By Sue Esty
Windsinger@AOL.com

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

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

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

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

For a very long time I slept* and I dreamed. The dreams were
weird and vague such as the ones you get when exhausted and
feverish. I was both. I was fed by hands that I knew I should
recognize but didnÇt. They were callused but gentle hands. Those
same hands washed me. It was the ship food that told me that I
was with Charley again. Consequently, I didnÇt hurry to wake up.
Conscious, I would never have it as good as this.

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

I couldnÇt help but spend a lot of my conscious time wondering
how and why this had all come about.

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

I wasnÇt so sure that I wanted to.

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

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

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

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

"He said that you'd threaten that, too. I wasnÇt to let you."

Sigh.

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

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

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

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

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

He looked meaningfully in BenÇs direction. ÑCharleyÇs called for
me and you know youÇre always welcome to join us. Is this a good
time?â

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Cabin fever?"

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

"I'm sorry."

"About what?"

"That I got you into this."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What is?" Ben asked in all innocence.

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

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

"Never mind."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

End of Chapter 1
 

MY TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY 09: Those Who Are About to Die (2 of 11)
by Windsinger (Sue Esty)

BENJAMIN

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

IÇm still grateful that I was the one doing the catching.

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

"I know that I have you to thank for my recovery and I would if
you were not also the cause."

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

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

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

"Always have been, always will be."

"But you have also grown much."

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

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

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

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

"A hundred times more massive than the scout."

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

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

"The scout wasn't easy."

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

"You're stronger now."

"Not a hundred times stronger."

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

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

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

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

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

"Friends in high places?" I offered.

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

"Are you sure about that?" I asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

ÑPart of it.â

Mulder had told me -- very briefly -- about being put on exhibit
before the alien elders during his time on the space station
called City. He refused to say much. I gather he didnÇt remember
much and had absolutely no wish to remember more.

ÑThis is the argument they're using to try to assert their
control over Earth?â I asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mulder did, though tentatively. The ship åhummedÇ in its
mooring.

"Again, as if you meant it."

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

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

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

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

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

"Unnecessary for a craft so small. It's still critical that you
stay as still as possible, however, discipline that you donÇt
have and there is no time for you to learn it. For you,
therefore, have been added a considerable number of restraints."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Looks cold," I told him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Ben?"

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

"Thirty seconds should do. Breathe deeply."

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

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

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

Was that a threat? Sounded like a threat.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To what?

The next minute took my breath away -- literally. The sky field
spun like a child's wooden top. I wanted to scream and I would
have if I werenÇt more afraid that I'd throw up.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gasping, I screamed, "You bastard!"

But all I heard was laughter.

End of Chapter 2

MY TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY 09: Those Who Are About to Die (3 of 11)
by Windsinger (Sue Esty)

MULDER

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

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

Or me?

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

'Shuttle Bay', Mulder?

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

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

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

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

How could I ever have thought this so difficult?

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

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

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

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

*Like shit. *

*I should get you back.*

*That would be a really good idea. *

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

*I'll walk. *

*It's only dark. *

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

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

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

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

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

"It is time," he said gravely.

This I was expecting.

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

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

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

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

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

"You specifically?"

The stone gaze was withering. "My species."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What nastiness are they hatching?"

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

His meaning became clear only slowly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I thought you were at war with Earth."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"IsnÇt that a little short sighted? What about retaliation?"

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

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

"That's a dangerous game."

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

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

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

ÑThatÇs not very smart.â

ÑNo, you are just not that important."

"We destroy, theyÇll just build again*bigger AND meaner."

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

The muscles of my back tightened. "Irreversible?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jolly! Something new. Set down a ship I'd flown only once under
no power on one particular, irregularly shaped, free floating
object. Up close it was reported to be the size of a few small
cities though compared to the size of the universe it was no
larger than a dust mite. At least I couldnÇt complain about
being bored.
 
