His consciousness brushed Segis's, and for a moment he thought he might actually be able to make not just contact, but to enter and explore, but then it was as if some massive gate slammed closed, shutting Apollo out before he could fully enter. Whether it was because Apollo's own nascent psychic abilities had chosen that particular moment to falter, as they sometimes did, waxing and waning, or because Segis had sensed his psychic intrusion and set up mental safeguards and barriers to keep him out, Apollo couldn't say. There was something oddly familiar about the brief contact he had been able to establish, but the feeling was fading… gone.
Apollo heard Cain whispering something to Tigh; he didn't catch it all, but he heard enough to know his world was spinning on an uncertain axis: "… incredible. Everything we need to survive and rebuild is available to us here. Of course, we need to verify these 'ancient writings' with one of the scholars from the Cerberus… scout the planet, make sure this is not a trap…"
Tigh nodded. "Of course."
Cain was growing more animated, more excited by their prospects, and gestured around them at the city and the walls of stone that had kept it safe and untouched during the worst of the Cylon Wars. "We couldn't have found a more ideal location from which to reclaim our homeland."
Segis, of course, had heard Cain's dialogue with Tigh, but then, it was not Segis whom Cain was trying to keep from overhearing his plans. "You and your people are all most welcome to stay as long as you desire," Segis informed Cain.
"This city is yours, as the children of Kobol. You are safe here. And we—" she turned and gestured at the faceless, robed acolytes which followed many paces behind them "—are here to serve and assist you in anything you ask."
Apollo looked in alarm at Athena, but she would not meet his gaze. Instead, he tried to probe her mind, but he found himself blocked from this as surely as he was barred from Segis's thoughts. She could not look at him, not yet, because she knew he would ask her for her support in influencing the council against Cain's obvious plan to stay on Kobol indefinitely.
But she couldn't do that, because, she realized with some surprise, she found herself siding more and more with Cain than with her own brother.
The return to the Galactica was brief but, for Apollo, it seemed interminable. With the assistance of Uriah, from the Cerberus, the fleet's archives ship, the ancient texts of which Segis spoke were translated, and Uriah confirmed them as having been inscribed in stone long millennia ago, in the same hand that had inscribed other texts about the ancient temple. The writings were genuine; the prophecy, it seemed, fulfilled. Even Commander Cain, who decried all such prophetic writings as fairy tale thinking and felgercarb in its most unrefined, unappealing form, could barely contain his growing enthusiasm over having found a safe haven, at last, and President Tigh, for all his friendship and loyalty to Apollo, seemed to be similarly swept along by the same tide.
Athena spent the journey back not speaking to Apollo, or, at least, not speaking of things that mattered. She talked around the issue, choosing instead to concentrate on how terrible the destruction on Kobol was, and said she was eager to see how Starbuck was doing. Apollo agreed that, yes, the damage was, indeed, awful, and said that he didn't know if it could be ever fully rebuilt.
She couldn't look at him after that, not for a while, anyway, because she knew what damage he was referring to, but she couldn't help how she felt any more than Apollo could.
He allowed himself to wonder if Cain was right, after all, and perhaps his resistance to the idea of reclaiming Kobol grew out of his increasing conflicts with Cain: Anything Cain was for, he must therefore be against.
But the fact was, he just didn't trust anything that came about because of Baltar, no matter how often or how loudly everyone else proclaimed the hand of Providence at work. There was something at work here, Apollo was certain; the temple writings supported that much, at least, but he didn't know what, exactly. Whatever it was, he had the feeling it was not benevolent.
Apollo looked out the viewing port of the shuttle and watched Kobol slip farther away.
As soon as he arrived back aboard the battlestar, Apollo headed for the med-unit, where he found Dr. Wilker in the waiting hall and took him aside. The prognosis, Wilker told him gravely, was not promising.
"His brain has hemorrhaged," he said. "His condition is critical. Frankly, I don't know how he's lasted this long."
Apollo felt as if someone had sucker-punched him; he had expected the worst, of course, had tried to prepare himself for it, but the fact was, when it happened, the worst was still the worst. He nodded, and walked away on legs that felt too weak to support him.
Inside the med-unit, Apollo found Dalton keeping vigil at her father's death-berth. She did not look up at Apollo's approach, but that was just as well; she might have seen the tears welling in his eyes, and he already felt vulnerable enough.
He stood beside Dalton, and finally placed a hand on her back. It's the end of an era, he thought. Starbuck would really die this time; he would be forever gone from Apollo's life, from all of their lives. Apollo felt a tear tracking slowly down his cheek and he palmed it away. It was just the one; he would not indulge himself in more than this. Not here, anyway; not yet. He would not be there to see the new world. He would not be there to offer his counsel to Apollo. He would not be there, period.
He studied Starbuck's face and the rogue's smile that was still there, but it wasn't really a smile; it was just the crippling, twisting after-effects of the brain hemorrhage. There was nothing to smile about here.
Apollo felt Dalton's shoulders shudder beneath his hand, knew she was fighting the tears even as he was, and promised Starbuck, silently, I'll look after her. You just. . . you just do what you have to do. I'll take care of things here.
"This is because of me… isn't it?" Dalton asked, snuffling back the tears.
"You? How do you figure that?"
"Because he came after me, to help me," she said, her voice thick with emotion. "He pushed himself too hard and he wouldn't have had to do that if I hadn't been fracking off with Trays…"
"No," he said. "It wouldn't have mattered who was out there. He would have gone to help them. That's just the way he was."
Apollo realized with some horror he was already speaking of Starbuck in the past tense. "Did you ever hear the story about how your dad and I met?" he asked, wanting desperately to turn away from these dark thoughts, as much for his own sake as Dalton's.
"He only told that one about a million times," Dalton answered, and smiled a little. It was weak, barely there, but at least it was better than tears. "But I wouldn't mind hearing it again."
But before he could speak, Apollo was interrupted by a young, dark-haired female aide. She stood just inside the door, trying to be respectful of the raw emotions the commander and Dalton were grappling with, but feeling a sense of pressing urgency, as well. "Commander," Lyrra said. Apollo turned to look at her. Now that he did, she felt like an intruder. "I'm sorry to do this, Sir, but they want you in the council chamber, now."
"What do they want?" he asked.
"I think they're about to vote on something."
CHAPTER NINE
THE COUNCIL had already started hearing arguments over who should be the fleet's supreme commander without Apollo's presence; that did not bode well for him.
As he hurried down the corridors for the council chambers, Apollo's mind was more on Starbuck than his own future as supreme commander. He felt as if he were abandoning his friend when Starbuck most needed him, but intellectually, Apollo knew there was nothing he could do for him. He could not even offer words of comfort; the part of Starbuck that would understand him was trapped somewhere deep inside a dark and silent place.
The chamber door opened with a sigh, and Apollo was inside the room before the door had cleared the frame. President Tigh was arbitrating a heated debate between Athena and other council members, and Apollo had the sense it was not going well, for his old friend and men
tor was rubbing his left temple with the tips of his fingers, as Tigh always did when the stresses brought on a skull-popper. The council members were not brilliant leaders, they were not possessors of courageous hearts; they were a group of twelve men and women banded together by a deep and abiding mistrust of change.
Change had to be forced upon them, by circumstances beyond their control. Then, they voted almost unanimously to accept events over which they could not exert influence. It would have been laughable—if these men and women did not decide the fates of so many.
Not that long ago, Apollo had faced a similar battle after Adama died, and the Quorum had to elect a new fleet commander; now, Apollo felt as if time had cunningly doubled back upon itself and he was yet again arguing his worthiness to hold that post.
But it was a little more than that, this time.
"I agree that there are many advantages to reclaiming Kobol," Athena said, barely aware of her brother's presence. "We're all tired of running and fighting."
"Are we all so tired that we're willing to accept these caretakers at their word?" Apollo interjected, stepping before the Quorum, next to Commander Cain. The room was white and featurelessly austere, with only pictographs representing the star system from which each council member had once departed, harried along by the Cylon war machine. "We have only spoken with them once, and, while the texts seems to bear out their assertions, we have not had time to consider their offer and its ramifications completely—"
"There is nothing to consider," Sire Belloch of Gemon said. He was a tall and thin man, as gaunt as death. "They are offering us a safe planet from which to rebuild, no matter that this world is not homeworld to any of the rest of the Quorum members."
"It is the last place the Cylons would think to look for us," Cain added, as if that were enough to decide the matter.
Apollo felt his own skull-popper coming on. "You're forgetting, the Cylons have the same QSE technology as we do. The coordinates Baltar gave us are those he stole from the Cylons. Council members, I assure you the Cylons will find us; it remains only to be seen how long it will take."
"The fleet is safely concealed," Sire Belloch intoned. "The city is hidden below the surface of a planet the Cylons have already decimated. Even if they did follow us here, the Cylons would find a dead world, exactly as they left it a thousand yahren ago."
The Quorum murmured assent amongst themselves, and even Athena was nodding in agreement.
"Your concerns are noted, Commander Apollo," Sire Belloch stated coldly, "but, unless you can present a more persuasive argument as to why we should not accept the caretakers' offer, this council has enough information before it to take a vote."
Apollo's mind raced at near-escape velocity, looking for some solid reason to stay on Kobol no longer than it took to replenish and refuel, and realized he had none. All he had was a very unsettling feeling that this was a colossally elaborate trap, but that was hardly a rational argument, and it certainly would not sway the Quorum. It was the prelude to a raging paranoia, but that was all he had to argue with, the only point from which he could argue, so he pressed on: "Members of the council, you know as well as I that the Cylons will not rest until the last of the human race are all captured and enslaved, or annihilated, and with their technology, assimilated from planets they've conquered, they will certainly locate us before we've had the time to fully implement Commander Cain's plan.
"Rebuild a world? Build our armada and take the battle to the Cylons? Reclaim the colonies from them?" Apollo shook his head; it was not for effect. Hearing it spoken aloud made him see just how monumentally large and far-ranging Cain's plans were.
"These things will take time, much time, and while we rest, the Cylons will not. They will not stop until they have found us."
