Islands in the Sky

  colony was to be spared!"

  Another unexpected and unreasonable outburst of emotion from a

  human. Imperious Leader should have been prepared for it, he knew, but

  he did not always correctly judge the erratic use of emotions that made

  humans so annoyingly unpredictable.

  "The bargain was altered," the leader said, his third-brain

  instructing his voice boxy to put a humanlike sarcasm into the words.

  The sarcasm was a good approximation, and he felt quite content with it.

  "How can you change one side of a bargain?" Baltar said.

  It was like a human to place what little logic he did have at his

  command into a framework of extreme selfishness. They cold never see the

  scope of a larger plan unless they were directed toward it. Even then,

  their minds seemed unable to absorb such a plan's completeness. They

  could, it seemed, see parts but never wholes. No wonder they were not

  fit to govern a single portion of the universe. As he replied to Baltar,

  he continued to give his voice a human sound, so as not to confuse the

  stupid, traitorous man.

  "Count Baltar, there is no other side. You have missed the entire

  point of the war."

  "I don't know what you mean," Baltar said. His voice suddenly

  subdued, he cringed.

  "What I mean is that there could be no dominion over the species so

  long as man remained a power within the universe. There are no shades of

  meaning when it comes to this. Man or the Alliance, the answer is

  obvious. Compromise is not at all acceptable."

  A whining tone came into Baltar's voice when he spoke next:

  "But you have what you want! The threat is gone, it no longer

  exists. I delivered my end of the bargain. On my world, my reputation

  is firm---whatever Count Baltar says he'll do, gets done by him and him

  alone. I did what I was supposed to! My dominion was to be spared, you

  said it was to..."

  "Dominion? There can be only one dominion, one power, one

  authority. There must be no exceptions."

  "What are you, you think you're some kind of god?"

  "Gods are one of the intellectual trivialities of your race."

  "All right, forget I said that. But, believe me, I have no

  ambitions against you."

  Imperious Leader blended a burst of laughter into the sarcasm of his

  voice-box misture.

  "You grow smaller as you stand ther e, Baltar. Could you think me

  so foolish as to trust a man who would see his own race destroyed?"

  "Not destroyed---subjugated. Under me!"

  "There can be no survivors. The Alliance is threatened even if one

  single human being remains alive on one of the Colonies."

  "Surely---surely, well, of course, you don't mean me."

  Urgent messages were being transmitted to him from his aides all

  through the chamber. He had spent too much time already with this

  pitiful human representative. And he fancied himself a worthy survivor!

  "We thank you for your help, Baltar. Your time is at an and."

  Two Cylon centurions materialized out of the shadows in which the

  leader had positioned them. Each took a fleshy arm and lifted Baltar off

  the floor.

  "No!" Baltar shouted. "You can't! You still need me!"

  "That is unlikely."

  "I have---I have information. Please. My life for my information."

  Always willing to bargain, Imperious Leader thought, this human wold

  never stop desperately offering trades.

  "What is your information?"

  Baltar pulled away from the centurions and approached the pedestal.

  There was a surprising arrogance in his walk.

  "My life?" Baltar said.

  "Your life," the Leader said. An easy promise---after all, he had no

  real obligation to keep it.

  Baltar looked to each side as if he suspected he could be overhead.

  By whom?

  "At the spacedrome on Caprica----when your centurions were

  collecting and exterminating survivors, one of them gave me information."

  "On what grounds?"

  "That I spare the man's life."

  "Did you?"

  "Of course not. I beheaded him myself."

  "Fascinating. Continue, please. What did he tell you?"

  "Many humans escaped, he said."

  "How could that be?"

  "They escaped in ships, anything they could find. A handful of

  survivors. And you haven't located them."

  "Perhaps you are ri ght. But they would have neither fuel nor food

  for a prolonged voyage."

  "He told me they were heading for a rendezvous with a surviving

  battlestar."

  "A battlestar?!"

  "Yes. He said it was the Galactica."

  "That can't be! I will not allow it!"

  "I don't know what you can do about it."

  "Make it my business to destroy those ships. And their precious

  Galactica. Take him away."

  "But my information...you promised...you said..."

  The centurions seized Baltar and began to drag him out of the

  chamber.

  "You can't do this to me!" Baltar shouted. "You promised me my

  life!"

  "Only if the battlestar Galactica is delivered to me, Baltar. If

  not, you shall die."

  Imperious Leader contemplated the man's loathsomeness. By human

  standards, the traitor was evil. To humans, evil was a relatively simple

  concept. A measure of premeditated malice, a dose or two of harmful

  action, some negative thoughts that did not conform to a standard that

  would change eventually anyway. The kind of trivial feelings that guided

  Batlar, traits like weakness and selfishness, were equated too easily

  with the idea of evil in human minds. To them, Imperious Leader would be

  evil, which certainly measured the absurdity of their view.

  Imperious Leader ordered his network to root out and destroy the

  surviving humans, with special attention to the complete disintegration

  of the battlestar Galactica. As his centurions began sending out the

  message, the leader allowed himself a momentary surge of gratification.

  He was close to his goal now. With the annihilation of the humans, order

  could be returned to the universe, and he was the founder of that new

  universal order. Although he would not have admitted his feelings to be

  akin to Baltar's repulsively human selfishness, he could not help but

  acknowledge to himself that his place in Cylon history had been

  strengthened considerably by the imminent removal of the human pest.

  *****

  Adama prayed that his rising hopes were not unreasonable as he

  oversaw the assembling of the ragtag fleet at the chosen coordinate

  points in space. Many of the survivor ships were decrepit, scarred

  vehicles, as expected, but more of them had slipped through the Cylon

  lines than he'd thought possible. Reports showed that almost two-hundred

  and twenty ships, representing every color, colony, and creed of the

  Twelve Colonies, had been dredged up as the result of the communicat
ions

  and physical searches initated by his people. They might not exactly be

  suited for combat, but at least they were ships. They gave the human

  race, now reduced to a miniscule fraction of the population that had

  flourished in the Colonies, another chance. A chance to survive, a

  chance to---someday---defeat the Alliance.

  As he watched reports come in on the various screens, he was midly

  amused by the signs on the batter sides of some of the rescued craft.

  Virgon Tool Spaceways. Soto Alternative Space Travel. Tauron Integrated

  Cargos. The new fleet consisted of thips of every assortment, size and

  shape. It might not look like much, but it was the best he had.

  "You look like the felus that swallowed the underbird," Athena said,

  referring to a famous Caprican children's story. She smiled slylu. How

  long had she been standing there observing him?

  "And you're rude for a subordinate whose sole claim to rudeness is

  that she's the commander's daughter."

  She turned toward the starfield and sweapt a hand across their

  immediate view of several of the odd-looking ships.

  "That's quite an array of squadrons," she said. "Or are you going to

  divide them into squadrons? You could put all the transportation ships

  into one, all the moving-van ships into another, and so on and so..."

  "That'll be enough, young lady."

  "It's all just a roundabout way of asking you what you're planning."

  Troubled by the question, he turned away from Athena. The move did

  him no good. Starbuck hovered nearby, slightly in front of a puzzled

  Colonel Tigh. In the shadows, the newswoman, Serina, sat beside Apollo,

  their backs to the communication panel.

  "Very well," he said, "you all want some kind of an explanation from

  me, an answer to that single question: Where shall we

  go? Here then, is my idea."

  "Idea?" Athena said, a bit too hopefully for her father's pleasure.

  "The Book of the Word tells us that we, the Twelve Colonies of

  Mankind, descended from a single mother civilization on the planet Kobol,

  which, seven thousand yarhens ago, set out from their dying planet to

  carry the seeds of humanity to new colonies in the distant stars.

  "We, the 70,000 odd survivors of this recent Holocaust represent

  oall of the Colonies of the House of Kobol, save one."

  "Save one?" Athena asked. "I don't understand what you mean. As far

  as I know, each of the Twelve Colonies had survivors and we've managed to

  rescue them."

  "I'm not talking about the Twelve Colonies," Adama said, smiling.

  "No. The Book of the Word also speaks of how the House of Kobol was, in

  fact, comprised of Thirteen distinct tribes that journeyed out to the

  stars. And that Thirteenth Tribe took a completely different path from

  the one chosen by their brethren. They journeyed to another world, far

  out in the distant universe and were never heard from again. With the

  result being that only scholars of the ancient writings ever recalled the

  existence of the Thirteenth Tribe and the planet they chose to settle

  on."

  "Okay," Athena said, "we all know something about this. It's been a

  part of Colonial mythology for yahrens. I remember how, when Zac, Apollo

  and myself, while we were growing up, would stay up late with you and

  listen to you tell stories of an ancient human civilization on a place

  called Earth, sometimes you called it Garden of Earth, although that's

  never made any sense to any of us."

  "It may not be mythology, Athena."

  "But it may be."

  "We shall see."

  Adama was irked by his daughter's proddings. He had been excusing

  her recent shows of temperament on the grounds that she had been through

  so much misery since the beginning of the Cylon doublecross, but now he

  wondered if it was time to combine parental with military discipline and

  speak to her harshly.

  "It is my intention," he resumed, speaking more slowly to test his

  own patience one word at a time, "to seek out that remaining

  colony---call it Earth if you must. Whatever you call it, it may be the

  final outpost of humanity in the universe. Only there could a society

  have developed in a manner similar to our own. And only on Earth might

  there exist brothers of man who have the capacity within them to help us

  fight back one day against our enemy, the Cylon Alliance."

  "But, if the Alliance hasn't discovered them yet, maybe they're safe

  from attack. Maybe we shouldn't even..."

  "Athena! It's the only solution we have. The Alliance is going to

  chase us across the universe. Lieutenant Starbuck, you have a question?"

  "Yes, sir. If we're talking about this same colonyk, this

  thirteenth colony, well, I don't think anybody knows where it is. Even

  if we did, we barely have enough fuel to get there."

  "A very good point, Lieutenant. We have to find a fuel source,

  then. A fuel source and extended provisions for the long journey."

  Colonel Tigh came forward.

  "Commander, this is hardly a fleet of sturdy, well-equipped

  warriors, up to battling the universe. I mean, most of these people

  barely got away with their lives. They're emotionally and physically

  unprepared for the kind of journey you're proposing."

  Apollo stood up and spoke.

  "Sir, less than a third of these ships can make lightspeed. It

  could take generations to find Earth."

  "Ah, but you're talking about it as if you believe in it, or at

  least in the possibility of it. It's a sign that it's worth seeking out.

  We'll find it because we have no other choice. No choice. If we mark

  time in this corner of the universe, the Alliance'll find us. No, we'll

  travel only as fast as our slowest ship, we'll be only as strong as our

  weakest brother."

  "Your rhetoric is attractive but I think we should fight."

  Even Apollo was turning against him. No matter. He had to

  persevere.

  "We're the only surviving battlestar and our warriors are up to the

  task of protecting the whole fleet. Let's leave it at that. You may

  speak your mind at the next council."

  "Thank you, sir."

  Serina leaned forward and spoke in the style of her journalistic

  profession.

  "I'm a bit vague on this business, star mythology was never my best

  subject." Which meant, of course, that she knew a great deal about it

  and was pretending ignorance in order to draw him out. "You say that

  this thirteenth colony, this other world, is named Earth, and it may be

  somewhere out there in the universe, still populated and still amenable

  to receiving returning Colonial inhabitants."

  Adama turned back to the starfield, as if an easy answer to Serina's

  question was spelled out there in neon letters by the decrepit vehicles.

  He felt like an ordinary seaman searching the horizon for a glimpse of

  sail.

  "I think there is a real world called Earth and that it is out there
r />   and will welcome us," he said finally. "I believe it is there."

  "Belief is a word associated more strongly with hope than fact,"

  Serina said, adding a belated "Sir."

  "Belief, hope," Adama said, "they're all we have, all we've ever

  had."

  "Forgive my skepticism, Commander Adama, but you're asking us to

  join you on a religious quest."

  "I'm not. And yet, I am."

  "You can't go off on a religious quest when we..."

  "I can," Adama said, "and I will."

  He made a long survey of their puzzled faces.

  "And I'm not going alone."

  When he saw that Serina was about to protest again, he said softly:

  "There's no other choice."

  *****

  From the Adama Journals:

  I realized one thing about leadership during the period of exodus

  from the Colonies. A leader, no matter how benevolently he regards

  himself, has to be something of a tyrant. If he lets everyon phase him

  out of his plan, allows them complete access to all information so they

  can see the overpowering odds against them, he takes the risk they'll

  become too discouraged to perform the little jobs that bring us forward

  through all the tedious phases. Human resilience is a marvelous quality,

  and we proved that durin gour time of reorganizing our society, repairing

  our damage, converting our ships to hyperspace power, building up the

  hopes of our people even while we reduced their food rations. I had

  faith in our resilience, but knew it worked best when the goals were

  limited. The emotions of people who are struggling with the aftermath of

  tragedy can be stretched to a breaking point if too much is demanded at

  once. So I had to remain a tyrant, remain aloof even from my friends and

  family. More than once my own resilience was put to task. No wonder

  tyrants so often turn mad.

  *****

  CHAPTER FIVE: SUFFERING

  "I need sleep in the worst way," Starbuck moaned, as he and Boomer

  briskly made their way across a narrow walkway that hovered over a maze

  of tubing and pipes.

  "Worst way, best way, any way," Boomer muttered. "I just want to get

  off this lousy duty detail."

  Starbuck shrugged.

  "I don't know. I get a real kick out of being an investigator, makes

  me feel like a real detective. So I look at it this way. It isn't the

  worst duty in the fleet, asking a lot of questions. I hear they're gonna

  send some poor guys from Beat Section crawling around on the outside of

  some old skybus looking for a solium leak."

  "Mmmmmm...how'd they miss us for that detail?"

  "You got me, buddy."

  Like most Colonial Warriors, Starbuck hated the thought of a solium

  leak. A derivative of the fuel source, Tylium, the solium compound was