"I'm telling you, this is a mistake!" She protested in a light, gentle voice that seemed to catch in her breath as she tried to follow the guard back out of the cages gate with her hands behind her. "At least take these cuffs off of me."

She jerked back as he slammed the gate nearly into her delicately featured face. Her gentle black eyes narrowed cooly though as she turned down the fence with the guard, shoulders hunched as she tilted her head and began to whisper to him. The tall human-like being laughed as he pointed into the pen.

"Right now you have bigger problems."

She cut her eyes around slowly. The cage was a building in width and two stories tall, settled easily between three buildings somewhere just beyond the market square. She was apparently in the brink on this odd planet but her fellow prisoners made up a very unusual bunch even to her. There were about fifty or sixty beings and creatures, many of them seemed more like non-sentient animals.

"Frell," she muttered to herself as several of them began to mob around her. She stepped back, closer to the building wall. As she glanced up her attention was caught by the pen that made up the second story where prisoners milled and peered back down from what looked like several rows of cages. They were neatly slid into tracks like rectangular shaped crates for shipping them. A deeper fear tightend in her chest.

Hands snatched her and slung her down to the hard stone floor. She quickly drew to her knees, searching the eyes of those who encircled her in a feral manner as someone came up from behind her and literaly stood over her. Their boots planted on either side of her as knees hugged her sides. She twisted around slightly to get a look at them. The young man was fairly lean, standing at a six feet in height and clad in a black, sleevless tunic over a royal blue shirt. Deer like antlers swept back from his tempils and sharply slanting eyes of a fire blue gazed over the others silently as he crossed his arms. His intricately featured face was framed by rabbit-soft, metalic silver hair that streamed passed his shoulders in waves and cowlicks. He looked something next to faery like, almost elfish, his mild, calm expression gazing over them until they reluctanly backed down without a word being passed.

She barked a high pitched laugh as she whirled around to him and stood with her head tilted to her shoulder, eyeing him rather craftily as she struggled with her restraints. "So what did you do to get in here?"

"I didn't do anything," he spoak softly though his voice seemed to carry an authority as he rested his fire blue eyes into hers. "Only the ones who have done something come in chained. You're lucky though, usualy they end up above us."

"They just picked you off of the street while you were minding your own buisness?" She mused as she narrowed her eyes. "And you expect me to believe that."

"I don't expect anything," A small, wistful smile crossed his thin lips. "And my delema is having Eshran without permits in this sector. I thought this was over, at least, it is to most of the land."

"Eshran."

He turned and nodded slightly towards a younger female that looked as he did only she did not bear antlers and her pointed ears seemed larger and more sweeping like a leaf in a short, wild thrash of smokey colored silver hair. She sat squat on the stone ground, playing some kind of pretend game with a collection of little stones, marbles, bits of string and coins. She seemed a little old for it though.

"You strangers are never on my planet long enough to learn anything swiftly enough, new commer." He spoak more seriously, his thin, smokey brows creased with the discontent he felt though his eyes sharpend with the worry that blazed intently deep within them. "You're in allot more trouble than you may think."

"You want to tell me what kind of trouble that is? My name's Chiana by the way."

"Valkry," he spoak kindly as he uncrossed his arms and lightly placed his fingertips on her forehead and then placed them on his own as his eyes seemed to gently smile. "Come sit with us, I will explain."
 
*********************************
 
"Chiana!" Crichton banged on the bars with his pulse pistol. "Yo! Pip! Are you in there?"

Chiana ran to him, smiling brightly with relief as she leaned against the gates bars and looked up to him. She moved to speak when a stick smacked against the bars. She lurched back as Crichtons pulse pistol met the guards face. He looked much the same as Valkry except his hair was black as well as his antlers and his sharply slanting eyes were solid black like mirrors.

"Hey!" He snapped as he bit his lower lip. "I'm talking to her."

"You'll be joining her if you don't lower your weapon," the guard snareld as he hefted his prod.

"Right," Crichton snipped out without budging. "How much to bail her out?"

"There is no way out. She can take the test or wait for pick up."

"You want to explain that?" Crichton narrowed his eyes as he let Aeryn lower his pistol. "What test?"

"She can go through the maze," the guard sneered as he pointed towards the back of the pen. "It's a very simple test of intelligence. If she is sintient at all she can pass it and be on her way. If not, then she will be shipped with everyone else to our governmental services laboratories for scientific study."

"She is sentient, what are you frelling blind?" Crichton snorted. "She's a Nebari, I'm sure you heard her speaking just fine with every curse word available to your interpretation microbes when you stuck her in here."

"Crichton." Chiana muttered.

"Anyone of average intelligence can pass through the maze. If she did not have a problem with that she would have gone already."

"Crichton."

"That sounds so frelling familiar," Crichton seethed his ice blue eyes at him, shaking his head as he raised his pistol again. "I've heard that one before somewhere. Seriously, how much would it be worth to you to bail her out?"

"Aeryn." Chiana cut her eyes to her in exasperation.

"So let her take this maze," Aeryn stated as she lowered Crichtons pistol again. "She would only get a good lesson out of it. I'm sick of something always comming up everytime we land on a commerce planet."

"Aeryn!"

"My planet is not for your commerce," the guard grimanced as two more of his men came up behind him. "You are here only because the Governmental Services values alien trade. That does not make you immune to racial law."

"Oh, so now we're the frelling tourists trying to get our wayward stray out of the dog pound. How much more insulting can it get around here?"

"Can I say something?"

"Shut up!" Crichton and Aeryn stated in unsion as Zhaan leaned slightly to peer through the bars at Eshran as she peeked around Chiana. Her dark midnight blue eyes stared wildly at Zhaan with fascination as she aproached, her gentle lips parting as she dared a touch of her finger tips to Zhaans forehead and then touched her own where she squated.

"A trace memory of mind linking," Zhaan muttered softly with interest as she knelt down to her. "You carry your traditions well, such a pity you've forgotten what that was for."

"She might not understand you," Chiana said as she sighed and looked into Zhaans eyes desperatley as Aeryn and Crichton continued to argue with the guards. "Zhaan, they aren't going to let any of us leave unless we take thier maze to study us. Eshran may not pass because she's Feyan and none of us might - might even survive because there's a frelling monster loose in the maze they've been trying to flush out for half a cycle and there's only ten arns left before these scientists come to stick us in experiments in thier labs which is completely legal but only on this particular continent. I told you we should have landed on the better looking side but noone would listen to me and now I'm stuck in here and all I did was help myself to those giant nuts with a straw in them because I was frelling thirsty. Valkry says we're all frelled because he's not letting them take his sister and the -the intelligence test is-"

"Chiana." Zhaan sighed, rolling her eyes as she stood. "Would you please slow down and explain this to me more briefly?"

"Explain it on the way," Crichton stated as he stepped through the gate with Aeryn and took Chianas cuffs off of her.

"I can't just leave Valkry and Eshran here like this!" Chiana protested.

"You're not," Cricthon glared beneath his brows as he brought his face closer to her ear and passed her a pulse pistol from within his leather cloak. "We just got arrested. You want to introduce us to your new pound pals? The quicker we get off planet Frell You the better."

"I tried to tell you the smaller continent looked better. I was right too, the Kree are against this Governmental Services thing."

"Back up," he muttered as he took her arm and pulled her further into the pen. "Who are the Kree and what is this maze test, exactly."

Chiana nudged her head to Valkry as he aproached and then pointed to a door way to the back wall. The wall inside the door slanted down, indicating a stairway down into an underground.

"Valkry said that the sciences can study anyone they want to if they refuse to take the test or don't pass it."

Crichton nodded warily to Valkry as Zhaan aproached holding the shoulders of Eshran who stared distantly up at the cages above.

"It is not because you are strangers," Valkry explained as he settled his eyes worridley apon his sister. "Our world has been trying to elminate imperfection within the defunitions of the racial law introduced by the Governmental Services generations ago. My kind have overthrown them on this land Chiana speaks of, Shanas, but the Kryn still support them in many colonies abroad this region."

"If it's racial law, then it would be because we are strangers, right?" Crichton asked. "We don't exactly look like you or these Kryn. I mean, what's so imperfect with you guys, wrong pigmintation, not born in the same place, antlers not screwed in tight enough?"

"You do know enough," Valkry spoak in his same calm, gentle voice as they aproached the door. "But you don't understand what is going on. We have been invaded by aliens from a nearby world who created this government to imprison us all. They are mostly gone now, but thier interest in using us for experiments still remains and the Kryn are still blind to the needs of our world because we have been enemies long ago. It is a dying planet, new commer. Dying in everything but the secrets of our ancestors that still carry within us to keep trying to over throw this and remember what we once were. You did not become a prisoner until you walked through that gate, but we have been prisoners catering to the commerce and sciences of the Governmental Services since the fall of the High Realm."

Crichton wiped his face as he turned to stare at the girl as she played with her long embroidered shirt of forest green and scratched at her ankle with a foot snuggly within her soft suade boot.

