting Scorpius took a moment to contemplate the little he had heard. The creature before him intrigued him immensely but one combination of words from the beast’s mouth made him...almost tingle:

Worm...hole...

FSFSFSFSFSFSFSFSFS

Glo ssary: Znu-nu – the sex act. Usage: “We never znu-nu anymore Scorpy!”
FSFS

The Right of Skin - Chapter IV

D’Argo favoured waiting until the commander left with is two assistants.

In a fierce whisper “We can’t wait - they’ll take John and Rygel with them.” Aeryn said. “Where is that famous Luxon bravery?”

“It’s alive and well.” He snarled back. As far as he was concerned the loss of either Rygel or John would be no loss at all, if it were not for Zhaan needing the damn human. For that reason alone they would have to rescue John and Rygel while all the Peacekeepers were still on board.

“Any ideas?” Chiana asked both of Moya’s resident warriors. “Come on, you two are supposed to be the brains of this outfit.”

D’Argo did have an idea, one he didn’t much like. “You know what I think?” He said to Chiana. “I think you need to put on some of your Nebari perfume.”

Aeryn blinked. “Are you crazy?”

“No.”

Half a cycle ago, along with John’s new clothes, Chiana had purchased some of the outlawed scent on the black market. It was a Nebari pheromone-based oil that her home world Establishment had declared unclean. The first time Chiana had worn it for D’Argo, he’d gone half out of his mind with lust.

“Trust me, any Sebacean that gets the stuff in his system will be on our side for the next twenty-five arns. Besides,” D’Argo admitted, “It worked on me.”

Referring to the rescue – “Okay, what’s the other half of this plan?” Aeryn asked.

D’Argo nodded to Chiana. “Once Chiana’s got most of the guards distracted, I create a disturbance in Moya’s aft, the sanitary chutes would be best. Far enough away from either the bridge, the infirmary or the docking bay to give you at least a few minutes to deal with Scorpius.”

Chiana thought the whole thing pretty risky. “Wait a microt. What if Scorpius doesn’t send his guards aft? What if he just calls for more troops from the patrol ship?”

Aeryn shook her head. “Not likely. Peacekeeper pride will work to our favour. Calling for back-up too soon would indicate a weakness. But eventually they will, especially if there’s a stubborn problem.” At least that the way it used to be when she was still in the Nation, she hoped things hadn’t changed too much.

D’Argo made certain his Qualta blade was charged and ready to bring down whoever got in their way. He looked at each of his companions, and said to Zhaan. “Can you handle the soldier on the bridge?”

“Let The Goddess make sure there is only one.” She said and nodded. “But yes.”

“Good. Wait until my signal, take him out, then get to the controls and be ready to starburst.”

Aeryn reminded D’Argo, “We can’t use our communicators.”

“Frell.” D’Argo had forgotten that part.

“Don’t worry,” Zhaan assured them, “I’ll know when you’re ready.”

Aeryn frowned. “How?”

Zhaan shook off the question, and urged them to go. “Does it matter right now? Just go. Pilot and I will be ready.”

D’Argo said “Let’s go make a problem.”

FS

Scorpius’ physician, a short Sebacean with a round face and shrewd eyes entered the infirmary where his employer had an alien strapped into The Chair, a horrible invention of Scorpius himself, designed to rape the mind of its subjects until all knowledge had been sifted through and drained. This one was the proto-type. It was a bit clunky, but it was portable and could be hooked into almost any ship’s power frame.

“What took you so long?”

The doctor glanced nervously at his boss. “Sorry, Scorpius, sir, I had to gather some special instruments. I wish to be thorough with this Sebacean.”

The commander, instead of looking assuaged by his servants’ assurances, appeared sharply annoyed, and Scorpius leaned in close so his skull-like face was only inches from the doctors. “I already know he is not a Sebacean. If I needed an idiot to tell me he was a Sebacean, I would have called for a hired tralk.”

Sweating, the doctor anxiously nodded to each of Scorpius’ points.

“I am half Scarren, half Sebacean.” A malicious Scorpius explained. “I know a Sebacean by glance; by his sweat, bones, skin and smell. I know a Scarren by his three foot skull, two inch teeth, and his ability to rip your spine from you with a single blow. What I need you for, you moron, is to tell me what the alien is.”

“Y-yes sir.” The doctor made with his scanners and told Scorpius his findings as he did so. “Iron-based, haemoglobin-rich blood. Good musculature and bone structure. Not quite middle-aged, I’d estimate approximately thirty cycles old. One four-chambered heart, liver, kidneys-“

Scorpius shouted –“Enough trivia! Is his species from this sector or not?”

The doctor entered the information into the Peacekeepers Medi-base and waited. He wasn’t sure whether the results would please or infuriate his boss, so he kept his voice neutral, reading from the instrument itself. “The Peacekeeper data-base has no record of this species anywhere in this sector...” bushy eyebrows climbed curiously at the next part, “or in this galaxy.”

Scorpius kept his eyes on his semi-conscious subject. “Go now.” He never said thank-you unless it served a purpose other than gratitude.

The doctor threw one sympathetic glance at the pathetic creature in The Chair who was about to be thoroughly introduced to his malevolent captor, and scurried from the room.

Scorpius’ female Sebacean assistant stood near the door, awaiting her master’s orders.

“Leave me.”

It was the look in his eyes as he studied this new creature that made her heart hurt, but after only a microt’s pause, the rare blonde Sebacean obeyed, locking the door from the inside as she went.

Scorpius approached his subject, injection in hand. “Time to wake up.”

FS

D’Argo reached the aft section unmolested. He hoped Aeryn had got herself tucked away near the infirmary, well hidden from Peacekeeper eyes, and Zhaan concealed near the bridge.

Chiana was back at her quarters, beneath the bed. It had been ridiculously easy to slip passed the patrols Scorpius had assigned to search the corridors and chambers of Moya. None had thought to search the space between Moya’s hulls. It was a hiding spot they would probably need to use again in the future, but only if their luck held.

Chiana found and unstopped the small cask of thick oil Nebari women used to woo and sexually control their men during centuries passed, a substance now banned by the New Establishment. Its charm as that it worked on many species. Chiana applied a liberal amount to her own skin and, in between Peacekeeper patrols walking by in the corridor, sprinkled it around her room as well. Moya’s air scrubbers and circulation ducts would do the rest.

FS

John awoke to the face of death looking back. He had never expected Satan would be into Goth. “That outfit’s a little obvious, don’t you think?” He muttered, barely above a whisper.

Scorpius caught some words as familiar. Others were not. He’d had hundreds of languages and Peacekeeper dialects downloaded into his bio-synthetic cortex – a this language was truly alien to him. “Interesting. What is that speech?” The question was rhetorical because he didn’t truly care. What he did care about was this creature, his body and his brain.

It was a nice body. Well developed. Clean looking. And, like all the predecessor victims before it, always and ever so vulnerable while strapped in The Chair. As this creature’s body was – young and slickly muscled – and hardly dressed - it brought forth cravings in him he only very rarely indulged.

But the words “worm hole” was what intrigued him most. “I know I should introduce myself,” Mister Gothic Satan Wannabe said pleasantly, “but first things first.” From a small metal case he withdrew an object John didn’t recognise, but his vision was still wonky and he could hardly think straight. What was Satan doing?

“I wanted you to understand that I already know who you are.” Scorpius raised a finger, a grey, leathery missile marking its target. “Not who you are you understand because in that chair your name is not relevant, but who you are; your foreign origin.” He paced around the room like a professor with a favoured student. “For example, I already know that you are not from this galaxy. I know you are not a Sebacean nor from any known species. I know you are approximately thirty cycles old and that you already have attached to your brain the Peacekeeper TC technology which allows you to understand me, and me to understand, well, most of the words you speak.

“I am grateful for this - makes thing so much easier. You see some of your speech is presently incomprehensible to me but, fortunately for us, this Chair will make the TC technology virtually unnecessary.” Satan stopped his aimless wandering and stooped over to peer into his captive’s eyes. “Now back to you.”

John felt those eyes roam over his body like ice-water, leaving behind chills.

“You’re...an attractive creature.” One thick claw traced a pattern across his chest, then down his abdomen, coming to rest on the loosely tied string that held the gathered waist of his sleeping pants together. “Quiet attractive.” Satan whispered it “Unusual, that color of yours, gypsum and puce.” He bared thin lips, revealing a full predatory set of teeth. “And such a fragile skin, your species has; so easily injured.” Satan ran his claw beneath the pants string, sweeping it back and forth and back again. “Or pleasured I think.”

He stood straight above John, near to touching though and completed his insane speech. “My name is Scorpius. Some people think that those who seek out the cruelties of this universe cannot possibly possess the ability to see beauty or to perceive love. They are wrong.” Satan-Scorpius leaned in closer again. “Balat’Zwalt, the last great king of the Prussh people inspired his artisans to create objects of indescribably beauty from the bones and skins of his enemies. He built a sky ship from them and offered it to his bride. In it the couple lived for sixty cycles before the Peacekeepers came and burned it to ashes while they slept inside.”

Scorpius, lecture completed, opened the devise, folding back a covering to reveal what appeared to be an elaborate stamp, like the kind a bank teller would use on Earth. Its flat side was circular and three inches across. Raised in its center was a design made from some sort of metal. John watched as Satan-Scorpius turned it over and did something to it, turned a knob perhaps. By the time the black devil turned it back over and showed it to John, waving it in front of his face in fact, the raised design was glowing red. John could feel no heat from it however.

Finally an inkling of what Scorpius intended stirred in John the first beginnings of real fear. Whatever was wrong with his faculties, whatever had confused and addled his brain, was swiftly being shoved aside by adrenaline and fright.

Scorpius leaned in and John caught the distinct scent of flowers and heat - weird. Satan didn’t like flowers, at least he shouldn’t. Heat of course was another matter. The skull face, the metal cuffs, the black leather. Was this the Underworld or a rock concert?

John then remembered that he didn’t believe in Satan or hell. Funny how some of your strongest convictions can be shaken when you least expect it. If this Scorpius was not Satan then..? ”Oh, I get it.” John said his speech more distinct now. “You’re the little devil dancing on the devils shoulder.”

“Did you forget? My name is Scorpius, not Devil.”

Same difference.

John nodded. “I’d shake hands but I already can’t stand you.”

“Oh, you hate me now,” Scorpius answered with the soothing tones of the madman in control, “but you’ll loathe my very existence later.”

Right. Don’t antagonise the dead, John. “I hate to ask...” He really did. “But what now?”

Scorpius was looking at him in a way John could not immediately place. Scorpius’ eyes dressed ‘round in grey and black glided over John’s body as though looking for a place to land. His hideous face was possessive and cruel. He looked, not man to man nor beast to beast, but roaring hunger to its food. “What now you ask? What...now? Now, this arn, this very microt...” Scorpius placed the glowing hot thing against a spot on John’s upper left torso, above his breast where the skin was the finest and thinnest, where it exploded in pain.

“...and ever you are mine.”

FS

Zhaan crouched down and using the last of her focused mind, altering the light reflecting abilities of her cells in the dim light. Recently with much self-reprimand, she had forgotten a key principle of her creed: “Serve all. Harm none”, but at least she had not forgotten how to utilize her Delvan Idiridophores, mentally and biologically transforming her physical surface to reflect the shapes and colors of her environment, rendering her body nearly invisible.

Aeryn was in place, but she was not close enough to see into the infirmary which was still down another curved corridor. Come on, Chiana, hurry up. Work those pheromones girl.

Chiana was in her quarters, simply waiting. Soon the guards would once more walk by on their patrol, but this time they would turn in, drop their weapons and surrender to her body. They would not be able to help themselves.

FS

Scorpius kept it pressed there until the thing burned into the deepest layers of skin, until it reached muscle and sinew.

“To ensure a lasting mark of our acquaintance.’ Scorpius explained. Even his teeth were grey and black.

John, sweating bullets, gasped and yanked at the restraints, trying to control the high pitched whine escaping from between clenched teeth.

