Cabin Fever
by feldman
"Woah, check it out, that chick has antennas. Maybe I shouldn't assume it's a chick, I mean, just 'cause it's pink. Maybe it's just from Florida, everybody wears pink down there and Jesus Pete, what is that smell? You guys smell that? Tell me that isn't supposed to be food, 'cause food cubes are growing on me, those braunschweiger ones we got last week are kinda good, but whatever that is is ripe--"
Aeryn wheels around. "Why did you come down, again?"
"Cabin fever."
"If you're ill you should be back aboard Moya."
"No, no, it's an expression. Back before TV people would be cooped up in the house, sometimes snowed in, with nothing to do all winter long--"
"Snowed in?" D'Argo concludes his transaction and joins the huddle. "I thought your planet was hot and swampy."
"Well, parts of it are, in other places there's snow in the winter--you see, Earth is tilted a little," Crichton diagrams with his hands as he speaks, and they both stare at him as if they're waiting for the translator microbes to catch up. "As it goes around the sun, the top half and then the bottom half get more light--"
"So let me get this straight," Aeryn's mock fascination cracks into a crooked smile, and D'Argo snickers. "Your planet is lopsided," she braces D'Argo as he collapses onto her shoulder with a howl of laughter, "and your species can become ill from lack of entertainment."
D'Argo wheezes, "Bottom half!" and Aeryn buries her face in his chest, overcome.