03 - Sagittarius is Bleeding (24 page)

“The dreams,” Laura said after a moment, apparently realizing that refusing
to answer Sharon’s question would only slow matters down. “The dreams I’ve been
having in which you’re a featured player. Dreams of birth. Dreams of blood.
‘Sagittarius is bleeding.’ Does that mean anything to you?”

“No. None of this means anything to me. You’re having bad dreams. Everyone
does. Are you trying to blame them on my child?”

“I’m trying to determine what’s going on.”

And Sharon was suddenly on her feet. Adama had been relaxing ever so
slightly, but the moment he saw Sharon even begin to make a motion, he had the
gun ready to fire if need be.

“You are trying to put the blame on my baby,” Sharon said frostily.
“Something’s going on in your head that could stem from any number of things
rattling around in your subconscious, and you’re trying to use it as an excuse
to kill my child.”

“I don’t require an excuse,” Laura Roslin reminded her harshly. “All I
require is a piece of paper to write out and sign the order.”

Sharon didn’t budge from where she was standing, but she folded her arms and
said firmly, “I have nothing more to say.”

“This meeting,” said Roslin, “is not over until I say it is.”

“Fine. Then, with all respect, I have nothing more to say until my lawyer
gets here.”

“Your…?” She mouthed “lawyer” without saying it and looked at Adama
questioningly. He sighed and nodded. “How did she get a lawyer?”

“One showed up.”

Laura was about to say something more, but she quickly reconsidered it. That
didn’t surprise Sharon. Roslin obviously felt that she and Adama should present
a united front, and standing there and arguing with him about Sharon’s legal
rights would only serve to undermine that front. Laura turned back to Sharon.
“Look,” she began.

“With all respect, I have nothing more to say—”

“It will go better for you if—”

“—until my lawyer gets here.”

“If you truly are concerned about your baby—”

“With all respect,” and her voice got louder and her manner even colder, “I
have nothing more to say until—”

Laura put up a hand, silencing her. Her eyes closed as if she were fighting a
migraine. She forced a smile and said, “All right. You’ve made your position
clear.” She rose and Adama unlocked the door, still keeping his gun aimed at
Sharon. Sharon remained standing even after both Adama and Roslin had exited.
Roslin paused and then turned and said, “You should have cooperated.”

“I’ve done nothing
but
cooperate,” replied Sharon, and her voice grew
harsh, allowing some of the anger that had been building up to bubble into
visibility. “And for my cooperation I’ve been confined to a cell half the size
of any quarters… I’ve been beaten, sexually assaulted, and nearly raped… I have no room to do
any kind of exercise… I’m getting bedsores… I stink because I have no
shower facility, I can’t even go to the head without being under observation,
and I’m not sure but I think there’s things living in my hair. You want to solve
whatever problems I present? Let me go. Someone will put me down like the dog
I’m being treated like, and we can all move on to other things.” And then, her
fury pushing her in a direction that wouldn’t even have occurred to her earlier,
she turned and focused a malevolent gaze upon Laura. “You know so little about
us. Who we are, how we function. Consider this little notion: Perhaps the blood
coursing through your veins that you stole from my child… the blood
responsible for your salvation… is
turning you into one of us.
Never
occurred to you, did it? Maybe these dreams you’re experiencing are the first
steps on your road to becoming a Cylon yourself. How will it feel, I wonder, if
you wind up going from being revered to feared. To losing your friends, your
liberty, everything, in one shot. Take a good, hard look at the decor here,
Madame President. You might just be sharing it before you know it. And by the
way… I don’t have another frakking thing to say until my lawyer is here.”

And with that final announcement, she flipped herself back down onto her bed.
In doing so, it pulled the neck chain taut and she gagged slightly before she
could readjust herself so there was some slack in the chain.

She made no further moves until the president and the admiral were gone, at
which point she fought desperately to keep hot tears from rolling down her
cheeks, and didn’t quite succeed.

Adama had never seen Laura Roslin as shaken as she was at that point. She was
seated in his quarters and was looking shell-shocked. Inwardly he cursed himself
as a fool, believing he should never have taken her to see Sharon Valerii in the
first place… particularly galling since it had been his own damned
suggestion.

“Would you like a drink?” he asked her gently.

“I’ve never wanted one so desperately in my life.”

Reaching under his desk, he pulled out a bottle of alcohol that had been a
gift from Tigh. Adama was reasonably sure Tigh had acquired it from the black
market, but Tigh hadn’t volunteered the information and Adama felt it better not
to inquire too closely. Considering Laura’s state of mind, he suspected she
wasn’t going to ask too many questions either. He filled a glass for her and
slid it over to her. She took it without even looking at it and knocked it back
in one shot. Then she held the glass out again and Adama filled it without
comment. This time she sipped it far more slowly.

“You’re not turning into a Cylon,” Adama assured her.

“How do we know that?”

“Madame President…”

“How do we know?” she repeated. There was no fear in her voice, no trace of
panic. She was asking in what could have been an almost clinical fashion, as if
they were discussing the results of some new experiment. “You can’t say it’s
impossible. You don’t know. Neither do I. Perhaps she’s right. Perhaps I’m
undergoing some… metabolic process that is slowly transforming me into one of
them.”

“That’s absurd.”

“So you say. But you don’t know.” She looked him square in the eye. “Do you.”

The truth was that he didn’t, but he wasn’t about to say that to her. It
wasn’t what she needed to hear. “Yes. I do.”

“You were the one who said,” she reminded him, “that Sharon Valerii has
always told you the truth.”

“All she did was float a possibility. Possibilities are nothing more than
that… and can be dismissed just as quickly.”

“Possibilities can also be things to be explored.”

He gestured in a you-tell-me manner. “How would you suggest we explore it?”
he asked. “Dissect you?”

Adama wasn’t serious, of course, but she looked thoughtful as if were
actually a viable notion. “Did you dissect the previous incarnation of Valerii?”

“Yes.”

“And what did you discover that readily distinguished her from being a
human?”

“Nothing,” Adama admitted.

“Nothing. Which leads us back to wondering how you would know in my case.”

“It’s more than biological.”

“Is it?” she asked, one eyebrow cocked. “If we can’t distinguish them from ourselves, and if we can’t even tell if we’re turning into
one of them…”

“I can tell.”

“You can.” Roslin made no effort to hide her disbelief of the claim. “How?”

“In their eyes. They can’t disguise their pure hatred for us. I see it
burning in there with cold fury. That’s how you tell.”

“Really. And if that tell should fail?”

“Well,” he paused, “getting shot is also a good tip-off.”

Despite the seriousness of the situation and her bleak mood, Laura Roslin
smiled at that. “I should think it would be.” Then her amusement faded, to be
replaced by grim apprehension. “Admiral… if you ever have any reason to think
I’ve been… swayed… over to their side…”

“I will act accordingly.”

“Even though there will be those who accuse you of treason?”

“The survival of the fleet is my overriding concern,” said Adama firmly.
“I’ll deal with whatever consequences may result from that. But I repeat: There
is no way that you could, or would, become a Cylon.”

“How do you know, Admiral? How do you truly know?”

“Because,” he said with conviction, “you are far too much a woman of
conscience to allow that to happen. If you truly believed that you presented a
threat to the fleet… that you had allied yourself, however against your will
it was, with the Cylons, then you would come to me and ask me to put a shot
through your head.”

“And could you do that?” She saw the brief flicker of hesitation in his eyes.
“Could you? I come to you and say, ‘Admiral, it was everything I could do not to
open fire on the Quorum of Twelve. Kill me before I kill someone else. That’s a direct order from your
commander-in-chief.’ Could you do it?”

The hesitation evaporated and slowly he nodded. “Absolutely.”

“Huh.” She frowned. “I don’t know whether to feel relieved about that, or
concerned.”

“Both, I suppose,” said Adama.

“All right,” Laura replied. “I’ll have to take your word for it.”

“I hesitate to mention it… but have you spoken with Doctor Baltar about
this?”

