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And still do I sing, "Any food, any feeding,
Money, drink, or clothing?
Come, dame or maid, be not afraid,
Poor Tom will injure nothing."--Tom O' Bedlam's Song
I. A Burning Spear, A Horse of Air
When Avon's back was turned, the woman called Sula went for her gun. Tarrant chopped her viciously on the elbow; the blaster clattered to the floor and Avon spun, still wearing a look of painful bewilderment.
"She tried to kill you," said Tarrant unnecessarily.
Avon's eyes were hollow pools of anguish. "There was nothing honest between us, was there?" His voice was harsh and ragged. "Nothing, ah God, nothing..."
Servalan's smooth words cut the silence. "She was assigned to deliver the Earth rebels, neatly gathered. But it seems she has decided to go into business for herself." The President made a tiny gesture with one chained wrist. "She's betrayed us both, Avon."
Avon turned to look at her. His gun rose slowly, paused at her searching eyes. Whispered words trailed from his lips. "You deserve her." Brokenly. "You deserve each other..."
The gun rose and fired, shattering the bolt that held her to the wall. Freed, she staggered slightly, then gathered the dangling lengths of chain in her hands and moved delicately away, ignoring Tarrant's blaster as it followed her.
Avon went blindly past her, until his face was pressed against the cold stone of the wall. Moss smeared slime along his cheek, and his hands spread, empty, the gun forgotten.
"Avon?" Tarrant called over his shoulder. His attention was held by the two women who stood so calmly, side by side in the damp cellar.
Avon's voice was torn and vague, muffled by the stone. "It's an old wall. It waits--"
He wrenched around to face the blonde woman who watched him so dispassionately. "What shall I do?" he screamed hoarsely, his chest heaving. "Shall I love you? Shall I kill you? What shall I do?"
She walked forward, cool eyes fixed on him. Though she was centimeters shorter, she seemed to tower over him; he shrank against the wall as she approached.
"What shall you do?" Her voice mocked his words. "You pathetic, trusting fool." She rammed the word home. "Kerr Avon, why don't you die."
He stood stunned, impaled. Agony was clear in every taut-strung muscle; like a stretched cord his body whined, on the edge of snapping but denied even that release. Only his chest moved, as he breathed in painful, staccato gasps.
Dayna broke suddenly from her place at Cally's side. Shouldering her way past Tarrant into the frozen tableau, she went to Avon and put her hand on his shoulder, looking up into his eyes. He only looked past her, smothered in Anna Grant's cold stare. Dayna turned and drew her gun.
"You are his to kill," she said contemptuously. "But you--" She swung to face Servalan, bringing the gun to bear as a broad smile spread across her face. "You are mine."
Heavy boots pounded nearer in the hall. Tarrant threw a glance at the open doorway and chopped at his bracelet, shouting "Vila, bring us up!" as Dayna's finger tightened. Their last sight in the ancient cellar was of Servalan flung back, her forehead replaced by a mist of blood.
II. A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows
The Liberator hung in neutral space, watching as the Terran Federation writhed and died.
They had fled Earth sector, as they had once before. And, as before, they left a body behind. Servalan was dead, and Dayna's mouth still broke into frightening smiles. And Anna Grant, who called herself Sula and was called Bartholomew, was dead as well.
They had hardly solidified in the teleport bay before Avon had gritted, "Put me back down." His fingers were spasmodically clenching on his gun, and Vila froze in horror. Dayna and Tarrant spoke at once, and Dayna's strong voice bore through.
"Avon, the place will be a slaughterhouse! Federation troops are overrunning the house by now!"
Avon shook off her hand and strode furiously to ORAC. Slamming its key into place, he demanded, "What is happening down there?"
The familiar whine filled the room, and the smug voice. "Federation troops have retaken the palace grounds, while sporadic fighting continues within the building. Confirmed deaths so far include President Servalan, High Councillors Chescu and Martos, and Councillor Chescu's wife Sula."
Avon had visibly staggered, knuckles white on the low table. "Anna is dead?" His voice was thin and thready.
"Anna?" ORAC asked petulantly. "I know no Anna."
"Sula. They called her Sula."
