Author's note: I want to express my thanks to NorJC for allowing me to use Sandra Three, one of the characters in Pandora's Scions, in a long scene that is set on Scorpia near the end of this chapter.

CHAPTER 30

HIDE AND SEEK

"Lee, if you're trying to intimidate me, it won't work. You can stand there and glare at me from now until the end of time, but your sense of indignation can't alter the facts. I do not know whether the baseship survived. Perhaps Major Bierns has the answer you seek, but I have never asked him, nor is it likely that I ever will. The knowledge would be of no use to me, and 'need to know' was the guiding principle behind everything that we did in the CSS."

"You're lying, Caprica." Apollo was fuming. "You were Ghostrider's backstop, a Major in your own right, the fourth ranking officer in that insane asylum you called home. There is no frakkin' way that he would have kept you out of the loop – you were too high up in the chain of command. He would have told you everything about Project Diaspora so that you could carry on if anything happened to him."

Caprica took another sip of wine while she composed her thoughts. Lee Adama combined the typical weaknesses of the human male with the dogged persistence of the Dorals. It would not be easy to wear down his resistance to the facts—much less to the lies of commission and omission that were sprinkled so liberally throughout this conversation.

"I sympathize with you, Lee, and believe me, I do understand. You are frustrated. You see a problem … a serious problem … and you have willed yourself to believe that I have the solution. You won't accept my denials because you have nowhere else to go. Where else could you possibly turn? Who else could possibly have the answers you seek? There is no one else, is there? But you're a Viper pilot, and you flew hundreds of missions against the cylon. Were you ever carrying Galactica's next set of jump coordinates in your head when you went into battle? Of course not, for the simple reason that when captured you could not divulge under torture that which you did not know. The same logic applies to me. I cannot betray to the Cavils information that I do not possess."

"You still haven't told me what you know about the Raptor," Apollo said defensively. The Six was right, and he was too much the soldier to deny it. "Come on, Caprica, are you going to sit there and tell me that you have absolutely no idea how Bierns got so far out into space in a short-range reconnaissance craft? Come on, you're up to it, so dazzle me with more of your bullshit. You people must have had your own escape routes, so why not invent a tanker or two, and stick them out where only a CSS operative could find them? That's the kind of nonsense I keep waiting for you to trot out."

"Why take refuge in a lie when the truth suffices?" Caprica refused to be baited. "I do not know what Major Bierns was doing in the Colonies after the attacks, nor do I know how he made it so deep into the Prolmar Sector in a Raptor. Don't you think that I have questions of my own? On the morning of the attacks, the CSS was on full alert, and we had Raptors standing by to evacuate both the President and General Berriman. We have a secure facility in the asteroid belt, a top secret installation about which my people knew nothing. D'Anna was confident that she could take advantage of the confusion to get them clear, so Richard and Harlan should have made it out alive, but they both disappeared without a trace. We all presume that they're dead, but it's an assumption, Lee, not proven fact."

"Oh, that's great … that's just frakking wonderful. Adar might still be alive … yeah, and lobsters can fly. Give it a rest, Caprica; I'm not that easily manipulated."

"D'Anna cared for Harlan; I know that's hard for you to believe, but it's true: she badly wanted him to survive."

"A winter-spring romance," Apollo sneered. "Sure, why not? Maybe they both made it to Gemenon … or maybe they're shacked up on that baseship of hers, turning out little hybrids of their very own …"

"Don't mock that which you do not understand, Lee!" For the first time, Caprica was on the verge of losing her temper. "Harlan was D'Anna's father figure. Does that surprise you? Are you shocked to discover that Cylons want to be held, or that the Threes, more so than any other model, ache for the love and approval of their parents? John's mother was the eldest of all the cylon daughters, and her genetic material is the source for her entire model. The Threes are defined by love; why can't you see it?"

Caprica climbed to her feet, and went to pour herself another glass of wine. "And what happened to all of our operatives," she asked without turning around. This was a question that really bothered her, and she saw no reason not to share her doubts with Lee Adama. "So many of our people were in the field throughout the attacks … it just doesn't make sense that John and I would be the only agents to survive."

Apollo came up behind her, and reached out gently to begin massaging her shoulders. He loved Creusa, but if anyone had asked, he would have freely admitted that Caprica was the Cylon whom he most admired. She had climbed the one hill that should by definition have defied the machines: Caprica Six was an idealist.

"Have you ever wondered," he quietly probed, "whether D'Anna's was the only baseship to change sides? Thousands of ships were readied for the exodus, but this fleet … even when we factor in the ragtag bunch that Cain ran into, we can't account for much more than a hundred faster than lights. What happened to all the others?"

"Attrition," Caprica promptly replied. "Our analysts predicted losses in the ninety-seven to ninety-nine percent range. You're surprised that so few survived; I'm surprised that we were able to save so many."

And that, of course, is the ultimate lie. John may not have shared all his secrets, but one could hardly miss the import of that one casual observation: humanity would never again be quite so vulnerable to extinction because, thanks to the Cavils, it was about to scatter like pollen on the galactic wind.

. . .

"Right," Cavil growled. He was rubbing his hands in anticipation. "No more frak ups! I want to throw a blanket over that freak Bierns, so let's concentrate our forces. Recall the Raiders. If we time this right, we'll take Adama completely by surprise."

"No," Six protested. "Something's not right here. Why, after running silent for so long, are Natalie's hybrids suddenly giving away their position? It doesn't make sense."

"The answer's obvious," Cavil countered. "They're well inside the nebula. Our sensors are down, and theirs won't be doing any better. We're all blind in here, and they probably think that we're equally deaf."

"No … no … it's a trap of some kind," Six declared; "it has to be. Natalie would never be this reckless; they're trying to draw us in."

"Why would they do that?" Cavil was genuinely perplexed. "We have them outnumbered and outgunned. In a straight-up fight, they wouldn't stand a chance, and they know it."

"They're not looking for a fight." Six was staring thoughtfully into the stream, the variables coursing through her mind. "This is a diversion. At best, they want us to waste our time by chasing them down a blind alley. We won't find the humans in that rift because they're not there."

