Title: THE MASTODON DIARIES
Author: aka "Jake" 

x-x-x-x-x-x

CHAPTER TEN

"Let's go inside, by the firelight," Mulder said, tugging 
Scully to her feet. He wanted a better look at her new scar.

Once inside, he added a stick of wood to the glowing coals. 
The fire crackled to life and brightened the cave with its 
flickering light. Scully let the fur blanket slip from her 
shoulders to the ground. Dressed only in black camisole and 
panties, she drew the camisole up to her breasts to expose her 
stomach. She faced the flames while Mulder knelt to examine 
the quarter-sized scar that marked her otherwise unblemished 
skin.

"Tell me about your vision," he murmured, running his fingers 
over the puckered knot a few inches from her navel.

She stood motionless, allowing him to examine her with his 
eyes and hands. "Most of it made no sense," she said.

"Tell me anyway."

"Images came and went. They followed no logical order...at 
least none that I could discern."

"But you sensed they were snapshots of your future?" He 
glanced up into her eyes. 

She looked frightened.

"More like video clips, but yes, I got the impression I was 
looking at the future." 

He turned her so that he could inspect her back. 

There was a cherry-red exit wound on her back, just above her 
faded tattoo. No mistaking it -- it was a bullet wound, only a 
week or two old.

She peered at him over her shoulder. "You were there."

"Well, that's some relief, at least." If her vision 
represented their future he was glad to know he was part of 
it. "It implies we get back home. You realize that, don't 
you?"

"Yes. Unfortunately, I didn't find out how or when. Or if the 
future is immutable. Suppose the things I saw are only one 
possibility?"

"An infinite number of futures?"

"Built upon an infinite number of actions, here or possibly in 
the future."

"Our future selves saving our past selves' asses?" This was 
getting more convoluted by the minute. "Let's assume that what 
you saw was *the* future -- the one and only future. Do you 
remember anything that might help us get from here to there?" 
He rose to his feet.

She pulled her camisole down over her stomach and turned to 
face him. The firelight etched lines of worry into her shadowy 
expression. "I'm sorry, Mulder, I don't."

Cupping her cheek, he tried to smooth her frown with his 
thumb. Did she really not remember? It scared him to think she 
might not. He relied on her calm logic, and right now they 
needed her rationalism more than ever. They needed her to 
remember what she saw. 

"Think, Scully. Were there any references to Lisa Ianelli, 
time travel, Flux Space, tachyons, anything?" 

"Nothing like that. We were...driving in a car."

"To...?" 

"I don't know." Her voice quavered with uncertainty. "Across a 
desert." 

He wanted to help her remember. He *had* to help her. "Great 
Salt Lake, outside Hill Air Force Base?"

"I don't think so, but I'm not sure." 

He released her cheek and let his arm drop to his side. Damn 
it, this was frustrating. "What else?" he asked, trying to 
keep any hint of annoyance out of his voice. Scully's vision 
had clearly left her shaken and he didn't want her to clam up 
because of his insensitivity.

"We exchanged Christmas gifts."

Christmas gifts? "In the car?"

"No, later. Or maybe earlier. I don't know." She shook her 
head dismissively.

Don't give up, Scully. Not yet. "What about the bullet wound?"

"I remember being shot. I remember the pain. And I remember 
getting my tattoo removed, and learning about your sister."

His sister, dead for almost twenty years. Jesus, please don't 
let it be true. 

"Scully, is it possible this Arbutus Ray person was lying to 
you? Maybe she worked for Old Smokey."

"Maybe. All I can say is that I believed her."

"But she might not have been privy to the truth. Someone might 
have lied to her or...or..." He was grasping at straws, he 
knew. He couldn't bear the notion that his sister might be 
lost forever -- after all his searching, all his hoping. 

"Mulder, you believed her, too." She put a hand on his arm. 
Tears of sympathy glittered along her lower lashes as she 
looked up at him. Evidently she knew he would find her words 
difficult to accept. "You seemed...relieved."

Anger welled up in him at this revelation. "Relieved to learn 
my sister was dead? Does that sound like me? Does it make 
sense?" 

"Right now, nothing makes sense." She leaned toward him and 
rested her cheek gently against his chest.

His arms circled her as if by instinct. She felt small in his 
embrace, but not as vulnerable as he had supposed. She was 
telling him the truth the way she had seen it. He hated her 
words, but he appreciated her honesty, and her integrity 
purged him of his momentary anger. 

He placed a kiss on the crown of her head. Lingering there, he 
wondered what answers a second vision might provide.    

He also wondered if there was something here in this 
particular location that had triggered her foresight. Were 
they standing in or near a Flux Space portal? 

Scanning the cave, his eyes settled on the painted wall with 
its larger-than-life Serpent Holder. The alien-looking 
creature stared back at him with an unreadable expression. If 
the painting had any answers, it was keeping them secret. 

His gaze traveled down the wall to the tiny carved idol on the 
ground below the Serpent Holder's feet. Scully had been 
holding it when she collapsed. Had it caused her vision? Maybe 
it was a nexus of some sort, or at the very least, contained 
powerful Pleistocene magic. Staring at it, he felt certain of 
one thing: his paranormal radar was picking up another signal.  

*   *   *

Mulder tucked his shirt into his pants and buckled his belt. 
He'd hardly slept a wink all night, tossing and turning, 
worrying about Scully's visions and their uncertain future. It 
was only after they made love again around 4:00 a.m. that he 
was finally able to drift off. 

He nudged her sleeping form before collecting their travel 
packs and the waterbag. "Rise and shine."

She groaned and crawled out from under the fur blanket. His 
eyes skimmed her trim curves with appreciation. She wore only 
her underwear, and his pulse quickened at the sight. He let 
his brain replay their lovemaking: both rounds of it. Jesus, 
she made him feel eighteen again.

She sat and tilted her head left to right, snapping the bones 
in her neck.

"Come on, Scully. Let's go." He tugged the blanket out from 
under her, then rolled it into a tight cylindrical bundle, 
which he stuffed into one of the packs. 

She said nothing, but stood to get dressed. He let her be. She 
wasn't angry. This was just her usual morning reticence. He'd 
learned years ago to keep his comments to a minimum until she 
was ready for morning conversation. His Chatty Cathy act 
seemed to grate on her nerves at this early hour, especially 
here in the Ice Age where there were no Latte Grandes to take 
the edge off.

He rolled the second blanket while she slipped into her jeans 
and turtleneck. Getting lucky twice in one night had put him 
in good spirits this morning. He felt like humming a few bars 
of "Love Me Tender" while waltzing her around the cave, but 
knew better than to try it.

"Hungry?" he asked.

"Mm," she grunted. Donning her jacket, she headed out of the 
cave.

Almost as an afterthought, he retrieved the tiny carved idol 
from where she'd dropped it last night. If it had sparked her 
"vision" -- which he wasn't entirely convinced was a vision, 
despite her new scar -- it might prove useful by helping them 
find a way home. He stuffed it into his jacket pocket.

"Wait for me." He hurried after her, weighted down by the 
packs and spears, but buoyed by a night of sweet love.

He quickly caught up with her and together they followed the 
path down the hill to the stream where they'd left the dead 
sloth the previous day.

As they approached the carcass, something about it seemed off 
to Mulder. It looked blacker than he remembered. And its fur 
appeared to be...moving.

"Uh, Scully? Do you see that?"

"I see it." She stopped, causing him to nearly run her over.

He set down his things and grabbed the binoculars from his 
jacket pocket.

"Shit," he said, looking through them, his good mood 
evaporating.

He passed them to her.

"Ants," she said without emotion. 

He took a step forward, but she placed a hand on his arm to 
stop him. 

"Don't, Mulder. There are species of ants that can take down 
and kill a large mammal, including a human."

Thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of ants covered the 
sloth, animating its body in the creepiest way and obscuring 
the ground beneath it.

"That was our breakfast." He hated the petulant whine in his 
voice, but dammit, he'd risked his life to kill that sloth.

"Survival of the fittest, Mulder...or, in this case, the 
fastest."

This was infuriating. The meat was right there, not fifteen 
yards away.

"Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck." 

"You could try scaring them off with your gun," she suggested 
dryly, reminding him of yesterday's wolves and his wasted 
bullet. 

"Very funny." He paced, stopped, paced some more, then turned 
to squint at the insect-riddled corpse. "Maybe we could eat 
the ants, too. They're protein, aren't they?"

"I doubt the meat is safe to eat, with or without the ants. 
It's been sitting unrefrigerated all night." Turning around, 
she walked past him, heading upland along Klizzie's marked 
trail.

That was it? She was just going to walk away? He looked again 
at the ants. They'd already devoured most of the meat and were 
starting to dismantle the skeleton.

Fuck.

He reluctantly followed after Scully.

"We should have known better," she said when he caught up with 
her.

"How's that?"

"Ants, vultures, wolves -- something was bound to take that 
meat. We should have cut it up and cooked what we needed 
immediately. We didn't think ahead."

"So next time we'll know better."

She leveled her gaze at him. "We're working blindfolded here, 
Mulder. We may not survive a next time." 

*   *   *

Dzeh selected a shady spot away from the bustling activity of 
the camp where he could sit and work in quiet. His mouth felt 
drier than last season's pine nuts and his stomach flopped 
like a hooked fish. The late morning sun jabbed his eyes, 
making his head pound. 

Damn the Spirits, he regretted drinking so much wo-chi last 
night. 

The evening had been rowdy and pleasant. Forty or more men 
from Owl, Badger and Otter Clans had crowded the Prayer Lodge 
to share stories and jokes, pray to the Spirits, play gambling 
games and drink wo-chi. 

Lots of wo-chi. 

The potent liquid had been brewed specifically for the nightly 
revelries during the days-long Mastodon Feast. The drink was 
essential to the celebration; its fermented honey allowed the 
various Spirits to enter the men's bodies and minds, blessing 
them with visions and insight, as well as giving them a sense 
of contentment and camaraderie.

Unfortunately, the departing Spirits usually left storms in 
Dzeh's head the following day.

He tossed his tool kit to the ground beneath a broad butternut 
tree. Trying to minimize the thunder inside his skull, he 
eased himself slowly onto the grass. Thankfully there was no 
wind to rattle the leaves over his head and needle his 
oversensitive ears. As it was, a faint whiff of roasting meat 
from somebody's breakfast fire threatened to empty his 
stomach. Breathing through his mouth, he arranged himself 
cross-legged on the grass and slowly opened his tool kit.

The small leather pouch held a hammerstone, a few lumps of raw 
chert, several knapping tools made from bone, and three 
unfinished spear points. Dzeh withdrew his favorite knapper 
and one of the unfinished points. His head hurt too much to 
pound new points, so he left the hammer and unworked chert 
inside the kit.

Swatting away a pesky deerfly, he wondered why the boy Chal 
hadn't come by to see him earlier this morning as he was 
supposed to. Dzeh had told his father to send him after 
breakfast so he could meet him, ask a few questions. Dzeh 
wanted to gauge the boy's competency and his character before 
arranging a Joining with Gini. If this Badger Clan boy was to 
become Gini's mate someday, he would need to possess an 
honorable disposition and adequate survival skills. 

It was well known that the men of Badger Clan were skilled 
marksmen. They were shrewd traders, too, and their women were 
expert cooks and tanners. Klizzie's Badger Clan aunts had 
taught her how to work skins into supple hides -- the softest 
Dzeh had ever felt. 

Overall, the people of Badger Clan were principled and 
generous. Their ways were not too contrary to Owl Clan's. 
There were some, of course, like Klizzie's chindi cousin Klesh 
and her no-account brother Tse-e, who were contemptible men, 
but every clan had its share of rotten fish. To their credit, 
the Badger Shaman was a powerful medicine man; his clan seldom 
went hungry or became ill. 

Badger Clan would make an acceptable family for Gini...if the 
boy proved to be healthy and strong. And kind-hearted. Dzeh 
refused to Promise his little sister to the hearth of a mean-
spirited man. 

Thinking of these things, worrying about Gini's future, Dzeh 
began to meticulously chip flakes from his partially finished 
spear point. He used his bone knapper to shape the stone until 
it resembled a laurel leaf approximately the length of his 
middle finger. 

The familiar activity calmed his queasy stomach and helped 
quiet the drums in his head. 

It also brought him closer to the spirit of his father. 

Dzeh had learned to make spear points by watching his father 
and uncles. Knowing how to work the stone properly was a skill 
crucial to the Clan's survival. His father had taught him how 
to make raw chert more pliable by exposing it to intense heat, 
burying it in a shallow depression and then building a fire on 
top of it. Once the rock cooled, it could then be chipped into 
tools that would remain sharp even after repeated use on long 
hunting excursions.

Chert was not a common stone in Owl Clan's territory. There 
were no natural sources; the Clan had to trade for it. With 
only a few pieces left in his kit, Dzeh hoped Turtle Clan 
would be bringing a new supply with them to the Feast. He 
would trade several of Klizzie's well-tanned hides for each 
fist-sized chunk.

Dzeh considered himself a fairly shrewd trader, getting the 
better deal more often than not. He glanced at the unusual 
ornament fastened to his wrist. Muhl-dar's remarkable 
bracelet. 

Much to his delight, Dzeh had recently discovered the bracelet 
glowed in the dark like a lightning bug when he pushed one of 
the prongs on its side. The symbols on its smooth face changed 
moment by moment, too. The men of Eel Clan must be very clever 
to create such a mysterious ornament. An Eel Clan boy would 
make a worthy mate for Gini if their ways weren't quite so 
foreign. 

Dzeh wondered where his strange Trading Partner was right now. 
Was Muhl-dar following Klizzie's stone markers to Turkey Lake? 

Four days had come and gone since Owl Clan had arrived at 
Tabaha Lodge. Otter Clan showed up the following day. And last 
night a messenger from Turtle Clan had appeared, out of breath 
and full of exciting news. Turtle Clan was only a day's hike 
away. This news energized the entire camp. The Mastodon Feast 
would begin as soon as all four clans were settled in. 

In the meantime, there was much to do to get ready.

The women were hurrying today to set up additional shelters, 
collect more firewood, harvest fresh greens, roots, and 
berries. The older boys were fishing for bass, pickerel and 
bullheads in Turkey Lake, while the girls gathered snails 
along the shore and hunted for duck eggs in the reeds. Even 
the smallest children added to the stores by trapping turtles 
and frogs, or scooping fish eggs into gourds.

Berries and fish eggs were fine things to eat, but bigger game 
would be needed to feed the mouths of four hungry clans. The 
men planned to hunt mastodon at dusk tonight, the time of day 
when the animals were most likely to pass between First and 
Second Camel Mountain on their way to Turkey Lake for an 
evening drink. The narrow gorge between the hills was a 
perfect spot for an ambush, and not too far away to haul a 
butchered carcass back to camp. Yesterday's scouting party had 
reported finding fresh mastodon sign along the trail there. 
Last night, the men had prayed to the Mastodon Spirit for a 
successful hunt and offered copious amounts of wo-chi to all 
the Spirits.   

Dzeh wondered if the Spirits' heads ached as badly as his this 
morning.

Reasonably satisfied with the overall shape of his spear 
point, Dzeh began honing its edges razor sharp. Then, using a 
groove cutter, he forced away more pieces of stone to form 
flutes down the center on each side. These grooves would 
eventually cradle the spear's wooden shaft.

He was almost finished when the boy named Chal finally 
appeared. He came within a pace or two of Dzeh and then waited 
to be invited to sit. 

Who-Neh's son looked younger than Dzeh had expected and seemed 
somewhat undersized for a boy of twelve years. But he was 
tanned and muscled and, overall, appeared healthy. At least he 
bore no obvious defects. 

He was dressed in a Badger Clan breechclout and leggings. A 
new tattoo marked his reddened left shoulder with a spiky 
design, common among his kin. Two curving claws dangled from 
his pierced ears, indicating the boy had successfully killed 
his first bear. Not an easy thing to do, even for a grown man. 

This boy Chal showed potential, it seemed.

"You are late," Dzeh growled.

The boy bowed his head. "Sorry, Uncle. My father slept late 
this morning. I only just learned you wanted to see me."

Chal was not Dzeh's nephew, of course, but the boy used the 
formal title out of respect.

Dzeh remained silent, ignoring the apology, making Chal stand 
and wait a while longer. 

It was no surprise that Who-Neh had remained late in his 
sleeping skins this morning. The talkative man had been the 
last to bed. The entire camp heard him singing and laughing 
his way from the Prayer Lodge to his hearth where Ho-Ya 
greeted him with angry words. 

Dzeh shook his head. Although these were Klizzie's kin, they 
left much to be desired. Ho-Ya had less sense than a clubbed 
catfish and Who-Neh, while friendly, was the sort of man who 
would gamble his last good knife in a betting game. If their 
son turned out to be equally dim-witted, Dzeh would look 
elsewhere for Gini's future mate. There were other boys in 
Badger and Otter Clans, although admittedly most were older 
and ready for mates now. Dzeh was not willing to give Gini 
away to an older man; she was too young to share a sleeping 
skin just yet. If he couldn't find a suitable match for his 
sister this season, no matter, he could wait a year or two.

