Section 2.3 : Ethical Practice

 

 

 

21 Septimus 6490
Battlestar Galactica

"You wanted to see me, sir?"

Adama looked up from the personnel record that he'd been studying since the end of the morning command meeting. Starbuck stood to attention before his desk, eyes fixed on some point above the Commander's head, wearing his usual innocent expression when in the presence of authority.

"Stand easy, Lieutenant." Adama closed down the datapad and regarded this most troublesome pilot for a few silent microns, until Starbuck shifted uneasily. It was only a minute shift of his weight from one foot to the other, something that many people would have missed because they were fooled by that guileless expression, but Adama saw it. It was a little reassuring that, through mere silence, he could still remind Starbuck about where the authority really lay. Point made, he softened his tone and manner. "Sit down, Starbuck."

"Thank you, sir."

Adama folded his hands on the datapad and considered this most problematic of officers. He supposed that he could only blame himself. He had created this problem. Well, if he hadn't actually created it, he thought, remembering the leave-taking on Alpha deck after the T18 mission and the unexpected devastation in Starbuck's eyes when Apollo's Raptor left, he'd certainly helped it along, willing to do anything to get Apollo away from Joss. Ila hadn't been very pleased with him about it, either. She was more forgiving than he was towards the man who had seduced their teenage son all those yahrens ago. No matter what his sincerely-held religious beliefs asked of him, Adama had not found it in himself to forgive, not even with the memory of the momentary connexion he'd had with Joss at that terrible Midnight Watch for an Apollo they'd thought dead on Telnos. With the joy Adama had felt at Apollo's restoration to life had come a grim determination to ensure that his son realised that he had some choices. Even now, faced with the consequences, Adama felt more than a little satisfaction at having freed Apollo. It didn't matter that Apollo hadn't asked to be freed. Adama knew that he'd wanted it.

Still, he'd had a hand in creating this, he had to have a hand in managing it without alienating either Starbuck or his son. In fact, please the Lords, if it was at all humanly possible, without his son ever finding out about it. He suppressed the consideration that keeping this conversation secret from Apollo was undoubtedly very wise, but was hardly... well, honest.

"Are you meant to be anywhere specific at the moment, Lieutenant?"

"I'm due out on patrol with the Captain, sir. It's our first paired training flight."

"Captain Apollo is talking to Colonel Tigh in the briefing room. He'll be a few centons yet." And Apollo certainly would be, if Tigh did as Adama had asked. He wouldn't release Apollo until Adama signalled that Starbuck was well on his way to the flight deck. Adama tapped the datapad. "You know why you're here."

"Sir?" questioned Starbuck. That look of bright, innocent interest couldn't be bettered: Starbuck's game face, reflected Adama, and infinitely better than Apollo's. Half of the Lieutenant's reputation for being such a formidable Pyramid player had to come from him possessing a face that could look as innocent as sin itself.

"Your new appointment." Adama smiled, indulging Starbuck his mild deception.

"Oh. Yes, sir."

Adama said, gravely, "More than three yahrens ago, Lieutenant, I did you something of a disservice."

Starbuck waited, all polite attention.

"I didn't trust you to get Captain Apollo back from T18. Despite your exceptional flying skills, I didn't think that you were right for that mission because you were too much of a maverick for my peace of mind." Adama smiled thinly. "Mavericks are not an undiluted joy to command, Lieutenant."

Wry self-deprecation, beautifully done. "No, sir. I suppose not, sir."

"No. But you proved me wrong."

"You were kind enough to say so at the time, sir," said Starbuck, the innocence tinged with what Adama considered to be totally spurious embarrassment.

'Kind' was the last thing he'd been, and Adama knew it, despite making an honourable amende for his judgemental stance.

"Yes, but it's still relevant. Since then, you have in many respects become one of our best officers. With the odd lapse, here and there." Adama's fingers touched the datapad, until he saw that Starbuck had realised what was on it. Starbuck's self-deprecating smile widened. Adama added, dryly, "The lapses have, on the whole, been annoying rather than serious. I understand that even Doctor Salik has come to accept that the susceptibility of the fair sex is not amenable to regulation. At least, he's stopped complaining to Colonel Tigh about you and his nurses."

"No, sir. I mean, yes, sir."

Of course, some susceptibilities were amenable to parental guidance, Adama was extremely glad to say. He regarded Starbuck thoughtfully, remembering Athena's worrying reaction to the Lieutenant's erratic attentions.

"I don't suppose that you'll ever be some people's idea of the ideal Fleet officer, and I can't see you on the recruiting poster, somehow, but results are what count, wouldn't you say? You got Apollo back three yahrens ago. If you hadn't, and we'd lost the information he gathered, the Colonies would be in a far less advantageous position now." Adama glanced at the medal ribbons on Starbuck's left breast. "You earned that," he added with an approving nod at the scarlet and gold of the Starcluster.

"Thank you, sir," said Starbuck.

"So, I thought it was important, in light of what happened three yahrens ago, that I tell you today that I don't have the doubts I had then. Quite the opposite. I trust you implicitly to do two things, Starbuck. First, I have every faith that you'll take your duties as the Captain's wingman seriously and perform them to the best of your ability. You've more than proved yourself capable in the last few yahrens and... and I have no doubts about your motivation to do the best, either. I don't think that there is anyone on the ship who will take it more seriously."

"Thank you, sir," said Starbuck, again, but his eyes were wary, a Pyramid player's eyes waiting for the turn of the cards, for the dice to fall.

"But it's important that you understand that Captain Apollo has other responsibilities beyond being Strike Leader here, which can weigh heavily on him. So, secondly, I trust you not to add to that."

Starbuck stiffened visibly. "I'm not sure I understand you, sir – "

"Oh, I think you do." Adama regarded the flash of anger in Starbuck's eyes. "You'll be a good friend, Starbuck."

"I already am, sir."

It surprised him to see Starbuck draw himself up straight with a dignity that Adama hadn't expected. Adama nodded, feeling a tinge of respect for the maverick and gambler, the chancer, the womaniser. He held the angry gaze with his own and smiled until Starbuck relaxed again, and the anger in the Lieutenant's eyes changed to a faint confusion.

"It's all right, Starbuck. I know that." He broadened the smile, warmed his tone. "And I'm glad of it."




Tigh looked disapproving when he handed over the telemetry reports, but Adama excused this lapse into fatherhood when he should have been unremittingly commanderly. He'd forgotten, wanting Apollo on his ship so badly, that he'd be the one sending his son into battle. That would be a hard thing to do, and he wanted the best watching Apollo's back. Now, viewing the telemetry tapes, he relaxed a little. There was no denying Starbuck's flying skills: every move Apollo made, every twisty little manoeuvre, every roll and swoop and turn, even suddenly standing his Viper on its nose and back-flipping it, and Starbuck was there, flying close and smooth on Apollo's right wing as if attached by wires. You'd think they'd practised the moves for sectars.

Adama nodded. It would be all right. He couldn't really have better protecting his son, not if he searched the Fleet from end to end.

It would be all right.






21 Septimus 6490, evening
The Officer's Club, Battlestar Galactica

"Pretty cool, I thought," said Starbuck, complacently, to the group of pilots who'd foregathered in the OC. He jerked a thumb towards Apollo. "Despite him. Not only was he late—"

"Hey!" protested Apollo. "It's not my fault that Colonel Tigh kept me. He wanted to go over our working pattern in detail. Twice. The Lords alone know why."

"Fancy," said Starbuck.

"Maybe he's getting old and suffering from memory loss," suggested Kyle, putting the mugs of beer down onto the table and slapping away the reaching hands until he'd chosen the one he wanted.

"I won't be suggesting that, thanks. He still hasn't got over us spiking his little game; he's entirely likely to take that remark in the spirit in which it's intended. That's known in the trade as a career-limiting move." Apollo took a deep draught of the beer and sighed. "Nice. Thanks, Kyle."

"Still," said Starbuck. "Would you let me off with the excuse that I'd just got talking and forgotten the time?"

"Is it likely?" scoffed Lange.

"Not at all." Apollo grinned. "For future reference, Starbuck, it's a wise lieutenant who makes sure he avoids his captain's wrath by not turning up late for patrol."

"Because my captain's wrath is a righteous wrath and he'll make me clean the flight deck with my toothbrush?"

"You got it."

Boomer chuffed out a laugh. "As Starbuck will undoubtedly find out first hand. If you wanted wise, Apollo, you'd have been better off with a different wingman."

"He wanted the best and he got it." Starbuck frowned. "Although I'm wondering how we got from my completely legitimate complaint that he kept me hanging around the launch deck while he hobnobbed with the Management, to him warning me to bring my toothbrush when I wasn't even the one who was late."

"Do try to keep up," admonished Apollo, kindly.

"Oh but I did! That's the point! Did any of you see it?" Starbuck looked so complacent that the whole table laughed. "He tried everything: throws, turns, dives, flips, the lot and he couldn't get rid of me." He smirked at Apollo and added, all graciousness: "You're not a bad pilot, either. You're almost as good as me, even. But there's no way you can get away when yours truly is sticking to your right wing."

"You were all right," conceded Apollo.

"I was magnificent. You, on the other hand, were all right."

"Toothbrush," said Boomer, sweetly.

"That's for when Starbuck's late for patrol," said Lange. "Apollo will have other punishments for dealing with cheek."

Apollo nodded. "Probably involving dangling him out of an airlock by his favourite appendage."

"And for taking all your money at cards or getting you to finance one of his systems?" asked Boomer.

Apollo peered at him over the top of his mug. "I thought we'd agreed on mummification for that one?"

Starbuck huffed a bit, but joined the laughter.

"I suppose you're keeping him as your wingman?" asked Kyle. "We can expect you in a couple of sectons, then, on Red's rota."

Apollo smiled. "I'm looking forward to it."

Kyle took a pull at his beer.

"What are you doing about Starbuck's flight?" Boomer struck in before the silence could even think about developing.

Apollo's gaze was still on Kyle. "I'm giving Jolly a shot at it. It'll be official tomorrow."

"A field commission?" Boomer grinned. "Good old Jolly! He deserves it."

"He'll be steadier and more reliable than their old flight commander." Apollo laughed when Starbuck huffed a bit more.

Starbuck waited until the talk became more general, before leaning towards Apollo. "Are you okay about today? I thought it went pretty well."

"You're the one who claims magnificence, Starbuck."

"We both were." Starbuck took a fumerello from his breast pocket. "You almost got me with that left handed twist you did under full forward turbo. I've never seen anything like that."

"I tried," conceded Apollo.

You're a damned good pilot, actually."

"I know, but thank you anyway, Starbuck."

Starbuck grinned. "We're all right, aren't we?"

Apollo nodded. "Yes. We are. We are all right."






03 Octavus 6490
Battlestar Galactica

"Commander! Encoded Gold transmission coming through, sir."

Adama straightened up from the study he and Tigh were making of the star maps around Verus. He rolled his shoulders to get the kinks out of them. The Comms officer checked the array again, focused the frequency and glanced over his shoulder to the command dais, looking for instruction.

"Thank you, Lieutenant. Patch it through to the office, please."

"It's Griffin Beta seven security, sir." The Comms officer paused, and said, slowly, "It's for Captain Apollo, Commander."

"It would be," muttered Adama, feeling that it would be a relief to roll his eyes as well as his shoulders, if it wasn't so undignified. He supposed it would too much to ask that they let his Strike Leader alone to concentrate on his job. No doubt he was expected to be grateful that they'd given Apollo this long a break. "Oral?"

"No, sir. Text."

"You'd better put it on hold and call the Captain to the bridge, then."

"Yes, sir."

Tigh glanced at the bridge chronometer. "He should be back from patrol.".

Captain Omega, that pattern bridge officer who made a point of emulating Tigh and knowing everything, spoke up from where he'd stationed himself near the navigation deck. "He came in forty centons ago, sir. He's on day-shift this secton, matched up to Red Squadron."

"Thank you." Tigh added, very quietly, for Adama alone: "I suppose we're meant to think it's an honour, to have Captain Apollo involved with the Strategy people."

"They'd like you to think so," snorted Adama. "The Director of the Strategy Unit has an all too-inflated sense of the importance of himself and the Unit, as I've told him more than once."

Tigh frowned. "Who is the Director?"

"Supreme Commander Jak." Adama grinned at the look on Tigh's face. "And yes, he did tell me what I could do with my opinions and that I should be grateful he lets Apollo out to play at all."

"Remind me to send him a thank you card."

Adama smiled and turned back to the star maps. He stared at them, but they made no sense at all, blurring into a mass of indistinguishable dots of light against the emptiness. His mind was focused, instead, on the memory of his son's dark head silhouetted against a faintly-lit window and Apollo's weary, dragging voice recounting what he'd seen on Molecay. He wished, fervently, that Jak and the bloody Strategy people would leave his son alone.

Apollo arrived ten centons later. Adama looked up from the maps when the Captain presented himself, and nodded towards the comms desk. "You can collect the message now, Captain, but I expect you to follow usual practice and deal with it when your duty period ends."

"Of course, sir." Apollo joined the comms officer and glanced at the screen. "Download it for me, please, Lieutenant."

Adama watched, giving up all pretence at looking at the star maps, while Apollo made the Comms officer check the download had been successful, then make two backups, before personally overseeing the deletion of the original message.

"And a finer example of paranoia, I have yet to see," murmured Tigh, provocatively.

Adama grunted, aware that if Tigh had the merest inkling of what the message was likely to be about, the Colonel would be hard put to it to joke about it. He watched Apollo tuck the data crystals into the pouch on his belt. Apollo glanced up when he was finished, to catch his father's eye.

Adama beckoned him over. "Felix?"

Apollo nodded. "Along with orders from HQ. I've been expecting it."

"I see. Apollo, I meant what I said when you got here. Come and talk to me if you need to."

Apollo smiled slightly. He dropped his voice to the point where even Tigh wouldn't be even to hear it and gave Adama his reward. "Thanks, Dad," he said.




"Have you eaten?"

He waited in the doorway until Apollo looked up from the computer on his desk. Apollo took a moment to focus on him, and, this being the first time he'd visited since Apollo's first couple of sectons on board, Adama used the time to glance around the room. Last time he'd been here, most of Apollo's belongings had still been in their packing cases. Now, two rather bold pieces of modernist painting loaned patches of bright colour to the plain walls, with holopics, books and datapads arranged neatly on the shelving below and a few ancient artefacts on the top shelves, carefully lit to show them off. A glass sculpture, serpentine and sinuous, stood on the desk. It was a typically Apollonian room: a little sparse and scholarly and almost too neat.

"Huh? Oh. No. I wasn't that hungry."

"Thought so. I heard you didn't go in to dinner." Adama stepped inside Apollo's quarters and allowed Sergeant Cair, his orderly and steward, entry. "Carry on, Sergeant."

Cair was carrying a large covered tray with supper for two in it. Adama carried the wine himself. Apollo, giving him one sardonic look, stretched to ease his back. Adama felt a slight compunction about what Apollo would almost certainly describe, as soon as Cair was out of the way, as parental fussing, not to mention Adama's machiavellian tactic of bouncing his son into acquiescence by bringing Cair with him knowing that Apollo was far too well brought up to argue in front of the servants.

"I'm not really all that hungry," was the nearest Apollo got to protest.

"I'm sure you will be, once you start eating."

Apollo grimaced at the bright tone, but gave in with relatively good grace and little more than a speaking glance towards the Sergeant. He stood up and stretched a little more. "It won't hurt to take a break," he conceded. "Excuse me a centon."

He disappeared into the bathroom, and while Cair bustled about to some purpose, Adama strolled over to the bookcases to take a closer look at the books and the antiquities. He had to pass Apollo's desk to get there, but Apollo had closed the computer down and the only thing of interest was the calendar beside it with the firm, diagonal strokes with which Apollo was evidently crossing off the days. Adama regarded the calendar ruefully, reflecting that dealing with Apollo was sometimes as much of an uphill struggle as dealing with Ila. Apollo had inherited more than the cheekbones and eye colour.