Scorpius continued to speak as though this were a conversation in which both were eager to participate, like they were already friends. “The synthetic silver dye is cationic, it is attracted to and binds with your skin, fat and muscle cells. When it is released into the wound, it will produce a permanent black and silver tattoo. The burn itself is molecular and destroys the DNA of the affected area. Simply put - your tissue loses its memory and can’t ever rebuild. Therefore although you’ll heal it makes the mark absolutely irreversible except by slicing off one’s own skin and tissue. However, I trust you’ll like the design I chose. I change them every-so-often when the old ones begin to bore me.”

Scorpius put the torture instrument away and applied a small dab of soothing balm on the fresh, screaming burn. John could smell his own flesh cooking. He was drooling a little. He couldn’t help it, it hurt so frelling much. “You prick! You frelling, sadist Inker.”

“I have no idea what that word meant, but I soon will.” Scorpius disappeared behind the chair and John heard him turning switches. The thing hummed to life. Scorpius returned to the field of his blurry vision and leaned over him, one clawed hand caressing the metal top of the chair’s back rest. The touch was fondness itself - almost sexual.

It crossed John’s mind that this Scorpius wasn’t Satan after all, or the devil on Satan’s shoulder, and that just made it all the worse. Here was a devil he didn’t know.

Scorpius smiled, just a little, again. “If you liked that, you’ll love this.”

FS

Once the guards were down and out, finally crawling all over each other in their lusts to frell anyone or anything, Chiana, laughing softly, took their communicator devises and their weapons, threw the empty scent-bottle on the bed and left, locking the cell door behind her. She’d used the whole cask, a five cycle supply of the stuff. Making her way discreetly through Moya’s darkened corridors so far Chiana was enjoying this plan quite a lot, and decided to go see how Aeryn was getting along with her part of it.

FS

On its lowest setting, John could feel the thing probing into his mind, gently pulling aside this curtain of memory and that one; gently sliding open this locked trunk of privacy or that one - the most recent memories first; the most weighty; those thick with emotion or turmoil. The son-of-a-bitch was taking his mind away, piece by piece, figuratively holding up each slice to his demon eyes for judgement and then either tucking it in his pocket as relevant, or tossing it out as trash.

And always the question: “What do you mean by “worm hole” John?” Over and over the same goddamn question.

His name Scorpius had located first, simple words filled with personal meaning and chained to every man’s inner vision of self; the throne of his identity.

“John Crichton, this will only become more and more unpleasant unless you tell me. What is “worm hole”? I know this is a knowledge you possess.”

John suspected the ugly beast already knew what a wormhole was, he just wanted to know how to make it happen. But that could lead the ugly fuck to....don’t say her name! “Frell you.”

“Oh John, you’re lovely when you’re in agony.” Scorpius turned the power higher and John heard himself screaming. Funny how far away the noise from his own throat sounded from the actual goings-on in his mind. He tried to keep pictures of meadows, puppies and butter-cream cake in his head, but the power of the probe was far beyond him and the authority behind Scorpius’ voice too sharp a stick to dodge for long.

Scorpius was now inside his head, hung upon mirrors and mirrors in his private history, on each one a portrait of his tormentor. Each mirror reflected them both, bringing forth pain, and each microt of that agony reflected the slightest turning to the weaker side. John could not help himself, the pull to give in was almost a high. All Scorpius had to do to consume another morsel of him was raise his fist and smash the glass. When he found nothing he wanted among the shards, the ugly bastard would move on.

John fought The Chair with everything he was, but The Chair made mad thoughts desirable and sane thoughts a hill of refuse. Truth became fiction and lies concrete. If it wasn’t so horrific to sit in it, John could almost admire its potent ruthlessness.

“John, John, John, you are tenacious, I’ll give you that, but if only you’d cooperate. We could turn to doing things far more pleasant if you’d only answer my simple question. Is it so much to ask? One simple question? If you did – oh! – then we could be, as a Luxon poet once wrote: “Warriors in battle, hunters in peace, and lovers anytime”.”

John struggled to make his mouth work, but speech wasn’t easy in The Chair. “You’re getting nothing.”

But off course he was. Scorpius was getting exactly what he wanted with every turn of the dial. He only had to reap John’s agony, thresh his mind, and brutalize his body long enough until he located that one item of his insatiable ardour.

“This is a shame John.” Scorpius said. “And as it’s time to go, I’m afraid I shall have to take you with me now. We’re going to become well acquainted.”

FS

Aeryn saw the soldiers posted outside the infirmary start chatting among themselves, then rubbing at their necks and sweating. Soon they were breathing a little harder, and pacing back and forth, until finally, both walking oddly, like sex zombies with something in their shorts, they slipped away from their posts to follow the urges of their bodies. Aeryn was astonished. Desertion of post was a crime of execution among the Nation. Chiana’s potion must have a hell of a kick. But at least she didn’t have to wait anymore. “Trouble-time.” Aeryn whispered to give herself courage. She checked the charge on her weapon, raised it to fire, blasted the door lock, and burst into the room.

One blast knocked Scorpius on his ass. He tried to touch his communicator to call for help but she kicked his hand away – hard! Then shot him again for good measure.

She asked John who was still strapped to The Chair. “Are you all right?”

A snarled rasp was his answer. “T’rific.” He strained against the straps on his hands, feet and head. “Get me out of this frelling thing.”

Aeryn obliged and helped him stand. He was swaying, staring at his torturer sprawled on the floor. “He’s not dead, Aeryn.” John admonished her. “He’s only half dead. He needs to be all dead.”

Aeryn nodded. “Yes, yes, we’ll deal with him later. First we’ve got to get some “frustrated” guards to their transport, eject them from the docking bay and then starburst the frell out of here before any more soldiers arrive.”

John protested as they left the infirmary. “Kill Scorpius first.”

But she couldn’t carry John who was half-dead and an all dead body to the docking bay all at once. “Look, we’ll come back and kill him later, this’ll only take a few microts - I promise. Now come on!”

FS

Zhaan, once the signal from D’Argo came, dispatched the sole bridge soldier with a powerful, well-placed kick to the head. She and Pilot then prepared Moya, and waited for the all clear to starburst.

Once all the soldiers from the infirmary and the bridge were loaded onto the Peacekeeper transport, Aeryn and D’Argo returned to the infirmary to gather the bastard of the hour.

“He’s gone.” Aeryn said of the one called Scorpius. “The Peacekeeper commander is gone.”

Pilot’s voice offered some clarity. “D’Argo, a small escape pod has left Moya.”

“Frell! I took his personal communicator but why didn’t he try calling for help using Moya’s?” Aeryn asked D’Argo or anyone.

“Zhaan had Pilot shut them down temporarily, including all those on the escape pods and the Prowler.” D’Argo explained. “Just to be sure.”

In other words, Scorpius had cut his losses and run. For now. “Good idea.” Aeryn said. That was why D’Argo was usually in charge, and why they relied so heavily on Zhaan.

The Peacekeeper transport containing the sexually intoxicated soldiers was shunted from the docking bay and only microts later Moya starburst to safety.

At the infirmary, Aeryn watched Zhaan and D’Argo busily dismantling the chair Scorpius, in his flight to safety, had been forced to leave behind.

“What’ll we do with it?” She asked D’Argo, trying not to think of John strapped in the hated device.

Zhaan hated touching it but her opinion of it was certain. “I think we should blast it out an airlock.”

Aeryn’s feelings told her yes, that’s exactly what they should do, but her soldier training said otherwise. “I think we should keep it - to study.”

At Zhaan’s horrified expression, she explained. “Look, if we can figure out how it works, maybe we can also learn how to beat it.”

D’Argo appeared almost convinced.

Aeryn insisted. “It’s worth a try, isn’t it?”

No one felt right putting the question to John, so the consensus among the others was to keep the chair locked in a rarely used cargo hold, away from John’s afflicted sight.

FS

Over some food and drink - where only John was absent, doing his best to recover his mind and dignity in his quarters - the group was celebrating their successful thwarting of the Peacekeeper invaders.

Only Aeryn knew better. “It won’t happen like that again you know. The next time he comes, he’ll come in force. It’ll be nothing piecemeal ever again. Not after what john told us.”

Not after what happened between John and Scorpius; because of what Scorpius now knew; John carried in his mind something he wanted, and Moya carried John so now they were all in greater danger than ever.

Once upon a time John was a free human on his home world, a species that had been until now unknown to the likes of Scorpius. But not anymore. Like the rest of Moya’s crew, John was now not merely a human who had lost his way, but a hunted fugitive.

“And how is John?” Zhaan asked Aeryn, who had frequently been checking in on him since the starburst. Aeryn wondered at Zhaan, who had not herself visited John in his quarters since then. And she wondered at D’Argo who remained curiously silent on the question of what had happened to Rygel and John prior to the Peacekeeper invasion.

“He’s recovering.” Aeryn said for the third time.

John himself remembered nothing of the events prior to sitting in Scorpius’ torture chair and having his mental faculties shredded in skeleton fingers, but Aeryn began very much to go over these questions in her mind for him.

Aeryn sipped her drink, keeping these puzzling things to herself for the time being. D’Argo despised John, a hatred she did not understand. Chiana was nice to him, thought him a kind of interesting pet. Rygel largely ignored him. Pilot accepted him but then Pilot accepted everyone almost all the time.

She herself...? Aeryn wasn’t sure what she felt for Crichton. John was not, despite what D’Argo chose to believe about him, a weakling, as he had just proved by going arns in a device that might have destroyed greater creatures. Aeryn sensed resilience within the human that she had seen in few other species, and as a former Peacekeeper she had seen plenty examples of bigger, meaner, and more determined creatures buckle to the Nation.

Aeryn believed John was only just beginning to reveal what he was made of. The secret things he really was.

Chiana knocked back her eighth swallow of nectar. She was getting drunk. “Do you think John’ll get better? Do you think he lost his mind in that chair?”

Aeryn stared at her fingers, ignoring the remaining nectar in her glass and the festivities around her. Her mind was on her friend who was still suffering.

Would he get up again?

Aeryn firmly believed he would.

Would he be strong again?

Yes.

Would he retain the where-with-all to keep going in this lost, often deprived, often hostile life where he was a hunted being?

Absolutely.

Aeryn looked over at Chiana. When the Nebari’s drunken question finally penetrated her thoughts, to Aeryn the answer was transparent. “I don’t think John’s lost a thing.”

It was her last word of the evening.

FSFSFSFSFS

The Right of Skin - Chapter V

It was his pounding heart that woke him.

Memories of Scorpius and The Chair. Nightmares of his brain being removed, made into sausage and replaced, others of his blood and sweat drained as from a sink. The assault on his mind and senses in The Chair had been real enough, the terrible succubus standing over him and laughing while Scorpius spoke in his ear of wormholes and beauty, skin and fire and death.

John doubted hell could be much worse.

Aeryn had been unusually attentive to him since then, uncharacteristically so. This morning was no different as she brought him a cup of something they called “Duss”, a brewed herb that tasted vaguely like ginger tea. The coffee bean was unknown in this galaxy. Lots of things about this place sucked.

At least the tea produced similar effects as coffee. Two or three cups of Duss and your engines were charged for the morning.

“Come on,” Aeryn placed the cup on the only other object in his room, a small round metal table. “Drink up.”

Sitting up was not half so hard as standing, so he decided on the first option for the time being, grabbing the blanket to keep his nakedness hidden.

Aeryn noted it with a small ironic smile. “I don’t know why you worry about that so much. What you humans call - what’s the word, “modesty”? - is a waste of effort here. Nobody cares, John. Clothes are for protection, that’s all. What are you trying to hide anyway?”

He drank the tea. “The only parts of me no one’s stolen yet.” But she was right. Nothing was hidden in this place, and not necessarily just aboard Moya. As far as he had been able to learn, most species were immodest when it came to personal appearance, dress, gender-identity, sexual proclivities, fetishes. There seemed to be no boundaries.

The same was true for war. There were no boundaries there either. The Peacekeepers and Scarrans had been trying to wipe each other out for tens of cycles. Whole worlds had been decimated by one or the other. Some areas of Earth were still like that, two sides fighting over power, land, money...in that one way this place was almost like home.

John shook his head, determined to get up today. As pulverized as he still felt, he had to get out of bed or go crazy with boredom. “What’s new?”

Aeryn was sitting cross-legged on the floor. “What do you mean?”

“With everyone, with Moya?”

