" Why don't we start with Lt. Dualla's quarters?" Troi said easily as they walked down the hallway. " All the quarters are basically the same, so I can show you all the things that you aren't going to be familiar with." She stopped in front of a non-descript door. " I figured you'd all prefer to be close to each other, so your quarters are in a row here. If you get lost, all you need to do is touch one of the wall keypads and ask for directions. The computers here are voice activated." The woman smiled at the three of them. " I understand that voice automation isn't something you've been exposed to. Not everyone likes it and you can turn it off if you wish." She touched the wall panel and like magic, the door slid open.

They all followed her in. Beside her, Dee could hear Helo's sharp intake of breath. He was surprised, and so was she. The room was… opulent. The Galactica's guest quarters, before they were commandeered for different purposes, were closet sized. The room she was looking at… it wasn't even just one room. There was a sitting area and she could see a bedroom through the small doorway. A bedroom and a bathroom. She struggled not to grin. She hadn't had a private bathroom to use since she had left home to join the military. She would have been perfectly fine being told that she, Lee, and Helo would all be sharing quarters if the quarters were so big. She suddenly felt terrible for the crew people from the Enterprise who would be spending days on the Galactica. They were in for an unpleasant shock.

Troi explained the basics. They did use computers for a lot. It was almost creepy really, although Dee knew enough about the problems of water storage to agree that the sonic shower was a good idea. Trying it was a different story, but she figured she would. There was nothing to fear, she had made that decision six days earlier. They had found Earth.

She certainly had a few questions for one Lt. Felix Gaeta, that was true, but he was her friend, and she figured that since she had never asked Gaeta if he was born on Earth, she could hardly accuse him of lying about it. It was a rationalization, but she didn't mind.

"Finally," Troi said, as she walked over to a square opening in the wall, " this is a food replicator. There is a cafeteria where a lot of the single crewpeople like to eat, but some people prefer breakfast and supper in their quarters. The food replicator takes bulk matter and, using computer programs and energy, transforms the bulk matter into whatever food you like. For example," Troi turned her attention to the slot in the wall, " Computer, I'd like an apple."

Dee watched in amazement as the boxy area lit up. It was like watching a wave of sparkles that quickly coalesced first into a discernable shape and then into an apple. A bright red apple, like ones that she used to pick off the trees that grew on her grandmother's land. Troi picked it up and held it out to her. " Go ahead… try it."

Dee took the apple and bit into it. If it had tasted like sawdust, she wouldn't have minded, because it had been so long since she had anything that didn't taste like sawdust or pond scum. In fact, it was juicy and tart, and tasted exactly like an apple should. " It's good," she said to Lee and Helo.

Lee gestured to the replicator. " That's how you're doing it," he said. She could see him putting things together in his head. It didn't surprise her. Lee was sharp, sharper than a lot of people gave him credit for, including his father. She certainly hadn't wondered about where the supplies were coming from. She had just thanked the gods that the Enterprise was so willing to share. But now… she realized that their food supply was dependant less on stores and more on the energy supply.

Lee wasn't done. " This is some of that higher tech… that Lt. Gaeta couldn't reveal?" There was more than a little bit of anger in his voice and Dee could understand why. People had been starving, the rations had barely kept anyone alive. And if it could make food, no doubt it could make other things, other necessary things that people had been going without for.

Troi's smile faltered just a little. " Yes. And other things as well." Her expression didn't change, but Dee could sense a hardness coming over the woman. " I'm not a technician or an engineer, Major Adama, so I can't tell exactly how these things work, but I do know the basics. Our technology requires a great deal of energy and the ability to store it. What we know of the Beta Quadrant, where you're from, is that the necessary articles to build this technology don't exist. Mr. Gaeta could have explained our tech in detail but…"

"We couldn't have replicated it. I understand." Lee finished. He nodded, looking for a moment just like his father. I don't regret the divorce, Dee told herself. She wasn't a good match for Lee, and while he tried, he just didn't love her. Sometimes though, she regretted it. He shrugged. "Perhaps we should let Lt. Dualla settle in? And you can show Capt. Agathon and myself our quarters?"

She was grateful to be alone for a few moments, that was the truth. There was a certain childish glee in having a big room all to herself. She successfully resisted the urge to actually jump on the giant bed but she did let herself fall back on it. It was delightfully soft and bigger than any bed she had slept in since before the colonies were destroyed. It was nicer than a suite on the Cloud Nine, not that she'd had more than a passing glance inside the rooms there. And they had already been getting dingy with hard use.

Unpack, she told herself forcefully. The uniforms would wrinkle if they stayed rolled up and she didn't want to look sloppy. She was an officer of the colonial fleet. The last thing she wanted was to make the colonial fleet look bad. Colonel Tigh had already done a marvelous job of making them look like complete savages. She had a pretty good idea who had been in the Circle with Tigh, which just made it worse. It explained so much about everything.

It didn't take long to unpack though, and in a matter of minutes her clothes were hung and she was back to sitting on the soft bed. She hoped the four days wasn't going to go as slowly. It helped that she was completely wired. Wired with next to nothing to do until President Roslin finished with her conference with Lt. Gaeta.

That was Lt. Commander Gaeta, she reminded herself. It was like something out of a story, it really was, like one of those stories that her father liked to read to her when she was little, where the hero was lost on the shores of a distant land with no way to get home. And if the Enterprise was any indicator, he had left behind a lot. A lot of things about him had made sudden sense when he had revealed just who he was. He had always seemed too urbane, too cultured, to have been just another orphaned farm kid who taught himself out of library books. She knew that kind of person. Good people, but unsophisticated, and she had been surprised when he had told her that. She had assumed that being raised on Caprica, even without parents or the luxury of decent schooling, had accounted for his often dry sense of humor and cultured manners.

She turned her head and spied the extra duffle bag. Lee and Helo could tease, but she had done the right thing. Felix had been grabbed and taken without a moment to even say good bye. He had things. Not many things, but there was no reason that he should have to give up everything he owned. She knew he cherished his few remaining photos of friends that were killed in the holocaust, the books he had traded for. It wasn't much to show for ten years, but she intended that he would get his things. Particularly since it wasn't as though they were going to let him come back to the Galactica any time soon. Not after what Tigh and his band of vigilantes had done.

And she wasn't pleased that Gaeta had kept that secret on top of everything else. That was foolish, and dangerous, and he hadn't deserved it. She had never seen the admiral look so angry. He hadn't even done anything but stalk out into the CIC and then away, and she had gotten the story from Lee, who had been shaken. Shaken that Kara had participated, of that Dee had no doubt. It didn't surprise her in the slightest. Kara had gotten mean after New Caprica. A lot of people had, but Kara had been the worst, followed very closely by Col. Tigh.

The door buzzed and then opened and Helo stepped into her room. " Isn't this amazing?" he asked as she got up from the bed. " I asked, and Commander Troi said that everyone who is an officer has their own quarters. Just not as big. And the senior enlisted people do too, and the junior enlisted people share but only four to a room at most. They have family quarters, Dee. I almost wish I could have brought Sharon and Hera." After a moment, his face darkened just a little. " Maybe not, I suppose. We still don't know how they are going to handle Cylons."

" They don't seem that concerned," Dee said after a moment. Which in a way was reassuring, and in a way was frightening. " You know the admiral won't let anything happen to Sharon."

" It's not the admiral I'm worried about," Helo said with a sigh. As he spoke the door opened again. This time it was Troi, and she had Lee in tow.

" Captain Picard advised me that President Roslin is finishing up her conference so we are going to meet him and the president there, and then start the tour. If you'll follow me?" She led them to one of the lifts. Dee was already starting to realize that stairs were a rarity on the ship. Still, the lift was incredibly fast, and in seconds they were in a new corridor.

President Roslin was in the hallway, talking with Picard. Dee almost smiled as she spotted Felix Gaeta standing carefully to the side, holding one of the computer pads exactly like a clipboard. He was wearing one of their uniforms, which did make her smile. She choked that down though. It wasn't professional… and he looked nervous. He nodded to her, that slight nod that she knew so well. The signal that while things weren't grim, they were serious and there was no time to chat.

" Ah, you're here. Excellent." Picard smiled winningly at them. Dee noticed that Roslin seemed pleased as well. The offer, Dee realized, must have been good. Picard gestured down the hallway. " I thought we'd start first with the bridge. Mr. Gaeta," and Dee had to bite her tongue at how Gaeta jumped, and she could see Picard notice it as well, " you'll be joining us, of course. I've been remiss in giving you the standard orientation."

Felix nodded. "Yes, sir." He was more than nervous, she realized. He was worried at how they were going to react. He had reason. And she wasn't going to make things worse.

" It's good to see you, sir," she said easily. " I just wish you hadn't left the CIC in such a mess."

" No," Helo said after just a moment, " that mess just started piling up after you left. I actually had to start doing my job again."

After a moment, Gaeta did smile, a real smile, which she hadn't seen in a long while. " Well, we can't have that, sir."

" Aren't we supposed to be calling you sir?" Lee said brightly. " Lt. Commander isn't it?"

Gaeta nodded, his face flushed with embarrassment. " It's mostly honorary," he said quietly. " Because they thought I was dead."

" Missing, Mr. Gaeta." They all turned to look at Troi. She smiled slightly. " We thought you were missing. We had hope."

" Now, if you'll all follow me?" Picard said after a moment. " Madame President?" He held out his arm, which Roslin took after a moment.

Dee waited until everyone started moving to get in beside Gaeta. "Are you ok? You look worried."

He looked at her, and smiled. " It's all right. It's just been… odd." He paused, seeming to think. " I'm glad you got to come for the exchange."

She smiled back. " I wouldn't miss this for anything."