Talitha Cumi

Mulder and Scully arrive at the crime scene, amazed to find there are no bodies, or even wounded. One man, who says he was shot in his stomach, tells Scully how he was healed by a touch - a story supported by Muntz, who tells Mulder God reached down and healed him, through the agency of a holy man who "must have been the good Lord himself," who healed him with the palm of his hand. When they ask about the healing man they're told he has mysteriously disappeared.

Quonochontaug, Rhode Island. Mrs Mulder arrives at the Mulder's old summer house, all covered with plastic and dusty with long lack of use. Cancerman is in the garden and she is hostile, saying she has nothing to say to him. "I thought we might at least allow ourselves to reminisce," he says, with a puff of smoke. "We used to have so much to say to each other - so many good times at the Mulders' summer place. Your kids, young and energetic. I remember water skiing down there with Bill. He was a good water-skier, your husband. Not as good as I was, but then that could be said about so many things, couldn't it?" Firmly, she says she's "repressed it all," but he says he finds that hard to believe, and that he's come here today to ask her to remember something.

From the undergrowth a camera clicks away as Mrs Mulder and Cancerman, their words out of earshot, have a spirited argument, culminating in her storming off.

Mulder and Scully learn that the healing man was called Jeremiah Smith. and that he seemed to disappear into thin air. Before they can ask any more, Skinner calls Mulder to tell him his mother has been admitted to Quonochontaug hospital in a serious condition.

11.21pm. Mulder goes to his mother's side, stroking her forehead gently. Scully tells him the nurse says she's had a stroke, but reminds him that many people do recover from such a condition. Mulder doesn't answer, stroking him mother's face and murmuring her name, even though the nurse says she can't speak. Mrs Mulder stirs, gesturing that she wants a pen and paper. Slowly, she manages to write "PALM" before her hand collapses back onto the bed.

Mrs Mulder is transferred to another hospital and Mulder watches her go through the glass door, looking devastated. Scully assures him there's every reason to hope, and he thanks her. He then tells her he believes there's a connection with the shooting, as the man healed with the palm of his hand, and she wrote "palm". Needless to say, she thinks he's wrong. His mother was the right age for such an event, and the word needn't mean anything. She wants to drive him to a motel, saying it's been a very long day, but Mulder wants to return to DC to look into the case.

8.25 am Mulder and Scully watch a television news video of the crime scene. Jeremiah Smith is clearly shown on camera, but after a man in the foreground briefly obscures him, there is another man with the same clothes in his place. Mulder, getting up to go, asks Scully to investigate, and she asks him where he's going. "If I told you, you'd never let me go," he says. She objects, saying he hasn't slept in almost 24 hours, but he just says, "call me if you find anything," and walks out.

At the Social Security Offices, Washington DC, Jeremiah Smith works at a desk as men in black suits stroll in, clearly looking for someone even though they're trying to look casual. Smith discreetly slips out of a door, bit two men grab him, as Cancerman watches with satisfaction.

In a high security prison, Smith, thoroughly tied to a rather nasty looking chair thing, is locked in a cell.

Mulder goes to the summer house, only to be surprised by X in the garden. "He was here with her - with your mother - the Cancerman," X tells him, showing him photographs of Cancerman and Mrs Mulder arguing. "You seem surprised," he tells Mulder. "Surely you were aware they knew each other? Or what brought them here together?" Mulder asks if Cancerman hurt her, but X says she collapsed after he'd left. He (X) was the one who'd called the ambulance. He believes that Cancerman wants something that's kept in the house - "unless you know of another reason they'd have chosen to meet here." Mulder says the day his parents divorced his mother vowed never to set foot in the summer house again. "I know my mother," he says, firmly. "She kept her word." X says the thing could be something very old, and "certainly something very important," but Mulder insists he has no idea what it could be.

Scully sees Jeremiah Smith at the main entrance to the FBI. He tells her he saw in the newspapers that he'd fled a crime scene, and has come to turn himself in. In Skinner's office, he tells a committee that he has no memory of what happened, either during the scene or for the rest of the day. They agree that, as he has done nothing wrong, he can go.

At night, Mulder searches the summer house looking for the thing Cancerman wants. Giving up, he throws himself down onto the couch, staring at the word "Palm", written by his mother. Rearranging it as "Lamp", he smashes a few lamps until out falls one of those little ice pick things last seen in the hands of the Alien Bounty Hunter in Colony and End Game.

Cancerman visits Smith in his cell. Cancerman tells Smith he's now become a "responsibility - a thing that I'm now called upon the put right and put down." Smith says he's not ashamed of his actions, but Cancerman, harshly, says, "you're not allowed the benefit of human weaknesses and penitence. You're not allowed to put your before indulgences before the greater purpose." After Smith says he no longer believes in the greater purpose, Cancerman tells him his "fate is just."

Smith (calm): "My justice is not for you to mete out. You may have reason, but you have no right. You have no means."

Cancerman (angry): "You presume to dictate duty to me? Have you any idea what the cost of your actions is? What their effect might be? Who are you to give them hope?"

Smith: "What do you give them?"

Cancerman: "We give them happiness, and they give us authority."

Smith: "The authority to take away their freedom under the guise of democracy."

Cancerman: "Men can never be free. They're weak, corrupt, worthless and restless. The people believe in authority. They've grown tired of waiting for miracle and mystery. Science is their religion. No greater explanation exists for them. They must never believe any differently if the project is to go forward.

Smith: At what cost to them?

Cancerman: "The question's irrelevant, and the outcome inevitable. The date is set."

Smith (morphing into Deep Throat, as Cancerman stares in horror): "At what cost to them for your own selfish benefit? How many must die at your hand to preserve your stake in the project?"

Cancerman, turning to go: "I'm not impressed by your miracles or moved by your trickery. Your justice will be meted out."

Smith (as Deep Throat): "By whom this time, and by what tool."

Cancerman: "By those who possess the tool of your destruction."

Skinner's office. Mulder storms in, demanding full details about Cancerman's identity. "I want the Smoking Man smoked out," he says, showing Skinner the photographs. "He's responsible for what happened to my mother." Skinner says he doesn't know Cancerman's name and Mulder grows angry, not believing him. "These men don't have names," Skinner tells him, saying there was a time he could have helped him, but not now.

Mulder and Scully go to the Social Security Offices and apprehend Smith, whom Mulder thinks is in danger from Cancerman. In the crowded hallway Smith pushes away through the crowd and seems to disappear. The camera follows another man leaving, and lingers on his face.

Back in Smith's cell, Cancerman tell shim it's only a matter of time now. Smith, referring to the incredibly high security he's kept under, asks Cancerman why he's no afraid of him. "You live in fear," he says, when Cancerman denies he's scared. "That's your whole life... I know everything about you. You think the miracles I perform are the extent of my power." "You think you're God," Cancerman accuses him, telling him he's just a drone - a chattel. "What you're afraid of," Smith continues, "is that they'll believe I'm God." Cancerman says man no longer believes in God, but Smith points out he rules man in God's name. "They don't believe in Him, but they still fear Him," Cancerman says. "They're afraid not to because they're afraid of freedom.... we appease their conscience. Anyone who can appease a man's conscience can take his freedom away from him." Smith morphs in the likeness of Bill Mulder. "And if you can't appease their conscience, you kill them," he says, accusingly, "but you can't kill them all. You can't kill their love, which is what makes them who they are - makes them better than us, better than you." "I'm not one of you," Cancerman protests. "No," Smith replies. "All you want is to be a part of it - is to one of the commandants when the process begins." He then tells Cancerman he's dying of lung cancer. Cancerman tries not to believe him. "You want to save your life," he says. "And you?" Smith says, meaningfully.

The man seen leaving the social security office morphs into the alien Bounty Hunter. He heads into the prison where Smith is being held, but finds only an empty cell.

The doctor treating Mrs Mulder tells Mulder there is little hope of her ever regaining consciousness. Mulder cries at her bedside, holding her hand to his face. When he leaves the room he catches sight of Cancerman standing in the corridor and rushes to him, pushing him against the wall.

Mulder: "Are you going to smoke that?" (ripping the cigarette from Cancerman's mouth and pulling out his gun) "or do you want to smoke on this?"

Cancerman: "Are you giving me a choice?"

Mulder: "I should shoot you right here but they'd probably be able to save you."

Cancerman: "Do it. Do it, Agent Mulder."

Mulder: "Or maybe put a bullet through your brain so you'll be bed-ridden for the rest of your life like my mother."

Cancerman: "How is she?"

Mulder: "What do you care?"

Cancerman: "I've known your mother since before you were born, Fox."

Cancerman tells Mulder he went to see him mother at her request, because he had information about Samantha's whereabouts. "Where is she?" Mulder asks, trying to look inconspicuous as a nurse walks past suspiciously. "Where is she?" she says, louder. Cancerman says the man with that information has disappeared. "I have what you want," Mulder says. Cancerman pulls away. "There's nothing I want, Agent Mulder, except to see how your mother's doing." Mulder is left looking lost and bereft, unable to stop Cancerman seeing her.

11.21. IN the office, Scully searches the social security records on the computer and finds six identical Jeremiah Smith's. She calls Mulder, but his phone is switched off.

Mulder meets X in an underground garage. "Do you have it?" X demands. "Give it to me." Mulder refuses, but X tells him it's of no value to him. Mulder asks him what value it has for him. "When the time comes, and the truth is finally determined its value will soar," X says. It's a weapon, he says - the only thing that can kill them, when inserted in the back of the neck. "A simple gunshot won't do," he says (as we saw in "End Game")"They will kill you for it, Agent Mulder, that's a fact." X says. "They'll stop at nothing for it - nothing - even if they have to martyr you and risk turning your work into a crusade." Mulder steps forward. "Let me get clear on something here," he says to X. "What we're talking about is colonisation. The date is set, isn't it?" "Give me the weapon, Agent Mulder," X demands, ignoring him. Mulder refuses, and the two have a bloody fight, during which Mulder seems to come off much the worse, but the still end up equal, guns drawn at each other's heads. "If you shoot me, you'll never find it," Mulder says. "I ought to shoot you anyway, after everything I've given you," X replies. Mulder walks away. "You're a dead man, Agent Mulder," X calls after him, "one way or another."

Jeremiah Smith arrives at Scully's apartment late at night, asking to be let in. After considerable security measures, she allows him to enter. He tells her he has important information for her partner, concerning "an elaborate plan, a project and his sister." She asks him why he didn't tell her before, but he explains the man she spoke to was an impostor, sent to kill him. Mulder calls just then, and they arrange to meet at a mill.

Scully and Smith meet Mulder. Mulder holds the ice pick, clearly distrusting Smith, although Smith assures him he means no harm. "I have a long and complicated story to tell you," he says. Mulder says that first he wants him to come and see his mother. Just then a car pulls up and the Bounty Hunter gets out, ice pick in hand.

Continued in Herrenvolk.

Página Anterior

Página Principal

Número de vezes que este site foi acessado desde 01/10/96: