Battlestar Galactica 4 - The Young Warriors Read online

  The patrol, marching in clumsy uncoordinated step, started to close the circle around us.

  I looked at Kyle.

  He looked back at me.

  I nodded.

  It was time to call in the troops.

  Kyle lifted his horn quickly to his mouth and blew a long steady blast. The tincans, who should have known by now what the sound signified, merely kept advancing. Behind them the children of Kyle's band started dropping from trees, squirming out from under bushes, running into a clearing from hiding places where they'd been silently watching and waiting for the signal. I caught a glimpse of my sister Ariadne, swinging a branch almost twice her size—she's twelve and small for her age—with which she felled a tincan by ramming it against the back of its legs. I saw my twin brothers Nilz and Robus, ganging up on the tincan leader together, one aiming at the upper part of the body, the other at the lower. Another tincan clanked to the ground. I saw Laughing Jake and Chubby Marta and Ratzi and Herbert the Singer and Melysa and Jergin and the Genie; I saw members of our band whose names I could not immediately recall; I saw twenty-seven children, ranging in age from six to thirteen, all of them assaulting the tincan patrol, each with a clear objective and all working deftly and with despatch. As soon as all the tincans were grounded—they have great difficulty in righting themselves with any speed—Kyle blew a short blast on the horn and we cleared out. Kyle and I on our mounts, the children vanishing quickly back into the forest.

  From a prone position, a couple tincans managed a couple shots, but the beams went well over our heads.

  Touching the back of Rogue's head, I urged him to go faster. Picking up the thought, his head bobbed up and down slightly, and we raced forward. Past Kyle on Demon. Kyle had the man as extra weight and, besides, has no telepathic link with Demon, a steed who would reject any of his orders anyway.

  We took the man to the cave instead of base camp. Although the tincans had not discovered the present camp, it was too open and didn't afford the proper situation for the curing of the pilot. The tincans would never find the cave simply because they would have to pass through water to get to it. Tincans avoid water.

  As we rode along I could sense some of the advance guard of Kyle's band, using vines to swing from tree to tree, their movement a barely detectable rustle all around us. Three horn blasts in the distance—Herbert the Singer letting us know that we were not being followed. We took the most direct route to the cave, crossing the lake by the curving pathway of rocks we had carefully placed in it, then we rode up the hillside, and through the middle waterfall. Once in a while, the man stirred and looked around, but, dazed by his pain and confused by the landscape, he quickly lost consciousness again. I was eager to get him inside the cave and onto a straw palette where I could take care of him properly. From his wasted pallor, I didn't have much time before he would be beyond the point where my salves and potions would work.

  Ratzi had reached the cave ahead of us and set a cookpot on the fire. The tantalizing odors of vegetable stew came to us as we entered the cave's main chamber. I realized how hungry I'd become. But, before eating, I had to attend to my new patient.

  Ratzi helped Kyle take the man off Demon's back. Kyle, as usual, didn't even speak to her. Ratzi, who is two years younger than Kyle and quite in love with him, will do anything he asks. She is usually mooneyed and always redcheeked. Her body is as thin as a swamp reed. She rarely speaks. For a long time we thought she was mute, until one day Kyle asked her to bring him his boots and she said, quite articulately and with a practiced servility, that she would be happy to.

  She came to us mysteriously. We woke up one day and she had curled up near our campfire during the night. She never said where she had come from, and nobody remembered her as being from our colony. Because she is so attentive to Kyle, I shouldn't like her as much as I do. But I do.

  After the man had been settled onto a palette, Ratzi helped me grind up some scrapings from the black base of the unicorn horn I had cut off earlier. Working slowly, knowing that even with time against me I had to take care, I pounded the hard scrapings into a soft grainy powder. Mixing it with water and my own special mixture of herbs I formed a poultice wrapped in the blue-green leaves of the molochait tree.

  The man still slept as I applied the poultice to his leg. He woke finally while I was wrapping a bandage around the poultice and his leg. Before focusing on me he looked around the cave, taking in the cookfire where Ratzi still stirred her stew; the racks of dried fish, salted meat, wild vegetables; and the crates of equipment, guns, grenades, bombs, etc. that we have stolen from the tincans' garrison and their ammo depots. When he did look at me, he stared me right in the eye. For the first time in my life, I was a bit embarrassed by the way a man looked at me. I had read of maidenly blushes in my mother's books, but was somewhat ashamed to react so conventionally now.

  "You're lovely," the man said.

  "Please try not to move, pilot. You have been hurt."

  "Don't I know it. My leg keeps sending reminders. Ouch, easy there."

  "You'll feel better soon, I promise you."

  "Okay, I'll accept your marker."

  "My what?"

  "Your marker. Sort of a document that records a promise."

  "We can't possibly make a document. Paper's scarce. The only paper I have I use for my book."

  "Your book?"

  "I write down each of my days in a blank book I found. I record things in it."

  "I see. Well, we don't really need paper for a proper marker. Your word'll do."

  "You have my marker then. You'll be well soon." When he smiled, his eyes seemed to light up a bit. He brushed away a falling lock of his light blond hair with his right hand. I felt funny, both pleased and uncomfortable at his friendly smile. The smile was not general, you see, it was specific. It was for me. And I was not ready for it.

  "I'm beginning to remember. A meadow or something, looking up and seeing you and another person, a boy . . ."

  "That would be Kyle. Best not to call him a boy to his face. He likes to think of himself as a man."

  "I understand. When I was his age I could create quite a fuss about just that. I thought I was a man at thirteen, until Gawr took me down a peg with the back of his good hand, the hand that was not a hook, thank God. I started feeling like a kid again then, I'll tell you."

  "Gawr?"

  "My father. Foster father, actually."

  "Oh."

  I did not like to talk about parents, so I said nothing about my own.

  "Since you're working on saving my life. I'd like to know your name."

  For a moment I did not want to tell him. The particular sensation I felt was too intense and complicated to explain here.

  "Miri," I finally responded.

  "Hello, Miri. I'm Starbuck."

  "Good to meet you, Starbuck."

  "Always glad to get formalities over with. Before, when I was being carried here, I woke up a couple of times. There were children . . ."

  "Yes. There are many. Sometimes as many as fifty, although from time to time a few disappear into the hills and don't return for some time. Right now there are less than forty in the band . . ."

  "Band? You guys are organized?"

  "In a way. Most of the children have formed a band, an outlaw gang really. Kyle's their leader. I do not exactly approve of their actions. I do not belong."

  "But you're with them now."

  "I was concerned with rescuing you and tending to your injury. I had to engage Kyle's help."

  "But you do not like Kyle very much."

  "I like him. He's my brother. I just cannot join his group. I prefer to be an outsider."

  "And Kyle is the leader of this, this gang of children?"

  "Yes."

  "But he's only a boy himself. I know, don't say it. He thinks of himself as a man. But he's really only a boy."

  "That's true. However, he's the only leader the children have."

  "Why do they need leaders? Whe
re are the adults?"

  "The colony dispersed when the tincans arrived. Some of the adults were captured, some were killed, others fled. Only Kyle and his band are left to fight the tincans."

  "I'm not clear on all this. You said colony. Tell me about the colony."

  "I don't want to go over ancient history."

  "Ancient! How ancient can it be? You're only, what, sixteen, seventeen?"

  I felt an irrational anger that he could so misjudge my age.

  "I am eighteen," I said. "Do I look young for my age?"

  "Well, you look good for your age, whatever it is, I'll say that. You're getting red. Flirting bothers you, does it?"

  "A little."

  "Don't worry. I'll try to curb the impulse, but I warn you, flirting is something of a habit with me, part of my nature. Please tell me about the colony."

  I sighed. This Starbuck was a hard person to refuse.

  "All right," I said.

  I have not recorded much about our past in this book. I don't know if I can remedy that unfortunate omission readily. My mother has answered many of my questions and I have vague memories from my schooling, but my knowledge of history is probably a blend of misunderstood facts, exaggerated legends, and imagined events. I'm sure I want our history to be more attractive and more noteworthy than it is. I make this vow. I will find out more and record it in detail in another book—if I can ever find another source of paper.

  Ours was a society of pariahs, outcasts forced to leave their homes and strike out on their own, escaping persecution by braving the hardships of an unknown planet. The original leaders of the pariahs are direct ancestors of myself and Kyle—and of Ariadne, Nilz, and Robus. In fact, the woman had the same name as our mother, Megan. The first Megan and her husband (we've always said husband and wife, although of course there are no formal marriages in our society, and relationships do shift from time to time) were both creative individuals on the planet Scorpia. Marcsen was a writer who specialized in political allegories of an adversary nature. Megan painted, using the type of Scorpion oils that, once applied to canvas, could be adjusted in such respects as color and texture by telepathic influence from the artist. Only a few artists had the telepathic gift, and even fewer could use it to influence the properties of Scorpion oils. On Scorpia this ability was invaluable and very profitable. Even though Megan used her art, like Marcsen, for political purposes, the government never moved against her as it did the others. When the group was ordered into exile, Megan was given the opportunity to stay, subsidized by the government with a generous sinecure. Government functionaries said right out that they would not interfere with the political messages of her paintings, that's how desperate they were for telepathic art. Megan refused the offer, accepting instead the intense discomfort of a dilapidated freighter, crammed with Marcsen and their fellow exiles into a cargo hold. She produced some fine paintings after the colony was established here on Antila, although some of her colleagues claimed that the vitality went out of her art when its political content changed.

  I know I have some telepathic ability. I communicate with Rogue easily. Then again, maybe Rogue is just a unicorn who transmits well. Still, once in a while, I pick up a stray thought from Kyle or one of the children and, though I don't attempt to verify it, I often find out I was right about what they were thinking. But I am digressing from this rather messy history of our colony.

  The pariahs were political activists. Although they concerned themselves with many and disparate social issues in the bleak, cold, and emotionally remote world of Scorpia, their main fight was against the war, a war that had been raging nearly a thousand years even at that time. It was not their intention that the war should become the primary issue in what was essentially a social philosophy based on humanism and good works, but it was their opposition to war that the government chose to emphasize when it launched its campaign against them, a campaign that led eventually to their exile,

  In truth, as Megan tells it (my mother Megan, that is), the pariahs were not specifically against the thousand year war. They regretted it, yes, but they understood some of the imperatives behind it. War was so much a fact of life for everyone in the twelve worlds that it was difficult to postulate alternatives to it. While the pariahs were pacifists who would not serve in the fighting forces, they did often go to war and serve on medical, food service, and clerical crews. Many of them died in Cylon attacks. What they were against on the home front was the set of militaristic attitudes that governed Scorpion society. And not only on Scorpia, for that matter—their ideas spread to the variously militaristic societies on all the twelve worlds. The increasing popularity of their ideas made them especially dangerous to the Scorpion government, which after its most recent elections (mere ceremonies really, because all opposition was squelched) had become even more warlike in its policies. So, higher levels decreed that the pariahs, who pointed out such obvious facts, had to be in some way silenced.

  Fortunately, this was not a murderous government (in Scorpia's past, there had been many tyrannies based on the politics of assassination), and it chose first to harass its political opponents, then to persecute them, then to attract the most prosperous of the artists to work within the society in jobs that essentially defused their revolutionary artillery. When harassment, persecution, and economic temptations failed, exile was commanded by a narrow vote of the Scorpion legislative body. I wish I could be more specific about the mechanics of government on Scorpia, but political science is just not my strong point and the details of the history of that time remain a muddle to me. So Megan, Marcsen, and the others were transported to Antila in a space freighter so foul that about a quarter of their group died aboard ship from diseases and despair.

  Antila proved only slightly more hospitable than the space freighter. The planet does have its beauties. There are areas where the vivid and provocative colors remind one, Megan says, of the kinds of effects created with Scorpion oils. On the other hand, Antila—with its wretched humidity, its tangled jungles, its poisonous forests, and its dangerous waters—brought more disease, more death. Until the colony's medical people devised immunizations for some of the most common diseases, the colony's population was further reduced. Additionally, they found that they could not wander far from their settlement (a settlement now inhabited and defiled by the ugly tincans for their garrison) because of the many predators that roamed the forests and jungles. Lions, leopards, wolves, plus many beasts for which there were no previous designations.

  Not all Antilean animals were forbidding, however, and the survival of the colony can at least partly be attributed to the help received from the unicorns. There had been no unicorns on Scorpia, and so they were mysterious creatures to the colonists. They're mysterious creatures to everybody, always have been, always will be. No-one knows why the unicorns came voluntarily to the settlement. It was certainly not that they were a domesticable animal. No unicorn is ever domesticated. It becomes a steed for human riders by its own choice. Even now one of our unicorns, Magician, will not accept a human on its back, although it willingly pulls plows and picks fruit off the higher branches with its horn for us. Some say that unicorns are basically intelligent natives of Antila who have formed this symbiotic alliance with us as defense against the predators and the climate. The unicorns, after all, are not exactly thriving here either.

  Some unicorns are able to link with humans telepathically, as with myself and Rogue. (Sometimes I think Magician communicates with me, but when I turn toward him and flash a thought back he becomes aloof, pointing his elegant horn straight upward, and he pretends he has transmitted nothing.) People like Kyle say the telepathic link between human and unicorn is imagined, and does not exist at all. They are just animals, he says, and like all good animals they respond to human signals, and what seems like an exchange of thought is accomplished through physical movements and gestures rather than through the minds of human and unicorn. I gave up arguing with him on that subject long ago. I prefer not
to argue with him at all if I can. He's repulsive when he loses his temper. His blue eyes go gray, and his crooked nose wrinkles and adds another bump, and his mouth becomes a twisted piece of metal. It's best to leave him alone, let him enjoy his game of leadership, and look for ways to fix his mistakes and correct his miscalculations when they occur.

  The pariah colony finally got through their initial difficulties and set up a society based on the ethical principles that had precipitated their exile. My Megan says that the Megan of that time, always the iconoclast, spoke against the way the colonists were establishing their society. She was alone in her protests. Even her husband Marcsen turned against her, and their marriage ended by mutual agreement. She never took up with any other man or woman. Her argument with the colony was that the ethical principles were fine but not enough to hold a government together. One should venerate ethics and strive for ethical behavior, but a society must be built on firmer foundations, she believed. They could not, for example, just throw together a constitution that said, in effect, that everyone must treat one another according to a rather restricted though humanistic set of ideas. There must be more practical approaches, she claimed. Every man cannot be a legislator, she said, any more than every man can be a king.

  Well, talk like that got her nowhere except for a sort of exile among her own people. She retired to her cottage to paint pictures with her last remaining Scorpion oils. These last paintings are magnificent. They are hidden, along with other hastily-preserved art works in the passage I use to visit my mother, my Megan, in the garrison prison. Among the earlier Megan's paintings, I have a particular favorite. It shows a woman dressed in a gown that has many telepathically created shades of purple in it. (The real advantage of telepathic art is that colors you can imagine but cannot mix are possible.) The woman is sitting in a leisurely fashion on a unicorn. The animal is so fully textured you think, if you touch the canvas, you will feel real hair on the unicorn's side, and that some of it will be matted from the heat. You think you could pull at the thick tufts of hair around its hooves. It is a sort of blue-white unicorn and the blue and white shades change easily with a change of light. Behind the unicorn and the woman (she is not an extraordinarily beautiful woman, as one finds in the more sentimental art of the colony's later period, the period of political and social decline, but she is angularly attractive, something like my Megan) is a dense jungle scene in which you can see hints of lions, wolves, other animals. On some visits to the passage I think I see a bird on a particular branch, then it isn't there the next time I view it.