Man, all they have to do is mention Karen Shaw and I get all...let's move on. Like this one isn't wonderful enough. This is the one; this is when the show gets up in your face and demands your love and attention. "I am Farscape," it roars. Because if you're not ready for this, it's just a show, and that's fine. But you could be more. So we're sitting in Namtar's lab, with everybody sitting all breath-bated, John sitting in a chair I don't like to see him sitting in. And Namtar is saying, "If you wish to blink, now would be the time." Which is as good as anything for the line you'd put under John's yearbook picture.
Aeryn's would be, "Most likely to shoot your ass in the eye." D'Argo's would be "Most likely to have to deal with asshole progeny." Zhaan's would be "Most likely to be so super awesome except she broke last week and she's not actually the boss of you." Chiana's would be: "If you think Aeryn's okay, I will redefine the concept for you, because I am fucking fine." Or possibly a quotation from Kerouac or something. Maybe "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked," flipping off the camera even in her lame grade school hairdo. And Pilot's would be, "Most likely to deserve a fucking ice cream sundae at the least, an hour from now."
Namtar slides a needle into John's eye, on the off chance that he has some information having to do with John's eye. This is BS on several levels but maybe not what you think. First of all, Namtar is to my personal eye the second-most beautiful thing you ever see on this show (first being the Scarrans) and that's an issue you and I might have. I just love looking at the awful old bitch. His legs are double-jointed like a satyr because (a) that's what he is and (b) because his legs are left over from this ad they did about a thousand years ago where some guys were playing football with the Devil. None of this has to do with the story; I just really like the Namtar body and character and prosthesis and all that implies. Not about me, I mean. I'm not a leather-corset type, but the fact is that with alien makeups you can go this way or you can go that way, and the only things I really really enjoy looking at -- besides that bone lady -- are Namtar and the Scarrans. And yes, this is one of my favorite Season One episodes, but I don't know that it's necessarily having to do with the technical beauty of Namtar, because I am not creepy in the conventional sense. But he is beautiful.
He is also a rat person. Which explains why Zhaan's wondering if John's okay with rat people poking needles into John's eyes, comforting words or not. And hey, watch out who worries about this shit, people putting stuff into John's body (or vice versa) that they shouldn't, or else Season Four won't make any sense. This is where that starts. John pretends it's no big and Namtar's done just so fast. D'Argo tells Aeryn she's and she tells him to fuck off; D'Argo doesn't know what to do because that's him then, and Aeryn tell him to stop being a pussy. "Pack it in the chair and get this over with so we can get out of here." Namtar calls him "my dear" and asks if D'Argo's uncomfortable because of Namtar's rep, which Zhaan admits, but: ""It is your reputation, Namtar, that led us here." D'Argo sits, as Rygel talks about what an honor it is to meet Namtar and "take part in his grand experiments." Good old Rygel. D'Argo gets stuck and John checks in with Zhaan about making sure this is worth it. "Namtar may have data that Moya is lacking: data that we're desperately in need of," Zhaan replies, like you never split an infinitive. They're going for DNA samples, hence the title of the episode, and Namtar clarifies that it's beyond just the double helix: "...To provide you with the information you desire..."
He is also a rat person. Which explains why Zhaan's wondering if John's okay with rat people poking needles into John's eyes, comforting words or not. And hey, watch out who worries about this shit, people putting stuff into John's body (or vice versa) that they shouldn't, or else Season Four won't make any sense. This is where that starts. John pretends it's no big and Namtar's done just so fast. D'Argo tells Aeryn she's and she tells him to fuck off; D'Argo doesn't know what to do because that's him then, and Aeryn tell him to stop being a pussy. "Pack it in the chair and get this over with so we can get out of here." Namtar calls him "my dear" and asks if D'Argo's uncomfortable because of Namtar's rep, which Zhaan admits, but: ""It is your reputation, Namtar, that led us here." D'Argo sits, as Rygel talks about what an honor it is to meet Namtar and "take part in his grand experiments." Good old Rygel. D'Argo gets stuck and John checks in with Zhaan about making sure this is worth it. "Namtar may have data that Moya is lacking: data that we're desperately in need of," Zhaan replies, like you never split an infinitive. They're going for DNA samples, hence the title of the episode, and Namtar clarifies that it's beyond just the double helix: "...To provide you with the information you desire..."
Aeryn interrupts. And this is important, because of them all, she's the only one with a vested interest in not knowing, and I mean to say not giving a fuck, where her DNA can take her. Because where Namtar can take her is, of course, death. Not less but more. So when Aeryn interrupts, she's really saying this is horrible. This group knowing where all of their pieces really go; this family she's built saying, "This is a lie, and I am here to find the truth." And if we're going to have a show, we have to agree with her on some way, because finding a way home for these characters is interesting, but it would mean that we'd lose them along the way, as a matter of course. And I will assure you that, if we do lose them along the way, it's anything fucking but, and you donât want that. Tell me you don't want that, even now. Namtar reassures her and summons Kornata, basically a Sebacean type, for assistance. "I will do each of you in turn. But beautiful Zhaan, I have chosen to do yours first." Because she's been placeless the longest, because she's the most in need of anchor; because it's D'Argo that apologizes but Zhaan that continues to fall.
