Warning: this chapter contains mild but graphic sexuality. The position adopted by Olivia, Pelea and John is not an authorial flight of fancy, but in my experience it does take quite a bit of practice for the male participant to get the timing right.

The long exchange between Lee Adama and Caprica Six near the end of this chapter builds upon clues that loom large in chapter three of season one, and upon the content of chapters six and fourteen in season two.

CHAPTER 29

NEEDLES AND HAYSTACKS

The late afternoon sky was awash with near infinite shades of crimson and orange, the sea itself seemingly on fire all the way to the horizon. Shards of intense blue lanced the clouds, opening holes that permitted the golden rays of the sun to fall upon the two frenzied lovers. They clung to each other in the shallows, ignoring the gentle but persistent lapping of the waves that conspired to separate them. It was as if Poseidon, driven mad with jealousy, was determined to pound one into the sand while sweeping the other out to sea.

"God, how I've missed you," John panted. His hands caressed Deirdre's thighs, wandered up and down her back. His lips sought hers; moaning, the hybrid opened her mouth, inviting his tongue to enter. He lifted her off her feet, whirled her around, and stumbled back to shore. Laying her gently down in the warm sand of Galatea Bay, he dropped down to straddle her. He gazed into eyes wide with wonder and love, eyes that mirrored his own feelings. Deirdre spread her legs and reached up to clasp her husband by the neck, silently urging him to enter. War had too long separated them, and now its demands had once more brought them together. The echoes of their lovemaking rolled like thunder across the dimension that Daniel Graystone had accidentally discovered so long before, and that Clarice Willow, Tamara Adama and Zoe Graystone had subsequently claimed as their own.

"What's the matter? Can't your Eight satisfy you?" Deirdre was laughing now, her happiness complete. She was teasing her husband, but not maliciously. It was just so good to hold him in her arms.

"Ah, the joys of polygamy," John enthused. "In the good old days, on Aquaria a sailor with my ruggedly handsome looks, keen intellect, rakish sense of humor and gift for clever repartee would have had a girl in every port." He paused to kiss his hybrid wife deeply. "But this is the age of interstellar travel, and so I am blessed instead with a beautiful and incredibly erotic wife in two dimensions. It doesn't get any better than this."

"Ruggedly handsome is a bit of a stretch," Deirdre deadpanned as she groped between her legs, "but you have other endowments that more than compensate for your humdrum appearance. Trust me … I know!"

"Been … uh … taking my measure, have you," John laughed.

"I am the eyes and ears of a baseship filled with sex crazed Cylons and humans," Deirdre gleefully pointed out. "And nothing escapes my notice, not even in the dark! Oh, yes, husband of mine … rest assured that you more than measure up!"

"Mmm … it's good to know that I can still hold my own," John purred. "Now, the only question remaining is … how big an audience have we attracted?"

"Our entire fleet has come to a halt somewhere in the great, galactic beyond. Lust is flowing copiously through the data stream. The Twos enter with dread and trepidation …"

"'Lust is flowing copiously'?" John looked at her suspiciously. "Sweetheart, when did you start reading pornography?"

"The humans call it 'smut', and I've been watching, not reading. Some of their videos are truly educational. There's one called The Five Hundred Acts of Love. I really want to try position number ninety-seven. It's simple, really. All we need is a wall … and somewhat lighter gravity."

"Both can be easily arranged …"

"We'll save it for another day." With a gentle nudge, Deirdre rolled her husband onto his back, and mounted him. "Right now, all I want to do is make love. No frills, nothing exotic … I just want to feel you inside me."

. . .

The wireless buzzed twice, and Racetrack picked up the phone. She listened intently, frowned, and then hung up. "Angela reports that there's still no sign of activity in our rear. She's been out there for six hours, Commander."

Deep in thought, Natalie Six silently pursed her lips. She had a decision to make. "And we've had a Heavy Raider ranging ahead of us for the past three hours," she said, thinking out loud. "My sister also reports negative contact. What do you think, Margaret? Is it possible that the Cavils have detected us without giving away their own position?"

"It's possible," Racetrack conceded. "A dozen Raiders could hide inside the fringes of the stellar drift, and our DRADIS would never spot them. A deep crater on one of the larger asteroids we've passed would also provide effective concealment. If they're determined not to be found, we won't find them."

"But Angela's flying the original Blackbird," Louis Hoshi protested, "and Galen's stealth ship is still invisible to everything except the naked eye. If Cavil's got Raiders trailing in our wake, the odds are good that by now the Eight would have located them. No … we should go on the assumption that we've still got this rift all to ourselves. The Major needs to step up his game."

. . .

"Report," Adama barked as he stepped into the CIC.

Sonja Six turned away from the DRADIS console just long enough to take the measure of the admiral's mood. She had plenty of news to convey, but little that qualified as good.

"We have two Raptors stationed above the poles, and I've tasked an entire squadron of Vipers to sweep the planet. I'm concentrating the search in areas that we've already mapped, especially the ones with dense vegetation and fresh water. It is logical to assume that my sister extracted these coordinates from the data stream, and is acting upon the information. I've ordered our pilots to begin in the most remote regions, and to work their way systematically back towards the settlement."

"It's like looking for a needle in a haystack," the admiral sighed, "a needle that may have already vanished."

"She's here, Admiral." The cylon XO continued to study the DRADIS display, but on this point she was absolutely sure of her footing. "The pregnancy has made her risk averse. She's not going anywhere until they've taken on enough food and water to allow them to maximize their Heavy Raider's full fuel load. Six appreciates how barren the galaxy really is. It will come down to a choice between the known and the unknown—Kobol or Gemenon to our rear, or heading in towards the core and hoping to find a habitable world before they exhaust their supplies. In the end, it's a simple equation: the more food and water they have, the longer they can remain in deep space."

"And what's the status of our own supply situation?"

"It's deteriorating. The Colonial Workers Alliance is picketing all of the warehouses, and the President refuses to use centurions to break the strike. He doesn't have enough support in the Quorum to issue another declaration of emergency."

"Yeah … we're paying the price for the loss of life in the Sagittaron uprising, and Tom Zarek's made good use of the Enyeto assassination. No one on the Quorum is going to risk a bullet by standing up to the CWA or the Sons of Ares."

"We can hold out for another week, but even with skeleton crews, some of the larger civilian ships will run out of food in less than forty-eight hours. The captains of the Zephyr and Rising Sun both contacted me this morning. Even Cloud Nine is asking for help."

"And they shall have it. Six, I want you to distribute food across the fleet … enough to get the civvies through the next ninety-six hours. And tell our pilots out there to start looking for meat on the hoof. If we can eat it, their orders are to shoot it."

"Yes, Sir; and do you want me to order the Eights on the baseship to increase the production of our synthetic protein?"

Adama winced. He had forced himself to sample the chemical stew that passed for emergency rations on a cylon baseship, and the memory was still vivid enough to make him gag. If the Six and her Sagittaron husband were reduced to eating twigs and grass, theirs would still be the more preferable alternative.

"No … not yet; we'll have a riot on our hands if the civilians are reduced to eating your protein bars."

"Personally, Sir, I prefer the soup." Sonja smiled sympathetically at the admiral. "As long as we don't run out of pepper, it's not so bad."

"For the time being, Sonja, I'll take your word for it." Adama smiled at her in return. He was genuinely fond of the Six, and not merely because she was Shelly's sister. Sonja was beautiful, intelligent, hard-working—and her deepening relationship with Alexander Phillips had softened the rough edges and gifted her with a subtle sense of humor.

Sonja picked up a star chart, and spread it out on the DRADIS console. She pointed to four small X's that had not been there at the end of Adama's last shift.

"There's one piece of good news, Admiral. Our pilots have plotted four more sets of emergency jump coordinates. You can fix the rendezvous with your wife's Heavy Raider at intervals of one light year along either of these two courses." She tapped one of them lightly with a pencil. "The Raptors have extended this one out to a distance of seven light years."

Bill nodded … this was good news indeed. "I want the crews to start conducting spectral analyses of the surrounding drift," he ordered. "We need to find weak spots … places where the EMP and radiation are sufficient to mask our signature, but not so strong that they'll fry our electronics and kill our crew. If the Cavils ever do show up, we'll need a good place to hide."

. . .

Eric Lackey was standing in the shallows, but he was being buffeted by waves that threatened to sweep him off his feet. It was a constant struggle to maintain his balance, and to keep his grip on the makeshift fishing pole that had already served him well.

Six waded out to stand behind him. The sunlight on New Caprica was not particularly intense, but they had both been exposed to it for a long time, and their skins had darkened considerably. The blond Cylon was certain that she was the first copy of her model to achieve a tan, an idea that she found perversely amusing.

Six caressed the taut muscles in her husband's shoulders, and licked her lips with anticipation as she ran her fingers down his arms. Eric had always been incredibly handsome, but he was leaner now, and stronger, in a wiry sort of way. He had mastered all the secrets of her body, and his stamina, even by cylon standards, was impressive. Their lovemaking never failed to satisfy.

"We need to start a fire," he said without turning around. "I want you to dig a pit in the sand, fill it with kindling, and set it ablaze. We'll wrap the fish in leaves, and bury them in the ash. Even without refrigeration, smoked fish will remain safe to eat for a long time."

"I'm on it," Six replied. Eric had landed three fish while she had been busy prizing something that vaguely resembled an oyster out of the rocks that dominated the coastline. "And I've found more of those berries that we were harvesting on the mainland. There are also some grasses here that I think we can eat after we boil them."

"Sweetheart," Eric laughed, "we'll make a Sagittaron out of you yet." Then he turned serious. "What about water?"

"There's a spring in the center of the island, with water so pure and cold that we don't even have to boil it. But how are we going to store it? We inherited two canteens, which were already full. I'm using the medical kit, and a couple of canisters that were housing ammunition. But that's it, and it's not nearly enough. We need buckets … a barrel … something … anything!"

"I hear you. Tell you what. Tomorrow, we'll explore the island; maybe we'll get lucky, and find something that we can use."

"And if we don't?"

"There's always plan B."

"Which is?"

"We pay a nocturnal visit to the settlement, and steal what we need."

. . .

"Beginning DRADIS eleven sweep," Athena called out.

"Beginning DRADIS twelve sweep," Ponytail acknowledged.

The pilot and the ECO waited while the Raptor's electronic suite scanned the moon for signs of water. The gas giant had two dozen moons altogether, although fully half of them were asteroids that had got close enough to be captured by the planet's gravity well.

"Frak," Deitra cursed. "I've got nothing and … you guessed it … more nothing."

"Same here; I've got zilch as well." Athena shook her head in frustration.

"Well, that's it, boss. We've scanned six moons, or should I say … six great, big hunks of nothing."

"Maybe it's the equipment," Athena sarcastically countered. "Maybe there's a restaurant out here at the frakkin' end of the universe, and we just can't see it because our electronics are all frakked up!"

"A lemonade stand would be nice," Deitra sighed. "There was this place on Picon …"

"You can't make lemonade without water," Athena interrupted, "and just in case you've lost count, we've only found water in one system since we left New Caprica. How did the thirteenth tribe survive out here? They were refugees, fleeing a holocaust; they couldn't have been that well supplied. And it's a long way back to Kobol."

"Yeah … I've wondered about that. Anders says that they spent forty years in the wilderness. I don't care how good their purification system was; that's a long time to be drinking your own piss."

"Make a log entry, Lieutenant: negative water contact on DRADIS sweeps eleven and twelve. Stand by for orbital insertion around moon seven."

The two pilots returned to their duties, and less than twenty minutes later, prepared to start the routine all over again.

"Beginning DRADIS thirteen sweep," Athena called out.

"Beginning DRADIS fourteen sweep," Ponytail acknowledged.

. . .

"Increasing nitrogen concentration by 1.8%; scrubbers on deck 17 are offline for scheduled maintenance. Oxygen levels are nominal. Carbon dioxide levels are nominal. End of line. All external sensor arrays are degraded; fifty centurions are EVA for emergency repairs. WARNING! All external sensor arrays have entered failure mode. Failure within four minutes is projected. . . ."

"This is great … just frakking great," Cavil growled. "We're searching for a needle in a haystack, and now we're going blind. Gee, I've never had so much fun!"

"Relax, brother," another Cavil soothed. "This was all to be expected. It's the stellar drift. The nebula is a gigantic dust cloud, and the dust aggregates are magnetized. We're sucking them in, and they're continually fouling the sensor arrays. Plus, the charged ion particles around here are making a mess of everything. It doesn't matter. As long as we have Raiders, we have eyes."

"And how long will it be before the Raiders start to conk out," Cavil retorted skeptically. Inherently pessimistic, this particular One had long ago soured on his younger brother's notoriously sunny disposition. He was convinced that the road to victory was littered with a string of inevitable disasters.

"We're rotating them at forty minute intervals, and the centurions are scrubbing the exhaust manifolds and thermal induction ports with their customary efficiency. Everything's going according to plan."

"Yeah, yeah, everything's great … unless, of course, our whole approach to the problem is half ass backwards."

"Well, there is that," the younger Cavil reluctantly conceded. He looked maliciously at his elder brother. "Of course, if you really feel this strongly about it," he continued, "you could always call for a meeting. Everyone will undoubtedly be thrilled to entertain yet another alternative plan. Surely the fifty that we've rejected so far haven't exhausted the possibilities."

"The hybrid is losing focus," Six interrupted. "It's concentrating on mechanical issues rather than feeding us useful intelligence. We need to get its head back in the game. Do you two geniuses have anything constructive to offer?"

"I'm fresh out of ideas, Six," the younger Cavil cheerfully confessed. "But they say that age breeds wisdom, so big brother here should be able to point the way." Cavil once again looked maliciously at Cavil.

"The answer's obvious," Cavil said impatiently; "give the frakkin' machine a good, hard kick in the ass."

Six rolled her eyes in disgust. She longed for the good, old days, when she had been teamed with one of the overseer Fives back on Caprica. Aaron had been all business, never losing sight of the objective, never surrendering to these infantile outbursts of all too human emotion that so defined the Ones.

Hooking the human females up to the birthing machines, seeing the horror in their eyes, listening to them beg. That was good. And beating the crap out of Kara Thrace: that was better still—almost as good as rearranging Sharon's face. Doral couldn't see that the bitch had already turned traitor, but I knew … I knew! Helo should have been my project, not hers! The Eight series has always been weak, unreliable. Helo is very handsome. I would have made him love me, given him a child. He's so alive!

"The last time I looked," Six commented with just the right note of contempt in her voice, "the hybrid doesn't have an ass. So, just how do you propose to kick that which does not exist?"

"It doesn't matter. You wanna get its attention? Then slap it up one side and down the other. Or try sticking your tongue down its throat. I don't care what you do, so long as you get results."

Maybe I should steal a Heavy Raider and make a run for it, Six thought. Her sense of despair was near total. If I can find the humans, I can negotiate a deal … amnesty and asylum in return for telling them what the Ones are up to. Now, how can I get D'Anna and Mara off this ship?

. . .

"So, what's the word, Doc?"

Adama had his back turned to the President. He was busy pouring each of them a stiff drink.

"I believe, Admiral," Baltar stiffly remarked, "that the appropriate term is 'Mister President'."

"Heh, that's funny," Bill chuckled. "I didn't think that the President of the Colonies wanted to get anywhere near this particular project. Engaging in crimes against sentience might damage his public reputation."

"Very funny, Admiral … very funny indeed." Gaius accepted the proffered drink, and resumed restlessly pacing around Adama's quarters. "Well, if you must know, the project's complete. Medusa is the perfect biological weapon—one hundred percent lethality, but we can keep infected Cylons alive indefinitely. Their immune system attacks the vaccine and breaks it down, but it takes seventy-two hours for it to clear the cylon circulatory system. The pattern never varies, so as long as we inject them every sixty-six hours, they've got nothing to worry about."

"And you're sure that the disease will download, even with the vaccine in place?"

"The Fours are sure, Admiral; kill the carriers within range of a resurrection ship, and it will be fatally contaminated. It would be best, of course, to execute prisoners who think that they are recovering from the disease. They will be less likely to sound the alarm, which will give Medusa time to spread through the entire resurrection network. Once it takes hold, there'll be no stopping it."

"Leaving us with the only functioning resurrection ships in the universe," Adama concluded. A light smile played across his lips. "Game, set, and match." He downed his whiskey in one satisfying gulp, and reached for the decanter. This was a moment to celebrate.

"Game, set and match," Gaius quietly agreed.

"I've got Raptors out looking for places in the drift where we can hide a ship." Adama took off his glasses, and rubbed his eyes. He was tired, and didn't bother to conceal it. "I'll need ten prisoners. We'll give each the vaccine, but we'll stage the injections at six hour intervals. That way, there'll always be a couple of Ones and Fives in whom the virus is well advanced. If the Cavils come back, we jump in, execute them all, and jump out. Once they've lost their safety net, those bastards will back off. They'll back way, way off!"

"And what happens to our people on the surface, Admiral? Medusa doesn't discriminate. Once it's unleashed, every Two, Three, Four, Six or Eight who dies down there will acquire the disease with his or her download. Please keep in mind that we are talking terminal death, and that lymphocytic encephalitis is not a pretty way to die."

"They'll have to take their chances," Adama shrugged. "It might be smart for them to commit mass suicide while our own resurrection ship is still in orbit. Otherwise, they'll have to do whatever it takes to stay alive."

"So … what am I supposed to do here … issue a public pronouncement that every Cylon should carry poison on their person at all times, and be prepared to use it at a moment's notice?" The incredulous look on Baltar's face said it all. This was, without a doubt, the most surreal conversation that he had ever had, and considering what went on in the hybrid's chamber, that was really saying something.

"And what kind of reprisals do you think the Cavils will inflict on the human population," Baltar continued. "This is a scorched Sagittaron policy if ever I saw one. They might well kill us all."

"If the Cavils find New Caprica, Mister President, believe me, dying's going to be the least of your worries." Adama stared long and hard at Gaius Baltar while he slowly finished his whiskey.

. . .

Tom Zarek leaned back in his chair, an enigmatic smile on his lips, and allowed the cacophony of noise to caress the edges of his conscious mind. Shutting out unwanted sights and sounds was a technique that he had cultivated in prison, and it served him well at every meeting of the Quorum. The meaningless hue and cry, the empty posturing of the delegates—a less disciplined mind would have lost patience with such nonsense, but Tom Zarek never allowed the righteous anger that inflamed his soul to disturb the placid expression on his face. Still, he kept score … he had always been good at keeping score. They were all fools, every single one of them, but the biggest fools of all were the ones who had had the temerity to cross him. And eventually they would pay. Roslin, Adama … all the selfish and greedy fools who opposed the people's will would one day find themselves standing in front of a firing squad.

"I for one am losing patience with the strikers," Alisander Asiel declared. Or so Zarek guessed: Aerilon's delegate spoke with such a heavy accent that the Vice-President often had to guess at the content of his sentences—and in this case he really wasn't paying much attention.

"Oh, their grievances are real enough- my esteemed colleague from Canceron is quite right on that point, the conditions in our factories are appalling- but our agricultural workers labor just as hard and with just as little compensation, and you do not hear the men and women of Aerilon threatening to go out on strike in order to extort better housing and hot and cold running water. We recognize that it takes time to build a new world, and that our first priority must be the sick and the elderly, and widows with small children. . . ."

Alisander's going to drone on for a while, Tom thought. And when he finally runs down, our new delegate from Tauron will demand the floor so that she can toss in her two cubits …

Zarek studied Maria Lucretia Dahlia, the middle-aged female whom Enzo Carlotti had hand-picked to replace the late, lamented Perah Enyeto, out of the corner of his eye. She wasn't especially good looking, but rumor had it that she had profited mightily from the untimely demise of not one but two husbands. The Sons of Ares had nicknamed Lucretia the Black Dahlia, and Tom knew that it wasn't her penchant for wearing widow's weeds that his gangster friends had in mind.

The Vice-President subtly shifted his attention to Sharon Baltar and Wallace Gray, who were seated side by side. If the Cylon was the de facto president of the Colonies, the colorless bureaucrat at her side was not only the architect of New Caprica's economic policies but also the proverbially indispensable man. Three people kept the settlement running, and there was no way to separate Billy Keikeya and the newly minted Tory Baltar from their allegiance to the regime. But the whole point of the strike, which Zarek had emphasized to Enzo Carlotti, was to turn Wally Gray into a political liability that the Baltars would be forced to dump in exactly the same way that Laura Roslin had jettisoned him when Zarek was poised to steal the vice-presidency. Xeno Fenner and the Colonial Workers Alliance had eagerly taken the bit between their teeth, but frustratingly, the Baltars had yet to get the message. Zarek knew that the gray man was patiently waiting for his turn to speak, so that he could lay out another ridiculous eight point plan to get the factories open. And in her husband's absence, Sharon would encourage the farce every step of the way.

"Will the delegate from Aerilon yield?" Right on cue, Lucretia Dahlia was on her feet. Zarek knew that she was going to defend the CWA, and in the process declare political war on Gaius Baltar. The President had already lost Sarah Porter and the Gemenese, and now he was about to discover that Tauron had also turned decisively against him. Unless he threw Wallace Gray to the wolves, he would no longer command the loyalty of a majority of the Quorum. But if he fed Gray to the sharks, the economy would implode. The Sons of Ares would find new ways to profit from the ensuing chaos, and Tom Zarek would be one step closer to the presidency.

. . .

"Welcome, Lee; please come in." Caprica Six stepped to the side, and with a graceful gesture invited Apollo to enter her apartment.

"Thank you, Caprica … and thank you for inviting me into your home. I never realized that we lived in the same building."

"I don't draw attention to my private life, Lee. It's better that way, better … and safer."

"I understand … I know exactly where you're coming from." Standing in the living room, Lee took in the tiny kitchenette and dining room in a single glance. The few pieces of furniture were utilitarian, and there was no clutter. There were no photographs or other mementoes, nothing that would in fact personally connect Caprica Six to a unit that was physically indistinguishable from all the others around it. The living space had the impersonal feel of a mid-grade hotel room, but there were no clothes or personal effects lying about, no dirty dishes in the sink or unwashed glasses on the kitchen counter. A narrow hall off to the right gave access to a small bathroom, and an adjoining bedroom. Lee somehow knew without looking that the bathroom counter would be empty of the cosmetics and lipsticks that had marked off this most intimate of spaces as his mother's private dominion. He also knew without looking that Caprica's clothes would be neatly folded and stored in the drawers of a lone bedroom dresser, or gracing the hangers in her closet. It would not have surprised him to learn that all of the hangers were facing the same way.

"Would you like something to drink? I do have alcohol."

"No, uh … no, thanks; Creusa says that the smell of alcohol on my breath makes her sick, so I'm trying to give it up. Some days are easier than others."

With a quiet smile, Caprica opened the refrigerator and removed a bottle of white wine. She poured a small glass, and took a tiny sip. "Gaius has an educated palate," she casually remarked; "and he is remarkably knowledgeable about wine. He turned me into something of an oenophile. It was one of my few indulgences." Caprica walked to the couch, smoothed her skirt, and sat down with an elegant flourish. She gestured for Lee to join her. "So, what is this all about?"

"My father," Apollo replied as he dropped down beside her. "He told me things, and he let me have access to a contact report that really bothered him. I think he wants me to ask you a lot of questions about Ghostrider … about Major Bierns."

"It's all ancient history, Lee; why would either of you bother?"

"It's about the Eights … about the fact that they're not having children. Caprica, we had a terrible fight with the Tighs, up on Galactica. I thought Ellen was going to claw my father's eyes out, she was so angry. Dad insists that the whole plan has gone wrong, but Ellen doesn't see it … maybe … maybe, she refuses to see it. But dad's right. Walking over here, for the first time I really looked at what was going on all around me … how ordinary it is to see Eights moving around the settlement, so many of them with a boyfriend or even a husband in tow. Half of them should be pregnant, but they're not. Dad … he told me that his gut was screaming at him, telling him that we've got to turn back to the past, all the way back to the Colonies. He says that in order to find out what's gone wrong, we've gotta first figure out what it was that was going right. And it all has something to do with Bierns … with the two of you. My father is right, Caprica; you and John, you were there in the beginning. You've got the answers. If we've gone off the rails, the two of you are the only people who can tell us when and why. If we can get over those two hurdles, then we'll have a shot at figuring out how it all went wrong, and give ourselves a chance to get the plan back on track."

"You're giving me far too much credit, Lee. Yes, it's true that I was there at the beginning; Project Diaspora was actually laid out late one night in my apartment. But the CSS was like a honeycomb. Information was compartmentalized … everything was strictly 'need to know'. It wasn't that Harlan and John didn't trust me; it was just the way that the agency operated. Remember, I was working in a climate where paranoia was considered a virtue."

"So, why don't you begin at the beginning? How did you and John first meet?"

Caprica let out a long sigh. This was not a story that she liked to share with others. "I seduced him, I drugged him, and I smuggled him out of the Colonies … to a baseship waiting just beyond the Armistice Line. With the exception of one strike force, which was concentrated for the attacks on Picon and Caprica, our ships were all spread out, Lee. It was five months before the attacks, and we had you completely encircled. Cavil's attack plan made us vulnerable, and we were desperate to discover how much you knew. A ranking CSS officer, especially one who had the President's ear—John was a glittering prize that we just couldn't refuse. The knowledge that he carried inside his head could put all of our doubts to rest, or cause us to modify our plans. He was one of the five most important people in the Colonies, and yet he behaved so recklessly."

Thinking about it, Caprica shook her head in disbelief. "The men we occasionally captured on the fringes of the Armistice Zone—they were all hardened criminals, the kind of people no one would miss. But when we questioned these murderers and cutthroats, and John's name came up? He was the Lord High Executioner, and the mere mention of his name sufficed to bring their fears crawling to the surface. You could see it in their eyes … you could almost taste it in the air, their fear was so palpable. Did you know that John once landed on an asteroid that was only three kilometers from the Armistice Line? It was rich in tylium, and a Canceron crime syndicate had set up an illegal mining operation. We were watching the whole time. There were more than fifty very tough people on that asteroid. John went in by himself, and he took the operation down. The miners never stood a chance. We looked for survivors; there weren't any."

"My gods," Lee whispered. "The way he executed Eric Phelan … John's so … so soft-spoken … I thought it was an aberration. Do you mean to tell me that he's been going around killing people like that for years?"

"Inside the CSS," Caprica pointed out with a light smile, "the preferred expression was 'terminate with extreme prejudice'. And yes, your presidents dumped one dirty job after another in John's lap. And suddenly, he was ours, body and soul. Of course, it never occurred to me, or to anyone else, that he was a yawning trap just waiting to swallow us whole. My brothers and sisters were supposed to torture him, drain him dry, and then let the centurions have him for target practice. You know how that turned out."

"Yeah," Apollo grimaced; "every human who's old enough to walk knows that particular story."

"So, imagine my surprise when I returned home five weeks later, after spending a pleasant evening frakking Gaius Baltar, to find John sitting on my couch—John, Harlan Berriman, and a Three. It took less than twenty minutes for them to convert me into a double agent. The four of us began laying out the details for Diaspora on the spot, although it later became obvious that John and Richard Adar had been planning the exodus for a long time."

"Did you know that the CSS was altering interplanetary shipping lanes, and bringing ships in by the thousands for unscheduled maintenance? Dad says that the Admiralty saw this massive operation unfolding throughout the Colonies, but no one could figure out what it meant."

"Yes, Lee, I knew, although only in the most general terms. So, Admiral Nagala saw what was happening, but chose to keep quiet about it. That's interesting … and something that I didn't know."

And there was so much happening that you don't know about, Lee … all those conferences, with all expenses paid for the participants, that were going on all over Libran's southern hemisphere on D Day. We brought in the best and the brightest, and we saved them all. How I wish I could tell you about the Ark … about Atlantis, and the libraries that we salvaged, the museums whose finest paintings and artifacts are even now on their way to a new home, far beyond the reach of the Cavils. The burden you carry would be so much easier to bear if only you knew that cylon and human had already become a single people, and that they will rebuild the Colonies not on the Earth of your imagination but on the real Earth. How I wish I could tell you that Earth is not so much a place as it is a state of mind … that you arrive there every time that you sweep my sister into your arms. Oh, Lee, there is so much that I want to tell you … but I can't, not when the Cavils still hound us. And there is so much of the truth that you must never learn—that you're bait, meant to lure the Ones to their doom, while Deirdre leads our people to their salvation. . . .

"How many people did know what was going on, Caprica? I mean, for starters, how many people inside the CSS knew about you?"

"Quite a few … Harlan, and Marcus- Marcus Greene was the Chief of Staff—and Erika Waldstein and her team of behavioral psychologists. John mentored me. He was the best field agent in the history of the Colonies … how could he not be? Lee, John is on the upper end of the human scale in everything—intelligence, strength, endurance, reflexes …"

"Just like Kara's the best pilot anyone's ever seen," Lee murmured.

"Exactly. Our children are not simply the next step in cylon evolution; they are also the next step in human evolution. You may not want to hear this, Lee, but your daughter is going to outstrip both of her parents."

"No, no, that's good," Apollo protested. "Every parent wants their child to be the best."

"John put me through a crash course on elementary tradecraft. He called it Spook 101," Caprica said with a laugh. "But he was drowning in work, and Erika needed a lot of my time. She was reconfiguring my personality matrix, and teaching me how to beat the stream. It's the ultimate lie detector, Lee, and Erika wanted to bring me to the point where I could not only withhold information during a download, but introduce disinformation into the network. We did get there, but it wasn't easy."

"So, what were Bierns and Adar up to during the last months?" Lee's frustration was mounting by the second but at least the conversation was heading generally where he wanted it to go. "Come on, Caprica, you've got to know more than you've given me so far! What the hell was going on?"

"John was playing God, Lee; isn't that obvious? It's just as you say. He was prepping the civilian ships that we needed for the exodus, and at the very end he altered the shipping lanes in order to keep them safe from Cavil's Raiders. Only, there was a lot more going on … a lot more. He was manipulating crew rosters and passenger manifests … making sure that certain people … people like Laura Roslin … were out of the line of fire. He was desperate to get more women of child-bearing age into space, which blinded him to the fact that he was literally deciding who was going to live, and who was going to die. And Marcus … Marcus was working just as frantically—resupplying Ragnar anchorage and the depot in the asteroid belt … caching food, medicine, fuel and ammunition all over the twelve worlds to sustain the survivors. That was my job, remember? I was supposed to sow dissension within the collective, and organize the surviving human population into an effective resistance. I did my job."

"And on the eve of the attacks … all those rumors that Roslin was peddling before Shelly defected, about how Baltar gave you access to the defense mainframe and you brought the whole network down from within. Was she right? Did Gaius sell out the human race?"

"Don't be silly, Lee. What would possess a man … any man … knowingly to participate in the wholesale extermination of his entire species?"

"But he did give you access, didn't he? I don't hear you denying it."

"He did … on President Adar's direct orders."

"Gods, this is frakking unbelievable! My father's hunch … he said that his gut kept telling him that all of this … that it only makes sense if Baltar's CSS, and the whole frakkin' war is some kind of convoluted scheme to bring your people home!"

"He's right, Lee, but only partially so. This is Cavil's war. John persuaded Harlan and Richard to hijack it, and they didn't put up much of a resistance. Anyone with half a brain could see that the Colonies were doomed. You didn't have enough battlestars to go on the offensive, but even when you pulled back you couldn't defend your worlds against an orbital nuclear attack. Diaspora had the highest probability estimate for success, but only because one cylon baseship defected. Its Raiders cordoned off a huge volume of space, and Admiral Nagala unknowingly bought us the time that we needed to push scores of civilian ships into the net. Or did you think that their survival was simply a matter of good luck? Come on, Lee; luck is how you humans account for positive outcomes in the face of inadequate preparation. Luck had nothing to do with the creation of this fleet."

"And that's it?" Apollo was beginning to get angry. "The analysts decided that ninety-nine percent of humanity had to die so that I would fall in love with a Cylon and give her a child? That was the ultimate sales pitch, wasn't it? I don't care how tactically indefensible the Colonies were; Adar would have been out of his mind to go along with this crap unless he had an iron-clad guarantee that humans and Cylons could have kids."

"John and Kara offered Richard all the proof that he needed, and no one on the baseship ever questioned the memories that John poured into its stream. You weren't there, Lee … that night, in my apartment. D'Anna was positively glowing. Her love for her son, her pride in all that he had accomplished … she was a new person. And when she talked about what she had seen in the stream—the three models all giving birth, the Eights never failing to become pregnant … she had no doubts, Lee … none … whatsoever."

"And that brings us full circle, doesn't it? The Eights are supposed to be the salvation of us all, only it's not happening. Something's gone wrong, just like my father says." Lee's eyes narrowed with suspicion. "And you're hiding something."

"I'm hiding lots of things,"Caprica candidly admitted, "and most of them are for your own good."

"Right, sure," Lee scoffed, "but I'll be the judge of that. Bierns caught up with the fleet eleven days after the holocaust. He claims that he spent ten days playing footsie with skin jobs and centurions on the surface of Caprica and a couple of other planets, but he never got around to explaining how he was able to move about so freely inside cylon space. What was he really doing, Caprica? What is it that you're hiding?"

"I don't know what he was doing, Lee, and that's the truth. Our paths never crossed."

"And all those cylon facilities that he so casually claims to have penetrated? What was that all about," Apollo pressed, "assuming, of course, that's it's not all a pack of lies."

"I don't know, Lee." Caprica Six gazed calmly at her brother-in-law. The two of them were playing cat and mouse—a game at which any trained agent excelled. And Brandywine had been trained by the best.

"Was he looking for something … maybe something having to do with artificial insemination or gene therapy? Were the Cavils sitting on something that the Eights have to have in order to get pregnant? You know … the cylon equivalent of a fertility pill?"

"Careful, Lee," Caprica warned; "your paranoia is beginning to get the better of you. You sound like a CSS agent who's been out in the field too long … burnt out."

"I know that Sharon Agathon was the bait in a scheme to seduce Helo, and I know that Baltar's Eight was on a baseship that the Cavils controlled. Do you have any idea how suspicious that looks?"

"Lee, this is ridiculous; how would you explain Shelly's pregnancy … or Creusa's? Do you see Ones in your soup?"

"Not Ones, Caprica … I'm looking for a baseship that should be there, but I can't find it." Lee reached inside his coat, and pulled a single, neatly folded sheet of paper out of one of the pockets. The report contained only four paragraphs, but he was convinced that it harbored the truth for which the two Adamas were searching.

"Your First Born made one critical mistake, Caprica. Two hundred and sixty-three jumps: that's how deep we were in the Prolmar Sector when Boomer encountered John's Raptor. How did a short-range reconnaissance craft get so far out and yet still have nearly a full fuel load in its tanks? Dad caught the anomaly at once, and it scared the hell out of him."

Lee dropped the flimsy in Caprica's lap. "Read the third paragraph," he demanded. "Then Commander Adama could come up with only one explanation—that Bierns had hitched a ride on a cylon baseship. He was right, but he got it all wrong. He suspected that your boss was working for the Cylons; frak, he was half convinced that Bierns was a Cylon! How could dad possibly have guessed that it was just the other way round—that the Cylons were working for Bierns? There's our missing baseship, Caprica … the one whose fate you have been oh, so careful to steer me away from. And that was your mistake. You're clever—too clever for your own good. You should have anticipated where this was going, and blunted the threat by telling me that Ghostrider's baseship had been destroyed in a skirmish with one of our battlestars. Instead, you said nothing, and that told me exactly what I needed to know."

Apollo abruptly climbed to his feet, and he stared hard at the still seated Cylon. "I don't really care about the baseship, Caprica, but there had to be a quid pro quo in place, and we both know what it was. I want to know about the female models on that ship in general and the Eights in particular. How many babies have they produced? Where did we go wrong?"

. . .

Day 420 of the Exodus

The Control Center of the Cylon Baseship Leading the Diaspora Fleet

24 Days Rimward of the Algae Planet

Eve Six removed her hand from the stream, and looked worriedly at her husband. Caleb was gently rocking their infant son in his arms, trying to find the magical cure for a crying jag that had started four hours earlier. Eve was the President of the Colonies, elected with the overwhelming support of both humans and cylons as the successor to the former Defense Minister, Anita Suarez. She took the responsibilities of her office very seriously, but she was first and foremost a wife and mother.

Cain is not even four months old, so it can't be teething, and he doesn't have a rash. He won't take my teat … he doesn't want to be held … why is he so upset?

"It's not Deirdre," Eve announced. "Our hybrid is in fine spirits; indeed, at the moment I would judge her to be positively giddy." Throughout the fleet, the moods of the hybrid babies normally mirrored those of their big sister on the baseship. Human and cylon parents alike were still learning how to cope with the fact that their children reacted to one another, and powerfully responded to the "old one," as Leoben liked to call the baseship hybrid.

"She's drunk," the Two observed matter-of-factly.

"Drunk," Aurelia repeated gleefully. Doctor Aurelia Afzelius, who held two Magnate Awards in the field of chemistry, was the President's chief science advisor. Ever since Deirdre had given birth to a daughter in the parallel dimension informally known as V-World, Aurelia had made the hybrid her pet project. A synthetic creature that inhabited a vat of goo on a baseship in one dimension, but lived the life of a happily married housewife in another, was far more than an object of scientific curiosity. Because the hybrid and the baseship were for all intents and purposes one and the same, Deirdre was far and away the most important personality in Aurelia's tiny, little corner of the universe.

"Well," she added, "at least now we know why the fleet is … uh … weaving rather than advancing in a straight line. Should we hook her up to a Breathalyzer?"

"The results would be inconclusive, Doctor." D'Anna was still having trouble with irony; behind her back, Leoben and Eve shared knowing grins. "The problem is one of bleed-through. The hybrid is imbibing alcohol in the other dimension, and she is doing so in sufficient quantity that it is releasing her inhibitions. In both dimensions, the emotional consequences are the same."

"Sister," Eve laughed, "we really have to find you a husband! You badly need the services of a long-haired dictionary!" Eve looked affectionately at her own husband. One night, when their lovemaking had become so intense that the glow from her spine was literally lighting up the room, Caleb Adama had whispered into her ear that he nightly thanked the gods for blessing him with his very own long-haired dictionary. It was a bit of Tauron slang, he had explained; the quickest way to learn to speak Gemenese, or to probe the mysteries of the Gemenese culture, was simply to marry someone from Gemenon. Eve had been so delighted by the compliment that she had passed it on to others, and because so many Sixes and Eights wore their hair long, the expression had spread across the fleet like wildfire. Then someone had commented that long hair was currently in fashion among human males, and the colorful phrase had rebounded. Now, it applied indiscriminately to Cylons and humans alike.

"Uh, does anyone happen to know why Deirdre is getting plastered?" Caleb had to speak loudly to be heard over his son's screaming. The noise reminded him of the sound the cat had made when, at the age of eight, he had run its tail through the blender. It had been simple curiosity on his part, really, but that was the day he had definitively learned that you couldn't pass everything off as a scientific experiment. His parents had been seriously pissed, and the resultant spanking had condemned him to sleeping on his stomach for the next four nights. "And does anyone know what we should expect in the way of a hangover?"

"It's obviously party time at Galatea Bay," Aurelia shrugged. "But I wouldn't worry too much about the hangover—not if Laura Roslin drops by."

"Uh, oh," Anita Suarez groaned; "I forgot about that. She and Adar probably smoked more pot than the rest of the Cabinet put together."

"You're joking, right?" Caleb looked back and forth between the two women, but he couldn't tell whether they were being serious or not. "I mean, after all, Deirdre at her most lucid is pretty loopy. If she gets high on both alcohol and drugs …"

"We may encounter things in the stream that we've never seen before," Leoben grinned.

. . .

"Let's stop here," Leoben suggested. Without waiting for a reply, he threw himself down in the sand, rolled onto his back, cradled his neck in his hands, and stared contentedly up at the luminescent sky.

Laura Roslin dropped down beside him, but before settling in to partake of her favorite after school ritual, she had first to reach into her pocket and extract one of her special cigarettes. She lit up, pulled the pungent smoke deep into her lungs, and then passed the toke to her favorite Cylon. Leoben took a hit, and then silently passed it back to her.

"Leo, have I ever apologized for wanting to airlock you," she asked. Laura released a long, slow, relaxed breath. The late afternoon was her favorite time of the day on New Caprica. The sky was like a softly glowing carpet.

"More than once," he replied. "Have I ever apologized for invading your dreams?"

"My wet dreams," she corrected. "You have no idea how many times you've made love to me in my dreams, and I can't even begin to describe how good the sex is."

"It's my projection, Laura, but you're right. In the stream, there's nothing to distinguish virtual sex from physical intercourse. They're equally real."

"Remind me to thank Kara Thrace for the blood donation," Laura chortled. "All those cylon doohickeys floating around in my bloodstream not only cured my cancer, they also let me share your projections. By the way, how is the stream tonight? Are there any new eddies or currents to interest us?"

"Zenobia's in a snit. "I don't think she's getting enough. Baltar needs to visit her more often."

"Ah, the universal dirge," Laura said knowingly. "For the female of the species, there's no such thing as enough. But I'm a politician. I can be bribed. For a price, I'd be willing to share." Laura reached out blindly, and began to knead the hard muscles in Leoben's stomach. "Threesomes can be fun."

Leoben rolled on top of Laura, and pinned her shoulders to the yielding ground. He kissed her savagely, just as he always did in her dreams. "I don't like to share," he grunted, "but then I have millions of brothers. The really nice thing about being human is that you get to be selfish. The collective is a real drag."

. . .

"Whee," Deirdre screamed as she pirouetted one more time, the champagne flute held high above her head. "I love champagne!" Miraculously, she had somehow managed not to spill a single drop. "It's almost as good as sex! This is Heaven!"

"I want sex," Cassandra yelled, "and I want it now! Sex! Sex! Sex!" The youngest of all the hybrids, Cassie was pounding the coffee table with her open palm to drive her point home. She paused to pick up a bottle of the ice-cold, rare and incredibly expensive twenty year old Leonis Private Label that in V-world was as commonplace as sand on a beach, tilted it to her lips, and allowed the chilled nectar to course down her throat. She had never been drunk before, and like so many before her, was in the process of discovering that sobriety was vastly overrated.

"Wait your turn," Olivia growled. Depending upon one's point of view, she was either on the bottom of the latest ménage-a-trois, or somewhere out in front. In reality, she was down on all fours, her right cheek pressing down hard against the cushions of the oversized chair. Pelea was awkwardly perched on her back, her legs wrapped tight around John's neck, and her hands reaching out blindly to steady herself against the heavily padded arms of the chair. For his part, John was busily engaged in double duty. He was servicing both of his sisters simultaneously, and like so many before him, had already begun to discover that after the first hour or so cunnilingus became really hard on the jaw.

Pelea was almost there. She was bouncing up and down on her sister's back, pressing her engorged clitoris against John's tongue. This was going to be her first orgasm, and she wanted it to be one for the ages. Her thighs had his head pinned firmly in place; she was a charging piston, and the juices that lubricated her brother's tongue were the only thing required to keep her motor running.

When the garden flowers, baby, are dead …

Reun loved this song! She took another drag on the smoldering weed, pulling the pungent smoke with its wonderfully hallucinogenic trace chemical deep into her lungs. She could feel the hallucinogen beginning to enter her blood stream, working its way through her body, and heightening all of her senses. The song that had tantalized her for so long, the lyric stealing across the horizon from some unexplored corner of this mysterious dimension, the relentless pulse of it beckoning to her oh, so softly on the gentle winds of Galatea Bay, was now blowing full into her face at gale strength. And yet, it wasn't loud enough! She staggered over to the entertainment system, and turned up the volume another twenty decibels. . . .

YES, AND YOUR MIND, YOUR MIND IS SO FULL OF RED …

"The colors," she screamed over the top of the music, "the walls are bleeding … with the colors!" With majestic calm, she watched as the blood that had been pooling on the floor began to work its way up the walls.

She took another drag on the weed.

A fountain suddenly began to grow out of the wall, drenching the room in a kaleidoscope of purples and pinks, yellows and greens.

YOUR EYES, I SAY YOUR EYES MAY LOOK LIKE HIS, YEAH BUT IN YOUR HEAD, BABY, I'M AFRAID YOU DON'T KNOW WHERE IT IS. . . .

"I love this song! It's so me!"

. . .

Natalie gingerly removed her hand from the stream, and with great reluctance, looked around at the other Cylons in the control room. She had a sinking feeling that she already knew what was going to come next.

"Should I be concerned that our hybrid is, as the humans are wont to say, 'higher than a kite'? As I recall, the purpose of this exercise is to draw the Ones' attention, not allow them to destroy us without a fight."

"Do not concern yourself, sister," Leoben smugly replied. "Hallucination is a hybrid's natural state of being. If you would explore the darker recesses of the stream, swim in the twilight zone that lies between reason and insanity, you would know this to be true."

"The drug has allowed Reun to become one with God," D'Anna added. She pitied the Six for her narrow-minded understanding of reality.

"But Two always says that to know the face of God is to know madness," Natalie protested. "Do we want this ship to be under the control of a creature that has gone mad?"

"Chaos is the natural order of things, the very core of God's plan for us all. This is something that your model has never comprehended." D'Anna sighed—the sigh of one who has had patiently to endure the stupidity of others for far too long. "Six, have you learned nothing from your interaction with the humans?"

"The Old One's senses are keener now than they have ever been before." Leoben's fingers played delicately across the surface of the stream; the barest touch now sufficed. "The slightest disturbance, the merest ripple, will draw her attention."

"Her attention, yes," Natalie agreed. "But will she react in time to save this ship when it is under attack?" Exasperation was clearly beginning to get the better of her.

"It is a matter of no particular consequence," D'Anna loftily observed. "My son will save us all, and your daughter will lead us home."

. . .

"I feel like this ship is flying around in circles," Kara groused. She was in her rack, cradled within Athena's arms—her favorite place in the entire universe. "In fact, I'm sure of it: this ship is flying around in circles."

"What's the matter, baby?" Athena kissed her charge lightly on the forehead, which is not exactly where she had been kissing the Second Born ten minutes earlier, but when dealing with the many moods of Kara Thrace Six, the Eight had to be fast on her feet. Kara had had her fill of sex; now, Athena judged, she needed her mother. The Cylon didn't mind Kara's whining—it was good training for the day when the Eight might have to contend with a three year old of her own.

"There isn't enough frakkin' water in this entire galaxy to fill an ice cube tray," Kara complained. "How are we supposed to get an entire fleet of humans and Cylons all the way to Earth?"

"I know, baby, but we did find water in that one system, remember? It's not as bad as you think."

"A planetoid about the size of a beach ball," Kara snorted, "and sitting so close to the hard deck for that damned gas giant that no one had better fall asleep at the switch."

"All true, Kara, but look on the bright side. Those are both good reasons why the Cavils will never find it. That's not a bad trade-off."

"Damn it, I can't afford to look on the bright side! I'm the frakking Guide, remember? I'm God's only begotten daughter or some such crap. Everybody expects me to know where we're going, and the truth is that I haven't got a frakkin' clue!"

"It's all right, baby; really, everything's going to be all right." Athena's voice was calming, and she ran her hand gently up and down Kara's spine. "We are following in the footsteps of our forebears, but there will come a time when we will have to break away and follow a new path. You will know, Kara, because God will send you a sign. It will be unmistakable, and it will erase all your doubts. And then you will lead us to our new home, and we will start over. The cycles will end, and there will at last be peace between man and machine."

. . .

Six ripped her hand away from the stream, and a triumphant look stole across her features.

"The hybrid's found them! We know exactly where they are!"