Starbuck turn over the betting money to me. It began to dawn on me that
the money in his hand was fake, the kind of lead cubit used by
non-wagerers in card games.
"Just as well I got caught," Starbuck said to the medics.
"Skipper's right; it's a swindle. The fix was in."
I felt a little unsettled in my stomach.
"Fix?" I said, choking a bit on the word.
"Yes," Starbuck smiled. "I was gonna win. No doubt."
"You were going to win? You know the date of my death?"
"Yep."
As he stood before me and smiled smugly, I felt like strangling him.
"All right, Starbuck. Tell me your winning bet. I'm especially
interested in the part about the fix. When am I going to die?"
Smilng, he handed me a betting slip that he'd been holding.
"My prediction," he announced.
I opened it up. It said, "Never." Then Starbuck started laughing
and handed me a neat pile of fake cubits.
"Never," he said.
I'd been suckered. Standing in the middle of an enormous empty Life
Station ward, I was backed into a corner. I joined in the laughter and
ignored the insubordinate character of the whole episode. Starbuck
showed me all the slips. They all said, never. I never tried to catch
Starbuck out again.
*****
CHAPTER SIX: CARILLON'S LOT
Starbuck stole a fumarello from Boomer and slipped away from the
work party to his special hideaway---by his ship in the Galactica's
launching bay. Fitting himself into a dark wall nich, he lit the cigar
and leaned his head back against the metal wall. Almost immediately he
felt himself dozing off and a cautious part of his mind wondered if he
should do something about the fumarello. Then he couldn't think
straight. What fumarello? he almost said aloud. Visions of a starving
mob coming in and out of light initated a dream that never developed into
a full-fledged nightmare because the sound of Cassiopeia's voice startled
him awake.
"Starbuck!" she said. "What're you doing, crouched in that hole?"
He realized that the fumarello was about to fall out of his hand,
and he tightened his grip on it. Moving out of the niche, he put the
fumarello to his mouth and took a long drag. The smoke that lingered in
his nostrils had a faintly narcotic feeling to it, the result no doubt of
one of Boomer's extra-special blends. Cassiopiea had bathed and put on
fresh clothes---a one-piece clinging outfit that threatened to become
transparent in the right light---since Starbuck had left her at the
nurses' quarters. By all conventional measurements of beauty, she was
quite stunning now, but Starbuck briefly wondered if he did not prefer
the look of her in her previous smudged and disheveled state. There'd
been a vulnerability about her then, a need to be helped that he had
enjoyed responding to. Now she stood before him, tall and attractive and
strong. Another strong woman, like Athena. He always sfound himself
attracted to strong women, but there were times---moments of false
nostalgia---when he almost wished for one of the weak, submissive maidens
of intergalactic legend. A foolish thought, maybe---he knew he would be
bored by such a maiden in less than a day, and the only real benefit
obtained for someone like Starbuck would be a much needed rest.
"How'd you find me?" he asked.
"Followed you partway. Lost you here, then I saw the light of that
sweet-smelling fumarello. Can I have a puff?"
"Sure."
She took a heavy drag on the slim fumarello and appeared to savor
its taste.
"Ooooooh, thank you! That joystick's been efficiently doctored."
"My friend's an expert at the chemical alteration of cell
composition."
"My compliments to the botanist, then."
She took a couple of steps backward and looked up at Starbuck's
ship. Jenny and the rest of Starbuck's flight crew had done an excellent
job of repair work on it, replacing the parts that had been estroyed by
his crash landing and generally tuning up all its systems. As always,
they had superbly polished its surface and the pinpoints of light that
seemed to spring out from its high gloss save the impression that the
Viper ship was performing its own strange abstract little dance.
Cassiopeia stared at it a long time before speaking again.
"It's somehow beautiful, suspended up there like it's in permanent
flight. A perfect machine, born to dance with you, curve in and out of
constellations!"
"Nice way of putting it," Starbuck said, biting down on the
fumarello.
Cassiopeia's eyebrows raised.
"But you don't buy it?"
"Too poetic; it leaves out the way the metal stinks when there's a
fuel foulup, the pain all over your skin when something shorts and starts
sending sparks up your sleeves. Still, I get your drift, lady. I'd
rather be in the cockpit of that junkheap and flying some boring duty
than any other job I can imagine."
A headache was developing in what felt like spreading lines behind
Starbuck's right eye. He squinted his eye and rubbed at his right
temple.
"You look overworked," Cassiopeia said, sympathetically.
"Me? Overworked? Nah. I overwork myself just to get away from
being overworked. Still, it's been something of a strain these last few
days, the work and the starving people and..."
"And Captain Apollo? I noticed he's been pushing you guys like a
martinet. I almost expected some kind of mutiny."
Starbuck laughed.
"Mutiny? I doubt that. Not against the captain anyway. Too much
trouble around anyway without playing revolution. No, I feel for Apollo.
He's going through hell."
"Well, you're all suffering. I don't see why he should be singled
out for..."
"No, I didn't mean that. Didn't mean the ordinary misery that's
facing everybodoy. Apollo lost his brother in the Cylon attack and he's
pretty broken up about it. That's where his irritability comes from."
"Oh, I didn't know."
"Certain kinds of scuttlebutt we don't allow to filter down to the
civilian levels."
"You guys protect each other. I like that. Back home, we always
felt that spacer pilots thought too much of themselves."
"It's nothing----protecting each other, like you say, that is. You
got to protect a piece of a guy's private life just like he's gonna
protect you when you got a pair of Cylon fighters blasting at your tail.
Same thing, really."
"Do you love me?"
The abruptness of the question startled Starbuck. He did want to
make love to her, but he didn't want to ask her the question.
"What's the matter?" she said.
"Is that the way you go about it, changing the subject and aiming
right at the old target?"
"No, it's not. If we were back on my planet, and you were accept
ed
by the proper segment of our society, and you had given me the signal
that you loved me, even then I would not be able to ask the question. I
don't want to love you as a socialator. I'm not one anymore, not really.
I think the job's just a part of history now. I'm unemployed. I want to
make love to you. That's all it is. Not as a socialator, not as a
refugee. Just as me, okay?"
"I'll think about it."
They stood and stared at each other for a very long time. Finally,
Cassiopeia said, "Have you thought about it?"
"I'm inclined favorably."
"Do you ever take that smoldering weed out of your mouth?"
He removed the fumarello and tossed it onto the launching bay floor.
It landed lit-end first and sent sparks flying.
After they'd kissed, Starbuck said, "If I'da know that was the
prize, I'da prepared a speech."
"I've heard all the speeches."
"Would you mind if we didn't spend much more time in this laulnching
bay?"
"Can you think of anyplace more pleasant?"
"Come to think of it, I can't think of anyplace pleasant in this
whole fleet."
"What's in there?"
"That's the launching tube. You don't want to go in there."
Cassiopeia had already walked into the tube through a circular side
opening. Her hand gestured toward him. He looked all around the
launching bay, even up at the ceiling.
"Lord," he said, "I'll do anything you ask tomorrow. Just don't
call an alert tonight."
*****
Athena had a strong hunch something was wrong. Starbuck had not
been where he was supposed to be. When Starbuck was not in the proper
place, he was up to something. That was an axiom among everyone who knew
the brash young lieutenant. She had glimpsed him earlier, giving more
than the usual attention to a bedraggled woman who, from a distance,
appeared to be sexy despite her scraggly condition. As she strolled onto
the bridge of the Galactica and saw that it was deserted except for the
ever-vigilant Colonel Tigh, she wondered if her weariness were not just
making her overly suspicious of Starbuck.
"You seem tired," Tigh said. "Why don't you steal a nap?"
"There's just so much to do, preparing for this hyperspace jump,
educating the people. Some of them think we're just skipping out on
them."
"No way you can help that, Athena. They won't really believe us
until we gring them back the fuel and supplies."
"You're more confident than I feel."
"No point in not being confident, I always say."
"Have you seen Lieutenant Starbuck?"
"You always take a while getting to what's really on your mind."
"Have you seen him?"
"No, I don't think I---wait, I did see him on one of the monitors
earlier, just before we shut down the flight deck. He was near his
viper. I think he was checking it out."
"That'd make sense, I guess."
"That was a while ago. I'm sure he's long gone by now. Getting a
good night's sleep before the jump. Like I say, you should do the same.
There'll be enough work from now on for all of us."
She nodded. Touching her briefly on the arm, he said good night and
left the bridge. As soon as he had disappeared out the hatchway, Athena
strode to the launch control console and stared for a long time at its
monitor screens. Then, with an almost casual movement of her hand, she
reached down and flipped a switch. On one of the monitor screens, she
watched lights go on all over the fighter bay. No people were in
evidence anywhere. Her finger eased over to another switch marked
"launch tubes." As the monitor lit up, Athena's face flushed crimson
with anger as she recognized Starbuck and the tall woman she'd seen him
with earlier.
"That little snake," she said aloud. Her finger quickly proceeded
to another button. This one was marked, STEAM PURGE.
She tried to laulgh but could not as she watched the monitor screen
in which the two stood amidst a rising cloud of steam. Starbuck screamed
and, flinging the woman before him, vacated the launch tube in all
expedient speed.