“No,” she admitted. “I have… concerns about him. I would not feel
comfortable trusting him with this situation at this time.”

“Concerns.”

“You have none?”

“I
didn’t say that,” said Adama. “Simply nothing that I can act upon. And
you?”

She hesitated and then said, “The same. Or, at the very least, nothing I can
put into words.”

What would I say? That I had visions of him on Caprica, locked in a
passionate embrace with a known Cylon agent? There’s still too much I don’t
know. He’s the foremost expert on Cylons. If I were becoming influenced by the
Cylon fetus, then wouldn’t it be in the Cylons’ best interests to have the man
who knows most about them to fall under suspicion?

She knew she couldn’t go on like this forever. Sooner or later, she was going
to have to sort this out, or resign from the presidency That was the only option
left to her if she thought that her own mind was unreliable. Until it reached
that point, though, she was going to try and play things as carefully as she
could.

“You should still seek medical aid,” Adama said firmly.

Laura nodded in agreement. “All right,” she told him, albeit with reluctance,
“I’ll speak to Doctor Cottle about it.”

“Excellent.”

Adama began to stand, clearly thinking the meeting was over, but Laura didn’t
move. Her gaze hardened and she said, “She has a
lawyer?”
This prompted
Adama to sit back down again with an audible sigh, as if he were deflating and
that was what was lowering him back into his seat.

“Yes,” he said.

“And she spoke with this person?”

“Yes.”

“And you allowed this?”

“I considered shooting her,” Adama said, “but I was daunted by the prospect
of the paperwork.”

She shook her head, clearly not amused. “You should have denied her access.”

“If I had, she would have gone public with the presence of the Cylon.”

“You just know it’s going to happen sooner or later.”

“Possibly. Considering we’re still trying to get a handle on what caused the
Cylons to be able to anticipate our Jump, my vote is for ‘later’.”

“I suppose you’re right,” she allowed. She shook her head and half-smiled. “I
hate to admit it… and if asked, I would deny it… but I’m starting to see
the advantages of martial law. Under such conditions, you could have just held
her indefinitely at your whim.”

“A dictatorship is also an option,” he pointed out.

“In case you haven’t been paying attention to the press, there are some who
are under the impression that we already have one.” Laura appeared to give it
some consideration, and then she shook her head sadly and said, “It wouldn’t work. I look ghastly in
jackboots.”

“Imagine my relief.” He paused and then said, “She made the argument that
Sharon Valerii is so indistinguishable from a human that it was
inappropriate—even illegal—to treat her as anything but.”

“What did you say?”

“I said she was a machine.”

“What,” Laura asked after a moment, “do you truly believe?”

Adama leaned back in his chair. It was a question that he’d been wrestling
with ever since he’d come out of his coma and had come face to face with the
creature that had shot him. “I hate to say it, but—”

“You don’t know? Admiral… Bill… one of them tried to kill you.”

“And another one of them saved you,” he reminded her. “I look into the face
of Sharon Valerii, and I see the enemy. I see something inhuman. But…”

“But what?”

He tried to figure out the best way to phrase it. “The lawyer was right about
one thing. It is always easier to think of an enemy as less than human, even
when you know they are. So when you know they’re not, how much easier to make
them less than they are?”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

Adama’s mind rolled back to a meeting he’d had with the Cylon. The results of
that encounter had never been far from him, and they continued to haunt him. “I
had a talk with her…”

“It.”

“With the Cylon, back when we first encountered the
Pegasus.
When it
looked as if I was going to have Starbuck assassinate Admiral Cain. I asked her why the Cylons hated us. Why they were trying
to kill us. She brought up something I’d said about humans deserving to survive… and suggested that maybe we weren’t. That we weren’t worthy to. And when
she said that, there was something about her… she seemed…”

“She seemed what?” prompted Laura.

“Wise. Wiser than us. Older than us.”

Laura Roslin looked as if her eyes were going to leap out of her head. “Are
you saying that they’re rendering judgment upon us… and are
worthy of
doing so?”

“No,” he said flatly.