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The Galactica returned from Ohn-time to normal spacetime without incident. The bio-crystalline consciousness at the heart of the ship first created a potential reality, cracking into normal spacetime through different dimensions, and then allowed the ship to reconstitute itself at the new point in space hence transforming potential reality to actual. The entire change was the physical equivalent of a metaphor in which two realities meet and exchange. It is shockingly simple and yet infinitely subtle.217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVmoHekDSEt
To the life-forms aboard the Galactica the change in their status as they moved from actuality to potentiality and back again, was barely noticeable. Those who were staring out through the viewports saw the stars swirl to a point of brilliance which vanished with a bang of light. Then there was darkness which seemed to press in on the ship. And then, when the darkness seemed all but unbearable, the stars poured forth again and reassembled themselves into new patterns. Only the bio-crystalline brains which had calculated the odds of the new reality, knew exactly where the Galactica was.217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡouH6618Cjq
There are those philosophies which maintain that there is no actuality save death and that so long as there is life there is merely change and potential. Perhaps that explains the indifference of life-forms to the spacetime change. Opinions differ.217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVlxMKKQVuO
The important thing to those aboard the Galactica was that there were no difficulties. Adama, alone among the life-forms on the ship, witnessed the change as a personal event for in every change, his was the spiritual brain that worked with the clever bio-crystalline entities. It was naturally exhausting.217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRoDRKW0Fax
The Galactica appeared close to a bright yellow sun that sang and danced with a shimmering red giant and a point of blackness defined by a glittering corona of energy. Despite appearances, this was a stable system. It had endured for many millions of yahrens during which one of the planets which swung around the yellow sun had achieved life-forms. This was the home planet of the Stran. It was a planet of misty blue-green swamps which were frozen at the poles and steam at the equator. In the equatorial region there was a vast blue lake where the water was deep and in the middle of this was a single, emerald-green island. This was the heart of Stran civilization and it was the Stran who kept the lake free of tangling planets. It was here that they built their ever changing, growing cities.217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwAVSSBqBe7
The Galactica secured as close to the world as it dared and one of the space-rams set out to establish contact. Hawk was aboard for this, accompanying the Stran she had been caring for.217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡf8gWDyrMh7
After four days had passed Hawk returned bringing greetings from the Stran world and inviting all those aboard the Galactica to descend to the surface. This was clearly impossible but Adama, as the senior representative of the Benevolent Order, traveled down and entered the city of webs and woven stalks and shaped plants. Then he remained as a guest, and in some ways a hostage, while the other Stran aboard the Galactica were ferried down to the surface.217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoSaq4hUdql
A deceased Stran, still and black within its waxy pod, was received and Adama was allowed to attend the funeral. This was a rare event since the Stran hardly ever died close to their main island unless they had suffered an accident or succumbed to disease. When a Stran grew old it just divided and became two young Strans. Young Strans were engaged in lonely exploration on the mainland far from the great island and only the fortunate few returned to divide and keep the line alive. With them they brought whistle melodies that in a way no human could understand were able to describe mountains and rivers and caves and trees. These melodies also told of the fate of younger Strans. So, as you can see, funerals were few and far between.217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpSKe7teA0k
A giant Stran, holding the pod containing the corpse aloft in its shorter tentacles, swam away from the island. Some two miles offshore it gulfed oil over its body and then dived and attached the pod to the sea flor. While the Stran was underwaterl, the others on the island started a whistle chorus which was like a thousand organs mixed with flutes and sackpipes. The sound spread from the place where the Stran had slithered into the sea. It traveled down the coasts and it traveled inland. As the tribes of Stran holding in the branches of their city or tending the young or gathering fruit or sleeping heard the whistle chorus, they joined in. Once started the wave of sound was unstoppable. It spread across the many thousands of laxars of the island. When the Stran that had dived had done its job and the dead Stran was pegged on stones on the sea floor, it bobbed back to the surface and swam ashore. Seeing it arrive safely on shore, those Stran that were close stopped whistling and moaning and thus a wave of quiet followed the wave of noise.217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡo184eutzpz
