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califmoleReturn to Sender by Ann Harrington, continued.
See disclaimers in part 1.
Click here to go back to part 2
Part 3
It had been a mistake to tell Crichton about the destruction of the Gammak base. Scorpius should have refused to answer the question, or simply revealed that there had been an evacuation. But he had misread the human, thinking that Crichton's question was an attempt to confirm that his efforts had been successful. So he had given Crichton the truth, only to realize his mistake from the human's reaction.
He had known Crichton grieved over the deaths of his friends. He had not realized that Crichton would also grieve over the deaths of those who had been his enemies.
Crichton's mood had turned dark, and for the rest of that day he had not spoken a single word. Nor had he even glanced at the test results from Dam-Ba-Da. Instead he had retreated back into the depression that had gripped him when he first came aboard.
The next day Crichton's mental condition was no better. When he saw Scorpius he was all too willing to talk, a steady stream of verbal insults and threats meant to provoke Scorpius into taking action against him. Consciously or not, Crichton was courting his own destruction.
The human was fortunate that Scorpius was too intelligent to let himself be provoked. Instead he relied on his patience, and increased the dosage of the tranquilizers.
It was tempting to think of reactivating the neuro-chip, to get a glimpse inside Crichton's mind. And to use the chip to erase those memories which were proving harmful. But Scorpius could not take that risk. The neuro-chip had already done enough damage. And while the chip had been successful at erasing short term memory, it was far more difficult to erase long term memories that had already been assimilated. Tampering with that part of Crichton's mind might inadvertently destroy the wormhole knowledge that the aliens had implanted.
For several days the situation continued as a stalemate, until Crichton himself broke the impasse by sending a message that he wanted to speak with Scorpius.
As he made his way to the human's quarters, he wondered at the meaning of the summons. Was this simply Crichton's latest attempt to provoke him?.
Crichton had clearly been expecting him, for he sat facing the door, and he rose to his feet as Scorpius entered the room.
"You've gotta stop this," Crichton said.
"Stop what?"
Crichton raised his hand and rubbed his skull vigorously. "This. The drugs or whatever you're doing to me. Makes my brain feel all... fuzzy."
It was true that the tranquilizers tended to depress neural functions. Fuzzy was hardly a scientific term, but accurate enough.
"John, the drugs are meant to help you. You yourself said that your mind was confused and unstable," Scorpius said.
Crichton nodded. "I know. But it's not going to get better. Not like this. Not when I can't think straight."
He hesitated. He had planned to cut back on the tranquilizers gradually, as Crichton's mental condition stabilized. But perhaps there was a point to Crichton's argument. His mind might be able to heal itself, given time.
"Do this, and I'll look at the damn test data for you," Crichton offered.
"And why would you do that?" Why now, after carefully avoiding the data for the past weeken? What had inspired this offer of cooperation?
"You've already seen it. I won't be telling you anything new," Crichton said. "I was the one who got it. I might as well see it for myself."
A logical enough answer, and proof that however fuzzy he claimed his thoughts were, Crichton was still capable of reasoning.
"Very well. We will try things your way. For now," Scorpius said. If Crichton upheld his end of the bargain, then he would uphold his.
"Thanks," Crichton said, then bit his lip as if he wished he could take back what he had said.
Two days later, Crichton surprised him by announcing that he had finished his analysis of the data from the Dam-Ba-Da experiment. He was not surprised by the speed, after all the analysis had not been particularly complex. But he had expected that the human would try to delay as long as possible before fulfilling his end of their bargain.
Instead Crichton appeared eager, almost anxious to talk.
"Tell me something first," Crichton said. "Why wormholes? Why not try something you already have, like duplicating the starburst drive?"
"John, if this is an attempt to delay---"
"There's no rush. We both know the analysis you put in that tech station was a bucket of dren. So there's no reason not to answer my question."
Scorpius took a seat opposite Crichton, noticing with interest that despite his closeness, for once Crichton showed no sign of the fear that he had shown before in his presence. Even the human's thought patterns were clearer than they had been, more focused. It was as if he had found a way to anchor himself.
And perhaps he had.
"It takes living energy to generate a starburst field, something the race known as the Builders must have known when they designed the biomechanoid Leviathans," Scorpius explained.
"Weird. So you took their word for that? No attempts to figure out your own starburst drive?"
Since the discovery of the Leviathans, Peacekeeper scientists had searched for a way to replicate the starburst drive artificially, so far with no success. The research was at a dead end.
"There have been attempts to integrate the starburst capabilities into a Peacekeeper vessel, something you yourself have seen."
"Talyn. Right. Well that's one experiment with a mind of his own," Crichton said. "Still, why wormholes? Have you seen them before? Other visitors like me popping up all over Peacekeeper space?"
"No, you are the only wormhole traveler that we have encountered. But we have known of the possibility for some time. The fragmented data that we have from the Ancients tells us that they used wormhole technology, although little is known about how they created them."
It had taken Scorpius nearly five cycles of research to create a miniature proto-wormhole in the Gammak base laboratory. Crichton had managed to create wormholes twice within a mere cycle. The first had been by accident, but the proto-wormhole at Dam-Ba-Da had been a deliberate creation. And all done without any of the resources which Scorpius had at his disposal, and without the knowledge that the Ancients would later implant in his mind.
"So all your scientists are off chasing something they think exists, but they don't know how to get there. Ain't it a bitch when that happens? It's kind of like Fermat's enigma."
"Fermat's what?"
"Fermat's enigma. It's a famous logic problem, back home." Crichton leaned forward, and began gesturing with his hands. "There was this mathematician named Fermat. He wrote that he had found an elegant proof to a theorem that no one had been able to prove before. Only he didn't have enough paper to record it. The guy's been dead over three hundred years, and still mathematicians are knocking themselves out, trying to find the proof that Fermat supposedly had. One bright guy managed to prove the theorem, but his answer was extremely complicated and relied on esoteric set theories. It couldn't be the same proof that Fermat found, so the rest of them keep on trying."
Crichton leaned back and smiled, his eyes focused on a distant memory. "Even DK got sucked into that for a while, until I convinced him to come back to the fold and work on the Farscape thesis."
"You never felt tempted to solve this yourself?"
"Why? The theorem was Fermat's. I had my own dreams, and my own theories to prove."
Scorpius tried to imagine this world of Crichton's, a place where scientists pursued research simply because it intrigued them. It was a concept unthinkable in the Peacekeepers' domains, where technology was valued solely for its military applications. Perhaps this was the key to Crichton's unique approach. A system that valued discovery for its own sake would produce a very different type of scientist.
"And the data from Dam-Ba-Da?" he prompted.
"You'll have to do better than that if you want to test me," Crichton replied. "The analysis was dren. A different entry vector or faster approach would have changed nothing. The readings confirmed what I'd suspected, that the proto-wormhole was inherently unstable. It broke up before it was truly formed."
That agreed with his own conclusions. Like the miniature wormholes he had created in his lab, the proto-wormhole on Dam-Ba-Da had been an incomplete formation. A sign that the research was on the right track, but that they still lacked some crucial understanding of the phenomenon.
"And the solution to making it stable?"
"Don't know yet," Crichton said. "But give me time, and I'll figure it out."
It was not quite a promise.
On Moya the celebration had been going on for several arns when Pa'u Zhaan rose from her seat. "I will leave you now," she said.
D'Argo nodded, sparing her merely a glance before returning his attention to Jothee, his newly rediscovered son. At the far end of the table, Rygel and Chiana paid her no heed as they continued an elaborate drinking game.
Aeryn had left some time before, claiming that there was maintenance that needed to be done on Moya. It had been an obvious lie, but with uncommon tact the others had pretended to accept her excuse at face value.
Like Aeryn, Zhaan's own feelings were mixed, her joy at Jothee's rescue tempered by regrets over the two friends who should have been here to share in the celebration. Stark, who had given his life to save them, and whose information had led D'Argo to his son. And Crichton, whose mysterious defection still puzzled and haunted the crew.
As time had passed, they had come to accept the fact that Crichton was no longer with them. It had been awkward the first time someone had impatiently commed Crichton to fix a technical problem, only to remember that he was gone. Quietly the watch schedule was rearranged to fill the gaps caused by his absence, and she no longer looked at his empty place in the common room wondering what was delaying him.
Rygel had made a halfhearted attempt to take control of Crichton's possessions, but he quickly backed down when confronted by D'Argo.
It would be easier for the crew to accept, if they knew something of Crichton's fate. Was he still alive, a prisoner, being tortured by Scorpius? Or had he already been killed, his spirit set free from this plane?
Aeryn still carried deep anger, and refused to accept what had happened. She needed a reason, someone or something to blame. She had gone through Crichton's possessions, looking for any clues to his behavior. She had even listened to all of the sound recordings he had made in his time on Moya, though she had shared the contents of only the final tape with Zhaan.
That tape had been chilling. Crichton had begun by confiding his concern over his sanity, and then drifted into a strange one-sided argument, apparently with something he thought was Scorpius. Irritably he had ordered Scorpius to leave him alone, to get out of his head. There had been another pause, and then the phrase "I must remember to tell Zhaan..."
His voice had trailed off, leaving them with no idea as to what he had meant to tell her. The recording was silent for several hundred microts, and then Crichton was heard remarking "Wonder why this is on?" and then a click that signified he had turned off the device.
The tape was evidence of Crichton's confusion, and the strange visions he had mentioned to Aeryn. But it provided no explanations, just more questions. The real wonder was that he had been able to keep up the pretense of normalcy for so long.
Zhaan entered her quarters, and then pressed the wall plate that shut the door behind her, signifying her desire for privacy. From a small cabinet she took out her meditation mat and incense sticks. Laying the mat on the floor, she slipped off her robe and then lowered herself gracefully to sit cross-legged on the mat.
She lit the incense sticks, and began the ritual hand gestures as she invoked the powers of the Goddess. Holding her palms upward to signify her openness to spiritual guidance, she cleared her mind of everyday concerns, and began the meditation chant.
Deeper she sank into the trance, until she reached the plane where the physical realm and the spiritual realm coexisted in harmony. As she opened her mind for guidance, she saw a familiar being.
"Stark," she whispered.
It was Stark, not as he had appeared in the physical realm, but rather the glowing being of light and compassion that she had seen when she linked with him in Unity. A spirit memory, brought on by her earlier musings.
"Pa'u Zhaan. It is good to touch your spirit again," Stark said. His spirit voice was even stronger than it had been before, as if the darkness which had once been part of him had been banished forever.
"I have thought of you often," Zhaan said.
"And I of you. I would have come to you sooner, but it took me time to make the transition from my corporeal state to the energy form that I now inhabit."
"Energy form?"
"Yes, the Plokavians were only able to destroy my body. As I had hoped, my spirit form remained intact."
Joy lightened her heart as she realized that this was indeed Stark, and not merely an echo of his spirit drawn from her memories. "I can not tell you how happy this news makes me. For a long time I have grieved, thinking you lost forever."
"I know. That is one of the reasons why I came to you," Stark replied.
"And the other reason?"
"Crichton."
Crichton and Stark had shared a bond born of their mutual imprisonment on the Gammak base. Stark had done his best to try and heal Crichton after his experiences, but he had confided to her that he was not certain that he had succeeded. They had agreed that they could do nothing else unless Crichton asked for their help. At the time it had seemed a wise decision. Only now, in hindsight, could she see how wrong they had been.
"Crichton is not here. Several weekens ago he left Moya and surrendered himself to Scorpius," Zhaan explained.
A whisper of sorrow drifted like gray mist across the spirit realm.
"That I know as well," Stark said. "I have seen him, although unlike you he can not sense my presence."
"Crichton is alive? Is he unharmed?"
"Physically he is unharmed, although even now Scorpius molds him to do his bidding. I watched and observed, and discovered that Crichton has unwittingly been under Scorpius's control since the time of his imprisonment. There is a device implanted deep within his mind, that allowed Scorpius to control his thoughts and actions."
"Goddess defend," Zhaan whispered. Such a thing was an abomination.
"An abomination indeed," Stark said, sharing her thoughts.
"Can you help him?"
"I will wait, and see. There is a possibility. If the time comes, I may need you to help me, at once and without question. Can you do that?"
"Of course," Zhaan said. "Just ask and it will be done."
"You are gracious and kind," Stark said. His spirit image raised his hands until the palms were extended towards hers. She reached out with her own hands, and pressed her palms against his, feeling the joyous glow of contentment that came from sharing unity with a kindred soul. Then the image faded, and he was gone.
As Zhaan returned to the present, she was faced with a new dilemma. Should she share what she had learned with the others? She could not reveal the truth of what had happened to Crichton unless she revealed her source. And that would mean also telling them that Crichton was still alive, and still very much in danger.
What kindness would there be in sharing such knowledge with those who already grieved for him? Instead she would keep her own counsel, until she knew if there was indeed anything that she or the rest of Moya's crew could do to help their lost shipmate.
"No, all this is new. See?" Crichton gestured towards the port wing of the Farscape module. "This is where the thruster rockets were. I took them out so I could install the cooling fins for the hetch drive."
Scorpius nodded.
Crichton ran his hand along the wing, and then raised himself up and peered into the cockpit. Everything looked exactly the way he had left it. Which meant that either Scorpius had left the module undisturbed, or his techs were very, very good at taking things apart and putting them back together again. If he had to bet, he would bet on the techs.
"The thruster rockets were chemical based?"
"Yup. And the engines, although they were more sophisticated, and used a different formula for the fuel mix."
Designing engines that could provide enough thrust for the Farscape experiment had been an incredible feat of engineering that had taken two years, and untold hours of his and DK's lives. Ripping those engines out had been like ripping out a piece of himself, but there had been no sense in keeping them. There was no fuel for the old engines, and the new hetch drive had made the module exponentially faster.
"The chemical fuel you described is inefficient and mass intensive. How could such a small craft carry enough fuel for the journey?" Scorpius asked.
Crichton ducked under the nose of the module, and then stood up on the other side. "You saw my memories. This girl didn't have to break orbit on her own. We hitched a lift on the shuttle, which was strapped to chemical booster rockets that brought us up out of the gravity well. Shuttle casts off the rockets, powers its own way up the final stage into orbit. Then they open the cargo bay and launch us on our way. Simple."
"And the experiment?"
"All I needed the engines for was a few minutes of high-velocity acceleration. After that, they would automatically shut down. If all goes as expected, I report the results, burn engines to align me for reentry, and then let gravity bring me home."
If something unexpected happened, the plan had been that he would try to achieve a stable Earth orbit and wait for the shuttle to rescue him.
"A gravity drive?"
Crichton laughed. "No, you're over-thinking this. Just gravity, plain and simple. Farscape falls like a rock, until we reach the upper atmosphere. Then she becomes a glider, and I try to land her in one piece."
Scorpius eyes widened in disbelief. "An appallingly low-tech solution," he said.
"Hey, it's state of the art where I come from. Or it was when I designed her. Maybe they've thought of something new since then."
Crichton had often wondered what had happened to the Farscape project, after his disappearance. Had his loss killed the project? Or had DK and the team been able to convince IASA to try again, with the prototype Farscape II that had been in development?
"It still amazes me that you managed to come so far in such a craft," Scorpius said.
"Some days I amaze myself," Crichton replied. "It takes real guts to be an IASA astronaut. Not like your Peacekeeper pilots. Every IASA craft is an experiment, where a million things can go wrong, and you don't get second chances."
Farscape had been just such an experiment. Dangerous, but no more so than a moon landing, or the first orbital mission for that matter. They had planned for every contingency the IASA team could think of, and then had gone back and thought of some more. The list was endless. Engine failures. Control systems failures. The unlikely chance of impact with space debris or micro-meteorites. The very real possibility that the Farscape effect might send him into an uncontrolled atmospheric entry, or propel him away from Earth at such high velocity that his braking systems would be unable to slow the craft in time, while he still had enough fuel to return back to the Earth.
There had been no contingency plans for a wormhole.
"I should say a deficient sense of self-preservation was a more important requirement for your astronauts, as you call them," Scorpius countered.
"Maybe. But I've made it this far, haven't I? Guess humans are just stubborn that way."
"Stubbornness does seem to be a species characteristic," Scorpius agreed.
Crichton bent down, and checked the external monitor on the hetch drive, confirming that there was indeed no fuel and only marginal battery power in the module. A prudent safety precaution, not that there was any real risk that he could try and steal the module and use it to make an escape.
He continued to inspect the module, planning in his head the modifications he would make if he ever had the chance. Better radiation shielding for a start, and the efficiency of the hetch drive could be improved by a factor of at least twenty percent, if he replaced the jury-rigged drive controller with a standard unit. And the control systems could use some tuning....
He could have stayed there for hours, but that wasn't the bargain he had made.
"It is time," Scorpius said, at last.
Crichton nodded. "Okay. Tell your techs not to mess with her. I'll be back," he promised the module.
He gave one backward glance, and then followed Scorpius from the maintenance bay.
The chance to see the Farscape module had been a reward from Scorpius. A gift, because the human was finally behaving as he was expected to.
With nothing to bargain with except himself, Crichton had slowly been forced to see the value of cooperation.
Cooperation meant an end to the mind-numbing drugs. A chance to leave the tedium of his quarters. First he had been permitted to visit the officer's physical conditioning area, where each day he tried to work off some of his frustrations through exercise.
Today, in return for agreeing to explain everything about the Farscape module, Crichton had been allowed to see his craft, for an arn.
He did not know if Scorpius was genuinely interested in the craft, as he claimed, thinking that there was something unique in its design that might explain its interaction with wormholes. Or if Scorpius was simply using this as another way to pry as much information out of him as possible.
Not that he put up much resistance. Indeed the Farscape module was still a source of pride to him. He could talk about it for hours, and unlike his friends on Moya, Scorpius's eyes did not glaze over with bored incomprehension as Crichton explained the engineering design choices that he had made.
In a way it had been easier when he had been a prisoner on the Gammak base. Simpler. There Scorpius had been the enemy, and he the victim. Now he didn't know what to think. As the days passed, he found it hard to maintain the white-hot edge of his anger that had sustained him before. For this time, Scorpius did not threaten him, nor harm him. Instead he offered Crichton the knowledge that he craved, and a chance to develop the theories that would lead him back home.
It was an almost unbearable temptation.
If only he wasn't alone. At Gammak base there had been Stark to share his imprisonment, and his friends to help him escape. Here there was no one to help him, no one to talk to. No one, except Scorpius.
From the beginning, Scorpius had kept him carefully isolated. Except for the sentry that he had glimpsed for a few seconds during his first escape attempt, Crichton had seen no one except Scorpius. Even as they walked the corridors of the command carrier, there was no one to be seen. It was as if he and Scorpius were the only two beings that existed.
He knew that Scorpius was playing mind games with him, but the mere knowledge was not enough to help him avoid them.
His first escape attempt had gotten him all of two meters. His next attempt had been over before it had begun. Crichton had wracked his brain, trying to think of a way out, with no success. Scorpius had all the advantages. Resources to monitor Crichton around the clock, and the damn collar which let his captors knock him unconscious the moment he showed signs of deviating from their rules.
The surroundings were vastly improved, but it was the high security Gammak base all over again. Only this time there was no friendly tech to provide a diversion, or former Peacekeeper commando to stage a raid and save him.
This time he was all alone.
As Scorpius strode into the command center, the technicians and duty officers straightened to rigid attention. A well-disciplined crew under Captain Crais, they had learned even greater discipline and efficiency under their new commander. Each person aboard this vessel understood that there was no room for failure or error.
Lieutenant Braca approached. "Sir, everything is proceeding as you ordered. We will reach the supply base in seven point four arn, and they have confirmed that they have the materials you requested."
