Uri raised his goblet in a toast.
"Well," he said, "perhaps tonight it is the grog, but tomorrow . . ."
Apollo whirled and walked out of the center of the circle. Taking Serina's arm, he led her along a garden path back toward the casino. Looking back, it seemed to Serina that Sire Uri stared after her somewhat lecherously.
"Don't let him ruin this wonderful glow," Serina said, a bit woozily. "No one would take that proposal seriously."
"Maybe not. A lot of those people were nodding right along with what he said."
"I'm about to nod out."
"In that case, would you like to hear my proposal? It's a bit more personal."
"Captain, I've been considering it for long before you ever got around to asking it. But I'm not sure about it. Not while my head is spinning, anyway. Would you mind if we discussed this again after we visit the guest quarters?"
"Which brings me right back to my proposal. I wanted to take you there."
"This time I want to go there to make sure Boxey is all right. And after that, let's hear no proposals you can't live up to when the grog wears off."
A sign in the casino elevator informed them that all guest accommodations were on the first three levels going down. Serina touched the plate for level two, where she had deposited a sleepy Boxey earlier in the evening.
"I wonder what's on these other levels further down," Serina said, pointing to the array of buttons on the panel.
"Want to have a look?" Apollo said.
"Why not? I'm a snoop from way back, you know. Let's start at the bottom and work our way up."
She touched the plate for the bottom level. Immediately a soft voice floated down at them from the ceiling.
"I'm sorry, but you have indicated an incorrect stop. Guest accommodations are limited to the first three levels. All others are for kitchen, mining, and support personnel only. Thank you."
Serina smiled.
"Off limits, I think they say in your profession, captain," she said.
"Curious," Apollo muttered.
The elevator came to a stop at level two. A quick check of Boxey's room showed that the boy was sleeping quite peacefully. His arm was curled around Muffit Two, who maintained a droid alertness, even giving Apollo and Serina a fast once-over when they entered the room. Apollo pulled Serina to a dark corner and kissed her. At first her response to the kiss was tentative but, in a moment, she returned his passion in equal measure.
"About my proposal . . ." Apollo said.
"Let's dispose with ritual. My room is next door. Mmmm . . . whatever's in that grog, I'm considering taking it with me when we leave this place."
Arm in arm, they left Boxey's room. Muffit Two's head settled back on a pillow, its eyes staying open, keeping a steady watch on the doorway.
FROM THE ADAMA JOURNALS:
I've tried many times to make entries in this journal about Baltar's treason, but somehow I can't deal with the subject without seeing the man's puffy egotistical face floating before me, ghostlike, and feeling excruciating waves of hatred go through my body. I become tense and can't think of words. Trying to put his treason into words would give it a set of perimeters whose very limitations would diminish the pure and unalterably selfish evil of the act. And I'm not about to rationalize a treason of such dimensions. The acts of aliens like the Cylons or Ovions are at least understandable to me as manifestations of ideas that belong to different, perhaps ultimately incomprehensible, cultures. With Baltar I can understand the ideas he spouted, and I can even imagine the awesome selfishness that led him to sell out his own people for rewards that seem trivial in perspective—but that doesn't bring me any closer to a clear conception of the man himself. It's all I can do to make the ghost-face of him fade away. In his evil he is alien to me, more alien than any multi-limbed or multi-eyed creature from a different part of the universe.
CHAPTER NINE
On the Cylon base ship, Imperious Leader contemplated the latest report from his centurion on Carillon. The plan was proceeding efficiently; more and more humans were falling prey to the lure of Ovion contentment. Lotay had managed to doctor the food of several of the human leaders (except, unfortunately, for Adama) with a drug that helped her to sway their minds toward foolish decisions. She had been successful, she said, with planting the idea of unilateral disarmament into several councilors' minds. Also, she had been successful in holding back on the shipments of Tylium to the fleet in the skies above the planet, supplying them enough of the liquid form of the fuel to lull any suspicions they might have developed. The leader wondered if the wily Adama could really be fooled so easily. All signs pointed to that conclusion, but one fact that had emerged in the leader's many battles with Adama was the man's unpredictability. If a conclusion about him seemed obvious, then it must be questioned.
