Part Two
It was a sectar before Starbuck was cleared for duty.
Apart from the scarring, his hands looked pretty okay again. But they were stiffer and less nimble, and even if he'd wanted to play Pyramid and rejoin the life of the ship, he would have fumbled the cards like a tyro at the game. It was possible he'd never get that back.
He didn't much care.
He spent centars studying the reports of the linguists and the anthropologists on Menath G'Tar. That, said the linguists, was the name of the planet and its single city. The people were the Menath G'Tath. Always with the definite article, always the Menath G'Tath: a sign, said the anthropologists, of their feeling of separation, of distinction. There was an entire race's ego bound up in those three little letters.
But really, there had very little in the way of any real information about the Menath G'Tath. From what little data there was, the anthropologists couldn't determine how isolationist the Menath G'Tath were—Starbuck huffed at that and fired off a memo that pointed out, somewhat acidly, that a deep-space defence grid and an unprovoked attack on the Viper patrol supplied a bit of a clue, didn't they think?—or why the society functioned as a single city state with around (they estimated) four million inhabitants when the planet could support billions more citizens than it apparently had.
There was nothing to help him find Apollo.
He was glad when he was cleared for flying duty again. He spent a secton in the simulators, forcing his hands to remember their old skills and by the end of it was grimly satisfied with his progress. He would still be able to fly most of the other pilots on the Galactica into the ground… although his mind skipped and jumped to avoid the real meaning of that wry little phrase.
Starbuck liked best to be on patrol. Just him, his ship, and empty space. Boomer made him fly with him and Jolly, but on the whole Boomer had learned when he needed to step back a bit. Boomer was more observant than Starbuck had first given him credit for and they left him alone, letting him brood as they flew endless centars scouting out the territory ahead of the fleet. Safe in the little cockpit Starbuck could just sit there and stare out at the darkness and the stars, thinking about nothing, his mind a blank, letting the exhaustion sink into his bones. Between the obligatory chatter from Boomer keeping the patrol craft on course, there was no-one to talk to him that those quiet, unnaturally gentle tones they used whenever he was around, no-one to send worried glances in his direction. Patrol was a respite from having to pretend to still being alive.
It wasn't much of a life, though; just breathing.
Starbuck hadn't been involved with the first contact with the Rone. He assumed that Boomer, who was turning out to be as good and thoughtful a commander as Apollo had been, had decided that first contact would be too traumatic for him, and he had been relegated to tootling around the fleet on close picket while Bojay, altogether too puffed up with self-importance, had led the first foray into Rone space.
Sadly, said Starbuck, there being no justice in the universe, no-one shot Bojay down. Boomer had choked out a laugh and tried to look stern, but he'd had more than two sectars now of Bojay's peculiar take on how a good supportive lieutenant carried out his duties, and had to be as sick of being steadily undermined as Apollo had been. The scolding Starbuck got had lacked bite. Boomer said later that it would have been worth losing Bojay just to see Starbuck grin again.
Still Bojay hadn't been shot down, he had managed to make a peaceful first contact and damn him if he hadn't found a civilisation that not only had contact with other races but that actively welcomed them. The Rone were traders. The Rone liked a bargain. The Rone, said Starbuck when he'd had the time to read the reports and listen to the briefings, had the souls of shop-keepers and would obviously sell their own planet out from under themselves if they got a good price and extra points on their shoppers' loyalty card.
But what they had to trade was great stuff. Starbuck was in the Commissary with Jolly and Greenbean, sampling some of the Rone trading goods when Boomer came looking for him. At least, he was watching Greenbean sample and Jolly devour.
"Come to try some of this fruit? I've no idea what it is, and it's a damn funny colour, but it tastes good." Starbuck offered the plate of bright pink sliced something-or-other to Boomer.
Boomer shook his head. He looked tense and excited, both at once. "We're wanted up top," he said. "The Commander and Colonel Tigh. Right now."
"Okay," said Starbuck slowly.
He was pretty sure that this couldn't be disciplinary, given the circumstances and the purity of his conscience, but Boomer wouldn't say anything until they were in the turbo-lift on their way up to the bridge office.
"It’s the Rone," he said. "They trade with the Menath G'Tath."
Starbuck stared at him, his stomach doing the most peculiar flip-flopping.
"They trade with the Menath G'Tath," repeated Boomer, putting his hands on Starbuck's shoulders and giving him a little shake to wake him up. "They can get us in. They can get us onto that damn planet. The Commander's okayed the mission. We're going to go in and get him, Starbuck. We're going back for Apollo."
"We don’t look much like Rone," said Infantry Lieutenant Grant, stretching out his legs into the aisle on the shuttle. His hand-picked team of half a dozen infantry sat quiet and watchful in the seats behind him. "Won't the Menath G'Tath notice?"
"The Commander said that they won’t care." Boomer stowed his pack under the co-pilot's chair and steered Starbuck into one of the front row seats. He stood to one side to allow Doctor Wilker to pass him. Wilker headed straight for the back for the shuttle where all his equipment had been loaded by Grant's troopers. "Let Jolly drive, Starbuck. You still don't exactly appear to be flying on all thrusters."
"They won't." The Rone trader assigned to be their liaison spared Grant a small amount of the focused attention he was giving to getting himself comfortable. "The Menath G'Tath don't seem to distinguish between other races. We all seem alike to them."
"We're not Menath G'Tath so it doesn't matter, you mean?" Starbuck took the seat Boomer pushed him into, and folded his hands in his lap to stop them shaking. He fixed his attention on the still-pink scars. They'll take a while to fade, he thought.
"Exactly." Artur settled himself in with a sigh of contentment, hands carefully plumping cushions around himself. "They think a lot of themselves, the Menath G'Tath do, and they keep themselves to themselves. Still, they do trade with us and others. We visit regularly. The Trade delegations are gathering on the edge of the system waiting to be guided in through the defence grid. We'll join them there." He smiled, showing sharp teeth in his strangely pallid face. "Have you decided what you will trade?"
Boomer glanced up from doing the pre-flight checks with Jolly. "We'll play it by ear, I think, to begin with," he said with a diplomacy that Starbuck could only envy.
Starbuck turned away so the sharp-eyed Rone couldn't see his expression. The Commander's instructions had been clear.
"Doctor Wilker and his team will stay on the shuttle and carry out their investigations from there, keeping in constant communication with you, Captain Boomer. You'll keep a pilot on the shuttle at all times, ready. The rest of you will pose as traders. The Rone are being very cagey about what the Menath G'Tath trade. Sire Anton, who has to be the sharpest political analyst we have, suspects they may be trading arms. Don't to commit to anything unless you have to." The Commander had smiled thinly. "You can cover lack of any actual commercial activity with a great deal of talking."
Starbuck smiled just as thinly at his reflection in the tylinium viewport set above the shuttle's main control consoles. If there was one thing he'd learned it was that you could cover an awful lot of things you didn't want other people to notice with a great deal of talking.
Trouble was, he thought he'd forgotten how.
The city of Menath G'Tar was exquisite. Starbuck didn't think that he'd ever seen anything so perfect. Every street was wide and clean, every building a work of art with visually pleasing lines, slender spires and minarets that soared up into a pollution-free air and pristine white marble walls. The city was surprisingly small, built around a circular hill in its centre. The single biggest building in the city, topped by a frankly monstrous silver dome, sat on the hill's perfectly flat top. It was in sharp contrast to the lighter, airier architecture of the rest of the city. It dominated the entire place.
"That hill's been artificially levelled," Grant had said, half admiring, when they'd first seen it. "That's some job. The dome has to be the size of the Galactica."
Boomer had snorted. "Half the size."
"Wanna bet?" Starbuck had said, out of habit. He had met Boomer's gaze and managed another of those thin smiles. "I'm all right. I just want this over with."
Boomer had nodded. "We all do, Bucko."
Sergeant Acer had chimed in with a little geological information. "The Doc says it's a volcanic plug." He had been trying to be subtle about the small hand-held sensor he was holding that was relaying data back to Wilker in the shuttle. Starbuck thought that if you had hands the size of paddles, subtlety was probably beyond you. "The dome's sitting on a volcanic plug." He had caught the looks they gave him and added, patiently, "Volcanic rock is the hardest you can get, sirs, even I know that. Doc says that the technology that will slice a plug like that and give you a smooth flat top… well, we don't have it."
One more alien thing to make them tense and stressed, despite getting onto the planet without a hitch. They had brought in the shuttle in the midst of a small fleet of Rone ships. The Menath G'Tath had greeted their arrival with indifference: as Artur had promised, they were considered to be a part of the Rone fleet and the Menath G'Tath hadn't appeared to see the distinction.
"The Rone are four feet tall and have two sets of arms," Grant had said, wonderingly. "Surely the Menath G'Tath can see we aren't Rone!"
But the tall Menath G'Tath, looking all the taller because of their ornate robes, had ignored piffling things like height differences and arm counts, and treated the Rone and the colonials as if they were variants on the same species. At least the ones they had contact with did, not that the Galacticans had contact with that many of them: a few only were assigned to carry out trade negotiations with the visitors. Starbuck could count the number of actual Menath G'Tath he'd spoken to on the scarred fingers of one hand. Even when they went into the city itself, the Menath G'Tath acted as if they weren't there, as if the visitors were invisible.
"They aren't happy to see us, are they?" said Boomer.
Artur shrugged – and wasn't that a sight to see when it involved incredibly bulky shoulders with two arm joints each side. "There are always only a few of them join the discussions. They aren't a friendly people."
"The negotiators certainly aren't happy in their work," remarked Grant.
"They're probably criminals or something," said Starbuck. "And we're their punishment. It's talk to us, or jail-time. Most of them look like they wished they'd opted for the brig."
He was only half-joking. The Menath G'Tath had no conversation skills at all. The city was beautiful though, and Artur, who seemed to know it well, took them on a couple of guided tours. He absolutely refused to allow them to go into the city unescorted.
"A guided tour?" repeated Starbuck, almost blank with the preposterousness of the notion when Artur first proposed it.
"It’s the only way," insisted Artur, and although he proved to be an excellent guide, he showed an unaccountable nervousness about being in the city itself when dusk was falling. He hurried them back to the space field each day before it could get dark.
"I dunno," said Grant. "Maybe he turns into a pumpkin or something when the sun goes down."
"The Rone ships keep their lights on all night and post guards," said Boomer, thoughtfully.
Grant nodded. "I noticed. Interesting, that."
Interesting it may be, but they still didn't have an explanation for Artur's behaviour. He was the typical trader by day—a little brash and bold and into every business opportunity like a daggit after a rat—but the moment the sun started westering, he got nervous, looking often over his shoulder as he chivvied them out of the city.
Now, three days into the mission and they were getting desperate. They'd sent Wilker masses of scan data to add to the surreptitious data they'd collected on their way in, so much data that Wilker was almost orgasmic with joy. But so far they'd learned nothing useful, nothing to help them.
"At least we've had a lot of practice in carrying out negotiations for things we aren’t actually going to be trading," commented Starbuck. "If I ever get the sack from flying, maybe Artur will give me a job."
He let the wry grin die away as soon as everyone had turned away or moved on to talk about something else, and concentrated instead on trying to control the nervous nausea that had plagued him since they'd landed. He didn't think he'd could cope with much more. "I think," he said, sadly, after watching them eat another meal that he'd not been able to face, "that patience can't be counted as one of my virtues."
"Nor me," said Boomer, coming to join him. He glanced at Artur, who was going through his usual preliminaries before clucking at them about the time: looking around apprehensively, talking agitatedly to his fellow Rone by communicator, starting to flap about collecting together his samples and purchases. "What is bothering you, Artur? What happens here at night?"
"Happens?"
"Yeah. You chase us out of here every evening. Is the nightlife here that bad?"
Artur looked a little uncomfortable. "It's not that," he said. He wriggled uneasily, another interesting sight to see with all those arms. He hesitated, then said, very quickly, "It’s just that sometimes people disappear."
"Disappear," repeated Boomer. Beside him, Grant straightened and the two troopers with them put their hands on the weapons they had hidden on them.
Artur's face contorted. "I don't know," he said. "I don't!" He glanced up at the great Dome that dominated the city skyline, his uneasiness increasing. "It's just they don't like us being around after dark."
"People disappear," said Boomer. "And yet you keep coming back."
"We're careful," protested Artur. "And besides. The trade…"
"Right," said Grant. He glanced at his troopers. "Stay loose, you two, and ready."
"Then we'll head back?" asked Artur eagerly. "It's getting late."
"Sure," said Boomer, reassuring. "Don't worry, Artur. We'll get back in time."
"He looked at the Dome, did you notice?" said Starbuck quietly as they followed their nervous little guide to the space field.
"I did," said Boomer.
"We've been in the city three days running, and he's never taken us to the Dome. The biggest building there is, and Artur doesn't want to visit it," murmured Grant.
Boomer grinned. "It is an interesting building, isn't it? Let's see what Wilker has to say about it."
Doctor Wilker said the Dome was shielded. He said that meant the building schematics weren't available. He said that it was indeed an interesting sort of structure but he couldn't quite tell what it was for. Religious, possibly, but the shielding made that interpretation problematic so he wasn't quite sure. There might be something significant in the Dome being in the exact centre of the city, but he couldn’t determine what that might be. It was a perfect circle, however.
"He says a lot of nothing much at all," noted Grant, amused.
"We go and take a look?" said Starbuck. His stomach lurched, and he put his arm across it, pressing back the nausea.
Grant already had the city schematics spread out on one of the shuttle's seats, a schematic put together from their flight data. "He's right about it being bang in the centre, do you see? You can see from here that the city's circular, too. Interesting sort of town planning."
"At least finding our way to it will be easy," said Boomer. He walked to the front of the shuttle and stared out across the spacefield to the city. The Dome was lit with pale lavender light in the dusk. "How long do you think it will take us to get there? A centar or so?"
"About that," agreed Grant.
"Right. Jolly, you stay here and be ready for immediate takeoff. All of your people, Grant – we may to fight our way in or out. Break out the weapons. We go armed." Boomer looked steadily at Starbuck. "Starbuck and me go too. We'll leave a couple of centars after midnight. The streets should be pretty much deserted by then." He glanced over to the nearest Rone ship, to which Artur had positively run when they'd got back to the field. "And we'll just have to hope that Artur's bogeyman doesn't catch us."
The streets, said Grant, are appallingly well lit. There weren't nearly enough shadows to sneak through.
"Lucky we have the scanners," said Boomer, checking the next intersection. "All clear."
"Surveillance?"
Boomer hefted the scanner. "This says not."
It was almost too easy. Grant's people were very good at their jobs. Sergeant Acer took point, and for a big man who looked like he'd been built by the same firm that built the Galactica, he flitted quickly and silently from thin shadow to thin shadow. The five troopers bracketed Grant, Boomer and Starbuck. Starbuck felt safe, he said. Almost cherished. Grant grinned at him; he seemed to be enjoying himself hugely.
In reality Starbuck was so relieved that they were making some sort of move that he was almost dizzy with it. The best thing was that the crawling misery that lived deep inside had faded. They'd find Apollo, he knew it. They'd find him. He was almost euphoric.
A narrow path zigzagged its way up the side of the hill. It was more dimly lit than the streets below, only a single lamp at each point of the zigzag with the same pale lavender light as the Dome. It took them about ten centons to get to the top.
The top of the hill, or volcanic plug or whatever, was as smooth as polished granite and perfectly round. The building with the Dome sat in its exact centre, surrounded by a huge circular flat area, like a round plaza. As a piece of architecture, thought Starbuck, it was… different.
"Plenty of room to land the shuttle," was all Boomer said about it.
There was a set of doors almost immediately opposite them. They weren't even closed, much less locked. Pale light spilled down a graceful set of stairs.
"These people really don’t give a fuck about security," muttered Acer.
"All the better for us. Check it out, Sergeant."
Acer nodded, made some indecipherable hand gestures to two of the troopers and the three of them ghosted through the door. He was back within ten centons, beckoning the rest of them inside.
"Clear?" asked Grant when he reached the door.
Acer grinned. "Empty," he said. "Except for a couple of Menath G'Tath, who might be security guards. Creed and Jan are looking after them."
And when Acer said empty, he meant empty. The building was a shell. The inside of the Dome was lost in shadow, but the rest of it stretched away into the distance. It was featureless, at least five or six times the size of the Galactica's cavernous landing bays.
Starbuck shook his head, bitterly disappointed. He'd had such hopes.
"This doesn't make much sense," said Grant. "It doesn't make any sense at all. This is the most prominent building in the entire damn city."
"Uh-huh," said Boomer, the unflappable. He holstered his laser and worked on the hand-held sensor. "We’re inside the shielding here, that Wilker mentioned," he said. "So…"
He smiled and turned the scanner to show Grant and Starbuck. As one, they all looked down at the floor.
"All we have to do is find our way down there." Boomer grinned at Grant. "Get your people looking for the service elevators, Grant. And then we'll be on our way."
The lift doors opened. Boomer and Starbuck waited a micron, checking for sound or movement.
Nothing.
The lighting was subdued, the doors opening onto a narrow, featureless corridor stretching away into the gloom. The place was silent, but for a faint humming noise almost below the edge of hearing. It was very cold.
Starbuck touched one of the grey walls, gingerly. It was constructed of the same metal as the main complex up top. "Nice decor," he said.
"Quiet," whispered Boomer. "If there is anyone down here, we don't want to tip them off." He stared at the little monitor in his hand and nodded. "It's okay."
"Still no security surveillance?" asked Starbuck.
"I can't see anything." Boomer waved the hand-held sensor at him. "This isn't picking up anything either."
"Huh," said Starbuck. He stared up at the arched ceiling, as if that would be enough to make the sensors, or cameras or hidden microphones show themselves. There certainly wasn't anything visible. "Careless. Or overconfident."
"They don't get many visitors. They maybe never had anyone find their way down here before," said Boomer. He motioned with his arm to indicate that Starbuck should move forward.
"Uh huh, Strike Leader," Starbuck smiled wryly and shook his head, "You're the one who got promoted. I'll follow you."
"I was temporarily promoted."
"Don't take this wrong, Boomer, but I hope so. I really do. But still… after you."
Boomer rolled his eyes and started down the corridor, laser pistol at the ready. Starbuck followed, turning his head every few microns to check that the corridor behind them remained empty of threat. Ahead of them, the dim light flashed through every two or three centons with a flicker of something that, up in the world above, would be lightning. It wasn't quite lightning, unless lightning here on Menath G'Tar wasn't the brilliant silver-white he was used to, but that pale cold lavender that was everywhere in the city; still Starbuck didn't know what else to call it other than lightning. He noticed that each time the lightning flashed, the air took on the smell of ozone, sharp and paradoxically fresh given how far they were underground.
They moved cautiously along the corridor towards the source of the light flashes; Starbuck counted four on the way. There were no side turnings or places to hide if there really were security sensors and the Menath G'Tath had other ways to get here, other than through the Great Dome, and could come along to find out who was snooping around underneath their fair city, or already had security troops stationed down here to guard the place. Whatever the place was.
Starbuck grimaced to himself. This wasn't exactly the most salubrious place he'd ever visited, and the speculation about what – and who – they'd find down here wasn't helping much. He didn't like these underground corridors. He certainly didn't like the low, almost subliminal humming. When he touched the metal walls, they vibrated to the same frequency. He shivered, the hair on the back of his neck prickling. While he still couldn't see any sign of surveillance cameras, it still felt like he was under the steady gaze of eyes that were less than friendly.
The corridor opened into a huge chamber. He and Boomer took a side each, flattened against the wall, and peered carefully into the gloom just as another huge flash of lightning illuminated the chamber into ghastly clarity.
"Bloody hell!" said Starbuck.
"Shit," said Boomer, so quietly that Starbuck wasn't sure he'd heard him or if he just knew old Boom-boom so well that he knew what he would say before he said it.
The chamber was circular, with a great domed roof that mimicked the Great Dome of the building on the surface, a thousand metres above their heads. They had to be immediately below the Great Dome itself, in the heart of whatever powered it… in the heart of whatever powered the entire Menath G'Tath civilisation.
The centre of the chamber was an island, perfectly round, maybe three hundred metres in diameter. A building of some sort, again perfectly circular, sat in the middle of the island with a slender, tapering pillar, a sort of thin spire, rising out of it and stretching up a couple of hundred metres into the huge space below the domed roof. The spire was made of a clear material with pale violet-coloured gas or something coiling around inside it.
A rim, or ledge, or walkway ran around the outer walls of the chamber, separated from the island by a circular trench at least a hundred metres across. The lavender lightning crackled deep down in the chasm, to flash up through the island, dancing up the slender spire to discharge against the domed roof in a shower of sparks. It looked like a demented firework.
"Well," said Boomer. "That's different." He added, after a micron, "They don't do straight lines much here, do they? They do like their circles and their domes. Makes me dizzy, all these damn concentric circles."
"They do some. There's a corridor to each side of us, at right angles," said Starbuck.
"Probably one opposite us as well, then."
"Probably."
"At the cardinal points," said Boomer. He glanced at his scanner. "We're at the east entrance."
Starbuck shrugged, indifferently. "Can't tell from here how deep that trench is," he said.
"It'll be deep," muttered Boomer. "These bastards don't do anything by halves."
Starbuck huffed out a half-laugh, half sigh of agreement. "There's a bridge across to the centre."
"Bridge! It's one metre wide and that's a generous overestimate." Boomer peered around the corridor opening. "No handrail. And not much light."
"Yeah." Starbuck's grip tightened on the hilt of his laser. "Well, we came to look."
"There's probably nothing. It's nothing but rumours. He's probably dead, Starbuck."
"We came to look," repeated Starbuck, sullen, and suddenly so angry that his hands shook. His grip on the laser tightened to the point where his fingers whitened. He pushed his other hand into his jacket pocket, to hide the shaking.
Boomer sighed. He pulled the tiny monitor from his pocket and stared at the screen. "I can't see anyone else moving around down here," he said after a centon. "You want to take a look at the thingy in the middle?"
Starbuck eased shoulders aching with tension. "I don't want to," he said. "I think we have to."
Boomer swore. He hesitated for a micron or two, jigging up and down on the spot. He had to be as nervous and tense as Starbuck was. "Oh felger!" he said at last, and jog trotted out of the relative safety of the corridor, out into the open.
Starbuck followed. They paused at the bridge. Starbuck leaned carefully forwards, looking down. Boomer was right: these fuckers really didn't do anything by halves. The trench wasn't just deep, it was a chasm; the bottom lost in shadows. It was like looking down a high mountain-side, looking down thousands of metres of metal cliff, with the air flowing up from the invisible depths warm with the smell of ozone and heated metal. The island, he could see now, was the upper surface of a long column; like the chasm itself, the column disappeared down into darkness. The sides of the column and the inner surface of the chasm were lined with machinery: great coils and generators and immense clear capacitors full of roiling purple gases (glass? crystal? he couldn't tell but the similarity to the glass spire couldn't be coincidental), each the size of one of Galactica's shuttles, connected by wires a metre or more thick. Bolts of electricity ran horizontally around the sides, arcing from machine to machine. They provided the only light there was: pale and cold and the same icy lavender colour as the lightning.
Corpse lights, thought Starbuck. He was reminded of too many late nights before the Destruction, watching Gothic horror vids on Caprican TV. The colour was unnatural, livid, like a noisome putrescence that was all the more frightening because it brought home how alien this place was. He shivered, suddenly chilled. He straightened up and exchanged a glance with Boomer. There wasn't any point in saying what they both had to be thinking. It was a helluva long way down; there wasn't any choice.
"Wait until the next flash is over," said Boomer. "Then we cross. We'll have to be quick and careful."
The bridge was flat and really, really narrow. Starbuck thought Boomer was right about it being less than a metre wide. They both eyed it with something less than full confidence.
"It looks sturdy enough," said Starbuck, and shrugged off the cold glance Boomer gave him.
"I'd like something a little more reliable than one of your hunches."
Boomer paused, and they both stiffened as the lightning flashed its way up the great central column, coalescing on the spire to discharge against the dome above. Starbuck thought he heard something: a faint keening noise coming from the island, like wailing in the dark. Maybe they weren't alone down here, although he couldn't imagine at all what sort of animal could live in these metal corridors. He took two or three deep breaths to calm himself.
"Come on," said Boomer, the instant the lightning flash died. "Let's get this over with."
He edged out onto the narrow bridge, looking determinedly ahead of him as if the drop to either side didn't exist. Starbuck gave him a micron to get ahead, then followed.
Starbuck was sure-footed. He always had been, from being a kid who climbed on roofs and up trees with no fear of heights, to becoming the best pilot in the fleet: he was sure-footed, literally and metaphorically. But that bridge... that bridge would come between him and his sleep for the rest of his life. If he survived it. If he got across to the other side.
They didn't dare go too fast. One slip, a momentary loss of balance, would be fatal. They moved slowly and steadily, Starbuck keeping his gaze on the island to stop himself from looking down. It was really rather beautiful, in a bizarre sort of way; the glass spire with its ever-changing coils of gas rising up into the dim reaches of the dome above his head was a graceful needle, architecturally perfect. If he let his gaze drop a fraction, he could see the walls of the island-column, and watch as the little flashes of electricity played around it, faster and faster. Sweat trickled down his spine. His whole body tingled, the hairs on his head lifting and prickling. The static was building up.
"Boomer," he said, anguished. They weren't going to make it to the other side. They were still fifteen metres short.
"It's gonna go," said Boomer. He stopped and looked down, then carefully got down onto his knees. He spread his arms, hands gripping the edges of the bridge. "Hold on tight."
"Shit!" said Starbuck, following suit. He shoved his laser into its holster. His hands were sweating, slipping on the sides of the bridge and he had to tighten them so much that the metal seemed to bite into his palms. The air whooshed suddenly, rattling the bridge, and he looked up, frankly terrified, just in time to see the bolt of lightning surge up from the centre of the island to wash against the roof. Great sparks, silver and white and that faint, icy lavender, showered down around him. One fell on the back of his hand. It was surprisingly cold. It didn't hurt, which was just as well, since there was nothing that Starbuck could have done to unclench his hand and shake it off. Instead, his breath keening out between his teeth, he tilted his hand slightly, and watched as the cold violet spark slid off his skin and disappeared, vanishing into the gloom of the chasm below him. It left the sharp smell of ozone in its wake.
The bridge gave one more little shake and settled down. Starbuck sank down until his forehead was resting on the metal in front of him, his hands aching where they clenched against the bridge sides. He never wanted to move again.
"Get up! Get up!" Boomer pulled at him urgently, fierce with fright. "We've got to get to the other side before the next one. Get the fuck up!"
It took him a centon or two to find the courage to obey. He had to force his hands to unclench and his breath was still whining in the back of his throat. He'd never been so frightened. He lurched upright and tottered in Boomer's wake, one hand fisted in Boomer's jacket. They stumbled off the bridge onto the island just as the next bolt flashed.
"Fuck," said Starbuck, finding his voice. It shook as much as his hands did.
Boomer turned around, and his hands closed over Starbuck's upper arms. Starbuck returned the gesture, clinging hard until his own hands could stop trembling.
As the lightning died, Boomer laughed shakily. "I never want to do that again."
"I hate to break it to you, old friend, but there's only one way back."
"Yeah. Well. I need a few centons before I can face that again. I've been less scared launching against a Cylon taskforce."
Starbuck could only agree. "We'll have to time it better and go faster," he said, but he had to swallow down the nausea, and he could see, from the expression on Boomer's face, that Boomer was as enamoured of that idea as he was. "No choice," he said, softly. "We have no choice."
"I know." Boomer let him go, straightened, and drew his laser again. He passed his free hand over his mouth and tried for a more normal tone. "You know, this whole complex has to be insulated in some way. It doesn’t make sense, building something out of metal and then shooting lightning all around it."
"Nothing about this place makes any fucking sense." Starbuck took a step away, drew his own laser, pleased to see that it only shook a little in his hand. His heart rate was slowing back to normal, and it ached less in his chest. "So, what do we have here, do you think? I've never seen a power generator that looks anything like this."
"No," said Boomer. "I don't think it really is lightning or electricity. Not how we know it, anyway." He looked at the hand-held scanner. "It's definitely where that weird energy is generated, though."
"It blasts up that spire thing to be captured by the dome somehow?"
"Looks like. The dome's some kind of conductor, maybe and from there, the power's distributed throughout the city. But definitely, this is where the power comes from." Boomer pointed to a point on the wall of the inner building, where a huge curved girder, coiled around with wiring, arched out to merge with the side of the main column. "There are four of those, set between the cardinal points. I think that's how the energy's conducted to the what did you call it? The spire?"
Starbuck nodded.
Boomer grunted. "Good enough name for it. Well, that's how the power reaches the spire and stops us from getting fried. Everything else has to be insulated."
"So, we go inside?" Starbuck peered across the fifty metres or so separating them from the curved walls of the building at the base of the column. How do we get in?"
He looked at the wall, hoping that he'd see an entryway directly in line with the bridge was an entryway. Anything would do.
"There's a sort of stair and a bridge over the wall," said Boomer. He angled the sensor so that Starbuck could see the tiny schematic on the screen. "Four, one opposite each bridge. "We'll have to do a bit of climbing. I guess it’s to keep us clear of the wall and insulated from the power surges."
"Well, at least we won't have to blast our way in."
"No. Shame. Blowing this place up might make me feel better." Boomer hesitated and sighed. "Well, as you said, we came to look."
He led the way over. They jog-trotted across the smooth metal surface of the island to the equally smooth curved metal wall that stretched about ten metres above their heads. .
"Here we go again," said Boomer, but they weren't on that dreadful little bridge and Starbuck found that he could watch the lightning build and flash without shaking, although his hands did clench a bit. Just a little bit. As Boomer had suggested, the coils of wire around the arches gleamed with light, just before the lightning flashed up the spire. As the cold sparks showered around them, Starbuck heard it again, that strange keening howl; louder, but still muted.
Boomer glanced at him. "You did hear that didn't you?"
"Uh-huh."
Uneasy, Boomer looked around them. "It came from inside."
"Uh-huh."
"This place is shit," said Boomer, sincerely. "Let's get this the hell over with and get out of here. This place is freaking me out, big time." He straightened his shoulders and led up the spiral stairs and across the narrow bridge. The staircase on the inside was curved too. Of course.
The wall was only a few metres thick. On the inside was yet another circular chamber—Starbuck was beginning to share Boomer's desire for some straight walls—the slender spire needling upwards from its centre anchored to the wall with four thin metal beams, coiled around with thick silver wiring—Starbuck would put a sectar's pay on them connecting to the big conductor arches outside. The chamber was dimly lit and heavy with shadows, but there was enough light to see the three spiral stairs at the other cardinal points, the four big work stations set around the floor, gleaming with little pale violet-blue lights, and to see what lined the walls.
"Oh," said Starbuck, staring.
He wished he could force himself to turn away, but he remained transfixed in the way that a spectator might be drawn to the site of an explosion or accident and then couldn't look away from the blood and gore, fascinated by the sick horrors that normally lived safely hidden under the skin. He turned to look back the way they'd come. There were more behind them. The lower half of the encircling wall of the chamber was lined with a row of oval pods.
Boomer's eyes were very wide. "Great day in the morning," he said, softly, all other oaths inadequate. He reached out to clamp a hand on Starbuck's wrist, so hard that Starbuck was grateful for the pain jerking him out of horror.
Starbuck choked back a breath that, even to himself, sounded more like a sob. "He is here, Boomer. He has to be. He's down here somewhere!"
Boomer's dark-skinned face looked grey in the dim light. "There have to be a couple of hundred of them." Like Starbuck he whispered, as if terrified they'd be overheard, that the… the things in the wall would wake up and hear them.
"We have to look." Starbuck turned to look at the pod closest to him. "We have to. Do you think they're—?" He couldn't finish.
"I don't know." Boomer's grip tightened until Starbuck winced. "I don't know. They aren't moving."
The static in the air was building again. Boomer pulled Starbuck back, away from the wall. The inner surface of the wall moved smoothly anticlockwise for the width of one pod, stopped again, and an instant later the lightning ran along the four thin beams connecting the needle to the walls and surged up to the roof. As it did so, the emaciated, naked man in the pod in front of them opened his mouth to scream, almost soundlessly; writhing in momentary agony. His eyes shot open, staring into Starbuck's; hands clawed at the inner surface of the pod, stick-thin arms and legs shuddering and convulsing. They were all doing it, every single one of the hundreds trapped inside the slim pods was writhing and trying to scream and trying to get out, and making the thin keening wail that Starbuck and Boomer had heard from outside the chamber, their screams barely penetrating the shell of the pods.
When the lightning discharged into the domed roof, they collapsed into stillness again. They looked like corpses: thin, bodies pallid and wasted. The man's hands fell to his sides and his eyes closed.
Starbuck felt like he'd been gut-punched. For a micron he thought he'd lose it, vomit clawing up into his throat. He swallowed it down, coughing against the acid burn. He blinked hard to clear blurring vision.
Boomer stepped up to the pod, touched it gingerly.
"Boomer!"
"It's probably safe between surges," said Boomer, thickly, but he snatched his hand back, even so. "I can't tell what it's made from, but it's sealed tight. God alone knows what the poor bastard inside is breathing."
"There has to be some air in there. They couldn't scream without it." Starbuck came a little closer. "He's wired into it," he said, having to swallow hard again. He pointed to the thin silver wires that half-encased the body inside. "See? There's some sort of socket under his breast bone where all the wires go."
"Surgically implanted," nodded Boomer. "He's not one of the Menath G'Tath."
Starbuck snorted. "Of course not. Just catch one of those superior bastards being closed up in here. Artur's bogeyman isn't so funny. People do disappear down here. The Menath G'Tath must need them… what are they, do you think? Fuel? Organic storage batteries or capacitors or something? Why are those bastards doing this?"
Boomer could only shake his head. "I dunno, Starbuck. I dunno. The pods have got to be integral to the power generation process, that's for certain, but I don’t know how." The face he turned to Starbuck was stricken, and his eyes were wet. "I don't want to know. How can anybody do this to another being?"
"We've got to find him." Starbuck jerked back as the inner wall rotated the width of one more pod again and swiftly turned his back, unable to watch. He stared at the lightning surging up the spire instead, knowing all the time that the poor bastard behind him was screaming and writhing and scrabbling helplessly at the pod imprisoning him.
"It rotates them round to the spot where the conductor arches met the walls," said Boomer. "I guess… well, maybe no-one could survive more than one surge in that without some sort of rest between them."
"That's rest?" Starbuck glared at him. "That's fucking rest? Them screaming like that, is rest?"
"Let it lie," said Boomer, sharply. "I don't know. I didn't put them there."
Starbuck unclenched his hands, desperate to hit something. "We have to find him," he said, dully. "We have to get him out."
Boomer reached out, his hand cupping the back of Starbuck's neck. "I know," he said. "First, though, we need some help." He reached for his communicator. "Grant?"
"Here. Found him?"
"Not yet," said Boomer. "I think we're getting warmer. Are those Menath G'Tath up there conscious?"
"I do believe that Sergeant Acer gave them a love tap on the head and locked up in a storeroom, somewhere. He thought they might come in handy. But he says he can bring one round whenever you want one."
"Leave your squad up there on guard and get down here. Bring one of the Menath G'Tath with you. Alive and talking, all right? We're going to need some help if… when we do find Apollo. We might need Acer, too. Can you find your way down here?"
"Oh I think so," said Grant, laconic. "Straight down to the bottom and follow our noses, right?"
"You can't miss us. Be careful. When you get down here you'll find a bridge over a chasm, and an awful lot of lightning flashing about. You'll have to time coming over the bridge between flashes. You'll see what I mean when you get here." Boomer waited for Grant's equally laconic acknowledgement and snapped off the communicator. "All right, Starbuck. You go that way, I'll go this. We'll meet on the other side. Yell if you find him but don't try and get him out until Grant gets here with one of those bastards. We don’t want to cause any more damage pulling him out, all right?"
Starbuck nodded. Boomer's free hand, still on the back of Starbuck's neck, rubbed comfortingly, and dropped away.
"We'll find him," Boomer said. "We'll find him and we'll get him out."
"Yeah," said Starbuck. "Sure."
He started a slow walk around the chamber, checking out each pod. There were no empty pods and the Menath G'Tath hadn't been discriminate in who they put inside them. Most of the bodies—the people—were humanoid. There were a few Rone, and Starbuck wondered if they'd agree with Artur that the trade was worth it. One or two of the pod-people were so alien that Starbuck would have had to think twice about whether he'd have rated them as sentient at all, but if this long journey of theirs was teaching him anything, it was to be a little more broadminded about what constituted 'people'.
He didn't think that the Menath G'Tath thought of them as people.
Every single one of the people in the pods was as naked, emaciated and tormented as the first he and Boomer had seen. Twice Starbuck had to step back and turn away, unable to watch as the lightning pulse tortured them; twice a little more guilt was heaped on his shoulders that he couldn't help them. He couldn't. If Apollo had survived the hard landing in his Viper, if he was down here, then it would take everything they had to get him out and safely home. Starbuck didn't think there was anything that they could do for the others. They were too few. It would take a small army to free everyone—
"Starbuck!"
The roar from Boomer had Starbuck's head snapping up and he spun on his heel. Boomer was on the opposite side of the chamber, waving at him. He didn't stop to think. He'd never run so fast in his life.
"Oh shit, oh shit," he said, skidding to a halt at Boomer's side. "Oh shit, oh shit…"