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

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

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

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


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

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

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

     Not barren of human cargo, however.

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

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

     We are alone.

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

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

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

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

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

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

     <Silence...>

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

     <More silence...>

     "Mulder..."

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

     "Mulder, you're scaring me..."

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

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

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

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

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

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

     I am outside in the dark and totally alone.

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

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

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

     --off. 

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

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

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


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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     "We are not animals."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     "I will and without your help."

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

     "And you want my soul in payment."

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

     "No."

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

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

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

     "There is nothing I want more than that."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

     "Sleep well?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

END Of CHAPTER TWO