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It was autumn when Adama came to us. It was winter before he began speaking to us. On a cold day when the sunshine seemed nearly white and the wind shook and loosened the last dry brown leaves from the trees and sent them hurling over the wall of the Jadriel Garden, an old Callrine woman came to us. She was wintering over in the garden like a migrating bird and would travel south in the springtime. She had heard that we had a sick man and she came from the Sanctuary Hall to the enclosure where Adama lived and knocked at the gate. That morning she had visited the Pectanile just before dawn at a time when the moonlight was still reflected in its pool. She had gathered some water while the moon was on it. To this she had added fresh herbs finely chopped and some strips from the bark of the Constructor Tree. She presented this potion to Serpentine and suggested that it might help if the body of the sick man were washed in the water and the water left to dry on him.257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCuTYrKLEMD
Serpentine, ever one to learn where medicine is concerned, accepted the brew, analyzed it for toxins, noted the contents for future reference and then did just as the old woman had suggested. Adama was restless and as the water dried on him his skin became blotchy and angry and hot. Serpentine held him under close observation and noted that it was the inner heat that was being released. The redness of his skin fluctuated, each time becoming less angry looking, until finally it stabilized and Adama lay on his face clean, rested, and breathing easily Verda brought him out of sleep and he smiled when his eyes opened. Verda brushed him lightly with a clean napkin dislodging from his skin the small dried particles of chopped herbs.257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡz1AbsyDUiY
At this time Serpentine was experimenting with hypnosis. She'd spoken to him in his dreams, telling him that he'd gradually remember everything, but that there'd be no pain. She had also implanted a hypnotic suggestion deep inside his psyche such that I could use key words to help him reveal his memories. I'm convinced that the gentleness of this procedure was a material factor in Adama's recovery. 257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiycWBntGe9
The Callrine potion, whatever it was, had brought Adama relief. He woke up smiling. It wasn't the normal smile of full consciousness but a somewhat brittle smile, by which I mean that it was a smile that was fraught with tension, the smile of a man who wanted to be liked or who wants others to agree with him.257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJQnY48T516
Adama looked across at me and said, "Vulpa. Good to see you." Those were the first conscious words that Adama had spoken to me since his return. Then his gaze slid across to Serpentine. "And hello to you too, Serpentine. Why don't both come with us on the next voyage of the Galactica? We could use one like you. You could be very useful."257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5kwRANrPyB
"I could certainly have helped you with Starbuck/Guell," I said clearly and slowly and both Serpentine and I watched carefully to see what reaction the words might provoke.257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTFEMYFQtSd
Adama nodded as if listening to a private voice. "Starbuck/Guell. That was a close shave. I loved them both, you know. What a shame they couldn't love each other. But they couldn't. They were poison to each other. I only realized it one night when Starbuck was really sick. He was howling in his room like a cat that has had its muzzle bitten. I went in to him and held him in my arms and the Guell tried to make him bite me. Me! Hah! The Guell held no dangers for me. I managed to get through to it, to join with it. It was terrified, the poor beast, and it had no more substance than slime. I wondered then whether or not it had been ill even before it'd joined the Galactica. I managed to quieten it. But I couldn't stave off the inevitable. They killed each other, Starbuck and the Guell. Someone blundered when they made that joining. Someone's got questions to answer."257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBboT3ECoFF
"And what happened to the Galactica when they died?" I asked.257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCgvocpKQXd
"Nothing. We treated the bodies with respect and continued our journey, I think, and then I came back here. I can't remember how I got here. But I'll be ready for duty again soon I hope. I've got a lot of service in me."257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGz3kqjXdgO
Hearing that, I induced the hypnotic state in him. His conscious mind was holding out on us. I thought for a while before my next statement because I wanted to put Adama on the spot. "You didn't continue with your journey," I said. "The Galactica was damaged. You came out of Ohn-time without preparation. Your ship was damaged, and you made landfall. Tell us about that."257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWAjEJnOmau
Adama frowned and looked puzzled and then he nodded. He looked downward and to his right, a bit like someone peering through a keyhole. I think he was seeing things. New memories had been revealed to him.257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRTCF0g5a4i
"You're right," he said. "That odd gray/green planet! We landed there. We came down with a wham! I'm remembering."257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3ctM8JbUmg
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ADAMA'S NARRATIVE257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRxon9NgovY
When I climbed from my couch I fell----and the floor was sloping so that I stumbled when I tried to stand. Oh, the weight. My arms and legs were like lead. It was unrelenting. I crawled to the door and dragged myself upright against the door frame. Standing, I found it easier to walk and stumbled into my quarters. There was silence. It'd got used to the presence of neuro-crystalline awareness that can sometimes be heard like a humming of bees on a summer's day and sometimes like the snuffling of the great beast. Now there was nothing and the silence was too frightening. I tried to use the video board but that too was out. There were no images, not even ghosts of light. I couldn't speak to the ship or to any part of it. I remember a horrible thought came to me: that the Galactica was a dead animal and that I was in its belly. At the same time, I recognized that kind of thinking for what it was and dismissed it.257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBzJVrrhacd
I knew there must be other people somewhere and that I couldn't be alone on the Galactica. I needed to find other people. There was a corridor which spiraled downward from the reception foyer outside my apartment and connected my rooms with a staff canteen. You've been there, Vulpa and Cain. Do you remember? I decided to go there first. All my senior assistants lived in quarters off this dining-room.257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUScvCX8o1d
I supported myself on the handrail which ran around the spiral but, before I'd gone halfway down, I felt as if I'd run a marathon. And then I heard distant voices. People were gathering in the dining-hall----there were lights beyond the doors. I walked on and then, using more force than needed, for estimates of strength are deceptive in high gravity, I pushed the atmosphere doors and they banged open and I lurched through.257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjKT3zWJlpT
There must've been fifty or sixty people in the dining-room. They fell silent when I entered. They all looked at me. There were techs and medical staff, some with cuts on their faces, others with arms in hastily-improvised slings. But it's the silence I remember and the expressions of disbelief on their faces. You know, a ship like the Galactica feels as secure as your birth-planet----until something goes wrong.257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLhIlfNgDnQ
Suddenly there was cheering and smiles. I was greeted like an angel from the planes of Heaven.. I found out later that a rumor had been circulating that I was dead and that the Galactica was leaderless. For my part, I was glad of their support. I had not realized how warmly I was regarded. I hadn't realized how warmly I was regarded. I found out later that people admired the way I'd handled Starbuck/Guell. But....257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTP2mKrIhCw
I sat down gratefully at one of the wide tables and spread my legs for they had begun to ache. I started to organize things. We had food in the stores and the hydroponics girdle which could be seen from the dining-room was green and misty. No trouble there. The plants stood tall and the gardeners were already at work tying up plants and supporting them. The Galactica had cast a gravity field around the hydroponics troughs and was able to hold them at just thirty percent above normal gravity.257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmMeuya2JMR
We had light and heat. So, within certain parameters the ship was clearly functioning although it wasn't communicating directly with us by voice.257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡE8oos1TRJN
But I needed to get a clearer idea of how things were in the rest of the ship. I organized survey parties to explore. The members wore gravity suits which enabled them to float through the ship. Even so, I knew it'd be hours before they could report back. The inhabited parts of the Galacticaoccupy more than a cubic lexar of space. It wasn't until six hours after we had made planetfall that the first reports of our state started to come in.257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIznIFYyaxp
They were not good (Frak, felgercarb and shit!). I discovered that the DME sector, badly damaged by the meteorite, had only managed to protect five independent atmospheres and that these were now isolated behind their own particle screens. There were now in total some forty DMEs still alive. Communication had been established by using vacuum microphones which could attach to the particle screens. In the absence of neuro-crystalline channels we had to use amplifiers and hundreds of yards of cable. I was informed that each of the five atmospheres contained a contact specialist from the Benevolent Order. They seemed well and confident but they wanted news. They wouldn't leave their special charges but wanted to stay in contact. Each atmosphere contained its own special food supplies which included food for the Contact Confrere.257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPqO6pag2dX
