A QUESTION OF EMPATHY

by Sheila Paulson

(Based on the Fire and Water episode of Stargate SG-1)

This story was written for a fanzine called A Small Circle of Friends, in which the premise is to take the plot from an episode of one series and retell it using a different series.

    There were days when serving as secretary to New York's famous Ghostbusters had its share of perks: attending banquets in the guys' honor on Egon's arm, knowing she did her own bit--even if at a keyboard--to keep the world safe from ghosts and demons. A real rush came with a job where the adrenaline pumped. There had even been that great interview with Barbara Walters about what it was like to experience Ghostbusting from the inside. It had brought her all kinds of dates and offers of dates, and that had even made Egon a little jealous. She loved it.

    But then there were days like today, days where the downside hit with the force of a full particle stream to the chest.

    Janine Melnitz shivered. The guys were late. They'd said they'd only stay over in the Netherworld an hour, and it had been closer to four. She didn't have any way to rescue them; she could send Slimer over, assuming he didn't panic at the thought and head for the hills, and assuming he could find them and bring them back. The little green ghost was not a great thinker. Or she could put on a recall bracelet and have Slimer send her over the way she'd activated the molecular phase amplifier and sent them over. Sent them on what might be a one-way trip to hell.

    Ray said the Netherworld wasn't hell, that it was just a dark mirror of the real universe, and since a lot of demons lived there, it had a bad rep. Deservedly. Janine had never liked the idea of the guys visiting the huge realm that was as big as the known universe, a place that was full of ghosts and demons who automatically despised the Ghostbusters. But Egon and Ray were gung ho to do research there, so the team made periodic excursions to the dark dimension. Peter complained the whole time, but then Janine wouldn't know Doctor Venkman if he wasn't complaining. Winston just shrugged and muttered, "Uh-huh," but he went, too. Winston was a universal protector. Even though he hated the idea of demons more than the others did--she thought it offended his religious beliefs--he'd never leave the guys hanging if he could help them.

    Where were they? Why hadn't they returned? The bracelets they wore to link them to home hadn't been set for automatic recall; they might need to beat a hasty retreat if a major demon threatened them, so Ray and Egon had designed recall buttons into the bracelets to abort a timed sequence and allow them to return instantaneously in a crisis.

    But whatever crisis they faced hadn't let them do that. Janine paced up and down the lab. Who could she call to help when the Ghostbusters were in trouble? There were only two bracelets left behind, anyway. The guys always took a few spares with them, and they took forever to make, so there weren't that many extras. Even if she put on a proton pack and Slimer pushed the button to send her over, what could one New York secretary do against demons? The guys might be miles from the transfer portal. But she had to do something, so she put on her Ghostbusting jumpsuit and boots and checked the charge on the spare proton pack. The second Slimer showed up, she'd make him send her over. She had to do something.

    Just when she thought she'd go nuts with waiting, a hum of energy filled the room, followed by a glow of white light. As she watched breathlessly, particle thrower in hand, the guys materialized in the heart of the brightness.

    At least, three of them did.

    When the guys solidified and the light faded, they staggered, then, one by one, they collapsed to sit sprawled on the floor. Their jumpsuits were soaking wet, but that wasn't so bad as the utter devastation on their faces. She had never seen them look so desolate, so sickened, so tragic.

    So helpless. So guilty.

    Her stomach twisted up into a knot, and a cold chill tightened her scalp. "Egon? Guys? What happened? You've been gone for hours. Where's Peter?"

    Winston focused on her with difficulty. "Only gone a few minutes," he mumbled. "Pete...." He swallowed hard, but no more words would come.

    "Oh, gosh, Peter," wailed Ray. His eyes filled with tears, and Janine watched, horrified, as they spilled over and ran down his face. He didn't seem to notice. "I can't.... He...."

    Egon lifted his head and Janine flinched from the agony in his eyes. "Peter is...dead," he managed to say, then he yanked off his glasses and covered his face with his hands. His shoulders heaved with the force of a grief too profound to express in words.

    Janine stomped down the urge to fling her arms around him and hold him while he wept. That wouldn't help, not yet. He wouldn't want comfort; she had seen the self-reproach in his face.

    Instead, she wheeled and ran to the bunkroom to snatch blankets from the beds. Hastily, she draped them around the guys' shoulders. Only Winston seemed to notice but he couldn't raise the courtesy of a 'thank you'. He barely managed to bob his head in response. Ray shivered into the blanket so automatically Janine knew he was going on auto-pilot. Egon didn't react at all.

    Aching for Peter and for the other three, Janine snatched the phone and called 911. No matter what had happened, the guys were in shock and needed help. She didn't tell the dispatcher Peter was dead. She didn't want to say it in case the guys were somehow mistaken--only, how could they be mistaken, all three of them? When she hung up, she put in a call to the guys' personal physician, Greg Labraccio. The office didn't want to connect her but she insisted it was an emergency--nobody messes with Melnitz--and after a minute Greg came to the phone.

    "Peter's dead and the guys are in shock," she told him. "You've got to come over here to the firehall right now."

    When her words created a stunned silence on the other end of the phone, Janine remembered guiltily that Greg Labraccio was a personal friend of the team as well as their doctor. There were better ways of breaking news than that.

    Then Labraccio controlled himself. "I'll be there in fifteen minutes," he said. "Did you call the paramedics?"

    "First thing." She described their condition.

    "Try and get them out of their wet clothes," Greg told her. "Keep them warm, make sure there aren't any physical injuries. If you find any bleeding, try to stop it. Do that first."

    "I'll do what I can," she promised and hung up. Then she turned back to the three men who sat dazed and dripping on the lab floor. Later, she would mourn for Peter. He had been her pet annoyance, the only member of the team who had ever made her think longingly of homicide, but she loved him really. In some ways, Peter was the big brother she had never had.

    The four Ghostbusters were brothers in everything but blood. They had to feel so bad right now.

    She went to Winston first, not because she thought he'd suffer less than the other two, but because his Vietnam experience had taught him how to cope when buddies died. "Come on, Winston. Let's get you guys dry."

*****

    Greg Labraccio wasn't sure what to expect from Janine's call. A lab accident, a vicious ghost? He was positive he'd have to examine Peter's body and declare him dead, and he dreaded it. He wasn't sure when he'd slipped over from team physician to personal friend, but it had always been a never-stated, never-even-conceptualized fact that, of all the team, he felt closest to Peter Venkman. The psychologist had come from a background a lot like Greg's: unreliable father, overworked mother, who had held two and sometimes three jobs to make up for Greg's father's inability to stick with a job. Greg had meant to be a doctor all his life, but getting there had been tough. He'd succeeded in spite of his family situation, just as Peter had, and it made an unspoken bond.

    But Peter wasn't even there. "It happened in the Netherworld," Janine said as she led him upstairs. "He...died over there. They couldn't even bring him home."

    The paramedics were still at work when Greg arrived, and one of them was checking Ray's eyes with a penlight. Ray flinched away from it. "Too bright," he muttered fretfully. He sat with a thermal blanket bunched around his shoulders, and he was still shivering.

    "Your eyes are sensitive to light?" Greg asked sharply, and started running possible causes for that reaction through his mind.

    Winston nodded. "Greg. Yeah. Didn't notice at first. Hurts."

    Egon didn't react to Greg's arrival at all. He sat huddled in his blanket, oblivious to anything but his inner vision. Greg could tell it was a bad one. Egon was aching with an inner pain that overwhelmed everything.

    "Do you know what happened?" the doctor asked Janine in an undertone.

    Egon heard him. Somehow, that scared Greg more, not that he'd been overheard but that Egon could appear so far lost in his dark memories and still be aware.

    "It was a volcanic area," he recited as if by rote. "There was...a lake, an ocean. Water." His eyes went vague again and he shuddered.

    "Steam came up out of vents in the ground," Winston put in. "Nasty place. We thought maybe we ought to just come back and shift location."

    He was talking automatically, too. But then, the images must be indelibly etched in the team's minds. For years to come they'd probably see it every time they closed their eyes.

    Ray lifted his head. He looked confused and doubtful. "It can't be real," he begged. "It can't be real."

    Egon didn't even turn in response to that blatant display of pain. "Fire came up," he said. "It spurted out of the ground. Fire and lava. It boiled up."

    Greg saw where this was going. From the way his stomach churned he realized lunch had been a terrible idea. Beside him, Janine put both hands over her mouth, and her eyes glistened with tears.

    "He screamed," Egon said doggedly and automatically. "He screamed, 'Get back!" and tried to wave us to the water. I pushed Ray into the lake. There was no way to get to Peter." He sounded like a man reading a very boring book; there was no emotion whatsoever in his voice. "The flames...engulfed him." He choked back a sob, then he continued in that same flat voice. "He...screamed, 'Egon! Help me!'" It was eerie to hear Egon echo Peter's voice, the tone, the pitch, the desperate, pained agony. Then the blond's voice numbed once more. "I could do nothing. I could not configure the thrower to douse the flames. The water was too far away. He...the flames engulfed him. I tried to get to him. I tried."

    "I grabbed Egon and pulled him into the water," Winston admitted. He was shaking hard, great, wracking spasms. The blonde paramedic looked almost too young to have completed the EMT program, but she put another blanket around Winston's shoulders. Her eyes were full of pity and tears.

    "We couldn't save him," Ray whispered. "We tried. He was...."

    "Flames came up out of the ground, everywhere," Egon went on. "A massive eruption. We had to return. We couldn't even...retrieve Peter's bo--"

    He lost it then, shivering, his arms wrapped tight around his chest. Greg exchanged one miserable, strained glance with Janine, whose tears traced twin lines down her cheeks. Then he went to examine the three men. This was bad, maybe as bad as it could get. He wasn't sure if the remaining Ghostbusters could snap back from this, but he'd do all he could to help them, and he knew he could count on Janine to stick by them for as long as it took.

*****

    "He knows we tried," Ray whispered softly in the darkness. His voice was hoarse and miserable, and it cut through the numbness that Egon had wrapped around himself since Greg had decided the Ghostbusters didn't need to be hospitalized. He'd instructed them to go to bed, and told Janine to bring them hot food, to make sure they stayed warm, to be sure they slept. The doctor hadn't wanted to sedate them. There had been no evidence of physical trauma on any of them, not even minor reddened burn areas from the heat. Greg had promised to return later that evening to check them out. The light sensitivity had begun to ease by the time the doctor departed; Greg thought it was probably a result of the heat and fumes and that it would pass without leaving any permanent traces. Their vision was unimpaired, and he would test them again later tonight to be sure.

    Warmth and hot food had restored the three of them physically to the point where they no longer felt they were going to shake apart. Egon knew he was not feverish. But the hollow emptiness in his stomach had not gone away. He didn't think it would ever go away.

    "There was nothing we could do," Winston said from his own bed.

    The three men lay in the quiet darkness, and Egon was sure that they heard Peter's screams echoing in their ears, just as he did. Janine was still at the firehall; she'd told them she would stay overnight, to make sure that they were all right. As if we will ever be all right again, Egon thought bitterly.

    He had failed. There should have been a solution, a scientific solution, a way to set the throwers to extinguish the flames. Failing that, he should have accepted the danger of their proposed location immediately upon arrival and chosen to return to the firehall and try another place. He had detected only limited paranormal readings in the area, nothing worth studying, nothing at all. There had been no point in their visit, no point at all.

