Return to Bermudas Index
by wordboy
John slipped low on the hard plastic chair and tried to remain calm. He had no idea how long he had been sitting in the small interrogation room; there were no windows and he couldn’t see a clock. Alexa sat across from him, the smile still on her face. Carly stood to one side, her face composed and neutral. John looked from one to the other and tried to remain calm. “So, am I under arrest?”
“No, you’re not,” Carly said. “As far as I know, suddenly appearing out of nowhere, and claiming to be someone who disappeared nearly two hundred years ago, isn’t a crime. This interrogation room is a little more secure, that’s all.”
“Claiming to be…look, shouldn’t you be doing something? Like running my fingerprints, checking my DNA, something like that?”
Alexa’s smile grew slightly. “Already working on it. So just relax.” She still sounded like she was about to start laughing. She leaned forward and laced her fingers together. “So, you were saying? You came out of this…wormhole in some other part of the universe?”
“Even after two and a half years, I still don’t know if I’m on the other side of the galaxy or the other side of the universe. I’ve been too busy trying to survive to figure it out.”
“And you’ve been living with a group of non-humans onboard a living ship called Moya?”
“Non-humans. I can’t think of them like that anymore.” John tapped his fingers against the metal table and laughed. “I know. It sounds like a television show. But I’ve been living it for over two and a half years. Unfortunately, I have no proof of it. Except for Parsifal, here, and he’s not even from Moya.” He unclipped Parsifal’s portable unit from his belt and placed it on the table.
“I see. Can you tell us…” A quiet beeping cut Carly off. She reached under her jacket and took out what looked like a small cell phone. She glanced at its display then touched a button and held it up to her ear. “Yes? All right. I’ll be right there.” As she returned the phone to her pocket, she said, “That was Renfro, down in Records. I’ll be right back.” Carly turned a reassuring smile at John and left the room.
John glanced at the door, then turned back to Alexa. “So, you guys getting a nice padded cell ready for me?”
“Why did we do that? Mr. Crichton…John…Carly and I saw you come out of nowhere. So, unless both she and I are delusional, also…” Alexa leaned back in her chair. “Gotten a little paranoid?”
“I’ve spent two and a half years being chased by one lunatic Peacekeeper after another, plus my friends and I have managed to piss of a fair number of people. Paranoia gets to be a way of life.”
Something overhead clicked, and Carly’s voice came from concealed speakers. “Alexa, could you come out here, please.”
“Coming.” Alexa stood and started for the door. “Can I bring you back anything?”
“Yeah, I could use that cup of coffee you mentioned.”
“How do you take it?”
“At the moment, black. I just want to remember what coffee tastes like. And, if you happen to have any chocolate laying around…” Alexa nodded and left the room.
John hesitated a moment, then glanced down at Parsifal. “Can I assume they’re watching me?”
“Yes, John. There is a sophisticated array of sensors and monitors imbedded in the walls.”
“I don’t suppose you can tell how much trouble I’m in?”
“As near as I can tell, you’re not in any trouble. There are no alerts, no sign of heightened security. While monitoring their computer system, I did spot an inquiry concerning you. They now know you’re telling the truth.”
“You didn’t do anything, did you?”
“No. As I said, your disappearance was a matter of record.”
John sighed and massaged his eyes. “Have you managed to contact Angelina yet?”
“Not yet. But I’m still working on it.” John nodded and tried to relax.
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Outside the interrogation room, Alexa found Carly studying a hard copy. “What did Renfro come up with?”
Carly studied the image a moment longer then handed it to Alexa. It was a picture of John, apparently from an official press release. “If this is a hoax, someone went to a whole lot of trouble for no visible gain.” She waved a hand at a desk across from the interrogation room’s door. “All the readings say he’s telling the truth. He’s coming across as perfectly human, except for this.” Carly tapped one indicator. “There are some kind of micro-organisms in his brain. They don’t appear to be doing anything, they’re just there.”
Alexa nodded, then tapped a control, opening the intercom. “John, what can you tell me about the micro-organisms in your brain?”
“They’re called translator microbes,” he said. “I don’t know how they work, but they allow me to understand any language I hear.”
“Any language?” Alexa searched her memory. “Conmé necha veq tovas nelek va, John.”
“Yeah, it’s good to see you, too.”
“Janfar, p’té inifta.”
“Now I’m your comrade. You always make friends this fast?”
“You speak Bel’lantyre and Oevestorie?”
“Never heard of them.”
“Okay. Thanks.” Alexa closed the intercom and sighed. “So, what do we do with him?”
“We have no reason to hold him. But we can’t just let him go. At any rate, where would he go?” Carly frowned and thought. “Director Bernard will be back tomorrow. You stay with him, keep him calm. I’ll take care of the paperwork. Tomorrow, we’ll bring him to Director Bernard.” Alexa nodded and returned to the interrogation room.