"What are they whistling?" asked Adama.217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8zIkiUYFs0
Hawk strained to hear. "I can only catch fragments," she said. "Some are telling genealogy, some are narrating exploits in which they were involved, some are describing what is happening. No two are the same. It is a great song of their here and now. One of them,"----she pointed up into the canopy of a wide-girthed tree---"my lad I think, is whistling about you and me and about how we come to be here."217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQUQLgZvCGE
Gradually silence grew about them and they could hear the whistling grow fainter as the wave of silence chased the wave of sound. And when the silence was total, they made their farewells quietly and climbed aboard the space-ram and gently lifted and floated up to where the Galactica held orbit.217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWANKNhQ9H3
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Awaiting Adama was young Starbuck. He was sitting on the floor outside the control rooms. There was already a blueness about his eyes and throat akin to bruising.217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTfOMdogjqU
"We don't feel well," he said, and then his face twisted and he bit his lips but not so hard as to draw blood.217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡl4y7O2MTgK
Adama took him into the room which resembled his dining room on Gemon and sat him at the table. The artificial fire flared in its grate and then settled to a pleasant resemblance of burning logs and wood ash. Adama brought milk and some of the fruits he had gathered on the home planet of the Stran and set these before the boy. "Now tell me," he said.217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRrK4dO9PWO
Starbuck tried to drink the milk but he gagged and dribbled. After another attempt he pushed the glass aside. He managed to eat some of the fruits. Occasionally his face moved uncontrollably, flitting from a frown to a smile, to a look of wonderment and then to the vacancy of an idiot. Adama watched in silence, lending his presence and his patience.217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQjd8QElTxf
Finally, Starbuck managed a few words. "I don't think we like ourself," he said and took a deep breath. With his breath held he seemed to able to keep control as Starbuck. Then he spoke without breathing, using the stored air. "Guell wants Starbuck to be a cat. Starbuck can't. Starbuck hurts. Starbuck is sick."217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1SOI308rC3
The air escaped from him and his face set with the lips pushed forward as if he were pretending to be a fish. The next time he spoke the voice was different, sharper and with less intonation. "Guell wants to be clean. You have given me a dirty vehicle. How can I dwell in a sewer? I insist upon a sanitary mind. Meow!"217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡA49PZKavPF
The dialogue went on. Sometimes Starbuck spoke and sometimes the Guell. Once they both tried to speak together and the result was that Starbuck held his breath until he swooned. The argument did not progress but merely moved in circles. What did emerge clearly was the deep antipathy between Starbuck and the Guell.217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡs2tGMkEEyc
Finally the Guell tired and Starbuck took more total control. The boy was bewildered beyond reckoning. "Help me," he said. "Help both of us. My training never told me about all this---the sickness, the visions. I'm starting to hate myself. I want to gouge out my eyes. I want my flock back. I want to go home."217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJrQsEAsxAR
Adama took his hands and held them between his own giant palms. He could think of nothing to say for the moment. He saw the boy shiver and then droop and place his blue-tinged face on the table. Both beings which inhabited the same body were asleep. Adama fetched a cushion from the chair by the fire and placed it under the boy's head. Then he took a quilt from one of the chests by the wall and draped it over his shoulders. The boy murmured in his sleep like a cat.217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡh1KOt3tvl7
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Adama was unsure what to do for the best. He sat and looked at the sleeping boy and faced the first real trial of his command. He reviewed his options.217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMD41jlUur3
One possibility: turn back to Saggitarra on the grounds that this contact was not working and needed a substitute. He rejected this option. He told himself that the disruption to the schedule would be too great and besides, it was early days yet and the wise confreres who knew more than he did about contact with DMEs had presumably taken care over the selection. Maybe time would effect a shakedown. To his credit, Adama was not consciously aware that turning back might seem like a lack of decisiveness, though that may have been an unconscious motive.217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrBIsOCABFc
A second possibility: invite the Guell to change hosts. To do this he would need the help and advice of Hawk and the bio-crystalline brains that controlled the mercystar. He immediately summoned Hawk to join him and opened lines of communication to the bio-crystalline consciousness at the heart of the ship. There was, naturally, no certainty that a change of hosts would be successful. It might be a case of out of the pot and into the fire.217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwRDaIFKFH0
A third possibility: Adama should take the Guell into himself. Yet he did not entertain this possibility for as long as it had many unknowns, though speaking with the wisdom of hindsight, I know that it was his best option. Adama had a rare way with creatures. I have seen his power, and something of the great Dionysos flowed in him. Guell would not have mastered him. I would maintain that if Adama had received the alien Guell inside himself then he would have found the strength to cope with tie implantation. We shall never know. But maybe Adama, in his deeps, found the idea of alien possession intolerable. It is even possible that he felt a lack of sympathy for the boy just because he had allowed himself to be possessed.217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwYi4bhbyuU
A fourth possibility (this one greatly appealed to Adama): Adama should use the power he could exercise over creatures to subdue either Starbuck, making the boy a passive host, or the Guell, making of the parasite a gentle rider. We may observe that there is something of vanity in this choice.217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQn9vrpwGJ4
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There were other possibilities that Adama did not consider.217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡK2wLjR5n1I
- He could have reached out with one of his giant hands and killed them both while they slept at his table. Had he done so the Galactica and all who were in her would have been saved. Naturally, the rules of the Benevolent Order by which he lived forbade this. However, I, Vulpa, who do not have to worry much about a human conscience, have to consider this option. Maybe Adama allowed himself to be too controlled by the rules. The true leader is the one who can improvise. Ethics are harder than logic.217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMMEq7m7wk0
- He might have tried to move the Guell to a semi-living host such as a bio-crystalline entity. Talking with Adama during his convalescence in Serpentine's Garden I made the point to him that if I had been aboard and had been aware of the problem, I would have offered myself as host. I have just enough bio- to be acceptable (I think) and my -crystalline parts are very pure. I could have coped with the Guell. I could have meowed to keep it peaceful. I could have straightened it with reason. But I was not there and so I wonder why those great bio-crystalline brains which ran the mercystar with such sophistication never thought to offer a part of themselves. Clearly they knew nothing of literature or history, for the Ovion swine would have given them a clue how to proceed and they were cleverer than swine. Surely they could have modified a part of themselves to create a host which resembled a Dron of the Guell's home planet? They could have isolated the madness of the Guell from within a bio-crystalline pen. They could have liberated Starbuck from his pain. But apparently this possibility was never considered. There may be reasons for this. I don't know. 217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIUx04LSnej
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I have used the worlds "madness of the Guell." This is Vulpa's conclusion though it can not now be proved. I believe the Guell was insane. No host would have suited it, no even St. Dionysos himself. The pure boy Starbuck it likened to a sewer! But how do we understand the madness of an alien mind? Shall we say that sanity consists in that which is on the side of Life? A life-form that is opposed to Life is opposed to itself and that is surely madness. This is a distinction easy to grasp and hard to apply. But it is a guide. When logic fails, ethics may still be up and running.217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlvkGpOZQOB
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Hawk arrived, drowsy and concerned, and she and Adama entered the little vestibule off the dining-room where they could gain direct access to the powerful and unsleeping bio-crystalline constructs which ran the ship. They discussed the problem and were amazed to discover that the bio-crystalline brains already had some inkling of the trouble. Maintaining the structures in the DME section of the Galactica, they had become aware that Starbuck was not sleeping well. They had even heard him crying and meowing. "We can even, sometimes, pick up thought patterns broadcast by humans, for we scan all emanation levels. We have been aware of sadness and suffering."217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsm0XkgRsOF
