SCIFI.COM | Farscape: Journey Logs

Journal of Sikozu Shanu ... still aboard the Leviathan Moya.

Crichton will no doubt accuse me of lying if he reads this, but I respect what he sees in Aeryn. At the commerce settlement, I especially admired her cognition, composure and courage. Without her, we could neither have rescued Grayza from the Scarrans nor escaped in safety. Her sacrifice saved my life.

Like the rest of Moya's crew, I'm sorry that Aeryn was abducted by the Scarrans that day. It saddens me to think that she is dead or dying in their hands. Few people deserve such a fate; she does not. No matter what Crichton and Chiana believe, if it were in my power to save Aeryn, I would try.

What Crichton does not seem to understand is that it is not in my power. I have done all that I can, which is more than most. While the Scarrans were abducting Grayza, I heard them say that they were taking her to "Katratzi." I've never heard of such a place before; Pilot has never heard of it; even Scorpius has never heard of it. Nonetheless, this slim lead has given Crichton hope, and he has insisted that I track it down.

Pilot and I have communicated with every source we can imagine. I've scoured every database I can connect to, and I've spoken to countless species, including Scarrans. No one has heard of Katratzi — or, if they have, no one dares speak of it. It must be a secret base, deep within Scarran territory. If that's true, Aeryn is all the more certainly lost. Even if we could enter Scarran space, she would be dead before we could begin to locate a top-secret base.

Despite his grief, Crichton should realize that. Instead, he demands that I continue the search. Though I stopped looking a few arns ago, I won't tell him; if hope is all he has, why should I take it from him? But even this act of kindness did not go unpunished: Chiana discovered my well-intentioned deception and gave me a scolding of her own.

As time passes, though, everyone but Crichton is beginning to face reality. Rygel has agreed with me from the start. Pilot and D'Argo understand that the odds are against us — and against Aeryn. Even Chiana has stopped arguing. Moya has become an oddly quiet ship.

Except for Crichton. I believe the grief and worry are affecting his sanity (which has always been borderline, anyway). He has secluded himself in his quarters with a "videotape" containing an Earth transmission that Pilot intercepted near the wormhole.

Crichton has spent arns watching this "documentary" — I will not spend arns rehashing it. It's filled with video recordings of us, all filmed by Crichton's young relation, Bobby, while we were visiting Earth. It's a piece of paranoid, isolationist propaganda masquerading as impartial journalism.

(Then again, perhaps Crichton's people are correct to be frightened. If another species wanted to bother, Earth could be conquered or destroyed easily. It would be a calamity such as the Scarrans inflicted on the Kalish — except that the Kalish convinced their conquerors that they could be useful. I doubt that Earth could manage even half that much.)

Crichton has also nurtured the irrational belief that he's heard the word Katratzi before. He can't say where, or when, though he insists that Chiana and I were there, and that we heard it, too. He's wrong.

I've not always been honest with Crichton. But I am being honest about this. I wish he would believe me. And — though I sometimes admire his tenacity — I wish he would give up his irrational human hope.

Then we could all mourn Aeryn together, in the manner that she deserves.