"This is your sister?"

"Yes," Valkry bowed his head slightly as his fire blue eyes stared into Crichtons with the same intense worry deep within them as before. "I did not know this citadel was under the control of the Kryn. I had heard it had been liberated only three cycles ago. I was returning, because this had once been our home."

"And you don't think she'll pass this test..."

Zhaan nodded to Crichton as he spoak, still holding protectivley to Eshran as she tilted her head and began to waggle her hand in front of her chest with a thoughtful if somewhat lost expression as her lips pursed.

"I think she can," Zhaan spoak with genuine relief as Eshran found a great deal of interest in the small silver buttons along Aeryns jacket and began to try to pick at them until Chiana slinked around her and shared a curious stare with her. "She is-"

"Feyan," Valkry interupted. "Before the Governmental Serivces our kinds spoak empathicly, we hadn't even heard of interpretation microbes until 300 cycles ago. Sometimes we come out as my sister has without the sharing our ancestors once knew. You have to understand, we were well advanced races. We could not fly ships into the universe, but we had little to need for and we were all united by the empathic bond. It is those like my sister who can restore it, at the same time, she knows only the empathic thought and is lost without the ancient bond to guide her. It can happen to any of us at any age, that is what the Governmental Services wants to eliminate. The only thing is, they are the cause of it."

"Don't look too worried," Crichton said as he turned and peered down the dark stairway. "If we get out of this fun house, it'll be together. We'll help you out, hell, maybe someday you'll repay the favor."

Valkry grasped Crichtons shoulder as he looked profoundly into his eyes. "I will speak your names in the Hall of Azura where they shall echoe for a hundred turns of Last Moon."

"I wouldn't go that far," Crichton smirked. "Maybe just a 'kilroy was here' in some old mages scroll."

 
***************************************
 
The group ventured down the stairs, comming out into an underground world of halls with passages and pipe lines on second and third stories above. Thier first task looked like the locked gate in front of them with a map to the side of it red lining a path through a major system.

"Do you know much about these tests?" Aeryn asked to Valkry as she inspected the map, unable to pry it from the wall though it looked like many had tried to do the same thing.

"Typical rat maze right?" Crichton wondered as he peered through the gate and then up at the passages above. "Please tell me this isn't some mindless labrynth for our average intelligence to pile through."

"It was never meant for strangers," Valkry stated as he placed his hand on the gates flat plate at its keyless lock and it swung open with a clink. "I went through one of these when I was a boy. It was easy to follow the maze but there were large rooms where the tests were. I had spent days in many of the rooms until I learned to wait for someone to enter to slip out again. If you do not escape the rooms, the floor will open and drop you into another pen, uness you can find something to hold on to. We had been sent through to amuse the Kryn. This one I expect to be much the same as delapidated as it is."

"I got it covered," Crichton nodded as he slipped out the pulse rifel in his cloak and waited as Aeryn assembled various parts for one attached to her uniform and stuffed in pockets. She handed Zhaan her pulse pistol as Chiana watched them with a small smile crossing her lips.

"Let me guess," she hopped back as she let out a laugh. "You made a deal and you're going to kill the monster they can't get out of here, to cheat the tests and walk away."

"Something like that," Crichton spoak as he wrapped an arm around her neck and moved her forward with him. "Chiana my dear, the next time you want to drink a coco-nut on an alien planet, pay for the frelling thing alright?"

"How was I supposed to know he was selling that?" She asked defensivly as she skipped ahead to Valkry and Eshran. "We went through a whole frelling forest of the things when we came to this citadel."

"This way," Aeryn nodded to the right as they came to a crossing hall. "I still think we should have left you to learn something out of this. I can't believe I'm doing this because you wanted something to drink."

"Here we go again," Chiana sighed as she tocked her head and cut her eyes to Zhaan. "I'm never going to hear the end of this one am I?"

"Perhaps some good does come out of this," Zhaan commented thoughtfuly to her. "Valkry and Eshran would be facing this alone if anything had occured any differently."

"I think the term is fate, or what, destiney?" Crichton spoak absently.

"I was thinking more along the lines of spirit, John. That ones path is not nessisarily pre-destined, but each turn apon it has reason."

"The only reason I have right now is to get the frell out of here," Aeryn grunted. "I don't want to spend days in this thing."

"Well then it's settled." Chiana pipped up as she peered down a hall and then shrugged her shoulders. "If you hadn't come, you'd still be waiting around on Moya for me to get out!"

"Oh don't you reason yourself out of this one," Aeryn glanced at her broodingly.

"Hold up," Crichton waved to them as he stepped ahead. "The tests are in large rooms right? Because I think we're just about to head for one. A maze with manditory stop spots has to mean this maze does have a leading pattern."

"And the point?" Chiana asked as she turned her head to him.

"The point is that even if we get split apart we are all going to end up at the exit, and we're all going to end up in one of these rooms."

"The map only shows you one level at a time," Valkry stated. "Sometimes these mazes have two or three levels. Finding the exit will not be easy. Many times it is disguised. We will not be lead to it, but we will have free run of the entire maze."

"Sounds like the fun house is just getting better and better."

"Pilot," Aeryn commed. "Can you hear me?"

"Why, yes." His voice came back with mild suprise. "Is something wrong Aeryn Sun?"

"Yes," she closed her eyes with relief. "We're trying to get through an underground system designed to illude us from leaving. Can you locate the exit and diagram our positions to it from there?"

"I have it, " he chimed after a long pause. "You are approximatley a quarter of a mile from an exit chamber north east of your current position."

"Can you see any other life forms?"

"Apart from your grouping I am reading two life forms north west of you."

"Thank you, Pilot."

"You're welcome. I shall keep you monitored until you've reached the exit chamber."

"Good ole Pilot, " Crichton sighed as he turned from the others and stepped cautiously into a large, box shaped room.

Crichton blinked slowly as he moved forward, and yet stayed right where he was. He turned around, and yet he didn't. Both of him saw each other. He looked to Aeryn and Chiana as they entered the room and split into two different selves. Both Aeryns stopped and stood perfectly still with thier mouths dropped as one Chiana turned to the other in awe and curiosity, both trying to figure the other one as they reached out with a gloved hand and touched fingertips.

"Oookay," Crichton one raised his brows as Valkry passed his right, and then passed his right again followed by an Eshran and then a Zhaan. "Do you know what this is by any chance?"

"This feels frelling wierd," Crichton two sighed as he wiped his face and then stared at his one. "Ummm, you aren't exactly mirroring everything I do, are you."

"I still feel like myself over there or right here." Crichton one said to him and then chuckled. "This is a trip."

"Don't enjoy yourself too much Crichton," Aeryn looked down the bridge of her nose at Aeryn two from her shoulder and stepped away as if number two were standing in a pile of dren. "I can't be in two places at once. You couldn't possibly be me."

"Which one of us entered first?" Aeryn two asked. "I think you are the image, and I think you should step back in."

"Step back into what?"

"Oh frell I feel like I'm talking to myself!"

"You are talking to yourself," both Chianas stated as they turned thier head at the same time to look at her. Chiana ones eyes then seemed to be caught by something else and she eased her head the other way. Her second soon followed in echo. They gaped, staring in awe at Zhaan who was only one but she had a brilliant glow to her and every where she stepped she seemed to be trailing echoes of herself in image. She paused, looking back at both Chianas in wonder.

"I think it's a displacement study," Valkry one said as he looked to three different Eshrans doing three different things. One stood and stared at the cieling while another crouched in play and the last was wandering in a small circle waving her hand in front of her chest while she bit her lower lip with an anxious expression.

"It's not the worst test," Valkry two said as he tried placing his hand on the door panel to the other side of the room as Crichton one whirrled to hold the door they came in before it shut close.

"You call this a test?" Crichton two curled his lip as he motioned Valkry to move and fired at the door. The shot slammed into the panel, nocking the door back violently. Crichton looked to his other self with a snort as he slung his pulse rifel to his shoulder. "I'm beside myself."

Aeryn rolled her eyes as she stepped away from both Crichtons and seemed to wobble awkwardly in her steps as Aeryn two walked behind her in stumble.

"You were a PeaceKeeper, surely you can keep in coordination with your own frelling self!" Aeryn two barked.

"Oh shut up!"

"Dren," Crichton two snorted. "And I was all built up for solving puzzles in these damn things."

"Just wait, we haven't gotten to the final exam yet."

"Y'know the wierdest thing about this," Crichton two caught up with his one as he began to leave ahead of him. "I'm in both places, but you aren't exactly following along with me. Wouldn't I say the same thing, in both places? Looks to me like Chiana and Zhaan have the right idea, but scope out Aeryn. She looks like she's dragging behind her worst enemy!"

"I don't even want to think about it. Let's just go."

Behind both of them Scorpious seemed to fade in and out, smiling deviantly as he walked up between them and planted his hands on their shoulders.

"This is going to be quiet interesting. Don't you think so boys?"

Crichton whirrled around as he exited becoming one self again as he twisted his face in confusion and searched for the extra voice.

"Are you comming? Let's get out of here."

"Yeah," Crichton nodded somewhat disbelievingly as he turned to Aeryn. "The sooner the better."
 
***************************************
 
"No!" Chiana cried out as Crichton, Zhaan and Eshran entered a new room and it suddenly turned in its walls before Chiana, Aeryn and Valkry could step inside. She planted her hands on the wall and kicked it. "This place is getting on my frelling nerves! First the hallway we wanted didn't have a floor for fifty feet and - frell!"

She whirled away angrily and stared at the wall with a tilt of her head as if the lost look in her eyes might bring them back somehow.

"Come, we'll take that pipeline route we saw." Valkry motioned to her, urging her to run as Aeryn already began to trot ahead of them. "Crichton is right about one thing, eventualy we will cross paths again. It's just a matter of time."

"Yeah but that creature is still in here," she spoak aprehensivley as she stopped in front of a large round tunnel. "I just don't get this place. Everytime we figure out what one thing means something else comes up. I'm starting to feel like Crichton said about his hamster cages with these pipes. It's just a long way to nowhere."

"We will meet them at the next room," Valkry placed his hand on her shoulder as he gazed apon her reassuringly. "You could have escaped through the gates if it were not for me. I will see that we all get out together. I promise."

Aeryn took a point position through the tunnel, stepping warrily but quickly as Valkry and Chiana followed a few paces behind.

"Aeryn," Pilot commed. "I am reading a life form headed in your direction, comming very swiftly."

"Thank you, Pilot," Aeryn stepped back as they came to a crossing in the pipes, motioning to the two behind her as a deep scraping sound began to surround them.

"Behind me!" Chiana screamed.

Aeryn whirled around, firing as a dark mass came thundering at them from the top of the pipe.
 
**************************************
 
The creature fell, tumbeling into Valkries feet as he struggled to get out of the way. Chiana screamed, backing into Aeryn who grasped her calmly and moved her aside as she kept aim on the creature.

The creature groaned as their form began to shift in its shape. Dark eyes looking up as they became a Kree just like Valkry except they were very old. The old man had a full rack on his head of ten points. His black hair was very long, long white side burns came down to half the sides of his jaw line. He began to laugh as Valkry helped him stand, smiling as he looked to Aeryn and touched his wound.

"Ane, estridan irn asher."

"He said, you got him." Valkry smiled quietly.

 
***************************************
 
"You've been hiding in here for half a cycle, leading people out?" Chiana asked as she looked to the old man.

They wandered into a large corridor where the exit doors welcomed the outside in two double arch ways where vines had grown around them and along the wall.

"Hey," Crichton came up, swinging his pluse rifel to his shoulder as he smiled at them. "I'm suprised you got here first. Look what we found."

He turned his head, smirking as Zhaan and Eshran stepped along side an old man with white hair missing half of one of his antlers. The old man looked to the other one and the two began to laugh as they aproached each other.

"You found one too?" Crichton asked as he came to Aeryn.

"He was the monster," Aeryn raised an eye brow.

"Yeah, so was he."

They watched in silence as the two old men continued to speak to each other, laughing as Aeryns capture touched his wound and then flicked his finger up at the other mans missing piece of antler.

"Ah," he nodded to Crichton with a greatly amused beam as he shook the broken piece in his hand at him. "Takesh urda tino'en."

"My Elder says, you are a bad boy." Valkry spoak quietly with a small smile. "I'm afraid I am at a loss for words. Aparently they have been trying to sabotage the maze. This one has been helping people find thier way out."

"By scaring the dren out of them as a monster?" Crichton asked and he narrowed his eyes at them.

"Nuas, feni'aden. Ena fel, rash a'kei." The second shook his finger at Crichton as he spoak, wincing his eyes.

"Ah," Valkry scratched at his eyebrow as Eshran came to him.
"They want to scare us out, so no one will get into trouble again and come back."

"Sounds like a good plan to me," Crichton sighed as he roughed Eshrans hair and looked into Valkries eyes. "Do me a favor and get rid of this governemnt Valkry. I've just got this wierd feeling your people are well on thier way to getting things back to normal on this planet."

"Normal," Chiana lowered her head sharply as she looked to him beneath her brows.

"Yeah, Pip." Crichton sighed again as he slung his arm around her shoulders and began to lead her out. "And Grampa says no supper for you tonight."

end