He sat up straight in his chair again, shut his eyes tight, wrinkled his brow, and thought.
My acolytes! he thought. Let us muster for war!
* * *
The Hole in the World.
From a dizzying height, John Crichton looked down into the heart of darkness. His head spun.
He was perched on a cliff, peering down into a cave that went straight into the ground, down from light into black. A twisting trail wound and coiled along the sides of the hole, spiralling into the depths. It was framed by gnarly roots and smelled like coal and old water and ancient subterranean terror.
“Well?” he said. “Thoughts?”
“I’m not normally a person who minds going underground,” said Zhaan. “But this—”
“Yes. My sentiments exactly. And it looks as though we’ll be going down by foot.”
“And?”
“Well, you’re safe, Zhaan. Your real body is back on Moya. If something happened to the Queen, I’m guessing you’d just be thrown back into your real body. But the Queen is an energy-being of some sort, utilizing a host.”
“And?”
“Well, I’m the host. I mean, my body is. That’s a long way down. The Queen slips … oops … But she won’t really be dead. And you won’t really be dead. But as for Mr. Crichton…”
“Oh. I see what you mean.”
“Yeah. Smooshed in a dimension that was not his own.”
There was a silence as they both contemplated this.
“Our only hope,” said Zhaan, “is that she’ll be careful to keep you alive so she can do—whatever she wants to do with you once you get to the bottom.”
Crichton could see out of his eyes, but it was an extremely odd feeling to be viewing his feet moving independent of his will, his hand steadying himself on a rock as he peered down at the precipitous trail.
“How long do you think it’s been since the Queen’s had a physical body?” he said. “Do you think she remembers how to climb down steep paths with it?”
He thought a moment, and then wished that question hadn’t occurred to him.
The Queen was moving Crichton’s head to the left.
There, emerging from the pass, were two figures.
“Zhaan, look!”
“Yes, I see them.”
“D’Argo! Aeryn!” shouted Crichton. But of course, his real mouth did not move. He fought to gain control of his body, but it was like trying to seize mist; he found himself grappling with nothingness.
“We have to think of a way to override the Queen’s control of my body,” said Crichton desperately. If he’d been able to use his real voice, he would have been hissing. “Can we distract her? Confuse her? Sabotage her somehow?”
“These people,” said Zhaan, “being energy-beings, are less stable in their identities than some other creatures. It may be possible to distract her and make her lose control. The Queen must be using a great deal of energy to keep you from controlling your own body. Can you do something to attract her attention?”
Crichton remembered the chair he had thought into being. He concentrated, and a pair of cymbals appeared in his hands. He clanged them together noisily until his arms were reverberating from the effects.
In the mist-world, Crichton’s ears were ringing from the din. In the outer world, the Queen in control of Crichton’s body made his eyes squeeze shut and shook his head.
He continued to crash the cymbals together, but the Queen gave no further sign that she heard. Crichton thought the cymbals out of existence again, rethought a chair, and sat down on it with a sigh. He concentrated until he could see out of his physical eyes into the outside world again.
Aeryn and D’Argo were speaking to each other and looking down into the Hole in the World. Just seeing them filled Crichton with hope. He himself—or rather his body, controlled by the Queen—was standing under a jagged cliff, hidden from direct view. It was clear that Aeryn and D’Argo had not noticed him.
“If Aeryn and D’Argo are here, at the Hole in the World,” said Zhaan, “they must have talked to some of the Nokmadi. Maybe they’re here to do the job the Nokmadi wanted you to do?”
“If that’s true,” said Crichton, “the Queen will be desperate to stop them.”
“She’ll have to stay in your body. Clearly she needs it to get what she needs at the bottom of that hole, because no one else can do it for her. When we get to the bottom, maybe it will become clear why she thinks it’s you who are the Promised One.”
“Yeah,” said Crichton wryly. “My Nokmadi job description.”
D’Argo and Aeryn were slowly venturing downward along the path that led into the Hole. Crichton willed his arms to move, his voice to cry out, but his physical body remained silent and motionless.
