Part 9

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John staggered down the hall, barely aware of where he was going. He turned down a hall, blinking groggily as he tried to settle his gaze on Larran leaving Chiana's quarters.

Larran walked to him, stepping up beside him as he narrowed his eyes. "Still alive are you?"

John shot his arm out, snatching Larran by his throat with his bloody hand and pressed him against the wall. "Yeah me," John tilted his head as he tried to meet his eyes. John's gaze was somehow hollow, weak with hunger and thirst.

"Don't kill him John," he heard Harvey's voice.

"Frell you," John blinked, shaking his head to try to get past the daze, squeezing Larran's throat tighter as the sick Nebari seemed to smile.

"Get on the inside," Harvey suggested. "You've much better chances of escape ..."

"And do what," John asked Larran. "Be his body guard? Play dead, roll over. Hey ... hey Larran ..."

"John Crichton," Larran denoted with a raise of his eyebrow.

John closed his eyes briefly, shaking his head as he raised his pointing finger up at him. "Don't - don't do that, don't stick your eyebrow up at me. Hey, cut a deal man. You gotta cut me a deal. Right? Harvey says you got a position for me, so no killing off ole Johnny boy. Right, so damn I gotta ..."

John closed his eyes as he swooned in place. He shook his head again as Larran pushed him back. "If you can manage to follow me," he snorted. "Perhaps I can find use for another servicer in the kitchens."

"No, no that's not it," John protested as he staggered after him. "Harvey! Hold on a second!" He fell, groaning to himself as he forced himself back up to chase after Larran.

---

She stuck her hand out to the doorway, testing it for a shock. This one was open too, nothing happening to block her as she stepped into the oblong, capsule shaped room. She couldn't help but feel like a rat in a maze as she stepped inside. Her elbows bent back, easing along like a prowler through the rows of glass capsules standing atop short, rounded stands that looked almost more like stems grasping their buds. Tubes and cables ran from floor to glass capsules from the bulbs that encased them, pumping fluids back and fourth like the incubators were self containing aquariums.

Inside each of them were pale gray shapes, mutated embryonic forms that looked like they were or could be Nebari form. Some of them were as old as adolescence, curled into fetal positions, those that could be ... some were simply beyond any sort of recognition, just blurbs of grub-like fleshy mass. It made her feel sick, sick enough to hold her stomach as she stepped through, peering at the things from the folds of her bangs, hiding her face from it. Still, it hardly shook the feeling, the obscenity. It was almost horrific, something so freakish she doubted Zhaan could ...

"Zhaan ..."

She raised her head slightly, her eyes widening with some hopefulness even as she found herself gaping solemnly on a young incubated form of twisted, waning flesh - atrophied and malformed to a point their face looked like melted wax ... she could remember Zhaan. It was slow, little flashes of her blue form working on something, her expression in pity and tears for these - abominations of nature.

Chiana felt her skin crawling as the form in front of her flexed it's near transparent fingers. She backed away from it into a low crouch, tocking her head as her eyes drew almost pinpoint like a frightened mouse. She backed into one of the other capsules, it startled her, forcing her to whirl around in a sharp breath. She gaped at the pale, near transparent creature she had bumped into, able to see its eyes through it's closed lids. This was so far beyond any explanation and yet ... so frelling typical of what she could expect from her own people. Some "un-thing" horror they'd cough up for the Greater Good. But she thought, Larran wasn't Establishment. It didn't make much sense he'd have a laboratory like this ... would he?

She tilted her head at the creature, gazing on it sorrowfully as she barely dared to rest her fingertips on its glass, as if afraid the touch might snap back at her but at the same time resting her fingers just along the line of its cheek. Just who was taking the force shields off the doors for her to see this dren?

She jerked back down into a low squat, eyeing the surroundings beneath her brows until she saw another doorway to the back wall beyond a couple rows. She felt wary of ending up in another trapped room down in this freaked out hezmana. She rested her hand on the floor, eyeing the way she came in as she listened with intensity. The place was soundless except for the hums and churns of the incubators. Maybe it was time to give up on this dren and just go back to the rooms. Nothing was worth this, especially any escape if John couldn't come with her ...

She drew her shoulders and elbows back as she rested on a knee and straightened herself, swaying slightly as she eyed the other doorway again from the corners of her eyes. She couldn't leave without John, she just couldn't bring herself to be alone again ... but her curiosity was really getting the better of her this time.

"Nothing would pleasure me less" Larran's voice came back to her recollection "than to let the only complete specimen of you go." A fear raised the hair on the nape of her neck. Could all of this around her be the unspeakable results of an obsession to possess....her?

Her breath caught as the door closed behind her, leaving the room much too dark to see anything. On instinct she turned to the door, her ungloved hands resting on it, sliding down the edge to find the panel or a knob. She felt panicked, her search becoming more earnest in finding nothing.

A subtle shift of cloth sounded like it resonated in the deathly silent darkness. It was behind her, something ... she realized she hadn't released the tightness of holding her breath as several dull thumps followed. She let it out slowly through flaring nostrils, trying to keep herself as silent as the dark as she slipped to resting her back against the wall.

It felt like ages before her eyes finally began to adjust, picking up on shades of shadows from light that barely found its way in through the doors cracks. In the farthest corner something moved again, making a very low, moaning sound.

Her hand slid up and along the door, the side of her palm catching along a short stub. She pushed at it. The small panel slid open, abruptly casting light into the room from the hall. The moan immediately rose into a wretched scream.

She tried to gather what she was seeing exactly as the form cringed back into the corner, curled into themselves like a ball as the screaming continued. Chiana fumbled for the panel again, closing it halfway to lessen the light.

"I'm not going to hurt you," she barely muttered. "I - I'm just looking for - the door handle ..."

She could tell they were a Nebari female but only from the ashen white of the wild, unkempt hair. She had her face in the wall, her screams dwindling into pathetic sobs as she slid one hand up along the wall. It was cuffed with a chain leading to a ring in the center of the back wall.

Chiana dared only one or two steps closer, her lips parting as she came down into a crouch in front of the girl. She spread her palms outward at her sides as she tilted her head, lowering one shoulder as she gazed on her. The gray pants and shirt the girl wore were grimy and smelled. There were blood stains on her shirt she seemed to be grabbing and pulling at with her other hand tucked into the corner. Chiana felt the hairs rising on the back of her neck as fresh dots of blood seeped through.

"You," she swallowed hard, slowly daring to reach out to the girl, her trembling hand barely coming close to the scar that lightning streaked down the girls neck, that she could see of it. There was another one on her upper arm, a very deep one. It looked like someone had taken a chunk out of most of her shoulder muscle. "You're hurt ... ?"

The girl became quiet, breathing shallow gasps into the wall as Chiana's fingertips delicately came across her shoulder.

"Let me see," she coaxed softly as she leaned slightly closer. "Iiiit - it's okay ... what did you do?"

The girl sniffed within her tears, a face buried within the straggling, limp hair turned to her as she held out a badly shaking hand coated in her blood. "Kehaaaaaaaaa ..." she moaned, coming to tears again as her nose drained down her twisted open mouth. "Kehaaaaaa - veeeehhhh ..."

"Cut you?" Chiana wondered quickly as she drew to sitting straighter on the balls of her feet, resting her knees down as she took the girls hand into her own. She tilted her head in a slight sway of it, letting out a small, almost purring sound. She brought her lips to the girls hand and drew her tongue across the blood, licking most of it away in one sweep, until she could see the deep slash just below her second finger. "Ooooo," she winced her eyes up to the girls hidden face, just able to make out her terrified eyes through the trembling strands of dirty hair. She could barely make out that there was a scar on her face as well. "That's bad ..."

