CHAPTER FIVE

 

 

“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 kick outta 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 Beta Section crawling around on the outside of some old skybus looking for a solium leak.”

“Mmmm… how’d they miss us for that detail?”

“Beats me.”

Like most fleet warriors, Starbuck hated the thought of a solium leak. A derivative of the fuel source, Tylium, the solium compound was less volatile but more insidious, since it was often difficult to detect until it was too late.

They left the walkway and entered the freighter’s engine room. Turning a corner, they came upon Captain Apollo, who was concentrating on an electronic measuring device as his crew pointed solium detecting wands in various directions.

“What have we here?” Starbuck said.

“I don’t think I wanta know,” Boomer replied.

Apollo looked up from the measuring device and glanced angrily at the two new arrivals. Starbuck’s body tensed. Apollo’s emotions were unpredictable these days, since his father had begun assembling the ragtag fleet.

“Would you two knock it off?” Apollo said. “I’m trying to listen for solium leaks.”

Starbuck and Boomer looked quickly toward each other, then turned in unison, intending to retreat to the walkway.

“’Bye,” Starbuck said.

“Halt,” Apollo said.

The two men stopped in their tracks.

“Apollo,” Starbuck said. “That stuff is dangerous. I don’t want any part of it. I mean, these old ships shouldn’t even be flying.”

“There wasn’t really any choice, was there? How many people did we have to leave behind for lack of ships, do you imagine?”

“Nobody knows.”

“But you can be sure there were a lot, all left to be exterminated by those lousy Cylons. So—unless you want to volunteer permanent assignment on this tub, which incidentally shows every sign of adaptability to hyperspace conversion, you’ll help survey each and every ship in the fleet for damage. And that means look for solium leaks. Or I’ll be tempted to loan you out to Beta Company.”

Without waiting for any response from Starbuck or Boomer, Apollo abruptly turned, picked up the measuring device, gestured toward his crew, and walked toward the ship’s bulkhead.

When he was out of hearing range, Boomer whispered to Starbuck:

“Keep talking, old buddy, and you’re going to get us in real trouble.”

“Ah, he’s got a fly up his exhaust tube. I don’t know what’s going on with everybody. They’re all going felgercarb, if you ask me. Ten thousand light years from nowhere, our planet’s shot to hell, we’re running around looking for leaks in old buckets, our people are starving, and you’re worrying about me getting us in trouble. What’s the matter with you? What’s the matter with everybody? I say we might as well live for the day. We haven’t got many of them left!”

They followed Apollo through a bulkhead hatch into a passenger compartment. At least it was a passenger compartment now, whatever its original function might have been. Starbuck was at first struck by the thick feeling of the air, which seemed to resist inhalation. Small wonder. The room was packed with people—old, young, crippled, babes in arms. Some of them lay on the floor, clearly exhausted and spent. Others pressed up against packing crates. Still others had transformed the crates into their own private shelters. As the crowd took note of Apollo’s presence, many of them reached toward him, their smudged fingers clutching and clawing at the young officer.

“Back,” Apollo said. “Please, stay back.”

The crowd looked as if they might jump onto Apollo, but were apparently checked by the move of Boomer and Starbuck to the captain’s side.

“Where is the food?” a bedraggled and obviously desperate woman shouted. “What is it that’s happening? We haven’t had water in two days! Two days!”

“Please!” Apollo shouted. Starbuck had never heard Apollo’s voice become so strident. “I’ll be glad to help each and every one of you. But stay back. Starbuck, Boomer….”

Starbuck drew his sidearm. He raised it toward the ceiling to display it for the threatening crowd.

“Put it away, Starbuck,” Apollo said. “These people are already in battle shock.”

“Yeah? Well, in another couple moments they’da been using you for a doormat, Captain.”

“Where is the food?” an emaciated old man screamed. The phrase was quickly becoming a ritual to these suffering people, Starbuck noticed. “Why haven’t we seen or heard from anyone in two days?”

“What the hell’s going on?” another man said. “Have we been left behind?”

Apollo took a deep breath and gestured for silence. The crowd quieted down.

“You haven’t been left behind,” Apollo said in a level voice. “There must be some problems in distribution. But it’ll be corrected, I promise you that. Just be grateful you’re alive and please give us a chance to adjust and find out what your needs are.”

“We need food, that’s what we need,” the emaciated man said in a whining voice.

“And medicine,” said one of the women. “There are wounded here, with us.”

“That’s one of the reasons we’re here,” Apollo said. “To check these things out, find out what your problems are.”

“The problem is,” said a professorial, middle-aged man with a beard, “the problem is we’re all going to die.”

Apollo sighed.

“No,” he said, “no one is going to die. Now, it’ll take a little while but we’re just now finding out how many of us have survived—”

“Hardly the fittest,” the professorial man said bitterly. Apollo chose to ignore the man’s sarcasm.

“We need to know what your skill levels are,” Apollo continued, “so that we can utilize them in helping each other. Boomer, get on the communicator and let Core Control know these people haven’t had any food or water in two days.”

Boomer nodded and moved to a clear space, where he flipped open his communicator.

“Now,” Apollo said, “do any of you need immediate life-station aid?”

An old woman raised her hand. Apollo nodded in her direction, and she began to speak in an unfamiliar tongue.

“What’s she saying?” Apollo asked Starbuck.

“I think it’s some kind of Gemonese dialect. I’m not up on it, maybe Boomer can translate.”

“Boomer’s too busy just now. Does anyone here understand this woman’s dialect?”

A tall woman, almost the height of Starbuck or Apollo, moved to the front of the crowd. Her clothes were in shreds, and Starbuck noted that a trim, small-breasted and slim-hipped figure was suggested in those parts of the woman’s body that were on public display. Although her face was dirty and smudged, and her dark hair disheveled, he suspected that, cleaned up and groomed, this lady would be quite a looker. Most likely, she would be a great beauty, he thought.

“She says that her husband is feverish,” the woman said laconically, in a deep voice that was almost sultry in spite of her messy appearance. She held her left arm at her side at what seemed to Starbuck a peculiar angle.

“There something wrong with your arm?” Starbuck asked.

She turned toward him. Her eyes were dark and it seemed to him that they glowed with emotional strength as she stared directly at him.

“There are others in greater need than I,” she said.

“Get her out of here,” growled a plump woman who had stationed herself to the right of Apollo. “She should be jettisoned with the dead.”

A number of muttering voices assented to the woman’s opinion. Starbuck could sense a danger in their nastiness, an anger that could easily rise to open hostility.

“You’re right, Starbuck,” Apollo said. “Her arm looks broken. Get her and the old man to the shuttle.”