 
BENJAMIN

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

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

*Than I. *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And Mulder was so quiet, too quiet.

*Mulder...*

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

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

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

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

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

"I meant the field."

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

"Let's get out of here."

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

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

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

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

"Nothing on Dale smells this bad."

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

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

"I'm sorry," I said.

His eyes narrowed. "You know?"

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

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

"Too close to home."

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

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

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

"From what?"

"The cities mostly."

"The cities are bad?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

End of Chapter 3
 

MY TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY 09: Those Who Are About to Die (4 of 11)
by Windsinger (Sue Esty)

MULDER

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Mulder, what?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"No, they're not."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*Fox. *

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

*Billy. *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*Whispers then. *

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

*It's beautiful, * Ben marveled.

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

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

*Fox? *

*I'm here. *

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

*Do what? *

*Shield yourself from us. *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*As of yesterday? *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BENJAMIN

It was strange to sit there, butt growing numb on the cool,
sharp rocks and 'see' through the eyes of a whole universe of
strangers. On Dale I knew everyone. There was no such thing as a
stranger and our mindspeech, except when under the influence of
the most potent of Lichenleaf and our other mind expanding
plants, was limited to a few words implanted here and there like
darts. In comparison this... There are no words to describe this
kind of wonder. The sheer numbers, the wisps of private hopes
and desires that managed to flow through me like the lyrics of a
song, and so much texture. Did the sharp-edged thoughts all come
from men and the sad and soft ones from the women? Women...
Control* Mulder was right* I couldn't allow myself to become
disturbed by even so marvelous a distraction as the very idea of
women, especially now that they ask why we have come.

I 'saw' Mulder's answer in images of machinery and a flash of
light. That would be the light from the first small explosion,
the one that would trigger ever and ever widening rings of
destruction. In his 'tale' only one tiny ship escapes while in
the background the rock we are now so uncomfortably sitting on
goes up like a fiery bomb leaving... nothing.
 
There was no panic. These people have learned that they must
suck in patience as readily as breath if they are to survive.
Still, the calm was to their credit.

*We have a ship, * they repeated like so much ghost wind.

*But we donÇt have a pilot. * This came from Billy and seemed a
message that he has said before.

*Disable the artificial gravity, * came from a no-nonsense woman
with whom the name Kathy seemed to be associated. It was weird
to get to know the åvoiceÇ of a person who wasnÇt even there but
I got to know hers. *It's what they always do before they take
off. After that, spin alone will lift the ship off this turd.
Saves fuel, too. *

*Big deal, we're off the ground, * Hector interrupted, a lean,
rock-bearing brown man, or so I could see through his neighbor's
eyes. *Then we're adrift. Without a pilot or navigator we'll
still need someone to pick us up. *
 
If thoughts could turn, they turned on Mulder, but Mulder sat
silent in front of me, a dark silhouette against the purple sky,
as quiet in his mind as in his body.

*Charley will take you, * I said, the shapeshifter's image
rising in my mind. *He's the one who sent us here..*

There was a stunned silence and then a general hiss like a
thousand snakes.

*Not that one!* And the hiss rose quickly to a dull roaring,
nearly chaos.

A burst like an explosion from some vast mountain of air
exploded amidst the arguing thoughts, scattering them like
petals. *Stop!* and there was instant silence.

