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Not My Lover *NC17* 2/2
Deslea R. Judd
Copyright 2000ARCHIVE: Yes, just keep my name on it.
DISCLAIMER: Characters not mine. Interpretation mine.
RATING: NC17 for sex and language.
SPOILERS/TIMEFRAME: Mytharc Ascension to Requiem.
CATEGORY/KEYWORDS: romance, angst, mytharc, Krycek/Covarrubias.
SUMMARY: In a world of changing allegiances, only Alex and Marita will have the strength and permanence with which to lead the Russian project. But will they have strength to survive the American agenda? Tells the mytharc from Alex and Marita's perspective.
MORE FIC: http://fiction.deslea.com/
FEEDBACK: Love the stuff. deslea@deslea.com
AWARDS/ELIGIBILITY: Top 3 Finalist, Spooky Awards 2000, Outstanding Krycek Characterisation and Outstanding Other Series Character Romance. Commended in the B.I.T.T. Awards 2001. Cover Art was a finalist in the 2000 F.O.X. Awards (Outstanding Krycek Story Cover Art)
FIVE (continued)
My labs were empty.
The doors to the five anterooms were open. No Georgia at the desk. No scientists in either of the two laboratories. No Gibson.
No Mare.
I raced into our room, took in at once the empty bed. There was no sign of a struggle, but there was a hypodermic needle on the floor. With rising panic, I crouched to pick it up, and saw traces of clear fluid in the barrel. I doubted it was pure saline.
Diana Donovan's voice came from behind me. It was gentle. "Alex."
I looked up, my heart pounding. "Diana," I said in a husky voice. "What happened?"
She came into the room, a little awkwardly, and I remembered she hadn't been out of the hospital very long. "Max is gone. Car bombing." She said sadly, "He was very good to me. Like a father."
"I'm sorry," I said hollowly. I felt like leaping to my feet, lunging at her, pushing her against the wall by her slender white neck, screaming at her to tell me what happened to Mare. I didn't do it, partly because I didn't have that kind of energy in me, and partly because I already knew she was gone.
Diana said quietly, "The alien rebels found out about the vaccine when Mulder used it in Antarctica. They demanded the handover of the scientists and the immunes. If we hadn't complied, they would have given their information to the colonists. Colonisation would have begun at once." She sat down on the bed in front of me.
"We?" I echoed angrily, rising from a crouch to my feet, my face dark with rage.
She should have looked afraid, but she didn't. She just looked up at me with that odd empathy in her eyes, and I remembered that she had lost a spouse not so long before. "I didn't do this," she said softly. "I found out about it after the fact." Oddly, I believed her.
"What will they do to her?" I demanded harshly.
She bowed her head. "They killed her, Alex."
I sank into the chair and closed my eyes in agony. "How?" I whispered.
She said reluctantly, "They burnt her." I flinched.
"You saw?" I whispered at last.
She shook her head. "One of my men did - my right hand man. I don't have any reason to suspect his account." She reached down, took my hand in hers and held it out, and put something into my palm. I stared down at it numbly.
Mare's wedding ring.
It was covered in soot, stained in delicate ebony trails where it had been licked by flames. The yellow sapphires were dulled, their settings littered with ash. Staring at it, I couldn't breathe.
Diana's voice was gentle. "She's gone, Alex."
And then suddenly I could breathe, but the breaths were deep and laboured. "Leave me," I burst out, gesturing blindly.
Her hands were on my shoulders. "Alex, I've been widowed, I know what this is like. I don't think you should be alone-"
I shook her off. "Leave me!" I roared. "Leave me!"
Nodding wordlessly, she rose and left the room; and when I heard the double doors close behind her, I screamed in pain. I kept screaming, cries of a mortally wounded animal, until I was hoarse; and then I was silent.
But still I screamed in my heart.
I was still there when Spender came the following day.
I heard him come into the labs, heard him quietly giving orders to his men to continue the work. I heard him introducing scientists to one another, telling them where to find things, and telling them that they were to report to me. He instructed them not to enter the bed-sitting room nearest the door - those were Mr Krycek's quarters. I ignored it all; he would come to me if he wanted to. If he dared.
At last, he appeared in the doorway. "Alex?"
I didn't look at him. "What do you want?" I asked morosely.
His voice was surprisingly level - no arrogance, no cynicism. He said simply, "I want to give you something."
"What is it?" I said dully.
"It's your wife."
I turned to face him, and stared at the box he held out. "Her ashes, Alex. I thought you might like to bury them, or scatter them."
I tried to scatter them. I took them to the plains of Ateni, her birthplace, place of our marriage. Such a grey place, and yet it had given us so much. I shook the box, and let the wind take her; but then I screamed in pain, and I ran after her, scooping up whatever ash I could find on the ground, holding it to myself. In the extremity of it I collapsed to the ground on my knees, holding what fragments of her I could, and I wept, begging her to stretch out her hand to comfort me from wherever she might be.
But she was silent.
I continued to work on the vaccine.
I didn't really know what else to do. Spender had given me continued control of the operation, so I stayed there more or less by default. I had nowhere else to go, except for Mare's apartment - mine, I supposed now - but that was much too painful to bear. Co-operating with Spender wasn't something that sat easily with me, but I had no reason to hate anymore. Everything that gave my life the layers of meaning that hate required was gone.
Not that my co-operation was total: I was passing intelligence to the Tunisians. There was no real method to my madness - I was just hedging my bets. I had the vague idea of eventually working on the vaccine away from Spender; but I couldn't seriously contemplate it for the time being. It all seemed too hard. I remained an American at heart, and I was choosy about the intelligence I passed on.
Before his death, Donovan had delivered the vaccine to Mulder in time to save Scully - she was ill, but nowhere near as ill as Mare had been, and that puzzled me. The Antarctic installation collapsed when the anchored UFO broke free, decimating a good part of the polar environment; the Australian government - with the backing of adjacent stakeholder Norway - pressured for ongoing investigation into the incident, and as a consequence the X Files were reopened. That was largely political appeasement, however: we had major conflicts with Australia already over wheat export concessions. The Bureau was quite happy for the X Files to be non-productive; so Spender was able to displace Mulder and Scully, replacing them with Diana Donovan and an unwitting Spender Jr.
With the X Files in his pocket, only Skinner remained as a wildcard, and Spender was anxious that he be controlled. I won't belabour the details of how I took him. It was all very political and technological, and I have little patience for either. The short version is this: Spender had been playing with nanotechnology - microscopic machines that behaved as pathogens. He had agreed to give the technology to the Tunisians; in exchange, he got the Tunisian vote for control of the vaccine project after Donovan's death. Once the vote was cast, Spender privately decreed that the deal should not proceed, and in any case I was determined to stop it. But neither Spender nor I could be seen to be the ones who prevented it.
The work on the technology was comparatively open, approved and funded in top-secret congressional sittings, and as a consequence the handover of the technology had to be more or less by the book. Spender had arranged for a senate resolution, SR819, which would allow the granting of money and medical technology to third world countries as a humanitarian measure. The technology was to be handed over under the provisions of that bill; if we stopped the bill, we could stop the handover.
In the end, I killed two birds with one stone. I infected Skinner with the nanocytes, manipulated he and Mulder into exposing the bill, damn near killed him, then brought him back. No more bill, and Skinner was under my control. I have to admit that I felt a little pride about that operation: it was clean and efficient, had a low body count, and I had my desired results in less than thirty-six hours. Mare would have praised me - and then she'd probably have slapped me, for Skinner. I never really got the friendship between those two, but it was strong.
But I felt something; that was the thing. Seven long months without her, and while I wasn't healing - I would never heal - perhaps the flow of blood was finally ebbing. The agony was losing some of its bite - or so I thought.
It had only just begun.
"Dear God."
I stared down at my lab table, strewn with facsimile copies and folders and medical charts. I remembered that fog just after Mare died, when my world fell apart. In a way, this was not much different. It hurt less, but it was just as shocking.
Diana Donovan came and peered over my shoulder. "What's the matter?"
I picked up a picture of Cassandra and waved it at her. It was an old picture - she'd still been married to Spender then. "She's the matter," I snapped, flinging it down again. I laid three charts side-by-side, and pointed. "Look at the dates and then look at the metabolic readings."
She did as I asked, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear in a way that reminded me eerily of Mare. Her eyes widened, and she froze. For long, long moments, she stared, her body still, her face deathly white, her strong, chiselled features lined with horror. "They've done it," she said harshly. "They've really done it."
I nodded. "A successful alien-human hybrid." I said quietly, "As soon as the alien colonists find out about this, she'll be handed over, and it will begin."
She looked at me squarely. "My husband died to prevent this," she said fiercely. "So did Max. I'm not letting it happen now."
"So did my wife," I said gravely. "What did you have in mind?"
She answered my question with a question. "Where are we on the vaccine?"
"Nowhere," I said wearily. "Even if we piggy-back it off another vaccine, people will stop complying as soon as the first lots of after-effects are reported. It's just not a viable candidate for mass vaccination."
Diana made a sound of frustration. "What about the water supply?"
I shook my head. "The dosage is too precise. It's not the sort of thing you can take in small quantities over time for a cumulative effect. We might get twenty percent of the population immune, but we'd also have forty percent unaffected and forty percent mortality."
"Forty percent mortality?" Diana repeated, horrified.
I nodded grimly. "Mostly the very young, the very old, and the infirm. Might be a good thing in Darwinian terms, of course," I added wryly.
She shook her head. "No, that's not acceptable."
"No, it isn't," I agreed. We were silent for some time, but at last, I suggested, "What about killing Cassandra? I know it's unpalatable-"
She cut me off. "She's protected. Spender will never kill her. She's the mother of his child." At my doubtful look, she insisted, "I know you think of him as heartless - you have reason to - but I'm telling you, Alex; that is one thing he will never allow."
"So what will he do?" I demanded. "Hand her over and take his chances on colonisation?"
"I think so," Diana said softly. "I know they never really intended to succeed on a hybrid - it was to buy time - but once they realise they could see their families again-" she broke off. "Think about it, Alex. If it were you, and letting it happen meant you could have Marita back. What would you do?"
"I don't know," I said harshly, but it was a lie.
Diana wasn't fooled. "Yes, you do," she asserted. "The same as I'd do for my husband. You'd say damn the world. Because you want her back, and you'd give up the world to do it."
I nodded slowly; admitted, "Yeah." I looked at her, pinned her down with my gaze. "How long do you think we've got?"
"Until Spender has the same intelligence we have?" I nodded. "A couple of hours, maybe. Openshaw won't tell him until they've tested - he'll want to be sure. The group will probably meet overnight. It could be in motion as soon as tomorrow evening." She spoke clinically, her eyes dull, her voice dead. I thought a part of her had already given up.
I watched her reflectively; at last, said, "Diana?" At her glance, I asked in a low voice, "Do you want the vaccine?"
She shook her head morosely. "You're going to need me, Alex." She looked very tired. "I think you should offer it to the scientists, though."
"Yeah." My cellphone rang, and I removed it from my pocket, opening the flip. "Krycek." I listened, hanging my head at the message being conveyed. I made vague sounds of thanks, then hung up, my face very white. I looked at Diana once more. "That was Spender."
"He knows?" she said fearfully.
I shook my head. "No, it isn't that." At her querying look, I said softly, "There's been another firestorm."
She did a double take at that. "Rebels?"
I shrugged. "Apparently. Openshaw is dead. They're all dead."
"Including Cassandra?" she said hopefully.
I shook my head. "They killed everyone but her."
Diana's jaw dropped a little. She demanded, perplexed, "Why? Their whole ideology is that the hybrids are a dilution of their race! Why let her live?"
"To lead them to the group?" I hazarded.
She nodded slowly. "That's a point. Kill the group to make sure the hybridisation stops."
I frowned - that didn't fit together. "But they know we're working on a vaccine. Surely they know we never really planned to go through with the hybridisation," I argued, trying to make sense of it.
Diana thought on this, but then she shook her head slowly. "Alex, I don't think they want to stop colonisation. They still want to colonise - just without hybridisation. If they can somehow cancel the deal, they will have the power among their own kind to take control of the invasion. They don't want us to have a vaccine any more than the colonists do." I nodded slowly. I hadn't thought of it that way. "Besides," she said hesitantly. "They don't know about the vaccine."
"What do you mean?" I demanded. "They demanded the immunes! That's why they wanted Mare-" I stopped suddenly, staring at her accusingly.
"I only found out a few days ago, Alex. I didn't think it would achieve anything to tell you," she said apologetically. "Gibson, Marita - it was just Spender clearing the board. But he wanted you to keep working on the vaccine for him, so he blamed the rebels. He convinced me, and that convinced you."
I felt the horror rise in my chest. "Son of a-"
Long, white hands on my arm. "Don't do this, Alex. He can't know you're against him. We have to try to stop this thing. Agreed?" Breathing deeply, I got control of myself. I nodded, my gaze locked on hers.
"Agreed."
I waited for Jeffrey.
