by Peter David
“Animals,” said Freya Gunnerson.
From within her enclosure, Sharon Valerii looked in confusion at her attorney. Pressing the phone tighter against her ear, she said, “What about animals?”
“Adama suggested it to me . . . although he didn’t realize that’s what he was doing,” Freya said smugly. “Talking about the Cylons trying to slaughter us like animals. His whole argument to keep you cooped up in here, despite the fact that you’ve committed no crime, is that you’re not human. But there’s plenty of case law on the books about animal rights.”
“But . . . I’m not an animal . . .”
“Yes, you are, in the sense that I am and Adama is as well. All humans are part of the animal kingdom. He keeps calling you a machine, but there’s not a shred of proof that you are. Certainly no more so than any human who’s operating with an artificial heart or a replacement knee. There’s every proof, however, that you’re an animal, and under our law, animals have rights.”
“Animals get put in cages all the time. In zoos . . .”
“Yes, and there were laws to guard their best interests even then. Safeguards.”
“I don’t understand where you’re going with this.”
“It’s very simple, Sharon. We go to precedents. That’s how the law works.” Freya’s voice was becoming more excited, more enthused, as she contemplated what was to come. “We build case law to show that even the humblest zoo creature has more rights, has more protection under the law, than you. We—”
“Who do we do this with?”
Freya blinked. She seemed rather surprised that Sharon would interrupt her. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, who do we do this with? I don’t know if you noticed, Freya, but the legal system as we know it has fallen apart somewhat.” She ticked off options on her fingers. “There’s Adama. There’s the president. There’s the Quorum. My understanding is that there’s a few freelance mediators going around who are overseeing simple disputes. But people are just scrambling to survive. There’s no full judicial system that I know of.”
“Not at the moment.”
“Moments are all I have,” Sharon said fiercely, so fiercely that it startled Freya. “Don’t you get that? Every day I wake up might be my last if Adama or the president decides I’m too great a risk. I don’t have the option of looking at the big picture.”
“And that’s what I’m trying to change.”
“Why? I still don’t understand.”
“Because,” Freya said, “it’s the right thing to do!”
“And do you think they’ll give a damn?” Sharon started to walk around, her body giving vent to her frustration. Within moments she’d moved beyond the distance that the phone cord would allow and the receiver flew out of her hand. She grabbed for it and it thudded against the side of her cell. Sharon started to reach for it, and then let out an anguished cry of fury. “You’re going to file my appeal with the same people who stuck me in here? You must be crazy! And I must be crazy for listening to you! You know they’re going to reject any argument you make.”
“I’m just trying to get you what you want,” Freya assured her.
Her voice came over the phone receiver, and Sharon could hear it even though it wasn’t to her ear. And Sharon was speaking so loudly that Freya had no trouble hearing her.
“What I want?” She thumped her chest. “You don’t know what I want! You have no frakking clue!”
“Freedom for yourself! Freedom for your child!”
“I’m not going to get freedom! I’m a Cylon! I’m the frakking enemy! They’re never going to just let me go! I don’t get to live happily ever after with Helo and my baby, and we set up a nice family. You think I don’t know that? You think I don’t see what’s coming? The only reason I’m alive is because Galactica needs me to keep saving their ass. The only reason my baby is alive is because they needed it to save Roslin’s life. If they ever make it to Earth and find safe harbor, you know what the first thing they’re gonna do is? Put a bullet in my frakking brain and turn my baby into a lab rat! If you ever convince them that they can’t treat me the way they currently do, that’s when I die. And they’ll do it without fanfare, and without a thought, and without you. And what’ll you do after I’m dead, huh? File a protest? Wag your finger and say ‘Shame on you’? What do I want? What I want is, just once before I die, to walk around where there’s some flowers and trees and dance on some grass in my bare feet, just for a little while. For a couple frakking hours. Then I’ll be happy.”
She looked as if she wanted to shout even more, but exhaustion overwhelmed her. She sagged against the side of the cell and then onto her bed. She put her hand on her stomach and just sat there, shaking her head.
“Sharon,” said the frustrated Freya, “pick the phone back up. Please. Pick it up and put it to your ear.”
Sharon stared at the receiver from which Freya’s voice was emerging. Then she picked up the phone but, rather than listening to it, she spoke softly, in a voice that was measured and tired but had an undercurrent of strength to it. “You know what I think?”
“Sharon, you need to listen to me—”
“I think,” Sharon continued as if she hadn’t spoken, “that you just wanna frak with people. With me. With Adama. With the president. The whole council. You just wanna use me to stir things up. I don’t know why. I also don’t care very much. Maybe something will come up to make me care but, right now . . . I don’t.”
With that, she turned and hung the phone up, cutting off Freya’s voice as she continued to protest.
Freya thumped with her open palm on the outside of the cell, but Sharon ignored her. Then there was the heavy noise made by the outside door that led into the cell area, and Freya glanced over. She was not remotely surprised when Adama strode in.
She was surprised, however, when two colonial marines followed him in and pointed their weapons straight at her.
Adama barely kept his cold fury in check as he stared at Freya Gunnerson. His jaw was so clenched that it was difficult at first for him to utter words. “I’ve just been informed,” he said without preamble, “that two of my people are being held on the Bifrost. On your father’s vessel.”
“Really.” Freya looked as if she were feigning interest and not doing a good job of it. “Should that be of particular importance to me?”
“Considering it’s going to have a very direct impact on your own liberty, I’d think it should.”
Freya laughed at that. Her laughter did not sit well with Adama, who refrained from ordering the marines to shoot her in the leg in order to get her full attention. But resisting the temptation was no easy chore. “My liberty?” asked Freya when she’d sufficiently recovered herself. “Two of your soldiers got themselves into some trouble on my father’s ship. How does that have anything to do with my liberty?”
“They’re being held there on some trumped-up charges. Suspicion of stealing a holy book of yours.”
“The Edda?” The amusement vanished from Freya’s face, although Adama was sure it might be nothing more than a superb acting job. “They took the Edda?”
“They are suspected of doing so . . . except my own suspicion is that your father knows perfectly well they didn’t. He’s doing this to force the issue of your people, the Midguardians, becoming members of the Quorum.”
She shrugged. “That’s possible. I certainly wouldn’t rule it out. He tends to come up with unorthodox solutions to achieve his goals. I still don’t see what any of this has to do with me. Certainly you’re not intending to keep me prisoner as some sort of retaliatory step.”
“That is exactly my intention.”
She laughed again, but this time it had a much more skeptical, even scolding tone to it. She addressed him as if the matter were already resolved and she was trying to guide him to the solution in the same way that a parent would ease a child over the span of a brook lest they wet their feet. Adama’s face didn’t so much as twitch. “Admiral,” she said when she’d co
mposed herself, “Perhaps you think that your feckless imprisonment of Lieutenant Valerii gives you the right to lock up anyone and everyone you want. Hell, you tossed the president of the Colonies into jail as part of a military coup. Some people believed that, since your . . . unfortunate incident . . .”
“My assassination attempt by someone who looked just like your client, you mean.”
“Yes,” she said dismissively as if the specifics were of no importance. “As I was saying, some believed that you had changed in your attitudes and outlook since then. It appears now that you’re . . . what’s the best way to put this . . . ?”
“Not frakking around.” There was no trace of humor in his voice, no flicker of pity in his eyes. The absence of both finally got through to Freya Gunnerson, and she began to realize her extreme vulnerability.
However, she was almost as skilled as Adama in presenting an air of conviction and certainty. “I was going to say ‘regressing.’ You don’t seriously think you can hold me here?”
“Unless you’re packing enough weaponry to shoot your way out, I seriously think exactly that. Your father has my people. I have you. I’m thinking you might be something I can trade.”
She squared her shoulders and faced him, not backing down in the slightest. “I am not a commodity. However you may choose to view Sharon Valerii, Admiral . . . I am human. I have committed no crime. I am not responsible for the actions my father has taken. I knew nothing about the theft of the Edda until I heard it from you just now. You have no grounds whatsoever upon which to hold me.”
“Arrest you,” he growled.
“The smartest thing you can do—frankly, the only thing you can do—is stand aside so that I can return to my vessel. If you wish, I assure you that I will talk to my father and convince him to release your people as soon as they turn over the Edda. Considering our tribal law prescribes murder as the punishment for theft of the book, I think that’s rather generous on my part. This offer has a limited shelf-life, Admiral. I suggest you take me up on it.”
Suddenly Adama was distracted by a loud thumping from the cell. He glanced over at Sharon. She was now holding the phone inside to her ear and was gesturing for Adama to pick it up.
His first instinct was to ignore her. To just let the phone sit there in the cradle where Freya had left it. But Adama had gradually come to the realization that his first instinct was frequently unreliable when it came to Sharon Valerii. Without looking back at Freya, he strode over and picked up the phone.
Her voice came through low and conspiratorial. There was demand in her tone, but it was laced with pleading. “Take her outside. I want to talk to just you.”
He was tempted to ask why, but saw no reason to hurry it. He turned to the marines and said, “Escort Miss Gunnerson outside and wait there for further orders.”
“Admiral,” said Freya angrily, “she’s my client.”
“And this is my ship,” he reminded her grimly. “I win.” He nodded confirmation of the order he’d just given, and the two marines removed Freya from the room. They kept their weapons in plain sight, but it wasn’t as if she offered huge amounts of resistance as she was ushered out. As combative as she was, Freya knew better than to try and have it out with two heavily armed marines.
The moment they were alone, Sharon said briskly, “She was lying. She knows something.”
The flat assertion caught Adama by surprise, although naturally there was nothing in his expression that would have confirmed that. “You were able to hear us?”
“I can lip read.”
This admission startled Adama. Even more startling was that he’d never thought of that before. “All right,” was all he said.
“So I wanted you to know . . . she was lying.” She hesitated and for a moment even looked slightly confused. “I just . . . I wanted you to know that. I thought it might help you.” Then, as if rallying from self-doubts, she said more forcefully, “Because that’s what I do here. I help you. That’s all I do,” she added pointedly . . . a point that did not elude Adama.
“How do you know she was lying?”
“Because I can tell.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Maybe,” she allowed, “but it’s the best one you’re going to get. I can tell. We can tell. There’s certain ways to determine when a hu—” She caught herself and amended, “when someone . . . lies. We’re trained to see them, spot them. Take advantage of them.”
“Trained?”
“Maybe that’s the wrong word. It’s . . . hardwired into us. One of the tools of our trade, so to speak.”
“And I’m supposed to believe you?”
She smiled thinly. “You’re not ‘supposed’ to do anything, Admiral. You can do whatever you want. I’m just telling you what I know.”
“In order to help.”
“That’s right.”
He considered that for a brief time. Then he said, “Let’s say . . . for the sake of argument . . . that I believe you. What do you suggest I do with this information?”
Sharon shrugged. “I don’t know. Get the truth from her, I suppose.”
This time the pause from Adama was far longer, his eyes studying her with calculated coldness. Two of his people were in trouble, and the reason they were in trouble was because he had sent them into the situation in the first place. So it was bad enough that he was dealing with the sense of personal responsibility over having thrust them into harm’s way. He didn’t feel guilty over it; putting soldiers of his, even beloved ones—hell, especially beloved ones—into jeopardy was simply another day at the office for him. He wasn’t second-guessing his decision. Given the same circumstances, he’d do the exact same thing again. Nevertheless, his sense of personal involvement was even sharper since difficulties had arisen from a specific mission upon which he had dispatched two of his people, as opposed to ordering pilots into the air to defend against an unexpected Cylon assault.
He had no hesitation, none, about sending in armed troops to get them back. After all, he had been willing to throw his pilots against the Pegasus in order to retrieve Helo and Chief Tyrol when Admiral Cain had been ready to have them executed. But if there were ways in which to resolve the situation that didn’t risk yet another incident that the press could transform into Galactica-against-the-fleet, he was more than willing to pursue them.
Adama was starting to think that Sharon Valerii was hinting she might serve as that means of resolution.
“Are you suggesting,” he asked slowly, “that you would be capable of getting that truth from her?”
Her eyes narrowed. “I wasn’t suggesting that, no.”
“I see.”
The seconds of silence stretched out.
And finally, Sharon said, “But if I were . . . what’s in it for me?”
At that moment, things that Tigh had said to him came back to him. How it was that, despite everything that had happened, Adama still looked at Sharon Valerii and saw Boomer, the eager, ready-to-please young recruit and pilot whom Adama and Tigh couldn’t help but have a fatherly enjoyment of and tolerance for. When she’d become inappropriately involved with Chief Tyrol, the bulk of their anger about such a relationship had been focused on Tyrol rather than Valerii, even though they were both equally responsible.
As insane as it sounded, despite the fact that his chest had been ripped open by several shots delivered at point-blank range by a creature who was identical to this one . . . a creature now dead, and yet here she was hale and hearty and pregnant, of all things . . . despite the fact that he knew in his heart of hearts that she was nothing more than a machine, an automaton, a damned frakking toaster . . . despite all of that, he still couldn’t help but feel as if she were still good ol’ Boomer, the utterly human Sharon Valerii.
But the individual who had just asked the question, “What’s in it for me?” was not Sharon Valerii, nor was she Boomer. Right there, right then, was the calculation and coldness of a Cylon agent: detached, unemotional, de
liberating as to what would be required in order to complete a mission that would potentially bring misfortune to a human being . . . misfortune that didn’t bother Sharon in the least, because she wasn’t remotely human.
He should have turned away. He should have been repulsed and revolted over the slightest notion of embarking on any endeavor in league with this . . . thing.
But he didn’t. Because instead of simply surrendering to the notion that this was indeed some unemotional, calculating inhuman machine which feigned every emotion in service of its greater goal of sabotage, Adama decided to say something just to see how she would react.
“One of the people taken prisoner on the Bifrost is Starbuck.” He hesitated for a carefully timed moment and then said, “The other is Helo.”
And there it was.
The coldness of the Cylon that she was at the moment instantly dissolved into the Sharon Valerii that she once had been . . . back before Adama knew her to be anything other than Sharon Valerii. Telling her that Starbuck was in trouble gained her interest. Telling her that the father of her child was endangered engaged her heart.
So apparently . . . she had one.
Her face paled, her eyes widened, and he saw a sharp little intake of breath. Quickly she tried to cover it, but he’d seen it. More than that: She knew he’d seen it.
“Does that change things at all?” he asked, knowing the answer before he asked it.
“It . . . provides some incentive.” She considered the situation carefully, obviously turning over all its aspects in her mind, and then said, “Are you interested in a deal?”
“I don’t bargain with Cylons,” he replied. Then, before she could say anything, he added, “But if I did . . . hypotheti-cally . . . what sort of terms are we talking about?”
Sharon Valerii had had a lousy night’s sleep.
She had been dreaming of Laura Roslin . . . and she didn’t know why.
She had seen herself lying flat on her back, tied down to a bed in sickbay. Her stomach had been flat and taut, not at all the swelling lump it was now. She had struggled to free her hands and feet, but they were too well secured. She had tried shouting at the top of her lungs, but even though her mouth was wide open and she was trying to scream, nothing was emerging from her throat.