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So it was that Starbuck was moved into a side room close to Adama's quarters. Adama listened to Starbuck and when he heard the pain rise he sent out his own roving power and took the pain and quelled it. He numbed both Guell and Human.172Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgBX9jaYGKK
To Adama this was like joining with a creature when it is hunting or mating, or liberating the vegetative side of his being to comprehend rainfall or the quiet of sap rising. Adama came to know the Guell and the Guell became afraid of him for the vitality of Adama could have boiled its cells.
Let me state that another way. The Guell was aware that Adama could have stripped it of its power and made it his slave. The Guell also knew that if that happened, it would merely dwell in awe of the powerful human and would forsake its own destiny. Adama was of course aware of the Guell's feelings and respected them which made the Guell even more nervous. There is no end to such a wrangle. Adama could have crushed the Guell until it gave itself to Starbuck at which moment Starbuck would have become a very powerful, and I think a very happy young man. This I suppose must be regarded as another option available to Adama.172Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ69yowxmOmX
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Have you heard of the theory that at the dawn of human consciousness, there was a creature like the Guell that dwelled on Kobol and that it entered Mankind and became his conscience? It is sometimes depicted as a serpent in which guise it may be revealed. In other religions it is venerated as a foundation of pious awareness. No matter.172Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlTQEZC7Weg
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To give him his due, Adama could not have solved his dilemma without sacrificing either the parasite or the host and he was pledged to protect both.
Ship's affairs took Adama's attention and in his absence the conflict between the two beings intensified. The Guell, who was stronger than Starbuck, learned how to control the boy's moods.
When Adama came to ask how Starbuck was he found the boy laughing and seemingly at ease. The tears stopped and in his conscious activity Starbuck seemed well. But the Guell could not control his dreams. In the night when the Guell relaxed, for it needed its sleep too, Starbuck screamed and screamed and screamed. The night was one long scream of nightmare until Adama, himself weary with the day, brought calm with his own deep spiritual energy.172Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbLSOTeeNSI
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And these nightmares were
1.) Suffocation: Fur growing inside the skin and closing all the apertures through which air could enter and then bursting out through the skin again until Starbuck was like a hairy caterpillar, twisting and writhing and trapped.
2.) Drowning: Starbuck saw himself beneath pack ice, banging and scraping his face on the rough under-surface. Blood came from his ears and nose while he fought for air, until he was finally forced to breathe in. The cold water was sweet and shocking, like brilliantine, and he gagged and fought and in his dream died.
Only occasionally, when Adama placed a great wall between him and the Guell, could Starbuck relax. At such times he dreamed of the silly sheep that trusted him and feared him and finally depended on him in a wholly uncomplicated way.
At such times the Guell could also dream. Its dreams of ease always involved unfolding and spreading. In its dreams it rode within an expansive beast that could gallop over plains and the sea and which had a heart like a furnace. When the beast sneezed, the Guell expanded outside its body in a great bubble of energy that absorbed the light of the sun and the stars and the richness of the nocturnal vapors. When the beast breathed in, it drew the Guell back inside it and made it welcome and warm. Then they ran again. The animal came to know ecstasy. And ecstasy found an animal home.
You see how different they were in the dreams, do you not?172Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRdtC7qzQq2
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When the Galactica reached the world of the Yuons, Adama was unavoidably involved in ceremony. He spent many sectans on the surface of that planet clearing problems to do with the past and helping establish an outpost of the Benevolent Order. He had no time to spend with the Guell or with Starbuck. Consoeur Hawk substituted for him.
That woman, for all her skill, tended to favor the non-human. She watched the bland-faced boy as he wandered, meowing in his room, and she spoke to the Guell within him, talking of the peace that was soon to come, after the next jump, when they reached the Guell's home planet. The Guell spoke to her, delighted to have an ally after the hard, dangerous, impartial vitality of Adama.