The group's offices at New York were deserted. The smell of cigarette smoke and aged liqueur was already lifting. A fine layer of dust seemed to have settled. The musty smell of marching decay was already gaining ascendancy, marking the passing of an age. Testosterone seeped through the leather and embedded itself in the wood panelling. It hung in the air like a vapour. It was a very male room, and as far as I knew, Mare had been the only woman ever admitted, besides domestic staff. The thought filled me with both pride and disgust. Feminists the elders were not.
Where the hell was Jeffrey?
I held him in my mind's eye, appraisingly. A weak, weaselly creature, not at all cut out for the work, and best left to a life of puckering up for his paycheck; but just recently Spender had insisted on his initiation. He could be groomed, the proud father had proclaimed, and I was just the one to do it. The irony that he entrusted me with his child when he had killed mine was not lost on me.
But Jeffrey had shown surprising mettle, disavowing his father when he learned of the experiments on his mother. He was the only person left who knew enough to help, but not enough to think to sell out. Perhaps - just perhaps - if I could get him to Fort Marlene, between us we could prevent his mother from being handed over.
I would give him five more minutes.
I frowned, thinking of Diana. She was pursuing her own path, pretending to help the older Spender as they prepared to surrender Cassandra. Or was she really helping him? Had she decided to give up the fight to save herself and Mulder? I didn't know, and I didn't much care. If she had, I couldn't blame her, in the circumstances.
There was a noise, and I rose, watching the door expectantly. "Jeff?" I called. He came in, closing it softly behind him. He was green. Some of that was the reflection of the light from the bottle green leather chairs. Most of it, though, was just Jeffrey being green.
"You're looking for your father," I said quietly. "He's gone. They've all gone."
"What do you mean?" he demanded, his face working. It was the look of a man who was in over his head, and sinking fast. The question now was whether he could swim. He had done it before when I'd thought it beyond him; perhaps he would again.
"Well, they've abandoned these offices," I said, waiting for it all to fall into place for him. I was careful to keep my voice even: Jeff was a bit like a rabbit sometimes, easily startled.
"But they've been here for fifty years!" he protested. Dammit, Gibson was less trouble than this. "Where did they go?"
"To West Virginia," I replied. "They'll begin medical preparations to receive the hybrid genes." Then, pointedly, "Except for your father. He's gone to get your mother."
He looked startled. He'd gone from rabbit to deer-in-the-headlights. "No one can get to her. I've got her secured away."
"Secured away?" I said, in disbelief at his naivete. "He's already had his doctors looking at her."
He protested, "I've got her under guard!"
"She's probably being prepared as we speak, Jeffrey."
I'll say this for Jeffrey: he took a while to latch on, but when he did, he was okay at putting things into action. I had a van waiting, and we drove to Fort Marlene, exchanging intelligence along the way. He knew a lot more than I'd expected, and it occurred to me that he might be worth cultivating as an ally, if by some miracle this catastrophe could be averted.
We parted company at the installation; him to try to find his mother, me to salvage whatever work and vaccine I could. If I couldn't save the world, I could sure as hell save myself, and whatever unfortunates I happened to find along the way. I threw him the keys to the van and told him to use it if he found Cassandra. I didn't really think he'd find her, and he didn't.
He found Mare.
There was a rebel at Fort Marlene.
My labs had been ransacked. Vaccine gone, pathogen samples destroyed. My blood pumping, I backed out of there and ran to Purity Control, three floors up at the other end of the building.
I passed through half a dozen security checkpoints without incident; but at the last, I was stopped. "This is an emergency!" I protested. "I have top-level clearance!"
"I'm sorry, Mr Krycek," the guard said evenly, "but the computer says you've been specifically denied access to this part of the installation."
My jaw dropped. "By who?"
He tapped a few keys. "CGB Spender."
"That's ridiculous," I said incredulously. "I'm his offsider. What's the reason code?"
More tapping. "X14 - classified miscellaneous."
"What does that mean?" I demanded; but I already knew the answer. It meant there was something in there that he didn't want me to see.
"I don't know." He shrugged a little. "It's within his authority. Take it up with him."
I shook my head. "There's no time. Besides," I added, raising my weapon. "His authority just expired."
I shot the guard, cleared my file from the screen, and continued down the hall.
The EBE was gone.
Disbelief is too insignificant, too unimportant a word. My world was taken, shaken, and its fragments tossed awry, falling to the floor in formations I had never seen before. And some part of me screamed her name.
It was all for nothing.
The vaccine was pointless...useless. There would never be opportunity for its distribution. Whatever happened with Cassandra, with the alien genome gone, the hybridisation deal was cancelled. The rebels would gain ascendancy among their own kind and lead the invasion; and this time there would be no opportunity for survival, even as drones. Colonisation would take place, the thing I had sold my soul to prevent. And her death was in vain.
Even as I fled the room, I was swallowing cries of rage. Eight months, she'd been gone, and rarely had I spared her a tear. But now I felt some part of me rip, violently, leaving unimaginable pain in its wake. The mundane matter of survival drove my body and my mind; but my heart and soul were far away, in Ateni, with what remained of my wife. My body stalked purposefully down halls; my soul ran through the plains, gathering her ashes, and cried her name.
"Krycek! I'm trying to get out of here."
I came out of my reverie, disorientated, trying to locate the source of the words. I looked about, and there, in another, anonymous doorway stood Spender the younger. He was looking at me expectantly.
"What are you talking about?" I asked at last, bewildered, and trying not to show it. In a thousand ways, Jeffrey was just a boy, after all.
"We can't get past security. They won't recognise my authority to remove a patient."
I stared at him, uncomprehending. Security? Authority? These words were meaningless now. Patient? I looked past him into the room, trying to make sense of his words.
Mare.
I stared at the woman in shock. Not my wife, but some shell of her, hair coarse like straw, lips cracked, eyes lined with red. And so pale. So pale. Not ivory, but alabaster. No one could be white like that and live.
Not my wife.
She stared back at me, dully, her fire gone, her eyes dead to me.
Not my wife.
Jeffrey's voice intruded. "My father did this to her. She wants to tell her story."
I turned on him. "You sorry son of a bitch. You don't get it, do you?" I accused. "It's all going to hell. The rebels are going to win. They took it!"
"They took what?" the boy demanded. Mare stared at me in shock, understanding. Suddenly, her eyes lived again, lived with pain and dread. It was more than I could bear to look at, and I turned and fled from her, stalking on down the corridor, leaving her behind.
It was then that I heard her cry, harsh and anguished.
"Alexi!"
I stopped - stopped for a full five seconds, when there were none to spare. She must have heard my footfalls cease, because she called again, pitifully, "Alexi."
And then I was back at the door at a run. "Mare?" I rasped, oblivious to Jeffrey. I pulled her to face me, my palm at her cheek. "Mare?" I whispered, disbelieving, teasing a lock of her cornsilk hair, so coarse between my fingers. "What did they do? What did they DO TO YOU!" I shouted, and she flinched. Jeff's hands were on my arm, and I shook him off, walking away in fury. I couldn't think, dammit!
"We have to get out of here," Jeffrey said softly. His voice was kind. I nodded, his words galvanising me into flight.
"Bring her," I ordered. "Bring her!"
Gibson was alive.
Mare directed us to where he was detained. He was weak, and I carried him, walking in purposeful strides. Jeff and Mare kept up, but I could see her weakening. She was so horribly pale. I didn't know how she could stand, let alone walk. But she did, drawing on resources I couldn't imagine she could still possess.
My credentials got us out of the installation easily enough; and, fearful even now that we would be stopped, I led them hurriedly to the van. I bundled Gibson into the back, and leaped into the front with Jeff and Mare. "Drive," I barked at Jeffrey, slamming the door, and he complied.
I collapsed back into the seat and drew Mare to me, holding her close against me, my face in her hair. I breathed deeply, and even though her scent was faintly tinged with stale sickness, my body recognised it as hers, moulding itself against her effortlessly.
I pulled back to look at her, transfixed; and she did the same, her face upturned. I stared down at her, searching those colourless, translucent eyes for any sign of the woman I had known; and when I saw her within them, I felt warmth radiate through me. My body was alight with celebration; my veins were flooded with it. She was a shadow of herself - her fire extinguished, her beauty a memory - but it didn't matter: she was my wife.
I had to kiss her.
I bent my head to hers, cradling her cheek with my hand. I kissed her dry, cracked lips, felt them crumble against me. It was heartbreaking, and yet as I felt her lips part for me, felt her sweet, soft warmth from within, it was as though she healed. Cold, terribly cold hands flew to my face, chilled fingertips stroking my cheek in wonder, and I felt them grow warm. Dull eyes grew bright; deathly white skin infused with blood. Her voice lost its monotone, became alive, as she whispered against me, "Alexi."
"Mare," I breathed, meeting her gaze. "Mare."
"Say it again. Mare."
"Mare," I complied. "Marita, Mare, my wife, Mare." I pushed back that straw-like hair in wonder.
"Alexi," she whispered again; and buried herself against me, and she spoke no more.
A single moment in time, ageless; but when it passed, Jeffrey was watching curiously from the corner of his eye. "Alex?" he said questioningly.
I stroked her hair absently. "She's my wife."
"And the boy?" he demanded. "Is he your son?"
I shook my head. "No, he really is the child the Praise family. We were surrogate parents to him at one time, that's all." I said harshly, "I thought she was dead. I thought they both were." My arm tightened around Mare's sleeping form protectively.
He thought on this for a while. "What happens now?" he asked at last.
"We ride it out. See who lives, see who dies. Play our allegiances accordingly." I pinned him down with my gaze. "All bets are off now, Jeffrey. Whatever powerbase forms, it will be based on knowledge, not age or affiliation or any of the usual denominators. You and I and Mare can be part of that."
He turned his eyes back to the road. "I want the truth known."
"The truth, the truth. You're as bad as Mulder, Jeff," I said irritably. "The truth is, someone still has to fight the colonisation threat even after the rebels kill whoever they're going to kill. The date is no longer set, but that doesn't help us. It just leaves us further in the dark." I shook my head. "Truth is admirable, but right now it's an indulgence. We need people who can fight the future."
"Maybe we can have both."
I shot him a questioning look, but he said no more.
"She was beautiful."
Jeffrey was looking at our wedding photo, curiously. It was only three years since that had been taken, but she looked so damn young. A twenty-four-year-old with childlike features, and old, old eyes that had already seen too much.
"She still is," I said gravely, drawing the quilt up over her. She stirred suddenly, upset, but I stilled her with a touch. "Hush, Mare," I said firmly, holding her by the wrist. She breathed a sigh, and the tense lines of her relaxed. I frowned. It looked like nightmares might be par for the course for a while. I passed out of the bedroom into the lounge. "Do you want a drink?"
"Yeah," he said with feeling, following me. He sat with an exhausted thud. "What's wrong with the boy?"
I scanned the bar appraisingly. I passed over two open bottles of wine - they'd been there for a year, since Mare had last lived here - and pulled out a bottle of bourbon. "I gave Gibson the vaccine in June of last year," I explained. "Between that and his vitals I think he's in what we call recovery plateau. It's basically a relapse that lasts about three weeks - I think he's on the tail end of that. After that comes recovery Phase 2, which lasts about four weeks." I handed him his drink, and he gulped from it convulsively. "Give it a month, Jeff, and he'll be running around like any kid."
He grimaced slightly at the sudden assault on his throat. "What about Marita?" he asked when it had passed.
My expression darkened. "I honestly don't know how to classify Mare. From her condition, I think it's likely she's been in a near-continuous cycle of pathogen and vaccine - probably testing the formulas I made, actually," I realised bitterly, "since she was taken eight months ago. The human body just wasn't meant to take that."
"But what's wrong with her, exactly?" he demanded, bewildered.
"The vaccine slows the body's systems," I said, taking a long draw on my drink. "That's fine if you take it once, or even twice - a healthy subject can eventually come back from that. That takes about nine months. But keep on taking it-" I stopped, drinking again. "Mare's heart rate is low enough to kill her, and the only reason she isn't dead is that everything else is slow, as well. Her body temperature, digestion, circulation, everything." Jeffrey nodded, understanding. "We've thought for a couple of years now that metabolism is the key. People who have received the vaccine in extreme cold, where the metabolism is naturally slowed, have not shown the usual recovery problems - Agent Scully in Antarctica, for instance." I shook my head. "That means something, but I'm not entirely sure what. It does make a weird sort of sense, though - the alien race are from a colder climate than us."
Jeffrey frowned. "But Mulder didn't get sick, either, and he got it in Tunguska."
I looked at him in sudden admiration. "And just how did you know that? His files were burnt. Nothing was salvaged."
"Mulder's smarter than that. He backed up every three months to microfilm. We didn't lose much."
I laughed. "Crafty son of a bitch," I said admiringly, not sure if I meant Mulder or Jeffrey. Probably both. "So you spent all that time you were meant to be doing nothing, reading up on the X Files."
