“Yes, Cap’n?”
“Have Jolly send a team up here to collect and distribute this food throughout the ship.”
“Sir, shouldn’t we check with Core Command?”
“Now!”
He grabbed Uri by the arm and rushed him out of the room. The young woman remained attached to the politician’s arm for a few steps before falling into a drunken, glutted stupor onto the thick, red carpet.
While they awaited Jolly and his men, Boomer whispered to Apollo.
“Without being critical, Captain—is there a chance you overplayed our hand a tad, considering Sire Uri is on the new council?”
“This isn’t a card game, Boomer, not one of yours and Starbuck’s two-bit cons. Those people down there are starving, damn it!”
“Take it easy, Cap. I’m on your side.”
“Are you sure?”
“Captain—”
“Sorry, Boomer. I’m easily irritated these days. You must’ve noticed.”
“Well, now you mention it, yeah.”
The elevator arrived and Jolly’s large form seemed to fill the entire doorway.
“Let’s get to it,” Apollo said. “Collect every scrap of food you can find here and get it to the people.”
The look of hatred from Sire Uri as two of Jolly’s men took him into the elevator sent a chill up and down Apollo’s spine.
Working gently, Dr. Paye positioned Cassiopeia’s broken arm inside a transparent cylindrical tubing which was connected to a larger, more impressive set of medical machinery. The arm felt numb now, and none of the doctor’s touching of it gave her any pain. With the arm in place, Paye drew out what looked like a trio of gunbarrels from inside a cavity of one of the machines. After each gunbarrel had been pointed at a different area of her arm within the tube, the doctor pressed a series of buttons and faint, laserlike beams came out of the gunbarrels. After the beams had penetrated the transparent surface of the tubing, they were diffused, entering her arm at several points. The numbness immediately left her arm and sharp tingling sensations replaced it.
Abruptly, Paye pressed the buttons again, and the gunbarrels retracted back into the machine. As he removed her arm from the transparent tubing, Paye said:
“How does it feel?”
Cassiopeia stretched the arm, then folded it. Even the tingling sensation was fading now.
“Feels like it hadn’t even been broken,” she said.
“The bone has been fused whole,” Paye said, in a friendly professional voice. “It’s probably even stronger than before.”
“It’s wonderful. Damn wonderful. Thanks, doc.”
“With equipment like this I’m just a mechanic. A talented mechanic, to be sure, but just a mechanic. Anything else I can do for you, Cassiopeia?”
The offer seemed to mean more than mere medical attention. As a socialator she was used to even such an oblique approach and it was easy for her to demure politely.
In the corridor outside the sick bay, Starbuck leaned laconically against a wall, still in his flight gear. She smiled, glad to see the brash young officer again. Then she frowned, realizing why he might be waiting for her.
“You’re going to take me back, aren’t you?” she said.
“It isn’t easy to cop a ride around here,” he said.
She turned away from him. She felt the blood drain out of her face.
“I dread returning to that ship.”
She did not like to admit it, but she was afraid of the stupidity of the passengers aboard the Rising Star. She sympathized with their plight, their hunger and their disorientation, but on the other hand she didn’t care to offer herself as a sacrifice for their frustrations. Starbuck seemed to understand, for he said, “Look, maybe I can check around, see if there’s anyplace else you can stay. There’re better ships, might even be space aboard the Galactica.”
Damn! There was that sound again, the same proposition that the doctor had hinted at so shyly. Well, if there was anything this young officer wasn’t, it was shy.
“What’s the matter?” Starbuck asked.
“I sense a price tag. Would you be doing this if I weren’t a socialator?”
“I might. Then again, I might not.”
“Please don’t joke. I’m… I’m a little weak. I mean I—”
“Okay, okay. Let’s forget the little jokes for a while. Look, really, I just want to help you. Nothing personal.”
“Nothing personal?”
“Well, something personal. But I’ll still locate some quarters for you. And that’s all. You can break my arm if I’m lying. ’Course it might be worth a broken arm—”
“All right, all right.”
“It’s a deal then?”
“I think you’ve made a terrible deal, but all right.”
Starbuck smiled genially as he took Cassiopeia’s arm, the one that had just been repaired at the Life Station, and led her down the corridor.
Adama, coming onto the bridge, discovered Colonel Tigh smiling broadly, clutching the latest reports to his chest as if they were love letters.
“What is it, Tigh?” Adama said.
“Long range patrols’ve reported in. Their scanners find no sign of pursuit from the Cylons. All vectors are looking good. The camouflage shielding that Apollo devised seems to be holding steady. Except for that one flyby some time ago, not a Cylon flight team has been anywhere near us.”
“So long as we remain hidden in space like this, it’s highly unlikely they’ll find us. Pray the camouflage continues to hold, Tigh.”
“I do that every waking minute, Sir. Finding us now would be disastrous. We’re not able to mount any heavy battle, Sir, not right now.”
“I’m aware of that, Tigh. Painfully aware.”
“What do we do next?”
“That question I propose to leave to other voices.”
Tigh looked shocked and angered simultaneously.
“You’re going to go through with that resignation plan then?”
“I’m submitting it to the council this—”
“Commander, we’d better talk.”
“Of course, old friend, but my mind is made up.”
“With fuel and food running so low, you can’t resign now. If we ever needed leadership—”
“The fleet is filled with good men. You included, Tigh. The council will decide.”
“Commander—”
“Yes, Tigh?”
Tigh paused, obviously reluctant to speak his mind.
“Go ahead, old friend,” Adama said. “Say it.”
“If you resign now, it will look exactly the same as your act of pulling the Galactica out of battle with the Cylons. I’m sorry, but—”
“And I’m sorry you think that. Perhaps the two events are related. And perhaps they merely support my decision that it’s time for me to step down.”
“No, you can’t!”
“I’ve made my decision.”
“I can see that, damn it!”
“Will you accompany me to the council chamber?”
“I’d rather not, if you don’t mind.”
Adama started to say that he did mind, but instead whirled around and left the bridge. Behind him as he went out the hatchway, he heard a loud thump. Undoubtedly Colonel Tigh hitting something metallic with his fists. Adama did not look back to verify that speculation.
The newly-appointed council of elders, a temporary assemblage that would govern until a proper Quorum could be elected, started voicing their anger immediately before Adama could even finish his resignation speech. Some of them sprang to their feet, shouting:
“No! We won’t have it!”
“Unacceptable.”
“You can’t resign. You especially!”
Councillor Anton silenced the surge of protests with a sweeping gesture. Anton had some time ago been an aide-decamp to President Adar. A hawk-faced, emaciated, old-line politico from Scorpia, he was crafty, but Adama had always perceived him as trustworthy and intel
ligent.
“Adama,” Anton said, rising to his feet, “you have led us wisely and well. That’s why we can’t accept your resignation. Things are too grave now.”
“I disagree,” bellowed Councillor Uri. Adama had known that, if there were to be any serious opposition to any sensible plan, it would originate with the representative of the Leon survivors. Tainted as he was with scandal, his people had nevertheless given him a vote of confidence to continue on the council.
“I think our dear Adama is best qualified to judge his own capacity to lead,” Uri said.
Adama glanced at Apollo, who was sitting with the newswoman Serina in the gallery in front of the council table. His son appeared to be furious, and the pretty young woman had her hands on his arm, apparently to convince him to remain seated. Adama liked what he had seen of the Caprican newswoman, and liked the fact that she appeared to show interest in his son. Apollo, so unhappy over the deaths of Zac and his mother, needed such a compassionate friend. He turned his attention back to Uri.
“In all due respect,” he was saying, “I’m not at all sure that the commander has led us all that wisely, all that well. I cannot in good conscience characterize our present predicament as the result of good planning.”
