03 - Sagittarius is Bleeding (36 page)

And now she was there, right there, next to Baltar. She was wearing a
tight-fitting red dress, cut high at the hem, low at the top. Smirking, she was
leaning on Baltar’s shoulder.

Laura felt lightheaded, as if her brain was going to splatter in all
directions.
This isn’t happening… this isn’t happening… gods dammit,
this isn’t happening…

Baltar was puzzled at the confused look on Laura Roslin’s face, but didn’t
dwell on it. If something was bothering her, certainly it was her problem, not
his.

“Inconclusive, I’m afraid,” he was saying. “Since you
are, naturally, the only human test study, the chemical examinations I’ve done
thus far, particularly in seeing how the hemoglobin interacts with the cancer
cells I culled, I can see—”

“She’s looking at you strangely, Gaius,” purred the blonde who was labeled as
Shelly in Laura’s Cylon agent file. “Do you think she suspects you?”

Reflexively, Baltar glanced in her direction and said, “No.” Then he mentally
chided himself for responding to her in front of a witness. It happened rarely,
but if he was relaxed enough, she could still catch him off guard. It was a
perverse little game she enjoyed playing with him. Fortunately he’d become deft
at covering such slips. Furthermore since—as that annoying Boxey child had
observed—people had become accustomed to the odd Doctor Baltar and his
eccentricities, so such gaffes generally were shrugged off.

Not this time.

Laura was on her feet so fast that she banged her knees on the underside of
her desk. Pain shot up and down her legs, but it barely registered with her.
“What are you doing with her here!” she demanded.

“P-Pardon? There’s, ah… there’s no one here, Madame President, except you
and—”

“You looked right at her. I just saw you do it!”

“What?” There was extreme nervousness in Baltar’s face, and he was stammering
very badly.

“She said something and you looked right at her!”

He felt his knees starting to give way, but kept himself on his feet with
effort. “Her? What her are you referring to…?”

“Shelly Godfrey! Right there!”

Six looked genuinely stunned. She clapped a hand to her bosom. Baltar slipped
up again, looking directly toward her. “I… I…” he stuttered.

“You looked at her again! Don’t tell me I’m just seeing her!”

“She can see me!” Shelly said through tightly clenched teeth. “Do something!
Distract her!”

Responding instantly, Baltar tossed on a facade of concern and said, “You
appear overwrought, Madame President. Perhaps you’d like to sit down—”

“To hell with that!” shouted Laura. “The audacity! To walk in here with your
Cylon… what? Co-conspirator? Lover?!”

Baltar had never come as close to passing out from shock as he did at that
moment.

“Madame President…” Baltar began, starting to come around the desk.

Then he jumped back as Laura grabbed a heavy paperweight off her desk with
one hand while, with the other, she grabbed up a phone and snapped, “Billy! Get
in here with two security guards! Arrest—”

As she spoke, she threw the paperweight directly at Six. Baltar lunged to one
side, his head snapped around, and he saw the paperweight sail through empty air
and smash into the bulkhead.

Laura swayed behind the desk, clearly stunned that the paperweight had
connected with nothing and that Six had apparently vanished into thin air. At
that moment, the door flew open, and Billy was there with two armed men from her
personal guard. They looked around, saw no one but the president and the vice
president and—through process of elimination—figured that Baltar was the
threat. The guards grabbed him by either arm. The papers Baltar had brought with
him flew in all directions.

“Get your damned hands off me!” Baltar shouted, his voice going up an octave.

“Madame President…” Billy began.

But she waved him off, her face ashen. “Let him go!” she said. When the
guards hesitated, still confused over what had just happened, she repeated more
firmly, “Let him go.”

The guards did, backing off. “Madame President,” Billy started once more, but
then stopped, since he clearly had no idea what to say.

“It… was a misunderstanding,” she said slowly. She continued to address
Billy, but she was looking straight at Baltar. “I’m sorry to have summoned you
like that. I was… it was just a misunderstanding,” she told them once more,
as if repetition would somehow make it more credible.

Her aide didn’t leave immediately. Instead he and Roslin locked gazes, and
Baltar knew that there was something more going on here, something that he
wasn’t privy to. What did the president have on him and if it was anything, why
didn’t she use it?

The personal guards backed out of the room, still looking around
suspiciously. Billy continued to look at Roslin for a short time longer, and
then very stiffly he said, “Thank you, Madame President,” and stepped out of the
office as well.

A deathly silence descended over Baltar and Roslin. Both of them were
standing. Finally Roslin eased herself into her chair and tried to arrange her
hands neatly, one upon the other, as if nothing untoward had occurred. Baltar
then knelt down, gathered the scattered papers, and arranged them neatly in a
pile. He took a step forward, placed them on her desk, and stepped back. Still
nothing was said.

“Madame President,” he finally asked slowly, “is there something you’d like
to tell me?”

She appeared to give the matter some thought, and then replied, “No. I don’t
believe there is.”

Baltar squared his shoulders and, very casually, said, “Feel free to review
my findings at your leisure. I assume you’re busy at the moment…” He paused
and then added, “And have a good deal on your mind.”

“Thank you,” she said.

“Do you require me to remain for the imminent Quorum gathering?”

“No, that shouldn’t be necessary.”

“As you wish. Thank you, Madame President.”

“Thank you, Doctor Baltar.”

He got out of the room quickly and headed down the narrow corridor outside.
The security guards were a short ways away, and they both gave him extremely
suspicious stares as he went past. The moment they were behind him, Number Six
was in front of him. Perversely, she seemed delighted with the latest
development. “She’s on to you, Gaius.”

He kept walking and, in a low voice, said, “How is that possible?”

“It’s not. That’s what makes it all the more exciting.”

“I
could do with a little less excitement in my life, thank you. How
could she know about us?”

“She can’t.”

“How did she see you?”

“She couldn’t.”

“You’re
not helping.”

Her long legs enabled her to keep pace with him easily. “Helping? I’ve done
nothing but help you, Gaius. Helped you with information. Helped you see the
future of the human race. Helped you fulfill your full potential. And you have
resisted me and fought me at every turn, squandering precious time. And now your
time’s running out. She’s on to you.”

“It’s impossible!”

“And yet it is.” She stepped directly in his path and, even though he could
have walked right through her, instead he slammed to a halt. “And you better
figure out a way to fix it. Fast. Because you have even less time than you
think.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means exactly what I said, Gaius. Exactly what I said.”

He turned away from her, feeling as if the corridor around him was tilting
sideways. Composing himself, he turned back to face her once more only to see
that she was gone.

“Bitch,” he whispered under his breath.

Kara and Agathon, so bored out of their minds that they were tempted to stage
a jailbreak just to get shot at and break up the monotony, looked up in mild
surprise as the door to the room they were being kept in opened. Kara had
thought sure that, once word had reached the ship of Freya’s duplicity, they
would immediately be kicked loose. She’d said as much to Adama. But to her
annoyance, they’d been informed by a couple of Gunnerson’s lieutenants—one named
Tyr, the other Fenris, both of them large and sturdily built, albeit not quite
as massive as Gunnerson—that they were going to continue to be kept right where
they were until “matters were sorted out to their satisfaction.”

The door opening suggested that such a time might be imminent, and the
presence of Tyr standing next to Freya Gunnerson, holding her firmly by one arm,
confirmed it. Standing behind Freya were two marines, corporals Jolly and Zac.
Jolly, despite his name, had the most perpetually dour expression of any marine
Starbuck had ever known, and Zac was a bulky woman who looked fully capable of
breaking most men in half. Clearly they had been responsible for escorting her
back from
Galactica.

“I believe,” said Tyr, “that Freya has something she wishes to say to you.”
He nudged her forward slightly and she cast an angry glare at Tyr before looking
back at Starbuck and Helo.

“I apologize for the inconvenience,” she said tersely.

“Frak you,” shot back Starbuck, having no patience for her apologies, and
said to Tyr, “are we finally free to go?”

“Yes. Enjoy the rest of your stay on the
Bifrost.”

“Sure we will,” said Agathon, “because, y’know, it’s been such a joy until
now.”

Freya looked as if she was about to respond, but before she could, Tyr and
Fenris yanked her away. Jolly and Zac stepped forward, both of them tossing off
salutes and saying, “Admiral Adama instructed us to report to you and aid you in
your search for the suspect.”

“It’s appreciated,” said Starbuck as she emerged from the room, Helo right
behind her. She walked with quick, brisk steps, and they immediately fell into
step behind her. The hell of it was that she didn’t have the faintest idea of
where they were going, but she looked as if she moving with great authority, so
naturally they followed her. It made her wonder if there were times when the Old
Man likewise didn’t have the faintest idea what he was doing, but he made his
moves with such confidence that people just naturally attended to everything he
said and did.

Nah. No way. The Old Man always knew what was best. Always. She should be so
lucky to be as on top of things as Adama was.

“We looking for Boxey?” asked Helo.

“Frakking right we’re looking for Boxey,” shot back Starbuck. “At this
point, considering all the trouble and hassle we’ve had to deal with because of
him, I almost don’t care if he’s a Cylon or not. We’re hauling his ass back to
Galactica
either way.”

“Where do we start, Lieutenant?” asked Jolly.

“I’m not sure,” she said as they rounded a corner, “but we find him even if
we have to tear this whole ship apart panel by panel.”

Boxey awoke inside the crawl ducts. Confused, he started to sit up, but
naturally that was impossible since he was surrounded by narrow metal confines.
All he managed to do was slam his head on the metal above him, which sent noise
and vibrations all up and down the ducts.

He had no idea how long he’d been there. When he’d clambered up into it, his
heart had been pounding. He felt as if his entire world had been stood on its
ear. Freya had been completely right about Starbuck and the others. They weren’t
his friends. Perhaps they never even had been. They were chasing him down as if
he was the worst sort of criminal or enemy, and he hadn’t done anything, not a
thing. It wasn’t fair. Not at all. Why, they were treating him like…

Like Sharon Valerii. Or even worse.

His heart turned cold and bitter, and angrily he said, “I… I almost wish
I was a Cylon. The stuff they’re doing… the way they look at me… it would
serve ’em right. It would serve ’em right if I was a Cylon, because then they’d
be afraid of me. That would be better than this. Anything would be better than
this.”

He waited for his ire to subside, but it didn’t. It made him wonder if it had
been like this for Sharon. If there had been a slow build up of suspicion,
culminating in her self-realization and her ceasing to fight against her true
nature.

He wondered if he had a true nature like that.

What if he was a…?

Boxey shook it off. He didn’t need to have his mind wandering in that direction right now, especially because he felt as if that
direction was calling him more strongly than he’d like.

He slithered his way down the duct and found a ceiling panel that he could
work loose. He listened for a long moment to make sure that there was no one
around, and then gripped the grillwork and eased it up and out of place. He lay
it down carefully to make sure that it didn’t make a lot of noise, and then
eased himself down and through into the corridor, landing so softly that no one
could have heard him.

At that exact instant, Starbuck and Helo, followed by two marines, came
around the corner, Starbuck saying in annoyance, “—but we find him even if we
have to tear this whole ship apart panel by panel.”

They stopped dead and all five stared at each other.

“Wow,” said Starbuck, clearly impressed with herself.

Instantly Boxey tried to leap back up toward the shaft space, but he only got
halfway up before Agathon tackled him around the legs. Boxey tried to kick, but
Agathon’s arms were wrapped tightly around them, making it impossible for Boxey
to move them. Agathon yanked downward and the two of them hit the floor. Boxey
desperately tried to squirm loose but by that point Corporals Jolly and Zac had
hauled him to his feet and were holding him securely.

“Long time no see,” said Starbuck dryly. “And here I was just thinking how we
should catch up with you.”

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Boxey snapped. He tried to pull at the marines
who were holding him still, but he accomplished nothing on that score. “I’m not
a Cylon.”