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As the winter passed Adama grew stronger. He took a deeper interest in gardening and that Serpentine regarded as a most healthy sign. He was still not allowed to move about unattended.215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpKHJ4ZqNOQ
Frequently thought-through in his discourse, there were yet occasions when he stuttered and spoke only fragments of sentences and these were brutal and chaotic. I noticed that these outbreaks tended to occur most often shortly after he had woken up and I told Serpentine this. My observation concerned her. She considered that these outbreaks reflected the chaos of his nightmares: nightmare visions swallowing the rational day. She came to believe that Adama's apparent good health and well-being were a fabrication of his mind to hide the profoundly disordered state of his subconscious and that that subconscious would one day brutally assert itself. As we shall see, Serpentine was correct in her prediction.215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNEsJj48J7r
However, as far as we at the time were concerned, Adama seemed to be recovering his memory slowly and naturally. His physical health was rude and strong.215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoMXhuo7dkd
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One day, two pairs of fruit trees were delivered to the Jadriel Garden, a gift from a Callrine benefactor whose wife had spent time in the garden and who had recently given birth to twins. The trees needed to planted and Serpentine arranged for this job to be given to Adama.215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkmxTaZ62zm
And so it was that one morning the trees were deposited outside our enclosure. Adama tied them onto Serpentine at her insistence. The previous night we had enjoyed a particularly heavy rainfall which had softened the frosty earth. Serpentine churned the leaf mold under her tracks to a soggy and noisome brew as she moved away from the small hospital and up a shallow hill. Adama followed her carrying a spade, a pick, a sack and a bucket that contained a stout pruning saw. He was wearing the rough clothes of a Callrine farmer and I consider that they suited his burly frame and the natural swagger of his walk. I followed them at a height.215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxogTVTHUQm
Serpentine came to the river and followed it for a while until we came level with the Pectanile. At this point the river was shallow and wide and ran rippling over the stones and shingle. Serpentine crossed and heaved herself up the farther bank. I was worried for her. Her engines, while strong, are not new and I could not understand why she was subjecting herself to such strain. But as usual she had a purpose. She was leading Adama on a journey of discovery. This was the farthest he had been allowed to travel during his convalescence. As he walked along I could see him glancing from right to left examining the tall trees and dark shrubs. He paused for a long time looking at the Pectanile. Was he remembering it? Was he evaluating it? Wisps of steam were rising from its funnel as the day gathered some more warmth.215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnj4hp2Hr3n
Up the bank, Serpentine pushed through a thicket of straggly bushes and entered a little orchard. Here were fruit trees from many planets. The branches were bare. Long, damp winter grass grew between the trunks and was glazed with rain. Within mili-centons of entering the orchard Adama was soaked to the waist.215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvyuWUleXfR
She led him down a row of trees until we came to a small clearing at the edge of the orchard. Beyond was the wild wood. We could just hear the chatter and roar of the river as it plunged through the rapids. The rain had given the river a loud voice.215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5VFfienBxd
Serpentine instructed Adama to untie the trees and plant them and he set to with a will. Soon he had four holes opened up in the black and stony soil. Even I could see that the work was familiar to him. Was he remembering the agricultural tricks of his boyhood for I saw how carefully he cut the grassy top sods and placed the them on to one side and then set down his sack flat on the ground and shoveled the soil from the hole onto it. I observed the careful way he made sure that the soil didn't get lost amid the high wet grass.215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnwlHIumDJa
He planted the trees one by one, tipping the loose soil from the sack around the roots and pressing it down with his foot. He was absorbed in his work, making sure that the roots were spread and the trees were upright.215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9uassN6rRh
When he had completed the planting, Serpentine sent him down the lines of fruit trees, to prune them. And when he had finished that task, he gathered the severed branches and twigs together in the middle of the orchard and set fire to them. The blue smoke rose like incense through the still orchard.215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIs8r4SVRVD
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He sat one evening on the veranda outside his room. He smelled of wood smoke and the backs of his hands were smudged with ash. He sat back in his chair, making the chair seem almost too small and frail to bear his weight, with his hands clasped behind his head and his eyes closed. I could tell that Adama was looking inward.215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ38U3dZiK3d