"Sula Chescu was killed by Federation troops seconds after she shot President Servalan," said ORAC. And somehow, horribly, Dayna snickered.
Avon's face was white and drawn. He made no move to speak or turn, and the silence was finally broken by Vila's querulous voice.
"You needn't bother to explain it to me, you know. So Servalan's dead...I'll wait for the book." Gathering courage, he peered closely at Avon. "What happened down there? You look horrible."
"We'll tell you later, Vila." Tarrant's brusque voice was a comfort. "Right now we have to get out of here." He slotted his bracelet into the rack and headed for the flight deck, followed by Dayna. "Coming, Vila? Cally?"
Vila made a wide circle around the technician. Avon whispered, "You go ahead..." without looking around, and Tarrant gave him a calculating stare and left with Dayna and Vila.
Cally moved hesitantly toward Avon, uncertain how to offer comfort. Her blunt, forthright approach to life didn't provide much guidance. After a moment, she put her hand lightly on Avon's shoulder.
"Avon, she is dead." It seemed the only thing to say.
His nails were bloodless, corpselike. "Yes, she is dead. And Servalan is dead. How happy Dayna must be. Death makes her happy. Servalan is dead, and Anna is dead, and Blake is dead--"
//But you are alive. We are safe, and alive.//
He wrenched away, gasping, "Stay out of my mind!" And after a moment, "Yes. I am alive, and Anna is dead." And, "Go away, Cally."
Since then they had waited here in space, monitoring the collapse of the military dictatorship that had called itself the Terran Federation. Servalan and her highest-placed cronies were dead, and the rebel force crushed which had planned to succeed her. The powerful elite of the Federation, already weakened by the purges accompanying Servalan's rise to power, fragmented and died. Into the resulting vacuum had rushed every Fleet commander and half-organized rebel cadre, every political opportunist and self-proclaimed saviour in fifty systems. None were particularly successful, or very long-lived.
Among all the upstart republics and dictatorships, among all the Presidents and People's Leaders, one name was absent. There was never any firm word of Blake. Avon spent hours bent tightly over ORAC, combing through thousands of transmissions, the search he had carried on since Star One becoming fiercer as time passed. Rumors abounded, and several times an infant republic claimed his leadership. But each time, investigation showed the claim to be false. Once the Liberator spent fourteen hours at standard by nine, flying to reach Blake's supposed base. When ORAC proved that Blake's voice had been forged in a bid for popular support, Avon turned the ship around and headed away, still at maximum speed, without a word.
It was several days after that, as they cruised aimlessly, that ORAC pinged self-importantly and called, "Avon, come here."
Vila and Dayna looked up from their game of castles. Avon dropped his tools beside the gaping panel he was in the process of fine-tuning and stood up stiffly. "What is it, ORAC?"
"It is Blake," said the little computer succinctly.
"Blake?" shrieked Vila, and leapt up. "Where? Is it really him? What does he say?"
"Be quiet, Vila," Dayna said, and pulled him back down. Less excited than he, she watched as Avon eased himself from behind the console and came slowly, deliberately down to the main deck.
Standing before ORAC, he clasped his hands behind his back. "You have intercepted a message from Blake?"
"I have not."
"What, then?" Avon's voice was rigidly controlled.
"I have intercepted a message concerning Blake, transmitted by Avalon to a network of revolutionaries on several planets."
"Well, what does she say?" Vila was fairly dancing with impatience. "Don't just sit there, you plastic hunk! Play the message!"
"Wait, Vila." Dayna put a hand on his arm. "Cally will want to hear this, too." She thumbed the intercom, and Cally arrived in seconds, followed closely by Tarrant. Tension had been high since the last, brutal disappointment.
"What is it?" Cally's dark eyes were alight in her flushed face.
"ORAC claims to have intercepted a message from Avalon." Avon reached out as if to tap the clear casing, then dropped his hand. "Play it, ORAC. Main screen."
An image of Avalon irised open on the screen. She was thinner than when they had seen her before, the marks of tension and lack of sleep plain on her face. She wore a dark green coverall, with some sort of insignia pinned at her throat. Shifting in her seat, she faced the camera and cleared her throat.