He paced, drawing their attention toward himself and away from Cain; it was a trick he had seen his father use successfully in his dealings with the Quorum. "What I propose is this: I beseech the council to allow the Galactica and those who choose to join us to leave Kobol for the haven of deep space as soon as we are able."
Cain had been quietly fuming the entire time Apollo was making his impassioned plea, and now erupted defiantly.
"If we are to succeed in our mission, we will need every ship and every man available to us. We cannot allow Apollo to further divide our diminished forces! The Lords of Kobol have at last answered our prayer and blessed us with an incredible opportunity to finally avenge the deaths of millions of our countrymen."
He drew himself up to his full height, seeming to swell with the passion of his words. "We will be looked upon by history as cowards if we run yet again and shirk our duty as Warriors, and men and women of honor and integrity. Future generations will remember us and thank us for the sacrifices we are about to make. If we continue to run, we will be running forever, looking back over our shoulder in fear. I say if we are to die, then let it be in a blaze of glory. Let our deaths be deaths that matter!"
Apollo had been watching the council members during Cain's spittle-lipped call to glory, and, to a man, they had all been clearly and visibly moved. Even Athena. It was a lost cause, and his heart was not into fighting any more battles he knew he could not win, but he was Adama's son, the supreme commander of the fleet, and he had to try. Perhaps logic would yet prevail over Cain's jingoistic entreaties. And perhaps Starbuck would walk through the council chamber door. Anything was possible; just how probable remained to be seen.
"My father, and your great leader for nearly twenty yahren, led our people to safety and maintained peace among many different races and ideologies aboard this ragtag fleet," Apollo began, speaking from his heart. It made only slightly more sense than speaking from his intuition. "He believed, as I do, in a great vision, one which would carry us across the heavens to a new homeland. One where we could truly start anew and begin the rebuilding of our society in peace and harmony.
"This," he continued, speaking more softly, forcing them to truly listen to what he was telling them, "is a natural progression. Over the aeons, our race has evolved and migrated from first Parnassus to Kobol to the Twelve Colonies. It has always been our destiny, to continue expanding out into the universe, and the ancient Kobollian writings have spoken of a great journey to a faraway star system, where our race would one day finally understand its origins, and complete the circle of life.
"I, and those who have not forgotten our proud heritage, believe that the Thirteenth Tribe, our Kobollian forefathers, are our guide, and that they have left us a map that beckons us to follow them to our new home among distant stars. We must go on or we will surely die!"
Cain stood smirking, and moved into position before the Quorum once more, like a lupus angling in for the kill, ready to bring down the lone bova. "The writings are fairy tales," he said, softly, like a gentle deathblow, a silencer on a gun barrel. "Ripping good bedtime stories for children, but that is all they are. No one has believed in them for aeons. You and your father are embarrassing throwbacks to an age of superstition and belief in magic… omens and augurs… mystic portents. Your father was a great man, Apollo, I have always said this, but he was misguided."
"Your words, Commander," Apollo answered. "Why are you so willing to risk the safety of the fleet upon these ancient texts that you claim are fairy tales? Are we to pick and choose the writings we believe and those we don't?"
"Of course," Cain answered, simply. "To not do so would make one a fool."
Apollo's hands fisted at his sides, and his jaw muscles worked as he tried to maintain his calm. It was one thing to attack him; it was another to speak ill of his father, in whatever terms Cain chose to couch it. He looked to Athena, who seemed torn by what she knew and what she felt, the heart ever at war with the brain.
"But it is time our race followed a path of our own making," Cain said flatly. "I am sorry, Apollo, but history will belong to me and those who have the courage to take back our birthright from the invaders."
It was Apollo's turn o
nce again. He had spoken from intuition, addressed the assemblage from his heart. Now, he had only ragged emotion and faint hope left in his arsenal. "Our forefathers, the Thirteenth Tribe, evolved a technology many aeons ago that our race has never equaled. Are we so arrogant, so debased, to believe that we are so much wiser and sophisticated than they were?
"Had we not forgotten our roots and ancient ways, perhaps we would not be standing where we are today, on the brink of the precipice of total annihilation. History will belong to those who have the vision to see the truth and the courage to follow it."
That was enough for Cain. He turned defiantly toward the council, eyeing them with steely determination, knowing Belloch was his, and Tigh and Athena, for that matter. He thought if they voted for him, the rest of the Quorum, followers that they were, would not want to buck the trend. His sense of battle strategy told him when to strike, when to divide and when to unify, and that same sense told him it was time now to force the council to decide. It was a challenge, and most of these council members would back down from a real challenge.
"It is time to decide between myself and Apollo," he said, throwing down the gauntlet. Apollo looked startled; he had known this was coming, he had to. Perhaps he thought he would have longer to argue his case, and perhaps he could even have persuaded the council to his point of view. That was why Cain decided to press the issue, force them to decide now, while their blood was still hot from his oration, before Apollo could force his own seductive reasoning upon them.
"You all know me, and you know Apollo. Who would you want to save our worlds and lead the fleet into battle, if the situation demands? Apollo… who has fled from battle when possible, rather than engage the enemy and defeat them, soundly and decisively… or me?"
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