Battlestar Galactica - Destiny, page 14
Funny how things worked out sometimes. Before the young lovers decided on their meeting, Cassie found her way to a favorite spot in the sanctuary and fell asleep under the stars. She’d left her baby in the careful hands of her favorite midwife and opted for a moment of solitude before returning to the Med Lab.
When she woke up and realized that her daughter and Troy were in the room, she did not want to interrupt them or spoil their tender moment together. She didn’t really like to eavesdrop but accepted the unfortunate circumstance and made the best of it.
The hardest thing for her to do was to keep silent. She wanted to cry, she was so proud of both of them. It was difficult not to announce herself and run over to embrace both of them, showering the young ones with whatever blessings were hers to offer.
Now that she was alone again she let herself relax. She walked over to the star gazing seat. As she allowed the vastness of the cosmos wash over her, she considered the absurdity of everyone’s situation. Here they were, travelers between the stars, finally in a situation where a considerable number of them would have to end the journey.
The ones left behind could no longer comfort themselves with stories about the green hills of Earth. The quest had become an empty exercise for most colonials anyway; but at least those still moving forward cherished the time when they let themselves believe in the final destination. They might even regain the belief that Earth was still in their future.
It was different for those stuck in this solar system. It would be ironic if there were true believers among the men and women left behind, while the winners included plenty of cynics who had lost their faith. If Cassie bet on anything it would be on an outcome like that. The universe seemed to be overly fond of contradictions.
On the other hand, the universe still had plenty of surprises. While she was deep in reverie an unspoken wish of her heart came true. Maybe the universe was a sucker for happy endings, after all.
A man’s hand squeezed her shoulder. Naturally she gave a start until she saw that it was Starbuck. He never stopped living up to his reputation as the most unpredictable warrior. She didn’t expect him to reach down and tickle her waist with such surgical precision that she couldn’t stop giggling like a schoolgirl.
“Oh, stop it!” she gasped.
“Are you sure?” he asked, grinning. "You seem to be enjoying it.”
In self-defense, she struggled out of her chair and attempted to tickle him back. She was completely outclassed. Besides, as she discovered to her frustration, Starbuck didn’t seem to have a ticklish spot anywhere on his firm body.
“If you want me to cease and desist, you’ll have to pay the price.”
"What’s that?”
“I’ll show you,” he said and then proceeded to kiss her passionately. She wondered if Dalton and Troy had left some kind of ineffable essence in the air from their embrace. Or maybe it was the subtle perfume of the star chamber itself. Whatever the reason she concluded that it was more fun being with Starbuck here than in the Med Lab.
“Hello,” she said, coming up for air.
“Hi,” he replied. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
They both laughed. She let her hands move down to his thighs, but deliberately did not rush things. The unspoken rule for anyone in love who had once been a socialator was don’t let technique take over. Follow your heart. It was a hard rule for a professional to heed, each and every time she made love since the days of her first career.
Starbuck made it easy for her because the love she felt for him was a tidal wave that she could barely keep bottled up. He wasn’t tickling her any longer. How could he when she was melting into his arms? Each of her nerve ends reached out for the purity he had inside him that she wanted thrust inside her.
Idly she wondered if he had arrived in time to notice Dalton and Troy. No sooner did the thought intrude than she dismissed it as irrelevant. There was a good chance that Starbuck might have involved himself in some ham-handed fatherly way. So the “kids” were lucky to exit the premises when they did. Well, who cared? Her happiness was with Starbuck, here and now.
Her kiss went out of control. Suddenly she was licking his face and neck and biting his shoulder. Her promise to move slowly evaporated like the dew off a trembling flower. As her hands found and released his manhood, she continued kissing him. She had to kiss every inch—and she started measuring him inch by inch.
Now it was Starbuck’s turn to gasp. She was having a woman’s revenge for the trivial tickling to which he had subjected her a short time ago.
“Oh, Cassie!” escaped his lips as she let her head move back up his body so that her lips could meet his, now entirely the master of the situation. But Starbuck was too much of a warrior to surrender so easily.
He let his right hand descend to the core of her being and it played across her inner thighs as if she wasn’t still wearing clothes. She couldn’t stand it and pushed him away; but this was only to allow herself the chance to rip her uniform from her perspiring body.
Starbuck thought that things were going a lot better than they had in the Med Lab.
He removed his clothes more carefully and didn’t tear anything. Starbuck was always neat.
They came together under the stars of the universe as if a billion trillion white eyes witnessed their act of love. Perhaps the universe began just this way, in an exploding orgasm of creation.
When they began she was on top, but when they finished he was on top. Neither could honestly say just when and how they changed positions. Their bodies had become one in the fire of their passion.
Other lovers might scream in ecstasy or pursue the goddess of eros in grim silence, but Cassie and Starbuck laughed in the pure joy of the moment; and were still giggling when they fell back from each other exhausted.
They’d never stopped tickling each other.
“I’m glad to be alive,” she said when she got her breath back.
“I’m glad you are, too.”
“I love everything in my life,” she went on. “I don’t regret anything that’s happened. Not anything!”
Starbuck chuckled. “Just don’t be grateful for the Cylons, that’s all I ask.”
“Those poor, loveless monsters,” she replied. “They might as well not be alive.”
“I’d be happy to help them see it your way,” said Starbuck with real sincerity.
“Oh, you know what I mean! Can you imagine what it’s like going through life with no purpose except to destroy others?”
“I agree with you, there. The Cylons can’t even enjoy a decent game of pyramid.”
“We matter to each other,” said Cassie, pressing her face close up to his. “I don’t mean just us, here and now. I mean humans are supposed to matter to each other.”
“Tell it to the council,” he said.
“Even those fools and cowards don’t achieve the evil of the Cylons. At least they’re human enough to be afraid.”
They lay in each other’s arms for a while. Every now and then he reached out and stroked her hair. “You said something profound, you know.”
“What’s that?”
“About the members of the council being human enough to be afraid. You’ve made me think about my own fear.”
“Oh, Starbuck, you’re one of the bravest men I’ve ever known.”
“I’m not talking about fighting. I’ve been afraid of you, Cassie.”
“Don’t talk about it,” she said softly, not wanting to spoil the moment.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “This isn’t a prelude to an argument. I need to tell you what it means to me, what we’ve just done. It’s another gift I owe you.”
She smiled. “All right. I trust you. But I don’t understand why you think you’ve been afraid.”
He sat up and cradled her head in his lap. “So many are afraid right now. The lottery weighs heavily on them.”
“Are you afraid to be included?” she asked, remembering the conversation between Dalton and Troy on almost the exact same spot where she and Starbuck had consummated so very much.
“No. And you?”
“No, except that I’m worried about the child.” She smiled at him from the safe pillow of his lap. “I don’t want to be separated from Dalton or you.”
“I know,” he said. “But that’s not the kind of fear I’m talking about.”
“What is it?”
“Cassie, only lately have I started listening to Apollo. I mean really listening. I’m beginning to see things differently. I realize that there are a lot more ways to be out of love than in love. It takes a lot of courage to be in love.”
She closed her eyes and let the sentiment wash over her, every bit as refreshing as a summer rain on Paradis. "You’re describing real love,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Not everyone who says he or she is in love is brave in the way you think. Don’t forget all the time I spent as a socialator and what that taught me. You can’t always trust human nature.”
He hadn’t expected that. “I don’t believe you’ve ever told me. I’ve always seen you as the total romantic.”
She sat up and faced him, hands on each of his strong shoulders. “I’m romantic about you. I’m romantic about Apollo. I’m romantic about people who deserve it.”
“But I don’t!”
“You do, Starbuck. You’re a good man.”
“I’m a natural born killer.”
“You use that to protect the innocent.”
“I can’t stick with people.”
“You stick with all your friends all the time! Why do you think I find it so easy to love you.”
“Love. That’s where I have my weakness. I feel like a fool half the time.”
She hugged him. "So why don’t you spend the other half with me?”
They had begun in laughter and that’s how they ended, making love again under the celestial eyes in the star chamber. They were another happy couple taking what time they could, living life in the early days of the lottery.
14
Crawling back from the black pit of the Cylon visions and his own tortured mind, Baltar returned to the society of men and women. Despite the promises of Imperious Leader, the Great Traitor had begun to doubt that he would ever wake up again.
His greatest fear was that his physical body might die but through some unexpected alchemy the Cylon mastermind would devise a means to keep his human mind alive and eternally trapped in the alien dystopia of an enemy world. Eternity seemed like a really bad proposition to Baltar right about now.
He was an educated man. That made his experiences all the more terrible. He had an historical background to draw upon for grim precedents; and the imagination to extrapolate various futures, all of them malignant.
The home worlds had been around long enough to develop myths and legends. In common with any other human civilization to be found in the space-time continuum, the colonials had plenty of stories of saints and sinners with which to regale their children.
Baltar grew up with the same background as anyone else of his class. Unsurprisingly he’d accepted every privilege as his due. His opponents suggested that his background provided the ideal soil in which treason could grow into a fetid crop. But considering how many other men and women with the same advantages did not betray their worlds to the Cylons, it wasn’t fair assigning blame to anyone’s family.
The seemingly endless time Baltar’s mind had recently spent in the Cylon dimension inspired him to reconsider his past. Nostalgia seemed to help as he attempted to crawl up the slippery sides of the pit of his nightmares so that he could once again be a conscious participant aboard the Galactica.
Saints and sinners! The two ideas (or the same idea in a distorting mirror) would not leave him alone as he attempted to come back to himself. Of course, his fellow colonials saw him as a total sinner! They were prejudiced.
He asked himself just what was the genuine difference between the two? Both were separated from the bulk of ordinary men by virtue of their isolation. Every child knew that from the myths and legends. The wise man belonged to a certain type and was expected to go through certain rituals.
Great insights never came to him when he was imbedded in society where any difference between him and the mass of others was dissolved by daily routine. He needed to be alone. So he pursued loneliness as though she might be a shy mistress who required his constant attentions. If he was very good, or very bad, she would share a secret or two with him.
Thus spake the saint and sinner! First must come the trek into empty wilderness. He must survive the desert or the jungle. He must inhabit the mountaintop orthe cave. Cut off from others ofhis kind he would be visited by non-human beings. He would undergo tests and challenges provided by them.
Chastened, mad, half-dead from the experiences, he prepared himself for the return to society. Again among his own kind, he would speak of his epiphany or illumination. Then he would point them in the direction of a tunnel at the end of which they might find true enlightenment.
Along about that time, his fellows would become very concerned over this idea of whether or not the New Man that had burst forth from the dry husk of his old perceptions happened to be a saint or sinner. Before others entered the tunnel, they wanted to know if there was a light at the end of it.. .or deeper darkness.
A common thread running through the old stories was that no one ever doubted that the ragged hermit—recently returned to society—had in truth touched the edges of the great Outside. One good look at his physical condition was sufficient for others to believe that he had experienced something out of the ordinary.
The problem kept coming back to the thorny question of saints and sinners. Was the man’s vision to be trusted or was it more prudent to burn him at the stake and get back to business as usual?
Better safe than sorry!
Responsible members of a thriving community could not ignore little things like good and evil. They enjoyed patting themselves on the back if they removed a danger to society; but they would feel pretty bad about it if they inadvertently exterminated someone who had been trying to help them. Most people in authority wanted to believe they could tell the difference between a boon and a boondoggle.
So when they were shown long tunnels at the end of which supposedly waited The Truth, they were in no rush to go spelunking. That’s what all the myths and legends seemed to say loud and clear.
Baltar could appreciate that kind of reluctance as he made the difficult climb out of his own tunnel. Back from darkness to light. Back to the Galactica.
Back to anxious faces surrounding his bed in his private room in the Med Lab.
As Baltar began to blink those faces into focus, he saw that Apollo was among them. Apollo, the only man he trusted to understand any part of what he’d brought back with him from the pit.
"How long have I been out?” he asked the commander.
“A long time.”
Baltar coughed up something nasty and his favorite nurse wiped it all away. “Thank you, Elayna,” said her patient. She demurely bowed her head and didn’t respond. She was awed to be in the presence of Apollo.
“I’ll fill you in on current events,” promised Apollo, “but first things first. According to Cassiopeia and Doctor Kim, your brain activity knocked the needles off all their instruments.”
“Where are they?” asked Baltar, straining to raise himself for a better view of his surroundings.
“Outside, where everyone else is about to join them.” Apollo nodded to the nurse who finished a final check on her patient’s vital signs. Then she, another medical technician and two security men exited the room.
“A nice illusion,” said Baltar.
“What do you mean?” asked Apollo.
“Don’t think I fail to appreciate the gesture, my old friend, but we only appear to be alone. That’s the way I want it, of course, but I can imagine all sorts of recording devices busily whirring away and making multiple copies of our latest encounter.”
While Baltar was talking, Apollo brought a chair over so he could sit close to the bed side. “You should have more faith in me than that. Until I know what you have to say, I am more anxious to keep it under wraps than you are.”
“Things are bad, aren’t they?” he asked.
“Be patient and you’ll receive a full briefing on what you missed while you were in that strange coma.”
“I felt they took me under deeper this time,” Baltar admitted. “Good thing I’m not expendable! At least not yet.”
Apollo might have taken the last remark at face value if he hadn’t seen the sardonic expression that accompanied it. “There’s a good reason for you to tell me everything you learned before I fill you in on current events.”
Baltar nodded. “I understand. There’s no better way to verify if my dreams correspond to your information. That’s always assuming that what I recall is worth a daggit’s hairball!”
Apollo smiled. “Come on, Baltar, you never underestimate yourself. Let me get you a glass of water.”
“What, nothing stronger?” asked Baltar with a twinkle in his eye. But no sooner had Apollo made the offer than the frail body on the bed realized how thirsty it was.
“This will have to do for now,” said Apollo, passing the glass.
Baltar downed the glass in one gulp. Apollo had never seen Baltar do anything but sip liquids and take his time over meals, no matter how simple the fare. His old foe had lost considerable weight and gave every sign of having survived a grueling ordeal. Apollo thought that perhaps only Tigh would join him in accepting that Baltar had fought a battle equal to that of a Viper pilot after a serious engagement.
At least Baltar regained enough strength to sit up completely in bed and put his pillows behind his head so that he could more comfortably regard his visitor. A few coughs later, the color returned to his face and he started looking like his old self.
“Apollo, you have become a good friend to me in my old age. I never believed I’d ever receive anyone’s compassion or concern again. You are one in a million.”
