MY TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY CH01: PARTING (1/1)
By Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger @AOL.COM)
6/19/00

RATING: PG
CLASSIFICATION: XA series
SPOILERS: REQUIEM, 7th season.
KEYWORDS: Mulderangst
SUMMARY: In a cone of brilliant light, surrounded by silent and compliant
former abductees, Mulder comes face to face with the Hunter. Why does this
scene seem not unfamiliar and what will happen now? This series traces
Mulder's abduction and begins with the events of the first few minutes. A
companion story to this one is Scully's PRAYERS RISE UP.
ARCHIVING: Gossamer, Emphereal, ATXC, and anywhere with permission and as
long as the author's name is retained.
DISCLAIMER: Where do I start? No, the X-Files and the characters of Fox
Mulder and Dana Scully do not belong to me. Chris and David, thank you, thank
you for giving us a great season finale and NOT a Mulderless Eighth Season.

Author's Notes: I have trouble enough going a summer without a new X-File
(with Mulder). Now I have to wait till the depths of winter! I need my fix
and so I've created my own. I hope it will help other addicts as well. This
will be a series of short episodes of posted approximately once every three
to four weeks.

My older work can be found on Gossamer under 'Esty, Sue' with the newer
pieces at
http://members.aol.com/windsinger.
 

MY TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY CH01: PARTING (1/1)

One's mother is supposed to teach you not to touch things when
you don't know where they've been. I guess I wasn't listening that
day. In my case, however, it is more likely that good 'ol Mom
neglected that part, her maternal genes, at least in respect to me,
never being particularly dominant. Who I can't blame are the nuns
at the Catholic youth camp my parents sent me the year I turned
thirteen. They knew what hands should be used for and what not...
but let's not go there right now. Instead, I think it's sufficient
to note that it was curiosity that finally killed the nine-lived
cat.

Clearly, the same goes for the over-inquisitive FBI agent.

What exploding trains, gushing oilwells, burning railcars,
green bugs, poison darts, shot gun blasts, hospitals, Black Oil,
ghosts, hundred-acre fungi, water-sapping free radicals, and
million-year-old sociopathic worms couldn't do, curiosity has done.
Caught me good.

I was only going to touch it. I expected at most to encounter
a bit of static or the edge of an invisible bubble. Instead, it is
as if a net of electricity grips my hand. As it begins to vibrate,
I stare at it unable to speak, unable to cry to Skinner for help.
It's as if my hand is not a part of me any more. There's no pain,
and yet I can't pull it back. Instead, I am sucked within seconds
into a whirlwind, a whirlwind without wind. It is only my body that
is moving, all of it gyrating now in a totally bizarre fashion.
There's not even any time to be afraid because, all at once, it is
over.

I'm aware of my feet first. They are on the ground, only the
ground is as unstable as the rest of me. Think of the way you feel
just after you walk off a really serious roller coaster. You know
the world is standing still, and yet it isn't. In the same way I'm
aware that I am in the same Oregon forest I started out from, and
yet I'm not.

This is why I don't run or cry out. I don't even try. Running
and screaming my lungs out won't do any good. Maybe it's not a
change in space, however. Maybe it's a change in time. Lost time
phenomena has been associated with UFO sightings from the
beginning. It would start to explain why this place is invisible
except to intensely phased light. Bent time, bent space. Einstein
would have understood. Believe it or not, I remember the thesis you
wrote -- "Einstein's Twin Paradox: A New Interpretation" -- so I
would love to hear your theory on this. At the moment, however, I
would just as happily settle for hearing you read the phone book.
 

What do I see? Very little and yet so much. There's a
brilliant funnel of light only about forty feet from where the
ground is calming down under my feet. A hum seems to be coming from
it that fills my whole body. But do you know what the scariest part
is, Scully? This is all so familiar. We are talking serious deja
vue. Scientists say that there is no such thing, that the phenomena
is caused by memories of something similar that happened to you
before but which you've forgotten. It's either that or a minor
explosion in the brain. If it is the second explanation working
here, then I need to go back and consult my neurologist. If it's
the first, then by reaching past the barrier that the Gunman's
military-issue mini-lasers could not penetrate, I have made a
really serious mistake. Most assuredly, the worst mistake of my
life.

And here I'm reported to be so bright.

Of course that would depend on whether I ever had any choice
in the matter. I suspect I have been led here. Step by step,
embarrassing moment by embarrassing moment, empty year after empty
year -- I've been led to this moment. Some might say it was why I
was born. That's a depressing thought.

Did I say empty years? Empty except for you, Scully, hopeless
except for you, meaningless except for you.

Oh, Scully I am so sorry. The time we wasted.

What it comes down to is that I think I've been here before,
or in a situation very much like it. I don't have an implant, we
checked that out, but if I and the other abductees who have gone
missing were not selected by that then what? I always assumed that
the microchips were the key, that their use was how humans were
tagged...

... chips... and smallpox vaccinations and who know what else.
How soon we forget.

I don't mean to be cruel or insensitive, Scully, but did
something happen to you when you were out here that you didn't tell
me about? You didn't just faint did you? You weren't taken, but I
think it was a near thing. I think they thought about it. I'm not
trying to place blame for how things have turned out for, like I
said, chance may have had nothing to do with it. Still, if I had
known, it might have got me thinking along a different path and I
wouldn't be standing in this one now.

On the whole, I'm relieved. I am thankful to your God that you
have been spared this. You have suffered enough. I will admit,
however, that there's a small, cowardly lion part of me that wishes
with all the wishes that I may ever wish that you were here with
me. That we could be seeing this together. That I wouldn't have to
go through this alone.
 

Sorry. Got to take couple of deep breaths here. Can't let fear
set in. Get a grip, Spooky. Blood pressure up, palms damp. Got to
think logically like my Scully. This -- I tell myself -- is just
another X-Files experience, which I've seen and you haven't and
which you won't believe. As always, I'll write it up, you'll edit
out the most extreme theories, and we'll go on to something new
next week. Back to the same desk, same coffee, same Washington
Post, Baltimore Orioles lost another one, FBI management on my
back.

But that's not going to happen this time, is it? Why? I have
no idea. I guess I have somehow pissed the Grays off as much as I
have everyone else in my life.

Wait... I have a thought.

Maybe they made a mistake. That's right! That's all it is!
They got the wrong one! Hey, guys. Look! It's just crazy Fox
Mulder, the FBI's most unwanted.

The wrong one? Really? Try again. Reality check time.

The fact is that I'm where they want me to be. I'm where I'm
meant to be. I'm wanted.

Now that's a novel concept, though I'd rather be wanted by the
New York Knicks. I'd even rather be wanted by the fuckin' FBI.

Now when I come back to this deja vue thing, I realize that
what I'm experiencing is memory. There's no doubt that I've seen
this cone of light from just this position before. And then there's
the hum and its terrifyingly familiar tingle. Want to know more?
I'm walking towards the light. Another brilliant move, you say? No,
this time it's really not my fault. I don't want to walk towards
the light, in fact it's the very last thing I can imagine wanting
to do. But I am. My body is doing it all on its own the way it
knows how to drive through a familiar neighborhood while you mind
is on everything but the car and the road.

As I approach, more becomes clear. For example, I thought I
was alone. Just me and the light. I'm wrong. There are a dozen
people, probably more, standing in the beam. It's actually crowded.
I sense this is new. I've always been alone before at this stage.

I can feel panic rising inside me, clutching at my throat. I
expect that every time I start to accept this I'm going to have
this reaction. Full denial, no doubt about it. I haven't been
abducted, I keep repeating to myself. I never have been. I would
have remembered.

Like the flare of a sputtering candle, the surge of emotion
suddenly vanishes. Neither anger nor fear seem to last long in this
place. Instead, I'm made to face up to my own stupidity cold sober.
They say physician heal thyself. Well, the same should be said of
psychologists. There are many, many examples in the UFO literature
of individuals who have been abducted from childhood, for years,
for decades, who have no memory of the experience until an eager
therapist uses hypnosis to try to figure out why they are so fucked
up. I'm talking high functioning disabilities like chronic, low
level anxiety; paranoia; insomnia; night terrors; a certain level
of antisocial behavior. Sound like anyone you know? And here all
along I thought it was simple, everyday Post-Traumatic Stress
Syndrome from Samantha's abduction. I didn't know otherwise because
Weber never asked the right questions. He only asked about the
night of Samantha's abduction.

Not of mine.

Damn. How many times did it happen? Not too many times or
there would have been scars. There are always scars. I feel a
tingle at the base of my skull and fear once again struggles
through this odd tranquility that has seized me.

Maybe not all scars are ones you can see.

I force myself to look at the faces, afraid of more
revelations. I recognize some of these people; you would, too.
Billy and Teresa are most familiar, but there are others though I
don't remember our ever meeting. I'd like to think I am going
crazy. I'm afraid I am not. Scully, remember those women, the ones
with the chips in their necks who said they remembered you from
'the other place', from when you were abducted? I think this is
what I've got here. I have known some of these people before and
known them in this second reality, the one that my subconscious has
been keeping secret from me.
 

The truth has finally sunk in. The truth. Inside I hear an
echo of hysterical laughter. The truth is that I'm not walking out
of here. I am going on this little trip. I've even taken them
before. Okay, I breathe; no big deal. I've always come back,
haven't I? On a conscious level I've forgotten or have been made to
forget, but my real life, such as it is, has gone on. What comfort
this gives me is short-lived for I hear my own words to you coming
back to haunt me. 'They are picking up all the abductees. And they
aren't coming back.' Whyever did I say that? How do I know? Am I a
prophet now? I hope in this I am wrong. At the very minimum, I fear
that it will be a much longer trip this time around.

I never told you, Scully, but I had this plan. I thought that
when I retired, that I would like to travel. For someone who for
the past ten years has spent a third of his life traveling, that
probably doesn't make much sense, but I was thinking about writing
a book. Something wise and humorous. Unlike my case reports,
something intentionally humorous. Something like John Steinbeck's
'Travels with Charlie' although Charlie was a poodle and I'd never
be caught dead owning a poodle or a Pomeranian. A golden retriever,
maybe, or a husky, though probably a mutt. A mongrel like me. Just
as long as it was something with lot of fur to keep my Scully's
toes warm at night. You see, in most versions of the dream you're
there, too, reading the 'AAA' guides and finding out-of-the-way and
unique places to visit like 'South of the Border' in South Carolina
and the Corn Palace in South Dakota and any place where water is
reported to run uphill. We'd eat the local produce and...

But that's never going to happen now, is it? I'm coming closer
and closer to the light and my feet are not stopping. Guess I'll
just have to keep a diary, like Samantha did, though I seem fresh
out of pencil and paper right now. I can record all of this in my
head though. Eidetic memories are good for that. I can picture
myself writing or typing and then I'll take a snapshot of the
output. Better than flow of consciousness for organizing your
thoughts. I'll play it back to you when I see you again.

This side of heaven, I pray God.
 

I'm only three steps from the light now. I can see the edge of
the beam and the fine particles of dust dancing in the light. They
must have refined their technology in seven years and because
there's none of the wind that we both remember from before. Only
the best for yours truly it seems. Faces turn towards me. So many
faces. Something wrong about that. If what Billy told us is
correct, people have been disappearing for weeks yet here they all
are. Waiting. But they couldn't have been just waiting here all
this time. If so, then what have they been waiting for?
 

Only a step away now. I tell myself that I won't actually go
in the beam. I'll just look. That's right, observe and report. In
a second, I'll run like hell and Skinner will perform some
fantastically heroic feat and put me back to reality.

Our reality.

I try to turn back. I try just to stop moving.

I... can't.

It's like my body isn't all mine anymore. It's related to the
hum and the tingle in the back of my skull that makes it hard to
think. I know I've become increasing more frightened and more
desperate with each step I take, and yet it's as if I were
functioning under half a dozen valium and all the emotion were just
shriveling up somewhere deep inside. Even the sweat on my palms has
dried.

Now the expressions on the faces of my fellow abductees make
sense, or perhaps I should say their lack of expression.

They are like cattle. Dumb cattle. Or like a crowd of little
gelded ponies crowded onto a merry-go-round, their future
preordained. I am like that, too, I realize as I reach the edge of
the light and with barely a second's hesitation just walk in.