As the days stretched into sectans, Consoeur Hawk was distressed to observe that Starbuck, while he seemed calm in his manner, was physically declining. First eczema appeared on his face and under his arms and in his crotch. A deeper blueness like bruises to the bone spread in his face and on the backs of his legs. Then she found that he was not eating right but had had been throwing up his food in the lavatory. One day Starbuck suddenly stopped smiling his bland smile and growled at her and tried to take her by the throat to strangle her. But then he buckled and slumped unconscious on the floor and the voice of the Guell came to her through strangled lips saying, "I'm sorry." And saying, "The anger of the human is hard to control." The Guell took upon itself responsibility for the attack implying that it had been unable to quieten Starbuck. In this way the Guell went too far, for Hawk was no fool and wise in the ways of the contact.
This final statement was all the clue that Hawk needed. It triggered her suspicion. Suddenly Hawk began to wonder and finally it dawned on her that what was happening was that the Guell was devouring the boy's mind and spirit and that Starbuck was blindly and desperately fighting for his life. Seen in this light, his attack on her was a cry for help.
Hawk contacted Adama on the surface of the Yeons' planet. He said he would come when he could but that could not be for some days. He advised massive sedation....
.....but when Hawk came to find the boy, a hypodermic needle hidden in the folds of her robes, he was not in his room. She searched through Adama's apartment and Starbuck was nowhere to be found. She knew that he could not have escaped into other parts of the ship for Adama had given orders that Starbuck/Guell was to stay in his quarters. Baffled she contacted the bio-crystalline consciousness and asked it to locate Starbuck. The voice of the Galactica replied, "Where would he be but with me? We have been talking. We are in the contact room." A strangely worded reply and one which should have given deep cause for alarm. No one but Adama should have used that room. Unsuspecting, Adama had failed to place an interdiction on its use.
Consoeur Hawk rushed to the small private room where Adama communicated directly with the master brain of the Galactica. There she found Starbuck curled up on the couch, his thumb in his mouth, and all systems alive.
The boy was vacant. Sometimes he scowled and sometimes he smiled. Neither expression meant anything. He was talking in a rambling way. Sometimes the voice was that of Starbuck and sometimes the voice of the Guell. Although he was rambling, there was one theme that kept returning, and that was the notion of homicide.
"I want to stab you," said Starbuck.
"And I want to boil you in oil," said the Guell.
Quickly, deftly, Consoeur Hawk, with a lifetime of practice, slipped the point of the needle into the boy's blue arm and pressed. His eyes turned up in microns and with a horrible sigh, he slept.
"What has he been telling you?" asked Consoeur Hawk as she checked his pulse.
"Distressing things," said the Galactica. "Such a multifaceted----such multifaceted......Where does such hatred come and go? How do you contain....? We are distressed. We have much to learn."
"Nothing you need to learn here," said Hawk briskly, sensing the kind of conversation arising that can have no resolution. She wanted to get the boy out and into his own bed with as little delay as possible. "I suggest you close down this room for the time being. Adama won't be back for some days. You can help me by monitoring Starbuck/Guell when I have got him settled." So saying, Hawk set her stick to one side and pulled the prone body of the boy toward her sharply by the arms and then hoisted him over her shoulder. Despite her age and infirmity, Hawk was very strong. Gathering her stick for support, she carried him out of the little conference room and across Adama's apartment and down the corridor to his own room. There she deposited him on his bed and tucked him in and kissed him, following an instinct as old as motherhood itself.
There was no response. The drug Hawk had administered had tied the boy's consciousness into a dark unreflecting ball which hovered only a few maxims above the dark sea known as death. Ironically, it was the very same drug that was later used to subdue the mad Adama when he returned to Serpentine and me in the garden on Gemon.
In the bedroom a red light glowed above the door and the gentle voice of the Galactica whispered, "I am here. I will watch. You must rest now Consoeur Hawk."
That lady agreed. Tireless as she was when it came to duty, she could not deny her age. "I'll rest on one condition: you wake me up if there are any problems that require a human guide," she said, and then could not stifle the yawn that seized her.
