The epilogue to I, Crichton, which is previously posted in the library, is a prologue to this. This also follows The Patter of Little Feet and Traveller's Song. The main things you need to know is that one Crichton went to Earth and the other stayed with Aeryn, and that Aeryn's mother's name is Meara and she left the Peacekeepers a long time ago.

Disclaimers- I'm not making any money, don't hurt me.

Thanks go to MALar for reading every bit of drivel I write, to Curly for being in my fic and UCSBDad for lending him, to everyone who answered my football post, to Crystal Moon for saying she thought the epilogue looked like the beginning of another story, and to Jonathan Hardy and Moonbebe for the Australian place names.

It’s a foot, John.” Aeryn said.

“It’s too angular to be a foot. It must be an elbow or something,” John said, feeling the protrusion in the upper area of Aeryn’s swollen belly.

“The baby is head down now, so it has to be a foot,” Aeryn insisted.

“Maybe she moved position,” John said, moving his hand a short distance away and pressing gently. He was rewarded by a kick, the baby’s movements following the position of his hand. “We could go take a look with the scanner.”

“We could leave her alone and let her settle down so I could get some rest,” Aeryn said dryly.

John was wearing the bemused look he sometimes got as he continued to play the game with his unborn child.It was the one that Aeryn would have called stupid and had never admitted to him that she loved seeing on him.

“How do you feel about going to Earth?” he asked very quietly.

Aeryn knew that John really wanted just to know how she felt- the decision had already been made.

“I’m- worried.’ she said finally.

“What about?”

“About meeting your family.”

“What? That’s the last thing I expected to hear. Government conspiracies, alien autopsies- but meeting the folks?’

“They’re “folks” that are important to you. What if they don’t like me?”

John moved up in the bed so that he could look into her eyes. “They will love you, Aeryn. And if they don’t- well, grandkids are a great icebreaker.”

“How do you feel about going..back?" She couldn’t quite bring herself to call it his home.

“I don’t know,” he said, propping himself up on his elbow and toying with a strand of the dark hair that spilled over the pillows. “I should be happy to be going home and I should be worried about what’s happening to earth, but all I can think about is how to keep you and the baby safe.”

She ran her fingers down his cheek and kissed him. “I love you, too,’ she whispered against his lips. “Now roll over,’ she commanded, moving more onto her side.

“Why don’t I spoon around you? “ he said hopefully.” that way the baby won’t keep me awake kicking me in the back.”

“It feels better this way. And you got her started, so it’s only fair that if she keeps me awake, she keeps you awake.” Aeryn said primly.

John obligingly rolled over and Aeryn tucked herself around him as best she could. While she was waiting for the baby to settle down and quit kicking John in the back, she said,” I wish we knew when this was going to be over.”

“Nobody knows exactly when babies are going to be born, they get here when they’re ready. And this is the first human Sebacean pregnancy- well, the first to get this far anyway.”

“Yeah. Who would have thought frelling morning sickness?” Aeryn mumbled. Despite the fact that they could find no information on it, and D’argo insisted that nausea was not a sign of Sebacean pregnancy, Aeryn had been sick every day of the first two monens.

"I'm sorry," John said guiltily.

"It's alright,' Aeryn said sleepily. "I don't care as long as the baby is healthy."

The ride through the worm hole had been a wild and exciting one. Aeryn had flown Talyn competently through the twister and they had gone through the exit marked "earth" in the other Crichton's travel plans. Now they were traveling at a good hetch clip towards the Earth's solar system.

"Talyn handled that well," John observed.

"Yes, " Crais agreed reservedly. "He does not appear to have suffered any ill effects from the worm hole."

"We weren't in it long enough," John said. "It took time to hurt Moya and several revolutions to fry the biocomponents in my module. As long as we don't go traveling willy nilly across the galaxy, he should be fine."

"I still don't think this is a good idea. But since he doesn't listen to anything I say anymore-"

"He's just grown up, Crais. He wants to make his own decisions. He -uh- really enjoyed it" Aeryn said, smiling.

"Like a roller coaster ride, huh?" John said, grinning back at her.

"Where's Curly," Aeryn asked suddenly."I haven't seen him since we went through the worm hole. Is he with you, D'argo?"

"Why would that infernal beast be with me?" D'argo voice came over the comm gruffly.

Aeryn looked inquiringly at John. He observed the way she was sitting tiredly and said,' I'll go look for him."

"Thank you."

John found Curly, finally, under the bed in the room that he and Aeryn were using. Actually, what he found were a couple of enormous paws and a curly tail sticking out from under the bed.

"Come on out, Fella, It's all over,' he said reassuringly.

Curly whimpered a bit and didn't come out. John realized he could make out a word that sounded like "stuck".

"You can't be too stuck, can you? You got in there, didn't you?"

John grabbed an enormous paw and pulled. He soon realized that he would have better luck trying to drag a fully grown Holstein. "Now, look. You have to try harder. I'd have to unbolt that bed to get it off you..c'mon..c'mon.."

He dropped the paw quickly when he heard Aeryn. "John. Oh, John. I think this is it."

Aeryn was standing in front of the view screen as John came up behind her. Talyn moved to the left a little and a beautiful blue and white globe came into sight. She could hear John catch his breath and she saw on his face the look of a man who was starving and knew that he would never be allowed to touch the banquet he saw in front of him. Then the hungry look eased and he said, 'It's real, isn't it, Aeryn? You see it, too, don't you?"

He reached out and grabbed her hand.

"Yes, John, I see it, too, " and she smiled though tears were coming to her eyes.

John stood silently. It worried Aeryn- she had expected to see him more excited, although she wasn't sure she wanted him to be too excited.

"Are you okay?"

'Yeah," he said, but he held on to her with a death grip, as if she would disappear if he didn't hold on tight enough. It occurred to her that maybe he did feel that way- that he had never thought that he could have both her and earth at the same time,if only for a little while.

The primitive communication system that they had brought from the dead Crichton's ship crackled into life behind them.

"Crichton? John Crichton?"

Aeryn spent her time looking for any signs of Peacekeepers or any form of space transport while John was talking to the man that they had been told to contact. John was being interrogated- first they asked him a lot of questions about Earth that she didn't understand, then questions about life in the Uncharted Territories, concentrating mostly, she realized, on the period of time between the time that the chip had been removed and his twin had left for earth.

"There's nothing out here," Aeryn said.

John wasn't listening. "Her scream melts metal-' he was saying.

"Not only are there no Peacekeepers, there's no space traffic, no sensors , no signals..."

John stopped talking to the radio for a microt. "I told you, Honey."

Aeryn knitted her brow as she looked at the tiny little planet below them. It looked very calm and peaceful and unguarded to her.

"What the frell is that?" she said suddenly. Her scanning for transmissions had suddenly turned up a lot of free floating signals as they got closer to earth.

John laughed. "Congratulations, Aeryn, you got the home shopping channel first try."

Aeryn watched a Sebacean looking woman demonstrate the workings of George Foreman's lean mean fat-reducing machine. One part of her was still listening to John's conversation and she was taken by surprise by the last question asked.

"What did you tell Aeryn to convince her to leave the Peacekeepers and go with you?" the voice asked.

"You can be more," he said softly. Aeryn smiled at him from across the room.

After receiving instructions as to where they should land, John came to stand beside her. "Someone was expecting us..me..one of me,' he said.

"Do you trust them?" she asked. "Do you think it's safe?"

"It had better be."

Aeryn turned off the visuals and returned to looking at earth. "What's marcasite? Is it valuable?"

"I don't know, I think they made it up, " John said, putting his arms around her and resting his head on her shoulder. He rested one hand on her stomach and pointed with the other. "Look, BabySun, that's Earth. That's where Daddy comes from."

"She can't see it, John," Aeryn rolled her eyes at him. " My womb is *not* transparent."

They stood in silence for a while together.

"What's that?" asked Aeryn, pointing to something snaking through a large land covered area.

"It's the Great Wall of Chiana," John said. "The only landmark you can see from space. Well, except for the Mall of America."

Aeryn looked over her shoulder at him. His eyes were shining and he smiled back at her. Now he was getting excited. "You didn't tell me Earth was a commerce planet," she teased.

"You *are* taking him with you, aren't you?" Crais asked. as he came back into command.

"Who?" John asked. He turned around to see a large and disgruntled looking vorlag. Curly immediately trotted up to Aeryn and whined at her. He pressed his head up against her and looked mournfully up at her with his big brown eyes. He was obviously missing a little of his thick brown coat, its smoothness marred by patches missing from the top of his head and his upper flank.

"Oh, Curly, I'm sorry. In all the excitement, I forgot." A pair of brown eyes flashed a hurt look at him while a pair of blue ones looked a him reproachfully. John shrugged. "Well, you managed somehow, didn't you?"

To change the subject , he addressed Crais. " We can't take Curly, Crais, he'd be as conspicuous as ..as a vorlag on earth." Realizing how lame that sounded, he added,"As a Scarren in a roomful of Peacekeepers."

Curly cocked his head at him and promised to be good.

"We need you here to guard the ship, Curly," Aeryn said, scratching him behind the ears.

Curly puffed his chest out and said, clearly, "I will do my best."

John and Aeryn flew the transport pod to the coordinates they were given. Aeryn watched as the world came closer, noting the vast squares of cultivated land. It didn't appear to be too different from a Sebacean farming colony.

"I hope Crais and Talyn will still be there when we get back," John said.

"Talyn won't leave without us. Besides, D'argo is there."

"Crais and D'argo and Jool are not the best combination for a crew," John noted.

"No, but we can't have Talyn without Crais and Jool wanted to be here for the baby and we just need D'argo in case we...have any trouble," Aeryn said. "I'm not too comfortable with Stark and Chiana being left on Moya either."

"Well, it's what we have," John said. They were flying over a desert region now. "They'd better have air conditioning," he stated. "I don't want you out in this desert."

The area that they were in looked deserted until they were almost on the ground. They were instantly met by four soldiers and a man who appeared to be in charge of them.

"Welcome Home, Commander Crichton. You must be Aeryn Sun."

Aeryn lost what his name was as she was distracted by the soldiers covering the transport pod with a covering that matched their fatigues.

"John-"

He turned his attention to where Aeryn was looking.

"Tell them not to touch anything," John said urgently. "You'd be amazed at how easy that thing is to break."

The man nodded and invited them to get into a small open ground vehicle. John moved to help Aeryn in but she shrugged him off. "Not my gun arm, John," she admonished.. John threw in a bag and settled in next to her, holding her left hand.

"I imagine you'll want to get out of this heat," the man said conversationally. Aeryn just stared at him.

"We do.' John said. "So, where are we going?"

His question was answered as they drove into a small hillside. The golf cart suddenly made more sense as they drove into a large and gleaming facility.

"You probably have a lot of questions- about what's happened in the last few years while you've been gone."

"Just one," John said. "Who won the last Super bowl?"

"The Bills," the man said casually.

"Oh! That's it, turn the cart around, we are going home."

Aeryn gave him a slanty-eyed look. She wasn't sure if John was kidding or not..

"Well, it's not like it's the Vikings...or the Cleveland Browns," the man driving made a disgusted face.

"Well, yeah, but as long as the Cigarette Smoking Man is alive, the Bills can't win the Super bowl."

Aeryn relaxed a little. Now she could tell he was kidding.

"He's dead. Krycek killed him. Pushed him down the stairs."

"I don't believe it. He'll be back. You can't kill the devil. So, you watch X-files?"

"Government agents? Conspiracies? Aliens? We are the X-files."

John was ginning openly now. " So, what about Buffy?"

Aeryn never found out if the man knew Buffy because John suddenly yelled for the cart to stop and jumped out. She followed him in a move that looked impossibly graceful for someone in her condition and pointed her gun at someone John appeared to be attempting to hug to death.

"D.K. My man! What are you doing here?" Johns aid, pounding the lanky guy on the back.

"I work here. I've been working on making a functional hetch drive ever since you- the other you- brought us the technology."

"I'm sorry about- him," John said awkwardly.

"Thanks. We can uh..talk about it later, I guess. You must be Aeryn," he said.

Aeryn had reholstered the pulse pistol without the slightest sign of embarrassment. "D.K." she said, extending her hand.

"You are even prettier than I imagined," D. K. said, in a voice devoid of flattery. "And there's a baby Crichton on the way? Congratulations!"

John beamed and Aeryn smiled at D.K., causing him to suddenly lose the power of speech.

"We should go," said the man in the golf cart, sounding reluctant to break up the reunion. "they're waiting for you."

"Are you coming. D.K.?" Asked John.

"No," he said, shaking his head. "It's military. Bigwigs and lots of speeches. I have work to do."

They made another stop before they got to their destination. The man driving them said," We need to get a photograph of you. Is that all right ?It's for I. D."

"It's like an ident chip," John told Aeryn.

She nodded and they stood her up against the wall and took a few pictures. The first few photos were rejected and tossed aside.

"They look too good," their guide complained. "No one would ever believe that was a drivers license photo.'

While he finally found a couple he was satisfied with, John looked at the others." I like this one," he told Aeryn, and pocketed it.

"Do you prefer Officer Sun or Mrs. Crichton?"

"Aeryn," she said, shrugging.

"You can call me Red,' he told her.

"He isn't red," Aeryn said to John. He laughed. Red looked at them inquiringly.

"She said your hair wasn't red."

That wasn't exactly what Aeryn had said, but she let it past.

"It's a long story,' Red said, showing no intention of telling it to them.

D.K had been right. They were escorted to a conference room full of military personnel. Aeryn was soon lost in introductions. She decided that she very much preferred the Peacekeeper system of subofficers, officers, and Senior Officers to the confusing array of ranks she was introduced to.

After they were seated, the room was silent for a microt or two. Aeryn realized that they were all staring at her. She unconsciously straightened her spine and lifted her chin.

"What assurances do we have that we can trust you?" John broke the silence.

Someone with a lot of stars on his shoulders leaned forward eagerly and said," We are prepared to do anything we have to to gain your trust and cooperation." There were some angry glares directed at him, but other anxious faces were turned towards Aeryn and John.

"I want a million dollars in unmarked bills, to talk to the president, and a nickel bag." John said seriously.

"Done," he said.

Red, who was leaning up against the wall and watching the proceedings, looked at his watch. "Half an hour, tops. A little longer if you want to talk to the president in person."

Aeryn watched John survey the room. "How about a diet mountain dew? "

Red grinned. "Anything for the lady?"

"Something without caffeine."

After John's demand for soft drinks had been met, the room settled into serious discussion. John gave them a brief description of his encounter with his double and the information, or lack thereof, that he was given, due to his untimely death. Aeryn stared in mild consternation at her drink- was she supposed to wait until it stopped fizzing to drink it? She noticed that John downed his immediately. Aeryn gave up on her soft drink- the bubbles were too distracting and she was trying to listen intently to what was going on. They were told that the first hint Earth had of a presence other than their own were readings of worm hole activity. It didn't take them long to realize that the space station had been attacked. Two personnel were killed and the other three disappeared. The second attack had come in the form of a formation of four prowlers that the other John had managed to dispatch in his ship.

"They took all the information that our scientist had gathered in ZotahZhaan but we still have no idea what provoked the attack."

"Zhaan?" Aeryn asked, extremely puzzled.

"That's what John-you- your predecessor- named the space station. It's been quiet since he left to find you, but of course, without his vessel, we have no way of protecting ourselves."

"What about Star Wars?" John asked, leaving Aeryn wondering what Yoda from Dagobah had to do with this.

The man with the stars grimaced. "We've been working with the information Crichton gave us to try to catch up, but we aren't there yet. His hope was that you could do something about the threat from the other side of the galaxy. Thank God nothing happened before you got here."

"How do you know?" Aeryn asked. There was silence as everyone in the room stared at her.

"How do they know?" Aeryn said, addressing John."If all they have is radar they wouldn't be able to detect a prowler or a marauder. They're invisible on radar."

"I didn't know that, Aeryn. I'm sure they followed us on radar when we came in."

"That's because we were in a transport pod, John. They aren't exactly capable of a stealth trajectory."'

"I didn't know that," John said.

"Which means-"

"*He* didn't know that." John finished.

"You didn't happen to bring any translator microbes with you?" a blonde woman next to Aeryn asked.

"No, we didn't," John lied easily.

The woman was visibly trying to hide her disappointment when John addressed the room. "Aeryn's right. We're used to sensors that can tell you how many people are on a ship and what they had for breakfast. You can't possibly know if there have been more 'visits' to earth space."

The room was silent for a microt. "Sh-," someone said, and then they all started talking at once. the conversation followed fast and furious. Aeryn began to be very irritated by the fact that she not only could not put in her opinion, but was having trouble following the earth references. After a particularly long and rambling argument by someone with a pronounced lisp, Aeryn turned to John and said,"Can't I just shoot him?"

"Aeryn," John remonstrated.

"Just..once?" she said, looking at him with bleary eyes.

"I think you're enjoying the fact that they can't understand you," he whispered. She grinned wickedly at him.

"Enough is enough, people. I came here to help you, but what I really want to do is see my family, and as you can see, my wife is getting tired." John got to his feet.

The blonde starting talking rapidly, addressing Aeryn.

"I wanted to know if you would let me take a look at you. I know you appear very human but this is the first contact we've had with an alien life form . There have to be some anatomical differences and the DNA-" she made the mistake of putting her hand on Aeryn's arm.

John reached across Aeryn, grabbed the woman's arm and had Wynona the Second out in an instant. "Aeryn is not an alien life form, she is a person." He waved the gun at the room at large. "She is not to be probed, prodded, dissected, or otherwise treated like anything but a human being. If we are not allowed to travel freely, are restrained or treated as second class citizens in any way- I am going to take my heavily armed gunship and - go home."

All Aeryn could see were nodding heads but the only one she looked for was Red. Somehow she considered him the only dangerous person in the room. He was still leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. Their eyes met and she got the distinct impression that he was going to let John shoot the woman if he wanted to.

The blonde didn't back down although Aeryn knew John had to be hurting her.

"I have been waiting for this all my life," she said.

'John...it wouldn't hurt to have someone look at the baby," Aeryn started. "It might be a good idea to have a human doctor check her out. If you trust them."

John released the woman's arm and looked at Aeryn, who shrugged.

"Know any good obstetricians?" he asked the woman.

"It's not my specialty but I know the basics," she said, rubbing her arm.

It wasn't long before Aeryn was lying on a table getting the first gynecological exam of her life. She wasn't sure she would have agreed to this if she had known that's what was going to happen.

"Can't they just look at me with the scanner?" she complained.

"Sonograms don't work as well as scanners," John explained.

The blonde woman, a Dr. Tisdale, did something to Aeryn that pinched. Before she thought twice, she kicked out with one foot and caught her squarely on the chest. The woman hit the ground with a resounding thump.

'I'm sorry," said Aeryn. "It was just a reflex."

"Tell her I'm sorry," she said to a snickering John .

"No," he said.

Aeryn reached up and thumped him on the arm. "Tell her I said I was SORRY,' she insisted.

"She wants to apologize," John said lamely.

"That's all right," the woman said gamely, getting to her feet and taking off her gloves. "As far as I can tell, everything looks fine. The babies head down and engaged in the pelvis. She's probably a good seven pounds and you have three or four weeks at the most."

"Three weeks- that's uh..about twenty-one solar days. I can't translate the weight."

At Aeryn's puzzled face, the doctor said," What it means is that the baby is big enough, and far enough along to be considered full term. If you go into labor at any time from this point, don't worry about it, okay?" she tried a reassuring smile.

"We hope to be back on Talyn, at least, before that happens," John said.

"There isn't any visible difference in structure," Dr. Tisdale said."You might be able to get away with having this child in a hospital with no one being the wiser, barring needing a blood transfusion or something. Our species must be very closely related, not only to look so much alike, but to be genetically compatible. It's fascinating. I would love to know why we are so much alike."

"So would we. We haven't the faintest idea.'

"Your blood pressure and temperature and pulse rate are all a little low," she told Aeryn.

"They're normal," she said. John looked at her strangely. "They were when Jool checked them earlier."

"I could do some blood tests, some immunology, maybe an amnio-"

"No," said John. "We don't want anything that invasive. We aren't worried about genetic problems anyway- we took a test."

"A test?" the woman said.

"Thank you, doctor," Aeryn said, sitting up on the table.

"Do you feel better now?"John asked. He bent down a little so that he could look directly into her eyes. ' A little less worried?"

"Yes," Aeryn bumped his nose with hers and smiled. " We are going to have a baby-and not very long from now.' She slid off the table into John's arms and he helped her get her balance.

Dr. Tisdale watched them together and said," I am sorry that I was over-eager before. This is a great moment for me."

"Us, too," John said with his arms wrapped around Aeryn.

John and Aeryn were talking on their way out the door.

"Haven't you ever had an exam like that before?" John asked.

"Well, " she said,"it's automated, and they can see everything from the *outside*. It's not so personal."

"At least you aren't a guy. You don't have to turn your head and cough.". Aeryn was about to ask John what *that* meant when they ran into Red. He handed them a large manila envelope, and then started explaining the contents.

"We have everything you need here- birth certificate, passport, marriage license, social security card. There's a medic alert bracelet that says you have an exotic blood type, and can't receive blood. That's the best we can do for you regarding that situation," he said, frowning a little.

He addressed Aeryn directly. "You were born in a little town called Whitman, Kansas. Twenty years ago it was destroyed by a tornado and there are no inhabitants or records from that town anymore. You were obviously raised overseas- you should probably claim something exotic- maybe Greece or Russia? Just- be careful the person you're talking to is a typical American and doesn't know their geography. You have a security clearance and a concealed weapons permit. And that means concealed," he emphasized, looking at their sidearms pointedly. "You cannot walk around armed in this society without attracting attention."

Aeryn nodded.

"Kansas?" John said.

"Well, we couldn't put Command Carrier, Outer Space. I wanted Roswell, but I decided that might be pushing it. Seriously, it was just easier if she was born here and already a citizen. It's not deep cover, but its the best we can do on short notice."

"It looks good to me," John said, rifling through her I.D. "These look real."

"They are real. As real as any government document, they just don't happen to be true."

John and Aeryn were both looking at him with confused expressions on their faces."There are lies and damned lies. these are official lies . Welcome to earth, Aeryn," he said, shaking her hand. He punched John on the arm, lightly. "Take her to Disneyland or something."

"Your ride's here."

John could hear the ride coming as a helicopter landed in the desert. Aeryn watched the birds blades spinning with something like horror on her face. "What the hezmana is that?" she asked.

"It's okay, honey. It's just a helicopter."

"We're supposed to fly in that? Why is it making so much noise? Is it not functioning properly?"

"It's..we don't have antigrav. Or artificial gravity, for that matter."

"Okay, John. then *what* keeps it up?"

John laughed." Remind me to explain the principles of aerodynamics to you sometime," he said.

"She's just not used to ships that need atmosphere to fly," he explained to Red, and dragged her by the hand towards the helicopter."

Aeryn found the vehicle interesting after she got over the quaintness of it, but the noise prevented her from finding out very much about it.The helicopter landed in a small private air field. A ground vehicle was there with a distinguished and familiar looking man standing next to it. The moment Aeryn had been worrying about had arrived.

"Dad," John whispered, and broke out in a boyish smile. He started out at a quick walk, leaving Aeryn waddling to keep up. In a moment he realized what he was doing and slowed down enough for her to keep a more comfortable pace. Side by side they walked up to John's father. John's grin faded heartbreakingly as his dad made no move to come near and didn't smile in response.

"What happened to him?" the older Crichton asked, his voice strained.

"He was too badly wounded when he got to us," John said. "I'm sorry, there was nothing we could do."

Jack Crichton bowed his head and studied the tarmac while John kept his eyes riveted on him. Aeryn was sure that John's father was trying to retain his composure, and she was equally sure that John was going to lose his.

"Da-ad,' John said at last. "It's me. I'm home."

Jack looked up with moist eyes to encounter his son's pleading face. "I'm sorry, John," he said, reaching out and engulfing John in a bear hug. "Your mother always said you were so sweet you should have been twins."

Aeryn smiled a little in relief and waited to be introduced as she watched John and his father. Jack's eyes fell on her over John's shoulder and he pulled away from him and looked at her in shock.

"You're-"

"Aeryn?' she supplied hesitantly when he didn't finish.

"pregnant."

"Yes, I know." she said matter of factly.

"She said we know, dad. It's a girl. We're- Aeryn's due in about three weeks,' John said proudly, putting his arm around her shoulders.

"That's incredible,"he said." It's wonderful. I am so happy for you. Hey, I'm gonna be a Grandpa again. Wait till your sisters find out." He beamed at them. "Let's go home, son. Welcome to the family, Aeryn. I think you'll find that everyone's heard so much about you they'll feel like they know you already."

John and Aeryn got into the back seat together. Aeryn waited patiently while John found a way to get the seat belt around her.

"That was Aeryn's first helicopter ride, dad." John said casually.

"They make a lot more sense once you're in them," Aeryn said." And they don't look difficult to fly."

"They're fun. I'll teach you sometime," John said.

"Hey dad, can we stop at Baskin Robbins? I want Aeryn to try ice cream."

"We have ice cream at the house," his father said.

"What flavor?" John asked eagerly.

"Uhm...Chocolate chip cookie dough, vanilla, of course, and dream cooler."

"Cool," John said approvingly. He talked to his father about the various things that had gone on in his "absence" and the letters and stuff he had received in his care package. Aeryn noticed that once in a while John's father was sneaking glances at her in the rear view mirror. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back and pretended not to notice. John put his arm around her and pulled her close. She resisted a little, feeling that she should be on the alert.

"C'mere, baby,it's okay. It's safe," John murmured soothingly.

"We're getting too far away from the transport pod. Why couldn't we just fly here? it would have taken 500 microts," she said, sounding uncharacteristically whiny.

"D'argo can have a transport down her in less than that if we need to leave in a hurry."

She settled into his shoulder and closed her eyes again. She was about to fall asleep when she realized that John was finally talking about something of importance.

"He probably got here first because the Peacekeepers had to solve the melting Sebacean problem . The real question is- what do they want with Earth? I can't imagine needing anything from this planet."

Jack sounded a little strange as he replied."i don't know, but you- John- said it must have been something they found in your head."

Aeryn was sure she should stay awake- it wasn't like she could talk to John's father, but she certainly could make sure John got everything right. Instead, she fell asleep.

She woke up when the car stopped in front of what must be John's father's dwelling. She had barely opened her eyes when a gray haired female in a long flowing garment and adorned with many baubles opened the front door.

"It's about time you got here," the woman said cheerfully. "You hurry up and put the steaks on the grill. The rest of dinner is ready."

She closed the door and then opened it again and poked her head back out. "Welcome home, John. Hi, Aeryn!' she waved breezily, and disappeared again.

"Who was that?" Aeryn asked, looking at John, whose mouth was open.

"That's my Aunt Ruth. Dad, why is Aunt Ruth here?"

"It's the Fourth," his dad shrugged. "We always have Ruth over on the holiday."

"It's the Fourth of July. Independence day?" John said, wonderingly. "It never occurred to me to ask what day it was- the date..it just didn't seem important anymore..... what about the girls? Are they here?"

"Oh, yeah," his dad said with a smile. "Bethie's home from medical school and Sharon lives nearby. She's here with her family."

Aeryn decided to ask John later what this independence day was about. He was looking a little confused at the moment. John put his and Aeryn' sidearms in his bag preparatory to getting out of the car.

"Oh, here, before I forget," Jack Crichton said, handing John a wallet. "He left this for you, if you happened to be the one who came back. " A shadow crossed over his face. "Well, anyway, you can use it."

