CHAOS IN CENTRAL PARK

a Real Ghostbusters/Star Wars/X-Files/Shadow Chasers crossover

by Sheila Paulson

Originally published in Crazy Quilt 4

Thud!

Crunch!

"Shit!"

The whole spaceship shuddered and the beyond the flexi-glas port the milky blur of hyperspace quivered, shrank away as if the ship had suddenly gone into reverse. Long star trails narrowed down to pinpoints and the pilot and co-pilot were tossed about in their seats, grateful they were strapped in as they dropped abruptly into sublight speed. The pilot, a humanoid male, was the one who had sworn at the effect, and his co-pilot, not remotely human, turned his face toward the man and asked a question in his own growling language.

"No, I didn't recalibrate the hyper boosters on Chine," the human snapped in return. "Not the way those bounty hunters chased after us. We've coaxed them back before. We can do it one more time."

*The last time was once too many,* returned the co-pilot, shaking his bushy head. *We need to put in for repairs.*

"Oh, come on, Chewie," complained the human, irritated at himself because he'd known the boosters needed work, though he'd had no choice but to flee Chine when he did. He'd even been forced in this direction, a remote sector where inhabited worlds were few and far between. Out in this sector of the rim, most of the inhabited planets were primitive, without space travel, interdicted worlds where a pilot could be fined heavily for going, or lose his license altogether and have his ship confiscated. Most people Han Solo knew didn't take the risk of landing on interdicted worlds; it wasn't worth it to go down on a planet without proper landing bays, and some of the interdicted worlds had enough technology to detect intruders and try to shoot them down. Most star pilots could avoid that particular threat, but why take the risks? "Where are we gonna put in for repairs around here?"

*It has to be somewhere, cub.* The Wookiee checked the boards in front of him. *We need major repairs. It's not only the boosters. The connectors and power modules have gone, too. We need assistance and equipment.*

"Shit," Han growled again. "There's nothing around here. No worlds with bases and repair docking. And with only sublight we can't make it any further. What system is that?" He gestured at the port. Leaning forward he began to push buttons on the navicomputer. "Look at it. Not a trace of activity. Maybe if we could land on a habitable planet--shit! It's Sol. There's nothing there. Well, there's Sol III. Real primitive stuff, Chewie. Unmanned probes mostly. But they know about us out here. We can't go down and ask for help. We'd probably be locked up. I think that's what happened to Benter Wo last year, why nobody's seen him. He used to come out this way a lot. He even took Marsurians in his crew because he says they look like Sol III's concept of evil aliens or something." He chuckled at the thought, but without enthusiasm. "Sol III. If we go down there--yeah, Chewie, I know it's our only choice, but I don't hafta like it. Leia's already gonna kill me, sneaking in one last smuggling run for old time's sake."

*She knew, cub,* the Wookiee replied with a smile. *The princess is very wise--for a human. She wanted you to go, to run free one last time before your marriage. But she never considered this.* He gestured at the approaching yellow star. *This is very bad.*

"Let me think," Han muttered, pushing buttons on the computer in a hurry. "Seems I heard something--what we need isn't the government, though they've got a space program--orbital, mostly, and a couple'a flights to their moon and some unmanned probes further afield. They could probably help us, but anybody found out, we'd be grounded here for the rest'a our lives, and I hate to think what they'd do to you, buddy. No, we need private help. Not a corporation either. They'd steal every secret we had. We need private help, somebody with access to the technology."

*Individual humans on primitive worlds lack space travel capability, Han,* Chewie pointed out unhelpfully.

"Not this one. Well, maybe not space travel capability, but special equipment... I ran into Benter a couple'a years ago on Martooine. He was telling me all about Sol III, talked for hours 'n hours and I couldn't get away from him. Crazy, weird place. Isn't even all one government yet. But he told me about something he'd heard while he was skulking around one of the largest cities trying to blend in. Walking along with those cat eyes of his and nobody even noticed, he said. That's when he heard--lemme see. If the computer can pinpoint his location..." He concentrated hard, running a hand through his brown hair. "Wait a minute, Chewie, here it is. Look at that, willya."

The Wookiee looked--and cringed. If he had been a human, he would have turned white. Shaking his great, shaggy head, he growled a determined no.

"We have to, Chewie. Look at what we need. Nothing we're gonna find down there. They use nuclear power, remember. Real primitive stuff. But it's all bulky and controlled by the government--except..." He grinned. "I like the enterprising type. I bet we can work a great bargain. Now let me see. If we angle the deflectors, we can stay off their--what did Benter call it?--radar. We might be seen, but old Bent says people see--see 'oofos', something like that, all the time down there and most people think it's imagination or experimental aircraft or something. We can hide. Give me a map, Chewie."

The Wookiee obeyed, the very lines of his body revealing his unhappiness with Han's plan. He called up a schematic of one of the continents, revealing a scan from space which indicated population centers. Han frowned, leaning in to identify the one Benter had told him about over an evening of drinks in the cantina on Martooine. "There, I think. So where do we put down. We don't wanna go traipsing all over the place. We don't have much of any local currency, and you, my hairy friend, are gonna be a little conspicuous wherever we go. I suppose you could wear that long hooded robe you wore on Xarken when we landed there during Festival. Gloves, too. Sorry, buddy, but it's the only way unless you wanna stay with the ship."

Chewie's whole demeanor radiated unhappiness and disapproval, but whether it was because of the robe and gloves or because of where Han meant to seek help was not entirely clear. Han didn't like it much himself, but he couldn't see any choice. He simply didn't know enough about Sol III, and he was grateful for that evening spent drinking with Benter because it gave him the only option he could think of. Being stranded out here in the spiral arm when he had a beautiful Princess waiting for him at home had nothing to recommend it, and neither did capture on Sol III. The humans on this world were an independent lot. Better go to private citizens than to the government or even a technologically advanced corporation, though they might have to if the group Bent had mentioned couldn't come through.

"Okay, Chewie," he said. "We're going in. Angle the deflectors and use the sun as a shield. It's early morning where we're going and if we're careful we can skim on in without most people seeing us. Too bad we couldn't swing for that cloaking device Wa'ala'a was peddling on Arnus."

*It was a hoax anyway,* Chewie argued as he bent over the controls. *Ships the size of the Falcon don't have the power to run a cloaking device.*

"Maybe not, but I could sure have used one about now. Okay, brace yourself. We're gonna be hitting atmosphere any second."

* * *

"I tell you, Jack, you've gotta come up to New York right away," Edgar Benedek insisted into the telephone mouthpiece. The tabloid journalist was standing at a public telephone in the heart of Central Park, watching people pass him by, his reporter's eye considering each one and trying to locate someone who might have a story to tell. "This is a positive sighting. It flew right over the city and came down in the park."

"Really, Benedek!" groaned Dr. Jonathan MacKensie, anthropology professor of the Georgetown Institute of Science in Washington, DC, frowning. "It landed in Central Park? Of course it did. Where else would a spaceship land? And are any nice silver robots strolling around saying, 'Klaatu borata nicto?'"

"Get your movie facts straight, buds. It wasn't the robot who said that. I'm surprised you even heard of The Day the Earth Stood Still." He turned on his most wheedling charm. "Come on, Jack, fly up here and join me for the time of your life. I think it's camouflaged. Remember Trek IV, and the Klingon ship in Golden Gate Park, all nicely cloaked. That's what we've got here. I know it is."

"Oh, good. You want me to walk around Central Park with you, risking muggers, until we bump into something invisible? And then what? The aliens come out and shoo us away and you get your story? I'm engaged in a nice bit of research here, some bones from Africa that were recently found among a gift donated to Georgetown that might prove to be the most complete Australopithecus skeleton ever found, and--Oh. Dr. Moorhouse." The anthropologist raised his head as his department chairman entered his office, a bright and threatening smile upon her face. He knew that look from long experience, the expression she wore when she had a job for him she knew he wouldn't relish, and his heart sank at the sight of it. "Hold on, Benedek," he said. "Dr. Moorhouse has--"

"Come to send you to New York, MacKensie. There have been reports of an unidentified flying object landing in Central Park."

"Whoa! Synchronicity!" Benedek had heard her voice. "Moorhouse and I--two minds with a single thought. Give her my love, Jonny."

"I shall do nothing of the sort," MacKensie said stiffly into the telephone then, realizing Dr. Moorhouse had taken his words to mean he was refusing her instruction and was frowning in annoyance, he said hastily, "I didn't mean you, Dr. Moorhouse. I meant Benedek!" He gestured to the telephone.

"Benedek. Excellent!" That was not her usual reaction to the mention of Edgar Benedek, who had a way of charging extremely expensive things like purchased houses and tickets on the Concorde to the Georgetown Institute. Moorhouse considered Benedek a charlatan who wrote drivel for the National Register and wanted to take advantage of his link with Jonathan, though she tolerated him because of her interest in the paranormal, an interest the two of them shared. She even grudgingly tolerated Benedek's involvement with the Institute's Paranormal Studies Department in hopes he would keep MacKensie motivated to continue in that line of work. She snatched the telephone from the anthro prof and spoke into it. "Benedek? You're on the site? Excellent indeed. I am sending MacKensie to meet you. He shall be there in several hours. From what I gather, the sightings were consistent and highly intriguing all along the coast, until the UFO vanished over New York."

"Yeah, and my sources indicate the FBI is already on the scene," Benedek replied with a grin. It was easy for him to admit that because he had just seen a couple of agents he recognized, Scully and Mulder. Scully was easy on the eye and Mulder believed in UFOs as much as Benny did. He'd done a lot of work with the X-Files, and once or twice he and Benny had managed to resolve situations to their mutual satisfaction. This said there might really be something to it, but if they saw him, he'd probably be banned from the scene and that would never do. He hoped they hadn't seen him, and he turned carefully to avoid their gaze.

"Perhaps," Moorhouse replied. "Though there were apparently no consistent radar trackings."

"Even better," Benny chortled in delight. "They can screen out radar and they didn't want official notice. This is great. I can avoid the Feds and maybe track something down by the time our intrepid anthropologist arrives."

"Indeed?" Moorhouse brightened. "If the FBI is present this may well be the real thing. Of course we know aliens exist already, but we have no proof, beyond your eyewitness experience in Blueberry, Minnesota. This time, I want photographs. I want video tapes. I want interviews with the aliens."

"Interviews with the aliens..." MacKensie muttered to himself despairingly as Moorhouse passed the phone back to him. "Now my life is complete."

"Hey, guys, did you hear about the UFO?" Ray Stantz came bounding up to the second floor of Ghostbuster Central where his three spook-hunting partners were gathered around the dining table eating their lunch. "Sorry I'm late. I was up at Forbidden Planet getting my new Captain Steel issue and everybody there was talking about it. A spaceship landed in Central Park this morning."

The other three stared at him as if he'd grown two heads. "Yeah, right, Ray," said Peter Venkman with a grin, tipping back in his chair and waiting to be entertained. "Alien invasions and everything. We had the news on just now and nobody mentioned spaceships or anything. The press is always the last to know."

"Yeah, but everybody's heard about it. Really," insisted Ray, an earnest look in his eyes. "There were even people talking about it on the subway just now. Isn't it great? I think we should go right over there with our equipment and check it out."

Egon Spengler shifted his glasses into their proper place on the bridge of his nose and studied the occultist as if he'd suggested they take up skydiving without parachutes. "Go over there, Ray? For what purpose. Aliens aren't ghosts. We can hardly 'bust' them, and our equipment is not designed to detect aliens, in any case."

"No, but maybe if we adjusted the frequency to a negative valence," suggested Ray with growing enthusiasm, "it might pick up anomalies--after all, our equipment can detect physical entities, ones that aren't ghosts. It picked up on the Bogeyman, after all."

"Are you saying the Bogeyman was an alien, Ray?" asked the fourth Ghostbuster, Winston Zeddemore, shaking his head in disbelief. "Come on, he was just a physical nether entity. I think you're really reaching this time."

Ray looked at them in wide-eyed disappointment as if he couldn't believe their lack of enthusiasm. "But don't you guys want to see the aliens?" he asked. "I think it's great!"

"Yeah, Ray, great," replied Peter, shoving aside his plate. "The invasion of the world is not great. Having your face eaten by fanged monsters is not great. Neither is hanging out in Central Park with a bunch of crazy UFO-logists. I've met some of those guys. One of them came by here last week and tried to tell me all ghosts were really aliens from Planet Ten or something like that."

"Well, some of them did come here from the Netherworld," Ray replied, determined to persevere. "Maybe in a way that's like another planet."

"Yeah, but you can't go down to the Cape and hop the shuttle to get there," Winston pointed out, pushing aside his empty plate. "Besides, I've gotta finish Ecto's tune up. I've been cleaning the spark plugs. Unless we have an emergency, I don't plan on moving."

"Yes and my current mold culture study is an a critical stage," replied Egon, shaking his head. "I'm sorry, Ray. I must be here to monitor it."

"You guys are no fun," objected Ray. He turned hopefully to Peter, who had tried to slide unobtrusively to his feet. "Come on, Pete, let's go to Central Park."

"No way, Tex. I have the afternoon all planned. First I'm gonna take a nap, then I just got the new issue of Playboy in the mail, and you know how diligent I am. I have to read all those great articles, force myself to check out a picture or two. That ought to take the rest of the afternoon."

Disappointed, Ray faced his friends. "I'm going over there anyway," he said, then brightened. "Hey, maybe I can get Edgar Benedek to go along."

Peter groaned. "I don't trust that guy. That last story he wrote about us...

"I thought it was great," returned Ray with a grin. "Well, if none of you want to come, I'm gonna go on my own. Just think, you'll miss the story of the century. I'm gonna take a P.K.E. meter and the ecto scopes and see if aliens register anything like ghosts." He hurried upstairs and returned with the equipment he'd mentioned.

"Perhaps we should have gone with him," Egon said thoughtfully as Ray clattered away downstairs again. "If there really are aliens in Central Park..." His voice trailed off and he shook his head. "No. Not possible. Should there have been actual aliens, there would have been public service announcements and the like."

"I'll turn on the radio," Winston volunteered, and did so. Music poured out.

"That doesn't sound like the Emergency Broadcast System," Peter said, with a shake of his head that set the lock of hair that hung over his forehead bobbing. "I hope Ray isn't too disappointed."

"Edgar Benedek," Special Agent Dana Scully of the FBI muttered to herself, then raised her voice. "I've just seen Benedek, Mulder, and he looks as if he's trying to avoid us. I should have known this was a hoax."

"Hoaxes don't show up on radar, Scully," her partner, Fox Mulder replied. "I've got a pal who keeps me current on such things and since we finished up the Clayton case last night and were right here in town, it was probably synchronicity. Come on, Scully, something landed in the Park, and if it was a crashed plane, someone would have found it already."

"Then what's Benedek doing here?" Dana had encountered the tabloid journalist before when he had shown up during another of the X-Files investigations, that time in Montana, where it was reported UFOs were giving an air show to a herd of uninterested cattle. Benny had written up a very colorful story and had alluded to an FBI coverup, though he hadn't mentioned her and Mulder by name. "The government isn't taking it seriously, or we'd have the military here and the park would be cordoned off, and you know it. Maybe it was a meteorite."

"Or a weather balloon or the planet Venus?" Mulder asked with careful patience. "I think we'd have a lot more trouble than this if the planet Venus had crashed in Central Park, Scully. Jack said whatever it was showed up on radar and then it didn't, but there were visual sightings after that. A weather balloon doesn't know how to block radar sightings."

"No, but an out-of-control plane might go under radar, and you know it," she replied. Central Park in the late morning wasn't her favorite place, and the presence of Edgar Benedek only confirmed her initial impression, that this was something easily explained away. Of course it would loom large on the cover of the National Register but they'd had an article last month about secret meetings between aliens from the Andromeda Galaxy and Hillary Rodham Clinton, complete with a picture of the first lady shaking hands with a classic tall, willowy, big-eyed creature from space. Come to think of it, the Register had once claimed Elvis Presley was an alien. Considering Mulder's fascination with the we-are-not-alone theory, she wondered if he read the Register with his breakfast coffee.

"Benedek may be nine-tenths crackpot," Mulder replied, "but once in awhile he comes up with something. He's a genuine believer, though he does try to sell a hoax every now and then. I've talked to him seriously once or twice. Most of what he says is pushing it, but even he says there are a few things that scare him because he can't explain them. I don't take the Register seriously, Scully, but I do look at it because every now and then they've got something that might be real buried under all the hype."

That was one thing about her partner that always intrigued Scully. She was the member of the team who held out for scientific explanations, but Mulder, while willing to push the envelope of belief a lot further than she could honestly go along with, would approach it rationally and try for valid proofs himself. He also accepted it when she could fully prove something to his satisfaction as not being paranormal. There had been times when she'd expected him to go along for the ride on some wild UFO speculation and he'd scorned it, opting for the more logical theory. Slowly she had begun to take Mulder more seriously, and now, after working with him for almost two years, she realized a lot of what he investigated might well be real. There were certainly government cover-ups. No, Mulder was a serious investigator, simply more open-minded than the average person. But he knew his field. If he'd rushed to greet Benedek, she would have wondered, but he'd tried to avoid the journalist too.

"Fox Mulder! Wow, this is great. I knew something was going on."

The eager voice held all of Benny's enthusiasm, but it wasn't Benny. Scully turned as Mulder cried, "Ray!" in delight, and found herself face to face with one of the Ghostbusters in full regalia, one of his esoteric tools in his hand. He and Mulder were greeting each other like long-lost friends.

"Everybody says something landed in the park," Ray was explaining now. "And if you're here, maybe that proves it. I haven't gotten any conclusive readings, but then my equipment isn't designed to detect aliens."

"Maybe you could adapt it," Mulder said as if the idea had never occurred to him before. "Scully, this is Ray Stantz, one of the Ghostbusters. I met him a couple of years ago at a conference on Paranormal Studies. Ray, my partner, Dana Scully."

"Hi, Miss Scully," said Ray, smiling at her with genuine friendliness. "I don't remember Mulder working with a partner before. He always said he worked better alone."

"Until Scully came along that was true," Mulder said. "But now she keeps me honest. You know more of the local UFO crowd than I do, Ray. Is the park full of UFO-logists?"

"Well, I saw a couple of guys from MUFON," Ray replied. "But nobody's found a landing site. They're looking for the usual burned circles like they find in wheat fields. I've been scanning the people instead. Sometimes we have to deal with physical manifestations and we can match them up against a standard biorhythm pattern. A human wouldn't deviate enough from the norm to give off a reading, though we can fine-tune it to individual biorhythms and have used the meters to find one of the team when we got separated and somebody was down. Only I haven't found anything abnormal yet. I did see Benny, though. You know Benny, don't you?"

"We both do," said Scully.

"Don't you like Benny? He's a great guy."

"For a certifiable nutcase," she persisted.

"Wounded to the quick." That was Benny, popping up behind her. "Dana, girl of my dreams, let's run away together. After we find the UFO, of course."

"Find me a genuine UFO and I'll consider it, Benedek."

"It'll be my first priority. Well, after I team up with Dr. Jon, anyway. You haven't seen him, have you, Ray? He should be getting here any time now."

"Dr. MacKensie?" Ray asked. "Have him stop by the firehall before he goes back to D.C. Egon ran some studies upstate with Ecto-2, trying to get paranormal readings and he found some ground markings that could be pre-Columbian sites. It's not as far back as Jonathan's field, but he would probably like to see the photos."

"I will. But right now, I'm hunting downed spaceships. Little green men. Any good blips on the vibe-o-meter?" he asked, pointing at Ray's device.

"Not yet, Benny." Ray sounded disappointed. "But I'll let you know if I find anything."

"Then lead on, Stanzo. I'll tag along. See you later, Feds."

"Ghostbusters, Mulder?" Scully asked when Ray Stantz vanished, meter in hand and Benedek in hot pursuit. "Why am I not surprised?"

"They're scientists, Scully. Talk to Egon Spengler sometime. He'll show you their equipment and explain the theories behind it. Ghosts are real. Why do you think the government never covered up the Ghostbusters?"

"I always thought it was because they were a hoax and it wasn't worth the government's time."

"It was probably what the government hoped people would believe," he began. "Because people who have never encountered a ghost doesn't take the Ghostbusters seriously, so they can perform an essential service while most people think it's a hoax just like you do."

"I'm not sure there's any logic in that, Mulder, but I am sure I'd like a cup of coffee. Can we have something to eat before we question any more potential aliens? I'm hungry."

"Sure, we'll grab a bite and come back," he said, unwilling to give up on the search yet. "Come on." Taking her arm, he headed toward the edge of the park.

*I don't like this place.*

"Relax, Chewie. Think how much worse it is for me." Han Solo grimaced. Locals on Sol III didn't wear blasters at the hip, and those who did were likely to be arrested, so, reluctantly, he had left his gun back on the Falcon, now concealed safely beneath the surface of the largest body of water in the Park. He had a smaller gun hidden in an inner jacket pocket, but it was hard to get at, and not as powerful, and he could only hope the size of Chewie, who was taller than mainbreed humans though not so tall that he would be disbelieved entirely, would keep troublemakers at bay. So far, no one had accosted them, so maybe there was something to the theory.

They had left the park immediately. Benter had remarked it could be dangerous, and while Han Solo had never been one to run from trouble, he didn't want to create any while he was in a place with no proper identity papers. He also had a very sketchy idea of local currency. He tried to keep samples of different planetary currency on the Falcon but, on a planet with various different governments, he had to assume each one had its own money. A careful check of the Sol III currency he'd managed to accumulate revealed something called 'rubles' some 'francs' and some 'dollars'. He scanned local media broadcasts and decided 'dollars' were the order of the day, and found only fifteen of them, which he didn't think would be worth as much as fifteen credits. He had gold, of course, which was acceptable on most worlds, but places like this didn't just take bulk gold as a rule. It needed a more primitive culture than this one or a more advanced one. Pocketing the fifteen dollars and some of the francs and rubles in case he found a place that would exchange them, and some of the gold as possible payment for repairs, Han and Chewie left the Falcon in the portable airlock, which they then deflated and hid in some bushes. It was early and no one was in sight.

By the time they left the park, there were more people stirring, and while some of them favored Chewie with curious looks, none of them bothered the travelers. Han tested his translator implant by offering a friendly hello to a man in a blue uniform, who returned it in some surprise, and asking directions to the nearest banking institution. Pointed in the right direction, Han went there, leaving Chewie at the door for fear he would be taken for a felon in his mask, and exchanged the francs and rubles. Now complete with fifty seven dollars and some change, he felt it would be possible to transport himself to the proper location, though if it wasn't far, they might walk and save their money, little as it was. He asked the bank clerk how far it was and received a lot of helpful directions including the right subway stop. Subway--an underground railed transportation system, his translator offered, and it seemed a better means of getting there, much cheaper than hiring a private ground car. He steered Chewie to the nearest subway stop, glad the implant allowed translation of written language. It had been pricy when he got it, and he hadn't needed it often but now it helped a lot. After several questions, and a stop to exchange some of their currency for subway tokens, they found themselves rocketing south in a subway car covered with graffiti. Some things never changed, no matter what planet Han visited.

The man sitting next to Han leaned forward and peered sideways at Chewie, contemplating him suspiciously. "What's your buddy supposed to be, Mac?" he asked in what sounded like a broad accent. The translator didn't worry about accents, unless they were too strong to make sense, but Han could hear it in his voice, which was different from the bank clerk's and that of the official in the blue uniform.

Han hesitated a second, hoping the translator would find a local equivalent. "He's a monk," he said quickly, giving the man a sideways glance to try to tell if further equivocation was required.

"Monk, huh?" The man shook his head. "Too bad. He oughta be in the NBA."

Han's translator made nothing of 'enbeeaye', but he shrugged and said with careful casualness, "Well, guess that's life."

The man shrugged and nodded. "You got that right," he said and picked up a folded paper printed with text and began to read it. Han was glad to be ignored. Beside him, Chewie gave a faint snort. *A monk?* he breathed skeptically, shaking his head.

Han grimaced and shrugged wryly. It had been the best thing he could come up with on the spur of the moment, and it had worked; evidently Sol III had monks who dressed the way the ones in the Empire did. The concept wasn't alien here.

They nearly missed their subway stop. Han realized it at the last minute and he and Chewie hurried out of the car and climbed the stairs to the street, where they stood, pondering over the street signs and trying to remember the directions they had been given. "I think it's this way," Han said, pointing.

Chewie shook his head. Han had warned him not to talk if people were around. He pointed stubbornly off at an angle. Han scratched his head. He hated wandering around someplace he had never been, where he didn't know the rules and had no sense of place. Spotting another man in a blue uniform, obviously some sort of minor official, he asked for directions, which he promptly got. The blue uniform eyed Chewie with great skepticism. "He a ghost?" he asked.

Chewie lifted his head as if he meant to challenge the question--Wookiees had quick tempers--but Han cut in quickly with the answer that had worked before. "He's a monk. We have a--a problem at the monastery."

"Even there, huh? Well, good luck, fellas."

Han grabbed Chewie by the arm and steered him quickly in the right direction. He knew the longer they stayed the more they pressed their luck. This guy could start asking questions. He probably wouldn't, unless something drove him to it, but Han knew this type. Once his suspicions were aroused, he'd start wanting to see Han's papers, and that would never do. He set off down the street, noticing he had been right about the direction, hoping the men he meant to consult would agree to go along with him.

Peter had decided to read his Playboy and then take a nap, so he was sitting at his desk, concealed from the Ghostbusters' secretary, Janine Melnitz, behind the filing cabinets while he enjoyed the pictures--and even a few of the articles. He was so caught up in Miss June that he hadn't heard the outer door open or a brief conversation at the reception desk. Janine's, "Dr. V!" summoned him back to the real world and he shoved the magazine hastily into the top drawer of his desk.

"Don't do that, Janine. I was engaged in important research."

"Yeah, you ought to be an expert in that kind of research," the redheaded woman replied with a knowing grin. "But right now you've got a couple of clients." She quirked one eyebrow as if to indicate that the clients were not the run of the mill type. "I'll show them in." She stood aside, pushing aside the swinging gate in the railing that served to separate the office from the rest of the garage area. "This is Mr. Han Solo," she introduced. "And associate."

Mr. Solo was a tall, dark haired man whose clothes looked subtly wrong in a way Peter couldn't quite pinpoint, and the 'associate' was probably the secret weapon the Knicks had been looking for. Though he was clad from head to toe in a concealing robe, he was well over seven feet tall. Solo saw the look, identified it, and said quickly, "He's not in the NBA." Something about the line, which should have sounded natural, made Peter suspect he didn't have a clue about basketball. He wondered what kind of a name 'Han' was. The guy didn't look Chinese, and the only other Han Peter had ever heard of was the Han Dynasty. Solo, on the other hand, sounded Italian. And there was Napoleon Solo, too.

"I'm Dr. Peter Venkman," he said, shaking hands with Solo. He would have shaken hands with the tall character, too but no hand was forthcoming and even if it had been, Peter wasn't quite sure he'd want to offer his own to such a mysterious figure. "Have a seat. If you've got a ghost, you've come to the right place."

The big guy shivered and turned his head in Solo's direction. Peter realized with shock that he was wearing a mask under that hood. Maybe he was a ghost, but then clients usually didn't bring the ghosts with them when they showed up at the door. Nor did ghosts come along tamely to be trapped.

"Well, we don't have a ghost, exactly," Solo replied. "But our problem is confidential." He eyed Peter expectantly.

"Of course it is, and it should be," said Peter smoothly. This kind of thing was right up his alley. "Naturally we respect the privacy of our clients. Our jobs take us to people's homes and offices and we don't give away their secrets."

Solo glanced at his partner, and Peter got a glimpse of blue eyes looking out of the eye holes of the mask. Both men appeared skeptical, but then the big guy nodded, and Solo said, "Well, we don't have much choice. We want to hire you. We're prepared to pay in gold."

Peter brightened. "Gold, eh? Sure. We take any kind of currency, long as we can spend it. What do you want us to do, if you don't exactly have a ghost?"

"We want--access to your equipment," Solo replied. "I'm told you have nuclear devices."

Peter felt a warning twinge in his gut, remembering Egon commenting once that their equipment might be tempting to terrorists, who would like the power of their proton rifles and throwers for violent activities such as hijackings and kidnappings. "We don't loan out our equipment," he said, studying Solo consideringly and trying to guess if he were a terrorist or just some kind of lunatic. "We eventually had to have it licensed, and you wouldn't believe the paperwork involved." It had been a real mess, and involved everyone from the Nuclear Regulatory Board to the EPA (though that had gone better once Walter Peck had lost his job with them). Periodically officials came and ran tests on their equipment, while Egon complained that he and Ray were the only ones really capable of assessing the dangers involved in their portable nuclear accelerators. "What do you want it for?"

"Well, because our equipment needs fixing," Solo admitted.

"Yeah, right. I've heard a lot of cons in my time and you aren't even good at it. Convince me." He folded his arms across his chest, wishing he had some kind of alarm button he could push to alert the guys, or, failing that, a proton pack and thrower within easy reach. "What kind of equipment we talking here? Nothing that's going to blow up the World Trade Center again, is it?"

"We don't want to blow anything up," Solo insisted. "That's the last thing we want. We just want to do some repairs and we can't go to the government."

"Oh yeah?" Peter asked with interest. A terrorist might have grown tired of fencing with him by this time and produced an Uzi but Solo was still talking. Peter wasn't comfortable with the guy in the hooded robe--he couldn't even see anything but a hint of blue eyes when the big fella lifted his head and growled something under his breath that Peter couldn't understand. A foreign language or just a snarl? Suddenly the psychologist wondered if this character was even human. Maybe it was a ghost. Surreptitiously he slid open one of his drawers and pulled out a P.K.E. meter.

"What's that?" Solo asked suspiciously, his eyes narrowing and his whole body tensing as if he were used to living on the edge. Peter had spent a lot of his teen years on the streets and he recognized the 'us against the world' pose Solo adopted, sliding closer to his buddy while every line of his body braced for trouble and his hand hovered as if it was about to go for a weapon.

"This is a genuine P.K.E. meter," Peter replied. "It detects ghosts. If you're not ghosts, you've got nothing to worry about, do you?"

Solo cast an alarmed glance at his partner, who put a huge, gloved hand on Solo's wrist and waited expectantly. The needle quivered but it wasn't reacting as to ghosts. This was something else. Peter's eyes narrowed. Solo's readings were so close to normal for your average man on the street that Peter would have relaxed--until he got a better look at the way the meter reacted to the tall guy. This was crazy. The machine was telling Peter he wasn't a ghost--but he wasn't human, either. What did that leave? Bigfoot? Or-- Aha!

"So, you guys showed up in a UFO this morning and landed in Central Park, did you?" Peter asked brightly, pausing to allow Solo to laugh at him for his ludicrous assumption. Instead Solo's hand flashed into his vest and came out with a tiny gun that looked like an energy weapon. Peter's eyes narrowed. "Someday I'm gonna learn to watch what I say before I say it," he mourned. "Hey, guy, make nice with the ray gun." Where had he heard that line before?

The tall, masked guy growled at his friend. Actually growled. Peter didn't like the sound of that. But the big guy stretched out a gloved hand and forced down the gun. Peter let his tensed muscles ease slightly.

"Yeah, okay, Chewie," Solo said. "I'm not gonna blast him. That'd be stupid. But we can't risk him turning us in to the government, either."

"To the government?" Peter asked warily. "Look, you came here because you wanted something from us. You're not terrorists, are you?"

Solo shook his head. "No, we're a couple guys who have a problem--you might call it a transportation problem."

"Your space ship short circuited?" Peter persisted.

'Chewie' growled again, and Solo nodded as if he was hearing a language. "No," Solo said. "Of course I don't trust him. But we need help. That's why we came here."

Chewie growled at him again, at length, and Solo shrugged.

"Chewie says if we have to have your help, we have to tell you why. I don't like it, but looks like I don't have much choice. You're right, we did come here in a ship. I've got trouble with the hyperdrive."

"Something like lightspeed?" Peter asked, letting himself go with the flow.

"Yeah, something like that. Without it, we can't get home before we're old and grey; well, before I'm old and grey. Chewie's already 200 years old and he's got another 200 to go. But I've got a wedding planned when I go home and I don't want to wait until I'm old and grey to see her again."

Peter was used to scams and cons, and was pretty good at reading people. This guy meant it. He might be an alien from Planet 10, but he was human enough when it came to his feelings. He was stranded so far from home he couldn't quite get back on his own and he was missing his fiancee. Peter wasn't sure how he'd heard of Ghostbusters, Inc. but he had. Maybe aliens came here all the time the way the UFO nuts claimed. Maybe they watched Earth television. After all, the signals had been going out for awhile now. For all Peter knew, there were ships all through the system, watching the humans. He didn't like that; it made him nervous that there were guys out there spying on them. But even though Solo had a gun, Peter was pretty sure he wasn't going to use it. As he watched, the gun vanished again and Solo looked at him appealingly.

"We need help in a big way. The gold's yours if you do what you can for us."

Chewie suddenly gave a growl that even to Peter sounded like one of alarm and pointed toward the ceiling. Peter raised his eyes, wondering if a ghost had somehow gotten into headquarters, then relaxed as he saw it was only Slimer. The big guy was literally shaking at the sight of the little green spud.

Slimer jerked to a stop in midair and hovered there eyeing Chewie with as much alarm as the tall guy. "M-monster?" the little ghost quavered unhappily.

"Either that or some NBA reject," Peter muttered. "Back off, Spud. This is business."

"Is that a ghost?" demanded Solo.

"Sure is, a Class-5 free roaming vapor," Peter explained. "He's harmless, except for sliming a guy. Slimer, these aren't monsters, they're customers. Maybe they came a little further than usual, but they're still customers. I don't think they like ghosts very much."

Chewie roared out a question and even Peter could hear the uneasiness in it and notice the way the big fella's body curved itself to be as far from Slimer as possible. Solo, who had the look of a man who had seen it all, halfway shrugged. "Come on, Chewie, we've seen a lot worse than that little green guy. An ordinary womp rat could eat him for breakfast."

This time it was Slimer who looked uncomfortable. He zipped down behind Peter and peered at the strangers over the parapsychologist's shoulder. "Mask," he pointed out.

"He'd be a little noticeable without it," Solo said and gestured Chewie to uncover. Chewie grumbled but he pushed his hood back and pulled off the mask.

"Yikes," said Peter, and Slimer screeched and went straight up to vanish through the ceiling, wailing all the way.

That made Janine appear at the gate, and at the sight of Chewie without the mask, she jerked as if she'd been blindsided. She collected herself instantly. "What's that?" she asked, pointing. "Nobody said I had to deal with customers like that, Dr. V. It's not in my job description. You owe me a raise."

Han stared at her in something like astonishment, then he began to grin. Chewie, collecting himself now that Slimer was gone, growled something to Solo, who said, "Yeah, she does kinda remind me of the Princess."

"You hear that, Peter," Janine asked with a smug grin. "I remind him of a princess. That means you four clowns had better start treating me with more respect."

"Yep, she's like Leia all right," Han said. "All mouth."

Janine's eyes narrowed. "What is he?" she demanded again, staring at Chewie, not a whit dismayed when he stood up and looked down at her from his great height.

"He's a Wookiee and he understands you just fine," Solo replied. "Look, we heard about you Ghostbusters and your weapons and stuff, and we can't go to the government and don't want to risk big corporations. We just need a little help putting our ship together again and you seemed the best chance of it. We're prepared to pay."

Janine opened her mouth to demand answered, but Peter waved her off. "Just a minute, Janine. Pay? Pay how? I bet you don't have any American currency."

"Only fifty dollars," Solo replied. "But we do have the gold I offered you."

Peter's face lit up. "Maybe we can talk a deal after all," he said. "People in outer space have really heard of the Ghostbusters? This is great."

"Outer space, Peter?" Egon's voice was very skeptical--until Chewie turned around. Then the physicist looked up, and up, at the Wookiee, his mouth falling open in sheer fascination. "All right, I'll grant you outer space," he conceded.

"So are these the guys who landed in Central Park this morning?" Winston asked in his usual unflappable tones, though his eyes were open extremely wide as he stared at the pair.

"Does everybody know about us?" Solo asked uneasily.

"Sure, Mr. Solo," Janine replied. "But nobody believes it. We get UFO sightings all the time and most of them are weather balloons or the planet Venus or the view from the bottom of a bottle. The only thing is, Ray went over to the park with his equipment. Are you cloaked or what?"

"No, our ship's too small to support a cloaking device," Solo replied. He looked like he meant to go with the flow, at least for the moment. No one was panicking and calling the authorities, and Peter had shown an interest in gold. "But I don't like the idea of anybody checking us out. Maybe we should head on over there with your equipment."

"Our equipment, Peter?" asked Egon, lifting an expectant eyebrow.

"Well, they want our help to fix their spaceship, Egon," Peter explained. "That's more your line and Ray's than mine. The human one is Solo and his buddy is Chewie. He's a Wookiee, of course."

"Of course," returned Winston as if nothing could be more logical.

The phone rang and Janine went to answer it, returning a moment later. "Dr. V, it's Ray. He wants to talk to you right away."

Peter had a bad feeling about that. He snatched the receiver when she held it out. "Yo, Ray, you didn't find any aliens in the park, did you?"

"No, but Benny's here and his friend Dr. MacKensie's on his way up from Washington, and I just saw Fox Mulder--remember that FBI guy who's stopped by a couple of times. He didn't tell me much but there really was something or he wouldn't be here. You guys have got to come up here right away. I've just started getting some strange readings that could be a spaceship, only I haven't been able to localize them yet." Peter could hear Edgar Benedek in the background urging Ray to come on before the trail got cold.

"I think we've got trouble guys," he said, sliding his hand over the mouthpiece for a minute. Ray says its a media circus and the FBI is there. He's got some weird readings and told Benedek about them. We've got to get Ray back here before he triggers something he shouldn't. I think the time has come for everybody to lay low unless we want the feds to get their hands on our newest customers."

"Peter? Peter?" Ray's voice rang in his ear.

"Yo, Ray. Don't track it down, you got that. The rest of us are coming over there and we're going to bring an expert with us. A character named Solo. If you can restrain Benny till then, do it, and don't tell Mulder anything about your readings. This is really important."

"But Peter, I'm picking up..."

"I don't care if you're picking up Mr. Spock, the Ferengi, and the entire Klingon empire, Ray. This is important. Shut your stuff down and stall."

Ray heaved a disappointed sigh. "Well, okay, Peter, but I don't have to like it."

Solo looked gratified and suspicious at the same time. "What are you up to, Venkman?" he demanded.

"Well, you offered to pay us. That makes you our client. The last thing we want is for our client to be busted (by anybody but us, that is). We'll see what we can do for you, won't we Egon? Winston?"

The blond physicist heaved a sigh, but it did not disguise the interest in his expression. Peter could see he was fascinated by the chance of examining alien technology. "You do realize if we go to the park carrying our equipment it will be unlikely we can reach the ship without witnesses," he said.

"Then we'll have to do that after dark," said Peter with determination. "Most of those crackpots won't stay in the park after dark, and our throwers should handle any muggers we meet. Why don't you and Mr. Solo sit down and plan what you're going to need, and try to keep Slimer and Chewie apart. I'll head over there with Winston and see what we can do with Ray.

"I want to come," Solo said. "I want to make sure no one has found the Falcon."

"Just tell us where it is, and we'll check that out for you," said Peter. He could see that Egon was itching to get to work, and it would save time to split the teams.

"I can show you on a map," Han agreed, consenting to the plan.

The more time that passed without any clear reports of spaceships, the more discouraged Mulder became. He was sure something had happened, but he hadn't been able to track down a credible witness. He'd found a couple of winos who claimed they'd seen a fireball come slamming down through the trees, but even he wasn't prepared to believe someone who would tell him anything he wanted to hear for the price of a bottle of cheap wine. That didn't stop him from investigating their story, but unless the aliens had gone to ground under water, they had taken off again and flown away. Aware of Scully beside him trying her best not to say anything, he stood on the track that circled the Reservoir and wondered if secrets lay beneath the surface of the placid water. Divers would find out but he didn't have enough evidence to bring them in.

"I think we've been tracking a meteorite, Mulder," Scully said. She sounded sympathetic, and he hated that. This time it had sounded so certain. Then he shook his head. The government covered up genuine UFO reports. If there was anything real, there should be mysterious agents here, making sure no one like him found out anything he shouldn't know. They couldn't stop the knowledge already in his head, though.

"There's Dr. MacKensie," said Scully, pointing.

Mulder turned and saw someone who looked even more disgruntled than he did. Clearly the anthropology professor wasn't happy to be here. He hadn't teamed up with Benedek yet and from the way he was glancing around, his face brimming with frustration, he wasn't looking for him with any great enthusiasm either.

"Dr. MacKensie," Scully called, beckoning him over.

He saw them and hurried to meet them. "You're Benedek's friends in the FBI," he said. "He said you were here. Have you actually found anything?"

Scully shook her head. "Not yet," she said tactfully.

"And not ever," MacKensie burst out. "This sounds like one of Benedek's pipe dreams. Central Park is hardly the place I'd land an alien spaceship. And if I wanted to land there to make first contact with the human race, I'd be out glad-handing the crowd by now."

"Yes, that was what stumped me, too," Scully said. "Why would they land in such a populated area if they wanted to hide?"

"Engine trouble?" theorized Mulder. "They had no choice. If they're actually in the Park, they're camouflaged, or hidden." He pointed at the water.

"Underwater ships?" MacKensie said speculatively. "The Atlantic would be far safer if they want to avoid detection, and it's a much bigger target." He shook his head. "I can see Benedek jumping on the bandwagon. If there's a remote chance of paranormal activity he'll be first in line. We once followed up a lead that Julius Caesar had been seen in Idaho!"

But Mulder had stopped listening. Around the curve of the shore toward the south he'd seen the Ghostbusters' vehicle pull up and two of the Ghostbusters get out. It wasn't Ray this time but Venkman and Zeddemore. They advanced purposefully on the Reservoir and stopped at the water's edge, both of them with detection devices in hand. The meters reacted with beeping noises that were audible even to Mulder.

MacKensie and Scully were still talking about the unlikelihood of the whole thing, but Mulder started to grin. Maybe somebody knew something after all. He murmured an excuse and drifted in the direction of the two men, hoping to get close enough to hear what they had to say before they noticed him. A couple of joggers paused, running in place, to stare at the Ghostbusters, but when no ghosts materialized, they continued their run.

Venkman adjusted his meter and frowned. "Egon was right," he said. "The magnetometer is giving off psi waves like crazy."

"Whatever that means," Zeddemore said with a grin, then it faded and he elbowed Peter sharply in the ribs.

"Hey!" protested Peter before he realized what was up then, noticing Mulder approaching, he shut the meter off and pasted on a big grin. "Foxy Loxy," he cried in apparent delight. "Are you here looking for little green men?" He made it sound as if only an idiot would be engaged in such a pursuit, but as he spoke he fiddled with the 'magnetometer', adjusting the setting.

Wincing at the appellation, Mulder gestured at the device. "Ghosts in the water, Peter?" he asked. Of all the Ghostbusters he knew Ray the best since Ray was a specialist in the occult and had sometimes acted as a consultant for Mulder in his investigations. He'd met the others, though, and knew them well enough to understand that Peter Venkman had learned a lot at the knee of his father the con man. Peter was watching him with an expression of sheer innocence, and it wasn't one whit overdone.

"Egon says the ionization factor of water might affect the polarity of the neutron flow when we're studying entities of class seven or better," said Venkman, producing the technobabble with utter sincerity. "We once had a ghost who couldn't cross running water. They say vampires can't but this was the first instance of a ghost having the same problem. So Egon sent us out to take some readings. He's writing one of those papers with twenty dollar words that no one but another genius could understand and guess who gets to do the leg work?"

"The polarity of the neutron flow?" Mulder asked with heavy skepticism. "You've been watching too much Doctor Who, Peter."

"I never watch Doctor Who," said Peter promptly. "That's one of Ray's shows. I don't know what that polarity and neutron flow stuff really means but Ray and Egon use the term all the time. I always thought it was a proton flow myself and that's why our packs are called proton packs, but, hey, I'm a psychologist just like you. We don't have that kind of terminology."

"Yeah, Egon and Ray do the hard science," put in Winston, who had been content to let Peter spin the tall tales. "Hi, Dr. Scully, Dr. MacKensie," he said.

"Benedek didn't say anything about Ghostbusters," MacKensie mumbled, as if he were adding this oversight to the long list of his current grievances.

"Then you get a pleasant surprise, Doc," said Peter with a grin. "What are you all doing here? You're not chasing that UFO story?" He let amusement trickle into his expression, carefully restrained.

Mulder recognized a master at work, but he was convinced the two Ghostbusters knew something Ray hadn't known earlier. "There were enough sightings to make it a valid search," he said.

"But no one has seen anything since," Scully put in. She cast a curious eye over the magnetometer but most of her attention was on Venkman. The last time those two had met, Peter had come on pretty strong and Scully had spent the next week complaining to Mulder about the manners of his friends. She was not at all pleased to see the psychologist now. Mulder saw Peter realize the fact.

"Dana Scully. You're more beautiful every time I see you. Considering the way Foxy Loxy runs you all over the country tracking down the weird and unexplainable, I don't know how you do it."

"It's easy, Venkman," Scully returned. "I avoid men like you."

That made Winston laugh out loud and MacKensie grin. But Peter slapped a hand against his chest. "There are no men like me. I'm unique."

"Thank goodness," she countered. "One is more than enough."

Peter donned a wounded expression. "Dana, Dana, Dana, I'm very sensitive. You'll hurt my feelings."

Winston gave a snort of laughter. "Ignore him, Dr. Scully. We all do."

"What kind of readings were you taking of the Reservoir?" she asked him. Scully might not believe in UFOs but she was quick to notice suspicious behavior and she was a medical doctor so she knew more about the scientific end of things than Mulder did, though his psych background didn't leave him ignorant.

"Ionization readings," Winston explained, repeating Peter's hasty story. "Some ghosts can't cross water, and Egon wants to know why."

"You sure it's not because there's something mysterious and spooky lurking down there in the depths?" Edgar Benedek and Ray Stantz came up to them. It was Benedek who had spoken.

"Sure, Benny. It's Cthulhu," Peter replied with a grin.

"I don't think the water's deep enough for Cthulhu, Peter," Ray corrected. "I didn't know Egon had gotten around to those ionization studies. Wow, this is going to be great." He sounded natural but his eyes were shooting a million questions at his teammates. Mulder had been an FBI agent long enough to realize that and to recognize the caution in Peter's eyes as he returned the look.

"Dr. Jon," Benny greeted his colleague with enthusiasm. "I've been tracking you down all over the park."

"You take me to such nice places, Benedek," MacKensie replied. "Have you interviewed your aliens already? Or does that come after the first three muggings?"

"Sure he has, there's little green men all over the park," said Peter. "I know I saw a couple of groups of them playing soccer when we were driving over here. Come on, team, we've got to head for the East River next." He tried to shepherd Winston and Ray toward Ecto-1.

"Just a minute, Peter," Mulder said. "You're onto something, aren't you? You've taken readings. I don't know what put you onto it, but--"

"Egon did," Peter replied, his face free of intimidation. "'Go take ionization readings, Peter,' he said. 'Go do all the hard work, Peter.' It's just the kind of instructions he loves to give. Whenever somebody has to run around and do the dirty work, it's always Winston and me, right, buddy?"

"You got it," Winston concurred without hesitation. He wasn't quite as convincing as Peter was, but at least he was sincere about that.

"I assume you haven't located any aliens, Benedek?" MacKensie asked.

"No, but from the look on Ray's face, he thinks the Venkster has," Benny replied. The appellation made Peter grimace, and Benny added, "Chill out, Dr. V. We're all on the same side here. All I want is an exclusive, our buddy Fox wants proof, something that won't get covered up and locked away where no one will ever know, and Dr. J. here wants to give his boss the real skinny on little green men. We only saw aliens once before."

"I heard about that," said Peter, his voice full of mischief. "You were up in Minnesota or someplace like that? Blueberry capital of the western world."

MacKensie grimaced but Benny grinned. "They're all great stories. Come on, open up Peter Piper. You're not really running around looking for water ghosts can't cross."

"You obviously haven't had to deal with Egon when he gets a science attack," said Winston darkly. "Come on, guys, I do want to get dinner tonight and if we have to do the Hudson and the East River before he'll let us come home, we better start right away." He steered Ray toward Ecto-1. Mulder's suspicion rose, especially when Ray lagged back, trying to catch Peter's eye and Peter elbowed him surreptitiously. Ray picked up on it and let himself be urged behind the wheel of the converted hearse.

Benedek picked up on it too, and his eyes sparkled. He cast one quick, speculative look at Mulder, turning away the moment he realized he was being watched, and said brightly, "Come on, Jon-jon, time's wasting and the little green men are going to ground. We've got a lot of park to cover if we want to find them."

"I don't want to find them," MacKensie said. "The last thing I want is to wander through Central Park. Maybe we should go somewhere for coffee and compare notes," he concluded, looking hopefully at Scully, who nodded in ready agreement.

Mulder was sure the Ghostbusters knew something, but they drove away without looking back, and Benedek watched them, his face full of questions. "Come on, buds," he said to MacKensie. "Coffee later. Right now I've got a lead to follow."

Scully looked a little disappointed when Benedek dragged the protesting professor away, but Mulder caught her arm and held her back. "Scully, the Ghostbusters know something."

"I admit they were acting suspiciously, but then Dr. Venkman always acts suspiciously," she conceded. "I don't know what the device he had was, but I doubt it measures ionization levels. Psi waves shouldn't have anything to do with ionization factors."

"But it might have something to do with ghosts." When skepticism etched itself upon her face, he added, "Come on, Scully, I've been to their headquarters and I've seen their equipment. It works. I've even seen their tame ghost."

"What did Skinner say when you told him about it?" she asked, genuinely interested.

Mulder heaved an exasperated sigh. "He laughed. I have legitimate proof, and he laughed, Scully." Determinedly ignoring the carefully repressed amusement on her face, he said, "I think I'll take you over there and introduce you to Slimer. He's exactly what you need."

"What I need, Mulder, is good, firm, scientific proof of anything that's happened today. All we have is a couple of street people saying they saw space ships and Edgar Benedek. If anything's going to prejudice my belief, it's Benedek. Not to mention Venkman. Yes, I agree with you, he's covering something up, but he's hardly likely to be in touch with people from outer space."

"No, but he didn't want us to know about it. He made up stories."

"I hate to remind you, but he made up stories before when he was trying to ask me out."

"That's different, Scully."

"Maybe, but it didn't make me warm to him."

"He's not so bad, though I have to admit I wouldn't trust him with you."

"I can handle him," Scully said with satisfaction.

"Good, because I want to go over to Ghostbuster Central and see what we can find out."

Egon Spengler was a fascinated man. He had been inclined to doubt Peter's claims of aliens until he had come face to face with Chewie, but the tall hairy being was either someone in a remarkably lifelike costume or he was exactly what he claimed to be. A little judicious scanning with a P.K.E. meter proved his biorhythms didn't remotely resemble those of a human being from Earth, and Han Solo's were different enough to suggest this wasn't his planet of origin either. But then Solo laid out specifications of his ship, and Egon was totally caught up in them. It wasn't that he had ever felt an inclination to be a rocket scientist, but much as he loved chasing ghosts, it was nice to get a look at something like this for a change of pace. Solo was a pilot, not a physicist, not a design engineer either, but he had learned some tricks in keeping his apparently aged vessel going, rather like Winston and Ray managed to keep Ecto-1 purring smoothly. The Wookiee was knowledgeable, too, rather more so on the hard science than Solo, though everything he said had to be translated, and then measurements had to be taken to compare two different systems.

Egon worked with great delight, frustrated only at those moments when Slimer ventured back, came face to face with Chewie, and fled screaming. Unfortunately for all concerned, Chewie continued to flee in the opposite direction, roaring deafeningly and scattering papers in all directions, no matter how Han tried to calm him down. The first time this happened, Janine came upstairs with a proton pack on her back and a bravely determined look on her face. By the third time, she just popped up with a grin to make sure there had been no changes.

"Slimer won't hurt Chewie," Egon reassured Han.

"No, but fear of ghosts is part of the Wookiees' culture," Han replied. "There are a few places we never go because ghosts are more prevalent there. Some worlds revere their ghosts, some fear them, some despise them, some ignore them." He broke off and looked at Egon, shaking his head. "I can't understand how you can be happy here, trapped on only one world."

"Since it's been my only option and experience and have nothing to compare it to except several unpleasant alternate dimensions, I haven't really thought of it. I've been in space on two occasions, but only to orbital stations. It was fascinating, but there is plenty to keep my attention in my field."

"Do they have Ghostbusters on other planets, or anything like us?" Janine asked. She had shrugged off her pack and looked prepared to enjoy the experience of talking with an alien.

"Well, nothing exactly like you, but there are planets that have people who get rid of ghosts. I don't know very much about them, only that they exist. Chewie would probably love to take you home to Kashyyyk, and get rid of any ghosts lurking there."

The Wookiee shivered extravagantly, looked around for Slimer, and when he didn't see him, returned to the table where Han's charts and schematics were spread out. Egon had his computer on and had keyed in as much as he could. Chewie settled himself before the screen and looked down at the keys. Holding up his huge hands, he growled a comment to Solo.

"I know you can't read their language, Chewie. Don't worry, the implant lets me read it. I wish we had more power in this system."

"Marcia is state of the art," Egon defended his computer. "We can go on line, and I've got a CD-ROM drive. If the answer we need is anywhere out there, we can find it."

"Without alerting people what you want it for?" Han asked suspiciously.

"If I propose it as theoretical, yes. I need Ray back to do more. He's an engineer and he can build anything I can design as well as designing his own gizmos." Egon could imagine Ray's utter delight when he met Han and Chewie.

"Why are you helping us anyway?" Han asked a little suspiciously. "I could see Peter liked the idea of the gold, but there's more to it than that, isn't there?"

Egon was thoughtful a moment. "Peter acts like it's the money, but it's always more than that. He's a sucker for the underdog. Show him someone in trouble and he'll jump on the bandwagon--I'm sorry. Does your implant make sense of slang?"

"I can read you," Han replied. "Peter's not the one who puzzles me. I know the type. Smart mouth, mush inside."

Chewie made a hasty comment.

"Not just like me," Han returned, an edge of embarrassment in his voice. "Come on, Chewie. Give me a break." He turned hastily back to Egon. "What do you get out of it?"

Egon gestured at the spread flimsies. "This," he said. "Pure knowledge. No one on Earth has ever seen anything quite like this."

"He's a scientist," Janine explained. "That says it all."

Egon added thoughtfully, "You appear to pose no threat to Earth. You knew enough about the world to come to us. That means we must be known, at least in general, to people out there. Yet there have been no attacks, no attempts at dominance. You didn't come here and attempt to force our technology from us. You offered payment for services rendered. There would be no reason not to help you."

"There's a huge penalty for messing with worlds that don't have interstellar travel," Han informed them. "Okay, so the Empire always ignored that whenever they wanted to, but they only did it when they can get something out of it. Earth's remote from any known trade lanes, and you don't have resources we can't get more quickly and cheaply closer in. My buddy who used to come here a lot was a smuggler. He was looking for small, exotic things he could peddle."

"Are you a smuggler, too?" Janine asked, fascinated.

"I'm a General in the Rebel Alliance," Han replied. "We've just managed to bring down the Empire and we're establishing the New Republic. We won't interfere with your world either. The only reason I'm here is because I'm stranded. Worlds without unified planetary governments aren't ready for first contact."

"So we're just a primitive backwater?" Janine asked with an edge of resentment.

"You're a developing world," Han replied. "Leia thinks we can learn a lot from places like this."

"Who's Leia?"

"The Royal Princess of Alderaan," Han replied. "We're getting married as soon as I get home."

That satisfied the romantic in Janine, who smiled fondly and shot an expectant look at Egon. Han's eyes shone with memories, then he turned abruptly back to the computer and hit several keys almost at random.

Chewie growled a question. Han glanced around. "He wants to know if that little green thing's gonna keep coming back?"

"He does live here," Egon pointed out reasonably. "He's not as bright as Chewie, of course. He doesn't understand what's going on. He won't hurt Chewie. He's never hurt us, though he does slime us."

Solo grimaced expressively. "Then keep him far away from me. I don't like the sound of that. And think how it would look if he slimed Chewie." He gestured at the Wookiee's thick brown coat.

Chewie wailed miserably. Janine tried not to giggle.

"Grab a cab, Jack," Benedek urged. "We've gotta get over to Ghostbuster headquarters. I know they've got something they're not telling us."

"What could they know, Benedek?" Jonathan replied. "I don't suppose aliens land here and make for the Ghostbusters headquarters as a general rule. Maybe they can set their devices to pick up metals under the water, but unless they've gone off to stock up on scuba gear, what can they do?"

"They can give me an great interview about how they tracked down the evil aliens." He flagged down a cab and urged Jonathan into the back seat, scrambling in after him. "Ghostbuster Central," he told the driver, then turned to Jonathan. "I've got a great idea. Last time I dragged you over there, Janine really gave you the eye. I don't know what kind of magnetism you have, Don Juan, but it's gonna work for us. You distract the lady and I'll sneak up to the lab and see if I can get the inside scoop."

"You can't expect me to lead Janine on for your purposes," Jonathan replied stiffly.

"Just smile a little. She'll melt like butter."

"I don't understand what you think the Ghostbusters will know anyway. I don't think they're in communication with people from other planets."

"Shhh, buds. We don't want to give the scoop away," Benedek said in an undertone with a gesture at the cabby. "Besides, how do you know? They're in communication with spooks and specters after all."

"That's hardly the same thing. Just because you think Peter was acting suspiciously--"

"Come on, Sherlock Holmes, you picked up on that clue too. A blind man would have seen he was covering something up."

"True, but it didn't have to be spaceships at the bottom of the reservoir," returned Jonathan. "I've got some wonderful bones back at the Institute. They might even be a complete Australopithecus skeleton. Give up on this. Nobody's found anything, even Mulder and Dana."

"That's because they don't have my gifts," Benny replied with a broad grin. "I know I've got something here. Just give me a little longer. Talk to Janine while I scope the place out."

"I'm not going to try to manipulate Janine so you can have a story, Benedek," Jonathan snapped. "And that's final."

"I'm going after them," Mulder decided abruptly as he and Scully watched Benedek and MacKensie climb into a cab and drive away.

"After Benedek?" Scully asked in surprise. "He doesn't know anything. He's just scrounging around trying to make another story out of nothing, the way he always does."

"No, I know Benny's just hoping for something he can make into a story, though he's not as bad as you seem to think him, Scully. I meant after the Ghostbusters. They know something. I'm sure of it."

"About the 'UFO'?" She shook her head doubtfully. "I don't think they could, Mulder. How could they know? Dr. Stantz didn't know anything about it and he's been in the park checking things out and taking his meter readings all morning."

"Yes, he's been here all that time."

Scully put her hand on his arm. "Listen to yourself, Mulder. You're saying the one Ghostbuster on the spot didn't know anything while the ones who weren't here did. That doesn't make any sense. We've spent too much time on this already with little to show for it. The only sightings we've got are from winos and street people, and they'll tell you anything you want to hear for the price of a bottle of sterno."

"Give me just a little longer, Scully. I think the Ghostbusters have figured something out and that's why Peter and Winston were here taking readings, and also why they hushed Ray up. Their equipment detects ghosts. Maybe the extreme range of their P.K.E. meters is able to pick up something the rest of us can't detect."

"Then Dr. Stantz should have been able to pick it up too."

"Not if it was at the edges of their devices' capabilities, or if Egon had figured out a way to configure the devices to detect things they usually couldn't."

"What things?" Scully said with every edge of skepticism. "Metals not found on Earth? Alien biochemistry? How could even someone like Egon Spengler set his equipment to detect something we've never encountered before?"

"Maybe he could set it to figure out what was normal to earth. After all, their equipment does detect ectoplasmic residue, Scully, and until he and Ray figured out how to test for that, there was no way of proving it even existed." He saw the disbelief flash across her face and hurried on. "Until something can be postulated it can't be discovered. People sometimes can't even see or acknowledge things that are too far outside their basis of reality. It's called cognitive constancy and cognitive dissonance, Scully. Show Aristotle a jet plane flying high overhead and he'd assume it was a type of bird because his mind had not conceptualized that kind of powered machinery. Show a primitive Bushman a coke bottle and he'd believe it an offering from the gods. It takes someone with a little more vision than his fellow men to stretch the boundaries of science. Look at medicine. Germs had to be understood and believed in before treatment could be taken against them. Many things are postulated first and then sought. The odds are if an alien walked down the street, as long as he was not too far outside the realm of human norm, folks would either assume he was a deformed human or someone in a costume. The average man on the street would not believe he was seeing someone from another world, unless the entity matched the concept of aliens we can accept."

"Close Encounters of the Third Kind," Scully replied. "I understand that. But that still doesn't explain why Egon Spengler would drop everything at the mention of a UFO and reconfigure his equipment. More likely he'd shrug it off as merely another strange sighting. He's more down to earth than Ray, who would run over here if there was enough to the rumor to make it interesting."

"Then you buy Peter's story about ionization factors?" Mulder asked skeptically. "Couldn't you see he was trying to cover something up?"

"He's naturally cagey," she returned as they left the park and looked up Fifth Avenue for a cab. "I ran a check on the Ghostbusters after I met them the first time. His father is a con man, Mulder. He has a criminal record, though no major arrests. He's served a little time but never more than six months at a stretch."

"And therefore, Peter must be crooked?" Mulder asked. He sometimes found Venkman irritating and exasperating, but he'd never doubted the man's respectability.

"I didn't say that. I'm just saying that he might have learned the technique from his father, and from the way he teases you over your name, why shouldn't he tease you over a possible UFO sighting, too? He'd love making it sound mysterious, just to yank your chain."

Mulder hesitated, thinking of that. Scully did have a good point. It would be entirely like Peter to add a mysterious portent to a routine task simply to see what kind of reaction he could win from Mulder. "He would," he agreed, thinking of the one argument that would refute Scully's argument. "But Winston wouldn't. It's not his way."

"Unless Peter put him up to it?"

Mulder shook his head, then put up his hand to flag down a cab. "No, there's something going on, though I don't know what it is. But it's worth a follow up, and we're certainly getting nowhere in the park. So let's go to Ghostbuster Central. I'll introduce you to Slimer. That should make your day?"

"Slimer?" Scully echoed suspiciously as she got into the cab.

Mulder just grinned.

"Wow!" Ray Stantz stood, feasting his eyes on Chewbacca, who looked at the open-mouthed Ghostbuster uneasily as if he expected Slimer to appear behind him. "A real alien." He glanced sideways at Solo as if he suspected his words had been rude. "I mean two visitors from another world. This is really great! Welcome to Earth."

Solo couldn't hold out against Ray's enthusiasm. It reminded him too much of Luke as Han had first known him, before he'd had to learn to be a Jedi and take on a lot more responsibility. The young, gung-ho Luke had been the one to get past Han's armor and make him start to turn his life around, and as a result, Han found himself grinning at Ray's greeting. "That's our first official welcome. Make a note of it, Chewie."

"But why did you come to us?" Ray asked. "How'd you ever hear of us in the first place? Do they know about the Ghostbusters in outer space?"

"I've got a buddy who liked to come here a lot," Han replied and told Ray and the others about Benter Wo. "If not for him, Chewie and me would be in big trouble." He looked at the four Ghostbusters who were regarding him with varying degrees of fascination, Janine having returned to her desk. "Egon says you're the one who can build anything," Han went on. "So we've got the schematics all laid out, and Egon has come up with a few alternative means of repairing our drive that should be possible with what you've got. But he says you'll have to build it."

"Really?" Ray's eyes lit up and he fell upon the schematics the way a starving man would fall on food. "Gosh, this is great. I've got an engineering background, but I've never seen anything like this before. And I've seen a lot of things about the shuttle and everything. Do you understand this, Egon?"

"Theoretically and to a very limited degree," Egon said. "Once they explained the functions of the various drive components. It's way beyond our current technology, but I think I have enough of a grasp of what needs repairing that I can assist. I'm not sure I could go through the entire hyperdrive theory and explain it, using our current terminology, or even hope to understand it without a lot more than this to go on." He gestured at the sheets, the figures and formulae on the chalkboard and the writing on the computer screen. "But for the individual pieces, I think I can grasp enough to help with the repairs. It's going to cost us a complete proton pack though. We're going to need to reroute the power...." He went off into a technical explanation that Han didn't bother to follow. There were a lot of things he could fix on the Falcon and a lot that needed more than he could do. Lately the New Republic paid the Falcon's repair bills and some of the governmental bureaucratic types had begun to hint that it might be better for someone so highly placed in the New Republican Government to have a ship that didn't look so seedy. But Han loved the Falcon and couldn't bear the thought of parting with her. He hoped Egon's complex explanation and Ray's eager nods meant the two men could repair the Falcon, at least well enough to get him home. Leia seemed unbearably far away, and Han didn't have enough of the Force to be sending messages to Luke. If Luke suspected he was in trouble, the Jedi Master might well track him down, but Luke had no reason to think so. Han's situation had been difficult but not desperate enough to alert his soon to be brother-in-law.

Ray listened to Egon's words, nodding here and there, then his face broke into a big grin and he looked down at the schematics again. "I think we can do it," he said. "It sounds like it's just this one module and the connectors that have gone out, and once we've put a replacement together, recalibrating the system. That won't take long. I don't really understand it all, but I can see how it's meant to work. It'd take years for a team of scientists to really understand it. We couldn't redesign the whole system, but we can build you a replacement power module, only the alternate power source will make it tricky. I think you'll need to have the whole system rebuilt when you get home."

"See, Ray knows what it is," Peter said, resting his elbow on Ray's shoulder and leaning against him. He rumpled Ray's hair in the way one does with a young brother one is proud of. Han had done that to Luke a few times. "Told you he could do it." Peter stretched out his hand and gave Egon's sliding glasses a push with one finger. Egon drew back and resettled them himself, casting a haughty look down his nose at Peter. Winston shook his head as if the three of them were too much trouble to believe, but he did it fondly.

"Let's get to work," Ray said eagerly. "You're right, Egon, we're gonna have to cannibalize one of the proton packs or at least take the components we bought for the replacement one. What's going to be hardest is the connectors, building it into the system, and we'll have to do that on their ship. That's going to be hard with Mulder and Benedek watching us like hawks."

"Who are Mulder and Benedek?" Solo asked in alarm.

Peter explained, grinning. "If we can't con them or fool them or trick them somehow, my father will disown me," he said. "Let me worry about our journalist and tame Fed. If I can't confuse things enough to have them going in six directions at once, then I'm not earning my pay. This is what we're going to do...."

"Oh, hello, Ms. Melnitz."

Janine looked up at the somewhat awkward greeting and chose to smile at the speaker, who was standing before her desk, the look on his face proclaiming he wished he were anywhere else, and she began to be amused. Peter had called this one all right. "Dr. MacKensie. We haven't seen you here for awhile." Looking past him she spotted Edgar Benedek edging toward the stairs and added sharply, "Oh, no you don't!"

Benny shrugged and came over to her desk. "Hi, doll."

"Nobody calls me 'doll', Benedek, not if they want to go on breathing through their noses."

He spread his hands as if in defeat, but she knew he wasn't ready to give up yet. Benedek kept pitching long after most people gave up. "Well, hey, you can't blame a guy for trying. I brought Dr. J over to see you."

"You mean to see the guys," she corrected knowingly. "Peter said you were at the park when they were doing their ionization readings. It sounds like he conned you pretty good."

"Conned him?" MacKensie asked, a slight smile playing on his lips.

"Yeah, Ray told him you were at the park looking for UFOs. Egon told Peter to take ionization readings of the Hudson and East River, but Peter couldn't resist swinging by the park to see if he could yank your chain."

"I knew it!" exclaimed MacKensie.

Benedek shook his head. "No way, buds. This is one of the Venkster's scams. He wasn't conning us then. He is now."

"You mean he's still 'yanking your chain'?" Jonathan asked.

"You'd like that. You just want to go home and play with your moldy old bones. Come on, Jack, think of it like this. Real aliens and we're the first people they talk to. I get a real interview and it's Pulitzer time for yours truly. Maybe even Nobel time for you, Dr. Jon. A matched set, you and your old man. You think the Feds'd mess with this if it was just another crackpot sighting?"

"I think Mulder would," MacKensie replied. "You're the one who told me they call him Spooky Mulder. He's as gung ho for weirdness as you are, Benedek. Dana didn't look any more enthusiastic for it than I am. Besides, if it had been real, I think the park would have been cordoned off and there would have been a more serious investigation than Mulder on his own. The army would have been there, at the very least."

"It doesn't need the army, it needs high resolution satellite surveys," Benny replied.

"Then go rent yourself a satellite, Benedek," Janine told him. "Dr. Venkman doesn't like it when people hang around my desk taking up my valuable time. He doesn't pay me for that."

The outer door opened again and Janine heaved a frustrated sigh at the sight of Fox Mulder ushering a woman into the building. She was attractive enough that Janine automatically straightened up and put a hand to her hair at the sight of 'competition.' But the secretary's voice was as skeptical as usual.

"I see Peter yanked your chain too, Mulder. He's already got Benedek running around in circles. I can't wait to tell him how well he did."

The woman's face instantly revealed amusement, quickly concealed. "I told you we were wasting our time, Mulder," she said.

"Come on, Scully, how do you know this isn't the scam?" he challenged. Janine's eyes narrowed slightly. Mulder might have weird theories but no one ever claimed he wasn't good at his job.

He led the woman over to Janine's desk. "Dana Scully, meet Janine Melnitz. Scully's my partner, Janine. And Janine's the Ghostbusters' secretary."

"Executive assistant," corrected Janine, who used the term to herself, though she hadn't let Peter hear it.

"Mulder thinks you have aliens here," Scully said.

Benedek's eyes widened. "This is great!" he burst out. "I thought they just had readings of the ship. But actual aliens! It's better than the time we claimed Elvis was an alien."

"Sometimes I wonder if you are, Benedek," MacKensie muttered. "Aliens upstairs.... You'd claim anything for a story. There isn't an alien within a hundred light years of this place."

A thunderous roaring scream and the pounding of heavy feet accompanied a much higher screech that was almost shrill enough to shatter eardrums. Distant yells of, "No, Slimer!" coincided with Solo's voice shouting, "Come on, Chewie, it's okay!" and the crashes of pieces of furniture tipping over. Two seconds later Slimer came splatting through the ceiling wailing, "Janine, Janine," and flung is slimy arms around her neck, shivering in pure panic.

"Back off, Slimer," she shouted, pushing at him. It was about as effective as pushing away a pile of Jell-o, especially as Slimer was quivering with fear and didn't want to let go, trying to burrow his face into her bosom. She struggled a minute, not daring to look up at Benedek or Mulder while Slimer wailed about monsters and pleaded with Janine to save him.

Dana Scully's eyes widened in utter disbelief and she stared at Slimer, her mouth a little open, before Mulder nudged her with his elbow and said, "I told you I'd show you a ghost, Scully."

"That's a ghost? It looks like a moldy potato."

Slimer lifted his head, muttered an outraged, "Hey," then remembered his panic and hugged Janine all the more tightly.

"For a ghost himself, he sure is scared of other ghosts," Janine said quickly, checking their expressions to see if her hasty explanation had worked. It hadn't. They all looked at her blankly then started for the stairs. Benedek looked as if he were about to find the Holy Grail, and Mulder had the kind of determination on his face that made her suspect he was about to whip out his badge. MacKensie now looked interested in spite of himself. Ignoring her stunned reaction to Slimer Scully wore the expression of a trained agent who knows she's being fed a tall tale as she fell in with Mulder in a move toward the stairs.

Finally pushing Slimer away Janine jumped to her feet and flung herself in front of them, arms extended to the sides. "You can't go up there," she insisted stubbornly.

"Come on, Janine," wheedled Benedek. "Something's wrong up there. Maybe your bosses need help--even Egon."

"If the guys need help they'll tell me," she replied stubbornly.

"Slimer?" Mulder's voice was patient and sympathetic. "Will you tell me what scared you?"

Scully was still staring at Slimer as if she had never seen a ghost before. Benedek halted, his foot on the first step, and looked over his shoulder at Mulder, lifting an eyebrow in respect. It lasted only a moment, until Slimer began babbling at top speed in the kind of panicked gibberish he did best. Only Ray could understand him when he got this upset, and Ray was busy upstairs.

"Slow down, Spudface," Benedek put in. "Tell your old pal Benny all about the big bad monster that scared you."

The word 'monster' was a bad choice. Slimer shrieked and dove for Janine again, and Benny slapped the heel of his hand against his forehead in disgust at his maladroitness. But his eyes gleamed.

"Benedek, are you implying there really are aliens here?" MacKensie demanded in utter disbelief. Then he lifted his head and stared thoughtfully at the ceiling. All sounds of chaos had faded away though there were a few scraping noises that suggested furniture was being pushed into place again.

"There's something up there. Come on, Slimer, we won't let it hurt you."

Slimer muttered something that sounded like, "Nasty monster," into Janine's ear, but loud enough for the others to hear.

"Come on, Slimer, you know other ghosts can't hurt you. You're already a ghost," Janine reassured him. That made Slimer lift his head and free himself, hovering in front of her, his expression full of disgust. She tried to look a warning at him, but he didn't pick up on it. Instead he folded his arms across his 'chest', muttered, "Hmmph," and flew across the garage area to dive through the closed door.

"I'll never get used to seeing him do that," MacKensie muttered.

"You've seen him before?" asked Scully.

"Unfortunately yes. Be glad he was frightened. When he's affectionate, he likes to cuddle, and as you can see, he's very messy."

Janine peeled away gobs of slime and flung them from her, but she didn't move from her position on the stairs. Mulder and Benedek exchanged glances, then, as if they'd worked it out as a team, Benny caught her arm and Mulder edged past. Benny pushed Janine in MacKensie's direction, and that made her lose her balance and fall into the professor's arms. Not exactly a bad place to be, in fact a rather nice place to be, but one she couldn't take the time to enjoy.

"Hey, buster," she called after Mulder. "This is private property. You can't go up there without a warrant or something. GUYS!" Raising her voice, she called, "I couldn't stop them."

Peter came down the spiral stairs from the third floor as the intrepid combination of Federal agents and paranormal investigators cut through the second floor dining room, Janine still clutching MacKensie's arm. "Company, Janine?" Venkman asked brightly. He was holding a trap that must be full because its light was blinking to indicate it was in use. "We've done all we could with this particular ghost, so I get to stick it back in the containment unit," he said. "Notice it isn't Egon who gets to run up and down three flights of stairs!" He winked at Janine. "So what is it with you characters?" he asked. "Can't get enough of my charming company, is that it? Don't go up there. You'll be bored in a minute. Egon's talking physics with a visiting professor, and I guarantee it'll put you to sleep in less than five minutes."

"I like physics," Benedek said with a grin. "Your professor knows how to scare ghosts anyway. Poor Spud was nearly white, he was so scared."

"Yeah, well, you can scare the spud by threatening to take away his Diners' Club Card," Peter said with a shrug. He passed the trap to Mulder, who took it automatically, then stared at it as it quivered in his hand. Janine knew for a fact it was a class five free roaming vapor the guys had trapped the previous day but which hadn't been put into a trap last night because Peter, whose job it had been, had been on a date and hadn't taken the time. Egon had found it in the kitchen and spent an hour lecturing Peter about it before Han and Chewie had arrived.

"What's in there?" Jonathan asked suspiciously.

"Purple gooper," Peter replied. "Nasty one, too. Egon wanted to test it. He's got a gizmo up there that lets us see what kind of innards ghosts have. Not my idea of a great video, but you know Egon. He gets exciting watching mold grow."

"He does not," Janine defended Egon, then fell silent as she realized he probably did. Egon might be the man of her dreams, but a few of his dreams were crazier than most.

"No offense, Janine, but he does," Peter argued, and Benedek nodded solemnly. "Well, I'll let Mulder keep the ghost. I'm gonna go meet the professor. I have a real way with Professors, right Dr. Jon?"

"I wouldn't call it that," MacKensie replied immediately. "Dr. Moorhouse wouldn't think so anyway."

"Dr. M loves me, really," Benny insisted irrepressibly and headed for the stairs. Peter exchanged a rueful look with Janine and followed him. Mulder set the trap down on the nearest chair and hurried after, and Janine shrugged as if to say, 'so be it,' and trailed along after, as MacKensie and Scully fell into place behind her.

They came upon a scene full of technical and scientific domesticity. Solo had been transformed in Janine's absence from a devil-may-care spaceship jockey in his not quite man-on-the-street pants with the stripe down the side and jacket with many pockets across the shoulder blades into a festival in tweed, wearing Winston's best sports jacket over a pinstripe shirt of Egon's and one of Ray's sweater vests, and a pair of Peter's less disreputable jeans. From somewhere they'd found him a pair of penny loafers and horn-rimmed glasses, and his hair had been plastered down into something that might not have gone amiss in a scientist whose main concern was the lab. The whole appearance dimmed but did not entirely conceal his raffish good looks. As the group entered the lab, he was saying seriously, "The power flow through the channeling conduits--" though he broke off at their arrival and looked at them in much the same way one would study an invasion of pink bunnies.

"What's going on, Janine?" Egon asked. "Peter, did you put the trap away?"

"I will later, Egon," Peter replied hastily. "You remember Benny?"

Egon winced. "I do indeed. Also Agent Mulder and Dr. MacKensie."

"This is Agent Dana Scully, my partner," Mulder replied, his gaze darting here and there around the lab as if he expected pieces of alien technology to be scattered about or little green men to be peering at him from under the table. Janine stifled an amused giggle. "Dana, you've met Ray already. This is Dr. Egon Spengler."

"And this is Dr. Solo from Stanford University," Egon explained quickly with a gesture at Han. "He had some ideas of how we might route the power through our proton packs at an accelerated rate. We've been going over power feed charts ever since he arrived, except when Slimer caused trouble with the trap Peter forgot to put away."

"Geez, Spengs, you'd think I let the gooper out on purpose," Peter whined. He had whining down to a fine art, but Janine had noticed he never did it when the chips were really down.

"It was actually rather exhilarating," Solo put in, his voice carefully pedantic. Janine couldn't help wondering where he'd gotten his role model. "I'd read about the creatures you bust, but didn't expect to see any other than Slimer. My lab at home is never like this."

He was really good. Janine had to give him points for that slightly stuffy, slightly confused tone. MacKensie grinned at it responsively. "I know what you mean," he said. "Until Dr. Moorhouse sent me out to investigate paranormal phenomena, my work was mostly with bones, the older the better."

"Dr. Moorhouse is unique, I hear," Solo replied. He'd been very well coached.

"You got that right," agreed Benny. "She'd be up here herself looking for aliens if she didn't have a department to run."

"You're the people who were looking for aliens in Central Park," Solo continued. Janine could tell he was enjoying himself, the risk and the challenge of it. He'd been a smuggler. He would have had to pretend he was righteous when the customs people stopped him. "Did you find anything?" he continued. "Dr. Venkman was going to prete--" He broke off quickly as if he'd made a colossal blunder.

"Dr. Venkman was going to--pretend?" Scully asked in tones that held a slight edge of triumph. She cast a quick glance sideways at her partner. "Pretend to be after something in the park, maybe?"

"Peter!" cried Ray in obvious disappointment. "I knew something was up when Egon hadn't wanted those ionization readings after all, but I didn't know what you'd been doing."

"I did want the readings," Egon replied. "But that was three days ago. Peter kept putting them off. We'll get back to that project after Dr. Solo returns to Stanford."

Benedek didn't look sold and neither did Mulder. In fact the latter was still studying the lab, though MacKensie would have given up at this point and Scully would have believed the story. Peter tried to put the finishing touches on it all. "Okay, you got me," he said. "What's the charge for trying to mislead a fed? Ray called in and said you guys were running amok in the park and I couldn't resist. It's been a slow day." He shrugged as if to say, 'so, sue me.'

"I'm sorry," Solo put in hastily. "I didn't mean to give away the prank."

"I don't believe you did," Mulder replied. He snatched up the nearest chart and studied it. Janine winced, but Egon merely smiled and leaned forward to point at something.

"This is where the power cables attach to the proton pack," the blond physicist explained. "You can see the chamber where the proton energy is phased through the conduit. The regulators are here, and respond when we set the power levels by dialing them on the side of the thrower. We've been looking at ways to channel the beam energy more efficiently."

Janine edged closer. The paper Mulder held was obviously a proton pack schematic. She saw Mulder recognize it in some disappointment which he attempted to conceal.

Peter, of course, noticed instantly. "Don't worry, Foxy Loxy. At the first sign of evil aliens we would have come straight to you," he reassured the agent. "Well, maybe not the first thing. We'd probably have tried to blast them. They might have been Klingons or even the Borg or something nasty from the Gamma Quadrant."

"Hey, Venkster, you think your standard proton pack could take out the beast from Planet 10?" Benedek asked. "It'd make a great headline. GHOSTBUSTERS PREPARE TO FIGHT OF ALIEN HORDES. I like it. Not quite as great as SPACE MONSTERS FIGHT MUGGERS IN CENTRAL PARK, but hey, I'm flexible."

Janine didn't trust that easy acquiescence. It wasn't like Benny, who was every bit as sneaky as Peter and not quite as principled. Peter's response to his con man father was to be ethical and cultivate the appearance of someone just this side of shady. Benny, who had a somewhat similar background, wasn't above creating a story out of the whole cloth for his paper, though his loyalty to his friends had always done him credit. Janine wasn't sure what would happen if his friendship with the guys conflicted with the scoop of the century and hoped she wouldn't have to find out. Peter's reaction to such a betrayal would be a heightened cynicism, and Ray would be devastated. Egon, whose expectations of Edgar Benedek had never been high, was not likely to be surprised and Winston was practical about such things.

Then there was Fox Mulder. Peter said they called him 'Spooky' Mulder at the Bureau, because of his fascinating with the weird and unusual and his fixation with UFOs. Ray had jumped into that argument quickly and explained that Mulder's sister had been taken away by aliens when they were both children. Whether the alien part was true or not, his sister had never been seen again. That was certainly excuse for an obsession. If Mulder thought any of the Ghostbusters had inside knowledge he wouldn't give up and go away, though he might seem to.

Glancing in his direction now, Janine saw her worst fears were realized. His gaze was carefully and studiously traveling the entire room as if looking for aliens or pieces of space ships. Mulder might consider it some kind of treason for the Ghostbusters to help an alien, considering his background, but it wasn't treason to help two stranded travelers, especially since there was no state of war between Han's New Republic and any of the governments of Earth. Mulder would do better to recruit Han and see if he could help find the agent's missing sister.

"I don't think there's anything here for us, Mulder," said Agent Scully. Her eyes drifted to Peter as if she didn't trust him as far as she could throw him. He'd probably tried to hit on her in the annoying way he sometimes had. There were times when Janine wanted to brain her boss, because he seemed to use the same technique on all different kinds of women. Maybe he was impressed by the ones who sassed him back. He clearly had struck out with Dana Scully. "I think we've all been set up. I recognize the Venkman style--or should I say lack of style."

"Pete's not that bad, Scully," Mulder defended the brown-haired Ghostbuster. "Of course I'm not sure I'd trust him with you."

"I'm not sure you'd have to worry. I can take care of myself."

"Oh, I know, Scully. I'm not being overprotective. But you don't know this character. To make matters worse, he's a psychologist. He knows all the right things to say--when he chooses to say them. He'd know precisely the right things to say now to convince us this was nothing more than it seems, part practical joke, part science brainstorming."

"Stanford," said Jonathan MacKensie suddenly as if he'd been lost in thought until now. "I had a colleague who went out there five years ago, Malcolm Price. A physicial anthropologist. Not your department, but I'm sure you've met him."

"Dark haired fellow, with a beard? Kind of tall?" hazarded Solo in the oh-so-casual tones of a man who isn't sure he places the name.

"That's right," agreed Jonathan, causing Benedek to look openly disappointed at this evident verification of Solo's identity and story.

"Well, he shaved the beard off a couple of weeks ago," Solo went on. "He looks entirely different."

"I should think he would," replied Jonathan devastatingly, "for a short, stocky redhead."

"Oh, yeah," Solo agreed, faint but pursuing. "I had him mixed up with Luke Malcolm in the mathematics department."

"In fact Malcolm Price went to Ohio State," Jonathan said with some degree of complacency. "You're not from Stanford, Dr. Solo. But you tried to carry it off. If you'd just said, 'sorry, I don't know him,'" you'd have got away with it."

"Well, there is a Luke Malcolm in the mathematics department," Solo insisted, unwilling to yield. "Check with them and see, if you don't believe me."

"I don't believe you," Benedek said with glee. "Way to go, Jack! What made you suspect him?"

"I'm not sure," replied MacKensie, his face thoughtful. "I've been watching him. He was the stranger here, and I knew at the Park that Peter was up to something. I've seen my students behave in just such a way when they want to cover something up. They're often ostentatious in an entirely different direction. And they're often entirely plausible. Besides," he added with a sudden smile, "I've known you too long, Benedek. I know the type. I can always tell when you're trying to put one over on me. It was the same with Peter. So when we got here, I looked for what might be different."

"Yeah," agreed Benny triumphantly. "And I just spotted another thing." He turned to Solo and stabbed a finger against the middle of his chest. "That's Ray's vest you've got on. I saw him wearing it last week when I ran into him at Forbidden Planet. I thought ol' Ray was finally developing good taste in clothes."

Since the vest was a particularly bilious shade of green, most of the people in the room winced, though Ray said reproachfully, "But I like that color."

"That's why you haven't had a date since right before Easter," Peter teased him. Ray favored Peter with a dark look and stuck out his tongue at him.

Mulder whipped out his FBI ID badge. "Federal Bureau of Investigation. Let's see some identification," he told Solo.

Han looked at him measuringly for a minute, then he reached obligingly into his jacket--and pulled out his ray gun. Egon groaned in dismay, and Peter let out a warning yelp and grabbed Solo's wrist.

"Easy, easy. You can't go around zapping people. That's the Ghostbusters' job, but we don't zap the Feds. A quick way to make enemies."

"I don't care. I'm not going to get arrested and live out my life on this dirtball while Leia's waiting for me at home," Solo snapped. He yanked at Peter's hand, the gun waving around, causing MacKensie to grab Janine and pull her out of the range of fire and Mulder to go for his own weapon. Everyone was yelling and shouting, and into the melee came an even worse sound, the enraged roar of an angry Wookiee.

Dead silence, just like that! Mulder froze, gun in hand, trying to judge where the sound had come from. Scully turned quickly to face the bedroom across the hall from the lab. Suddenly Benedek had a small Instamatic camera in his hand, ready to go down snapping, while Egon and Ray exchanged dismayed looks and Winston grabbed for his thrower.

"Come on, Han," Peter urged. "Guns aren't gonna get you outa here, and if you blast our buddies we're not going to help you with your repairs."

Chewie appeared in the doorway, huge and hairy, waving his long arms around, and bore down on them like a juggernaut, while Benny gave delighted and enthusiastic cries as he took picture after picture. Scully calmly drew her gun and pointed it at the Wookiee, while MacKensie said, "Don't worry, Miss Melnitz, we'll protect you," though he looked quite doubtful about how he would actually do it.

"I think you'd better let go of Dr. Solo, Peter," Mulder said urgently. "I don't want to shoot it if I don't have to. Wait, Scully, hold your fire. I want it alive and talking."

"Won't do much good," said Winston wryly. "What you're hearing is his language. I can pretty much tell when he calls Solo by name, but that's about the only thing I can pick out and even then I'm not too sure. Chewie, calm down. Nobody's hurting Han."

The Wookiee kept on coming, barreling past Benedek, who didn't stop shooting pictures the whole time and who fell in behind the Wookiee, his face charmed at the sight of the ravening monster. MacKensie bravely put himself between Chewie and Janine and spread out his arms to shield her though Chewie could have gone through him like paper. Mulder held his gun in one hand, his other hand on Scully's arm, restraining her. He didn't want to fire unless he absolutely had to. "Wait, Scully," he said in an undertone. "It might be a ghost. Bullets don't hurt them." Clearly he didn't really believe Chewie was a ghost, but here at Ghostbuster Central anything was possible.

Chewie saw Peter still wrestling for Solo's gun and he let out an even more deafening roar. Before Solo could react to it, the Wookiee grabbed Peter by his other arm and yanked with all his strength. With a wild yell the psychologist went flying across the room, impacted hard against the wall, and slid down to the floor where he lay sprawled, limp and unmoving. Janine gasped.

"PETER!" cried Ray in horror while Egon ducked the Wookiee's swinging arm and headed for the unconscious man as if it would have taken twenty Wookiees to stop him. Winston and Ray, who were near their equipment grabbed for proton packs, though both of them would clearly rather have gone to Peter.

Han grabbed Chewie by the arms and yelled in his face. "Listen to me, Chewie. It's okay. Don't hurt them. He wasn't going to hurt me."

Chewie's towering rage didn't abate one iota, and he waved a furious hand at the two FBI agents, whose guns were leveled at the Wookiee, prepared to fire if he didn't calm down. Han had lost his gun when Chewie pulled Peter away from him, and the laser weapon had flown through the air and skidded across the floor to stop against Benny's foot. The journalist pounced on it without hesitation and picked it up, holding it very carefully between his thumb and forefinger for a moment.

"Don't, Benedek," MacKensie warned him. "You don't know what it does and you'll only make that--that thing mad. Well, madder."

Han continued to yell at Chewie over the anthropologist's warning, and it was doubtful if Benedek would have listened anyway. Carefully he shifted the alien gun until he was holding it leveled at Chewie. He didn't look like he wanted to use it, but a quick glance sideways at the still-unconscious Peter made him stiffen his spine. Janine knew he'd fire if he had to. He'd known Peter a lot of years.

"Don't shoot," Winston said urgently to the two agents.

"I don't want to but if he comes for us I'll have to," Mulder replied. He was calm in a crisis, but they must train agents for that, because Scully was calm too, even if she looked dismayed at the speed with which the crisis had blown up.

By this time Egon was kneeling beside Peter, checking for a pulse. He must have found it because Janine saw the tensed muscles ease in his shoulders as he let his hand rest on Peter's shoulder a second before he began to check him carefully for fractures. "Peter? Can you hear me, Peter?" he asked. If he could hear Peter didn't choose to say so.

"Egon?" called Ray over his shoulder. Like Winston, he had his thrower in hand and powered up but Janine was pretty sure Ray would be the last one to fire unless Chewie tried to attack someone else.

"Breathing normally," Egon replied, relieved. "I think he's just stunned." He slid his hands down Peter's legs, checking for fractures.

"Don't move him," Scully instructed. Holstering her gun, she knelt beside Peter opposite Egon and began a professional examination.

Han continued to attempt to calm the Wookiee. Chewie's rage was beginning to abate as he realized Solo was in no danger. Han was still talking, but his voice was lower and his hand was gripping Chewie's forearm as he talked. "Listen to me, Chewie. You can't hurt anybody else. These men have tried to help us. Peter wasn't trying to hurt me. He was trying to stop me from shooting anybody; that's what you would have done if you'd been in here. You tried to stop me before, remember? It was just like that."

Chewie growled an interrogative. "Yeah, it's okay," Han said. "No matter what happens, nobody's gonna dissect you and that's a promise, even if I have to take out the whole city."

"Dissect him?" Ray blurted, distracted momentarily from his concern for his injured friend, and horrified at the suggestion. "Nobody would do that."

"I'm afraid it's just what they would do," Scully disagreed, looking up momentarily. "If some of the people who have hindered us in our investigations got wind of Chewie, they would want to examine him thoroughly. They'd have him locked away so quickly we wouldn't see him for dust and dissection might be the least of Chewie's worries." She bent over Peter again and lifted first one eyelid then the other to check his pupils.

"And the cover up would top anything we've seen so far," Mulder concurred. He didn't put his gun away but he lowered it so it wasn't pointing at the Wookiee any more. "I've seen cover ups more than once, and I think at least for now, it's time for me to be a part of one, until I know what's going on here. The only thing you can do now is trust us. Because we're the only ones who can help you."

"I don't know," Benny replied, tucking the laser gun into his pocket quickly before anyone could stop him. Janine saw Mulder notice the movement and knew the agent would get the weapon away from him before anyone left headquarters. "I've got a lot of great contacts," Benny persisted. "Some of 'em are big shots. I can help, too."

"Look, all I want is to go home," Han insisted. "If I stay here too long I'm gonna miss my own wedding, and people on this world don't know what to make of Chewie. But he's been my partner for years and he always watches my back. He thought I was in trouble now, that's why he did what he did. He's sorry, aren't you, Chewie?"

The Wookiee nodded his big, shaggy head and growled something none but Han could understand.

Han went on. "I could've left Chewie on the Falcon and probably should have, but we've been taking care of each other so many years I don't think he'd have let me. We're partners. He's got a quick temper--it's part of his nature; he's not mean or cruel. He sees me in danger and he reacts, that's all. We've had to trust the Ghostbusters; we don't have any choice. But both of us know you could have contacted the authorities any time and turned us in. We haven't committed any crimes here but sometimes, on some worlds, just being different is a crime. We shouldn't be here at all. The New Republic avoids developing worlds. Even the Empire did, a lot of the time, though they'd ignore their own rules if they could make a profit from it. But since we defeated the Empire, we've really enforced things like that. We don't want to hurt your people. We landed here because without the hyperdrive there was nowhere else to land. We came to the Ghostbusters because we'd heard about them from a smuggling buddy of mine who liked Earth and used to come here a lot. Never did any harm to your people, just visited. We knew you were scientists and had nuclear equipment and figured you were our best shot, that's all." He patted Chewie on the arm and went over to Peter, who was now surrounded by the other Ghostbusters. Her examination completed, Scully had eased the downed man into a more comfortable position before moving a little distance back to give them room to fuss over their downed comrade.

"How is he?" Han asked. "Chewie's sorry. But it's my fault. I lost my head there for a minute. Defending myself's an old habit. You learn it when you have to live rough and never quite lose it. Even now I've gone respectable and been a General in the Rebel Army and all, the old habits just don't go away."

"This is a great story," Benedek enthused. Janine suspected he had a tape recorder going in his pocket. "Look, buddy, I won't publish till you're on your way home, and probably most people won't believe a word of it, but I've gotta have an interview."

Chewie growled, and Han replied, "Yeah, Chewie, he's a reporter."

The Wookiee roared again, but he didn't lunge at Benedek. Han sighed. "They're always hanging around us at home. Leia has to schedule press conferences all the time, and they're always after Luke to find out more about Jedi training and that kind of thing. No interviews."

Benedek looked disappointed, but he didn't give up. He merely slid back out of Han's line of sight, prepared to wait. Janine could have told Han how stubborn Benny was when he was in pursuit of a scoop.

Peter groaned, and that got everyone's attention. Egon bent over him again and touched his cheek. "Peter?"

Venkman shifted position carefully as if testing himself for injuries, and Ray said quickly, "Don't move, Peter, until we're sure you're all right."

Egon's hand went to Peter's shoulder and tightened its grip.

Scully came back and looked down at him. "Peter, can you tell us where it hurts?"

"Everywhere," groaned Peter. "What hit me, a Midtown bus?" His eyelids fluttered open and he blinked dazedly up at the agent.

"Chewie," said Ray quickly. "He thought you were trying to hurt Han. He's sorry."

"Oh, yeah." Peter shifted carefully. "I don't think I broke anything important," he said. "But I bet I'll be black and blue by bedtime."

"Can you wiggle your toes?" Egon asked.

"Yes, doctor." Peter stretched achingly as if everything hurt, but not as if he were gravely injured. He reached out and grasped Egon's forearm. "I think I'm okay."

"I don't believe you have a concussion," Scully informed him. "And as near as I can tell you haven't broken anything. But don't move for a minute. Tell me if there is any sharp pain anywhere. Does your back hurt? Your ribs?"

Peter shook his head carefully. "Just the old noggin. How long was I out?"

"Only a minute or two," said Ray. "Don't sit up yet, Peter."

"Come on, Tex, I'm fine," Peter insisted. He looked past the three Ghostbusters to Mulder. "You're not gonna turn 'em in, are you, Mulder?" he asked, foregoing the usual frivolous nicknames he habitually bestowed on the Federal Agent. He grabbed Egon's arm and used it to pull himself up until he was sitting leaning against the wall. Egon and Ray both reached out and steadied him until they were sure he wasn't going to fall over again and Scully watched him carefully.

"You're the one with the gripe against them, Peter," Mulder returned.

"Yeah, but I think I know what happened. It's what I'd do if I saw somebody manhandling one of my buddies." He looked up at Chewie. "That it, Fuzz Face?"

Chewie grimaced at the name but nodded. He was standing at Solo's side as if determined to fight the lot of them to protect him, and Han was leaning casually against him as if he knew Chewie wouldn't move and upset him. The Wookiee growled something to Han.

"He says he didn't mean to hurt you but he thought you were trying to turn us in."

"Well, yeah, after all our plans to hide you guys and make the others think they'd been letting their imaginations run riot?" Peter shook his head, then grimaced and leaned it back against the wall, raising his fingers to massage his temples.

"Peter?" Egon asked.

"Headache. No biggie. But I think I'll just sit here nice and quiet for awhile and let the rest of you geniuses think your way out of this mess."

"What were you Ghostbusters trying to accomplish?" asked Scully as she accepted Jonathan's hand to pull her to her feet.

"Han's ship broke down," Peter explained. "It won't go faster than lightspeed so he couldn't get home. He thought Earth people would imprison him and put Chewie in a lab, and Han's supposed to get married in about a month. He just wants to go home for his wedding. What's more, his wife is the President of the New Republic. So we're helping them. He had a buddy tell him about us Ghostbusters."

