CATEGORY: X-File (mythology), Romance, Angst SPOILERS: Honking big ones for Biogenesis/6E/AF. Smaller ones for Tempus Fugit/Max; The Red and the Black; Two Fathers/One Son; Sein Under Zeit/Closure; Brand X. Also: significant spoilers for VS8 episode "A Burden Shared", by Ten, and rather vague ones for "Devil's Advocate", by Vickie Moseley & Susan Proto. SUMMARY: When key evidence from an old case unexpectedly reappears, Mulder and Scully embark on an investigation that is literally out of this world.
RATING: PG-13
CONTENT STATEMENT: MSR. Some bad language, including the
"f" word. Religious content.
ARCHIVE: IMTP for the first two weeks. All others, please contact the
author. DISCLAIMER: Mulder & Scully as well as all other
recognizable character references belong to Chris Carter, Ten Thirteen
Productions, and Twentieth Century Fox Television. They are used here
without permission. No copyright infringement is intended. Unrecognized
characters belong to the authors. AUTHOR'S NOTES: This was written for I Made This!
Productions as one of the episodes of Virtual Season 9. THANKS: To Sharon & Vickie for the encouragement, and to CindyET for going over it with a fine-toothed comb and attempting to correct my screw ups. Any that remain are there because I was too stubborn to listen to her. ;)
TEASER
International Space Station
The Earth was a sphere of sapphire and cotton, floating silently
against the velvet backdrop of space. Countless thousands of stars,
in every color of the rainbow, provided a brilliant, unwavering
counterpoint, like so many perfect gems gleaming in the darkness.
But dominating the view, overwhelming everything else by the sheer
imposition of its presence, was the vast, hulking shadow of the alien
Ship.
That was how the team spoke of it, Avram thought: the Ship. In
capital letters, and always in hushed tones of voice, as might be
used in a cathedral. This was the opportunity of a lifetime;
something he and his predecessors had awaited in vain for the better
part of half a century. Others dabbled in biology and genetics,
hoping to find answers in those fields, but Avram and his colleagues
knew better. The only way out of the crisis that faced the human race
lay with the Ship.
The frustration of those decades of waiting still coiled tightly in
Avram's heart. To know -- to have absolute certitude -- that there
was only one path to salvation... well, that was hard enough. To be
denied access to the materials necessary to finding that path, when
you knew full well that those materials were there, somewhere, ready
for use, if only you knew where to look... that way lay madness.
But now...
He moved a little closer to the window, shifting his grip on the
handhold so that he wouldn't drift away -- and to avoid the
spattering of dried blood that no one had bothered to clean off after
they boarded the space station and disposed of the original crew. A
few minutes ago they had passed across the east coast of the United
States; now they were approaching Africa. Africa, the cradle of
humanity, where proto-hominids first walked upright, first learned to
use tools, to build a fire, to speak. How fitting, he thought, how
inevitable, that mankind's salvation should emerge from that self-same
continent. If he squinted, he fancied he could see the nondescript
inlet along the Ivory Coast, where the Ship had first been found, two
years before --
"Avram, take a look at this."
With great reluctance, he tore his gaze away from the window, and saw
Svetlana floating a few feet away, holding a printout in her hand. He
pursed his lips; she was always quick to remind the team that she
alone, of the three of them, had previous experience in zero gee.
Well and good, he thought complacently. That is why you are here,
instead of any of a dozen others. But *I* was put in charge, and
let's not forget that, shall we?
He shifted awkwardly at his perch, and held out his hand to receive
her report. With an effortless, indescribable motion, she propelled
herself forward, steadying herself on his shoulder before reaching
past him to grab the adjacent bracket. She then handed over the
printout, and waited in silence while he perused it.
"This seems rather remarkable," he commented, flipping through the
pages. He looked up to catch her gaze, cool and inscrutable as
always. "What do you make of it?"
"An equipment failure," she replied calmly. "Or perhaps a software
glitch --"
"There's nothin' wrong with the software," came a rumbling voice from
the other side of the compartment. Avram turned his attention to
Tommy, the third member of the team. Tommy was from Texas, and he
never let anyone forget it. He was also one of the most brilliant
cyberneticists alive. "I ran the diagnostics three times," he
continued. "And damned if I could find anything wrong. Everything
checks out. It's gotta be in the instrumentation."
"Instrumentation, then," Svetlana said, her voice still calm and
even. "But I can find no malfunctions there, either. All of our
equipment is in perfect working order." She gestured at the papers
Avram still held in his hand. "And yet..."
"And yet, we find that the Ship's volume is a variable," Avram said,
completing her sentence for her. "And that at least some of the time,
the interior is larger than the exterior."
She nodded. "And that is impossible."
Avram sighed. He'd suspected it was going to come to this, ever
since the first set of readings the day before. They'd had to check,
of course -- but somehow, he had known.
"Very well," he said, directing his words to Tommy. "How soon can we
transmit to ground control?"
The other man glanced at his watch. "I can bounce it off one of them
GPS jobbies right now. Or, if you're willing to wait for the next
pass, we'll have a clear line of sight to Lubumbashi in eighty-four
minutes."
Eighty-four minutes. Avram shook his head. That was too long.
"Let's go ahead with the relay," he decided. Time was their
principle enemy on this mission, and the sooner they reported their
findings to the ground, the better. He turned his attention back to
Svetlana. "And while he does that, you and I are going to go outside
and have a look."
# # #
The view had been beautiful from the window; floating free in a
pressure suit, it was nothing short of spectacular. Nothing but
emptiness for countless light years in every direction, and yet the
stars were so bright and so closely packed that it was impossible for
Avram to feel agoraphobic.
Some did feel that way, he knew, and that both puzzled and saddened
him. To him, it was simply glorious; this was why, as a boy, he'd
become addicted to space, and why he'd sat glued to the television
whenever there was a mission in progress. He'd sworn then that
somehow he would find a way to go out there himself, and now here he
was --
"Be careful not to tangle your lines."
Svetlana's voice brought him back to himself once again, and he
nodded in agreement. "Yes, I see," he said. He pushed himself
carefully along the hull of the station, and flipped one of his two
safety lines to the side, as she'd directed. They were here for a
reason, he reminded himself firmly. There was no time to play
tourist.
With painstaking care, the two space walkers made their way along the
hull of the service module. They had not really been trained for
this; not even Svetlana had participated in a real EVA in the past.
The mission profile had acknowledged the possible need, and
they had been given cursory instruction in how to use the suits and
how to maneuver. But time had been very short, and it had always
seemed as if there were more important things for them to be doing.
It was harder work than Avram had expected. As a boy, he'd always
imagined that space walking would be easy, due to the lack of
gravity. As he'd grown and studied, he'd come to realize that this
was not true, that it was, in fact, very hard work indeed -- but the
initial, childhood belief had proven impossible to shake. So now, as
his breath became labored and sweat drenched his body, he at last was
coming to a full appreciation of what it meant to be an astronaut.
And he loved it.
At last they reached the end of the service module, bringing the Ship
fully into view. And, just like the firmament itself, the Ship was
even more impressive and... and *awesome* than it seemed from
station's window. Long and dark and sleek -- and yet, it almost
seemed to be alive. Those strange symbols covering the hull --
symbols that had already been photographed and transmitted groundside
for analysis. What could they mean? They were human languages, that
had already been ascertained. But the meaning...
Avram shook himself, and once more tried to focus on his task. The
instrument package that they had brought with them was still in
place, and Svetlana was already opening it up and going over the
hardware. The package was the size of a large refrigerator, and
Avram watched in fascination as his colleague's fingers danced
through the jumble of circuitry, nimble and dexterous despite the
thick gloves of her pressure suit.
"There is nothing wrong here," she reported, as she continued to
work. "It is as I told you. The instruments are fine."
"There must be something," Avram objected. He slapped a hand against
the side of the service module in frustration. "Those readings are
absolutely --"
"Avram! You're drifting!" Svetlana's voice cut through his own
comment.
"What? Oh, shit." He was indeed drifting -- drifting away from the
station's hull, propelled by the slap he'd given it. Already, several
yards separated him from the station, and the gap was growing by the
second.
I was not trained for this, he thought angrily. It was never really
intended that we go outside, and I don't know how to handle myself.
He reached for the line that tethered him to the service module, but
it slithered out of his grasp. He twisted his torso, reaching after
it, but succeeded only in putting his body into a slow spin. God
damn it!
"Relax, Avram," Svetlana advised. "Stop struggling, and try to
relax. The line is only fifty meters long; you'll come to the end
shortly, and then I can pull you back in."
Avram nodded, and forced himself to follow her advice. It was
humiliating, but it was the best way. The stars, the Earth and the
station were wheeling slowly across his field of view, replacing each
other one after another in a steady, stately pinwheel, making him
slightly motion sick. He managed to focus his gaze, and realized
that he was gradually approaching the Ship. In fact he would pass
within arm's reach of it...
Without really thinking about it, he extended his arm, reaching out
to the hull of the strange vessel. Here was a chance to steady
himself, and at least regain some semblance of dignity. Just one
more revolution... yes, there it was, it was within reach --
And suddenly, everything changed. The stars, the station, the Earth,
Svetlana -- everything was gone. All that remained was the Ship. And
then even the Ship was gone --
Avram is in another place, standing on the bank of a large body of
water -- so large that he can't see across to the other side. The
water is dark and ominous, and roils and dances as if it were a
living thing, despite the absence of even the slightest breath of
wind. There's a pattern to its motions, but he can't quite make it
out...
And then his eyes widen, as he realizes what is happening. The
water... the water is actually dividing into two; it's moving *apart*,
forming a rapidly deepening trough at its very center, stretching
away from him towards the horizon. In a matter of seconds it has
completely separated, leaving a muddy, glistening strip of land in
its place -- a strip of land bounded on either side by towering,
ever-growing walls of dark, threatening water.
It would be madness to walk out between those walls; of that, Avram
is sure. The water is separating through no force he can discern,
and it could collapse back into itself just as quickly and easily. A
man would have to be a complete idiot to take such a risk.
But even as the thought is forming in his mind, he finds himself
moving forward. The hard, sandy shore he stands on quickly gives way
to soft, marshy ground, and he finds himself struggling to move
forward. This is stupid, he tells himself fiercely. This is
absolutely insane. With each step, he wills himself to turn around
and go back. He can *feel* himself doing it; he can feel himself
turning and moving back to the safety of dry land.
And yet, he does not. It occurs to him that there is safety on the
far side, and that there is more danger in remaining where he is than
there is in proceeding. Where this knowledge comes from, he doesn't
know, but the farther he progresses, the more this certainty settles
within his heart. And so it is with agonizing slowness that he
continues to pull each foot free of the mud in turn, making a
horrible sucking sound as he does so, moving ever forward. The walls
of water tremble threateningly on either side, and now are so high
that they block the sun. But even that does not deter him.
He has progressed perhaps five hundred yards when his luck runs out.
He hears it first as a low rumbling, like a giant subway train far in
the distance. He hesitates, squinting ahead, trying to deduce the
source of the noise, but there is nothing there -- nothing as far as
the eye can see, except for the towering walls of water, forming a
seemingly endless, dark corridor. Safety lies at the end of that
corridor, of that he is sure, but the rumbling is growing louder,
building rapidly towards a roar. He turns and looks behind him --
and for an instant he is frozen in fear.
The walls behind him are collapsing, coming down and moving steadily
towards him, like walls of dominoes. Already the shore he came from
is invisible, hidden in the mist of that terrible cataract. And with
each second the crashing roar is coming nearer, nearer, nearer...
He shakes himself from his stupor and turns to run, but he makes it
only a few steps before he loses his footing and falls to his knees.
Hastily, awkwardly, he struggles back to his feet. There is no time,
no time for anything but flight. His only chance is to make it to the
other side, but with each step he sinks a little deeper in the mud.
It's up to his ankles now, and seems to be pulling at him, seems to
be actively trying to bring him down.
At last, far, far in the distance, he can see the other shore, but
it's too far; he isn't going to make it. Every breath burns in his
lungs, and now he's surrounded by the mist -- the mist that foretells
the coming of the water. He falls again, and once more scrambles
back to his feet, but this time he makes it only a few steps before
falling yet a third time. He just has time to look back and see the
massive, unified wall of water towering high overhead before it
sweeps over him, leaving nothing behind.
ACT ONE
Residence of Dana Scully
Mulder was late. Thank God.
Scully studied herself in the full-length mirror that hung on the
back of her bedroom door. This was not that big a deal, she told
herself firmly. It was just Mulder, after all. Just her partner of
eight years. Just her best friend, and the only one she trusted in
all the world.
Just her lover.
Jesus. She still wasn't completely adjusted to that last part.
"Let me get this straight," she'd said, two days earlier, standing in
the doorway to their office. It was nearly five o'clock, and she'd
been on her way out the door when he stopped her with his question,
or request, or whatever the hell it was. "You just asked me out. On
a date."
"For Friday night," Mulder agreed. He was leaning back in his chair,
sleeves rolled up, glasses perched on the bridge of his nose, hands
clasped loosely behind his head. Only the slight quiver of tension
in the muscles of his forearms belied the studied casualness of his
pose. "Is that such an extreme possibility?"
Not such an extreme possibility, the rational part of her
acknowledged. They'd had a standing Friday night date for some time
now -- but that was to stay in and watch movies together. More
recently, they'd progressed to cuddling and necking, and finally to
lovemaking, but so far it had all been confined to his apartment, or
hers. They'd never been out in public before -- not as a couple --
and the idea was giving her the jitters.
It was also exciting her.
Mulder rose from his chair and moved slowly towards her, and Scully
felt her eyes widening as she realized that she was being, well,
stalked -- but she did not back away.
"I ... we've missed so much of the good stuff, Scully," he said,
speaking so softly she could barely hear him. "I just want to take
my best girl out for a night on the town. Is that so wrong?"
"*Best* girl?" she asked, pleased that she'd managed not to
stutter in the face of her partner's looming presence. She crossed
her arms in front of her and cocked an amused eyebrow at him. "Is
there something I should know about, Mulder?"
"Only girl," he amended, even more softly than before. He was now
standing directly in front of her, so close that she could smell the
remnants of his aftershave. He touched her elbow, sending sparks
jolting through her system, and lightly ran his fingertips down to
her wrist, repeating, "Only girl."
"Mulder," she managed, now forcing herself to take a reluctant step
back. "Not at the office. We agreed."
He smiled, and she knew he was awarding himself a point. Bastard.
"Quite right, Agent Scully," he replied, in a more normal tone of
voice. "So ... Friday night? Around seven?" Then came the killer
point: "Saturday is my birthday, after all. The big 4-0. Aren't I
entitled to one last fling before they ship me out to the Old Agents'
Home?"
So here she was, looking at herself in a mirror, wishing she'd taken
the extra time to get her hair cut Thursday night. And she wasn't
sure her clothes were right, either. She'd wavered, going back and
forth between trying to be sexy and feminine, and trying not to be
*too* ridiculous, finally settling on an ankle length skirt, and a
soft, light blue angora sweater with a vee neck.
"'Casual'," she mumbled, turning first one way and then the other as
she continued to examine herself in the mirror. "He said 'casual'."
She shook her head in despair. "This is not 'casual'; this is a
disaster." She was just turning back to her closet to look for
something else when her cell phone rang. With a sigh of annoyance,
she stepped over to the bureau and grabbed the phone.
"Yes, I know you're late," she said, without preamble.
There was a brief pause; then a man's voice said, "Agent Scully, this
is Assistant Director Skinner."
"Skinner," she replied. Automatically, she backed away from the
closet, until the backs of her legs bumped against the bed. Sitting
down abruptly, she went on, "Sir. What can I do for you?"
"I'm sorry to intrude on your weekend, Agent Scully," her supervisor
said. "But I'm afraid I have an assignment for you."
"An assignment," Scully repeated, trying to adjust to the quick
change in mood. Thirty seconds ago she'd been trying to decide
whether the clothes she was wearing were suggestive enough
to send Mulder the right message, without creating too much of a
public spectacle in the process, and now --
"That's right," the A.D. replied. "And I also regret the short
notice. But I need you to get out to Andrews immediately. Your
briefing is scheduled to begin in less than an hour."
"Briefing?" she asked. "At Andrews?" Andrews Air Force Base was
located a few miles southeast of Washington, just outside of the
Beltway. Scully suppressed a shudder as she thought about it, and
tried to remember the last time she or Mulder had legally entered a
military installation. "Sir, what's this all about?"
There was a brief pause at the other end, and Scully could almost
hear Skinner frowning. Finally: "Agent Scully, I have to confess
that I am unable to answer that question. I've been informed that
the nature of the assignment is on a need-to-know basis, and I
apparently do not have a need to know. However, I can assure you
that the officer managing the operation has established his bona
fides to my satisfaction, or I would not have agreed to your
participation. I can't say anymore than that over an unsecured
line."
There was another short silence, and Scully could hear papers
rustling. "In any case," her boss went on, "you are to report to
Andrews as soon as possible. I've been told that you should
expect to be gone for at least ten days, but that you need bring no
luggage. All of your personal necessities will be provided. I've
already spoken with Agent Mulder, and he said to tell you that he'll
meet you there. Do you have any questions?"
At least a thousand, she thought -- perhaps more. But apparently
none that Skinner could -- or would -- answer, so she simply said,
"No, sir."
"Very well, Agent Scully. Good luck." And the connection was broken.
# # #
Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland
Mulder paced in long, slow ovals next to his car, under the watchful
eyes of the two Air Police sentries guarding the gate. He'd arrived
twenty minutes before, and now was waiting for Scully, still a little
bemused that nothing untoward had happened when he presented himself
at the main entrance. At least, so far he hadn't been beaten,
arrested, drugged or subjected to any of the various indignities that
usually accompanied his visits to military facilities. Of course,
they hadn't actually let him beyond a holding area just inside the
gate, but still...
He stopped pacing for a moment, and his gaze drifted over to the jeep
parked on the other side of the road, about twenty feet from where he
stood. The vehicle had been there since he arrived, its engine
slowly turning over, its headlights illuminating the guardhouse. The
sentries seemed oblivious to the jeep's presence -- which was only
fair, since the Marine Corps major and the Navy commander sitting in
the jeep were paying them no attention, either.
But all four of them were watching Mulder's every move.
Mulder shook his head and turned away, jamming his hands in his
pockets and resuming his pacing. This wasn't exactly how he'd
planned to spend his Friday evening. Dinner, a movie... maybe a
little barhopping. A late night walk through Rock Creek Park. Was a
few hours of normality in their lives really too much to ask?
Apparently so.
He stopped pacing again as another set of headlights appeared in the
distance, approaching the gate from the outside. A few seconds later
Scully's Camry was rolling to a stop, and her face became visible
behind the windshield. She exchanged a few sentences with the
guards, then was allowed to enter the base. She parked her car next
to Mulder's, climbed out of it, and walked over to where he was
standing.
"Hey there... Gorgeous?" Mulder said in a slow drawl, allowing an
appreciative smile to creep across his features, despite the
circumstances. He let his gaze briefly travel up and down her body,
taking in the long, billowy skirt, and the soft, not-quite-revealing
sweater. Nice, he thought, with a fresh pang of regret. Damn. I
think we missed a good time tonight.
She cocked an eyebrow at him, considering, then shook her head.
"No, I don't think so," she replied, a hint of a smile tugging at the
corners of her mouth.
"Well, we'll just have to keep working on it," he answered, locking
eyes with her. A few weeks ago he'd announced a campaign to
find a term of endearment that Dana Scully would deem acceptable to
her innate sense of dignity. She'd just shot down alternative number
fourteen. That was fine with Mulder. He had plenty of others he
hadn't tried yet.
"Agents Mulder and Scully?" Mulder reluctantly looked away from his
partner, to see that the Marine Corps major had left the jeep, and
now stood a few feet away, staring at them with cool, expressionless
eyes. Mulder cocked an eyebrow at the soldier as he realized that
the man's nametag was missing from his breast pocket, and that he was
not wearing any unit insignia.
"I have orders to take you to the briefing," the major stated,
nodding his head towards the jeep. "If you'll both come with me?"
Mulder glanced at Scully. She shrugged eloquently, and nodded, and
the two of them fell in step as they followed the man back to the
jeep. A few seconds later they were climbing in back, as the Marine
settled once more into the front passenger seat. The Navy officer
threw the vehicle into gear, pulled a sharp u-turn, and sped on into
the base.
The drive through the base was short and silent. Anonymous buildings
loomed out of the darkness, and road signs and directories flashed by
so quickly that Mulder couldn't make out more than a word or two
before they were gone. They passed through several security
checkpoints without incident, and soon were approaching flight
operations. But instead of driving up to it, they skirted it on an
access road, cleared one final security check, and finally drove out
onto the tarmac itself, coming to a halt a hundred feet or so from an
unmarked business jet.
The other two men climbed from the jeep, but Mulder sat tight. Scully
didn't move either. The Navy man and the Marine made it about five
paces before they realized that they weren't being followed. They
turned back to the jeep, their features still calm, expressionless.
"Agents?" the Marine said. "If you'll come with us, please? There
really isn't very much time."
"Where are we going, exactly?" Mulder asked. The resentment he'd
felt ever since receiving Skinner's call was rising to the surface,
blending itself with unease at finding himself once again at the
mercy of strangers in uniform.
"Agent Mulder, please," the Marine replied. He nodded towards the
aircraft. "Your briefing will be conducted en route, to save time."
He glanced at Scully, and added, in the same cool, even tones, "The
fucking fish said to tell you to get your ass in gear."
Mulder blinked in surprise, but before he had a chance to respond he
felt Scully stirring next to him. "The fucking fish said that?" she
asked. He turned his head, and saw an odd little smile on her face.
"Yes, Agent Scully."
"Well, I guess that's it, then," she replied. She climbed from her
seat and jumped to the ground. She hesitated for a second, then
turned and reached out and took one of Mulder's hands, pulling him
out after her. If either of the military officers thought the not-
quite-partnerly gesture unusual, it didn't show on their faces.
"Let's go, Mulder. I think it's okay."
He allowed her to lead him over to the plane, but his mind was
working furiously. The fucking fish? Get your ass in gear? What the
hell was *that* all about? Scully had responded to it instantly,
so it obviously meant something to her. But what? For the first time
in their long partnership, Mulder was getting a taste of what it was
like when the other person knows more than you do, and he didn't
like it.
Well, nothing to do but go with it, at least for the moment. Skinner
had assured him on the phone that this wasn't a trap of some kind,
but despite the thaw in their relationship in recent months, the A.D.
had been manipulated and forced to act against their interests once
too often for Mulder to take everything he said at face value. But
if Scully thought it was okay, then it must be okay -- even if he
didn't understand the source of her confidence.
He followed her and the two officers up the steps of the plane and
stepped inside, and as quickly as that, he knew. Another man stood
just inside the entryway waiting for them. A Navy officer. Tall, red
hair, blue eyes, pale complexion -- and with a face Mulder had seen
many times in photographs, but never in person.
Charles Scully. The mythical younger Scully brother.
"Charlie Tuna!" Scully said, quickly closing the gap and throwing her
arms around her brother. He returned the embrace with easy
familiarity, lifting her briefly off her feet and setting her down
again. "It's been too long," she went on, looking up at him fondly.
"Are Betty and the kids --"
"No." He shook his head sharply, and the friendly smile he'd been
wearing died. "No one knows I'm here, Dana. No one *can* know, and
that goes for Mom and Billy, as well. As far as they know, I'm still
with the Sixth Fleet's Threat Team. Okay?" Mulder had already noted
that, like the other two men, Scully's brother wore no nametag or
unit insignia.
"Okay," she agreed. She was still looking up at him, but her
expression had sobered. Now she reached up and delicately touched
his collar. "*Captain* Scully?" she asked, her voice tinged with
surprise and skepticism.
"Don't tell Billy," he replied with a wintry smile. "I don't want
to have to deal with the tantrum." The smile died again. "It's brevet
rank, Dana. Strictly temporary, to allow me to carry out my duties
more effectively." At last he released her, and turned to face Mulder
-- and now his expression was cool and professional, almost remote,
much as those the other two officers still wore. "Agent Mulder," he
said, extending his hand. "A pleasure to meet you at last. Sorry
about the circumstances."
"The pleasure's mine, Captain," Mulder said slowly, returning the
other man's grip. He glanced at his partner, and saw that she was
watching the two of them intently. What was she looking for? Was this
man another Bill? Or was there something else going on? He couldn't
tell -- and at the moment, it wasn't the most important issue to
consider. Apparently Charles Scully thought so, too, because after a
moment he broke eye contact, released Mulder's hand, and without
another word he led the two agents back to the passenger compartment.
The other two officers had preceded them, and had already taken
seats. The compartment was furnished as a boardroom-style meeting
room, with a long conference table where the center aisle would
normally be, and seats spaced around it. The seats were bolted to
the floor, and were designed to swivel to face the front during
takeoffs and landings. A video screen was set into the front
bulkhead, and desktop computers were spaced around the table. The
floor was covered with a deep, luxurious carpet.
Some digs, Mulder thought as he surveyed the setup. He was still
feeling a little jittery, and with a normal, anonymous military
briefer, he probably would have relieved some of that tension by
voicing that comment, or perhaps something a bit stronger. But this
was Scully's brother, he reminded himself. It was probably better to
lie low for the time being.
Things then progressed very quickly. As Mulder was taking a seat
next to Scully and fumbling with his safety belt, two men in flight
suits passed through the compartment, from back to front. Almost
immediately, he heard the engines start, and the plane jerked into
motion. A few minutes later, they were in the air.
"So where are we going?" Mulder demanded, as they all adjusted their
seats to face the conference table. Scully was sitting next to him,
still looking tense from a more dramatic than usual takeoff. She'd
never quite gotten over her fear of flying, even after all these
years of constant travel. Mulder was feeling a little green about
the gills, himself; for a minute or two he'd wondered if the plane
was going to flip over on its back.
"Houston, Texas," Charles Scully answered. He pulled a briefcase
from under his seat and opened it. He extracted a couple of binders
and slid them across the table to the two agents. "You'll want to
look at the details," he continued. "But let me give you a little
background first -- and I'm going to warn you up front that you're
going to have a lot of questions, and I won't be able to answer some
of them. This material is heavily compartmentalized, need-to-know
only. Understood?"
The two agents nodded, and Charles continued, "From the background
checks we did on you, I have a general idea of the work you two do,
and we don't have a lot of time, so I'm simply going to lay this
out." He leaned forward, folding his hands in front of him on the
table. "There is a small, unofficial group within the intelligence
community that has come to believe that there is a conspiracy against
the government."
Mulder carefully kept his face expressionless, and out of the corner
of his eye he could see that Scully was doing the same. After a few
seconds, her brother continued, "That doesn't seem to be much of a
shock to either of you. That's what I thought. You probably also
won't be surprised to hear that some of us further believe that this
conspiracy extends past the United States, and encompasses the entire
industrialized world."
"Tell us something we don't know," Mulder murmured. Scully glanced
at him, one eyebrow quivering, but he couldn't tell whether it was
from annoyance or amusement. A large part of him was screaming that
this was a trap; he had bitter memories of Michael Kritschgau. But
this was Scully's brother, he reminded himself again. This was her
*brother*. Surely, if anyone was entitled to the benefit of the
doubt --
"Because of the lack of official sanction for our activities, the
group I belong to has very limited resources," Charles went on. He
smiled briefly, without humor. "There's also the small problem of
not being sure who we can trust."
Yeah. Mulder knew about that, too.
"So we've been forced to nibble around the edges," Captain Scully
said. "Pick up the odd fact here, make a few inferences there, and
gradually try to connect the dots. All while doing our regular work,
of course, and doing our best to avoid alerting the targets of our
investigations. Some of us also have to be careful not to tip off
our supervisors of record."
He leaned towards his sister, his eyes taking on an intensity that
Mulder recognized only because he'd seen it in the mirror on so many
mornings. "This is really big, Dana." His voice was low and firm. "It
goes back at least fifty years -- maybe more. It reaches into every
branch of government, and Christ knows how many foreign countries."
For a few seconds the compartment was silent, other than the distant
rumble of the jet engines. Mulder studied the man's face, trying to
divine his intent. He looked serious and sincere -- but was he?
Sure, Mulder knew that the things he was saying were true -- but
that didn't mean he should necessarily trust the man. What, exactly,
was Charles Scully's involvement in all this? And what was he asking
his sister and her partner to do? Mulder shook his head slightly. He
didn't know the answers to any of those questions, and it was clear
that the other man was determined to tell the story in the manner of
his own choosing. They were just going to have to wait and see.
"Ten days ago," Charles continued at last, almost as if he'd been
waiting for Mulder to finish thinking, "NSA assets detected unusual
burst transmissions originating from the International Space Station.
Most of the signals were directed at Lubumbashi, at the southern tip
of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
"Back in the 1970s, Lubumbashi was a base of operations for a West
German company called OTRAG. Ostensibly, the company's purpose was
to create a non-governmental space program, in order to facilitate
commercial exploitation of near-Earth space. In fact, it also had
ties with various western intelligence agencies, including the CIA.
The destruction of OTRAG's launch facilities was the actual primary
goal of the Soviet-backed invasion of what was then known as Zaire by
Cuban mercenaries, in 1977. With me so far?"
"Yes," Scully replied. "What you're saying is that somebody is
sending unauthorized transmissions from the space station to a space
launch site long since believed to be destroyed and abandoned."
"Correct," her brother affirmed. "Further, we have been unable to
decipher these transmissions. Whatever the code is, it's a damned
good one. NSA can and does crack any commercial code in existence,
and most military ones." Another cold smile flickered across his
features. "That's classified information, by the way." Once again, he
sobered.
"As you may be aware," he continued, "the space station is still
under construction; nevertheless, it has been continuously manned
since last October -- about a year, now. The current crew has been
on board since July. However, there was a resupply mission just
under two weeks ago, and it was after that mission that the station's
normal pattern of telemetry stopped, to be replaced by the encrypted
burst transmissions I mentioned. I must stress, though, that NASA
has acknowledged none of this. As far as they're concerned,
everything continues to be copacetic."
"How can that be?" Scully objected, her brow furrowed in thought.
"The crew's research products would be distributed to a wide variety
of people both inside and outside the government. It wouldn't take
long for some of them to realize --"
"Too true, Dana," Charles agreed with a nod. "At the moment, no data
is being released groundside. At all. The blackout is being blamed on
technical difficulties with NASA's data processing system." He paused
to glance at Mulder, then back to his sister. "As you might imagine,
this is not playing well with the station's other stakeholders,
especially overseas, and the excuses are wearing more than a little
thin. My group's contact at NSA has confirmed that... well, let's
just say that we know there is nothing wrong with NASA's equipment.
Which means that the NASA hierarchy is in this up to their eyeballs."
"In what?" Mulder asked. He was starting to get an inkling as to
where this was heading, but he wanted the other man to spell it out.
"What are you leading up to?"
"We did some research," Charles replied. "And we discovered
through... various means that the resupply mission was commandeered."
"By who?" Scully prompted.
"We don't know," her brother replied with a shake of his head. "All
we know is that three people, two men and a woman, were placed on
that flight at the last minute, and that their names and functions do
not appear on the manifest. They also took up several extra payloads
-- but again, what those payloads were, we don't know. The official
payloads scheduled for that flight also went up -- mostly supplies
and spare parts, as I said. And the shuttle returned two days later,
empty, except for the pilot and co-pilot. But they aren't talking.
Not to anyone who will talk to us, anyway."
"So the three unknowns stayed aboard," Mulder commented. "Along with
their luggage."
"Apparently. And it was after their arrival that the regular
telemetry ceased, and the burst transmissions began. And then, three
days ago, the burst transmissions increased in frequency -- and
abruptly stopped altogether a few hours later."
"So what happened?" That was Scully, and from the tension in her
voice, Mulder suspected that she had also figured out where Charles
was leading them.
"Again, we don't know," he answered. "But we're going to find out.
We have four flag officers in our group, and they've called in every
favor available. The upshot is, we've diverted the next launch of
space shuttle Atlantis to our own use, and we're sending up a
handpicked crew to find out what the hell's going on."
Once again he leaned towards his sister, and the intensity in his
gaze deepened. "We can't afford to sit this one out, Dana, and we've
got our collective necks stuck way out. The commander and the major,"
he nodded at the other two men, who had sat quietly throughout the
briefing, "are the pilots. We've chosen two others as technical
experts." He paused, glanced at Mulder again, very briefly, then
finished, "And then there's the two of you."
"The two of us?" Scully repeated.
"That's right, Dana," her brother agreed. "I know it sounds nutty,
but I also think it makes sense, and my admiral agrees. Quite
frankly, some of the things we've been finding out are scaring me,
and I'm not sure who I can trust. You and your partner have some
basic knowledge of counterespionage, because of your FBI backgrounds.
You also probably know more about the conspiracy than *I* do and,
well, you're family." He smiled, grimly and briefly. "One of the
first things you learn in intelligence work is that you shouldn't put
too much faith in such connections, but in this case, I don't feel I
have much choice."
"That's not exactly a ringing endorsement," Mulder said into the
ensuing silence.
Charles Scully looked at him and nodded unapologetically. "No, it's
not," he replied. "But in this line of work, sometimes you have to
make do. I'm sure that's not a new idea to either of you." He looked
at Mulder speculatively for another moment, then turned his attention
back to Scully. "In any case, you'd better get started with those
briefing books. We'll be landing in Houston in a couple of hours,
and then your *real* training begins." He glanced at his watch. "Lift
off is in just over seventy-two hours."
ACT TWO
Kennedy Space Center
"This is Shuttle Launch Control, at T minus nine minutes and
holding." Scully started at the sudden voice blaring from the
overhead speaker, then swore softly to herself for overreacting.
The voice continued, "In a few seconds we will be leaving the forty
minute planned hold and resuming the countdown. The project managers
have been polled, and verify that they are go for launch. Final GLS
configuration is complete." There was a brief pause, and Scully
found herself holding her breath. "We have GLS auto sequence start,
and operations recorders are on. We are now exiting the planned
hold; T minus nine minutes and counting. This is Shuttle Launch
Control."
Damn. It wasn't that she actually wanted the launch to be scrubbed;
Charles had convinced her of the necessity during the flight to
Houston that first night. But although she'd long since become
resigned to flying, due to her work on the X-Files and the need for
frequent travel, she'd never gotten to like it. And this... this was
nothing she'd ever thought might happen. Not in her wildest
imaginings. For some people -- including her partner -- this was a
dream; the opportunity of a lifetime. For Dana Scully, it was a
nightmare.
She shifted uncomfortably in her seat, trying for the thousandth time
in the past three days to push the unpleasant thoughts and feelings
away, and suppressed another curse as the shoulder harness bit into
the side of her neck. The technician who'd helped her buckle in had
cinched it a little too tight, but Scully had been reluctant to
complain.
That was three hours ago. Three hours of waiting in this damned,
uncomfortable seat, while the restraint slowly cut off her
circulation. Damn NASA for their schedules and protocols -- schedules
and protocols that had resulted in three hours of *planned*
discomfort. And she'd thought the Bureau was bad!
She'd certainly learned all she ever wanted to know about NASA, and
then some, over the past three days. From the moment they arrived in
Houston, late on Friday evening, every waking hour -- including some
that should have been spent sleeping -- had been devoted to plans and
preparations. Scully understood that they were trying to cram months
of training into a long weekend, but that knowledge simply added to
her stress level. God alone knew what was being left out -- or how
much of what they had been told she was going to remember when she
really needed it. This whole thing was preposterous.
She turned her head to the left and looked at the two Russians
sitting in the adjacent seats. Azerbaijani, she corrected in her
mind. The two technical specialists had been quite sensitive about
that distinction. At the moment, they seemed calm and unperturbed --
but of course, *they* had been trained for this sort of thing. They
were volunteers. Well, so was she -- sort of.
Her only consolation was that Mulder appeared to be having the time
of his life. He was like a kid in a candy store, and watching him
dive into it all had helped Scully take her mind off of her own
troubles.
She shuddered in spite of herself; she still couldn't decide which
she'd hated more -- the centrifuge, or that damned airplane. What
had the flight crew called it? The one that was supposed to acclimate
them to weightlessness -- the vomit comet, that was it. Those long,
looping trajectories that made the deck of the plane drop out from
under her. She was falling, falling, falling --
No she wasn't. She was *not* falling. She was strapped in her seat,
secure as could be. She'd taken her undergraduate degree in physics;
she knew better than most people exactly what forces would be
operating in a few minutes when Atlantis leapt up off the launching
pad. Everything was going to be fine; perfectly fine --
"Hey, Scully."
Scully jumped. "Mulder," she said. "What?"
"You remember that copier on the third floor of the Hoover? The one
that always gets a paper jam when you most need it?" His voice was
low, for her ears only, and tinged with amusement. Bless him; he was
trying to divert her with one of his little jokes or stories.
"Yeah," she said. "What about it?"
"It was purchased on a government contract," her partner replied,
mischief dancing in his eyes. "From the lowest bidder." He paused
for a fraction of a second. "Too."
Scully closed her eyes and swallowed. Through gritted teeth:
"Mulder, you are such an asshole."
A soft chuckle. "That's why you love me."
Scully couldn't bring herself to answer. The hellish thing was, he
was right. His irreverence, his disrespect for authority, even his
occasional displays of attitude -- these were all things that she
found attractive in him. No, more than attractive. Compelling.
Necessary. Dana Scully had long ago reconciled herself to the fact
that she was drawn to "bad boys". But such liaisons did have their
price -- such as now, when what she wanted more than anything was to
be cuddled and cherished, and told that she didn't need to be afraid.
