Battlestar Galactica-05-Paradis

by Richard Hatch

  Starbuck: She deserves better than yours truly!

  Bojay: I don't get you. With an attitude like that, how is any woman going to give you what you want? Cassie is a woman who knows how to love a man.

  Starbuck: That's the problem.

  Bojay: Her problem?

  Starbuck: My problem.

  Bojay: I think you have a few issues to work out, Colonel Starbuck.

  Starbuck: Session over?

  Bojay: You can pay me later.

  Starbuck: Thanks.

  Actually, Starbuck felt a lot better. Just having someone listen to him was a tonic after getting into it with Athena. He didn't have to be right. He just wanted his turn at bat. Sometimes the only way he understood his own feelings was to talk it out.

  Fighting Cylons was a lot easier.

  Now it was time to focus on the mission. He addressed the dynamic duo: "We're going to find out what happened to Sheba, Troy and the rest of the gang." He didn't mention Dalton. He didn't need to. The others knew that she was among the missing.

  Boomer wanted to know if the squad leader had any ideas. "We've all checked out this planet," said Starbuck. "There's nothing too dangerous down there."

  "There's still that unaccounted sea monster," Bojay reminded them.

  "That kind of makes my point," said Starbuck. "That animal didn't come back after the two attacks on the installation. The mining operations probably disturbed its natural habitat. We simply moved the plant."

  "It was dangerous," Bojay reminded him.

  "To unarmed men!" Apollo amplified his point. "We're looking for five Vipers and their pilots. There is no animal in the sea or air that could account for a disaster of this sort."

  "Do you think the Gamon have been holding out on us?" asked Boomer. "Maybe they've hidden away high-tech weapons and have been putting on an act."

  "I don't believe that," said Starbuck.

  "Could there be another race on this planet as advanced as we are?" Bojay suggested.

  Starbuck wasn't buying any. "No way could that have been hidden from us. My guess is that our friends encountered an atmospheric disturbance of some kind. Maybe a magnetic belt of some kind. That would account for their power being knocked out so they couldn't contact us."

  They flew in silence until Boomer spoke what they were all thinking. "Then the same thing could happen to us."

  No one said a thing. They didn't need to. They were warriors.

  Bojay lifted the cloud of doom. "Hey, everybody knows I'm the better pilot, Starbuck. So you'll have to prove me wrong!"

  Starbuck grinned. He hadn't done that since he left Athena's scowl behind him on the Daedelus. "You've been inhaling too many Tylium fumes."

  "Race you to Troy's last confirmed location!" Bojay persisted.

  Starbuck felt great. This was life—this was purpose. "We shouldn't be doing this," he said "Oh, frack! You're on!"

  Thrusters screamed and the landscape unfurled beneath them.

  In addition to the country abode and his quarters in space, President Tigh also had offices in New Caprica City. Ryis had insisted on that. Tigh liked the idea that he would have one place to take care of business, little appreciating that wherever he went all the trouble in the world would follow.

  Apollo had made an appointment. Tigh appreciated that. He'd also brought his pet which was not about to intimidate the commander. Centarus was fond of Apollo.

  "I've been expecting you," said Tigh at the door. "The next Council meeting is almost upon us and you need to prepare."

  "What do you expect will happen?" asked a man even more reluctant to engage in politics than the ever more regretful president.

  "They will set the agenda for a full vote from the people. The outcome is a foregone conclusion."

  "Paradis of Colonials, by Colonials and for Colonials," said Apollo grimly.

  "I wish there was a compromise," Tigh said. "I've racked my brain trying to come up with anything."

  As he spoke, the native animal crawled into his lap and began licking its remarkable tongue all over his head. Apollo laughed.

  "I wish my blooie could lick some sense into my head," said the President.

  "Is he good for headaches?" asked Apollo.

  The older man ran his dark hand over the darker fur of his favorite living thing. "What makes you ask that?"

  Apollo shrugged. "I was thinking about Baltar. His headaches almost kill him and there doesn't seem any medical remedy."

  "Baltar," grimaced Tigh. "I haven't thought about him in a while. I'd be ready to take advice even from him if he could solve our dilemma."

  "Ryis and his final solutions!" cried Apollo. "I can't believe we're going to wage a war against this simple people. It's one thing going up against an enemy that possesses armies and modern weapons. Any sane person who isn't a coward can understand that. But to treat a indigenous aboriginal population as if they're animals is disgusting!"

  Tigh sighed. "If the people can choose between the two kinds of enemies you outline, they'll always go with the latter. Warriors actually prefer an enemy who can fight back. The average person wants an enemy that can't do much better than throw rocks. Then they become all indignant and pretend that each rock is the same as the taste of a pulsar. They don't have the pogees of warriors."

  Apollo smiled. Once a warrior, always a warrior. No wonder he liked Tigh so much, even when the man found himself caught between two irreconcilable positions. But this was a time of truth between the two old friends.

  "The blood of thousands will be on our hands," Apollo said simply. "Every Colonial will share in the guilt."

  Tigh went to a window. Not every chamber in New Caprica City had windows, but the president had insisted. Standing at just the right angle, he had a glimpse of the sky.

