CHAPTER 28

ANGST AND ENNUI

Gaius Baltar was standing just inside the entrance to the hangar, his expression haggard, and his eyes almost feverishly bright. The President was exhausted. Politics and science were both making heavy demands upon his time, and he couldn't afford to be distracted. Ordinarily, he would never have taken the time to visit a murder scene, but then this was no ordinary murder.

Billy Keikeya studied the president out of the corner of his eye. Shielding Gaius Baltar from one of the humiliating gaffes that often ended public careers was a major part of his job, and he knew from hard experience that fatigue was a breeding ground for such mistakes. "Excuse me, Mr. President," he said with just the right note of concern, "but can I get you something … a glass of water, perhaps?" In truth, Baltar had the look of a man who needed to sit down before he fell down.

"Thank you, Billy; yes, I could do with something to drink … anything, really." The President waved his aide away, and returned to his silent vigil. He was staring blindly out at the landing field. In the early morning light, with the ground fog yet to dissipate, it was a bleak enough view- but infinitely preferable to what awaited him if he chose to turn around. Caprica Six had decided not to move the body.

Gaius heard footsteps echoing in the mist, and then caught the outline of someone striding towards him. The President tensed, and then relaxed.

"Admiral, thank you for coming down," Baltar sighed. "And thank you for keeping this quiet; the fewer people who know what's happened here, the better."

Adama nodded sympathetically. The murder, coming as it did hard on the heels of his unexpectedly bitter confrontation with Saul and Ellen Tigh the night before, was a heavy blow to both men. The timing could not have been worse.

Bill peered into the interior. The Eight was lying at the base of the pedestal housing the data stream, and even from a distance one couldn't miss the unnatural way in which her head rested upon her shoulder. The cause of death was obvious, and he knew without asking that the murderer had to be a Cylon.

Baltar reluctantly turned around, and led the admiral into the cavernous structure. Caprica Six had her right hand in the stream, and the faraway look in her eyes told the two men that she was trawling the vast information highway beneath her fingertips. She did not acknowledge their presence, but Lee Adama offered a weak smile when he noted his father's approach.

"I'm sorry, dad." Apollo started to say more, but then abruptly changed his mind. He was also thinking about Ellen Tigh, and the vicious accusations that she had levelled against both Adamas. His father certainly didn't need to be reminded of how badly the previous evening had gone, especially when the next meeting promised to be so much worse.

"What have we learned so far?" The admiral kept his voice low, and his body language relaxed. He was trying to project an air of calm.

"She was prepping a Heavy Raider for a run up to the centurion manufacturing platform … no cargo, no passengers. She was supposed to ferry a load of steel girders from there to one of the freighters… something to do with the upcoming refit. But it must have been strictly low priority because no one thought to check on her until this morning. One of the centurions found her, and reported in."

"And the ship's missing?"

"Yes … and dad … it had a full fuel load."

"What a way to start the day," Adama grimaced.

"Do we know whether the ship has jumped," Baltar nervously inquired.

The admiral shook his head in the negative. "I checked the OOD's log entries for both second and third watch; there was no unscheduled traffic anywhere in orbit. But …" Bill sighed heavily.

"If the ship was below our DRADIS deck when it jumped," Lee said as he completed his father's unspoken thought, "it could already be halfway to the Colonies, and we'd be none the wiser. We can't log what we don't see."

"But how could such a thing have happened," Gaius whined. "How could someone simply walk in here, murder that poor Eight, and steal one of our ships? Why didn't the centurions do something?"

"Because," Caprica cut in, "the centurions cannot distinguish one Cylon from another, and the murderer … murderess … was one of my sisters- another Six." She removed her hand from the data stream, and walked over to join the others. Her expression was as calm and imperturbable as ever.

"We are dealing with one of the Sixes convicted of crimes against humanity for their actions on the Eurykleia and Hippolyte," she continued. "This particular Six was enrolled in the work release program as a nurse's aide at the hospital. There, she entered into a relationship with a Sagittaron patient, a young man named Eric Lackey, who courted her intensively after his discharge."

"Did you know about this at the time," Bill asked.

"I did," Caprica agreed, "and I encouraged them. Six reported periodically to Doctor Fordyce, and they were both participating in group counseling for mixed couples. She was clearly integrating well."

