03 - Sagittarius is Bleeding (20 page)

“How do you know that’s what he is?” She stood next to him for a moment, and
then draped one long leg over him and sat in his lap, facing him. It was all he
could do to contain a small whimper. “We both know your Cylon detection test is
a sham. He might indeed be one of us.”

“Yes, so you said before. Considering you’ve never been especially
forthcoming on the identities of your agents, I’d have to think that the fact
you seem determined to hang the boy out to dry reduces the odds of his being a
Cylon to practically nonexistent.”

“Unless, of course, I know that you’ll think that, and am counting on it. Remember, Gaius, there’s not a thought that goes through your
head that I’m not privy to.”

“You’re pushing awfully hard on this…”

She applied downward pressure with her pelvis. “Oh?”

“On this subject!” Baltar amended quickly, and he ignored the stifled laugh
from Six. “I still don’t understand your obsession with—”

Abruptly she stood and stepped back away from him. She moved in the way a
dancer moved, and it made him feel as if this was all some sort of strange,
deluded tango between the two of them. “Because it’s in my interest to protect
you.”

“You mean it’s in your interest to control me.” He rose from the chair and
faced her, feeling powerful, feeling defiant. “What’s the matter? Afraid that
I’ll have power over you now that I know your name… Gina?” He saw her face
twist in annoyance. “Yes, you can’t stand that, can you. I know your name, and
that gives me power over you. Didn’t you say yourself that’s how it works?”

“You know
a
name,” she retorted. “A name beaten out of a poor version
of me. Isn’t it possible that she would have lied about it?”

“It’s entirely possible,” Baltar admitted, but then added with a sense of
smirking confidence, “because—after all—your kind is quite accomplished at
lying, aren’t you.”

She allowed the remark to pass and then, sounding all business, she said,
“You need to throw up distractions, Gaius. I think you’re tragically oblivious
to the amount of danger that you’re in.”

“And what could possibly give you that impression? Are you going to tell me
again that Adama suspects? Let him. Let him suspect all he wants. He can’t prove
a damned thing and you know it.”

“Roslin is suspicious of you as well. She believes you to be a Cylon
sympathizer at best… a Cylon yourself at worst.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Baltar told her, dismissing the notion out of hand.

“Is it.” She circled the room, shaking her head as if he were the most
pitiable individual she could ever have hoped to meet. “And how do you know it’s
ridiculous?”

“Because I just saved the woman’s life, for gods’ sake! She’d be dead of
breast cancer if it weren’t for me!”

“That’s very true. And I’m sure she’s abundantly grateful for your having
saved her, isn’t she. Think back, Gaius,” she said with sudden impatience. “Open
your eyes and think back. Did she ever, at any point, say so much as thank you?”

He didn’t have to answer her, because she knew the answer as well as he:
Laura Roslin had never thanked him. In fact, she had done quite the opposite. He
had been there shortly after the treatment had been administered and her
cancer-free status had been verified. He’d shown up in her hospital room, and he
had been expecting… something. Some sort of thanks, some measure of
gratitude. But he had gotten nothing. Oh, she had received him in her room
cordially enough, and she had made small talk about impending business and how
long it would take her to return to her duties. She had asked him about the
expectations of reasonable recovery time.

But she had not thanked him, or given the slightest indication that she was
at all appreciative of what he had done for her. Quite the opposite, in fact.
She had watched him with great suspicion, jumped on any comments that could
remotely be misconstrued. It seemed as if she had been looking for things to
criticize, to find… wrong… with him.

Why? Why would she come out of her coma, her near-death experience, with new
and increased suspicions regarding Baltar? Was there something that he had said or done that had made her think
something was wrong with him?

“You still don’t get it, do you?” said Six.

“Not readily, no,” he admitted. “But I very much suspect you’re going to tell
me.”

“For someone who purports to be a genius, you’re not always very bright,
Gaius. It comes down to something as simple as this: When someone is on the
verge of death, all the detritus is stripped away from their mind. Take it from
someone who has died several times in her existence. Nothing clears the mind
like impending demise, and things that may have been obscured by time and
distance suddenly snap into very clear relief.”

“What, are you saying that because she was going to die, she’s now come to
some sort of realization about me that she was blinded to before?”

“I’m saying that her behavior is not consistent with someone who damned well
should have been grateful considering she would have died without your
intervention.”

He was about to reply to that, to again issue an automatic denial and express
his complete confidence that Laura Roslin had no reason, none, to suspect him.
But he didn’t say that because he couldn’t get the words to come out of his
mouth. Finally he said, “Not everyone is skilled at giving thanks to people.” He
winced even as he said it, because it wasn’t remotely convincing even to his own
ear. That being the case, it certainly wasn’t anything that Number Six was going
to buy.

It was, in fact, so unconvincing that she didn’t even deign to address it.
Instead she said, “Something’s in the air, Gaius. You can feel it. You can smell
it. They think they can fool you and even hide it from you… but they can’t.
They’re investigating Cylon infiltration in new and aggressive ways, and you’ve
been targeted for suspicion. They’re going to do something about it. They’re going to try and find
evidence.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I know humans. In some ways, I know them better than you.”

“I see.” As far as Baltar was concerned, the entire discussion was becoming
ludicrous. “All right, Gina… or Six… or whatever. Impress me with your
knowledge of my people. Tell me what they’re going to do to try and find
evidence.”

“Obviously,” said Six, “they’ll undertake some manner of surveillance.”

“Surveillance? You mean spy on us?” Baltar snorted derisively at that. “Adama
would never approve something like that. I know the man…”

“As well as you knew me? As well as you knew what I was capable of?” She
lowered her voice to a whisper, as if somehow it was possible to spy on the
deepest arenas of this thoughts. “You want to believe you’re so much smarter
than the rest of them, Gaius. You want to believe that you’re above reproach.
But we both know you live your life with one eye cocked over your shoulder to
make sure that no one is watching you. You have a dark, terrible cloud hanging
over you, and you’re constantly aware of it. You are the betrayer of humanity,
Gaius. How long do you think you’re going to be able to live with that?”

“As long as it takes,” he growled.

“If they want to believe they have an infiltrator, let them. Let them have
the boy. At the very least, it will buy you time. Time you desperately need.”

“No,” he said firmly, “I won’t…”

“Do this for me. You owe me this much.”

Baltar laughed grimly at that. “I owe you? As if I haven’t done enough for
you already.”

“Then do it for yourself. Check your lab for listening or viewing devices.
Sweep your lab and come up with one. I’m sure I’m right. If I’m wrong—if I have
done a disservice to the noble humans who run the
Galactica—
then I shall
never make mention of it again.”

“As if I’m supposed to believe that.”

She hesitated, and then said with great solemnity, “If you do as I ask…
I’ll tell you my real name. Not the fake one that Gina told her captors. My real
name.”

“Is that so?” He sounded amused but also intrigued.

She nodded. “That’s so. Just do as I ask.”

Baltar, having returned to his chair, leaned back on it, tilting the front
legs up a bit. “I will… consider it. I’m telling you, though, it’s a waste
of time.”

He waited for her to respond. When she didn’t, he turned around and saw that
she was gone. That was extremely strange. It was one thing for her to disappear
into nowhere when she was intruding into the real world. At such times, she
delighted in spurring Baltar on into conversations that always made him appear
foolish. But she had no reason to make herself scarce while inhabiting his
waking dreams.

This anomaly in her behavior was the first thing in their entire encounter
that actually made him start to wonder.

It hadn’t been all that difficult for Baltar to obtain the equipment that he
required to accomplish the task.

The result was that he was crouched in his lab, underneath his table, staring
in wonderment at a small round device that he never, ever would have spotted on
his own, even if he’d been looking straight at it. He needed the additional help
of the detector, a small device with a wand and a helpful flashing light that blinked with greater frequency when pointed directly at what he was
seeking.

