02 - The Cylon Death Machine Read online

  “No. I did not.”

  “Sure you did. Back at the—”

  “I know what you mean. But whatever was said, it was not said by me. Or to me, for that matter.”

  “But—”

  “You think I am the Tenna who brought you to the children’s quarters?”

  “Yes, I—”

  “Well, I am not. Wait! The way is clear. Come!”

  As they crept out of the alcove, Starbuck finally got the point—this was not the Tenna who’d proposed the provocative ideas of warmth and privacy. This was the other Tenna, the one they’d seen in the—or maybe it was still a third Tenna, or even—no, he didn’t want to think about it now. It was too confusing to sort out. It made no difference how many Ser 5-9’s there were—but the number of Tennas was a subject worthy of further research. Studying the tantalizing shape of the one guiding him now, he realized it might just be fun sorting all of them out later.

  * * *

  Vulpa maintained a steady monitoring of the center mall area. After it had been cleared of the clone populace who generally milled about there, the execution platform was raised. The worker clones, now suddenly aware what was to take place, began discussing it actively among themselves. They seemed excited. Good, Vulpa thought. The execution would be a lesson for them. It should prod them into revealing the whereabouts of any other humans who might be concealed in the clone village. In time these human insects engaged on their tiny futile mission would be flushed out and killed, and Vulpa could stop feeling the vague itch inside his metallic uniform.

  He glanced at another screen which displayed the entire underground chamber. Gloomy snow torches set in the walls projected the main light, together with reflections from the ghostly stalactites that hung from the high ceiling.

  A centurion entered the command post, informing Vulpa that the execution ceremony would be initiated at his order. Vulpa waved a hand, so ordering. He turned back to the monitoring screen, where in a moment he saw a troop of his warriors lead the bound-and-tied prisoner to the execution platform. Along the way, they pushed clones aside. The clones, cowering, gave the Cylons a wide path. The prisoner was marched up a set of steps, where an executioner stood by.

  Vulpa beckoned to an aide to bring the other prisoner, Cree, to him. When Cree had been dragged forward, Vulpa pointed him toward the monitor, ordered that a close-up view of the new prisoner be placed on the main screen. He watched Cree for a reaction.

  “Do you know him?” Vulpa asked.

  Cree could barely keep his eyes opened, but he managed to focus on the screen.

  “No, I’ve never seen him before.”

  “You are certain.”

  “Certain.”

  “For the last time, how many vipers are still operational?”

  “My name is Cree, my rank cadet, my numbers are—”

  “Quiet. Centurion! Remove him from my presence.”

  The centurion dragged Cree back to his corner of the command-post room. The cadet immediately slipped back to unconsciousness.

  Onscreen the new prisoner was being given his final interrogation. He had been instructed by the Cylon officer in charge that he could save his life by answering questions in open forum—but of course, Vulpa thought, he would be executed no matter what information he provided. It was essential that the clones be given an object lesson in order to keep them contained at their subhuman level of subservience.

  Vulpa studied the prisoner as he gave laconic responses to the Cylon officer’s questioning. It seemed odd that the man had chosen to disguise himself as a clone. He was much, much too thin. His pale, gaunt face simply looked nothing like the healthy facial type that Ravashol had chosen for the male worker clones. Nor did he look at all subhuman. He did not look very human, either. There was something extrahuman in his blank eyes and nearly white hair.

  “What is your purpose here?” the interrogator asked.

  “Just visiting,” the prisoner said in an eerily quiet voice.

  The interrogator, who had been instructed not to react to the prisoner no matter what he might say, continued to his next question:

  “How many of you are there?”

  “I travel alone. I’ve always been a little… antisocial.”

  “You’re from the Galactica, are you not?”

  “Never heard of it.”

  All of the prisoner’s answers were unemotional. The man must expect that he was going to die—why did he not show some fear?

  “How many combat ships in the fleet?”

  “Tough question. There are so many!”