"My friends." She looked aside for a moment, at something they could not see, and then out again. "My friends on Kaspar and Tausen's World, and the few remaining on Sekelb Four. I have news, something I must tell you."
She drew in a breath. "Some of you know that Roj Blake, whom you all know of, was on his way to join me here. We kept the fact quiet, because although the Terran Federation is dying, it is not yet dead. Blake was for years one of the foremost threats to the Federation, and there are still those who would have tried to collect the price they put on his head. That is why I did not tell you when he arrived, eleven days ago."
Cally gasped and glanced at Avon. Eleven days ago, they had been sifting dozens of garbled rumors, searching. And Blake had been with Avalon, landed in secret at her base! Vila clutched Dayna's hand so hard she winced and pulled away. Tarrant watched the screen attentively, revealing nothing, and Avon stood rigid, revealing less.
Avalon looked down at her hands, then up again. "It is a hard thing, to build a nation," she said. "Ideals are difficult to put into practice. With the Federation collapse, much of Aken is hungry, many of our people are frightened. A population accustomed to near-slavery, conditioned to docile obedience, cannot become a democracy overnight. It has been very difficult, here."
"Get on with it," muttered Avon. Vila hissed at him, frantic with impatience.
"Blake was filled with ideas, with enthusiasm," Avalon said. "He and I had discussed governments and their structure once, years ago, and I asked him to come here now and help me craft Aken into a free world, as it was a century past. He accepted with pleasure. He arrived, as I said, eleven days ago."
She paused to rub a calloused palm across her eyes. "More than five years ago, the Federation authorities captured Blake after a bloodbath in which over thirty people were killed. Subjected to the psychiatric torture they called reprogramming, his mind was turned inside out and ransacked, before they wiped his memory and released him as, for a time, a puppet and a show-piece. It was a blow that we never really recovered from. Many, many more people died when Blake was tortured and mind-raped into betraying them."
She leaned forward. "You all know that Blake managed to throw off the mental blindfold they had muffled him in. You know how he became the symbol of the revolutionary fight. You know of his actions aboard the ship called Liberator, and of his defense of humanity at Star One. Some of you know how much he has done for us since then. But not everyone knows. Not everyone knows, and they are afraid, and they do not understand."
Aboard the ship called Liberator, the flight deck was completely silent. Vila was sure that no one was breathing--he knew he wasn't.
Avalon's voice was low and clear in the tense air. "Yesterday, Roj Blake was killed. He was shot by a student, a young man whose family was murdered by the Federation five years ago on information forced from Blake. Some of you on Sekelb might remember his mother. She headed a medical squad of yours, five years ago.
"He blamed Blake for the deaths of his family. He blamed Blake for the confession that was wrung from him, for the words of repentance that the puppeteers put into his mouth. He did not understand. And when he saw Blake, here, on the street--" She broke off, her voice catching. "I am told he died instantly."
"No," cried Vila, edging toward the screen, tears starting from his eyes. "No, it's not true!" He bumped into Avon, and the larger man flung him away without a glance. Cally took his hand, and the two of them stood at Avon's shoulder as Avalon's message ended.
"I am deeply sorry, my friends, to be the bearer of such news. But I had to tell you this, because you, as leaders on your worlds, will need to know. Rumors fly faster than ships can carry them. But Roj Blake is dead. He was one of the best of us, and he will be sorely missed." With a soft, mechanical whine, her image dissolved into a point of light and was gone.
Dayna and Tarrant exchanged glances, and watched the other three without speaking. Avon turned, slowly, slowly from the screen, and found himself face to face with Cally, Vila gripping her hand tightly. Her eyes shone with tears, and they ran down Vila's cheeks. They stared at him, waiting, anxious, weeping quietly, until it was unbearable and he spoke, harshly, to drown the screaming of the silence.
"So Blake is dead." He made a cutting motion, violent and futile, with his left hand. "Killed by a rebel, how ironic. How like him, somehow."
Vila cringed and turned away. Avon was impervious, but he needed to plead, to argue. "ORAC, are you sure that was really Avalon? Maybe a fake, a trick...?"
"I received the message three point seven hours ago," replied ORAC peevishly. "I anticipated your question and spent the time analyzing the transmission. There is no question but that that was Avalon."