Heart pumping wildly in alarm, I found myself looking for a
storm and found only Mulder, sitting bolt-upright, face hard.
Sweat glistened around his hairline despite the cool, thin air.
*He'll take you if I ask him. There isn't anyone else. But let's
leave that discussion for later. You have far worse problems.
You say that you have a ship. You must think that itÇs large
enough. How are you going to get everyone inside this ship
without being stopped? *

*My friends and I work at the camp where the ship is," the woman
Kathy explained. *We lug in supplies, we scrub up after their
filth, but we aren't any more dumb rock carriers than Billy's
group is. We know the way in, * she said with confidence. * We
know when they arenÇt watching. *

*And we've been preparing for this for months, * Billy
explained, and from below at the end of the line of rock
carriers I caught his eye through a parting in the long, lank
hair that fell over his forehead. He was as assured as the
woman. Strong. But then they had been through so much that they
would have to be strong or they would have laid down and given
up long before. "Whenever a ship is ready to depart, they blow a
horn, like a fog horn.*

The young man Gary, who had disappeared in the Oregon woods at
the same time that his friend dropped a sizzling flashlight,
seamlessly continued the narrative. *When the whistle blows, the
gray workers, the elders, and all of their allies retreat into
their own closed rooms underneath each research facility because
the gravity is going to be shut off. The scum on the work
details, thatÇs us, have our own bunkers for these times. Dark
and smelly, they're little more than sardine cans.* If a mind
could spit in disgust, this one would have.  *But we're such
obedient, will-less beetles that no one seriously checks to see
that we actually hide out in there. We could as easily head at a
dead run to the ship camp. The most distant work crews are only
twenty minutes away. There's always at least that much time
before the gravity generators are actually powered down to the
point that it's dangerous.*

*What about the air?* I asked, envisioning it drifting off as
well.

*The spin and the barrier hold it in, what there is of it, *
Gary explained.

*What we're telling you, * the woman Kathy insisted sharply, *
is that we can get to the ship, most of us anyway. We canÇt help
the test subjects in their cages in the labs. ItÇs something we
all understand because it could happen to any of us. *

Mulder stood, absently rubbing his numb backside. He was looking
off to our right where another glow over the too-near horizon
lit the sickly colored sky. I knew as well as he did, by
whatever method such information was conveyed, that the ship
camp was there. *Too long,* he mused, his emotions so dulled it
was if they were under water. "If you don't want to be followed,
we need to blow this rock, which we were sent to do anyway, but
if we have to wait for your people from the far camps to get to
the ship we'll need to set too long of a timer. There's too
great a risk that the explosives will be discovered.*

*Then set your changes a few minutes AFTER the warning horn.
Wait for that. The 'masters' can move fast when their little
gray skins are on the line. Most will be safely hidden away by
then.*

*And we must prepare soon,* Kathy interjected. * At the latest
the ship will be here only a few days. It's been here too long
already. *

*Our people in the far camps only need the word to know to start
immediately. You're going to be targeting the main generators, I
take it?* Billy asked.

*I need to check on that,* Mulder replied clearly irritated at
being rushed. *If we do, and IF I remember the plan of the
camps, timing will be very close. *

*Agent Mulder, we don't have a choice!* Billy snapped. *Any day,
any hour, especially since all this mind traffic has started
going over the air and distracting so many of our people, we
risk their finding out that weÇve been faking our reaction to
the last few rounds of biologics. Once discovered, we'll be
watched so we can't get away and later drugged with stuff that
might just work the next time. This may be our only chance! *

Mulder began to pace. Worse than that the worry line on his brow
was just about as deep as I had ever seen it. Fingers traced
furrows in his unkempt hair. The storm of his emotions
significantly darkened what little light there was in the day.
"What's the problem?" I asked in real words as if that would
keep it more private between us. He blinked as his mind shifted
to this more primitive form of communication..

"Ben, I've never been happy about Charley's plan. Yes, I have
killed, more than my share, but in defense of my life, or
Scully, or the innocent, when the perpetrator is right before
me. But this*â His arms came up in strength and then dropped
empty. ÑBenjamin, despite her best efforts, Mrs. Mulder never
raised her son to be no terrorist. Even if we get most of the
prisoners off, there will be the ones we won't get off. And what
about the aliens here? Not all are guilty except guilty of doing
their job. *

*He means he's a policeman, not a soldier, * Someone mindspoke.
So much for privacy. * There will be guilt. It's not easy to
kill for an idea. * It was Raymond speaking, the hard words not
without sympathy. *I was a soldier, marine. Even for us, it was
hard. *

Mulder's head hung wearily. *Charley's is a rather all or
nothing solution. I would be happier just blowing up a lab or a
computer system.*

*I don't think that we're going to have that choice,* I answered
gloomily.