It was a very nice collection of antiquities, indeed. Adama had never been one for the past, but in his battle to win back his son, he'd made himself take some interest in the things that Apollo loved. It gave them the point of contact that he'd neglected to cultivate in advance of needing it. A drawback of the military mind, Ila had said disparagingly when he'd tried talking anti-Joss tactics with her, to think of everything as a battle. Perhaps. But he'd learned, anyway, about the archaic things Apollo loved, in order to increase his chances of eventual victory. He'd certainly learned enough to recognise the quality of the artefacts Apollo had. He particularly liked the fragment of a funerary stele, inscribed with hieroglyphics and an incised portrait of the ancient Kobolian it had belonged to, making an offering to the Lords. The carved face of the dead man held an enviable expression of peace. There was a good collection of amulets, too, of varying sizes, the most prominent an ankh that looked like it may be of gold (or at least, covered in gold leaf) and a large heart scarab carved from a greenish stone. The scarab and the ankh were both particularly fine.

Sergeant Cair had gone and Adama was examining a canopic jar, its stopper a beautifully modelled hawk head, when Apollo came back.

"Very nice," he approved, waving a hand around the room. "Very you. I hadn't seen it all unpacked."

Apollo grinned. "Is that a roundabout way of reminding me that I owe you supper?"

"Several suppers," said Adama, so sweetly that Apollo laughed. Pleased, Adama traced a finger down the wickedly curved beak. "A present from Joss, I suppose?"

"They all are. He gave me that for my twenty-first birthday."

"I hope it's empty."

" 'Fraid not, although if you take the lid off, all you can see is a nasty black tarry lump at the bottom. It's a lovely thing, isn't it?"

"If you say so," said Adama, dubious about the contents.

"It is! Thirty-ninth dynasty and a perfect specimen of its type. It's carved alabaster—museum quality, I'll have you know—and made for a prince. It came from a royal tomb over five thousand yahrens old."

"Seems a little unhygienic, if it still has tarry lumps in it."

Apollo shrugged. "Just a mass of... well, it's not tar, really, just solidified perfumed oils and unguents. The embalmers used too much. They weren't always as careful as they should be, even with a royal burial. It had an oxidising effect on the remains; burnt them, effectively. It's harmless."

"Remains of what? These jars usually hold a mummy's internal organs, don't they?"

Apollo joined him, his hand curving protectively over the falcon's head as if he were smoothing its feathers. "This is Qebehsenuef, one of the four Sons of Horus and, yes, the Sons protect the internal organs. Qebehsenuef is responsible for protecting the...er..." He paused and laughed, slightly flushed. He shot his father a sideways glance. "The lower intestine."

"Oh, lovely." Satisfied that he'd got Apollo to relax and talk, Adama didn't even grimace to acknowledge his distaste for Joss's nasty sense of humour. "Still, I take your word for it that it's a fine piece; that they all are."

"I like them." Apollo grinned. "Starbuck and Boomer were in here a couple of sectons ago. Turns out that Boomer has quite a scholarly bent. He was fascinated by these and he got quite desperate for me to give him a demonstration of mummification techniques."

Apollo paused, waiting for Adama to work it out. Adama smiled. "He was losing, was he?"

"Badly. So was I, so I was quite tempted. At the least, I thought we might mummify Starbuck's head. I could practice some of the more ornate wrapping patterns and manage to get through a duty period without him talking me into a coma. Double bonus."

"Radical."

"I thought so, but Starbuck put up a fight and Boomer chickened out in the end."

Adama laughed because he was expected to, and shooed Apollo towards the table. "Come and eat," he said, and when he'd opened the wine and they'd started on supper: "Is it going all right?"

There was a definite sardonic gleam in the look Apollo gave him. "Yes. Very well. He's the best wingman I've had. He's one hell of a pilot and, you know, he never complains about some of the downside like having to man the Duty Office while I'm on the bridge, or even some of the admin stuff. It's going fine."

"Good." Adama couldn't care less about Starbuck's administrative abilities, but realised he'd get nothing more. After one thoughtful glance to try and gauge Apollo's state of mind, and realising he wouldn't be able to separate out distress over the message from Felix from distress over anything else, he left it there and concentrated on eating.

They ate in silence for a few centons. At least, Adama ate and Apollo pushed the food around his plate and scowled at it.

"I believe," said Adama at last, "that my security rating is as high as yours, since I'm a member of the Council. It can't be that, that stops you confiding in me."

Apollo looked up from where he'd been methodically reducing his supper to an squashed mess as unappetising as his description of the jar's contents. He flushed and sat up straight, dropping his fork. Adama smiled encouragement.

Apollo said, slowly, "I was thinking about consequences. Have you ever started something, asked a question, that seemed harmless enough at the time, beneficial even, and then it leads to Molecay and a girl who's had the top of her head cut off?"

At the unwillingly recalled memory of the bodies and the hundreds of holopics Apollo had brought back with him, Adama found his own appetite had waned. "No. Nothing so dramatic." He banished the memory of Starbuck and the consequences of his interference there.

"It was all pretty clear cut, once, like a maths formula. We were the good guys plus the Cylons were the bad guys equalled no ethical dilemma."

"It's never that simple."

"No. What started with me and Felix trying to find a way of getting better intelligence… he's the one who masterminded the development of the Link, you know."

"Your idea?"

"Sort of. At the concept stage, yes, I was involved but I'm no tech. I wouldn't have known where to start, but Felix is a genius with electronics. It seemed such a good idea at the time. We thought it would give us intelligence that might help tip the balance in this stupid war. That it would be a Good Thing." He glanced at Adama. "Uncle Jak would say that's me being naïve, and it's high time you grew out of that, my lad!"

"Did he say that?"

"Yes. And he was right, because nothing's black and white like that for long and this one's getting very grey around the edges."

"Your Uncle Jak would probably say that was an advance in maturity."

"He did say that too." Apollo put his elbows on the table and rested his chin on his hands. "I don't like to admit it, but he could be right. He took me out to dinner, you know, just before I left for here, so I'm back in his good books. He used the opportunity for a little lecture."

"I can imagine," said Adama, who could.

"I'm not comfortable with grey, Dad. The choices aren't comfortable either."

"What choices, Apollo?"

"I once thought they were between good and bad, but not any more. Now the choices are between bad and worse. And, you know, I'm beginning to see that the differences between good and bad and worse are as thin as a hair."

Adama picked his way carefully through this moral minefield. "You'll still have to make them. The choices, I mean. And despite all that moral equivocation, I know that you won't hesitate."

"Yes. I suppose I'm in too deep to back out now."

"I didn't mean that. Do you remember the your first night here? I asked you who else would you trust to make those decisions, remember?"

"No-one," acknowledged Apollo. "No-one whose motives and reasoning I wouldn't question. Don't worry, Dad; I question mine too. Trouble is, I don't always know the answers."

"I think you do. At least, I trust you to find them. And I trust you to make the right choices, Apollo."

Apollo grunted, discouragingly.

"What about Felix?"

"He's still in the Boeotian system, at the penal colony where they're keeping the Molecay people. They want me to join him, as soon as possible, to review what's been found so far and recommend the next stage of the investigation. I'll have to go to Boeotia tomorrow. I'll be gone about a secton."

"I see," said Adama.

Apollo shot him a look from under his lashes, keeping his face downcast. "Sorry."

"We knew when you joined us, Apollo, that sometimes your other work would have to take priority. We'll manage, although it's far from ideal. I wish they'd given you longer than a couple of sectars break, though."

"I was lucky to have had this long. You aren't surprised."

"I got my own Gold communication from Jak, not long after you got yours. I'm trying not to be outraged at coming second in the pecking order. I'm consoling myself with the fact that he spoke to me personally when all you rated was a note. He was even a little apologetic."

Apollo managed a faint smile. "Uncle Jak? Apologetic?"

"A very little."

"I'll bet." Apollo's smile became fainter. He nodded towards the computer. "I was just working it out. We aren't that far away. It'll take me about fifteen or sixteen centars, in my Viper. I'll have a few centars sleep and leave at about six. I don't know if I'll have time to see Kyle."

"Tigh and I will deal with that. You know, Apollo, my shuttle will be more comfortable."

That earned him a real smile. "Thanks, Dad, but my fighter's faster, more manoeuvrable and the guns make louder noises. I'll be fine in the Viper."

"I suppose that it won't help at all to wish you didn't need to be worried about the guns."

"None at all. We're at war."

"Yes," said Adama. "The ultimate in moral grey."






04 Octavus 6490
Ex-Penal Colony, Boeotian System


The viper entered the atmosphere four hundred miles to the south of the old prison facility, allowing Apollo to make a long, slow deceleration and give himself a few centons to get used to flying in atmosphere again, under gravity where the Viper was comparatively sluggish and heavier to handle. He didn't like landings planet-side. He wanted to be certain he'd learned the extent of the drop in the fighter's performance before he attempted one.

The facility sat in the middle of a prairie. Coarse, summer-bleached grass stretched out to every horizon, unbroken for miles. In the very far distance, in the north east, he thought he could see the hazy outlines of a mountain range, the only point of the compass where the world felt as if it had any boundaries. Oddly for a man used to the infinity of space, Apollo found the landscape oppressive. The sky went on for ever in every direction but seemed to be very low, pressing down on him where he stood. It was late afternoon on Boeotia and the air was still and heavy, the sun hot on the back of his neck. He could hear insects in the grasses, probably millions of them, making a low humming and creaking.

He took off his helmet, running a hand through his hair to unflatten it, and watched the landram approach. He'd landed, as directed, at the dock farthest from the control and security buildings. The landram was a plus. It would have been a long walk, otherwise. He tossed his helmet into cockpit and, as the landram drew up beside him, he reached up and palm-locked the Viper. It wouldn't stop someone breaking in, but they'd have to damage the canopy to do it.

"Hey," said Felix, leaning sideways to grin a welcome when the passenger door slid open. "Good trip?"

"You try sitting in a Viper for sixteen centars." Apollo slid into the seat, dropping his kitbag to the floor between his feet. "And if you weren't a desk-bound excuse for a toy soldier, you'd know better than to ask."

"Nice to see you, too." Felix turned the landram and headed back towards the prison buildings. "Even if you do have the look and good temper of a man desperate for the flush after sixteen centars' worth of crossed legs."

"The Viper has emergency facilities," said Apollo, with dignity. "Which I emptied into a patch of grass back there that'll never be the same again." He twisted in his seat and looked around. The landram was empty but for them. "Not much of a welcoming committee."

"I'm keeping you all to myself. You're my guilty secret." Felix grinned at Apollo's short bark of laughter. "Besides, we operate on a need-to-know basis at the moment, and the guards and admin people do not need to know about you. You can be an Enigma."

"I forgot to pack the false moustache and the swirly black cape."

"Captain Perth's moustache is big enough for the both of you. You know that he's administrative head here?"

"So you said in your report. I've never come across him."

"A joy to come, then. He's Infantry, seconded to the Unit to run this place. He used to run the military stockade on Thetis."

Apollo frowned. "A prison governor by profession, is what you mean."

"Got it in one. Of course, there's a distinction here. He runs the site, commands the guards, makes sure the Molecay people don't run away and does the admin. So far as the research goes, the real reason for this place, that's where we're in overall control. This is a Unit operation. Consequently, he chafes a bit at not being in total command. If this was still a prison, neither of us would have got in without us swearing on my mother's sweet grey head that we're trustworthy people, worthy of being allowed into his secure facility. He doesn't like it that he hasn't that level of control here. I was very polite and told him you were coming, but I did not ask for permission. That galls him a bit."

Apollo watched the buildings grow larger on the viewer. "Felix, are they running it like a prison?"

"How should I know? I've never been in a—" Felix broke off, shrugged. "It's a secure colony, Apollo. Perth's not an evil, autocratic bastard by any means, but he is treating this the way you'd expect a prison governor to treat it, and that means guards and a secure perimeter and a curfew."

"Great."

"What else can we do?"

Apollo hunched a shoulder at him and said no more, letting Felix negotiate their way in past the security cordon, ignoring the curious glances he got from the Infantry guards and concentrating, instead, on what had to be done. As he'd said to his father, the differences between bad and worse were thin as hair, and thinning by the centon. He was feeling very grey about the edges.




The room he'd been assigned was small and lacking in luxury, but perfectly adequate. Despite what he'd said to Felix, the first thing Apollo did was make use of the flush. Felix , waiting by the window when he came out, grinned but didn't comment.

Felix had let him alone to brood for the short journey in the landram. Now he gave Apollo a calculating look, assessing. "How are you, really?"

Apollo tossed the kitbag onto the bed and delved into it to find his precious datapads. "Pretty good. What about you?"

"The night life around here could be livelier but, on the whole, I'm pretty good too."

Apollo remembered meeting Felix's fiery Cancerian fiancée and her possessive attitude towards anything that took Felix's attention away from her. "As well for you that the nightlife isn't tempting you into indiscretions that Charis wouldn't approve of."

"Too true! And on that note, how's Rosie?"

"Over."

Felix was rarely wrong-footed, but that disconcerted him. "Oh. Sorry."

Apollo shrugged off his regret. "We're still friends."

"I am sorry, Apollo. She's a great girl." Felix pulled on his collar as if it was suddenly too tight. "Damn it, there's not one polite topic that isn't a potential for disaster."

"But you'll ask anyway."

"It's what I do. So, how's it working out with your father?"

"We're getting there. He has occasional lapses into paternalism that I try not to take personally." Apollo frowned. "The ones I find out about, anyway. Sometimes the look I get from the dear Colonel suggests that Dad doesn't always manage to keep it between the two of us. He's been pretty good about all this." He waved a hand towards the window and the secure compound beyond.

"Over-protective," pronounced Felix. "I said so at the Inquiry."

"He tries. He decided I needed some parental guidance last night after your message came."

"Did you?"

Apollo paused, shrugged. "It was funny, really, watching him apply the military mind to achieving his objective."

"Was that to be overprotective or provide the guidance?"

"Comes to the same thing."

Felix laughed. "And you let him? You're slipping."

"He got under my guard," confessed Apollo. "He's sneaky. He started the conversation off easy by discussing funerary stelae and Canopic jars."

"Cheerful!"

"Yeah, well luckily for me, he didn't get Joss's idea of what constitutes a scholarly dirty joke. But he did clip me from behind when I wasn't looking and made me confide in him."

"What about your other Galactican problem?"

"My wingman, you mean?"

Felix shook his head. "Still playing with fire, I see." He added, slyly, "Is he still as blond and as beautiful?"

Apollo bit back a sigh. "Tell me, why did I confide in you?"

"We've been friends for yahrens and you trust me."

Apollo stared at him.

Felix laughed. "Okay. Maybe you were drunk."

Apollo nodded. "Maybe I was." He fixed the datapad to his belt. "What's next?"

"We start the talk." Felix glanced around the room. "I've got an office, just off my lab. It's secure."

Apollo raised an eyebrow. Felix nodded, expression serious.

"After you, then." Apollo gestured for him to lead on.

Felix gave him a brief outline of the facility as they walked. They were in a large building, one of four, making one side of a hollow square enclosing a grassy courtyard, slap bang in the middle of the old prison complex. The corridors were deserted, although when Apollo glanced out of the window, he saw civilians moving around the compound outside and a platoon of Infantrymen practising a little square-bashing.

"We're in what was once the medical and administration block here." Felix halted by a window and gestured to the outside world. "Each one of these blocks has three stories. This is the Unit's block – accommodation on the top floor, research facilities on the rest. There are nearly fifty of us here, Apollo; the old man pulled out the stops to get us a proper research team in record time. We've got electronics experts, geneticists, bio-engineers, biochemists, sociologists, psychologists and a damn good medical facility. We've even got an anthropologist on staff." Felix grinned at him. "And now my very own archaeologist and historian."