"But she could have been..." Vila began, desperate.
"Leave it, Vila." Avon's voice bit. "Blake is dead, can't you accept that?"
"No, I can't," Vila shot back. "He wasn't dead after Star One, was he? We never stopped looking. You never stopped looking, Avon. Are you going to give up now, because some message ORAC found in deep space says so? Are you--" But Avon had spun away, moving to stare at the guns in their rack against the wall. Most of the slots were empty, but enough weapons remained. Power cords dangled obscenely. He heard Cally behind him, and stepped sideways before her hand could fall on his shoulder.
"He was a good man," she said, low. "We will remember him with honor."
"He is a dead man," Avon said, and clamped his lips together. He turned at the sound of muffled sobbing, to see Vila folded in Dayna's arms. Cally watched him, searching his eyes. Sorrow was naked in hers. He felt a wetness swelling over his own lids, and raged at himself. "We are all dead men," he snarled, and strode viciously off the deck.
Cally watched him go, tears running faster down her cheeks. After a little, when she knew he would not return, she took Vila's arm, hugged him, and drew him away to whatever comfort they could give each other. Dayna and Tarrant stayed on the flight deck, talking quietly, for many hours. No one relieved them on watch until the next day, when Avon threw them out. They went gladly, uncomfortable in his angry, challenging, strangely lost presence.
III. Through the Wilderness I Wander
Avon kept to himself after that. Preferring solitude, he rarely spoke, and took his meals in his cabin or in silence. Cally spent that first night with Vila, talking about the time they had known each other, and Blake, and about their times before. But Vila retreated into soma finally, and Cally left him when he began drunkenly slurring questions on telepathic communion, and draping an arm with exaggerated casualness across her shoulders. She didn't know what she needed, but she didn't think he could give it to her. Tarrant and Dayna drew apart from them all, watching and talking late at night.
All of them were leftover rebels, in Tarrant's phrase: they had no place in particular to go and nothing really to do. Only Cally had, like Blake, fought the Federation out of moral fervor. With the goal of years suddenly accomplished, and no free society rising magically in its wake, vague disappointment enveloped her. Always a follower rather than a leader, she felt empty, purposeless. The others, rebels through inertia and the memory of Blake, had no goals either. The Federation, fallen, was replaced by dozens of squabbling pseudo-independent states. Servalan was dead, and in the middle of a silent meal Dayna announced her intention of leaving as soon as the opportunity arose.
"I've avenged my father's death. A good weapons tech can always find a place." She pushed her plate away and stood, daring any of them to argue.
Vila's angry reaction covered fear. "What do you mean, leaving? We're a team!"
Tarrant's eyes held concealed hurt, but he only said, "We'll be sorry to see you go, Dayna. You've been a good friend."
"Some team!" Dayna gestured angrily around the table. Vila crammed food in his mouth, jerkily, eyes in his plate, and Avon only sat and grimly stared at them. He rarely ate much any more. "Vila's useless. Avon doesn't care. And what are you? What do you plan on doing?"
Tarrant stood up to face her. "I'm a fighter, a pirate. It's what I know. Fighting for the rebellion or for myself, I'll make out. With the Liberator--"
A hand like a vise closed on his wrist. Avon stood up, his fingers grinding the bones until Tarrant's eyes watered. "This is my ship."
"Avon--" Tarrant caught his breath.
"My ship. My ship. Blake gave it to me. My ship! "
"All right, Avon!" Tarrant tried to break free, but couldn't until Avon let him go and stood breathing heavily, daring him, his hand hovering on a phantom gun. Tarrant rubbed his wrist warily. "You know, Dayna, you might not have a bad idea," he said, his eyes never leaving Avon's face.
"Think about it, then," she retorted archly. "I can always use a good pilot." She turned on her heel and left the lounge, and after a sharp moment Tarrant followed. Vila looked up and cleared his mouth with a long drink of something potent. "Won't be sorry to see him go," he slurred. "Y'know he tried to throw me off the ship once? Arrogant bastard--"
"Shut up, Vila," said Avon.
"Fat lot of good you were!" the thief retorted, drunkenly angry. "I don't see you keeping him here! We were a team, we were, when Blake was here! Not like this!"
Avon drew back his hand, and Cally cried out sharply. Vila flinched, but the blow was never delivered. Instead, Avon's fist clenched so hard it trembled, and he walked out as well. Vila poured himself another drink and swallowed half.
After that they ate apart, when they ate. Vila drank steadily and complained to no audience. Avon paced the corridors erratically and rarely spoke. He was kilos thinner, and stubble sprouted on his chin before he would notice and shave, badly. Dayna and Tarrant kept to themselves, watching for a suitable ship they could 'appropriate', in Tarrant's words. Cally noticed, but said nothing, when he moved into Dayna's cabin. A few days later a ship drifted into range, a three-man cruiser with heavy guns, good engines, and a crew which Tarrant, teleporting over, reported dead without specifying details. He and Dayna moved their belongings aboard in a few hours and were gone. The goodbyes were unpleasant and quickly over.
Cally wept a little, privately, afterward. Dayna had hugged her briefly and whispered, "What will you do?" and she had no answer. The fight was over, the cause won. She had little taste for political intrigue among the tiny squabbling successors to the Federation's might, and few skills besides fighting. Avon seemed content to roam and stare, and hold intense private conversations with ORAC. Vila swung between drunken annoyance and drunken sentimentality. On the rare occasions when he was sober, a good look around seemed to scare him back into the bottle. And she was lonely, with a dull ache she had never quite managed to ignore, among the headblind.
Alone in her cabin, she sat and thought for a long time. Weighing her responsibilities: to her people, to her friends, to Blake and his dreams. Weighing her power, her ability to make a difference. Anywhere. And returning, again and again, to Franton and Patar and five thousand telepathic infants. Auron's heritage and future.
She found Vila and Avon on the flight deck. In a few well-chosen words, she told them what she wanted. "Liberator can get to Kaarn in a week at most. All I ask is to be dropped off." She paused, took a deep breath. "I devoted my life to the rebellion, gave up my people for it. Now they need me." And I need them.
She had feared a scene like the one Dayna had triggered, but neither of the men spoke for a moment. Then Avon raised his head, naked anguish in his eyes so that she flinched and almost cried out No, I won't go... But he turned and left the flight deck. Vila looked after him for a moment.
"Don't leave us, Cally," he said sadly. "You're all that's left."
"I need a purpose, Vila. Kaarn can give me one." She looked closely at him, and then at the bottle on the console. "You need one too, you and Avon."
He grunted. "Blake had a purpose. Lot of good it did him, too... I always had a purpose, Cally. Safety, and a warm bed, and locks to pick with money and booze on the other side. And women. I can get that anywhere. But I can't leave Avon, and he won't leave the ship. You know that." He picked up the bottle and swirled it, watching the amber liquid spin in circles. "Avon had a purpose too, you know. Wreck the Federation, prove to Blake that he could do it. Well, he did. And it didn't do him a damn bit of good. Or Blake."
She watched him pour. "Don't you think you've had enough?"
"No, I don't think I've had enough," he echoed defiantly. "When I can't see anything, or remember anything, or know what a bloody useless place I'm in, then I'll have had enough!"
She left him, then, alone on the flight deck watching the empty screens. Packing took only a few hours, and she lived out of her bags until she was deposited on Kaarn by Vila, sober for once at the teleport control. Neither of them said much as he put her down, and when she was gone Vila wandered out into the empty corridors.
He stood before the door to Avon's quarters and hesitantly spoke. "Well, she's gone... Will you come out now?" Silence. His reflection was blurred and dirty in the metal panel. Vila's fingers tightened on the doorframe, and his voice trembled a little. "I don't plan on standing all the watches myself, y'know."
The door slid open. Avon stood and looked at him pointedly, until Vila fell back from the doorway and Avon walked past him, to the flight deck, and sat heavily on the couch. Vila followed, and sat down as well, not too close. Without looking at Avon, he was less uncomfortable there than anywhere else. ORAC hummed softly, not even irritating any longer.
IV. Ten Leagues Beyond the Wide World's End
The ship echoed around him. Vila felt uncomfortable, lost in the empty corridors, and at the same time constricted by the walls. Dust settled, undisturbed by feet. The empty cabins whispered at his back, until he locked their doors and avoided looking at them as he went by. Only his own cabin still seemed welcoming, and the flight deck. Zen wasn't much of a conversationalist, but then who was, nowadays?
He watched Avon, surreptitiously. The other man didn't speak much, but Vila felt not unwelcome when he brought food, or came and sat on the flight deck while Avon worked endlessly over a console. He tried not to think about what they were doing. Living day to day, with food and fuel aboard for a thousand years, he ignored the world and hoped it would go away. With practice, he dulled himself until he hardly needed to drink any more. He kept it up, though, out of habit.
Once, Avon joined him in a bottle. But Vila's capacity for alcohol was high, much higher than the Alpha's, and Avon abruptly stood and left when he realized how much his control was fragmenting. He had begun, to Vila's fascinated horror, to cry.
But though Vila tried to shut the outside out, he couldn't, not completely. It was, in the end, boring on the Liberator. So he sat on the flight deck, in Avon's shadow, and watched the little empires come and go, torn apart in civil war and outside assault. They watched Sekelb Four die of the plague, and Kraken die of its attempt to help. They heard a little news of Cally, none of Tarrant or Dayna. And finally Vila was alone one evening, and on an impulse plugged in ORAC's key.
The little computer was not pleased to be disturbed. ORAC was perhaps the closest of them all to contentment. They made few demands on it, and it could take the ship where it pleased to further its own research. Only when it had wanted to investigate anomalous gas clouds in the fourth sector had Avon absolutely vetoed the move. Investigating later, Vila had found that the course would have brought them by Aken, Avalon's tiny attempt at stability.
Nevertheless, he shoved the key in and settled down to the whine of the machine. ORAC was peevish, especially when it discovered that Vila had no particular request to make. "I just want to talk, ORAC. Don't you ever want company?"
"Frequently. Of my own caliber."
"That's an insult, right? I'm not so stupid, ORAC. We can't all be Ensor, you know. Or even Avon."
"And that is fortunate."
"Sure is," agreed Vila, shuddering at the image of a world filled with Avons. Then the computer's tone penetrated, and he looked up sharply. "What do you mean? What are you saying, ORAC?"
"Kerr Avon is exhibiting symptoms of emotional breakdown, Vila. Surely you are not unaware of this."
Vila squirmed. "Well, yeah, sure. But what am I supposed to do about it? I mean, Avon is Avon. We're none of us doing so well."
"Avon is 'doing,' as you say, less than well," ORAC pronounced. "He is losing connection with reality. He is becoming increasingly unbalanced."
"Now hold on," Vila cried, horrified. "That isn't so! Avon's not crazy, he couldn't be! I'd have noticed! And besides, Avon's perfectly fine." But even as he said it, he knew it wasn't true. Not completely. How much had he seen Avon, lately? He spent most of his days with the technician, but they sat on the flight deck, or infrequently in one of the lounges, and rarely spoke. Sometimes he didn't look at Avon's face for hours, until nagging hunger sent him to the galley, and nagging guilt, and some strange friendship, brought him back with a plate for Avon. Avon would eat, but it was usually Vila who cleaned up.
"It is true," ORAC persisted, and Vila jerked the key from its slot. If it were true-- Of course he would have noticed! Unbalanced, indeed! He threw the key across the flight deck and headed for the bottle in his quarters. His hands were shaking, and though he woke up scared and queasy the next morning, he did not remember what had frightened him.
Feeling lonely and uncomfortable, he went in search of Avon. He found him in his cabin, slowly pulling on his clothes, and went in to sit on the edge of the bed. In some part of his mind he realized that he never would have dared, a long time ago. Avon would have flattened him for invading his privacy so. Now he hardly seemed to care. Vila watched as Avon fastened his tunic.
"I like that shirt on you," he offered. "You're getting awfully thin, though."
Avon looked from the belt he was pulling tight to Vila's face. "I suppose."
"S'a good color, though. Suits you." He fell silent for a moment, casting about for something else to say. He had always found it easy to chatter. But then, Avon had always helped.