  "What can we do?" he asked. "After twenty-five yahren in space they see this planet as their final salvation. It's the homeland for which they've ached. They don't want to hear the word Earth ever again!"

  "I've heard that Ryis wants to rename Paradis and call it Earth," said Apollo. "The bastard has a sense of humor."

  Tigh turned from the window and faced Apollo, seeing the same color in the other man's eyes he'd just been enjoying in the scrap of sky outside his window. "After their last two disappointments, who are we to deny them? We have to accept reality. We've got to try and turn this mess into the most positive situation we can."

  "There is no positive in this situation."

  "We have a democracy, remember? The majority must get what it wants, good and hard."

  Apollo surprised the president with what he said next. "This has nothing to do with democracy."

  "What do you mean?" asked Tigh, raising an eyebrow.

  Apollo gestured at papers on his desk. "Let us suppose that we are a dictatorship and you have all the power right in front of you. All you need to fulfill your will is issue an edict. Let us suppose you decide to take this planet from the natives. No one would call that democracy, right?"

  "No."

  "Now a bunch of us come from the stars and vote to make that same decision. In both cases, Tigh, no one is concerned about the votes of the Gamon."

  Tigh sighed. "That's a facile argument. If we go against our own people, they will replace us and we'll lose any possibility of asserting influence over future policies."

  "Fine," said Apollo. "But let's stop pretending that the concept of democracy means anything when a more powerful group occupies the land of the less powerful. If we really believed in democracy, we'd be planning on bringing the Gamon into our way of life. If we believed in individual rights the way the Cylons think we do, we'd have behaved differently with the Nomen. And we wouldn't fight this war now. Find me a dictator who oppresses his people and we'll talk about a war!"

  Tigh laughed. "You'd have a harder time convincing your fellow Colonials then. Ryis would certainly advocate doing business with such a fine and upstanding leader."

  Apollo thought about Baltar, the expert in such
matters. At some point he would have to share with Tigh what Baltar had told him, but this was not the time.

  Tigh became serious again. "We made mistakes with the Nomen, that's for certain. But you have made amends, Apollo. You, personally. Do you think your friend Gar'Tokk would help convince the Gamon that we can live together in peace?"

  Apollo shrugged. "I hope so. We have to make every effort. I will talk to him again."

  At this moment, any victory was like ambrosa to Tigh so he followed his inspiration and reached into the desk. "Look what I've got!" he said, for a second seeming like Koren with a new game.

  "I could use a glass right now," Apollo said happily.

  They toasted each other with the amber colored liquid. They enjoyed a very unpolitical silence as long as they could persuade themselves that decisions are best when postponed.

  "I loved your father," Tigh finally broke the silence. "He may have been wrong about one thing."

  Apollo straightened in his chair. The brief interlude was over. "Nobody's perfect," he said. "What are you driving at?"

  "The Earth," said Tigh, "Maybe your father was wrong to say that Earth is the best place for us. The future is not static. Maybe the universe and the future have changed since the Ur cloud; maybe we were supposed to find and colonize this planet instead of Earth. Besides, how do we really know that anything is certain? I believe that we make our own future!"

  The president breathed deeply and then finished off his drink. Apollo continued to sip his as though everything he'd just heard was a bit much to swallow all at once.

  "That was quite a speech," he said. "But the problems on Paradis exist in and of themselves. We have to face these issues regardless of how we feel about Earth."

  Tigh grinned. "That was an answer worthy of Adama. He'd be proud of you."

  Unfazed by flattery, Apollo plowed ahead. "Something isn't right about the situation on this planet and I'm going to find out what it is. As for the Gamon, I'm not sure that they want our help or way of life, but that hardly matters when we aren't offering them anything but violence when they stand in our way."

  Tigh frowned. "I take what you say seriously. Maybe we can do better with these people than we did with the Nomen."

  Apollo elaborated his position. "We are wrong on two levels, Tigh. First, we aren't offering them what we think is good. Second, we aren't interested in respecting what they value anyway."

  "Oh, hell," said Tigh, pouring another full glass for himself. "The Gamon are so primitive that they don't know what's best for them anyway."

  Seeing that the conversation was getting nowhere fast, Apollo stood, always a subtle hint to the careful politician. "I'll talk to Gar'Tokk. But let me leave you with something to ponder. What if the Gamon know something we don't?"

  "Then they may take their great wisdom to the grave if we aren't all very careful," answered Tigh, standing and offering his hand.

  The warrior's hand in the hand of the ex-warrior was as good a symbol as any of co-existence. But did it mean anything beyond the society of Colonials?

  Apollo left in search of Gar'Tokk, heart sinking at the thought of how much he intended to place on the shoulders of his Nomen friend who did not like to be touched.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The new manager of the ocean project had been promoted from engineer. Having seen first-hand what had happened to his predecessor, it felt more like a punishment than an advance in his career.

  Every day he made a formal request that warriors be sent to find and destroy the sea monster that had so far claimed the lives of two Colonials. The creature had not returned since devouring the previous manager. The official position seemed to be that if a carnivorous animal moved on to different feeding grounds then the problem had solved itself.

