From: ephemeral@ephemeralfic.org
Date: 8 Jan 2006 11:55:37 -0000
Subject: Abaddon\'s Reign - COMPLETE (6/18) NC-17 by aka "Jake"
Source: direct

BOOK IV: THE GREAT RED DRAGON (PART 1)

EARTH DATE: OCTOBER 12, 2002
TSE'BIT'A'I
CASSANDRA SPENDER'S QUARTERS

The honeyed scent of paste wax filled the tidy bedroom. Dibeh 
polished Cassandra's mahogany wardrobe, making it gleam 
brighter than an Overseer's onyx chair. She enjoyed this 
particular chore. The rhythmic motion created knots of warmth 
in her upper arms and between her shoulder blades. She felt a 
growing sense of accomplishment as she vanquished yesterday's 
dust from the deeply carved panels and moldings.

In her head, she sang as she worked. She didn't imagine the 
croaking grunts of her actual voice, but a clear and lilting 
timbre, like that of her mistress. Lady Cassandra's favorite 
song referred wistfully to a place called California -- a 
place Dibeh had never visited. Truth be told, Dibeh had never 
been anywhere other than the ship, and no further from her 
shared room on the servants' deck than the officers' 
residences four levels up. 

//All the leaves are brown and the sky is gray. I've been for 
a walk on a winter's day.// Dibeh wasn't fond of the song's 
gloomy lyrics, but the tune was pleasant. It looped through 
her head as she swirled wax around the dresser's ornate drawer 
pulls. //Stopped into a church, I passed along--//

A tap on her arm startled her. She spun to find her friend 
Ulso unexpectedly at her side.

"You scared me, you sneak!" she signed and smiled to show she 
was pleased to see the older servant. 

"Master Ca-Lo is demanding to see you," Ulso signaled in 
response. Her nimble fingers sliced the air, quickly and 
gracefully spelling out her message. She punctuated the 
Master's unexpected request with a hard-clenched fist to 
demonstrate its importance.

"Me?" Dibeh signaled back, surprised. She was Lady Cassandra's 
aide; she had never serviced Cassandra's son before. "What 
does he want with me?"

"He did not say, but he is in another of his dark moods. 
Servant Be-Gahi said he refused his midday meal -- threw his 
pot of tacheene against the wall."

"You can hardly blame him for that!" Dibeh scrunched her face 
and stuck out her tongue to demonstrate how little she liked 
the putrid stew-like dish.

"When Be-Gahi tried to clean up the spill, Master shouted to 
the Angels, hoisted her over his shoulder and carried her all 
the way down to the servants' kitchen, where he dumped her at 
the feet of Cook VI."

"I do not believe it." The kitchen was two decks below Master 
Ca-Lo's quarters. He would not have taken the trouble. He had 
more important things to attend to: the Infants were nearing 
maturation, new Breeding Compounds were under construction in 
Earth's largest cities, and the Armada was launching daily 
assaults against terrestrial uprisings. The number of dead and 
captured was awe inspiring, outstripping all expectations, yet 
there remained much to do. Mistress Cassandra talked 
incessantly about her son's various and significant 
responsibilities. "Rumors multiply faster than larder maggots 
in a sweet bin," Dibeh warned. 

"I was there. I saw it happen," Ulso insisted. "As did twenty 
other servants."

"Ca-Lo actually went into the kitchen?"

"I'm telling you, the Master dropped Be-Gahi on her fat old 
ass right next to the sanitation sink, then began shouting 
blasphemies. I feared the Red Dragon would strike him dead, 
and us along with him!"

Similar stories about Ca-Lo's foul temper had been circulating 
the servants' deck for weeks. Just yesterday the gossips 
recounted how Ca-Lo had forcibly evicted Companion XXI from 
his apartment and then ordered all thirty-six of his personal 
hybrid consorts to leave him alone...indefinitely. It was said 
he hadn't bedded a single one since the night the Earth woman 
was locked away in the Privation Chambers.

"Maybe he has grown weary of being at the center of the 
servants' gossip," Dibeh signed.

"Then he should give us less to talk about." Ulso prodded 
Dibeh's arm. "You better hurry, young one. The Master's mood 
is not likely to improve while you dawdle."

Dibeh thanked Ulso and abandoned her polishing to hurry to Ca-
Lo's quarters. 

On her way, she fretted over her appearance; furniture wax 
caked her nails and her coarsely woven dress was a simple 
uniform, brown in color, without adornment and stained at the 
pocket, not at all suitable attire for an audience with the 
Master. Her hair was tied into a knot at the back of her neck 
and held by a plain clip. She wore no burnished silicon 
bracelets to show her worth, no decorations at her ears, no 
jeweled stud in her small nose, nor paint on her face like a 
pretty consort. Truth be told, such devices did little to 
improve her appearance. She had been bred to serve a lady, not 
be attractive to men.

When she reached Ca-Lo's quarters, she smoothed her hair as 
best she could and then pressed the enter button on the keypad 
beside his door.

"Come in." Ca-Lo's voice crackled from the speaker.

At his command, the door opened with a pneumatic hiss and 
Dibeh stepped into his sumptuous apartment. The remains of his 
spilled tacheene lay at her feet, the carpet stained orange-
red. She stooped to gather the broken bowl and clean the mess.

"Leave it," Ca-Lo snapped, without looking up from his desk. 

His uniform was wrinkled and unfastened at the neck in a most 
unsoldierly fashion. His hair was unbound, snarled and in need 
of washing. A two-day stubble bristled his customarily smooth 
jaw and bluish-gray shadows smudged his cheeks beneath 
downcast eyes.

Spread out in front of him was a collection of feminine 
garments: a silky black blouse, twill slacks with a slender 
belt, and a pair of boots, quite small. 

He studied the items for a long time, smoothing the silk and 
fingering the boots' thin laces.

Dibeh stood straight as a sewing needle beside the door, 
awaiting his next order. 

Several long moments passed in silence before he finally 
lifted his eyes to acknowledge her.

Feeling awkward and not knowing the appropriate thing to say, 
she dipped her head and signaled politely, "How goes the 
Harmonious Settlement?"

He frowned and waved off her question. "Come here," he 
growled.

She obeyed, stepping carefully around the congealing tacheene, 
fearful that even the scuff of her slippers on the plush 
carpet might further irritate his already volatile 
disposition.

"Closer!" he demanded when she paused an arm's length away. 

She edged closer.

Apparently not satisfied, he grabbed her wrist and yanked her 
nearer still.

His hand was hot, almost feverish. He gripped her arm tightly. 
The tart odor of his sweat caused her to wrinkle her nose. His 
countenance was so severe she began to tremble.

When he noticed her fear, he loosened his hold a little, 
enough for her to withdraw her hand. An apology flitted across 
his face, then was gone.

"See this?" He retrieved a delicate gold necklace from the 
pile of garments.

Her head bobbed and she tried to smile.

"It belongs to Dana."

"The Earth woman?" she signaled.

He regarded her with grim eyes. "I want you to take it to 
her."

"But...she is in a Privation Chamber, is she not?"

"Yes."

"Sir, I do not have access to the Portal of Solitude."

He returned the necklace to the pile of clothes, then dug into 
his pants pocket and withdrew a slim transponder. It was 
unlike any she had ever seen, as slender as the Mistress' 
snuff tube and no longer than her smallest finger. Nih-hi-cho 
symbols, meticulously inscribed in the metal, spelled out an 
ancient prophecy along one side. 

"This will get you in," he said. "Don't lose it. It's the only 
one like it on the ship."

She hesitated, not wanting to take such an important key or 
accept his dangerous task. What if she were to get caught 
trespassing inside the sacred caldarium? She would be 
executed, certainly, or forced to live out the remainder of 
her days in a Privation Chamber.

"Please, sir, do not ask me."

"There's no one else." He rose from his chair. Tall and 
imposing, he leaned over her. "Dibeh, you are my mother's 
personal aide. She trusts you. She said you would do this for 
me."

Not wanting to contradict her mistress or Master Ca-Lo, she 
took the key with a trembling hand and tucked it into her 
sleeve. "What shall I tell the guards if they stop me?"

Impatience huffed from Ca-Lo's nose. "Dana is being kept in a 
stasis cell. You can pose as her Feeder. No one will stop 
you."

He plucked the necklace from the desk. "I would take it to her 
myself, if there was any way. But I'm denied access. The 
Overseers watch me whenever I'm outside these rooms. You, on 
the other hand, can walk right under their noses without being 
noticed."

It was true. Most Nih-hi-cho paid scant attention to hybrid 
servants. At times they seemed unable to discern a consort 
from a cook. One hybrid evidently looked much like any other 
to the purebloods, and their insignificant thoughts were not 
worth reading.

"You will collect Dana's meal in the kitchen," Ca-Lo said. 
"Deliver it as instructed. After you dispense her quota of na-
a-jah, give her this."

He dangled the cross in front of her. Its symmetric symbol 
meant nothing to Dibeh, but the pretty way it reflected the 
gleam of Ca-Lo's desk lamp was mesmerizing.

"Is there any message you would like me to convey to the Earth 
woman when I give her the necklace?"

His expression turned mournful. "I doubt she'll be conscious. 
At least I hope she's not." He took hold of Dibeh's hand and 
pressed the necklace into her palm. "You mustn't let anyone 
see you give this to her, do you understand? I can't protect 
you if you get caught."

She nodded, unnerved by the challenge ahead, yet afraid to 
disobey Ca-Lo -- or disappoint her mistress.

"Come back here after you leave the caldarium," Ca-Lo said, 
stroking her hair in a gesture of tender gratitude. "I want a 
report on Dana's well-being as soon as I return from the 
Overseers' Chambers."

*   *   *

THE NURSERY
DECK 72

Besh-Lo paced in front of the supply elevator, broken glass 
crunching beneath the heels of his polished military boots. He 
was in his human form, awaiting Cassandra Spender. She 
believed he was her secret confidant, a man named Sergeant 
Thompson. The Overseers, on the other hand, knew him as 
Watcher VIII, VII's replacement. In truth, he was both. Besh-
Lo was a Refuter spy, a double agent pretending to be 
Cassandra's ally while also posing as one of the Overseers' 
faithful Watchers. 

The Nursery was just as it had been after the preemptive 
release of the Infants: frigid, foggy and littered with 
overturned incubators. The birthing process had activated a 
rapid chemical reaction within the clones, transforming the 
Infant's amniotic fluid into a corrosive digestive enzyme. It 
quickly reduced the dying Kryceks to a shimmering soup of 
mineral byproducts. The liquefied remains then congealed and 
shriveled to a powdery residue. Almost five months later, the 
clones' distinctly human odor still hung in the air like mold 
spores, irritating Besh-Lo's sensitive nasal passages.

The elevator chimed, announcing Cassandra's arrival. Besh-Lo 
ceased his pacing and stood waiting for the silvery doors to 
open. His reflection stared back at him, a compact, sinewy 
man, forty-eight Earth years old, with walnut skin, 
corkscrewing hair cropped close to his skull, and whiskers the 
color of steel wool. Shrewd eyes gleamed like buckshot beneath 
his stern brows. A grim sneer exposed a flash of gold.

The doors slid open to reveal Cassandra, alone in the car, a 
scowl pinching her face.

"Why must we meet in this godawful dungeon?" She stepped out 
of the elevator and shouldered past Besh-Lo. Her nose wrinkled 
and she fanned the air. "My God, it stinks in here."

"Pod sediment, ma'am. Most unpleasant, I agree, but 
unavoidable."

"Then let's not waste time. Tell me what you've learned."

"There's a plot, ma'am."

Cassandra rolled her eyes with impatience. "There is *always* 
a plot, Sergeant. That's not news. I want to know about Dana. 
How is she?"

"She is in danger."

"Obviously. She's in a Privation Chamber, for goodness sake. I 
want to know if she's pregnant." Cassandra flapped her hands 
in a "get on with it" gesture. 

In order to make her think he was taking appropriate 
precautions to ensure their privacy, Besh-Lo captured her 
elbow and guided her away from the elevator. She believed he 
was completely loyal to her and her son, just as the Overseers 
believed he was devoted to them and the Society. Imagine their 
surprise if they should discover his true identity.

Not that such an eventuality was likely. He was far too 
cautious.

He steered her around several broken cryopods toward the 
room's center, away from the Nih-hi-cho's hidden bio-trackers.

Lowering his voice in a ruse of secrecy, he told her the 
Dragon's honest truth. "The Refuters intend to kill the Earth 
woman and her baby." 

There was no need to lie about the plan. If Cassandra were to 
repeat it to the Overseers, they would simply consider her 
ill-informed and dismiss her improbable claim as another of 
her many groundless ravings.   

"So there is a child?" She broke into a manic grin, more 
concerned about her status as a grandmother than the threat to 
the Earth woman. "I'd almost given up hope."

It had been five months since Dana Scully was locked away in a 
stasis cell. The Overseers had confirmed her pregnancy after 
the first week, but they kept that detail from Ca-Lo and his 
mother. Their intent was to use the information as leverage at 
an opportune time. That time had come. The Overseers were 
meeting with Ca-Lo at this very moment. As Watcher VIII, Besh-
Lo was given permission to share the information about the 
child with Cassandra, as a way of gaining her trust. 

"The pregnancy has been verified," Besh-Lo said. 

"Oh, this is wonderful news! I can't wait to tell Ashkii."

"No doubt he will be pleased."

"Yes, yes. But..." Her smile vanished. "What about Dana? 
Surely she'll be safe from the Refuters in a Privation 
Chamber. She's guarded there, isn't she?" Worry creased her 
brow. "My God, suppose one of the guards is a spy?"

Besh-Lo dismissed the idea with a cluck of his tongue. "Ma'am, 
how could a spy infiltrate the Society? The Nih-hi-cho are 
able to read minds, remember?" His voice cooed, trying to 
placate her. In truth, the Refuters were remarkably adept at 
disguising their thoughts and identities, even from the 
Overseers. They made excellent spies; they'd been practicing 
for generations. Besh-Lo was proof of their success. 

"I don't want anything to happen to Dana. Her baby is my 
grandchild. You understand its importance, don't you?"

Her unfounded pride caused him to bridle. If the child was 
like its demonic father, it was an Abomination, not a deity.

"The Refuters are purists, ma'am," he said, trying to sound 
repulsed. "Their distaste of human contamination is 
legendary."

"The Society is no better," she spat. "Just more cowardly."

There was no need to react to her insult; she believed him to 
be human like her. "They respect you and your son, ma'am." 

"Then they must respect my grandchild, too."

"Yes, ma'am."

"You must do whatever you can to protect my son's unborn 
child, do you understand?"

"Absolutely."

"And keep me informed of the plot against them."

"Of course." 

"If it comes down to it, I could serve as the baby's 
surrogate."

He recoiled inwardly at the notion, barely able to conceal his 
shock. "S-surrogate, ma'am?"

"Yes. Dana's fetus could be implanted in my womb. The Refuters 
wouldn't dare harm me."

Don't be so sure, he thought, appalled by her suggestion. The 
idea of her carrying her own grandchild sickened him, not 
because of its incestuous implications, but because human 
reproduction itself was disgusting.

"I sincerely hope such a drastic measure will prove 
unnecessary, ma'am."

*   *   *

Dressed in a filmy Feeder's veil, rubber gloves and sackcloth 
shift, Dibeh paused outside the Portal of Solitude to steady 
her nerves. She had never visited this part of the ship 
before. It was a holy place, off limits to infidels like her. 
Only hybrids who tended prisoners were allowed into the 
hallowed chamber.

Rising in front of her, the Portal's massive door was solidly 
constructed and intricately carved. It towered five meters 
above her head and if three servants were to join hands with 
arms extended, they could not span its substantial breadth. A 
bas-relief sculpture decorated its central bronze panel, 
depicting the Nih-hi-cho's most significant religious scene -- 
the Divination.

An image of the Holy Red Dragon filled the uppermost portion, 
his twelve heads radiating out from his torso like tongues of 
fire. His scaled, coiled body was draped upon the shoulders of 
the Divine Legion of Angels, serpents like himself with Nih-
hi-cho faces and benevolent eyes.

Beneath them were members of the Society, pious believers, 
purified by their collective prayers, destined to join the 
Dragon's Divine Kingdom after life. They were marked on the 
forehead by crystal diadems representing their supreme gift of 
telepathy. 

The Nih-hi-cho appeared to walk upon a sea of black oil, 
supported from below by the hunched shoulders of pathetic 
half-creatures, hybrids like herself, doomed to damnation by 
their detestable human attributes. These deformed half-breeds 
were portrayed without mouths or diadems because they could 
neither speak like humans, nor communicate telepathically like 
the blessed Nih-hi-cho.

At the very base of the Portal were the Terrestrials, crammed 
together like frog spawn in an abominable quagmire of stars 
and space gasses. They worshipped at the feet of their evil 
Lord God, a hideous chimera, winged like the Earth's buzzards 
and furred on his head and face like a goat. Malevolent laser 
beams shot outward from his too-small skull. 

Loyal minions were positioned near the deity. One, a female, 
wore a crown of twelve stars. She stood upon the Earth's moon, 
surrounded by a sinuous moat. Her belly was enormously 
pregnant, evidence of her sins.        

Dibeh suppressed a sudden, inexplicable urge to touch the 
woman's swollen belly. Even wearing her gloves, to do so would 
be sacrilege.

She shifted the bag of na-a-jah that hung heavily over her 
left shoulder and fished Ca-Lo's transponder from her sleeve. 

An electronic lock was mounted to the right of the door's 
deeply fluted frame. She inserted the transponder into its 
small round keyhole, wondering again if she would be arrested 
the moment she crossed the threshold. 

"Guide me, please, O Holy Dragon," she prayed, glancing up at 
the carving of the powerful god.

A green light blinked on the keypad. The lock clicked several 
times and the door swung silently inward, releasing a gust of 
humid air. The draft hissed past her ears and ruffled her 
veil, smelling sickly-sweet, like fermenting fruit. 

She tucked the transponder away, squared her shoulders and 
stepped inside.

The Chamber's magnificence stole her breath. The holy temple 
was enormous, drum-shaped, and paved with translucent amber, 
lit from below and incised with a repeating pattern of 
hexagons. It was capped by a dome, thirty meters high at its 
apex, decorated with luminous glass panels that illustrated 
sacred scenes like the creation of Ah-Toh, the Nih-hi-cho's 
home world, and the twenty miracles of the Red Dragon.

Priests came and went through dozens of narrow archways in the 
caldarium's bowed walls. They wore billowy green robes over 
starched white undercoats. Pale green sashes, the color of 
fresh onion shoots, circled their slender waists and draped 
nearly to the floor. Crimson caps hugged their bulbous, gray 
skulls. Silicon bangles tinkled at their wrists and ankles as 
they crisscrossed the deck, busy as ants in a melon barrel. 
Intent on their tasks, they took no notice of Dibeh.

Numerous guards stood at attention in niches around the room. 
Imposing in their black military uniforms, they were armed 
with rifles and stun sticks. They all had identical human 
faces -- beaky, square-jawed and fierce, with ashen eyes and 
prickly jowls. Their sternness caused Dibeh's racing heart to 
rise to her throat.  

A male Greeter materialized seemingly out of nowhere, 
startling Dibeh when he poked her arm with a long-nailed 
finger and asked in a disdainful tone, "Location?"

His glossy black hair was piled high in a topknot in the style 
of the Armada's Bliss Boys, consorts to the human soldiers who 
preferred masculine bedmates. He smelled of human sweat and 
his pursed lips were painted bright red. She handed him the 
numbered chip she'd received from Cook XII in the kitchen, and 
tried not to stare at his bright blue, claw-like nails.

"Cell X-G-2416," he read from the chip and smacked his crimson 
lips. He gave her a squinty-eyed stare. "Stasis Section. The 
Earth woman, hmm?"

Dibeh smiled and patted her leathery bag of na-a-jah to 
indicate her purpose.

"This way." He pivoted on glittery slippers and headed out 
across the honeycombed deck. "You're late, you know. The other 
Feeders have already come and gone."

She hung her head and signed an apology, to which he 
harrumphed and tipped his pointy nose skyward. 

Two-thirds of the way across the Chamber, he stopped to squat 
beside one of the lit hexagons. It looked exactly like all the 
others: two meters wide, glassy and golden, and outlined by a 
silvery, razor-thin border. The Greeter fitted her numbered 
chip into a small, shallow depression where two sides of the 
honeycomb pattern came to a point. Almost immediately an 
aperture opened at the center of the hexagon, yawning like a 
mouth, exposing the cell below -- a fleshy, damp, pocket 
tucked beneath the deck.

Curled at the bottom of this sticky cell was the Earth woman, 
Mistress Cassandra's friend Dana Scully, naked and pale, lying 
on her side in a gelatinous pudding of protein ointment. Her 
red hair was wet and matted. Her skin was stippled from cold 
and veined with blue. She bore no bruises or other obvious 
signs of mistreatment, but her eyes were squeezed shut and her 
brows drawn together as if she were suffering unbearable pain.  

"She is hungry because of your lingering," the Greeter 
accused. He removed the chip and rose to his feet. "You had 
better hurry," he ordered before leaving her on her own, 
taking the chip with him.

She slipped the bag of na-a-jah from her shoulder and knelt 
beside the gaping aperture. 

A thick umbilicus -- the feeder tube -- connected an organic 
funnel at the upper rim of the cell to the Earth woman's 
mouth, where it snaked presumably into her gullet, passing 
through her stretched, pale lips, bulging her throat.

Smaller hoses plugged her nostrils; Dibeh guessed they pumped 
oxygen into her lungs, because the air in the cell was damp 
and foul, like the servants' necessarium whenever the sewage 
conduits become clogged. A fourth hose sprouted from between 
her legs and a fifth from a reddened incision in her side 
below her ribs. Both of these tubes disappeared into the slush 
at the bottom of the cell. The woman's abdomen was noticeably 
rounded, like the winged woman on the caldarium's great, 
carved door.

So, the gossips' stories were true. Dana Scully was with 
child.

Dibeh tried and failed to imagine what it must be like to 
nurture a fetus within one's own body, then flushed with shame 
at such a wicked idea. Everyone knew that proper offspring 
were produced inside a disposable host. Even hybrids and 
clones were produced in ablution tanks, which thankfully bore 
no resemblance to the wombs of terrestrial females.

The Earth woman mewled and hugged her swollen belly.  

Believing she must be hungry, Dibeh lifted the bag of na-a-
jah, extended its rigid spout and fitted the nozzle into the 
upper end of the umbilicus. A gentle squeeze pushed gruel from 
the bag into the feeder tube, which expanded as it filled. 
Dibeh watched the sludgy na-a-jah ooze incrementally through 
the translucent umbilicus, into the Earth woman's gaping 
mouth.      

Dana Scully whimpered when the first dark lumps passed her 
lips. A wave of sympathy engulfed Dibeh. She reached into the 
cell to comfort her as best she could, gently wiping clots of 
buttery protein ointment from her closed lids, then swabbing 
out her ears and stroking her hunched shoulders. Sadly, the 
Earth woman didn't respond to her ministrations; the 
whimpering continued, punctuated by audible gulps as she 
swallowed her meal. 

After several minutes, the last of the na-a-jah finally 
drained from the tube. The Greeter would be returning soon to 
close the cell. Dibeh had scant time left to give Dana Scully 
the necklace. 

She peeled off her left glove and shook the necklace from its 
hiding place in the thumb. Her hands were trembling as she 
looped the delicate chain around the woman's neck and quickly 
fastened the tiny hook.

The Earth woman's hand flapped blindly to the gold cross. Her 
brow smoothed a little as she fingered it. Thin tears drizzled 
from her slitted eyes.

Dibeh smiled, relieved the necklace was providing some measure 
of solace, no matter how temporary. The next Feeder would 
certainly spot it and take it away, but for a short while Dana 
Scully could rest easier.

The slap of footsteps alerted Dibeh to the Greeter's approach.

She quickly arranged the Earth woman's hair to hide the 
necklace, then slipped her glove back on and disengaged the 
feeder bag. She was on her feet, ready to leave, by the time 
the Greeter reached her.

He crouched and inserted her numbered chip back into its 
groove. The cell's aperture squeezed shut.

"Well? What are you waiting for?" he snarled when she 
continued to stare at the shallow indentation at the hexagon's 
midpoint. "Get out of here."

She gave him her meanest scowl and extended her hand for the 
chip. She had been told to return it to the kitchen along with 
the empty feeder bag.

He dropped it in her palm, taking obvious care to avoid 
touching her ointment-slathered glove as he did so. "Now go," 
he ordered. 

She spun and retreated from the room. Countless hexagons 
blurred beneath her feet as she hurried toward the exit. How 
many of the cells held prisoners? Her stomach pitched at the 
thought of their bodies below her. Before today, she had 
assumed anyone locked inside a Privation Chamber must be a 
vicious criminal or a depraved sinner. Yet Dana Scully seemed 
neither. She was a hapless victim, abducted from her world and 
held here against her will.

Why did the Society allow such injustice? How could the 
blessed Nih-hi-cho be so cruel? 

Dibeh broke into a run, desperate to leave the loathsome place 
as far behind her as possible. 
 
*   *   *

CHAMBER OF THE COUNCIL OF OVERSEERS

Ca-Lo stood at attention in front of the twelve members of the 
Council. The Overseers remarked among themselves about his 
disheveled appearance. 

//...excessive preoccupation with the imprisoned Earth 
woman...she was his first human sexual partner...seems to have 
established an enduring bond...we can use his devotion to our 
advantage...//

"You are wondering, Ca-Lo, why we have summoned you here," 
Overseer One stated telepathically.

"You want a progress report, I assume," Ca-Lo said.

"Not at all; we have already been apprised of the Armada's 
successes," Overseer Two replied, leaving the human commander 
to ponder the identity of their unnamed sources. "You are here 
to receive new orders."

"New orders?"

//...apprehension...good...yes...//

"You will travel to Salt Lake City at dawn, local time, to 
tour our first operational breeding compound."

"I direct the conquest, not the reconstruction."

"You do whatever we tell you to do."

Ca-Lo's face remained a mask of calm, belying the resentment 
and trepidation they could read in his mind. "May I know the 
purpose of this tour?"

"To meet the settlement's supervisor and attend to his needs." 

"With due respect, I have more pressing responsibilities at 
the moment."

"Yes, the insurrection in Texas, the rebel uprisings in New 
Mexico and Utah. We know all about these inconveniences."

Incredulity rippled through Ca-Lo. "A sedition at Fort Weather 
can hardly be regarded as an 'inconvenience.'" 

"It will be dealt with in due course. Right now the Harmony 
settlements are pivotal to our colonization efforts and are 
therefore a top priority. You will meet with Lieutenant 
Harris--"

"Harris?" Ca-Lo's fists tightened. His next words ground from 
between clenched teeth. "That bastard was not to be released 
without my permission."

"Our orders always supersede yours. We freed him, as a reward 
for his exemplary behavior in the Privation Chamber. Five 
months is certainly long enough to hold a grudge, don't you 
think?"

Ca-Lo struggled to tamp down his rising resentment. "Send 
someone else."

"We are sending you."

"Why? Am I being punished?"

"Yes, you are." 

Ca-Lo's indignation transformed to rage. His eyes sparked as 
he roared, "I've done everything you have asked me to do. I've 
led your Armada to the brink of victory. I've given you this 
entire planet. In the name of the Red Dragon, what more do you 
want from me?"

//...he has referred to the Armada as ours, not his...loss of 
loyalty...the Earth woman's influence...//

Ca-Lo's slip came as a disconcerting surprise to the 
Overseers, but his other claims were accurate and his question 
not unexpected. Ca-Lo was, in large part, responsible for the 
Nih-hi-cho's recent successes. He was a superb strategist, 
maybe their best tactician. Adept at predicting the actions of 
the most proficient terrestrial military leaders, he had a 
natural aptitude for divining motivation and calculating 
behavior, honed no doubt by years of attempting to ascertain 
the unspoken intentions of his Nih-hi-cho masters.

By comparison, the Nih-hi-cho themselves were merely mediocre 
when it came to anticipating their enemies' trickery. It was 
an inescapable truth, one they accepted without rancor. The 
Society was accustomed to group consciousness. For countless 
generations their telepathic abilities had ensured they knew 
the thoughts of their members, so there was no need to guess, 
no cause for guile or cunning. Every thought, idea, plot or 
scheme was shared, completely out in the open. It was 
unnatural for Nih-hi-cho to be secretive. There wasn't even a 
word in their native language for "deception." They had never 
needed one, not until they met humans. 

Nih-hi-cho could, of course, react to a conspiracy once they 
detected it. But in battle, playing defensively was likely to 
lose the war. Which was precisely why they used humans like 
Ca-Lo to strategize for them. 

"It is not your military prowess that is in question, Ca-Lo. 
We are quite pleased with your performance in that regard."

"Then what's got you so damned pissed you're willing to make 
me errand-boy to Harris?"

"You have made no progress in your search for young William 
Mulder."

Ca-Lo latched onto their complaint and used it as opportunity 
to bargain. "I've tried, you know I have, but I need access to 
Dana Scully if I am to find her son."

He had made an honest attempt, they knew. Unfortunately he had 
come up empty handed.

As had they.

"Her mind has been probed, Ca-Lo. She doesn't know her son's 
current location," Overseer One admitted.

"Maybe not, but she could supply clues to his whereabouts. She 
gave the boy to someone, right? If I could get that person's 
name, I'd have a place to start, a trail to follow. It's what 
I'm good at. You know it. Give her to me and let me try."

This was exactly the response they had been hoping for. 

They conferred quickly. William Mulder must be found and Ca-
Lo's expertise in such matters would be invaluable. 

"We will allow you to question her," Overseer One said.

Ca-Lo's hopes rose. "I'll need time with her, to earn her 
trust."

"How much time?"

"I don't know. It might take a while."

"We will not give her to you indefinitely. Not without seeing 
significant progress in your search." They had no doubt that, 
if properly motivated, he could find the boy, so Overseer One 
delivered an additional impetus: "It has been confirmed she is 
pregnant." 

A peculiar sentiment arose in Ca-Lo, akin to the feelings of 
ecstasy the Nih-hi-cho shared when joined in communal prayer.

"You must release her then." When Ca-Lo saw their hesitation, 
he delivered an impetus of his own. "If the baby is what you 
fear he is, the human God will not be pleased to discover you 
have been torturing the mother."

Again the Overseers conferred and came to a unanimous 
decision. "You may have Dana Scully for as long as you need."

"I want her permanently."

"Only if you bring us the boy." 

Feeling confident, Ca-Lo said, "I'll bring you the boy. And 
when I do, I will take Dana Scully as my wife, my sole 
consort. I want to marry her." 

The notion was revolting. Marriage was a vulgar convention. 
Humans believed it sanctified their aberrant mating practices. 
To the Nih-hi-cho, however, all sexual unions were profane and 
no known ceremony could make them holy.

"We will consider it," Overseer One lied, "*after* you bring 
us the boy. But be warned, Ca-Lo, if you do not locate William 
Mulder before Dana Scully gives birth, then she will be 
returned to her cell and you will not be given a second 
opportunity to get her back."

Ca-Lo was no longer listening. His mind was already focused on 
his future success, just as the Overseers had hoped.  

*   *   *

Dibeh went directly from the Privation Chambers to Ca-Lo's 
quarters, exactly as he had asked her to do. Finding his door 
locked, she squatted with her back to the outer wall to wait 
for him.

Forty minutes later, she heard a jubilant voice reverberating 
through the serpentine corridor. It was Ca-Lo and he was 
singing!

He broke into a broad grin the moment he spotted her. "Dibeh! 
I have excellent news." 

"That is good, sir, because my news is not so excellent," she 
signed in response.

His smile sagged a little. He offered his hand and pulled her 
easily to her feet. At his verbal command, the door to his 
quarters unlocked and opened, and he steered her inside with 
his palm to her back.

"Sit," he said, as soon as the door had closed behind them. He 
gestured toward his wingback chair, but when she lingered 
beside the door, he let his hand drop. "You gave her the 
necklace?"

"Yes, sir," she signed.

"And? How was she?" Worry knotted his brow.

A rush of words flowed from her hands, uncensored and frantic. 
"She was unconscious, sir, and in pain, and the cell she is in 
is very foul. She cannot stretch her limbs. The shunt in her 
belly appears infected. Please, Master Ca-Lo, you must do 
whatever you can to get her out...as soon as possible. No one 
should be forced--"

"Be still. It's okay, it's okay." He snagged her fluttering 
hands and held them between his palms. "Dibeh, she is going to 
be let out. The Overseers are releasing her to me today."

Surprised by this news, Dibeh withdrew her hands to sign, 
"Thank the Divine Angels!"

His smile returned, brilliant and full of joy. His green eyes 
sparkled. "You want to know the best part? She's pregnant."

Dibeh's cheeks heated at this frank disclosure. Ca-Lo's 
liaison with the Earth woman and its obvious consequences were 
not appropriate topics of conversation for a master and 
servant.

Ca-Lo seemed not to notice her discomfort, which grew even 
more profound when he unexpectedly started to disrobe. He 
peeled off his jacket and then his shirt, baring his chest as 
if she were not in the room. He let the garments drop to the 
floor, then headed to the adjoining bedroom, continuing his 
jovial commentary as he went.

"There's a lot to do before she gets here. The apartment must 
be given a thorough cleaning," he said. 

Dibeh collected his clothes and trailed after him. She nearly 
tripped over his discarded boots when she entered the bedroom. 

He targeted her with the steady point of a finger. "I want you 
to oversee all the preparations, Dibeh. You can have three 
servants to help you. Ask First Cook to prepare something 
special for Dana's dinner. Bring the best wine on the ship. 
Oh, and I want fresh flowers in the outer room...and in here." 
He waved in the general direction of the nightstand before he 
disappeared into the bathroom.

She heard the tub start to fill. "I need a clean uniform," he 
shouted to her, but before she could fetch one, he returned to 
the bedroom, completely naked, and began rooting through the 
wardrobe. 

"Please, let me do that, sir," she signed, shocked by his 
nudity.

With his back to her, he missed her offer of help. 

Two, three, four clean shirts flew through the air and onto 
the carpet, tossed aside for perceived imperfections. Ca-Lo's 
unbound hair fanned loosely across his broad shoulders, the 
ends brushing the upper curve of his buttocks.

"Sir? Sir!" She went to him and tapped his arm.

He spun to face her and she found herself staring directly at 
his exposed male part. Immediately she shifted her focus, but 
it seemed no matter where she looked, it was still in view. 

Divine Angels, his physique was nothing like that of his 
mother, whom Dibeh had seen naked many times during her bath. 
Ca-Lo had a thick, purplish hose-like protuberance dangling 
between his legs. Beneath it was a wrinkled sac, swollen with 
two egg-shaped somethings. Dark, coiled hair furred the 
preposterous organ, so that it resembled the genitals of a 
terrestrial ram or steer...which was exactly how his Consorts 
described his parts whenever they gossiped about his sexual 
proclivities.

Dibeh felt another rush of blood rise to her cheeks.

"If...if you please, sir, go...go take your bath," she signed, 
her fingers stumbling on the words. "I...I will bring you some 
pants...clothes...a uniform."

He nodded in a distracted way, oblivious to his state of 
undress. He ran splayed fingers through his long hair, combing 
back the wayward locks. "Uh...yes, okay. My...my boots..." He 
glanced at the dull, scuffed boots.

"I will see to it they are polished," she promised. 
"Everything will be taken care of. Please, sir, do not trouble 
yourself with these details. Take your bath," she said, once 
again on the verge of glancing at his groin.

He reached for her and gave her shoulder a grateful squeeze. 
Kindness brightened his entire face. "Dibeh...I appreciate all 
you've done today...for me and for Dana."

"Thank you, sir."

"Would you consider undertaking another very important task?"

She hesitated, stunned that he would bother to ask her. It was 
his right to demand whatever he wished and it was her duty to 
obey. "Of course, sir. What is the task?"

"I want to assign you to Lady Dana, permanently."

"To...?" What was he saying? "You want me to be the Earth 
woman's personal aide?"

He chuckled. "Yes, except you'll have to stop calling her 'the 
Earth woman.' She's going to be my wife, Dibeh. Do you 
understand what that means?"

Dibeh had heard of the bizarre human practice called 
"marriage," thankfully in vague terms only. She tried to hide 
her distaste. 

"What...what about Madame Cassandra?" she asked. "Who will 
take care of her?" 

"She'll have a new aide," he said matter-of-factly.

Dibeh had been with Cassandra for several years. She didn't 
want to start again with someone she barely knew. And the 
Earth woman...Dana Scully...Lady Dana...whatever she was 
supposed to be called...she had been quite condescending 
toward Dibeh when she first arrived on the ship. 

In addition, there was the baby to consider. Would Dibeh be 
expected to tend it, too?

Ca-Lo must have sensed her doubts, because he stroked her hair 
in a reassuring way.

"It would honor me, Dibeh, if you would serve Dana with the 
same dedication you have shown to me and my mother.  

O Great Dragon, how could she object? Ca-Lo was leader of the 
Nih-hi-cho Armada. She was a mere aide.

"The honor would be mine, sir," she haltingly signed.

"Good." He appeared relieved and it was only then she realized 
he had expected she might actually say no to his request. 
"Your first official duty will be to escort Dana to my 
quarters as soon as the Appraisers have finished with her in 
Assessment Bay 12."

"Yes, sir." Her opportunity to object had passed. "As you 
wish."

*   *   *

Time is irrelevant, interminable here. You think you might be 
going crazy. Dreams, fantasies, hallucinations swirl over you 
like flotsam on a stormy sea.

Do you hear your mother calling? Can you smell the tart 
fragrance of fresh cut grass lingering in evening-cooled air?

Crickets sing after dark. The moon smiles upon eight 
neighborhood children of varying ages. You feel safe playing 
Kick the Can with the officers' children on a San Diego parade 
ground.

"Dana! Dana, come in now. It's late," Mom calls from your 
front porch, her voice urgent, but not angry.

"I gotta go," you tell the other kids and they groan.

"Fifteen more minutes," wheedles bristle-haired Sarah, 
scheming, always scheming. "You can pretend you didn't hear 
her."

"I can't fib to my mom." You've never been able to lie 
convincingly. Your tendency to blush precludes deception.

Inwardly you pledge to practice, because deceit may come in 
handy some day. 

You wave goodbye to your friends. Your skinned knees sting as 
you skip home. 

Your arms throb, too, you notice, and you try to stretch them 
high above your head to work out the prickles and kinks, but 
find you cannot.

It's dark where you are.

Confining.

Oh God.

Don't...don't think about that.

Think about how a warm bath and Mom's goodnight kiss will make 
your aches disappear.

Or, better yet, think about Mulder's tender caresses. 

Can you hear him whispering your name? His chuckle resonates 
like the quiet rumble of a DC subway train deep beneath the 
city's street, muffled by soil and concrete and the murmur of 
passersby. His laugh, like his smile, is both satisfying and 
heartbreaking because it is as genuine as it is rare.

You imagine him above you now, propped upon his elbows, making 
love to you. His scent, his touch, his contented moans are all 
delightfully familiar. Yet there is a strangeness about him 
that puts you on guard. His eyes flash, too green. Long locks 
of chestnut hair drape his shoulders and tickle your bare 
breasts. You comb your fingers through the glossy strands and 
wonder where this fantasy came from. You almost never read 
romance novels, preferring scientific journals to bodice 
rippers. Yet, like a Harlequin hero, Mulder is seducing you. 
You feel ravished as he controls your body and dominates your 
heart.

His open palm traces the inner curve of your thigh; his 
fingers stutter from your knee to your pelvis. They pause 
there to explore your curls, seek your entrance.

You arch toward him, allowing him to slide into you. You feel 
possessed in every sense of the word and at this very moment 
you like it. You love it. You love him. 

But your body goes numb when you notice the mark on his right 
cheek. A tattoo or brand. Sinister symbols that appear to reel 
through the shadowy stubble of his beard. You trace them with 
your thumb, remembering alien artifacts and submerged 
spacecrafts and a book about Anasazi Indians. 

The Sixth Extinction. 

The Apocalypse.

The end of the world.

"Stop," you protest and push firmly against his chest.

His heart hammers beneath your palms. He is panting, brow 
knotted, eyes squeezed shut; ecstasy hums in his throat.

Oh God, he isn't Mulder.

He dips his head and slips his tongue into your gasping mouth. 
He tastes like Mulder. You wouldn't mistake another man's 
flavor for his, would you? 

You try to convince yourself this is him, this is your lover. 
Who else could he possibly be? You wouldn't allow a stranger 
to do these things to you. And you need Mulder so very badly 
right now. To soothe your hurting arms, your cramped legs, 
your swollen throat and cracked lips. To warm your chilled, 
wet skin and lessen the panic that is rising within you like a 
spring tide, threatening to swamp you, drown you.

You want to be a carefree child again, safe in your parent's 
San Diego home...or, better still, beside Mulder on a rumpled 
bed in a cheap motel in Roswell. Before your argument. Before 
you were taken prisoner. Before you were sealed inside a 
small, damp prison with no way out...

Suddenly a blindingly bright light penetrates your closed 
lids. Balmy air cascades over your naked body and its 
unexpected warmth is almost painful. You force your eyes open.

Four pairs of elongated, gray hands are reaching for you. 
Wide, inky eyes stare down from above. You hear alien voices 
inside your head.

//...detach the feeding tube...lift her out...wrap her for 
assessment...//

You curl, trying to protect your belly, your baby. Tucked into 
a ball, you listen hard for your mother's voice.

"Dana! Dana, come home now. It's late."

I'm trying, Mom. 

*   *   *

ASSESSMENT BAY 12

Under the guise of Watcher VIII, Besh-Lo stood to one side of 
the assessment platform, where he had a clear view of the 
evaluation procedure. 

Six Appraisers positioned themselves around the Earth woman. 
She was nude, conscious, and confused. Pinned to the platform 
by metal rods through her wrists and ankles, she stared at 
them with eyes rounded by fear and pain. Thin trails of blood 
drizzled from her puncture wounds. A delicate gold chain 
glittered about her sweat-slicked neck. 

An array of overhead lights cast a silvery pattern of dots and 
hash marks across her distended abdomen, which bulged like a 
ripe melon. She struggled to fold her arms over herself in a 
futile effort to protect her unborn child. 

The Appraisers' purpose was threefold: to repair any physical 
debilitation incurred by the woman during her incarceration, 
to inspect her implants, and, most importantly, to determine 
the genetic constitution of her fetus. 

Besh-Lo listened telepathically for the fetus' rudimentary 
consciousness. He sensed the child rolling blithely within its 
mother's uterus, a distinct human being, intellectually 
separate from the woman, despite their physical attachment.

A simple chromosomal profile would show if this baby was Ca-
Lo's. It would also determine if the child had inherited its 
father's unique immunity to the Oil. If the Derivation flowed 
in its young veins, then it would be left to develop naturally 
inside its mother. If not, it would be aborted and destroyed.

Appraiser I scanned the woman's abdomen with a flat, handheld 
bio-comp to establish the fetus' exact position and to 
ascertain the extent of its development.

"25.76 centimeters. Middle ear structures are formed. 
Digestive system functioning. Weight 327 grams. Gender -- 
female," he reported telepathically.

He set the bio-comp aside. Appraiser III swabbed the woman's 
abdomen with disinfectant and then inserted an amnio needle 
just below her navel. She cried out when it pierced her skin 
and then held her breath, teeth clenched, as III guided the 
needle through the muscular tissue of her uterus into the 
amniotic sac.

He began to siphon fluid. "Removing 30 cc's." 

The liquid flowed through a tube into a portable DNA verifier 
held by VI. The verifier quickly configured the sample. In 
milliseconds the data was charted and compared with Ca-Lo's 
preexisting profile.

"Probability of paternity: 99.9994 percent. Combined Paternity 
Index: 158251.22," Appraiser VI read from the miniature 
display. "Ca-Lo is included as the biological father of this 
child."

There was another possibility, of course. 

Fox Mulder.

The Earth woman's memory scans had revealed she and Mulder 
engaged in a sexual encounter the night before she was brought 
aboard the ship.

This fact complicated the issue of paternity in a remarkable 
way: Fox Mulder was not simply the Earth woman's lover, he was 
also the original source of Ca-Lo's DNA. 

On March 4, 1961, a team of terrestrial scientists had been 
ordered to embark on one of Earth's earliest eugenics efforts, 
the New Destiny Project. Borrowing Nih-hi-cho techniques, they 
harvested cells from Teena Mulder's ten-week-old fetus, at the 
direction of the baby's alleged biological father, CGB 
Spender. 

Nuclei from the donor cells were injected into de-nucleated 
embryonic cells. The resulting embryos were implanted into a 
group of specially selected, geographically disparate human 
females. Spender's wife Cassandra was among them.

The Nih-hi-cho learned of Spender's unsanctioned experiments 
in early April and immediately set out to find and destroy the 
fetuses.

They discovered the majority of the women had miscarried 
within days of being implanted. Only twelve remained pregnant 
six weeks later. The Nih-hi-cho abducted these surrogates, 
intending to kill their babies. 

While performing the first abortion, they made a terrifying 
discovery: the dead fetus possessed the Derivation. Plans 
changed immediately. The remaining eleven fetuses were 
harvested alive and placed in cultivation tanks, the same type 
used for nurturing hybrids. 

Ten of the children subsequently died. Only Ca-Lo survived the 
tank's rigorous artificial environment. Six months after the 
natural birth of Fox Mulder -- Ca-Lo's biological twin and, 
technically speaking, his father -- Ca-Lo was removed from the 
tank, healthy and squalling, the irises of his eyes tinted 
permanently green by the chemicals.  

Ca-Lo was unaware of his true origins. He believed he was 
conceived naturally, the biological son of Cassandra and CGB 
Spender, removed at an early stage during an abduction. 
Cassandra believed this, too. Ca-Lo's sense of individuality 
and his intense desire to think of himself as a normal human 
being had become increasingly pronounced as he matured. The 
Nih-hi-cho realized early on it was to their advantage to keep 
him ignorant of the circumstances of his heritage. 

Because Ca-Lo and Fox Mulder were genetically identical, it 
was impossible to determine which of them had sired Dana 
Scully's baby. But precise identification of the child's 
father was of little consequence. It was the baby's blood that 
mattered. Did it carry the Derivation? Was it an Abomination? 

"The child's blood?" Besh-Lo asked, eager to know if the fetus 
carried the anomaly. 

"The Derivation is present," IV confirmed, disappointed. "The 
pregnancy cannot be terminated."

Besh-Lo was impatient to report the findings to his fellow 
Refuters, but he remained in attendance so as not to arouse 
suspicion.

Appraiser III proceeded to test the Earth woman's implants, 
once again using the bio-comp. "Systems monitor, model A-570, 
in the naso-pharynx, functioning. Locator, Type 2, sub-dermis, 
lower back. Also operational. As is the old EM-20 chip in her 
neck." The crude chip had been discovered when she was 
examined months ago. It was a terrestrial design, used for 
basic bio-manipulation. Non-detrimental to their purposes, it 
had been left in place. 

Repairing the Earth woman's debilitations took only a few 
seconds. She would be able to walk by the time a hybrid aide 
arrived to fetch her. Besh-Lo watched with growing disinterest 
as the Appraisers finished preparing her for release, his 
thoughts already on the plot to kill her and the Abomination. 
It would be an incomparable honor to be the Refuter who sent 
their despicable souls back to the realm of their Heavenly 
Father.

CONTINUED IN BOOK IV (Part 2)...

ABADDON'S REIGN
BOOK IV: THE GREAT RED DRAGON (PART 2)

*   *   *

Scully trailed Dibeh, her gait unsteady. She wore a long-
sleeved gown of embroidered blue velvet. Its brocade bodice 
was ornately beaded and hugged her breasts, which plumped 
above the deeply scooped neckline. A voluminous skirt draped 
her rounded abdomen and its hem swept the ground, rustling at 
each step like wind before a storm. Gauging time by the swell 
of her belly, Scully estimated it had been five or six months 
since she last walked this serpentine corridor to Ca-Lo's 
quarters.

Her memory of that visit was vague. Elusive and alarming 
images -- emerald-green eyes, long, chestnut hair, an alien 
tattoo -- suggested she had slept with Cassandra's son on that 
long-ago evening. Yet in her mind it was Mulder, always 
Mulder, in the bed with her, making love, just as they had 
done in their motel room in Roswell.

She would have discounted her suspicions about Ca-Lo 
altogether if not for the results of the aliens' tests less 
than an hour ago. 

Probability of paternity: 99.9994 percent, they had said. 
Their words had come to her telepathically, as clearly as if 
they had spoken aloud. She wasn't drugged or under hypnotic 
suggestion. What was happening was real. 

The aliens are wrong, she tried to convince herself. They've 
made a mistake. My baby is Mulder's. It has to be.

She clutched her belly when she felt the child flutter, its 
tapping both remarkable and regretful. It reminded her of 
William, naturally. It also reminded her of those lingering, 
desolate months when she was searching for Mulder, desperate 
to be reunited with him.

A similar desperation gripped her now. Mulder was missing 
again. And just as before, she was uncertain about the origin 
of her baby.

"Deja vu," she murmured, causing Dibeh to glance back at her 
with inky eyes.

"I made love to Mulder in Roswell," she told the hybrid.

Dibeh nodded absently, pretending to understand. The hybrid 
didn't know Mulder. She had probably never heard of Roswell 
either.

"*Mulder* is the father of this child," Scully insisted, 
speaking to Dibeh's back. The baby fluttered again, bringing 
tears to her eyes. 

She reached instinctively for her cross. An old prayer formed 
in her mind as she fingered the tiny symbol of her faith: 
Please help me protect my baby, keep it safe and healthy.

Scully's own apparent health surprised her. Months of enforced 
inactivity should have resulted in debilitating circulatory 
problems and pronounced atrophy of the muscles. Yet here she 
was, keeping pace with the lithe hybrid.

The aliens had done something to her during their exam, 
something that healed the inevitable consequences of her 
incarceration, the same way they once healed Cassandra's 
spinal paralysis.

Arriving at Ca-Lo's door, Dibeh pressed the buzzer on the 
keypad.

Mulder's voice boomed from the intercom, bidding them to 
enter, his familiar timbre squeezing Scully's heart.   

The door slid open and she followed Dibeh inside. They found 
Ca-Lo sitting at his desk, dressed impeccably in a jet-black 
military uniform. His hair was neatly combed, fastened at the 
nape. He was clean-shaven and his smile appeared shy and 
hopeful. 

He rose awkwardly from his chair, nearly knocking it over when 
he took a clumsy step toward them. His resemblance to Mulder 
seared her soul; it left her feeling flushed, shaken and 
vulnerable, craving the man who wasn't truly there.

She shoved her nostalgia aside, marched up to Ca-Lo and 
delivered a hard-hitting roundhouse punch to his jaw. "You 
bastard!"

The wallop turned his head and split his lower lip, but failed 
to unbalance him. She expected him to retaliate, either to 
return her punch or shout or restrain her. She braced herself 
for an outburst, but none came.

"I-I deserved that," he said softly, sounding genuinely 
contrite.

Her shoulders sagged. God damn it. She had wanted him to deny 
everything, prove her elusive memories wrong.

"You deserve a lot worse, you son of a bitch."  

His tongue explored the rising welt on his lower lip. When he 
encountered fresh blood, he dabbed it with the back of his 
hand. "You're right. I do. I...I'm sorry."

"I don't want your damned apology. I want to *go* *home*."

He gestured expansively. "This is your home...now."

It dawned on her he wasn't talking about the ship in general; 
he was referring to this single apartment.

"You plan to keep me imprisoned in your quarters for the rest 
of my life?"

"I had hoped you might view it as a good thing." He attempted 
to smile, but managed only a grimace. "It's more comfortable 
than a stasis cell."

"So I should be grateful?"

"Well...I thought--"

"You thought what? I'd be so overwhelmed by your generosity, 
I'd fall into your arms--"

"No--"

"And back into your bed?"

"No, I--"

"Maybe you fantasized we would live together, happily ever 
after."

"Not exactly, but..." His gaze flitted to her abdomen, then to 
Dibeh, who was standing quietly beside the door. "You may go, 
Dibeh," he said.

"She stays," Scully said.

"Dana, we need to--"

"She stays!" 

He swayed on the balls of his feet with the same unrestrained 
energy that often plagued Mulder whenever he was nervous or 
excited. "All right. She can stay."

His glance dropped again to Scully's stomach. 

She recognized the look. It was identical to Mulder's, the day 
he had come to Washington Medical Center, placed his hand upon 
her stomach and, for the very first time, felt their child 
move. 

As if reading her mind, Ca-Lo reached out with splayed 
fingers. "May I?" He stopped just short of touching her.

It's not yours! she wanted to scream. But then he would know 
she'd slept with Mulder. How would he react if he learned she 
might be carrying another man's child? The way he was proudly 
ogling her mid-section clearly showed he was thrilled by the 
prospect of fatherhood. 

Scully felt suddenly short of breath. Her field of vision 
began to fray at the edges; silver-gray flecks sizzled between 
her and Ca-Lo. Her knees buckled. He reached for her, gripped 
her at the elbows to keep her from falling. Her stomach 
churned when he scooped her up in his arms and carried her 
into the adjoining bedroom. She protested with weak jabs to 
his chest, but her fists had gone numb and her muscles 
rubbery. Tears welled in her eyes, scalding, frustrating.

"Don't cry," he murmured against her temple, cradling her. 
"Please, don't cry."

He laid her carefully on the bed, which seemed to pitch and 
roll beneath her. She gripped the blankets. She was sliding, 
spinning. She was suffocating.

"Dibeh, fetch some water." His voice sounded far away, 
wavering and thick, like the desperate call of a drowning man 
as he sinks beneath the waves, deeper and deeper, all the way 
to the ocean's murky bottom.

Scully choked a moment later, certain it was she who was 
drowning when a mouthful of icy water flowed past her lips to 
the back of her throat. She opened her eyes to find Ca-Lo 
standing at her bedside, gripping a half-empty drinking glass 
in his hand.

Dibeh arranged a cool, wet cloth on her brow.

"You fainted," Ca-Lo said.

"Pregnant women do that sometimes."

"They do?"

"Yes." Was he really so ignorant? She tried to sit up, but a 
wave of dizziness knocked her back.

"I'm going to request a Healer," he said.

"Healer?" It sounded alien. "No. No, I'll be fine...I *am* 
fine."

He set the glass on the nightstand and wiped his palms 
nervously on his thighs. "Maybe you need food. Dibeh, would 
you go to the kitchen--"

"I'm not hungry. Please...just leave me alone." She snatched 
the cloth from her forehead and tossed it to the floor.

Ca-Lo's cheeks reddened. He retrieved the cloth, clearly 
struggling to keep his emotions in check. 

After a moment, he blurted, "It's a girl."

"Excuse me?"

"The baby. I was told the baby is a girl." He gripped the 
cloth so tightly his knuckles became bone-white. "I've wanted 
a family for a long time, Dana. A daughter. And sons. Lots of 
kids." He was babbling. He barely seemed to notice when Dibeh 
took the cloth from him. "And a wife, of course...a human 
wife."

"As opposed to what?"

His mouth opened and his jaw labored, but nothing came out. He 
gave up his search for words and crossed to the birdcage. The 
birds flitted and chattered at his approach. He hung his 
fingers through the brass lattice and waited, silent, 
motionless, until one daring, bright-colored bird fluttered to 
his thumb and perched there. It tilted its head, eyeing him, 
and warbled a sweet, earnest song. 

Dibeh fussed with Scully's pillows, fluffing and rearranging. 
Scully stilled her with an upraised palm.

The bird flew from Ca-Lo's hand. He turned to look over his 
shoulder at Scully, his gaze solemn. So like Mulder when 
disappointment threatened to crush his spirit. 

"I love you," he said simply, and his tentative declaration 
took her back to Mulder's hospital bedside, hours after he'd 
nearly drowned in the Bermuda Triangle.

"D-don't be ridiculous. You barely know me."

"You're carrying my child."

"You tricked me into having sex with you!"

"I wanted you."

"So that made it okay?" She raised herself on her elbows. 
"What about what I wanted?"

He shrugged apologetically. "You're the first human woman I've 
been with. I guess I made some mistakes."

The first human...? "Are you saying you usually have sex with 
aliens?" 

"No, no, the Nih-hi-cho don't have sex. My partners were 
hybrids." His tone was matter-of-fact, without a hint of 
shame.

"Hybrids?" Scully stared at Dibeh, who was watching them with 
worried eyes, listening intently to every word they said. She 
was slight, maybe five feet tall with the physique of a 
twelve-year-old. Her grayish-green skin was dry and coarse, 
like a lizard, although plumped by an underlying layer of fat 
that gave her a somewhat babyish appearance. Her fingers were 
oddly elongated, her nose almost nonexistent. A thick mane of 
amber hair capped her oversized head, looking incongruous with 
her alien features.

Had Ca-Lo slept with her? How many half-breed children did 
they have?

Scully lurched from the bed and staggered toward the door. 
"I'm getting out of here."

"Dana, you can't." Two strides brought him close enough to 
snag her arm.

"Let me go." She tried to shake him off, but he tightened his 
grip.

"Dana, there's nowhere to go. You're being monitored. They 
implanted a locator chip in you."

A chip. The word knocked the air from her lungs. 
Automatically, her hand clamped over the back of her neck, 
feeling for the familiar lump. Had they removed the old chip, 
her defense against cancer? "Where is it?"

"Does it matter?"

"Where is it?" she shouted.

The fingers of his free hand grazed the small of her back and 
for just an instant she swore she was with Mulder, outside any 
number of doors where he had guided her, comforted her, 
watched over her and kept her safe. Feeling displaced and 
queasy, she swayed on unsteady legs. If not for Ca-Lo's firm 
grasp on her arm, she surely would have collapsed to the 
floor. 

"They punish you when you don't cooperate," he warned.

"Cooperate? What does that mean? Sleep with you?" 

"No, but trust me on this. Don't fight them."

"Let me go."

"And don't fight me."

"*Fuck* *you*." She wrenched her arm free.

His hands dropped to his sides. "Dana, you can't win, believe 
me, I've tried. They'll hurt you...and the baby. They'll do 
things that are a thousand times worse than being kept in a 
stasis cell."

"Get out of my way."

"They'll cut you open while you watch. They'll take out your 
insides. No anesthesia. No drugs. Your heart, veins, muscles, 
bones -- everything is exposed. It's goddamn cold when your 
skin is peeled back--"

"Enough! If you're trying to scare me, you've succeeded."

Her hands were shaking. His hands were shaking, too. He was 
breathing too fast. Panic blazed in his eyes. 

"My God." Realization hit her. "They did those things to you, 
didn't they?"

He clamped his teeth together and admitted nothing, but the 
twitching muscle along his jaw told her all she needed to 
know.

She scrutinized the tattoo on his right cheek. "What do those 
symbols mean?"

His fingers brushed the marks, exploring them as if he'd 
forgotten they were there. "It's a...a label."

"They labeled you?"

"Yes. When I was a baby. I don't remember it."

"What does it say?"

"Ca-Lo."

"Ca-Lo is your name."

"No, it's a classification. Not a particularly nice one." He 
stared down at the glossy toes of his polished boots. "The 
literal translation means 'destroyer'...or demon...devil... 
abomination. Pick one. It doesn't much matter. The Nih-hi-cho 
consider me the spawn of Evil," he said wryly.

Branded a devil as an infant. Her hand covered her stomach. 
How could she possibly shield her baby from the aliens' 
cruelty? She had been unable to keep William safe, and his 
situation paled in comparison to this one.

"Your mother called you Ashkii," she said, grasping for some 
shred of normalcy in this inhuman universe. "Is that your real 
name?"

A humorless laugh chuffed in his throat. "Hardly. Ashkii 
means...'boy,'" he said. "I was Ashkii XII for a very long 
time. The Nih-hi-cho aren't big on individuality. They prefer 
to number everyone. My mother still uses it because she's 
under the mistaken impression it's an endearment."

Scully dreaded the answer to her next question. "What happened 
to the others -- one through eleven?"

"I don't know and I try like hell not to think about it."  

The uncertainty of her future loomed menacingly in her 
imagination. Fear howled in her ears. "They're not going to 
let me go, are they?"

"No. Not you, the baby, me." He reached out and traced the 
swell of her belly with his open hand. "It doesn't have to be 
so bad." 

Tears filled her eyes. She blinked them back, struggling 
against an urge to scream. "I'm not staying here. I'm going to 
find a way out."

"When you do, be sure to tell me where it is."

"You've given up."

"Me?" He shook his head. "I'm not easily discouraged." He 
lightly tagged her cross with the tip of his finger. A sad 
smile played on his lips. "Dana, there's somewhere I have to 
be right now, but I'll come back as soon as I can. Dibeh will 
bring you whatever you need while I'm gone. And I'll send my 
mother to check on you both later."

His tone was tender, brimming with affection. He sounded so 
like Mulder. If she were to close her eyes... 

She pushed his hand away. "You can't make me care about you."

He leaned close and planted a light kiss on her ear, at her 
temple, on the bridge of her nose. His head dipped until his 
mouth hovered millimeters from her lips. "I told you, I'm not 
easily discouraged."

She gave him a hard shove, rocking him back a step. Glaring up 
at him, she said, "Your name suits you, Ca-Lo. You are the 
Devil."

*   *   *

HARMONY I
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH
10:15 PM

The runabout hovered at an altitude of 500 meters above 
Harmony I's luminous landing pad. Thrumming antigrav engines 
kept it airborne while the pilot awaited permission to land. 
Ca-Lo fidgeted in the co-pilot's seat, trying to keep his 
hands off the controls and his mind off Dana.

The latter proved impossible.

He must make her understand. The Nih-hi-cho were not a patient 
race. Failure to comply with their rules risked both her life 
and the life of her baby.

*My* baby, he reminded himself. 

He was going to be a father. The prospect conjured an 
unexpected reaction in him, an overwhelming desire to protect 
his little unborn daughter. It was illogical. Yet so powerful. 
He knew he would do whatever it took to safeguard her. He 
would trade his own life for hers...or Dana's...if it came to 
that. He had never felt this way before. Not about anyone or 
anything. It left him simultaneously delighted and afraid -- a 
disconcerting combination.   

Ground control issued their instructions and the pilot 
maneuvered into position. He was an 18-year-old airman 
assigned to the Armada's transport division. Human. His 
nametag said "BOYD, H.B." 

Ca-Lo watched their descent through his side screen. Harmony I 
stretched out below him, an immense stronghold that took up 
the northwestern-most sector of Salt Lake City, including the 
now defunct SLC International Airport. The settlement sparkled 
with electric lights, unlike the dark outer neighborhoods of 
Bennion City, West Jordan, Sandy, Cottonwood. A ten-meter-
high, five-meter-thick, and miles-long silico-steel bulwark 
encircled the compound. It was lit by an unbroken chain of 
mercury vapor lamps, positioned twenty meters apart, 
resembling a string of lustrous pearls from above. Off to the 
south, a mammoth silico extruder was currently pouring the 
rampart's remaining segments. Heavily guarded gates pocked the 
fortification at widespread intervals, providing access for 
ground transportation -- supply trailers, prisoner vans, 
peacekeeping patrols. A fleet of sub-space Stingers, armed 
with anti-aircraft artillery, lined an eastern runway, primed 
for an unlikely Terrestrial offensive. Electro-magnetic pulses 
had rendered the majority of Earth's military ineffective, but 
the humans were clever and determined; they periodically 
managed to power up and launch a missile or two.

Pockets of militant rebels, like the enclave in north Texas, 
presented the most serious threat to Nih-hi-cho occupation. 
Dogged human militia ran intermittent raids on Nih-hi-cho 
supply convoys, stealing goods and killing drivers before the 
trucks could reach their destinations. How the rebels learned 
the exact routes and schedules in advance remained a mystery. 
Even the most adept mole would have a tough time fooling the 
telepathic Nih-hi-cho for long. More likely, the guerrilla 
factions had crafty leaders to plot their raids. 

Ca-Lo fully expected to capture them eventually. In the 
meantime, he admired their cunning.

Watcher VII was in his human form and waiting on the tarmac 
when Ca-Lo deplaned. Ca-Lo noticed the former Lieutenant had 
been promoted to Major.

"Harris," Ca-Lo greeted him, suppressing an urge to throttle 
the weasely spy.

"Still pissed?" Harris' smirk deepened the scar below his 
fogged right eye.  

"You'd be dead if I had my way."

"Then it's good for me the Overseers are the ultimate 
authority." 

Harris was untouchable now, protected by his faithfulness to 
the Society.

"Let's get this over with," Ca-Lo said through gritted teeth. 
"Show me what I need to see, give me your fucking wish list, 
and I'll get the hell out."

"Nothing would please me more." Harris indicated a waiting 
jeep. "Our ride."  

The tour lasted six tedious hours and included stops in 
Harmony I's power plant, food services, and three factories. 
Human captives worked the assembly lines, manufacturing na-a-
jah, incubator parts, and silico-cloth, which were traded to 
sister settlements in the mid-west sector. Conditions in the 
factories were abysmal. The silico-cloth extrusion process 
produced noxious fumes and acidic byproducts that burned the 
workers' skin, eyes and lungs. When they became blind or 
otherwise incapacitated, they were "retired" to the salty 
depths of Farmington Bay. New prisoners were shuttled from 
Antelope Island to replace them. All humans were expendable, 
as far as the Nih-hi-cho were concerned, and demand for 
silico-cloth was high. It was used to make the army's form-
fitting uniforms. The durable black fabric was better 
protection than terrestrial anti-ballistic vests, yet 
lightweight, flexible and exceptionally comfortable. Worth the 
sacrifice of a few hundred human lives.

Dressed in one of these very uniforms, Ca-Lo trudged at 
Harris' heels through the military barracks, an immense human 
warehouse, and a brand-spanking new Nursery. The nursery 
currently lay empty, but plans were underway to stock it with 
hosts by mid-December, when a fresh batch of clones would 
arrive from Phoenix. Ca-Lo tried to focus on Harris's litany 
of logistics and complaints, but his thoughts kept returning 
to Dana. Was she resting okay? Had she eaten? How was the 
baby? Had his mother come to check on them yet? 

Finally, the tour ended and Harris drove Ca-Lo back to the 
landing pad. He parked beside the runabout, but remained 
seated behind the steering wheel. Both men kept their eyes 
trained on Airman Boyd, who was performing a routine exterior 
flight check.

"I need more soldiers, Ca-Lo," Harris said.

"You have the largest deputation in this sector."

"I need more. Harmony I is significantly more vulnerable than 
the other settlements. Its central location and large 
inventory make it a prime target for Terrestrial raids. Our 
forces are under daily attack from groups to the east and 
south. We lost twenty troops and five armed vehicles just this 
morning."

"So I should condemn more soldiers to their deaths by sending 
them to you?" 

"It's not my fault the rebels are devious. Their leader is a 
skilled strategist, an ex-Marine. He served in Viet Nam. He 
knows how to fight a guerrilla war."

"And you don't," Ca-Lo sneered. The Nih-hi-cho had put an 
idiot in charge of their premiere settlement facility. It was 
ludicrous. Harris' telepathy should have given him every 
advantage, but apparently his incompetence was insurmountable. 
"Who is this man, this great leader?"

"His name is Walter Skinner. Ex-FBI. He aided the escape of 
two prisoners from Fort Weather earlier this year, before 
organizing rebel forces in north Texas and New Mexico. He's 
currently camped in Wasatch-Cache National Forest."

"You know who he is and where he is, but you haven't captured 
him?"

"It's a big forest, Ca-Lo, and he doesn't sit still long 
enough for me to stop and chat." Harris appeared thoughtful as 
he stroked the old battle scar on his craggy cheek. "Look...I 
know you consider me incompetent, but the fact remains, I *am* 
in charge here and the Overseers will intervene on my behalf 
if you refuse to grant my requests."

Countermanding my orders, Ca-Lo thought, to keep me in my 
place. 

The Council would not tolerate acts they considered willful or 
petty. Especially not so soon after giving Dana over to him. 
He had to tread lightly, play their game, at least for the 
time being.  

"They released the Earth woman -- how lucky for you." Harris 
smiled, causing the scar on his cheek to pucker. 

Ca-Lo had felt his old Watcher dipping into his mind 
throughout the long night, but this was Harris's first direct 
response to the news of Dana's release. 

"It's not like them to be so generous," Harris noted.

"Generosity had nothing to do with it."

"I have no doubt. They want Dana Scully's son." Harris sounded 
almost bored. "Give me more troops, Ca-Lo, and I'll get him 
for you."

"You? How? You can't even get this man Skinner, and he's 
sitting in your own back yard. How the hell are you going to 
find William Mulder?"

"I've spent a good deal of time inside Skinner's head while 
tracking him."

"So...?"

"You're going to love this." Harris' sighted eye targeted Ca-
Lo. "Skinner is the man Dana Scully entrusted to hide her son. 
Isn't life a constant surprise?" 

This was startling news. "Where is the boy?"

"That information is negotiable."

"Damn you..." Ca-Lo struggled to keep his temper in check. "If 
you know where he is, why haven't you gone after him?"

"Ah, that brings us right back to the subject of soldiers, 
doesn't it? I've been telling you all along I'm short on 
manpower. Give me more troops, and I might be persuaded to 
hand the boy over to you instead of the Council."

"You cock-sucking son-of-a-- Why should I trust you?"

"Because, unlike you humans, we Nih-hi-cho don't hold grudges. 
We don't suck cocks either. That's another strictly human 
perversion." Harris's fogged eye rolled independently of the 
sighted one. "Don't be a fool, Ca-Lo. I need more men and you 
want the boy, so let's come to an agreement. Don't risk 
William Mulder -- and your precious Dana Scully -- to settle 
an old score with me."

Ca-Lo hated to admit Harris was right, but this was not the 
time to be seeking revenge. Swallowing his resentment, he 
capitulated. "All right, Major, I'll authorize your soldiers. 
But if the Divine Angels grant you the good fortune to find 
the boy before I do, you had better deliver him directly to 
me, because if you don't, I swear on the Red Dragon himself 
I'll come back here and rip your fucking Nih-hi-cho head off."

*   *   *

TSE'BIT'A'I', CA-LO'S QUARTERS
4:15 AM

The clock on the nightstand ticked another minute closer to 
morning. Dibeh lay curled in a ball on the far side of Ca-Lo's 
wide bed, her diminutive form all but lost beneath a snarl of 
blankets and linens. Her muted snore reminded Scully of a 
purring cat.

Scully folded back the covers and slipped quietly from the 
bed. The bathroom lights flicked on automatically when she 
crossed the threshold. There was no door, so she gave up the 
idea of privacy, lifted the hem of her long white nightgown, 
and squatted above the toilet to relieve her aching bladder.
She washed at the sink, a broad oval basin surrounded by 
masculine toiletries. The soap smelled like almonds. She 
squeezed an inch of toothpaste onto her finger and scrubbed at 
her teeth.

A mirror covered the wall above the sink from countertop to 
ceiling. Staring back at her from the glass was a gaunt woman 
she barely recognized. Her complexion was ashen. Blue veins 
mottled her neck and chest, disappearing into the lacey bib of 
her cotton nightgown. The gown was lovely, soft and decorated 
with satin trim.

She spat into the sink and wiped her mouth with a towel. "He 
can provide pretty sleepwear, but not a toothbrush," she 
grumbled.

Her hair was a mass of weedy tangles, several inches longer 
than she remembered. She tried to comb the snarls with her 
fingers. Failing miserably, she borrowed Ca-Lo's tortoise-
shell comb to work out the knots.

Several minutes of painful tugging tamed her unruly hair. She 
drew it back into a smooth ponytail and, lacking anything 
better, confiscated one of Ca-Lo's silver clasps to fasten it 
at her nape.

Curious about the changes in her body and the progress of her 
baby's development, she presented her profile to the mirror. 
The loose nightgown hid her form, so she gathered it tightly 
behind her back until the fabric hugged her torso and revealed 
the shape of her breasts and belly.

It was a girl this time. If she were to believe Ca-Lo and the
aliens.

She had to get out of this place, off the ship, away from Ca-
Lo and his henchmen. The door to his quarters was locked from 
the outside -- she'd tried it earlier, not five minutes after 
he left on his errand. Dibeh had done all she could to 
intervene, but Scully ignored the hybrid's frantic hand 
signals and shook her off whenever she grabbed hold of her 
arms. A hard slap on the face and a firm order to "Keep away 
from me!" finally did the trick. Dibeh retreated to a corner 
and watched with wet eyes as Scully rummaged through every 
drawer and cupboard in the apartment.

Unfortunately, her search turned up nothing, no key or 
combination to the lock, no alternate way out. Exhausted, she 
gave up, determined to renew her investigation after a couple 
of hours of sleep.

Although not exactly invigorated, she was ready to pick up 
where she'd left off. Checking Ca-Lo's computer files for a 
combination to the keypad was next on her agenda.

She tiptoed past Dibeh.

At the archway between the two rooms, she nearly ran into 
Cassandra.

"Jesus," she gasped, startled. "Cassandra, what are you doing 
here at this hour?"

"You're in terrible danger." Cassandra's eyes darted around 
the room. She was dressed in a black fleece jacket, gray 
quilted trousers and Thinsulate gloves. "They want to kill 
you. They're on their way."

"Who? Who wants to kill me?"

"The Refuters. They're the worst. They think your baby is 
evil, an Abomination. They believe their Legion of Angels 
wants it destroyed. I'm scared, Dana, for you...and for my 
future grandchild. You--"

Cassandra fell silent when Dibeh staggered from the bedroom. The 
hybrid blinked sleep from her eyes. Her hair was flattened on 
one side, her wrinkled shift askew. Her hands formed silent 
questions, which Scully was unable to decipher.

Cassandra ignored the aide and implored Scully, "We must 
leave...now."

"Where can we go?"

"I have access to a personal shuttle on the hangar deck. I can 
take you to Earth. But we must hurry."

"Let me get dressed." Scully took a step toward the wardrobe, 
but Cassandra grabbed her arm to stop her.

"There isn't time."

Dibeh rushed forward, making frantic hand signals.

"No, you stay here," Cassandra told the hybrid.

A desperate squeal hummed in Dibeh's throat.

"You're *not* coming," Cassandra said.

Dibeh's unintelligible whines grew more insistent. She latched 
onto Scully's arm with a vise-like grip.

"She seems determined to go," Scully said.

Cassandra glared at her aide. "Stop making such a fuss," she 
demanded.

Dibeh grunted and moaned. She repeatedly pointed toward Ca-
Lo's desk.

"Okay, okay," Cassandra relented, "you can come. But we must 
go now!"

With Dibeh still clinging to Scully's arm, Cassandra herded 
them out of Ca-Lo's apartment and down the damp corridor. For 
the first time in months, Scully felt a surge of genuine hope. 

She would soon be returning to Earth, to her home, and God 
willing, to Mulder.

*   *   *

OFFICER'S DECK
7:56 AM

Ca-Lo whistled a cheery tune as he approached his quarters. He 
was hugging a fat bouquet of fragrant stargazer lilies and 
three sacks of assorted gifts for Dana, everything from dental 
floss and nail clippers to satin undergarments and a striking, 
embroidered silk robe. Cassandra had supplied him with a list 
of personal items, female stuff that Ca-Lo understood nothing 
about. 

Breast cream? What the hell was that? Was it a beauty aid or a 
dairy product? 

The ship's Keeper of Stores had demanded an outrageous sum for 
the goods. Ca-Lo paid the greedy bastard without comment. In 
truth, he would have spent ten times as much to ease the 
melancholy in Dana's eyes.

At his spoken command, the door to his apartment slid open. He 
strode inside, eager to bestow his gifts. 

Two steps into the room and he smelled it.

Blood. Nih-hi-cho blood.

"Dana?" 

He dropped his armload of gifts. Flowers fanned across the 
carpet; toiletries spilled from the bags. A bottle of prenatal 
vitamins rolled several meters, rattling as it went. He 
lurched toward the bedroom, trampling blossoms in his haste. 

"Dana? Dib--"

The room was empty. The bed unmade.

"Dana!" His call startled the birds. They flew from their 
perches, rising up in an explosive flap of wings and high-
pitched chirps.

He loped past their cage to the bathroom.

A rumpled towel lay beside the sink. One of his hair clips was 
missing. And his comb was out of place. But there was no 
blood, no sign of a struggle.

Sniffing the air, he followed the citrusy tang of Nih-hi-cho 
blood back to the outer office.

Nothing appeared amiss, except...

A gummy puddle of phosphorescence frothed beneath his desk.
Ca-Lo crossed the room, accidentally kicking the fallen 
container of vitamins as he went. It skidded into the fizzing 
blood and stuck there.

Crouching on hands and knees, he peered under the desk.
That's when he saw what he feared most.

A woman's hand. Pale and small. Palm up, fingers loosely 
curled, slicked with green blood.

"D-Dana?"

He grabbed the limp arm and pulled her out.

"N-no..."

It wasn't Dana.

"No...no, no..."

It was Cassandra.

"Mother!"

Green blood matted her hair and her favorite blue robe. She 
was dead, her skin already growing cool, her eyes open and 
glazed with fear. There was no apparent injury, no splash of 
her own bright red blood.

What the hell had happened here?

He drew her into his arms to check her back for wounds. The 
collar of her robe was saturated with fresh green blood. Above 
it was a small puncture at the base of her neck. It foamed 
with phosphorescence.

Hands quaking, he gently prodded the tiny hole and felt the 
burn of noxious Nih-hi-cho blood on his fingertips, painful, 
but not lethal, not for him.

In his shock, he grasped for answers. This was a shapeshifter. 
Dana must have killed it and then escaped.

Except shapeshifters reverted to their natural state when they 
died.

Confusion twisted through him. Cassandra wasn't Nih-hi-cho. 
She was human. She was his mother. The only person who had 
ever cared about him. She didn't have alien blood...she 
couldn't because she wasn't alien...

Realization shattered his illusions and brought tears, 
scalding and hurtful. She had lied to him; she wasn't human. 
She was Nih-hi-cho.

What did that make him? 

There was no one to turn to for answers, no one he could 
trust. He rocked the dead woman, pawed her blood-soaked hair. 
Hot tears coursed down his cheeks. She had loved him once, no 
matter what she was.

What dastardly person would do this? And where was Dana? 
Kidnapped by the assassin?

He had to find her. Shoving the body aside, he rose to his 
feet. There was only one way off the ship. He reached across 
his desk and punched a call to the Hangar Deck.

"Transportation," an airman answered. "What can I do for you, 
sir?"

No need to identify himself; the airman had already seen his 
name on the intercom display. "I want a list of recent 
departures."

"How recent, sir?"

"Anything in the last...uh..." -- he glanced at the body -- 
"two hours."

"Yes, sir. There was one, about twenty minutes ago. Personal 
shuttle."

"Who signed for it?"

"Checking the log now, sir."

"Make it fast, Airman."

"Yes, sir. It was...it was your mother, sir."

"My mother?" So the assassin wasn't Dana. It was a 
shapeshifter, a Refuter, no doubt. And now the bastard was 
posing as Cassandra to escape the ship. "Was anyone with her?"

"Uh...yes, sir. One human female and an aide."

Ca-Lo's heart was pounding so hard he expected blood to pour 
from his ears. "Where were they headed?"

"Log says Harmony I, sir."

It was a ruse. They wouldn't go to the settlement.

"Prepare my runabout. I'm on my way."

*   *   *

SOMEWHERE OVER UTAH

"Where are we going?" Lady Dana asked. She was buckled into a 
curved, high-backed seat beside the woman who looked like 
Mistress Cassandra, but wasn't. 

Dibeh trembled in the seat behind her new mistress, her hands 
trying to warn Lady Dana of the imposter's deceit. "She is not 
Mistress Cassandra," Dibeh signaled over and over again, so 
many times her hands ached from making the signs. She did not 
know who the stranger was, but she most certainly was not 
Cassandra Spender. Dibeh knew her old Mistress's jerky 
mannerisms, the gravelly pitch of her voice, the apple peel 
scent of her skin.

This fraud moved too efficiently and her tone was too 
piercing. She reeked of something bitter, like rotting 
horseradish. 

Whoever she was, she steered the four-person shuttle above a 
sea of rutted clouds; her fingers danced over the controls 
with the skill of a seasoned pilot.

"We're going to Hill Air Force Base," she said, using soothing 
tones. "You'll be safe there. It's still controlled by the 
U.S. military. The Refuters won't follow us."

Lady Dana hugged her thin cotton nightgown across her chest 
and shivered against the cold. Her breath fogged the cockpit's 
frigid air. "What are Refuters?"

"They are purists. They believe that God, the human God, *our* 
God, is a scheming demon who is constantly testing the devout. 
They believe their Legion of Divine Angels are the true 
deities of the universe."

"What does any of that have to do with killing me?"

"The Refuters can't abide polluting their race by hybridizing 
themselves with humans." The imposter glared over her shoulder 
at Dibeh.

Her look was so fierce, Dibeh's hands froze in midair. She 
shrank into her seat, unable to suck in a breath; it was as if 
a nest of snuff spiders had hatched in her throat.

"I still don't see the connection." Lady Dana's teeth were 
chattering. From cold or fear, Dibeh didn't know.

"They also seek to destroy any human who possesses the 
Derivation," the imposter said.

"The Derivation?"

"An immunity to the Oil."

"They think I have this...this Derivation?"

"No, they believe your baby does."

The aircraft shuddered as it descended through the thick layer 
of clouds. Lightning flashed beyond the windscreen, briefly 
painting the interior silver. For that instant, Dibeh thought 
she saw a familiar face beneath the imposter's bone-white 
flesh.

Walnut-colored skin. Corkscrewing hair. Whiskers the color of 
silico-steel bracelets.

It was Sergeant Thompson, Cassandra's confidant, Dibeh was 
sure of it. She'd seen the two of them conferring on numerous 
occasions, their heads bent in private conversation, their 
whispers kept low so that no one could overhear. Mistress 
Cassandra had described her secretive companion as human, but 
clearly he was not, not if he could change his appearance this 
way.

He was Nih-hi-cho. A shapeshifter.

Dibeh sliced the air with her hands, trying to warn Lady Dana, 
"He is a Refuter! He is the spy! Lady Dana, he is going to 
kill us!"

She feared he had already committed murder, back in Ca-Lo's 
quarters. She had smelled blood the moment she stepped into 
the outer office from the bedroom. Saw it on the carpet 
beneath Ca-Lo's desk. The imposter must have hidden his victim 
there.

She looked now for signs of Nih-hi-cho blood on the spy's 
jacket and gloves. Sure enough, there were specks of green 
dotting his wrists.

Dibeh groaned to get Lady Dana's attention. She spelled out 
the impending danger with both hands.

"What is she saying?" Lady Dana finally asked.

"She's afraid of flying," the imposter lied.

Dibeh shook her head. "Ung, ung, ung," she grunted. Her hands 
waggled, "He is a murderer!"

"Settle down!" the imposter hissed. When he noticed Dana's 
shocked stare, he smiled sheepishly. "There's no need for 
panic. We're going to be on the ground in a few minutes."

Another bolt of lightning bathed the shuttle's interior. 
Sergeant Thompson's ebony features jittered once more beneath 
Cassandra's skin.

Dana gasped.

She'd seen it. Divine Angels be praised, she had seen the 
imposter's other face.

"Is something wrong?" The imposter feigned concern.

"No. No, it's just the storm. I'm a little afraid of flying 
myself. How much longer before we land?" Lady Dana glanced 
back at Dibeh.

Dibeh had spent her entire life reading the eyes and bodies of 
others: either mute hybrids like herself or secretive masters 
who said one thing while meaning another. Lady Dana's eyes 
were wide with understanding and her body, while superficially 
calm, was preparing for action, the muscles tight, feet set 
apart, ready to push her from her seat, hands positioned to 
strike.

The descending shuttle rocked and broke through the clouds. An 
enormous body of gray water, striped by ragged waves, rippled 
below them. It was ringed by dark, forested mountains.

"You're not going to Hill," Lady Dana stated without emotion.

"What makes you say that?"

"We're heading north over Salt Lake."

"To avoid a Nih-hi-cho outpost," the imposter claimed.
He flicked the controls and drew up on the steering column, 
increasing the angle of their descent. The engines growled. 
Shredded clouds twisted past the side windows. The shuttle was 
careening toward the lake at a frightful speed.

"You're not Cassandra." Lady Dana's hands clutched the 
armrests. "You're alien...a shapeshifter. You intend to kill 
me. That's what Dibeh's been trying to warn me about, isn't 
it?"

The imposter chuckled. His features began to roil, 
transforming from Cassandra's familiar face to Sergeant 
Thompson's dark countenance and then to his natural Nih-hi-cho 
form. He turned to snarl at Dibeh, "You should have stayed on 
Tse'Bit'a'i'. Now you will die, too."

The altimeter indicated they were less than 1000 meters above 
the surface of the lake, and the Refuter showed no signs of 
pulling up or slowing their heart-pounding descent.

"This is a suicide mission?" Lady Dana asked.

"Your baby must never be born." The imposter gripped the 
controls. "It carries the Derivation. It is an Abomination."

"Please...don't do this."

"I will be rewarded for my faithfulness. The Red Dragon will 
accept my soul into his Divine Legion where I will live for 
eternity in honor."

They were close enough to the lake for Dibeh to see foam 
cresting in the waves.

The imposter began to pray aloud to the Dragon. Lady Dana 
reached for the tiny gold cross that hung from her neck.

Dibeh did not want to die.

On impulse, or perhaps guided by the Dragon's will, she 
unbuckled her belt and lunged for the imposter. His prayer 
stopped and he yelped when she tightened her arms around his 
neck. Belted into his seat, he couldn't turn to fight her.
Choking, he released the controls to claw at her face. The 
shuttle wobbled and veered. Dibeh dodged the imposter's worst 
blows and hung on, squeezing his throat with all her might. 
Her arms were strong from years of polishing and lifting and 
carrying. The imposter could not dislodge her.

Lady Dana reached for the steering mechanism and tried to take 
control of the craft, but managed only to nudge its nose 
skyward before the shuttle hit, bounced, and skimmed across 
the lake's corrugated surface. It pounded over waves, yawed 
sickeningly to starboard, began to spin. Dibeh was thrown hard 
toward the control panel. Dana screamed.

Then the world went black.

BOOK V: INTO THE WILDERNESS (PART 1)
 

WASATCH-CACHE NATIONAL FOREST
OCTOBER 13, 2002
8:02 AM

It was cold. Freeze-your-fucking-ass-off cold. 

Royal Jackson hunkered beneath a stand of canyon maples at the 
bivouac's western periphery, his camouflage jacket zipped to 
his chin against the chill. He wasn't a back-to-nature kind of 
guy, but ever since the aliens had taken over the city, 
everyone was living like goddamned Daniel Boone. 

A festering insect bite drew Royal's dirty nails to the back 
of his neck as he studied Farmington Bay through his binoculars. 
Autumn leaves blazed like hellfire beneath a stone sky and the 
air carried the raw, damp odor of an approaching squall.

Royal had pulled morning shift; his assignment was to keep an 
eye on Route 89 and Great Salt Lake beyond, while Commander 
Skinner reviewed OFE maneuvers with the North Utah Infantry. 

OFE -- Operation Free Earth, or Operation Fuck ET, depending 
on who you asked -- was a coordinated military offensive. It 
represented months of painstaking preparation: espionage, 
surveillance, training and, most challenging of all, 
synchronization between more than four dozen far-flung North 
American divisions, an undertaking that had proven to be 
hazardous and nearly impossible without functioning 
telecommunications. At last, armed units across the continent 
were poised to attack alien settlements similar to the one in 
Salt Lake City at dusk tonight.

Some of the men were spooked by the inauspicious date -- 
unlucky thirteen. But Royal felt optimistic. After all, it was 
a Sunday, not a Friday. And he was eager to kick ET's ass any 
damned day of the week.  

At nineteen years old, Royal was lean and athletic, a fast 
runner, an accurate shot. He wore shoulder-length dreadlocks 
tucked beneath a green knit cap and, under his jacket, tribal-
style tattoos blackened his already dark arms, neck and torso. 
A row of small sterling hoops glittered along the outer curve 
of his ears, a heavy skull and crossbones dangled from his 
left lobe, and two thick barbells pierced his right brow.  

According to the uncle who raised him, Royal was a loser, a 
lost cause. Reckless. Irresponsible. Always stoned or 
tripping. 

Well, why the hell not? The world was a fucking shithole and 
ol' Uncle Louis objected to everything anyway: hair, clothes, 
friends, tattoos, earrings.

"Jesus, Roy, why the hell you wanna go an' poke a bunch of 
freakin' holes in your head?" Louis would ask, a look of 
disgust curling his broad lips.

Uncle Lou would have popped a goddamned vein if he had found 
out about the gleaming Prince Albert that looped through the 
tip of Royal's dick. Made him piss like a broken water 
fountain, but carpe fuckin' diem, Unc, the orgasms were sweet. 
Besides, straight-laced living hadn't helped anyone, had it? 
Especially Louis. He was as dead as all the other sons of 
bitches in South Salt Lake. 

Royal toyed with the sterling stud in his tongue, rolling it 
around in his mouth, taking pleasure in its smoothness and 
solidity as he scrutinized Antelope Island. The 28,000-acre 
shelf rose sharply out of the lake, seven miles off shore in 
Farmington Bay, its seemingly barren terrain looking like it 
belonged on another planet. Until recently, it had been a 
state park, home to mule deer, antelope, coyotes, bobcats, and 
a herd of six-hundred bison, give or take. Now it was the 
location of the aliens' human warehouse, a fortress-like 
prison that housed several thousand human captives. Poor 
bastards were ferried back and forth to the stronghold in Salt 
Lake City as needed, to work in the factories or be used as 
guinea pigs in the aliens' freaking experiments.

Commander Skinner was sending a team to Antelope to free the 
prisoners while the rest of the NUI attacked the aliens at the 
mainland settlement. Royal was looking forward to that battle. 
He had plenty of scores to settle. And he was never one to 
back down from a fight. 

Royal first met Commander Skinner two months ago, during one 
of the aliens' weekly Round Ups. ET troops were combing the 
city for prisoners, seizing anyone who had evaded capture 
since the invasion last May. Royal's eleven-year-old cousin 
Nicole was caught and thrown into a monster-sized transport 
car. Royal was frantic, hurling bottles and bricks at the 
troopers, yelling for Nicole. Not ten feet away, a laser-
toting, Martian-loving SOB decapitated Royal's best buddy Kaz. 
Blood sprayed everywhere. The stink of burning flesh was 
enough to gag a goddamn maggot. Just when the same damned 
fucker was about to blast Royal, too, Skinner's militia 
appeared seemingly out of nowhere, riding to the rescue in the 
nick of time, just like the cavalry in Uncle Louis' old John 
Wayne videos. Fifty or more horsemen, guns firing, grenades 
exploding. They took out four armored vehicles and at least 
two dozen alien conspirators, disabled the transport car and 
released its human cargo. Later that night, Nicole was sent 
with the other children to Safe Camp, near the Utah-Wyoming 
border. Royal stayed behind and volunteered to become a 
freedom fighter in Skinner's burgeoning infantry.  

Commander Walter Skinner was a bona fide hero, ten times over, 
as far as Royal was concerned. Royal would follow the old war 
horse to the ends of the Earth, if that's what it took to wipe 
out the goddamned, cock-sucking Martians. Not that he needed 
an excuse. He hated the stinking fuckers just on principal.  

He hoped to get his chance at killing a shit-load of them 
tonight, make the murdering bastards pay for the things they'd 
done. Almost everyone he had ever cared about was gone thanks 
to the aliens. Everyone except Nicole. And the NUI, his new 
family. He had plenty of brothers and sisters now. And 
Commander Skinner looked after the entire bunch of them like a 
stern father, insisting in no uncertain terms they watch each 
other's backs, fight like the devil and above all else, stay 
the fuck alive.

A shadow in the clouds caught Royal's eye and he aimed his 
binoculars skyward.

To his amazement, an alien shuttle punched through the 
overcast, the trajectory too steep to make a landing on 
Antelope. It careened toward the lake and, in a matter of 
seconds, plowed nose-first into the bay, sending up a plume of 
water. 

"Jesus--" Royal sprang to his feet.

The shuttle skidded and spun, gouged a ragged, miles-long wake 
across the gray, choppy water, all the way to the Farmington 
shore, where it lodged in the marsh and began to sink a couple 
of hundred yards out. Christ Almighty, as close as it was, 
they might actually have time to loot it before the aliens 
arrived on the scene. It was certain to be carrying supplies 
and munitions of some sort. Maybe alien communication devices, 
too. And it would be a goddamned pleasure to torture military 
secrets out of the fucking pilot and crew...if they had 
survived the crash.

Royal sprinted uphill to the camp to notify Skinner.

*   *   *

ARROWHEAD CREEK, WYOMING

Mulder siphoned gas into the Scout from the Get-N-Go's 
underground tank while Gibson searched for food and water 
inside the store. Melissa's ghost leaned against the 
motorcycle, arms crossed, a frown creasing her face. 

"You're still angry at her," she said.

"Yep."

"Let it go, Mulder."

An icy blast of wind ruffled his hair. "You were the one who 
once told me I should express my feelings. That's what I'm 
doing."

"That was different. Dana was dying."

"I'm being honest, Melissa. I'm angry."

"You're as much at fault as she is." Her eyes flashed with 
condemnation.

"I don't deny that. I wasn't around. My absence influenced her 
decision. Fine. But you and I and she all know I'd've come 
home if she'd contacted me. She never gave me the chance."

"She was afraid. For him and for you."

Mulder pressed his lips together, unwilling to say more. The 
last time he'd confessed the depth of his disappointment on 
this subject, things had ended disastrously.

Melissa lifted her gaze to the snow-capped mountains behind 
the station, as if unable to stand the sight of Mulder one 
second longer. "She regrets her decision, you know. She didn't 
want to give him up. It was the last thing she wanted." 

"Yeah...well...maybe she wanted it more than you think." It 
came out sounding bitter, more so than he had intended. He 
didn't hate Scully. He loved her, which was one of the reasons 
her decision hurt so damn much.

"You know why you're clinging so desperately to your anger?" 
she asked.

He didn't feel he was clinging to anything, at least not 
desperately. "Enlighten me."

"It keeps her close to you."

"That makes absolutely no sense." Actually it did, in a 
perverse way. As long as he held onto his anger, he could 
pretend their argument -- and, by extension, their separation 
-- was only minutes ago, instead of months.

Gasoline overflowed the tank and spilled onto his sleeve.

"Shit." He removed the hose and capped the tank. Where the 
hell was Gibson?

"She could use your sympathy, not your resentment," Melissa 
said.

"I'll work on that as soon as I find my son."

"She needs you, Mulder."

Guilt speared him. "Do you know where she is?"

"She's drowning."

"I hope you're speaking metaphorically."

"Mulder!" Gibson's shout echoed across the vacant lot from the 
door of the mini-mart. "Come here!"

"Just a sec--" Mulder turned to Melissa, only to find she had 
vanished. "Damn it."

Gibson waved him toward the building. "They're changing."

"What are you talking about?"

"You gotta see." 

Mulder limped to the store and with Gibson in the lead headed 
down an aisle to the back. According to the signs, the shelves 
had once been stocked with donuts, snack cakes, chips and 
crackers. Now everything edible or useful was gone, stripped 
by looters. 

Gibson stopped beside a rack of disposable cameras and pointed 
to the floor. 

Mulder crouched and pressed a finger into what appeared to be 
greasy, reptilian skin. "Is that what I think it is?"

"Yes." 

"They're metamorphosing into their adult form."

"What you call 'grays.'"

Mulder counted eleven castoff skins between the camera rack 
and the empty dairy case. "They all shed simultaneously? Is 
that... normal?" The word seemed ludicrous, given the 
circumstances.

"Their development could be genetically predetermined."

Five months had passed since the proto-aliens' "birth" at 
Shiprock. The number carried significance. It was the 
timetable specified in Revelation.

"Don't read too much into it," Gibson said, clearly listening 
in on Mulder's thoughts. "Revelation also said the locusts 
would only torture, not kill. We've seen plenty of dead 
bodies."

"So they skipped a day of Sunday school." Mulder stood, 
relieving the ache in his injured leg only a little. "The 
proto-alien at Rolling Hills matured into an adult in less 
than forty-eight hours. A real overachiever compared to these. 
I'm thinking the reactor was a contributing factor, 
accelerating its development."

Gibson shrugged. "We know they don't like the cold."

The aliens came out primarily during daylight, when 
temperatures were at their warmest. "Could we use the cold 
against them in some way?"

Again Gibson shrugged and his seeming disinterest frustrated 
Mulder. How could the kid possess the power of telepathy and 
not use it to find out all he could about the aliens?

"You don't know or you don't *want* to know?" Mulder asked. 

Gibson looked stung. "I learn what I can."

Mulder immediately regretted his anger. He had no right to 
judge Gibson. It must be living hell for him, overhearing 
whatever was going on inside the aliens' heads.  

"It's not so bad," Gibson answered without being asked. "No 
worse than what's in the minds of some people." His lips 
twitched with a rare smile. "Baywatch?"

The old reference eased the tension between them.

"Hey, I haven't watched that show for ages."

"You haven't watched any TV for ages."

Before the image of Mulder's prison cell could form fully in 
his mind and ignite a panic attack, he changed the subject by 
pointing to the castoff skins and asking, "Where did the 
aliens go?"

"To join the others, get introduced to the collective 
consciousness."

"Can you tap into their Group Think?"

"Yes. But they recognize me as being from outside their 
Society. I can get only so far before they shut me out."

"Too bad. We could use a trustworthy mole." Mulder scanned the 
store, half expecting to see Deep Throat or X lurking beside 
the cash register. Unfortunately, his old informants were 
nowhere to be found when he needed them most.

Gibson stared at him, his expression unreadable.

Knowing there was no point in trying to hide his thoughts from 
Gibson, Mulder asked outright, "Are they real -- the ghosts?"

"You see them, don't you?"

"I could be delusional."

"Am I delusional because I hear voices in my head?" 

"I hope not, since I'm counting on you to find William for 
me."

An unfocused look momentarily glazed Gibson's eyes, telling 
Mulder he was listening for the boy.

"He's near here," Gibson said at last.

"How near?"

"In Arrowhead...somewhere."

"You don't know where?"

"No, but it's a small town. Shouldn't take us long to find 
him."  

*   *   *

QUEALY RESIDENCE

Kenna abandoned her spade to plow her fingers into the 
garden's cold soil. She unearthed a lumpy turnip and tossed it 
with a loud thunk into her wheelbarrow, where it collided with 
four others.

Turnips, turnips and more turnips. William didn't like 
turnips. Not without lots of sugar sprinkled on top, and there 
was no more sugar in the canister. 

"Just as well." Sugar wasn't good for kids. Rotted their 
teeth. "No dentists in Arrowhead." No dentists anywhere. Not 
live ones anyway.

William played happily two rows over, squatting in the dirt, 
digging holes with a bent kitchen spoon. He was an energetic 
boy with wispy, reddish-blond hair and an inquisitive 
disposition. His plump, wind-chapped cheeks glowed bright 
pink. Snot drained from his small, reddened nose. He blinked 
against the brisk autumn wind, blue-gray eyes wide and 
shimmery.  

The weather had turned bitter earlier in the week and Kenna 
felt driven to harvest what little was left in the small 
vegetable patch. The garden wasn't hers. Neither was the 
house, a peeling two-bedroom ranch, a mile and a half west of 
"downtown" Arrowhead, population 78...before the locust-
monsters had come and killed everyone.

The name on the dented mailbox at the end of the dirt driveway 
said QUEALY. Every time Kenna looked at it, she misread it as 
QUEASY. She had peeked inside when they first arrived a few 
days ago, but found it empty. Mail delivery had slowed to a 
trickle soon after the power went out last May; eventually it 
had stopped altogether.

The Quealys' sloped yard was neglected and overgrown. Ancient 
cottonwoods and stubbly evergreens crowded the house. 
Chrysanthemums and sunflowers, dry as the straw bristles on a 
whiskbroom, spiked the perennial bed beside the front step; 
they rattled like chattering teeth every time the breeze blew. 

The house sat cattycorner to Buckboard Road. Kenna had chosen 
it over the others in Arrowhead because the front yard boasted 
a well with an old-fashioned hand pump, which, Lord be 
praised, actually worked. The water was cold, pure and sweet. 
No need to stock up on bottled.

If only that were the case with food and diapers. 

The Quealys' pantry was pathetically bare. Kenna mentally 
inventoried their meager provisions for the umpteenth time as 
she pawed another turnip from the ground. One small can of 
deviled ham, two of tuna and six of tomato paste. No fruit. An 
opened jar of pickled beans, which William hated. A crusting 
bottle of spicy mustard. Five packages of useless microwave 
popcorn.

"Thank goodness for powdered milk," she muttered to no one in 
particular.

The root cellar held a ten pound bag of wrinkled, sprouting 
potatoes, two softening butternut squashes, and enough turnips 
to feed an army. It also contained the bodies of the Quealy 
family: mom, dad and two small children, both boys. Kenna had 
dragged their corpses to the cellar from the kitchen to keep 
William away from them. He seemed drawn to every mutilated 
body they came across, especially the young kids.  

"Cawwot!" William squealed with delight. He held a thin, bent 
carrot out for her to see, then bit off the end, dirt and all.

"I thought I got all those yesterday. Are there more?" 

Kenna crossed the garden and knelt beside him. A few minutes 
of burrowing produced six spindly carrots.

"Mo'!" William demanded, his carrot eaten to the nub. Flecks 
of orange and smudges of garden dirt gave his wet smile a 
clown-like appearance. 

"'Mo' what?" she teased.

"Cawwot."

"Please."

"Peese."  

She handed him one. "The rest are for your dinner." 

She tossed them into her wheelbarrow and retrieved her spade. 
"Too bad you don't like onions," she said, eyeing the 
untouched row of pearly crowns and browning leaves.

William frowned and dismissed the idea. "Yuns 'ucky." 
     
At a year and a half, William was as smart as a whip and 
growing like a weed. Today he was bundled in one of the young 
Quealy boys' blue quilted jackets and faded bib overalls, 
rolled three times at the cuffs to keep him from tripping. His 
red rubber boots were a size too big. A child's cowboy hat 
rode on his back, dangling from a braided cord around his 
neck.

Kenna was wearing hand-me-downs, too: frayed jeans, gray 
turtleneck and a baggy hand-knit sweater, stolen from a bureau 
in the back bedroom. No point feeling guilty about taking a 
stranger's things; the dead owner wouldn't be using them 
again.

As far as Kenna knew, everyone in Arrowhead was dead. Same 
seemed to be true at Fort Rawlins, Tabernacle and Burnt Rock. 
Heading west on a shiny red mountain bike with an attached 
child seat, she and William had traveled from Cache to 
Arrowhead Creek -- sixty-some miles along Route 80 -- going 
from town to town, house to house, kitchen to kitchen, moving 
on as soon as food got low or she grew too scared to stay put, 
convinced the locust-monsters were coming for them.

Lord Almighty, every time she closed her eyes she saw those 
awful creatures...or Artie and Joanne's headless bodies...or 
Rick's severed arm--

Grief sliced through her. She missed her husband with a 
fierceness that refused to ebb. He had been gone five long 
months and yet she still expected him to appear each evening, 
half starved from working the ranch all day. Goodness 
gracious, he had been a handsome man, eyes the color of coffee 
beans, hair as black as licorice, and a smile that made her 
weak in the knees. Loving, too. And steady. A good provider 
for the short time they'd been married. If he were to show up 
right now, she'd ask him to take her someplace far from 
Wyoming. Someplace without dead bodies and locust-monsters. 
Maybe the Grand Canyon, where they had planned to go on their 
honeymoon...before the truck had needed a new transmission and 
they'd spent every last cent fixing it.

"Hell of a lot of good it did us."

Crossing to the row of beets, Kenna imagined standing on the 
rim of the vast Canyon, holding Rick's calloused hand, 
shouting "I love you, Rick Douglas!" and waiting for the echo 
to ricochet back. 

"Wha'zat?" William asked, bent at the waist, peering down at 
the ground, sturdy legs splayed for balance. He plucked a 
plump earthworm from the soil and held it out for her to see.

"Nightcrawler. Put it down. *Don't* eat it!" she warned just 
in time.

"Ni-call-uh. 'Ucky." He let it drop.

Lord, she had to watch him like a hawk every single minute of 
the day. Not that she minded. He was a good-natured boy. A bit 
clingy, but that was understandable given the circumstances. 
With at least three different "mamas" in the last year, it was 
no wonder he whimpered whenever he lost sight of her.

What in God's name would he have done if she hadn't found him? 
Not that she was overly experienced with babies, but she did 
manage to keep him fed, change his diaper and wash the worst 
of the dirt off his face and hands. And she was extra careful 
to keep an eye on him around the stove.

Her hand went automatically to her neck, feeling the old scars 
through the soft folds of her turtleneck. After all these 
years, she could still remember every detail of that awful 
accident, as if it had happened only that morning. Standing on 
tip-toe, reaching past her mama to grab the handle of the 
steaming pot, wanting to see what was bubbling noisily inside. 
Then there was the terrible shock of scalding water, 
splashing, burning the skin on her neck and chest. Her 
mother's horrified scream. The pain that wouldn't go away, not 
for days or even weeks.

It had been a hard lesson. But she'd learned to be careful, to 
always turn the pot handle away from the edge of the stove 
when she was cooking, especially when William was nearby.

"What don't kill you makes you stronger," she said, repeating 
her grandmother's favorite phrase. "You remember that, 
William."

"Ni-call-uh 'ucky."

She levered her spade into the soil and began digging beets. 
She disliked feeding them to William because they stained his 
poop bright red, which scared the bejesus out of her when she 
changed his diaper. First time, she thought the poor boy was 
bleeding to death.

"Nenna?" -- William's name for her when he remembered not to 
call her mama -- "Uh-oh." His voice quivered in a way that 
made the hair on her arms stand on end. 

"What is it, hon?"

"Ni-call-uh?" He pointed to a large, leathery heap beneath the 
dead tomato plants. 

"Don't move!" she shouted when he took a step toward the 
mysterious mound. 

It flapped like a piece of landscape fabric, rolled back on 
itself by the wind. Except the texture wasn't quite right. Too 
glossy. Rubbery looking. Scaly, like a snake.

Holding her spade like a baseball bat, she edged closer.

Oh God. It was a dead locust-monster.

Her legs went numb as she stood over it. Working up her 
courage, she poked it with her spade, half expecting it to 
spring to life. 

But it turned out to be just a skin. No bones, no muscle. 

"Wha'zat?" William asked again.

"Do not move!" Her scream was aimed at the locust-monster as 
much as at the boy. 

William's eyes filled with tears, but he stayed put.

Holding her breath, Kenna quickly shoveled the skin into her 
wheelbarrow. A pair of empty eye holes gaped at her from among 
the turnips as she pushed the barrow over the lumpy, frozen 
ground. William toddled after her to the open Bilco door at 
the side of the house, where a set of wooden steps, draped 
with cobwebs, led down to the cellar. Kenna shoved the 
wheelbarrow and its contents down the stairwell, then slammed 
the rusty, red door shut.

"Cawwot?" William asked. 

"No more carrots tonight, hon." She clapped dust from her 
hands and tried to smile at him.

He held his short arms aloft. "Up, mama."

"Kenna."

"Nenna."

"What's the magic word?"

"Peeeeeese!"

She lifted him to her hip and nuzzled his neck with her icy 
nose, making him giggle.

"Let's get you and me cleaned up, okay?" She carried him 
around the house to the small front porch. "Rick will be home 
soon and he'll be expecting dinner."

"Din."

"We got packing to do, too. Did I tell you we're going to the 
Grand Canyon? Gonna leave tomorrow. You want to see the Grand 
Canyon, William?"

"Cawwot?"

She gave him a hug and pushed through the front door.

*   *   *  

Water. Freezing cold. Salty and chest-deep. It gushed into the 
shuttle through a ragged, meter-long gap between the fuselage 
and the crushed canopy. The windshield was webbed with 
cracks; it bowed precariously inward. 

Dibeh pushed herself off the dead pilot, the Refuter who had 
kidnapped and tried to kill them. His face was gone, his head 
caved in by the steering column. 

She would be dead, too, she realized, if his body hadn't taken 
the brunt of the impact, cushioning her when they crashed.

She scanned the cabin for Lady Dana.

The co-pilot's seat was buried beneath a pile of fallen 
debris. The cockpit was filling with water at an alarming 
rate. It would be only a matter of minutes before the entire 
cabin was flooded.

And Dibeh couldn't swim. 

She shoved aside floating cushions, chunks of insulating foam 
and plastic components. A crumpled ceiling panel concealed the 
co-pilot's seat. She heaved it up and away, exposing Lady 
Dana, who sat slumped and unconscious in her seat, submerged 
up to her neck in swirling water. Blood trickled from her 
nose. Vapor puffed from her open mouth above the frigid water.

She was still alive. Praise the Great Dragon. 

Dibeh tried to locate the release on her seatbelt. Fingers 
numbed by cold, she followed the shoulder strap down to its 
buckle. 

Before she could unfasten the clasp, the shuttle tilted and a 
surge of current swept her back to the pilot's seat. She 
crashed headlong into the dead Refuter. His bloodied hand 
rocked upon the waves as if still alive. She became entangled 
beneath his limp arm. His fingers grazed her cheek. She batted 
away his ghostly caress and thrashed to stay afloat. Water 
filled her mouth and nose; panic rose in her chest as she 
struggled to keep her head above water. 

Another tremor shook the craft; the shuttle sank deeper. An 
angry wave dragged Dibeh under. 

Tossed through the murky depths, she held her breath and 
struggled to rise to the surface. Cargo tumbled past her as if 
weightless. Her nightgown billowed around her waist and her 
long hair floated like Feeder veils in the laundry vats on 
Tse'Bit'a'i'.

Lungs aching for air, she clenched her jaw against the urge to 
breathe. 

Great Dragon, please help me, she prayed as dizziness began to 
overtake her. 

The Divine Angel must have been listening because he sent a 
current that carried her to Lady Dana, where she popped to the 
surface. Spitting out a mouthful of bitter, salty water, she 
clutched the co-pilot's seat for support. 

Her mistress was conscious, sputtering and coughing, too, 
craning to keep her lips above the sloshing water.

"I can't...I can't unfasten the belt." Lady Dana struggled to 
get free.

Again Dibeh hunted blindly for the buckle, tracing the snug 
strap over the swell of her mistress's belly. Finding it, she 
tugged, but the clasp refused to budge.

She pulled again. And again.

It was no use. The belt remained firmly fastened. 

"Cut it," her mistress said. 

Dibeh scanned the wreckage, looking for something sharp enough 
to saw through the belt's tough fabric.

"The windshield," Lady Dana suggested. 

Dibeh waded to the cracked window. Breaking it would mean 
letting in more water, but it seemed the only choice. She 
searched for something to use as a club and finding nothing 
suitable, she balled her fist and punched the cracked pane 
with her bare knuckles.  

The window burst and water gushed in. Dibeh frantically worked 
a shard loose from the upper edge, ignoring the pain as it 
sliced into her hand. When she had it at last, she let the 
incoming current carry her back to the co-pilot's seat. 

"Hurry," Lady Dana pleaded, choking as water covered her lips.

Dibeh steeled herself for the task ahead. The roiling water 
frightened her more than anything she'd ever faced, even more 
than the Refuter. She would have to act quickly. Filling her 
lungs with air, she ducked beneath the surface. 

Barely able to see in the gloom, she felt for the strap with 
bleeding fingers. Lady Dana writhed frantically against her 
bonds. Dibeh sawed furiously, trying her best not to cut her 
mistress as she worked.

The belt split. Lady Dana pushed herself free of the seat. 

Dibeh surfaced seconds later to find the pocket of air had 
narrowed to mere inches. Lady Dana was treading water with her 
head tipped back, her nose bumping the ceiling.

"We don't have much time," her mistress said. "We have to get 
out. We can try to swim out the window."

Dibeh shook her head. The break was too narrow and edged with 
teeth of glass. Dibeh doubted Lady Dana could fit through, 
swollen as she was with her baby. They were trapped.

Water lapped the ceiling. Lady Dana coughed and spat. "It's 
our only chance. We're going. Now! Do you understand?" She 
grabbed Dibeh's hand and pulled her under.

*   *   *

FARMINGTON BAY

Skinner crouched inside the mouth of a large storm water 
culvert, flanked on one side by the new kid with the unlikely 
name of Royal, and on the other by a seasoned soldier 
nicknamed Flak. The culvert ran beneath Route 89 and provided 
a perfect underground passage between the Wasatch foothills 
and Great Salt Lake.  

"No sign of survivors," Royal said, binoculars trained on the 
shuttle's aft end, which protruded from Farmington Bay about a 
hundred meters offshore. With only a single pair of field 
glasses between them, he served as the team's eyes. "Bow and 
canopy are completely submerged."

"Bye, bye, ET," Flak said with a snicker. He reached for the 
inflated dinghy concealed in the culvert behind them. "Now, 
sir?"

"Hold your position." Skinner refused to risk their lives on 
what was turning out to be a mere salvage mission. It had only 
been the possibility of capturing and interrogating the 
shuttle's crew that had persuaded him to bring the small team 
down to the lake in the first place. He wanted details about 
weapons and manpower and the layout of the Harmony I 
stronghold. Any scrap of information might prove invaluable 
come dusk. Without survivors, however, it was beginning to 
look like they'd wasted their time.

Skinner scanned both the bay and the sky for rescue craft. 
"What's happening at the airport?" he asked.

Royal aimed his binoculars south toward SLC International. 
"Not a creature stirring, sir."

Flak grunted with disgust. "Sleeping on the job." 

"Heads up their asses, more like," Royal said.

"Quiet," Skinner ordered. The aliens would come. A crash this 
close to their settlement would not go unnoticed.

He and Flak would need to work fast. The plan was to paddle 
out to the wreck in the life raft before a search party 
arrived. The inflatable was large enough to haul cargo and a 
couple of prisoners back to shore, assuming anyone had 
survived the crash. Royal would wait on the mainland, hidden 
in the culvert. If the mission went to hell and Skinner and 
Flak were captured or killed, Royal was to return to camp with 
their horses and report to McInness, Skinner's second in 
command. 

Operation Free Earth was a go, no matter what happened out 
there on the bay this morning.      

Skinner listened for the rhythmic beat of helicopter rotors, 
the buzz of approaching watercraft, anything that might 
indicate the aliens were on their way. Satisfied by the 
stillness, he rose to his feet. "Ten minutes," he reminded 
Flak. "Not a second longer." 

"Yes, sir."

Skinner grabbed the dinghy's towrope. 

"Sir, wait!" Royal thrust the binoculars at him. "We've got a 
live one." 

A slight adjustment of the lenses brought a bobbing head into 
focus.

"It's a hybrid," Skinner said.

"Fuckin' half-breeds." Flak spat.

"It's in trouble." Skinner watched the alien flounder. 

"Good. Maybe it'll drown and save us the trouble of killing 
it." 

"There'll be no killing," Skinner growled. "Our objective is 
to take prisoners and interrogate them. You got that, 
soldier?"

"Yes, sir."

"Another one, sir!" Royal pointed to where a second head 
bobbled beside the first.

Skinner aimed the binoculars.

"I'll be damned," he whispered past a lump in his throat.

"Sir?"

"I know her." His heart beat double-time as he watched Dana 
Scully help the hybrid to the shuttle's exposed T-tail. "She's 
a friend. Let's go."

It took Skinner and Flak just under four minutes to launch the 
life raft and paddle out to the crash site. 

"Good to see you, Walter," Scully said through chattering 
teeth as they hauled her aboard. Her words were understated, 
as always, but her eyes shone with gratitude. 

Skinner's relief at finding her was enormous. After months 
with no word about her or Mulder, he had imagined the worst. 

Unfortunately, there was no time to celebrate this unexpected 
reunion, so he fought the urge to wrap her in a big bear hug. 
They could catch up after they were safely back at camp. 

"We're on a tight schedule," he said, reining in his emotions. 

She nodded and turned immediately to help the hybrid, who was 
clinging to the shuttle's tail assembly. "Take my hand, Dibeh. 
I'll pull you in." 

Skinner noticed blood on Scully's tattered gown. "You're 
hurt."

"I'm fine. Help her. She can't swim." 

"Five minutes, sir," Flak warned. 

They needed to head back...now.

"Let's do this quickly," Skinner said.

He offered his hand to the hybrid, which stared back at him 
with inky alien eyes. It was shivering violently from either 
cold or fear.

"Come on, Dibeh," Scully coaxed. "It's okay. He's a friend."

The hybrid refused, shaking its head vehemently. It held up 
its right hand to reveal green blood oozing from parallel cuts 
along its palm. 

"Careful, sir," Scully said. "Her blood could be toxic to us."

"Fuck that." Flak raised his paddle. "I vote we leave the 
freak and head home." 

"You don't get a vote here, soldier," Skinner reminded him.

"But, sir...it's a goddamned alien!"

"She's not an enemy," Scully argued. "We can't abandon her. I 
won't."

"Why the Christ not?" Flak's lips curved down in disgust. 
"Freakin' Martian's got poison all over its paws. Ever see 
what that green stuff does to a man's flesh? I don't want it 
on me."

Scully dismissed him with a scowl and turned to Skinner. Her 
eyes implored him to listen. "She saved my life, Walter."

It was all he needed to hear. "Then it...she is coming with 
us."

"Six and a half minutes." Flak's warning was clipped with 
irritation. 

"Understood," Skinner acknowledged, feeling the pinch of time. 
"What's her name?" he asked Scully.

"Dibeh. And she understands English."

Skinner reached for the hybrid. "Dibeh, I'm going to grab hold 
of your arm and pull you aboard. You ready?" 

The hybrid nodded and Skinner dragged her easily into the 
raft. At only seventy or eighty pounds soaking wet, she was 
built more like a twelve-year-old boy than an adult woman. Her 
features were decidedly alien: oversized eyes, seemingly all 
pupil with no iris or outer ring of white, an almost 
nonexistent nose and small mouth, loose grayish skin, with a 
coarse reptilian texture. Her slender fingers and bare toes 
were half again as long as his. A thick amber mane -- her most 
human characteristic -- capped a too-round skull. Delicate, 
blonde eyebrows drew together and creased her broad forehead, 
giving her a worried appearance.

"Jesus fucking Christ." Flak leaned as far away from her as 
possible.

Skinner had a thousand questions for them. Where were they 
headed when the shuttle crashed? Who was the dead pilot? Why 
was Scully on friendly terms with an alien hybrid? Why were 
they dressed in nightgowns?

Scully's wet gown clung to her, revealing full breasts and an 
unexpectedly round belly. Clearly she was pregnant again. Old 
concerns came rushing back: was the baby healthy, were the 
aliens after it the way they'd been after William, was 
Scully's life at risk? 

Hearing the faint beat of an approaching helicopter, Skinner's 
questions, like his bear hug, would have to wait. 

"Anyone else in the shuttle?" he asked.

"Just the dead pilot," Scully said. 

"Then let's get out of here," he ordered. 

The two men took up their paddles and put their backs to the 
task of crossing the bay before the aliens' salvage crew 
arrived.     


ABADDON'S REIGN
BOOK V: INTO THE WILDERNESS (PART 2)

*   *   *

"There he is!" Mulder shouted over the roar of the motorcycle 
engine. "Hang on!"

Freezing rain pelted his face. Gibson gripped his shoulders as 
they rocketed toward the small ranch house where a young woman 
and a toddler collected water from a hand pump in the front 
yard.

"Told you he was here." Gibson's voice joggled in Mulder's 
good ear as they jounced over potholes at break-neck speed.

Indeed. Gibson had claimed William was in Arrowhead and the 
little boy up ahead looked about the right age. But Gibson 
might have misread the child's infantile thoughts, confused 
him with William. There would be no incontrovertible proof 
that this particular boy was Mulder's lost son, not without 
genetic testing. And the chances of getting a lab analysis 
were slim to none. Mulder could only hope he would somehow 
know, maybe sense a connection, the way Gibson could read the 
minds of strangers. 

He swerved into the dirt driveway and lurched to a stop, 
sending up a spray of gravel. The young woman's eyes rounded 
at the sight of them. She dropped her bucket. Water splashed 
onto her faded jeans, turning them dark. She grabbed the child 
and ran into the house.   

"Nice going, Mulder." Gibson swung off the bike. "You scared 
the crap out of her. Now what?"

Mulder swallowed a mouthful of exhaust fumes and killed the 
engine. "We pay the lady of the house a call."

"And then? Have you considered how she's going to react when 
you tell her you're William's father?"

"I'm more worried about how he's going to react." Mulder held 
out little hope that William would recognize him, although 
Gibson insisted the boy sometimes thought about him. Mulder 
didn't see how that was possible, given that William hadn't 
laid eyes on him since the day after his birth.

"She's not going to let you just take him," Gibson warned. 
"She has no reason to trust you and she's *extremely* 
protective of him."

"I appreciate her maternal instincts. It's what's kept him 
alive." Mulder eased off the bike, his left leg throbbing. He 
took a couple of limping steps toward the house, testing his 
balance. "She knows he's not hers. She must have entertained 
the notion that his real parents might come looking for him 
one day."  

"Not necessarily." Gibson angled his face away from the wind 
and stinging rain. "William was adopted. In her mind, his 
biological parents gave him up for good. There's no reason for 
her to think anyone might want him back."

"Then I'll explain the situation."

Mulder started toward the house, but was stopped short when 
Gibson unexpectedly grabbed the back of his jacket. 

"She's got a gun," he warned.

Mulder eyed the front window where a pleated drape hid the 
interior. "Loaded?"

"Yes. And she plans to use it if we come inside."

"In that case, you take the front. I'll go around back."

"Why do I get the front?"

"Because you'll know when she's going to pull the trigger."

"How's that going to help?"

"You'll know when to duck."

Mulder left Gibson to his own devices and circled the house, 
looking for a back entrance. The rear door turned out to be 
locked, so he continued on around, checking windows and--

"Bingo." Cellar door.

He swung the Bilco open and descended the steps slowly, 
letting his eyes adjust to the dimness. He navigated past an 
overturned wheelbarrow and a half-dozen scattered turnips 
before his toe hit something semi-solid.

"Shit."

It was a body, or what was left of a body. The head was 
missing and the torso gutted. Arm flung wide, it appeared to 
be holding hands with a second corpse, a small child. Bile 
rose in his throat when he realized the child was only a 
little older than William.

He fought the heave of his stomach and continued on, past two 
more eviscerated corpses and up the interior stairs. Pausing 
on the top step to listen at the door, he could hear Gibson, 
still outside the house, trying to persuade the woman to let 
him in.

"Go away!" she shouted. "I've got a gun."

Mulder turned the knob, found the door unlocked and silently 
eased into a central hallway, where he was greeted by a 
gallery of family photos. A clean-cut young man and his blonde 
bride grinned at him from a ten-by-twelve studio portrait, 
perfect teeth gleaming, smiles unforced. Surrounding them were 
a dozen or more pictures of two tow-headed brothers at various 
ages from infancy to grade-school. 

Down the hall to his right was a kitchen. To the left, about 
twenty feet away, was the front entry. The woman Gibson 
believed to be Kenna Douglas stood there with her back to 
Mulder and her rifle aimed at the door. William was nowhere to 
be seen. Mulder hoped the boy remained out of harm's way until 
Kenna was safely disarmed.

At five foot eight or nine, a hundred and ten pounds tops, she 
was no match for Mulder, even with his bad leg. Gauging by her 
slim hips, gangly limbs and waist-length hair, he guessed she 
was still in her teens. Younger than he had expected, by 
several years. 

He edged down the hall, confident he could tackle her if he 
could get close enough without giving himself away. His limp 
made stealth nearly impossible. Old instincts and rusty skills 
went only so far and he longed to be able to walk effortlessly 
again. 

Keep her talking, Gibson, keep her talking.

"Are you Kenna Douglas?" Gibson called, right on cue.

Her hands were shaking and her voice wavered when she asked, 
"How do you know my name?"

Mulder inched closer. He was almost within reach. 

"We're looking for William van de Kamp," Gibson said. "Is he 
with you?" 

Before she could respond, Mulder lunged and wrapped both arms 
around her, locking her in place as he grappled for her gun. 

"Let go!" she screamed and rammed his gut with a sharp elbow. 
Pain shot up his bad leg when the heel of her boot slammed 
into his knee. 

"That's enough of that." He wrenched the rifle from her hands 
and staggered back a step. 

She spun to face him, eyes wide as he emptied the gun of 
cartridges. He shoved them deep into his pants pockets.

At that moment William appeared in the hall from an adjoining 
room, thumb in his mouth and a Buzz Lightyear doll dangling 
from his free hand. He blinked at Mulder, his leery expression 
so like Scully's it left no doubt in Mulder's mind that this 
was their son.

William removed his thumb with a wet pop and pointed it at 
Mulder. 

"Dada?"

*   *   *

Skinner and Flak slogged up the beach toward the culvert, 
lugging the life raft between them. Scully and Dibeh ran along 
behind.

"Hurry!" Royal shouted, rushing forward to lend a hand with 
the inflatable. 

They hauled it deep inside the culvert, stowing it out of 
sight in the shadows, then hunkered at the entrance to watch 
the aliens' rescue helicopter lower a search team to the crash 
site. 

Four men dressed in plain black military uniforms dropped on 
ropes and landed with a splash onto the partially submerged 
shuttle. They waded across the fuselage, inspecting it from 
aft end to bow. One of the men looked remarkably familiar to 
Skinner, even at a distance.

He took the binoculars from Royal and quickly focused on the 
lanky man in the bay. Waist deep in water, the officer used 
expansive gestures to make himself understood above the roar 
of the helicopter, which hovered overhead, rippling the water 
and causing the man's long hair to flail like a kite tail 
behind his back. A tattoo darkened his right cheek, yet his 
profile was unmistakable. 

"Mulder?" What the hell was he doing out there?

"It's not him," Scully said, sounding certain.

"Shapeshifter?"

"Not according to him. His name is Ca-Lo. He's a military 
strategist for the aliens. He's also..." Her cheeks darkened 
and she lowered her lashes. "He claims to be Mulder's 
brother."

"You believe him?"

"Not entirely."

"Meaning?"

"He's a liar and a trickster, but there may be some truth to 
his claim." She wrapped her arms around her swollen belly in a 
decidedly protective gesture. "He's looking for me, Walter, 
and he won't stop until he finds me."

Shit. It was Democrat Hot Springs all over again. "We can hide 
you."

"No you can't. I have a locator chip, implanted subcutaneously 
in my lower back." 

"We're fucked," Flak said.

Royal scrambled away from her as if the chip were a ticking 
time bomb. 

"Settle down." Skinner angled toward her. "Can we remove it?" 
he asked. Or was it like the one in her neck, necessary for 
the remission of her cancer? 

She pointed at the knife on his belt. "How good are you at 
slicing and dicing?"

"I don't have your experience."

"Any chance one of your men is a medic?"

Flak and Royal shook their heads.

"Look's like it's up to you then, Walter." Scully positioned 
herself on her knees in front of him and raised her gown. 

He stopped her with a light touch. "The lady doesn't need an 
audience," he growled at his gawping soldiers. "Go ready the 
horses. Both of you." 

Royal and Flak exchanged glances, then did as they were told 
and jogged off through the tunnel.

"Thank you," Scully murmured, when the men were gone. 

Skinner lifted Scully's gown, exposing her bare backside and a 
myriad of cuts and scratches. Most were superficial, but some 
still oozed blood.

Dibeh moved closer, allowing Scully to lean against her for 
support. Skinner ran his hand lightly over her lacerated skin, 
massaging gently, feeling for the chip. He located it a few 
inches above her tailbone, a shallow, hard lump, half the size 
of his smallest fingernail and buried directly beneath her 
tattoo. 

He angled his knife and tried to still his quaking hands. 
"Blade's not sterile."

"Do it anyway." 

"Wish I could offer you something for the pain."    

"I'll be fine."

"I'll do this as fast as I can. You ready?"

"Yes. Do it." Her knuckles whitened as she gripped 
Dibeh's arm.

He sliced into her and his stomach churned at the sight of 
fresh, crimson blood trickling down her smooth buttocks. He 
was relieved she didn't cry out. Not that he had expected 
her to. 

After what seemed an eternity, he exposed a tiny piece of 
metal, pried it free and teased it onto the tip of his knife.

"Done."  

She tugged her gown into place and sat stiffly upright.

"You okay?" he asked.

She nodded and turned for the knife. "Let me see it."

He passed it to her. She regarded it only a moment, her 
expression unreadable, before giving it back. "Get rid of it. 
Quickly. Then let's get out of here." 

*   *   *

Keeping his eyes on William, Mulder unlocked the front door 
and let Gibson in. 

Kenna scooped the baby into her arms. "Go away. Both of you."

"Not without him." Mulder nodded at William.

She tightened her grip on the boy. "You can't have him. Leave 
us alone!"

"Not gonna happen. He's my son."

"I don't believe you."

"He's telling the truth," Gibson said.

She shot him an incredulous stare. "Why should I listen to 
you?"

"Why would we lie?" Mulder asked.

"Maybe you're sick perverts who get off on kids."

Mulder gave a dismissive shake of his head. "You heard what he 
called me."

"Dada? Big deal. That's what he calls all men. And his action 
figures. And most of the corpses we've seen. It means 
nothing."

As if to prove her point, William aimed Buzz Lightyear at 
Gibson and proclaimed, "Dada!"

"See?" Kenna hugged the baby to her chest, shouldered past 
Mulder and headed for the kitchen.

"I thought you said he remembered me," Mulder whispered to 
Gibson as they followed her down the hall. 

"He recognizes your face," Gibson confirmed.

"Then why--?" The gallery of happy portraits in the hallway 
caught Mulder's eye and realization hit. "Scully showed him 
pictures of me. That's what he remembers, isn't it?"

"It's the most likely explanation." 

"He doesn't know I'm his father."

"You've been gone his entire life, Mulder. What did you 
expect?"

A miracle maybe. Or was there a limit of one per customer? Was 
God miserly with His rewards? 

Mulder entered the kitchen, a square room with yellow cabinets 
lining two walls. A window above the sink overlooked an icy 
backyard, where sleet pounded a rusted swing set. A rope 
dangled from the branches of a gnarled pine, pointing the way 
to a half-hidden tree house.

Gibson pulled up a chair and sat at the kitchen's oval table. 
Kenna settled William into a highchair at the opposite end. 
She placed an assortment of colorful Tupperware lids on his 
tray. 

"Din?" William selected a lid and gnawed on its rim.

"We'll eat soon, sweetie." Kenna kissed the top of his head. 
"Gotta cook something first." She headed toward the cupboards, 
but was blocked by Mulder. "S'cuse me," she said, her request 
thick with sarcasm.

If she was frightened of him, she was determined not to show 
it.

He stepped aside so she could get into the drawer behind him. 
She yanked it open, withdrew a short paring knife and 
proceeded to peel a turnip into the sink.

Mulder set the empty rifle on the counter. "Kenna, listen to 
me--"

"Why should I listen to you?" Her knife rhythmically scraped 
the turnip's tough rind. "You got proof he's your kid? Birth 
certificate or something?"

"No."

"Then we've got nothing to talk about."

"Yes, we do. William is my son. He was born on May 20, 2001. 
His mother is Dana Scully. She named him after my father, 
William Mulder."

"I wouldn't know anything about that. He's been William van de 
Kamp for as long as I've known him."

"The van de Kamps adopted him last April." 

Her knife stilled for a moment and she blinked back tears. 
"Artie and Joanne are dead. I-I found William...in his crib. 
There were...there were locust-monsters...everywhere. And 
blood. Lots of blood." She pointed her knife at him. Her face 
was flushed. Her eyes glittered with a mix of fury and terror. 
"If you think I'm going to hand him over to a couple of 
complete strangers, you're out of your mind, mister."

Mulder slumped against the counter. Jesus he'd fucked this up, 
bullying his way in, expecting her to relinquish William after 
what she'd been through. "You're right. You shouldn't give him 
to a stranger. It was wrong of me to expect it."

"Told you we had nothing to talk about." She resumed her 
peeling.

Help me, Gibson, Mulder silently pleaded. You're the one who 
can read her mind. 
 
Gibson cleared his throat and came to the rescue. "We have 
food," Gibson offered. 

"What kind of food?" Kenna let the turnip drop into the sink. 

"Canned stuff, dried fruit. Does he like raisins?"

"Yes, but he can't have too many. They give him diarrhea."

"Okay. We've got other stuff."

She set her knife on the counter. "Well, what are you sitting 
there for? Bring it in." 

Fifteen minutes later, Mulder and Gibson were thawing their 
fingers around mugs of instant coffee, while Kenna heated 
refried beans and thick slices of canned ham on the propane 
stove. The counter was cluttered with groceries, everything 
that had been stuffed into the Scout's saddlebags. 

William bounced in his highchair, eating bite-sized chunks of 
pears. "Mmmm-mm-mmm," he hummed and chewed, juice drooling 
down his chin.

Mulder couldn't tear his eyes away. Cataloging William's 
childish features, he discovered more similarities to Scully 
than to himself. 

It was a familiar exercise, a repeat performance. The first 
time had been an hour after William came into the world. 
Puffed with pride, yet more terrified than he had ever been 
before or since, Mulder had counted his newborn son's fingers 
and toes, caressed his velvety cheek. Then William began to 
squall, searching for Scully's breast. Mulder wept like a 
baby, too, at the sight of her nursing his son. 

It was the most perfect moment of his life.  

"He doesn't look like you," Kenna said, her tone accusatory. 

"He favors his mother...thank goodness."

She spooned more pears into William's bowl. "I don't get it."

"Why he looks like his mother?"

"No, why you gave your kid away."

Mulder wanted to shout "I didn't!" but held his temper. "There 
were extenuating circumstances."

"Those circumstances gone now?"

"More or less."

"What about him? Do you even care what he wants, what's best 
for him?"

"I believe being with his parents is best for him. I've always 
believed that."

She harrumphed and busied herself with wiping pear juice from 
William's face. He twisted to get out from under her wet 
cloth. "Down! Down!" he fussed.

"How come his mama isn't here? She too busy to come after her 
own child? Had to send the two of you to do it for her?"

"It isn't like that, Kenna."

"No?" She turned to scowl at him, hands on her slender hips. 
"Then where is she? For that matter, where's she been for the 
last *year* while her baby's been handed from one stranger to 
the next? What's she been doing while we've been running from 
locust-monsters and practically starving to death?" Kenna's 
resentment boiled over. "No food, no milk, no diapers, no safe 
place to sit for two minutes to catch our breath. Tell me, 
where's she been?"

Her words bludgeoned him like the guards' batons at Mount 
Weather. Guilt and sorrow zigzagged through him.

"I don't know," he whispered.

*   *   *

REBEL CAMP
WASATCH-CACHE NATIONAL FOREST

Scully was fastening the last button of her oversized shirt, 
hiding her swollen belly, when Skinner entered the makeshift 
infirmary.

"Sorry we don't have anything smaller." Skinner plucked at the 
loose fabric. The sleeves dangled to her fingertips, despite 
being rolled twice at her wrists. Her camouflage trousers were 
cuffed like those of a toddler dressed in his older brother's 
hand-me-downs.

"This is fine. Better than the ridiculous dress--" A tide of 
emotion stopped her from saying more about her ordeal with the 
aliens. Eventually she would tell Skinner, but not now, not 
when she was feeling so vulnerable.

Across the tent, an EMT attended Dibeh's wounds and Scully 
focused her attention there.

"Be careful," she warned. 

The EMT ignored her and continued to hastily bind Dibeh's 
injured hand with gauze. Like the others in the camp, the EMT 
was none too pleased to meet Dibeh. They saw only her alien 
features and knew nothing of her individual qualities. She had 
the face of the enemy and they hated her for it.

Dibeh sat motionless, shoulders hunched, eyes wide with fear. 
Scully's heart went out to her. The hybrid's life had changed 
in the blink of an eye. She had generously helped an Earth 
woman and, despite her loyalty to Scully, Dibeh's future among 
humans was grim. She was facing a lifetime of prejudice. Or 
worse. 

"How's the wound?" Skinner's hand grazed Scully's lower back.

She stiffened. The gesture was too familiar, too intimate; it 
reminded her of Mulder and the ache of missing him left her 
heart feeling hollow.

"Walter...have you heard...has there been any news of Mulder?"

"I was hoping you could tell me. Wasn't he with you?"

"No. We were separated soon after we left Mount Weather." Less 
than two days together and their last moments had been spent 
arguing. What a waste.

Her experience aboard the alien ship had taught her firsthand 
the innumerable ways in which imprisonment can ravage the 
psyche. Mulder had been in an extremely fragile state of mind 
when he learned she'd given William up for adoption. She 
should have been more understanding. She should have gone 
after him at Shiprock.

Instead she had let him sulk. She had believed they could 
simply talk out their differences when he returned.

It had been a shortsighted decision. And selfish. His 
accusations had stung, in part because she feared the truth of 
his words. Sometimes it felt like she would spend the rest of 
her life second-guessing her decision to give up William.

And now a new fear loomed in her mind: she might never see 
Mulder again. 

The thought was unbearable. She would find him. She had to. 
She needed to set things right between them.

"Dana...I couldn't help noticing..." Skinner shifted 
uncomfortably. His gaze drifted to her stomach. "When I pulled 
you into the raft..." 

So her drenched nightgown had revealed her secret and now she 
would have to give some sort of explanation. She had hoped to 
conceal her condition under layers of outsized fatigues, at 
least for another few weeks.

"Mulder is the baby's father, if that's what you're 
wondering." The words came out laced with anger and much 
louder than she had intended. The memory of Ca-Lo's appalling 
seduction made her feel as if she might vomit.

"I never doubted that," he said, his discomfort obvious. 
"Dana, I want to send you to a safe camp in the east, near the 
Utah-Wyoming border. I'll assign an escort to take you there, 
to protect you; someone I trust."

"No. I want to stay here. You could use a good doctor." She 
glared at the EMT.  

Skinner shook his head. "It's not safe. We're moving against 
the aliens tonight."

"All the more reason for me to stay. There'll be injuries. I 
can--"

"You're not staying. At dusk, this'll become a war zone, 
complete with live artillery and an enemy that doesn't believe 
in the Geneva Convention." Concern creased his brow. "It's a 
two-day ride through the mountains...on horseback. Not an easy 
trip."

"Horseback? Walter, a fall could cause a miscarriage."

"If you stay here you risk more than a fall."

He was right; she needed to get away from the war -- and Ca-Lo 
-- to protect her baby.

"I won't go without Dibeh." 

"Of course."

"When will I see you again?"

"I'll be a couple of days behind you."

"You can't promise that."

"No, but I've got good soldiers watching my back. I'll be 
okay."

Fear tightened her throat and tears filled her eyes. 

"Hey..." Skinner caressed her cheek, tender and welcome. "No 
need for that." 

She stood on tiptoe and wrapped her arms snuggly around his 
neck. He returned her embrace.

"Please, be careful, Walter. I can't--" Her voice cracked and 
her tears began to fall. "I can't lose you, too."  

*   *   *

Mulder knocked softly on Kenna's bedroom door and waited for 
permission to enter before poking his head in.

"What do you want?" Kenna was dressed for sleep in an 
oversized Cody Rodeo T-shirt. She sat propped against the 
bed's headboard, long legs splayed, a child's storybook in her 
lap. She cradled William in the crook of one arm. He lay with 
eyelids drooping, tiny fingers kneading the folds of her 
shirt. He was dressed in footed pajamas, a couple of sizes too 
big and patterned with bucking broncos and lariats.
 
A blast of wind and sleet rattled the dark windowpanes, yet a 
kerosene heater kept the room toasty warm. 

"Just wanted to make sure everyone was okay," Mulder said. 

"You can see we're fine."

It was true. They looked completely at home in the queen-sized 
bed, flowered comforter folded neatly across the foot, 
hurricane lantern casting a golden glow from the nightstand. 
The sheets looked clean and warm and inviting.  

"Okay. Well then..." He lingered at the threshold. 

"You gonna say goodnight to him or you just gonna stand there 
letting the heat outta the room?"

"You don't mind if I...?" He gestured, indicating he wanted to 
come closer. 

"Not as long as you make it quick." 

A stocked pantry and a full stomach had evidently gone a long 
way toward winning her over. 

Mulder limped to the bed and gave William's soft cheek a 
loving caress. "Hey, big guy." 

William frowned and pulled away, plastering himself against 
Kenna. 

Take it slow, Mulder reminded himself. 

"What are you reading?" He indicated the storybook.

"The Grinch."

"Isn't it a little early for Christmas?"

"He likes the rhymes."

"Ah. Me, too. 'He puzzled and puzzed 'til his puzzler was 
sore, then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before.'"

William stuck his thumb in his mouth and buried his face in 
Kenna's shirt. The dismissal stung, although Mulder knew 
better than to take it personally. The boy was understandably 
wary. Mulder needed to be patient.  

Kenna rubbed William's back with gentle, hypnotic circles, 
soothing him toward sleep. "He's tired. It's been a long day."

"Yeah. I kinda feel like sucking my thumb, too."

She gave him a sidelong glance, but said nothing.

"Kenna...I-I came for him as soon as I could. He's all I've 
been thinking about for months. I've missed him terribly. You 
have to believe that."

"The only thing I *have* to believe is God saw fit to put this 
boy in my care and that's what I've been doing. I've got no 
obligation to you."

Mulder nodded, wondering how to earn her trust. "I appreciate 
everything you've done for him."

"Oh, right, that's why you want to take him away from me." 

"No take 'way," William whimpered, sounding heartbroken. He 
crawled into Kenna's lap. "Noooo take, mama." 

"Shhhh. It's okay, honey pie. No one's taking you anywhere."

He began to sob and she rocked him until his cries turned to 
hiccups and he lay limp and red-faced in her arms.

Mulder stood firm, wanting to flee the room but feeling it 
would give Kenna the wrong impression. He didn't want her to 
think he was the type to run off at the first sign of trouble.  

"He's grown pretty attached to you," he said at last.

"What do you expect? We've been together since May. That's a 
big chunk of his life."

"Don't misunderstand. I'm glad. I'm glad he's had someone to 
look after him."

"I love him." Her tone dared him to dispute it. "And he loves 
me."

"I can see that."

Apparently satisfied by his acknowledgement, she admitted, "He 
doesn't always call me mama, you know."

"No?"

"No. Only when he's tired or upset." She smoothed William's 
wispy reddish curls, then lifted her gaze to Mulder. She had 
the most liquid eyes he'd ever seen. "You can stay for a 
while, if you want. Rub his back. Like this." She demonstrated 
with exaggerated slowness, as if Mulder were a child himself.

Mulder ignored the stabbing pain in his thigh and lowered 
himself stiffly onto the outermost edge of the mattress. He 
reached hesitantly for his son. The moment he made contact, 
William's thumb went once again to his mouth; he sucked loudly 
as Mulder massaged his small hunched shoulders.

"He feels warm. Is he too warm?"

"He's fine."

"You sure? He feels warm to me."

She laid her palm against his forehead. "He's fine. It was 
just the crying got him worked up."

"Oh." 

Mulder shifted position, trying to ease the ache in his thigh.   

"What happened to your leg?"

"You kicked me, remember?" he said, smiling.

"I didn't put those scars on your face."

"No." His focus flitted to the massive scar that ringed her 
neck.

She caught him staring and lifted her hand to her throat. "I 
got this years ago. Waaaay before I was taking care of 
William. I never, ever let him near the stove, don't you worry 
about that."

"I wasn't worried." Not much. 

William sighed and nestled against the soft mound of Kenna's 
left breast. A nipple tented her T-shirt next to the baby's 
loose fist. Mulder felt his groin tighten and although his 
physical response was unintentional, it felt inappropriate 
enough to heat his cheeks and set his heart hammering.

"You seem awfully young to be married," he said, indicating 
the ring on her finger.

"I'm nineteen."

"Nineteen is young."

"How old are you? Thirty?"

He imagined thirty sounded ancient to her. "Give or take."

"Rick and I got married last April. I miss him something 
terrible."

"How did he die?"

"Oh, he isn't dead. He's coming back. He's going to take me 
and William to the Grand Canyon." 

"But I thought--" 

Kenna's calm expression clearly showed she was in denial. 
Gibson had heard her grieving for her dead husband weeks ago. 
His telepathy wasn't foolproof, but Gibson had seemed certain 
about this. 

Not wanting to argue the point and risk losing this hard-won 
truce with Kenna, Mulder steered the conversation in a 
different direction. "You said you found William in his crib?"

"Yes."

"And there were 'locust-monsters' in the room with him."

"Five of them, standing in a circle."

"Just standing?"

"Standing and watching."

It had been in the back of Mulder's mind for quite some time 
that William might have an ability to communicate with the 
aliens, the way Gibson did. It would explain why the boy was 
still alive. Why Kenna was alive, too. 

"Why do you think they didn't hurt him?" he asked.

"Answer's obvious, isn't it?"

"Is it?"

"Sure. God saved him."

"Right," Mulder said, not at all convinced, "of course."

"That's why I was led to him."

"Oh?"

"God figured I needed a sign. Proof of His power. So He gave 
me William." She planted a kiss on the crown of William's 
head. "It's hard to lose faith when you're looking straight at 
a miracle. Know what I mean?"

William's eyes closed, his breathing grew steady. He was every 
inch at peace. Innocent. Perfect. 

"Yeah. I know what you mean."

*   *   *

WASATCH-CACHE NATIONAL FOREST
SUNSET

Royal twisted in his saddle to listen to the muted rat-a-tat 
of gunfire and the distant blast of bombs. An all too familiar 
hum pulsed up from the war zone in the lowlands.

The hybrid looked ready to jump off her horse and bolt into 
the woods. She'd been quaking like a bowl of Jell-O on the San 
Andreas Fault ever since her rescue, flinched at every damned 
noise, gaped at the men, the horses, the food, attached 
herself to the redhead like they were fucking Siamese twins. 
Had to be pried loose and lifted onto her horse when it came 
time to get moving.

"Vulcan cannons?" asked the redhead, Skinner's friend, Dana 
Scully.

Royal was surprised she recognized the sound. "Yes, ma'am." 

"Ours or theirs?"

"Theirs, stolen from us. Aliens got 'em mounted on Warthogs. 
Vibrate like bitches in heat...if you'll pardon the 
expression." Royal peered back the way they had come. "Our 
side's got grenades, a few M-16s, some plastic explosives. Not 
much else."

"Is that going to be enough?"

"Dunno. You believe in God, ma'am?"

"Yes."

"Then I suggest you say a prayer for our side." 

Royal's faith came and went, depending on the circumstances. 
He had begged God to save his cousin and, lo and behold, 
Nicole was spared. Yet there were other times when God didn't 
seem to give a rat's ass about him or mankind, turning a blind 
eye to the alien invasion and all the misery they brought with 
them.

Take the hybrid, for example. What kind of God would create a 
hideous piece of crap like that?

Uncle Louis had claimed God worked in mysterious ways. 
Believed there was a master plan, a blueprint too complex for 
the comprehension of mere mortals. 

Christ, if that was true, then everything anyone did was 
already set in stone, like the Ten Commandments, and it was 
pointless to worry about the future. Royal didn't like 
thinking that way. Maybe at one time he'd been content to sit 
back and wait for shit to happen, but not anymore. Not since 
he'd joined Skinner's infantry. The NUI was making things 
happen and whether he was part of a master plan or not, for 
the first time in his life, Royal felt he had a purpose, an 
important role to play.

A screech like the sound of tearing metal startled the horses 
and the hybrid. 

"What the hell was that?" Scully asked, looking more 
aggravated than alarmed. 

"Plasma cannon." Royal imagined the damage it must be causing. 
"Damn, I should be back there with them, not babysitting a 
couple of--" 

Don't say it, Royal, he cautioned himself. Don't say or do 
anything that'll make Commander Skinner ashamed of you.

He spurred his horse uphill with a kick of his heels.

They rode without speaking for another half mile. The sky grew 
black and the sound of gunfire faded. Clouds marched overhead 
from east to west, hiding the quarter moon and the narrow 
mountain trail.

"What was it like up there?" Royal finally broke the silence.

"Excuse me?"

"On the Mother Ship. That's where you were, right?"

"Yes. That's where I was. It was...big."

"Big? That's it?"

"And damp."

"Shit." Royal wanted details. "There many like her up there?"

"Yes."

"Jesus. Must be freaky." When she didn't answer, he hooked a 
thumb at the hybrid. "Folks at Safe Camp aren't gonna be 
pleased to see that one."

"Isn't that why Skinner sent you with us? To protect us?"

"Protect you maybe. Can't promise nothing about the alien."

"Your commanding officer expects you to carry out your orders, 
soldier."

"I know my duty, ma'am, but there're close to a thousand 
people at Safe Camp and they ain't gonna welcome any freakin' 
ET." Royal would follow his orders, but the hybrid was going 
to be a problem and he was only one man. "Sorry, but I can't 
guarantee nothin'."


BOOK VI: TWO WINGS (PART 1)

Crista terminalis. The location of the sinuatrial node, the 
pacemaker of the human heart. What makes us tick, literally. 

The heart is situated obliquely in the chest, its broad, 
attached end directed upward, backward, and to the right. It 
corresponds with the dorsal vertebrae, from the fifth to 
eighth inclusive. In an adult, it measures five inches in 
length, three and a half inches in breadth. It weighs from 
eight to twelve ounces, and its proportion to the body is one 
to 169 in males and one to 149 in females.

Scully appreciates the anatomy of the heart. Its purpose is 
irrefutable, its performance quantifiable. 

What confounds her is the commonly held romantic notion that 
the heart is the repository for emotion. Countless autopsies 
have failed to yield one shred of physical evidence to support 
the theory that this muscular organ is anything beyond a 
circulatory pump, but Scully has experienced the ache of grief 
personally. And nine years with Fox Mulder have taught her 
that believing is not always seeing. Sometimes it takes gut 
instinct, a sixth sense, or even a flutter of the heart to 
understand the truth. 

"After great pain, a formal feeling comes," claimed poet Emily 
Dickinson. Scully recalls the verses from an undergrad lit 
class. Nerves sit ceremonious, like tombs; the heart is stiff; 
feet, mechanical. It is the Hour of Lead. If you are able to 
outlive it, you remember it the way a freezing person 
recollects the snow: first a chill, then stupor, then finally, 
finally, you are able to let go.   

Scully anticipates Dickinson's "quartz contentment." She longs 
for her heart to turn stony, durable as a granite breakwater, 
unmoved by tide and turbulent seas.

How liberating it would feel, how healing, to shed her sorrow 
and guilt, to cast off conscience, to weep not one more tear 
for William or Mulder or the daughter growing within her womb. 
She yearns to relinquish the terrible, hollow throb in her 
heart, to forget past mistakes.

But to do so means sacrificing her best memories and 
abandoning her greatest loves -- the very things Mulder has 
accused her of.

He doesn't understand. She gave up William not out of defeat, 
but to shield him, to protect him. It was an act of 
resistance, not submission. A mother's last defense.

And Dana Scully's greatest heartache.

*   *   *

SAFE CAMP
RENDEVOUS BEACH STATE PARK, UTAH
OCTOBER 17, 2002

A seven-inch incision split the patient's chest. Rib spreaders 
exposed his internal organs. Scully carefully removed the 
first of two 45-caliber bullets from beside his beating heart. 
She tied off a stubborn bleeder. As she probed for the second 
round, the patient went into ventricular fibrillation and then 
cardiac arrest.

Without a defibrillator, Scully's only option was to try to 
restore a rhythm by manually massaging the heart.

"Come on, soldier," she pleaded, fingers pumping, "don't give 
up."   

Ten minutes ticked away. The heart refused to beat on its own. 
The anesthesiologist softly announced, "He's dead, Dr. 
Scully."

"One more minute." She had already lost two young men earlier 
in the day and she was not going to lose this one, too.

"Doctor, there are others waiting. Help them."

Moans and cries carried through the open door of the outer 
room, where nurses triaged the wounded. Six medics sutured 
cuts, cleaned debris from torn flesh, treated minor burns, 
concussions, shock. There seemed no end to the injured, and 
intelligence sources indicated the North Utah Infantry was in 
serious trouble; a second wave of casualties was due before 
nightfall.

How many would perish on the battlefield? How many more would 
die en route from Salt Lake City? 

Scully prayed Skinner was okay. 

She peeled off her bloody gloves. They landed with a slap in a 
bin overflowing with medical waste. She wasn't qualified to 
perform heart surgery. She wasn't qualified to perform *any* 
kind of surgery. But Dr. Forrest was operating on his 
nineteenth patient of the day -- a teenager with shrapnel 
lodged in his spinal column. And Dr. Singh was exhausted after 
twenty-two hours of life-threatening plasma burns, head 
wounds, missile injuries. 

There was no one else available with advanced medical 
training. No one to step in and relieve her.

A team of grim-faced volunteers wheeled away the dead soldier. 
Scully blinked back fatigue and prepared for the next patient. 
She donned fresh gloves, arranged sterile instruments on a 
clean tray, took a deep breath. 

Another young man was delivered to her operating table. His 
right foot was missing, the leg badly damaged from the knee 
down. A tourniquet, applied in the field, had kept him from 
bleeding to death on the trip to Safe Camp. 

It was a miracle he was still alive. 

"I need more light here," Scully demanded. 

"I'm on it," replied a volunteer, who hurried to find 
additional kerosene lamps.

"Please, don't cut off my leg," the patient begged, apparently 
unaware that his limb was already gone.

Scully recognized him. "Flak, can you hear me?"

He squinted up at her, confused by pain and drugs. "I-I know 
you?"

"I'm Dana Scully, Commander Skinner's friend."

He turned away. "The alien lover."

She disregarded his resentment. He was not alone in his 
prejudice toward Dibeh. The entire camp hated the hybrid; they 
kept her under armed guard twenty-four hours a day. Scully was 
allowed only brief, monitored visits. 

"It's all gone to hell," Flak growled through clenched teeth. 
"We...retreated...under fire...Jesus, Jesus, guys falling, 
blood everywhere...my leg..."

Scully wanted to ask about Skinner, but knew this was not the 
time or place. "Lie still. I'm going to help you." 

Flak groaned. His eyelids fluttered and closed. "Please, I 
don't want to die."

She signaled the anesthesiologist to start an I.V. "You won't 
die."

It was a promise she couldn't guarantee. If Flak survived 
surgery, it was possible, even likely, he would die of 
infection in a few days. The recovery ward was rife with the 
characteristic fruity odor of pseudomonas, a difficult 
bacteria to combat even under the best of conditions. And 
these were not the best of conditions. 

The makeshift hospital was located in a former visitor center 
at Rendezvous Beach State Park on the southern shore of Bear 
Lake. It was a bare bones unit with dwindling supplies and no 
electricity or modern diagnostic equipment. Surrounding it was 
a "city" of RVs, tents, pop-up campers, cars and trucks. 
People squeezed together, took shelter wherever they could 
find it. Military personnel bivouacked at the former marina, 
sleeping aboard sailboats and motor yachts. Dibeh was being 
held prisoner at the end of one long dock, exposed day and 
night to bitter winds and freezing temperatures. 

Guilt washed over Scully. She lived in comparative luxury, 
alone in Skinner's dilapidated Winnebago.  

"He's ready," the anesthesiologist announced.

Scully mentally reviewed the steps of transfemoral amputation, 
a procedure she had never tried before today. Risks included 
heavy blood loss, the development of clots, infection, failure 
of the stump to heal due to inadequate blood supply. If Flak 
lived, rehabilitation would be a long, arduous process.

She selected a scalpel from the tray. "Let's do it." 

*   *   *

WASATCH-CACHE NATIONAL FOREST

"We all know the field we play on and we all know what can 
happen in the course of a game," Skinner had once told Mulder. 
"If you were unprepared for all the potentials, then you 
shouldn't step on the field."

Skinner had known the potentials when he led the North Utah 
Infantry into the aliens' stronghold at sunset on Sunday, 
October 13. He knew the enemy's forces outnumbered his own. He 
knew his weapons were inferior. 

Tossing grenades at plasma cannons was like pissing at a tidal 
wave. 

But Skinner pressed on despite the unlikely odds. He decided 
it was worth the risk, any risk, to try to defeat this god-
awful foe, to release the scores of men, women and children 
who were being held prisoner, forced by alien masters to work 
as slaves in factories that supplied the enemy army with food, 
clothing, weapons.

Temperatures hovered just above freezing four nights ago when 
Skinner's army attacked Harmony I. A few tattered clouds 
shrouded a rising quarter moon, providing scant light as two-
hundred and fifty-six foot soldiers stole silently through 
Salt Lake City's outer neighborhoods to the walled alien 
settlement within. Skinner remembered a prickle of foreboding 
on the back of his neck when his troops took up their assigned 
positions outside the ten-meter-high bulwark encircling the 
citadel. 

The objective was to infiltrate the stronghold, storm the 
factories, free the human captives, and kill as many alien-
loving sons-of-bitches as possible. Munitions teams were 
ordered to destroy the breeding labs, the stockpiles of 
armaments and the alien air force, giving the released 
prisoners time to escape to the hills of Wasatch-Cache. 
McInness, Skinner's second in command, was to lead a unit to 
Antelope Island, to free the humans imprisoned there.

Privates Brady and Stewart volunteered to create a diversion 
at the citadel's guarded east gate, allowing Skinner's company 
an opportunity to gain access via the unfinished section of 
wall to the north. Dressed in stolen enemy uniforms, Brady and 
Stewart pretended to be drunk, late for evening roll call. 
They stumbled and laughed, called each other names, poked fun 
at the solemn-faced guards. 

They were convincing actors. The guards let them in. 

Once inside, they lobbed half a dozen grenades at the gate, 
guard station and nearby barracks before they were shot down 
by M16s. 

The two young friends knew going in it would be a suicide 
mission. They were brave men, good soldiers. Heroes. 

The exploding grenades drew the attention of alien troops 
throughout the citadel. Armed with carbines and knives, 
Skinner's soldiers quickly overtook and killed the distracted 
sentinels at the northern breach, then hurried to their 
intended targets.  

Half of Skinner's infantrymen perished before the factory 
doors were bludgeoned open. Another twenty or thirty fell 
while escorting escapees to freedom. Only three alien shuttles 
and two Blackhawk helicopters were disabled. No munitions 
warehouses were destroyed. All of McInness's men were lost. 
Not one prisoner was freed from Antelope Island.

Three decades before his attack on Salt Lake City, before the 
North Utah Infantry failed its mission, before 
extraterrestrial demons controlled the Earth, Skinner was a 
young private in Viet Nam. His squad was caught while on 
patrol in Quang Tin. They fell. All of them. Haskell, Peters, 
Richardson, Pooley, Johnson, Mantenuto, Atkins and Sergeant 
Williams. Skinner lost his faith in God that day. He lost his 
faith in everything. 

But on this cold autumn night in what seemed another life, 
Commander Walter Skinner was as changed as the world. He 
humbled himself before the Almighty. The ragged remainder of 
his army and a handful of freed hostages rested fitfully 
beneath the pines of Wasatch-Cache National Forest as he knelt 
stiffly beside his bedroll and brought bandaged palms 
together, mimicking a gesture grown rusty since his pious 
boyhood in the flatlands of east Texas. With tears burning his 
eyes, he blinked in astonishment at the paltry number of 
survivors. Then he prayed for the souls of his lost soldiers 
and begged for the future of mankind.  

*   *   * 

ARROWHEAD CREEK, WYOMING
SOMETIME AFTER MIDNIGHT

"Mulder?" Gibson spoke softly from the hall outside Kenna's 
bedroom. "You in there?"

You know I am, Mulder silently challenged, guessing Gibson was 
listening to his thoughts. He sat on the edge of the bed and 
caressed William's satiny cheek. 

The baby stirred but didn't wake. William lay tucked against 
Kenna's breast, wet thumb slipping from his mouth. She slept 
on her side with one hand placed protectively atop the baby's 
belly. They looked peaceful in the honeyed glow of the oil 
lamp.

"Pleasant dreams, son," Mulder whispered and rose from the 
bed. He considered covering them with blankets, but the room 
was comfortably warm, thanks to the kerosene heater. 

He opened the door to Gibson and asked in a low voice, "What's 
up?"

Gibson peered past him to Kenna. Her dark hair fanned the 
pillows and her T-shirt rode high on one hip, providing a 
glimpse of white panties. "I could ask you the same question."

Mulder stepped into the hall and pulled the door quietly shut 
behind him, blocking Gibson's view. Gooseflesh prickled his 
neck and arms; it was at least twenty degrees colder in the 
hall than the bedroom. "What's that supposed to mean?" 

"You like her."

"She risked her life to save my child."

"That's not what I meant."

Mulder crossed his arms and glared. "What did you mean?"

"I know what you're thinking," Gibson reminded him.

"Then you know I love Scully."

"Yes." Gibson nodded at Kenna's door. "But you're thinking 
about her."

Mulder's face heated. Gibson had evidently "overheard" a 
moment of unexpected desire, knew Mulder had become aroused at 
the sight of Kenna's long, bare legs, her braless breasts.

"Was it good for you?" Mulder growled before adding silently: 
get your ya-yas someplace else, Gibson. 

Gibson met his anger without a hint of embarrassment. "I can't 
help hearing what I hear."

Mulder knew it was true. And it was clear from Gibson's 
expression he wasn't being judgmental. Still, Mulder's 
unconscious reaction to Kenna seemed disloyal to Scully and he 
felt a need to explain.

"My body responded to a pretty woman, that's all. I didn't act 
on it. I didn't go looking for it. It just happened. It 
doesn't mean anything and you're old enough to understand the 
difference between a fleeting physical reaction and a lasting 
emotional bond."

"It's happened more than once."

"Are you keeping count?"

"No, but you've been in her bedroom every night since we 
arrived."

"My son is in there."

Gibson stared at the door, head cocked as if listening. "He's 
the reason she thinks about sleeping with you." 

Mulder blinked in surprise. "She wants to sleep with me?"

"She doesn't want to. But she's worried about being left on 
her own."

"And if we have sex, I'll stay and she'll get to keep William. 
Is that it?"

"She loves him. She thinks he's--" 

"A gift from God. I know." Mulder shouldered past Gibson and 
headed for the kitchen. His left leg ached like a son-of-a-
bitch and it dragged slightly as he limped down the hall. "You 
can stop worrying. I don't plan to sleep with her."

Gibson trailed after him. "Are you sure?"

Mulder spun around and Gibson almost stumbled into him. "What 
the hell makes you think I'm suddenly incapable of controlling 
my actions?"

"You aren't yourself," Gibson answered honestly. "You haven't 
been since Bellefleur."

Mulder tried to corral his irritation, reminding himself that 
Gibson was his friend. The teen had sheltered him during his 
exile. Mulder trusted him with his life. He took his opinions 
seriously. 

"You're right."

Months of torture at the hands of the aliens, followed by more 
torture courtesy of the U.S. military, had taken its toll. 
Summer vacation in a coffin and a year on the run hadn't 
helped his state of mind. 

Then he learned Scully had given their son away. It was the 
final straw, apparently. The most unlikely betrayal he could 
have imagined. It seemed irreconcilable. Unforgivable.

"Only if you want it to be," Gibson said. Light from the 
kitchen lamp reflected off his glasses, making his eyes 
unreadable. 

"Why in God's name would I want that?" 

Mulder's heart was pounding. He tried to steady his quaking 
hands. Failing, he entered the kitchen. His jacket was hanging 
where he'd left it on the back of a chair. He grabbed it and 
fished through the pockets for a cigarette. His fingers closed 
around the half empty pack and the lighter he'd stolen from a 
dead man in New Mexico. 

"You had something to tell me?" he asked, lighting up. "Other 
than to keep my dick in my pants?"

Gibson waited while Mulder drew on his cigarette. "Skinner's 
been hurt," he announced softly.

Mulder nearly dropped the lighter.

"How bad?" 

"I don't know."

Remorse sucker-punched Mulder. Four days ago Gibson had told 
him Skinner was leading an attack against the aliens in Salt 
Lake City. It was part of a larger offensive. Something called 
Operation Free Earth. Mulder should have been there to help.

"What about the other units, the ones you told me about, in 
Denver...Phoenix...Dallas?"

"A lot of people are dead." 

God damn it. Mulder held his breath, allowing the nicotine to 
flood his veins.

Smoke swirled ceiling-ward when he spoke. "Where is Skinner 
now?" 

"Hiding. Somewhere east of Salt Lake, a place called Safe 
Camp."

"Safe Camp? Is that near here?"

"Maybe. I'm not sure." 

Ash dripped from the cigarette onto the scuffed linoleum 
floor. "Will They be coming after him?"

Gibson shrugged, although the answer was obvious. A large-
scale alien victory meant no one was safe. There was nowhere 
to hide; They would find everyone eventually. 

Mulder knew he should join Skinner, help him defeat the 
invaders or die trying. 

When he's old enough, tell the kid I went down swinging, he'd 
once said to Scully. 

But if Mulder followed his quest to its bitter end, who would 
be left to protect his son? 

"I can't leave him. Not again. Not for any reason."

"I didn't say you should."

"It's too dangerous."

"We'll stay here then."

"For how long? Until They find us, too?"

"What choice do we have?"

Mulder tossed the butt of his cigarette into the sink. He had 
made his commitment months ago and it was to his son.

"I hate doing nothing," he muttered.  

"We could stock up on food, other stuff," Gibson suggested. 
"Get another heater." 

"And bury the Quealys." Mulder sniffed the air. The Quealys 
had been dead for days. The place should reek, but there was 
no stench of decaying flesh. No odor at all. 

He slipped the lighter back into his pocket and his knuckles 
bumped the artifact Gibson had found in the ruins at Kits'iil. 
He took it out and held it up to the light of the kitchen's 
single oil lamp.

"What is this thing?"

"Albert Hosteen said it was a key...the 'answer to the world's 
dire condition.'"

Mulder caressed it with his thumb, felt its tiny, incised 
symbols. "Maybe he wasn't speaking metaphorically. It could be 
a real key. A transponder," he said, wishing for the Gunmen's 
expertise. "Receives a signal, then responds with an identity 
data code. Like IFF." In response to Gibson's questioning look, 
he explained, "Identify Friend or Foe. IFF transponders were 
used during World War II on aircraft to identify them. Friendly 
aircraft responded to preprogrammed interrogation codes, 
indicating to radar operators they were okay."

"If the code in this transponder relays the appropriate 
information..."

"We're in like Flynn." He closed his fist around the device. 
The artifact seemed to warm in his hand. Mulder's voice 
thinned to a murmur, "Question is, in where?" 

What secret did the transponder protect? What truths would be 
revealed when it was fit into the appropriate lock? Was it a 
solution to the world's problems, as Hosteen had said? 

Or was it a key to a Pandora's Box?

*   *   * 

TSE'BIT'A'I
DECK 17

"How is she?" Ca-Lo asked, leading the way to the Ablution 
Pools.

Grower 16 hurried to keep pace with Ca-Lo's longer stride. 
"Splendid. We think you'll be very pleased." 

Prolonged exposure to cloning chemicals had discolored the 
Grower's gray skin, giving him an olive cast. His long fingers 
were stained dark copper and his Nih-hi-cho eyes were almost 
as emerald as Ca-Lo's. He wore a loose-fitting jumpsuit, 
soiled at the cuffs with protein ointment. The ointment's sour 
odor reminded Ca-Lo of sweat and semen, although Nih-hi-cho 
didn't sweat or ejaculate.    

"How much longer?" Ca-Lo asked.

"Another twenty-six days, unless we add accelerant." 

"No, no accelerant. Don't risk the embryonic root." 
Accelerants caused unpredictable mutations. This clone had to 
be perfect.

They entered the Pools' upper gallery, a vaulted mezzanine 
that overlooked an enormous hexagonal chamber twenty meters 
below. Massive square piers and glossy, onyx columns supported 
the balcony; arched portals overlooked hundreds of cultivation 
cisterns arranged in rows on the chamber's polished ebony 
floor. Growers identical to 16 tended the tanks, vigilantly 
monitoring their murky, phosphorescent fluid and the 
developing clones within. 

Clones. Detestable beings, in Ca-Lo's opinion. On the surface 
they appeared to be exact replicas of their original donors, 
but were in fact inferior because they lacked the indefinable, 
yet crucial, ingredient that distinguished true humans from 
their synthetic facsimiles -- what a more religious man might 
describe as a soul, bestowed by the Divine at the moment of 
natural conception. By comparison, clones were merely empty 
vessels, devoid of spirit. Second-rate reproductions.

Ca-Lo strode quickly toward the nearest spiral staircase. 
Grower 16 followed close behind. 

"How goes the Amicable Resolution?" 16 asked, referring to the 
recent rebellion. 

"It's over."

The Nih-hi-cho penchant for peaceful euphemisms irritated Ca-
Lo. They diminished the Armada's resounding victory. Fifty-six 
separate uprisings across the continent had been quashed. 
Surviving rebels were being hunted down and rounded up. 
Despite their paltry weapons, the humans had been superb 
strategists and fierce warriors in a guerrilla-style conflict 
that could have gone on for decades if not for the Armada's 
quick and precise response. The terrestrial offensive had been 
impressively coordinated and skillfully deployed without 
benefit of modern communications technology. Ca-Lo admired 
their leaders' cunning, ingenuity, and bravery. So much so, he 
had given explicit orders they be brought to Tse'Bit'a'i'... 
alive. He planned to interrogate each one personally, before 
they were executed.

The Grower's voice wobbled as he ran behind Ca-Lo. "Then we 
shall soon have hosts for the next generation of Infants! 
Good, good. The Nursery has lain empty too long. When is the 
first shipment due?"

"I wouldn't know," Ca-Lo said with annoyance. "The 
reproduction of your race is outside the purview of my 
responsibilities."   

"Apologies, sir." 16 ducked his head, but continued jabbering, 
his excitement overriding his manners. "This is a wondrous 
time to be alive. Momentous. Colonization is assured; the 
Juveniles are returning for the blessed Joining!"

The prospect of a Nih-hi-cho Joining made Ca-Lo's skin crawl. 

The Infants had gone through their transformation, shed their 
puerile skins to become adolescents. An entire neo-generation 
was gathering at Harmony I to be assimilated into the 
collective in a solemn ceremony of communal prayer. Minds 
would connect, thoughts conjoin. More than a million pious 
intellects would merge in joyous adoration of the Great Red 
Dragon and his Divine Legion of Angels. It was the Society's 
most revered ritual.

And Ca-Lo was not invited. The Nih-hi-cho believed the 
inherent inability of humans to access the Society's group 
consciousness would dilute the sanctity of the religious 
experience. In their eyes, autonomy was a weakness, 
individuality an abhorrent genetic failure, unworthy of the 
Holy Dragon. 

No wonder the Nih-hi-cho had a predilection for cloning. 
Duplication circumvented sexual reproduction while also 
satisfying their perverse desire for conformity.

By contrast, Ca-Lo prized his singularity above all else. It 
differentiated him from his Nih-hi-cho masters and their 
loathsome clones. He was unique; he was human.   

Ca-Lo jogged down the spiral staircase. When he passed through 
the arched door at the bottom, he was faced with scores of 
identical tanks containing partially formed clones. 

"Which one?" he asked, suppressing his revulsion.

"This way." Grower 16 took the lead.

They zigzagged through a maze of cisterns until the Grower 
stopped in front of Pool CVII and extended his tapered 
fingers. "Here."   

"Leave us," Ca-Lo ordered.

The Grower bowed and hurried away.

Alone, Ca-Lo pressed his palms to the side of the tank and 
studied the embryonic root inside. Beneath a protective layer 
of protein ointment, Cassandra Spender's familiar features 
were beginning to take shape.

"Mother."

Floating in the tank's gentle current, she seemed to roll 
toward him when he spoke, as if she could hear his voice. 
Impossible, of course. She was far too immature to hear 
anything at all. 

It had been a difficult decision to have her cloned. The husk 
in the tank was not his mother. No matter how closely it might 
resemble or act like Cassandra Spender, it could never be her. 
It would never possess her spirit.  

Still, Ca-Lo missed Cassandra's affection, the first and only 
kindness he had ever known. His desire to feel her gentle kiss 
once more upon his brow had been overwhelming.

The clone could assuage his loneliness. It might also provide 
clues to Cassandra's true origins. 

His "mother's" green blood had been unexpected, a profound 
disappointment, irrefutable proof that he was not her 
biological son. 

Ca-Lo was determined to learn the truth about her...and 
himself. 

He beckoned Grower 16 with a mental command.

"Sir?" The grower appeared a moment later.

"Transfer the genetic records of my mother's clone to the comp 
in my quarters."

"Oh. Hm."

"Is there a problem?"

"Yes...well...it's just that...hm...this clone's profile has 
been encrypted."

"Encrypted? Why?"

"We are not privy to the reason, sir."

"Certainly I'm allowed to view my own mother's genetic 
history, aren't I?"

"Em...no. You do not have permission...sir."

"On whose orders?"

"The Overseers, of course."

It was an insult. Ca-Lo had won the planet for them, yet they 
continued to treat him worse than their lowliest hybrid 
servants.

He would endure their humiliation no longer. He would 
challenge his alien masters.

"I'm done here." Ca-Lo turned away from Pool CVII. 

"Shall we walk out together?" Grower 16 asked.

"I can find my own way."     

*   *   *

Never in her worst nightmares had Dibeh imagined herself in a 
place so unfamiliar and frightening. 

Two armed guards kept watch over her day and night. They 
frowned and jabbered at her, prodded her with their rifles, 
stomped loudly up and down the floating wooden platform where 
she was being held prisoner. She huddled near the water's 
edge, fearful of falling into the sinister lake or being 
swallowed by the enormous sky. She had never been out in the 
open like this. Never so wet or cold.  

Her hands were restrained behind her back with biting plastic 
ties, making it impossible for her to sign to her angry human 
captors that her bladder was full and she needed to relieve 
herself soon or soil her garments. She could only hope they 
would not wait too long to take her to their necessarium, a 
filthy, smelly box built over a hole in the ground, full of 
excrement and buzzing flies.

Homesickness gripped her heart as tightly as the physical 
bonds that cinched her wrists. She longed to return to 
Tse'Bit'a'i's warm and welcoming interior, where the air 
smelled like be-la-sana mist and honey paste wax. There she 
was surrounded by the familiar faces of other hybrids. She 
missed her friends Ulso and Jeha. She even missed grumpy old 
Be-Gahi. 

Here she knew no one other than Lady Dana and the dark-skinned 
man with ropey hair and silver earrings. And aside from them, 
Earth people seemed cruel beings. 

They had given her nothing to eat, not one scrap of food since 
her arrival three days ago. She was allowed only one drink of 
water per day. Her tongue felt gummy and her throat raw. She 
was so hungry she would gobble down spoiled tacheene if given 
the chance. And her thirst was so intense she had even been 
tempted by the putrid water in the necessarium's foul pit.

Forced to sit for hours without moving, she was now shivering 
uncontrollably. Her thin garments did little to block the 
wind. Biting gusts carried prickly, foreign odors and the 
chill transformed every breath into ghostly vapors. A waning 
moon gleamed overhead like a Consort's silicon arm band, 
casting a hoary glow upon the metal barrels of the guards' 
M16s, the dock's gray planks, the choppy water and rocking 
boats.

The sloshing waves reminded Dibeh of the shuttle crash and the 
dead Refuter, salt water filling her mouth and nose, panic 
rising in her chest as she struggled to keep from drowning.

Silently she beseeched the Great Red Dragon, "Please help me. 
I have always loved you and kept faith in you and your Divine 
Angels. Please do not forsake me."

The moon slowly dimmed behind a cobweb of clouds. Wind whipped 
Dibeh's hair and stung her face like a thousand sewing 
needles.  

The pressure in her bladder was growing too great to bear. She 
grunted to the guards, hoping to make them understand her 
desperation.

"Shut the fuck up," yelled the tall one with pale eyes and 
oily hair. When she whimpered more softly, he thundered down 
the dock toward her and aimed his rifle at her head.

Dibeh closed her eyes and prayed, "Do not shoot me."

"Leave it alone, Burk," said the female guard with spiky hair.

"You an alien lover all of a sudden, DeSanctus?" Burk asked.

"No, but it isn't hurting anything."

"It's offending my sensibilities." Burk laughed at his own 
joke and the harsh sound ricocheted off the hulls of the 
surrounding boats. He poked Dibeh's temple with his rifle. She 
bowed her head and tried to make herself as small and 
inoffensive as possible. 

"You're scaring it," said DeSanctus.

"Awww. Too fuckin' bad." Burk jabbed Dibeh again. And again. 
"Quit looking at me," he warned, "unless you want one of them 
big ol' black eyes shot right out of your freakin' skull. You 
want that? Huh?" 

The barrel of his gun hovered a mere millimeter from her left 
eye.

Dibeh kept perfectly still.

"I don't hear it saying no." His finger twitched on the 
trigger. Unexpectedly, he shouted, "BANG!"

Dibeh jumped and her bladder emptied, soaking her thin 
trousers. A dark puddle spread quickly around her. It flowed 
between the slats of the dock and rained into the lake.

"Aw, Christ! The fucker pissed itself. Look at that! Pee-ew!" 

Shame heated Dibeh's cheeks as Burk cursed and paced up and 
down the dock, causing it to rock sickeningly from side to 
side.

"Burk, you're such an asshole," DeSanctus said.

"I ain't the one stinking up the place." He sniffed the air. 
"I think it needs a bath."  

"Burk...come on. We got orders. We aren't supposed to hurt 
it."

"We ain't hurting it. Way I see it we're doing the fucker a 
favor." He handed his rifle to DeSanctus, then gathered a rope 
from one of the dock's cleats. "Shoot the little shit if it 
tries to bite me."

"What are you gonna do?" DeSanctus asked.

"Dip it in the drink. Rinse off the stench." 

Burk threaded the rope roughly beneath Dibeh's arms and around 
her chest. He tied a tight knot, then tested it by giving it a 
yank that squeezed the air from Dibeh's lungs. Using the rope 
to lift her, he dangled her over the water.

She squirmed with fright as waves lapped her bare toes. Burk 
laughed again, just before he dropped her into the icy black 
water.

Cold engulfed her. Panic stiffened her spine. She kicked 
frantically, but was unable to rise to the surface. With her 
hands bound, she was helpless. 

She sank slowly, her breath held against death while fear 
sliced into her like a newly sharpened boning knife. Already 
her legs were so numb she could not feel her feet. Perhaps 
they hit bottom, because she seemed to stop moving and a fog 
of silt rose up from below, billowing around her, making it 
impossible to see.

She waited there for what seemed an eternity, lungs aching for 
air. When she could bear the pain no more, it occurred to her 
she might open her mouth and throat, and thereby end her 
thirst and her life with one quick inhalation. 

Would it hurt? Maybe it would soothe her parched throat.

She unclenched her jaw. Opened her mouth. 

Shadows swirled in the current beneath the dock. The thick 
piers appeared to sway. They took on the shape and proportion 
of a multi-headed serpent. Beards of algae became scales. 
Silvery bubbles transformed into glistening eyes.

Divine Angels, it was the Great Red Dragon.

An old prayer hummed in Dibeh's mind, one of the first she had 
ever learned:  

"My eyes are ever toward you, O Holy One,
For you relieve the troubles of my heart.
Consider my distress.
Consider how many are my foes, 
And with what violent detestation they hate me.
Oh guard my life and deliver me,
For I take refuge in your infinite love."

As if in a dream, the Dragon's tail coiled carefully around 
her waist and buoyed her to the surface.

"Do not surrender," one of the Dragon's seven mouths whispered 
into her ear. "You have reason yet to live."  

Tossed by the serpent's curled tail, Dibeh landed on her back 
atop the dock's rough surface. She closed her eyes. Gasped for 
air. Choked. An urge to vomit rocked her stomach as she was 
dragged several meters. The planks beneath her shook with the 
approach of heavy footfalls. She was rolled onto her stomach.

"Untie her!" growled a deep, masculine voice.

Dibeh was jostled; her arms flopped to her sides like bread 
dough, heavy and unfeeling. Searing fingers gripped her jaw, 
lifted her chin from the deck. She blinked water from her eyes 
and tried to focus on the face in front of her.

Not the Red Dragon.

But another savior. 

It was Lady Dana's friend, the man who had rescued her from 
the salty lake. Walter Skinner.

He leveled squinting eyes at Burk, who stood with one end of 
the wet rope still dangling from his fist. 

"Sir, I wasn't doin' any--" Burk dropped the rope.

"Find Dr. Scully. Bring her here," Skinner ordered. "Now."

"But sir--"

"Go!" Turning to DeSanctus, Skinner said, "Locate Royal 
Jackson and tell him to get his ass out here, ASAP."  

CONTINUED IN BOOK VI (PART 2)...