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Crichton heaved again on the wrench, trying to break the fastener loose, but nothing budged. “Frelling piece of dren,” he muttered. He looked around the interior of the maintenance space and then shook his head. The filthy conditions didn’t bother him, it was his own feeling of disgust that was causing the problem. Other people’s messes hadn’t affected him for as long as he’d been working here. If he could get in, do the repairs, and get out again without contracting anything chronic or lethal, he’d never cared about the working conditions before. The squalor was bothering him today, and that, in turn, bothered him more.
“Problem?” came a call from below. Two of the ship’s crew were working on the level below him.
“Nothing Mr. Goodwrench can’t handle,” he yelled back. He rapped himself lightly against the head, chastising himself for sliding into an Earth-based reference. Part of his success in staying hidden here were Gallenn’s constant reminders to avoid such peculiar phrases. His introspection the night before seemed to have set his memories free again.
“John!” Gallenn’s anxious voice rang through the almost deserted engine compartments. Crichton’s head snapped around, surprised at the use of his name. Gallenn NEVER made that mistake, he thought. He looked down the shaft, but the two crewmen below didn’t seem to have noticed anything unusual.
“What are you doing?” he accused as Gallenn appeared in the access tunnel. “Are you trying to get me killed?”
“It doesn’t matter what I call you now, or who knows about it. A Peacekeeper Fast Attack Cruiser is about to enter orbit, and they’re asking about you. They’ve already sent down images to the cantonment officials, John. They called to warn us, but it’s only a matter of time before someone tells them you’re here. You’ve got to get the frell off this planet.”
“SHIT!” He threw the wrench down and banged his fist against the interior bulkhead. “How did they find me after a full cycle? This is unbelievable. I can NOT believe they are still looking for me after all this time.” It was starting all over again, he thought. The pain of seeing Aeryn, the running, the loss of any friends, the loneliness. The emotions swooped down and threatened to shred him. The sense of foreboding was overwhelming, he felt like a mouse that had just seen the shadow of a hawk pass over its hiding place.
“Stop worrying about that now. You’ve got to move fast, they’ll be in orbit in less than an arn.” Gallenn grabbed him and shoved him into the access tunnel, urging him to hurry. “I already stopped by your place and grabbed everything I could carry, and I used my account to transcribe your earnings into credits to take with you.” He shoved Crichton again. “Will you hurry up?”
John came to a halt as they dropped out of the cargo ship. “What difference does it make? I’m not Richard Kimble, and I don’t have some mysterious one armed man out there who can set me free from the goose stepping psychopaths that want me dead.” He stopped walking and looked around at the scenery that had somehow become home. “This is never going to end, and I don’t want to run again. Screw it, let them come and try to take me. At least it’ll be over.”
Gallenn pushed him forward roughly, and when he swung around to argue some more, the Sebacean made a hand signal.
“Darn right I’m nuts. You’d be mentally deranged too if you tried this life … or lack of one.” Crichton allowed himself to be herded toward the landing field. “I felt as though my life ended when I got separated from Moya, but I rebuilt one here. I’m not going to start over.”
“You did it once, you can do it again, Crichton. Would you please move a little faster?” Gallennn tossed two large carrying bags at him, and picked up another. He grabbed something out of the bag and held it out to John.
“Pulse pistol.” Crichton took the weapon and looked at it, coming to a stop again. “I haven’t worn one of those in a long time, I don’t feel like starting again.”
Gallenn knew his former partner was stubborn, but he had never realized that John could be this mulishly obstinate. “Shut up!” he yelled. “Look, if nothing else, you can make like a startled flibisk for a while and then circle back here. I’m not going anywhere.”
“What do you suggest I use for a ship?” Crichton stowed the pulse pistol in one of the bags and began walking a little more quickly toward the rows of parked spacecraft. “I don’t recall having a loaner sitting around the lot.”
“You can take the prototype. I arranged to have the fuel cells charged, and its got the single cabin so you can live on it for a while. I checked it over before I came to get you, and the Rhotarri Drive is in great shape.”