  All questions of territoriality aside, the new manager found the official position to be pure felgercarb. The monster might come back! Maybe it had a very wide area making up its territory. Maybe it would be satisfied eating a few humans per yahren in this area.

  That seemed an unacceptably high price to pay for co-existence with native life forms. After all, the Council had started passing stringent measures against the Gamon, and they hadn't killed or eaten a single Colonial.

  The original excuse against harming the sea monster didn't hold water. The idea was that the Gamon would be offended if action were taken against such a rare life form. Now with war clouds sailing across the horizon, that turned out to be another baseless worry.

  The manager was about to give up hope of ever achieving a damned thing when the unexpected happened. Three Gamon came to his rescue. They communicated with sign language.

  He provided them with a boat. They turned down his offer of men to accompany them. They also had no use for the explosives he tried to give them.

  Their only request was that the Colonials shut off their equipment that extracted minerals from the sea and turned salt water into drinking water. The steady thumping of the machines slowed down and came to a stop.

  Surely the Gamon realized that the humans would start up the equipment again whether the natives succeeded or not in dealing with the marine beast. The manager told himself that his would-be benefactors couldn't possibly believe they had just made a deal to end this industrial operation indefinitely. No, it made more sense that operations had been suspended just to deal with the monster.

  Everyone kept up with the news well enough to bank on the fact that this was a project the people of the planet had not opposed. Apparently there were only a few sacred sites where the Colonials had run afoul of the natives, but they were the most important and capital-intensive projects.

  In dark, paranoid moments the new manager had suspected the sea monster might be some kind of trained pet, an enforcer sent to stop the sea project. Today he could put that fear to rest.

  For the first time since he had taken the job, the manager truly listened to the sounds of Paradis. There were many things he hadn't noticed before, from the faraway call of birds to the gentle lapping of the sea. And then he heard the sound of a horn that the Nomen blew. He couldn't believe that such a gentle, mournful sound could summon up the sea beast. This must be why they had requested that the machines be silenced.

  The wind picked up shortly after the music began. The manager assured himself that such an occurrence must be a coincidence. He could believe in miracles so long as there was a scientific explanation, but magic was something else again.

  The universe should not be a haunted house.

  Having convinced himself that the fierce wind was a coincidence, he could pay attention to the next development. The water began to stir to starboard of the natives' small boat. Large bubbles the size of a man's head were quickly followed by a black tentacle snaking up as if to taunt the Gamon.

  The native visages showed no fear. The new manager had enough fear for all of them, even though he was on shore watching through binoculars. Short of a Viper attack, he couldn't really imagine anything effective against the monster. Any attempt to capture it alive would be madness, even for the Gamon. Trying to tire the thing out would be the same as trying to outlast the tide itself.

  But there were so many stories about the natives being in harmony with the planet that the manager could believe they would try to do the impossible. After all, they had turned down his offer of explosives.

  As the writhing black mass rose above the small bobbing craft, the leader of the natives raised his right hand as if to strike the beast. In his hand was a small blue package that he threw in a high arc; it went down the gullet of the creature before the yawning target was out of reach.

  How so small an object could poison a creature of such dimensions puzzled the new manager. How it could act so quickly on what must be an extremely primitive nervous system was an even better question. But whether the answers were to be found in science or magic, the Gamon performed their special miracle.

  The monster trembled, stiffened and then tumbled as if a giant tree
had been felled. The impact created a spray of water that nearly capsized the small craft. As the Colonials watching from shore wiped salt spray from their eyes, they witnessed another incredible sight.

  The monster glided toward the beach. Although it was dead, it still looked formidable—and hungry with its open, dripping maw. The manager didn't have to run, having positioned himself at a safe distance from the start.

  "Too big," he muttered to himself. "A living thing shouldn't be that big."

  The leviathan came to a stop, gouging a deep trench in the shoreline. The Gamon paddled back to shore. The manager took a deep breath and joined his saviors.

  This had been a day of surprises, but nothing had prepared the new manager for what came next. The three Gamon silently conferred and then one of them entered into the fetid tunnel of the monster's great maw. Only after the native spelunker began his bizarre quest did it occur to the manager—too late—to offer a flashlight.

  They waited in silence, listening to water drip off the rigid tentacles of the dead monster. Finally, the Gamon returned with small metal objects in his gnarled hands.

  He passed these to the manager. Glistening in the man's palm were the identity bracelets of the two Colonials previously consumed by the sea beast.

  He wanted to thank the natives, but knew not the words. All he could think to do was bow.

  The natives were barely out of sight when his communications officer approached the manager with unexpected news.

  "You're not going to believe this, sir," he began and then had to swallow hard before finishing. "The Council announces that we are on the verge of a state of war with the native population."

  "What?"

  "Yes, sir. A state of war. Near verge. Something like that."

  The two men watched the silhouettes of the departing Gamon as they disappeared over the hill.

  The manager shook his head. "We should have fed the Council to our little pet here before our friends put it to sleep forever. Tell you what. You didn't give me the message about war status until a centon from now."