Kornata reveals Zhaan's star map. "Go ahead, Zhaan," says Namtar. Her DNA has revealed where they are in relation to where she belongs. Which -- before the credits -- you know it is the problem, and not just because without homelessness there's no show. It's the problem because she's not ready for home yet. "My genetic database holds information on nearly 11 million species," Namtar explains to John. "It is simple for me to take a genetic sampling of a being and pinpoint the location of its origin." Lots of talk but that's all it really is. Zhaan has feelings about her map, and then begins to weep. "That's my home." It's pretty hard to watch. Almost earns it.
But lest it get too hard, Rygel busts in: "You're gonna do this for me, too, right?" Worthless dialogue. Namtar's like, "Duh." He mentions that his maps would also include the ways to avoid any Peacekeeper jurisdictions along the way. "That is what you came here for, isn't it?" The worse yours. Namtar waves his hand and the solar map disappears; Rygel grunts.
Namtar talks about how awesome it is to be able to help them, which is a great way to identify the bad guys in the Uncharted Territories, and then Rygel brings up how broke-ass they are. Zhaan worries that he's going to ask for Moya, but Namtar pshaws: "My interest isn't in your ship, but in your ship's Pilot." And that's when Jacob would turn around and leave, but the whole thing about this episode is that Zhaan and Rygel and D'Argo are assholes this week for some reason. It's a great story, don't get me wrong, but you have to buy that the three of them will do anything to get home in order for the rest of the show to make sense, and I don't. Zhaan was a political prisoner -- and the only cast member to be justly jailed for her crimes -- and D'Argo was a victim of the chiffarobe, and Rygel has nothing to go back to, no matter what he says. So it's iffy. But you gotta buy it right now, for the season itself to make sense, so here it is: the three of them would do anything to get home. Things you don't think they would do. This episode should have been earlier in the season, much as I love it.
"What do you want with him?" asks Aeryn, who loves Pilot more than anyone but John, for reasons I'm not going to go on and on about, and Namtar explains that his "research will be greatly enhanced by genetic material from such an extraordinary species." Like a sample, John assumes. Like Namtar took from the rest of them. Even shot-in-the-dark Crichton. "...I'm afraid I'm going to need a bit more than I asked of you." Specifically? AN ARM. An ARM of my darling Pilot. Which would be the, what, fourth time I told this episode to fuck off, even in this opening scene? But the D'Argo/Zhaan/Rygel contingent gets it, and they're fine with it, and they can all go to hell.
Commercials, and then John and Aeryn are hanging out in a bar on the planet. "11 million species. 11 million, and he couldn't even at least narrow it down for me? I mean, sure, he can't pinpoint the exact location, but am I even in the neighborhood, here? He sure as hell pinpointed the others no problem." Aeryn shakes her head as if to say, "Yeah, wormholes, and also what are you bitching about? Because you have a home to go home to." John notes that, beyond the sourness, she didn't even let him poke her eyeball. "Have you forgotten? You and the others are trying to get home avoiding Peacekeeper territories. My home is Peacekeeper territories, it's just that I can't ever go back there." All caught up. Hurt enough? "Ever." Ah, there we go.
Aeryn goes wandering; John follows, reminding her about the whole PILOT'S ARM thing. Which, this is again a great episode, but no. This should have been the second episode, the one that said, "You do not even fucking know." But we're already halfway through Zhaan's depressing arc and one-third through D'Argo's and this is not the time to say, "You thought you knew but you didnât," when in fact we are the ones that did know, and the show itself is wrong. Whatever, I love this episode for reasons that have nothing to do with the aliens onboard, it has just always struck me as stupid. Even though the final scene is awesomely heartbreaking. "Unless Pilot volunteers one of his arms, we're all gonna be blasting out of here together in about one hour..." He adjusts "hour" to "arn," but you know what? My microbes are working fine, which is why you won't see an "arn" or a "microt" in these recaps unless absolutely necessary. I already love the show, I don't need to be convinced that it's awesome. Especially if that shit is on a 1:1. Bless the rains down in Africa; I don't have the time. "You saw the looks on the other's faces. What makes you think that they're going to wait for Pilot to volunteer anything?" asks Aeryn. She does not add, "...other than the eight episodes, in which we worked toward a détente that worked on an emotional and vulnerable family level?"
Although in terms of proving Zhaan's now an asshole, which I've tried to do for you, I guess it works. I just think this storyline is better than all of them, collectively and individually. And we cut to them. Zhaan. D'Argo. Even Rygel. Wrestling with Pilot. And I don't wanna talk about it, because it's hurtful to look at and even sadder to think about. And Pilot, of course, tells them to go suck a dick, and they explain to him rationally and sweetly -- Zhaan taking point, mind you -- why this is a necessity. "Think about somebody else for a change," says Rygel, which is the only in-character bit of this horrible scene. "I will help ease your pain," offers Zhaan, and then she orders D'Argo, Qualta at the ready, to make the cut.
And he does.
It's not that it's wrong, or doesn't line up storywise. I buy it. That's the sucky part, because you buy it and you don't... It's that I love them too much to watch it. There's a difference. I would have liked to know these things going in. That's all. I'm sorry, but that's all. It'll grow back. I just want to know the kind of people I'll be working with, and Pilot gets denied that knowledge well fucking too often for comfort.