"Yeah, and Chewie is as scared of Slimer as Slimer is of him," Winston chuckled. "You probably heard all the crashing and banging up here from their last 'close encounter'. They see each other and head in the opposite direction screaming."

"Mr. Solo and Chewbacca are not a threat to Earth," Egon continued more seriously. "Han and I have spent a great deal of time together working on the repairs, everything we could assemble here. While I suspect he has as larcenous a nature as Peter's father, he's also an honorable man. Not only does he mean us no harm but his people will protect our right to develop as a species without outside intervention."

"Hey, the Prime Directive," cried Benedek in delight. He'd put the camera away, too. He might give back the ray gun but the camera was well concealed. Nobody would believe the pictures of Chewie were anything but a guy in a monkey suit or a bigfoot costume but for once Benny would be telling the whole truth in his write-up.

"Something like that, yeah," Peter agreed. "Come on, guys help me up."

Egon and Ray exchanged glances, then they lifted him to his feet and deposited him in a chair. "Stay there," Egon replied.

"Sure. It's more comfortable than the floor." Peter turned his eyes to Mulder. "Come on, Foxy Loxy, you're not going to squeal on them, are you? They're just a couple'a guys who want to go home."

Maybe it was the word 'home' that did it. Maybe Mulder was thinking of his missing sister and how much he wanted her to come home. But he said, "Skinner doesn't believe most of my reports anyway. It'll get filed away with the other X-Files cases no one wants to believe in."

"You're talking cover-up, Mulder," Scully pointed out. "You hate it when they do that to you."

The agent shook his head. "No way, Scully. I won't cover up anything. But by the time they have my report, I hope Han and Chewie will be long gone. And I've learned over the years exactly how to phrase things to make them sound 'believable'. I'll just be really careful how I word the report. But I get the right to ask a few questions first."

Han's eyes narrowed suspiciously. He was not a man who trusted quickly. "What kind of questions?"

"About people out there who steal children," Mulder replied flatly without hesitation. "About aliens who come to earth and mess with us, take people for rides and perform experimental surgery on them. How do I know you're not allied with people like that? And how do I know you won't take knowledge back with you that will harm this planet?"

"Stealing children isn't something we're really big on either," Han replied. "Look, Mulder, until just recently our portion of space was ruled by an evil Empire who didn't care about rights. They mostly ignored Earth because it's so far out and doesn't have any resources they can't get more cheaply closer in. But the Empire and now the New Republic doesn't cover all of the galaxy. There are other folks out there we haven't gotten to know. Some of us have seen a few of 'em, and lived to tell the tale. And some of the worlds under the Empire were more than capable of sneaking around here and messing with your people. The best thing we can do for you when we go home is to set up some kind of outpost patrols. We can't keep everything out; we don't have the resources for that and we're still mopping up Imperial resistance." He looked at Mulder thoughtfully. "This is personal for you, isn't it? Did you lose somebody yourself?"

"My sister," Mulder replied. "I was thirteen. I remember bright lights. And we've got a lot of stories of aliens who look like this." He grabbed a piece of paper from the table and sketched quickly. The result was a big-eyed, long-bodied being without much in the way of distinctive features. He passed the page to Han.

"Looks like a Marsurian," Han said thoughtfully. "Lot of 'em run with smugglers, but some of 'em are out and out pirates and slavers. Not my favorite people. They're on our list of people we have to deal with. What I can do when I get home is put out the word, see if we can find out if they were here at the right time. Then we'd have to backtrack and see what they did after that. But it's a big galaxy out there, Mulder, and they deal everywhere. I don't know if we could find your sister, or even if they're the ones who took her."

Scully edged closer to Mulder and put a comforting hand on his arm. He looked at her briefly, his eyes dark and a little hollow-looking as he thought over what Han had said. Learning his sister might have been kidnapped by slavers when she was a little girl had to be the worst possible news, especially since the odds were strongly against her ever being found. "I'm sorry, Mulder."

"I just want to know. I thought I'd come close to finding out about Samantha before. I'm not even sure it was aliens who did it, though at least this is a reason I can understand." The look on his face suggested he was stunned by Solo's story.

"What about us?" Jonathan asked, as if he'd guessed Mulder wanted to turn the topic away from himself. "Dr. Moorhouse is going to expect a report. Every time she sends me out, I come back with the reasonable, scientific explanation, and Benedek gives her the wild story. For the first time, it looks like Benny and I might have the same story to tell."

"Well, who says you have to level with her, Jack?" Benny asked. "I'm going to play it on the grand scale. Pictures, claims, the whole business. The UFO freaks will eat it all up and everybody else will laugh. But some day, I'm going to be able to publish the real story. The serious one. Until then, it'll have to be space opera." He looked over at Peter, who showed signs of developing at least one black eye. "You guys might have to take a little heat--press heat anyway," he said. "Because GHOSTBUSTERS AID ALIENS might stir up a little interest from the Enquirer and the Star and all those TV talk shows."

"I don't suppose Hillary Clinton had them hovering around when you ran a picture of her shaking hands with an alien a month ago," Scully said dryly.

"Yeah, wasn't it great?" Benny looked around hastily, expecting approbation. "One of my best articles. Hillary loved it." When everyone from Earth looked at him with varying degrees of skepticism, he shrugged. "Well, Socks did anyway."

"I suppose you got a fan letter from a cat," Peter scoffed.

"I get them from everybody." Benny smugly buffed his fingernails on his jacket. "So what do you say? Get to work on the warp drive or whatever they call it. Leave it to me to figure how to keep us safe when we sneak back into Central Park in the dead of night to install it."

"We, Benny?" Winston asked pointedly.

"Yeah, who said we were letting reporters on board the Falcon?" Han asked, not quite sure if he wanted to trust Benedek.

"Come on, you owe it to me. I'm gonna write this story so it splashes all over the front page of the Register and no one is gonna believe a word of it. Just like Foxy's report to the big shots at the Bureau. We're covering for you, Buck Rogers. So how about a little tit for tat?"

Han's translator didn't give him all of that but he understood enough to make sense of it. "Benedek. The more people who wander around the Park at midnight carrying bits of hyperdrive, the more chance there is for somebody to see us. Like those stormtroopers in blue uniforms hanging around all over the place."

"He means cops," Peter translated. "Leave it to me. After all, we're the Ghostbusters. We're splashy and live for publicity. We'll just say we're after a nasty ghost, and we'll yank a few from the Containment Unit to take along, so if anybody wants to see us at work, we can re-bust one of 'em."

"That's dangerous, Peter," objected Ray. "What if we can't catch it again?"

"We're Ghostbusters, Ray. Remember? We can bust anything."

"Even with two black eyes, right, Pete?" Winston asked.

"Black eyes?" Peter echoed, horrified. "Two?"

"It's because you took a hard blow to the back of the head," Scully informed him. It bounces your brain around in your skull and often causes black eyes. You don't have to get punched out to get one, or even be struck near your eye."

"Unfortunate. His brain was already jumbled," Egon said sententiously. Peter stuck out his tongue at him.

"Maybe you should have an early night, Peter," Scully suggested.

"And miss seeing the Falcon and not get to say goodbye to Han and Chewie?" Peter demanded, outraged. Evidently he didn't hold the slightest grudge against the Wookiee for slamming him against the wall. "Come on, Doc, I've gotta go. This is the chance of a lifetime. I'm not missing it."

"Then I'll monitor you," she said, glancing at Mulder. He looked like he was ready to plunge in and start to work on the equipment, though he wasn't a physicist or rocket engineer by any stretch of the imagination.

"We really should get back to work," said Ray. "There's a lot to do yet, and we have to make modifications to make sure we can fit our designs into the Falcon."

"Is it really under the Reservoir?" Mulder asked.

"Best place to hide I could think of," Han replied as if he expected to be slapped on the back for his genius at picking landing sites. "The way you Earth people get all excited at word of a ship, I didn't care leave it out in plain sight and there were too many trees for me have a lot of options anyway."

"How can you speak our language?" MacKensie asked. "I suspect you've got some kind of built-in translation device. It must be good because otherwise we'd hear your actual language with a translation running through it."

"Best in the business," Han replied with a grin. "Actually I can hear myself speaking in Basic; thing is, there's a lotta languages in the Republic, and I know a couple'a dozen of 'em to hear but not to speak. I can understand Chewie just fine even without the implant, but it helps me understand as well as speak. Otherwise you'd all be talking gibberish to me. Thing is, there's some kinda weird logic about it, 'specially in places where they don't expect to hear all kinds'a languages. They hear what they expect to hear or else they hear 'foreign'. It's easier for people to hear what they can recognize. If you really concentrate, you can hear what I sound like at home."

Janine noticed that Peter, Mulder and MacKensie immediately donned expressions of extreme concentration as Han continued to explain the workings of his translation device while Ray and Egon sat down with Chewie to resume their work on the gizmo they'd been building and Winston dragged up another chair and muttered something to Ray about wielding a screwdriver if need be. Benny sidled up to Scully and said something in her ear that made her look at him in surprise and then move a little away. Benny wouldn't be Scully's type.

That was when Slimer came floating up the stairs and into the lab, pausing in the doorway and screeching when he saw Chewie was still there.

The Wookiee stiffened at the shriek and bolted to his feet, upsetting his chair, and Han turned away from the three men he was talking to and grabbed his partner by the arm. "Okay, Chewie, enough's enough. The little green character lives here, after all. Just try thinking of him as another alien."

Chewie shook his head, growling the same thing over and over while Chewie sought refuge with Peter, arms around the psychologist's neck, wailing that he wanted the monster to go away.

"He's not a monster, Spud," Peter insisted, trying to detach the ghost, difficult because Slimer's panic had practically glued him to Venkman's chest.

"This has gone on long enough," said Egon sternly. "Both of you are delaying our work. Obviously since you fear each other, you do not intend harm. Slimer, Chewie will be here the rest of the day. If that upsets you, go and make your garbage run early. Chewie, Slimer lives here all the time. He has never hurt one of us. He might be irritating but he is quite harmless. Sit down again and try to ignore him."

He sounded so utterly reasonable that ghost and Wookiee actually listened to him, though neither was comfortable with the other. Slimer finally let go of Peter and retreated across the hall to the bedroom. Janine could see him curling up like a puppy on the middle of Peter's pillow but thought better to mention it. Chewie picked up his overturned chair and placed it on the other side of the table so he could watch the door. His face was still fearful.

"It's hard to overcome a cultural taboo so quickly," Jonathan volunteered. "That's why many people won't accept the existence of ghosts."

Scully looked at him thoughtfully, but it was Benny who spun around and looked at him with sheer glee. "Does that mean you buy the concept, Jon-boy? This is worth a major headline in the Register."

"I don't buy that it's as common as you're prepared to believe," Jonathan returned. "Or UFO's either. I suspect it's 90% hype."

"But five per cent reality?" Benny grinned. "I knew I'd get you to loosen up and boogie one day, buds. Dr. Moorhouse is gonna be so thrilled she'll wet her pants."

"Not, I trust, when I'm there," Jonathan replied but he was smiling.

After that, work went on quickly. Those who were not able to work on the repairs to the hyperdrive were given a variety of other tasks. Scully and Mulder returned to the park to check for any evidence the government had figured out what was going on. A curfew or quarantine would not aid any of their plans. Evidently the government intended to do with this sighting as it had done with so many others where no one had reported physical evidence. They meant to ignore it high-handedly. That didn't mean the Park wasn't under observation, of course. But access was not restricted. The two agents returned to Ghostbuster Central by late afternoon to report as much.

Benny had heard about the portable airlock and was predictably fascinated. Learning from Han where it had been concealed, he made a quick run to the park to try to determine if anyone had messed with it. He returned at twilight bearing boxes of pizza and reported it was still where Han and Chewie had left it.

The group took a pizza break. It was starting to look as if their work would be done in plenty of time and that it would be necessary to wait until late night before venturing forth anyway. So the group gathered around the pizza boxes, some of them at the dining table and some gathered in front of the TV. It was Han and Chewie's first exposure to Earth television, and the Wookiee proved to be fascinated. An episode of Star Trek: the Next Generation was running and Chewie watched intently. His translator implant allowed him to understand other languages, though it couldn't quite make him understandable in English.

The anthropologist in Jonathan had made him question Han and Chewie about their culture whenever he had a chance all afternoon. When he wasn't doing that, he was watching their interaction, fascinated by a civilization where two beings so utterly different could become close friends. And he'd thought he and Benedek were almost too different for friendship! Of course it had been a long time since he'd considered that. Benedek might be weird and crazy, but he was a friend.

Peter had listened with interest to Jonathan's questions, putting in a smart remark from time to time, or a perceptive question. Jonathan, who had never quite known what to make of Peter Venkman found himself alternately irritated and perplexed by him. Based on the smart remarks, he'd been inclined to class Peter as someone a lot like Benedek, possessing the journalist's worst qualities and none of his redeeming ones, which wasn't fair but which probably wasn't as unreasonable as it sounded. A little time in the psychologist's company was beginning to convince Jonathan that Peter played for that particular effect, and used it as a shield to conceal the clever and sympathetic man behind the mask. From the way the other three Ghostbusters reacted to him, they all knew this very well. They cheerfully squashed him when he got out of hand but listened to him when he had anything genuine to say and accorded it the seriousness it deserved. So when Peter asked a question, Jonathan found himself listening for the answer. He wasn't a cultural anthropologist, but he'd had his share of courses in the field, and short of doing a Margaret Mead in Samoa, the chances for being the first contact with an entirely new culture was not an opportunity which came along all that often. Like many fields, it was increasingly more specialized. For the most part, Jonathan loved his own work, especially the theoretical aspects of paleontology, but this was fascinating. He was especially intrigued by the Wookiee culture, which was in many ways primitive; living in treetop houses, yet part of a complex technological society, so that Wookiees were familiar with items Earth people only read about in science fiction books. Jonathan wanted to find out how they lived their daily lives; what kind of food they ate, what kind of family units they lived in. Peter asked about their beliefs, what they considered important, what their values were. Jonathan couldn't deduce values clearly from old potsherds; he had to do it from what he could guess of a civilization's remains. Peter, the psychologist, wanted to know what they thought and how they felt.

As t hey talked, Peter and Jonathan realized that Chewbacca felt he owed Han Solo a life debt. Han had rescued him from slavers. Thus both of them had a very strong hatred of slavery. Slaves were one cargo Solo had not carried in his days as a smuggler.

"Smuggling? Evading Imperial patrols? Running guns?" Peter asked, fascinated. Ray, who had been scribbling notes while he ate, looked up at that and grinned.

"A lot of that. Most of my work was actually legit, but I ran a lot of things the Empire didn't want spread around. Funny thing, most of it was harmless, but it was a way they controlled the worlds in the Empire, by being the ultimate authority what people could have and not have. Sometimes it was as simple as coffee." He tapped the edge of his cup. Course sometimes it was people, folks on the run from the empire. I had secret compartments under the decks. Smuggled Luke, his two droids and old man Kenobi on board the first Death Star in them," Han said reminiscently, and talked a little about some of his adventures against the Empire. Even Egon paused in his use of the calculator and listened.

Benedek was like a child with a new toy. He didn't care about how the Wookiees lived or their belief systems as much as he did about Han and Chewie's adventures on the Millennium Falcon. Mulder was intrigued by the Force, the mystical energy field Han said was part of all life.

"All life everywhere?" Benny demanded. "Then how come we can't tune into it?"

"Who says we can't?" Peter offered quickly. "Maybe that's what psychics do. Maybe it's even part of what makes ghosts continue to exist, a kind of life energy that doesn't fade away."

"Hey, yeah," breathed Ray, intrigued by the idea. "After all, if you don't know about something, you can't learn how to do it. If you've never heard of martial arts, for instance, the odds are you won't try to be a ninja." He paused to explain that to Han, who nodded.

"A Jedi could probably handle one of your ninjas. I remember old Obi-wan put a helmet on Luke with the blast shield down over his eyes and matched him against a remote with his lightsaber. Luke was supposed to reach out with his feelings and sense where the next laser bolt would hit and block it. He actually did it, too, and now he can do more than that. He can move things without touching them and influence some people's minds. I didn't buy it at first. But it's real."

"It's like our detecting ghosts," Egon said surprisingly. "Until we found a way to detect them, there was no proof they existed. Parapsychologists had designed equipment based on what we'd hoped to find; motion detectors, heat sensors, magnetometers, etc. but none of it was ever conclusive. So the general public chose not to believe in ghosts, or at least not to admit belief. But our equipment can actually detect specters and spooks."

"Cognitive constancy and cognitive dissonance," Mulder said with a nod at Scully. "It's all a matter of perception. If this Force of yours exists everywhere, as you claim, then it's here as well. There are many unexplained actions that could be made sense of by the Force."

"It might be a glib and easy answer though," Scully disagreed. "I don't deny some people have powers that are surprising. While a large per cent of that can be explained by trickery and fraud and by the gullibility of their subjects, there are always enough legitimate practitioners to keep the possibility open. What has always irritated me is the way people find one item of belief and automatically extend it to cover the entire realm of the paranormal. Because Slimer exists doesn't justify the Loch Ness Monster or bending spoons or the Tarot."

"Tarot cards are just a focus, Dana," Benny replied. "When they're used as a party game, sure they don't work. But I've got a lot of friends on the inside. Just because you've seen your share of frauds doesn't automatically disqualify the genuine either. Don't close your mind to the possibilities. We need people like you to keep us honest."

"Benedek has a good point," Jonathan put in. "I've been thinking of it. Whether a person automatically accepts the possibility of all psychic phenomena being real or rejects all of it, he's wrong. You can't decide across the board that it's all wrong or right."

"Whoa! Way to go, buds," crowed Benny triumphantly. "I knew I'd make a believer out of you if I tried hard enough."

"You're missing the whole point, Benedek," Jonathan said, shaking his head. "I'm saying you can't automatically assume either side is one hundred per cent correct. But even you can't believe in that woman we saw last week who swore her cat is the one and only reincarnation of Alexander the Great!"

"No, but it made a great story," Benny replied.

Han had been listening to the debate with interest. "You should hear my buddy Luke get going on this subject. We're luckier than you in a way because we've got more than one planet as a frame of reference. We've seen things that would be unbelievable to a stay-at-home. If something isn't real here doesn't mean it won't work on a world two systems over. There's a whole planet of mystics out there who not only can tell the future, they can tell the past; any moment of the life of anyone who's ever lived, and not just on their own planet. We've got people who can leave their own bodies, drift from world to world and temporarily co-inhabit the bodies of people who are receptive to it."

Benedek's smile was a mile wide. "Talk about your genuine out-of-body extravaganza! I had one once, drifting through walls and up and down corridors and even the old standby, the light at the end of the tunnel. But I never made it to any other worlds." He sounded genuinely disappointed.

"And I've got to give him credit," Jonathan said. "He came up with something he couldn't possibly have known unless he really did it. I never could explain that. Most of the things we see have a perfectly rational explanation, but that didn't."

"But why should it have to?" asked Ray. "I think it's great just to know there are more things out there than we'll ever understand, but they're real!"

"And what do you mean, 'rational' explanation?" Mulder asked. "You're implying that because something is paranormal it's not rational. It may not be conventional, but that doesn't mean it's irrational, does it?"

"What bothers me," Scully said, "is the attempt to use a paranormal explanation without taking the time to look for the scientific answers."

"I agree." Egon nodded. "Our research always had a scientific background. People didn't care for the subject so they refused to admit that, but I can show you documentation for everything we do. We have, however, encountered things I can't explain, though I can postulate a theory to cover most things. If you're interested, Dr. Scully, I can show you some of my reports on peculiar incidents."