Aeryn didn’t know how to answer him. John’s questions sometimes stumped her. What would be new? The persons aboard hadn’t changed and Moya was...Moya. Then it occurred to her that maybe John just wanted someone to talk to. Humans, she had come to learn, rarely said exactly what they meant, often coating their words with meanings they did not wish to say aloud. Their modesties of speech were almost as puzzling, and even more frustrating, as their modesties of skin.

“Everything’s fine.” Aeryn suddenly remembered a little bit of gossip. “Except D’Argo can’t go into Chiana’s quarters anymore.”

News of D’Argo wasn’t exactly what he had in mind for pleasing conversation, but it’d have to do. “Oh? Why not?”

Aeryn let a tiny smile be the answer, staring at John, waiting for him to clue in. When he did, in his eyes appeared that twinkle that she had missed so much of late.

He smiled back, letting her know he understood. D’Argo wouldn’t go in because of the Nebari perfume. Because the big guy got a massive wooden whammy every time he went in there now. The species in this galaxy might be lacking modesty but egos they possessed in abundance. It would take probably months for the scent to dissipate and Big Guy didn’t like Chiana having his dick that much in hand.

The image of the tall Luxon being afraid of Chiana’s sexual prowess over him cut through some of the resentment he himself had for D’Argo, and the false image of D’Argo being only a fierce and terrible warrior possessing no vulnerabilities at all.

Still, the Luxon gave him no quarter. When D’Argo spoke of him to the others, in his mouth John was almost never “John”, he was “That Human”. John didn’t much like the Luxon either, so it was never the name calling that bothered him, it was the Luxon’s exacting, unforgiving appraisal of him. John simply didn’t measure up.

“Is there any work I can do today?”

Aeryn wasn’t sure that was a good idea. “How are you feeling?”

“Like crap.” He said without hesitation. “But I’m sick of being in this room. I need something to do.”

They did need help. “If you’re up to it, D’Argo’s trying to deal with a klaxx infestation in the cargo holds. He could probably use you on the second flame unit.”

Loads of fun. “Sure.” Hours of D’Argo calling him “you” and other, less savory titles. Oh well, at least he would get to kill something.

FS

D’Argo saw him enter the cargo hold, rolled his eyes and handed him a flame unit. “Do you at least remember how to use it?”

The Luxon didn’t believe John possessed any discernable power of memory or physical talents.

But after enduring The Chair, D’Argo seemed a passive, easily dismissed irritant. “M’not sure. Le’see...” He found the on/off switch and the trigger. Being careful to aim away from any flammable items, and just far enough away from D’Argo’s head, he depressed the trigger. A long finger of white hot plasma shot by D’Argo’s head, not close enough to harm but close enough that the Luxon would for sure feel the heat. After a few microts John released the trigger and said with dripping sarcasm “I think I press a button.”

The reaction from the Luxon was predictable and he started huffing and puffing with a string of curses, and raising a fist of warning to John.

But John wasn’t in the mood. “Save it, D’Argo.” He said, already bored with the Luxon’s preaching. Looking around the dark corners of the cargo hold, “Where do you want me?”

“No - not like that!” D’Argo shouted, grabbing the unit from John’s hands with such force, he almost broke his finger.

“Ouch!” John yelped, taking the unit back. “You damn near broke my pinky, you big ape.”

Without the slightest concern, “Your pathetic digit is fine.” D’Argo raised his own unit to a small klaxx nest hanging from one corner near the ceiling. “You have to keep the flame on them until they crawl out, and until they turn black. If they don’t turn black, they’re not dead. Don’t you know that a klaxx can shed its burned outer shell and grow a new one?”

No, of course I don’t you melon-headed son-of-a-bitch! John wanted to yell. What he said was “No, I didn’t know that. I don’t know everything yet. I don’t know how long Luxons or Hynerians or Nebari’s live, I don’t know how Zhaan - a plant - manages to walk and talk, or how to skin a Budong, and I don’t know how Moya manages to starburst without ripping herself apart.”

John was the one yelling now, yelling because of a cycle of frustration in dealing with the Luxon, shouting so the stubborn ass might finally hear him. “There are a lot of things I don’t know, D’Argo, because I am not from here! Do you get it? I am from another galaxy and how the frell am I supposed to learn anything about anything if you won’t talk to me?”

D’Argo was astonished at the human. Not for the yelling itself, but because it was the first time the human had raised his voice directly to the captain of Moya, shouting right in the leviathans leader’s face. The courage necessary was admirable, but he still didn’t like it. “Be careful, human.”

John laughed. It was a man close to his breaking point, strained-to-the-teeth, derisive snort. “John. John! My name is John, you frell-faced idiot.”

D’Argo lost hold of the last of his patience and struck out at the insolent human, knocking him on his backside.

John sat there stunned for a few microts, shocked that he had just been slapped in the face by a guy a full twelve inches taller and fifty kilo’s heavier than him. He figured it should have hurt a lot more than that.

Quicker on his feet than the top-heavy Luxon, John leaped up and swung with the flame unit. It connected with the Luxon’s skull with a satisfying crack!

But to John’s alarm it only made the Luxon stagger off-balance for a microt. Almost instantly he was back, this time with a rounded fist, striking John across the cheek, then another lightening fast one right to the center of his face. D’Argo’s fist was made of stone, and John went down again.

Instead of getting up right away, John sat there, laughing to himself. “That’s better.” He said.

D’Argo had no idea what the human’s meaning was, another thing about him that had bothered D’Argo from the beginning - the human was so frelling confusing. “What are you talking about?” How could pain or humiliation be “better”? Better than what?

John got to his feet, much more slowly this time, explaining. “Well, a weeken has gone by, and no one’s hit me, or zapped me with something, or strapped me in a chair and raped my mind, or punched me hard in the face.” John stood, swaying, looking at D’Argo with red blood running from his nose and a large bruise already forming on one cheek bone. “I was beginning to think I’d lost my charm.”

D’Argo stared at the human like he was insane, but the human’s face was not crazed, it was telling him something else. It was a thing D’Argo could almost not understand had he not just witnessed the human coming back, and back again from a pummeling. The human had some courage and seemed not to fear for his life, even when facing down an angry Luxon warrior. Again, admirable qualities. And what’s more, John was speaking words designed to, it seemed to D’Argo, sweep aside his own pain as though it was nothing, and to dismiss his humiliation as though it were meaningless.

John was joking. Mocking words aimed at himself. In all his battles and all the arns spent drunk with his war-mates after battle, D’Argo had never heard this form of speech before. A form of talk that self-belittled. Designed, D’Argo was convinced, to bring the pain and humiliation to nothing, leaving their owner untouched by either and ready to fight another day.

John’s humorous words tasted of warrior.

D’Argo felt it rise in him like a tide, a wave of inner fun that swept across his normally sober, serious senses and he laughed aloud, long and deep and satisfying. The human’s confused expression over it only made him laugh louder, and it echoed through-out the cargo hold, making it sound as though it was the laughter of ten Luxons.

D’Argo, laughing fit over, took a deep cleansing breath and strode up to his companion, his hand raised not to strike, but to slap him on the shoulder, a gesture of comradeship bestowed for the first time on the huma - on John.

The good-natured slap on the back sent John to the floor once more. This time John, aware that it had not meant to harm, said to the Luxon. “How about the next time we just play poker?”

D’Argo held out his hand once more in offer of assistance, to help John to his feet. D’Argo did not know what poker was, but he nodded anyway. “Agreed.”

FS

Rygel found them together in John’s quarters, John pouring D’Argo a drink of his own nectar brew.

D’Argo held up the glass of amber liquid. “What’s this?”

“A real drink.” John said. “I’ve got a secret still.”

D’Argo sniffed the glass. “What secret?”

John poured himself one. “No, no - a still, a way to brew my own alcohol.”

“From what?”

“I stole a few pounds of the salal root.”

D’Argo was impressed. “You made nectar from a vegetable?”

“Not nectar. The stuff you guys call a drink is a joke. Salal has a high sugar content and tastes a little like corn. Maize. Trust me. This’ll put the curl back in your pubes.”

“In my what?”

“Just try it.”

D’Argo sniffed it again then raised it to his lips. It did smell sweet, and he took a large swallow. It did not however, taste sweet, and he was about to mock John’s drink when suddenly the innocent flesh of his mouth caught up to the ingredients of the new treat, and he was forced to swallow the powerful fluid it all at once. Molten rock burned a thick trail down his throat and started a fire in his stomach. He found himself unable to breath for a few microts, the started coughing. His body temperature felt like it had just spiked ten degrees and he broke out in a sweat.

D’Argo looked across the floor at his human companion. “John. That is a warrior’s drink. What is its name?”

“What you call nectar I call Bourbon.”

D’Argo’s tongue tried it on for size. “Bour-bon.” He held out his glass. “May I try another?”

John took up the ceramic flask and poured his new comrade out two-thirds of a glass. “My friend, you shall have all you want. Just be careful, this stuff can make you pretty sick if you’re not used to it.”

D’Argo heeded his friend’s warning but took a great mouth-full. It was so good.

John gestured to Rygel who was hovering at the door. “Rygel, come on in and si’down. We’re gonna’ get drunk.”

D’Argo laughed, delighted at this new turn of events. John was a gracious host. D’Argo raised his glass so Rygel could see what was inside. “Rygel, you must try this Bourbon. It’ll “put the curl back in your pubes”.”

Rygel frowned. “You’re both insane.” But he floated in the door anyway. “However a proper drink sounds good, thank you.”

FS

On Rygel’s second sip, he fell instantly sleep. “Poor Sparky.” John said using the nick-name he had made up for Rygel. Whenever the Hynerian flew around on his little chair, it made an aura that glowed blue, reminding him of the sparkling Aurora Borealis back on Earth. Plus Rygel was short and Sparky was a name you would give to short dog with furry eyebrows.

D’Argo gave little concern to the softly snoring Rygel. “What shall we “toast” next?” D’Argo had no idea what John meant by “toast”, but it involved pouring out another glass of the wonderful Bourbon, praising this thing or that someone, and then drinking it, so he fully approved.

John raised his cup. “To Moya and Pilot who fly us safely through the stars.”

D’Argo thought it a fine toast. “To Moya and Pilot.” He tipped his cup back and drank. Now instead of swallowing the bourbon quickly, he rolled it around in his mouth first, savoring the taste and heat of the amazing elixir. “You must show me how to brew this drink, John.”

John was very drunk now. “I could show you how to brew other drinks, too. I’m not just a one-act show.”

Whatever John meant, D’Argo was gratified. He very much wanted to try other Earth beverages. But he also wanted to properly thank John and decided on a special toast for him. “To John Crichton and his father, and his father’s father.”

D’Argo was pleased with the toast. When he swallowed and looked over to his friend, though, his friend had not yet drank, but was staring at D’Argo, transfixed. “Is something wrong, John?”

John shook his head. “No.” He said. “I just...I haven’t thought of my father or my family for...” John counted in his head. His family, his father, his home, his old job and his old life had not crossed his mind for over a weeken. They were in fact on his mind less and less the deeper he became entangled in the life aboard Moya in this distant place, so very, very far from Earth. Probably too far, he admitted to himself for the first time, to ever go home again.

D’Argo realized he had awakened sad memories in his friend and he was truly sorry. “I apologize. I did not mean to –“

“-it’s all right, D’Argo. Really.” John raised his glass. “To my family,” He looked at D’Argo, “and to yours, where ever they are.”

D’Argo raised his glass and drank. “Do you have a wife, John? And children?” Until this very microt it had not crossed D’Argo’s mind even for a moment that this human possessed either of those things. Until today he had just been The Human - an annoyance. D’Argo now thought himself foolish that he had not considered that this sole human, like he, must have come from a mother, a father, perhaps even had brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles. Perhaps John was from a great and noble lineage, etched on mighty stone walls that stretched back hundreds or thousands of cycles.

John shook his head. “No. No wife. No kids.”

“Kids? Is that a name for-“

“-For children. Sorry.”

There was nothing to be sorry about. John had a right to his own language. D’Argo was beginning to appreciate that John had a right to many things, just as anyone else aboard Moya. “May I ask you a personal question?”

He just had. “Sure.”

“What was it like in The Chair?”

John stared at his friend for many microts. Impossible to describe. May as well describe was living was like to the never-born. “Horrible.” Only mall phrases would come, muted words to weaken the power of that monster. “Painful, a physical misery.” His time in The Chair still had the clout to drive him made if he let too many memories in at once. “Mind murder.”

“Mind murder...” D’Argo repeated it. “I am sorry to bring it back to you but I have always wanted to know.”

“Why?”

D’Argo dared. Perhaps this human might be someday, not only a friend (as he was beginning to be), but a brother-in-deed. It was possible. “My wife died in one.” Maybe the very prototype they had dismantled and stored in the cargo hold, or maybe the prototype’s prototype.

John could not imagine a woman in the chair, even a Luxon woman. “I’m sorry.”

“Perhaps you are wondering why I would want to know such a thing?”

He was. John nodded. “A little.”

“Without knowing what she went through, by it being hidden from my eyes, it has been impossible for me to honor her memory completely. For honor to be fully expressed there can be no secrets between a bonded pair, or even between brothers in battle. Secrets become like falsehoods, and honor cannot exist within it. By knowing how hard it was on her, my knowledge of her wonder - her power is now complete.”

John nodded. So D’Argo wasn’t just a big old Klingon waving his sword in the air and yelling battle cries, he was a person, with a history. He’d had a wife. John poured them each a drink. The cask was now empty. He raised his cup. “To your wife.”

D’Argo raised his. “To Le-lann. To my wife.” But before he could drink, John reached over and touched D’Argo’s cup with his own.

“A shared honor,” John explained, “between friends.”

D’Argo nodded and drank to his dead wife. He set his cup down. “Why do you call it “toast”?”

John scratched his chin. “I don’t know why we say “toast” – except I know in ancient times they used to raise their glasses to the gods.”

D’Argo thought it fitting.

“What are you two doing?” Aeryn had stopped in the door when she saw John and, of all people, D’Argo sitting across from John on the floor. She could smell something foul on their breath, see the brightness of their eyes and the dried blood smeared below John’s nose. “Are you two fighting?”

John scooted over to D’Argo and hung one arm across the Luxon’s massive shoulders. “Hell, no, we’re making up.”

D’Argo’s raucous laughter drove Aeryn from the room. He turned to his new human friend and said with a thick tongue. “John, are you z-zertain you have no more of thiz-z godly brew?”

John wagged a knowing finger in front of his friend’s nose. “None that’s in a bottle, but -” John somehow placed his two wobbly feet under him and stood. “Come with me.”

He led D’Argo to a cramped corner of Moya’s starboard cargo hold; one rarely used due to its confining nature and, with a finger to his lips to swear D’Argo to secrecy, led the way to his still. Sitting on the polished floor behind a collection of empty crates was a mish-mash of shiny metal pots and stopped glass containers. Every description of tubing twisted and wound its way through it all. A portable heat unit was set up beneath the main caldron, so the stuff inside was also actively bubbling. Every-so-often a tiny pressure valve popped open with a hiss releasing a pleasingly sweet odor.
D’Argo stared at the in awe, as though they had both just stumbled upon the lost jewels of Luxon’s royal family. “John. It’s wonderful.”

John took up a small cask that was sitting on the floor nearby and, opening a manual stopper, let some of the freshly brewed glory flow into it. “It’s better if you let it age, but this’ll still be pretty tasty.”

Sitting side by side, almost hip to hip, they had almost polished off the second course of home brew when D’Argo suddenly grew very quiet.

John turned watery, bloodshot eyes to his new-found pal sitting not three inches from him. “What’s up, big guy?”

D’Argo, drunker than he felt he had any right to be – “I must repair things between us.”

John threw back his head and swallowed half of his last shot of space bourbon. “Hmm?”

D’Argo recognized the human’s often-used, gentle method of verbalizing a question. The human was a more yielding species than his own, a softer creature, bent to peace not war. In his sensibilities, John was almost like a Luxon female.

Suddenly the affection in D’Argo’s heart for his friend grew three sizes - and then broke in two. D’Argo was drunk, very drunk, but he was a Luxon warrior and that alone was a great symbol for truth. Being a Luxon warrior was not only an honor and a privilege, it meant power and rectitude. D’Argo nodded to himself. Yes, he could no longer hold his voice. Now was the time.

“John. I must clear my heart. You and I have shared the gathering of food together, noble work on Moya - a great ship in herself - and now we have drunk the fire of the gods together. We are not yet brothers in battle, but I have no doubt that day will come.”

John listened as D’Argo’s tongue rambled on, meandering in what seemed as though to be a long, sentimental speech. John’s booze-soaked brain only heard half and only comprehended a third of what the Luxon was saying.

“Though I am a Luxon warrior, I have decided that I do not mind that you, a weaker species, whored yourself to the Plant like a drunken tralk. You are only human and I cannot expect you to behave as a Luxon.” D’Argo generously explained. “Perhaps humans have lesser morals. Besides, Zhaan is alive and healthy and it’s possible that could not have been accomplished without the borrowing of your flesh.”

With an arm the size of a tree limb, D’Argo gave John a heavy hug across his shoulders. “This is a good day, John.”

John’s brain was too far gone to take in all the Luxon was saying to him. “D’Argo, what the frell are you talking about?”

“The Kelid you carry in your body. I do not mind that you were not strong enough to preserve your honor over it. But it has all worked out for the best, so we need never discuss it again.” D’Argo rubbed John’s hair as though he were a favorite and loyal dog.

John’s head was spinning and he wasn’t sure how much was from the liquor and how much from the bizarre words D’Argo had just spilled in his lap. “The Kellog? What’s “Kellog”?”

But D’Argo was already rising to barrel-like feet, his thick torso swaying like a massive old growth cedar in the wind. “Thank you, John. Now I feel the need for a long sleep. My eyes are tired, and Moya is doing strange things to the floor.”

John watched D’Argo walk away, not exactly in a straight line and for sure not as quickly as was his habit. John muttered “You’re welcome.” But what D’Argo had said didn’t make any sense.

The next night and the next after that were filled with alcohol-fired nightmares that made even less sense than D’Argo. But gradually from within the inconspicuous dreams a kind of clarity emerged. A demon shaped like a man but colored as a god pressed down on him, a fiend sucking the life from him with a soulless smile.

John woke up drenched in sweat. At first it was just another nightmare, random images of terror, the worst of which a feeling of suffocating beneath a demon who drank and drank from him until he was left only a human skin-bag of brittle bones. His demon beauty of terror, the she-vampire clothed in jewels visited him almost nightly and the part that bothered him the most was that somehow she felt familiar, so was she real or not? He had to know.

Light had began to shine back into the nighttime world of imaginary things, pulling the dark corners of his mind from the shadows, a light of understanding that perhaps not all the images were imaginary, that in fact, some of them might be based in the real, waking world.

John found Aeryn and D’Argo arguing with Pilot over where to set Moya’s course. Zhann was not on the bridge.

“D’Argo. We need to talk.”

“Not now, John.”

“Yes, now. What was all that stuff you said to me last night?”

Aeryn joked. “Lover’s quarrel?”

D’Argo frowned and John simply ignored her. “D’Argo.” John aid again, “What did all that stuff mean?”

D’Argo was trying his best to recall anything about the previous evening’s libations and was coming up dry. What had they talked about? Something to do with Moya? With Zhaan? That felt a bit righter, but he couldn’t be sure. All he knew was that his feelings for John had changed and he no longer hated him, all the rest-

D’Argo froze. He did remember one thing he had told John: Zhaan and her weekly forays into John’s bed, but surely he had not mentioned details? It was a thing, right or wrong, between Zhaan and John and its continuation or ending had nothing to do with him. He had merely advised Zhaan on one possible execution of it, he had not instigated a single deed toward or against John the Human by Zhaan the Delvan. No Luxon warrior would have participated in so one-sided a physical exchange but he was neither Human nor Delvan. Luxons carried their own standards of morality, constraints and freedoms.

D’Argo looked at John, who was still waiting for an answer. His human friends face was open, expectant, so an honest answer is what he would get. “If this is about your kelid, then you must speak to Zhaan about Zhaan.”

D’Argo went back to his work, missing the look of deep confusion on John’s face. Aeryn did not miss it, and she followed John out the door, running to keep in step with his rapid retreat.

She had a few questions of her own, one in particular that had been niggling at her mind. “What happened to you that night? The night the patrol ship came?” She clarified. “You and Rygel didn’t follow the plan. I can see Rygel getting lost under panic, but you –“

“I didn’t get lost.” John snapped. “Or panic.” His face, though, returned to its previous confused expression. “I don’t know what happened. I just...took a wrong turn I guess.” He abruptly stopped and turned to her, throwing up his arms in surrender. “Fine, fine, I admit it, I got lost. Happy?”

No she was not happy. “Maybe you were sick and didn’t know it.”

John walked on. “I wasn’t sick, Aeryn.”

“You ate a lot that night. We all did. Food poisoning maybe.” She stopped this time and grabbed his elbow so he couldn’t get away. “You can’t tell me that wandering the ship half naked is your normal response to stress or fear.”

“Why?” He felt like a good, cleansing fight. “Huh? Why not? Ever since I came aboard I’ve been expected to do nothing but make mistakes. Why should that be any different?”

Aeryn did not believe that John had made a mistake; she believed something else had happened to him, but she wasn’t yet certain what that was. “Because I know you.”

He looked tired. “I’ve been aboard for barely a cycle, Aeryn, what could you possible know?”

She knew a few things. Things like his courage and his humor, and that he survived and kept strong even though he was in The Chair for arns. She knew lots of things actually. “I know you like sweet cakes.”

John sighed and, not knowing what else to say, walked away on his original heading – toward Zhaan’s quarters.

Zhaan had not baked any sugar cakes for John for weekens. It was odd that she had been so attentive to him prior to Scorpius’ torture session but now, when John most needed her...

But then Zhaan was sick again and losing her color, her body depleted of the stuff she needed and betraying her once again for leaving her home planet. Aeryn entered her own quarters, her mind replaying the things D’Argo had said, John’s protests, Zhaan’s illness. Why did nothing ever stay simple for long? She overheard a remark John had spoken once which, according to him, explained the whys behind their run of bad fortunes, a remark he then had to explain of course. “Murphy’s Law”, he called it, meaning if something bad can happen, it most likely will. Damn pessimistic law.

Aeryn plopped down on her bed. Her room, despite years of military training and attention to detail and procedure, was almost never neat and tidy. She just never had a knack for cleaning up. It seemed a waste of time better spent elsewhere, like defending the Nation planets against the Scarran, or rounding up a rag-tag fleet of rebel ships. Brooms and garbage bins were not her thing at all.

Her small garbage bin was almost empty anyway, not much gets thrown out on a ship where almost everything is at a premium. One broken hair band, a bio-ceramic mug she had dropped and smashed, and one of Zhaan’s sad little sugar cakes brown with two weekens age and inedible. Only John really loved them, only he had a “sweet tooth”, one of his many sayings that made no sense unless he hung around to explain it.

“John and Rygel.” Aeryn said aloud. “John. Rygel.” She said once more. For a reason she could not fathom, the sound of their names on her lips was clarifying. A cleanse to her mind as a drink of spring water would clean a palate. Their two names contained meaning, something as yet unrealized underneath the jumble of thoughts in her head. It was there, speaking to her, she was sure of it. Behind the words lay solid meaning, a crystal clear picture. Something was missing in her memory but she couldn’t put her finger on what.

It was important.

The tiny sweet cake look unappetizing now, it was not her favorite snack to be sure –

Aeryn suddenly saw, as bold as a red sun, the thing she had not noted at the time. The eyes of her mind had seen but not understood. But now they did. It was a terrible thing to have missed. “Oh gods...but it can’t be. They would never...the damn sweet-cakes.”

FS

“Zhaan.”

It was John. She’d had her mind on prayers, and wondered how long he had been standing there waiting for her to notice him. “Come in, John.” The first words she had said to him since his recovery from The Chair. Welcoming words.

“No thanks.” He said, still in the doorway. He had not twitched a toe toward her inner sanctum.

“What can I do for you?”

“What’s kelid?”