Oh, look! Pilot's fucking arm. On a table in Namtar's lab. His arm. I've only got two and mine don't grow back, so maybe I'm being gay about this, but mostly everybody on this show can go to hell. "We have upheld our end of the bargain, Namtar." Namtar agrees and tells the assholes that he'll have to take a second to get all the maps onto a crystal for them. Zhaan and D'Argo exit after giving him some shade about just how long, and then Namtar yaks at his assistant Kornata: "Let us hope the Pilot DNA shows better results." And we see another Pilot, deformed, broken, two heads. Two heads, crushed together, mutated, screaming. Chained. I hate to see anything chained.
Velorek: Look up. What do you see?
Pilot: The stars!
Velorek: That's what I offer you. The stars.
Pilot: I dream of nothing else.
Fuck absolutely everyone right now.
Except the DRDs, who are cauterizing Pilot's wound. His missing arm. After all we know about what it takes to get the job done, the only job that ever mattered to a Pilot, to get that done, against every nerve and every single sense of pain. In order to reach the stars, and hurt every fucking second of the day, knowing that you were getting the job done. To know that he's doing a job that he gave his soul to perform, to take all that sensation and intuition and use it to get the job done. To take his purpose -- like Aeryn -- and get it done with something missing. We're the only ones who know how hard that is; us and Aeryn. And we're a soldier down, through no sin of his own. It's not that he's hurting, he was already hurting: it's that he's less useful to Moya. Can you imagine? Donât. Don't even try, it's too ugly. They take something glorious and they make it a broken mockery. They take pain and they add pain and uselessness, and all the while they say, "This is necessary. This is necessary for us." Not even the Peacekeepers. Not even the fucking Peacekeepers.
"Thank you. You are finished."
"I said you are finished," says my Pilot, well-fucking-Aeryns my Pilot, and the DRDs scuttle away. And to John, jaw hanging open, sad and bewildered and out of his depth: "Don't concern yourself, Crichton. I will be fine. My species has superior regenerative abilities." And John wonders at his calm. "I didn't exactly let them: they have the opportunity to go home. The drive is very strong." John calls an outrageous amount of bullshit, as he should. "When one of my species is bonded to a leviathan, we give our lives to the service of others. Ship first -- then those who travel aboard her." No matter what those aboard do to you? That he would scream, and destroy. That he would fight back. That he would use his abilities on his own behalf. He is in charge of Moya; he is in charge of the world, everything in the world, and he does nothing. He's already home, and the fact that he's figured out that none of them have is that so are they. This is his purpose, and hers. He connects them to the universe; he is everything, the voice of Moya, and he does nothing. Heaven on a street corner. A simple man, everything golden, our connection to Moya which is everything, nailed to a cross of wood. The best of us, the best in us, done the ugliest disrespect. You don't have to be Christian for that to hurt, but can you doubt his grace? And this his response:
"My species is incapable of spaceflight on our own. If we wish to journey beyond our home planet, this is the tradeoff we make for the chance to see the galaxy. I consider it a perfectly equitable arrangement."
Elsewhere, Aeryn waits. For Zhaan and D'Argo, Aeryn waits. With a gun, not yet drawn. "Do you have something to say to us?" asks D'Argo. "The decision was a hard one," says Zhaan, but really she's asking. "Our actions, even harder. But it is done." She complains that Pilot -- her brother, her spirit -- was defenseless. And he is, just as is Moya. "Compassion? From a Peacekeeper?" D'Argo scoffs. (Straight to hell.) "For a comrade. You attacked one of your own. Would you do the same to the rest of us?" And I have to respect D'Argo here, as ugly as it is: "Of course." The only honesty there is, now that suddenly we can do these things to our brothers. "Well, you have your maps now. What makes you think you can just take this ship wherever you want to go?" Seriously. We went through this with the TARDIS. The best way to make the TARDIS suddenly stop working is to spit on God and on everything. "These maps are precisely what we've been longing for," whines Zhaan. "Our way home." Aeryn complains weakly that Pilot won't help, now that they've done this. To him; to her. To us. To Moya. "Pilot is a servicer," says young D'Argo. "He'll get over it, I'll see to it." And to be fair, he will. Pilot will forgive them well before I will. And Zhaan already so high up on my shit list: "I know what is troubling you, my dear. You'll never find your way home. But please, do not deny us all our chance to find our own." And Aeryn exits, because what do you say to that? What answer does brotherhood have for that? Only Crichton and the rain.
John stares out a window; Aeryn enters: "They're getting their maps." John's been getting fucking drunk, which is absolutely the only way you can watch this happen and not turn off the TV. The only way this makes sense is if you're drunk or crazy, and in John's time he'll resort to both. "Pilot says he's going to be okay. It's only one of his arms -- hell, he's got four." Which makes John and Aeryn the "odd men out." How odd, to care. To see this most gorgeous sign of our intimacy with Moya shit on so casually. "That means they're going home, and we're not." And they're fucking welcome to it. John and Aeryn are going somewhere better. Aeryn turns to leave, because this is only judgment and not a plan. What Aeryn needs is a plan to save someone she loves: several concepts we're not ready for. " Even with the maps it's still going to take them some time to make the trips," John offers to her back. "And then it's just you and me," she realizes.