"Speak," I commanded. "What are you thinking?"215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhq8MOXdQ68
"I have spent today remembering," he murmured. "For the last few weeks i have been like a man walking in mist, and now the mist is starting to clear and I am looking down into a dark valley. I cannot see far yet, but far enough. The valley is my life..." He opened his eyes and looked at me. "Do you understand that?" he asked.215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4YrMbYcEzN
"I do," I replied, for i have read widely about the symbolism of dark valleys. Adama remained silent for many mili-cetons of looking at me until I started to wonder whether he had slipped into a phase of silent meditation.215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYRbP2fgeub
But then he sighed and rallied himself and said, "You cannot understand. Nobody can understand unless you were there. And even then...." His voice trailed away and he was quiet for several minutes and then he whispered, "Help me, Vulpa," and I spoke the hypnotic words and he relaxed.215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZw9eS6VNIE
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ADAMA'S NARRATIVE215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡokx18BauHf
The Galactica. You want to know more about the Galactica. Let me tell you that after I had got the new seeds to grow and strengthen the bio-crystalline system, life on my mercystar became easier. There were a hundred and one things which we had taken for granted---like the sewage ingestion system and the automatic lightning and the ever-present whisper of the atmosphere filters---things that were noticed when gone. Well, each day we noticed some small improvement. It was as if God was protecting us, working behind the scenes to make things better. I remember the day the air filters came back on. We had been living in and breathing air that would not have been fit for a sewer---you can get used to anything---but then one day the filters came on again and we stood with our faces close to the filter panel and breathed in air that had the smell of trees and mountains and flowers. It was the kind of air you would like to eat. Like the air in a garden following a rainstorm. Do you realize what the Galactica had done? The old filters were ruined and so the ship had channeled our air supply to the hydroponics filters which were robust. We were breathing in the fragrance of mushies and flowers.215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdkBwAJ1Ra8
Having expecting a lingering and painful death. It was hard not to feel optimistic as every day the Galactica showed that it was fighting to survive. We thought of the ship as a mighty organism with a will to survive.215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGqAvh6HOVv
But then one day I was outside, riding in the gravram, inspecting the damage to the stabilizing arms. The gravram is a kind of flying workshop. It is enclosed and you sit astride the antigrav unit. I always used it for trips outside.215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8LcQlb8uXL
I had landed the small machine among the thick-stemmed gray scrub brushes and found myself watching the antics of a pair of creatures like land crabs that were tearing at some of the refuse we had jettisoned from the ship. Suddenly I received a call, a warning call, on the radio telling me that there was a disturbance of some kind in the hills. I rose up several meters above the scrub and looked up the gentle slopes. Advancing towards me was a gray cloud that seemed to boil and churn and which filled all the space from earth to sky. I recognized a dust storm. The wind was driving the dust before it like a flapping curtain. We had not seen any storms on the planet until then, but now I could see the shrubs shake as the storm front reached them. There had been no warning. The storm's advance was so rapid that all I could do was plunge down to the shrubs and dig in. The land crabs had already disappeared and were deep in their burrows. I managed to lodge the gravram under an overhang and switched the power so that it pressed into the shallow cave. I was like a limpet in a rock pool when the storm waves came pounding in. I felt the storm arrive. It flowed over me. The light turned brown, then dark brown. Fine particles of dust crawled in flowing shapes over the viewplate. I felt the wind suck at me and felt the sand and rock scoured from beneath me. I kept the power in the grav-ram as high as I dared until the pack was running hot. I felt like a mouse cornered in the wainscot while the cat reaches in to claw it loose. And the noise! The roaring. Like an avalanche! 215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQx9NVkuLM0
I could not have survived long. And the storm did not last long. It was a front only: a wave of wind, triggered by Lords knows what, which swept over the land and sea and was gone. The howling died away to a whisper of falling dust.215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡERy8IsIWfp
After the storm came clouds of moisture that drifted low and completely obscured my view. Beads of water formed on the gravram's viewplate and I could see drips falling from the nearest shrub. A land crab worked its way out, scrabbling under the clear plastic base of the gravram. It basked in the damp, digging a shallow hole where the drips fell and then settling its shell into the hole, like a lid on a pot.215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqWs3I68SeY
