CHAPTER SIX

 

 

Starbuck stole a cigar 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 niche, 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 cigar. Then he couldn’t think straight. What cigar? he almost said aloud. Visions of a starving mob coming in and out of light initiated 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 cigar was about to fall out of his hand, and he tightened his grip on it. Moving out of the niche, he put the cigar to his mouth and took a long puff. 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. Cassiopeia 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 found 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 cigar. Can I have a puff?”

“Sure.”

She took a heavy drag on the slim cigar and appeared to savor its taste.

“Ooooh, 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 destroyed 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 gave 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 joy, curve in and out of constellations….”

“Nice way of putting it,” Starbuck said, biting down on the cigar.

Cassiopeia’s eyebrows raised.

“But you don’t buy it?”

“Too poetic, 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 think of.”

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 overwork. 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 just the ordinary misery that’s facing everybody. 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, I’m glad to see—”

“Yeah? Well, it’s no big deal—protecting each other, like you say. Protecting each other’s part of the job. 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.”

“Would you like to make love to me?”

The abruptness of the question startled Starbuck. He did want to make love to her, but he didn’t want her to ask the question.

“What’s the matter?” she said.

“Is that the way a socialator goes about it, changing the subject and aiming right at the old target?”

“No, it isn’t. If we were back on my planet, and you were accepted by the proper segment of our society, and you had given me the signal that you wanted me, even then I would not be able to ask the question. I don’t want to make love to 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 cigar and tossed it onto the launching bay floor. It landed lit-end first and sent sparks flying.

After they had kissed, Starbuck said, “If I’da known 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 launching bay?”

“Can you think of anyplace more private?”

“Come to think of it, I can’t think of anyplace private in this whole damn fleet.”

“What’s in there?”

“That’s the launching tube. You don’t want to go in there. It’s dark and it’s—”

Cassiopeia had already crawled into the tube through a circular side opening. From out of the darkness 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.”

He followed her into the launching tube. Reaching out, he came into contact with an area of her skin. He felt excited and happy, working out which part of her now completely naked body it belonged to.

 

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 quite sexy in spite of 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—”

“No way you can help that, Athena. They won’t really believe us until we bring 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, damn it!”

“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 goodbye 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, each engaged in caressing the other’s body vigorously.

Caressing their naked bodies….

“That little snake,” she said aloud. Her finger quickly proceeded to another button. This one was marked, “STEAM PURGE”.

She tried to laugh but could not as she watched the monitor screen in which the two lovers writhed 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 it 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-year war had depleted the supply of the only fuel source that could power the highly complicated Marron drive. In the time preceding 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 whether the Fleet might have to cut down severely on its Tylium use. In fact, Adama felt, the Tylium crisis had been at least partially responsible for the fussy politicians, anxious to cut a budget wherever 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, 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 Carillon’s solar system, 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 Apollo—to brief them on their unexpected mission.

“It appears,” he told them, “that the skies around Carillon are heavily mined. They—”

“Mined?” Apollo said. “But who would set up such a—”

“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 impact of 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—”

“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 flak. That old clown Uri 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 executed nepotism. When I arrested Uri, he accused me of a political ploy, threatening to appropriate the Rising Star simply to collect fuel for the Galactica. And then there’re the dissidents—”

“Stop it there. I shouldn’t let you go on about it. There are many things we can’t talk about, not in this place, at this time. Maybe later.” He tried to say something 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 surface.”

“And it’s a good chance they’re mining Tylium, right?”

“Right. 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 troubles had forced the memory of Zac’s death to the back of his mind. Continuing troubles had a way of doing that. He wondered, too, if the improvement he perceived in Apollo was at all attributable to the charms of that lovely newswoman, Serina, or the way she had directed his attention to the troubled boy, Boxey.

Athena sprang into the room as if she’d been crouching by the doorway, awaiting Apollo’s exit. She had a copy of the three pilots’ orders clutched in her fist.

“Father,” she said, “I can’t believe you’re doing this. Why couldn’t you have listened to the others, gone to Borallus instead of this filthy, dangerous place?”

For a moment Adama felt terribly confused. It was difficult to shift his concentration from the satisfaction over his son’s confidence to this new disturbance from his other child.

“What is it, Athena?”

“You’re taking such an awful chance with their lives.”

“Of course. They know that. They could back out without blame, you know that.”

“Ah, damn, Starbuck’s too much of a fool to back out of a dangerous mission.”

Adama was beginning to understand the source of her rage.

“It’s Starbuck you’re worrying about, is it?”

Her shoulders sagged suddenly, as all the rage seemed to go out of her in a rush.

“It’s not just that, Father. I’m worried about Apollo, too—you know that. And Boomer. It’s just that—I don’t know what it is.”

“You love Starbuck and you’re naturally—”

“I hate that bastard!”

Another surprise. Adama took Athena in his arms and asked her what was wrong. Holding back her tears, she told him about her discovery of Starbuck and Cassiopeia making love in the launching tubes.

“Well, so you have to fight for your young man,” Adama said. “That’s not so hard. You’re a fighter. I’m proud of your courage and your—”

“Oh, shut up, Father. That’s not what I want to hear. I’m just, I don’t know, very disturbed, and I don’t know what to think. I used to think I could cure myself of Starbuck, get a pill out of sickbay or something and forget about him. But, I don’t know, it’s this war and the destruction of our home planets and this desperate voyage to a place where we don’t know what we’ll find. Everything’s in a different perspective now. Hopeless. That’s why I’m so frightened about this—this mission. Everything’s been hopeless since—if they survive this, if any of us survive, what next? Will we find this Earth you claim isn’t myth?”

“Perhaps not.”

“I was thinking that. We could grow old waiting. I mean we may never have the chance, the chance to—to—”

“To form permanent relationships, have children, and a home?”

“Yes.”

“You know, I think it’s a bit premature for you to be worrying about your old age. I, on the other hand, ought to give a great deal of thought to this voyage. When we reassemble the fleet and my resignation as president of the council takes effect finally, then I—”

“Get that idea right out of your head. You’re not going to resign. You have to lead them. You’re all that’s left.”

“We’re recycling an old argument, which is not to the point right now.”

Athena hugged her father. She had not done that so spontaneously in some time, and he was happy to feel the tension between them alleviate.

“Thanks for consoling me,” she said.

“Just returning the favor. Remember when you had to console your old Dad.”

“Well, I’m sorry if I spoke out of turn.”

“You’re allowed it.”

After Athena had left, Adama sat alone for a long time, thinking about the conversations with Apollo and Athena, satisfied that—whatever their arguments with him—at least they were on his side.

 

As Starbuck waited for the launch signal, his ship vibrated under him, as eager to get into action as he was. In his mind he went over Tigh’s final briefing. All they had been able to discern through the scanners was that there were at least three types of mines in the field. There was the normal explosive type, which could blast to smithereens any ship that came into contact with it, plus any other craft within a kilometer’s radius. A second kind seemed more instrument than weapon. It had electronic equipment all over its surface, and nobody aboard the Galactica had ever seen any mine like it, if indeed it was a mine. The third type created the most trouble. Rather than exploding, it sent off flashes of light whose intensity was so concentrated they would blind anyone unlucky enough to set it off. Because of that danger, the three pilots had to fly the mission with their cockpits darkened and treated with a chemical to ward off the ray.

Fine, Starbuck thought, if that had been the only kind of mine. But the chemical protection that opaqued the cockpit made it necessary for them to fly blind against all the mines, relying on their scanners to locate targets. In combat Starbuck liked this kind of seat-of-the-pants flying, but not in a suicidal mine-detecting mission.

Tigh’s voice came over the communicator, asking his pilots if they were ready.

�Ready,� Boomer�s sturdy voice said.

“I’m ready,” came the cool sound of Apollo. “What about you, Starbuck?”

“I’m not ready. But let’s get it over with anyway.”

A short tense pause, then the launch light came on and the three ships catapulted into space. Forming a neat triangular formation, they headed for the minefield. In the short interval of time it took to reach the field, Starbuck said a silent prayer to the goddess Luck, wishing her continued good health and a return of the favor.

“I’m going in for preliminary scouting,” Apollo said.

“Good luck,” said Boomer and Starbuck simultaneously.

“Don’t jinx me with good wishes,” Apollo said, laughter in his voice. “All right, I’m going to make a sweep by the nearest thingama—my God!”

“Apollo!” Starbuck yelled. “What’s wrong?”

There was an agonizing wait for an answer.

“I found out what the mysterious mines were. They’re not mines at all really. They’re electronic jammers. Soon as I got near that one, everything in this plane started going haywire, including the controls. I was able to wrest back command of the controls and jerk the plane out of its range, otherwise I think I’d have been sucked in and then, I don’t know, probably then it explodes. Come in carefully, you guys.”

Starbuck flew in slowly, keeping most of his attention on the scanner, so he could avoid the jamming mines. Boomer came in directly behind him.

“Hey Boomer,” Starbuck said, “don’t slipstream me.”

“Shows how much you know. There is no slipstream capability in spacecraft which—”

“I know, I know. We got to stop you memorizing those manuals in your bunk. I was just using a figure of speech and you give me academy lectures. I mean, get out on your own.”

“Just trying to cash in on your luck, bucko.”

“My luck has decidedly changed lately.”

On the scanner one of the light mines was activated near the form of Apollo’s fighter.

“You all right, Apollo?” Starbuck said.

“I’m fine. They were right about darkening the cockpit, though. I’d be blind now. Though I feel like I’m blind as it is. I can’t see much. My scanner’s doing an erratic dance. And it’s getting hot, very hot. I’m veering off. Anybody make out anything else on their scanner about this field?”

“Negative,” Starbuck said. “My scanner’s burning up.”

“Mine’s gone,” Boomer said.

“I was afraid of that. The jamming’s playing havoc with our instruments. We shoulda stayed in bed.”

“A little late for that, I’d say,” Starbuck said. “What do we do?”

“Only one thing I can think of, fellas, and it’s not exactly the best academy procedure. Seems to me we’ve gone by the book as long as it’s feasible. Our only chance is to haul off, hold positions and blast away.”

“You mean run a path right through the minefield?” Starbuck said. “With our scanners out of whack and our cockpits dark?”

“Does it sound difficult to you, Starbuck?”

“Oh, no. Duck soup. The nuts. Easy as pie.”

“What if we miss a mine?” Boomer said.

“One of us’ll be the first to know it. You with me?”

“I’m with you,” Boomer said.

“God help me, I’m with you, too,” Starbuck said.

“Let’s fly!” Apollo said.