“Gods,” he said, except he didn’t speak it aloud. Instead he mouthed it. His
mind was racing over the past several days. He had no idea how long it had been
there, and he racked his memory, trying to determine if he had had one of his
doubtless incriminating conversations with Six while in the lab. He was
reasonably sure that he had not. He had to think that if he had said anything
that sounded truly treasonous, Adama wouldn’t have simply stood there and traded
barbs with him that other day. He’d have had him arrested and Baltar would be in
a cell by this point. It was reverse logic, he knew, but it seemed sound to him.
Perhaps there had been enough in Baltar’s manner that had prompted Adama to
start bugging him since that day, but the scientist had presented nothing
sufficiently concrete for the authorities to act upon beyond that. Which meant
he was safe.

Frakking bizarre definition of “safe,”
he thought grimly.

But once he got over his initial panic, he came to a realization: As with all
things, knowledge was power. His impulse had been to reach for the bug, to crush
it beneath his heel as he would the device’s namesake. But he paused with his
hand in mid-reach and then slowly lowered it. If he destroyed the bug, they
would know that he knew. The fact that he was so nervous about being
eavesdropped upon would in itself be regarded as something suspicious. Now,
however, he had the upper hand. They didn’t know that he knew they were
eavesdropping.

Which meant that they would tend to take at face value whatever they heard.

Which meant that he could throw them off the track if he said the right
things.

Which meant that if they were looking for Cylon infiltrators, all he had to do to throw them off the track was give them someone else. To
name names.

Lee Adama. Give them Lee Adama. Or… Roslin! Even better! Two birds with
one stone…

The more he considered such things, though, the more he realized that he had
to rein in his impulses. If he tried to point them in a direction that seemed
too far-fetched, they might reject it out of hand due to their damnable
loyalties and instead focus even more attention on him.

Which meant that the best thing to do was point the finger of suspicion at
someone whom they already had uncertainties about.

Which brought him right back to where Six had been days ago.

He started to stand and almost banged his head on the table. Slowly he eased
he way out from under and sat in a chair, forcing himself to come to a
conclusion that he despised… but that was necessary. He had his own survival
to think about.

He became aware of her gaze upon him before he looked in her direction. She
said nothing, but instead put a single finger to her lips in a
shhh
motion. Then she slowly, and a bit overdramatically, pointed at something. He
turned his gaze to where she indicated and his gaze fell upon that which he
already knew she was indicating.

It was Boxey’s blood sample.

He felt a stinging in his eyes, tears welling up slightly, and just as
quickly he brought an arm across his eyes and wiped them away. He hated his
weakness. He despised Six for the weakness that she brought out in him.

At the same time, he picked up his portable recorder and spoke into it with a
voice that was flat, even, and impressively clinical:

“Laboratory note, follow-up to test results of subject Boxman. Standard
recheck of Cylon/Human veracity test indicates possible invalid results due to
possible corruption of test sample because of unforeseen circumstances…
specifically the sterile conditions of pertinent testing equipment may have been…” He sought the right word. “…breached. Reason for this suspected breach
remains unknown at this time. Resolution: I will re-sterilize all relevant lab
equipment and retest. Enough of the original sample of subject Boxman’s blood
remains that subject will not need to be reacquired. If results come back
identical to the first, then will chalk it up to simple lab error rather than
something… suspicious… and there will be no need to alert the
authorities of this revised finding since it would be fundamentally unchanged.
If results are different, then Admiral Adama must immediately be informed so
that…” He gulped deeply and watched as Six nodded in slow approval. She licked
her lips enticingly. “…So that proper defensive action can be taken.”

Anastasia Dualla had no idea what to make of Billy Keikeya.

It wasn’t the first time she’d felt befuddled by her on-again/off-again
relationship with the presidential aide. There was no doubt that they were
friends. She enjoyed spending time with him. They’d even had some serious
make-out sessions. But she wasn’t entirely certain where the relationship was
going, or even if it was going anywhere at all.