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"You'd have fit in on Earth just fine," Crichton tells Aeryn.
For a moment, she almost believes it.
Before she can try to stop herself, Aeryn says Crichton's name. She can hear his footsteps pause, and the door doesn't close. Without looking up, she asks the other question that has been on her mind.
"If NamTar had found Earth in his... in the genetic database. What would have happened then?"
For several microts, there is only background noise. Before reaching this asteroid, Aeryn wouldn't have given it a second thought. Right now, she finds herself identifying each component of the sound.
Crichton's footsteps start again, this time moving toward Aeryn. It's strange to think that only a few arns earlier, the sound would have overwhelmed her, but now she has to actively listen for it. When Crichton sits back down, Aeryn looks back up.
He doesn't say anything for a few more microts. When he does, his voice is quiet but not soft.
"I don't know. I'd like to think I'd have singlehandedly talked sense into the others and found a compromise that would have made everybody happy. That's the person my parents taught me to be. It's who I thought I was. But now I'm here."
Aeryn finishes the thought. "And now everything you thought you knew about everything has been thrown out the airlock."
"I can't say whether I would have been in Pilot's den with the others," Crichton says. "But I know that I could have."
Aeryn isn't sure what Crichton wants to hear. As a Peacekeeper among her comrades, there had always been a hierarchy to fall back on. There had been procedures and rules and clear consequences for not following them. But here? She can't tell if he wants her to provide a comforting lie or a hard truth, or if he wants her to say anything at all.
"I would have. As a Peacekeeper, I mean."
"I'd have thought you'd go by rank or something," Crichton replies.
"Well, yes. If it were all Peacekeepers involved. And we could have all gone to the same place and sorted it out later, then. But if there were some situation where I was stranded with several aliens and I hadn't been deemed irreversibly contaminated before that point, they would have declared it as soon as I returned."
Crichton nods. "Makes sense. You can't have the rank and file thinking of other people as people." Aeryn exhales sharply. Her first instinct is to protest, but she can't find it in herself to say that Crichton is wrong. Perhaps, yesterday, she could have. Crichton is silent for a few microts, but he presses on, as he always has. "Humans do the same. We've done it for hundreds of years. Thousands. If you look different or you're from a different part of the world than the majority, somebody will use it to treat you like crap."
"And you thought you were immune to this," Aeryn says. The thought almost surprises her. The fact that she voices it definitely does.
The sound Crichton makes isn't quite laughter. "It's a beautiful day for an identity crisis. I don't know if I would have been in Pilot's den, but if it had been all of us fighting over one map, if it were a choice between me going home and everybody else... I'd have been playing Family Feud too."
Aeryn takes a food cube from the plate. She supposes they really can look like eyes and a nose and a smile. She slides the plate over to Crichton, who looks back at Aeryn and takes one of the cubes himself.
"I'm sorry," he says. Aeryn doesn't have time to ask before Crichton gives the answer. "I came here to check on you. I didn't mean to unload on you. You've got enough on your plate."
Aeryn looks down at the table. There are still plenty of food cubes there.
"No, not like that. It's an expression. It means you're dealing with a lot. I just don't want you to think you have to deal with it all by yourself."
Aeryn isn't sure what to say, except for one thing. "Can you stay here? Just for a while?"
"Of course," Crichton tells her. He shifts his weight a bit -- she assumes he's getting more comfortable -- and takes one more food cube.
Maybe she really isn't on her own out here.