Warning: this chapter has suggestive content.

CHAPTER 18

INTERMEZZO

Lacy Rand walked slowly through the pasture, her path taking her farther and farther away from the cliff face that overlooked the sea. The mountains seemed far away, but she didn't trust her eyes because distances at Galatea Bay were always misleading. Still, she sensed that the once tiny universe of John's creation was larger now—or perhaps, she thought, it simply possessed greater complexity.

She found Deirdre and John lying on a grassy embankment overlooking the lake, with their tiny daughter sitting up on a blanket between them. A picnic basket completed the bucolic scene, and Lacy would have smiled … except that what was happening on the far side of the lake filled her with such wonder that it froze her in place. John was idly revisiting the craggy peaks and granite outcroppings that defined the outer limits of his world. Their contours were shifting constantly in response to his mental touch, but he seemed particularly unhappy with the waterfalls. As Lacy quietly watched, their paths widened and then narrowed. Huge boulders suddenly appeared at their base, causing the water to explode in misty curtains that gave birth to vivid rainbows. She had never seen anything quite so beautiful.

With an effort, Lacy lowered her aged bones into the grass, and sat down at John's side. For a time, she remained silent, content to observe an artist at work on an incomprehensible canvas. Deirdre watched her curiously, wondering what she would say.

"I have tried more than once to enter Zoe's creation," she finally remarked. "I would imagine that it looks something like this, but I don't really know. She has refused to admit me. Perhaps she is unaware of my presence."

"She knows," Bierns responded in an assured tone. Although he could not always fathom the meaning of what he saw, nothing in this dimension escaped the spook's awareness. Zoe and Tamara were a dark cloud at the far periphery of his vision. Neither had come to terms with immortality, nor with the peculiar character of her exile. John doubted whether the Blessed Mother would understand that Zoe had barred her from entering the virtual world for her own good.

"Olivia made it home," Lacy added as she abruptly changed the subject. "Even now, her sisters are consoling her for the loss of her ship. I must confess that I had my doubts. As terrible as today was, it is still good to know that physical death need no longer banish my daughters into the darkness."

"Not all of them," John tersely reminded her. With a deep sigh, he focused his full attention on his old friend and mentor. "I felt their presence … I knew exactly where Cavil's hybrids were. But it was like trying to grab hold of a greased pole. I couldn't find a path that would lead me into their minds—and believe me, I have a lot of experience in this area."

John looked affectionately at his virtual wife. Months before the holocaust, when he had been near death, Deirdre had gently but relentlessly probed the barriers that Erika Waldstein had erected around his mind. It had taken the hybrid more than two weeks to gain admission, but she had opened her own mind in return. While his body slowly healed, Deirdre had taught him how to navigate the stream. Unlike the Cylons, the First Born did not have to enter it physically to swim in its waters.

"Cassie says that Angela has successfully downloaded, but that we have lost many Raiders. By now, Cavil will have deduced that humanity has found a refuge in the nebula. He may not have the address, John, but he knows where to look. It's just a matter of time."

"I'm more concerned about Boomer," John admitted with a frown. "If the Ones have her, there's a good possibility that they'll torture her for information. Everybody breaks, Mother. In the end, Sharon will give them New Caprica, and if they ask the right questions, they may even stumble upon Gemenon. We have to start from that assumption, which means that we've run out of options. We'll have to limp home and dump the entire mess in Adama's lap. I don't envy him his choices."

"Then we should move very quickly," Lacy concluded, "because Cavil won't have to torture her." She looked pointedly at John Bierns. "He can extract everything that she knows from the stream."

"We have time," Deirdre smiled. She tenderly stroked her husband's arm. "After Boomer returned to the fleet, John debriefed her. He confirmed what we have always suspected— after Sharon committed suicide, Cavil traced Galactica to Kobol by sifting through the memories that she unwittingly deposited in the stream. John has had the Fours quietly working on this problem for months. They've tweaked the hardware … installed partitions inside the synaptic relays that isolate critical files behind encrypted firewalls. Boomer's download will yield a mass of disinformation, intermixed with just enough truth not to contradict what the Raiders will disclose."

