THE SCHOOL OF FEAR

CHAPTER 16

Dirce elected to keep Cain and his daughter aboard her own flagship when the other warships dispersed to their blockade stations. She’d had Cassiopiea brought on board as well, with the thought of keeping Cain tranquilized and also with the possibility in mind that the woman might get more information out of him than they had. It was not that she felt Cain was hiding anything, for she doubted he was. It was obvious that Iblis had left him a shell of what he had once been. But under more relaxed circumstances, in the presence of someone he trusted implicitly, he might discuss things that seemed unimportant but were in fact very important indeed. She was careful to impress that fact upon Cassiopiea.
“I have to admit, Commander, that half the time I don’t entirely understand what he’s saying. I’ve never been in the military,” Cassiopiea confessed as she and Dirce headed down to the flagship’s life center.
“Understandable, but don’t blank out and look like you’re listening and make polite noises. Listen to him, remember what he says, and report it to me. Anything he says could be important. He may know things he doesn’t realize he knows,” she explained.
The marine outside the life station door snapped to; as they went in, Cassiopiea asked, “Is it usual to have a guard outside life station?”
“It is now. I wanted you to see something rather interesting, Cassiopiea. Good afternoon, Doctor.”
Orion’s chief life officer, Dr. Gallya, a tall, Sagitaran-looking woman, probably about the same age as Dirce, nodded at the Fleet Commander. “She’s right through here, my lady. I’m glad you had her brought on board; it’s an interesting case, to say the least.”
“Who are we talking about?” Cassiopeia asked.
“Cain’s daughter,” Dirce replied. “She has evidently developed, with assistance no doubt, a rather violent attachment to this Count Iblis.”
Dr. Gallya led them deeper into life station, and finally into a small observation room attached to another room. On the monitors, Cassiopiea could see Sheba. The woman was haggard and unkempt, quite apart from her normal appearance, and she was pacing frenetically around the small room where she had been confined, every now and then pounding on the door or walls. As they watched, she dropped to her knees and began to wail, a strange, keening sound that set Cassiopiea’s nerves on edge. The extensive psychological courses that had been a part of her socialator training suggested to Cassiopiea that she was completely insane. Cassiopiea had, for obvious reasons, never been able to like Sheba very much, though she had always felt sympathy for her. Her sympathetic feelings were redoubled, seeing the woman in this state.
The medtech who had been assigned the unenviable task of observing Sheba reported laconically, “No change, Doctor.”
“My God,” Cassiopiea said, “that’s horrible.”
“It’s some kind of psychosis. I’m not sure it’s treatable,” the doctor said. “We’ve installed a mind-static device in the room; we don’t know if Iblis can read minds at this range and through our normal shielding, but if she was in any kind of mental contact with him, she’s out of it now.”
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Dirce, watching Sheba sob convulsively.
The doctor smiled and said, “I’m not so sure, Commander. I seem to recall a few....”
“Now don’t you start.” To Cassiopiea, Dirce explained, “The Doctor and I were at the war college on Sagitara together. She was a warrior before she was a doctor. I do not recall inspiring similar symptoms in anyone.”
“She did,” Gallya assured Cassiopiea. “It was a scandal. I understand, Cassiopiea, that you knew this woman before this happened to her.”
“I did. We were not very...close,” Cassiopiea understated.
“So I understand from the book that was written about Cain,” the doctor said. “I was curious to see what reaction, if any, you might provoke.”
“Do you...well, think it’s safe?”
“Good heavens no,” the doctor exclaimed. “I’m certainly not going to send you in there, Cassiopiea. I’ll put you on her monitor.”
“Oh. All right.”
Positioning herself in front of a scanner, the doctor pressed the switch to activate the monitor in the other room. “Sheba?”
Sheba’s head snapped around; she snatched a pillow up off her bunk and flung it at the monitor.
“Not very sociable today,” Dirce observed.
“We have someone here who would like to see you,” Gallya went on, unruffled. She stepped aside and motioned Cassiopiea before the monitor.
Sheba’s reaction was instantaneous. The doctor hurriedly brought her fist down on the cutoff to halt the flood of invective. “Well...,” she began.
“Don’t worry,” Cassiopiea said flatly. “I’ve heard it all before.”
“Obviously she recognizes you,” Dirce said, a little taken aback herself.
