The Few and Fatal Friends

by Sheila Paulson

Even his vanity is gone

Which leaves the loser all alone.*

*All quotes from "largo" by Dunstan Thompson

"Where do you think we are?" I asked, not really wanting to know. There wasn't much interest in my voice.

"I don't know." This was an event. An answer. It was more than I'd had for the past three days. I massaged my aching neck and stretched painfully on the narrow cot. It wasn't a regular prison cell, it was a ship's cabin; if nothing else, I knew the feel of a ship in space. Once it had been important to me, but not now. Now I felt lethargic, my questions idle. I didn't really care if he answered. "How did we get here?"

"I don't know."

"Where are they taking us?" I knew his answer before he gave it.

"I don't know."

Finally I became annoyed. "Is there anything you do know, damn you?"

"Yes."

"What?"

"I know I want you to shut up."

There was none of the old venom in his voice, nothing to remind me of the arrogant bastard I'd got use to in the past two years. He didn't care. I wasn't sure if I blamed him or not. He'd killed his Blake and damn near got the rest of us killed in the bargain. Maybe the others were dead. It had been three days since I'd revived in this locked cabin and there had been no trace of them. There had been no trace of anyone. Food arrived through a slot in the wall, and sometimes I got up and ate it. Avon hadn't at first, and finally, driven by something that might have been self preservation--after all, he was the only 'ally' I had left--I nagged him into eating. He didn't care if he ate or not. I didn't either except that if I were ever to get free, I might need him. But I didn't believe that we were going to get free. Ye would lie here and die and no one would care, and then they'd come and space our bodies. I don't know why they bothered to feed us.

Sometimes I amused myself by planning a way to take the ship. When someone finally came to the cabin, we would overpower them--futile dream, that--and I would fly us to safety. It had long been one of my boasts that I could fly anything. Once Avon would have had a scornful rejoinder to that boast. Now he only lay there and looked at the ceiling. He only got up to use the facilities. I brought him his food and took the tray back. If he hadn't eaten by the time I did it, the food was returned uneaten. It must have tasted like cardboard to him anyway.

Sometimes I thought of the others. It was hard to imagine Vila dead. Vila was the ultimate survivor, but not this time. When he'd seen Dayna shot, he'd finally reacted. Maybe Avon would have said he'd finally proven what a fool he could be. I think in the end he let us see past his facade. He knew it didn't matter any more, that it was finally over.

I thought Dayna was dead. Enough about that. There had been something about Dayna -- I smiled sourly. Why should I have expected Dayna to survive? Deeta hadn't. Cally hadn't. Zeeona hadn't.

Soolin? I didn't know. Did I even care?

Odd that it should be Avon, of all of us, who would survive. Just my luck, captured and transported with Avon for company. If the others were alive, they had more companionship than I had.

Odd that I'd even want companionship. We hadn't been close in that way. I don't know why I would suddenly want Avon to smile and act like a human being. He hadn't before.

Avon continued to stare at the ceiling. His eyes were open, but if he saw anything beyond the image of Blake falling dead at his feet, I would be surprised. I almost felt sorry for him then, as close as I could come to feeling sorry for Avon. Sorry enough to go back for him, sorry enough to get caught. You're a fool, Del, I told myself.

+Information.+

Damn it, that almost sounded like Zen. The tone was different, but the inflection was the same. Avon must have thought so, too, for his body tautened. His eyes focused and he half sat up.

+The door will soon open. You will remain on your bunks.+

"Why?" I asked.

+Maintenance of the cabin monitor.+

"We don't need it maintained," I shot back, mostly to keep in practice. Denied Avon as a sparring partner, was I reduced to sparring with a computer?

+Nevertheless, maintenance must be performed. You will refrain from damaging the maintenance worker.+

"And if we don't?" I could always count on Avon to react to threats or bullying. The cold note of his voice sounded almost normal.

+You will be tranquilized.+

"Are you the computer?" Avon asked. Was he actually starting to take an interest in something? If so, it wasn't surprising that it had taken a computer to do it.

+You have no need of that information, Avon.+

It did sound a lot like Zen. Another computer from The System? I exchanged a speculative look with Avon. Curious that we could still act as a team.

And interesting to hear that the computer knew Avon. So we had been identified. We were Federation prisoners. But this didn't feel like a Federation cell. I shook my head warningly. We would feel like a Federation cell. The cabin was reminiscent of the Liberator. We would wait and see.

The most Avon could manage in response was a look of mild affront, but it was better than the blank stare. He didn't question my assumption of authority.

The door slid open and a mutoid came in. Well, that proved it was a Federation ship, didn't it? Mutoids exist to serve the Federation. I glanced over at Avon and my jaw dropped. Avon had gone dead white and his eyes bulged with shock he couldn't have looked more, yes, frightened, if he had seen a ghost. Pain made his eyes seem almost alive again. He was feeling something now, all right. He was finally bleeding from the wounds that killing Blake had inflicted on his psyche. He hadn't been all that sane before. Now he no longer looked like a madman. He looked the way I suspected I had looked when Dayna ripped the sensor link from my forehead when Deeta died.

I discovered that I actually felt protective. They didn't have the right to do this to him. I didn't like the man, but surely he'd been through enough. And even if I didn't like him, weren't we bound to each other somehow. Even Dorian had said as much. I didn't like him, but I'd back him.

I turned to see why the mutoid had frightened him.

If I had any more shocks, my jaw would be bumping the floor. The mutoid had gone mechanically to the monitor and produced tools from a tool belt. He was paying us no more attention than we would have paid a bolt in the bulkhead. But I knew his face.

Blake.

But Blake was dead. He was one of the most thoroughly dead corpses I had ever seen. This mutoid couldn't be Blake. If anything, he must be physically altered to look like him just as he had been altered to become a mutoid. That would be the ultimate cruelty, something worthy of Servalan. But not in three days. This was part of a long term plan. Had she known how Avon would react on Gauda Prime; had she calmly manipulated him, pushing all the right buttons? Perhaps, but then why the mutoid? She could have no certainty of the outcome--or could she? Maybe there had been a suggestion implanted in Avon's brain on Terminal. Find Blake. Kill Blake. And I had played right into her hands beautifully. Damn her. Maybe after Virn she knew what to expect from me, too.

"It's a trick, Avon," I said. "Servalan's behind it. He can't be--"

Avon didn't react. He was too busy staring. Suddenly I wondered which would be worse, to know Blake was dead at his hand or to know Blake was alive--but not Blake anymore. I know how I would have felt if they'd made a mutoid out of Deeta. Sometimes I had wondered if Blake was Avon's Deeta.

"They cloned him." Avon's voice was hoarse. "They cloned Blake once."

"And you think this is the clone?"

"Servalan couldn't have gone back for him. He had...a weapon, one that would have destroyed her."

"Servalan could have given orders," I replied. "Risk other lives than her own. Do you think this is Blake's clone, Avon?"

"This," he replied in a hollow voice, "Or the other one was."

I hadn't thought of that, but it made sense. Avon and Blake shouldn't have been at such cross purposes, even with my meddling. Why had I done that? Was I disappointed in Blake? From the way Avon pursued him so single-mindedly, I think I'd half expected him to be Saint Blake, possessor of all virtues. I hadn't liked the Blake I'd found on Gauda Prime. But to think him as clone who had misread Avon because he didn't know Avon left us with an even less attractive alternative, a living Blake whose mind had been erased, turning him into a mutoid. For once, I actually felt sorry for Avon. How many blows did they think he could take? If he hadn't been mad before, he might be heading that way now. And he didn't even have Vila to back him. Only me, and that was a joke.

"You," I said to the mutoid, "Who are you?"

He looked at me, eyes expressionless. "I exist to serve," he intoned.

"Are you Roj Blake?"

"Who I was no longer matters. It isn't important."

Well, those were the right words, spoken in the right tone. I don't think Blake could have maintained that in the face of Avon's shock. I couldn't even find a way to hope the mutoid was still Blake, pretending to be a mutoid. I motioned for him to resume his duties. "Is this a Federation ship?" I asked.

"That information is not your concern."

"Where are they taking us?"

"I was not to tell you that."

Avon was still staring like a zombie. His face held no more expression than the mutoid's did, but his eyes showed his pain. If he had begun to recover from the trauma of Gauda Prime, this had halted the recovery. I watched him pull away from me, drawing the hurt in after him, where he held it, imprisoned with it. Damn it.

I didn't like the sight of Avon broken.

*******

with double keys.

"We've got to get out of here," Vila Restal said.

"Oh, shut up, Vila," Dayna replied. "You've been saying that ever since you broke in and couldn't get out again."

"I got this far, didn't I?" retorted Vila. ''I'II get us out of here. Just as soon as I figure out how to open the door."

"Forgive me if I don't hold my breath." Dayna turned her back on him and looked at Soolin, who was sitting on one of the cots, hands clasped idly, staring without interest at the floor.

"We can take this ship," Vila insisted. "If we can find Tarrant, he can fly it."

"And if we find Avon, he can give us a stunning impression of a madman," Soolin shot at him. "Dayna's right. Shut up, Vila. What does it matter now?"

"Maybe you want to die, but I don't."

"Why not, Vila?" Dayna asked sarcastically. "Is life so wonderful that you can't wait to get on with living it? Your precious Avon tried to kill you over Malodaar."

"I never told you that."

"Didn't you? Every time you looked at him, I could see it. He finally betrayed you, too, just like he betrayed Blake."

"He didn't," Vila defended. "He thought Blake betrayed him and he doesn't let people do that. Once we find him --"

"Everything will be wonderful," Soolin mocked him. "Don't be a fool."

"Don't be a quitter," he urged desperately. "We don't have to take this."

"Then open the door and go find Tarrant."

That was a sore subject. Vila had easily escaped from his cell once he revived from the stun. He spent a few minutes realizing that he was alive after all, and recognized their prison as a ship. Then he had taken a tool from the heel of his boot and opened the door. Dayna and Soolin were sitting despondently in the next cell, but they revived a little when he entered only to sink back again when the door sealed behind him and all his gifts couldn't open it. Days had passed, pointless, boring days, with no trace of guards, nothing but food through a slot, enough for three, which proved that someone knew Vila was here and didn't particularly care.

It had been three days since he had broken in. He was beginning to get discouraged by Soolin and Dayna's lack of interest in escape but he was even more surprised at his own persistence. He couldn't have explained it, but something gave him hope. He just didn't know what it was.

+Information.+

All three of them jumped. It was the first communication and it removed Vila's most morbid fantasy, that they had been put on a deserted ship and pointed out of the galaxy or toward a black hole just to be rid of them. It seemed excessive and the waste of a good ship, but you never knew. But the voice was slightly reassuring, even if it did remind him a little of Zen. He caught Dayna's eye and saw that she had noticed the resemblance, too. Strange.

"So you finally got round to talking to us," said Soolin. "What do you want and where are you taking us?"

+You will remain where you are when cabin maintenance is performed.+

"Or?" asked Dayna. She was good at recognizing implied threats, was Dayna.

+Or you will be rendered unconscious.+

Dayna frowned. "I wonder why they don't do that anyway," she muttered.

"Don't give them ideas," Vila cautioned as the door opened and a mutoid came in. "Federation," Vila moaned. "I knew..." Then he fell silent, staring. "Blake!" he burst out. "It's Blake."

"Blake is dead, Vila," Dayna reminded him disgustedly, then she got a better look and stared, too.

"It must have been a trick," Vila said. "That wasn't really Blake. This is. Blake, we should have known you'd find a way to get us free. But why'd you have to do that to Avon? He--" Again he stopped, dismay filling his eyes, f0r the mutoid Blake had. ignored his outburst, crossing the room to begin work on the monitor as if Vila were unimportant. Or as if he really were a mutoid, Vila realized in horror.

Dayna threw him a look of sudden and surprising sympathy, then turned to the mutoid. "Who are you?"

"I am here to repair the cabin monitor. Please do not interfere."

"Are you Blake?"

"Who I was no longer has any meaning." He returned to his task. "Stand aside and let me finish my work."

"Is this a Federation ship?" Soolin asked.

No response. Vila couldn't take his eyes away from the mutoid. He had to know if this was Blake or if the man on Gauda Prime had been Blake. Vila remembered the cloned Blake they had left with IMIPAK. Had Servalan captured him and brought him to this? Had he left that unnamed world and begun a journey that had ultimately led to GP? Or was this neither of them, someone who looked like Blake, sounded like Blake? Someone altered to look like Blake? Vila didn't know what to think. He didn't know what he wanted to believe. But the sight of the mutoid convinced him of something unsurprising. He had believed things could get no worse than Gauda Prime. He had been wrong.

*******

+It is working.+ announced the ship's computer.

"I see no evidence of that," snapped Orac.

+It will take time.+

A third voice joined the first two. "I think I can see it. Something in the eyes. Something in the set of the shoulders. Don't be killjoys."

"I am not a killjoy," Orac retorted. "I only state the truth. I see no evidence of recovery."

"There hasn't been enough time." The tall, thin man, attenuated and sere, was named Tellas. He knew he was dying, but in the back of his glittering eyes was a glow that might have been fever--or triumph. "It's going to work," he persisted. "It's a hard way to do it, but conditioning can be broken. It's been done before."

"Not often, and not always successfully," Orac insisted. "Your motive is revenge."

"And if it is? What right do you have to pass judgment on me, Orac?"

"None. But it is my place to point out that you will likely fail."

"Are you actually expressing loyalty to Avon, Orac?"

"Of course not. Avon is not without flaw, of course, but he had the intellect to appreciate me. In your revenge, you might destroy that intellect and such an action is wasteful. I cannot approve of your actions."

"Then give me an acceptable alternative, Orac."

"Abandon your project. Allow me to attempt it."

"And if I refuse? I don't have time for your method, Orac."

"Then you refuse. But in breaking the conditioning, you will break Avon." The thin man turned to the ship's computer's visual display. "What do you think, Tan?"

+Your goal is dangerous. It is not my place to assist you. I caution you that continuing such actions will endanger not only Avon but the other members of his crew, and the outcome is not guaranteed.+

"And the mutoid?"

+It is working, but it may take too long. Your time is limited, Tellas.+

"I will last. She has not killed me yet." He knew it was not quite true. She had killed him, most effectively, he simply had not died yet. And with a bit of luck, and the possibility that Tan was right and Orac wrong, he might manage it before he died. Vengeance was a powerful motivator. For vengeance, he could hold out.

+Shall I summon the mutoid?+ the ship's computer asked.

"Not yet. He has seen the others and they've seen him. Avon has seen him and he has seen Avon. That might be enough."

"It will not be enough," Orac replied. "You must see that, Tellas."

"Will you resist me, Orac?"

"Should Avon or the others give me counter-orders, I will obey them."

"But they don't know you're here."

"I could see they find out. I will do so if I feel it necessary. If I become certain of your project's failure, I will do so."

"How?" Tellas asked, not in an attempt to stop the computer, but out of genuine curiosity.

"I have worked with the Zen computer before."

"This isn't the Zen computer," Tellas reminded it.

"No," conceded Orac, "But it functions in the same manner."

Tellas shook his head. He knew that Orac could thwart him, but he had a little more time. In spite of denials, Orac might indeed possess loyalties, and Tan's similarity to Zen could enable it to act. But he couldn't do anything about that now. "I must rest," he said. "Send the mutoid to Avon's cell."

+Such an action could destroy Kerr Avon,+ Tan pointed out.

"I think not."

"You do not think at all," Orac snorted. "I have wasted my time on your petty concerns too long. I might find it interesting to tell Avon of your plan."

"If you think anything you could say would have an effect now, Orac, you are welcome to try." Tellas pulled himself to his feet, and, leaning on the wall, he dragged himself to the doorway. "I will expect to be informed," he reminded the computers as he went out. Maybe it had been a mistake to retrieve Orac. Orac would not have a human's loyalties, but it was possible that it could have an analog of loyalty where Kerr Avon was concerned. He was said to be a computer genius, almost a computer himself. Tellas knew he must be wary with both Avon and Orac. But before that came his revenge. Avon might survive it. The thought of losing him was not quite enough to stop Tellas, though it would weaken his revenge. He hoped the computers were wrong.

*******

Who with the butchered ghost must walk the battlements.

After the mutoid finished his task and went out, I tried to get Avon to talk to me but it was as effective as getting the bunk to answer my questions. He lay there, curled about himself, and though his eyes were open and I could tell by the way his body tensed and the occasional look I won from him that he was aware and listening, I couldn't provoke him to speak. Once, before all this, I would have let him lie there and will himself to death if he wanted to. I would have told myself that it proved me the stronger, that I could survive everything that was thrown at me. But a lot of things had happened since then. Deeta was dead, and Zeeona was dead, and Cally was dead, all of them. Blake might be dead, but even if this was the real Blake, he was as good as dead. Vila might have helped, but Vila was probably dead, too.

Vila might have helped Avon, assuming he would even want to, after Malodaar. If Vila, who had been Avon's shadow, his liege man, his fool could give up on him, why couldn't I? I didn't understand it, but I kept talking to him. I'd rather have him cold and sarcastic than have him like this.

"Even assuming Servalan found a way to get Blake's clone and make a mutoid of him, we don't know why she did it," I persisted. "What would she gain from it? If we're prisoners and Blake is dead, why throw another at us? To break you? It seems like we're caught in the middle. Either Gauda Prime was Servalan's plan or this is. But if this is, why bother? Her plan came too late."

Avon finally spoke. "Why not?" he asked. "Perhaps she wanted to break me." He bared his teeth in what might once have passed for a smile. "She is not enough of a fool to overlook the fact that the deed was done before she laid hands on us."

"Stop it, Avon," I insisted. "I confess I don't understand what anyone hopes to gain from this, but you weren't always so sentimental as to keep blaming yourself for something that wasn't entirely your fault. Blake is dead and you killed him, but you didn't have much choice. I'd almost rather have you at my throat, insisting I messed up than to have you sit there telling me you're broken."

"Why? Out of loyalty, Tarrant? I should have expected more of you."

"What does it matter now if we admit we're loyal," I said. "We're here at what looks like the end. If Vila was alive, we'd have him picking the lock by now, so it looks like we don't have a backup. That leaves you and me, Avon, and even though I can't say I like you much, I prefer you to Servalan and the Federation. If you and I are enemies, at least we're on the same side. I'd rather have you face them on your feet. Fighting all the way."

"Why bother?" he asked. "The end result will be the same. They'll kill us. We're better off that way."

"Oh, spare me your self-pity."

"Spare me your pep talks. You can't be foolish enough to believe that our defiance would matter."

"At least we'd die with self respect."

That got him looking at me. "Self respect?" he echoed as if he'd never heard of it before. "When did we ever have self respect, Tarrant? You may have pretended, dashing off bravely and nobly to rescue one of us, but that was for you, for your image --Del Tarrant, boy hero --like a character in a cheap viscast. Life isn't like that and it never was."

"Not even with Blake on the Liberator?" If he thought that unfair, he didn't show it. He said tiredly "Be your age " as if it wasn't worth fighting any more, but something did flash in his eyes. He hadn't believed in Blake's cause--he was too cynical for that--but I had a feeling he had believed in Blake, the man, until Blake had begun to show him that we was just a man, no god, but a tarnished saint who had as many flaws as the rest of us.

"It did matter once, Avon, for all you try to deny it," I said. "Do it for the Blake that was, then, if you can't do it for yourself. Or do it because it is better to die with dignity than just to die."

"Did they teach you that at the Federation Space Academy?" he asked sarcastically.

"No," I shot back. "I learned that from Deeta--and maybe from you."

That surprised him and he caught and held my eyes long enough to make me feel foolish for even thinking such a thing, let alone saying it. Then he laughed, a bitter, hurting sound. "And I always thought it was Vila who was the fool."

"I don't think you ever believed that. I think you laughed at me because I did."

He looked surprised. "Perceptive of you, Tarrant. But Vila was a fool. He was fool enough to let me matter to him. Until Malodaar--"

"Maybe even after that, Avon. And if he's no fool, you didn't deserve him."

"I know that." He actually meant it.

"But let's get back to the mutoid," I said. "I want to understand this, Avon. Put your icy logic to work on it. There's just no point of it, except to break you, and that would be redundant. Servalan may be cruel, but I don't think she'd waste her puppet on you when it could be more effective elsewhere. We need to find out which one was really Blake."

"Was? I like your choice of tenses."

"It's true. The Blake on GP wasn't what I expected and he sure as hell wasn't what you expected. He said and did everything wrong, as if he couldn't remember how to read you any more--OR AS IF HE NEVER KNEW."

"So he was Blake's clone? Trust Blake to cause his death, too. If he wasn't Blake, he had assumed Blake's mantle and it killed him. Blake was always good at that."

I found I was sorry for the clone, if that was who had died on GP. If indeed the clone, "Blake" would have only known the legends that had Avon fighting at Blake's side. Avon had always found the mythos amusing, but had never bothered to deny It. Maybe because there was a particle of truth in it?

"And," Avon went on, "If I killed Blake's clone" --he rolled the work "killed" around on his tongue as it he found it unexpectedly foul tasting-- "then this was Blake. So all my searching was in vain. I should have found a bolthole long ago and let the Federation have their way."

"Why didn't you?" I had always wondered that.

"I don't know."

"I think you do. And if there's any of that part of you left, you won't give in to them."

"Shall die nobly fighting?" he asked. "Or shall I let them make a mutoid of me like Blake?"

"You sound like you're glad he's a mutoid."

"Perhaps I am." Then his eyes dropped and he continued in a voice I had never heard from him before. "If this is really Blake, then it was not i who destroyed him."

"Absolution?" Interesting. Had he wanted that; had he found the guilt too much to bear? I shouldn't have thought it. Of course I wouldn't have expected him to shrug his shoulders and walk away untouched either, but if it was true that one was Blake and one his clone, either way he was lost to Avon, and this way wasn't his fault. It might be a relief to know that, and only afterwards would he realize that he had still lost.

He frowned. "Perhaps," he said. "But I would not wish this on Blake, even if he is past caring about it."

The door opened and Blake came in.

The reasonably rational Avon I had been talking to vanished as he stiffened and drew back on his bunk. I wondered if he'd shut himself off again, but instead he said coldly, "Why are you here?"

The mutoid looked at him levelly. "I was ordered to come here."

"Ordered?" I asked quickly. "Who ordered you?"

"I was ordered not to tell you that." his voice sounded the same as the Blake who had found me in the ruin of the Scorpio, as least as near as I could remember it. But It must have been much more familiar to Avon, because he winced every time the mutoid spoke. I had never really understood how he felt about Blake--probably because Avon didn't understand it himself--but he must have felt something more than he was willing to admit.

"Are you Roj Blake?" I asked. "Or were you Roj Blake?"

The mutoid turned toward me and I couldn't help looking for some trace of humanity in his brown eyes. I didn't find any. "I have been told that I was," he admitted. "If so, it is no longer important."

It might be, to others." I didn't look at Avon as I said that.

"I have no responsibility to others."

Somehow, that bothered Avon more than anything else the mutoid had said. Avon, who would have denied he had an responsibility to anyone but himself, seemed to expect more from Blake. If Blake was the responsibility-taking sort, and he evidently Avon would associate it with him. Even Avon could care, not that it had ever done him any good. Maybe that was why he held so distant from the rest of us --a conditioned response.

"Blake did," I said. "He had a cause that was his reason for being, or so I'm told. Funny the individual got lost in that. Blake used people to try to stop the Federation from using people. Even I don't find that logical."

"Blake did," Avon muttered. "Blake was always a fool."

"To you everyone is a fool," I snapped at him. "Everyone but you, that is."

He looked at the mutoid a long time before he answered, then he said in a voice that was devoid of either emotion or hope, "Oh, no, Tarrant, you're quite wrong. I was perhaps the biggest fool of all." Than he lay back and rolled over to face to face the wall, and he did not speak again.

I looked at the mutoid then back at Avon, and then I did something that Avon would have considered foolish. I got up and spread his blanket over him before I returned to my own cot. Predictably, he ignored me. I felt the mutoid's unfeeling eyes on me the whole time.

*****

Of passion shall we use to brave the coward?

Vila awoke when the cell door opened again and Blake appeared. Now what? It was bad enough that Blake had come before, Blake or his clone. If Avon were alive, had Blake appeared to him as well? It was pure pain to see this ghost in Blake's image. How much worse would it be for Avon, who had just recently killed Blake? Vila had tried to make himself hate Avon after Malodaar but he had never quite managed it. He was angry and hurt and furious with Avon, but never quite to the point where he was ready to give up on him entirely. Maybe somehow he'd always thought they could get away from all this nonsense, two battered old half-enemies, two almost-friends, and find that bolthole, safe at last. He knew it was futile dream, but there had been something inside him that wouldn't let it go. Now, seeing Blake standing before him with nothing of Blake in his eyes, Vila felt it slipping away unbidden, and if Dayna and Soolin hadn't been standing behind him, he might have broken down and cried.

"Come with me, Vila," Blake said to him, but there was nothing in his words other than the use of Vila's name to give him hope.

He stared at Blake uneasily. He'd never liked mutoids, and it was worse when they wore familiar faces. "What do you want with me then, Blake?" he asked, annoyed when his voice came out in a nervous squeak.

"I have orders to return you to your original cabin."

"Don't want to go."

Something showed in the mutoid's face, but Vila couldn't identify it as anything human. It might have been only mild annoyance, but the mutoid reinforced it with a para handgun.

"I was not to consider your wishes."

Vila's eyes widened at the sight of the gun. "If you put it like that then... " He rose, turning to Dayna and Soolin. "Well, girls, it looks like you'll have to do without my company for awhile."

"Somehow," Soolin murmured sarcastically, "We shall try to manage."

"Be careful, Vila," Dayna warned him unexpectedly. "He might look like Blake, but he isn't. Don't expect him to be Blake."

In other words, don't try anything stupid, Vila realized. Or maybe she was even warning him not to get his hopes up. Was that much concern for his well-being too much to expect?

Vila didn't know. He only knew he would have to be very careful.

He let the mutoid guide him out of the cell and seal the door. The minute it was shut, he said quickly, "All right, Blake, we're away from the monitor. Will you tell me what you're playing at?"

It didn't work, but he had to try. The mutoid gestured him toward his old cell with the gun, and Vila trudged forward dispiritedly. He thought he might have broken away, but without knowing the ship and the compliment of troopers he wasn't about to chance it on his own. If he could find Tarrant, he might stand a better chance. With the mutoid about, he didn't think he could count on Avon.

"You," he said. "Is Avon alive?"

"Avon and Tarrant are prisoners."

"Can't I be in with them then?"

"Those were not my orders."

"Well, they're my orders," said Vila firmly. Sometimes it paid to be firm. "What cell are they in?"

"That one." So the mutoid would answer a direct question.

"I want to see them. If you're not to put me in with them, then don't, but let me have a chat. I don't suppose you've a bottle of adrenalin and soma about you, do you? Blake never wanted to let me have it, and Avon was worse, but you're not really Blake, are you? Come on, what do you say?"

The mutoid looked at him with perplexity. It went ill with Blake's brown eyes. Vila stared at him, wondering if he were simply confused by a series of conflicting orders or if there was ever hope for a mutoid to break out of his programming. No, mutoids weren't programmed, they were physically altered. Drank blood, they did. Some kind of cavity in the chest, Vila thought. He looked at the front of Blake's uniform, wondering where it went. He'd seen the mutoid with Travis who had wanted to drink Jenna's blood. Yes, that's where it would go.

"Let's have a drink," Vila continued. "I'll take soma and you can have your plasma or whatever it is that gives you a thrill."

"Enough. You will go to your cell now."

"Damn you, Blake," Vila swore at him, his voice the next thing to tears. He kept expecting a normal response, even though he knew better, especially since this couldn't have been the real Blake before modification. But the sight of him and the sound of him were Blake, even if the blankness wasn't.

"This isn't really you," Vila persisted. "I suppose you've been to see Avon, too! She'd enjoy that, wouldn't she? Servalan? Sleer, or whatever she calls herself these days. Was she on Gauda Prime? Did she send you here to torment us? She was your enemy once. Don't you care that she's using you? Don't you care that Avon loves you! If there's anything of you left, can't you stop this? Can't you help us? Can't you set us free? Blake, please. I stayed on Liberator because I liked you. I didn't know what to think on GP. That wasn't you, was it? That was a clone or someone meant to look like you, someone to finally end it, to die In your name, to put everyone against Avon if by some chance he'd get away. I don't know what he's going through, but it's bad enough for him to have tried to kill me. Now they've made him believe he's killed you, but here you are, alive, only not yourself. Damn you, Blake. If you can't be his Blake for him, at least stay the hell away."

Vila ignored the tears gathering in his eyes, dashing them away impatiently. He had to get through to the mutoid and he knew it wouldn't work. People didn't stop being mutoids the way they sometimes broke out of conditioning. This was physical, like a lobotomy. Blake couldn't snap out of it, and if ordered to taunt Avon, he couldn't stay away either.

"This isn't Servalan's ship," the mutoid said. His voice was flat and steady as always. No change.

"Whose then?"

"I may not tell you that."

"Federation?" No answer. He gestured with the gun. "No," Vila replied, standing his ground. "Kill me then, because I'm not going back in there. Put me in with Avon or kill me."

For a moment, the gun came to rest on his middle and he panicked, but then the gun gestured peremptorily again and Vila discovered he could still breathe. "So they told you not to hurt us."

"Not to kill you," the mutoid agreed, "but to stop you if you disobey orders."

"Then stop me," said Vila flippantly and headed for Avon's cell.

The mutoid grabbed his arm and Vila tried to jerk free. Instead of succeeding, he caught the opening on Blake's tunic where the blood would be placed for nourishment and tore it open. The mutoid pulled free and closed it again, but not before Vila had seen. He went rigid, staring, then he raised his eyes to the mutoid's face in disbelief.

******

After what seemed like a long time, Avon stirred and rolled over. His eyes were hollow and empty, more so than I have ever seen them before, and more than I hope I ever will again. He looked at me as if we were actually comrades, and maybe we were. People who go into hell with you may be the only comrades who matter.

"Tarrant," he said. I didn't like the sound of his voice, and I didn't like what I suddenly knew was coming. "Avon..."

"Enough of this," he said.

"Meaning?"

"I think you're bright enough to reason that out. I see no point in continuing this charade."

I deliberately misunderstood him. "Are you ready to try to break out?"

The look he gave me was scornful. "Don't be a fool, Tarrant. Break out to where?"

"Take this ship. When the mutoid comes back..."

"When Blake comes back," he corrected me, "if he is Blake, I want you to take his gun, Tarrant."

"And then what, Avon? Kill you? Kill him? I won't do your dirty work for you. I owe us both more than that."

"If you owe me anything at all," he said softly, "Perhaps you owe me that, Tarrant."

No. I shook my head in futile defiance, stupid because we were bound to die anyway after all. But I couldn't quite bring myself to do it, and I wouldn't let him either. I had been here, witnessed his hell.. I had pulled too close to him to be able to kill him now. I still didn't like him, but maybe at the end there is something less than love but more than hate. I didn't know what it was and I didn't like it any more than he would, but I couldn't do it. It was true that we had nowhere to go except Earth for trial and execution, but some fool once said that life was hope, and I wasn't able to give up so easily. Avon was my trial, my enemy. I wouldn't let someone else have the joy of breaking him, but neither could I send him into the dark. Damn them all. I didn't want this kind of choice. It wasn't fair that he should expect it of me.

Even if I defeat Servalan?

No. There must be another way to beat her. I didn't know what it was, but there would be another way. If only I could think of one. In the meantime, I looked at Avon. It was funny that even in such despair I didn't find him pathetic. I wondered how he found me. Were we two of a kind, Avon and I? Rubbing each other the wrong way because we were alike, fighting for position, trying to outdo each other like two foolish schoolboys with Liberator the prize?

Is that why he had understood when Deeta died? Is that why he had been more tolerable then than he had at any time since I had known him--until he began to get his blasted messages from Blake, from Servalan. Before that, he had said the right things, without sugary sentiment, without overt sympathy. I wondered if I could find the right words for him. I wondered If there were any right words. At least I had not been responsible for Deeta's death.

Of course he hadn't bothered when Zeeona died, but he had changed by then. I liked him less than ever before, and when she died, I hated him. He made a good target.

Maybe now I made one for him.

Damn the man. Why the hell should I care enough to want to help him? Was I as much a fool as he had always claimed? He wouldn't thank me for it either, I knew that.

"I won't do it, Avon," I said. "Not now. If it comes down to our only option, I'll think about it. But not until I know whose ship this is, how many troops are on board, where we're going."

"All those things should be obvious."

"Maybe," I said. "And maybe not. We'll wait and see."

"For how long?" he demanded, and I heard desperation in the cry.

"For as long as it takes, Avon."

The door opened and a very determined Vila Restal burst into the room.

******

Vila didn't know what it meant but he knew one thing and that was that he had to tell Avon what he had seen. So he waited meekly while the mutoid rearranged his tunic--did his hands shake?--and let himself be led back to his own cell. There he paused only long enough to be sure that Blake had gone before he broke out of the cell and went to Avon's.

The door yielded to him without hesitation and he stopped just inside the doorway. Avon and Tarrant turned to him with identical surprised expressions like twin marionettes and Tarrant exclaimed, "Vila!" He actually sounded glad to see him, which rocked Vila back on his heels, but not as much as the emptiness in Avon's eyes did. Vila knew he should have found a way in here sooner, not that it would have made that much difference until now.

Avon looked like he was dead already and someone had forgotten to tell him so. When Vila entered, Tarrant had reacted with a protective stance as if prepared to defend Avon against all comers. Well, Tarrant had been here when Avon had seen Blake. No wonder. It would take someone like Servalan to remain completely unmoved by the emptiness in Avon's eyes.

But as Avon recognized Vila, some of it went and the tension left his muscles. "What took you so long?" he snapped, but Vila realized that a part of Avon might even be relieved to see him.

"I was in with Dayna and Soolin for awhile and something was jamming the door," he explained. "I'm glad to see you, too."

As Vila had expected, Avon ignored that bit of foolishness. "Someone freed you?" he asked.

"No, Blake to me back to my own cell, and I could get out of there. He told me where you were."

"He just volunteered the information, did he?" Tarrant asked skeptically.

"No, I asked. He told me. He wouldn't let me come in here with you, but once he was gone, I did anyway. He's been told not to kill us. I tried to get him mad and make him react, but it didn't work."

"You mean he didn't blow your head off, Vila?" Tarrant asked. "Mutoids must possess amazing restraint."

"Maybe they do," Vila said and paused dramatically. "But he's not a mutoid."

"What!" That was Avon. For the first time, something had broken through, and the look in his eyes was pure and violent rage. "Do you mean he came in here aware? That it was an act?"

"No," said Vila quickly. "All I mean is that he doesn't have any place to put the blood that they're supposed to drink. I didn't say he know who he was. Maybe they conditioned him."

"And you, of course, know exactly how mutoids function?" Avon asked skeptically.

"Yes." Vila stood his ground. "We saw how, remember, Avon, that time Blake had to have that duel with Travis."

"All that means is that he might have another way to take the blood he needs," Tarrant pointed out quickly.

Vila saw the look in his eyes and discovered that Tarrant had actually become rather protective of Avon in the time they'd spent together, and that he didn't want Avon to get his hopes up. Even conditioned, there was no guarantee Blake could come out of It, and there was still no certainty he was the real Blake.

"What should we do?" Avon sounded like he really needed to be told, and that scared Vila. He wasn't used to Avon asking him what to do, and he wasn't used to taking charge, though he knew he could if he had to.

"We get him in here and try to break the conditioning," he suggested, "Or we get Orac to do it."

"Orac's on Gauda Prime," Tarrant reminded him. "Don't be stupid, Vila."

"We don't know that. They might have found it."

"You had better hope they haven't," Avon snapped. "Vila, did you see any guards when you were out there?"

"I didn't see anyone but Blake, and I heard a computer that sounded a lot like Zen. You don't suppose it could be Zen?"

"Use your head, Vila," Tarrant growled at him. "You were there when Zen was destroyed. There was no way it could have survived."

Vila shook his head. He wished he hadn't asked.

"Never mind that now," Avon told them. "The door is open. You've been waiting for your chance at a heroic rescue attempt, Tarrant. This could be it." That he didn't believe it was clearly obvious.

Vila shivered and approached him. "Avon, what about Blake?"

"What about him? He is dead."

"Either that or he's programmed," Vila reminded him. "Maybe that other one was a clone or somebody who'd had plastic surgery to bait a trap. Servalan is good at things like that."

"Why would she need two Blakes, Vila?"

"I don't know. I just don't think we should go off without finding out."

"You will return to your cell now."

All three of them turned to look at Blake as he stood in the doorway. "Blake," said Avon in a funny voice.

The mutoid turned to look at Avon and something human showed in his eyes. Tarrant went bounding over and dragged Blake into the cell. "You're no mutoid," he accused. "What are you?"

"I don't know," the mutoid said. "Suppose you tell me."

******

I stared at Blake. Maybe he was really Blake, and maybe he was Blake's clone, but he had discovered the truth about himself when Vila had, and it had freed him from the constraints that had bound him. Whoever he was, he knew that mutoids were bound to obey. Now he had discovered that he was not a mutoid, though he had been made to believe it. Truth and conditioning warred against each other and he didn't know how to react.

"What's your name?" I persisted, since Avon seemed to have lost his voice and Vila was hanging onto Avon's arm, probably for protection but maybe to keep Avon on his feet.

"You called me Blake. I must be Blake."

"Do you know who Blake is?"

"Yes. Roj Blake. Revolutionary. Vila implied that Blake was dead, that Avon had killed him." He glanced in Avon's direction, his eyes caught Avon and stopped there. "Vila accused me of upsetting Avon. I should think it would be the other way around. But there can't be two of me."

"Interestingly enough," Avon said in a voice that sounded like a blade slicing through silk, "there can. One of you is a clone. The other was real. Which are you, I wonder." He sounded almost mad again and for once I was glad Vila was there.

Blake noticed. He was picking up more from us than a mutoid should have been able to do. Did that mean the conditioning was eroding? I didn't know if it could so easily, but maybe seeing Avon and Vila together could do it.

"I think ..I think I am Roj Blake."

"Well now, how long have you know that?"

Confusion flickered across Blake's face and he took a hesitant step closer to Avon. Avon backed up. "Stand still," he hissed in much the same tones he'd used on Gauda Prime.

Vila darted forward and caught Blake's arm. "Wait a minute, Blake," he said. "If it wasn't you at Gauda Prime, it was someone who looked enough like you to fool us all. He made Avon shoot him. If I were you, I'd take this nice and slow."

"Sensible of you, Vila," was Blake's automatic rejoinder. The more he talked, the more normal he sounded.

"I don't see anybody else with sense in this room," Vila snapped, then he caught my eye and added, "Except Tarrant." Even knowing he did it to irritate Avon or provoke Blake, I couldn't help grinning.

Avon was irritated, but he didn't comment on it. He turned to Blake and took a cautious step toward him. "Blake?" he asked in a voice that held a combination of emotions that didn't go together at all; anger, suspicion, hope, betrayal, even joy. If this was Blake, that one word might get through to him. Maybe. When pigs could fly.

"Avon." Blake looked at him, shook himself free of Vila with no effort, and Vila let him. "I can't remember," Blake went on. "I can't remember how she caught me."

"Servalan?" Avon asked sharply.

"Sleer." He frowned. "No, Servalan. Both." His brow furrowed as if he had forgotten how to think and was trying to teach himself again. The conditioning was breaking fast. Maybe it was the sight of Avon after all. Maybe it was the information that Vila had thrown at him. Whatever it was, he looked shaken but aware, and there was life in his face. "I can't remember, Avon." His voice was little more than a whisper.

"Are you Blake?" Avon persisted. "Or are you Blake's clone?"

A pause. I found I was holding my breath, though Blake couldn't know for sure yet. But he surprised me. He stiffened his spine and said defiantly, "My name is Blake."

Something in his tone must have convinced Avon. His knees started to buckle and Vila and I jumped forward in tandem to catch him, but he straightened and pushed us away. Though there was still little color in his face and his eyes were achingly wary, he faced Blake and said, "And who am I then?"

"Avon." Blake's voice was rich with satisfaction. "You're Avon."

He had known that already but it hadn't meant anything. Now, to judge by the sound of him, it did.

This time it was Blake who started to sag, and it was Avon who caught him and deposited him on the bed. Avon had claimed to be seeking Blake to use him as a figurehead in an attempt to overthrow the Federation. He had shown no fondness for Blake when he had announced we were going to Gauda Prime. I thought Vila might have known better, but I wasn't sure Avon had, at least not until Blake--or a reasonable facsimile thereof--lay dead at his feet. Now he was certain of it.

Blake lifted his head, his eyes seeking Avon's automatically. "It's still vague," he complained. "I can't remember it all. But I remember Liberator, Avon. Cally and Jenna. Are they still with you?"

"The other Blake said Jenna was dead." Avon's voice was strangely gentle.

Blake winced. He closed his eyes a moment, then opened them again. "And Cally?"

Avon turned away, and Vila said in a small voice, "Cally's dead, too, Blake. I'm sorry."

"So am I." He stood up, a little shaky, and came up behind Avon, resting a hand on his shoulder. I half expected Avon to shrug it off, and though he tensed, he didn't move away. Instead he stood there for a long time, then he turned and looked Blake in the eye. "So now you are remembering, Blake. If I find out you knew who you were before..."

"You'll what? Shoot me as you did on Gauda Prime?"

"I should have thought that even you wouldn't have been such a fool as to have told me you set it all up, that you were waiting for me."

"Is that what I--he--said? No wonder. Did he look so very like me, Avon?"

"It had been two years, Blake. And he was scarred. Maybe it was an effort to distract us, to account for any subtle differences between you. Or else it was your clone. Maybe we will never know. I think it was a Federation trap."

"Not Servalan's," Blake replied. The more time that passed, the less he sounded like a mutoid. "I was Servalan's trap, but Tellas--"

"Tellas?" Avon was instantly wary.

"This is his ship," Blake explained. "He's got Orac, and a computer that almost sounds like Zen. He's doing all this for revenge."

"Revenge?" I echoed blankly. "Why? We never heard of him."

"Revenge against Servalan," Blake told us. "She caused him to contract a fatal disease. He's dying. I think he only has days left. He didn't tell me anything, but after he brought you on board, he talked to Orac, and before that he talked to the computer that sounds like Zen."

He looked confused again, and Vila gave him a helpful nudge towards the chair. He sat down gratefully.

Avon watched Blake warily as if he wasn't sure what to expect, as it he still didn't believe it. I wondered if Blake would improve as his memory returned.

"Zen was destroyed," Avon pointed out unhelpfully, his face closing away again. I wasn't surprised at that. I would have liked to have Zen back too, but that was impossible.

"I know that, Avon," Blake snapped. "What the hell did you do to my ship?"

Avon stiffened.

"We flew through a particle cloud that ate away at the ship," Vila explained.

"Looking for you, Blake," I added. "Someone was in too much of a hurry to find you to go the long way round."

Avon shot me a vitriolic glare, but at least that was in character.

Blake looked from me to Avon. "Looking for me?" he asked in surprise, almost vulnerable.

"It turned out to be another of Servalan's tricks," Vila put in hastily. "She had rigged an electronic image of you, Blake; must have been good, too. I didn't see it, but Avon believed it. Afterwards, she took Liberator and told us you were dead, Blake. Said you'd died on the planet Jevron."

"Jevron?" The name seemed to trigger more memories. "That's where she had me captured. But why tell you I was dead?"

"It was effective," Avon said.

Blake threw a very searching look at Avon. Though our logical computer expert kept his face under rigid control, Blake must have known him well enough to read his feelings because he said, "I'm sorry, Avon."

"So you were already a prisoner when we came to Terminal," Vila mused. "I wonder why she just didn't use you."

"Perhaps an electronic dream was easier to control," Avon speculated. "When did she make a 'mutoid' of you, Blake?"

"It must have been shortly after Liberator was destroyed," Blake said thoughtfully. "She was going by the name Sleer then. Do you know when she changed?"

"About that time," I told him. "She tried to take Liberator and when it blew up around her, she teleported off. It took her time to get back and by then, the Federation had changed hands. She had lost power. She became Sleer. I think she'd been planning for that eventuality for some time, in the event of a successful coup."

"Most likely," Blake replied. "It couldn't have been more than a few weeks before that when she finally caught me. I got careless." He was remembering fast now, the programming eroding away. "I'd heard a rumour, a number of them actually, that I was In places I'd never been, and I went to Jevron to find out why. Whoever it was had just been there--and Servalan was there. It almost seems that she had another false Blake, baiting a trap for me. Either that or I was following my own clone. But she was waiting for me--maybe she was following the same leads I had. I wonder if we will ever know."

"The man on Gauda Prime looked like you, Blake, and he had your voice," Vila said. "I think it could have been the clone. Someone who'd been altered to look like you wouldn't have sounded so much like you."

"A skilled actor might," Avon contradicted. "And the scar would throw us off still further. Perhaps we should look for your clone if it matters to anyone who it was that I--killed." He eyed Blake tentatively.

"I'm glad to see I still have a strong impact on you, Avon."

Vila sucked in his breath at that and I tensed. Blake might have known Avon once, but he wouldn't be quite ready for the changes that had taken place since Terminal--since Earth, really, when Avon had found Anna.

"I should have known it wasn't you down there," Avon replied with more spirit than I expected. "You were always more skilled at manipulation than that. 'I set all this up' would have been dead stupid, coming from you."

"At least give me more credit than that," Blake replied. Then he caught his head in his hands. "I'd forgotten how much it hurts," he muttered.

"What?" I asked.

"Breaking conditioning."

"You're right, it does," Vila replied promptly as if he knew all about it. Maybe he did. "Here, let me help, Blake." He stood behind him and began to massage his neck and shoulders. Remembering how good at it Vila was--one of his few uses--I wasn't surprised when Blake began to relax.

"Maybe he was conditioned, too," suggested Avon bitterly, "Programmed to say the wrong things, to sound like you but just enough off to make me react to him." He didn't look that happy about it, but he would resent being manipulated by Servalan a second time with a second image of Blake. "You say the man who owns this ship wants revenge on Servalan?"

"Yes. The more I think of it, the more I wonder if he didn't mean for me to see you and Vila to get through to me. Getting us working together might be the best revenge."

Avon looked like he found that a curiously attractive idea. I wondered if Blake wasn't a lot shrewder than he looked. It might be the only way to win Avon over again. After all he had been through with false Blakes, Avon would be reluctant to trust the real one. But vengeance against Servalan would appeal to him. While he might be reluctant to join forces with Blake because of sentiment and might go in the opposite direction though he didn't want to, simply to prove to himself that Blake didn't matter to him (even though he did,) he might let himself be drawn back to Blake to spite Servalan.

"Yes, it just might," he agreed smoothly. Vila glanced at me and flashed me a knowing look, winking. I grinned sourly. Even if it might be the best idea for all concerned, I wasn't sure if I liked the plan. Blake would take watching. We'd never know until it was too late whether there was more conditioning or not, a compulsion to kill Avon or to turn us allover to Servalan. I said as much.

Avon's eyes narrowed, and Blake frowned, trying to think. "I wouldn't be able to tell you if it were true, Tarrant," he said at last, while Avon watched him. "But I don't think so. Orac might be able to tell. I was never more than a contingency plan anyway. I think she always expected me to break out of the conditioning. I'd done it before, after all. It could have been simply for spite. Her failure to stop me always disturbed her. She must have enjoyed the idea of having me at her beck and call. She had finally won. Perhaps she kept me around so she could gloat." His voice grew more resentful as he spoke. I didn't know if I believed him or not. Servalan would have had more In her mind than that. But perhaps it had been a plan to confront Avon with Blake as a mutoid at the appropriate time and break him. Her plan had evidently been thwarted by Tellas, whoever he was.

"How did you escape her?" I asked.

"That was me," said an unfamiliar voice from the doorway. "I took Blake away from her. I always meant to break his conditioning, but I never could. It took you, Avon. I could never have done it without you."

******

Tellas walked into the room slowly, bent and weak, but the compulsion that had thwarted death kept him on his feet until he reached the room's one chair which Blake vacated for him. For a few moments, he struggled to catch his breath, then lifted his desiccated face and smiled. The result was like a death's head, and Vila shivered.

"She tried to kill me," he said. "She succeeded, too. I won't last much longer now. But I bested her. I won after all. Blake, you're free. You and Avon can take her. I don't think there's anyone else who can, but the two of you together are more than a match for her."

"You did all this for that?" Tarrant asked suspiciously. "Rescued us from Gauda Prime just to break Blake's conditioning?"

"To hurt her. I didn't know any other way. I'm just one man, now the others are dead."

"What others?" Vila asked just as Avon demanded, "How did you know about Gauda Prime?"

"That was hard," he said, choosing to answer Avon's question first. "My ship's computer is something like your Zen was. This ship Is a different class than the Liberator but it came from the same place. I found it drifting after that same space battle when you got Liberator. It had tried to run and got further away before the crew ejected. I'm a scientist. I specialize in examining new worlds to decide if they're fit for colonization, if they'd benefit the Federation. I took Starshadow and made it my own. There's a teleport, but I didn't use it much. Tan--my computer--can operate It for me, now the others are dead. I never told my crew we had a teleport; some of them might have guessed. But it was the teleport that got us into trouble. We'd been working on an undeveloped planet when Servalan was stranded there with a defective ship in the area where we'd been working, tracking forerunner ruins. She commandeered my ship, of course, and she recognized the teleport."

"I don't like the sound of that," Blake commented.

"Neither did I. I'd got fond of Starshadow and didn't intend to give it over to her, but she was very persuasive. Finally we met with a Federation vessel and she went on board but they got a tractor beam on us. She underestimated Starshadow's power and we broke free. There was a fight and we finally went down on Meless V. I don't know if you're familiar with that world or not? We weren't."

"It's a restricted planet," Avon volunteered. "The atmosphere is poisonous."

"Exactly. I couldn't understand why they didn't follow us down, especially when nothing happened to us. Tan had been drained by the battle and couldn't warn us, and we couldn't pick up anything on the instruments. We went out to make repairs. When we returned, Tan was back on line and he told us what had happened. All of us were contaminated. We had a year at most. The poison slowly drains the body of moisture and it can't be reversed. We've all died of long term dehydration. No amount of forced liquids can repair it. We put Tan on the problem of course, but he couldn't find a solution. The damage had been done.

"It was as I began to watch my crew dying around me that I vowed to avenge them," he continued relentlessly. "I wasn't sure how to do it, but I bided my time and used Tan's facilities to the limits. I managed to steal a pulse code transmitter and learned about Commissioner Sleer. I recognized her at once, of course, and I made a point of staying informed about her location, never letting her guess anyone was interested in her. She had a habit of killing people who knew her identity and I didn't want to die before I got my revenge. Mara and Seth were still alive when we learned she had Blake. We took him one night and got out before anyone realized he was gone. That was the first time Seth and Mara learned about the teleport--it made it easy to get him free. Imagine our shock when we learned we had rescued a mutoid."

"But he was not a mutoid," Avon pointed out.

"We soon discovered that. But he'd Been conditioned. Tan was able to recognize it as such. The only problem was that we couldn't break it. We were able to convince Blake that it was his duty to obey us, though."

Avon shot a sharp glance at Blake, who glared at Tellas. "I'm glad I could be so useful," he muttered sardonically.

"I had two dying friends and a ship too big for one man to run alone," Tellas justified himself. "What would you have had me do, Blake? You weren't a slave. You were crew."

"A subtle distinction that escapes me," Avon remarked.

"There was nothing else I could do, Blake," Tellas insisted.

"I remember," Blake admitted. "I haven't forgotten how it happened, but it's blurred. I'm sorry about Mara and Seth. I couldn't tell you then, but there were times when I was trying to remember who I was, even though I believed it didn't matter, when I wished I could have done more." He threw a warning look at Avon. "He had no choice once I came on board, Avon."

"If you say so." Avon didn't sound particularly conciliatory.

"So when did you decide to find us?" asked Tarrant.

"You were unessential, Tarrant," Tellas replied, to Vila's barely concealed glee. "It was Avon I wanted, and maybe Vila."

"Maybe?" Tarrant echoed, catching Vila's eye.

"It's better than being unessential," Vila shot back.

Tellas shifted in his chair. He looked like he could die at any minute, and vila began to worry that he would die before he could complete his story. "It was only recently that Tan picked up the word that Blake was on Gauda Prime. I'd been aware of the reports of a second Blake and had run tests to discover if I had the genuine article." He looked at Avon, who was watching him intently. "Yes, Avon, this is really Blake."

"We had already reached that conclusion," Avon snapped.

"Tan speculated that the Blake on GP was either a copy or a clone, it didn't matter which. But you believed it and went there. So did we. I made contact with the rebels--some of Blake's people there really were rebels. Deva was. The Blake copy himself may well have been, I don't know. Anyway, we went down. We had a stroke of luck at first. We stumbled onto Orac--trying to get into the base by a roundabout way, we found a concealed passage and there was Orac. I didn't know what it was and there was no key so I couldn't activate it, but I had Blake bring it along. He seemed comfortable with it --that was one of the ways I could tell things about him, his unconscious reactions. He looked for the key without needing instructions--a real mutoid wouldn't have done that. I think that's when the programming first began to break down. We then went looking for you. We followed the sound of shots. When we first came in, I thought we were too late. Avon was standing over the other Blake's body, gun raised, surrounded by troopers, and the rest of you were apparently dead."

Blake looked at Avon with great interest. Avon met his eyes for a moment before he looked away. "Go on," he said.

"When you started firing, so did Blake and I," Tellas continued. "You were stunned but you were alive. We got bracelets on you before reinforcement could arrive and teleported back to the Starshadow with Orac. I found Orac's key in your pocket, Avon. Not a very good hiding place."

"It would have been useless without Orac," Avon replied sarcastically.

"So it would, Avon." He shifted position and tried to steady his breathing. "Blake reacted to the sight of you, Avon, and that made me hope I was right after all that I could break the conditioning with you. And if I did, I would have won, even if I couldn't tell Sleer personally that I had beaten her. I only hope that when you and Blake confront her again one day, you will tell her how it happened that you are alive and united against her." He looked at Avon hopefully. "You will tell her, won't you, Avon?" He stretched out a clawlike hand and clasped Avon by the wrist. "I don't like to beg, but I will. I have to know."

"Oh yes," put in Blake quickly, "We'll tell her. I give you my word."

"And that makes all the difference," Avon muttered. He freed his arm without difficulty. "Yes," he agreed. "I will tell her. Anything that will disconcert Servalan... I think I will enjoy her reaction."

Blake gave Avon a look that Vila could only describe as hopeful. Tellas had inadvertently given Avon a motive for joining forces with Blake he could live with, though all of them could see past it, even Tarrant, who had braced his shoulders against the doorframe, grinning.

Tellas smiled. The effect was horrible, distorting his sunken cheeks and pulling the parchment skin tight across his nose as if it would split at any moment. "Wonderful," he said with weary elation. "There is one more thing to do before I die."

"And that is?" Blake asked.

"You must accompany me to the flight deck."

"What about Soolin and Dayna?" asked Vila. "My time is short. Free them later." He tried to rise and fell back. "Please. It is urgent. Blake, you will assist-- " He broke off and laughed, the sound rasping and dry. "I'm sorry," he murmured. "I had become accustomed to commands. I ask you, Blake, to help me--please."

Blake nodded, gesturing for Tarrant to assist him, and between the two of them, they eased the dying man to his feet and helped him up the steps out of the cell.

Starshadow was smaller than Liberator and it didn't take long to reach the flight deck. Orac sat on a stand there in front of the consoles, which were laid out similar to Liberator's and, though the visual display was smaller than Zen's, it was much the same shape. It was like a dream where everything was familiar enough to make a person uncomfortable because of the distortion of accepted reality, yet there was something of home in it, too.

Blake and Tarrant helped Tellas onto the couch and the scientist leaned forward. "Tan. Prepare to receive commands."

+Confirmed.+

"Introduce yourselves to Tan," Tellas instructed them.

Vila sucked in his breath as he realized what Tellas meant to do.

Blake did, too, and he stepped forward to face the computer. "I am Roj Blake," he announced.

The others followed suit and when they had done, Tellas lifted his head wearily. "Tan, you will obey their commands as you have obeyed mine."

+Confirmed.+

"When I die," Tellas told Blake, "This will be your ship. Of anyone, you will know how best to use it. You are familiar with the teleport and the various controls. I had to learn by trial and error. Use it against the Federation."

"I will," Blake agreed. "It's been too long since I did anything of value."

"And now, of course, with a pocket Liberator, you will change the destiny of the galaxy," Avon remarked scornfully. "We have had enough of your fanaticism, Blake."

"Don't judge me too quickly, Avon," Blake snapped back. "It's been two years. Just as you have changed, so have I. Someday, don't forget, this could all be yours."

"It will be." Avon looked around possessively. Tarrant shook his head. He leaned over and muttered to Vila, "Doesn't he ever learn?"

"I don't think so," Vila replied, "But it will work, Tarrant, at least as well as it always has."

"Somehow," Tarrant replied, "That doesn't reassure me.

"If you want reassurance," Vila replied, "You're on the wrong ship." He headed for the doorway.

"And where do you think you're going?" Avon demanded. "Looking for adrenalin and soma already?"

"No," said Vila haughtily but with a grin behind his eyes. "I'm going to fetch Dayna and Soolin. They'll be furious at having missed everything."

"There hasn't been that much to miss," Tarrant objected, but he grinned and followed Vila from the flight deck.

*****

Is perfect sense in present time.

Tellas was dead. He had lived another day after giving Starshadow to Blake and he had died at peace with himself and with them. Blake had been with him at the end; he had felt it was his place. Not only had Tellas rescued him from Servalan, he had freed him from the state of virtual nonexistence that Blake had been trapped in, and he had saved Avon and the others from imprisonment if not from death. Blake felt he owed it to Tellas to make his end as easy as possible.

When it was over, he had arranged a small funeral ceremony which Avon chose not to attend. Tarrant helped him--Blake found Tarrant an intriguing potential ally and wondered about him as Tarrant recalled the words from the official Federation space burial service and pulled the lever to eject Tellas' wrapped body into space. Vila and the two women hovered in the background and said very littIe.

He should have known Avon would not come. It had been too recently that Avon has seen another death, one that had affected him more strongly than Blake would have imagined possible. Tarrant and Vila had described the events on Gauda Prime to Blake and though there was a part of Blake that couldn't help feeling some resentment toward Avon for "killing" him, another part of him was surprised and gratified to know that Avon had sought him out not once but several times since he had left the Liberator.

As for the man who had died, Blake hoped that, in the same situation, he could have defused the crisis and talked Avon out of shooting him. He would have known better how to react to Avon, though both of them had changed since their Liberator days. Blake wouldn't have backed Avon into a corner from which the only escape was to pull the trigger. He would have realized Avon was at the end of his rope, would have managed to reassure him without being blatant about it. Blake would have prevented it.

If he hadn't been so careless as to get caught, he might finally have got a message to Avon. At first, he had stayed away deliberately, realizing he had promised Avon Liberator, realizing how driven he had become and needing time to come to terms with that. Once Gan had died, he had started down a path with no way to turn aside. He could stand back from himself and see that he was being pulled towards destruction, but he couldn't change his course, not until it was too late. It wasn't until long after Star One that he had begun to find a new way. He didn't want to give up his fight, but he couldn't let obsession make him as driven as Travis. There were other ways, better ways. He wasn't sure of them yet, but the others would have some ideas. Tarrant was a likely lad who would have clear opinions, not necessarily sensible ones. Vila was much the same, though Blake was sure if he looked more closely, he would find new depths there because Vila had lived through the same things that had shadowed Avon's eyes and driven him to the brink of madness. They had lost Cally and that had affected all of them. It wouldn't be the way it was on Liberator, but it needn't be impossible.

Tarrant had talked to him a little after the funeral, explaining a few things. "Don't get me wrong, Blake. I don't think I like him very much, but he and I have been through a lot together."

"It makes a bond," Blake agreed. "I know. He might say the same of you. I let him down, you know. I didn't come back, and then I made him kill me."

"That wasn't you," Tarrant objected unnecessarily, but not without understanding.

"Avon thought it was. I was always drawn to Avon, Tarrant, and I'd like to think the reverse was true, even if he wouldn't acknowledge it. I tried to deal with that, and I gave him trust when it was probably a foolish risk to take, but I thought it was worth it. I still think so. Because he's forgotten how to trust me in return doesn't mean I'm going to give up on him. This ship isn't Liberator but it's just as fast and it's got teleport. I won't rush us into battle, but I'm not going to sit back and hide either-the Federation and Servalan owe me. I'll give Avon time to come to terms with that. I think he'll stay. I hope so. Vila's already said he'd stick with me."

"If Avon does," Tarrant mentioned.

"Yes, if Avon does. Even after what they've been through, Vila's more loyal than he'd ever admit."

"Maybe we all are. I don't like Avon and I don't like the way things have gone for us this past year. But we've had each other, as unpleasant as that sounds. I think we'll stick together. I believe Avon will stay with you. I won't say I won't push for control of this ship, even though you've got right of possession. I don't sit back and let other people order me about, Blake."

"In other words, if I take Avon on, I take the rest of you, and none of you will give me a moment's peace." Blake smiled.

"Exactly. We're not an easy lot to handle. We squabble all the time, and if we support each other in a fight, it's the only time we do."

"So I see." Blake shook his head. "It's time to change that. I've had enough of isolation, Tarrant. After what I've been through, I need people. I need Avon. I'll fight for him if I must, but I'll try not to come between him and the rest of you. He might even need you, though he'd never admit it. But I'll take him on. What do you think? Have I a chance?"

"Yes, if you're smart enough, or devious enough. When I told him that you--the other Blake--had sold him, he said, 'have you betrayed me?' I think if you'd heard his voice then, you'd be more secure. But that makes it worse because, in effect, you did betray him, then when it was too late and you--he--was dead at Avon's hand, Avon discovered he'd been wrong. He betrayed you. Oh, not without cause. But it might be harder for him to forgive himself than it would have been to forgive you. And he hates the fact that it happened because in spite of everything, he still cared what happened to you. Don't go sentimental on him, Blake, because he won't tolerate it. But go a little easy on him. And don't tell him I said so."

Blake looked at Tarrant consideringly, then he shook his head and went off after Avon.

The computer expert was on the flight deck when Blake arrived, working on something. When he heard Blake approaching, he looked up and said, "I have been upgrading the detector shielding, Blake. This ship is not Liberator and it needs a great deal of work, but with some effort on my part, it will suit our needs."

In his surprise, Blake almost said, "Our needs, Avon?" but at the last moment he held back and said instead, "I know. I've been over it. I'm looking forward to trying its paces."

"Tarrant will have his own ideas about that," Avon remarked with relish. "He fondly imagines he is necessary to this ship. I think we should frequently remind him that Tellas said he was unessential."

Blake was astonished to realize that Avon didn't mean it any more than he meant it when he loudly proclaimed Vila was a fool. He wondered what kind of relationship Avon and Tarrant had. From Vila he had got the impression that the two of them barely tolerated each other, but he could remember their interaction in the cell before he'd broken free of this programming, and Tarrant had been surprisingly supportive. Maybe it was everything they'd been through together. "We need a pilot," Blake reminded him. "And Tarrant can fly this ship. I think he has potential."

"Oh yes. Assuming he lives long enough to attain it. What new dangers do you plan to lead us into this time, Blake?"

"I want to find Servalan."

"Well, now, perhaps I can agree with that."

"I thought you might." Blake came and looked over Avon's shoulder. "How long will it take you to finish that?"

"Nowhere in the next five minutes." Avon frowned. "Are you so anxious to return to the old days, Blake?"

"Maybe I am," Blake confessed. "I missed them, Avon. And you."

"So I could tell from your determined search for us after Star One."

"What do you want me to say, Avon? I thought it might be best for me to stay away. You were right to want rid of me. It took time for me to come to terms with that. You wanted it finished, and it was finished. I was surprised how long it took the corpse to die."

"And now you've resurrected it?" Avon looked very carefully at the tool in his hand, avoiding Blake's eyes.

"Avon, it wasn't me you killed. It was someone who tried to convince you, and who didn't quite succeed."

"Are you very sure of that?" asked Avon. "I thought he was you--and he's dead. You're a fool to try to come back, Blake. What makes you so certain I won't do it again, this time with the proper target?"

"If I do anything that foolish, I'll deserve it," Blake told him. "It will keep me on my toes."

"Optimistic as usual. Hasn't your experience taught you prudence?"

"If you think I like what happened to me, then you're as much a fool as you claim Vila is, Avon. I just don't mean to give up. The Federation is still my enemy. Maybe I've learned that I can't change things single-handed, but I've also learned that I can't change anything if I don't try. In the past, I've counted on you to talk sense to me, to point out when you thought my plans would fail."

"And you rarely listened to me, Blake."

"This time you must argue louder."

"And you will listen?" Avon raised a skeptical brow.

"I can't guarantee that. Or rather, I can't always guarantee to agree with you."

"I should have thought, Blake, that recent events should have warned you that foolish optimism is not your best course."

"Was he a foolish optimist, Avon?"

"Your clone?" Avon lifted bitter eyes and then looked away again. "I would prefer not to repeat that experience, Blake. He was...very like you. He had even less sense than you do."

"I'm sorry. I wouldn't have had that happen. If he was the clone the Federation made of me, he didn't have my memories of you to go on. But he must have believed he was really Roj Blake."

"So did I." Avon's voice was low.

Tarrant had warned against sentiment, but Blake would have been careful to avoid it anyway. Whatever his imitator had done had traumatized Avon, and Blake would need to be careful here. Just the presence of a live Blake, the real Blake, couldn't take away Avon's memories or the pain he'd experienced. It was conceivable that he might choose to avoid Blake from now on in order to prevent a repeat of that occurrence. That he had made no noises about leaving indicated that Blake might have misjudged his strength. Or, thought Blake wistfully, Avon might choose not to leave simply because he was here. That was probably too much to expect, and Blake knew he really didn't want Avon to change enough to become dependent on him.

"It would have been almost impossible not to believe It," Blake replied. "I hope you won't make the same mistakes with me, or I with you."

Avon looked affronted but he went on "I'm not certain I can avoid them. Have you really thought, Blake? Perhaps I am mad. Perhaps none of you are safe with me."

"Do you believe you are mad?" Blake asked quietly.

"Perhaps, somewhat." Avon heaved a vast sigh. "Had you asked me yesterday, I would have been certain of it."

"Because you killed me?"

"Don't take more than your share of credit," Avon snapped. "There were...other factors as well."

"I hope that, someday you will tell me about them."

Avon paused, shaking his head. "Not yet, Blake," he replied, picking up his tools again. "Perhaps never. Could you stand that?"

"Not easily," Blake admitted with a faint grin.

That won a smile from Avon. "I thought not. Will you never learn that you cannot take on the problems of everyone around you?"

"Shall we say it's a flaw in my character?"

"Yes, let's. Blake, I think you are a fool. I tried to kill you once. I succeeded. Simply because I had the wrong target does not make you safe from me. I killed that man with the belief that he was you. I do not understand how you can live with that--or me."

"It makes me uncomfortable, Avon. I'd be lying to you if I didn't say so. But Vila and Tarrant have described those events to me. There were mitigating factors."

"That does not change the fact that, believing it was you, I shot him down in cold blood."

"Yes it does, Avon. He was not me. He reacted differently. He didn't really know you. Do you really think I would have walked into that room and told you I set it up and was waiting for you?"

Avon's face relaxed fractionally. "Knowing you, Blake, you would have said something equally stupid."

"I think I might have said that I was glad to see you," Blake suggested. "I think I might have said you'd taken your time finding me, and complained because you'd let my ship be destroyed. I don't think I would have played games with Tarrant and made him believe I was waiting to take you in. Had I found Tarrant, I think I might have come looking for you first--at least had I known he was one of your crew. I wouldn't have played those games with you, Avon. I'd had some reports on you. I knew you were still--occasionally--fighting the Federation. You weren't doing much of it, and I tended to resent that. But I don't think I'd have made the same mistakes he did. I'll try not to make any like that in future. In spite of all that, I still trust you, Avon."

"I think you just made your first mistake" Avon said. But he had untensed. In a way, Blake's presence could only be a relief to him. Later, when Avon had time to insulate himself from the pain of Gauda Prime and of discovering Blake in the guise of a mutoid, he might revert to type and Blake wouldn't really mind. He needed Avon's cool and arrogant logic; he had missed it. Avon had irritated him, but for all that, he had never quite wanted to be rid of him. Now he was beginning to realize that in spite of Avon's claims to want to be free of him, he hadn't meant it either, even if he had believed that he had. Blake had known better even before he had left the Liberator for the last time.

"I'll risk it," he replied to Avon's comment. "And don't tell me it's my second mistake, Avon."

"Because you can't face the truth?"

"Because I don't feel like arguing with you now. Let me just enjoy having you back."

Avon looked mildly disconcerted, but he finally smiled a little. "I think you've said everything you came here to say, Blake. Any more and you'll be wallowing in sentiment. Why not make yourself useful and help me with this." He offered Blake a tool. "Knowing you, I'll have to talk you through every step of the way."

"I'm not totally ignorant," Blake responded tartly, plucking the tool from Avon's hand and applying himself to the task. "I seem to remember that I held my own on Liberator."

"Perhaps being conditioned interfered with your memory of events, Blake."

Blake looked up sharply. Avon knew that had happened before, and it was like him to point it out this time around. Perhaps he feared that he did not say something less than kind, Blake would believe he was happy to see him again and he was drawing up battle lines for his own protection. Blake thought that was likely, and Avon was probably right. He'd made too much progress to backslide now. "Oddly, I can remember more than you'd expect," he returned. "Shall we compare notes?"

"I think, rather, we will continue to work on the detector shielding, Blake. My patience was never legendary and since you last knew me, it has become shorter than ever. I do not suffer fools gladly."

"Not even Vila?"

Avon glared at him and went back to work without speaking.

******

The fame of athletes, such happy heroes at a game.

I gave them an hour. Any longer and they might have wound up killing each other or given up entirely. I wasn't sure which I wanted. Avon might choose to follow Blake again, and if he did, where did that leave me? Avon had considered himself in charge before, though I hadn't always agreed with him. Now, if Blake was to be in charge--and Tellas had meant this to be his ship--I wasn't sure where my place would be. Pilot, yes, but what else?

But the funny thing was, I didn't want to leave either. If Avon and the others stayed, I would, too. Sometimes, I'd cursed Dorian, but he had been right about the rest of us being bound together. The ties were tighter now, after Gauda Prime, though I still didn't want to admit any feelings for Avon. Dayna maybe, possibly Soolin, but not Avon. Vila? I grinned as I approached the flight deck. We were all of us fools, and if Blake took us on, he was the biggest fool of all.

I came to a halt in the doorway, silently taking bearings before I announced my presence. One of the consoles was open and Blake held a tool in his hand, working quietly. Avon was stretched out on the couch sleeping. He must have gradually slid over until his head came to rest on the arm of the couch. For once he looked peaceful and, though I knew he would take up where he left off, snarling at us, as soon as he woke up, I stood there a moment, smiling. Maybe he wouldn't be quite so hard on us now he had his Blake again. Blake could assume the role of primary target. I'd gladly give it up.

Blake glanced up and saw me, and he made a gesture for silence. Setting aside the tools, he came over to join me. "Let him sleep, Tarrant. I can't believe he's done much of it lately."

"Very little I should think. What did you do to him, Blake? Stun him?"

Blake grinned. "I argued with him a little. And, oh, yes, I told him what I would have done and said on Gauda Prime. I thought he should know. I'm going to stay here while he sleeps." He eyed me challengingly as if he expected me to make a derogatory comment.

I didn't bother. "It could be a long time, Blake. I don't think he's been able to sleep well since Cally died."

Blake winced. "I'll ask you to tell me about that one day, Tarrant. For now, I think we'll just go with the flow and cope with problems as they arise."

"They will arise, Blake," I pointed out.

I'm sure of that." He stretched comfortably. "Where are the others?"

"Vila's asleep, and Dayna and Soolin are taking a look at the ship."

"After everybody's had a chance to catch up on their rest, we'll all get together and decide what to do next."

"A vote for each of us?" I asked skeptically. "Avon always said you liked to think that everyone had a say but that it usually went the way you chose."

"Between you and Avon, you can do something about that, Tarrant."

"Don't think I won't try."

"I think you're more likely to rush boldly into danger without a thought for the consequences, counting on your skill to get yourself out of trouble."

I gave him a deprecating smile. "It's worked till now, Blake."

"There's an old saying, Tarrant. There are old pilots and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots."

"Well, damn it, Blake," I replied, grinning, "I'll just have to start a new trend then, won't I?"

The End

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