"I'm not entirely useless here, you know," John complains. "I happen to be learning." She grabs his hooch and begins to drink. "Aeryn, what's the matter?" They're all going home. And someday, he will, too. Don't make wishes; don't even imagine it. Don't make wishes. He drunkenly chuckles: "If I ever find a way home, yeah." If the credits come true, instead of becoming more and more true. "I was born a Peacekeeper soldier. I've always been one among many. A member of a division, platoon, a unit, a team. I've never been on my own, John. Never been alone. Ever." But you could be more, and we know this because you hurt for Pilot. Not because he's in your regiment, but because he's in your heart. Because what's been done to him resonates across the show like Titania and Oberon: storms, and fire, and the nine men's morris all full of shit. Because they have disturbed in their darkness the natural order of things. "Me, on a planet full of billions of you?" (And again: show me to this planet of Crichtons and I will show you a man ready to go the fucking distance. In the meantime, we drink and we dream and we work on fucking stamina.)
D'Argo comes upon Rygel tossing crap out of his cell. Not that it ever meant anything but now it means nothing. "When I return home and reclaim my birthright, offal such as this will no longer be allowed to offend my sight." Things he's stolen, things he's hoarded. In this time of nothing, we can't even hold tight to Rygel's hoarding. Wishes and the things on the other side of wishes. And were these food cubes, D'Argo asks, in his possession...when we were out of food for nearly two weekens?" Guess thatâs weeks. Guess without Chiana's self-important lie of sexual freedom they had to do without. The evil inside. "You have not reclaimed your birthright yet, little man," D'Argo claims. As though this won't work out beautifully. As though something earned by horror couldn't possibly go wrong.
Namtar's lab: "This is still not right!" Kornata, his assistant, begs him to chill. "Your anger... Release me. Please." As though this is science and not another kind of war. "There is someone to see you," she offers. Someone else, again, in sacrifice, in the pursuit of safety. Aeryn enters, willing lamb to Namtar's science. "I was here earlier. I wish to participate in your...research." And as she sits in his awful chair, on the horizon -- the aurora -- of a new chance, he asks what made for the change in her outlook. "I know that there are other Sebacean colonies beyond the known territories. I want you to find me one where I..." And Namtar knows, for it's his sin too: "Fit in? We will look for it together." He pokes her fucking eyeball with his fucking needle. How can she not know? "It's burning," she says. Only for a moment. Something flares, something different, a purple kind of science there in the singularity that says we're getting to the meat of this. The only one who cried for Pilot pays the price. "When will I know the result?" And, oh: "It won't be long at all." And so it won't. Second soldier down.
D'Argo places Namtar's crystal on the strategy table in command. It means RatMan, for reasons that will become obvious, because the show is an investigation of the morality of science, first and foremost. But, because I'm obnoxious, here's another Sumerian legend: Namtar was the god of disease, of pestilence. He commanded sixty/all diseases, demons for every single part of the body, heart and soul and mind, and he was supplicated for the prevention of illness. In this way, before health insurance, he represented fate, making him a major god, a son of Bêl. And they followed his instructions to the letter, for he had power over the other gods. He was the messenger of Ereshkigal, with whom we've dealt before and will do again. Then in Tibet, a true story of what happens when the PKs take their jobs too seriously, a "Namtar" is a hagiography, like a saint's bio, but the word itself means "complete liberation," and it arrived at this meaning because of the way it told the stories of yogis who attained enlightenment. Sound like anybody we know? Sound like everybody on the show, cruelty or no? (Even unto this: namtars don't necessarily follow strict chronology, by definition, but rather "function as a learning example, that hits the high points of the yogi's spiritual life.") And in this way John becomes more, and Aeryn becomes -- watch -- more, and we become more, in watching and thinking. And loving. Loving them, and us, and you and me, and not taking regular shits on Pilot. Basically.
I do like this episode, don't I? And not the least because of the failures: "I, of course, will return home first," announces Rygel. D'Argo grumbles. "I bartered for the coordinates to this asteroid," Rygel lays it out, "I made the first contact with Namtar, I struck the deal. I go home first." And who steps in but that paragon of unselfishness, that shell of a woman that carries within it all the beauty of Moya and more? "D'Argo and I have already spoken," explains Zhaan, as though it is self-evident. "Whoever's home is the closest, that is where we will travel to first." How about all of you proceed directly to hell instead? Home isn't even what you want. It's not planets you miss, it's people. We have Aeryn here. And John, and Moya, and Pilot. "You two have spoken?" Rygel paranoids. "Without consulting me? What am I, chopped mellet?" And Zhaan, the higher self to which we all aspire: "Of course not. I can stomach chopped mellet." I didn't put her there; she did that herself. All the farther to fall. "Blue-assed bitch," Rygel mutters awesomely, and she begs his pardon: "What did you call me?" You heard him. "A blue-assed bitch!" John smacks him, because come on. He asks if they're paying attention to the coordinates flying across the screen, and D says the inevitable: "We don't have to get all this. Moya is." Oh, is she? Pilot: "...Moya isn't." One hundred spacebucks across PayPal on delivery of that line. Fucking right she isnât.