“It’s like I’m in a dream,” he said. “One of those ones where you’re trying to shout but you never make any sound.”
“I think that’s called a nightmare,” said Zhaan.
His feet began to move forward.
“I think—wait … We’re moving.”
The Queen was starting to follow D’Argo and Aeryn down the trail, taking Crichton’s body and point of view and Zhaan’s soul-essence with her.
“I don’t like this,” said Crichton. “I don’t like this at all. If she wants to, she can just sneak up behind them and push them off.”
“She doesn’t even need to do that,” said Zhaan. “If they see her, she’ll appear to be you. They’ll welcome her, and then they’ll all go down the trail together.”
* * *
“We know that the Leviathan has no defenses,” Captain Sha Sutt told the crew. “However, we also know that this large ship, this thing that may well be a Nokmadi ship, has the Leviathan in its grip. Under the circumstances, it’s risky to attack either one. We need more information.”
Wariness, like shrewdness, was a strong suit of Sutt’s. For some time now she had been assessing the situation. And they had time to be wary. The Leviathan was going nowhere. Sensors showed that the two life forms still upon it were hardly budging—they might even be asleep. The other beings had presumably been taken aboard the gigantic vessel, and they might even be dead soon. It was a nice thought that an alien vessel might do the Peacekeepers’ work for them.
The only part that troubled her was that the sensors failed to detect alien life aboard the strange vessel. And the sensors were accurate enough to detect anything larger than a Silurian rat. Did the vessel have no crew? Or maybe it was abandoned? But if so, why had it enveloped the Leviathan?
Just the idea of an abandoned vessel, floating in space with its power gems free for the taking, made her itch with desire.
The vu-screen still showed the huge alien ship, like a flattened moon, with its grip on the sleek Leviathan.
“Are you certain about the defensive weapons situation upon the alien ship?”
“I’ve been combing, believe me,” said the sensor officer. He punched a button and a sensor-map of the alien ship showed on the vu-screen. Three green dots showed the three life forms aboard, two together. Below them were the golden glinting dots that indicated the power gems. The power gems all seemed to be stored together.
The sensor readout showed the life forms heading downward in the ship, very slowly, toward the power gems. The third life form was at a slight distance, and as the crew on the DarkWind watched, it began to inch in the same direction.
“You see,” said the officer. “Nothing that remotely relates to any kind of energy or explosive weaponry.” That would have shown up red on the screen. The only other color was only a kind of blue static spread across the inside of the ship: the background energy they couldn’t identify.
“No explosives—good. But that doesn’t mean that they can’t defend themselves. Clearly they have their own methods. This ship has done what even Commander Crais hasn’t been able to do: capture the Leviathan.”
She tapped her finger on her leg. Was there something she didn’t understand? Where were the inhabitants
of the alien ship? Were they just letting the Earth-creature and his filthy companions walk in and take the power gems? Or were they dead and the Earth-creature and his cohort alone on the alien ship?
Clearly in a situation like this, even Crais would step back and bide his time. Yes, she thought. That would clearly be the judicious thing to do.
Still, she yearned for the opportunity presented to her.
A last showdown with Aeryn Sun.
“Crew,” said Captain Sutt. “Assume attitude of relaxed attention. Utilize de-stress booths now if necessary.” A small sardonic smile touched her thin lips. “We’re going to capture the crew of the Leviathan—or, if they resist, kill them. Let’s enjoy the moment.”
CHAPTER 19
“How are you faring?” asked D’Argo.
Moving down the trail that coiled down into the Hole in the World, Aeryn kept her grip on the thick, gnarled roots on the walls of the pit. To the other side was a sheer drop, and the trail slanted towards it. Now and again they came across a bit of railing still clinging to the path, leaning vertiginously out into the void. It looked as if the trail had once been even and well-protected, but thousands of cycles of rain and weather and the black wind of night had worn it down to a slanting shelf on the edge of the yawning pit.
“I’m fine!” said Aeryn through gritted teeth.