"Go for it, Scully," Mulder said with a grin. "Open your mind."

"My mind is open," she said. "But I'm always going to look for a scientific explanation first. Just because it has an explanation doesn't take the magic out of it."

"She's right," said Peter around a mouthful of pizza. "So has anybody figured out how we're going to sneak all of us and that gadgetry upstairs into the park. There's a trail all the way around the Reservoir. Sure there won't likely be joggers at midnight but there's bound to be somebody there."

"I thought we were going to chase ghosts and distract 'em, Pete," Winston reminded him.

"Yeah, but I want to see inside the Falcon," Peter said, sounding like a little boy who's being denied a treat. "After all, I'm the one Han talked to first."

"Peter." Egon's voice was serious. "Naturally we all want to see the ship, but Han and Chewie's safety is of paramount importance. Ray and I must go aboard to assist in the installation and testing of our equipment. If you're to serve as a distraction, we're going to need backup." He looked at the rest of the team. "Janine, you've handled a pack and thrower before. Would you do it again."

"If you want me to, Egon."

"Excellent. Then we need a fourth 'Ghostbuster'. Anyone who sees us will, we hope, be watching from a distance." He glanced around the group and his eyes settled on Mulder, ignoring the excited gleam in Benedek's eye. Then Peter nudged him with an impatient elbow and pointed at the journalist.

"Benny's at least played with a pack," Peter reminded the physicist. "Give it to him."

Egon lifted one eyebrow at Peter, who shot a meaningful look back at him, then, as if he'd caught on, he said, "Of course."

"I'm gonna be a Ghostbusters," exulted Benny, clasping his hands over his head like a winner in a prize fight. "Spooks, look out."

MacKensie grinned. "There'll be no living with him now," he complained.

As they left the remains of the pizza to Slimer and started upstairs again, Egon caught Peter's arm and held him back. "Why did you do that?" he asked. "Benedek is the last one I would have chosen to wear a proton pack."

"Yeah, but he's the first one who'd stow away on a spaceship," Peter replied. "No matter what happens, I thought we'd better keep him out of there. Besides, it would break Foxy's heart if he couldn't go on the ship. We need Janine if we're really gonna dump one of our ghosts and catch it again because she's come on a long way since the time she nearly took me out on her first bust. Benny won't blast any of us and he'll have a great time. And by the time he realize we conned him, it'll be too late."

Egon began to smile. "Well reasoned, Dr. Venkman."

They turned for the stairs, and found MacKensie waiting for them. "Thanks for steering Benedek away from the ship," the anthro pro said. "I was half afraid he'd find a way to go along for the ride, and even though he's quite maddening most of the time, I'm afraid I'd miss him if he were gone."

"Yeah, I was sure he'd make for those hidden compartments of Han's and stow away," Peter replied. "It's gonna be hard enough keeping Ray on this planet. And that's your job, big fella," he told Egon.

"And one I'm entirely capable of performing," Egon replied as he started up the stairs to the third floor.

The eleven of them couldn't fit into Ecto-1 so it was decided Scully, Mulder, Han and MacKensie would go in Janine's car. She said she'd loan it as long as one of the Ghostbusters wasn't driving. Han offered to drive, intrigued by the internal combustion engine; he spent ten minutes poking around under the hood. Janine vetoed that and turned the keys over to Scully. "Boys and their toys," she said. "I'd rather trust a woman with my car."

"Very sexist, Janine," Peter chided her, shaking a finger at her.

"No, just smart," returned the secretary. "You Ghostbusters have trashed my car so often no decent insurance company will touch me."

Chewbacca, clad once again in his monk disguise, was quite voluble about being separated from Han, and it took the Corellian to calm him down again. Peter eyed him uneasily, knowing he'd have to share a vehicle with someone who had thrown him up against a wall. He held no grudges but he couldn't help being wary; something could set Chewie off again and none of them could understand him. But he could be camouflaged more easily in Ecto-1. Benny was suited up in one of Peter's uniforms (it was too long for him) so he had to be in Ecto, and Han, rid of his professor's attire, still could pass for a native in slightly unusual garb. No one would notice him unless he called attention to himself.

The Park wasn't deserted, of course. Cars passed through it at all hours of the day and night, and muggers looked for the unwary. But when Ecto-1 pulled to a stop near the Reservoir, there weren't any people close enough to notice anything unusual. They rendezvoused with Janine's car, and the Ghostbusters and would-be Ghostbusters donned proton packs while Han got the portable airlock, a narrow crawlway with one end sealed that sank into the water. Its controls were designed to match it with the Falcon's airlock, seal itself and be ready to open the lock when Han worked the remote. Very little of it showed above the surface of the water, and that part was transparent, blending fairly well into the darkness of the water. If anyone came upon them while they were hauling equipment through it, they would be noticed and remarked upon, but since no one was near, Han pointed to Peter, Benedek, Janine, and Winston and designated them to stand guard. Peter held the full trap they'd brought, the same one he'd given to Mulder earlier when they'd tried to trick him into believing all was normal at Central. If he saw the curious approaching, he'd let the ghost go, and let it lead them on a merry chase, hopefully drawing the watchers with them.

Mulder was fascinated. Though it couldn't be good for his suit to crawl through a narrow tunnel pushing a heavy piece of equipment in front of him, the thought of being in an actual spaceship was well worth the cost of a cleaning bill. Following Chewbacca, Egon, and Ray, he descended until he found himself in a hatch where he could stand up. A moment later, he was inside.

Chewie led them into a room that had seats around some kind of game table, at least that was what Mulder thought. It might have been a charting table or simply where Han and Chewie ate. The Wookiee pulled up a panel in the floor, then paused long enough to shed the monk's robes. He gestured the visitors to put their equipment on the floor, then he lowered himself down into the hole. Free of electronics gear, Mulder looked around with excitement.

It was hardly a pristine environment. There were control panels and grids and equipment he didn't really identify, but the technology looked lived in. He could picture Solo being comfortable here.

"If you wanna take a look, the cockpit's through there," Solo said behind him. "Just don't touch anything."

Mulder went without a word, finding himself in a very dimly lit chamber protruding out from the body of the ship. There were two forward seats, one of them obviously Chewbacca's, and more controls than in a 747, some of them overhead, some behind the seats, several levers between them in front, and even a couple of what looked like rudder pedals where their feet would go. Probably for atmospheric manipulation since this was a ship that could take off and land under power instead of needing rocket boosters like the Space Shuttle. Mulder stood in the alien cockpit, excitement pulsing through him and though he longed to put out a hand and simply touch the controls, he didn't know how sensitive they were. Instead he put his hand on the back of Han's seat and stood there a moment longer, feeling excitement twist in his stomach. Back at the Bureau, they could call him 'Spooky' all they wanted to. Because now he knew. The sheer joy of the moment moved him.

A hand fell upon his shoulder and he turned to find Scully standing behind him, her eyes awed. "Look at it, Scully," he said softly. "No matter what happens, they can't take this moment away from me."

She smiled in understanding. "No, they can't do that. Even I can't rationalize this one away, Mulder, and I wouldn't try."

They stood together in brief silence, sharing the moment, then she said, "But I've thought of something. If your report and Benedek's story match each other, someone is likely to notice."

"Come on, don't tell me you think Skinner reads the National Register."

"Probably not. But there's a chance that someone will, someone who can make the comparison."

"So you're saying I should fudge my report, is that it?" He wanted it official even if it was crammed away in a box somewhere out of sight and out of mind.

"I'm not sure what I'm saying. I think I'm saying this could mean trouble for you."

"Don't you think I can take the heat?"

"I know you can. You've done it a long time and I'll back you." She was definite about that, even knowing it could mean the end of her career as she knew it. She might find herself working as a crossing guard in Duluth if she stood up for Mulder and all of this came out.

He knew if she did that and it came down to trouble, he'd claim it was only partner loyalty and try to protect her if he could. He didn't want to take her down. The odds were his report and Benedek's story would be so widely divergent no one would connect them, but it wasn't something he could count on. He was willing to take the flak. And from the stubborn set of Dana's chin, she wasn't going to back down either.

"Like it, huh?" Han's sudden voice from the doorway broke the mood. Mulder and Scully exchanged a brief smile, cementing their unity on the subject and then turned to Solo as he began to name different instruments and explain their function.

Jonathan wandered around the small ship in complete fascination, feeling a pang of regret that Benedek wasn't here to share the moment. He understood all too well why Peter had insisted Benny be chosen to wear a proton pack; not because he was sane and sensible and had a good aim and not even because he'd played around with one for ten minutes once. Peter had known how much Benny was drawn to the story. In fact, Peter had known Benny a little longer than Jonathan had, though not, of course, so well. But in some ways Peter and Benedek were alike, both of them presenting a cocky facade to the world, determined to hide any inner pain. Jonathan didn't know what Venkman's inner pain was, though something Benedek had said after Jonathan's first meeting with the Ghostbusters suspected the problem might well be Peter's father. Having had his own father problems for most of his adult life, Jonathan could sympathize, though he had spent his life trying to live up to his Nobel Prize-winning father while Peter had tried to live down the escapades of his dad the con man. Still, father difficulties could form a bond, and even though Jonathan and Peter had never discussed the subject, Jonathan was willing to grant the other man a little more leeway than he usually did people of Peter's ilk. He'd seen evidence of the more complex man beneath the publicity-loving Ghostbuster that very day.

Peter had been right, though. Put Benny on the ship and he'd hide until takeoff and go back to the New Republic, and he wouldn't come back until he had pictures from Han and Leia's state wedding. If then.

Jonathan shook his head. It was hard to imagine life without Benedek now. True, it would be more peaceful, and he could probably pay more attention to his own work. He might even finish writing about the existence of a bicameral brain in Australopithecus and its quasi-contemporary hominids. Benny called it, "Cave Man--the First Nerd." That made Jonathan smile a little. Benedek might be wildly irritating, with the worst timing in the known universe, but he was Jonathan's own pet irritant. If Benny managed to come aboard, Jonathan would stick to him like glue.

Ray and Egon were even more fascinated to be working on the Falcon than they had been while studying the schematics. Every now and then Egon would hear an enthusiastic, "Wow!" or "This is great!" from the section where Ray was working. Even though the Wookiee's language was not translated into English, Ray seemed almost able to understand him. He'd ask Chewie a question and the Falcon's co-pilot would growl and grumble a long, complex answer, while Ray nodded and encouraged him to continue. If it came to that, Ray was the one who had been able to understand Slimer almost from the beginning. Ray was also the Ghostbuster who was fondest of animals, most in tune with them. Maybe he could sink himself into the communication and perceive things from it that weren't strictly spoken. Egon resolved to begin a study on the subject when this was all over.

As for himself, he was completely absorbed in the work. He could understand Solo, of course, but he could also see some of the logic of the ship's innards. Other connections were baffling, but when he pointed that out, Han shrugged, looking a little abashed. "We had to cobble that together once. It isn't logical but it works," he admitted. "I've had some'a the best ship designers go over the Falcon and half of 'em throw up their hands in despair and walk away. The other half take notes. I may not know the science behind this, but I know how it works."

Ray was like that, too. While he had invented his share of Ghostbuster equipment, his greatest gifts lay in taking a schematic Egon had designed and creating a working model. Ever since his high school shop class where he had built no less than three cars, Ray had been happiest when he was building something, putting things together only to take them apart and put them together again better. He was a genius in that area and Egon respected his skill.

He wondered how Peter and Winston were doing with their amateur teammates recapturing the purple gooper. Amazing what a great team the Ghostbusters actually made. Egon had wondered about Peter when he first met him but it hadn't taken them long to become friends. Peter had his gifts, entirely different from Egon's and Ray's but no less important. Peter knew people, could understand why they did what they did when it wouldn't have occurred to Egon to even wonder. He'd learned a little of that from Peter, knowing he could be good at it if he had the time, but leaving the psychoanalyzing of their clients to Peter. He contented himself practicing what he learned from the team psychologist on Peter himself. After all, there was no one else to notice when Peter clammed up if something bothered him.

Winston had come along at a time when the team was just beginning to realize a need for him, or someone like him. Winston came to them with a background in Vietnam, and he was the one who taught them a kind of military strategy for dealing with ghosts. They went from hit or miss to a skilled unit, and Winston blended right in so quickly it was as if there'd always been a place for him.

Look at the four of them now. Who would have thought only this morning that they'd have spent the day on spaceship repairs? Who would have believed such a thing were even possible? Ray and Egon could hardly have gone in and repaired the space shuttle, but this craft was not only user-friendly because it had to be, but it was modified and patched and pasted together with the outer space equivalent of bubble gum and bobby pins. It probably even liked the new twists and turns the Ghostbusters were putting into its tired old systems.

Smiling to himself at this flight of fancy, Egon returned to his work, a happy man.

"Look out, he's getting away!"

"Go for it, Benny!"

"Now, Janine! Power up."

Winston Zeddemore shook his head, grinning. Janine knew what she was doing and Benny was trying, though his heart was clearly not in it. At any other time, the journalist would have loved a stint as a Ghostbuster, and would have played it to the hilt, but now his concentration was on the Reservoir, a little distance behind them, though he couldn't seem to pay it undue attention because they'd attracted a small crowd. At least while the crowd was watching the Ghostbusters, they weren't watching the water. Winston resolved to lead them further and further away. The noise of the throwers would probably attract others, too, the best muggers the city had to offer, but at least a proton rifle was one of the best deterrents against being robbed that Winston had ever seen.

Peter, of course, was hamming it up for the audience. He always did when they were being watched, and he could do it without losing one shred of his concentration on the ghost or his ability to stage manage the bust. Like Larry Bird on the basketball court, Peter was always aware of the position of every member of his team and what their assets and liabilities were at any given moment. When they needed to run from danger, it was Peter who noticed when someone fell behind, Peter who staged a quick rescue. And more often than Winston would have thought at first, it was Peter who stood guard while the others got to safety, his thrower ready, braced to watch their backs. It wasn't the way he talked, so it had taken Winston time to realize it, but he knew it now. Even when Peter played it up for the crowd the way he was doing, all it would take would be one sudden threatening movement from the ghost and Peter would be in position, ready to defend the others. He had great instincts.

Winston, who had always thought his own survival instincts were top of the line had been forced to admit Peter was a master at it. He might hog the glory afterward but that was another facet of his nature, a craving for attention he'd never quite been able to get rid of. Ray liked the attention and thought it was fun, Egon usually couldn't be bothered and Winston thought it was silly to get press write ups for just doing his job, so he left all that side of it to Peter. After all, as a business, they needed PR.

Janine was holding her own. She'd once got Egon to take her out to a remote spot and let her get in some good practice with the thrower, not only in hitting a target but in regulating the power and knowing how to adjust the settings at a command from one of the guys. Janine had always been a quick study. Winston would trust her to watch his back any time.

Benny was another story. Of course his heart wasn't really in it. He probably thought he could play Ghostbuster any time but he couldn't see the Falcon again, and he was right. Winston would have liked to see the Falcon himself, but he knew giving the team cover to make the repairs was important and he could live with it if he never got to make a visit.

At the moment it was more important to keep the crowd's attention on the ghost, and not to trap it too early. On the other hand, it wouldn't help anybody if they let it get away or made themselves look like idiots if they failed to catch it. Winston set off at a run, managing to miss the entity by mere inches. Somebody applauded, and somebody else whistled between his teeth. "Get it, get it, get it!" chanted the crowd. Winston shook his head and spun around for a second blast. Put a group of people together and they lost whatever sense they had.

It was Benedek who noticed the trouble that was brewing and he made a beeline for Peter. "Yo, Venkster," he called, loud enough for the team to hear him but not for the spectators to do more than tell he was talking. "We got a major problem."

"What problem?" Peter asked, glancing around hastily as if he expected to see a column of army tanks heading for the reservoir. Janine sent off a burst at the ghost then took a couple of steps closer.

"Don't look at 'em directly, but there's a couple of guys in the crowd. You'll know 'em when you see 'em," Benedek explained hastily.

Winston looked over at the crowd. At first he saw nothing suspicious, then he spotted two men who just had to be Feds. It wasn't the matching trenchcoats they wore so much as the identical expressions, hard faced, and not giving a thing away.

"Not FBI," Benny said. "I've come up against this type a couple of times. Covert types, but they won't tell you what letters of the alphabet they represent. They're the type that will wipe out the people to save the country, if you know what I mean. They're looking for Han and Chewie, I bet you my life's savings and all the royalties from my current book."

"You lost money on that book," Peter reminded him. But his eyes hard narrowed. "Okay, gang, conference." He gestured skyward. The ghost had wised up and retreated to an elevation out of thrower range, and it hung there watching the Ghostbusters with a jaundiced eye. A strategy meeting didn't seem out of line. They gathered in a huddle.

"You mean those guys want to arrest Han and Chewie?" Janine demanded hotly. "What for. They haven't done anything?"

"Well, they don't have passports or green cards," Benny reminded her. "And knowing some of these spy types, they believe everybody else is as devious as they are. For all we know they have information; satellite reports of some kind. Maybe the Falcon's even visible to satellites. They can do heat studies and things like that, can't they?"

"I think so," Peter replied. "But that'd mean somebody high up bought into the whole thing. Han was careful to play up to the UFO reports and I think he blocked most of the radar."

"Yeah, but that's a problem, too, Pete," Winston said. "Because when you think of it, meteors can't block radar and they leave obvious traces when they fall. You have something that blocks radar part of the time and vanishes on landing and what have you got? Either the latest Iraqi spy plane or Green Guys from the other side of the universe."

Peter grimaced. "What do we do?" he asked.

"We don't mess with those guys," Benny replied. "There's just one thing we can do. Bust the Purple People Eater up there and take off. We let it go, we've gotta follow it, right? We catch it and we've got no reason to hang around. We don't want to make the nice agents suspect us of anything, right?"

"Right," agreed Janine. "But we take as long as we can to bust it."

"How long did Han say it would take to install the repair stuff?" Peter asked.

"Probably an hour or two," replied Winston. "They've been in there about forty five minutes now. No way they could be done yet, and that porthole thing is sticking up out of the water like it's wearing a neon sign."

"No it's not," Peter reminded them. "Han said he'd collapse it until everybody was ready to come out."

"So what we've gotta do is keep everybody busy until then. In other words, keep the Feds on our tails," Benny decided. "Act suspicious or play the crowd or whatever. Catch it, and then I'll go over, tell 'em I'm Ghostbusting for a story and that I want quotes from witnesses. I'll even ask The Trenchcoat Twins."

Peter nodded. "Go for it," he said. "Besides, I love crowds. Fame and fortune, that's what Dr. Venkman is made for. Come on, kiddies, let's bust a ghost."

The crowd followed them as they pursued the ghost around the park, nearly catching it a couple of times. Benny might be in the best shape he could be, but by the time the proton streams finally snagged the purple specter, the journalist was flushed and sweaty and breathing like a steam engine. He stopped gratefully when Winston tossed out the trap and heaved a vast sigh of relief when the doors closed over the struggling ghost.

But the minute he shipped his thrower, he straightened up and went to work. Even as he trotted for the crowd, he had a notebook in his hand. "Hi, brothers and sisters," he greeted them. "I'm Edgar Benedek, National Register. Tonight I'm doing a story about being a Ghostbuster. Go easy on me, willya, it was my very first bust. So who's gonna be the first in line to get their comments in the newspaper? Step right up, no pushing now...."

The crowd surrounded him eagerly, but the two trenchcoat types didn't bunch around them. Instead they started to edge to one side, but Peter was there before them. "Hey, guys, not so fast. This is a one night special. The famous Dr. Venkman is about to sign autographs for his adoring public. Be the first in line. If not for you, how about your kiddies. The kids love us. We've even got our own TV show...."

The two Feds slowed and stopped, exchanging a quick glance. Either they had decided Peter was a threat who had to be watched or they wanted to get out of this gracefully without making a scene. The taller of the two poked his comrade in the side. "Yeah, I'll get one for Tim," he decided. "He'd never forgive me if he heard I saw the Ghostbusters and didn't stop." If it was an act, it was a good one, but then they'd have to be good. They couldn't always resort to using intimidation, guns and arrests to have their way.

"Great," exulted Peter. "And you can give Tim my best. All the kids like Ghostbusters. Okay, everybody. Questions from the audience? First of all, muggers on one side, muggees on the other. This is Central Park at midnight. Don't you folks have any sense?"

The crowd laughed, but a couple of them shifted uneasily. Maybe they really were muggers, or at least pickpockets. The two Feds came up to Peter, one with a notebook open. "We're already late," he said. "Let's have the autograph now."

"Sure," agreed Peter readily, taking a pen out of his pocket, and dropping it. "Oops. You get used to holding something that fights back, and you can't grab something that doesn't. Guess I need my eight hours tonight. What time is it anyway?" He fumbled after the pen. One of the Feds retrieved it and passed it to him.

Peter took the notebook and industriously scribbled a page of good wishes to Tim before passing it back.

The second man declined getting an autograph, and then the Ghostbusters, Janine and Benny were mobbed with fans. Peter saw the two men stride away, but they were heading south, away from the Reservoir. That didn't mean they wouldn't circle back at just the wrong time, though. He edged over to Winston. "That could be trouble."

"I thought if they stuck around we could walk along with 'em, if they headed for--you know," Winston muttered in Peter's ear. "Seem like we loved their company. But this way we'll lose track of 'em. I don't like it. All they have to do is hide in the trees and wait."

"Yeah, and we head back for Ecto, and it's parked right by the Reservoir next to my car," Janine reminded them as she handed back an autograph book.

"No fear, lovely Janine," Benny reassured her. "We get asked, we brought two cars because tonight you are mine. Dinner, dancing, the works. We take off, even if it means stranding the others, because it's the only way to lull their suspicions." He turned back to their slowly thinning audience. "Okay, who wants to say how bad Uncle Benny did tonight. Let's see a show of hands. Not that many hands. Give a beginner a break!" Several hands went down but most of them stayed up. Peter nudged Benny and grinned. It would have been fun if not for the threat of the two men in trenchcoats who could be waiting watching everything, waiting for them to slip up.

"They'll see the Falcon take off," Janine said later as they headed back toward Ecto-1. "They'll know something was going on."

"But they can't prove it was us," Benny replied. "Just because we had a bust here. Maybe we could have engine trouble? That old hearse of yours can't run all that well, can it?"

"Ray and I keep it in shape," Winston replied. "But who knows? Maybe it's been stripped while we busted the ghost." He hated the thought of that but at least it would give them an excuse to stay in the park.

Ecto-1 sat in pristine glory in the light from streetlights and the full moon overhead. The others weren't back and the surface of the Reservoir was marked with only faint ripples stirred up by the breeze. Janine's pink Volkswagen was safe, too. No one was in sight and the only sounds they could hear were the muted roar of traffic from the nearby streets and the sound of night birds and insects in the park. It was a very tranquil moment.

"So what do we do?" Peter said as he began, very slowly, to remove his proton pack. Resting it at his feet, he stretched expansively and moaned with pleasure at the movement. "Every day that pack gets heavier and heavier," he complained.

"Sure it does, Petey boy," Benny agreed. "The Big Four-Oh is sneaking up on you. Do you check the mirror for grey hairs every morning?"

"I don't have a single grey hair," Peter snapped. "Speak for yourself, Benedek."

Janine giggled. "I hate to say it, Dr. V, but yesterday when you were bending over my desk looking through the mail I saw--"

"Not another word, Janine. I don't want to know."

Benny slipped out of his proton pack, trying very hard not to look relieved. He mopped his forehead, realized this wasn't exactly the best way to appear younger and fitter than Peter, and pretended he'd meant to scratch his eyebrow instead. No one was fooled.

With as much slowness as they could manage, the four of them opened the back of Ecto and pulled out the rack designed to hold their packs, then Peter and Winston began sliding them into place, checking each one carefully. Benny circled, round and round Ecto and Janine's car, alert for trouble, hoping they weren't being watched. A few people went by but when they saw the Ghostbusters were putting their equipment away rather than getting it out they moved along and didn't stop. The trenchcoats had vanished entirely.

"We're gonna have to go when we're loaded up," Peter had begun to say when the waters of the Reservoir bubbled and danced and the clear plastic (or whatever it was) of the docking tube popped out of the water in a collapsed state and opened up. A minute later Jonathan MacKensie crawled out and managed to stumble into the water at the edge of the reservoir. Benny jumped forward and grabbed him, hauling him to shore. "Watch where you're going, Jack. Good thing you don't have to make your living as a dance instructor. Fred Astaire's got nothing to worry about from you."

"Han's got detectors; he saw you were here," the anthro professor said hastily, stomping his wet feet without enthusiasm. His shoes made squishing sounds on the track. "But that's not the worst thing. There were some people here before. They stood by the water a long time. Han said there were only two of them, and we didn't think they were you."

"Maybe they were young lovers," volunteered Benny. "Blissful under the moon."

"Dodging muggers for love," Peter agreed. "Right, Benny. Look, they were probably Feds. We'd better warn the others quick. How much longer until repairs are done?"

"Egon says maybe fifteen minutes and then they have to run some diagnostics. Maybe half an hour. Why, what Feds?"

"The kind of people who suppress everything Mulder finds," Peter explained. "I'm gonna tell Han what he's up against. Maybe Mulder will have some ideas." He started for the portable airlock.

"Whoa, hold it right there, Venkster. I'm gonna tell 'em. This is my story."

"These are our customers," Peter reminded him. He saw the look in Benny's eye and shrugged. "All right, but you're coming right out again. No stowing away."

"What and leave Dr. Jack unprotected here on his own?" Benny asked as if the very idea shocked him. "He'd go back to eating vanilla ice cream and only watching PBS. It doesn't bear thinking about." But he fell in behind Peter eagerly.

Venkman went through the airlock feeling as excited as Ray and followed the noise of working and voices until he found Egon standing in an opening in the floor that was chest deep. Behind him, the psychologist could hear Benny making little cries of delight and light flashed as he started snapping pictures. Chewie, emerging from a passageway, winced at the light and growled a complaint.

"Oh, you're here, Peter," said Egon. "Good. Does that mean you've captured the ghost?"

"Yeah, and it means we're running out of time," Peter concurred. "Where's Mulder."

"Here I am. What's wrong, Peter?" Mulder, coat off and tie loosened, had a smear of grease on the tip of his nose and something that looked vaguely like screwdriver with a self-contained power unit in one hand. He'd evidently been engaged in directed spaceship repairs and he wore a blissful expression on his face.

"I think a branch of the government a lot more secret than yours is lurking," Peter said and watched the joy drain out of the agent's face.

"Here's the hydrospanner, Han," Mulder said as he passed the tool back to the pilot. "Okay, Peter, explain."

Peter told him about the men they'd seen and Benny's insistence they were from a covert agency. "I have a nasty feeling they suspect us so we really can't hang around here. I think everybody who's not actually doing repairs better leave right now."

"We're not quite finished, Peter," said Ray, popping up from the hole that held Egon. "Ten more minutes, though, honest."

"And then a quick check," Egon replied.

"Yeah, but I can run the diagnostic on my own," Han assured them. "I need Egon and Ray to finish up. The rest of you get out of here. And be sure you take Benedek with you." He gestured at the energetic reporter who was heading for a door just beyond."

"Don't let him touch anything in the cockpit," Egon called after him.

"Cockpit?" Peter went after Benny as if pulled by a magnet, and for a moment the two of them stood in the doorway of the Falcon's cockpit gazing in delight at the multitude of controls. It represented a world that Peter would never know, but he had his own world and his buddies, and though Han's wider universe intrigued him, he wasn't tempted to give up what he had to get it. Satisfied, Peter grabbed Benedek and manhandled him out of there. "Come on, Benny, it's time to get out of here."

"Spoilsport," muttered Benny. He looked like he was still contemplating stowing away. Benny had always been drawn to great adventures.

"Spoilsport nothing," Peter told him roundly. "I want Han and Chewie to make it out of here." He came to a stop in front of Solo, knowing this was good-bye, and probably forever. The odds against Solo taking risks to return when his government forbade it in the first place were astronomical. "So, Han. Promise me one thing."

"If I can." Han looked just a little wary. He still wasn't quite sure what to expect from Peter.

"Promise you'll haul ass out of here and get home safe," Peter said, dropping a friendly hand on the Corellian's shoulder. "If you don't, you'll spoil my perfect reputation."

Ray muttered something teasing about Peter's reputation, but Peter ignored it. He watched Solo expectantly. In another time and place he and this man might well have become good friends.

Han grinned his crooked smile as if he recognized that fact. "You got it," he agreed. He let both hands rest on Peter's shoulders for a minute, then engulfed him in a brief bearhug. "Thanks for taking us on," he said, then he gave him a little push. "Go on, get out of here, and take the nosy reporter with you," he concluded, the final words without malice. He winked at Benny.

Benny didn't take offense. Instead he clapped Han on the shoulder with great enthusiasm, ignoring Chewie's warning growl. "Don't worry, I won't stow away. It's not that I'm not tempted, but somebody's gotta keep Jonathan open-minded. That's my job. Besides, you don't have a shuttle service. I've got my admiring public expecting my next book, and Leno and Letterman would miss me if there was no way back."

Mulder and Scully said goodbye to Han and Chewie, though their farewells were a little more restrained than Peter's and Benny's had been. Han met Mulder's eyes gravely. "I'll see if I can find out anything about your sister," he said. "If I do, I'll be back for sure, even if I'm not supposed to land here, and that's a promise."

"No matter what, I wish you all the luck in the universe," Mulder replied.

"I hope you don't get into trouble for helping us," Solo added.

"Trouble is Mulder's natural state," Scully told Solo as she shook hands with him.

"Don't forget to get off," Peter told Egon and Ray sternly. It was obvious Ray would have been as thrilled as Benny to venture off into the great unknown.

"We won't," Egon replied. "Don't worry, Peter, I'll make sure Ray doesn't hide under the deck panels either." He smiled at Peter.

The four who were leaving went through the narrow tube again to where Janine, Winston and Jonathan were waiting. At once the tube's opening sealed and it vanished beneath the water. Peter eyed it uneasily. Egon and Ray were still down there. In spite of Egon's reassurance he had a bad feeling something would go wrong; an explosion when the mismatched systems tried to power up, or a need to launch before the two Ghostbusters could be put ashore. Peter would have liked to stay behind and make sure they got to safety, but he knew the more people on board the more chance of trouble, and he was the only one who could have made sure of Benedek.

Time dragged. They stood talking uneasily while everyone watched the surrounding trees for trouble. No one had come forward to intercept them when the docking tube had materialized, so maybe the two characters in trenchcoats had wandered further afield--it was a big Park--or given it up as a bad job, but Peter didn't think so. He was pretty sure they were still in the Park and would be bound to wander back this way eventually.

Just when his frustration would have driven him to flinging stones into the water to get Han's attention the boarding tube popped up again and Egon and Ray crawled out. As soon as they were on the shore the tube retracted again, accordioning in upon itself as it folded away. Egon spotted the others and hurried to meet them and Peter and Winston advanced on them with cries of relief.

"We've done the first check," Egon said, "and all systems are go. Han's going to power up and take the Falcon out of here in five minutes. He'll make a landing on the moon and check everything one final time. He recommended we get out of here before he launches. It's going to be very audible and if there are any police officers or Federal agents nearby they'll hear it and certainly see it, so it's better we're not here where we might be suspected of complicity."

"Fortunately they've adjusted the deflectors, and they won't be picked up on radar," Ray added. "Gosh, that was great. I almost wish I could have gone with them. Han would have brought me back eventually. But we couldn't take the chance."

"You're right, you couldn't take the chance," Peter told him sternly. "It's not even time for your vacation."

Ray grinned. "Come on, let's move out of here."

They piled into the two vehicles indiscriminately and left the park. It was better to avoid the scene entirely. They stopped on Fifth Avenue not far from the Metropolitan Museum. The view from here wouldn't be as good, so they left Ecto and Janine's car in a no parking zone and walked back. As long as they weren't in the park itself, they might not encounter the mysterious men and there would be no direct tie between them and the launching ship.

They felt the take off first, rather than hearing it, a deep, near-subliminal vibration beneath their feet, as if they were walking over a number of subway trains all going past at the same moment. People a little further away would probably mistake it for the subway. As the Falcon burst out of the water, the roar was louder, fierce and explosive, noisy enough to make them clap their hands over their ears. They looked up expectantly and saw the ship for the first time, almost saucer-shaped but for two scoop-shaped projections in the front. The angle of the lift took the vessel south, vanishing for a moment behind the imposing bulk of the Metropolitan Museum, then it shot abruptly skyward and into view once more. "There!" cried Ray, pointing. Passing cars and taxis seemed oblivious but a couple of doormen at apartments on the other side of Fifth Avenue and some people waiting at a bus stop looked up in surprise as if they thought the Concorde had decided to buzz the city. When the sound faded so fast, they lost interest immediately, and Peter suspected they wouldn't even remember hearing it unless prompted by mention on the news.

The nine of them watched the Falcon rising until it was just a dot of brightness overhead, vanishing when it swooped across the face of the full moon. After that it was just too far away to detect, and it didn't leave a vapor trail the way a Cape Canavaral rocket did so there was no way to track it.

"Give 'em hell, Han," Peter said under his breath.

"Have a wonderful wedding," Janine added with a hopeful, sideways look at Egon, who carefully didn't look back.

"What about those characters in the park?" Benny asked. "They couldn't have missed seeing the ship. What will they do about it?"

"If there are any more UFO reports, there'll probably be a government cover up," Mulder said. "There weren't fighters waiting to go after it, at least not that I could see, and even if there were fighters on standby, Han would have been out of the atmosphere too quickly for them to track him. I'm going to have to put in a claim to seeing it. They'll know I was in New York and they'll expect it of me to have been wandering around in the park. I'll try to keep it totally different from Benny's story, but if I don't make a claim they'll know something was up."

"They'll ridicule your claim," Scully said, an edge of resentment creeping into her voice.

"Don't worry, Scully, I'm used to that. This time, though, I know it's real, and I've got you for a witness. You can play the skeptic in your report if you want to, though. It might be better."

"If they see you here they're going to wonder about your reports," Benny cautioned. "I think we should head for the hills before anyone spots us. You'll have a lot harder time covering up if they see you here."

Egon nodded. "Yes, it's only common sense. It's time to go home."

"We'll go back to our hotel," Scully decided. "And return to Washington tomorrow. If anyone suspects the Ghostbusters, they might be watching your headquarters and it would look odd if we all converged there."

Realizing it was time to separate, the group hesitated, looking at each other, knowing they had shared something completely magical, something no one else would ever understand. Then, as one, they looked skyward. The Falcon was long gone.

"I'll stop by next time I'm in town," Mulder said. "Come on, Scully. It's time for us to go." They said their goodbyes and walked over to the curb to flag down a cab.

"What will you do now?" she asked him as a cruising cab pulled up to the curb.

"What else, Scully. I'm 'Spooky' Mulder, remember. It's time for me to play the fool again."

She patted his arm in understanding before they climbed into the cab.

"I've gotta get over to the Register," Benedek decided. "I've got a great story to write. Jordy's gonna love this! It's got everything. True love and mysterious aliens and Orion slave girls."

"Orion slave girls!" scoffed Jonathan.

"Sure. I've gotta feed the prurient interests of my fans. Besides, nobody's going to believe a word of it." He stopped, suddenly serious. "Ironic, isn't it? When it's finally true, I have to play it false." He grinned again and grabbed MacKensie by the arm. "Come on, Jack. When I get my story written I'll buy you a drink. You can have the couch at my place and go back tomorrow and tell Dr. M. you missed the greatest story of all time. Blame it on me."

"Don't think I won't, Benedek," MacKensie said as they, too, waved for a cab. "She's going to be expecting more than we can ever tell her. I'll never get my grant to study Australopithecus at this rate."

When they were gone, Janine headed for her Volkswagen. "I'm for home. This has been a long day. I'm coming in late tomorrow, and nobody better complain about it."

"Look out for the Feds, Janine," Peter said. Janine deserved the day off, but he didn't say so. It would ruin his reputation.

"Yes, drive carefully," Egon told her, walking with her to the Volkswagen.

She smiled at him, then she got into her car.

"And then there were four," said Peter as Egon returned to stand with them. "Well, guys, what a day. Can I get us good business or what?"

"The best, Peter," enthused Ray. "Wow, that was great! Han says when he gets out this way again he'll take us up for a ride around the Solar System. What do you think about that?"

Winston's eyes lit up and Egon nodded, looking almost as enthusiastic as Ray. "I think it's an excellent idea. What about you, Peter?"

"Me? I've got a big job tomorrow. I've gotta exchange that gold for cold, hard cash, and I'm gonna love every single minute of it."

Shaking their heads, the other three raced for Ecto, and Peter shrugged, muttered, "Oh well," and followed them. "Next time he comes," said Peter as he climbed into the back seat of Ecto next to Egon, "I hope he can find somewhere to land that's safer than Central Park."

"Okay, Chewie, ready?" Han asked. Out beyond the gravity well of the Sol system, he was ready to try the hyperdrive.

Chewie nodded, but he looked a little uneasy. After all, this was different from anything they'd done to the Falcon before. Han knew when they got home he was going to have to bow to Leia's urging and update the hyperdrive completely, even though he hated to do it. This old ship meant a lot to him: freedom, adventure, a chance to make a life for himself. He'd rescued Leia on it, and they'd been through a lot together right on this old starship. Luke too. He remembered Luke being stubbornly not impressed on the kid's first journey as they hurried to rescue Leia. Give up the Falcon? It would never happen.

He tensed anyway as he reached out to pull the hyperdrive levers. "This is it, Chewie. Better hang on."

Chewie growled, not actual words, just an impatient urging to get on with it. He had family back home, too.

"Okay, here goes." Han shifted the controls.

The whole ship jolted, and for a moment Han thought it was all for nothing, that they were about to go out in a spectacular explosion, then, as if everything had suddenly shifted into place, the stars elongated and ran together, and they vanished into hyperspace, leaving Sol far behind.

They didn't talk except for the business of flight for a time after that, Han calling for readouts on the various controls and making delicate adjustments to regulate the balance, but after that was done, Han leaned back in his chair and grinned. "That wasn't so bad, was it, Chewie?"

The Wookiee looked at him as if he'd lost his mind.

"Oh, come on, we met some great folks, didn't we?"

*Ghosts,* Chewie reminded him, unwilling to forget that particular grievance.

"Slimer didn't hurt you," Han reminded him. "I'm the one who got slimed when we left the firehouse, not you." He grimaced at the memory of Slimer's farewell hug. "'Sides, the little green guy was as afraid of you as you were of him."

Chewie glowered.

"Then I'll take Luke when I go back to visit 'em," Han suggested.

That got a reaction. Chewie growled at him at length, the gist of which was that he was Han's co-pilot, not Luke, not Lando, no one else.

"Okay, I know that, but hey, I've got a great idea, Chewie. I'll bring Leia here for a honeymoon. She needs a break from running the republic, and where else can she come where she won't have to do the polite and play chief of state?"

*And where you won't have to wear dress uniforms,* said Chewie with complete certainty.

"I never thought of that," replied Han mendaciously, ignoring Chewie's knowing grin. He felt himself beginning to smile as he thought about Leia and their upcoming wedding. Putting Earth behind him, he concentrated on home.