Disgusted, Apollo clicked off the force field and went to where the animal lay. To do so, he had to resist the strong pull of his belt to remain where he was. He stood over the animal, tears in his eyes. Gently, but with strong thrusts, he pushed the animal into the stream. It floated for a moment, then sank.
Sarge recalled Apollo's earlier puzzling actions with the small animal which had been meant as sustenance for him. He had disposed of that one, too. What was the compulsion of the man to dispose of these animals ritualistically? How could one species feel any emotion for another? It was a mystery which Sarge could not fathom. It muddled his feelings toward Apollo and strengthened his reluctance to have this superb soldier but strange being in his outfit. He would never understand the man's reasoning, he was sure.
Apollo suddenly hurled the laser-sling into the stream. It made some sputtering sounds, stirred up some water, then sank abruptly. The noncoms put pressure on Apollo through the belt to jump into the stream and retrieve the weapon. An unnecessary move, the Sarge thought. He could tell that the weapon had been ruined by the water. However, the noncoms had been taken unawares and their action had been impulsive.
Sarge flung the Apollo tape away with much the same gesture Apollo had used to get rid of the laser-sling. Turning away from the tapes, he started on the administrative work that was a necessary feature of the end of each training day. He began to record codes onto blank crystals designed to keep the statistics of training.
A low-pitched siren made Sarge turn away from his work. The code of the siren told him that Barra wanted to consult him. He released the locking mechanism of his door, and Barra swept in.
"Sarge," he said immediately, but with the proper deference, "could you spare some time to observe something with me? I don't know quite what to do about it."
Sarge was intrigued. Barra was rarely at a loss about anything.
"Of course, Corporal Barra."
As they left Sarge's quarters, Barra said, "I was just doing a routine survey and I saw Apollo with others around a fire and—well, you'll see."
"I look forward to it, Corporal."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Sleep. Just a few minutes of sleep. Then I'll be okay. Just climb into my bunk and—but no, got to keep going. If I fade out, all of them'll fade out. It's up to me to keep us from—from whatever is on the way to happen to us.
Apollo shook off the drowsiness and stared for a moment into the fire around which he had gathered everyone in the barracks. This campfire session, which he'd started only a few nights before, had become a part of the regular training for most of the trainees After the first time, when he had had to roust them, they had become eager to take seats around the fire and listen to Apollo's soft and compelling voice.
Apollo saw weariness in every face. Everyone seemed to be weakening day by day, succumbing to the demands of the sweatband and belt. Apollo was quite aware of the control over them which those seemingly innocent items of clothing held. He had spent large portions of his break times trying to resist the gentle urgings of the belt and sweatband, but he had found that nothing seemed to budge them. He could not remove them, he could not counteract them, he could not even resist the majority of their commands. The clothing even seemed to control their dreams. At night the trainees had frenetic war dreams that were, in fact, clever distortions of the day's training as projected into them by the control belt. He had even noticed that the water in his nightly showers in no way affected either the belt or the band. Even while water was cleaning a warrior's body, it did not wet the controlling clothing.
Croft and Sheba's eyes seemed blank and listless tonight. If he lost them, how could he hope to save any of the others? How could he save himself? Croft, especially, seemed to have given up. The indomitable Croft, for whom nothing in the universe could be easily accepted, was becoming a mindless soldier. The transformation had no doubt been gradual, so that Apollo hadn't been able to see it until now. Perhaps, he thought, there was a similar listlessness in his own eyes. Maybe they were all becoming zombies. Zombies from whom intelligence and personality were being drained, like blood into a surgical bucket. It was possible that mindlessness was an objective of the training. What better kind of functioning soldier than one who had been turned into a zombie?
Much of his own military training had in its more civilized way been something like this zombie process, Apollo realized. Back at the academy, a certain kind of behavioral conditioning had been practiced. There were ways in which one was subliminally convinced to fight for the cause, ways by which glib slogans stirred vigorous emotional responses. But everyone in that training, everyone in service, understood how the conditioning worked. Soon most of them were engaged in passing it on, either by training new warriors or by going into combat. What happened in this strange training camp was worse. It insidiously laid the groundwork for total control of the individual. Once he'd realized the extent of the control, Apollo had vowed to resist it, and to help others resist it. It was their only chance for survival.
He glanced over at Xiomara. She stood on the other side of the firelight. The shifts in the flames did strange things to her already distorted face. There were shadows where there could not logically be shadows, bulges where he knew the contours of her face had been different. Her face did seem to alter from time to time, but this particular face, the one painted by the firelight, didn't seem quite real. He stared at it, hoping to see her real face underneath again, but it didn't appear.
Xiomara, while physically weakened, had been the most successful in resisting the control of the belt and sweatband. Her mind was clearer, her words more precisely spoken, her eyes (when Apollo could see them) more alert. He had started talking to her more and more, as the others became vaguer in their responses. Sometimes she talked of her life in the village, and he'd become fascinated with the ways of her culture.
Before everyone had arrived at the campfire, before the already seated could begin to doze off, Apollo began on a story. Since he'd initiated these sessions with strategy discussions which interested no one, he had quickly shifted to storytelling. He told the group tales of the war with the Cylons and the quest of the Battlestar Galactica. Tonight he had begun by telling them about Starbuck's adventure with the young warriors. His listeners were fascinated by the tale of a battle won with children as soldiers.
All during the tale, Beskaroon, who had become one of Apollo's most attentive listeners, edged closer to him until he sat at his feet. He looked up at him, his eyes wide and childlike, which was at least a change from their usual stupid slyness. When Apollo had finished the tale, Beskaroon said enthusiastically, "A good yam, Apollo. Another. Please, another."
Apollo glanced around the group. Croft and Sheba's eyes were livelier now. These story sessions, invoking legends they knew well, evidently invigorated and comforted them. Even those who came from radically different cultures seemed caught by Apollo's tales of the Battlestar Galactica. The stories were definitely working, he thought, keeping personalities from disintegrating, keeping potential zombies aware. But could he keep it all up? Could he use the power of the word to save all of these trainees from disaster? Or would they just meet the death they were destined for?
The worst part was that he was weakening, too. The training and his struggle to keep everything together were taking a lot out of him. But he had to continue, so he began a new story.
"One time Lieutenant Starbuck of the—"
"Good, good," Beskaroon screamed and clapped his hands. "Love Starbuck stories. Go on, go on."
"Put a lid on it, Besky," Croft shouted.
Beskaroon stared angrily at Croft, who returned one of his most obviously cynical smiles. The smile was, in fact, the most life Apollo had seen in Croft for some time. A bit of the old Croft that needed to be encouraged.
"You feel like another story, Croft?" Apollo asked.
"Suit yourself. I like to hear you talk about Starbuck, cap'n. You make him so vivid it's almost like the old bilge
-rat is sitting here with us. I'm even beginning to miss him. And I didn't even like him."
"I thought it was me you didn't care much for."
"The both of you. Two sides of the same coin. Flip you, and it's hard to tell which one comes up."
"Croft," Sheba said, sighing, "you're full of soup."
"I wish I was. The swill they serve around here is corroding my stomach."
Sheba's eyes became wistful as she said, "I'd like one meal where I could separate its components into foods I recognize. Get our minds off this, Apollo. Go on with the story."
"Once Starbuck had his eye on this auburn-haired woman who was a shipping clerk in one of the supply ships."
"When didn't he have his eyes on some lady or other?" Sheba said. "Hell, you two aren't two sides of the same coin at all. Starbuck's eyes can't stop searching out women, and your eyes are blind to 'em."
At other times, Apollo might have been hurt by Sheba's remark. Still, she was not one to express her feelings and, in this camp, any life she showed was encouraging.
"The woman's name was Cyrra."
"Sounds like a disease to me," Croft muttered. Apollo ignored him.
"Cyrra was a young woman who'd lost her husband in a Cylon sneak attack on her city on the planet Virgon. She'd joined the fleet only after her family had also been killed in the final Cylon assault. A bitter woman, she was at first not interested in Starbuck's advances. There is nothing in the world that Starbuck hates more than being rejected by a pretty lady. While most men would quietly accept the rejection and bow out gracefully, Starbuck seems to thrive on accelerating his pursuit of romantic goals."
"Me, too," Beskaroon said. "Don't give up easy, I don't."
The others gave Beskaroon sidelong looks expressing their disbelief. It was hard to imagine Beskaroon in any kind of romantic state. His eyes were childlike in their rapt gaze.
"Well," Apollo continued, "it happened that Cyrra, in a routine tour of duty, was assigned to a mission on a planet which the Galactica and the fleet had stopped at in order to discover food and supplies. She was in charge of a fruit-picking detail on this apparently uninhabited planet. The orchard was situated at the foot of a mountain. I wasn't there, but I suspect that the orchard was colorful. I see it as even lines of trees, each with wide heavy branches. From each branch hung, in clusters, bunches of the luscious fruit we were seeking. I seem to recall that this particular fruit was red with purple streaks and, while its taste was evasive—a kind of sweetness that seemed to disappear immediately in your mouth—it was quite satisfying and full of nutrition.
"Cyrra, seeing that work was going well, went alone to a different part of the orchard to study the possibilities for harvest. Along the way she noticed that the trees on the mountainside of the orchard had less fruit on their branches. If she'd been more alert, she might have seen that the fruit on the upper branches had been nibbled on."
"Oh, oh," Beskaroon mumbled, "something bad's coming." Apollo grinned at his childlike reaction.
"Something bad indeed. It seemed there was a tribe of cave dwellers living in the various recesses of the mountain. And not just simple people. They were giants. They were twice as tall as our tallest men and women. How they ever squeezed themselves into normal caves is one of the most puzzling things about them. At any rate, two of these mountain people had come into the orchard, not knowing that some of our personnel were working there. They had stayed out of sight and watched the harvesting. Since they were primitives, all they saw was a group of intruders stealing their food. When Cyrra wandered off by herself, they saw their chance and grabbed her. They took her back to their cave home to show to the rest of their tribe."
