TITLE: Hope Eyrie (1/1) AUTHOR: Maureen S. O'Brien E-MAIL: mobrien@dnaco.net DATE: 10-13-97 RATING: PG CATEGORY: S SUMMARY: Langley's views on the space program. ARCHIVE: Yes, please. DISCLAIMER: Langley and the X-Files belong to Chris Carter and Ten-Thirteen. Happy birthday, Chris! "Hope Eyrie" belongs to Leslie Fish and is reprinted on the Internet by permission, as she is on the rec.music.filk blanket permission list. AUTHOR'S NOTE: This one is for Dean Haglund, whom I saw tonight at Jokers Comedy Cafe. He was funny on stage and nice when he signed autographs afterward. It is also for Leslie Fish, and all the other filkers I know, and the space program. The conspiracy theories aren't true in our world, though they probably are in Langly's. (Except for the Nazi data. We did use that, it's true. But we also used data provided by some very brave volunteers out at Wright-Patterson AFB, because the space program was more interested in learning how to keep people alive than at what point people would die. Funny, that.) I swear, I tried to write a funny story. And it wasn't going to be a song story at all! -------------------------------------- "Hope Eyrie" by Maureen S. O'Brien He paid cash at the reg desk, of course. No preregistration, check, or credit card to leave a record of his name. He wrote one of his public e-mail addresses on his con badge instead. His friends would know him anyway, and strangers could just ask if they wanted to know. Of course, people might still mention him in their con reports in the zines or on the Net; but hopefully the Consortium's people would overlook those. As long as the Lone Gunmen were overlooked, they would survive. He felt eyes on his back. He used the shiny plastic holder covering the dark convention badge as a crude mirror. Friend or foe? Friend. He relaxed, turned around, and pinned his badge to his chest. The brownhaired woman who'd been eyeing his back with puzzlement looked at his face, grinned, and swooped down on him, arms wide. "Langly!" The impact of her bearhug made him stagger a little. "I haven't seen you since last year! How have you been? What have you been up to?" "Same old same old," he reassured her. "You subscribe, so you know most of what I've been up to." Just uncovering murderous deceits, cracking systems that don't exist.... "Well, yeah," she said in her polite voice. The one that refused to tell him she thought the magazine was dangerous bullshit and urban legends. She subscribed because she was his friend, and he knew it. "But I meant personally. Written any new songs? Are you with anybody?" She grinned. "I'm nosy. Tell me all the good gossip." He shrugged. He couldn't tell her any of the really interesting stuff, of course. "I haven't really been in a songwriting mood this year. Too busy. The same thing applies to the dating thing." Yeah, like he'd really gotten a lot of dates before he'd joined the Gunmen. She made a commiserating noise. "Me neither. Oh, well. One of these days, we'll meet somebody. And next thing you know, we'll be toting around rugrats, just like half the filkers we know." He grinned at her. "Yeah, and they all bring their kids with them, from babyhood on. Corrupt 'em early...." They walked over to the con suite. He slowly found himself relaxing into the rhythms of a convention. People waved at them and called them by name and hugged them. Some of them were people he couldn't recognize for the life of him, some of them people he only knew by reputation or from the net. It didn't matter. Like the song said, they were his 'thousand closest friends', even if they hadn't met yet. The fannish tradition dated back to the thirties and looked like it could just go on forever. But it was such a fragile community, really. What if Cancerman sent killers to a con like this? Who would know to resist, until it was too late? But if CSM was sensible, he wouldn't do it. There were too many people here who knew too much. There were filkers who worked with nukes and lasers. There were filkers who were anarchists. No, the Consortium might have good reason to leave them be. But if CSM -- or Langly -- envied anyone, it was the filkers who designed the spaceships, like Jordin Kare and Mitchell Clapp. Mulder'd said Krycek called the Consortium "the engineers of the future." Langly knew who deserved the title more. She was excited about something. "...and they're doing a new tape of space songs. So if you've got any to send to Eli, you should do it." "Does he want the ones criticizing NASA? Or the one about that little theaterpiece Armstrong ran in the desert?" Her expression oscillated between anger and amusement. Her sense of humor won. "That would be a no." She shook her head. "Heretic. Guess you won't be singing 'Hope Eyrie' tonight." Somebody passing by heard them and started singing, "For the Eagle..." With perfect harmony, she joined in. "...has landed..." And suddenly, everyone in the hallway became a choir. "Tell your children when. Time won't drive us down to dust again." Langly grinned. At least he could agree with the first few verses. "Worlds grow old and suns grow cold, And death we never can doubt." No shit. Not with Agent Scully's cancer. "Time's cold wind wailing down the past Reminds us that all flesh is grass -- And history's lamps blow out." He shivered at that line, as he always did, and stayed silent on the chorus. She caught his eye, worried. He smiled ruefully at her. Fandom prided itself on being a fellowship of people who understood each other as nobody else did. But even his best friends in fandom couldn't understand what was really going on. It was a lonely thing. "Cycles turn while the far stars burn And people and planets age. Life's round passes to younger lands. Time brushes dust of hope from his hands And turns to another page." The decline and fall of the American Empire. Would defeating the Consortium arrest his nation's terminal illness, or hasten it? Who could say? But "let justice be done, though the heavens fall." "But we, who feel the weight of the wheel When winter falls over our world, Can hope for tomorrow and raise our eyes To a silver Moon in the opened skies And a single flag unfurled." And once again, tears sprang to his eyes. God, if only it were true! If only the space program weren't founded on Nazi experiments on concentration camp victims, alien technology, and lies.... Like the man said, if it was a lie, it was "a lie breathed through silver." But the singers sang on, solemn now in their harmony after the jubilation of the verse before. "We know well what life can tell: If you would not perish, then grow!" And we face aliens, while we ourselves are trapped on one tiny world, helpless to escape whatever they and the Consortium have planned for us. "And today our fragile flesh and steel Have laid our hands on a vaster wheel." And yet, the very thought that some humans might be dealing with aliens gave him a little pride, a little sense of wonder. If they beat the Consortium, maybe they could send out someone with a little more guts and goodness to negotiate. Maybe we could get them to stop doing the experiments. Who knows? Maybe they just don't understand. Or maybe, having dealt with nobody but those crooks, they don't realize that we're worthy of respect. But someday they will. Even if we have to make them. "With all of the stars, do know That the Eagle has landed. Tell your children when. Time won't drive us down to dust again." Last verse. The singers switched, without conscious direction, from harmony to an intense unison. "From all who tried out of History's tide, Salute for the team that won!" And Langly, without conscious volition, found himself singing too. "And the old Earth smiles at her children's reach -- The wave that carried us up the beach To reach for the shining Sun." The harmony returned, as rich and beautiful as any ever made. Spontaneity and tradition were one, in a hymn even atheists could sing. Her voice was lovely as it twined around the others. But the light in her eyes, and theirs, was lovelier still. As even an atheist can love the songs of a childhood faith, so Langly loved this one. He sang with them all on both repeats of the chorus, though it broke his heart. He sang with them, because he wanted to believe. "Time won't drive us down to dust again!" Silence fell. They sighed a little at the magic they had made. Then they went their separate ways. Langly and his friend moved toward the consuite. But Langly couldn't stop smiling. Maybe it was all a lie. But these people he loved were real. As long as they were around, there was still good in the world. And if he called on them, they would join the fight as easily as they joined the song. For the first time in a long time, a little hope nested in his heart.