"Something like that," he agreed, draining his drink. He said reprovingly, "You were a bad boy, Krycek."
"Yeah." I didn't argue the point.
Returning to his earlier thread, he demanded, "So why didn't Mulder get sick?"
I rose and topped up my drink, and did the same for Jeffrey without being asked. "That I don't know," I said, perplexed. "I have this nagging feeling that it's caught up with his exposure to the retrovirus, but I haven't worked it out yet."
We drank in silence for a while, but at last, he said softly, "What are you going to do about Gibson?"
I gave a low sigh. "His parents are dead - they asked too many questions about his disappearance. I honestly don't know."
"What's the deal with him?" Jeffrey asked. "I mean really? Mulder thought he was some kind of evolutionary leap towards our alien progenitors. I didn't believe him, but now-"
"Mulder was right," I conceded, "but I don't think he really got the significance of his belief. When our progenitors left us, the races on each planet developed along different lines. That was inevitable, given vastly different environments." I sat back, warming to my theme. "The colonists believe they have natural sovereignty over us because they are our ancestors, but I don't believe that. Over millions of years we've established ourselves as a separate race, dominant over our environment - for better or worse - in our own right." Jeffrey looked quite daunted, and I gave a sudden, rueful laugh. "I'm sorry, Jeff. I majored in political philosophy. Now and then I've got to show it."
"No, it's food for thought," he said reflectively. "So where does Gibson fit into that?"
"Let me tell you a story," I said, stretching my legs out before me. "A few years ago, some researchers were working with monkeys on an uninhabited island. They taught these monkeys how to use cutlery and build shelters and all sorts of things - human tasks," I explained. Jeffrey nodded, his brow creasing. "Another island nearby - but too far away for any of the research monkeys to have made their way there - had its own monkeys. Here's where it gets interesting: those monkeys spontaneously developed the same skills among themselves." He sat back, bemused. "They spontaneously evolved in their abilities and caught up to the research monkeys on the next island."
"And Gibson is like one of those monkeys?"
I nodded. "In a purely functional sense, he's the human equivalent of the alien race. He's caught up with them in every relevant way. The ways he hasn't, like the capacity to withstand radiation, are specific to the Martian environment. He's still human," I added. "Biochemically, he's identical to the rest of us."
Jeffrey breathed out in a rush. "Oh, boy." He drained his drink with a grimace, and held out his glass for more with a rueful look. I topped him up with a secretive grin. "What did you mean when you said Mulder didn't get the significance?"
"Well," I said hesitantly, "if we can catch up functionally, why not biologically? What if we've worked so hard to prevent the creation of a hybrid, and then one happens spontaneously? If that happened, and the colonists were to find out-" I shook my head. "I simply don't know enough about how they interact to predict what would happen then." Jeffrey was very pale, and I figured he was probably feeling bad enough already about his mother; so I relented. "Don't worry too much about it for the moment, Jeff. It'll probably never happen."
"Still a bad thought," he said thoughtfully.
"Yeah." I drained my drink and set it aside. "As for what happens to Gibson, the only thing I can think of is hiding him in a boarding school. Somewhere he can have something approaching a normal life." At his reproachful expression, I said, "Don't look at me like that, Jeffrey. I've killed thirty-nine people. Those people didn't die so that Mare and I could adopt him and lope off into the sunset. There's work to be done." I frowned; admitted, "I love Gibson. But he will never be safe as long as he's with us."
He nodded reluctantly, and we sat in reflective silence. At last, he said quietly, "I'm going to blow it open."
"What?" I wasn't sure I'd heard him correctly.
"When I give my report to Skinner. I'm going to tell everything I know - I won't mention you three," he added at my expression. "I'm going to recommend that Mulder and Scully be reassigned to the X Files."
"Why?" I demanded.
"Like you said," he said ruefully. "We need freedom fighters."
"Your career won't be worth shit."
Wry shrug at that. "It never was."
I nodded slowly. Funny how both he and I had been led into the work after being stymied at the Bureau. "Will you come and work with me?" I asked at last.
"If they let me live," he said tightly.
I shrugged a little at that. "I doubt there will be much of the group left to spare any of us a thought."
"My father will survive," Jeffrey said dryly.
"Why do you say that?" I queried, interested. His expression darkened.
"Guys like him usually do."
Spender was alive.
Diana Donovan made contact that night to relay the news of a firestorm in West Virginia. The elders, their families, and Cassandra Spender had all been killed outright. Details were unclear, but it seemed that the rebels had taken control of the colonists' base and started the fire to prevent the handover. Diana and Spender were the sole survivors.
The rebels did not attempt to invade, although they clearly had the upper hand. Diana speculated that they and the colonists were at war on their own planet to gain control of Project Earth - that the conflict was not yet resolved. They were divided in resources and purpose, and that meant we had time...but how much was anyone's guess.
Jeffrey was killed as he had predicted; his father, seen leaving the building afterwards. That made a grotesque sort of sense: Spender loved his son too much to leave his disposal to a mere hired hand. Mulder and Scully were reassigned to the X Files as per Jeffrey's recommendation. Anxious to rebuild my sources of information, I threatened Skinner with the nanocyte controller, and had him install surveillance equipment in their office and his own. Skinner and I settled into a comfortable routine: I arrived, he glared, I threatened him with the controller, he growled, I made a cutting remark, and we settled down to chat. It was yet another of those ironies of the work that he detested me, and I considered him to be a peculiar kind of friend.
On the home front, Gibson recovered more or less as I had predicted, and he acceded readily to my suggestion of a boarding school. Perhaps perceiving my dilemma, he offered no protest. I believe - or like to believe - that he understood the practical necessity, and my genuine wish for a normal life on his behalf. He was duly enrolled in a Jesuit school in Maryland, and I left him reluctantly, with a promise that we would stay in touch.
That left only Mare.
She improved; that was something. Her hair became softer. Her eyes were no longer rimmed with red. Her skin became supple once more. Her muscles were no longer wasted. And yet still her vitals were deathly slow; still she was in the grip of terrible malaise. Sitting up, even with help, took Herculean effort; walking was out of the question. She stayed awake for only an hour at a time; talking cut that time by half.
It was awful to watch.
With the shock of her condition receding, my desire to shelter her and heal her, though strong, gave way in part to more selfish dreams. I wanted to have the kind of life with her that we used to have. I wanted to hold her, not only as I'd hold a crumbling leaf, but as I'd held her before - forcefully, intensely - and to be held in the same way. I wanted to make love to her gently; I wanted to take her powerfully, or have her take me. I craved her strength and her power nearly as greatly as she did.
Still, she was alive, and I believed she would stay that way - that counted for a hell of a lot. I nursed her as best that I could, but I was worried by her vital signs. They weren't improving, and that meant her body wasn't coming back. It had accepted its own weakness as the status quo. If that were true, she could stay this way indefinitely.
Mare probably intuited that in herself, but I was careful not to voice it. If the thought upset me, it would truly horrify her. To me, she was still my wife, however I longed for what had been. But to her, she was not truly herself unless she was strong, because that was such a big part of who she understood herself to be. It hurt me to see her this way, and I prayed that she could be strong once more.
But there was another who needed her to be strong, too.
Mare was bleeding.
I sat up on the side of the bed in bewilderment, looking down at my track pants. They were rust-coloured and sticky, stained with encroaching blood. I looked at myself in a panic, but I wasn't cut.
I flung back the covers; saw the stain seeping out from her sleeping form. I stared at her in horror, registering the dead white of her face and the tinges of blue at her lips; and then fear jolted me into action. I shook her in a panic. "Alexi?" she said weakly, stirring. "What is it?"
I said urgently, "You're bleeding really badly. We have to get you to a hospital. I need you to help me if you can." I grabbed my prosthesis and hurriedly put it on.
"Bleeding?" she murmured, bewildered. She asked vaguely, "Am I cut?" Her eyes began to drift closed again.
"I don't think so," I said, rising. "I think it's internal. Fresh blood, too much to be menstrual." Pulling on my sweater, I picked up the telephone receiver, then realised we hadn't had it reconnected.
Her eyes opened very wide. "Oh, my God," she said, turning her head from side to side, looking for me, disoriented. "Alex-" I was hunting for my cell phone, and she reached out with effort, grabbing me. "Alex, there's something-"
I found my cell. "What is it?" I said absently, turning it on.
"Alex, I'm pregnant."
I closed the flip in a single movement. "You're what?" I hissed.
She nodded. "Nearly four months," she whispered through laboured breaths, her eyes closed.
"Tests?" I demanded urgently, dropping to my knees at her side.
"No - the other," she said vaguely. "The other way."
"Rape?" I whispered unhappily, stroking the hair back off her forehead, a lump forming in my throat.
"No," she said, struggling for consciousness. "I consented."
I stared at her in utter disbelief. "You what?"
"I - it was-" she was drifting again, and I rose, backing away.
"No," I said thickly, "no."
"Alex - please help me -" and then she was out once more.
I turned and ran.
I walked for hours.
One foot after another, my cheeks wet with rain and sweat and tears. It was unimaginable - unthinkable. The thing before me - this terrible, incomprehensible thing was just too big for me to even begin to coalesce. My pain was a rending tear through my body; my anger a dull throb in my head. They consumed me.
I felt cheated. For so long, I had accepted the celibacy that her condition demanded without question; but she had allowed someone else to touch her. It was a betrayal and repudiation and rejection all rolled into a single act. I remembered the pervasive bond between us, the aggressively possessive need, the sweetness of owning her and of having her own me; and I recoiled. She was mine, and someone had taken her; I was hers, and she had taken another. It cut to the heart of the bond between us, the physical joining of man and wife.
I was haunted by terrible, terrible images. Mare with a faceless man, writhing beneath him, twisting on top of him, engulfed in hot, gasping need. Had she held him close, or pushed him back so she could watch him? Torturously, I imagined her arching her neck, leaning into him, running nails down his back, branding him as hers. Side by side with those were other images, images of myself in that time - Christmas, I calculated - staring into my reflection in beautifully decorated shop windows, looking for any glimmer of light that might tell me I could survive my agony and grief. Wearing her ring on its chain, as well as my own. Waking on Christmas day to the memory of a wife and child now lost; unaware that she lived, and was engaged in the business of making a child with another. I marked all these images with pounding footsteps, imprinting them in the rainwashed sidewalk and leaving them behind.
As the dull thud of my footfalls marked the passage of minutes and hours, I came to see the incongruity of it all - first dimly, then in sharper relief. The Mare I saw in those images was the strong, untamed woman I had made love to more than a year before; not the weakened Mare I had lost nine months ago, and certainly not the frail Mare I knew now. In her weakened state, the very concept of sex was all but meaningless, and a part of me understood that. Mare's version of consent could mean anything from a disoriented failure to say no, to saying yes to someone who promised freedom if she complied; but it couldn't mean the extremity of desire - her condition all but precluded it. But what that meant, either factually or for me in making sense of it, I couldn't see clearly enough to tell.
And so I walked. Trembling with rage and anguish, I walked in the sleet until I ached, until the angry fire in my veins melted and turned to ice, until I shivered with cold and overwhelming sorrow. And then reason asserted itself enough to replace all the other images with one more, one that was touching and bitter and deeply sad: Mare, motionless, her face to one side, her eyes distant; her faceless companion labouring over her, heedless of her disquiet. I didn't know exactly what had happened nor why it had happened, but reason and intuition told me that this was more or less how it had happened. My fury finally gave way to desperate sadness, to unwilling compassion, to deep and abiding love.
It was growing light by the time I was calm. By the time three passers-by had looked at me in fearful horror, I had come to myself enough to understand that something was terribly wrong. I looked down, and realised I was covered in blood.
Mare's blood.
I stopped still for a long, long moment, staring at it; and every lingering vestige of betrayal and fury left me in that instant.
She was my wife, and she was helpless. Her child - a child I would raise as my own, because it was hers - her child was helpless. And I would be there, because I loved her, and she was dead, but now she was alive.
And I would find a way to live with whatever had happened in between.
"...when you have a type, get me blood..."
She was so white. So horribly, deathly white. White like alabaster. I'd thought that once before, but I hadn't seen real alabaster then.
"...ultrasound coming through..."
So frail, so ethereal. Too fragile and flimsy to be part of this world. Like an angel, slipping away, being called home, taking flight and leaving her body behind.
"...we have to go in. It's a mess in there..."
Hair like spun glass, splayed across the pillow, fading from gold to the impossibly pale silver with which she'd been born. Why do I always think of that which is exquisite and precious with her?
"...she must have been haemorrhaging for hours..."
I had left her to bleed. This most precious of gifts to me, and I had turned my back on her, and left her to bleed, like a stray in the gutter.
"...I need an OR. Emergency D&C..."
I was faced with the awful truth of my cowardice and its heavy price, and I could not escape the blinding truth and the searing shame; for this was my doing.
"...hope she's got kids at home - she's not having any more..."
Out of her death to me came a life, and out of her life came death; and from that death came the lifelessness of sterility. And it was my doing.
