"These are my favorites, my favorite drink, my favorite dessert," Starbuck said. "How did you know what to give me?"
"They knew," the pit boss said, pointing to the simian waiters who were now supplying a creature who looked like a sculpture of plastic, slightly melted. "They're primitive types, the waiters, but they're mildly telepathic, at least in matters of food and drink. Enjoy yourselves."
The pit boss smiled and walked off. Starbuck stuffed some more ambrosia cake into his mouth. Moist crumbs clung to his lips.
"Well," Boomer said sardonically, "how do you feel now, sport? Here we have the run of this place while our people are out there starving and scrabbling for crops and grazing land."
"What did you expect me to do, ask the guy for enough food for a ragtag fleet when he thinks we're just a couple of straggler pilots on a reconnaissance flight?"
"Well, maybe we should just tell the guy the truth."
"Sure, he looks a swell sort, an honest John. Boomer, until we know who these people are, just keep in mind that it'd only take one informer to have the whole Cylon war machine on its way."
"So what do we do? We've got to find ways to get fuel and food back to the ships."
"First thing, we'll try to find out who's behind this place. How many cubits you have with you?"
"Cubits? Starbuck, you disgust me, you know that? People in our fleet are half-starved and you're going to gamble?"
"You expect me to be a miniature Commander Adama, you got another think coming. Besides, this time it's in the line of duty. We've got to start asking some questions, digging out some information—but carefully, very carefully—"
Boomer seemed reluctant to hand Starbuck the money.
"Well, all right, but you'd better make this last. That's all there is."
Boomer dropped three cubits into Starbuck's outstretched hand.
"Boomer my man, cubits don't mean much just now, no matter how you measure it."
Starbuck's active eyes sought the source of the best action. He decided on the Hi-Lo table, since Hi-Lo was a game at which he could make a quick turnover of his limited funds before seeking out a big-stakes game. Three people, all humans, sat around the table. An open chair beckoned. Starbuck sat beside an attractive woman who, he thought, might have been an absolute stunner if she would drop just a few pounds from her pleasingly plump figure. The other players were men, both cheerful, both quite obese. As he sat, the woman, obviously liking what she saw, gave Starbuck the eye.
"Well!" she said. "The fleet's in. Sit down, Lieutenant. You've come to a lucky table."
"That right?"
"Yep. Not sure what I mean. Whether it's lucky because I've been cleaning up, or because you chose to sit here."
Starbuck assumed his best appealing grin, and signaled to be dealt in. The nonhuman dealer, with a friendly smile, began tossing out the next round of cards with an elegant flick of his triple-jointed, gray-green wrist.
Apollo ran a check on the other branches of the survey team. Ensign Greenbean got on the line and reported a disturbance.
"What is it, Greenbean?" Apollo said.
"It's Jolly, sir. We seem to have lost him."
"How could you lose anybody his size?"
"Beats me, sir, but he's lost."
"Send out a search party and report back to me."
"Roger."
Apollo leaned back against the bucket seat.
"The man probably just wandered off," Serina said.
"Maybe."
He was about to say more when the Tylium detector started beeping. The beeping caused Boxey's daggit-droid to bark.
"Quiet, Muffit. I see it, Captain . . . Tylium!"
Apollo slowed the landram and checked the indicator. It seemed to display a Tylium lode, all right, a large one. He brought the vehicle to a slow stop. As soon as it stopped, Muffit leaped out the window.
"Muffit!" Boxey cried. "Wait, I'll bring him back."
Before anybody could stop him, Boxey had followed the daggit-droid out the landram window.
"Should we go after him?" Serina asked, her voice nervous.
"He's in sight for the moment. Let him run free a little."
"You're right, I may be keeping too tight a leash on the boy. Thank you, by the way."
"For what?"
"For saving his life."
"You're getting things a little out of proportion. Anyway, maybe I should be thanking you."
"Now it's my turn to ask for what?"
"Well, you've helped me to—"
He stopped talking, leaned forward to squint out the window on Serina's side.
"What is it?" she said.
"Boxey. He was there a moment ago."
"Maybe he just ran over a hill."
"Perhaps, but we'd better give a look. C'mon."
Serina became frightened by the agitated way Apollo scrambled out of the landram and onto the Carillon surface.
Seetol emerged from her ground concealment and, in one rapid move, swept Boxey and Muffit into her four-armed grasp. Before the boy could scream or the animal could emit one of his disgusting sounds, Seetol had carried them back to the camouflaged ground entrance and onto a pod which she immediately activated to descend into the ground to the Tylium mine below. In the corridor leading to the queen's chamber, the boy struggled fiercely. As Seetol tried to improve her hold on him, the animal leaped out of her arms and ran a short way down the corridor.
"Muffy!" the boy cried. "Darn you daggit. Come back here."
Immediately the animal obeyed. Seetol, unused to domesticated animals or their robot substitutes, was impressed with Muffit's quick obedience. She picked it up again, and both animal and boy were serene until they had been carried into Lotay's throne room, where Muffit again scrambled out of Seetol's arms, this time to run to the throne. It barked furiously.
A slave seemed to want to kill it, but the queen was too amused. The sharp spikes upon her body had faded to a soft yellow, as they always did when she was pleased. Boxey squirmed out of Seetol's arms and ran to his animal. The other human in the room took a couple of steps forward, and Boxey looked up at him.
"Lieutenant Jolly!" Boxey cried. "What're you doing here?"
"I'm not paying a social call, youngster," Jolly said. He glanced toward Lotay lounging on her throne. "I left all my calling cards in my formal jumpsuit, your highness."
Lotay did not understand the sarcastic humor in the fat man's remarks. Seetol was about to scoop up Boxey again, but Lotay gestured her away, saying:
"Leave him."
Muffy licking his face, Boxey looked up at the queen from a crouch. Lotay raised herself from her throne. The spikes on her body got brighter as she pointed to the child, the fat flyer, and the droid.
"A curious group," she said. "But they will do quite nicely. Seetol, arrange that they be taken care of and prepare for the others as soon as possible."
Seetol nodded approval and walked to the captured humans. Jolly edged over to Boxey and put his arm around the boy. Seetol was amused by the fat human's obvious fear. She observed even her own race with a cynical eye. She had always liked what she was, but not who she was—or, for that matter, who anybody else was. Even her love for her queen felt incomplete, no matter how much worship she attempted. It could not be complete unless the queen would love her back, a possibility not even within the scope of Ovion reasoning. Seetol, her four arms suggesting a quartet of elegant gestures, guided Boxey and Jolly out the entrance, Muffit trotting happily behind. On the throne, Lotay began to laugh mysteriously. Seetol never knew the meaning of her queen's laughter.
Apollo and Serina searched the immediate area around their vehicle to no avail. Serina held back tears, muttered to herself that she should never have let the child get away from her. Back at the landram, Apollo got on the communicator to Greenbean, who reported no sign yet of Jolly.
"What is it?" Serina said. "What's happening on this planet?"
"Don't panic. We'll find him."
Apollo wished he could be as certain as he sounded. For a moment all he wanted to do was fold this beautiful, auburn-haired, green-eyed woman in his arms and soothe her, tell her everything would be all right. The trouble was, he couldn't feel that everything was going to be all right.
"This planet is eerie. With this darkness and the two moons it's—what is it, Apollo?"
Apollo had drawn his sidearm and pointed it toward an area beyond the landram. Serina followed his look, then screamed. There were two Ovion warriors emerging from a hole in the ground, a hole that had not been there a second ago. Their two-triggered weapons were aimed at Apollo and Serina.
FROM THE ADAMA JOURNALS:
My father told me as a sort of valedictory when he handed me command of Galactica that the best advice he could give me was that, when everything appeared to be in place and everything was placid, it was time to consider what was absent. The questioning of the apparent reality, and the ability to add the absent to the visible, was a prime requisite for any commander. I didn't think much of the advice at the time. Later, when I had to study a star map and plot out dangers before sending in attack craft, I knew exactly what the old man meant. When I dealt with apparently docile friendly creatures, I learned it was imperative to listen for what was not being said. At the time when peace was a most tempting reality, it was necessary for me to question the absence of the most important parties to the agreement. I can't even look at a painting without wondering what the artist eliminated from the original landscape or model. It seems that, except at that rare point when an act or set of events reaches a definite conclusion, I'm always at odds with what I see, with the apparent reality, and am nervously looking for something to fill in the parts I can't yet see.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The two Ovion soldiers forced Apollo and Serina down long, sloping, labyrinthine corridors. After the suffocating closeness of the pod in which they had traveled to these underground levels, the blasts of cold, damp air seemed refreshing. When they emerged into the massive main chamber of the mine, Apollo caught his breath in surprise. Serina, too, was astonished by the seemingly limitless heights and depths of the main chamber, and at the furiously active work going on in all its cells.
"What is it?" she asked Apollo.
"Incredible! May be the largest underground Tylium mine anywhere. Father was right about there being Tylium here. There's enough here just in sight to fuel all our ships, run them half across the universe. But—"
"But what?"
"I don't know exactly. For something like this to exist here without us knowing that it had been reactivated, it's, well, bizarre. Who uses all this energy, and for what?"
An Ovion gave them a shove, guiding them toward the bridge that crossed the large chamber.
"Where could Boxey be?" Serina said. "I'm so worried about him."
"I know. If they've done anything to him, I'll—"
"Don't say it. I'm scared enough already."
The guards stopped at Lotay's throne room and beckoned the two humans inward. Apollo and Serina entered the queen's chamber.
At first Lotay didn't notice them—or, in queenly fashion, waited an imperial minute to recognize them. In the meantime Serina was fascinated by the colorful layers of cloth that decorated the room, the scurrying slaves performing all kinds of odd duties, the musicians playing some tune that didn't sound at all musical but rather more like an out-of-whack generator. Finally, the queen looked up from her perch upon a high pile of cushions.
"You are Captain Apollo?" she asked. Her voice, although low-pitched, had a scratchy sound to it. Both Apollo and Serina would have been astonished if they had known that, to the Ovions, Lotay's voice was considered ethereally musical.
"I am," Apollo responded.
"Welcome to Carillon. I assume you are impressed."
"Outraged might be the better word. Where is the boy?"
The creature formed what was recognizable to the humans as a smile, but it looked peculiar on her insectoid face.
"Would you care to join him, Captain?"
"You bet I would, and if anything's happened to him, you'll answer to the Colonies!"
Lotay smiled again, nodded her oversized head noncommittally and rose from her plush cushions. Serina, already accustomed to the uniform shortness of the Ovions she had seen thus far, was astonished by the queen's height. She towered over the other Ovions. With a walk that was definitely queenlike, Lotay led the way out of the royal chamber. Serina noted that their guards fell easily into step behind them as she and Apollo followed the queen out. As they made their way down the narrow corridor, Serina leaned toward Apollo and whispered, "Did that spooky smile of hers mean she knows the colonies don't exist anymore?"
"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."
&nb
sp; "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.
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