=====o================================================o===== "Anath" by Mary Ruth Keller Part 38 of 38 E-mail: mrkeller@eclipse.net Disclaimed in Part 0a =====o================================================o===== Just a few words to close. My last Satyr play, "Rustic Suite," was full of Darin Morgan tributes, so, I included one in here, too, but it won't be obvious unless you think about it. I haven't employed the services of beta readers prior to "Anath," basically because these novels have become quite lengthy, and call for some dedication of what has become in anyone's busy life, far too much free time. But, this go-around I was fortunate to have two, David S. Raley, one of my few RL friends who has read my stories, and Florens de Wit, who posts somewhat regularly to ATXC. Both offered significant suggestions for improvements, and both prompted me regularly for updates. It was a privilege to work with these fine gentlemen. They prodded and suggested, but let me tell my own story. David, especially, being a Washington, DC area resident like myself, was peppered with phone calls about the finer technical points of creative writing, for which he dutifully provided excellent answers. We also worked ourselves into a fine fever about the blood type distribution of the populations in and around the Mediterranean region, among other arcane trivia. I should also add the obvious disclaimer that any difficulties you might have with the text are my responsibility alone. David and Florens were diligent in their efforts to keep me on the straight and narrow. And so it begins... This was the transition story from the Dana Scully Trilogy to the Sandra Ann Miller Trilogy, and it presented several challenges for me as a storyteller. First, I wanted it to introduce you to Samantha as she exists in my universe. Now, I'm not Mister Carter, so this isn't the old myth-arc bait-and-switch flim-flam I'm pulling on my readers. The Samantha you have met here is the real deal, not some Consortium clone, nor an alien abductee, nor, well, you get the idea. To do this, I wanted to give you, my readers, a sense of her life before Fox Mulder crashes back into it. That meant probably the biggest hurdle I've faced yet as a writer: creating a completely original set of characters in their own universe. More on this later. Second, as I mentioned at the end of "Zurvan," what happens inside the Consortium and the FBI, now that part of the Organization has been revealed, and now that everyone is working on something of a deadline vis-a-vis the shape-shifters? I made some efforts in suggesting new directions, but there is plenty of story to be told yet, so hang tight. Third, where do Mulder and Scully go with themselves, now that Samantha has been discovered, and the Consortium is on the run? Part of this story sets up the future for them both, which will have its share of ups and downs. One issue I didn't want to leave hanging any longer was that of Scully and the long-term physical effects of having a hysterectomy at a very young age. About 50% of the women who undergo premature menopause end up on HRT of some type, some with greater success than others. Premarin, the most widely-prescribed hormone medication for post-menopausal symptoms, is problematic at best, but replacement drugs are slow to come on the market. Many women have difficulties adjusting to it, as did Scully. It's best, as she did, to do research and find a doctor who will work with his or her patient to find the kindest treatment possible, since all women are different, and have different problems. Back to the issue of the challenges in writing in one's own stand- alone universe. It was both simpler, yet more difficult, than I had imagined. There are no pre-set expectations to try to meet, other than that this is a piece of fan-fiction, so I couldn't veer off and write *just* about the adventures of Sandra, Jerry, Judy, and Seignior Salazar, et al., as much as I wanted to at times. I could make them whatever I wanted. But, they had to be whole in and of themselves. Fortunately, there has been much good advice to be had in this regard on the various mailing lists, not the least Loch Ness's kind posting, many months ago, of a character checklist. While I didn't fill out every last detail, I did have enough of the backgrounds of the main characters in California complete in my mind that one of my beta readers (Florens) remarked that he felt like he could walk down the streets of San Diego and meet them. At that point, I felt my job was done. I *also* set myself the challenge of writing two genuine, and intertwined, murder mysteries. Mulder and Scully are perfectly excellent investigators (at least in this little pocket of the X-F fan-dom), who relished the challenges I gave them. As did Sandra, who is, in every sense, Fox's little sister. Now, a few references: The excerpts from the translations of the Anat myths are taken from Neal H. Walls' dissertation (I'll bet he never expected to find them in an X-Files context!) as published: Dissertations Series number 135: "The