"...her vitals are dropping, Doctor..."
I loved her, and I had taken the one thing she wanted above all else. The thing we had prized in a future otherwise devoid of dreams: that what we shared might one day be incarnate in a life so precious.
"...damn it, she needs blood!"
With my selfish anguish and my blind, stupid jealousy, I had stolen from her. I had stolen her child, her maternity, and perhaps her life.
"...she's flatlining..."
I was her husband, and she was helpless, and I had walked away when she needed me the most.
"...one-two-three-CLEAR..."
And now she lay, robbed and dying for my cowardice.
"...get me adrenaline, stat..."
And even if they got her back...even if by some miracle she lived...
"...one-two-three-CLEAR..."
Even if God saw fit to return to her that which I had stolen...
"...she's back. Get her to surgery, we've got to stop that bleeding..."
How could I ever face her again?
I abandoned her.
She survived; but when I learned that she would live, I fled, compounding my sin with foolish weakness and the cruelty of silence. I had believed my absence to be a penance; I understand now that it was merely one more act of cowardice in a string of them.
I returned to Fort Marlene. My credentials were still valid, and the funding for my quarters and my labs would remain for eight more months. In the next funding cycle, there would be no one to sign off on my presence there; but for now it was my safe haven. Spender never approached me: it would have served him little purpose, for I used it as a way station rather than for the work - perhaps he knew that. I would have shot him on sight for what he did to Mare, and perhaps he knew that, too. Or perhaps, with his colleagues gone, he was living with his own confusion.
Mare got strong again, I knew that much; and I knew that she returned to the United Nations, and that she wore my ring and bore my name. That was comforting - and bewildering. Gibson relayed factual messages about his holiday arrangements and his financial arrangements; but there was no other contact. She did not seek a divorce, and nor had I expected that she would: she didn't believe in it.
Diana Donovan was my constant companion in this time. It was an alliance born of mutual loneliness, and there was not a shred of romantic feeling between us; but we stuck together with lover-like compulsion. It was a little like a bad marriage: no sex and constant bickering. But it was companionship in a life otherwise devoid of it; and in its own way, it kept me going during those bad, bad months when my life was in pieces.
Things heated up in November. The spontaneous hybridisation, about which I had only speculated, occurred in Mulder. I acted as best I could to salvage the situation, but I was hampered by my own numbness; I reacted to the unfolding events, but I couldn't begin to form a useful plan. Suffice it to say that Diana, Scully, Skinner, Spender and I were all running hither, thither and yon trying to get our own desired outcomes. Spender wanted to get the hybrid genes for himself; Diana, Scully and Skinner wanted to stop him and save Mulder's life. I wanted to stop him too, because I hated him and I thought he was wrong, and I didn't much care at that point whether Mulder made it or not. Like most things in that time, the whole thing pretty much washed over me; but it was important because of its outcome: it pulled me out of my morose inertia and prompted my decision to work on the vaccine once more.
It all started with a book - a book only Diana, Spender and I had known about. It shed some light on the affair, and Diana sent it to Dana Scully in a bid to help Mulder; Scully contacted Skinner, believing him to be responsible.
The call worried me. I knew only too well that Scully's digging could bring the incident to Spender's attention; and that would be death for Diana. Acting on the spur of the moment, I gave Skinner a dose of nanocyte trouble to keep Scully occupied while I made my arrangements. Diana was playing with fire, and if she was doing it that openly, then her time was short.
I made some calls, and when I was done, I called Diana on her cell. I took no time for niceties. Roughly, I demanded, "Can you speak freely?"
"Just one moment; the reception's bad. Hold on." Sound of a door closing; then Diana said quietly, "I can now. What is it?"
"You've got to get out," I said urgently. "Stupid thing to do, Diana, sending that book. You may as well have sent a telegram to Spender saying 'I have a fucking big mouth, so shoot me'." I sounded angry, because I was. She'd put herself on the line for a man who would never love any woman the way she wanted, and she knew it. What's worse was she'd put the work on the line, at a time when there were few workers left.
"Did you call just to insult me?" She was annoyed; I could imagine her arranging her features into her Hard Faced Bitch look. I never understood that - she was a beautiful woman. A woman who should always smile - not that she had much to smile about now.
I relented. "No. There are travel papers and tickets waiting for you in locker C24 at Dulles. Use your credentials to have it opened. You're going to Tunisia first thing in the morning. In the meantime, I want you to stay in well-lit, well-populated areas. Do not go back to your apartment. Do not call the London house. Do not call the Bureau. Understood?"
She burst out, "My children-"
I cut her off. "Already arranged. Their nanny is bringing them to meet you." At her silence, I insisted, "Look, Diana, give Scully whatever she needs to save Mulder. But you have to get the hell out."
There was a rustling sound. I think she was nodding. She was silent for a long moment; but then she said in a low voice, "Alex, I know you must still have vaccine-"
I cut her off, frowning. "Now is hardly the time-"
"Give it to my kids," she said, her voice flint-edged with desperation. Then, more quietly, "If I don't make it, give it to my kids - please."
I closed my eyes. "Diana, you don't know what you're asking," I said wearily. "The rebels destroyed everything I had. I have access to a sample, but I'd have to synthesise a supply." I said unhappily, "You're basically asking me to restart the work."
Her voice was grave. "I know exactly what I'm asking." In a low voice, she persisted, "Will you do it? Please?"
After a long moment, I gave a frustrated sigh. "All right. All right!" She breathed a low sigh of relief. "But you *better* make it."
She didn't; she was dead within the day.
I didn't like it, but I'd promised.
I didn't wait for news of Diana's death. Rather, I assumed the worst, and acted accordingly. I went first to Michael Kritschgau, who I knew had copies of Scully's data on the latest downed UFO. The location of the UFO alone would sell for a considerable sum; the medical data I intended to patent and then sell. A patent on the complete human genome was the medical community's Holy Grail. It would be worth many hundreds of millions of dollars...and that might be enough to create a real, widespread vaccine program.
My next stop was Crystal City. I had given my oil stock to Donovan when Mare was first infected, but there were two left - hers, and the spare, in safe keeping with Skinner. I could have legitimately asked Mare for hers; but that was a thought I couldn't bear. So I went to Skinner.
"Come on in, Alex," he said with that slurred magnanimity of the very old and the very drunk. He looked the former and smelled the latter. I passed him, waving his breath aside. "Have a drink."
"Looks like you've already had enough for both of us," I said mildly.
"What are you going to do, use the Palm-Pilot-Of-Death on me?" It always bothered me that Skinner wasn't afraid of me. He should have been, with the power I had over him; but he wasn't. He said irritably, "You've already done that once today." He shut the door, went to the kitchen, and came back with a beer.
"Yeah, sorry about that," I said through the hutch. "Damage control."
"Do I want to know?" he asked, handing it to me. I shook my head. He said wryly, "Then I won't ask." I took a long, grateful drink and sat down; he did the same.
We sat in an oddly companionable silence for a while; but at last, he said curiously, "Why are you here, Alex?"
"You have something that I want," I said cryptically.
"My looks?" he said with a straight face, taking a mouthful of beer. "Or my charm?"
"I'd take your charms, but I'm a married man," I said deadpan. That should fuck with his head a little.
Give him his due, he kept his cool. "I don't take Mulder's leavings." I opened my mouth to say that ruled out a reconciliation with Scully, but thought better of it, in the circumstances.
"I want the oil stock."
Skinner looked at me piercingly. "That oil stock belongs to Marita, and you're separated." He shook his head vigorously. "No way."
"Your loyalty is commendable, but it's also misplaced," I said, annoyed. "It belonged to both of us, and I used mine on her. That stock belongs to me."
He shook his head. "No way, Alex. I'm not giving it to you. I'd rather face down a bad case of nanocytes than your wife."
I laughed a little at that. "She's a wildcat, all right," I admitted goodnaturedly. "But I'm not leaving here without that stock."
He shrugged, rising. "Then you may as well hunker down and have another beer." He held one out.
"I don't want your fucking beer, I want the stock," I snapped irritably. I took the bottle and looked at it. "What is this shit, anyway?"
"Stella Artois. It's Belgian. You and your American beer - what kind of a Russian are you, anyway?"
"Latvian," I corrected, annoyed. "And I'm an American." I took a mouthful. It wasn't bad, actually. "Give me the stock."
He shook his head regretfully. "Sorry, Alex. It's not going to happen."
I stared at him in disbelief. "Walter, with one wave of my stylus I could have you in hospital!"
"Yeah, yeah," said Skinner, drinking. "And with a wave of your sword you could cut my head off and with a wave of your remote control you could reprogram my VCR. And all that crap." The bastard was laughing at me. "But you still wouldn't know where it was, would you, Alex? That sounds to me like I have you over a barrel."
"How about this?" I hissed. "I put you in intensive care and keep you there until you tell me where it is? I seem to recall last time was pretty painful for you. You sure you're up for a second round?" He went pale - I had him rattled now, and that was good.
"Perhaps we can reach a compromise," he said at last.
I sat forward. "I'm listening."
"The stock for the controller."
I shot him a reproachful look. "You'd really give me Marita's stock for that? That's very disloyal, Walter," I said in mock earnest.
"You're an asshole, Alex. Do we have a deal?"
I shrugged, conceding defeat. "Yeah, I'll deal." I drained my beer and set it aside, breathing out in a rush of relief.
He rose and left the room, and I heard the dim clicking sound of turning tumblers. A wall safe, I speculated. He came back a few moments later and stood a few feet from me, holding the stock. "You first," he said quietly.
I shrugged. "Fair enough." I'd kill him for the stock if I had to; but I didn't think Skinner would double-cross me - that wasn't his style. I pulled the controller out of my pocket and handed it over without a fight.
He looked down at it, experimented with the stylus a little. He winced in pain and nodded, convinced of its authenticity by its effect on him. He threw me the oil stock. I caught it and put it in my pocket, its weight comforting against my body.
He was watching me, his expression an odd one of grim satisfaction. "What are you so fucking happy about?" I said, annoyed.
"Besides having my life back?" he said mildly.
"Yeah."
Skinner shook his head indulgently. "Alex, Alex, Alex." He met my gaze. He said kindly, "You could have had it all along. She *wanted* you to have it. You only had to ask."
I stared at him in stupefaction. "You dirty old son of a bitch," I said in amazement. He just shrugged, and I said with grudging admiration, "I didn't think you had it in you." He just laughed.
I glared at him, but only for a moment; and then I laughed too.
I went to Tunisia alone.
I'd still been at Skinner's apartment early the next morning, drinking amiably with him, when the call came. Diana was gone, but before her death, she had given Scully the means to save Mulder. Mulder was alive, but sans hybrid genes; apparently Spender had succeeded in stealing them surgically. What that meant in the scheme of things was anyone's guess. I doubted that Spender even had a plan anymore; he was merely reacting to events in the same way as I.
There was nothing useful I could do in America, and I had to go to Morocco later that week in any case; so I stuck with my own plan, such though it was, and flew to Tunisia. Regretfully, I broke the news of Diana's death to her children. That was an awful, awful thing to have to do. I wasn't quite sure what to do about them; but I took them to the house in Tangier and gave their nanny money for their immediate care. While I was there, I put the oil stock in the safe - better that than to have it on me when I met my buyer.
I went back to Tunisia and met with my contact there, ready to sell the location of the downed UFO; but we were ambushed by two of Spender's men. They killed my buyer outright, and I was thrown into a Tunisian prison. The charges were trumped-up, and it was yet another irony along the way that I served time for things I didn't do rather than for the things I did.
I thought of Mare often. She had to know that something was wrong: I was supposed to meet Gibson for the summer holidays in just a few days time, and the Donovan nanny would make contact when the money ran out. I wondered whether she knew where I was - or whether she cared.
I got my answer five days into my ordeal. On that day, I was dragged before the warden and accused of plotting to escape. My punishment was that of solitary confinement by night, my cell close to the warden's post, lest I try to escape once more. I was innocent of the charges, but I felt a cautious jubilation: solitary by night represented safety in a place where rape could come on a whim, and death for the sake of a piece of bread. And when the warden signed off on the arrangements, the light caught a chain around his wrist, a chain I recognised. It was too thick to be a woman's, but too fine to be a man's; and I knew its design because I had chosen it myself.
It was Mare's.
SIX
From the ashes of death rises a flame of life.
A truthful statement, however painful; and it characterises my life as it is now. Life after death is always searing, always bittersweet; and yet deeply, profoundly precious. I have to cling to that.
It's all I have left.
I mourn the life that had throbbed so insistently within me, though I had sought it only as a desperate means to an even more desperate end. I mourn because I had held it in my heart, had bequeathed it with hopes and dreams. I mourn because every life is precious, even when its burden is great. I mourn because I had embraced it, whatever it might cost.
