A Tale Unfolds (general readers)
Dec. 29th, 2011 12:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
my_b7_ficThis was written for the Finishathon.
Soolin had very little patience for what she considered childish behaviour, having grown up in a single bloody afternoon. The way Avon and Vila interacted struck her as ridiculously schoolyard. Half the time Avon ignored Vila, the other half he treated him like a pet. Vila glowed when Avon noticed him, and pouted when Avon refused to rise to his verbal bait. There wasn't any reasoning with Avon, but Vila cared what people thought of him. He might listen to her.
She tracked Vila down to his room, where he was pursuing yet another of his unfathomable hobbies, creating a multitude of seemingly identical paper sculptures. Well, fiddling with bits of waste paper was harmless. At least it was until Avon or Tarrant caught him at it and scolded him for not doing something productive. She was tired of the squabbling and scolding. It wasn't as if she could follow her natural impulse and shoot them to shut them up. She put on a friendly smile and sat down across from Vila's work table, gently moving aside some of the intricate, useless, constructions he made. "Vila, this has to stop."
"What? My origami?" Vila looked down at the paper he held, startled. "Why?"
"Vila." Soolin felt her limited patience evaporating like coolant in an overheated engine. "I'm talking about the way you hang on Avon's every word and follow him about looking for scraps of praise. He's not going to give you any, no matter how you beg. Give up trying to be his friend. He doesn't want any friends, he doesn't need any, and he can't afford to have any."
"Oh, it's all very well to say that, Soolin", Vila said, while folding yet another little abstraction that she suddenly recognized as a bird when he idly made the sharp-edged wings flap. It seemed an odd thing for a former resident of sterile Dome Earth to obsess over. "But I can't order my feelings about like little troopers." He set the bird down and picked up another piece of paper. "We were together through a lot of bad times and I got used to him, got used to thinking about how he'd do something and it would save the day, or how he would say something, and it would make me think, and sometimes he'd say something just because it was funny, and it was always funnier coming from him. He's not the kind of person you can stop thinking about. Even when you want to."
Soolin shook her head. "It's not doing either of you any good." After a moment's silence Soolin picked up one of the little birds. "What are these things, anyway?" she said, changing the subject.
"Cranes. If you make enough of them, you get your wish."
"How many?"
"A thousand."
Soolin sighed as something inside her remembered wishing. Maybe... maybe once wishes had power. Maybe you just had to believe in them. Maybe she could learn once more to believe, and to hope. Vila knew the secret. And even if it didn't work, the look on Avon's face if he saw her playing like a little girl... yes, that would be worthwhile. "Show me how." She reached for a sheet of paper.
"You'll have to do your own thousand."
"Even if it's the same wish?"
Vila looked up at Soolin and smiled. "We could work together then."
Soolin returned Vila's smile. "We could try."
--
"Psst!" Soolin whispered, "Open the door!"
"Oh, right." The door to Vila's room opened and he peered out past her. "No one saw you?"
"Of course not." Soolin strode into Vila's quarters, arms full of a bundle wrapped in one of her grey jackets. "On the bed?"
"Have to, it's the only clear space left."
The door snapped shut behind them, and Dayna stepped out in the corridor, puzzled. Vila and Soolin? Well... he was cute... if you liked cute. She had thought Avon was more Soolin's type. But then, maybe they were too much alike. Two icebergs colliding. Grinning, Dayna went down the corridor to the recreation room, to see if Tarrant was there. She loved a good gossip, and it was fun to shock him.
--
"What's the count now?" Soolin said, as she folded a used supplies list into a crane. 'Dynamon crystals ASAP!' wound up along one wing, and 'Underwear- any colour except grey' on the other.
"Um... just a moment.' Vila paused in the middle of threading completed cranes in a string. "This batch makes 60." He tied another knot in the ten's place on the end of the line, something Orac had told him came from a quipa , an early system of record keeping. Orac was full of useless bits of information that sometimes weren't useless. You had to ask the right question, though.
Vila got up and counted the numbers on the strings of cranes he had dangling over pieces of furniture everywhere. "Hey, we've got five hundred and sixty! More than halfway."
Soolin flapped the supply-list crane's wings. "There's not much paper left," she said, looking at the rumpled heap of salvaged paper she'd sneaked out of the recycling converter. "Maybe another two hundred sheets. Perhaps we could cut the sheets into quarters?"
"I tried, but they didn't work that small." Vila frowned. "There's one place we haven't looked for paper."
"Where?"
