Islands in the Sky

  birthday and had foolishly speculated on the far-off future---on the day

  when Adams would have come to the end of his usefulness to the Colonial

  Fleet and could pension himself off to his home on Caprica. Even as they

  had spoken, they knew how absurd their hopeful speculations were. As

  long as the war continued, Adama would have refused retirement and

  pension, and was likely to serve in at least an advisory capacity after

  he became too feeble to command. In Ila's last letter, which arrived

  just before the beginning of the peace conference, she had written that

  if the conference were successful, then perhaps their absurd hopes for

  the future might be realized after all. He had enjoyed a moment of

  hope----but just a moment. That was all the Cylons allowed, one moment.

  He looked at the youngest Ila, the oldest photograph taken just

  before their marriage. Memories of that time came back to himin a flood.

  When he met her, Ila had been a dedicated career woman, determined to

  become one of the Quorum of the Twelve. At the age of seventeen she had

  run for, and won, a seat on the local council. Her radical ideas had

  already drawn attention to her, especially her plan to reduce the city's

  contribution to the overall Caprican military budgets. Because she was

  gleaning some support from the populace, themselves tired of the war

  which was then almost a thousand yahrens old, certain military and

  political circles concluded that she should be investigated. Adama, then

  a young ensign on TDY to the Caprican training base, was dispatched to

  check out the mild agitation in the boondocks, and see what he cold do to

  smoothe it over. Caprican law would not allow Ila's right of free speech

  to be interefered with, but there was nothing in the books that said a

  handsome young ensign couldn't possibly influence a beautiful young

  agitator. The insight of the military higher-ups in this matter proved

  to be extremely prescient. Not only had Ila been positively influenced

  by the ensign, he had fallen head over heels in love riwht her, from the

  first moment he saw her making an impassioned speech to her council. He

  had always preferred women with strength of character, and Ila turned out

  to be one of the strongest women he had ever met. Her inner strength had

  saved him time and time again during the course of their marriage,

  especially during those moments when he had to be told no as he leaned

  toward some ridiculous course of action.

  Each separate likeness of Ila he looked at started similar waves of

  memory. He saw her beauty in all her stages, could remember his love

  growing through all the Ahrenss. Suddenly he broke down, began to cry.

  "I'm sorry, Ila," he sobbed. "I was never there when it matter.

  Never there."

  Inevitably, he thought of all they might still have accomplished

  together, all they might have done in the past. The pain became too much

  to bear. He willed the tears to stop, willed himself to turn away from

  the wall of photographs. When he looked up, he saw Apollo standing in

  the doorway. Obviously he had been there watching for a long time.

  Apollo had forgotten that Apollo was with him;' he was disoriented for a

  mili-centon. With his fingertips he brushed away some of the remaining

  tears and and struggled to control his voice as he addressed his son.

  "I didn't---didn't hear you come in."

  "Forgive me, Father," Apollo said. "I should have gone away, left

  you alone."

  "No, no, that's all right. I was...was just gathering a few

  remembrances."

  There were some nonholographic photos spread on the mantle below the

  arraned pictures. He picked one up, offered it to Apollo.

  "Would you like to have this likeness of you and Zac?"

  Apollo drew back. When he spoke there was a clear edge of

  bitterness in his voice.

  "No," he said. "Look, there are crowds coming. They probably saw

  our ship land."

  "I'm not worried about them. I'll be a few microns here..."

  Clearly the decision was against Apollo's better judgment, but he

  nodded stiffly and started to leave. In a milimicron, he was back in the

  doorway, saying:

  "Maybe she wasn't here. Maybe..."

  "She was here," Adama said with finality. "She was here."

  Apollo muttered. "Yes, of course," and left.

  *****

  Standing by his ship, Apollo watched the angry crowd of people

  approach. They moved like a mob, disorganized, with a lot of arm waving

  and jostling. Their voices, pitched high and shrill, made their

  hostility clear. Apollo wondered if his father had judged correctly in

  staying around. A mob like this one might kill the both of them, and

  what good would that do? Perhaps he should have insisted more

  strenuously, rushed the old man back to the plane and taken off before

  the crowd's arrival.

  Adama might, after all, be too overwrought right now to make a

  decision wisely. It certainly didn't seem rational to Apollo for the old

  man to mourn quietly before a bunch of old photographs. Apollo didn't

  like photographs. They were just ice sculptures that would melt away if

  you refused to look at them, and the last thing Apollo wanted was to look

  at pictures of Mother and Zac. He had refused his father's offer of the

  photo from the mantle----and that picture had once been his

  favorite---because he couldn't bear to look at it, to see Zac's smiling

  face and their arms around each other's shoulders. If he kept that

  picture, it would definitely call up the memory forever of their last

  battle together, definitely force him to speculate about his possible

  error in leaving Zac out there all alone. The kid wasn't ready to be

  left on is own and, in spite of the fact that all military wisdom

  dictated that Apollo would return post-haste to the Fleet with his

  information, he would always wonder whether or not he should have turned

  and flown back to Zac, helped the kid out when he really needed it. With

  the present desolate condition of the war, it was a memory he could not

  afford.