All at once I had to touch him. This pure mind stuff had left me
cold. Odd that I should react so since I was the one who had
been raised on a world where such talent was merely uncommon,
not rare, not alien. How much more keenly must Mulder be feeling
this. But he didn't reciprocate with a hardy handshake or a
manly jab to the arm. He didn't even lean into my hand on his
arm. It was as if he'd been taking stone icon lessons from
Charley he was that inside himself. Maybe he was that afraid
that he would break if moved one inch from center.

He must have sensed my worry for he eventually turned to me,
apology in those dark eyes.

"Sorry."

"How can I help?"

"Nothing now but later probably a lot."

I don't know who I thought I was hiding the thought from but I
leaned closer to him, whispering, "Mulder, can we -- can YOU --
save these people?"

His tight-lipped smile had not one grain or humor in it. "Just
how large of a ship would that take?"

Stupid, that that was what he was holding so close about. Fear,
real gut-squirming fear. "Maybe it wouldn't need to be so large.
Maybe we'll have to stack them in the corridors like cordwood."
He expression was dubious. "So let's go find out, unless you
want to let this Kathy at the ship yard just show it to you." I
tapped my temple.

Mulder stretched to ease what must be a tension headache of
mammoth proportions. "You're right, but this is something I need
to see with my own eyes. Find out how much worrying I really
need to do.
 
So we began picking our way through the sharp, black rock with
all those disembodied voices whispering behind us. It was like
walking at the head of an army of ghosts.
 

Distances are deceptive when the horizon is so close. Only ten
minutes took us within a stone's throw of the most outer of Ship
Camp's perimeter of flood lights and that included time spent
being sure that we had no visitors before we crossed an open
space. Mulder had walked with jaw set, back straight and eyes
burning. I knew that look. Into hell and damn the consequences.
As before, we crept up upon the last hundred yards and found a
shadow from which we look down upon the camp. Unlike Gamma
Camp's rugged terrain, Ship Camp's great smooth bowl looked as
if it had been formed from molten rock that had been allow to
cool slowly in a mold and then rubbed smooth. The floodlights
were arranged in two great circles, an outer circle of white and
an inner circle of red.

And in the center, in the very center sat the ship. Billy's
ship, Gary's ship, Kathy's ship, and now my ship and Mulder's.

I heard Mulder's strangled intake of breath and only then
allowed myself to breathe. The words that came out were a
proverb from Dale: "The gods have sent us snow soup!"  The
meaning is that you've been given something useless, even
harmful. We say it a lot in the late winter when the food's
nearly gone and we get another storm.

We had wished for a courier ship that we could cram full,
something not much larger than the Beast that Mulder had first
trained on.

What we got was more than just more snow, we got a blizzard.

The ship was a monster. Nothing that could fly, even in my
imagination, could be so large. This was a mountain, a mountain
of startling, white metal.

Next to me Mulder was shaking, his face bone-white.

"I t-take it that the Beast was smaller?" I asked. I'd been led
to believe that that had been agony enough to pilot, most of the
time anyway.

A smile curled up, so brittle that I thought it would crack. "If
Ray were a chair and the Beast a house -- "

"Then this would be?'

"All of the Dale highlands. A moon."

"Mulder, you can't!"

"I thought your opinion was that I didn't have choice."

"Not this. We'll wait for another ship."

