Battlestar Galactica 11 - The Nightmare Machine Read online

  At the end of several sessions of torture, Greenbean finally did give in. His mind seemed to grow smaller and smaller, until it was only a piece of dust, a microbe, in the cavern of his head. He began to believe there was none of him left, that he had weakened to the point of physical disintegration. In his mind he saw the pieces of himself spread out on the floor like a disassembled viper in the shop for repairs. Pain was no longer any problem for him. He had experienced so much pain since his capture by the Cylons that he couldn't remember not hurting. The part he couldn't stand wasn't the physical torture, it was the way the Cylons had gone inside his head and altered his brain. He was afraid to touch his head, because he knew that all the bone there had been turned into jelly. If he touched his head, he might prick his skin and the inside of his head would spill out. He didn't want that to happen. He would do anything asked of him to prevent that from happening. So now, whatever he was asked by his interrogator, he struggled to tell the exact truth. He spoke slowly so that he could make sure he didn't leave out anything the Cylon wanted to know.

  "The Galactica?" he said, his voice faint. "Yeah, I know where it is. Exactly where it is. Its coordinates? I know them, yes. Well, I know them almost. Do you have something to write things down with? Good. Let's see . . . Omicron Sector . . . and the quadrant, the quadrant is . . . let me think a minute."

  They let him think. It took a long time for him to recall the quadrant but finally the information did come to him, swam to his awareness through the jelly of his brain.

  Baltar struggled to stay awake. When he'd been young, out wheeling and dealing to add to his considerable fortune, he'd always been able to stay awake as long as he wanted to. Many a deal had been set because of his ability to keep his wits while all around him his competitors were losing out because of tiredness or flat-out unconsciousness. There had been no stopping Baltar at his peak. He was the acknowledged young tycoon of his generation. For years he had kept the edge, even after he'd become middle-aged and somewhat obese. Even then, he could stay awake several nights running if there was a solid amount of profit to be made.

  But those days were past. Now he dropped off to sleep at inconvenient times, nodded off when he should have been thinking a matter through. There were times, even when he was awake, that he had trouble focusing on whatever matter was at hand.

  Now he desperately needed to stay awake, to work out his plan, his scheme to finally get Adama where he wanted him—in a trap and begging for mercy. For once Baltar knew where the Battlestar Galactica and its ragtag fleet were. Acting on the information supplied by Ensign Greenbean, Cylon scout ships had discovered the Galactica moored in space near a small planet that Star-charts said had once been the human colony of Vaile. Although Cylon information indicated that the colony had been wiped out long ago, Baltar had reason to believe that, for once, the information supplied him by the computers was wrong. The human fleet would not stop at such a place without a good reason, and that reason was no doubt the existence of an active settlement of humans there.

  So the Galactica was there, virtually hanging in space as an easy target. All Baltar had to do was garner his forces, ready his firepower, give his troops their orders, then sit back and watch the final destruction of Adama and his misbegotten followers. If only such a strategy could be set into action, Baltar could become the biggest hero among the Cylons—a human taking his place at the forefront of Cylon history.

  But he could not do it, could not mobilize his forces just now. Earlier battles had depleted his own troops and fleet, military supplies were dangerously low, and too many Cylon fighters were out of action to mount a proper assault. In addition, his own base star was crippled by mechanical difficulties. Technicians were working around the clock to make the repairs, but each report brought to Baltar complications: more parts needed, more time needed, more personnel needed. Until this work was done, and reinforcements promised by the Imperious Leader arrived, it did not seem feasible to attack the Galactica. There was too much risk now, Baltar felt. While there were still many Cylon ships in operation, there was not enough reserve strength to assure a victory, even with the advantage that an ambush would bring them. Baltar did not like taking risks in battle. If the attack backfired, he could himself be captured or, worse, killed. He shuddered as he thought of the possibility of his own death.

  Some might have said that the caution Baltar took such pride in was really cowardice. They might have said that he had inordinate affection for his own skin. On both matters they would probably have been right.

  Whatever else he did, Baltar knew it was essential that he receive the approval of Imperious Leader. The Leader had been sending regular dispatches that clearly indicated he was getting impatient for victory. If Baltar did not bring the Leader triumph soon, he might as well throw open an airlock, take a few steps into airless space and take a deep breath.

  All of these matters should have kept him awake, should have given him one sleepless night after another. But he dropped off to sleep much too easily. He would be considering his dilemma, then suddenly, his body tossing and turning, his face sparkling with sweat, he'd be asleep.

  And, worse, he dreamed.

  In this dream he walked, staggered really, across a landscape that was thick with mists. He felt scared, especially as he passed crags that threatened to turn themselves into alien monsters, and dark shadowy caves from which emerged ugly raspy shrieks. As he staggered along, he talked to himself. He squirmed in his bed as well as in the dream.

  "Why am I here? For that matter, what is this place? I don't belong here, I know it. Do you hear it, whoever you are out there, I don't belong here. I want to go back to my ship. I have so many things to do, so many plans . . . I am not to be punished. Not any more. I have served well. Ask Imperious Leader. He knows how well I have served. He knows of my service to . . ."

  Springing out of nowhere, forming himself out of sprays of mist, a Cylon in gleaming uniform appeared. It waved a long sword. The sword had a shining jeweled handle and the longest sharpest blade Baltar had ever seen. He grabbed Baltar by the neck with his free hand, and roughly shoved him against a tree stump. Baltar felt pieces of jagged wood prick the back of his neck.

  "Hey, what is this? I'm your commander, you can't—"

  "Not . . . my . . . commander," the Cylon said, in a voice even more unearthly than their usual unpleasant squawk.

  In a single swipe, the Cylon pushed clothing away from Baltar's neck, baring it for the sword. Baltar realized the creature meant to behead him. This had all happened to him once before, after his treachery had paved the way for the Cylon ambush of the Colonial Fleet and the defeat of the twelve worlds. When he had become of no more use to the Cylons, the Imperious Leader had ordered his head to be lopped off. His head had actually been on the block. However, Lucifer had secretly arranged a rescue, literally pulled Baltar out from under the executioner's sword. Then Lucifer convinced the Leader that Baltar could still be useful to the Cylons. Now, looking up at this Cylon with the sword, Baltar realized, with perfect dream logic, that this was the same executioner.

  "I must finish the job," the executioner said. "Must finish. Now. You were not to live. Leader said die, you should die. It was wrong for you to continue living. Look how wrong."

  "Wrong?" Baltar said, horrified by the appalling resonance in the executioner's voice. "What do you mean, wrong? You're insane, Cylon. I am a hero. I handed my people over to you on a silver platter. I gave you their heads. I gave you the twelve worlds, the—"

  Rising instantly from the misty ground, a judge's high bench materialized next to Baltar. He had to twist his head around painfully and look up from the tree stump in order to get a good look at it. Gazing down at him, that obscene self-confidence so evident in his craggy face, was Commander Adama. He looked like a giant. He was a giant, a dream giant. Baltar felt his body trembling violently.

  "Hero, Baltar?" Adama said. "Don't you mean traitor, you oozing slab of decaying meat?"

 
; "Adama, I don't—go away—get—"

  Adama pounded his gavel. The echoes of that pounding surrounded Baltar, pressed painfully against his ears.

  "Do you have anything to say for yourself?" Adama asked.

  "Not to you. Never to you."

  "My verdict is guilty, Citizen Baltar. You are a traitor, the worst traitor in our history, a man who would, with indifference, cause the deaths of countless millions of our people. And why, Baltar? For your greed, for power. You will die, Baltar."

  Baltar cringed at the word die. He was deeply afraid of dying. He would do anything to stay alive, even beg at Adama's feet.

  "Adama, I didn't mean—I wanted to end the war, that awful war that had gone on for too long, for a millenium. It was time for it to end, don't you see, time—"

  "To end by the annihilation of your people? What kind of excuse is that, Baltar? How could you? It was your life for theirs. The life of one cowardly traitor against theirs. Their deaths are on your conscience, Baltar."

  Baltar laughed, even though he knew a laugh was not the most strategic act at this time and in these circumstances

  "Not my conscience, Adama. I feel no remorse I—"

  "The death of millions, Baltar, all because you sold information to the Cylons, sold your people to the Cylons. Remorse or no, your life is over. You are a dead man who walks."

  "NO! I am alive. I command a battlestar, just like you. I am a commander, the leader of many. I make command decisions. I pursue you and your damned Galactica. You're lucky to still survive. I will destroy you."

  "Single-handed?"

  "If need be. I will finish you off and be rid of you forever."

  "Merely another murder to add to the billions that are already your responsibility."

  "They are not my responsibility!"

  "You are guilty of the largest mass murder in human history."

  Adama pounded his gavel.

  "Have it your way then, Adama. What do I care about those people? They are just numbers on a list of statistics. People are foul and deserve to be wiped out. The Cylons are right about that. Only a few should survive, and I don't mean you and your godforsaken fleet."

  "You don't deserve another moment of life, Baltar."

  "No, it's you whose moments are numbered, then I will return as the conquering hero to the Cylons. They've promised me a life of wealth and ease."

  "They have, have they? And you believe a Cylon promise? Remember what happened the last time you trusted them. After you served them so traitorously, they were going to kill you . . ."

  Suddenly, above Baltar, the executioner raised his axe. Baltar, squirming around on the stump, faced upward and watched the axe begin to fall.

  He screamed.

  "NO! NO! NO!"

  And he woke up, sweating furiously, in his bed. For a moment he couldn't get adjusted to reality. He still saw the axe falling at his face. Then his eyes focused and he saw Lucifer standing by the bed, looking down at him.

  "What in blazes are you doing here?" Baltar said. "I told you never to enter my room without permission!"

  "I am here with your permission . . . in a way."

  Lucifer's voice had that self-satisfied oily sound in it. He definitely had something on his mind. That sound generally foreshadowed a real hassle for Baltar.

  "Don't be vague. I didn't think you were programmed for vagueness."

  "I am not, but I am programmed for caution. Conditions suggest that I now approach you with caution since I will undoubtedly provoke your wrath."

  "Damn right about that. Well, I'm already furious with you, Lucifer, so take the risk. If I didn't need you to keep this ship running, I'd have you reduced to the bag of nuts and bolts you are."

  Baltar knew he hit a nerve, or whatever passed for a nerve in Lucifer's circuitry, with that insult. Lucifer was always uncomfortable with any discussion of his cybernetic existence. Since he had consciousness, he believed he had transcended his origins and was something more than a mere construct.

  Lucifer, to stave off Baltar's cruel words, got down to business.

  "You were having bad dreams," he said, matter of factly.

  Baltar was at first surprised by Lucifer's insightful remark, then he realized that the walking machine shop had been next to the bed, where it must have been obvious from his squirming and the damp state of his bedclothes that he had been dreaming badly.

  "It's true I was dreaming," he said, "but what business is that of yours? You don't number psychologist among your many programmed talents, do you? Are you going to cure me?"

  "In a way, I will."

  There was something spooky about Lucifer's certainty. Baltar was scared of it, although he was damned certain he wouldn't show his fear to Lucifer.

  "What do you mean?" Baltar asked.

  "Your dreams, whatever their images and actions might have been, were about your guilts, were they not?"

  Baltar, his heart beating rapidly and new layers of sweat seeping out beneath the old perspiration, screamed at Lucifer:

  "I HAVE NO GUILT! YOU'RE LYING!"

  Lucifer, for the moment, regretted the immobility of his metal-based face. He would have liked to smile arrogantly at his commander.

  "I was not judging you," he said. "I was merely requesting descriptive content. I think you have answered me sufficiently with the violence of your response."

  To Baltar's ears, Lucifer's statements sounded curious. They had the sound about them of jotted-down notes. How Lucifer knew about the dreams, he couldn't possibly guess, but there seemed no point in trying to deceive him.