Nevertheless, the time to act was now.
He sent out the order that the Supreme Star Force stationed at Borallus be immediately launched and set on a course for Carillon with the mission of annihilating human survivors and their spacecraft. This time Adama's forces would be rendered impotent, even if a few humans did manage one of their miraculous escapes.
Another message came to the leader a few moments later. The rest of the human fleet, the ships left behind by Adama that were traveling toward Carillon at a slow speed, had been located. A malfunction in their camouflage had given their coordinates away. The leader resisted an impulse to send out a force to destroy this group of wretched and battered remnants of the human fleet. The better strategy was, clearly, merely to maintain surveillance on these ships. They were powerless and indefensible, obviously low on Tylium and supplies. No, the logical move was to save their destruction for later. Adama was no doubt in contact with the ships he had left behind. Attacking them now might alert a rescue fleet, and that could not be allowed. Yes, the waiting game seemed best for now. It was a strategy he had learned from humans.
Cylon victory was certain, the Leader told himself. The Supreme Star Force's larger numbers would easily overwhelm the weakened human fleet, he told himself. The ships left behind could be toyed with and blasted to pieces, he told himself. He would have Adama's head as a victory token, he told himself. Nevertheless, a certain uneasiness, an uncharacteristic tension, troubled his thoughts.
On the bridge of the Galactica, Adama paced his usual path along the starfield. Frequently he made a fist out of his right hand, pounded it into the palm of his left.
"Those fools," he muttered once, "give them something to eat and all judgment flies out of their minds. It's almost as if the food itself had muddled their minds. Is there any way I can stop this council meeting they're planning, Tigh?"
"Nothing in the regs gives you any authority with the council except in regard to military matters. In military matters you can countermand—"
"Unilateral disarmament is not a military matter?"
"Traditionally such decisions have been in civilian hands, sir. Many believe that it's proper and logical, even—"
"I know, I know. I've a firm grasp on the theories behind the separation of military and civilian responsibility. I even approve of it. In theory at least. It's just that this group of muddleheads seem possessed, Tigh, I just want to go into the council room and knock heads."
Tigh smiled slyly, said:
"May I remind you, sir, in all due respect, that if you had not resigned as president of the council you would have the privilege of going into that council room and knocking heads."
"I am all too aware of that, Colonel. All too painfully aware."
In the meeting room, the councilors eyed Adama's entrance with apprehensive caution. To Adama they looked curious, as if they had been physically transformed into total strangers.
Before taking his seat, which had been placed to one side to denote his present lack of status on the council, Adama said, "What, may I ask, is the purpose of this special council?"
Anton, the new president, gestured at the chair and replied.
"Adama, please respect the order of business until called upon by this chair."
Adama sat, his anger growing. Even Anton, who had once been his ally, seemed odd now. The emaciated old councilor called the meeting to order.
"It is the growing consensus of every man, woman, and child in this body that to set forth into uncharted space is madness," Anton said.
"Hear, hear," said the rest of the councilors, almost in unison. The muttered agreement sounded like a chant, orchestrated of course by Councillor Uri.
"The question is," Anton continued, "what do we do about the Cylons. Obviously to remain here is to run the risk of discovery. Councilor Uri has a measure to propose. Uri?"
Uri rose to his feet, surveyed the council with a smile that displayed his smugness for all.
"My brothers," he said unctuously. "A hasty attempt to outrun the Cylons spawned in the midnight of desperation seems foolhardy in the light of day."
Midnight of desperation, indeed! Adama thought. How quickly these oily politicians could reduce the circumstances of a tragedy to a cliché. Did Uri not remember the suffering, the panic, the Cylon fighters killing our people and reducing our cities to rubble? Did he not even remember the joy, however momentary, he must have felt when, safe in the plush compartments of his own luxury liner, he knew he was still alive, one of the few survivors? Or were men like Uri empty of all feeling, alive only to satisfy some instinctual greed or lust that moved them through their shabby existences like transistors inside a droid? Perhaps, Adama thought, he was just seeking rational excuses for what was in reality madness.
"I propose," Uri continued, with a significant glance toward Adama, "that, instead of rushing off on a doomed mythical quest, we now attempt to appeal for justice and mercy."
Adama could hold back his rage no longer. He rose to his feet, shouting:
"Justice from the Cylons? Mercy? Did you actually say that?" Are you so far gone—"
"Gently, my dear Adama, gently," Uri said. His voice had dropped to almost a whisper. What really disturbed Adama was that the other councilors had appeared annoyed with him when he spoke and then had nodded at Uri's soothing imprecation. "Commander, I know your opposition to us and I understand it. From the military point of view—the militaristic point of view, I might say—gestures toward peace almost always appear senseless. But you miss the total picture, I think. The spoils of enslaving us so far from their base of power hardly seems worth the effort for the Cylons."
"Enslaving? Base of power?" Adama, still unable to control the anger in his voice, shouted. "Gentlemen, it's you who do not understand. The kind of reason you're trying to employ might be sensible if we were dealing with other humans, with any species whose system of values was analogous to our own. But these are the Cylons. gentlemen! They said they would not stop until every human had been exterminated. Not even enslaved, exterminated. We have not even had the privilege of dealing with their leaders openly. All we know of them is by inference and observation. Why should they change their own methods? For that matter, why should they believe we are now willing to accept that which we always found unacceptable? To live under Cylon rule? We have always been just as adamant about that as they have been in their avowed desire to exterminate us."
Many of the brows around the council table gradually began to frown. Perhaps, Adama thought, he was getting through the muddle.
"Commander," Uri said, with an obvious sense of theatrical timing, "the Ovion queen Lotay has observed the Cylons up close, and in much more peaceable circumstances. Her race has been at peace with the Cylons for a millennium, and she assures me that victory is the Cylons' only goal. It is a matter of satisfying their codes of order. If any individual enemy or group of enemies still roam the universe, then they feel it their duty to eradicate them—to wipe out the flaw in their sense of order, so to speak. By destroying our arms to prove we are willing to live in peace, the flaw would be removed and they wouldn't—"
"Destroy our only means of defense!"
"Or attack. May I remind my brothers that we once were at peace with the Cylons. We didn't have conflict with them until we intervened in their relations with other nations."
Adama struggled to keep from coming to blows with Uri. He wondered briefly whether, if Adama sprung upon him suddenly, the man would refuse to fight back.
"Yes," Adama said, "you are right. We didn't come into conflict with the Cylons until we defended our neighbors whom the Cylons wished to enslave. And, until we helped the Hasaris to get back their nation, taken by force by the Cylons."
"Correct," Uri said. "And you merely prove my point. If we mind our own business, there is every reason to believe the Cylons will leave us alone."
Again the other councilors, satisfied with Uri's rhetorical flourish, murmured approval. Adama could see there was no point in trying to get through to them with anything resembling logic. He had made his contingency plans. It was now time to put them into effect. He addressed the council in a quiet but tense voice.
"Gentlemen, if we have come to this table to turn our backs on the principles of human reason and compassion, the principles of our fathers and the Lords of Kobol, from whom all colonies evolved, you do so with my utter contempt."
He turned and strode quickly from the room. After he had left, many of the councilors squirmed in their seats. Uri turned to them and spoke.
"Warriors are always the last to recognize the inevitability of change. The commander has always been fond of telling us we have no choice, which always means to endorse his ideas slavishly. Fortunately, we have a choice, life or death."
"I submit that an issue this grave should be decided by the people," Councilor Lobe said.
"The military will be difficult to convince," Anton said. "How do you propose we present so delicate a matter?"
After an uneasy pause, Uri said:
"At a celebration. People are always easier to deal with at a celebration. I propose we hold a celebration to decorate those three brave young men who, at the risk of their lives, opened the Carillon minefield for us. Without them, we'd still be on the other side, starving. One of the pilots was Adama's son, Captain Apollo, correct?"
Some members of the council cheered their support of Uri, happy that some solution had been found. Others applauded, impressed at Uri's clever stratagem of including Apollo in the celebration.
"A brilliant suggestion, Uri," Anton said, "just the tonic our people need at this moment. Some old-fashioned, honest-to-goodness heroes."
"Exactly what I was thinking," Uri said, his smile a bit more malicious than usual.
Starbuck had spent a great deal of time trying to convince the lead singer of the Tucana group that he could hurl them from this dinky little engagement in an outworld casino into a full-fledged, big-time career. The singer had not responded to Starbuck's pleadings. She had merely sat nervously, a fat cigar in her lower mouth, looking around the casino as if she expected to see spies everywhere. Starbuck had gone as far as to offer them a seventy-thirty split, with him picking up transportation costs. But the singer had merely said she did not think it would work out, and that she couldn't talk about it anyway. When he had tried to press her on the subject, she had only become more nervous. Leaving her dressing room, he noticed that her apparent fear of spies was justified. An Ovion jumped behind a nearby stage curtain.
The next day, as Starbuck sprawled in his room in the guest quarters, his head throbbing with a hangover, Boomer rushed into the room and sat on the bed so heavily that the bounce sent waves of pain through Starbuck's head.
"Out of the bunk, Starbuck. Captain Apollo's sent out a muster call, and he asked especially for you."
"Boomer, I been lying here thinking, about what you said last night. I'm beginning to agree with you. Something's going on around here."
"Well, whatever it is'll have to wait. We're going to have to go back to the Galactica."
"What for?"
"Our dress uniforms."
"Dres
s uniforms? Look, Boomer, I hate dress uniforms and I've got a head that won't go through one of those tight collars. I'll pass. I'm not getting into any fancy—"
"Starbuck, one does not accept our people's highest military honor, the golden cluster, in a battlesuit."
Boomer's information made Starbuck sit up. Too soon, as it happened, for his head seemed to explode. No matter. He was too amazed.
"A star cluster? You're kidding!"
"You got it. For that matter, me too. All three of us who went into that minefield blind. Apollo, too."
Starbuck smiled.
"Hey," he said, "that's all right. Doesn't some kind of pay raise go with that?"
Boomer laughed, while shaking his head in disbelief.
"Hopeless," he muttered, "absolutely hopeless."
Serina walked Apollo to the shuttle that was to take him back to the Galactica to get ready for the awarding of the star cluster and to respond to a request from his father for a meeting. Boxey and Muffit Two trailed along behind them.
"It was a wonderful night," she whispered to Apollo.
"For me, too," he said. "And thanks for letting me get all of that stuff out of my system about Zac. I feel better. It'll take a while for the guilt to evaporate, as you suggest, but at least I feel better about myself."
"You should. You're very valuable, Captain Apollo. A walking lode of Tylium, one might say."
"And just as dangerous?"
"Well, it depends on what state you're in, doesn't it? Just like Tylium."
"You may have a point there."
At the shuttle gangway, he kissed her goodbye, to the obvious delight of the young lieutenants, Starbuck and Boomer, who awaited him at the vehicle's airlock. After Apollo had entered the shuttle and the gangway had retracted and she had been ordered back to a safe area, Serina held Boxey's hand and watched the shuttle take off. Walking back to the casino entrance, she felt quite pleasant, content that some order seemed to be edging its way back into her life. Into all their lives, if what some people said were true. In front of her, Boxey frolicked with Muffy. The boy was steadily improving, too.
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