From the darkness in front of the glen, a disgusted voice shouted back: "For four long and tedious acts, you bum."
Clumb seemed angry. There was an odd bitter smile on Fleet's face. Clumb recovered his composure, stood a little straighter, and yelled: "Meet thy death, Fleet."
"And make it quick," said the voice in the darkness. "We got better things to do."
Accompanying the voice in the darkness were a few mutters of agreement. However, a different voice said angrily, "Hush! Be quiet. Let the actors act."
"What actors? What acting?"
Clumb appeared ready to jump off the apron at the front of the stage. Behind him one of the painted bushes fell over. Fleet whispered something to him, and Clumb resumed his attack, which Fleet parried fancily. However, the center-stage battle became lifeless, as if the actors' hearts weren't in it. Finally Fleet disposed of Clumb, in the manner the script called for. Around him there was general happiness and approval. Myray rushed into Fleet's arms and nestled her head on his shoulder. Murmurs of approval swept the onstage crowd and some of the audience. Even the heckling voice remained silent.
"I'm sorry, my dear," Myray said, "for not trusting you, for losing my faith in your family's honor."
Fleet separated from Myray, keeping his hand in hers, and he turned to face the audience. There was relief in his face as he declaimed: "We must forget all that, my dear, and just love each other. More than that, we must forget . . ." Here he took a pause and stared piercingly at the audience before saying in a stentorian voice: ". . . THE CURSE OF THE SAGITARAN RUBY!"
With a laborious series of creaks, the large cargo-cloth that the troupe had to use as a curtain closed. For a long agonizing moment it appeared that there would only be silence from the audience greeting the end of the play. Then, a couple of audience members who had indeed enjoyed the long and complexly plotted drama started some applause. The curtain came open again to reveal the actors and actresses, now obviously humble people and not the noble figures they had portrayed onstage. The applause was joined by some booing as the thespians made unenthusiastic bows.
After the curtain calls, the lights came up in the dingy auditorium. The badly painted but massive room was not usually an auditorium. It was a meeting room aboard the Broadside, one of the many supply ships that followed the Galactica's lead across the galaxies. The Broadside was not the classiest ship of the fleet. It had once been an intergalactic shuttle, back when the twelve worlds were still thriving, before the Cylon doublecross and subsequent ambush had destroyed them.
Dwybolt, the impresario of the theater troupe, had fled the stage, still in his Fleet costume. He moved angrily, pulling off his wig and swiping at his makeup. It was clear even in the dim backstage lights that Dwybolt was a man older than he had appeared to be in the role of the dashing Fleet. The lines around his intense dark eyes were deep and long. His skin was sallow and pock-marked from all the stage makeup he'd applied in his life, and his hair was tinged with gray. He had a becoming thin dark beard and thinner moustache.
He had intended to go to his dressing area and smash something, but his way was blocked by the Broadside's captain, a burly man going to fat whose eyes could just barely be seen beneath the hanging tufts of his thick eyebrows. The captain's name was Stedonis but he was called Ironhand by his crew. The name was not metaphorical. He had a metal clawlike hand whose fingers came to sharp points.
Dwybolt was disconcerted by Ironhand's warm and appealing smile.
"A rousing performance indeed!" Ironhand bellowed jovially.
Dwybolt was not sure he had heard the man right.
"Rousing? You must be kidding me! What about all that heckling from your crew?"
Ironhand strode to the edge of the stage apron and peeked through a hole in the curtain at the departing audience. He was often struck by what a scurvy and sleazy bunch his crew was. Their uniforms hung on them loosely, like discarded cloth.
Dwybolt pulled away the edge of the curtain and looked out. He watched certain crew members for the way they walked, wondering if he could incorporate any of their movements into one of his roles.
Ironhand pushed away the curtain angrily, muttering: "These men are my curse, Mr. Dwybolt. Ignoramuses, all of them."
Dwybolt smiled ironically: "I don't know. Their criticisms of this particular play may be sound."
Ironhand's bushy eyebrows raised just enough to reveal his surprisingly soft-looking mud-brown eyes.
