Title: X-Lensman
Author: Maureen S. O'Brien
Rating: PG-13
Classification: C 
Spoilers: for the pilot
Keywords: XF/Lensmen series crossover
Summary: What Mulder and Scully really need are spacecraft in hot 
pursuit, the power of the Lens, and the Galactic Patrol!


Dedicated to 'Gharlane of Eddore', keeper of the Lensman FAQ, who 
didn't like fanfic in general but would have gotten a copy of this 
in his inbox. I never knew him well or offline, but I liked what I 
knew. He defended spelling, grammar, and good writing, and I hope 
I do him honor. Rest well, you old brain in a jar. 7/1/01

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Disclaimer: Youth, the Lensmen belong to the space-time continuum 
chronicled by the entity known as E.E. "Doc" Smith in the 1930's.
Mulder, Scully, Skinner, and Kimberly the secretary belong to the 
space-time continuum chronicled by that tool of Boskone known as 
Chris Carter. It is starkly obvious that the two should never have 
been combined; but we Guardians do get bored sometimes of the same 
old Visualization of the Cosmic All.

This particular series of events began, as much as any event can be 
said to begin, during the early days of the Galactic Union, a few 
years after the events chronicled in that volume of the History of 
Civilization known as _First Lensman_. The human writing this work 
is limited in her perception and skills, but her historical research 
has produced a work which may at least point ignorant beings toward 
that classic study. Therefore, it has been declassified and released 
to the Public.

=====================================================================


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 Enforcement section'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', back 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. General 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. Most included a 
wall of pictures of war trophies or famous people they knew, but 
General Walter "The Wall" Sergei 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, Scully 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."

"A what?"

"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 from the way he 
did the crime. 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 grinds.  The 
other profilers got 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 -- did him good. 
Then he ran into 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. 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. Unofficially, Patrolwomen had 
learned that wearing the uniform skirt resulted in fewer problems. 
But getting around the Hill meant using lift shafts and that meant 
slacks, unless you really wanted everyone for thousands of feet 
below you to be able to look up your skirt. Too bad slacks still 
meant she'd have to wash out stockings every night; logically, you 
only needed to cover the foot part. And why didn't someone invent a 
better fabric than snaggable nylon, or at least a better fastener 
than garters? They could build a spaceship that can travel across a 
galaxy, she grumbled to herself, but they couldn't improve fashion. 
At least female Patrol uniforms 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 for 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 gig lines 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 look 
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 the man inside 
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 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 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, the amount of power needed to work the 
drives...."

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 in 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.

After leaving the Hill, they'd made a stop at the Armory to get his new
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 that 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. It was annoying, but he 
supposed it could also be useful.

If she sticks it out, he reminded himself, and wondered when he had 
slipped into assuming that Scully 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, out 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?"

"Well, they didn't send us a podiatrist," Mulder cracked, and waved 
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 Lieutenant 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 play greasemonkey, 
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 LanGelin 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," LanGelin said virtuously. "If I don't eat,
I die. Continuing my existence is more important than getting your lab
work done a half hour earlier. Not that it matters, after you've kept 
some goo sample in your pocket all day and stuck your finger in, to 
taste 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, chezb...."

"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 Bnayos 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 Bnayos' 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!" Bnayos 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," LanGelin 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 Bnayos, 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 Bnayos, 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," LanGelin 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 Bnayos, 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 control-room 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 -- the classic
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 kept thinking about him. Ever since Mulder brought him up (and 
she no longer needed to remind herself to call him that), everything 
had seemed to conspire to bring him to mind. Working on with Doctors 
Bnayos, LanGelen, and Frohikon -- and Mulder; he'd gotten his masters 
in psychology and his doctorate in criminology -- reminded her of the 
good times she'd had as a physicist intern, working like crazy for 
Bergenholm and then going to the usual engineering dives to drink, 
scribble equations on napkins, and make bad jokes. She smiled. Well, 
she hadn't yet been offered anything alcoholic on this flit -- fayalin 
didn't contain alcohol -- but the other two essential activities were 
doing a land office business. 

But the more she felt she belonged here and the fonder she felt of 
her shipmates, the more fragile it all felt. What if something went 
wrong? She wasn't up on nonhuman physiology the way she should be -- 
well, not that of the living.  It gave her that terrible sinking 
feeling of not knowing the answer, not being quick enough. It was 
the same feeling she'd had when Akio died, the feeling that had driven 
her through medical school to study and then study some more. But no 
doctor can ever be quick enough with the answers to save every patient, 
so for her sanity's sake she had found a home in one discipline that 
never does. It meant studying every branch of medical knowledge, but 
it also meant that she could take her time and find the one answer that 
was right. The Patrol always went in, though, answer found or not, and 
people who needed medical attention rarely waited on you to look up 
their condition. 

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 both 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. "Yep. 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 
already investigated this case."

"Yes, 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?" Dana 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. The evidence techs would wait and 
keep an eye on the ship while Dana went with Mulder to investigate her 
first case.

The 'spatial anomalies' continued. The tiny helo that Frohikon and 
Langelin had hauled out of the hold of the 'Little Green Man' seemed to be 
having radio trouble. At one point on the flight into town the static got 
so bad that Mulder landed the helo and checked the vacuum tubes in the 
radio set. After proving to his own satisfaction that the tubes were 
good, he brought out a tiny paint can and brush from his toolbox and 
made a long orange X on the ground.

"What's that for?" 

"Maybe nothing," Mulder said. "Let's go."

It was probably the fault of New Oregon's star, Dana thought -- sunspots, 
prominences, the weather cycle of the solar wind. But there was something 
eerie about this planet, with its vast forests belittling the tiny 
bridgeheads of alien Tellurian life. How easy it would be for the 
settlements to vanish again and be reclaimed by the trees!

An hour later, Dana found herself standing at the top of the hilly 
local graveyard, carefully overseeing the exhumation of Karen Swenson's 
three dead classmates. This would be the third. She didn't bother to 
look up when she heard another tiny two-man helicopter fly overhead; 
almost every colonist in these parts had one, since the almost 
constant heavy rains made the roads tenuous at best. But when it 
circled and rotored down for a landing just outside the low cemetery 
wall, a look of irritation crossed her face. Rubberneckers.

But the helo's passengers did not remain inside it. A middle-aged 
man got out, slammed the door behind him, and began to stride up the 
hill. A young woman -- his daughter perhaps -- ran around the helo 
from her side and seemed to plead with him. He pointed adamantly to 
the helo, and her shoulders dropped. She waited there while he climbed. 
Mulder went down to head him off.

"Who do you people think you are?" the man yelled. "Patrol, eh? You 
people think you can come in here and do whatever you please, is that 
it?"

Dana bristled at the disrespect in his tone, but down below, Mulder 
simply inquired the man's name.

He answered angrily, "I'm Dr. Jay Nemman, the county medical examiner!"

Whoops. Some of her distinguished colleagues could sure be prickly. 
She threaded her way down through the tombstones while Mulder 
explained, "I ultra-waved ahead three days ago to make arrangements. 
Surely you were informed, sir?"

"I've been away."

"Then that explains why you didn't do the autopsy on Karen Swenson. 
My apologies for the confusion. Do you have time to talk to us? 
We've got some questions about the autopsies you did on three of 
her classmates."

"Are you insinuating that I missed something on the other kids' exams?"

"Not at all, sir," Dana said quietly. "But I'm a pathologist myself, 
and I _would_ like to ask...."

The M.E. ignored her, his voice rising in volume and frequency as he 
grabbed Mulder's arm and spun him around. "And if you insinuate 
something, see, you better have something to back it up!"

"Please, Dad, let's go home," implored a voice. It was the young woman 
down by the helicopter. "I'm tired. I just want to go home. Please?"

Nemman hesitated, glared at Mulder again, then went back downhill.
As far as Dana could tell, he'd never even noticed her. 

"He knows something. Gosh, what I wouldn't give right now for a Lens 
and a look into his mind!" Mulder said fervently. 

"I wouldn't," said Dana adamantly. "Creeping around inside somebody 
else's brain -- ugh! I know that Lensmen are incorruptible and I think 
my conscience's pretty clear, but I don't want anybody poking around 
in my thoughts but me."

Mulder shrugged, and they trudged back up the steep hill covered with 
damp, slick purple vegetation. There were quite a few graves. Colony 
life was never easy.

Dana checked her clipboard. "This one's Ray Soames, the one who was 
confined to the planet's mental hospital after graduation, right?"

"And the one who confessed to the murder of the first two. But 
since he couldn't explain how he managed to kill them without leaving 
a mark on them besides those bumps, he couldn't persuade anyone to 
lock him up more than he already was. He then escaped from the mental 
hospital and died. Did you notice the cause of death?"

"Exposure. During planetary summer, after being missing only seven 
hours. Which _is_ possible in a New Oregonian thunderstorm," she said 
judiciously, "but the Patrolmen confirmed that it had been one of 
their rare warm and dry nights, and the body was dry when found."

"So how does a twenty-year-old in good health die of exposure?"

"We'll find out," she promised, looking up at the workers' projector 
beams as they pulled the coffin up and out of the open grave. 

But then one man bobbled his projector, and his beam flickered. 
Partially unsupported, the heavy coffin sagged and fell, then toppled 
down the hill. It came to rest against a crude tombstone carved from 
a boulder, and the impact threw open the coffin lid. Dismayed, Dana 
hurried forward, undeterred by the smell that made the men jogging 
downhill cover their noses and retch. It was more important to get 
the corpse off the 'grass' before more contamination could take place. 
Mulder followed. But when they reached the body, they saw not the 
pitiful human remains they expected but a tiny desiccated grayish 
mummy with long thin arms.