This is like some really bad '50's 'B' movie.

Above all, what I really wish I could do now is cry.
 

I enter between Teresa and Billy. They are at least a little
more animated than the others zombies. Guess their reaction could
be considered ecstatic around here. They are pleased to see me and
not in the least surprised, which confuses the hell out of me. I
didn't know I was coming. I didn't even know I was returning to
Oregon. How did they know? They each place a hand on my shoulder in
welcome. I hope I manage to force some reaction through the nearly
numb muscles of my face to let them know that I appreciate a
friendly face because I really do. I am piss-shitting scared.

Their touch does something else to me, Scully. It's as if we
have this bond. Not a new one but an old one, like family members
meeting after a long absence -- or is that like soldiers who have
been through hell together. Either way, another pretty persuasive
argument for my having come this way before. There's a part of me
that realizes that I'm suddenly very curious about all this; how,
like an amnesiac, I want to uncover what I have lost.

To embrace this new life, however, I realize that I must turn
my back to a certain extent on the old. Odd, maybe it comes with
the fuzz on my emotions, but I don't have many regrets about that.
What am leaving behind anyway?

Friends? The Gunman will do fine without me. My disappearance
will give them a fine main story for their next issue and
speculation for years to come.

The X-Files? Since I found Samantha, the spark is gone and
management hates me anyway. That shit of an auditor rather summed
it up. Sister dead, conspiracy dead. The die was cast. They were
going to take it away, anyway, close it down. Even if Skinner were
willing to use his influence to save it, they would have continued
to nibble away at its financing and its scope like rats until all
the substance was gone. All my work for nothing.

Family? Dead, dead, dead. Even my fish are rather recent
acquisitions and don't care who feeds them.

That doesn't leave much. Only you, Scully. Only you. You are
all I regret leaving and I am helpless to do anything about that.

Talk about ditching you... This is the big ditch of all time.

I'm so sorry.

I wish we had held out a little longer. Maybe if we were still
uncertain about our feelings for each other, it wouldn't be so hard
on you. Don't waste your life looking into every shadow for me the
way I looked for Sam. Don't do that. Know in your heart that when -
- and if -- I can come to you, I will.

For me? I'd like to say that this will kill me. That I will
die of sorrow, but it's more complicated than that. As I look up at
the source of the light, a wave of dizziness flows over me. It's
the underside of one of their ships, like the ship of sand from my
dreams. Remember? I told you about those while we were basking in
the afterglow and while I was trying very hard not to do the very
male thing and fall asleep.

This is it then. It's the only place left for me to go,
Scully. I wonder if, in time, I would not have sought this way out.
I was in a box. No way forward. No way back. I'd burned my bridges
and there was no where left on Earth for me, except in your arms
and neither of us would have wanted me to hide there. I never did
fit in anywhere except with you and you deserve better. You belong
in the world and I belong -- here, where I will find my answers if
they are anywhere. Why did the Consortia let me live all those
years when I could have so easily have been eliminated? Who is my
father and was Sam my biological sister as well as my sister in
every other way? Half-sister? How did I come to be and have that
thing in my head? Did the Consortia know about that all along? I'll
hopefully find answers to questions I haven't even thought to ask
yet.

This doesn't mean I'm not scared, Scully. This doesn't mean
that a part of me wouldn't rather be slaving over quarterly expense
reports right now. Worse, I realize that Billy and Teresa are
looking at me as if they expect something of me. What do they think
I can do? Save them? I can't even save myself. Ever since I heard
the voices crashing through my head, I should have known a day like
this would come, that I was special. Only I don't want to be
special any more than Special Olympics kids want to be special. I
never have.
 

There is a rustle in the cattle pen. A opening is made by the
subtle shifting of bodies. A new form joins us.

May I live and breath, I'm almost happy to see that it's our
old nemesis -- Mr. square-jawed, runner-up-for-the-Arnold-
Schwarzenegger-look-alike-contest himself -- the Bounty Hunter. A
villain, of course. Can't have a melodrama without a villain. He
comes right up to me. He stares into my eyes. I'm as pleased as
punch about the valium-like fuzz now because it allows me to remain
completely impassive before him instead of weeping and cringing
like a dog as I did the time we tussled in the sub. I suspect,
however, that he knows how frightened I am. He can probably smell
it. His nostrils even flare a bit, the smug bastard. And why am I
frightened? It's because by coming up to me and no one else, he has
singled me out. The specialness I didn't want to be -- that I have
never wanted to be -- I am. Even here.

What did he say to me the first time we met: "I could have
killed you many times before." When? In the womb? As an infant? Has
he been watching me from afar forever? Have I been his little
science project? Can he go home now because it's the end of the
term and I'm being pulled in as a little show and tell for all his
hard work as if I were some hot house plant or prize-winning sheep?

Oh, Scully... even here, I'm not like the others. Not just
another anonymous steer destined for McDonald's. No, I'd say from
the way he's looking at me in that alpha-male way of his that he
does not see me that way at all. There's contempt but also a need
to prevail, like papa bull letting the young bull know in no
uncertain terms who is boss around here.

I feel my self-confidence twitch back into life. Somewhere
inside, I'm still myself, that cocky, impudent guy you learned to
love.

This new strength is what I cling to when everything suddenly
turns white. Knowing that the Hunter is still out there, I feel a
need to say something to make him realize that I can't be
intimidated with light and mirrors.

"You lied to me," I hiss, though maybe the accusation is only
in my mind. "You told me she was alive."

More amazing than my question, he answers back in that Nordic
cadence of his. "She was when last I knew. They betrayed us, your
Consortia. They lied. It's why they were eliminated. Remember
that."

I was analyzing this threat when I sense rather than feel
Billy at my side begin to move. Actually, what he begins to do is
rise from his place, to float. I sense his feet pass the level of
my shoulders. When he is above me another from the herd begins to
ascend. We are being taken up one by one as you described Cassandra
being taken. What is most astonishing is that there was no sound,
no struggling. There are even a few smiles.

"Why do so many seem pleased to be going?" I ask Teresa on my
left. "Does this trip come with beer and a movie, too?"

To that the Hunter snaps, "Quiet. Your irreverent patter has
no place where you are going."

"Sorry, Charley," I murmur not thinking that he can hear me.
Clearly he does for one massive hand came up under my throat.

"You had best learn your place and quickly, Mulder Mooncalf.
Even among these other >belagani< you are as a child where they are
no more than cattle to us."

"It's Mulder. Just Mulder."

"You will be called, and you will answer to, what we choose to
call you. Your other life is over. That you will come to accept."

"And we will continue to exist only so long as we serve you?"
I ask in my best vintage SciFi movie impersonation, which at the
moment is not very good. My head is so full of hum and cotton that
even with such an easy target I can't come up with a better line.

He doesn't catch the irony. "Good, now you understand," and he
releases me.

While we have been marking our territory, more abductees have
gone. They are drifting skyward like so many white ghosts. What was
the name of that Science Fiction novel? "Unto Our Scattered Bodies
Go"?

Finally, there is only he and I left on ground level within
the light. "Are you coming with us, Charley?"

">Belagani< do not address >Yei<."

"If '>Yei<' is you, then I just did. I asked if I am going to
see you again."

"I do not know if my next assignment will be to this ship. Why
do you want to know?"

"Because I have questions. I have many questions."

"For what good it will do you, you may ask one question,
little mooncalf." His snarl is like the rumble of a hungry lion.
"In your new life questions are not allowed. You will learn
patience, you will learn discipline. You will learn to do what you
are told without questions."

Chills, Scully. I'm seized with nasty chills but not for this
goon to see. "Sorry, but I'm not the behaving type. Ask my first
grade teacher. Ask Skinner. I'm just not put together that way."

A smile turns up the lips of the Hunter. I think I liked his
scowl better. "You have no idea how you are put together, Mooncalf.
But then neither do we. But we will learn."

And then he reaches out and he touches the side of my left
temple with just two fingers of his right hand. The touch is very
light, but I feel an instant surge of heat and something like
electricity jump from his fingers into the empty space in the back
of my skull. The world explodes in a foaming crash of unpleasant
sensation.

I think I lost consciousness for a moment because, when the
white pain becomes simply the white fog again, everything is
different. The stone face of the Hunter is staring up at me from
what seems to be a long way away. There is no weight under my feet.
This is what weightlessness feels like. I am ascending, only not
like the others. They all seemed so relaxed as if they were being
lifted up by angels in white robes. I can't seem to keep my
balance. I feel like I'm falling. It's like riding a bicycle for
the first time -- over compensation this way, over compensation
that. If I were an Apollo spacecraft, I'd be tumbling. I feel like
God's clumsiest fool, but mostly because Charley Hunter is
watching.

Eventually, I realize that if I hold my muscles very still and
not move at all, my ascent is smoother. I learn this useful lesson
just as I sense the iris of the ship's massive eye close in around
me. There's still light everywhere, but I can sense enough to know
that Hunter is following. He's the last. There is no more reason
for our to be here. Below my feet I can still trees and grass as if
through a Martha's Vineyard mist. Slowly, the ship closes its eye,
cutting off my last view of Earth.

The ship has swallowed me whole. I close my eyes and for the
first time truly realize that this is for real.

That shit of an auditor has won after all. "You need to go
where the aliens are, Agent Mulder. You need to limit your scope."

I've done that. Can I go home now?

The End

~~~~~~~~~
 
 

MY TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY CH02: 'G-Force'(1/1)
By Sue Esty (AKA Windsinger @AOL.COM)
7/27/00

RATING: PG
CLASSIFICATION: XA series
SPOILERS: REQUIEM, 7th season.
KEYWORDS: Mulderangst, Muldertorture
SUMMARY: Mulder and his companions have been taken inside the alien
ship. They are accompanied by the bounty hunter whom Mulder has
begun calling 'Charley Hunter'. Mulder's first few minutes in the
alien ship, however, are nearly disastrous. To surviving he finds
he must make a bargain with the devil.

ARCHIVING: Gossamer, Emphereal, ATXC, and anywhere with permission
and as long as the author's name is retained.
DISCLAIMER: Where do I start? No, the X-Files and the characters of
Fox Mulder and Dana Scully do not belong to me. Chris and David,
thank you, thank you, for giving us a great season finale and, at
least, only a Mulder-light Eighth Season.

Author's Notes: This is the second is a series of short stories
chronicling Mulder's confusing, agonizing, torturous, lonely and
wondrous adventures with the 'Grays'. My older work can be found on
Gossamer under 'Esty, Sue' with the newer pieces at
http://members.aol.com/windsinger.
 

MY TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY CH02: G-Force (1/1)

     I rise rubbing my tailbone and happy that I bruised no more
than that in my ungracious fall from the ship's teleporting beam.
No one else seems to be picking themselves up off the floor so I
assume a modicum of nonchalance and take a look around.

     Remember the interior of the alien ship in Antarctica, Scully?
The way it seemed part mechanic and part organic? You say you don't
remember much -- some dark corridors, the wailing of an alarm and
the cold -- but in your nightmares, if you see a place with fewer
right angeles than we are use to and designed with sturdy,
masculinely curves, then you would be remembering that place. This
loading dock, for that's what it seems to be, was clearly designed
by the same architect. It's dim to start with and darker still in
the corners if there were corners. Though it is not cube-shaped by
any stretch of the imagination, in volume it's about the size of a
school gymnasium though not so tall. The marines around Quantico
would love the colors, all greenish or brownish black. There are
dozens of huge clamps and belts attached to heavy brackets along
the walls. I assume they are used to fasten down heavy equipment
during flight. At the moment, however, the dock is barren of such
cargo.

     Not barren of human cargo, however.

     That's when I hear your voice, Scully, as if you were right
beside me. "Yes, what about the other --" You stop, unwilling to
say the word and start again. "The others, Mulder. Tell me about
the others."

     Abductees, Scully. We're abductees. You've got to learn to say
it. They are alien abductees; I am an alien abductee. It's the
breed it took you so long to believe truly existed even though you
were probably one yourself for at least part of the time. My fellow
abductees are gathered in a rough circle around the iris in the
floor that we all were brought though. It's closed now, no more
view of earth. No escape that way. I am farther from the circle
than the others, my landing being not so smooth. I would move to
join them, but first a pair of flint-black eyes hold me still. It's
my own Charley Hunter yards away in the gloom, though he can
certainly see me as surely as I can see him. If I had had a hard-on
at the moment -- which, believe me, I don't -- it would have
withered and then some. Those eyes of his could shrivel steel. He
says nothing, but he's giving me one of his I'm-king-of-hill-and-
you're-not grins, if a millimeter of arch can be considered a grin.
Having confirmed that I've gotten the message, he turns and leaves
us. Just leaves, not a word. No instructions, no threats. He simply
aims for a section of curving wall and disappears into a shadow. I
think I hear a sound like moving air. Some kind of door opens and
then closes.

     We are alone.

     He has not been gone ten seconds when I hear that sound of air
again and from the right there is a bright concentration of light.
Two sets of wide double doors have slid open along one section of
the wall and from within flows out brilliant white light. The
others begin moving towards those doors. I can't help thinking of
cattle, one following the other to the barn.

     I take two steps and stop dead. Is it home they are returning
to or for milking?

     It's unnatural what we do to cows, you know. Their milk should
dry up naturally when their calves learn to like the taste of grass
and hay better. But we keep milking and milking and filling them
full of hormones so that the flow never ends. Neither does the poor
cow's need to be relieved from her discomfort. Have you heard what
a cow sounds like who is far past her milking time? I have. It
doesn't agree with our picture of the contented animal at all. It's
the sound of a beast in agony.

     Now consider my companions who have been accepting their
capture without question. Are they reacting to the inevitable, or,
like cows with bloated udders, are they responding to a more
sinister motivation?

     I do not like the way this is going, Scully.

     I eventually approach those doors but only to see inside the
rooms better.

     <Silence...>

     "Mulder? Mulder, what's going on? You've very quiet."

     <More silence...>

     "Mulder..."

     Sorry, Scully, I just got a shock and I need a minute or two
to get a grip. A minute or two.. or maybe an hour.

     "Mulder, you're scaring me..."

     You think _you're_ scared. Okay, I'll try. The pounding of my
heart has slowed enough for me to think now. It's these lighted
rooms... Men to the right side, women to the left. I can see that
within they are taking off all their clothes. There are hooks on
the walls for those and they line up their shoes neatly beneath.
Beyond that... Very well, I can't see beyond that, but the intense
whiteness through which these vulnerable bodies weave is like a fog
of steam and my all-too-fertile imagination fills in the blanks
with all the subtly of a jackhammer.

     Showers, decontamination, delousing. Rough, hasty hands seize
me and I can feel my long hair being hacked off, each jerk defiling
my body and I am ashamed.
 
     A matron with a neck as thick around as a man's thigh orders
us to the showers in harsh German. We go... like cattle. We huddle,
trembling, standing front to back. In our humiliation we dare not
meet other eyes. Instead we wait, silent, for the water to erupt
from the taps, for this to be over.

     The water never comes. Instead, there's a hiss and we breathe
in bitter herbs and offer our bodies up to the flames.

     There are tears. I blink them away even though there is no one
to see. I am myself again if badly shaken in both body and soul.
Remember my past lives regression? When was that fiasco, four years
ago? For obvious reasons we never discuss it. If we did I would
tell you that I don't believe most of it. Certainly not the
soulmate nonsense. But there was something true in all that tale
like the germ of reality in a dream. In this case, it's the old
Germany connection and the Holocaust. My death, even my sex, has
always been more than words. It has been sound and smell, thirst
and cold, fear and hopelessness and bone-deep memory. That's where
it comes from, isn't it? Both my sympathy for the victim and that
refusal, that terror, of going sheeplike anywhere ever again.
 
     For this reason I remain outside the doors of the room through
which the others have gone. They have all stripped and vanished
into that fog. Nothing moves. Any minute I expect some beefy
shepherd to come swaggering out of that fog, club swaying, as he or
she seeks for their lost sheep. I'll allow myself to be taken, but
I will not surrender meekly.

     Hunter said that I would need to learn. Well, let them learn
about me.

     I continue to peer within. Still nothing but the hum of
distant motors. I have taken a step forward to see a little better
when, without warning, the doors snap shut inches from my face.

     I am outside in the dark and totally alone.

     It's a shock. You see, I had made certain assumptions. One was
that I am somehow important. The Hunter certainly led me to believe
so. Maybe I really am the conceited bastard you thought I was for
all those years. If so, that conceit has been cut down a good deal
already and is shrinking with each minute that passes and no one
comes.

     Since I arrived in this place, I've been aware of a constant
hum which is as much a vibration under my feet as anything. That
hum suddenly increases. My irritation and mild dismay of being so
easily forgotten subtly shifts to a mild anxiety. The hum increases
still further. I go to the closed doors and try knocking first with
my knuckles then with both fists. Whatever this material is --
ceramic or metal or both -- it feels like it's about a foot thick.
In other words, no one is going to hear. With the hum now rattling
the bad filling in my lower right molar from that silly brawl we
were both in, I run into the shadows in search of the door Hunter
must have used. There is no obvious door, however, just too many
seams that may be part of one.

     As the hum becomes a whine, I try shouting, but it's too late.
My anxiety is bordering on panic now. I know the sound of engines
ramping up with I hear them. It's only a matter of time until we
are --

     --off.

     In an instant the unearthly but unmistakable scream of power
soars to an ear-splitting pitch, and I am flying through the dark.
Wrong. I don't move, but the ship does, not that the difference
matters. I end up squashed like a bug against the nearest surface
in the opposite direction to that which the ship is traveling and
all the surfaces I encounter on the way are either very hard or
very sharp or both. Even over the roar from the ship, I'm certain
that I hear the crunch of bone. I know I feel it. It's my lower
left arm, I think. It's hard to tell since there are at least a
dozen places that hurt like hell. I've only just sorted out my
limbs so that my joints are angled more or less back in the right
way when there's a sudden change of direction of about ninety
degrees and a rapid acceleration. I plummet down what is now a
'wall' towards what is now the 'floor' hitting every clamp and
protruding piece of metal on the way. Something blunt and hard
impacts with that most sensitive spot between collarbone and
shoulder. Someone screams. It must be me.

     I finally reach ground zero, but the pain is just getting
started. The 'G' force continues to increase. It _is_ like an
elephant sitting on your chest. I can barely draw breath. When I
try, ribs crack. My knee caps are reaching for the floor. Warm
liquid runs from my eyes and from my mouth. More spreads out from
between my legs; my bladder has its own way of dealing with the
unbearable pressure. As I am currently being crushed to death, I
don't get too upset about the details.

     In the final moment as I hurtle towards darkness, a last
breath struggles from my lungs and out through lips stretched
tight, like those on a mocking death skull. "Sku...ly," I think was
the word, or if it wasn't, it should have been.
 

     I've floated in pain before. Pain so incredible that there is
no end. On a scale of one to ten, however, with that experience
being a ten, I'd have to give this one a twenty. There is not an
inch of skin or bone or hair that does not scream to the heavens
and, if I remember where I am correctly, those heavens are closer
than they have ever been before.

     I wake to darkness. That's because of the blindness more than
the presence or absence of light. What feels like two raw wounds
are where my eyes should be. Lids slide with reluctance over these
pits of pain. There is no sound. The engines are purring now. They
are creating a warm vibration that rises up from the floor to
radiate through the entire wound that is my body. From more places
than I can count, bone grinds against bone.

     I am, as if you haven't guessed, still alone. As best as I can
determine, my limbs are in the same nearly impossible positions
they were when I went into the dark so no one has been here since
frail flesh brought merciful relief. How long have I been out?
Minutes? Hours? From the dampness between my legs and the smell,
I'd say maybe an hour. Not so bad yet. Considering that I have
nothing to get up for, even if I could, I think I will pass out
again.

     If I don't wake up again, which I think likely, then I guess
that the next time I will see you, Scully, will be in your heaven.
That, of course, is only so long as your faith is strong enough for
both of us. As you know, I lost what faith I ever had by the age of
twelve.
 
 

     They call it swimming through pain. That describes it well,
that bodiless sensation of being completely surrounded by something
which is overwhelmingly larger and stronger than you are. I'm not
just referring to the physical either. The mental processes are
just as much adrift -- rising, sinking, nudged this way and that by
the current. Sometimes drowning.

     What this means is that I'm not dead. Considering how I'm
feeling, that is not necessarily my preferred state if being.

     Somewhere beyond the pain I am aware of the roar of surf. I
look for the boy on the beach and his spacecraft and then remember
that I don't need to search for that alien machine any longer. It
has become all too real. It isn't made of sand either, but stone
and hard iron.

     Only slowly do I realize that it's not waves rolling endlessly
across the shore that I'm hearing, but voices speaking in the air
above me, their pitch rising and falling. The words are obscured by
the current of agony that is my reward for every hard-won breath,
and swimming to reach the place where the words are is just not
worth the effort. Surprisingly, where the payment for striving
against the current would surely have been too high, doing nothing,
just floating, allows me to rise far enough to catch some of the
meaning. There are at least two voices. One is the deep, sonorous
bass I know all too well. The other is a stressed and hesitant
tenor.

     "You should not have let this happen," Hunter is saying, his
voice dripping with displeasure. "You should have watched out for
him."

     The tenor clears his throat. "He was shut down. What could we
do? He clearly wanted his privacy. Besides, it was only the scrub
room. He's been through that before just as we all have."

     "Has he? Couldn't you tell, couldn't any of you tell that
something was wrong."

     "I could," came a soft voice. Teresa's. "He spoke to me. It
didn't occur to me at the time, but why did he do that? He didn't
need to."

     "This is not the time for discussion. While you question, he
dies. If you want him living, then you best see to it that he stays
that way."

     There's a pause in the conversation. I wonder what's going on
when pain explodes in my right wrist. Broken, too. I think someone,
probably Teresa, has attempted, clumsily, to take my pulse.