Everybody turns to Pilot on the clamshell. Zhaan: "Pilot, how are you?" Suck it, Blue. Not having you this week. "Yotz with pleasantries," says Rygel. "What do you mean Moya isn't assimilating the data? Is that her doing, or yours?" Zhaan tries to access Moya as Pilot admits that it's not him fucking with them. As he should. "Pilot is right," says Zhaan from her console. "The data is being processed directly by Moya but there is too much." D'Argo bitches and Pilot tells him to fuck off: "Moya can do nothing about it. It appears your crystal is useless. Lucky for you, you didn't trade anything of real value to get it." Ouch. A little cheap, but ouch. Zhaan realizes that they can access only one map -- but even that at the price of the other two. Good. "Well," Rygel decides, they'll "just go to Namtar and ask for three individual crystals." D'Argo brings up that he'll ask for more if they ask him for more. I hope he chops all their shit off. Slowly. "If he should ask for it," asks Pilot, "What body part you willing to offer, Your Eminence?" (Body and mind; only together does Pilot's skill make sense. Only with both intact can the intuition work its magic.) Rather than answering this apposite and important -- not to say bitchy -- question, Rygel fully scoffs and takes off with the crystal, zooming out the room on his Jazzy. It's obvious where I stand here, but that was awesome. Zhaan and D'Argo run off chasing him, and hopefully the three of them fall in a very deep hole and get a chance to think about what fucking assholes they are.
Shit! This is The Giving Tree! That's all this shit is! If Moya is everything, the world and everything outside, and all she wants to do is be a good mother, to us and to them, then that makes her God or better. Which makes Pilot an angel, aggelos, messenger. And you shit on him. The best possible. The voice of God. The only way home, the only thing that loves you. The real home. I go on and on but think about why. He loves Aeryn and Aeryn loves him. And if he's the only real home you have, the voice of God, and Aeryn's the star that you steer by...I get so angry. I'm sorry. They are good people. I love them, you know I do. But you don't spit on God. That's like the only thing I'm asking for: recognize God when you see her, and don't take a dump on it at that point. How fucking hard is that?
Aeryn wanders, breathing heavy, vision blurring, voices all around. And who comes looking but John? Who but John knows that the only things you need to touch the real shit are Aeryn and Pilot? (Or Rygel, or Zhaan, or D'Argo, or even fucking Stark.) Who but John would know we're entering the phase of her tutorial? "Listen, there's some major crap going down here." She begs him to be quiet; his voice continues to ricochet. "The map thing -- Namtar's magic crystal? -- Well, Larry, Curly and Moe just found out that they can only use one of the maps. Two of 'em ain't going nowhere. I tell you, it's like a regular family feud up there." Or whatever the opposite of "family" could be called. (Also "family.") He notices her sweating: "This isn't a Sebacean heat thing, is it?" No, Aeryn assures him very fucking realistically, this is not "a Sebacean thing." He demands to know what's going on: "Is this something new? Or is this just your usual PMS. Peacekeeper Military Shit." And with that, as women have been doing rightfully since the phrase -- whatever the anagram behind -- was invented, Aeryn tells him to fuck himself, and takes off. (Listen and learn, boys.)
Rygel floats around his quarters, giggling and taunting D'Argo, who has just come looking for the crystal that's tearing them apart. "It's no use, Luxan! The crystal is well-hidden and will remain so until you and Zhaan are ready to listen to reason." Which D'Argo rightly defines as "when we return you to Hyneria." Yes. D'Argo threatens to find the crystal himself; Rygel promises he has "places...that even the Peacekeepers' scent hounds couldn't detect." Barf. Come on, you know what he's talking about, D. D'Argo offers to fight in Rygel's attempt to regain his throne, once home, if he'll side against Zhaan. "Imagine returning to your palace with a whole contingent of Luxan warriors at your command." D'Argo promises him that, whatever his crime, it won't interfere with this army. Rygel calls D'Argo's obvious plan to fuck him over a "Luxan trait," even as he's dodging D's attempt to smash him. Rygel pleads again for actual "reason" and D'Argo locks him in his cell. "Stay in there with your crystal as long as you wish -- until you starve. You forget, Your Rectal Eminence, you've been doing some housekeeping." He grabs one of the food cubes that Rygel was throwing out before, and takes a bite in Rygel's face, crumbling the rest.
Aeryn, walking toward Namtar's, lifts her shirt to reveal some shiny Pilot skin on her abdomen. Maybe some organs. She sees Namtar and grabs his arm, twisting it behind him. "You are hurting me, my dear," he hums. So beautiful. She says it's good that he's hurting, and he CREEPILY AGREES. "I have temporarily changed my nerve receptors from pain to pleasure." See, I can deal with the S&M gear but once you start in on that shit I lose interest. "This is not like what you did to the others," Aeryn persists, and he gives a sassy and insincere "Oops." She beats him, he loves it, it's gross. "You are in the latter part of phase one, I suspect," he muses. Of what? "I don't want to ruin the surprise."
Zhaan and D'Argo make some stupid deal about fucking over Rygel. Which: (a) we get it, (b) like that's not always going to be Plan A, and (c) right to hell, all of them. "Rygel has been a very useful ally in the past, but now he is enemy," says stupid Zhaan. "You and I must remain strong, no matter what it takes. And unified," says stupid D'Argo. They are unequivocal in this agreement which is neither unequivocal or an agreement, and which is in fact only and always categorically: retarded.