"Well... Avon's got a habit of writing down information and then making Orac forget it. I guess he doesn't trust the rat-in-a-box to keep his secrets. He doesn't ever throw them out, but I'm sure he wouldn't miss some of it. You could get it."
Soolin looked at Vila. "And if Avon catches me in his room, what excuse am I to use?"
"Umm..." Vila looked innocent. "Curiosity? It worked for Dayna."
Soolin threw the crane at Vila, who ducked and laughed.
--
"I don't believe you," Tarrant said, folding his arms and shaking his head. "Soolin's never shown any interest in men, and I can't see her starting with Vila."
"What about Dorian?"
Tarrant shrugged. "He kissed her. That was showing off for company. She looked like she was humouring him at the time, didn't she?"
"And I've seen her looking at Avon."
"Probably trying to decide whether or not to shoot him."
Dayna grinned. "Did you make a pass at her?"
Tarrant blushed. "None of your business."
"You did!" Dayna crowed with laughter. "Oh, and she said, 'No.' Poor Tarrant, you're losing your touch!"
"This is a ridiculous conversation. I don't know about you, but I have work to do." Tarrant gulped the last of his ersatz kaffee and left the room, Dayna's giggling following his stiff-backed exit.
--
Soolin gazed in bemusement at the bundle of greenery Tarrant held out to her. The flowers were the kind she thought of as 'daisies' although their yellow petals and blue centres were the opposite of the ones that had grown in her mother's garden on GP. She didn't like being reminded of GP. Her irritability showed in her voice. "What's this- taking up botany for a hobby?"
"They reminded me of you." Tarrant smiled, his eyes bluer than the centres of the daisies.
"You need your eyes examined, then." Soolin was seldom in a mood for sentimental imagery. Perhaps if Tarrant had offered a fine brandy and a decent meal... but weeds she could have picked herself if she'd wanted them weren't an enticement to dalliance. "Oh, if I were you, I'd wash my hands well. Some people are irritated by sap." Soolin picked up a scrap of paper and exited at a brisk pace.
--
Avon had been engrossed in research, but he had noted Soolin's sudden and inexplicable attachment for Vila. He'd filed it under 'mental aberration' for Soolin, and 'lucky devil' for Vila, and gone back to work. He simply hadn't enough energy to care what the others did, so long as they didn't get in his way. Which they frequently did. And demanded more time from him, more attention. Well, he didn't have enough for the essentials, let alone for such frivolities as game playing.
He had to drug himself to sleep and lived on caffeine tabs during the day. His headache had become such a constant, low-level sense of unwellness that he'd stopped taking pain pills. They didn't work any longer so why bother with them. Lately his hands had developed a fine tremor and his sense of balance was precarious as well, forcing him to assume idiotic straddling positions whenever he had to shoot. Stress reaction, Cally would have called it. If she hadn't died the last time Avon went looking for Blake.
Damn Blake, if only he hadn't got Avon involved in this whole mess in the first place. But Avon was involved, and there wasn't any shrugging part of the burden off on the others. They never felt the urgency he did, because they lacked foresight. Or maybe they did realize they were all headed for a precipice, but preferred to pick daisies along the way-- yes, he'd noticed Tarrant, too-- rather than dig in their heels and help Avon to brake them before they broke.
Damn them all, and damn himself, most of all. He should have left them. But now...it was too late. He didn't care about anything more than doing his best to stay upright and meet the end with dignity. Damn. The vision in his right eye had gone again, replaced by the glittering silver-gold retina pattern of an optical migraine. He left his papers next to Orac, weighed down with his sopron, and headed for his room to lie down for a few minutes until it passed.
--
Vila saw Avon striding down the corridor, looking angry. Nothing new there. Vila waited long enough to be sure Avon was settled into his own room for one of his increasingly frequent private sulks, before entering Avon's 'lair', as they all called the room he'd appropriated for private questioning of Orac. The computer was still keyed on and blinking to itself when Vila went in. A lump of rock was on top of a sloppy pile of papers, some of them cascading off into the waste-paper bin.
Best not to be greedy. Avon might notice. Vila grabbed a handful of printouts from the bin and fled back to his own cosy little crane-lined den. And Soolin.
--
Soolin smoothed out a piece of paper, and was about to begin folding it when the words 'Gauda Prime' leaped out at her. Was Avon planning something to do with GP? She started at the beginning and read the paper. She read it again. "Vila, weren't you all looking for Roj Blake?"
"Eh?" Vila stopped trying to make a crane fly and got up to peer over Soolin's shoulder at the paper she held. "What! " He snatched the paper from her and read it. "Avon's found him, he's found Blake! I knew he could do it if he tried!" Vila grinned, and then suddenly sat down on a pile of cranes on his bed. "Bastard. He didn't tell us."