“Uri, without Adama none of us would’ve survived the Cylon—” Anton shouted.
“That may be,” Uri said, “but I place the blame for the chaos that we endure now squarely on the commander’s shoulders. Poor judgment in choosing food and fuel lots now leave us on the brink of disaster.”
“Councilman Uri,” Anton said, “you have a lot of nerve casting accusations about food shortages when you have been brought up on charges of hoarding in the face of starvation.”
“Are your hands so clean, Anton? What about—”
“Gentlemen,” Adama interrupted. “Gentlemen, please. This squabbling is not in our best interests. Uri is not entirely incorrect about the state we are in now, nor is he unjustified in blaming me. The problem is, and has been, that there are too many of us. Too many people, too many ships. We would have had troubles even if so much of our food supply had not been contaminated, even if so many of our ships had not proved to be in such unstable condition. If we had time—ah, but that’s the real source of our disturbances. We must obtain fuel and food, that’s our only solution. Otherwise, we all perish—slowly and gradually, as our supplies run out. We have to convert our ships to hyperspace capability and leave behind those that can’t be converted.”
“That would mean crowding ourselves together even more,” Uri said. “Conditions now are intolerable.”
Adama resisted the opportunity to comment on Uri’s own solution to the supposed intolerability of conditions.
“Yes, Uri, it would. That’s why I’ve intended to propose that we pool our stock of fuel and send the Galactica and the most capable ships of our improvised fleet on ahead in order to obtain fuel and supplies for the rest of us.”
“Ships left behind?” Uri shouted. “Commander, just how many ships do you propose we send on this fool—on this foraging mission?”
“Captain Apollo has the hard figures on that, Councillor Uri.”
Apollo stood and spoke brusquely, obviously holding in his temper.
“About one third of the present fleet. There’s just that amount of fuel to spread around, and that’s a bit of thin spreading, gentlemen.”
“Thin spreading indeed!” Uri said. “I say this is just a ploy for you and your chosen people to escape the rest of us, leave us here, without fuel, to die slowly. That is—”
“Sir,” Apollo interrupted. “As things stand, there’s not sufficient fuel to get the entire fleet anywhere. We must let those few who can seek out a solution do so.”
“You’re your father’s son all right,” Uri sneered. “I’m not certain you’re not deceiving us in tandem.”
“That is uncalled for,” Anton shouted. “You know better, Uri, you—”
“Ah, are you in league with them, too, Anton?”
“Gentlemen, please,” Adama said. “Hear me out.”
“You sound very authoritarian for a leader who’s just resigned,” Uri said.
“I am merely advising,” Adama said.
“Tell us your advice then. I am anxious to hear it, Commander.”
Adama cleared his voice to buy time. He wished he could make Uri disappear. It was bad enough having to cope with ignorant opposition in a meeting like this; it was worse to know your opponent was merely a boastful crook who would never listen to reason anyway.
“I propose,” Adama said, “that we send our best ships to Carillon for the purpose of obtaining fuel and food.”
“Carillon?” Uri asked, a curious sarcasm in his voice. “Why in the twelve worlds an outpost like Carillon?”
“Carillon was once the object of a mining expedition from our colonies. Rich sources of Tylium.”
“But, if I recall correctly, it was abandoned as impractical to mine.”
Uri was obviously prepared. His spies must have obtained Adama’s plan before the meeting.
“It was abandoned,” Adama said, “only because there was no local labor, and it was too far from the colonies to make shipping a very practical operation. However, the exigencies of commerce need not concern us now.”
“I do not believe Carillon is a proper solution. The same problems do exist. Carillon is too far away. Too many disasters could occur to our ships and people left behind.”
“It’s the only solution, Uri.”
“Is it? What about Borallus? It’s closer, and we know everything we need is there. Food, water, fuel.”
Many of the councillors clearly agreed with Uri’s proposal. How could they be so dim, so unaware? Adama thought.