"Sit," he ordered Chal. "Show me how the men of Badger Clan 
make spear points." He tossed the boy a lump of raw chert and 
a hammerstone from his kit. The stones landed with a soft thud 
in the grass at young Chal's feet. 

The boy crouched to inspect the uncut stone. Nervously licking 
his lips, he picked up the hammer. His hands shook a little as 
he positioned the rock for the first blow.

"That chert is valuable," Dzeh reminded the boy just as he was 
about to take his first strike.

Chal nodded, serious and respectful. He repositioned the 
chert. Taking aim, he struck the rock. His angle was good, the 
impact well considered. A perfect flake broke loose from the 
chert. The boy swallowed hard, turned the stone and struck the 
back with equally fine results. 

Dzeh watched without comment while he hammered the chert into 
a well-shaped point. The boy had skill.

"You will join tonight's mastodon hunt," Dzeh said. "You will 
be my hunting partner."

Chal's eyes rounded. "B-but, Uncle, I have never hunted 
mastodons."

"Then you will learn how tonight." Dzeh nodded at the boy's 
new spear point. "Lash that to a stout shaft. Bring it with 
you."

The boy stared at him, dumbstruck.

Dzeh returned his tools to his kit and then rose to his feet, 
taking care to hide the discomfort in his head from the boy. 
Walking away, he called over his shoulder, "Don't worry, 
Nephew. It has been at least two years since I had a partner 
killed during a mastodon hunt." 

*   *   *

Three days had passed since Mulder and Scully's night in the 
cave. Three days of arduous hiking. Three days without a 
decent meal. Three days without sex. 

Fucking ants.

Fucking Ice Age.

Fucking uphill all the way to goddamn nowhere. 

The forest lay behind them. Ahead was another mountain, its 
summit worn smooth by eons of advancing and retreating 
glaciers. Miniature evergreens, dwarfed by constant wind and 
lack of soil, dotted the rocky landscape. The sky was clear, 
but a breeze was blowing, high-pitched and constant, sounding 
like whale song as it vibrated across the stone. Mulder's 
clothes flapped in the cross-draft. He squinted against the 
sting of his wind-whipped hair. His arms, weighted by both 
packs and the spears, felt ready to snap.   

He glanced back at Scully. She limped along several paces 
behind him, favoring her left ankle. 

Why had he insisted they go to Hill Air Force Base in the 
first place? He should have known better. These things never 
ended well. Had he *ever* trespassed on government property 
without regretting it? Ever? Even once? Why should this time 
be any different? 

He waited for Scully to catch up, one stiff step at a time. 
Honestly, the poor woman seemed doomed to follow him straight 
to Hell. What had she done to deserve this terrible fate? 

"You must have been an ax murderer in a former life, Scully," 
he said.

"That's funny, because I've been thinking about becoming one 
in this life."

Obviously she was still pissed.

He was feeling pretty damn pissy himself, but he decided it 
would be in his best interest to keep his attitude under 
control. "Good thing there are no axes here. Maybe you'll get 
lucky and we'll end up in the Bronze Age next time."

She limped past him, her expression ice cold as she trekked 
slowly, painfully uphill. "Don't think I won't stone you to 
death."

He trailed after her, keeping his distance. "How is it my 
fault you tripped and hurt your ankle?"

She turned to glare at him over her shoulder.

"Watch your step," he said, pointing to the uneven terrain 
ahead. His warning was meant to needle her more than help. 

"Cause and effect, Mulder," she said, returning her focus to 
her feet. "It was you, was it not, who chose to ignore FBI 
protocol and lead us on this unauthorized investigation into a 
classified U.S. military facility where you breached a clearly 
marked security fence to illegally trespass on government 
property, which caused us to wind up in a...a time warp or 
Flux Space or whatever, sending us 12,000 years into the past, 
completely unprepared, I might add, to this...this godforsaken 
place with stampeding mastodons and hungry saber-toothed 
tigers and giant killer sloths, where...where there are no 
bathtubs or coffee shops or taxi cabs or...or..." She paused 
to take a breath before ending with, "and then I hurt my 
ankle. That's how it's your fault."

"That...that's one way of looking at it." He nodded. "You 
sound upset."

She stopped walking and pivoted to face him. "I am upset, 
Mulder. I'm hungry, sweaty, and my goddamn ankle hurts."

"Want me to carry the waterbag?" He reached for the bag that 
hung from her left hand.

She shrugged him off. "I've got it."

"I don't mind. Really."

Her hair writhed in the wind as her stormy expression 
unexpectedly vanished when she looked into his eyes. Voice 
softening, she said, "I know, Mulder. It's just..." Her voice 
gave out and tears filled her eyes.

He set down the packs and spears and took her into his arms. 
She leaned heavily against him while he stroked her tangled 
hair. His heart ached, seeing her hurt, knowing he was the 
cause of it. "Do you want to rest for a minute?"

"No, we're almost to the top."

It was true. Another one of Klizzie's markers waited for them 
fifty yards ahead on the crest of the hill. 

"We can rest when we catch up with Klizzie and the others," 
she said, pulling away.

He took hold of her hand, unwilling to let her go just yet. 
"We have no idea when that'll be. You should sit for a few 
minutes. Check that ankle."

"If I take off my boot, I may not get it back on. It's the 
only thing keeping the swelling down."

"Then I'll carry you," he offered, opening his arms.

"No, thanks." She backed away and winced when she put weight 
on her injured leg.

"Come on, Scully. You can barely walk."

"I'm fine. You're already carrying everything else." She 
indicated the supplies.

He stooped to gather the packs in one hand and the spears in 
the other and then presented his back to her, bending at the 
knees, prepared to carry her piggyback. "Get on."

"No."

He glanced over his shoulder at her. "Just do it, Scully. 
Don't argue."

"I'm too heavy."

"Hardly. Just to the top of the hill."

"It's too far."

"No, it's not. Get on." He crouched a bit lower to entice her.

"Just to the marker?"

"I swear."

Still looking unconvinced, she took hold of his shoulders and 
climbed onto his stooped back. The spears and packs made 
holding her awkward, but she truly didn't weigh much. He was 
glad to do this for her. "Comfy?" he asked.

"Yes." She gasped when he straightened. "Don't drop me."

"I won't drop you." 

He took a tentative step, testing his balance. Once he was 
sure of his footing, he strode up the hill toward the marker.

Scully hung on as if for dear life, arms clutching his neck, 
thighs locked around his ribs. He liked the way her panting 
breath tickled the upper ridge of his left ear, and he 
couldn't help but notice the cushiony press of her breasts 
against his upper back.

"Doin' okay?" he asked.

"I'm fine. How about you?"

"Hardly know you're there."

As light as she was, his thigh muscles were burning by the 
time he crested the top of the hill. His discomfort vanished, 
however, the moment he looked into the valley on the other 
side.

"My God." Scully's words puffed against his cheek.

Grassland covered a gentle downhill slope from where they 
stood to a vast blue lake at the bottom. The lake was shaped 
like an open hand and it sparkled in the bright afternoon sun. 
On its southwestern shore was a village of fifty or more domed 
shelters: tidy, peaceful, the grass already worn thin between 
the huts. Several cooking fires burned in the open spaces and 
Mulder could smell their smoke. He heard laughter, muted by 
distance; saw men, women and children, dozens of them, going 
about the business of life, cooking, washing, building more 
shelters, swimming in the lake.

He remained still, overwhelmed by the scene in front of him. 
He felt caught in a current of timelessness, like starlight 
that has traveled across the universe, only to arrive brand 
new in an already ancient place. Between heartbeats he felt as 
if he was living twenty thousand lifetimes. Space and time 
expanded beyond the scope of his vision, beyond his power of 
physical perception, beyond all human comprehension. 

It was with both regret and wonderment that he realized this 
infinite moment was only the tiniest fraction of a whole.

"We made it," Scully said, her voice thick with emotion. She 
slid from his back. 

He helped to steady her once her feet touched the ground, all 
the while staring with unblinking awe at the community 
below...at their salvation. 

*   *   *

Gini and Jeha waded into the lake, leaving behind the group of 
girls who were gathering snails along the pebbled beach. The 
two friends were after duck eggs, not snails. Each carried a 
basket they'd woven out of broad cattail leaves and lined with 
down. Gini had stuck a yellow bullhead-lily into hers for 
luck.

They hadn't gone far when she spotted a nest. She splashed 
through head-high reeds, frightening the mother duck off her 
perch. While the duck squawked at her from the rushes, Gini 
emptied the nest, carefully placing four ivory-colored eggs 
into her basket.

Jeha was more interested in talking about boys than in 
collecting eggs. Standing knee deep in weeds and water, she 
idly swung her empty basket. "Moasi kissed me last night," she 
said, her voice high-pitched with excitement. 

Cool mud oozed up between Gini's toes as she waded deeper. The 
sun beat down upon the crown of her head and heated her dark 
braids, while blossoming azaleas, waterlogged lilies and newly 
hatched pollywogs scented the air.

"What did it feel like?" she asked, not half as excited about 
boys or kisses as her older friend.

"Warm and...a little wet."

Gini crinkled her nose in disgust. She took a few more steps, 
plowing through buckbean and stargrass. A cluster of glossy 
water beetles skated out of her way. "It was wet?"

Jeha giggled and then lowered her voice to a whisper. "He put 
his tongue in my mouth."

"Yuck!" Gini's shout flushed out another duck. It flew up over 
the lake, scolding the girls as it went. Gini turned to stare 
at her friend. "Why did he do that?"

Jeha shrugged. "I liked it."

For Spirit's sake, Gini thought, Jeha was becoming more 
foolish with every passing day. Why would anyone want a boy's 
tongue in her mouth?

"Well, I am never going to let a boy do that to me," she said. 
"I would rather suck on a rotten egg." She spotted another 
nest hidden in the rushes a few paces away. It cradled five 
eggs. Curling her toes into the mud for firmer footing, she 
edged her way between the reeds to the nest.

"You will be singing a different song once you are Promised," 
Jeha predicted.

"I am not going to be Promised. Ever. Klizzie said I did not 
have to."

"Then why is your brother meeting with Chal this morning?"

"What?" Gini spun to face her friend, nearly dropping her 
basket of eggs. "Where did you hear that?"

"Ho-Ya told my mother at breakfast. Chal is with Dzeh right 
now. I saw them together myself before coming to fetch you."

"Nooo!" Gini wailed. "You must be mistaken."

"Gini, I saw them with my own eyes. Chal was sitting with Dzeh 
beneath the butternut tree at the edge of camp. They were 
making spear points or something."

Gini felt bees begin to buzz in her stomach again.

Jeha waded past her, removed the eggs from the nest and added 
them to her own basket. "I think Chal is handsome, although 
not as good-looking as Moasi."

Handsome? How could she think such a thing? Chal was a skinny, 
rude boy with hair like a porcupine. He wasn't the least bit 
handsome. Gini was about to say so when she heard a shout from 
one of the girls on the beach.

"Gini! Jeha! Come quick!"

"What do you suppose is the matter?" Jeha asked.

"Let's go see." Gini led the way, splashing toward shore.

When they reached the other girls, they found them gaping at 
Crouching Cat Mountain. "Look," one of the girls said, 
pointing a finger at the mountain's sloping meadow.

There, halfway down the hill, two hikers plodded steadily 
closer to camp. The man was dark-haired and tall. He carried 
two spears and a heavy pack. The woman was shorter, her head 
crowned with hair the color of fox fur. Both wore strange, 
foreign garments.

"Muhl-dar! Day-nuh!" Gini squealed. She dropped her basket and 
began to run to the newcomers, pushing her legs as fast as 
they would carry her.    

*   *   *

"Muhl-dar! Muhl-dar!" Gini's high-pitched shout carried 
halfway up the hill.

"That's Gini," Scully said, breathy with exertion and 
excitement.

Mulder shared her enthusiasm. They'd made it. They'd found the 
others. After more than two weeks of hiking and hunger, the 
end was in sight. He hadn't expected to feel such a rush of 
overwhelming relief. He swallowed a lump in his throat as he 
watched little Gini run pell-mell toward him, braids flopping, 
her white smile evident even at this distance. A knot of 
children raced along after her, equally exuberant.

When Gini reached Mulder, she hurled herself into his 
outstretched arms. 

"Muhl-dar! Muhl-dar!" she gasped, clinging to his neck with a 
fierce grip. 

He let his spears fall to the ground to lift her off her feet. 
She wrapped her thin legs around his waist and hugged him 
hard. Chattering non-stop, she gulped for air even as she 
spoke. He patted her braids and waited for her to talk herself 
out.

It was a long wait; she evidently had a lot to say.

"I think she missed you," Scully said. 

Mulder peered into the happy child's eyes and smiled. "I 
missed you, too." His gladness at seeing Gini was prompted by 
more than relief, he realized. This young girl had wheedled 
her way into his heart. In many ways she reminded him of Sam, 
and her greeting felt like a homecoming.      

The other children soon surrounded Mulder and Scully. Some 
hopped with excitement. Others hung back, not knowing what to 
make of these strangers. One girl gathered Mulder's fallen 
spears and volunteered to carry them back to the camp.

"Fine, fine," he told the child, guessing her intention. "Lead 
on." 

They started downhill together, high-spirited and noisy. One 
child ran ahead, presumably to notify the rest of the camp. 
Not that a messenger was necessary. The people in the village 
had already spotted the newcomers and were hiking out to greet 
them. Mulder spotted Klizzie among the crowd. She waved her 
arms and shrieked with delight when she recognized them. 

Mulder held onto Gini, letting her ride his hip as they walked 
down into the valley. She beamed with pride, giggling and 
yammering as she tugged at his short whiskers and kissed his 
cheeks and nose.

At the bottom of the hill Klizzie greeted Scully with a warm 
embrace, tears flooding her eyes. Mulder noticed Scully had 
tears in her eyes, too, and it put the lump back in his throat 
to see her so happy. The two women held each other for several 
long minutes while the crowd of curious onlookers grew.  

When Klizzie finally broke away, she turned to face Mulder. 

Mulder set Gini on the ground. He wanted to thank Klizzie 
properly for all the stone markers she'd left along the trail; 
he and Scully never would have made it without her help. 
Unable to express his gratitude in words due to the lack of 
common language, he leaned down to embrace her and accept her 
gentle kiss on his cheek.

"Thank you, Klizzie," he whispered into her ear, hoping she 
would understand the depth of his appreciation from the 
heartfelt tone of his voice.

Over Klizzie's shoulder, Mulder saw Dzeh and a group of men 
approaching at a trot from the camp. They bristled with 
weapons and Mulder was unsure how to interpret their spears 
and knives. 

But he needn't have worried. Dzeh stepped forward to welcome 
him with a broad smile. He displayed his wristwatch and 
pointed with pride at the bear claw necklace around Mulder's 
neck.

Mulder caught himself reaching out to clasp the other man's 
hand -- a 20th Century habit, unrecognized here in the Ice 
Age. Apparently a whack on the back was the accepted form of 
greeting. Dzeh thumped Mulder repeatedly, jarring him with 
unexpected force, using every ounce of strength in his 
muscular arms.

In an effort to divert his enthusiasm, Mulder pointed to the 
spears and asked, "What's all this?"

Dzeh launched into a long explanation, not a word of which 
Mulder understood. Meanwhile, the women were circling around 
Scully. They clucked their tongues in a sympathetic manner as 
they pointed from her injured ankle to one of the village 
huts.   

The men's conversation became more animated. They closed in on 
Mulder, separating him from Scully as she was led away by the 
women.

"Scully?" he called to her, looking over the men's shoulders.

"I'm okay, Mulder," she yelled back. "I'll catch up with you 
later."

Gini was the only girl to remain behind with Mulder and the 
men.

"A-woh-tso." The men repeated the word several times while 
they thrust their spears at some unknown imaginary prey. They 
tugged Mulder's arms. Someone offered him a new spear.

"I'm not very good at charades, guys. Are you going hunting?" 

"A-woh-tso," Dzeh said again.

Mulder leaned down to whisper into Gini's ear, "What's a-woh-
tso?" 

She giggled and then held her fists at the sides of her mouth 
and pointed her stubby index fingers straight out. "A-woh-
tso," she repeated.  

Ahhh. A-woh-tso. Mastodon.

The men were going on a mastodon hunt. 

Dzeh clapped Mulder on the back and smiled. That's when it hit 
him. He was going on the mastodon hunt, too.

*   *   *

Twelve clansmen, armed with stout spears and stone knives, 
jogged silently through a forest of alder and waist-high 
buckthorn. They headed northeast along an almost imperceptible 
deer trail that circled Turkey Lake. Mulder ran with them, 
gripping a spear in his left hand, leaving his right free to 
draw his gun if need be. 

The hour was late, the sun low in the sky. Horizontal fingers 
of misty light pierced the forest, painting the leaves gold 
while camouflaging the men with leaf-shaped shadows. The scent 
of chokecherries and damp earth flooded Mulder's nostrils as 
he ran. He tried to guess how the men intended to capture and 
kill their prey -- a-woh-tso, mastodon. A surprise attack, 
most likely, concealing themselves in the half-light of dusk 
in order to ambush the unsuspecting animals.

It seemed impossible that a dozen men armed only with spears 
and stone knives could bring down a beast the size of a dump 
truck. But clearly they'd done it before, many times; their 
shelters, constructed of mastodon bone and skin, were proof of 
their skill and daring. 

The men's nakedness made them appear alarmingly vulnerable in 
this wild landscape. Bare-chested and barelegged, the hunters 
wore only loincloths. Dzeh had insisted Mulder change out of 
his jacket and jeans and dress in a loincloth, too, before 
leaving the camp. The stern clansman had plucked at Mulder's 
sweaty 20th Century clothes and held his nose. Mulder took the 
hint. The garments' strong odor would alert their prey and 
spoil the hunt. 

Dzeh had also argued against Mulder wearing his boots, 
pantomiming heavy footfalls, clapping his hands loudly with 
each exaggerated step. Mulder refused to leave them behind, 
however, noise be damned. His feet weren't callused enough to 
go barefoot, even after so many days of hiking.

Mulder quickly changed out of his smelly clothes. He was 
hungry -- hollow to the bone hungry -- and he knew Scully was, 
too. The sloth had been their last decent meal and that had 
been days ago. He was willing to do whatever it took to fill 
his and Scully's empty stomachs. He had no intention of 
freeloading; he would pull his weight, even if it meant coming 
face-to-face with a ferocious, long-toothed, eight-ton 
mastodon.

Finding Scully before he left, he handed off his dirty laundry 
and kissed her on the cheek. "Back in a jiff," he promised. 

"Be careful, Mulder." 

"Hey, it's me," he said, using his "What could go wrong?" tone 
of voice. He left her with Klizzie and the other women, and 
hurried off after the hunters who were already trotting single 
file toward the woods.

About a mile from camp, the trail opened into a clearing. The 
lead runner -- a muscular, older man with long, gray, 
corkscrewing hair -- slowed to a stop. He held up a hand that 
looked big enough to palm a basketball. The other men stopped, 
too, lifting their noses into the air, cocking their ears. 
Mulder also listened, trying to hear what they heard: bird 
calls, the scramble of small woodland creatures, the men's 
quiet breathing. 

They were standing in a corridor of felled trees. It reminded 
Mulder of the logging roads in Washington State's Olympic 
National Forest, only the trees here had been broken, not cut 
by chainsaws. The throughway emerged from a narrow gorge 
between two rocky hills to the east. It continued west, 
downhill to the lake about a hundred yards away. Mulder faced 
the setting sun and glimpsed the last rays of daylight 
reflecting off the water. He guessed route was a regularly 
traveled thoroughfare for the mastodons, a passage through the 
mountains to the lake. Evidently, the hunters expected to meet 
the animals during last call at the local watering hole.

That's when he felt it, an almost imperceptible trembling 
beneath his feet. The men grinned, nodded, and exchanged rapid 
hand signals.     

The older man with the basketball hands stooped to gather 
something from the ground. Mulder recognized this man; he'd 
seen him at the last camp, along with Dzeh and two or three of 
the other hunters. His name was Lan or Lon or Lin. Whichever, 
he was smearing his chest and arms with mud.

Once covered, he became almost invisible in the waning light. 

Dzeh and the others, including the nervous boy with a Mohawk 
haircut who had shadowed Dzeh the entire way from camp, moved 
forward to join Basketball Hands. They took turns scooping up 
handfuls of mud and rubbing it on themselves and each other, 
effectively camouflaging their bronze skin -- arms, legs, 
faces, torsos, front and back.

Dzeh beckoned Mulder with a wave and offered him a handful. 

Mulder moved closer and allowed the other man to coat his back 
and shoulders with the chilly goop.

Jesus, the stuff smelled terrible. It reeked of...

Shit. It was mastodon dung. The men weren't camouflaging their 
skin; they were disguising their odor. 

Dzeh daubed Mulder's face and hair and then pointed to the 
pile, indicating Mulder should dig in. 

Face wrinkled in disgust, Mulder knelt and plowed his fingers 
into the heap. He scooped up a generous portion. The men 
grinned as he held his breath and slathered his chest and 
thighs with it.

Lan/Lon/Lin used more hand signals to divide the men into two 
groups. A barrel-chested man with a spiky tattoo and a haircut 
similar to the boy's led one group across the corridor. They 
moved quickly, silently, while the second group, which 
included Mulder, remained on the near side, spreading out and 
taking positions behind trees and shrubs. 

Dzeh crouched beneath an evergreen, down-slope to Mulder's 
left. The boy hid in a patch of tall ferns upland to his 
right. Mulder squatted behind a toppled tree, which had a 
trunk as big around as a tanker truck.

Then the men waited. The sun sank below the horizon and the 
forest fell into shadow. Mosquitoes whined in Mulder's ears, 
but didn't bite, put off by the drying layer of dung on his 
skin. Somewhere behind them, an owl hooted from the upper 
branches of a distant tree.

Suddenly the mastodons were there. A large herd, moving single 
file through the corridor. Despite their size, they traveled 
in near-silence, the soft huff-puff of their feet on the trail 
the only sound they made as they glided toward the lake like 
ghostly battleships. Mulder had expected thunderous footsteps, 
snapping trees, crashing branches -- not this eerie quiet. He 
watched in wonder, crouched in his hiding place, as the first 
mastodon passed by, enormous and gray and nearly invisible in 
the twilight. Its ivory tusks glowed like twin specters, eight 
feet long and as thick as a man's arm. They pointed straight 
ahead, parallel to the ground, and appeared to float, 
unconnected to anything. The sight numbed Mulder's limbs, set 
his heart hammering. He clamped his jaws together to keep his 
teeth from chattering, giving away his position.

A second animal passed. Then a third. Mulder wondered when the 
men would attack, tried to guess their strategy while he 
silently cursed his ignorance of their language and their 
ways. Dzeh remained rooted to his spot to Mulder's left, 
hunkered down, eyes trained on his prey. Mulder could just 
make out Dzeh's hands positioning the shaft of his spear into 
a strange foot-long handle. Mulder had no idea what this tool 
was used for. He gripped his own spear more tightly and 
continued to wait.

At least a dozen mastodons plodded toward the lake. Several 
babies trotted by, too, just as silently as their mothers. 
More adults followed the youngsters. When the last animal had 
passed, the clansmen simultaneously rose from their positions. 
No one called out or gave any signal; the hunters knew from 
experience what to do, when to attack. A half step behind 
them, Mulder rose to his feet and sprinted after the others.

The men didn't speak or shout. They moved as stealthily as 
their quarry, forming a U-shaped line behind the herd, closing 
in as they drew nearer to the lake. They were twelve small men 
tiptoeing on the heels of hulking shadows and the mastodons 
seemed completely unaware of their presence. 

Mulder tried to anticipate what would happen next. Glancing 
left and right, he noticed all the men had attached the 
strange foot-long handles to the ends of their spears, just as 
Dzeh had. The handles folded back on the shafts, which were 
held shoulder high, parallel to the ground. 

Many of the mastodons were already in the lake when Mulder 
heard the first faint whistle of a spear sailing through the 
air. It was followed by the wet slap of its point penetrating 
a hide. The struck animal roared. The noise was horrible; a 
screech like train brakes, followed by the huff of panicked 
lungs.

The herd instantly became an earth-shaking stampede and the 
night exploded with sound...whooping shouts from the 
hunters...cries of alarm from the mastodons...noisy splashes 
of water as the animals plowed into the lake to escape the 
danger behind them. Several thundered into the woods, cracking 
into trees, splintering branches. 

The men ignored the runaways to pursue the one wounded animal. 
Four hunters let spears fly in quick succession, aiming at the 
beast's heart. Mulder could now see the advantage of the 
strange handles the men had attached to their spears. These 
devices added leverage and distance, hurtling the lances 200 
feet with impressive accuracy. Each weapon sank a foot or more 
into the mastodon's flesh, an impossible depth if thrown 
without the handle.

The men closed in on the injured mastodon. Two more spears 
found their mark. Still on its feet, the beast squealed each 
time it was hit. It tried to shake the spears loose, but they 
remained deeply imbedded in its side. Mulder was now close 
enough to see inky streams of blood leaking from its wounds. 
The animal tossed its head in anger and fear. It trumpeted 
again. Abandoned by the herd, it turned to defend itself.

Mulder had faced monsters before, but nothing chilled him like 
the fury he saw in this beast's bulging eyes. When the enraged 
mastodon prepared to charge, Mulder's senses left him. His 
arms hung like dead weights at his sides. His ears became deaf 
to the commotion around him. Time slowed to an immeasurable 
crawl and he felt as if he were watching events unfold through 
the wrong end of a telescope.

The mastodon lowered its head and laid back its ears. It pawed 
the ground and aimed its tusks upland toward the mountains.

Then it was galloping uphill. Nearly a dozen spears bristled 
like picadors' lances from its blood-streaked sides, jouncing 
with each tremendous stride. The hunters scrambled out of its 
path, their mouths opening as if to scream. Mulder heard none 
of their cries in his now silent, slow motion world. He turned 
to look uphill where he saw the boy with the Mohawk haircut 
standing in the middle of the path. The boy watched, frozen in 
place, as the mastodon came straight for him.

Mulder drew his gun. Relying on a decade of training and 
practice, he raised his arms, aimed his weapon, and 
waited...waited...waited for the charging mastodon to pass him 
broad side. He seemed to know instinctively that a shot to the 
animal's impenetrable skull would prove useless. He needed to 
make a well-placed shot to the heart or lungs. When the moment 
came and the mastodon passed within five feet of his 
outstretched arms, Mulder pumped the trigger and let every 
single bullet fly, hoping like hell to hit something vital. 
Each shot penetrated the animal's hide, smacking a puff of 
dust from its fur. The mastodon continued to rage forward 
toward the frightened boy. The boy closed his eyes. Mulder 
felt his stomach pitch. He still squeezed the trigger, deaf to 
the click of the gun's empty clip.

Please, please, please, he prayed...

Abruptly the mastodon faltered, stumbled, went down on its 
front knees. Its forward momentum carried it skidding uphill. 
Its gargantuan tusks dug into the ground like plow blades, 
furrowing the earth and sending debris flying into the air. 
Amid an explosion of dust and pine needles, the giant beast 
lurched to a stop right at the boy's feet.

The boy's lance dropped from his hand and he collapsed to his 
haunches.

Mulder had spent every round but managed to save the boy's 
life.

Mulder's hearing returned when the hunters surrounded him. 
They clapped him on the back and shoulders. Their laughter 
ricocheted off the trees as they whooped with relief. 
Impressed by Mulder's gun, they took turns touching it, 
pulling back with startled surprise when they felt the warmth 
of its barrel. "Pow, pow," they shouted again and again, 
mimicking Mulder's stiff-armed stance. He let them pass the 
gun around. Without bullets it was no longer a danger. One 
after the next, the men took a turn pointing it at the 
motionless mastodon. 

Dzeh seemed particularly pleased by the shooting. His eyes 
shone with pride as he strutted back and forth between Mulder 
and the boy. He nodded repeatedly at his wristwatch, reminding 
everyone of his partnership with Mulder.

The boy was beginning to regain his color. Two men helped him 
to his feet. They pounded his shoulders, too. Buoyed by their 
praise, the youngster retrieved his fallen spear. He walked on 
shaky legs around the corpse. "Ut-zah!" he yelled at it, and 
then thrust the spear into the animal's side.

"Ut-zah-ha-dez-bin!" the men replied. They repeated the phrase 
again and again. Dzeh encouraged Mulder to say the strange 
words, too.

With his tongue twisting around the unfamiliar language, 
Mulder tried his best to repeat, "Ut-zah-ha-dez-bin!"

This caused more laughter and more cheers.

Finally, the man with basketball hands cleared his throat, 
silencing the others. He gave a short speech. The men nodded, 
faces solemn but eyes lit with satisfaction. When the 
impromptu meeting was finished, a messenger was dispatched to 
the village to tell the clans the good news.      

Then the hunters fell upon the carcass and, using their spears 
as carving knives, they began to butcher the meat.

Mulder watched in awe as the men sliced open the mastodon with 
quick precision. It reminded him of Scully with scalpel in 
hand, poised over a body on her autopsy table. Like her, the 
men seemed to follow a predetermined approach. In only 
minutes, they had peeled back the skin to serve as a tarp, 
keeping the meat clean as they piled it in chunks.

Spirits ran high as they gutted the carcass. Several men 
climbed completely inside it to carve out the organs, while 
others worked to remove large sections of fat. The men in the 
belly yelled up to those outside to be careful whenever a 
spear gouged too deeply and poked straight through, 
threatening their safety. The smell was godawful, but Mulder 
lent a hand. He borrowed Dzeh's knife because he wasn't able 
to get the hang of cutting with his spear the way the other 
men did.

Mulder admired the skill of these men, their bravery and their 
commitment to their families. He felt honored to be included 
in their close-knit group. As a man who usually eschewed 
teamwork -- at least off the ball court -- he found himself 
shedding his customary independence. For perhaps the first 
time in his life, Fox Mulder felt as if he fit in. Up to his 
elbows in blood and entrails, he realized with pleasant 
surprise that he felt genuinely happy.   

*   *   *

Klizzie combed and braided Day-nuh's hair into cornrows while 
the injured woman sipped a bowl of medicinal tea concocted by 
the Shaman to alleviate the pain in her swollen ankle.

"You are lucky it was only a sprain," Klizzie said as she 
began a new braid. She was also lucky the Shaman knew how to 
make strong tea.

Day-nuh sat perfectly still, propped on furs, naked beneath a 
wolf-skin blanket, while Klizzie knelt behind her and worked 
on her hair. The tea was obviously beginning to take effect; 
Day-nuh's head lolled sleepily and she hummed in a quiet, 
tuneless way. She was freshly shampooed and bathed, and she'd 
eaten, too, thanks to Klizzie, who had prepared a hearty meal 
before taking her to the lake to wash. While Day-nuh bathed, 
Klizzie returned to camp to arrange a shelter for her. Of 
course, tonight, Dzeh, not Muhl-dar, would share this hearth 
with the fox-haired woman. As was customary, the Trading 
Partners would seal their partnership by exchanging mates. 
Klizzie planned to take her own bath as soon as she finished 
getting Day-nuh ready. She wanted to be clean and presentable 
when Dzeh's new partner came to her bed. It was important that 
she impress and please Muhl-dar, to help build a lasting bond 
between the men.

After tonight, the four of them would be like kin. Muhl-dar 
and Day-nuh would be accepted and welcomed as permanent 
members of Owl Clan.

"Klizzie...?" Day-nuh murmured, and then her question wandered 
off like a lost calf.

"What is it, Sister?" Klizzie asked, using the honorary title 
prematurely. She didn't think it would do any harm; after all, 
she and Day-nuh would be true sisters in the eyes of the Clan 
after tonight. 

Patiently waiting for the fox-haired woman to say more, 
Klizzie tied off the braid she was working on with a row of 
beads: one of white bone, two blue stones and then a bangle of 
mother-of-pearl. The pearl sparkled whenever Day-nuh laughed, 
which was more frequently now that she was on her second bowl 
of tea. 

Klizzie eased the near-empty bowl from her limp hand and set 
it aside. "I think you have had enough," she whispered.

She continued to plait Day-nuh's pretty, red hair, weaving in 
additional beads, along with strands of fresh sweetgrass. Dzeh 
would be pleased to see her decorated in the Owl Clan fashion. 
It would make her appear less strange. It would also make him 
proud that his mate loved him enough to help prepare her for 
this night.

Klizzie's heart filled with happiness at the thought of 
pleasing Dzeh. He was an honorable man and a fine mate. 
Generous, patient and tender. He listened when she gave voice 
to the ideas that were inside her. He provided her with a 
loving home. Some women were not so lucky.

"There, that is done," she announced, finished with the 
braids. "Now I will oil your skin so you will feel soft and 
smell sweet." 

Day-nuh nodded in sleepy agreement before closing her eyes. 

Klizzie put away her extra beads, tucking them into the soft, 
fringed pouch she used for storing them. Then she stirred the 
fire in the small hearth beside the sleeping skins, adding 
another stick of wood. The hut was pleasantly warm. It wasn't 
a large hut, like the ones used by families with many children 
and cousins and aunts and uncles, but it was tall enough for a 
woman to stand up in. And it had plenty of room for sleeping 
skins and storage, too. 