But after the life was no more, I woke to my own rebirth. I woke to a heart that beat strongly beneath my breast, to blood that coursed powerfully through my veins, its slow trickle a painful memory. I got strong, and that was good; because I woke to a life alone. And if that life seemed infinitely poorer, it was still life; and I had spent too long in the grip of a living death not to cherish the kindly warmth of growing strength.
I feel my husband's absence like an ache, his abandonment like a bleeding wound in my soul; but I endure the pain, because it is of my own doing. My reasons for my actions, once so compelling, seem weak; my justifications, no longer justified. The compromises I made to survive took our unity and tore it asunder, and I knew that when I made them. I had hoped that Alexi would embrace me once more, and shelter my child as his own; but I did not expect it: that was not my right. He had helped me in my helplessness, proving once again a love that had never required it; but if he felt unable to remain by my side, I could hardly reproach him for that. I missed him, in my arms and in my bed and in my work and in my heart; but I faced the solitude, stared it down, and went on anyway.
It feels good to be able to do that. Bittersweet, certainly, but good; because after more than a year of powerlessness, my union with him - however fractured - is not that of dependence, but of choice; a choice renewed in every thought and every act. It is ironic that in the extremity of our brokenness, my commitment to my marriage is stronger than ever. I have not seen Alex since that night, but I bear his name publicly, wear his ring proudly, because our marriage is more than the functionality of a shared life: it is the union of souls that no sin can break. He is still my husband; I am still his wife.
And whatever else passes between us, we will always be one together.
"Why don't you tell him?"
I looked up from a sheaf of essays written in straggling hand. "What are you talking about?" I asked in bewilderment. Irritably, I drew myself up on the hard dormitory bed. Apparently, Alex and I paid fourteen thousand dollars a year for Gibson to sleep on a concave lump of rock.
"I'm talking about Alex," Gibson said, slurping noisily from his milkshake. "About the baby." I winced: his knowledge bothered me. My shame aside, I was the closest thing he had to a mother, and he was approaching puberty. His awareness of what I had done seemed vaguely inappropriate. My admiration for Patricia Praise was growing daily. However had she managed to rear this all-seeing, all-knowing child without leaving him irrevocably damaged?
I set the essays aside, frowning. "We've talked about this, Gibson," I counselled. "You must discipline yourself. It's very invasive to root around in people's thoughts without their permission." I said gravely, "There are responsibilities that come with your gifts."
His eyes flared in protest, the effect exaggerated by his glasses. "But-"
I held up a hand. "No buts. That's my private business - mine and Alexi's. Just because you can see my thoughts, doesn't mean you have the right or the experience to comment on them." He nodded, chastened; and I relented, leaning across his desk to touch his hand.
"He feels guilty," he said softly.
I wondered what that meant; but I resolved not to ask. "Please don't say any more, Gibson. If he wanted me to know that, he would tell me himself."
"But you both think the wrong thing about each other," he burst out, his face flushed with real distress. "You each think the other feels one thing, when you both feel something different. You've got it all wrong!"
How I wished I could ask what he meant! But I had drawn a line, and too many people had screwed with Gibson's boundaries, and I wasn't going to be one of them. "It doesn't matter," I insisted. "That's for us to work out." I rose, and came around behind his chair, bending to embrace him. I said gently, "You don't have to be the adult anymore."
He buried his head in the crook of my arm. He wasn't crying, but he was doing that shaking, crying-on-the-inside thing that boys do. In a way, that was worse. "I wish things were different." He didn't only mean Alex and I - the things that hurt Gibson just weren't that simple - but I think for him Alex and I getting back together signified a whole lot of other things about family and normalcy - things that he had been denied over the last year. And in a way, that was true of me, too.
"I do too," I said softly, swallowing hard. "But things aren't as simple for grown ups as they sometimes look." I pulled away and ruffled his hair. He was getting taller - more like a teenager than a little boy. He looked up at me, and I shot him a smile. "Let's think of happier things. Have you given any more thought to the summer?" He smiled a little at that. "I got you a passport - your name will be Jeremy Gibson. That should be easy to remember at Customs."
Gibson nodded vigorously. "I talked to Alex. He said summer was fine and that he would take me at Christmas instead." I gave a nod of agreement, but then he surprised me. "I want to go to the house in Tangier."
"Tangier?" I queried. "How do you know about Tangier?"
Gibson looked shamefaced. "Alex thinks about it when he thinks of you. I really want to see it. It's really nice." I mentally noted the fact that Alex thought of me, then chastised myself. I didn't want to turn Gibson into some kind of mutant spy.
I sighed, frowning. "I don't know, Gibson. Alexi built that house for us. I don't know if I should see it now. I don't know if he'd even want me to."
"Alex already said that it was there, and that we may as well use it," he argued. "And you said you'd take me anywhere." I felt myself weakening: I had wanted to give him a nice holiday to make up for the time I was away from him, as if anything could. Dammit, maternal guilt ruled my life - and I wasn't even his mother. "Please?"
I sighed heavily. "All right. One condition."
"What's that?"
"Not one word about Alex and I while we're there. Agreed?"
He gave a little smile that made me frown suspiciously; but said only:
"I promise not to say a word."
"I'm going to wring his neck."
"Gibson, or Alex?"
"Both," I said grimly. I swabbed at Skinner's elbow absently. "Alex for talking about it and Gibson for asking to go there. He thinks I'll go there and get all sentimental about the beautiful house Alex built for me and come home and make the man talk to me. It's not going to happen." I slid the needle home a little harder than necessary.
He looked down at his arm ruefully. "Just mind your temper, Marita. That's a big needle you're playing with."
I shot him a look. "I can have Olga do it, if you prefer," I suggested, smirking mischievously.
Skinner shook his head hurriedly. "Six foot one of brute Russian efficiency? No, thank you." He said accusingly, "I thought Kazakhstanis were delicate little things."
"Most of them are." I withdrew the needle, and he shuddered, shooting me a reproachful look. "Better, big boy?" I teased.
"Much." He nodded towards the blood sample. "Do you really think you can do something with that?"
I shrugged. "It's possible. If I had the software that controlled them, it would be a piece of cake. Without it, I'll be working in the dark - but you never know." I pressed a fresh swab into his elbow and put his opposite hand over it. "Keep that elevated, or it will bruise." Washing my hands, I returned to my earlier theme. "Apart from the fact that Alex won't talk to me, I'm really pissed with him about this nanocyte business, too."
Skinner leaned his arm on the kitchen bench, propping it up. "Far be it from me to defend Alex Krycek, but I don't think this is really his doing. He was working for Spender when he infected me."
I turned away and opened the refrigerator. I pushed aside a couple of vials of vaccine. "Do you think he's working for him now?" I said curiously, putting his blood sample in the space I'd made.
He shook his head, taking the swab off his elbow experimentally. He flexed his arm. "He's just using whatever leverage he still has - he wants to stay in the loop." I sat down on the kitchen stool beside him, topping up my tea from the pot. He said reflectively, "Work for Spender after what he did to you? Not a chance. You don't know what Alex was like when you were gone."
I half-turned to face him. Hesitantly, I asked, "How was he, Walter?"
He frowned. "Alex came to me the day after he found out - well, you know, thought he found out you were dead. He was almost incoherent." I tried to imagine how I'd have felt if I'd thought Alex was dead, and found I couldn't. It hurt to try. "Then, when he came back from Ateni, he was very quiet and distant. You could hear it in his voice. It was really low and raw - like he'd swallowed glass or something." I felt my throat tightening, imagining him like that.
"Why did he go to Ateni?" I asked softly.
"Spender gave him ashes. He scattered them," he said, and I flinched a little. "I thought you knew," he went on, and I shook my head, drawing my lips tightly together, unable to speak.
"You sound like you felt sorry for him," I said at last.
"I did," he said simply. "I don't like him - you know that. But I did." He shook his head. "After all that, Marita - and to find you alive - I just can't understand why he left you. It doesn't make any sense." His tone was protective - and perplexed.
I bowed my head. "Please don't think too badly of him, Walter - well, not on my behalf, anyway," I added ruefully, nodding at his arm. "Alexi was right to walk away. I betrayed him, in a way, to save myself. I did this - not him."
He shook his head. He said scathingly, "But to do it right after you lost the baby-" he stopped short, realisation flooding over his features. He looked at me intently. "Marita?"
Reluctantly, I met his gaze. I nodded, my face hot with shame. "I was already pregnant when I came home," I said quietly. I looked away. "I don't have any excuses - I'm not even sure I have reasons anymore. I thought I had to do anything to survive - that it was all up to me." I blinked back tears impatiently. "Maybe adultery isn't the real sin here. Maybe it's arrogance. Maybe I should have been the best person I could and had the humility to just let it unfold." I finished regretfully, "Maybe that's what I've done wrong all along." Skinner's look was kind; but he said nothing, only looked at me with great compassion. I said thickly, "Please don't see me like-" I broke off. I was going to say, 'like I see myself'.
"I don't." He took my hand in his. "I'm sorry it happened - and that he can't be open to hear your side of it."
I smiled wanly. "He will. I believe that." I squeezed it and let go. Rising, I went to the centrifuge and watched, composing myself.
"Don't touch it - Olga will raise hell." I gave a weak laugh, silently thanking him for letting the matter drop. He went on, "Where did you find her?"
"She worked for Alexi and I in Norylsk. She was in Riga seeing her family when the firestorms hit, so she lived to tell the tale."
"Did you have any trouble over there?" he queried.
I shook my head. "They dropped the charges against us some time ago. Apparently Mikhail - Alexi's second-in-command, the one who framed us - left some pretty damning diaries."
He nodded in understanding. "So who's paying for her?"
"The Secretary General is paying for Olga and the ongoing costs. Your report and Senator Sorenson's verbal testimony was enough to convince him I wasn't a lunatic, but he didn't put his money where his mouth was until he'd done a little digging on his own. He gets only a certain amount of money from the United Nations every year before he has to account for it, so the trick at the moment is staying under that threshold."
"What about the house?" he asked, looking around the room appraisingly.
"Sorenson paid for the fitout from his philanthropy budget. The house is mine - it was my mother's." I scanned the hybrid kitchen/laboratory critically. "A Kazakhstani scientist working on a Russian-made vaccine in her kitchen. She'd be rolling in her grave." The telephone rang, and I picked it up, holding up a hand to Skinner apologetically. "Marita Krycek," I said, balancing it between my cheek and my shoulder to rinse my cup.
"It's Olga Aspinadayanova. I need you downstairs - we've had some developments." I frowned, setting the cup aside.
"I'll be right there."
It was heartbreaking.
I cradled a limp baby monkey in my arms, smoothing back its fur. It snuggled into me weakly, its eyes growing dull. Olga watched dispassionately, with a touch of bewilderment; and part of me hated her for her stoicism. I didn't have the coldness of heart for this work - but I was the only one left to do it.
I looked at the wall, at cage after cage of expiring creatures, looming over me as though in accusation. Finally, I demanded, "What the hell happened?" I drew the monkey closer.
"As you know, I decided to trial adrenaline with the vaccine." I nodded - that decision had been prompted by my own inexplicable recovery from the vaccine's after-effects. The adrenaline I'd been given when I flatlined had been identified as a possible reason. "I didn't overdose," she went on. "The dose I chose would normally have returned a mildly subnormal metabolism to normal levels."
The monkey was still - whether comatose or dead, I wasn't sure. I returned it to its cage sadly. "What did they die of, then?"
"The vaccine itself," Olga said clinically. "The animals showed the same biochemical behaviour as the dying pathogen. It poisoned the pathogen, and it poisoned them, too."
I stared at her in sudden realisation. "The malaise keeps them alive," I said incredulously. "The decreased metabolism slows the uptake of the vaccine to safe levels while it kills the pathogen." I looked to her for confirmation, and she nodded. "But then the body can't come back - it can't rebuild the metabolic rate - not for a long time, anyway."
Olga handed me a sheaf of papers. "That's the raw data - some of it - but that's it in a nutshell, yes. I'll have a written report to that effect ready for you to take to the Secretary General tomorrow." I nodded, frowning. "If I may make a suggestion, there are ways around this problem once the pathogen is eliminated. Adrenaline injections, gradual warming to stimulate natural metabolic behaviour - there are possibilities."
My frown deepened. "It's a start," I conceded. "We can start vaccinating people now - the handful of people in the know, at least - but it's still not suitable for mass vaccination. We can't treat every vaccinated person that way - imagine the drain on medical resources. The World Health Organisation would never agree to it. And even if they did, people won't come forward for the vaccine once reports of the after-effects start to trickle in."
Olga said hesitantly, "They might - if they knew of the threat."
"That is one thing the UN will never agree to," I said pensively. "Their secret taskforce on interplanetary defence were unanimous that the leaking of the alien threat would result in civil breakdown."
"Do you think they're right?"
I shrugged. "Who knows?"
Olga gave a low sigh. "We have another problem, too. The animals in the other room - the ones who got the vaccine first, then the pathogen two days later - they'll all dead, too." I made dismayed sound. "The pathogen killed them."