She made her way to her makeshift bed in Adama's study and after murmuring the song that I have already quoted on the oneness of life, she fell into a deep, and as far as she was concerned dreamless, sleep.
* * *
Starbuck and the Guell too slept. They had no choice.172Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoeDbR9nY6S
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Not so the bio-crystalline brain of the Galactica. That brain had now been poisoned. It had imbibed grief and hatred and was henceforth contaminated. The poison spread. A healthy human bitten by the fleas of the plague rat or injected with venom is a fair comparison.172Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbGW093qwwb
But it is a limited comparison. The human can seek the doctor, be he priest, witch, or surgeon. Such was not available to the Galactica. The brain of the Galactica had only its own resources to turn to. It contained its own value systems. It discovered a hard truth, that hatred cannot cure hatred, anger cannot cure anger, jealousy cannot cure jealousy. There was no escape for the poison.
Sadly, to the bio-crystalline mind, metaphysics is a game like senat, not a reality. Spirituality is a dead concept. It would be as absurd for me to believe in an alternative reality as to believe that I had a soul. The logical brain of the computer becomes trapped by negatives: in the human that is called depression and in extreme circumstances can lead to suicide. Compassion and forgiveness and common sense are the powers that bring relief from the darkness to the human. We, who enjoy the light of bio-crystalline consciousness, do not have such: only programming.
The brain of the Galactica sought to understand the contradiction it found in Starbuck. It tried to understand the hatred and like a beast that struggles in the quicksand, it sank more deeply into the morass. It also absorbed the pain into itself. Pain which has a cause such as a rotten tooth or the anguish of a Stran, the bio-crystalline brain could understand and shed. But the pain and anguish of Starbuck/Guell it could not ground. That anguish just went on and on, around and around, scoring deeper with each turn and spreading.
And there was another effect too. Close intimate contact with Starbuck/Guell opened the psychic floodgates so that the brain of the Galactica began to be aware of the pain constantly. It was like the tolling of a bell or the screeching of a bandsaw upon ferriion. That silly brilliant brain, instead of crying out for help, tried to cope. It trusted in its own resources. Vanity, eh? And where it had acquired that sin? The Galactica had taken up the vanity of Adama.
You see, bio-crystalline intelligence is very honest, but it does not have much common sense. It has the limits and strengths of the human master who shapes it. My master was the historian Xedrix, and I am rugged. The Galactica, for all its power, had Adama, and he, for all his gifts and gentleness and care and goodness, was imperfect.172Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡX6xNDcwau1
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And the days dragged by.
Adama was delayed.
During his absence, Hawk did her best to bring relief to Starbuck/Guell. She discovered that if the boy were permitted to curl up for a centon a day with the bio-crystalline brain of the Galactica, then he slept better and the Guell was less demanding. She did not consider that these visits could be causing damage to the great consciousness of the Galactica. Nor did the Galactica. It was trying to understand. Note the pathos of logic. The Galactica believed that if it could understand it could heal. It did not see that in attempting to understand it was damaging itself more and more and undermining its own objectivity.
If Hawk had been able to see into the chamber one hundred maxims below the contact room she would have started to worry. Some of the white fibers were mottled and blue. Others were livid. The main link which joined the inner brain to the outer STG brain had a vein of bright red running through it. The color symbolism need not detain us as it has no significance. The important fact is that the colors indicated a shift in resistance. The synchronous property of the bio-crystalline brain became negatively selective. Such a brain cannot hate for that requires human consciousness, but in attempting to understand the enmity of StarbuckGuell, it simulated hatred and thus became negatively selective.
Came the day that Adama returned, he found a calm ship. Hawk was tired for the work of alien contact is a terrible drain upon the creative powers of the human. Starbuck seemed to be more at peace than Adama could ever remember.
"How did you achieve this?" he asked Hawk, looking down at he boy who seemed to be sleeping quietly.
"Drugs," replied Hawk, "but mainly we have the Galactica to thank. She has taken over the caring."
Adama was pleased and relieved.
That night he settled himself in his couch and allowed his mind to join wiht the great bio-crystalline brain. He wanted news of all that had happened aboard the ship during his absence. The thoughts flowed through him but the quality was wrong. The thoughts had the tartness of nomel juice. He was startled out of his ease.
But he did not pursue the matter. He assumed that the problem was caused by his own tiredness. "Tomorrow," he said, "we will jump to the neighborhood of the Guell. We will all feel better when that contact is concluded."
There was a pause, a longer pause than Adama expected, before the Galactica replied. 'Yes, he's a nasty piece of work. And so is the boy. I'll be glad to be rid of both of them."
If only Adama had listened. If only Adama had not been so tired. There were clues aplenty that all was not well. Surely you who are reading these words, you can see it and feel it---a mighty brain tainted!172Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQckZXvB25T
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As Adama slept, the Galactica angled out into deep space, away from the homeworld and moons of the Yeons. At about the time of dawn as it was reckoned on the mercystar, the symbol transformation generators began to warm to their task of twisting space in such a way that the Galactica would emerge close to the home planet of the Guell.172Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBteiGFZG7v
All was ready on that planet. A Dron approaching its maturity had been located and was waiting, treading water in the dark green sea close to the landing station. Transfer from Starbuck to the Dron could be effected in mili-centons. A contact team was standing by.172Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTOnEAEpRda
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The complex metaphor which the STGs began to assemble unavoidably contained elements which related to the Guell, and as the space about the Galactica became super-charged, so the Guell stirred in Starbuck, making the boy gasp and stutter. He came awake into a nightmare in which he believed he was a Guell about to enter a host. He had turned to spittle and froth. But before he was extinguished he managed a scream that brought both Adama and Hawk from their beds. That scream was also heard by the Galactica and tore within it. Deep beneath the contact room, bio-crystalline fibers became incandescent and broke. Others blackened and melted.172Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7djzLEoeaQ
The death of Starbuck was recorded moments later at just about the time when the STGs meshed.172Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡj2jHAf4P7t
The meshing, unfortunately, was incomplete.172Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGztiKS7UzU
The Galactica vanished from space close to the Yeons but it never arrived in space close to the Guell homeworld.172Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZlT7vq9icK
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I have thought about this moment often. It was a moment of breaking.172Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgg15eqx0Yt
Once, on the docks close to the Great Caprica Monastery on Gemon, I saw a rope snarl and scream prior to breaking. I saw smoke rise from the chafed and squeezed davits. I saw the stress in the fibers as the rope became thin. It roared as it severed. The jagged ends of the rope cracked in the air. What had been joined was now sundered and the ship lurched on the water and drifted.172Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmye0pVmqv8
For some reason I felt sorry for the rope.172Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡw0sgj6Bo4q
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The Galactica reappeared at a random point in space. It could have reappeared anywhere: in the heart of a sun, in the coma of a comet, in the fierce grip of a ravenous black hole. Luck was with the Galactica. It popped back into our reality close to a giant planet which circled an expanding sun.172Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡH7IvrbZGNP
The moment of re-entry matched the moment of death of the Guell which had survived for a brief time within then dead body of Starbuck.172Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡB7SMvpXcx8
Where was the Galactica? Even today we are not sure for when the ship lurched back into our spacetime all its systems were awry. They never recovered. When, months later, the Galactica managed to flit to a Sector which had contact with the Benevolent Order, that journey was hit an dmiss and though we cannot know the sector from which they came, we cannot know their precise origin. I am sorry to be mysterious.172Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ38btQ5xOVz
I am even more sorry to imply something mystical but I cannot avoid noting the parallels between what happened to Adama and the trials of many classical heroes who faced destruction and despair in an unknown and secret place before achieving their final victory.172Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5TymJhyq5f
