Battlestar Galactica 9 - Experiment In Terra Page 6

  "What happens on Terra affects us as well as you," answered John. "We are, however, only in a position to advise."

  Apollo clasped his hands together and leaned forward. "I get the feeling I'm not going to get out of this unless I agree to help you."

  "That's the situation."

  "Okay, then fill me in on the mission you have in mind."

  "Most of it you'll quickly ascertain for yourself once you're on Terra," said John. "Do, though, let me warn you that some of the people you encounter will seem to think of you as someone they already know."

  Apollo said, "I don't get that."

  "You haven't time to build a credibility for yourself on Terra," explained John. "Therefore, Captain, we're borrowing someone else's identity for you."

  "Borrowing an identity?" Apollo nodded. "Yeah, well, I guess if you can pluck me out of my viper, you can borrow an identity."

  "It isn't a difficult thing to do. He's a warrior, one who's missing in combat."

  "Missing where?"

  "He's being held prisoner on Luna One. He'll eventually turn up free," said John. "Oh, by the way, I'd better mention that he's somewhat of a scoundrel. He is, however, all we have to work with on such short notice."

  "This sounds better by the minute," said Apollo.

  "You won't be the most well-liked man on Terra, but you ought to be able to overcome a small handicap like that."

  "Guess I'm going to have to," said Apollo. "When do I leave on this mission?"

  John smiled, almost paternally. "Now, Captain," he said.

  "Now? What do . . ."

  Apollo blinked. He was back in his viper, strapped into his seat.

  He laughed. "Boy, I'm going to have to give up the night life," he said, shaking his head. "Or maybe have my air mixture in this crate rechecked. Having a dream like that really . . . ooops!"

  He looked up from his control panel and out the cockpit window.

  Looming large dead ahead was a planet.

  A planet he'd never seen before.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Commander Adama stood by a view window in his quarters. Somewhere out there in that far stretching blackness were his son and the viper squadron. And farther beyond that, perhaps the planet they'd been questing for for so long. "What's the latest news?" he asked as Tigh came into the room.

  "I'm not sure." Tigh stopped beside a chair and ran his fingertips back and forth along its back.

  Facing him, Adama requested, "Could you amplify that remark, Colonel?"

  "The squadron is still in pursuit of the Alliance destoyer, but . . ." He made a vague gesture with his right hand. "Well, Captain Apollo's ship seems to have disappeared."

  "Disappeared?" Deep creases appeared on Adama's broad forehead. "My son's viper?"

  The black colonel nodded. "It simply . . . isn't there anymore."

  "What do the other ships in the squadron have to say about that?"

  "They've passed beyond the direct communication range," answered Tigh.

  The commander moved for the doorway. "Let's get to the bridge," he said. "I want to check the geoscan, see if we can pick up his ship's emergency beacon signal."

  "I've already tried that and—"

  "We'll try again." Adama went striding into the corridor.

  Apollo's viper had come to rest in a clearing in a wooded area. He rechecked what his control dash had to tell him.

  "Let's see . . . atmosphere compatible . . . no breathing gear necessary . . . no dangerous radiation . . . no major pollutants in air . . ."

  Apollo sighed, leaning back in his seat and taking another long look out into the moonlit night woods.

  The trees were tall, thick with green leaves. He'd never seen trees exactly like these before, waking or sleeping.

  "Well, sir, it really looks as though this isn't a dream after all," Apollo said aloud. "So I might as well get out and take a look around."

  He unfastened his safety gear, unlocked the hatch and dropped clear of the ship. There was loamy earth, dotted with clumps of grass, underfoot. The grass was green.

  Looking up through the intertwining of leaves and branches, he scanned the night sky. The stars were in unfamiliar positions.

  Apollo shivered, even though the soft wind that was rustling through the forest was warm.

  "Next time I take a job from a mystical guy in a white suit," he told himself, "I'm going to demand more details in front."

  Turning his back on the viper, he started walking in a westerly direction.

  The woodland was dark and quiet, but from far off came faint sounds. Hums and murmurs that indicated there was a technological civilization not too far off.

  After Apollo had been trudging through the pathless forest for nearly half a centare, he began to be aware of a diffused glow showing above the tree tops. That meant he was approaching a settlement of some size, a city perhaps.

  "Might as well try to find out why I'm here," he said.

  She didn't know why she was doing this at all.

  "I should've told him to go to hell," she said as she guided the sleek, swiftly moving landcar along the curving night roadway.

  Well, actually she wasn't even certain if he was the one who'd called her. The voice had been so darn distant and faraway sounding.

  Brenda Farris shook her head. "If there's a chance he's out here, alive and well, then . . ."

  She was a slim, dark-haired young woman, pretty. As she drove she scanned the side of the roadway, hunting for some sign of him at the edge of the woods.

  "Why the devil he's out here I don't know," she said. "But then, a good many things he does don't make sense. I notice, though, that he turns to me when he wants help. And not some other . . ."

  She wasn't even certain how many other women there were.

  More than one.

  "More than a half dozen probably," murmured Brenda, watching the roadway through narrowed eyes.

  "Sometimes I'd like to kill him and then . . . there he is!"

  She punched out a parking pattern, flipped the braking toggle.

  The landcar slid to a stop just off the edge of the roadway.

  She activated the window opening device on the far side of the car. Night air, scented with the smell of damp earth and wild flowers, came rushing in.

  Apollo came walking over to her car. "Don't be alarmed," he told her, with what he hoped was an ingratiating smile. "I'd appreciate a lift to the nearest city. This may sound a bit strange, but I'm not cert—"

  "Charlie, what are you up to now?"

  "Huh?" He crouched some to look directly into the landcar at her.

  "Why are you pretending not to know me? Is this another cute trick you—"

  "What was that you just called me?"

  "Your name. Charlie Watts." With an impatient gesture she unlatched the door on his side of the landcar. "Oh, c'mon, get in, will you. We'd better talk."

  "Yep," agreed Apollo as he climbed aboard, "we'd better."

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The city looked strange, yet vaguely familiar at the same time. Apollo could guess at the functions of most of the buildings and vehicles he was seeing, but their shapes were odd. The buildings rose high and were linked with curving ramps at walkways at various levels. The structures were mostly huge panels of tinted glass and fretworks of shimmering metal. Up above the roadways and ramps, hovercraft darted from tower to tower.

  "I thought you were dead," Brenda was saying as she drove them deeper into the glittering city.

  "I'm not," he said, "apparently."

  "You were gone for weeks, Charlie, nobody knew where. Then you call me in practically the middle of the night to rush out and pick you up," she continued. "That was you who phoned me, wasn't it?"

  "Not exactly." He still wasn't quite certain who this attractive young woman was, but he had a strong hunch the mysterious John had something to do with bringing them together. "I had someone contact you."

  "Who?"

  "Just a helpful
passerby."

  She frowned over at him. "And why are you dressed like that? It looks like some sort of party costume." The girl herself was clad in a blue-and-grey jumpsuit that looked as if it might be a uniform of some kind.

  "Well," began Apollo, "my plane crashed in the—"

  "Are you hurt? Is that why you haven't gotten in touch with anyone?"

  "I'm not hurt," said Apollo, "so much as I'm . . . a bit confused."

  "I think we better get you right to a hospital," she said. "You have been sounding . . . dazed."

  "No, I'm not in need of hospital attention," he assured her. "Isn't there someplace where we can go and talk? I'm still disoriented."

  "Then a hospital is exactly—"

  "No hospital." His lasergun was in his hand, pointed at her. "I was hoping we could do this all in a friendly—"

  "Charlie, you don't have to point a gun at me to . . . What kind of gun is that, anyway?"

  "I'll explain things when we . . . By the way, what's your name?"

  The landcar shimmied some as she glanced at him. "You . . . you really don't remember?"

