TITLE: MY TRAVELS with CHARLEY 09: Those Who Are About to Die 
DATE: 12/07/02
AUTHOR: Sue Esty
E-MAIL: Windsinger@AOL.com
DISTRIBUTION: Gossamer, Emphereal, Xemplary, ATXC, and anywhere with 
permission and as long as the author's name is retained.
RATING: PG-13
CLASSIFICATION: XA series
SPOILERS: REQUIEM, 7th season, 8th season (Mulder episodes), 9th 
season (Mulder episodes), Genderblender, Final Extinction, Little 
Green Men, Fight the Future. 
KEYWORDS: Mulderangst, Muldertorture.
SUMMARY: This is the final chapter about those missing months 
following Mulder's abduction in Oregon. 
THE STORY SO FAR: Mulder has survived his first days after his 
abduction on the alien ship (at least the ones he's been conscious 
enough to remember) and the boredom of his life within the 
Mindspeaker colony. Less than intact, he survives testing, which 
for the first time reveals to Charley that Mulder's 'speaker’ 
talent has been destroyed. While Charley decides what to do with 
his damaged prisoner, Mulder is allowed to recover in the company 
of Ness, a young woman whose ancestors were taken from Earth four 
generations before to live out a barren existence in a few rooms 
on a huge alien space station. From here he is taken by the Hunter 
and put into training to pilot a small spacecraft, training that 
taxes the endurance of both body and mind. Mulder’s rebellious 
spirit eventually exceeds even Charley’s patience and he is 
literally dropped onto the surface of the planet, Dale, to survive 
as best he can until Charley returns to reclaim him. 

He finds that there are other humans on the planet, other rejects 
of the experiments and their descendents, as well as a group of 
the altered humans of the gender switching type that he and Scully 
had encountered so many years before. He lives and builds a strong 
friendship with a young farmer named Benjamin. He also meets Dan 
Rowe, the elderly man whom Charley based his default human shape 
on and who had been an 'apprentice’ of Charley’s, as Mulder was, 
only many years earlier. He tells Mulder a terrible tale of how he 
and Charley had abducted the young Fox Mulder several times 
between the ages of 6 and 10 although Mulder’s memories of those 
terrifying episodes had always been wiped from his mind. Dan Rowe 
is not surprised that the 'word of power’ had such a profound 
affect on Mulder. In the end Mulder has to admit that at least to 
some extent his mental powers had 'grown’ back. The killer 
headaches he had experienced on Earth and during the trip were 
symptoms of this. Mindspeech is further enhanced by lichenleaf, a 
native plant, which is exactly what Charley had intended by 
leaving him on Dale. Even Benjamin has a little of the gift. In 
the end Mulder is taken back by Charley but more than a little 
worse for wear. Benjamin and the gender-changing Annicon come 
along to help keep peace between Charley and his unwilling 
apprentice.

DISCLAIMER: No, the X-Files and the characters of Fox Mulder and 
Dana Scully do not belong to me, I would have treated them better.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: This is ninth and last in my series stories 
chronically Mulder's confusing, agonizing, torturous, lonely and 
wondrous adventures following his collection in Oregon. CC never 
explained those missing months so I might as well. My older work 
can be found on Gossamer under 'Esty, Sue' with the newer pieces 
at http://members.aol.com/windsinger. All of my work can also be 
found on Tamra's excellent Connections site (http://X-Files.
bytewright.com/Rev.html) (And if they are not all there now they 
will be soon.) Many, many thanks to my beta readers: Suzanne 
Bickerstaffe and Faye (FCP40).



MY TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY 09: Those Who Are About to Die (1 of 11)
by Windsinger (Sue Esty)

For a very long time I slept... and I dreamed. The dreams were 
weird and vague such as the ones you get when exhausted and 
feverish. I was both. I was fed by hands that I knew I should 
recognize but didn’t. They were callused but gentle hands. Those 
same hands washed me. It was the ship food that told me that I 
was with Charley again. Consequently, I didn’t hurry to wake up. 
Conscious, I would never have it as good as this.

It was only after what must have been a week of such luxury that 
I realized that I wasn’t on Charley's little survey ship. I knew 
because even though my eyes were far too sensitive to the light 
I was still able to explore my surroundings by touch. I couldn't 
find a wall on my left side and even the wall to my right wasn’t 
curved so I wasn't in the tube. In any case there would never 
have been room in a tube for my caregiver. Also, unless we had 
been poking along at sublight for the whole time, this must be a 
ship large enough to have both artificial gravity and a dampener 
for the light speed sickness such as the Portjam had.

I couldn’t help but spend a lot of my conscious time wondering 
how and why this had all come about.

At the beginning someone was always there. There was always 
talking, as if that someone was afraid that I would slip away 
without a lifeline. Perhaps I would have; the withdrawal was 
that bad. It was Ben, of course. He does have gentle hands the 
way he always said he would.  On what must have been day three I 
came around enough to be vaguely aware of visitors in the 
plural. A thin aged face hovered above me. I must have been 
hallucinating, for it looked like Jeremiah Smith for a moment, 
the only 'good' shapeshifter whom I'd ever known. He was 
performing some mumbo-jumbo, doing his best to put Humpty Dumpty 
together for the second time. Whatever was being done to me made 
me dizzy and I think I threw up, but someone quickly slid a 
basin under my chin and caught most of the mess. I suppose I 
have Ben to thank for that because the second figure was 
undoubtedly Charley now. No way that carved figure would stoop 
to minister to such a disgusting human weakness. After that I 
lost time again waking either to Ben or Charlie and sometimes 
even Annicon, the Changling, After a few days of this I began to 
wake up alone. I was fed and they let me sleep. I assumed that 
meant that I was getting better. 

I wasn’t so sure that I wanted to. 

It was boredom that finally induced me to brave the stabbing 
pain from the light and open my eyes. What I saw made it hardly 
worth the effort. Flat, swamp-green walls faced me from no more 
than four feet away. They were dimly illuminated by a flat 
lightpanel above my head. I lay in a bunk barely as wide as my 
shoulders. There was a storage drawer below and a small walkway 
to a narrow closed door. That was all there was to the cabin but 
clearly it was all mine. Tired of sleeping, I managed to turn 
onto my side, hoping in that way to push myself to a sitting 
position. I didn't manage even that much verticality but I must 
have triggered some sensor because less than a minute passed 
before Ben appeared. The sight of him was both familiar and 
unfamiliar. He was Ben but cleaned and shaved, his black hair 
was still long but it was trimmed and brushed and tied back. He 
wore with ease a maroon ship's jumpsuit.

What a far cry this was from the young farmer I had known for so 
many months. His expression, however, was all Ben. He greeted me 
with a huge smile on his tanned face and there was a glistening 
of happy moisture in those sun-creased blue eyes.

"He told me that you'd be up today."

These were not the first words I wanted to hear. I was tired of 
Charley finding my actions so predictable. I let my body sag 
back onto the thin mattress and shut my eyes. "Then maybe I'll 
go back to sleep."

"He said that you'd threaten that, too. I wasn’t to let you."

Sigh. 

Ben vanished and returned minutes later with food. Good thing he 
didn't ask me if I was hungry. In my attempt to give any but the 
expected response I would have had to answer 'no’ when I very 
much wanted to answer 'yes’ no matter how bland the concoction.
 
"It's not like home," Ben said apologetically as he put a strong 
arm around my shoulders to help me to sit. "I couldn’t do much 
with it. There's nothing like a kitchen here." 

"I'm sure you tried." In truth there was something tangy about 
this current mess of oatmeal-like stew that made it above the 
average. "Whatever you did, it beats the usual taste of 
cardboard."

So I ate and he talked and I tried to listen but it was hard to 
pay attention. Halfway through the bowl with my stomach already 
full, the dish slipped from my hands. He stopped talking to 
catch the falling bowl as I slid sideways, confidant that he 
would have caught me as well if it were necessary.

It was nice to feel safe. I slept again and no one woke me.


The scene repeated itself for the next three meals. Ben prattled 
on. I was able to listen better each time but it was not what 
Ben said so much as what he didn't say. Clearly, they hadn't 
been doing much but waiting for me. “Traveling,” Ben answered to 
my question, but he didn't know to where. Annicon poked his 
sleek head in once. The changeling was looking so fetching that 
for a moment I didn’t know whether I was looking at his male or 
female persona. 

He looked meaningfully in Ben’s direction. “Charley’s called for 
me and you know you’re always welcome to join us. Is this a good 
time?”

Dropping his eyes, Ben colored. Clearly some kind of menage-a-
trois experimentation was going on now that I wasn’t critical. 
This didn’t surprise me. Ben is a good-looking young man. 
Knowing how I felt about that sort of thing, however, they 
hadn't ask me to join. I was glad about that, though a small 
part of me wished that they'd at least have given me the choice 
to decline on my own. 

After catching my eye long enough to ask and receive a silent 
assurance that I would be all right alone, Ben did leave with 
Annicon. Got to find that boy a nice girl and soon. After he 
left, I realized with a pang that I felt both alone and lonely. 
It made me miss you all the more, Scully. Made me wish to get on 
with what they wanted me to do so I could get it over with and 
go home. That was what Charley had promised. Now that I no 
longer slept all the time, I would work at getting stronger. 

Five shaky pushups and less that fifty steps jogged in place put 
me back to sleep again.


"You and Charley seem to be getting on pretty well,” I began 
after I finished my meal a few 'days' later. I said this with 
the most big-brotherly expression I could manage and I succeeded 
not so badly considering that I was about twenty-five years out 
of practice. Ben hung his head and blushed becomingly. "He's not 
so bad.” His eyes raised to my face. “You know that I'd much 
rather have the real thing."

The mush stuck in my throat. The 'real thing’. No, I wouldn't 
ask for details. So Charley had used more than his ability to 
look like Dan Rowe to snare Ben. "I'm sorry."

The young farmer shrugged. "You can't pretend what you don't 
feel."

"I do feel, Benjamin. I really do. Just not in the same way."

"Yeah, I know.” His eyes looked into mine and there was 
understanding there as well as disappointment. 

After a few more bites I dropped the spoon back into my bowl. 
Even Ben's doctoring had been unable to improve the meal’s 
incredible blandness this time. Time instead for a change in 
subject. "What does Charley want from me?" 

"He won't tell me. When you ask, I'm just to take you to him."

"I don't think I need I a guide. I'm sure I can smell him out 
when the time comes."

Ben gave me a look of exasperation. “Mulder, you have to stop 
this or we are never going to get anywhere and you know what 
anywhere I mean.”