    "We will need to return," he heard himself say automatically. "To retrieve his body--" He chopped off the sentence as a fierce compulsion hit him and censored the words.

    "No!"

    "We can't!"

    The other two men's exclamations stunned him, as did his own automatic response. "What am I thinking? Of course we can't."

    A startled gasp from the doorway made him turn his head. Janine stood there, a tray holding three steaming mugs balanced in her hands.

    "Why not?" she demanded. "Because it's too dangerous? You owe it to Peter...." Her voice trailed off. "You guys sound so weird." And then her face fell. "I'm sorry. I know it's hard...."

    "We can't go back," Ray told her earnestly.

    "Yeah, Janine. That whole place was erupting." Winston sat up and wrapped his arms around his knees.

    Egon reached for his glasses and reluctantly put them on. The world was kinder when it was blurry. He would rather not face it, rather not think, rather not consider that stunned reaction to the thought of return. Peter...Peter might say they didn't want to return because of what they had seen there. That the trauma had been too overwhelming to face yet. Or even that they would not want to view what was...left of him.

    Egon shuddered. "Janine? May I have a drink of water?"

    "Of course, Egon." She deposited the tray on Peter's bed and fled to the bathroom to run the faucet.

    Egon followed her. He felt he owed her an explanation. He focused on that. Far better to dwell on cold, rational logic than to face the vast emptiness in his heart. We will mourn you, Peter. We will never forget you. Will you forgive us for allowing you to die?

    Janine turned on the water. "Janine, I...." Egon began. His eyes lingered on the water gushing out of the faucet, and it turned red as blood before his eyes, bubbling endlessly. He stared at it unseeing, hearing the churn of water, rising, rising, and Peter, deep in the heart of fire, screaming, writhing in pain.

    "Help me, Egon! Help me, Egon!"

    "Egon." Janine grabbed him by the arms and shook him furiously. "Egon? Egon!"

    He blinked, startled out of the shocking vision. "I...."

    "What's wrong? Egon, you went into a trance."

    "I saw...Peter."

    Ray crowded up behind him. "You saw him?" His voice quavered.

    "The water...." Egon gestured vaguely at the sink. "Raymond, I saw it happen all over again. It was so...real."

    "I know." Ray shivered. "I saw him, too. A little while ago. I saw him in the water...."

    "His ghost?" Janine's whole body quivered with shock.

    "No, girlfriend, not his ghost." Winston joined her in the bathroom door. He looked cold and shaken as he slung his arm around Ray's shoulders. "More like post-traumatic stress. Reliving it. It hit me, too, a while ago."

    "I'm gonna call Greg," Janine insisted. "You guys aren't okay." She caught herself and gazed at them sympathetically. "You know what I mean. I know you're not okay. None of us are. This can't be real. Peter can't be.... You're reacting to that. But it's more than that. You scared me, Egon. You looked like you were a million miles away. You didn't even hear me."

    "It was a flashback," Winston offered. He exchanged glances with Egon. "Believe me, I know. I had a few of them after Nam. Haven't had one for years, but this was like that. I was in here running water for my shower, and next thing I knew, I was in the Netherworld and Peter was...in the fire yelling, and all the while the water bubbled up around him."

    "That's what I saw," Ray blurted out. "It was red, just like blood."

    "That's it," Janine cried. "I'm calling Greg. You guys should be in the hospital after all. I mean, you're really out of it, spacing out like that. This can't be the first time. You said you were only over there a few minutes and you were gone for hours."

    Egon stared at her. "Hours? No, Janine, we were there no more than twenty minutes." He wasn't sure if it mattered; time could move differently in the Netherworld, after all. But it gave him a focus. Anything to tear his mind from the images of Peter's ghastly death.

    In all the years to come, when he remembered Peter, that would be the memory that would dominate. All the moments of their friendship would be burned away beneath the twisting flames that had consumed him.I cannot endure this. Peter, how could you die like that? How could we fail you the way we did?

    Ray frowned. "Uh, Egon, when we got back, I noticed my watch. I thought it was kind of weird because it matched what Janine said. But then I couldn't help thinking about Peter, and I forgot about it." He lifted earnest eyes to Egon, eyes that were reddened and full of pain.

    "You think that means something?" Winston asked doubtfully.

    "Only that we endured a time distortion," Egon replied. He wanted to focus on it, simply to tear his mind from the instant replay of Peter's death. It wasn't real. It couldn't be real. He could set up the trans-dimensional portal and view the Netherworld that way, locate the site and study it rather than jumping blind with the phase amplifier. It would be a safer way to return because they would be able to view the area, to determine whether the volcanic activity had died down. "Perhaps the trans-dimensional portal--"

    "NO!" cried Ray, and Winston shook his head fiercely.

    Janine's mouth fell open and she stared at them almost with disappointment. "Why won't you go back? Are you afraid you'd see...." She bit her lip and didn't finish what she was about to say. New concern flooded her eyes.

    Egon struggled for self-control. The mental picture of charred remains darted through his brain and he struggled to repress it. He owed Peter so much; he owed Peter his very mental health and rounded life. Before Peter, he had been no more than a lab geek, as unaware of the real world as a cloistered monk. There had been no world but study and science until Peter had thrust himself into Egon's life. He had begun by annoying Egon with his mouthy irreverence and ended by tickling to life Egon's dormant sense of humor and exposing him to the real world.

    And in the process, you showed Peter that friendship could be reliable, Egon, he told himself. At the same time, Peter taught you how much friendship could matter.

    "I'm sorry, Egon," Janine said in a small voice. She patted his arm. "It's just that you guys sound so funny, almost like you'reprogrammed not to go back."

    "Programmed?" Winston frowned at her. "That's crazy. How could we be programmed? It's just that flashback stuff. PTSD." He shivered and leaned against Ray as if for warmth. "Man, this is bad. I never thought we'd lose Pete like that."

    The firehall was so full of memories. Just an hour earlier, Egon had awakened from a restless nap to stare at Peter's bed. A crumpled shirt lay twisted on the pillow, coated with dried ectoplasm from a visit from the spud. Egon had smiled faintly at the sight. Peter would be furious when he realized Slimer had napped on his favorite shirt. He'd hit the ceiling, threaten to grab a ghost trap and nab the ghost. He'd rant and rave--

    Except that he couldn't. He was dead.

    Egon had risen from his bed and picked up the shirt. Then he stood there clutching it to his chest and shaking with reaction. Peter was dead. Was it normal to imagine his reaction, to believe he would stroll into the bunkroom at any second? He was dead--yet he couldn't be dead. He had to be alive.

    Wishful thinking, Egon?

    Egon shuddered. "I must set up the trans-dimensional portal. How else can Peter come home?"

    Janine sucked in a shaky breath that was halfway to being a sob. "Oh, Egon...."

    "He's dead, Egon," Ray wailed. "Peter's dead." Then he caught himself and knuckled his eyes fiercely. "But I don't believe it," he insisted. "I don't believe he's dead."

    "Oh, man," Winston groaned. "I don't, either."

    Janine hugged Egon hard. "I'm so sorry. I know how awful it is. But you...saw it happen. I don't want it to be real, either. I could never tell him, but I loved Doctor V. He drove me crazy, but even when he drove me crazy, I had to like him, even if I wanted to brain him." She buried her face in Egon's chest, and he brought up his hand to stroke her hair.

    When he spoke, his voice was thick and gummy. "Of course we would wish Peter to be alive, Janine. He was closer than a brother to me. We all loved him." He swallowed hard. It was difficult to talk when he wanted to curse and weep at the same time. "I...saw Peter die. I know he is dead. But a part of me is...just as certain that he is alive."

    Ray bobbed his head. "Gosh, yeah, Egon. I feel that, too." He blinked hard as his eyes filled. "But...isn't that kind of--normal? When my folks were killed in the accident, I was so mad when they told me. I said they were wrong and when Mom and Dad came home they'd give the guy holy heck for lying to me. Peter...Peter would say it's denial."

    Egon held onto Janine all the more tightly. He hoped she wouldn't realize that he wasn't hugging her for herself but because he couldn't hold Peter. "The stages of grieving," he said quietly. "I know, Ray. That is a natural thing. But this is different."

    "Yeah, man." Winston still had his arm around Ray's shoulders. Now he brought up his other hand and rested it on Egon's back, rubbing gently. "I went through it in Nam. Lost a few buddies there. This is worse." A tremor ran through his body. "I guess I just got closer to you three crazy scientists than I ever did the guys in Nam. But it's not even that. It's just that a part of my mind insists that Pete's alive. Only I know he's dead. Man, this is just tearing me up." He shivered hard.

    Janine eased free of Egon long enough to give Winston a comforting squeeze, then did the same to Ray. "Greg will be here soon," she soothed. "He said he'd stop by around eight. Then you'll be able to tell him about this. Let him help you. I know he can."

    "You don't believe us," Egon realized. "Do you, Janine?"

    She gazed up at him, and her bottom lip quivered. "I want him to be alive, too, Egon, just like you do. But you saw...." She couldn't go on.

    "Then why do I see him die every time we run water?" Egon asked, but he could not think past the question to discover any logic in it.

    I'm sorry, Peter. I just couldn't save you. If I could, I would have died in your place. Wherever you are, I hope you know that.

    But he had no sense of Peter's spirit or his presence, just the aching emptiness in the middle of his chest as if someone had surgically removed his heart and failed to replace it.

*****

    "Oh, man, I hurt. Egon, when you throw a party, you pull out all the stops." Peter Venkman groaned and opened his eyes. Then he blinked hard because he wasn't in his bunk at the firehall. The hollow echo of his words made the vast, stone chamber that surrounded him less surprising than it would have been if he'd sounded normal.

    It was a huge, round bowl of a place, carved from the living rock. Lighting came from glowing panels in the walls, a shimmering white light that didn't suggest electricity but instead something weird and strange, something unnatural, a ghost-light. Along one wall, a towering waterfall cascaded down with a sound like distant thunder, its spray glittering in the eerie illumination. The water filled a pool that churned with its beating force only to soothe away to gentle ripples where the water ran up against a stony bank.

    There was no furniture in the room besides a huge table that held a giant candelabra and a long, low platform that could have been a bench or a narrow bed. Peter was alone in the room.

    "Egon?" he called uneasily. "Winston? Ray?" Where the heck were the guys? What was he doing here all by himself? He hated that.

    When his friends failed to answer, he raised his voice and bellowed their names as loudly as he could. Where the heck was he? What had happened? Were his buddies okay? He couldn't remember what had happened. They had gone to the Netherworld, hadn't they? This was the kind of weird room you'd find in the Netherworld. It sure didn't look anything like Manhattan.

    He pushed himself upright. His proton pack and thrower were gone. Even worse, so was his recall bracelet. No chance of doing a 'Scotty, beam me up,' and sneaking out of this hellhole. Well, that was to be expected, wasn't it, especially if he'd run up against a nasty demon. At least there weren't any demons hovering around watching him. He didn't have a meter, either, so he couldn't check to see if any were lurking nearby. But he had no sense that he was under observation, just a certain knowledge that he was all alone.

    He was cold and wet, aching with the chill, but he didn't seem to be hurt. Cautiously he moved his arms and legs to be sure, and when that didn't cause any bones to come jutting out through his skin, he did a few jumping jacks to warm up.

    Then he started a systematic search of his prison.

    The first thing he noticed about the weird place was that there were no doors. Anyway, nothing obvious, nothing that he could spot on a quick scan. "And me without a thrower," he lamented. "Bummer."

    If there were any doors in the huge room, they were high overhead, out of range, and he couldn't see any possible openings. Great. The Netherworld version of the Hotel California. "'You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave,'" he caroled in what he fondly imagined was an approximation of the Eagles' Glen Frey.

    He raised his voice. "I don't think very much of your hospitality."

    As if in answer to the yell, the water churned more violently than before, and a second later, an entity popped out of the water and splashed up the bank to face him. Even without a P.K.E. meter Peter could tell the guy wasn't human. Instead, he looked like a fish with legs, with a narrow fishy face and long, drooping tentacles or feelers trailing down from his chin. He was green and scaly, and he had huge, yellow eyes that regarded Peter the way Peter would have stared at Saddam Hussein. Uh, oh, this is bad. Mikey doesn't like me.

    "Human," the entity spat like an epithet in a deep, throbbing voice.

    "Demon," Peter countered in precisely the same tone of voice. "Wanna make something of it?"

    "You will answer my questions--or you will die."

    "Wouldn't you rather make that a multiple choice question? I never went for the either/or option." What was it with demons anyway, that they had to go on power trips? You never met any nice, friendly ones who'd kick back and have a beer or watch a ball game with a guy. They always wanted to kill you or steal your soul.

    "I am no demon," the entity replied.

    "Well, you're not human and you're in the Netherworld, so what does that make you?"

    "I shall do the questioning here, not you. You will tell me at once the fate of Mellara."

    Peter stared at him blankly. "Uh, no offense, Fish-face, but what's Mellara? Who's Mellara? Never heard of him."

    "You lie," spat the fish-creature. "You lie. I see the knowledge is within you. You will answer my question or you will die."

    "If I die, I sure can't answer any questions," Peter reminded him uneasily. You couldn't argue with a guy like this. He had a one-track mind. Time to derail it, if he could. "Tell me what Mellara is, and maybe I can remember something." He doubted it. The name rang no bells in his mind at all. What made Fish-face so sure Peter knew the answer? Could he read Peter's mind? Had he already tried his trick question on the guys? Had he killed them? Peter made sure his worry didn't show on his face. "Before I say one word, I've gotta know where my friends are."

    "They have departed, returned to the human realm."

    Peter's stomach knotted. It didn't sound like a lie. "You're feeding me a story," he accused him. "They wouldn't take off and leave me. You sent them back, didn't you? What makes you think they won't come after me? They'd never abandon me. We look out for each other, all of us. That's something your kind could really stand to learn."

    "They did not abandon you, Human. One cannot abandon a dead man."

    Huh? Peter stared at him as he fought the growing uneasiness that filled him. "I hate to break it to you, bunky, but I'm not dead." He sneaked a hand to his wrist to check for a pulse. There it was, beating against his fingertips. Dead guys didn't have pulses. That would showhim.

    "You are dead--to them. For they believe you dead."

    Peter's stomach did another flip. "What did you do?" he challenged. "You showed them a fake body? They won't buy it for a minute. Egon could take readings and tell it wasn't me. You don't know the guys. They're the greatest. They won't give up on me. They'll figure it out." He believed that utterly. So long as the scaly guy hadn't finessed them so thoroughly they really believed it. He might not be a demon, but he was a weird entity and he was in the Netherworld. He was sure to have somepower.

    Fish-face smiled complacently. "They saw you die, consumed in flames. They believe it to be real."

    The words hit Peter like stones. "You messed with their minds?" he screeched. "You son of a bitch! You went too far, and they'll stillfigure it out. They'll be back for me, betcha."

    "No, for their minds are controlled. I am no demon but I am as powerful as the strongest demon in the Netherworld. It was as child's play for me to plant the vision in their minds. They returned to your world devastated, heartbroken, convinced they had failed to save you from the consuming fire. They do not matter now. You will tell me the fate of Mellara or the fire will be real."

    "Boy, nobody ever says 'please' anymore," Peter griped. He hated to imagine his friends' devastation. If he'd been made to believe that one of them had been burned alive before his eyes--well, he didn't want tothink about how lousy that would feel. "How do I know you didn't kill them?" he challenged.

    "Had I done that, I would have displayed their bodies for you. Tell me the fate of Mellara."

    "Tell me who Mellara is!" Peter yelled back.

    "She is my mate."

    Suddenly Peter realized the expression in the glowing yellow eyes wasn't all hatred and suspicion. Some of it was a great and terrible grief. The guy had lost his wife--and he was blaming Peter. Uh-oh. What if we zapped and trapped Mrs. Fish-face? I'm a goner.

    But he couldn't remember ever busting a ghost that looked like Fish-face. Sure, they saw a lot of ghosts and entities, but the guy confronting him didn't look remotely familiar. "Never saw her," he said hastily. His mental image of the guys watching his supposed death made Peter far less willing to help the guy out, but if Fish-Face cared about his mate as much as Peter did the guys, he had to be hurting.

    "Uh, you think we busted her?" he ventured uneasily. It wasn't exactly a concept he wanted to bring to the entity's attention. "When did she disappear?"

    "In your time, it would be nearly twenty years ago," the aquatic man replied.

    "Twenty years? Geez, we weren't busting ghosts that long ago. Wecouldn't have trapped her."

    "I know you are one of those humans called Ghostbusters. But you have not pursued ghosts long enough to have caused her disappearance."

    "I just said that," Peter reminded him. "So why do you think I know anything about her? This is nuts. Just because I'm a Ghostbuster, I'm supposed to know the fate of every ghost and demon who ever disappeared on Earth?" He caught himself. "On Earth? She disappeared on Earth? Not here in the Netherworld?"

    "She found your world fascinating. She studied it. Among our people, she was what you call a scientist. An...anthropologist, is that the term?"

    "Cultural anthropologist? Studying primitive tribes or something? Thanks a heap. So she's out to be your folks' Margaret Mead. Coming of Age in the Human Realm?" Demon anthropologists. Geez, what next? Demon rock stars?

    "It was her desire to learn of your kind," the entity replied.

    "Sort of a know-your-enemy thing?" Peter asked. This was too weird.

    "Humans were not my enemies until Mellara vanished," Fish-face replied. "We moved among you in secret, for you are primitive and fear what you do not know. Mellara thought to conceal herself among you."

    "You mean she could shapeshift?" Peter hazarded. Scaly ladies taking notes would tend to stand out in a crowd. All he wanted to do was solve this and get out of here so he could go home. God, he missed the guys. They were back in Manhattan, believing he was dead. Nobody rescues dead men. If the fire they had been made to see was big and nasty enough, they might not have even believed there'd be a body to retrieve. Even if they came back, how could they track Peter down in this underground chamber? The P.K.E. meters couldn't read through solid rock, even assuming they would set a meter to Peter's living biorhythms. Why should they even try something like that? They wouldn't expect to find him alive, unless they thought the readings would lead to his body. Even if they tried, biorhythms weren't very strong or reliable, and the meter would never track him here, even if this was right next door to the place where he disappeared. Wherever that was. Peter couldn't remember what had happened, how he'd been brought here, but it must have been through the water or he wouldn't have awakened soaking wet. Just ducky. Probably the only way out was to swim underwater, and who knew how far he'd have to go? Fish-face could probably swim a lot faster than Peter, and the guy had gills, for pete's sake. He could breathe the stuff. Peter might drown on the way out, and that wouldn't help anybody.

    Better to figure out what Mellara's fate had been and convince Fish-face to let him free.

    "Not as you mean it, shapeshifting," the entity replied. "But she could create an illusionary appearance, so that people would not view her as she was."

    "Okay, then, even if I met her, how the heck would I know who she was, if she didn't look like you?" Peter demanded. "I was just a kid back then. Well, a teenager. I didn't know the first thing about ghosts or demons or alien shapeshifters or whatever it is you are."

    "You know of her fate. It is in you."

    "How do you know that?" Peter challenged. "You say I know, but Idon't. Before I met Egon and Ray, I never gave paranormal stuff so much as a thought. You'd think if I had run into Mellara, I'd have remembered when we started busting, but I don't."

    "You will tell me the fate of Mellara."

    "I can't."

    "Then you will remain here and ponder until you do remember." He gestured to the wall beside the waterfall. "Nourishment is in that box. The water may safely be drunk. It is clean and fresh."

    "Yeah, 'specially since you've been frolicking in it," Peter muttered.

    "What is the fate of Mellara?"

    "I don't know."

    "You will remember or you will die here."

    "Geez, anybody ever tell you what a really sweet guy you are? You make my buddies think I'm dead, put them through hell, break their hearts. You threaten to kill me. Maybe Mellara just got fed up with a crummy guy like you and left you for a shoe salesman from Queens, you ever think of that?"

    The entity brought up his fist to slam Peter, but at the last moment, he pulled the blow. Shoulders quivering, either with rage, frustration, or grief, he stormed away to the water, dove in, and vanished.

    "That went well," Peter said brightly. Then he sighed and gave in to shivering. He had to get out of these wet clothes. Too bad he couldn't build a nice, warm fire in the middle of the stone room, but the table was made of stone, and there was nothing to burn. Even the candelabra didn't have any candles in it.

    He stripped down to his shorts, wrung out his jumpsuit, shirt, and jeans, then he put the clinging jumpsuit on. It felt nasty against his skin, but at least water wasn't trickling down his back. There had to be a way to warm up. He measured the place with his eyes, then he snapped his fingers and went around the room to check out the lowest light panel. It emitted a slight but steady warmth. With a sigh of relief, Peter leaned his back against it and wrapped his arms around his chest.

    "Damn it, Mellara, did I ever meet you?" he asked aloud.

    But that thought slid away. "Guys? I'm not dead. God, I hate it that you think I'm dead. Don't you give up on me. Don't blame yourself for what happened. It was never you, no matter what old Fish-guts made you think. The guy's desperate, is all. I don't know why he thinks I know what happened to his main squeeze, but I don't. God, I'd tell him if I could, just to get out of this place. I'd do anything to get home."

*****

    Morning brought no resolution or comfort. Ray didn't want to haul himself out of bed. Usually he jumped up eagerly, delighted to face a new day when anything might happen, when the team might experience new adventures. But today, the thought of any adventures only reminded him of Peter. God, Ray could see him struggling and twisting in the fire, see the flesh start to shrivel and melt--

    He jumped out of bed fast to prevent that memory from crystallizing. It was just awful. Poor Peter. To die like that, in such pain, yelling for Egon to help him. And the look on Egon's face when he heard Peter's voice screaming his name....

    Ray glanced over at Egon's bed, but it was empty and neatly made. Poor Egon, making his bed like that out of desperate habit. Worse, Peter's bed was incredibly tidy, too, the strewn clothes gone. Egon must have folded them up and put them all away. It broke Ray's heart to imagine it.

    Winston was still asleep and he didn't seem to be dreaming. Better leave him to it. At least when he was sleeping he wouldn't remember.

    Ray ventured to the bathroom and splashed water in the sink.

    Red bubbles rose up before his eyes, and the bathroom drifted away as the image of the dying Peter superimposed itself over the faucet. Ray gaped at it in astonishment. It was so real, sucking him in, forcing him to relive it over and over.

    An arm reached past him and turned off the water. He gasped and blinked hard in an attempt to clear his vision, and rubbed his hands up and down his arms to warm himself.

    "You saw it again, didn't you?" There was a heaviness in Winston's voice.

    Ray nodded. He couldn't quite bring himself to turn around and meet Zeddemore's gaze. "It was the water. I saw it in the water. I saw Peter."

    "Yeah, I know. I dreamed it all night long. Never mind washing up. That can wait. Where's Egon?"

    "I think he's in the lab." Ray shivered.

    The two men headed for the lab only to halt in the doorway. Egon had uncovered the trans-dimensional portal, and it stood humming away, fully activated. Egon watched it with the uneasy fascination he would bestow upon a coiled snake, drawn and repulsed at the same time.

    There were two different devices that would allow the Ghostbusters to transition into the Netherworld. One was the molecular phase amplifier, a device Ray had designed that sent out an energy field to phase them into the other dimension, from which they could return through the use of specially designed recall bracelets. That was what they'd used the previous day. Egon's present device was an actual portal that was designed to open a gateway into the Netherworld. When the team was first developing it, a terror dog had managed to break through into the lab, so Egon and Ray had designed a series of redundant safeguards. Nothing could pass into the lab unless they shut down a protection field. Once it was down, they could cross over to the other side and could return the same way. It wasn't safe to use to travel over for more than a few minutes since entities could sense its energy field and come through, and unless someone remained in the lab to shut down the field and then reopen it for the guys, they might return from their excursion to find a demon or two in possession of the firehouse.

    The protection field was up now, but Egon stood near the device, his hand hovering near the controls. He was fully dressed in his usual suspendered pants and shirt, his hair neatly combed. Unlike Ray and Winston, he had shaved, but then one didn't need to run water to use an electric razor.

    As Ray and Winston approached him, something moved in the portal's field of view, and all three men stiffened to attention.

    "Peter!" Egon cried with elation and reached out to press the button that lowered the field.

    Ray's heart surged with joy. It was okay. Peter was coming back. He heard Winston draw a sharp breath.

    Then the field cleared and they realized it wasn't Peter at all, but an entity, a tall, lean being with a triangular face and a forked tail. A typical minor demon. It stared at them through the transition field, then it made a gesture that was unfamiliar but probably obscene and sidestepped out of their line of sight. Egon yanked his shaking hand away from the control switch.

    Ray patted Egon on the shoulder. "Gosh, Egon, for a second I thought it was Peter, too."

    "Yeah, me too," agreed Winston. He slammed his fist down on the table. A row of Petri dishes jumped from the force of the impact.

    Janine burst breathlessly into the lab. "What are you doing? I heard you yell Peter's name." She stopped dead and stared at the three men who met her gaze guiltily. "You've got that thing connected. You guys are not going over there. You're in no shape for it."

    "We must," Egon said. His mouth formed a stubborn line.

    "Yeah, we have to." Ray frowned, then he shook his head. He heard himself speak urgently, driven by an inner compulsion he couldn't understand. "But we can't."

    "I know we can't," Egon agreed. He caught Ray's eye, frowning. "There is something in me that will not allow it." His perplexity was tinged with anger. Egon would hate to find himself in a situation where he didn't understand what he was doing.

    "You're still getting those mixed signals?" Janine sighed gently and then smoothed out her voice to its most protective mode. "Greg said it was natural to be confused and upset. Anybody would be, and it's probably worse for you guys because you're all so close." She shivered. "I miss Doctor V."

    "We all do, Janine," Winston agreed.

    Egon swallowed hard. "But we won't tell him you said so, Janine." Then he heard what he'd said. "This is ludicrous. I simply cannotthink." He sucked in his breath so hard he winced. "I can't think of anything beyond...beyond the sight of Peter...dying." He turned away and fumbled with the directional controls on the portal.

    Janine bled for him. She bit her bottom lip as she reached out her hand to him and then drew it back. Ray caught her eye and shook his head. He knew Egon wasn't ready for comfort. When he was younger, Ray had played guilt games but he'd mostly outgrown it. He knew there was nothing for them to be guilty about. It was just a fluke that Peter had been standing where he was. The throwers weren't designed to put out fires; any setting strong enough to quench the blaze would have vaporized Peter where he stood, and he would be just as dead, only at their hands. It might have spared him the agony of the fire, but none of them could have done it, even if they'd thought of it. Surely Egon didn't feel guilty because he hadn't spared Peter those moments of incredible agony before he died. He'd been in shock. He'd probably never thought of it. Ray sure hadn't until now.

    Oh, gosh, Peter. Ray's eyes ached with tears that he couldn't allow himself to shed. If only he didn't feel that they were letting Peter down. If only there were an answer, a way for it to be wrong. If only it were a nightmare that they could wake up from and find their lives back to normal.

    Without Peter, how could their lives ever be normal again?

    In the end, it was Winston who draped an arm around Egon's shoulders. "Come on, big guy, have you had breakfast yet?"

    "Breakfast?" Egon whirled and spun away from the comfort of Winston's touch. "I don't want breakfast, damn it!" He flung out his arm and sent the row of Petri dishes spiraling off the table to the floor, where they smashed into pieces.

    Ray flinched. The abrupt, savage gesture was so unlike Egon. He never lost control like that.

    But then, he'd never had to endure Peter's dying before.

    Egon drew back, right up against the counter, and he looked like he'd have kept on backing up if it hadn't halted him. "I can't go on with this," he muttered. "We'll have to maintain the containment grid, of course, but I think the time has come to close down the business."

    "Egon, no." Ray felt his mouth drop open as he stared at Egon. "Wecan't." Okay, maybe he could understand how Egon felt. Busting wouldn't be the same without Peter. How could they find the same joy in chasing ghosts that they'd reveled in when the team was whole?

    "I'm tired, Ray," Egon said, and there was no expression on his face, no emotion in his voice. "I can't go on doing this, not without Peter. It wouldn't be the same. I'd endanger the rest of you." Gosh, he looks so defeated. Ray knew he felt just as bad, but he was scared, too. They couldn't quit. Then they'd have nothing left.

    "It's too soon, Egon," Ray pleaded with him. "You can't decide now. You're not--we're not right. We're seeing things that aren't here. We're still in shock, you know we are. Please, don't decide anything now."

    "Peter wouldn't want you to quit, Egon," Janine offered in a small voice. She fetched a broom from the corner and started to sweep up the broken glass automatically.

    "Don't you presume to tell me what Peter wanted," Egon exploded.

    Janine gasped and drew back. She dropped the broom. Winston shot out his hand and caught her fingers up in his. "Easy, Janine," he soothed. He nodded at Ray to deal with Egon then he bent to retrieve the broom.

    Ray heaved a shaky sigh. "Egon, look at us. We're still in pieces. Please. Just wait. Give it time. Please, don't say anything right now." He lunged at Egon and hugged him hard. "I know how much you're hurting, because I'm hurting just as much. It isn't real. We can't believe it yet. But we have to do what Peter would want us to do. We owe him that. And you know the last thing he'd ever want was to have his death destroy the team. It would just break his heart. I know it would." Ray wasn't sure where he found the courage to speak. He thought it came from the place deep inside him that believed Peter was alive, even though they'd all seen him die. "We can't let this destroy us," he repeated stubbornly.

    Egon drew back, but gently to show that he didn't intend it as a rejection. Yet his words were as much a rejection as anything. "His death already has," Egon said in a tone that Vulcans everywhere would have applauded for its utter, unfeeling logic. "It already has." Then he turned his back on Ray and returned to the trans-dimensional portal.

    "NO!" cried Ray. "It can't. No matter how much we miss Peter, we'll destroy his memory if we do this. Please, Egon...." He grabbed Egon by the shoulder.

    Egon flinched as if Ray had stuck a knife into his heart. For a long moment, he stood there, his head bent, then he turned around, and his eyes were alive again, but alive with a terrible pain he could no longer sublimate.

    "I'm sorry," he breathed. "Guys, Janine, I'm sorry."

    The four of them lunged together and held onto each other while the pain flowed through them. They had to take what comfort they could from each other, because it was all they had left.

    None of them saw the aquatic being staring at them through the portal as they tried to soothe and reassure each other. It watched them impassively, then its scaled brow furrowed and a question filtered into its glowing yellow eyes.

*****

    "Laaaadieeees and Gentlemen! Step right up! Be the first to win a prize! Gents! Prove you're a sharpshooter. Win your lady a prize! Ladies! You can outshoot Annie Oakley. Come one, come all!"

    Peter dreamed, a series of restless dreams, not of the creature, not of the guys, but of his father, of his youth, mingled with a series of nasty nightmares of terror and violence. In the main dream he found himself back in the carney he'd worked the summers after his junior and senior years in high school. His father had been there part of the time, skipping in and out of Peter's life, and Peter, feeling adult and free, had reveled in the carney life and the intermittent attention his father paid him. Even then, he knew that it wasn't what he wanted for always, but for a while, he was on the road, exploring America, exploring life, ogling girls, jingling coins in his pocket. It had been good.

    Or had it?

    He never remembered those days anymore.

    The splash of water roused him from his restless dreams and he sat up hastily on the hard stone bench and darted a wary glance at the water. No sign of the entity. The big stone cavern was unchanged.

    It had really happened. He was a prisoner in the Netherworld, and the guys thought he was dead.

    He hadn't wanted to sleep, but he was exhausted. By the time he'd dried his clothes enough against the light fixture to make them endurable, his wristwatch informed him it was nearly midnight. Cold and aching with fatigue, he had searched out the food Fish-face had promised, disgusted to find it was hard squares of a breadlike substance, practically inedible. "Ya could've at least put granola in it," he'd shouted, but Fish-face didn't come back and offer him prime ribs. He'd choked down a couple of bricks of the stuff, ducked in the water. He drank some of it, too, even though the thought of the scaly monster frolicking in it put him off. But he needed water to survive.

    When he looked around for a place to sleep he saw what he hadn't noticed before, a rough blanket spread across the end of the stone bench. There was a folded mat under it, hardly thick enough to replace a Sealy Posturpedic, but better than sleeping on the bare stone. Fish-face must not believe in pillows. Peter folded his shirt and jeans to use instead. He'd huddled up under the blanket and dozed nervously, restlessly, fighting off the dreams.

    The worst of the nightmares had been a vicious pursuit. Torch-bearing villagers with shotguns chased Peter through a forest, every now and then loosing pot-shots at him. He could hear their vicious cries. "Over there." "No, that way." "Blast him." The blasts rattled the bushes. He was glad to drift into the kinder dreams of the carney after that.

    Fish-face wasn't here. Only good thing the morning had going for it. Peter grimaced and went over to the chest that held stale breakfast. It hadn't been replenished, just the crummy wafers he hadn't been able to force down the night before. "I'm eating this crap under protest," he hollered. "I bet I'd get better food in a POW camp." He chewed wearily. "Come to think of it, this is a POW camp--or a jail. You ever hear of the Geneva Convention? Yo, Fish-face! Front and center!"

    "I am Karst, not 'Fish-face'. And you are Peter."

    He whirled to find the entity standing beside him. "How do you know who I am?"

    "I met you and your friends. They will not remember it, nor do you. I asked in good faith after Mellara and you tried to blast me."

    Had they? Peter frowned. The guy would probably have given off negative valence readings right and left. But the guys didn't usually blast at first sight, unless this Karst guy had acted threatening--and he'd done that to Peter from the first. Talk or die weren't exactly the two greatest options in the world, not when he couldn't come up with the answers required.

