“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 wasn’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.
These are my favorites, my favorite drink, my favorite dessert,” Starbuck said. “How did you know what to give me?”
“They knew,” the pit boss said, pointing to the simian waiters who were now supplying a creature who looked like a sculpture of plastic, slightly melted. “They’re primitive types, the waiters, but they’re mildly telepathic, at least in matters of food and drink. Enjoy yourselves.”
The pit boss smiled and walked off. Starbuck stuffed some more ambrosia cake into his mouth. Moist crumbs clung to his lips.
“Well,” Boomer said sardonically, “how do you feel now, sport? Here we have the run of this place while our people are out there starving and scrabbling for crops and grazing land.”
“What did you expect me to do, ask the guy for enough food for a ragtag fleet when he thinks we’re just a couple of straggler pilots on a reconnaissance flight?”
“Well, maybe we should just tell the guy the truth.”
“Sure, he looks a swell sort, an honest John. Boomer, until we know who these people are, just keep in mind that it’d only take one informer to have the whole Cylon war machine on its way.”
“So what do we do? We’ve got to find ways to get fuel and food back to the ships.”
“First thing, we’ll try to find out who’s behind this place. How many cubits you have with you?”
“Cubits? Starbuck, you disgust me, you know that? People in our fleet are half-starved and you’re going to gamble?”
“You expect me to be a miniature Commander Adama, you got another think coming. Besides, this time it’s in the line of duty. We’ve got to start asking some questions, digging out some information—but carefully, very carefully—”
Boomer seemed reluctant to hand Starbuck the money.
“Well, all right, but you’d better make this last. That’s all there is.”
Boomer dropped three cubits into Starbuck’s outstretched hand.
“Boomer my man, cubits don’t mean much just now, no matter how you measure it.”
Starbuck’s active eyes sought the source of the best action. He decided on the Hi-Lo table, since Hi-Lo was a game at which he could make a quick turnover of his limited funds before seeking out a big-stakes game. Three people, all humans, sat around the table. An open chair beckoned. Starbuck sat beside an attractive woman who, he thought, might have been an absolute stunner if she would drop just a few pounds from her pleasingly plump figure. The other players were men, both cheerful, both quite obese. As he sat, the woman, obviously liking what she saw, gave Starbuck the eye.
“Well!” she said. “The fleet’s in. Sit down, Lieutenant. You’ve come to a lucky table.”
“That right?”
“Yep. Not sure what I mean. Whether it’s lucky because
I’ve been cleaning up, or because you chose to sit here.”
Starbuck assumed his best appealing grin, and signaled to be dealt in. The nonhuman dealer, with a friendly smile, began tossing out the next round of cards with an elegant flick of his triple-jointed, gray-green wrist.
Apollo ran a check on the other branches of the survey team. Ensign Greenbean got on the line and reported a disturbance.
“What is it, Greenbean?” Apollo said.
“It’s Jolly, sir. We seem to have lost him.”
“How could you lose anybody his size?”
“Beats me, sir, but he’s lost.”
“Send out a search party and report back to me.”
“Roger.”
Apollo leaned back against the bucket seat.
“The man probably just wandered off,” Serina said.
“Maybe.”
He was about to say more when the Tylium detector started beeping. The beeping caused Boxey’s daggit-droid to bark.
“Quiet, Muffit. I see it, Captain… Tylium!”
Apollo slowed the landram and checked the indicator. It seemed to display a Tylium lode, all right, a large one. He brought the vehicle to a slow stop. As soon as it stopped, Muffit leaped out the window.
“Muffit!” Boxey cried. “Wait, I’ll bring him back.”
Before anybody could stop him, Boxey had followed the daggit-droid out the landram window.
“Should we go after him?” Serina asked, her voice nervous.
“He’s in sight for the moment. Let him run free a little.”
“You’re right, I may be keeping too tight a leash on the boy. Thank you, by the way.”
“For what?”
“For saving his life.”
“You’re getting things a little out of proportion. Anyway, maybe I should be thanking you.”
“Now it’s my turn to ask for what?”
“Well, you’ve helped me to—”
He stopped talking, leaned forward to squint out the window on Serina’s side.
“What is it?” she said.
“Boxey. He was there a moment ago.”
“Maybe he just ran over a hill.”
“Perhaps, but we’d better give a look. C’mon.”
Serina became frightened by the agitated way Apollo scrambled out of the landram and onto the Carillon surface.
Seetol emerged from her ground concealment and, in one rapid move, swept Boxey and Muffit into her four-armed grasp. Before the boy could scream or the animal could emit one of his disgusting sounds, Seetol had carried them back to the camouflaged ground entrance and onto a pod which she immediately activated to descend into the ground to the Tylium mine below. In the corridor leading to the queen’s chamber, the boy struggled fiercely. As Seetol tried to improve her hold on him, the animal leaped out of her arms and ran a short way down the corridor.
“Muffy!” the boy cried. “Darn you daggit. Come back here.”
Immediately the animal obeyed. Seetol, unused to domesticated animals or their robot substitutes, was impressed with Muffit’s quick obedience. She picked it up again, and both animal and boy were serene until they had been carried into Lotay’s throne room, where Muffit again scrambled out of Seetol’s arms, this time to run to the throne. It barked furiously.
A slave seemed to want to kill it, but the queen was too amused. The sharp spikes upon her body had faded to a soft yellow, as they always did when she was pleased. Boxey squirmed out of Seetol’s arms and ran to his animal. The other human in the room took a couple of steps forward, and Boxey looked up at him.
“Lieutenant Jolly!” Boxey cried. “What’re you doing here?”
“I’m not paying a social call, youngster,” Jolly said. He glanced toward Lotay lounging on her throne. “I left all my calling cards in my formal jumpsuit, your highness.”
Lotay did not understand the sarcastic humor in the fat man’s remarks. Seetol was about to scoop up Boxey again, but Lotay gestured her away, saying:
“Leave him.”
Muffy licking his face, Boxey looked up at the queen from a crouch. Lotay raised herself from her throne. The spikes on her body got brighter as she pointed to the child, the fat flyer, and the droid.
“A curious group,” she said. “But they will do quite nicely. Seetol, arrange that they be taken care of and prepare for the others as soon as possible.”
Seetol nodded approval and walked to the captured humans. Jolly edged over to Boxey and put his arm around the boy. Seetol was amused by the fat human’s obvious fear. She observed even her own race with a cynical eye. She had always liked what she was, but not who she was—or, for that matter, who anybody else was. Even her love for her queen felt incomplete, no matter how much worship she attempted. It could not be complete unless the queen would love her back, a possibility not even within the scope of Ovion reasoning. Seetol, her four arms suggesting a quartet of elegant gestures, guided Boxey and Jolly out the entrance, Muffit trotting happily behind. On the throne, Lotay began to laugh mysteriously. Seetol never knew the meaning of her queen’s laughter.
Apollo and Serina searched the immediate area around their vehicle to no avail. Serina held back tears, muttered to herself that she should never have let the child get away from her. Back at the landram, Apollo got on the communicator to Greenbean, who reported no sign yet of Jolly.
“What is it?” Serina said. “What’s happening on this planet?”
“Don’t panic. We’ll find him.”
Apollo wished he could be as certain as he sounded. For a moment all he wanted to do was fold this beautiful, auburn-haired, green-eyed woman in his arms and soothe her, tell her everything would be all right. The trouble was, he couldn’t feel that everything was going to be all right.
“This planet is eerie. With this darkness and the two moons it’s—what is it, Apollo?”
Apollo had drawn his sidearm and pointed it toward an area beyond the landram. Serina followed his look, then screamed. There were two Ovion warriors emerging from a hole in the ground, a hole that had not been there a second ago. Their two-triggered weapons were aimed at Apollo and Serina.
FROM THE ADAMA JOURNALS:
My father told me as a sort of valedictory when he handed me command of Galactica that the best advice he could give me was that, when everything appeared to be in place and everything was placid, it was time to consider what was absent. The questioning of the apparent reality, and the ability to add the absent to the visible, was a prime requisite for any commander. I didn’t think much of the advice at the time. Later, when I had to study a star map and plot out dangers before sending in attack craft, I knew exactly what the old man meant. When I dealt with apparently docile friendly creatures, I learned it was imperative to listen for what was not being said. At the time when peace was a most tempting reality, it was necessary for me to question the absence of the most important parties to the agreement. I can’t even look at a painting without wondering what the artist eliminated from the original landscape or model. It seems that, except at that rare point when an act or set of events reaches a definite conclusion, I’m always at odds with what I see, with the apparent reality, and am nervously looking for something to fill in the parts I can’t yet see.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The two Ovion soldiers forced Apollo and Serina down long, sloping, labyrinthine corridors. After the suffocating closeness of the pod in which they had traveled to these underground levels, the blasts of cold, damp air seemed refreshing. When they emerged into the massive main chamber of the mine, Apollo caught his breath in surprise. Serina, too, was astonished by the seemingly limitless heights and depths of the main chamber, and at the furiously active work going on in all its cells.
“What is it?” she asked Apollo.
“Incredible! May be the largest underground Tylium mine anywhere. Father was right about there being Tylium here. There’s enough here just in sight to fuel all our ships, run them half across the universe. But—”
&nbs
p; “But what?”
“I don’t know exactly. For something like this to exist here without us knowing that it had been reactivated, it’s, well, bizarre. Who uses all this energy, and for what?”
An Ovion gave them a shove, guiding them toward the bridge that crossed the large chamber.
“Where could Boxey be?” Serina said. “I’m so worried about him.”
“I know. If they’ve done anything to him, I’ll—”
“Don’t say it. I’m scared enough already.”
The guards stopped at Lotay’s throne room and beckoned the two humans inward. Apollo and Serina entered the queen’s chamber.
At first Lotay didn’t notice them—or, in queenly fashion, waited an imperial minute to recognize them. In the meantime Serina was fascinated by the colorful layers of cloth that decorated the room, the scurrying slaves performing all kinds of odd duties, the musicians playing some tune that didn’t sound at all musical but rather more like an out-of-whack generator. Finally, the queen looked up from her perch upon a high pile of cushions.
“You are Captain Apollo?” she asked. Her voice, although low-pitched, had a scratchy sound to it. Both Apollo and Serina would have been astonished if they had known that, to the Ovions, Lotay’s voice was considered ethereally musical.
“I am,” Apollo responded.
“Welcome to Carillon. I assume you are impressed.”
“Outraged might be the better word. Where is the boy?”
The creature formed what was recognizable to the humans as a smile, but it looked peculiar on her insectoid face.
“Would you care to join him, Captain?”
“You bet I would, and if anything’s happened to him, you’ll answer to the Colonies!”
Lotay smiled again, nodded her oversized head noncommittally and rose from her plush cushions. Serina, already accustomed to the uniform shortness of the Ovions she had seen thus far, was astonished by the queen’s height. She towered over the other Ovions. With a walk that was definitely queenlike, Lotay led the way out of the royal chamber. Serina noted that their guards fell easily into step behind them as she and Apollo followed the queen out. As they made their way down the narrow corridor, Serina leaned toward Apollo and whispered, “Did that spooky smile of hers mean she knows the colonies don’t exist anymore?”
[Battlestar Galactica Classic] - Battlestar Galactica Page 16