"Why have you not told me this?" asked Adama.217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjoNkL12N1g
"Because sadness and suffering are common among the life-forms aboard this ship. It is like the background noise you hear when a dominant sound has gone berserk."217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQop8YjoMKm
"Are Starbuck and the Guell louder than the rest."217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7tnVlUCXpx
"They are somewhat louder."217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJMVQgWoh2q
"Why is that do you think?"217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9PLStzFa1L
"We would say their thoughts are fueled by strong emotion. Emotion is the engine. Thought is merely the emanation."217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHVLGqxxsFE
Both Hawk and Adama absorbed this. "What do you think we should do?" asked Hawk after a long pause.217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡe2IZBimf8t
"That must be up to you," said the bio-crystalline brains of the Galactica. "You know far more about such things than we do. We can feel sympathy , but we cannot make decisions the way you can. We can only carry out your decisions once they are made."217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkr9t4ZJpy9
Hawk and Adama looked over at one another. "Over to you, Captain," said Hawk.217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡF47ZwSpOhE
Adama felt the thrill of decision-making. "We have a crisis in the making. I cannot judge how serious it is but I don't feel like taking chances. I am going to move Starbuck and the Guell up here where I can keep a close eye on them. Any problem with that?" he asked the air and the ceiling.217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPFF6C3m7jy
"None whatsoever," came back the reply. "They have no special needs beyond food and air."217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡy2wzRV8MwB
Hawk nodded. "I think that would be a good idea."217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBYuUKrt3uY
"Furthermore," said Adama, "I want to look at changing our schedule. After this visit to the home planet of the Stran we are scheduled to travel out to the rim of the Yeons homeworld. We are expected and there is a rare conjunction of planets taking place---a once-in-ten-thousand-yahrens event in which they have invested much magic and ceremony. We had planned to go to Clailon to take on supplies, but I suggest that we move directly to the home planet of the Guell. We can give them advanced warning. I know there is a team from the Benevolent Order already on planet and they will do everything they can to have a true host, a Dron, standing by. Can this be easily done?"217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡewnrMhy6L0
"We can reschedule. So long as there are no species that are dying and have a limited timespan." There was a moment's pause. "We can see no problem," replied the bright voice of the Galactica. "We can begin to contact the Guell home planet immediately."217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4fYOYzDghA
"That plan has an added advantage," said Hawk, the practical. "We can inform both Starbuck and the Guell of the change and the knowledge that their suffering is close to an end will probably help greatly. They are not scheduled for planetfall for some two ship yahrens I believe."217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhMbm4k5Qkh
"Two yahrens and seven sectars."217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsxlMxgG5DJ
"Well then. I am sure they can hold on for a couple of ship's sectans. Especially if you take a hand." Hawk nodded at Adama.217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5PSJhOtNfd
Adama smiled.217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIZVzw6kXDl
The decision pleased them all. The meeting ended.217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeso0yK1RJD
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Hawk helped set up a special room for Starbuck/Guell and then she bade Adama good night. "Just a word of warning," she offered as she turned to leave. "Don't fall asleep with the Guell close by. I watched it take over Starbuck and it is quite irresistible. I know so little about them. Keep the door secured."217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLHEdOPDhW4
Adama laughed. "I'll be careful," he said. "Perhaps now that your Stran is gone you might be able to study up on the Guell?"217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7GcOuS61F7
"I will," she said. "I will."217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoGKGJNk1wD
"We too will be watching and on guard," came the voice of the Galactica.217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFxOmRvFMRL
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Thus all should have been well, for the plan was a good one. Miscalculated only was the severity of the breakdown between Starbuck and the Guell and the danger that breakdown posed. Nor was there any talk of madness.217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0xyU31AfK4
Why this plan failed I will reveal in the next pebble of my story.217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiCppuHedxE
