THE SCHOOL OF FEAR

CHAPTER 19

Full circle, Rhiannon thought, listening to the echo of her footsteps through the long, nearly empty corridors of the Fleet Hospital in Caprica City. I was here...that was the end of summer, early fall. Spring now, almost summer...back again.
At a corridor nexus a medtech station was located; several medtechs were there, gathered around a monitor discussing a medical situation that had apparently happened earlier in the day. Rhiannon watched them, almost glad for the delay, not minding that they hadn’t noticed her yet. Finally one of them spotted her out of the corner of her eye and turned to her. The woman’s glance took her in. Rhiannon knew what she saw; black uniform, silver trim, no flight jacket or pistol, a spiral of metallic blue braid on her left cuff that indicated her current staff appointment and, as the woman craned her head slightly to look, the two patches on her right sleeve, Columbia and under it Triumph, for she and Ares had been seconded to that ship after Columbia had been lost, and Flashbolt with her. Ares had been assigned a bridge job in the ECM department and she had been temporarily assigned as Starbuck’s aide and liaison to the Fleet Commander. A thankless but occasionally wonderfully bizarre job, she thought. I can understand Ares’ feelings, but Starbuck is one interesting individual.
“I’m sorry I didn’t see you,” the medtech apologized. “Can I help you?”
“I was told to sign in here to see someone in the intensive recovery ward.”
“Yes, you do sign in here. Which patient?”
“Lieutenant Leah.”
“Fourteen,” the woman said, her nod directed down one of the cross halls. “And you are?” she asked, ready to make a note on her computron terminal.
“Captain Rhiannon Poliorcetes,” she said.
The medtech stared for a centon, then nodded respectfully. “Welcome home, Captain.”
Rhiannon returned the nod and started down the corridor the medtech had indicated.
And so the war is over, and no one is even upset, Rhiannon mused. That still struck her as odd. That surprised all of us. I figured the public would go ballistic, especially after Aunt Dirce put Bojay and the rest of the surviving scum up against a wall. After the holocaust and Baltar even the Capricans realized that there’s exactly one appropriate punishment for treason. Lucky Tolen and Aisling and their group were ready to go in and help the rest of the population regain their sanity, not to mention Cain, who was appropriately ashamed. And not a peep or squawk from anyone in the Colonies about it. Thank the gods Serina put the best possible gloss on all of it...and the fact that Cylons were involved helped a lot. No one likes the Cylons. She remembered the final phase of the battle, the seemingly-solid wall of vipers and raiders closing in on the fleet. She had expected none of them to survive, and then...something had happened. White lights from nowhere, flashing through the enemy formations, destroying the Cylon ships, leaving the vipers untouched. The human pilots had surrendered with commendable speed after seeing their metallic allies slaughtered, and Rhiannon suspected that her aunt was relieved at not having to fight them, much as she might mutter about unfair and unexpected interference. And, when Colonial troops had landed on Gamoray to defend the populace against the Cylons Iblis had positioned around the city, they had found only scattered, blasted shells. Someone, evidently, hated Cylons even more than they did.
As for Iblis, there had been no sign of him. His headquarters building in downtown Gamoray City had been blasted into a pile of rubble by strikers from Columbia’s Beta squadron, and crews had spent sectons peeling down through the complex layers of wreckage, pulling out and identifying the bodies. They had never found his. Somehow Rhiannon was not really surprised, given their theories about who, or what, Iblis was.
The intensive recovery area was located in the highest level of the hospital, and was built around a circular light well. Each room opened out onto it so the patients could have the benefit of fresh air and sunshine, and each room had its own balcony for taking full advantage of it. The balconies were also covered in flowers, and as Rhiannon came to the curved corridor that circled the ward she could smell their fragrance floating in through the often open doors of the rooms. Unconsciously, her steps slowed as she made her way around. Such a long time...and is she going to be all right? The letters she’d received from Leah’s mother were reassuring, but she knew what mothers tended to be like.
Finally she came to fourteen; the number was printed on a neat plastic card that stuck out into the corridor over the door and was repeated on the door itself. The door had been left invitingly open; collecting herself, Rhiannon stepped into the doorway and looked in.
The room was darkened, the curtains drawn but not quite closed; a thin bar of sunlight, moving sinuously as the curtains rippled in the slight breeze from the open window behind them, fell diagonally across the floor, the bed, and its occupant. Rhiannon couldn’t bring herself to look at her, found her attention instead drawn to the woman sitting beside the bed industriously knitting something, a bedspread perhaps, out of brilliant purple shades of yarn. Age and long sickness had left their marks on her face, yet her beauty still shone out. Though her hair was silver, her coloring and blue eyes suggested she had once been blonde, and even if Rhiannon had never seen a picture of her she would have immediately known that this was Judith, Leah’s mother.
Judith looked up, saw her, and smiled. “Hello, Rhiannon.”
Rhiannon could feel herself flushing. Yes, here I am, the woman who corrupted your daughter, she could not help thinking though she knew such a thought was unworthy. “Hello,” she replied, feeling unnaturally shy. “We just got back yesterday.”
“I heard. Leah’s asleep,” Judith explained, with a nod at the bed. “She sleeps a lot...but she’s getting stronger every day. Come in and sit down,” she invited.
Rhiannon drew up a chair opposite Judith, uncomfortably aware that she was being studied. Finally she looked up and met Judith’s eyes.
Judith smiled pleasantly, evidently detecting her unease, and she commented as she returned to her knitting, “Your mother and Colonel Noday were here the day before yesterday. Leah was happy to see them, and I was glad to meet them. I was very favorably impressed. You tend to think of people like your mother as being...well, not quite human, if you’ll excuse me.”
“I know what you mean.” Gods only know how she’d react to Aunt Dirce!
“I was rather surprised that Colonel Noday...talks so much,” Judith went on.
Rhiannon smiled. “The surgery was a little more successful than they expected.” Victory had been the first of the ships to return from Gamoray, only sectons after the battle; Noday had decided to risk surgery and it seemed to have worked. Judging from her mother’s letters Rhiannon suspected Miriam didn’t know whether to be elated or worried.
Judith said, breaking into her thoughts, “You look tired.”
“We’ve all been...working pretty hard,” she said. Mostly making sure all the right astrums get kicked on Gamoray, she appended silently.
“I imagine so.” Looking up from her project, Judith smiled and went on, “I was a little surprised to hear about you.”
“I was a little surprised myself.”
“But I’m glad. You’ve been good to Leah, and good for her. And I suspect she’s been good for you.”
“Yes,” Rhiannon agreed. She took a breath, and forced herself to turn her head and look.
Leah was lying on her left side facing them, the covers pulled up over her, her left arm out of them. Her face was drawn, but she looked peaceful. Rhiannon blinked when she realized why Leah looked so odd; her hair had all been shaven off and was growing back in an untidy stubble a few centimetrons long.
As she watched Leah stirred a little, made a disgusted little noise, and burrowed deeper into her pillow. Rhiannon didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, the gesture was so familiar. Leah hated waking up.
Judith saw Rhiannon’s reaction, smiled, reached over and nudged her daughter. “Leah...Leah, Rhiannon’s here.”
Leah stirred again, opened her eyes, smiled when she saw Rhiannon. “You came back.”
“I came back,” Rhiannon confirmed. Leah’s hand moved a little; Rhiannon took it, held it, bent and kissed it.
Judith realized that her presence was inhibiting. She laid her work aside, rose, and commenting, “I’m going to take a walk,” left, closing the door behind her.
Rhiannon watched her go, then commented brightly, “Does that door lock?”
Leah laughed. “Rhiannon!”
“All right, I couldn’t resist....”
“You don’t look so well, Rhiannon.”
“I’m fine,” Rhiannon replied staunchly. “It’s you I’m worried about.”
“I’m beginning to think I may survive. They took my implant out, you know.”
“Your mother wrote and told me.”
“I almost miss it, isn’t that something?”
“Seems odd,” Rhiannon agreed.
Leah sat up, adjusting the pillows behind her just so, and requested, “Could you get me a glass of water, please?”
Rhiannon filled a glass from the carafe on the bedside table, pausing briefly to admire the flat photograph of herself and Leah there. They had had it taken when Judith had requested a photograph of Rhiannon; in the photograph Leah had her arms around Rhiannon from behind, looking at the camera with a rather pleased-with-herself smile on her face. Rhiannon handed Leah the glass and commented wistfully, “We look rather young in this picture.”
“Rhiannon, we are young,” Leah pointed out.
“Sometimes I just don’t feel it,” Rhiannon said softly, more to herself than Leah.
“You do look...different,” Leah mused, adding, “but then you’re not wearing a gun. You look a little undressed without a gun.”
“Staff officers don’t generally wear them. It would be a little odd,” Rhiannon replied.
“How’s Ares?”
“Ares is Ares,” Rhiannon replied dismissively. “He’s chasing after some lieutenant on the Victory, Thota or Theta or Thora, something like that. Thank God.”
Leah drained her glass and passed it back to Rhiannon. As Rhiannon took it, their fingers brushed.
“When are you getting out of here?” Rhiannon asked.
“Soon,” Leah promised. “Very soon.”

“A hell of an affair,” Diomedes said, shaking his head. He was leaning on the window sill in his office, looking out over the garden, which at this time in summer was an absolute riot of blooms. He hardly noticed them.
“It’s over now,” Miriam said.
Diomedes turned to face her and Starbuck, whose battlecruiser had just returned from Gamoray—Galactica and Orion were still there, along with a number of destroyers and corvettes, waiting for the Colonies to send a permanent ambassador and permanent overwatch forces. “Is it?” he asked. “I hardly think so, daughter. How many other inimical life forms are out there? And Iblis? Who or what was he, and what is he going to do next?” Moving to his desk, Diomedes lifted a thick printout from it and said, “This is a draft bill that was entered in the First Council of Seventy yesterday. It authorizes a comprehensive reconnaissance of this part of the galaxy, the first we’ve ever done. If there are other threats out there, we’re going to identify them before we get surprised again. You are all going to be very, very busy.”
Adama was there as well. “They’re ready for it,” he assured the president.
“That, I never doubted,” Diomedes said, smiling.
Starbuck settled back in his chair, gestured with his fumarello, and said, “There goes the peace dividend.”
“That was always an illusion,” Miriam replied. “It’s just fortunate this happened before the fleet was really permitted to run down.”
“It’s cheaper to prepare for war than to fight it—or, gods know, recover from it,” Diomedes said. Another of the bills on his desk concerned continuing repair appropriations from the holocaust. Sitting down himself, he said, “One further thing troubles me.”
“What’s that, Mr. President?” Starbuck asked.
“What if Iblis decides to come here?”
“If the Book of the Word is correct on the subject, the evil one has dominion only over those who grant it to him,” said Miriam. “Rhiannon told Dirce that, and I double-checked her; that is what it says.”
“There are indications in other of the sacred books as well,” said Adama. “It’s something I’ve been inspired to read about lately. And the latest discoveries from Kobol only confirm the accounts that have come down to us.”
“Human weakness is always a given,” said Diomedes. “I have had some investigators looking into the affairs of the late Count Baltar. They have found some...interesting connections.”
Starbuck frowned. “What does Iblis have against us?”
“I would give rather a lot to know that,” Diomedes replied.
Adama sat back a little, said quietly, “It’s always been a war, Starbuck, between good and evil. That will likely never change.”
“It seems a rather...depressing world-view,” he replied.
Shaking his head, Adama replied, “No, it isn’t. I find it inspiring, Starbuck.”
Diomedes sighed. “Damned hard when you’re the one in the trenches, though.”
“I never denied that. We’ve all been in the trenches in our time, Diomedes.”
“True enough. Which reminds me, Starbuck, I have another medal for you here someplace....”
“Of course you do,” Starbuck said placidly.

