| abstract | - Back on Moya, Chiana is still engrossed in her art piece when she spots a DRD clasping her aforementioned necklace in its pincer. She retrieves it, then looks on with astonishment as the painting changes - this time depciting her a severed leg. Just then, the DRD gets underfoot and trips her up. China falls to the floor with a sickening crunch of bones. Ick. Crichton examines Chiana's busted leg while she blabs on about how her brand-new toy predicts the future. Crichton shrugs off her experience as a coincidence, while Zhaan wants to perform tests on the painting. Chiana's protests are overruled, and she is packed off to her room; it's not long before D'Argo pokes his head through her doorway to express his worries that the portrait isn't predicting events, but causing them. Chiana brushes him off for being a stereotypical, superstitious Luxan. That's concerned Luxan! The pair have a philosophical discussion about how knowing the future keeps us from striving for our goals. After all, wouldn't D'Argo like to know if he's destined to ever find his son? No, because if it's bad news, he'll lose all hope. But, Chiana reasons, it might keep him from wasting time fruitlessly if he's never going to find him. D'Argo tells her to be sensible and get rid of it, but his choice of adjective irritates Chiana, and she kicks him out. In her laboratory, Zhaan is analyzing a shard from the portrait while a whispered voice rustles around her; she can't find anything abnormal about the shard, but it's clearly scaring the blue crap out of her. Then, in the distance, Chiana screams, and everybody makes a beeline for her quarters; there, they find that the portrait has morphed into an image of Chiana being immolated. Panicked and sobbing, Chiana pleads with D'Argo to take her someplace safe, so the crew carries her down to the cargo bay and stuffs her in a freezer. Moments later, Chiana's gloved hands are heard pounding on the door with alarm. As they try to force the door open, the freezer inexplicably catches fire: nobody can get in, and Chiana is reduced to ashes. Fingers of blame immediately turn on Pilot, but he hasn't the foggiest idea of what went wrong; Moya's systems are functioning normally. Everyone mutters amongst themselves over how they could have prevented Chiana's death. Crichton's sold on the evil nature of the portrait, and tells Zhann to dispose of it; Zhann enthusiastically complies, setting it on fire with a blowtorch. Minutes later, D'Argo comms Crichton and Aeryn to meet with him in the central chamber – the painting has repaired itself and now depicts D'Argo, though what's going to happen to him isn't certain just yet. Crichton doesn't think they should wait around for it to finish its thought. D'Argo agrees, and smashes the portrait to pieces; just in case this isn't enough, they crew also eject the fragments into space. Aeryn flies off with Rygel in tow, intending to pump Kyvan for answers. Not too long after that, the painting reconstitutes and shows D'Argo impaled. D'Argo assumes that his Qualta Blade is slated to be the culprit, so Crichton opts to lock it away. However, one of the DRDs repairing Aeryn's Prowler apparently malfunctions, causing the Prowler to spring to life and swivel around, skewering D'Argo on its bayonet-like nose. To Crichton's amazement, D'Argo's body shatters into glass and vanishes. D'Argo awakens in a corridor of arches suspended in empty space, with Chiana trapped nearby. The scenery is identical to the yellow corridor we saw in the portrait, so Chiana reasons that they've somehow ended up trapped inside the portrait itself. Meanwhile, back in the "real world," the portrait changes again to depict Crichton being electrocuted. Aeryn and Rygel have found Kyvan, who whines that that she was forced to create the portrait... by none other than Maldis. Crichton's naturally confused; he thought they destroyed Maldis, but Zhann says they only dispersed him, and that she knew he'd coalesce again one day. For a moment, she appears to zone out, but when Crichton tries to snap her out of it, she pulls his forehead against hers to do another mind-meld: speaking directly into his mind, Zhaan tells Crichton to play along with her; someone evil is listening in. Zhann breaks the bond, and in a fit of panic, says they can't beat Maldis and that it's time to give up. Crichton signals his understanding, and Zhann shoves him into an exposed circuit. Crichton vanishes as Zhaan looks down on the portrait and sees her image as a body shattered like glass. As expected, Crichton is transported inside the picture and calls Maldis, who appears behind him. Though he's more or less his usual gleefully hammy self, Maldis is less than happy with the fact that he had to put himself back together again, sustaining his essence with thoughts of revenge. Crichton taunts him to bing it on, but Maldis doesn't consider him to be of much importance: he's saving his revenge for Zhaan, the one who sealed him away. To that end, he's been wearing away at Zhaan's composure by killing off her shipmates one by one. We briefly cut back to Moya, where Zhaan is being taunted by Maldis' spectral voices, and growing more and more hysterical as a result. Eventually, she decides to consult with Pilot on something (though a cutback to inside the portrait prevents us from seeing exactly what) before another echoing voice causes Zhann to stumble into the pit surrounding Pilot's console. Zhaan falls to her 'death' and lands in the portrait. As Maldis turns his punishment on Zhaan, announcing his plan to escape the portrait and trap them all in there, Pilot contacts Aeryn with a priority message from Zhaan: they need to kill Kyvan and get out of there fast. Aeryn 10-4s and immediately shoots Kyvan, who shatters like glass, exposing herself as another avatar of Maldis. As the module flies clear, the entire spherical junk station shatters into glass. Maldis is weakened by this, and Zhaan jumps up and takes advantage of his weakened state to give him a good thrashing. Back on Moya, we see that same window to the portrait bridging Maldis' reality with ours; everyone hurries into the portal to escape back into Moya, but Maldis's giant hand reaches out through the portrait, attempting to grab them. Crichton uses a combo of the DRDs' lasers and the mounted gun on Aeryn's prowler to drive Maldis back into the portal, which closes behind him. And now for the rehash. In Moya's galley, Rygel shrugs at Chiana, saying he still doesn't get the Maldis-Kyvan thing. Chiana does, though only because Zhaan explained it all to her: When Maldis recorporealized, he created Kyvan and the portrait to gain a foothold on their plane of existence. Then when Aeryn destroyed Kyvan, it weakened Maldis enough for Zhaan to wallop him. Neither of them are happy, though: Chiana still has a broken leg, and Rygel is annoyed that Kyvan's junk disappeared along with her. Crichton leans in through doorway to Zhann's chamber and asks if "that sumbitch" is gone for good; Zhaan says you can never be certain with a creep like Maldis. Crichton groans, saying that it would have been a really good time to lie to him, but Zhaan says she's not a very good liar. Au contraire, says Crichton; je congratulates Zhann on having everyone fooled with her Nervous Nellie routine. Zhaan stares at him seriously: "My fear wasn't an act, John."
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