“Yes,” said Gallya. “Her memories clearly are intact. That gives me some possible openings for treatment. I feared that Iblis might have destroyed her mind and put something more amenable to himself in its place. Now we know he’s merely twisted it.”
“Cain said something about Iblis playing to people’s weaknesses,” said Dirce.
“Human weaknesses are always a given...and evil is always waiting to exploit them for its own purposes,” said Gallya.

The planet where Aisling’s reconnaissance expedition had found Iblis was a small, habitable world, the only planet of appreciable size circling a very ordinary yellow dwarf star some thirty light-yahrens out beyond Gamoray. Flashbolt’s array of sensors fed a flood of data into her systems, which her computers rapidly digested and put up in readable form on the monitors.
“It’s a dump,” Ares decided.
“Not at all,” Leah protested. “It’s temperate, the gravity is nominal, the atmosphere breathable, the geology quite normal.”
“A dump,” Ares repeated. “According to the bioscans, there’s nothing down there more advanced than third-level life forms.”
“Lucky planet,” Rhiannon commented, sitting back in the pilot’s seat with folded arms, scanning the data as it came up on her monitor.
“We’re coming up on our orbit change,” Ares said.
“Got it,” Rhiannon replied, and in a few centons they switched from an equatorial to a polar orbit that would enable them to scan even more of the planet’s surface in detail.
“No sign of any wreckage yet,” Leah commented after awhile. “Is it possible it’s become overgrown?”
“It’s been twenty-some yahrens, likely it has,” said Rhiannon. “Still, our scanners ought to pick it up. Unless some geologic event has destroyed it.” Leaning forward, she punched in a request that the ship’s computers check the scans for any sign of recent floods, landslides or volcanic eruptions that might have destroyed the wreckage of the ship Iblis claimed to have come to the planet in. The computer quickly reported finding only minor traces of such activity. Evidently the planet was very stable.
Suddenly Rhiannon sat up. “What’s that?”
Ares glanced at her scanner, then changed his own display to match. “I think that’s it,” he said. “It’s overgrown, but it’s a helluva pile of metal. Very slightly radionactive...smashed into a hillside. Yep, that’s it.”
“Fine, let’s go down and take a look.”

Behind them Flashbolt made interesting little noises as its hull and drive cooled. The scout looked a little incongruous in its black warpaint, sitting as it was in a meadow on Iblis’ planet, long grass up to its belly hiding its underbody gun turret and torpedo tubes, bright wildflowers showing up even more beautifully against its dark bulk, the bright sun picking highlights off its upper surfaces.
“Y’know,” Ares remarked, “this looks like a Peace Party ad.”
Leah laughed. “It does.”
“‘The Cylon War is over, it’s time to forget war and begin using our resources wisely....’“
The last thing Rhiannon wanted to hear was Peace Party cant; she wanted war no more than they, but to her mind the best way to prevent war was to be ready to fight, not to invite aggression through weakness. “Shut up, Ares,” she snapped. “Come on.”
Habitable and peaceful as the planet seemed to be, the warriors had taken certain precautions. Before leaving the ship they had made certain that its decontamination chamber was in working order. With microscopic dangers taken care of, Rhiannon had decided to insure against larger hazards. In addition to her laser pistol she was carrying an assault rifle with a grenade launcher affixed under the barrel. Her colleagues were wise enough not to question her choice of weaponry, but she saw their looks and pointed out, “I have this thing about being more heavily armed than anything around me.” Now, the rifle slung over her shoulder but within easy reach, she led them through the tall grass towards the location where the scanners had found the wreckage of Iblis’ ship.
“Radion levels?” she asked Ares, who had his portable scanner out.
Stumbling over a rock hidden in the grass, he caught himself and said, “Very low. Not harmful as long as we don’t hang around long.”
The meadow sloped down into a shallow valley that must once have contained a small river, though it was dry and grass-covered now. Across the valley was an obvious scar; although the impact crater was overgrown, its shape was visible, the vegetation in and around it was different than the rest of the valley, and through the clinging weeds and vines sparkles of metal could be discerned in the afternoon sunshine. As they made their way towards it, Ares commented, “It doesn’t look like that big of a ship.”
“This may be what survived entry into the atmosphere,” said Rhiannon. “It obviously didn’t make anything like a controlled landing.”
Stopping before a pile of twisted wreckage covered with vegetation, they hesitated. Ares said, “Those plants are bound to be full of bugs.”
Rhiannon drew her laser pistol and, using its wide-beam setting, burned the vegetation off a small portion of the wreckage. Once she realized that it was not clinging to the hull but merely growing over it she fired lower, severing root connections, and the plants mostly fell away of their own weight.
The piece of wreckage thus revealed looked like an interior portion of the vessel, possibly a length of corridor. Judging by the way it had broken up on impact it was constructed in prefabricated sections, much as Colonial ships were. Despite the similarity in technique, though, the ship was clearly not of familiar origin.
“Does this look like Delphian construction to you?” Rhiannon asked Ares.
“It could be,” he said. “From what I remember from the Academy it’s something like it. If we could find the engines...or even anything with lettering on it....”
“Here, hold onto this,” Rhiannon said, unslinging her rifle and handing it to Leah. Pushing aside more vegetation, she got close enough to the wreckage to look into it. After the sunlight the charred remains were too black to see anything. Unclipping a light from her belt, she shone it inside.
“It’s part of a corridor, but it’s upside down,” she reported, shining her light on the decking, which now formed the ceiling of the inverted segment. “Has a kind of standard non-skid decking pattern....” Shining the light down the side of the tube, she continued, “Conduits and cable runs...nothing with lettering, more’s the pity...what the hell!”
Alarmed, Leah leveled the rifle and clicked off the safety. “What is it?” she asked.
“It’s...gods, it’s a body,” Rhiannon said, hurriedly backing out of the tube.
Ares was a little nonplused. “Come on, Rhiannon, you’d think you’d never seen a body before.”
“Not like this one,” she shot back. “You look,” she challenged.
Ares hesitated an instant, then said, “All right,” and pushed past her. Once he saw what was in the tube he froze for an instant, then asked, “What in hades is that?”
Rhiannon had recovered some of her usual aplomb. “What was it Ares, it’s dead now.” She came forward again to look over his shoulder and Leah peeked around them, making a little sound of disgust when she saw the charred body.
There was not much of it left; it had been pretty thoroughly incinerated either during the ship’s entry into the atmosphere or after the crash, and it was badly damaged by the crash itself though not dismembered. Though the local life forms had apparently found it unappetizing and thus it had escaped being eaten, it was horribly shrunken by the evaporation of its body fluids, its charred skin pulled tightly over its broken bones. It appeared to have been bipedal, bilaterally symmetrical, and had one head. Ares pointed at the foot and said, “That’s not a hoof!”
“It looks like one,” Leah said. “Maybe it’s just burned,” she added.
“I don’t think so,” said Rhiannon. “I think that’s what it’s supposed to look like.”
“Doesn’t seem to have any gender distinctions,” said Ares.
“How can you tell?” Rhiannon muttered. She took her rifle back from Leah and affixed the bayonet, with which she flipped the body over onto its stomach.
“It has a tail,” Leah said. The appendage was truncated by fire, but clearly the creature had possessed a tail.
“That is one ugly son-of-a-bitching thing,” Ares said.
Rhiannon turned the body over again and, greatly daring, moved into the tube section to take a closer look at the creature’s head. Suddenly she dropped her rifle with a clatter and shoved past Ares and Leah and rushed out of the tube. They could hear her hysterics after she’d gone. “What the...,” Ares began, and started to follow her. Leah held him back.
“Wait, Ares,” she said. “Look.” She took her own light off her belt and focused it on the creature’s head.
Most of the skin had been burned off the head and the naked skull gleamed in the yellow light of her beam, hollow eye sockets staring into space. The creature had a muzzle instead of a proper nose and mouth. There were three eye sockets. There were horns. The leathery remains of ears were pointed.
“My God,” Ares whispered.
“I don’t think so,” Leah said. She bent and picked up Rhiannon’s rifle. “We’d better get some good scans of this thing.”
“Yeah,” Ares agreed, taking his scanner off his belt.
Outside, they found Rhiannon some distance from the wreckage sitting on a rock, looking pale and humiliated. Leah sat down beside her, put an arm around her, and asked, “Are you all right?”
“I don’t know why I reacted like that,” Rhiannon said, obviously disgusted by her weakness.
“I do,” said Leah. “It’s all right.”
“Um, why did you react like that?” Ares wanted to know.
Rhiannon glared up at him. “You’re the one who’s never read the Book of the Word,” she accused. “If you had...you’d know what that was...and you’d know what Iblis is!”
“Now wait a centon,” Ares protested, “isn’t this getting unnecessarily supernatural?”
“No, it is not,” Rhiannon snapped.
More patiently, Leah explained, “The Book of the Word, whether you accept it as revelation or not—I don’t—is actually pretty good history. There’s no reason to disbelieve that there were evil influences on Kobol. We know that the planet was destroyed because people misused its resources. I always thought that blaming it on supernatural forces and...well, demons, was an excuse. But that things matches the descriptions.”
“Too well. Even the eyes. Gods,” Rhiannon said with a shudder.
“Are you suggesting that Iblis is...well, the Adversary? The Prince of Darkness, or whatever they called him?”
“Perhaps you have a better suggestion,” Leah said.
“He doesn’t,” Rhiannon said. “He refuses to take this seriously.
“I’m trying to, but…,” he said.
Leah shook her head, said to Rhiannon, “We have to get this information back to the fleet.”
“Yes, but first I want to find out where this ship came from,” she replied. “Come on.”
It took them nearly a centare of moving wreckage and burning off vegetation, but at long last they found a piece of metal, probably the casing of a fuel pump, that had letters and numbers cast into it.
“Delphian,” said Leah. “This ship is from Gamoray.”
Rhiannon nodded. “And you know what’s really interesting? Judging from the evidence and scanner readings, this ship crashed here either just before or just after the Cylons destroyed the Delphian Empire. Now isn’t that a coincidence.”
“Rather doubtful,” Ares agreed.
“Right. Let’s get the hell out of here,” Rhiannon said, and they made their way at a near-trot back to their ship.

“You should eat something,” Leah encouraged, pushing a plate of food under Rhiannon’s nose.
“Not hungry,” she muttered, eyeing the food warily.
“We’re off the planet now, we’re going home....”
“We are going back to Gamoray,” Rhiannon corrected. “We are not going home. I wish we were,” she added.
“So do I.”
Rhiannon sighed and sat back, staring up blankly at the ceiling of Flashbolt’s common room. “When we do get home...do you like to sail?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never tried it.”
“It has one major advantage.”
“Which is?”
“Quiet,” Rhiannon said succinctly.
“We’ll go,” Leah said. “Now relax and eat.”
“How can I relax when Ares is flying the ship?”
“Now Rhiannon, I have seen you relax when Ares flies the ship,” Leah admonished.
“Yes, yes, it’s just..I was not impressed with the way he acted on the planet.”
“Well, that’s Ares. Not taking things seriously is a kind of defense mechanism for him. Why did it hit you so hard?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe...for a horrible instant I almost found myself believing the Book of the Word. The religious part, not the historical part.”
“The whole Book-of-the-Word-Elders-of-Kobol-miracle-of-the-secton thing I’ve always found a little hard to take. Of course, when you see it like that....”
“Don’t tell me you’re about to convert!”
“Not hardly. According to the Book of the Word, women do not have souls,” Leah pointed out dryly. “Not to mention that bunch of lecherous Elders. I don’t believe the religion. But I do believe the history...and I believe more of it now. And maybe Iblis isn’t supernatural. Maybe he’s just different.”
“Can we defeat him, that’s the real question.”
“That is the question. The food,” she added, pushing it closer.
Rhiannon gave in. With a sigh she picked up her fork, stirred the food around for a centon and was about to put away the first mouthful when Ares called over the intercom, “I think you guys had better get up here.”
The cockpit was just through the bulkhead door and in a few microns they were in their places. “What is it?” Rhiannon asked as she strapped in.
“I’m not sure. Weirdo scanner readings... there’s something behind us.”
The scanner readouts presented a mass of conflicting information. “What the...there is something out there, but...Leah, how far are we from the portal?”
“This speed, one centare, forty two centons.”
“Best speed?”
“Best speed in this system is 95% light. At 95% of lightspeed, the time would be...seventeen centons.”
“All right, give me an adjusted course. Ares, stand by for 95% lightspeed.”
“Screens and shields up. Arm?”
