Battlestar Galactica 12 - Die, Chameleon!

by Glen A. Larson

  Starbuck, with Spectre, stared at the dead-eyed Lucifer for a long while in silence. Finally, Starbuck said, "Spectre, is he—"

  He couldn't finish the sentence. Spectre moved closer to Lucifer to examine him more closely. He saw that all of Lucifer's functions were off.

  "Yes, Starbuck, he is."

  Starbuck stepped toward Spectre and gestured wildly.

  "Well, you know how he works. Bring him back. Turn him on again!"

  Spectre fiddled with a few switches which might have put some power into Lucifer, but nothing happened.

  "There is nothing I can do. He has anticipated such attempts and irremediably locked all circuits from interference."

  "But there must be something you can do. Take him apart and put him back together again alive."

  "That would not be possible, I'm afraid. Lieutenant. You heard what he said. I observed the self-destruct device to which he referred. We cannot even tamper with him."

  The life seemed to go out of Starbuck's body. His arms, too, hung limp at his side, and he stared at the floor.

  "Then he is dead?" he said.

  "In effect."

  Starbuck stood still for a long while, then anger took hold of his body and he strode forward. Standing on his toes so that he could look into the creature's nonfunctioning eyes, he muttered, "Lucifer, you stupid bastard!"

  Then abruptly, he whirled around and walked rapidly out of the gaming room.

  Spectre glided to Lucifer. He again examined him, then looked down at the cards he was holding in his own thin metallic fingers.

  "I must admit," he said, "that the lieutenant, in his emotionalistically human way, has a definite point, Lucifer."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Croft stayed at Sheba's heels all the next morning as she directed the squadron of Vipers from the Galactica in landing on the Image Lord airfield. The maneuvers of the spacecraft in the skies above The Joyful Land had been impressive.

  When all of the Vipers had landed, Croft resumed his assault. "What say, Sheba darlin'?"

  "I say what I've always said. No and no and no."

  "Ah, but they're hopeful noes."

  "Croft, don't you ever know when to stop?"

  "If I'd known when to stop, I wouldn't have done so much time in stir. Don't you find me at all appealing?"

  "Not much."

  Croft looked toward the hill, where Apollo could be seen in conversation with Belaise.

  "It's Apollo, isn't it? You're hung up on him?"

  "I'm not, as you say, hung up on anybody. Just leave me alone, Croft."

  "For now, my darlin', for now."

  He walked away arrogantly. It was the arrogance in his stride that prevented Sheba from running after him to renegotiate his offer.

  Apollo stood with Belaise on the hill above the airfield, watching the landings of the Vipers.

  "It is agreed, then," Apollo said, turning to Belaise. "The Image Lords will no longer toy with the lives of the people here."

  "They say they will leave The Joyful Land. They couldn't stand it here under the new conditions. They seek adventure, but elsewhere now."

  "I hope they find no more species to manipulate." Apollo wondered if the Image Lords could exist without subjects to enslave.

  Belaise resumed his report. "Some of our citizens—only a few, I'm afraid—have expressed the desire to be transported to your fleet and find new lives there."

  Apollo was surprised.

  "Do they realize what they're getting into?" he asked. "It's a much sparer existence on the Galactica and the other ships. Not as comfortable as here in The Joyful Land."

  "They realize."

  Cadet Hera ran up the hill to Apollo, shouting his name.

  "Yes, Cadet?"

  "The shuttle from the Galactica. It's arriving. We should be seeing it any moment."

  Searching the skies, they found the speck that was the Galactica's shuttle. It zeroed in on the airfield effectively, and made a neat pinpoint landing. Apollo was impressed. Few pilots aboard the Galactica could handle a shuttle that well. When the doors opened and Commander Adama stepped out, Apollo knew then why the shuttle had been piloted so effectively. His father had always been a master pilot.

  Apollo ran forward to greet Adama.

  "Apollo!" Adama yelled. "I'm so glad you're all right."

  "I'm fine, Commander."

  While they addressed each other as commander and subordinate, they embraced as father and son. Both struggled to hide their feelings. As Adama separated from the embrace, he said, "I brought one of the crewmen with me who'd like to see you."

  "What—?"

  Adama gestured toward the shuttle entry way. Standing there now, a yapping Muffit beside him, was Boxey, a shy smile on his face. Apollo grinned broadly. He went to the child and swept him up into his arms. The daggit jumped up and down at their feet.

  "I wanted to see you right away, Dad," Boxey said.

  "Glad you did, Boxey," Apollo said.

  Starbuck came around the side of the shuttle. He stopped abruptly when he saw Apollo hugging his son, and Adama looking proudly on. He brushed back some tears himself as he observed the scene, with its two sets of fathers and sons. Their warmth together painfully reminded him of his own lost father, of Chameleon wriggling in the arms of the repulsive pirate, Crutch. It seemed that Starbuck was destined always to lose his father just when they were on the verge of the kind of relationship he now viewed with admiration and envy.

  Hera, seeing Starbuck looking so sad, walked to him and put her arm around his shoulders.

  "How are ya, pal?" she said.

  "Who, me?" Starbuck said, realizing that in the bright light of the airfield his tears were obvious. "I'm fine. Great."

  "You look it. Say, Lieutenant Boomer told me to tell you the squadron's awaiting your orders."

  "Well, we have to run equipment checks before returning to the Galactica. Let's go, Cadet."

  "Yes, sir."

  Hera kept her arm around Starbuck's shoulders as they headed for the squadron. After a few steps, she said suddenly, "Hey, Starbuck. About what happened back on the Galactica, my chasing you and all—"

  Starbuck, apprehensive, stopped. Hera's arm dropped from his shoulder. Uncomfortably he looked up into the lovely dark eyes of the tall cadet.

  "Yes?" he asked.

  "Well, don't put much stock in it. We Vaileans get kind of . . . well, overenthusiastic. I've decided to leave you alone, if that's the way you want it."

  "Hey, don't be too hasty."

  Hera smiled. They resumed walking.

  "You certainly are an unpredictable louse," she said.

  "Take it easy on the sentimental affectionate names."

  She touched his upper arm, saying, "Say, what's wrong with your uniform?"

  "What?"

  "The rips at the shoulder."

  "Oh. Must have been something happened in a fight."

  "You lost your ship insignia."

  "Oh, yeah. Guess I did."

  Starbuck grinned but offered no further explanation. Hera discovered that her Vailean romantic curiosity was stirred anew by the young lieutenant's enigmatic ways.

  The ships of the Galactica flew once over Euphoria before heading back to the fleet. Citizens of the city came out of their houses to wave good-bye to the warriors who had freed them.

  Chandra heard the noise of their flight but didn't go outside. She hadn't wanted Starbuck to leave and certainly didn't care for a last sight of the ship that was taking him. Brynt and Zossie had scuttered out of the room, leaving behind a Starbuck Imagescan adventure which they hadn't been enjoying, anyway. The real Starbuck had made them lose their zest for his Imagescan counterpart.

  Chandra listened to the sounds of the ships fade. Then she returned to the collection of objects which she had spread out on a cloth in front of her. Along with her array of Starbuck's cigars, there was the holster (which he'd searched for unsuccessfully in the forest), the cigar-wrapper, the piece of
fringe from his buckskin jacket, and her newest acquisition, the Battlestar Galactica insignia he had given her as a parting gift. She touched each and every one of these objects and pressed the insignia to her cheek.

  Someday, she thought, the Starbuck would return.

  Or she would go and find him.

  EPILOGUE

  Although the configurations on the controls of an Image Lord ship were not familiar to Spectre, he had figured out how to pilot the craft easily. Nothing was impossible to an IL series Cylon. None of the Image Lords, all of them busy with preparations for their own exodus away from The Joyful Land, had noticed Spectre's stealing of one of their ships. They had not even noticed him laboriously carrying the immobile Lucifer across the field and into the ship.

  Now, speeding away from the planet, Spectre stared at his deactivated companion and made his plans. As nearly as he could read the directional gauges on the alien control board, he figured he was traveling in the general direction of Cylon-controlled sectors. His return to the Cylons, and especially to Imperious Leader, would be triumphant. They would be happy to discover he had information they could use to track down the long-pursued and hated Battlestar Galactica.

  He contemplated the odd-looking shell Lucifer had become. Terribly confused by Lucifer's action in deactivating himself, he wondered how and why his colleague had done it. He had always thought that creations of the IL series were programmed to preserve themselves against any threat. The concept that one could voluntarily turn himself off was, until Lucifer's action, unknown to Spectre. How could Lucifer have done it? Had he become too human, so human he preferred his own version of death to dishonor?

  Well, Spectre vowed, he would get this shell of Lucifer back to the Cylons, perhaps even to Baltar's base-star, then he would use what knowledge and information he could acquire to find a way to bypass Lucifer's self-tamperings. Even if he did not succeed, he would be able to add to the knowledge of the potentials of ambulatory sentient computers. Such discoveries could draw him abundant praise—and promotion.

  If he did succeed in reviving Lucifer, the victory would be especially savory. How would Lucifer react to being revived by his archrival? Spectre longed for that moment, longed to observe how Lucifer would react.

  Perhaps, if he was especially adept, he could change certain features of Lucifer's personality, maybe even make Lucifer his own servant. That would be acceptable. Quite acceptable.

  Whatever happened, it was essential to Spectre that he solve the mystery of Lucifer.

  Reaching into a compartment at his hip, Spectre pulled out the cards that Lucifer had thrown in during that last game with Starbuck. As he had done several times, he examined the cards on the basis of what knowledge he had been able to acquire about the game. For all he could figure out, it seemed that Lucifer had had the winning hand when he threw in the cards without revealing them. At least, Spectre believed that the hand contained a major completed pyramid.

  But that was impossible. He must not understand the game properly. Lucifer could not possibly have cheated. Could he?

  Image Lords, in their usual frantic arm-waving fashion, clomped around the pirate ship with abandon. It was difficult to keep out of their way. However, Chameleon, emerging from the shadows, had managed it. He had escaped from his captors almost immediately after the ship had been set on a course. Since that time, he had skulked around the ship like a ghost in search of a proper haunting. Search parties had nearly tracked him down several times, but always he evaded their grasp in his usual slippery and graceful fashion.

  Working methodically, stealing food where he could and sleeping in the most uncomfortable niches, he had found his way to the pirate ship's launching bay. Now, in front of him, unguarded because the Image Lords had conceived of no need to guard it, was the shuttle from the Galactica, the one that had originally transported Apollo, Croft, and Sheba to the Eureka. It was part of the plunder from the pirate's raid. Chameleon, crouching in the shadows, had seen Crutch enter the ship, after touching almost ritualistically the Galactica design on its side. He had longed to follow the alien into the shuttle and club him many times over the head, but had wisely waited. Crutch came out soon after and continued on his way.

  Slowly he made his way to the shuttle. Prying open the hatchway, he quickly slipped inside. He breathed easier when he saw there no Image Lords inside the ship itself.

  He went quickly to the cockpit and sat in the pilot's seat. He stared at the controls as if they were dangerous living beings.

  "Now, let me see," he said aloud. "My son showed me something about how a crate like this operates."

  He studied the controls, touched dials, toggles, and gauges, then briefly placed his thin, long-fingered hand on the joystick. Taking a deep breath, he flipped a couple of toggles while moving the joystick. Then he worked a third one and, with a jolt that raised him momentarily from his seat, the ship roared into action.

  "Oh, my goodness," he said.

  Looking out the cockpit viewport he saw several aliens, alerted by the clamor, rushing into the launching bay.

  "Have to get moving fast."

  He pushed the joystick gently forward and the shuttle began to move. Getting used to its operation, he ran the shuttle around the launch bay in a large circle, forcing the aliens to scatter. As he swung around to make his final run to freedom, he saw Crutch come stumbling into launch bay. He looked annoyed. But, oddly, he waved toward Chameleon in an almost friendly way with two of his arms.

  Chameleon saw the launch tunnel in front of him. Leaning on the joystick, he made the shuttle zoom toward it. The quick acceleration brought him to the edge of the tunnel sooner than he was ready for it, but there was no turning back. He zoomed out, and away from the pirate ship.

  After he had proceeded to a point where he could no longer see the pirate ship, he relaxed, and started experimenting with the controls. Many of them responded in ways he could understand.

  "Not so tricky after all. Wonder why Starbuck makes such a mystique out of it. Anyone can fly one of these scows."

  He peered at all the controls he hadn't figured out yet.

  "Well, all I got to do is get this crate back to the Galactica."

  He stared out the viewport.

  "I wonder which direction that would be?"

  Reaching into his sleeve pocket, he took out a pair of Scorpian dice, the kind with many tiny sides to them. Flinging them to the floor at his feet several times, he recorded their numbers each time on a dirty sheet of paper. When he was done, the figures represented the coordinates of a course. He leaned against the back of his seat and pointed outward, to his left.

  "That way then," he said.