Avon didn't seem likely to help, now. Vila gave up. "What are we going to do?" he asked plaintively. "Where are we going to go, Avon?"
Avon looked up at him. When had he let his hair get so long, Vila wondered. Was his own that uneven? "Avon? What do you want to do?"
Avon looked past him, at the blank wall. "Vila," he asked it, "do you believe in hell?"
Vila gaped. "What, hell? Place of eternal torment, all that? I guess not. Why?"
"She is in hell," Avon said.
Vila felt chilled. That one time, when Avon had gotten drunk with him, he had talked about Anna. Only for a few minutes, a few ragged sentences. But Vila had had the story from Cally before she left. It was one of the things he tried not to think about. But Avon's eyes were wide, watching the wall as though something were moving in it, twisting slowly. Struggling.
"It wasn't your fault," Vila said cautiously.
"Isn't it? I was there. I could have saved her. But I left her, there, on Earth. In hell, Vila."
"Uh, Avon--" Vila felt hopelessly out of his depth. How could he offer comfort to Avon? The idea would have been ridiculous, if it weren't so frightening. Anna had been a Federation agent, hadn't she? She'd duped him and shopped him, and been killed when she tried to usurp power on Earth. Why should Avon feel guilty? "She didn't love you, you know."
"Oh, but she did," came Avon's voice, very softly. "Why else let me go? She could have killed me, so often. Or I her. But I knew. I knew. And I let her die."
Confused, Vila moved to catch Avon's eye. "So often? Avon, you never saw Anna after you were arrested, until we went back to Earth that time. What do you mean?"
And horribly, hollowly, retchingly, Avon began to laugh. Vila had never heard anything like it, and it made him want to hide, or be sick. Avon laughed, and turned on him, and said, intensely and viciously, "Not Anna, you fool. Not that treacherous little bitch. Servalan. The President. The--" His voice caught on the laugh as if on a nail. "--The Supreme Commander."
Vila backed away, horrified. Avon was still laughing, and even as Vila fumbled for the door and fled, that laugh followed him down the corridor, into his cabin, under the blanket and behind the heels of his hands pressing against his eyes, where they could not stop the exhausted, terrified tears.
V. Methinks It Is No Journey
Much, much later, Vila crept onto the flight deck again. Hunting for ORAC's key, he found it tumbled in trash and dustballs under the side table and pushed it in, flinching at the sudden whine of activation and glancing fearfully over his shoulder at the empty entry.
"ORAC, can't you be a little quieter?" he pleaded.
"I function as I was designed. What is it you want?"
Had he ever found the computer's voice a comfort? "I need help, ORAC. Avon's-- Something's wrong with Avon and I--"
"I have already told you this. Must you forever interrupt my researches?"
"Don't you even care?" Vila cried. Then angrily, "And what do you mean you already told me? You never did!"
"Yesterday. No doubt your indulgence in alcohol since has blurred your memory."
Vila opened his mouth for a scathing retort, then shut it abruptly, sickened at himself. He rarely remembered where the empty bottles came from, anymore. And there were the two he had woken with, this morning... bile rose burning in his throat. He gripped the plastex box with trembling fingers until his stomach grudgingly subsided.
"All right. But Avon's--Avon's sick, ORAC, and you've got to help me! You've got to tell me what to do for him..." I don't want to be alone with him any more, he thought despairingly, and wiped a grimy hand across his eyes.
"I cannot," ORAC announced crisply, and Vila looked up, astonished. "The vagaries of the human psyche are quite alien to me, designed as I was to be utterly above them." Vila groaned in unbelieving horror; the computer sounded more smug than ever.
"Then what am I going to do?" He sank to the floor and rocked himself back and forth.
"You must decide that for yourself. I am switching off." And it did.
Vila huddled into himself for a minute or more, mind blank and hopeless, until he heard footsteps on the entry ramp and scrambled hastily to his feet as Avon came in. The technician walked with a faint hesitation quite unlike his former stride: not unsteady, exactly, but each foot placed with care, minutely tested before he put any weight on it. Vila wondered how long it had been since Avon had stalked with his customary grace, and how long it had taken him, Vila, to notice the change.