"Didn't get a letter sweater for basketball," Mulder commented dryly. 
He turned to the workers. "Seal this up right now! Nobody sees or 
touches this thing, by order of the Patrol. QX? Then jet!"

An hour later, they were back on the 'Little Green Man' beginning 
the autopsies -- or rather, Dana was beginning the autopsies while 
the others got in her way. Yes, she was aware that finding a new 
species was important -- if it _was_ real and not just some elaborate 
prank. But she had three bodies to autopsy, which meant hours of work. 
And Bnayos and Mulder were blocking her light.

She droned into a microphone attached to a spool recorder, "Subject 
is a hundred and fifty-six centimeters in length, weighing fifty-two 
pounds in extremis. Corpse is in advanced stages of decay and 
desiccation. Distinguishing features include large ocular cavities, 
oblate cranium... indicates subject is not human." She covered the 
microphone with her hand. "Could you point that flash away from me, 
please?"

Mulder took one more picture, then put the camera and flash apparatus 
aside. "All three bodies look the same," he said, gesturing at the 
freezer behind them. "What do you think that means?"

"I don't know," she murmured distractedly. "I'm trying to find out."

"And why were they buried in the kids' graves? We need full tests run 
on these. What you and the boys can't do here, we'll have to have done 
back on Tellus. Make sure you do some X-rays before you start cutting."

"Already taken care of; LanGelin's developing the film," she said, then 
droned again, "Subject...."



When next she took note of the world beyond her subject, they'd all 
gone away and left her alone. Hopefully that meant the tests were 
getting done. She took a moment to rest her eyes and heard voices.

"Somebody's got to keep an eye on the new kid," she heard Frohikon 
insist. She thought he was just being overprotective until, after 
some more talk she couldn't hear, he burst out, "She might monkey 
with the bodies. How much do we know about her, really?"

Her face flamed with embarrassment. Mom always said that if you 
eavesdropped, you never heard anything good.

Bayos gently said, "I have a very auspicious feeling about her."

LanGelin pointed out, "You had very auspicious feelings about your dear 
'Szanos', too."

"Miss Modeski had no choice but to betray us," said Bnayos, in the 
same breath that Frohikon mumbled, "It wasn't Suzanne's fault."

"We can't trust her," LanGelin insisted. "Oh, I'm sure she's not 
crooked -- the Lensmen weed them out -- but that doesn't mean she'd 
approve of what we're doing or understand why we keep it dark. 
And if the wrong person got hold of her --"

More low-voiced discussion. She rolled her eyes. They had this big 
secret and they didn't think they could trust her, so the lunkheads 
went and argued about it loudly enough that she could hear. By the 
time they got around to deciding she was trustworthy, she'd probably 
know all about it. 

"He's right," Mulder said. "This is ultra-secret. We can't take the 
risk."

Mulder was in on this? So much for all that talk about being partners.

Her expression hardened. Well, if those ether-happy sons of space
fleas thought she couldn't measure up, she'd just show them. She'd do 
the best autopsy they'd ever dreamed of, and figure out just what was 
rotten in the town of Bellflower to boot. She went back to her work.



The next morning, Mulder was up bright and early. Three or four hours 
of sleep and he was fine; add a few unknown alien corpses and he didn't 
need even need coffee. He poked his head into the tiny messroom and saw 
that this wasn't true of his new partner. She stared moodily into her 
cup, her face that of a much older woman. 

"I was just going out to stretch my legs," he asked. "Want to come?"

"Not particularly."

"Did you get any sleep?" 

"Not yet."

"So, any clues on how the aliens got into the graves?"

"They were already there."

"What?"

Mulder could have sworn he saw a look of satisfaction cross 
Scully's face. "We're still waiting on the lab results, but the 
dentition, what's left of it, matches the dental records 
of the deceased and the genetic tests seem to show human DNA. 
However, it's been chopped and changed with strings of DNA from an 
unknown source -- but it's got to be from Tellus, since DNA doesn't 
occur anywhere else. Oh, and there's a fifth amino acid present, 
which shouldn't exist and doesn't belong. No wonder those kids died
after that much genetic manipulation."

"But how could their bodies change like that after they died?"

"When the brain and heart and lungs start working, there's still 
quite a bit of the body that's still alive." She blinked at her 
coffee. "If some sort of tiny alien machine was at work, I suppose 
a little technicality like death might not have stopped it." 

"It reminds me of a story by Bradbury, that old-time science-fiction 
writer we had to read in school," Mulder mused. "Maybe the planet
itself is slowly turning the colonists into something else. I think 
I remember some kind of feng shui theory that the land...."

"Then New Oregon's a pretty good gene-gineer," Scully said dryly. 
"Where'd it get those strings of DNA? And how's it traveling to 
planets as far away as Sturgis and Lonestar?"

"Hey, I read in Popular Space Mechanics how someday planets will 
come with their own Bergenholms. And if it's in print, you know 
it must be true," Mulder offered with a grin. "All right, then. 
How's about a dying race, replete with super-science but not with 
kids, trying desperately to reproduce its kind?"

"I think I saw that spool. 'Arisia Needs Women', wasn't it?"

"The original title was 'To Save the Race'," Mulder informed her 
with dignity. 

She raised an eyebrow. "I'm not sure what scares me more -- that
you knew that, or that I did too." She took a sip of coffee. "By the 
bye, I found something else in that autopsy. The X-rays revealed a 
small vial containing some sort of inscribed plaque in the sinuses 
of all three corpses." She fished an evidence bag out of her pocket 
and gave to him to inspect. 

He looked at it, intrigued. "That's beautiful work. Look at all the 
tiny little trails of metal on the plaque -- looks like gold. 
Writing? Sculpture? Jewelry? Religious artifact? I wonder what it 
really is."

She shrugged. "Maybe it's an artistic representation of a circuit 
diagram." 

He laughed. "That's all we need. A lost civilization of double-E's."



New Oregon's mental hospital was a small low building designed to 
look like a large and cheerful private home or school. The director, 
Dr. Philip Glass, proudly showed them around the lovely grounds full 
of Tellurian flowers with not a native plant to be seen. But there 
was a high stone wall all around and twenty patients inside who might 
never leave. Colony life had its dangers, and not only to the body. 
Dana had heard from scuttlebutt that Mulder was either qualified as 
a psychologist or close to it. It was certainly close enough for 
Dr. Glass, who chattered shoptalk until Mulder finally managed to 
bring him back to the case at hand.

"Ray Soames was a patient of mine," Dr. Glass was saying. "I oversaw 
his treatment for just over a year. Clinical schizophrenia -- basically, 
he just couldn't grasp reality." 

"Is that something you've seen before?" Mulder asked.

"Yes," Glass said slowly. "It reminded me of some shellshock cases I 
treated during the Jovian Wars."

"Did you see similar symptoms among Ray Soames' classmates?" Dana
inquired, trying to help.

Glass nodded slowly. 

"Are you treating any of those kids now?" she added.

"Yes. Billy Miles and Peggy O'Dell. Both are staying here at present." 
He sighed. "Going on four years now."

"Would it be possible for us to talk to them?" Mulder asked.

"That might be difficult, at least in Billy Miles' case."



Mulder looked through the window at Billy Miles, wishing once again 
for a Lens. This time he longed to be able to perceive and sort 
through the human mind in all its complexity, uncover just what 
was really wrong, rouse the kid from his waking coma...and find out 
what he knew, of course. 

"How did it happen?" Scully asked in hushed tones.

"He and Peggy had a copter crash east of town, out by the forest. It 
left her a cripple and gave her brain damage, but Billy got the worst 
of it." Dr. Glass opened Billy's door. A young woman in a wheelchair 
sat inside, reading out loud in a toneless voice. "Peggy? Peggy, we 
have some visitors. Would you like to talk to them?"

"Billy wants me to read now," she said without looking up. She went
back to her reading.

Mulder entered and knelt down in front of Peggy, his black uniform
somber against the cheerful yellow walls and white sheets. "Does he
like it when you read to him?"

"Yes. Billy wants me close." She returned to her reading again, not
missing a beat.

Mulder mentally shook his head. Poor kid. She wasn't much better off
than Billy. He rose, walked back to the hall, and whispered in Glass'
ear, "Would it be possible to give Peggy a brief medical exam?"

Without warning, Peggy threw down the book and began twisting around
in her wheelchair. Mulder wondered for a moment whether she'd heard what
he said and was objecting. But as Doctor Glass called for an orderly
and then hurried to her side, Peggy clutched her nose and screamed.
Mulder followed Glass, saying soothingly, "No one's going to hurt
you." But when Peggy took her hand away from her nose, blood went
everywhere. She fell forward onto the floor and continued to scream.

"You've had these nosebleeds before, Peggy," Glass reminded her as he
knelt and deftly brought two small cylinders of gauze out from his
pocket. He inserted one in each nostril. "Now, isn't that better?"

An orderly entered to help soothe Peggy, followed by a nurse who
clucked her tongue quietly and began to clean up the mess. Mulder had
been standing quietly nearby, waiting to see if his assistance would
be needed. Now he came forward again. "Dr. Glass," he asked, pointing
where the back of Peggy's hospital blouse had ridden up slightly, "how
long has Peggy had those marks?"

"What marks?" Dr. Glass asked, peering over Peggy's still-shaking
form. "But...what could have done that?"

Scully had been staying out of the way. Now she mutely examined the
marks, which she could surely see were the same as the ones on the
late Karen Swenson. Mulder watched her face, wondering what her
reaction would be. Fear? Denial? 

Emotions flashed across her face and were gone again before he 
could name what he'd seen. "Presumably, the same thing that made 
those marks on Karen Swenson," she said calmly. "Whatever the cause, 
those marks contain DNA that's been...damaged. Peggy will need 
treatment right away; I'd recommend removing the bad tissue as 
completely as possible. You should check Billy for the marks as 
well. Oh, and can we get some X-rays of the nasal area on Peggy 
at least?"

The orderly prepared to aid Doctor Glass in moving Billy, while the 
nurse stripped away his covers. She stopped with a dismayed gasp.

"What's the matter, nurse?" Dr. Glass asked.

"There's mud on these sheets!"

"On Billy's soles, too," Mulder said, pointing from several feet 
away. 

Dr. Glass' mouth gaped open for a minute, then closed again. His 
face turned grim. "Somebody's playing a practical joke on us, and 
I don't think it's very funny. Get a wet washcloth and take care 
of this, nurse."

"Not till I've taken a look, if I may, Doctor," Scully forestalled 
him. She knelt at the foot of the bed and examined Billy's soles. 
"Pretty elaborate joke," she commented. "Look at the pattern of the 
dried mud. You can see the distinctive signs of pressure here and 
here, as well as the appropriate creases for pronation...." She 
cut herself off. She couldn't quite bring herself to say without 
jargon that comatose Billy had been out for a walk.

Mulder took his camera and flash-apparatus out of the equipment 
bag he always carried. "Say limburger cheese," he muttered.

"Is all this rigmarole necessary?" Dr. Glass asked. 

"Sorry," said Mulder cheerfully. "You know us Patrollers. We're 
fanatical about physical evidence, and you never know what might turn 
out to be a clue. Now, Doctor, let's see if Billy has any marks."



Billy's physical took only a few minutes. Dana slipped out as 
soon as it was done, needing to get away before she made a scene.  
She knew Mulder would soon follow her to the helipad, but even 
his long legs took a while to catch up to her quiet, furious pace. 

"Dr. Glass said he was sorry he didn't get to say goodbye," Mulder 
said. "We can come back for the X-rays tomorrow." 

Dana ignored this sally. "How did you know that girl was going to 
have the marks?" she demanded. "And Billy?"

"I don't know -- lucky guess?" Then he smirked. 

It was the smirk that made Dana lose her redheaded temper. "Space 
you, Mulder! What do you know about those marks? Just quit blowing 
smoke and tell me what you think's going on here."

"I don't think you're ready for what I think."

"Tell me anyway. I want the truth."

"The truth? I think those kids have been abducted."

"By who?"

"By witch. Or wizard, or sorcerer, or some other sort of secular 
magic-user. The bumps are the grain of truth at the bottom of the 
legend of witchmarks. A magic-user, or magic-using civilization, 
is abducting kids. The bumps let them keep tabs on the kids and 
control their actions, like the tracking devices naturalists put 
on wild animals. In the end, the magic-user transforms the children 
into people of his own kind. We only have records of the unsuccessful 
transformations; the successful ones are in the files at Missing 
Persons."

Dana blinked. "You don't really believe...."

"Do you have a better explanation?"

Dana stared at him. "Billy and Peggy are suffering from something, 
and I'm willing to buy that it has something to do with the strange 
tissue in those marks. Maybe members of another civilization with 
technology we don't understand are responsible; I can't say. But to 
say those kids've been transported around the galaxy on eggshells  
and broomsticks? That's crazy, Mulder. There's nothing to support 
that."

"Nothing scientific."

"What else is there?" She rolled her eyes. "Look, Mulder, there's got 
to be a logical explanation. We've got four victims. All of them 
died in the forest -- or near it, anyway. Karen Swenson was found in 
her pajamas, ten miles from her house -- in the forest. How did she 
get there? What were those kids doing out in the forest?"

"And at night?" Mulder added. "Yeah, we'd better take a look out 
there. But first, we'd better get someone keep an eye on the kids, 
in case they go back to the woods again tonight. And since these are 
the kids we know...." 

"And since I'm the new girl, I get to stake out the mental hospital," 
Dana said, resigned.

"What? No, not unless you want to." Mulder walked over to their helo 
and turned on the radio. "Surveillance isn't my forte; I'd rather 
leave it to the experts. 'Phantom Airship' to 'Little Green Man'. You 
there, LanGelin?"

"That's 'Large Grey Man' to you, Mulder. What you got?"

"Tell Frohikon to go to the mental hospital."

"Hey, I tell him that all the time!"

"With the surveillance kit and something in basic black."

"QX. Anything else? No? Then LGM out."

Mulder put back the mic.  "Now I think we can leave. Dr. Glass and 
his nurses will be keeping a close eye on Billy and Peggy for a 
while, and besides, nothing will happen till after sunset."

"But how will Frohikon get out here?" Dana ventured to ask as she 
took her seat in the helo.

Mulder strapped himself in. "He's got an aircycle in the hold."

"But aren't those illegal?" She followed suit.

"On Tellus, in NorthAm, yes. The situation's bit fuzzier out here."

"But they go so fast! No human could possibly control...oh."

"Yeah, and Frohikon's done something to his to make it quiet and give 
it a higher ceiling. In fact, he tinkers something new onto that 
machine just about every week; I doubt the manufacturer would even 
recognize the thing." Mulder looked at the sky. "Let's get moving. 
We don't have much daylight left, and I still want to talk to the 
local sheriff."

"Oh, yes. Sheriff _Miles_," recalled Dana. She and Mulder exchanged 
glances. Nothing else needed to be said.



Back in Bellflower, Sheriff Miles wasn't at his office. "He might be 
down at Aunt Jessie's," they were told by the deputy, and so down the 
street to Aunt Jessie's they went.  The little diner was surrounded 
by a garden of native vegetation, including a stand of long-stalked 
plants topped with a cluster of crystalline 'flowers'. When the wind 
came up it set the flowers swinging, chinking against each other with 
a pleasant ringing sound.

"Bellflowers," Scully said with recognition. "And I thought it was 
just a name."

"There's a lot of information hidden in names," he returned, opening 
the diner door for Scully. "On New Oregon it rains a lot. The Hill 
really is one. And Billy Miles' father is sheriff. Say, isn't that Dr. 
Nemman's daughter?"

He could hardly have missed her. She was sitting all alone in a big 
booth, hunched over a milkshake and a glass of ice water, and looking 
too scared to move. Hoping Scully would follow his lead, he walked on 
over to her table. "Miss Nemman, isn't it? May we sit down?"

"Oh, please do," she said in a low voice, looking scared but hopeful. 
"I'm Theresa Nemman, and I was hoping to talk to you. I was pretty sure 
you had to eat at Aunt Jessie's, being strangers and all. And it's not 
likely Sheriff Miles or Dad would have you over...." She laughed 
nervously and scooted over on the seat. Mulder sat down on the opposite 
bench to watch her face. Scully sat down next to her, taking up little 
space, but the girl stayed huddled in her corner. "You've got to 
protect me," she whispered. 

It was so standard an abduction story that Mulder could have told it 
himself; the only difference was that it wasn't something painfully  
recovered from the past, but something still going on. Scully kept 
her mouth shut, sure of her sympathy for Teresa despite the wildness 
of the girl's story.

"So that's the way it happens," Teresa summed up. "I don't know how 
I get out there: I just find myself out in the woods."

"How long has it been happening?" he asked, pretty sure what the 
answer would be.

"Ever since the summer we graduated. It's happened to my friends, too. 
That's why I need you to protect me. I...I don't want to die like the 
others."

"Your father's the medical examiner," he pointed out. "He knows about 
this, doesn't he?"

"Yes, but he said never to tell anyone about it. You've got to understand, 
Patrolman, he wants to protect me. He thinks he can stop it from 
happening. But I don't think he can."

"Do you have the marks, Theresa?"

"Yes." She barely managed to say it. "I'm going to die, aren't I? I'm 
next."

"No," Scully said, speaking up for the first time. "You are not going 
to die." Her voice was firm, reassuring, and would have been utterly 
convincing had Theresa's nose not begun to gush blood.

Mulder, who'd had a nosebleed or two himself in his time, grabbed the 
last chunk of napkins from the dispenser and held them out to the moaning 
Theresa. Scully ran to the next booth to grab its dispenser as well. Just 
about then a man in sheriff's uniform walked in, accompanied by -- surprise, 
surprise -- Dr. Nemman, who sat down abruptly in Scully's place, shoved 
away the napkins, and began dabbing at his daughter's nose in a way which 
demonstrated his concern but not his medical skill. "Let's go home, 
Theresa," he said, not even waiting for the nosebleed to slow down. 
"Come on, honey, let's go home."

"Your father wants to take you home," Sheriff Miles said. "He'll get 
you all cleaned up." It was not a suggestion.

Theresa sent Mulder a pleading look.

"I don't think she wants to leave," Mulder said mildly. He stood, now 
confronting Sheriff Miles on the same level and subtly emphasizing his 
uniform of black and silver.

Dr. Nemman turned on him. "I don't care what you think! She's a sick 
girl."

"She's a sick woman," Scully said, returning to the table with the 
napkins in hand and pushing past Sheriff Miles as if he weren't there.
"And well over the age of majority. Unless you're claiming that your 
daughter is mentally incompetent; I wouldn't say so. Perhaps we should 
consult a trained psychologist. Mulder?"

