Battlestar Galactica: Hunger
Virtual Season 4, Episode 11
By Senmut
July 6, 2019

 From the Adama Journals:
 
     It has now been two sectons, since the events surrounding the escape
of Chakra, and his attempt to kill several people in Life Station, in a
terroristic action, over the reconstructive surgery performed upon
Lieutenant Bojay. While no further evidence has come to light, that would
stand up in any court, despite a surreptitious search of her billet, I
remain convinced that Siress Lydia, who had arranged for Chakra's
work-release from the Prison Barge, as part of her much-vaunted
work-rehabilitation program, was behind the affair. Her repeated hints
and insinuations, that Chakra's actions were somehow the result of a lack
of leadership on my part, while not unexpected, were nonetheless more
vociferous than I had anticipated. It was only the counterarguments, of
Shires Shanbour and Clement, as well as Siress Tinia, in my defense, that
saved the day. Lydia's hateful, almost murderous glare, and the odd,
almost voyeuristic fashion in which she observed me throughout the
hearings, tell me that she is indeed involved, and perhaps far more
deeply, than I had at first suspected. Fortunately, at least for the
present, the Council has found no grounds for any sort of censure of
myself, though the prisoner release program has been cancelled, until
further notice. Lydia herself received a mild rebuke, but no more. And
with the benefit of much needed hindsight, I will admit that the one
mistake I can claim for myself in this affair, is my failure to put
Chakra with the bulk of violent criminals who elected to go with the Il
Fadim on that planet we marooned them on. Perhaps if that had happened,
Lydia wouldn't have had a target to utilize for her machinations.
     If there is one advantage from this, I think may be that Lydia is
more apt to go back to lying low for the time being, looking for any
further incident to exploit. She only has to remember what happened to
her ex-lover Sire Antipas, and how he ended up in the Prison Barge with a
twenty yahren sentence for termination before he chose to be marooned
with the Il Fadim since Antipas represented the danger of crossing the
line too far. If anything, I expect Lydia to be more openly supportive of
any actions I decide on in the near-term, because that will re-establish
her credentials with the people of the Fleet as a whole that she is not
motivated by any blind partisan opposition to my leadership. And when she
does, I will, in the interests of politics and statesmanship, give her a
fake smile and thank her for her support. Because I know that I can not
appear to be needlessly antagonistic towards her in return. That's how
the game works. Dirty as it is, but it's required of all who choose to
become involved in politics. I may even find myself, in the interests of
good diplomacy, admonishing Commander Byrne not to constantly bad-mouth
Lydia to the rest of his fellow Earth natives. However sincerely and
justifiably such sentiments are, they don't make my job any easier.
    As for Chakra himself, it is possible, indeed probable, that he will
never stand tribunal for his crimes. While his guilt would easily be
proven, his mental state is another matter. Whatever drugs, and or
conditioning he was given, have left him with serious brain damage, his
mind a near-total wreck. He babbles endlessly, and incoherently, about
virtually anything and everything, from his childhood to Siress Lydia's
hair color. Some of his ramblings about her sexual encounters with him,
while graphic and detailed, can hardly be admitted into evidence, given
his mental state. Therapist Tarnia, as well as Doctors Paye and Wilker,
have thoroughly examined him, both neurologically as well as
psychologically, and hold out little hope that the man will ever regain
his sanity. He is currently being housed aboard the mental ship, along
with the tragedy that is Sergeant Mattoon, who has remained in a
catatonic state ever since he attempted something similar, but without
any outside assistance other than his own personal demons.
     As for Lieutenant Bojay, whose injuries, and now bodily
reconstruction, with Cylon-manufactured limbs, set this whole episode in
motion, he continues to make great strides in his recovery. Not only has
his vision been restored to flight status standards, but the prosthetic
left arm with which he was fitted has performed well, indeed surpassing
the expectations of the medical staff. Since then, he has undergone
additional surgeries, and his new legs are being fitted today. Once he is
clear of LifeStation, it is the desire of both he, his fianc‚ Agro Tech
Gayla, and several fellow Warriors, to proceed with his long-interrupted
sealing ceremony. My grudging thanks to Baltar, and his wife, for the
both the Cylon units, as well as the idea...
     No, strike that.   I cannot continue to speak of Baltar in such
terms by sheer instinct when after nearly one yahren, the D‚tente
continues to be a total success for us, and I must be willing to
recognize, and respect, that Baltar, enigma that he is and always will
be, has been kept in check thanks to the presence of Ayesha. I noticed
recently that when Starbuck returned from his most recent inspection of
the BaseShip as liaison officer, how his attitude toward the woman who
might have been his stepmother was noticeably.....different. As though
perhaps he has come to an understanding in his heart as to why she was
compelled to a path in life that she never intended or asked for.
But....which has to be acknowledged, has served a purpose for the greater
good of us all. If that continues.....then why must I begrudge the good
that has come from Baltar?     
     If I struggle still with the enigma of Baltar, I can not say the
same of our new and unlooked-for surgeon, the former BaseShip Commander
and IL Series Cylon, Septimus. His rebuilding and reactivation,
accompanied by the assimilation of our medical data with Cylon
technology, made possible the rebuilding of Bojay's savaged body, and
with far greater facility than could have been achieved, even back home
in the Colonies. This fusion, of Human and Cylon, has, I am told by
Doctor Salik, opened new avenues of research, into several areas of
reconstructive medicine. I hope that it proves to be so, as the d‚tente
with the renegade Cylons seems to have once more born fruit. Were he
Human, Septimus would certainly warrant a commendation at the very least.
But, as a Cylon, that is without precedent. However, he does deserve to
be rewarded, in some fashion, having shown not only his considerable
abilities, never thought of in a Cylon, but for his acceptance of the
Colonial Nation. Well, we shall see.
     As I shall, with Lydia. This cannot continue.
     Adama set the microphone backing it's place, then after a moment,
switched it back on.
     Final items. Dr. Wilker, Technician Hummer and Sergeant Komma
continue to study the matter of that computer virus program that caused
such havoc with our systems recently.     Despite their best efforts, the
root cause of why that happened remains unknown. I will not be completely
at peace in my mind until we have a firm answer on why that happened,
because this is the kind of situation which we are always least prepared
for. It is easier for the Galactica to be able to defend herself against
the attack forces of enemy vessels than it is from some unknown internal
danger, that may not even be the result of an enemy intelligence.
    And finally.......there is the matter I hesitate to talk of even to
myself in this journal that concerns.....dreams. Dreams of an identical
nature that have been experienced by myself and Sheba. Of seeing........


     Abruptly, Adama stopped. For the first time in his memory, he found
himself unable to continue with a journal entry as he set his microphone
down once more, and switched the recorder off. Even now, more than a
secton since it had happened, and despite the outward calm he had
demonstrated to Apollo and Sheba at the dinner gathering that night, it
was still hard for him inside to grasp what the dream.....or was it a
vision?......could possibly mean.    Being on the Pegasus and suddenly
seeing somehow inside a shuttle.....
     "Her name is Ila."
     As a man of the deepest faith and trust in the Lords and how they
could work their power, he wanted to believe there was something to it.
And yet.....how could it be? It was simply too staggering for his mind to
contemplate. Not when he had walked through the ruins of their house that
night and instinctively seemed to know, and feel, in his heart that this
was where she would have been. He hadn't needed to see a body. If he had
been wrong.....
     Enough, he thought. He couldn't dwell on this endlessly. It could
only make him look weak. The last thing he could let his friends.....and
especially his enemies like Lydia ever see.

 Chapter One 

     "And...there," said Septimus, former Base Commander and IL Series
Cylon, as the prosthetic leg was snapped into place. Snap went the
junction, and almost at once Bojay could "feel" the new limb. "How does
it feel?"
     "It feels...it feels real," said Bojay.  He flexed the metal toes of
his new right leg. "I mean it feels like the real deal, Septimus."
     "It should," replied the IL. "According to the medical sensors, your
nerves are receiving impulses virtually identical to those from an
organic limb." The IL touched the limb with a small probe, and Bojay
pulled back with an "ow!" "Your reflex arc is also responding according
to your medically-defined Human norms."
     "Sure felt real!"
     "For all intents and purposes, it was. The nerve impulse made it's
normal circuit, through your spinal column and back to the leg, and the
new leg moved, as if it were organic."
     "Well, I don't pretend to understand it," said the Viper pilot, "but
it sure feels great to know I'm functional." He looked at his left arm,
now sheathed in the artificial skin. It looked and moved much like his
old one. Even the pattern of "blood vessels" under the skin, as well as
the variation in skin tones and feelings of warmth, had been duplicated,
making the restoration even more perfect.
     "Are you ready to try your weight, now?" asked Cassiopeia, checking
the instruments.
     "Sure am," said Bojay, looking up as his fianc‚, Gayla, entered the
ward.
     "Sorry I'm late," she breathed. "Bo?"
     "Just in time, Gay," he said, and with no help but his own, he
turned on the bed, and lowered his new feet to the floor. "Chilly. Funny,
I never noticed that, before." He slid off the edge of the bed, and
tested his new feet. All seemed well, so he leaned forward, till he was
entirely supported by the Cylon limbs. They seemed to wobble a bit, but
Septimus told him that this was merely the inner mechanisms coming
on-line, and adjusting to what their sensors told them. Given some time,
they would self-calibrate, and he would be able to walk without
difficulty.
     "It's...it's great, to see you back on your feet again, Bo," she
said, sniffing back a tear. "I mean, really."
     "Why are you secreting lacerable fluid from your eyes, may I ask?"
asked Septimus, noticing her tears. "That, and I detect that your
breathing has altered, since entering. How is this..."
     "Hey, Bojay!" said a loud voice, and they turned to see Starbuck
make a grand entrance. "Good to see you back to normal." He looked down
at Bojay's new, as yet exposed legs. "Lords, you really need to get some
sun on those, Bojay!"
     "Starbuck!" sighed Cassie, loudly. "Just once. Just once!"
     "We're getting things all set up, Bo," said Starbuck, tossing her a
sly grin. "Boomer and Giles are out, getting a few last-centon things.
We'll be ready. Just as soon as you are."
     "Great, Starbuck." Bojay looked at his doctors. "What about it,
Docs? Will I be ready?"   
     "I would say yes," replied Septimus, running another diagnostic on
the prosthetics. "Everything is well within nominal readings, Lieutenant.
You will need periodic checks, as well as physical therapy, for as long
as your physician deems it needful. But, you are in all essentials, well
again."
     "When do I get my new skin?" Bojay asked.
     "It should be ready, tomorrow, Lieutenant," said Salik. "As soon as
you are cleared one-hundred percent, we can begin the application."
     "Great, Doc." He looked at Gayla. "Can't get sealed without my skin,
now can I?"
     "No, hardly," finished Gayla, planting a kiss on his nose. The
Humans all laughed.
     Septimus just shook his head.
     Humans!

     Aboard the Yarborough, 02:43 centars during the ship's night cycle.
    Technician Zel had just logged off his shift, and was looking forward
to getting back to his billet. It had been a long day, performing
maintenance, checking maintenance logs, and generally keeping this old
bucket running at something resembling the way she had when she had first
come out of the shipyard. He was tired.
    Zel moved along the maintenance corridor that ran under the main deck
of the Yarborough, heading back towards the turboshaft, leading back up
the living quarters. It would be good to get a last bite, and crawl into
his bunk. After all, tomorrow was another day, and there were checks
aplenty to be performed, both here, and on the Tip Barge. And Lords of
Kobol help whomever the Commander's wrath fell on if they were late! He
had reached the lift doors, when he heard something. A cry, and a loud
thud, off to his left, down the other companionway. He headed that way,
brows furrowed.
    "Hello?" he called, shining his light down the corridor. "Anyone
there?" He took out his scanner, and pointed it ahead. No life forms
registering. At least...
    "Ahh!" cried a voice, and he rounded a corner, to see someone, a
woman, rising from the deck. He looked at his scanner.
    "Are you alright?" he asked. She was trim and attractive, and dressed
in civilian clothes. Brunette, tall, and with oddly piercing eyes.
    "Oh yes," she said, though her accent was unfamiliar to him. "I
am...alright."
    "You're not hurt?" he asked, moving closer. You're sure? You had a
fall."
    "I shall be fine, soon," she said, and looked hard at him. Almost
without thinking, Zel felt a deep attraction to this woman. Not that this
was anything unusual. He was sometimes, though never to his face,
referred to as "ship's stud". The sort of man who never found female
companionship hard to get. He at once felt an almost magnetic pull from
this woman.
    "How in..." he tried to say, but the woman, smiling a smile that
could have won her prizes, moved closer, and put her arms around him,
pressing her lips to his. He at once felt as if he were enveloped in
chains of sweet desire. Chains he could not, and after a few microns, did
not want to escape. Some last niggling thought about the scanner readings
still made itself felt, but soon, he forgot all that. Forgot about work,
forgot about getting back to his billet, forgot about everything.
    It was a tough job, Zel's, but he did it well, and he took pride in
it. Zel was a good tech, a good worker, and a loyal friend, to those who
knew him well.
    At least that is what several friends and acquaintances would say
about him at his funeral.
    "Wait a centon! You're..."
    A truly blood-chilling scream ripped through the quiet of the ship. A
shriek, followed by a horrified scream. 
    "Nooooooooo!!!!!!"
    The crawlway was silent, once more.   


     "What do we have?" asked Adama, standing over the corpse, aboard the
Yarborough. Or rather, corpses.   
     "This is Zel," said Paulson, from Security. He consulted his data
pad. "According to his file, he was the Second Junior Technician, here
aboard the Yarborough. He logged off his shift last night, at 02:40
centars, and that was the last anyone heard from him, Commander."
     "He didn't log in for shift, this morning," said Wallach, the ship's
Captain. "There was a meeting scheduled, for all ship's maintenance and
engineering staff. When he didn't show up, I sent one of the other techs
to find him."
     "He wasn't in his quarters, sir," said Musa, the ship's Chief
Engineer. "I checked, and he had never logged back into the crew section,
so I put out a call. We found him down here."
     "Who found the body?" asked Adama.
     "I did, sir," replied Musa. "This was after all the last place we
knew he'd been."
     "Doctor?" the Commander asked Cassiopeia. 
     "It's strange, Commander. According to his medical history, Zel was
in top physical shape. No indications of disability or disease, no
injuries or trauma. No drugs in his system from what I can tell, here."
     "But?"
     "But..." she sighed. "His heart stopped. Just stopped cold. I won't
know why, until we get him back for autopsy."
     "And her?" Adama asked, looking down at the second body.
     "That's where this gets very weird, sir. We have a female,
approximate age about thirty yahrens. Seemingly healthy when she died, as
well. Time of death, though..."
     "What about it?"
     "From the body temperature and degree of rigor, I'd say she died
about twenty centars ago. That's just an estimate, until we get her back
to LifeStation." She saw his next question coming. "But Zel...he's only
been dead less than ten, sir." She saw the question cross his face. "Yes.
And, to make it even stranger, Commander, she died of a fractured skull."
She lifted the woman's head gently, and indicated the spot. "A sharp
blow, I'd say. Depressed fracture, bone chip right into the brain. She
would have died within a centon or less."
     "Any identification on her?" Adama asked Paulson.
     "Not yet, Commander. She had nothing on her, except her dress. No ID
ducat or purse. No personalized jewelry. Nothing. Once we get her
biometrics, we'll run them through Security."
     "And no sign of sexual contact, either," said Cassie. "Nothing."
     "Very well, get them back to the Galactica, and keep me informed.
I'll be in session with the Council, much of the morning."
     "Yes, Commander."
     "And try and keep this quiet. No talking about it."
     "Yes, sir."