"He certainly had enough time- the information is dated over two months ago."
"Yeah. About the time we were playing sardines with Mueller's robot. Why didn't he tell us?" Vila looked at the paper again. "Stupid git. He wanted to bring Blake a nice, shiny present to rub it in how he didn't need Blake. But he does. We do."
Soolin was doubtful. "If Blake's all that successful, why haven't we heard anything about him? Avon might keep Orac from telling us secrets, but we do listen to rebel underground news."
Vila shook his head. "I bet Blake needs Avon. That's it." Vila stood up, with the paper in his hands. "Get Tarrant and Dayna. We're going to go get Blake."
"Avon won't like it." But Soolin was already on her feet, and smiling.
"Yes, he will, he just won't say so. He can blame me, if it makes him feel better. I'll tell him I missed Blake's vindaloo."
--
Avon woke up from his doze, reaching instinctively for the gun he kept under his pillow.
"Ah, ah," Tarrant said, showing Avon the gun. "We want to have a talk with you."
"Talk about what?" Avon sat up and looked at the four stern faces surrounding his bed. "Is this a mutiny?" He smiled, humourlessly.
"Call it an 'intervention'," Vila replied. "We're going to get Blake. On Gauda Prime."
Avon glared at Vila, who continued to meet his gaze. "Fine." Avon lay back down again and closed his eyes. "Send me a post-vid."
"You're coming, too," Dayna said. "Please?"
Avon looked at Dayna. "Why?"
"Because we want you to introduce us." Fearlessly, Dayna reached out and tugged on Avon's arm. "Come on, I want to see if he's as cute as in his wanted vids."
"You'll regret this. You all will," Avon said as he got up.
"Probably." Tarrant tossed Avon the gun. "But let's do it anyway."
Avon's smile as he caught the gun was odd. "All right."
--
"And what do you get if you cross a Denebian slime worm with Servalan?" Vila grinned in anticipation, kicking his feet back and forth under his chair, Xenon fading to an inconspicuous dot on his monitor.
Under his breath, Tarrant whispered, "Nothing." Scorpio's flight deck hum almost covered up his words.
Vila said, "Nothing! There's some things a slime worm won't do."
Dayna looked at Vila and stuck out her tongue.
Soolin said, "What's Blake supposed to be doing on Gauda Prime? It's hardly the crossroads of the galaxy, after all." She directed the question at Avon.
Avon didn't answer her. He had taken his usual seat on the flight deck, and assisted in the take-off, and then lapsed into a sullen silence.
Tarrant pushed Orac's key in place, and repeated the question.
"The only information I have concerning Blake is that he is on Gauda Prime. That is where his trail ends. Ergo, he is there."
Tarrant said, "What trail? Explain."
"The chain of cause and effect amounts to a trail, if you can follow it."
Vila muttered, "I can't even follow you."
Orac replied, "Everything has an effect on everything else around it. It is not easy to trace one line through the pattern of infinity, but in this case, I have. Blake is on Gauda Prime."
Soolin frowned. "Only a fool would go to Gauda Prime without a very good reason. It's a bad place to be. No self-respecting idealist would be found dead there."
Avon finally spoke. "That is one reason I was in no hurry to contact Blake."
Soolin went on. "GP is an Open Planet. There are no laws."
Vila sat up, intrigued. "You mean that?"
"Oh yes, no laws at all."
"Paradise," Vila muttered.
Soolin gazed at him coolly. "Not quite. G-P was an agricultural world. The settlers were sent there to grow crops, raise timber. They were farmers, my family among them. They were given title to the land."
Avon added, "And then somebody discovered there was more profit under the ground than there was on top of it, only the farmers were in the way, and the law was on their side. Hence the Open Planet designation."
Soolin nodded. "The corporations moved in. The farmers moved out. Those who didn't were murdered, including my family."
Vila looked shocked. "And it wasn't even a crime."
"Oh yes, it was a crime, all right. It just wasn't illegal."
"That's what I meant," Vila said.
"I hope so."
--
Gauda Prime was an unimpressive world. Tarrant was even less impressed when he discovered that there was no flight control for the planet's lone public spaceport. The mining corporations controlled a modern facility, which curtly informed Tarrant that 'scum attempting to use this port are shot down'.
"Well, that's a friendly attitude," Vila said as Tarrant shifted orbit and headed for the other beacon, a feeble chirping thing.
"Presumably, it serves to keep out sightseers," Avon said as he aided Tarrant.