Earlier she had brought Day-nuh and Muhl-dar's packs here and 
set them to one side. She also added some additional items she 
thought they could use, such as fresh drinking water, a change 
of clothes, and more soap root. To be honest, she hoped the 
soap would encourage them to bathe more often. She wondered if 
it was the custom of Eel Clan to wait so long between 
washings.

Well, at least she had gotten Day-nuh clean for tonight's 
exchange. And if the men were successful on their hunt, then 
they would bathe later, too, to wash off the blood and dung. 
She had no worry that Muhl-dar would come to her bed smelling 
bad. 

Klizzie gathered the perfumed oil and held it briefly beneath 
Day-nuh's nose.

The sleepy woman barely opened her eyes. 

"Mmm," she hummed. "S'good."

Klizzie chuckled, glad to see she was feeling comfortable. Her 
swollen ankle looked painful. After her bath, Klizzie had 
wrapped it with the softest strip of deerskin she could find. 
Then she propped the injured leg on a pile of folded furs to 
help prevent more swelling and bruising.

"You will like this," Klizzie promised. She rubbed a bit of 
the oil between her palms, then positioned herself behind Day-
nuh and began massaging her bare shoulders.

"Mmmmm. That's nice." Day-nuh's chin dropped to her chest. 

Klizzie massaged her ivory white skin, working down her arms 
to her hands. She rubbed her elbows, her wrists, and each  
finger, then moved on to her chest, where she used circular 
strokes to smooth oil onto her breasts and belly. Pausing to 
inspect the fearsome scar at her navel, she wondered what 
could have caused such a wound.

Day-nuh giggled when she tried to oil her ribs. 

"You are ticklish?" Klizzie asked as she repositioned herself 
to rub the other woman's legs. She lifted the blanket off. 
"You have very pretty feet," she said, when she began to 
stroke Day-nuh's toes. "They are so soft!"

Her own feet were thickly callused from going barefoot. Day-
nuh's feet felt as if she walked on clouds all day.

Klizzie avoided the injured ankle, kneading the stiff muscles 
of her calves and thighs instead, astonished by the number of 
tan speckles that dotted her pale skin. They were more 
numerous than stars in the sky.

"We are done, Sister," she said at last, and set aside the 
oil. She gently patted the woman's cheek to wake her.

Day-nuh seemed to rouse a little. "Klizzie..." She took her 
hand and gave it a squeeze. "Thank you."

"Tahnk-ew." Klizzie remembered hearing this word before, back 
at Toh-ta Lodge. She didn't know what it meant, but Day-nuh 
seemed sincere and appreciative. "Oh, I almost forgot," she 
said, remembering the necklace she had brought for Day-nuh to 
wear tonight. She scrounged through her pack and pulled out a 
beautiful carved amulet that hung from a soft deer-hide cord. 
"This will bring happiness and luck," she said, slipping the 
necklace over the other woman's head.

Day-nuh fingered the carving -- a small red fox.

Klizzie had chosen it because the color of the stone matched 
Day-nuh's hair exactly.

"It's beautiful," Day-nuh murmured. Then her eyes brightened. 
She held up a finger. "I have something for you, too." 

The words came out in a jumble, meaning nothing to Klizzie, 
but she waited while Day-nuh retrieved her Eel cloak and 
searched through its marvelous pockets. She withdrew a silver 
cylinder, smoother and shinier than any water-polished stone, 
and held it up for Klizzie to see.

"What is it?" she asked, impressed by the pretty thing. 

Day-nuh smiled and separated the cylinder into two halves. 
Then she twisted the bottom of one half until a blood red 
finger poked up from inside. Klizzie wasn't sure what to make 
of it. Whose finger was it and why would anyone keep such a 
ghastly thing?

She was even more shocked when Day-nuh pressed the bleeding 
finger to her lips. Was she going to eat it?

Oh! It stained her lips red! Klizzie leaned closer. The thing 
was not a finger after all; it was paint!

"May I?" Day-nuh asked, pointing the paint stick at Klizzie's 
lips.

Klizzie nodded and let the other woman color her lips. When 
Day-nuh was satisfied, smoothing the paint with her finger, 
she searched her pocket again, and this time she pulled out a 
container that looked like a small tortoiseshell. She opened 
the little shell and inside was a smooth, shiny surface that 
reflected the firelight the way a pond reflects the sun. She 
held it up to Klizzie's face.

Oh, Great Spirits! It was her own face! She recognized her 
eyes and mouth from seeing them reflected in the lake water. 
But never had she seen herself so clearly as this!

"May I hold it?" she asked. She reached for the shiny 
tortoiseshell to indicate she wanted a closer look. Day-nuh 
smiled and handed it to her.

Klizzie could not stop staring at her own dark eyes, fringed 
with long, straight lashes...and her smooth nose, a little 
curved and somewhat flat...and her lips! Blood red with Day-
nuh's paint. She smiled, only to be stunned by the whiteness 
of her teeth and the two crescent-shaped dimples that dented 
her cheeks.

She might never have stopped looking at herself if not for the 
strange popping noise that suddenly echoed up from the lake.

Worry glittered in Day-nuh's eyes. She tried to stand. "Gun 
shots. Mulder--"     

"Sit, Sister, please. You will hurt yourself." Klizzie 
indicated her bound ankle. "I will see what is the matter."

"But I have to--" Day-nuh blinked dizzily and fell back 
against the furs.

"Remain here. I will bring back any news." 

Day-nuh closed her tired eyes, succumbing to the effects of 
the tea. Klizzie returned the tortoiseshell container to her, 
thanked her and apologized for leaving so quickly. She gave 
Day-nuh's cheek a quick kiss before grabbing her things and 
rising to her feet.

"Klizzie, wait..." The words stretched out in a long, drowsy 
fashion. For a moment the exhausted woman seemed to forget 
what it was she intended to say. Then she held out the paint 
stick. "This is for you." 

Klizzie gave her a questioning look.

"I want you to have it," she said, and held the paint stick a 
little higher.

Klizzie took it. Impressed by the other woman's generosity, 
she leaned down to kiss her again before hurrying from the 
shelter. 

Out in the village's common area she found a group of 
concerned men and women looking toward the lake, discussing 
the odd popping noise in uneasy voices.

"It came from the direction of the hunt," one man said, 
pointing northeast. 

"What could make such a noise?"

Speculation was cut short when the excited cry of a messenger 
resounded from the nearby woods. 

"We killed a mastodon!" he yelled. "We killed a mastodon -- 
there will be a feast tonight!"  

*   *   *

The Men's Prayer Lodge was the largest structure in the camp. 
Oblong in shape, it had a single door, which faced west to 
catch the last light of the setting sun. The broad, domed roof 
was constructed of animal hides, sewn together with sinew. The 
roof was supported by shoulder-high walls built of mastodon 
skulls, which had been stacked one atop another, fitted 
together like spooning lovers. Tusks and slender saplings 
provided additional height, making the interior space tall 
enough for a man to stand upright with his arms raised.

In the center of the lodge was a large fire-pit, which offered 
light and warmth, as well as a spit for roasting meat. An open 
area around the fire was used for speeches, dances, prayers 
and storytelling. Furs lined the floor along the room's 
perimeter, providing comfortable seating. Thirty men could sit 
in the lodge with room to spare. Fifty became a tight fit. 
Tonight, more than eighty men and boys crowded the lodge to 
hear the story of the mastodon hunt.

Because the lodge was oblong and not circular, some seats were 
preferred over others because they offered superior views of 
the speakers and the fire. Dzeh sat in one of these better 
spots, between his Uncle Lin and his Trading Partner Muhl-dar. 
A hearty meal of roasted mastodon had left him sated, and 
several draughts of wo-chi fogged his head in a most pleasant 
manner. A bite of raw heart fresh from the kill had inundated 
him with the Mastodon Spirit's generosity. 

As was custom, the men had let the women finish butchering the 
mastodon and transport its meat, hide, bones and organs back 
to camp, while the hunters cleaned themselves in the lake. 
After their bath, they dressed in fresh garments for Prayers 
of Thanks in the Lodge.

Influenced by the Mastodon Spirit's generosity, Dzeh lent 
Muhl-dar his best buckskin tunic. After all, the newcomer had 
nothing clean to put on after his bath. Dzeh had a spare, and 
Muhl-dar was his Trading Partner now, so why not?

The tunic was a fine one, supple and soft, decorated with 
handsome quillwork and fringe. Klizzie had outdone herself 
making it. It fit comfortably and would last many seasons. 

"Take it," Dzeh had insisted, pressing the garment into Muhl-
dar's arms. 

"No, no, no." Muhl-dar shook his head and pushed back, making 
further objections in his own strange language.

Although Dzeh didn't understand his words, he understood his 
hesitation to accept the shirt. A gift was an obligation that 
required compensation at some point. Perhaps Muhl-dar felt 
unable to settle such a large debt. It was possible he was not 
as well off as Dzeh had first assumed. 

Even so, he needed something to wear.

"This tunic is of little value," Dzeh lied, attempting once 
more to give the garment away. "The hide is of inferior 
quality; the seams poorly sewn. Please, take it off my hands."

Muhl-dar appeared reluctant and a bit embarrassed, but he was 
finally persuaded by Dzeh's persistent arguments to take the 
tunic. Slipping it over his head, he emerged with a broad grin 
lighting his face. The shirt fit as if made for him.

Cleaned, dressed, and cheered by their successful hunt, the 
men gathered in the Prayer Lodge to celebrate. They recited 
all the official prayers and then settled in for a long night 
of storytelling and feasting. Regaling each other with tales 
of past exploits, they relived every hunt that remained 
outstanding in their memories. And they coaxed Muhl-dar into 
telling and retelling his version of tonight's hunt at least 
six times over. It didn't matter that they couldn't understand 
his foreign words. The wild motions of his hands, the varied 
expressions of his face, and the inflection of his voice lent 
excitement to the tale. They gasped each time he leapt to his 
feet to pantomime the action. Again and again the hunters 
interrupted his rendition to add their own perspectives, 
filling in minute details for the benefit of those who had not 
been present.

While Muhl-dar pointed his gun, another man played the role of 
the mastodon. A third mimicked fear-stricken Chal, caught in 
the path of the raging beast.

"Whe-hus-dil...pow, pow, pow," the hunters shouted, describing 
the noise of Muhl-dar's weapon to those who had remained in 
the camp and heard it only from a distance. The hunters held 
their ears, rounded their eyes, laughed with relief when the 
man who was pretending to be the mastodon sank to his knees.

"Bih-din-ne-dey!" Lin exclaimed, and all the men cheered.

The story became grander with each telling. After the third or 
fourth performance, it became embellished beyond all 
recognition. But whenever Muhl-dar seemed reluctant to repeat 
his version of events, the elders plied him with more wo-chi. 
A sip or two more were enough to loosen his tongue and get him 
back on his feet.

Muhl-dar's gun was passed around the circle many times while 
he reenacted his tale. Dzeh laughed heartily when Muhl-dar 
took on the role of each hunter, exaggerating each man's 
heroism, fear, and shock. He laughed doubly hard at Muhl-dar's 
impersonation of himself.

This was a fine night. Dzeh felt more at ease than he had in 
many days. Forgotten was his vision about Muhl-dar's unlucky 
return. The arrival of his Trading Partner had turned out to 
be a good omen after all.

"Enough!" Muhl-dar announced. He collapsed onto his haunches 
beside Dzeh and refused to get up again. "Enough, enough." He 
held up his hands in protest.

"Eee-nuff!" Dzeh bellowed good-naturedly, causing the men to 
laugh and repeat the word. 

The men's moods remained high throughout the evening. 
Exhausted of tales about their hunting prowess, they now 
exchanged ribald jokes, some at Muhl-dar's expense, as they 
passed around more roasted meat and more wo-chi.

"Do Eel Clan men 'pow, pow, pow' when they make love to their 
mates?" someone asked, triggering an uproar of laughter. 
Similar questions followed -- questions that would be unseemly 
anywhere but here. Muhl-dar took their ribbing in stride. He 
clearly understood some of what they said because he joined in 
their hilarity, insinuating that Eel Clan men were endowed 
like stallions and made explosive noises whenever they 
ejaculated.  

This brought up an important matter, Dzeh realized.    

"Eee-nuff. Beh-gha," he said, his tone suddenly serious. He 
clamped a hand on Muhl-dar's arm to draw him close. This 
conversation was between Trading Partners, not for the general 
assembly. 

"Beh-gha?" Muhl-dar repeated the strange word. "Beh-gha means 
enough?"

"Yes, yes! That is right. Beh-gha. Eee-nuff." Dzeh said. He 
leaned toward his partner's ear and lowered his voice. "We 
must discuss tonight's arrangements." 

Muhl-dar shook his head, not understanding.

Dzeh tried again. "Klizzie has prepared the shelters." Using 
hand signals, Dzeh made the signs for "shelter" and "two." "I 
will take you to yours. You will lay there with Klizzie on the 
sleeping skins. I will go to Day-nuh and lay with her. You 
know how it goes." He smiled and Muhl-dar smiled back, nodding 
his head as if he understood every word. "Tomorrow we will 
officially be Partners. Hozo-go nay-yeltay to. May we live in 
peace hereafter." He clapped Muhl-dar on the back.

"Hozo...?" Muhl-dar stammered, his grin fading a little.

"Hozo-go nay-yeltay to."

"Hozo-go...uh...nay-yeltay to?" Muhl-dar's tongue twisted 
around the unfamiliar words. His pronunciation was poor, but 
he managed to repeat the phrase fairly accurately.

"Yes, hozo-go nay-yeltay to." Dzeh laughed, glad to get this 
formality out of the way.      

*   *   * 

"This the place?" Mulder asked, hooking a thumb at the domed 
shelter. He and Dzeh stood under the stars at the edge of the 
village. Fifty or more similar huts separated them from the 
lake.

Dzeh pointed and nodded, and then turned to go.

"Wait, wait," Mulder said, staggering a little as he grabbed 
Dzeh's arm. Dzeh steadied him and chuckled as Mulder 
unsuccessfully tried to shrug out of the borrowed buckskin 
tunic he wore. "Your shirt. I should give it back."  

Dzeh wagged his head and yammered something in a friendly 
tone. He slapped Mulder's back a few times, pointed repeatedly 
at the buckskin shirt, tugged at Mulder's disheveled hair and 
short beard. Between his good-natured gesticulations and his 
broad smile, he convinced Mulder to keep the tunic. 

"*You*..." -- Mulder prodded Dzeh in the breastbone with a 
stiff index finger -- "are a real gen'rous guy, y'know that, 
Dzeh ol' buddy? Nice of you t'gimme the shirtoffyerback."

Nodding in agreement with everything Mulder said, Dzeh spun 
Mulder to face the hut's entrance. 

"Here? This place?" Mulder asked again, forgetting Dzeh's 
previous instructions.

Dzeh gave him an affable shove. Then he turned and walked away 
on unsteady legs, and in no time, disappeared into the dark.

"Gen'rous guy," Mulder repeated to no one in particular. 

Bleary-eyed and a little dizzy, he tried to focus on the 
entrance to the hut. He reached for the flap of hide that 
served as the shelter's door. He lifted it and considered 
shouting, "Hi, honey, I'm home!" but was distracted by the 
unusual numbness in his fingers. Couldn't feel the 
flap...door...whatever. He grinned as he kneaded the supple 
material. Nope, couldn't feel a damn thing. His hand might as 
well belong to someone else. HA!

He ducked his head to peer through the door. The hut's 
interior was lit by the dim glow of the hearth. In the bed 
beside the dying fire was the rounded shape of Scully, sound 
asleep beneath the furs. 

Awww, Scully. Sleeping Scully. His beautiful, beautiful 
Scully.

Hi, honey, I'm home.

Stepping across the threshold, Mulder walloped his forehead on 
a bone support. "Damn it!" He rubbed the sore spot. How was it 
possible to feel pain in his head and nothing at all in his 
fingertips? 

Too late he realized he'd spoken out loud. "Shhhhhh," he said, 
finger raised to his lips. He let the door-flap-thingy close 
behind him.

Taking a deep breath, he tried to steady himself enough to 
walk a straight line from the door to the bed without falling 
on his ass. Dzeh had helped him stay upright on the way over 
from the men's lodge. Left to his own devices, however, he 
wasn't sure he could make it across the room. He tried to 
gauge the distance. Hmm. Three steps? Four? Concentrating on 
his rubbery legs and unfeeling feet he attempted one crooked 
step toward Scully. Oops! He lurched to the left. 

Arms held out to his sides, he managed to maintain his 
balance, but just barely. "If at first you don't succeed..." 
His next step carried him forward, more or less. "Suck a lemon 
and you'll 'suck seed'!" The joke made him chuckle. It was an 
old joke, something his father used to say. 

Scully stirred beneath the blankets. 

"Shhhh," Mulder said again. "Scully's tryin' t'sleep."

Wow, he hadn't felt this tipsy since...since...since never. He 
rarely drank, which was probably why the wo-chi had gone 
straight to his head.

Wo-chi. It was a strange word. Sounded like something you'd 
say to a baby. Wo-chi-wo-chi-wo-chi. Again, he laughed at his 
own joke.

Another deep breath. Concemtrate, consimptrate, constanrate... 

Man, it smelled good in here! Like mint and...and...fabric 
softener -- those flowery-scented sheet-things you toss in the 
dryer, the spring-time fresh ones. Or was that toilet bowl 
cleaner? 

Didn't matter. In his fuzzy state of mind, everything seemed 
right with the world...if you discounted that little time 
travel booboo.

Aw hell, so what if he and Scully were a gazillion years from 
where they were supposed to be? They were safe. They had each 
other. Did anything else really matter?

After all, the Ice Age had lots of benefits over the 20th 
Century. No pollution, no nuclear weapons, no government 
conspiracies or alien invaders. "No, expense reports. HA!"

Beneath the covers, Scully shifted again. Just a twitch. 
Mulder clapped his hand over his mouth. Shhhhhh. "Didn't mean 
t'say that ow'loud, Slully...umm...Scully," he whispered from 
behind his hand.

He expected her to growl at him for making so much noise, but 
apparently she was down for the count -- probably exhausted 
from their hike and the late hour and her injured ankle.

Poor Slully. Scully. She sluffered in slilence...shlit! 
Suffered in silence. Well, most of the time anyway. Not that 
she didn't have good reason to compain...complain.

Better get undressed, he decided. He wasn't thinking straight. 
And he loved Scully. And wooooo! That wo-chi had him feeling 
*good* -- like he had nothing but clouds for brains.

He shrugged out of Dzeh's tunic and let it drop to the floor. 
That left him wearing only his loincloth and belt, and the 
belt held his holster and gun. Couldn't sleep in that. He 
fumbled with the buckle. His unfeeling fingers had trouble 
with the clasp, but he managed to unfasten it on the third or 
fourth try. He let it fall to his feet, too, and the gun 
thudded loudly when it struck the dirt floor. "Shhhhhh," he 
told it.

He took a tentative step. Then another. Uh-oh, he leaned too 
far to the right. Whoa! Gyrating to maintain his balance, he 
found himself at the edge of the bed. When he was satisfied he 
wasn't going to tip over, he shucked his loincloth and tossed 
it in the general direction of the door.  

Ready to take that one final step into bed, he glanced down at 
his feet. Oops. Still had his boots on. 

The boots proved more difficult to remove than the tricky 
belt. He sat on his haunches and plucked at the laces. His 
fingers refused to close around the damn bows. After several 
unsuccessful attempts, he said, "Fuck it," and left them on.

Lifting the fur blanket, he half-fell, half-rolled into bed. 
Scully stretched a little, but kept her back to him.

Scully, beautiful Scully. The woman who meant everything in 
the world to him. She lay on her side, facing away. He counted 
her breaths. One, two, thr--

"You smell pretty," he whispered. She did! Like flowery 
fabric-softener sheets...or toilet bowl cleanser...whatever.

Burrowing beneath the blankets, he drove his nose into her 
neck and sniffed. Mmmmmm. Too bad his hands weren't working 
the way they were supposed to. He wanted to touch her skin. 
Reaching for her anyway, he clumsily placed an unfeeling palm 
on the curve of her waist. Warm. Bare. He could tell that 
much, at least. Intending to stroke her ass, he found himself 
cupping her breast instead. He squeezed. She stiffened.

"Muhl-dar?"

"You were expecting someone el--"

Ummm...that didn't sound quite like Scully. He lifted his head 
to peer at the woman beside him only to find Klizzie was 
staring back at him over her bare shoulder. Shit! He was in 
the wrong hut. The wrong bed. His hand was on the wrong 
breast! He released his hold and scrambled backward, out from 
under the covers.

"I'm...oh, jees...I'm sorry, Klizzie...I didn't...I 
musta...this was an honest mistake...I'm really--" 

Naked. 

Fuck. 

He yanked the blanket off the bed into his lap, covering 
himself and uncovering her. Now *she* was naked. And she 
didn't seem the least bit concerned.

"Muhl-dar?" She sat up.

"Yeah?" he asked, trying to sound casual. 

She smiled. A brilliant, come-hither, turn-a-guy's-legs-to-
jelly smile. Then she crawled toward him, and, oh God, her 
breasts bounced in the most delightful way.

"Pinch me?" he squeaked, hoping he was asleep or at the very 
least unconscious. 

She reached toward him and he thought maybe she was going to 
pinch him. But instead she tugged at the blanket covering his 
lap. He hung onto it.

"Huc-quo," she said, still smiling her man-eating grin. 
"Klizzie nih-tsa-goh-al-neh be-zonz. Klizzie, Muhl-dar, de-ji-
kash. Be-zonz yeh-zihn. Lanh?"

"I...I..."

She tilted her head in the cutest way and licked her lips. Her 
hand crept up his bare leg...knee...thigh. He wasn't entirely 
sure, but he thought she might be wearing lipstick and it 
looked a lot like Scully's shade. Was that possible? 

Snaking her warm, little hand beneath his blanket, she groped 
his lap. When her fingers found his penis, she gave him a 
squeeze.

"No! Klizzie... Don't." He backed away. 

Her happy smile disintegrated as her eyes blinked in surprise. 
Biting her lip, she now appeared nervous.

"De-ji-kash." She beckoned him into the bed with a wave of her 
trembling hand. "Klizzie yah-a-da-hal-yon-ih Muhl-dar. Day-nuh 
yah-a-da-hal-yon-ih Dzeh." 

Day-nuh? And Dzeh? The fog began to lift from his brain, 
leaving him feeling sober...almost.

"Where's Scully?" he demanded. He grabbed Klizzie's arm and 
gripped her hard. "Where's Dana? Where is she?"

Klizzie tried to smile again, but failed. Her eyebrows peaked 
with worry. "Day-nuh, Dzeh, yah-tay-go-e-elah ta-bilh."

He had no idea what she was saying, but it couldn't be good if 
Dzeh and Scully's names were spoken in the same breath.

Mulder rose unsteadily to his feet. 

What the hell was going on here? Klizzie wasn't acting like 
this was a simple mix-up. She was acting as if she'd been 
expecting him to show up in her bed tonight. Which could only 
mean Dzeh had purposely led him here, which could only mean he 
was intending to... 

Son of a bitch. This was a deliberate swap. Mulder stumbled 
out of the shelter into the cool night, oblivious to his 
nudity.

He found himself facing dozens of identical huts. Jesus, which 
one was Scully in?

"Scully?" he called, becoming more frantic as a vision of 
Scully, naked in Dzeh's arms, took shape in his head. He 
sprinted for the nearest hut. He would search every damn one 
if he had to. "Sculleee!"  

*   *   *

Scully awoke to the steam of a sigh on the nape of her neck. 
Mmm. Mulder. He'd returned, safe and...

Aroused! His erection prodded the small of her back as he 
spooned against her. 

He caressed her bare arm, and she responded by nestling deeper 
into his embrace. He smelled good, like soap root and lake 
water and...alcohol?

"Out partying late, Mulder?" 

The entire camp had been in a celebratory mood after receiving 
the news of the successful mastodon hunt. There would be 
plenty to eat for days. 

Mulder's arm curled lovingly around her. She glanced at his 
watch. 3:52 a.m. 

"Musta been some party," she murmured, feeling content and 
sleepy. Her belly was full, her body clean. The tea the Shaman 
had given her earlier had stopped the awful throbbing in her 
ankle. She hadn't felt this good in days.

Not since the night she and Mulder had made love in the cave.    

Heat blossomed in her abdomen at the memory. She moaned when 
his fingers skated up her naked thigh to settle in her curls. 

"You must be reading my mind," she whispered.

He snuggled closer, pressing his hips into her buttocks, 
poking her spine with his rigid penis. He kissed her neck, her 
shoulder, his long beard tickling her--

Wait a minute... Long beard? It'd been a month since Mulder 
last shaved, but his whiskers weren't *that* long.

And Mulder had traded his wristwatch to--

Scully lurched out of Dzeh's embrace and turned to glower at 
him. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" she demanded. 

He remained where he was, grinning shyly and looking a bit 
bleary-eyed. 

She yanked the fur blanket off him and covered herself with 
it.

"Wrong bed, mister. Get out." 

He reached for her again and she shoved his hand away.

"I said, get out!" 

She scooted from the bed, beyond his reach. He chuckled and 
came after her. Grabbing her by the wrist, he pulled her back 
onto the furs.

"Let go of me, Dzeh. Let--"

His mouth covered hers, silencing her as he pressed her gently 
but firmly down onto the sleeping skins.          

x-x-x-x-x-x

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Jealousy burned in Mulder's throat. Driven by his escalating 
rage and the lingering hallucinogenic effects of wo-chi, he 
stumbled frantically to the nearest hut in search of Scully. 
He was convinced she was in danger and pictured her trapped in 
Dzeh's embrace, fending off the caveman's determined advances. 
The idea made Mulder's skin crawl. His fingers itched to wring 
the damn Neanderthal's neck. 

He bulldozed through the door, bellowing "Scully! Sculleeee!", 
and stopped just short of the sleeping skins. The beds were 
arranged in a semi-circle around a low-burning hearth and 
eight sets of eyes peered out from beneath their furs, 
blinking up at him in startled surprise. Someone gasped. A 
baby started to cry.

"Scully?" He asked, his voice sounding too loud in the 
confined space.

He glanced from face to face. The dim glow of the dying fire 
revealed she wasn't there. The baby's wailing grew louder.

"Eh-ha-jay, nil-chi-tso," growled a frowning man with a 
braided beard and a pierced lower lip. 

He rose from his bed to confront Mulder. Although he wasn't 
very tall, he was sturdily built with powerful arms and legs. 
His coppery skin was blackened with angry-looking tattoos, 
geometric designs that accentuated his muscular physique.   

"Sorry, wrong hut," Mulder said, realizing too late the 
rashness of his intrusion. 

The tattooed man swaggered toward him, sledgehammer fists 
clenched at his sides. He paused an arm's length away to 
glower at Mulder from beneath dark brows.

"I-I'm looking for Dzeh," Mulder explained. "You haven't seen 
him by any chance?"

The man's frown deepened. "Eh-ha-jay," he said again, jerking 
his bearded chin toward the doorway.

"Guess not." 

Mulder backpedaled out of the shelter, where he was met by a 
veritable sea of scowling faces. At least two-dozen bleary-
eyed men stood waiting for him there, roused from their beds 
by his shouting. 

Feeling sandwiched between the crowd and the irate tattooed 
man, Mulder did the only thing he could think to do; he stood 
his ground, cupped his hands around his mouth, and called 
Scully's name at the top of his lungs. Then he let loose a 
string of epithets directed at Dzeh that rounded the 
onlookers' eyes. They clearly grasped the vehemence in his 
tone, if not the literal meaning of his words.

A familiar face appeared in the crowd; it was Lin, the older 
man with the basketball hands. His expression was stern but 
calm as he approached Mulder. 

Mulder gritted his teeth and tried to reign in his temper. He 
was seriously outnumbered here. No doubt his outburst was 
irritating the hell out of these people, if not outright 
insulting them. Everyone was eyeballing him, making him 
suddenly aware of his vulnerability...and his nakedness.

Most of the onlookers were naked, too, having been awakened 
unexpectedly. But their state of undress did little to ease 
Mulder's apprehension. These men were heavily muscled. They 
carried themselves with confidence, accustomed to threats far 
more serious than one loud-mouthed crazy man.

Lin rested a weighty hand on Mulder's shoulder, pinning him in 
place. The older man seemed less annoyed than the others, so 
Mulder decided to take a chance that he might help.

Lin nodded and gazed past the crowd to scan the campground.

"Tehi," he said, hooking an arm around Mulder's shoulders. He 
steered him through the onlookers, who broke formation to 
follow them. They walked only a short distance before Lin 
stopped in front of the very shelter where Mulder had begun. 
Klizzie was waiting there by the door, looking nervous and 
fearful, her eyes downcast and her former enthusiasm gone. 
Mulder read shame in her posture, as well as accusation in the 
eyes of the other tribe members. 

Did they blame her for his outburst? 

Some conversation passed between Lin and Klizzie. Lin's gruff 
tone caused her to wince several times. She glanced at Mulder 
and fresh tears filled her eyes. 

Mulder suspected she was being held accountable for his show 
of bad temper. Would she suffer repercussions for his breach 
of etiquette?

Although he felt sorry for her, he had greater concerns right 
now. He needed to find Scully.

"Where is Dana?" he asked Klizzie, his tone urgent.

Her eyes flickered to a hut at the edge of the village. "Na-
hos," she said, pointing past his shoulder with a shaky hand.

Mulder turned from the group and marched straight to the hut. 
Without pause at the door, he stormed inside.

Just as he'd feared, he found Dzeh inside with Scully, but the 
Neanderthal wasn't forcing unwanted sexual advances on her. As 
a matter of fact, he wasn't touching her at all. She was 
holding him at bay with his own stone knife. 

"You okay, Scully?" Mulder asked.

"I'm fine." She was crouched beside the hearth, knife in hand. 

Dzeh was sitting cross-legged a few feet away. 

Mulder walked over to him and without warning delivered a 
formidable uppercut to his jaw.

Dzeh rocked, but remained upright. Mulder struck again. 
Knuckles met bone with a jarring crack, but the caveman still 
didn't fall. Mulder tried for a third punch, but was stopped 
mid-swing when Dzeh grabbed his fist and twisted him to his 
knees.

Restrained by the caveman's crushing grip, Mulder wasn't sure 
what to do next. He was peripherally aware that the group of 
anxious onlookers were jockeying for position at the door. 
They reminded him of the flock of vultures that had surrounded 
him and Scully their first day in the Pleistocene.

"Did he touch you, Scully?" Mulder asked, glaring at Dzeh. 

"I...I'm okay, Mulder. He didn't hurt me."

A confused half-smile slowly replaced Dzeh's frown. He 
released Mulder's fist. 

"Muhl-dar?" he asked, sounding puzzled but good-natured. He 
continued speaking in an amiable tone, nodding and smiling at 
Scully. He finally concluded with, "Day-nuh nil-ta."

The only word Mulder had understood in his entire speech was 
"Day-nuh." 

"I don't know what you're saying," Mulder said. Frustration 
increased his anger. Nothing about this surreal situation was 
making any sense. 

"Day-nuh ye-tsan Dzeh. A-nah-ne-dzin." Dzeh said. He chuckled 
and then pointed to his lap.

Mulder looked down to discover Dzeh was in a state of 
unquestionable arousal. 

"Son of a bitch!" He sprang at Dzeh with outstretched arms, 
intending to choke the smiling bastard to death. "She's mine, 
you fucking--" 

Again Dzeh's reflexes were quicker and he stopped Mulder by 
grabbing his wrists and holding him at arm's length.

Dzeh's baffled grin evaporated, replaced by a stern scowl. 
"Beh-gha. Eee-nuff," he said.

Klizzie appeared at the hut's entrance. Her eyes widened at 
the sight of Dzeh and Mulder locked in a standoff. She began 
chattering and waving her hands. Dzeh yammered right back at 
her, never loosening his hold on Mulder. Neither one seemed to 
listen to the other. 

Unable to shake himself free, Mulder started hollering, too.

Only when Scully stood up and shouted in her most 
authoritative voice, "Be quiet!" did they all fall silent.

"That's more like it," she said, looking at each in turn. "Now 
would someone please explain what the hell is going on here?"

*   *   *

People from three clans waited outside Day-nuh's open door to 
hear how Klizzie was going to smooth things over between Dzeh 
and his angry Trading Partner. Their prying stares made her as 
nervous as a rabbit in a wolf's lair.

She was to blame for tonight's misunderstanding, she was sure, 
although she couldn't quite reason out where she'd gone wrong. 
She'd followed all the Clan's protocols right down to the 
minutest detail, preparing the shelters, getting herself and 
Day-nuh ready. Yet Muhl-dar was angry, refusing to accept her 
in trade for Day-nuh. 

His behavior was utterly baffling.

It was also dangerous. If he didn't change his mind, he would 
be exiled from the Clan. Without the ties of blood or 
partnership, Muhl-dar and Day-nuh would be considered 
untrustworthy interlopers and forced to leave. 

And if they refused to go, they would be killed. 

With so much at stake, Klizzie hoped to find a peaceful 
solution to their dilemma. 

She liked these strangers. They had shown no unkindness to the 
Clan. They were gentle with Gini, and they had contributed to 
the recent boon of mastodon meat. 

