“I don’t know,” Apollo whispered back.
Lotay led them into a small chamber and brought them to a halt. She gestured toward one of the guards who sealed off the entranceway. Immediately, they could feel the floor beneath them move.
“What’s happening?” Serina asked.
“Must be their version of an elevator, except it moves sideways as well as up.”
When the moving chamber had stopped, Lotay ordered the guard to open the door. Apollo and Serina, exchanging wary looks, allowed themselves to be guided through the doorway. They were not at all prepared for what confronted them now, a large banquet room teeming with movement, reverberating with loud discordant music. Some Ovions near them danced, their four arms twisting in rather graceful gestures. There was a troop of jugglers. Serina had never imagined what intricate juggling a quartet of arms could accomplish. Banquet tables, enormous and overflowing displayed succulent-looking food that seemed to represent the best of the twelve-world cuisines. It smelled wonderful and reminded her of how hungry she had been for so long.
“Captain!”
Starbuck came toward Apollo, his hands held out in welcome. Other eaters turned around to look. Jolly held a drumstick of something clutched tightly in his chubby fingers.
“Boxey!” Serina called and was answered immediately. The boy jumped off Boomer’s knees and ran to Serina, embraced her.
“Good fortune is smiling on us,” Starbuck said, lifting in toast a flat, blue, hexagonally shaped fruit.
“It’s like nothing we could’ve dreamed of,” Jolly declared, the signs of his joy foodstained all over his tunic. “They’ve got everything we need and plenty of it.”
“And they’re happy to share,” Boomer said.
“It sounds like paradise,” Serina said, her voice not as sure as her words. Her hugging of Boxey was composed of equal parts of joy and protection.
“Yes, it does,” Apollo said, his wary eyes inspecting the lavishness of the room.
Lotay stepped forward and addressed her human guests.
“We are a communal order from birth. We all work. We all share. There is no competition, no jealousy, no conflict. Only peace and order.”
“Perpetual happiness,” Apollo observed. He wasn’t sure whether Lotay perceived the irony of his reflection.
“Happiness is the goal of an immature order. All pursue it. Few have it. None can sustain it. The Ovion is content. It is better.”
Serina could see a doubt in Apollo’s eyes that was a match for her own feelings.
“It seems to work for you,” she said to the queen.
“For millenniums it has been so. Now, join us. Be our guests. Be well fed, well entertained. What you need, merely ask for it. Be content.”
“She’s not just a-kidding,” Starbuck said. “You think this banquet is something, wait’ll you get a look at the casino a couple levels above.”
“Casino?” Apollo said.
“Yep. I’m on my way back there as soon as I get sustenance.”
“Lieutenant Starbuck, there’re people starving back on the—”
“I know, I know, Captain. Ease off. These people’re assembling food for us right now. And fuel. Our problems’re solved.”
“It sounds good, Starbuck, but—”
“But nothing, Captain. C’mon, have you ever tried this orange wine? Take a sip.”
“I’ll pass for the moment.”
Lotay, watching their conversation, smiled at the humans benignly. To Apollo and Serina, the queen’s smile seemed to contain just as much mystery as ever. There seemed to be more meaning in it than she was willing to exhibit. Apollo had sensed a tone of command in her invocations to enjoyment. Serina was not sure what she sensed, but whatever it was, was cloying. She desperately wanted to return aboveground, to be in the comforting, though spare, confines of the Galactica.
The executive officers around Imperious Leader’s pedestal transmitted nothing but trivialities through their communications webs. At first-brain level a Cylon hated inactivity. By the time he achieved a second-brain, the Cylon hated confusion. Third-brain Cylons despised both inactivity and confusion, but even more they hated triviality. The centurion officer that he had dispatched to the planet Carillon to rendezvous with their Ovion allies and to check out the rumors about human ships in that sector had not yet reported in. The leader felt disused, as if he might decay if nothing important happened soon.
His mind was burdened with inconsequentialities that he did not even have to correlate. He kept finding himself making random connections which, though accurate, were meaningless.
He remembered a conversation he had once had with a human captive. The man had been a scientist, a short, somewhat plump fellow who fancied long sideburns to counter his thinning hair. Suspecting the man might be a fit conversationalist for a Cylon, the leader had made some attempts in that direction. While they talked theory and technology, their communication level remained higher than that of the average interaction between Cylon and human. However, the scientist had grown lethargic after several days, and had begun to provide answers in a monotone.
When the Leader asked the reason for the scientist’s change in mood, the man tried to explain the concept of boredom to the Cylon. It was a concept that was so loathsome to the leader that he refused to accept it. He became quite incensed with rage. The man copied the Cylon’s mood and spoke back angrily, defending boredom as a common, even acceptable, human trait. Nobody liked to be bored, the man said stridently, but it was a necessary part of human life that often led to the kind of contemplation which eventually resulted in revolutionary insights. Boredom could even be beneficial for humanity, the man said. The leader commented that, since starting the discussion of boredom, the man seemed much less bored, therefore talking about boredom must not be boring. The man screamed that he was more bored than ever, that the Leader and all the rest of the Cylons were such smug hypocrites with such infinitesimal variance in attitude or personality that any sensible human could not help but be bored after a few days in their company. Although the leader did not believe in boredom as a useful or even genuine state, he resented the man’s claim of boredom in Cylon company, and he banished the scientist from his presence forever. He had probably put the man to death, although that was a piece of information that he would not have bothered to preserve in any of his brains. Now he wondered if such accumulations of trivial data as that under which he presently suffered were roughly comparable to what that scientist had called boredom. He did not have to consider this offensive proposition for long, since some important new information suddenly came through. The centurion on Carillon had finally transmitted a message. He had entrenched himself in an underground cavern of the planet, and was in communication with their Ovion allies. They had told him that the humans definitely had arrived in the Carillon sector. Some of them were already in Ovion sway, others hovered in orbit around the planet on the battlestar Galactica and a few other ships. Their fighter ships had destroyed large sections of the minefield which the Cylons, by treaty arrangement with the Ovions, had encircled the planet to protect the secret fuel supply which had been at Cylon disposal ever since they had originally enslaved the Ovions and transported them to the uninhabited planet. The leader, satisfied to be back in real action again, transmitted the order that a large fleet of Cylon fighters on the planet Borallus be put in readiness to travel to Carillon sector. Then he relaxed, satisfied that what he felt now—the waves of important information—was not in any way the quality humanity endured under the name of boredom.
In the viewer by Adama’s desk, the image of the planet Carillon appeared benign. The figures on the report in his hand confirmed the wisdom of his decision to come here. Not only could they replenish food and supplies easily, but they would obtain enough Tylium to power the entire ragtag fleet for some time. Activating his private comline, he began recording his log.
“The Ovion people have extended to the survivors of the colonies every mea
sure of goodness and support we might have hoped for. It is now possible to foresee the entire fleet able to resume our voyage soon, within a—”
There was a knock on the door. Adama shut off the comline and hollered, “Come in.”
Colonel Tigh entered the room, looking troubled. Tigh was always finding something to worry about, especially if the worriment could be written up in a report.
“Nothing can be as bad as you look, Tigh. What’s happened?”
“It’s this report, sir, from the surface.”
“It’s a very optimistic report. Colonel.”
“Too optimistic. Uri has everyone in the fleet breaking in the bulkheads to get down to the surface, and none of them’re volunteering for work details either.”
Adama had a mental picture of Uri addressing the weary people left aboard the Galactica. The councillor had a way of using his maturely handsome looks with a political sense of strategy. With the food stores so desperately low, it was no wonder they would respond to Uri’s suggestions.
“Well,” he said, “perhaps Uri has a point. Perhaps we could allow some of our people to visit the surface. In small numbers, an orderly rotation. What’s wrong, Tigh?”
Tigh cleared his throat before speaking again:
“I’m afraid it’s too late for cautious plans, sir. Uri’s already authorized visitors permits to half our population.”
“Half the population! Countermand those orders immediately.”
“I’m afraid we can’t. As a member of the council, Uri has the right to make certain nonmilitary decisions. If you’d stayed on as president, well—”
“Don’t rub it in, Colonel.” The commander sighed. “Okay, do what you can to stem the tides. How are the work parties coming?”
“Very well. Livestock’re being well fed and the first agricultural growths have sprouted.”
“All right, Colonel, carry on.”
Adama considered what Tigh had told him. Uri could not be allowed so much political license, and it was dangerous to send so many people down to the surface. Contingency plans would have to be devised. As he picked up the electronic recording stylus to begin making notes, there was another knock on his cabin door. He shouted, “Come in!” It was Athena.
“Request permission to travel planetside,” she said.
“Why are you asking me?” Adama asked. “I thought Sire Uri was handing out permits like friendship gifts.”
Athena reacted with surprise to her father’s hostility, but said, “I wouldn’t go down there with his blessing on a bet, Father. And I won’t go if you say no.”
He was about to reject her request, but something sad in her eyes made him say, “It’s all right. You might as well go. You need the relaxation more than most, you’ve been working so—”
“It’s not relaxation I’m after.”
“Oh? Starbuck again, is it?”
“Maybe.”
“I know he’s down there, and that he discovered that casino. With Starbuck, a casino must have seemed his rightful gift from the gods. I thought you were mad at him.”
“I am.”
“But—I think I can guess. That woman you caught him with. She’s in one of Uri’s visitor parties, isn’t she?”
“Maybe.”
“Well, give her hell.”
“Is that to be interpreted as an order, Sir?”
“Give ’em both hell, ensign.”
“Yes, Sir!”
He smiled at the brisk way she turned on her heels and exited the room.
As he took up the stylus again, his communicator buzzed. It was Tigh.
“Fuel has begun to arrive by tanker-shuttles from the Ovion Tylium mines, Sir.”
“I detect disturbance in your voice, Colonel.”
“Well, the supplies are smaller than Captain Apollo arranged for. The Ovion leader sent up some sort of flimsy excuse that they weren’t prepared for such a large order just now. Yet, from the reports we’ve had from Apollo and the others, that excuse doesn’t seem justified.”
“I see. Well, stay on top of it, Colonel.”
The moment Tigh had signed off, Adama raised the stylus and began writing furiously into the recording log. He felt the need for precautionary measures even more. Extraordinary measures.
When he had finished outlining his contingency procedures, he buzzed Tigh.
“Yes, Sir?”
“Prepare my shuttle. I’m going down to the surface. I want to see this paradise for myself.”
“Sir, are you sure—”
“Are you suggesting I should get permission from Sire Uri?”
“No, Sir! The shuttle will be ready.”
Adama swivelled around in his chair, pleased at the tingling sensation in his fingers, the feeling of blood pulsing through his veins. He had not felt this ready for action in some time.
FROM THE ADAMA JOURNALS:
I used to imagine paradise when I was a kid. While I don’t remember very many details of my image of the place, I know there were a lot of toy airplanes and most everything was blue. My more adult visions of paradise put me in the center with all I wished for available on call. Athena says she imagines paradise as her very own battlestar to command. Tigh’s is one where no paper exists. Our paradises tend to be solipsistic dreams in which there is either more of everything we think we love and need, or we are awarded gifts of all that’s usually denied us. Seems to me the point is that, in all our paradises, we don’t pay heed to the slaves who are the rest of the population in our ideal imaginary lands. A paradise, which should suggest expansion of human potential, is usually a reduction, generally to the state of inertia. People lounge in paradise a lot more than they do in life, or even want to do. The Carillon paradise was in reality a trap, as false as the peace offer of the Cylons or the pleasant words of Count Baltar. We humans have an unfortunate tendency to welcome traps if we can find some way to call them paradises. Be content, the Ovion queen Lotay said. And we can be content if we don’t have to think of the slaves or the inertia, so long as there are plenty of toy airplanes and everything is blue.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Adama had visited Tylium mines before, but the Ovion one resembled no other mining operation he’d ever seen, especially when one viewed it from the mammoth underground cavern and contemplated the seemingly infinite depths. Its network of cells was an amazing phenomenon to anyone familiar only with deep-sunk tunnels and shafts. Adama felt uneasy. The workers, live beings after all, moved like machines. The Ovion guards stood too near them as if overseeing every action. It all had the smell of slave labor about it, and he didn’t like it.
During the tour, Lotay’s soft but raspy voice had supplied the kind of statistics that generally awed visiting committees. She finished off by describing her operation as the most efficient Tylium mine anywhere.
“It’s a testimony to communal order,” Councillor Uri said obsequiously.
“Thank you,” Lotay replied. “Now allow me to show you some of the finer points of Ovion existence.”
She led them to the banquet room, where the enormous feast had been replenished. The councilors crowded the table like men starved for some time—which, of course, they were.
Although Adama had also suffered the rigors of privation, he was not quite so eager to accept Ovion hospitality, and he held back from the banquet. The vigorous music being played on a host of stringed instruments agitated his nerves.
“This is too much to expect,” Uri said, slivers of food dripping from the corners of his mouth.
“We have plenty,” Lotay said. “We wish to aid you. As many of your people who desire it are invited to be our guests.”
Uri, triumphant, whirled on Adama.
“And you, Commander, wanted to deny our people such a kind and generous invitation?”
Adama felt uncomfortable under the man’s piercing gaze. For the moment all the cards were in Uri’s hand, and Adama could only reply, “I suggested only a small rotation and not a mass descent upon�
�”
“But I thought time was our greatest consideration,” Uri interrupted, talking in between sips of a purplish liquid. “The more people we bring down here at once, the sooner we can be on our way, get back to the others. You know, I think it might be wise to consider, once all the ships are refueled and converted to hyperspace, bringing them all here to enjoy the hospitality of this planet. Perhaps, with a little work we could even settle here. That’s the best idea I’ve had in a long time, I must consider it.”
Uri’s proposal, clearly a political one, drew a murmured approval from the other members of the council on the tour, even from Anton, who was usually not quick to agree to anything. Adama decided not to reply to the challenge in Uri’s voice. It was never wise to argue with a politician well on his way to inebriation. And, back on the sober decks of the Galactica, the others would see that his proposal was nonsensical.
Adama turned to Lotay and said, “May I ask how our request for Tylium is being received?”
“We have already prepared and processed the first shipment for you, have we not?” Lotay said, her voice sounding much too political for Adama’s comfort. Trying to interpret a possibly calculated move of an alien seemed too much to ask of himself after just enduring Uri’s insidious strategies.
“Yes, we boarded the first load of liquid Tylium,” he said. “However, I understand there’s to be a delay in obtaining more.”
The pinched lower part of the queen’s face managed a quite humanlike pout.
“Our processing procedures are antiquated,” she said. “It takes time to process the ore, and we were not prepared for such a large order. You did come upon us as something of a surprise, after all. Generally, we are not called upon to process the ore into a liquid state for an entire space fleet.”
[Battlestar Galactica Classic] - Battlestar Galactica Page 17