"Nnnnnn!" The girl began to sob again, shaking violently as she brought her other hand over and began to dig her finger into the cut. Chiana gaped at her near to tears of her own as the girl forced her hands out of her grasp and brought them into her chest, her moans verging near screaming again as she twisted and dug her fingers into the cut.

"I ..." Chiana shook her head as she moved back. "I'll find you something ... so - so - some bandages ..."

She shot up swiftly and made for the door, finding the panel to escape as the girls voice rose again into high pitched, hollow sounding screams.

---

Larran stepped into the kitchens, resting his back against the wall as John came stumbling after him with his bloody, mangled hands held up to his chest. Servants quickly left as John dove after the prepared meals on the tables adjacent to the open faced stoves.

"Don't eat too fast," Larran warned him. "It's odd you should mention guard duty ... I just may have a position for you as an errands man. I have ... shops on lease in the market quarter that have problems with payments. Nothing legitimate of course, I need a strong arm to remind them ..."

"Well, some things never change," John grimaced to himself as he tried to hold a utensil to cut at a slab of meat. "Okay I'll do the loan shark bit, no problem Hoss. Just - what makes you think I won't hit that door on the way out there and never come back?"

"Chiana," he stated plainly as he crossed his arms, watching John try to cut with his tender, raw hands. "And if you would care to roam the Prime as a free man ... let's just say the position will temporarily drop the warrents for arrest on both of you."

"Great," John half nodded as he finally managed to saw off a large chunk and began to chew on it. "Hey, anything for the Greater Good man. I'm on it, chua!"

"Then I can rest assure your services are no longer in Chiana's care ..." he narrowed his eyes on John's alarmingly gaunt face as he turned to look at him.

John chewed, his gaze still dulled and distant. "Yeah man," he suddenly smiled. "Hey, you got the better deal. She's totally out."

"Then we shall get you cleaned up and begin," Larran returned with a sinister smile. "I think Chiana should be alerted of your change of loyalties."

"But I'm not into ... uhh," John raised his hands. "Can't do anything to the Pipmeister, Hoss. I'll get your shops in line."

"Don't get me wrong," Larran eyed him. "I'm sure nothing could break a true loyalty between a Nebari like Chiana and her servicer ... you won't torture her. I'll just have to ensure the question is planted into her mind ... come, we'll tend your wounds now."

"Arf!" John retorted, laughing manically again as he grabbed a loaf of bread on his way out.

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"Whoa this one cost" Chiana held out the fur jacket then unleashed a manic giggle. She scurried over to the pile of clothes on the adjoining room floor. "Naahhh" she scurried over to a pile near it. "Almost as much as that one....." she nodded and then scurried to yet another pile. "Ahhhhh, this one definitely goes here. Definitely."

Scurrying back into one of the walk in closets partially emptied of its rich cargo, the whole vision swayed a little. "Frell." Chiana shook her head. Swallowing, she hoped she didn't get a sick spell and have to try throwing up the empty stomach, like what happened last time she went this long with nothing to eat. This wasn't so bad so far. Not at all. She tocked her shoulder. "One advantage of going through that dren so many times.....you get used to it....." she told the closet.

This one was nice, she thought, clutching the sleeve of the copper jacket and nuzzling into it. She sniffed in deeply. "Mmmm nice." She laughed, carefully removing it from the closet, running it into the other room, picking an appropriate pile and dropping it on. She nodded. Then she scurried back into the closets to retrieve another article of finery.

Finally every closet was stripped of every article worth anything. Chiana stepped around all the huge piles cluttering part of the floor appraising her work with much satisfaction.

Returning into the room, she got into a squat before the most best absolute favorite stack of clothes. She shoved the item she held in her arms under the pile. She then raised her hands over the pile like she was waving up something invisible into the air. After a few microts, she sniffed back some tears and smiled as smoke began to rise from the smoldering pile.

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