She heard a distant clunking sound, but before she had time to wonder
what it was, the overhead speaker sounded again. "This is Shuttle
Launch Control, at T minus seven minutes, thirty seconds and
counting. The orbiter access arm has been successfully retracted,
and we are go for APU prestart."
The orbiter access arm. Once again, Scully couldn't keep herself
from shuddering. The orbiter access arm included the walkway they'd
used to reach the crew compartment. They were truly cut off now,
with no way out other than the escape slide that they'd been told
about, but lacked the time to practice on. Scully suspected the lack
of practice time meant the slide was more for show than for use.
>From the hurried reading she'd done in the last few days, it seemed
to her that if anything went wrong, they'd either have plenty of
time, or none at all --
"Scully?"
Mulder's voice was quieter this time, more serious. Once again she
turned her head to look at him, but this time she didn't speak.
"Do you remember the moon landing?" he asked after a moment.
"No," she replied with a shake of the head. "I was too young. And the
space program wasn't a big deal in my family, anyway."
"I was seven years old," Mulder said. "Going on eight. It was... it
was ... I dunno. I just don't know how to describe it. It was the
most wonderful thing I'd ever seen in my life." He paused for a
moment, obviously struggling to find the words, and Scully found
herself being drawn in, captured by the intensity of his gaze and his
voice. "It was like ... magic. Can you imagine, Scully? Can you?"
"I'm trying, Mulder," she said, as steadily as she could. "Tell me
about it, and maybe I'll be able to." Anything to take her mind off
what was about to happen.
"Okay." He glanced briefly past her, apparently gauging whether the
other two in the crew compartment could hear him. Lowering his voice
a little, he went on, "It was in July, but you probably already know
that." She nodded. "It was in July," he repeated. "A rainy evening.
We were actually in D.C. that summer -- Dad and Samantha and me,
I mean. Mom didn't like it in Washington,especially during hot
weather."
Scully nodded again, suddenly wishing that she could reach out and
take his hand. These glimpses of his childhood -- especially his
childhood before the loss of his sister -- were so rare and precious
to her. Her fears of a moment ago were forgotten; she just wanted to
crawl into his arms and listen all night, to whatever he felt like
telling her. "Go on," she whispered.
"There wasn't a lot of television in those days," he continued, his
warm, hazel eyes locked on hers. "No cable. D.C. had, I dunno, six
or eight stations, and a couple of them were UHF, and you had to have
a special antenna to get them." He smiled. "No Playboy Channel. How
barbaric is that?"
"Primitive," she agreed.
"Anyway," Mulder went on, "they took everything else off the air. I
mean, for a couple of days there was nothing on TV but this
continuous special report. It was as if the whole world was holding
its breath. They said later that one fourth of the world's population
heard or saw at least part of it. I remember this one ad they kept
showing -- about how someday they'd be able to replace telephone
wires with beams of light, or make transistors so small they'd pass
through the eye of a needle."
"Fiber optics," Scully said. "And microchips."
He nodded, and his voice abruptly dropped so low she could barely
hear him. "And then suddenly it was real," he said. "It was really
happening. The picture was black and white, and so grainy you could
barely tell what you were looking at. But then you... you learned
how to look at it, and you realized that it was a man, hopping slowly
down the ladder. And on the screen it suddenly said, 'Live from the
moon'. Scully... it was... it was..." Words seemed to fail him, and
he simply shook his head.
"I wish I could have seen it with you," she said softly. She thought
about the keychain he'd given her as a birthday gift, so many years
ago. So she'd been right after all, when she'd guessed at its
significance. "I wish I could have been there." How often had they
had the opportunity to share something wonderful like that? Their
lives were so wrapped up in tragedy and darkness.
They sat in silence for a minute or two, and Scully tried to think
about Mulder as a little boy, on the day men landed on the moon for
the first time. She felt a brief surge of anger at his mother, for
having destroyed all his boyhood pictures, but she quickly suppressed
it. Nothing to be done about it, and she still had her imagination...
The overhead speaker blared again, informing her that there were two
minutes until launch, and that the external fuel tank had been topped
off with liquid hydrogen. Despite herself, Scully found herself
being drawn back into the matter at hand. Her traitor memory called
up visions of the Hindenburg, and then of Challenger -- but the
latter tragedy, she vaguely remembered, had had to do with a failure
in the solid rocket boosters, not the huge tank of hydrogen strapped
to the belly of the ship. And they'd fixed that problem; they must
have, or the shuttles wouldn't be flying again, Mulder's jokes about
the lowest bidder notwithstanding.
More than one hundred launches, she reminded herself, silently
reciting a statistic she'd gleaned from the Internet the previous
night, in an effort to calm her nerves. More than one hundred
launches, and only one failure, and that was years ago. Everything's
going to be fine.
Suddenly, everything seemed to be happening very quickly, giving
Scully that breathless feeling of fear and anticipation that she got
when a rollercoaster was about to ease over the top of the highest
peak. Too late to turn back now. Far, far too late.
Her ears buzzed with jargon, as launch control made more
announcements, things she thought she should understand, if only
she'd had time to really study the damned briefing book. Things about
SRB joint heaters and MDM critical commands; and then they were go
for redundant set launch sequence start, and the hydraulic power
units were started, and dear God there were only twenty-eight seconds
left --
"It's gonna be okay, Scully."
Scully swallowed and nodded, staring straight ahead. It was going to
be okay. Right. She knew that. And if it wasn't, it would in all
probability be over very, very quickly.
There was a sudden roar, a terrible white noise, as the main engines
ignited, and Atlantis began to vibrate -- but it did not move. Six more
seconds, she thought. Six seconds while the engines built to full
power. Then the clamps holding the ship down would be released --
She heard a deep clunk, and a clang, and the entire shuttle
shuddered. Scully felt her pulse increase, but before she had time
to articulate in her mind what was happening, her seat *surged* under
her. The roar intensified, and Scully realized that the solid rockets
were now also firing, and that they were *moving* -- lifting up off
the pad.
# # #
"Crew confirms roll program. Cheyenne Mountain now controlling.
Three engines at 104 percent."
"'I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,'" Mulder murmured to
himself, under the roar of the engines. "'And danced the skies on
laughter-silvered wings.'" They were really doing it; they were
really moving. With some effort, his weight already increasing under
the shuttle's relentless acceleration, he turned his head to look at
Scully -- and immediately, all the joy of the moment was sucked out
of him.
God, she looked terrible. Not that it was likely to be obvious to
anyone but him, but he knew her very well, and she couldn't hide her
feelings from him -- not anymore. Not since they'd become lovers.
Her fear showed in a thousand different ways, from the tiny crinkles
at the corners of her eyes, to the slight thinning of her lips, to
the artificial stiffness of her posture -- plus countless other clues
so subtle that even Mulder couldn't name them, although he could
still perceive them, on some subliminal level.
And they added up to fear.
He silently cursed himself for his attempt at humor a few minutes
earlier. Damn that smart mouth of his, anyway. He'd long ago learned
to use jokes as weapons against fear and despair, but Scully wasn't
like that. He'd known that for a long time, but for many years one of
the emotions he'd used his sense of humor against had been his
feelings for his partner, as a sort of distancing strategy.
Unfortunately, one of the side effects of this was that he tended to
be a little blind to her needs, sometimes. He no longer needed to
keep Scully at arm's length, of course, but old habits died hard.
"Passing through max Q. Atlantis go at throttle up."
The engines had let up a bit, as the shuttle passed through the
lower, thicker part of the atmosphere. Now that the air was thinning
the acceleration built to full strength once again, and Mulder felt
himself being pressed deeper into the padding of his seat, as his
weight doubled and then tripled. Had it really been more than a
minute already? It seemed impossible, but that was when this was
supposed to happen, so it must be true.
He wished he could be up on the flight deck, in the pilot's seat.
He'd seen it at the Air and Space Museum's IMAX theater on more than
one occasion, even dragging Scully along with him a time or two, but
this was the real thing. If it were daytime, the sky would be turning
a progressively deeper blue. As it was, the stars would be growing
gradually brighter, their true colors becoming visible. There'd been
some thin, wispy clouds when they walked out to the transport
vehicle a few hours earlier; those must already be below them --
A dull, clunking sound and a sharp jolt announced that the solid
rocket boosters had been jettisoned. Almost immediately, the
loudspeaker informed them that they were now thirty miles high, and
nearly forty miles east of the launch site. Already their velocity
exceeded one mile per second -- and of course, they were still
accelerating, as the main engines continued to fire.
Once again, Mulder turned his attention to Scully. She was still
staring straight ahead, her eyes wide open. Her features were
somewhat distorted by the acceleration, but she seemed to be a little
calmer now that they were finally on the way. Her lips were moving
soundlessly, and after a few seconds Mulder recognized the Ave
Maria. In Latin, no less, he thought with a smile. Well, whatever
worked for her.
Reassured that Scully seemed to be working her way through it -- as
she always did -- Mulder settled back in his seat to enjoy the ride.
# # #
Space Shuttle Atlantis
After chasing the space station for the better part of a day,
Atlantis finally matched orbits and was ready to make rendezvous.
Scully had spent the time getting used to zero gravity, and doing her
best to help Mulder adjust, as he'd become violently motion sick as
soon as the engines cut off, only eight and a half minutes into the
flight. Fortunately, the shuttle stocked compazine in its first aid
kit, Mulder being far from the first space traveler ever to have such
a reaction. Despite his discomfort, her partner had insisted on
struggling his way to the windows as soon as it was permitted, while
Scully floated along behind, anxiously holding a vomit bag at the
ready.
Floating. That was something different, Scully had to admit. She'd
brushed off Mulder's pre-launch wisecracks about joining the zero gee
club, but now that she was becoming accustomed to it, she realized
that there were definite possibilities. Too bad they lacked the time
and privacy to take advantage of the situation. Not that Mulder was
really up to it, in any case. He wasn't *that* much better.
She let her gaze drift around the cabin. Once more they were all
strapped in their seats, while the pilot maneuvered Atlantis closer
to the station. The other two passengers -- the Azerbaijani
technicians -- seemed stoic and reserved, just as they had been
throughout the abbreviated training and then the flight itself.
They were both short and dark complexioned, and the only names that
they'd given were Abbasov and Mahammadov, while the pilots were
going by Commander Jones and Major Smith. Everyone seemed to know
who she and Mulder were, however. Scully supposed that was
reasonable; the two of them were the outsiders, after all. But it
still made her uneasy, and made her wonder what else her brother knew
that he hadn't told them.
She'd spent quite a bit of time thinking about Charles' role in all
this, the past few days. As children they'd been very close, and had
formed a sort of an alliance against Bill and Melissa -- the two
younger kids against the two older ones. This affinity had persisted
all the way through high school, and although their bond had started
to attenuate when Scully left for college, it had never been
completely dissolved.
She hadn't seen much of him the last few years, though -- not since
she'd been assigned to the X-Files, in fact. Part of her wondered if
there was a connection there. Was Charles aware of the Consortium
and its activities that far back? Or was it simply part of the
larger pattern of social and professional isolation she'd experienced
as a result of her partnership with Mulder? If he *had* been aware,
what did that say about his failure to warn her about what she was
getting herself into, all those years ago?
Did she really know her little brother anymore?
Her seat jolted under her, as it had done several times in the past
half hour. The pilot was making a number of small course corrections
as they approached the space station, preparatory to docking. Much
to Mulder's vocal frustration, they'd been required to strap down
before they'd gotten close enough to get a good look at their
destination, but now they should be almost there, assuming that they
were still on schedule.
Suddenly there was another jolt, much longer than any of the others.
Scully was thrown violently forward against her shoulder straps, and
her lap belt cut into her waist. Her eyes watered, and she gasped.
The final approach had been described as a series of "gentle nudges",
but this hardly qualified. She felt her pre-launch fear struggling to
break free once again, but she ruthlessly suppressed it. Something
was wrong --
And then, just as abruptly, the pressure was gone. She heard the
distant crackling of radios from the flight deck, but the crew
compartment speaker remained silent; apparently they had been cut off
from whatever conversation was occurring between the pilots and
mission control.
The silence in the crew compartment stretched on. A minute passed.
Two. Scully looked over at Mulder, but he shook his head without
speaking, raising his eyebrows to indicate he had no more idea than
she did what was happening. She glanced in the other direction, at
Abbasov and Mahammadov, and saw that they were staring
placidly at the overhead bulkhead, their faces set in expressionless
masks.
It's not really an *overhead* bulkhead, she reminded herself, trying
to distract herself from the latest mystery. They were in orbit now;
in free fall. There was no up or down here. No overhead; no
underfoot. Every perception was ephemeral, and dependent on the
observer. Everything was relative. Einstein was right --
"The payload specialists will report to the flight deck." Scully
blinked in surprise at the sudden announcement from the loudspeaker.
