The Last Iteration: All This Has Happened Before … Chapter 6
The Last Iteration: All This Has Happened Before …
Chapter 6: Swimming too Close to Scylla
“How many chances do we give a man like Gaius Baltar?” Captain Aaron Kelly asked quietly. He didn’t look up at Adama, just sat on the edge of the brig cot staring down at his hands. Hands that had set the bombs that had killed one of Baltar’s lawyers, and nearly killed a second. “All in the name of justice!”
“It’s all we have left,” Adama said; those few words drying his mouth out like so much ashes, he felt like he was choking on them.
“No!” Kelly said firmly, rising and meeting Adama’s gaze now. “It isn’t justice; it’s a perversion of justice! Give him this trial, Admiral, and he will worm out of it like he’s wormed out of responsibility for his any of his actions. Because for a man like Baltar, no matter what the consequences of his actions, it will never be his fault; it’s always someone else’s fault. It’s right there in that foul book his lawyer smuggled out for him.”
“Be that as it may,” Adama replied, “whether or not he was responsible for what happened on New Caprica, it is for a court to decide. I will not have terrorist bombings and summary executions on board my ship. Did you ever stop to think about the pilot of that raptor or the innocent soldiers or civilians your bomb could have killed-the innocent civilian you did kill?”
“Innocent civilian,” the other man said with a bitter laugh. His eyes were hard and cold. “There are no innocents anymore, Admiral. That is what the Cylons took from us; that is what Gaius Baltar took from us!”
With that he turned his back on Adama and sat down on the far side of the cot. Bill knew instinctively that he wouldn’t get another word out of the man who-until a few hours ago-he’d thought of as one of his best, most dependable officers.
Frak! he thought angrily as he turned and finally left the brig.
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The stars glinted like shards of ice in the cold dark. They didn’t twinkle; Laura missed that in this endless trek across the vast nothingness of space. She missed the beauty of stars twinkling through a planetary atmosphere. The last time she’d seen the stars properly was on New Caprica, although such nights had been few and far between.
She turned her mind quickly from the thought as she turned her back on the porthole and climbed into her bed.
Too late. Thoughts of New Caprica inevitably led to thoughts of what had happened there-sometimes good things, but mostly bad. Even something as innocuous as the thought of twinkling stars conjured memories that still flayed her soul. And Gaius Baltar’s trial would only make it worse.
Oh, they hadn’t done anything that would leave marks-no, the Cylons were far too smart for that. Arrest after arrest, the unreasonable questioning … a humiliating internal exam by a Simon … being forced to dress in front of a leering Cavil ... cycles of hot and cold where she alternately boiled and froze in her flimsy prison-issue garb … the days of constant, unrelenting white light that guaranteed that she didn’t get sufficient sleep-and what little she got was not restful. But it was not nearly as harrowing as the interminable time spent locked in the small, black box.
Suddenly feeling claustrophobic, she threw back her coverlet, and sat up trying to get her breathing under control before she started to hyperventilate. With a trembling hand, she turned on her bedside lamp, biting her lip to stop the incipient sobs that rose in her throat to form a hard knot, making it almost impossible to breathe for a few moments.
Stop it! Just stop thinking about it-think about the good times! she told herself fiercely, but the avalanche was implacable and she was in its path. With it came the memory of the inevitable stench of her own wastes-it’s only your natural bodily functions … nothing to be ashamed of … nothing to be ashamed of … nothing to be ashamed of-and the humiliation of the box opening and them hauling her out into the brightly-lit cell.
Tears came now as she forced herself to breathe through it. Her new mantra-it’s only a flashback, it’s not real … it’s not real … it’s not real-coursed through her mind, drowning out her need to scream and her memories of her screams. And when the need passed, it settled down again in the back of her mind, a constant companion whispering to her, it’s not real. One day she might even believe it.
Finally, Laura relaxed her hands so that her fingernails wouldn’t cut into her palms. Stumbling to her small, cramped bathroom, she splashed cool water on her face, washing it as if to wash away her tears. Straightening up, she surveyed her reflection. Ever since start of the tribunal process, she was finding it difficult to sleep-more difficult now than even after the rescue.
Her suit hung on the back of the door; President Laura Roslin. However, it was the comfortable sweat pants and t-shirt folded on the hamper that she reached for now. She quickly removed her nightclothes and put it on, before returning to her bedroom and rummaging through her small trunk for the large, old cable-knit sweater Bill had given her on her return from New Caprica.
Through the open door of her bathroom, she again surveyed her reflection. Everything was in place. Normal. Now what?
Everyone was asleep and she didn’t need to be awake for another five or six hours. She closed her eyes; I have to face facts, I’m afraid to go to sleep.
Laura wondered if she would ever get back to the point when she could get a good night's sleep. For the last few weeks, four fitful hours was all she could manage most nights before she plunged into that hellish blackness, fighting the terror of insistent hands that touched every inch of her naked self, inside and out; fighting her own body … her own weaknesses … her own fears …
Now in the armour of Bill’s sweater, she drew a little comfort and felt her control returning. Perhaps she could clear the cobwebs with a tour of the ship before getting back to work on those interminable reports that seemed to literally breed on her desk.
Half an hour later her head was anything but clear. If anything, she had sunk deeper into a fog, but she kept walking, thankful that at this time of the morning there were few people in the corridors to see her. She stopped suddenly-where the hell am I? Oh yes, near the cargo holds …
"Good night, Madam President, or should I say good morning."
Laura froze and then whirled to face her chief aide; she felt her face flushed with a fleeting panic that she was sure did not escape Tory’s notice.
"I'm sorry, Laura, I didn't mean to startle you," the young woman said quietly.
Laura forced a smile, taking in for the first time Tory's black, form-fitting exercise attire. "No apologies necessary, Tory, I was just thinking about something. I wasn't paying attention-I wasn't expecting … I mean there are so few people about this time of morning …" Her voice trailed off, unable to think of anything else to say.
Tory grinned as they continued down the corridor. "I know. I couldn't sleep either, so rather than chase that black-winged demon, Phantasos, I decided it would probably be more productive, and easier on our staff, if I did battle with a few old demons."
"Sounds like a wise plan," Laura returned. "Well, have a good work-out," she said as Tory stopped in front of the small control room near the cargo holds, which the crew and passengers of Colonial One used as a makeshift gym. She sighed inwardly-might as well get back to her office. This walk wasn't doing what she had intended. She hadn't taken more than three steps when Tory called out to her.
"Would you care to join me, ma’am?"
Surprised at the offer, Laura scrutinised her aide for a moment, noting a slight anxiety and a genuine eagerness there, but nothing more. Still she held back.
"Thank you, but I have some work to do."
"I understand, Madam President. I just figured …" She shrugged, watching as Laura considered the offer again.
"How long do you intend to be?"
"Probably not more than an hour or so. After all, I wouldn't want to shock our poor staff or the Quorum by being too mellow," she said with a short laugh.
Janeway grinned-a genuine unconscious grin, and shook her head. "No, we can't have that," she said. "All right, Tory, lead the way."
As they entered the deserted, Tory turned to Laura, suddenly looking very uncomfortable.
"I'm not really that good at the asanas of the old yogin practice, but my mother used to do them. I find that doing what I remember of them, they remind me of her and lately they seem to calm my mind … help me to focus better. You don't have to do them all-just whatever you're comfortable with."
Laura smiled ruefully. “To tell you the truth, Tory, I have only a vague idea of what yogin is and no idea of what an asana is-why don’t you start at the beginning … like you would with a five year old just learning to add,” she said with a quiet chuckle.
Tory smiled, anxiousness flowing away like the tide. “Asanas are the physical movements used in combination with breathing exercises central to yogin practice,” she said dragging two well-used mats to the centre of the room.
“We’ll start slowly with a few poses and you can just rest when you feel you need it. The type of yogin I know best is called Surya, or the Salutation to the Sun. My mother would do it in the mornings at sunrise.”
With a gesture, she invited Laura to stand on the mat in front of her. “There are twelve asanas in one cycle of Surya, with each posture flowing into the next and some are repeated. Two cycles are performed in a round, with the opposite leg being moved first in the second cycle and the oldest form employ mantras to keep the mind focused, but we can get into that later if you want. Your breathing is also important, so with each pose, you either inhale or exhale.”
At Laura’s dubious look, she laughed. “It’s not as complicated as it sounds,” she said. “I’ll do a round to show you, and then we’ll do a round together.”
“Okay,” Laura said, suddenly very curious and realizing that she knew so little about her aide.
“This first pose is the Prayer Pose,” she said, standing with her hands pressed together. “Each asana has a name, but you can learn them later also. Right now, we’ll just go through the movements.”
Without further explanation, Tory launched gracefully into a series of movements that reminded Laura of a beautifully choreographed dance. As the young woman returned to the “Prayer Pose”, her face was serene as she paused for a beat and then launched into the movements again, leading off with her left leg this time.
Tory smiled as she emerged from her serene focus. "Don't worry, you'll do fine," she said bringing her hands together in the Prayer Pose. Waiting for Laura to assume the first pose, she slowly led her through the other movements, calling out when to inhale or exhale.
Clumsily mimicking the younger woman’s movements, for the first time in a long time, Laura felt her mind surface above the darkness … the terror that threatened to drown her, and she inhaled.
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To Chapter 7