“Master arm on.”
Ares studied his targeting displays. “Still something behind us...closing fast.”
“We’ll see how fast. Ready, Leah?”
“Your course is locked in.”
“All right,” Rhiannon said, and increased the power. In a matter of a few centons Flashbolt accelerated from a relative crawl to 95% of the speed of light.
“All systems looking good,” Leah reported.
“Look at that!” Ares squawked in alarm. He was pointing not at his instruments but outside the cockpit windows. Rhiannon watched in disbelief as a stream of bright white objects, utterly featureless, streamed past them.
“That’s impossible,” Leah said promptly. “Those objects were not blue-shifted, and did not appear on any scanner. Illusions.”
“Yeah, but....”
Before Ares could protest further, Rhiannon said, “Damn it, whatever is behind us is still closing!”
Ares turned on Leah and said, “And don’t say ‘that’s impossible!’”
“But it is!” she protested.
“All right,” said Rhiannon, “enough of this felgercarb. Ares, arm the torpedoes, We’re gonna flip and give them our nose, and a surprise they’ll never forget.”
Ares grinned. “Bomb-pumped X-ray lasers? I think not.”
“We don’t know that they’re hostile,” Leah advised. “We should try hailing them.”
“Fine, you go ahead and hail all you like,” Rhiannon said, “it’ll take us a centon to set this maneuver up.”
“All right.” She cleared her throat and began, “Unidentified ship, this is the Colonial Fleet Armed Warp Scout Flashbolt on a peaceful reconnaissance....” Before she could complete her call she yanked off her headphones.
“Are you all right?” Rhiannon asked.
“Static or something...a horrible sound,” she said, rubbing at her ears.
“Ready?” she asked Ares.
“Yep. I’ve always wanted to see this done,” he added.
“You and me both. OK....”
“Leah,” Ares asked, “did you leave your commcircuit on? Is that the noise you were talking about?”
“I thought I offed it...my God, that’s....”
“Execute,” Rhiannon ordered, but before she or Ares could activate the maneuver they had plotted out, they were gone.

Dirce flicked her dress uniform cape into place and looked around for a mirror in which to check her appearance. There did not seem to be one in the anteroom to the chamber where they were to meet Count Iblis.
“You look fine,” Siress Tinia assured her, reaching over to adjust the cape very slightly.
“It always pays to look one’s best.”
“And you always do,” replied Siress Tinia. She’d known Dirce since the warrior had testified before a committee Siress Tinia had chaired when she’d been a member of the First Council of Seventy. They had become, perhaps surprisingly for all the differences between them, fast friends.
“Does he make everyone wait?” Dirce muttered after a few more centons had passed.
“He’s trying to irritate us. Don’t let him succeed.”
“I am already well-prepared to dislike him,” Dirce replied.
“Judging by Apollo’s description, this isn’t the same place he met Iblis. I had the impression that that was higher in the building.”
“That was his office. Maybe this is his throne room,” Dirce said dryly. “You are going to ask him about Xaviar?” Colonel Xaviar had not returned to the Galactica when Apollo had recalled him.
“If I can.”
“Traitor. I wish I could get my hands on him,” Dirce said.
At that centon the double doors on one wall of the rather plainly furnished anteroom swung open and one of the stock blond, handsome, cold-looking young warriors stepped out and said, “Count Iblis will see you now.”
“Fine,” said Dirce. “Siress?”
“With you, my lady.”
“Siress Tinia of Taura Colony, special ambassador of the Colonies, Fleet Commander Dirce of Tiryns, Sagitara Colony,” the guard announced.
The room they entered indeed looked suspiciously like a throne room. It was rectangular, and the door they entered through was in one of the short walls. Down at the room’s other end was a stone chair, not overly magnificent but well carved, resting on a low platform. There was no other furniture. The floor was lushly carpeted in black, the woodwork the room glowed with was darkly magnificent, and the concealed lighting picked it all out quite tastefully and carefully focused ones’ attention on the man standing there alone; Count Iblis.
Iblis was richly dressed in white robes with gold trim; he stood tall and erect beside the chair, one hand resting lightly on its back, waiting for them with an air about him like a monarch.
For her part, Dirce was not impressed—her adoptive father, after all, was a king—and Tinia kept a little behind her to admire her carriage, as tall and erect as Iblis; her walk oozed self-confidence and aggression. Thousands of yahrens of conquerors and warlords in her lineage, no wonder she walks like that, Tinia thought, amused. Her relationship with Dirce was strictly one of friendship, but she could understand how other women, and men, she supposed, could find the tall, rather cold woman in her immaculate black uniform compellingly attractive.
They halted a few metrons from the dais on which Iblis’ chair rested. Clearly Iblis did not expect obeisance from them; when they failed to bow or even nod, he merely smiled and said, “Welcome.”
Dirce could not help fingering the mind-static device on her belt. It doesn’t even seem to faze him. Maybe it doesn’t work. But if Iblis read that thought from her mind he didn’t show it. He waited for them to speak, and Siress Tinia said, “I have been instructed to convey the greetings of my government and of the President of the Council of the Twelve, Lord Diomedes of Sagitara, Prince of Argos.”
Iblis nodded. “A famous name, and a famous man.”
Respect? Dirce wondered. It almost sounded like it, if a little grudging. Odd.
“My government,” Siress Tinia continued, a little encouraged, “wishes to express concern about the intentions of Gamoray towards the Twelve Colonies. We feel that these matters need to be aired and cleared up before formal relations can begin between our worlds—and before there are any terminal misunderstandings.”
“We have no hostile intentions towards the Colonies,” said Iblis.
Lie, Dirce thought. Something she had always had a knack for was knowing whether someone spoke what they believed to be the truth. Iblis, she was certain, was lying.
“On the contrary,” Iblis went on, “it is the Colonies who have shown aggression towards us.”
“In what form?” Tinia inquired.
“By arriving in our system unannounced, murdering three of our warriors....”
“After they attacked and tried to rape our scout crew,” Dirce inserted tightly.
Iblis continued as if he hadn’t heard her. “Failing to observe proper orbits, making an illegal reconnaissance in restricted airspace, dealing with terrorist elements, boosting your forces in this system, laying what appears to be a blockade, and sheltering defectors. Those are aggressive acts.”
“They were acts taken in perceived self-defense,” said Tinia.
“You have always been aggressive. The Colonies began the war against the Cylons. Perhaps you intend to find a new war here.”
“The Thousand Yahren War began when we assisted the Hasaris, who we had a mutual defense treaty with,” said Siress Tinia. “We have no aggressive intentions towards Gamoray. Quite the opposite, in fact.”
Iblis sat down in his chair. Since it was raised, he could still look down upon the two women, which he did, condescendingly. “We demand that you withdraw your forces from our system now,” he said.
“Who makes this decision? The people of Gamoray?” Tinia asked.
“I make the decisions,” Iblis replied.
“We will not leave until we are assured that our planets are not in danger,” Dirce said. “That calls for the immediate destruction of your missile ships. You can scrap them yourselves...or we will do it for you.”
“Don’t threaten me,” Iblis said quietly.
“I don’t threaten anyone,” Dirce replied just as softly.
Tinia reached out and touched her arm reassuringly, then said to Iblis, “That is one of the major requests of our government. We have no objection to defensive armaments, but we see those ships as being aimed against civilian targets on our planets.”
“Those ships are defensive weapons,” said Iblis.
“Defensive?” Dirce scoffed. “Holding a civilian population under the gun is defense?”
This is not going very well, Tinia thought, but Iblis holds all the cards. I don’t even know if I can buy us any time...and the Fleet is nowhere near ready....
“Fear can be a weapon,” said Iblis. “Knowing how your aggression endangered them, do you think the Colonial public would approve how you have threatened us?”
“We have not...,” Siress Tinia began.
Dirce put a restraining hand on the other woman’s shoulder. “Forget it, Tinia. He’s just saying this for public consumption. He’s undoubtedly recording all of this and will use it for his own purposes if he can get it out of the system and back to the Colonies. He’s been lying all along.”
Iblis smiled, the smile of a predator. It frightened Tinia; she had dealt with ruthless men and ruthless aliens before, but she had never seen anyone look like that, superficial handsomeness stripped away to reveal the carnivore lurking under the gloss.
But Dirce was unmoved. She stepped forward and looked Iblis in the eye. “I was not brought up, Count Iblis, in the school of fear,” she said.