Starbuck helped the old man and his wife to their feet, then took the injured woman by her good arm. He was conscious of the many obscenities and insults being released around him. Their jeering seemed to be escalating to a danger point. He might have to draw his weapon again, in spite of what Apollo had ordered.

“Make daggit meat out of her,” one woman shouted, and several voices assented. Starbuck did not look in their direction, although he kept a wary eye for suspicious movements in his immediate vicinity.

“Dirty,” another woman said.

“Socialator,” said a man.

“No place for refuse,” muttered a voice that clearly belonged to the professorial bearded man.

A muscular man stepped up to Apollo as if he were spoiling for a fight.

“It’s a sin to starve us,” the man said, “while the bureaucrats and politicians luxuriate in their private sanctuaries.”

“No one is in luxury,” Apollo said, “I can promise you—”

“I’ve seen it,” said the slighter man, who joined the muscular one in his confrontation with Apollo. “I saw it with my own eyes aboard the Rising Star, before I was cast out and reassigned here.”

Boomer saved Apollo from answering by stepping to his side and announcing loudly, “Core Control is aware of the problem.”

“Then I can tell these people that food and water is on the way?” Apollo said.

“They’re aware of the problem!”

“What is it?” said the professorial man. “You’re keeping something from us, aren’t you?”

“Relief is on the way, I’m sure,” Apollo said. “You have my word as a warrior.”

Starbuck had finally made his way to the bulkhead hatchway, but hesitated there in case Apollo needed his help. The woman and the old couple waited with him, their bodies clearly tense with apprehension that violence could erupt at any moment.

“Your word as a warrior,” said a plump woman. “You were the ones that brought us this death watch, warrior.”

Apollo looked back at Starbuck, motioned for him to get the woman and the old couple through the hatchway. He and Boomer began edging back to the opening as the space between them and the crowd narrowed.

“Corrupt,” the professorial man hollered. “The entire Quorum was corrupt. We were betrayed. Betrayed… by all of you.”

From the other side of the hatchway, Starbuck watched Apollo and Boomer get through the opening. Apparently just in time to save themselves from being trampled by the angry but frightened crowd. Boomer quickly shut the hatch and spun its wheels rapidly to shut off the compartment. Sounds of agony and anger could still be heard on the other side of the round portal.

“My Lord….” Boomer muttered.

“You said it,” Starbuck said.

Apollo’s crew, who had remained in the engine room checking out solium leaks, gathered around, while Boomer told them what had happened in the passenger compartment. Apollo shook visibly. Starbuck moved to him.

“What happened? Why aren’t these vehicles being supplied? I know we’re low and Adama’s cut rations, but we’re not this—”

“I don’t know!” Apollo hollered, his voice again a bit more strident than Starbuck was used to. “But something’s gone wrong, and I’ve got to find out what.”

When the pounding began on the passenger side of the hatchway, Apollo ordered everyone back to the shuttle. He and Boomer took the controls, while Starbuck remained with the young woman and the old couple. As soon as they had put some distance between themselves and the old freighter, Apollo switched on the shuttle’s communicator, and spoke angrily into its mike.

“Alpha shuttle to Core Command.”

“Core Command. Go ahead, Captain Apollo.” “Request clarification on food dispersal.” There was a crackling silence before the Core Command voice replied.

“No information available at this time.” Apollo exploded with anger.

“What’re you talking about, no information available? God damn it, I just left a ship filled with starving people. They haven’t seen a morsel of food in two days, and no water either. What in the twelve words is going on?”

Another long pause before the Core Command reply: “I’m sorry, shuttle Alpha. Core Command has no information available at this time.”

Apollo gave up and flipped off the communicator. Turning to Boomer, he said, “What is going on? What’d they tell you when you called in the food shortage?”

“Same thing they told you. A vague acknowledgement of the problem, you might say.”

“Boomer, I’m getting a very uneasy feeling.”

 

It seemed to Cassiopeia that her broken arm had felt better since the Galactica’s officers had removed her from that seething crowd. In the cramped spaces of the passenger compartment, the arm had been jostled too often, pinched in between shifting bodies. Now it seemed filled with a comforting numbness. Her emotional panic had subsided as well. Knowing that so many of those poor despairing people were conscious of her previous position as a socialator, she had been afraid that some of them might have taken out their frustration on her. There were many hidden weapons among that crowd. One of them might have been used on her. She felt much more relaxed now as she helped Starbuck interview the old Gemonese couple. When he had finished with that interview, he turned to her and said:

“Now I’ll need some data from you. That way the Life Center will be ready for you when we dock.”

“Life Center?”

“Fancy name for sick bay. Don’t fret it. Let’s see. First I’ll need your name and designation.”

“My name is Cassiopeia.”

“Lovely name.”

“I think so.”

“Designation.”

“I am designated a socialator.”

She saw the usual reaction in his eyes. She was used to it. Men from the other worlds, Capricans especially, had a good bit of prude in them when it came to discussing socialation.

“It’s an honorable profession,” she said testily, “practiced with the blessing of the elders for over four thousand years.”

She wondered if she should explain to him the years of preparation to which she had been submitted—the endless courses concerning social behavior, human knowledge, and sexual techniques—before her license was granted and a man allowed to touch her. She decided that, although there was kindness in this handsome young officer’s eyes, a warm look that conveyed the potential for understanding, she had better not martial the arguments that defended her profession.

“I didn’t mean to imply anything,” Starbuck said. “I was just trying to figure out what all the excitement was about back on that barge.”

She smiled.

“Those women were from the Otori sect among the Gemonese. They don’t believe in physical contact between genders except when sanctified by the priests during the high worship of the sunstorm, which comes every seven years.”

“No wonder those little buggers are such good card players.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Nothing.”

He asked her several more routine questions before ending the interview.

“Well,” he said, “they’ll be waiting for you with this information when we dock. Are you in pain now? Can I give you something?”

“You’ve already been very kind.”

Starbuck’s smile was engaging. She would have hugged him, if she had had two good arms to use for it.

“What can I tell you, Cassiopeia?” he said. “It’s my job. Also, I’m not of the Otori sect, right? And I’ve been getting these headaches.” Obviously Starbuck knew of a socialator’s abilities at curing mild illnesses with intricate massage techniques. “The pressure’s getting to me, I suppose. I just need some kind of release.” No, then, he meant something more than mere techniques of massage.

“Make an appointment,” she said, using her professional tone of voice.

“I just might do that. I might just—might—uh—”

His fumbling with the language made him all the more attractive to her. He looked like he might be acting the role of shy young officer. He had not seemed the type previously. Well, she thought, it would be fun exploring that particular line between reality and pretense.

