As Lucifer collected the ritual winnings, Crutch said softly, "I believe you have lost this match, Starbuck. The people, prisoners and citizens alike, remain in our charge. As do you, according to our agreement.
"Good playing, Lucifer," Spectre said, for once the obsequious tone of his voice directed at Lucifer instead of someone in authority.
Lucifer was not pleased with praise emitting from Spectre, nor did he sense the satisfaction he had expected from finally beating the human at his own game. All of the time he had spent studying the mechanics of this rather odd game seemed wasted, since his win had not resulted in skill based on his calculations, but in a silly run of luck. He was also dismayed by the crestfallen look on Starbuck's face. Obviously the man could not believe he had lost. He seemed deflated, smaller. He was beginning to look like one of the city's zombies at the time of the Summoning. And that, of course, was what he was now going to be, now that the game was over. In the power of the Image Lords, he would become one of their zombies. It seemed a dreadful way to lose a bet. Lucifer, made uneasy by Starbuck's sadness, peered at the cards in his hand. He stared at the symbols on the pasteboard surfaces. If one arranged the cards right, they would indeed form a picture of the actuality they represented, a pyramid. Other than that, they were just flat symbols on cardboard. So meaningless—except for the meaning humans put onto them. In the human world so much could depend on a symbol.
Starbuck's voice interrupted Lucifer's meditation on symbolism.
"I, uh, I don't know what to say. Congratulations, Lucifer."
Crutch stood up from the table, waving his quartet of arms about.
"Yes," he said, "a good game, mate. I worried there for a while. Now—"
"Sit down," Starbuck said gruffly. Crutch was shocked at the forbidden tone of authority in the voice of a prisoner, but he sat anyway.
"We have another game to play here," Starbuck said. "For Chameleon's soul, as it were. A new deck, Crutch."
Meekly, Crutch ordered the new pack, unwrapped it without awkwardness, rippled it almost professionally, then stared dumfoundedly at Starbuck.
"Well, what are you waiting for?" Starbuck asked irritably. Crutch did not understand.
"Deal, Crutch."
"Yes, Crutch," Lucifer said softly. "Deal."
Crutch, after both players had cut the cards, started laying them out face down, beneath the impassive faces of both players.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Apollo's brigade of citizens became fiercer and more alert as they discovered and destroyed more and more of the machinery which had formerly controlled them. The effects of their attack could be seen throughout the city. Lights went out and power failed. Bewildered people began to wander the streets of their neighborhood, seeing their former friends as strangers, seeing their city as a large cage. Memories of their past, sketchy but vivid, interrupted their confused thoughts.
In the multidomed building Trinzot suddenly grabbed his head and grimaced in pain. Apollo asked him was what the matter.
"When you . . . blasted that last machine," Trinzot said, "something . . . happened inside my head. It's like there was something planted there, and it burned out suddenly."
"Trinzot—"
"I am not Trinzot. My name is . . . my name is Belaise. Trinzot is a name the Image Lords gave me after they had . . . conditioned me. I am from a twelve worlds' colony. We were doing research on a jungle planet and these . . . these creatures invaded and brought us here."
"You and your wife?"
"She isn't my wife. Or at least she wasn't. I am a bachelor. Was a bachelor. They brought her here from somewhere else, too. I don't know her real name. The children's, either."
"They snatched the children and brought them here?" Croft said.
"They are not yours?" Sheba asked.
"They . . . don't allow children to be born here. They don't like babies. None of us can have . . . children. We are not allowed to try."
In a neighborhood close to the multidomed building, three people, two men and a woman, nearly collided with each other, the accident bringing them out of their dazes.
"Where am I?" said one of the men.
"They call this place Euphoria, don't they?" said the other.
"That's true," the woman said. "But how do we know that?"
"I have two lives," said the first man. "One here. And one . . . somewhere else. I don't understand. My head hurts."
"Mine, too," the woman said.
"What are we doing here?" the first man said.