"It's a variation on the behavioral modification technique that Doctor Waldstein used to prep me for my mission," John elaborated. "But Sharon won't shut down the way that I did. That's the problem. If the Cavils get suspicious and decide to lay her wide open, eventually they'll uncover the truth."

"And in the meantime, we have to deal with the very real consequences of our defeat." The Blessed Mother continued to stare hard at her protégé. "How are the Eights responding?"

"Not well," John conceded. "Almost a hundred of them had partnered with Pegasus officers and enlisted. There was nothing casual about these relationships … Eights aren't like that. They made deep emotional commitments, and now they have to cope with the pain that accompanies loss. But they don't know how to grieve; nothing in their programming has prepared them for this. The rest of us are doing what we can to help, but it's not enough."

"How bad …" Lacy halted in mid-sentence; she didn't know how to ask the inevitable question.

"We never tried to integrate the crews," John ruefully confessed. "No one on Galactica mourned Cain's passing, and that didn't go down well with a lot of her people. They were heavily concentrated on Olivia's ship. Red Squadron has been wiped out. Three other Viper squadrons were deployed around the baseship for defensive purposes, and they were already being cut to pieces by Cavil's Raiders before the ship blew. All but four of the jocks were inside the blast radius when it went up. Riley … Kelso … all of the officers are gone. Peter Kelso's Eight is utterly devastated."

"So much death," Lacy sadly murmured.

"There were a few knuckle draggers on the other two baseships, but that's about it. We started the day with 364 Pegasus crew; there are now eleven left."

"And Natalie's ship … the children … what about the children?" This was the question that Lacy had wanted to ask from the beginning, but her courage had failed her. She had been far too afraid of the answer.

"The ship itself was severely damaged, and we lost pilots, but either we got very lucky or there really is a God who's looking out for us. There were no human casualties on board … not even serious injuries. Larissa and the Sixes kept the children safe, but Melpomene …"

John still found it hard to credit what he had learned after the fact.

"Apparently … as soon as we came out of jump … Melpomene tore out of the safe room. I'm told that you would have thought the Furies were chasing her. There were fires in the corridors … smoldering cylon corpses … fallen beams. It didn't matter. She was determined to get to Reun. Even Henry was hard pressed to keep up with her—and the two of them are inseparable. Of course, all of the other children go wherever Melpomene leads, so dozens of Sixes and centurions ended up crowding into my sister's chamber. Later, Melpomene made her way to the Remembrance Wall, which was intact, and led everyone in prayer for the souls of those lost this day. She put out the fires on our ship … the ones that really mattered."

"So, where do we go from here, John? And I'm not referring to New Caprica." Lacy Rand's voice had grown very soft. "Gemenon must be protected at all costs."

John Bierns pensively studied the horizon while he thought about how best to answer the Blessed Mother's question. He opted for transparency.

"We have to take down resurrection. That's always been the key to winning the peace; now, it may well be our only realistic chance of winning the war."

. . .

"You know," Kara growled, "it would be a lot easier for the Muse to find me if you weren't draped across my frakking back!" She studied the mural, which now reached from floor to ceiling, and covered three of her cabin's four walls.

"Your back is one of the few places I haven't visited with my tongue," Athena countered with a seductive smile. "And all you're doing is taking your frustrations out on me. You're still not happy with the asteroid field." Athena was studying a stretch of wall a few feet to their left.

"Damned right I'm not happy with it," Kara fired back. "Asteroids are a bitch … hard to fly through … and even harder to paint. And just for the record: do you have any idea how many frakkin' times I had to mix the red and yellow to get just the right shade of ochre?"

"For the red planet," Athena murmured; "the next one in from the gas giant." She had her arms wrapped around Kara's waist, and she chose this moment to start nibbling on her lover's shoulder. Starbuck was wearing her tanks, which left a lot of skin exposed, but there was no bra to impede the Eight's periodic voyages of discovery. Her fingers drifted up and began to explore Kara's nipples, which hardened instantly under her touch.

"You're not helping," Kara complained. But she leaned back, craving the feel of the Cylon's lips against her skin. Her breathing was already erratic, and Athena took this as a signal to continue with her erotic massage.

"You just need a little inspiration," the Eight wickedly retorted. "And do I need to remind you that I am your muse? Will I have to spank you to drive the point home?"

"Stupid assed skin job …"

"Half-breed …"

"Toaster slut …"

"Hybrid squaw…"

"Gods, but I love this game," Kara laughed as she twisted around and hungrily kissed her Eight. "I'm thinking about exercising the captain's privilege … move all the Sharons in here and start my very own harem."

"Haven't you noticed? My sisters have all been snapped up. Humans may be dumb, and the male of the species barely able to stand erect, but even they know a good thing when they see it. If you want a harem, you'll have to settle for Threes and Sixes."

"Haven't tried a Six yet," Kara said with a straight face. "Is mommy dearest any good?"

"Well, they're not up to my standards, but I am rather demanding. Do you want to break one in?"

"Nah … it sounds too much like work. I'm in therapy, remember? Recreational sex is supposed to take the edge off … distract me from my other favorite pastime—which is beating up Melania frakkin' Peripolides."

"Why don't we invite a Three to join us?" Athena's eyes were bright with feigned innocence. "Perhaps there really is a beating heart beneath that ice cold exterior. If it's there, it would be good for your ego to make the volcano erupt."

"There's nothing wrong with my ego," Kara protested.

"Nothing that an hour or two on the couch with your friendly local therapist can't cure," Athena mocked. She began gently but firmly to steer Kara in the direction of their bed. She hadn't bothered asking for permission to move in, and the temperamental Starbuck really didn't need to know the extent to which Miriam and Rachel had now taken charge of her life. Sooner or later, Kara would come to realize that the Eight really was her therapist.

"A D'Anna sounds like quite the challenge," Kara maliciously observed as she fell back upon the bed.

Athena climbed on top of her, and began to buck against her pelvic bone. "Quite the challenge," she pleasantly agreed.

"Do you have anyone particular in mind?" Kara really did love this game.

"Of course … and she's positively begging to join us. You see, I've already told her all about the marvelous things that you can do with your tongue. Threes are very tactile … and this one won't permit you to slack off. When Bulldog was our prisoner and started to put on weight, the Eights brought her in to deal with the problem. They wanted him lean and mean. She forced him to do a hundred pushups after every meal. Oh, he protested … reminded her that the mistreatment of prisoners of war was prohibited by the Accords … the usual rubbish. I wonder if she still has her cattle prod?"

"Her what?"

"Her cattle prod," Athena repeated. "In the beginning, Lieutenant Novacek gave her a lot of lip … but he quickly learned to keep his mouth shut."

"Oh, sure," Kara giggled; "except on those occasions when she wanted him to open it. She sounds like a mechanical version of the late, great Socrata Thrace: how in the name of the gods did she get on this ship?"

"Obviously, we invited her. It occurred to us that Bulldog wasn't the only Viper pilot with a bad attitude. Hmmm … remind me to ask Father Sam if our parents originally programmed Threes to be nannies and governesses."

"Ouch! That hurts! Frakkin' toaster … just because I've put on a few pounds …"

"You need to exercise, Kara. I'll settle for mean as long as you're lean."

"Doesn't this count," she asked with a grin. Starbuck folded her arms around Athena's neck, and pulled her close. She used her tongue to do a little exploration of her own.

"It might, if we were doing this often enough. But we're not. You really need to step up the pace, Kara."

"Hey! How do you know that I don't have something going on the side? Maybe I'm bonking Sam. Grandpa's a stud … and he's obviously willing to settle for seconds."

"Nope," Athena said with a contented smile. "No one else on this ship has touched you. You're mine! Want to know how I know?"

"Oh, I can't wait to find out. Did you bug my underwear?"

"You're getting warm. One night, while you were sleeping, a Four went in and installed a microchip in your vaginal wall. It's subcutaneous, so don't go poking around down there. It's very sensitive, and it monitors you constantly. I don't want to bore you with the details, but when you're aroused, I know about it. Or did you think it was a coincidence that I'm always here when you're ready? You can't cheat on me, Kara; it's just not possible."

"Don't want to cheat," Starbuck candidly admitted. "But you're kidding about all this, right? I mean … you didn't really stick a sensor inside my cunt, did you?"

Athena smiled enigmatically—but she said nothing.

"Toaster trash," Kara murmured resentfully.

"Bleached blond," Athena triumphantly crowed.

She really did love this game.

. . .

Boomer slithered up to the top of the sand dune, and dug in her heels to anchor herself in place. She was freezing, and she was miserable: it was impossible to keep the sand out of her flight suit, and at night the desert was brutally cold. But the day was a different story altogether. There were deserts on several colonial worlds, but in all of them there was evidence of life. Not here. The sand on which she was now stretched out was utterly sterile. Nothing grew here, and during the day it was like standing on the rim of a blast furnace. How humans could live in this climate was one of the many puzzles that she would have to solve before she even began to think about how she might make her way home.

And there were humans here—perhaps millions of them. She was convinced of it. When she had landed two nights before, she had walked due east from her Raptor to this very dune, where she had settled in to study the village spread out before her. But everyone seemed to be asleep, so she had ended up heading north to take a closer look at an enormous pyramid that, even in the soft light cast by the moon and stars, dominated the landscape. To her intense disappointment, however, an enclosure wall that she estimated to be fully four meters high had kept her at bay. So she had settled for following a roofed causeway down to a smaller structure, which appeared to be a temple of some kind, on the banks of the river. Like a thief in the night, she had scurried quietly about, gathering up some of the fruit that had fallen from the dense stand of tall trees shading the ornate stone structure. At one point, a herb garden had caught her eye: she plucked a few leaves and held them up to her nose. She instantly recognized the pungent aroma of mint and basil, which she hastily pocketed for later examination. The Raptor had a compact but efficient science station, which would allow her to pinpoint the DNA of all her finds.

The sun had taken her by surprise. She had expected dawn gradually to steal across the land, but the sun had come out of nowhere, rising from behind the high bluffs to the east with astonishing swiftness. Panicked, she had raced back out into the desert, but she had still not gained the shelter of the dunes when the sun's rays began to illuminate the stark landscape. Were it not for the chill in the early morning air, the Eight would have sworn that the day was already well advanced.

Where am I, Boomer repeatedly asked herself as she made the long trek back to the safety of her Raptor. Is this the cylon Earth? Are these people the descendants of the Thirteenth Tribe? Are they building a new civilization out of the ashes of the nuclear holocaust that destroyed everything two thousand years ago? The questions whirled round and round in her brain.

But the computer's revelations had put an abrupt end to her musings. The DNA in all of her samples had the familiar double helix, and the seemingly universal set of four nucleotides. She wasn't especially surprised to discover that Cytochrome C was the base protein, but the chromosome count had literally stunned her. Dates, figs, mint and basil were all indigenous to the Colonies—and in each instance, the computer dispassionately informed her, the chromosome number of her sample was an exact match for its colonial counterpart.

But the universe wasn't structured that way. New Caprica might be habitable, but even there the flora and fauna offered sometimes subtle but always telling differences from comparable species on Kobol or the colonial worlds. Life was everywhere unique … except here.

She had not yet caught sight of the natives, but she already knew what awaited her. There was a lost page in the scriptures of both human and Cylon, and it threatened to swallow their historical traditions whole. This planet was an offshoot of the Colonies … or perhaps it had branched off at a much earlier date. Perhaps it went back to the days of the exodus from Kobol. In that chapter of the human and cylon saga, there was one lingering mystery. What had happened to the Lords of Kobol? Had they taken refuge on this world?

She could not, however, reconcile myth with the evidence laid out before her eyes. How could the Lords possibly be content to live in mud hovels?

And then she thought about the pyramid.

Boomer decided to sleep before once more venturing out into the darkness. She made herself comfortable on the Raptor's tiny rack, but as she nodded off an insidious idea seeped into her fading consciousness:

Could it be the other way around? Could this world have given birth to us all?

. . .

"Hey, will you stop fidgeting in there? I'll have to reset and start from the beginning—again!"

"Sorry, Doc," Kara said in a genuinely apologetic tone, "but it's this tube. It's pulling up some really bad memories. Like being locked in a closet when I was a kid—you know, for two days and nights with nothing to eat or drink? And it got a bit rank in there … didn't even have a bucket to piss in. Guess I'm a little claustrophobic."

Kara had waited for Athena to fall asleep, and then she had sneaked out and headed straight for the Adriatic's tiny but efficiently appointed sickbay. They didn't have a qualified physician on board, but Howard Kim was an experienced paramedic. Unfortunately, he had been working with Doc Cottle for so long that he had absorbed the Major's abrasive demeanor.

"Captain, how in the name of the gods did you earn your wings? Who the hell ever heard of a claustrophobic Viper pilot?"

"In the cockpit, I was always in control. It's not just about being shut in, Doc. It's about being helpless … losing control."

"Well, do you want me to give you a sedative? I need you to lie still; being conscious is strictly optional."

"Hey, frak you, Howard!"

"No, thanks; but if it helps, just keep talking. Just … don't move your hips, all right?"

"So, what do you see? Have the Cylons really stuck a chip inside my … uh … you know?"

"What do I see? In the immortal words of the bard, I see nothing, nothing, and more nothing. A microchip embedded in the vagina … yeah, right." Kim pressed a button, and the scanner turned ninety degrees to the left. The hybrid was clearly crazy, but Cottle had taught him to be thorough—and it didn't cost him anything to give Starbuck the full treatment. If he gave her lateral views as well as the usual head-on, she might just get off his case—and in any event she was the one getting the MRI.

"Take my advice, Captain," he said over his shoulder; "lay off the booze for a while."

"Run it again, Howard; there's no frakkin' way that I'm imagining this!"

"Frakkin' hypochondriac," Kim muttered under his breath. "There's one on every ship."

With his back turned, Kim didn't notice the Three who was standing in the hatchway. D'Anna was watching Kara like a hawk, and the expression on her face barely hinted at the sense of anticipation that was coursing through her synaptic relays.

. . .

The chickens weren't much of a surprise. She heard the roosters before she was able to locate them through her binoculars. Then the smoke from cooking fires began to rise through holes in the roofs of the simple mud dwellings, and the smell of freshly baked bread wafted in her direction. Her mouth watered, but she was soon distracted by the familiar braying of a donkey.

Shortly thereafter, people began to emerge from their homes—beings at once familiar and yet somehow alien. They were all deeply tanned, even red, but this was hardly surprising considering the way that they were dressed. The men and women equally favored simple loin cloths, their breasts fully exposed to the sun, while the children wore nothing at all. The males all had uniformly black hair, some of it braided into long and intricate weaves, but without exception the females had smoothly shaven skulls. With a start, Boomer suddenly realized that in this land hers would be the alien presence.

There were plenty of dogs in evidence, and from the outset they had made her uneasy. The animals had acute hearing and an even more acute sense of smell, which gave her good cause to worry. Was she close enough for a shift in the light breeze to warn them of her presence? But her luck had held throughout the long hours of her second full day on the planet; the dogs mostly slumbered, and the cats were far too busy stalking and killing snakes and rats to venture in her direction. They were deadly and quick—and would be right at home on New Caprica. Early on, Boomer had decided that when she returned home some of the felines would be making the journey with her.

During the night, she had warily approached the village, hugging its perimeter and resisting the omnipresent temptation to peek inside one of the primitive houses. Instead, she had pocketed more leaves and explored the animal pens, where she had been instantly welcomed by one of the strangest creatures she had ever seen. It stood high on four spindly legs, but its long, graceful neck allowed it to lower its head to the point where she could stare directly into its languid eyes. Boomer had reached out tentatively to pet the beast, and she was still pondering the dramatically protruding hump that interrupted its spine when, without warning, the animal had spat in her face. She had rocked back, swaying on her feet, overcome by the worst breath that she had ever encountered—when her newfound friend casually lifted a leg and added insult to injury by dousing her in a steady stream of its piss. She had been about to break the animal's scrawny neck when it began companionably to nuzzle one of the pockets of her flight suit—the one that was home to her new collection of leafy treasures.

"What the hell," she remembered saying. "I guess you're just hungry." She had emptied her pocket and offered up the leaves on an open palm. They were few in number, but the beast had seemed grateful nevertheless …

At least, I think slobbering all over my cheek was a sign of friendship. It's interesting that he isn't put off by strangers, and doesn't seem able to tell the difference between cylon and human.

And now she was back in her familiar perch, collecting data from afar, wondering what to do next.

Down in the village, one of the camels raised its head and began to sniff the breeze. It looked off into the distance and, with a loud whinny, began sedately to gallop out into the desert. Ignoring the other sand dunes, it made straight for the one behind which Sharon Valerii lay safely hidden.

"Oh, frak," she cursed.

Through her binoculars, she saw one of the younger females set off in pursuit. From the very beginning, she had been aching for the chance to interact with the locals. Now, she was going to get her wish.

. . .

"So, what's the verdict, Gramps?" Kara gestured vaguely at the mural that had taken up so much of her free time since the voyage began. "Does this look like the place we're gonna find cylon Earth?"

Anders reluctantly shook his head. This was the first time that Kara had permitted him in her cabin, and her skill with a paint brush had taken him completely by surprise. "There's a gas giant in the system, but it doesn't have an eye like this one."

"A storm," Kara automatically corrected. "It's bigger than Aerilon, and it's been in motion for a long, long time."

Sam looked at her curiously. "How do you know that, Kara? You keep telling us that you've never been in this system, so how can you possibly know so much about it?"

"Don't know," she conceded with a shrug. "It just feels familiar, somehow … like I've been there before. Sorry, Gramps; maybe it was in another lifetime."

"Damn it, Kara, stop calling me that!"

"Hey, if the shoe fits …"

"You make me feel so gods damned old, but you know perfectly well that we're roughly the same age. So, cut it out!"

"What," she protested; "so all of a sudden I'm a couple of thousand years old? My, my … where has the time flown?"

"Kara," Sam warned in an exasperated tone. His granddaughter had an uncanny ability to irritate him, and he could never scratch the places where she made him itch.

"Oh, all right," she said with a theatrical sigh. Then she turned serious again. "What about the red planet? It would have been right next door."

Sam fingered the two tiny moons that orbited the hellish looking world, but he shook his head a second time. "There's a planet orbiting close to the sun that's composed chiefly of nickel and iron, but there's nothing between it and the photosphere. Earth's neighbors didn't look anything remotely like this."

"Damn." Deep in thought, Kara began to wander restlessly around her quarters. Suddenly, however, she ground to a halt and snapped her fingers. She looked up hopefully at Sam.

"I've got an idea. Do you happen to have the constellations that were visible in your night sky filed away in that cylon brain of yours?"

"Yeah, sure … we all had to memorize the constellations so that at least one of us would be able to follow the road home."

"And could you see the Lagoon Nebula with the naked eye?"

"It was a long way away, but yeah … yeah … it was plainly visible all over the northern hemisphere. It was the first road sign, Kara. If you drew a straight line from Earth to Kobol, it ran through the nebula. Not through the center, maybe, but it did run through the nebula."

"The original flags of each of the Twelve Colonies," Kara excitedly pointed out, "they all had maps of the constellations. And according to scripture the thirteenth tribe, when they landed on Earth, could look up and see their twelve brothers! Gods, Sam! Look, the star patterns are in the computer. I want you to pull them up and compare them with the view from Earth. Once you're finished, get back here and tell me what you find."

"Kara, what's this all about? What do you expect me to find?"

"Sam, there's something about the scriptures … they're wrong, Sam, or maybe we've misunderstood them. I can feel it! The thirteenth tribe … I don't think that it was cylon at all. It was human, and when we find this system …"

Kara waved at the mural that dominated the chamber.

"When we find this system, we'll find them!"