SCIFI.COM | Farscape: Journey Logs

Journal of Sikozu Shanu, aboard the Leviathan Moya in Tormented Space:

For once, disaster has ensued because this crew — Chiana in particular — tried to do something marginally sane. When two traders offered to sell us a slave girl named Talikaa, Chiana insisted that we liberate the girl by buying her.

Talikaa showed us little gratitude for her rescue. Worse, the people she touched (which, ultimately, was everyone except Noranti) began acting strangely. Aeryn was colder to Crichton than their ongoing conflict could possibly justify, while Crichton became foolishly convinced that he and Aeryn would soon reconcile. Chiana was even more sexual than usual — toward Talikaa. Elsewhere, Rygel boasted to D'Argo that he'd cheated the traders, giving them cheap altered currency. Rygel is greedy, but rarely does his avarice betray him into making such a foolish admission. D'Argo's fury in response was equally disproportionate.

It seemed that each crew member's dominant trait (Crichton's hopefulness, Rygel's greed, and so forth) had been magnified.

Though Talikaa acted like a cowed ex-slave, Noranti and I suspected she was to blame for the others' odd behavior. I voiced my concerns to Scorpius, who convinced Crichton to track down our guest. After a shipwide chase, Crichton and Aeryn cornered Talikaa.

Later, they couldn't remember how the girl had rendered them unconscious, only that it had been fast and vicious. They awoke feeling sick and empty. Talikaa soon attacked D'Argo, Chiana and Rygel in the same manner. I seemed to be immune to Talikaa's strange powers, but she assaulted me, too. Transforming herself into an arachnid monster, she severed my arm and leg and left me for dead.

Noranti and Scorpius discovered my unconscious body in time. While Noranti aided me, Scorpius began waging a terrible mental struggle: Talikaa's touch had emboldened the dangerous, Scarran side of his mixed ancestry, overwhelming his normally well-balanced personality.

Weak and sick, the others now realized that Crichton had become pessimistic, Aeryn overly emotional, D'Argo oddly placid, Chiana chaste and Rygel apathetic. Talikaa's second contacts with them had stolen the dominant traits that her initial touch had enhanced. Further, Moya sensed the traders' ship returning. The crew feared that the men had discovered Rygel's fraud and were coming to exact their revenge.

But the traders actually were coming to plead for our help. They were too late — by the time we had brought their ship aboard Moya, the traders had died of a wasting disease. It was soon clear that they'd been Talikaa's previous victims. Crichton and the others saw their own grim fate in the traders' corpses.

On the traders' vessel, the crew discovered a medical data file that explained Talikaa's behavior. Her species first enhances then "harvests" the neural energy of each victim's dominant trait. Each victim's stolen neural energy is stored in a unique orb in her nest for later consumption. If the crew could find Talikaa's nest and destroy the orbs, they could regain their vigor and defeat her.

I regained consciousness and was comforted to find that Noranti had reattached my limbs properly. Though Scorpius was suffering terribly, I still considered him a valuable ally; Noranti, however, overreacted and knocked him out with one of her powders.

No one could locate Talikaa's nest, and the crew was weakening physically and mentally. Crichton was despairing; Aeryn was near panic. Then the traders' vessel powered up and fled Moya. Certain that Talikaa had escaped, the crew raced to D'Argo's ship to pursue her. Crichton, now too weak to accompany them, stayed behind.

But when D'Argo and the others boarded the traders' ship, they found it empty. It had been a diversion. Talikaa was still hiding aboard Moya. The only people left now to stop her were me (half-crippled), Scorpius (losing his mind), Noranti (old, unreliable), and Crichton (near death, though whether from neural collapse or suicide remained to be seen).

If it weren't for Scorpius, my life on Moya would be beyond unbearable. Naturally, then, Crichton devised a plan to sacrifice him, the only competent being (other than myself) aboard Moya, in a desperate bid to trick the monster into revealing its nest.

If only I knew what Scorpius saw in this Human....