  “How many?”

  The prisoner stared up at the interrogator. He leaned his chest forward, glanced down at a pocket of his jacket.

  “In my inner pocket. You’ll find a tape coder. The information you want is recorded in it.”

  The prisoner was going to cooperate? Vulpa thought. That was a surprise. The interrogator opened the prisoner’s jacket and reached in. He removed from inside a small electronic pack.

  “Just press that button,” the prisoner said, his eyes still emotionless. The Cylon’s gloved hand reached for the button the prisoner indicated. Vulpa realized too late what the box might be, and he dived at the monitor screen as if he could somehow reach in and snatch the box away from the interrogator.

  Entering the mall, Starbuck was surprised at the crowds assembled there. In the center of the large chamber, on a raised platform, Thane knelt in chains, several Cylons standing around him. Starbuck felt an urge to push through the crowd, sweep Thane off the platform, and escape with him. But, no, that wouldn’t work. If only Boomer were here to help, then the two of them might pull it off, but there was too much Cylon firepower between him and Thane. A Cylon questioned the prisoner. Starbuck had never heard of Cylons conducting public interrogations, but perhaps there was a strategic reason for it—you never knew with Cylons.

  His Tenna pulled at his arm and pointed toward their left, where Ser 5-9 and the other Tenna, the first Tenna, stood away from the back fringe of the crowd. Starbuck pulled the fur hood more tightly around his face and followed his Tenna to them.

  “Starbuck!” Ser 5-9 whispered, obviously surprised.

  The hunter didn’t look too good, Starbuck thought.

  “You all right?” he asked.

  Ser 5-9 started to claim he was in the best of health, but the first Tenna interrupted:

  “He was captured by the Cylon beasts. They used their laser whip on him. I rubbed healing salve on his back, but it’s badly—”

  “Forget that, Tenna,” Ser 5-9 said. “We’ve got to go back and get Captain Apollo.”

  “Apollo?” said Starbuck, bewildered. “Where is he?”

  “He stayed with Ravashol. I left him in hiding.”

  “Can Ravashol be trusted?”

  “He saved Ser 5-9 from the Cylons,” Tenna said.

  The two Tennas were now standing together. Because he had not been watching them, Starbuck couldn’t tell which one had just spoken to him. Both their faces shared the same concern.

  “Saved?” Starbuck said, looking back at Ser 5-9. “Looks more to me like they caught you.”

  “They took me into custody, but they would have killed me if the father-creator had not interceded. He lied to save my life. In the long run, I prefer getting whipped to getting killed.”

  “All right. We’ll have to get the team back together, listen to whatever Apollo brings back. What should we do about Thane?”

  “Nothing we can do. They’ll execute him.”

  “Execute him? Maybe we can get the team back here, save him from—”

  “There’s no time.”

  Starbuck looked toward the platform. Thane was gesturing with his head down toward his jacket. The Cylon took a box out of Thane’s clothes. A small electronic packet. Where’ve I seen that before? Starbuck thought. Then he remembered where, and he shouted to the Tennas and Ser 5-9:

  “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  Thane
’s soft voice filled the cavernous chamber as the crowd fell silent:

  “Just press that button.”

  Leading the three clones into a corridor, Starbuck yelled back at them:

  “It’s a hand mine! Get down!”

  The shock waves from the explosion made the ground beneath Starbuck’s body rumble. The rumbling was accompanied by screams and the sound of falling rocks in the main chamber.

  The sound of the explosion faded. Starbuck rolled over and looked back. The execution area was a shambles, rocks and debris nearly enveloping it. Some smoke still clung to the ground and the walls, but Cylons and clones could be seen stirring and moving about, perhaps searching out the dead.

  “What happened?” asked one of the Tennas. Starbuck had no idea which one.