“And there’s undoubtedly a Cylon task force there,” Adama said. “It could be fatal to let down our camouflage shield and attempt landing on Borallus.”
“Possibly fatal,” Uri shouted. “To me it seems surely fatal to use Carillon as our destination.”
“Carillon is our only hope,” Adama said. He noted, by a quick count of the nodding heads around the half-circle of the council table, that more than half of the group seemed to be on his side now. “Gentlemen, you must understand that the situation has reached a critical level much sooner than we’d anticipated. Rations have already been cut by two-thirds. We can’t afford to squabble any longer. We must act, and we must be able to present our plan of action to our people unanimously.”
“Unanimity means just being your echo,” Uri said bitterly, but he sat down. He was the last holdout to the plan. When the final vote came, Uri voted for the plan only after the council had agreed to accept Adama’s resignation as president, and after they had agreed that Uri’s ship, the Rising Star, would be one of the vehicles chosen for the hyperspace jump to Carillon.
After the council meeting, Apollo felt relieved that a positive action would finally be taken, but unhappy that his father had chosen to resign. He also felt deep anger at the insult Uri had thrown his way during the meeting. The bastard was just getting back at Apollo for arresting him. A lot of good the arrest did, anyway. Uri had manipulated the situation to his advantage and become leader of the factions opposed to his father.
“You look so sad,” Serina said softly. She had been standing silently at his side for some time.
“Forget it. I wanted to ask you, did you bring Boxey with you over here?”
“Just as you ordered, Captain. I stowed him away in that lovely compartment you provided for us. Thanks, by the way.”
“Think nothing of it. Let’s go get Boxey.”
Apollo strode through the labyrinthine corridors with a fierce determination. Serina, although she was long-legged and near his height, had trouble keeping up with him.
“How’s the boy doing?” Apollo asked just before they stopped in front of the door to Boxey’s quarters.
“Still won’t eat, doesn’t sleep.”
“I think we may have something t
hat’ll interest him.”
“Right now?”
“Yes.”
“But there’s so much for you to do, preparing for the trip to Carillon and all. Shouldn’t you be getting your rest?”
“I thought I might sleep better after we solve Boxey’s problem.”
“That’s a tall order!”
“Watch me.”
Boxey, lying on the lower level of a double bunk, appeared as listless as ever. Apollo ordered him to get up and come with them. The child asked if he had to. Apollo said it was orders, and the boy reluctantly took his proffered hand. They traced a circuitous route to an area of the ship that Apollo had only visited two or three times in his entire tour of duty aboard Galactica.
Stopping at a door marked Droid Maintenance Laboratory, Apollo said, “This is it.” He smiled at the confusion on Serina’s face as he ushered her and Boxey into the lab. Immediately in front of them was a row of droids, propped up against a wall, all of them obviously switched off. Some of them had been opened up and various wires dangled from the regions of their heads, chests, and legs.
“What are these?” Serina asked.
“Droids. Mechanical constructs designed to simulate human or animal—”
“I know what droids are. I thought they were banned.”
“On Caprica they were. Capricans didn’t believe in using mechanical substitutes for human effort. A noble philosophy but—”
“I don’t know about philosophy but I do know, in the few experiences I’ve had with droids, I’m uncomfortable perceiving human traits in something that turns out not to be human at all.”
“I think you’re wrong but under the circumstances it’s not a worthwhile discussion to pursue. Let me just say that droids have become a necessity for spacecraft. They can tuck themselves into niches that bulkier humans can’t reach and they can perform minor repair jobs on the surface of the ship or in atmospheres we can’t breathe.”
A stocky, middle-aged man in a lab coat came through a door. There was a certain mechanical look to his movements and Serina wondered if he was a droid, too. The way his face lit up when he recognized Apollo proved him to be human, after all.
“Ah, Captain Apollo. Right on time. We’ve been expecting you. Is this the young officer who’s been put in charge of the new project?”
[Battlestar Galactica Classic] - Battlestar Galactica Page 12