  "I told you, I'm unsettled and—"

  "Brenda," she said, lips thinning. "Brenda Farris. You and I are supposed to be in love. Or have you forgotten that, too?"

  "Brenda, I'll try to do the best I can to fill you in," he promised. "Now can you take us someplace where—"

  "How about my apartment?"

  He nodded. "That sounds fine."

  "You remember my apartment, don't you?"

  Apollo shook his head. "Afraid not."

  "Damn," she murmured.

  Starbuck banked his viper, muttering, "C'mon, Apollo, show up."

  Boomer's voice came out of the speaker. "I don't like to cast gloom," he said, "but we got us just barely enough fuel to finish our mission and get back home to the Galactica."

  "Where is he? Where'd he go?"

  "I hate to say it, but maybe we just aren't going to find him at all."

  "Heck, we can't quit now," insisted Starbuck, teeth grinding on his cigar. "He's out here someplace and I intend to—"

  "Might help if we could get the Galactica to come to us," mused Boomer. " 'Cept we're too far for voice communications."

  Starbuck tapped the fingers of his left hand on the control dash. "Suppose we turned on our long-range distress beacons?"

  "That'd work, but any Alliance destroyers in the vicinity'll be able to pick up the signal, too."

  "Think I'll risk it." Starbuck activated his beacon.

  "Okay, count me in, too."

  "Now we just . . . Hey! I'm getting a long-range distress signal on my long-range scanner."

  Boomer said, "So am I."

  "Got to be Apollo!"

  "But there's no possible way he could've outflown our normal scanners in so short a time as—"

  "Be that as it may," cut in Starbuck, watching the tiny throbbing dot of light on his screen, "that has got to be our wandering boy."

  There was a note of skepticism in Boomer's voice. "But it's coming from the wrong direction."

  "Even so, old chum."

  "On top of which, it's beyond the point of no return. We don't have enough fuel to get there and back."

  "Then I'll have to cross my fingers and hope the fleet picks up my beacon signal," said Starbuck. " 'Cause I'm going to find Apollo."

  "Okay, then I'm tagging along."

  "Nope, you can't," Starbuck told him.

  "I'm as anxious as you are to find the guy and—"

  "True, but you're going to have to take over command of the squadron. Our primary mission is still to track that damn destroyer to Luna Seven."

  "Suppose we lose both you and Apollo, what—"

  "Have a little faith in me," said Starbuck. "I'll find him and bring us both back. Have no fear . . . see you." His viper went into a steep bank, moving swiftly away from Boomer's ship.

  "Good luck," said Boomer.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Apollo crossed the circular living room. The sounds of the night city were muted up here in this tower apartment. There was a rectangular mirror inset in one section of the pale blue wall.

  He stopped close in front of it, touching his face. "I don't look any different," he said quietly.

  "What was that?" Brenda was standing near a low sofa, watching him.

  "Nothing, just thinking out loud."

  "You were injured in the crash, weren't you?"

  Facing her, Apollo answered, "Nope, not really."

  "Then why were you so anxious to get a look at your face?"

  "Just wanted to make sure it was the same one I started out with this morning."

  "Charlie, not much of what you've said so far makes any sense." Her frown was deepening.

  "That's something else we're going to have to discuss," he said. "You keep calling me Charlie Watts, but actually—"

  "Before we talk," she said, holding up a hand in a wait-a-minute gesture, "let me change out of my uniform." She moved toward a doorway.

  "Don't get in touch with anyone," he warned, tapping his holstered lasergun.

  Shaking her head, she said, "You ought to know me better than that, Charlie." She went through the doorway, closing the door behind her.

  Apollo crossed the room and stood listening at the shut door.

  "You can't really tell her the truth."

  Spinning suddenly around, Apollo saw the man called John sitting comfortably on the low sofa.

  "How'd you get here?" Apollo demanded. "I thought you told me nobody could see you on—"

  "They can't, you can." He tapped the side of his head. "The point is, you have to pretend you're Charlie Watts. I came to warn you not to confide anything in this young lady, since that would—"

  "Who in the hell is this Charlie Watts?"