     "How is it going?" asked Academician Herodotus, former head of the
Libran State Antiquities Museon, in the small study room aboard the
Akrabi. Built on, and operated out of, Libra, the ship had served in
numerous capacities over the course of her hundred or so yahren lifetime,
until her refurbishment as a mid-priced passenger ship a few sectars
before the Holocaust. Now, she housed the bulk of the Libran survivors,
as well as what remained of the treasures, salvaged from the Museon, as
well as other, mostly private, collections, in the mad rush to escape the
Destruction of the Colonies. 
     "Slow, Professor," replied Hesiod, his old student, "research
assistant", and friend. Since the recovery of every possible item of
Libran heritage, both men had been plodding along, re-cataloguing,
restoring, and translating what remained of Libran material culture, from
the earliest days of Settlement, after the Exodus from Kobol, until the
unification of the planet, under the Khonshu Hegemony, at the beginning
of the Fourth Millenium. It was slow, tedious work, but both men loved
it, being deep into their element. Herodotus moved to the java dispenser,
and got a cup. Yes, Hesiod would have one as well, thank you. He took it,
never looking up from his work. 
     "The Naqena Scroll?" asked the middle-aged academic, leaning over to
get a better look at his one-time graduate student's work.
     "Yes, sir. What remains of it."
     "Yes, it was in pretty sad shape," replied Herodotus. "It's a
miracle it was even found."
     "Or survived, after all the things that Jabez stole, and managed to
lose forever."
     "An incalculable loss, yes. It grieves me just to think about it"
Herodotus shook his head sadly. The Naqena Scroll had been part of a vast
collection of artifacts stolen several years before the Destruction in a
theft masterminded by the now-disgraced Sire Antipas. The underlings who
had carried out the theft had kept their portions safely hidden for
yahrens until slowly, the conspiracy had unraveled. In this case, the
Scroll had been part of the stash taken by an underling named Jabez. As
the conspiracy had collapsed, Sire Antipas had used his bodyguard to
sabotage Jabez's quarters and destroy all traces of what his underling
had kept hidden. In the end, very little was left from the "Jabez stash"
as Herodotus referred to it to keep things properly inventoried. "So, how
goes the translation?"
     "Well, even with the multi-spectral imaging, a few of the symbols
are questionable, sir. And the dialect is quite unusual. I'm having
trouble making full sense of some of these ideograms."
     "All Pre-Neferite?"
     "Yes. But at least whoever wrote it wasn't sloppy. It's almost
copy-book perfect, what I can get of it. Every symbol. That helps, some."
     "Hhmm...let's see what you have, Hesiod." Herodotus peered closer,
adjusting his antique pince-nez glasses. "Shall...well, that's an
auspicious beginning," he teased. "Uh..abyss...withhold...terror...from
their flesh..."
     "Yes."
     "Sounds suitably horrible," smiled Herodotus. "Like something from
the IFB."
     "I hope we're not quite that bad, Professor," chuckled Hesiod. 
     "This is all, so far?"
     "Yes, aside from that it seems to describe some sort of ritual. Not
sure, though. The grammatical structure is very difficult. The pronouns
and verb tenses are unlike anything I have ever seen in ancient Libran
literature, Professor."
     "Well, keep at it, Hesiod. Not that there is any rush, really."
     "Hardly," yawned Hesiod.
     "If it stays stubborn, maybe we can tap Pliny or Horace for help."
     "They're both off, recording the Earth refugee languages. I
checked."
     "That will probably take some good while. You look all in," said
Herodotus.
     "Yeah. I'm beat," Hesiod yawned, rubbing his eyes. "I think I'll
turn in. I'll get back to things fresh, tomorrow."
     "You going to your friend's funeral?"
     "Zel? Yes. We were students together, before I discovered that I had
absolutely no talent for engineering. Anything you'd like me to bring you
back, from the Rising Star?"
     "Any more examples of Earth languages, from those refugees, if you
can."
     "Sure," said Hesiod, taking the ancient scroll, and slipping its
frame back into the cabinet. "Good night Professor."


     Bojay's sealing, aboard the Rising Star, was to be held there since
the liner had a more festive aire than the militarily austere Battlestar,
and the happy couple were more attune to it than the starker environs of
the Galactica. So, it was not to be wondered at that two people were
working late to set up for it. Zed, from the IFB, making sure the camera
and sound system was set up properly, giving instructions to Jona, one of
his technicians. The two spoke little, as they worked, and for her part,
Jona was ready to get out of here, and into a hot turbowash. She would
never make it.
     "What in..." exclaimed Zed, as a sudden gust of cold air blew
through the room. At first, he wondered if one of the ship's airlocks had
blown, but no. The alarms would have sounded. He coughed, as the air
momentarily turned foul. He coughed again, then heard a scream. On the
other side of the room, Jona had fallen under one of the stage lights.
She screamed again, as the light smashed, and raw electrical current
coursed through her. Zed ran for the switch, but it was too late. He
looked down, then felt for her pulse. Nothing. He tried CPR, and mouth to
mouth, but no results. He hit the alarm, then went to try and find a
MedTech.  
     "I tried CPR," he was explaining to the fellow in tow, as he ran
back into the room. "But she just..."
     "Where is she?" asked the MedTech.
     "I...what the Hades Hole? I...she was right here!" said Zed, looking
down at the floor.
     Jona was gone.
                                          
Chapter Two

     "Give that to me again," said Commander Adama, in his quarters,
brows furrowed. Doctors Salik, Cassie, and Security Deputy Paulson were
with him. "That doesn't make any sense whatsoever, Doctor. Doctors."
     "None of this does, so far, Commander," replied Salik. "We conducted
a full autopsy on both Zel, and the young woman. She died, as we thought,
of a depressed skull fracture. Zel, however, had no fractures, punctures,
laser, or any other sort of wounds. No disease, signs of radion or
poison, and he was well-nourished and seemingly healthy. What he did have
were the most elevated cardiac enzymes I have ever seen. That, and
ruptured arteries in both his heart, and brain. The cells of his heart
were, literally, exhausted, and his electrolytes were badly depleted. Our
best estimates are that his pulse reached well over two-hundred beats per
centon, and his blood pressure went into lethal levels."
     "That expression on his face," said Adama, looking at one of the
security photos of the body. "Like pure terror."
     "So, Commander," said Salik, "as unscientific as it may sound,
pending any additional information, I would have to say that Zel was,
essentially, frightened to death."
     "By what, though?" asked Adama. "The only other person there was
this woman." He looked to Paulson. "Anything on her?"
     "Finally, sir. She is...was, Makhrina, a server in one of the crew
lounges on the Yarborough. She went missing late yesterday afternoon,
ship's time."
     "Why the delay in identifying her?"
     "Well, she had no identification on her, as you know. And no one
reported her missing."
     "Her duty station?"
     "They got busy, and the proprietor decided to put it off till later.
It wasn't until after her picture went out across the Fleet that someone
thought to say anything."
     "Unconscionable," said Adama. 
     "That's not the worst of it, sir," continued Paulson. "Or the
strangest. We know exactly when she died. Just after 0900 centars."
     "How can a dead woman still be moving about, centars after she
died?" asked Adama, a bit heatedly.
     "I have no idea. But, we found her roommate, on the Yarborough. A
cook, named Iris. She said that Makhrina fell, and hit her head. She
didn't seem to be breathing, she said. She ran for the telecom in the
corridor, to call for medical aid, but it was out of order. Again. She
ran back into their cabin, but Makhrina was gone."
     "Gone?" said Adama. 
     "Yes sir. Gone. Nowhere to be found."
     "Then she can't have been dead, Sergeant."
     "I wouldn't disagree, Commander. But gone she was, according to
Iris. She assumed that her friend must have had some kind of miraculous
recovery, or just been stunned, and gone off somewhere, possibly to seek
medical attention. After all, dead people don't generally wander off. But
she was late for her shift herself, and there it lay. The next we see of
her, she's lying on the deck, next to a dead man."
     "This is becoming...I don't know what," said Adama, shaking his
head. He leaned back in his chair. "None of this is making any sense.
It's starting to sound like some sort of old-fashioned cheap holovid."
     "That's not all," said Cassiopeia. "We did swabs and such, of both
bodies. Zel and Makhrina had been kissing."
     "Kissing a dead woman?" Adama's lips curled slightly.
     "According to the saliva traces on him, yes. And, no, I do not know
how a woman, dead for several centars, could be moving around, much less
kissing someone."
     "This is incredible," said Adama. He looked to Paulson. "Something
obviously is not right, here. Everyone is to be re-questioned. Go over
every bit of evidence, again. There is something, some vital piece of
information, which we are missing, here."
     "Yes, sir. Security Chief Castor is setting up the new interviews
right now, Commander."
     "Very good. Anything else?"
     "Yes, sir, there is, but I don't see how it fits into any of this."
     "What is it?"
     "When Iris came back, and found her friend gone, she said it stank."
     "Stank? What did?"
     "The cabin, sir. She said that the whole cabin was filled with a
horrible stench."
     
     
     Aboard the Akrabi, next morning, Hesiod jerked awake, suddenly. He
felt a sudden chill run through him, as sleep fled. He looked around him,
eyes falling on his desk chrono. Damn. Gonna miss Bojay's sealing, if I
don't hurry up! Rubbing his eyes, he straightened up, popped his back,
and looked back down at his desktop. The ancient scroll he had been
working on was still there.
     He folded it up, gently, and slid it back into it's cover. As he put
it back into the vault, another chill seemed to run through him, only
this time, it was the air. The air in the room suddenly seemed cold,
indeed almost arctic. Papers and styli on the desk fluttered, and there
was, for a moment, a horrid stench. He wrinkled his nose, wondering if
one of the recyclers below decks had malfunctioned. He reached for the
comm....
     Then it was gone. The air smelled fine, and the temperature was
normal. He pondered this, wondering if he needed to call engineering,
when Herodotus poked his head in.
     "You fall asleep, again?"
     "Yeah, I guess I did, Professor. I was up, early. Couldn't sleep,
so..."
     "Well, we'll miss the shuttle, if you don't hurry. We're late as it
is."
     "Coming, Professor," said Hesiod, pulling on his jacket. He gave the
room a final backwards glance, then shrugged, and followed his chief out.


     "Pretty well attended," said Starbuck, looking out across the
assembled sealing guests. Warriors from all the Fleet's squadrons, plus
as many as could make it from other details, had the room packed.
Kalysha, wife of the Earth Captain, Allen, would provide some lovely
warbling, and the ambrosia was, of course, flowing freely. Many of the
recently liberated refugees from Earth were here as well, and Starbuck
felt right at home.
     Once the reception had begun, that is. The actual Sealing itself
made him fidget. Cassie's jab to the ribs, notwithstanding.
     "I should think so," said Athena, Starbuck's one-time love interest,
and now wife of Boomer. "It's not often we get to celebrate something
this good."
     "You mean a sealing? Hey, we've had a good share of them. First
Apollo and Sheba, then you and Boomer. Bojay and Gayla makes this a
record for me!
     "It's not just that. There's that, but also Bojay's recovery, Gayla
finally getting over Twilly, and all the Earth folks to be welcomed and
woven into the fabric of our society." She popped a mushie into her
mouth. "It's all good, Starbuck."
     "Athena, my dear, you are becoming a philosopher in your old age,"
smiled the other.
     "If I'm old, Starbuck," she said, turning to glare at him, "then you
are positively ancient."
     "Ha!" laughed Chameleon, behind Starbuck.
     "Me?" he asked, all surprise and innocence. "Ancient? Well, I'm..."
     "Right up there with the Lords of Kobol," said Boomer, suddenly
behind him. "Every last mummified one of them."
     "Oh, you guys are just sweet," said Starbuck. "Sweet, I tell you."
     "Aren't they just?" said Apollo, next to Boomer. "And you deserve
every word of it, Starbuck."
     "Twist, Apollo. Just twist as you pull the dagger out."
     "Oh I will, Starbuck," smiled Apollo. "I will."
     "That I can believe." He looked up at the stage. "Oh hey, she's
starting."
     They looked towards the stage, where Kalysha was getting into her
next number.
     "What is it?" asked Athena.
     "Not sure. Some tune from Earth, I think," said Chameleon. "She sure
sings well." 

     Somewhere there's music
     How faint the tune
     Somewhere there's heaven
     How high the Moon
     There is no moon above
     When love is far away too
     Till it comes true
     That you love me as I love you


     "She could sell out the entire clientele at The Eruption, on Cordugo
Pit," said Athena. 
     "I told her that," said Starbuck.
     "And she turned down your offer to be her manager," said Apollo.
     "Yeah. How'd you know I..."
     "You're Starbuck," said Apollo.
     "Told ya, son," smiled Chameleon, with a grin.

     Somewhere there's music
     How near, how far
     Somewhere there's Heaven
     It's where you are
     The darkest night would shine
     If you would come to me soon
     Until you will, how still my heart
     How high the Moon

     
     "You know," said Gayla, coming over, newly-minted husband at her
side, "I never thought of non-Humans as being musical."
     "Well, Kalysha's species is actually an amalgam of Human and alien
DNA," said Cassie.
     "Really?" said Bojay, perusing the available bakemeats. "What
aliens?"
     "No one knows, not even her people," replied Cassie. "In fact, it
isn't just the Harkaelians, but the Z..."
     She was cut off by a piercing scream, from somewhere above them. She
looked up, and saw movement overhead, in the ceiling of the  lounge.
Then, there was another scream, a closer one, as something fell from
above, to crash onto the buffet table. A moment later, there was another,
and people ran scattering from the impact zone.
     "What the Lords...!" said Bojay, as they got a good look. Before
them, face down in the mushie paste, was a body. A man's, contorted and
twitching. Athwart him was a woman's body, face up, eyes staring into
oblivion. Cassie went into "doctor" mode, and looked for signs of life. 
     "Here," said Starbuck, tossing her a scanner from the lounge's First
Aid kit. She swept both, and they watched as she determinedly tried to
resuscitate both victims with a defibrillator. But, after several
centons, it was obvious they were beyond help. She shook her head, and
handed the unit back to Starbuck. She looked up, as Commander Adama came
over.
     "Both dead, sir," she reported, as his eyes took in the sight.
"Massive cranial trauma, and multiple fractures. Unresponsive to
cardio-stimulation."
     "Who are they?" he asked.
     "I..."she began.
     "Holy Lords!" said a voice and they all turned around. It was Zed,
from the IFB. "It's..."
     "Yes?" said Adama, all Commander now. "You know them?"
     "It's my technician. Jona!"

Chapter Three

     "Same as before, Commander," said Salik, in the LifeStation autopsy
room. "He died of the same thing as Zel. Massive coronary and cerebral
arterial ruptures, accompanied by hugely elevated cardiac enzymes.
Coagulation of protein. Massive brain damage. Also multiple fractures and
internal injuries, from the fall."
     "Meaning he was...scared to death?"
     "Basically," said Salik, clearly uncomfortable with so...unfocused a
result. "And yes, as with the others, there are saliva traces on him."
     "Identity?" asked Adama, of the man.
     "Neron, one of the techs working the lounge, for the Sealing and
reception," replied Security Chief Castor. "I'm waiting for a full
background on him. So far, except that he has been a member of the Rising
Star's crew for the last nine yahrens, there's nothing that stands out."
     "Find out if he knew her. And what about her, Doctor?" asked Adama,
indicating the dead woman.
     "Jona, one of the IFB technicians," replied Salik. "As with Neron,
multiple fractures and internal injuries, sustained in the fall." 
     "But?"
     "But," sighed the CMO, "She was dead, already." He indicated
scorched areas of clothing, and burns on her face and hands. "She died by
electrocution, Commander. See the burns, here? Huge amounts of raw
current ripped through her."
     "When and where?" asked the Commander.


     "Last night," said Zed, of IFB. They were in the Galactica's
security office, along with Cassie, Salik, and Security Chief Castor. "We
were setting up, for the ceremony, when I heard a crash. One of the stage
lights had fallen on her, and she was screaming." He related the entire
incident, and Adama shook his head.
     "What about a security report?"
     "Ships security on the Rising Star was contacted, sir," said Castor.
"But when they couldn't find a body, they didn't pursue it." Adama
withheld comment, and Castor continued. "But we have a video scan of the
incident, sir. The lounge security cameras were undergoing automated
diagnostic tests, prior to the Sealing, and we have it on tape." 
     "Let's see it," said the Commander.
     Castor slid the recording into the computer, and they watched. Jona
was working on setting up the sound system, and Zed was out of the shot.
There was a burst of static on the screen, then it cleared, as one of
overhead light arrays suddenly fell, directly on Jona. She screamed, as
the power ripped through her, thrashing madly. Zed rushed to her, after
cutting the power, and pulled the light away. He felt for her pulse and
tried to revive her. Unsuccessful, he left, returning a couple of centons
later, with the Medtech. But not before...
     "What by all the Lords of Kobol?" he exclaimed, as they watched the
scan. As soon as Zed was gone, Jona rose up off the floor, slowly
straightening up. More static and snow filled the screen, and the
electrocuted woman began to walk, but unsteadily, as if the action was
difficult, or unfamiliar. She looked around the room, then looked up,
directly at the camera. She slowly raised one hand, finger pointed at the
pickup, then turned suddenly, towards the hatchway. With a speed utterly
unbelievable, she blurred, and was gone. Zed and the Medtech rushed in...
     "I tried CPR. But she just..."
     "Where is she?"
     "That's it, Commander," said Castor. "We only have this, because the
computer reported one of the cameras had failed."
     "What in God's name did I just see?" asked Adama. "A woman, dead
from massive electrical shock, gets up, and leaves?"
     "I saw it too, sir," said Castor, "and I don't get it, either."
     "I want that scan analyzed, Castor," said Adama. "Every test
imaginable. That way she just seemed to...vanish."
     "I'll send it to Doctor Wilker's lab at once, sir."
     "Very well," said Adama. "Dismissed." He watched Castor go,
recording in hand, then turned to the medical staff. "What else?"
     "I honestly don't understand it, sir," said Cassie. "Now, we need to
do more tests, but that woman...she was dead before she fell."  
     "Go on."
     "Yet...well, electrocution leaves unmistakable traces in the
tissues, Commander. Changes in blood chemistry, protein coagulation,
rupturing of cell membranes. All the classic signs. Yet, after she was
dead, there was some sort of brain activity."
     "Brain activity? How can you know that?"
     "She got up, and walked. She raised an arm. She rotated her eyes, to
look at that camera. Muscles don't do that without impulses from the
brain. Yet, with all that damage, that should be impossible. Is
impossible". She shook her head again.
     "This is ghoulish," said Adama. "Four deaths, and two of the victims
already dead when it happened. This is insane."
     "Insane it is," said Cassie. "And totally outside every law of
science and biology known to me, Commander."
     "What do we do when it happens again?" asked Salik.
     "How could we even prepare for it, if it does?" asked Adama. Neither
medico had any answer.  


     For the next two days, though, there were no further deaths. The
Fleet continued along the Epsilon Vector 22 course given it by the
mysterious Beings of Light, without incident. Patrols were launched and
returned, no space vehicles of any sort were encountered, especially none
thankfully from their most recent adversary, the Risik. Two primitive
civilizations were detected (and left alone), and maintenance on the
Fleet's vessels went on apace (though to the irritation of Adama, Wilker,
Hummer and Komma still couldn't offer an answer on the matter of the
recent virus problem that had affected the Galactica). In short, life
continued for the survivors of the Colonies, much as it had since fleeing
known space. While Adama had filled Tigh and certain select officers in
on recent events, and Security was on the alert for any disappearances or
other unusual happenings, it seemed as if whatever it was had run it's
course, and that the bizarre and ghoulish deaths were at an end.
     But they were no closer to solving the deaths of Zel, and the
others. The funerals were held, eulogies said, but nothing more was
forthcoming. Adama held his breath.


     "How are things?" asked Hesiod, relaxing a bit in one of the Rising
Star's less top-shelf lounges. 
     "Oh, about the same," said Pliny, the linguist who had worked on
"The Silent One's" journal. Of their somewhat rarified calling, there
were few among the refugees, and they formed a tight-knit group. "Wading
in to the Earth languages. It's turning out to be quite a diverse field."
     "Descended from the basic Kobollian roots, surely," said Hesiod.
"Like our own language families."
     "You'd have thought so," said Pliny, as the waiter brought their
drinks, one of the lesser brands of Skorpian ale. "But some of what I'm
getting shows absolutely no connection with the Kobollian mother tongue.
At least none that I can find. Earth's linguistic terrain is divided into
several language families, some showing no connection whatsoever with
each other. But so far, no link that I can indisputably show with Kobol."
     "Weird."
     "Very."
     "Too bad you don't have any written material to work with," said his
friend. 
     "Actually, we do. One of the refugees, a spiritual practitioner
named...uh, Father Fisher, had a small printed book that he somehow
managed to keep hold of during his captivity. He's allowed me to scan it,
and we're working on the language."
     "Well, send it on, and I'll have a look at it. Once I'm through with
our current project."
     "I will. You know, it seems really odd, if Earth is descended from
the Thirteenth Tribe, that their languages don't reflect that. There
isn't a sub-culture from the Colonies that can't trace its tongue back,
at least to some degree."
     "Yet, there it is." Pliny took a pull on his drink. His face
wrinkled a bit. "You know, I swear Starbuck somehow manages to keep the
good brews for himself."
     "He and his father sure seem to know where the good stuff can be
found, and no mistake."
     "And the best pyramid cards, as well. I've learned my lesson, never
to play cards with that man."
     "Or his father!"
     "You, too?" They both laughed. "So, what about your little project?"
     "Those old manuscripts and inscriptions? What's left, you mean,
after Jabez and his antics. Yeah, I'm plugging away. When we do finally
settle and start to rebuild, the Librans will have at least some of their
cultural heritage remaining to call their own."
     "Anything new? Any surprises?" asked Pliny.
     "Well, I've been trying to crack this one scroll. The Naqada Scroll.
It's very old, and in lousy shape."
     "How old?"
     "At least the beginning of the Khonshu Hegemony, on Libra. Possibly
even earlier."
     "Lords, you don't pick the simple ones, do you?" smiled Pliny. 
     "No guts, no glory."
     "Hey, no Starbuck impressions." They both chuckled. "So, what do you
have so far? Or do you?"
     Hesiod launched into his researches, explaining the state of the
manuscript, what he had so far, and the difficulties he was encountering,
in making full sense of the document.
     "In fact, if you can ever spare some time, I wouldn't mind an extra
pair of eyes, Plin," Hesiod told him. "I really want to getbthos fully
done. I feel kind of...well, pressed, almost, to work on it."
     "Tough spot?"
     "Well, I've never encountered examples of Libran textual material,
from any period, quite like this. It has had quite a while to develop
from the ancestral dialect on Kobol. It seems to fit in with the Western
Khenet sub-family, at least on the surface, but whoever wrote this was
either semi-illiterate, since some of the characters I have never seen
before, or we've encountered a previously unknown Libran variant."
     "Well, I'll try, sure. Any clue as to what it says?"
     "Some sort of ceremony, I think. Whether it's worship, or a sealing,
or even a funeral, I'm not certain yet. It keeps referring to 'she', and
'her chosen'." He shrugged. "I'm kind of at an impasse."
     "Which word is the problem?"
     "Hetep", he said. "Chosen, or good thing in Ancient Libran. But I'm
missing something."
     "Huh," said Pliny. "I remember something a bit like that, in an old
tomb inscription, from Phaistos, on Cancera. There was a similar word.
Eteph."
     "Sounds like it could be linked," nodded Hesiod. "A cognate. What
did you get?"
     "Aside from chosen, or desired, it had another meaning. Sacrifice."


     Paulson was at an impasse. Everyone involved in the recent deaths
had been re-questioned, evidence gone over again, time-lines reviewed.
Each and every piece of forensic evidence was compared, and compared
again. It all came out the same. Each and every victim met their end...
     Only they didn't! Dead people do not just get up, and wander off to
be found with other dead people. And certainly not electrocuted ones!
Yet, here, despite every bit of logic and experience he had, along with
every member of the Security Section, that is precisely what happened to
the women.
     Curious, he told himself. In each case so far, it was the woman who
had died, sometimes centars, before the man had. Was this just
happenstance, or did it betoken something else? The key to the mystery.
The key...
    "They were lured to their deaths," he said aloud. "Private places. No
witnesses. Lured into...into what?" He rubbed his eyes, and raised his
java cup to his lips. It was empty. "Aw, Lords of Kobol. None of this
makes a damned bit of sense."


     "Ama?" said a voice. It did not at first penetrate, and the girl had
to call again.
     "Yes, Dear Heart?" said the Empyrean Eldress and Wise Woman.
"Forgive me, I was lost in contemplation." It was late in the "night"
aboard the Empryrean ship, Malocchio, and an endless sea of candles lit
her chambers. 
     "Is something wrong?"
     "Wrong, Lia?" Ama's eyebrows arched as she had been sensing just
that. "Whatever do you mean?"
     Oh I wish you wouldn't do that!
     "I'm not sure. But something feels...wrong."
     "Wrong? How, Lia?" asked the older woman. She rose, and made space
for the girl next to her. "Here. Sit, and tell me."
     "I had a terrible dream, Ama. It woke me."
     She placed an arm around the girl, drawing her closer. "Tell me your
dream, Lia."
     "I...I saw a book."
     "A book? Books are not frightening, Lia."
     "This one was."
     "Tell me more," Ama said gently. She placed an arm around the girl,
pouring a cup of cold water for her acolyte, and godddaughter. She held
her open hand over it palm down, rotating it deosil, to the right, to
heat the contents.  Then she added her favorite concoction of dried herbs
and roots to help ease the girl's anxiety. 
     "It was dark, and I saw a book." Lia took a small sip of the herbal
tea, closing her eyes briefly and savoring the taste. "Like the old books
we had on Empyrean. Paper, and bound with hides. It was dark, and rotted,
and it had a voice."
     "A voice? You mean it spoke to you?"
     "No. Well, not really. I don't know," the girl said, still unsettled
and confused. She took another sip as she thought about it. "It was as if
it had a voice, but in my mind, not my ears. A voice, like out of a pit,
or in torment."
     "What did it say?" asked Ama.
     "I'm not sure. It seemed as if it said 'give... give', but I do not
know what. It felt evil, Ama. Dark and cold, and...and it hungered.
Like...like it wanted to consume me." The girl leaned close, and Ama
could feel her shudder. She put her arm around her again, smoothing her
long hair. 
     "Then?" 
     "Then there was a horrid stench from it, and for a moment, I could
feel hands on me. Evil, icy hands. Then it was gone. There was only
darkness, and a terrible cold. Then I awoke."
     "Do not let it worry you, Lia," said Ama, putting down the tea cup,
embracing the girl, and patting her on the shoulder tenderly. "It was
just a dream. It cannot harm you."
     "But it felt so...so real. It..."
     "Relax, Lia. Calm yourself." She pulled back slightly, touching
their foreheads together.  Through this physical connection she lent the
child her strength and confidence even as she probed the recesses of her
essence, searching for any filthy trace of this being that had touched
her goddaughter's spirit. Finally, as the combination of herbal tea and
mystical energy calmed the girl, Ama gathered her to her bosom. She
stroked the girl's hair, humming an ancient lullaby to her, as her own
mother had to her when she was troubled, tell she felt the girl's frame
relax, and her breathing ease. Slowly, she shifted her weight, allowing
Lia to rest on the couch.
     Disturbing! She feels it, too!
     Ama got up, and poured herself a libation, Empyrean Ale, something a
bit more fortifying than water. She sipped, and looked back at the
sleeping girl. Lia's perceptions had grown much, since they had joined
the Colonial Fleet. She had embraced the responsibility of guiding the
girl, as she had herself been guided, when she had been even younger than
Lia. 
     By the Aethers! That was a long time ago! 
     But Lia was right. There was something, emphasis on thing, that was
making itself felt. Something evil. It was an elusive and dark energy
that she didn't recognize, but regardless she understood something of its
nature. She hadn't been meditating long, when the girl had come to her.
She had had a similar dream, herself, and it had disturbed her. Greatly.
She had been trying to plumb it's meaning, but it was elusive. But
something, something malignant, was moving among them. Among the Colonial
survivors. 
     She had heard the rumors of the mysterious deaths. The first had
been mentioned on the IFB. Some technician and a woman found dead. Then,
nothing. As she loosed the bonds of her seeing, she understood that Adama
had clamped a lid on things. Or tried to. A lid that had come off,
spectacularly, at the Sealing of the Warrior called Bojay, and the
Agro-worker Gayla. Starbuck ("Ah, Son Starbuck! That must have been a
shock!') had been there, and rumors spread faster than Cylon turbos. 
     It had been vaguely disturbing, but nothing focused. Until now. Now,
with Lia's dream, and her own, coming together, she was sure that there
was some sort of connection, between the events. And even as she
meditated on these things, she felt a cold shiver of fear run down her
spine, as well as her detection of this malignant presence. A presence
that hungered. But for what? She looked back at the sleeping girl,
knowing within her spirit, beyond doubt, that the presence wasn't here
for an old crone like her. Somehow, Lia was in danger.
     Lia was in danger!
     She would have to ask Starbuck to come and see her.  

Chapter Four

     "Explain, please," said Adama, in LifeStaion. Cassie had called him,
during a working breakfast with Siress Tinia and Sire Shanbour, with what
might, perhaps, be a clue. "Electrolytes?"
     "They are the substances in our bodies, and those of most creatures,
that among other things, produce the electro-chemical signals that fire
along our nerves. Make the muscles move, transmit signals to and from the
brain, and so forth," explained Salik.
     "And I take it the victims were different, in some way?" asked
Adama.
     "Yes, sir. But I can't take credit for the discovery," said the CMO.
"Cassie is the one who came up with the idea," Adama looked to her.
     "So improbable we almost didn't think to look for it," she began.
"But I ran several micro-cellular scans, of both Jona and Neron. There
are virtually no traces of electrolytes left in either body."
     "Well, I'm not a doctor," said Adama. "If you could?"
     "Here," said Cassie, and punched up a holographic of what she
explained were nerves. "Axons, Commander. And here, is the microscopic
membrane that separates the ionized electrolytes. "She zoomed in.
"Ionized sodium and potassium, on each side of the membrane, are excited,
in sequence. Kind of like a launch tube. The reaction triggers the next
part of the nerve, and so on, till it reaches the muscle, or whatever."
     "This is the scan from a healthy nervous system, Commander," said
Salik. "And here..." he switched images. It was a nerve, like before, but
it looked...damaged. Torn open, broken in places, as if it had...what?
     "Like it... exploded. From the inside," he said, after studying it a
moment.
     "Yes, sir," said Cassie. "Somehow, something, and we have no idea
what, sucked out from each victim's body the energy of the electrolytes
in their nervous systems. Sucked it out violently. So violently, the
nerves literally were blasted open from within."
     "My God," said Adama. "What in Heaven's Name could do something like
that?"
     "That's just it, Commander," said Cassie. "Nothing could. Nothing
known to medical science could do this to nerve tissue. No toxin, no
disease organism, no known form of radion, nothing. And we rechecked each
victim's autopsy. They were all free of any kind of virus or bacterium
that we can detect. No prions, no protists, no radion damage. Nothing."
     "Yet," said Salik, "something was able to literally rip the energy
from out of their bodies. Not only the electrolytes, but the ATP in the
mitochondria, the compound that fuels the cells, was broken down.
Totally."
     "Something took every bit of electro-chemical and cellular energy
from their bodies, Commander. Death would have been immediate," finished
Cassie.
     "This is...well, it's like something out of a nightmare," said
Adama. "Some hideous old tale from the Dark Times."
     "But real, nonetheless," said Salik. "And frankly, we not only don't
know how it could have happened..."
     "Yes?"
     "We have no idea how to prevent it from happening, again." 


         "Umm..let's see," muttered Hesiod, late into the same day, in
his little study room, aboard the Akrabi. He looked down at the ancient
scroll, then at his handwritten notes. "Sacrifice. Uhh...chosen...come..,
no...bring forth. He paused to write down his latest efforts, then leaned
back. There was something about this he wasn't getting, but he wasn't
going to let that stand in the way of scholarship. No translation had
beaten him, yet.
     "Take...no....absorb...Lords of Kobol, this is...feed." He looked it
over, and ran it through his computer. Lords, this was weird, to put it
mildly.
     "The Chosen offering shall come forth, and she shall feed." He shook
his head. "Gross!"
     "What?" asked Herodotus, slipping into the study room.
     "Huh? Oh, just muttering to myself, is all. This text. Whatever
these folks were up to, I don't think the Lords of Kobol would have
approved all that much."
     "Really?"
     "Yeah. Pretty disgusting stuff." He showed his super the translation
he had managed so far. "It's pretty tentative, but it sounds like it was
some sort of Human sacrifice ritual."
     "Well, there is archaeological evidence of some of that," replied
Herodotus. "The Hilan excavations, on Piscera."
     "Weren't you on that one, Professor?"
     "As a young graduate student, yes. But the results were never
published, sadly."
     "So, it did happen? Human sacrifice?" 
     "One could draw that inference, from some of the osteological
evidence, but never anything definitive. Or so said the Powers that
were," said the other. "There were other interpretations of the data."
     "Until now."
     "So it seems. Until now."


     "This is bizarre," said Doctor Salik, standing next to Cassie, as
she reviewed the data scrolling up her screen.
     "Very," she replied. "In fact, the deeper we dig into this, the more
questions I seem to find, Doctor."
     "You're certain of the results?"
     "Oh yes. The blood chemistry is a mess, but there was enough left in
the lymphatic and cerebro-spinal fluids to give a picture." She held up a
vial of fluid. "Each dead man was in a high state of arousal when they
died. The hormonal exhaustion is pronounced, and it doesn't end there.
Like the proteins, the long-chain carbohydrates, sugars, and the ATP in
every cell, the testosterone was itself broken down, as we have seen."
     "Every drop of energy stolen from their bodies," said Salik.
"Energy."
     "Yes. More like ripped out, really. Yet, each woman shows no signs
of anything similar. No arousal, no signs of anything comparable."
     "Yet, each man..." Salik trailed off, pondering this. In all his
yahrens as a physician, he had never heard of anything like this, and
he'd seen a lot of weird things. He took a deep breath, and crossed his
arms. "So, each man was heavily aroused, but each woman was not."
     "Yes, that basically covers it," replied Cassie.
     "But what does it mean?" said Salik, as much to the air as to
Cassie. "It makes no real sense, so how does it fit into this little
puzzle?"
     "I don't know, Doctor. But it is one more thing to add to the report
Commander Adama will want." Salik looked at her. 
     "In the morning," she yawned. "If that is alright?"
     "Go get some sleep," he said, patting her on the shoulder. "You're
due to log off in less than ten centons, anyway. I won't count, too
closely."
     "Thanks, Doctor."
     " 'night, Cassie."
     "You too."
     
     
     "No!" said Ama, aboard the freighter Malocchio, as she darted awake,
violently. It was deep into the ship's sleep cycle. "No!" She turned,
drenched in sweat from a hideous dream, as a scream came to her ears.
"Lia! Oh, Lia!"


     "Oh frack!" snarled Hesiod, as the glass shattered on the floor. He
looked down, and swore again. "Oh, monging..."
     "Hesiod?" asked his old professor. "Problems?"
     "Yeah, I'd say so. I just dropped it."
     "It?"
     "The scroll I was working on!"
     "Oh no! Is it recoverable?"
     "Yeah, I think so," he said, kneeling down to carefully retrieve the
pieces of the ancient document. Mingled amidst the glass sleeve, pieces
of it were scattered around and under his work station. Carefully,
donning clean gloves, he began to carefully pick up the pieces of
parchment with tweezers. Herodotus knelt down to help him. 
     "Seems to be all here," said the old academician. "What happened?"
     "Oh, I wasn't paying attention to what I was doing, it dropped it.
It slipped from my fingers. Damn!"
     "Hey, don't crucify yourself, Hesiod. You aren't the first to drop
an ancient artifact, you know."
     "You?" 
     "When I was younger than you. An irreplaceable fragment from the
tomb of an early Lord of Piscera. Mushie fingers me, and there it went.
Oh, we got it all back together. Praise the Lords my pupil master never
found out!"
     "Bad?"
     "He'd have fed me to the Cylons! There. I think we got it all.
I...ow!"
     "Professor?"
     "Oh, just a slight cut." He stood up. "There. I think we have it."
     "Good. I don't want to be fed to the Cylons!"
     Both men laughed.     

     Somewhere, in the dark, something howled in frustration and rage.

Chapter Five

     Ama sat, alone, surrounded only by the dim light of candles,
meditating. Or rather, trying to. Despite her best efforts, and generally
her efforts were the best, she could not calm her mind enough to focus.
Whatever it was that she had crossed paths with, it had left her as
rattled as a newly-minted acolyte.
     She had been awakened by the scream of young Lia. Her scream, and
the cold, choking feeling of utter evil that seemed to waft through the
Malocchio. She had leapt from her bed, and run for the girl's cubicle...
     To behold a faint, sickly aura of light hovering over her. The girl
was screaming, as if in pure terror, and reflexively, Ama had exerted all
her power against it. Though faceless, it had somehow turned to regard
her, then vanished, leaving only a thin wail behind it. She rushed to
Lia, trying to calm the frantic girl.
     A girl that had deep, spreading bruises around her mouth and face,
as if someone had been choking her. Choking the very life out of her.
Putting her palm to Lia's forehead, she took a calming breath, and let
some of her own vital essence flow into the other. Slowly, she could feel
Lia's pulse and breathing calm, her life force return to normal.
     "Ama!" cried the girl, her eyes at last focusing on her guardian.
"Ama, there was this...oh it was horrible!"
     "I know, Child. I know," said Ama.
     "It tried to kill me! It said I was going to die!"
     "It spoke to you?" She waited till Lia collected herself. Taking a
deeper breath, she touched the edges of Lia's soul, and loosed her own
bonds of seeing.
     O Elementals!

     
     Starbuck had just returned from a training patrol and gone straight
to the Rising Star where he met Chameleon for a light dinner. He'd been
looking forward to this for some time since it was finally going to be a
chance to let his father know something that he hadn't found the right
moment to share for the last few sectons. Bojay's sealing had been too
crowded and formal a setting. But here, he could finally tell Chameleon
that he no longer carried any bitterness inside him about the woman his
father had known and loved.....and then lost.
     Chameleon had been pleased to hear his son tell him this. He had
long been able to more easily put into perspective the loss of his
beloved Claudia. Never feeling the hurt completely disappear, but at the
same time learning to keep the memories of the joy and the laughter first
and forefront in his mind. Just as he still did, and always would, with
Starbuck's mother.
     Dinner finally ended and they parted company. Starbuck decided to
pay a visit to another friend before returning to the Galactica and made
his way over to the Rogelio's java stand.     He was grateful to sit down
at the bar and enjoy the hot liquid's full body, coming on the heels of a
well-prepared meal.
     "Thanks, Mairwen," said Starbuck, as he leaned up against the bar at
Rogellio's java stand, aboard the Rising Star. He reached out and took
his piping-hot mug, and savored the liquid as it went down. "That goes
down a treat."
     "How goes piloting?" she asked him.
     "Pretty much the same. Stars, and lots of empty space in between.
Then, ya know, stars. How's the java business?"
     "Doing just fine," she replied. "I owe you, big time." 
     "Nah! Cassey?"
     "Off playing with some friends in the new Day Center. Thanks again,
by the way."
     "For?" asked Starbuck, all innocence.
     "For your help in setting it up. You and your father made it
possible, fronting the start-up money."
     "Well, I mean...hey, it was nothing, really," shrugged the Viper
pilot. 
     "Yes it was," she smiled, refilling his mug. "You wanted to give
some of the kids in the Fleet something that you never had. Something way
better than a state orphanage."
     "Well, okay, but don't tell anyone," he said, pulling out a
fumerello. "I might lose my reputation as thoughtless and selfish."
     "You're secret's safe with me, Starbuck," said Mairwen, handing him
an ignitron. She turned to attend to another customer, when suddenly, an
older woman was there, at Starbuck's side. Funny, she hadn't seen her
come in, but then the arcade was crowded. Maybe...
     "Starbuck," she said. She was old, but it was her wild hair that
seemed to stand out. Literally, as it was wont to go in every direction.
     "Ama?" asked the Viper pilot, cup to lips. Already, he could tell
that she was rattled, not her usual calm, inscrutable self.
     "I would needs speak with thee," she said, slipping into her
people's antique mode of speech.
     Make that a definite.  
     "Am..."
     She grabbed his java, taking a large sip, more a gulp, and then
making a face.  She glanced at Mairwen. "Do you have anything stronger? 
Something to curl the hair around my nipples?"  Starbuck laughed,
coughed, then gagged. Mairwen blinked. Loudly. She looked from one to the
other. Ama banged Starbuck on the back until the coughing eased. "I think
we need to talk, Dear Heart," Ama insisted, handing back his java with a
scowl.  "In fact, I am certain of it." She took another drag of the java,
and coughed loudly herself." Right after we find a decent tankard of
ale."

     
     Commander Adama looked at the latest reports in front of him. One
from Security, the other from LifeStation. Despite repeated checks and
rechecks, Security had turned up nothing new. Paulson was no more pleased
about this state of affairs than Adama, but facts were facts. And,
basically, essentially...
     They had run out of them.
     "I don't like this," said Adama. "Just...waiting for this thing to
strike again. It's almost like asking it to take another victim."
     "I don't like it, either, sir," said Paulson. "But for the moment,
we are out of fuel and adrift. This killer is either fiendishly clever,
or just dumb lucky. There is so little to go on."
     "So, essentially, we just wait for another innocent person to fall
victim to this...thing."
     "Yes, sir," sighed Paulson. 
     Beep
     How strange, Adama said to himself. 
     "Enter," he called into the intercom, and the door to his quarters
slid open, admitting Starbuck, and... Ama. This was something of a
surprise, for while he had of course met the leader of the Empyrean
refugees, it had been brief. They had exchanged pleasantries, of course,
but something about her just...well, he wasn't sure what, but he felt
mildly uncomfortable around her.
     "Siress Ama."
     What the Hades Hole is Starbuck doing with her?
     "Commander," she said, looking directly at him, and drawing herself
up to her full height. "I know what is going on, in the Fleet. These
deaths." 
     Adama looked at once from Ama to Starbuck. He had ordered that the
deaths not be talked about, certainly no information shared with anyone
who was not involved. Starbuck held up his hands, shaking his head.
     "I didn't say a thing, Commander," he insisted. "Ama just asked me
to help her get in to see you. You can be hard to reach, after all. When
she told me what was up, I said I would. So."
     "Starbuck has told me nothing, Commander," said the Wise Woman. "I
approached him, not the other way around."
     "I see," Adama replied, though he didn't see. Really. Not a bit,
actually. "Has there been another death, Siress Ama?"
     "No, but there almost was." She was obviously agitated, and doing a
great job of trying to conceal it. "Last evening. Aboard our ship."
     "Almost? I don't understand, Siress Ama."
     "Let me explain, please." They all sat, and Adama offered a small
libation. She accepted. Somewhat to Adama's surprise, Starbuck refused.
Whatever it was, the Viper pilot was as unsettled as was Ama.
     "Yes?" said Adama.
     "It was during the Long Centars of the Night. We were all asleep,
when I was awakened from a terrible dream, by my dear goddaughter Lia.
She was screaming, a scream of purest terror. I ran to her cubicle..."
     She went on to described what she had seen, the sickly, suffocating
light that surrounded the girl's bed, and the malevolent intelligence she
had sensed in it. She went over the story again, after Security Chief
Castor, and Paulson, had been summoned. Ama repeated her story, still
obviously disturbed.
     "Well," said Castor, slowly, "I'm not sure I see the link between
this...whatever it was that you and Lia saw, and our killer. I have a
check in progress, but so far, there were no deaths in the Fleet, last
night. None since the last killing, in fact. Not even any serious
accidents."
     ""Even so," said Ama, just a tiny touch of asperity creeping into
her voice. "The being responsible for the deaths of the others was there,
on board the Malocchio. Had I not been able to resist it, to repel it..."
She closed her eyes, and shook her head, thoughts of Lia falling victim
to the...thing, still vivid in her mind. 
     "What is it, then?" asked Paulson, as no-nonsense and "show me" as
his super. "I can't clamp shackles on a waft of light."
     "And that is not how we shall fight this thing," said Ama. "What I
saw, what attacked Lia, and killed the other people, is a spirit of the
utter netherworld. In our ancient lore, it was called a lilitu, or
sometimes, more commonly, a succubon." She saw Adama's posture
straighten, his expression change.
     "Say that again, please," he asked her.
     "A succubon, Commander." She studied his face. "You know of what I
speak, do you not?"
     "I know of the ancient legends, yes. Stories my Academician
grandfather told me, out of some old books, when I was young."
     "Excuse me, Commander," asked Castor, "but what's a...suck...?"
     "Succubon, Chief Castor," replied Ama.
     Beep.
     "Yes?" said Adama.
     It was Technician Hummer, from Doctor Wilker's lab. They had,
possibly, a break in the case.


     "It's called what?" asked Starbuck, in Wilker's lab. Technician
Hummer sat at his usual place, arcane equipment about him, and of all
"people", former IL Cylon, Commander Septimus. 
     "Quantum ghosting," replied Hummer. "It's old, and few techs have
ever even heard of it. Unless you read old tech manuals."
     "So, how does this relate to the problem at hand?" asked Commander
Adama.
     "Well," said Hummer, "on a wild hunch, I decided to run the scan of
the death of Jona, through a multi-spectral processor. While that was
running, well, I'll let Commander Septimus explain, if that's alright."
They all turned to the IL, and Adama nodded in the affirmative.
     "As your man says," began Septimus, "he was running spectral
enhancement schemes on the data, and left that to continue helping me
with my reassembly and recalibration. My visual system is multi-spectral
as well, and we were running diagnostics on it, when I chanced to look at
the monitor." Septimus gestured at the screen at Hummer's work station.
"By purest chance, the wavelons involved, mine and the machine's, in
conjunction, brought out the very thing it appears you have been
seeking."
     "Let's have a look," said Castor. Hummer activated the monitor, and
blew up the image. It ran as he had seen it many a time already. The
light falling, Jona being electrocuted, only this time...
     "What the Lords of Kobol is that?" asked Starbuck.
     "It is the thing that attacked Lia!" declared Ama.
     On the screen, indistinct and watery, a faint something, vaguely
Human in shape, crossed the camera's field of view. After a few moments,
a tendril or filament slithered out, and the lighting rig fell over on
Jona, the massive voltage killing her quickly. Once she was dead, and Zed
gone, it seemed to shrink, joining or becoming one with Jona, soaking
into her form, like water into a rag.
     "Holy Lords!" said Paulson.
     "There is nothing holy about this...thing," said Ama. "It is
altogether evil."
     They watched, even Septimus morbidly fascinated, as the dead Jona
got up, moving jerkily, looking around. Then, as if suddenly aware of
being watched, it looked directly up at the camera. In normal settings,
nothing had looked askance, but here, now, the eyes of the dead girl
glowed from within, glowed with a sickly greenish-white radiance, as she
glared up at the camera. Glared with an angry, hateful expression. She
raised a finger in the direction of the lens, and with a burst of snow,
the image ended. 
     "What the Lords of Kobol was that?" breathed Paulson, after they had
run it again.
     "God only knows," said Adama. He looked to Ama. "Except perhaps you
do."
     "Yes, I do," said Ama, and they all sat down. Ama tried to compose
herself, but it was clear that all of this had left her rattled, not the
usually cool, always-in-control Ama that Starbuck was familiar with.
     "What exactly is this thing?" asked the Security man. 
     "It is, as I told you, what in our ancient lore is called a
succubon. Put shortly, it is a demon, that..."
     "Oh, really," said Paulson. "A demon? That's..."
     "Unbelievable?" asked Ama. "What we just saw is unbelievable."
     "Please, continue," said Adama.
     "It is a demon," Ama resumed, "specifically a female demon. It
lives, if you can call it that, by stealing the energy from the bodies of
it's victims."
     "Jona?" asked Adama.
     "No. The succubon feeds off the life force of men. The energy of
sexual arousal. It was said, by the ancient lore masters, that the demon
would couple with men, in their sleep, and rip all the life-force from
their bodies."
     Starbuck shuddered. "But why attack Lia? Or any of the other women?"
     "It was said that the creature needs the physical body of a woman,
to perform it's foul deeds," replied Ama. "It is the woman who provides
the arousal for the male victim that it has selected."
     "And this thing was trying to find another victim?" asked Castor.
     "I believe so," said Ama. "Elementals, if I had not been there,
Lia..." She broke off, visibly shaken. Starbuck shook his head. He had
never seen the Empyrean Wise Woman anything but controlled and
self-composed. This was...a shock.
     "Why didn't it kill Lia, then?" asked Adama. "It seems it had her at
it's mercy."
     "When I saw it, I did not think, Commander," replied Ama. "I just
reacted. Much as you, as a soldier, might react to suddenly seeing a
phalanx of Centurions heading towards you. I slammed it. I sent every
thought force against it that I could summon to my mind in so quick a
moment. I sensed it was surprised. I slammed it."
     "Excuse me?" Adama asked.
     "I harnessed the energy around me and then redirected it at the
succubon. I sensed that it was surprised, but it...oh, how do I say it?"
     "Did it communicate with you, in any way?" asked Adama.
     "No, not in any normal way. Certainly not in the way we are now, at
least for the rest of you mere mortals. I felt as if...as if it's
thoughts were open to me. I am the Empyrean Necromancer, so I have been
known to communicate with the dead."
     "Hold onto your helmets, this is where it starts to get even
weirder," Starbuck said as eyes dropped around the room, a few of them
rolling in disbelief first. 
     "Go on, Ama," the Commander encouraged her despite the scepticism in
the room.
     "Thank you, Adama," she replied, closing her eyes and gathering her
thoughts. "Its thoughts were open to me, but rather than ideas or any
discernible language, at first I only read pure emotional hatred. It was
vile, like staring into an abyss. But I felt very plainly that it was
hungry. Starved for energy." 
     "Did it speak?"
     "In the mind, only. It seemed to say 'she is mine!' and although I
understood its words, the tongue was ancient and guttural. I believe it
realized I might be a threat because I suddenly felt as if my mind had
been struck with a cold, burning fire." She opened her eyes again.  "But
I'm no shrinking violet, especially where my goddaughter is concerned. It
staggered me, but I summoned all I could against it, then it was gone."
     "You drove it off," said Paulson.
     "Away from Lia, yes, but as to its final whereabouts, I don't know.
I felt it recoil, yet there was something else. It vanished, and I sensed
a cry, like a wail of pain and anger, as it fled away. Something happened
that caused it to flee, after I had hit it with my spiritual energy. And
both Lia and I sensed...fear. It was both angry, and fearful." Ama heaved
a great sigh. "I don't know. It is all very shattering, and even I know
little of those ancient tales. Little has come down to us, even to those
of my line."
     Silence hung heavily in the room.
     "You speak to the dead?" Hummer finally asked.
     "Call it a hobby," Ama replied, shrugging. "I'm popular in certain
quarters." 
     "Ama, you looked bushed," said Starbuck.
     "Fighting demons does that to a gal, so yes, I'm completely
knackered," replied the other.
     "Feel free," said Hummer, gesturing to the couch along the bulkhead.
Ama nodded, and stretched out on it. 
     "A powernap might be just the thing I need." She yawned. "Thank you,
Technician Hummer, Commander," she said, then looked at Starbuck. "And
you too, Son of my Heart, Starbuck. If you did not have faith in me, then
I wouldn't be here sharing critical information with all of you.
Information that will save my Lia and others like her." 
     "Sure, Ama," said Starbuck. He looked from Ama, to the rest, then
back to her. She was already asleep. And beginning to snore.
     " 'Son of my Heart', Starbuck?" asked Hummer.
     "Yeah, well, it seems that lately I accumulate parents like other
people do 'Free Play' tokens for the Mega Slot Machine on the Rising
Star," Starbuck replied with a shrug.   
     "Well, now what?" asked Adama, shaking his head slightly. "We
obviously need to learn more about this...creature.
     "Are you talking about Ama or the succubon?" Hummer asked drily.
     The Empyrean Necromancer's snores reached an ear-splitting
crescendo.
     "The succubon, of course," Adama replied, glowering at the
technician.  "Ama certainly seems to have some heightened senses and may
seem perhaps a little eccentric . . ."
     "Just a little?" Starbuck interjected.
     Snorrrrrrrrrrrreee!!!!!
     "But I sense her heart is in the right place," Adama concluded. 
"Now, where do we go from here?"
     "Well, I know someone who might be able to help," said Castor.

Chapter Six 

     "Yes, I heard about that girl's death," said Hesiod, in his study
room aboard the Akrabi. "It certainly was bizarre, from what I saw on the
IFB report. Falling out of the ceiling, onto the buffet table."
     "Very," said Adama.
     "So, how can I help, Commander? I was late, finishing up some work
here."
     "Well," said Castor, after a glance from Adama had giving him to go
ahead, "the investigation into this matter has gone in some...unexpected
directions."
     "Unexpected? I don't understand," said Hesiod. He looked at Castor.
"Does this have anything to do with all that felcercarb about Dravius and
Jabez, and the theft of all the Libran antiquities, Castor?"
     "Not that I am aware," replied the Security man, "but I remembered
how you were always steeped in arcane lore, and thought perhaps you might
have some...insights that could help us."
     During the whole sordid affair with Antipas' minions, and the loss
of so much history, Hesiod was one of those who had been questioned, most
thoroughly, by Security. He and Castor had known each other, somewhat,
before the Destruction, but their respective interests had carried them
onto very different life-paths. Castor into Security work, Hesiod into
the rarified world of the scholar. 
     "Well, I'll do whatever I can, of course," replied Hesiod. "What do
you need to know?"
     "What can you tell us about a creature from ancient legend," Adama
said, "called a succubon. Sometimes, also, a lillitu."
     For an instant, Hesiod had the expression of someone who had been
caught with their fingers in the mushie jar. Exposed. Like the school
child caught cheating. Almost a frightened look. But the look was as
quickly gone.
     "Well," he began, after a swallow, "a succubon was a female demon,
that sustained itself by stealing the life-force of it's victims, after
seducing them, often in their sleep. It used it's powers to arouse them,
almost into a mindless state, then steal the essence of their souls,
leaving them dead." He reached for a glass of water, taking a long sip.
"But how does that relate to what happened? That was just a bizarre
accident, wasn't it?"
     "Well, there have been some...bizarre developments, as I said,"
replied Castor. 
     "Hey, what's this?" asked Starbuck. He was looking at a paper
notepad, with scrawled lines of text. He looked up at Hesiod.
     "That? Oh, just a project I'm currently working on," replied Hesiod,
a bit...quickly? "One of many, in fact. One of the items salvaged from
the Libran relics. An old scroll, we're trying to translate. Nothing
important, really."
     "Well, it looks really interesting," said the Viper pilot.
     "Not really," said Hesiod, a bit strained. "Just some old ritual or
other. Most of it resists translation. We know very little about the
dialect of that period." He turned back to Castor. "What 'bizarre
developments'?"
     "Bodies, drained of all their bio-chemical energy," said Castor, his
voice taking on a no-nonsense tone. "Men killed in the very throes of
arousal." He was silent a bit. "Pretty strange, you must admit."
     "Creepy," added Starbuck.
     "Well, I suppose so," said Hesiod, "though I don't see how some
ancient superstit... would you please put those down?" he said, looking
to Starbuck, who was continuing to rifle his way though some of the
antiquities and texts in the room. He was currently looking over a couple
of jeweled finger rings, like an unruly child turned loose in an antique
shop. "They are old, fragile, and worth half the gross planetary product
of pre-Destruction Caprica."
     "Starbuck," said Adama, and the Warrior set the baubles back down. 
     "Yes, sir."
     "As I said," resumed Hesiod, "I don't see how some ancient
superstition could have any connection with this tragedy. I mean, it was
just an accident, wasn't it?" He looked at all of them. "Wasn't it?"
     "Well, so far," said Castor. "So far."


     "He's one nervous guy," said Castor, as they made their way towards
the Akrabi's landing bay. "He's holding something back."
     "You think so?" asked Adama.
     "I remember him when he was interviewed before. When Antipas' people
looted the Libran antiquities. He obviously didn't like talking to us,
but he wasn't nervous, or frightened in any way."
     "And now he is," said Adama. "That much I could see." 
     "Scared mongless is what he is," said Starbuck. "I'm pretty good at
reading faces, Commander. Pyramid does that. And when you mentioned that
word succubon, I saw it in his eyes. He knows something."
     "You mean he knows who the murderer is?" asked Adama.
     "That I don't know, sir," replied Starbuck. "Yet. But he knows more
than he is telling, and whatever it is, he's scared. Did you notice how
nervous he got, when I started going through those notes of his?"
     "Yes. He seemed nervous."
     "I sensed something wrong almost from the beginning. Thank you for
letting me play my hunch sir."
     "Your hunches have usually proven to be of value, in the past,
Starbuck," replied Adama.
     "Thank-you, sir."
     "Well, we'll get to the bottom of this," said Castor. "One way or
the other."


     "It can't be," whispered Hesiod, looking at the scrawled notes that
had so intrigued Starbuck. He looked them over, then at the drawer, where
the original scroll fragments themselves were kept. "Superstition. It's
can't be! And how did a dumb Viper jock, of all people, know?"  


     "You were quite right," said Septimus, back in the lab, with Hummer,
examining the recording surreptitiously made of the interview with
Hesiod. "He is quite highly stressed."
     "How highly?" asked Adama, of the former IL.
     "Voice stress analysis of Hesiod, along with ocular dilation and
changes in sub-dermal blood flow, shows plainly that he is concealing
something. Having a long experience of Humans, and their varied
physiological responses, my best statistical analysis is that he knows
precisely who it is that is responsible for these acts, but cannot bring
himself to believe it."
     "Not believing it?" asked Starbuck, momentarily wondering just what
sort of "experience" with Humans this Cylon had. "How do you mean?"
     "In some Human way that I cannot understand, Hesiod is in denial
about it. Whatever conclusions he has come to, part of his mind refuses
to accept it, while the other does."
     "What could that mean?" asked Hummer. 
     "That the ultimate truth, whatever it eventually turns out to be,"
said Septimus, "is something that his mind may not be able to live with."
     "Lords," whispered Starbuck.
     "Well, he'll talk," said Castor. "One way or the other."


     Ama sat in her private chambers aboard the Malocchio, deep in
contemplation. After her venture to the Galactica, through the good
offices of Starbuck, to see Adama, and laying out all she had thus far
determined, she felt somewhat calmer. Somewhat. She was focused and in
control once more, yet, there was still, somewhere in the background, the
very real presence of that thing. The malignant, vile thing that had
tried to take her beloved Lia from her. Take her for the purpose of
ensnaring another young man to his doom. 
     But did Adama really believe her? Did he take seriously, honestly,
believe what she had told him, about the appearance, and nature, of this
ancient evil? While she liked the Commander, and found him a solid,
morally sound person, she just could not be sure. She knew he was a man
of faith, yet many such men would argue into the next millennia about
their gods or their "one true God", while they would scornfully dismiss
other entities of what they referred to as the "supernatural" world, or
"superstition". Despite her musings upon this point, whether he, a man
from a highly technical culture, really seriously accepted what she, from
a far more... pastoral society, had lain before him remained to be seen.
It mattered not as she was accustomed to working alone. 
     Whether Adama was with her, against her, or would act the bemused
spectator, the fact remained, somewhere in the Fleet, she knew not yet
how, a vile, hideous, unbelievably dark being had been unleashed, from,
she sensed, a millennia-long slumber. Something, or someone, had,
presumably unknowingly, released this being, to resume it's hunt for
victims.
     It's food. For if what they were telling her was correct, from the
medical evidence, the lillitu, or succubon, needed the vital energies,
the life force, of corporeal creatures to sustain itself. The others,
Adama and the physicians, the scientists, expressed this in terms of
proteins, or chemical bonds. In her more ancient Path of Knowing,
knowledge passed down through the Tellings and her own understanding of
the cosmos, Ama saw it as the devouring of the souls of those unfortunate
enough to cross the creature's path. Similar, in some ways, to what her
ancient forebears called a nosferat. An undead thing that refused to stay
where it belonged, but restlessly returned, to feed upon the living.
     She must go deeper. Deeper than perhaps she ever had, into the
Vortex of Knowledge. It was dangerous, even for the most adept of adepts.
Her own teacher had, wisely, feared to tread there, and it was said that
some, venturing within, had never returned.
     But this was too important. Not only was every person in the Fleet
in danger, as long as this thing was loose, but Lia...her beloved Lia was
at risk. And nothing, certainly not some vile slime from the ancient pit
of death, was going to harm her goddaughter.
     "Now," she said aloud, to the sea of candlelight surrounding her.
"To begin."   


     "Well, I didn't used to believe in things like that," said Starbuck,
to Cassie, across the pillow. "Demons, spirits, ghosts. Not this kid.
Either I could fly it, or blow it up. That was about it."
     " 'Used to,' " said Cassie. "What changed your mind?"
     "Count Iblis. I mean, that was no flesh-and-blood man. And the
beings we've met, on the Ship of Lights. I don't pretend to understand it
all, Cassie, but that stuff is real."
     "Okay, but how does that relate to these killings?" she asked him,
propping herself up on one elbow, and looking at him. "I mean, are you
saying you think a...ghost killed those people?"
     "I don't know what you'd call it, but something outside the usual
universe that you and I know did. And I have come to trust Ama's
instincts about certain things."
     "Ama? How so?" 
     "Well, let me tell you a story."
     He unfolded to her his "journey", back to Earth's Second World War,
and how the Empyrean Wise Woman seemingly had orchestrated, or at least
guided, the entire episode. "I don't know how, but she has powers that go
beyond the weird. It was no dream, Cassie."
     "You think maybe Iblis is behind this whole thing?"
     "No, I don't. I mean, I wondered at first, sure. But if it were
Iblis, he'd show up. Taunt and gloat. You know how he is. His ego
wouldn't let him stay low-profile. He'd have to turn up and trumpet
himself."
     "Yeah. I see that. So, who?"
     "Well, Ama thinks it's some sort of entity that feeds off the energy
of living beings."
     "All the men who died were certainly drained of energy," replied
Cassie. "Not a nerve or a protein that wasn't sucked dry." She sat up.
"But this is crazy. I mean, the nearest legend I ever heard to this was
the vampiron, but that needed blood. Physical fresh blood to live. This
thing, whatever it is, doesn't. And the women were all killed by trauma.
Fractured skulls or broken necks. Electrocution."
     "Well, like I said, I don't claim to get it all, but that woman is
usually right about stuff."
     "Why you?" asked Cassie. Starbuck's brows furrowed. "You, Starbuck.
Why is she involving you in this?"
     "She said it made it easier to get in to see the Commander."
     "But you doubt that," she said.
     "I think Ama could get in to see God, if she tried," said Starbuck.
"She seems to focus a lot of attention on me, for some reason."
     "Any clues why?"
     "Not really. But I know that if I hadn't had that weird adventure in
Earth's past, the whole planet's history might have gone down
differently. When I asked her why, she just smiled and got cryptic."
     "I hate that," said Cassie. "By the Lords, give me straight answers.
Maybe it's my medical training, but I hate an unresolved question or
loose end."
     "Makes two of us, hon. "As a Warrior, I feel the same way. But with
Ama . . . well, there's something just different about Ama."
     "How so?"
     His features shifted as he contemplated her question.  "It seems
like she thinks the rest of us are a bit stupid about these things, and
she wouldn't normally waste her time trying to explain it."
     "That's an awful thing to say!" Cassie slapped his arm, before
raising her hand over her face to hide her grin.  "What about Commander
Adama?"
     "Well, if he's the President of the Stupid and the Commander of the
Stupid . . ." Starbuck shrugged, leaving the rest implied.
     Cassie exploded into laughter.  "Commander Adama would strip and
module you if he could hear you now!"
     "Tigh would strip and module me.  The Commander was there with Ama. 
He seemed just as befuddled as the rest of us and would probably see the
humor in it."
     "But if Ama came to the Commander, there must be a reason for it. 
If she really felt like you were idiots, why go at all?" Cassie asked.
     "I get the sense that she can't remove us from the quotient. I know
that doesn't make much sense, but it's like we all need to reach some
conclusion, and she's there to guide us somehow."  He looked embarrassed,
ducking his head.  "It was the same on Earth.  We might be peons, but
we're still part of the game."  
     Cassie smiled gently, reaching over and brushing Starbuck's hair out
of his eyes as he met her steady gaze.  "I've never heard you talk like
this before."
     "You weren't ready before," he teased her, his eyes sparkling with
mischief.
     She laughed again, giving him a playful shove.
     He captured her hand, pulling her against him.
     "I'm ready now," she purred as she kissed him.


     "Yes?" said Pliny, answering the telecom next to his bed. "Huh? No,
I just have to be up in six centars. Don't worry, it's okay, I was asleep
anyway." He listened. "Well, yeah, I suppose so. I can call him, and see
if he will. Why so urgent? It does? But...you think some of them might be
involved? What? Something crazy like that? I don't...okay. Okay, I will.
I'll call when I know something. Right." Click. He put the telecom back
in the cradle, and sat up on the edge of his bunk. "Lords of Kobol! If
he's been smoking that plant vapors again, I'll wring his blasted neck!"
He sighed loudly. "Now where in Hades Hole are my trousers?"

Chapter Seven

     Many of the rescued Earth refugees had found billets aboard the
Constellation, the former possession of a now-deceased alien crime lord,
and, since leaving the wild and sin-soaked  RB-33 space station, a
converted warship, renamed, and integrated into the Colonial Fleet. Most
of the rest were calling the Adelaide, of similar origins, home, for the
return trip to Earth. Given that both ships were commanded by officers
who were themselves of Earth origin, it was hoped that such surroundings
would help to ease the transition, into a more technologically advanced
society, for the liberated Earthers.
     But, for the moment, many of those same refugees were to be found,
not aboard either warship, but in one of the domes of the Agro Ship. For
the present back from a wide recon of the Fleet's port flank,
Constellation had once more taken up position on the Fleet's starboard
side, her crew enjoying some downtime, while the Century headed out into
the void, in her place. 
     As the shuttle drew close, Pliny was once again impressed at how the
Fleet's engineers had performed heroically, in salvaging the vessel.
Virtually blown to bits by the Cylons, forcing a detour to the obscure
Human agro settlement of Serenity for food and seed, several of the Agro
Ship's domes and sections had been salvaged. Normally, this would never
even have been attempted, certainly not under conditions of a running
battle, but the Fleet's situation called for unprecedented efforts. Three
of the ship's domes were deemed reasonably salvageable, and part of the
ship's frame, along with one engine pod, might, with great effort, be
restored to use. So, while still on the run from the enemy, the three
domes were tractored in, as well as pieces of the spaceframe, and the
power plant. In a project that no sane engineer would ever have
attempted, the engine was reattached ("Slapped together, like a child's
paper mobile" as Starbuck had put it), and one by one, the domes as well.
Much of the rest of the wreckage was scavenged for whatever usable
materials remained, and could be reclaimed and sent to the Foundry ship. 
     Never stopping, always dodging their intractable foe, Adama's people
nonetheless accomplished the impossible: within less than a secton,
sections of the "new" Agro Ship had been rendered habitable once more,
the fractured domes reattached, resealed, and, gradually, brought back
on-line, till they were once more supporting the plant life the Fleet had
so far managed to save, or acquire on Serenity, taking pressure off the
other ship. Once more, they were producing food, as well as a measure of
recreation for the beleaguered survivors. 
     Pliny's companion, Hesiod, wasn't impressed at all. He was too busy
snoring.
     Entering one of the restored biomes, the smell of forest was the
first thing that hit both men. Following the map on their pads, passing
various techs, they moved along a trail, until, smelling smoke and
hearing voices, they found a group of people, gathered around a small
campfire, and...
     Singing. 
     "They certainly seem to be enjoying themselves," said Pliny, to his
old friend. He watched as some of them punched some sort of inflated
ball, about the size of a Triad ball, back and forth across a net. Off to
the right, two men, one of them blue, were involved in a sort of
grappling match. "Not bad for people so recently freed from slavery."
     "Human are resilient," said Hesiod, as the sound of singing came to
their ears. "I suspect our Earth brothers are no different from
ourselves, on that score."
     "And hopefully have some of the same basic legendaria as ourselves,
too."
     "Lords of Kobol, this was a stupid idea," said Hesiod, stopping for
a moment, and feeling a strong urge to leave. "It's all just old
scribbling on a piece of animal skin. Superstition. Period! What possible
help could someone from a place as backwards as Earth..." He stopped,
realizing how loud he had gotten, and turned to retreat back the way they
had come, but one of the Earthers had spotted them, and motioned them
over. Several turned.
     "Too late to back out now," said Pliny, gently taking him by the
left arm. "Come on." 
     "I still think this is stupid. Damned stupid! And I was a complete
Boray's astrum for ever thinking of it!" 
     "No comment," smiled Pliny.
     "Here for the barbeque?" said one, Captain Byrne, as he moved from
the net, where he had been punching the ball, and moved towards the fire.
"Pull up a rock, and put a load on your mind." The young girl next to
him, introduced to the two scholars as Byrne's daughter Genesis, shook
her head. Next to her, sat Sire Pelias, a full cup in one hand, and a
fried...something, in the other.
     "Uhh, we aren't interrupting, are we?" asked Hesiod, casting a
curious glance at the campfire. Weren't there regulations?
     "Not at all," said Sargamesh, one of the Eridese refugees. Unlike
his opponent, Lt. Starbuck, he hadn't even broken a sweat in the contest.
     "Crikey, looks like we got company. You didn't bring any coldies
with ya, did ya by any chance?" asked another, introduced as Captain
Allen, of the Adelaide. 
     "Uh, no, we didn't," said Pliny, having no idea at all what the
Earth man meant. "Sorry."
     "Well, we'll slip another one on the Barbie for ya, anyway."
     "There seems to be enough," said the woman next to him, introduced
as Kalysha, his wife, and a native of the planet Harkaelis.
     "Uh, sure. Umm, aren't there fire regulations on these ships?" asked
Hesiod.
     "Yeah," said Byrne, "but we agreed to be the test for the revamped
fire-suppression system. Commander Adama said go ahead."
     "Oh. Well, I guess that's okay, then."
     "We'll just pour some of this home brew on it, if it there is one,"
said Starbuck, with a grin.
     "So," asked Byrne, a musical instrument of some sort now strapped
around his torso, and studiously ignoring the Lieutenant's barb, "what
brings you fellas all the way over here?"
     "Not his playing!" quipped Allen, with a laugh. Kalysha scowled at
him.
     "May the fleas of a thousand wallabies give you an eternal wedgie!"
Byrne shot back. Again, he gestured, and the two scholars found seats
among the assembled. Hesiod noticed that among the Earthers, the two
refugees from Ki, Pili and Kudur-Mabug, were in attendance. As part of
their assimilation, he had worked on their cracking their language, and
it had been a tough nut to crack. Later, finding out that it had a
very-near parallel among Earth's ancient tongues had come as quite a
surprise to him. Pliny looked over, as a song began. Kalysha began to
sing, and her voice seemed to fill the forest.

     Here I stand with you again, remembering the moments,
     When our friends were by our side, in shadow and in sunlight.
     All the boats have floated by, and clouds are spread across the sky,

     And all our friends have gone away, and left me with my thoughts
today.
     For when I close my eyes I see, the way I know things used to be,
     The stars among the heavens, and the sun upon the sea!
     We would sing a song at noon, at night we'd serenade the moons,
     The moments never ended, in the years that pass too soon. 

     "I don't understand," said Pliny, quietly, to Pelias. "Why are there
tears? Why is she crying?"
     "Her people have a great bardic tradition. They believe that for a
song to be truly sung, it must be felt, as well."
     "I'm not sure I understand," said Pliny. "Felt?"
     "You and me both," replied the young Councilman. "All I know is that
she lost most of her family, back on her home planet. Some kind of ethnic
or religious purge."

     Sitting on the sand around the firelight, I hear the sound of bells
that ring once more,
     In my imagination.
     As the flames reach ever higher, songs reflected in the fire,
     Echo long into the night, and almost till the morning light!
     For when I close my eyes I see, the way I know things used to be,
     The stars among the heavens, and the sun upon the sea!
     We would sing a song at noon, at night we'd serenade the moons,
     The moments never ended, in the years that pass too soon. 

     "She's great," said Hesiod. His friend just nodded.

     All these things will never change, and after all it's not so
strange,
     To still recall the trees, that paths that I remember.
     But I chance upon a stream, I stand and gaze as in a dream, 
     The face I see, I realize, is one I do not recognize.
     But when I close my eyes I see, the way I know things used to be,
     The stars among the heavens, and the sun upon the sea!
     We would sing a song at noon, at night we'd serenade the moons,
     The moments never ended, in the years that pass too soon.*
     
     There was muted applause all around, and Kalysha inclined her head
to her audience.  
     They sat for a while, taking in the conviviality. In every Earth
language so far studied, both men had found that the spoken, colloquial
version often differed, sometimes greatly, from the more formal, written
variety. As they joined in, sampling the rustic fare, they found the
items were both familiar and strange. Sausages of many sorts were known
in the Colonies, naturally, but some of these were unfamiliar, as were
the names. Brat, wurst, and hot dog seemed to be the main references, as
well as a simple meat pattie that went by the bizarre name of porcine
administrator. Pliny looked, scowling, down at his Languatron, and tried
to decide if Hummer was playing a practical joke on him.
     Again.  
     The easy mixing of the people, almost all from the same planet, was
enjoyable, but Hesiod was here for business. After quaffing what Captain
Allen referred to as "a cold one", and having to smile at Pili and her
husband's "ankle biter", he at last pried Father Fisher away from his
conversation with a man who spoke in a similar accent. From a place on
Earth called England, as he recalled.
     As he downed another home brew, and piled his son, Lugalbanda, onto
his lap, Kudur-Mabug, refugee from Ki, noticed how Fisher's expression
went from convivial, to curious, to somber, in short order. Whatever it
was that the En-emegir, as they referred to the linguist, was discussing
with the lu-dingira, the priest, it was manifestly serious stuff. He
turned away, as his wife, Pili, handed him a fresh drink, and Byrne began
another song.  


     "No, I hadn't heard," said Byrne, later, after several of the
picnickers had departed the dome. "We just got back from a long-range
recon patrol, and haven't caught up much. Any suspects?"
     "None that I know of," said Hesiod, "but Security is trying to keep
as much of a lid on it as they can. No need for a panic. But...well, I
had this weird idea. This scroll I've been working on..." He stopped,
hesitating. "Oh this..."
     "What?" asked Kalysha. 
     "Well, it's all so crazy, but these killings...they seem to bear
similarities with something I found in an ancient scroll, in the
surviving relics aboard the Akrabi. I've been cataloguing and translating
everything of a textual nature that survived all that horrid business
with Jabez and Dravius."
     "Who?" asked Allen. 
     Hesiod explained, as it had all occurred well before the Earth
voyagers had been found and rescued.   Once Hesiod mentioned the name of
Sire Antipas and his role in the matter, Allen nodded, as he recalled the
disgraced former Councillor, who had left with the Il Fadim cult members.
Hesiod then, slowly, unfolded what he had been doing, and what he was
finding in the ancient text.
     "Why do you come to me?" asked Fisher. "I'm just a simple parish
priest. Or was, until I ended up here."
     "I'm not sure," said Hesiod. "I don't know where this idea came
from, but it's been pressing on me for a while, that I should consult
with you, about this."
     "How can I possibly help?" asked Fisher. "I did not even know any of
these victims. I never met them."
     "Well, you a spiritual counselor, from Earth. And I have found so
many interesting connections." He stopped, running a hand over his face,
and taking a deep breath, trying not to look or sound as idiotic as he
felt. "Have you, in all of your religious lore, ever heard of or
encountered a being called a succubon?" There was silence, and from the
Vicar's expression, it was clear the word had struck a chord.
     "I believe in your language, it might be more closely rendered as
succubus," said Pliny.
     Ama! What are you up to? Starbuck looked from one man to the other. 
     "Yes," said Fisher. "In ancient lore, it was the name of a female
demon. One that would seduce men, and steal the life force from them
during sex. It was also sometimes known as a Lilith." There was silence a
moment. A long moment. "Are you saying that these people are being
murdered by some sort of...demon?"
     Of course! thought Starbuck. That's what she's up to. That
devious....