"Yes, Officer Sun?" smiles Pilot. She asks if he's in pain. "Nominal. I will be fine. There is clearly something wrong," he says. Worrying about her. About Aeryn. She says, PK Techly, that it's the DRDs bothering her. "Everywhere. Over this entire ship. But it's not just the DRDs, it's the ship's power generator, the hydraulic fluids..." Pilot understands: "You hear all that?" Not so much hear it, she says. He asks further: are you my sister? Do you know the pain of thought when thought is much too slow? She holds up her hand, the claw that is beginning there. The Pilot's hand, and notice it's the hand first. Signs on her body; usefulness in the hands. Hands -- and arms -- are the way we speak to the world; the way we change her. Third soldier down. He gasps. "It's not so much the noises as my own thoughts" she tries to explain yet again. "It's like they're all happening at the same time."
John comes in ebullient, telling Aeryn he wants to take her down to the planet -- Hi Pilot, he says, as though these two apocalypses aren't linked as tight as twisting DNA -- to find out what's wrong. "Maybe this Namtar guy..." Um, fucking no. "Dammit, Aeryn, I'm trying to help..." Not this time, not this time is she shaking him off because she's too strong. She's just telling the truth: science doesn't win this time. He grabs her arm and sees the evidence as she's twisting away; her stomach is blue, tubes and organs sticking out. More vulnerable than vulnerable. "It's Namtar. He took some of Pilot's DNA and he..." John's stuck on how. "I went back there. I wanted him to find me a place where I could belong. I didn't want to get left behind," she says. "I'm so scared," she says. The cost of that. I love her so much. From "Family would end me quickly" to this. She becomes more. Maybe in Sebacean there's a tense for gerundial, in opposition to the current; in this case it doesn't matter. The microbes are right: "I'm so scared," she says. "A place I could belong," she says. "I didn't want to get left behind," she says. "I'm so scared." In the strangest, scariest places she becomes more. As we do.
Rygel, like Aeryn, strains for that sustenance just outside his reach, as Zhaan occasions to be walking by. She stoops to what we might laughingly, not knowing Blue, call his level. "Ah, Rygel. What a surprise. I see you're having something to eat. Is that your third helping, or your fourth?" He plays the Dominar card he always plays, saying that going the fuck home makes you hungry. He's so awesome. "You know, Rygel, there's no reason why you and I should be at odds with each other," says Zhaan. As she holds a food cube just out of his reach. I don't want to know these things about them, because they're true about me and they're true about you: at the end of the day you're Rygel and I'm Rygel and we always play the fucking Rygel game at the end of the day, and I hate you, and I hate me. "You know," she sleazes, still so sexy and so beautiful, "D'Argo will leave you here to starve." Just him? She grabs his wrist, reaching out: "You know, Delvian Pa'us such as myself are...are open to all manner of experience." She strokes his mustache; heads lower. Turns the sweetness of D'Argo on Rest Day into sour sickness. Crackers don't matter. Except when they do. Except on a day like today: "O, methinks, how slow this old moon wanes! She lingers my desires, like to a step-dame or a dowager, long withering out a young man's revenue." When the whole world's gone crazy, because you cut the hand that feeds you, leads you, loves you without asking anything in return. Always hated that play. I prefer the natural order of things.
"I'm not saying anything. I believe talk is...overrated as a means of connection between two consenting beings." He explains that he's not a "body breeder," and don't we just know what he means. (Also: "body." The concepts gets an overhaul this week.) "I mean, well, I'm not made that way." But he does understand pleasure -- it's his role in the journey. Pleasure, the body; Zhaan turns even this holy role into sour sickness: "I know the Hynerian earbrow is very sensitive. I can be very gentle," she whispers. "This can be a very remarkable journey for you." I don't want to know these things. Palpating his pleasure organ, she asks for the crystal; grunting sourly, he wakes from the dream of his body, because Rygel can be fantastic: "Safely hidden, where it will remain. You honestly think that I could find you appealing? I mean, you're so...blue!" Don't talk to the body about pleasure, from your parapet. Know your role and slow your roll, Blue. "If D'Argo and I don't get that crystal, you will starve." And my man Rygel tells her that's a long time coming, and she can shove it. And she bloody well can, as far as blue can reach. I hate this episode; I don't want to see this stuff.
John leads Aeryn back into the bar, hands over too-sensitive ears, crowd alive: "C'mon, we're gonna get some answers." He fights science with science: "No, no. Remember what Pilot said about the noise, about your thoughts? String them. Separate them in your mind." It's just a field strategy exercise, only the enemy isn't trying to kill you, it's trying to become you. He takes her by the hand -- that tiny strong hand -- and leads her inside. "Easy for him to say. He's been doing it all his life." She sways, threatens to drop. "I'm losing it, John. I'm completely losing it." Consider please this woman; what she just said. Being more only ever hurts. "Answers coming up. Come on." They come upon Namtar's assistant Kornata. "You must let me past," she screeches, and goes on screeching. "What's wrong with you? With all of you?" Same stuff. Namtar enters and says hello. "Whatever you've done to her," says John, panicking, on the other side now of Maldis's wall, all alone with it even when she's in his arms, "Namtar, it wasn't part of our deal!" Deal? "A deal connotes reaching some point of equality. I'm afraid there's never been anything equal about us." He asks Aeryn how she's progressing. She's only ever been what people made of her.