"Whatever use that will be."

"I rely on that analytical mind, and discount the gauche manners and poor social skills."

Apollo grinned, reluctantly. "Get on with it."

"Yes, indeed: those poor social skills." Felix dodged the cuff at his ear. "Directly opposite us is a cell block, now used as barracks and living quarters by the Infantry. Captain Perth has his office there."

"Should I make a courtesy call?"

"I agreed I'd introduce you tonight in the Commissary. It's not total warfare with them, you know. We've a reasonable working relationship and we share some facilities with them, like the Rec Room and the Commissary. He's not expecting to see you before then." Felix resumed his explanation. "The blocks to each side have been converted into living quarters for the Molecay people. The one on the right is the main care facility. We have the lobotomised group there and the group that's mainly made up of the Molecay-born, including the children. The one on the left is for the almost-normal ones."

"Where they're locked in?"

"No, but I won't deny that there're guards on the doors. There has to be on the care facility, too; those people aren't capable of being left unattended." Felix shook his head. "Still, we've given those who are reasonably capable of normality free reign of the old exercise yards during the day. They've got vids—we beam the transmission in from Aquaria via the Cetes relay station—and books and whatever else we can come up with in the way of recreation while we debrief them. It's as comfortable a prison as we can make it."

"But still a prison."

"Yes," said Felix. "Still a prison."




Felix's laboratory was on the ground floor, the windows made of one-way glass. He could see out into the exercise areas, he said, but anyone standing on the other side, Infantry or ex-Molecay-resident, would see nothing but their own dark reflection.

His office was to one side of it. Apollo raised another eyebrow when Felix took out a hand-held sensor and did a security sweep before waving him into a chair. "You are paranoid!"

"Perth's a curious man."

"You suspect him of spying on you?"

"No, not really, but I don't take chances. Like I said, we don't tell him a lot. He knows these people came from a Cylon base, and of course, he's heard the story put out about the Pegasus and its role in the rescue—don't snort, Apollo—but that's all he knows and that's all I want him to know. It's best we don't mix with the hired help. They don't need to know more than is good for them."

"The old Unit mantra," murmured Apollo. "Fine. I'm not going to be here long enough to make friends anyway."

"You're the lucky one. I could be here for sectars." Felix looked morose. "The next time you walk into my office with a pile of illicit scans and a mad theory, remind me to tell you where to file them."

There was a coffee maker on the desk ("I haven't got around to sorting out tea making facilities. Endure it.") and Apollo drank more than one cup of the thick, sweet blend that Felix favoured while he had a verbal account of the report he'd spent most of the last twenty-five centars reading and re-reading. It was a favourite working technique for both of them: Felix knew Apollo would be able to quote the report verbatim, but there was nuance and detail in a verbal account that would deepen his understanding, provide extra clues and pointers, help him make connexions more easily. Neither of them thought of it as an unnecessary chore.

Felix started with the statistics. One hundred and thirty two prisoners had been brought back from Molecay, one hundred and thirty had survived. A third of them were children under the age of fifteen; and, added Felix, of those forty-seven children, most had been born on Molecay to captive parents.

They'd all been drugged to keep them docile, adults and children alike, and whatever the Cylons had used had worn off very slowly ("Luckily, without huge withdrawal problems, except with some of the very young kids whose systems got a bit over-loaded, and the medics managed that. The biochemists are having fun. The drugs are new to us and obviously they're long lasting: something in the drug mix inhibits their metabolism.") but at least had the bonus, added Felix, of giving the world one or two interesting new chemicals to add to the pharmaceutical collection. Thirty-nine of the almost-ninety adults and half a dozen of the children had regained speech, memories and personalities as the influence of the drugs had waned. Recent prisoners, not Molecay-born, explained Felix. Their heavily-drugged state while prisoners, though, meant that their recollections of Molecay were sparse and their understanding of what went on there was almost non-existent.

"You said that some of this group remembered their capture?"

"Most of them do. Most of them were captured within the last five yahrens."

"Don't you think that's interesting?" asked Apollo.

"The sudden surge in activity, the need for more people than they already had on Molecay? Sure I do. I haven't come up with a reason yet." Felix narrowed his eyes at him. "Have you?"

"Yes, but I'm not... I need to think about it a bit more."

"Being coy doesn't suit you." Felix shrugged. "They're the lucky ones, you know, Apollo. The rest, other than the fourteen who'd been lobotomised—"

"They were specially bred. They were bred by the Cylons the way you might breed lab rats."

"Yeah. It's difficult to tell how many generations; possibly the third, as there are one or two older people there who have a little rudimentary social awareness and language and may be original captives from thirty or more yahrens back." Felix put a hand on the pile of datapads stacked neatly beside the projector. "The recent captures are at least reasonably normal, making allowances for the traumatic stress of having been captives and now being Rets with all the social consequences that entails. The other lot, the Molecay born-and-bred, are going to be a nightmare to help. It may be a lifetime's work for the sociologists and psychologists. They've been on those drugs since the womb. They don't have names, they don't have much of sense of who they are or what they are. Some don't even realise what being human is. Some have a little speech, although they're shy of using it—conditioning, we think, as the Cylons were hardly up for long conversations with them—and they're terrified of us, Apollo. It's like trying to tame wild animals."

"Like those myths of children raised by wolves?"

"There are documented cases of feral children, you know."

"I know. They didn't function as human and most ended up institutionalised."

"Well, the people in the care centre aren't functioning as human, either. They'll be hard to help; impossible, maybe. The sociologists are assessing them for individual social training, of course, but the behaviour patterns in an adult are set early. I don't know whether we can ever do anything with them. The kids have more potential, of course, for recovery."

"School?"

"In the pipeline, but it's sectars off, maybe yahrens. They'll need specialist teachers. They need more language and more confidence before we could have a real, normal school."

Apollo decided not to hold his breath. "And then there are the ones who've had surgery."

"Twelve of them left, now. None is from the Molecay-born group. They were all recent captures."

"Yes," said Apollo, slowly. "I noticed that."

Felix waited a micron or two, expectant. "You mean you haven't got a theory you want to share yet?" he snarked when Apollo shook his head, and continued his narration. "Most of the lobotomised group still have speech, but whatever socialising skills they'd had are gone. Their responses are childlike, their behaviour often obsessive. At least they're quiet. They're no real trouble."

"Small blessings."

Felix shrugged his agreement. "As to your theories on the nature of this particular type of Cylon-human relations..." Felix tipped the jug almost upside down to extract the last of the caff. "We know that they put hybridised tissue into the IL-A series Cylon you brought back, but none of the centurion nodes had human tissue. They were just standard Cylon neural nodes. As for the Rets, your preliminary scans on Molecay were accurate. None of them has any sort of Cylon hardware in them, nothing of the electronic or metallic components we're used to seeing in centurions. Shame. That would have been the easiest of your options to deal with."

Apollo's hand touched the scanner hung on his belt. "Yes."

Felix gave him and the scanner a speaking look, but didn't attempt to reclaim his property. "The only additional information I have for you is that the autopsies we did on the two fatalities showed no sign of Cylon tissue, just missing frontal lobes."

"So, so far we've got no evidence of human and Cylon tissue being combined in a living human host, just humans being used to incubate tissue for those IL-A Series Cylons."

"That's it. I've got the IL-A and the two pod-people with me, by the way."

Apollo stared. "Why are you dragging them around with you? It's macabre."

"You never know when you might need them. I've got hundreds of slides of those composite brains. Did you give any thought to why they were hard wired, too, with those lights and diodes?"

"Not just to look pretty," said Apollo, sourly.

"Doubt it."

Apollo sighed, thinking it through. After a long quiet time of reflection in which Felix drank his caff and looked through the datapads, he asked, "And just hazy memories in the near-normal group?"

Felix reminded him that he'd said so already. Those of the captives who weren't so socially stunted, who had self-awareness and speech, could only tell a hazy story of long days of hard labour in the fields, farming for subsistence, and of being afraid most of the time.