"Why," he said, "I thought you were the writer of it, Mr. Dwybolt."
Dwybolt shrugged his shoulders. "I am," he said. "I adapted it from a legend."
"Ah, it was wonderful, just wonderful."
"It's nice of you to say that, Captain, but I fear it is among my lesser works."
"Nonsense. It is a bully piece, and I look forward to tomorrow's performance. What will it be?"
Like an onstage emotion, Dwybolt's pain showed in his face. He really wanted to cancel all the rest of the performances, but he didn't know how to tell that to this formidable-looking captain with the iron claw emerging from his right sleeve.
"The Killing of the Cylon Master, I believe," Dwybolt said.
"Ah, one of my favorites."
"You know it?"
"I saw it once—your troupe—when my ship was docked at the Piscean capital. A few centons ago, that was."
"Yes, I was just an apprentice then, and we still had the Great Franda acting with us. Before he gave up the stage and disappeared forever."
When the captain's face became thoughtful, his eyebrows hid his eyes completely.
"The Great Franda. I recall him. A fine actor. Just disappeared, you say?"
"One day he walked off and we never saw him again."
The captain sighed. "A pity. Well, I must see to my duty. Thank you again for the fine entertainment."
"Our pleasure, Captain."
As he watched Ironhand go, he wondered if he could adapt the way the burly man swung his thick arms to the part of Dyreem in one of his plays, The Scorpion's Final Mission.
Dwybolt studied people almost without thinking about it. He had learned this method from The Great Franda. Franda once said he'd taken so many moves from other people he no longer knew whether any gesture was his own.
Dwybolt had not told the captain the whole story of Franda. Franda had come off the stage that day with a hangdog look on his face. Since the play was a comedy, it was not an expression left over from the performance. Dwybolt was in the wings, having been studying Franda's performance to see what he could steal from it, and Franda briefly smiled at him. "It's no longer fun," he said quietly. He walked out of the playhouse without even stopping to take off his makeup or change out of his costume. Nobody in the troupe ever saw him again. Dwybolt had been the Great Franda's protégé; nobody missed the old man more.
Dwybolt ambled over to the drab little area he used for dressing and for applying makeup. He had always done his own makeup, another lesson learned from the Great Franda.
Scattered along the wall the other actors were in various stages of undress and makeup removal. Dwybolt sat down in front of a mirror which had, in its corner, a small handbill shoved into a crack in the mirror's molding. He had taken off about half of his makeup when he sensed someone standing behind him. He glanced into the mirror and saw that it was Shalheya, the actress who had played Myray. She smiled.
"You look like the last act of The Daggit's Tragedy, Dwybolt."
"We've seen better audiences than this on the cattle ship, Shalheya. And I do mean the cattle themselves."
"They weren't so bad really. Just not sophisticated."
"Sophisticated? They're not even human. Did you take a squint out at any of them?"
"Not only that, but several asked me out tonight. For a meal and whatever."
"Make sure their food dishes are sterilized before you put your face in them."
Shalheya slapped him lightly on the shoulder. "You're mean, you know that?" He nodded. "You need a happier
view of humanity."
Dwybolt studied his half made-up face in the mirror. The face seemed really divided. One half a glowing youth, the other a weary old man.
"I should write comedies, you mean? Everybody says that. More comedies, Dwybolt, enough of this cynical romantical daggit-dew. Well, Shalheya, I've got to feel happy to write happy, and I don't feel happy. With audiences like this, I'll never feel happy."
She began to massage his shoulders. Her touch was both firm and affectionate.
"You can't fool me," she said. "It's that woman again. You're thinking of her." She squeezed the muscles in his shoulder tighter, and he grimaced from the pain. "Admit it!" She seemed about to crush his shoulder.
"All right, all right." She let up on the pressure. "You know I think of her often."
Shalheya removed her hands from his shoulder and retreated a step. In the mirror her pretty face became shadowy and sinister. Her hands, always busy, started stroking the ends of her long black hair. He was more conscious than ever of the sultriness of her long-legged figure.
