"That speculation's crossed my mind, too. Shall we try?"
"After you. Captain."
They returned to the elevator. Inside the car, Apollo drew his weapon, aimed it at the control panel and fired. The thin red beam pierced the metal of the panel and, in a near-perfect circle, a section of the control panel above the selection touch plates was severed, falling to the floor. Inside the panel, several wires were cut by the beam from Apollo's sidearm.
Staring at the dangling wires, Starbuck commented, "You realize that's private property."
Apollo smiled.
"I think we owe it to them to try to put it back together," he said. "Any suggestions?"
"Yes, sir. I'd suggest you try tapping those little critters there together."
Apollo connected a pair of the wires. As soon as they touched, the elevator car came to life again and began moving downward.
"You're a gambler," Apollo said. "Pick a level."
"I say we take a look at what's farthest from the guest rooms."
"Agreed."
Apollo pressed the touchplate for the lowest level. No soft forbidding voice intruded and criticized this time.
Her abductor carried Cassiopeia down several levels to a dark, cavernous chamber. She struggled all the way, and the Ovion had to call in reinforcements in a high-pitched but ominous voice. The group of Ovions flung her onto a massive table and, before she could squirm off, a large canopylike cover came rapidly down from the ceiling and sealed off her escape. Tubing leading into the canopy started pumping in a dark reddish gas. Cassiopeia tried to hold her breath but, looking down at her arm, she saw that the gas penetrated her skin. Her mind told her to scream, but her body was beginning to feel extremely comfortable, extremely content. As the tension rushed out of her, she looked out the transparent canopy. The Ovions were opening what appeared to be large pods. In a trio of other pods three men in Galactica dress uniform were nestled snugly, calm expressions on their faces. Cassiopeia smiled at them and managed a weak wave. She was dimly aware of some human voices moaning in the distance.
Moaning was the first sound Apollo noticed as he and Starbuck stepped in the oppressive atmosphere of the lower level corridor. Drawing his sidearm, he gestured to Starbuck to follow him in the direction of the sound.
"You're the leader," Starbuck whispered.
Right after they turned into a corridor, they heard a chattering noise behind them. Recognizing the sound as the Ovion language, Apollo whirled around ready to fire. However, the Ovions were gathered around the elevator, examining the damage Apollo and Starbuck had caused, and arguing among themselves. Their queen, Lotay, swept up and examined the damaged car control. Her excited chatter sent the other Ovions scurrying in all directions.
"They're gonna be looking for us," Apollo whispered. "Let's move."
As he started running forward, he thought he heard the sound of a daggit barking ahead of him.
Serina finally located Boxey on the other side of the massive casino. He was, as usual, chasing after Muffit Two. The daggit-droid was sniffing around a decorated screen that blocked off a small part of the room. As if picking up a trail, Muffit scampered behind the screen.
"Come back here, you daggit!" Boxey hollered, and ran alter the pet.
Serina smiled. It was time to herd in Boxey and Muffy, get them both something to eat. She went behind the screen, and saw an overturned chair. And nothing else. Boxey and his daggit were not there.
All right, don't panic, she told herself, somehow they got back into the casino. She rushed back into the main room. On the podium, Sire Uri had made some excuses for the missing guests of honor and was launching into a speech about rebirth, about wiping the slate clean of animosities, of displaying peace to their former foe.
People were applauding. There was a madness in the room, she thought. Where was Boxey? Where was Apollo? Why were there so many Ovions slowly gathering, as if in ranks, near the exits of the casino?
She started walking fast, looking for somebody she could trust, and finding no one.
Apollo and Starbuck leaned against a corridor wall, out of breath.
"I'm beginning to think you're right," Apollo said.
"About what?"
"Your suspicions. About something being wrong here."
"But what? What's the connection between the casino and the luxury quarters, and all of this?"
"I suggest we get out of here, then figure that one out."
Ovion chattering plus the sound of barking up ahead brought Apollo away from the wall. He began to run down the corridor toward the sounds, Starbuck following close behind. The agitated growling of the daggit-droid was the equivalent of a guidance system. They turned a corner and saw Muffit Two, snapping at an Ovion who seemed puzzled by the animal android. The Ovion kept reaching for Muffit with one of her four arms, and then springing back when the daggit leaped toward her, steel teeth gleaming. Boxey came out of a nearby corridor, hollering, "Muffit? Muffit?" The Ovion moved toward the boy, drawing a small but sharp-looking, thin-bladed knife from her belt. Boxey cowered backward as the Ovion raised the weapon.
"Run, Boxey!" Apollo shouted.
The boy ran toward Apollo. The Ovion whirled around. Starbuck emerged into the dim light and sent a beam of laser fire through the alien, who seemed to collapse inward as she fell to the ground.
"Let's get out of here," Apollo said, sweeping Boxey into his arms.
"The elevator," Starbuck shouted.
"Muffy!" Boxey yelled. The daggit yelped and followed after them. They stopped at the corridor archway leading to the lobby in front of the elevator bank. Apollo peered around the corner.
"Oh, God, no!" he muttered, springing back against the wall.
"What?" Starbuck whispered.
"There's a crowd of Cylons collecting there. A whole brigade, it looks like."
"Cylons! But how'd they get—"
"They must be able to key a path through the minefield. Either that or . . ."
"Or what, Apollo?"
"Or the Galactica's under attack. Damn it, that's why the award ceremony. To get us down here while the Cylons sneak-attacked us. Father's up there with just a skeleton crew. He's probably—"
Muffit Two, peeking out of the archway, began to bark. Apollo looked. Several Cylons were looking toward the archway, light beaming out from their helmets. When they saw Muffit and Apollo looking out, an officer pointed toward them, and a platoon started running their way.
"Let's get the hell out of here!" Apollo screamed, and they broke into a run. The daggit-droid held ground for a moment, yelping at the Cylons, then scampered after the retreating humans.
The leaves of the pod were gently wrapped around Cassiopeia's body. They felt soft and velvety. Ovions picked up the pod and carried her out of the chamber. She began to feel dizzy. The feeling of peace seemed to be wearing off. The pod leaves were wrapped too tightly about her. She could not move her arms or legs. Her entire body was becoming numb. She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound could be forced out.
They arrived at another large cavern. Lying around its floor, filling almost the entire surface, were many pods, each with tubing leading to machinery at the far end of the room.
Most of the pods contained human beings, but some of them contained red and grey clumps of matter which, if you squinted at them and filled in missing areas, were recognizable as human shapes. Recognizable human shapes and they seemed to be dissolving, dissolving into component matter, dissolving.
Cassiopeia's voice returned in a sudden, piercing scream.
FROM THE ADAMA JOURNALS:
On the day when his petition to run for a minor political office on his home planet of Sagitara was granted, Adar came to visit us on Caprica. I was home on leave at the time, during one of those lulls that seemed to occur when the Cylons withdrew for a time from the fray, Ila was always happy to have Adar visit (at a much later time she asked me never to allow him into the house again) and the two of them had a grea
t time chatting about the kind of literary and cultural matters that they enjoyed so much. I was content to listen to them and watch the antics of my two-year old son, Apollo. (Athena and Zac were years in the future.) We had a tiny pet then, a rascally daggit whose main purpose in life was to trip up intruding human feet, and Apollo used to love to charge at the animal, hear it yip, run away, and then turn waiting for Apollo to charge it again. He loved that daggit and was terribly broken up three years later when it died from some mysterious daggit disease. Ila and I had a bad time convincing him that his pet's death was not in any way his fault.
Anyway, Adar could not hold in his good cheer during that visit. He bubbled over with happiness and optimistic hopes for the future. I don't remember much of what he said, but I suppose his main message was the one he used to much sinister purpose later—that he planned to push this business of the war to its finale. He felt the war was bogged down by the corruption of the politicians running it (I was glad, at least, that he didn't blame the military, as I'd just taken over the helm of the Galactica at the time and was quite sensitive about its record). The main goal had to be peace, he must have said. I don't actually remember what he did say. All I really recall was his joy and his enthusiasm. They rubbed off on both of us, Ila and me. Anyway, he was half in love with Ila and she was half in love with him.
On the day he left to go back and run his campaign, we joined hands, the three of us, and made a lot of foolish vows, none of which I wish to record here. All I care to remember is the touch of their hands, his and Ila's, and the smiles that we couldn't wipe off our faces. That we should hold hands and smile was, at the time, so normal, so steeped in the tradition of our friendships and loves, that we never suspected it was the last time the three of us would be together like that. Oh, we were together again a number of times, but Adar always brought a feeling of strategy to those visits, a sense that our times together in the past were part of a storybook whose tales were not particularly readable for him anymore.
After Adar left, Ila hugged me for a long time. She seemed sad. I never did know why, though I asked the question often enough at the time. She said she just felt sad. Then the daggit, with Apollo after him, ran between my legs, and I fell to the ground. As Ila laughed and helped me up, she said she'd forgotten to ready anything for lunch and would I accept leftovers. I said what are you laughing at and yes I would. She said I looked absurd falling to the ground and would I fix us a couple of cocktails. I hugged her again. To this day I can feel vividly the way her body nestled against mine.
CHAPTER TEN
Adama kept a constant surveillance of the Carillon work activities. Shuttles from the agricultural project hastened toward the Galactica and other ships, with a harvest beyond original predictions of yield. The last request for a new Tylium load had been met with the usual Ovion polite phrasings that more would be sent soon, after they had corrected a malfunction in their processing machinery. Tigh, angry, complained that a number of tankers sat on the surface. Scanners showed them filled with Tylium in its volatile liquid form. Adama told his negotiators to keep trying. He was pleased to learn that one of the tankers had been dispatched, and he personally oversaw the meticulous landing of the battered-looking ship on one of the Galactica's decks. An officer reported the successful boarding of the food stores, and Adama ordered all agricultural personnel to be shuttled off the planet. With the livery and agricultural workers returned, that left only the people collected in the casino for the awards ceremony still on the planet. His sense of timing suggested he wait a few moments before sending out a recall order. He would have liked to bring up Apollo immediately, but that was impossible. However, he put Tigh on alert, reacting to the Colonel's report that a group of Ovions in the casino were acting strangely.
Athena, who had been manning the scanners directed planetside, reported an unusual number of aircraft and a lot of ground movement on Carillon. The exceptional darkness of the planet made it difficult to specify, she said, exactly what was going on. At least one aircraft appeared to have emerged from the cloud cover now hanging over a large portion of the night hemisphere. The trajectory seemed to indicate the rather large aircraft had emerged from the dense center of the minefield.
"Is that possible?" she asked her father.
"Yes, if—"
"If what?"
"If they are in possession of information allowing them to pass through the minefield with safety."
"But such a large ship."
"Were you able to get a good outline of it for scanning?"
"Afraid not. The darkness and the cloud cover and the gathering precipitation—"
"Yes, I see. Very good, Athena."
"You have a suspicion about the ship, don't you, Father?"
Adama considered whether there was any danger in telling her. The time seemed to have arrived to employ Athena's strategic acumen.
"I think it just might be a troop carrier."
It took a moment for the information to sink in, then Athena said, "Cylons?"
"Possibly."
She returned to her duty. On the scanner screens, movements which had seemed strange to her previously now began to take on a military aspect.
A bridge officer turned away from a scanner console, and reported.
"Picking up a large body of objects closing toward us rapidly. They seem to have come out of nowhere."
"From behind an ambush screen, no doubt," Adama muttered.
"What was that, Sir?"
"Nothing. Scan the objects for life forms."
"Aye aye, Sir."
Adama glanced away from the console, into his daughter's concerned eyes. Obviously she had heard his muttering.
Before her father had alerted her to danger, Athena had been wallowing in self-pity about being left behind aboard the Galactica. Her mind had been filled with pictures of Starbuck chasing after that socialator. She wished she had not reacted so rashly, throwing the key down like that. If she had had any sense, she would have lured Starbuck to the guest quarters, used all her abilities to make him forget the Gemonese woman. It did not seem to her that men developed permanent relationships with socialators, and that comforted her for a while, until she recalled that Cassiopeia could not really be considered a socialator anymore. She was an ex-socialator, able to use her considerable training within new social systems.
Now, however, there was no room for jealousy. If her growing suspicions were correct, and what was happening on the planet below and space above was another Cylon secret assault, then there was no time for petty emotions. Why didn't her father order up the troops, instead of leaving them in the casino? The odds were already against them, and the time wasted in lifting the warriors off Carillon might make all the difference between defeat and victory. She was not used to her father being hesitant in his command role. On the other hand, she had not been prepared for his resignation from the council, an act that seemed to indicate emotional disturbance. Was it possible that her father was cracking up, that under that tough surface, pressure was building toward an explosion of madness? She shook her head, not wanting to even consider that.
Switching on the comline to Tigh, who had left his transponder open, she asked him for a report.
"The Ovions're collecting in droves," he said. "We might have to make a move very soon. If we can get this stupid crowd moving—"
"What do you mean?"
"They're buying every word Uri says. How can they? Listen, I'll turn up the transmitter, and you can hear . . ."
Uri was speaking.
". . . to use this occasion to invoke in each of us a rebirth. A wiping the slate clean of animosities and prejudices against any living brother, whether a former friend or foe . . ."
The cheer that went up almost deafened Athena. The man's speech was effective, all right. How could their people be so gullible? She remembered her father saying once, panaceas were a cubit a dozen, but solutions cost much, much more.
"Athena?" Tigh came back on the line.<
br />
"Yes?"
"Tell your father I can't keep the lid on here much longer."
"Righto, whatever that means."
"You'll know soon enough."
Athena's fright seemed to have doubled as she turned away from the scanning console.
For the moment Starbuck and Apollo had outdistanced their Cylon pursuers. Cylons were not known for ground speed. Unfortunately their last turn had led them into a dead end.
"How do we get out of here?" Starbuck asked.
"I don't know."
"Am I correct in assuming that, in addition to finding ourselves in a cul-de-sac, we are also hopelessly lost?"
"That's correct, Lieutenant."
"Well, I always like to know the odds. Especially when they're a thousand to one against me."
"You can't always measure life in gambling odds, Starbuck."
"Is that right? Do you suggest an alternative measurement?"
"Starbuck, those Cylons'll locate us at any minute. This is no time to—"
"I agree. But what do we do? Go shoulder to shoulder, run out there blasting away like we did that minefield? And what about Boxey and that barking growling machine of his, what about—"
"Muffy's no machine!" Boxey protested.
Muffit perhaps felt the insult, too, for he started barking.
"Quiet, you daggit!" Boxey said.
The daggit started running away from them. He ran a few steps, then ran back.
"What's he doing?" Starbuck said.
"He wants us to follow him," Boxey said. "C'mon—"
"Boxey, I don't think now's the time to—" Apollo said, but before he could finish Boxey had leaped out of his arms and begun to follow the running daggit back up the corridor.
Apollo and Starbuck rushed after them. When they had almost caught up with the boy, the daggit turned into a dark area in the wall that looked like a shadow. Boxey followed him into it. Starbuck and Apollo exchanged glances. Closer examination showed the dark shadow to be a small tunnel that ran between the corridor and what proved to be, when the two men had crawled through the tunnel, a large cavern. At first Apollo thought it was just one of the mining areas until he looked closely at the ground.
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