    "Well, you messed with their minds and threatened to kill me. We're not exactly thrilled with you. Besides, I've told you and told you, I don't know anything about Mellara."

    "You are human. She vanished in the human world."

    "Yeah, and there are billions of other people there that I never met, either."

    "You know Mellara's fate. I can see it in your mind."

    Peter frowned. "You messed with the guys' minds and made them think I was dead. What's stopping you tromping around in mine and taking it out, even if I can't remember?" That had puzzled him from the first.

    Fish-face looked shocked. "It could kill you."

    "I hate to remind you, but you've been saying all along that you'd kill me if I didn't talk. So what's the deal here?" Had Karst been bluffing? Was he bluffing now? Peter tossed down the stale wafer he'd been trying unsuccessfully to pretend was hot toast with butter and peanut butter. "Level with me. If you're gonna kill me anyway, why not take what you want from my mind? You didn't mind messing with the guys."

    "I did not hurt them. I merely implanted an image. It is not painful and it will, in time, dissipate."

    "Not painful?" Peter screeched. "They think I'm dead, and you think it's not painful? Just like it wouldn't be painful to you to find out that Mellara had died, that's how not painful it is. You son of a bitch, you put my buddies through hell! And you claim it's not painful. If we tried to blast you, we had good reason."

    Karst didn't reply immediately. Peter couldn't read his expressions; he wasn't used to fishy faces being expressive, but the muscles bunched on the bony face, and the eyes shuttered themselves. "There is...much in what you say," he admitted after a moment. "I sensed knowledge of Mellara in you, and all reason fled. I have sought her these many years, but could find no trace of her. You are the first hope I ever had."

    Peter stomped down reluctant sympathy for old Fish-face. After what Karst had done to his friends and the way he'd threatened Peter, it was pretty hard to get into the guy's head. But Peter knew without any explanation what his three friends were going through right now. Had they called his dad and told him? Had they even thought of that? Were they still in shock? If Karst was reluctant to take knowledge out of Peter's head because it might hurt him, what would his actions do to the guys? Even if Fish-face said it wouldn't hurt them physically, Peter didn't know that was true.

    "Yeah, well, I can't remember anything about Mellara," he said stubbornly. Nobody hurt his friends and got away with it.

    He avoided the thought of the guys, who were, in some way, in Karst's position. What would they do to seek word of Peter? They'd threaten to blast an entity, wouldn't they?

    He didn't want to think of that, or of the pain in Karst's yellow eyes when he spoke of his lost mate.

    Jangled memories of his nightmares ran through Peter's head. Running and running, no escape. Slipping through the tangled branches, his breath short and choppy as the townsmen pursued him. He blinked hard and turned away from the thought.

    "You loved her, huh?"

    "More than my own life."

    Dammit, he didn't want to feel sympathy for the guy. He knew what it was like to put other people first. He'd far rather face his own death than that of his friends. He'd done that before, jumped in to protect them in a crisis. Never quite figured out if it was altruistic or selfish of him to do it, and it didn't matter. The guys were his family, his friends, and he'd save them even if it meant he went down himself. Here was this weird fishy entity claiming the same depth of commitment. What would Peter threaten to save his friends?

    "Look, can you take this mental thingy off them?" he asked.

    "If I were to do that, they would know what had happened, and they would come to kill me. I would never learn of Mellara, and I cannot die without the knowledge of her fate." He stared at Peter, desperation in every line of his body.

    "Then let me go."

    "I cannot do that, either, not when you contain the knowledge I seek."

    "Then take it," Peter yelled. "I don't want to stay here and I can't remember. I've tried and I can't."

    "It would...damage you. It might kill you."

    Peter glared at him. "Well, I'd rather be dead than never see my friends again. They already think I'm dead. I can't hurt them worse than I already have."

    Karst stared at him, hope and doubt warring in his eyes. "You mean that?"

    "Yeah, I mean it. It isn't positive that it would kill me, is it?"

    "I would try to be careful. But I must know."

    Peter hesitated. He was scared but he suddenly thought of a complication. "It might not do you any good. Even if I remembered, Mellara might be dead. Besides, you said what you did to the guys would wear off. Once it does, they'll be back, and if I'm dead, they'll zap and trap you."

    "That would not matter. I would know of Mellara's fate--and if you had died, I would deserve it."

    "So you're gonna throw away both our lives to find out about Mellara."

    "Would you not do the same for Egon, for Ray, for Winston?"

    Shit, that wasn't a fair question. Peter hesitated, even though both of them knew the answer. "Yeah," Peter said softly. "For them--anything. Okay, do your stuff. If it doesn't kill me, will you let me go?"

    "You have my word of honor."

    Peter paused again. He looked the fishy entity right in the eye. They'd gotten down to the essentials awfully damned quick. He knew it wouldn't be easy. If he survived, if he was able to return home, and the guys remembered what had really happened, if they knew Peter had notdied by fire, they'd still remember witnessing it. That would be rough. Karst could probably mess with their minds and remove the memory, but Peter didn't want him to play around in their heads any more than he'd already done. If removing memories could kill, he couldn't take a chance, even if it would have helped them to live with what had happened. He wouldn't mess with their minds, even if Karst saw no wrong in it. Never.

    But he saw sincerity in Karst's eyes, and he believed it. The guy was mostly bluster, but bluster out of love. Never mind how many crimes took place every day in the name of love. But Peter shuddered to imagine going for nearly twenty years unable to learn the fate of his friends. He'd probably have ridden a lot more roughshod over somebody who claimed not to know what had happened to them.

    "Okay then. Do it."

    If I die, guys, I wish I could tell you first how much you've meant to me. I wouldn't do this if there was any other choice. But I hope you find out someday that the image you got wasn't real, that I took this step with my eyes wide open. Maybe it'll make it easier.

    Who was he kidding? It never got easier. All he wanted to do was go home. Maybe it wouldn't kill him. He sure couldn't hope to override Karst's fixed purpose. The guy had gone nearly twenty years with one single objective. That he was endangering one human and playing with the minds of three others was probably small potatoes.

    Goodbye, guys. Don't forget I love you.

    Peter sighed and braced himself for death.

*****

    Water bubbled up, blood red, with Peter in the heart of it. "Help me, Egon! Help me, Egon!"

    "Egon, wake up."

    Spengler jumped, shaken from the trance, and looked around at Ray, who sat despondently at the lab table, flipping the pages of Tobin's Spirit Guide. "Oh. Ray. I did it again, didn't I?"

    Stantz nodded. "We're all doing it. Egon, this is crazy. I think we've got Greg worried. He didn't look happy with us when he came by this morning."

    Egon knew that. He could imagine the doctor planning to schedule psych exams for them. He didn't want it to come to that, but the torturous images weren't going away, any more than the growing conviction that Peter was alive, even if they knew he was dead. Only half an hour earlier Egon had caught himself returning to Peter's closet and removing the shirts he'd tidied away. He'd put them back on the bed, exactly the way Peter had flung them down. When he'd turned, he'd seen Winston watching him, but Winston didn't say anything. He'd just met Egon's eyes for a long moment of shared unhappiness and confusion, then he'd turned away to allow Egon his privacy.

    Winston stood in the doorway now, leaning against the door frame. "He wants to haul us off to Bellevue," Zeddemore offered.

    "We are behaving abnormally. Although I cannot alter it, I can see it," Egon returned.

    Ray erupted to his feet. "Abnormally! How the heck does he expect us to behave? Peter's dead." The sudden anger drained out of him and he repeated miserably, "Peter's dead." Then he shook his head. "I...I'm sorry, guys, I just can't believe it. Peter can't be dead. He can't be."

    "We saw it...." Egon began, then an idea struck him and he erupted to his feet. "I am a complete and utter fool."

    The other two stared at him openmouthed. "Huh? What?" Winston asked.

    "You thought of something, didn't you, Egon?" Ray's eyes widened eagerly. "What?"

    "This." Egon lunged across the room and snatched up his P.K.E. meter. "I took no readings when we returned yesterday. We are Ghostbusters. We were in the Netherworld. Our behavior has been peculiar. Why do we assume that it is simply trauma and grieving?" He caught himself. "Not that Peter's death would fail to evoke such reactions, of course. But suppose there is more?" He twisted the meter's dials to alter the setting, then he lifted the detection device and aimed it at Ray.

    The screen reacted, but reacted oddly. Egon had half expected it, but seeing it proved there was something to his theory. "Raymond, I am detecting a strange valence to your biorhythm readings. These are completely abnormal."

    "Say what?" Winston blurted. "Abnormal how? Are we all like that?"

    Egon scanned each of them and he picked up the same spikings in each separate reading. "Hmmm." His brain worked furiously. Was it possible that what they had 'seen' was not real, that Peter's death had not taken place? Suppose the vision had been imposed, triggered to reinforce itself with the stimulus of running water? Was it in fact an ectoplasmic form of hypnosis or programming?

    "I theorize we have had our minds interfered with, gentlemen. These readings suggest the layering of additional energy over our mental pathways."

    Ray slammed Tobin shut. "They messed with our heads!"

    "So it would appear." It was hard to restrain himself. He was furious. How dare they interfere with his mind? And what did it mean? Was that why they all were so certain Peter was alive in spite of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary?

    "So how do we unmess them?" That was Winston, always practical.

    Egon ran possibilities through his mind. "The simplest means would be to use a ghost trap to draw off the additional psi energy. It is not integrated with our biorhythms, simply layered on top of them. If we could do that, it should free us from the constraints."

    "You mean turn the traps on ourselves?" Ray bounced. "Wow! I bet that'd work, Egon. If there's psi energy added to us that's influencing us, it should be possible to suck it right on out, especially if we configured a trap to the exact settings you're getting. I know we don't set traps specifically very often, but we can."

    "Precisely." He looked around the lab. "One trap should be sufficient. The energy is not as high as that of a complete entity, and, as you know, the traps are powerful enough to hold more than one ghost." He went over to the cabinet where they stored unused traps and removed one. "Will you adjust the trap settings, Raymond? I'll read you the figures."

    Ray fetched his precision tools from the drawer and made careful adjustments as Egon checked the meter settings and relayed the necessary information.

    Winston edged closer and watched over Ray's shoulder. "So, you're saying whatever this extra p.k. energy is blocked our minds? Made us think a false picture was real? That Peter didn't die in a fire."

    "Precisely." Egon relayed the last figure to Ray, then turned to Winston. "What I just detected is a thin layer of psi control that must be designed to implant a false image in our minds. Judging by the strength of the readings, I would estimate that it is not a permanent condition and I believe it would have worn off in several days' time even if we had done nothing. But of course by that time, Peter might be...beyond our help."

    Winston grimaced. "He might be beyond our help right now, Egon. You've gotta know that." The role of doomsayer sat heavily upon his shoulders. Egon could tell he didn't want to say it, but all of them knew it needed to be said. It made no difference in what they had to do, however. If there was one chance in a million that Peter could be saved, then that chance must be taken.

    Ray waved the screwdriver excitedly. "No, I don't think so. If Peter were really...dead, there'd be no need to implant memories in us. He could show us Peter's actual death, not a false image. I think he wanted Peter for something, and he didn't need us in the way trying to rescue him. Gosh, when I think of how much time we've wasted...."

    "The programming hasn't worn off, Raymond. I believe there is still time to rescue Peter." He did believe it, but he didn't understand why Peter had been wanted and not the rest of them. Would any Ghostbuster have done? Vague images troubled him, too fuzzy to focus upon, too nebulous to grasp. He also believed that their time was limited. Their growing belief that Peter lived was proof of that. "Hurry, Ray. I'll set up the molecular phase amplifier. We'll need several spare retrieval bracelets. Peter must have lost his or he would have been able to return on his own."

    This may be a forlorn hope, but I will not yield a chance of retrieving Peter.

    While Egon brought out the phase amplifier, mounted it, and checked the settings, Winston took out the bracelets and activated them.

    "We'll need to tell Janine," Egon said as he connected the power cable. "I shall do that." Instead of going downstairs, he went out to the firepole and shouted down, "Janine! We need you in the lab!" the way Peter would have done. He heard a startled, "Egon?" in return.

    "I'm ready," Ray cried. "Gosh, if this works, we'll know Peter's okay."

    "We'll know he most likely didn't die in fire," Egon corrected. "But if he is still alive, an entity powerful enough to interfere with our minds has Peter in his power. We must hurry."

    They heard Janine clattering up the spiral steps and the three of them waited for her to burst into the lab. "What's wrong?" she gasped and stood there in the doorway, her chest heaving as she caught her breath.

    "Here, Janine." Ray thrust the prepared trap at her. "We're kinda possessed. Egon just figured it out. We need you to aim the trap at us and open it."

    Her eyes flashed vivid blue then narrowed suspiciously. "You're kidding, right? Possessed? How come you didn't know before?"

    Egon went to her and took her by the shoulders. "At first, we were too shocked and stricken to consider taking readings. My oversight entirely. I should have considered that from the beginning. But perhaps it was not possible, simply part of the programming. We theorize the control was continually reinforced by the use of running water as a trigger."

    Her mouth rounded into an 'O'. "So that's why you guys have all been spacing out? It's not post-traumatic stress after all? Egon, are you sure?"

    "Not about the trigger, although that is a logical extrapolation, considering that running water has served to trigger most of our flashbacks. But I am certain about the psi influence. If only I'd thought to take readings last night. Peter might not have had to wait so long."

    "Peter might-- Wait a minute. Are you saying Peter's alive? Really? Or you just hope he is?"

    "We hope he is," Ray admitted. "But we all have this feeling that he's not dead even if we...saw him die." He gulped. "Gosh, if some demon made us think that to get rid of us, what's he been doing to Peter while we wasted all this time?"

    "You didn't know you were wasting time," Janine told him stoutly. "You guys were messed with. That's why you've been acting funny. I knew you weren't going crazy. I just thought you felt bad because of--of what happened to Peter and that it was so nasty you had that post-traumatic thingy. Let me at that trap." She snatched it from Ray and let the trigger pedal fall beside her foot.

    Egon focused the meter to read the specific energy he'd detected. "Now, Janine," he ordered.

    She held the trap out before her like a catcher's mitt and stomped her foot down on the trigger. Hastily Egon averted his eyes from the trap's white-hot glow of light. Ray squeezed his eyes closed and Winston turned his head away.

    Abruptly, Egon felt a fierce suction in his mind, and it staggered him. For an instant, the lab spiraled around before his eyes, producing a nasty sense of vertigo that nearly toppled him over onto the floor, but it faded immediately. He heard Ray gasp and Winston groan, "Whoa!" A curious mental popping sound followed the sensation of suction, then it was gone, and he was whole and free. A glowing energy shot out of his forehead directly into the trap, and he saw similar clouds of power desert Ray and Winston at the same moment. The three men automatically grabbed for each others' arms to keep their balance, then the trap's doors meshed shut, and the room seemed dim as the white brilliance died. Egon blinked against the afterimages.

    "Oh, gee! Peter!"

    Ray's anguished cry rang through the room. And Egon remembered.

    The steam was hot, gushing up at random through the cracks in the earth, and it reeked of sulphur. Egon grimaced at the smell, and Peter smarted off, the way he always did.

    "You'd think they'd toss out the rotten eggs. Gotta say I don't give them points for housecleaning."

    "It's not a house, Peter, it's a volcano, I think," Ray corrected with a quick grin. "Boy, it smells nasty, doesn't it?"

    Peter did a double-take at Ray's explanation. "Volcano! Then let's haul ass outta here. Lava and I don't get along."

    "Look at that lake." Winston waved his hand at the vast body of water that spread out before them. "Or is it an ocean?"

    "Perhaps an inland sea," Egon replied.

    "Let's cut the geography lesson and hit the recall buttons. Little Petey Venkman doesn't want to be charbroiled."

    The memory of those words sent a stab of pain through Egon, although he knew the image of Peter dying so horribly had not been real. Strangely, that realization didn't take away the pain the image evoked.

    "Hey, guys, what's that?" Ray pointed out to sea where the water churned--in a straight line, headed right for the guys.

    Peter whipped out his particle thrower. "Whatever it is, it probably won't want to eat protons. I just hope it doesn't like to eat Ghostbusters. Hey, Egon, think it's carnivorous."

    "No, wait, don't fire. Let's see what it is, first." Ray craned his neck for a better view, just as a weird entity popped up out of the water. "Wow!" Stantz blurted. "Take a look at that!"

    Egon took an immediate reading. "Class Seven, with a strong negative valence, minus eight."

    "The Bogeyman was minus nine," Ray reminded them. "Gosh, this one must be nearly as powerful."

    "You had to say it, didn't you, Tex?" Peter balanced on the balls of his feet. His face was taut, and he was ready to fire the second the weird fish-creature did anything threatening.

    But Ray waved at the entity. "Hi, we're the Ghostbusters. We're just visiting."

    "Only Ray," Winston muttered fondly. He had his thrower at ready, too.

    "Humans," murmured the alien. "Humans do not come here. How is this possib--" His voice broke off abruptly and he turned to stare at Peter the way an entomologist might study a butterfly on a pin. "You have the knowledge I seek."

    "I do?" Peter echoed doubtfully. He exchanged a confused glance with Egon, who shrugged. "What knowledge you talking about, bunky?" He added more quietly, "Don't know what he means, guys. I never saw this dude before in my life." The splash of the creature leaving the surf covered his words.

    Egon stared at the being in fascination. There were gills on his neck, just like a fish, but he was no merman with a fishy tail. He walked upright on two legs and was man-shaped, except for his head, which was long and narrow with twin feelers trailing down on either side of his chin. Green and scaly, he was evidently amphibian in nature. He wore a fitted tunic and leggings of a color similar to his greenish scales. Now that he was out of water, it was clear that he could breathe air as well as water. A fascinating entity, but one possessed of a high level of p.k. energy.

    "You know the fate of my mate," the scaled creature replied to Peter's question.

    "Mate? Never met her. I never saw anybody who looks like you before. Sorry I can't help you."

    "You will help me," snarled the Class Seven, its face twisted with anger. "I must have this knowledge. You will not defy me."

    "Not trying to defy you, Fish-face. Just telling you I don't know what you're talking about. You must have me mixed up with some other incredibly handsome guy."

    "Don't taunt him, Peter," Egon warned under his breath. "He is deadly serious. He believes you possess the information he seeks." He was afraid Peter would set off a murderous rage in the entity--and fall victim to it. Quickly he tucked away his meter and drew his own thrower.

    Ray had his out already, but he'd put on his 'let's-make-peace' face. "Gee, we'd help you if we could, but you must have Peter mixed up with somebody else. If he knew what you were talking about, he'd help you. It must be awful not to be able to find your mate. But we've never picked up readings like yours before. We never trapped her, I give you my word of that."

    No one could doubt Ray's sincerity. It radiated off him so strongly it was almost tangible. But the entity glared at them balefully, unimpressed. "You may not lie, but he does. He conceals what I must know. This cannot be. I do not intend to hurt you, but I must have this knowledge."

    Then, before even quick-triggered Peter could fire, the entity made a gesture with his hand and Peter gave a blurted, surprised cry of pain and dropped like a stone.

    "Peter!" They screamed his name in chorus and Winston got off a quick blast with his thrower before the being could move. He whipped sideways so fast the stream missed him by no more than an inch, then the Class Seven waved both hands--and abruptly the world was full of erupting lava.

    Everything was red and bubbling, and Peter was screaming in the heart of the fire--but now Egon knew it had never happened. The entity had made it appear real. Peter had already been down and unconscious when the fire began, not on his feet. It had all been illusion. Through the vision, Egon had seen the amphibian bend and scoop up Peter and carry him down into the water with him. But the vision of the fire was stronger, and the view of the creature drawing Peter beneath the waves floated away to be replaced by the stronger suggestion of the fiery death.

    Egon shuddered. "It was imposed," he gasped. "He took Peter down beneath the water."

    "But Peter can't breathe underwater," Ray protested. "He was unconscious. He'd drown." Dismay wrote itself on Ray's face, and he shivered miserably.

    Winston's hands curled up into fists. "That guy was a water breather. Did you catch those gills? He might not even realize until it was too late. God, guys, Pete might be dead after all."

    "No!" Egon heard the stunned ferocity of his voice. "Peter is notdead. The being wanted information from him. He would not allow Peter to drown. We must return immediately and demand Peter's release."

    They stared at each other. Janine watched them in alarm. She put the trap down carefully on the table. "You guys remember something different now, don't you? Peter didn't die in a fire?"

    Ray explained quickly. "The guy made us see it, but it didn't happen. He took Peter away with him under the sea, and we've got to go and get him back."

    "Should we take underwater breathing equipment?" Winston asked.

    Egon hesitated. "The creature evidently breathes air as well as water. Perhaps it has an underwater chamber where it incarcerated Peter, or perhaps it returned to the surface the instant we were gone. We will go now, quickly, and if necessary, return for diving equipment."

    "You sure you're all right?" Janine hesitated. "Maybe I should call Greg."

    "You may call him, of course, Janine," Egon replied. "But we won't wait for him to arrive. Peter may need us this very minute. Simply because he did not die by fire, it does not mean he is safe and well." Yet the relief he felt that the horrible image wasn't real gave him the strength to hope.

    "We'll get him back," Ray cried eagerly. "I know we will. Come on, Winston, let's suit up. I'll get the packs."

    "You will activate the transfer, Janine," Egon instructed her. "Please?"

    "Of course, Egon, whatever you say." She gazed up into his eyes. "But the second you're gone, I'm gonna call Greg and have him waiting for you when you return. You got it, buster?"

    "I, er, got it," Egon replied. He bent and brushed a kiss against her forehead. "Thank you for being here for us all, Janine. It means more than I can express."

    Her eyes widened and softened, and she smiled at him, her eyes full of love. When Ray handed Egon his jumpsuit, she stepped back out of the way and watched them prepare for their rescue mission, still smiling.

*****

    The pain was excruciating. Curled up on the stone platform, Peter couldn't begin to feel the bench's discomfort through the sensation that Karst had taken a giant-economy sized pickaxe and was using it to pry open his brain. God, could anything hurt more? He writhed and moaned and tried to resist it. Impossible. He shivered, hot and cold at the same time. He could feel beads of sweat on his forehead in spite of the room's chill.

    "Concentrate on Mellara. What is the fate of Mellara?" Fish-face demanded. His voice was utterly unyielding, but underneath its hardness Peter heard a thread of pain and regret. Karst didn't like what he was doing, but he was too desperate for news of his beloved mate to stop.

    The torchlit mob thundered through the underbrush. "I see it, I see it," somebody bellowed, and the thunder of half a dozen shotgun blasts echoed in the night air. Peter shivered. This was nuts. This couldn't be happening. It wasn't the middle ages. It was 1975 in upstate New York. People didn't turn into crazy vigilante mobs and run wild in the woods shooting at anything that moved. He had to stop them. But how could he stop them? He was just a kid.

    "What is the fate of Mellara?"

    "I don't know. Oh, god, I don't know. It hurts. It hurts."

    "Come on, kid, we've gotta head 'em off. Give her a chance."

    "All those guys with guns." Peter shivered and waved his hand at the mob. He and Mr. Castorini were with it but not a part of it. As long as they didn't call attention to themselves, they were as safe as anybody could be in the midst of a horde of crazed gunmen. "What should we do?" He huddled into the too-large jacket Mr. Castorini had given him before they set out in the wake of the howling mob.

    "We've gotta distract 'em," the carney owner said. "They won't buy it from me. They'll think I'm just protecting my investment. She never hurt anybody. They're afraid of what they don't know. Come on, Petey, we have to save her."

    Mr. Castorini? He had been Peter's boss that summer, the last time he'd worked the carney. God, he'd just dreamed about that summer, and now, here he was reliving it. The pain that drilled into his skull thudded through his entire body, and he squeezed his eyes tightly shut, fighting it, struggling against the memories that popped up out of a Pandora's box portion of his mind where he'd tucked it securely away. The pain in his head swept over him and battered away the barricades and it all came flooding out, in nasty, vicious, agonizing detail.

    "Oh, god, oh, god," he groaned as the long-buried memories surfaced, as fresh as new. "The freak show. Oh, god, I hate that. I hateit."

    "What is the fate of Mellara?" Karst demanded inexorably.

    Peter whimpered, not so much with the pain but with the horror of the memories he'd managed to keep sealed away ever since that terrible night.

    "It's over here, I saw something," he yelled as loud as he could. Maybe if the mob didn't realize he was with the carney....

    "I see something," one of them yelled, and three of them fired blindly into the trees. Something shrieked with pain and blundered away, crashing through the underbrush. Peter had a glimpse of the wounded deer before the mob turned and raced after it, howling in mindless pursuit. After a minute they'd realize somebody had winged a buck, but the detour might give her time for her to get away.

    Peter had hated the freak show. His own desperate need to blend in and be accepted was all the stronger after the crisis last fall when they'd kicked him off the high school football team because his pop was in jail. Oh, they'd found some trumped-up excuse to cover up the unfairness of their actions, but it had amounted to the same thing. They were careful not to make it look like Peter was at fault, and that was good because it would have messed up his scholarship chances otherwise, but it showed him that the only way to fit in was to have just the right image.

    So he hated the freak show. Hated the name, avoided the bearded lady and the tattooed guy, and the Siamese twins, and the monster from the deeps. He was just a kid and he didn't know how to deal with those people. Better not to try. He didn't have the savoire faire to conceal his pity, or to hide the relief he felt at his own normalcy. Until one night he was on his way back from cleaning out the horse stalls and had to pass through....

    And in the cage on the end of the row, the monster from the abyss huddled in a corner of her cage, weeping as if her heart would break.

     "What's the matter, sweetie?" He heard his own question and was surprised at the compassion in his voice. Until then, Peter hadn't realized what a strong sympathy he had for the underdog, for the lonely, the miserable. Maybe he avoided the freak show because he knew it would hurt him to see the people who pretended to revel in being different when, inside, they probably longed for normalcy and the freedom it would give them to pass unnoticed in a crowd.

    The monster from the abyss. God, he knew it was a lady but it was a fish-scaled lady. Probably some weird skin condition. She didn't look like Karst, but now that Peter could remember that night, he realized she looked like someone who was stuck midway between human and Karst. Was that Mellara?

    "Yes, yes, you remember. Tell me Mellara's fate!"

    The pain dug savage talons into his mind, but Peter didn't need the probe any longer, because the memory was free in all its horror. "Stop," he gasped. "I remember. I'll tell you."

    The talons went away but the pain lingered, thudding behind his eyes. Was he about to have a stroke? Was his mind broken? Was he dying? He lay there, eyes scrunched tightly shut, moaning, and gasped when something cool and soothing was draped across his forehead. God, that felt good.

    "Thanks, Egon," he muttered automatically before he remembered where he was. He wasn't home. He wasn't being comforted by his friends. He was stretched out on a stone slab in an underwater prison, and the memory was free. Oh, god, he remembered it all.

    "I want to go home. I want to go back where I belong, where humans don't gawk at me as if I were a monster."

    "Yeah, people can be pretty mean," Peter agreed. He was seventeen, about to quit the carney and head off to Columbia University for the fall semester, and he planned to be so popular and successful that no one would realize he had a shady old man. He'd be the life of the party, the star of the football team, a Big Man on Campus, and nobody would point him out as 'that Venkman kid whose old man has done time.'

    "They are 'mean' to you? But you are normal."

    It hit Peter with the force of a sledgehammer that one man's misery might be another person's blessing. The monster from the abyss might think it good fortune to be Charlie Venkman's son.

    "Normal's kinda relative, I guess." He looked at her for the first time. Were those gills on her neck? "Do you breathe water?" he blurted.

    "I do. And air."

    "So, what are you, then?" He thought that sounded rude, so he backpedaled. "I mean, I know you're not really a monster."

    The fish lady stared at him. "How do you know this?"

    The answer was so obvious he was surprised she'd had to ask. "Well, heck, monsters don't cry." He put out his hand and patted her arm through the bars. "So, what are you, really? An alien from outer space?"

    She stared at his hand, and then fresh tears ran from her golden eyes at the small kindness. "No, I am a scientist. I am studying humans." She heaved a sigh. "I could once modify my form to pass among you unnoticed, but I ate too much human food and I lost the ability. It affected my powers. I was captured and sold to the carnival."

    "What if I let you out? Could you go home?"

    She heaved a sigh. "I do not know. I would try. Would you free me?"

    Peter hesitated. "Mr. Castorini would fire me in a heartbeat. I need the money to go to college."

    She gazed at him with sad yellow eyes. "To be a scientist yourself?"

    "A psychologist," Peter admitted. He never talked about his dream to the people in the carney. None of them would have ever understood.

    "As a psychologist, you will be able to understand how I feel. Your name is Peter, isn't it? I have seen you moving about out there--but never here. Are we too horrible to face, Peter?"

    "Nah." He shivered, unable to meet her gaze. "It's just--I want to be accepted," he blurted out. "I want people to like me."

    "We all want that. Sometimes it is not possible--and sometimes, things are more important."

    "What things?" he challenged. Everybody used everybody else. That was what life was all about, wasn't it? But the part of him that wanted to study psychology didn't want it just so he could learn to manipulate people and guess their motives. He'd be no better than his dad if he did that. Sometimes it was too easy to see when a person was hurting, to understand how bad they felt. He didn't want to understand, but it didn't go away because he wanted it to.

    "Honor and loyalty," the monster from the abyss told him. "Dignity and respect. Sometimes, it is necessary to take a stand for what you believe, even if others mock you for it."

    "Yeah, right, that's fancy talk, but it doesn't mean anything." He caught himself. In his voice he could hear an echo of his dad, his dad who always let him down. God, if he walked away right now, he'd be no better than his old man.

    "It has to mean something, or there is no point to life," the fish lady told him.

    And Peter stuck his hand in his pocket and brought out the keys he carried. "Okay, but nobody knows it was me," he said as he unlocked the door.

    "I will protect your secret integrity with my life," she promised and slipped out into the night.

    РOh, god, it's my fault. It's my fault she's dead," Peter moaned and tried to burrow into the stone platform.

    "Explain." Karst's voice was remorseless.

    Peter related the story in fits and starts, his sympathy for Mellara, their conversation, the way he'd opened her cage and set her free. His head pounded like fury, but he stopped trying to fight the pain. Maybe he even deserved it.

    "And then the locals found out. Narrow-minded small town folks who hated anything they didn't understand, 'cause it scared 'em. One of them saw her running through the woods, and they panicked and got up this huge search party. They all had shotguns and a lot of them were drunk. They chased her through the trees, and I was so scared I went and told Mr. Castorini what I'd done. He was my boss, and I was sure he'd fire me, but he turned out to be a great guy. He said he knew Mellara was smart and that she didn't need to be in a cage, but he was trying to find out where she came from so he could send her back, and at least in the cage she was safe from guys with shotguns. He even gave her a trailer at night, just like everybody else, but I hadn't known that, 'cause I usually didn't go that way. I didn't know what I was doing and I exposed her to the mob." He could hardly bear to open his eyes and look up at Karst.

    "What happened then?" The entity's face was expressionless.

    "Mr. Castorini and I tried to decoy them away from her. They killed a couple of deer--they'd have shot at anything that moved. I was never more scared in my life. One of them nearly blasted me, and then my pop came and he yanked me out of the mob and took me away. He said I was just a kid and I didn't need to get mixed up in that kind of trouble. He was scared I'd get hurt, but I didn't realize that at the time. All I could think was that I had to save her and he wouldn't let me." He shuddered. Tears poured from his eyes, and he didn't even try to stop them.

    "And then Mr. Castorini came and told me they'd killed her, and I knew it was all my fault." He rolled over onto his stomach and hid his head in the fold of his arm. "He said it wasn't, he said I'd tried to do a good thing, and that was more important. My pop said what did it matter, she wasn't human and for all we knew she was trying to take over the world, but she wasn't. She just wanted to learn about us. She learned. She learned the worst of us. The more humans you put together in a group, the worse we are."

    "And when I put you with your three friends, the better you are," Karst said surprisingly. "Peter. You did not kill Mellara."

    "She wouldn't be dead if I hadn't let her go."

    "You do not know that. She would have died of a broken heart in captivity. At least she died with the knowledge that one human, evidently against training and inclination, was able to see past an alien exterior to her heart and her pain, and to care enough to act on that understanding."

    "She's still dead," Peter said drearily. "And I couldn't evenremember it for years." He shivered. "I really wasn't lying to you before. I couldn't remember." It all came back to him now, how he'd gotten sick that night and wound up in the hospital with a high fever. His pop had sat at his bedside and his mom had been summoned and the two of them had hovered over him for the next three days until he woke up. When he awakened, he had blocked the memory of the 'monster from the abyss' and the doctor must have told his folks not to remind him because they'd never mentioned it to him again. Peter hadn't worked the carney after that; by the time he was well enough to consider it, it was only a week until he was due to start his classes at Columbia. He'd gone home to Brooklyn with his mom, and Pop had come too. The lure of scamming had taken Charlie away before school started, but Peter had remembered his concern, even when his old man had forgotten his birthday and Christmas again that year. Typical. Par for the course.

    He'd repressed the memory of Mellara, and the psychologist he had become understood it now. He'd been too young and too unsure to handle the memories so his mind had simply tucked them tidily away for when he was stronger.

    Only he didn't feel stronger. He felt just sad and regretful for what he had unleashed.

    "God, Karst, I'm sorry," he blurted.

    The entity drew him up and put his arm around Peter's shoulders. His body radiated cold, but it wasn't slimy, and there was comfort in the gesture. "You acted out of kindness and understanding, Peter. I know that. It was not you who slew my mate. Even here, a mob loses what you would call 'humanity'. You had good intentions, and you were too young to understand what might happen. Fate put Mellara in the way of wicked men. But she did not die in a cage. Remember that. She died free, and you were able to recall it and give me the news."

    "Hardly the answer you wanted," Peter said miserably.

    "But it is an answer. At last I can find peace. I do not have to wonder any longer."

    "Heck of a lousy peace," Peter muttered.

    "It is not 'lousy'. It is fact. Now I know."

    Peter massaged his temples. The dreadful pain was subsiding. He could think again as well as remember. "What happens to me now?" he asked doubtfully. Was Karst a 'shoot the messenger' kind of guy? Would Peter deserve it if he were?

    "Your friends have freed themselves from my control, and they are coming for you. Soon they will be here to take you home."

    Peter let himself lean against Karst. He owed a big debt to the guy. And now he was going to let Peter go free? "I can really go?" he asked doubtfully.

    "Yes, you may go. You did not kill Mellara. You tried to save her. You wished her no ill. She would never blame you, this I know. You must not even blame yourself. Think, Peter. You are a psychologist. You know that, with the best will, bad things can happen, just as good can arise out of bad. Know in your heart that you were able to look past an appearance--at a time when you valued appearance too highly--and to do a kind, generous thing. That is more important than the result. Mellara would think so, too."

    Peter sat there, battered and spent, his head throbbing in time with his heartbeat, and didn't think much of himself. Okay, he'd let his good instincts win out. He'd taken a positive step--one that had turned around and bit him on the ass. And Mellara had paid the price. It was a lousy thing to happen. Because of that, the guys had been put through hell. Everything had consequences, but the guys had paid Peter's share, and so had Mellara. He heaved a shaky sigh and felt like pond scum.

    "I can take back the memory," Karst offered. "It was sealed away so long it would be easy to return it to the place where it lay concealed, or to make it seem no more than a fever dream."

    It was tempting, but Peter shook his head. "No. Everything has consequences. My old man never learned that, but I did. If I let you stick it back, then everybody still suffers but me. That's not fair. I'll tell the guys when I get home. It's the only thing to do."

    "I knew you would say that. Remember, Peter, only a courageous man would have acted as you did. You had sympathy for a lost soul, you had the strength to try to save her in the face of an angry mob, and you risked pain and death to spare me more years of agonizing. No matter what you think of yourself right now, I know you are worth much--and your friends would not have grieved so deeply if they didn't think so, too. You didn't even make a mistake. The mob made the mistake. I want you to remember that."

    "Mellara still died," Peter said sadly, remembering the tears on the alien face that night so long ago as vividly as if he had seen them yesterday.

    "People die. Others live. I will live now, knowing the truth. It is better than not knowing, Peter, no matter how it turned out. Come. I will take you to your friends."

    The guys.... Peter felt his heart warm at the thought of seeing them again, reassuring them he was alive and well, that he hadn't died in the heart of the fire. They'd remember that, wouldn't they? They'd remember how they felt when they believed it. It would still hurt. Even if they knew it wasn't true, they'd lived it for hours. He sneaked a look at Karst and saw the regret in the man's face, the knowledge that his determined action had been cruel to Peter's friends.

    Karst saw his look and interpreted it perfectly. "I, too, must live with consequences, Peter. As must we all. Mellara knew your world was dangerous. She chose to take that risk. We all make choices. Come. Your friends will long to see you."

    Peter longed to see them. Only when they knew he was alive, that he had survived, would he be able to go home.

*****

    "I don't think anything really erupted here," Winston muttered as they stood on the steaming plain. His nose wrinkled in response to the sulphur in the atmosphere. "That was just the illusion. It'd look all different if lava had bubbled up everywhere."

    Ray turned in a circle, surveying the terrain. "I don't see him.Peter! Peter, can you hear me?"

    "He might not be waiting for us," Egon pointed out in his most logical voice. Concealing his disappointment, all right. Winston recognized the signs. "Remembering the truth does not alter the fact that he was the captive of a Class Seven entity." He whipped up his P.K.E. meter and took a reading. Winston knew without explanation that it had been set to Peter's frequency.

    "Anything?" he asked.

    "No, not even residuals. However, as the biorhythm field is weak--"

    "Egon, look!" Ray flung up his hand and pointed at the water. It churned as it had when the entity had appeared the last time. "It's coming back. Gosh, I hope it'll let us have Peter."

    Egon's voice was fierce, determined. "If it won't, we'll take him."

    Three throwers lined up on the trail of foam, and Winston hardened his heart. "Don't fire right away, guys. We need information. We need to see Peter, to find out if he's alive. We can't swim around out there looking for underwater caves or secret submarines. Let's get him to tellus where--"

    He fell silent when two heads broke from the water at the same moment. One of them was the Class Seven, all right, water gushing down his fishy face, but the other one was a soaking wet Peter Venkman, his hair plastered down on his forehead as he sucked in deep breaths of air. As soon as he emerged from the sea, the meter in Egon's hand gave off a comforting beep.

    The alien supported Peter until he caught his breath, then, one hand on his arm, helped him splash his way through the surf toward the shore. Even here under the eerie Netherworld sky with the lighting a few degrees off normal, Pete looked paler than usual, and there were tight lines around his eyes and mouth that suggested pain. He was moving under his own steam, though, and that was something. His pack rested on his back, but his wrist looked bare of a recall bracelet.

    "Peter." Egon's word was a mere breath, practically a prayer.

    "It's Peter!" bellowed Ray with sheer elation. "Peter! Peter, here we are. Are you okay?" He waved wildly.

    At the shout, Peter's head came up and he feasted his eyes on the guys the way a starving man would react to a cheeseburger with all the trimmings. The pain in his eyes eased slightly as he studied them. For the first moment, he stood there, hesitating in knee-deep water, while the entity held onto his arm, then he let out a whoop of triumph and relief and launched himself at them. They met him at the water line and engulfed him in a fierce hug that saturated the front of their uniforms. None of them cared. Peter was alive, and that was all that mattered.

    "It never happened," Peter babbled earnestly against Egon's shoulder. "There wasn't any fire. I wasn't burned. It was just an illusion. It's okay. I'm not hurt."

    Egon tightened his grip. "Allow us our relief, Peter," he said in a voice that quivered with emotion. "Once we came to realize what had happened, we were able to draw off the influence with a trap, but it was very real to us until then. Are you certain you are unhurt?"

    Peter's head bobbed up and down. "Yeah, I'm okay, Egon."

    He didn't sound quite sure of it, though. Winston caught Ray's eye and arched an eyebrow in question. Something was still going down. From the slightly blurred look in his eyes, he must have a killer headache, and the shadows that enhanced the pain suggested he hadn't been granted an easy ride.

    "Did that Class Seven do anything to you, Peter? What did he want you for?" Ray glanced over his shoulder, then pulled out of the group hug and leveled his thrower at the creature. "What did you do to Peter? If you've hurt him--"

    "Chill, Ray." Peter shivered free of Egon's grip and slid in between the entity and the guys. "Don't blast him. He isn't gonna hurt us. He was just trying to find out what happened to his wife."

    Uh-oh. Winston had a bad feeling about that. "We trap her?" he asked uneasily. He could remember the guy had mentioned his mate. If she was stuck in the containment unit, they might have to make a deal to ensure Peter's freedom. It was just that Peter wasn't acting like a prisoner.

    "No, she died years ago," said the entity. "Peter had once known of her fate, and he remembered it for me.П

    "'Cause it's my fault she's dead," Peter said flatly and faced them down as if he expected to turn from him in revulsion. His chin came up as he waited, but he held his breath, a man on trial, awaiting the verdict of the judge.

    "That can't be possible, Peter." It was Egon who denied the claim.

    "Yeah, it can. I didn't mean it, and I didn't kill her, but she wouldn't have been in a place where it could've happened if not for me."

    The entity jumped in. "I shall tell them, Peter," he said, and related a sad little story about Peter's seventeenth summer, a carnival side show, and a captive entity. "Peter felt pity for her and freed her. It was not his fault that narrow-minded humans believed her a monster and hunted her down with guns." He described the mob pursuit, Peter's attempt to turn the mob, and the subsequent destruction of his mate. His eyes glittered with sorrow and loss--but with no trace of resentment toward Peter. Winston shivered at the bald tale and the stark pain visible in Peter's eyes--and the entity's.

    "Oh, gosh, Peter, that's awful." Ray went to Peter and put his arms around him. "You didn't mean that to happen. We know that. You were just being the great guy we know you are."

    "Ray is correct, Peter." Egon stepped up behind him, curled his fingers around the back of Peter's neck, and rubbed it gently. "Surely you don't believe we would think less of you because of the actions of a mob that you had no control over? You reached inside yourself and found the empathy to understand Mellara's suffering. When the situation deteriorated, you went for help and then tried to turn the mob. I am very proud of you."

    "But Mellara died, Egon," Peter insisted, stiffening against the comfort his friends offered.

    "I have reminded Peter that is a separate fact, and that it in no way invalidates his empathy for one so unlike himself." The entity touched Peter's arm in companionship and sympathy. "Take him home. In pursuit of my quest, I have inflicted great pain upon him and broken open an old wound that he had closed away inside for many years. In addition to that, he greatly fears for the three of you, that you have suffered in his behalf. He does not realize what a remarkable human he is. Take him home and stand at his side."

    "Never any question about that," Winston insisted. "He's ourbrother."

    "Yeah," agreed Ray.

    Egon nodded fervently. "Very true, Winston. Peter, we shall be fine, knowing you are alive. We will need you to help us through the false memories, though. Will you stand with us?"

    Winston could have cheered. Egon had said precisely the right thing. Nothing else he could have done would have cut through the self-loathing Peter had to be feeling. At the question, his head came up and he studied the guys, each in turn. His eyes warmed with concern, and with understanding, and then he took a deep, shuddery breath.

    "Long as you guys stand with me, I can do anything."

    The unhappy regret didn't go away automatically. Like the guys' memories of Peter's false death in the fire, that would take time to heal. But Peter had seen through it to what they all were lucky enough to have, their shared unity that hadn't gone away, and wouldn't. They might not be whole yet, but they were alive, they were together, and they cared.

    You couldn't ask for much more than that.

    "Take him home," Karst urged. "Show him his worth."

    Peter's eyes glistened too brightly. "Hey, is this a chance for me to be waited on hand and foot?"

    The query was just a little too forced, but he was trying. Winston saw Egon swallow hard as he recognized it for what it was, Peter's first step on the road to healing. Maybe the first step for all of them. For the first time, he relaxed into the warmth of their acceptance. Egon's arm slid around his shoulders, and he leaned against the taller man, his face vivid with relief.

    "Only in moderation, Peter," he replied with mock sternness. "And of course when we return, Greg Labraccio will be waiting to make sure you are all right."

    "Aw, you guys called the doc on me?" Peter wailed. "Hey, I'm okay. I don't have to go to the hospital, do I?"

    "Only if Greg says so, Peter," Ray teased him. "But don't worry. If he does, we'll sneak in pizza and send all the prettiest nurses to see you."

    "And to give you shots and sponge baths," Winston kidded.

    Peter's eyes suddenly twinkled wickedly. "If they're gorgeous enough, I can live with it," he proclaimed, and let Egon fasten a replacement recall bracelet on his wrist to take him home.