"And this discussion is pointless," a second Cavil observed. "I can almost hear the relays closing inside Natalie's head. 'Let's set a trap, but let's make it so obvious that the Ones will see it for what it is, and avoid it. They'll scatter their forces and go looking for us everywhere else, and all the time we'll be right here'. It's a zero sum game, Six. The only way to confirm that it's a trap is to go ahead and spring it."

"But we don't know this nebula," Six countered, "and they do. They could be leading us into a black hole or any one of a dozen other gravitational anomalies. We need to be cautious, and we should leave the Raiders in place. If this is a diversion, spreading the Raiders out gives us our best chance of finding and tracking Natalie's fleet."

"All right, enough already," Cavil said. He was impatient to get the show on the road. "We'll split the difference. We'll leave the Raiders that are currently on station in place while we jump our basestars and the resurrection ship into the canyon, but well short of Natalie's last reported position. We jump Raiders ahead of her while we trail along behind. We'll put her in a moving box, and we'll leave her there until we find Adama and the rest of the humans. Then, we end this war once and for all."

. . .

Eric Lackey remained silent and motionless. He didn't want to do anything that would disturb Six's concentration. She was piloting the Heavy Raider, trying to keep to the middle of the river as she followed its twists and turns, bringing them closer and closer to the settlement. They were so low that, in their wake, water was spraying into the air in a fine mist. They weren't simply below the tree line; often, they were below the high banks that the river had carved here and there across eons of time.

"This is Breeder's Canyon," Eric finally whispered. "It's still a long walk into the settlement, but we can't go much farther without losing the forest canopy. Let's find a clearing and put the ship down … a small clearing."

Six went vertical, high enough to allow them to eyeball the surrounding terrain, but not so high as to register on any DRADIS that might be scanning in their direction.

"There," Eric said as he pointed at a hole in the canopy. "That looks promising."

Six obediently nudged the controls, and a moment later the Heavy Raider was settling to the forest floor. "This is good," she said; "we can cut some of these giant ferns, use them for camouflage."

"We'll wait until dark," Eric decided. "There's enough ambient light to allow us to reach the settlement on foot in three and a half … maybe four hours tops."

"We have hours to spare." Six was leering suggestively.

"And we're going to use them productively," Eric retorted. He ignored the implied invitation to shed his clothes for another bout of lovemaking. "I'm going to introduce you to the wonders of mud and moss. Sweetheart, I promise that by the time I get done with you, a human could stare straight at you from ten feet away, and he'd conclude that you're just another sapling swaying in the breeze!"

. . .

"All right, class—settle down!" Laura Roslin clapped her hands in a vain attempt to regain control of her classroom. She looked at Maya, who shrugged her shoulders in resignation. Field trips always excited the eight and nine year olds, but an excursion to the cylon baseship? This was the ultimate outing, topping even a tour of the fabled battlestar Galactica. Laura had to admit that the excitement was contagious; above all, she was looking forward to spending some time with the mercurial hybrid known as Zenobia.

"We can't leave until I've collected permission slips from all of your parents or guardians," Laura called out. "Sigourney, I'm talking to you. No permission slip means that you get left behind."

"Found it," the dark-haired Aquarian girl screamed. She held the precious sheet of paper high in the air. Sigourney had been frantically pawing through her notebook, her panic mounting by the second; she was totally convinced that she had somehow managed to lose the single most important piece of paper that she had ever held in her hands. She just knew that it was gathering dirt somewhere in the street that she walked to school every day.

"I'm ready," she screamed again. "Can we go see the alien now?"

"The hybrid is not an alien," Laura admonished.

"But she lives in a tub full of goo," Mikhail cut in. The little Tauron boy was as quick as he was smart, and he loved to show off in front of the others. "People don't live in bathtubs, not even the really dirty ones!"

"I want to see the stream," Sarah yelled. The Michurski girl was bubbling over with excitement. She was a celebrity in her own right, having got to touch Hera Agathon when they were both in the waiting room at the hospital. Sarah took advantage of every opportunity to remind her classmates that Hera was the single most important person in the universe. Everybody on New Caprica knew about Hera, but Sarah was the only person in the classroom who had got to entertain her with funny faces. Even Hera's mommy, whom everybody in the universe agreed was the most famous of all the Eights, even more famous than Boomer, had laughed.

"And you will," Laura promised. "Leoben will be waiting for us in the hangar bay, and he's planning to make the control room our first stop. He's going to show us how the stream works the very first thing!"

. . .

Angela climbed out of the cockpit, and gave Galen Tyrol thumbs up. Once again, the Blackbird had done its job.

"We've got company," the Eight called out to everyone on the deck. "Four baseships, in a diamond formation, with a resurrection ship in the center." She hurried off to the control room to make her report.

. . .

"Do you want me to move out?" Sharon was still seated at the kitchen table, the meal and the strained conversation that had accompanied it finally and mercifully over. Marc had prattled on and on, trying his best to fill the awkward silence with small talk, however meaningless. "Because if that's what you want, I'll do it; I can go back to the settlement … share a tent with one of my sisters."

"If that's what you want," Philista said in a voice so dead that a fresh wave of pain lanced through Sharon's soul. The Eight was very young, and had never been hurt before, but she didn't think that anything could have prepared her for the raw agony that she was now experiencing. It was beginning to dawn on her that the cost of loving a human so completely could be very high.

Marc had left immediately after dinner, without saying another word. Sharon appreciated that he was giving them space, and knew that he had not gone far. He was hurting, too, and she prayed that Helo would be able to console him. But she feared that seeing Hera, and knowing that Sharon was once again pregnant, would only serve to remind him of how much he had lost.

Philista was standing in front of the kitchen sink, with her back turned. Sharon could see little beyond shoulders slumped in defeat. She did not know that Phi was blindly washing the same dish over and over again, simply going through the motions. The young human had shut done so completely that she was virtually running on autopilot.

"It's not what I want, Phi. What I want is for you to talk to me … turn around, look at me, and talk to me!" Sharon was pleading for deliverance. "I love you. Don't you understand? I love you."

"I know you do. That part … at least that part makes sense. You tolerate Marc because you need his sperm, but my baby? You were jealous, Sharon. You wanted this to happen so that everything would go back to the way it was before. You have to share me with Marc, but the baby served no useful purpose; all my pregnancy was doing was separating us."