Avon ignored him as he went to a console and opened it up, taking a set of tools and reaching in with a long probe he picked from the pile. Vila crept up behind. Avon was working on the long-range communications booster, but whether to improve or destroy, he couldn't tell. He gasped a quick, silent thanks that Avon had not decided to overhaul the life support system: then he would have had to do something. Make some kind of decision.
Instead, he backed away again and made a wide circle around the silent worker to the exit. Back in his cabin, he threw every bottle he could find down the disposal chute, listening after each one for the chuff! of disintegration. Not that it meant anything, really; the ship could synthesize more any time he asked. But he wouldn't ask. He promised that, aloud, already feeling the shaking begin in his hands.
He didn't sleep that night, sitting on his bed with all the lights on, knees pulled to his chest and no liquor in sight. Somewhere he could feel Avon moving through the ship, flicking switches, delicately rewiring, until he was convinced the air was growing stuffy and actually got up, trembling, to investigate. Then he told himself he was imagining it and, crouching down again, waited to find out if he was right.
When he was still breathing in the putative morning, he supposed he had been.
But I can't go on like this. Avon can't go on like this.
I can't let Avon go on like this.
He almost laughed, bitterly, despising himself. When have I ever let Avon do anything?
All right. But he couldn't stay here, alone with Avon. He just couldn't. And Avon wouldn't leave the ship, and he couldn't leave Avon. Not like this.
So the ship, and Avon, and he all had to go somewhere. He needed help.
He began to turn over possibilities in his mind. He cringed from the thought of approaching Tarrant and Dayna, even if he had known how to contact them. Their easy, casual violence frightened him...and Tarrant hadn't much gotten on with Avon at the best of times.
Cally? Immersed in the largest nursery ever...he almost snickered at the image of Avon among five thousand drooling infants, Cally bending motherly over them all.
But Avon wouldn't stand for it. And--what a thing to do to the children.
For the first time, he cursed Blake. You and your great ideas, look where they've gotten us! And you, shot in the back by one of your own, on some pisswater back planet...
Avalon. He straightened slowly and thought about it again.
She'd help us. She'd have to; we're two of 'Blake's crew.' She couldn't afford to turn us away. The days of monitoring political transmissions had left him cynical. He knew what made a public image, just as the ones who had forged Blake's voice had known.
But Avon hadn't even let ORAC take the ship through that sector. How would he react to actually going to Aken, contacting Avalon, teleporting down?
Does it matter? Vila clenched his fists. The state he's in, he might not even notice what planet he's on! And if he did notice...Vila would deal with that. Later.
He headed for the flight deck before he could think too much about it, and when Avon was out of earshot he gave Zen the new course. It felt good to have made a decision, to be on the way somewhere.
But oh, he wanted a drink.
VI. The Spirit That Stands by the Naked Man
They made orbit around Aken, and Avon hardly seemed to care when Avalon's men came and led him, gently, out of his cabin. But he refused to teleport off the ship, and a wretched, pleading Vila finally had to stand back and watch as they sedated him and snapped a bracelet around his suddenly limp wrist.
Avalon made them welcome, although she had little time or attention to spare. She gave them quarters, and a guard for when they went out. "It's not altogether safe," she said tiredly. "Since I had to cut the food and power rations again..." They roamed the city, trying to ignore the blunt-fisted man who shadowed them. From time to time Avalon called Vila in, alone or with Avon, to pass on questions from her own technical team aboard the Liberator; he answered as well as he could. She also sent a therapist, but Vila didn't think much of him. Nor did Avon, who seemed to prefer solitude, or Vila's silent shadowing.
They found it quite by accident, walking the streets aimlessly before evening curfew. Avon's hesitating steps came to a hesitant halt, and Vila, pushing up from behind, saw and drew a breath, very slowly.
"Oh," he said. "Oh, Avon."
The plaque was set in a low pillar of stone. They stood and looked at it, and Vila whispered the words, one by one.
To the memory of Roj Blake, killed in this place in the first year of Aken's freedom. He lived for hope and liberty, and he died of ignorance and fear. May his dream be made real, in our hearts as in our world.
"Oh, Avon," he said again, blindly, and Avon's hand found his and tightened convulsively.