 

In order to collect his thoughts, Starbuck made an excuse to go to the command cabin of the shuttle. The woman had intrigued him from the first. Discovering she was a socialator excited him even more. He had heard about socialators, and often wondered about their arcane—some said even metaphysical—abilities. If things settled down, and he could shake the weariness that his incessant duties had brought him, it might be fun to take the glamorous Cassiopeia on a darkside shuttle ride. Athena, of course, would be angry. Lately the commander’s daughter had been laying claims of ownership on him, and he didn’t like that. Let her be angry, a good lesson for her.

In the command cabin, Starbuck noticed that Apollo seemed unusually tense and angry. He was about to say something to the captain, when Apollo flipped on the communicator and broadcast to Core Command.

“This is Alpha Shuttle changing course to rendezvous starliner Rising Star. Shuttle will proceed on to Galactica with patients for Life Station.”

He flipped the communicator off as angrily as he had switched it on.

“What’re you up to?” Starbuck said.

Apollo’s look threatened discipline for insubordination if Starbuck continued the familiarity. They had always been easy with each other before. What had gotten into Apollo? He was beginning to act like a tin-god version of his father.

“If you don’t mind my asking, Sir,” Starbuck added.

Apollo waited a moment before answering.

“I’m stopping at the Rising Star, I think I can find out what’s at the bottom of this conspiracy of silence there.”

Reacting to the rage in the captain’s eyes, Starbuck decided not to ask what he meant by conspiracy of silence.

 

After Tigh brought him the news that there had been several reports of near-riots due to the lack of available food, Adama sat for a long time, looking out the starfield at his scattered, vulnerable-looking ragtag fleet. The Cylons would tear those poor ships apart if they ever detected the camouflage field.

“Father?” said a voice behind him. Athena. “Are you all right?”

For a moment he did not want to talk to her, but her sad, pleading eyes forced the words out of him.

“I can’t say I’m all right, no. If anybody said to me he was all right just now, I’d set him up for a psychiatric examination, special treatment—”

“Doesn’t sound like the warrior I’m used to. What happened to the joy of living to fight another day?”

“I took a tour belowdecks. The commander appearing to cheer up the passengers, you might call it. You should’ve seen their faces. Desperate, looking for a chance to live. And here I am, the commander, the authority figure. I could make the choices, I could say who’s to live, who’s to die, pass out priorities like chits in a lottery. One woman, with a baby in one arm, grabbed at me with the other. I didn’t know what to say, I didn’t—”

“Father, don’t.”

“No, I have to say it, Athena. I don’t want this anymore, don’t want what they so felicitously call the responsibility of command. Let someone else do it, let someone else take up the burden….”

Adama turned in his chair. Athena sat next to him, guided his head to her shoulder. She felt odd in this comforting position, as if she had become possessed for a moment by the spirit of her mother, Ila.

“Easy, father,” she whispered. “Listen. If it hadn’t been for you, we’d all be gone now. Instead, many are saved. It’s extraordinary. Look out on that field of stars. It’s the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen. Look at our ships. If you look at them technically, sure they’re old, rusty, beat up, battered. But they contain life. Life searching for a new world, a place to be and grow. Happiness, a future.”

Adama started to protest, wanted desperately to say it was time for him to pass leadership to someone else—but, for a moment, he was caught by the view outside. He saw it as Athena had described, and it was awesomely beautiful.

 

Apollo left Starbuck to pilot the shuttle back to the Galactica and took Boomer with him onto the Rising Star. Lieutenant Jolly, who had been alerted to Apollo’s arrival, joined them in a dimly lit corridor that connected the liner’s two baggage areas. Apollo was astounded at the information that the chubby officer provided.

“Contaminated?” he said incredulously. “That’s impossible. Weren’t the provisions checked before they were boarded?”

“For radiation, yes,” Jolly said, “but there was no time to check for Pluton poisoning.”

“You mean all this food is worthless?” Boomer said.

“We can’t be sure of that,” Apollo said. “Not yet. Pluton breaks down the structure of the food. Jolly, have your crews go through every container. Chances are some of the supplies were shielded enough from the bombs to be saved.”

Jolly did not look particularly confident.

“This is the third ship I’ve checked so far,” he said. “It isn’t looking good.”

“Salvage anything you can,” Apollo ordered. “Even scraps will help.”

“What do we do with the rest?”

Apollo found it difficult to speak the words of his reply:

“Jettison it. And keep the lid on the problem. If people find out we haven’t any food we’re going to have a mutiny on our hands. C’mon, Boomer, something I want to check out up in elite class.”

Apollo charged up the iron step ladder as if in response to a full alert.

Serina came around a corner in a hallway and bumped into the briskly walking man. As they backed away from each other, Serina started to laugh at the awkwardness of their situation, but Apollo’s cold look made her think better of it. She changed the laugh to a smile, and then waited for his response. He just continued to look at her, his opaque blue eyes showing no emotion. Serina was as impressed with the look of the man now as she had been when they had first encountered each other back on Caprica. With his obviously strong body and broad shoulders, his light brown hair so carefully groomed that its strands might be arranged by the book, his ruggedly attractive face whose hint of cynicism suggested vast experience in so young a man, he appeared to be just the type you could rely on in an emergency, and these days she anticipated emergencies on a regular basis. In spite of his impressive look, however, there was a definite note of arrogance, a drawing back from that which shouldn’t be touched, hinted at by his stiff bearing and in the way one corner of his thin-lipped mouth turned down.

She held out a hand, which he took with a definite lack of eagerness for the social amenities. She wondered if she dared ask him for help.

“My name is Serina, Captain Apollo,” she said amiably.

“I remember your name,” he said brusquely.

“Come down off your epaulettes, Captain. I need to talk to you.”

“Look, Miss Serina, I’m very busy now, I’ve got to—”

“Far be it from me to interfere with your duties. Goodbye, Captain.”

She whirled around and started to walk away from Apollo.

“Wait a minute,” Apollo said, then turned to the young, black officer who was standing slightly behind him.

“Boomer, why don’t you go on up to elite class and see if there’s anything going on we should be concerned about.”

Serina, recalling the ugly plushness she had observed on her single visit to elite class, considered telling Apollo he wouldn’t like what he would find there, but decided the captain would see it for himself soon enough. After the black officer had left them, Apollo turned to her and said:

“Well then, what can I do for you?”

In spite of the cool politeness, he sounded quite irritated with her.

“Please come with me,” she said. “It won’t take long.”

She led him down a series of hallways which normally housed the lowest-class passengers on the Rising Star. People were crowded into its narrow cubicles.

“I’d’ve thought a celebrity like you’d do a little better than this,” Apollo said. “A neat little compartment of your own on the elite levels.”

“I was offered that, from several men whose approaches were quite subtle. Anyway, I had no interest in pulling space. I took what I could get fairly.”

“I believe you.”

She was startled by the warm sincerity of his comment. She might like this captain, after all, even if he did have a ramrod up his spine.

“I want you to help me with the little boy,” Serina said.

“Little boy? The one I saw on Caprica?”

“Yes. Boxey’s his name. I found him in the rubble during the bombings.”

“What’s wrong with him?” Apollo asked.

“I’m afraid it isn’t good. A mild form of shock. He hasn’t eaten or slept since the bombing.”

“You have food?”

“I managed to get some from Sire Uri, on the upper level. Boxey won’t eat it.”

“I’ll have him dispatched to the Life Station right away.”

“I don’t think that’s going to be the answer. I don’t know what to do. The poor kid’s blocked out all memory, can’t tell me anything about his family or where he comes from. All he ever talks about is this little daggit that got killed while they were running through the streets. He doesn’t know it’s dead, thinks it’s just lost. I… uh… maybe you might be able to help….”

“Me? If he won’t eat for you, I don’t know what I can do.”

“Well, if you remember, he seemed to spark a little when you talked to him on Caprica. Frankly, I got the feeling you’re pretty good with children, captain.”

Serina didn’t understand the brief sad look that crossed Apollo’s face, but she began to see that the aloof young captain was more complicated than she had thought.

“I grew up with a kid brother,” Apollo said. “Well, let’s take a look at your little Boxey.”

Serina led him down a long companionway in which refugees had been crammed into many improvised living quarters. Some of the little niches were already decorated with simple makeshift remnants, a couple even had curtains up hiding blank walls.

They stopped by a niche which had a curtain drawn across its entranceway. A dim night light inside showed through the thin material of the drapery. He glanced at Serina who told him to go inside. Entering, he found the young boy lying on a cot and staring at the ceiling.

“Excuse me,” Apollo said. “Hope I’m not interrupting anything.” The boy’s eyes widened as he recognized his visitor. “I’m in charge of finding young men to try out as future fighter pilots. Your name is Boxey, correct?”

“Uh huh….”

Apollo nodded. He moved to the edge of the bed and crouched down beside it. The boy, in fear or awe, shifted backward to the wall side of his cot.

“Good,” Apollo said. “I’ve been looking all over for you. You know, you should’ve made contact with the commander. We’re very short on pilots.”

The boy looked quizzical. Apollo could remember teasing Zac and obtaining a similar look in response.

“I’m too little to be a pilot,” Boxey said.

“Oh sure, right now. But how long do you think it takes to become a full Colonial warrior?”

“I don’t know.”

“You have to start when you’re very small, or you won’t get these until you have gray hair.”

Apollo pointed to the Captain’s bars on his shoulder. Interested, Boxey lifted his head to stare at the shiny emblems.

“You like them?” Apollo asked.

Boxey seemed about to respond enthusiastically, but the interest vanished as quickly as it had come, and he put his head back on his pillow.

“I want Muffit,” the child said.

Tears came to Serina’s eyes, and she wondered if she should back out of the small quarters, stay out of sight in the hallway until the captain was through or had given up.

“Well, I don’t know,” Apollo said. “Not much room for a daggit in a fighter plane.”

“He’s gone. He ran away.”

“Oh? Well, maybe we can find one of Muffit’s friends.”

“There are no daggits. I asked.”

Apollo glanced back at Serina. His face seemed less severe in the dim light. She didn’t know what to say.

“Well,” Apollo said to Boxey, “tell you what. Here, you take one of these—” He removed one of the bars from his shoulder and placed it above the pocket of the boy’s tunic. “—you take this until I furnish you the proper emblem. Now, as Colonial Warrior First Level, you are entitled to the first daggit that comes along.”

He rose and started for the door, where he hesitated, then said:

“But only on the condition you get your rest, eat all of your primaries, and stop chasing girls. Good night, officer.”

He saluted and went out. Serina followed but could not resist one peek backward. She saw Boxey looking down at the bar that Apollo had pinned on him. In the corridor, Apollo waited for her.

“Thank you,” she said. “See, I was right—you are good with kids. You and your brother must be very close.”

“We were.”

“I’m sorry! The war?”

“I suppose….”

“Look, if you’d rather not involve yourself with—”

“Don’t be silly. I’ve already lost the big one, I can stand a few little ones to win.”

“That’s not a little one in there, Captain. You win that one, you’ve accomplished something.”

“Sure, cheered up a six-year-old. I’m afraid that’s not—”

“I’m afraid it is, whether you want to admit it or not.”

A hint of smile appeared again on Apollo’s face. A potentially handsome smile, Serina was careful to note.

“I’m sorry, but I do have to go now,” Apollo said. “Have to check out elite level.”

“I hope your reaction to it is similar to mine. Captain.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You will.”

He gave her a half-salute and strode down the companionway. Serina noted, with a wry interest, that the captain no longer seemed so aloof and detached in her eyes.

 

Apollo found an elevator that went directly to the elite level of the Rising Star. As soon as its doors closed in front of him, devices were activated that had originally been designed to prepare the vacationer for his stay in the elite quarters of a luxury spaceliner. Subtle perfumes drifted out of the air vents; they suggested food or sex depending on which direction the elevator rider was facing. A bizarre style of music—quiet, soothing, intricately melodic—emerged from speakers positioned strategically all around the elevator car. In an odd, subliminal way the music seemed to suggest romantic joys to come. Apollo recognized the insipid melody as a series of variations on a Leon chant. That was likely, since Sire Uri was a Leo. What struck Apollo as odd about the music was that the song was originally an agricultural chant celebrating the wonders of the harvest. The elevator version had changed the simple tune into a ridiculously complex and unrhythmic love melody.

A golden light switched on suddenly above the doorway to signal that the elevator was stopped at the primary elite level. The perfumes faded and the music diminished as the doors slid open. Apollo’s eyes hurt from the amount of gilt ornamentation that he now faced. As he stepped into the reception area, he noticed with annoyance that an absurd gilt sign spelled CLUB ELITE over the doorway leading to the level’s inner sanctums. Apollo had traveled on a luxury liner a couple of times, when there were no sensible accommodations available, and he did not recall from either of those trips anything approaching the ugly embellishments that decorated the reception area.

As Apollo’s eyes became accustomed to the ornate glare, he was startled by Boomer’s voice resounding through the small chamber.

“Officer! I will ask you only once more to step aside.”

Boomer was addressing a stocky muscular guard whose broad body blocked the closed entranceway to the inner quarters.

“Sir,” the guard said in a bored voice, as if he was used to discouraging other passengers of the liner from gate-crashing the luxury quarters, “this is a private accommodation secured by Sire Uri and his party.”

“I don’t care if it’s—”

“I might remind you, sir, that Sire Uri is a newly elected member of the fleet council. He has ordered me to see that he is in no way disturbed by intruders.”

“How’s this for an intrusion, daggit-meat?”

Boomer’s “intrusion” was his sidearm, whose barrel was now pointing at the guard’s left nostril. The guard looked surprised, but not really scared. Boomer might be causing more trouble than was necessary, Apollo thought, might be better to proceed a bit closer to the book.

“What’s going on, Boomer?” he said, striding forward.

“Fella here doesn’t seem to want to let us in the club area.”

“Is that true, soldier?”

“Well, uh, yes sir. Sire Uri said—”

“Do you recognize me, soldier?”

“Yes, Captain Apollo.”

“Do you know I have complete authority to check out all levels of all ships by fleet order?”

“Uh, yes sir.”

“Are you going to let us through that door?”

“Yes, sir!”

Apollo smiled at Boomer, as the guard obsequiously ushered them through the doorway. Sometimes there were advantages to being the commander’s son, after all.

As they walked down a corridor just as over-decorated as the club lobby, Boomer muttered, “When I think of those starving people, I—”

“Don’t even say it, Boomer. I hate this just as much as you do.”

The liner’s grand ballroom had been transmogrified into what looked, to Apollo, suspiciously like a throne room. A series of tapestries depicting what he recognized as a famous hunting cycle from the planet Tauron hung along one wall. Other walls displayed paintings, sculptures, holoviews that Apollo was certain were confiscated from all over the twelve worlds. Uri and his cohorts must have grabbed every art work they could rescue from the dying planets, looting museums and galleries while citizens died around them. Before the Cylon invasion, Uri had been famous throughout the colonies as a political manipulator of some skill.

For a moment it was difficult to locate Uri amid the impressive art work, the luxurious furniture, and the milling crowd, most of whom appeared to be elder statesmen and their courtesans. Almost everyone in the room was gathered around arrangements of food, shoveling victuals into their mouths with an obscene eagerness. Uri lounged behind one of the largest food tables, almost obscured by a high pile of exotically colored fruit. He was still as handsome as Apollo remembered him and did not seem to have aged much at all. There was a suggestion of jowliness, a bit of a bulge at his waistband—likely results of the present orgy—but overall Uri still looked every bit the aristocratic politician who had been extremely popular all over the planet Leo. Beside him, with her arms around his neck, there was a scantily clad young woman whose vapid beauty was marred only by the food stains around her mouth.

Apollo drew his sidearm and gestured to Boomer to do the same. As the revelers noticed the guns, the sounds of merriment diminished. When Apollo and Boomer walked slowly toward Sire Uri, glaze-eyed people along their route drew back. Apollo stopped at Uri’s table. The man looked up at him with heavy-lidded eyes.

“I trust you have an explanation for this intrusion?” he said.

“Thass right,” said the girl beside him.

Apollo pushed her away from the Sire and motioned for Uri to stand up. Uri was about an inch taller than Apollo and he tried to take advantage of the height difference by assuming an imperious tone of voice:

“What is this all about, young man?”

Apollo stared scornfully at the handsome politician.

“Would you like to make a statement before I arrest you, Sire Uri?”

Uri gestured with his right hand, signalling all activity still proceeding to cease. Even the musician stopped playing abruptly.

“I’m glad you know my name, sir,” Sire Uri said. “At least you’ll know from where the blade fell.”

“Drop the cheap rhetoric, Sire Uri. You’re going to follow me to my shuttle.”

“I’ll do nothing of the sort, young man. You’ve no jurisdiction aboard the Rising Star.”

“I have all the jurisdiction I need. I can take this garbage scow and appropriate it for the fleet if I so wish. Better yet, if you choose not to accompany me back to the command ship, I’ll just turn the six levels of starving passengers beneath you loose. You can take your chances with them.”

Apollo gestured toward the overladen food table, and Uri understood his message.

“Captain,” he said, “I’ll grant you all this may seem a, well, a bit excessive. Blame it on overenthusiasm.”

“Excessive? Overenthusiasm? All this? I’d say obscene and—”

“Wait just one moment, young man. I and my friends were merely enjoying a small, well deserved celebration, you might call it our prayer of gratitude for deliverance. We’ve a right to—”

“You have no right, no privilege of the Lord, for this kind of—of celebration! In case it’s eluded you, Councillor, some hundred people have died since our deliverance from the Cylons.”

“I was not aware of any cases of starvation, Captain.”

“Maybe not. It may even be that hunger hasn’t taken a life. Not yet anyway. But it’s only a matter of time if we don’t strictly follow the rationing plan my father’s sent out to all fleet ships. If—”

“Your father?”

“Yes.”

“Ah, then you’re Commander Adama’s son. Captain Apollo, I believe. I didn’t recognize you, my deepest apologies. No wonder then.”

“I don’t follow you, Sire Uri.”

He glanced toward the immediate audience and drew himself taller. Obviously what he was going to say next would be played to the crowd.

“I say, Captain, that it is no wonder that you are making this ill-timed power play.” He turned toward the audience. “You see, my friends, this young man is an emissary from his father, our honored commander. When he mentions appropriating this ship, he is quite serious, and we are not allowed to argue with the commander’s son, after all.”

“What’re you saying?”

“I am saying, Captain, that you will jump at any excuse to appropriate ships. To siphon off fuel for the Galactica, perhaps. I suspect that’s the reason you’re throwing your weight around, and not out of any compassion for hungry passengers. I recognize a political ploy when I see it, and you can just tell Adama that—”

“Can it, Sire Uri. With all due respect. Boomer, notify Core Command that we’ve located some stores which we will distribute as far as they go.”

Uri’s face suddenly turned red with anger.

“This is a violation of proper procedure, young man. And I’ll not allow it.”

“You don’t have that choice. I remind you you’re under arrest.”

Uri took a deep breath before speaking again:

“Every morsel of this food is mine. I had it brought from my own estate, and it belongs to me and my guests. The law has not yet been written to confiscate personal property without a presidential order.”

Some of the guests clearly agreed with Uri’s aristocratic views, although Apollo could see that others were looking somewhat embarrassed and ashamed. The drunken young woman at Uri’s side snuggled closer to him and made a dramatically meaningful gesture in Apollo’s direction. He wished he could arrest her and all the revelers who endorsed Uri’s view.

“Does your wife share your feelings about denying your food to others?” Apollo asked, with a meaningful glance toward Uri’s strumpet.

“My wife?” Uri said weakly.

“Siress Uri. I don’t see her.”

Uri could not maintain eye contact with Apollo and he suddenly looked toward the thickly carpeted floor. Apollo remembered Siress Uri as a plump gentle woman, whose main job in life had been discovering ways to rescue her impulsive husband from potentially dangerous situations. She had been kind to him and Zac when they visited her during their childhood.

“No, Siress Uri is gone,” Uri said. “Unfortunately she did not arrive at the Rising Star in time to be rescued with the rest of us.”

Apollo did not for one moment believe the sob that Uri placed into his voice when he spoke of her.

“My sympathies,” Apollo said. “I share your bereavement. Siress Uri was an outstanding woman.”

Uri’s head remained bowed. Dutifully, it seemed.

“Yes,” he whispered.

“I’m sure she’d be moved by your period of mourning, and the style in which you choose to honor her memory. Boomer?”

“Yes, Cap’n?”

“Have Jolly send a team up here to collect and distribute this food throughout the ship.”

“Sir, shouldn’t we check with Core Command?”

“Now!”

He grabbed Uri by the arm and rushed him out of the room. The young woman remained attached to the politician’s arm for a few steps before falling into a drunken, glutted stupor onto the thick, red carpet.

While they awaited Jolly and his men, Boomer whispered to Apollo.

“Without being critical, Captain—is there a chance you overplayed our hand a tad, considering Sire Uri is on the new council?”

“This isn’t a card game, Boomer, not one of yours and Starbuck’s two-bit cons. Those people down there are starving, damn it!”

“Take it easy, Cap. I’m on your side.”

“Are you sure?”

“Captain—”

“Sorry, Boomer. I’m easily irritated these days. You must’ve noticed.”

“Well, now you mention it, yeah.”

The elevator arrived and Jolly’s large form seemed to fill the entire doorway.

“Let’s get to it,” Apollo said. “Collect every scrap of food you can find here and get it to the people.”

The look of hatred from Sire Uri as two of Jolly’s men took him into the elevator sent a chill up and down Apollo’s spine.

 

Working gently, Dr. Paye positioned Cassiopeia’s broken arm inside a transparent cylindrical tubing which was connected to a larger, more impressive set of medical machinery. The arm felt numb now, and none of the doctor’s touching of it gave her any pain. With the arm in place, Paye drew out what looked like a trio of gunbarrels from inside a cavity of one of the machines. After each gunbarrel had been pointed at a different area of her arm within the tube, the doctor pressed a series of buttons and faint, laserlike beams came out of the gunbarrels. After the beams had penetrated the transparent surface of the tubing, they were diffused, entering her arm at several points. The numbness immediately left her arm and sharp tingling sensations replaced it.

Abruptly, Paye pressed the buttons again, and the gunbarrels retracted back into the machine. As he removed her arm from the transparent tubing, Paye said:

“How does it feel?”

Cassiopeia stretched the arm, then folded it. Even the tingling sensation was fading now.

“Feels like it hadn’t even been broken,” she said.

“The bone has been fused whole,” Paye said, in a friendly professional voice. “It’s probably even stronger than before.”

“It’s wonderful. Damn wonderful. Thanks, doc.”

“With equipment like this I’m just a mechanic. A talented mechanic, to be sure, but just a mechanic. Anything else I can do for you, Cassiopeia?”

The offer seemed to mean more than mere medical attention. As a socialator she was used to even such an oblique approach and it was easy for her to demure politely.

In the corridor outside the sick bay, Starbuck leaned laconically against a wall, still in his flight gear. She smiled, glad to see the brash young officer again. Then she frowned, realizing why he might be waiting for her.

“You’re going to take me back, aren’t you?” she said.

“It isn’t easy to cop a ride around here,” he said.

She turned away from him. She felt the blood drain out of her face.

“I dread returning to that ship.”

She did not like to admit it, but she was afraid of the stupidity of the passengers aboard the Rising Star. She sympathized with their plight, their hunger and their disorientation, but on the other hand she didn’t care to offer herself as a sacrifice for their frustrations. Starbuck seemed to understand, for he said, “Look, maybe I can check around, see if there’s anyplace else you can stay. There’re better ships, might even be space aboard the Galactica.”

Damn! There was that sound again, the same proposition that the doctor had hinted at so shyly. Well, if there was anything this young officer wasn’t, it was shy.

“What’s the matter?” Starbuck asked.

“I sense a price tag. Would you be doing this if I weren’t a socialator?”

“I might. Then again, I might not.”

“Please don’t joke. I’m… I’m a little weak. I mean I—”

“Okay, okay. Let’s forget the little jokes for a while. Look, really, I just want to help you. Nothing personal.”

“Nothing personal?”

“Well, something personal. But I’ll still locate some quarters for you. And that’s all. You can break my arm if I’m lying. ’Course it might be worth a broken arm—”

“All right, all right.”

“It’s a deal then?”

“I think you’ve made a terrible deal, but all right.”

Starbuck smiled genially as he took Cassiopeia’s arm, the one that had just been repaired at the Life Station, and led her down the corridor.

 

Adama, coming onto the bridge, discovered Colonel Tigh smiling broadly, clutching the latest reports to his chest as if they were love letters.

“What is it, Tigh?” Adama said.

“Long range patrols’ve reported in. Their scanners find no sign of pursuit from the Cylons. All vectors are looking good. The camouflage shielding that Apollo devised seems to be holding steady. Except for that one flyby some time ago, not a Cylon flight team has been anywhere near us.”

“So long as we remain hidden in space like this, it’s highly unlikely they’ll find us. Pray the camouflage continues to hold, Tigh.”

“I do that every waking minute, Sir. Finding us now would be disastrous. We’re not able to mount any heavy battle, Sir, not right now.”

“I’m aware of that, Tigh. Painfully aware.”

“What do we do next?”

“That question I propose to leave to other voices.”

Tigh looked shocked and angered simultaneously.

“You’re going to go through with that resignation plan then?”

“I’m submitting it to the council this—”

“Commander, we’d better talk.”

“Of course, old friend, but my mind is made up.”

“With fuel and food running so low, you can’t resign now. If we ever needed leadership—”

“The fleet is filled with good men. You included, Tigh. The council will decide.”

