" Gauis, stop."

Her voice made him look up from his work. "I'm very busy right now, if you don't mind." In fact, he was extremely busy. Admiral Adama and President Roslin had made yet another emergency demand of him. " In case you missed it, I am very busy right now proving that Lt. Gaeta has had a mental breakdown." He looked down at the test he was running. While it was true that Gaeta had been tested at about the same time that he had turned off the indicator for determining actual Cylons, he figured he had met enough Cylons to know that Gaeta was simply and sadly in the throes of a serious mental illness.

A shame really. There were hardly any decent conversationalists on the Galactica. There was only so much stimulation to be had chatting with the pilots. Arrogant boasting and bragging about kills was only mildly interesting when he personally was also drunk. Gaeta, in comparison, could talk on several technical areas, and could usually even discuss politics and philosophy. Plus, from a straightforward practical standpoint, if Gaeta was insane or a Cylon, it meant that he would be stuck with all of the technical grunt work that Gaeta did for him.

Six looked at him with wry amusement all over her face. " Gauis, don't you understand? This is part of God's plan for you."

" What? What part of God's plan is this?" Baltar took of his glasses and rubbed his head. " Why does God even care that Lt. Gaeta is psychotic? Sometimes I think God just enjoys bedeviling me."

"Don't blaspheme, Gauis, it's not attractive." Six's voice took on a warning note. " And Lt. Gaeta is not psychotic as your… more accurate testing methodology will prove." She laughed. " It's ironic really. He's more loyal to the human race than you, and he's not even human."

Baltar felt his irritation suddenly turn to rage. " Are you telling me that he's a Cylon? That you've known he was a Cylon? That we've all been entrusting our lives to him and he's on your side?"

Six slapped his face. Hard. " Gauis, are you listening to me at all?" She grabbed him in that way that she had, hard and fast, and slammed him into the wall. " For a brilliant man, you don't listen very well." She leaned in very close, until she was inches from his face. " Lt. Gaeta is a Cylon, but he has rejected the command of God."

" Is that even possible?" Baltar ignored the bigger issue, that she had just confirmed that Gaeta was a Cylon, and focused on the second part. " If he's a Cylon, isn't he… programmed to believe in God?" He didn't pretend to understand Cylon psychology, but he was pretty certain they couldn't refuse orders.

She ran her hands down his body. " The sleeper agents had to be granted a certain amount of free will and independent decision making or else they would never be able to pass in human society. They all believe, up until the moment of activation, that they are human. Some are even inserted as very young children, like your original Sharon Valerii. I suspect that if you dig deeply into Felix Gaeta's background, you'll find a childless couple that was pathetically grateful to accept a child of unknown origins and pass it off as their own. They might have even lied to him about being his natural parents."

He brushed her hands aside, suddenly intrigued by what she was suggesting. " Why would he admit he was a Cylon? He was passing. If… if he wanted to pass himself off as human, he certainly was doing a fine job. There was no reason to expose himself."

Six backed away, looking both amused and quizzical. " The concern, Gauis, is that he still considers himself, in his mind, a human being, and not a Cylon. God wants him to understand his true nature." Six looked at him intently. " You have been given a very special mission, Gauis. You need to bring a fallen one back to God"

He almost laughed. Almost. " Why would I want to convince him that he was a Cylon? And if the test is positive, he's going to die as soon as Roslin knows." Roslin took a hard line towards Cylons. If Gaeta had just been planning a suicide, he was going to get his wish. The president wasn't going to take any chances.

" The test is going to be positive, Gauis. Deep down, you know that." She fondled his crotch. " Your job is to first make sure that no one ever doubts the test. You must not allow the authorities to execute Lt. Gaeta. This will involve lying, Gauis."

He batted her hands away, intrigued suddenly by the problem it presented. " Falsifying the test is child's play. The only other person who even understands the test is Gaeta. Which," he suddenly laughed, " makes this all the more amusing. However, there is more to this than just lying. As I understand the current crisis, he's actively suicidal."

Six shook her head. " There's an inhibition. He might try but it will always be unsuccessful if he doesn't involve the help of others. Unfortunately for you, he is inventive."

Baltar nodded to that. " I'm surprised he's alive. And quite frankly, there's a very good possibility that the president will order his execution regardless of the test results." Roslin, much more so than Adama, took a hard line on such things. She was often bizarrely liberal, letting convicted prisoners run their own ship was one, but when it came to Cylons, the president generally was not open minded. " She'll want him dead just to be careful. He's had too much access to the high command." And it occurred to him that was precisely why Six, and presumably God, didn't want Gaeta tossed out an airlock.

And why Gaeta had tried so hard to orchestrate his own death. Baltar eyed Six carefully. Was she just in his head? Or a force acting through him? He didn't know. " So I tell the admiral and the president he's as human as I am. Then what? They aren't going to just release him back to his job. You do understand that the other option in this farce is that he's crazy, correct? That's going to remove him from the chain of command. After this little admission, even if I do convince everyone that he's just crazy, someone is likely to take it seriously and kill him out of revenge."

Six glared at him. " God is concerned about his soul, Gauis. He is one of God's children and he needs to understand that he is one of us, not one of you."

" You're not worried at all about why he's not in line with the kill all humans program?" Baltar asked after a moment.

" His model has always been prone to independent thought." Six returned to unbuttoning his clothes.

" Isn't that a flaw?" He couldn't help but be interested. She rarely discussed the Cylon models, except to mock Sharon Valerii.

" There's always a need for independent thought." Six spoke softly as she fondled him. " And in many ways, God is quite pleased with Lt. Gaeta. However," and her voice took on an ominous note, " God will be very displeased with you if Lt. Gaeta dies so far from one of our resurrection vessels. You don't want to displease God, Gauis."

No, Baltar thought to himself, that just wouldn't do. He merely questioned how much influence he could bring to the table to save the life of a Cylon that wanted to die.