Not so John, who attacks; with a wave of Namtar's hand John flies across the bar; with another Aeryn approaches, and he touches her long, white neck with his beautiful fingers. "You're coming along wonderfully. All of these physical affectations are superfluous. I assume though that you are also developing the heightened perceptions and multi-tasking capability?" Bad science, his crib and berth; Aeryn begs him to stop it. "You don't know what you're asking. You, my dear, are making a phenomenal contribution to the approach of sentient life towards perfection...and you want me to stop it?" Only if perfection is ugly; it never is. Aeryn draws her gun. John begs her to think: Namtar's the only one who can help her. She shoots anyway, because she is awesome and because she is not. Namtar congratulates her on her awesome gun and regenerates. Perfection. John gets tossed again, this time against something hard, and he goes quiet. Namtar leads Aeryn away.
Speaking of awesome and not, of those both fearfully and wonderfully made, Zhaan and D'Argo approach Rygel's cell. "D'Argo and I have spoken. We realize all this infighting is serving us nothing, except to keep us frozen in orbit around this asteroid." D'Argo stammers and acknowledges that Rygel's ultimately in charge of the crystal, for now. "So we agree to take you home to Hyneria," Zhaan pledges. "We'll find our own way home from there." But where is Rygel? A lump under the covers proves to be nothing, as D'Argo shouts, "He did not hear our offer and I hereby rescind it!" Straight to hell, all of you. The cell door shuts, and Rygel chuckles outside. "You really think that I could spend all those cycles locked up in one of these cells and not have a secret means of sneaking in and out as I please?" He takes off, leaving them to suck it; they beg nonetheless. Rygel's like my hero right now, even though he's no better than they are.
Kornata lays her hand on John's chest where he lies in the bar, unconscious. "Your wound is shallow, you'll be fine. Leave this place now, while you still can." She bounces, John follows, explaining that he's going to help Aeryn. Obviously. She doesn't get it. "You've gotta help me help her!" Kornata explains that Namtar's need for Aeryn is too great: "He wants to isolate your Pilot's multi-tasking capability through Aeryn; he'll do anything to get it." Because it's an ability he doesn't possess, yet. Meaning, John realizes, that Namtar's only ever grafting other species' traits onto himself. Another vampire. And further, John realizes that it wasn't Namtar that created the lab: it was Kornata. "I was the project leader. These were my research team: facility employees. We were working on theories of quantum genetics, on isolating...identifying the origins of intellect, the essentials of thought itself." That word: Isolating. The way even she, inside the story, shrinks from it. Isolated thought is no thought at all. "And Namtar started to use your discoveries on himself?" Kornata increased his "intellect." At first. "Then when he became smart enough, he began doing it on his own. He was a test subject." Bad science. RatMan. "He was one of my laboratory creatures. He drew genetic material from all the species I had catalogued. He increased his physical size. He gave himself the best traits of lifeforms from a thousand different worlds." And now Aeryn is his rat. "He used us all," Kornata whines. And is there anything we can do? "He controls my lab, all my equipment. If I'm away for more than an hour, he comes looking for me. He knows that I am the only one..." But, John shakes her, is there a way?
Aeryn hides in an alcove off the lab, her voice echoing: "Is it necessary to reduce me fully to the final stage?" It always is. Call it Harvey, call it Talyn John: it's only worth something once you lose it. "You are in no way being diminished," says the Rat. "You are being given a gift, you are experiencing a level of intellectual processing few beings ever approach." For what? "I feel what you describe, but...I am slipping away. I feel that, too." And so she will. Good line for the Rat here: "You must be willing to push off from the riskless shore in order to reach heady new lands." To look upward. It only hurts from this side, and that's the truth about apocalypse and that's the truth about being more. Especially and always for her. "But," she reasons, "As soon as my body reaches the saturation point, you will take the DNA features you desire and discard the rest." But it's not her body, it's her mind that scares her. He says it's going to be awesome and gives her a cup of something; a Pilot's claw (again, note) reaches out for it. And she's his, and that's all it takes. Princess doesn't suit her, does it?
Rygel hums and plays with the crystal on a console in command as D'Argo picks the cell's lock. Zhaan and D'Argo grumble about getting the cell door open. Worthless bastards.
"Pilot," says John, in Pilot's place, "This is Kornata. She's here to help Aeryn." Kornata pronounces Pilot magnificent, and we breathe a sigh of relief: once somebody says it, everyone will be okay. Just believe. "Pilot, we don't have a lot of time. In fact, we have no time. We need your assistance." And he offers it "without hesitation." As he would, as he does, as he always will. And Moya standing behind him, full of love and no hesitation, and in her gigantic heart and soul only the desire to hear you singing; only the desire to hear your love for her. To see the stars and to love, and that's your entire life. Could you cut, bash, injure the glory in that? Could you live with yourself if you did? It's not really rhetorical; they've got a lot on the line, or think they do, and I respect that.
Kornata talks a bunch of 'babble about how she's going to get Aeryn out of this pickle; Pilot multitasks this science without hesitation, though we know it's hard. John offers to help, and Pilot and Kornata shush him. "Crichton, I think you should know: Rygel has nearly finished reconfiguring the data on the cartographic crystal." Kornata lets slip that the crystal is not only worthless but a virus: "If you import the maps into the ship's data stores, it'll erase everything there." Welcome to the world of being an asshole, assholes. Here's a map worth exactly that much.