Apollo's listeners were all wide-eyed now. His energy increased, knowing that he'd stalled the conditioning again, if only for a short time. His voice got more excited as he related how Starbuck, after other Galactican workers had been kidnapped by the mountain people, had gone off on his own to rescue Cyrra and the others. Following a pair of the mountain folk, he managed to sneak into their cave. Apollo's voice darkened as he strived to make the cave seem mysterious and mythic.
"Finally, Starbuck located where Cyrra and the others were being held captive. From a cliffside hideaway, he observed their ugly primitive cage. It was a large cave, with bars reaching almost to the ceiling of the massive cavern. The mountain people mocked them and tossed them food, then laughed when they scrambled desperately for it. Starbuck saw that Cyrra remained aloof, refusing to fight for food. She had become emaciated and her skin had the gray of death in it."
Improvising quickly, Apollo went on at length about Starbuck creeping toward the cage, then being ambushed by several mountain people. He made his audience moan as he told of Starbuck being hurled into the cage with the others.
"There was a moment when Starbuck, hungry now and just as desperate as the rest, was tempted to scramble for food along with them. But he realized that his captors were turning him into a primitive animal, a kind of being that they could understand."
Letting his voice become very dramatic, Apollo described Starbuck overpowering his larger jailers after feigning illness. Rounding up the other prisoners, Starbuck quickly led them out of the cage. However, they were seen before they could get to the cave's entrance and, running furiously, they had to retreat to the mysterious dark reaches beyond the area where the giants dwelled. They holed up in a sizable wall recess of the cave and quietly watched the clumsy giants' less-than-methodical search for them.
"After the giants had given up and gone back, Starbuck and the others realized they were in a desolate part of the cave without food, and only the water they could lick off the damp walls. The others, except for Cyrra, began to despair. They wanted to surrender to the mountain people, but Starbuck, of course, wouldn't allow that."
Beskaroon made a groan that nevertheless sounded like praise for Starbuck's action. Croft, in response, managed a sarcastic sigh. Apollo, amused and encouraged by the differing reactions, told his audience that Starbuck then worked out a plan, but refused the beggings of some of the audience to tell them what the plan was, saying that he would inform them of the plan at the right point in the story. Whenever I think of it, he thought.
His mind tiring, Apollo reached into deep recesses, which must have been like the cave he'd been describing, to finish the story. He also borrowed from a couple of mythological tales he dimly remembered from his father's telling of them when Apollo was a child. He told of how Starbuck and the other prisoners returned to the main living area while the mountain people were in the middle of a rest period. Few of the enemy were awake. They seemed wiped out by their heavy imbibings of mountain wine at the end of their search.
Starbuck, as Apollo told it, led his people right through the center of the cavern. On the way he liberated a pair of weapons from sleeping giants. The tiptoeing group wasn't even noticed until they got near the cave's mouth, where a pair of guards lazily stood. Using one of the stolen swords, he attacked the guards. Cyrra, with the other sword, was just behind him. Other giants were aroused by the fight. (By this time Apollo was emphasizing the word giant each time he used it.)
After he and Cyrra disposed of the guards, Starbuck waved the others on, pointing with his sword toward the opening and the open daylight air beyond it. The prisoners charged through the cave entrance. To give them time to escape, Starbuck battled with other mountain people who, now aroused, came hurtling toward him. Satisfied that all the prisoners were out of the cave, he dispatched several of the giants, then escaped out the cave opening himself.
Apollo was amazed at, and impressed by, the way his audience all listened eagerly now. He had brought them out of their doldrums, at least for a while.
He finished off his tale with a stirring account of how Starbuck came upon Cyrra halfway down the mountain. She had been grabbed by one of the giants and now struggled in his grasp. Screaming his famous battle yell, Starbuck jumped on the back of the giant and forced him to release Cyrra. He an
d the giant fought with swords and, after the giant had backed Starbuck against a big rock, Starbuck slammed his blade against the blade of his opponent and knocked it out of the man's grip. Frightened, the giant retreated back toward the cave. Cyrra hugged Starbuck out of gratitude.
"Back on the Galactica," Apollo finished, "Starbuck expected Cyrra to succumb to his charms. After all, he had saved her. When he next tried to romance her, Cyrra got this astonishing smile on her face as she rejected his advances. She explained that she still loved her husband and could not at this time belong to any other warrior. She spoke so warmly, so compassionately, that Starbuck, surprisingly, was pleased. He kissed Cyrra on the cheek and, with his famous wave, where his fingers seemed to ripple, he walked away."
Apollo stood up, his way of announcing the tale was finished. Many of the audience seemed sad. Apparently they wanted the storytelling to go on. Apollo wished he could continue, but he was too weary. He had barely gotten through the story's final sentences. Still, he felt satisfied, knowing that the session had delayed the army's systematic numbing of his comrade's brains.
Beskaroon patted Apollo on the shoulder and said, "That Starbuck's kinda dumb. Shoulda just took that gal for himself, he shoulda. Saved her life. Had the right to."
Battlestar Galactica 13 - Apollo's War Page 10