Burial.

Moya knew her inmates better than they would ever know her.

Arn after arn they touched her, breathed in her, made love in her, excreted and urinated in her. She heard every word they said, even when they thought they were alone. She paid little attention to the language, however; it was too complex, had too many shades and patterns, like camouflage. Instead she listened to the rise and fall of her inmates' voices, to the pattern of their emotions, to the signals their bodies unknowingly gave out. After cycles of coexistence, those bodies seemed so much part of her own that she sometimes forgot they were not. Such familiarity often let her notice changes that passed Pilot by.

To Moya, the proteins in Aeryn's urine were singing their message as loud as the carrier hum of the stars.

Aeryn is pregnant.

Moya shuddered, and her keening took on a new tone.

Offspring. Mother. Warrior. Half-breed. Pain, loss, grief. Suffering. Shut-Down.

Pilot soothed her, speaking calming words about Talyn. Moya never corrected him, letting him believe her child was the only one they were taking to the graveyard. She observed Aeryn closely, noting her reticence around Crichton, her tears in solitude, those long moments when she would sit, motionless, entranced, her face blank. Her attitude was as bold as ever, but the pheromones in her sweat whispered fear. Yet Aeryn did not know of the changes in her own body.

Aeryn. Pain, loss, grief. Stop. Mothers. Offspring. Pain, loss, grief. Stop.

Moya routinely used the compound abolide in her respiratory systems. On contact with oxygenated air, it remained odourless, colourless and harmless to grown organisms. A blocked hydraulic vein was simple to arrange. Over the course of five arns, it released abolide into Aeryn's quarters. The message in her urine grew quieter and quieter until it was silent. As Moya left the leviathan burial ground, she ejected the waste.

It was the only way.