"Thanks," John said soberly as he opened the wallet and looked at the contents, current I.D. with his name and face on it. He pulled something out and looked at it quizzically. "Did you take up counterfeiting while I was gone, Dad? This twenty looks like monopoly money."

Jack laughed shortly. "They changed the money while you were gone. "

The money was quickly forgotten as two women came out of the house and walked quickly towards them. John held is arms out and the one with the blonde ponytail ran into them, He picked her off her feet as he hugged her. Aeryn didn't waste a microt being jealous- the resemblance between them was obvious and she knew this had to be one of his sisters. the other one, the one with the brown curly hair, approached Aeryn.

"Hi, I'm Sharon,' she said, sticking out her hand.

"Aeryn,' said Aeryn, shaking hers.

"I am very pleased to finally meet you and you're going to have a baby, aren't you? I can't believe it. I'm going to be an Aunt. We're going to be Aunts,' she said, addressing the other woman.

"I'm already an Aunt, Sharon. I'll be an aunt again."

"Oh, gosh," Sharon said," This is just too cool." she stood beaming at Aeryn for a moment and then wrapped her arms around her and hugged her.

"John?" Aeryn said, panicked.

"Hey," John said, letting his sister down and prying Sharon away from Aeryn. "Don't you have a hug for your brother?"

Unfortunately this didn't help Aeryn as Beth took Sharon's place, hugging Aeryn tightly. Aeryn looked at John with the long suffering look of a cat in a four year old's arms.

"Why don't you give Aeryn a break, guys," John said, smiling and with his arm draped around Sharon's' shoulders.

"Come on,' Beth said, taking Aeryn by the arm. "We have everything set up in the backyard. I have a million things to ask you...oh, only you can't..well, I'll just ask yes or no questions."

Aeryn shrugged and went along with her, but she cast a a horrified look back at John over her shoulder as she was led away. John waved her on and looked at his sister. "I guess we better get those steaks. Aunt Ruth didn't make jello , did she?"

A short while later Aeryn and John were staring at the aforementioned jello. John had lead Aeryn through the process of loading her plate from the buffet table and putting condiments on the burger.

"You don't have to eat it if you don't want to, Aeryn. Aunt Ruth's special jello is um...interesting."

Aeryn leaned closer and whispered, "She made a point of telling me about it. Wouldn't it be rude?"

"Just put it on your plate an pretend to eat it. That's what I do," John whispered back. He spooned up a portion of the green stuff with strange things floating around in it and put it on his plate, then did the same for Aeryn.

"It is dead, isn't it?" she asked, watching the way it quivered on her plate.

John snorted and grinned as he watched her poke it gingerly with her fork. "It looks harmless, " she said. "It can't be any worse than the green food cubes."

He winced as she brought the fork to her mouth. She chewed for a moment and then nodded. "Okay," she said with her mouth full. "I like it."

"Well, that'll make Aunt Ruth happy,' he said.

"Good, I'm glad you like it," A voice came from behind his ear. "Aren't you going to have some, John?"

John gave Aeryn a panicked look,. "Of course I will, Aunt Ruth,' he said, putting a portion in his mouth and making a production of chewing it. "Mmmm," he said. Aunt Ruth patted him on the shoulder and moved on. John swallowed quickly and said,' That was worse than I remember."

Aeryn smiled at him with her lips pressed tightly together, trying hard not to laugh out loud. John took a big swig from his beer and looked at her, his disgusted expression turning calm and contemplative. Aeryn became alarmed when tears came to his eyes. "It wasn't that bad, was it, John?'

"It just hit me. I really am home. No alien mind games. no Scarren mindfrelling, not one of the homesick dreams I used to wakeup from on Moya ..it's * real*." he said sounding surprised.

Aeryn put her plate down and placed her hands on the sides of his face and gently pulled his face to hers, shutting out the rest of the people and the back yard at his father's house and everything else on Earth. "Yes. It's real,' she said quietly.

"Yeah?" he asked, looking deeply into her eyes.

"Yes," she said firmly.

He put his arms around her, being careful not to spill beer down her back , and held her for a moment. "We'd better go join the others." she said.

John tugged on Beth's ponytail when he sat down beside her and smiled across the picnic table at Sharon's husband and three year old son. He took Aeryn's plate from her and set it down, then gave her a hand as she sat down. She liked the table and bench- they reminded her of the tables in the dining area on Moya.

"I guess we missed the wedding,' Aunt Ruth said brightly.

"Um- Ruth,' Jack started.

"Or does your species not have that ceremony?"

"Silly human customs," Aeryn said, but she smiled.

Aeryn started a bit when she continued. "Or would you think it was silly?"

"She can't understand me, can she?" Aeryn asked.

John shook his head. "We had a ceremony, Aunt Ruth. I doubt that it would be legal here, but we are official now."

"We are?"

"All of your identification says Aeryn Sun Crichton on it." John looked at his aunt speculatively. "Has anyone told you what sex the baby is yet?"

"No," she said. "Do you mind?' she asked Aeryn, and then laid a hand on her belly. "It's a girl,' she said with an air of authority.

John nodded, in confirmation. "It's a family tradition, Aeryn. "

"Yes," Ruth said. "I was right about you, and your sisters, and Jason here, too. Sometime I'll read your tea leaves for you, dear. I have always wanted to meet one of you, you know. I know that there have been aliens among us for years, guiding us towards our ultimate destiny and helping us to evolve to a higher plane of existence."

Aeryn looked at John with extreme bewilderment.

"It must be nice to have your beliefs confirmed, Aunt Ruth,' John said gently.

"Yes, it is,' she said smugly, and patted Aeryn on the hand. Aeryn breathed a sigh of relief when she returned to trying to persuade Jack to eat more potato salad.

"You're not Uncle John," a small voice said. Jason, the three year old, was looking at John intensely with big brown eyes.

"He was very close to the ..other John," Sharon said.

"No, I'm not," John said. "I'm his.. You know what a twin is, don't you?"

Jason nodded.

"Well, I'm his brother. Except that my name is John, too."

"When my goldfish died and we got another goldfish we named it goldietwo," Jason said.

"Eat your veggies, Hon," Sharon said.

"He's a perceptive child," John said.

"It's a good thing we didn't try to switch the goldfish on him, isn't it?' her husband said.

Sharon shook her head at him over Jason's eye level. "Not my idea," she mouthed.

Aeryn stifled a laugh. She wasn't too sure how John actually felt about being compared to a replacement dinner. Or maybe it wasn't food. She had a feeling it was a pet, like Curly was. She was just wondering if she should go somewhere private to Comm the ship and see how he was doing when Crais's voice came over John's comm.

"Crichton!"

Aeryn and John immediately went on alert. The stress in his voice was unmistakable.

"What's wrong, Crais?"

"That- that- creature of yours. Come and get it off my ship now!"

"Curly? Aeryn asked. "Is he all right?"

"He has destroyed every pair of boots that I own !"

"Is that all, Crais?" John said in disbelief.

"No, he has also put holes in the the communications array panel, there's a suspicious puddle in the Pilot's chamber and he ATE MY PILLOW!"

"No, I meant, I thought it was something serious.."

"Oh, so you think it isn't serious, do you, Crichton, well, you'll think it's serious when I throw him out the airlock!"

"I'd pay money to see that.." John said, and started chortling.

Aeryn threw him and exasperated look and started talking to Crais. "Have you tried talking to him? Now, he's worried about us..he chews on things when he's worried and lonely. "

"What good would it do to talk to him? He doesn't have as much sense as..as ..Stark. Besides, he hates me."

"Well, " Aeryn chided,"if you were nice to him once in awhile..throw him a ball or something. Give him something to do. Here, let me talk to him."

"I can't He's hiding. Under the bed."

"Under the bed..." John chuckled.

"You didn't scare him, did you?"

"Well...:"

"You be nice to him. We won't be gone long. By the way, have you seen any Peacekeeper activity?"

"No, nothing. We are just flying around in circles watching the ship get dismantled." Crais said shortly.

"We won't be gone long,' Aeryn said. "Do you want to say anything?"

John waved at her. He was laughing too hard to talk.

"I'll talk to Curly later. But don't hurt him!"

"All right. At least you didn't bring that disgusting skulkie."

To the bewildered looks around him John just shrugged and said," Pets."

The rest of the meal went quietly. John kept pointing out delicacies to Aeryn and cleaned his plate twice. The only time she had seen him eat that much before was when they had eaten the keedva from the budong. The steak reminded her of keedva. She also liked the lemonade- it was an unusual tart flavor but stayed motionless in the glass the way a beverage should.There were some things she liked and others she didn't, but there was no way she could try out everything John wanted her to. She was actually relieved that the language problems keep her from keeping up her end of the conversation. It was easier and very interesting to just listen to what the others were saying and watch John's family interact with each other.

She decided the sisters were a lot like John- outgoing and talkative. His father was being a little more taciturn, and Sharon's husband was downright speechless. Aeryn was afraid that that might be due to her presence. For communication she made do with John's translations and some pantomime that she thought was quite good, but for some reason made John crack up.

The others started to clean up, saying that they needed to get ready to go see the fireworks.

"Fireworks," John said, his face mirroring Jason's. "Aeryn, we get to see fireworks!"

"First, we have ice cream," Jack said.

"Ice cream!" John said, in the same tone of voice he had used for the fireworks. Aeryn looked at him askance.

John spooned up some ice cream and pointed the spoon at Aeryn.

"I can feed myself, John," she said.

"It's more fun this way."

The spoonful was cold and wet. John was watching her carefully as she felt the eyes of scream melt in her mouth. Suddenly it was creamy and sweet and her face lit up. "Mmm." she nodded.

John looked smug. This was evidently the reaction he'd been waiting for. Aeryn grabbed the bowl away from him and took another bite. It was as good as the first. She swirled the ice cream around in the bowl watched it melting.

John touched her lip with his thumb, finding a drip there and wiping it off. Then he kissed her. "Sweets to the sweet,' he said in a low voice.

"Stop that," Aeryn said, looking around to see if people were watching.

“Or what?" he challenged.

"Or I'll have to drip this eyes of sgream all over you and lick it off,' she said.

John sputtered out pieces of chocolate chip cookie dough pieces. .

Aeryn looked around and looked back at John. "You're right, they can't understand me."

Jon smiled. "Whipped cream would be better."

"On the ice cream?" Aeryn asked.

"No," John said.

After another excruciatingly slow ride in the ground vehicle, Aeryn found herself on a blanket in a grassy park surrounded by John's family and earthlings of all shapes and sizes. People were talking quietly and sitting on blankets, flimsy chairs and their vehicles. Music was playing from somewhere- it was stirring and martial and the crowd had an air of anticipation. John was spraying foul smelling stuff into his hand and rubbing it over Aeryn's arms and neck, where her skin was exposed. Aeryn wasn't sure she even wanted to know what he was doing.

"You aren't supposed to use the stuff with DEET in it when you're pregnant," Sharon warned.

John looked closely at the bottle. "It's okay," he said.

"What *are* you doing?" Aeryn asked.

"Just making sure you don't get bitten," John said.

Aeryn looked at him suspiciously.

"Bugs. Insects. This'll keep them away."

"Oh. I can think of some times we could have used something like that.'

"What are they doing?" Aeryn asked. Jason had joined a group of children who were running around chasing little moving lights.

"They're chasing fireflies."

Aeryn waited for an explanation.

"They're little bugs with lights in their butts."

Aeryn give him a look of frank disbelief. "Do they bite?"

John was starting to answer when suddenly he stood up and helped Aeryn to her feet. She noticed most of the other people were doing the same. John's father was saluting, but what, she wasn't sure. She could hear someone singing in a very high and piercing voice.

"Star-spangled Banner,' John whispered.

They had barely sat down and gotten comfortable when something fast flew overhead at much too low an altitude. The ground was shaking and Aeryn had John down and was reaching for the bag he was carrying around with them when he stopped her. With most of her body and her arm across him he grabbed her and spoke into her face. "It's a flyby, Aeryn. Not an attack. It's uh..one of ours."

"Well, you could have told me," she said grumpily. She pulled herself away from him and sat up. she looked around to see John's sisters staring at her frankly. John's dad was making an attempt not to look, and Aunt Ruth and Mike appeared not to have noticed at all.

"The fireworks aren't - um..missiles. They look like incoming bombs but they aren't and they are loud," John said seriously.

"What is this celebration for?"

"It's to celebrate our freedom. Our country had to break free from an oppressive parent country and was formed on the ideals of freedom."

"You have a celebration for that?" Aeryn asked. She really couldn't remember John mentioning this before.

Johns father and sisters and even Mike and Aunt Ruth had some things to say about America and were enthusiastically sharing them with Aeryn, which soon degenerated into a small political argument which John dropped very quickly, saying that he just didn't seem to remember much about American politics anymore. The conversation was stopped by the first fire work bursting in the sky.

John was right. They did look a lot like incoming missiles or something, and she realized the loud booming was some sort of cannon. John pulled her down onto his shoulder and she soon became enthralled in watching them, and listening to the oohing and aahing coming from the crowd. It was quite spectacular.

"You like it?" John asked, looking at her shining face.

"Yes."

"Good," Aeryn could feel how relaxed John was as she was curled into his shoulder . How comforting and familiar it felt to be lying next to him on this strange world.

"This is the closest thing to heaven there is, Aeryn."

John made no move to get up when the fireworks ended. "Look, that's Venus,' he said, pointing. "And there's Orion."

"Is Orion another planet?" Aeryn asked.

"No, it's a constellation. A group of stars that form an outline- a sort of picture. See, those three stars? That's his belt. It's good to see you again, old friend," John said to the night sky.

Aeryn could make out the three stars but failed to see the outline he was talking about. What a strange idea, to see pictures in the stars.

'I don't see it. And wouldn't it look different at different times, or if you were flying through space?" she said. trying to figure it out.

"Humans have been looking at the stars for thousands of years, Aeryn. When you stare at something long enough, you start to see things you didn't see before. And you can tell time by them, or use them for navigation. It wasn't so long ago that we thought that the earth's position was fixed and they revolved around us."

"It must have been a big shock to realize that all those stars are suns and have planets revolving around them and that those planets are inhabited as well,' Aeryn said.

"It was to me. But Earth doesn't really know it yet. They don't know that there are strange forms of life out there- aliens and critters and all the wonders I've seen. For most of us, all they are are stars in the night sky."

Aeryn tried to digest this, to imagine looking at the stars and not knowing what was out there.

"Aunt Ruth knows about aliens,' Aeryn commented.

"Aunt Ruth is a kook,' John whispered. "She's making it up."

"How do you know she isn't right?" Aeryn asked.

"Well, I...I guess I don't. But some how I think the reality is a little different than what she believes."

"Hmm," Aeryn said."She was right about the baby."

"She had a fifty-fifty chance. Okay," John said, changing the subject," the three stars in the middle are Alnilam, Alnitak and Mintaka."

"Mintaka?" Aeryn said." Are you sure they aren't Hewey , Louie and Dewey?"

John chuckled. "And we make up stories about the constellations. Orion is a mighty hunter, and he gets chased by his archenemy Scorpius. That's a group of stars that comes from the East. When Scorpius rises, Orion sets."

"Scorpius?" Aeryn asked in disbelief.

"It's a coincidence, I'm sure," John said. "Some kind of microbe hiccup. On of the stars is named Rigel. too. Anyway, Orion rises again- a sort of resurrection- and takes his place in the winter sky."

"So what happens to him in the story?" Aeryn said.

"His betrothed, Artemis, goddess of the hunt, is tricked into shooting at a target over the sea because she is proud of her aim. It turns out to be him and she's devastated by her lover's death and places him among the stars. That's how he gets up there in the first place."

"I don't like this story, John," Aeryn said, frowning at him.

"Sorry," he shrugged. "*I* didn't make it up."

Aeryn realized that most of the vehicles were gone and John's family had packed up theirs. 'We should get up, John,' she said.

"Yea, you're right."

Sharon's husband Mike and Jason went home because it was already past Jason's bedtime, but Sharon came back to the house with the rest of them. The very colorful Aunt Ruth headed home as well.

Beth and Sharon started as soon as they all got comfortable in the living room, as if they had planned it.

"About those translator microbes..." Beth said.

"Yes. As funny as Aeryn's pantomiming a description of Jool was, we would really like to talk to her," Sharon said firmly.

"I told the girls that you told the NSA that you didn't bring any with you. they didn't believe it," Jack said, in a voice that implied that he didn't believe it either.

"You do realize that you would be able to understand all earth languages as well, don't you?" John said. "It's something that would be very useful for spying. I don't know if you really want the responsibility."

Beth and Sharon stared at him. His dad said, " John, how are we going to get to know Aeryn if we can't understand her."

John said," I thought you might say that," and brought out one of Moya's small emergency medical kits. He prepared a hypospray and said," One thing first. What does she sound like?"

All four of them looked at him blankly.

"Aeryn. I've never heard her speak her own language- it sounds like English to me."

"Well, " Sharon said. "It sounds like back masking. Like she's talking backwards, with some clicks thrown in."

Beth nodded agreement.

"How long does it take to work?" Jack asked, as John injected him.

"It works immediately,' Aeryn said. "Just a few microts."

"You're right," Jack said. "I understood that."

When "the girls" received their translator microbes, they reacted as if Aeryn had done something clever and had suddenly learned English.

'Oh, no,' Aeryn groaned inwardly. This was obviously going to be an occasion for hugging again.

She was right. Hugs and new introductions occurred all around. John watched them delightedly, then warned," They don't always work. Especially if there is no equivalent for something in someone else's culture. And Aeryn, you are going to have to be careful what you say from now on, " he grinned.

"What have I said?" she asked indignantly.

"Ice cream,' he mouthed at her.

She stuck her tongue out at him and returned to talking- if you could call it that when you could hardly get a word in- to John's sisters. Sharon went to the bookshelf and got a book full of images of John and his sisters when they were children. Aeryn was fascinated with the photos of John. She had a brief pang when she realized that there was nothing like this she could show John- maybe old surveillance tapes.

With one sister on either side, she got a guided tour through the Crichton family history. She quickly realized that they were taking her more or less backwards from the present day, and leafed back to the beginning. She stopped on a picture of a cherubic infant.

'John,' she called. He came over from where he was deep in conversation with his father to look at waht she was pointing at. He folded his arms on the back of the couch and looked over Aeryn's shoulder.

"That's what I want our baby to look like," she said with a radiant smile.

"No, no, no," John said. "then she'll grow up to look like me. It would be much better if Miranda looks like you."

"Oh, you have to see this one," Beth said. John groaned, knowing what was coming. There was a picture of the same plump baby, lying on a furry rug wearing only what he came into the world with.

"Doesn't he have the cutest little tush?" Sharon said.

"tush?" Aeryn asked.

"His butt,' Sharon explained, pointing at the picture.

"Oh, definitely," Aeryn said, grinning up at John wickedly.

John hung his head and sighed dramatically. "I'm going to leave you ladies to your fun, ' he said, with an air of martyrdom, and went back to talk to his dad.

"That's John, too," Beth said, pointing to a very pregnant woman standing beside a younger version of John's father. Aeryn was immediately impressed by how sweet they looked, their arms wrapped around each other. They looked young and maybe a little nervous, too.

"That was your mother?"Beth nodded, looking a little teary. "She was very beautiful," Aeryn said, "You look a lot like her."

Not too long later Aeryn called for John in frustration. She had narrowly missed scalding herself.

"John, could you help me with the shower? I can't get these knobs to work."

John climbed out of bed and showed Aeryn how to adjust the controls.

"After you get it the temperature you like, then you pull on this- see? Do you want me to join you?' he asked suggestively, letting his eyes roam over her very pregnant and nude body.

"I don't think the three of us would fit. It's a small shower," Aeryn said, smiling.

Some time later Aeryn came out wearing a bathrobe that didn't quite fit around her and drying her hair.

"You know, I need to apologize to you."

"What hideous sin have you committed lately?" he asked comfortably.

"Not lately," she said, sitting on the edge of the bed. "I'm sorry i wasn't more patient with you when you first- when we first met. I've been to a lot of different worlds- but Earth is *very* different and not at all like anyplace I've been to."

"Like a whole "nother universe. huh?"

"Yes. And everyone here has been very patient and - I just wish I had been different."

"Don't worry about it, honey. You were the only one who bothered to teach me about my new world. I couldn't have done without you."

"Can you do without me now?" she asked, smiling.

"Not a chance," he said, pulling her into his arms.

"This bed is very comfortable."

'Hmm," he said, from somewhere in her wet hair. "We should try it out."

"We are try- oh, you mean you want to try it out? What was that word- christen" Like we christened the rooms on Talyn? And Moya? "

"Most of the rooms on Moya. Moya has a lot of rooms. But we haven't christened Earth yet."

Aeryn pulled back a little, even though he was doing something to her earlobe that was making her insides melt. She thought maybe the amorous mood he was in was part of the strangely exuberant way he had been acting.

"You've gone completely fahrbotz, you know," she said fondly, running her hands over his back.

"You are so beautiful. The most beautiful woman on earth. "

"See? fahrbotz. I look like a landed leviathan."

He looked her in the eyes and said seriously," I love the way you look now. Your face is softer and your hair looks- fantastic, and you are curvy and round and incredibly sexy." He gave her a lopsided grin. "Not that I don't like the lean mean look you usually have, I just love watching your body change and I love the reason for it."

She stroked his face and was quiet for a microt, touched and overwhelmed by her feelings. "I love you. But, you know, it's getting a litttle..awkward."

"S'okay. We'll make it work."

Sometime later that night Aeryn found herself suddenly awake. She had a microt of disorientation when she realized that she wasn't on Moya, or Talyn, or in space at all. But Johns slumbering and lightly snoring form was beside her and she remembered where she was. John was sleeping soundly , she knew, the way he always did when he'd "made an effort,' as Rygel would put it. She was snug and warm, and still feeling the aftereffects from the careful, slow and surprisingly quiet lovemaking they had engaged in. It had also been surprisingly wonderful- she had enjoyed taking a less active role and had trouble believing that no matter how long they had been together there was always something new to be expressed between them, as well as the comfort of the familiar.

The reason why she was lying awake while John was sleeping soon became apparent when she felt another one, a mild contraction, only slightly painful but definitely enough to let her know it was there. She waited to see if it would happen again before she woke John. He certainly deserved his sleep. When a few hundred microts later she felt another one, a little stronger, she woke him up. He was awake instantly, even though he was sound asleep a microt before.

"I'm awake,' he said. " I'm up. Is it time? Baby time?"

"I don't know ." she said." I've just had a couple of contractions.'

"Were they like the ones you had before?" he asked.

"A little stronger, I think," she said. "What will we do if it is time?"

"I think we should go back to Talyn,' he said. "I don't want to risk a human doctor. And Jool would be very offended if we didn't.' he tried to say more lightly, not wanting to talk about the images they both had of what would happen of someone discovered that Aeryn and the baby weren't quite human.

"Maybe we're worrying for nothing," she said.'Your government already knows about us."

"Well, there's the press and the guy on the street to worry about, too. You didn't see alien autopsy. Listen, I can call Crais and D'argo right now."

"No," she said definitively. "Let's wait and see. I don't think this is it."

As it turned out, Aeryn was right. The twinges eased and John fell asleep waiting to see if there would be another one, his arms wrapped around her possessively.

When John awoke, Aeryn was gone. The nagging feeling of anxiety was relieved when he found her in the kitchen, leaning back against the sink, eating a cracker. With her hair down and her belly jutting out in front of her, the rest of her lean and sinewy, she was the picture of health and still obviously in one piece.

Beth was talking to Aeryn and for some reason Sharon was there, too. They sounded like they were talking about labor and delivery, Sharon describing her own experience in excruciating detail and Beth borrowing heavily from other peoples.

"Coffee!' he said excitedly. "Look, there's coffee!"

All three women stared at him and then returned to what they were talking about. "She was in labor for thirty-six hours," Beth was saying," and the teacher said it was a classic case of disproportionality.

""Don't listen to them, Aeryn,' Jack said to her dubious face when he came into the room. "They're just telling war stories, trying to frighten the new recruit. The easy births don't make good stories."

Just as John was thinking that his father was showing a lot of tact and very cleverly phrasing things in ways Aeryn could understand, he did something to change that thought.

"Besides, a big girl like you shouldn't worry. Hips like those, you should be able to pop out as many babies as you want."

"DAD!' Sharon exclaimed.

"Well, if your son weren't the stud of the Uncharted territories I wouldn't be in this condition." Aeryn retorted.

"She's shot men for less that that," John said emphatically. He was relieved that at least he didn't slap her on the butt, and not wanting to get into a discussion about Aeryn's comment.

"I have not!" Aeryn said indignantly before she realized he was kidding.

"Dad, your age is showing,' Beth said.

"We've come to steal Aeryn," Sharon said. "they need things for the baby and something to wear, as well."

"What's wrong with what we're wearing?" John said, happy to change the subject.

"Frankly, you're dressed like a couple of bikers."

"Well, we could always get a couple of hogs to ride," John said. Aeryn's shocked expression lead him to believe that the didn't even want to know what the translator microbes had said.

"You can't, son. They're expecting you both back at the facility. You scared 'em good yesterday. "

John poured himself a cup of coffee and took a sip. "AAAHhh, now that's good coffee," he said. "Tell 'em the mountain has to come to Mohammed, dad. My wife's going shopping.

There was a small pause. "But what are we going to do for money? I don't know where we can exchange a beryllium gold ingot around here. "

"That's really not a problem, son."

Before John could say anything about wanting to pay his own way, Beth blurted out. 'You're rich! We all are. You- the other you- patented several technological innovations you "invented" and we have all profited from it. "

"We are going to introduce Aeryn to credit cards," Sharon said with a gleam in her eye.

John groaned inwardly. As the women headed out the door, he said," Aren't you going to have some breakfast first, Aeryn?"

"I had some dried food cubes."

"No, honey, those were crackers. They aren't nutritionally sound- they aren't going to keep you going," he said, not knowing how to explain the food pyramid. "You should have some thing more substantial. He started rummaging through the cupboards, then poured stuff into Aeryn's hand . She would try a bite, then he would give her a bit of another cereal.

"I like this one," she said, when she got a handful of Lucky Charms.

"Well, at least it's fortified," John said dubiously, looking at the box.

"Good grief, John, you're a pickier mom than I am," Sharon said. " I let Jason eat that stuff.'

"Are you sure you don't want me to go with you?" he asked as she was eating her bowl of cereal.

"I have been shopping without you before, John. We'll be fine. "

The fourth time John called Sharon's cell phone he got no answer. The first three times she had assured him that they were all fine, but he was still worried. Finally he commed Aeryn.

"John, what are you doing?"

'I just wanted to make sure-"

"I'm fine," she said irritatedly. "No problems. I'm not in labor, I haven't seen any critters or godlike aliens or even been looked at funny, okay?"

John could hear giggling in the background. "Where are you?"

"Um..a dressing room."

"She's trying on stuff,' Beth giggled " and she keeps asking, ' does this come in black?"

"And she wants it in leather."

And then she says she really doesn't need anything for herself, and wants to know why we can't haggle with the shopkeepers"

"And we can't keep her out of the men's department."

"What's wrong with shopping in the men's department?" Beth asked indignantly. "I shop in the men's department."

"They don't have maternity clothes in the men's department," Sharon said patiently. "And you can't just get something that's extra large, it will be too short in front and it won't hang right."

"All the baby clothes have little animals and flowers on them, and the maternity clothes look like the baby clothes. And then they said we should have a shower for the baby, and I said we have showers on Moya, and they laughed at me," Aeryn said in an aggrieved voice. "It's like having two of you around." After a moment of silence, she said," mmm..sorry."

"So you really are all right."

"Yes, John," she said warmly. "I'm fine."

"Here, Aeryn, I found something else for you to try on," he heard Sharon say in the background.

Aeryn sighed heavily. "I have to go. It better not be cute," was the last thing he heard Aeryn say.

"Sounds like the girls are fine," Jack said. John plopped himself down on the sofa and put his feet on the coffee table. He had gone into his twins' room long enough to find some jeans and a t-shirt.

"I think Aeryn might actually be having fun." John said.

"I thought she sounded like she was ready to strangle them,' Jack replied.

"That, too," John shrugged. He picked up the remote and started flipping through channels aimlessly. Channel after channel of shows, news, and commercials that meant nothing to him now.

"You know, I think it would be safe to have the baby at a military hospital," Jack commented.

"We brought our own doctor, Dad. I'm sure we''ll have time to get back if we have to."

"I am going to get a chance to see this child, aren't I?" he asked rather sharply. John looked up from watching the woman with the fake Jamaican accent who claimed to be able to read the future.

"I'm ..sorry, son. What i meant to say is 'have you thought about staying?' I think that Aeryn would do well here- if the translator microbes are causing her to have trouble learning English they could be destroyed- a low level dose of radiation, or maybe an antibiotic. "

"Dad- it's not just the language- it's everything. I'm not sure *I* would fit in on Earth anymore, and I came from here. I can't ask Aeryn to change her nature or give up her entire universe for me- I've already turned he life upside down more than once."

"You're right," Jack Crichton said with a sigh. "You didn't fit in here. But it's different now- you have each other, and you have to have a lifestyle that's good for the baby. Earth would be good for the baby."

"The first alien/human hybrid? She could get a part on X-files," John said wryly. "If not worse."

"John, things change. There was a time that a black man couldn't sit at the same lunch counter with a white one. When Earth begins to accept the fact that it's not alone, we will adapt to it. "

"Let's see how it goes, shall we? After we deal with he current situation, we can talk," John said, staring at the soda can in his hand. ' Dad, are you ..angry with me? For not coming home? I would have found a way to do it if there had just been one of me."

"No. A man's responsibility is to the family he creates, not the one he comes from," jack said firmly.

John nodded and relaxed back against the sofa. "I should call Aeryn again,' he said suddenly.

Jack smiled at him. "How about we play some chess while we're waiting?"

Aeryn was sitting on a blanket on a grassy area watching the people of earth playing and eating and interacting with each other. After a long morning of shopping and some food at the mall, Sharon had mentioned that she had promised Jason she would take him swimming and they had come here. The park was large and open and had clear fields of fire, and Aeryn was starting to relax after the arduous and irritating shopping trip.

"Why are there bars around it?" Aeryn asked, looking at the "wading pool", which was evidently not open yet.

"It's so little kids won't get in when they don't have a lifeguard there. It's for safety," Sharon explained, handing Aeryn an orange.

"Oh," Aeryn said, surprised. It hadn't occurred to her that the bars, thick and tightly spaced and taller than herself, were put there to keep people out- for their own good. It didn't look like even a child could drown in that depth of water, though. She looked down at the fruit Sharon had handed her and realized she had no idea how she was supposed to eat it. Sharon noticed her expression and took it back from her and started to peel it, then handed it back.

"You eat the inside, not the outside," Sharon said, performing the same operation on an orange she handed to her son.

The orange was good, Aeryn decided, if extremely messy to eat. She was beginning to think that all Earth food was messy and far too.. active. There was a large group of people of mixed genders and ages setting up a meal on a table like the one in John' s father' s back yard, making her also wonder if humans ever ate inside.

"I think it's a family reunion," Sharon commented." It's a beautiful day today. Hot enough to swim, but not too hot to play outside. "

"It isn't too hot for you, is it, Aeryn?" Beth asked.

"No, I'm fine," she said absentmindedly, watching a couple of kids chasing each other around with guns that she quickly realized were fake and appeared to be shooting water. The sheer amount of purposeless activity was amazing. There were children running around in circles and sliding down things and going back and forth and around and around on other equipment.

A small group of children were sitting at chairs around a table and appeared to be doing something more orderly- perhaps being given a lesson.

"What are they doing?" Aeryn asked curiously.

"it's the bookmobile from the library," Sharon said. "They come out in the afternoons during the summer. They have some activities for kids and they check out books. There are free lunches over there-" She said, indicating a building to their left." two dollars for adults, but they're usually just peanut butter sandwiches and greasy pizza."

Aeryn also saw a young couple walk by holding hands, and a group of men bouncing a ball on pavement and throwing it at a target. "That's basketball!' she said triumphantly.

"Yup! they're playing basketball!' Jason said, having understood something Aeryn said.

"John told me about it, and there it is," Aeryn said.

"I guess its like Fodor's," Beth laughed. "It doesn't make sense until you actually get there."

'Mom, i wanna go play."

"Sure, hon, just don't go too far," Sharon said.

"Do all children need to play this much?" Aeryn said, not sure how to express what she meant. "I didn't do this growing up- everything we did was um..for training, or learning something."

"Well, playing is how children learn. They need some free time. "Sharon said. "It's good for them, and besides they'll drive you nuts if they don't get to release some energy once in awhile."

"They look happy," Aeryn observed.

"I'll bet your glad the baby isn't going to be raised a Peacekeeper." Beth said sympathetically.

"That was never an option. Not only do Peacekeepers control reproduction, they don't suffer half-breeds to live. They would just kill her," Aeryn said calmly. She could tell immediately from the expressions on their faces that she had said something shocking.

"I'm sorry," she said awkwardly.

"it's okay," Sharon said, and reached over and patted Aeryn's tummy as if she were afraid he baby might have been frightened by what she had just heard.

"You know, " Beth said quickly to change the subject, "I'm studying to be a doctor but I really want to be a xeno biologist. I can't wait to find out what's out there when we get into space. I hope some of it is more alien than you, ' she grinned at Aeryn.

"Oh, it is," Aeryn said, smiling back.

"Yeah, Johns not the only Crichton with stars in his eyes," said Sharon.

"Like you don't?" her sister retorted.

"I've already had my day in the sun," Sharon said. "i was a figure skating champion . I did pretty well."

"She has the gold medals to prove it," Beth said proudly.

"But that's over and I am perfectly content to stay home and have a couple of kids. Maybe I'll go into coaching later- poor mom had to drive me miles every day to get to practice. I could open up my own place. Are you going back to work after your baby is born?'

While Aeryn was trying to come up with an answer that made sense in her world, Beth interrupted. "Sharon, don't you start. Let's not introduce Aeryn to the Mommy wars."

That was a statement that Aeryn couldn't even picture. She thought for a moment while John sisters bickered.

'What concerns me," she said finally," is that I don't know very much about babies. Everything that I was taught when I was growing up was wrong. How do I know if I can be a good mother?"

"All new moms feel like that," Sharon said,"It's perfectly normal."

Aeryn looked over at her and smiled slightly. "I am very glad I have John. I couldn't do this without him."

"He'll make a great dad," Beth said. "He was a nice big brother. Sharon, do you remember when he taught me to ride a bike?"

"And mom got mad because he took your training wheels off without telling her?"

With that they were off and reminiscing and Aeryn didn't have to do anything but listen. Beth and Aeryn elected to stay on the blanket when the wading pool opened, Sharon explaining that a parent had to be there at all times. Beth peppered Aeryn with questions about different alien races while they watched the children playing in the water and running through the fountains shooting in the air. Aeryn was surprised to see Sharon speak sharply to Jason and make him sit on the edge of the pool for a time. He had taken a boat away from a smaller child and his mother intervened when the other child started to cry.This was something completely outside her experience- she could not remember a time during her childhood where the strong were not allowed to prey on the weaker. She was equally surprised to see the younger child voluntarily give Jason a turn with the coveted toy after his period of being disciplined.

She was about to comment on this to Beth when Beth suggested that they sit on the chairs by the pool. They gathered up the blanket and bags and started towards the pool. Aeryn was distracted by a man throwing a disc-shaped object for an animal that looked remarkably like a tiny version of Curly, when a hand touched her elbow. She responded by jabbing her elbow back, attempting to hit whoever had snuck up behind her. She aborted the move as soon as she saw her assailant, an elderly female with gray hair wrapped around her heard and smaller in statue than Chiana.

"I'm sorry," Aeryn said. "I hope I didn't frighten you."

"You don't speak English? She doesn't speak English?"' The woman said. "I just wanted to ask her when the baby was due. That's a very peculiar language." the woman was shaking her head, not really believing her ears.

"She's due in a couple of weeks," Beth answered for her. "She speaks Xosa." Beth then turned to Aeryn and spoke in a brief spate of nonsense syllables, with clicks thrown in.

"That's the funniest thing I've ever heard," Aeryn said with a straight face.

"Tell her she has my best wishes for the baby," the woman said very loudly.

Beth repeated the performance.

"Thank you." Aeryn said, and for no reason that she could understand the woman hugged her quickly and patted her abdomen briefly.

After the woman left, Beth broke out in giggles. Before long they had both kicked off their shoes and were splashing in the pool with the kids, Aeryn spending quite a bit of time throwing a ball back and forth with a small blonde boy. It seemed like only a small amount of time before Sharon announced that it was time to go back to the house.

"And see Uncle Johntwo?"

"Yup,' Sharon said, swinging Jason up by his arms.

As it turned out, he didn't get to play with UncleJohnTwo. A war council was already going on at the house when Aeryn got there. The large dining room table had many people around it, some of them familiar to Aeryn and some she had never seen before. D.K. was there - he gave Aeryn a brief smile when she came in.

"Hi, honey, you look nice,' John said, passing approval on the sleeveless maternity shirt, of the same dark green that she favored, and the jeans she was wearing. "You did something, different with your hair, didn't you? I haven't seen it that way before."

Aeryn put a hand up to where her hair was piled softly on her head, and touched it a little self-consciously. "Your sisters were playing* with it."

"I like it."

"They wanted to curl it," Aeryn said in alarmed tones.

'I think it would look good curly. Of course, you would look beautiful no matter what."

"Uh..John- I think these people would rather continue with whatever you were doing- they can't possibly be interested in my hair." Aeryn was aware that all eyes in the room were turned to her- she knew she was the object of intense curiosity despite her new earth like appearance.

"Tannot root," Dk said. "We were talking about tannot root. We can duplicate the pulse rifles and pistols but we have no energy source on earth powerful and concentrated enough to power them with."

John was shaking his head as he pulled a chair out for Aeryn. "If you think heroin or crack is a problem, just wait till you see what that stuff can do to people. "

"Son, If we need to have chakan oil to power the "ray guns" then its worth the risk." John's father added.

"You aren't' thinking about this the right way at all, " John said emphatically. "We don't need to duplicate the weapons the Peacekeepers have- we need to figure out what their weaknesses are and use our strengths against them. Pulse weapons were undoubtedly designed to make an effective weapon that won't punch a hole on your hull- these people live on space ships. I doubt Peacekeeper armor would withstand an old-fashioned shotgun blast." he looked over at Aeryn. Aeryn didn't confirm what he said- she had no idea what a shotgun blast was.

"Projectile weapon. No little yellow bolts of light- a piece of metal moving very quickly and hitting with great force."

Aeryn nodded, considering. "The qualta blade can blast through Peacekeeper armor. Are you talking about that kind of force?"

"Maybe. We should test it out," John said. He addressed the room at large again. "What you are also failing to take into consideration is that the Scarrens are likely to be the larger threat eventually, and the Peacekeeper weapons are extremely ineffective against them."

"Squirt guns,: Aeryn said suddenly. From the attention she was getting from around the room, she knew they had understood what she said. "With..something cold in them..some liquid,' She finished, speaking to John. She really hadn't thought very far- the idea had just come to her.

"Liquid oxygen? Better yet, nitrogen. That's a good idea, Aeryn." he addressed the room. "The Scarrens don't do well with cold, and they have very thick, impenetrable skin, but it could be frozen and shattered."

"But what about the immediate threat? If the Peacekeepers come through, can you handle them?" someone asked.

"Yes," Aeryn said. "Talyn can. Now that he's fully grown, he could destroy a command carrier easily. He has twice their range, massive firepower, and he's far more maneuverable. An entire armada would prove to be a little more difficult, only because he can't be everywhere at once. "

John translated for her. Some sighs of relief were heard around the room.

"What do you think our chances would be if you weren't here? How would Earth do against your people?"

Aeryn hesitated for a microt. She wasn't sure she liked the "your people" comment, and she knew they wouldn't like what she had to say.

"They aren't her people," John said firmly." She hasn't been a Peacekeeper for a very long time."

The man mumbled an apology.

"A single command carrier could take control of this planet," Aeryn said, John translating.

"You have * got * to be kidding,' someone blurted out.

"No. I've seen it before. Form what I've seen of Earth, it wouldn't be difficult. A command carrier has enough power in their frag cannons to level cities, the prowlers to take air control, and the ground troops to subdue the population."

"Command carriers are floating cities," John added. " Fortresses in space. Self-contained, like they were their own planets. Its hard to picture how big they really are."

A moment of stunned silence followed this statement. D.K. broke it by saying," I think, at this point, what we really need- is pizza."

John volunteered to order the pizza. After thinking for a microt, he dialed the number from memory and ordered a large deluxe and a meatlovers and a vegetarian. Then he turned around and asked," What do you guys want?"

After the pizza and a lot of discussion about weapons and military technology, John and Aeryn and jack and DK were left with a lot of empty pizza boxes and styrofoam cups. Beth came out of hiding to help them clean up, and then they retired to the living room.

"Weren't you exaggerating Talyn's abilities, Aeryn?" John asked, sitting beside her on the couch.

"No,but maybe I was thinking of the best possible scenario," she admitted. "blowing them away when they first come out of a wormhole."

"Your ankles look puffy," John observed.

"They are swollen," she said. " And my feet hurt."

John pulled her feet onto his lap and started unlacing her new tennis shoes.

"I think you were also wrong about what it would take to win a ground war,' Jack said. "the Peacekeepers can't possibly have the troops necessary to take over billions of people all over the world."

"Most worlds surrender after they melt the command centers into slag," Aeryn said, from her reclining position on the sofa.

"I have to disagree with you, too, honey," John said, rubbing her foot gently. "Earth wouldn't. We may not look like much, but we would fight. There's a long history of resistance to invasion by foreign powers for most countries- and this is about as foreign as you can get."

Aeryn sighed happily." You can disagree with me all you want, as long as you keep doing what you're doing to my feet."

"John's right," jack said. "There would be resistance down to the last man, woman, and child on Earth."

"With what? You don't even carry guns."

"Just because we don't carry them doesn't mean we don't have them, or know how to use them. Americans, in particular, are a peace loving people who like nothing more than a good fight." John's father said.

Aeryn tried to imagine the people that she had seen that day carrying guns against Peacekeeper troops. Men, women and children. Noncombatants- techs, essentially.

"You mean, you're all like John?" she said, squinting her eyes at John's dad.

"Enough of us," Jack said, and launched into a long story about the French resistance during World War Two, which DK interrupted.

"I only want to know one thing," he said. "How come I didn't get any frelling translator microbes?'

After DK got translator microbes and a profuse apology for having been forgotten, Aeryn left them to their own devices. By the time John got to their bedroom she was dressed in a new nightgown and sprawled across the bed, reading.

"What ya got there, hon?"

"I found training manuals with instructions and pictures,' she said smugly.

"For what?" he asked. "Hueys? cars? what?"

She tossed a copy of What to expect When You're Expecting towards him.

"Oh,' he said," Babies." He sprawled out beside her and started leafing through the book.

"Dad started talking about us staying again," he said.

"What did you say?" she asked, lost in the vagaries of nipple confusion.

"I told him we had a vorlag, and I didn't think we could find a yard big enough."

"Hmm," she said. Aware that he was being ignored, he started pulling her hair loose from its moorings. She batted him away, but he persisted.

"I thought you liked it. If you like it that way, why are you taking it down?"

"Because it's there. That nightgown is pretty."

"Thanks,' she said offhandedly. "I bought one you would like better."

"Oh? Can I see it?"

"No,' she said promptly." Not until I can fit into it."

John gave up on pestering her and became interested in the reading material. He was interrupted when Aeryn said," Oh! Is that a babbit?"

He saw that she had abandoned the baby books and moved on to children's literature.

"No. That's a stuffed one. Here-" he said, tuning to the back of the book."This is a real one. A drawing of a real rabbit."

"What do rabbits have to do with sex?" she asked, wondering what John had meant when he had compared their sex lives to that of the small furry creature in the book.

"They make lots of little bunny rabbits,' he said.

"Like us?" she grinned.

"Yes,' he said, rubbing her nose with his, " like my wonderful babysun and Mamasun."

"Why do you call her that?" Aeryn asked curiously. "Your names are patrilineal, shouldn't she be baby Crichton?"

"No. You are the Sun, the moon and the stars to me- you are the sun, and this poor earth man revolves around you...that makes her the babysun."

Aeryn moved the short distance between them and kissed him sweetly. She broke it off before it became very serious, to Johns slight disappointment. Looking deeply into her eyes, he said huskily," I know what I want."

Before Aeryn could protest that she wasn't sure she was in the mood , he finished," Food. I'm hungry."

"You are not hungry. You can't keep eating like this, you'll get as big around as I am."

"Oh, that would be big," he deadpanned. As her eyes flashed at him, he pulled on her hand. "C'mon- let's go shopping."

"I have been shopping all day."

"Grocery shopping. It'll be fun," he said, tilting his head and smiling at her.

"Okay," she said, relenting. "Let me get something on."

Aeryn quickly threw on a scoopneck shirt and a pair of short maternity overalls, only to find John smirking at her.

"I thought you weren't going to get anything cute,' he said.

"This is not cute. It's practical. Sharon said it was a tough material and it washes easily."

"It's cute."

Aeryn scowled at him as he grabbed the keys from the bedside table.

The first impression Aeryn had of the store was not good.

"What does the name mean? The wiggly pig? That doesn't have anything to do with that remark you made in your dad's kitchen this morning, does it?"

"What did I say?" John asked, bewildered.

"You know what you said." Aeryn answered. She was distracted from the conversation by the overwhelming sights, sounds and smells of the grocery store.

John grabbed a metal cart and started wheeling down the store, greeting containers of food like they were old friends.

"Oh, look, Keebler elves," he said, grabbing packages and throwing them into the cart. "I never thought I'd see those guys again. they make great cookies."

Aeryn looked at him like he was nuts, and was glad that the store was largely deserted at this hour.

Stacks of potato chips followed the cookies,. along with some boxes of crackers. Aeryn was astonished by the variety of Potato chips alone.

"Why are there so many different kinds of potato chips?"

"Well, all the different companies want you to buy theirs , so they try to come up with something different. It's a dog eat dog- uh, never mind."

"Are they an important part of a human diet?" Aeryn asked, watching the pile grow bigger.

"Nope. They're really bad for you- they just taste really good. Oh, yeah, condiments,' John said, picking up bottles of ketchup and tossing them in. He paused for a moment after the bags of chips crunched under the condiments and rearranged the contents of the cart.

"You know, Aeryn, food doesn't just feed the body, it feeds the soul," he said philosophically, throwing in jars of mustard, yellow, gray and stone ground. "It's entertainment and comfort, too. Honey!"

"Yes?" Aeryn said, turning around from where she was examining a jar that claimed to have "real" mayonnaise in it, whatever that was.

"No. I mean, honey. You remember when you asked me why I called you insect vomit?"

"You said it was because it was sweet," she said skeptically. Sweet was the last thing she thought of herself as.

"Well, stick out your tongue."

Aeryn complied, and John squeezed a strangely shaped bottle until a few drops of something incredibly sweet were on her tongue. Then his mouth was on hers and he kissed her leisurely, obviously enjoying the taste.

"Does that remind you of anything?" he asked insinuatingly, exaggeratedly wiggling his eyebrows at her.

"Was that a test? Do you think we might be compatible?" she teased, leaning in or another kiss.

"There's someone coming between us," John said, holding her in his arms.

'Not for much longer," she said, smiling.

"No. But then we'll have someone keeping us up at night and sleeping in our bed and wanting to be fed just when we want to get romantic."

"oh?" Aeryn said. She wasn't sure she liked the sound of this.

"Yeah, my mom used to say it was a miracle anyone ever had more than one child."

"Strange," she said dryly.'You didn't bring this up *before* I got pregnant." She looked at him for a microt. "After all we've been through, I don't think one little baby is going to keep us apart."

John kissed her nose."true enough," he said, and moved the cart to another aisle. When John declared the need for another cart, Aeryn just rolled her eyes. he was having too much fun to make him stop.

The last thing he picked out before going to pay for the food was in a can." We need this, to make real biscuits," he said happily. "You'll like them with honey on them."

"Is all this going to fit in the car?" she asked doubtfully.

"Sure,' he said, spotting the candy bars by the checkout stand. "Look, Clark bars!" He put the entire box in the cart, and then, rethinking, he tossed the bars out of the box and put it back on the shelf. "They might need that for restocking."

"Is it going to fit in your dad's kitchen" she asked, wondering what he was going to think when he found ten boxes of Lucky Charms in the kitchen.

'No, we'll take it up to T- to our house," John said, aware that the checkout lady was listening to them.

"The galley is already full," Aeryn said, watching the bleary-eyed woman totaling up their haul. "We'll have to find some storage for the nonperishable items. At least we don't have to worry about Rygel getting into the food stores anymore, but Curly has been known to-'

She stopped because she could tell John wasn't listening to her anymore. He was staring fixedly at a rack full of reading material close by them.

'I can't believe it. It must be someone frelling with my mind,' He said, picking up one of the newspapers and leafing through it. He stopped a few pages in and started a low cursing under his breath.

Aeryn more than a little puzzled and growing alarmed, picked up an identical newspaper from the rack. It was entitled Weekly World News, and had a drawing of a familiar face- cadaverous and covered with leather. Some of the details were wrong, but it was a good likeness of Scorpius. The headline blared," The Devil Stole My Baby!"

Finding the story she read:

In a part of Australia so remote that food has to be airlifted in during the wet season and women still have their babies at home, two year old Ronan Mcreary disappeared form his parents' home. His mother, Rose, claims to have caught a glimpse of a -

"Aeryn, look at this," John said. "The Chronicle says that the disappearance was caused by aliens, not the devil, and it ties it to the disappearance of a ten year old girl. Her parents were killed. What does that look like to you?"

Aeryn looked at the grainy photograph he was pointing out. She shook her head slightly."It could be a pulse rifle wound. If they know it's aliens, why didn't they tell us?"

'Nobody believes tabloids, Aeryn. And remember, my world doesn't-' he stopped as he suddenly remembered the checkout girls presence. She was looking at them rather strangely.

"The end of the world at hand?" she asked, looking pointedly at their carts.

"You could say that." John said.

John caught the large bag of peanut M&m's about to hit him in the nose. "Aeryn, it makes more sense for me to do the long range recon,' he said, putting the bag down on the counter.

"I'm better at it," she said , reaching into the bag on the table for something else to give him to put away.

"Your feet can't even reach the pedals of the prowler. And don't throw those, they have eggs in them."

Aeryn looked down at the carton and opened it. He was right. She closed it again and exhaled, trying to control her irritation.

"That's beside the point. Ever since I got pregnant, you've been treating me like I was a- an egg,' she said. "I'm not going to break, and long range recon has always been my* job."*

"Aeryn-" John started, then paused as he realized that his father and his sister had come into the kitchen. "Aeryn. Hypothetically, if something happened to a transport pod, and the baby and I were in space, who would you rescue first ? Hmm? " he said, as if he knew the answer perfectly well.

Aeryn snorted. What a ridiculous question. She wanted to tell him it was a stupid question, but she knew that wouldn't let her off the hook, so she thought about it carefully for a microt, biting gently on her lower lip. She was unaware that all of her emotions crossed her face as she thought. She wasn't happy with the conclusion that she came to.

"Yeah, well, how long can you breathe vacuum,' she said resentfully.

"About four or five minutes, last time I tried," John said casually.

"Besides, its a stupid question. The baby isn't even born yet."

"Exactly my point," John said, going back to the groceries, satisfied that he had won the argument.

"What's this all about, John? " his dad asked carefully. Beth was busy trying to take in the sight of a months worth of groceries in the kitchen.

John gestured him to the multiple copies of several different tabloids that were lying on the kitchen table. "The guy who gets the cover there is Scorpius, my nemesis. Think he'll make sexiest villain?"

"These are tabloids. Nothing they write about is true."

"This could be someone's idea of the devil, Johnny. It looks like Jack Skellington to me." Beth said, looking at the paper.

"Oh, I recognize him. It's not like I can get him out of my head." Aeryn gave him a sharp look.

"Besides, it's worth looking into. I'll be going up as soon as Crais gets a prowler here."

"John, wouldn't he be here on Earth? That's where the people were killed," Beth said bewilderedly.

"No. he's hiding up there, somewhere- whatever he wants, he's taking the sneaky approach."

Aeryn could tell from the way both Jack and Beth were looking at John that they really didn't believe that there was a threat. And maybe there wasn't, she thought. Maybe this would all turn out to be nothing.

"We'll take the rest of these groceries up to Talyn," John said.

Crais showed up on the Crichton family doorstep with his usual careful dress and neat grooming and stocking feet.

"Uh..I forgot about the boots," John said.

"I didn't," Aeryn said.

Which is how, after introductions, the man who had chased John around half the universe, condemned Aeryn Sun as irreversibly contaminated and stolen Moya's child ended up sitting on John's father's couch trying on boots. Not knowing what size he wore, Aeryn had bought several pairs of boots and he tried them on until he found a pair he was satisfied with.

"Did you have to be that nice to him?" John whispered.

Aeryn frowned at him with her eyebrows."It was our vorlag."

As John and Crais prepared to leave, Crais asked," What about you, Aeryn?"

"I'm coming up in the transport pod. With the eggs," she said pointedly.

After they had left, Aeryn went to the room they had been sharing and packed up the rest of their belongings. loaded down with bags, she passed by the room that John had been studiously avoiding since they had arrived. Curious, she went in and looked around. Her first impression was that it wasn't so different than his room had been on Moya. There were pictures of his family,and a dog, and a few items from Moya that she recognized. She spotted something on the wall that had her name on it. She sat down on the bed and tried to fgure out what it meant- what this piece of paper had to do with her. A voice came from the doorway. "This was his room. He stayed here, or at the facility. He wasn't interested in getting a place of his own."

She looked up to see John's father standing in the doorway. His face looked so sad that she didn't know what to say, and she immediately felt that she was intruding on some private space. She was about to say something about it when Jack crossed the room and sat down on the bed beside her.

"The girls and I decided to put aside our grief. We're going to have a memorial later. We didn't want to ruin this John's homecoming."

"That was kind of you," Aeryn said softly, still looking at the framed piece of paper. "I ..just wanted to see how he lived."

"He came home different. I mean, he still did what he thought was right, but his heart wasn't in it. He said he had to quit exploring- he had to come home because his guiding star was gone."

Aeryn looked up at him sadly. " I didn't want to hurt either one of them."

"I know," Jack had the same kindness in his blue eyes that John did, Aeryn thought. "The John that came home with you is the son I remember, Aeryn. You have helped him stay the man that he is. I thank you for that."

"I can't lose him.' Aeryn said. "Not that I think he's in any particular danger right now," she amended quickly. "But I couldn't take losing him- and I thought that if he died, I would be there, too. But now-" she shook her head.

