X-Lensman
by Maureen S. O'Brien

Disclaimer: Youth, the Lensmen belong to the space-time continuum 
chronicled by the entity known as E.E. "Doc" Smith. Mulder, Scully, 
Skinner, and Kimberly the secretary belong to the space-time continuum 
chronicled by the tool of Boskone known as Chris Carter. It is 
starkly obvious that the two should never have been combined; but we 
Arisians do get bored sometimes of the same old Visualization of the 
Cosmic All.



Captain William Scully (Ret.) sat like a Buddha on the black couch 
outside the office of General Walter S. Skinner, the head of the 
Galactic Patrol's Violent Crimes Division. Skinner's secretary tried 
to overlook the aging man's presence and get on with her work, but 
it was difficult. Somehow, the captain's quiet presence pervaded the 
waiting room as if it were his old control room on the Chicago in the 
days of the Triplanetary Patrol. Kimberly Kinnison had kept mad 
bombers on the line and senators on hold, but Captain Scully made her 
feel as nervous as one of his own junior officers.

She heard someone opening the inner office door and looked up eagerly
from her desk. AD Skinner's meeting was over!

"Blevins," he was saying tiredly, "Special Circumstances is starting 
up again whether you want it or not. Samms wants Mulder on 'em. So
unless you want to take it up with him...?"

Blevins paled a little and shook his head.

"Then this matter is closed."

Blevins saluted and left.

Kimberly's face did not move, but inside she was grinning. *Boy, 
Boss, you sure sent him off with his tail between his legs!*

*I heard that,* Skinner thought back silently. *Who else is on my
plate?*

*A Captain Scully, sir.*

Her surly boss suddenly smiled and went out in the waiting room.
"Bill? Bill the Brick?  How are you, you old son of a Lewiston?"

"I've been better," Bill said, his resonant voice somewhat subdued.
"We've got to talk."

"About your daughter."

"How'd you know? They give you that newfangled Lens contraption?"

Skinner grinned. "Yes, but no. I've been expecting you to show ever 
since I saw the last name of Violent Crimes' newest Patrolwoman. 
Come into my office, and we'll chew the fat."

Captain Scully looked around. Space in "The Hill" was hard to come by,
but a general rated a large and comfortable office. Skinner's decor was 
subdued. A Galactic Union flag, a picture of his late wife Sharon, 
and a landscape of his home back on Valeria were its only notes of 
color. But that was fitting for his friend, he reflected. Almost 
everything of interest about the massive ex-Marine was hidden beneath 
his burly surface. Skinner led him over to a conference table and sat 
down. Scully followed suit and took out his pipe.

Skinner frowned and pointed to a sign on the table.

THANK YOU FOR NOT SMOKING.

"Sorry, Walt," said Scully, putting his pipe back in his pocket. "When
did you stop smoking?  And why?  Tobacco's not dangerous, these days."

"Bad experience with a certain chain-smoking party," Skinner rumbled.
"Can't stand the smell anymore."

They sat in silence for a moment. Small talk was anathema to these two
big men. Only when Skinner was ready did his voice rumble to life
again. "Don't mince words, Brick. Tell me how you really feel."

"She's my baby girl and she's going into harm's way," he retorted.
"How do you think I feel?"

"She's a commissioned officer of the Patrol," Skinner said mildly.
"And Violent Crimes is not a combat position."

"Oh, come now. It's called Violent Crimes for a reason."

"But this isn't the twentieth century. Or the twenty-first. The
colonies are open to us, population density is going down, and the
worst crimes of violence -- stranger killings, rape and abuse -- are
committed less often. We still have to deal with armed robbery and
terrorism, but those are easier to understand and fight." He gave the
Brick a sharp glance through his glasses. "Not that your daughter ever 
asked for a break, or wanted one."

"She'd better not!" Brick flared. Then he paused and sighed. "I know,
I know. I'm irrational on the subject. My head says she should do 
whatever she wants to, but my heart isn't listening. She's my baby 
girl."

"She _was_ your baby girl," Skinner pointed out almost wistfully. He 
and Sharon had never been able to have children. "You just have to keep 
reminding yourself that she grew up."

"You'd think three graduation ceremonies would do that: BS in physics,
MD, and OCS -- not to mention your lot's investigative school at 
Quantico. Maybe it would help if she'd taken after me in height 
instead of hair."

"Maybe it would help if you'd seen her go at it in her armed and 
unarmed combat classes. You taught her to shoot?"

"Of course. If she wanted to keep up with her brothers, who was I
to stop her?" Brick shook his head again. "Like I said, I'm 
irrational on the subject."

"Then give her a chance to show what she can do, Bill. She's going
to have enough trouble as it is."

"Patrolmen don't think a woman can do the job?"

"Some. Some think they can but shouldn't, because they're taking 
men's jobs away from them." Skinner snorted again. "As if the 
Galactic Patrol isn't desperate for all the people it can get. There
aren't enough men willing to work this job, because it's hard and
thankless. Most of the men, though, just don't see the sense in 
hiring a Patrolwoman when they can just get the secretaries to do a 
Patrolman's work when needed. I put a stop to that. Sending one of my 
people undercover or out to do legwork without the pay, the training,
or the Lewiston? I wouldn't do that to a dog."

"So who did you find who didn't mind working with a woman?"

"Name's Mulder. Fox Mulder, poor kid -- his family's old money and
that's where he got the name. Headshrinker by training and pure
hound dog by trade -- what we call a profiler. 

"The best thing invented for crimefighting till the Lens came along," 
Skinner enthused, "and most people never heard of it. Say you have a 
crime scene but no suspects. Put a profiler on a crime and he'll sniff 
around, get a feel for what the man's like whodunit. Then he'll start 
spouting off a full description of the criminal -- stuff he's done in 
the past, what kind of job he might do -- that lets us narrow down the 
suspects from a city to maybe a few men. It's a combination of 
science, rule of thumb and plain old educated guesswork, but you'd be 
surprised how well it works."

"Sounds useful. So you're having him train Dana to be a profiler, too?"

"Not a bad idea...but no. I had to let Mulder transfer out of that
unit. He was too good."

"What?"

"You heard me. He was too good. People kept handing him more and more
cases, begging him for help, giving him their worst job.  The other 
profilers kept getting jealous or nervous, while he was burning down to
a socket. He finally wised up and asked me for a transfer, so I gave it 
to him. He worked out in the field for a while, and it was good for him. 
Then he ran into a woman who wasn't good for him at all, and a bunch of 
smugglers running some of the oddest psychoactives we've ever run across. 
Pure fear, they were."

"Some of our enemies might like those."

"They did," Skinner commented. "But it was such an odd little case 
that nobody would have paid any attention, if some very odd civilians
hadn't brought it to Mulder's attention. So he started to wonder what
other odd cases were slipping through the cracks. We've got a whole
classification for cold cases with no logical explanation -- officially 
we call 'em Special Circumstances, but the old name's  X-files. 
Mulder started looking into 'em in his copious spare time -- with 
another of our Patrolwomen, in fact, and he worked well with her. So 
you needn't worry about how he'll treat Dana."

Brick nodded. 

"Anyway, they solved enough old X-files to prove that somebody should 
be looking into them on a more regular basis. We set up Mulder and 
Fowley -- Diana Fowley, that was -- as the Special Circumstances Squad, 
reporting to Blevins and me. But when we set up a Legal Attache office 
on Medina II, we pretty much had to send a Patrolwoman. Medinans don't 
give much status to the menfolk, you know. 

"So there was Mulder without a partner  -- and he needs one to keep him 
from running into the ground -- and your daughter just coming into 
fieldwork. So there you are. She's in a small squad, which will give 
her more chance to shine, and she's got one of my best to show her 
the ropes. Fair enough?"

"I couldn't ask for more." Brick got up slowly. "Thanks for taking
the time to soothe down an old man."

"Come by any time. Especially if you feel tempted to look over your
daughter's shoulder," Skinner chuckled. "I'll do my best to keep 
you both out of each other's hair."

"One more thing, Walt -- and I know you've already given me more time
than you should have."

"Shoot."

"Don't let her know I was here." Brick looked sheepish. "Dana'd be
mortified if she thought her old dad was trying to wield influence on
her behalf."

*And she would be too,* Skinner thought. *Not to mention the rumors
it would start; that's why Brick wore civvies. Don't mention his visit
to anyone, Kim.* 

*As if I would!* Her indignance carried as strongly as her thought.

*Sorry, Kim. Paranoia's our profession,* he thought. "And who does 
that remind me of?" he said out loud, not having missed a beat. 

Brick shook his head. "All my sins remembered. But thanks, Walt. 
You've put my mind at rest. Clear ether!" 

"Clear ether!" 

They shook hands and Brick left.

*QX. You're forgiven,* Kim thought, mollified, and said over the intercom,
"Mr. Thorndyke's here for his 9 o'clock." *And snarling like a bear; even 
coffee didn't soothe the savage beast. Good luck, boss.*

*Thanks. I'll need it.* 



Lieutenant Dana K. Scully got off the Metro at Prime Base Station -- 
or as everyone unofficially called it, the Hill-stop. It wasn't her 
first time -- she'd taken the Metro dozens of times to see her dad 
when he'd done his stint of Hill desk duty. But this was the first 
time she'd come wearing the same space-black and silver uniform
as the other Patrolmen around her. This time, she was here to work.

She ignored a few wolf whistles. She was far from being the only 
Patrolwoman stationed here, so she had consulted a few and learned that
unofficially, the skirt resulted in fewer problems with the brass than
the slacks did. Annoying, especially since it meant she would have to
wash out stockings every night. (And why didn't someone invent a better
fabric, or at least a better fastener than garters? They can build a
spaceship that can travel across a galaxy, but they can't improve 
fashion.) At least Patrol uniform didn't include high-heeled shoes --
although, eyeing the backs of the giants around her from five feet and
three inches above the ground, that might not be a bad idea. She 
presented her ID and trooped to the lift shaft with pride in her walk. 
She saw with satisfaction that her gold caduceus insignia shone 
brighter than most of the golden meteors around her; she'd prepared for 
duty that morning as if facing one of her father's infamous inspections. 

For the first time in years, she grinned at the thought of her father. 
Dad had taught her to have a mind of her own, but then disapproved of 
everything she'd chosen to do with it since she'd gotten old enough to
put her hair up. But last night he'd taken her to dinner and given her
helpful advice about survival in the Hill instead of grief. The old 
inside jokes had been made, the old nicknames used, and suddenly they
were friends again. That joy held like space armor against the odd
disapproving or insolent stare, and she smiled graciously at all 
comers as she wafted up, inertialess, to the top floor of the Hill. 

Once she'd stepped out of the lift shaft and gone inert again, she 
consulted the careful directions she'd been given. The Hill was a maze
of offices and corridors, and the further up you got, the more 
confusing it became. At the bottom of the Hill, hundreds of feet below
the surface, there was plenty of space for the most vital labs and
controls, as well as the offices of the top brass. But here at the
Hilltop, the great windows (and their shutters, visible in the frames 
above) served notice that all here was expendable in time of war, when 
bombs and beam weapons could peel off the visible portions of the Hill 
as easily as she could make a Y-incision. And so here, it seemed, were 
all the white elephant pieces of furniture, janitor's supplies, bankers' 
boxes, mimeograph machines and spare carbon paper from the entire 
Galactic Patrol, their dusty tops gleaming in the sunlight. 

Also, one office for the Special Circumstances Squad, Lieutenant Fox 
Mulder commanding. Only the nameplate set it apart from all the other 
rooms in the maze.

She checked her carefully braided and pinned up hair to make sure that
none of its strands had come loose. She made absolutely certain that 
her slip was not showing and that her seams and gig line were straight. 
Then she straightened her uniform one last unnecessary time, took a 
deep breath, and knocked on the door.



Fox Mulder looked up and checked the time. Three minutes early, by his
watch. He'd expected her to be punctual, from both the grapevine and
her record. He closed his midnight-requisitioned copy of her personnel
record and slipped it into his desk. It wouldn't do to start off by
angering his new partner. 

His thoughts flashed quickly and so did his feelings, from the pain of
missing his Diana to his old exasperation at her flattery and lack of 
background in the areas he needed, to his usual shame at his ingratitude.
Then with effort he put his tall, slim, darkhaired and - darn it, distant -
darling out of his mind. 

The similar names were going to get him in trouble. Lucky for him that 
this Dana was a short, stocky redhead with hard science written all over 
her. Which might actually come in useful, if he could get her to stick 
around -- though he doubted she would. But whatever happened, there was 
no way she could ever replace Diana. He took one last glimpse at her 
picture, put his ring in his pocket since their engagement was supposed 
to be secret, and started to get up.

The knock came again, a bit louder and more impatient this time.


Thousands of years before, in the visualisation of the Elders of 
Arisia, Fox Mulder had called out as he did now: "Nobody here but the 
Patrol's Most Unwanted."

The Elders still thought it was a pretty lame joke, but Dana Scully was
less exacting. Her lips curved faintly as she opened the door. 

Behind it was something that looked less like an office than a dorm room.
The walls were positively coated with newsclippings, notepaper, photos,
and star charts, all held up by a mixture of thumbtacks and prayer. It 
looked more like an engineer's office than an investigator's, if you 
allowed for the absence of gadgets in various stages of completion or 
equations scribbled on an unlaundered tablecloth. There was even the
obligatory pinup picture of a tall dark woman in a short dress, she 
noted with amusement as he slipped it inconspicuously into a drawer. 

In the middle of it all sat Fox Mulder, seated in an ancient typing chair 
at a battered desk. His hair was brown, his eyes were brown, and he wore 
a pair of specs that made him look like one of her professors, albeit 
one who was young and good-looking. His space-black jacket, breeches and 
boots had been tailored for his long, lanky form, and they were the one 
neat thing in the midst of all the chaos.

Then Mulder said, "Do you believe in the existence of magic?"

That's the worst pick-up line I've heard in a long time, she thought.
She opened her mouth to tell him so, met his eyes, and realized it was
meant to be a serious question.

"Logically speaking, I would have to say no," she stumbled. "Psionic
abilities exist which can be confused with magic, and might well have
been the foundation for magic in folklore. Also, any sufficiently 
advanced technology may be indistinguishable from magic to the 
uninformed observer, as may certain natural phenomena. However, magic 
itself has never seemed likely to me. Where does the power come from
to cast spells or create wonders such as the pulp fantasists love to
write about?" She smiled wryly. "Thus saith thermodynamics: You can't
win, you can't break even, and you can't even get out of the game."

"But don't inertialess drives contradict that? Something for nothing.
Like magic."

"Not really," she began cautiously. Surely he knew this. Any educated
person would. "You see, thermodynamics...."

Mulder stopped her. "You're the physicist. I'll take your word for it."

She shook her head. "I just majored in physics."

"And interned with Bergenholm, the guy the inertialess drive is named 
after," he parried. "Although even he doesn't know why he knew his 
modifications would make it work, according to Rodebush and Cleveland. 
Psychic, maybe; a genius, certainly."

"He'd be the first to tell you he's not either. And he has a lot of 
interns on his team; they work cheap."

"Don't be modest. Not everyone does a senior thesis on the implications 
of Einstein's twin paradox upon alternate universes and time travel." 

"Did you read it?"

"I did. I liked it. More higher mathematics than I find strictly 
necessary -- why didn't you keep going? Why turn to medicine, and 
forensic medicine at that? Couldn't keep up with the big boys?"

Her stomach dropped, but she refused to flee the challenge in his eyes.
"If you know that much," she said quietly, "then you also know how my 
friend Akio Takahashi died of poisoning. We all saw the signs, but none 
of us recognized them until it was too late."

"Until a college intern read a pulp mystery and recognized the symptoms
of arinite poisoning," he added, "which none of Takahashi's doctors had
done. They applied the antidote, and Takahashi almost survived. His 
family and the rest of the lab staff, including the intern, were 
treated and released for secondary exposure to the cigarettes he 
smoked, which had been impregnated with arinite." He took off his 
glasses and looked into her eyes. "You saved a lab full of people, 
Lieutenant, not to mention yourself."

She looked down. "I didn't save Akio."

He didn't ask anything else, just turned on a slide projector and 
turned off the lights. "What do you make of this?"

"Some kind of xenobiological tissue...I'm not familiar with the type."

"The coroner of Bellflower, a settlement on New Oregon, said it was
from a cow."

"What?! A cow? I've heard some fudges before, but that's not even 
vaguely plausible!"

"I agree. Clearly he has some new definition of the word 'cow'."

He clicked on another slide. A dead woman not many years younger 
than themselves stared up at the camera. "Karen Swenson, one of the 
first generation of colonists to be born on New Oregon. Age 21. 
Nothing showed up in her autopsy. Zip. However, she did have these 
marks on her back." He clicked to another slide, and the camera's 
impersonal eye focused on two raised red bumps. "What are they, Dr. 
Scully?"

She walked forward, staring interestedly at the image on the film 
screen. "Needle punctures, maybe. Animal bites. Electrocution of 
some kind? But why would the tissue look so...." She stopped in 
her tracks and turned back to him. "What does that have to do 
with the 'cow'?"

"That was the substance found clutched in her hand." He clicked to 
another slide, a boy face-down in a spaceport alley, his fist 
clenched and his shirt raised to show the bumps. "And here are the
bumps again, on Sturgis." He clicked again, showing a close-up. "And 
on Lonestar."

"Do you have a theory?"

"I have plenty of theories." He sighed. "Karen Swenson's the fourth 
person from her Bellflower graduating class to die in suspicious 
circumstances, with no cause of death anyone could find. So what 
do you think? We're still newcomers to space as a species. When 
science offers us no answers, might we not turn to the fantastic 
as a plausible explanation?"

She stared hard at him. "The girl obviously died of something. If 
it was from a natural cause, it's plausible that something was 
missed in the post-mortem. If she was murdered, it's plausible 
that there was a sloppy investigation. What I find fantastic is 
any notion that there are answers beyond the realm of science. 
The answers are there. You just have to know where to look." She 
stopped, realizing that she had just done the next best thing to 
chewing him out.

But he just grinned, as if that was all he'd been waiting to hear. 
"Go home and pack, Scully. We're flying out to the vaguely plausible 
planet of New Oregon in two hours."

She saw his eyes glint. Did he expect her to protest?  Instead she 
plopped down the small duffel she was carrying. "I thought I might 
need a go bag; I just didn't think I'd need one so soon. Point me 
to my desk and I'll tell my folks I'm not coming to dinner."

"Semper paratus, huh?"

"That's why they put the 'Special' in 'Special Circumstances'."

He grinned again and pointed her to the phone.



"It's not far from here," the lanky young Galactic Patrolman said, 
stepping off the aerobus.  

She followed, looking like his noonday shadow. "We're taking off 
from Winter Field, then?"

"That's right. How did you know?"

She shrugged. "My dad was stationed here two or three times. You get 
to know how things work."

Fox Mulder cautiously led the way through the maze of the port, but 
he soon saw that, indeed, Dana Scully needed no guide to warn her 
against its everyday perils. She knew where to stay behind the 
warning lines and when to give way to priority traffic better than 
he did himself.

After leaving the Hill, they'd made a stop at the Armory to get his
partner issued a Mark Five Lewiston. Scully had stepped over to the 
range to try out how this particular slug-thrower handled. After 
the first two slugs, each one had made its mark inside the tiny 
heart circle. His new partner could clearly take care of herself.

"There's where Shop 19 used to be," she commented once, pointing at a 
parking lot for the little one-man helicopters and ground cars, and 
he stared, remembering the rumors that swirled around its name. Then 
he looked again at the small woman walking by his side, taking two 
determined steps for his one. He'd been in the Patrol for a good few 
years, but she'd been born into it, more or less. 

The Patrol was comprised of many branches, each a Service. The largest 
part of it was descended from the old Solarian Navy and Marines, and 
that Service maintained many of its old traditions. Another, small but 
elite, was descended from the old intelligence group called the 
Triplanetary Service. From this Service, whose final chief had been 
Virgil Samms, the First Lensman and first head of the Patrol, came the 
golden meteor insignia that all line officers wore, and the informality 
so many of the old school deplored. Violent Crimes included officers 
and men trained in both Services, but only a few who, like him -- like  
Scully, for that matter -- had started out there. Sometimes cultures 
clashed, and he'd noticed that people like them were usually caught 
in the middle.

He'd never had any trouble with the brass -- they knew why Special 
Circs was needed -- but sometimes men took it hard when you went over 
their heads, even when there was an emergency. Other squads didn't 
have half as many problems with the paperpushers as he and Diana and  
the other profilers had had, and he suspected that their outside 
academic backgrounds were held against them. Of course, no woman could 
attend the Academy, but his new partner was still Patrol in some 
undefinable way that he and Diana were not. 

That could be useful, he thought. If she does stick around, he 
reminded himself, and wondered when he had slipped into assuming 
that she would. After all, he'd only seen her in the office. Not 
everybody was cut out for work in the field.

"Which one are we flitting on, sir?"

"Right there, Scully," he pointed. "And can the sir stuff," he said, 
displaying one of the ways he innocently outraged the more stolid 
members of his service. "We can't go around saying lieutenant this, 
lieutenant that, all the time, either. You're my partner. Just call 
me Mulder."

"Mulder?" She raised an eyebrow. "Having you call me by last name as 
my senior officer is one thing, but calling you by it as your partner?
I'd feel like I'm in one of those old history dramas, with the National 
Police chasing evildoers across the whole of North America."

He shrugged. "That's more or less what we are, on the cosmic scale. 
Besides, nobody calls me Fox," he declared, forgetting for the moment 
all the ladyfriends who'd insisted on it with embarrassing 
relentlessness. "I don't even let my mother call me Fox. But it's a 
family name, so...." 

"Mulder, you space-louse, what's taking so long?" called a voice from 
inside the trim little football-shaped ship which they were rapidly 
approaching. "Get in here so we can get going! Hey, that the new kid? 
Did you get us a pathologist this time, or a podiatrist?"

"A _forensic_ pathologist," Mulder pronounced with satisfaction.

Mulder waved her in ahead of him. Scully stepped through the hatch, 
avoiding the knee-knocker with unconscious grace. There she stopped, 
startled. Mulder grinned as he stepped up to stand behind her and to 
her left. As cosmopolitan as the Patrol was, there still weren't too 
many Jovians wearing black-and-silver or serving off their planet. 
Come to think of it, there weren't too many people a five-foot-three 
girl could look down at. But she still managed to say, "I'm Dana 
Scully. How do you do?"  

The squat, heavy-browed, rubbery-skinned humanoid did not reply. 
Instead, a rather startled look on his own broad, ugly face, he called 
past her to Mulder, "She's a looker! And I like 'em tall." He turned 
to Scully, leering. "Hey, baby, wanna date outside your species?"

"Ignore this slobbering bem," Mulder said. "He's Frohikon of Jove, and 
a lot better guy than he pretends. Of course, that's not saying much."

"Hey!"

"He occasionally condescends to navigate, pilot, or do grease monkey 
business, but he's really detached to Special Circs as an evidence 
tech, same as his other partners in crime."

"Like me," a tall amphibious humanoid added as he approached. His 
slick dark skin, rounded features and long pale hair made him look 
much like a terrestrial seal that had gotten caught in seaweed. "And 
thank the Sea of Space we're not really under this slavedriver's 
control. We need the Science Division's protection."

"Nobody's like you," Mulder scoffed. "Scully, this is LanGelen of 
Venus. He spends a lot of time lounging in his pool, but when 
it's not time to listen to music, consider his next war-game-by-mail 
moves or eat fish, he does occasionally get some work done."

"Eating fish is important," LanGeli said virtuously. "If I don't 
eat, I die. Continuing my existence is more important than 
getting your lab work done, and it only makes a half hour's 
difference. Not that it matters, after you've kept a goo sample in 
your pocket all day, and probably stuck your finger in it at least 
once. And tasted it." He made a face. "That little habit's going 
to kill you someday. By the way, Mulder, did you see the latest on 
these ore circles? The Barton Foundation report says...."

"Ore circles are a bunch of hooey," Frohikon insisted, talking 
over his colleague. "We should be focusing on ether zombies...."

"...definite indications of....""

"...fate of the Galactic Union...."

"...you wish, buddy...."

"Gentlemen, please!" said a soft voice. "The lady and I haven't 
yet been introduced. Mulder, will you do us the honor?"

Scully turned her gaze from the Mutt-and-Jeff pair to yet another 
humanoid but not human figure. Mulder was amused to see that her 
face now registered less surprise than resignation as she took in 
the chitinous armor (painted black-and-silver) and polite air of 
the Martian Patrolman.

"Lieutenant Dana K. Scully, M.D.," he said formally, "this is 
Bayos of Mars, Ph.D.  May both of you enjoy each other's friendship 
as I have enjoyed both of yours," he added, using the usual English 
translation of the traditional Martian formula.

Again, Scully surprised him. She met Bayos' bow not only with her 
own nicely judged one, but with a croak in his own Canal's tongue.
"I'm afraid that's about the only phrase I know," she added 
apologetically, "and my accent is terrible."

"But my dear lady!" Bayos exclaimed. "The effort is both charming
and unusual, as are you." 

"How many favors did you call in, Mulder? I didn't think you had 
any left to call," Frohikon commented. "I mean, you did solve that 
murder for Weston, but you also made him look like...."

"Probably his cousin," LanGelen said, crosstalking once more. "He's 
sister's-sister's-son to Admiral Kinnison. Besides, we don't need any 
favors from Weston; he's a...."

"I agree with you both," said Bayos, politely wading in, "but all 
the same, we have received a Patrolwoman with unusually good 
qualifications, which argues that someone thinks unusually well of 
us. And while it is well to be so highly regarded, there is...."

Scully turned to him, and Mulder cleared his throat nervously. "Yeah, 
I'm some kind of shirt-tail relative, but it's not like I even know 
the guy. I've never met him. Grandfather thought Dad was marrying below 
himself, and Mom's not exactly the family reunion type. The only 
Kinnison I know is Kimberly, the one who's Skinner's secretary."

"Perhaps that explains it," said Bayos, who hadn't ceased talking 
but, like his colleagues, was clearly used to listening to and 
answering many persons at once. "All the secretaries seem to favor 
you, Mulder."

Mulder shrugged. "Who knows," he said. "All I know is, it's time 
to get this hunk of junk moving. Want to ride shotgun, Scully?"

"Why...sure!" she said, startled again. 

"That's about all he'll let you do," LanGelen warned Scully. "As 
long as Mulder's conscious, he's got to be pilot. The rest of us 
have a time just keeping up our hours. And Bayos, I still 
don't think we ought to waste our time on this ether zombie thing. 
Frohikon and his pals are the ones breathing ether, I'd...."

Scully carried her go bag with her into the cockpit and stowed 
it neatly under her seat. It occurred to Mulder, a little late, 
that he hadn't even showed her where her cabin was. Well, there'd 
be time for that later.

"Tower, this is LGM1013," he said into the microphone, wishing again 
that their registration number included a nine so he could say 
'niner'. "Requesting clearance for launch."

"QX, 'Little Green Man'. You are cleared for takeoff. Bring us 
back some evil wizards, now. Clear ether," Tower wished him;
it was the spacer's farewell.

"Will do, Tower, and clear ether. 'Little Green Man', over and out."



Nowadays, a trip to New Oregon is a matter of course, with no more 
romantic associations than waving goodbye to one's friends and 
family. But in those days, the Bergenholm drive had only been in 
existence for a few years. Dana Scully had studied the drive, of 
course. She had taken a few trips inside the Solarian System and   
made one voyage to Nevia, for a quarter's exchange program with 
the scientists of that amphibious and clever people. But she had 
never gone as far away as this, and she had never felt so much 
riding on her since...well, since Akio. She shuddered, and the 
butterflies in her stomach got worse. At least in her cabin nobody 
could see her like this! 

And then someone knocked on her door.

Soon she would learn that her partner's latent telepathy was almost 
as strong and unpredictable as her own, but for now she was only 
relieved and irritated that her partner appeared at her door just 
as she needed to talk to him but didn't feel like seeing anyone. She 
only hoped that her mood didn't show in her face.

"Hey, Scully. Thought you'd want to know we're landing in five. Say, 
why the long face?"

So much for that hope. "I guess I'm a little nervous about my first 
case out in the field."

He grinned. "The slings and arrows of local law enforcement are 
pretty much the same where Special Circs is concerned. Some of 'em are 
relieved to see us, but most of 'em are ashamed to admit they've come 
across something they can't handle. They're relieved to see we don't 
have Lenses, but insulted to think they don't rate a Lensman in all 
his refulgent glory. But _you'll_ have most of the fun. They see 
a Patrolwoman and they don't know whether to kiss her or kill her."

"You've worked with a Patrolwoman before?"

Mulder shrugged. "Yeah. Anyway, you're a doctor, which should give 
you a little more leverage. You get through the rest of those files 
I gave you?"

She picked up the stack sitting on the tiny desk that folded out 
of her cabin wall. "Yes," she said, handing them to him. "So the 
Patrol's investigated this case before."

"Yeah, a Patrol ship happened to be on planet when the third death 
occurred. The captain sent out a team, but as you saw, they didn't 
find much -- though I understand Aunt Jessie's serves a great filet 
of garstka! After a couple of days, their ship was called into action 
against some pirates and they left with her. In the fullness of time, 
their investigation spools were sent back to Prime Base --" 

"And from there to Special Circs. But if every odd case that every 
Patrol ship comes across comes to us --"

"Don't worry. We don't have to investigate them all -- just look 
'em over to see which ones we can do something about, and hold onto 
the rest. That way, we can start to spot patterns."

Without warning, the 'Little Green Man' shook like a dog with fleas, 
then settled down again. This ether certainly wasn't clear!

"What was that?!" Scully asked, wondering why Mulder looked so 
unsurprised.

"Spatial anomaly," he said with satisfaction. "Looks like I picked the 
right case."



Half an hour later, the 'Little Green Man' had finished refueling 
and recharging at New Oregon's only spaceport and had already made 
the hop to Bellflower's tiny boatpad. An hour later, Scully found 
herself standing in a cemetery, carefully overseeing the exhumation 
of Karen Swenson's three dead classmates. At least, that's what was 
supposed to be in the graves. But one of the excavators had bobbled 
his energy projector, and the coffin he'd been lifting had tumbled 
down the purple-grassed hill and broken open. The mummified corpse 
inside reminded Scully of a cross between a chimpanzee and a Jovian, 
but it certainly didn't look like Mulder's photo of Ray Soames.