"There never was anything on GP worth seeing," Soolin said.
--
Scorpio's landing was also unimpressive. Vila looked at the view screen, magnified to show the few people walking around the only other ship in port, a T-class freighter even more battered-looking than Scorpio. His face scrunched up in distaste. "They make space rats look classy."
Tarrant didn't answer as he finished the landing check. Then he stood up, went over to the weapons' storage and got himself a clip-gun. He looked grim. He'd seen scum before and had an idea what they were in for.
Soolin got up and checked her gun. "They'd eat space rats for breakfast here."
Dayna nodded to Soolin and joined her, gun at the ready. "Shall we?"
"Yes." Avon looked at them. "We shall." He rose, strapped on a clip-gun and a huge Federation blaster, souvenir of one of their missions. "Vila, stay here."
"What?
Tarrant glanced at Avon's stone-face. Diplomatically, he said, "Vila, someone has to keep the ship secure."
"But I want to see Blake!"
"But does he want to see us?" Avon checked the pump-action on the huge gun, then shifted it so the stock was against his shoulder and the armrest nestled on his forearm. "Stay here, Vila."
--
Avon went out first, and the few curious onlookers kept their distance as he stood, spraddle-legged on the landing ramp, and watched as the rest of his crew descended to the cracked blast-crete of the landing pad.
"Did Orac say exactly where Blake was?" Dayna said, rather loudly.
"I hope not."
They all whirled as the deep, slightly amused-sounding, voice came from behind a pile of crates, followed a moment later by a tall, heavy-set man with curly hair and a gun even larger than Avon's, a tough looking blonde woman at his side. The man stared at them, and at the armoury facing him for a long moment, then he spread his arms wide and grinned. "Avon, you bastard, I've been waiting for you!"
Avon's face relaxed and his gun went down to his side. "Blake. Well, here I am."
Blake strode over to them, followed by the blonde. "Let's get in out of the weather, Blake," the woman said. "Are you the pilot of that heap?" she pointed to Scorpio, raising an interrogative eye at Tarrant.
Avon and Blake led the way back up the ramp, talking intently in low voices while ignoring the others.
Tarrant bristled. "It's not as bad as it looks."
"Neither is the Falcon," the woman said, indicating the freighter beside them with a toss of her blonde mane. "I'm Jenna Stannis." She looked on with mild amusement at the intimate and heated argument Blake and Avon had already begun judging from their expressions. "We'll probably be properly introduced later."
"Yes." Tarrant looked at her more closely and then smiled. "Del Tarrant, at your service."
Jenna laughed. "We'll see." She strode up the landing ramp ahead of him.
Dayna looked at Soolin. "Well, that worked out all right."
Soolin smiled. "Yes."
And then the freighter blew up.
Jenna turned at the head of the landing ramp and cursed, "Damn it! Not another ship!" Then she grabbed Tarrant's arm and pulled him along with Soolin and Dayna racing behind her, watching their backs. The agitated dock rats started for Scorpio, but then ducked for cover behind cargo as bits of flaming debris began to fall.
--
"Who's shooting at us, now?" Vila cried, aggrieved, watching the explosion on the view screen.
"Someone unfriendly, Vila."
"Blake!" Vila whirled, a huge grin on his face. "I'm glad to see you..." Scorpio trembled as a secondary explosion went off in the centre of the t-class freighter. Avon clutched at Blake to keep himself upright, or vice-versa, Vila never had been able to decide which. Vila staggered and grabbed at his console. "Or maybe I'm not! I remember now, we always got shot at when you were around."
Avon grinned suddenly. "Yes, so we did." He released Blake and took his flight deck position, beginning emergency lift-off procedures. "I'll introduce you to the rest of the crew later, Blake."
"The crew? Not your crew?" Blake asked mildly, moving to stand behind Avon's seat, with his hands on the shoulders of the chair as the rest of the crew ran in and took their positions. Jenna stood beside Tarrant, watching him manipulate the controls, her eyes lingering on his hands.
"You can have them." Avon's smile flashed again. "Maybe you can do something with them."
"Oh, I like that," Vila grumbled to himself. "Do I have anything to say about this?"
"Would you like to get out and walk?" Tarrant shouted as Scorpio jittered and swayed.
"Erm... no, not really." Vila concentrated on his controls . "That fire's getting awfully close! If we're leaving, now might be a good time!"
--
Scorpio took off. The thunder of its engines had barely died away before the dock rats came out to salvage the still burning wreckage of Jenna's Falcon. A tiny pink paper crane fluttered along the dock, drawing the attention of one of the younger dock rats. The boy grinned, and stuck the bird in his hair, for luck. You could never have too much luck.
Soolin had very little patience for what she considered childish behaviour, having grown up in a single bloody afternoon. The way Avon and Vila interacted struck her as ridiculously schoolyard. Half the time Avon ignored Vila, the other half he treated him like a pet. Vila glowed when Avon noticed him, and pouted when Avon refused to rise to his verbal bait. There wasn't any reasoning with Avon, but Vila cared what people thought of him. He might listen to her.
She tracked Vila down to his room, where he was pursuing yet another of his unfathomable hobbies, creating a multitude of seemingly identical paper sculptures. Well, fiddling with bits of waste paper was harmless. At least it was until Avon or Tarrant caught him at it and scolded him for not doing something productive. She was tired of the squabbling and scolding. It wasn't as if she could follow her natural impulse and shoot them to shut them up. She put on a friendly smile and sat down across from Vila's work table, gently moving aside some of the intricate, useless, constructions he made. "Vila, this has to stop."
"What? My origami?" Vila looked down at the paper he held, startled. "Why?"
"Vila." Soolin felt her limited patience evaporating like coolant in an overheated engine. "I'm talking about the way you hang on Avon's every word and follow him about looking for scraps of praise. He's not going to give you any, no matter how you beg. Give up trying to be his friend. He doesn't want any friends, he doesn't need any, and he can't afford to have any."
"Oh, it's all very well to say that, Soolin", Vila said, while folding yet another little abstraction that she suddenly recognized as a bird when he idly made the sharp-edged wings flap. It seemed an odd thing for a former resident of sterile Dome Earth to obsess over. "But I can't order my feelings about like little troopers." He set the bird down and picked up another piece of paper. "We were together through a lot of bad times and I got used to him, got used to thinking about how he'd do something and it would save the day, or how he would say something, and it would make me think, and sometimes he'd say something just because it was funny, and it was always funnier coming from him. He's not the kind of person you can stop thinking about. Even when you want to."
Soolin shook her head. "It's not doing either of you any good." After a moment's silence Soolin picked up one of the little birds. "What are these things, anyway?" she said, changing the subject.
"Cranes. If you make enough of them, you get your wish."
"How many?"
"A thousand."
Soolin sighed as something inside her remembered wishing. Maybe... maybe once wishes had power. Maybe you just had to believe in them. Maybe she could learn once more to believe, and to hope. Vila knew the secret. And even if it didn't work, the look on Avon's face if he saw her playing like a little girl... yes, that would be worthwhile. "Show me how." She reached for a sheet of paper.
"You'll have to do your own thousand."
"Even if it's the same wish?"
Vila looked up at Soolin and smiled. "We could work together then."
Soolin returned Vila's smile. "We could try."
--
"Psst!" Soolin whispered, "Open the door!"
"Oh, right." The door to Vila's room opened and he peered out past her. "No one saw you?"
"Of course not." Soolin strode into Vila's quarters, arms full of a bundle wrapped in one of her grey jackets. "On the bed?"
"Have to, it's the only clear space left."
The door snapped shut behind them, and Dayna stepped out in the corridor, puzzled. Vila and Soolin? Well... he was cute... if you liked cute. She had thought Avon was more Soolin's type. But then, maybe they were too much alike. Two icebergs colliding. Grinning, Dayna went down the corridor to the recreation room, to see if Tarrant was there. She loved a good gossip, and it was fun to shock him.
--
"What's the count now?" Soolin said, as she folded a used supplies list into a crane. 'Dynamon crystals ASAP!' wound up along one wing, and 'Underwear- any colour except grey' on the other.
"Um... just a moment.' Vila paused in the middle of threading completed cranes in a string. "This batch makes 60." He tied another knot in the ten's place on the end of the line, something Orac had told him came from a quipa , an early system of record keeping. Orac was full of useless bits of information that sometimes weren't useless. You had to ask the right question, though.
Vila got up and counted the numbers on the strings of cranes he had dangling over pieces of furniture everywhere. "Hey, we've got five hundred and sixty! More than halfway."
Soolin flapped the supply-list crane's wings. "There's not much paper left," she said, looking at the rumpled heap of salvaged paper she'd sneaked out of the recycling converter. "Maybe another two hundred sheets. Perhaps we could cut the sheets into quarters?"
"I tried, but they didn't work that small." Vila frowned. "There's one place we haven't looked for paper."
"Where?"
"Well... Avon's got a habit of writing down information and then making Orac forget it. I guess he doesn't trust the rat-in-a-box to keep his secrets. He doesn't ever throw them out, but I'm sure he wouldn't miss some of it. You could get it."
Soolin looked at Vila. "And if Avon catches me in his room, what excuse am I to use?"
"Umm..." Vila looked innocent. "Curiosity? It worked for Dayna."
Soolin threw the crane at Vila, who ducked and laughed.
--
"I don't believe you," Tarrant said, folding his arms and shaking his head. "Soolin's never shown any interest in men, and I can't see her starting with Vila."
"What about Dorian?"
Tarrant shrugged. "He kissed her. That was showing off for company. She looked like she was humouring him at the time, didn't she?"
"And I've seen her looking at Avon."
"Probably trying to decide whether or not to shoot him."
Dayna grinned. "Did you make a pass at her?"
Tarrant blushed. "None of your business."
"You did!" Dayna crowed with laughter. "Oh, and she said, 'No.' Poor Tarrant, you're losing your touch!"
"This is a ridiculous conversation. I don't know about you, but I have work to do." Tarrant gulped the last of his ersatz kaffee and left the room, Dayna's giggling following his stiff-backed exit.
--
Soolin gazed in bemusement at the bundle of greenery Tarrant held out to her. The flowers were the kind she thought of as 'daisies' although their yellow petals and blue centres were the opposite of the ones that had grown in her mother's garden on GP. She didn't like being reminded of GP. Her irritability showed in her voice. "What's this- taking up botany for a hobby?"
"They reminded me of you." Tarrant smiled, his eyes bluer than the centres of the daisies.
"You need your eyes examined, then." Soolin was seldom in a mood for sentimental imagery. Perhaps if Tarrant had offered a fine brandy and a decent meal... but weeds she could have picked herself if she'd wanted them weren't an enticement to dalliance. "Oh, if I were you, I'd wash my hands well. Some people are irritated by sap." Soolin picked up a scrap of paper and exited at a brisk pace.
--
Avon had been engrossed in research, but he had noted Soolin's sudden and inexplicable attachment for Vila. He'd filed it under 'mental aberration' for Soolin, and 'lucky devil' for Vila, and gone back to work. He simply hadn't enough energy to care what the others did, so long as they didn't get in his way. Which they frequently did. And demanded more time from him, more attention. Well, he didn't have enough for the essentials, let alone for such frivolities as game playing.
He had to drug himself to sleep and lived on caffeine tabs during the day. His headache had become such a constant, low-level sense of unwellness that he'd stopped taking pain pills. They didn't work any longer so why bother with them. Lately his hands had developed a fine tremor and his sense of balance was precarious as well, forcing him to assume idiotic straddling positions whenever he had to shoot. Stress reaction, Cally would have called it. If she hadn't died the last time Avon went looking for Blake.
Damn Blake, if only he hadn't got Avon involved in this whole mess in the first place. But Avon was involved, and there wasn't any shrugging part of the burden off on the others. They never felt the urgency he did, because they lacked foresight. Or maybe they did realize they were all headed for a precipice, but preferred to pick daisies along the way-- yes, he'd noticed Tarrant, too-- rather than dig in their heels and help Avon to brake them before they broke.
Damn them all, and damn himself, most of all. He should have left them. But now...it was too late. He didn't care about anything more than doing his best to stay upright and meet the end with dignity. Damn. The vision in his right eye had gone again, replaced by the glittering silver-gold retina pattern of an optical migraine. He left his papers next to Orac, weighed down with his sopron, and headed for his room to lie down for a few minutes until it passed.
--
Vila saw Avon striding down the corridor, looking angry. Nothing new there. Vila waited long enough to be sure Avon was settled into his own room for one of his increasingly frequent private sulks, before entering Avon's 'lair', as they all called the room he'd appropriated for private questioning of Orac. The computer was still keyed on and blinking to itself when Vila went in. A lump of rock was on top of a sloppy pile of papers, some of them cascading off into the waste-paper bin.
Best not to be greedy. Avon might notice. Vila grabbed a handful of printouts from the bin and fled back to his own cosy little crane-lined den. And Soolin.
--
Soolin smoothed out a piece of paper, and was about to begin folding it when the words 'Gauda Prime' leaped out at her. Was Avon planning something to do with GP? She started at the beginning and read the paper. She read it again. "Vila, weren't you all looking for Roj Blake?"
"Eh?" Vila stopped trying to make a crane fly and got up to peer over Soolin's shoulder at the paper she held. "What! " He snatched the paper from her and read it. "Avon's found him, he's found Blake! I knew he could do it if he tried!" Vila grinned, and then suddenly sat down on a pile of cranes on his bed. "Bastard. He didn't tell us."
"He certainly had enough time- the information is dated over two months ago."
"Yeah. About the time we were playing sardines with Mueller's robot. Why didn't he tell us?" Vila looked at the paper again. "Stupid git. He wanted to bring Blake a nice, shiny present to rub it in how he didn't need Blake. But he does. We do."
Soolin was doubtful. "If Blake's all that successful, why haven't we heard anything about him? Avon might keep Orac from telling us secrets, but we do listen to rebel underground news."
Vila shook his head. "I bet Blake needs Avon. That's it." Vila stood up, with the paper in his hands. "Get Tarrant and Dayna. We're going to go get Blake."
"Avon won't like it." But Soolin was already on her feet, and smiling.
"Yes, he will, he just won't say so. He can blame me, if it makes him feel better. I'll tell him I missed Blake's vindaloo."
--
Avon woke up from his doze, reaching instinctively for the gun he kept under his pillow.
"Ah, ah," Tarrant said, showing Avon the gun. "We want to have a talk with you."
"Talk about what?" Avon sat up and looked at the four stern faces surrounding his bed. "Is this a mutiny?" He smiled, humourlessly.
"Call it an 'intervention'," Vila replied. "We're going to get Blake. On Gauda Prime."
Avon glared at Vila, who continued to meet his gaze. "Fine." Avon lay back down again and closed his eyes. "Send me a post-vid."
"You're coming, too," Dayna said. "Please?"
Avon looked at Dayna. "Why?"
"Because we want you to introduce us." Fearlessly, Dayna reached out and tugged on Avon's arm. "Come on, I want to see if he's as cute as in his wanted vids."
"You'll regret this. You all will," Avon said as he got up.
"Probably." Tarrant tossed Avon the gun. "But let's do it anyway."
Avon's smile as he caught the gun was odd. "All right."
--
"And what do you get if you cross a Denebian slime worm with Servalan?" Vila grinned in anticipation, kicking his feet back and forth under his chair, Xenon fading to an inconspicuous dot on his monitor.
Under his breath, Tarrant whispered, "Nothing." Scorpio's flight deck hum almost covered up his words.
Vila said, "Nothing! There's some things a slime worm won't do."
Dayna looked at Vila and stuck out her tongue.
Soolin said, "What's Blake supposed to be doing on Gauda Prime? It's hardly the crossroads of the galaxy, after all." She directed the question at Avon.
Avon didn't answer her. He had taken his usual seat on the flight deck, and assisted in the take-off, and then lapsed into a sullen silence.
Tarrant pushed Orac's key in place, and repeated the question.
"The only information I have concerning Blake is that he is on Gauda Prime. That is where his trail ends. Ergo, he is there."
Tarrant said, "What trail? Explain."
"The chain of cause and effect amounts to a trail, if you can follow it."
Vila muttered, "I can't even follow you."
Orac replied, "Everything has an effect on everything else around it. It is not easy to trace one line through the pattern of infinity, but in this case, I have. Blake is on Gauda Prime."
Soolin frowned. "Only a fool would go to Gauda Prime without a very good reason. It's a bad place to be. No self-respecting idealist would be found dead there."
Avon finally spoke. "That is one reason I was in no hurry to contact Blake."
Soolin went on. "GP is an Open Planet. There are no laws."
Vila sat up, intrigued. "You mean that?"
"Oh yes, no laws at all."
"Paradise," Vila muttered.
Soolin gazed at him coolly. "Not quite. G-P was an agricultural world. The settlers were sent there to grow crops, raise timber. They were farmers, my family among them. They were given title to the land."
Avon added, "And then somebody discovered there was more profit under the ground than there was on top of it, only the farmers were in the way, and the law was on their side. Hence the Open Planet designation."
Soolin nodded. "The corporations moved in. The farmers moved out. Those who didn't were murdered, including my family."
Vila looked shocked. "And it wasn't even a crime."
"Oh yes, it was a crime, all right. It just wasn't illegal."
"That's what I meant," Vila said.
"I hope so."
--
Gauda Prime was an unimpressive world. Tarrant was even less impressed when he discovered that there was no flight control for the planet's lone public spaceport. The mining corporations controlled a modern facility, which curtly informed Tarrant that 'scum attempting to use this port are shot down'.
"Well, that's a friendly attitude," Vila said as Tarrant shifted orbit and headed for the other beacon, a feeble chirping thing.
"Presumably, it serves to keep out sightseers," Avon said as he aided Tarrant.
"There never was anything on GP worth seeing," Soolin said.
--
Scorpio's landing was also unimpressive. Vila looked at the view screen, magnified to show the few people walking around the only other ship in port, a T-class freighter even more battered-looking than Scorpio. His face scrunched up in distaste. "They make space rats look classy."
Tarrant didn't answer as he finished the landing check. Then he stood up, went over to the weapons' storage and got himself a clip-gun. He looked grim. He'd seen scum before and had an idea what they were in for.
Soolin got up and checked her gun. "They'd eat space rats for breakfast here."
Dayna nodded to Soolin and joined her, gun at the ready. "Shall we?"
"Yes." Avon looked at them. "We shall." He rose, strapped on a clip-gun and a huge Federation blaster, souvenir of one of their missions. "Vila, stay here."
"What?
Tarrant glanced at Avon's stone-face. Diplomatically, he said, "Vila, someone has to keep the ship secure."
"But I want to see Blake!"
"But does he want to see us?" Avon checked the pump-action on the huge gun, then shifted it so the stock was against his shoulder and the armrest nestled on his forearm. "Stay here, Vila."
--
Avon went out first, and the few curious onlookers kept their distance as he stood, spraddle-legged on the landing ramp, and watched as the rest of his crew descended to the cracked blast-crete of the landing pad.
"Did Orac say exactly where Blake was?" Dayna said, rather loudly.
"I hope not."
They all whirled as the deep, slightly amused-sounding, voice came from behind a pile of crates, followed a moment later by a tall, heavy-set man with curly hair and a gun even larger than Avon's, a tough looking blonde woman at his side. The man stared at them, and at the armoury facing him for a long moment, then he spread his arms wide and grinned. "Avon, you bastard, I've been waiting for you!"
Avon's face relaxed and his gun went down to his side. "Blake. Well, here I am."
Blake strode over to them, followed by the blonde. "Let's get in out of the weather, Blake," the woman said. "Are you the pilot of that heap?" she pointed to Scorpio, raising an interrogative eye at Tarrant.
Avon and Blake led the way back up the ramp, talking intently in low voices while ignoring the others.
Tarrant bristled. "It's not as bad as it looks."
"Neither is the Falcon," the woman said, indicating the freighter beside them with a toss of her blonde mane. "I'm Jenna Stannis." She looked on with mild amusement at the intimate and heated argument Blake and Avon had already begun judging from their expressions. "We'll probably be properly introduced later."
"Yes." Tarrant looked at her more closely and then smiled. "Del Tarrant, at your service."
Jenna laughed. "We'll see." She strode up the landing ramp ahead of him.
Dayna looked at Soolin. "Well, that worked out all right."
Soolin smiled. "Yes."
And then the freighter blew up.
Jenna turned at the head of the landing ramp and cursed, "Damn it! Not another ship!" Then she grabbed Tarrant's arm and pulled him along with Soolin and Dayna racing behind her, watching their backs. The agitated dock rats started for Scorpio, but then ducked for cover behind cargo as bits of flaming debris began to fall.
--
"Who's shooting at us, now?" Vila cried, aggrieved, watching the explosion on the view screen.
"Someone unfriendly, Vila."
"Blake!" Vila whirled, a huge grin on his face. "I'm glad to see you..." Scorpio trembled as a secondary explosion went off in the centre of the t-class freighter. Avon clutched at Blake to keep himself upright, or vice-versa, Vila never had been able to decide which. Vila staggered and grabbed at his console. "Or maybe I'm not! I remember now, we always got shot at when you were around."
Avon grinned suddenly. "Yes, so we did." He released Blake and took his flight deck position, beginning emergency lift-off procedures. "I'll introduce you to the rest of the crew later, Blake."
"The crew? Not your crew?" Blake asked mildly, moving to stand behind Avon's seat, with his hands on the shoulders of the chair as the rest of the crew ran in and took their positions. Jenna stood beside Tarrant, watching him manipulate the controls, her eyes lingering on his hands.
"You can have them." Avon's smile flashed again. "Maybe you can do something with them."
"Oh, I like that," Vila grumbled to himself. "Do I have anything to say about this?"
"Would you like to get out and walk?" Tarrant shouted as Scorpio jittered and swayed.
"Erm... no, not really." Vila concentrated on his controls . "That fire's getting awfully close! If we're leaving, now might be a good time!"
--
Scorpio took off. The thunder of its engines had barely died away before the dock rats came out to salvage the still burning wreckage of Jenna's Falcon. A tiny pink paper crane fluttered along the dock, drawing the attention of one of the younger dock rats. The boy grinned, and stuck the bird in his hair, for luck. You could never have too much luck.