* Adapted from Remembering, by Nachum Heiman.


Chapter Eight

     "My apologies for the delay in getting back to you," said Commander
Adama, "but we have been having some technical problems throughout the
ship." He sat, and motioned for his guests to follow suit. "What do you
have?"
     Starbuck, and the Security Chief relayed to Adama all they had
learned. Then the Commander turned to Father Fisher. The Earth cleric was
reflective a moment.
     "From what your linguist has told me, it seems that this scroll
recounts some sort of ancient ritual, involving possible Human sacrifice.
Now, the being it describes bears great similarity to what on Earth, in
various ancient religions and lores, was known as a succubus." He
explained the word, and the lore accompanying it, to Adama as best he
could. "Now understand, I am not an expert in this sort of thing, nor am
I trained as an exorcist." Adama raised an eyebrow. "Someone trained in
the expelling or binding of demonic entities, Commander."
     Beep
     "Who the..." said Adama, as the chime to his quarters sounded. He
half rose, but the door opened of it's own accord, and through it
stepped...
     "Ama?" he said, genuinely surprised at the appearance of the
Empyrean wise women. What was she doing here, and how did she even know
of this conference? He hadn't called her. He looked to Starbuck, but he
shook his head, holding up both hands.
     "Simply put, Adama," she said, without preamble, "in translating
this scroll, your man has raised up from the very pits of damnation a
being that feeds on life itself." She plunked herself down, and Starbuck
noticed how haggard she looked. Like she'd been running a race.
     Maybe she has!
     "Ama..."
     "It was needful for me to be here!" she said, a tad snappishly.
"This creature was worshipped on Libra, far back in time. By people who
had given themselves over to practices even a Necromancer finds utterly
loathsome! It is pure death, and spreads death in it's unquenchable
hunger for the life force in others."
     "But you must?" asked Fisher. "Be here, I mean?"
     "Yes! This thing required the energy of living beings, as they would
have said, the Life Force within the Soul, the Soul itself, if you will,
in order to manifest itself. It lived among them, ruling as an Empress,
sustained by constant sacrifices of virile young men, in the very prime
of their sexual lives. From them she took the power to maintain herself
in the visible world, and dominate her subjects."
     "How do you know all this?" asked Castor, ever the suspicious cop.
     "I have delved depths, and walked in places I will not speak of
here, sir," replied the Empyrean sage. "But I know that this creature
ruled with a lust for her pray for generations, deep in that world's
past. There was literally a war to bring her down. In doing so, Man on
that world slipped back many centi-yahrens."
     "But this scroll," asked Adama, "if the demon was overthrown, why
does it still exist? Why was it not destroyed?"
     "One of her followers wrote it all down, perhaps, safeguarding it
until a more evil centar. Some things even I cannot see. In the course of
millennia, much was forgotten, and much more lost for all time." She took
a deep breath. "Thank the Lords! But through the chances of history, she
has risen again."
     "Look," said Castor, "I don't claim to grasp all this, but I have to
say I'm not much of a believer in ghosts and ghouls. Old stories to
frighten children, as far as I am concerned. When we get to the bottom of
this, and I intend to, make no mistake, however these killings were done,
it will turn out to be a real flesh and blood killer. Like all killers.
And with a flesh and blood motive."


     "Wow, you are hot," said Homier, in the now-empty rec room for
engine crew aboard the Rising Star. The woman in his arms was tall,
svelte, and with a set of curves no one could improve on. She also
radiated a sensuality that he found utterly overpowering.
     "That's the idea," she said, a smile growing across her face. She
licked her lips, and laughed. And laughed some more. And kept on
laughing...


     "After all you have seen, all I have told you, you can still blind
yourself to reality?" asked Ama, voice both incredulous and scathing.
"Oh, why do I bother with the likes of mere mortals..."
     "I believe in what I can see. A killer I can clap the shackles on."
     "Oh, one cannot talk to the fool!" spat Ama, dismissing him with a
wave of one hand.
     "Hey!" said Castor, half-rising from his chair. "I don't..."
     "And you will not, either! There is an Earth phrase that I have
learned," said Ama. She looked directly at Castor with a glare that would
have shriveled many a stronger man. "One can cure ignorance, but you
cannot fix stupid!"
     "Ama, please!" said Adama. "There is no need to...what?" Ama had
brought herself up to her full height, and was shuddering, drawing in a
noisy breath, with her eyes closed and finger tips pressed to her
temples. "What is it?"
     "Ama? What is it?" Starbuck asked.
     Her eyes snapped open. "It is awake! Someone's doom draws near! Oh
Lords, Adama!"


     "Give it to me," said Adama, Castor and a full forensics team with
him, in the rec-room turned crime scene. As before, it consisted of one
dead man, body drained of all energy, and one woman, dead by some sort of
traumatic violence.
     "Homier," said Castor, running the dead man's retinal scans through
the database. "One of the engineering techs on the ship. Who saw him
last?"
     "I guess I did," said one woman, Faith, sitting at the table. "We
logged off together, and had dinner here. He said he was going to come
and catch a holovid in our billet, but he never showed up."
     "And the woman?"
     "One of the dancers in the Astral Lounge, I think," said Faith.
"Ella, I think her name is." 
     "Same as before, Commander," said Cassie, rising up from her
examination of the bodies. Energy all gone from his body."
     "And Ella?"
     "Poisoned," said Cassie. "Scans show some sort of toxic compound in
her system. I'll have to get her on the table and run a full panel, of
course. But, yes, she was dead at least a centar before he was. Like the
rest."
     "She was right," muttered Adama. "By all the Lords, she was right."
     "Sir?" asked Cassie.
     "Uh, oh, nothing, Cassie. Carry on. Report as soon as you have any
more."
     "Yes, Commander."


     "How did it go?" asked Herodotus, as he came up behind his old
student."
     "Oh...they wanted some kind of insight on ancient Colonial lore.
Comparing it to ours," said Hesiod. "Nothing much." He had been working
on the scroll again, but now slid it back into it's sleeve.
     "Get any further with that old thing?" asked the elder scholar.
     "Well...maybe. It looks as if these people worshipped a demon
goddess, and made Human sacrifices to give her lasting physical form."
     "Sounds ghoulish," said Herodotus. 
     "Just the bizarre superstitions of our distant ancestors,
Professor," said Hesiod. "Just words on an old scroll." He looked up, to
see Herodotus looking over the written bits of Hesiod's latest
translation efforts. The old academician picked up the paper.
     "Looks like you managed to get a handle on those obscure words and
symbols, finally."
     "Well, when you run into an obstacle, you just stick with it. Or so
you always told us, in class."
     "Well, you certainly have done that, my boy. This is almost
complete." He looked it over, and slowly began to read the words Hesiod
had rendered.   
     "She shall rise when called forth. She shall hold sway. From the
abyss shall she rise, and sit enthroned and she shall feed upon their
terror. From their flesh....feed. All...worship..."
     "Yeah."
     "That all you have so far?"
     "Mostly. I think the rest describes some sort of sacrifice ritual,
where this- whatever it was- was fed."
     "Creepy. Like those really bad vids my mother would never let me
watch."
     "Just superstition, Professor," said Hesiod. "It's all just old and
stupid superstition."
     "We shouldn't be or act so superior, my boy," said the older man.
"Just because we live in a technical and scientifically-oriented age, we
shouldn't look back at our ancestors as stupid and valueless."
     "I suppose. But still..."
     "Fine. We'll have to debate the difference between superstition, and
the unquantified, some other time."
     "As per Academician Zeno's course on philosophy and reality?"
     "That would be the one."
     "Long time ago," said Hesiod.
     "I saved all my class notes," grinned the older man.
     "Oh, joy!" He sighed. "Still...superstition is not philosophy!" 


     "Well, thank you," said Sheba, setting down her glass of mineral
water, and looking at Siress Tinia. "I had no idea that you knew my
mother so well."
     "When we were very young girls. We went to the same primary school,
and were even in a couple of very amateurish plays, when we were about
Boxey's age." The Siress sipped the last of her ambrosia. "Sadly, I
discovered that I had no talent for the stage, whatsoever, while your
mother dripped talent like a rainforest. Then, when my parents moved
away, to Virgon, and we rarely saw each other after that. Sadly."
     "Well, any little bit from her past," said Sheba, looking at the old
photos of Tinia and Bethany, taken in costume from a school play, when no
more than about 10 yahrens old. Impulsively, and because it had been on
her mind lately because of her dream, she then asked, "Did you know
Adama's wife in school too? My mother said that was when she met her."  
     "I'm afraid not. That must have been a little after my time," she
shook her head. "Feel free to copy those," said Tinia. "I'm glad to help
restore your family..." She stopped, as Sheba seemed to no longer hear
her. She dropped the photo, and her face became slack. She stood up, and
it seemed as if another form were within the room. It was a sickly white
wisp of vapor, Tinia thought. It coalesced more and more into a Human-ish
form, and began to move towards Sheba. Tinia began to shake, a wave of
sickly fear moving through her. The form seemed to draw closer, and the
room was filled with a vile stench, and she began to choke. 


     "Well, we should be glad of that," said Herodotus, as he handed the
sheet back to Hesiod. The younger man slid it into the scroll container,
and put it in his desk. 
     "I'm heading off to the holovid showing tonight. One of the ones
brought from Earth. Wanna join me?"
     "Sure. What is it?"
     "Some sort of mystery thing. Called Rear Window, I think."
     "Well, let's get going," said the older scholar.

Chapter Nine

     "I'm fine!" protested Sheba, trying to brush away the life mask.
"Let me up!"
     "You didn't look fine a few centons ago," said Tinia, pulling back
the mask from her face. "And that stench..."
     "It's gone now."
     "Thank the Lords! I'm going to check with maintenance, and see if
maybe a recycling line ruptured," said the Siress.
     "Well, it's gone now," said Sheba. She sat quietly, pensively.
     "What?" asked Tinia.
     "For a moment, it seemed...well, I was sure we weren't alone,
Tinia," said Sheba. "It was as if there was...well, like something was
smothering me. Trying to choke the life out of me." She put a hand to her
abdomen. "Out of us."
     "Well, everything reads as fine, now," she said, running the
portable scanner from a first aid kit over her. "Are you sure you won't
let me call a MedTech?"
     "No! Apollo would be all over me, worrying."
     "Someone choking you, you say?"
     "It was right in front of me," said Sheba. "A figure."
     "Of what?"
     "I'm...not sure. Human-shaped, but...horrid. Like a corpse!"


     "Come with me, Starbuck!" said a voice, and he turned around. He was
in the corridor, leading to the Officer's Club, and no one else was
about. Or at least hadn't been. 
     "Ama?" He beheld the Empyrean Wise Woman, right behind him. She
gripped him by the arm and propelled him down the corridor. "How did you
get here? This part of the ship is..."
     "Never mind that, now! We must finish this!"
     "Ama, I don't understand. You are manipulating something, and I
don't..."
     "Always trying to analyze! Always trying to analyze!  Always
questioning!"  She stopped him short, grabbing him by the ears and
pulling him to her.  Her grey eyes pierced his as their foreheads
touched. "This is not the attack computer in your Viper, my boy! We have
to stop her!"
     "Who?" He felt his heart get cold. "Is that thing on the loose
again?"
     "You need to have faith! Come with me, and don't question!" she
snapped. She grabbed his hand, her own strangely warm, and pulled him
along with surprising strength. "We have to get to the shuttle."
     "Shuttle? What shuttle? Let go of me!"
     "Aarrggh!!! Starbuck, listen!" she said, stopping and glaring hard
into his eyes. "If we do not act soon, that thing will grow ever
stronger, and it will almost impossible to stop! Even for me! Now hear me
and obey, boy!!!!" 
     "I am so getting stripped and moduled for this..." he said,
strangely resigned to trusting her, as she grabbed hold of him again, and
they ran for the lift. She was breathing hard, as they rode down to the
bay. Doors open, they fairly ran for a shuttle. 
     "Hey! You don't have clearance!" Master Chief Varica shouted as they
brushed by him.
     "I have supreme clearance!" Ama hollered back as they raced aboard a
shuttle. "Close the damn door and get us airborne, Fly Boy!"
     "Hey!" Varica hollered again as he watched the craft power up.
Confused, Master Chief Varica went for the nearest intercom. Something
wasn't right here.


     "Commander?" asked Tigh, seeing Adama's frown, on the bridge.
     "That was Master Chief Varica, down in the shuttle bay. Alpha.
Starbuck just shoved past him, and commandeered a shuttle."
     "Commandeered a shuttle? What the Lords for?"
     "Good question. And the Empyrean woman Ama was with him."
     "Ama? You mean that..."
     "Witch? That is one word for it." Adama turned from Tigh to Omega.
The shuttle had filed no flight plan, but Adama knew, somehow just knew,
where it was headed.
     "Where are you going, Commander?" asked Tigh.
     "After him!"


     "Akrabi dead ahead," said Starbuck.
     "Couldn't you just say we're almost there?" Ama grimaced.
     "Just a figure of speech. Pilot jargon. Ama, if this is so
important, why don't you just...well, appear there?"
     "Because you'll play a part in this, Starbuck. I am sure of it. 
Here or there, this time or that. So linear in your thinking!  But now is
our best chance.  Besides, I am...conserving my strength."
     "Conserving? For what?"
     "Oh please! Don't play ignorant with me, Son Starbuck. Dearheart. We
are at war and we race towards battle!" 
     "It's that thing, isn't it? Whatever it is that's been killing
people."
     "Yes! Yes, you have a brain!"
     "That's a consolation," he quipped. "Cassie and the Commander have
wondered at times. But how do you know it's there?  On the Akrabi?"
     "I feel its presence.  I might look like a dried up old woman,
Dearheart, but at times like this I'm more like a finely tuned sensor
array that was just upgraded by the tech nerds."
     "Uh Ama," Starbuck hesitated, "who exactly are the tech nerds in
your corner of the Fleet?"
     "Who do you think, Starbuck?" She smiled mysteriously.  "Now step on
the gas, boy, or we'll miss the party!"

     
     Hesiod sat, trying not to laugh. The Earth vid, something called
Rear Window, had been interesting, to say the least, but like all things
from Earth, confusing as well. Many of the idioms had been obscure, but
the female lead....Lords of Kobol! If most Earth women were like that...
     Not really tired, he didn't feel like sleeping, and was actually
turning over a new idea about the scroll. He picked up the paper he had
written his tentative translation on, and went over some of the words,
once more. Shaking his head, he fired up his computer, and slipped the
old scroll out of it's sleeve, gingerly unrolling it on his desk. Barely
above a whisper, he repeated the words he had cracked, and set to work.


     Aboard the Tip Barge, Sergeant Thomson was well into the throes of
passion with the girl he had met a few centons before, in the passenger
lounge. There to conduct a security review, he'd met this woman, and
suddenly he'd forgotten all about security. Once they were alone, it was
as if she was the only being in the universe. He had never felt so
aroused as this before, and briefly wondered why his usual instinct for
self-control hadn't kicked in, like it had with that Kiian woman Pili, on
the weather planet. 
     I shouldn't be doing this but Hades Hole I can't help it...
    Then she kissed him, he felt as if he were being enveloped in raw
energy.
     "Wow. You are just..."
     "Don't talk," said the other, eyes ablaze with desire. And Thomson
forgot all about self control. 


     "Who the...what the Hades Hole are you doing here?" demanded Hesiod,
as his door flew open, and Starbuck entered, Ama behind him. "Oh, not her
again! Get the Hades..."
     "Give it to me!" demanded Ama, pointing at Hesiod's desk.
     "What...No! I'm not giving you anything! Now get out of here!"
     "It is that scroll that allows her to take form!" said Ama. "As long
as it exists, she will continue to murder young men across the Fleet!"
     "Superstition! Stupid primitive superstition!" Hesiod yelled back.
"This is science! Now get out of here, or I will..." 
     Before he could finish, Starbuck moved towards his desk, reaching
for the scroll. Hesiod was surprisingly quick, however, grabbing it
first. 
     "Let it go!"
     "She's poisoned your mind!" hissed Hesiod, struggling with the
fitter Warrior. "It's just an old parchment!"
     "Give..." grunted Starbuck, and shoved against the other, hard,
slamming him into the wall.  He grabbed Hesiod's wrist, applying pressure
and the other man's hand curled open against his will.  Starbuck grabbed
the scroll.
   "No!" Hesiod whimpered. "It...belongs to the Libran...people!"



     "Oh, yeah!" moaned Thomson, as the girl's arms went around him. He
felt her sensuality burrow deep, then, suddenly...
     "NO!" screeched the other, and pulled away from him. Thomson nearly
screamed. Instead of the young and sensual woman he had been embracing,
before him now was a wizened old hag, skin wrinkled and sagging, and
looking like the skin of a corpse. Her eyes burned with a bright fire,
but her face...
     And her breath. It was now as foul and corrupt as a cesspit on a hot
day, and with a scream of his own, he pushed her away. She screamed
again, and shoved him violently aside. He hit his head on the bulkhead,
and faded out.


     "NO!!!!!!!!!" screamed a hideous voice, and the door to Hesiod's
rooms burst open once more. Leaping into the room like a maniac was a
hideous, shriveled creature, hair wild and gray streaming behind it, a
choking and vile stench all about it. It looked vaguely female, but
Starbuck couldn't be sure, as he stared at it in disbelief. He reached
for his weapon, but the Creature was upon him before he could get a grip
on it. 
     "Get the frack off of me!" he bellowed, as the thing tried to take
the scroll from him. It also, at the same time, tried to kiss him.
Revolted, he pushed her/it away with all the strength he had, and the
thing staggered, screaming.
     "Don't..." began Hesiod, but the words stuck in his throat at the
sight before him. All around the Empyrean woman was a shimmering light,
gathering in intensity as she raised her cupped hands upward.  Then she
hurled a ball of light at the creature. The vile thing staggered, as it
was struck  in the back. It turned, and fixed it's hellish gaze on Ama,
staggering towards her. It threw arcs of light from it's fingers, and Ama
was hurled backwards, landing in a heap on the floor. It roared in
triumph, the sound shrill, yet grating.
     Shaking off the assault, Ama leapt nimbly to her feet. She thrust
both hands outward, towards the creature, and energy thundered across the
room.  The creature, as well as Starbuck and Hesiod were tossed to the
floor. Shrieking like a lost soul, the succubus whirled like a twister,
stopping when it regained its feet. Its mouth gaped in a crazed rictus
and its skeletal hand pointed at Ama, a source of infinite power. 
"Mine!" it growled, its voice raw and throaty.
     "Then come and get it, Hag!" Ama shouted, tendrils of energy
crackling from her fingertips.
   The creature rushed her. Lightning seemed to fill the room, as arcs of
energy, shot back and forth, and a strong wind, filled the room. At one
point, Hesiod raised a chair over his head, and brought it crashing down
on the thing, but to little apparent effect. It struck him with one hand,
and Hesiod dropped like a dead Cylon. Once more, arcs of light flew from
Ama to the creature, and it staggered, it's rotted face twisted in
hellish fury. It turned to her, then, hand trembling, it stopped...
     "NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
NOooooooooooooooooooo........................!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" it
screamed, rounding about on Starbuck, as the Viper pilot, huddled in a
corner of the warzone,   began ripping the fragile scroll apart. In a
flash, it flew at him, picking him up like a ragdoll and hurling him
across the ravaged desk. The thing looked down at the torn scroll, then
back at Starbuck...
     "Faith!" Ama yelled as the creature looked it's last. Suddenly, he
knew what he had to do. Starbuck drew his pistol, and fired.
     The demon screamed, writhing and twisting as if in utter agony. But
Starbuck's bolt had come nowhere near it. He had fired into the ancient
fragments, setting the bits alight. It flew at him again, and Starbuck
reflexively flinched, but it slammed into an impenetrable wall of energy.
Again Ama stood with hands outstretched, but this time her blast of
energy was protecting him. He fired once more, incinerating the scroll.
The demon shrieked, the sound strident enough to make a warrior want to
tear his ears off. Then abruptly it stopped, looked up at him, before
freezing, stock still. After a few moments, it's dessicated flesh falling
away, it toppled to the floor.
     Starbuck struggled to his feet, examining the aftermath. The wind
and lightning had ceased, the vile stench was gone.  The room seemed
unnaturally quiet. Hesiod lay unmoving on the floor, his chest gently
rising and falling. Starbuck swallowed deeply, looking at Ama
incredulously.  She smiled and nodded. Then she crumpled to the deck
herself. 
     "What in God's name..." shouted a voice, as Commander Adama, Castor,
Cassie, and two other Security men burst through the open hatchway. The
Commander stopped, and looked down at the demon. It was still now, it's
eyes collapsing back into it's head. The remainder of the skin was
flaking away, the hair following suit. As they watched, the hands and
skull also began to crumble, and within microns, only a vaguely-Human
shaped pile of dust and disintegrating fabric remained on the floor.
     Cassie saw the Empyrean woman trying to rise, and helped her to her
feet. Taking deep breaths, Ama looked down at the remains of their foe,
then up at the rest. She fixed eyes on Castor.
     "Well?"       

Chapter Ten

     "When did you first realize what it was?" asked Adama, three days
later, in his quarters. With him were Cassie, Castor, Hesiod and
Herodotus, and Father Fisher. Starbuck was here, at Ama's request.
     "Quite late, I am sorry to say," replied Ama. Despite everything,
she looked remarkably well-rested. "I had heard about the first death, of
course, but I was...busy with other things, and paid scant heed. Perhaps
if I had..."
     "No point in recriminations, now," said Adama. "Go on."
     "As the murders continued, I felt something. Something...wrong.
Something diseased, on the edges of my awareness. But I did not know what
it was. And then, it came after Lia."
     "Your goddaughter," said Cassie.
     "Yes. As near as I can tell, it picked it's victims at random. It
just happened to be her." Ama scowled. "That was a big mistake."
     "What I don't understand," said Starbuck, "is why it killed the
women. Why not just do it's thing, as it was?"
     "Would you be aroused by a rotted skeleton of a hag, Starbuck?"
asked Ama, with a gentle tease in her voice. Starbuck looked aside. "It
needed the women to arouse virile young men, in order to steal their life
force. Their souls." She saw Cassie's brow's furrow. "Or absorb their
electrochemical energy, whatever your particular flavor." she smiled. "It
killed them, in order to use their bodies. It could not do so if their
own soul remained in it. In time, had she been permitted to continue, she
would no longer have needed to steal the bodies of others for her
purpose. She would have been replenished, an exquisite creature quite
irresistible to even the most incorrupt of men." 
     "How do you know all this?" asked Hesiod, quietly. He looked
chagrined, as if he were still trying to come to terms with the new
universe of reality he had seen.
     "I plumbed the depths of Truth. A fickle reality at times, so seldom
forthcoming. From there I probed the Vortex of Knowledge." She waved a
hand theatrically and the air shimmered, following her movements like the
tail of a comet. All eyes followed the spectacle. "I...waked paths
unknown to most, listening to the unspoken, and feeling the intangible.
It was there I learned the true nature of the succubus and the brutal
tale of her history." 
     "History?" asked Adama.
     "Yes, Commander," replied Ama. "Long ago, on your Colony world of
Libra, this creature was released from what you would refer to as the
Infernal Realm, where she had been imprisoned long before the rise of
Kobol, and came to be worshipped by many."
     "Hades Hole?" asked Adama.
     "That is a name you might use for it."
     "Hell," said Fisher, softly.
     "She ruled on Libra," Ama continued, "in what your learned men call
the 'Pre-Neferite' period. In a city called Naqena. She ruled as an
Empress, and was worshipped as a goddess named Lilith."
     "Ah!" said Father Fisher.
     "Worshipped how?" asked Adama.
     "Human sacrifice. The bodies and vital energies of virile young men.
By consuming their souls, if you will, she gained and maintained enough
energy to remain in a physical form. In this way, she ruled for
centi-yahrens. In the form of a sensuous, eternally young woman, she
would exert her power, and feed."
     "Like a vampiron," said Starbuck.  
     "Yes, Dearheart. But instead of blood, she fed upon the living
energy of the unfortunate. Finally, all praise to Heaven, she was
overthrown, and all trace of her, it was hoped, expunged."
     "Except for that scroll," said Castor. Like Hesiod, he also
looked...chastened. He certainly had a lot to think about.
     "Yes. The war to overthrow her was long and terrible," said Ama,
closing her eyes and calling up the memories. "The progress of
civilization itself on Libra was set back generations, as a result. It
nearly collapsed, in fact. But, ultimately, she was defeated, and, so
everyone thought, back in the Otherworld, where she belonged. But,
somehow, the scroll survived. She was clever and patient. She knew she
would rise again, and feed once more."
     "And it was this scroll that somehow permitted her to return to our
world? Visible and solid?" asked Fisher. 
     "Yes it was. When it was open, and it's words were spoken aloud, she
stirred, and began to grow, once more. Some women who might have fallen
to her were saved by chance, when you shut up the scroll, Hesiod."
     "Sadly, the rest were not," said the Earth cleric. He crossed
himself. "God have mercy on their souls." 
     "Why did you continue with it"? asked Ama. "You felt the push. The
compulsion to continue with it, even then. Don't say you did not, Mister
Hesiod. I know you  did."
     "Well, I..."
     "Did you not see how she was using you, even from the abyss? Using
you as a tool to bring about her return?" Hesiod said nothing. What could
he say?
     "And now that it is destroyed, she cannot return ever again?" asked
Cassiopeia. 
     We hope, Starbuck thought to himself. 
     Yes, we hope, said a voice in his head, and he looked at Ama. She
smiled back at him.  


     "Yes, Commander?" asked Starbuck, later. After he meeting broke up,
Starbuck was asked to remain. Ama as well. Starbuck knew that look. Adama
still had questions.
     A lot of them.
     "What I want to know," he asked, both of them really, "is why you
involved Starbuck in all this, Ama. He had no part in the killings. He
didn't even know any of the victims."
     Ama looked at Adama for a few microns, as if measuring him. "You are
a busy man, Adama. With everything else, and now these murders, I knew it
would be difficult to get in to see you, and inform you of what I had
learned for certain. To have your full attention. Starbuck," she looked
at the young pilot, and an expression Adama could not fathom crossed her
face, "however, he has what you might call 'an in' with you. I also knew
that there would be physical struggle involved. I needed someone whom I
knew could handle himself."
     "Hey, I could have been killed by that thing!" said Starbuck. "Damn
nearly was!"
     "Nonesense, Dearheart. You weren't, were you?" She smiled her
gap-toothed smile at him. "And I needed to conserve myself."
     "For struggle against...it?" asked the Commander.
     "Yes. After searching the Unseen so deeply, I felt how drained I
was. Drained as I have not felt since I was a mere acolyte. I foresaw
that Lillith would fight to keep that scroll intact, and I was not sure I
could handle both her, and Hesiod, at the same time."
     "What about one of your goddaughters?" asked Adama.
     "They are too young, and they still have much to learn, before they
are able to take on such a foe. If ever. Even I..." She let her hands
drop in her lap. "And I have seen Starbuck in action, before. He is
reliable."
     And stupid, malleable, and easily manipulated, you mean! He told
himself. Filling my head with weird thoughts and ideas.
     Don't put yourself down, Son Starbuck! A voice answered in his head.

     "Very well" said Adama. He looked at Starbuck. "That little matter
of commandeering the shuttle without clearance? You needn't worry about
it, Starbuck. It will be put down to 'Council Business'."
     "Thank you Commander."
     "That was to conserve strength, too, I imagine?" Adama asked Ama.
She nodded. "Why not use the new transport device, then? It was quicker."
     "That...monstrosity?" said Ama, stiffening slightly. "I am aboard
the Fleet to help what remains of my people. Not to have my atoms
scattered back and forth across space by that alien gadget!" She took a
deep breath. "I did use it. Once. It left me so disoriented and
sick-feeling, I swore never to go near it again."
     "It does have that effect on some, I have heard," said Adama. He
leaned back. "Ama, there is much I still do not understand about this
whole episode. And, I am sure, much you aren't telling us."
     "Please, Adama," smiled Ama, her most beguiling, dentally-challenged
smile. "Leave a woman at least a few secrets?"
     "What choice do I have?"
     "We all have choices, Adama," smiled Ama. "We all have choices."

     Fleeing from the Cylon tyranny, the last Battlestar, Galactica,
leads a rag-tag fugitive fleet, on a lonely quest. A shining
planet...known as Earth.

                                             Addendum

     "Sheba," said a voice, and the Viper pilot turned around. In her
quarters, and dressed in a maternity gown, she had been alone, looking at
the old photo of her mother as a child, given her by Siress Tinia.
     "Who...Ama? How did you get in here?"
     "Questions, questions! You and Starbuck must be related!"
     "Well, I..."
     "I am not here as the Voice of Doom, My Dear. Only to reassure you.
I have...seen to things. Apollo need not ever learn of your brush with
Lillith."
     "That was it's name?"
     "Yes," Ama nodded.
     "Thank you," she said, exhaling. She motioned to a seat, and Ama
accepted. "I...I know how much he worries about everything." 
     "Even things in the past that he cannot do a thing about. Like his
mother. Like Zac. The weight of the universe on his shoulders, when it
need not be so."
     "You said he couldn't do a thing about his mother," Sheba knew she
had to ask this.   "Is that true......even if his mother
were......alive?" 
     Ama said nothing at first and then spoke, "You ask of something in
which I can not say anything to you, Sheba.    That is all I can say
about that......and about whatever......dreams you have had on that
subject."
     "Yes...how did you know?"
     "Questions, questions, Daughter of Cain! Like Son Starbuck... But I
know that certain things must be answered in your mind. Yes, that thing
would have killed you, and used you to destroy yet another young man.
Possibly Apollo."
     "Apollo?"
     "Yes," said Ama, flatly. "And, the destruction of the child that
unites the House of Cain and the House of Adama. More and far eviler that
Lillith would rejoice in that, Child."
     "You..." Sheba's brows furrowed. "You don't mean..."
     Ama sat, and he two women just looked at each other, no word passing
between them.