A voice came out of the dark, a real voice. "No!" That one word
sent a chill up my back because the tone was that which I had
heard perhaps twice in my life. A woman's voice. Simultaneously,
we stared behind our left shoulders. The woman was as tall as a
man and had short, dark, curly hair. Her features in the sharp
shadows of this place were broad so she may have been handsome
rather than pretty except for the six long scars that
partitioned her face. Like the others She was thin though in a
completely different way than a man. This had to be Kathy.
Except for the scars, which I never would have imagined on a
woman, her appearance went with her mental voice.

"He can't," I told her, putting as much horror in my voice as
possible. "You don't understand."

"He must. Now that he's here, we're making mistakes, missing
cues, reading instructions not yet given. It's only a matter of
hours, not days, and we are dead."

"You'll kill him. You can't want that!"

"We have to try something!" She dropped down beside us in our
shadow with what was to me nearly a supernatural grace. She was
so close that our knees nearly touched. I thought I would swoon.
I might as well have been just one more of the Rock Four's ten
billion building blocks, however, for all the attention she paid
to me. Mulder had it all. "Don't shut us out," she begged. "We
know. Your pain is ours, your fear ours, but we have our own as
well. We* are* terrified! Not only for ourselves but also for
what, through us, they want to do to our families, to everyone
we left behind. What they have done to some of us, and plan to
do to the rest of us and our world is an abomination. We have to
get out of here! We have to!"

Mulder had moved so that his pale face was in shadow but I could
still see his eyes smoldering. They burned into the face of this
woman. "And if I fail? Then we all fail."

"There is failure only if this hell survives. You have the means
to destroy it. Then do so. Our survival is secondary. We accept
the possibility that we may not escape. We don't desire death
but we have no fear of it. Better to fall back into the funeral
pyre of this terrible place than to become their tools and bring
their kind of horror back to Earth. We're being cruel and we
know it, but we have been gone too long, we have been dragged
over wastelands of cut glass too many times. Agent Mulder, we
just want to go home, or if not that, then at least we'll know
that our lives did not contribute to their suffering." There was
not acceptance of this second option in her voice, however. This
is one who had walked through the wastelands of cut glass and
probably dragged legions along with her, whether they liked it
at the time or not. Compromise was not in her nature.

No one said or even thought anything after that for Mulder had
shut that door, that gateway that allowed the thoughts from
nearly a hundred minds to flow through. The strained moment
became two. Mulder rose and paced. Temporarily out of the shadow
of the jag of rock we had been hiding in, he no longer looked
stern only tired. Incredibly tired.

"I know what you mean." Wearily, he looked in my direction.
"It's almost over, Ben. The last mile. One last sprint before
the end. But oh, God*."

"Mulder, stop*" I was going to say but someone beat me to it.

Another woman rose up from behind a pile of slag in the
direction from where Kathy had come. I notice such things the
same way that I would notice an elephant in my cabin. This one
was different from Kathy, however. She was as small and fair and
slight as Kathy was tall and dark and hard as a tree that had
been standing in the wind and the weather too long.

Mulder was instantly aware as well and his reaction was far
greater. Stunned would only begin to describe it.

"Ness..." he breathed, the word hardly making a sound.
 

End of Chapter  4
 
 

MY TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY 09: Those Who Are About to Die (5 of 11)
by Windsinger (Sue Esty)

BENJAMIN

"Fox Mulder. I wasn't sure whether to believe them." Her voice
was not loud. The words were strangled with emotion. Clearly,
these two knew each other. Then I remembered the girl's name
from stories Mulder had told of his time on the space station
called City.

"I didn't want to come," she said, "but they begged me to. They
thought that I'd be able to convince you. I told them that they
didn't need any intercession from me, that you would do the
honorable things. You always have."

Mulder winced visibly.

"You look well," she added into the silence.

"For the moment." There was a world of information in that
statement. Information such as 'no, I haven't been, but don't
bother to ask.'

"I heard you were still with Rodan. As I remember you call him
Charley."

"Also* for the moment."

Gingerly, Mulder sat down again on a boulder that looked
slightly more comfortable than the others did. "How did you get
here? Is all of the family here?"

"Yes, all of us. A couple of months after you were taken away,
Rodan came to see us. He was cold. He said that they didn't need
a control group any more." She looked close to tears.

Mulder had told me so the story many months ago as we worked in
my fields; all about a group of humans, the Family, who had been
maintained for generations in a few rooms on a huge space
station. Theirs had been a lonely, purposeless existence. "We
were thrown onto a ship and brought here, just dumped into the
general pot of available human subjects." She no longer even
attempted to smile. "So many are dead now from one experiment or
another -- Rene, my sister, my mother and father, two of our
men, Alex and Peter, so terribly, so uselessly. Like their lives
didn't mean anything at all."

She glanced down but at what I wasn't sure. Was she embarrassed
by the stained and ragged clothes she wore? They had once been
bright with color. It s seemed an odd time to worry about such
things but Mulder's eyes were also fixed on that filthy cloth.

"Do they know?"

"The Grays? No, and it doesn't make sense. It must just be a
screw up. You know, information not passed.  If they knew, I
wouldn't be here, pretending to be zoned out on their drugs.
Instead, I'd be in a cage someplace, underground, incubating and
being tested and tested again as I wait for this." Her hand
reached out suddenly and took Mulder's hand and pressed his palm
to what I could see now with shock was a slightly rounded belly.
He allowed his hand only the barest touch before snatching in
back. "Mine?"

"He swore it was. He came back only a few minutes after he took
you away and did it. I was still in tears."

"There wasn't time."

Her smile had no humor. "Doesn't take long. A little squirt."

"Again, it can't be; it's too small."

"Not too small for four months. How long has it been for you?"

"Six, maybe seven months."

"We've both been traveling. Who knows how that mixes things up?
The time on the ship we traveled on to get here is certainly a
blur."

Mulder was frowning, very unhappy.

But it's a child! I thought in wonder, never having seen a
pregnant woman except for once a year and then at a distance.
And Mulder was denying it? Unheard of where I came from where,
before women were kept in isolation, a dozen men claimed every
birth.

"It's not my fault!" she snapped. "I told them that showing you
this wouldn't make any difference, that you wouldn't bend to
that kind of pressure, but they wouldn't listen. Forget me and
it!" Her hand went to her belly again as she spun around to
leave. "Just do what needs to be done. I've heard my friends die
in agony. I've seen them live in endless hopelessness. End this
and let's go on if there is anything to go on to."

Mulder's eyes had widened while she talked. Now he nodded,
approvingly. "You've grown, Ness."

"I've had to."

"You don't make this easy."

"When has life ever been easy."

His gaze went back in the direction of the valley where the ship
squatted like a wide upended bowl the size of a city. "This
ship, Ness, this ship is huge. Most likely I'll fail. Most
likely, we'll fall back into the inferno, if we manage to get
off the ground at all."

"Then you and your friend take the other ship and at least our
story will live on."

No, way! My mind whirled in protest. I'll stay! You take this
girl and her child and go! Before I could protest though, Mulder
spoke.

"There is no other ship."

"Of course there is another ship," Ness snapped back. "The one
you came in."

Yes, and our little black 'Ray' could barely hold two people if
after that landing it could get off the ground at all. Mulder
was standing at the edge of the overlook, brow as furrowed as I
had ever seen it, his eyes mere slits as he frowned at the vast
weight and bulk of the shining ship.

"Why!" he asked to . "We could so easily have used something so
much smaller. There's only -- what did Billy say -- less than
three hundred people? Three hundred in that monster will be like
grains of sand in a bucket."

I looked over my shoulder at the slight and -- to my eyes --
exquisite and nearly mythical creature, who, if I heard right
was carrying Mulder's child. Not that it mattered whose it was.
"Mulder, just stop arguing. Set the charges and then you and
Ness get to safety. I'll stay."