     "Sir --" I don't like the tone of her voice. "You _are_ going
to help us with him, aren't you?"

     "You should know the answer to that by now. The strong
survive."

     Teresa's next words are bitter and there are shushing noises
in the back ground as if someone was trying to silence her. "How
could we not know, but he is not just any >belagani<."

     "I do not know what you mean. You are all the same to us."

     "Not true." Now the shushing noises nearly drown her out, "You
have your favorites; he's one. We all know it. If you leave him
with us, he's going to die. The >Yei< must help."

     There's a cold pause and something like a sniff of contempt
from Hunter. "Let us see what together the flower of the >belagani<
can accomplish. Strive to mimic the animals in your wilderness.
They have remarkable recuperative properties."

     "We are not animals."

     "Better that you were. Remember I lived on your planet for
many years. Not animals?" A snarl this time. "Raping your world,
breeding out of control, killing your fellow creatures to
extinction, pissing in your air and water, undisciplined,
purposeless. Even we, who are as compassionate as the lion, who
kill the weak and the old and the sick, know better. If you think
yourself superior, then save his life." At that Hunter leaves. I
can feel the vibration of his steps through the broken bones in my
back.

     There is no more discussion. There is only survival on a
knife's edge. I'm aware of their clustering around. Many bodies.
Now what? They stoop as one as if they had done this before. Hands
clasp wrists behind by neck and shoulders, waist and hips, knees
and legs.

     In the black and swirling panic of erupting pain, I cry, 'No!
Don't touch me, God, don't touch me!' but there are no words. I
think my jaw is broken. They move gently and with care and skill,
and yet if I could have cursed I would have. Bone scrapes against
bone, bone tears into muscle, internal bleeding that had slowed
begins anew. I gag on the acid of my bile, vomit being all gone.

     My eyesight has not improved and yet I know that I'm being
carried into one of those disrobing rooms that I should have
entered before. I can actually feel the brilliance of that dazzling
light on my skin. Here is the smell of the locker rooms --
dampness, the homey smell of old shoes and newly bare feet and
discarded clothes. More hands -- gentle hands, large hands and
small hands, calloused and smooth, hands not involved in carrying
my body -- cut off my clothes. They cut them off in small pieces so
that the hands carrying me don't have to change their grip except
to ease the small pieces out from under. I find out later that they
must have used their teeth to cut what won't tear because the
abductees aren't allowed anything sharp. It's not that their
captors are afraid of a riot. Nor do they fear that their prisoners
will take up murder as a hobby. I think you know what's left.

     Clothes off, I am cold. I was cold before and now I'm
freezing. I would shiver if I had the energy so I'm just cold.
There really are showers in that room whose dimensions and hard
ceramic walls I sense by the echoes. At the most the water comes
out in a fine mist which is just as well because I don't think I
could have stayed conscious though a harder spray. The water is not
very warm and smells distinctly of antiseptic, but it is a shower.
They rinse off the blood and the gore and worse. There is, I think,
something like soap, but it doesn't smell very good. Where there
are open cuts, the 'water' stings like a hundred pesky bees, yet I
am thirsty from the blood loss and try to open my broken jaw enough
to lick a few drops from my lips. It tastes like stale, thin
vinegar. A soft, smooth hand notices and places itself over my
mouth so I cannot drink any more.

     They are gentle. They take their time. Since they hold my body
very still there is no more grinding or gushing of blood. It is
almost -- almost -- like being cared for as if I were a very small
child.

     It does not take long before I am shivering for real and that
alone hurts like hell. This seems a signal that I've had enough,
and a rough, light cloth is laid over my bare skin. We leave this
place that smells of disinfectant and the pain erupts anew. They
notice and slow. We inch along for some interminable distance. We
meet no one.

     Finally our little procession passes over a threshold. I sense
this because the light which I can still somehow sense, dims. I
don't know why, but the relative darkness is greeted almost with
relief by my aching body. Being narrower than any hallway, there is
more jostling at this doorway. I try not to cry out because I know
that they are doing their best, but a sob manages to get out
anyway. In an attempt to calm me, a hand passes over my brow and
pauses in my hair and I cannot hold back the tears. I cry, not
because the action was physically painful, but because the memories
that the act evokes are more than I can bear. It reminds me of how
you use to touch me when you thought I was too far under to know.
Surprised? Did you think I never knew?

     I'm finally stationary. I'd sigh with relief if that didn't
bring it's own little visit to hell. A warm body snuggles in on
each side, more layers of light cloth are laid over us and that is
all. No doctors, no IV's, no machines, no tubes or wires, no blood-
letting. I sleep. I wake when the shift changes and my bedwarmers
go and new ones come. Water, real water, if a little stale, is
trickled through the small gap I can produce with my broken jaw. I
escape into unconsciousness each time attempts are made with well-
meaning clumsiness to splint the worse of my broken bones. I am
changed like a baby. I try not to think about that. I'll never
complain about catheters again.

     And this is all. Day after day of this. I know now why they
took their time in the washing. Other than encouraging me to
swallow the dribbles of water they offer and some thicker,
tasteless stuff, and splinting that will produce bones that will
never heal straight, it is all they can do for me.

     As time passes, everything -- my body, this room which I still
haven't seen, the silent people (Did I mention that they have never
spoken since Hunter left them?) -- become more and more distant.
Unconsciousness is a black hole punctuated with the occasional bad
dream. Consciousness is a gray void, which is all the sight I have
recovered. When I am attended to, it is by faceless, silent hands.
Mentally and physically, I am as light as air. My mind floats above
the pain -- it's the only relief I can find. Down there in my body,
fever is burning flesh. When they touch me, their hands seem to go
all the way to the bone. When I try to move, which isn't often, I'm
as weak as a day-old kitten and just as blind.

     This is dying the slow way, Scully. Kidney failure, fever,
congestive heart failure, liver failure, sepsis, dehydration,
malnutrition. You could name more. Which will pick me off first,
fellas? I don't even care.

     A week, maybe a month passes, and there comes a time when I
pass from the darkness to the gray to hear singing. Well, not
singing, but humming. It's like a mantra. In my mind's eye I image
my fellow abductees gathered in a semicircle before the door to our
prison, humming and waiting. After what seems forever, during which
time the gray and the black exchange places a few more times, I
hear our prison door slide open. Hearing is about the only sense
left to me which in itself is a miracle considering the fragility
of those little bones. Amazingly, there are voices again though the
words stumble over each other and are too distant for me to make
out their meaning. The discussion in those rising and falling
voices goes on and on and lull me back again to the beach. As
sometimes happens now, I am the young boy, abandoned by all who
should be caring for him. The sun is burning his skin. The sand
rubs in the burns. He has been wandering for days and he is very
tired but he has no home and no bed. When he falls asleep on the
sand, he wakes more tired than before. He weeps almost all the
time. He wants this to end.

     Someone comes to sit beside my bed. It's not another
bedwarmer, there have not been any of those since the fever came to
stay. It's Charley; I can smell the difference immediately. They
were calling him with their mantra. Like praying. Homage.

     What did they have to promise to get him to come?

     "They've begged me to keep you from dying."

     Even if I could, what does one say to something like that.

     "Do you also beg for your life, Mooncalf?"
 
     Ah, almost forgot about the nickname. The calf that is so
fascinated by the bright, strange light in the night sky that he
doesn't notice when the herd wanders on without him. The half-wit,
the dreamer. As far as the Hunter's question goes, I can't say 'no'
because I haven't been able to speak for days. Unable to even turn
my head to the wall in defiance, I close my eyes a little tighter
even though they are closed already and manage to thrust out my
chin about a millimeter. Clearly, it is enough to get my message
across.

     "I didn't think so. That is what has always set you off from
the others. You will beg for others, but never for yourself. That's
your price. You see I remember our meeting on the submarine. You
would have died before begging for your own life, but you wept for
information about your sister's."

     Talk... talk... Get to the point. I am so tired.

     "Very well, no games. In short, we would prefer you living but
we won't force that. What I offer is healing of a sort but such
healing that will still require a great deal of effort on your part
if you truly want to live. Maybe we have waited too long. Maybe it
is beyond your strength at this point, but we think not. You've
already survived far longer than we expected."

     What is he offering? Life? All right, I'm listening. Death is
waiting on the threshold, and I'm still not anxious to open that
door, but he also talks about a price that must be paid. Oh, be
quiet and let me die in peace. But he knows me too well. He knows
that I don't want to die. There's too much to do. If nothing else,
I have to see you again, Scully. If only I weren't so tired and so
sick. Sick to death has come to have real meaning.

     He touches the side of my face and the pain, my constant
companion, takes a few steps back. A stillness comes over my mind
and I fade out. Surprisingly, I'm back on the beach, only this time
I'm lying curled on the sand in the same position as they found me
in the hold after the unrestrained acceleration of the ship had
smashed my body into a bloody mass of broken bones and exploded
blood vessels. I'm lying in a tidal pool, that shallow hallow of
ocean left around objects on the beach when the tide goes out. I am
that object, and the water is warm from the sun. I haven't moved in
a very long time and can't now. Like a fish out of water, living is
no longer my element.

      A shadow passes over me. It has to be the Hunter. He comes
upon my broken body as I once found a dying tiger shark, its gills
feebly straining, all the fight gone.

     The water in the tidal pool feels too good and I am tired of
holding up my head. How easy it would be to just lower it down...,
down...

     When I try, however, I find that he has crouched down beside
me and lifted my face clear of the water. He literally holds my
life in his hands. This is also when I realize that I can actually
see him. It is good to be able to see again. Incredibly, he's
shirtless and dressed in khaki shorts and stout work boots like
some healthy laborer just off the construction site and here I am,
a bundle of broken sticks within a skinbag of misery.

     "So it's not all gone," the Hunter says in awe. "You have this
place left. What happened to you, child of earth? What did those
devils do to you?"

     "I don't know what you're talking about." The words come
hesitantly and sound strange, dry as pebbles baked in the sun and
weak as a breeze. They are literally the first words I have spoken
in days and these in a dream.

     "I think you do. You are still a mystery to us. We offer you
a chance for life, and as we are not sure that you do wish it also,
we will bargain."

     "Even if I agreed, I have nothing with which to bargain."

     "Your word is all we ask. We have watched you for many years
and we have learned that, unlike so many of the other >belagani<,
you keep your promises."

     "You've been hanging around with the wrong crowd."

     "Too true. We erred in those we chose to work with. We will
not do so again. But that also for later, if you live."

     "I will and without your help."

     "A hollow threat. Life is flowing out of you like this tide.
I can bring you back over to this side, not all the way -- we will
leave you some choice in the matter -- but far."

     "And you want my soul in payment."

     "We have no use for souls. Your cooperation in some tests,
that is all we require."

     "No."

     "It's not like you'll be betraying those who you think of as
your people. The colonization will go on in any case."

     "No." But he's right about the tide, Scully. It's going out
and for the final time. The last grains of my strength are being
washed out into the vast, impersonal ocean. I'd afraid. I reach for
a memory with your face and can't find even one.

     "What do your people say? Do you need me to 'sweeten' the
deal?" asks the far away voice of my tormenter. "I offer what you
want more than anything, even more than your freedom."

     "There is nothing I want more than that."

     "What about that for which you have risked your life over and
over? Knowledge, little mooncalf. Answers. I cannot provide details
about our current plans but there is much I can tell an individual
in your unique position. One test, one question, one answer."

     'No' is on the tip of my virtual tongue. It lingers there.
Knowledge. The forbidden fruit. He says he won't, but I know that
he has the power to save my life for the tests even without my
consent. What would I be then? A slave kicking and screaming in
agony? How can that save anybody? Albert Holstein told you that I
had to save the world. How could my death save anybody? Christ
could, but I'm not he. Dead, nothing is saved -- not the world, not
you, not anybody. But with life and knowledge there may be a
chance, abet a very small one. Would fraternizing with the enemy
make me a traitor? Many would think so; I've watched too many gung
ho World War II movies not to have learned that. But if I could
somehow get information back to you, Scully, or to Skinner or to
the Gunman's network of conspiracy believers or -- heaven knows --
maybe even to the fuckin' federal Government, wouldn't it be better
to return with pearls than ashes? Are we talking traitor then... or
spy?

     For years I wanted to believe, Scully, and I was right. I want
to believe now that I will return some day. If I do, I want this
time of separation -- this time of trial for both of us -- to mean
something.

     It's worth a try. Won't be fun though, if what he hints about
the tests is true.

     I'm not on the beach any more, yet it's a seamless waking. His
hand is still cradling the back of my head. I manage another chin
thrust in defiance which soothes my conscience somewhat, but I also
manage to nod about a millimeter.

     Am I going to need Daniel Webster to get me out of this?

     I don't have time for further literary imagery for he doesn't
waste any time. Maybe he doesn't feel like I have any time to waste
or maybe he's afraid that I'll change my mind, but he immediately
raises his free hand and encircles my broken jaw. I know now why he
has already taken a good hold on the back of my head. He touched me
once before just before I was taken up into the ship and I felt his
strength back in Alaska, but neither time was anything like this.
I am thrown physically and mentally into a technicolor netherworld,
into the heart of a summer storm of lightning and thunder that only
begins with my jaw. Soon the lightning is making deep and repeated
strikes all over my body. The energy flowing from his hands is like
dozens upon dozens of electroshock sessions. Fire, flash, burn...
I know about those. I've had them. They were part of the treatment
the doctor's didn't tell Scully about last summer when the voices
drove me mad. They didn't help a damn then; I assume his will do a
better job. They'd better. I'd hate to survive this kind of torture
for nothing.
 

     I awake more in the present than I've been for... weeks?. I've
been given water, I know, many times as I've drifted semi-
conscious. There has been more of the thin and nasty substance like
Cream of Wheat, too, stuff which I have always detested. I sense
that I've been sleeping a long, long time -- real sleep -- yet I
still have no particular desire to wake. Part of it has to do with
being impossibly tired, though for once I'm neither feverish nor
suffering the agony of the damned. The other part has to do with
facing up to the bargain I have made.

     He is sitting beside me as if he has never left. Perhaps he
hasn't. I can still smell him. It's not a bad scent, but just one
I have come to associate with 'them'. I try my eyes. It takes
effort, but they work. For the first time since I was tossed like
a badly thrown rubber ball from one side of the ship's cargo hold
to the other, I can see. My eyelids, however, are about the only
things I can lift.

     "Sleep well?"

     It is an odd salutation coming from this one. I don't bother
to answer.

     "Remember our agreement?" His eyes, as well as his voice,
demand an answer this time.

     "I'll co...co... op..." My voice feels and sounds like it is
rolling over course grade sandpaper. My jaw works stiffly, but at
least it works.

     "Cooperate," he supplies with irritating amicability. I
despise the way he gloats.

     "Didn't pr-promise... s-small talk." I find I'm out of breath
already and have to struggle with the last bit.

     It's depressing to see how easily he stands to go. I think I
could perhaps raise a finger, but as he'd probably miss the
reference, I don't.

     "I could have healed you long ago, if you had asked," he
throws back at me with lazy arrogance.

     Wrong, he knew my price from the beginning and still he let me
suffer. With more will than strength, I hiss, "Bastard."

     He gives me his shark smile. "Using your definition of the
word, all of my race are bastards." He places a heavy hand on my
one good shoulder. I would have squirmed out from under that hand
if I had been able. "Rest now. There will be time enough for work
later and we have much work to do."

     And, damn me, but under that devil's hand I fall into a deep
and blissfully pain-free sleep.

END Of CHAPTER TWO

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
 

MY TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY CH03: STOCKHOME (1/1)

DATE: 8/23/00
AUTHOR: Sue Esty
CONTACT: Windsinger@AOL.com
RATING: PG
CLASSIFICATION: XA series
SPOILERS: REQUIEM, 7th season.
KEYWORDS: Mulderangst
SUMMARY: Finally recovering from his nearly fatal first few
minutes aboard the alien ship, a lonely Mulder talks to an
absent Scully of his surroundings and his fellow prisoners.
ARCHIVING: Gossamer, Emphereal, ATXC, and anywhere with
permission and as long as the author's name is retained.

DISCLAIMER: Where do I start? No, the X-Files and the characters
of Fox Mulder and Dana Scully do not belong to me. Chris and
David, thank you, thank you for giving us a great season finale
and only a Mulder-light Eighth Season.

Author's Notes: This is third is a series of short stories
chronically Mulder's confusing, agonizing, torturous, lonely and
wondrous adventures with the 'Grays'.

My older work can be found on Gossamer under 'Esty, Sue' with
the newer pieces at http://members.aol.com/windsinger.
 

MY TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY CH03: STOCKHOME (1/1)

     "Mulder..."

     Sleep's gentle arms slowly release me. The smell of coffee,
rich and thick and hot, wafts through the air. Someone has taken
the trouble to cook bacon, too, as well as toast and eggs. My
stomach rumbles in happy anticipation even as my arms reach up
to embrace the slender form in the flame-red hair who hovers
above me, smiling.

     "Scully, you shouldn't have."

     "You're right, I shouldn't have. All that cholesterol is
just going to lay down and die in your arteries. But then I
thought -- for my handsome traveler, just this once. Why not?"

     She is warm in my arms, skin truly as soft as silk. She
snuggles into me, lowering her head to bite down playfully on
the side of my neck. A thrill of anticipation and pleasure flows
through my singing body. Slowly, she begins to undress for me,
sliding the white film over first one creamy shoulder, than the
other --

     The buzzer that reaches my ear doesn't just intrude on the
mood, it shatters it. I tell myself that it's the timer on the
stove, but I know that isn't true. My right hand falls limply to
my side.

     I'm hiding in my 'cubby' -- short for cubbyhole as you
probably know --  where I seem to be spending most of my time
lately. Roughly two meters long and less than a meter wide and
a meter high, this coffin-shaped and lightless hole is the only
place in this alien prison that is all mine. We all have them.
They line the walls like quadruple-high bunk beds except that
each is completely enclosed, even down to the hinged door that
opens up across one long end. Mine is on the bottom of one
stack. In fact, it's actually on the floor, so much so that I
have to get down on my hands and knees to creep inside. But it's
all mine. It's home now. The only home I have.

     I must admit, the accommodations are a bit sparse. Have you
read about those little 'hotel' rooms they have in Japan? Like
overgrown bus station lockers, you can whip out your credit card
and for the night have a more or less comfortable single bed. As
you might expect from the Japanese love of gadgets, all the
electronics you could ask for are tucked into the walls a few
inches from your face: TV, video player, internet access, CD
player, razor, hair dryer. My box on the alien ship is a bit
more spare. It's furnished with a thin pad to protect my bones
from the floor. That's it. No sheets, no pillow, no blanket.
Instead, we huddle into balls when we sleep. At least I do. It's
the only way I've found to even begin to stay warm and I still
dream of cold winter winds more often than anything else. Of
course, I stretch out when I attempt to engage in one of my
fantasies. Haven't had any success yet, but then it hasn't been
very long since I've been able to manage the physical activity
required or been able to concentrate long enough without falling
asleep. This morning was my best attempt yet. Such rich visions.
I even had the smells down right.

     Don't scold, Scully. I know that this isn't good for me. It
hurts too much when I come down. I grieve all over again for
what I have lost - what we both have lost. I should learn to
accept this curve ball Fate has sent my way. Embrace the
challenge! Sorry, I'm not that much of a masochist. Besides,
what else do I have to do?

     Actually, at the moment I do have something else to do. I
have to roll out of here and get in line for breakfast.

     I flip up the door to my combination living room, bedroom
and garage. Ironically, the door is exactly like the one on
those flipper cabinets that you find in all modular office
furniture. The trick is to get to my feet without clipping an
elbow. At least I don't have to dress. Now you're probably
thinking that I'm naked. Maybe it would be best if I started
from the beginning.

     "Oh, good. Just what I could use right now... a tour." Your
voice in my head is so sweet, despite the irony, that it hurts.
Very well, this will be today's chapter of the travelogue. I
guess I'll start to make these regular now that I'm no longer in
danger of dying anytime soon.

STOCKHOME:

     The >Yei< -- I still do not know where this word comes from
but it refers to the group or the sub-race that runs this ship -
- must have spent years studying old World War II training films
on how to inflict psychological torture. Considering that the
Consortia was deeply in bed with the inventive Dr. Shiro Zama
and other Axis ex-patriots from that infamous time in the Human
race's recent past, I wouldn't be surprised if the aliens
weren't equally as acquainted.

     First, the male and female abductees are separated for all
but a few minutes of each day. Who would have thought that we
would end up with prudish aliens! I'm of the opinion, however,
that the arrangement is intended just to irritate us. I've not
seen women's accommodations, but since they wear the same
clothes and the same vacant expressions as the men, I'd say they
were treated pretty much the same.

     Now about Stockhome. First, that's only my name for it.
Cattle images... Home.... Get it? Anyway, it's one large room.
Three of the walls are lined with our private boxes like so many
shelves in a crypt. There are forty-four cabinets -- four rows
of four high on each side and three rows of four high on the end
that doesn't have any doors. At six feet six inches length per
box that leaves a central open space of twenty-six feet by
slightly less than twenty feet. And an open space is all it is.
No furniture. Not even carpet or padding. Just a resin-like
floor. At least we are running at only half capacity or we'd be
on top of each other during the day. I've counted a maximum of
twenty men at one time. This should leave empty cabinets, but no
one opens the unclaimed ones on the opposite wall and so neither
do I.

     I don't think I'm ready to know what's inside.

     As far as decoration goes, it's all sort of greenish brown,
like the cargo hold. It's not army green, not that bad. There's
some mottling, rather like creeping mold, but not really enough
to be interesting.

     In contrast to what we have always heard about the abductee
experience, there is not much light here. In fact, much of the
time you feel like you're sleepwalking in a brown haze. Not
dark, but not light enough to read a book with fine print for
long.

     If I only had a book.

     They keep this half-light on all the time and, of course,
there are no windows, so there's no night and day. Since the
others all tend to sleep at the same time, I've come to think of
that time as night under the assumption that, at least this
early in our confinement, their biorhythms have got to be more
normal than mine.

     In one corner there is what can only be called a pit
toilet. There's no flush. Everything just goes down, down, down
somewhere. At least there is minimal smell. Oh, and they do
provide a few sheets of toilet paper that I swear were last seen
on a cactus. Not that we need to make use of them much. Most of
the bacteria in and on our bodies were destroyed in the
sanitation process when we came through the shower room and
we're not given much solid food.

     I'll get to the topic of food in a bit. For privacy around
this privy, someone has hung a couple of shirts, which have been
decoratively shredded into strips and fastened to the relatively
low ceiling that is no more than ten feet high.

CLOTHES:

     This will be a quick topic. Loose drawstring pants and a
loose short sleeve pullover shirt. All gray. When new, the
fabric would have been rough, but it's rubbed smooth now from
long use. We have one set.

     I've only been up and about on my own a couple of days so
I haven't asked yet about washing or changes of clothes. There
is little smell here, however, unless we just become use to our
own stink. I think, however, that there is less because, as I
mentioned before, the sanitation process kills off most of the
surface bacteria and that takes a while to grow back. It's only
a matter of time however before things begin to get pretty rank
in here.

     At least there's no laundry do.

ACTIVITIES:

     Which brings me to my next topic -- activities. This topic
will be even shorter than that on clothing.

     There are no activities.

     Oh, there's feeding time, but I'll cover that under food,
and from time to time -- very irregular times -- the door to the
'outside' will slide open and one of the inmates will get up
from the floor or roll off their slab and without a word will
walk out. It's creepy. Why does this one go and not that one?
More importantly, none have come back yet. That may not mean
very much because, as I've said, I've only been up and about for
a short time and I still sleep the majority of the time. Some of
them could have come back and how would I know? I'm not even
familiar with all their faces yet. It's amazing how hard it is
to tell one of us from the other when we are all dressed alike
as we are. Interestingly, we also all tend to be of a similar
body type -- lean and fairly tall.

FOOD:

     Okay, I know you've been waiting for this one. As I've
mentioned, I've been on my feet only a few times since Charley
the Hunter left what was almost my deathbed. A growling stomach
got me up the first time. I was lying on my side with my flipper
door open and staring at nothing -- since nothing is all there
is to stare at -- when a very faint buzzer sounded. The next
thing I knew, many pairs of legs were shuffling past on their
way to the front of the room. Finally admitting that my stomach
was thinking seriously about digesting my backbone, I decided
that this was as good a time as any to assume verticality. I
rolled out carefully -- my ribs are still astoundingly painful -
- and crawled about for a while on my hands and knees until the
shakes had subsided sufficiently for me to attempt to stand. It
was an iffy thing and I had to claw my way up a stack of
cabinets. That was when I grasped the logic of my being assigned
a floor-level bunk; less far to fall.

     Having obtained uprightness, more or less, I stood for a
good two minutes, cradling my aching ribs, while I waited for
the room to stop revolving slowly on its axis. I was so weak
that it took at least five more minutes -- with some on and off
graying-out time -- for me to make it to where the others had
gathered. There was a slot near the door, a shadow, and from
this shadow they were pulling grayish bowels. I will say this:
they are a well-mannered lot; no pushing or shoving. I was soon
to find out why. But first I got in line -- I was the last --
and when it was my turn, I reached in for a bowl as I'd seen the
others do. Nothing. I wondered if this was some cruel version of
musical chairs and I was now 'out'. Billy reached around me,
however, and pressed a thumb on a depression in the hole that I
hadn't seen. A bowl appeared. I took it and wished I hadn't.
 
     Just in case you're eating, and because I have to eat it,
I won't say what it reminded me of. Let's just say that it was
the thickness of gravy and brown and a little lumpy.

     This is what I received two days ago on my first morning
up. This is what I've received ever since. This is what I was
spoon fed during my convalescence. We are fed twice a day.

     Enough said.
 

MY FELLOW INMATES:

     Let's go back to that first meal. Billy must have seen my
pallor when I got my first look at the food, for he took my bowl
from me and with his free arm led me over to the section of the
room where the stacks of cabinets are that I haven't seen anyone
open yet. He helped me to sit on the floor. I can see that at
least I'm going to keep limber living here. He handed me my
breakfast and sat down beside me with his own. There was no
spoon. He lifted the bowl to his lips and sipped. He watched me
from over the rim of the bowl, urging me silently to try it.
There was no discussion. Not a word. That's the way it was.
That's the way it's been since I got here.
 
     I took a sip from my own bowl and gagged. It's slimy and
cold and tasteless stuff. It's also a little gritty. For fiber,
I assume. The dirty water with the bug they gave me in that
Russian gulag tasted better.

     I put my bowl down. I was not that hungry any more.

     I became aware of Billy studying me. His brow was deeply
creased, he was concentrating so hard. But, as always, he said
nothing.

     "Is this all there is?" I asked. "Ever?"

     Billy frowned and there was such sadness in his face.

     "What's wrong?" I asked.

     His sorrow, if anything, increased.

     Sensing a problem, I whispered, "Can't you tell me what's
going on around here? The Hunter is the only one who has ever
said a word to me. Are we forbidden to talk?"

     Billy's mouth actually moved and with eyes closed he
managed a "Yes", though the worded sound odd. It was what you
might hear from someone who hasn't spoken for a long time. It
was as if he had nearly forgotten how.

     Billy carefully placed his bowl on the floor and then
shifted his position so we were facing each other. All at once
he placed his right hand on the side of my head. I flinched even
though it didn't hurt because it reminded me of the two times
Charley has touched me in that same spot. I did not want to go
through that again. This time, however, I felt nothing, though
from Billy's expression - distress - he wished that I had.

     "I'm sorry. I don't know what you want."

     I became suddenly aware that we were surrounded, not only
by the men, but also by the women who are allowed to visit only
on an irregular basis. Everyone from my abduction group seemed
to be there. Since I was still sitting on the floor and they
were standing, they made an intimidating group even though they
clearly didn't mean me harm. These are my bother and my sister
prisoners, I reminded myself, but they continued to be, as ever,
frighteningly silent. And people call me Spooky.

     Teresa came forward. I am certain that I remember her
speaking to the Hunter though I was injured near to death at the
time. She doesn't now. Instead, she placed her hand firmly on
the top of my head. Her eyes hold me still. So anxious. Other
hands raised me to my feet and I found myself not only ringed by
them, but now they were all trying to make physical contact one
way or the other. When they couldn't get close enough to latch
onto some part of my head or face, they settled for whatever
part of my body they could reach.

     Now you know that I don't like close spaces, Scully. And
you know that I don't like to be touched except by you and then
I need some warning, so you can imagine the panic attack that
started to brew.

     Billy stopped this gentle assault. He either felt my
muscles hardening, or he caught the wild fear of a cornered
animal in my eyes. At least no one in the crowd seemed
particularly upset about being sent away. Instead, their
expressions were all similar to Billy's, a sadness like that in
a child's eyes when he finds his pet mouse dead and cold in its
cage.

     It was the manner in which they all stepped away and began
to move into far corners of the room without a word being spoken
that finally broke though my blindness.

     Only the issue is not that I'm blind. What I am is deaf and
dumb, at least compared to everyone else here.

     "You're telepathic," I whispered. "You all are. Like I
was."

     A tear rolled down Teresa's pale cheek.
 
     "No, not like you."

     I spun around because those four thickly accented words
definitely didn't come from Billy. Charley Hunter's smile was as
irritatingly patronizing as ever. Teresa and Billy hung their
heads as if in defeat and began to inch away.

     "I should have known. It was you who stopped them and not
Billy. You're such a popular guy around here."

     "They are ashamed. They are like babies, or like the stoke
victim, restricted to communicating the wonders of the world in
half a dozen of the simplest words. I intervened because they
might have hurt you. Not intentionally, but, in their
frustration and by their sheer numbers, they may have."

     "Frustration over what? What did they expect to get from
me?"

     His eyes are like flint. "You know. You said it."

     "Telepathy? I don't know how they can expect me to
understand."

     "Don't you?" Without taking those eyes from me, he called
over his shoulder, "Teresa, tell Mooncalf what it was like
before."

     And then he did something with his hand, and a veil seemed
to drop from her eyes. It was like the whole woman stood before
me for the first time since we met in her home that day now so
long ago.

     "Having you with us was like being in the middle of a
symphony -- a symphony of words and music. It was like the works
of Shakespeare and Mozart and Beethoven and the Brownings and
Tolkien and Webber and Wagner and Robert Frost - all being
performed at once and in the most marvelous combinations. And
all of us in the same skin." The shadow returned to her eyes.
"Not like this. Not this aloneness. Not this stone against
stone, chalk squeaking on a blackboard the way it is when you're
not here. Or like now."

     "I think that's enough." Hunter waved his hand again and
the veil descended once more.

     "Does she want me to believe that I once could do all
that?"

     "Is that a formal question? A part of our bargain?" asked
my own personal Satan.

     "You owe me. I passed your test."

     A shrug from those massive shoulders. "I would not call
mere survival a test."

     "I didn't have to."

     "True."

     "Then give. Could I? What she said?"

     "If you ignore the excessive imagery, she was essentially
correct, only we have only their word for the content."

     It took a while, but the light finally brightened a little
more and he waited, knowing that it would. "You have only their
word," I ventured, "because your little lab rats may be able to
think to each other... but not to you or your people. That's why
Billy and Teresa and the others have to make actual sounds when
they want to communicate with you." Something in his eyes
confirmed everything I was saying. "What I don't understand is -
- if you people can't hear anyway, why are you forcing them to
try, especially since their telepathy is so limited."
 
      "But we can hear, we just can't understand. Before it was
like a roar, like your sea. There was some chance of eventually
translating. Now it's rather like... the scratching of a very
small rodent."

     How I wish looks could kill. How I wish you were here to
give Mr. Acromegalic Jaw one of yours.

     I came closer than I cared to in order to keep my voice low
as there was nothing wrong with my fellow abductees' hearing.
"So they don't live up to your expectations, so they're not
allowed to talk!" I demanded. "That's senselessly cruel even for
you. What's the point? Oh, of course, why do I bother to ask.
Another test."

     A shrug. "It's only part of a test -- or you would more
accurately call it a breeding program -- one that has been on-
going for centuries. But it's true that they can barely
understand each other any longer. Without your presence as a
catalyst, it all falls apart. By forbidding speech between them,
we hope to jump start their latent abilities, but that may take
months, if not years. It's no wonder they are confused. What
both your people and mine are anxious to know, however, is why
with you here -- even before your accident -- all was still so
silent."

     Could it be that they don't know about the events of a year
ago, when a dizzying trickle of voices in my head became
suddenly an overwhelming flood? Could it be they don't know how
I lost it? It's possible. Except for Smokie Spender, the
Consortia has been executed to the last man.

     "What happened?" he asked. "I see it in your eyes.
Something. I suspected before, but thought the problem was
related to your injuries and would return in time. But it's more
than that. What did they do to you?"

     I am the silent one now. The Hunter is right -- knowledge
is power and here's something that I seem to know which they
don't. What else do I know that they don't? The Air Force's
tests with stolen alien aircraft at Ellens? Some aspects of the
Gregor experiments? Whatever Krychek is into? The Russian's
successful vaccine against the Black Oil?

     "I think that is enough for today," I replied. I am
surprised by the sound of my own voice. I could be some prince
announcing that the audience was over. I wish my nerves were
that confident.

     Surprisingly, he smiled. "Very well. As you are not
completely recovered, we will wait a little longer. We would not
want to undo what progress has been made."

     He turned to go and then changed his mind about leaving
just yet. "Something for you to think about. In addition to your
forgotten telepathic abilities, you do not seem to remember the
ship, or any of the previous tests. Very unusual."

     "Not unusual as all. Most abductees have only spotty
memories of their 'visits' with you and your people."

     "Because they are given what you would call a post-hypnotic
suggestion to forget. It remains in affect until they next see
the light. A thought or two may break through, but the process
works well enough. Not that it matters. 'Abductees' are never
believed except by the few who are thought equally mad." I
didn't like the laughter behind those cold eyes of his. I know
when I've been insulted.

     "Your response is unusual," he went on, "in that you do on
some level remember the light -- you were drawn to it -- but you
remember nothing more. And then there's the missing symphony, as
Teresa calls it. As I said, we need to know why and we will find
out why." His glance was as surgically precise and calculating
as that of a taxidermist evaluating the best way to mound a
prize fish. "Because of these drastic changes, little mooncalf,
my superiors want a new baseline to compare with your old one.
I'm told that our 'physicians' will perform the required tests
soon. Very soon. Until then..., " he grinned his wolf grin,
"sleep well."

     I was finally left alone. Billy and Teresa and the others
did not return but clustered in the corners. I understand their
distracted air now. They are thinking. Hard. They are trying
with all their might to awaken something in themselves... and in
me.

     Sorry, guys. The well has been tapped dry.

     Or I certainly hope so.
 

     That was, as I've said, two days ago. Even now, the men of
Stockhome keep their distance thinking their baby talk to each
other while I don't hear even that. Understanding more now, I
feel bad about the 'Stock' pun but the name has stuck in my mind
at this point. God, after all, did create Man to name things.

     I came out here this morning only to eat, but now as I look
down at yet another gray bowl of brown sludge, I find I have no
appetite. I don't feel like continuing this travelogue either.
Sorry, Scully. I think I will crawl back into my hole and close
the door and lie in the dark.

     But I don't believe that I will sleep.
 

     Epilogue: The retreat to my cave is interrupted by the
whispered opening of the main door. Four inmates stagger in. One
is limping and holding an arm, one is visibly shivering, one
walks as if he is even more in zombieland than usual, and the
fourth takes two steps and then falls and begins to convulse. I
stand as if frozen, but not my fellow inmates. They activate at
once in silent efficiency. Even without telepathy, I know what
I am seeing. Four were called away for testing over the last few
days and they are just returning; those who remained at home
have swung into action to pick up the pieces. They did this for
me. I remember marveling at how smoothly they moved and how
gentle their nursing. Now I know how that was possible; they've
had lots of practice.

     Being the son of loving and sensitive parents, I can't help
but note that each one of these people must be keenly aware that
he or she will be in a similar state of need sooner or later.

     "Mulder!"

     You're right, Scully. Even for me, cynical bastard that I
am, that was really shameful. In truth, it was only a passing
thought. At least I'm willing to admit when I'm wrong. Their
caring means far more than that, they mean far more than that to
each other. I know. It's just not an emotion I've felt from
anyone except you.

     Yet I felt it through their hands.

     They. I am still saying 'they'. It's 'we'. What I said to
you before, Scully, about my being one of them is even more true
now.

      My paralysis leaves me and I go to the head of the one who
is still convulsing. His arms and legs are drawn rigidly
together as he thrashes about. I know about convulsions -- that
helpless, out-of-control humiliation. I have seldom felt so
alone. It's almost as bad as trying to live elbow to elbow with
more than two dozen silent people whose eyes, when they turn my
way, are filled with both disappointment... and pity.

     I take the man's shoulders in my lap and force a wad of his
shirt into his mouth. I scarcely recognize him now, but he is
Roy, Teresa's young husband, who had, as she told us, been
tested too many times before.

     And I will go soon, Charley Hunter told me so. I'll be
taken for the Tests. Will I come back like one of these?

     I realize that I won't be going to huddle in my hole alone
again anytime soon, but then that no longer seems very
important. My place is here for the time being, for here, but
for the grace of God or the whim of Fate -- go I.

     Have I told you recently, Scully, how desperately I miss
you?

End of Stockhome, Third Chapter of 'My Travels With Charley'

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
 

MY TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY CH04: GETTING PHYSICAL

DATE: 10/18/00
AUTHOR: Sue Esty
CONTACT: Windsinger@AOL.com
RATING: PG
CLASSIFICATION: XA series
SPOILERS: REQUIEM, 7th season.
KEYWORDS: Mulderangst
SUMMARY: Having somehow survived the first terrible moments on the
ship and his first days (at least the ones he's been conscious
enough to remember), Mulder has become bored with the routine. Time
to liven things up. Time for a little first hand knowledge with The
Tests.
ARCHIVING: Gossamer, Emphereal, ATXC, and anywhere with permission
and as long as the author's name is retained.

DISCLAIMER: Where do I start? No, the X-Files and the characters of
Fox Mulder and Dana Scully do not belong to me. Chris and David,
thank you, thank you for giving us a great season finale and
subjecting us to at least a Mulder-light Eighth Season. Better than
no Mulder.

Author's Notes: This is fourth in a series of short stories
chronically Mulder's confusing, agonizing, torturous, lonely and
wondrous adventures with the 'Grays'. An 'All Hallow's Eve' chapter
will come out next and will be... quite... different.

My older work can be found on Gossamer under 'Esty, Sue' with the
newer pieces at http://members.aol.com/windsinger.
 

MY TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY CH04: GETTING PHYSICAL (1/2)

     Morning, Scully. Note that there's nothing 'good' about it.
Nothing out-of-the-ordinary either, so being at loose ends for
anything to talk about I'll start with an observation. I've come to
the conclusion that I really have lived a very selfish life. Oh,
I've given my heart and soul and my blood to the job, and I've done
my share of sympathizing with the victims -- too much you would say
-- but in the end I've always been able to walk away. For so many
years my eyes have been focused ever ahead, seeking my own answers:
to what happened to Samantha, for the reason for your abduction,
for why my father was killed.  This place and these people,
however, I can't leave behind. For the last three 'nights' I've
lain next to Roy and held him as he convulsed and did my best to
keep him warm. I told you about the limited (i.e. non-existent)
medical facilities in my last virtual journal entry. Without
warning he'd been taken for Testing and without warning he was
returned.

     I could see in his eyes how scared he was whenever he felt
another seizure building. I know how terrible that loss of control
can be. The humiliation, the helplessness. There isn't much that
can help, but if it brought him any comfort then I would stay. This
is what family is for, isn't it, Scully? When I was growing up, I
never knew what it was like not to be so alone all the time.
Families were something you lost, or if you didn't lose them, they
disappointed you. For years after Sam disappeared I could have used
a hand holding mine in the dark. Now I have a family or something
like one. Ironic, I'm the disappointment now, the broken and
damaged one, and yet they are willing to still treat me as one of
their own.

     When I come back to you -- and I do mean 'when' -- I'm going
to be a better person for this. Dare I softly say, better husband
material? Maybe even 'father' material? I know that's a problem,
but we can adopt. I wouldn't mind. After what I've been through my
sperm are probably swimming in circles anyway. You would make a
terrific mother. That's what I thought about all those hours as Roy
shivered and sweated next to me -- that this was what it must feel
like to be a father sitting up with a sick child. Only, to be the
father, the child's pain would be even more my own.

     You seem surprised that I would find this revelation so
surprising. You lay dying within reach of my hand twice and it hurt
so much inside that I nearly died along with you. The difference is
that, feeling as I do towards you, I didn't think I could have
anything left for another human being. I seem to have been wrong
about that.

     When I'm not on Roy-watching duty, I exercise in an attempt to
rebuild my strength. I must be ready. Unlikely as it may seem, an
opportunity to escape may present itself at any time. Look at all
those escaped convict movies. More often than not, the prison bus
has an accident. Maybe this ship will crash.

     No, maybe that's not such a great idea after all.

     In any case, I exercise. I like swimming and running best, as
you know, and I can't do either in the Stockhome yard. Just not
enough room and too crowded for running and a distinct lack of
water. It's calisthenics then, which I loath, but I've built up a
little mantra of my own to keep me going that I repeat over and
over in my head. The tune is to the Bridge on the River Kwai and
the words are pretty scandalous even for me. Too bad I haven't had
a chance to get really bored with it yet. That's because I haven't
been able to build up to more than ten pushups before my arms give
out. It's a pretty pitiful sight and I seem to be losing even more
weight as a result of my exertions. I wouldn't mind so much if I
seemed to be building up any muscle. To make the situation even
worse, I'm beginning to smell rather rank. I asked Billy about
showers and changes of clothes, but he just looked at me as if I
had three heads.

     The fourth 'day' after Rob's return while I am sweating over
my tenth set of sit ups since our breakfast of glag, the buzzer
announcing the opening of the main door went off. As it's not time
for either breakfast or dinner, I look up with some apprehension.
It could be visiting time for the women -- that makes it sound like
more goes on than actually does -- but more likely this is a signal
that one of our group is going to be taken. No one is getting up to
leave, however. Instead, everyone is looking at me. It still
unnerves me that even though this group practices telepathy with a
vocabulary of about ten words, they are still able to communicate
far better with each other than I can with any of them. I'm going
to take it as a given that I've finally been called.

     I get to my bare feet. My legs are more shaky than I would
like to admit -- Jell-o Jigglers have more substance -- but the
empty doorway beckons. It closes with a hiss of air behind me.
 
     The light in the corridor beyond is blinding. I stand blinking
for several seconds. I had forgotten how dim they keep our
quarters. I'm still squinting when I see my escort. I don't know
why it should surprise me, but it's one of the little Grays. Its
smooth round head with its malevolent almond eyes comes up to about
my sternum. In the flesh they certainly are more sinister than
Spielberg depicted them. Soundlessly, it turns and heads off down
the white corridor to my left. Having nothing better to do, I
follow.

     I don't know why I should have been surprised but I am. It's
taken me to the sanitation room, to the showers. I grasp at a
thought: Perhaps they don't intend to test me this time after all.
Maybe it's just that my stink offends them. That's a victory of
sorts. In any case, I can't shed my rank clothes fast enough.
Fleetingly, I wonder if the little Gray is male or female. My
striptease doesn't seem to affect it one way or the other. It's
with gratitude that I dump my reeking gray fatigues down a chute
and watch them disappear into the bowels of the ship.

     I only saw the disrobing room once before and that from a
distance when I was first taken up into the ship. That was just
before my 'accident', not something I'm likely to forget. The only
time I was actually under the showers, I was blind from the
acceleration injuries to my eyes and being washed of blood and gore
by my fellow abductees while Death and I played tag. This time I'm
on my own two feet. Even as I slide under the showerhead, I stare
curiously around. It's only a shower room, the kind they have at
the older 'Y's and Boy Scout camps -- one big room and a dozen or
so showerheads placed at regular intervals. Still, for me it's the
first new thing I've seen in weeks.

     The mildly acidic fluid that comes out of the taps is warmer
than I remember and there is less of it, but it doesn't sting. Not
having any open wounds this time probably has something to do with
that. Still, it is as near to heaven as I've found yet on this
budget airline and I take my time. As I slide the hard bar of brown
soap over my skin, I try to ignore the feel of my own bones under
my hands. I spy the almost mirror-like shininess of a stainless
steel tank that stands in the corner and side over to access the
damage.

     Should have known better. The comparison to World War II
concentration camps comes back as it did once before in this place,
only I'm a survivor this time... if you want to call this survival.
Protruding hip bones, ribs like a xylophone, arms and legs like a
bundle of long, brittle sticks. You would be shocked, Scully. My
face... No, you don't want to know what my face looks like. All
nose and jaw, cheekbones and hallow eyes. None of the other times
when you have fussed over my having lost weight has been anywhere
near as bad as this. I could use you fussing now as well as a few
dozen Big Macs.

     Hastily, I retreat back to my dripping showerhead. I must
concentrate on this opportunity to get clean. I wash my hair with
the same course soap and even wrestle with the fuzz between my
toes. Who knows when I'm going to get a chance again? Going
barefoot all the time, the bottoms of my feet look and feel like
leather.  It's a while before I'm again aware of my guide, or it
could be any of the Grays. It's standing in the doorway looking
very anxious as if it's the one who'll pay for my taking so long.
The problem is, there's no towel, nor any clean clothes. Even my
old ones would have been better than nothing, but they're long
gone, and so I make it plain that I'm going to stay planted where
I am until I get some service. My escort, meanwhile, is still
standing and waiting and doesn't seem to have any idea that
something is missing in this scenario.

     Finally, I peer at him from around what functions as a shower
stall and shout, "Hey, I could use some clothes here!" and gesture
pulling on pants. If it understands, it ignores me and makes
nervous little motions like a certain tardy white rabbit with a
pocket watch. For quite a while I stubbornly refuse to follow it
while it stubbornly refuses to agree to my demands. Finally, it
gives a very good impression of stalking off in a snit.

     And people say that the Grays have no emotions.

     Ten minutes later, during which time I've completed my
examination of every inch of the dressing and shower rooms, I have
a visitor. Charley Hunter. As usual, he seems twice as large and
twice as real as everything and everyone else I've encountered in
this place.

     "I expected you five minutes ago."

     "I have other duties besides watching over you. You should
have followed the -" He says some word that sounds like ">Denay<"
only that can't be right.

     "If you mean the little bell-hop, not naked I won't."

     "That hardly matters here."

     There's some truth in that. Neither the Grays nor their elders
of the tall and spindly physique wear anything that looks like a
garment, though with the glare from the brilliant light the elders
always seem to be bathed in, one can't be certain. Still... "It
matters to me. Besides, I don't see your inhuman flesh gracing the
decor."

     The Hunter makes no answer to that other than to toss a bundle
at my feet. The jumble of gray cloth lands in a damp spot, but with
relief I retrieve them and dress anyhow. My ego has been bruised
quite enough by how badly my manly physique has deteriorated since
I was abducted. I don't need to provide Hunter or any of his kind
with any more of a show than I have to. But Hunter did come at my
call. Another point for the home team. The long, loose draw-string
pants and even looser short-sleeve shirt are exactly like my old
ones, but at least they don't smell like a inside of a high school
student's gym locker.
 
     I'm finally as ready as I'm going to get. While I dressed, I
kept an eye on Charley. He has waited for me with what for him is
the utmost patience. This makes me suspicious. Hell, everything
about the 'man' makes me suspicious. Seeing I'm finished, he starts
back down the brightly-lit corridor I had traveled with the little
Gray. Seeing no other escort, I fall along beside him. I should
keep silent and make him do the talking, but living with the
zombies as I have, I'm so starved for conversation that I have to
say something.

     "No lecture?" I ask. "No complaints about my incorrigibility."

     "What would be the point," he drawls. It is not a question.
"Aren't you going to ask if it will hurt?"

     I don't like the direction this conversation is going. "I
believe I already know the answer to that one."

     His smile broadens. Lucifer must smile like that.
 
     We arrive at a doorway. He activates it somehow and the panel
slides open. He gestures me inside with almost languid courtesy.
It's even brighter in this room than the hallway though the air is
thick with a dense, white fog. That's all I can see. Another
decontamination procedure? Poor aliens. They really must find the
human animal a dirty lot.

     I step into the mist. It's damp and surprisingly warm. It
tickles my nose like vinegar. Like a small child facing his first
jump into the family pool, I take a deep breath and hold it. I
would take things slower, but Charley is on my heels so I keep
walking. Besides, I don't dare slow down because the only
alternative is to turn and run and that I won't do. I have the
honor of an entire species to uphold, after all, and I can feel its
weight heavy on my bony shoulders.

     The mist thins as suddenly as it appeared and between one
second and the next I am bombarded with two sensations. Either
alone could have stopped me dead where I stood. The light is
suddenly, not just bright, but piercing, as painful as thousands of
tiny razor-sharp knives that attack not just my eyes, but every
inch of my skin. And I can't breathe. There is no air. Or perhaps
I should say that my lungs refuse to take it in. The foul stuff is
instantly in my mouth, in my nose, invading deep into my sinuses.
Tears of protest roll down my cheeks. Its taste even beats against
my eardrums as if pounding vainly against a barred door. Pervasive
as a cesspool and acrid as a foundry, it's pure poison, metal laced
with a reeking level of ammonia.

     I'm on the floor, doubly blinded by tears and light. The pain
and fear are so terrible I have no memory of how I got down here.
I haven't actually breathed in the vile stuff yet, and I don't
intend to, but I'm rapidly running out of options. I run and I swim
-- or I did, enough so my lungs are good -- still, I can't hold my
breath indefinitely.

     The Hunter is at my side. I can't see him, but I can sense him
and how utterly calm he is about his pet writhing on the floor at
his feet.

     Something attacks, and only after I jerk away do I realize
that he's sprayed something onto my face. The bad part is that I
feel like my skin has just been shrink-wrapped with a fine coating
of plastic or wax, the good part is that the membranes around my
eyes, nostrils and mouth don't burn as much anymore. I'm still
going to die sometime soon though.

     Now he cups the back of my head with one hand and, despite my
struggles, stuffs a huge wad of something soft and squishy and vile
into my mouth with the other.

     "Breathe!" he orders. "Breathe deeply!"

     The hell I will! With this junk in my mouth! Even now I can
feel it softening, spreading out, creeping up the back of my throat
as if it has a will of its own. I start to gag, but he clamps a
heavy hand over my mouth so I can't eject the stuff.

     "Breathe!" he commands again. "In with it, you fool!"

     I don't have much choice. Damn, traitorous, autonomic
reflexes! Despite the distraction of the searing light, it's all
going dark. I open my throat in a strangled gasp and the gunk
slides in and in and in.

     Now there is nothing coming in no matter how hard I struggle.
I'm choking to death. As for the Hunter, he's still got a heavy
hand on my forehead and is holding me down so I won't dash my skull
to pieces against the floor, which I surely would have.

     "Give it a few seconds," he suggests, "just a few seconds.
Then try again, only more slowly."

     Yeah, sure, let's see the bastard try it, but surprisingly the
gunky tightness of the obstruction, which feels like the largest
clot of mucus of all time, begins expanding in my windpipe. (I
would have used another word, which begins with 'SN' and ends with
a 'T', but the very idea disgusted even me.) It's still like
breathing through a soda straw, but it's breathing.

     I'm managing to control my own panic now -- just barely, but
managing -- so Hunter doesn't need to hold me down any more. Still
he hovers. "Very good, little Mooncalf." He runs his hand over my
forehead and down into my hair. I want to bite it but he stays out
of range of my teeth. "Yes, very sensible. The 'k'nikk' forms a
barrier against the poisons. Your people refer to it as the 'slug'.
I'm sure you can understand why."

     I think I would like to throw up now. I'm distracted from
further mortification along these lines by his hand that is still
hovering, shadowing my face. "Open your eyes. Go ahead. This will
help. Wider."

     Something like a the moon eclipsing the sun plops into my
momentarily open right eye. Precious dark descends, or at least
shade. "Again," he orders, and I do, and my left eye gets the same
treatment. Obviously it's something like a large, nearly black
contact lens. I lay still blinking and wheezing. Both seeing and
breathing are becoming easier, but with agonizing slowness. The
brightness of the room could still be compared to the full sun of
winter reflecting off a mile-high snowfield, and the tightness in
my chest is like an octopus has decided to hibernate in my lungs --
yeah, I know, I've been there, done that before -- but both are
better than they were.

     "You b-breathe this stuff?" I choke, meaning the air, not the
slug. I didn't see Hunter sucking down any of the repulsive gunk.

     "Why should that surprise you? In your blood is mirrored the
sea in which you were spawned and which hangs in the air and falls
as rain. In our blood is reflected our sea and our sky." Lightly,
he touches the area under my left eyes and then my upper lip, both
of which are raw. "You were exposed to our blood before, even mine
as I remember. You're one of the few living who knows what happens
when it mingles with your air. So you know, the same would happen
if you swam unprotected in our seas or walked bareheaded under our
sun."

     There is something else about his planet I can deduce from all
this, otherwise, why the need to colonize on a world as clearly
inhospitable to them as ours obviously is. "You don't by any chance
have a fierce white star for a sun that is burning itself out too
soon?"

     I don't think Charley wants to answer. From behind, he puts
his hands under my armpits and raises me to my feet, as easily as
another man would lift a child. Dizzy, I sway and nearly go down,
but he catches me. When I try to break his hold, he only laughs and
propels my bag of bones up onto... of course... an examining table.
It couldn't be anything else in this place, only this one is more
elaborate than any I've seen. There's a special platform for each
limb and it seems infinitely adjustable to any size and shape. They
must have already known my size because the length is right in all
the right places. Charley and three heretofore-unseen pairs of
pale, dry, long-fingered hands come out of the light beyond my
field of vision and tighten things down with depressing efficiency.
Soon there are straps across calves, thighs, hips, arms, wrists,
shoulders, torso and head. The straps need to be pulled tighter
than I think even they expected.

     There was no time to fight before and useless after as a half-
hearted test of their effectiveness demonstrates. "This isn't
necessary," I growl.

     "Yes, I can see that." Charley seems mildly surprised that I'm
taking this all so calmly, but that emotion is quickly replaced by
one that is closer to his normally saturnine self. "Let's just say
that we wouldn't want you hurt yourself. If you stumbled around in
here, you could run into something sharp."

     This is probably a true statement. The room, which I can still
barely see for the glare, does seem to be just stacked to the
ceiling with hard, shining edges. In truth, I'm also not taking the
restraints and their hands on my body all that well. I've just
learned that it's usually best not to let on to what really bothers
you, however, or they'll just do whatever it is with renewed
determination.

     The tall, thin creatures are milling about now, poking and
prodding, and the chair swivels and dips and opens and closes in
every possible configuration so that my body's in just the right
position for whatever they need access to, which is just about
everything. Despite the fact that what flesh I have wants to crawl
right of my bones when they touch me, the examination is almost
warmly reminiscent of my usual trips to the emergency room --
everyone wants a piece of the pie. The big difference is I try not
to look at my 'doctors' this time. Oddly, it's actually better than
most of my experiences with ER's. At least I don't have anything
broken or shot to hell to start with. Whoever performs the spinal
tap doesn't even do a half-bad job. I've had worse performed by the
med students of George Washington University on a Saturday night.
They stick sharp objects in about ten veins, something cold into my
mouth and another cold something way down in my ears. I won't tell
you want they push up my nose. They pinch or prick about three
dozen sites to check my reflexes. In response, the chair loosens
the proper restraint, but never enough to allow any chance of
escape. Where would one escape to anyway? Next, they shine little
portable suns into my eyes -- to see the back of my eyeballs, I
assume -- and even the nearly black contacts can't lessen the
excruciating pain. It's worse because I can't move my head more
than a centimeter in any direction during this process, but it's
quickly over. Now comes the really bad part. The chair tilts back,
really far back, and they strip off my pants and start spelunking
into orifices they have not right to. I lost my shirt so fast at
the beginning that I don't remember when it went, so I'm naked and
cold and helpless, every inch of me exposed to wandering fingers
and prying eyes.

     I could have put up a fuss. I could have screamed and swore
and foamed at the mouth, but there would not have been much use to
that. Within easy reach of half a dozen long-fingered hands, I see
hanging what can only be a muzzle of human-size and the Hunter is
in the room waiting for me to disgrace myself. I won't give him the
pleasure. This is when I realize that what they are doing down in
my nether regions is no longer painful. Not painful at all.

     Damn it.

     Within a minute or so, it's obvious that I'm not the least
cold any more either. What I'm doing is blushing 'six ways to
Sunday' as my old aunt might have said, if I had had an old aunt.

     "Not in the contract..." I murmur to that pervert Charley
between clenched teeth, clenched because my body is vibrating,
thrumming like a plucked string that goes on and on, higher and
higher.

     "Almost there," says a soft voice. "They just need a sample."
Where in the hell did that voice come from? It sounds... No, it
couldn't be. But it is a woman's voice. A human woman. I want to
find that voice, I have to... but, before I can start, the maestro
working down below turns up the gain. Not a lot, just a notch.
Enough to make me lose all point of reference and go soaring
somewhere into the stratosphere. What part of my ego I still can
connect with is much miffed that I'm responding far better now than
to any of the times that I've tried this on my own since my
abduction. Then I remember that I don't have to expend any energy
this time and the unexpected is always better. I'm also being
treated to heaven from two directions -- inside and out -- and,
though I was pretty pissed at the getting inside part, it's all
perfectly placed now and, perfectly, perfectly timed. I want to
come and then I don't ever want to. It's flowers and colors and
bliss and passion and wonder and heaven and the other place.

     How are they able to do this? Hell, I guess I should be
surprised if they couldn't. They've had decades of practice at
finding ways to get their pets to do exactly what they want.

     I can think of being asked to perform worse tricks.

     Did I just say what I thought I said... or thought ... or
whatever? Nothing's staying around long in my head. Very quickly
I'm back to rolling in animal perfection. Still, a part of me is
fighting this orgy of sensation. It's really not fair of them to
make me feel so good when all I want to do is keep on hating
them... and hating them... and hating them.

     I'm just making progress towards building a reasonable level
of resistance when something truly astonishing sweeps away my shaky
walls. It's the voice again. "Mulder, it's all right. Mulder?"

     My name, oh God, my name. Not that Mooncalf crap, but my name.
Even better, this time the voice is yours, has to be yours. I can't
help it, I know it's a trick, but I open my eyes to look for you...
and there you are. A disembodied face, but your face, so sad and
yet so full of love...

     Oh... my... God... I lose it. Lose the whole thing. I've
reached Everest and there's no place else to go but the moon, so I
go there, too and the arc is high and full and glorious and -- yes,
it does hang in there a full ten second past peak -- the bastards -
- but that can be considered either heaven or hell, depending on
the way you look at it. Eventually, the coming down is almost as
good as the going up.

     My eyes fill with tears -- of grief or joy I don't know -- but
it takes a while for me to be able to see again. You're gone, of
course, if you were ever there at all. Did they project your image
on my contact lenses or what? I don't care. It was you and clearer
than even a memory like mine has been able to come up with since
the Baltimore airport where we said good-bye. Do you think I didn't
see your red-rimmed eyes? Had you slept at all? I meant to show up,
I really did, but the night got later and later and the Gunman kept
coming up with this and that gadget. Soon they and Skinner were
hipdeep in a whole arsenal of clandestine military toys and I
couldn't just leave. I should have though. I should have said the
hell with them and appearances. I should have spent that last night
with you. Yes, you begged me to, not with words, but with your
eyes. How was I to know that it was going to be the last night, the
last night for a long, long time. The last night forever? No, I
won't think about that. I'll think about this gift of your face and
not worry about how it happened.

     It takes time for me to realize that the restraints are all
gone and that I'm curled up uncomfortably in a ball on the alien
table with something like a blanket over me. I think I actually
slept for a little while. A few minutes at least.

     The afterglow is ruined, however, because the first face I see
when I poke my head out from under the blanket is Charley's.

     If I didn't like his smirky little smile before, I loathe it
now.

     "Have a nice nap?"

     That doesn't really require a response and I don't give him
one. He doesn't seem to care.

     "Time for Phase Two," he announces as he tosses me what from
the pattern of wrinkles can only be the prison duds that I wore for
barely ten minutes. I slip a little shakily off the examination
table and dress with my back to him.

     "And what can I expect from Phase Two?"

     "I think you'll be pleasantly surprised."

End of My Travels with Charley CH04 (1/2)MY TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY CH04: GETTING PHYSICAL (2/2)

DATE: 10/18/00
AUTHOR: Sue Esty
CONTACT: Windsinger@AOL.com

     I am surprised with Phase Two of my Tests though not nearly so
surprised as I was with some aspects of Phase One. Phase Two is
plain old weight lifting and endurance stuff. Treadmill and sit-ups
and range of motion. And no sensors stuck all over your skin and
trailing wires. Instead there's this light. It's not that much
brighter than the ambient blast of the spectrum that's normal for
this room, but it's -- heavier somehow. I can feel it touching deep
here, there and everywhere, reaching under my clothes, even under
my skin. I have no doubt that it's reading heart rate, blood
pressure, respiration, temperature, blood gases, even what I had
for dinner at that little Oregon diner with Skinner just before we
set out into the woods.

     I run, I lift, I bend nearly backwards as I'm instructed to do
and, blissfully, the exercise frees my mind as running or swimming
have always done. How I've craved that endorphin high. Not that all
is perfect. Through it all, what keeps coming back is how badly I
messed up that last day and what you must be going through.

     I'm sweating and gasping by the time they finally halt the
treadmill. I nearly fell half a dozen times. I would have given up
long before, but they control how fast it runs and for how long. I
guess I could have begged them to stop, but I never quite reached
that level of desperation. Now that we are stopped, I instinctively
look up.
 
     The Grays are a very graphical people, which shouldn't be much
of a revelation considering the exquisite decoration of their
ships. Above me are rows and rows of scrolling numbers just like
the old New York Stock Exchange although they are floating in mid-
air like holograms. From time to time there's a graphic of some
part or all of a nude human male body followed by bar charts and
line graphs. There is always three sets of data, two showing
similar readings and one clearly inferior. I don't need a road map
to figure o