 

On the bridge of the Galactica, Adama and Tigh listened to the communications among the three planes avidly. When Apollo proposed running a path through the minefield, Tigh looked panicked.

“Shall I tell them to abort the mission, sir?” he asked Adama.

“We can’t. Apollo has full authority.”

“But we’ve got to stop him. This is too reckless a—”

“Colonel, there’s no way we can stop him. Not only is it essential that we get our ships through the minefield, Apollo has a great deal to prove.”

“What does he prove by killing himself?”

Adama shrugged, resigning from the argument. The truth was too painful to admit. Apollo might just like to kill himself in the middle of a bold heroic exploit; it would at least prove to others that he was not, after all, the vassal to his father’s tyrant-king, doing Adama’s bidding in a vast plot to deceive everybody.

Everybody watched the massive screen at the top of the console silently as the three sleek, delta-winged ships angled through the minefield, which was now brightly lit by two activated light-mines. The three pilots were firing everything they had, and with stunning accuracy. Mine after mine exploded and disappeared. Suddenly, when it became clear that Apollo’s foolhardy plan was going to work, a cheer went up among the bridge crew.

“I don’t know what to say, Commander,” Tigh said. “They’re clearing the path.”

“Now that’s precision flying,” Athena said from her post, smiling at her father. It was one of his phrases, and she meant it affectionately. Starbuck’s voice came over the communicator:

“I can’t see a blessed thing. Are we hitting anything?”

“Be hanged if I know,” Apollo said. “But it’s cooling off. I do believe we made it.”

“Yaaahooo!” screamed Boomer.

Then all their voices chattered together, and the exuberance of their three young heroes buoyed up the spirits of everyone on the Galactica.

 

Since the fleet of human survivors had disappeared, activity aboard the Cylon base ships had declined, leaving Imperious Leader more time for speculation about the minor failures within his otherwise enormously successful plan. He knew there could not be many human ships left, yet where were they? If the Cylon culture had had any inclination toward proverbs, they might have felt they were looking for a needle in a haystack—although haystacks were nonexistent on Cylon worlds, where grotesque livestock were fed blocks of nutritive substances through an osmotic process, and where needles had no point, literally and figuratively.

Perhaps the humans had worked up some kind of force-field camouflage. Imperious Leader’s spy network had discovered clues that they had such a capability, and he had ordered his experts to develop anti-camouflage devices. He had not had a transmission from them since.

The leader was not so much disturbed by the technology causing the humans’ disappearance as by the fact that they continued to keep out of sight. Baltar might have said it was the famous human resourcefulness, implying that resourcefulness had been a key human trait throughout their history. A human, Baltar had once said, was never so confident as when he had his back against the wall. A pompous outcry of arrogance, of course, no more than could be expected from the smug human traitor, but still a troublesome concept. The image, especially, bothered the leader. A Cylon arranged matters so that his back was never against a wall. He either plunged forward to his death or emerged victorious. There was little middle ground. But humans were always finding middle grounds. Curious.

A message came along the network from an executive officer. Some explosions had been registered near Carillon. Evidently some mines set in the protective field around the planet had been set off or had malfunctioned. On occasion that minefield caught and eliminated space pirates who had heard rumors about Carillon. Whether the humans had anything to do with the present series of explosions was debatable. However, the Leader ordered intense surveillance, because of the importance of the Tylium mining complex there. In all the years of the war the humans had not discovered that Carillon was a prime source of fuel supply for their enemy. Nevertheless, a sneak trip to Carillon might be exactly what the devious Adama might be attempting now.

This war with the humans must end for once and for all, the Leader thought. It had gone on too long, used up too much of Cylon resources. He wished to get back to the proper business of his leadership—to seek out the cracks and flaws in the unity and organization of his own race, to make the concepts of peace and order the synonyms they should be. Even now, in some Cylon worlds, the human practice of monogamy had been communicated to certain sectors of the population, and they were busy practicing it. Monogamy went against the basic concepts of the network of Cylon civilization, where it was vital that every Cylon attempt and complete as many forms or degrees of contact as possible. Monogamy contained in its disagreeable structure too many forms and degrees of limited contact, a state Imperious Leader could not abide, and he vowed to severely punish those Cylons practicing it when he could afford to devote attention to domestic matters again.

He ordered his executive officers to keep him well-informed with any clue that might suggest the invisible fleet’s whereabouts. There would be no more middle grounds—not with the surviving humans.

 

After preliminary scanning by a scouting patrol of Red squadron planes, the livery ships were cleared to land. It was considered essential to provide the animals with some grazing and eating room. The livery ship officers had reported an increased listlessness in their animals, one which seemed to be caused by something more than just the limited rations available to feed them.

The farming ships landed soon after, and took immediate advantage of Carillon’s fertile soil, whose texture and mineral content indicated a fine medium for the planting of accelerated-growth foodstuffs. At the same time, the farmer-technicians collected as much grazing material from the Carillon surface as they could, and transplanted it to the meadows inside the livery ships.

While Carillon was proving exceptionally fruitful for livestock and farming, it didn’t impress some of its human visitors. Especially Boomer and Starbuck, who had been dispatched to the dark side of the planet to investigate mining possibilities.

“I’ll be sure to come here on my next rest-and-recuperation leave,” Boomer commented. “I just adore monotonous landscapes.”

“Yes, it is lovely,” Starbuck said. “Can’t imagine why it isn’t overpopulated.”

A pilot on a viper flyby informed them that his scanners read life forms in an area a short distance from where Boomer and Starbuck were driving in their landram. Boomer broadcast the specified time check to the main expeditionary force, and announced they would investigate the life form report. Starbuck accelerated the landram and headed for the area the pilot had indicated.

“If this place is so bloomin’ rich in resources, how come it was abandoned in the first place?” Boomer asked.

Starbuck shrugged.

“Legend has it the mining and colonization groups both got spooked and pulled out. Probably that’s just a story, though. Looks to me like the planet was just too drab. In those days sources of supply were plentiful, plus it’s off the normal trade routes, so I suppose Carillon was just written off as a bad investment.”

“Then why’s the old man think it’s such a good investment now?”

“It’s the only investment, Boomer, that’s what he’d tell you.”

“Yeah, he does have a penchant for finality, the commander does.”

“Yes, well—hey, will you look at that? That glow over that hill. What could it be?”

“I don’t know, but it’s what we’re sent out here to investigate.”

Starbuck coaxed extra speed out of the landram as they headed toward the aurora framing the hill ahead of them.

 

Not far from Boomer and Starbuck, the main body of the Galactica’s survey team were coordinating their detection equipment to search for the fabled lost Carillon Tylium mine. From the point of view of a quartet of rather large insectoids who were spying on the Galactica’s force from a nearby mountain, the humans themselves looked like small insects—organized and disciplined small insects. Each of these spies was about five feet tall, with large bulbous eyes near the top of oval heads, long thin trunks, and four arms, all of which were busy with either two-triggered weapons or several-lensed cameras.

One of the insectoids took aim at the formidable target of Lieutenant Jolly, but another one pushed the barrel of the weapon down. Seetol, a leader of the race called the Ovions by the few humans unlucky enough to encounter them, had for the moment decided not to kill any of the invaders. At least, not until she reported back to her queen. She gestured her soldiers back, took the camera from the Ovion who held it, and in the soft, monosyllabic language of her race ordered them away from the spying post. At a nod from Seetol another Ovion used all four of her hands to turn in different directions and at different speeds a series of four wheels concealed underneath a rock. With a just audible whine, an opening appeared in the ground and the Ovions disappeared into it.

Riding on a pod whose soft leaves sheltered them totally, the four Ovions progressed through a long, descending, subterranean passageway to a cell where the pod opened and they stepped out of it. The tunnel they now traveled through was walled with cell-like panels from which amber light glowed. They emerged from the passageway into an immense underground cavern. The giant, many-celled chamber went deeper into the ground than Seetol’s keen eyes could see, and ascended almost as high. There were countless levels, each one ringed with compartments shaped like honeycombs. Within the compartments Ovion workers poked at walls, extracted nuggets of amber-colored ore, and placed them in small-many-wheeled vehicles which other workers continually drew in and out of the compartments and sent on through dark intervening corridors. To an outsider, this large-chambered mine might have looked quite nightmarish—but to Seetol, something of an aesthete among her people, it had an artistic coherence that excited her each time she stepped into it. Today, however, there was little time for aesthetic satisfaction; she had to continue her mission.

She crossed a natural bridge that stretched across the wide chamber. At the guarded archway to Lotay’s chamber, Seetol’s four arms provided the proper ritual password and she was admitted to her queen’s presence.

The luxury of Lotay’s throne room contrasted strongly with the austerity of the mine. Finely woven, elaborately patterned cloth decorated the walls and ceiling. Lotay herself lounged on a cushioned floor, surrounded by her bejewelled retinue of slaves. One slave played a gentle tune utilizing the Ovion three-note scale artistically, discovering intriguing variants on her restricted melodic theme. A pair of other slaves were filing down the fine spikes that dotted the surface of Lotay’s limbs. Another slave held a long tube from which the queen occasionally drew a liquid substance whose residue she blew out her mouth as smoke. When Lotay acknowledged Seetol, she requested her report.

“They have come,” Seetol said, her voice soft and pleasant.

Lotay’s even more musical voice replied:

“Don’t disturb them. It will only stir them up. They’ll be perfectly harmless unless angered or frightened.”

“My thought exactly, highness.”

“Naturally.”

Seetol bowed and withdrew, leaving Lotay to draw and puff on the long tube.

 

Apollo felt extremely comfortable at the controls of the landram he had commandeered for his own particular search of the Carillon surface. He liked the feel of a landram as it rode the air currents with a surprising smoothness, adjusting to surface peculiarities with barely noticeable shifts to right and left, up and down.

He also felt comfortable with the presence of Serina beside him in the co-driver seat. He had been impressed with the way she had picked up the skills of driving a landram without ever having been inside one before. In the back seat of the landram, Boxey played quietly with Muffit Two.

“That was some show you and your buddies performed up there,” Serina said suddenly. “You seemed to be trying to prove something. I wondered if it had anything to do with your brother.”

The comment evaporated the feeling of being comfortable.

“I get it,” he said irritably, “you’re saying I’m being reckless to make up for leaving Zac behind.”

“Or proving your courage for his ghost.”

“How did you find out so much about Zac and me?”

“Asked around.”

“I don’t appreciate that.”

“Sorry. I was a newswoman on Caprica, remember? I can’t get out of the habit. Change the subject, why don’t you? Or I will. Tell me about the agriculture project. I was especially impressed with it. How long before things start to grow?”

“Oh, say, morning. I think we’ll see quite a few sprouts and stuff by morning. Then, by the end of day tomorrow, we’ll have a whole crop of fresh food—which, you must admit, will be a welcome substitute for the comrations. They’ll taste better. And you be sure to eat them, you hear, Boxey?”

“I guess so.”

In spite of Muffit Two, the boy had still been showing signs of moodiness.

“Say, Boxey,” Apollo said, “time for your part of the mission. What I want you to do is keep your eye on that readout. If the indicator gets up into this colored area, it means we’re right on top of a rich Tylium deposit.”

“Yes, sir.”

The job assignment seemed to pick up the boy’s spirits.

“You sure you don’t mind working with such a green crew?” Serina said.

“I chose you, didn’t I?”

“I’d think, with your connections, you’d do better, that you’d—I’m sorry, didn’t mean to touch a sore spot. You’re upset your father resigned the presidency, correct?”

“Stop being a newswoman, and let’s concentrate on the mission. We’ve got to get a lot done in a short time. We don’t dare stop on any one planet for too long.”

“Why’d we have to leave home at all?” Boxey asked. “Why’d those people want to hurt us?”

“I’m not sure, Boxey. Some say it has to do with very complicated things, political things. Others say the Cylons just like war, and will attack anybody who interferes with their part of space. I don’t know—sometimes I think it just boils down to who’s different. There’re always life forms who cannot accept anything they don’t understand. Some humans are like that too; they can’t accept anything different.”

“What do you mean different?”

Apollo sighed, not knowing how to explain complex matters to a child. He remembered years ago, trying to have complicated conversations with Zac, who was then much older than Boxey was now, and then discovering that the answer Zac sought for was much simpler than Apollo expected. Other times, Apollo’s answers were too simple and Zac prodded him until he had not only extracted the more complex ideas but successfully argued against them. But what should he tell a six-year-old whose main concern was the welfare of an animal about the subject of prejudice?

“Well, Boxey, just about anything at all can make one species different from another. The shape of your eyes, the number of limbs, the color of the outer layer of your skin, even thoughts and ideas. Maybe our enemies just aren’t equipped to deal with the difference.”

“You mean they’re stupid.”

“Yeah, in a way. I mean, in some ways they’ve got it all over us, in certain matters of science and technology, in certain methods of fighting the war. But, yeah, they’re stupid, too. It’s stupid to kill what you don’t understand.”

“Why don’t we just kill them back?”

In Boxey’s belligerent question, Apollo could hear, almost like a ghost-echo, the sound of Zac’s voice. Zac sometimes showed a positively bloodthirsty desire for violent solutions. In that sort of mood he would never listen to the calmer voices of his brother or his father. For that matter, there were times when Adama’s humanistic theories of war proved too much for Apollo, who still had sharp pangs of doubt about the Galactica’s leaving the scene of battle.

“Boxey, if we just killed mindlessly, the way the Cylons seem to do, then we’d be changing what we are. We’d become like them. Although we’re quite skilled at war, we are not basically a warlike race, at least I don’t believe we are. We were pushed into this war, had no other choice. In fact, perhaps what we’re doing now, searching for someplace else, away from our enemies, is the better thing to do. Fighting them on their own terms has not certainly—”

“What if they come after us?”

Why did Boxey have to ask the hard questions?

“Then we might have to defend ourselves.”

“You mean kill them?”

“Possibly.”

“Then we’d be like them.”

Apollo smiled.

“You know, Boxey, I think you’re getting glimpses of just how complicated life is. Yes, we don’t believe in war—but the opposite of war isn’t necessarily peace. No, what we want is freedom. Just that, freedom. The right to be left alone. It’s a right we humans have always tried to protect and preserve. But there’s always a chance someone will come along and spoil everything—”

He could see in the boy’s questioning eyes that Boxey was not following this part of the discussion.

“So you kill them?” Boxey said.

“No. What it is, you try to establish, well, penalties, something that’ll make spoiling others’ way of life unrewarding.”

“You kill them.”

“Boxey, you’ve a way of reducing everything to very simple terms.”

“Well, I’m only a kid.”

“Right. Sometimes I forget you’re only six.”

“Almost seven.”

“Almost seven. I don’t know, though. Maybe you’re right. No matter how you slice it, what words you use, in the end we’re talking about life and death. Life is precious. No one has the right to tamper with another’s life, without the risk of forfeiting his own. Ah, I sound like one of the classes in war games I used to teach back at the academy—and I think getting a bit deep for a boy your age.”

“Why? You can die at any age, can’t you?”

“Yes, Boxey, you can. Keep an eye on the readout, okay?”

“Sure. C’mon, Muffy, looka that.”

Muffit Two barked and nuzzled closer to the boy.

 

Starbuck stood at the rim of the hill and stared down at the evidence of genuine life forms that had been registering on the scanners. He called to Boomer, who was just climbing out of the landram.

“Boomer….”

“Yeah, what is it now?”

“You aren’t going to believe this, Boomer.”

“Feeling is believing. I just busted a finger on—”

“No, I mean really….”

Boomer looked down. His mouth fell open.

“I don’t believe it!”