"They only ever saw Cylons?" asked Apollo. "Centurions and the ILs?"

Felix's glance was sharp. "None of them have mentioned anything else, although one or two have some vague memories of your raid. From what little we've been able to glean, they mostly saw the centurions; the ILs weren't very visible." Felix waited a centon. "Why?"

"We'll get to it."

Felix frowned. "I won't forget," he warned, and plunged into a full account of each individual they had in the facility, projecting holopics of each one. Apollo sat back and let him, watching the faces on the screen, seeing intelligence, anger and resentment on some; dull apathy or even terror on too many others.

"Tell me about the two lobotomised ones who died," he said when Felix finished.

Felix turned away to fiddle with the projector. Perhaps something was stuck. "The autopsies showed severe infections and they were malnourished, unable to fight the infections off. By the time antibiotics were administered, it was too late. The bodies are iced; we can take a look at them whenever you want."

"Top of my list of things to do." Apollo stared at the last projected face for a few microns while Felix gave a grunt of annoyance and thumped the top of the projector to make it close down. "Let's take a walk. I'd like to see the people we're talking about."

"Fine by me." Felix led the way out. He locked the door of his lab carefully. "I'll set it to recognise your palm print when we come back," he promised. "Where first? The normal ones?"

"Yeah," said Apollo, dryly. "Let's save the best until last."




The early evening air smelled of hay; surprising, since despite superficial similarities, whatever species of grasses were out there on the prairie wouldn't really be like anything at home. The sun was low in the sky, impossibly huge and red. but the horizon was still so far distant that Apollo had the queerest feeling that it was unreachable, that the sun wouldn't drop below it but drop onto the flat plain and then slide and slither over the edge. He could understand why some cultures believed that their world was flat. Here, it was.

It took only a few centons to cross one corner of the grassy courtyard to get to the left hand block where the recovering prisoners were housed. There was a guard on the door, armed. He nodded Felix through and watched Apollo with curiosity, but had obviously been told to expect a visitor. Apollo felt the guard's gaze all the way down the hall, the back of his neck prickling with discomfort.

"Any one in particular?" asked Felix.

Apollo mentally reviewed the list. "Cassim."

Another speaking, knowing look. "Oh, random choice, huh?"

Apollo shrugged. Felix led the way up one flight of stairs, checking his datapad.

"You're in luck. He's with one of the psychologists; one of his regular sessions."

The observation window had the same type of one-way glass as Felix's lab, overlooking the interview room where a middle-aged woman was talking patiently to a tall, too-thin man. Cassim. His hair and beard were long and unkempt, his movements jerky and nervous. He couldn't sit still for more than a centon or two before jumping up to walk quickly around the room once, twice, three times. He returned to his seat each time, to sit abruptly, his feet tapping incessantly, hands shaking. It made an obsessive and painful pattern.

Apollo listened while the psych coaxed Cassim to try and remember more about his time on Molecay.

"Recognise him?" asked Felix, quietly.

Apollo shook his head. "No. Can I talk to him?"

"Sure."

Back in the hall, Felix went to the door of the interview room and tapped twice. He let Apollo go in first. Cassim was in mid-pace around the room. Two steps and he was looming over Apollo—the man was very tall—staring at him from hard grey eyes that had once strained to see visions and now, Apollo conjectured, strained to see the truth.

For a centon they stared at each other, barely a foot apart. Beyond them the psych got up slowly, looking to Felix for reassurance and instruction.

Cassim frowned. "Do I know you?" he demanded.

"I led the raid on Molecay." Apollo wondered if it had been Cassim whom he'd taken by the chin to raise the downcast face, searching for any sign of responsiveness, of awareness. He didn't think so. "You might have seen me there."

"Not there. I don't... not there." Cassim turned abruptly and returned to his seat. He stayed in it a little longer this time, hands shaking and feet tapping and tapping, tapping from heel to toe.

Apollo hesitated. "I was on Telnos, too."

The man froze. "When those things came?"

"Yes. I was sent to help get the settlers out."

He expected condemnation, accusation. But instead, Cassim's demand put Apollo off-balance for a micron. "Have you seen Maris, then?"

"Um, no." Apollo's mind flashed through the data again. Oh. "No. I haven't seen her."

"She's here, somewhere. I saw her when we got here." Cassim threw the psych and Felix a look of intense dislike. "Just the once. They won't let me see her again."

"She's still not well enough, Cassim." The pysch was soothing and professional, detached. "And you know what happened when we let you see her earlier."

He straightened in his chair. "Let none come between a man and his wife, for that is unholy and unpleasing to the Lord."

Apollo glanced over his shoulder to Felix, who shrugged and shook his head.

Cassim said, his voice rumbling, ruminative, raw with grief and anger, "I don't know where the boy is. I haven't seen him."

Apollo's heart sank. There was no boy related to Cassim listed among the survivors. There had been a boy inside the Cylon facility on Molecay; more than one "I'm sorry," he said and turned away.

Cassim leapt up to catch at his arm. Apollo heard the psych's breath hiss, and beside him, Felix tensed.

"The boy's gone, I know that. They told me that. Can you make them let me see Maris?"

"I don't know." Apollo gently detached the man's fingers from his arm. Cassim had no strength in him. "I'll see."

Outside and safe again, he leaned against the corridor wall for a long time, head down, staring at his boots. Felix kept silent, watching him, while he fought to keep his jaw stiff and get his breathing under control. He squeezed his eyes tight shut for a centon. Eventually, he straightened.

"Did you know him?" asked Felix.

Apollo shook his head. "No." He was surprised at how steady his voice was. "I might have seen him on Telnos, I suppose. There were a few families who got away from us. But I can't say I remember him. The Telnos people were Brethren; a pretty obscure sect, really, with some odd beliefs. All the men looked like him."

"The Old Book Prophet look was big on Telnos, then."

Apollo couldn't do it the way Felix did, keep it all at bay with a humour blacker than sin. It wasn't in him. "Yes. He's a little disturbed."

"Most of them are. It's classic trauma psychosis. His prognosis is good, actually."

"His wife's isn't, and his son's most definitely isn't. His son's dead because I blew him up."

"The Cylons killed him. Those people in the pods were not alive, Apollo. They were incubators; dead incubators."

Apollo caught the wary look Felix was giving him and nodded. "Sure. You're right. I know you're right." He took a deep breath. "Why won't you let him see his wife?"

"He's not stable enough himself, yet. We did let him see her a couple of sectons after they all got here. He had a breakdown. The psychs say he isn't ready to try it again."

"Isn't that a decision for him?"

"He's not ready, Apollo. We can't afford for him to have another breakdown. He's one of the better ones. He was stronger and healthier than most and he's given us a lot of what little information we have. He's one of the better bets for coaxing out more. I don't want to jeopardise that."

Apollo stared at him for a micron, then pushed himself away from the wall. "What's next?"

"The care facility?"

"Sure," said Apollo. "I can see his wife for him. Probably the best I can do, in the circumstances."




The care facility was an astonishingly noisy place.

The partition walls of the old cells had been taken down to create large, airy rooms where the Molecay-born adults lived. No. Where they were kept. It couldn't be described as living. Apollo stood at another observation window and watched, aghast. This was worse than he'd imagined.

Felix had been right. These people were hardly human: no speech, just inarticulate screams and yells; no social skills, just a snatching and grabbing at anything that passed them, the way an animal might snatch and grab. They were insensible of their surroundings, of others around them. Apollo watched a nurse coax a man twice her weight to use a flush; five feet away from her, another was defecating where he stood.

"We keep the women separate," said Felix. "We learned that the hard way."

Apollo grimaced. "The nurses?"

"There are always guards in there." Felix nodded to the far wall where three Infantrymen, unarmed but watchful, stood ready to intervene if they were needed. "I'm told that these people are already better. The sociologists say that they're beginning to respond to behaviour patterning."

"I wish I could believe that."

"That one's using the flush," pointed out Felix. "He didn't when they got here. The sociologists use a system of reward and punishment to train them."