Where's the phone? I'll fucking call Crais myself. D'Argo finally opens the cell door and they run toward command, where John is wrestling with Rygel, who tries to bite. He takes it from Rygel and it shatters, worlds evaporating, gasps all around from the unforgivables. "What have you done?" hisses Zhaan, to John, still big enough to see enough of their perspective to know how painful that must have been: "It would have destroyed all of Moya's data. It was never meant to work." Pilot clamshells that "it's ready," and John leaves. We don't get to know what they're talking about because we're not worth it, just like Zhaan and D'Argo. It's an effective moment. John and Pilot are above and talking about things that we don't get to hear, because we're with Zhaan and D'Argo and Rygel.
Namtar mixes something and bitches at Kornata. "The final stage serum is nearly complete and I need your help!" John enters and makes some faces; Namtar tells him to bite it. "I don't have time for you now. I will need simply to kill you." Kornata works as John speaks: "I'm not here to attack you. I know that there's nothing I can do to you. I'm here to see Aeryn." Good science. "I'm afraid your friend Aeryn is no longer here, but...there is someone else you may be interested in meeting." He pulls the curtain on what Aeryn's become: "Step forward. Don't be modest." And she does. "John?" And how can Namtar do this to her? How can science set free from morality be so free still to horror? "Is that how you speak to someone who is fast approaching perfection?" John calls bullshit on that one; he's a scientist, he knows this. "You expect credit for using innocent lifeforms as specimens in your research? You of all people should understand the horror in that." Namtar's surprised that John knows about the rat part of the story. "What I didn't understand then is, all species are seeking perfection. That's what evolution is: the road towards perfection. How many generations of your species have lived and died to lead to you?" Just the right and most gorgeous amount, duh. "How many will die after you? All in the name of achieving a state of perfection." Or damn close. John's like, "The fuck you say?"
"You don't think I understand you, do you? Oh, I understand. No, believe it or not, we've had men like you on my planet. Educated men, men of science and medicine." John name-drops Mengele in case you're not feeling this particular anvil; Namtar calls him a "visionary." John grabs him -- "He was a monster" -- and Kornata injects Namtar with the stuff she decanted on Moya. Everybody goes flying with mind powers. "For this betrayal, you will die!" Namtar says, and then quickly shrinks all Gachnar because both shrinking and rats are funny and what we need right now is funny. Kornata lifts RatNamTar and drops him in a cage.
Problem not actually solved: Aeryn, almost totally Pilot now, alive with words and sounds she can't understand, walks slowly out into the light. And drops, calling John's name. John prepares to inject her with more Kornata science, but Kornata stops him: "No. For her, it must be the eye." Aeryn nods, because as bad as things in the eye are -- and in the myths, there's no difference between the hand and the eye, Woden wears an eyepatch because it's easier to think about than a god without a hand -- that's better than this. He injects her and she begins to seize. John screams, louder and louder: "What have I done?" Only saved her life, Kornata says. And John holds Aeryn.
When you fall in love with the shapeshifter, you meet her at the crossroads, full moon at midnight, and you hold her. No matter what she becomes. Fire, snake, hateful killer, snarling horse, wild beast. Pilot. Murderous, schizophrenic mother's daughter. Treacherous, disappearing soldier's lover. Hands around your throat; hands around your heart. Even when it's killing you. Even when she's Harvey's lovely daughter, all in a coldsuit, hair gone long and straight and black as night, lover and enemy in one, you hold her. You hold her, because it's your love that draws her back; your love that's the star by which she steers herself home. And she'll do the same for you, because you're a shapeshifter too.
Even when it's killing her.
John, while I've been going on and on, has arranged some food cubes into a LOL face for her delight. She's confused. "It's a happy face," she says, back to Aeryn again. He tries to explain and gives up. She reaches for the sustenance that Moya provides and will always provide; she begins to eat. She admits that food still tastes funny. "What was the worst part?" He asks, beautiful eyes full of her. "Aeryn?"
"I've always thought of myself in terms of survival. Life and death, keeping the body alive. But what Namtar did to me, it was...me. Inside. The real me."
John, with the insight and the beauty of the fool: "You would've fit in on Earth. Just fine." And that's all it takes, to close the Gilina loop; to shift shape once again. That truth, and we've begun.
Same scene, same meaning, different players: D'Argo enters Pilot's den carrying something over his shoulder. His blade? Not this time. Same size and shape, now shifted. "Your arm. Is it healing?" Of course. "You understand why I did what I did?" His motivations were perfectly clear, Pilot says. Language more clipped even than normal. The shapes Pilot can assume, when required. "And you understand that if I was faced with the same choice again, I would do exactly the same?" No doubt. "I also know that Luxans are not given to apology," says Pilot, more full of grace than ever before. He's what Zhaan wishes she was. What we wish she was. Now you know why the Muppets are something you have to get over: Pilot is the more we could be.
D'Argo glares at Pilot for that cheap shot, and sits before him. At his right hand. "The device you've been working on so diligently. What do you call it?" It's a shilquin. "And it is finally finished." And what manner of weapon is it? But D'Argo's a shapeshifter too, beautiful in his way. Strong and beautiful Ka D'Argo, who is not given to apology: "It is not a weapon." And he raises the shilquin, and begins to play -- not words, but something infinitely more beautiful; the shifting shape of love and apology -- he begins to play a song for Pilot.