Goddess Anat in Ugaritic Myth" by Neal H. Walls, Scholars Press, Atlanta, Georgia 1992. I made one change to Walls' translation, in that he uses 'Almighty Baal,' where other translations I've seen refer to Baal as 'Puissant.' He was attempting to be more accessible, I'm sure, but 'Puissant' sounds *so* much more godly. So, I stuck it back in for 'Almighty.' Sorry, Neal. Also, as to the 'Mot' passage: you, the reader need a little background. Mot, in Ugaritic myth, was not the equivalent of the Greek Hades, the Lord of the Underworld. He was Death itself, the Grim Reaper, whom none are supposed to escape. Yet, what does the myth show the indomitable Anat doing to the deity that killed her brother? You read it, she takes it upon herself to kill Death. Too bad it doesn't work for the rest of us. "The Hymnal Prayer of Enheduanna: The Adoration of Inanna in Ur," as excerpted for the opening quote for Part IV, was translated by S. N. Kramer and published on pp. 126-132 of "The Ancient Near East, Volume II: A New Anthology of Text and Pictures," edited by James B. Pritchard, Princeton University Press, 1975. What's interesting about this prayer is that it's the first piece of literature for whom we know the author, and that author turns out to have been a woman, Enheduanna, the daughter of Sargon the Great. For the full story on the real Salazar, the best source is Gustav Henningsen's "The Witches' Advocate: Basque Witchcraft and the Spanish Inquisition (1609-1614)," published in 1980 by the University of Nevada Press. I recommend this book strongly to those of you who are convinced the UFO phenomenon is real. It's interesting, to say the least, to see all the same social and political behaviors in a completely different (and false) context. Sagan also discusses Salazar in "Science as a Candle in the Dark," should the Henningsen book prove difficult to find. The Truth is Out There, and it doesn't belong to Mister Carter. The fluid dynamics texts Sandra and Jerry discuss are, as should surprise no one, quite real: "An Introduction to Fluid Dynamics," by G. K. Batchelor, first published by the Cambridge University Press in 1967, and reprinted multiple times. "Physical Fluid Dynamics," Second Edition 1988 (First Edition 1977), by D. J. Tritton, published by the Oxford University Press. Having staggered through the first and found the second only as I was preparing for my oral boards, I can tell you, Tritton is by far the more comprehensible of the two. As is the Whitaker Foundation, which, along with several others, has attempted to pick up the slack following the draconian cuts in Federal funding for Basic Research in the USA. My sincerest apologies for involving them in a capital offense. For the story on Lise Meitner and Otto Hahn, try "Lise Meitner: A Life in Physics," by Ruth Lewin Sime, published in 1996 by the University of California Press. The Thomas Cook Touring Handbooks, the Frommers, Cadogan, and Insight Pocket Guides to the Mediterranean and San Diego were of immense help in setting this story in places I've never been to, as was the Official Guide, both on paper and on the web, to San Diego, the University of California at San Diego and the Scripps Institute of Oceanography. A few words about the San Diego Police Department are in order, I think. The real department has a web- page, which I mined thoroughly for information on stations, procedures, etc. But, I felt free to invent details as I needed them, hoping, to be honest, to create a precinct office that was different enough from the real thing that anyone with nefarious intentions would come away with a completely wrong idea about the place and the peace officers who work there. There is no rank of Senior Detective, for instance, in the SDPD. I threw that in for my own insidious writing purposes. In other words, while there is a Northern Division of the SDPD, I doubt you will walk through swinging glass double doors to find Jerry Donato diligently pounding away on his typewriter while Richard Gonzales gets in a few games of Solitaire. I took the details on Linear B Tablets from Simon Singh's 1999 Doubleday publication, "The Code Book: The Evolution of Secrecy from Mary Queen of Scots to Quantum Cryptography." A great read, all around. The Ben Johnson sonnet was taken from "Ben Johson and the Cavalier Poets, a Norton Critical Edition" selected and edited by Hugh Maclean, published by W. W. Norton, Inc. in 1974. Write if you have comments, please. I'm quite curious to see how these original characters come across. =====o=========================================o===== Begun: March 16, 1999 Finished: December 30, 1999 =====o=========================================o===== End - Anath - Part 38 of 38 =====o======================================================o===== Mary Ruth Keller "Is it possible disdain should die while she hath Alexandria, VA such meet food to feed it, as Signior Benedick?" mrkeller@eclipse.net Much Ado About Nothing http://www.eclipse.net/~mrkeller/stories.html =====o======================================================o=====