I knew. Earth. Home. Charley and I had been in each other’s 
faces all during the long months of my stubborn resistance. We 
were like oil and water. I put the bowl aside and swung my legs 
over the side of the bunk. "You’re too trusting, but, okay, I'm 
asking. Let's go."

Rising stiffly from my couch, I followed Ben into the corridor. 
He said that I'd be surprised. I was. If width and length of the 
corridor we were standing in meant anything, this was not only a 
larger ship than the one where I had trained to manage the 
Beast, it was far larger.

"We didn't happen to change ships while I was asleep, did we?" I 
asked.

"No," Ben answered confused. "It's the only one I've seen."

"If we came up from Dale to here then something should be 
familiar."

"Ah, that's because you never saw this one. You passed out on 
our way up."

That would explain it. "I guess I will need a guide then. Let's 
get this over with."

The corridors were boringly utilitarian but there were a lot of 
them. We walked for a depressingly long time. With each step my 
intestines rearranged themselves into a few more knots. "I 
wonder what Charley had to do, or promise, or steal to get his 
hands on something this impressive."

"I wouldn't know, but I can't imagine anything smaller." Ben's 
eyes rove across the walls and there was something about the 
tightness of his jaw.

"Cabin fever?"

Ben's smile was brittle. "Not as bad as it can be after four 
months of winter in one room, but pretty bad."

"I'm sorry."

"About what?" 

"That I got you into this."

"I didn't have to come. I was offered the job. If I hadn't, I 
would be settling in for winter right now, cutting a lot of 
peat, gathering what wood I could, finding the cracks where the 
wind whistles through and fixing those. The same things I've 
done for years." He thought for a moment. "Maybe not all the 
same. I would have spent a lot of time wondering what I missed 
not coming along."

"You wouldn't have moved into town? It's going to be lively with 
Annicon's people coming to visit, pairing up."

"You never spent a winter on Dale, you don't know. No one 
visits. If they come they come to stay and you just can't move 
in on someone without bringing your own supplies. No one has a 
lot of extra food." 

So he would have remained alone. Guilt clawed at me for that. 
Until I was dropped on his doorstep like some founding, Ben had 
been resigned, perhaps even content, with his pastoral, if 
lonely, existence.     

Changing the subject, I asked, "This ship have a name?"

Ben thought and made a couple of abortive attempts before coming 
out with, "Ffthreudeth, or something like that."

"Fred will do," I said, slapping my hand on a bulkhead. "It's a 
good, solid, dependable, friendly name."

And massive, my gut added, my hand trembling a little as I 
withdrew it. For I had felt the hum of incredible power at that 
one touch. Power and intelligence and will. The part of my mind 
that had controlled the Beast had actually reached out and 
tried, automatically, to wrap itself around the very concept of 
controlling something as large as 'Fred'.

"We're here," Ben's voice announced as if from a distance. "The 
control room. Charley's said that he'd wait for us here."

I wonder if Ben noticed that my hand was not the only part of me 
aquiver as we waited. At last, the door  'whooshed' open just 
like on Star Trek and we stepped inside.


The control center of the old scout ship had been a closet, 
barely room for the stone 'chair'. Compared to that this place 
was a cathedral and the chair was center stage. 'Like an altar 
where they burn sacrifices,' came to my mind. Bands of massive 
girders arched upwards to support the dome under which the chair 
sat. It wasn't empty; Charlie was there. I'd never actually seem 
him in control of the Beast. I had always been recovering in the 
tube from my own training or seeking protection from the G 
forces. As I've said before, this ship clearly had artificial 
gravity, like the Portjam where I had spent those long weeks 
with the mindspeaker colony. With irritation I noted that 
Charley was clearly controlling the huge ship without metal 
implants. And he was still clothed in the drab jumpsuit that we 
all wore. No vulnerable nakedness for Charley. He did, however, 
lie very still. No one would mistake him for dead, however, 
despite his morgue-like position. Far from it. A blue haze of 
electric static bathed Charlie's granite-like form. It twisted 
and fluttered with every breath, every thought. I knew because I 
could feel it even with my eyes closed like ripples on a pond, 
like the air just before the breeze lifts, like a whisper below 
the level human ears can hear. So much going on and yet nothing 
visible except for that blue haze.

"It's almost beautiful," I whispered to Ben. Cathedral-like, it 
seemed blasphemous to talk much louder than that.

"What is?" Ben asked in all innocence.

"You can't see...?" I gestured towards the chair. 

"What?" He was looking towards the chair and yet saw nothing. 
Couldn't. 

"Never mind." 

I found myself shivering, and that certainly brought back 
memories of the Portjam and the space station with Ness where 
the humans were always cold. But on this ship the corridors were 
warm. So was my own tiny room. Only this room was cold. 
Concessions for the rising human population?

"He said to come," Ben said. "He said to wait if we had to."

That's exactly what we did. We settled down on the floor, our 
backs against the wall. I felt the thrum of the engines, the 
heartbeat of the ship, against my back far stronger than I had 
felt that power through my hand out in the corridor. It could be 
due to the fact that it was my back that was still sensitive 
from its injuries but that didn't explain it all. It was what 
was inside my head. 

Over the days since being paroled from my sentence on Dale I 
hadn't done much physically but sleep, eat and detox. Mentally, 
however, I'd done a lot of thinking and a lot of experimentation 
with my newly revised brain. I preferred the old one. But then 
for most of my life it never had been normal, had it, even when 
the vast part of the 'improvements' had been hidden even from 
me. 

At least I'm still me, not like that horrible other time with 
its white padded rooms. Still me only in stereo. I realized 
without even trying that there was a depth, a richness of 
textures, which I had never noticed before. When I concentrate 
there's even more. I know now where my profiling gift, or curse, 
came from. I don't know if I'm relieved or insulted over that. 
It's like the effort wasn't mine and yet I know it was, every 
drop of my blood, every horror-plagued night knows that it 
hadn't come easily. And yet I'm awed and terrified because I 
know now that what I see is the island, which is only the 
smallest tip of the mountain that shows above the waves.

At least the headaches are less frequent and much less severe. I 
hope that means that what is going to grow back has about 
finished doing so. What was left then was learning to live with 
the rest of the mountain and that scared me.

Oh, Scully, I need you, so much. Only can you love what I've 
become, what I'm becoming? Can I?  

Charley was still channeling. We waited some more. I never have 
had much patience so having no book to read I closed my eyes and 
found myself absorbing what radiated from the ship. And I didn't 
fight it, found I didn't want to, despite the fear. You can't 
imagine the diversity, Scully. In a shadow, in a light beam. 
Rejoice in our differences! Only is it normal, or human, to 
'indulge' when the difference is to this extent? It's what I 
fought Charley so long to keep from doing. So was giving in a 
kind of surrender? I tried to tell myself that I was just too 
tired to fight it any more. But, Scully, it's something else and 
this gets down to the root of 'me-ness'. I want to know, I want 
to understand, to uncover the mysteries. How many times did 
curiosity almost kill that cat? And that's what it's come down 
to, Scully. Let Charley think that I've given up. I haven't. 
I've just picked up a new weapon. Gotta learn to use it though. 
Charley and his friends and enemies are going to find out just 
what kind of monster they've created. And when I investigate 
their dirty dealings in the future... that's going to be real 
low tech. Just me lying on my couch. Cuts down on travel 
expenses not to mention the clothing and cleaning bills. No 
approvals needed, no reports to test our creative writing skills 
on.

And, Scully, do you know the craziest part? It doesn't hurt. 
Everything I've always wanted or been good at, especially since 
Sam was taken but even before that, has always hurt. Pony rides? 
Guilt. School? Suspicion, envy from the other students so that 
all I wanted was to be invisible or normal or both. Profiling? 
Agony and yet guilt again not to be willing to perform this very 
critical service to mankind around the clock. The X-Files? That 
I wanted, I wanted that work the way a bird needs to fly, but it 
was a two edged-sword, wasn't it? Derision from my peers and the 
media, professional ostracism, stab in the back, snickers around 
the water cooler, but then miracles. Miracles like bright, 
sparkling stars. Wonders upon wonders, and the most wonderful of 
all... it brought me you.

My cup has wavered for years between half empty and half full. 
What I've got now with this head thing is so overwhelming that I 
can't quite grasp it. I felt it for an instant there on my last 
piloting trip before Charley and I parted company, a rightness. 
Now I have a giddy sensation that this time it's going to be 
like riding a bicycle.

Of course there is the little issue of the size of the ship. 
There's a difference there between the Tower of Terror and 
bungee jumping off the Hoover dam. It's that matter of degree 
that can kill you.

But I'm not piloting, not yet. Nice and safe here. I closed my 
eyes and did my best to free my instincts -- both the new and 
the old -- to seek their own rhythm. I was greeted with, 
amazingly, the familiar. Almost like sinking into a favorite 
mattress that knows your every curve. A kind of animal bliss.  
Effortlessly, my mind reached out. It was in that word again -- 
wonder. The dark of space, the stars, my own personal 3-D video 
game and I didn't even have to reach for the joystick. I only 
had to be.

I drifted this way for I don't know how long. It was pleasant. I 
was still sailing, diving, existing when I heard a voice, a 
human voice, above the soft singing of the stars. "Mul..."

I opened my eyes and the strangest thing happened, or didn't 
happen. The visions in my head didn't stop and yet I could see 
the floor between my feet and Ben's face in profile in the dim 
light. It was like I had two pairs of eyes. And then I saw what 
he did, the faintest tendril of blue fire, like a ghostly arm, 
flowing softly between Charlie's chair... and me. I opened my 
hands and blue fire sparkled from my fingertips. 

"He said you could do things," Ben said with awe in every 
syllable, "but I never entirely believed him."

Yeah, me too. I could have waved my hands then, and scattered 
the fire like so much dust, broke the connection, but what would 
be the point?

Scully, I have no choices left. I am what they have made me to 
be. I don't want it, I want to be just me, chasing monsters, 
chasing the hope of finding a sister when there was still hope, 
learning to love you. Back then times were easy but then, I 
guess from what I know now, it was already too late. They 
wrapped me around their fingers when I was a child, caught me 
within their sticky web of intrigue. The fact that the web was 
invisible didn't mean it wasn't there. They had only to pull the 
strings. I am what I sought for so long. A creature no longer 
quite human. 

You asked me not so many months before we left to be a sperm 
donor. I am so glad that didn't take. But then there was also 
that night we spent together, that one night. Could it...? Could 
we have...? I hope that time didn't take either. Oh, I know how 
unlikely it is because the in vitro didn't take, because you 
would not have wanted a child from me, not from this body that 
they have pulled and pushed into some other form like so much 
taffy. 

I stare between my glowing hands and see galaxies like jewels 
spread out on velvet laid over Ben's wondering face. Something 
about that vision brings up a memory that I thought long buried: 
something Ness said while I was still on City. That she had let 
them make her body for me so that our reproductive systems would 
be in sync like a lock and key. I didn't 'sleep' with her as she 
begged me to but Charlie gave her my sperm anyway and I'm told 
that she has a child now, my monster. Scully, what if they did 
the same to you? They had you. Could they possibly have made you 
for me and only me? Maybe the lab made a mistake or the sperm 
have to be fresh. Shit. And there was that one time. Oh my love, 
enough about me, how is _ your _ life?

Guilt hits me like a towering wave, the guilt for bringing you 
grief and yet I'm filled with homesickness enough to drown in. 
You know that my only home is you, Scully. You do know that, 
don't you? The blue flames between my hands flared and went out.

I had a good wallow in despair then. It had been a long while 
since I had had the energy for such self-indulgence. For months, 
my worries about just getting back on the kind of ship that 
could potentially take me home, keeping Ben safe, and my own 
physical problems had been too much of a distraction to think 
clearly.

I don't know how long I sat there; digging up memories of old 
times, of the feel of your skin, the scent of your hair, the way 
your eyes roll at me with exasperation. The change in the tingle 
on my skin alerted me first. The warning gave me time to put 
away my dearest thoughts before having to face him. When my 
vision cleared there he was, standing no more than a foot from 
my feet. He was still bathed in the faintest blue light though 
that was fading. It was a long way up to that stone, square 
face. I got to my feet and still had to look up. We hadn't met 
since I'd returned to the ship except for the times when he had 
come to heal me for this or that, and then I hadn't been in any 
shape to pay much attention
 
After looking at Dan Rowe for so long the force of that face, 
that presence, was powerful but surprisingly not intimidating. I 
knew my worth now as much as I feared it. He may be my commander 
in this war that I'd been conscripted into, but I was no slave. 
I was too valuable a tool for that.



BENJAMIN

I got Mulder to the command room as Charley asked and the job 
wasn't as difficult as I expected. For days, or at least for 
what passes for days when there is no sunrise or sunset, he had 
laid there. To begin with he barely breathed or writhed in 
fever. Gradually he woke from time to time and ate some, which 
was an improvement, but his eyes had disturbed me. Whatever they 
looked on was not me but far away. Over the last days, however, 
I had noticed a difference. His appetite had improved despite 
the tasteless food and he had begun to pace the tiny cabin in 
the vague sort of way. The last time I came to visit, I found 
him lounging at ease on his bunk. This time he met me with clear 
eyes and we had a very pleasant conversation about nothing 
important. It was when I reported this to Charley that he told 
me to bring Mulder to the command center. Lucky for me, Mulder 
asked to go. Once we were there, however, we were ignored.

Not knowing what else to do, I followed Mulder's example and sat 
on the floor of that cold, shadowed vault and waited for Charlie 
to acknowledge our presence.

What I found was that I don't wait well. On the farm there was 
always something to do and if there wasn't, as during the long 
winter months, I would make something. Sadly, I had only been 
able to take three of my little carvings with me. I pulled one 
out of the pocket of my jumpsuit now. It was a fanciful animal 
all the more fanciful since I'd been pouring over the 
information on Earth wildlife on the ship's computer and so 
actually got to see some real ones. My fingers itched. I 
wondered if there was material on this ship that could be carved 
and if I could find a knife to carve it with. A knife! I'd only 
had little flint blades or chips of mica to carve with before. 
Each piece had taken forever. The thought of what I could do 
with a knife made my fingers itch.

Something pulled me out of my thoughts, I didn't know at first 
what. A clenching in my stomach.  

Mulder was crying. Oh, not noisily, in complete silence. Tears 
ran down his face that left shining, faintly blue trails down 
his face. Reflected from the blue glow around Charley, I thought 
at the time. I hadn't seen him cry before despite all he had 
been through. I guess there was time now. I didn’t disturb him. 
I didn’t need to ask what he was crying about, though I knew. 
Scully. I could always tell when he was thinking of her; his 
face would get all drawn and sorrowful.

Someday I hope there will be someone for me like that. A person 
so special that very little else has meaning. I could once have 
felt that way about Mulder but the feelings were never 
reciprocated. Oh, he cares, but it's not the same. He would 
leave me in a minute for her. I know it, he knows it, and we 
don't talk about it. With that kind of drought my passion has 
faded significantly which is just as well. Even Mulder has 
noticed which allows him to relax around me. Of course, this 
only makes things harder as I always had to guard against 
letting those feelings come back.

One of the things I have not told Mulder is that sometimes I can 
still feel what he is feeling even without the eau de Lichenleaf 
to 'open me up'. It could be a result simply of our being as 
close as we have been for so long and but I think the real 
reason is that he has gotten so much stronger in his mind. 
That’s why I haven’t mentioned it. I know he doesn't like to be 
reminded and the man doesn’t need a reason to be even more 
depressed than he is.

So I worked at ignoring the backwash from the rippling waves of 
his sorrow the same way  that I pretended not to notice the 
tears. I was relieved, therefore, when after a while the silent 
crying ceased and all that radiated from the man was a great 
peace. I wonder how he managed that? 

More waiting. I didn't know how long but my butt got good and 
sore and cold from sitting on the floor. Then there came a 
subtle change in the hum of the engines followed soon after by a 
brightening and then a dimming of the river of blue light that 
illuminated Charlie and the command chair and Mulder. Charlie 
moved then, rising so suddenly like a god from his throne that 
for the first time I felt a kind of fear in his presence like 
the tension from approaching thunder. Mulder, still wrapped in 
his own far thoughts, was oblivious to the movement. He didn't 
come around until Charlie came to stand right in front of him. 
Only then did he raise his head and slowly stand. They stared at 
each other for longer than I could have managed. Two strong 
wills silently battling. Seeing them together, knowing what I 
did about Mulder's stubbornness, I began to understand a little 
about the difficulties that had resulted in a defenseless and 
nearly naked Mulder being ejected from Charley's earlier ship 
and thrown catch-as-catch-can onto my world.

I’m still grateful that I was the one doing the catching.

"You are recovered, Agent Mulder?" Charley asked in a voice 
chillier and more formal than the one he used with Annicon and 
I. These two definitely had a history.

"I know that I have you to thank for my recovery only I won't since 
you were also the cause."

The shapeshifter's eyes flickered in my direction. "Certainly 
your visit to Dale had its brighter moments?"

Mulder's shoulders moved uneasily as if trying to relieve the 
weight of his jumpsuit from the skin of his back that I knew was 
still tight and sore. "There were opportunities for growth that 
I could have done without."

"You are a challenge to the status quo wherever you go, Agent."

"Always have been, always will be."

"But you have also grown much."

Mulder touched his temple. "Certain things have certainly grown 
-- or healed. That is what you intended."

"I hoped. The affect of Dale on talents such as yours is 
erratic. I thought it worth the attempt. You did well. You're 
stronger than you were. Your eyes are open now." He 
gestured along the floor where the blue trail of light had so 
recently gleamed. "This ship is far more powerful than the last 
one, and so easier to lock onto from a distance. On the other 
hand you never could have done what just happened here before 
Dale, nor would you have allowed it, nor would you have found 
pleasure in the experience. Now we can proceed. There is much to 
do." 

Charley turned then to manipulate some controls on the wall 
leaving Mulder to stare at the massive central chair. I picked 
up a stab of something from him then. Not fear but a deep 
apprehension. Now I understood his reluctance to sit willingly 
in Dr. Mac's chair on Dale to have his scars attended to. Too 
many uncomfortable associations. Even now Mulder was absently 
rubbing one of the scars on his wrists. A chair like that, but 
from a ship far less powerful, had given him those scars and 
those on his knees and face. No wonder I could practically feel 
the revulsion radiating from him as he faced the chair even 
though to the eye he revealed very little.
 
"How much larger is this ship than the last one," he asked his voice catching 
only slightly.

Unhurried, Charley finished what he was doing before turning 
back to us.

"A hundred times more massive than the scout." 

I saw Mulder swallow. "How does that affect piloting?"

"As you would expect. More inertia. I believe you would call it 
a logarithmic difference."

"The scout wasn't easy." 

>From what I'd heard, that was an understatement.

"You're stronger now."

"Not a hundred times stronger."

"You probably are but you need control to wield it, several 
hundreds times more in order to fly Ffthreudeth.” There was that 
name again. “It would most likely burn you out." The gray eyes 
actually glittered. "Which is why you are not flying the ship 
you call 'Fred' but another. Come." At that the shapeshifter 
started off with his fast stride, hardly giving Mulder time to 
process what he'd been told. Finally Mulder started forward. 
In the corridor I hung back not expecting that my presence would 
be welcome.

"Come," Charley repeated and this time it was clearly to me. 

It seemed that I was included after all. With a shrug I trotted 
to catch up.
 

Impressive before, the size of the ship grew in my estimation as 
we took a tour of the bowels of the behemoth. Mulder dropped 
back early on to walk with me. 

"I wonder what he had to do to steal this?" Mulder mused. He 
made no attempt to keep his voice down. Charley tended to ignore 
anything not said directly to him.

"Friends in high places?" I offered.

"Very high friends considering that he's suppose to be part of a 
small, eccentric rebel sect."

"Are you sure about that?" I asked.

Mulder's lips made a tight line as he thought. "No, I'm not, but 
he knew about Dale's pharmacopoeia and that it could strengthen 
mindspeech and yet the colony on the Portjam wasn't given any. 
What I am sure of is that there is more than one faction and 
they are fighting over Earth like two dogs with one bone."

"Earth is that important?" I had visions of golden cities, a 
paradise.

"In truth, no it isn't, or we wouldn't have been left to go our 
own way for a few dozen millennia. Even now the attack is 
uncoordinated, hit and miss, try this, try that, as if the siege 
had been left in the control of a couple of rookie sub-
lieutenants."

We had left the main part of the ship and entered a more 'blue 
collar' section. Unlike the main corridors, the lights here were 
dim and had taken on a greenish tinge. We passed empty 
storerooms and towers of unidentifiable machinery. At the 
entrance to a tall set of closed double doors Charley waited for 
us.  

"You are not far wrong, Agent Mulder. Your little planet IS not 
that important. True it was visited during your ice age. As a 
consequence, your gene pool is sprinkled with gifts from non-
earthly sources that have been allowed to develop on their own. 
This does not make you particularly unique, however. The same 
could be said of a hundred similar planets. For that reason it 
is hardly the 'ancient heritage that must be reclaimed' that 
some factions on my world would have the planetary hierarchy 
believe."