Athena switched the monitor off quickly, but sat staring at if for a
long time. When she ran a check on the launching bay later, neither
Starbuck or the woman was in evidence. In her mind she made promises
which, even though she might never keep them, were delightful to
contemplate.
*****
When Marron had developed her interstellar drive centuries ago,
replacing the earlier more cumbersome systems, there had been more than
enough Tylium available on the discovered planets to keep all of the
human spacecraft going, and the expense of extracting the fuel from its
geological sources to convert it into its volatile liquid form seemed
quite economical. However, human colony expansion followed by the
thousand-yahren-war had depleted the supply of the only fuel source that
could power the highly complicated Marron drive. In the time preceeding
the Cylon ambush, the price of Tylium had skyrocketed to new levels due
to the controls exerted by war profiteers like Count Baltar (who, Adama
had perceived, always seemed to have sufficient amounts of the fuel to
fulfill any request). There had been a question of whether the Fleet
might have to cut down severely on Tylium use. In fact, Adama felt, the
Tylium crisis had been at least partially responsible for the fussy
buriticians, anxious to cut a budge whererever even a small rip could be
detected along a margin, rushing so eagerly into the Cylon peace trap.
Now that they, the Galactica and the few other ships able to make
the jump through hyperspace, had arrived in the sector containing the
planet Carillon's Lot, Adama devoutly hoped that the old rumors of this
place as a prime black-market source of the elusive fuel base were true.
If not, he had left behind thousands of people in thousands of ships who
would futilely watch for their return.
Almost as soon as they had materialized in the solar system
containing Carillon's Lot, the bridge scanner announced an obstacle for
which they had not planned. Immediately, the commander called in his
three best fighter pilots----Boomer, Starbuck, and Apolllo---to brief
them on their unexpected mission.
"It appears," he told them, "that the skies around Carillon's Lot
are heavily mined."
"Mined?" Apollo said. "But who would do such a thing?"
"For the moment, Captain, that's an irrelevant consideration. The
point is that we cannot pass in order to get into position to accept
supplies. Certainly the Galactica and our other larger ships can't make
it through as things stand now. It's possible that a path through the
mines can be found---I don't think the planet has been sealed off. The
mines are clearly protective. We need to discover that path. And that
will be the job of
you three."
He paused to let the order sink in.
"All right, we don't have time for elaborate searches. You'll have
to navigate by scanner and sweep everything out of your path with
turbolasers. Any questions?"
"It's my bio-pulse line, Sir," Starbuck said. "Bad time for me to be
cooped up in a cockpit. Would this be an appropriate time for me to take
my sick leave?"
Adama smiled. The three pilots laughed nervously.
"It would," Adama said, "but request denied. I didn't arrive at you
three to lead us through without a great deal of anguish." Apollo's eyes
narrowed at his father's words. "You three control our fate. The rest
of us will sit in anticipation of your skill."
"Or lack thereof," Starbuck said, and Adama nodded.
Apollo stayed behind after dismissal. Touching his father's arm, he
said:
"Thanks."
"For what? For selecting you for a dangerous mission? Apollo, if I
could've excused you, I would have."
"No, it's not that at all."
"What is it, then?"
Apollo lowered his gaze to the bridge floor, a bit embarrassed.
"Well, father, it's just---well, lately I've been getting a lot of
felgercarb. That bearded blunder Zalto insulting me during council,
accusing me of being in league with you to deceive everybody. I mean, I
think I've proven myself, but there're still people around here who
attribute my rise through the ranks as well as executed nepotism. When I
arrested Zalto, he accused me of a political ploy, threatening to
appropriate the Rising Star simply to collect fuel for the Galactica.
And there there are the dissidents..."
"Stop it there. I shouldn't let you go on about it. There are many
things we can talk about, not in this place, at this time. Maybe later."
He tried to say somethimg more, but could just repeat, "maybe later."
"Sure. I'll work up a list of complaints."
"Apollo, if it's any consolation, there's one thing I've observed
about this damn minefield."
"What?"
"Every mined satellite is firmly in orbit. No sign of a decaying
orbit anywhere. The implication is strong that the minefield is
maintained on a regular basis and that there has to be somebody down
there on Carillon's Lot's surface."
"And it's a good chance they're mining Tylium, is that it?"
"Correct. They've got to be doing something sinister to bother with
all this protection."
"Thanks for mentioning that," Apollo said. He looked at his
chronometer. "Well, I've got to hotfoot it now, and check on my ship."
*****
As he watched Apollo stride out of the room, Adama felt pleased at
the clues to a renewed confidence in his son. Perhaps all the new