"It's different when you have children," Jack said. "One of you has to stay alive to take care of them. But," he smiled," they also give you a reason to go on. I don't know what I would have done without the kids when Leslie died. You know, he talked about you and everyone on Moya all the time. He talked about his mother a lot, too. I don't think I'd heard him talk about her before. I think he must have known."

Aeryn pushed herself back a bit and rested her weight on her hands, taking a deep breath. She had been sitting too far forward and the baby was getting in the way of her diaphragm, making to difficult to breathe.

"I'm sorry it happened. I'm sorry we have to be here. We should have done a better job of stopping Scorpius before We tried."

"I'm not sorry you're here. I finally got a chance to meet you."

Aeryn looked at him sideways. 'I didn't think you liked me very much."

Jack looked at her appraisingly." Through no fault of your own, you are the woman who broke my son's heart and the one who took him away from me. But I am not an ungrateful man- I have had my son come back from the dead- twice- and now I have a daughter in law and a new grandchild- one I would like to have a chance to get to know."

Aeryn didn't know what to say to that. The thought that Jack and Beth and Sharon and even Aunt Ruth had a right to be in her child's life had not occurred to her before. She couldn't even fathom an extended family- it was difficult enough to cope with the idea of just her and John and the baby.

"I don't know what we are going to do after this., but thank you,' she said. As he got up to leave, she asked one more question. "What is this?

"It's a certificate. You send them money and- it means that there is a star named after you."

Jack, Beth and Aeryn loaded the car with groceries, books and assorted purchases. Jack looked a little surprised when Beth offered to drive Aeryn to her destination, but he didn't object. his good bye to Aeryn was brief- she thought that he must have felt that everything had been said between them. He did remind her that they wanted to know as soon as possible if she went into labor.

"He's trying to restrain himself, you know,' Beth said conversationally after they had been on the road a bit.

She expounded without Aeryn having to ask her to. "Dad. He thinks that you two are going to disappear on him. I guess I do, too."

"Beth- I don't know how long we will be here. It depends on how long we're needed.We won't leave Earth in danger. "

Beth nodded. 'You know, ever since I was a little girl, I've wanted to know what was out there. The idea that there is life out there, *different* than anything we could have imagined here one earth, is incredible. Of course, after Johnny disappeared, there was no way I was going to get to train to be an astronaut. So I went into evolutionary biology- did you know that on earth there were life forms that were as different from you and me that they might as well have evolved on a different planet? And they all died out long before man evolved.

Aeryn shook her head dubiously. She realized that she didn't have the slightest idea what Beth was talking about. She was also having a hard time following what she was saying- her mind was on John and whether he was safe and if he had found anything and what kind of search pattern he was using.

"I was hoping if they had manned flight to Mars, maybe I would be chosen to go as the biologist on the very slight chance that there was even microbial live there, and-"

"There isn't any," Aeryn shrugged. 'The sensors didn't reveal any on the way in." Aeryn couldn't read what was on Beth's fair face- she looked a little disappointed, maybe.

"So when John came back, and told all the stories of all the amazing things he had seen, and now you're actually here, and-"

Aeryn looked at her, puzzled.

"I want to go to the ship with you," Beth said softly. "I just want to see it."

"Fine,' Aeryn said without thinking. She paused for a microt to think about it. "I don't see what harm it would cause."

"Good,' Beth said, beaming. "I packed a bag, just in case."

"Why didn't you ask John?" Aeryn asked, thinking she was missing some nuance here.

"I'm the baby of the family. They get- overprotective. They don't think I can do anything,' she said, suddenly sounding very young and rather plaintive.

Beth did a good job of helping Aeryn to communicate at the facility without letting anyone know that she could understand her. Aeryn's asking about Red elicited a vague answer about his checking something out in Australia. They transferred their loot to the transport pod and were soon under way.

Beth started out in stunned silence as they effortlessly escaped the earth's gravity. That silence soon gave way to excited exclamations about everything. Aeryn listened patiently as Beth kept saying wow. She smiled smugly at the stunned look on Beth's face as she saw Talyn for the first time.

"That is the most incredible sight I have ever seen," Beth said." No wonder it's called a leviathan. And he's alive?"

"Yes, he is. And he is an intelligent, loyal companion, like- a horse," Aeryn said.

Curly was the first one to greet them when they docked.

"Hello, Aeryn!" he said, bounding up to her and almost knocking her over with the enthusiasm of his charge. She grabbed a couple of handfuls of his fur to steady herself.

"Were you good, Curly?" she asked scratching him behind the ears as he sat on his haunches and wagged his tail wildly.

Curly hung his head. "I tried. Maybe I was a little bad. " He brightened up a little. "John gave me ice scream. He said I wasn't too bad."

"He did, did he? " Aeryn said in an ominous tone.

"Is he *talking*?" Beth asked. "He sounds like Scooby Doo."

"This is Beth. She's Johns' sister." Curly looked over at her with great big puppy dog eyes.

"Can I take a look at you?" Beth asked. Curly looked at Aeryn. She nodded reassuringly. Beth approached him carefully and looked closely at his eyes and into his ears. She kept muttering under her breath as she carefully examined the first alien- appearing alien she had met. She gasped as she opened his mouth and looked at the rows of razor sharp teeth.

"But what's really impressive are the incisors," she said, " they must be six inches long. And look at the gap between the teeth," she said, measuring them with her fingers. Curly squirmed and looked at Aeryn nervously. She patted him reassuringly.

"The gap between the teeth of predators is an indication of the size of the vertebrae of the animals they prey on. He must have evolved to prey on something the size of a mammoth- or a triceratops.'

"Well, he's hell on boots,' Aeryn said.

“He certainly is,” Crais said grimly, walking in with D’argo.

“I have seen a vorlag take out a Scarren singlehandedly,” Aeryn said, scowling at Crais.

“I’m sure when he is a little more...mature, Curly will be just as heroic as L’ari,” D’argo said, coming in on Aeryn’s side. Curly thumped his tail happily.

Beth was staring in open-mouthed wonder at D’argo. “You must be the Luxan? I mean, you must be D’argo. John, our John talked a lot about you, but I had no idea..I mean, you’re so *big*.” Aware that she was babbling, she closed her mouth audibly.

“D’argo, this is Johns’ sister. Crais, I believe you’ve already met.”

Crais nodded. “John is still out. i just came in, and D’argo will take a turn at the search next.” he said, addressing Aeryn, and went into the transport pod.

“Elizabeth Crichton,” she said, and offered her hand. D’argo shook her hand, and didn’t seem to mind the intense way that she looked at him, examining his tattoos and nose and the rings piercing his collarbones.

“I wonder what those are for?” she said, gently stroking a tentacle that was hanging down on the bare part of D’argo’s shoulder. “I’ll bet they have something to do with equalizing pressure and that’s why Luxans can survive-”

D'argo interrupted her “You don’t want to do that,” he said, in a low and gravelly voice. ”They’re very - sensitive.”

Beth dropped her hand hastily, embarrassed. “Oh.”

They stared at each other in silence for a microt until D’argo suddenly said,” No. No heavy lifting,” and moved to take a medium sized shopping bag away from Aeryn.

“Heavy?” she said, incredulously.

“We can take care of this, Aeryn,” Crais said, his arms full of boxes. Aeryn opened her mouth to tell them how foolish they were being but she stopped when she saw the determined looks on the faces of all three of the males. Even Curly looked at her stubbornly, the handles of a shopping bag in his toothy mouth.

Aeryn sighed and turned to Beth. “Would you like to see the rest of the ship?”

Aeryn felt a glow of pride as she lead Beth around Talyn. She could tell that she was quite impressed by the now fully grown leviathan. It reminded Aeryn of when she first met John and he couldn’t get over the fact that the ship he was walking around in was alive. Aeryn gave a brief, sketchy account of Talyn’s history and an even shorter account that was the very long story behind the origin of Talyn’s pilot. Beth wasn’t interested anyway. She asked ‘ Ms.Pilot’ as John had dubbed her, many questions about the pilot species. On being told that they came from a world of tidal pools, Beth appeared smug and pronounced her a crustacean.

The introduction to Jool went smoothly, Jool being interested in how Aeryn was feeling and Beth keeping her hands to herself. Perhaps it was because Jool appeared more human, but John’s sister wasn’t as amazed by her as she was Curly or D’argo or the Pilot. Aeryn was sure that would change if she heard her scream, but she certainly wasn’t going to bring it up. Jool might decide to demonstrate. Aeryn was trying vainly to alleviate Jool’s hurt feelings over Aeryn having visited an earth doctor when Crais called them.

“Aeryn, we could- use your help. This food is very strange. We don’t know what goes in the freezer or the refrigeration units.”

“Well, put whatever’s already frozen in the freezer, and we’ll be right there. Time to see the galley,” Aeryn said.

Beth took over the job of storing the food, commenting, ”John must be glad they started making Clark bars again.” Crais and D'argo continued hanging around, showing no sign of having anything else to do, so Beth gave them instructions. Seeing that everything was under control, Aeryn decided to leave.

“I have some unpacking to do,” Aeryn said. “Are you sure you’ll be all right?”

“I’m fine,” Beth said, giving Aeryn the female version of John's boyish grin.

“I can show Ms. Crichton around,’ Crais said smoothly.

“Don’t you have to be on the bridge?” D’argo growled. “Besides, I’m sure Elizabeth would rather learn more about Luxans.”

“And *what* would you be teaching her about Luxans?”

Aeryn looked at them with her eyebrows knitted. “Don’t you remember what happened the last time you two competed for a female’s attentions?” she asked, not caring that Beth could hear her, too.

“Neither one of them got her,” Jool said, moving past Aeryn with a flounce of her hair. “And Beth and I were going to discuss comparative anatomy. She seems to have had an almost adequate education.”

“Maybe I should stay,” Aeryn said uncertainly.

“Aeryn. You had to put up with Aunt Ruth,” Beth said, laughing.

“Okay,’ Aeryn said, smiling back.”Comm me if you need me.”

Curly followed her out of the room.

When Aeryn got to her room she sat down on the bed. Suddenly she was so tired she couldn’t stay upright a microt longer. She laid down on her side and stroked her belly gently. Curly put his face up on the bed so that it was lying next to hers. she looked into his big brown eyes and kissed him on the nose and stroked his ears back.

“You glad I’m home, boy?” she crooned.

Curly whimpered and shut his eyes, succumbing to ecstasy.

“Yeah, me, too, “ Aeryn said.

Much to her surprise, she didn’t drift off to sleep but became restless again and busied herself unpacking and putting away the goods she had acquired on Earth. She felt rather than heard John come up behind her quietly and was not surprised when his arms came around her.

“I didn’t know you were back,” she said softly, relaxing into his arms.

“I told Ms. Pilot not to tell you. I was trying to surprise you. But you never jump or anything when I come up behind you.”

“That’s a very good thing for you,” she said crisply. “Did you find anything?”

“No. I checked out the asteroid belt and the Kuiper belt. I think I’ll check out the Oort cloud next.” he rocked her in his arms gently. “It’s amazing, tho, flying around in my own solar system. I’m seeing parts of the universe that no earth man has seen- except, possibly for me- the other me. i wonder if he brought any information back for NASA? If they even bothered to get readings and pictures or if they’ve spent all this time trying to catch up to the Peacekeepers?”

“I don’t know,’ Aeryn said. She knew if it was up to her they wouldn’t have wasted any time on useless curiosity. She pried herself loose and continued taking things out of bags.

“Anything interesting happen while I was gone?”

“No. Everything’s fine. Oh, look,” she said, pulling out a large round object.

“You got me a basketball?”

“Don’t be silly. It’s for Curly.”

Aeryn took the basketball and went into the corridor. John and Curly followed her, Curly’ eyes shining and his tongue hanging out. Aeryn rather awkwardly threw the basketball down the hallway. Curly ran after it, nails sliding and scraping on the smooth floors. HE retrieved it in record time, returning and depositing it at her feet. Aeryn looked at it helplessly, thinking that it wasn't worth it to try to bend down to get it, the basketball that was her front being in the way. Curly wiggled all over an shouted encouragement. “C'mon, come on!”

John picked the basketball up and threw it for him a couple of more times. On the fourth throw, the ball and the vorlag disappeared around a corridor and reappeared a microt later. At least Curly did. The ball was now a crescent shape in Curly’ mouth. “Sorry ‘ He said around it, and took it off in a corner and started gnawing on it’s deflated remains.

“Well, it lasted longer than they usually do,” Aeryn shrugged.

“I can’t believe you bought him a basketball and didn’t get me one. That is one spoiled vorlag.”

Aeryn felt a little guilty. “We can get you one when we take Beth back,” she said.

“What do you mean, when we take Beth back?”

Aeryn squinted her eyes at him. The note of warning in his voice puzzled her.

“You mean Beth is here, on Talyn?”

“She wanted to see the ship,” Aeryn shrugged.

“Don’t you think you should have asked me first, before dragging her up here in harms’ way?”

Why should I ask you?” Aeryn asked incredulously.

“Because- she’s my sister.”

“Well, she’s my - my “

“Sister-in-law” John provided for her.

“And I think it’s perfectly safe. You thought it was the safest place for the baby and me to be.”

“That’s different. I'm worried about what could happen to you on Earth. She’s perfectly safe on earth- but Beth’s a liability here. Remember what I was like when I first came through the rabbit hole?”

“And you don’t think I can handle it?” Aeryn said, ominously. “You don’t think I can protect her, or make a rational decision. Do you.”

“Aeryn-” John stopped before making any obvious comments about her delicate condition.

“Fine. She goes back,’ Aeryn spat out.

“Look, I - I’ll take her.”

“No, I’ll do it,’ Aeryn said, turning her back on him and walking away.

Aeryn was still miffed when she and John collected Beth, but Beth came along quietly, acting very much as if she had expected this. Aeryn took her quickly, with very few words, to her Prowler. Beth said good by to everyone and climbed in, looking around curiously.

“Don’t touch anything,” John said.

“Don’t you want to take the transport pod?” he asked Aeryn.

“Too slow,” she said, climbing in and wedging herself under the controls, thinking that it was a good thing Beth wasn’t very big. She certainly wouldn’t fit in the Prowler with John right now. “I’m going to take her directly to your dad’s and be right back.”

“Is it still dark there?”

“It should be for a couple of more hours,’ Beth said quietly.

"Well, be careful,“ John said.

Aeryn sighed and grimaced at him. “We will talk when I get back.” she said ominously.

John leaned over the open cockpit and kissed her briefly.” Love you. Bye, sis.”

Aeryn was still fuming. As if she would ever put John’s sister into any danger. His protectiveness towards Aeryn was starting to get on her nerves. And it was becoming obvious that it was normal for earth people. He acted as if her brain had shrunk as her belly got bigger. Why, he didn’t even think that she could take care of herself, or put her own boots on. She paused at that thought. The truth was, she was having a hard time putting her own boots on. John was doing it for her every day. She hadn't seen her feet in weekens.

Shortly after they got under way, Beth started apologizing.’ I really didn’t mean to cause any trouble between you and John,” she said.

“Trouble?” Aeryn said. She would hardly call that trouble. The truth was, her feelings were hurt because she had been trying really hard- maybe too hard- to please John’s family and he didn’t seem to appreciate it. Far more calm, she decided that they really did need to talk when she got back.

“Don’t worry about it. I've noticed that being pregnant makes it hard for me to control my temper sometimes.”

This was an explanation Beth could accept. “Tell me about it. You should have seen the mood swings Sharon went through. And sometimes she didn’t have two brain cells to rub together. She had trouble finding her way to her own house.”

“I’m glad I haven’t had that symptom,’ Aeryn said, horrified. She took Beth’ statement quite literally and was nonplused at the idea of losing her excellent sense of direction.

“Oh, Look,’ Beth breathed, as they flew close to the moon.

“It’s not much to look at,” Aeryn said, amused. “There’s nothing on that rock.”

“Well, there is in one place.. The place where my father and other astronauts stood on the moon.”

“I know just what you're talking about. John had to look at it on the way in.” Aeryn said, as she flew close to the place they had done a close flyby before.

“You know, I wasn’t even born yet when we last went to the moon. And only a handful of people have ever set foot on it. It’s an incredible feeling knowing that your own father is one of the few humans ever to leave Earth.”

“Mmm” Aeryn said. It didn’t seem incredible to her, but she wasn’t about to ruin the excitement that Beth was feeling. She set the Prowler down a few yards from the only signs that this satellite had been visited before. Just some debris and a flag, and American flag, She recognized it from her time on Earth. This one was different, though- it obviously had some kind of rod or something through it to make it wave in a breeze that just wasn’t there. Beth was speechless, her face glowing. She had pushed her face up against the window, crowding Aeryn severely.

“Would you like to see it?” Aeryn asked, a little breathlessly.

“You mean- go out there? Don’t I have to be trained for that or something?”

“No. Just put the helmet on- I’ll show you how- and we’ll go. Here. this is how you communicate with it.’ Aeryn gave her a brief explanation. It was much more difficult to show her how to put the helmet on- Aeryn could barely twist around in the tiny cockpit.

Aeryn had not gotten into a Prowler without a suit since the day she had died. She had been in a hurry that time, but she was well aware of the fact that if she had been properly suited up she would have survived the plunge into the icy water. However, she discovered when she tried to zip up the sides of the suit that she was wearing loose and unzipped, the one that had been especially modified to fit her advancing pregnancy, that it had advanced beyond the modifications of the garment. At any rate, it wouldn’t zip up. She flattened herself out as best she could, pushing back against Beth, but it just wouldn't do it.

“Oh, frell it,’ she snarled. “This isn’t worth it.”

“We don’t have to do it,” Beth said in a very small voice.

“No, you go ahead. Just go, and come right back.”

“Why? is there not enough oxygen or something?”

“No. I just don’t want to get too sleepy to fly.”

It didn’t once occur to Aeryn that it might take an extreme amount of courage for someone who up until today had never been in space, to leave the ship without her. She simply closed her eyes after Beth left the ship, relying on the constant comments from Beth to let her know that she was all right.

“Richard Nixon. I’d forgotten about that,“ Beth said thoughtfully. “Isn’t it ironic that his name will stay here forever.

A few microts later. “There’s so much stuff up here. I didn’t realize we had left so much behind.”

“We could clean it up,” Aeryn suggested.

“Oh, no,” Beth said. “This is a historic landmark. We can’t change a thing- we shouldn’t even disturb the footprints in the dust.”

Aeryn smiled at that, wondering if humans were all this sentimental, when the marauder landed behind her. It landed so carefully that in the low gravity she didn’t even feel an impact tremor.

“Is Aeryn back yet?’ John asked, striding into command.

Crais shook his head.

“How about D’argo? Is he back from recon?”

“No, and I haven’t heard anything from him since-”

“Crichton!’ D’argo called urgently. ‘I found them! Dren!” A stream of Luxan obscenities followed.

‘He has two Prowlers on his tail,” Crais announced, Crais announced, looking up from the sensors he had been monitoring.

“Where is he?” John asked .

“The largest gas giant.”

“Jupiter? They’re in orbit around Jupiter? Get us there!”

“We’re on our way. We’ll be there in a few hundred microts, but Talyn’s sensors are not picking up anything larger than D’argos’ ship.”

“John, I was on them before I ever saw them.” D’argo said loudly into his comm.

“DAM!,” John exclaimed. “Jupiter’s aurora-radio signals and whistler waves. It must have masked anything our sensors could find. “ he was shaking his head.’ Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Never mind that. Think of some way to get these Peacekeepers off me!’ D'argo yelled.

“Two fighters should not be a very large problem for you, Ka D’argo.” Crais said, in a very aggravating fashion. Despite his apparent nonchalance, he breathed a sigh of relief a moment later. “Talyn has visuals.”

“They started out as four,” D’argo muttered.

D’argo’s ship appeared, being chased by a couple of Prowlers, as promised. John could tell that his shields were weakening with each hit that he took.

As Talyn swooped down on the prowler nearest to them, D’argo did a neat 180 and fired on the other one. In microts it was over- the two Prowlers were dispatched simultaneously, as if in a well-planned and well-rehearsed maneuver.

The gleaming Luxan ship stayed close, looking none the worse for wear.

“You would think the energy put off by the planet would be a problem" John said thoughtfully. “Command carriers must be very resistant to high gravity and heat. “

“They are,” Crais concurred. “More so than Talyn is.”

“Seeing as how they aren’t living creatures. So, we can’t go in after them.”

“No,” Crais said. “But they can’t stay in there forever.”

As if they had heard Crais’s words, and exactly like a rabbit that had been flushed from cover by a dog, the Peacekeeper command carrier burst out of Jupiter’s atmosphere and headed sunward at a high rate of speed. It didn’t have an armada- no leviathans or large ships, just a few prowlers and a marauder. Nothing, John thought, that couldn’t have been docked in the carrier while they went through the wormhole.

“What the!” Crais exclaimed, caught by surprise- but only for a microt, as Talyn turned and pursued the ship as it raced through the solar system. Another marauder and a damaged prowler appeared from the sidelines and joined their prey.

Way too close to Earth, John thought. the command carrier slowed as it approached earth and the ships outside started disappearing into it.

“What the Hell is he doing?” John asked. this made no sense at all. Getting close enough to threaten Earth only made them a better target. Talyn had just taken his first shot when the Pilot told him he was being hailed.

“You don’t want to do that, John Crichton,’ A familiar oily voice said even as they could see the command carrier being rocked by the blast.

“Why wouldn’t I, Scorpy? Just- step away from the planet, and I might think about letting you go,” he said, knowing that they were still out of range of the frag cannons.

“He’s a few microts from being in range of Earth.” Crais said. “We’re fine- as long as we can stay out of range, they can’t touch us.”

“Because I have something very dear to you,’ the voice replied smugly.

There was a little grunt before he heard her speak.

“I’m sorry, John,” she said quietly. Underneath the control, he could tell that she was furious- probably with herself. That was all he mustered in the way of rational thought- he stood silent for a moment as cold swept through his bones. Its hard to tell how long he might have stayed that way, if Crais hadn’t punched him in the shoulder.

“Oh, baby. It’s - are you all right? Are you hurt?”

“We’re fine.” There was a little pause as she continued, and she spoke slowly and clearly when she did.

“We left the Prowler on the moon, John. You need to pick it up- soon.”

“I will leave you with this, John- you need to make a decision. What is more important to you? Your child and its mother- or the planet that gave birth to you. It’s not an easy one, John. I am glad that I am not in your place.”

With that the transmission was ended, and John gave in to his feeling of impotent rage. After punching a few things and shouting a bit, he calmed down enough to tell D'argo that he needed to pick Beth up from earths’ satellite.

“What?” Crais asked. he had been watching John carefully to make sure he didn’t hurt Talyn, but had not otherwise interfered.

“That’s what Aeryn was saying. He’d better take you or Jool so we can retrieve the Prowler, as well. “ John sat down at the strategy table and put his face in his hands.

“If it comes to a choice,” Crais said carefully, his face strained, “you really don’t have one, do you? You can’t balance Aeryn- even Aeryn’s life against the hundreds, thousands of people on Earth that could be killed.”

“Millions. It could be millions.” he replied, running his hands through his hair.

His deep voice grave, Crais continued. “You have to do the right thing. It’s what you do.”

“No. No I don’t,” John denied stubbornly. “Not this time.”

He looked Crais in the eye and took a deep breath to steady himself. “There has to be a third option.”

The cell was small and cramped and unfortunately very difficult to break out of. Aeryn stared at the lock, wishing she had a fork or some other implement to work on it with. She really should have a lock pick hidden on her at all times, she mused. She couldn’t count how many times she could have used one- although, she thought with a little amusement, only since she met Crichton.

Giving up on the lock, she sighed and started stripping off her flight suit. With Beth out of the cockpit and with more incentive, she had managed to get it zipped but it was uncomfortably tight and clung to all her rounded contours, much to the disgust of the Peacekeepers who had captured her. Their snickers and open contempt had only caused her to stiffen her back and walk with more dignity as she was paraded down the corridors of the command carrier.

After getting the suit off, she loosened her hair. The loose style had not survived the fracas she had just been through, so she let it down. Although leaving her on an airless asteroid with a ship she couldn’t fly would not have been her first choice, she wasn’t too worried about Beth. During the brief time she had known her she had decided that Beth was eminently sensible and possessed an ability to follow instructions that Aeryn thoroughly approved of. It shouldn’t take too long for John to find her.

But he was another story. She was very worried about how John was taking this, and what Scorpy might want from him now, and very angry with herself for letting her guard down and letting this happen. But she also knew she was safe for the moment, and powerless to do anything about it, so she laid down on the small narrow bunk and was soon fast asleep.

Aeryn slept until she was awakened by a harsh voice, ordering her to get up. she opened on eye to a narrow slit, just enough to see that there was one guard and one tech standing outside of her cell. She waited, not moving. Good, she thought. They are stupid enough to come into the cell.

When he leaned over to shake her awake, she hit the target presented practically at her face, grateful that the soldier was male, and then jabbed the jaw presented to her when he doubled over. He went down with a satisfying thunk. Unfortunately the momentum of the blow carried Aeryn off the cot and on to her hands and knees. She glanced quickly over at the tech, who luckily seemed to be inclined to do nothing but stand against the wall.

After getting laboriously to her feet, a little breathless, she realized that she needed to bend down again to get the gun. “Frell” , she snarled, as she dropped to her haunches.

Too slow, she thought, as a voice behind her said,’ I wouldn’t do that if I were you,’ and she looked into a pair of icy blue eyes holding a pulse rifle on her.

Aeryn stepped away from the weapon when ordered to do so. The blue eyes belonged to a well built man in a Captain’s uniform.

“What the frell are you doing in here?” he snarled at the hapless tech.

“I’m sorry sir. Scorpius told us to bring her to his laboratory.”

Aeryn was watching this exchange with some interest.

‘Why?” the Captain barked out.

“I don’t know, sir,” the tech answered.

“Take care of him, ‘ he said, gesturing to the man on the floor. “You are coming with me,” he told Aeryn.

“What am I going to tell- HIM?” the tech blurted out.

“Tell him, if he asks, that I am not going to let him dissect the only thing that is keeping my ship from being destroyed.”

Aeryn proceeded down the corridor with the captain. She wasn’t planning to say anything but curiosity got the better of her.

“Weren’t you going to discipline him?” she asked.

He knew who she was talking about. “I think you did a good enough job of that for me,” he said dryly. “It should be a learning experience for him.”

“You look familiar to me,’ she said quietly, staring straight ahead.

‘So do you, Aeryn,” he replied. “Although I can’t say that I like the way you turned out. Just- look at you,’ he said, stopping and turning towards her, his glance taking in her outlandish clothes and loose hair, and her very obvious pregnancy. “Look what you did to Velorek - You betray the Peacekeepers and lead the life of a fugitive and now, You’re having a half-breed kid.”

“Velorek?” she gasped, suddenly very conscious of the fact that she was wearing Earth clothes and that her legs were showing.

“Velorek. A good man that went down because I was trying to get you out from under the control of that madman- the one that you’re partners in crime with.”

“He’s changed,” she said shaking her head, her face burning. “Crais is-”

“A criminal. A traitor, as are you,’ he said with contempt.“your mother would never have betrayed a friend for a better position.”

“My- my mother,” Aeryn said in wonder. ‘My mother. I know who you are, you’re Broc, aren’t you?”

“Captain Broc,’ he looked at her in a slightly puzzled way, but did not ask the obvious question. He took a long measuring look at her. “I wonder what I’m going to do with you.”

Aeryn wanted desperately to suggest that he let her go, but she knew that wasn’t going to happen. “You could find me a cell with a bigger bed,’ she suggested. “That last one wasn’t very comfortable.”

Captain Broc said nothing to this and he and Aeryn proceeded down the corridor quietly. Aeryn didn’t let the casual way he handled the gun fool her- she knew she didn’t have a chance of taking him by surprise.

He stopped at a door and put his hand on the scanner. The door opened to a large and luxurious room, done in the usual red and black, that she soon realized was the Captain’s quarters.

“That one big enough for you?” he said, casually indicating a bed that could have accommodated the entire crew of Talyn, including Curly.

“yes, it’s big enough for *me*,” she said, emphasizing the singular.

Another confused look passed over his face, then cleared up. “Of course,’ he agreed. “You should be comfortable here.”

“A comfortable jail is still a jail.”

“Sit,’ he said, not replying to what she had said. He started rummaging around the room, pulling weapons and anything that could be construed as a weapon from drawers and some less obvious places and making a pile.

Aeryn sat and looked around the room, ignoring what he was doing. The room was interesting- there was a holographic projection of the space they were going through that took up an entire wall. It looked like they had a window directly to the outside. There was also a distinct lack of grisly trophies or commendations and awards, as she would expect to be adorning a Captain’s chambers. Instead, in every nook and cranny, there were ships. Small models of ships- marauders and prowlers and command carriers. There were peacekeeper ships and Luxan ships and a sheyang vessel.

“You can’t get out of here, you know,’ he said. “And its the safest place you can be on this ship, anyway.”

“Mmm,” Aeryn said. She got up quickly, catching Broc’s attention, and went over to one of the models.

“That’s Talyn!’ she said delightedly. “It’s very beautiful.” She picked it up carefully, with both hands, and looked at the underside and all around it. Broc looked as if he would like to take it away from her, but he didn’t. He breathed a sigh of relief when she put it down again.

‘Look, the sonic ascendancy cannon actually ascends. And it goes down again.” she said, playing with it . An indulgent smile passed fleetingly across his lips. “But this hatch belongs on the treblin side,’ she said critically. “ And the pulse cannons are too far back- they should be a little more forward, like this- “she indicated with her fingers.

“Anything else?” he said dryly.

“The fins have grown together more now,’ she said.

“Mmmm,’ he said,looking at it closely. “I only had the old plans and the intelligence reports to go by. But I can fix it.”

“Well, you can just look out the window now. You made this? And all of the others?” she asked in surprise.

“Don’t tell anyone. I’m sure they all think I have a tech in chains somewhere producing them for me.”

He moved over to the wall. “This is the Coober Pedy. That’s this command carrier. This one is the Ingham. It’s the rear battle cruiser in my armada- not with us at the moment. That’s a leviathan named Wilca.” Aeryn frowned at the perfectly reproduced control collar.

“Leviathans should not be-” Aeryn was interrupted by someone at the door. This surprised her a little, because she expected that people would only come to the captain’s quarters when summoned. Listening in,she soon realized that Broc had had a previous engagement that he had evidently forgotten. The woman that he let in was tall and attractive. She collected the duffel bag full of weapons that Broc had collected and left, sparing Aeryn one glance that was both baleful and surprised. It would have been funny if circumstances had been different.

Broc turned from the doorway to look at her. She was looking Wilca over seriously, trying to figure out how to take the control collar off, a little smirk on her face as she thought about the ludicrous idea of being mistaken as competition for Broc’s attentions in her condition.

“Was it worth it? Betraying your people to get your hands on the gunship?” Broc asked, his voice cold. “I suppose that was what you were planning from the first, when you went to Crais with the information that condemned Velorek. The two of you would make off with “Talyn’ after he was born.”

Aeryn looked at him in total shock. The switch from the congenial tone of a few minutes before was too abrupt. Then, to her consternation, she could feel herself blushing. “That’s not what happened at all,” she said, feeling like she was about twelve cycles old.

“What I don’t know is how this human figures into it, except that he seems to be determined to cause the extinction of the Sebacean race.”

“Peacekeepers are *not* the only Sebaceans there are,” Aeryn said, angrily. ‘There are colonists and even Sebaceans not under Peacekeeper rule- The Breakaway colonies and the Travellers. Peacekeepers are a political system, and one long overdue for being overthrown. I am not a traitor to my species.”

Broc looked pointedly at her stomach and raised an eyebrow. “Then why did you do *that?”

"We wanted to have a baby. People do it all the time,” she said, thinking of all the families she had seen on earth. She felt a sense of dislocation as she remembered what it was like to feel that other life forms were inferior. She struggled to remain calm and reasonable. “I don’t know why it would bother you. You have a mixed son, yourself.”

This time it was his turn to look shocked.’ I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

‘No, you wouldn’t. He was just a by product of your sex life, left with the Travellers. It’s a good thing he had my parents.”

“Your- parents. You met them? You’ve seen her?”

Aeryn detected a not of reverence in his voice- but still, she was afraid she had said too much. “Yes.”

“How is she?” he moved away from Aeryn and stood in front of the holographic window, his hands folded behind his back.

‘She’s happy. They’re together. She is the leader of the group she’s with.”

That’s not surprising.” A little hint of amusement. “It’s good to know that she’s alive. thank you,” he said seriously.

“You miss her.” It was a statement, not a question.

He looked at Aeryn squarely. “She was the only person that ever thought I was anything more than cannon fodder.”

“It looks like she might have been right,” Aeryn replied.

Broc shrugged. “Live long enough, they put you in charge.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Aeryn knew that she had no right to ask, but it was something she had been wondering about since she had first met Meara and she knew that she and Talyn would have given two different answers if she had asked them. “Did you love her?” she asked very gently.

Broc didn’t even flinch. “There was a time ..when she needed a friend...sometimes I like to think, that if I had been willing to lose at darts, she might have chosen me.”

Aeryn looked at him sympathetically. He smiled back at her. “Now, about this son you say I have-”

“My dear Captain Broc, would you kindly bring our hostage up to command before we are all killed?” Scorpius’s smooth and sarcastic voice interrupted them.

“Bad timing,” Broc said.

Time was being very bad to John Crichton. He was getting more agitated as the arns progressed. They had picked up Beth, who was unharmed but very frightened, and dealt with frantic communications from Earth, the appearance of two large spaceships in orbit having put the entire world on alert. Talyn was circling the command carrier slowly and threateningly. It took John a while to realize that no one had told him to take up that position. It must be the peacekeeper in him coming out, he thought to himself.

No plan had taken residence in his mind. Ideas had been discussed and thrown out, and all their communications were ignored by the Peacekeeper ship. Finally he threatened to fire on them again if they didn’t show him that Aeryn was alive. That produced results, but still not quickly enough as there was some delay between the time the threat was answered and they were contacted again.

“Hey, baby,’ He said when she appeared on the view screen. A vast and enormous relief flowed over him when he saw that she appeared to be unhurt. He reached out a hand involuntarily as if to touch her through the view screen and then dropped it again. “how are you? Are they- mistreating you? How’s the baby?”

“We’re both okay,’ Aeryn said, smoothing her front. “they haven’t-”

“We’re not monsters, John. We don’t-”

“Shut up, Scorpy.”

“They haven’t been mistreating me,” Aeryn said, looking pointedly at the man on the other side of her from Scorpy. John didn’t have the slightest idea of what that might mean. “John, don’t worry too much about me. I can take care of myself. And tell Curly everything's going to be all right, will you?”

He didn’t tell her that Curly was wandering around the ship like a ghost, occasionally letting out small heartbroken sobs.

“I love you, Aeryn,’ he said, trying not to tear up. “We’re going to get you out of there.”

“I love you, John,’ she said, her face shining.

He addressed Scorpy. “Me for her. Even Stevens, no reprisals.”

“I’m afraid I don’t want you, John. I have had my fill of you, to be honest. And I know you- I know you better than anyone else ever could. I know what she means to you. I know we are safe from you as long as we have her. I don’t know if the same would be true if you were in her place.”

Aeryn cast Scorpius a baleful glare.

“Just let her go and you can have anything you want.’

“I highly doubt that. I don’t think you will let me continue my very necessary work on Earth. And you have managed to alert the local populace. It will be impossible for me to be secretive anymore- there will be considerable collateral damage.’

“I *will* let you leave in one piece,” John said. He knew Scorpy had had respect for Talyn’s considerable fire power for some time. “I won’t hunt you down and kill you like the rabid animal you are.”

“Sorry, John. No deal.” Scorpy turned toward Aeryn. For one heart stopping moment, John thought he was going to do something to her, but he addressed the man beside her. “Send a marauder to Earth and have them get my samples.”

“No,’ the man said. “Not one of mine. Send your own.”

“Your lack of cooperation will not go unnoticed.” Scorpy snarled.

“Fine,” he said. it was clear to John that he was not afraid of Scorpius. “If we survive this, I’ll worry about it then.”

“Marauder heading to earth,” Crais reported.

John looked at Aeryn. She raised both eyebrows. Her face said as clearly as if she had spoken’ do what you have to.” He then looked directly into Scorpius’ evil eyes, and said,’ “Shoot it down.”

Scorpius growled as simultaneous reports of the marauders destruction came from both ships. John noticed the other man putting himself between Aeryn and the half-breed Scarren.

“That was a mistake,” Scorpius snarled.

“No, you’ve made the mistake!” John yelled.’ If you do anything to hurt her I’ll send you back to Hell, you cadaverous son of a-”

The communications were cut. John walked over to the strategy table and put his head in his hands, running his fingers through his hair. “

“He was testing you, you know. He had to see what you would do,” Crais said.

John pounded his fists against his temples. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. I can’t think. I just keep thinking..Aeryn. Baby. Aeryn. baby.” He moved his hands sharply back and forth.

“What about Earth?” Crais inquired.

“Sometimes- Aeryn , baby, Earth. What do we need Stark around for when we have me?” John barked a laugh.

Crais put a hand on his shoulder. “Think now, freak later. Do you want to leave it up to one of us to make a plan?”

John looked up at him. “D’argo’s plans have the subtlety of a sledgehammer and your plans are so tangled you get caught in your own web.” It was a tribute to how serious the situation was that Crais didn’t even object to John’s description.

John drew a deep breath. “Think now, freak later. Okay,” John stood up. “Crais, get Talyn to access all the security codes and get all the information we can from the command carrier. We’re going to have to storm the castle.”

“Are you going to tell me how we are going to not get shot down before we even get to it?”

“No- because I have no frelling idea.”

Aeryn was shaky from the encounter as she left with Broc. She crossed her arms and held them against herself tightly, willing herself not to tear up. The hardest part was knowing how frightened John was for her. The second hardest part was knowing that she might be the cause of John not being able to stop Scorpius. She kept thinking about the humans she had seen in the park- blissfully unaware of any danger from space, living their lives. Other people’s loves, other people’s babies.

“He’s your mate, isn’t he?”

The question surprised her. She realized with a microt’s thinking that it shouldn’t, and she bit back the sharp retort she was going to make. “Yes,” she said simply.

Broc shook his head, a puzzled and pained expression on his face. Aeryn interpreted this as criticism.

“You are going to have to decide whether you hate me for acting like a peacekeeper, or hate me for not acting like a Peacekeeper. What I did to Velorek was wrong, even though I was told it was right. I am not ashamed of John, and I am not ashamed of having this baby.”

Broc looked taken aback by her vehemence. “I don’t hate you,” he said mildly. “I was just thinking...” he evidently decided not to tell her what he was thinking.

“I was thinking that he would do anything to get you back safe.”

For some reason this mollified Aeryn. She wasn’t sure why, since it was what she was worried about. And it was frustrating not to be able to even think about being the one to make the sacrifice- she was responsible for two lives, not just her own.

“You were talking about genocide earlier,” she started.” how I couldn’t possibly wish death on my own people. This planet is all there is for humans. John is the only one to even make it to the stars. How could you think about waging war on them?”

‘We do what we have to to survive,’ he said gravely.

“Why? What do you want?”

“If you want to get out of here alive, it would be best for you to know as little as possible.”

“If you tell me, we might be able to find a solution that satisfies everyone.”

He shook his head. ‘ I don’t think that’s possible.’ He thought for a microt, looking Aeryn in the eyes, and came to a decision. “The Scarrens have gotten very effective at using heat against us as a weapon.”

“The Scarrens? Didn’t the wormhole tech eliminate that threat?” she asked, derisively.

“The destruction of the Scarren home world did not eliminate the Scarrens. They’ve spread to many systems and have a mobile army living on their huge dreadnoughts.”

“Like Peacekeepers.”

“Yes, and now there are only five of them to every one of us instead of ten, and they hate us more than ever. Scorpius is doing research on humans so that we can become invulnerable to the living death.”

‘Not DNA- Peacekeepers would never adulterate their DNA, even for survival.”

“No. He says we can harvest a hormone that humans produce to protect themselves from heat.”

Aeryn knitted her brow at him. She was fairly sure that this was wrong, even though she would be the first to admit that she didn’t know much about medical science.

“That’s not right,’ she said. “ Humans don’t produce a hormone. They don’t have a gland that enables then to resist heat, like Luxans, and they don’t have a gland that produces heat, like Scarrens.”

“How would you know?”

“I am arguably the foremost expert on humans,’ she said dryly. “Heat bothers them too. It can kill them, at a little higher temperatures than it kills us. They just don’t get the living death. They recover, if they have a chance.”

“I don’t have the slightest idea as to whether you’re right or not. But I know how we can find out.” Broc changed direction and headed down a different corridor.

“One thing I have learned about being in charge is that it’s a good idea to have around you people smarter than yourself. Not like Scorpius’s idiot drannit Braca. That man’s just ballast.”

Aeryn nodded agreement. They entered a room with a couple of techs and someone wearing a soldiers uniform. One of the techs gaped at Aeryn, his mouth open wide.

Broc snapped at him. “Close your mouth. Go help fix the docking web.” The tech left hurriedly. The other tech looked at Broc alertly, awaiting instruction. “You too,’ he said to her. She followed the other tech out of the room.

“This is Adria- Lieutenant Vericco- Military tech. This is Aeryn- she’s ..” he paused. “our hostage.”

Aeryn made an abortive gesture to shake her hand before she stopped herself. Adria looked at Aeryn frankly and curiously. Aeryn was surprised by her very large, soft and warm brown eyes.

She turned away from Aeryn and looked at broc. “I needed those two,’ she said with a hint of humor. “You must want to talk to me- alone?”

“No- yes,’ to Aeryn’s surprise, Broc looked a little embarrassed. “I need your help.”

“Of course,’ Adria said promptly. Broc explained briefly what he knew about Scorpius’s experiments and Aeryn’s skepticism.

“I’m not a medtech,” she said quietly.

“I know. But you could figure it out anyway.”

“With a little research,’ she said, sitting down at a console. Aeryn noticed that she had auburn highlights in her long brown hair. She couldn’t help noticing- Broc couldn’t keep his eyes off her, a fact that Adria appeared to be unaware of as she concentrated on her task.

“A *lot* of research,” she said with a sigh. “Everything Scorpius has is well encoded. It will take some time.”

“Do as much research as you need,” Broc said. “Thank you. Aeryn?” he turned to go.

Aeryn nodded. She was about to leave when she noticed that Adria was staring at her belly, which was at her eye level. “Would you mind,” Adria asked hesitantly, reaching out a hand to touch her.

“Why not?” Aeryn said. “Everyone on earth has.”

She reached out and touched her belly delicately. Even through the denim Aeryn was sure she could feel the massive kick that followed.

“It’s moving,’ Adria said, with a ghost of a smile.

“She. She’s moving,” Aeryn said, thinking that it was obvious that this woman had never been assigned procreation duty.

Adria removed her hand. ‘I thought it would be softer- more yielding.”

“It has to be tough to protect the baby,’ Aeryn said, smiling at her.

Aeryn followed Broc out. Before they left, he said quietly to Adria,” Don’t get caught.”

“I won’t” she said without looking up.

“That was probably useless,” Aeryn said,” I doubt telling Scorpius he’s wrong will change his mind.”

“No,” Broc said. “But it would be good to know.” He looked like he was seriously in thought as they walked back to his quarters.

“You like her, don’t you?” Aeryn asked.

“Broc looked at her sideways.” She’s a good soldier- trustworthy, loyal-”

“I don’t mean like that. Don’t tell me you two aren’t recreating”, she said scoffingly.

Broc stared straight ahead, his ears pink. “she’s turned me down...a couple of times. All right, more than a couple.”

“You’re the captain. You could make it *difficult * for her to refuse.”

Broc just grimaced.

“Do you want some advice?” Aeryn asked, before she thought about it. How far had she come in her life when she was offering someone else advice about their love life. “Invite her to your quarters and show her your ships. And I mean , really show her your ships. “

Broc shook his head. “That’s not - I don’t think she’d be impressed. She’s a lot smarter than me, and”

“Broc- remember the darts? Don’t make the same mistake twice. And quit recreating with everything in sight!”

It made a great last line as they go to his quarters. Broc left to go run the ship, after locking Aeryn in carefully and looking over the four guards in front of the door. She was actually relieved to get back to the room as she had been having those little practice contractions ever since she had hit the floor on her hands and knees in the jail cell, and they were getting harder to ignore.

John glared ominously at Crais. “It’s been arns, Crais, and this waiting is killing me. Don’t you have anything yet?”

“It takes time for Talyn to crack their codes- he’s trying as hard as he can.”

“Are you certain it can be done remotely?” D’argo asked.

“What do you think? That every time I got into Peacekeeper records I walked on to a base with a DRD under my arm and plugged it in somewhere?”

“Well, that does make an interesting image.” D’argo said. evidently deciding not to bait Crais any farther, he turned to John. “You need to eat, John, and get some rest. You haven't moved from that position in arns. You aren’t going to do Aeryn any good if you keel over here in command.’

John looked at him briefly with eyes so tormented that D’argo couldn’t say anything more, and turned away again to look at the command carrier on the view screen.

“I think I’ll see how the girls are doing,” D’argo said.

The girls were standing over a mess of potato chips strewn from one area of the small storage room to the other.

“Well, at least he didn’t get the Pringles,” Beth remarked.”Those are John’s favorites.”

“I can’t believe, at a time like this, that you would think about your stomach,” Jool said prissily, her hands on her hips.

Curly moaned and stared at the ground. “I wouldn’t have made a mess if I had hands,” he whispered.

“You can’t yell at him, Jool,” D’argo said, coming up behind her. “No one’s bothered to feed him.”

“I wish Chiana was here,” Jool said. “Not only is she good at talking to John, she’s a good cook.”

“I can slap something together,” Beth said, relieved to find a way to be useful. “It will be.. human food.”

“Anything would be fine,” D’argo said. “I’ll drag John down here if I have to tongue him."

John came on his own without being dragged. He entered a room where D’argo, Jool,and Beth were eating a large meal, conversing normally.

“My compliments to the cook,” D’argo said, waving a greasy drumstick around.

“Then you’ll have to compliment Colonel Sanders,’ Beth smiled. “All I did was warm it up.”

The room became quiet as John walked in. Beth looked away from him guiltily. She had not seen him since she had stood behind him silently when he got to see Aeryn. She knew that her presence was simply to let Aeryn know that she had been retrieved successfully. Gathering her courage, she addressed John. “ You know, I think maybe Aeryn has found an ally. That man that was with them seemed like he was on her side.”

“They’re Peacekeepers, Beth,” John said shortly.”Peacekeepers. The guys with the black hats. They don’t have any allies other than themselves.”

Beth shook her head. “but Aeryn was a Peacekeeper. And Crais was, so they can’t be all bad.”

“You don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about, little sister. This is a world far more dangerous than anything you’ve ever seen on a Saturday morning cartoon, and if you hadn’t-”

“Crichton!” D'argo thundered, before he could say something that would rattle around in Beth’s head for weeks, “Is that any way to talk to a member of your family and our guest!”

John got up without another word and left his uneaten food. Jool excused herself and followed him.

“At a time like this- I can’t stand to watch D’argo play Capt. Kirk and the alien chick of the week with my sister right now,” John said as he walked rapidly back to Command.

“Maybe she likes being the alien chick,’ Jool said smartly.”Besides, you aren’t being fair. You know they aren’t what’s upsetting you.”

John stopped and looked at her. “You’re right,’ he admitted. “And besides, Bethie might have a point. I’ll see what Crais knows or can find out about that guy.”

Relieved to be on her own, Aeryn made herself a warm bath in Broc’s luxurious bathroom. The room was huge and the tub itself was bigger than the cot in the cell she had first been in. there were a couple of robes hanging up, one larger, and one that was probably a “guest” robe, Aeryn thought, for female company. It was thoughtful of him to provide something for his guests, she thought, but she grabbed the larger robe. She knew it was the only one that had a chance of going around her. She folded her clothes carefully as they were all she had to wear when she got out.

She was hoping that a warm bath would relax her and stop the mild contractions, as it had in the past. Instead they intensified and became more regular. Dren, she thought desperately. This was not the right time. She laid very still and tried to will her body to quit having contractions, to no avail. Still, the water felt good and she was in no hurry to tell anyone she might be in labor. Finally, when the pains were starting to run together but still less painful than a war wound, she decided to get out of the tub.

Stepping out of the bath produced a gush of fluid that was not coming from the bath water, but from Aeryn. the pain was suddenly worse, say, then being skewered by a commando’s knife. So much for all their plans about the baby’s birth, Aeryn thought as she doubled over and grabbed a towel bar. As the contraction eased,she threw on the robe and made her way to the door. She stopped there, torn by indecision. On the other side of the door were enemies. She stared at the door for a few microts, racked by pain. Finally, she made a decision based on instinct that defied rationality. She had locked the door to the room when she came in- the lock was only a courtesy lock, she knew , that could be opened easily from the other side. She picked up a tennis shoe and hit the mechanism with it. The shoe didn’t do nearly as much damage as a boot would have, so she hit it again and again until she was sure it was broken. Then she sank to the floor and awaited the birth of her child.

The urge to push came on quickly, along with the fear that she may just have made the most stupid decision of her life. She reminded herself that the books said that when the birth was coming quickly and easily like this, that there were unlikely to be any complications. She also remembered that someone had had her baby unexpectedly in something John called a Stop and Rob. If some earth woman could do it, so could she.

She bit down on a mouth full of towel to keep from crying out, wishing for John, for Jool, for any friendly face. She soon had no room to think of anything but the inexorable demands of her body as it worked to push her child out. The head proved to be a lot of work to get out, but once it was born, the rest of the body came out in a whoosh, falling into her hands. she had a moment of absolute terror as she felt the baby, unmoving, not breathing, her body limp and the consistency of - jello. Then the baby took her first breath and Aeryn could *feel* life coming into her and through her into Aeryn. Aeryn laughed out loud and pulled the baby up to her, wiping the mucus off her face with the edge of the towel and making sure her nose and mouth were clear.

“Look at you!’ she cried.’ You made it! We made it. You’re here.”

Exhausted, Aeryn leaned back against the wall. Her legs were suddenly cold and trembling, so she pulled the robe around her. She continued to gently wipe the baby off as she lay sprawled across her.

“Maybe we can hide you in something. Steal a uniform- a large uniform,’ she said, looking down at her still round stomach. “ and get out of here.” She stuck a hand out against the wall and gingerly attempted to get up, only to find the world going gray. She sat back down. “Okay, Maybe later,’ she said a little breathlessly. “ I think we need to rest.”

She was still sitting there when she heard Broc rattling at the door asking if she was all right. She wasn’t sure how to answer that, and before she could come up with something, she saw a knife edge in the crack in the door, prying it open.

Broc’ face was aghast when the first thing he saw was the floor, slick with fluid and blood. There was real fear on his face as his eyes traveled to where she was sitting.

“I have a baby,” she said.

“I can see that,” he said, his face registering relief.

“Hand me your knife,” she said, holding out her hand.

He gave it to her, still too much in shock to think about it. She took it and cut through the no longer pulsing umbilical cord, marveling at how tough it was and how hard it was to get through it even with the sharp knife.

“I thought you were- I thought you had hurt yourself,” Broc said.

“Why would I do that?” she asked reasonably.

Aeryn wiped the knife off on the robe with one hand and gave it back to him.

“We should get someone to look at you- make sure you’re all right.”

Aeryn pulled the robe closer around her and the baby, who was being very quiet on Aeryn’s shoulder.

“You know,’ she said, her voice fearful,” that they will want to hurt her. She’d never pass the genetic screening tests. They will want to kill her just because she isn’t totally Sebacean.”

“I won’t let them,” he said, offering her a hand, “I promise.”

She looked at the proffered hand and didn’t take it. “I’m having trouble getting off the floor,” she admitted. She bundled the baby in a towel and offered it to Broc. He looked at the bundle and put his arms out gingerly. She placed the baby in the crook of his right arm and arranged the arm against his body so that he was holding her securely. She then grabbed him by his left arm and he helped her to her feet. They made their way to the bed in this fashion, Aeryn still being unsteady on her feet.

She climbed gingerly onto the bed and arranged the robe around her in some attempt at modesty. Broc handed her the child with an air of someone being relieved of a burden that they were certain would break or explode at any microt. While he called for some medical personnel, Aeryn got a better look at her baby. Aeryn had read that human babies were born with blue eyes, but her eyes looked they really were blue as she squinted at her mother.

“I’m sorry,” Aeryn said. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Your father was supposed to be here.” She smoothed her hand over the light colored felt that passed for hair on her head. “Wait till he sees you. He is going to be so happy. Just look at you,’ she unwrapped her a little and ran her fingers down the small arms and legs. “You are so beautiful. You have ten fingers.”

“Did you expect something else?” Broc interjected.

Aeryn looked up suddenly,as if she had just remembered he was in the room. “No. I just didn’t expect her to be so- perfect,” she said, her voice thick with emotion. she was unaware of how she appeared to Broc- although obviously tired and with her long hair absolutely wild, she looked serenely happy.

The mood was broken by the arrival of the medtechs. The first one nearly got hit as he tried to take the baby out of Aeryn’s arms. He barely ducked the blow and stood back, appealing to his Captain. “How am I supposed to look at it?”

Broc shrugged.

Aeryn laid the infant on the bed beside her and watched while they examined her. Aeryn was examined as well, and given a couple of staples since she had torn slightly. The medtech was muttering about how lucky she was that she hadn’t had any worse damage, which Aeryn paid no attention to as the baby had started squirming and bawling for the first time as they handled her. They poked and prodded her and swabbed the inside of her mouth and took a blood drop from her heel.

When they got ready to give her a shot, Aeryn objected.

“These are just the standard immunizations all Peacekeepers get at birth.”

“No translator microbes,” Aeryn said.

The tech, puzzled, looked at Broc.

“Do what she says,” Broc said. He was hovering closely- close enough to keep an eye on what was going on, but trying to stay far enough away that he couldn’t see what they were doing to Aeryn.

“She looks healthy. The scanner readings are a little strange, I’ll have to check it when we get back to the lab.”

“She isn’t too early, is she?” Aeryn asked worriedly. “I thought I had a couple of weekens left.”

“No. She seems rather large. She might even be a little overdue.”

This was a surprise to Aeryn. Perhaps Sebacean gestation was a little shorter and the baby had come somewhere in between.

The woman working on Aeryn declared that she was done, and packed up her instruments, giving Aeryn a clean bill of health. The other two did the same, and one of them moved to take the baby. As Aeryn snatched her away, Broc said, “ The baby stays here.”

“I was just going to take it to the neonate recruit ward,” the tech said in his own defense.

“You aren’t going to leave it here with the mother!” the woman who had been working on Aeryn blurted out, only to pale when Broc turned a glare on her.

“I am very sorry, Sir, I never meant to question your judgment in such matters, I-’

“ Go away,” Broc said, tired of the woman’s groveling.

“We’ll send a baby tech up with some supplies,” said the other tech.

“Good,” Broc said,” And send someone to clean up the bathing facility.” He turned to Aeryn. “Do you need anything else, Aeryn?”

She looked up from the baby. ‘I’m actually very hungry,” she said, almost apologetically.

“I’ll have them send up a meal.”

The tech on the way out the door startled and then almost genuflected as Scorpius came in.

“What are you doing here?” Broc growled.

“I came to pay my respects to Aeryn on this momentous occasion,” Scorpius said smoothly.

Aeryn held the baby closely and glared at Scorpius. “That really isn’t necessary,” she said icily.

Scorpius came to the edge of the bed, nattily tacking away the leather flap of his coat before sitting. Aeryn scooted away from him, angry with herself for giving ground.

“I hear that you and Crichton have a female offspring. Congratulations,” Scorpius appeared genuinely happy. “What have you named her?”

“Why would you want to know that?”

“I was just wondering if she was getting an earth name. She looks very human.” he said in a very smug voice.

“How can you say that?” Aeryn looked at the wrapped bundle in her arms. Scorpius could hardly see her, she was sure. “Sebaceans and humans look just alike.”

“There are differences,” he said. He got up, sparing a glance for the silent Broc, and turned towards the door.”Just remember, Aeryn, of all the people on this ship, I am the only one who understands what it is like to be a half-breed. You and your child have my sympathy. You remind me of my own dear departed mother,” he said, looking off into space for a microt.

“Frell you,’Aeryn said calmly.

After he left, Broc burst out “I hate that half- breed son of a- sorry, Aeryn.

Aeryn gave him a wounded look. After her meal and the supplies arrived, Broc left Aeryn alone with the baby, locking them both in.

Left alone with the baby, Aeryn breathed a sigh of relief. She held the baby in front of her and smiled. “Miranda. Miranda Sun. Miranda Crichton. Miranda Sun Crichton,” she said. It was strange- they had decided the babies name a long time ago but had never discussed her last name. She tried to dress her in the small outfit but it was difficult getting the tiny arms and legs into the brown coveralls and it took her some time to realize that it simply wasn’t large enough. She was going to have to wear just the diaper until Aeryn got something bigger for her. Aeryn didn’t like the outfit anyway- it was of a rough fabric and she didn’t like the idea of it next to the babies skin. She teared up when she remembered all the little soft clothes she had bought for the baby- the ones she had complained were too cute. It was a silly thing to get sad about, she told herself firmly, and wrapped the baby back up in the blankets and held her closely to her body. Miranda took all of this very patiently, seeming to be content to slip in and out of sleep. Aeryn then started eating her meal, discovering it was not so easy to do with a baby in her arms. When Aeryn was almost finished, Miranda started crying and moving her head back and forth with her mouth wide open.

“I suppose you’re hungry, too,” Aeryn said, feeling bad that she hadn’t thought of it earlier. She opened the front of the robe. “Well, I have seen this done before.”

With a little adjusting around to find a comfortable position, the baby was soon latched on firmly and sucking lustily. Aeryn was surprised by how strongly she sucked. Who knew that a little baby could be that strong. Still, it was not an unpleasant sensation and very relaxing. Miranda seemed quite content to do this for some time, so Aeryn propped herself up and relaxed. “I’m glad you know what you’re doing,” she told the baby. It wasn’t long before she drifted off to sleep.

Almost everyone on Talyn was asleep when the call came. John was alone in Command when Broc contacted him. By this time John knew that this was the friend from Meara’s story, but he was not very comforted by that knowledge. Even if Broc were inclined to protect Aeryn, John knew full well how Scorpius had managed to outmaneuver Crais and get both command and the Command Carrier from him.

“Commander Crichton, “ Broc started. “I have no demands at this time- I simply wished to inform you that Aeryn Sun gave birth to a female child several arns ago. Both mother and daughter are doing fine and are healthy.”

A picture came on the screen- he could see in a dimly lit room a large bed with an outline of someone clearly recognizable as Aeryn, and a small body almost invisible, with a little tiny head sticking out from the plush black blanket. They were both sound asleep, Aeryn’s body curled protectively around the baby’s.

“They’re all right?” John said.

Broc looked uncomfortable. “I thought - I owe - You needed to know that you were a father.” The transmission ended.

Reeling with shock, John had a thousand questions to ask, but no one to answer them. He made his way to the quarters he and Aeryn shared, and sat on the bed. Aeryn had gone through it all without him. He was glad to know that she was all right, but it wasn’t the same thing as being there.

He got up from the bed and went to the small bassinet, which had blankets and baby clothes carefully folded in it. Someone had failed to tell Aeryn that blue clothes were for boys, he smiled as he looked at the small garments. Or maybe they had told her and she had rebelled against it, or she had gotten some boys clothes for the future in case they had another child.

John sank to the floor, his back to the wall, and pressed his hands against his eyes and cried. He was still sniffling when a large muzzle rested on his knee. “I just want to bite someone,’ said the possessor of the mournful eyes looking up at him. John rested his hand on Curly’s back. “me, too.”

Aeryn slept for a long time. The baby awoke periodically and wanted to nurse again, but the interruptions didn’t bother her sleep too much. Neither did Broc’s coming in at some point during the sleep cycle and sleeping on a piece of furniture that was much too small for him, his feet sticking out over the end. When she awoke she felt much stronger.

Broc woke up at about the same time. After a quick breakfast, he headed for the shower without much comment.

A babytech brought her a new coverall for the baby and a bottle of something with a strange lid.

What is that?” Aeryn asked.

The babytech gave her a very strange look. “You feed it to the baby,” she said.

After she left, Aeryn picked up the bottle and looked at it. It was topped with something stick straight and narrow that resembled a real nipple not at all. Still, it gave her an idea. The next time Miranda woke she gave her the bottle. The baby sucked lustily for a microt, then her entire body froze and the most expressive look Aeryn had so far seen on her little face appeared. it could only be described as a glare. Aeryn unscrewed the top and took a sip out of the bottle. She made a face herself.

“You’re right. That was nasty. Really nasty. Still, I suppose you would eat it if it was all you had.” she said thoughtfully.

When Broc came out of the shower, he stopped dead, a look of disbelief on his face. Miranda was contentedly nursing again.

“If you don’t like it, don’t look,” Aeryn said shortly.

“That’s not it,’ he said, shaking his head.” It just never occurred to me before that that’s what those were for.”

Aeryn nodded agreement, and shrugged, making the baby cry. Broc resumed toweling off his hair and looked away while Aeryn offered her the breast again.

“I’ve come to a decision,” Aeryn announced. ‘I want you to send the baby to Talyn, to John.”

Broc sat down heavily. This was a possibility that had not crossed his mind. “You would send her away?” he asked, puzzled.

Aeryn’s voice broke despite her resolve. “To get her out of harm’s way,’ she said. “You’ll still have a hostage.”

“Is that what he- what Crichton would want?” he asked quietly.

“I don’t know. We didn’t talk about what would happen if I were the one on the transport pod,’ she said incomprehensibly. She looked down at the baby sadly. “But it is what i want.”

“Dren,” Broc said, rubbing his chin. “this just keeps getting worse. You know, I have a whole Command to take care of- people who count on me. I have some good loyal people under me- I can’t just-”

"What?” Aeryn said,raising her head, her eyes bright with tears. She hadn’t been listening.

“Nothing,” he said very gently.” We’ll see what we can do. Maybe Scorpius will get some kind of concession from Crichton for the child and he’ll be ready to go home.”

“Well, let’s get on with it,” Aeryn said. The baby had finished eating and was asleep again. “I’m going to take a shower,” she said, getting out of bed and taking the baby with her. She took a few steps. She was sore but not weak, she was pleased to discover. A few steps into the bathroom reminded her of something else. She poked her head back out. “I need some clothes,” she said to Broc.

“Didn’t they bring you something?”

“They brought me that,” she said, waving in the general direction of the bed, but referring to a grey shift they had brought her,” I am not going to put that on. I need pants, a shirt, boots...” Although she was going to miss the tennis shoes. They had cleaned all her clothes away when they cleaned the bathroom, and she had no idea what they’d done with them.

“Yes, ma’am,” Broc said.

Scorpius met them in Command. Aeryn had felt all the way there that she was marching off to a firing squad, not watching where she was going but paying attention only to her daughter’s sleeping face, trying to memorize every detail.

“What are you trying to do here, Broc?” Scorpius growled.

“I am going to negotiate with Crichton. The return of the child should get us some concessions.”

Scorpius looked over at Aeryn. “My good Captain, we have no wish to separate a child from its mother. What do you hope to gain from this?”

“Didn’t you have some samples from Earth to pick up? What I hope to gain from this is a speedy end to your experiments so that we can get the frell out of here.” Broc said forcefully.

"Then let me reassure you,’ Scorpius said, coming right up into Broc’s face and staring at him intently. “that my research is almost completed. The final results will be known very quickly and then we will find a way out of here without Crichton destroying this Command Carrier.”

“Would you care to enlighten me?” Broc said sarcastically. “How exactly are we going to accomplish this? What the hezmana is going on with your research?”

Scorpius came closer to Broc’s face, showing a good deal of teeth. “You don’t have the security clearance to be able to access my research, and if I told you about it, quite frankly, you don’t have the intelligence to be able to understand it.”

“I do have command, Scorpius,” Broc said firmly,”And that is not going to change.”

Broc turned smartly and left, Aeryn trailing behind him.

“Aeryn Sun,” Scorpius said. “the DNA tests show that your child has not only human and Sebacean DNA, but trace elements of Pilot DNA. What an interesting mixture. I have long admired your mates mind. You child should be quite intelligent. A unique and rare gem. A true Chimera.”

“She’s a baby,” Aeryn said scornfully, and turned her back on him.

As bad as Aeryn felt on the way there, she felt worse going back. At least she wouldn’t have had to worry about Miranda anymore if the baby were on Talyn.

“I wonder what all that dren was about taking babies from mothers,” Broc said thoughtfully. “Not that I think the baby should be taken away,” he amended hastily. “I just don’t believe Scorpius is that- sentimental.”

“Her father could take care of her,’ she said. “Even if I didn’t..come back, he would take very good care of her.” Aeryn could think of one reason why Scorpius would want to keep Miranda around, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to mention it. Instead she said, ”You know, if you do find something useful in humans, it won’t be worth it. You‘d be in for a long and protracted ground war to take over this planet. There’s no way you could get anything from them that would be worth the cost.”

“Do you think this was my idea?” Broc said.” Do you think I like this idea?’ he realized he was raising his voice and spoke more quietly. “What High Command chooses to do with the information is out of my control.”

Aeryn stopped and stared at him for a long time.

“Anything else you wanted to tell me?” Broc asked, bracing for a lecture.

“Yes,” she said very slowly and carefully. “When you have two hostages, one is expendable. If Scorpius feels the need to let John know that he’s serious, i want you to make sure that the expendable one is me, and not Miranda.”

“Miranda,” he said quietly, in a tone that made Aeryn realize that he hadn’t known the baby’s name. ‘I can’t promise you that,” Broc said solemnly. “Not that.”

John was awakened by an enthusiastic Luxan. He had fallen into an uncomfortable and dreamless sleep, on the floor, up against the wall, his knees drawn up.

“John,” D’argo said, shaking his shoulder,” We’ve found the bust we’ve been looking for!”

“Wha?” John asked blearily. “This doesn’t have anything to do with my sister, does it? Don’t you know a buddy’s sister is supposed to be off limits?”

“No, it doesn’t. ”D’argo said. “You know, a bust, when you’ve been waiting for something to happen or to get an opening and then it does?”

“A break,” John said.

“That’s what I said.”

“What is it?”

”When you’ve been waiting for something-” D’argo started again patiently.

“No!’ John said, feeling as if he were in an Abbott and Costello routine. “What happened?”

“Oh, they shot down a Prowler on the planet. It must have been there when we pinpointed the Command carrier’s position.”

“Did the pilot survive? Is the ship intact?” John asked, his mind suddenly awake but his body still uncooperative. He pulled himself out of his cramped and uncomfortable position.

“The pilot survived but I think the ship was destroyed. You’d better talk to them.”

“You’re right, D’argo, this could be the break we need,” John said.

D’argo nodded. on their way out the door, he said, “What do you mean a buddy’s sister is off- limits?”

Beth found John in the large area where the smaller ships were stored, carefully painting over the lettering on a Prowler. John looked more together then he had since Aeryn had been kidnapped, probably because they were about to take action, she thought.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Painting a fake mustache on the Prowler,” he said. “I don’t think a Prowler with English written on the side is going to look like a Peacekeeper ship.”

“Why do you have your names on your Prowlers?”

“Well, Aeryn and I got into this argument once- it’s a long story, but we decided it would be better to have his and her Prowlers.”

Beth was still mystified. “Then why are you taking hers?”

“I’m not. Mine says Aeryn on the side and hers says John,” he said, looking like he was daring her to say anything about it.

“So the plan is to pretend to be the Prowler that was shot down and get on board the Command Carrier. I don’t think it’s a very good plan,” she said dubiously.

“It’s not the worst one we’ve ever come up with. And we’ll have D’argo for backup.”

“John, I’ve been wanting to tell you,” she said. “I am so sorry about everything. I didn’t mean for this to happen.’

He stopped painting and gave her his full attention.

“I finagled my way on board. I manipulated Aeryn into bringing me and its my fault that she was captured. You’re right, I had no idea how dangerous it really was and I have no business being here.”

“You didn’t manipulate Aeryn, Beth. She doesn’t do anything she doesn’t want to. This is normal life for her. What happened is - well, like you’d asked her to stop at the Quick trip on the way home and she’d been carjacked.”

“But I should have been with her when they took her. I could have been there for her when she had the baby,” she said sadly. The news of the baby’s arrival had gotten John commiseration and sympathy instead of congratulations.

“No,” John said firmly. “If Scorpy had had both of you, one of you would have been killed when we shot down that marauder. Two hostages means one of them is expendable.”

“He has two now,” Beth said, a horrified realization dawning on her face.

“That’s why this plan has to work,” John said grimly, returning to what he was doing.

“Wouldn’t it be easier to have a drd do that?” Crais asked, joining them.

“They got nervous and ran away when I did that,’ John said, making a sweeping gesture with his hand towards the prowler,on which he had made large dents and scrapes, trying to emulate crash damage without actually affecting it’s functioning. “I’ll have to apologize to Talyn later.”

“It looks like you had fun,’ Crais observed.

“It was therapeutic.”

“Talyn has the access codes for most of the security systems on the carrier now. The vid that Captain Broc sent was obviously taped in his quarters, which will probably have a velka three genetic verification lock on it. Talyn is researching Broc’s files for the DNA code. He should have it by the time the prisoner is here and can be interrogated. However, I feel it necessary to point out at this time that there is one large flaw in this plan.”

John bit back the remark that came to mind and waited.

“You and me in the Prowler- it makes sense, I know my way around the command Carrier and its security. D'argo flying backup in that strange Luxan ship of his also makes sense. But, it leaves no one on Talyn to lead him in battle and to be here if none of us make it out. Jool is still essentially a noncombatant, and Elizabeth doesn’t know anything- sorry, Beth.”

She shrugged. It was true.

“So unless you want Curly to captain Talyn when he needs to protect Earth, I suggest you stay here. You are the least necessary person on this mission.-’ ignoring the thunder gathering on Johns face, he went on. “What if we don’t make it out? I sincerely believe that Talyn will not fire on the Command carrier if Aeryn is in it, much less all of us. And what would happen to the girls if Talyn were boarded?’

For a moment Beth was sure John was going to hit Crais, but all that happened was that the two stared at each other for a few moments until Crais spoke again. “I guess that isn’t what’s going to happen, is it.”

“No,” John said. The gathering storm suddenly cleared. “I need- my father. Yes. I definitely need to talk to Dad. Get Earth on the line again.”

Aeryn was back in the captain’s quarters. Fuming. She restlessly paced across the floor, casting resentful glances at Broc, who was sitting peaceably at a table looking at holograms of the ship’s docking web mechanism. Couldn’t promise her that, right. Well, she couldn’t promise him that she wouldn’t kill him in his sleep if she needed to to get out of here. It didn’t help that Miranda was fussing in a nonspecific low key sort of way. The crying didn’t appear to bother Broc at all. It bothered Aeryn- it bothered her a lot that she didn’t know what was bothering her and how to make her stop crying. She didn’t want to nurse, she didn't want to sleep, she just wanted to cry. “I bet your father would know what to do,’ she whispered to her.

“Maybe,” Broc said, looking up,’She would calm down if you were calmer.”

Aeryn grimaced at him but she took a deep breath and tried to will herself to be calmer. As she did, her stride became more even and she jiggled and patted the baby at a more rhythmic pace. Soon Miranda calmed down and fell asleep again.

She put the baby down in the middle of the bed and sat on the edge of it.”Well, how about that. You were right. I thought you didn’t know anything about babies,’ she said quietly.

‘I don’t,” he said, changing the vid chip in the viewer. “I know that you can’t show fear to your men. It’s contagious. I know how you feel, though. I’d rather be working out than doing this,” he said. “And don’t you even think about it. You aren’t up to a workout. You should be resting.”

Aeryn laid back on the bed with her hands under her head. “Don’t you have a ship to run?” she said resentfully.

“I can do it from here. I’m trying to figure out why they haven’t been able to fix the damage your ship did.”

He obviously didn’t want to tell her how much damage they had taken. Aeryn didn’t bother to tell him that she knew exactly what he was looking at.

“And I have a good Second. You haven’t met him, but he’s a reliable man. I think I need to be here right now.

Broc put aside the holochip machine and started working on the model of Talyn. Aeryn was fascinated by the tools he retrieved from some hidden spot- they looked like miniature versions of the tools used by on real vessels. “Why don’t you tell me about my son?” Broc asked casually.

Aeryn did. She also told him about how she ended up on Moya, and some of the misadventures they had had, while trying to be nonspecific about any details that might constitute dangerous information.

“Thank you,” he said. “For all I know I have a dozen kids that were bred to be fighters- they don’t exactly tell you , you know. So it shouldn’t make a difference, knowing, but it does.”

“I wish John knew,” Aeryn said very softly. She didn’t want to think about it, but she was afraid that John would never meet Miranda.

“He does,” Broc said.

Aeryn raised her head up from the bed to look at him sharply.

“Don’t ask any questions, just take my word for it.”

Broc was not as calm as he appeared, Aeryn noted, when someone came to the door and he startled and put a hand to his gun before opening it. He invited the visitor in and Aeryn could see that it was Adria.

She came straight to the point. “I’ve made some progress. Scorpius’s experiments are not quite what he makes them out to be. he’s been studying the human brain- making observations such as the fact that so much of the body heat is directed towards the head, and that humans faint when they have blood loss so that the blood supply will be directed towards the brain.”

“Why ? What does this have to do with heat delirium?” Broc asked. Aeryn was thinking about what kind of experiments Scorpy had done to come to those conclusions.

“I don’t know,” Adria admitted. “ There’s a lot more- I just don’t have the background to understand it, but i am studying. You’re going to have to transfer me to a medical unit when I get done with this,” she said with a hint of a smile. There it was again, Aeryn thought. That little hint of humor.

“If that’s what you want,” Broc said gallantly. ‘I will owe you for this one.” He was about to usher her to the door when he stopped. ‘Would you like to stay?” he asked hesitantly,” And see my ships?”

“Your ships?”

But Adria didn’t see the ships right away. She was far more interested in looking at the baby. She came very close to the bed to admire her, but made no effort to touch.

“Are they always this small?” she asked.

“Well, from what they tell me, sometimes they are even smaller, if you can believe that.”

“She’s very pretty,’Adria said.

“I think so. I take it you’ve never been assigned procreation.’

“I was once, but I couldn’t be spared from my current assignment,”she replied, with the barest flicker of her eye towards Broc, who was standing around looking uncomfortable.

“Excuse me,’ Aeryn said suddenly,” I need to go wash the baby.” Aeryn lingered in the bathroom for a while, giving them a chance to be alone. But not for too long, Aeryn thought, peeking out. She didn’t want them to get too comfortable.

When she came out, their heads were bent over the Coober Pedy together, almost touching. Adria quickly requested permission to leave as she was about to be late for her duty.

“She liked them,” Broc said confidentially. “I think we should get something to eat? What would you like, Aeryn? Anything you want.”

Aeryn smiled at him. His good mood was infectious. It occurred to her for a microt to warn him that love was a dangerous thing for peacekeepers, that he would have something that could be used against him if he got involved with her, that it would make him vulnerable. But love hadn’t made her weak, it had only made her stronger, and she knew it. Besides, it was probably too late.

The two of them sat down to a delicious meal that tasted like food cubes to Aeryn. She wondered briefly what John was eating back on Talyn, or if he had even eaten anything- he had a tendency not to under stress. Aeryn wasn't going to do that, though. She had a baby to feed. She kept glancing over at the baby where she was asleep on the bed,but for once she actually slept peacefully through a meal.

"I never wanted to be in charge, you know," Broc said conversationally." I think I'm at my best backing up someone else- someone who has the ideas and knows what should be done. Like your mother."

This was not the most reassuring disclosure Aeryn had ever heard. "So how did you get where you are now?" she asked.

Broc shrugged as he speared a piece of crispy Krallac. "Don't have anyone I trust to follow."

"You know, don't you, that Scorpius has been doing some very ugly things right here on your ship. Those experiments probably cause a lot of pain and suffering for his 'subjects."

"I have had no idea what Scorpius does. He has complete freedom to do as he wants- he is separate from the normal chain of command and immune to almost any censure."

"But this is your ship. You are responsible for what goes on here. If you close your eyes to what he does then you are no better than he is," Aeryn said scornfully.

Broc leaned back, absorbing her words as if they were blows. "I am better than he is." he leaned forward and looked at her intently. " It isn't easy trying to prevent -the bad. I try to uphold what Peacekeepers are supposed to be. I don't always succeed, and sometimes I have to do terrible things to prevent worse things from happening."

"Then why don't you-"

"Leave? Get myself declared contaminated..like you, your mother and father....if every halfway decent person leaves or gets themselves killed there's no one to make a change, is there."

It was while they were staring at each other over the table, the conversation at an impasse, that Broc was commed. Aeryn heard that there was activity- a transport pod at been sent to the planet.

"I have to go," Broc said, getting up. He paused as if to say something else, but he remained silent and left.

Aeryn watched him go, deep in thought. She wasn't sure what she thought of his ethics- but she did know what she thought of his chances of making any kind of improvement in the Peacekeepers. On the other hand, she decided that she was not the best person to judge and certainly not the best person to try and persuade. This diplomacy stuff was best left to others.

Aeryn realized after he left that she had not done a thorough search of the room even though she had spent so much time in it. She didn't know for sure that there was no other way out, or that there wasn't something left that could be used as a weapon. She wanted to be prepared when John came for her.

It was when she was digging through the drawer of miniature tools, looking for something hat might be able to do some damage, that Scorpius came in, without Broc and with a contingent of armed soldiers. Worst of all, he was between her and the bed.

The transport pod arrived from Earth fairly quickly. Communications had been brief, since they had no idea if the Peacekeepers could listen in or not, so John was planning on briefing everyone when they arrived.

The first one off was a familiar face. It was the man John knew as Red, and he was making no attempt to try to hide his excitement as he looked around at the first alien spaceship he had ever seen. John introduced Jool and Curly. Red gave them a nod, and moved to the side to allow others to disembark. Several soldiers followed him out, a couple of them holding the arms of a handcuffed prisoner. He was dressed in a Peacekeeper uniform, and looked like a typical Peacekeeper- dark hair, dark eyes, and a surly expression.

"We captured him near Nyngan, in New South Wales. We had a tip from a self- proclaimed ufologist named, uh, Moe something. He ejected from the prowler before it went down. It was totally destroyed. It turns out they don't stand up to anti- aircraft missiles very well," Red said, a trifle smugly.

"He must have given you some trouble," John said, pointing to the cut on Red's forehead that was held together by stitches.

"No," Red shook his head, looking a little embarrassed. " I hit a kangaroo with my car. A big, red one. It just jumped out in front of me- there was nothing I could do about it. They're worse than hitting a deer. It's a good thing it was a rental."

John quirked a small smile." That kind of thing never happens to James Bond, does it?'

"It's a good thing Chiana isn't here," Jool said, her eyes riveted on the soldiers. "We'd be cleaning the drool off the floor with a mop."

"Yeah," Beth whispered. "With two of you doing it , it would get really bad."

"Are all human males that..uh..physically fit?" Jool asked, confidentially.

"Not by a long shot," beth said. Her timing was unfortunate as DK was the next one out of the transport pod.

DK held his hand out to Jool as introductions were made. She stared at it quizzically. There was a loud sound, as of someone clearing a very large throat, and Dk turned to see Curly putting out a paw and smiling broadly. Dk flinched at the smile, but bravely took the paw.

"Hello, Welcome aboard," Curly said, as politely as he could.

"Wow- he sounds like astrodog," Dk said, shaking the paw. Curly looked askance at Beth, who shrugged.

Jack and D'argo were the last ones out. "These are the fighters, John. They look like good warriors, even if they do have that strange and not very military name.."

"Before you call them manatees, D'argo, the name is an acronym. It means they can fight on land and sea and air."

"And Space,' one of the SEALS said, looking around in wonder.

"Jool will show you where to put the prisoner, and then take you up to command, where Crais is. I need to talk to my father."

John and Jack talked about Talyn as they went through the corridors to the Pilot's chamber. John thought that his father was still in a slight case of shock. He seemed to be still adjusting to the fact that he was on an alien spaceship, looking around curiously and soaking in everything he saw.

The Pilots' chamber elicited an an awe struck look, as did Ms. Pilot herself.

"This is incredible, John. The size- the beauty of it- this ship is magnificent."

"Thank you,” Ms Pilot said primly.

"Dad, this is Ms. Pilot. The Pilot species have their own names but we can't possibly pronounce them, so that's what we call her. Pilot, this is my father.'

"I am very pleased to meet the father of John Crichton. You have a fine son," Ms, Pilot said formally.

Jack shook the Pilot's claw, marveling at the purple and blue mottling on the chitinous skin. "It's an honor. I've heard a lot about your species, but I never really thought i would be able to meet one of you."

"Dad, I brought you here because I want you to command Talyn if worst comes to worst and we don't come back. or if Talyn is attacked while we are trying to rescue Aeryn. "

"John-" Jack Crichton was nonplused. "I know nothing about this- this alien craft. I 'm not the man for the job."

"You are the only one I trust. It is imperative that Talyn not fall into Peacekeeper hands, not only because he is an extremely powerful weapon, but because he is a person, and we don't want anything to happen to him. That's something I think no one else on earth will understand."

"I don't know- anything about this- this violent world you come from. It's been years since I made any decisions that - there are fine military leaders that could do this."

John leaned one hand on the control panel as he leaned towards his father. "Please dad, I need your help..I have to get them back.... Aeryn 's vulnerable- she's just had the baby..."

"She did?" he looked surprised, and John realized that he had neglected to tell him. " How can you live like this? how can you live a life that endangers your wife and child?"

"Da-ad, dad, when we started this -when we decided to have a baby, things were calm. relatively- for us, anyway. It was coming to earth that put us in danger again. "

"And you regret that," jack said, turning away from his son to watch the pilot playing the controls of the great ship like she was playing a grand piano.

"No. Listen. I have tried all this time- while I was away living in Oz- to live my life the way you would have wanted, to be the kind of man you would want me to be. But I know,' John said passionately," that I am not the son you want. I am not the one who died. But I need you right now. I need you to come through for me."

Jack sighed. "I'm sorry. I've never been good with loss. I didn''t mean to hurt you with it. Of course I will do it. If you have faith in me, i must be the right person." he smiled at John and clapped him on the shoulder.

"Thanks, dad," John said, nodding. A great weight had been lifted from him.

When they got to command, Jool was busy giving out translator microbe shots. Red breezed by them, saying he was on his way to interrogate the prisoner.

"No thanks. I've already had some,' Dk said, and picked up a DRD that was scooting around his feet, turning it upside down to look at the underside. "Wonderful mechanism," he muttered to himself.

Soon all parties could understand each other. They stood around the strategy table, which had Aeryn's purloined picture in the center of it, surrounded by maps of the inside of the command Carrier, while Crais outlined the plan.

"We're taking a prowler in, disguised as the prowler that crashed on Earth. We have the security codes for the command carrier and the ident chip from the prisoner and peacekeeper uniforms. After the command carrier grants us access, D'argo's ship will slip in behind us, cloaked."

"You mean like a Romulan Bird of Prey?" DK asked, shaking the drd a little. It was whirring and flailing its antennae in consternation.

An officer who appeared to be in his late thirties and in charge, described the usual plan for infiltration and exfiltration. 'we send only one or two guys in, and the rest of us lie in wait to facilitate exfiltration. We create a diversion, if needed, to distract from the fact that someone is escaping."

"Doesn't that make it difficult for the men creating the diversion to get out?" Crais asked, his eyebrows furrowed. the officer gave him a skeptical look. John expected a 'well, duh," to pass his lips, but it didn't. "Yes, it does. That's why it's a good idea for them to stay closer to the escape route."

"Crais and I are going in. We only need three or four of you on D'argo's ship."

All eyes turned to John, waiting for him to explain. "Crais and I know our way around the Peacekeeper world. Crais was one,and I have managed to pass as one before. We need some people here to protect this ship, and besides, that's all the enemy uniforms we have. My father, jack Crichton, will be in charge of this vessel during the rescue and permanently if the outcome is- not good."

"Why him?" someone asked. "What's his rank? Military experience ?"

"He will be in charge because he will be the one the ship listens to," John said. Talyn bleeped and gurgled in reply, "Dad?" John prompted.

"Uh- Talyn, show them your weapons," jack said.

Guns swiveled out of unseen places overhead.

"Talyn, put them away," he said again, this time as if he had been commanding armed leviathan gun ships from birth.

"Do you think you understand the mission?" John said.

The leader nodded. He took his eyes away from where the weaponry now peacefully resided and addressed John. "Yes. We rescue your wife and child so that this ship can protect earth form *that*," talking about the command carrier easily visible in the view screen. 'Seems simple enough to me"

""There is a possibility that the baby will no longer be with Aeryn," Crais said as John winced. "Our last intel is that they were here, but the baby might be in the neonate recruit ward, which is here," crais indicated on the map.

"I have rigged these DNA testers." Jool added. "I don't have the babies DNA, but I have both parents on file. You just hold it up to an exposed piece of skin- it works almost instantaneously."

John was not happy with the implications if this either, but of course it was true. He couldn't expect to recognize his own daughter when he had never met her.

"We still don't know if these primitive weapons will work against armored soldiers," crais pointed out.

"Did you bring the armor up?" John asked. Crais gestured to where a battered piece of black armor was lying against the floor. John walked over to it and propped it against the wall, then he stepped back from it. ." Take a shot"' he invited.

One of the seals shrugged and leveled his H&K Mp5 and a short burst of gunfire ensued. A tight pattern of holes appeared in the armor, with very small cracks radiating from them. Talyn made an angry noise.

"They work, " John said,

DK dropped the drd, which immediately went over and started digging bullets out of Talyn.

"Doesn't that hurt the ship?" DK said, going over and picking up the armor.

"Not in that location," Crais said., with a baleful glance at John.

"Well, it's obvious that the armor absorbed most of the blow," Dk said. "That was very bad scientific method, John."

We don't have time for anything else," John said. "let's move."

John stopped by the cell to see if red had learned anything from the prisoner. He found that the peacekeeper stripped down it his skivvies, since they had need of his uniform. He also looked quite frightened, even though John was sure Red couldn't have done anything too terrible to him- he was unmarked and Beth and Curly were watching from outside the cell.

"I haven't learned much- is it likely that he's telling the truth? That he could have known very little about the mission that he was sent on?"

"That's the way they operate," John said, as he stepped into the cell and ripped the ident chip from the man's neck.

Well, I'll keep trying," Red said. "Good Luck."

After John left, Beth asked, "Why aren't you going?"

"I'm not as well trained for this kind of thing," Red said. " Don't worry, the government sent you the best of the best. "

"That's not what I'm worried about," beth said thoughtfully. . "I'm worried....that we might be too late."

"Why?" Red asked, taking her very seriously.

"Well..two things. The first is that he seems to have first taken adults, and then younger and younger children, evidently for medical experiments. The second is that he has made no real demands or tried to contact us at all recently. It's simple logic," she shrugged. "Maybe he has made no demands because he already has what he wants."

"Why didn't you tell John that?" Red asked.

"I didn't think it would help him any," Beth said sadly, her worried blue eyes having the same expression as Curly's brown ones.

"You're probably right," Red said. "It will be okay, Beth. It has to. Aeryn hasn't seen Disneyland yet."

'But what about the baby?" Beth thought, but she didn't say anything. As he and Beth walked down the corridor together, their footsteps heavy and slow, Curly asked," What's Disneyland?"

Aeryn was frozen with fear as the long, twisted hands with the sharp nails, almost as long as claws, reached down and picked up the baby. Miranda stirred a little, and Aeryn started forward, only to be stopped by the many pulse rifles pointed at her. Scorpius handled her surprisingly carefully, trying to avoid scratching her, an almost sappy smile on his face.

"You have to support her head," Aeryn said helplessly.

Scorpius adjusted the baby's position so that her head was resting on the crook of his arm. "Such a beautiful child , really, ' he said, peering into the tiny sleeping face. "I think she looks like her father. So tell me, Aeryn Sun.' he said switching his gaze to Aeryn's horrified face," would you love her so much if she were not a viable offspring?"

"Do you mean if she were a monster like you?" she retorted. "She would still be my child." Immediately regretting her sharp remark while Scorpy held her life in his hands, she changed her tone. " Let me have her, please."

"No," Scorpius said slowly. "I've got her. I need you to come with me."

"I can carry her,' Aeryn said reasonably. "We'll go where ever you need us to."

"I know you will,' Scorpius said.

Aeryn wondered where they were going as she followed Scorpius. It was entirely possible, she thought, that they were going to Command to pacify John, to let him know that they were okay. Or maybe John was already here, and Scorpy wanted her close to use as a bargaining chip. She was surprised when Scorpy went to a part of the ship that she had never seen before. She was led to a small room, with an even smaller room inside, with clear walls and a single examining table on it. There was a console in front of the room, but she had no idea what it controlled.

"Where's the captain? " Aeryn demanded. "Does he know about this? You are frelled if something happens to us, you know that."

"We have no intention of harming you, Aeryn Sun," Scorpius said soothingly. He went into the small room and placed Miranda on the examining table. The soldiers tried to block Aeryn from going in, but she pushed past them. She was unable to push past Scorpius, though. With his great strength, he dragged her out of the room quickly, the door closing and locking behind them. "Let me in there," she snarled. "I want to be with my baby."

"No, you don't," Scorpius said mildly.

"Why not? What are you going to do to her?"

"Aren't you the least bit curious, Aeryn Sun, as to whether your child is prone to heat delirium? Whether she has inherited natural immunity from her father or is as susceptible as the rest of us?"

"No," Aeryn barked. What the frell was he going on about? She finally realized what was going on when the woman with the dark purple hair who was sitting behind the console reported to Scorpius. "The room is already at optimum plus three and the brain waves look fine , sir."

Miranda was still sleeping peacefully, not aware that anything was wrong. "Oh, no," said Aeryn. "Not that."

"There's a very good chance that the infant will survive," Scorpius said calmly. "All of the humans did. Crank it up to plus five," he directed.

Miranda started to fuss softly. Aeryn looked around her for help that she knew wouldn't be forthcoming. The men Scorpius had brought with him had stony faces and refused to meet her eyes. In desperation she grabbed the console behind her and lifted her body up, smashing her feet against the door of the smaller room. The angle wasn't good- the equipment was not directly in front of the door and she got less leverage that way. She felt like she had pulled something loose inside- she felt a stabbing pain, and the muscles of her abdomen and inner thighs and even her arms were reminding her that she had sorely used them giving birth a short time ago. But she persevered. The soldiers made no move to stop her- in fact, they drew further away from her and milled restlessly.

"That's a useless activity," Scorpy said, sounding mildly irritated. "You might as well just wait until it's over."

Broc was in Command when he was contacted. There had been more activity after the transport pod went down to earth and came back, but he had no idea what they were planning.

"We need to count them," he said to himself.

"Count?" asked Braca hesitantly.

Broc scowled at him. What was the idiot doing on the bridge anyway? He didn't think he ever left his master's side. "You know, 1..2..3...how many ships go down, how many come back up, what our sensors tell us they're carrying.." the thought completely left his head when the message came in on a private comm channel that Scorpius had removed the woman and the baby from his quarters. He barked out a few orders and turned to go.

"Where are you going?" Braca asked in a worried voice.

It suddenly occurred to Broc that Braca was there to keep tabs on him. "None of your damn business."

He took the situation in at a glance when he found Scorpius. The baby was wailing loudly. She was locked in a torture chamber, used for softening up stubborn Sebacean prisoners, and Aeryn was kicking the dren out of it. Making some progress, too, as he could see. The wall was starting to bend inward and there were cracks running through it.

"Stop it, Aeryn! If she doesn't stop it, just- shoot her," Scorpius ordered, his patience at an end.

When Broc walked in Aeryn stopped momentarily to plead with him, panting heavily "He's.. going to kill her. He's going to give her the living death."

He had never seen such fear on anyone's face- not fear for someone else's life, at any rate. He walked up to her, looking her straight in the eyes, and cold cocked her. She went down at his feet.

"Optimum plus fifteen, sir, and holding," Foy said calmly. The baby quit crying and lay listlessly, little beads of sweat on her forehead. Broc picked up Aeryn's crumpled form and left without a word.

After depositing Aeryn on the bed in his quarters, he spoke to the two guards. "If any of Scorpius's men show up here again, shoot them."

"Sir?" one of the guards squeaked.

"That's an order," Broc said firmly.

"Yes, sir," the guard said.

By the time he got back to the interrogation room, it was all over. The purple haired lackey was still recording data, but everyone else was gone.

"Where's the infant?" Broc demanded. "What happened?"

"The infant survived. It was actually quite amazing. Optimum plus twenty for 500 microts with no registerable brain damage."

"Where is she?" he said between gritted teeth.

"I don"t know," she said, pursing her lips. "Scorpius has her."

By the time he got to Adria's door, Broc was an emotional wreck. not that it showed on the outside, or affected his resolve. The events since they had made Aeryn a hostage had not only challenged his world view, but had given him an eerie sense of deja vu. Aeryn reminded him so much of her mother, and in many ways, her father as well, he admitted reluctantly to himself. The baby in the Hotroom had given him a horrible remembrance of being in the radiation filled chamber with Risa. Had Meara and Talyn looked like that when they were trying frantically to save them? He didn't know, but he did know that he wouldn't be here now if they hadn't risked their lives for him. The fact that he had left that child there weighed heavily on him.

"Adria, I've just done the worst thing I've ever done in my life. I need to fix it. Will you help me?"

The crew of were making unnecessary runs back and forth to Earth, in the hopes that the Peacekeepers would lose track of their comings and goings. The Seals were outfitted and briefed on the typical rough interactions between peacekeepers, in case they were in a position where they had to speak to someone.

Before John and Crais left to go to Earth, he spoke to Ms. Pilot from the Prowler. "Now, I want you to make it look good, but not too good, capeche?"

"No Capische," she answered. "How can I make it look too good?"

"That means, don't *hit* me, all right?"

"We will do our best," she said.

D'argo was ready to go as soon as John flew the Prowler back from Earth, waiting in his Luxan vessel with four of the Navy men.

"Okay, I have to say I approve of their uniforms.. This jacket is hot! especially on me," one of them said, adjusting the collar and preening.

"You must need to loosen that collar, Larry. You're losing oxygen to your brain." another one laughed.

Another one was staring at the picture of Aeryn that had been copied and passed around. *That's* an alien?"

Well, Crais is , too," Larry said logically.

"Yeah, but she's too pretty to be an alien."

"Well, did you see the abs on that Jool chick?"

"Hey, D'argo!" one of them said.' Are *all* space babes this gorgeous?"

D'argo turned around from the Pilot's seat. "You haven't even met Chiana yet," he said. "oops- time to get down to business," he said, as a Prowler came streaking up from Earth. Talyn turned and fired a close shot across its bow. It took all of D'argo's skill with the ship to get behind John before he was swallowed up in the Command Carrier's enormous craw. He could hear John announcing himself as their lost pilot. He was told that the docking web was broken and he would have to land himself, but otherwise than that, they seemed to buy it. D'argo veered off to find a place where the ship might escape detection. He found one shortly, although he knew it might cause trouble getting out again- he flew it into the hold of a larger ship. After the men bailed out, he powered down the ship, set the shields and waited, wishing for the first time in his life that he was Sebacean, or at least looked like one.

Adria appeared to be a little nervous as she put her hand on the door lock. 'I reprogrammed it to accept my handprint," she said. Broc gave her a sharp look. "They can't trace it to me," she reassured him." Do you really think its a good idea to invade Scorpius's private territory?"

"He invaded mine," he said grimly. Luckily the laboratory was deserted when they went in.

"How do you know the baby isn't with Scorpius?" Adria asked.

"She's not. He's in his quarters."

Adria looked at him askance.

"I have them under surveillance," broc admitted. "But I don't have the security clearance to even get in here."

Almost immediately they were greeted by a corpse on a slab, wearing what was left of an IASA uniform and appearing well worked over. It didn't help Broc's feeling of growing sick dread. Adria looked at it, commented,' the least they could do is clean up after themselves," and gently pushed a dangling arm back on the slab and rolled the entire thing into the wall. She then turned her attention to data retrieval. within a few microts she was into Scorpius' system and reading about his research.

Broc opened one sliding drawer after another, hoping not to find one particular small form. What he did find horrified and sickened him. He wasn't a particularly squeamish man- he had seen many grisly sights on the battlefield but he wasn't on a battlefield now and he knew that the bodies in here were of people who were not at war with him- not the enemy. Men women and children. they had second and third degree burns, some of them, and cuts, and every last one had the tops of their skulls removed and all or parts of their brains dissected. He looked at the last body he had found, a prepubescent girl with what remained of long blonde hair, and said." but they look so *Sebacean*."

He sighed and rolled the drawer back into the wall. "Aeryn was right,' he said, leaning against the wall.

"Right about what?' Adria said, giving him a sympathetic look. she turned back to the screen in front of her while she was waiting of his answer but suddenly gasped. "By chilnak! this is it!"

Broc moved quickly so he could see what she was looking at. "What? What is it?

"This! " she said, pointing. "As well as the heat experiments, Scorpius has been taking a lot of tissue and DNA samples, brain fluid and the like. All of them have been matched against one person, one person who is looking for a donor with themselves as the only possible recipient."

"Scorpius?" he asked, catching on.

"Do you know any other Scarren/Sebacean half breeds? It's all there in the DNA." she looked up at him, excited.

"You mean this- all this- is for him?" he growled.

"Yes," she said brightly.

"Which means.." Broc said slowly,' that we've got him. He's been lying to high Command. None of this is going to help the peacekeepers, its only for some purpose of his own."

"Yes," Adria said, nodding.

"Is Miranda on file?" he asked.

"Let me see..yes, " she said slowly. "She's just listed as a Human/Sebacean cross and Broc,' she said fearfully," she's the best match here."

"Well, before we do anything about Scorpius, then ,we will have to find that child," he said grimly." Where would you put a baby?" he asked.

"If I didn't want to take care of it? With the babytechs. In the babyward."

On their way out Broc spotted another body lying on an examining table with straps over its middle and legs. He stopped, mostly because there wasn't any reason to tie down a corpse. It was a small child, much larger than Miranda, with red hair and a colorful outfit. For some reason the delicate features still looked male to him.

"This one's still alive,' Broc said, putting a hand on the small chest.

Adria reached over and delicately lifted up one tiny eyelid. "Drugged," she said, noting the hugely dilated pupils. "What should we do?" for some reason she was whispering.

Broc shrugged. "We'll have to come back for him."

The babytech appeared nervous and not at all flattered that the captain of the ship wanted to see the neonate recruit ward. The blank look on her face when he asked if anything unusual had occurred convinced him that she had not seen a leather-clad nightmare bring in a small baby.

"How many infants do you have here?" Broc asked.

"I don't know," she shrugged. "I don't have to," she explained hastily. "I'm only responsible for these five. This is my station. We each take care of five- they are changed and fed on a schedule, and we have to pick them up and talk to them for several hundred microts every day. If you don't, they don't develop properly," she finished conscientiously.

Broc walked around, looking in the little bassinets, with his hand's folded behind his back. "Everything looks fine. Carry on," he said officiously. One of the babies started crying softly. The babytech ignored the crying.

"Just go on with your job. I don't want to get in your way," Broc said.

"It's not his turn,' she shrugged.

As they walked to the next "station", Adria asked quietly." Are you sure we'll recognize her? They all look alike to me."

"I don't know, I think so," Broc said. "She's more - fair- than those infants- a little lighter hair and eyes." In truth, it was worrying Broc as well. It was difficult to make out any features in the small bundles of baby in the bassinets, and there were more newborns than he thought there would be. There were several stations with five children each. The next station had a male babytech- Broc didn't even bother to ask him any questions. No one looked like Miranda, so they left quickly. The station after that appeared to be deserted- their attention was drawn at once to a baby that was crying very loudly. The infant had uncovered itself, the little arms and legs pumping vigorously.

"That's her," Broc said, with a sigh of relief.

"Are you sure?" Adria asked doubtfully. The sign on the bassinet read Rylani Dellos. The baby was red in the face and didn't look at all like Adria remembered her.

"Yes,' Broc said. " she's the only one that expects anyone to answer her."

Broc reached down and brought her carefully out of the bassinet, the child dwarfed by his large hands. He brought her up to his chest and to where her head was resting under his chin. She quit crying, but her little body was wracked with small hiccups.

"You look like you know how to hold her," Adria said, but she sounded doubtful.

"I got to hold her right after she was born," Broc said, a small smile of surprising tenderness passing his lips and disappearing almost as quickly as it had appeared.

"Is she your daughter?" Adria burst out, curiosity getting the better of her.

Broc looked at her in disbelief. "Are you kidding? Aeryn gave birth right after getting here."

"No, that's not what I meant. I thought- Aeryn just seems so much like you, and you are so protective of her and " Adria stopped, embarrassed.

"Aeryn? No- I- I knew her parents before she was born. I'll tell you about it sometime,' he promised. " let's get you back to your mom, okay?" he said to Miranda.

No one attempted to stop them or ask why their captain was carrying away one of the new recruits.

"Rylani Dellos...Rylani Dellos...." Adria repeated to herself softly. "Why does that name seem so familiar? Oh..."She said, stopping in her tracks. "It's his mother's name. I found it in his files. Scorpius, that is. You know, if he had managed to get his hands on the baby when it was born, he could have exchanged her for another and no one would ever have been the wiser."

"That might have been what he was planning," Broc said, remembering that Scorpius had sent someone for Aeryn when she was in the prison cell not long after she got on board. They had stopped in a hallway outside the neonate recruit ward, which was not far from Scorpius's laboratory. "We need to split up. I will take the baby to Aeryn, and- take care of Scorpius. I want you to go back to that -that lab of his and get every vidchip and datachip you can lay your hands on that would incriminate him. And get that child and hide him until this is all over."

Adria took this in quickly. She was the logical person to go back to the lab- her handprint could get her in and she knew what to look for. "Yes, sir," she said, giving a little head nod and hurrying off with a little bounce to her step.

"Adria," Broc said softly," be careful."

"You too,' she smiled back at him.

The two guards were staying well back from the door and watching it instead of the corridor. Broc could hear muffled curses and heavy objects being thrown. A crashing sound left him worried about his belongings. and fervently wishing he had locked Aeryn up somewhere else

"Aeryn!" he called through the door. "It's me."

Silence reigned on the other side of the door.

"I have the baby with me,' he said, picturing something large and heavy about to crash down on his head. In fact, he heard something drop to the floor when he opened the door and right before Miranda was snatched out of his arms. Aeryn pulled away from him and examined the baby's face with her eyes, stroking the soft hair and running her fingers down her cheek. Then she quickly stripped the baby, looking over her entire small body for marks or injuries. Finally, she covered her back up and held her tightly to her body, sitting down on the bed abruptly.

Tears were flowing freely down her face as she spoke. "She looks like she's all right. And hungry" she added, as Miranda was sucking vigorously on her finger. Broc nodded. It made sense- the baby was probably a little dehydrated after her experience. He wisely decided not to say that to Aeryn.

He looked around the room as she nursed the baby. It was a shambles. Most of the rage seemed to be directed towards the door- a number of objects were piled up around it and there were even some small gouges in it, made, he thought, by his model building tools. He was going to have to replace all of them, and the models as well. Only one was intact- Talyn stood on his pedestal in lone splendor in the room. Oh, well, he shrugged. It was probably no more than he deserved.

"You can't get through the door,' Broc said mildly. "Why did you think I put you in here?"

""Scorpius did," she said shortly.

"He must have gotten my security codes. Aeryn, I had no idea he was going to do that. I'm sorry. Forgive me?" Broc was practically kneeling at her feet when he begged forgiveness, but her answer was not forgiving.

"How can you say that? What do peacekeepers know of mercy, or compassion, or forgiveness? How could you stand there and WATCH that? How could any of you?"

Broc reached under the bed and found the control he had been looking for. A portion of the floor slid away- he had forgotten exactly what the parameters of the secret door were and almost tumbled in. "Frell!"

Aeryn looked up from a small spot of blood on Miranda's head that she had been frowning over. "What the hezmana are you doing?"

"Getting you out of here. It's a bolt hole. It leads directly to a Prowler equipped and ready to go, with a stealth trajectory planned out- at least enough to get you away from the Command Carrier. "

"And I didn't find it?" Aeryn said incredulously.

"It wouldn't have worked for you, anyway. The lock's set for my DNA only.

"You obviously don't believe in going down with the ship."

"Not in all circumstances," Broc said, picking himself up from where he was sprawled across the floor. He took one of his sidearms and handed it to Aeryn.

"You really are letting me go?' she said, looking up at him with wide eyes. A smile of surpassing brilliance came across her face.

"Yeah, well, if you ever see your mother again, tell her-'

"I will," she said, grabbing the pulse pistol and going into action. The baby had fallen deeply and profoundly asleep after nursing. Aeryn found a duffel bag of Broc's and put some of the baby blankets in it for padding. "Knife,' she ordered. Broc handed her his knife and she sliced a couple of air holes in the side. Aeryn tucked the knife in her belt and placed the baby in he bag, face up, and zipped it almost all the way closed.

"I would like to escort you out,' Broc said, "but I need to arrest Scorpius before he tries a coup."

"Thank you," Aeryn said , with deep gratitude. "thank you for everything...and I'm sorry about your ships.' She gave him an embarrassed look.

Broc shrugged, and she climbed down the ladder- not an easy task, trying to keep the bag level. Broc realized that he had forgotten to tell Aeryn anything that he had learned about Scorpius. He leaned over- all he could see was the top of her raven hair. "Be careful. He wants the baby."

"I figured that part out already," she said. Then she was gone.

Broc gathered up the guards and called for reinforcements. he realized that the absence of guards might reveal to Scorpius quickly that Aeryn wasn't there, but he didn't see much sense in their risking their lives when there was nothing to protect, either.

Braca was in the rooms that Scorpius had commandeered as his own. He made a show of not letting them in, blustering and threatening, and reminding Broc of Scorpius' privileged position in Peacekeeper ranks, but Broc pushed his way in, only to find Scorpius gone.

''I know everything- enough to take Scorpius down," Broc said. "Tell me where he is, and what he's up to, and it might go easier for you."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Braca said, obviously confused. "But if you're trying to intimidate me, who do you think I'm more afraid of- you , or Scorpius?"

The wrong one," Broc said, and allowed himself the luxury of smashing Braca's weaselly face before they hauled him off to a jail cell.

John and Crais had split up after successfully and without incident infiltrating the Command Carrier. Crais headed towards the nurseries while John went to where they knew the Captain's quarters were located. Moving quickly but trying not to attract attention, he was relieved that there were no guards outside the door. The device Jool had given him to fool the genetic verification security also worked successfully. The very large and heavy door slid open but what it revealed horrified him. The room was trashed- it looked like a terrible struggle had taken place.

"Crap. crap. crap!" He took only a second to decide what to do next. he would head to the holding cells- if Aeryn had given them this much trouble- if she were still alive, but he wouldn't think about that- they had probably locked her up, and he was going to find her if he had to search the entire frelling ship.

Crais's plan was to bluff his way into the recruit wards and surreptitiously test all the babies he found. Hopefully the child would have a big sign over it, saying "hostage" or maybe an armed guard. That would make things a lot easier. His path took him close to Scorpius's laboratory and he was surprised to encounter a female soldier in the hallway carrying a small child. It was much too old to be John and Aeryn's he knew, but it looked injured or dead and was wearing a colorful outfit with an outrageous design- some kind of strange blue animal with floppy ears . It had to be one of the missing Earth children.

He drew his weapon and aimed it at the woman. 'Put the child down," he ordered.

She froze, looking at him, putting a hand to the back of the child's neck as its head rested on her shoulder.

"I said, Put the child down...back away slowly. I'm going to take him back."

She looked him in the eye. "No,' she said softly. "I won't let you."

Crais raised his gun to aim higher, hoping to get a clear shot over the small red head.

She was going to contact Talyn and let John know she was out as soon as she was out of the frag cannon's range- no , before that even- hoping that Broc still would have control of his own ship, Aeryn thought as she ran down the corridors. The promised Prowler was in sight when she heard the voice behind her. She almost screamed with the frustration- she had been so close.

"Leaving so soon, Officer Sun?" Scorpy said.

The peacekeeper pilot waited until he was sure he was entirely alone and forgotten in his cell. The fork that the redheaded almost -Sebacean -looking female had given him to eat his meal with would do nicely to short out the lock. He knew quite a bit more than they thought he did about what they were planning- the humans had kept forgetting that just because they didn't understand him did not mean he couldn't understand them, and they had talked in the transport pod about their plans to sneak aboard the Command Carrier. If he could only find a way to contact Scorpius, he was sure he could foil their plans.

He had successfully jimmied the lock and had gone a few quiet steps down the corridor when he heard a low rumbling noise. He looked around, expecting to see that he had been detected by a drd, but he saw nothing. He heard little clacks coming form the bend in the corridor ahead of him, and he froze. A microt later, a huge mouthful of teeth backed up by fur came rushing at him. He turned and ran, barely getting back into his cell before a quarter- sakmar of vorlag came crashing down on the bars. He hung onto the door, keeping it closed, and the hardened veteran, a survivor of both the Gammack base explosion and the criminal Crichton's destruction of the Command carrier that Scorpius had hijacked from Crais, and the committer of many atrocities of war, screamed like a squeezed fellip for help.

Adria stared into the eyes of the stranger, someone unknown to her but who was obviously working for Scorpius. He looked determined not to let her take the child. She was surprised by her own determination not to let the child be taken back to have Scorpius's horrible experiments performed on him. She bent down carefully, complying with his order, and deposited the child on the floor, putting her hand under his head so that it would not flop suddenly and bang against the ground. The gun followed her all the way down, still aiming at her head.

Suddenly, Adria dropped all the way, pulling her gun and firing quickly. The man's shot went over her head, but she could see that she had hit him twice, somewhere in the middle of his body. He went down, his weapon falling out of his hand.

John had to duck into a side corridor as someone familiar went by. It wouldn't be good for Braca to recognize him, even though Braca seemed to be in some kind of trouble, being led off in handcuffs and bleeding quite satisfactorily from his nose. He heard the sound of exchanged fire from the other end of the side corridor , and ran down it, expecting to find Crais or Aeryn or even one of the seals fighting peacekeepers. Instead he found a handful of people fighting, and none of them his people, so he quickly ducked out of sight again. "What the frell is going on around here?" he asked himself.

Aeryn turned slowly to face Scorpius, who most definitely had the drop on her. The power of her glare should have been enough to kill him, but he stood unscathed. She held the bag nonchalantly in her left hand, hoping that he didn't know what it contained, and leaving her right hand free to go for her gun.

"You misunderstand my intentions, Aeryn," Scorpius said, in a very familiar manner. 'Your child is much too valuable to me for me to wish to harm her. i am prepared to offer her, and you, the best of lives. I do not wish to part you from your offspring. I have the power to get you reinstated, your sins forgiven. Rylani will have a place by my side, where no one can ever harm her."

It took Aeryn a microt or two to realize that he was referring to Miranda. "That's not the way I hear it,' she said carefully, wondering if she should be telling him. "I hear that you're going to be lucky to escape court martial."

For a moment, fear appeared in Scorpius' eyes. 'It appears that I have underestimated our esteemed Captain,' he said. 'No matter. I'm sure that I can get in High Command's good graces again."

"My child will never be a Peacekeeper."

"Would you rather she were dead?" Scorpius said insinuatingly.

"She's just a little baby," Aeryn blurted out angrily. "What could you possibly want with her?"

"She's not just a baby, she's my salvation," Scorpius said. he took a step towards Aeryn, his arms outstretched invitingly. "I am dying. I lose brain cells every time I start to overheat, and what do I have if not my incredible mind? In my research, I discovered that humans very minds are resistant to heat- the cells themselves recover from heat, accident and injury. It's quite astonishing. But alas, none of the humans I tested were compatible with me- even the very young, with their undifferentiated cells. When i discovered that you were to bear the first Sebacean/Human offspring, I hoped- when she turned out to be compatible with me, I knew it was fate."

"You would- steal her brain, leaving her a vegetable?" Aeryn said, horrified.

'A few cells here and there- at this age, she may very well adapt and have a normal intelligence. It's a small price to pay for the good I do the peacekeepers. Your people need me Do you have any idea what it means to me- what it would be like not to live with the pain of the coolant rods piercing my brain every day."

"I know you are obsessed with my family's brains. It's a sickness, and you should leave us the the frell alone." Aeryn was furious. Did he expect her to understand? To accept his sick plan? To feel *sorry* for him?

"I was afraid you would feel that way. You should be lauded for your maternal instincts. But-' Scorpy said, aiming carefully at her," you will come with me or I will kill you and take the child."

Aeryn moved towards him slowly and reluctantly, carrying the duffel bag carefully by her side to make sure Miranda would be out of the way in case he decided to shoot anyway. When she got close enough she suddenly lunged and struck at his outstretched arm, knocking the pulse pistol flying, and brought her arm back quickly, burying Broc's knife in Scorpius' neck. He howled in pain and anger, but his first move was to grab for the bag. Unfortunately the knife was hung up on Scorpius's thick leather armor, somewhere around his collarbone. Aeryn twisted the knife with a sawing motion, trying desperately to hit something vital, while keeping a death grip on the bag. Scorpius put his left hand around her neck, squeezing. His sharp teeth showing and his mouth wide open, he growled into her face.

The struggle for control over the duffel bag was intense but restrained, neither party willing to endanger its precious contents. Aeryn's ponytail hung down her back as Scorpius bent her head back.

He pressed his body closer to hers and said, "This is very stimulating, my dear, but you cannot hope to prevail against my greater physical strength."

Aeryn now tried to withdraw the knife. Maybe a knife in his neck wouldn't work, but she was sure she could get it into his eye socket or into the cooling rod chambers. A shattered cooling rod had to be fatal.

"You can't hurt me," Scorpius said, almost indulgently.

"I'll bet I can," an unfamiliar voice drawled behind them. Scorpius straightened up, just enough to give the stranger a clear shot. With a loud report, he was hit on the upper left hand side. The force of the shot jerked him backwards , but he still hung on to Aeryn. She wrenched the handles of the bag form his hand, and pushed him away from her as he was hit again. As he fell backward away from her, she followed him down, hitting an kicking in an excess of fury.

"Die, Damn you! DIE!"

What brought her to her senses was not the hand at her elbow or the voice of the earnest faced young man who belonged to it, but the sound of Miranda crying. The gunshots and her carrier bouncing around had finally awakened her.

"We have to go," the man said. " They're coming."

Despite the Peacekeeper uniform, she could tell instantly that he wasn't a Peacekeeper- from the friendly face to the accent And he was right- she could hear footsteps charging down on him.

"Aeryn, I presume? I'm Larry. We have to get out of here." He grabbed her by the arm and pulled. As they left the room, Aeryn tried to go back. She could see Scorpius struggling to his feet, heading for the Prowler she had been hoping to escape on. "No, NO! " she said,"You're frelling it up! He's getting away!"

Crais waited for the Peacekeeper to finish him off. She came close to him, but all she did was kick his gun away and leave, picking up the child and running away with him, his head and pajama covered feet bouncing in time to her footsteps.

He was relieved that she hadn't hit him a little lower down, he thought as he tried to assess the damage. He also wasn't in much pain- which wasn't good. It took him a microt to realize that he couldn't feel anything from the waist down and couldn't move his legs at all. He was about to call Crichton when the news came in on the private comm channel. They had found Aeryn and were heading for D'argo's ship.

"Crais! Did you hear that?" John called. "Where are you? We have to get out of here. They're going to blow the docking bay doors as soon as we all get out of here. "

"I'm not going to tell you,'Crais gasped. Try as he might to sound self-sacrificing, it came out rather petulantly.

"What?' John exclaimed. "What kind of stupid-ass stunt are you pulling?"

"I've been shot. It's bad. I don't think I'm going to make it. You go on, get out of here."

"Crais, don't be an idiot. I'm coming to get you."

"John, do you really think Aeryn's going to leave here without you? Now go!" He turned off the comm so he didn't have to listen to Crichton's answer. Knowing that he didn't want to face the inevitable court-martial and imprisonment following his capture- provided he even survived interrogation- he crawled towards the pulse pistol lying a few feet away. If he were lucky, he would be able to end it all before someone happened upon him or that Peacekeeper who shot him sent someone for him.

"Aeryn!' D'argo looked thrilled to see her.

"Where's John?" She said, looking around D'argo's ship as if she thought he was hiding him there.

"He's been looking for you. He knows you're here, he's on his way."

Larry left again without a word. Aeryn sat down in the chair beside D'argo's while he pulled the ship out of its hiding place deftly and sat waiting, shields down and exposed. Aeryn opened the duffel bag and took a look at Miranda , who was still complaining. She put her head in close and made some shushing noises, and bounced the bag on her knee, without removing her from it.

"Baby?" D'argo asked, smiling.

"mmhmm," Aeryn said, smiling. After Miranda went back to sleep, she asked," Who was that man?"

"John got some help from Earth. He and Crais came in on a Prowler."

"Who's with Talyn?"

"John's father." It didn't take long, with D'argo trying to catch Aeryn up on events, before they heard a loud explosion and saw two peacekeepers running for the ship.

"They're ours," D'argo said. D'argo continued waiting for a few more microts, confused communications flying back and forth. Two more men showed up, one helping the other , who was limping along. Aeryn could see that it was Larry.

"He caught some shrapnel," the other man explained, as they heaved him into the ship. D'argo immediately set the shields and turned the ship, heading for space.

"Where is John?" Aeryn said dangerously.

"He was on his way out," D'argo said uncomfortably. "He's fine if he got to his ship before they blocked the doors." D'argo hit his comm unit, " Jack- this is D'argo. We have Aeryn and we're on our way. As soon as you hear from John and Crais, fire on the Command Carrier."

Aeryn shook her head in frustration. "No, don't" she said leaning over and speaking into D'argo's comm.

"Why not?' D'argo asked, surprised.

"It's too long to explain. Just don't do it," Aeryn said.

"We won't fire until your say so,' Jack said.

"Good," Aeryn said, leaning back, relieved.

"And may I say, I am very happy to hear your voice," John's father continued.

"Thank you," she said. She then ripped the comm unit off D'argo's chest and yelled into it. "John! Where the hezmana are you?'

There was no answer.

The injured Seal was carried off the Luxan ship first. Jool and Beth were waiting with a gurney, which D'argo gently deposited him onto. He then reached over and attempted to grab a piece of shrapnel protruding from Larry's side. A large smacking noise was heard as Beth slapped his hand. "No!" she barked at him. 'You never try to remove the object until you get to the emergency room. He could start bleeding uncontrollably. Don't you guys have your own medic?'

"Yeah, That's him," one of the men said, as they started wheeling him to the medical bay. Beth followed them, while Jool ran ahead.

Aeryn stepped out of the ship cradling a duffel bag in her arms. "Where's John?" she asked, not caring that she kept repeating herself.

"Aeryn! Oh, god, am I glad to see you. Would you care to tell me why we shouldn't fire on the Command Carrier?" Jack asked.

"They let me go. The captain and Scorpius have a difference of opinion. I think Scorpius got away, though," she said looking distracted. "Have you heard from John?"

"Commander Crichton is coming in now," Ms. Pilot reported. "I do not appreciate it when he flies that fast," she said primly.

Aeryn sighed in relief as John came bounding out of the Prowler. She put the bag carefully on the floor and took a step towards him, and then stopped, waiting for him to come to her. He swept her up in his arms,hands on her hair, crushing her to him. She let him, relaxing into him, enjoying the feeling of being home.

"Oh, Aeryn. I was so scared. Are you all right?"

"Yes," she gasped, suddenly feeling like crying.

John pulled back and cradled her head in his hands. "What did they do to you?" he demanded.

"I'm fine. Really. I love you and I'm just glad to be home," she said, her lower lip curling over her upper lip. He looked into her eyes deeply, his blue eyes filled with love and tenderness. He caressed her nose with his and kissed her, softly at first and then quite thoroughly. She then laid her head on his shoulder and hung on, letting him comfort her. He was murmuring words of endearment in her ears when he stopped. "love you, baby- baby. Where's the baby?'

"OH." Aeryn said, her eyebrows lifting. " Hold on."

She bent down and opened the bag. Miranda blinked at the light when she was taken out of her warm comfortable bed.

"Hold out your arms," Aeryn said, and placed the baby in his arms, unwrapping her from the blankets so that John could see her better. She made a funny little head nod, purely unconsciously, hat she had previously reserved for Talyn and Curly. "Look what we have," she smiled proudly.

"Look at you,' he said, admiring her. ' Oh, you are the most beautiful thing in the universe...except for your mother. " he looked up from the baby and smiled, tears in his eyes. ' You did good, Aeryn."

"Thank you," she said smugly. "I think so."

The baby turned her head back and listened intently when John started babbling baby talk at her. "I think she recognizes my voice,' he said to Aeryn as he jiggled Miranda in his arms.

"She should. You talked to her enough before she was born."

"Hey, can Grandpa take a look?" jack Crichton asked.

"Sure, Dad,' John said, turning slightly so that he could see the baby.

'It looks like you're both okay," Jack said to Aeryn. " I guess all's well that ends well."

"Not exactly," Jon said, a shadow of guilt passing over his face. " I left Crais behind."

"Not Crais," Aeryn said.

"He didn't leave me much choice. He might already be dead- I don't know."

"It might not be a problem- getting him back. I think Broc would be reasonable- providing he keeps control of his ship," Aeryn said.

"There seemed to be some kind of internal war going on when I was there." John said.

"Broc's men against Scorpius's. And if Scorpius escaped, as I think he did..."

"A prowler left short;y before D'argo's ship. We didn't know who it was, and it wasn't heading towards earth, so we let it go." Jack said. holding his arms out. "May I?"

A cold wet nose followed by a pair of bright brown eyes shoved its way in. " She's very pretty." Curly said. "...for a biped."

"She won't be a biped for a while, Curly," John laughed as he handed the baby to Jack.

"Aren't you supposed to be guarding the prisoner, Curly?" Jack asked.

"He wasn't doing anything.." Curly whined," so I thought I would take a little break...if I'm gone for a while, maybe he'll sneak out and ..I mean, if he got out, I could always track him down."

"I missed you,t oo , Curly," Aeryn said, scratching him behind the ears. He thumped his tail happily.

"So what are we going to do?" D'argo asked," just wait until we see who wins?"

John looked over at Aeryn, who gave him a little nod. "yes," John said. "That's exactly what we're going to do. We''ll come up with a plan after that."

"I think she looks like Winston Churchill," DK said. Jack furrowed his brow at him. "Don't all babies look like Winston Churchill?" D'argo held out his arms to take the baby from Jack, but he smoothly avoided him and kept talking to his granddaughter.

"I do get her back, don't I?" Aeryn whispered to John, observing the crowd around the baby.

"Oh, yeah, as soon as she needs to be changed or fed," he said, putting an arm around her waist." Why did you say, Not Crais?" he asked, without a tinge of jealousy.

"It would be better if it were anyone besides Crais. Broc happens to hate Crais."

"This guy has very hairy legs," Beth commented as she cut down the length of the leg of the peacekeeper uniform. "I thought Seals shaved their legs or something, so they could get into a wet suit. "

"He does have a lot of fur," Jool commented. "He looks like a vorlag in Seals clothing..."

"Oh? You have that expression, too?" Beth said. "Although its really Peacekeeper clothing."

"What expression?" Jool asked blankly. Beth giggled, but not too much. They were both very busy working on stopping Larry's bleeding and getting him stabilized. "I'm really glad to have you here," Jool said. "Usually I have to do everything myself. The only person who helped me out in the infirmary was Crais."

This was said in such a sad voice that Beth took notice. Even thought Jool hadn't reacted much when they learned Crais was still on the Command Carrier, Beth thought she detected a little more sense of personal loss than she had been led to believe.

"They'll get him back, Jool," she said. "Even if we have to do the whole thing over again- another rescue mission- John will not leave him there."

Jool sighed. "If he's still alive."

Broc circled around Crais, his hands behind his back. Crais was helpless to even look behind him while Broc did it- he was bound in a medical stabilizer and flat on his back.

"You are everything I hate in a Peacekeeper," Broc said. "You represent the worst of us."

"What?" Crais said, blinking at him. 'I hardly know you."

"I know you,' Broc said. "I know about your private projects, your power plays, your bullying- I know that you were one of the most ruthless and irrational people in Command."

Crais could hardly believe it. He couldn't grasp that he was being criticized for what he had done as a Peacekeeper, and not being accused of being a traitor and a criminal. Not that he was going to bring it up.

He could still hear the boots marching around the bed. "I know you eliminated anyone who got in your way- that you didn't care if they had been loyal to you if they were inconvenient. You reigned with an iron fist, leaving terror and broken lives behind you."

"I was no worse than many," Crais squeaked.

"Do you think that excuses you? Do you think that there is any reason why I shouldn't turn you over to High Command to have all of your secrets squeezed out of you?'

Crais tried to think. Was there some way to make a deal? To strike some sort of bargain for his life? To placate this man who hated him for some reason that he was only vaguely aware of? "No. No, I don't."

The Captain came into his limited view and looked him square in the eyes. "Aeryn says you've changed."

"I have," Crais said eagerly. Then, more honestly.," I have.. tried."

Beth made her way to Command after they got the wounded soldier stabilized. She was anxious to greet Aeryn and see the new baby. When she got there, her father was trying to get a private moment with John. "Oh, no you don't," she said. "You hand over the baby first." Jack handed the baby to Aeryn with a sheepish grin.

"Thank you, Jack," she said, looking relieved to have Miranda in her arms again.

"Call me Dad," he smiled at her.

Aeryn just looked at him, completely bewildered. "It's a human custom- when you marry into a family, you call your father in law, Dad," he explained gently.

"Okay... Dad,' Aeryn said. Beth sidled up to her to look at the baby. "He was going to run off with her and not let me see her,' She said indignantly. "She's so pretty. She doesn't look anything like her cousin. "

"Her cousin?"

"Jason. He had dark hair when he was born and was kind of burly."

Aeryn didn't say it, but she was glad Miranda wasn't described as burly. She walked over to Red to show off the baby.

John was in a good mood. He knew it wasn't over and he wasn't happy about not knowing if Crais was alive or dead, but it was such an enormous relief to have Aeryn and the baby back safe and sound that nothing else really mattered.

"You know, I'm getting old," Jack commented as they walked away from the crowd.

"Oh, Dad you are not," John scoffed.

"Old enough to be set in my ways. Old enough to have trouble accepting duplicate sons and alien brides and spaceships threatening earth."

"I haven't been out here so long that I don't realize that those are things that would be difficult for anyone to accept, dad. "

"Granted. But I have a confession to make- I halfway expected this child to have four arms and be some strange color."

"Well, that was a possibility. A very small one." John said, seriously. His father looked at him twice to see if he was kidding, but he wasn't. Jack looked a little shocked- then he looked at the floor, as if ashamed of being shocked. He looked up again, his eyes meeting his son's. he reached put and put his hands on John's shoulders.

"I am proud of you," he said firmly, "I am proud of Aeryn- and I am absolutely amazed by that beautiful baby. I know that the two of you will be great parents, no matter how strange I find your lives."

John let his father pull him into a hug, patting his dad on the back and trying not to cry for the second time that day.

"So where's my cigar?" Jack asked. John laughed, and started to say something, but was interrupted by Ms. Pilot.

"Commander Crichton, the Command Carrier is contacting us."

"I have considered your demands," Broc said, surrounded by a lot of people in uniform Aeyrn had never seen before.

D'argo looked at the viewscreen, puzzled. "We didn't make any dema- YOW!" he glared at Beth who had just wrapped her hand around a tentacle and squeezed, hard. She was frowning at him.

Aeryn and John waited to hear what Broc had to say.

"We will return the human child and soldier if you grant us safe passage out of your space."

Beth frowned at D'argo again and gave a mild warning squeeze. He kept his mouth shut.

"We are willing to release your downed Prowler Pilot," John offered.

Broc frowned. he said grudgingly. "Well, I suppose it would be best if he faced court martial, like the rest of Scorpius's men."

"Will Scorpius be facing court martial as well?" Aeyrn asked.

"No. He got away. It seems someone sabotaged the docking bay doors so it was impossible for us to pursue him."

The rest of the conversation consisted of details for making a peaceful exchange of prisoners. There was nothing of a personal nature exchanged, and no thank yous or goodbyes.

After it was over, DK said,"Well, I guess we don't have to replace the lock on the cell door now."

”Yeah," Red agreed. "Our prisoner keeps asking us for a new one."

"I'm sorry, D'argo," Beth said. "The guy was obviously trying to finesse something, and you were about to blow it."

"It's okay," D'argo said. "It wasn't that bad..in fact, it felt kind of good." He leered at Beth. She looked a him with an equal mixture of alarm and amusement.

Crais and little Ronan Mcreary came aboard Talyn within the arn. They were both whisked off to the infirmary, but not before Crais had a moment with Aeryn.

"He sent you that," Crais said, gesturing towards the model of Talyn being carried by the Seal that wasn't helping him walk. "And he said to tell you that he does know the meaning of the word mercy."

"Dren," Broc said, picking through the debris that used to be his quarters. This little jaunt to the middle of nowhere had left him with a damaged ship, a quarter of its occupants under arrest, and a huge mess made out of his room. Adria was there helping him pick up the pieces of his models, trying to decide what could be salvaged. Everything else he could have some grot in to clean up and replace later.

"I'm surprised you let Crais go," Adria said conversationally.

"Well, he might have known something that would hurt Aeryn..and besides, I had to find a way to get the child back where it belonged. "He sighed." It's not so bad. We're rid of Scorpius, the ship can be repaired, and -"

"And Aeyrn and the baby are all right."

Broc smiled at her. "And Crais didn't shoot you. He wouldn't have made it out of here alive if he had."

Adria smiled back. " Are you going to miss them?"

Broc stopped to think for a moment, trying to fit the control collar back on the Wilca. He was thinking about what it mean for a former Peacekeeper to choose to have a child, and with a non- Sebacean, someone their society considered unsuitable for breeding.

"It's too quiet in here," he admitted, giving up an tossing the tiny piece of metal to the ground. "But I really would like to have met Crichton. "

"Why? because of his reputation?"

"I wanted to see what he was like- why she ..loved him so much.." he said hesitantly. "What does he have that I haven't got?"

Adria raised up on tiptoe and kissed him lightly on the mouth, taking him completely by surprise. "Nothing. Not anything at all, " she said, and then fled, leaving him with a goofy grin on his face.

"You could have left me a note or something," John groused, but in a very quiet voice.

"What was I supposed to do," Aeryn challenged, equally as quiet. "Tell Broc that when my mate came to rescue me to tell him I'd already left.?'

They were being quiet so as not to wake the baby, or the vorlag , who was on guard, sleeping in front of her bassinet. He had been sleeping with his head under the bassinet,, but the first time Miranda had cried, Curly had leaped up to sound the alarm and set the baby's bed flying. Luckily she wasn't in it at the time. She wasn't now, either- she was sound asleep between her parents, who were lying in bed facing each other.

"Don't worry, John," Aeryn said, her tone softening. She reached out and caressed his cheek. "I knew you would come."

"Well, fat lot of good I did you," he said.

"You brought the walrus that helped me, didn't you?'

John grinned. "I knew someone was going to call them that sooner or later."

Aeryn turned her attention to the baby, "She looks okay, don't you think?" she said , still sounding a little worried.

"Jool gave her a clean bill of health." Miranda had been thoroughly checked out, as had Aeyrn, after Larry and crais and the McCreary boy. They hadn't found any signs of brain damage- all her reflexes and vital signs seemed fine. They also had not found anything left behind by Scorpius- no neural chips or tracking devices in her body, although they had found the tracking device that was in her peacekeeper baby clothes. The rough brown coveralls were gone. Miranda was now wearing a soft yellow sleeper with a white fluffy bunny on the front. "She gave you one, too,. Her only recommendation was that you not do anything besides take care of the baby for a while."

When Aeryn looked at him rebelliously, he added. "And that's what's going to happen, even if it means I have to tie you to the bed."

"Oh, no, There won't be any of THAT for a while. Four weekens. Can you believe it?"

For a moment John was confused. "I wasn't going to tie you to the bed for weekens.

"Four frelling weekens! We don't get to do anything for four weekens," she said, lowering her voice, remembering she was supposed to be being quiet . "How come no one ever tells me these things?"

John stifled a laugh. "Aeryn, it's the new moms that aren't supposed to be interested in sex, and the poor dads that complain about it."

"Well, they don't have you," she said, her voice going even lower and her hand ruffling his hair. "Aren't you going to be complaining?'

John caught her hand and kissed her fingertips. "I've waited longer," he pointed out. "We will make an occasion of it,' he said seductively. 'We'll get someone to watch the baby for a few arns and you can wear that new night gown you were telling me about." he rose up and leaned over and kissed her lightly- once, twice, three times, not kisses that were intended to go anywhere but merely promises for the future. Still, it was a good thing they were distracted by drunken laughter coming from the corridor.

"I hope the celebrating doesn't get out of control," Aeryn frowned.

"Dad will keep them from getting out of hand," John said casually. After the Command Carrier left, and the wounded Seal and the little boy had been taken back to earth, the rest of them had elected to stay on Talyn, and celebrate, breaking out the Raslak and the supplies from earth. Even Beth and Jool were partying- Crais was already well on his way to recovery, the Peacekeepers having given him a synthetic nerve tissue transplant. He was resting and letting his injured spine regenerate.

"You'll have to get more beer and ice cream..and potato chips, " she said, her mouth fumbling over the unfamiliar word.

"I needed to get more potato chips anyway," John said. "Curly ate them all."

"Well, we have to go back, anyway. Sharon and Ruth and Miranda's cousin, Jason, haven't met her yet." Aeryn said, proud of herself for remembering the relationship.

"And you haven't seen Disneyland," John suggested. "You could ride the rides now. '

"Can we take Curly?"

John nodded. " It's one of the few places where he wouldn't scare people. They'd just think he was one of the cartoon characters. You know, things will be different. You aren't going to be able to pass- as human, I mean. The whole world is going to know about us. We'll be famous as the people who saved the world.

He hesitated, then went ahead. "Aeryn, we need to talk about what we're going to do. Where we are going to live. What do you want?"

"I don't want to live on Earth," Aeryn said biting her lip. "but I don't want to get too far way, either," she looked down at the baby. "Earth is Miranda's world, too. I want her to know what a runnybabbit is."

John didn't correct her. He just looked at the baby, too.

"What do you want, John? If you could do anything you want?"

"Well, we'd have to talk to them about it first- but I'd like to bring Moya through."

Aeryn nodded. " I can't wait for Chiana and Stark to meet the baby. and Pilot," she smiled.

"Pilot will want to know that he is a grandfather, of sorts. But if they agree, I'd like to stay on this side of the wormhole. What I always wanted to know- the reason I became an astronaut, was to find out what was out here- *this* is the outer space I dreamed of. These stars, the ones that we can see from earth. I want to explore them. "

"Can I go with you?" Aeryn asked, smiling, sure of the answer.

"I wouldn't do it without you,' John vowed. She leaned over an kissed him , careful not to bother the baby.

"I'm going to put her back in her bed," John said, "I want to hold you."

"She's just going to end up back here again, when I have to feed her."

"That's okay," he said, but he just stared at the baby, reluctant to disturb her. "You look like you have that breastfeeding thing down," he said.

"I think we can handle it," Aeryn said confidently. "John, I'm really sorry you missed the birth- but I have to tell you, I am so much more confident...now" she stumbled over expressing herself. "I thought when she was born that I wouldn't know what to do, and I'd hand her over to you,' she confessed. " But we did all right."

"Better than all right. If you weren't who you are- fierce, smart, loving, I wouldn't have you anymore. Or Miranda. " he was getting misty-eyed.

"I love you, too." Aeryn said. "But she'll never be totally safe while Scorpius is still alive."

'Then we'll have to change that," he said grimly. He gathered Miranda up in his arms tenderly, marveling at her once again. His attention was caught by her tiny foot covered with the soft yellow material. The heel looked narrow. As he flexed the foot back towards her body, it made a sharp and familiar looking wedge shape. "Look, Aeryn You were right. . It was a foot."

Battered, beaten, a knife wound in his throat and two bullet holes in his side, Scorpius was still confident that he would find a way to survive. He still had the precious vial containing the tiny sample of Crichton's child's brain cells -the ones he had drawn through a needle piercing the membrane on the top of her small skull. With the right facilities he could clone them, he was sure, and his torment would be over. If not, there was always Rylani herself. And in the back of his mind, where he didn't have to think about it, he knew there was always a possibility of breeding his own cell donor, a Sebacean/ Scarren/ Human cross, now that he knew where Earth was. The idea of doing to someone what was done to him horrified him, but survival was everything.