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Our story begins in the darkness and silence of night.
The sound of stone tapping on wood. It is an urgent sound and, at the same time, discreet. It is not a sound for all ears---a lover trying to wake his sleeping mistress might knock in this way.
After each pattern of taps there is an echo which dies in the silence and then a soft voice calls. "Wake up, Senior Confrere Adama. Wake up, sir." The caller waits while the sleeper adjusts and starts to respond. Then the tapping begins anew, slightly harder.
It reaches into the sleeping mind of Adama and chivvies him, raising him to consciousness from a strange dream in which he was standing on a road and a brown-eyed ovine was in front of him, blocking his path on a narrow bridge across a swiftly flowing stream.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Definitely louder now. More demanding. Soon a latch will be raised if the summons is not answered and a stealthy figure will enter. For be sure, the one that is knocking will not go away unanswered.185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwcApa5pnuB
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Adama rolled away from his wife, turning his head from the musky tousle of her hair and releasing his arm from the warmth under her breasts. She, Ila by name, an alien woman of the indigenous people called the Callrines, murmured like the sea, uttering words of her native tongue and turned on her back, moist lips open. For a brief moment her fingers touched and caressed his naked body touching his chest and then gliding down to his thighs. Reassured, she relaxed and released him and slid from a dream of equines to a dream of houses and so back down into the bottomless deep of sleep.
Not so Adama. Adama was waking up. He drew the covers back slowly and blinked in the shadowy room. Already his dreams were fleeing into oblivion and he knew who he was and where he was. A man such as Adama, a trained warrior, did not awaken with a lot of felgercarb. His early training reached deep into his subconscious. He lay for several moments, aware that his awakening had an external cause, and strained to catch the slightest irregular sound. Consciously he breathed silently and deeply to calm his pulse.
When he was confident that there was nothing unexpected in the chamber, he rose from the bed, one shadow among many, and moved across the room to find his gown. He dragged it over his shoulders with barely a rustle and then crossed to the door. The door squeaked when he opened it and the sound seemed loud in his ears: likewise, the click when it closed. But his wife did not wake up.
Outside in the stone-flagged corridor, the passage lights sensing his presence, began to glow softly. That they were not already glowing gave him confidence that there was no intruder and he smiled at himself, at his own apprehension. Indeed, what intruder would there be here in the heart of the Great Caprica Monastery and in a house where the alien goddesses of Gemon held equal sway with St. Dionysos of old Mother Kobol? Still, defensive habits once learned, die-hard and, without realizing it, Adama moved on down the corridor, walking softly on the sides of his feet, alert for anything untoward.185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtoYbCbfL6V
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We pause now to gain some physical impression of this man. Some men are like leonoids, some men are like equines. Adama is huge like an ursinoid. He had a loose-limbed gait, somewhat amplified as he now walks down the corridor by his need to stay quiet. It is the careful walk of a big man who is all the time aware that there are others in the world smaller than him and whom he might crush. There is no pride of strength in his walk, no arrogant stepping forth, and yet there is an impression of great strength. He pauses at a door, arms raised and touching the frame and again we are reminded of the ursinoid, standing up in the forest, head cocked, listening. The man who would challenge Adama would need to be very confident of his prowess.
He turns and looks up the corridor towards the room where his wife is sleeping. The face is mild, with deep-set blue-gray eyes which, surprisingly, look somewhat timid. The hair of his beard and on his head is short, coarse and blond. The face is tanned and healthy but deeply lined and looks older than you might expect. A sailor who has looked into flying salt spray or stood watch above the coldness of a midnight sea might have such a face. Weather-beaten is the expression.
The hands are too worthy of comment. Adama's hands are large and square and freckled on the back. The fingers are stubby. They are farmer's hands, fisherman's hands, hands for hard labor. For those who only know Adama as a burly pilot, there is both surprise and delight when they discover the sensitivity with which he plays the guitar or the delicacy of his touch as he mends a fine and fragile beaker made by the potters of old Callrine.185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0lYXYGmlPu
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There was no sound from the children's rooms and Adama moved on.
He didn't know just what had awakened him. A knocking of some kind---a sound at least---but he knew that he didn't want to hear that sound again. His wife would surely wake up and maybe the three children. Besides, only trouble could come with such insistence in the night and he preferred to face trouble alone.
KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.
"All right," growled Adama, "I'm coming. No need to wake everybody up." Then he heard his own name whispered, like a voice from a well, and it made him shiver.
Quickly he entered and crossed the dining-room where the remains of the evening meal were still on the table. This house was managed in accordance with Callrine ways and the remnants of the evening's food was never cleared from the table until the morning as a mark of respect to the guardians of the house. A mouse, disturbed while enjoying Callrine hospitality, scampered in panic for its hole. The fire still glowed a dull red under its patina of gray ash.
Then Adama was out in the hall. Facing him was the massive front door made from planks of ironwood. He felt a sudden anger at being disturbed in his privacy. "If this is..." he started to say.
KNOCK....
With one sweep of his arm, Adama drew back the heavy curtains which stopped the draft. He lifted the hasp with a bang and heaved open the door.
Know this about the man's character, he opened the door to his home without knowing what was waiting on the other side. He didn't know what to expect.
Facing him was one of the small blind servants who satisfy the many practical needs of the Great Caprican Monastery. It was a woman, as was revealed by the bulky dark blue gown she was wearing. In her hands she held a pair of smoothed balls of granite. One of these she had used to tap at the door. Her eyes were closed and the dim light from the hall revealed that she was nodding dreamily to herself as if listening to some inner music. Her face was waxen and unhealthy and it was not possible to tell her age. Her size was little more than that of a 9-yahren-old human child.
Adama felt his anger vanish. "What do you want?" he asked, and then asked foolishly: "Do you know what centon it is?" As though in answer the monastery clock tolled twice.
"Yam sorry to waken you, Senior Confrere Adama," said the woman in her thick accent and never speaking to him directly but aiming her voice to the side of his face. "Yis asked to call you urgently. Yis told to use special pitch so only you would wake up. There is a secret. Ya'am to come to Magister Cain's rooms now."
"Why? What is this secret?"
"Yo no know dat."
"Trouble?"
"Yo no know dat. Yis just asked...."
"Cain just told you to come and fetch me?"
"Yes. Magister Cain sounded worried---mmm---yes, worried and excited too. Yo no tink it be a bad worry. But ya'am to come now."
The big man peered down into the diminutive woman's bland unquestioning face. She was one of the War Children as they were known: a tribe of several hundred humanoid beings who worked and lived at the Great Caprican Monastery of St. Dionysos. Congenitally blind, stunted in their growth, and yet miraculously still able to breed, the War Children survived only in the benign, albeit unnatural, environment of the monastery. They were all that were left of an entire race and had been rescued from a dying planet at the height of the War of Stupid Fools. That war ended over four hundred yahrens ago.
"What is your name?" asked Adama.
"Randa." The voice which breathed the name was just barely a whisper.
"Thank you for your message, Randa. Please return to Magister Cain and inform him that I'm on the way. Tell him I'm just getting some clothing on.
The little figure bowed. "Yam doing that now." She whispered and turned and hurried away. Adama watched her go. She joined the shadows under the dark fused arches. She moved with complete confidence in the permanent night of her blindness. She glided rather than walked with her arms outstretched and her fingers brushing the columns. Her gown billowed. She could almost have been flying.
Before she vanished from sight into the stacked honeycomb of cells that made up this lower part of the monastery. Randa paused and brought her hands together in three quick gestures. Adama heard the hard click of stone upon stone.
Adama shivered, but not with the cold. He experienced one of those strange moments of frisson and, as the ancient Colonials would have said, he felt as if someone had walked over his tomb. He laughed at himself. "Reading the echoes," he thought. "She's just reading the echoes. I've seen them do this thousands of times. Everything seems strange at 200 centons in the morning."
And with that he closed his door and hurried inside to get dressed.185Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡciF6YfwM7A
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