In contrast to the drab landscape around them, the carnival of color and light and glass in the meadow in front of them was a dazzling spectacle. Surrounding glass-walled spherical buildings was a meticulously landscaped garden of greenery and exotic plants. Waterfalls slipped gracefully between what seemed an artistic arrangement of rocks. Sounds of laughter drifted upward. Songs were being played and sung in the distance. A few people, talking gaily, emerged from a building and began to chase each other, with obvious amorous intentions, through the neatly sculptured garden paths.

Starbuck looked over at Boomer, who appeared just as confused as he was.

“What is it?” Boomer asked.

“I don’t know,” said Starbuck. Drawing his sidearm, he started to make his way along the narrow pathway that zigzagged down the hill leading to the bizarre complex of spherical buildings and lush gardens.

“You sure you need that?” Boomer said, pointing to Starbuck’s sidearm.

“Whenever I’m not sure, that’s when I need it.”

Nobody in the gardens seemed to notice the two men. If anything, the happy noises of celebration and song grew louder as they reached the garden. They stood at the beginning of a path for a long time, just watching the myriad colors and shifting lights that kept changing the appearance of the garden and the buildings.

“It sure is pretty,” Starbuck said, some awe in his voice. “And it sure sounds friendly.”

Starbuck started town the path, Boomer following, staying close. As they came to a fork in the path, a sudden scream made both of them jump. Starbuck whirled around, his sidearm pointed in the direction of the scream.

A woman stood trembling in the center of the path. Her wide staring eyes only emphasized the look of beauty in her face. Starbuck was impressed with her voluptuous figure, round in all the best places. She wore a red gown that clung appropriately.

“Don’t shoot!” she said. “What do you want?”

Starbuck, red-faced, glanced down at the weapon in his hand, made a show of putting it in its holster.

“I mean no harm,” he said.

“I usually go on the assumption that men with guns just might mean harm,” the woman said.

“You’re from Taura,” Starbuck said.

“Yes,” the woman said, obviously surprised at the shift in topic, “I’m a Taurus. How’d you know that?”

“The dialect. Always can tell. What are you doing here?”

“What am I doing here? What are you doing here? Why are Colonial Warriors sneaking around a resort with their weapons drawn? Everything here is perfectly legal.”

Starbuck and Boomer, both just as bewildered as the woman, exchanged mystified looks.

“Isn’t it?” the woman said.

“Would you mind telling us how you got here?” Starbuck said, trying to sound as official as he could under the circumstances.

“On the bus.”

The incongruity of her answer startled both men.

“Must’ve been sniffing plant vapors,” Boomer commented.

“Um, would you tell us about this bus?” Starbuck asked.

“Sure. It was all handled through my travel agent. This place is fabulous! I just can’t believe they can give you all this for so little money.” She opened a red-sequined purse that had been dangling from her wrist. “Look, I won over a thousand cubits.”

Some of the cubits spilled over the edge of the purse onto the path. The woman made no effort to retrieve them. Starbuck, always responsive to the glow of gold, became excited.

“You won those cubits here?”

“In there, sure.” The woman pointed toward the complex of varicolored glass buildings. “Look, they said it was all legal so if it isn’t you’d better take on the whole star system, because everyone is doing it. I’d like to stand here and discuss all this with you, but I’m late for a moonlight cruise. Two moons, how can you go wrong? And talk about meeting people, the brochures weren’t kidding about that. I never had it so good. See you in church, fellas.”

The woman giggled and hurried off down the path.

Boomer stared after her, while Starbuck picked up the fallen cubits.

“I don’t get it,” Boomer said. “How cut off can they be? She didn’t act like she’d even heard about the war.”

“Yeah,” Starbuck said thoughtfully. “I wonder if they have. Something else is peculiar about all this. If it’s such a big deal, like she said, how come we haven’t heard about this place?”

“I suppose you know every gambling den in our star systems.”

“Well?”

“You’re right. If there’s a game going on, you know about it.”

Starbuck resumed walking along the path, heading toward the nearest lavish sphere.

“But this isn’t back-room cards!” he said. “This is the biggest splash I’ve seen outside of Orion.”

“But who’d want to set up a gambling resort on an outpost planet? Why put something like this together and keep it a secret?”

“That puzzles me, too. If you don’t tell anyone about a place like this, you don’t do any business.”

As they made their way through the verdant garden and into the lobby of the spherical building, they could see no evidence of security guards to interfere with them. In fact, all they could see were groups of people having a ball. And not only people, as they found when they looked close. There seemed to be representatives of every sentient and civilized extraterrestrial race so far discovered in the universe. Except, of course, for Cylons—although even their unlikely presence wouldn’t have surprised Starbuck. The Cylon sense of order and austerity would not have permitted them to participate in gambling and the various wonderful forms of self-indulgence that were evident in this resort. Across a massive archway, in several languages, were variations of the phrase, Festival of Paradise, apparently the name of the resort.

“Shall we investigate further?” Boomer asked.

“By all means, Boom-Boom, by all possible means.”

Accustomed to seeing aliens only on occasion, Starbuck and Boomer eyed with some fascination the various examples of inhuman and humanoid life. There were tentacled lizards, furry octopods, a grotesque sexpartite set of connected individuals from a species that the two men had heard of only in galactic legend, bulky, hard-surfaced oddities that could be mistaken for rocks if they hadn’t spoken and moved—creatures of all varieties and shapes. However, the majority was humanoid, sometimes oddly so. As Starbuck and Boomer entered a magnificent casino, a feline cocktail waitress, modestly attired in a clinging dress revealing her four shapely breasts, asked them if they’d like anything to drink. When they declined, she smiled and walked away, her furry tail removing a dirty glass from a gilt railing. Starbuck could not take his eyes off her.

“Did you see that tail that—” he said to Boomer.

“Sure did.”

At a nearby gaming table, one of hundreds spread through the ornate cavernous room, a scream of victory went up. Checking it out, Starbuck saw a chubby humanoid raking in cubits with a horselike paw. Another winner’s cry erupted at an adjacent table.

“The odds must be incredible here,” Starbuck said. “People are winning fortunes. Look!”

After further investigation, Boomer spotted rows of food tables, on which delectable items were being snatched at greedily by the gameplayers.

“They’re obviously well fed here,” he said. “Let’s get hold of whoever’s in charge and see about getting some food back to the fleet.”

“Hold it, sky-pirate. Slow down. The last thing these people may want to find is a battlestar sitting on their front doorstep.”

“Then you think this setup is illegal?”

“Is a Cylon nauseating? Yeah, I think it’s illegal. It wasn’t exactly listed in the Colonial Guidebook of places to go, things to do.”

“And we’re standing here in full uniform. They may not be too happy when they notice that. Let’s take off—”

“Wait, wait. Let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth, especially when it’s dressed in gold. I’ve never seen a crooked gambling den that didn’t depend on military pay vouchers to keep their doors open. Let’s see what this guy has to say.”

A human pit boss came toward them, his mouth spread in a wide smile.

“Welcome, gentlemen,” he said. “Is that an emblem of the Colonial Fleet I see?”

Boomer looked scared, but Starbuck answered confidently:

“That’s what it is, all right.”

“I didn’t realize they were in the area.”

“As a matter of fact, we’re kind of here on our own.”

“Little out of the way, aren’t you?”

“Secret mission,” Boomer said, getting into the spirit of the deception.

Starbuck slapped him on the back and said jokingly:

“He likes to be dramatic. Just a reconnaissance flight. See that the armistice is being observed.”

They all three stood around silently for a long moment. Was the pit boss’ grin directed at their naive lie, Starbuck wondered, or was it just a reflection of the genuine hospitality of the casino?

“How worthy,” the pit boss said. Starbuck couldn’t tell whether or not the man intended the observation sarcastically. “And how fortunate to have you with us. Consider yourselves guests of the establishment. Food and drink on the house.”

The pit boss snapped his spidery fingers and Starbuck and Boomer found their hands full of food and drink, supplied by short simian waiters who moved like lightning through the crowd. Starbuck took a sip from his glass. The drink turned out to be a Sagitarian straight-arrow. He took a bite of the pastry in his other hand, an Aquarian ambrosia cake.

These are my favorites, my favorite drink, my favorite dessert,” Starbuck said. “How did you know what to give me?”

“They knew,” the pit boss said, pointing to the simian waiters who were now supplying a creature who looked like a sculpture of plastic, slightly melted. “They’re primitive types, the waiters, but they’re mildly telepathic, at least in matters of food and drink. Enjoy yourselves.”

The pit boss smiled and walked off. Starbuck stuffed some more ambrosia cake into his mouth. Moist crumbs clung to his lips.

“Well,” Boomer said sardonically, “how do you feel now, sport? Here we have the run of this place while our people are out there starving and scrabbling for crops and grazing land.”

“What did you expect me to do, ask the guy for enough food for a ragtag fleet when he thinks we’re just a couple of straggler pilots on a reconnaissance flight?”

“Well, maybe we should just tell the guy the truth.”

“Sure, he looks a swell sort, an honest John. Boomer, until we know who these people are, just keep in mind that it’d only take one informer to have the whole Cylon war machine on its way.”

“So what do we do? We’ve got to find ways to get fuel and food back to the ships.”

“First thing, we’ll try to find out who’s behind this place. How many cubits you have with you?”

“Cubits? Starbuck, you disgust me, you know that? People in our fleet are half-starved and you’re going to gamble?”

“You expect me to be a miniature Commander Adama, you got another think coming. Besides, this time it’s in the line of duty. We’ve got to start asking some questions, digging out some information—but carefully, very carefully—”

Boomer seemed reluctant to hand Starbuck the money.

“Well, all right, but you’d better make this last. That’s all there is.”

Boomer dropped three cubits into Starbuck’s outstretched hand.

“Boomer my man, cubits don’t mean much just now, no matter how you measure it.”

Starbuck’s active eyes sought the source of the best action. He decided on the Hi-Lo table, since Hi-Lo was a game at which he could make a quick turnover of his limited funds before seeking out a big-stakes game. Three people, all humans, sat around the table. An open chair beckoned. Starbuck sat beside an attractive woman who, he thought, might have been an absolute stunner if she would drop just a few pounds from her pleasingly plump figure. The other players were men, both cheerful, both quite obese. As he sat, the woman, obviously liking what she saw, gave Starbuck the eye.

“Well!” she said. “The fleet’s in. Sit down, Lieutenant. You’ve come to a lucky table.”

“That right?”

“Yep. Not sure what I mean. Whether it’s lucky because I’ve been cleaning up, or because you chose to sit here.”

Starbuck assumed his best appealing grin, and signaled to be dealt in. The nonhuman dealer, with a friendly smile, began tossing out the next round of cards with an elegant flick of his triple-jointed, gray-green wrist.

 

Apollo ran a check on the other branches of the survey team. Ensign Greenbean got on the line and reported a disturbance.

“What is it, Greenbean?” Apollo said.

“It’s Jolly, sir. We seem to have lost him.”

“How could you lose anybody his size?”

“Beats me, sir, but he’s lost.”

“Send out a search party and report back to me.”

“Roger.”

Apollo leaned back against the bucket seat.

“The man probably just wandered off,” Serina said.

“Maybe.”

He was about to say more when the Tylium detector started beeping. The beeping caused Boxey’s daggit-droid to bark.

“Quiet, Muffit. I see it, Captain… Tylium!”

Apollo slowed the landram and checked the indicator. It seemed to display a Tylium lode, all right, a large one. He brought the vehicle to a slow stop. As soon as it stopped, Muffit leaped out the window.

“Muffit!” Boxey cried. “Wait, I’ll bring him back.”

Before anybody could stop him, Boxey had followed the daggit-droid out the landram window.

“Should we go after him?” Serina asked, her voice nervous.

“He’s in sight for the moment. Let him run free a little.”

“You’re right, I may be keeping too tight a leash on the boy. Thank you, by the way.”

“For what?”

“For saving his life.”

“You’re getting things a little out of proportion. Anyway, maybe I should be thanking you.”

“Now it’s my turn to ask for what?”

“Well, you’ve helped me to—”

He stopped talking, leaned forward to squint out the window on Serina’s side.

“What is it?” she said.

“Boxey. He was there a moment ago.”

“Maybe he just ran over a hill.”

“Perhaps, but we’d better give a look. C’mon.”

Serina became frightened by the agitated way Apollo scrambled out of the landram and onto the Carillon surface.

 

Seetol emerged from her ground concealment and, in one rapid move, swept Boxey and Muffit into her four-armed grasp. Before the boy could scream or the animal could emit one of his disgusting sounds, Seetol had carried them back to the camouflaged ground entrance and onto a pod which she immediately activated to descend into the ground to the Tylium mine below. In the corridor leading to the queen’s chamber, the boy struggled fiercely. As Seetol tried to improve her hold on him, the animal leaped out of her arms and ran a short way down the corridor.

“Muffy!” the boy cried. “Darn you daggit. Come back here.”

Immediately the animal obeyed. Seetol, unused to domesticated animals or their robot substitutes, was impressed with Muffit’s quick obedience. She picked it up again, and both animal and boy were serene until they had been carried into Lotay’s throne room, where Muffit again scrambled out of Seetol’s arms, this time to run to the throne. It barked furiously.

A slave seemed to want to kill it, but the queen was too amused. The sharp spikes upon her body had faded to a soft yellow, as they always did when she was pleased. Boxey squirmed out of Seetol’s arms and ran to his animal. The other human in the room took a couple of steps forward, and Boxey looked up at him.

“Lieutenant Jolly!” Boxey cried. “What’re you doing here?”

“I’m not paying a social call, youngster,” Jolly said. He glanced toward Lotay lounging on her throne. “I left all my calling cards in my formal jumpsuit, your highness.”

Lotay did not understand the sarcastic humor in the fat man’s remarks. Seetol was about to scoop up Boxey again, but Lotay gestured her away, saying:

“Leave him.”

Muffy licking his face, Boxey looked up at the queen from a crouch. Lotay raised herself from her throne. The spikes on her body got brighter as she pointed to the child, the fat flyer, and the droid.

“A curious group,” she said. “But they will do quite nicely. Seetol, arrange that they be taken care of and prepare for the others as soon as possible.”

Seetol nodded approval and walked to the captured humans. Jolly edged over to Boxey and put his arm around the boy. Seetol was amused by the fat human’s obvious fear. She observed even her own race with a cynical eye. She had always liked what she was, but not who she was—or, for that matter, who anybody else was. Even her love for her queen felt incomplete, no matter how much worship she attempted. It could not be complete unless the queen would love her back, a possibility not even within the scope of Ovion reasoning. Seetol, her four arms suggesting a quartet of elegant gestures, guided Boxey and Jolly out the entrance, Muffit trotting happily behind. On the throne, Lotay began to laugh mysteriously. Seetol never knew the meaning of her queen’s laughter.

 

Apollo and Serina searched the immediate area around their vehicle to no avail. Serina held back tears, muttered to herself that she should never have let the child get away from her. Back at the landram, Apollo got on the communicator to Greenbean, who reported no sign yet of Jolly.

“What is it?” Serina said. “What’s happening on this planet?”

“Don’t panic. We’ll find him.”

Apollo wished he could be as certain as he sounded. For a moment all he wanted to do was fold this beautiful, auburn-haired, green-eyed woman in his arms and soothe her, tell her everything would be all right. The trouble was, he couldn’t feel that everything was going to be all right.

“This planet is eerie. With this darkness and the two moons it’s—what is it, Apollo?”

Apollo had drawn his sidearm and pointed it toward an area beyond the landram. Serina followed his look, then screamed. There were two Ovion warriors emerging from a hole in the ground, a hole that had not been there a second ago. Their two-triggered weapons were aimed at Apollo and Serina.