Payload specialists -- that was NASA speak for her and Mulder and the
two technicians. Non-NASA people, non-astronauts, assigned to a
specific mission for a specific purpose. Such as this one.
Scully found that she'd already unbuckled her harness while she was
thinking. A look at Mulder and she saw that he had done the same,
although he was moving more cautiously than she, and looked as if his
stomach was bothering him again. He nodded, though, and waved for
her to precede him.
Slowly and carefully, working her way from one handhold to the next,
Scully made her way towards the flight deck, glancing occasionally
over her shoulder to see that Mulder was following. Abbasov and
Mahammadov, who had proven to be more experienced in zero gee, had
already reached the short ladder, and were pulling themselves up it,
towards the flight deck. A moment or two later, Scully and Mulder
followed.
As always, it took Scully a few seconds to get oriented, once she
reached the flight deck. The pilot stations were a welter of
confusing dials and switches -- more than two thousand controls and
displays, she remembered from the hasty briefing sessions. Arching
over the pilots were six large windows, and through the windows she
could see the Earth, huge and round and blue and white, looking
closer and far more real than seemed possible.
Surly bonds, indeed, she thought, remembering with a faint smile the
poem Mulder had recited for her the night before liftoff. She'd told
him the truth when she said the space program hadn't been important
to her family but this -- this view of the Earth was quite possibly
the most beautiful thing Scully had ever seen.
"Good Christ! What's that?"
She swiveled sharply to look at Mulder, almost losing her grip on her
handhold in the process, but he was not looking back at her. Rather,
his gaze was focused out the window on the far left. He was looking
at something... he was looking at the space station, she realized.
It floated there, perhaps five hundred yards distant, glinting in the
sunlight against a backdrop of stars, looking just as it had in the
photographs they'd been shown.
No, not *just* like the pictures. There was something else there as
well. Something large and round and dark. She let go of her handhold,
and allowed herself to drift a little closer to the window.
"My God!"
It was the ship. The ship she'd seen in Africa almost two years
before. Or if not the same ship, then one very much like it: large
and disk shaped, and made of some dark metal. They were too far away
for her to see whether there were symbols etched on the surface, but
something inside her whispered that they were there. And it was
floating in space next to the station, tethered to it by half a dozen
cables.
"That's why we called you up here," Commander Jones said from the
pilot's seat. His voice was calm and uninflected. The perfect fighter
jock, dealing with an unexpected situation. "Your opinions, please.
Does the presence of this craft endanger the mission?"
"Where did it come from?" Mulder asked.
"I don't know, Agent Mulder," the commander replied. "We've had
visual contact with the station for quite some time, but we did not
see... that until a few minutes ago." He frowned, as if in disapproval
at an unruly universe. "It seemed to materialize out of nothing as we
closed to within a thousand meters." Glancing at one of his
instruments: "It still isn't showing up on radar."
"That's impossible," Scully said.
"Yes, Agent Scully, it is," Commander Jones agreed. "Nevertheless,
it has happened. Again, I require your opinions. Does this
phenomenon endanger the safety of the mission?" His gaze flicked to
the two Azerbaijani technicians. "Gentlemen? Your views, please."
Abbasov glanced at Mahammadov and the two exchanged a few
muttered sentences in a language Scully didn't recognize. Abbasov
then shrugged, and said, in heavily accented English, "There are
too few data. We are unable to make any recommendation."
"I agree," Mulder said. He looked at Scully, and his eyelids
flickered. "I've never seen anything like it, but it's quite
obviously connected to the problem we were sent to investigate. I
don't think we have any choice but to proceed."
Scully hesitated, as she realized that her partner did not intend to
disclose their previous encounter with a ship like this. In a perfect
world, they would share all the information they had, in hopes of
furthering their collective understanding. This was not a perfect
world, and for the moment she saw no alternative but to back
Mulder's play.
"I agree with Agent Mulder," she said smoothly. "There may be risks,
but they are outweighed by the potential gains. I recommend we
proceed."
"Very well," the commander said with a nod. If he was surprised by
their conclusion, he didn't show it. "Return to your seats, and we
will complete our final approach."
It took only a moment for the four of them to once more take their
positions and strap themselves in. Atlantis then resumed its
shuddery, hesitant approach, jolting first one way, then another as
Jones eased them towards the station. Finally, about ten minutes
after they'd returned from the flight deck, there was a low grinding
noise, followed by a dull clang, and after that there was only
silence.
Moments later, Major Smith appeared, floating down the ladder from
the flight deck. "We have achieved docking," he said briefly, moving
past them. "Boarding will commence immediately." He came to a halt
by the airlock and quickly worked the controls. "You will enter the
station one at a time, with each person waiting until the one
preceding you has indicated it is safe. Commander Jones and I will
remain here."
"You're not coming with us?" Scully asked. That had not been part of
the mission brief.
"In light of the vessel docked to the station, Commander Jones and I
have been ordered to remain with Atlantis," the man replied,
apparently unperturbed. "We will not enter the station, and we will
not have any contact with the ship." The airlock door swung open, to
reveal a small chamber with another door on the far side. A few
seconds later, that door also opened. "Agent Scully, since there may
be injured personnel on board, you will go first."
Scully nodded. That, at least, had been part of the plan. She
slipped a pair of latex gloves from her pocket and pulled them on,
then moved forward, bracing herself briefly against the frame of the
airlock and trying to prepare herself for what she might find. This
was no different from any other potential crime scene, she reminded
herself. The lack of gravity was going to make things awkward and
messy, but that couldn't be helped. And it didn't change the
principles she lived by as a doctor -- not by one iota. She took a
deep breath, and pushed her way through the airlock and into the
space station.
ACT THREE
Space Shuttle Atlantis
Mulder wanted to pace. Unfortunately, the lack of gravity made that
impossible, so he had to settle for kicking one foot rhythmically
against the wall of the shuttle, while hanging on to one of the
handholds to keep himself from drifting.
Scully had boarded the space station twelve minutes ago. Major Smith
had secured the shuttle airlock door as soon as she cleared the
threshold; a moment or two later they heard Scully shutting the door
on the station side of the connection. All according to protocol.
Damn it.
Smith and the two technicians were, to all appearances, completely
unconcerned. Their expressions were blank, giving nothing away, and
their body language -- as best Mulder could puzzle it out in the
absence of gravity -- was loose and casual. None of them spoke.
Easy enough for them, Mulder thought. It wasn't *their* partner who
was on the other side of the double doors.
At last they heard the station side door opening again, and Mulder
waited tensely while Major Smith reciprocated. Seconds later, Scully
appeared in the entrance, clinging to the doorframe, a grim look on
her face.
"Well?" Mulder asked.
"There's no one here," she said flatly. Mulder raised his eyebrows,
and she clarified, "There's nobody on board -- and no bodies,
either. The station is completely empty." She turned her gaze on
Smith. "I'm going to need Mulder's help. The place is a mess. It
looks like there was a fight in there, so we're going to have to
treat it like a crime scene. There are blood stains on the walls and
some of the fixtures, and I found these." She held up two large
evidence bags, each one containing a military issue bayonet. Both
blades had dried blood on them.
"We don't have time for that, Agent Scully."
"We have to make time," she said, shaking her head. "This is part of
the investigation; this is why Mulder and I are here. We were sent
up here to find out what happened --"
"That is one of the mission objectives," the major agreed. "But
investigating the unidentified ship takes priority." He paused,
apparently thinking about something. Then: "Abbasov and
Mahammadov will begin that part of the job. You and Agent Mulder will
collect evidence, to the extent that it doesn't interfere with the
techs, and to the extent that your services are not required for the
primary mission."
"But --"
"That's all, Agent Scully." To the technicians: "You'd better get
over there and get started." They nodded, and without further comment
they pushed past Mulder and Scully and into the station. Scully
gritted her teeth, then turned and followed. Mulder went after her.
"At least we know what happened to the original crew," he commented,
once they were on the other side, with the airlock doors sealed
again. He nodded at the bayonets. "Unless you assume that NASA
routinely sends its own people up here prepared for hand-to-hand
combat. Of course, we don't know what was done with the bodies,
but --"
"No, we don't. And we also don't know *why*," his partner said. "I
want to know why." She gestured at the room they were in. "Look at
it."
Mulder looked around, and whistled. He recalled from the briefing
that the interior of the station had a volume roughly equal to that
of a 747 jetliner, when you included all the various modules. This
compartment seemed that big all by itself, probably because the lack
of gravity gave it more usable space. It also looked as if a tornado
had hit it. A random clutter of papers, manuals and odd bits of
equipment floated in the light breeze from the ventilation system. A
ballpoint pen drifted by, and Mulder reached out and grabbed it.
"Skillcraft," he commented, reading the manufacturer's name off the
side of the pen. "Genuine government issue." He let go of it, giving
it a little push, and watched as it floated across the room, finally
rebounding off the far wall. "You know they're never going to let us
report whatever we find here."
"We don't know that," Scully answered -- but Mulder could see that
her heart wasn't in it. She knew better. They'd been through this
before. "We need to find out who the second crew was and what
happened to them."
"Well, one thing's pretty clear," Mulder said. He glanced at
Abbasov and Mahammadov, who were already working at one of the
consoles at the far end of the compartment. "Whoever it was, they
came prepared for trouble." He gestured at the bloody bayonets. "It's
also evident that the other ship had not yet arrived -- but they
probably knew it was coming."
"Why do you say that?"
"If the ship had arrived before the intruders came, the regular crew
would have reported it to ground control," Mulder replied. "There's
no way something like that could have been kept secret -- not under
normal conditions. But they damned well knew the ship was coming.
Otherwise, why bother to take the tremendous risk of disclosure?
Shuttle missions aren't really secret -- even when the specific
purpose of the expedition is classified, the general nature of the
assignment often leaks out. There's no way that they could reasonably
expect that their activities would remain under wraps -- not in the
long term."
"Okay," Scully said, nodding. "But that still doesn't tell us who
they were, or what happened to them."
"No, it doesn't," Mulder admitted. "But you think we're going to
find out by treating the space station the way we would a crime scene
back home? You think these people are going to have their fingerprints
on file with the NCIC?"
"Probably not," Scully said. "But do you have a better idea?"
# # #
International Space Station
"I think we are ready," said Abbasov; Mahammadov merely nodded.
Mulder had never heard him speak English, although he seemed to
understand it well enough.
The two men were strapped to seats in front of one of the many
consoles that littered the interior of the space station, while
Mulder and Scully floated directly behind them, gripping handholds.
On a video display they had a clear view of the alien ship, relayed
from cameras aboard Atlantis.
They had been on board for more than a day now, with each team
attending to their own duties. Mulder and Scully had dutifully
collected evidence and taken photographs, going through the motions
of trying to solve the mystery of what had happened, knowing all the
while that in the end nothing would be done, even if they did unravel
that part of the puzzle. They both were very familiar with clandestine
operations, and this expedition had all the earmarks of an incident
that was going to be covered up, and made to look as if it had never
happened.
The investigation of the strange spaceship had been no more
productive. The two technicians had begun by looking for the notes
and records that should have been generated by the previous
expedition, but they had found nothing. Not a notebook, not a single
scrap of paper. There were dozens of computer diskettes stored
neatly in their carriers -- all blank. Even the hard drives on the
system mainframe were empty -- the two men had had to reinstall the
system software before the computer would even boot up, and all of
their software tools had proven useless in trying to reconstruct
whatever files had been deleted.
Somebody had done a very thorough job.
But why? Mulder wondered about it for at least the hundredth time.
What motivation could there possibly be for destroying all the data
-- including data collected by the legitimate crew prior to the
strange ship's arrival. And going back to the physical evidence,
where the hell was everyone?
Clearly, there had been a fight here, and apparently the invaders had
won -- but where were the bodies? Had they all been ejected into
space? And had the last survivor, for reasons unknown, cycled
himself through the airlock, going voluntarily to his own death? The
pre-launch briefing had made it quite clear that nothing larger than
a golf ball had approached or left the station since the last supply
mission departed. Of course, the ground-based radar hadn't detected
the presence of the alien ship, either.
And it *was* an alien ship. That much was clear, even over the video
monitors. Scully had confirmed, during a private conversation, away
from the other expedition members, that the markings on the outside
of the ship were similar to the ones she'd seen on the ship off the
coast of Africa. She couldn't say whether it was the same ship, of
course. All of her notes from that trip were back on Earth, and it
seemed unlikely that they'd be allowed to leave with photographs of
this vessel.
All of which boiled down to the self-evident fact that someone with
inside knowledge of the threat of alien colonization was behind all
this. But who? The Consortium, or a faction within the Consortium?
The rebel aliens that Krycek had spoken of so many years ago, and who
had apparently struck a powerful blow to the Consortium more than two
years ago at El Rico Air Base? Some third group, that Mulder and
Scully knew nothing about?
It was maddening to know so much, and yet know so little.
Having completely failed to find any trace of the previous crew, or
any indication of what their purpose had been or what they'd learned,
the personnel from Atlantis were now engaged in their own examination
of the alien ship. This had been decided after a hurried radio
consultation with Charles Scully, but they were working against the
clock, because the security situation on Earth was terribly unstable.
It was only a matter of time before their presence here was leaked
outside of Charles' group, and NASA -- and others -- took official
notice and action.
They'd already discovered several anomalies. Among other things,
radar probes had revealed that the ship seemed to be larger on the
inside than on the outside. This finding was suspect, however, since
the volume seemed to change each time the test was run. Infrared
scans had found exactly nothing. As far as those instruments were
concerned, the ship simply didn't exist -- it had no surface
temperature at all.
Photographs left nothing but irregular white blotches on the film,
regardless of what settings were used. This had caused some concern
about radiation, but instruments that functioned in those wavelengths
reported no measurable emissions. Analysis of the spectrum of
sunlight reflected off the ship showed... nothing. Just plain,
ordinary sunlight. The ship apparently contained no ferrous metals,
and from the crude experiments they'd been able to perform, it seemed
to have no mass.
It was almost as if it didn't really exist.
Their passive investigations thwarted, Abbasov and Mahammadov had
obtained permission from mission control -- meaning Charles Scully --
to perform more invasive experiments. The first had been the radar
scans, and now they were prepared for the next step. By means of a
short, arduous spacewalk, power had been diverted from the solar
array that powered the station to the cables securing the alien ship.
The object was to determine the conductivity of the ship's hull, in
hopes that this would aid in identifying what material it was made of.
"Mission control," said Abbasov into his microphone, "we are ready
to begin. Recorders are on."
"Roger that, Atlantis," replied Charles Scully's voice. "You may
proceed as planned."
Abbasov nodded to Mahammadov, who flipped a switch, and Abbasov,
Mahammadov and Scully all collapsed into unconsciousness.
# # #
Time and location unknown.
For Scully, the universe seemed simply to disappear. One instant she
was gripping her handhold, floating in midair next to Mulder, behind
the technicians, watching as they prepared their experiment. In the
next, everything was simply gone -- everything except the ship. And
within seconds, even that had faded into oblivion --
She is alone, standing on a cold, icy plain. The wind is howling
around her, blowing snow and sleet and freezing rain into her face.
She tries to turn away, but the wind seems to follow her, seems to
seek her out, and she has to shield her face with her hands. It only
helps a little.
The wind also carries a horrible odor, a smell like rotting meat and
mold and spoiled milk, all rolled into one. With every breath she
takes, it seems to infest her lungs, like a living thing. It's almost
as if she's breathing spores or insect larvae into her airways. A
vivid memory of Mulder's lungs being suctioned during the case
involving the Morley tobacco company flashes through her mind, and
bile rises in her throat. Somehow, she forces it back down.
And she can hear things. She can hear voices. The wind is howling
around her and her ears are cold, so very cold, but still she can
hear voices. Voices in agony and despair, sobbing and crying out in
pain and grief. A distant babble that seems to come from every
direction, and never quite resolves into anything coherent.
She tries to take stock of her situation, but there's very little for
her to see. The only light comes from the sky -- a dim, coppery
glow, reflected off the roiling gray clouds. The snow and sleet and
rain, borne on the icy wind, gusts and billows around her, cutting
visibility down to just a few yards.
Where's Mulder? He was right next to her, only a moment ago, and now
he's just gone, along with everything else. But how can that be? How
could he just have vanished into thin air? How could *everything she
knew* just have vanished into thin air? To be replaced by... this?
She feels so lost and alone.
//Nothing disappears without a trace.//
She realizes that she's turning in a circle, rotating helplessly,
looking desperately for something, anything. Anything warm and
friendly and familiar. The ground crunches underfoot, and she looks
down, realizing that it's not earth she's standing on, but ice. Old,
foul, filthy ice, crusted with frozen slime and dirty snow.
Every square inch of her exposed skin is cold, so very cold, and she
wonders how long she can live like this. How long it will take her to
die. Exposure will soon overtake her, and hypothermia will follow
soon after as the cold seeps into her body and robs her of her life's
heat. She has to find a way out of this; she has to find *Mulder* --
She stumbles over a bit of uneven ground, and almost falls. This
plain is not as smooth and featureless as she first had thought, and
now as she looks around her she realizes that there are small humps
in the terrain, each eight or ten inches across and maybe half that
high. And then her eyes widen in shock as she realizes that some of
them are moving --
She stumbles again, and this time she loses her balance and falls,
hitting the ground with a breath-paralyzing thud. Pain lances out
through her hip and shoulder, and for a moment she just lies there.
She needs to rest. Just for a moment, she promises herself. She'll
just rest for a moment and catch her breath, and then she'll struggle
to her feet and find a way out of ... out of *this*. There has to be
a way out. There's always a way out. Just for a minute. Her eyes
start to drift closed.
"Oh... oh... Agent Scully...."
She forces her eyes open as a single voice finally resolves itself
out of the cacophany all around her. One voice... a familiar voice.
One she's heard somewhere before, but not for so very long. Not
for so many, many years.
She can see him now -- she can see the head of the person who spoke
to her. It's one of those irregularities in the ice that she noticed
earlier, those small lumps, and now the cold penetrates all the way
to her heart as she realizes that each of the insignificant mounds
stretching out across this plain is actually a human head, half
buried in the ice. And the one directly in front of her, the one who
just spoke to her, is the man she and Mulder knew as Deep Throat.
"S-sorry," he says, and she feels her eyes widening in shock as she
sees there are tears running down his cheeks -- tears that freeze on
his skin almost as soon as they're shed. "I'm so, so sorry..."
"Sorry?" she asks, somehow struggling to her hands and knees. She
crawls over closer to him, heedless of the cold now cutting into the
palms of her hands. "Sorry for what? Why... how... where are we?"
"I'm sorry ...." he moans, in low tones of misery. "I never thought
I'd see you here. I was sure that you, of all people, would escape."
He lowers his head into the ice so she can no longer see his
features, but still she can hear his voice, muffled, but distinct.
"I'm so sorry."
"Please don't." She doesn't know why, but she doesn't want to listen
to this; she doesn't want to hear it. She crawls closer and reaches
out to touch his cheek, and it's cold -- cold as the ice surrounding
it. He continues to cry and moan his grief and sorrow. "Please
don't," she repeats. "Please, please don't." She can't bear to hear
him suffering; she has to find a way to make it stop. "Tell me what's
wrong. Tell me what I can do."
"There's nothing you can do." He raises his head again. "Nothing
you can do. Nothing. Nothing for me." He hiccups as he cries, and
adds, "You can only save... save yourself. Save your partner."
"Mulder?" The word snaps from her mouth; Deep Throat now has her
complete attention. "You know where Mulder is? Where is he? Is he
hurt?"
"Save yourself!" the man in the ice wails. "Oh please, please...
save yourself. You have to find him. You have to save yourself."
And then his face sinks down into the ice, and despite her cajolery
and imprecations, he neither moves nor speaks again.
At last she gives up and fights her way to her feet. Mulder. She
has to find Mulder. Nothing else matters. She has to find him. She
*has* to.
She turns a circle again, this time struggling to stay calm and study
what she's seeing. The wind continues to whip around her, the snow
and ice and rain continues its assault, the people buried in the ice
continue to wail in pain and sorrow. The clouds churn and twist
overhead, the coppery glow flickers and dances. And there's nothing
there. Nothing --
Wait. No. There *was* something. Something barely visible in the
dimness. A shadow of ... of something. Something huge and dark and
wide, growing up out of the ice and reaching up and up and up until
it disappears into the clouds. She can't tell what it is; she can't
even tell how far away it is, but it's the only landmark she has,
it's her only chance to find Mulder. Mulder. She has to find him. She
tries to turn, to begin walking towards the object --
And finds that she can't. Her feet have frozen to the ground, and
she cannot move. She fights, she struggles, she tries to pull herself
free from the ice, but it's no good, there's no escape. She waited
too long, she stood still for too many minutes, and now she's trapped
here, trapped in the ice, and she knows that she will never escape.
The snow and rain and sleet will continue to wrap themselves around
her, building layer after layer after layer, until finally she, too,
will be buried in the ice, lost for all eternity, forgotten by
humanity. She is trapped and without hope. She closes her eyes,
and wills herself not to cry.
# # #
International Space Station
For a few eternal seconds Mulder floated in mid-air, staring at his
partner's unconscious body. He was barely aware of the other two,
beyond the fact that they were also unresponsive. All of his
attention was on Scully.
Then he was twisting towards her and reaching out, his motions slow
and clumsy due to the lack of gravity. His hand bumped her shoulder,
just as Scully's fingers slipped off her handhold, and she began
drifting slowly away from him, across the compartment.
He swore under his breath, struggling to hold on to his self-control.
Scully needed help, and he wasn't going to be able to do anything
for her if he didn't stay focused. He could hear Charles Scully's
voice, calling over the radio, but he ignored it. Not now, not now.
Slowly, carefully, he turned, changing his grip on his handhold a
couple of times in the process, until he was lined up with his
partner's body as it drifted across the cabin. Then he placed his
feet against the back of Mahammadov's chair, and pushed off after
her.
He felt his stomach drop out from under him, as it always did when
maneuvering in zero gravity without anything to hold onto, but he
ruthlessly suppressed it. He didn't have time for that now. He only
had time for Scully.
At last he caught up with her, and grappled her clumsily around the
shoulders as their bodies gently collided. His aim had been slightly
off, so their connection was off-center, and they began to tumble,
end over end. Mulder's insides started doing flip flops by that time,
but he clenched his teeth and held on. No time for that. No time.
Finally they fetched up against a wall. Mulder's hand shot out,
while he continued to hold Scully close with his other arm. His
fingers brushed against something -- a shelving bracket -- and he
clutched it, hard. The slow tumble stopped, they bumped the wall a
couple of times, and were still.
Now what?
He was distantly aware of voices coming over the radio -- Major Smith
and Commander Jones, or Major Jones and Commander Smith -- and then
he thought he heard Charles Scully speaking as well, asking questions,
demanding information. But he had no time for that, no goddamn time
at all, and as best he could without letting go of either her or the
bracket, he examined his partner. Her breathing was steady and
regular, and her pulse was okay, too. Her skin was a little flushed,
but she didn't seem to be feverish. If he didn't know better, he'd
think she was just asleep. He tried shaking her, he tried calling her
name, but there was no reaction.
Shit. Mulder fought to suppress the rising panic. This was a bit too
much like the time she was stung by the bee outside his apartment.
He knew that wasn't what was going on this time, but that just made
it worse, because it meant he had no clue whatsoever. Mahammadov
had thrown the switch, and the three of them had simply passed out.
Mahammadov had thrown the switch...
That had to be it. Mulder wasn't sure what the connection was, or how
it had worked, but somehow when they passed an electrical current
through the alien ship, *this* had happened. And somehow he knew, on
the gut instinct level, that the only way to get his partner back was
to turn it off. Now.
Once again he turned awkwardly and tried to position himself, the
task made more complex this time by his unwillingness to leave Scully
where she was. Finally he was ready, one hand cupped beneath her
chin, as if he were rescuing someone who was drowning. He carefully
placed his feet, let go of the bracket and pushed off.
By great good luck he got it right this time. He and Scully began
drifting across the compartment again, without any spin or tumble at
all, and aimed directly where he wanted them to be going. It took
only seconds for them to reach their destination, and Mulder grabbed
the back of Abbasov's chair, bringing them to a stop.
Without hesitation, and still holding on to Scully with his other
hand, he then reached out to the control panel and switched off the
current. He looked back at his partner...
Just in time to see her eyes flicker open. Her brilliant, beautiful,
intelligent blue eyes.
# # #
International Space Station
"That's insane."
Mulder turned sharply away from Abbasov, and let his gaze fall on
Scully once again. After he'd thrown the switch, the other three had
immediately awakened, although they'd all been a bit bleary for a
while afterwards.
They'd each reported having had strange visions, or hallucinations,
while they were unconscious. Scully had told of a vast, icy plain,
with people -- including Deep Throat -- buried in the ice up to their
necks. Abbasov and Mahammadov had each found themselves in
a small, dark space -- like a coffin, Abbasov had said, his face pale.
They'd been alone, and no amount of yelling or banging of their fists
had seemed to attract anyone's attention. Finally, the bottom of
their compartments had opened, and they'd started falling, down,
down, down, towards a monstrous, impossibly hot fire.
And now the two technicians wanted to try the experiment again.
"Agent Mulder, we have no alternative," Abbasov said, in his thickly
accented English. "We were sent here to investigate, and our last
experiment was incomplete. Mission control has already approved
another iteration of this experiment. We must --"
"It was incomplete because it almost killed you!" Mulder interrupted,
turning back to face the man again. "And Mahammadov and Scully,
too." He glanced at his partner again, to see that she was watching
the argument impassively.
"You are taking this far too seriously," Abbasov said flatly. "What
we experienced was a hallucination; a dream. It could not harm us,
and it was induced in some way by feedback from the ship. If we were
equipped to perform EEG's, we would be able to prove that this is so.
As a precaution, we will increase the amperage on the next trial. We
will set it high enough to burn out whatever mechanism it was that
generated the effect, so that it will not interfere with our
observations. Mahammadov has already made the calculations." His
gaze turned speculative. "The fact that neither you nor the crew of
Atlantis appear to have been affected is a crucial datum; we must
establish a baseline. And in any case, if the effect should be
repeated you will be able to terminate the experiment before any harm
is done."
"No," Mulder said, shaking his head. "We don't have any idea what
we're dealing with, and we have to move carefully." To his partner:
"Scully, you aren't buying into this, are you?"
"Mulder." Her voice was soft and uncertain, as it had been since she
regained consciousness. "Mulder, I didn't like the place I was in,
but Abbasov's right. It was only a dream. A nightmare," she amended.
"But dreams can't hurt us, and as scientists we have to disregard our
personal feelings and push ahead."
Mulder simply stared at her for a moment, and she reached out and
laid a gentle hand on his arm, tugging him away from the other two.
When they had drifted far enough to ensure minimal privacy, she said,
very softly, "Mulder, you of all people must surely understand the
importance of this. How many times in the past have you taken risks
with yourself to try and find the truth?"
"Sometimes you stopped me," he responded, equally softly.
"That's true," Scully replied with a smile. "Sometimes I did. But I
honestly believe that the risk in this case is minimal." She turned
her hands palms up. "Look at my hands, Mulder. If what happened to
me had been real, they should be frostbitten." She nodded towards
the other two. "If what happened to them had been real, they should
have second and third degree burns all over their bodies. The
instruments on Atlantis detected nothing. *Nothing.* Whatever
happened, as frightening as it was, it wasn't real."
"Scully --"
"Mulder, you know what it was I experienced." He nodded reluctantly,
remembering the account she'd given just a few minutes earlier.
"That... vision that I had was straight out of Dante's 'Inferno'. The
Ninth Circle of Hell, where traitors are condemned to spend eternity.
And Mahammadov and Abbasov acknowledged that what *they* saw was a
traditional Muslim story about God's judgment and damnation." She
shook her head. "I don't know how it happened; I can't explain the
mechanism. But I think Abbasov is right. Some sort of feedback
developed, and somehow it triggered memories within each victim --
memories of stories we'd heard, each within our own religious
heritage. And remember, that's just what happened in Africa two
years ago."
"We should take it back to Earth and study it there," Mulder
insisted. But his heart was no longer in it. He knew that he'd lost.
"If we took it back to Earth, we'd have plenty of time, and all the
resources we need."
"That would probably be a good idea," Scully agreed. She glanced at
Abbasov and Mahammadov, watching them from the other side of the
compartment, then back to Mulder. "But you know that's not going to
happen. The crew of Atlantis have orders not to have any direct
contact -- and the ship is too big to fit in the shuttle's cargo bay,
in any case." She moved closer, and her voice dropped still farther,
to the barest whisper. "We don't know why you weren't affected.
Maybe the surgery you had while Spender had you, back in '99, had
something to do with it. The tissue they removed from your brain may
be what responded to whatever it is that happened. But whatever the
reason, the fact that you weren't affected means that you *will* be
able to protect the rest of us, if worse comes to worst."
Mulder was silent for a moment, while he studied her face. She was
right, dammit. They'd been sent up here to do this, and they really
had no alternatives. And truth be told, Scully had already put her
finger on his real objection: he was unwilling to see her take
chances that he would have found acceptable for himself --
especially since he was unable to share the risk. Unfortunately, he
seemed to have no choice in the matter. And so finally, he nodded,
and gave his consent.
A few minutes later they were all once more gathered around the
control panel. Unlike the previous experiment, this time they were
all securely strapped into chairs, as a precaution against loss of
consciousness. Mulder was seated next to Abbasov, within easy reach
of the crucial switch.
"You will not terminate the experiment unless you have verified that
both Mahammadov and myself have lost consciousness, and cannot be
awakened," Abbasov instructed. Without waiting for a reply, he
switched on his microphone. "Mission control, we have adjusted the
settings, and are ready to proceed."
"Acknowledged," came Charles Scully's voice. "At your discretion."
The man's voice sounded calm and unperturbed. Was he really
unconcerned about the safety of the members of the expedition --
including that of his own sister? Or was that simply a professional
mask, such as the one Scully tended to wear on such occasions? Who
was Charles Scully, really?
Then Abbasov threw the switch, and the universe disappeared.
# # #
Time and location unknown
He's floating alone, in total nothingness. There is no light, no
sound, no taste, no smell, no touch. He is neither hot nor cold, wet
nor dry, tired nor wakeful. He simply is. And for some unmeasured
period -- a few seconds, a few minutes, a few hours, a few centuries
-- he is unsure even of who he is.
And he is alone.
He is alone in this nothingness. Alone, bereft and isolated. There's
no one else there, no sense of *presence*. He feels abandoned;
forsaken. But somehow, he knows he has no one to blame but himself.
He chose this darkness, after all.
All the misery and sorrow of a lifetime wells up inside of him,
filling him with grief and remorse and driving out all other thoughts
and emotions. He cannot think; he cannot concentrate. It is all he
can do to retain as much grasp of himself as he has, and even that is
slipping gradually away. Already he is crumbling, and he knows with
horrified certainty that the process will only end when he has been
reduced to a mere shell, an empty vessel with room for nothing but
darkness and loneliness and despair.
Forever.
No! The single word forms in his mind. No! It cannot end like this.
No! He has to fight this, he has to find a way out, he has to escape.
He has to struggle. No!
But even as the thoughts swirl through his mind, he realizes their
futility. There is nothing here -- literally nothing. Nothing that he
can use or base a defense upon. Nothing to grasp, nothing to hold
onto. No light or darkness. No up or down. No past or future. No hope.
No Scully.
Oblivion would be better than this.
He tries calling to her, but even as he does he knows it will do no
good. Her name echoes uselessly inside his head; even if it were
possible for him to speak aloud, there is no one to hear him. He
feels panic building, sweeping across him and around him and
through him like a tidal wave as the reality of his situation finally
strikes home. He is alone at last, totally and completely alone, as
he has always known in his heart would eventually be his fate. Even
if it were possible for her to be here, he realizes that he could
never wish that for her. She deserves better. She deserves to be in
the light.
He weeps in silent isolation.
Dully, almost as an afterthought, he prays forgiveness, knowing that
no one can hear him.
And as quickly as that, a pinprick of light and warmth appears,
impossibly far away, yet moving closer by the second. It swells
rapidly -- a pinprick becomes a marble becomes a baseball becomes a
basketball becomes an entire world. In the space between two
heartbeats the warm light grows until it dominates him, overwhelming
his senses and banishing the nothingness that defines him. It's so
bright and blinding, he cannot see --
Mulder shook his head sharply as waves of dizziness and nausea swept
through his body. He was in the space station, strapped in his seat,
but still the nothingness hovered in the back of his mind, pulsing
and swirling, almost alive in its malevolence. Slowly, so very
slowly, his mind began to focus, his vision and hearing gradually
returning. There were sounds, and light, and... and *objects*
swimming before him. If only he could make sense of it. There was
something he was supposed to do -- something important. Dear God,
what was it?
And then he remembered. The switch. He was supposed to throw the
switch, but only if something went wrong. He tried to turn his head,
wanting to check and see if the others were still alert and oriented,
but it was hard, so very hard. It was like pushing his way through
molasses, while his vision swam and the nausea returned to the fore.
He squinted against the light, seeming so brilliant and unforgiving
after its total absence, and his head began to pound and his eyes
started to water.
Fuck it. He couldn't really see; he could barely concentrate. Abbasov
said throw the switch if there was a problem, and there sure as hell
was a problem. His hand fumbled forward, brushing against dials and
controls, moving with agonizing slowness towards salvation. His
vision was still blurred, unsteady, but somehow he *knew* when he
finally found the proper switch. He grasped it between thumb and
forefinger, and pushed, and he felt it click over into place --
And nothing happened.
For a moment he wondered if he had the wrong switch after all. His
hand had moved with instinctive, almost preternatural surety, but
could he have been wrong? He squinted again, and this time he
managed to make out a few fuzzy outlines, enough to know that his
instincts had been sound.
He tried to turn his head again, and this time it was a little easier.
Scully. He had to find Scully. He needed to know that she was all
right, but a prickling on the back of his neck told him that she was
not. His head kept turning, seemingly of its own volition... and
there she was. Strapped in her seat, her head lolled forward, her
beautiful auburn hair splayed around her and wafting gently with the
air currents.
She wasn't moving.
Her gaze was fixed, her pupils dilated.
He could not tell if she was breathing.
In that instant the nothing swooped back in, capitalizing on his
renewed fear and despair as it tried to claim him once again for its
own. The lights seemed to dim, and there was a roaring in his ears.
It was all so numbing and overwhelming, and a part of him desperately
yearned to let go. It would be so good to rest. Scully was gone -- he
could almost hear the words, that seductive whisper that he'd heard
in the past when she was missing and when she had cancer. Scully
was gone to the cold and ice, and there was no more hope, no more
warmth, no more light. He should just give up, and all of his
troubles would be over --
And then he was clawing at his safety harness, as he forced his
assailant back with a savage curse. It was still hard to move, but
somehow he unsnapped the buckles, and in the next instant he was
floating up out of his seat. Once again his stomach heaved, but he
ruthlessly suppressed it. At the last second, as he was about to
drift completely away from his chair, he reached out and grabbed the
harness with one hand and used it to leverage himself over to Scully.
She was, thank God, still breathing, and her pulse seemed normal, and
Mulder whispered a heartfelt prayer of thanks and relief. As he had
done on the previous occasion he took rapid inventory, working as
best he could by touch, since his eyes and ears were still
undependable, and he could find nothing wrong with her -- nothing
wrong, except for a total lack of response, no matter what he did.
He clung to the back of her seat and tried to reason out what to do.
His senses were still undependable, but they did seem to be improving.
His vision now had moments of clarity, and the roaring in his ears was
slowly dropping off, enough so that he could occasionally make out
scraps of conversation coming from the radio.
" ... payload specialists will please respond... no contact,
Cheyenne Mountain... radiation levels increasing... Atlantis ...
payload specialists will report status... prepare... requesting
instructions... emergency evacuation routine..."
Mulder was still trying to piece together what he was hearing when
his gaze fell almost at random on the video monitor displaying the
alien craft -- and what he saw made his eyes widen in shock.
The ship was no longer dark and inert. Instead, it had taken on a
glow -- a deep blue glow that seemed to emanate from somewhere inside
the craft. It seemed to him that it was expanding, as well, but that
was impossible; it had to be a trick of his still-uncertain vision.
For a few seconds he simply floated there, staring at the display.
Instinctively, deep in his soul, he recognized danger and evil in
this new phenomenon, but it was so beautiful, so seductive --
"The payload specialists will return to Atlantis immediately. This
is the first and only warning. Atlantis is preparing for emergency
departure in three hundred eighty-five seconds. Departure will not
be delayed."
Mulder struggled to make himself understand the words. Emergency
departure? But that meant... that meant.... Jesus God, that meant
he had a little more than six minutes to get Scully out of here, or
they'd be left behind!
Slowly, laboriously, he maneuvered himself around so that he was
floating directly over his partner. His motions were hindered by the
almost-familiar awkwardness of zero gravity, as well as by the
mysterious resistance to all motion that he'd been experiencing ever
since the experiment began. In the background the radio continued to
squawk, but he ignored it. They'd either make it in time or they
wouldn't, and diverting his attention to listen to the preparations
being made by the crew of Atlantis would only slow him down.
He was also eerily aware of the alien ship, still glowing a deep,
penetrating blue at the end of its tether. The monitor was out of
his line of sight, but that didn't seem to matter anymore, because
somehow he could still "see" it in his mind, pulsing and growing
larger with each passing second, the strange radiation penetrating
and suffusing everything it encountered.
Scully's harness buckles sprang free at last, and she floated slowly
up out of her chair. Mulder grabbed the first thing he could -- the
collar of her jumpsuit -- and pulled her closer, until the two of
them collided in a tangle of arms and legs. He wrapped his arms
around her and hung on grimly, ignoring the fresh outrage coming from
his stomach, and flailing out with his feet until by great good
fortune he managed to hook one of them through one of the ubiquitous
handholds.
No time, no time. Where was he? The airlock linking the space station
to Atlantis was, of course, at the far end of the compartment, a
good sixty feet away, and he was going to have to get it right the
first time, for there would be no time for second tries. Taking a
few precious seconds to steady himself, he took aim and pushed
off from the control console.
For a few agonizing seconds, Mulder wasn't sure he'd jumped true.
Having Scully's body in his arms meant that his center of gravity
wasn't where it should be, but he'd tried to correct for that, all
the while doing his best to ignore the persistent nausea that had
never quite gone away since the moment they'd first entered freefall,
more than two days earlier.
He started to breathe easier, as he realized that he'd actually
managed to do it. He was going to land almost exactly where he'd
intended; now all he had to do was bring himself to a halt at the
other end, without breaking either his neck or Scully's... and
either he was getting better, or he'd just been more lucky than
anyone had any right to expect, because he managed to execute a
perfect four point stop, with Scully's body pinned between his own
and the airlock door.
After that, it was just a matter of finding the leverage to open the
airlock door on the station side and swing it open. To his immense
relief, Atlantis' door was already open, and Major Smith was waiting
on the other side. As soon as the other man realized the situation,
he raised his arms to retrieve Scully, glancing past Mulder as he did
so, apparently to see if the others were following.
"Jesus, Mary and Joseph!"
Mulder turned awkwardly in place upon hearing the man's exclamation
-- only to feel his own eyes widening in shock and horror. He'd
almost managed to forget about the blue radiation emanating from the
alien ship; now he saw that it had actually penetrated the walls of
the space station and was advancing towards him, marching slowly but
steadily forward like a wave on the beach. It didn't seem to be
disturbing anything ... but as he watched it passed over Abbasov,
and the man simply disappeared.
"Come on!" There was a sharp tug on Mulder's elbow; he turned again
to see that Smith had already managed to maneuver Scully to her seat
and strap her in, and now had returned. Before Mulder had a chance
to respond, the other man had dragged him through into Atlantis and
slammed shut both airlock doors. Scant seconds later, he'd hooked
his arms under Mulder's armpits from behind and given a shove with
his legs, and the two of them performed a complicated somersault that
ended directly at the foot of Mulder's own chair. Then Smith was
jamming him down into it and hurriedly adjusting the straps, before
pushing off again in the direction of the ladder that led to the
flight deck.
"Bobby!" he shouted. "Bobby, we need to get out of here *now*!"
Mulder couldn't make out the response, but Smith's answer was clear
as a bell. "No, *screw* that; there's no time. We can --" His voice
was cut off as he exited the crew compartment.
And then there was nothing to do but wait. Mulder divided his
attention between Scully, who was still unconscious, strapped in the
seat next to his, and the airlock door, where he expected to see the
blue fire make its appearance at any second. In his mind's eye he
could see it continuing to move through the space station. By now it
had surely passed over Mahammadov, and nothing but two thin bulkheads
separated it from the remaining crew of Atlantis --
And then, at last, he felt a sharp jolt as the shuttle cast free.
Almost immediately he heard a low growl, and was thrown forward
against his safety harness as the orbital maneuvering rockets fired,
moving the ship away from the station, and beginning the long, slow
descent to Earth.
EPILOGUE
Antelope Valley Hospital
Mulder paced the hall outside Scully's room, waiting for her brother
to emerge so he could go back inside. Charles Scully had arrived
three hours earlier, his appearance coinciding almost precisely with
his sister finally regaining consciousness. She'd remained
unresponsive during the long reentry process, right through to the
landing on the dry lake bed at Edwards Air Force Base. Mulder had
reluctantly allowed himself to be dragged from her bedside for a
debriefing, while Charles had shown an apparently equal unwillingness
to allow her to rest before hearing her part of the story. Only the
combined insistence of her doctor and Mulder had persuaded him to do
so.
The debriefing had been one of the more frustrating experiences in
Mulder's recent memory. All of the information had flowed one way --
from him to Charles Scully, with a female lieutenant commander whom
Mulder hadn't met before throwing in the occasional question. The two
officers had been cool, brisk and businesslike, and had absolutely
refused to answer any of *Mulder's* inquiries.
What had happened to the alien ship, or to the crew who preceded
them, or even who the other group had been, or what organization they
worked for -- if Charles knew the answers to those questions, he
wasn't telling. To add insult to injury, as a parting shot, Mulder
was informed that the entire matter was classified,
compartmentalized, need-to-know only, and that Skinner had already
been told that no report would be forthcoming, either from the
military, or from Mulder and Scully.
Finally, Mulder had been released, but of course he hadn't been
allowed to see Scully. Charles and the lieutenant commander
immediately went to her room and commenced interrogating her, while
Mulder waited outside in the hallway. That was an hour ago. The female
officer had emerged from the room ten minutes ago, and now stood at
parade rest outside Scully's door, a blank expression on her face.
Mulder had gleaned one tidbit of information from Commander Jones and
Major Smith while Atlantis was still in low earth orbit, waiting for
its reentry window to open. Well, "tidbit" was too mild a word, he
supposed, even on top of everything else that had happened. Because
the apparent fact of the matter was that a few seconds after the
shuttle disengaged from the space station, the alien spacecraft had
vanished.
This was not a phenomenon similar to its appearance when they were
first approaching the station, several days earlier. In that case,
according to the pilots, the ship had simply materialized out of
nothing as Atlantis closed to within a thousand meters of the station.
This time they'd been much closer, and according to their account,
the strange, blue glow had continued to intensify as they pulled
away, until finally the light was too brilliant to bear -- and then in
the blink of an eye the glow had faded to nothing, and the ship was gone.
Of course, the playback of the video monitor showed nothing but
static from the moment the experiment began. Mulder wasn't sure
whether to be frustrated or cynical over that. On the one hand, it
was just one more instance of evidence disappearing down a rabbit
hole; on the other hand, he'd taken considerable pleasure in
imagining the report the two officers had been forced to make to
their superiors. And besides, it didn't seem likely that Mulder
would've been given access to the tapes, even if they'd had anything
useful on them.
And then there was the other issue. The one he'd been avoiding.
Just what exactly *had* happened to him and Scully and the others
during the final experiment?
The door to Scully's room opened, and Mulder turned on his heel, all
other thoughts instantly banished from his mind. Charles Scully stood
in the doorway, the same cool professional mask in place. He paused,
and bent his head to murmur something to the lieutenant commander.
She nodded, he straightened up again, and for a moment he locked his
gaze with Mulder's.
There was undoubtedly a human being in there somewhere, Mulder
thought, as he and the other man engaged in a brief staredown. And
Scully obviously cared deeply for him, which counted for a lot in
Mulder's book. But their brief association had left Mulder with more
questions than answers concerning Charles Scully's motives and goals.
Questions that, in all likelihood, were going to remain unanswered.
Almost as if he were reading Mulder's mind, the other man's lips
quivered, and there was a flicker of... something in his eyes. Then
his expression closed down again, and he turned and walked away.
# # #
Scully looked expectantly towards the door as it swung open, and
flashed her partner a smile as he entered the room. He'd been there
briefly -- very briefly -- when she'd first awakened, just barely
long enough to give her a quick rundown on what had happened after
her loss of consciousness, but then Charles had arrived and whisked
him away before they'd really had a chance to talk.
God, she was glad to see him.
"Hey, Scully." Mulder matched her smile as he entered the room and
shut the door behind him. He made no pretense at using the guest
chair, but crossed directly to the bed, let down the guard rail, and
crawled in next to her and took her into his arms. Scully snuggled
into his embrace and sighed contentedly.
"So how are you feeling?" he asked.
"Not too bad," she replied. "I presume you've already heard from the
doctors that they can't find anything wrong with me?"
"Yeah," her partner answered. "But it's always nice to hear it
directly from the horse's mouth, so to speak." That comment won him
another smile and a good-natured elbow in the ribs. He continued, "I
seem to be doing okay, too..." But his voice trailed off on an
uncertain note.
"But?" she said at last.
"But," Mulder agreed, with a reluctant sigh. "But I'm still trying
to work through exactly what happened." He took a deep breath. "To
both of us."
Scully nodded slowly. "I've been wondering about that, too."
They were silent for a minute or two. Scully was hesitant to raise
the issue, because in the past their discussions of religion had
frequently gotten out of hand. Mulder apparently had the same
reservation. Finally she steeled herself, and said, "Mulder? What
are you thinking? I'd really like to know." Her partner remained
silent. At last she drew back a little from his embrace and looked
up at him. "Mulder?"
"I... I dunno what I think, Scully." Another lengthy silence. Then,
in very low tones, and all in a rush: "I don't want it to be true. I
can't believe you'd wind up in a place like that."
"You mean hell." It wasn't a question, but he nodded anyway. "Mulder,
the Bible teaches us... it's a basic Christian doctrine that everybody
sins."
"Yeah, I know." His eyes were haunted. "It's one of the reasons....
Never mind." He shook his head, then gave a smile that looked more
than a little forced. "Scully, I can believe that... that you might
have swiped a pencil from my desk and not gotten around to telling
your priest about it yet. But you were in a place reserved for
traitors, and I can't accept that."
"God judges us," she replied softly. "We don't judge ourselves." She
shook her head quickly, hoping to forestall an argument. "Look,
Mulder, I don't pretend to understand why I was there, but I could
construct... rationales for it. I betrayed my father's plan for my
life; I betrayed Blevins' instructions when he assigned me to work
with you." A bittersweet smile, as she remembered her encounter with
Chimene, the guilt vampire. "I could even make a case that I've
betrayed you. But that's not the point."
"What is the point?"
"The point is that we don't know what happened, or why. I have
difficulty believing that ship could have been acting in the name of
God..." Her voice trailed off, and she shook her head again.
"But?" This time Mulder's smile seemed genuine.
"But," she agreed, with a nod and a sigh. "God chooses His own tools.
And I can't rule out the possibility that that ship was one of them."
She realized her gaze had drifted away from Mulder's, and she forced
herself to look at him once again. "And, as you said about me, I have
trouble accepting the idea that the man I love could be condemned in
the way you described."
Mulder shrugged. "It's perfectly consistent with the views of some
Christians," he pointed out. "Concerning unbelievers, I mean."
"I know," Scully replied. "The complete absence of God, leaving
nothing but grief and despair. But that doesn't mean I have to like
it. Not for you." Another bittersweet smile. "Of course, if it *is*
God's judgment, it's not up to me to like or dislike it." She felt
tears filling her eyes.
Mulder drew her into another embrace, and Scully allowed herself to
take comfort from the warmth of his body. This conversation was
going much better than their previous discussions of religion, and
Scully suddenly wondered if she dared risk taking things a step
further. She felt a sudden rush of courage -- almost as if a still,
small voice were speaking to her, encouraging her, deep down inside.
"Mulder?"
"Hmmm?" His voice sounded warm and drowsy, as if he were on the
verge of drifting off to sleep.
"I... I wonder if..." Her voice trailed off again, as she struggled
to find the words. "I don't want to force anything on you, or take
advantage of you when you're upset --"
His chuckle cut her off, and the warm friendliness of his tone gave
her further strength. "I thought that was what the guy was supposed
to say, Scully." He sobered, and his voice lowered. "Go ahead. You
know you can ask me anything."
"Okay." She snuggled a little closer, and felt his hands begin to
gently stroke her back. "I was just wondering if you'd be willing...
if you'd like to go to church with me sometime."
"Sometime?"
"Sometime," she repeated firmly. "When you feel comfortable with it."
There was yet another silence, longer than the others, and Scully
forced herself not to try to guess what he was going to say. At last
she felt Mulder shift slightly on the bed. He withdrew one of his
arms, and brought his hand around to lightly touch her chin, turning
her head so that she was looking directly into his eyes.
"Okay, Scully," he said, very softly. "Sometime. It's a date."
End of "Apogee"
Tuesday, October 9, 2001
3:12 p.m., Greenwich Mean Time
Washington, D.C.
Friday, October 12, 2001
7:02 p.m.
8:14 p.m.
Cape Canaveral, Florida
Monday, October 15, 2001
11:01 p.m.
Mission Elapsed Time: 0 days, 17 hours, 23 minutes, 46
seconds
Mission Elapsed Time: 0 days, 18 hours, 4 minutes, 21
seconds
Mission Elapsed Time: 2 days, 1 hour, 35 minutes, 19
seconds
Mission Elapsed Time: 2 days, 1 hour, 46 minutes, 12
seconds
Mission Elapsed Time: 2 days, 3 hours, 6 minutes, 31
seconds
Lancaster, California
Friday, October 19, 2001
5:18 p.m.