by Peter David
“I don’t feel as if I know enough about it to advocate it one way or the other.”
“They are unbelievers,” said Sarah. “What more do you need to know than that?”
“Well, for starters . . . I’d like to know about their writings. This ‘Edda’ that one of their leaders discusses. That’s really why I wanted to talk to you; because you’re so knowledgeable in these matters. Do you know anything about these writings that were supposedly excluded from the Sacred Scrolls?”
“Just rumors,” Porter said. “The Midguardians have always been an insular people. The Edda itself is written in an ancient language that’s handed down by their leaders, and they’ve kept entire portions secret even from their own followers. Their followers, amazingly enough, are satisfied with that. They have that much confidence in their historic leadership.”
“I’m almost envious,” said Laura with a hint of jest. Porter didn’t respond to the humor, and Laura opted not to press the matter. Instead she said, “Certainly in the ancient writings there was some discussion of what the Edda had to say. Some record of why it was stricken from the main prophecies.”
“As I said, rumors. For starters, it celebrated gods we didn’t accept. But of even greater concern . . .” She paused and Roslin waited patiently. “Of even greater concern was that the Edda supposedly focused mainly on doomsday prophecies.”
“Considering what we’ve been through . . .”
But Sarah Porter shook her head. “As you well know, our recent . . . travails . . . were predicted in the Pythian Prophecies. As is often the problem with such prophecies, they were easier to understand in retrospect than before the fact. The Edda writings . . . they were nothing but gloom and doom. The end of humanity with no hope of survival, of redemption . . . of anything. I don’t know the specifics, but from my studies, that’s the general gist of it. Now I ask you, Madame President . . . why would we want such dreary portents to become public knowledge?”
“Perhaps because the people have a right to know,” replied Laura. “Because they have a right to make a decision for themselves.”
Porter stared wonderingly at Laura Roslin. “Do you actually believe, Madame President, that we have the wisdom to gainsay our elders? To make these prophecies of the Edda a part of our teachings? And what if the fleet embraces it? What if they decide that humanity truly is doomed, and there’s no point even in trying to survive?”
“I doubt it will come to that,” and she continued before Porter could interrupt her, “and so do you, Sarah. All we’re talking about is the prospect of giving them something new to think about. Where’s the harm in that?”
“Where else but from new ideas does harm come, Madame President?”
Laura Roslin considered that a moment, and then shook her head. “I can’t accept that,” she said firmly. “I cannot accept the notion that new ideas should be suffocated. Without new ideas, new thoughts . . . we have nothing. Nothing.”
“Madame President . . .”
But Roslin talked right over her. “We are being tested, Sarah. You, I, humanity. We are being tested, and how we come through that test may well determine our right to continue to exist as a species. If we put a stranglehold on even discussing new concepts, what do we have left?”
“Survival,” replied Sarah Porter.
“There’s more to life than survival.”
“Perhaps. But without survival . . . what does the rest of it matter?”
“It matters,” Laura said firmly. “I know it does. And furthermore, Sarah . . . I think you do, too. As much danger as we face on a day-to-day basis, I think we wind up seeing danger in everything. And if we’re seeing danger even in the simple act of talking . . . what’s that going to lead us to?”
Sarah Porter didn’t reply immediately. Her lips twitched a bit, and it was impossible for Laura to discern what was going through her head.
“Let me get back to you,” she said finally.
Never one to miss an opening, Roslin immediately said, “When?”
“Soon. Very soon.”
Laura nodded slightly and then they both rose. Laura shook her hand firmly and Sarah Porter turned and walked out of the room. The moment she was gone, Billy entered, a look of concern on his face. Displaying no interest in what had just been discussed, he said immediately, “How are you feeling?”
She turned to face him and saw blood covering his chest.
Her expression frozen, she replied, “Fine. You?”
Sarah Porter entered the shuttle that would take her back to her home ship and said, “My apologies. I didn’t know it was going to take that long.”
“That’s quite all right,” said D’anna Biers, smiling graciously. “May I ask how it went?” She did not have her cameraman with her, but a compact camera rested on the seat next to her.
“It went as well as could be expected.” She paused and then said, with a hint of amusement in her voice, “Are we on or off the record?”
“Are we even talking?” asked Biers with wide-eyed innocence.
Porter then proceeded to tell Biers everything that she had discussed with Laura Roslin. When she finished, Biers did nothing to hide her interest. “So what would happen next? A gathering of the Quorum of Twelve to discuss the prospect of allowing a thirteenth member?”
“It seems a waste of time.”
“You never know,” replied Biers.
Sarah Porter was as openly skeptical as Biers was anticipatory. “They’d never go for it.”
“Who cares?”
“What,” asked Sarah, “is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that it presents an opportunity. You’re a Council-woman. I’m a reporter. And both of us are . . .” She hesitated and then smiled. “. . . Instigators. People who like to see things shaken up. Personally, I think it would be criminal to miss out on this opportunity to bring everyone together and see what happens.”
Porter drummed her fingers thoughtfully on the seat next to her, and then picked up the phone that was hanging on the wall. “Patch me through to the president, please,” she said. D’anna gave her a thumbs-up, a cheerful gesture which Porter returned, and then Sarah continued, “Madame President . . . yes, it’s been ages.” She smiled slightly at the weak but expected jest. “I was calling to say that it didn’t take me much time at all to realize you were right. What are we coming to if we’re faced with ideas and concepts so dangerous that we’re even afraid to discuss them. You set up the day and time for the Quorum to convene, and I will make damned sure that everyone’s there. Yes,” she paused as Laura spoke, “yes, I’m sure there will be some resistance to the meeting once they learn of the subject matter. There are some ancient tensions with the Midguardians that go back generations. But that’s why you spoke to me, isn’t it. To make certain that I would convince the Quorum to at least consider it.”
She chatted with the president for a few moments more, and then assured her that she would eagerly wait to hear from her. She hung up the phone then and looked challengingly at D’anna, as if daring her to say something.
All D’anna did was smile and say, “It should make a hell of a story.”
CHAPTER
17
Boxey had been going to the Midguardian sanctum on a regular basis since returning to the Bifrost with Freya. The sanctum had been unlike any other place of worship that he had ever attended. There were no symbols or testaments to the many gods worshipped by the Twelve Colonies. Instead there was a large upright symbol of a hammer hanging at the far end of the sanctum, right above a large double-doored cabinet wherein, Boxey had been told, the “original” Edda resided. It was securely locked in there, and although Boxey was tempted to try and crack the lock to check it out, he had resisted the impulse to do so. It didn’t seem right, somehow . . . an abuse of the trust that Freya had placed upon him.
There were also no standard rows of pews as he’d seen in other temples. Instead there were long tables, rows and rows of them, and benches
on either side of each table. The tables were lined with heavy mugs that appeared to be made of iron or some other heavy metal. That was because the Midguardians were big believers in drinking during services; most of their invocations of their deities consisted of raising mugs in their names and knocking back doses of alcohol.
This had become a bit more problematic since they’d been on the run from the Cylons. Alcohol wasn’t in as plentiful supply as it used to be. Fortunately enough the Midguardians had considerable stores of various worshipful beverages aboard the ship and it was continuing to last them. Their attempts at building distilleries so they could produce their own home-grown booze had been uneven. Wolf had been one of the leaders in the attempt and continued to be the only one capable of swallowing and then keeping down the brew that his machine produced. Freya and other Midguardians had pronounced it fit for scrubbing down the engine coils and not much else.
The unlikely savior on that score, as it turned out, was Boxey. Several of the pilots that Boxey had been hanging out with back on Galactica were quite ingenious when it came to constructing such devices, and Boxey had picked up not a little knowledge from watching them at their endeavors. So Boxey had been able to spot a few flaws in Wolf’s still, and Wolf was in the process of producing new batches that had been tentatively pronounced as “quite nearly potable” by his reluctant but pleasantly surprised test subjects.
The problem for Boxey was that actively participating in the salvaging of Wolf’s still had only saddened him because it made him think of his friends back on Galactica. Or, as Freya had put it, the people who had led him to believe that they were his friends.
There was no one in the sanctum now, for it was not a prescribed time of worship. Boxey had not been allowed to participate in services since, as Freya had delicately put it, he was not quite “officially one of them.” She didn’t rule out the possibility that that might change in the future. In fact, she was very encouraging of it, saying it was a “definite likelihood.”
Boxey stared at the hammer which, he’d been told, represented a god of thunder, and then he said softly, “Are you guys there? Are you listening to me?” He didn’t receive a response, nor was he truly expecting one. Nevertheless he eased himself down onto the nearest bench and said, “That’s okay. ’Cause, frankly . . . I’m not sure any of the gods are listening to me. Or to any of us. With everything that’s been going on . . .” He shook his head, discouraged.
“Why did you let it happen?” he asked finally. “I mean . . . honestly? My family dead. Millions . . . billions of people dead. I just . . . I don’t get it.” He stood and went to the cabinet in which the Edda was secured. “Are the answers in here?” he asked. He placed his hand against the door. “If I looked in this, and had a dictionary to help me understand it . . . would it tell me what’s going on? Okay, actually, I know what. But why is it going on? It’s almost like . . . like the gods are totally behind the Cylons. Why? Why would they be? Are the Cylons right about . . . about I don’t know what. About everything? And which gods are behind them? Are any behind us? Are we alone? Really . . . alone?”
“Be kind of a shame if you were alone. Can I be alone with you?”
Startled by the unexpected voice behind him, Boxey jumped slightly as he turned and gasped in astonishment. “Starbuck!” he cried out joyously.
She stood in the doorway, grinning in that lopsided fashion she had, and Boxey was even more stunned to see that Helo was right behind her. Without hesitation he ran to Starbuck and threw his arms around her. “What are you doing here! I didn’t think—! And Helo—! This is so—!”
“I know, I know,” grinned Kara Thrace, and she riffled his hair. She glanced around the sanctum and whistled. “Well, this is . . . interesting. You a Midguardian now? Sick of the old gods?”
“Can’t say I blame you,” Karl Agathon, a.k.a. Helo, put in, his arms folded across his broad chest. “Between you and me, I been thinking maybe these Midguard types are smarter than we are.”
“Helo!” said Kara with mock horror.
“Well, frak, Starbuck, we keep worshipping them and they let us get kicked in the teeth by the Cylons. Maybe we should start looking around for something better, is all I’m saying,” and he nodded toward the large hammer that was erected at the front of the sanctum. “Make the old gods stop taking us for granted.”
“Aw, shut up,” snapped Kara and she thumped him on the chest as if he was speaking blasphemy . . . which, technically, he was. Although she was making a great fuss of being offended by Helo’s comments, Boxey had a clear recollection that Kara herself had gotten fairly liquored up on one occasion and made some rather choice comments about the gods herself. To say the least, they were disparaging. To say the most, they seemed to indicate that she had some serious doubts—either about the existence of the gods, or that they had any generous intentions toward the remnants of humanity.
“You haven’t told me! What are you guys doing here?” said Boxey.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Kara told him, looking surprised that he would even have to ask. “We’re bringing you home.”
“Home?” Boxey was amazed. “What do you mean, home?” Then his expression fell. “You mean back to Peacekeeper? But . . . but I didn’t want to go back there. Freya said I could stay here . . .”
Helo shook his head. “She’s not talking about Peacekeeper, sport. She’s talking about Galactica.”
He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Galactica? But . . . I thought . . . you said . . .”
“We had a talk with the Old Man,” Kara told him. “We got him to change his mind; and he went to Tigh, and that was that.”
“Change his mind?” Boxey sat on one of the benches, astounded. “You got him to change his mind?”
“That’s right, kid,” Helo said, drawing up one of the benches opposite him. “You should have seen her go. She was a dynamo. She pleaded your case and got him to realize that you should be able to come over to Galactica whenever you wanted to.”
“Really?”
“Really,” said Kara, and she looked him right in the eye and repeated, “Really.”
And there was something there . . .
. . . something that didn’t seem right . . .
. . . something that didn’t altogether make sense.
Boxey’s impulse was to trust Kara Thrace. And Helo . . . hell, he had seen Helo’s bravery close-up and first-hand, when the valiant lieutenant had given up his seat on the rescue raptor to Gaius Baltar in the firm belief that Baltar was more important than a lowly raptor pilot. Kara was his friend, Helo was a hero, and friends didn’t lie to you and heroes were better than other people. So every instinct of his told him that there was no reason he shouldn’t just march right back to Galactica . . .
Except . . .
Except he had seen Kara’s eyes when she had told him that he had to leave. He had seen the frustration and, most of all, the uncertainty there. She had come across as extremely sympathetic, but there had still been something there in the way she looked at him that suggested she thought maybe . . .
. . . possibly . . .
. . . that he could be one of . . .
. . . them.
Well, that was the problem with suspicion, wasn’t it? Once it took hold in one’s imaginings, it was difficult to blast it loose. Starbuck had been suspicious that Boxey was a Cylon, and even though he’d been cleared of it, it was always going to be in the back of her mind.
And suspicion went two ways. Just as doubts about Boxey had been planted in Kara Thrace’s mind, so too was he now starting to harbor doubts about her. Not that she wasn’t human; oddly, the thought that she was anything other than flesh and blood, normal, one hundred percent a spawn of humanity never entered Boxey’s mind. But the notion that her intentions toward him might be something other than she was saying . . . well, now that was coming straight to the forefront of his concerns. Because as he gazed into her eyes, he was seeing some of that same concern, and that didn
’t seem right to him. She should be overjoyed that he was going to be coming back with her. She should be smugly triumphant that she had managed to achieve the damned-near impossible: to get Adama and Tigh to change their minds on a matter of security. None of that was present in her expression, and when Boxey shifted his gaze to Helo, he wasn’t seeing it there either. Instead he saw that same kind of guarded look that roused his suspicions and made him wonder just what the hell was going on.
He glanced at the mighty hammer emblem on the wall and surprised even himself when he mentally directed a plea toward it of Give me strength.
“Really,” he echoed once more. Boxey had long ago acquired the habit of thinking quickly, and his mind was racing faster than even Kara Thrace would have suspected or been able to adjust to. “Y’know what? How about this? How about you stay for dinner tonight. I’m eating with Freya, and she’s not here right now ’cause she was heading over to Galactica to talk with Sharon again.” He watched carefully and saw Starbuck flinch just a bit when he mentioned Sharon’s name. “But I bet she’d have no problem with you guys as guests.”
“I don’t know that we’d be her favorite people right now, sport,” Helo said. His legs were outstretched and he crossed them at the ankle. He looked casual and comfortable. Except not exactly: Instead it looked like he was trying his damnedest to look as casual and comfortable as possible, which suggested to Boxey that maybe he was neither. “This whole thing with her representing Sharon . . . I think she’d be worried about . . . you know . . . talking to us. And things she might say . . .” He looked to Starbuck and there was a flash of desperation in his eyes as if he needed her to bail him out.
Starbuck quickly stepped in. “She’d probably be worried that she might say something she shouldn’t and violate the whole, you know, client/patient confidentiality thing.”