Crichton swerved to head toward the far end of the field. The ship they had used to test the original Rhotarri system was a converted long distance transport ship. He’d kept the navigation systems upgraded, if only to continue making experimental flights as he gained more experience with the quirks of folded space travel, and they had added some amenities after he had gotten himself lost and been stuck in the ship for almost four solar days.
They approached the ship almost at a run, and once again Crichton felt his life spinning out of control. His cycles here had been uneventful, almost boring, but he didn’t want to leave this way, shoveling everything in the door and blasting out of here without a thought. He tossed the duffels in through the hatch and turned to look at his friend. Gallenn looked concerned, but there was almost an eagerness to his expression, and John hesitated for a microt. A cycle-old habit of suspicion tumbled out of storage, and he wondered about the Sebacean’s loyalties and motivation.
Then he remembered all the times Gallenn had hauled him out of the bar, dragged his drunken, weaving body back to his room and dumped him on his bed. Gallenn had badgered and challenged him until he had produced the new drive system, had financed the prototype, made him a partner in the business, and had supported what could have been a highly questionable decision to sell the plans for pure profit. He’d stood by him through all his ups and downs, and John was ashamed that he had questioned his loyalty, even if only momentarily.
He put out his hand, and his friend looked at it blankly. “It’s called a handshake.” Gallenn put his hand out and John took it firmly. “You’re a good friend, Gallenn. I owe you more than I can ever tell you.”
Gallenn pulled free after a moment. “Get out of here. Come back if you ever get a chance … but make sure you don’t have any frelling Peacekeepers right on your butt, okay?”
John looked at him for one more moment, fixing the face in his memory, then pulled himself into the ship. Gallenn jogged out of range of the thrusters, turning and shading his eyes from the blowing grit as the ship lifted. It rose smoothly out of its self-manufactured cloud of dust, dwindling in size as it arced into the sky. It seemed to hang for a moment, and the skin tightening whine developed. Gallenn plugged his ears just as the snapping boom sounded, and the ship was gone.
“You owe me all right, John. I just wish you could come back some day and tell me how much.” He looked up at the empty sky, and missed his friend already.
**********
The first jump had been a short one, just clear of the solar system. As the ship came out into normal space, John immediately scanned to make sure he hadn’t jumped right into the arms of the approaching cruiser. The sensors were clear of input, and he let the ship coast on imparted momentum as he tried to decide where to go next. Every world that came to mind was well within the reach of the Peacekeepers, and was therefore out of consideration.
He punched in the coordinates of Earth and stared at the nav system readout. It was a long jump, one that required maximum exertion of the folded space phenomenon. He wondered if he could ever fit in there again. He sat in the silence of the cockpit and tried to imagine himself walking into the house, sleeping in a bed with sheets, and eating cornflakes for breakfast. He didn’t belong there now, any more than he belonged there a cycle and a half ago. It wasn’t his home anymore.
“Robinson Frelling Crusoe, adrift without an island.” His voice bounced around the quiet cockpit, and he fell silent.
John stared out into the blackness of space that was not illuminated by a nearby sun. There wasn’t any sort of light source to compete with the thick carpet of stars, and as his eyes adjusted to the dark of interstellar emptiness, more and more pinpoints of light became visible. It was like coming home, except there was no one to welcome him. He nudged the controls, and the ship pitched downward until the two stars he hadn’t seen for a cycle came into view. Hewey fell into line with his two brothers, and the fourth and brightest star eased itself onto the transport’s view screen as he brought the ship to a stop.
He let go of the controls and sat back, staring at the familiar view. The ship was almost completely silent, only the slightest creaking coming from the hull as it cooled, and he waved a hand over the controls to dim the last of the displays. He sat staring for almost a quarter of an arn, finding himself enormously happy to be in space again at the same time that he grieved for another life lost. He was elated and depressed at the same time, and he floated in the dark caught between the two emotions.
His reverie was disturbed when the door to the cockpit opened behind him with a clang. He jumped at the unexpected noise, cursing himself silently for not putting on the pulse pistol. He whirled around, the adrenalin starting to pump as he prepared for a fight … and froze half out of his seat while his mind struggled to cope with what his eyes were seeing.
“Hello, John.”
“Gallenn! That frelling bastard arranged this.” John sank back into his seat, all thoughts of a physical battle fleeing before his shock. He turned back to face the view screen, staring at the blackness outside and seeing something entirely different than he had five microts earlier. A moment ago he’d been depressed, now he was angry, and if it had made any sense, he would have said he was scared.
Aeryn walked the short distance between them, approaching him slowly, and eased into the second seat. “Gallenn agreed to help me, but reluctantly. It took some persuasion, but we had a long talk yesterday, and he even thought up this part of the plan.”
John shook his head, recognizing that he had been brilliantly set up. “Was there even a Peacekeeper Cruiser?” he asked. When she didn’t answer he looked at her, expecting a smirk, but Aeryn was looking at him grimly, no amusement on her face.
“No, there wasn’t. We thought it was the only thing that would move you off the planet though.” She was staring at his hair, but when he looked across at her she broke away, focusing on the nav display instead. Her brow furrowed as she worked out the coordinates and the trajectory. “Is that the course for Earth?” When he nodded, she continued. “Take me there, show it to me.”
“Can’t.” He reached forward and cleared out the entry. She started to argue and he cut her off. “It’s too dangerous.”
“We don’t have to stay long. We could get in and out without getting into trouble.”
The impulse flickered through his mind to point out that nothing they had ever done had been accomplished without getting into trouble, but chose a more straight forward explanation, striving to keep those memories from surfacing. “That’s not what I mean. The drive system is flawed. Gallenn and I sold the plans to it because we knew it would never last.”
She looked puzzled so he explained, gesticulating to demonstrate the concepts he was trying to describe. “It relies on folding space, but space isn’t flat or even. If you fold space where there’s a wrinkle or a bend, your results are unpredictable. The longer the jump, the worse the outcome. I got lost the third time I tested it. If I try to get to Earth, there’s no knowing where I’ll come out. The jump is too far and I don’t have any reference points in between to make smaller jumps.”
“And you built it and sold it anyway?” The disbelief was plain in her voice, and for some reason it pleased him.
“Caveat emptor,” he said. Aeryn gave him the look she had always reserved for when he slid into his untranslatable Earth terms, and he felt a twisting sensation in his stomach. It was as if the memories of every time he had ever seen that expression flashed through his mind in a single instant. He concentrated on what he was saying, trying to ignore the feeling. “We needed money, it gave us money. I knew it was screwed before we ever started selling them, that’s why I called it the Rotary Engine.” John could see that she didn’t understand that statement either and again found satisfaction in her discomfort. He didn’t like the way he was acting, but he couldn’t get himself to stop.
“What if someone gets lost and can’t get back to their home using that drive system?”
“Then they’ll know exactly how I felt.”
“You’ve turned into a cold bastard, John. You never would have done something like that in the past.”
“Sometimes you have to change to survive.” He punched up some coordinates on the nav system. “Some place I can drop you before I head back? I can do smaller jumps without too much trouble, and I know the Uncharted Territories well enough that I can plot out a series of shorter hops to make up a longer distance.”
The longer he sat next to Aeryn, the more he felt the need to say things to shock her or make her angry. She was close enough that he could smell the light scent of her, and it left him with a raw burning feeling in his chest. It was uncomfortable, and nothing seemed to ease it except the rising wave of undirected anger.
“I want to talk first.” She unlatched the swivel base of the padded seat and spun to face him.
“I DON’T, Aeryn.” The uncomfortable sensation was building up in his chest, and he thumped himself in the sternum as though the blow would ease it. “I don’t want to go over this ground again. I’ve spent too much of the last cycle reviewing it alone, I don’t need a study group now.” He ran his hand along the series of circuits to bring the engines up to power, flicking them in a quick motion, but nothing happened. The display board was still functioning, the fuel cells were showing a full charge, but the drive system wasn’t receiving any power.
“You are going to at least listen to me, John.” He looked over and Aeryn was holding the four relays that shunted power from the fuel cells to the engines.