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Aeryn watched Antandra pace around the conference room, recounting her experiences onboard Moya and Rhianda. Despite herself, Aeryn felt a touch of amusement; Antandra’s excited reactions reminded her of John’s initial reactions. Aeryn quickly pushed thoughts of John from her mind; thinking of him, lost in time and space, only served to fill her with anger and concern.
“Aeryn?”
Aeryn shook herself and glanced down the table. Antandra’s mother, Athena, was looking at her, waiting for a reply. “I’m sorry, I was…thinking. What did you say?”
Athena looked patient as she repeated herself. “Are these Leviathans life forms of some kind, or are they built like traditional starships?”
“Leviathans are life forms in their own right. In fact, about a cycle and a half ago, Moya gave birth to a hybrid gunship. I named him Talyn.” Aeryn chewed on her lower lip and tried to keep an annoyed look off her face. “Look, as much as I would like to continue answering your questions, I have one of my own. Is anyone bothering to look for John? If I ended up here, where or when could John be?”
Antandra looked sympathetic, then turned back to the others. “Aeryn wants to know if we’re looking for one of her companions and Parsifal. Anything about that, Zoe?”
“Doctor Graff is still trying to figure out what happened to the Arch to first send Antandra to God knows where, then bring her and Aeryn back here, and send Parsifal to a different temporal location.”
“We did encounter some kind of out of control experiment in time travel being conducted by the Peacekeepers,” Aeryn said. “Is it possible that it interfered with your system? First to bring Antandra to Moya, then its destruction causing it to act up again and bring me here?”
Zoe’s head bobbed from side to side as she considered. “I suppose it’s possible. I’ll run it past Doctor Graff after we’re finished here. At the moment, though, Angelina is scanning the temporal frequencies trying to get a lock on Parsifal’s temporal beacon. We should find them quickly enough, assuming this man, this John Crichton, still has Parsifal with him.”
Mathias glanced down at her. “You’re getting cynical, Zoe.”
Zoe returned Mathias’s gaze, then looked around the table. “Look, I was standing next to Doctor Graff when Angelina located Antandra. Usually there are two sets of coordinates, a set of temporal coordinates and a set of spatial coordinates. In this case, the spatial coordinates were blank. Angelina has no idea where Antandra was while she was missing. And we’re supposed to believe that a human has been living with them for over two and a half years?”
“The fact that an American astronaut, Commander John Crichton, disappeared under unusual circumstances in 1997 is a matter of record. What is it you’re trying to say, Zoe?”
“What I’m trying to say is, with all due respect to Aeryn, maybe we shouldn’t be sitting here with open arms.”
The conference room’s door slid open and Clement stepped in, followed by four guards, their weapons drawn. “I couldn’t agree with you more, Archangel Baird. Take the alien away.”
Mathias stood as the guards moved toward Aeryn. “What do you think you’re doing, Clement?”
“Securing an unknown life form, Mr. Crowe. Your interrogation isn’t revealing any useful information, so perhaps my methods will get results.” Clement nodded to the guards.
Aeryn stared at the pistols aimed at her and wondered if she should attempt to escape. It didn’t take long to decide that tactic would prove terminal. She sighed and slowly stood. “You know, not long after John arrived on Moya, we encountered a wormhole created by an ancient race of beings looking for a new home. They created a simulation of Earth and its people for John’s benefit, then let me, D’Argo and Rygel travel to it as well. They said it was to test the human race, to see how they would react to aliens.”
“What happened?” Antandra looked sad, as if she knew what Aeryn was going to say.
“In the simulation, Rygel was dissected, D’Argo was on his way to somewhere else, probably to be dissected as well. John and I were hunted fugitives. When we returned to Moya, John said that not all humans were like the ones we encountered in the simulation.” Aeryn looked around the table, then glared at Clement. “Apparently, he was wrong about that, too.”
“Aeryn, I’m sorry.”
Aeryn’s face became a hard mask. “Yeah, I’m sorry, too.” She slowly drew her pulse pistol and held it out to Clement. “Be careful with that. The trigger is very sensitive.”
Clement stared at her, then took the pistol. He nodded to the guards, who lead Aeryn from the conference room, their weapons never wavering. “You’ll have my report in the morning, Mr. Crowe.”
As the door closed, Antandra slammed her fist down, severely denting the metal table. “This is just excellent.”
Zoe sounded upset. “I wanted a little caution, that’s all. I didn’t want her arrested. If Antandra said Aeryn can be trusted…” She sighed and shook her head. “What was all that she said, Antandra?”
“She was talking about an incident that occurred a couple of years ago. Apparently, we’re living down to her expectations of humanity.” Antandra massaged her eyes and wondered if things could get worse.