My jaw dropped. "I don't understand - the vaccine has its problems, but killing the pathogen has never been one of them." I frowned. "Do we know how it works? I mean in the preventative sense?"
Olga sat down on a stool. "Well, it isn't, strictly speaking, a vaccine at all. It's more like a delayed-release poison that sits in the body, dormant, waiting to be triggered."
My brow creased. "How is that possible?"
"We don't know that with any certainty," she admitted. "My guess is that a small number of vaccine cells somehow graft themselves somewhere in the body, and when the pathogen is detected they reproduce at a rapid rate."
My head hurt. Science was not one of my strengths. "How do the cells detect the pathogen?" I asked wearily.
Olga shrugged her shoulders. "I'm still guessing, but I imagine that Dr Charne-Sayrre bound the cells to weak pathogen antibodies - like a magic bullet that zooms in on the pathogen and leaves everything else alone. That's why the vaccine levels drop again as soon as the pathogen is dead."
"What did you say?" It came out in a hiss.
"I said, the vaccine levels drop-"
"No, before that," I said, rising. "About Benita."
"I said she bound the cells to weak pathogen antibodies."
"No, not pathogen antibodies," I said in realisation, my heart racing as I started to put it together. "Variola antibodies. Benita was a variola expert, and variola is a mutation of the pathogen." I could feel my blood pumping as it all fell into place. "It grafts itself to the cowpox protein in the smallpox vaccination scar. That's why it works as a cure for everybody, but a preventative only for those who have the scar."
Olga nodded slowly. She looked at me with new respect. "It's possible - probable," she amended by way of concession. "I'll run more tests - this time on animals vaccinated for smallpox."
"You do that," I said jubilantly. "I'm going to call the Secretary General. We have to revive the Smallpox Eradication Program. Not just Stateside - everywhere." I watched her steadily. "By the time we're ready to get this vaccine out there, I want every man, woman and child already vaccinated for smallpox."
Olga looked at me dubiously. "Do you really think he'll do it?" I shot her a gleeful look.
"By the time I'm finished with him? Hell, yeah."
"How did it go?"
I cleared my throat, and said theatrically, "Ladies and gentlemen: we know almost nothing about this terrorist group. We do not know their aims. We do not know their sympathies."
"Because they don't exist," Skinner pointed out over the low hum of his razor.
"Shh!" I glared at him reprovingly and went on, "What we do know is that they have smallpox supplies, and that they are prepared to use them. We know that they have already used them in Payson, South Carolina. We have compelling evidence - not just evidence, people; *compelling* evidence," I added in my normal voice, and he laughed "- from the FBI that this attack was intended to be a test in preparation for a large-scale bioterrorist attack. The group we have dubbed The Syndicate-"
"Duh-duh-duh-DUH!" he chimed in forebodingly.
"- will strike again. Our only defence is the revival of the Smallpox Eradication Program, supported financially and politically by the World Health Organisation." I said in a mock whisper, "This is where it gets really tear-jerky." I cleared my throat again, and went on, "When you consider your vote, I ask that you consider how many people in your family, how many children are not currently protected against this threat." Skinner was grinning, and I said wearily, "And a whole lot more."
"Bravo." He gave a little clap. "What else did you tell them?"
I shook my head, laughing. "Not a thing. I reiterated the same points for an hour." I nodded towards his bare chest. "Would you put a shirt on? You're making me cold just looking at you."
"What do you expect, business attire? You're the one who rocked up unannounced at seven a.m.," he pointed out, but he complied. "Did they notice?"
"Who knows? Maybe they just voted yes to shut me up."
He grinned at that, buttoning his shirt. "So when does it all begin?"
I rubbed my hands together gleefully. "That's the best part. There's a press conference in Geneva in -" I checked my watch "- one hour." He passed into the kitchen, and I raised my voice to be heard through the hutch. "The smallpox vaccine is being manufactured as we speak, and the first supplies go out in the middle of next week."
"Very quick," he commented, clinking cups and spoons industriously.
"They're afraid the so-called terrorists will speed up their plans if they don't hurry. Can't think where they got that idea," I added innocently.
Skinner laughed, coming back into the lounge with two cups of coffee. I made a face when he handed me mine. "I know you don't like the stuff, but you need it," he insisted. He peered at me appraisingly. "You look tired, Marita."
"Just jet lag," I said dismissively.
"Can you get some sleep?" He sat down opposite me.
I shook my head. "I'm only passing through - well, detouring around," I amended at his dubious look, "but I wanted to let you know how it went. I'm driving to Bethesda to get Gibson, and then we're off to Spain for a couple of days, then across to Tangier. More flying," I added irritably. I eyed him critically. "You don't look so hot yourself, Walter. Big night?"
Skinner laughed. "You're not going to believe this," he said, gulping down a mouthful of coffee, "but I sat up all night drinking with your husband."
My brow creased doubtfully. "Alex?" I said in disbelief. "How did that happen?" I looked at him, perplexed. I tried to picture those two as drinking buddies, but the image just wouldn't form.
"I'll have you know, Alex and I get along very well when we aren't trying to kill one another," he retorted primly. I gave a bark of laughter at that. He explained, "I put one over on him, in a manner of speaking, and he accepted defeat like a man." He sipped at his coffee, and continued, "He drank to me, and then I drank to him, and then he drank to me, and then I-"
"I get the picture," I said, very much amused. I drank some of the awful coffee. It hit my taste buds bitterly. "I'll bite," I said, grimacing. "What did you do that was so wonderful that it warranted such mutual admiration?"
He sat back with a smug little smile. "I got the nanocyte controller."
My jaw dropped. "How did you manage that?" I demanded admiringly.
He admitted shamefacedly, "Alex wanted the oil stock. I told him I wouldn't play ball unless he gave me the controller."
I shot him a reproachful look. "I told you to *give* it to him."
Skinner's expression was innocent. "You didn't say I had to give it to him *free*." I set down my drink and sat back, annoyed. He asked tentatively, "Are you angry?"
Relenting, I shook my head, sighing. "Of course not." I could hardly blame him for wanting his life back, after all - and he had ultimately fulfilled my instructions. "Can you keep the controller safe until I get back? I want to find a way to kill these damn nanocytes once and for all."
He finished his drink. "That would be great," he agreed, rising. He took his cup to the kitchen.
"You must feel good," I called.
He shrugged a little, returning to the lounge. "I did," he said, "but I'm regretting the drinking binge. I've got a hell of a day ahead." He sat once more. At my enquiring look, he elaborated, "There's this guy called Michael Kritschgau-" he broke off when I rolled my eyes. "What?"
I shook my head, waving my hand dismissively. "Oh, he's that asshole who convinced Mulder the alien threat was a hoax a few years ago. Caused Alex and I no end of trouble. Go on."
"Oh. Anyway, he has these computer files belonging to Dana. UFO data, and according to her, a map of the entire human genome." I raised my eyebrows at that, but didn't comment. "His apartment was set on fire last night, and his laptop is missing. She's off playing ministering angel to Mulder-" his nose wrinkled in distaste at that, and I remembered he and Scully were fighting again "- so I have to find an agent to investigate. That's going to be fun - I'm down nine staff, what with maternity leave and sick leave and vanishing lobotomised mutants." I thought this last must refer to Mulder, but decided it just wasn't worth pursuing.
"What about Diana Don- Diana Fowley?" I corrected. "She's at a loose end now that she's off the X Files."
"Diana's dead," Skinner said grimly.
"What?" It came out in a hiss.
"Murdered overnight. That's my second headache."
I sat back in stupefaction. "Those poor kids," I said softly, my good humour forgotten.
He stared at me. "What are you talking about?"
"She was a widow," I said absently. "Three kids."
A flicker of compassion crossed his features. "I didn't know."
"You weren't meant to. Her husband was a Consortium man." I said, thinking aloud, "I wonder what happens to them now. That family has been dropping like flies."
It was a question that would be answered sooner than I thought.
"Just five more minutes."
I looked at Gibson in bewilderment. "Gibson, it's just an arrivals lounge. There's nothing to see here. We've already hung around here for an hour." He looked at me reproachfully. I said more gently, "I really want to get to the house. I'm hot and I'm tired. Please." He shot me a baleful look, but he came along more or less willingly.
I thought about it as we clambered into a taxi, and the more I thought about it, the more it seemed to me that something was wrong. He was at a prime age for prepubescent petulance; but somehow that didn't strike me as a likely explanation. Gibson was still too insecure after his ordeal to risk being truly defiant. I shot him a sidelong look, and he seemed preoccupied...worried. My brow creasing, I mentally willed him to talk to me; and he turned at once to face me. It seemed so nicely fortuitous that I forgot, for a moment, that he was telepathic; but then I realised that my thought had prompted his response.
"What's wrong?" I asked him at last.
His shoulder's were hunched. He wouldn't meet my gaze. "If I tell you, you promise you won't be angry?" he asked, his voice pleading.
I frowned. "I promise to try not to be angry," I said cautiously. What on earth could he have done?
"I kind of lied to you about this summer." He shifted uncomfortably.
"What do you mean?" I demanded, bewildered.
Wincing, he admitted, "Alex thinks *he's* looking after me at the house for the holidays."
"Gibson!" I hissed, mortified.
"I'm sorry! I just thought if you two were in that house he made for you, you'd talk about the - about whatever you have to talk about -" I groaned in disbelief "- and then everything would be the way it was at Fort Marlene." I hung my head in my hands in dismay. "I want him back, Marita. I want you to be happy again." He suddenly sounded very young, and I sighed and put my arms around him, though I didn't feel like it. "Are you very angry?" he asked worriedly, his voice muffled against my shoulder.
I made a sound of frustration. "I'm *furious*!" He stiffened against me, and I kissed his hair, relenting. "But it will pass." I pulled back from him. "All right, Cupid, when is he meeting us?"
He was very pale. "That's the problem. He was supposed to meet us at the airport."
I shrugged. "Maybe he was delayed. Maybe he's going to meet us at the house."
He shook his head. "He didn't know you would be here. He thought I was flying unaccompanied." I shot him a look, and understood at once his concern. Alexi would never have intentionally risked leaving Gibson unsupervised in a foreign airport; nor would he have risked the boy being handed over to the authorities as abandoned.
"What's your sense?" I demanded. He said urgently:
"He's in trouble."
"I feel very badly about this, Ma'am."
I looked up as the older woman put a cup of tea in front of me. One thing about the English, they have their priorities straight. When the shit hits the fan, crack open the Twinings.
I shook my head. "It's not your fault, Gladys. My husband clearly intended to be back in time to meet us and tell us you were at the house. Thank you," I added, motioning to the cup. I took a sip gratefully. I motioned to Gibson and the Donovan children. They were petting a very reluctant cat in the gazebo. "How are they coping?"
"I really couldn't say, Ma'am. They were quite distraught initially, but now they're just shocked. They've become accustomed to loss, especially Samuel - the youngest," she added by way of explanation.
I nodded slowly. "That's right - their father and grandfather in the last three years, as well. And now their mother." Gladys nodded. "Those poor kids."
"Your husband was very gentle with him when he told them. I think that helped - as much as anything can help." I nodded wistfully. That sounded like Alex. She went on, "I hate to worry you with this, but - what happens to us now?"
I gave a shrug. "I really don't know. I'm going to have to make some calls and find out about Diana's estate. I can't imagine who she gave guardianship to - there's no-one left," I added ruefully. I gave a weary sigh. "Are you willing to stay here for now? I'll make sure you continue to get whatever Diana was paying you." It didn't occur to me to question why I considered these latest Consortium orphans to be my responsibility; I just did.
"Yes, I'm happy to stay here," she said easily. "My children are grown, and I've never been out of England before."
"All right." I finished my tea. "Can you tell me exactly what happened?"
Gladys nodded. "I got a phone call from Mr Krycek earlier this week. He told me that Mrs Donovan was in danger and that she was going to Tunisia, and that I was to bring the children to meet her."
"Didn't you think that was a little odd?"
She shook her head. "Mrs Donovan herself had told me more than once that this could happen. She was a very brave woman, though I do think, you know, that women should leave such dangerous work to the men." I suppressed a grin. "Anyway, we arrived in Tunis, and your husband met us. He told me privately that Mrs Donovan had passed away, and that he had a house in Morocco, and that we should stay there until he could work something out. I telephoned the FBI, and an Assistant Director there confirmed her death."
"Skinner," I supplied, nodding.
"That's right. So we came here with him, and then he broke the news to the children. He gave me some money for our immediate needs and said he had to go back to Tunisia, but that he would be back in two days. He said he had to pick up his son from the airport. That's all I know."
"He called Gibson that?" I said, pleased. "His son?" Gladys nodded, and I smiled a little. I asked, "How long was he here, and where did he go while he was here?"
"A few hours. He used the bathroom and shower, went to the master bedroom for a few minutes, and the second bedroom for an hour or so. I think he was getting it ready for the boy. Other than that, he was out here with the children and I."
I nodded, rising. "Will you excuse me?"
"Of course, Ma'am."
I went to the master bedroom and opened the built-in wardrobe. Pulling back the carpet on the floor, I found the metal plate Alex had once described and lifted it, revealing the safe beneath. I tried our wedding date, my New York zip code, and his cellphone number, to no avail.
I finally got lucky with his old FBI badge number. Peering inside, I reached in and drew out the oil stock - the one Alex had gotten from Skinner. That made me frown - his decision to leave it here meant he had gone to do something at least potentially dangerous, and if it was in Tunisia, it was probably an intelligence sale. He'd been doing that for a year now - Diana had made the necessary introductions. I wondered fleetingly whether they'd been lovers, then decided it hardly mattered now.
Setting the stock aside, I drew out a laptop computer. I wondered what Alex was doing with it - and why he thought it necessary to leave it in the safe. I turned it over, saw the engraved security panel, and frowned.
*Michael Kritschgau.*
Frowning, I put the laptop back in the safe, put everything back as it had been, and went out back. "Gladys?"
"Yes, Ma'am?"
"Would you mind watching Gibson, as well as the others? I hate to impose-"
"Not at all. You're going to make some enquiries about your husband?"
I nodded. Then, thinking of Gibson, I said softly, "Tell me, are you able to use a firearm?"
"You mean like a handgun?"
"That's right."
Gladys nodded. "I do, actually - Mrs Donovan thought it was wise for me to learn. But I don't have one."
I nodded, and drew mine from my waistband. I held it out to her by the barrel, and she took it, frowning. I said meaningfully:
"Just in case."
I went to the library.
Reading through three days' worth of Moroccan and Tunisian newspapers, I identified four gangland-style hits. I eliminated two on the basis of the country of origin of the weapon, and a third on the basis of the physical description of the victim. The fourth hit was of interest: a Tunisian diplomat, killed in Tunis by an American weapon, the model of which I recognised as that issued as standard to Spender's men. It was possible that Alex could have killed his buyer with an old weapon from his days working for Spender - but that made no sense; he would have returned to Tangier in that case. The other possibility was that Spender's men had ambushed Alex and his buyer.
Frowning, I left the library and travelled south to Casablanca. No point in making myself too easy to trace: Tangier was the one place Alex and I had that wasn't compromised. I checked into a hotel and telephoned Spender.
"Ms Covarrubias," he said. There was a hiss of static on the line as he exhaled - probably smoking. "I wondered when you would get in touch."
"My name is Krycek." I flicked idly through a hotel bible. Three things were certain in life, I reflected: death, taxes, and the Gideons.
"Ah, yes. I suppose there's little point in concealing your marriage now that your enemies are dead." Make that four, I amended: Spender being a prick.
"Most of them," I said coldly. "Where's my husband?"
"Why should I tell you that?" he asked with interest.
"Because you owe me," I snapped. "You owe me for my children. You owe me for my marriage."
"Your marriage - yes, I heard Alex was displeased with the surprise you brought home." I winced, but said nothing, determined not to be goaded. "Some debts are not enforceable, Marita. But I could be persuaded to give you the information, if I were to get something in exchange."
Surprise, surprise. "What did you have in mind?"
Sound of a flicking lighter. "You may have heard that I'm down an assistant."
I laughed, genuinely amused. "And you want me to take the job? No way. Your offsiders have an alarming death rate. Diana was a comparative veteran." I put the bible back in its drawer and took out a couple of complimentary mints.
"Yes, but you have somewhat more value than most of your predecessors." He went on thoughtfully, "I hear you've had the Smallpox Eradication Program revived."
I balanced the phone between my cheek and my shoulder so I could unwrap a mint. "You're not getting within a mile of the work on the vaccine. Even if I allowed it, there are others now who wouldn't. Your glory days are over." I popped it into my mouth.
I expected him to argue, but he said reflectively, "Maybe that's true. But I still have other projects, and you have connections, and that's something that could be helpful to me."
I frowned, but decided that it might be better to cede partial defeat on this one. "All right," I said at last, swallowing my mint. "Where is he?"
"Before I tell you, a condition." More exhaling. I wondered if he didn't know it was rude to smoke into the phone, or if he just didn't care.
"What is it?" I asked wearily.
"I don't want him freed," Spender replied. He insisted, "I want Alex where I can lay my hands on him."
"And what if I free him anyway?" I demanded, feeling cautious optimism. Apparently Alex was somewhere from which escape was an option. But his response chilled me.
"I might have to tell him the truth about your child."
My reflection in the dresser mirror caught my eye. I was very pale; there were bright spots of red high on my cheeks. "You have no right-"
"I have every right. I have a vested interest, after all."
I decided not to pursue this unpromising line of argument. "Fine," I said coldly. I twisted the mint wrapper between my hands viciously. "Tell me where he is."
"He's in a prison in Tunis."
"Which one?" He laughed at that.
"The worst one."
I left him there.
I confirmed Spender's story of Alexi's imprisonment, and I bribed an official to extend him some protection; but I left him there. I left him because I knew he was safe, and I left him because he'd tolerated worse conditions in Norylsk; but mostly I left him because I was too weak to tell him the truth and too cowardly to let Spender do it for me.
I stayed in Tangier for three weeks, in the end, caring for Gibson and the Donovan children. Diana's estate left Alex their legal guardian; I had power of attorney over his affairs, just as he did for me, so that made the children mine. Although that was a legal reality rather than an absolute one, I took it seriously, and did what little I could for them. I considered taking them home to New York and rearing them myself, but they were more or less settled; so I decided to leave them there in Gladys' care. Better that they didn't get too attached to me; after all, I could die too.
Gibson regarded me watchfully during this time, and I knew he disapproved of my decisions - both concerning the other children and concerning Alexi - but he didn't broach the issue. Slowly, very slowly he was learning to accept and trust in my judgement. Instead, he threw himself into the business of getting to know his new surrogate siblings. He was very close to them, especially Shane, who was not much younger than he. Elizabeth was distant, and that worried me, but I was in no position to help. Samuel was very clingy, and that was bittersweet: he had been born after his father's death, about the time Alex and I had expected our own.
Gibson remained in Tangier as well. Spender had known of my attachment to the boy, and his renewed interest in Alex and I worried me. Working for Spender would increase the risk of Gibson being found by a factor of ten. After several heated discussions late at night, Gibson reluctantly accepted my decision; so I returned to New York alone, a childless mother yet again.
My work with Spender was mercifully limited. It seemed that Mulder had spontaneously mutated before I went to Tangier, and that Spender had stolen the hybrid genes by some kind of surgical intervention. It was that which Skinner had been referring to with his lobotomised mutant remark before I left. Instead of survival, the operation had left Spender facing his own death. He was determined to die with his boots on, pursuing the work to the bitter end; but the work, as he understood it, no longer existed. He was left with pursuing nonsense leads in the hope of building something of meaning before he died, and my work was limited to stamping on the occasional spotfires he left behind. The man disgusted me on a thousand levels, but his predicament struck me as very sad. He was like a child, grasping blindly at anything that seemed like a good idea at the time, with no comprehension of the big picture.
My real work, the work on the vaccine, continued in leaps and bounds. I took the laptop from Tangier and laboriously reassembled the human genome information, breaking down the deleted data into individual bytes and transposing the data, then reassembling it into something comprehensible. A lot of it was pointless, irritating work - I reassembled not only the data, but Michael Kritschgau's private e-mail, his internet cache, and his downloaded porn. This last left me turning my head to one side in chagrined disbelief on more than one occasion. But at last, it was done, and I had a map of the complete human genome. Once Olga had verified the information as well as she was able, I patented it in Alexi's and my name; but I made no attempt to licence its use. That would come later, when all this was over. Right now my priority was using the information to perfect the vaccine.
Christmas came - a time Alex and I had always made for one another, no matter how far apart we were - and that brought his absence into sharp relief. The sorrow, always lingering, became acute; the pain, my constant companion. The jubilation I felt at our moderate successes on the vaccine was muted: this was his work, too, and he should be here to share it. My strength lay in computers and politics, and his in science and security; this work, which at last was coming together into something that might really make a difference, could not have happened without both of us. Our marriage had united our strengths, given us clarity and permanence with which to succeed where so many others had failed; and now that our marriage was in pieces, the work, fruit of our union, brought me sorrow as well as joy. In this time - this time of strength and of profound loneliness - that was true of many things.
It was the little things that seemed to matter the most. Memories that were mere fragments of a life became focal, considered and analysed in torturous detail in the silence of the night. I thought of Alexi, and I remembered the one I'd had before him - and the one after, but I tried not to think of that - and how he had moved above me, his body pulled back from mine, supporting himself with rigid arms. Even before we had loved one another (had there ever been such a time?), it would never have occurred to Alex to do such a thing. Making love was not an athletic activity; it was a joining. He would cover me with his body and his weight, skin on skin, heart over heart, breath to breath, filling the space in my heart as well as the one in my body. He would allow me to engulf him in every way, to hold him in my arms and within myself. My body screamed to be touched after so long alone, but more than anything, I craved that joining of the soul. I wished we had made love after my return, just once; because then the other would not be my most recent memory. It would be my husband's hand I felt on my neck and on my breast and on my thigh, and not those other hands.
The other - a painful memory, one I tried not to let in; but sometimes it seeped in anyway, pervading my mind and my body like a poison. I doubt he'd even wanted me, in my sickened state; but I had offered my body as a concession in exchange for one of his own, and he was not the sort of man to give without extracting something in exchange. He accepted my offer simply because he could, unaware that I wanted something else, something that he could give me in this act: the means to live. What had been done to me wasn't the horror of rape, but it left bile in my throat and ice in my veins, even now. More than anything, it left the raging fire of shame. And in those moments when the memory caught me unawares, I would pray for forgiveness - from my God, from my husband, from myself.
But sometimes it felt as though that was beyond the power of all three.
"What do you mean, you're out of ideas?"
Olga's expression was unhappy. "What you're seeking just can't be done with any of the pharmaceuticals currently available. You want something that will do nothing for twenty hours and then just magically kick in. These things don't come with a built-in time clock, you know."
I turned the pages of the report rapidly. "What's wrong with metabolic stimulants?"
Olga shook her head. "Adding metabolic stimulants to the formula is useless - people's bodies will come back too soon, and they'll die from the vaccine." Her tone left no room for argument, and I didn't try - I knew she was right, and she was tiring of playing teacher to a layperson. We were both on a hair-trigger of nerves after weeks of twenty-hour days.
"What about delayed-release metabolic stimulants?" I asked at last, with no idea of whether such a thing existed.
She shook her head. "There's no such thing. Sustained release, maybe, but not delayed release. You're not hearing me, Marita," she accused angrily. "What you're asking for is not possible. It requires a kind of precision which is outside the realm of the pharmaceutical. It's more like - I don't know, artificial intelligence."
I stared at her in shock - stared at her for a full five seconds, thunderstruck. I started to laugh, my blood pumping, my body alive with realisation. "Olga, you're a genius." She watched me with utter bewilderment, and the last thing I heard as I bolted out of the lab was her beleaguered sigh:
"Bloody Americans."
"It works!"
I jumped, startled. "What?" I hissed. I hadn't been aware of going to sleep. I looked around, disorientated. I was at my mother's, in the downstairs lab, and the jubilant voice belonged to Olga. My laptop was open before me, networked with the nanocyte controller and Michael Kritschgau's hard drive by a mass of leads. I blinked rapidly, and it all started to come back. "How long have I been asleep?"
"Six hours. You hadn't slept in two days - I didn't like to disturb you."
I shook my head to clear it. "Did you say it worked?" I was dimly aware of the noises in the background. Animals jumping and scratching and calling to one another. It sounded strange, and after a moment I pinned down the reason why. I was used to the quiet that usually followed the tests.
Olga was nodding. "Half got the vaccine administered after the pathogen. They all eliminated the pathogen, and were ill in the ways we've seen before for twenty hours. Then the nanocytes kicked in to boost the metabolism, and they came back."
I could feel my excitement building. "What about the others? The ones who got the vaccine first?"
"Same story. When the pathogen is introduced, the antibodies reproduce at a rapid rate and attack. The metabolic rate plummets to protect the body. Then, when the pathogen is gone and the free-floating antibodies have died, the nanocytes kick in and rebuild the metabolism." She looked at me curiously. "You really did it."
I was grinning like a gleeful idiot. "We did it," I corrected. "Thank God." I gave a low sigh of exhilarated relief. "Any side effects beyond the twenty hour recovery period?"
"Yes," Olga said, and at my stricken look, she held up a calming hand. "The metabolic kick-start seems to kick-start a one-off regenerative process, as well."
I frowned. "Explain."
"Well, for one thing, the vaccination scars are healing over. The cowpox protein is still there," she added at my look of alarm, "but the soft tissues are regenerating. That may make it difficult to tell those who have been vaccinated apart from those who never got a smallpox vaccine, but that's a relatively minor issue. More significant regeneration is taking place, as well: one of the monkeys was missing about two inches of a finger where a cage door had slammed on it."