For a split microt he felt like grinning, admiring her resourcefulness despite the voice inside him that was screaming to end the conversation immediately. “What are you going to tell me? How your life was transformed when you realized you couldn’t live without me?”
“It wasn’t that easy, John, and you know it. But if my choice is watching you die again, or living the rest of my life without you at all, I’ll take the first one. Never knowing what you were doing, whether you were all right … it was worse than worrying about you getting killed.” She started to reach toward his hand, but he pulled away.
“So I’m still second best, the runner up prize. You’ve come back because you couldn’t stand what you had, not because you want to be with me.” He took a breath against the growing ache in his heart. “Look at yourself, Aeryn. You’re more of a Peacekeeper now than ever before. You made your decision last time based on those values, and now you want me to believe that you won’t make the same choice next time.” He saw her draw back and almost reached for her, but caught himself before he moved.
“I’ve had time to think about this, time to think about a lot of things,” Aeryn tried again. “I won’t change my mind this time. I’ve spent almost an entire cycle looking for you, John, that should tell you something.”
“You’ve come looking for someone you once knew. I keep trying to tell you that he’s gone, and you’re not listening to me any more now than you did then.” He watched as she purposefully placed the four relays along the top of the console in front of her, well out of his reach. The slow, exact motions as she set them down one by one stirred up the anger that had been resting along his spine, waiting for its next turn.
“I did listen then. I listened to you say that you believed we were meant to be together.”
Hearing his own words used against him increased the ache inside. “Different guy.”
“Tell me. Tell me what has changed so much that we can’t be together now.”
He saw what she was doing, knew that she was trying to draw him out, and found it easy to remain silent. There was no inclination to share even the smallest detail as his memory dragged him back to the Peacekeeper encampment. The cockpit seemed to disappear, and for two microts he was standing again with the body of the sentry sagging against him as he thrust the long knife into the dying soldier a second time. He could feel the blood flowing warm over his hands, smell the metallic tang on the air, felt the desperate hands plucking at him as the boy died in his grasp.
It had been necessary, absolutely imperative in order for him to continuing living, and Crichton felt the same anguish based rage building inside him that he had felt that day. He’d been forced to do something then that he would have sworn he was incapable of, and he blamed her for everything that had led to that moment. If she hadn’t left, hadn’t lied to him, had taken him with her … ANYTHING but what she had done, perhaps it wouldn’t have happened. Maybe he wouldn’t have had to do it. His anger grew until it was almost out of control.
“One more time. Just give it the old college try? Ra Ra Sis Boom Ba, and if it doesn’t work, oh well, at least we tried. Frell that, Aeryn. I gave up everything I ever was or ever wanted in the hangar that day in the single hope that we could be together, and you lied to me and left anyway.”
“I didn’t lie to you. Everything I told you was the truth.”
“That’s another LIE!” he yelled. “‘Everything I told you.’ What a load of crap! A lie of omission is still a lie. That child would have been MINE in every single way that mattered, Aeryn. You took that away from me, and you made a choice that would have taken me away from that child, which is even WORSE. You accused me time and again of making decisions for the rest of the crew that I didn’t have any right to make, but that time you turned around and did it yourself.” He broke off to catch his breath, fighting to get his anger back under control.
Aeryn sat in stunned silence. She knew he was at least partly right, and the shock of the realization coupled with his hostility left her disarmed. She started to argue, but John launched in again, his voice loud in the close confines of the small cockpit.
“You want to pick up like nothing happened, but I don’t have anything left.” He strode to the cargo bags and dumped all three out on the floor. “There it is. The life of John Crichton.” He rubbed the heels of his hands against his forehead and then looked into her eyes for the first time since she entered the cockpit. “Aeryn, I would have laid the cloths of heaven at your feet if I had owned them, but I did the only other thing I could instead. I laid my hopes and dreams before you, and you walked across them, got in the Prowler and left.”
He took a deep breath, trying to control something inside him that was threatening to take over, threatening to replace the fury with a sensation that was far more painful. “I don’t have even those dreams left now. The module’s gone, Wynona’s gone, Earth is gone, Moya and the others are gone, even Harvey is gone. I’m just barely hanging on to someone who used to be me, and you wander in here and want a piece of that.” The first tears slid down his cheeks and he wiped them roughly away, used the last of his anger to stop the rest before they could get loose.
Crichton kicked the pile of clothes into a corner, noticing for the first time that his chess set and all of his possessions were there, packed for him by Gallenn. He turned to face Aeryn, putting his back to the wall as if to protect himself from an attack. He looked down at the mess scattered across the floor, picked up the pulse pistol, and tossed it to her. “If I give up what’s left of me and you leave again, you might as well just put a pulse blast through me right now because there won’t be any difference.”
Time seemed to stop for a microt, and he could hear his last words hanging in the silence of the cockpit. He heard the hurt and the fear in his own voice, coming out just as raw as when the wound had been inflicted over a cycle ago. But louder than that, he heard his own voice telling her that she was still all that mattered in his life.
He hadn’t meant it to come out like that, it had been the pain and loss speaking as he tried to push her away. Somehow it had turned into something entirely different. He slid to the floor, resting his head in his hands, feeling the same desolation he had felt the night he had sent her away in the Command Carrier wreckage. That night it had been generated by his renewed sense of loss. This time it was because he knew that he had just lost his own internal struggle to save himself.
He didn’t look up as the footsteps approached slow and quiet. Aeryn slid down to sit next to him, and leaned her shoulder against his. He jumped slightly at the touch, but continued staring at his feet. She slid closer until they touched from shoulder to hip and placed three of the power relays on the floor next to his boots. She leaned away from him a little bit, then reached up to tug gently at a tuft of his hair, but she still didn’t say anything. John felt something cold and painful that had been residing inside his chest for a very long time melt and flow into his stomach. It flooded through him warmly and left him weak and shaking.
Aeryn held the fourth relay out in front of him. “Why didn’t you leave after you said goodbye two days ago? Why didn’t you take that courier ship or this one and just leave?”
He felt his throat close up, making it impossible for him to tell her why he had stayed. Hope and fear, desire and grief, anger and … love. He could barely let himself think the word when she was sitting this close to him, with all of the emotions churning inside his chest. He’d stayed because of hope, but even now, with her beside him, he couldn’t let himself believe that it would pay off, that it would work out this time.
“I don’t have anything to offer you except my promise, John. I was honest about one thing that day on Moya. You asked me if I loved John Crichton, and I told you I did. That hasn’t changed. I … love … John … Crichton.” Silence fell over the cockpit for several microts. “I came looking for you because I want to share a dream that I thought you still carried within you.” She picked up all four relays and got to her feet.
“I’ll put these back in place, and then, if you’re still willing, maybe you’d drop me off at Moya. She’s waiting with all of the others on board because they wanted to know if I’d found you. They’re all waiting because they want to you to come back.” Aeryn unlatched the hatch to the rear of the ship and prepared to step through. “I punched in her coordinates on the navigation system. How long will it take to get there?”
Crichton stood up as her footsteps faded toward the rear of the craft and moved shakily to the console. He lowered himself carefully into the pilot’s seat, feeling detached from his own body, and looked at the course she had laid out. If he used the Rotary Engines they could be there in less than a solar day without pushing the limits of safety. He listened to the nearly inaudible sounds of Aeryn moving about in the back of the ship, familiar sounds even after almost two cycles apart.
“Beyond hope,” he said to himself quietly. He heard her footsteps coming back toward the cockpit, the quick shuffle as she eased past the door to the single set of living quarters that he and Gallenn had added to the ship. He flicked the power circuits into their active settings and saw the indicators light up in sequence, showing full power to the engines.
“How long will it take to get to Moya?” she asked again, sliding into the co-pilot’s seat.
“This thing will only do Hetch Seven, so … twenty solar days. Will that be soon enough?” He watched out of the corner of his eyes, and she seemed to be smiling the slightest bit.
“That should be enough,” she answered quietly.
**********
“He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven”
Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
(William Butler Yeats - 1899)