There were other reasons, too, why Klizzie didn't want to sit 
idly by and watch the newcomers driven off...reasons she was 
not so eager to bring up. She'd been responsible for talking 
Dzeh into accepting Muhl-dar as a Trading Partner in the first 
place. And she was also the one who set out markers, leading 
the newcomers to Turkey Lake. It would be hard to admit these 
actions had been undesirable and hurtful to the Clan.

In addition, Klizzie carried a burden of guilt from her past. 
She had caused considerable trouble for the Clan four years 
ago when she became Dzeh's mate. Her cousin Klesh had been 
exiled as a result of her poor judgment. Her brother Tse-e, 
had left, too. It had been a difficult time for everyone, and 
she didn't wish to repeat it.   

Her desire to make amends for her past misdeeds fueled her 
desire to set things right now.

Again she found herself wishing she knew how to speak Eel 
Clan's language, if only a few words. Then she could put this 
awful misunderstanding behind them.

Klizzie knelt with her back to the meddlesome people outside 
and decided to address her comments directly to Day-nuh 
because, quite frankly, Muhl-dar's grim expression frightened 
her. 

The newcomers were sitting side-by-side facing her, each now 
dressed in the clean skins she had left for them earlier. Day-
nuh was also wearing her strange, black upper garment, the 
small glossy tunic without fasteners.

Dzeh was dressed, too, having put on his loincloth. He 
squatted on the far side of the shelter, away from the others. 
He wore an aloof expression as he rocked on his heels. He'd 
already said all he intended to say; if Muhl-dar was against 
the partnership, then so be it. Dzeh would not beg a man to 
sleep with his mate. To do so would be unseemly and 
disgraceful.

There was no denying Mulder's rejection was an insult, to Dzeh 
and the Clan.

"Please, Sister," Klizzie began, keeping her tone as 
respectful as possible. "I have caused a rift between these 
Trading Partners." She glanced at Dzeh and Muhl-dar in turn, 
and saw that both men wore thundercloud expressions. 

Again she was reminded of Dzeh's failed partnership with 
Klesh. Shame burned her cheeks. Dzeh had forgiven her only 
because he assumed Klesh forced her to do the things she'd 
done that night, but she knew that wasn't entirely true. 

Klesh had offered her a pretty hair ornament in trade for 
sleeping with him. It was an unusual thing, made from the 
loveliest clamshell Klizzie had ever seen. It had been incised 
with a picture of a lo-tso, an enormous mythical fish, rumored 
to be bigger than a bull mastodon. Klesh had received it from 
a traveling man who visited the giant waters to the west, 
where lo-tso were said to live. The man's name was Ta-bas-
dsissi, Shore Runner, and according to Klesh, he possessed 
superior bartering skills, but was not so competent at betting 
games. Ta-bas-dsissi had wagered and lost the ornament to 
Klesh during a round of Ne-e-lahi. 

Klesh promised the ornament to Klizzie in exchange for a night 
on her furs. She knew it was wrong to lay with her cousin, but 
the shell was too great a temptation. 

The next morning Klesh kept his word and gave her the hair 
ornament. He also bragged to his best friend Tse-e about what 
he had done. And soon after, Tse-e tattled to Dzeh. 

Dzeh was furious, of course, and humiliated. Klizzie was so 
ashamed by what she had done she threw the ornament away, 
tossed it into Small Wind Lake without ever telling Dzeh about 
it.     

Instead, she let Dzeh and the entire Clan believe Klesh had 
forced her to submit to his sexual demands. Klesh was not 
trusted for many reasons, so his protests were ignored. No one 
listened to his story about the hair ornament. 

Klizzie kept silent while he was exiled for mating with his 
own cousin. And she said nothing when her brother Tse-e went 
with him, too. 

To this day she still kept her terrible secret, even from Dzeh 
-- the man she loved and trusted like no other.

It was no wonder the Spirits continued to punish her, denying 
her a child in retribution for her transgressions and her 
deceit. She deserved their wrath for the things she had done.

Tucking away her bad memories, Klizzie said to Day-nuh, 
"Please, tell me how I might give pleasure to Muhl-dar." She 
pointed to herself and then to him.

Day-nuh shook her head emphatically. "No. *No* Klizzie and 
Mulder. *No* Dzeh and Dana."

The onlookers buzzed like deerflies. Her objections made no 
sense.

Klizzie tried again. "I apologize for any offense I have 
caused and will do whatever is necessary to set things right."

Day-nuh continued to frown, unmoved by her apology.

Again Klizzie pointed to herself and then to Muhl-dar. "I can 
satisfy him if he would allow me anoth--"

"*No* Mulder and Klizzie!" Muhl-dar's voice roared like an 
angered bear. 

Klizzie's hand went to her totem, seeking its protection and 
strength. 

"But...we *must*. The exchange is a good custom. It builds 
trust. Everyone knows this." She clung to her totem, drawing 
courage from it the way she often did whenever she was 
frightened or confused.

Looking into Day-nuh's pale eyes, she prayed silently to the 
Spirits for guidance.

Suddenly she was struck by an odd idea. Suppose Eel Clan's 
customs were as unusual as Day-nuh's eyes or her red hair. 
Klizzie considered the newcomers' incomprehensible language, 
their foreign clothes and exotic jewelry, their lack of 
knowledge about simple things like edible greens and soap 
root. 

Was it possible they didn't know the rules of mate-exchange? 
Did they practice a different custom?

She turned to the group outside the door, hoping to find 
someone who might know the answer for sure. "Have any of you 
ever visited Eel Clan?" she asked.

The onlookers shook their heads and murmured no, they had not. 

"My sister's cousin from Moose Clan heard that Eel Clan men 
sometimes eat the flesh of humans," one man claimed.

Another man leaned his head into the shelter, suspicion 
shining bright in his eyes. "I say we cast these intruders out 
now, before they decide to kill us in our sleep and cook us 
for breakfast." 

The prospect caused the crowd to rattle like a nest of angry 
snakes. "Strangers cannot be trusted," they insisted.

Klizzie ignored their unease and turned her attention to her 
mate. "Dzeh, I am wondering if Eel Clan shares our custom of 
mate-exchange."

His eyebrows rose in surprise. "What sort of clan does not 
practice mate-exchange?" he asked, sounding incredulous. 
"Everyone knows of it. How can a man trust his Trading Partner 
without first exchanging mates?" 

He glared at Muhl-dar and Muhl-dar glowered back with equal 
intensity. 

She cleared her throat, trying to regain his attention.

"You must admit their ways are strange, Dzeh" she reminded 
him. "The ornament you wear on your wrist..." She indicated 
Muhl-dar's unique bracelet with a nod of her head. "Have you 
ever seen anything like it before?"

She knew he had not. He had shown her its extraordinary glow 
just a few days ago, delighted as a child by the way he could 
light it and extinguish it just by tapping one of its tiny 
prongs.

His eyes flickered to it now. "Explain the custom to them. 
Then we will hear what they have to say."

Hope blossomed in her chest. It was possible she was not the 
cause of tonight's trouble after all. And she might still be 
able to work things out to everyone's benefit.   

But how does one explain something as complex as mate-exchange 
without a common language?

Hand signals would be useless, she knew; Day-nuh and Muhl-dar 
understood very few, even the most general ones. She might try 
drawing pictures on the dirt floor if she were a better 
artist. But she could not draw a careful line, let alone 
capture the true Spirits of things.

"I do not know how to explain it," she said, feeling her hopes 
fly away.

Lin stepped forward from the crowd. "Let me try," he said.

He squatted beside Klizzie and drew several circles in the 
dirt with his finger. 

"These are our huts; this is the village," he said, looking 
from one face to the next. "Now hand me your amulets."

Klizzie removed her totem and placed it in Lin's large palm. 
Dzeh did the same without hesitation. Day-nuh removed her fox 
amulet, too, and then convinced Muhl-dar to do the same with 
the claw necklace he wore. They passed both to the older man.

Lin arranged the necklaces inside two of the circles, 
Klizzie's with Dzeh's and Muhl-dar's with Day-nuh's. "Dzeh and 
Klizzie," he said in a deep voice. He pointed to their 
intertwined necklaces. Then he indicated the other necklaces, 
laid one against the other, apart from the other two. "Muhl-
dar and Day-nuh," he said.

When everyone indicated they understood this arrangement by 
nodding, Lin rearranged the necklaces to illustrate the mate-
exchange.

"Uh-uh," Muhl-dar said. "Put 'em back."

Lin shook his head, refusing to switch the necklaces to their 
former positions. His expression was stern. He was a man used 
to giving orders and being obeyed, an elder respected for his 
wisdom, strength and skill. Holding up one stout finger, he 
said, "To bind a partnership according to our customs, Dzeh of 
Owl Clan and Muhl-dar of Eel Clan will exchange mates for one 
night." 

The newcomers indicated they didn't understand, so Lin 
pantomimed "night" by tilting his head and closing his eyes, 
followed by a stretch and a yawn to represent "day." He 
repeated the action several times until he was certain they 
understood. Only then did he put the necklaces back to their 
original positions.

"Okay, I get it, but the answer is still no," Muhl-dar 
insisted.

Klizzie didn't grasp the meaning of all his words, but she did 
understand what he meant by "no." He shook his head each time 
he said it, and a shake of the head seemed to mean the same 
thing in every language.

"Uncle Lin, please help Muhl-dar understand the consequences 
of his refusal," she said, keeping her gaze downcast out of 
respect.

Lin stared into the Eel stranger's stubborn eyes. "Refusal to 
comply with the rules of Partnership will result in exile or 
death," he said.

He picked up the newcomer's necklaces and hurled them across 
the hut. They landed with a slap against the far wall. Then he 
drew his knife from the sheath on his belt. Its stone blade 
appeared razor sharp. Lightning fast, he thrust the knife at 
Muhl-dar, stopping only a hair's breadth from his throat.

"I think I get the picture," Muhl-dar said, backing away and 
rising slowly to his feet. "Come on, Scully. Let's get out of 
here." He held out a hand for her.

"Mulder..." Concern notched her forehead. "My ankle."

He glanced down at her swollen, bandaged leg. Air hissed from 
his lungs and his taut limbs suddenly hung limp.  

"I won't allow this. The answer is no," he said with finality 
and glowered at Lin.

The elder man shrugged, unwilling to shoulder the burden of 
the stranger's decision. It meant nothing to him if they 
stayed, departed or died. "The decision is yours."

Klizzie was astonished that anyone would choose exile or death 
over something so trivial as a mate-exchange. It was beyond 
comprehension. Clearly Muhl-dar did not yet understand the 
seriousness of his decision. She had to try once more to 
straighten out his tangled thinking.

Rising to her feet, she ignored the stares of the men and 
crossed the room to collect Muhl-dar and Day-nuh's necklaces. 
She brought them back to the circles and arranged them in a 
way that depicted the exchange.

"Please," she begged Muhl-dar. "Just one night. *Please*."

He shook his head. "Uh-uh." 

His odd refusal was his final word before he stalked from the 
hut.         

*   *   *

"Mulder?" Scully shouted, limping after him. 

He didn't answer her call or stop. The gap between them 
widened with every dogged step he took. Already she could 
barely make him out, a determined shadow slicing through the 
haze of campfire smoke and pre-dawn dark. He was heading 
upland, away from the village, his stride unwavering as he 
waded through murky waves of knee-high grass in the direction 
they had come. 

Behind him, hearth fires lit the huts like votives. No one 
came out to follow or challenge them. The villagers seemed to 
understand they needed to be alone to reach an agreement: 
whether to stay, accepting the tribe's customs, or to leave. 

Scully tried to jog, but her injured ankle wouldn't allow it. 
The medicine man's anesthetizing tea was wearing off and each 
step was excruciating.

"Mulder?" she called again. A sudden stab of pain took her 
breath away and forced her to slow down. She silently cursed 
her sprain and Mulder. 

Damn it, why didn't he stop? 

"Mulder!"

"Stay or come with me, Scully," he shouted, "but don't expect 
me to stick around for...for..." Without slowing his pace or 
turning to look at her, he dismissed the entire camp with a 
wave of his hand. 

Leaving was not an option, as far as she was concerned. 
Neither she nor Mulder had the necessary skills to survive in 
the Ice Age. That had been proven a dozen times over in the 
hungry days of the last two weeks. Unable to identify a single 
edible plant or preserve their infrequent windfalls of meat, 
they would face certain starvation without the tribe's help. 
There was no way to know how long they would be trapped in the 
past. Another week? A month? Years? What would they do when 
winter arrived, when game was presumably scarcer and 
conditions more severe than now? Would they even live through 
the summer? Saber-toothed tigers, mastodons, snakes...danger 
seemed to be waiting behind every rock. 

"Mulder, stop, please!" she called, her voice thinned by her 
desperation. "My ankle...I can't..."

That stopped him. He turned and waited, bristling with 
irritation, fists clenched, chin held high, ready for battle. 
If he felt any sympathy for her injured condition, he wasn't 
showing it.

When she reached his side, she saw anger glowing in his eyes 
and heard fear in his ragged breathing.

"Mulder, where are you going?"

For a split second, her question stalled the rise and fall of 
his chest. She'd caught him off guard; he obviously had no 
plan. He was simply running away.

"I'm not agreeing to...to that." He jabbed a finger at the 
camp. 

He was furious. She couldn't remember ever seeing him so 
angry.

She tried to steady her breathing, remain calm. Losing her 
temper now would only serve to push him further away. "What do 
you want to do?"

His gaze swept the landscape, as if an answer lurked somewhere 
in the shadows. She waited him out, letting him consider all 
the possibilities.   

"Could you do it, Scully?" he asked finally, spitting the 
words. "Could you sleep with him?"

Could she? She wasn't sure. Dzeh's advances had taken her by 
surprise earlier, so she'd fought him with all her strength. 
But she hadn't realized his purpose at the time, or what was 
at stake: her life, Mulder's. 

"I-I'm not sure," she said honestly. "But you heard them; a 
refusal means banishment...or death. I think the consequences 
outweigh our personal feelings here."

His eyebrows rose. "You can separate from your feelings as 
easily as that?"

She hadn't meant to imply it would be easy. The prospect of 
having sex with another man frightened her -- a lot -- but she 
believed she could contain her fears long enough to put the 
experience behind her, especially if it guaranteed their 
survival. 

She'd always been adept at suppressing her emotions, even as a 
little girl trying to please her no-nonsense Navy father. Her 
medical training, followed by years in the morgue, had honed 
her ability. It would be impossible for her to perform her job 
without a measure of emotional detachment. Countless 
autopsies, criminal investigations, and even her own abduction 
had taught her to guard her inner self. She found it almost 
natural now to push her emotions to one side while she went 
about her daily business.      

Surely Mulder did the same whenever he aimed and fired his gun 
with lethal intent at another person. As FBI agents, they'd 
both been trained to put aside their personal feelings to do 
whatever needed doing in the line of duty.

"It's a way to survive, Mulder. Nothing more."

"Tell yourself that if you need to, but exchanging sex for 
something else, even food, has a different name in my book."

The anger behind his words stung her. He was acting jealous, 
although he had no reason to be. She wasn't romantically 
interested in Dzeh any more than he was interested in Klizzie. 

"He means nothing to me," she said.

"So that makes it okay to sleep with him?" He glared at her, 
derision narrowing his eyes. "Well, I feel a whole lot 
better." 

He wasn't getting it; this was a matter of living or dying. 
Why was he making it personal?

"We aren't talking about a lifelong commitment, Mulder," she 
said, irritation creeping into her tone. "They said one 
night."

"It's wife-swapping."

Before she could stop herself, she blurted, "That's an 
interesting take considering I'm not your wife." 

His eyes widened and his body stiffened. For a moment, she 
thought he might strike her, or turn and stalk away.

"Oh, I'm sorry," he said, sarcasm dripping from his voice, 
"but I was under the impression that when you slept with me it 
was because you cared about me. But then maybe I'm just a 
means to an end, too, huh?" He loomed closer. "Tell me, 
Scully, what end would that be exactly? Pregnancy? A child?"

His words shocked her. She felt her restraint slipping away.

"What were your reasons?" she challenged, hurt by his 
unwarranted accusation. "Need a sexual release and I happened 
to be handy?" Her anger overtook her at this idea. "Is that 
why you finally decided to take the plunge and sleep with me? 
Was I just a convenient fuck?" 

The word hung between them. 

A grunt of disbelief chuffed from his lungs. His shoulders 
slumped and he appeared to deflate as his anger -- or maybe 
his hope -- drained out of him. Turning his focus to the 
village, his eyes swamped with tears. "I did care for you, 
Scully. I still do...more than you know."

"Then why are you willing to risk my life...and yours...over 
something that is temporary and inconsequential?"