Alas, all the other DME areas were dead. Their atmospheres had been sucked out into space along with their occupants. It was only the particle screens with their dimensional laminate that protected the entire DME sector from ruin. Deep in space when the tragedy first struck the particle screens faded and held at bay the vacuum of space. Now the particle screens were protecting the DME area from the raw atmosphere of the planet on which we'd landed. But not without a price. The particle screens consumed considerable power from the Galacticaand limited the ship's other functions.257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoa2492bE50
The chambers belonging to the Close Metabolism Lifeforms had fared better as regards overall physical damage but their systems were less secure. There were atmospheric leaks aplenty and I dispatched a team to try and locate and seal these.257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnidvoBQFat
However, while this news was bad, the worst news of all was that the dormitory areas where the techs who serviced the Galacticahad their lodgings and gymnasia, had been completely isolated. The dormitories were a vast complex of two- and three-room cells close to the STGs. Evidently when the Galacticalurched back into normal spacetime the strain on the bio-crystalline linkages had been too great and they shut down. Now we couldn't contact these areas and we didn't know whether they'd been denied atmosphere and power or whether they still functioned but as autonomous units.257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAWINd89Orw
I singled out one of the strongest of our young men and sent him out. We didn't have any spare gravity units and so this junior confrere donned a simple survival suit and ventured outside. He dragged himself laboriously, against the ruthless lead of gravity, over to the dormitory section. He carried an override charge so that he could get in through the local airlock should such be needed, but he never had to use it. There was a gaping hole in the wall of the Galactica. Something must've happened at the moment of impact, a detonation of some kind, inside the walls, for bodies had been ejected from the dormitory and now lay exposed among the stiff gray shrubs at the base of the ship.257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiPfTU3cDw5
The junior confrere climbed into the dormitory area of the Galactica, being very careful not to damage his survival suit on the sharp metal edges which rose up at him like knives. As he made his way through the ruined dormitory he described what he saw. He found himself in a chaotic world. So great was the tug of gravity that blankets which had tumbled from beds as the ship came down now looked as if they'd been starched and ironed into place. In one place a folio of letters had fallen open and the pages held to the floor as if glued. In the gymnasium, the rings and ropes hung down from the ceiling stiffly, like poles. Where there were bodies, the hair was teased back from the scalp and the faces were collapsed.257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGjtphFcY0k
The young confrere searched through every chamber and it became obvious that the catastrophe hadn't occurred instantaneously. 257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEijdqmVM5q
Some of the dead inmates were found struggling into their survival suits. But nobody survived. It was a graveyard.257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTKKUxHJaLf
I ordered him back. And he came slowly, like a crab, easing his way around the curves of the Galactica.257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcK9t7ZHec5
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And there we were.257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡObgb8fkzvC
Despite the bad news there was a sort of optimism in the air. I think we truly believed that things couldn't get worse. We appreciated the safety of the moment. To welcome the teams back from the DME and CME sectors I ordered that a warm meal be readied. This gave everybody something to do.257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxB62PGK7A1
Privately I knew what I had to do. I needed to visit the bio-crystalline core of the ship and see how extensive the damage was to the neuro-crystalline brain of the Galactica. I encouraged celebration followed by rest and when I saw that others among the crew were dragging themselves to their various apartments, I made my farewells and donned vacc-suit and glided to my private rooms.257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLF8vEq5v1y
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VULPANOTE:257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkD0bmJix5A
With these words this session concluded and Adama woke up. He blinked and looked at me anxiously. "Did I tell you anything new?" he asked.257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡILeTrgQQFn
"Yes," I replied.257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcegZ1dT93D
"And when will I remember?"257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPP2knf5ZIf
"Soon, I hope."257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡs4wWJJhrnQ
And he remembered that same night!257Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaRT2WN2SR7