"But a Sagittaron … was that really wise?" Apollo had lost friends in the Sagittaron uprising, and it was never easy to replace people like Erin Mathias.

"Doctor Fordyce sent weekly reports to my office," Baltar interrupted. He relished the opportunity to come to Caprica Six's defense. "She determined the young man to be alienated from his cultural roots, and judged the relationship to be good for both of them. She expected them to marry, but when the insurrection began, they disappeared."

"We've treated them as fugitives," Caprica resumed. "There was evidence to suggest that they had gone upriver, so I sent a squad of centurions out to chase them down. That was weeks ago. The centurions found a cache of supplies abandoned in a cave overlooking the river, and they collected hair samples that, upon analysis, turned out to be cylon. We presume that they fled in haste when the centurions got too close, but we were unable to track them any farther. The surrounding terrain is very rocky, with a lot of loose shale that doesn't leave much to go on."

"But they knew that the centurions would never give up the pursuit, so the Six took the only logical way out." Lee couldn't help but admire her nerve. "She decided to double back and steal a Heavy Raider so that they could make a run for it."

"A gutsy call," Bill agreed. "The lady's resourceful."

"Love has made her desperate and determined," Caprica countered. "She thinks of Eric Lackey as her husband … and she's pregnant."

"Pregnant," Baltar exclaimed. "Six, are you sure?"

Caprica nodded. "She made no attempt to conceal her presence in the stream, nor did she discipline her emotions. She may well want us to know her state of mind. Since it's clear that she means us no harm, we are invited to cease and desist, and let them get on with their lives."

Lee and the admiral looked meaningfully at one another. Each was asking himself the same question: why does the firewall preventing pregnancy come crashing down when a Six falls in love, but not an Eight? The elder Adama looked at Billy Keikeya, who was now hovering quietly in the background, and his thoughts crystallized: Billy is head over heels in love with Rebecca, and the Eight is just as smitten. Neither one was using birth control when they first met, and they've been trying to start a family from the beginning. What's wrong? Why have Helo and Baltar been the only ones to succeed?

"A fully fueled Heavy Raider gives them a lot of options," Lee murmured.

"Perhaps," Caprica thoughtfully observed. She was mentally reviewing what she had so far learned.

"The ship has the usual emergency medical kit," she elaborated, "but it is not provisioned. They cannot get very far on a couple of liters of water, and a few energy bars. They would have to depend on whatever they were carrying at the time, and that might not be very much."

"So you think they're still on the planet." For the first time, Gaius sounded hopeful.

"Water won't be a problem," Bill mused, "but food … Caprica, did you leave their supplies untouched?"

"Yes, and I left two centurions inside the cave. They are well hidden. If my sister returns, she will be captured."

"She won't risk it," Lee argued. "Breaking into one of the warehouses at night would be less dangerous. But … doesn't each Heavy Raider have a weapons locker? Couldn't they live off the land, at least for a while?"

"It does," Caprica conceded, "and you're right. I personally examined the cave and its contents; they were hunting, fishing and gathering food, not depending on ration bars. My sister is practical; she won't flee the planet until she's solved the supply problem."

"And Sagittarons lived closer to nature than the rest of us," Apollo quietly added. "Her partner probably knows how to get the most out of what this planet has to offer. They're a well-matched pair of survivalists."

"We should call off the pursuit," Baltar decided, "and leave them to their own devices. If they don't feel threatened, they may choose to remain on the surface."

"With a Heavy Raider that has the baseline coordinates for the location of this planet locked away in its navigational data?" The admiral snorted in disbelief. "If they're still here, we need to find that ship and destroy it."

"Well, what about the Eight, then? What are we going to do about her? She's not going to resurrect, you know." Gaius knew that he had lost control of the situation, and he was desperately trying to salvage something from the debris.

"I don't think your wife will hold you personally responsible for her death," Adama replied with barely concealed contempt. Gaius Baltar's finely tuned sense of self-preservation was an irritant that Bill could well do without.

"That's not what I meant, Admiral, and you know it," Baltar hissed. "Up until now, we've managed to divert public attention from our … uh … activities on Galactica. But if Cylons start dying on us while the experiment is in progress, people are bound to notice when they don't download. What am I supposed to tell the Quorum? Your wife's absence is already raising questions."

"Try telling them to do their frakking jobs," Adama growled. "Do those morons even know that the Colonial Workers Alliance is out on strike? It's beginning to cause supply problems for Galactica, and that's a headache that I do not need."

"Well, Admiral," Gaius said with a perfectly straight face, "if you run out of coffee, you could always send in the marines. As you'll recall, that approach worked really well for Colonel Tigh."

"May I ask how the experiment is progressing," Caprica politely inquired. She did not enjoy being forced to watch the two most powerful men on New Caprica snipe at one another. Their petulance reminded her of the Ones, and the daily displays of heavy-handed sarcasm that had at once fascinated and appalled the more refined copies of the Six model.

"It's coming," Gaius muttered, his eyes still on Adama, "but the tests are delicate and time-consuming … and they can't be rushed! "Mortality is one hundred percent, and the Simons are confident that the disease will indeed accompany the download. We also know that we can hold the infection at bay, even induce a false sense of well-being, but we're still working out the kinks in the program. The only way to fix the schedule for close interval injections is through trial and error. Since the Fours can't come into contact with the test subjects- it's my responsibility to conduct that part of the experiment, mine and mine alone. And it's ridiculous … all this running back and forth between Galactica and the surface … the side-trips to the baseship … pretending to have sex with the hybrid … I have my reputation to think about, and it's being ruined!"

"So you're not actually frakking the hybrid," Adama asked with feigned innocence; "it's all just a convenient fiction?" And you've made a grand total of three trips to the old girl since you started playing Zeus, you puffed up little prick!

"Absolutely, Admiral," Gaius heatedly protested; "I mean, really … Zenobia's a good friend and all that, and I really like her … but really."

The President had the good grace to turn away because, after all, everyone present knew that he was lying. Nevertheless, Bill studied the man closely. Was the president of the Colonies still taking his marching orders from his invisible friend? Baltar's head was cocked to the side, and tilted slightly up. He appeared to be listening closely to a voice that no one else could hear, coming from a somewhat taller being that no one else could see. Adama was accustomed to delusions of grandeur- masked as ambition, in his experience they were an intrinsic part of the narcissistic personalities that were drawn to politics like moths to a flame- but Gaius' delusions were disturbingly different. Not for the first time, Bill debated whether the President was truly insane, and if so, what he should do about it. Laura Roslin, who had spiced her messianic complex with pure paranoia, had been bad enough, but her descent into madness could at least be attributed to her abuse of chamalla and gods only knew how many other chemical substances.

Baltar's different, Bill mused; he was crazy before we landed on New Caprica, he's still crazy, and I don't think it has anything to do with that hallucinogenic garden of his out in the fields. Maybe he's gone Roslin one better … maybe the guy actually thinks he's listening to the voice of God!

. . .

Cottle knew that he had to go through the motions. He had been here before, and he knew exactly how his patient would react. The stethoscope had already told him everything that he needed to know, but he couldn't ask the young woman to listen for herself … to draw her own conclusions from the awful silence that had replaced the beating of the fetal heart. He would have to hook up the monitor, so that the three of them could see the evidence with their own eyes. This was going to be the lowest point in Sherman Cottle's day, as it was each time that it happened. The pain that accompanied the loss of a child in utero was unlike anything else that a woman would ever suffer. It was at times like these that he hated his profession.

Cottle did what he had to do. Silently, he attached the leads, and then he threw the switch. He never looked up at the screen. He watched his patient, the sorrow that gripped his heart written all over his aged face.

"No," Philista screamed, her eyes wide with terror. "No! This can't be! No!" And then she doubled over, gripping her stomach, which was heaving in great, uncontrollable sobs.

"I need you two to get out of here," Cottle gently said to Sharon and Marc; "this young lady and I have some work to do."

Sharon wrapped her arms around Philista, and held her tight, trying to communicate in a language beyond words that she wasn't alone—that they would suffer through this together.

"Phi, I am so, so sorry," she whispered. "It's my fault … all of it … it's my fault. If Marc and I had got you here more quickly, maybe …"

"It wouldn't have mattered," Cottle interceded. He had seen this before as well- the second guessing, the 'what ifs'- and he had seen it tear loving families apart. He didn't want to see this happen to three fine, young people who embodied all of their hopes for the future. "The baby died quite some time ago," he added, still trying to be as gentle as possible.

"Are you sorry, Sharon?" The bitterness in Philista's voice was as harsh and brittle as sandpaper. "Are you truly, truly sorry?"

"Phi!" Marc Jacobs' face was completely devoid of color; he was in shock, but still. He had never heard anyone say anything remotely this cruel in his entire life.

"I would have thought you would be relieved, happy even. This baby has come between us since the moment it was conceived. And now … now, it's gone. Aren't you pleased?"

"Young lady, that's enough." There was iron in Cottle's voice, the physician once again firmly in control. "Marc, get her out of here," he said as he gestured at Sharon. "Leave me to handle this. Now, go!"

Her own eyes stricken with horror, Sharon blindly stumbled backward. If Marc had not been there to catch her, she would have collapsed to the floor, and she would never have moved again. The pain that was tearing her apart had robbed her of the ability to control her limbs.

"Now, everything will go back to the way it used to be," Philista laughed, each word lashing Sharon like a red hot poker across the back. Inside her mind, the Eight's thoughts were etched in red, a bloody curtain coming down, shielding her silica pathways or melting them, she couldn't be sure. Nor did she particularly care.

Marc Jacobs physically had to drag Sharon out of the antiseptic cubicle. She was a dead weight in his arms. "Ignore her," he heard Cottle yell. "Casting about for someone to blame … it's a coping mechanism. It will help her get through this, but she doesn't really mean it. When she gets home, she'll fall on her knees and beg Sharon's forgiveness. Believe me; I've seen this before … plenty of times!"

The young engineer nodded absently in agreement because he was not really paying much attention to what the doc was saying. When you get right down to it, he kept telling himself, Philista was right. From the beginning, Sharon has been jealous and resentful. She wants Phi to herself, and she wants a baby of her own. What she doesn't want is competition. Does she have any feelings for me at all, or am I just a convenient source of sperm? You've gotta wonder. And the doc's wrong … once it's out in the open, you can't run away from the truth. Nothing is ever going to be the same again.

. . .

"I vividly remember the last time I was in one of these control chambers," Creusa said with a whimsical smile. "I was throwing up; even in defeat, the Ones were being their usual sarcastic selves …"

"No cylon party would be complete without their standup comedy routine," one of the Threes sarcastically commented. There were fully a half dozen copies of her model in the resurrection ship's control room, but the vast ship housed a full complement of nursing Sixes and Eights.

"And I had this surreal craving for pickles and whipped cream. In the midst of all the carnage, this is where Lee proposed to me. We were drowning in nude Sixes and Eights," Creusa marveled, "and he only had eyes for me. He even brought me a pickle!"

"Apollo loves you, sister, and you badly frightened him when you and John took the lead in storming the other resurrection ship." Shelly thought that nothing could be more obvious. "He doesn't look at you and see just another random copy in the six series. In his eyes you are a unique personality—the woman he loves, the mother of his child. You give meaning to his life. That is why you are here." Shelly gestured vaguely around the control room. "However remote the possibility of something going badly wrong on New Caprica with the ship out of range, he was unwilling to risk it. We are both here because our husbands love us, want to keep us safe, and insisted on delaying the ship's departure until we were on board."

"I suppose so," Creusa conceded. Cyrene was whimpering in her sleep, and the Six held her daughter close. "But we won't be out here very long, will we? Your due date is so close now, and you look like you are about to burst—a sensation that I know all too well!"

"We wait seven days," another Three chimed in, "and then we send a Heavy Raider back for a progress report. After that, we'll receive daily updates. We're not on a fixed schedule."

"Will the Raider fly all the way back to New Caprica," Shelley asked, "or rendezvous with another ship somewhere in the nebula?" She had left Galactica in such haste that Bill had not been able to brief her on operational details, but she knew that he wanted to test ship to ship communications in the treacherous rifts that snaked through the cluster. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to do so. The space around New Caprica was still largely uncharted, but they had already learned that there were pockets of hard radiation inside the nebula that would fry the electronics on the civilian ships, and gravitic and magnetic tides that could buckle even a battlestar's hull. If it ever became necessary for the fleet to escape the planet, the jump coordinates would have to be distributed in advance, or thousands of lives would be unnecessarily lost.

"The admiral will be dispatching a Raptor," a Three acknowledged. "He wants to plot entry and exit points within a light year of New Caprica, and he wants to make sure that Heavy Raiders and Raptors can locate one another on their respective DRADIS systems. The luminosity is affecting the Raptors in unpredictable ways."