  "Someone whose identity will get you into a governing body called the Precedium," answered the white-suited man. "You're going to tell them the truth about what's happening on Luna Seven and Paradeen."

  Apollo touched his face. "And I look just like Charlie?"

  "To them," said John.

  Brenda glanced once again at the picturephone alcove across her bedroom.

  "There is something wrong with him," she told herself. "Something seriously wrong."

  Slowly, walking like a reluctant child, she went to the alcove and sat in the chair that faced the phonescreen.

  "Charlie's played some nasty jokes on me from time to time. But nothing like this," she said. "He's not pretending he doesn't know me, he really doesn't."

  She sat with her hands folded in her lap for a moment, then sighed, leaned forward and punched out a series of numbers. The small rectangular phonescreen turned from grey to deep black.

  "Security number?" requested a bland mechanical voice.

  "800-212-1441," she reponded.

  The screen snapped to a brilliant yellow and a few seconds later a stern-faced man's image was there. "Yes, Farris?"

  "Something's happened, Brace . . ."

  "Yes, go on." His thick eyebrows and thick moustache made two nearly straight lines across his tanned face.

  "He's back."

  "Watts?"

  "Yes."

  "Where was he?"

  "I . . . I'm not certain. There was a crash and . . . he's been hurt, Brace."

  "Badly?"

  "Not physically, no, but . . . he's acting very strangely. He doesn't seem to know who I am and—"

  "We'll get a team over there right away," promised Brace. "Be careful, don't take any chances."

  "I won't."

  The phonescreen turned black, then grey.

  Apollo had been talking to John.

  "Okay," he'd said, pacing the pale blue carpeting, "I know something about what went on on Paradeen. I was there, I saw what happened."

  "I know that, which is why—"

  "Yeah, but I don't know a blinking thing about Luna Seven," Apollo told the white-suited man, halting to point at him. "If I get up
in front of this . . . what did you call, it?"

  "Precedium."

  "What can I possibly tell 'em about Luna Seven? I don't have more than a vague—"

  "What you don't know, I'll supply."

  "And they're going to fall for this dodge? I come strolling into this Precedium and say, 'Hi, folks, I'm good old Charlie Watts,' and they're all going to accept it?"

  "Yes."

  "Did he look anything like me?"

  "No, he was a handsome man."

  "Very funny, but—"

  "They'll perceive you as looking like Watts."

  "An illusion?"

  "Most things are, but we don't have time to go into that," said John. "The important thing to remember is—"

  "All right, I'll tell all I know, all you pump into me by way of information," conceded Apollo, stopping his pacing in the vicinity of the sofa. "But if I get the feeling you're abandoning me, I'll tell the truth."

  John's smile spread slowly and then vanished. "This culture isn't very different from the ones you know, Apollo. If you tell them about me, they'll merely assume you're crazy and lock you up."

  Apollo scratched his ribs and thought about that. "You're not kidding about that, that nobody but me can see you?"

  "Only you."

  "What a treat." He sat down next to the white-suited man. "Explain to me again why I'm putting on this show."

  "We're helping not just these people, but yours as well."

  "Fine, but I need a heck of a lot more details than—"

  "I'm not at all certain I can work that way."

  "You darn well better find out, old buddy. I want to be sure whose side you're on before I—"

  "I'm on your side, Charlie," said Brenda from the doorway of her bedroom. "You know that."

  Apollo looked from her to John. "Can't see you?"

  "Not at all."

  "Or hear you?"

  John shook his head. "As far as the young lady is concerned, I'm not here."

  "I wouldn't mind being in her position."

  Brenda came over to him, took his hand and started to seat herself next to him. "Is something—"

  "Watch it, you'll plump right down on his lap if . . . That is . . . That's a very pretty dress."

  "You bought it for me."

  "Did I? Well, it just goes to prove that I have excellent taste."