  The mob stopped about fifty laxars from the ship. Some of them

  pointed toward it angrily. Apollo walked forward, trying to gauge the

  depth of their enmity. Some of the people who were doing the pointing

  turned to point toward him. Gradually, the entire mob took notice of

  Apollo coming out to meet them. A man came forward, shaking his fist,

  shouting.

  "Where are they, the rest of your fancy pilots?"

  Another man, just behind the first speaker, hollered:

  "Where were you, boy, when they were killing everyone? What were

  you doing?"

  Other men and women separated from the crowd and edged toward

  Apollo. They were angry, as if they wold like to tear him apart and

  spread the pieces from here tto the burning city.

  "Wait," called a woman who was running to the front of the crowd.

  The front ranks parted and she stepped forward, leading a small boy by

  the hand. "L
et him talk." She turned to Apollo, and walked a couple of

  tentative steps towrd him. Apollo was sruck by her beauty, which shone

  through the dirt marks on her face and the dishevelment of her hair and

  clothing. "Before they jump at your throat, I'd like to know a few

  things. Where you were. For that matter, where was everybody, the

  entire military force? Where were all of you? Even after the battle had

  begun, we prayed for relief, but you never came."

  Her words were enunciated precisely, with a theatrical projection.

  This lovely woman could be the real danger to him, Apollo thought. The

  mob he could handle by tactics learned in training, but one intelligent

  person could combat such tactics easily. To give himself a moment to

  think, he looked down at the boy beside her. The child's face almost

  couldn't be discerned through all the dirt on it, but his innocent eyes

  were clear as they stared upward at him.

  "Most of us are dead,' Apollo said, trying to speak as

  matter-of-factly as possible. The crowd quieted down. "We were

  ambushed. There is no more fleet."

  First there was a collective gasp in the crowd, then individual

  reactions of anguished crying and angry despair. The woman looked around

  at the mournful people, he face showing the confusion she felt.

  "But," she said, "but why---I mean, you're here. Where did you come

  from?"

  "The battlestar Galactica."

  "It survived?"

  "Yes..."

  "What of the president, what about the Quorum of the Twelve? And

  the other Colonies. We can fight back surely. We're united, all twelve

  colonies, after hundreds of yahrens. Our combined strength, it can't

  possibly be defeated, that's what we were all taught, what we learned

  from the cradle."

  Adama, standing by the wing of Apollo's craft, moved into the

  flickering light and spoke.

  "Our unity, our strength, came about too late."

  The woman clearly recognized Adama, and her head made an automatic

  bow.

  "Commander Adama!" she shouted.

  Others in the crowd reacted to the name.

  "Serina," Adama said.

  His mere appearance seemed to bring home to Serina and the crowd the

  impact and scope of their defeat.

  "Then it's true. They've beaten us. We're doomed."

  Adama's look was stern, magisterial. Apollo turned away from it and

  looked down at the boy who was, inexplicably, smiling as he looke dup at

  Apollo with admiration.

  "Can I ride in your ship, mister?" the boy said.

  Apollo bent down and picked the boy up. The child was lighter than

  he looked. As he replied to the boy, he thought of Zac and he had to

  look at his father as he spoke.

  "Fighter planes are no place for little boys."

  Adama must have understood the meaning of his son's glance, for he

  looked away, some hurt in his eyes.

  "They're going to have to be if our people are going to survive,"

  Serina said.

  Adama walked slowly up the hill and turned his attention toward the

  burning cities. Serina moved up behind him. Apollo followed, still

  holding the boy in his arms.

  "Commander," Serina said, "we're going to have to fight back. We

  can't---can't simply give up."

  A long silence followed. Both Serina and Apollo stared at the

  commander, searching for signs of decision. When Adama looked their way

  again he seemed to look past them.

  "Yes," he whispered, "we're going to fight back."

  Those in the crowd who could hear his declaration told those closest

  to them. Word spread quickly. As the knowledge was shared, the crowd

  reacted variously, with cries of satisfaction, frustration, vented anger.

  Adama took a copule of steaps toward Apollo before speaking again.

  When he talked to his son, it was as if the crowd beyond them didn't

  exist. The intimacy was a combination of father speaking to son and

  commander addressing captain.

  "But we can't fight back here, and not now. And not in the

  Colonies, not even in this star system. We must gather together every

  survivor from each of the twelve worlds, every man, woman, and child

  who's survived this infamy. We must get word to them to set sail at

  once, in any vehicle that'll carry them, no matter what its state."

  "Father," Apollo said, "there isn't enough time, not enough time to

  arrange provisions. I'm sure the Cylons will be sending landing parties

  to eradicate the survivors. What we should do---if would just send in

  our remaining fighters..."

  "No! Too many of them, too few of us. There's a time to fight, but

  not now. We must withdraw, fight another day. It's only..."

  "But---but there's no way to board the entire population on the

  Galactica, and we have no troop carriers anymore. Those

  vehicles---they'd be---they'd be little better than a rag-tag fleet.

  Their potential for conversion to hyperspace capability is marginal at

  best."

  "You're thinking logically, yes, but this isn't the time for logical

  thinking. We'll use what we do have. Every intercolony passenger liner,

  freighter, tanker, even intracolony buses, air taxis, anything that'll

  carry our people into the stars."

  "And when they've gathered in the stars?" Serina asked softly.

  "We will lead them. And protect them until they are strong again."

  Adama's eyes glowed with such powerful confidence that, for a

  moment, Apollo couldn't be sure whether he was facing a madman or a

  savior. From the confused face of Serina and the curious looks emanating

  from the mob, it was clear that they weren't sure either.

  Apollo tried to picture what his father proposed. All manner of

  ships rising from planets in flame---as he had called it, a rag-tag

  fleet. The survivors of all the Colonies, the Aeries from Aeriana, the

  Gemonese from Gemon, the Virgos from Virgon, the Scorpios, the Leos, the

  Picons, and the Sagitarians. It just didn't seem possible. But judging

  from the determination displayed on Adama's face, Apollo wasn't going to

  pull forth any doubting auguries.

  Apollo nodded, said they had to try it. Serina agreed. Soon the

  mood of the crowd had changed from puzzlement to confidence as they

  cheered their leader.

  *****

  From the Adama Journals:

  The assembling of the survivors! What a miracle that was! Word

  went out over all the secret channels. Somehow, people on all the Twelve

  Colonies received it. I'm told that the waves carrying the message only

  had to burn their way through the thinnest beginnings of planetary

  atmosphere before messengers on the surface were dispatch in every

  direction. Get to a rallying point, salvage eveyr ship with sufficient

  thrust to reach the chosen coordinates, sneak around, above and beneath

  the Cylon patrols that were scouring the ground and weaving webs in the

  sky.

  Not every refugee made it to our secret rendez
vous. We have, in

  fact, no way of knowing how many failed. In the aftermath of a holocaust

  like the Cylon massacre, there's no time to arrange for the proper

  memorials, no cenotaphs that can be planted in airless space. Some made

  it, some did not. They came to our designated assembling point, around

  which Apollo had neatly improvised an enveloping camouflage force field

  that made us invisible to the many Cylon search patrols that passed near

  us. How no ship led the Cylons directly to us is simply another racet of

  the historical miracle that took place.

  Divine intervention was suggested to some by the fantastic chain of

  events that brought thousands of survivor ships to us. Whether it's

  interpreted secularly or mystically, the miracle happened.

  *****

  CHAPTER FOUR: IN THE STARS THEY GATHERED

  The Cylon Imperious Leader had learned long ago to rise above his

  revulsion at the sight of a human being. In the atypical times when he

  had needed in the uncomfortable course of duty to actually face a

  captured enemy, he had felt sick for a long time after the interrogation.

  They greatly disturbed his sense of unity. He was never sure why, but he

  absorbed small doses of their irrationality when forced to be physically

  near any of them. Now, self-discipline and the deliberate suppression of

  certain portions of the third-brain enabled him to encounter a human

  without undue reaction afterward. However, the human being standing

  before him at this time threatened severely to restore the old irrational

  responses. While trying to figure out why this particular human was so

  particularly unsavory, he carefully shut off those parts of his mind that

  could be significantly affected by the being's mere physical presence.

  The answer to his growing feelings of revulsion might be the

  simplest, the most obvious. The man, Count Baltar, was a traitor.

  Traitors deliberately disturb order for their own selfish gain. They

  were the vilest of a vile race. And Baltar was surely the greatest

  traitor of all, since his betrayal had made the human annihilation

  possible. While the leader would have liked to treat this traitor with

  proper contempt, the involved ceremonies of Cylon courtesy demanded that

  he at least be polite.

  "Welcome, Baltar," he said, controlling the vocal output of his

  helmet so thtat a human-sounding warmth underscored the words. "You have

  done well."

  Baltar, who had sustained an emotionless appearance since being led

  to the Leader's pedestal, now suddenly spoke in anger, adding to his

  voice that strange inflection that humans termed sarcasm.

  "I have done well, eh? What have you done? What of our bargain? My