Slowly the visibility cleared and I could see the gray shrubs that pressed about the cave mouth. Eventually I could see the low shape of the distant hills. I could not see the Galactica and yet it should have been towering up over me. At first I did not believe this. I thought that I must have dived around the hillside in my first panic when I saw the storm approaching. I used the radio to try and contact the ship but all I got was a high whine of static. I raced through the different call frequencies. Nothing. Finally I used the confidential frequency which connected me to my command room and then I heard the Galactica. The voice was soft, almost like someone waking from a dream. It said, "Ah, Adama. You have survived. I am glad. I thought I was alone now. Please come to me. I think I have done something very wrong. Please come quickly, for I think I have made a mistake. I need your help, Adama. Come fast to me."215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbYC81HeAgJ
I told it where I was and that I was on my way. I felt myself turn ice cold and very calm. There was no panic in me. If anything there was a blank surrender to my fate, whatever it was. I did not try to make guesses.215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5wabNw8fE3
I adjusted the power flow in the grav-ram and eased it out of the cave. I lifted above the shrubs and immediately saw the Galactica. What had happened was clear. The ship had shifted position. The wind had torn away the soil beneath it and the wind had battered it. The ship had begun to topple but it had not fallen. The ship had saved itself! 215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBCnmQ5zNB0
Now, blazing from it, bright as bars of argent, were the stabilizing beams with which it had anchored above our old Great Caprica Monastery. These beams were like incandescent rods and they reached into the low valley and to the nearby hillside and even to the shore of the gray sea. They were holding the ship upright against the crushing force of the planet's gravity. I recognized that the energy drain was enormous and wondered what could be left for the rest of the Galactica. 215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlkoVGLyX4x
As quickly as I dared I flew over to the Galactica and began to rise slowly up beside it. I could not push the energy pack on my gravram too hard as it was already depleted. I passed the dark caverns of the particle vents and the evacuation chutes which rimmed the DME sector. I rose by the view windows and there were no lights within. I moved under the Symbol Transformation Generators and gave a wide berth to one of the stabilizing beams. Even so the field generated about the beam made my little gravram tremble and rattle. High above me I could see the accept port which led to the small area where we few refugees had set up camp. I too long mlii-centons to get there.215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡURDOmXufD0
And when I did get there I found a warning light blinking outside the airlock. It advised me that the atmosphere within was toxic. Toxic!215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGF8MuW9NAj
I opened the air-lock using the emergency override switch and drifted inside. Two microns later I had matched atmospheres and the door into the mercystar slid open. No lights were burning. I switched the grav-mule's lights on and glided down the short corridor which connected the access bay to the dining room. A man lay crumpled against the wall, his mouth open and his fingers in his hair. The door into the canteen stood open but the grav-ram which was designed for work outside the ship refused to fit through. I let it sink to the floor and anchored it with magnetic clamps and then cut its power. I checked that my survival suit was sealed and functioning properly with a steady flow of air and then I released the clear plastic door of the mule and stepped outside. I peered into the dining room. The men and women who had been my companions since our descent onto the planet, now lay sprawled on the tables on the floor. No one moved. Nothing moved except a wisp of paper that someone had tied to the air filter when it first started functioning for us. This fluttered showing that whatever atmosphere had killed my companions was still being circulated. There was nothing I could do for anyone and I felt my grip on reality loosening. I entertained the unreason of a child. Unfair. Unfair. How could life be so unfair? Why was I singled out for this? Why had everything gone wrong? What was this malignant phantom of death that stalked me, this shadow?215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYPY9Gxd0AR
I knew I needed to quit this place of staring eyes. I walked over to the door which led to my personal quarters. There were several corpses against this door and I had to reach down and take them by the legs and drag them away. And then I saw why they were there. The door was an atmosphere lock and the clamps were secure. No warning lights were showing and it was a fair assumption that the atmosphere in my quarters beyond the door was human normal, the air of Kobol, the air of Gemon.215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxjpfSQtQKu
I opened the lock, slipped through quickly, and closed the door behind me and sealed it. It was breathable and without delay I stripped off my survival suit and left it clinging to the floor. I pulled myself laboriously up the ramp and into the room that was constructed like my dining room at the monastery. Can you believe that amid all this chaos of death and destruction, my fire was still functioning and the flames flickered and licked at the wooden logs and sent shadows marching around my room just as it had in my house at Great Caprica? Of course the fire gave out no heat. It was an example of electronic adroitness. It would have burned cheerfully in a vacuum.215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVUrZpFldTv
But it worked, you know. The fire was a psychological device and it gave me a reassuring sense of the familiar. It brought me contact with my own reality and the panic that had threatened me retreated. I breathed deeply.215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNxUQG7kjb8
The voice of the Galactica greeted me. "Welcome home, Adama. Shall we speak to each other now or later?"215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGnFIUV9flj
"We speak to each other now."215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuE1khqPSKR
"Do you wish an in-depth analysis?"215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjAEtpeyEpd
"I just want to know why my companions are dead and what has happened to the DME and are we stable and what did you mean when you said that you have a made a mistake?" As I spoke I slumped down into my easy chair by the fire and held my hands out to his heatless flicker. "Tell me. Simple or complex. Tell me."215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1CYFXzyWlP
The Galactica had a beautiful, calm, caring and thoughtful voice. Above all it was a voice that gave an impression of wisdom. In careful phrases it told me of the wind that had caught the mercystar unawares; of the sand and rocks that flayed its surface; of the shifting patterns of stress resulting from the different wind speeds and which the Galactica had tried to keep in balance; of the vortex that scored away the rock at its base; of the lurching of the ship and the sudden need to power the anchor beams to save the ship from falling; of the mistakes that resulted from the sudden drain of energy; of the fit that possessed the Galactica for a few moments and which resulted in the ship confusing all the atmospheres; of the vacuum in the DME sector; of the toxic gases in the hydroponics garden which had sluiced through to suffocate my companions; of the temperature shift in the Close Metabolism center.215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsLrHhxUedJ
I asked: "Am I the last living being aboard the Galactica?"215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtsvuNVQcMX
The Galactica did not reply and so I asked my question again. Eventually it made answer.215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3UUEpZ63r7
"I am. You are."215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXg7yMNJEQG
"Are we stable?"215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5Gz7pcQwfP
"We are, for the time being."215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPpkElo1o0j
"What is your status?"215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrm3WAAkqpT
"Not good---Holding."215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡydjja7PDeQ
"The Galactica is a graveyard." It did not reply to this. It saved its energy. But I knew I had spoken a truth. The entire ship was a graveyard. And as I sat there staring into the flickering embers I saw them flare for the final time and die away to darkness.215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5OWe3RsODF
I knew that the dead mercystar was a replica of my mind. I had no hopes. Blackness!215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUHY6SesOFu
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VULPANOTE:215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5RIt8pXRiC
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Adama had reached the end of his memory. He sat there relaxed and dark. I asked him several questions but he did not reply. Finally I murmured the hypnotic release words and his eyes opened.215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6TE3Rg4V6q
It took him many mili-centons to register where he was and I feared lest he strayed over into madness. But he rallied, and then he looked at me. "I'm not sure that I want to know any more, Vulpa. I'm at the end of all reason. Can't I just be? Here? With you and Serpentine. Can't I start all over again?"215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTeZbbIO3Pp
I did not reply and he took my silence for negation, which of course it was.215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYmsGAXz1Pp
He stood up, and with a sigh made his way indoors. Serpentine was with him. She administered a sleeping draft and the next sound I heard from Adama was his loud ragged snoring.215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTVjTBX4xu1
I knew, and subsequently Serpentine confirmed, that it would be a while before I could question him more.215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfBAyJFVGxs
I considered that I already had plenty of material to mull over and I had no doubt that I would find the daily converse interesting.215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeQRwUvpV2k
Indeed, I realized that I was finding this breaking open of Adama most interesting. I had never come so close to the human, not even when I was with my master and mentor Xedrix. Vulpa was enjoying itself. 215Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgZxBTnpkqj
