Thank you for your lovely reviews for the last chapter.

This is a smaller chapter. Enjoy.

Chapter 33

Elosha was looking at the waterfall, deep in thought. Then, she said:

"What do you know about the cylons?"

Helena hesitated for a moment and then spoke.

"We know they were created by these people. We know they are part machine and part biological. Or maybe some of them are machines, others biological. It is not very easy to understand what came first and how. We know that there was a child born from humans and cylons. Was there even more than one? I'm not sure. The blood of that child saved Laura from cancer. She lived long enough to settle on a planet, and suffer cylons' occupancy. Then, they escaped. And later her cancer must have returned, because we found it clearly on her remains. I am still working on the text and certainly there is still a lot of work to be done. It takes some time."

Elosha got up suddenly, startling Helena.

"Come with me!" She said with authority. Helena looked in her eyes deeply for a few seconds. In a flash, Helena thought of all the possibilities that could happen: she could get abducted for a ransom or her knowledge; she could be taken or killed; she could disappear never to be found again. Helena had the translation of the book. They probably wanted that. Would they kidnap her to get it? She thought it was ridiculous; they were ready to share that knowledge and needed them to establish medical care and secure the area with the UN and UNESCO. Losing a scientist on an expedition would certainly not accomplish any of such goals. Reassured that their intention was probably not malevolent, she decided to trust Elosha. And deeply she was not scared; the old woman's eyes were only full of strength and trust. She got up and followed the older woman on a path up the side of the ridge closer to the waterfall. The path suddenly turned and branched behind a rock. Helena could not see the pond in the back or their camp anymore. It occurred to her that she should probably warn Takashi and that he would be upset if he could not find her. But how? She did not have the SAT phone with her and could not communicate her location. Helena wore a thin brown leather bracelet with a charm on it. The silver charm was the Japanese kanji character hikari, meaning 'light'. She slipped the bracelet off and placed it by the entrance of the cave. Elosha disappeared inside. Helena followed her, suddenly enveloped by darkness.

"With this new assignment, my schedule became even more busy, if that is at all possible. We started to rotate people to less desirable jobs. There was a lot of whining and protest among our privileged class, especially those on Colonial One, which made me realize, well… how privileged they had been.

'Ok, I said. I will go too' Maybe if I showed the example, they would be less inclined to complain. The question remained which ship and what job. Because of my responsibilities, I could not be away for very long. Yet, the idea of leaving Colonial One to disappear among the civilians was an appealing one. As a previous teacher, I was interested to see if I could do something related to this. So Tory put my name on the list with my qualifications. A few days later, the answer came back. Interestingly, I was matched to the Rising Star, the medical ship that is touring the fleet to bring Dr. Cottle to each vessel, pick up sick passengers and treat others on the spot. I would go for a few days each week to relieve some of the nursing personnel on board. Dr. Cottle had put a request for some help. I imagine he picked me when he saw my name."

"I was determined not to come on the Rising Star as the president, but as an ordinary woman. This turned out to be a lot more difficult than I had anticipated. I put comfortable clothes, pants, short boots and a comfortable shirt. I pulled my hair up in a ponytail. But people on the ship still addressed me as the president and gave me special treatment. I had to make it clear that I was on my job rotation just like everyone else. Dr. Cottle set me up with him on his tour of the fleet to treat civilians. We spent the day going from ship to ship to treat people from the various colonies. He gave me orders to clean wounds or prepare examination rooms, change sheets and examination gowns. There were only few doctors and even fewer nurses. Ishay was now completely trained as a doctor, missing only the actual degree, which was nonsense in our predicament, and thus could not spare the time to do the nursing job, which is the reason why help was needed. Dr. Richard a civilian who killed Sagittarons based on their ethnicity and religious beliefs was now removed from duty and rightly imprisoned until his trial. I have no doubt he would get the death penalty. Dr. Cottle made me work as a nurse, changing bandages, weighing infants, and conducting basic exams. He had already taught me a lot on New Caprica and now I graduated to more complicated tasks such as how to take blood pressure and how to inject subcutaneous shots and intramuscular shots. I was a nervous wreck the first time I had to do it, but it went well.

This assignment gave me a much clearer picture of how the fleet was operating and what we had become. Some of the ships needed a lot of supplies and the population was living in deplorable conditions. The ships were in bad shape, with terrible quality of life. Children barely receiving the care they should, education abysmal and a high level of corruption, creating in certain cases some truly tragic events. I was ashamed that under my government we could find such poverty and cases like women prostituting themselves to be able to get medication for their children. Of course, it did not help that we left so many of our supplies on the surface of New Caprica. It was possible to recycle things, but we could not create supplies we did not have. Taking the opportunity to speak with me and explain their predicament became a reason some people requested to visit the Rising Star for so called 'medical emergencies'. Over the next couple of weeks I started rotating my days randomly to avoid cluttering the medical ship with just those who wanted the presidential ear for a few minutes. At the same time I realized that I had not listened enough to our people. Our colonial society, just like Tyrol mentioned, was turning into a caste society, where your fate depended on which ship you lived. This was unacceptable. Some of the horrors I was witnessing were unacceptable. Based on my highly educational and enlightening experience on the Rising Star, I started planning some very necessary reforms of our society, childcare, health care and schooling. Education was paramount. And we needed to train teachers and place the children in a structured educational system. Caught in our struggle for survival, we, I, had forgotten to keep our institutions working well. Under constant attack, with poor resources, we had neglected our basic needs. Well, it stopped today. As I rode back silent in the Rising Star, filing patients' paperwork for Cottle, I started to wonder if the old doctor had somehow manipulated me in seeing something I had refused to see since the attacks and certainly after New Caprica. I finished the last file and got up to find him. He was hunched over a pile of paper, puffing on his cigarette.

'Thank you, Doctor, for bringing me here' I said to him. He did not move and did not even look at me.

'You're welcome!" he said low.

'Doing this rotation with you has helped me greatly seeing the needs of the fleet. It is one thing to know of how much our people are suffering, and quite another to experience it.'

He finally lifted his head to look at me.

'I'm glad you came back down to the ground' I knew his implied criticism had something to do with the way we behaved with Baltar. I respected Dr. Cottle deeply. His point of view was to save lives. I had to govern. That, sadly, was an entire different matter. I had known since the very first day I took office upon the destruction of the colonies that I would have to sacrifice lives for all to survive. I never quite got over that. I bear on my soul the destruction of many lives. I nodded to him and he smiled.

'How are you doing? You mentioned you were tired and you never stopped by to check with me.'

I replied, 'I'm still tired, but of course I am working around the clock. Not much down time.'

He got up from his desk and extended his arm showing me the examination table.

'I'll draw some blood and check everything. Are you eating?'

My answer was a grimace.

'That's what I thought!' he said.

My simple exam was normal, blood pressure and vitals.

When we arrived at Colonial One, my stop, he said:

'Why don't you come back in about five days on Galactica, I will have those results for you then.' I shook his hand with heartfelt thank you. He turned around and I heard him grumble: 'It will be a nice excuse to visit Galactica!'

The joke was not lost on me and smiling, I went back into my ship."

Have a lovely day. I will try to write a bit more this weekend.

As always, send me your comments. They are always welcome.