"That's what that demonstration on City was all about?” Mulder 
asked.

“Part of it.”

Mulder had told me -- very briefly -- about being put on exhibit 
before the alien elders during his time on the space station 
called City. He refused to say much. I gather he didn’t remember 
much and had absolutely no wish to remember more. 

“This is the argument they're using to try to assert their 
control over Earth?” I asked.

"To argue that they have some say in your race's future, yes."

Mulder's eyes were alert with curiosity. "Did these ancient 
genes make us what we are?"

Charley nearly smiled. "I'm aware of the debate to which you 
speak. As is true of most things, the answer is neither black 
nor white. You were well on your way before your visitation. 
That there was some affect is likely. As to its extent..." 
Something almost like a shrug moved the muscular shoulders. 

"This has something to do with the job you have for me, doesn't 
it?" Mulder asked in all seriousness.

Charley didn't need to reply but activated some hidden control 
that opened the double doors.

It was cold inside. There was a smell of machinery, a scent I'm 
sensitive to since before boarding this ship all of the metal I 
had seen in my life could be held in one hand. It wasn't a large 
room and almost all the space was taken up by one black object. 
Mulder later would tell me that it was about the size of VW bus 
and was shaped like a manta ray. I don't know what either of 
those things are. All I do know is that Mulder whistled as he 
approached. "All it’s missing are the tail fins and the fuzzy 
dice. How fast does she go?"

Another almost shrug from Charley. "Depends on the pilot." 

Mulder winced subtly and I tasted for just a moment his fear and 
even more a lance of pain that made my wrists and ankles sting. 
Even my face felt momentarily numb the way it does when stung by 
freezing rain. For all that Mulder still reached out and 
gingerly touched the black hull. Immediately he drew back but 
then returned to leave his palm against that intriguing surface, 
his eyes seeming to look on something far away. 

"Why isn't it carved like the others?" he asked after a long 
pause.

"It wasn't constructed for the same purpose as the others."

"You mean, not by zealots bent on spreading not only their genes 
but their own religious idioms?" 

Almost a smile. "Not for that, no."

Mulder's eyes closed. I don't know if I approved of his 
readiness to embrace this strange vehicle. "It's warm. It's... 
breathing?"

"Only in the remotest sense of the word. Sentient, yes. As 
sentient as the old ship, only more... approachable."
 
Mulder's eyes were still closed as if he were actually listening 
to this great black bird. Almost dreamily, he spoke, "After the 
cuddly warmth of Beast I can appreciate approachable."

After a little time Charley softly spoke a single word, "Uta." I 
think that I could even sense the little ship respond to that, 
almost like an awakening. Mulder's eyes flew open as his hand 
shot back. 

"Say it, Agent Mulder. Call it by its name."

Mulder did, though tentatively. The ship 'hummed’ in its 
mooring.

"Again, as if you meant it."

Mulder did in a firm, steady voice this time. A definite 
reaction from 'Uta' this time. A section of its hull slid away.

Eagerly, Mulder peered inside. I looked over his shoulder. There 
wasn't much room. Most of the central space was taken up by a 
smaller version of Charley's stone-like command chair. Behind it 
was a narrow, reclining couch. Unlike the other, this one was 
padded. There was no floor space or headroom to speak of.

Mulder's emotions were broadcasting loud and clear. 
Apprehension, yes, but also – eagerness? "Uta. This is the one 
you want me to fly?"

"This is the one you must fly." As Mulder peered in again, 
paying closer attention to the small command chair, Charley 
continued, "It will require a light touch compared to what you 
are use to and you will need to be more in control of your 
physical reactions. Uta does not make use of internal probes."

With a snap Mulder pulled fully out dark cavity and stared at 
the shapeshifter. "No jaws of death? No spikes of the close up 
and personal kind?"

"Unnecessary for a craft so small. It's still critical that you 
stay as still as possible, however, discipline that you don’t 
have and there is no time for you to learn it. For you, 
therefore, have been added a considerable number of restraints."

Mulder's response was one of his little ironic smiles. "I could 
get into bondage. Certainly a step up from the rotisserie 
arrangement. Now?"

One of Charley's eyebrows twitched. "Yes, now. There is not much 
time." After a moment's contemplation he added, "You have 
changed, Agent Mulder."

"I may have my mulish moments but hit me enough times over the 
head and I can tell a hawk from a hacksaw when the moon is 
right. I guess I got tired of being hit over the head."

>From what I'd heard about his confrontations with Charley in the 
past I could see where he was coming from, but I had also heard 
him talk about The Beast and I'd seen the scars. Clearly, 
neither way was easy, a fact he knew for I'd heard this 
deceptively light and almost careless way of speaking from 
Mulder before. It was almost always how he hid the really 
serious issues. But those who knew him well knew the difference. 
Both fear and curiosity. It was a combination I thought I could 
understand. After all, I'd accepted this journey with similar 
mixed feelings. Still...

Lost in my musings, I was startled to find Mulder looking my way 
when I had thought my presence extraneous. "It'll be all right," 
he assured me." I must have been the one with the worried face. 
"I know what I said before, but I'm okay with this."

I tried to send him an encouraging smile but it was shaky at 
best. He moved to the door of the hatch.

"Skin's still a necessity," Charley said. At the words Mulder 
straightened and turned back to us both, his face coloring. His 
eyes shifted my way but he didn't speak. 

"It's critical for the interface," Charley said in tones that 
would accept no argument, "even more than before."

At that Mulder sighed and I was shocked to see him release the 
fasteners on the one-piece jumpsuits we all wore and kick off 
the soft shoes before stripping. The thin but warm thermal shirt 
went soon after and the underwear followed. I tried to look away 
but it was damn hard.

"Just remember... it's cold in here," Mulder remarked with a 
smile that seemed to be more for a pleasant, old memory than for 
either of us. When the last piece was off, he slid inside the 
hatch lithe as an eel and worked his around the cramped space.

Mulder hadn't eaten well those last months on my planet, the 
pain from Daniel's torture on his back being too much of a 
distraction. He'd been sick on top of that at the time Charley 
had come back for him, but he had still worked hard during his 
stay with me and he was as lean and sleek and muscular as just 
about any man I'd ever seen. He was in a word -- beautiful. 
Unfortunate that his striptease had been so matter-of-fact, so 
business-like. 

"Just about as spacious as a Mercury capsule," he murmured to 
himself whatever a 'Mercury capsule' was.

He had reached the command chair. Gave me chills to see him 
lower himself onto the hard, uncomfortable-looking surface. 

"Looks cold," I told him.

"Is cold." Mulder didn't act so uncomfortable, however. As if 
the heat of the body warmed the surface, it seemed to mold every 
so slightly around him. He must have noticed it, too for his 
eyes had taken on an expression of wonder. 

"Now you," I heard Charley say and found to my consternation 
that his eyes were on me. I felt a shock run through me as if 
melt water had just dripped down my back. Instinctively, I 
reached to cover the fasteners of my own jump suit. "What?"

"No, Benjamin, you don't need to be in your natural state... 
unless, of course, you'd prefer it," he added with something 
like humor. "What you do need to do is learn how to secure him. 
This scout ship allows the pilot more room for error than a 
larger ship but it's still important that he be allowed to move 
as little as possible. There's an automatic release but he can't 
tighten the straps for himself." 

I had no idea why I needed to learn. Then maybe it was just a 
space issue. There wasn't much room in the tiny cabin to 
maneuver and Charley's body was both taller and more muscular 
than either Mulder's or mine. On the other hand, Charley could 
take care of that little problem with a thought. I, myself, had 
seen him morph into the most exquisitely petite red-haired woman 
though under circumstances that I won't go into here. He just 
had insisted that I not tell Mulder who had still been 
recovering in his cabin at the time. But for whatever reason, 
Charley wanted me to do this so I really had no choice. I edged 
towards the ship without enthusiasm.

Mulder, who had heard Charley's directions, seemed equally 
mystified. Still he sent my way a little crooked smile of 
encouragement as I began weaving myself into the cramped space. 

At one time we had been nearly the same size, but while Mulder 
had become lean over the summer from sheer anxiety and stress, I 
had bulked up, both with the muscle of farming and with the 
assumption that I had a long, cold winter to survive. The 
difference was enough to make working in the tiny space 
difficult. I struck my head and elbows on hard edges more times 
than I wanted to count.

Mulder had been able to tighten the straps around his ankles and 
thighs and had laid the thick ones around his waist and chest 
but I had to tighten those. As I reached across him for the 
strap for his right wrist, I couldn't help but be aware of his 
scent and the silkiness of his skin. Made my head swim. To pull 
and lock the webbing, thus leaving him helpless, did things to 
me that I won't describe 

"Don't tell me that you haven't always wanted to do this?" he 
suggested with impish leer, his breath warm in my ear.

I blushed furiously. "Don't make jokes. This is horrible."

"Better than the alternative. You have no idea." His 
cheerfulness surprised me especially since a sheen of cold sweat 
made his skin shimmer in the bright sparkles of light from the 
few instruments. After all, who needed instruments on a ship 
that was largely mind controlled?

"How can you enjoy this?" I asked as I hurried to finish the 
job. The other wrist... shoulders...

He was solidly pinned against the hard surface of the chair now, 
a constant involuntary tremor running inside his skin. "Where I 
come from they have a class of 'recreation' called X-treme 
sport. Though I never tried it, my job being enough of an X-
treme sport, I can see the attraction after this. Like ninety 
foot drops and five G-force coasters, people love amusement 
parks; people love to be scared."

I must have looked at him as if I thought he was crazy.

"I'll explain later. Ouch! My ear!" I was fastening the last 
strap, the one that was actually a web that involved forehead 
and jaw to keep his head from moving side to side as well as up 
and down. 
 
"Sorry. Better?" He couldn't nod now nor even talk much more 
than a mumble. "Will do... trussed up like Thanksgivin' turkey."

As with all the rest of Mulder's cultural references, that one 
went way over my head.

I gave my friend one last look. He didn't seem in distress, just 
anxious to get on with the flight. To get it over with or to 
enjoy it? Either way, I was holding things up. I began to back 
out.

"Couch.” The command came in Charley's voice from behind me. 
Startled, I looked towards the well-padded chair, positioned 
behind where Mulder lay helpless. No, far from helpless. There 
was still the power in him that I had only begun to feel when 
the blue light arced from his fingertips. 

As difficult as it was to move, I managed to look back at 
Charley who was standing just outside the hatch. What could he 
possibly want me to do?

But Mulder guessed. His eyes had gone wide with alarm. "No! You 
bastard! This isn't a game. It’s dangerous!"

