x
And, oh, how eagerly did the peoples of the known galaxy await the arrival of the Galactica!199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQJy0Px92qX
On Tauron there was a newly trained team of three hundred contact specialists. They had been training for yahrens, living in the environments of alien species, learning alien languages, acquiring medical skills and absolving themselves of the taboos of Kobol. It was on Tauron that the Galactica first paused. Apart from being a teaching planet, Tauron was also the main supply depot for all the Mercystar Fleet and there was a constant coming and going of spaceships in that planet's skies.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡM7eXtzqOX0
The Galactica anchored off-planet and began taking on supplies. Uniformed caterers, with lists of the needs of all the varied life-forms the Galactica would carry on its maiden voyage, swarmed through the storage bays. Exotic fruits were planted in the hydroponics tanks. Some livestock was brought aboard. Where possible set meals were prepared and placed in deep-freeze chambers. In all, the provisioning of the Galactica took over thirty standard days.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLrPAl5Pokm
Then the ship withdrew its anchor rods and slipped through space to Sagitarra where were waiting many of the Close Metabolism Lifeforms. As I have mentioned, "close" means close to human. Here were Callrines who would help in the running of the ship and would stay with it until the eventual return to Gemon. Here also were a colony of the Klaxondors who quickly established themselves in the same chamber as the female Klaxondors we had met.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsO2SogqKru
Bloobis came aboard, gray and dignified, each wearing the insignia of its tribe and bristling with weapons. They were returning to die on their tight cluster of planets far out on the rim. Bloobis could endure up to three sectars without sleep or food or water and during the War of Stupid Fools they had been used as occupation troops. Spread throughout the galaxy were many pockets of Bloobis who had adapted and settled and whose new mythology told of a home of happiness and plenty far away in the sky. The Bloobis were long-lived and those who came aboard were the children of an expeditionary force.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡevSqj4YqBT
There were the Yuons, or Yuans, or whatever they called themselves. They grew no taller than five-yahren-old children and their lifespan was about ten human yahrens. They achieved maturity within sectans of birth and their main task in life was to keep the song of their people going. A mature Yuon could recite the song of its particular line or family, telling of events which happened many thousands of yahrens earlier right back to the time when light was born in darkness and all the Yuons' ancestors emerged from the "great mountain." I describe the Yuons as "its" because they do not have a sex as such but have three sexes all waiting to be revealed in the one individual. They believe that the more people who can be at a mating the better. At a mating, the one who is not to bear or inseminate sings a special song that has the extraordinary effect of changing its body. It swells and the palms of its hands emit a hormone which the other Yuons lick. The hormone determines sex changes that occur during the course of one evening. Copulation is a public affair, like going to see a play in a theater. Apparently the song is so powerful that human males upon hearing it have been known to lie down with their legs spread like women. Women upon hearing it have mounted their men or one another in a delirium of desire. Such scenes cause great merriment to the Yuons and of course are incorporated into their songs.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYSmKpR07Rg
More seriously, the Yuons songs are an important reservoir of information on the War of Stupid Fools. I must tell you that the reason the Yuons are widespread is because they were once considered as mindless as ovines and were used as a quick source of protein. Humans don't talk about that much now.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwPXSQaZY30
And there were more species, many more, but they will hardly be present in this story and so I shall not mention them.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡG1BBpYbgvD
199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvMDkmJdQzY
After Tauron the Galactica journeyed to Sagitarra which is the planet where the far aliens are housed. Here the Galactica was to complete its cargo.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdD48yfjh26
Now it was on Sagitarra that an event took place which as great bearing on this biography and I have no choice but to tell it to you in full. As is so often the case in human affairs, the significance of a particular moment was not perceived until much later and the story I am about to tell you I have had to put together, bit by bit, from the Galactica's records and from Adama's memoirs.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlQ8HBMEdK8
I trust you will pardon a slight flamboyance in the telling for I wish to put flesh and plumes on the bare bones of history.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡw1y6fgaMe7
On Sagitarra there live the young trainee contact specialists who have dedicated their lives to serving the Mercystar Fleet. You have already met Contact Nurse Hawk so you know something of their natures. Well, this is the story of Starbuck, a boy of fourteen yahrens of growing but who had already been alive and learning for over forty yahrens. He was just entering his manhood.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWG4M1luiQF
199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjMWkZaoH4o
199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfDRSFFARAs
The valley where Starbuck endured his vigil was totally enclosed in mist. All that he could see were the dark shapes of everblue trees as they climbed up the valley walls and vanished into the drifting grayness.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡX6icwI5NbG
