"Lucifer!"
"Your wish, commander?"
"The relay devices for—for your contraption—"
"LEADER, you mean?"
"Of course, LEADER! You should know what I mean even when I don't say it. That's what being second-in-command is all about, you fancy sack of scrap metal."
Lucifer disliked Baltar's hurling of insults at him, but his long tenure with the human had taught him to conceal his anger. Baltar's insults became more savage and more childish when he was in an agitated or worried state. Lucifer used such clear indicators of Baltar's temperament to manipulate the man without him being aware of it.
"Well?" Baltar asked nervously. "Well, tell me!"
"You have not completed your request, commander."
Lucifer's voice was so smoothly modulated that Baltar could not detect the sarcasm in it.
"You're supposed to read my mind and carry out orders before I articulate them. Lucifer, if you can bring yourself to concentrate, answer me this: is the LEADER relay setup in operation as yet?"
"Yes. It has been ever since the ensign returned to the Galactica."
"I'm happy to hear it. What's happening there?"
"Since we cannot monitor directly, I cannot accurately respond to that question. However, my ratiocinative circuits do give me the ability to surmise . . ."
Lucifer interrupted himself in order to give an order to a centurion who was about to make a course change mistakenly. Lucifer had to keep a continual watch on these first-brain Cylons, who tended to mix up orders if not expressed to them clearly.
"Well, Lucifer!" Baltar shouted.
Lucifer glided to Baltar.
"Yes?"
"Surmise, surmise . . ."
"If my calculations are correct, and they must be, the guilt-waves that we are transmitting now should be gradually but steadily permeating through the Galactica. By this time, I believe, the humans there are feeling the onset of uneasiness. Creeping doubts about their present and past actions are perhaps making them irritable or sad or overemotional in their actions and reactions. They will undoubtedly also be wondering why everyone around them has become so strange. It is possible they will begin to distrust each other. Discipline will become lax. Interpersonal relationships will deteriorate severely. Life, in general, will be difficult."
As Baltar envisaged the result of LEADER'S rays upon the people aboard the Galactica, his pleasure at the prospect of ultimate victory increased. He had an urge to pat Lucifer on the back, even though he knew it would have no effect on the creature and might, in fact, injure his hand.
"Wonderful, Lucifer, wonderful. I'll give you a medal for this."
"I would prefer not."
"You don't care for medals? Come, Lucifer, is it possible that you are humble?"
"Not humble. Medals are exterior boasts of achievement. I require no such displays, which are best for humans and the lower order of Cylons."
Baltar, irritated, resumed his pacing.
"You'd take all the joy out of life, Lucifer."
"I see no utility for joy. It only—"
Lucifer was interrupted by a courier-centurion carrying a dispatch from Communication Center. After he had read the dispatch's surprising words, he approached Baltar and said:
"A message from Alliance Headquarters, Baltar. A liaison ship is on its way to us."
"Liaison ship? What in Kobol is that?"
"In this case, it is a vessel whose main passenger is a special messenger carrying a communication for us that cannot be sent through the normal channels."
"What's it for? Is it important?"
"Undoubtedly."
Baltar began lightly pounding his fist against his forehead, a gesture that Lucifer knew indicated extreme perturbation.
"Do you know what this is all about?" he asked.
"Since it has been classified secret, I cannot know."
Baltar could not think straight. What was Imperious Leader up to? Why this secret ship? Was it a threat to him?
"Lucifer, what should we do about this . . . this liaison ship?"
"Wait for it to arrive here, I expect."
"Not with this base star in the shambles it's in." Baltar paced now at a rapid rate. "Dispatch cleaning squads." His voice was high and thin, even though he was trying to shout his orders with authority. "Polish up everything, every surface, every nut and bolt. Polish up the command consoles. Polish up yourself, Lucifer!"
Lucifer could not figure why the need for shiny surfaces always seemed to emerge when Baltar felt threatened. The man seemed to equate stern discipline with high polish. Nevertheless, such mundane details would serve to occupy the commander's mind for a while and keep him from bothering Lucifer about more important matters, so Lucifer didn't mind implementing these particular orders.