Clearly, Charley knew this but that didn't keep his inscrutable 
face from being damned irritating. "You think he's going to 
distract you by contemplating sex again?"

I blushed, so did Mulder but more with impotent fury as his body 
strove to move against his restraints in a hopeless attempt to 
mirror the agitation in his mind. Neither of us needed that to 
be brought up again. 

"I imagine that he will have other things on his mind," Charley 
said in the sort of way that made Mulder grind his teeth.

"That's the point," Mulder argued. "What will it do to his mind? 
Think about what it did to the others who tried and weren't 
'born' to it."

"As you were? But he'll be linked to you. You'll be his anchor 
in that dimension, but just as surely he'll be yours in this 
one." The calm voice changed to one with steel in it. "I do not 
suggest this lightly. Your mission, which we will discuss once 
this phase is over, depends upon this being a successful 
arrangement. There is no point in taking the time if it is not."

Charley turned his attention to me. "Keep him calm. Remind him 
to center. Remind him of who he is, remind him of WHAT he is. 
Don't let him head for Earth. The ship doesn't have the range, 
you'll never make it."

"So you don't trust me," Mulder mumbled through the webbing. 
"Maybe I deserve that, but don’t punish Ben. His life, his 
sanity is in danger. I can't believe I'm saying this, but if 
anyone has to come, it had better be you." 

"Benjamin..." Charley rumbled warningly, and I knew who was 
going to win this argument. I had stalled halfway to the hatch. 
With difficulty I began working my way back in but toward the 
rear of the compartment where the couch sat surrounded and 
overshadowed by hulking masses of dark, gleaming machinery. It 
was going to be a tight fit. Mulder ground his teeth.

"I will explain more later, Agent Mulder. There is no time now. 
Think of it as incentive. Now you have to protect his life as 
well as your own."

But Mulder hadn't quite given up. "I'll never hear him!" he 
protested and there was sharp, cutting fear in his voice, fear 
for me that had never been there for himself. "You know what 
it’s like." His eyes rolled towards the ceiling. 

"You'll hear him." Charley stretched out his hand to me. Nestled 
within it was something roughly the size of his huge palm. I had 
just wiggled my way into the couch, the instrument panel above 
me nearly touching my stomach and other metal apparatus hugging 
each shoulder. Reaching for the offering, the sleeve of my 
jumpsuit hung up on a sharp edge. Naked clearly had its 
advantages. I already knew what the gift was even before my hand 
wrapped around it. Back to me, however, Mulder couldn't see what 
was going on.

"Ben?"

"It's Leiken smoke but captured in a kind of tube. I don't know 
how he does it. I place a kind of cup over my mouth and nose and 
breath. It works. He gave it to me before to find you on Dale." 
I looked Charley's way. "How much of a dose?

"Thirty seconds should do. Breathe deeply."

Nothing more came from Mulder though the conflicting emotions 
emanating from him were almost visible. I breathed the slightly 
spicy stuff while Charley continued with his instructions. 

"You need to be strong yourself, Ben. Be with him but don't get 
lost in him. Remember me, remember here. If he gets too excited 
or in too much pain, calm him down."

'Too much pain?' I didn't like the sound of that, but there 
wasn't time for worrying about what was to come. 'Now' was 
already becoming tangible enough to wash out any possible 
forecasting. The edge of Mulder's emotions, the very sense of 
him, came into sharper and sharper focus with each breath. With 
an effort I split my attention so I could also concentrate on 
Charley's final instructions, to Mulder this time. "You don't 
need to worry about undocking and docking; that's automatic. 
Don't rush. There's nothing you haven't done before. Take time 
to get the feel and take what time you need but don't take too 
long." Charley started to back away from the hatch, then added, 
"Don't make me come after you."

Was that a threat? Sounded like a threat.

The hatch sealed with a puff of air while I was still breathing 
into the mask. I put it down after another five seconds and 
settled back to take stock of my expanded horizons. Nice. It 
almost felt as if I was wearing Mulder's skin. I could even feel 
the tightness of the bindings and, surprisingly, Mulder's 
acceptance of them. I had forgotten how smooth this extract of 
Charley's was. There was no disorientation or the other foggy 
side affects that I had known before. 

Without warning, without a sound, my couch dropped away, far 
away. My stomach followed even later than the rest of me. 

*Got to acquaint you with the idea of seatbelts, * came a cheery 
voice inside my head.

I hunted for the straps for my own couch. There were only two. I 
pulled them so tight I could barely breathe. *You're enjoying 
this. *

*I would be if I could be sure you'd be safe. * There was a 
pause then as the ship moved forward. I had only the sense of 
motion to guide me. There were neither windows nor bright, 
moving screens like the computers Charley had introduced me to. 
It was nearly black inside except for the few instrument lights 
in amber and red and blue.

Even without windows there was no way that I could mistake the 
moment when the little ray ship left Fred's encircling embrace. 
The parts of my body that the straps did not hold down floated 
off the couch. My stomach flipped. All at once my head was 
filled with pictures. Clearest was that of a jet black night sky 
filled with a million of the brightest stars I had ever seen. 
Only to my far right did something massive, sharp-edged and dark 
blot out those stars. 
*The mother ship, * Mulder told me. *I always wanted to say 
that. Feel better? *

Having something to 'look' at I did. I sensed movement then. Not 
a lot, very smooth. The dark shape of the ship and the field of 
stars spun in a slow lazy circle around us. 

*I can do this!* Mulder exclaimed but not all of what he said 
was in words. There was such joy in him. The excitement I had 
sensed before was nothing compared to this. He was enjoying 
himself so totally that I doubted that he even remembered that 
he had a passenger.

*Hey, I'm here, * I reminded him.

*I know. Ready to try a little speed? Hold on. *

To what?

The next minute took my breath away -- literally. The sky field 
spun like a child's wooden top. I wanted to scream and I would 
have if I weren’t more afraid that I'd throw up.

*Keep looking through my eyes, * he urged and I felt his touch, 
guiding me. 

*I'm holding him back, * I thought to myself, forgetting for a 
moment that the thought wasn't private.

*Yes, you are but maybe that's not so bad. Holds me down. Scully 
use to do that. It was good for me. Over time I learned -- never 
leave your conscience behind, and I won't. *    

There was a lot in those words that made no sense but the 
emotion of regret added all I needed to know. So he had caused 
his Scully grief by reckless adventuring. It made me feel less 
of a burden to know that he had made stupid mistakes in the past 
when he might have listened to calmer heads.

Unfortunately at this moment I was anything but calm. The ship 
had moved again under me, swinging from side to side as well as 
forward. Considering that until a few days before I'd never 
ridden in anything more complicated than a wooden cart drawn by 
fellow colonists, the actions did not suit either my stomach 
or my nerves.
.
*Ben, don't worry. I can do this, * came through next, heavy 
with reassurance as well as humor. Clearly, communication was 
going two ways but, equally clearly, talk wasn't going to 
relieve my terror.

*You'll have to prove it to me, * I grumbled. Bad idea. Between 
one instant and the next we weren't making lazy spirals any 
longer. Instead the specs of white were gone and the stars had 
shifted into a rainbow of reds and purples and colors humans 
weren't intended to see. But through Mulder's mind I could see 
them. My body felt at one moment as light as air and the next as 
heavy as a mountain and, no matter how hard I tried to reference 
on what Mulder was seeing in his head, I was becoming more and 
more ill. 

After one particularly heart-stopping display of dips, 
explosions, dives, and corkscrews there came a moment of the 
most suffocating black. It was like the black inside your cabin 
when you wake up in the middle of the night after a blizzard has 
raged non-stop for four days and the fire on the hearth has gone 
cold. I came out of that black back into a red-shift of stars 
with my lungs ready to explode for want of air.

Gasping, I screamed, "You bastard!"

But all I heard was laughter. 



MULDER

Strange. In the main control room surrounded by the blue 
'whatever' from the command chair I had felt such peace.

What changed, Scully? Charley? The laws of nature? 

Or me?

As Charley led us down to the shuttle bay, my heart was in the 
felt slippers I'd been given. 

'Shuttle Bay', Mulder?

Hey, since Charley didn't name it I had to fall back on what I 
knew, in other words, thirty years of the Star Trek franchise. 

I was quaking because the ship was so terrifyingly huge. I had 
thought it large back when we were in the command room but 
this... I was nearly paralyzed at the very thought of trying to 
get an iceberg this size to move. What did Sancho Panza say? 
"Whether the rock hits the pitcher or the pitcher hits the rock, 
it's still going to be bad for the pitcher." Well, it was going 
to be worse for me than it was for the Titanic.

By the time that cheery thought was entering my head, we arrived 
at the shuttle bay and shortly thereafter I saw the little black 
ship. It was like traveling back eight years, standing on the 
runway at Ellens Air Force Base and looking up. This was the 
same black-winged shape but at eye level and, yes, significantly 
smaller. Almost a toy.

This was no mountain-sized iceberg but rather an ice cube, 
something I could have conceivably moved with the touch of my 
finger back in the days when I worked at flying The Beast. Hell, 
I could move it with a breath now, and with that realization the 
most amazing thing happened; an excitement, pure energy, flowed 
from somewhere into my fingers and toes. It was like being 
handed a really good X-File. It was like after all these 
terrible, lonely months, a door opened onto a spring morning 
full of the perfume of cherry blossoms and my favorite pair of 
track shoes on my feet. How I wanted to move, to run, to fly. 
When reminded I couldn't shed my clothes fast enough.

How could I ever have thought this so difficult?

Now Ben's coming along, that knocked me back. Oh, I protested 
because I feared for his safety but just as much because I 
didn't want to share this moment, not with anyone. It was like 
how I used to take off at times without you. Just to be alone 
with the wonders.

But he came and there we were, sailing on the winds of heaven, 
within the jewel veils of the nebular clouds. I barely noticed 
him after all, except, of course, when the maneuvers got too 
ambitious, which they did, and he threatened to get sick on me. 
That wouldn't have been pleasant for either of us. For this 
little ship was no Beast but rather a bird, a great bird, born 
to fly. The astral map Charley had displayed before my eyes 
while Ben was getting situated on his couch flowed into my mind 
and that's all she wrote. 

Charlie turned out to be right, damn him. I did need Ben's voice 
and occasionally his screams in my ear to bring me back. There 
were stretches of timelessness where I remembered very little 
but the soaring glory and freedom of flight as if this little 
black ray was actually my body that I could do with whatever I 
wished. Ben couldn't have found those gymnastics much fun. In 
the end, I couldn't hold back. I jumped. Point A one moment; 
Point B the next. Simple, but horribly selfish. The screaming 
woke me; Ben's terror and it nearly made me lose control. That 
would have been bad. I could have ended up anywhere -- or 
nowhere. I would have stretched out a hand then just to let Ben 
know that he wasn't alone but with he strapped to his couch and 
me to mine, a virtual hand was all I could offer, touch soul to 
soul and a heartfelt apology. He quieted but his sanity still 
wavered on a terrible edge. 