After retrieving Crichton, Scorpius had ordered that the command carrier leave the Uncharted Territories, and return to Peacekeeper controlled space. There was no reason to risk his prize. Now, after weekens of travel, they were approaching the supply base that marked the edge of the Peacekeepers' domains.
"And the prisoner?"
"The techs have completed their analysis of his research in the last day. The report is in the system, sealed under your personal code."
"Good," Scorpius said. "Dismissed."
Scorpius sat in the command chair, and as his fingers brushed the console plate, the technicians' analysis was displayed. There were no dramatic revelations, but overall he was pleased with what he saw. The delicate task of molding Crichton without breaking him was proceeded as he had planned.
Under his care, Crichton was slowly rebuilding himself. Not yet healed, but no longer in immediate danger of slipping into madness. After his initial resistance, Crichton had immersed himself in the technical data provided as if it were a lifeline, and indeed perhaps it was. Once started, he was unstoppable. Reference databases, test results, theoretical models, he devoured them all with insatiable curiosity. At times he forgot to eat, or sleep.
As he began assimilating the knowledge, he had endless questions. Crichton was quite good at spotting the gaps in the information that had been provided, and in arguing for more.
Crichton's training had given him a conceptual model of the universe that was subtly different from the way that Sebacean science explained quantum phenomena. Ideas that were mere speculation on Crichton's homeworld were proven facts here. That was not to say Crichton's training was a liability. On the contrary, the Farscape effect he had theorized was something that Peacekeeper scientists had never known, or had long since forgotten.
And although Crichton was not yet willing to discuss his theories, careful analysis of his research queries indicated he was approaching the wormhole problem from a very different angle, starting with the magnetic shear effect caused by solar flares. How much of his focus was Crichton's own inspiration, and how much was due to the guidance the Ancients had implanted within him was an interesting question to ponder.
A low-pitched chime sounded, and Scorpius toggled on the comm link.
"Sir, the prisoner's behavior is becoming increasingly erratic," reported Ensign Kelvar, one of those assigned to monitor Crichton. "Do you wish us to sedate him?"
Scorpius touched another button, and the surveillance images of Crichton sprang to life on the screen before him. For once Crichton was not at the technical station, instead he was pacing around the room. As he reached the far wall, he paused to slam his fist against it.
Scorpius frowned. It had been weekens since something had last triggered one of these fits of self-destructive anger. He had hoped that Crichton had moved beyond this stage, but clearly he had been wrong.
"Do nothing," he ordered the ensign. "I will see to this myself."
When he reached Crichton's quarters, he found the human had stopped the pacing, but was now continuing to slam his right fist into the wall with monotonous regularity. His knuckles were bleeding. Flecks of red blood decorated the wall, the tech station, the door, and other objects that had been the recipients of Crichton's wrath. Fortunately there was nothing in these quarters that was breakable... except Crichton himself.
Crichton saw him enter, but did not acknowledge him.
"You will cease this behavior," Scorpius said.
Crichton ignored him.
As he drew back his fist for another strike, Scorpius seized his arm. "John, control yourself, or I will do it for you."
Crichton's gaze met his, daring him to carry out his threat. Then, after a long moment, he nodded almost imperceptibly, and shook off Scorpius's hold. He let his arm fall down by his side, seemingly oblivious to the blood that began to drip slowly onto the floor.
"You have injured yourself," Scorpius said.
Crichton backed away. He lifted his hand, and wriggled the fingers. "I'm fine," he said. "See? Nothing broken."
The injuries were superficial. It was the reason for them that he needed to understand. "You should be more careful," Scorpius said.
"Why? I thought you would like this. Seeing someone in pain. Isn't that your style?" Crichton challenged.
Now Crichton was trying to provoke him, another reversion to his earlier behavior. It made no sense. The surveillance report had indicated nothing at all unusual in the last day. So what had caused this?
Scorpius sat down by the tech station, careful to keep his body language non-threatening. "John, what is wrong?"
Crichton shook his head.
"You need to tell someone. And there is no one else," Scorpius said.
Crichton's need to form emotional bonds with others was his greatest weakness. When it came to making a choice, he almost always chose emotional values over logic. Consider the Peacekeeper Technician Gilina Renaez. Crichton had known her for only a few days, yet when in the Aurora Chair on the Gammak base, he had endured agonies to protect her.
It was a weakness that would never have been tolerated in the Peacekeepers' ranks. Indeed, they would never have entrusted a sensitive project such as Farscape to one who displayed such a character flaw. And yet this failing was the key to understanding what drove Crichton, and how to control him.
Scorpius intended to exploit this weakness. It was why he had been so careful to isolate Crichton, ensuring that he had no one else with whom to form a connection.
Crichton sat down on the edge of the sleeping platform, cradling his injured right hand in his left. "Today it has been one point nine six cycles since my arrival," he said.
"I do not understand."
"One point nine six cycles. That's two Earth years," Crichton said. "Two years ago today, that I disappeared."
Scorpius waited patiently, letting the silence draw out between them, until Crichton spoke again.
"They've probably got the flags at IASA at half-mast. There'll be a minute of silence at the moment of the test. The tourists will wonder what's going on, and the tour guides will remind them of the mission." Crichton took a deep breath. "And some human interest reporter will hunt down my Dad, and ask him if he's reconciled himself to what happened. Ask him if he still supports the space program, and whether it was worth the life of his only son."
Crichton's voice cracked as he mentioned his father, and there were unshed tears in his eyes.
"You miss your homeworld," Scorpius said, trying to draw him out.
"I miss it all. Dad. DK. My sisters. Gods, I can't imagine what they went through. Are going through. And I want to see them. To know what's happening. To know that they are okay, and to let them know that I am alright."
Even when he spoke of his homeworld, it was interesting that he thought of it in terms of the people he had left behind.
"John, you know what you need to do. I can help you, but ultimately it is up to you."
Crichton rubbed his eyes with the heel of his left hand, scrubbing away the tears that he refused to shed.
"Right," he said, with a bitter laugh. "All I have to do is give you the answer to wormhole technology. And coincidentally, give the Peacekeepers a map to my homeworld, and the means to reach there."
"You overestimate the importance of a backwater low-tech planet," Scorpius countered. "True power lies here, in the civilizations of this galaxy."
Indeed, even with the advantages of wormhole technology, it would take time for the Peacekeepers to consolidate their grip on this galaxy, and bring first the Scarrans and Nebari, and then the Uncharted Territories under their rule. It would be many cycles before the Peacekeepers were free to turn their attentions elsewhere.
"So you are saying I should trust you?"
"Whether you trust me or not is irrelevant. You will never return to your home unless you find a way to create another wormhole," Scorpius said. "The question is, how badly do you want to go home?"
Click here to go to part 4
See disclaimers in part 1.
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Part 3
It had been a mistake to tell Crichton about the destruction of the Gammak base. Scorpius should have refused to answer the question, or simply revealed that there had been an evacuation. But he had misread the human, thinking that Crichton's question was an attempt to confirm that his efforts had been successful. So he had given Crichton the truth, only to realize his mistake from the human's reaction.
He had known Crichton grieved over the deaths of his friends. He had not realized that Crichton would also grieve over the deaths of those who had been his enemies.
Crichton's mood had turned dark, and for the rest of that day he had not spoken a single word. Nor had he even glanced at the test results from Dam-Ba-Da. Instead he had retreated back into the depression that had gripped him when he first came aboard.
The next day Crichton's mental condition was no better. When he saw Scorpius he was all too willing to talk, a steady stream of verbal insults and threats meant to provoke Scorpius into taking action against him. Consciously or not, Crichton was courting his own destruction.
The human was fortunate that Scorpius was too intelligent to let himself be provoked. Instead he relied on his patience, and increased the dosage of the tranquilizers.
It was tempting to think of reactivating the neuro-chip, to get a glimpse inside Crichton's mind. And to use the chip to erase those memories which were proving harmful. But Scorpius could not take that risk. The neuro-chip had already done enough damage. And while the chip had been successful at erasing short term memory, it was far more difficult to erase long term memories that had already been assimilated. Tampering with that part of Crichton's mind might inadvertently destroy the wormhole knowledge that the aliens had implanted.
For several days the situation continued as a stalemate, until Crichton himself broke the impasse by sending a message that he wanted to speak with Scorpius.
As he made his way to the human's quarters, he wondered at the meaning of the summons. Was this simply Crichton's latest attempt to provoke him?.
Crichton had clearly been expecting him, for he sat facing the door, and he rose to his feet as Scorpius entered the room.
"You've gotta stop this," Crichton said.
"Stop what?"
Crichton raised his hand and rubbed his skull vigorously. "This. The drugs or whatever you're doing to me. Makes my brain feel all... fuzzy."
It was true that the tranquilizers tended to depress neural functions. Fuzzy was hardly a scientific term, but accurate enough.
"John, the drugs are meant to help you. You yourself said that your mind was confused and unstable," Scorpius said.
Crichton nodded. "I know. But it's not going to get better. Not like this. Not when I can't think straight."
He hesitated. He had planned to cut back on the tranquilizers gradually, as Crichton's mental condition stabilized. But perhaps there was a point to Crichton's argument. His mind might be able to heal itself, given time.
"Do this, and I'll look at the damn test data for you," Crichton offered.
"And why would you do that?" Why now, after carefully avoiding the data for the past weeken? What had inspired this offer of cooperation?
"You've already seen it. I won't be telling you anything new," Crichton said. "I was the one who got it. I might as well see it for myself."
A logical enough answer, and proof that however fuzzy he claimed his thoughts were, Crichton was still capable of reasoning.
"Very well. We will try things your way. For now," Scorpius said. If Crichton upheld his end of the bargain, then he would uphold his.
"Thanks," Crichton said, then bit his lip as if he wished he could take back what he had said.
Two days later, Crichton surprised him by announcing that he had finished his analysis of the data from the Dam-Ba-Da experiment. He was not surprised by the speed, after all the analysis had not been particularly complex. But he had expected that the human would try to delay as long as possible before fulfilling his end of their bargain.
Instead Crichton appeared eager, almost anxious to talk.
"Tell me something first," Crichton said. "Why wormholes? Why not try something you already have, like duplicating the starburst drive?"
"John, if this is an attempt to delay---"
"There's no rush. We both know the analysis you put in that tech station was a bucket of dren. So there's no reason not to answer my question."
Scorpius took a seat opposite Crichton, noticing with interest that despite his closeness, for once Crichton showed no sign of the fear that he had shown before in his presence. Even the human's thought patterns were clearer than they had been, more focused. It was as if he had found a way to anchor himself.
And perhaps he had.
"It takes living energy to generate a starburst field, something the race known as the Builders must have known when they designed the biomechanoid Leviathans," Scorpius explained.
"Weird. So you took their word for that? No attempts to figure out your own starburst drive?"
Since the discovery of the Leviathans, Peacekeeper scientists had searched for a way to replicate the starburst drive artificially, so far with no success. The research was at a dead end.
"There have been attempts to integrate the starburst capabilities into a Peacekeeper vessel, something you yourself have seen."
"Talyn. Right. Well that's one experiment with a mind of his own," Crichton said. "Still, why wormholes? Have you seen them before? Other visitors like me popping up all over Peacekeeper space?"
"No, you are the only wormhole traveler that we have encountered. But we have known of the possibility for some time. The fragmented data that we have from the Ancients tells us that they used wormhole technology, although little is known about how they created them."
It had taken Scorpius nearly five cycles of research to create a miniature proto-wormhole in the Gammak base laboratory. Crichton had managed to create wormholes twice within a mere cycle. The first had been by accident, but the proto-wormhole at Dam-Ba-Da had been a deliberate creation. And all done without any of the resources which Scorpius had at his disposal, and without the knowledge that the Ancients would later implant in his mind.
"So all your scientists are off chasing something they think exists, but they don't know how to get there. Ain't it a bitch when that happens? It's kind of like Fermat's enigma."
"Fermat's what?"
"Fermat's enigma. It's a famous logic problem, back home." Crichton leaned forward, and began gesturing with his hands. "There was this mathematician named Fermat. He wrote that he had found an elegant proof to a theorem that no one had been able to prove before. Only he didn't have enough paper to record it. The guy's been dead over three hundred years, and still mathematicians are knocking themselves out, trying to find the proof that Fermat supposedly had. One bright guy managed to prove the theorem, but his answer was extremely complicated and relied on esoteric set theories. It couldn't be the same proof that Fermat found, so the rest of them keep on trying."
Crichton leaned back and smiled, his eyes focused on a distant memory. "Even DK got sucked into that for a while, until I convinced him to come back to the fold and work on the Farscape thesis."
"You never felt tempted to solve this yourself?"
"Why? The theorem was Fermat's. I had my own dreams, and my own theories to prove."
Scorpius tried to imagine this world of Crichton's, a place where scientists pursued research simply because it intrigued them. It was a concept unthinkable in the Peacekeepers' domains, where technology was valued solely for its military applications. Perhaps this was the key to Crichton's unique approach. A system that valued discovery for its own sake would produce a very different type of scientist.
"And the data from Dam-Ba-Da?" he prompted.