“I see,” said D’Argo.
They completed another loop in the descending spiral. The light was getting dim, and they stopped and lit their energy-torches.
After three loops in the spiral, the trail widened a bit. It was dry earth, and the sweeping light from their torches revealed few signs that anything had grown here in the millennia this trail had existed. The air grew cooler. Almost below the threshold of hearing there came a dripping sound from the abyss below.
D’Argo increased his lead slightly. The trail still wound downwards at a steep angle, but it had stopped sloping towards the drop-off, and he could maintain a faster pace. The light had become so dim that without his torch the trail ahead disappeared into darkness.
“I am definitely yearning to be out of here,” said Aeryn. She hastened her step until she was almost trotting after D’Argo. She raised the torch for a moment to look ahead, and in that moment they came to a patch of even looser soil where a small slide had cast pebbles across the trail.
Aeryn’s feet slipped on the pebbles, and with a cry she toppled over the side of the trail.
She felt herself slipping, grasping, desperately scrabbling to stay her fall. Other rocks gave way and cascaded over the edge. Aeryn might have followed them, but her Peacekeeper training had given her lightning-quick reactions, and she found a root embedded in the dirt and gripped it for all her life was worth. Her feet dangled in the abyss, and she kicked, searching for something to give her purchase.
In a flash, D’Argo was down, his hand gripping the back of her shirt.
“Steady,” he said. “Steady, my friend.”
It was exactly then that the dark figure stepped down from behind them on the trail.
“Greetings,” said John Crichton.
* * *
“Rygel?” came Pilot’s voice from the air above the central table, where Rygel had been absent-mindedly gnawing on a food cube.
“Umm?” said Rygel. He put his hand to the furze, still firmly affixed to his ear. Had the royal attention wandered too greatly? He sent an exploratory command into the ether, and decided not. The DRDs were where they should be.
“Rygel, the DRDs have disappeared. I can only locate three of them, all doing routine tasks in the maintenance bay. I am concerned, as is Moya. Do you know where the rest of the DRDs are?”
“Mmph,” said Rygel, stuffing the rest of the food cube in his mouth. “Gone? Mmm, I think I did put them somewhere. Tell Moya not to worry.”
There was a slight pause. “Rygel, I’m glad that you feel the DRDs are not in trouble, but I would like to know exactly where you sent them.”
“Grrom, grrom,” came the noise from Rygel, who was chewing with his mouth open. “It’s going to come to me any microt now. Let me see, what did I do with those DRDs?”
* * *
“Crichton!” said Aeryn.
There was John Crichton, standing there with a big goofy smile on his face.
He stood stock-still for a moment, as if he were idly thinking over Aeryn’s predicament. Then he leaned over toward her.
“Let me help you,” he said.
He reached down and grabbed under her other arm. Then he and D’Argo pulled Aeryn up and over the lip of the cliff and set her down on the trail.
Still trying to catch her breath, Aeryn wheezed, “I don’t know what you’re doing here, but I’m sure glad to see you.”
“As am I,” said D’Argo.
“And I am delighted to see you,” said Crichton, although he seemed strangely unmoved. D’Argo studied him curiously.
Aeryn brushed her hair back and dusted the dirt off her clothing. “We’ve been through a lot since we lost you in that room,” she began. “Yanor, the Nokmadi who brought us here, said you were being treated well. Are you okay?”
Crichton kept up that smile. “Oh, I’m fine.”
“But then he said you’d been captured by the Queen of All Souls,” said D’Argo. “How did you escape?”
“Oh, I met the Queen of All Souls,” said Crichton. “She’s not always as powerful as you might think. It was easy to get away. And the Dayfolk told me you would be going down the Hole in the World, and so I thought, since I’ve found out so much about this place, I’d better come and help you.”
Aeryn gave him a quizzical look, and D’Argo grunted. “The Queen of All Souls—easy to get away? She did her best to have us killed last night.”
“I don’t doubt it,” said Crichton. “She’s a pussycat during the day, but she can be mean at night. That’s why we’d better hurry, don’t you think?” He started down the path ahead of them. Aeryn threw a glance at D’Argo, and D’Argo shrugged. They followed him down the trail into darkness.
“So are we in trouble?” said Aeryn.
“You bet,” said Crichton, setting a quick pace. “We’ve got to get down to the bottom of the Hole in the World, like pronto, and get those gems and help the Dayfolk do what they have to do.”
“I take it you know about the gems, then,” Aeryn said.
“Yes. Both from the Dayfolk I met and from the Queen herself.”
“I, for one, would like to hear about this Queen of All Souls.”
“She’s the enemy, clearly,” said Crichton. “She would like to keep the Dayfolk in perpetual exile. All they want to do is to go home. I, for one, think we should help them, don’t you?”
“That’s what we’re doing right now, Crichton.”
They went down and down, deeper into the heart of the Hole in the World. It got colder and time seemed to lose its meaning. The air began to smell not only dank, but faintly sour, as if something was rotting down at the bottom of the pit. They moved in silence, following the bobbing light of the torch.
Crichton’s silence bothered Aeryn. Was he keeping something from them? Normally he liked to talk, talk, talk. Still, as they moved down the coiling way, and she watched her feet carefully (rocks rolling off the side, still falling and falling and falling into the dark), she had other things distracting her—like trying to keep from sliding off the slanting trail.
“What’s the matter, John?” she asked, trying to keep her mind off the yawning gulf beside the trail. “Don’t you have a moo-vee reference for all of this?”
“Moo-vee?” echoed Crichton.
“You really have been through the mill, when you don’t have a plot from a moo-vee that’s just like our current situation.”
“A long plot, with interminable detail,” added D’Argo, planting his feet with care as the trail narrowed.
Crichton was silent for a moment. “Certainly, a moo-vee,” he said. “Just like this situation. I remember a moo-vee about
a trail that went down a hole.”
Aeryn grabbed onto a root and a small rush of clods of earth dropped off the trail into the depths. “Not much of a plot. I think I like the one about the Temple of Dune better.”
“The Temple of Dune,” said Crichton. He sounded a bit absent-minded. “That was certainly a great favorite. I remember that one well.”
“And what happened in the moo-vee you saw where they went down a trail into a hole?” said D’Argo.
Crichton negotiated his way past a small wash-out in the trail, putting his foot down cautiously.
“Oh,” said Crichton, “in that moo-vee they got to the bottom of the trail and helped the ruler of the place. She turned out to be a very worthwhile ruler. Beautiful, too.”
“I guess that’s why they call it fiction!” said D’Argo cheerfully, stepping on a pile of loose dirt that cascaded off the path with a scrabbling noise.
“No, indeed,” said Crichton. “It was very true to life.” He positioned his foot to take his next cautious step.
Aeryn bit her lip thoughtfully and stared at him.
* * *
“God, Zhaan! This is kind of like that movie by Joe Dante!”
“Pardon?”
“Yeah, one of my favorite movies from the 1980s. The hero is shrunk and injected into this other guy’s head, and he has to help him thwart bad guys. It’s kind of a comic version of Fantastic Voyage. The real problem, though, is the motor-control issue. You see—”
“Crichton! I understand you love being reminded of your science infarction moo-vees. But please, this is reality.”
“Sorry.”
They had retreated to the misty land of the Queen’s interior nothingness. Before that, they’d peeked out, and were treated to a frightening sight: the Queen, in her John Crichton guise, approaching D’Argo and Aeryn … and Aeryn dangling off the side of the cliff! Crichton and Zhaan worked frantically to stop the Queen, to warn Aeryn and D’Argo. They yelled, pounded at the mist, clashed cymbals, threw their insubstantial chairs down onto the insubstantial misty ground. Nothing they did had any effect.
Fortunately, the Queen apparently had other plans, because she had reached over and helped pull Aeryn up. Words were exchanged and then the descent continued. But the experience made Crichton and Zhaan even more desperate to find a way out of their prison of immateriality.
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