“I understand you’re writing a new book,” Serina said to Amala as the two of them drifted aimlessly down one of Caprica City’s famed shopping streets, looking in windows, people-watching, and generally enjoying the sunshine.
“Yes, about the entire Gamoray affair. It will be a kind of sequel to Bellerophon: Death or Glory. Mind you, though, I’m still angry I wasn’t there to see all of it.”
“You didn’t miss a lot. It was terrifying,” Serina replied honestly; she had been on Galactica’s bridge beside Apollo during the last battle. “I’m sure everyone will talk to you,” she added.
“It’s not like being there.” Amala grinned and said, “Actually, I shouldn’t mind. I’m a historian; I’m used to writing about things I haven’t witnessed and working from source material. You’re the reporter.”
“Which implies I should have been there.”
“Indeed. Though I am jealous, I’ll tell you that.”
Serina thought back to her reporting on the expedition. It was, she’d long since decided, some of her best work. And it certainly seemed to have had an impact on public opinion. Peaceloving as she was, Serina had to admit that the effect had been positive; to permit the Fleet to run down without regard for possible outside threats was dangerous and shortsighted. It was a lot cheaper to support a battle fleet than to recover from a war, assuming you survived to recover. Having lived through the holocaust, she could picture all too clearly the likely aftereffects had the Gamoraen missile ships gotten through to make a strike on the Colonies.
They stopped at a parasol-covered kiosk and Amala bought them decorative little Caprican flavored ices on sticks and they sat down on a convenient bench to eat them. Serina searched unsuccessfully for something to wipe her fingers on when her ice melted onto them, had to settle for the less dignified method of licking them. As Amala finished her own, she commented, “The Fleet is getting ready to go out again.”
“Yes. A good idea, that reconnaissance. Of course I’m not personally thrilled,” Serina added.
“Still, once he gets back from Gamoray you and Father ought to have a little time to, um, finish making your arrangements before he goes.”
“Just enough. We’re inviting everyone, of course, though I suppose some of them will have gone by then.”
Amala said, “It’s hard, them having to go.”
“It’s always hard,” said Serina, “but I learned something from your mother, long ago. You may not know this, but when she was on Borallus before the Destruction I met her there. I was fairly liberal at the time...I’m still fairly liberal, only I was at the stage where I had my brain shut off most of the time. She made it very clear that there have to be people who are willing to put themselves on the line so the rest of us can go on living and not worrying about what’s on the other side of the line they guard. I’m going to miss your father, but I’m glad that he and Starbuck and your mother and the rest of them are going to be out there.” Amala nodded, and Serina went on, “By the way, what are you going to call your book, or haven’t you decided on a title yet?”
“Oh, I have one. I’m going to call it The School of Fear.”
The phrase escaped Serina for a centon, then she recalled something Siress Tinia had said. “Your aunt said something....”
“‘I was not brought up in the school of fear,’“ Amala quoted, admiration apparent in her voice. “That’s Aunt Dirce. That’s all of them. Hades, that’s even crazy Rhiannon.”
Smiling, Serina said, “I like your sister.”
“I like her too. That doesn’t blind me to her obvious faults.”

“He’s out there, you know. I can feel it,” Dirce said, staring out the viewport of Apollo’s dining cabin aboard Galactica, hardly noticing the beauty of the stars for the evil that lurked among them.
Still eating, Apollo paused and asked, “You think so?”
“He’s tried at least twice. He’ll be back. Kobol, then the Cylons. And still the question. Why.”
“It really bothers you,” Apollo observed.
Turning to him, she replied, “Hell yes it bothers me. We have to fight him...if we can. Maybe not again in our lifetimes, but someday. That’s a horrible legacy to leave to our children and grandchildren and their children after them.”
“Do you think they won’t be up to it?”
“He destroyed Kobol. He nearly succeeded with the Cylons.”
Setting his silverware aside, Apollo said, “He has other enemies.”
“Possibly. They waited their sweet time to bail us out,” Dirce muttered, looking back out at the starfield.
“Likely it will be centurons. By then....”
“It will not be centurons,” Dirce replied forcefully. Her voice lowered to a threatening whisper as she went on, “Because I’m going to go out there and find him.”

�2000, Susan J. Paxton

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