"How long since you last saw her?" she asked.
Dwybolt sighed. "Long. Very long."
Shaiheya turned her back, hiding the emotion she knew he could read too well. He stared into the mirror. Pleasant memories of the woman Shaiheya had mentioned came back to him. He could almost see her in the middle of the glass, laughing lightly, gaily, tossing her blond hair backward arrogantly. He recalled all the time she'd spent watching him act, back in the days when his acting was so much better. Back then he had believed in his talents.
Shaiheya turned and interrupted his reverie. "What was her name?"
"Cassiopeia. She was a socialator on my home planet."
Shaiheya did a comic face, raising her eyebrows dramatically and opening her mouth in a wide O. Then she did a couple of quick dance steps, ending with her arms outspread. "Socialator, eh? Hot stuff. No wonder you were so taken with her. Well . . ." She began to massage his shoulder again. ". . . someday perhaps you'll meet her again. In the meantime, lover, I'm always here. No place else I can go."
Dwybolt caressed her hand. He smiled. "You're just letting me use you."
She nodded. "But I'm letting you. That's the key point. Let's get your mind off this for now. What about the tour?"
"I wish the tour was over. If I had to play any more ships like this one, I'd abandon the profession altogether."
Shaiheya dealt him another playful blow, this time on the back of his neck.
"You're full of it, you know? We've played ships like this before and we'll play others like it. But there are many fine audiences scattered about the fleet. And it's a large, large fleet, remember. Hell, it'd take us multicentons to play every single ship." She pointed toward the handbill in the corner of the mirror. "And now you've got something to look forward to."
Dwybolt removed the handbill from the mirror, stared at it, then flourished it in Shalheya's direction. "Yeah, I guess we can consider the Battlestar Galactica the big time now."
"Well, it's the command ship, therefore a command performance. How much better can you get in this ragtag fleet? Impress them and who knows? Maybe they'll establish a permanent dramatic troupe aboard the Galactica. It's possible."
Dwybolt waved her away. "Sure, Shaiheya, sure."
Shaiheya, walking away, called back over her shoulder, "Smile, and the fleet smiles with you."
Dwybolt started dabbing again at his makeup, wondering if there was anything to what Shalheya had said. He did long to play the Galactica, and he was excited by the prospect. But what if he bombed there? Worse, what if they drew no audiences aboard that supremely busy ship? What if there were an emergency and all the warriors had to be on alert or fly off on some mission? It could, after all, turn out to be the worst playdate of the tour.
Well, he decided, no use worrying about that now. Before they could wow the people aboard the Galactica, they had to survive the audiences of the Broadside. Glancing back at his makeup mirror, he again thought of Cassiopeia, wondering what had happened to her. Was she all right? Had she survived the Cylon ambush of the twelve worlds? She might, after all, be dead.
One time she'd attended all performances of the Reluctant Hero of the Space Service, one of his favorite roles. Afterward, as he'd walked offstage, she'd been waiting for him. She showered him with Gemonese mountain flowers, the socialator custom of honor for a great achievement. That romantic gesture had thrilled him more than any good review or any other award. Just thinking of it now made his face break into a wide smile.
Looking over from her own makeup post, Shalheya saw the smile and called over to him. "See? You can smile. It doesn't feel bad at all, does it?"
CHAPTER THREE
Adama manipulated the controls of his Viper cavalierly. He felt like a cadet just getting the feel of his machine, taking risks to see what it could do. Both Starbuck and Apollo had chided him for showboating. Chided him subtly, of course. You don't banter with a commander.
All the flying on Yevra had stimulated Adama. He had joined with the others in attacking both sides of a foolish war that had been ravaging the planet. Adama could still feel the thrills that went through him as he piloted his Viper directly toward the artillery of the enemy. The yells that he yelled when his shots were on target still lingered at the back of his throat.
The camaraderie he felt with Apollo and the other pilots reminded him of his hotshot pilot days, when he and Tigh were the Apollo and Starbuck of a squadron which had also flown out of the Galactica, back in the days when Adama's father was its commander. Adama's father gave him the same cautions that he nowadays annoyed Apollo and Starbuck with.
