She crossed a natural bridge that stretched across the wide chamber. At the guarded archway to Lotay's chamber, Seetol's four arms provided the proper ritual password and she was admitted to her queen's presence.
The luxury of Lotay's throne room contrasted strongly with the austerity of the mine. Finely woven, elaborately patterned cloth decorated the walls and ceiling. Lotay herself lounged on a cushioned floor, surrounded by her bejewelled retinue of slaves. One slave played a gentle tune utilizing the Ovion three-note scale artistically, discovering intriguing variants on her restricted melodic theme. A pair of other slaves were filing down the fine spikes that dotted the surface of Lotay's limbs. Another slave held a long tube from which the queen occasionally drew a liquid substance whose residue she blew out her mouth as smoke. When Lotay acknowledged Seetol, she requested her report.
"They have come," Seetol said, her voice soft and pleasant.
Lotay's even more musical voice replied:
"Don't disturb them. It will only stir them up. They'll be perfectly harmless unless angered or frightened."
"My thought exactly, highness."
"Naturally."
Seetol bowed and withdrew, leaving Lotay to draw and puff on the long tube.
Apollo felt extremely comfortable at the controls of the landram he had commandeered for his own particular search of the Carillon surface. He liked the feel of a landram as it rode the air currents with a surprising smoothness, adjusting to surface peculiarities with barely noticeable shifts to right and left, up and down.
He also felt comfortable with the presence of Serina beside him in the co-driver seat. He had been impressed with the way she had picked up the skills of driving a landram without ever having been inside one before. In the back seat of the landram, Boxey played quietly with Muffit Two.
"That was some show you and your buddies performed up there," Serina said suddenly. "You seemed to be trying to prove something. I wondered if it had anything to do with your brother."
The comment evaporated the feeling of being comfortable.
"I get it," he said irritably, "you're saying I'm being reckless to make up for leaving Zac behind."
"Or proving your courage for his ghost."
"How did you find out so much about Zac and me?"
"Asked around."
"I don't appreciate that."
"Sorry. I was a newswoman on Caprica, remember? I can't get out of the habit. Change the subject, why don't you? Or I will. Tell me about the agriculture project. I was especially impressed with it. How long before things start to grow?"
"Oh, say, morning. I think we'll see quite a few sprouts and stuff by morning. Then, by the end of day tomorrow, we'll have a whole crop of fresh food—which, you must admit, will be a welcome substitute for the comrations. They'll taste better. And you be sure to eat them, you hear, Boxey?"
"I guess so."
In spite of Muffit Two, the boy had still been showing signs of moodiness.
"Say, Boxey," Apollo said, "time for your part of the mission. What I want you to do is keep your eye on that readout. If the indicator gets up into this colored area, it means we're right on top of a rich Tylium deposit."
"Yes, sir."
The job assignment seemed to pick up the boy's spirits.
"You sure you don't mind working with such a green crew?" Serina said.
"I chose you, didn't I?"
"I'd think, with your connections, you'd do better, that you'd—I'm sorry, didn't mean to touch a sore spot. You're upset your father resigned the presidency, correct?"
"Stop being a newswoman, and let's concentrate on the mission. We've got to get a lot done in a short time. We don't dare stop on any one planet for too long."
"Why'd we have to leave home at all?" Boxey asked. "Why'd those people want to hurt us?"
"I'm not sure, Boxey. Some say it has to do with very complicated things, political things. Others say the Cylons just like war, and will attack anybody who interferes with their part of space. I don't know—sometimes I think it just boils down to who's different. There're always life forms who cannot accept anything they don't understand. Some humans are like that too; they can't accept anything different."
"What do you mean different?"
Apollo sighed, not knowing how to explain complex matters to a child. He remembered years ago, trying to have complicated conversations with Zac, who was then much older than Boxey was now, and then discovering that the answer Zac sought for was much simpler than Apollo expected. Other times, Apollo's answers were too simple and Zac prodded him until he had not only extracted the more complex ideas but successfully argued against them. But what should he tell a six-year-old whose main concern was the welfare of an animal about the subject of prejudice?
"Well, Boxey, just about anything at all can make one species different from another. The shape of your eyes, the number of limbs, the color of the outer layer of your skin, even thoughts and ideas. Maybe our enemies just aren't equipped to deal with the difference."
"You mean they're stupid."
"Yeah, in a way. I mean, in some ways they've got it all over us, in certain matters of science and technology, in certain methods of fighting the war. But, yeah, they're stupid, too. It's stupid to kill what you don't understand."
"Why don't we just kill them back?"
In Boxey's belligerent question, Apollo could hear, almost like a ghost-echo, the sound of Zac's voice. Zac sometimes showed a positively bloodthirsty desire for violent solutions. In that sort of mood he would never listen to the calmer voices of his brother or his father. For that matter, there were times when Adama's humanistic theories of war proved too much for Apollo, who still had sharp pangs of doubt about the Galactica's leaving the scene of battle.
"Boxey, if we just killed mindlessly, the way the Cylons seem to do, then we'd be changing what we are. We'd become like them. Although we're quite skilled at war, we are not basically a warlike race, at least I don't believe we are. We were pushed into this war, had no other choice. In fact, perhaps what we're doing now, searching for someplace else, away from our enemies, is the better thing to do. Fighting them on their own terms has not certainly—"
"What if they come after us?"
Why did Boxey have to ask the hard questions?
"Then we might have to defend ourselves."
"You mean kill them?"
"Possibly."
"Then we'd be like them."
Apollo smiled.
"You know, Boxey, I think you're getting glimpses of just how complicated life is. Yes, we don't believe in war—but the opposite of war isn't necessarily peace. No, what we want is freedom. Just that, freedom. The right to be left alone. It's a right we humans have always tried to protect and preserve. But there's always a chance someone will come along and spoil everything—"
He could see in the boy's questioning eyes that Boxey was not following this part of the discussion.
"So you kill them?" Boxey said.
"No. What it is, you try to establish, well, penalties, something that'll make spoiling others' way of life unrewarding."
"You kill them."
"Boxey, you've a way of reducing everything to very simple terms."
"Well, I'm only a kid."
"Right. Sometimes I forget you're only six."
"Almost seven."
"Almost seven. I don't know, though. Maybe you're right. No matter how you slice it, what words you use, in the end we're talking about life and death. Life is precious. No one has the right to tamper with another's life, without the risk of forfeiting his own. Ah, I sound like one of the classes in war games I used to teach back at the academy—and I think getting a bit deep for a boy your age."
"Why? You can die at any age, can't you?"
"Yes, Boxey, you can. Keep an eye on the readout, okay?"
"Sure. C'mon, Muffy, looka that."
Muffit Two barked and nuzzled closer to the boy.
Starbuck stood at the rim of the hill
and stared down at the evidence of genuine life forms that had been registering on the scanners. He called to Boomer, who was just climbing out of the landram.
"Boomer . . ."
"Yeah, what is it now?"
"You aren't going to believe this, Boomer."
"Feeling is believing. I just busted a finger on—"
"No, I mean really . . ."
Boomer looked down. His mouth fell open.
"I don't believe it!"
In contrast to the drab landscape around them, the carnival of color and light and glass in the meadow in front of them was a dazzling spectacle. Surrounding glass-walled spherical buildings was a meticulously landscaped garden of greenery and exotic plants. Waterfalls slipped gracefully between what seemed an artistic arrangement of rocks. Sounds of laughter drifted upward. Songs were being played and sung in the distance. A few people, talking gaily, emerged from a building and began to chase each other, with obvious amorous intentions, through the neatly sculptured garden paths.
Starbuck looked over at Boomer, who appeared just as confused as he was.
"What is it?" Boomer asked.
"I don't know," said Starbuck. Drawing his sidearm, he started to make his way along the narrow pathway that zigzagged down the hill leading to the bizarre complex of spherical buildings and lush gardens.
"You sure you need that?" Boomer said, pointing to Starbuck's sidearm.
"Whenever I'm not sure, that's when I need it."
Nobody in the gardens seemed to notice the two men. If anything, the happy noises of celebration and song grew louder as they reached the garden. They stood at the beginning of a path for a long time, just watching the myriad colors and shifting lights that kept changing the appearance of the garden and the buildings.
"It sure is pretty," Starbuck said, some awe in his voice. "And it sure sounds friendly."
Starbuck started town the path, Boomer following, staying close. As they came to a fork in the path, a sudden scream made both of them jump. Starbuck whirled around, his sidearm pointed in the direction of the scream.
A woman stood trembling in the center of the path. Her wide staring eyes only emphasized the look of beauty in her face. Starbuck was impressed with her voluptuous figure, round in all the best places. She wore a red gown that clung appropriately.
"Don't shoot!" she said. "What do you want?"
Starbuck, red-faced, glanced down at the weapon in his hand, made a show of putting it in its holster.
"I mean no harm," he said.
"I usually go on the assumption that men with guns just might mean harm," the woman said.
"You're from Taura," Starbuck said.
"Yes," the woman said, obviously surprised at the shift in topic, "I'm a Taurus. How'd you know that?"
"The dialect. Always can tell. What are you doing here?"
"What am I doing here? What are you doing here? Why are Colonial Warriors sneaking around a resort with their weapons drawn? Everything here is perfectly legal."
Starbuck and Boomer, both just as bewildered as the woman, exchanged mystified looks.
"Isn't it?" the woman said.
"Would you mind telling us how you got here?" Starbuck said, trying to sound as official as he could under the circumstances.
"On the bus."
The incongruity of her answer startled both men.
"Must've been sniffing plant vapors," Boomer commented.
"Um, would you tell us about this bus?" Starbuck asked.
"Sure. It was all handled through my travel agent. This place is fabulous! I just can't believe they can give you all this for so little money." She opened a red-sequined purse that had been dangling from her wrist. "Look, I won over a thousand cubits."
Some of the cubits spilled over the edge of the purse onto the path. The woman made no effort to retrieve them. Starbuck, always responsive to the glow of gold, became excited.
"You won those cubits here?"
"In there, sure." The woman pointed toward the complex of varicolored glass buildings. "Look, they said it was all legal so if it isn't you'd better take on the whole star system, because everyone is doing it. I'd like to stand here and discuss all this with you, but I'm late for a moonlight cruise. Two moons, how can you go wrong? And talk about meeting people, the brochures weren't kidding about that. I never had it so good. See you in church, fellas."
The woman giggled and hurried off down the path. Boomer stared after her, while Starbuck picked up the fallen cubits.
"I don't get it," Boomer said. "How cut off can they be? She didn't act like she'd even heard about the war."
"Yeah," Starbuck said thoughtfully. "I wonder if they have. Something else is peculiar about all this. If it's such a big deal, like she said, how come we haven't heard about this place?"
"I suppose you know every gambling den in our star systems."
"Well?"
"You're right. If there's a game going on, you know about it."
Starbuck resumed walking along the path, heading toward the nearest lavish sphere.
"But this isn't back-room cards!" he said. "This is the biggest splash I've seen outside of Orion."
"But who'd want to set up a gambling resort on an outpost planet? Why put something like this together and keep it a secret?"
"That puzzles me, too. If you don't tell anyone about a place like this, you don't do any business."
As they made their way through the verdant garden and into the lobby of the spherical building, they could see no evidence of security guards to interfere with them. In fact, all they could see were groups of people having a ball. And not only people, as they found when they looked close. There seemed to be representatives of every sentient and civilized extraterrestrial race so far discovered in the universe. Except, of course, for Cylons—although even their unlikely presence wouldn't have surprised Starbuck. The Cylon sense of order and austerity would not have permitted them to participate in gambling and the various wonderful forms of self-indulgence that were evident in this resort. Across a massive archway, in several languages, were variations of the phrase, Festival of Paradise, apparently the name of the resort.
"Shall we investigate further?" Boomer asked.
"By all means, Boom-Boom, by all possible means."
Accustomed to seeing aliens only on occasion, Starbuck and Boomer eyed with some fascination the various examples of inhuman and humanoid life. There were tentacled lizards, furry octopods, a grotesque sexpartite set of connected individuals from a species that the two men had heard of only in galactic legend, bulky, hard-surfaced oddities that could be mistaken for rocks if they hadn't spoken and moved—creatures of all varieties and shapes. However, the majority was humanoid, sometimes oddly so. As Starbuck and Boomer entered a magnificent casino, a feline cocktail waitress, modestly attired in a clinging dress revealing her four shapely breasts, asked them if they'd like anything to drink. When they declined, she smiled and walked away, her furry tail removing a dirty glass from a gilt railing. Starbuck could not take his eyes off her.
"Did you see that tail that—" he said to Boomer.
"Sure did."
At a nearby gaming table, one of hundreds spread through the ornate cavernous room, a scream of victory went up. Checking it out, Starbuck saw a chubby humanoid raking in cubits with a horselike paw. Another winner's cry erupted at an adjacent table.
"The odds must be incredible here," Starbuck said. "People are winning fortunes. Look!"
After further investigation, Boomer spotted rows of food tables, on which delectable items were being snatched at greedily by the gameplayers.
"They're obviously well fed here," he said. "Let's get hold of whoever's in charge and see about getting some food back to the fleet."
"Hold it, sky-pirate. Slow down. The last thing these people may want to find is a battlestar sitting on their front doorstep."
"Then you think this setup is illegal?"
"Is a Cylon nauseating? Yeah, I think it's illegal. It wa
sn't exactly listed in the Colonial Guidebook of places to go, things to do."
"And we're standing here in full uniform. They may not be too happy when they notice that. Let's take off—"
"Wait, wait. Let's not look a gift horse in the mouth, especially when it's dressed in gold. I've never seen a crooked gambling den that didn't depend on military pay vouchers to keep their doors open. Let's see what this guy has to say."
A human pit boss came toward them, his mouth spread in a wide smile.
"Welcome, gentlemen," he said. "Is that an emblem of the Colonial Fleet I see?"
Boomer looked scared, but Starbuck answered confidently:
"That's what it is, all right."
"I didn't realize they were in the area."
"As a matter of fact, we're kind of here on our own."
"Little out of the way, aren't you?"
"Secret mission," Boomer said, getting into the spirit of the deception.
Starbuck slapped him on the back and said jokingly:
"He likes to be dramatic. Just a reconnaissance flight. See that the armistice is being observed."
They all three stood around silently for a long moment. Was the pit boss' grin directed at their naive lie, Starbuck wondered, or was it just a reflection of the genuine hospitality of the casino?
"How worthy," the pit boss said. Starbuck couldn't tell whether or not the man intended the observation sarcastically. "And how fortunate to have you with us. Consider yourselves guests of the establishment. Food and drink on the house."
The pit boss snapped his spidery fingers and Starbuck and Boomer found their hands full of food and drink, supplied by short simian waiters who moved like lightning through the crowd. Starbuck took a sip from his glass. The drink turned out to be a Sagitarian straight-arrow. He took a bite of the pastry in his other hand, an Aquarian ambrosia cake.
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