(Part Three)
The liot was long out of tune, half its strings snapped, its casing scarred. Bard held it lovingly, gently loosening its pins, winding off broken strings and winding on new ones, easing one and tightening another, the warped notes wailing in torment. Apollo winced.
"It's been a long time," the musician murmured apologetically; but his fingers were sure and competent on the strings, and he held the ancient instrument as though it had been carved for his hands alone.
"Maybe we should leave it until morning," Apollo said, feeling the sudden drag of tiredness at his bones as the vignon glow gradually faded, seeing the hollows and shadows under his friend's darkened eyes. It had been a long day: an early patrol, his Viper crashing, finding Negus, Boxey's little escapade he was more than ready to fall into his bunk. But Bard's sudden energy had been contagious, and so here they both were, in the middle of the night period, down in the Viper maintenance bay, fixing a broken liot. It made, he considered, about as much sense as most things that happened in his life.
"It's always morning down here." Bard's gaze flickered upward for a micron, then returned to his work. "Or always night, depending on how you look at it. At the moment I regard it as morning: a new dawn, the first since the Destruction am I slurring?"
"Yes."
"It figures. You too."
"Figures." Resigned to a long wait, Apollo shifted a stack of requisition forms off a workbench and settled himself comfortably.
"Myself," Bard said, without looking up. "A piecework puzzle, composed mostly of spaces. A barely discernible pattern. Junk; discardable." Then he did glance up, quickly, and then away again. "You didn't. Funny; I'd've never marked you as the kind that hung on to junk."
Apollo spread his hands wide. "I don't discard what I care for."
"Even when it's broken, beyond repair?"
"You weren't beyond repair."
Bard set the liot carefully aside and leaned forward, his head on one side, studying Apollo's face as if for a clue to some mystery. "How could you know that? I sure didn't. How could you know that you would find enough missing pieces to make the pattern make sense?"
"Make sense," Apollo said, and stifled a yawn. "Not much."
"It's my poetic impulses. They've been suppressed for too long " He flashed Apollo a bright, wicked grin. "It could be dangerous."
"You terrify me."
"I try." He picked up the liot. "Listen." His fingertips swept casually across the strings. The chord echoed in the silence of the room; reverberated, faded, died. Apollo remembered to breathe.
"How do you do that?"
Bard looked at him sombrely. "It's what I do. That's all I know. I don't know how. I hear it, I feel it, but I don't know how I make it happen. It just does. It's like " His mouth twisted wryly in self-mockery. "It's like the world was a song waiting to be written. It's like I'm the instrument and something, some force I can't understand, don't even want to, is playing me " He shook his head. "Too much vignon."
"Not if that's the result. You can't apply 'too much' to your music; it's a contradiction in terms." Apollo wrapped his arms around himself, warming away the reminder of emptiness that that one chord had awakened within him. "It hurts. But, oh, god "
Bard said softly, "I know." He touched the strings again, pulling forth a thread of melody. Apollo listened, knowing the song, hearing it afresh in his mind:
We were brothers and comrades and lovers and friends
In a world growing weary and cold
In a world like a trap that ground visions of freedom to dust.
We were warrior heroes who fought to defend
Hopes and dreams that could never grow old
And we stood back to back, and we vowed to ourselves faith and trust.
It was you, it was me, man, right up to the end
And we never accepted defeat
Take a stand
Never beat the retreat
The music stopped suddenly. Bard raised his head, listening. His forehead creased. "Something "
Apollo straightened, his tiredness rushing away as he too sensed the tension in the air a micron after the other man.
"Something wrong," Bard said, and then they both heard it: running feet, voices shouting orders, other voices answering. Apollo was on his feet in a moment and heading for the door.
"Get Life Centre on alert!" he snapped back over his shoulder, and then he was running for the landing bay, skidding to a halt by the barrier where the emergency team was already waiting. The fireleader's head jerked up, acknowledging him.
"Viper coming in, Captain. Pilot reports problem."
"Who - ?" His mind raced back through a stack of recorded duty rosters. "Lieutenant Boomer's patrol isn't due back for another "
"Ensign Teleri," one of the firefighters told him. "Not a patrol."
"What? Maintenance scan?"
"The Celestra. Authorised late this evening." The man took his eyes from the incoming fighter long enough to look at Blue Squadron's commander. "After you'd logged out, sir."
"Didn't take long." Bard was at Apollo's side now.
"Maybe they couldn't find any problems ?" the firefighter offered.
Apollo's hands grew white on the railing. "If that's so," he said tightly, "they were wrong. Look at her. Look at her!"
Approaching, the ship bucked and weaved as though caught in an unexpected pocket of turbulence. Its engines screamed painfully as it broke through the final force barrier. It touched wheels to the ground once, bumped, lifted again, touched, skidded, overshot
"Hold it! Hang onto it, keep it together!" Apollo's voice was raw, agonised. Bard looked at him saw the horror in his eyes, heard him half-scream again, "Teleri!" Bard grabbed his arm, as if to hold him back, felt his muscles rigid beneath his hand. He was whispering now, still watching the ship. "Reverse thrusters for the gods' sake, decelerate "
The ship began to lose speed. Bard's fingers tightened on Apollo's arm. Apollo's hands were clenched against his mouth, stifling his desperate, hopeless prayers. Bard added one of his own.
She's so close let her make it
The ship skidded, slewed, caromed off one wall, spun, stilled. There was silence, utter and absolute, for a micron. Then the canopy lifted and the pilot scrambled free, throwing herself toward the safety zone. Boraton control cut in and began to rain flame retardant mist down on the damaged craft. The watchers dared to move.
"Okay," the fireleader said, and looked around, gathering his men to him. "Let's go in." He adjusted his breather gear and led the men forward. Apollo glanced up, found Bard watching him, managed a smile.
"Close," he said briefly, and moved away to where Teleri was being checked out by a grim-faced medtech. "Ensign?"
The young woman raised her head. The pupils of her eyes were huge with remembered terror. She swallowed, visibly gathering control. "Sir."
"What happened?"
"Can't this wait?" the medic said irritably.
"I'm not sure, sir," Teleri said. "My braking controls failed to respond. I don't know why there was no warning, no sign of any problem "
"Was that what took you to the Celestra?"
"No, sir. My commline had been malfunctioning. The Celestra fixed that and, sir, they ran a full scan while I was over there. Nothing showed up, and this still happened " She bit her lip, hearing her own voice rising. "I'm sorry, Captain. It's just that sir, if youre hit in a battle, that's part of the job, you expect that, that's the way warriors go. You don't expect your own ship to try and kill you!"
"Calm down, Ensign," Apollo said automatically, and found her a reassuring smile from somewhere. "And don't apologise. You're right." He held his hands, a patchwork of darker and paler flesh tones from the regen treatment, up to show her. "I feel the same way."
She looked at his hands, then into his eyes, and shuddered. She said, very softly, "When you see the bulkhead, coming toward you, and everything you do still doesn't stop it "
A scarred hand touched her shoulder lightly. "I know," the captain said. His eyes found the medic, uninterestedly registering his scowl, then returned to his warrior. "You're not hurt?"
"Just scared," she admitted.
"You'd better take some sick furlon anyway. I'll clear it." He smiled again. He was no medtech, but he knew from his own experience that only knowing that one is not alone, that another understands, can be the first step toward a kind of healing. "For the aftershock. You may find you need it."
"Yes, sir. Thank you. By your leave?"
He nodded dismissal. She turned toward the turbolift, the medtech at her side, then looked back over her shoulder. "Sir?"
"Yes, Ensign?"
"Sir thank you."
"For what?" he asked, puzzled by an odd, unidentifiable note in her voice.
"For not pretending that there's nothing wrong. For believing that we have the right to know what's going on. For the truth," she said, and the turbolift doors closed behind her, shutting off the captain's startled response half-spoken.
From where he still waited, Bard watched him stand for a moment, gathering his thoughts together, then cross the safety barrier to speak to the fire team. The fireleader turned to him, said something; Apollo responded, agreeing, looking across at the foam-covered fuselage. Then Bard felt it: a high-pitched whine, just above the highest range of human hearing. It sang through his bones like a bitter wind, and its message was a portent of disaster. Instinctively his gaze flew to the downed fighter.
"Apollo!" he yelled. His friend turned, raised a hand in acknowledgement.
"Just a centon," he called back, and resumed his discussion with the fireleader.
They can't hear it, Bard realised, appalled. They don't realise He jumped the barrier and raced across the deck. "Apollo, the ship's going to blow!"
The fireleader turned an impatient frown on him. "No chance we've neutralised all the combustible "
Bard heard and felt the explosion a micron before it happened, grabbed at Apollo's jacket and pulled his friend down with him as he threw himself flat. The impact winded him, turned the warrior's protest into an inarticulate gasp.
In the next instant, the landing bay went nova.
Bard opened his eyes carefully, taking stock of himself piece by aching piece. The aching, he realised surprisedly, seemed to be the worst of it; he could see, he could hear, he could feel.
Part of what he could feel was a dead weight across his legs. He heaved himself free, dragging himself to his hands and knees, and looked.
A dead weight was exactly what it was. The fireleader, what was left of him. He must have taken the brunt of the impact, Bard realised, and his body had been the shield that had left himself with only superficial injuries.
Poor bastard. He should've listened to me I shouldn't think that way
"Apollo?" He coughed; the air was acrid with smoke and tylium fumes. Through the haze he glimpsed dark brown, pale beige, a splash of bright scarlet, the warm tones of flesh faded to a sickly grey. He dragged himself across. "Apollo?" He touched a flaccid hand, the still line of a cheekbone. "Apollo!"
One eye opened, fog-bleared green, then closed again despairingly.
"Oh, gods," the warrior moaned, and buried his face in his arms. "Life Centre twice in less than two days. Cassiopeia is going to kill me!"
He woke from a dream of floating to find himself floating in fact. He registered the sensation with distant disinterest, no particular concern of his, then forgot about it.
A white blur floated across his vision, resolved itself after a moment into a recognisable face. Cassiopeia. A faint twinge of alarm sounded somewhere at the back of his mind.
"Awake?" the medtech asked, with professional brightness.
He mumbled, "No," and hoped she'd go away. She did, but came back again a micron later. Memory and solidity began slowly to return.
"Well," Cassiopeia said. "Apollo. This is a surprise, seeing you in here. Yet again."
That was unfair. Apollo muttered a protest. Cassiopeia leaned closer.
"What did you say?"
He tried again. "It wasn't my fault honest to god, Cassi, I was just standing there I didn't do anything "
"You," she said acidly, "don't have to do anything. If there was ever an accident just waiting to happen, Apollo, it's you." She glanced away, nodded slightly at someone out of Apollo's limited field of vision. "You have a visitor. Try not to do anything to yourself while I'm not watching you, okay?"
"You're being really mean today," Apollo complained after her, then smiled up as her face was replaced by Bard's. "Hi."
Bard was looking thoughtfully after Cassiopeia as she walked away. "I think she likes you," he commented.
"Oh, sure," Apollo said. "If she liked me much more, she'd have me put humanely to sleep." He shifted a cramped muscle the medical experts who claimed it was impossible to get cramp (let alone bedsores) inside a lifepod had clearly never been in one realising that the floating sensation was due to the pod's being set to minimum grav. Fragments, he guessed, lacerations; nothing too lasting or serious. If it had've been, it would've been Salik's face that he woke to, his father waiting anxiously by. He should know. He'd been there often enough. Maybe Cassi had a point after all. "You're okay? Everyone else?"
"I'm fine," Bard said. His voice was several tones deeper than usual, rough and husky. Apollo looked a question at him. "Smoke inhalation. Nothing much. You should hear me singing. Even I could go for me. I kind of hope it lasts." His smile faded. "We don't have much of a fire team left. Three fatalities. I'm sorry I tried to warn "
Apollo moved a hand to silence him. "You warned, we didn't listen. We have no-one to blame but ourselves." Then something registered. "You said singing?"
"Joyous reunion and first rehearsal yesterday. I kind of wanted to wait 'til you could be there, but I'm glad I didn't. We were awful!" He laughed. "Someone should've taped us they could've made a fortune in blackmail. Things picked up after the first centar or so. By the end of the evening we were just about ready to go out and win a juvenile talent contest."
"We were not," another voice put in, "that bad. My friend exaggerates. Of course."
Turning his head to the side, Apollo glimpsed something dark and solid. Negus, he realised. The big man moved closer, filling Apollo's perspective.
"We just have to work out the mix," he went on, "and the balance, and the material, and a few other little minor details. We should be ready to take the fleet by storm in "
" in a yahren or two," Bard put in. "Or three, or four. If we're all still here." He glanced at his chrono. "Duty calls. We still haven't fixed your Viper, Apollo sorry."
"That's okay," Apollo said resignedly. "I'm not going anywhere for a while." He settled back, closing his eyes, listening as the footsteps moved away. Then he remembered something.
"Bard?" His movements restricted by the life systems, Apollo reached out with his voice. The singer stopped, looked back.
"Yeah?"
"I didn't say thank you."
Bard moved back to the life pod, gazing unsmiling at the warrior. "No need, Apollo. What else could I have done? I owed you a life." He walked quickly away before Apollo could reply, and no-one heard him add, softly, "At least one."
A secton of inactivity in the Life Centre, even relieved by visits from his entire family and half the squadron, the triumphant demonstration of Starbuck's latest infallible system for bleeding the Rising Star chancery white, and the particular attentions of a couple of determinedly insistent medtechs, had the inevitable effect of reducing Apollo's patience to zero and everyone else's nerves to shreds. Everyone, himself included, was deeply relieved to see him go.
"And they still won't put me back on active status," he grumbled to Galina, back in the sanctuary of his own quarters.
"I haven't been on active status since we left Caprica," she reminded him icily, rendering him temporarily speechless and silently cursing himself.
"I'm sorry," he said, when he could say anything at all. "I didn't mean "
She looked stonily at him for a moment, then her expression relaxed. "I know. On the whole, I guess you have the better right to complain. I wasn't much of an actor, anyway."
"Don't say that." There were two theatrical groups in the fleet, one touring from ship to ship, the other working in conjunction with the IFB. Spaces in the companies were limited, dependent on the retirement or death of an existing member. Galina was one of the many unlucky ones. "You were good in that series you did for AirCaprica "
"Five yahrens ago," she finished. "Well, I suppose I should be thankful that I have that, at least. Memories "
"We all have those." Good, bad or was it bad and worse? He shook the thought away, knowing it was not his own. So much sorrow in the worlds, in the fleet; they breathed it in the air, like oxygen. "Galina I know it doesn't mean much, but " He hesitated, swallowed. "I couldn't manage without you. Boxey and I "
"You could always," she said unemotionally, "get another childminder. It requires no particular special skill."
"That's not true either," he said quietly. He reached out to her, holding her wrists in his hands, and she looked up at him. After a moment she made to lift her arms; he let her go. "Galina, what is it? Is something wrong?" The irony, the sheer stupidity of the question made him wince. "I mean other than the usual, other than the situation?"
"I'll tell you," she said, "when I know." Then she asked, unexpectedly and apparently irrelevantly, "The man who came here the other night Bard who is he? He seemed to know Boxey. Is he the Bard?"
"He knew him on Caprica," Apollo said. "He knew my wife. And yes, he is."
Her lips made a little soundless 'oh!' of understanding. "That would explain it "
"Explain what?" Apollo heard the anxious note in his own voice, and wondered at it.
"Why he should take such an interest," she said. "He was the one who came and told us you were in Life Centre. Again," she added, with what Apollo felt to be unnecessary emphasis. "He stayed for a while, talking to Boxey, quieting him down Boxey was pretty upset when he heard. You'd think he'd be used to it by now."
"Have you been talking to Cassi?" Apollo demanded suddenly. She looked at him in surprise.
"No. Why?"
He exhaled heavily. "Never mind. Skip it. They got on well, huh?"
"Pretty well. He's been here almost every evening this past secton, helping me out, keeping Boxey company. Not that Boxey was short on company. Whenever you're away, this place gets like Caprica Central."
"It bothered you?"
"Me?" She sounded surprised and, oddly, flustered. "No no, why should it? I was glad of the company myself. I just wondered Bard promised to show Boxey where he works, down in Maintenance. Boxey wanted to go right away, you know what he's like, but I said he'd have to wait and ask you."
Apollo pictured the scene. "I'll bet you were popular."
"Extremely. But what could I do? I don't know the man, and with you out of the picture "
"Do not," Apollo said dangerously, "say 'again'. No, you did just right. I apologise for my son " He paused, reflected, then said, "Yes, again. I think it applies in this case." He stood, slowly, waiting for the ground to settle beneath his feet; he was still not entirely comfortable with the vertical. "Bard. I'll go down and talk to him. I want to see him anyway. He's got my Viper."
"Oh, well," Galina said, "in that case - !"
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