I glared at her, temporarily diverted. "I expect better care of these animals than that."
"It didn't happen here," she said hastily. "It was at the breeder's. Anyway, it's growing back. Quite fascinating, because something like that doesn't regenerate in the normal scheme of things. It grows once, in utero, and then that's it. If you lose it, it's gone forever."
"Could bigger parts of the body be restored?" I asked, thinking of Alex.
"You mean like a limb?" she queried. "I doubt it. I think we're talking about a mild, one-off regeneration of small areas. We have other monkeys with more significant injuries, and they haven't healed. If I had to guess, I'd say we're looking at tissues and organs with a diameter of perhaps a few inches at most. Tonsils, glands, that sort of thing. We might see a rush on repeat circumcisions."
I laughed. "Will it cure disease?"
"No, but it will repair some of the damage. In some cases it will buy people time."
"Nice bonus."
"Very satisfying."
I rose from my stool awkwardly. "How the hell did I *sleep* there?" I marvelled. I stretched, my joints cricking in symphony. Olga winced. I rolled my head a little. "God, that hurts. Okay, so the nanocytes work in apes. Do they work in humans - and without doing any harm?"
"I couldn't say without a human subject."
"We need-" I broke off when my cell phone rang. "Sorry, Olga; hang on." I opened the flip. "Marita Krycek."
Spender's voice echoed through the phone. "Where are you?"
I made a face. "New York," I said with long-suffering weariness. "What do you want?"
If he heard my irritation, he chose to ignore it. "Practically next door," he said brightly. "I'm at the Summervale Inn in Pennsylvania. I'd like you to meet me."
I balanced the phone between my cheek and my shoulder. "Can it wait?" I said, ignoring Olga's reproving look. She'd been pestering me about the habit for a while. The words 'strained neck' were a recurring theme; she mouthed them now.
"I'm afraid it can't." I waited for the telltale static of exhaled smoke, but it didn't come. Could it be that he wasn't smoking?
"What the hell do you want, Spender?"
He said calmly, "I've drugged Dana Scully. I would like you to change her into more comfortable clothes."
He betrayed no awareness of the strangeness of his words. It was such an innocently peculiar request. Feeling slightly surreal, I snapped, "What am I, a fucking nursemaid? Do it yourself."
"I don't think that's appropriate," he said primly.
I thought about it. "All right," I said at last, "I'll come. Give me an hour." I rang off, and turned to Olga.
"I think we just got our human subject."
"This is a mind-fuck!"
Spender wrinkled his features in distaste. "You can be terribly uncouth, Marita," he said reprovingly. "It doesn't become you."
"You bring out the worst in me," I said coldly.
"That wasn't always the case."
I stared up at him in disbelief that he genuinely believed that, but decided it just wasn't worth pursuing. Instead, I said incredulously, "You seriously believe that when this woman wakes up and finds her clothes have been tampered with, she will feel safe with you?"
"If her underwear isn't disturbed, yes, I think she will." I shook my head incredulously. It was a logic that only Spender could have come up with. Not for the first time, I wondered if the inflammation in his brain might be affecting his intellect. He was not a stupid man, even now; but the lines that connected some of the greater complexities were going down. "I will have had her vulnerable and exposed, and yet I will not have taken advantage of her," he went on. "That counts for a lot."
I said disgustedly, "It does, doesn't it?"
He shot me a look, but said nothing; and then he left the room, shutting the door quietly behind him.
I watched him go, perplexed; then returned my attention to the task at hand. Dana Scully lay on the bed, dressed in a crisp business suit, two hours into a drug-induced slumber that should last for fifteen. I went dutifully to her overnight bag and withdrew her pyjamas - awful pink satin things. Painstakingly, I undressed the older woman, lifting each limb with care, until at last I had her laid out before me in her underwear. I looked at her lingerie approvingly: sensible white things befitting a woman on a mission. I noted the recording apparatus in her bra, and I decided to leave it there. I didn't know exactly what either of them were up to, but if Scully was out to outsmart Spender, I'd go along with it.
With my ear tuned to the sounds of movement behind the door, I withdrew a leather pouch from my pocket and opened it. Working quickly, I found a dark freckle on the fleshy part of Scully's thigh; drew vaccine up into a needle, and eased it into her flesh there, counting on the freckle to disguise the point of entry. I injected her with pathogen next. I opened her eyelids and took a cursory glance to be sure there was no telltale sheen of oil over her eyes; but the efficacy of the vaccine was not in question, and in any case, Scully was already immune. The question was, after her metabolism dropped in the course of killing the pathogen, would her body recover?
I packed up my pouch, looking nervously at the door, and gently swabbed away the spot of blood on Scully's leg. If all went well, I reflected, she would wake feeling ill, and she would probably accuse Spender of drugging her. She would write off the seven hours of malaise that followed to the after-effects. Of course, if things went wrong, she might stay ill; but I didn't really believe that would happen. I was pretty sure of my ground.
And at last, my faith was justified.
Scully recovered.
She and Spender went on with their odd little intrigue; and I gathered later that whatever the aim had been, Spender had won, but that the victory gave him no advantage. But that wasn't the point: the point was, Scully had the nanocytes in her body, and they did their job, and she suffered no ill-effects. I followed up with a test on myself, partly for scientific veracity, and partly in the desperate hope that my shredded uterine tissue would regenerate, allowing me to bear children once more. The four children I reared from afar had not eased my pain, but rather made it acute.
It wasn't enough testing - not by a long shot - but I was convinced enough of the vaccine's safety to take it to the Secretary General, my powerful ally. He, in turn, was convinced enough to create a top-secret taskforce within the World Health Organisation to formally test the vaccine and verify our findings.
Within a month, we had some preliminary results on the table, and a top-secret extraordinary meeting of the United Nations was called. I travelled to Geneva in my new capacity as Under-Secretary General and made a marathon thirteen-hour presentation, supported by presentations by Skinner, Senator Sorenson, Olga, and a small handful of surviving Consortium employees and abductees.
During the heated discussions that followed, several representatives admitted independent knowledge of the colonisation threat. That swayed the balance, and they voted in favour of the world vaccination program and an accompanying program of disinformation. The timetable for the release of the vaccine, subject to favourable testing outcomes, was less than twelve months. I signed over the manufacturing rights to the vaccine for an amount which was token in pharmaceutical terms, but which was enough to keep Alex and the children and I in comfort for the rest of our lives.
We'd done it.
We'd really done it.
On our last night in Geneva, Skinner came to me.
I knew what he wanted when he passed into my hotel room; I had known for a while, and that knowledge left me torn. It had been more than a year since I had last been touched; more than two since a man had truly made love to me. When he embraced me, I clung to him, consumed with ravenous, devastating need. He felt so substantial in my arms, so warm; and how I longed to be warm.
Cautiously, tentatively, he bent his head to mine and kissed me, a first kiss, steeped in fondness and caring. I tilted my head to meet him, opening my mouth beneath his, letting him taste me. For long, long moments, I relished what it was to be wanted and adored; but when he pulled away, I made no attempt at pursuit. We stood there, gazes locked for a long, silent moment. I felt deep sadness.
He swallowed painfully, and at last, he touched my cheek with tenderness. "It's not there, is it?" he said in a raw whisper, his hold on me loosening.
I could have let myself off the hook right then, denied that there was a choice to be made; but I didn't. There were truths here that I needed to honour with words. "It is," I admitted wistfully. "I want you, Walter. Maybe I even love you a little. But..." I trailed off, helplessly shaking my head.
"Alex," he supplied. His voice was kind.
I nodded. "Yeah," I agreed softly. I stroked his cheek with the back of my hand, and he leaned into it, his eyes closed painfully. I said gently, taking his hand in mine, "Alexi and I aren't over just because he's not my lover. He's the other half of my soul." Tears started to slip down my cheeks - a lot of them tears for Alex, but some of them for Walter, and some of them for myself, because I wanted to be held, and it hurt like hell to give that up. "I dishonoured that once, and even if he never touches me again, I can't do that again. I'd like to prove that I'm better than that."
He brushed away my tears, watching me steadily. He nodded in understanding. His eyes were unnaturally bright, and it hurt me to know that I had hurt this man, this faithful man I loved second only to one. He bent to kiss me once more, and I allowed it; and when he pulled away, he gently detached himself from me. "I love you, Marita," he said, still holding my hand.
"I love you, my friend," I whispered, squeezing it tightly before finally letting go. I watched as he went to the door, but as he turned the handle, I called his name. He turned back to me, his expression a question.
"Go to Dana," I counselled. I spoke not as a rejecting lover, but as a friend; and I prayed he heard it that way. "You loved her longer and better than you've ever loved me. You two have unfinished business."
He nodded slowly. "Maybe I will," he said gravely. He looked away, and started to turn the doorknob again, but then he turned back once more. "Do you remember that night Alex and I sat up drinking together? The night before you came back from Geneva?"
"Yes, I remember."
He said, his brow creasing, "There was something that he said that's stayed with me, and I think I finally know why."
"What was it?" I said curiously.
"He said - very flippantly, he said it - he said, 'I'd take your charms, but I'm a married man.'"
I looked at him blankly. "You knew he was bisexual," I said in confusion, not at the words but at why Skinner considered them significant.
He made a dismissive gesture. "Of course I did. You're missing the point." I looked at him, perplexed. "He said he was a married man," he said emphatically. "He still thinks of himself as your husband, Marita." He opened the door. "I don't think Dana and I are the only ones with unfinished business."
He left then, and I waited until his footsteps receded, and then I sank down on the lounge and wept. I wept for myself, and for Walter, and for Alex, sitting in a filthy jail cell for my cowardice; but more than anything, I wept because I feared I would never be held again.
"They're back."
Spender made his proclamation, not with a bang, but with a whisper. He was grey now, his body failing him. He was not as sick as I had been when he'd held me captive, but he looked remarkably similar - same red eyes, same cracked lips. It was not in me to feel pity for him, but nor could I feel the vengeful jubilance I had expected in anticipation of his final days.
I watched him warily. Even now, defeated and helpless, he struck me as someone capable of profound evil. He sat innocently in his wheelchair, but that did not ease my worry; it merely meant that the evil was momentarily in check. In a way, his helplessness frightened me more: Spender no longer had anything left to lose. That made him dangerous - more dangerous.
"Who's back?" I demanded at last.
Spender nodded to his nurse, who discreetly withdrew. After the door shut behind her, he said calmly, "The alien colonists are back."
I wondered fleetingly about the possibility of dementia. "The colonists are dead. The ones who were here died at the rebels' hands, and the ones on Mars couldn't have gotten here so fast." I spoke very evenly and calmly, unsure of my ground.
"They aren't from Mars. They're survivors from Antarctica."
"Antarctica?" I said in disbelief, my eyes wide.
Spender nodded. "Apparently your vaccine not only kills the pathogenic lifeform, but the humanoids as well." I nodded - Alex and I had already known that. "The UFO that broke anchor when Antarctica fell had one hundred and three colonists on board. They all became ill, and most died."
"Most?" I echoed with mounting fear.
Spender nodded. He looked satisfied. Could it be that the man thought this was a good thing? "The craft continued on autopilot for almost a year. When the six survivors recovered enough to restore contact with their own kind, the hybrid project had fallen, and Mars was at war over who should control the planned invasion."
I nodded slowly. His data matched Alexi's speculations and my own about the outcomes of the fall of the colonists. I was no longer humouring his demented ravings: the danger was real. "What did they do?" I asked finally in a deathly quiet voice.
"If they can make a hybrid and bring it home, they will have the political sway to take control from the rebels." I gasped, comprehending. "They've been working secretly in Oregon for five months now, trying to recreate what happened in Mulder last year."
"Have they succeeded?"
Spender shook his head. "No. Their craft collided with an air force plane last night. They fear the rebels will become aware of them, and so they are gathering up their subjects. They plan to move to another location once they have cleaned up the evidence of their actions."
I thought about this. "How do you know all this?" I demanded at last.
"I have been monitoring their transmissions home for some time."
I rose and walked to the window. I breathed out heavily, trying to make sense of what all this meant. A touch of condensation formed on the glass, and I wiped it away, absently. Spender watched me; I watched him watching me in the reflection. His expression was an odd mix of calculation and affection. It was an expression I had seen once before; but I shunted that memory aside hurriedly. I wouldn't think about that - not today.
At last, I turned back to face him. "So what does all this mean for us?"
He looked mildly annoyed at my lack of foresight. "It means we can find them and join them," he said, as though this were the obvious course of action. I could think of no strategy less appealing, save for surrender. "It means we can save ourselves."
"Save yourself, you mean," I said coldly. "If they take you home as the prized hybrid, they'll heal you and you will live."
"Don't you want to survive it, Marita?" he asked, truly puzzled. "You could join me. Be my consort."
Consort?
With effort, I passed over the astoundingly repugnant implications of that. I demanded angrily, "Be queen of a race which will no longer exist? W