A fine rain was falling from the invisible clouds. Occasionally the air in the valley darkened and the rain became heavy, pelting down into the lush green grass of the valley floor where a river moved with at the rapid pace of a brown snake. On its back it carried gray branches which had been stranded in the riverbank since the last heavy rains. That had been in the springtime. Now it was fall. Mixed with the bare branches were dark-rooted shrubs, torn loose by the cascading white streams that tumbled down into the narrow valley.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7LVPRahubY
Where the river narrowed there were rapids. Here the branches, logs, shrubs and weeds tangled together and gradually formed a dam. The brown water churned to lather and swirled and deepened as the dam bound fast. Below the dam the water level dropped away, until with a roar the branches snapped and the water broke through, carrying the tangled parts of the dam like swamped rafts down the humpbacked rapids.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡz7xXUmcSBa
The creation and destruction of the dams was part of the valley's rhythm, a rhythm which had endured since the very forming of the river.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJuII5B2ECU
199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOOGjfeZHj3
Watching the tumbling water from the dry security of his rough stone cote is the young shepherd called Starbuck. He has fair hair and freckles and mischievous blue eyes set in a rather plump face. The plumpness is puppy fat. He is already growing toward manhood. Soon he will be tall, rangy and weathered, but for the moment it is the boy that looks out with wonder at the world. He is a junior contact confrere of the Benevolent Order and he was picked for this role while still a baby. Long sleeps have delayed his maturity and during these he has been ready for the raw ordeal of being a contact confrere.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡU5Lu7HhGjI
199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTBaMfLLFX8
199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaLBdqOMPRc
199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡv2xarQMIPJ
199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMVvAUNQGOI
Starbuck was enjoying his vigil. The solitude and the dismal sky did not depress him. He knew, though he did know quite how he knew, that he had already been selected to join the Galactica. This placed him at the forefront of his colleagues and he was proud and pleased and happy.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmneruYhXNf
He watched the latest dam break and then settled himself back comfortably under the dripping eaves and felt inside his habit for his pipe and small tin of tobacco. At the same time he stretched out a leg and kicked the embers of his little fire together. A breeze tickled the glowing wood and a blade of flame perked up and he was able to select a spill of straw and light his pipe.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡg5vFWEh70Q
Two black daggits, which lay stretched out by the fire, moved in the sudden warmth and their tongues lolled out and wiped their noses. Their brown eyes watched Starbuck carefully, alert for any movement of his that might indicate the imminence of food.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9VXWu5yrHJ
Starbuck puffed contentedly and stared down the valley. His flock of large woolly rodents were on the hillside well above the marshy river flat. From this distance they looked like fat gray maggots. Apart from the occasional bleating, the only sounds that came to the young shepherd were the dull roar of the river and the sudden, sweet, bell-like calling of the birds as they made their territories known. There were no sudden movements either. Just the nodding of flowers as they filled with the fine rain and tipped their heads to empty themselves. Even the breaking of the dam seemed to take place in slow motion.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVBAxKW2Qou
All was normal.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhgNNSGwwr2
199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAtwRwdXHqz
199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiBXzDPtTQ3
And then suddenly all was not normal.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtVTHWUTvk1
Within the cote an alarm bell shrilled. A brilliant white light flashed on. The daggits reared up, snarling and baring their teeth. Starbuck threw his pipe aside and scrambled over to the viewscreen which was situated in the wall angle at the back of the cote. He hit the "open" switch.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡC2OFYsuxhS
Seconds later the little platform above the machine effervesced and a gray-green, ghostly head appeared. It was the Senior Contact Consoeur, the Magistra herself, calling directly from the central hospital at Saggitarra Central.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlhHoEuzLZw
Reception was bad due to the weather and the high valley walls. The face lacked solidity and Starbuck could see the grainy surface of the rough stone wall behind it. The colors were reversed.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4p4ZTGJCLL
The gray-green head seemed to peer into the gloom of the sheep-cote. "Can't hardly see ya," came a faint nasal voice. Starbuck adjusted the light on top of the machine so that it shone fiercely down on him. "Ah, so there y'are."199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvzLcmS9i1l
Starbuck could feel his heart beating. It was unknown for the Magistra to contact a trainee while on vigil. This could only be the news which he had foreseen.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXvbnXOwA5r
"I have exciting news for you, young Starbuck. You are to be given your first assignment. It is aboard the Galactica." Magistra Sheba paused to allow this news to sink in. "You will be in charge of a parasite entity called a Guell. It is a rare specimen. One about whom we know nothing except the planet of origin. On its homeworld it links with an animal called a Dron, a giant multi-legged creature with the carapace of a crab and there are few of these now too, since the War. You shall carry the Guell back to its homeworld and protect it until a true host can be found. Are you happy with this news? Do you feel ready?"199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9QQTom1Cgg
To both of these questions Starbuck merely nodded. Magistra Sheba accepted this. She knew that young boys were often tongue-tied.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpjgaQanHX4
"So," continued the Magistra, "the Galactica has been with us for several days and is now fully assigned. The Guell is aboard in its present host and is waiting for you."199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrDsI7Ql3FE
"Why does the Guell not remain with its present host all the way to its homeworld? They must be happy together," asked Starbuck, a bit stiffly.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvCcCbJ9HsB
The gray-green head smiled. "They are happy, as you say. But the host will die soon and we need a high intelligence to prepare the future of the Guell. You may with draw if you wish. No penalty or disfavor will....."199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQyVgbgz9mg
"No. No. No. No." called Starbuck. "That was merely a question. I am ready to serve at any time. The sooner the better. When can I join the Galactica?"199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUfL1KI54iG
"The Galactica will find you. It has already departed from Saggitarra Central. It has your coordinates. It will be with you within centons or days. It will send down a space-ram to collect you. Any more questions?"199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡG5uL6w1zDz
"Who will guard my flock?"199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWpJxM22nee
"There is a young confrere already en route. Do not worry about your flock. They shall be well cared for. I hope you enjoy your first mission. Remember to keep plenty of notes of your experience as we taught you. Good luck."199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡv3LDaIefKJ
There was no more to say. Magistra Sheba smiled and waved and then her sharp-featured face abruptly vanished leaving the space where it'd been milky. The brilliant light which had shone down on Starbuck faded slowly and the filaments in the lamp glowed golden and red.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdBYwSWh3Qd
Starbuck made his way to the door of the sheep-cote and looked out. The rain was still falling and the valley was darker. Evening was coming. The Magistra had said that the Galactica would arrive "within centons or days." The great ship would surely not try to find him in the dark. He had no beacon. He would have one final night of peace before the most important day of his life.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡS6m72boldT
He began to think about food and about cleaning up the little station before his departure. He had not checked his snares since morning. He hoped there would be a nice fat coney to savor his pot. Starbuck had a liking for fresh meat and this was part of his training for he was schooled to take charge of the tigron but not the lamb and hence had to understand the hunter. The snare killed quickly and cleanly.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ73n812Suf2
Starbuck whistled to his daggits and pulled his hood up over his head and was about to step outside when one of the daggits reared up on its hind legs with a low growl and bared its teeth. At almost the same moment Starbuck felt a tingling in his scalp, an itchiness, as if there were ants in his hair. He ran out of the low enclosure and stared at the sky. There was nothing to be seen except perhaps a faint luminescence behind the clouds. He put his fingers to his mouth and whistled short imperative messages which sent his daggits like black arrows through the blue meadows. Behind them rose a bright arc of spray.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRCxXJpbfd6
The sheep heard the whistling too and began to mill about in their absurd fashion, waiting for one of them to take the lead. And then the daggits were on them, from different sides, growling and creeping and threatening until the sheep had no choice but to pour down the hillside like so many grains of sugar from a broken bag towards the enclosure.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLJGsjJaGRv
Starbuck knew what he was experiencing. The tingling was an anti-grav rake He had felt such before but never so intensely. The daggits were in pain. One of them twitched as it ran, twisting its head up over its back and snapping as if to remove a predator. The other ran with its tail down and then rolled on the ground and squirmed in the mud.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWiapzdYwqb
The sheep began to panic too. Most entered the pen, but some ran straight past despite Starbuck and his widespread arms. Others blundered into the water-meadow and became stranded in the mud and sodden. A few with their mouths open and their eyes showing white plunged straight into the river and were gone in an instant.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFwyvRtRzoG
Starbuck slammed the gate to the enclosure as soon as the last sheep had entered. Then he staggered around the building and in through the door. He tore at his hair and tried to scratch inside his heavy water-blackened habit.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5p8cFuMfFE
The air beyond the enclosure began to glow a fierce vivid green. Starbuck heard the sheep begin to clamor in fear. Of the daggits there was no sign.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLAkB2dZlHM
From outside there came a noise like thunder and the walls shook. Then there was silence and brilliance and Starbuck remembered nothing more.