Sometimes, ensconced on the Galactica's bridge, guiding battles rather than participating in them, he missed the thrills of piloting a Viper in the midst of combat. He knew he was needed on the bridge, but often he wished he'd never risen through command ranks, distancing himself from the good life of the Viper pilot.
Still, he thought, it was perhaps wrong for him to look back nostalgically at what was essentially a participation in grim warfare. The war with the Cylons, to which he'd devoted his life, sometimes distorted his thinking. He tended to evaluate things in the context of war and sometimes forgot the preferable alternatives. A life at war, after all, provided few compensations for the happiness of a normal life, the kind of life he could have had with his family, especially his wife Ila and his youngest son, Zac, both victims of the war with the Cylons.
Starbuck's voice over the commline interrupted Adama's thoughts.
"Commander?"
"Yes, Lieutenant."
"I have a visual on the Galactica. Eighty degrees left."
Following Starbuck's directions, Adama stared into the distance. There, almost like a miniature of itself, the Galactica could be seen. Even so small it was an impressive and welcome sight. As he stared at it, he realized it actually was a small world all its own, floating through space, housing so many different communities of people. Even he had not seen all of the ship. When he was a child, he had explored some very strange territory, but there was a lot that he'd missed. He didn't believe, for example, that he'd ever descended as low in the ship as the area known by legend as the Devil's Pit. He'd been told it was a strange and spooky place, inhabited by outcasts and misfits, by people who had abandoned the society of the ship and the fleet, rebelling against its rules or giving up on life itself. Apollo and Starbuck had had some adventures down there recently. Starbuck, who'd once been driven mad by a Cylon device planted aboard ship, had nearly died in the Devil's Pit.
As the Viper squadron neared the Galactica, the rest of the ragtag fleet began to appear as a line of dots behind the enormous ship, a line which from Adama's present angle seemed to stretch to infinity. The population of the other ships had never been measured, but it was suspected that the thousands of smaller ships housed four or five times the population of the Galactica. Adama couldn't even speculate on how many people relied on him for leadership, f
or guiding them to the legendary planet Earth. Thinking of them made his own personal quest seem selfish. How dare he risk the lives of so many for what might be a futile dream? Would they travel across the universe to discover that there was no Earth—or, worse, that it was not the ideal place the legend promised. Could the thirteenth tribe of Kobol have become lost or merely died out? Even if they reached their destination, could they have survived?
The light for the direct communication channel to the Galactica came on. He knew who'd be listening on the Galactica end of the channel.
"Yes, Colonel Tigh?"
"Good to have you back, sir." Tigh's voice sounded happy. "Is everyone all right?"
"Everyone's fine, Tigh. And on the Galactica?"
Adama noted a slight hesitation in his aide's voice before he responded: "No problems, sir. All landing bays are alerted for your return. Everyone's happy to see you all back."
Adama nodded as he would have had Tigh been in his presence. He, too, was happy to return. It had been touch and go there for a while, especially for Apollo and his crew. They'd almost been killed in Yevra's senseless war.
He gave final instructions to Tigh and clicked off. He ordered the other Vipers to form a landing pattern. As they headed toward the Galactica, now looming hugely in front of them, Apollo's worried voice came over the commline: "Commander?"
"Yes, Apollo."
"Tigh's voice, it sounded strange."
"You could hear that, too."
"You think there's a problem then?"
"Yes, Apollo, I do. I definitely do."
"What do you think it is?"
"I don't know. But I can tell you this, he's just waiting for us to land. Then he'll tell us. He always does this kind of thing methodically."
"I know."
Apollo clicked off. As he set his landing coordinates, Adama wondered what Tigh was concealing. It couldn't be anything wrong with the ship. He would have reported that immediately—another way in which he was methodical. The chances were that the problem was a human one.
CHAPTER FOUR
Battlestar Galactica 14 - Surrender The Galactica! Page 2