*How do you feel? * That was a silly question because I knew 
exactly how he felt.

*Like shit. *

*I should get you back.*

*That would be a really good idea. *

*But the quickest way back by far would be the same way we got 
here though without the flourishes. *

*I'll walk. *

*It's only dark. *

*Maybe to you, * came the shaky response in my head and I paid 
attention for the first time at what Ben saw. Maybe I didn't 
know what he was going through. Maybe this was why the test 
pilots at Ellen’s went mad. If so, what did that say about me? I 
was born to it, if Dan Rowe is to be believed. Is that why the 
dark never truly worried me? Why during my profiling days I was 
never afraid to journey in my mind where evil walked?

*Stay with me. You won't be alone. I won't let you fall. *

He must have really trusted me because he held my virtual hand 
and we made it back without his terror of that dark place 
becoming unmanageable. I hope I'll remain worthy of such trust. 


* * * * * * * * * * * *

We were eating in a kind of conference room -- at least it had a 
table and chairs -- when Charley joined us. His posture was 
still but then this was the only time I could remember his 
actually sitting in my presence. Despite my blunder in not 
protecting Ben the first time I 'jumped' Ray, I must have passed 
some sort of test.  

"It is time," he said gravely.

This I was expecting. 

"Is it possible, Agent Mulder, that you would simply agree to 
perform this task without a extended explanation?"

"Depends on what it is. You've been singularly reticent on the 
subject."
 
"Not a complicated thing -- fly to a certain asteroid, call it 
Rock Four, land and plant a bomb, blow it up."  I know that my 
expression was suspicious. "Come," he went on, "you should be 
able to do that. Humans are always exploding things."

True, but how very pedestrian Sci Fi. If true, it was about the 
last thing I had expected. "Don't you have laser cannon, space 
torpedoes or that sort of thing that you can release from this 
ship?"

"This ship does not have that sort of weaponry even if it could 
get close enough. A diffraction field that I cannot enter 
protects Rock Four."

'I' not 'we'. Charley even seemed a little miffed at the 
situation. I felt my interest begin to prickle.

"You specifically?"

The stone gaze was withering. "My species."

Shapeshifter is a species? Must be. "But humans can cross this 
barrier?"

"Yes, but do not look so smug. There is nothing humans have done 
which is so superior that would explain it. The filter allows 
Humans to pass just as it allows a catalogue of other biological 
specimens to pass. Just so much cargo."

"Merchandise." I felt the wallpaper paste Charley served here 
for breakfast curdle in my stomach. 

Confused, Ben looked from one of us to the other. "I don't 
understand."

"'Biological specimens,'" I repeated and the phrase tasted foul 
on my tongue. "Test subjects. Maybe workers, too. Slaves and 
prisoners."

"All true. Which is why you should want to see this done."

"What nastiness are they hatching?"

"Many things for many worlds. A dozen for Earth alone but only 
one that is at a stage to be any real danger. They  would be 
farther along but you infiltrated and sabotaged the ship that 
was harvesting some of the first viral subjects for study. You 
personally set them back months."

His meaning became clear only slowly.

"In Antarctica when I rescued Scully..." Yes, there had been other 
humans on that ship but I had only been able to rescue one and 
myself. How many had died when the life support system failed? 
How many had lived to be carried off ... to where?  This asteroid 
Charley spoke of? 

"And here I thought that you'd only be angry over all those 
primitive versions of your own people that probably died."

Charley visibly recoiled. "Not my people!" It was the strongest 
emotion that I had ever seen from the shapeshifter. "My species 
was designed eons later. What you saw were proto-Stalves. These 
ancestors of the first travelers exist only on Earth, though 
isolation and inbreeding has had a terrible affect. The worst of 
their viciousness has been totally bred out of the current 
population."

"So it was the Stalves who were trying to bring Grandma home?" I 
asked, trying to make sense of this soap opera.

"No,” Charley snapped. “The Stalves weren't in charge of the 
ship! Those were the Beyay. They were bringing the creatures 
back to embarrass the Stalves."

"Yes, I imagine having such primitive and violent creatures in 
your family tree wouldn't be something that you'd want brought 
up at a dinner party. The Bayay and the Stalves then are rival 
parties?"

"They are more than that. They are the super-species at war. 
They are the war!"

"I thought you were at war with Earth."

"Earth is not a player in the conflict. It is not strong enough 
to be at war with anyone other than itself. Earth is simply one 
of the battlefields, and a prize, and not even the main one."

I looked over at Ben who was following all this with difficulty. 
Aliens he believed in; the machinations of politics were more 
difficult. "So Cigarette Breath is on the side of these Bayay?"

"At one time or another he has been on all sides of which there 
are more than two. The Consortia stuck with the Stalves -- to 
their grief."

"I take it your group represents a third side."

"A fourth and not very powerful. We advocate leaving Earth 
alone, one of our arguments being that it the earliest known 
colonial outpost of our ancient ancestors. But we discussed this 
before. You yourself were an exhibit. You were as much a 
testimony of the distant relationship of our species as you were 
evidence of your barbarism.” The haughty eyes narrowed. “I take 
it that you do remember being displayed to the conclave of 
elders on City?"

Denuded of all body hair, pasty white from dead skin, locked in 
a glass cage. Yeah, I remembered. Distantly, I'm happy to say, 
and I had no desire to remember any more clearly.

"Let's get back to this 'task'. So there's some kind of barrier 
that prevents you from approaching this Rock Four, but you want 
me to slide in with the other trash and somehow make it all go 
boom? So what's in it for either Earth or me? Since when does an 
act of terrorism convince anyone of anything, much less just to 
leave us alone? Will the loss of one asteroid make it not worth 
their while to continue nibbling at this particular small Terran 
fish? Or are we just a pawn, literally, in the game where just 
taking it from the other guy is the real motive?"

"Opinions vary as to the final impact of this move."

"Isn’t that a little short sighted? What about retaliation?"

"Did I say that my group was instigating the assault? The 
politics of power crosses species lines. We are merely the hired 
'gun'. We cannot be held accountable for all the repercussions 
of a particular job.”
 
"So the side which supplied this ship and these toys may only be 
interested in socking it to the other guy --"

"While my group has a different agenda altogether? That would be 
correct."

"That's a dangerous game."

"This is no game, I assure you. Our party is fairly small, our 
resources limited. Do our methods disturb you?"

"Depends on what this will eventually mean to Earth."

"This Rock Four houses a research station. Almost all of the 
specialized approaches being developed to deal with the 'Human' 
problem are being worked on here.”

“That’s not very smart.”

“No, you are just not that important."

"We destroy, they’ll just build again...bigger AND meaner."

"Will they? Only the most single-minded of the factions is 
advocating genocide. As a species you are strong and healthy and 
adaptable and you have some intelligence but not too much. That 
makes you and Earth useful. Plus there are some in high places 
who view you as distant kin." The stone eyes hardened. "Far 
distant. On the other hand, creating slaves is difficult and 
expensive; maintaining a slave population is even more difficult 
and expensive. And it is not that you have colonization plans of 
your own that make you a threat. Many believe that you will 
never be. You have nearly turned your back on the stars. You 
have dirtied your world to such an extent that it has even now 
begun its slow spiral to its death."

The muscles of my back tightened. "Irreversible?"

"Probably not but it would take all your attention for a 
thousand years to save it. Wait a few centuries and what's left 
of your governments will probably welcome 'help’ with open 
arms."

That was a chilling thought, mostly because it rang so true. No 
time to think of that now though. Let us survive the immediate 
future first.

"So economically, we're not worth the trouble. If the research 
station is destroyed, they may not build again." 

"They may, they may not. In any case, it will give your people 
time."

Ben looked my way. "Do you follow all this?"

"Most of it. I got the 'not worth the trouble' part. It's nice 
to know that even intragalactic wars can have budget problems." 
Nothing Charley had said seemed more true than that. I also had 
a feeling from looking at the set of Charley's jaw that the 
shapeshifter's unexpected verbosity had played itself out. There 
wasn't much more that I was likely to learn. 

"Let's at least work out the preliminaries. I'll need to see a 
star chart and a map and some idea of how you expect me to do 
this. I can't put a research facility out of action by gnawing 
it to death with my teeth."


All of that I got, though I was provided with information about 
where and how to explode existing power sources rather than 
provided with any weapons. And here I had hoped for a phaser or 
at least a light saber. It seemed that power packs from weapons 
of that size would be detected at the security perimeter. 
'Ray's' engines were shielded and invisible only so long as I 
came in at a glide. 

Jolly! Something new. Set down a ship I'd flown only once under 
no power on one particular, irregularly shaped, free floating 
object. Up close it was reported to be the size of a few small 
cities though compared to the size of the universe it was no 
larger than a dust mite. At least I couldn’t complain about 
being bored.                                        
    
                                                
    
                    
BENJAMIN

Mulder was quiet on our second trip in 'Ray' and I didn't 
intrude on his subdued mood. There were no jokes. Even the 
chatter of his mind was gone. The mental traffic I overheard was 
disciplined, organized and concentrated on the task at hand, 
though underlying it all was a brown fog of unhappiness. I knew 
why I was unhappy but couldn't understand why he was. Finish 
this job and he'd be going home. That's the promise. Me? I'd ask 
Charley to take me back to Dale, but will there be anything left 
to go back to? My abandoned farm would have been given to 
another, certainly the harvest would have been taken, but I had 
sense enough to know that I could never fit in on Mulder's 
Earth.

*You're getting way ahead of yourself, Ben. * The clear thought 
reminded me that this mind reading went both ways. As his health 
improved, Mulder's mindspeech had gotten stronger. He didn't 
smoke lichen and yet he was still far stronger than I was. 

*Than I. *

*See, that's why I'd never make it on Earth. Everyone there must 
speak perfect English. *

Mulder's amusement at my comment sparkled between us and the 
little ship rocked as his control slipped.

We made three small 'jumps' into the black of nothing during our 
trip. I held my breath, accepted Mulder's desperate grip on my 
sanity, and made it through.