He woke up aboard the Galactica.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡF1TbA6uvEw
Do you who are reading this believe in omens? I do not. However, I can recognize that some ventures begin well and others begin ill and retrospectively these beginnings can be accorded significance. Contact Confrere Starbuck's entry into the Galactica was accompanied by disaster. The coordinates given to the Galactica were wrong by a fraction of a degree. The giant ship used as one of its anchor points the very valley where young Starbuck was waiting. The brilliant green light that he saw and the tingling that he felt on his scalp were both the effects of his being placed almost directly under the anti-grav boot of the Galactica. Luckily, Contact Confrere Starbuck was not directly under the beam or he would have been killed. Also, he was protected by the thick walls and the roof of the small cote. But the sheep and the daggits were not. All died.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9TnPbdB5Fg
The spaceram dispatched to pick up Starbuck discovered the error and rescued him.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCJKVKfV4EY
199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6J4UHBXA7E
199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIsAUo0bQSE
Apart from the loss of two highly trained daggits and the entire flock of sheep, the damage was not great. It took Starbuck just twenty-four centons to recover and then he declared himself ready to accommodate the Guell. The doctor/techs aboard the Galactica demurred and he spent another sectan recovering.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuarvTKigUt
199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡN76beSvBru
199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAcywRKsaXi
199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCtXncnLl7Z
The Galactica was now full to capacity. Aboard the ship there was a crew of two thousand, four hundred. There were eight hundred and twenty Close Metabolism Life-forms and a hundred and thirty Distant Metabolism aliens.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIworT16NnR
The ship was tight. All of its operating systems were stretched in a proper and complete way. The analogy with an athlete suggests itself: the runner when racing is good and complete: such a thing was the Galactica.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjGfRJi66VS
199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpaTs9LpQ9A
Starbuck was introduced to the Guell as soon as he had completed his short convalescence. It was the very night that the Galactica was shifting from the orbit of Saggitarra and out into free space. Adama accompanied Starbuck down into the DME section where Hawk was in attendance. She had taken a special interest in the Guell for they were so rare and so strange even by the standards of the DME adepts.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡct8BBhXlKk
A room had been created which resembled the simple, pleasant cell that Starbuck had occupied during his training on Saggitarra. The room had its own small garden off to one side and was filled with flowering plants. All Starbuck's few possessions were there.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4Owi7BT8mG
Standing on a table in the middle of the room was a cage and in this was lying a cat with blue fur. Judging from its stillness and the regularity of its breathing the cat seemed to be asleep, but its fur stood out as can happen when a cat meets a daggit. This was present host to the Guell.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXnCz4DoAVb
Since the death of its natural host several hundred yahrens earlier the Guell had maintained itself among a family line of cats, moving from mother to daughter down the generations. Slowly, it had outgrown the capacity of its hosts.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvD7sCGGTGz
As a parasite that lived inside the body of its host, the Guell thrived in the physical systems such as the circulation of the blood in the nervous and mental systems. It caused certain minor physiological changes in its host (with the notable exception of its natural host) such as turning the skin or fur blue. It also brought the power of speech to creatures which, in their natural state, had no verbal language. Speculation about the origin of the Guell held that it was a hybrid being of spirit and matter. That it was life without a distinct form of its own and that it had come into being in the chaotic times when the universe was young. At some point in their evolutionary history the proto-Guell had joined with the Dron, which was regarded as one of the oldest species in existence. There had been Dron and Guell, living in one body, and crawling in the cold seas of their homeworld long before the land was formed.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡU0qRLxbcm1
The cat's eyes opened as they entered the room and it stared at them fixedly. Then it yawned showing all its teeth. Its face twisted as if an unseen hand were pressing and pulling it and the lips moved. A voice spoke, manufactured from a nose and throat that had been developed for no more than mewing. "Are you my new vehicle?"199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUVkT1EzvaY
Hawk prompted the young boy with a nudge.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡI8UBeBOAQ6
"I think so," said Starbuck.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ08vyrrDoaD
"Come closer," said the cat. "My eyes are weakening. Damned poor biology. Failing under stress. I want to see you." The cat stood up and arched its back and stretched its claws and then sprang up onto the side of the cage and held on there, more like a siminoid than a feline. There were flecks of saliva at the side of its mouth. The eyes stared at Starbuck and Starbuck felt himself threatened. Once, while guarding his flock of sheep at night, he'd been awakened by panicked bleating. In one movement he had rolled from his sleeping bag, grabbed his electric probe and run outside to discover what was wrong. In the darkness he had met the glaring yellow eyes of a mountain lynxor, a beast that was as large as an equine and with jaws that could bite a sheep in two. Both had been surprised and while the lynxor growled like a saw blade upon ferreg, Starbuck instinctively struck with his probe for the eyes and scored. The probe released its charge and the eyes closed and the beast slumped. Microns later, when the charge in the probe had accumulated, Starbuck set it to high power and killed the lynxor by burning its brain.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡw38iVIz3PL
Such were Starbuck's memories when he met the blue cat which hosted the Guell face to face. What the Guell thought at the moment of contact remains to be seen.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCStrtHgWsc
Adama reached up to the cage and thrust one of his fingers through the mesh and tickled the cat under its chin. He was rewarded with a gentle "meow." He turned to Starbuck. "You will sleep here tonight, Starbuck. None of us are sure about how the transference will take place. You must discover that." He turned back to the cat. "Can you help us, Guell?" he asked. "Starbuck is willing but none of us has experience of how to make such a move. You must help us."199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwlFqImzhvn
"I shall help you," said the cat, screwing up its face. "Sympathy is all, but I am already hurting. I need to move. This fur-bag can no longer contain me. Starbuck and I will soon be acquainted."199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFmgDNYKBDM
Hawk had been listening carefully and she placed her hand on Starbuck's arm. "I shall be near," she said. "Do not hesitate to summon me. I may be able to help."199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ89N8Zibluj
Let me say now that Hawk had already detected trouble. She could not have specified what, but she was uneasy. Adama too, to his credit, also felt uneasy but he, not being deeply trained in alien contact, thought that problem was in him, in his own sense of strangeness and newness. It would never have occurred to either of them to think that the Guell might be insane, but I fear this to be the case.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡs8M5tCmWYR
I, the historian Vulpa, assert this. Had either of these two sensitive beings acted upon their feelings and requested a deeper diagnosis and assement of the needs of the Guell, then the Galactica would have been saved along with all the life-forms within her, and Adama would now be a champion of Life to rival St. Dionysos himself. Historians cannot rewrite the facts of history no matter how they gloss them.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPvMuVt78d0
199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡY1xJK0F9xt
199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfq8LFxRK0R
199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPWj6iAbWGU
Adama and Hawk left Starbuck alone in his cell with the blue-furred cat. They returned to their different duties though Hawk made sure before departing that her call line was open. This meant that Starbuck could contact her directly. It also meant that if she so chose, she could listen to what was going on in Starbuck's room at any time.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEBn8BLCCrx
Left alone, Starbuck suppressed his memory of the mountain lynxor and released the cat from the cage. It immediately ran into the small garden enclosure and defecated among the flowers.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvobQOb87YK
While Starbuck prepared for bed the cat prowled the room. Occasionally it spoke to him, sitting back on its haunches and fixing him with its sharp yellow eyes. It spoke of the splendor of the Guell's home planet and the joy of a union with a sympathetic mind.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzFP49mDZGX
Eventually Starbuck slept and the cat sat watching him.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKx0MYPTzOy
At about the middle of the night the cat crawled into the sheets and curled up between Starbuck's arms. The boy murmured and turned and the cat spoke to him uttering words of comfort and peace.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡa34taBQYUy
Hawk heard those words and hurried to Starbuck's cell. She slipped through the door and was in time to watch the Guell possess the sleeping boy.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDfB7KlrCKh
The cat was crouched on its stomach with its legs spread and its fur standing out stiff from its body. The boy was asleep on his back with his arms thrown wide.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6jl8RMhdP1
The Guell emerged like water. It seeped from the cat's eyes and ears, mouth and anus. It became a pool of rippling silver, which lapped around the cat's stiff body and then flowed up toward Starbuck's mouth and nose. The boy moved and sneezed as the Guell attempted to enter his nose. That stopped it. It lay around his throat like a pool of silver, like fish scales, like moonlight on water, like a silver scarf, like the traces of a snail over slate.....and then it gathered and thrust itself into his body through his mouth and ears and nose. Starbuck stopped breathing while the last bead of the Guell found its way inside him. Then he sighed and the sigh turned into a snore. He twisted on the bed and his legs and arms thrashed for a moment and then reached out stiffly. The fingers and toes flexed. To Hawk it looked as if Starbuck were imitating the movement of the cat. Then the boy curled into the fetal position, turning onto his side. The dead body of a blue furred cat slipped from his chest and onto the bed. It lolled back, indecent in death, and Hawk removed it carefully and placed it in the cage.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyBkTmKjvwh
Starbuck seemed to be sleeping peacefully and Hawk withdrew quietly carrying the cage. She hoped that all would now be well. She contacted Adama and told him what had happened. He seemed relieved.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmuKHPOkrua
Centons later the symbol transformation generators meshed in a blinding release of power and the Galactica disappeared as it tore spacetime like cheesecloth and set out on its first mission.199Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡODM1gy0scF
