EarthMan
By ChaosEternus

Thanks to reviewers:

rankukon alpha: didnt understand the last part at all
elfin2: thanks
evilclone666: not quite, just under one month

MAILMAN and Earthman are now officially in the same universe

Chapter 16

There were a lot of questions asked on the subject of Baltar the following weeks, like why had he sabotaged the MRI project? Many blamed the state of his mind, he had just been sectioned, been declared clinically and legally insane but there were more than a few who wondered about other motivations he might have had.

Surprisingly enough, it appeared President Roslin was a very vocal member of the Baltar a Cylon faction. Okay, so I knew he had been accused of being a cylon but he had been cleared, the evidence proven fake by Gaeta and his accuser literally vanishing but why was Roslin so sure that Baltar was at the very least a traitor and quite possibly a Cylon?

I actually asked her once, when she dropped into check on our research project and she said when Baltar had been accused she had believed instantly, her instincts telling her that whilst Baltar might not have planted the bomb in the Military mainframes like he was accused off, he most certainly had something to do with the destruction of the Colonies.

Okay, so I knew Baltar wasn't kosher and had known since I first met him but to hear such words from the Colonial President was somewhat unsettling. After all, wasn't it Roslin who made Baltar the Presidential Science Advisor?

Gaeta however was stunned, shocked and disappointed. I knew Gaeta had had a bit of hero worship going on with Baltar and had been hit a bit hard by Baltars now obvious insanity but to hear two people he trusted, even if he didn't particularly like Roslin, openly saying they felt Baltar wasn't at all kosher, well, it hit him a little hard.

I wasn't too surprised when Gaeta left abruptly, saying only he had remembered something he had to do. I wasn't that surprised later either to hear that he had been to see Baltar in his cell, and from then on, Gaeta was a very firm member of the ‘Baltar is a Traitor' camp, though strangely enough, Gaeta never seemed to think Baltar was a Cylon.

But back to Roslin, who had began asking some very pointed questions about our research. It seemed that whilst we were putting out theories that were helping people to understand the Cylons, theories that were greeted with eager, if occasionally sceptically arms by what could laughing be called the Scientific Community aboard the refugee ship, questions about what we were actually researching had reached Rosin's ears.

And she was determined to find out the truth. We had after all, completed the biggest part of our research project and in a big way too. The MRI whilst incomplete was hailed as a reusable and fast cylon detector and as an advanced diagnostic machine, likely to be very useful to the medical community. Even if it didn't succeed in detecting cylons, it was still a major breakthrough and a very useful tool.

So, what were we actually researching now?

The standard explanation of trying to find anything that would help us understand the Cylons better, because an enemy we understood was one we could defeat had been accepted up till now by most people but Roslin seemed sceptical.

Then she spotted Gaeta 's note, left open by the computer during his hurried departure and after a hurried read, abruptly left with the expression of one who has far too much to think about.

Leaving me no clue as to whether me and Gaeta were going to be told off for what was essentially, unauthorised research and illegal use off official resources, whether she was going to start looking the other way or whether we were going to be commended.

It made me a little tense, as you can imagine.