“Moving,” Iblis mocked. “Perhaps your words will comfort you, in the end.”
“We destroyed the Cylons. We slaughtered every last one of them. We have sworn that every enemy of humankind will suffer the same fate. We live, you die.”
Iblis rose, pointed a finger at Dirce—and nothing happened. Judging by the Count’s flash of frustration before he controlled himself, something more than a comment had been forthcoming. Siress Tinia smiled a little, touched the bracelet she wore. So they do work.
“Get out,” Iblis grated.
“Not quite yet,” said Siress Tinia. “I was sent to make peace. I can see that that is impossible. In that case, Count Iblis, I must inform you that a state of war exists between your government and mine, effective at local midnight tonight.”
“Fine,” Iblis replied. “Now, get out.”
“Remember the Cylons, Iblis,” Dirce said over her shoulder as she followed Tinia out.
Iblis’ eyes narrowed and he flushed. “I do remember the Cylons, bitch,” he shot back, “and you will pay for that.”
On the way to their shuttle, Tinia wondered, “Now why was he so hot about the Cylons?”
“You’ve got me,” said Dirce. “You didn’t ask about Xaviar,” she added.
“It’s not important.”
“Not important?” Dirce exclaimed. “He knows everything about our weapons, our tactics....”
“And it’s too late now to do anything about it,” Tinia counseled. “Dirce, your father was almost certain that this would lead to war. I was sent to try and buy time and you were sent because you win.”
“No matter what?”
“Don’t you?” Tinia countered.
For an instant the warrior looked very vulnerable, apprehensive. Others might have seen it as out-of-character, but to Tinia it only emphasized her friend’s humanity. “I can only try, Tinia.”

Rhiannon and Briseis were sitting in the grass by the side of the flightline at the Fleet base just outside Caprica City, watching the ground crew prep their striker for the Holocaust Day flyover. The air was warm and sweet with the odors of life, the sunlight rippled across acres of grass swaying gently in the morning breeze. The quiet was profound. Rhiannon lay back in the grass and looked up at the cloudless sky and sighed.
“I don’t blame you, you know,” the woman sitting beside her said.
Rhiannon looked at her. Briseis was no taller than she, a little slighter, a few yahrens older, darkly beautiful in the traditional Sagitaran manner.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Briseis went on. “It worked out for the best anyway. I was not very good to you—and your navigator is.”
Before Rhiannon could figure out what Briseis was talking about, she was awake.
Hades, what brought that on? she wondered, rubbing her temples. She had a headache, but it was fading almost as quickly as the dream.
I’m almost afraid to open my eyes. I know for sure that we’re not on Flashbolt anymore, she thought. Finally she sat up and looked. Her surroundings were white and at first glance utterly featureless. As her eyes adjusted to the soft glow pervading everything she could pick out differences here and there but wasn’t sure if they implied walls or ceilings or floors. Feeling the surface beneath her, she found that it yielded to pressure but gave no other clues as to its composition. Looking down at herself, she noticed that her previously black uniform was white. The silver trim was still silver, but the material was white.
Before she had time to absorb that, or to wonder where Ares and Leah were, she heard weeping. Leah, she thought, alarmed, and pushed herself to her feet. Swaying for a centon light-headedly, she focused in on the sound and cautiously headed in that direction. It looked as if there was a wall or barrier in the way, but she passed through it without impediment and found Leah sitting on the other side, face in her hands, crying. Rhiannon knelt beside her and took her in her arms. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“We’re dead, Rhiannon, I know it,” Leah wept.
“No, we can’t be,” Rhiannon said, but recalled her dream about Briseis. That was too real. Gods, what if we are! “We can’t be,” she repeated staunchly, as much to reassure herself as her lover. She ran her fingers through Leah’s hair and around to her face. “After all, you feel real enou....” She cut off abruptly when her hand reached her throat and she realized she didn’t have a pulse. In fact, she didn’t even feel right.
Leah saw her reaction and asked apprehensively, “What is it?”
“Nothing,” Rhiannon said, the irony unintentional. “It’s all right. Have you seen Ares?”
“No.”
“We’d better find him. Come on.” She rose and drew Leah up after her.
Leah snatched her hand out of Rhiannon’s. “My God!” she exclaimed, having just made the same discovery Rhiannon had.