"By your command," Lucifer said and rolled out of the command chamber.
With Lucifer out of the way, Baltar felt free to speak aloud. There were only the Cylon warriors to listen, and they never paid attention to anything but a direct order, anyway.
"What should I do? This messenger, he wouldn't be coming to remove me from command, would he?" He recalled the dream in which the executioner's axe had fallen and wondered if it had been an omen. "They'll have to drag me off this ship kicking and screaming." In his mind the axe fell toward his face over and over again. "No, not that again. I can't—but that was just a dream. Lucifer planted it in my head with his damn device. I'm in the hierarchy. They won't just—just—they couldn't! Could they? Everything's got to be just right. Centurion! Report on the status of the ship!"
"Status conditional," the navigator-centurion said in that flat scratchy voice that first-brainers seemed to share. "Engine repair crews working at all times. Progress is reported as slow. Full work report is forthcoming."
"Tell them to step on it!"
"Step on it?"
Baltar could tell that, as so often happened, his phrase was being understood literally. The Cylon was clearly wondering why Cylon feet should fall on the work report.
"No, not step on it, idiot! I mean, get it to me as fast as possible. What is our troop deployment level, centurion?"
"Reinforcements are in transit. Arrival is imminent. Troop strength will then be full."
"And the fightercraft status?"
"New ships have arrived and are being fitted. They will be in readiness imminently."
"What is all this imminently? Inform all crews I want all work done now. Not imminently, but now. Yesterday, if possible."
"Yesterday? But—"
"Never mind. Just do it!"
Baltar, for the first time in centons, felt confident. With troop strength up and a full wall of Cylon raiders soon to be ready, he knew that this time he would totally wipe out the Galactica and its ridiculous ragtag fleet. He would have to time the attack carefully. Allow time for LEADER to take its toll, and then strike.
Adama gripped the microphone to his journal-recorder tightly, as he always did when considering a problem. He leaned his elbows on his desk and spoke:
"Tigh informs me that all tests on Ensign Greenbean have proven out negative. There is nothing physically wrong with the young officer, except for some minor contusions. His viper also checks out fine. There seems little reason to doubt his story, strange as it does seem. Well, there have been stranger occurrences in my experience as the skipper of this battlestar."
He didn't usually refer to himself as skipper. It sounded too undignified. Yet, that had been how his father had referred to the job in the days when it was his. Even after the transfer of command had taken place, crewmen tended to call Adama's father, "the old skipper." That had been so long ago . . .
"I have devoted practically a lifetime to serving our people in the war with the Cylons, a war that seemingly will never end, which has been extended by our flight from annihilation. I will always wonder if—but never mind, scratch that, that is not even a personal entry."
He rubbed his eyes and tried to remember
what it was that he had intended to record in his journal. He found it hard to focus his mind. He did not usually feel so unsettled when in the privacy of his quarters.
"Let's see. What else is there to log in? The operation on Vaile—it is proceeding superbly. Captain Apollo has everything well in hand. Shuttles are going to and fro, bringing supplies and fuel to us. On return trips we are sending our experts to help out the people of Vaile in their—their—"
He shook his head, trying to clear it.
"I can't seem to focus on what I'm saying. Perhaps this isn't the time to record this. No, it's important to keep up such a discipline. The log must be maintained."
He stared off into space, at the many stars he could see but his viewport. The stars suggested to him the magnitude of his journey and made him wonder if their goal of seeking Earth was futile. Perhaps he had misread the lights that had appeared to inform him of Earth's coordinates. Well, it was no time for such reveries.