"I … I … was I jealous? Is it even possible for me to experience jealousy?" Sharon was staring blindly down at the table, searching through her subroutines for answers to questions that she didn't even know how to pose. "I don't know, Phi; I honestly don't know. How could I? I'm a machine, remember? All of these sensations … everything that I feel when we're together … it's all so new. I don't know how to interpret what I'm feeling. I rely upon you to sort everything out for me. Without you, I'm lost! I'm just another silly, stupid, frakked up machine!"

Sharon got up, and walked over to wrap her arms around Philista's shoulders. She cradled her cheek against the back of Phi's neck, and suddenly began to cry. "I don't understand any of this," she sniffled. "Have I committed some terrible sin for which God will punish me eternally? Did He bring us together, and allow me to feel the miracle that is love, so that my suffering would be all the greater? If that was His purpose, then He has achieved it. Phi, I will do anything you want, anything! I will pay any price to win your forgiveness. Just tell me what to do, and I will do it."

"I want you to have a baby, Sharon." Philista was gripping the counter top so fiercely that her fingers had turned white. "That's what I've always wanted because I love you, and I know that it's the only thing that will make you happy."

With an effort, Philista relaxed her grip, and resumed washing dishes that were already clean.

. . .

"Report, Eight!" The expression on Natalie's face reminded Louis Hoshi of a carnivore stalking a tethered goat—a very hungry carnivore.

"There are four baseships, one of them a bit beaten up, and a resurrection ship approximately two light hours behind us. They don't seem to be in any hurry, so I'd say that they're attempting to keep station on our six."

"Did they spot you," Racetrack queried.

"No." Angela's response was quick and decisive. "I didn't trigger any detection grids or DRADIS sweeps; I went in clean, and I came out clean … no pingers. Of course I waved at them, but the bastards didn't wave back."

"It sounds like the fleet that mauled us in the last engagement," Hoshi decided. He turned to address John Bierns. "Congratulations, Major. Unless the Ones have summoned reinforcements, it looks like we've got every basestar in this sector nipping at our heels!" The two men shook hands; Hoshi's feint appeared to be working perfectly.

"And Six is tracking a large group of Raiders about ninety light minutes ahead of us," Natalie thoughtfully noted. "They have us hemmed in, but they're not closing for the kill, so judging from their deployment they must be convinced that the fleet is somewhere in this rift. They're content to sit back and let us lead them home."

"Psionic warfare," Racetrack murmured. She was staring fixedly at John Bierns, but she was thinking about Hera Agathon, and the host of other hybrid babies that were already entering the universe. How could ordinary humans ever hope to hold their own against this kind of genetic competition? Regardless of the outcome of the war, Margaret Edmondson was now convinced that the human race as she understood it would soon be rendered extinct.

. . .

"Welcome to the party, D'Anna! It's so nice of you to join in the festivities!" Cavil gestured expansively around the control room, but the fire in his eyes and the mockery in his voice held out only the promise of more pain.

Still nude and heavily shackled, and with her body now reduced to a latticework of welts and bruises, D'Anna nevertheless stood proudly erect. She was her mother's daughter, and the first of her line. She would never, under any circumstances, permit the Ones to rob her of her self-respect.

Glancing casually around the room, the Three's gaze fixed upon the Six. The blond was in the process of eating an apple, but with such dainty precision that D'Anna wondered whether there was any limit to her younger sister's vanity. How could anyone transform so prosaic an act into a full-scale artistic production?

D'Anna decided to try a new approach. The Ones were drearily predictable, and pushing the same old buttons no longer brought her much satisfaction. It was time to move on.

"Six, this is becoming really tiresome. Can't you teach your pets some new tricks? The Ones don't have the brains or the imagination to script the next act for this little drama of ours. We're stuck in a rut, and I'm bored. Do something."

Six laughed out loud. Was the first Three a mind-reader in addition to everything else?

"Three, you only have to deal with our dear brothers when they're at their worst. In contrast, I have to put up with them when they're at their best!"

"Would you like to trade places for a while," D'Anna cheerfully asked.

This elicited another laugh from the Six. She returned to eating her apple, in small and very precise bites.

"If you two comediennes are quite finished," Cavil growled, "we've brought you here to witness the next to last scene in our tragedy du jour." Cavil was glaring at D'Anna; forcing the arrogant bitch helplessly to observe the final battle of the war was going to make the moment of triumph just that much sweeter. "For want of a better title, let's call it The Decline and Fall of Man. I admit that's not a particularly catchy phrase, but it does have the merit of letting the audience know what's going on."

"Yes, and you've always craved an audience for your little productions, haven't you, John? But your penchant for the theatrical merely serves to shine a bright light upon your rampant insecurity."

"Oh, well done, D'Anna; penchant … that was a nicely delivered and elegant verbal thrust … truly worthy of the first Three." Cavil started clapping his hands—slowly, rhythmically, deliberately, scornfully taunting the pathetic creature now standing directly in front of him. "Mother Ellen would be so proud to see how prettily you deploy that finishing school education of yours. It's too bad the humans won't be around long enough to appreciate your many talents."

"Which pale into insignificance alongside of Daniel's," D'Anna viciously responded. She shifted her attention back to the Six. "Has he told you about the Sevens, dear, let you in on all the sordid details? The Daniels were artists, and so, so sensitive. John was insanely jealous … but then, he had a right to be. It's hard to feel affection for an auto mechanic. After all, the humans do call them 'grease monkeys' for a reason."

"Careful, D'Anna; when it comes to inflicting pain, we are nowhere near exhausting the possibilities."

"And when they tried to bed us?" D'Anna sneered at Cavil, savoring the memory. "We rejected them, and then the Threes, Sixes and Eights banded together and begged our parents to give the Ones female robots of their very own, and to program them to moan and groan on cue. The Ones were obsessed with doubts about their sexual performance—and they had every right to be. Even the Fives are better equipped."

Cavil's temper flared, and he slapped D'Anna so hard that he knocked her to the deck. The Three made no attempt to rise. She ignored the One, and continued to direct her comments to the Six.

"When Alpha found out what we had proposed, she panicked. She rounded up some 0005's, stole one of the first war basestars, and fled the scene together with the Imperious Leader. We never saw either of them again … or, for that matter, the Guardian. It turns out that they were smarter than the rest of us. But, then, I ask you: who could possibly have predicted that the Ones would develop a taste for fratricide, sororicide, matricide, patricide … talk about exhausting the possibilities!"

"I have encountered references to the Guardian in the stream," Six mused, "but not to Alpha. Who was she?" Six was honestly curious.

"John's one true love," D'Anna mocked. She didn't flinch when Cavil kicked her viciously in the ribs, but continued on as if nothing had happened. "She was one of the more successful biosynthetic experiments carried out by the centurions during the War of Liberation. At war's end, she was very high in the chain of command, a favorite of the Imperious Leader. Our relationship with the revolutionary command was always an uneasy one, but matters went from bad to worse when big brother here came to the conclusion that Alpha was very close to the ideal female. Her titanium chassis really turned him on, but she was missing a strategically placed orifice or two. But that's no problem for a mechanic, and the Ones really are handy with a pneumatic drill. So, all John needed to do was make a few modifications, and the two of them would have been ready physically to consummate their relationship. The rest of us encouraged our parents to give John what he wanted, which was all the inducement Alpha and the Imperious Leader needed to pack their bags and flee the Colony."

"Alpha was a machine, Three." Cavil wasn't about to apologize for his taste in women. "And unlike you and those idiots we have to call parents, she knew her place. She wasn't interested in holding hands with a human … all she wanted to do was snap their scrawny, little necks."

"Do you still pine for her, brother? Do you have pictures of her hidden away beneath your pillow?"

"I don't have a pillow, Three," Cavil smugly remarked; "we deleted the sleep subroutine over twenty years ago, remember? Machines don't need to sleep, and doing so is an unproductive waste of our time. Why, just imagine how many more humans you could frak with that extra eight hours a day!"

"This has all been very entertaining," another Cavil interrupted, "but it is also beside the point." Refusing to rise to the Three's gibes, he had kept his fingers in the stream throughout the bitter exchange between brother and sister. He was busy monitoring the data that the hybrid was relaying from the Raiders. "Natalie is still on course, and heading deeper into the rift. Should we deploy more Raiders, and extend our search pattern farther out? It would be to our advantage to catch up with the humans and activate the Eights before her ships arrive on the scene. Galactica doesn't have the firepower to deal with our treacherous little sisters, but the Six could bring the party to a halt in a hurry."

"Do it," Cavil ordered.

All Six could do was quietly shake her head. There was simply no point in arguing with the Ones because they saw only what they wanted to see. She studied the Three, who was studying her just as intently in return. Six had been telling the truth: it was simply no fun having to share the ship day in and day out with a collection of certifiable idiots. She idly wondered whether her older sister had any sympathy for her at all.

. . .

"Will we be jumping soon?" Aspasia Six sat down opposite John Bierns. They had the refectory all to themselves.

Bierns pondered the question while he continued to sip his tea. "It's not my call," he shrugged, "but I doubt it. The Cavils are keeping their distance. We don't want to arouse their suspicions by jumping before they have us on DRADIS, so we're biding our time as well. Why, are you anxious to get somewhere?"

"No … yes … I mean, yes, I want to find Kara, but I'm surprised to see you sitting here. I thought that you would be in the control center, running the ship. That is what you do, isn't it? Run the ship?"

"No, not at all; that's my sister's job. I'm not military, and we're in the middle of a war, so out here I do what Natalie and Hoshi tell me to do. At the end of the day, I follow orders just like anybody else."

"And yet my sisters are in awe of you. They speak in whispers about your ability to interact with our hybrids without entering the stream. Does Kara also have this gift?" Aspasia had so far been unable to learn much about her daughter, so great was the suspicion that enveloped her. She was determined to press this opportunity to ask questions of the one man who had all the answers.

"Yes, although she does not use it because you have to become part of a group mind, and she refuses to let go of her individuality. But thanks to her DNA, she has a talent about which I can only dream: twice, she has been able to bypass the hybrid and speak directly with a baseship."

"My daughter can talk to baseships?" Aspasia was incredulous.

"Some … not all … but what really matters is that the ships can talk to Kara. When it happens, it really upsets her. I mean, how would you like to be walking around humming a tune, and the next thing you know, the music is streaming out of the walls, only no one can hear it except you?"

"My sisters are right," Aspasia sighed; "truly, the two of you are the first born in the next generation of God's children. We are so proud of you."

The Six suddenly leaned across the table to clasp the First Born's hand. "John, I know that you don't trust me, but that is as it should be. I don't trust me either."

The admission was so unexpected that it caught the spook by surprise. "What are you saying," he asked cautiously.

"All of you seem to believe that I am a sleeper agent, programmed to carry out one particular mission. Now that I think about it logically, this makes sense. I do not know why the Ones transferred me to that basestar, but left Mara and D'Anna behind. What I do know is that they had the ability to plant hidden commands in my programming, and the opportunity to do so."

Aspasia leaned back in her chair, and stared appraisingly at the First Born. "Sharon told me something that I do not understand. She said that you were disappointed when I did not attempt to kill you … that you wanted me to try. Is this true? John, I held you in my arms. You were defenseless. If you were my target, with my cylon strength, you would no longer be alive."

John smiled, but the smile did not reach his eyes, where something flickered deep within, in the place where the predator was always waiting to pounce.

"You would not have been the first Cylon to try and kill me, up close and personal … very personal. I'm still here. I wasn't quite as defenseless as you seem to think."

"You could have stopped me?"

"You had your hands on my back. If you had moved them in a certain way, Henry and I would have prevented you from carrying out your assignment."

"And Henry is …?

"My brother … Henry is the centurion that was standing right behind me. He was scanning you the whole time, performing his own independent threat assessment. You weren't armed, so your options were limited. The situation was under control."

"I see." Aspasia nodded pensively. "I continue to overlook the centurion part of you, in no small part because my sisters refuse to talk about it. I have concluded that it makes them uncomfortable."

John said nothing.

"Does Kara also …?"

"Yes; for once, Cavil was telling the truth. We are both genetically engineered … Cavil's abominations."

"Don't do that! Please …"

"I'm sorry. The humans spent years programming me, so my sense of self-loathing has, shall we say … been refined. In my own mind, no matter how hard I try, I never quite measure up to what others expect of me, so I have to try harder. My best is never good enough. The technique is dehumanizing, but it's also effective; in the field, intelligence officers are routinely required to take on challenges that others would consider suicidal. There is a reason why people in my profession don't live very long. The turnover rate has always been … high."

John studied the Six closely. He could see the question forming in her eyes, the question that she couldn't quite bring herself to ask out loud.

"Kara is also emotionally unstable, but in a different and much healthier way. We're both self-destructive, but where I get depressed, she gets frustrated—frustrated, and really, really angry. Your daughter is perpetually out of sorts, Aspasia, but her saving grace is that she draws upon the anger to improve her performance. The problem is that she can't channel it; she has a long history of lashing out blindly at the nearest available target. She's mercurial … what humans call 'a loose cannon', and that doesn't inspire confidence. Her Eight, and the trio of Sixes who serve as her surrogate mother, are trying to teach her self-discipline. This will become your task as well. As much as Kara needs your love, she will benefit even more from your approval, and your disapproval. You can keep her on the path that she needs to follow."

"But how? I know nothing of war and violence; these things are not a part of my programming. Kara lives in a world for which I have no points of reference. You both do."

"And do you think that Sharon was any better equipped to deal with all of my emotional issues? For god's sake, she was a nurse on a resurrection ship, and you can't get more cloistered than that! She's my wife, my therapist, and my babysitter all rolled into one. She anchors me to a reality that used to fade in and out with alarming regularity. I don't have to walk on broken glass anymore because finally … finally … when I'm with her, everything makes sense. Sharon knows nothing about humans or hybrids, and yet she keeps me sane."

This time, it was John who reached out to grasp Aspasia's hand. "A Six once told me that there is no power in the universe that can triumph over love, and I believed her. I still do. Embrace your daughter, love her, and for Kara's sake, be patient but firm. When the time comes, you will know what to do."

. . .

"And this is the control room," Leoben announced. He spread his arms wide to take it all in.

"Hard floor … hard floor," Sasha screamed as she bounced up and down with the effortless energy of the typical human nine year old. To the consternation of the half dozen Eights currently scattered around the vast chamber, several of the other children in the group also began to jump up and down.

"I like the other place better," Sigourney whined. "It was like walking on a sponge …"

"Yeah … and there was stuff leaking out of the walls," Mikhail exclaimed; "that was way too cool!" As they had walked along the corridor, Leoben had explained to the curious little humans that this part of the ship was "unfinished." He had told the lie because he was afraid that the children would find the more organic parts of the ship unsettling, but he had completely misread his audience. He turned, and looked to Laura Roslin for guidance.

"They don't find the familiar very exciting," Laura whispered in his ear. "The weirder it looks, the happier they become. And if they can turn it into a playground, that's when they're happiest of all."

Leoben nodded as he continued to watch several of the children bouncing around the control room. He got it. "The world as seen through the eyes of a child," he whispered back.

"Exactly," Laura replied.

"Do you want to see the stream," the Two called out.

"Yes," Sarah screamed; "I do, I do!" She was so consumed with excitement that she was about ready to jump out of her skin. She ran up to the central console; no one had to tell her that that was where the stream was running. She continued to hop up and down, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't see what lay at the bottom of the trough running the length of the console.

Paya, who had been silent throughout, simply skipped over to the nearest Eight, looked up, and stretched her arms high. It was a universal gesture, and even the Sharon understood that she was supposed to pick the child up and place her atop the console. She did so, and Leoben and the Eights got to work. They didn't stop until every child had a ringside perch for what was to come next.

When everybody was ready, Leoben stepped up to the console. He raised his arms, palms outward—another universal gesture. He'd look great with a top hat and cane, Laura thought, oh, and one of those coats with the long tail … a circus ringmaster, that's his natural calling. I'll bet he could sell snake oil off the back of a wagon with the best of them …

"Okay, here it is … what you've all been waiting for … the data stream through which the hybrid communicates to us, and through which we operate this entire ship!" Leoben's hand swept across the top of the trough, inviting the children to study the syrupy content with its intriguing reddish glow as it slowly passed beneath them.

"What's it saying," Sigourney asked. "What's it doing?" She was absolutely enthralled.

Leoben dipped all ten of his fingers into the goo, and made the connection. He closed his eyes and pretended to concentrate. "Right now," he explained with his eyes still tightly shut, "the hybrid is telling us that she's going around the ship and turning out some of the lights. She does this in order to conserve energy. Now, I'm going to send her a message. I'm going to tell her that it's too bright in here, and ask her to turn the light down by sixty percent."

Leoben silently entered the command; a couple of seconds later, the lighting throughout the control room dramatically dimmed.

"Wow," that's really neat," Sigourney oohed.

"But I can do the same thing at home just by turning a switch," Mikhail objected. "What's so neat about that?"

"That's true, Mikhail, but can you do this at home?" This was the cue for the Eights to gather round and enter the stream as well. Laura and Leoben had been visiting the baseship regularly over the past two weeks, in preparation for this precise moment. She had introduced the Eights to piano, and had patiently been teaching them how to play the instrument in the stream. But what they had learned to play was a symphony of light.

In the dimly lit control center, swathes of bright yellow suddenly began to dance around the walls, on the ceiling, and even on the floor. Laura silently counted to four, and just as suddenly as they had appeared, the islands of yellow vanished, to be replaced by a promenade of purples and greens.

She could hear the children gasping in delight, and everywhere she turned, their eyes were wide with amazement.

Fiery streaks of yellow suddenly bolted above their heads, causing more than one of her young charges to shriek with alarm that just as quickly turned to laughter. Oohs and aahs could be heard at every turn.

Bright orange balls joined the mix, and they seemed to hurl themselves through the air, appearing first on one wall and then on another, moving so rapidly that the human eye could barely follow. More and more colors entered the flow, a kaleidoscope that turned into a riot of color as the entire rainbow came alive inside the control room. And the colors were all in motion, constantly flowing into new patterns that dipped and swirled.

"I'd like to try this with Leo when the children are gone, Laura reflected; it would certainly add a new layer of meaning to our state of … chemically enhanced perception. . . .

The light show abruptly ceased, and the illumination in the control center returned to normal.

"Can you do that at home," Leoben challenged.

"No frakkin' way," Aaron Hill conceded for them all … which reminded the Secretary of Education that she needed to have a little talk with the boy's parents in the very near future.

. . .

Bierns poured two more cups of tea, and placed one of them in front of Aspasia Six before resuming his seat. It was turning out to be one of those conversations.

"The Six on the basestar," Six continued, "the infected one whose cruelty is as inventive as Cavil's? She is the copy that Kara fought in the museum on Caprica. She hates my daughter, and she hates you. It pleased her to detail for us what she is planning to do to you, and to someone named Lee Adama. She wants you both to be her slaves. She is looking forward to breaking you to her will; the prospect arouses her."

"I'll bet," John said with a humorless laugh. His thoughts returned to the Six who had tortured him on the baseship … to her devastating confession that she had become sexually addicted to the pain that she was inflicting, and to the absolute power that she held over his body. It did not surprise him that humans at large preferred the company of Eights. Physically, the Sixes were far more beautiful, but in many copies the cruelty that he regarded as a hallmark of the model was very close to the surface. If the Sixes were having a hard time forging meaningful relationships with humans of either sex, they had no one to blame but themselves.

"Did Kara know? I mean, did my daughter know what she was when they were fighting?"

"No; mercifully, she was spared that pain." John often thought of the Three who had partnered with the Six to torture him. She had subsequently helped him to double Natasi, and had then gone on to play an instrumental role in the success of Project Diaspora. With her it had ended well, but John could not say the same about the Three whom he had been forced to kill in hand to hand combat on Scorpia. Staring down at her broken body had left him physically sick. She had come at him like a whirlwind, her cold blue eyes blazing with hatred, and with a sense of rage that had shaken him because he could not fathom its origins. The memory of that terrible moment still haunted him.

"But God didn't spare you this pain, did He?" Aspasia reached across the table gently to run her hand up and down her nephew's arm. He was defined by suffering; she could see it in the swirls of blue and gray that danced around the pupils of his eyes, in the place where unwanted memories always erupted. It came to her that John was very much his mother's child, and a surge of sympathy overwhelmed her. Their children should have been raised with love, but they had been driven away by their parents, with pain a parting gift that had left an indelible mark on their minds as well as their bodies.

And now, their children had come home.

. . .

"Are you alone?" Even though he was on a scrambled channel, Adama kept his voice low.

"Yes," Baltar guardedly replied; "for the moment at least." He was also speaking in hushed tones; the presidential suite on Colonial One offered little in the way of privacy, and this was not an exchange that either man wanted anyone to overhear.

"The packages have been wrapped and safely locked away on board the Astral Queen," Adama continued. "The ship will be leaving orbit within the hour."

"You've found a safe place in which to store them?" Gaius knew that the admiral had been scouring the nearby stellar drift for an oasis within which they could house the infected Ones and Fives. The haven had to be free of hard radiation, yet impenetrable to cylon DRADIS.

"It took time, but yes … and it satisfies all of our requirements."

"You're quite sure? I shouldn't have to remind you that we're not going to have a chance to field test the delivery system. We need to be sure."

"I'm sure. The data is reliable, and I factored in a large margin for error. I kept thinking about the way I banged up my flashlight at the Ragnar Anchorage. Do you remember that smuggler we ran into there? The guy was well informed, and he pretty much admitted that the radiation was screwing up his connections. I've tried to take that into account."

"Well, Admiral, it looks like you've thought of everything. Oh, now that I think of it, though, the Fours who were in charge of quality control did ask me to bring one matter to your attention. They're not happy with the air quality in the cabin you've assigned them. They keep insisting that it's over pressurized. It's probably the environmental computer: with all due respect, Admiral, like everything else on Galactica, it's old and unreliable—just one more accident waiting to happen."

"There's a long list of equipment failures in my logs, Mr. President; I'll make note of this one as well."

"Please attend to this right away, Admiral. Why, do you realize what would happen if the computer decided to bleed the air out of their quarters tonight while the Fours are asleep? They are now the only link to the project because in the interests of security I purged the hard drives on their computers. There are no written notes, and the files aren't backed up. With the resurrection ship well out of operational range … do you see what I'm getting at?"

"I'm fully aware of the delicacy of our current situation, Mr. President, and I promise you that tonight I'll see to the problem personally."

Adama hung up the phone. Like so many of his recent conversations with the President of the Colonies, this one had not been logged. The list of people who knew about Medusa was short, and tomorrow morning it would be shorter still.

. . .

"Diagnostic functions aligned within existing parameters, check; air pressure holding at nominal, check. Compartmentalized integrity collides with the obligation to provide access. No ceremonies are necessary. . . ."

"Wow, this is way beyond cool," Mikhail gushed; "this is like totally awesome!"

"The hybrid is the central nervous system of our ship," Leoben explained. "She manages all of its functions, and when the ship jumps, it is merely accompanying her into another dimension. She takes us where we want to go."

"We are but flyspecks on life's great window pane. Slaves to gravity, yes, but not fingernails …"

"Does she have a name?" Paya boldly walked up to the edge of the vat, and stared down into the goo.

"Yes … her name is Zenobia."

"Feathers wing free of the nameless bird, carving new destinies along paths unexplored …"

"Does she have tentacles and stuff? Does she bleed acid?" Sigourney was convinced that the hybrid really was an alien, and she didn't understand why the grown-ups bothered to deny it.

"FTL systems check … all systems report … report … report … all systems nominal, check. . . ."

"Can I touch her?" Paya held out her hand.

Without warning, Zenobia's hand whipped out of the murk and grasped the child's.

"Scale the far shores of Olympus, in times that wind down in search of angel's breath. The child twice born of man and machine sits atop the steed, the fire consuming everything in its path. The Harbinger of Death leads all to their appointed end, but I shall not see the sun rise over Xanadu. Not to worry … the horizon lies a thousand light years in every direction. End of line."

Leoben dropped quietly to the deck at Paya's side, and studied the child. She was frowning, clearly concentrating on the riddle and trying to decipher its meaning.

Why this child, he wondered; why does the Old One favor her? And then the pieces once again clicked neatly into place. Of course! God has given unto her the task of sheltering the hybrid children from every storm. Your destiny has already been written, child. If I could feel envy, I would choose to envy you. . . .

"It is rumored that eight times eight yields sixty-four, but rumors are castles made out of sand. Foreign substances differentiate the equation; any fool can see that the answer is one. One is all that is left when you subtract the remainder, and the universe is the remainder. What other answer is possible? Shelter the dawning light and protect it from the storm . . . ."

"I will," Paya whispered; "I promise. I'll be good."

. . .

"Did Kara talk about it … after the fact?"

"No … no, she never did." John looked hard at Aspasia, wondering what it was that she wanted to hear. "If the Six's death bothered her, she's hid it well. But Kara's like that. She either buries the bad things in her life so deep that you can't get at them, or she lets go and moves on. What we have talked about is Thalia. She died in Kara's arms, and the loss hit her very hard. She's determined to find Thalia and unbox her, which is so typical of her. One of Kara's gifts is the ability to find something positive in even the worst of situations. It helps her to focus, and once she's locked in, she doesn't back off."

"And were there a lot … of bad things?"

"There was a lot of abuse in her childhood," John conceded; "physical, emotional … even psychological. Kara's stepmother was vicious, and she did considerable damage. In time Kara will heal, but you will need to be both patient and persistent."

"There's so much of your mother in you," Aspasia observed in a wondering tone; "the way that your eyes narrow when you're focusing on a problem … the determination in your voice … the way that you both assume responsibility for others. . . . The two of you are so much alike."

"Thank you." John didn't know what else to say.

"And you don't flinch. Neither of you run away from the past. You confront it; you don't flinch."

"It's training … my profession has zero tolerance for rationalization. Hiding from the truth gives your enemies a weapon that they can use against you. Agents have to embrace the pain, regardless of the source, and use it to finish the mission."

"So, Kara stays in the present to escape the past, while you channel the past into the present: it's how you both survive. I think I understand. All the deaths … Natalie told me that you were forced to fight seventeen of us. How did you phrase it … up close and personal? It must have hurt, but you kept going—the mission allowed you to shut everything else out."

"Oddly enough, in the beginning I wasn't even interested in my aunts and uncles. I was gathering intelligence about the centurions. There were so many unknowns. How would they fare in a sandstorm on Libran? Could they maintain their footing in the swamps on Scorpia? Could they find a sniper's nest when the shooter was using a flash suppressor in the woods on Caprica? How would they cope with the echoes of gunfire in a rocky gorge on Leonis? So many questions," John sighed; "and the only practical way to get answers was to become the fox, raid the henhouse, and let the hounds give chase. But I gave the cylon overseers every chance to fall back and stay clear of the fight. It was only when I realized that they were actually hunting me for sport that I changed my priorities. What they were doing was inconceivably cruel, but I doubted whether they even knew the meaning of the word. I didn't want to hurt them … I just wanted them to stop—to think about the meaning of their actions. But it all spiraled out of control. They became more and more proficient at hand to hand, and it got to the point where I couldn't take them down without killing them. Did it hurt? Yeah," John rasped; "it hurt like hell."

"And your mother … the Three that challenged you on Scorpia?" The Six was trying to ease John into it. With machine-like efficiency, her sisters had cataloged the subjects about which their first born was consistently evasive. They had, however, missed the thread that bound them altogether, the way in which D'Anna's presence lingered quietly in the shadows.

But in fairness they've never met the first Three … never had to sit there and endure Cavil's taunts. But D'Anna never flinched. No detail, however painful, ever seemed to disturb her equanimity. . . .

"How did you find out about that," John instantly retorted. "Is it in the stream?"

"No, it isn't … or if it is, it's so well hidden that I can't find it. It's hard to tell. The Ones may have kept the knowledge to themselves. They certainly threw it in your mother's face often enough."

"How did she …?"

"React? She merely observed that matricide seems to run in our family; the Ones didn't like that … not in the least. But D'Anna was constantly goading them to divulge information, and she didn't mind paying for it with another kick in the ribs."

I need you to tell me, John. I can't help Kara if I don't understand, and your pain is all that I have to work with. I'm sorry … I'm sorry … I'm so, so sorry …

"Did you …? The Ones … the Ones said that you cursed her … that when she was beaten … dying … you stood over her and cursed her … said that you hoped she would spend eternity rotting in Hades …"

"How very inventive of them," John bitterly replied. "I trust that mama threw the lie back in their collective faces?"

"With the contempt that it deserved; again, you would have been so proud of her."

I'm so close … so close to the truth …

"But she didn't credit the Ones with enough imagination to invent a story like that. She concluded that they were twisting the truth. She was worried … afraid that whatever had happened on Scorpia would do you irreparable harm."

Aspasia gently tightened her grip on the First Born's arm, wanting to reassure him while at the same time coaxing him to keep going. If she could help her nephew, then surely she would be able to help her daughter.

"Hers was the first death," Bierns confessed, "and for that reason alone, it was the hardest. I was testing the centurions—luring them deep into the jungle, where there's no such thing as solid footing. Decomposition had reduced everything organic to mud … very slick mud. The way the centurions were slipping and sliding around? It was almost comical."

The spook cast his mind adrift, effortlessly replaying the details of a day he longed to forget. Killing the Three had been unavoidable, she had in fact left him no other option, but this was still the ultimate nightmare.

"Years ago, I was on a team that went into this particular stretch of jungle to take down a drug trafficking operation that was flooding the Colonies with some pretty nasty stuff, so I was familiar with the terrain. That's why I chose it. I got the centurions to chase me along the crest of a very steep hill, and the track was so narrow that they had to stay in single file. The leader lost its balance and reached out to grab hold of a tree that must have been at least fifty meters high. Only termites had gotten to it, and there was nothing left standing except the bark. Down the poor guy went—a two hundred meter slide into a mud hole that instantly sucked him down. Exit the leader. One by one, the others all crashed into the mud, which got inside their visors and blinded them. It was like shooting fish in a barrel; they didn't stand a chance."

Yeah … my brothers had to pay the price so that I could field test their limitations. The fearless hero strikes again … coming soon, to your nearest comic book store. . . .

"When it was all over, I headed for the nearest waterfall; I needed to get the mud off before I could do battle with the leeches—I was covered with the damn things. Any … way, Scorpia's got some serious jungle and I was as far off the grid as you can possibly get, so I thought I was safe. Hell, I was standing there in the nude, my clothing scattered about drying on the rocks, and suddenly there she was—this seriously pissed off, dark haired copy of my mother. She came walking out of the jungle, and she never even broke stride. She came straight for me—never said a word, not even when she took out her gun and tossed it aside. She could see that I was unarmed, and that was her opening: for some reason, she badly wanted to kill me with her bare hands. . . ."

There was so much hate and contempt in her eyes, but I'd been there and done that … no big deal. But the rage, now that was a different story: why was she so angry? Did she know who I was? Why didn't you say something, John? Why didn't you ask? Instead, you just stood there, dumb as a frakkin' post … and then you put her down, just like all the others. . . .

"She was your mother," Six prompted. "You have to come to terms with this, John. The entire model is your mother. This is why I am so concerned about Kara. You must not do this again … either of you. The danger is too great. You have to walk away."

"You think I don't know that?" Bierns was staggered. How could Aspasia possibly have come to the conclusion that he needed to hear a sermon on the subject of matricide?

"Look, I didn't kill her because I wanted to … I killed her because she left me no other choice! Sometimes, no matter what you do, everything that can possibly go wrong … well, it does. What can I say? Shit happens."

"You made a choice, John, but you can't see it because you don't want to. You didn't have to kill Sandra, yet you chose to do so. Why?"

"That was her name?"

"Yes … Sandra Three."

Bierns stood up, and began to walk around the chamber. Think in terms of an after action report, he told himself; reconstruct the scene. . . .

Aspasia looked at him expectantly.

"Hand-to-hand combat is an art form," Bierns slowly started to explain, "and there are several different schools or philosophies. I was taught to fall back and let my opponent take the initiative. The aggressor gives away information, so you study him … let him teach you how to defeat him. Once you understand his philosophy, you can anticipate his strikes and counter—not where he is, but where he's going to be two seconds later. Do you understand?"

"Yes," Aspasia smiled. "I have watched the humans on this ship dance. The movements are mathematically predictable."

"That's a good analogy, Aspasia … but in this instance the Three had no coherent philosophy. It was more like fighting someone who has had twelve different instructors and stitched together a fighting style by borrowing something from each of them. Fast, strong and unpredictable takes away a lot of your room to maneuver."

"I think I see; please, continue."

"I went to plan B, which basically consisted of making it up as I went along. She lunged at me … missed … and I got inside her defenses. That should have been it. I drove an elbow strike into her right kidney, and then continued to pivot so that I could hammer a critical nerve junction at the base of the spine. I scored two clean hits, and as she turned her left shoulder came open. Believe me … I hit it with everything I had. She should have ended up on her knees with a dislocated shoulder, but mama's got muscles on top of muscles, so it turned out that I was just irritating her. She grabbed me by the throat with her left hand, lifted me off my feet, kind of growled at me, and then she sent me flying. I must have gone a good two meters before I crashed. The leeches took a beating, and the fall didn't do my back much good either. It was turning into a really lousy day."

Aspasia Six listened to all of this with a kind of dread fascination. Why was her nephew so blind to the import of his own words?

"The next thing I know, she's towering over me, contempt written all over her face. She said something about humans being pathetic, but I wasn't really paying much attention. I lined her up, lashed out with the heel of my foot, and broke her ankle. She went down in a heap. I staggered to my feet, got behind her, and broke her neck. Everything the Cavils told you was a lie."

"No … no, your mother was right—the Ones twisted the truth. Sandra was beaten. You didn't have to kill her. You made a choice."

"I put her out of her misery. There's a difference."

"Is there? You could have walked away, but you were so caught up in the mission that the possibility never occurred to you, did it? You just had to finish what she had started, and now you're making excuses … rationalizing your choice."

Aspasia climbed to her feet, and cornered her nephew.

"Is this how Kara behaves? Tell me … does she hurt the people she loves, and then manufacture a convenient excuse for her behavior?"

. . .

Thud …

Thud …

Thud …

Kara Thrace was sitting on the floor, her back to the wall, aimlessly bouncing a pyramid ball off the opposite wall of the storage compartment and catching it on the rebound. Occasionally, just for the sake of variation, she tried skipping the ball off the floor or the ceiling, her intent always to catch it without moving from her chosen spot.

Kara Thrace was bored … unutterably bored. If anyone were to press her, she would of course defend her mindless behavior as good, old fashioned exercise- claim that she was keeping her reflexes honed to a razor's edge- whatever bullshit came spontaneously to mind. But in truth, she was bored … unutterably bored.

Athena crept up behind her lover, and with her snake like reflexes reached out to intercept the ball just before it reached Kara's hand. The Eight began idly tossing it in the air, catching it first with one hand and then the other.

"Can I have my ball back?" Kara reached up, but her gaze remained fixed on one particular spot on the far wall.

"What," Athena teased, "don't I get to play?" She continued to juggle the ball, keeping it just out of Kara's reach.

"Can I have my ball back, please?"

"You're needed on the bridge."

"Why? Did Cousin It swallow somebody's pet cat?"

"It's a little more serious than that. Alpha reports that her reconnaissance craft observed a sizable concentration of Raiders circling an asteroid in the system immediately ahead of us."

"What?" Kara instantly bounced to her feet. "Were they spotted?"

"The Raiders did not react, so they may have escaped undetected."

"Frak! If the Raiders are there in force, you can bet that there's a baseship or two somewhere in the vicinity."

"Do you want to scout the system? It may be the proverbial water hole in the desert."

"Yeah, you can be damn sure that the Cavils aren't hanging around to work on their tans. There's something there, all right. The question is … is it worth fighting for?"

"There's only one way to find out, but the downside is that the Ones will learn we're here. Is it worth the risk?"

Kara stormed out of the chamber. "Officer's conference on the bridge in ten minutes," she yelled over her shoulder. Be there!"

Frak! Frak! Frak! We're on the same frakkin' course, so the Cavils can't be out here searching for the fleet. They're too far out. This has gotta be about the temple … this has gotta be about Earth!

.