“All right, maybe we are dead,” Rhiannon muttered disconsolately. “Frack.”
At that centon Ares appeared through another faintly visible partition. “Hey, are you guys all right?” he asked anxiously.
“Oh yeah, we’re having a great time,” Rhiannon replied sarcastically. “What the hell’s going on?”
“You’ve got me. Where is this place? It’s kind of a dump.”
“I don’t think we really want to know.”
“Um,” Ares began, “you don’t think our religion is...well, real?”
“No I do not,” Rhiannon said. She looked around and added to the general air, “And if it is, you can go screw yourself!”
“Rhiannon!” Leah exclaimed, alarmed.
“Actually, I tend to second her comment,” Ares said.
“Perhaps,” a voice advised from behind them, “you should endeavor to take things more seriously.”
Rhiannon whirled and snapped, “Oh, we’re taking things plenty seriously.”
The being standing a few metrons from them was strange indeed. It was clothed in white garments that shimmered and sparkled as if they were not quite material. It was about their size and shape, but the only part of it visible were the eyes, which were large, dark, and slightly luminous.
“Who are you?” Ares asked.
“A friend,” the being replied.
“A friend?” Rhiannon scoffed. “You attack our ship....”
“I believe you were planning on firing X-ray lasers at us,” the being pointed out mildly.
“Well, there was...some discussion of that,” Ares muttered.
“You are preventing us from taking important information to our fleet!” Rhiannon accused. “That’s hardly the act of a friend.”
“We needed to learn from you,” the being said. “We did not mean to appear aggressive.”
“Are we dead?” Leah ventured.
“In a manner of speaking. You are in a dimension quite apart from your own, one in which you could not exist in your normal physical form,” the being explained.
More subdued, Rhiannon asked, “Is this...what happens to people when they die?”
The being looked at her, said, “You have yet to find that out.”
“I hope I have a long time before I find out.”
The being seemed amused. “So do we.”
“Why did you intercept us?” Ares asked.
“We fight a common foe.”
“Iblis?” Rhiannon asked. “Is he one of you?”
“He uses his powers for evil, for self-aggrandizement, for destruction.”
Leah looked around the place they were, thought of the vast power that it implied, and asked the being, “Why don’t you do something about him?”
“We can only help you to oppose him. We cannot interfere in any beings’ freedom of choice.”
Rhiannon was highly offended. “What crap!” she exploded. “If he’s one of you, you have responsibility for him! Don’t hand me any stupid excuses about....”
Alarmed, Leah pulled at Rhiannon’s sleeve. “Rhiannon,” she admonished, “think about who you’re talking to!”
“I am talking to a moral coward!”
“Great,” Ares muttered, “we’re going to get zapped by a lightning bolt any centon now....”
“Once,” the being said, ignoring Ares, “we were very much as you are now. We thought in terms of easy answers and simple solutions. Now we know better. And someday you may be as we are, and know this.”
“Well I hope not!”
“We have learned all we needed to know. Now we will release you. You will remember nothing of this,” the being added.
“That seems a little unfair,” Leah murmured.
“Once, long ago,” the being told her, “we helped your people when they were few and weak. All too often, those we helped were mistreated, or they interpreted our help as religious revelation, to use against others as often as for good. Jealousy, greed, and hatred are basic human emotions. We find it best to operate more quietly.”
“Are you what the Book of the Word called angels?” she asked.
“Sometimes,” the being agreed.
“Do we have to take our religion literally?” Rhiannon had to ask.
“I understand what troubles you. Your religion, like all religions, is a human attempt to grasp something beyond comprehension—beyond our comprehension. There are as many answers as there are questions, but the final truth is this; live with honor and hurt no one. Now we will return you to your ship, and if we have injured or frightened you, we are sorry for it.”
Rhiannon thought back to her dream. She had no idea if it was genuine or not, but she found it gave her a great sense of relief. “No,” she said, “it’s all right. And I’m sorry I snapped at you. It was unworthy. We can’t understand whatever constraints you have on you.”
The being accepted her apology with a nod.

“You should eat something,” Leah encouraged, pushing a plate of food under Rhiannon’s nose.
“Not hungry,” she muttered, eyeing the food warily.
“We’re off the planet now, we’re going home....”

BACK TO CHAPTER 15

ON TO CHAPTER 17

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