If time would only retreat, she thought, so that I should go back and repair the harm I have already done, before this harm, the truth of my lies, had arrived. Zhaan knew her color had faded to near white, the blue in her cells indicating health and vitality was almost gone, her body was now unable to process light or warmth, air, water or any food into energy. She was in effect dying. It is fitting for my crime against him.”It is what keeps me alive.” Look how I grovel!

“What is it?” He was curious. He knew of course, what she had done. Guessed it, dreamed it, perhaps even felt it.

His heart must have known before his mind. “It is a substance in your body that no other species in this galaxy produces, neither species nor planet save for one - Delva.”

John nodded; already he almost knew all he wanted to know. “You found this out...”

“Yes.” She said quickly. “Wrongly, I hid it from everyone but D’Argo.” There were only a few species who wept and Delvans were not among them, but Zhaan’s voice wept anyway. She knew it would not be enough to overtake the hurt she had caused. “I have broken every vow I ever made to my Goddess.”

“D’Argo knew?”

“Yes.” His other, newest friend on Moya. Rushing to tell him how her heart was crushed over her crimes against him – “John, if I could take back what I did – “

“You can’t take back...rape.”

A word she had never heard before. Rape? Did he mean stealing? “If you mean theft, I admit it, yes, I took what did not belong to me, but, John, I was sick and afraid-”

Zhaan’s next breath stuck in her throat when he turned his face to her. What a storm of emotions he had lashed together in that one look: fury, grief, the shock of outrageous betrayal, and one that startled her – shame. It did not make sense that he should be ashamed. What dreadful thing had John done? “John, what is that word – rape?” The TC in their respective skulls tried once again to translate but all it would offer was another variation on theft.

Tiny movements came from John that told her so little. He worked his jaw, bit his bottom lip and ran a pink tongue over his top teeth. His arms hung limp at his sides, his shoulders slouched, seemingly folding down together at his front until he was no longer the tall proud human she had grown fond of. Now he appeared used up, old already from the effect of their company and his loneliness aboard Moya. “Don’t ever touch me again, Zhaan.”

She should have expected this of course, and knew that it was also right and just.

“Don’t even come near me, or speak to me again. Not ever.”

This she had not expected. Not even to speak? “But John-”

He did not respond, simply turning away. She could hear the soft slap-slap of his bare feet on the decks. Only John sometimes went bare-foot. He said he missed the grass on Earth.

Just as Zhaan was sorting out the prayers of mourning in her mind, readying to spend another night in meditation, Aeryn barged in, took her by the folds of her funeral robe and slammed her up against the wall. “What did you do!?” She demanded, their faces less than an inch apart. “What did you do to him?”

Zhaan had no idea how Aeryn had discovered her and D’Argo’s disastrous scheme, but she shook off Aeryn’s fingers, but their accusation was left behind on her already soiled spirit. “Something I wish a thousand times this day that I could undo.”

Aeryn’s anger was not placated. “Only this day?”

Zhaan gathered her robe around her like a shield from judging eyes. “This day, yesterday...” She brought a hand to her mouth to control a cry for forgiveness and sat on her bed, nearly falling on it. “E-e-very day, every-day, every-day...”

Aeryn had no sympathies. Not now. Not for this. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done to him? What you’ve destroyed? We spent the last cycle gaining his trust. He spent that cycle earning ours. And then you...rape him? Are you insane?”

That word again. “No Aeryn, I’m not insane, I was just scared.” Zhaan calmed herself. “But I’m better now. I’m ready to die - I welcome it. It does not terrify me anymore.” She stared up at Aeryn, who had used the strange word. “What is this rape? John kept saying it, too...when he was here.”

Aeryn’s mouth dropped open. That’s why the physical theft of The Kelid had seemed to Zhaan as not so terrible a thing as to John. In their conversations, John had explained many untranslatable words to her that had popped up here and there.

Aeryn recalled just last week a dream he had explained to her, one that had been plaguing him, a dream about a bejeweled demon who stole his life-force from him at night; who raped him. Not a simple theft, he had corrected her, no, rape was far, far worse. Even if the sex act was part of the assault, sex had nothing to do with it. John had spoke of some rape victims being driven mad by it. Rape was a theft of soul, freedom, body and will. Rape was also one of the greatest humiliations one human could inflict on another, equal to murder in some ancient Earth laws with equal punishments. Rape was the taking away of life though the victim still lived.

Zhaan needed to know, Aeryn decided, and it was enough to tell her what she had really done. The Delvan priestess could arrange her own punishments. “Zhaan, in John’s language, rape means what K’traatr does.”

Zhaan stared up at Aeryn, her face stunned. “That, that abomination is not what I did. I performed The Healing, The Healing! I did not partake of the God-Right of K’Traatr or taste any part of her vile daughters.”

“It doesn’t matter what you intended, Zhaan, or what you thought you gave or took away from him.” How could they all forget so easily? “John is not Delvan, so what matters is what he believes you took from him during your attacks.” Aeryn had used the complete tense of the Delvan word. Complete meaning the entirety of its function now fulfilled. Zhaan had brought the Abomination Delvan Goddess K’Traatr into John’s mind, heart and soul, tearing these most precious things from him. And now any repairs possible were up to him alone, a sole human against the power of a Goddess. Nothing Zhaan or anyone could do could fix it. They could only stand and watch to see whether he found a way to live with the terrible desolation Zhaan (and D’Argo Aeryn reminded herself, he was hardly guiltless in this), had wrought inside him, or die with it intact. But one thing was certain, the grief was the larger part of John now and she, Zhaan and D’Argo - his friends - had given it to him. It was small comfort that John did not believe in any of the Delvan goddesses, bad or good. To John, a human, the rapes were reality and that’s all that mattered.

When Aeryn left to find D’Argo, Zhaan wrapped herself in her funeral robe and began a gentle wail of remorse that could not be heard beyond the walls of her room.

Delvans did not mourn in public.

FSFSFSFSFSFSFSFSFS
The Right of Skin - Chapter VI

Setting/Spoilers: Slightly pre-Season One I guess.
Rating:. Non-con, hetero’ and some minimal slash. Go away if any offends.
Pairings:John/Various shipmates
Summary:AU. John Crichton is caught on a ship. Aliens are present, and his so-called life aboard Moya begins.?
Disclaimers: Farscape and its characters are the property of Jim Henson Productions, and a bunch of other folks who made $$ from it. Me? I make fun.
Note: Please remember that in this version of Farscape there are some details that have come from memory while others I am making up as I go along - I’m “tweaking” canon to suit this AU.
FSFSFSFSFSFSFSFSFS

When Aeryn could not find John in his quarters, the mess hall or at his post, she asked Pilot.

¡°John is in the docking bay, Aeryn.¡±

“Thank you.” She didn’t have to ask why.

“John?” For the tenth time in two weekens he was bent over his ship, busy removing one of the face-plates of a control panel. “What are you doing?”

“What’s it look like?”

She hated this evasive way he sometimes talked, answering a question with a question of his own. “It looks like you’re working on that broken-down heap again.”

“Bingo.”

“You’re thinking of leaving again?”

“Better late than never. Besides, I’ve worn out my welcome here.”

“Stop feeling sorry for yourself.”

“I’m going home, Aeryn.”

She heard the same and more from him over those weekens and was growing tired of it. John sounded like he was stuck in a looping thought, repeating a wish but ultimately going nowhere. “Even if you can get that thing to work again, and even if you manage to avoid the Peacekeepers and Scorpius, and even if by some miracle you happen to find a worm-hole, and even if by another miracle that worm hole happens to be one that takes you to Earth –“

“Is there an end to this tale of If’s?”

“Any one of those could kill you. The risks are huge.”

“Noted.”

Aeryn tried a different tact. “Zhaan’s intent was never to hurt you, you know. She was only scared. Haven’t you ever faced death?”

“Are you joking?”

With some consternation Aeryn recalled John’s time in The Chair. Idiot! “Do you hate her, or us, that much?”

John made his fingers stop their endless, and essentially fruitless, tinkering. Yes, he had faced death, when his ship had hung on the horizon of that wormhole for an instant before plunging him into oblivion, when he had emerged and nearly been killed in an asteroid belt, when he had been captured aboard Moya and been attacked, when he had sat in Scorpius’ Chair, when so many times since his arrival in this foreign galaxy, and yet he did not hate Moya or any of them. He was the stranger, he was the unknown quantity and despite it all he did not even hate his so-called life aboard Moya the prison ship.

And he did not hate Zhaan. “No.”

“Then why are you running away, or at least keep threatening to run away?”

It would most likely be to his death if he did run, though impulsive in his thinking of late John was wise enough to acknowledge that much. Had Zhaan lied and used him? Yes. Had he trusted her and felt betrayed and humiliated by her deceit and physical attack? Yes.

“I’m not running away.” John slammed his hands down on the fuselage of his module. The skin on his palms stung like fire. His hands and feet were liars, because they had been running to his hopelessly ruined ship for the last two weekens, and he had not spoken to anyone but Pilot in that time – though Aeryn had spoken to him when-ever she damned well pleased. Besides, there was nowhere to run.

“Aeryn.” Pilot’s soothing voice called her over Moya’s communication nodes.

Aeryn turned from John. “Yes Pilot?”

¡°Chiana tells me that Ninoos III, the planet of the Searchers, does not contain what Zhaan needs. I am sorry Aeryn.¡±

Chiana’s voice was heard next on Aeryn’s private comm. “If any of you want to say goodbye to Zhaan, you should make it within the next day or so.”

Aeryn knew Zhaan had gotten very bad. She was fond of Zhaan, but she wasn’t sad to see that she and John would be spending no more time together, even if it had been a one-sided tryst. Aeryn tried not to think too much about how the knowledge of Zhaan and John’s physical proximity had bothered her. She tried not to consider the reasons why her heart ached to discover that reality, or how often she had secretly wondered what it was like to touch him in that way.

Although some Sebaceans applied for a got permission to remain with a single mate and start bearing children, she had never been among them. She had come from a normal space-bred, Universal Family Institute, bred and born in space from space dwellers. Recreational sex had come infrequently and for the most part, rather unsatisfactorily in appointed trysts at governed intervals. To her the concept of “family” was foreign.

As a Peacekeeper the reality was you were born, you worked, you sometimes had sex, then you worked again until you grew too old or too sick to continue. Then there was re-settlement on a space going barge where other skills might be put to use. Only one quarter of Sebaceans “settled down” and then it was in family groups on brood ships run by the Nation to keep the numbers growing. Intimacy, affection, and love were the domain of planet dwellers – emotional and undisciplined.

However, in the case of John the human, her curiosity had been prodded from the beginning. He was different than any Sebacean she had ever met. His skin was warmer, its muted colors intriguing. Even his smell was of a sort her nose could not pin down; iron perhaps. Inexplicably sometimes he smelled like, she was certain, well water. She wondered if his planet smelled the same way. She liked his body, the way he moved, his shape and his looks. All of that greatly bothered her. Never before had her mind been so swayed by another.

Of course John also was, Aeryn thought as she walked back to Zhaan’s chamber, her feet moving quicker, far more emotional than any Sebacean, too. And stubborn – if he didn’t agree, he argued every point. And his use of speech was confusing, and he talked too much. In fact, she decided, almost everything about his personality drove her crazy!

Except for his humour and his gentle ways when he suspected she was upset. She liked the way he would touch her elbow and follow her around, making a nuisance of himself just to get her to open up. How the frell he could always tell when there was something wrong was beyond her.

Aeryn visited Zhaan. The Delvan looked terrible, though she was still in her cross-legged position of mourning and wrapped in a white funeral robe. But what could be seen of her flesh was white instead of blue, her eyes the color of mud, her expression endlessly rueful.

Aeryn said her goodbyes and Zhaan nodded once in gratitude, but otherwise she did not move at all.

Aeryn hesitated. She knew she should say more. That’s what the others did. “Has everyone been by?” It was all she could think to ask.

Zhaan nodded once more. This time she spoke in a voice so low Aeryn had trouble catching the words. “Almost everyone.” There was a significant pause before she said “Except John.”

Aeryn had no idea what to say to that except “I’m sorry Zhaan.”

“The Goddess expected I would dearly pay. It was my error that I didn’t.”

“Goodbye Zhaan.”

“Goodbye Aeryn. May you have the Goddess’ eyes always upon you.”

Aeryn didn’t think they would be but she wasn’t going to mention that to a dying Delvan priestess.

FS

Zhaan’s mourning was interrupted by her last visitor. “John.”

There was surprise in her voice. Clearly she had thought him not to show, not to even tell her what a liar she was. He paused briefly by the door then entered the room, walking over to her, though not close enough to touch. “Chiana says the planet we just starburst from was your last chance.”

Zhaan nodded. “Yes. Now my future lies elsewhere than on Moya. The Peacekeepers failed to make me pay for my crimes, so the Goddess is punishing me her way - may She continue to be blessed.”

John didn’t care one or another about any goddess or her divine and cruel retribution over her own servants. “So you’re dying?” He asked, slowly circling the room.

Zhaan nodded. “I wish I had chosen this way before I hurt you. I wish I could go back and change that terrible decision.”

John studied some of the decorations in her chamber. One wall was covered in Delvan religious icons. “You were scared.”

“I was faithless.” She countered. “I have broken almost every tenant of my faith during my life time. Now I must pay for those breaches.”

John stopped in front of her. Still he did not sit down. “How come I didn’t remember?”

Zhaan understood his meaning exactly. “Recently I reached the Tenth level of P’au. I was able to...influence your mind, your memory. I blocked out the Healings.”

“The rapes.”

Zhaan tilted her head down sharply at the word, genuinely distressed to be reminded of it. “As you say.” She ventured one final appeal to the wronged human. “I feel I must display my selfishness once last time and ask you to please try and believe me when I say no such atrocity was intended in what I did. On Delva, it would be considered borrowing, or perhaps at worst, theft of The Kelid. To us, that word – rape – is a perversion of all we believe in. It is an evil from centuries past. A way of demon worship.”

“What demon?”

“The god of debasement - K’traatr – his name is almost never spoken among Delvans anymore, the worship of him outlawed centuries ago. It was a religion that almost destroyed us. “D’Cas-K’traatr ma’ekuld” - it means “What K’traatr Does”.” Zhaan said, her breathing becoming shallower, and her respirations coming more rapidly because of it. “And one of that demon’s religious rights was to strip the soul from his worshipers, to remove what made them Delvan, until only a living corpse remained. ‘What K’traatr does’.” She finished, “‘Living-murder’.”

John heard her but it made little difference. These gods and their powers were her beliefs. He didn’t believe in demons and gods that could inflict on people the things in their worst nightmares. Gods and demons were not real - K’traatr was not real. What happened to him, what Zhaan did and D’Argo endorsed were.

John, a rage built in him over weekens, suddenly erupted and he turned on her, yelling the words in her face. “Why didn’t you ask me!? If you needed this kelid shit to save your life, why didn’t you ask me for it? I thought we were friends.”

Zhaan stared at the floor where her pale ankles were crossed. “You are Human.”

Zhaan closed her eyes in shame. It was not enough of an explanation for him. She should have asked anyway. They, she and D’Argo, had not even discussed it as an option. John was still such an unknown then. And he was only one, the only human they had ever encountered. “Why D’Argo supported me in this is for D’Argo to answer, but I was sure it would frighten you too much.”

“I’m not a child, Zhaan.”

Now she looked at him, dull sick-brown irises to blue. “But you are alien, John. We had no idea how you’d react to such a request and among my kind it is an enormous and extremely personal request to make of another Delvan. It opens us up to the other’s spirirt. Our deepest vulnerabilities are unlocked to the other when undergoing The Healing.” She rubbed one hand with thinning fingers. “It had never been done before with a different species because no other species has The Kelid, until we discovered it in you. “We were not sure it would even work. We had no idea what effect it might cause in your body. For all we knew, you could have died.”

“That didn’t stop you from taking the risk, though, did it?”

“No, Goddess help me, no.” John could hear tears in her voice but, strangely, her face stayed dry. “I didn’t want to die. I thought if I could make it pleasant and block your memory, I could live with the borrowing of a Healing. But Aeryn assures me that I have committed a murder upon you.” Her tone was very grave. “Up until today I only had the blood of one on my hands. Now I must die with both.”

Had it been that bad? John shook his head as though to dispel everything he had just heard. Yes, he remembered the attacks - the “healings” – as they had come to his mind in nightmares, and he recalled with humiliation being lied to by her and D’Argo. But he was not dead.

He also remembered how Zhaan had welcomed him far sooner than had any of the others, and had treated his fevers those first weekends, and helped him learn how to use the TC technology to better communicate with everyone aboard Moya. And the healings had not harmed him really, had they?

Zhaan had punished herself already for weekens for her “borrowed healings”, and now she was dying. But death was too great an apology, and none of the others deserved to lose her because of him. Zhaan dying would be too high a cost for his own soul as well. As angry as he was, he knew he would not be able to live with it. Besides, what cost is a little forgiveness? Almost nothing. Maybe they could erase their mutual pain by healing each other?

John walked to Zhaan’s chamber door and closed it, locking it from the inside. He also drew the heavy curtain to block the passage lights outside. Then he sat down opposite her, crossing his legs as hers were. Grasping up her two weak hands in his own strong ones, he said “Your goddess may want you to die but I don’t.”

FSFSFSFSFSFSFS

Aeryn heard the motions and knew immediately what they represented. John and Zhaan were together in there, and Zhaan was not going to die. Aeryn knew that because of the soft sighs of pleasure she knew were Zhaan’s, and the soft rubbing of flesh on flesh, John’s beautiful smooth skin on Zhaan’s gently pebbled surface, her color undoubtedly already showing signs of returning to its luster, and shining with plasma blues upon crystal waters, by any measure a woman of shocking beauty.

A Healing was being conducted in the privacy of Zhaan’s chambers and John, unclothed and willing, was conducting it, sharing one of the most intimate acts a Delvan, or a human or any other species, could ever experience. Aeryn hurried away, anxious to leave the hateful sounds behind her. Anxious to get away, to get anywhere beyond the reach of their mouths and their sounds of need and pleasure; away from the intense skin-on-skin feeding from one to the other, an offering where in each was submerged and probably would be again and again; gifts in moments she herself would never know.

Aeryn found a dark place where no one ever followed and wept the dry tears of her race.

FS

“John.” Zhaan’s silken voice spoke in his hear. “I can accommodate you if you wish.”

He figured he knew what she meant. “But you said Delvan’s didn’t do it that way.” It was difficult to talk, and his head was reeling from her warm weight on his ever hardening erection. She had to be feeling it beneath her.

“We don’t. We reproduce asexually; our bonding is a far more profound union than anything of that nature. However, I can mold my body and create an opening; to form around you and make this more pleasurable for you. In return it will also increase my absorption of The Kelid.”

Sex with her, in other words. Zhaan seemed to sense his silence as agreement and spent a few microts lowering her re-molded space onto his erection, then she began to rock and shift her hips in amazing ways, her long spine oscillating and making the room’s tiny overhead lights dance on her skin.

John let himself sink into her lead and direction. He was having the most all-consuming sexual experience of his life, and she was moving with the ease and grace of a long performer, her body on him a lake of warm sensations. He opened his eyes now and again to look up at her, wanting to see what she enjoying, trying to understand the subtler side of Delvan affections, aside from the physical. But if there was a deeper meaning, it was lost to him. All he could see was her own eyes closed as she moved deliciously on his pelvis, her lips open, her perfect cheekbones glistening, her gorgeous face the picture of pure gratification. It was difficult not to watch her, and John allowed himself the pleasure of touching her breasts, tentatively at first, their color already returning to a healthy blue. His fingers gently explored the firm mounds, and Zhaan’s sighed with pleasure. He had thought it that first day he had woken up in the infirmary, his senses finally returning to him.

Zhaan was beautiful.

FS

Everyone was taken by storm when Zhaan strolled onto the bridge, the picture of health. As blue and as striking as when she had first come aboard.

Everyone cheered but Aeryn.

Chiana all but leaped at Zhaan. “Zhaan, you look terrific. How come?”

Chiana had used John’s human phrasing, and Zhaan’s heart leaped with delight to hear it. “Our dear John helped me, Chiana. He has willingly agreed to provide The Kelid.”

D’Argo, keeping his eyes on his monitors, secretly smiled to himself. When Chiana returned to his side he whispered to her “If I know Delvans, John will be worn out within a weeken.” He chuckled.

For a reason he could not understand, his humor did not please Chiana. “Shut up D’Argo.”

John entered the bridge last and walked to his station next to Aeryn’s who took two steps sideways.

But John’s eyes were on his own work.

Pilot spoke. ¡°Zhaan, we are all gratified to see you are well again. Moya is especially glad and wishes to convey to you her greetings.¡±

“Thank you Pilot, and my thanks to Moya.”

All of this irritated D’Argo. “Are we done with the family reunion now? Can we get to work?”

John asked “What work?” He found it hard to keep his voice neutral when speaking to D’Argo. So much for Luxon honor. The big guy had found it all too easy to lie.

Chiana answered for him “We’re trying to find a Free-trade ship or base. We’re running low on supplies again.”

A frequent problem aboard Moya. John sighed. Back to business as usual. “So what do we-?”

But Pilot didn’t let him finish. ¡°I’ve located a vessel orbiting the minor moon of Asheth. It is emitting a short range trade beacon, four arns distant.¡±

Rygel entered the bridge on his flying chair. “Asheth is nothing but a rock. Why would any trade vessel be harbored there?”

“Ah, you decided to get up today?” D’Argo remarked rudely to Rygel who, as was his habit, ignored the Luxon.

“An illegal trading vessel might.” Zhaan said. “Set course for Asheth Pilot.”

¡°Very well.¡±

FS

Rygel liked to be around when ever things might prove entertaining. A ship orbiting a moon barely qualified. “What the frell?” Was Rygel’s unexpected reaction once they drew within visual range.

“Oh my god, it’s Talyn.” Aeryn said.

John had heard of Moya’s offspring but he had never seen the weapons ship nor met its commander, the infamous Crais. “Why would Talyn be here?”

Aeryn explained. “Crais has been disavowed by the Nation. He thinks Talyn might be his ticket back.”

Zhaan added “But Crais does not yet have full control of Talyn. He is a ship who very much has his own mind.”

“A teenager.” John said.

Zhaan nodded once. “Impulsive youth, yes.”

John frowned. The TC chip failed to convey all the nuances that the word teenager encompassed when spoken in his native English - rebellion, foolishness, hubris. Impulsiveness was the least of their worries.

“Talyn is in synchronous orbit with the orbiting trade ship.” D’Argo said.

Their collective disquiet over Crais’s presence around Asheth was addressed when Pilot announced: ¡°Talyn’s commander is asking to speak with us.¡±

Zhaan looked around at her fellow ship mates. They all seemed to be looking to her to decide. “Tell Talyn that he may.”

Crais’s dark features and dour expression filled the view screen. “Hello Aeryn Sun.” He said.

“I’d appreciate,” Aeryn said, “you not wasting my time pretending to be civil. What do you want?”

John leaned over to whisper to Chiana. “These two have a history beyond a military one?”

Chiana whispered back. “And then some. Aeryn denies it but she and Crais at one time did more than, you know, kill innocent species.”

Aeryn was standing stiffer, taller, as she spoke to her former commander. “Why are you here Crais?”

“Talyn sensed his mother was in the area and insisted on waiting for her. At first I was less than pleased with the idea, but this may work to our mutual benefit.”

“I doubt it.” D’Argo said.

“Hear me out.” Crais said. “I have some information that may be of interest to you, P’au Zhaan, if you’ll let me.”

“In exchange for what?” John asked. No way was this guy getting near Zhaan or anyone unless what he had to offer was dynamo supreme.

“News about Delva.” Crais answered. “But that is all you’ll get unless we can come to a trade agreement face to face.”

Zhaan’s face both lit up and grew tense with worry. Any news about her home world worth a trade to Crais either had to be very good news indeed or very, very bad. She turned her head to speak, her words seemingly intended for John above the others. “The Peacekeepers have systematically devastated my world. Almost all the priestly castes were executed, our religious way of life brought to ruin.”

Crais nodded. It was common knowledge. “Those with religious proclivities work only underground now.” Crais added. “Delvans are lost without their goddesses and prayers.” Crais was unable to keep the hint of contempt from his voice.

For now, Zhaan ignored Crais’s undercarriage of gloat. “Delva fell in only weekens. Even the monasteries where the children were educated were destroyed.” Her face went from crystal blue to a livid plum. “With the children inside.”

Crais shrugged. “It was war.”

John was amazed how easily he found it to already hate this man. “You mean genocide.”

“I mean casualties.” Crais waved his hand. “Let us not speak of those times. There is something I need. In exchange I have news of Delva if you wish to hear it, P’au Zhaan. Call me when you have decided.”

FS

D’Argo would lead the discussion. He kept his Qualta blade at his side and charged just in case the decision would be to kill Crais where he sat. This D’Argo explained to Crais.

Crais, seated with Moya’s crew around the bridge’s main control consol, nodded. “Of course. But you should know that Talyn has agreed to fire upon Moya if I do not return safely. He has affection for his mother of course, but he also has it for me, and he and I are linked. He knows that without me, his existence will become directionless.”

“A good lie.” Aeryn said. “Too bad Talyn is still impressionable enough to believe it.”

“Yes, too bad.” Crais answered.

“What is your proposal?” John asked.

Zhaan, sitting to his left, had found it difficult to speak to Crais once he was in her presence. John could see her fisting and un-fisting her fingers over and over. He was sure she was struggling not to wrap them around Crais’s throat and suffocate the arrogant words from his lips. Zhaan was a powerhouse, and John was sure that if she wanted to, she could snap Crais’s spine in two.

Since Crais had made certain to sit on the opposite side of the consol from Zhaan, he probably had no doubt of it either.

Crais did not mince words. “I want total control of Talyn.” He announced. “And Moya can make that possible.”

D’Argo snorted. “Even if we were stupid enough to agree to this insanity, how is Moya supposed to make that possible?”

“Moya would know where Talyn’s Prerogative Nexus is located. If I can disable it, then Talyn will be completely under my command.”

“And then he can use Talyn’s weapons to destroy any ship in the Nation, and gain back the power he’s lost.” Aeryn explained.

“Or build up and command my own fleet, yes.” Crais admitted. “Talyn is the most powerful ship ever conceived or constructed. Nothing could stand in my way.”

“And what about Delva?” John asked. “Your news?”

Crais shook his head. “That stays with me until the work on Talyn is complete.”

Aeryn looked around at her shipmates. “This is insanity. Once he has control of Talyn, he won’t need to give us frell, he can just fire on Moya and blow her into space dust.”

D’Argo agreed. “Our answer is no, Crais.”

Crais said wearily. “I suppose it would be useless to give you my word that I would not fire upon Moya?”

“Exactly.” D’Argo agreed.

Crais looked across the consol at Zhaan. ”Is that your decision as well?”

Zhaan, looking sick at heart, nodded. “Yes.” It was not an easy yes. It was a terribly, aching, soul-tearing yes.

Crais stood up. “I see. That is sad.” He remarked. “I was so looking forward to seeing Zhaan’s face when I told her the news.”

John wanted to kill the prick himself, and see his assumption of superiority turning into a corpse. Crais seemed to be enjoying Zhaan’s distress. “Get off this ship you son-of-a-bitch.” John told him, his tone dangerous.

Crais frowned at the few unfamiliar words in the sentence, but he did seem to catch on that he was being reviled in them. Crais turned away, doing as he was told. “As you wish.”

“D’Argo.” John said. “Escort our guest to his transport pod. Get this bastard off Moya.”

D’Argo, for the first time and without question, obeyed an order from John. “It will be my pleasure.”

FS

That night when John came to Zhaan’s chamber, it was not at her request, or even at her need. It was because he wanted to.

John stripped off his own clothes and then asked her to undress. When she did so, he made love to her in all the ways he knew to do as a human. He wanted desperately to make her feel some form of joy again, renew her spirit after Crais’s visit had so broken it.

To almost hear news of home, to almost toy with the idea that it might be something good after so many cycles of hearing only bad, to circle the remote possibility that she might even be able to return to Delva...and then to have it all die in an instant, because of a decision that had to be made by her own choice and from her own tongue.

John could well relate to how she must be feeling. Shared pain and shared numbing of that pain through a physical balm might provide some relief. It was all he had to offer.

Zhaan accepted his gift with her long, tender fingers. This night she kissed him and ran her hands down his sides without partaking of The Kelid or any ritual of Healing. Tonight she took his body as he gave it.

As her lover

The Right of Skin - Chapter VII

Setting/Spoilers: Slightly pre-Season One I guess.
Rating:. Non-con, hetero’ and some minimal slash. Go away if any offends.
Pairings:John/Various shipmates
Summary:AU. John Crichton is caught on a ship. Aliens are present, and his so-called life aboard Moya begins.?
Disclaimers: Farscape and its characters are the property of Jim Henson Productions, and a bunch of other folks who made $$ from it. Me? I make fun.
Note: Please remember that in this version of Farscape there are some details that have come from memory while others I am making up as I go along - I’m “tweaking” canon to suit this AU.
FSFSFSFSFSFSFSFSFS

“This K’traatr god. Why worship a demon?” John lay on his back, his body spent from bringing The Kelid, and some pleasure, to Zhaan.

Zhaan lay on top of him still, looking at his face, her chin in her be-ringed hands. “Because of the power they thought they could gain from him.”

“Him? I thought you called it a she?”

“He is she, she is he - Gods have no gender. The words for male or female are ours.” Zhaan explained.

Zhaan had weekens ago decided to cease avoiding talk of K’Traatr. John deserved total truth from her now, and her willingness to reveal herself and the faults of her species.

“Not much different from us, actually - from humans.”

She and all aboard Moya were separated from their home world and their peoples, but at least they knew their planets were out there still. John heard nothing of Earth and there was nothing to gain by speaking to him of it, or she imparting any knowledge she may or may not learn. He did not even know where he was in the galaxy. Zhaan recalled one of his first requests after the TC chip had been installed. He had wanted to see “star charts”, as he had called them, of “The Milky Way”. She remembered his distress, and his frightened eyes, when they revealed they possessed no knowledge of such a name.

In John’s case, Earth was better left forgotten. “We are like humans?”

He shook his head. “No not really, just some of your imperfections.” He sighed, turning over onto his stomach. John didn’t leave her quarters now when The Healings were complete. Zhaan said nothing about it to anyone but privately she much enjoyed having his body next to her at night. He was warm and solid, and she loved to lie awake listening to him breath.

Zhaan draped one shapely leg over the backs of his thighs. “Were you expecting to find greater beings beyond Earth?”

“Yes. I didn’t think all species in the universe would be like humans, but I guess I just didn’t expect the corruptions to be the same, but it looks like the universe doesn’t mind injustice.” He yawned and in microts he was asleep.

Zhaan took the opportunity to peer into his spirit with her own and found it more settled now. There were times, like now, when he was asleep and she allowed herself the pleasure to look at his heart without delving into his private thoughts - which would be a violation, and she wished to cause no more hurt in this man.

Zhaan was intrigued by the feelings she found in John Crichton the human. Anger of course over what Scorpius had done, some lingering resentment over what she had done, actions over which she still felt great shame. Humor was there, too, she was delighted to know, including a tendency to tease of which the others had been recipients. She, too, had been the mark of a few gentle jokes now and again. She didn’t mind. John had called her “big blue butt” once she remembered, he then having to explain the last word.

There was also, ever in the background of his fighting soul, a canyon of ache that looked in one direction only - back the way he had come. Always John looked back, toward his home. Zhaan feared it was a heartache he might never overcome. No, Earth and any talk of it must be left behind.

And, despite all that had been done to him, Zhaan was moved to find in him a love for her, and for Chiana and Aeryn. Even for D’Argo and Rygel. John had come to have affection for his captors, who were now his companions. They in turn had certainly come to love him as one of their own.

Zhaan wrapped her arms around him and slept.

FS

Pilot’s voice stirred them from slumber. ¡°Zhaan. I have a message coming in on a coded channel from a Stykeran ship. It is from Stark.¡±

Leaving John to sleep, Zhaan wrapped a blanket around herself and headed to the bridge as quickly as possible. “Thank you Pilot. I’m on my way.”

Her old friend, the glowing half of his face shielded from their eyes, greeted Zhaan with anxious words. “This is not a social message, Zhaan, as nice as it would be to just talk.”
Zhaan still smiled at him. “Stark. It is wonderful to see you.”

“And you.” He said “But I must get off this channel. We are not sure whether it is still secure of whether the Peacekeepers have broken it. There is news of Delva. The Resistance has spent many cycles organizing a rebellion as you know. What you might not know is that they are on the verge of succeeding. The Peacekeeper Provisional Government is losing its hold on the people and a massive overthrow is sure to occur within the next few weekens. The Resistance is calling for all Delvans to return home as soon as possible. Your services as a level nine P’au would be invaluable and not only for moral.”

“Level ten.”

Zhaan turned when she heard John speak. He was dressed and standing not ten feet behind her. She had not heard him enter the bridge, nor had anyone. Her mind had been completely absorbed in the possibility that she might be going home.

Stark was pleased. “Level ten.” He sounded impressed. “And you did this while aboard Moya?”

Zhaan nodded but said nothing. She was not one to brag. “What about the shipping lanes?”

“Still guarded. You would need a fighter to get through, and then only as part of a small armada. The Peacekeeper Dreadnaughts have retreated to the outer system to await re-enforcements, so our travel window will not be open for long.”

“You mean you are going to Delva?” though Zhaan knew his answer already. Stark had sent it from his spirit to hers. He was a powerful empath.

He nodded. “We are already nearing the Delvan system. My planets military is all but decimated. We are nothing left but a few thousand slaves spread out across other systems, so now I fight for Delva.”

“Tell my fellows I shall be joining them as soon as I can.” Zhaan would go. She had made the decision in an instant. To go home and fight once more for freedom on her home world? There was no question. No doubt.

Zhaan and Stark said their goodbyes and she turned to see her companions all looking at her with mixed expressions. Rygel seemed to be one of jealousy. “I wish I was going home.” He grumbled and floated away.

D’Argo looked very pleased for her, as did Aeryn.

Only John’s face held misgivings, but she felt he thoroughly understood her decision. “You’re going to need a fighting ship.” He said.

“There is only one fighting vessel aboard Moya – my Prowler.” Aeryn offered.

Zhaan shook her head. “I cannot ask you to –“

“I’ll do it.” Aeryn said. “When do you need me to be ready?”

John waved a finger to Aeryn, shaking his head. “I have a better idea.” He said.

FS

“We know what’s happening on Delva, Crais.” John said to the man glaring back on Moya’s view screen. “So we have a counter proposal. We’ll help you disable Talyn’s Prerogative Nexus if you escort our transport to the Delvan system.”

A harumph! escaped Crais’s lips. He clearly disapproved. “Not likely. I would be fired upon the moment we encountered a Peacekeeper Battle Cruiser. Talyn is powerful but he cannot last against a cruiser.”

“Intel’ says the Peacekeepers are hanging out on the outer worlds waiting for their buddies. The playing field ought to be clear. But we have to move fast.”

Crais waited a few microts for his TC technology to give its best interpretation of John’s phraseology. “I see.” Crais nodded. “I’ll agree to your terms on one condition. I want the Nexus disabled before we enter Peacekeeper space.”

D’Argo answered for them all. “No.”

“I will keep my side of the bargain.” Crais insisted.

“We don’t believe you.” Aeryn said.

“Yeah, yeah.” John added. “Something about you being a lying, cheating, murdering bastard has, shall we say, damaged your reputation as a nice, honest guy.”

“Then I see no way for us to settle this.” Crais answered, clearly believing he had the upper hand.

John reached for the End Transmission controls. “Fine.”

“Fine.” Crais’s scowl disappeared from the view screen.

Aeryn turned to John, irritated that he had disconnected Crais before she had a chance to do her own bargaining. “Why the frell did you do that?”

“So he won’t think he has the upper position.”

“But he does have the upper position. He knows we can’t get Zhaan through to Delva without some major firepower.”

“But he doesn’t know we know he has the upper position.” John countered. “And if he wants full control of Talyn, then he has to deal with us. We have Moya and she helps us, not him.”

“Then tell him to bring Talyn aboard and we’ll starburst to the Delvan system together, outside the Peacekeepers sensors. We’ll give him what he needs then. That way at least he’ll be in the same dren we are at the same time. Neither side will have an advantage over the other.”

“Good idea. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

Aeryn threw John a strange look. “Sure, John, whatever that means.”

“In other words, the risk is worth it.” He said, turning to Zhaan. “I guess you’d better pack.”
FS

It only took Zhaan moments to gather what she intended to take with her: three robes, a small collection of her most prized sacred idols, a bag of healing herbs, one ceramic gourd and the oils that went into it, a tiny ringing bell, and the rings she was already wearing on her fingers.

John leaned against the doorway of her chamber as he puttered around inside. “I know why you have to go, Zhaan, I just wish there was some other way.”

“What other way could there be?” She asked, her mind on folding the many pleats of her first confirmation robe.

“A way where you could stay here.”

Zhaan forgot her small case and the items she was deftly arranging in it. She walked over to him and took his face in her hands. “If I knew you would, I would ask you to come with me.” She smiled then shook her head sadly, “But I know you won’t.”

John dropped his eyes to her carved lips, his fingers touching her face in one place, then another. “I’m...going to miss you...a lot.”

Zhaan could see into his spirit and the sadness resting there. It was possible that John had fallen in love with her, but she could not yet see that far inside. But his feelings for her were never-the-less strong and it pained her to be causing him grief once more.

She brought her forehead to rest against his. “John, I want to give you something, if you’ll allow me.”

He nodded, sensing it was probably not a keepsake to set upon his night table. “Okay.”

Zhaan placed each palm against either side of his temples and closed her eyes. “Place your hands on me, as I am doing. Now close your eyes. In a few microts you’ll feel me, see me, at the door of your soul. To receive this gift, you must open it. This will not harm you in any way.”

John was doubtful his soul even had a door. “Are we mind-melding?”

“Sh-h-h.” She said. “Just open.”

She was right. In the very next microt he could sense her asking to be let in, although he could not specify what part of her was knocking or what part of him she wanted to enter. He tried to relax and allow her to do as she willed. As never before, he trusted her.

In a wonderful instant Zhaan was inside him, spinning around a part of his mind he never knew existed, soothing a corner of his soul that had not been there before and nestled in a chamber of his heart that was suddenly born inside him. A spectacular sensation of devotion flowed through all these parts, settling down he knew not how or exactly where, but she was connecting herself to him. Zhaan was within him now in many ways; her soft voice and joyous face, her kind hands and beautiful alien eyes seeing his need, touching the very center of his will, and caressing their shared memories – preserving the bond they had shared. And now also solidifying this new bond she had just given to him, for all time.

For a few microts, it was as though he were two people in one.

Zhaan released him and looked at his face, anxious to know she had not hurt him. “Are you all right?”

John opened his eyes and the new and intense feelings quickly settled down. He was once more just John, but now she, inexplicably, was there too. “That was...amazing.” He said. Adequate words didn’t exist. “I was thinking of trying to find a flower or something to give to you as a goodbye, but I think this blows that all to dren.”

Zhaan nodded. “I would have loved a flower, but instead I’m in you and you’re in me. This is not like a betrothal, as I spoke of before, but it is more than simple friendship. I do love you, John, now and always.”

John knew if he stayed another microt he was going to start asking her to stay, so he kissed her hard on the mouth and walked away. “Same here.”

Once John disappeared around the corridor, Zhaan sent personal goodbyes to D’Argo, Chiana and Aeryn, plus a special one to both Pilot and Moya through her personal communication link. There was to be, unfortunately, no more visiting. It was time to go home.

FS

The transport pod’s progress through the outer worlds was monitored by Pilot and everyone aboard Moya, who kept their eyes unwaveringly on the view screen since the moment the transport pod had launched. Crais commanding Talyn shadowed her through it all. So far there had been no sign of Peacekeeper fighters.

Until Zhaan approached the orbit of Delva’s outer moon. A series of small proximity beacons left behind by the Peacekeeper Lord began to send out their signals as soon as the unauthorized transport was detected. The Peacekeepers might have been falling into the losing position and had all but abandoned Delva, but it seems they were determined not to go quietly.

Aboard Moya - “Pilot, is that beacon what I think it is?” John asked.

“If you think it is a Peacekeeper proximity beacon, John, you are correct. I detect several Peacekeeper fighters closing in. Their sensors have targeted the transport, but they have not yet discovered Moya.”

“Thank gods for small favors.” Chiana said.

John checked his instruments. “It’d be nice if they did us a big one once in a while. Pilot, how close is Zhaan to the Delvan atmosphere?”

“Not close enough. The fighters will be within firing range in less than one tenth of an arn.”

Chiana, her eyes squinting, tried to see beyond what Moya’s main view screen was showing her. “What about Crais? Where’s Talyn? Crais is supposed to protect Zhaan isn’t he? So why the frell isn’t he?”

Aeryn pursed her lips. “Because he’s decided we’re not worth the risk. The “dirty son-of-a-bitch” isn’t going to join the show.” She used one of John’s curses. It described Crais fairly well she thought.

Moya’s view screen suddenly switched from view-mode to an incoming image. One they instantly recognized. “Hello John.”

Chiana unconsciously took a step back. This had to be Scorpius. It was the first time she had ever seen him, and John was right, he did look like a walking corpse in sex leather. “What the frell is he doing here?”

Scorpius provided the answer. “I have my resources, Nebarian tralk. Since the Delvan Peacekeeper Lord has retreated, I also surmised – correctly as it turns out - that your priestess might be trying to return home, and wherever P’au Zhaan is, so you are too, John.”

D’Argo whispered to Aeryn. “But how the hell did he know for sure Moya was here?”

Aeryn told him. “This signal is probably being sent on wide dispersal. Every ship in the system is receiving this right now. He figured we were somewhere nearby, and Scorpius didn’t care if everyone else got his message, too, as long as it reached us. So to answer your question, he doesn’t know where Moya is, we’re still outside their sensor range.”

“But not communication range.” John added.

Scorpius, privy to the exchange that just took place, nodded. “Precisely. And the code Stark worked so hard to keep secret has been known to us for several weekens.”

“What do you want Scorpius?” John demanded. As if I didn’t already know.

Pilot interrupted. ¡°Zhaan’s vessel has been fired upon. It is still intact but the transport has been arrested with a docking tether.¡±

D’Argo muted all communication with Scorpius to speak privately. “That means they have not boarded the transport. The docking joins are not compatible. This will delay their ability to seize the transport.”

“But it also means Zhaan isn’t going home, or anywhere.” Chiana said.

Scorpius’ skull-like face waited patiently. John had to hand it to the guy, he had nerve. John opened the communications again. “What do you want with Zhaan?” Maybe he could buy her some time.

“I want nothing with Zhaan, or Moya or any of your friends, John, but I want many things from you.”

The wormhole technology - whatever of it was locked up inside his brain. John sighed. He wished now he never knew anything about it. “So if I turn myself over to you, you let her go.”

“Not exactly. If you turn yourself over to me, I convince the Peacekeeper Lord not kill her and the rest of Moya’s crew, which they will do once they have located you. And believe me, they will find you.”

“As generous as ever.” John remarked.

“This is a generous offer, and not one I’m likely to repeat.”

John muted his nemesis once more. “D’Argo, I need to talk to you.”

Aeryn watched them walk off the bridge. “Hey, this isn’t a good time for a boys-only club meeting.”

“We’ll be right back, Aeryn. Stall them as long as you can.”

Outside the hearing of the others, John asked D’Argo quietly. “The Chair Scorpius left behind – where is it?” When D’Argo hesitated, John added. “I know when Scorpius escaped Moya he had to do it fast and that means he had to have left the chair behind.”

“We have it. We dismantled it.” D’Argo narrowed his eyes at his shipmate. “What are you thinking John?”

“I’m thinking we need an edge over Scorpius. Do you think you can hook it up?”

D’Argo shook his head. “No, no, it would take hours to put it back together –“

“-we don’t need the chair itself, we only need the mind probe equipment - that specific part - now can you hook that back up?”

D’Argo was looking grave. “Yes, I believe I can, but how would this help us?”

“We need to buy Zhaan time, and we need to talk to Crais and threaten him into fulfilling his side of the bargain. So far he’s been an absent partner.”

“Agreed.”

John swallowed his fear at having the chair’s power rip through his mind again. “To buy this time, we need to offer Scorpius what he wants without actually giving him what he wants.”

D’Argo thought he understood. “You’re going to erase the wormhole knowledge from your brain? That chair could kill you. And then you’re going to turn yourself over to Scorpius. This is suicide.” D’Argo felt especially for his friend, for he well understood the final consequence. “Plus you’ll never get home again, John. You’ll be stuck here forever.”

“Shut up before I change my mind. And yes to all of the above, but they’re going to kill Zhaan, and maybe us, too.”

D’Argo scowled. “This idea is insane – It would be too great a sacrifice - I won’t help you.”

John took a step forward until he and D’Argo were eye to eye. “You’re a Luxon, you understand sacrifice. And you owe me.”

D’Argo was the first to look away. “Damn you and your stubborn human nature.” His shoulders sagged a little. “Yes, I do owe you, so I’ll do it, but it doesn’t mean I have to like it.” D’Argo led John to where they had stored Scorpius’ mind-torture device. “I can hook it up, but how will you accomplish this John?”

“Easy. All we have to do is hook me in and as I purposely think about the wormhole technology, you throw the ol’ switchero and - whammo! No more wormhole know-how.”

“I still think this is insane. When Aeryn finds out, she’s going to kill me.”

“Well she’s not going to find out, is she? Here -” John took out a writing stylus and, snatching D’Argo’s left hand, wrote something on the back of it. “Once Scorpius has his ugly greedy hands on me, you send this out on all open channels. Crais is out there someplace and when he hears it, let’s hope he thinks we’re serious and does what he’s supposed to already have done. Tell him to wait for a signal before he opens fire. It’ll come from Zhaan.” I hope.

“From Zhaan?? And, by the way, I thought we were serious.”

“We are. I’m trying to compensate for the Sebacean arrogant factor.”

“I see. How is Zhaan going to signal Crais?”

“Never mind, I got it covered. Just help me with the damn chair.”

FS

“John, if I erase your wormhole knowledge, how are you going to remember that it was erased?”

John, the chair’s mind probes set against either side of his temple, bit his lip. “Good point.”

D’Argo had an idea. “I think all you need to do is remember from this microt on that you don’t possess wormhole knowledge and that you need to keep that knowledge from Scorpius.”

“Okay, but coach me during this frelling fun time.”

“Coach you?”

“After we pull this damn thing off, remind me of what I don’t know, and that I what I don’t know needs to be kept from Scorpius.”

“Uh - right. Are you ready?”

John nodded. “Let’s get this freak show on the road.”

FS

D’Argo returned to the bridge alone and Aeryn confronted him as soon as he was within hearing distance. “Where the frell have you two been?” She noticed John’s absence. “You left almost an arn ago – and where’s John?”

“Never mind Aeryn. Just send this message.’ He held out his hand to her and she read the few words written there. “Are you crazy? What the hezmana is this all about, D’Argo? Scorpius is screaming for John and he’s about to fire.”

“Just send it.”

Aeryn started plugging the message into the communication consol but wouldn’t let up. “Where’s John?”

D’Argo asked his own question. “Is the message sent?”

“Yes.”

D’Argo touched the controls himself. “John? Do you receive me?”

“Aye, aye.”

Aeryn’s eyes grew wide. She could tell from his voice he was in his module and that meant he was off Moya. “What the frell is John doing out there?”

D’Argo now answered. “Purchasing time.”

FS

John sent out his own beacon so Scorpius could track him, accompanied by a personal voice message. “Hey Scorpy’! Here I am. I’m yours, so you can leave Zhaan alone.”

Scorpius’ voice answered through John’s head-set. “I will ensure her safety, if not her freedom. Here are the coordinates for my ship. Follow them exactly, John, and no tricks, or I swear your priestess and all her friends will die today.”

“Wouldn’t think of it.”

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