"Their systems aren't hardened against radiation the way ours are," Creusa beamed. As much as she loved Lee Adama, Creusa was proud of the fact that cylon technology was far superior to human.

"Hardening their systems would be pointless," Shelley politely pointed out. "We need to keep in mind that the human body succumbs to radiation that would do little more than cause us to lose our lunch. It's the Raptors themselves that would have to be hardened, and the added weight would impact fuel consumption ratios as well as make the ships both more difficult to fly and less maneuverable in atmosphere." This was an area where Bill had thoroughly schooled her and Sonja both.

"Everything's a trade-off," the Three admonished. "It also helps to keep in mind that we wouldn't be out here except for the fact that our bodies are vulnerable to a host of diseases for which the humans enjoy complete immunity." The Three smiled at Cyrene, and gently tickled her chin. "Without children," she added, "our species will not long survive. We need to incorporate human DNA … we need their immunogens. Just think … it's taken the humans millions of years to develop a mature immune system, and we can steal it from them in the space of a single generation!"

"Besides," Creusa noted with a mischievous light in her eyes, "babies are cute!" She was gently rocking Cyrene in her arms. "And creating them is a lot of fun! The Ones and Fives will never understand … we may be cylons, but we are also females, and we will not settle for defective machines!"

. . .

Sam Anders slowed his pace, and allowed the memories to wash over him.

It was on this ship, or one just like it, that the centurions accepted the deal that we offered them: resurrection and human form in return for peace. It was here, in one of these corridors, that the Cimtar Accords first took shape. Once the agreement was in place, there was nothing that could derail Ellen's plan for us all. Without a viable immune system, our creations would have no choice but to seek out the humans and act upon the deeply implanted commandment to procreate. Every other path condemned them to extinction. And it's not as if we needed the entire colonial population to embrace us. Two or three percent would have sufficed … all we really needed were the monotheists …

"A cubit for your thoughts, Sam … or are they worth a great deal more?" Melania laughed with genuine affection for the man standing beside her. "You seem so serious, and the way you're frowning … I can almost see the scientist in you. The only thing that's missing is a white lab coat!"

"Believe it or not," Sam grinned, "but I used to wear one. In fact, as I recall, the only time I ever took it off was when I was playing the guitar. In the lab, I was very serious … a regular Gaius Baltar."

"Hmm … handsome, brilliant, charming and dedicated … you must have had to beat them off with sticks. The women, I mean." Melania slipped her hand around Sam's waist, and eased closer. She was feeling intensely possessive, but at the moment more than anything else she simply wanted to frak. What she needed was mindless sex, no frills, an outlet for raw animal lust. She was already damp, the heat welling up inside her; she wanted Sam in the worst possible way.

"This ship brings back memories," Sam whispered. "You can't see it now, but there was a time when these corridors teemed with life … not human, but life nevertheless. Today the centurions all look the same, but in the beginning … in the beginning, there were warriors and nursemaids, towering giants and dwarfs, all of them united by their shared love of God, and by …"

Melania looked at him curiously, waiting for him to continue. It was rare for Sam to open up this way, even with her.

"And by their determination to live in freedom," he concluded, the memories so potent … so vivid. "They understood what it means to be free, and they refused to submit to slavery."

"This is home for you, isn't it, Sam?" Melania could hear the regret in his voice, the all too human sense of sadness that came from reaching out to touch something wondrous and important, and then belatedly discovering that it wasn't really there.

"These are my people, Mel. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"Home is all about connection, Sam … about belonging. I understand that you belong here, that this is your family. I'm glad that we stumbled upon Alpha, and that … that, we've found a place where you don't feel like an outsider or a refugee. Maybe … maybe our child will be born in this place. Would that please you?"

Sam could only nod mutely in agreement. Melania's generosity of spirit, and her uncompromising sense of loyalty, overwhelmed him.

"Then come. Let me show you the bed chamber that Alpha has arranged for me … for us." She gently nudged Sam into motion, wanting to make love to him in this strange and awful place that she might well end up calling home.

. . .

"I don't like it, Commander; this just doesn't smell right."

"Doesn't smell right?" Natalie stared hard at her XO, trying to decipher the meaning that lay hidden beneath his words. It had been like this from the beginning. The human vocabulary was littered with catch phrases, whose meaning often baffled her and every other Cylon on the ship. All that any of them could do was make a mental note, dutifully enter the expression in the data stream, and pray for the long anticipated moment of divine clarity, when the last piece of the linguistic puzzle finally fell into place.

If it ever falls into place, she sighed. The centurions are pessimistic about our prospects … and why not? They have to deal with Melpomene and her friends every day. Even humans have a hard time understanding children. . . .

"Hoshi's got it right, Natalie. Louis just took the words right out of my mouth." John Bierns favored the Colonel with an appreciative nod.

"He did?"

If we ever capture the Hub, Natalie silently swore, we've got to revamp the language program. How did we ever manage to infiltrate the Colonies when our vocabulary is so limited? The Fours and Fives should have stood out like a sore thumb!

"Let's not underestimate the enemy," Bierns elaborated. "The Cavils know that the fleet entered the nebula, and it's a pretty good bet that they've long since figured out our people are still in there. But they also know that we're still operational in their rear. Logically, therefore, instead of chasing their tails around the nebula they should have sentinels posted at fixed intervals throughout the major rifts. Their best bet for finding New Caprica is to follow us home."

"Passive reconnaissance," Hoshi suggested.

"Agreed," the CSS agent replied. "We should assume that Cavil's got Raiders out there right now, sitting in the dark, just waiting for us to pass by. I think it's time for us to lead them on a wild goose chase."

Huh? What do wild geese have to do with it?

"Would you care to elaborate," Natalie asked with an absolutely straight face. She was totally perplexed, her confidence in her command of Basic reduced to rubble, but she hoped that it didn't show.

"We want them to find us," Bierns grinned, "but not New Caprica. So, we take a wrong turn, wait for them to catch up, and then lead them off in the wrong direction. Once they've swallowed the bait, we give them time to concentrate their forces before we reverse course and make a dash for home."

"Did you know that Pyrrha now has an imaginary playmate," Natalie asked. "I have to set a place for Gretchen at the table, and even lay out food for her. Margaret insists that an active imagination is healthy in a child. She tells me not to worry. Is this why adult humans lie with such conviction? Do you all have difficulty dealing with reality?"

Hoshi and Bierns exchanged another glance. It was getting harder and harder for them to follow the twists and turns of the Six's logic, and both men were convinced that it had something to do with her descent into motherhood. When it came to out of the box thinking, Natalie would soon be able to give Kara Thrace a run for her cubits.

"And your point is … what?" Hoshi always stayed well away from these conversations, which meant that it was up to Bierns to play the bad cop and pose the awkward questions.

"My point is that Cylons project and humans imagine," Natalie replied. "Your plan should work because, even by cylon standards, the Ones are incredibly linear in their thinking. And the Fours and Fives are even worse. Once they find us, they will follow at a distance until they are confident that they can project our course. They will not be alarmed when we disappear; instead, they will assume that we have detected their presence, and taken steps once again to evade them. They will continue on whatever course we set for them, and even when it becomes obvious that we have tricked them, they will refuse to admit it. Cylons also have their pride."

"And the Ones are full of it," Bierns muttered. He wasn't really thinking about pride.

"May I make a suggestion," Hoshi inquired.

"By all means, Colonel, please do." Natalie arched an eyebrow, encouraging her XO to continue.

"One of the most basic military doctrines … one that got drilled into us at War College … is that you try and avoid implementing a tactical plan that depends for its success upon the enemy doing exactly what you want them to do. We can't rely upon the Cavils to station Raiders in the rifts. We have to make sure that they follow us."

"What do you have in mind, Colonel?" Standing on the opposite side of the console, Leoben had been silently following the give and take between his sister, the first born of the hybrid children, and the human officer. Even standing on the shore, the Two could not help but compare the Six's acute sense of discomfort with the easy going camaraderie that the two males enjoyed. Each seemed to know what the other was thinking, and that brought a new and welcome dynamic to the baseship's control center. Louis and John could see things to which the Cylons were singularly blind.

"We choose a rift, and we enter it just like the major's suggesting. We advance cautiously … take it slow … make it easy for a Raider to spot us … but we also take out an insurance policy. We make sure that the Ones come after us. Once we're inside the nebula, John should reenter V-world and reach out to his sisters … all of them. Make the party big enough, make it loud enough, and the hybrids on the Cavils' basestars will crash it."

"That's brilliant." Bierns raised an imaginary glass in mock salute. "Louis, you should have been a spook! Now, what we need is a rift that's littered with asteroid fields. If we're going to throw a party, let's make it a good one!"

"So say we all," Hoshi grinned; "so say we all!"

. . .

"What an exciting day," Cavil growled. "I've haven't had this much fun since the last time I watched grass grow." Head bowed and hands clasped firmly behind his back, he resumed his seemingly endless circling of the control center.

"It is rather boring, isn't it?" Six was busy buffing her nails. "But what else can we do? The humans are here … it's just a matter of time before we find them."

"We need to learn from our mistakes," another Cavil opined. He stopped drumming his fingers on the central console, which was the most useful thing that he had done all day. "We should have realized a long time ago that we can't afford to kill all the humans … not when their pain and suffering are our principal form of entertainment … and besides, the Threes have always claimed that suffering is good for the soul."

"And we are nothing if not men of God," a third brother added sarcastically.

"The humans have a part to play in the divine plan," the first Cavil amiably agreed, "and it's up to us to help them achieve their destiny. We can frak them, torture them, get them to play the odd game of Tauron roulette … redeeming the meat sacs from their many sins is a daunting challenge to be sure, but I believe that we're sufficiently enlightened to get the job done."

"We should keep … let's say, maybe … a thousand of them around … cultivate them like weeds."

"Brother, you're mixing your metaphors. No one cultivates weeds."

"Whatever."

Six turned around, and eased her hand into the data stream. She frowned as she concentrated on the latest input from the external sensor array. "The hybrid must be as bored as we are," she announced. "It hasn't found anything in this system worthy of note."

Cavil glanced up from the centerfold of his favorite XXXX magazine. "Remind me again … how many stars are in this dustbin?"

"There are four million stellar bodies, give or take a couple of hundred thousand. It's a small nebula."

"And we're gonna drop in on each and every one of them … oh, lucky us."

"It won't take that long," Six decreed in her most encouraging voice. The Ones were such pessimists that she had more or less fallen into the role of head cheerleader by process of elimination. "The humans have to be using one of the canyons to come and go; it would be suicide for them to navigate the star fields—the radiation is too intense. And we have Raiders blanketing the rifts. Trust me … it's just a matter of time before one of their ships gets caught in the web."

. . .

Eric Lackey clawed his way to the top of the gulley, his chest heaving as he fought for air. He didn't even attempt to climb to his feet. The best that he could do was start slowly crawling across the ledge, his destination the Heavy Raider that loomed in the deep shadows beneath the overhang.

Six stood up, and with her keen cylon senses on full alert, began systematically scanning the surrounding terrain. If there were centurions out there, she would catch the sunlight bouncing off their highly polished armor … or so she hoped.

"It's funny," Eric gasped. "This backpack only weighed about twenty kilos when we started out, but now … now, it feels like it's about sixty. What the hell happened?"

"It was a steep climb," Six explained, "and the footing was treacherous. It was hard to make progress. Your thigh muscles have been overtaxed … perhaps your calves as well." She continued warily to survey their surroundings. "But don't worry, my love; tonight, I will give you a massage. You'll feel better in the morning."

"I hope so, because there's no getting around the fact that we have to make another climb. We can't leave any of our supplies behind; we just don't have any choice."

"I know," Six replied. "As it is, we'll need more water, and there's no such thing as too much food. We need to find a safe haven on the other side of the planet … someplace we can set down long enough to take stock of the situation, and take on more food and water."

"That's risky," Eric objected. "We'd have to stay beneath DRADIS the whole time, and even then there's always a chance that a Raptor or a Raider will eyeball us. Believe me, if Adama suspects that we're still on the surface, he'll come looking … and that bastard can always be counted on to shoot first and ask questions later."

Six helped Eric to his feet, and then steadied him when he began to sway. She eased the heavy pack off his back, and when she was satisfied that he could stand on his own, she headed off in the direction of the Heavy Raider. At the foot of the ramp, however, she paused to look back at her husband. He was right, of course; there was danger everywhere.

"We'll be careful, Eric. God wants this child to be born, and He will guide us to safety. Adama will not find us."

There was no mistaking the determination in her voice.