Chapter 6

Full Circle

I walked silently below the ridgeline, following tracks. I had my rifle in my arms. I knew exactly what my prey looked like. I stopped, put my burden down and sank to one knee, motionless. I looked through the trees and felt more at home in this alien forest than I'd felt any place else since the nukes had gone off. Even Caprica had seemed strange under the blanket of nuclear devastation, things that should have been familiar not.

I saw my target through the trees, and raised my sniper's rifle to my shoulder, resting my elbow on my knee to steady it. It was a short shot, less than two hundred yards. The clear circle, details projected sharply into my mind; I fired and chambered another round, then went down to collect my kill.

We called them 'boar' even though they only vaguely resembled the boar I'd seen on Caprica, but their meat tasted similar enough, and when you said 'boar', everyone knew what you meant. This was my second of the day, about the same size as the first—around fifty pounds, and I wouldn't be able to carry a third all the way back to the settlement. I dressed the carcass and added it to the first, easing the carry straps over my shoulders, and headed back.

New Caprica. I think it was more alien than most people had expected. We'd been here for two months and every day found it more and more alien. It was an abysmal place to call 'home'; cold, rainy, and gloomy all the time. The nebula that hid us from the Cylons filtered the sun's rays into an odd light spectrum. The trees that everyone had hoped to harvest to build houses had proven to be completely different than Caprican trees. The wood dulled even the hardest of cutting tools quickly; and at any rate, when it was cut, it shattered into tiny pieces that wouldn't even burn. There were edible plants, but you had to be careful which of the nearly-identical ones you ate or you'd end up with a bellyache you didn't soon forget.

There was ore, though, and a kind of coal that could be mined, but the process was much more difficult than just chopping down trees—Caprican trees, that is--and building houses. The experts had set up a sort of factory, to smelt the ore and make girders and 'steel' panels, but even the ore was different and they'd had all kinds of problems with the process. They'd tried to smelt pieces of the trees, too, and generated a noxious gas that made some of the workers pretty sick.

My skill with my rifle had again determined my place in this group. A kind of full circle—back to being a hunter of game.

It was a small circle of serenity in the turbulence of my soul.

It took me all day to get back to the settlement, walking in at dusk. I dropped the boar carcasses off with a butcher and then I went to clean my rifle.

Sam came in and said, "You have blood down your back… you must have been successful."

I nodded and he came around and sat across from me at the table. He turned his head and coughed softly—he'd been one of those workers who'd breathed that nasty gas, and it seemed like it took a long time to heal.

"Two boar," I told him.

"You look tired," he said, looking at my face, and watching as I carefully cleaned the small pieces of the rifle.

I nodded. I'd been out overnight. I knew about preservation of resources, and I didn't want to hunt too close to our settlement. They were trying to tame the boar that lived closest to the settlement, raise litters so we'd have a more reliable food source. Shooting the ones they were trying to tame wouldn't go over too well.

I was tired, and not just from being out overnight. "Nightmares, but it's not as bad when I'm out," I told Sam.

He nodded calmly.

It felt warm to me, being inside after having been out for so long, and I paused to strip off the layers of clothing down to my t-shirt. Waterproof jacket, sweater, thick shirt--a motley assortment, but it kept me warm.

Sam eyed me. "You're still all sinew and bone, but at least you've finally put some weight on," he commented.

I snorted. "You still think you're going to make me into a Pyramid player?" I asked wryly.

"Hey, you have grown," he teased.

I had, too, a couple inches since the Cylons nuked the colonies, but I was still a lot smaller than the other guys in the game. Not that size was the whole issue, in Pyramid. "Even Kara can whip my ass at Pyramid," I said ruefully.

"Kara is pretty damn good," he replied. "You just don't have that bloodthirsty attitude."

Which was true. I could kill people from seven hundred yards, but I had a hard time making a hard tackle on the guy with the ball. I reassembled the rifle, loaded it, made sure the safety was on.

"You going out again right away?" he asked.

"Probably not till day after tomorrow," I said. "There's a meeting tomorrow night, isn't there?"

He nodded, smiling slightly. "Just checking," he said.

I gave him a mock glare and he nodded, still smiling, then he got up to leave, clapping me on the shoulder as he went by. "See you tomorrow," he said.

He still blamed himself for how screwed up I was, but at least now he could also take credit for bringing me back from the edge. I held my rifle in my hands, looking down at it, and remembered…

…Galactica's brig…

Back and forth, back and forth, not looking up, trying to get enough air to breathe. I paced and sweated and waited for the panic to wear itself out. I wasn't being crushed, I wasn't being crushed. It was hard to convince myself of that.

I heard someone, heard the door being unlocked, but didn't look up.

"Dan," Sam said.

I looked up then, panic still fizzing in my blood. He had my rifle in his hands and I froze.

"Here," he walked right up and offered it to me. "It's not loaded," he warned.

I rubbed my sweaty palms on my pants.

"Take it," he said.

I took it. I felt lightheaded. I closed my eyes and I must have swayed, because he took my shoulders and guided me to sit on the edge of the bunk.

It took a little while, but with my rifle in my hands, I calmed down. Sam sat next to me.

"Sam," I said in a low voice, looking down at my rifle. I was holding it so tightly, my hands hurt. My head was pounding. My heart was pounding. Almost whispering, I said, "Sam, I'm going crazy." Oh, how hard it was to say that.

He put his arm around my shoulders. I leaned against him.

"If you're going crazy, so am I," he replied in a rough voice.

What?

Before I could ask, he went on, "I have nightmares, too. And… and, things that freak me out. And sometimes I get really pissed for no reason. At least, it seems like no reason."

I breathed. Sam… my hero, the big brother I'd never had, our leader… he knew how I felt.

Maybe there was hope…

There was even a name for it… post-traumatic stress disorder. It wasn't just me and Sam, it was some of the others, too. And even some of the Galactic crew. It was normal. A normal reaction to the worst possible thing a person could experience.

That was the good news.

The bad news was, there was no easy fix. No shot, no take a pill for a week and you're all better. Oh, yeah, pills, different ones for different people--Doc Cottle gave me one to help me sleep, and another one for when I had headaches. But that wasn't any cure, it was just treatment for symptoms.

I had, at least, been doing one thing right: physical activity. That was about the only thing I was doing right. Booze was wrong. Hiding from things—people and memories--was wrong. Trying to ignore anger was wrong. Even the way I'd been thinking was wrong.

There was a lot of talking about it, about our experiences. It figured, the hardest thing would be the best help. I learned how to make myself relax. I learned how to direct my anger where it belonged… well, that was an on-going process. I learned how to box. It was strange, how hitting something could work out anger. We had these meetings, mostly those of us on Sam's team, but also with a couple of the Galactica Marines who'd been in combat, and we talked about the hardest things to talk about.

I knew if I missed tomorrow night's meeting, they'd give me hell for it. As hard as it was, though, I didn't want to miss the meeting.

I wanted to survive.

It would never go away. I'd always remember what had happened. They said I'd probably have nightmares the rest of my life, but not as bad with time.

I looked down at the rifle in my hands, and with a sigh, got up, put all my layers back on, and went to get something to eat.

I had a small tent at the edge of our settlement that I called 'home', even though I was there less than half the time. Still, it was a space of my own, and if I wanted, I could leave the tent flaps open at night and look out over the land and into the forest.

I pulled off my outside layers of clothes and hung my jacket outside so the rain would wash the boar blood off. I thought about lighting the coal that fueled my stove and heated my tent at the same time, but I was warm enough, and I'd already eaten. By now it was full dark, so I thought about taking a sleeping pill and going to bed.

"Knock, knock," she said.

I smiled. It always sounded silly to me, but how did you knock on tent flaps? "Come in," I said, and Jean came in.

"I heard you were back," she said, coming right to me and putting her arms around me. "Gods, you're always like a furnace—warm me up."

I put my arms around her.

It was more of a physical relationship than an emotional one. I wasn't ready to handle anything else. I wasn't sure I'd ever be able to handle a deep emotional relationship, at least not for a long time.

She understood that, though. She said she didn't want any 'emotional baggage' right now, either, and I believed her. I wasn't certain I should believe her, but I sure wasn't going to turn down the physical part. There was no awkwardness between us in bed or out of it, either, so it worked, for now.

Well… no awkwardness in bed any more. I'd never been with a woman before her, and while I knew the, ah, theoretical aspects of it, the actual practice was new to me. She'd been amazed and surprised and amused… and educational.

When we were done, relaxed and cooled off, she got up and got a sleeping pill for me, and my canteen, and I swallowed the pill with a gulp of water. I didn't like taking them, and didn't take them when I was out hunting, but I didn't have as hard a time sleeping when I was out hunting.

"Could I stay with you, tonight?" she asked. "I've been freezing all day…"

I usually didn't like to have her stay all night. Even with the sleeping pill, I worried I'd have a nightmare and scare her or hurt her. Not that I ever had, but I worried about it. And I just didn't like to let anyone see the nightmares—even though she understood, I still felt ashamed.

But it was nice, having her asleep next to me in the narrow cot, and when a nightmare did wake me up, having her there brought me back to reality faster.

It was always nice having her wake up next to me in the morning. We got to breakfast late and the food was cold, but we were warm so it didn't matter.

She brought me a second serving of oatmeal and sausage, teasing me about eating enough, then she headed out of the mess tent. As she left, Sam and Kara came in.

They talked to Jean for a minute, then they all looked over at me. I made an obscene gesture and they all laughed, then Jean left. Sam and Kara joined me once they'd gotten some food.

Kara put her bowl on the table and looked at me. A thought seemed to occur to her, and she looked the direction Jean had gone, then back at me. Finally she sat next to Sam, who was already shoveling in oatmeal.

"Dan," Kara said thoughtfully. "You and Jean…?"

Sam stopped with his spoon halfway to his mouth. "What?" he asked, startled.

"Yeah," I said to Kara.

She grinned. "Your boy is growing up," she said to Sam.

"What?" Sam said again, staring at Kara, then at me. He must have seen it in my face, because he slowly grinned. "Well, good for you," he said to me.

For some reason, I felt I had to explain, "It's nothing serious. We're just, uh… uh…" Oh frak, how could I get out of this one?

"Um hmmm, I can imagine," Sam said, still smiling, teasing me.

I sighed, shrugged, smiled, and finished eating.

When I was done eating, I headed down the main… well, we called it a road, if you wanted to call packed mud a road, thinking about not much of anything in particular, and a small herd of kids ran around me, laughing and shouting, then they charged into the school tent.

I didn't like the idea of having young kids down here already. Only about eight thousand of the total fleet population had come down to the planet so far, and I was worried about dangers we hadn't discovered yet. I'd voted against it, when the vote came up, but majority ruled, so we had children of all ages on the surface now. And a school.

One of the teachers was the former president, who'd been voted out in the election that had happened while I was in the brig on the Galactica. Laura Roslin, her name was, but I hadn't met her yet. I wondered if the dark-haired woman standing outside the school tent was her.

It seemed she was wondering about me, because she said, "Pardon me… are you Dan Ellison?"

Surprised she knew my name, I stopped and said, "Yessir… can I help you?"

"I'm Laura Roslin," she held out her hand, and I shifted my rifle to the crook of my left arm to shake it. So this was the former president.

"Nice to meet you, sir," I said to her.

She smiled. "Please, just call me Laura." She paused. "Is the rifle necessary?" she asked.

I didn't hear any censure in her question, just curiosity. "I don't know, sir," I said. "There's a lot about this place we don't know yet."

I'd gotten to where I could leave my rifle secured in the arms locker and not get all freaked out, but Sam and the others thought it would be best if I just kept it with me. I supposed someday I might get to the point here I actually got tired of carrying it around, but for now I was content to have it with me.

She seemed satisfied with my answer, and said, "Sam tells me that you never got a chance to finish high school. You should come to class now and complete that last year."

I stared at her, astounded. Like finishing my senior year of high school would have any practical use… like I didn't already have enough to do… like it even mattered to me or anyone else.

In the end, all I could do was laugh. "You are a schoolteacher, aren't you," I said with amusement.

She laughed also. "I started as a schoolteacher, and now have come back to that," she nodded. "A full circle, in a way."

So much of life could be described by circles.

I was about to reply when people started yelling, alarm in their tones, just a short distance down the road. I had my rifle ready without thought, and I saw what made everyone scatter.

We called them mud cougars. They moved like cougars, smooth and stalking and swift, and they had fur like cougars, in a mottled brown and gray to blend in perfectly with the ground and brush. There the resemblance to cougars ended. The closest things their bodies could be compared to were alligators, and even that was only an approximation. They were ferocious hunters, and so far I hadn't been able to tell if they had any natural predators.

I hadn't heard of one coming into our settlement, and I hadn't seen any reason to kill any of the few I had seen out in the forest.

I saw clear reason to kill this one, though, as it seemed to know I was the most danger to it. It kept its eyes on me, almost hypnotically, as it slowly stalked me, coming down the road toward me. I already had my rifle to my shoulder, the crosshairs between the creature's eyes, and I fired before it could leap, chambering the next round automatically.

The shot was unnaturally loud in the settlement. I watched it a moment through the scope as it twitched and took a last breath, then it was still.

I was suddenly aware of Laura Roslin just a step behind me, and the school kids in the tent door, watching. I lowered my rifle, putting the safety on, and looked over my shoulder at Laura. She was quite calm—curious, actually, surprising me.

She took a step forward and put her hand on my arm. "Is it safe, Dan?" she asked, looking toward the dead mud cougar.

The concept of 'safe' had been so far from my mind for so long, it took a moment for her meaning to sink in. "I don't know about safe, Laura," I answered with amusement, "but it's dead."

I headed for it, and she said, "Come along, children."

Again she surprised me, because her 'come along' meant for all of them to follow me. They stood in a cluster around their teacher, next to me, looking at the lifeless animal lying in the mud. I'd gotten it between the eyes, and it had fallen almost on its back, so the gore of the kill was concealed—just dark blood, not very much, oozed out from under it.

Alive, its size was deceptive. Lying there dead on the ground, I estimated it weighed at least a hundred and fifty pounds, bigger than I'd guessed. I got to one knee and bushed my hand over its fur, looking for parasites, and wondered how its meat would taste.

"I see the rifle is necessary," Laura said. "That pelt will make you a fine trophy."

I looked up at her and stood, wiping my palm on my thigh, and said, "Actually, I was hoping it would taste good," I said dryly.

She regarded me thoughtfully. "You have the soul of a survivor," she commented with a slight smile.

I shrugged. "I've come in a kind of full circle, too," I told her. "The day the Cylons attacked, I was scouting for a good place to hunt game." I looked down at the carcass, then back up at her. "And here I am."

"A full circle," she agreed.