"That's what I'm damn well going to find out," the second man said.
"Me, too," said the woman.
They began to run. They shouted questions to passersby, aroused many to run along with them. Other groups formed in other parts of the city. For the first time chaos and anarchy reigned in Euphoria.
In a still-functioning control room, beguiled Image Lords stared at their monitor screens. They enjoyed the unpredictability of it all, the spontaneity, the unprogrammed events. However, they soon recognized the newfound anarchy was a threat to their manipulative powers and that they should act against it.
"They are out of control," said one Image Lord.
"Start the Summoning," suggested another.
Other Image Lords joined the discussion.
"It is not yet time for the Summoning."
"That makes no difference."
"But we must follow schedule."
"Who says, friend? Let's start the Summoning now."
"All right."
The aliens attacked their controls furiously. With its usual complex set of signals, the Summoning began. All through the building and in the city, people felt the small tugs inside their heads, directing them, confounding them.
Apollo saw Trinzot's eyes become cloudy as his face displayed intense pain. His body gyrated as he tried to resist the urges of the Summoning.
"What's wrong now, Trinzot?" Apollo said.
"They're trying to manipulate him," Croft said. "All of them!"
He pointed toward the other citizens in the room. Some of them were starting to walk toward the door, seeking their assigned places.
The pull of the Summoning reached even into the game room, where the children began to respond to it.
"We must go," Chandra said in a hollow voice.
"Yes," Brynt said, standing up.
"But they'll see us," said Zossie, who was the least affected of the three.
"Doesn't matter," Chandra said. "We must go."
"No!" Zossie said. Her brother and sister stared at her, mystified. Although they weren't used to obeying her, they stood their ground.
"We can resist now," Zossie said. "We couldn't resist before."
"That's . . . true," Chandra said.
"It is," said Brynt. "We can stay here. We don't have to go"
The people in the city's streets and homes were fighting the same struggle as the children. Some of them attempted to form their regular groupings, but others disrupted the orderly lines by pulling individuals off them. Many people, looking on speculatively, did not respond at all to the Image Lord signals.
Soon there were no lines and the people heading toward the central building weren't in their usual dazed condition. Urged on by the more vocal within their ranks, they meant to question, to seek out the Image Lords and expose their chicanery.
Inside the building, Croft and Apollo struggled to restrain Trinzot.
"Stay with us, Trinzot," Apollo said.
"Belaise," Croft said. "His name is Belaise."
"Stay here, Belaise."
"I . . . I can't. I must go."
"No!" Croft roared suddenly, astonishing everybody else in the room as well as Trinzot/Belaise. "You don't have to do a damn thing they say," Croft yelled. "You're a free man. You got to do something to be a prisoner. You got to deserve prison."
"I . . . I . . ."
Croft slapped Trinzot/Belaise, whose eyes went blank for a moment. When he came out of his daze, h
is eyes were brighter.
"Apollo?" he said. "Croft?"
"Are you okay, Belaise?" Apollo asked.
"Yes, I think so. I think I am. The pull is gone from inside my head."
Back in the control room, seeing on their monitors that something had gone haywire with the Summoning, the Image Lords labored frantically to put matters back under their control.
"It's a rebellion," one of them said. "A genuine rebellion."
"How picturesque," said another. "How wonderful!"
"It is kind of . . . interesting," said a third.
"This is impossible," said the first. "Increase the intensity of the Summoning."
The Image Lords manipulated their controls more fiercely than ever. On the screens above the consoles they could see that there was some effect, some people abruptly going into the zombie state. However, more people were resisting that succumbing. The effort was awesome for some, as they writhed and squirmed in defiance.
Chandra nearly went under. She grabbed her head and stumbled forward a few steps. Brynt seized her arm and whispered, "Chandra! No!"
She shook her head violently. She felt the control of the Image Lords fading. She pulled away from Brynt, saying, "I'm . . . all . . . right."
Her movement caught the attention of several of the aliens in the audience. One of them hurried to her and pushed her onto the gaming area floor, where one of the guards picked her up roughly.
The guard's sudden move broke Starbuck's concentration. Looking up, he saw Chandra dangling from one of the guard's arms. He stood up, knocking against the table.
"Keep your hands off her!" he shouted, as he approached the guard threateningly. Crutch came up behind him and asked, "You know this child, mate?"
"Do I have to know her to get your thugs away from her?"
"No, I guess not, bud."
Crutch bellowed an order in his own language and the guard gently released Chandra. She lost her balance and fell to the floor. Looking up at Starbuck, she said weakly, "Are you all right?"
Starbuck, touched, smiled at her.
"I'm fine. But I should be asking you that." He helped her up. "How are you?"
"Strange. Things are changing. I don't understand."
Starbuck hugged her. She noticed a wrapped cigar sticking out of his shirt pocket. Reaching her hand upward quickly, she took it from the pocket and hid it up her sleeve.
Starbuck released her and said, "I have to go back to this game. Sit right there. Bring me good luck."
Thrilled with the idea that Starbuck needed her for luck, she eagerly took the seat he'd pointed toward. Starbuck resumed his seat at the table and considered the weak hand Crutch had dealt him. This bad run of cards had to stop. He was lucky to have stayed in the game with Lucifer, who was playing a surprisingly steady and shrewd game. A couple more hands like this one, and this match would be Lucifer's too. Starbuck needed one great hand to turn the game around.
Chameleon watched nervously from his corner, wishing he could break the hold of the guard who restrained him in order to be nearer to Starbuck during the game.
Starbuck barely noticed the Image Lord who came in to whisper agitately to Crutch about the violence in other areas of the building. Crutch, unconcerned about any events outside of the game, waved his informant away.
He did not realize the extent of the riot. The citizens of the city were now heading toward the multidomed building in great numbers, ready to storm it if necessary. As the awareness of how much their lives had been manipulated by the Image Lords sank in, they had become quite surly. In the building itself, Apollo's troops were going berserk. They weren't just destroying Image Lord equipment according to Apollo's plan, they were wrecking everything in sight. And enjoying it.
"They're a mob," Apollo yelled to Croft.
"Yeah. Ain't it lovely?"
"Somebody might get hurt."
"Breaks of the game, Captain."
"No. We've got to get them under control."
"They've had enough of outside control."
Apollo ran forward. People slammed by him, knocking him against the wall of the corridor. Croft neatly sidestepped the onslaught, then went to Apollo and helped him up.
"You all right, pal?" Croft asked. Apollo shook his head.
"Yes. What happened?"
"You just found out about the fury of revolutionary zeal, that's all."
Apollo rushed to the sounds of new violence, as lights all through the corridor began to flicker.
Starbuck had never had to concentrate so intensely on a game of cards in his whole previous gambling-fool life. Chandra stared at her hero with bright-eyed admiration. She was particularly fascinated by the many beads of sweat on Starbuck's forehead. A nice touch, she thought, it'd look good on Imagescan. She wished she had some tissue paper so that she could touch it to his forehead, blot it a bit, then add it to her growing collection of Starbuck memorabilia.
In the game neither player had been able to gain an advantage, as the cards continued to fall in lower-scoring patterns. Lucifer and Starbuck had been trading off minor victories and remained even overall. Their concentration was briefly broken by a sudden commotion outside the gaming room. After Crutch told them the noises did not signify anything, the two opponents, like tough card players everywhere, returned to the game.
Starbuck slowly peeked at his new hand. His heart skipped a beat when he saw a major-suit capstone. Gradually he opened the hand and saw that it also contained three of the four sidewalls in the same suit. He just barely held in a smile before glancing coldly toward Lucifer and saying in a disinterested voice, "I'm going to double on this one, Lucifer."
He shoved out a pile of betting chips and studied Lucifer's impassive study of his own hand.
"I will double also," Lucifer said.
"Double my doubling? You must have a hot hand, Lucifer."
"Yes."
Starbuck allowed himself a small smile.
"God," he said, "if I could stand looking like you, Lucy, I would. Your face is the card-player's dream. I can't read anything in it."
"You told me that before, back on Baltar's ship."
"And I meant it then, too."
"But you won then."
"Of course. And I'll win now. How about one more double, Lucifer?"
"Certainly. I, also."
Starbuck tried to make his wiping of sweat off his forehead appear casual. He hoped Lucifer, with his fancy interior sensory equipment, couldn't detect his rapid heartbeat. The doubling factor had brought the point score to the level at which the winner of this hand would win the match. It would be difficult to beat the hand he held. Only the completed major pyramid could beat this arrangement of three sides of the major plus capstone backed up with a complete minor pyramid. And Lucifer had already drawn that hand once, to win the previous match. Still, it was possible, if against the odds, that Lucifer held just such an array of cards. If he did, then Chameleon was done for. Starbuck glanced toward his father, wondering if the next moment would bring about the old man's doom. He wondered if Chameleon would want him to give up, cancel the hand, as was his right, and attempt to make a bargain with Crutch and his ilk instead of letting Chameleon's fate rest on a single hand of pyramid. As he stared at his father, he watched him slowly raise and lower his eyebrows three times, a facial gesture which Chameleon had once said was an old cardsharp's tradition. It meant to go ahead without fear. Don't cancel the hand. Make your play.
Starbuck started laying out his cards.
"I think it's my game, and match, Lucifer," he said. "Take a gander at these. You'd weep—if it wouldn't rust your cheeks."
Lucifer studied Starbuck's cards for a long while. As he did, he fingered his own hand idly with his long metal fingers. Then he made an indecipherable sound and tossed his cards on the table face down.
"You win, Starbuck. Congratulations."
Chameleon let out a long-held breath. Starbuck discovered that he'd been swallowing hard for a long while. Pains sh
ot through his legs and untensed them.
Spectre slid forward, saying, "Lucifer, that means . . ."
"I will be disconnected. Deactivated. Yes."
"Lucifer," Starbuck said, leaning forward, "look, you don't really have to—"
He was interrupted by an explosion of human voices outside the main door to the gaming room. Everyone's attention was drawn to that door, as the people outside began to pound on it. With a loud cracking sound, the door sprung open and the mob poured into the room. The Image Lords were so astonished by their unexpectedly violent citizen-rebels that they made scant resistance to their charge. The people, using their homemade weapons, attacked any equipment they saw. Those that didn't break equipment started to demolish the bleachers on which the now-scurrying aliens had sat. The few Image Lords that tried to fight back were easily subdued in spite of their size. Weapons were knocked out of the hands of guards before they could fire them.
Enthralled, Chandra watched the action. No Imagescan adventure had ever presented a riot like this one. It was marvelous.
Two men, perceiving Lucifer as just another kind of alien, jumped on him and wrestled him easily to the ground. Starbuck bolted around the table and pounced on Lucifer's attackers. Picking up each of them by the collar, he yanked them aside. They tried to fight back, landing a couple solid blows on Starbuck's face, but he decked them easily with a couple of right hooks. Chandra watched the fight eagerly, happy to see her hero perform like his Imagescan counterpart. When he turned around and she could see his face, she was amazed to see a thin stream of blood coming out of his nose. The Imagescan Starbuck had never bled.
Starbuck whirled around when his name was shouted. He saw Apollo and Boomer come into the room, Croft just behind them.
"You guys look familiar," Starbuck said happily. "You come here often?"
"Just to rescue fallen warriors, fella," Boomer said, embracing Starbuck.
The commotion had died down, and the revolutionary fervor was gradually disappearing from the attackers. As the noise dwindled, Starbuck heard Chameleon's voice cry out weakly, "Uh . . . Starbuck?"
Battlestar Galactica 12 - Die, Chameleon! Page 21