  "All right, all right. Guilt was the major theme of my dream. It has been for the last few nights, the—"

  "For the last four nights, to be exact."

  Baltar, angry, strongly desired to smash Lucifer in the jaw, but no doubt he would only have broken his hand on Lucifer's metallic chin.

  "How in blazes—have you developed some device to spy on me, to spy on my DREAMS! I swear, Lucifer, if you've—"

  Lucifer's soft, smooth voice came in under Baltar's squawks like a laser-saw cutting a branch off a tree.

  "I have not been spying on you, Commander. But I have watched you sleep. A disturbed sleep, at that. And . . . I have run a few tests."

  "Tests?! Lucifer, this is against express orders—"

  "You do not recall the override factor?"

  Lucifer was dispensing so many consecutive mysteries that Baltar had trouble keeping up with them. His mind seemed to spin.

  "Lucifer, I not only don't recall the override factor, I don't know what in the cloudless Cylon skies you're talking about."

  Lucifer made one of his little sounds—a rumbling that seemed to come out of his throat and sounded like the rubbing together of dry ball bearings.

  "The override factor," he said, "was explained to you at the time I was first assigned to be your second in command."

  That day was also the day Baltar had been saved from the executioner by Lucifer. Since the human didn't enjoy being indebted to the robot, he was irritated even by Lucifer's reference to it.

  "A day I don't remember with pleasure, I assure you," Baltar said.

  Again, Lucifer's statements were preceded by the bizarre throat sound.

  "Imperious Leader, in his awesome wisdom, informed you that day that, in the area of weapons development, I was to be allowed all freedom to experiment and act, especially with any creation that could accelerate our victory over the human vermin. In such an instance, your authority, Baltar, would be overridden. I could, in effect, do anything required to fulfill the experimental requirements of such a project."

  Baltar could not recall Imperious Leader saying any such thing. He wondered if Lucifer, for his own convenience, was making it up.

  "A stupid idea, if you ask me," he muttered. Lucifer did not acknowledge the remark, which was, after all, on the Cylon borderline of treason.

  "The Leader's dispensation allows me free choice in the arrangement of subjects for exp
erimentation. In such matters, I need not, as you say, check it out with you."

  Lucifer's habit of circumlocution was making Baltar even more nervous.

  "And precisely," he said, "what was it you needed I couldn't know about?"

  Lucifer knew he had come to the difficult moment. He could easily anticipate his commander's reaction to the information he was going to divulge.

  "Well, Lucifer, what is it?"

  "You, actually. As a subject. I needed to try out my device on you."

  The revelation didn't disturb Baltar as much as Lucifer had feared. It was something of a relief, actually. Baltar realized that the agony he'd been going through the last few nights had been induced, not real. He felt psychologically fit again.

  "And why me, may I ask?" Baltar said.

  "My subject had to be human. Which you are."

  At least marginally, Lucifer added in his mental circuits.

  "Yes. But so are the several human prisoners we have down in the ship's brigs."

  Baltar recalled that, on his last visit to the base-star's prison area, he had been awed by the number of prisoners there, especially the high number of captured Galactican pilots, all of them shouting the meanest possible epithets at him as he'd walked through the cell block. He had, with pleasure, reported his success at capturing humans to Imperious Leader, and had only slightly inflated the figures.

  Lucifer replied to Baltar carefully, desiring to flatter the man while making his points.

  "Baltar, they are merely human. Their minds were, how should I say it, inadequate for my goals. I needed someone with a more complicated mind. That person had to be you."

  Lucifer decided not to tell his commander that the main reason he had been chosen was that there was no one else available who had more reason to feel guilty about his past history.

  Baltar smiled, obviously pleased with Lucifer's flattery. At the same time, he still felt angry about his guilty dreams. What right had this metal monstrosity to toy with his brain? And just what had he done? The two were silent for a while, then Baltar said, the sound of a mild threat in his voice:

  "All right, Lucifer, tell me."