"Maybe it's time for a personal entry. Although I don't know what I can say. It's extremely difficult to describe feelings for which there don't seem to be words. Feelings that are so vague they seem just out of reach. I've held command for so long now, have seen my fellow officers destroyed in battle, annihilated in the cowardly Cylon ambush, have seen members of my own family killed. I've done everything I could to—I could to—to do what? To perform my duty? To glorify ideals that are in some ways questionable, or at least speculative. I'm not a fanatic for war. I never have been. Yet—here I am, with a lifetime of warring behind me. Although I deeply believe in love, kindness, generosity of spirit, faith, I have to order others to perform violent acts, have to watch them kill and be killed. How long can it all go on? Does Uri have the right idea? Forget Earth, settle on Vaile. We haven't been troubled by Cylons for some time. If we hid away here, on Vaile, perhaps they never would find us, as Uri suggests. But could I ever be sure of that? Could I ever become as enamored of paradise as Uri has?"
The party for Greenbean was rapidly becoming one of the most raucous in the raucous history of Galactica celebrations. At any given time so many people were laughing that there seemed to be one continuous choral laugh that had begun shortly after the party had gotten rolling. Ambrosa flowed steadily from silver and gold pitchers, and the hardier drinkers were downing the rougher tasting grog so quickly that the crewpeople who'd been drafted as stewards were running themselves ragged trying to keep the grog bowls well filled.
Greenbean sat at a table at the center of the gathering, and was very much at the center of everyone's attention. Men and women came by in an almost steady stream congratulating him on his return. He felt proud, both for the friendly waves emanating from his friends and colleagues, and for the unusually spick-and-span way he looked in his clean well-pressed uniform. The slight epidermal tingle that he felt from the operation of Lucifer's relay units he attributed to his excitement.
Lieutenant Jolly sat beside him, chatting energetically.
"You're looking tiptop, Greeny, even to the spit and polish."
"Thanks, buddy."
"They should make you admiral."
Jolly's slightly drunken good humor made Greenbean laugh uproariously. Starbuck, sitting across from Greenbean, raised his ambrosa glass high.
"A toast to the returning hero!" he roared.
"Another one?" Boomer said.
"That makes ten, don't it?" Ensign Giles said.
"Nah," said Cadet Cree. "At least twelve."
"Frack!" Starbuck shouted. "Who cares? To Greenbean, warrior supreme."
At the end of the toast Starbuck sat back down hard, realizing that the ambrosa was rushing to his head faster than usual. He ought to go search out a bunk and lie down. He wanted to think, anyway. In spite of the general joyousness of the party, Starbuck felt low. He couldn't figure out why. It was just a mood that had flowed over him along with the flow of ambrosa.
Sipping at his drink, he glanced around the room. Cassiopeia was a few tables away, glaring at him. Her eyes were unemotional. He couldn't tell whether they were friendly or not. Breaking eye contact with her, he then saw that Athena glowered at him, too. He thought of the way he'd courted both women, sometimes simultaneously, and wondered if what Cassiopeia had said about him were true. Maybe he should feel guilty for the way he treated women. Maybe he should settle down and cease his philandering habits. Maybe he should become more like Apollo—less hotheaded, more considerate of people outside his squadron. Maybe he should stop chasing women altogether. He could, after all, be kind of a creep sometimes, expending his energy in the pursuit of his romantic goals instead of considering the needs of the women themselves.
As he continued to survey the partygoers in the room, he noticed that there was a large number of the Galactica's female personnel with their eyes on him. He had made a play, at one time or another, for each and every one of them.
He gulped down the rest of his ambrosa and quickly poured more from the table's gleaming golden pitcher. He was afraid to look; he might find more women staring at him as part of the chorus of his disapproving victims.
Now he really felt lousy.
A bizarre weakness had enveloped Adama. He was no longer able to dictate his log entry and merely stared off into space. He still held the microphone.
A knock on his cabin door shook him out of his trance.
"Come in," he said.
Apollo came in the room, looking distressed. Adama wondered what had made his son so often somber. He longed for the times when they had joked together more freely, or at least had been generally more at ease when in each other's company.
"Commander—"
"Yes, son, sit down."
"Son? What happened to command discipline, the no-referring to family relationships during duty hours?"
Apollo smiled warmly as he pulled up a chair and sat in it. Adama was glad to see that smile. It reminded him, at least momentarily, of the better times.
"We're alone here. Nobody can hear, so I guess I can call you son if I want to."
"The log mike is still open, Father."
"I forgot."
Adama slid the flat microphone back into its niche and shut off the log. Swinging around on his chair to face his son, he said:
"Well, Apollo?"
For a moment Apollo appeared reluctant to speak, then he said slowly and cautiously:
"Don't bite my head off, but . . . it's about Sire Uri."
"I've talked with him."
"Well, perhaps the talk did no good. I caught him trying to stir up a fuss with some people in a corridor down on Delta Level. I don't know exactly what he was saying to them, but it looked to me like he was being his usual conniving self."
"But you don't have any clearcut evidence he was—"
"Father, we can't wait around for him to go public with his treachery, we have to—"
"Apollo, I will not have anyone convicted of a crime, or even an offense against the common good, on anyone's word. Even yours."
"My word is the last one you'll take."
That remark, and the bitter manner in which Apollo voiced it, brought back the old distance between father and son. Both men, although cool when quick action was required, could become inflamed with anger rapidly when one of them attacked the other. Adama vowed to stave off this conflict and, although he was furious, kept his voice steady in replying:
"I believe you, Apollo. I know you're telling me exactly what you saw. And fairly. And I have good reason to believe that Uri is trying to create a little dissidence in order to get his way."
"Then why—"
"We have to wait. If Uri doesn't coax enough people to his side, we have only a minor disturbance. If he does, well, then we have a problem we'll be forced to deal with."
"Deal with? Why be even polite to Uri and his gang? Father, we could leave Uri on Vaile, and it'd be good riddance for the fleet."
Adama felt a strong urge to just agree with Apollo, and then turn that agreement into an order.
>
"I wish we could, I really do. But Vaile has too many . . . attractions, Apollo. If we let Uri go there, others would surely follow, with or without our blessings. We can't afford to lose many more of our people."
"And we can't deprive them of your dream, can we?"
Apollo's sarcasm was broad, so that his father couldn't miss it. Adama could not keep his anger out of his voice as he responded:
"I don't know what you mean, but—"
"I mean, you believe that, because you so desire to find Earth, you have to take the rest of us with you."
"Apollo!"
"I'm sorry, father, I didn't mean to say that. I have faith in your dream of Earth. I really believe we'll find Earth. It's just that there's no reason to drag the whole fleet there with you. Perhaps you should let some of them settle here, let—"
"That will be enough, Apollo."
The icy coldness that the entire ship feared had come into Adama's voice. Even Apollo knew he couldn't fight that.
"I'm dismissed?" he said bitterly.
"You're dismissed, Captain."
After Apollo had stalked out, his anger trailing after him like vapor from the exhaust of a vipercraft, Adama regretted his terse withdrawal from the argument. There had been no point to increasing the distance between him and his son. One of them had to loosen up; they couldn't both be stiff-backed all the time. On the one hand, he was proud of Apollo for the Adama-like firmness and conviction of his actions; on the other, he hated that coolness in Apollo nearly as much as he sometimes despised it in himself.
Perhaps he should have followed Apollo's advice. Uri was of little use to the Galactica. If you blew him out a waste chute right now, you'd have a hard time telling him from the space garbage. Yet, it was more important to keep the fleet together than to sacrifice its unity by treating a single person as expendable, even one as clearly expendable as Sire Uri.
No, he had been right. Uri must stay. But he wished that he had not alienated Apollo at the expense of command necessity.
The party for Greenbean had become wild, outrageous, loud, and a trifle unpleasant. Nerves were getting frayed, tempers were rising, all emotions were becoming heightened. Joy had seemed to flee the room, replaced by a fake heartiness that was deteriorating into sheer noise and the frantic effort to look happy in order to hide the growing sadness that was affecting almost every partygoer.
Battlestar Galactica 11 - The Nightmare Machine Page 7