  “God,” he mumbled, not ready yet to answer a question straight. “Thane. I didn’t think he had the—no, I should have known, those eyes, those—I took him for a coward, Tenna. I thought the cold look was all a fake to hide what a misfit he actually—”

  “Starbuck,” Tenna interrupted. “What did he do?”

  “He carries packs. Chemicals, explosives. That box was a hand mine. I guess he decided to take some Cylons with him. And, unfortunately, some of your people. I’m sorry.”

  “He was your friend?”

  “Friend? He could have been. Maybe. Maybe we weren’t so different. Ah, this ain’t my style of thinking. We better get back.”

  “That way,” the voice of Tenna said, but it was not the Tenna he was looking at. He turned and saw the other one pointing at a nearby corridor.

  FROM THE ADAMA JOURNALS:

  I keep thinking about Sharky Star-rover. Last night I dreamt I had a copy of the book in my hands, but when I opened it, the print was blurred and I couldn’t make out a single word, no matter how close I held the volume to my face.

  There was this one scene in the book, set on a lushly landscaped planet. Sharky, having fallen exhausted from being chased by some fierce hirsute denizens of the land, looked up at a beautiful tree that seemed to lunge toward the sky from his prone vantage point. It had, I seem to recall, a jagged irregular bark that, in the planet’s gloomy darkness, glowed luminescently in abstract bloblike patterns. One particular blob reminded him of Jameson, who’d been captured by the natives. The last sight Sharky had had of Jameson, it had looked to him like the captors were considering boiling him for their evening meal. (I can’t remember whether Jameson was rescued by Sharky or fate—for some mysterious reason the really exciting adventures seem to have slipped my memory. I don’t even think Jameson was edible.) Anyway, Sharky—saddened by thinking of Jameson—starts to consider this oddly barked tree in more detail. Far above him, on snakelike branches, its leaves were ugly, furry, and dripping with an oily liquid, drops of which fell like miniature deadly bombs around Sharky. He did nothing to try to avoid the drops, but none of them hit him and he thought they even curved in their downward flight as if to miss him intentionally.

  He stared at the tree for a long time. He had never seen one like it. His mind contemplated all the trees, all the landscapes, all the natural phenomena he had seen on his travels. Before, it had all impressed him, reminded him of the vast scope of the universe. Now, he wondered if that impression was an illusion. The universe was not so darn gosh-awful big, he thought, we are just too small to appreciate its finitude. This tree might be the only one of its kind on this planet, it might be found nowhere else in the universe, but it was just a tree. Other planets had trees, some did not. He knew that, of kinds of trees, there was only a finite number existing in the universe. Whatever the number was, it was not often increased by one more. That thought made Sharky think of how small the universe was. Perhaps, he thought, people had always been wrong in contemplating their insignificance in the universe. They, too, represented merely a finite number in a finite universe. Insignificance was not the point, that was only investing the number with an unnecessary emotional aspect. If trees contemplated the varieties of human being, or even the varieties of sentient creatures in the universe, they could come to their own similar conclusions about the significance or insignificance of trees. Then he began to laugh. (I remember the scene of his laughter very vividly.) Significance or insignificance, finity or infinity, the tree was extremely beautiful at that moment. For him. Nobody else would ever experience this moment, he thought, no matter who rushed in and sprawled beneath this tree.

  As I search the universe for a place to escape to, I often consider Sharky’s momentary dilemma. Are our possibilities for escape so finite that we’ll eventually have to climb into the nets of a Cylon trap? Or should we continue to consider them infinite, or at least as a high number—say, the number of kinds of trees in the universe—in order to invest those possibilities with hope?

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “I have reports now that your puny mission on the surface of the ice planet Tairac is failing,” Imperious Leader said to the Starbuck, who seemed to be half-sitting and half-lying on his simulated chair.

  “That right? You capture everybody?”

  “Well, not everybody yet, but soon.”

  “How about me, am I on the mission? You capture me?”

  “I do not know of your presence on the mission.”

  “I probably am. I manage to get myself in trouble in spite of myself. If you haven’t captured me, the mission isn’t failing.”

  “Do you think you make a significant difference?”

  “Any one of us makes a significant difference as long as we’re alive. But I’ve always got a little edge. Luck, we call it. You guys don’t know how to utilize luck.”

  “If it is not a tangible factor, we will not apply it to our strategy.”

  “Your mistake. It’s tangible but you’ll never see it.”

  Imperious Leader chose not to pursue that line of thought.

  “One of your people is to be executed, another will be eventually.”

  “Oh? What’re their names?”

  “Thane and Cree.”

  “I don’t know them.”

  “But they are a part of the information we—”

  “Recall that, when I was programmed, it was based on the most recent information. This reproduction of me doesn’t know of Thane or Cree yet, because they were not part of your latest information from captured prisoners. Your data banks can’t get milk from a daggit, after all.”

  Imperious Leader wondered if the simulator, perhaps forced into overload in maintaining the Starbuck figure, was now itself actually talking back to him.

  First Centurion Vulpa hoped that news of the explosion had not somehow reached Imperious Leader. It had seemed uncanny to him how Imperious Leader sometimes knew what had happened even though no one had transmitted him information concerning the subject. Perhaps, Vulpa thought, that also was a function of the third brain that he so desired. The prisoner’s suicide made no sense to him, and frightened him a bit. He could counter human acts that conformed with the knowledge Cylons had of the species, but an act like the prisoner’s, suicidal sabotage, was beyond his ken. Vulpa also did not want Imperious Leader to know the extent of casualties, the depletion of his already understaffed garrison.

  “Stand by for a message from the High Command,” the communications officer announced.

  Vulpa turned to his telecom screen. All the other Cylons stood in a rigid silence. As the contact was made, the image on the screen was first a scramble of dots and lines, and then it slowly resolved into the awesome many-eyed face of Imperious Leader. The face was not clear, because the Leader sat in shadow.

  “First Centurion Vulpa!” Imperious Leader barked.

  “By your command,” Vulpa answered, according to the honored ritual.

  “The time for our final attack is nearing. Our base-ships are approaching the Galactica and its fleet. The major assault on them is imminent. They will be in full range of the pulsar cannon soon. What is the status of the installation on Mount Hekla?”

  �
��Fully operative.”

  “Good. Initiate random firing. Sweep the entire corridor. You may be able to catch the Galactica when it first enters your sector. Begin at once.”

  “By your command.”

  “I expect no less than the annihilation of that battlestar and the entire fleet. The way will then be clear for your return to the executive-officer staff on the command base-ship, Vulpa.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  As Imperious Leader’s image disintegrated into an array of swarming and swimming bits, Vulpa considered the meaning of the Leader’s last statement. With the success of the operation Vulpa’s days of exile on this dreadful ice planet were nearly over. He swung around in his command chair and ordered the officers still standing at attention:

  “Transmit those orders to Summit Station. Program for automatic fire. Random sweeps covering the corridor. Tell the gunnery squad I will be joining them to guide the entire operation. I will take the supply ship up to the station. Alert the control tower there to prepare for my arrival.”

  “What about the human invasion force?” an officer asked.

  “I doubt they’re much danger anymore. But double the guard at all strategic points, at the garrison here and the command post, and send a whole platoon to guard the elevator accessway, should they get foolish and think they can use it.”

  Vulpa noticed Cree still lying unconscious in his corner.

  “We have no further need of that one. Take him to a cold cell. I will examine his cortex later. Is the supply ship ready?”

  “Yes, First Centurion.”

  Vulpa swaggered out of the room. Two of the remaining Cylons picked up Cree, his body still limp, and dragged him out of the command-post headquarters.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Croft:

  Apollo’s only just had time to catch his breath, when the door behind him begins sliding open. He spins around with his laser drawn. The smiling face of Starbuck peeks in through the opening, saying: