I told Gilina I could have fallen in love with her. There's nothing else to tell a woman who is dying because she tried to save your life. Okay, that's not strictly true. There are two ways to treat the dying. Tell them everything they want to hear, or admit to them plainly that they're screwed. I followed the first route with Gilina, but I wonder now what I really think, how I really feel. Now that those big brown eyes aren't giving me such a hard stare, I'm wondering what I really feel.

I think (god, I'm such a shit) I think I lied to her. I don't think I could have fallen in love with Gilina. I could love her, I did love her, I do love her. But she isn't the sort of woman I could be in love with.

When I was a kid, I watched Star Trek. (In reruns of course, I was still in diapers when the series first aired.) And I thought Captain Kirk was hot shit with all of his beautiful alien babes. But when I got older, I wondered what was wrong with him, that he could never find an alien babe that wanted to be with him permanently. It occurred to me that his women ran to two types: black widows and alien babies. Now, of course our man Kirk couldn't stick with the black widow types. But the alien babies were these sweet, innocent girls who Kirk introduced to the concepts of love and independence, these shy, retiring types that he awoke to passion or some shit like that. He helped them grow up, but they would never be grown ups as long as they hung with Kirk. They had needed him, for a time, and then they didn't. But the habits of that cocoon stage would have stayed with them, if they had stayed with Kirk.

I think Gilina could have been my alien baby. I always thought it was a good thing when circumstances separated Kirk from his alien baby, but now that it's my turn, I almost wish Scorpius had shot me before she got there.

And I've also got to wonder, if Gilina was an alien baby, isn't Aeryn? I've fucking pushed her into becoming an independent person. And I did awake her to passion, although once she figured out what sex was all about, she just about fucked me through a wall. So, should I be worried that she's going to need me, or worse, that she's going to think she needs me once she's outgrown me?

I really, I really hope not. Because frankly, Aeryn is a strong woman already. I've taught her all I can about being an independent human, er, Sebacean being. She knows more about loyalty than I do. Her passion meter is set to high. Her sense of humor, I fear, is a lost cause, but everybody's gotta have a flaw. It's one that would keep me from dating her, though.

You know, the real, true problem with all of Kirk's alien babies was that he could never have been friends with them, not like he was with Spock, not like he was with McCoy. Hell, not even like he was with Chekov and Sulu. What I feel, what I want, is to be friends with Aeryn.

I am not, however, opposed to fucking with friends. I mean, Kirk was the original heterosexual superstud, but if he and Spock were trapped in a cave when that seven year itch hit, I bet he wouldn't have let him *die*.

Just like Gilina wouldn't let me die.

I was taken by the recruiters when I was five. And when I arrived at my first training center, I thought senior officers were gods. They knew everything about us, they controlled everything we did, they told us what to think. How could a recruit not believe they were gods?

As I got older, I realized they knew everything because we were under constant surveillance. And I knew that surveillance had blind spots. But it didn't matter, because I gave everything to the Peacekeepers. How could I not? The Council, those gods of gods, let everyone knew who they were, and I was Officer Aeryn Sun, a good soldier with the potential to become a superior soldier, whose loyalty and obedience were given without question to all who ranked above me.

Irreversible contamination means that is no longer true. It's just taken me this long to realize that. When Crais tried to order me, because I'd vowed to obey my senior officers until death, I felt nothing. Nothing, when before I'd felt a rightness, an alertness, a desire to please and to excel at orders, mixed with a tight fear of failure. All the gods of my childhood had fallen down dead at my feet.

I was thrown for a moment. I was scared, not of failure, but that I was nothing. If I am not an officer and a soldier, who am I? I forgot, for a moment, everything John had taught me, and everything I had taught myself in my time on Moya, with all of these people who have no rank, no organization, no firm place in which I can anchor myself. Then I heard D'Argo's voice say, "Quathali," and felt D'Argo's hand on my face. And with that I could remember my life, my real life, since I had stopped being a Peacekeeper drone. I could condemn Crais to the worst punishment I could ever envision.

I wonder if, in becoming D'Argo's sword brother, I've condemned John to his own vision of worst punishment possible. He was telling me about his lovers on Earth, once. And when he was through, I asked why they were all female. He thought I was kidding, but I wasn't. Peacekeeper soldiers, before they reach a stage where they can have their own attendants, tend to stick to their own gender for sex. They pick attendants to fit whatever fantastic requirements they might have, but before that, it's whoever is assigned to the corridors near one's own quarters. Techs have a little freer mobility and aren't as likely to be sex-segregated in the first place, so they're more likely to cross genders. When he figured out I was serious, he explained that 'homosexuals' were a persecuted sub-group on his planet, and any leanings he might have had that way he ruthlessly squashed as a matter of course. His best friend had been suspected of being homosexual when he was in high school, and the entire experience had been sheer hell from the moment the rumors started.

If he chooses not to be D'Argo's lover, I will be saddened. He has the ability to make me feel cherished when we are in bed. It's a good feeling, to feel precious, to feel unique. But this tie I have formed to D'Argo gives me much the same feelings. D'Argo can give me these feelings without touching me. John does not.

Well, he does not usually. One day I brought him back something from a commerce planet, I no longer remember what exactly, but I knew he would like it because of our conversations about Earth. When he saw what I brought him, and I told him why, he said, "Aeryn, it really makes me happy to have a good friend in the Uncharted Territories." Good friend sounds a little like Quathali, to me.

I have a brother. He is nearly ten cycles younger than I. We have never gotten along, but when he was very young and I was not so old, my parents would sometimes give him into my care. I nearly let him die one day, because I was not paying attention. He scraped his knee while running, and if he hadn't gotten a stain on a piece of white cloth, I would not have noticed. No one knows that I almost let my brother's blood kill him but me. He was too young to understand at the time, and too young to remember later. I told no one. But I remember.

Today was like that. I am now Quathai, and no one knows but me and my new brother. And I did not protect my Quathali, though she placed herself in grave danger. It is shameful. Swear a blood oath to protect someone with all that one is, and then, arns later, send her into the most dangerous situation imaginable and wait outside to see if she returns.

I had no choice. I could not help her do this without the oath, without that trust. I was sure she would accept, for she is a true warrior. Her blood is good, her skin is thick, and her heart beats swiftly. All true warriors eventually take a brother. I wish only that I could have been as good a brother to her as she has been to me.

My mother's punishments for this dishonor would be far worse than those she meted out when I told her I was to marry a Sebacean. She could not understand how I could marry someone small, who had no proper tattoos, and a face which appeared horribly deformed. In short, someone not a Luxan warrior. But Lo'lann had a fierce heart, if only one of them. And she hit hard when I bled. And I loved her, despite her strangely short face and her size and her naked skin.

But I wonder what is in me, to take a Sebacean as my Quathali? In a way, I must become closer to Aeryn than I ever was to my beloved. We must fight as a unit and live in tandem. I think this will be harder for me than for her. Conformity is not my virtue, or else I would not be in this situation.

And now, I learn that I may have to face this strange not-Sebacean, this human, as my lover. I have thought of him that way before, but during hyperrage, when I have thought of Zhaan and Rygel and my shilquen as potential mates and potential enemies, all at the same time. But now, when no hormones stir my brains, I wonder truly what I will do if he decides that Aeryn is worth a time or two in my bed.

I do not think I can tell Aeryn no, if she still wants him. But can I tell Crichton yes? For that is what is required, that we share him. Well, he does not smell repulsive, and I do not think he will scream and panic if we discuss the mechanics of the act before hand. I wonder if he is gentle in bed. I wonder if he will consider restraints if he is not.

There is no real use wondering. Gilina still breathes, for the moment. He had feelings for her before. And I smelled Stark on him. Friendships and other things can be forged in a prison, as I know all too well. Crichton has a habit of making the world interesting, but I can never tell just how he will do it. It is useless to anticipate him.

I must wait, and see, and pay more attention to him and her than I did to my poor brother. We do not have many white fabrics in this ship.