It took a moment for my words to sink in. I think neither of
them had remembered that I was there. His initial surprise
changed to approval as he put his hand on my shoulder; a
significant gesture for Mulder touched seldom. "Magnanimous of
you but I couldn't. Better to send you and her and I'll stay."

"But you can't pilot Ray long distance!"

"Which is why we all go or we all stay." His bleak expression
told me that in his heart he believed that staying would be the
most likely but staying meant being consumed in flame.

"But what about Scully? You have to get back to earth, back to
her. That means everything."

That soft look came over his face, the one he wore when he
thought of her. It was mixed with a far deeper regret than
usual. "Scully would be the first to understand and approve.
There's a lot you don't know about us, about what we did.
Dangerous stuff. We both nearly died so many times. A thousand
times it could have happened and neither of us would have turned
away from the job. This is no different except that --" He
paused to clear some catch in his voice. "-- there is no looking
into each other's eyes this time. It was always a sort of 'good
luck' and 'good bye' at once. I'll have to go on with just the
memory of those previous thousands of times."

"But she'll never know."

"Maybe we can find a way," he mused darkly, "but we'll talk
about that possibility later if we get that far. If there is no
way to send a message still in her heart, I think she'll know.
I'm not saying that it won't hurt. It took years and years but
in the end I did come to realize that she really loved me, not
that I deserved it. But she's also a realist, my Scully. Just as
I'll do my job here, she'll move on. Besides, it probably is
better this way; there's a definite outcome one way or the
other. It's problematical that Charley would ever have fulfilled
his part of the bargain and let me go. However, if I drop two
hundred and fifty illogical human refugees in his lap, he'll
probably be so terrified of this becoming a pattern that he will
be only too glad to wash his hands of me."

He spoke lightly, but there was none of that light in his eyes
unless flames counted. The flames were there already.
 
 

He turned to the tall, raw-boned woman. "Kathy, you say that you
know the ship?"

"Between me and my work crew, inside and out."

"I need a virtual tour."

"We can do that."

"Meanwhile, Ben needs a guide to the power plant. Ben, I need
you to scout out a good location for us to bestow our gift."

"Sending me is next to useless," I replied. "What I know about
machinery you can float in a mug of tea."

"Then you'll need a knowledgeable guide."

There was a pause and then a soft female voice said, "I'll take
him." It was Ness. Mulder looked surprised. "I know, I didn't
know much on City, only how to weave and what lessons were
handed down by oral tradition generation after generation, but
since they tore us from our nice, sterile home, it's as if my
mind's been making up for lost time. This has been both the most
horrible and the most wonderful time of my life. I know every
inch of the generator plant -- that's been my assignment --
especially the areas where they don't want us to go."

That drew a near smile from Mulder. "Sounds like the kind of spy
we need. The two of you go then and we'll meet back here."

It felt odd leaving Mulder, but I could see the logic in
dividing our forces. We'd been tied at the hip for so long,
however, that I felt naked without him.

My guide and I didn't talk for the first few minutes. I followed
the woman -- the girl -- Ness as she led us over the rough and
broken ground. The truth is, I couldn't keep my eyes off her. It
wasn't like there was anything better to look at. The terrain
was not much different than what Mulder and I had covered before
on our travels across Rock Four. Black, sharp rocks and more
black, sharp rocks. Because of the low gravity, we didn't have
much trouble maneuvering around or over them. We passed a place
where she warned me with a hand gesture to slow down. Here there
were streaks on the rock itself that were not only smooth but
also glassy as if they had melted. With the low gravity such
patches would be nearly too slick to walk on.

Finally, we crouched above another camp. By then I realized why
everything seemed downhill. It was because the horizon was
always so close. So once again we were high up but this camp was
far different from the others we had seen. Its primary structure
was a forest of towers and vents, tubes and pipes, all of metal
or ceramic. Strings of tiny lights outlined the primary
structures t