"The way you'd train a daggit."

Felix conceded the point. "More or less. It will take a long time, Apollo, but they can at least be trained—" Felix snorted, a harsh bark of ironic laughter. "They can be trained to be properly institutionalised."

"Yes," agreed Apollo, sombre. He walked away without a backward glance. Felix hurried to join him. "I don't want to see the women. What about the kids?"

The children were, as Felix had said, a little more hopeful. There were more nurses and helpers, and the Infantry guard weren't lounging watchfully against the walls: one was trying to teach a group of children a tag-and-chase game while the other two were busy with more little groups, working with sandboxes and big plastic shapes. It reminded Apollo of his primary school. It looked almost normal, compared to the horrible room where the men were, but for the fact that some of the children looking in a bewildered way at the sand and the shapes had to be in their late teens.

"Inside?" asked Felix.

Apollo nodded, and followed him into the room. They weren't noticed immediately, by the children at least. A man working with five children at a table thick with paper and paints did glance up and nod a greeting at Felix, giving Apollo a curious look, but it was several centons before a little girl of about seven slid close enough up to Apollo to reach out and touch him. He smiled at her, his heart constricting at the blank, expressionless little face. Her hand smoothed down the rough fabric of his flight-jacket sleeve over and over, her eyes on his arm, refusing to meet his gaze.

The man who'd taken note of their arrival came to join them. "We've called her Sabah, because she's so bright in the mornings." He put his hand on the girl's head and she looked up at him. For an instant she managed a flicker of some sort of connexion, a wobbly smile, and then she was back to smoothing Apollo's jacket sleeve. The man nodded at Apollo. "She likes you."

"This is Doctor Ramses," said Felix. "Ram, this is Shield Captain Apollo, my partner-in-crime."

Ramses shook hands briskly. "Pleased to meet you." His eyes were assessing. "You're the one who got them out."

"Yes. Well, one of the people who got them out. I wanted to see for myself how they were doing."

Ramses brightened. "Oh, we're doing really well, aren't we, Sabah?" The little girl looked up at her name. "They're beginning to respond, Captain. It'll be a long haul, but I think we'll be able to recover some of them."

Sabah's hand slid down to curl around Apollo's. Her fingers were small and warm. Apollo tightened his grip slightly, and smiled at her when she looked up at him. She looked solemnly back.

"Only some of them?"

Ramses shrugged. "Only some." He looked towards the teenagers playing in the sand. "Some may be beyond our help. But we're learning a great deal, Captain, about human behavioural patterning. These children are providing some wonderful insights."

"Are they?"

"I wish I could get my students in here. It's so seldom that even one child in this condition is available for study."

"Ah," said Apollo.

"We're doing everything we can to help the children, of course." Ramses stiffened.

"They get the best care we can give them," said Felix, hastily, touching Apollo's arm and nodding towards the door. "We'd better get moving, Apollo."

Apollo had to get Doctor Ramses to prise Sabah's fingers away. He waved at her before the door closed. She didn't wave back.

"There's a chance for her," said Felix.

"Of a sort."

Felix looked at him sidelong. "Yes." He took them up a floor. "Maris?"

"I think so. I'd like to see her, if I can. How aware is she?"

"Oh, pretty good." Felix paused outside a door. "The lobotomised ones are, really, considering. What do you know about the procedure?"

"The intentional severing of the pre-frontal cortex." Apollo frowned. "And it was once really used as a medical treatment."

"In the medical dark ages," agreed Felix. "To control what was classed as inappropriate behaviour in the mentally ill."

"I find it hard to understand how deliberate, irreversible brain damage could be considered as valid treatment." Apollo shrugged. "Still, it's not unknown to us, even if just as an historical oddity. I did some research. When it was used by the medics, they developed less invasive techniques than used on these people."

"I know Almost pinhole surgery and the cortex separated, not removed. But these people's heads have been opened up and the cortex was physically removed, not just severed from the thalamic region behind it. The tissue is missing."

"Along with their personalities."

"They're certainly quiet, tractable, biddable," said Felix. "The assessments are still being done, of course, but it looks like they have impaired memory and problem-solving skills. But they're not hopeless, Apollo. They may be able, one day, to live reasonably normal lives."

"Yeah," muttered Apollo. "It just won't be the lives they had before."

A couple of medics went past them, talking, not taking that much notice of them. Apollo watched them go, thoughtful.

Felix opened the door. "Good evening, Maris. How are you today?"




"We should go and get something to eat," said Felix. "It's getting late."

Apollo looked up from the microscope. He'd been staring down at the hybrid tissue samples for what felt like centars. He sat back, taking his right hand into his left and kneading the fingers to get the ache out of them. He was suddenly bone-weary. "I'm not that hungry."

"Apollo, you spent centars getting here and you haven't stopped since you arrived. You have to be hungry." Felix closed down the datapad he'd been working on and eyed him with friendly concern. "Want to run through it, first?"

"I suppose," said Apollo, without enthusiasm. "All right. Four preliminary conclusions."

Felix grinned and leaned forward on the other side of the desk. "That's my Apollo. Go for it."

"First of all, I don't like this place, Felix, and I don't like what's happening here."

"Come on, it's not that bad -"

"I don't think you're lobotomising them and you certainly aren't cutting the domes of their skulls off, but there's something... maybe just a sense that to the techs here people like that psych and Doctor Ramses and those medics we saw, these people are little more than exciting laboratory specimens."

"That's a bit unfair!"

"Is it? There was more than one instance today where I thought they were being treated with a little less than human dignity: the child as something to study, keeping Cassim from his wife."

"I explained about that—"

"Yeah," conceded Apollo. "He's telling you too much useful stuff for you to risk him having another breakdown."

Felix reddened.

Apollo watched him, glad to have scored even that little hit. "I always worried that I'd be taking them from one prison to another, and the only difference would be who was doing the experiments on them. I was right, wasn't I?"

"They're well cared for. We'll do everything we can to make their lives easier, you know that. We'll do what we can to recover them." Felix looked less than happy. "Come on, Apollo! Given the level of risk that they represent, what the hell else do you expect?"

"Oh, I didn't expect any better. I didn't expect to like it." Apollo rubbed moodily at a particularly painful ache in his fingers, rotating his right shoulder to ease the pressure on the damaged nerve in the way the physiotherapists had taught him, after Telnos. He stared at Felix until the other looked away. "You know, I should try and get to see Ifan. I need to kiss his hands and feet in thankfulness."

"Who?"

"The miner on Telnos who found me. The Cylons thought I was dead and tossed me into the middle of a pile of bodies. But if Ifan and his people hadn't been searching for weapons and found me instead, the Cylons might have come back. I didn't sleep much last night after realising that some of the people I brought back from Molecay were people I failed to bring back from Telnos. It could have been me, if the Cylons had realised I was alive. It could have been Luke."

"I knew that would get to you," muttered Felix.

"Well, it gives me a point of contact with Cassim and people like him. I wouldn't like being in prison here."

"You'd have liked being in a pod even less," snapped Felix.

"I probably wouldn't have known anything about it." They glared at each other, until Apollo finally, reluctantly, said, "Second point : they'll have to stay here."

"I thought you'd say that. I think you're right. There isn't anywhere else"

"No, God help them."

"Things will get better here as they recover. This is an uninhabited world and not uncomfortable. Those who are capable of independent living will be allowed to make homesteads and proper homes here. It could be proper colony one day."

"No, it couldn't. The numbers aren't viable." Apollo looked around the lab. "It'll be a prison until the day the last one of them dies."

"Yes, I suppose." Felix sounded tired. He gave Apollo a lop-sided grin. "And you don't like it. I get that. But you're going to recommend that they're kept here anyway."

"There's no choice." Apollo leaned back in his chair. His mouth twisted. "Except between bad and worse. It's like certain degenerative brain diseases, Felix. The patients display sets of symptoms but the final diagnosis can't be made until the autopsy and the medics get the opportunity to put the brain tissue under the microscope. We can never be certain that these people don't have some sort of hybrid tissue in them until we do the autopsies." He gestured towards the microscope and the IL-A tissue samples. "I don't think that they are harbouring Cylon tissue like this, but I don't think I could, in all conscience, take the risk. The stakes are too great. We recommend they stay here."

"I agree." Felix looked relieved, and Apollo wondered if he'd anticipated a fight. "It's the right decision, Apollo."

"It's the expedient one, at any rate." Apollo rubbed at his eyes, realising he'd done little but cat-nap in his Viper, and it had to be nearly twenty-five centars since he'd had any sleep. And Felix was right. He was hungry. He returned to massaging his right hand.

"Third?" asked Felix, after a micron or two. He avoided Apollo's gaze.

"Third, I've been thinking about how many hybridised Cylons there may be out there."

"Indeed, given that there was already a fully functional IL-A Cylon on Molecay – the supervisor of the facility, do you think?"

"Probably. It was possibly too important to leave to a Gold Commander. I expect the Cylons would have wanted one of the more advanced models managing the process."

"Right. That means there's at least one successfully-created generation of them, before the one you destroyed."

"At least one, yes. I'm still working on the material I downloaded from the Link I took to Molecay with me. I haven't seen anything yet that might help us work out how long the process actually took and help us gauge how many generations there may have been. You remember the proportion of pods to IL-A Cylons: eighty humans to twenty Cylons."

"Quite an attrition rate."

"Yes. I suspect that the failure rate came when they transferred the incubated brain over to the IL-A casing; the hard-wiring is probably a pretty delicate operation. Still, let's make the assumption that it holds true for previous generations. Haydn and I killed one from a previous batch, so there's at least nineteen of them out there. There might be hundreds."

"I don't need to tell you that it would be helpful to get some idea of how many times they'd run the manufacturing process successfully. The Security Committee will press us on that."

"Yes, I know. I'll keep working on it." Apollo frowned. "It's a pity the medics can't tell anything from the condition of the two I brought back or estimate how long they'd been in the pods."

"The medics are flummoxed," said Felix. "The bodies were held in some sort of stasis, they think, so they aren't much help. It will come down to what you can get out of any technical manuals and data grabbed by the Link."

"If I find the instruction manual, I'll let you know." Apollo let out his breath in a long, silent sigh. "We have to consider that Molecay may not be the only manufactory."

Felix held up a hand. "Just don't go there." After a centon, he grimaced. "No data on that?"

"No. I'm looking."

Felix blew out a noisy breath. "Damn. Was that your last point?"

"No," said Apollo, and Felix sighed. "That was just a subsidiary one. Last, there are the recent captures who were lobotomised. That's really interesting, Felix."

"I know they were bothering you."

"A couple of things. Only the recent captives, those taken within the last five yahrens were lobotomised; none of the Molecay-born have been. I have a theory about why."

"You would have! What?"

"I think that the Cylons tried for nearly thirty yahrens and they failed. They failed because they used the ones they bred themselves. But they'd drugged and bred out of them everything that makes a human what he is. The Molecay-born ones, Felix, lack everything the Cylons were looking for: judgement, socialisation, abstract reasoning, planning, problem solving—"

Felix straightened up so fast he must have strained something. "Everything the pre-frontal cortex controls, you mean!"

"How would your friends, the pyschs, describe it? All the advanced cognitive functions, all of those functions enhanced by education and learned behaviour—education and behaviour the Cylons' breeding stock had lost through yahrens of deprivation, a lifetime's deprivation. They spoiled their own experiment."

Felix nodded. "That makes sense."

"I'd guess that any IL-As they produced then were failures; they weren't showing the characteristics the Cylons were after." Apollo thought back to the briefing for Cain, sectars before. "I said once, when I was explaining this to Cain, that what the Cylons wanted was something to do with the human spirit, some quality they didn't have as machines. This is pretty close."

"It makes a lot of sense. What you're saying is that they realised that they needed an infusion of fresh genes into their tiny little pool? They realised they needed a fresh lot of brain tissue to work with."

Apollo agreed. "I think so. I think that the source tissue for the hybridisation came from the lobotomised ones, and then they and the Molecay-born were used as incubators. It's likely that the fourteen lobotomies would have been in the next batch for the pods, to incubate the next generation."

Felix thought about it, frowning. "Why delay putting them into the pods?"

"I don't have the technical manual, remember? It could be any number of technical reasons. They may have had to process the tissue immediately in some way. If they had the eighty incubators ready and in place to take the hybridised tissue, they may have just closed up the lobotomies and kept them on hold for the next time."

Felix stared into space, nodded. "It's feasible." He looked at the slides, his eyes brightening. "We can test it, Apollo. I've got the IL-A brain, the two pod-people. DNA analysis of the hybrid tissue will tell us if any of it matches the lobotomised survivors." He threw up his arms. "Brilliant! That's just brilliant, Apollo."

Apollo's mouth twisted. "You haven't thought it through."

"Thought what through?"

Apollo picked up a stack of holopics, started spreading them out over the desk. He wasn't really sure that he was hungry after all. "The Cylons know a lot about our anatomy. After all, they've caught and killed enough of us since the war began to have the anatomy manual. But Felix, they know bugger-all about our psychology."

Felix frowned at him, the jubilation fading. "What are you getting at?"

"You don't learn what the prefrontal cortex does by cutting up a battlefield corpse from a species completely alien to you. Who told them?"

Felix choked. " Apollo!"

"You've seen the two I brought back and these—" He swept a hand over the holopics of the pods. "There wasn't anything delicate about what was done to them. There was a lot of precision to it, a machine-like surgical precision, but it was gross, crude, almost rudimentary. It's hard to describe, because, of course, the pods and the machinery were way-beyond-us sophisticated, although we can at least match some of the biological techniques. But it just wasn't delicate or subtle or elegant. In comparison, the lobotomies were."

"Fuck," breathed Felix. "You said so, when we were talking just before the Inquiry. Why didn't I remember?"

"The fourteen were lobotomised, without the gross skull mutilations of the ones in the pods. I saw no sign of Cylon capability to do that, Felix. Have you? In anything I brought back, have you seen that?"

"Oh, my God." Felix wiped his mouth, covered it with his hand. "Oh God. What in hell are you getting at?"

"I've no proof at all." Apollo's hand was easing and he stretched out his fingers with a sigh of relief.

"You never bloody do, and you always pull something out of the fucking hat! You had no bloody proof about what they were doing on Molecay, and you were right. Fuck, Apollo! Fuck you, but you were right!"

"I think that the Cylons were told and shown how to do it. They may have taken a doctor sometime, who tried bargaining for his life and they developed the machinery and techniques to do it from there. But I didn't see machines that could do that. I didn't see anything that could open and then close up a man's skull."

Felix stared, eyes widening. "Fuck."

"So maybe the Cylons didn't do the operations at all."

"Oh, Lords."

Apollo sat back and let his hands fall into his lap. "I wish... I wish there hadn't been any to bring back alive. It would have been easier if they'd all been dead."

Felix nodded. His hands shaking, he gathered the holopics and tried to stack them.

"I wish," said Apollo, "that I'd had the courage to kill them."




"So you're Captain Apollo."

Felix had been right. Perth's moustache was luxuriant enough to cover many an enigma. He shook hands, his grip strong.

"I need a drink," muttered Felix, and headed for the bottle of liquor on the table in the makeshift Officer's Club. He splashed liquor into two glasses, not bothering to add water or soda. His hand, when he gave Apollo a glass, was still shaking.

Perth didn't seem to notice. Instead he regarded Apollo out of chilly dark eyes, his facial expression neutral. "You're the one responsible for all this."

Apollo downed the liquor in one. "No," he said. "I'm responsible for a lot of things, Captain. But whoever the bastard was or is, who's ultimately responsible for this, at least I can say that it wasn't me." His eyes met Felix's. "At least we aren't guilty of that."

"No." Felix raised the bottle of liquor enquiringly.

Apollo held out his glass for a refill. "There's more than enough to be guilty about, without that, wouldn't you say, Felix? More than enough."