"Richard Hatch - Battlestar Galactica 5 - Paradis" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hatch Richard)

end. He was cold. The corridors were dark, except for a sickly illumination
revealing jagged edges of a gray, metallic world. Then the Great Traitor
fell and tasted blood.

Lifting his hand to his face he could discern crimson droplets on his
fingers. The light became stronger and he could see the red spots rise from
his hand to form red eyes floating in front of him—the eyes of Imperious
Leader that would not leave him alone.

Again the other eyes, the damnable vast quantity of other eyes,
gathered around until they were as many as the stars in space.

He staggered to his feet and prepared to run some more. But then
something changed. Even in the dungeon of his sleeping mind he finally
refused to be intimidated.

He stood his ground. Baltar demanded that his own nightmare make
sense or go away! One by one, the eyes winked out until all that remained
were those belonging to Imperious Leader, whose monstrous head formed
silently around these little, dancing points of fire.
 "Why was I the perfect traitor?" Baltar finally asked.

"Because you never loved," came the dry, sad answer.

The three-lobed brain of Imperious Leader could not abide human love.
No matter from how many directions the brain analyzed the problem,
co-existence was impossible with beings corrupted by such an emotion.

Love was unpredictable. It put the loyalty that one individual felt
towards another ahead of the group.

Love was anti-survival. Love was death. Love was hatred of any species
stupid enough to practice it.

"Cylons find you evil, Baltar, because you are dysfunctional—a special
case. You do not serve your own species, but you do have one Cylon virtue.
You do not let concern for any individual detract from your larger
purpose."

The dream sometimes ended there, with Baltar reliving his audience
with Imperious Leader aboard the Cylon base star, surrounded by
Centurions just waiting for the command to execute the lone human.

He got dizzy watching the searching eye in their helmets scanning for
enemies and then settling on him, pulse rifles pointed at his head.

Sometimes Baltar wished that he could reach out and blind the
universe. Then he could hide forever.

Beginning in the Ur cloud, the nightmares became increasingly more