"Inconsequen...?" He looked stunned. His frown deepened. 
"Because you're *mine*, goddamn it," he said through gritted 
teeth, his anger returning full force. "I don't want him 
touching you. And...and I'm sorry if that's not politically 
correct or I shouldn't feel that way...or...or I have no right 
to feel that way, but...you're...I can't... *God damn it*!" 

He suddenly grabbed her and pulled her into a rib-crushing 
embrace. His words, his emotion, overwhelmed her, and she felt 
tears flood her own eyes. She wrapped her arms around him and 
held onto him as tightly as she could. 

They stood like that for several minutes, lost in a storm of 
uncertainty. Tucked against his feverish chest, listening to 
the hammering of his heart, breathing the familiar scent of 
his body, she no longer heard the shriek of crickets in the 
grass at her feet, nor did she smell the cloying stench of 
burnt meat and woodsmoke that wafted up from the village, or 
feel the chilly night breeze that rattled the beads in her 
braided hair. Her entire universe became the circle of his 
arms. He was a refuge on this vast, empty hillside beneath a 
ceiling of stars, where the moon was setting and dawn was 
still an eternity away.

"Scully, I can't make love to another woman, or allow you to 
sleep with another man," he murmured into her hair. "I can't. 
I just can't."

"If you know a way out of this, I'm listening."

She drew back to look into his eyes. It was obvious from his 
sad expression that he had no real alternatives to offer.

"We could camp nearby, come back and steal their food while 
they're sleeping," he said, trying to make a joke. When she 
didn't smile, he suggested more seriously, "Or we could just 
leave. Go somewhere far away, take our chances that we'll 
survive until we get home."

That was so like him, she thought, ignoring the hard facts 
while he looked for an improbable, "out there" answer. He 
needed to see their predicament realistically; she had to find 
a way to make him see it.

"How many bullets do you have left?" she asked.

"Uh..." He avoided her eyes, pretending to study the beads in 
her hair. "We don't need bullets. I killed that sloth with my 
spear, remember?"

"You don't have any bullets, do you?"

"No." He stroked her braids, rattling the beads. "I used them 
to kill the mastodon."

Without bullets they wouldn't survive for more than a few 
weeks at best. 

And there was also the little problem of her injured ankle. 

"I can't go anywhere, Mulder," she said, nodding at her 
bandaged leg. "Not right now." 

Reminded of her injury, he mumbled an apology and squatted in 
the grass, drawing her down beside him. 

It comforted her to sit there with him, knees drawn up, 
surrounded by a thickening veil of pre-dawn mist. It reminded 
her of the night they spent on a rock in Heuvelmans Lake while 
hunting Big Blue.

"Mulder, do you remember asking me once if I could cannibalize 
someone if I had to?"

"Yes."

"Do you remember what I said?" 

She knew he did. He never forgot anything.

"You said that a living entity is conditioned to perform 
whatever extreme measures are necessary to ensure its 
survival. And as much as you abhorred the idea of cannibalism, 
you supposed that under certain conditions, you would resort 
to it. Or something to that effect."

"Yes, that's what I said." And she'd meant it, although at the 
time she hoped she would never find herself in a situation 
where all the choices were objectionable ones...like now.

There are degrees of hardship, she reminded herself. Avoiding 
death, no matter what the emotional cost, was the only real 
choice here.

"I still feel that way," she said.

"We're not talking about cannibalism, Scully."

"Is sleeping with someone worse than cannibalizing them?"

A humorless laugh huffed from his nose. "Given the choice, I'd 
rather cook and eat Dzeh than have him make love to you."

She put a hand on his leg, stilling the nervous tapping of his 
foot. "Maybe you need to stop thinking of it as making love."

"I'm not sure I can," he said, sounding sad. "I guess I'm not 
like you, Scully; I can't seem to separate the act from the 
emotion."

"They don't think of it that way, you know. To them it's a 
practical arrangement."

"I don't care what they think." He plucked a blade of grass 
from beside his foot and stuck it between his teeth. "What 
kind of a fucked up society has a custom like this anyway?" he 
asked, causing the grass to waggle between his lips.

"The aboriginal Inupiat of Alaska, for one."

He turned to give her an unbelieving stare.

"Really, Mulder, I learned about them from Dr. Diamond. The 
Inupiat practiced a sort of co-marriage, a non-residential 
arrangement between two conjugal husband-wife couples united 
by shared sexual access. The alliance served to connect 
individuals who were otherwise unrelated by blood or marriage, 
ensuring assistance in the form of protection, food and goods 
across territorial boundaries. It made sense in a lot of ways. 
In periods of war, such ties would temper the amount of 
killing. In periods of peace, partners and co-spouses became 
key linkages in the conduct of inter-territorial trade."  

His jaw stopped working the blade of grass. "We aren't 
Inupiat."

"No, but Klizzie's tribe is like them in this respect. They 
believe their practices are reasonable. They *are* reasonable, 
given the circumstances. The exchange serves a cooperative 
purpose. It has nothing to do with love."

"I don't like it, Scully." A sigh of disgust sifted from his 
lungs.

"I know you don't. Neither do I."

"But...?"

"What options do we have?"

Tossing away his chewed grass, he said, "None, I suppose."

She found no relief in his surrender. Maybe she'd been hoping 
he would come up with one of his improbable, "out there" 
solutions after all.

She rose to her feet. "It'll be okay, Mulder."

He stared up at her, clearly not convinced. All around him the 
grass sparkled, tear-kissed by dew. "Will it?" he asked before 
pushing himself to his feet. He groped for her hand and linked 
his fingers with hers. "I hope you're right."

She hoped so, too.

 "Wouldn't you rather live to regret your decision than not 
live at all?"

He shook his head, brow knotted with worry. "I'm not sure 
about that, no." 

She squeezed his hand. "I am. I want to live. I want to return 
home."

"This is no guarantee." 

"No, but it's a chance. The best one we have  

Slowly, reluctantly, they walked down the hill together. When 
they reached the outermost edge of the camp, he pulled her 
into his arms.

The heat of his body warmed her and the downy hair on his arms 
and chest tickled her skin.

He dipped his head to peer into her eyes. "It hurts me that 
this doesn't seem to bother you more."

She wanted to laugh. Or cry. Or both. It bothered her. It 
bothered her a lot. But if it kept them alive and safe...kept 
*him* alive and safe...it would be a worthwhile trade.

She pulled away from him. "Don't imagine for a minute I'm 
taking it lightly."

*   *   *

Pausing outside Klizzie's door, Mulder ran his fingers through 
his hair and tried to corral his emotions. Of all the 
difficult, dreadful things he'd had to do in his life, leaving 
Scully with Dzeh topped the list. He knew she was looking at 
this arrangement in her usual pragmatic way, but he found it 
impossible to adopt her matter-of-fact attitude. His heart 
felt as if it were being squeezed by a malevolent hand, like 
he was under someone's voodoo curse. 

And yet somehow he was supposed to get it up and get it on 
with Klizzie. Shit, he'd never felt so un-amorous in his 
entire life. Thinking about Scully having sex with another man 
was the biggest turn off of all time.

With nervous energy to burn, he began to pace. Sunrise was 
still an hour away. Maybe an hour and a half, tops.

Was Dzeh already kissing Scully?

Stop it, he told himself. Just stop thinking about it. 

Right. Easier said than done.

As a psychologist, he understood he was like every other human 
male, genetically programmed to guard his love interest from 
the attentions of other sexually attentive males. Millions of 
years of evolution had honed this urge to instinct, and all 
the sensitivity seminars in the world weren't going to erase 
an inherent drive to protect his reproductive rights and 
guarantee the survival of his bloodline. 

Understanding the origins of his jealousy, however, didn't 
help him feel any better about the situation. Even knowing he 
never planned to procreate didn't lessen his desire to keep 
Dzeh from sowing oats in what Mulder considered his field.

Great, now he was thinking of Scully as property...in the 
literal sense. What would she think? 

Before leaving her with Dzeh, Mulder made damn sure to clarify 
that this was a one-time deal, signed, sealed and delivered by 
sunup. Dzeh seemed to get the gist and nodded in gruff 
agreement. 

Then the crowd of surly clansmen had dispersed, placated by 
Mulder's promise to swap partners. And Dzeh seemed guardedly 
satisfied, too. He gave Mulder a solemn nod before placing his 
big, fat, hairy Neanderthal paw on the small of Scully's back 
and steering her into his hut.

Son-of-a...

Mulder almost ended it right there, but Scully shot him a 
glare that warned him loud and clear "don't fuck this up." 
Against his better judgment, he backed down. To save her life, 
he told himself, his mind still scrambling for another 
solution, knowing he would hate himself until the day he died 
for allowing this.

Klizzie had returned to her own hut while he pretended to see 
a man about a horse, when in fact he was trying to cool his 
temper.

Jesus, how was he supposed to make love to Klizzie when he 
couldn't get his mind off Scully and Dzeh?

It's not "making love," he reminded himself. It's a social 
rule with a purpose, according to Scully. 

Shit.

Taking a deep breath, he pushed through the door flap. 

Klizzie was waiting inside on the sleeping skins, her knees 
drawn up and arms hugging her bare legs. A fire burned in the 
hearth. It cast flickering shadows across the leather ceiling 
and a golden glow over the left half of her face. All her 
former confidence and playfulness were gone. To be honest, she 
looked a little frightened.

Jesus, he hadn't meant to scare her.

Feeling guilty, he walked to the bed and crouched so that he 
faced her. He cleared his throat. "Hey."

"H-hey?"

"Yeah, well..." He nodded and cleared his throat again. "Here 
we are."

She offered him a nervous smile and scooted to one side, 
making room for him on the furs.

He remained where he was, looking at her. She was a small 
woman, only a little bigger than Scully, with smooth, coppery 
skin, and hair the color of a Hershey bar. It was done up in 
dozens of tiny braids, like Scully's was tonight. Full of 
beads and bangles, the braids glittered in the firelight. He 
could hear their soft tinkle whenever she moved her head. Her 
eyes were almond-shaped and full of trepidation. Her lower lip 
trembled, caught between white teeth. She was naked, except 
for the small, leather pouch that hung from a rawhide cord 
around her neck. She couldn't have been more than seventeen or 
eighteen years old, he realized, feeling queasy at the 
thought. He had to remind himself she was a married woman, not 
a naive virgin.

There was no denying she was lovely, but he didn't feel the 
least bit turned on. Everything about this situation felt 
wrong.

"Guess I'm supposed to make the first move," he said. 
Reluctantly he shifted position so that he was sitting beside 
her. 

She gasped when their arms bumped.

"Sorry," he said. "Uh...this is awkward, isn't it?"

She glanced into his eyes and then quickly away. 

Okay, he'd take the plunge. Reaching out, he fingered one of 
her braids. 

"Uh...what's the word for this?" he asked, hoping to relax 
them both with a little friendly conversation. 

"Cey-yehs-besi," she said shyly.

"Cey-yehs...?"

"Cey-yehs-besi," she repeated the word more slowly.

"And this?" He stroked the outer edge of her ear. "What's this 
called?"

"Ah-jah."

"And this?" He touched the tip of her nose.

"A-chin."

His questions brought a smile to her lips. If she had been 
Scully, he would have kissed that smile. But she wasn't 
Scully. She neither looked like Scully, nor smelled like 
Scully, and he was going to have a helluva tough time getting 
down to business here.

She seemed to read his mind, which was a bit like Scully. She 
reached beneath his loincloth and groped his penis, which 
wasn't at all like Scully...at least not until recently.

"Ah...Klizzie, let's wait on that for a minute." He removed 
her hand from his lap.

Worry returned to her eyes and she began chewing her lip 
again.

"Don't..." he said, caressing her lip with his thumb until she 
released it from her teeth. "Don't do that. You don't need to 
be afraid of me. I...uh...I'm sorry about...earlier."

Not understanding, she shook her head, setting her beads 
tinkling.

Unsure what to do next, he asked, "You sing, Klizzie? Know any 
Elvis? 'Don't be cruel'" -- he crooned -- "No?"

Again she shook her head, but her quizzical smile returned. 
She clearly didn't know what to make of him.

"I guess this isn't how these swap things usually go, huh?" 

Had she slept with many men besides Dzeh? he wondered. He 
tried to imagine her with other lovers, cavemen like Dzeh who 
understood the tribal protocols. Did they indulge in a little 
foreplay or did they skip right to the main event?

What was Dzeh doing with Scully right now?

Klizzie interrupted his worrisome thoughts by tugging at his 
loincloth. 

"Right. Clock's ticking and this has gotta come off."

He unknotted the cord at his waist and let her pull the 
loincloth away.

She looked at his lap and giggled.

"That's not gonna help, Klizzie. It's a reeeeal turn off when 
a woman laughs at a guy's co...penis."  

"Be-zonz sid?" she asked. "Bi-nih-nani be-zonz sid?"

"Excuse me?"

"Be-zonz." She pointed at his penis.

He still didn't understand. 

She reached out and traced his circumcision with the tip of 
her finger, causing him to flinch.

"Oh, right. Yeah, I guess that looks kinda different from what 
you're used to." How the hell do you explain circumcision to 
an Ice Age woman? He decided not to even try. Let her think it 
was a war wound or something. 

All this attention directed at his flaccid penis was making 
him more uncomfortable than ever.

"Klizzie, why don't we lie down?" He patted the furs.

She got the idea and stretched out beside him. When they were 
both settled, he drew the blanket over them. She snuggled next 
to him, hooking an arm over his chest and a leg over his 
thigh. 

She felt nice: curvy, soft, warm. But she wasn't Scully and he 
wasn't turned on.

He couldn't make love to this woman. He wouldn't. Screw the 
fucking rules. He hated rules anyway.

"Roll over," he said, nudging Klizzie onto her side. 

She gave him another confused look, but turned her back to 
him, maybe thinking he intended to take her from behind. 

"Muhl-dar?" she asked, uncertainty in her voice.

"It'll be okay," he said, repeating Scully's earlier words. He 
gently kissed her shoulder, wrapped an arm around her waist 
and spooned against the curve of her back.

Would she tell anyone he wasn't going to go through with the 
exchange?

Keeping his eyes trained on the door, he lay completely still 
and waited for sunrise.

*   *   *

You can do this, Scully told herself as Dzeh guided her into 
the hut. It won't take long, just an hour. Or less, she 
predicted, noticing the way Dzeh's erection tented his 
loincloth. He looked ready now.

You can do this, she repeated to herself.

You can do this.

You can...

Although she'd tried to convince Mulder that sex with Dzeh 
would mean nothing to her, in truth she was dreading their 
intimacy more than she'd realized.

It was ridiculous. She had no romantic feelings for him. They 
were here to fulfill a duty and that was all. Rules were rules 
and you carried them out whether you agreed with them or not. 
She'd learned that lesson at a very young age whenever her 
father praised her and her siblings for doing as they were 
told, and disciplining them when they did not. He'd sometimes 
called Scully a "good sailor" when her behavior had been 
exemplary.

As a kid Melissa had called her Miss Goody Two Shoes, and 
later on when they were older she switched to Kiss Ass, but 
that was because Missy preferred breaking the rules rather 
than following them.

Like Mulder.   

Dzeh nudged Scully toward the furs, his hand pressed firmly 
against the small of her back. She considered pretending it 
was Mulder who touched her there, but Dzeh's prodding was more 
insistent than Mulder's. He wasn't suggesting she step 
forward; he was almost demanding it. There was no mistaking 
him for Mulder. She would not be able to close her eyes and 
imagine it was Mulder who made love to her. Dzeh neither 
looked nor acted like him. 

He didn't smell like him either. Mulder's familiar scent 
reminded her of their office, his apartment, her home; Dzeh's 
musky odor, on the other hand, made her feel lost in 
unfamiliar territory.  

Facing the bed with Dzeh at her elbow, Scully felt her first 
real pang of foreboding. 

This was really going to happen, right now. 

She fought the urge to call out for Mulder's help. The desire 
was so strong it made her throat ache to hold it in. She was 
thankful Dzeh didn't expect her to make small talk; there was 
no way she could utter a single word.

Dzeh removed his loincloth and reclined on the furs. He 
beckoned her to lie beside him.

Should she turn and walk out, take the chance that she and 
Mulder could survive on their own?

Or was Mulder already making love to Klizzie, playing by the 
rules as she'd suggested?

She shook the image from her mind. She had no reason to feel 
jealous. He was doing this for her, at her request, just as 
she was doing it for him.

Dzeh propped himself on one elbow and reached out a hand for 
her. She watched herself take it, felt herself drawn down 
beside him, closed her eyes when he unknotted the belt on her 
fur skirt.

She tried to distract herself by recalling a seminar from her 
FBI training: Mental Preparation for Duty and the Reality of a 
Critical Confrontation. In the class they'd learned basic 
self-defense techniques, negotiation and crisis management, 
the importance of back ups. The last half hour was spent 
discussing the psychological impact of kidnapping and sexual 
assault on officers.

This wasn't rape, she reminded herself. She was permitting it, 
to save her life and Mulder's. Dzeh was not a monster. He was 
a kind man, following the customs of his people.

It meant nothing when he kissed her.

It meant nothing when he positioned himself between her legs.

It meant nothing when he pushed slowly inside her.

*   *   *

It is night. Dzeh is gone, Scully realizes. She is still 
naked. Mulder is naked, too, and is lying on top of her. They 
are in Mulder's bed, in his apartment. She can smell herbal 
tea on his breath. 

She spreads her thighs for him as he shifts his hips and 
pushes into her.

Oh, God, he feels good. 

"I'm glad God spoke to you," he breathes into her ear as he 
fills her. Somehow she knows he is talking about her vision. 
Not the one she had in the cave, but the one in the Buddhist 
temple. 

Although...she doesn't know when she was in a Buddhist temple. 

With Mulder inside her she doesn't care; she wants to 
experience this astonishing combination of need and 
satisfaction without question or worry. This is a familiar 
feeling, yet somehow brand new. She knows she has loved him 
before...in a cave somewhere, long ago. Yet she also knows 
this is their first time together as lovers. 

How can both things be true?

Everything happens for a reason, she thinks.

He rocks against her, fitting his body more tightly to hers 
before he begins to glide smoothly in and out of her. 

"I love you," he sighs. 

She shuts her eyes against an overwhelming surge of emotion. 
She loves him, too. She should tell him. The words hang on the 
tip of her tongue, but before she can say them, she is no 
longer beneath him. She is in the Lone Gunmen's offices, fully 
clothed, and Mulder is gone. 

"I want you guys to tell me who Diana Fowley is," she says to 
Mulder's friends. 

The three men are clearly discomfited by her question. Byers 
finally says, "Diana Fowley? Geez, we haven't heard that name 
in a while.

"Then you know her."

"Well...yeeaaah." He says it as if her question is a no-
brainer, and yet she really has no idea who this Fowley person 
is. An image of a dark haired woman, busty and glamorous, 
comes to mind.

Frohike clears his throat. "She was Mulder's chickadee when he 
first got out of the Academy. Good-looking." 

Chickadee? Her skin crawls at the idea.

"Well, she claims to have worked closely with him for a 
while." 

Langly says, "She was there when he discovered the X-Files. 
She has some kind of background in para-science."

Byers adds, "She got a Legat appointment a while back...in 
Berlin. I always wondered why they split up."

Split up? Why has Mulder never mentioned this Fowley person 
before?

Head swimming, Scully retreats from the Gunmen's office only 
to find herself in the doorway of her own office. Mulder's 
office.

Mulder is sitting at his desk waiting for her. "Come on, 
Scully. What's the word?" he asks when she enters.

She crosses the room and settles a hip against the side of his 
desk.

"Um, Dr. Parenti feels, with the proper approach, there's a 
good chance for me to become pregnant." She feels nervous and a 
little giddy, so she fumbles with some pencils he has lined up 
at the edge of his desk. "He said he could...uh, help me with 
genetic counseling if I wanted to find an anonymous donor for 
the baby's father."

Mulder nods. "Is that...is that what you plan to do?"

"There is another option. I can ask someone I know." She 
releases the pencils; they roll across the desk like pick-up 
sticks. "I was thinking of you."

She is having another vision, she realizes. The change of 
scene doesn't frighten her the way it did the first time. But 
she hasn't been paying attention, looking for clues as to how 
to get back home. Mulder will ask her later.

She looks around now, determined to notice every detail, 
something to help them, if she can find and remember it.

Suddenly she's back in that apartment with the cameras again. 
Oh, God, no, this is the place where she got shot. The room 
smells of photographic chemicals. A man is loading film.

He tells her "You're very lucky, you know that?"

He barely finishes saying this when a bullet pierces her 
abdomen. Oh, God, the pain is terrible, a shock, buckling her 
knees, sliding her to the floor.

Mulder! Help me, please! 

She looks down at her stomach and sees blood. Pain rips 
through her abdomen. Oh God, oh God!

"Push. Push, Dana, push!" commands a dark-haired woman Scully 
has never met.

The photographer is gone. Scully is no longer in the camera-
filled apartment, but on a bed in a room with a stained glass 
window. She places a hand on her stomach and discovers it's 
distended, enormous.

She hasn't been shot; she's giving birth! Dozens of faces 
stare at her. She is screaming, terrified. They want to hurt 
her. They want to take her baby!

Yet in the next breath she is holding her newborn son and her 
fear is gone. He is one day old and perfect. She is with him 
in her apartment, on her bed. She could watch him forever. She 
can't remember ever feeling this happy. When Mulder arrives, 
she rises from the bed and carries the baby to him.

He murmurs to the child, gathers him in his arms, and asks, 
"What are you going to call him?"

"William. After your father."

This is Mulder's child. She knows it, feels it. And her heart 
unburdens itself in that single instant.

*   *   *

"Gini," Dzeh whispered to his little sister, "Where is my yea-
go stick?"

Rummaging through the stores of fur blankets, empty 
containers, tools and cooking gear in the back of his Uncle 
Lin's shelter, Dzeh tried to be as quiet as possible so as not 
to wake the others who still slept around the hearth. Although 
it was almost sunup, it was dark in the lodge with the door 
closed. Most of his relatives were sleeping late this morning, 
recovering from last night's excitement. 

Gini climbed from her furs to help Dzeh look for his stick. 
She knelt beside him, eyes still glazed with dreams. 

He cupped her small cheek. It felt overly warm and he hoped 
her feverishness was the result of sleeping too near the fire, 
not a sign of illness. He would send her to the Shaman later 
today to get a potion, just to be on the prudent side. 

"Where is Klizzie?" she asked, keeping her voice low.

Dzeh let his hand fall away from her cheek.

"She is with Muhl-dar." 

Gini nodded and then set about silently rearranging a pile of 
unworked hides to gain access to the back of the storage area. 
Once she had cleared a narrow path, she crawled through. "Why 
are you not still with Day-nuh?" she asked, her head hidden 
behind a large travel pack.

"Because we are done," he said.

He didn't bother to explain they had finished before first 
birdsong. Day-nuh had been an unresponsive partner. She 
refused to let him kiss her or bring her to her moment of 
pleasure. She remained mute and emotionless the entire time, 
leaving him to consummate their alliance. 

At least the responsibility was now over and he was grateful 
Day-nuh had not fought or pulled any more knives on him.

"Why are Klizzie and Muhl-dar not finished, too?"

Why indeed? Perhaps Klizzie was being more accommodating than 
Day-nuh had been, pleasuring Muhl-dar twice or even three 
times. It pleased Dzeh to think his mate was fulfilling her 
part of the bargain in a proper manner. 

These newcomers bewildered him. Their strangeness seemed 
without limits. Muhl-dar's initial objections to the mate-
exchange, followed by his outrageous temper last night -- such 
actions were unheard of among civilized men. How did Eel 
clansmen build binding partnerships without first trading 
mates? It was beyond understanding. 

Day-nuh's lack of enthusiasm confused him every bit as much as 
Muhl-dar's temper. He had expected to receive a sincere 
demonstration of conjugal affection from his Trading Partner's 
mate. But Day-nuh had shown no friendliness whatsoever. 

The one-sided exchange left him feeling a little cheated. Not 
that he would complain to Muhl-dar. Such pettiness would be 
impolite. Insulting even.

"You ask too many questions, Little Sister. Prying is 
unseemly. It is time for you to start behaving more like a 
grown woman and less like a little girl. How will I find a 
mate for you if you continue to act like a child who has not 
learned proper manners?"

Gini pulled her head out from between the stores. Her eyebrows 
peaked with worry. "Klizzie said I do not have to have a 
mate!" she said, her voice soaring with apprehension.   

"Hush!" Dzeh pointed to the sleeping family. "You will wake 
everyone!"

Gini clamped a hand over her mouth. Tears pooled in her 
widened eyes.

"Of course you will have a mate," he said, lowering his voice. 
"Do you expect me to take care of you forever?"

She uncovered her mouth, revealing a headstrong scowl. "I will 
take care of myself," she said, squaring her slim shoulders.

"You will hunt for your own meat?" He almost laughed out loud 
at the idea.

"I...yes, I will."

"Such foolish notions prove you have much growing to do." 

Gini needed to be taught the proper ways of adults, and the 
sooner the better. Klizzie had babied the girl too long. 

"We will take our meals with Klizzie's Aunt Ho-Ya today," he 
announced, ready to begin Gini's education as soon as 
possible.

"Why?" Gini's round face paled.

"So you can become acquainted with her son Chal." He shifted 
several empty baskets out of his way and resumed his search 
for his yea-go stick. "The boy showed courage during the 
mastodon hunt. He knows how to make serviceable spear points. 
He might be an acceptable mate for you."

"But--" 

Tears spilled down Gini's cheeks at this news. She jumped to 
her feet and, without even bothering to ask her brother's 
leave, she ran from the hut.

Dzeh would have called her back and disciplined her if he 
could have done so without waking the others. Instead he 
simply sighed and continued hunting for his stick.   

He wasn't really a hard-hearted man; it weighed heavily on him 
to see his little sister in distress. But he was also a man 
who had experienced the harshness of the world. He had 
witnessed many bleak seasons, times of starvation and 
hardship. Gini was too young to remember such suffering. She 
didn't know that their own mother had been weakened by hunger 
when she began her last labor. The Spirits had taken her that 
awful night, leaving Gini an orphan. Dzeh recalled the moment 
like yesterday. He knew his sister needed a strong, skilled 
man to provide her with food and protection. Life was a 
difficult enough path when a family walked together; it was 
impossible for one who walked alone.

He caught sight of his yea-go stick and tugged it out from 
beneath his uncle's fishing gear. The rawhide yea-go ball was 
tucked inside the stick's leather well. He hefted it, testing 
its familiar weight and then he brought the leather ball to 
his nose. Ahhh, the smell made him long to be on the playing 
field.

Soon enough. Turtle Clan would arrive this morning, which 
meant the yea-go matches could begin.

*   *   *

The sun crested the blue-black mountains in the east and cast 
a golden glow into the valley, turning the lake molten, 
gilding the trees, and striping the land with hard-edged 
shadows. From the reeds along the lakeshore to the uppermost 
branches of the butternut trees, grackles, jays and ducks 
cawed and quacked, their raucous morning ritual announcing the 
dawn.    

Mulder paced outside Scully's hut, the same way he had paced 
outside Klizzie's only an hour earlier. His stomach was in 
knots. He combed his fingers repeatedly through his hair. 
Worry creased his brow. The sun wasn't fully up yet, which 
meant Dzeh might still be inside with Scully. *That* would be 
more than he could bear. He wished this whole mate-swap thing 
would fade like this morning's mist, never to come up again.

He paused in his pacing to cock an ear toward the shelter. He 
heard nothing from inside, no conversation, no masculine 
snore, no cries...or grunts...of ecstasy. All good signs. Even 
so, he was reluctant to enter.

Most of the village was still sleeping, exhausted from 
yesterday's feasting and long night of celebration...not to 
mention Mulder's early morning rampage. A few women were up 
and about, stirring communal cook-fires, bringing the glowing 
coals to life. A couple meandered toward the lake. They were 
nude and carried soap roots, combs and furs. They pretended to 
ignore Mulder as they walked past with heads bowed, as if too 
intent on their own low conversation to notice him. 

He caught their sly, sidelong glances.

"Hey," he said, lifting a hand to give them a half-hearted 
wave. "Nice morning."

They frowned and hurried on their way.

No pleasing some people. He'd played by their rules...sort 
of...and yet he was still being treated like an outsider. 

Disgusted, he turned and entered the hut.

Inside he found Scully -- and only Scully, thank God -- curled 
on the sleeping skins with her back to the door. The fire had 
burned out, but daylight from the open door made it bright 
enough for him to see she was wearing his leather jacket. 

The coat was several sizes too big, of course, and the sleeves 
extended beyond her wrists, hiding her hands. Her legs were 
bare, knees drawn up. She looked lost in his coat, small and 
vulnerable. 

The hut smelled like sex, hers mixed with the musky odor of 
male sweat and semen. Mulder's stomach knotted tighter. He 
considered turning and walking away. If he were back home he'd 
quell his nervous stomach by jogging until his legs cramped 
and his lungs ached. He'd expel his overwrought emotions by 
sweating them out. It would be a relief to empty his mind 
while concentrating on the rhythmic slap, slap of his feet on 
concrete. He could almost smell the car exhaust prickling his 
nose, hear the blare of horns, feel himself bouncing in place 
while he waited for the crosswalk light to change. God, what 
he wouldn't give right now for a decent pair of running shoes 
and five miles of city sidewalk.  

Letting the shelter door fall shut behind him, he crossed to 
the bed and knelt beside her. He reached out to gently stroke 
her bare hip. "Scully?" he said softly.

She sniffled at his touch and rolled over to look at him. 

Oh Christ, she was crying. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her 
lashes and cheeks wet with tears. 

Rage washed through him in waves at the sight, battering his 
frazzled nerves and threatening to steal the last shreds of 
his control. What had that fucking Neanderthal done to her?

Unable to ask the question, he gathered her into his arms 
intending to let her cry herself out. 

But she didn't bury her face against his chest as he thought 
she might. She surprised him by smiling up at him.

"Scully?"

"I had another vision," she said, sounding breathless and 
excited. 

Her tears weren't tears of grief, but of joy. Mulder found 
himself struggling to switch gears. 

"W-When?"

"Just now. A few minutes ago."

He brushed his palm over the jacket she wore. His fingers 
itched to reach into the pocket and touch the carved idol he 
knew was there. 

"Tell me," he urged.

"I was pregnant."

"Pregnant?" He hadn't expected this.

"I gave birth to a baby. A boy."

Questions swirled through his mind. How? Where? When? Who?

"When did this, uh, event take place?" he asked, deciding to 
ease into his questions, beginning with the least personal.

"I don't know. There was a woman with me. A dark haired woman. 
I've never seen her before. I think she was an FBI agent."

An FBI agent in the maternity ward? That was odd. 

"Where--" He paused to clear his throat. His mouth felt as dry 
as the Utah desert. "Where did you have this...your baby?"

"I'm not sure. I was in a room with a stained glass window. I 
was afraid."

"Afraid? Why?"

She shook her head. "But then you came and everything was 
fine." Her smile widened.

He rarely saw her smile this way. It softened her face, made 
her look younger, less like a seasoned agent. He would cut off 
both arms to be able to put that smile on her face every day. 

"He was beautiful," she said in a dreamy voice. "So perfect."

"The baby?"

"Yes. I named him William." 

She shifted in his arms, snuggling against him like a 
satisfied cat.

"After your father?" he asked, feeling stupid because of 
course it would be after her father.

"No. After yours. The baby was yours, Mulder."

Whoa, whoa, whoa...not possible. Not in this lifetime. 

"Are you sure?" he asked, spotting a smear of drying semen on 
her upper thigh. The knot in his stomach was reaching critical 
mass; he was on the verge of losing last night's supper.

Her beautiful smile faded. "Yes, I'm sure." 

She pulled away from him.

"Well, it's just..." He gestured at her leg. "Isn't it 
possible--?"

"No. The baby was yours, Mulder."

"How do you know? How can you be sure?"

"Because you agreed to the IVF procedure, for one thing."

"In vitro fertilization?" He was having trouble keeping up. 
This was too confusing, too outlandish. His emotions were 
seesawing. Jealousy, fear, rage, bewilderment...he couldn't 
get his bearings. "Why IVF?"

Her frown deepened. "In case you've forgotten, I happen to be 
infertile." 

Jesus, I can be such an idiot, he thought. Of course she would 
need IVF.

Her expression changed again, from irritation to apprehension. 
"Mulder, what you said, back in the field, about me using you 
to get pregnant--"

"Scully, I was upset. I shouldn't have said that."

"Shouldn't have," she repeated softly, looking down. "But you 
meant it, didn't you?"

"Scully..." He shook his head. 

Yes, he'd meant it but only in an insecure, thoughtless way. 
He truly didn't believe she would try to trick him into 
getting her pregnant. She was the most honest, forthright 
person he'd ever known. It wasn't in her character to be 
devious. He'd been projecting his past relationship with Diana 
onto his current one with her.

Assuming they still had a relationship. Scully looked ready to 
flee. And he felt ready to run in the opposite direction.

She rose and for a moment he thought she was going to leave, 
but she crossed the hut to get the water bag. She used it to 
sluice her thigh while scrubbing the dried semen from her leg 
with her fingers. When she finished washing, she turned to 
face him.

"I want you to be honest with me," she said.

"Always," he said, knowing this was a lie but wishing it 
weren't. It wasn't that he liked lying to her; it was just 
sometimes it seemed more prudent to keep the truth to himself, 
for her sake as much as for his own.

She cleared her throat before pinning him with a stare. 

"Mulder, who is Diana Fowley?"