“Commander—”

“Yes, Tigh?”

Tigh paused, obviously reluctant to speak his mind.

“Go ahead, old friend,” Adama said. “Say it.”

“If you resign now, it will look exactly the same as your act of pulling the Galactica out of battle with the Cylons. I’m sorry, but—”

“And I’m sorry you think that. Perhaps the two events are related. And perhaps they merely support my decision that it’s time for me to step down.”

“No, you can’t!”

“I’ve made my decision.”

“I can see that, damn it!”

“Will you accompany me to the council chamber?”

“I’d rather not, if you don’t mind.”

Adama started to say that he did mind, but instead whirled around and left the bridge. Behind him as he went out the hatchway, he heard a loud thump. Undoubtedly Colonel Tigh hitting something metallic with his fists. Adama did not look back to verify that speculation.

The newly-appointed council of elders, a temporary assemblage that would govern until a proper Quorum could be elected, started voicing their anger immediately before Adama could even finish his resignation speech. Some of them sprang to their feet, shouting:

“No! We won’t have it!”

“Unacceptable.”

“You can’t resign. You especially!”

Councillor Anton silenced the surge of protests with a sweeping gesture. Anton had some time ago been an aide-decamp to President Adar. A hawk-faced, emaciated, old-line politico from Scorpia, he was crafty, but Adama had always perceived him as trustworthy and intelligent.

“Adama,” Anton said, rising to his feet, “you have led us wisely and well. That’s why we can’t accept your resignation. Things are too grave now.”

“I disagree,” bellowed Councillor Uri. Adama had known that, if there were to be any serious opposition to any sensible plan, it would originate with the representative of the Leon survivors. Tainted as he was with scandal, his people had nevertheless given him a vote of confidence to continue on the council.

“I think our dear Adama is best qualified to judge his own capacity to lead,” Uri said.

Adama glanced at Apollo, who was sitting with the newswoman Serina in the gallery in front of the council table. His son appeared to be furious, and the pretty young woman had her hands on his arm, apparently to convince him to remain seated. Adama liked what he had seen of the Caprican newswoman, and liked the fact that she appeared to show interest in his son. Apollo, so unhappy over the deaths of Zac and his mother, needed such a compassionate friend. He turned his attention back to Uri.

“In all due respect,” he was saying, “I’m not at all sure that the commander has led us all that wisely, all that well. I cannot in good conscience characterize our present predicament as the result of good planning.”

“Uri, without Adama none of us would’ve survived the Cylon—” Anton shouted.

“That may be,” Uri said, “but I place the blame for the chaos that we endure now squarely on the commander’s shoulders. Poor judgment in choosing food and fuel lots now leave us on the brink of disaster.”

“Councilman Uri,” Anton said, “you have a lot of nerve casting accusations about food shortages when you have been brought up on charges of hoarding in the face of starvation.”

“Are your hands so clean, Anton? What about—”

“Gentlemen,” Adama interrupted. “Gentlemen, please. This squabbling is not in our best interests. Uri is not entirely incorrect about the state we are in now, nor is he unjustified in blaming me. The problem is, and has been, that there are too many of us. Too many people, too many ships. We would have had troubles even if so much of our food supply had not been contaminated, even if so many of our ships had not proved to be in such unstable condition. If we had time—ah, but that’s the real source of our disturbances. We must obtain fuel and food, that’s our only solution. Otherwise, we all perish—slowly and gradually, as our supplies run out. We have to convert our ships to hyperspace capability and leave behind those that can’t be converted.”

“That would mean crowding ourselves together even more,” Uri said. “Conditions now are intolerable.”

Adama resisted the opportunity to comment on Uri’s own solution to the supposed intolerability of conditions.

“Yes, Uri, it would. That’s why I’ve intended to propose that we pool our stock of fuel and send the Galactica and the most capable ships of our improvised fleet on ahead in order to obtain fuel and supplies for the rest of us.”

“Ships left behind?” Uri shouted. “Commander, just how many ships do you propose we send on this fool—on this foraging mission?”

“Captain Apollo has the hard figures on that, Councillor Uri.”

Apollo stood and spoke brusquely, obviously holding in his temper.

“About one third of the present fleet. There’s just that amount of fuel to spread around, and that’s a bit of thin spreading, gentlemen.”

“Thin spreading indeed!” Uri said. “I say this is just a ploy for you and your chosen people to escape the rest of us, leave us here, without fuel, to die slowly. That is—”

“Sir,” Apollo interrupted. “As things stand, there’s not sufficient fuel to get the entire fleet anywhere. We must let those few who can seek out a solution do so.”

“You’re your father’s son all right,” Uri sneered. “I’m not certain you’re not deceiving us in tandem.”

“That is uncalled for,” Anton shouted. “You know better, Uri, you—”

“Ah, are you in league with them, too, Anton?�

“Gentlemen, please,” Adama said. “Hear me out.”

“You sound very authoritarian for a leader who’s just resigned,” Uri said.

“I am merely advising,” Adama said.

“Tell us your advice then. I am anxious to hear it, Commander.”

Adama cleared his voice to buy time. He wished he could make Uri disappear. It was bad enough having to cope with ignorant opposition in a meeting like this; it was worse to know your opponent was merely a boastful crook who would never listen to reason anyway.

“I propose,” Adama said, “that we send our best ships to Carillon for the purpose of obtaining fuel and food.”

“Carillon?” Uri asked, a curious sarcasm in his voice. “Why in the twelve worlds an outpost like Carillon?”

“Carillon was once the object of a mining expedition from our colonies. Rich sources of Tylium.”

“But, if I recall correctly, it was abandoned as impractical to mine.”

Uri was obviously prepared. His spies must have obtained Adama’s plan before the meeting.

“It was abandoned,” Adama said, “only because there was no local labor, and it was too far from the colonies to make shipping a very practical operation. However, the exigencies of commerce need not concern us now.”

“I do not believe Carillon is a proper solution. The same problems do exist. Carillon is too far away. Too many disasters could occur to our ships and people left behind.”

“It’s the only solution, Uri.”

“Is it? What about Borallus? It’s closer, and we know everything we need is there. Food, water, fuel.”

Many of the councillors clearly agreed with Uri’s proposal. How could they be so dim, so unaware? Adama thought.

“And there’s undoubtedly a Cylon task force there,” Adama said. “It could be fatal to let down our camouflage shield and attempt landing on Borallus.”

“Possibly fatal,” Uri shouted. “To me it seems surely fatal to use Carillon as our destination.”

“Carillon is our only hope,” Adama said. He noted, by a quick count of the nodding heads around the half-circle of the council table, that more than half of the group seemed to be on his side now. “Gentlemen, you must understand that the situation has reached a critical level much sooner than we’d anticipated. Rations have already been cut by two-thirds. We can’t afford to squabble any longer. We must act, and we must be able to present our plan of action to our people unanimously.”

“Unanimity means just being your echo,” Uri said bitterly, but he sat down. He was the last holdout to the plan. When the final vote came, Uri voted for the plan only after the council had agreed to accept Adama’s resignation as president, and after they had agreed that Uri’s ship, the Rising Star, would be one of the vehicles chosen for the hyperspace jump to Carillon.

 

After the council meeting, Apollo felt relieved that a positive action would finally be taken, but unhappy that his father had chosen to resign. He also felt deep anger at the insult Uri had thrown his way during the meeting. The bastard was just getting back at Apollo for arresting him. A lot of good the arrest did, anyway. Uri had manipulated the situation to his advantage and become leader of the factions opposed to his father.

“You look so sad,” Serina said softly. She had been standing silently at his side for some time.

“Forget it. I wanted to ask you, did you bring Boxey with you over here?”

“Just as you ordered, Captain. I stowed him away in that lovely compartment you provided for us. Thanks, by the way.”

“Think nothing of it. Let’s go get Boxey.”

Apollo strode through the labyrinthine corridors with a fierce determination. Serina, although she was long-legged and near his height, had trouble keeping up with him.

“How’s the boy doing?” Apollo asked just before they stopped in front of the door to Boxey’s quarters.

“Still won’t eat, doesn’t sleep.”

“I think we may have something that’ll interest him.”

“Right now?”

“Yes.”

“But there’s so much for you to do, preparing for the trip to Carillon and all. Shouldn’t you be getting your rest?”

“I thought I might sleep better after we solve Boxey’s problem.”

“That’s a tall order!”

“Watch me.”

Boxey, lying on the lower level of a double bunk, appeared as listless as ever. Apollo ordered him to get up and come with them. The child asked if he had to. Apollo said it was orders, and the boy reluctantly took his proffered hand. They traced a circuitous route to an area of the ship that Apollo had only visited two or three times in his entire tour of duty aboard Galactica.

Stopping at a door marked Droid Maintenance Laboratory, Apollo said, “This is it.” He smiled at the confusion on Serina’s face as he ushered her and Boxey into the lab. Immediately in front of them was a row of droids, propped up against a wall, all of them obviously switched off. Some of them had been opened up and various wires dangled from the regions of their heads, chests, and legs.

“What are these?” Serina asked.

“Droids. Mechanical constructs designed to simulate human or animal—”

“I know what droids are. I thought they were banned.”

“On Caprica they were. Capricans didn’t believe in using mechanical substitutes for human effort. A noble philosophy but—”

“I don’t know about philosophy but I do know, in the few experiences I’ve had with droids, I’m uncomfortable perceiving human traits in something that turns out not to be human at all.”

“I think you’re wrong but under the circumstances it’s not a worthwhile discussion to pursue. Let me just say that droids have become a necessity for spacecraft. They can tuck themselves into niches that bulkier humans can’t reach and they can perform minor repair jobs on the surface of the ship or in atmospheres we can’t breathe.”

A stocky, middle-aged man in a lab coat came through a door. There was a certain mechanical look to his movements and Serina wondered if he was a droid, too. The way his face lit up when he recognized Apollo proved him to be human, after all.

“Ah, Captain Apollo. Right on time. We’ve been expecting you. Is this the young officer who’s been put in charge of the new project?”

Boxey, surprised at the attention from this stranger, started to hide behind Apollo’s legs.

“Well, Dr. Wilker, I haven’t had time to fully discuss the project with him. It’s our hope he’ll accept.”

Boxey pulled on Apollo’s leg. Apollo looked down at the befuddled young boy.

“I want to go back,” Boxey whispered.

“Boxey, this is a military order. We have at least to hear the doctor out. Tell us more about the project, doctor.”

Dr. Wilker assumed a professorial manner and addressed most of his next speech to Boxey.

“Well, you see, we’ll soon be landing on various alien planets, no telling what we’ll find there. It’s important that we be safe. Ordinarily, we’d have trained daggits to stand watch at night when our people are asleep in their encampments, but we don’t have any daggits. So, we’ve had to see what we could come up with. We’ll call the first one, Muffit Two.”

Boxey looked sideways at Apollo.

“What’d he say?”

Apollo shrugged.

“I didn’t really get it all, Dr. Wilker. Maybe you’d better show us.”

“Right. Oh, Lanzer.”

The call to his assistant was as exaggerated a cue as any found in ancient melodrama. Lanzer, a young, bespectacled man, held what appeared to be a small bundle of fur in his arms. Apollo knew the short-haired fur was fake, implanted on the droid body, but he would have taken the construct for a real daggit if he hadn’t known better. Lanzer put the daggit-droid down on the floor, and it immediately began to bark in a high-pitched, compellingly friendly tone. Moving to Boxey, it stuck out its tongue and began to pant. The wagging of its tail was natural and convincing, unless you looked up close and could see that the tail protruded through a square hole at the back of the droid.

“Naturally,” Dr. Wilker said, “the first one will have to be looked after very carefully.”

Boxey, incredulous, backed a couple of steps away from the eager daggit droid.

“That’s not Muffit,” Boxey said. “It’s not even a real daggit.”

“No,” said Wilker softly, “but it can learn to be like a real one. It’s very smart. If you’d help us, he’ll even be smarter.”

Boxey couldn’t take his eyes off the daggit. The panting replica of an animal seemed to have a similar fascination for the boy. With the first hint of a smile in several days, Boxey took several careful steps backward from the daggit, who stopped panting and looked up quizzically. The boy started to turn and the daggit ran toward him. Looking back over his shoulder, Boxey started to cross the room. The droid, appearing quite content, stayed at the boy’s heels.

“We used the image of Boxey you gave us to train the droid to respond to him,” Wilker whispered to Apollo and Serina.

Boxey stopped walking and turned to look down at the daggit. Slowly he opened his arms. The droid moved forward, sat up on its hind legs and put its paws on the boy’s chest. The trying-out period was over. Boxey hugged the daggit and smiled back at the three watching adults.

Apollo smiled toward Wilker, and said, “That’s one I owe you, Doc.”

“Any time,” Wilker said.

As they followed Boxey and his new pet into the corridor, Serina whispered to Apollo:

“That’s one I owe you, Apollo.”

“Any time.”

“You look quite smug, you know that?”

“If you say so.”

“But I’ll kiss you anyway.”