We found the blue star right where it was suppose to be and the 
fifth planet three-quarters around its orbit. Beyond that was 
scattered the asteroid field where once a sixth planet had spun. 
Finding one particular chunk of rock in that mess took some 
looking but 'Ray' had a sensor that could detect energy 
emanations and after flying by three ore mining operations 
detected the strongest signal of all. Without the sensor we 
wouldn't have identified Rock Four as anything special. It was 
faintly blue, the same way that Earth is blue from the water 
vapor that carbon-based lifeforms need. But on the edge of the 
blue there was a fuzzy rim of pale red. 

*That must be the energy barrier Charley talked about. It's not 
only a biologic filter. Its static charge holds the atmosphere, 
or so I'm told. Rock Four has also been put into a spin, which 
lessens the demand on the artificial gravity generators. *

At the moment it was the biologic filters we were worried about. 
At a warning beep Mulder cut the engines on our tiny ship and we 
coasted. We would know soon whether Charley had told the truth 
about Human's being able to get through. 

When we hit the red haze I felt as if ants were crawling over my 
body. In truth, we do not have ants on Dale but we do have 
rashes that plague a body very much like ants or at least that's 
how Mulder has described it. 

As probing grew more and more intense, the effect became far 
worse than ants. I could almost imagine the walls beginning to 
glow red and my skin to blister as the probing reached deep 
inside. I hissed. I don't know if he heard me, but the engines 
were off and we had both gone silent so I hated to have made any 
noise. Mulder, however, did more than hiss. A moan was pulled 
from him that was mixed with a sob.  In sympathy I felt within 
my own body an echo of the slow shredding that was going on 
inside him. It was so bad that coming out of the red haze was 
like pulling free of molasses -- which we do have on Dale -- and 
the little ship rocked violently. Just how conscious was Mulder? 
With an effort of will that was impressive he managed to steady 
us. Blind, as there were no windows, I fought to look through 
his eyes, desperate to find out where the ground was. Maybe I 
shouldn't have looked. It was dark but not so dark that I 
couldn't see the jagged peaks already to either side of us.

And Mulder was so quiet, too quiet.

*Mulder...*

I felt one bump to the left side and a terrible scraping. Ray 
leaped up at a crazy angle. His nose jerked down again 
drunkenly. We lifted again, leveled at the last minute and slid, 
bumping and jerking and crashing noisily to a halt. With the 
realization that we were finally stopped my breath came out in a 
whoosh. I hadn't even known I'd been holding it. 

"Mulder?" I called, reaching for the release for my couch belts 
at the same time that I tried to find his thoughts. Other than a 
strained gasping for breath from the direction of the command 
chair, I got no answer. His thoughts were a jumble of fear and 
hurt and something even darker.  I forced my nearly too-large 
body around the equipment to reach his side. 

Mulder's eyes were closed, his jaw was set, and he was wet with 
sweat. I hunted along the left side of his chair for the 
release, not understanding why he hadn't done this for himself. 
He was barely aware when the restraints fell away. Helping him 
to sit, I found his bare flesh cold and hard to the touch.  His 
eyes fluttered open. He still seemed to be in pain.

"You all right?" he asked in a tremulous voice.

"Why shouldn't I be? You're not that bad a driver."

"I meant the field."

"Not so bad. Like Charley said, it lets Humans through..." And 
stopped there, realizing what I was saying. So here was where 
the fear came from and the other dark emotion. Mulder had only 
barely made it through, certainly not painlessly. Was this 
confirmation that Mulder was, as Dan Rowe had said, not entirely 
Human? Not one hundred per cent anyway. A couple of ancient 
genes was all it took to cause problems. Looking vulnerable and 
too human in his nakedness, Mulder just sat on the edge of the 
chair registering shock and pain and shame.

"Let's get out of here." 

I went to the hatch. The controls had been reduced to a simple 
failsafe mechanism for such simple creatures such as ourselves. 
One touch on a panel from either one of us and the hatch would 
open but only if the air was sufficient for us to breathe, as we 
were told it would be. They tested humans here after all -- live 
humans, not dead ones, at least not dead to start with. 

After an irritating delay, the hatch swung up with a whir and a 
click. A chill entered the cabin. The sky outside was a sort of 
muddy purplish-orange, barely lighter than the barren and jagged 
rock field Ray had skidded into and where he now lay at a slight 
angle, bow down. I poked my head outside and felt my nose 
wrinkle in revulsion. The air may be breathable but it was thin 
and foul. 

I turned back to Mulder. The bite of the chill air against his 
bare, damp skin had gotten him moving, if slowly. He had found 
thermal underwear and coveralls and was working his way into 
them. There being no space for me to help, I could only watch 
his slow and clumsy movements.

"How bad is it outside?" he asked, teeth chattering.

"Nothing on Dale smells this bad."

Working his way closer to the doorway he took a prolonged sniff 
and considered. "Reminds me of one of New Jersey's better days."

I knew from his tone that this had to be one of his jokes so he 
was coming around, but the darkness underneath his thoughts 
still rolled.

"I'm sorry," I said.

His eyes narrowed. "You know?"

I shrugged. "I figured it out. It doesn't matter to me." 

Fingers on the clasps of his jumpsuit, he paused, his face 
taking on that hurt, circumspect expression that always made 
that special place inside my chest warm. "I guess I never really 
believed. No, that's not quite it; I didn't want to believe. In 
many things, yes, but not that."

"Too close to home."

"Way too close." Mulder had come to the hatchway now and stared 
out. "But this certainly isn't -- close to home, that is -- 
though except for the color of the sky this could be some places 
I've seen in the Southwest on Earth."

I stared at the desolation. "I've always heard that Earth was a 
paradise."

Mulder handed two backpacks to me and then climbed a little 
unsteadily down from the cabin to stand with me on the jagged 
stone. He lowered the hatch. "Much of Earth is a paradise, even 
now, but there's beauty in its diversity, too. The wild and 
empty places are good places to go to to get away."

"From what?"

"The cities mostly."

"The cities are bad?" 

"Horrible. Ironically inhuman for places so full of humanity."

Shouldering the backpacks that were full of tools, electronic 
gadgets I didn't understand, and blocks of something Mulder 
called plastic explosive, we carefully climbed to the highest of 
the nearby piles of sharp, black volcanic slag. In a distance we 
saw lights but the place was too far away to make out figures. 
For the first time it came home what we were doing here. "Are 
you actually going to blow this place up the way Charley wants?"

Mulder placed a melodramatic hand to his chest; the first truly 
'Mulder' gesture I'd seen since we landed. "Of course not. I'm 
going to make as sure as I can that what's going on is as 
Charlie says it is. Then I may blow it up." His expression 
sobered. "Ben, there's something you need to understand. I was 
never a soldier. I was in law enforcement. Yes, I killed but a 
law had to be broken first or I was protecting myself or others. 
What Charley wants is too cold-blooded."

"You'd be protecting your people by eliminating this place."

"If what Charley says is true, but if what he says is true we're 
also not even at war, not really. Other people are at war and 
we're just in the way. I have real problems, Ben, with blowing 
away some eighteen year old draftee even if he is small and gray 
and has bad taste in clothes, or some lab aide or sanitation 
worker, when it’s the faces of their faceless government that I 
really want to smash in." 

I shook my head. "Life is a lot simpler on Dale."

Mulder sighed. "You have no idea." Stretching still sore 
muscles, my companion rose slightly from his crouch behind the 
rock and began to inch forward. "Let's go. Best to find out 
what's going on. Why do I have the feeling, though, that I'm 
going to wish that I could forget what's going to happen here, 
in fact that I'm going to wish that I could forget what has 
happened during these entire last months of my life."

"That would mean forgetting me," I blurted out and immediately 
wished I hadn't. I'd embarrassed us both.

But Mulder replied after only a hesitation of surprise, "I 
certainly hope not. I've never had many friends. You're probably 
the best friend I've ever had -- except for Scully and my 
sister, Sam. You don't mind being third best behind them I 
hope."




MULDER

We moved away from the ship. I couldn't help telling my 
companion, "Don't forget where we parked," to which Ben's 
expression went blank.  "Sorry, old Star Trek joke."

We crept closer to the rim from which we should be able to see 
something. It takes a while to maneuver around the jagged 
remains of ripped up planets but the rough terrain also hid us 
from whoever may have been out in the dark to see. 

"Do you have any idea of where we are?" Ben asked.

"If I have the map Charley showed me turned the right way around 
in my head, we're closer to Camp Gamma than we have any right to 
be considering the fine precision of our descent." More 
precisely, Charley's map of Rock Four had been a 3-D image of a 
very large, wrinkled potato spinning slowly end over end. He 
named the various installations in terms of their relative 
distance from the more pointed end of the huge asteroid using 
the Greek alphabet. 

"I thought he told you to try for Beta? That's where the power 
station is."

"That's what he told me, but don't you think that we need to be 
sure that we're on the right side before we start blowing things 
up?"

We were finally close enough to the rim to actually see 
something. Cautiously, I peered over one of the peaks of black 
basalt. For one giddy moment I felt like Richard Dreyfuss in 
"Close Encounters of the Third Kind" staring down at his first 
glimpse of the base they called 'the Dark Side of the Moon'. 
That's how I first saw Camp Gamma. There was the same rocky 
surface, the same glaring floodlights, and similar clusters of 
mismatched buildings with dark figures moving between, but there 
the similarity ended. Here the dark sky was muddy orange rather 
than indigo blue and the bodies did not move purposely on 
frantic errands. These bodies dragged themselves from one pile 
of sharp-edged, bowling ball sized rocks to a similar pile about 
three hundred yards away with the precision of a line of out-of-
step ants. These were no alien species, either, no line of 
black-eyed worker Grays. These appeared human. Seeing humans did 
not surprise me; seeing so many did. There must have been over a 
hundred. That was a shock. My stomach still unsettled from 
barrier, unsettled further. Except for the absence of wire 
fences, the scene reminded me of a prison camp, only far more 
bleak than even the dreary mud of Tunguska. The prisoners were 
more poorly dressed by far, wearing little more than rags.

"What's going on?" Ben asked, sensing my dismay. Then he took a 
look over the rim for himself. "Father Frost! Are those all 
humans? All of them?" 

"They appear to be." I held up my hand to shield my eyes from 
the glare of the nearest floodlight. Something about the profile 
of one of the line of 'ants'...

"Shit, shit, shit!" I swore under my breath and stared harder.

"Mulder, what?"

"Charley, you sonofabitch, you bastard, you bloody green --" I 
began. I wanted to scream, to rage. My words came out as if they 
were being draw across broken glass but at least they weren't 
too loud. "Ben, I thought I recognized one of the men. Now I'm 
sure I do, more than one. Ray, Gary, Joe and Warren, more. 
Shit... and Billy Miles. The men from the Mindspeaker colony on 
the Portjam. Remember? The first ship I was held on after 
Oregon. But what are they doing here?"

Ben stared with more interest at the long line of dirty, weary, 
trudging, men. "It appears that they are carrying rocks, only 
they carry them from one pile to another pile, put their rock 
down and then pick up a new one and carry the new one back. 
Doesn't make any sense."

"My guess is, that's the point. It's a test."

"Of what? How long they'll put up with such stupidity?"

"You're closer than you know. For slave labor to work on a 
planetary scale they have to obey without question and with 
minimal supervision."

"And that's what I'm seeing?" In horrified fascination, Ben 
stared, his quick mind trying to process it all. "So these 
people have been damaged the same way the newcomers on Dale are 
damaged?"

"Not in the same way. It wouldn't be practical to take billions 
of people on roller coaster rides on multi-dimensional ships. 
Over the years I found evidence more than once of where they 
were testing delivery systems for viruses. At first they used 
bees alone. Later they tried to develop a type of bee that would 
spread the virus to corn, only bees don't normally fertilize 
corn. If they could manage that, however, and the virus got into 
the corn that would mean that it would also get into the food 
supply since corn products are used in just about everything in 
the West. In the East, maybe they're trying the same thing with 
rice."

Clearly, Ben was overwhelmed. His dazed eyes went back to the 
inching line of zombies. I had seen enough and pushed away to 
find ten feet of space to pace in if that were possible. Damn, I 
should have known that there was going to be a lot that Charley 
hadn't told me. 

"M-Mulder..." came Ben's anxious voice, cracking like a 
schoolboy's.
  
Imagining some new atrocity, I returned to my spot beside him to 
peer between two rocks. Nothing of the depressing site seemed 
changed from before, not to me anyway. "What?"

"W-Women. That i-is a line of women, right? The next line over?"

Of course, it was, though that didn't surprise me overmuch. 
There had been a separate woman's group on the Portjam. Then I 
remembered the world where Ben had been raised. "Am I right that 
those are more women than you've seen at one time in your entire 
life?"

His head bobbed numbly. "I didn't notice them at first. They are 
dressed like men and looked at first like men, only smaller, but 
they aren't men, are they?"

"No, they're not."

This was when Billy Miles caught my attention. He was closer 
than before. His handsome face was recognizable even under the 
dirt. What will and intellect remained behind those eyes? 
Shouldn't be much and yet... something about him. Nothing obvious, 
just -- There it was! An eyebrow raised in the direction of the 
pile of shadowed slag we crouched behind. Yet he couldn't have 
seen us, not with the day-night contrast from the searing white-
blue of the floodlights. There was no doubt, however, that he 
stared, if only for a moment, directly into my eyes and no 
zombie could fake that kind of intensity. Then the moment 
passed, the line moved forward. Billy's eyes dropped, and he and 
his rock shuffled along with it.    

It was only then that I realized that I was feeling a kind of 
itching in my mind and had felt it ever since we'd passed the 
barrier that protected this tumbling potato. What I was 
receiving wasn't coming from Ben either. No, this was as if 
someone were softly knocking at the back door. I should have 
guessed. I should have anticipated this the moment I recognized 
my old Mindspeaker buddies. 

"Ben, don't get excited..." I whispered in warning.

But Ben was still gaping at the creeping line of females. "But 
those aren't just women down there, Mulder. There are girls. 
Girls!"

I couldn't help but smile. "That wasn't what I meant. We're 
about to have company." At Ben's confused expression -- yes, he 
was somehow able to tear himself away from this vision of nearly 
mythical opposite sex that he knew so little about to look in my 
direction -- I settled myself as comfortably as I could on the 
sharp rocks and waited. It didn't matter that I was now turned 
away from the view of the yard. If I was right, visual landmarks 
were going to become irrelevant very quickly. 

This is one of those times, Scully. You know, when 'two roads 
diverge in a narrow wood'. What do religions call these events-- 
epiphanies? All of my life, my view of myself, my place in the 
world, my relationship with you, will be different from this 
point on. There is no way that I can not take the 'one less 
traveled by'. Not now. I am what thousands of years of genetics 
and a little tweaking here and there have made me. The fact that 
I had had no choice mattered not at all.

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and went in my mind in the 
direction of that soft knocking and opened the door.            
                

Do you know what I expected to find behind that door? The chaos 
of my padded cell, the shaking of the doctors' heads, restraints 
and needles and drugs. The cacophony of a hundred thousand 
voices. There was none of that. There was just... one... voice. 

*Fox. *

I started at the name that I heard so seldom, at the one clear 
word in that single voice. I even recognized it though I 
certainly hadn't heard it, not like this, for years. 

*Billy. *

The link between us quivered like a pebble thrown into a pond, 
different than the smoothness but right and beautiful in its own 
way.

*Fox, I can't believe it. It really IS you. That you heard. That 
you can hear... and speak. It's just like in the old days. *

By the old days he meant years ago, years before you, Scully. 
Meetings during abductions that I never knew happened.

*I guess it is. How long have you known I was here? *

*Since you entered the atmosphere, what there is of it. That 
moment... it was like... sunlight to our darkness. At first we 
were afraid it was some new trick. I guess not. So you're all 
'better'? *

I sent him a smile along the link by rippling the pool. *You 
tell me. I don't remember very well how it use to be. *

A thoughtful pause hummed through the link. *Less power but more 
control. Still you, though. It’s like we’re all in the light 
now; that all the doors are open and all the curtains flung 
back. *

*So there are others? You aren't the only one who can hear me? * 

*They're just waiting. We didn't want to overwhelm you. You 
couldn't read us at all the last time we were together. You just 
got headaches. *   

When I didn't answer right away, Ben replied with a tentative 
sending, *What had been cut out grew back. It healed. *                       
                   

*This is Benjamin, Billy, * I explained belatedly. *A friend. *

*He shines at a different wavelength, but he still shines. 
Always good to meet another 'speaker', Ben. I'm sorry but we 
have little time. Fox, the others are waiting. They have waited 
for so long. They want to join in.*

I won't say that I wasn't scared nearly shitless, but this had 
worked so far. *Not too fast. *

*Whispers then. *

And so it was. Like the tiniest breeze on the water at first, 
barely stirring a ripple. Then the sound rose, but not just with 
a single note, but a chord, a glorious chord of greeting.

*It's beautiful, * Ben marveled.

It was. It was a beauty that also cut deep because now that I 
heard it, I remembered it from long, long before. I’d been taken 
and plugged beginning from age five though I'd always been made 
to forget. Those long afternoons alone in the Martha Vineyard 
woods had perhaps not been so alone after all. Those weekends at 
Oxford when the papers didn't get done now had an explanation. 
And the times during the early years at the Bureau, when they 
said I went AWOL. Maybe I hadn't been lost inside my own head 
after all. What was most amazing was how I could have forgotten 
this -- or did I? Scully, was this harmony what I searched the 
X-Files for over so many years?  Was it this and not only 
Samantha that I sought, because I certainly never found peace 
even after I learned the sad truth about her. Is the fact that 
'this’ was missing from my life the reason why even the thought 
of you and me together never seemed enough? 

Am I as incomplete without this as I am incomplete without you? 
Could you accept that? Could we really be together now 
considering what I am and what I can do? Could you even begin to 
understand?

*Fox? *

*I'm here. *

*You weren't for a moment, * Billy said with concern. * You were 
never able to do that before. *

*Do what? *

*Shield yourself from us. *

* I guess I can now. * So live with it. At least I had some 
privacy. *You must know why we've come, Ben and I. *

A little more anxiety mixed in with the chord. *We know, though 
we hoped that what you really came for was to rescue us. *

Rescue? There must be hundreds of them. Who was going to rescue 
me? *There are so many -- *

**We can help! ** the desperate chorus cried. **One or the other 
of us have gone everywhere, seen everything!**

All at once the sound was deafening. Too many of them 'shouting' 
all at once. Ben groaned in obvious distress and disappeared. I 
nearly passed out myself. I only barely heard Billy hushing the 
others into some sort of order. In a more controlled fashion I 
was treated to a travelogue of all the camps on Rock Four. They 
did seem to know every inch.

Much later in the quiet of one of the nights -- because night 
and day came and went in what seemed an hour here -- a quartet 
of voices rose, speaking in unison like a Greek chorus. They 
were Billy Miles; Gary, friend of Richie and abducted in the 
same Oregon woods as I; Theresa Hosie; and her husband Roy whom 
I had nursed aboard the Portjam just as I had once been cared 
for. *We have a ship. *

So do I, but not one large enough for hundreds of people. *How 
many of you are there? *

*How many from our colony or how many humans?" replied the four 
as if from one mind. *Eighty as of yesterday from the men and 
women's group that you knew on the Portjam. *

*As of yesterday? *

*Do you think we have an exact number? We’re experimental 
subjects. Just so many mice, dogs, and monkeys. Expendable. *

*There are more than that here, * Ben said who had returned at 
some point during the travelogue, Nervously, he glanced over the 
rim to rock at the lines of workers that still moved without 
missing a step. 

*At least three times that number from other places. *

*All mindspeakers? * The young farmer asked amazed. Dale 
scarcely had twice that many on the whole planet.

*No, only those from the Portjam are Speakers. Most of the 
others had other skills, which also never worked well enough to 
please. Still, ninety percent of us are connected if only 
through a network of hand signals. *

*The last ten percent? * Ben asked.  I had already guessed.

*Isolation, controlled environments, * came the sad dirge-like 
reply. *They are lost. But the ninety percent are relatively 
free to move about if they had to. You don't need many guards on 
a prison such as this. *   

*You don't look very free, * Ben grumbled, staring at the dead, 
blank faces below. 

Laughter like droplets of evening rain shook as if from boughs 
by a morning breeze. *It’s so easy to mislead people who think 
you are stupid. It's an act. We’re just biding our time, though 
that's hard. *

*So they haven't tested any of their viruses on you? *

*I never said that we never got sick or were not from time to 
time bewildered, but whatever we got -- whether from air or 
injection, food or water or other more ugly ways -- only made 
most of us ill for a while. Best to let them think that they got 
what they wanted on the first try rather than have them keep 
trying until they find something that really works. *

I couldn't help but be impressed. Their planning was brilliant 
and I let them know so. *And without mindspeech to spread the 
word. See, you never needed me. *

Billy snarled which came into my mind like rattling thunder. * 
Like the cave man without fire, we managed but it was a lot 
harder. * 

For a space all was eerily silent like the quiet that comes in 
the woods when the wind sighs high through the very tops of the 
trees. In this case, however, the sighing came from nearly a 
hundred minds sorrowfully asking, *If not to rescue us, why did 
you come? *