"You'll have to do better than that if you want to test me," Crichton replied. "The analysis was dren. A different entry vector or faster approach would have changed nothing. The readings confirmed what I'd suspected, that the proto-wormhole was inherently unstable. It broke up before it was truly formed."
That agreed with his own conclusions. Like the miniature wormholes he had created in his lab, the proto-wormhole on Dam-Ba-Da had been an incomplete formation. A sign that the research was on the right track, but that they still lacked some crucial understanding of the phenomenon.
"And the solution to making it stable?"
"Don't know yet," Crichton said. "But give me time, and I'll figure it out."
It was not quite a promise.
On Moya the celebration had been going on for several arns when Pa'u Zhaan rose from her seat. "I will leave you now," she said.
D'Argo nodded, sparing her merely a glance before returning his attention to Jothee, his newly rediscovered son. At the far end of the table, Rygel and Chiana paid her no heed as they continued an elaborate drinking game.
Aeryn had left some time before, claiming that there was maintenance that needed to be done on Moya. It had been an obvious lie, but with uncommon tact the others had pretended to accept her excuse at face value.
Like Aeryn, Zhaan's own feelings were mixed, her joy at Jothee's rescue tempered by regrets over the two friends who should have been here to share in the celebration. Stark, who had given his life to save them, and whose information had led D'Argo to his son. And Crichton, whose mysterious defection still puzzled and haunted the crew.
As time had passed, they had come to accept the fact that Crichton was no longer with them. It had been awkward the first time someone had impatiently commed Crichton to fix a technical problem, only to remember that he was gone. Quietly the watch schedule was rearranged to fill the gaps caused by his absence, and she no longer looked at his empty place in the common room wondering what was delaying him.
Rygel had made a halfhearted attempt to take control of Crichton's possessions, but he quickly backed down when confronted by D'Argo.
It would be easier for the crew to accept, if they knew something of Crichton's fate. Was he still alive, a prisoner, being tortured by Scorpius? Or had he already been killed, his spirit set free from this plane?
Aeryn still carried deep anger, and refused to accept what had happened. She needed a reason, someone or something to blame. She had gone through Crichton's possessions, looking for any clues to his behavior. She had even listened to all of the sound recordings he had made in his time on Moya, though she had shared the contents of only the final tape with Zhaan.
That tape had been chilling. Crichton had begun by confiding his concern over his sanity, and then drifted into a strange one-sided argument, apparently with something he thought was Scorpius. Irritably he had ordered Scorpius to leave him alone, to get out of his head. There had been another pause, and then the phrase "I must remember to tell Zhaan..."
His voice had trailed off, leaving them with no idea as to what he had meant to tell her. The recording was silent for several hundred microts, and then Crichton was heard remarking "Wonder why this is on?" and then a click that signified he had turned off the device.
The tape was evidence of Crichton's confusion, and the strange visions he had mentioned to Aeryn. But it provided no explanations, just more questions. The real wonder was that he had been able to keep up the pretense of normalcy for so long.
Zhaan entered her quarters, and then pressed the wall plate that shut the door behind her, signifying her desire for privacy. From a small cabinet she took out her meditation mat and incense sticks. Laying the mat on the floor, she slipped off her robe and then lowered herself gracefully to sit cross-legged on the mat.
She lit the incense sticks, and began the ritual hand gestures as she invoked the powers of the Goddess. Holding her palms upward to signify her openness to spiritual guidance, she cleared her mind of everyday concerns, and began the meditation chant.
Deeper she sank into the trance, until she reached the plane where the physical realm and the spiritual realm coexisted in harmony. As she opened her mind for guidance, she saw a familiar being.
"Stark," she whispered.
It was Stark, not as he had appeared in the physical realm, but rather the glowing being of light and compassion that she had seen when she linked with him in Unity. A spirit memory, brought on by her earlier musings.
"Pa'u Zhaan. It is good to touch your spirit again," Stark said. His spirit voice was even stronger than it had been before, as if the darkness which had once been part of him had been banished forever.
"I have thought of you often," Zhaan said.
"And I of you. I would have come to you sooner, but it took me time to make the transition from my corporeal state to the energy form that I now inhabit."
"Energy form?"
"Yes, the Plokavians were only able to destroy my body. As I had hoped, my spirit form remained intact."
Joy lightened her heart as she realized that this was indeed Stark, and not merely an echo of his spirit drawn from her memories. "I can not tell you how happy this news makes me. For a long time I have grieved, thinking you lost forever."
"I know. That is one of the reasons why I came to you," Stark replied.
"And the other reason?"
"Crichton."
Crichton and Stark had shared a bond born of their mutual imprisonment on the Gammak base. Stark had done his best to try and heal Crichton after his experiences, but he had confided to her that he was not certain that he had succeeded. They had agreed that they could do nothing else unless Crichton asked for their help. At the time it had seemed a wise decision. Only now, in hindsight, could she see how wrong they had been.
"Crichton is not here. Several weekens ago he left Moya and surrendered himself to Scorpius," Zhaan explained.
A whisper of sorrow drifted like gray mist across the spirit realm.
"That I know as well," Stark said. "I have seen him, although unlike you he can not sense my presence."
"Crichton is alive? Is he unharmed?"
"Physically he is unharmed, although even now Scorpius molds him to do his bidding. I watched and observed, and discovered that Crichton has unwittingly been under Scorpius's control since the time of his imprisonment. There is a device implanted deep within his mind, that allowed Scorpius to control his thoughts and actions."
"Goddess defend," Zhaan whispered. Such a thing was an abomination.
"An abomination indeed," Stark said, sharing her thoughts.
"Can you help him?"
"I will wait, and see. There is a possibility. If the time comes, I may need you to help me, at once and without question. Can you do that?"
"Of course," Zhaan said. "Just ask and it will be done."
"You are gracious and kind," Stark said. His spirit image raised his hands until the palms were extended towards hers. She reached out with her own hands, and pressed her palms against his, feeling the joyous glow of contentment that came from sharing unity with a kindred soul. Then the image faded, and he was gone.
As Zhaan returned to the present, she was faced with a new dilemma. Should she share what she had learned with the others? She could not reveal the truth of what had happened to Crichton unless she revealed her source. And that would mean also telling them that Crichton was still alive, and still very much in danger.
What kindness would there be in sharing such knowledge with those who already grieved for him? Instead she would keep her own counsel, until she knew if there was indeed anything that she or the rest of Moya's crew could do to help their lost shipmate.
"No, all this is new. See?" Crichton gestured towards the port wing of the Farscape module. "This is where the thruster rockets were. I took them out so I could install the cooling fins for the hetch drive."
Scorpius nodded.
Crichton ran his hand along the wing, and then raised himself up and peered into the cockpit. Everything looked exactly the way he had left it. Which meant that either Scorpius had left the module undisturbed, or his techs were very, very good at taking things apart and putting them back together again. If he had to bet, he would bet on the techs.
"The thruster rockets were chemical based?"
"Yup. And the engines, although they were more sophisticated, and used a different formula for the fuel mix."
Designing engines that could provide enough thrust for the Farscape experiment had been an incredible feat of engineering that had taken two years, and untold hours of his and DK's lives. Ripping those engines out had been like ripping out a piece of himself, but there had been no sense in keeping them. There was no fuel for the old engines, and the new hetch drive had made the module exponentially faster.
"The chemical fuel you described is inefficient and mass intensive. How could such a small craft carry enough fuel for the journey?" Scorpius asked.
Crichton ducked under the nose of the module, and then stood up on the other side. "You saw my memories. This girl didn't have to break orbit on her own. We hitched a lift on the shuttle, which was strapped to chemical booster rockets that brought us up out of the gravity well. Shuttle casts off the rockets, powers its own way up the final stage into orbit. Then they open the cargo bay and launch us on our way. Simple."
"And the experiment?"
"All I needed the engines for was a few minutes of high-velocity acceleration. After that, they would automatically shut down. If all goes as expected, I report the results, burn engines to align me for reentry, and then let gravity bring me home."
If something unexpected happened, the plan had been that he would try to achieve a stable Earth orbit and wait for the shuttle to rescue him.
"A gravity drive?"
Crichton laughed. "No, you're over-thinking this. Just gravity, plain and simple. Farscape falls like a rock, until we reach the upper atmosphere. Then she becomes a glider, and I try to land her in one piece."
Scorpius eyes widened in disbelief. "An appallingly low-tech solution," he said.
"Hey, it's state of the art where I come from. Or it was when I designed her. Maybe they've thought of something new since then."
Crichton had often wondered what had happened to the Farscape project, after his disappearance. Had his loss killed the project? Or had DK and the team been able to convince IASA to try again, with the prototype Farscape II that had been in development?
"It still amazes me that you managed to come so far in such a craft," Scorpius said.
"Some days I amaze myself," Crichton replied. "It takes real guts to be an IASA astronaut. Not like your Peacekeeper pilots. Every IASA craft is an experiment, where a million things can go wrong, and you don't get second chances."
Farscape had been just such an experiment. Dangerous, but no more so than a moon landing, or the first orbital mission for that matter. They had planned for every contingency the IASA team could think of, and then had gone back and thought of some more. The list was endless. Engine failures. Control systems failures. The unlikely chance of impact with space debris or micro-meteorites. The very real possibility that the Farscape effect might send him into an uncontrolled atmospheric entry, or propel him away from Earth at such high velocity that his braking systems would be unable to slow the craft in time, while he still had enough fuel to return back to the Earth.
There had been no contingency plans for a wormhole.
"I should say a deficient sense of self-preservation was a more important requirement for your astronauts, as you call them," Scorpius countered.
"Maybe. But I've made it this far, haven't I? Guess humans are just stubborn that way."
"Stubbornness does seem to be a species characteristic," Scorpius agreed.
Crichton bent down, and checked the external monitor on the hetch drive, confirming that there was indeed no fuel and only marginal battery power in the module. A prudent safety precaution, not that there was any real risk that he could try and steal the module and use it to make an escape.
He continued to inspect the module, planning in his head the modifications he would make if he ever had the chance. Better radiation shielding for a start, and the efficiency of the hetch drive could be improved by a factor of at least twenty percent, if he replaced the jury-rigged drive controller with a standard unit. And the control systems could use some tuning....
He could have stayed there for hours, but that wasn't the bargain he had made.
"It is time," Scorpius said, at last.
Crichton nodded. "Okay. Tell your techs not to mess with her. I'll be back," he promised the module.
He gave one backward glance, and then followed Scorpius from the maintenance bay.
The chance to see the Farscape module had been a reward from Scorpius. A gift, because the human was finally behaving as he was expected to.
With nothing to bargain with except himself, Crichton had slowly been forced to see the value of cooperation.
Cooperation meant an end to the mind-numbing drugs. A chance to leave the tedium of his quarters. First he had been permitted to visit the officer's physical conditioning area, where each day he tried to work off some of his frustrations through exercise.
Today, in return for agreeing to explain everything about the Farscape module, Crichton had been allowed to see his craft, for an arn.
He did not know if Scorpius was genuinely interested in the craft, as he claimed, thinking that there was something unique in its design that might explain its interaction with wormholes. Or if Scorpius was simply using this as another way to pry as much information out of him as possible.
Not that he put up much resistance. Indeed the Farscape module was still a source of pride to him. He could talk about it for hours, and unlike his friends on Moya, Scorpius's eyes did not glaze over with bored incomprehension as Crichton explained the engineering design choices that he had made.
In a way it had been easier when he had been a prisoner on the Gammak base. Simpler. There Scorpius had been the enemy, and he the victim. Now he didn't know what to think. As the days passed, he found it hard to maintain the white-hot edge of his anger that had sustained him before. For this time, Scorpius did not threaten him, nor harm him. Instead he offered Crichton the knowledge that he craved, and a chance to develop the theories that would lead him back home.
It was an almost unbearable temptation.
If only he wasn't alone. At Gammak base there had been Stark to share his imprisonment, and his friends to help him escape. Here there was no one to help him, no one to talk to. No one, except Scorpius.
From the beginning, Scorpius had kept him carefully isolated. Except for the sentry that he had glimpsed for a few seconds during his first escape attempt, Crichton had seen no one except Scorpius. Even as they walked the corridors of the command carrier, there was no one to be seen. It was as if he and Scorpius were the only two beings that existed.
He knew that Scorpius was playing mind games with him, but the mere knowledge was not enough to help him avoid them.
His first escape attempt had gotten him all of two meters. His next attempt had been over before it had begun. Crichton had wracked his brain, trying to think of a way out, with no success. Scorpius had all the advantages. Resources to monitor Crichton around the clock, and the damn collar which let his captors knock him unconscious the moment he showed signs of deviating from their rules.
The surroundings were vastly improved, but it was the high security Gammak base all over again. Only this time there was no friendly tech to provide a diversion, or former Peacekeeper commando to stage a raid and save him.
This time he was all alone.
As Scorpius strode into the command center, the technicians and duty officers straightened to rigid attention. A well-disciplined crew under Captain Crais, they had learned even greater discipline and efficiency under their new commander. Each person aboard this vessel understood that there was no room for failure or error.
Lieutenant Braca approached. "Sir, everything is proceeding as you ordered. We will reach the supply base in seven point four arn, and they have confirmed that they have the materials you requested."
After retrieving Crichton, Scorpius had ordered that the command carrier leave the Uncharted Territories, and return to Peacekeeper controlled space. There was no reason to risk his prize. Now, after weekens of travel, they were approaching the supply base that marked the edge of the Peacekeepers' domains.
"And the prisoner?"
"The techs have completed their analysis of his research in the last day. The report is in the system, sealed under your personal code."
"Good," Scorpius said. "Dismissed."
Scorpius sat in the command chair, and as his fingers brushed the console plate, the technicians' analysis was displayed. There were no dramatic revelations, but overall he was pleased with what he saw. The delicate task of molding Crichton without breaking him was proceeded as he had planned.
Under his care, Crichton was slowly rebuilding himself. Not yet healed, but no longer in immediate danger of slipping into madness. After his initial resistance, Crichton had immersed himself in the technical data provided as if it were a lifeline, and indeed perhaps it was. Once started, he was unstoppable. Reference databases, test results, theoretical models, he devoured them all with insatiable curiosity. At times he forgot to eat, or sleep.
As he began assimilating the knowledge, he had endless questions. Crichton was quite good at spotting the gaps in the information that had been provided, and in arguing for more.
Crichton's training had given him a conceptual model of the universe that was subtly different from the way that Sebacean science explained quantum phenomena. Ideas that were mere speculation on Crichton's homeworld were proven facts here. That was not to say Crichton's training was a liability. On the contrary, the Farscape effect he had theorized was something that Peacekeeper scientists had never known, or had long since forgotten.
And although Crichton was not yet willing to discuss his theories, careful analysis of his research queries indicated he was approaching the wormhole problem from a very different angle, starting with the magnetic shear effect caused by solar flares. How much of his focus was Crichton's own inspiration, and how much was due to the guidance the Ancients had implanted within him was an interesting question to ponder.
A low-pitched chime sounded, and Scorpius toggled on the comm link.
"Sir, the prisoner's behavior is becoming increasingly erratic," reported Ensign Kelvar, one of those assigned to monitor Crichton. "Do you wish us to sedate him?"
Scorpius touched another button, and the surveillance images of Crichton sprang to life on the screen before him. For once Crichton was not at the technical station, instead he was pacing around the room. As he reached the far wall, he paused to slam his fist against it.
Scorpius frowned. It had been weekens since something had last triggered one of these fits of self-destructive anger. He had hoped that Crichton had moved beyond this stage, but clearly he had been wrong.
"Do nothing," he ordered the ensign. "I will see to this myself."
When he reached Crichton's quarters, he found the human had stopped the pacing, but was now continuing to slam his right fist into the wall with monotonous regularity. His knuckles were bleeding. Flecks of red blood decorated the wall, the tech station, the door, and other objects that had been the recipients of Crichton's wrath. Fortunately there was nothing in these quarters that was breakable... except Crichton himself.
Crichton saw him enter, but did not acknowledge him.
"You will cease this behavior," Scorpius said.
Crichton ignored him.
As he drew back his fist for another strike, Scorpius seized his arm. "John, control yourself, or I will do it for you."
Crichton's gaze met his, daring him to carry out his threat. Then, after a long moment, he nodded almost imperceptibly, and shook off Scorpius's hold. He let his arm fall down by his side, seemingly oblivious to the blood that began to drip slowly onto the floor.
"You have injured yourself," Scorpius said.
Crichton backed away. He lifted his hand, and wriggled the fingers. "I'm fine," he said. "See? Nothing broken."
The injuries were superficial. It was the reason for them that he needed to understand. "You should be more careful," Scorpius said.
"Why? I thought you would like this. Seeing someone in pain. Isn't that your style?" Crichton challenged.
Now Crichton was trying to provoke him, another reversion to his earlier behavior. It made no sense. The surveillance report had indicated nothing at all unusual in the last day. So what had caused this?
Scorpius sat down by the tech station, careful to keep his body language non-threatening. "John, what is wrong?"
Crichton shook his head.
"You need to tell someone. And there is no one else," Scorpius said.
Crichton's need to form emotional bonds with others was his greatest weakness. When it came to making a choice, he almost always chose emotional values over logic. Consider the Peacekeeper Technician Gilina Renaez. Crichton had known her for only a few days, yet when in the Aurora Chair on the Gammak base, he had endured agonies to protect her.
It was a weakness that would never have been tolerated in the Peacekeepers' ranks. Indeed, they would never have entrusted a sensitive project such as Farscape to one who displayed such a character flaw. And yet this failing was the key to understanding what drove Crichton, and how to control him.
Scorpius intended to exploit this weakness. It was why he had been so careful to isolate Crichton, ensuring that he had no one else with whom to form a connection.
Crichton sat down on the edge of the sleeping platform, cradling his injured right hand in his left. "Today it has been one point nine six cycles since my arrival," he said.
"I do not understand."
"One point nine six cycles. That's two Earth years," Crichton said. "Two years ago today, that I disappeared."
Scorpius waited patiently, letting the silence draw out between them, until Crichton spoke again.
"They've probably got the flags at IASA at half-mast. There'll be a minute of silence at the moment of the test. The tourists will wonder what's going on, and the tour guides will remind them of the mission." Crichton took a deep breath. "And some human interest reporter will hunt down my Dad, and ask him if he's reconciled himself to what happened. Ask him if he still supports the space program, and whether it was worth the life of his only son."
Crichton's voice cracked as he mentioned his father, and there were unshed tears in his eyes.
"You miss your homeworld," Scorpius said, trying to draw him out.
"I miss it all. Dad. DK. My sisters. Gods, I can't imagine what they went through. Are going through. And I want to see them. To know what's happening. To know that they are okay, and to let them know that I am alright."
Even when he spoke of his homeworld, it was interesting that he thought of it in terms of the people he had left behind.
"John, you know what you need to do. I can help you, but ultimately it is up to you."
Crichton rubbed his eyes with the heel of his left hand, scrubbing away the tears that he refused to shed.
"Right," he said, with a bitter laugh. "All I have to do is give you the answer to wormhole technology. And coincidentally, give the Peacekeepers a map to my homeworld, and the means to reach there."
"You overestimate the importance of a backwater low-tech planet," Scorpius countered. "True power lies here, in the civilizations of this galaxy."
Indeed, even with the advantages of wormhole technology, it would take time for the Peacekeepers to consolidate their grip on this galaxy, and bring first the Scarrans and Nebari, and then the Uncharted Territories under their rule. It would be many cycles before the Peacekeepers were free to turn their attentions elsewhere.
"So you are saying I should trust you?"
"Whether you trust me or not is irrelevant. You will never return to your home unless you find a way to create another wormhole," Scorpius said. "The question is, how badly do you want to go home?"
Click here to go to part 4