Second Elegy, Seventh Verse
Obsolescence

Either war is obsolete, or men are.
R Buckminster Fuller

 

2 Sextus 6491
Graduation Day, The Military Academy, Caprica


"Apollo's looking a little happier," said Ila. She glanced across the room to where her son was talking with Shield General Martens. Apollo was certainly looking more animated than he had when he had arrived home with Adama and Athena the previous evening. She'd not missed how tired and worn Apollo had been. He had brushed off her carefully phrased enquiries, but Athena's prattle about her new boyfriend—too pointedly aimed at her brother to be artless—told Ila all she needed to know about what troubled Apollo. Adama, when she tried to talk to him when they were alone, refused to say anything other than grumble that Athena had turned out to be unexpectedly headstrong and that Apollo was saying nothing.

Now though, Apollo looked as if Martens was handing him a long-desired present. Tied up with tinsel and ribbons, if the expression on his face was anything to go by. Ila hadn't seen him look so genuinely delighted for a long time.

"I suspect that Martens is telling him the good news." Adama looked smug.

"Oh? Is she giving him the Hyperion back? That would please him." Ila frowned. "Unless it makes it difficult for him, if Rosie's still there. I am sorry that didn't work out, aren't you? She's a lovely girl."

"She is," agreed Adama. "No, he's not going back to the Hyperion. They're giving him a Shield battle-group."

Ila hitched an eyebrow at him.

"That's three ships; the Xerxes, the Dhow and the Scarab. The Xerxes is a bit bigger than the Hyperion. That's where he'll be based, Martens told me." Adama couldn't quite manage to hold back the smirk. "He'll command the Xerxes directly, with the captains of the other two reporting to him."

"They're promoting him?" Ila beamed with delight at Adama's nod. "I thought you said that they wouldn't do that, not after the Pegasus vanished?"

"Jak said that he'd done enough kow-towing to politicians for the yahren and he'll promote who he damn well pleases."

Ila laughed. "And that was a direct quote."

"Word for word. It should have happened last yahren, Ila. They should have done something in recognition for what he did at Molecay—" Adama broke off abruptly and his mouth tightened into a thin, angry line.

Ila knew how angry he had been at the way that their son had almost been sacrificed to cover the Council's disquiet over Cain's disappearance. She'd been angry herself at the political machinations that had threatened Apollo; but a judicious cultivation of old Sire Anton had paid dividends in gaining powerful support for Adama's and Jak's defence of Apollo. "You didn't say anything to him about it?"

"No. No, of course not. Mind you, I don't suppose that I really needed to. He's not stupid, and he knew how much bad odour he was in with some members of the Council. I'm not sorry that I got him for a yahren, Ila. It's been wonderful having him on my ship. But he should have had his command earlier, and he might well have done if that equine's behind that masquerades as the Piscean Councillor hadn't insisted on his pound of flesh." Adama added, hastily, "Well, maybe that's just me being partial, but Jak was pretty pleased with what he did over Molecay and he might have sent him back to Shield earlier as a reward."

"Except," said Ila, shrewdly, "you don't want him back in Shield."

They both watched for a few centons as Apollo snapped off a salute and returned to the table where Sire Anton waited for him. The old man—who knew everything, of course—shook hands, smiling.

Adama sighed. "No, I don't want him back in Shield. I never wanted him in Shield."

"It suits him."

"It's too small, and too specialised. He joined for all the wrong reasons, anyway." Adama turned his attention to his wife. "Joss was the wrong reason for a lot of things."

"Joss isn't an issue any more. I don't think Apollo's seen him for a yahren or two. Certainly it had to be before Molecay or his posting to the Galactica."

"He was still the cause of it all. I want my son to have a real career, love. He isn't going to get that, stuck in the backwater that's the Shield regiment."

"Your argument would have a little more validity if he hadn't just got a promotion out of it," said the wife of his bosom, more than a little sarcastically. "He's happy there, Adama. I don't think he's been all that happy on the Galactica."

"It's been a difficult yahren," conceded Adama.

"Not made any easier by Athena's entanglement with Starbuck," said Ila, crossly, although she couldn't say who she was most annoyed with. She added, rather mournfully, "He seemed such a nice young man."

Adama snorted. "I was wondering if I'd need to lock up Zac, just in case Starbuck intends to work his way through the entire family."

Ila winced. Sometimes Adama was so far from subtle, that it was painful. "They're old enough to sort it out themselves." She glared back at the incredulous look Adama gave her. "Your last intervention was hardly something to be proud of," she reminded him, tartly. "Whatever you felt about Joss, you didn't have the right to throw Starbuck into the mix and I'd argue, Adama, that it did more harm than good."

"I'm not going to do anything."

"I hope not," Ila said, rather horrified at how unsubtle she herself had just been. But sometimes Adama needed a sharper reminder of his fallibility. "Let's go and congratulate him."

Both Anton and Apollo rose when she reached them. Apollo, smiling, kissed her. "You know, I suppose," he said without rancour.

"Your father just told me." Ila hugged him gently. "Darling," she said, fondly, delighted to see that the tiredness and strain had vanished from his eyes. He looked younger and happier. "I'm so proud of you!"

"Yeah, well Major Apollo has a good ring to it."

Ila laughed and watched Adama shake Apollo's hand and offer a quiet Well done , seeing how much Apollo liked getting his father's approval. He'd never say so of course, and Adama would die before admitting that he was in danger of bursting his uniform buttons with pride. Despairing for her undemonstrative men, she reached up to kiss Anton. The old man's cheek was cool under her lips. "How are you, Anton?"

"Delighted to see you, my dear, and taking a little vicarious pleasure in Apollo's success." Anton's hands closed over both her own. "It's refreshing to find myself proud of him. I feel rather grandfatherly."

"You can have honorary rights there. I think he'd like that." Ila couldn't stop smiling, so pleased to see Apollo relaxed and happier. After securing Anton's presence at dinner to celebrate and giving Apollo and Adama a few centons to be inarticulate with each other, she sighed, set Adama to talk to Anton and demanded her eldest son's escort to locate his siblings.

"It's Zac's day," said Apollo, when she tucked her hand under his arm. "We can tell him later."

"Whatever you like, darling." They moved through the crowds, Ila nodding and smiling at the people she knew, but managing, with the fine social skills on which she prided herself, to give those acquaintances the unmistakable message that she didn't want any nearer advances. "Take me for some tea, just you and me."

"You want to talk, then." Some of Apollo's light dimmed, betraying just how superficial his pleasure at Martens' news was. "I thought I got off lightly last night."

"I don't like you looking so flat and sad, Apollo. I understand why, obviously." She paused. "Athena doesn't know, I take it?"

"Not unless Starbuck's told her, and I don't think that's likely, do you?" He steered her into a corner of the room and a quiet table that was half-hidden by a large plant. He pulled out a chair for her and waved over one of the stewards. They were silent until the tea arrived. Apollo took the cup she poured for him, and said, "I don't want to talk about it much, Mamma."

"I know you don't. But it's only me."

"You always did keep all my secrets. It's my own fault, you know." He laughed slightly, but there was no mirth in it. "Sire Anton was just talking to me about taking calculated risks, but Starbuck was a risk I wasn't prepared to take. We agreed when I got to the Galactica, that we had no claim on each other. I have no right, really, to object to him seeing Athena."

"Rights don't have anything to do with it."

"Oh, I don't know. Whatever rights I once had I tossed away. Starbuck said, the other day, that I'd been the one to make all the decisions about not risking anything with him, and I can't argue with that. I did."

"And now you regret it," said Ila, her heart aching for him.

"I never wanted to go there. I knew how it would end up." His smile was rueful. "I don't have a leg to stand on, Mamma, if it comes to righteous indignation. But yes, I regret it. I really regret not risking it, and now it's too late." He shook his head. "Nothing more to be said, really. Let's leave it."

She nodded, patting his hand. "You'll be back in Shield soon."

"And then I won't see him again." Apollo frowned as if he hadn't meant to say that. He changed the subject. "Good God, Mamma, you've got me as maudlin as a lovesick teenager. And you're the one who's going to be left on her own once Zac's gone."

"Zac's been gone for four yahrens, you know. I only ever had him at home outside of term time. I can't tell you, though, how glad I am about the peace. I don't know if I could have borne to have all four of you fighting."

"Are you lonely, Mamma? You must have a lot of time alone."

Ila laughed a little. "We're all alone, Apollo. We're alone all the time. We only touch other people here and there and now and then, you know."

"Very deep, Mamma," he said, but the expression on his face suggested she'd struck a chord.

This time her laughter came easier. "I'm a military wife, Apollo, from a military family. I knew what I was getting into when I married your father and I've made a life of my own that I find very satisfying. And when your father is home, or you or the children, then it's very, very good indeed." She smiled at him, thinking how like herself he was, far more than either of the other children, but he wasn't nearly as tough as she was. She suspected he was the one who was lonely. "I'm going to make as much as I can of having you all home together. The Lords only know when that will happen again."

Apollo nodded. "Today, tomorrow, sometime never," he agreed. "Story of my life."