Mulder caught the handoff. "In my professional opinion, Miss Nemman 
is entirely competent and able to make her own decisions." 

"And in mine, she needs better care of that nosebleed." Scully dunked 
one of her napkins in Theresa's ice water and held it up against the 
exterior of her nose until Theresa took it. Then, like Dr. Glass, she 
screwed up torn bits of another napkin into makeshift bandages for 
the inside of the girl's nostrils. A few more traditional remedies 
later and the nosebleed had slacked off considerably. 

"Now," Mulder inserted before Dr. Nemman could, "I believe Theresa 
was asking to see our Patrol ship."

"Oh, yes," Theresa said eagerly, if a bit nasally. She stood up. 
But her father did not move from his seat. 

"We all want Miss Nemman to be safe," Scully said gently. "You all did 
your best in a difficult situation; it wasn't your fault that these...
kidnappers have better machines. But now the Patrol's here to relieve 
you. We'd be pleased to have both her and Dr. Nemman as our guests 
for a while. And Sheriff, we really would like to hear your honest 
assessment of the enemy."

"Our ship is armed, armored, and filled with sensor gear," Mulder added. 
"We don't care about the credit; we're just here to get the job done. 
And believe it or not, we do understand what you're going through."

"How could you possibly understand?" the sheriff barked. "You've never 
had to watch them take your child again and again, or bring them back 
dying of something nobody understands."

Mulder's face froze. "No, we haven't. Now, if you're done playing More 
Miserable Than Thou, let's get Miss Nemman under space armor."



A little procession of helos followed them back to the boatpad. As 
soon as they got onboard the 'Little Green Man', Dana ran a few tests 
on Theresa. Sure enough, the X-rays showed a mass in her sinus cavity 
the same shape as the tiny plaques found in the corpses of her 
classmates. 

"But why would anyone want to put a piece of jewelry up my nose?" 
Theresa asked, staring.

Scully shrugged. "When we catch whoever did this, we'll ask them. 
But that's what's causing your nosebleeds," Scully told Teresa, 
tracing the shape on the film. "A good surgeon could get up in there 
and clean things out. I don't know if there's a specialist like that 
on New Oregon, but if there isn't, I imagine we can give you a lift 
to where there is one."

Teresa looked uncertainly from Scully's face to her father's. "So 
I'm not gonna die?"

"Not if I can help it," her father vowed.

Mulder knocked on the door of Scully's cabin, which she was using as 
an examination room, "You done in there, Scully? The sheriff's going 
to show us the forest before it gets dark."

"Oh, good." Scully opened the door. "I was wondering how we'd get to 
look over the place where the kids were found, since we don't have 
a warrant and that forest is private land."

"It's Miles land, actually," Theresa broke in. "I'm surprised the 
sheriff's letting you two go in. He hasn't allowed anybody out 
there since we graduated, and ever since Ray died he's gotten 
fanatical about patrolling for trespassers."

"Sheriff Miles kindly agreed to cooperate with the Patrol," Mulder 
said tactfully.

"But you two can't go!" Dr. Nemman insisted. "That'd leave Theresa 
unguarded!"

"Not quite," said Bnayos quietly, seeming to materialize at Mulder's 
elbow. "Lieutenant Mulder has given the honor of protecting your 
daughter to Mr. LanGelin and myself." The noble Martian's black and 
silver chitin gleamed as brightly as the twin Lewistons holstered on 
his belt. "I trust that our vigilance will prove sufficient."



"Not much to see," Sheriff Miles said. "Just forest."

Scully and Mulder traded glances. New Oregon's temperate rain forests 
were and are one of the most impressive sights in the three galaxies. 
The vast purplish canopy of leaves hundreds of feet overhead is so 
thick as to create darkness at midday. Near sunset was actually about 
the best time of day to see it, as the slant of light from the west 
illuminated the forest floor far better than the gap in the canopy 
above them left by the fall of one giant tree. Its wide stump still 
dominated the clearing like a wooden landing pad.

"Anyway, this clearing is where Ray Soames was found," the sheriff 
added. 

Mulder looked around the tiny clearing, trying to picture the scene as 
it had been that night. Scully bent down, staring at the ground. 
"What's this, Sheriff?"

The sheriff walked over to see what she was looking at, then shrugged 
down at her. "Just ashes. Kids must've been building campfires out 
here when they had their parties."

Scully frowned. She didn't see any small burnt patches. Instead, the 
earth in the whole clearing looked as though it had been exposed to 
high levels of heat. How that could happen without the whole forest 
burning down, she didn't pretend to know. She scooped a sample of the 
ashy substance into an evidence bag for later testing, then looked 
around for a few more samples.

After a few more minutes passed, the sheriff started to fidget. 
"Sun's going down," he pronounced. "Time we left."

Scully concurred. It was starting to get too dark to see. Mulder 
stared around the clearing for a moment longer, then nodded agreement. 
"Yeah, and we need to get back to the ship. Thanks for the Cook's 
Tour, Sheriff."

Back in their helo, Scully looked at her ash and felt herself 
frowning again as they rose into the air. 

"What do you think it is?" Mulder asked.

"I don't know," she said slowly. "It was all over the ground." She 
shook her head. "I think something is going on out here -- some 
kind of sacrifice, maybe.  What if these kids are involved in some 
kind of a cult, and Sheriff Miles knows about it?"

Mulder nodded as he flew. "I want to come back here." He tapped the 
instrument panel. Scully's eyes followed his finger. The compass 
needle was whirling like a dervish. She gasped and looked over at 
Mulder. He was checking his watch. "Three minutes past nine," he 
announced, then peered out the windshield in all directions.

"What's going on? What are you looking for?" she asked.

The twilight and trees outside vanished as brilliant white light 
engulfed the helo. After a moment, the light was gone -- and so was 
the helo's power. The blades still spun, but they were falling.

Mulder fought the controls grimly. "Auto-rotation better work or 
we'll be... ah!" The engines suddenly kicked back in, and suddenly 
the air seemed friendly again. Mulder, not taking any chances, set 
them down immediately on the settler's meager road. He got out, 
presumably to take a look at the engine. Scully unbuckled her 
harness with fingers that had suddenly gone clumsy and stepped 
outside on equally shaky legs. 

"What's wrong with our engine?" she asked.

"Absolutely nothing," Mulder said with what she'd swear was 
satisfaction, as he closed things up again. "We lost power, 
steering, the radio, everything. And we lost nine minutes."

"Nine....?"

He raised his arm so she could read the watch on his wrist. "I told 
you it was three past nine right before we saw that light. Now? It's 
thirteen after. And look! Look!" He jogged a few hundred feet and 
pointed down triumphantly at the ground. There among the purple grass 
was the orange 'X' he'd painted to mark the site of their previous 
radio problems. "Spatial anomalies are often associated with 
unexplained time loss," he said, almost with glee. He turned and 
walked back toward the helo.

"That can't happen," Scully said numbly as she followed him. "Time is 
a universal invariant." But her mind was racing. People talked about 
flying faster than light by warping space. Surely that would mean 
warping time as well?

Mulder got back into the helo. The engines started obediently. "Not on 
New Oregon," he pronounced gleefully. "But we're going to be late," he 
realized, losing his smugness. "Hope the 'Little Green Man' doesn't 
have to leave without us!"



Frohikon sprayed ammonia in the air and took a deep breath. That was 
how air was _meant_ to smell. He did most of his respiration in his own 
cabin during his rest shift, while he meditated and reorganized his 
brain. But he was only Jovian. He had to get a whiff of fresh air every 
hour or two, no matter what it did to his stealth. Luckily, none of the 
Tellurians in the mental hospital had come within noseshot of him yet.

He checked the watch on one gray limb. It would be getting dark soon; 
that was when the Abductors usually did their work. He peered through 
his binoculars. Hospital security meant well, and that was about all 
you could say for it. The Tellurian in charge of Billy and Peggy was 
settling in with a good book. Frohikon amused himself by considering 
the best twenty ways to infiltrate the building and the best ten to 
attack it. Back in the Jovian Wars he could have....

The tubeset built into his airbike pulsed gently, in colors that 
looked dim to Tellurian eyes, then subsided. Huh. He consulted the 
recorder roll for the reading. Yep, looked like the same ol' sudden 
jumbled burst of noise on several frequencies. LanGelin thought it 
carried lengthy messages compressed for brevity -- for what or whom? 
-- but what it meant was Abductor activity, and soon. He scanned the 
important rooms with his binoculars. Sure enough, there was someone 
stirring in Billy Miles' room who then made his way to Peggy O'Dell's. 
A few minutes later, an outside door opened, and Billy carried Peggy 
in his arms onto the hospital lawn and out the front gate.

Frohikon mounted his airbike and let it purr softly to life.  He 
thumbed a relay and tapped out a single letter in Morse code with 
the key, then turned the radio off again. No sense warning the 
Abductors. He put on his helmet, not turning on any power yet. 
Then he took off, shadowing the kids from the treeline. Their 
muscle movements just didn't look right. 

Tellurians usually walked with a bounce in their step. If they were 
carrying a weight, they had to shift it around in their arms 
frequently. Billy Miles didn't do any of that. He also paid no 
attention to Peggy O'Dell, treating her as if she were only a weight. 
Meanwhile, Peggy sat unnaturally still as she was carried. She took 
no interest in her surroundings or Billy. This, too, was a sign the 
Abductors were at work.

They headed straight for Sheriff Miles' chunk of forest, and he 
meant _straight_. If a rock blocked Billy's way, he walked over it 
instead of around. He splashed through streams ankle-deep when he 
could have stepped from stone to stone. LanGelin'd filled him in 
over the tubeset earlier on what Mulder and the new kid had found; 
now it was easy to see where all that mud had come from. 

Frohikon's grim gray face grew grimmer. He valued his freedom above 
all else. Seeing these two Tellurian youths turned into Abductor 
puppets was starkly horrifying to him. Yet knowing that he might 
follow them right into the Abductors' hands, he followed them still.
The Patrol always went in.



"It's me. Over."

"Where've you been?" LanGelin demanded. "Fro's been shadowing 'em 
for a good five minutes. It could be any time now!"

"There in a minute. Out."

As soon as he'd shut off the engines, Mulder abandoned the helo next 
to the boatpad and ran up the ramp into the 'Little Green Man'. As 
soon as Scully'd scrambled up on her shorter legs, he hit the switch 
to close it behind them and then sprinted for the control-room. LanGelin 
waited by the ultrawave and scanners. Bnayos was also there, 
pre-flight checklist done, sitting the pilot's chair while Teresa 
rode shotgun and her father stood behind them, scowling. 

Mulder stared. "Civilians. In the control-room. Why?"

"I swore to guard Miss Nemman," Bnayos said stubbornly, "and in your 
absence this seemed the best way to keep my word and be ready to 
answer Frohikon's call, since LanGelin must monitor transmissions."

"Well, I'm here now. Take 'em back in the pantry again; you know 
that's the only room not touching the skin of the ship." He didn't 
say 'safe'. It was just their best chance. "Scully, you're co-pilot 
and weapons. LanGelin, anything?" he said, taking back his seat 
from Bnayos.

"Nothing but dead air... wait!"  

Even from where he sat, Mulder could hear a burst of static, and 
then the faint sound of Frohikon's voice. "....in the clearing... 
Out." Static crackled again, and Frohikon's voice was gone.

Mulder reached for the controls and felt the Bergenholms of the 
'Little Green Man' respond. "Next stop, Sheriff Miles' desirable 
piece of real estate." He raised his ship from the pad. "Think these 
aliens'd be interested in some swampland on New Florida?"

"Depends on the price," Scully offered.

"Too high," Mulder said, swooping along the treetops and hoping to 
avoid Abductor radar or scanners. "As they'll soon find out."



Frohikon tongued off his radio relay and bent low over his airbike 
again. Billy stood on the giant stump, holding up Peggy in his hands 
like an offering to some hungry god. The gap in the canopy above them 
was momentarily filled with air that trembled like a heat shimmer. 
Frohikon tensed, his hand above his accelerator. Then dazzling white 
light filled the clearing, and Frohikon shot forward on his airbike 
like an arrow, trying desperately to get to the kids. 

He wasn't fast enough. The same white light that seemed to draw Billy 
and Peggy into the air held back his airbike, no matter how hard he 
gunned it. Then all power failed. Frohikon winced as his baby fell 
a few feet and crashed into the ground, raising a cloud of ash that 
danced like dust in a sunbeam. Then Billy and Peggy were gone. The 
white light flared.

In what seemed like an instant later, Peggy was back, standing on 
her own two feet on top of the stump. The flatness was gone from her 
gaze, replaced by equal parts wonder and terror. She stared upward 
into the light, screaming Billy's name.

Then the white light vanished, the heat shimmer returned, and 
Frohikon cursed in an obscure dialect as he kicked his airbike back 
to life and sped upward through the treetops.




"There!" Mulder pointed not at the visiplate, but simply out the 
control-room window. Ahead of them, an eye-searing ring of white light 
danced above the trees. 

"But where's the light coming from?" Scully demanded.

"A ship," he said. "We just can't see it."

"Visible light screen," she said with wonder. "But to make that 
corona-shape, something round must be blocking all that light."

"So that ship's just a sphere," Mulder agreed, "which means it's 
not even as streamlined as this little football. Unless it's got 
more legs than a millipede, it can't get away. So shoot to 
disable, Scully. I want prisoners."

Scully looked at her boards, wishing she had more experience with 
spaceship gunnery than the brief familiarization course LanGelin 
and Bnayos had put her through, her father's war stories, and her 
brothers' enthusiastic and interminable lectures on 'What We Did at 
the Academy'. But even as her thoughts ran along these pessimistic 
lines, her fingers were flying along the board with their wonted 
precision, setting up their only weaponry, a complement of 
short-range beamers, to fire simultaneously at several points 
along the unseen circle's rim. That ought to hit _something_.
She knew the basic theory: fly free, fight inert. Send out your 
tractors to hold the enemy, then beam them down. That would have 
to be enough.

Mulder was watching. "Fire when ready."

She fired, and watched the beams vanish into what looked like 
darkness. The white light disappeared an instant later. She fired 
again and hit nothing but trees.

The ultrawave crackled to life. "Watch where you're aiming!" 
Frohikon demanded as his airbike zipped into view from below.

"Where are they?" Mulder demanded.

"I got nothing on scanners," LanGelin reported. "Nothing!"

But there _was_ something. "Top right quadrant," Scully reported. 
"That shimmer on visual."

"Got it," said Mulder. "Tell Frohikon we're in pursuit." The view 
outside blurred.

The 'Little Green Man' was not a big ship nor particularly 
well-armed. But as Dana would later learn, the beings they knew as 
the Abductors were not used to being met by force they could not 
counter nor pursuit they could not evade by use of their powerful 
screens. Moreover, the Abductors' mission to this obscure and 
undefended colony was supposed to be a simple one of information 
retrieval and restoration. 

So although Mulder was a merely above-average pilot, the evasive 
maneuvers of the alien ship were such unimaginative zig-zags and 
double-backs that he could easily continue to follow.  Slowly the 
'Little Green Man' gained ground on the shimmer ahead; slowly it 
again came within range of Scully's short-range tractors and beams.

"Go inert!" she cried. Mulder pressed a button, and the 'Little 
Green Man' rapidly returned to the world of friction. She turned 
on her tractors, and they clawed out at the alien ship, and held it.
Then she pressed the pedal and fired, and her beams streaked into 
the volume of space that held that slight shimmer.  And suddenly it 
was a shimmer no more, but a great gleaming saucer marred only by 
searmarks from her beams. But her heart sunk. The saucer was more 
streamlined than they, at least along one dimension. If they didn't 
catch it quick, it might still get away.

"Lost their screens," LanGelin gloated. "Now visible on scanners 
and visual. How do you like them fishbones?"

Ahead of them, the saucer shot up towards space. 

"Not much, I guess." Mulder took them into a steep climb. 

Scully's tractors and beams met the saucer as it ascended, creating 
more scorchmarks. "Not much at all."

There was a burst of white light, and suddenly they saw a human 
body tumbling through the sky. Scully's stomach rolled with 
sympathetic fear. "LanGelin!" Mulder rapped out. "Tell Fro to...."

"On it, boss," Frohikon's voice said, obviously preoccupied. "You 
get Them and let me get the kid."

Mulder drove onward. Scully checked her rangefinder. Another thirty 
seconds at least. 



The airbike shot upward on an interception course with a Tellurian 
falling from the sky. Frohikon knew his airbike couldn't take this 
kind of acceleration for long. He was betting his life and Billy's 
that it could take it just long enough.

The airbike disliked the increasingly thin air. It coughed and then 
caught its breath again. "Come on, little one," Frohikon urged into 
his helmet, in the language of his youth. "There'll be plenty of 
nice oxygen for you after we catch the outlander child."

And that was going to be a trick, thought Frohikon. Billy had picked 
up a pretty good amount of acceleration himself. As the falling boy 
came into sight, Frohikon wrapped his squat legs around the airbike's 
frame and checked his mental calculations one more time before 
impact with Billy's flailing form. 

And what an impact! No Tellurian would have had a chance of surviving, 
and even the Jovian's strength was tested. But somehow he held onto 
both the airbike and the boy. 

Frohikon's fingers checked the boy's condition. A pulse, yes. A bit 
of the boy's endo-skeleton seemed to have cracked, but that would 
heal. With a few swift and careful moves, he bundled the Tellurian 
across his lap and strapped him to the airbike like a piece of 
luggage. Then he dove toward New Oregon as steeply as he could. He 
might not need oxygen, but both the kid and the airbike did.



"We'll be in range in three, two, one...fire." Scully's beams shot out 
again, and suddenly the saucer ahead of them stopped dead.  

Mulder circled around. The saucer didn't double back this time. Hmm. 

"Looks like they've lost all power," LanGelin smirked. "What say we 
throw a little boarding party, cap'n?"

"I hate to mention this, but we're probably just a little 
outnumbered," Scully said, pointing at the much bigger saucer.

"The Patrol always goes in!" Mulder said angrily. "Those are 
kidnappers. We're capturing them. Any questions, Lieutenant?"

"No, sir," Scully said crisply. "Orders?"

"Take the conn, Lieutenant. LanGelin, Bnayos and I will board the 
Abductor craft. LanGelin, tell Bnayos to armor up."

"Won't work," LanGelin said, heedless of Mulder's sudden seriousness.
"Unless you want Bnayos taking Theresa Nemman along."

Mulder winced. "Right. He swore. Okay, then, tell Bnayos to bring 
up the Nemmans and take the conn. Scully, you're on the boarding 
party. And LanGelin?"

"What?"

"Turn that sonic weaponry of yours down a notch. I want prisoners 
this time."

There was a flash of white light. When it faded, the saucer was still 
there. LanGelin blinked and checked his scanners. "What? I don't see 
any signs of life at all, now!"

"No shimmers, either," Scully said a minute. "Either they all 
suicided, or they escaped in some kind of undetectable lifeboat."

"But they left their saucer behind," Mulder said, his voice calm. 
"Maybe with boobytraps, maybe set to detonate, but maybe, just 
maybe..."

"...we've captured an Abductor ship!" LanGelin said, delighted. "And 
taught them not to go fishing in our waters."

"Maybe so," Mulder said, feeling an odd sense of anti-climax. "I 
guess we can tell Bnayos and the Nemmans they can come out now."

--------------------------------------------------------------------

"How are things down on the surface, Frohikon?"

"Billy and Peggy are fine. Theresa sends her love and her dad 
doesn't. I'm keeping an eye on all three of the kids; no problems 
yet. And LanGelin, I take back everything I've ever said about 
fish. Aunt Jessie's cooks the best. Fried garstka. Roast garstka. 
Garstka cakes. Garstka chowder. Mm-mmm, and all fresh from the 
river. Too bad you're stuck up there on watch duty." His voice 
was absolutely clear. Amazing how free of static the ether could 
be with no Abductors around.

LanGelin's fingers twitched into a rather interesting gesture. "Shut 
up, Frohikon, or I won't tell you anything about what we've found on 
the saucer today."

Frohikon made a strangled noise. "Shutting up. Hey, you know I'd 
give anything to change places with you before the researcher 
ship comes."

"I wouldn't." LanGelin chuckled. "This stuff is so weird! Listen to 
this...."

Dana chuckled in turn and left the control-room. She had to agree with 
LanGelin; Abductor technology was fascinating. In a few days the 
saucer would belong to the rest of the Patrol, but for now it was 
theirs alone. LanGelin, Bnayos, and she were spending every waking 
hour and a few sleeping ones cataloguing and poring over their 
spoils. Meanwhile, Mulder had spent a lot of time staring at things 
on the saucer and trying to profile an entire alien race. Good luck. 
She stretched and then rubbed her aching lower back. Huh, she 
thought, I feel a couple bumps down there. They're not pimples, 
so wha....?

Thirty seconds later, she was pounding on Mulder's cabin door. She 
had her hand raised to knock again when the door opened. "Where's 
the fire?" Mulder asked. 

He was in his standard-issue skivvies, but she hardly noticed. "I 
found bumps on my back," she said. "I can't tell if...I need you to 
look at them."

"Come on in," Mulder said quietly. It was obvious from his face that 
he was also thinking of those lost minutes, and what Frohikon had 
told them about Peggy and Billy's condition. She walked in and felt 
no shyness as Mulder actually closed the door behind them, instead of 
leaving it open a crack as was customary when personnel of mixed 
gender were in the same room. Then she simply pulled out her blouse's 
tail and bent over to let him see.

"What are they?" she demanded. Mulder stayed silent. "Well, what are 
they?

"Spider bites."

"What? Are you sure?"

"Hey, we try to keep the hitchhikers to a minimum, but it's just 
like a house in the summer -- things get in." As she straightened up 
and put her blouse back in, he was tactfully pointing up in the 
corner at a cobweb. "King Louis and I have a non-aggression compact. 
You'll have to work something out with yours."

She tried to sigh with relief but it came out as a gasp. Mulder turned 
back around, looking pretty relieved himself, and she hugged him hard. 
It wasn't exactly professional, but it felt good.

"You're shaking," he said after a moment. "You want to sit down?"

"I think I'd better," she decided, feeling wobbly at the knees.

He pulled out the chair in front of his desk and she sat down. He took 
a seat on the floor at the foot of his bed. And unexpectedly, he began 
to talk.

"I was twelve when it happened. My sister Samantha was eight. She just 
disappeared out of her bed one night. Just gone, vanished. No note, 
no calls, no evidence of anything."

"And the Patrol never found her?"

Mulder shook his head. "Tore the family apart. No one would talk 
about it. There were no facts to confirm, nothing to offer any hope."

"What did you do?"

"Not much I could do." He shrugged. "Eventually, I went off to school 
in England. I came back and got recruited by the Patrol. Seems I had 
a natural aptitude for applying behavioural models to criminal cases. 
But when Lensman Verber did the pre-employment scan on me, he found 
evidence of mindwipe. He was only able to get through some of the 
blocks. But now I can recall a bright light outside and a presence 
in the room. I was paralyzed, unable to respond to my sister's calls 
for help." 

"The Abductors."

He nodded. "Nothing else matters to me, and this is as close as I've 
ever gotten to them. But they didn't leave us anyone to interrogate."
He sighed tiredly. 

The intercom on the wall crackled to life. "Mulder," LanGelin said 
uneasily, "we've got company. And it's not one of ours."

"I'll be right there." Mulder sprinted out the door and was gone. 

Scully got to the control-room only ten seconds after Mulder, but he 
was already in the pilot chair. Bnayos was in the co-pilot seat, 
with weapons up and ready. She looked over LanGelin's shoulder 
at the scanner plate and sighed with relief. The ship was 
Tellurian. Then she looked again. It was a sleek craft, almost 
cigar-shaped. It had no markings.

"Oh, look," LanGelin said flatly. "An unmarked spacecraft. This is 
the part where the evidence all disappears."

"Not this time," said Mulder, maneuvering to place the 'Little Green 
Man' between the saucer and the stranger. "Hail 'em one more time, 
LanGelin. If they don't answer, Bnayos, you can fire at will."

LanGelin turned to his ultrawave. "Unidentified ship, this is Patrol 
ship LGM1013. You are in a restricted area. I repeat, you are in a 
restricted area. If you approach, you will fired upon. Please 
identify yourself." There was a long silence, and Bnayos' hand moved 
toward the fire button. 

Then the ultrawave spoke. "LGM1013, this is... the 'Nicotiana', out 
of... New Raleigh." The mellifluous voice slowly enunciated a 
registration number, sounding more amused with every obviously lying 
syllable. "We apologize for... intruding. We would never want to 
interfere with the Patrol, and we will be leaving at once," it added 
piously. "My compliments to Lieutenant Mulder." 

LanGelin asked, "How do you know our captain's name?" 

The unmarked ship turned away and started back out of the system. 
"'Nicotiana' out."

--------------------------------------------------------------------

A day later, the Patrol battleship 'Suevia' arrived, full of happy 
scientists and reverse-engineers. "Also your orders," Captain Potter 
noted, handing them over to Mulder. "Straight from Samms. You're to 
go play diplomat with the Arisians."

"The Arisians?" Mulder's brain called up legends from a thousand 
worlds of that mysterious and reclusive people. Some called them 
gods, some devils, but pretty much everyone agreed they had 
incredible mental powers and hated all lesser beings' guts. Oh, 
and you didn't visit their planet without their permission. "But 
why?"

"They're the oldest race we know of, and Samms figures they might 
know about these saucer people...what'd'ye call 'em...."

"Abductors."

"Yeah, them."

Mulder worried a little that the unmarked ship people might be 
behind his orders, but he couldn't really say he was sorry to get to 
go to Arisia. Every so often, Patrolmen -- well, Lensmen-in-training 
at the Academy, really -- were ordered out there, and they never 
seemed to want to talk about what the Arisians were like. So send 
the newbies who know nothing, he thought, or maybe the oddball who 
knew all sorts of non-strategic things. Though if the Patrol was 
willing to send its best and brightest in range of people who could 
scramble your brains, it must not be too worried that the Arisians 
would try anything.

When he told his crew about their next port of call, they were 
similarly interested but not frightened. Frohikon actually stopped 
sulking about being put on guard duty instead of getting to play 
with the saucer. Scully actually looked excited for a moment before 
she could manage to control her face. Join the Patrol, see the 
Galaxy. Dr. Nemman and Theresa weren't too thrilled, but hitchhikers 
don't get a vote.

Within days, they were orbiting Arisia. It was an average Tellus-type 
world in an average Solarian-type system. With the average huge 
barrier of energy surrounding the entire place. "Funny," Scully said 
mildly from where she stood behind Bnayos, "it doesn't _look_ like an 
ancient planet of mystery."

"Never believe the pictures in the brochure. What do the scanners 
show, Frohikon?" Mulder asked. 

Frohikon made a noise that was intended to be a snort. "Nada. Or 
rather, everything but the planet." He'd transmitted their message 
a couple hours ago, but there'd been no response yet.

LanGelin peered over Frohikon's shoulder. "Did you try tweaking 
the...."

"Yes! Twice already! Not that it matters," Frohikon added, "because 
the Arisians are probably in our minds right now, controlling 
everything we see."

"My infinite thanks for that encouraging thought," Bnayos said 
dryly.

"It's not just a thought," Frohikon said grimly. "Look at Scully."

Her eyes had gone wide. "This is impossible," she forced out. "I 
don't have that strong of...but I can feel them! In my head!"

"Latent telepaths never pay attention in school," Frohikon said with 
disgust. "Think of a wall, kid. Think of it blocking the Arisians. 
It won't keep them out," he said half to himself, "but at least you 
won't have to feel what they're up to. How are _you_ doing, Mulder?"

A voice broke in, apparently coming from the ultrawave. "This is 
Mentor of Arisia." Frohikon switched it off, but the voice continued, 
"Your ship is not permitted to cross the barrier. However, Fox Mulder 
of Tellus will be given transport to the surface of Arisia. He will 
return in one Earth hour." 

Frohikon shook his head. Ten to one, Mulder'd really never even 
leave the ship. He opened his mouth to say so, and a second later, 
could not remember having had the thought at all. He closed his 
mouth again and meekly watched a little shuttle dock with the 
'Little Green Man'. 

Mulder walked out of the control-room to board the ship and Scully walked 
back with him to the hatchway. There was nothing to be said, 
especially not with the Arisians listening in. He nodded to her and 
boarded the shuttle. The hatchway closed and she watched the shuttle 
depart. She watched it go, scarcely realizing that her mind was 
following her eyes. It was no big deal; she just always knew where 
her parents and siblings were, and the same was starting to be true 
of Mulder. She closed her eyes to test the bond. For a moment she 
felt him, standing right next to her. What? But she'd just seen him 
leave!

The next moment, she felt nothing. That _really_ wasn't right. Biting 
her lip, she reached out with her mind to find her partner. Farther 
and farther she searched, pushing her unreliable and un-utile 
telepathy to its limits and beyond them. Something tried to hold her 
back, something like a wall of fear. Something whispered in her mind 
that she should run away and never come back. Her gut clenched and 
panic began to rise within her. 

But Dana Scully descended on both sides from a long line of 
bone-obstinate people with bad tempers. The wall of fear enraged her 
and fed the power of her mind. Hot rage and cold determination 
filled her, and she pushed through the wall of fear as if it had 
never been there. With her whole being, she voiced her demand. 

*Where is my partner?*

And suddenly, she was there beside him. The sky was blue and the air 
smelled like the sea.

"I am Mentor. What do you think of Arisia, youth?" an old man in a 
white robe asked.

Mulder looked around. "Not bad. And I needed a good walk."

The old man looked almost disappointed. "Here. This is what you came 
for." Mentor handed Mulder a small box. "Take this to the one called 
Virgil Samms. Whatever you do, do not open it or allow anyone else 
to do so."

Mulder, predictably, leaned forward eagerly. "And this will tell us 
about the Abductors?"

"That does not concern you. You are only to guard the box without 
opening it. I need your word that you will."

Mulder visibly fought with himself. But he was a Patrolman under 
orders. He sighed. "You have my word. But please, do you know 
anything about what happened to my sister?"

Mentor looked at him sympathetically. "Nothing that I could tell 
you about her fate will do you any good until you find it out for 
yourself."

"It could do _her_ good," Mulder pointed out. 

Mentor said nothing.

"All right, then. Here's a question you can answer. Why do you 
Arisians make Lenses for the Patrol?" 

Scully would have gasped if she'd had a body. She didn't think even 
Mulder had known what he was going to ask until the moment before he 
asked it, when the pieces had all come together. But now it seemed 
so obvious to her. Why, Mulder had asked his crewmates, did so many 
Lensmen-to-be visit Arisia?  Because it was a prerequisite for the 
Lens, she realized now. And why else would it be so?

Mentor chuckled. "Very good, youth. Your mentality has progressed 
farther already. I will answer you in part: because it is in our 
enlightened self-interest that the Galactic Union should thrive."

"Then why, if you make Lenses for Lensmen of all species, including 
some with more sexes than an octopus has arms, would you make Lenses 
only for Tellurian males?  I mean, look at women like my partner, 
Dana Scully. You can't say she doesn't have the smarts to be a 
Lensman. She's tough, she's a straight arrow, and Klono knows she's 
stubborn enough."

Mentor chuckled again, this time with an edge. Scully could have 
sworn that he looked straight at her. "No, you are right. There is 
no innate reason why a Tellurian female should not wear the Lens. 
But there _are_ reasons why Tellurian society might be shaped in 
such a way: for example, to ensure that enough Tellurians of both 
genders survive to breed, in case of a great space battle. Your 
species needs no great number of males, but females are less 
expendable."

"And?"

"And what?"

"You said there are 'other reasons', and you gave me only one."

"Yes."

Scully's mind raced. What benefit was there to an artificial 
division of the genders? What benefit to making Tellurians believe 
that one half of the species was largely useless? Oh, certainly it 
didn't convince everyone -- any intelligent male knew better, and 
prejudice just made the smartest and toughest females that one bit 
tougher. Perhaps that was part of the purpose. But there had to be 
more. It was almost as if the 'fact' that females were less 
intelligent and strong -- which was true for some species, of 
course -- was disinformation being spread for the consumption of 
some other species -- some enemy of the Tellurians that, logically, 
was also a enemy of the Arisians -- someone they badly wanted to 
fool.

"Another civilization," said Mulder, his mind and tongue obviously 
running in tandem. "A civilization inimical to forms of life as 
different as Tellurians and Arisians. And a long-term war...very 
long-term!"

"Very good, youth," said Mentor, nodding at both of them. "Your 
visualizations are unusually clear for beings of your level of 
development. It is unfortunate that, to protect the future of your 
young civilization, you cannot be permitted to remember any of it 
beyond this room. 

"Forget...."




Dana Scully shook herself. How had she managed to fall asleep on 
duty? Mulder was already back from Arisia, and the airlock was 
opening. Mulder got out, carrying a box. 

"A box? That's it?"

"That's it," Mulder said ruefully. "Come on. I'll take this back 
to my quarters and lock it up; you go tell the boys to get us out 
of here toot sweet. I'll tell you all about it, but only after we 
get out of this system." Walking swiftly but without any enthusiasm, 
he headed for the control-room. She followed.

When they got there, Bnayos made as if to stand up from the pilot's 
seat. Mulder waved him back down. "Get us out of here. We're heading 
back to the Hill." 

Bnayos made the elegant gesture that passed for his shrug, sat back 
down, and started the 'Little Green Man' on the course LanGelin'd 
already laid in.

"So, how was Arisia?" LanGelin prompted from the shotgun seat.

Mulder opened his mouth, then stopped, clearly reconsidering what 
he'd been about to say. "Weird," he finally said, and closed his 
mouth tightly. He turned around and left the control-room. 

The other three Patrolmen looked at each other, then at her. 

She stared back at them. "What?" 

LanGelin spoke first. "Mulder? Doesn't want to talk? About Arisia?"

Bnayos shook his armored head. "I fear for his health."

Frohikon merely shuddered. "Spooky!"

"Mulder said he'd tell me about it when we were out of the system," 
Dana informed them. "How much longer?"

"Ten minutes from now," Bnayos said, "But for you, I believe we can 
make it five."

Four and a half minutes later, Dana knocked on Mulder's door.

"Scat!" he said.

"The 'Little Green Man' is clear of most of Arisia's Oort Cloud. I 
believe that's the usual definition of 'out of this system'," she 
said, purposefully pedantic. 

"So is the rest of the week till we get to Earth. So is the rest of 
my life, I hope," Mulder said, his voice more monotone than normal. 

Dana Scully breathed in, breathed out, and raised her voice once 
more. "Residency trains a doctor to stay awake and on one's feet for 
long periods. Forensic pathology trains a doctor to use a rather 
large knife. And Quantico trains a doctor to pick a lock."

"Look, I know what I said, but can't you let me off for a while?" 

"'Fraid I can't do that," Dana said seriously. "The boys and I want to 
know what happened that has you so spooked, and whether it's going to 
be a problem for us. This counts as asking you nicely."

"You just want an excuse to poke and prod me." Mulder laughed without 
much humor. "Well, come on in, then, and we'll talk." She heard the 
door unlock.

She opened the door and stepped over the knee-knocker. Mulder was 
sitting backward on his desk chair. Leaving the door open, she 
turned toward him. "I'm just curious to know what happened in the 
control-room. You seemed fine until then."

Once Mulder had decided to accept the inevitable, he didn't waste 
time. "I've got one of those trick memories, see, the kind people 
call photographic...."

She tried to remember the right term. "Eidetic, you mean."

The psychologist nodded. "Yup. Got perfect pitch, too, not that it 
does _me_ much good," he droned in his monotone. "Anyway, I'm used 
to being able to remember pretty much everything. But when LanGelin 
asked me about Arisia -- well, I suddenly realized that I could only 
remember part of the trip. I remember getting there, meeting some 
guy who called himself Mentor and getting the box from him, and 
leaving Arisia. But all the stuff in between seems to be gone."

Dana's eyes widened. "The Arisians really did tamper with your mind."

"Yup. And I can't get a Lensman to check out just what they did 
until we get to Earth. So I guess I better stay out of the control-room 
till we get home. And then there's the other little present they 
left me."

"That box," she said, nodding at it on his desk. "What's in it?"

"Information about the Abductors," Mulder said gloomily. "I think."

"You don't know?"

"They made me give my word I'd give it to Samms unopened."

She shrugged. "Not that unusual for a diplomatic courier."

"It's driving me nuts," Mulder said frankly. "I could ignore a plate 
of steaming-hot steak easier. What do the Arisians know about them?
What are they choosing to tell us, and why? And is there anything 
there that could help me find my sister?" He shook his head. "How am 
I going to last out till Earth?"

Dana eyed him oddly. "You gave them your word."

"Yeah, I did." He got up from his chair and started pacing. "But 
I gave it under duress. They tampered with my mind. And surely my 
sister's life is more important than any promise given to a bunch of 
unfriendly alien mindsuckers."

"You don't know if there's anything useful in there at all. And 
besides, you gave them your word," she said again. "A Patrolman's 
word...."

"Is his bond. Yeah, I know. But what the Arisians don't know won't 
hurt them."

"You'd know. And I would." Her voice dropped but her eyes grew angry. 
"And I'd know that you're not a _man_, you're just a fork-tongued 
yellowbellied space-flea!" She slammed the door on her way out.

Mulder followed her into the hallway. "Fine!" he said, also keeping 
his voice down. "I'll keep my word and let my sister rot. That make 
you happy, you self-righteous wet-behind-the-ears clunker?"

She walked inside her own cabin. "Deliriously!" Then she slammed 
that door shut, too.



Up in the control-room, LanGelin, Bnayos and Frohikon heard only the 
murmur of angry voices and the sound of slamming doors. They looked 
at each other.

"It would seem that Mulder is feeling much better," Bnayos noted.



Mulder wouldn't have agreed. Disgusted, he put the box away in his 
wall safe for important papers and tried to forget it. But it 
worried at the back of his mind like a dog with a bone. He didn't 
feel like he was getting much work done. He got tired of pretending 
that he was and went to bed. But he couldn't stop thinking of the 
stupid box, or Samantha. Finally he just got up and headed for the 
safe. 

But as his hand was about to touch the safe, he heard Scully's 
disgusted voice. He turned on his heel firmly and marched back to 
bed. He wouldn't give that corpse-loving redheaded witch the 
satisfaction.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

A week later, the crew of the 'Little Green Man' stood together in 
the waiting room of Virgil Samms' office and waited for Lieutenant 
Fox Mulder to finish his courier job before adjourning to a bar to 
celebrate their highly successful mission. 

"Miss Kimberly said that General Skinner's in there, too," Bnayos 
said. 

"So we're either in clover or trouble," LanGelin said. "Or both. 
That's Mulder's specialty."

Dana didn't say anything, but her mind immediately flew to the box.



Inside Samms' office, Mulder was rather ruefully considering the 
same thing while Skinner and the big boss discussed his report.  The 
box sat meekly on Samms' desk, showing no signs of the draw it had 
held for him until now. Of course Scully was right; he could never 
really have broken his word. But sometimes it was no fun being the 
good guy.

He supposed he should've been impressed to be in the presence of 
First Lensman Samms. But as far as he could tell, it was just 
another meeting -- a waste of time. 

"....and anyway, kidnapping is one the crimes we were designed to 
stop," Skinner was saying. Blah blah blah. Of course the Abductors 
were in Violent Crimes' jurisdiction, and of course the case was 
going to be taken away from Special Circs. A case like this needed 
someone with more juice, not to mention a Lens.

"And now for the main event," Samms said, startling Mulder out of 
his reverie.  He opened the box from Arisia.  Inside, there were no 
spools or papers, only a flat circle set with strange dull gray gems 
that looked almost as if they'd grown that way. Mulder stared. Could 
it be....?

"Touch it," Samms said. Gingerly, and for the briefest possible 
moment, Mulder obeyed. The material glowed brightly, but to his 
relief, nothing else happened.

"Well, you're not rolling on the floor," Skinner noted, "so I guess 
the address label was accurate."

Mulder stared at him. "But it can't be! I'm just an ordinary mook -- 
I didn't even go to the Academy -- there's no way I'm up to being a 
Lensman!"

"We think different," said Samms. "We've been watching you for a 
long time. Force, drive, range, scope, power -- you've shown them 
all. And after this last caper, we decided you'd finally gotten 
where you needed to be.  The Arisians apparently agreed. But since 
the usual stuff we think up with whiskey, gambling, money and the 
like wouldn't work on you, we cooked up a different final test."

Mulder made a face. "The box, of course."

"The box.  You sweated that one out for a week, but now we know and 
so do you -- if you didn't break your oath then, you never will."

"I might've, if my partner hadn't been there," Mulder admitted. 

"If you'd really wanted to open that box, you wouldn't've told her 
a thing," Samms said with a grin. "And no, she didn't tell us -- 
didn't need to. See, we really were keeping an eye on you."

"Now, give him your arm, Mulder," Skinner said gruffly. "Or don't 
you want a Lens?"

Numbly, Mulder held out his left arm. With no commentary whatsoever, 
he watched as his arm was inserted into a bracelet-like metal band 
and the Lens inserted into the band. That strange form of pseudo-life 
that is the Lens began to coruscate with blazing, everchanging gleams 
of every color.  It would serve him as an absolutely reliable means 
of identification, for the Lens could not be duplicated or imitated, 
and if separated from its owner would turn dull gray again. It could 
not be destroyed by the strongest forces, and would die when he did. 
But more than that -- it would give him a strength of telepathy that 
no Tellurian would otherwise possess. Now he used it for the first 
time, as his fellow Lensman beamed thoughts of welcome and goodwill 
to him. 

Ahead lay duty and danger, and the crushing responsibility known as 
the Lensman's Load. But for the moment, a man who had always stood 
apart from his fellows had become one of a fraternity that spanned 
worlds. Every single one of the wearers of the Lens, no matter what 
their culture, race, or species, could be trusted absolutely and 
would trust him in return. 

But there were others, not Lensmen, but just as worthy of trust. He 
could feel the friendly, concerned thoughts of his friends outside. 
He had always known that Bnayos was courageous and courteous, that 
LanGelin's sarcasm concealed a relentless desire to know and an 
equally relentless competitive spirit, and that Frohikon had as much 
hidden depth as an iceberg. He'd even figured out that Scully 
wouldn't've called him so many names if she hadn't wanted to think 
well of him. But there was a difference between deducing something 
and seeing the proof sitting there in front of you.

He sent out a single thought. "Surprise, partner."

Her thought shot back to him like an arrow. "Mulder! How...the Lens!"

"Aw, you guessed."

When Mulder emerged from Samms' office wearing a Lens on his arm, 
the crew of the 'Little Green Man' raised a cheer that could be 
heard halfway up the Hill.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

A few days later, they were all invited to dinner at the house of 
Captain William Scully and his wife Margaret. It is an unusual 
Tellurian hostess who can cook for a Martian, a Jovian and a 
Venusian as well as she can for her own family, but Maggie Scully 
had followed her husband all over the system and outside it as 
well, collecting recipes everywhere she went.

"I asked Dana to invite Ethan, but for some reason she didn't 
want to," Mrs. Scully said pointedly.

"Because this dinner was for my shipmates," Dana said with 
deliberate cheer.

"Don't worry, Mrs. Scully," Mulder said tonelessly. "Ethan and 
I have met."

"He came to pick me up from the spaceport, and he couldn't 
understand that I was still on duty until we were done reporting 
in," Dana said with annoyance. "And then he started getting jealous.  
Of Mulder! We've been dating for three months; you'd think he'd know 
me better than that."

"I don't know," said Mrs. Scully. "Should he be jealous?"

Mulder leaned back in his chair. "Don't take this wrong, Captain,  
Mrs. Scully -- but marrying your daughter would be like running a 
ship into a nor'easter: you'd go where she wanted you to, and throw 
a lot of wind and lightning at you if you didn't pay attention. 
Sure she's a seven-sector call-out, if that's your type...."

Bnayos bowed. "Or even if it is not."

Mulder ignored him. "But she's stubborn as a mule, she likes to 
tell me what to do, and she has this irritating habit of being 
right." 

"'Cause that's _Mulder's_ job," LanGelin added, rolling his eyes.

"Don't worry," Dana retorted, ignoring LanGelin in turn. "The 
feeling's mutual. I can stand you as a partner, but as a husband? 
You'd probably want to honeymoon on Loch Ness."

"Glastonbury," he countered. "Or maybe Stonehenge."

Captain and Mrs. Scully exchanged badly hidden smiles. Then Mrs. 
Scully's maternal tracking system went off. "Isn't Mr. Frohikon back 
from his ammonia break yet?"

"I'll go see what's keeping him, Maggie," said her husband, getting 
up from the table.  He went outside onto the patio and looked around 
the garden. No Jovian. He peered around the side. Frohikon was busy 
etching arcane signs under the windowsills with a pocket laser.

Captain Scully may have been retired, but he was seldom entirely 
unarmed. He drew his own pocket laser and crept up on the Jovian with 
a silence unexpected in one of his bulk.

Frohikon, without turning or slowing in his work, said, "Glad you 
could make it, Captain. The presence of the owner will make the hex 
stronger."

Captain Scully's face reddened with anger. "Then you admit it! You're 
a North Polar Adept! A member of the Forbidden Society!"

"And a Patrolman," Frohikon added equitably. "But the Flat Earthers 
wouldn't take me. Oh, and Virgil Samms says to remind you of that 
time with the golden meteor back on the 'Britannia' -- says you 
usually catch on quick. Do you really think a hostile North Polar 
Adept could join the Patrol without being noticed, or hide from a 
Lensman on his own team? I'm good, but I'm not that good." He 
finished his etching and turned slowly to face the Tellurian. "You 
remember the war. You know how many of my people died, how much was 
destroyed, how much knowledge was lost. And for what? I've got more 
reason to want peace than you ever will. That's why I'm in the 
Patrol."

Captain Scully thought for a moment, then pocketed his laser again. 
"Then what are you doing in Special Circs?" 

"Covering Mulder's rear. He's got a destiny on him so strong I 
couldn't believe my own readings." Frohikon raised his arms and made 
a gesture. The house gleamed blue for a moment, then looked normal 
again. "Never saw anything like them before, except from Virgil Samms, 
Gray Roger...and your daughter."

In the silence that followed his statement, Frohikon led Captain 
Scully back into the house.

THE END
10/2/01
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For more information about the Lensmen series:
http://www.dcn.davis.ca.us/~zlensman/lensfaq.html The Lensman FAQ
http://www.z9m9z.demon.co.uk/doc.htm              Who Is Doc Smith?
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http://www.dnaco.net/~mobrien/fanfic/xfiles/  Maureen's X-Files fanfic
http://www.dnaco.net/~mobrien/fanfic/lensfic/ Doc Smith fanfic