B7 fic Repost: Predestination
This is an old 'un of mine, and highly relevant to the current b7rewatch discussion. (AKA, you know, the Mission to Destiny fix-it fic that DOESN'T have Lord Peter Wimsey in it.) WARNING, only for the spoiler thread--contains spoilers for all four seasons, which admittedly is an accomplishment for a S1 fix-it.
Lead us not into temptation:
We can find it all by ourselves
1.
Blake moved cautiously through the silent, apparently dead ship, pausing only to check to see that Avon was following and to get Vila to stop sitting on whatever he was sitting on and hurry along. Blake would have preferred to bring Cally on this mission, but it was that time of the month when she was at highest risk for possession, and you really never knew what was going to happen.
Last month, Gan in particular took it in bad part when Cally slithered around on her belly, or what would have been her belly given greater convexity, hissing "Your mother sucks cock in Hell!" (This is a phrase which contains two "s"s and thus even the most captious will admit it can be hissed.) But under Liberator etiquette, the crew no more mentioned what had been done during a bout of possession than one Japanese salaryman would tell another that he looked bloody stupid dancing on the table with a lampshade on his head.
Soon they found the first of the limp bodies, fallen as if there had been a spindle-prick sixteen years earlier. The romantic perfection of the scene--Avon started looking around for someone he fancied kissing--was marred only by the occasional snore or patch of drool.
Levett opened her eyes, saw six strangers (or, as she realized when she blinked, three strangers in double-exposure), and drew her weapon and snapped off three shots. Fortunately, she was still feeling muzzy, and there was no result other than a shower of gravel from an abandoned fishtank on the mantelpiece.
2.
Dr. Kendall explained that this particular McGuffin, like the fabled Maltese Falcon, bore with it the curse of fabled wealth that could burn through duty, loyalty, and honor. Then he solemnly entrusted it to Blake, the first total stranger who had happened to turn up while Dr. Kendall was out like a light.
{{So light, to hold so many people's fate}} Blake thought, as he took the Neutrotope case. {{In fact, if I'd bought a gateau that weighed this little, I'd go to another bakery the next time.}}
Dr. Kendall thought that Blake looked properly serious, but in fact he was wracked with guilt, or rather the anticipation of guilt--he hadn't done anything wrong yet.
3.
"Pity someone's gone and given that wotzis to Blake," Vila said, slapping the requested spanner into Avon's palm. "And we're stuck here, fixing up their rotten ship. It's their ship, I dunno why they can't do it. I could have got the safe open, easy as winking, and then I'd be the one who got rich."
"Oh, Blake isn't going to sell it," Avon said. "The more fool he. That wouldn't be noble enough...you and I would know what to do, right enough." He tightened a fitting in the control panel, then darted forward and kissed Vila full on the mouth. Avon returned to looking imperturbable while ratcheting away at the gadgets before Vila could decide whether to make something of that. "You're a genius, Vila."
"Told you."
"I mean, whoever would have the face to demand a warranty card for stolen merchandise?"
"Kind of folk we know, they're more likely to kill you than go to Small Claims Court."
"But only if one stands around long enough for writs to be served, whereas we have a spaceship capable of Standard by Twelve."
4.
{{Yes, that is how I reasoned it would look}}, Avon thought, as he logged off the Blue Peter Website and destroyed all traces of accessing the "Build Your Own Neutrotope!" episode. Once he had seen the drawing, he was sure it would be easy enough to knock something together using a tungsten lamp, and bed it down in a fishing tackle box.
He took a torch from the Ortega's control room and headed for the supply room. He flicked the torch around the dark room, mildly spooked by the elongated shadows and their contrast with the warm beam of light, until he found the light switch.
Avon helped himself to a few useful components, then tried to shut the supply cabinet door. He couldn't do it, because a hand and arm dangled from the top. Avon craned his neck to see. His first thought was that perhaps your Ortega crewman likes kipping on the supply cabinet--lovely bit of plumage, that!--but this vague hypothesis was falsified when the body, in the shape of a large c-clamp, crashed down to the floor. Evidently, then, rigor mortis had not passed off.
5.
Blake sat on Liberator's Flight Deck alone, his hand resting lightly on the Neutrotope's carton. {{It is a far, far better thing}} he thought, {{No it isn't, in fact I'm being a right bastard, but what can I do? One planet full of decent, honest people who trust me and who I am abominably betraying, set against a Universe of people who are freed at one bold stroke. The ones who would have died in a prolonged war will never know how their lives were spared. And the starving people of Destiny probably won't know my name to curse it, for sacrificing them. At least they won't know who killed them. But they won't die in vain, because the defeat of the Federation is within my grasp at last. And that's worth anything and everything that it might cost.}}
6.
"This may interest you, Cally," Avon said over the ship-to-ship communication system. "Evidently the first victim--Rafford--wrote something down before he died. The numbers 54124. Does that have any associations for you? Coordinates, perhaps? Or a book title? It can't be an opus number, even Mozart didn't write that many..."
"Can you copy it exactly and send the copy over?" Cally asked.
The image was much easier to read than Avon's normal awful handwriting, and for a moment Cally basked in that. Then she rotated the image on the Main Screen a few times. "Can you send me over a copy of the crew manifest?" she asked. "And what do you mean, the first victim?"
"Someone else turned up dead," Avon told her. "I was in the storeroom looking for...for a repair component."
"What did you do?"
"Oh, nothing. I was going to lug the guts into the neighbor room, but after all, if they don't find him in a fortnight, they'll nose him out when they cross the lobby."
Avon disconnected the line to the Liberator and sent messages to a few old friends who might know someone with a large bank balance and a desire to put a rare, mint condition Neutrotope on the mantelpiece (or, more likely, in the gloat-vault along with the stolen daVincis and suchlike).
It didn't take long for an auction to develop. That had the pleasant effect of forcing the winning bid up to three and a half million credits. Avon pushed his sleeve back far enough to expose the white cuff and wrote down (with a felt-tip pen, not blood) the relevant information. "Yes, that's close enough...I can get there by shuttle...Sarran Hilton...Very good...Room 2943...Agent Bartholomew, yes. Twenty-one hundred hours."
7.
Cally strode to the teleport bay, her jaw set determinedly, one of the orange car fridges in her hand.
"Ready for teleport now," she told Jenna.
After Cally got vanished, Jenna put her feet up and poured a little more tonic into her drink. "And then there was one..."
{{I'd best get over to the Flight Deck, in case anything turns up.}} She sipped at her drink, temporary monarch of all she surveyed. {{It's as much my ship as anyone else's...more so than Cally's or Gan's, or God knows Vila's.}}
She poured a little more vodka into her drink. {{For all the appreciation I ever get, they must think I'm some sort of glorified air hostess, not so glorified come to think of it. I really should just naff off and leave them to it.}}
+Information...one pursuit ship approaching, current distance 2500 spatials+
"Thank you, Zen. Is the deflector shield up?"
+Deflector shield operational.+
Jenna looked down, discovered that her pacing had brought her to Vila's combat position, and pressed the button.
On main screen, the pursuit ship dissolved. "Auto Paint, add another stripe on the fuselage," Jenna ordered. {{Oh bugger...v&t all over the console...}} She went to the cabinet beneath the fascia and mixed another drink. {{Avon's gadget worked...well, he must be good for something. Anyway, I don't think I'd care to cross him. You'd go along placidly for ten years or so, and he'd track you down, and then one day you'd come home to find that he's seduced your husband, charged three million credits to your gold card, and hooked up the lawn sprinkler to the septic tank.}}
"Zen, status report on snack availability in Flight Deck cabinet."
+Cheese toasties, three; mirin and kombu crisps, five packets; Maltesers, two+
{{Christ, Vila must have finished off the pretzels again, I'll flatten him when I see him.}} Jenna opened the cabinet, took out some crisps, and wondered whether Avon could fix up a little delivery robot to bring the snacks and drinks. {{If Vila weren't around, there'd be enough pretzels for...I don't know, maybe a thousand years.}}
8.
Cally's eidetic memory had absorbed the crew manifest at a glance, so she knew which cabin to approach by stealth, in the depths of the midnight shift.
She unstuck the long strand of blonde hair from the doorlock, reminding herself to put it back afterwards if the cabin was empty. Cally slid the tumblers open by mind-force (as a loyal Rebel's Union member, she hated to do bargaining unit work while Vila was around), and avoided the bucket of water poised over the lintel.
"Wha...wha....?" said the slight figure huddled beneath the blankets.
Cally unsheathed the blaster from her belt. "Sara," she said, "You got some 'splainin' to do."
9.
The light was behind Bartholomew, haloing his...no, her...hair and dazzling Avon's eyes so it took a moment for mutual recognition to occur. Instantly wrapped in one another's arms, each thought, "My darling! You're alive, you're alive!" but only one of them was willing to be corny enough to actually say it out loud.
It was a wonderful moment of dazzling happiness for Avon. The burden of guilt fell off his back like the bundle of sins in Pilgrim's Progress. If Anna was still alive, then obviously it couldn't be his fault for getting her killed, so there. However, it did occur to him for a moment that in that case she'd just sheered off and left him carrying the can.
He had missed her so much, and just as soon as he verified that the transfer to his bank account had gone through, he luxuriated in the well-remembered treasures of her body. He needed to make up for the long absence, and he needed to tire her out enough so that she wouldn't look inside the box until the next morning. By then, he'd be long gone, and good luck her trying to reverse the funds transfer--as soon as the money landed, it was immediately fissioned out to dozens of other bank accounts.
10.
"All arranged," Jeremy the Salvage Consultant told Blake. "The shuttle trip to his planet won't take above two hours from here. Must warn you, though, this is the bloke who puts the "tacky" in "tachyon funnel".
"This is business," Blake said. "I'm not here to make new friends."
"Oh, aren't you? Pout pout. I thought that now I was going to get my commission."
"You've counted it all, three times over," Blake said, nudging the black-handled magnesium briefcase with his foot.
"I meant my personal compensation," Jeremy said. "You look like you could offer a seven....or even eight...percent commission."
"Oh!" Blake said. "Well, I suppose if you keep negotiating I could make it rather larger. But they do say I drive a hard bargain."
"Rrrrrrr!" said Jeremy.
11.
Avon spent the shuttle trip back to the Ortega in contemplation. The significance of Anna--of Bartholomew--contacting him on a Federation frequency was hardly lost on him. It was clear enough what the Federation wanted with a Neutrotope: they'd use it as a weapon to subjugate Destiny. Well, he'd just have to be more careful next time, he decided, mellowed by various sorts of satisfaction.
And if Blake ever found out (Avon certainly wasn't going to volunteer the information, and Vila would probably emulate the great pharaoh Fattrapshut) the whole thing could be passed off as a coup against the Federation.
Avon had a lot to look forward to, now that he had given himself executive clemency from his self-imposed sentence of unremitting guilt. The downside was that he now felt there was less urgency in keeping himself alive now that it wasn't necessary to extend his life to make sure the full measure of penance was exacted. Well, he'd REALLY have to be more careful in the future.
12.
"Oh, I wish you could see my house," Jeremy said subsequently. "Twelve bedrooms, eight reception, three armaments, booze under lock and key, rumpus room down in the finished basement...Wonderful little place. The pity of it is, I'm so busy that I hardly ever get there, but each time I do, it restores me. It cleanses me! All my appetites...all my sins..."
Blake sighed to himself. That was the trouble with one-night stands. They always wanted to show you over their houses. He had spent a pleasant enough evening decorating Dorian's interior, but that was as far as his interest went. Why must it be assumed cocksucking and window treatments were a package deal?
Once they reached their destination, Blake was happy to let Dorian do the talking and hand over the gleaming, silvery-handled case. The transaction was quickly arranged, and Blake found it pleasant to relax on the veranda, sipping a Singapore Sling, as the packing and shipping went on in the background.
"Stay the night," the other party to the exchange suggested to his three guests.
"Sorry, must run," Dorian said. "Call me when you get that....well, you-know-what," he told his vendor, and "Call me," he told his new friend Roj, who checked his trouser pocket to make sure he had discarded the cocktail napkin with the number.
"How about the grand tour?"
"No, thanks," Blake said.
"I'll take you up on that," Gan said cheerfully. He'd seen the hunger in the older man's glance, and he was just as glad that Blake wouldn't come along to play gooseberry.
13.
"Old General Starkiller, eh?" Gan said, looking at the pin-up tacked to the office bulletin board and noting the resemblance. "Is he a relative of yours?"
"Oh, no," Egrorian simpered. "But I think he's awfully handsome!"
"De gustibus non disputandum est," Gan said.
"I just love you Arts types, we didn't stretch to the dead languages back at Bellhangria.... My word, you're a big boy, aren't you? Is everything else...in proportion?"
"Outsize," Gan said mendaciously. "It's caused problems. You can imagine."
14.
Egrorian's face darkened with fury. How dare they give him nothing but an attache case filled with cut-up newspapers, in exchange for the perfectly good third-hand video edit deck he had sold them as a Tachyon Funnel? Egrorian sighed with relief. If they hadn't tried to cheat him, then right about now he'd be feeling almost guilty about murdering them.
As the rebels prepared to launch their shuttle, Gan nearly stumbled over a small object on the floor. He hefted it, and discovered how heavy it was. {{That neutron-star material is jolly expensive}} Gan thought. {{Must be some sort of mistake. Best give it back to dear old Sammy.}} In the last moment before the airlock closed, he bowled the chunk of neutron star into the tunnel connecting the shuttle to the docking station.
Once they were well underway, Gan sipped at his Ovaltine, smiling reminiscently. Too bad he hadn't been able to predicted what would happen and bring a little gift. If they weren't running short, a teleport bracelet might have made a nice keepsake. An attentive visitor might keep Vila from taking him for granted. On the Liberator, Gan was compelled to suppress his inclination toward homagesexuality.
15.
Vila was waiting in the Ortega's docking bay when Avon debarked from the shuttle and offered a brief, ahistorical description of his side trip.
"Took her money and fucked her too!" Vila said admiringly.
"A small price to pay," Avon replied. "Blake hasn't asked for us back yet, has he?"
"Nope."
"Then he'll never know we were gone, if we're sensible about it."
"I don't feel very sensible," Vila said.
"Hundred thousand finders' fee, plus what you got from Dr. Kendall for the Brooklyn Bridge," Avon said. "Not a bad day's work."
"Oh, all right."
16.
Blake sighed. He didn't think he'd be able to stretch the "went the long way around the meteorite field" excuse any further.
"Jenna, set up a course for Destiny, Standard by Four."
"No faster?"
"No, ummm, better safe than sorry, eh?"
Jenna was going to tell him that Cally wasn't back yet from wherever she'd gone, but had called in regularly to report that she was safe, but Blake was already heading down the corridor to his cabin. {{Noplace like one's own cabin to have a good brood}} Blake thought.
17.
Cally checked the cushioning in the car fridge. It really, really wouldn't do at all for the precious cargo to get broken after all this carry-on.
{{Did I act with moral correctness?}} she asked herself. {{After all, there is life support in that escape pod, so there's a good chance that Sara will touch down while she's still alive, and that the capsule will withstand reentry and collision. Certainly that's a better chance than she gave her victims, or that she wanted to give her planet. And if she does make planetfall, I'm sure she'll be able to come up with some sort of story.}}
"Jenna," she braceleted, "I'm ready to come up now."
"Right-ho, Cally. By the way, your package from Thaarns & Noble arrived."
{{It must be an omen}} Cally thought.
Instead of greeting Blake or returning to her cabin, Cally went straight to the shuttle bay when she teleported back. She set up an alarm clock on the small instrument panel and composed herself through meditation so she could conserve her energies until the Liberator was within shuttle range of her objective.
18.
Blake bathed, shaved, dressed carefully, and ate a sturdy breakfast {{Most important meal of the day....}} until at last he walked to the teleport bay.
"Stay on alert, Jenna," Blake said, the empty Neutrotope case dangling in his hand. "Here are the coordinates for the Ministry of State. I suspect that I'll need you to bring me up in a hurry. I don't think they'll be best pleased to see me."
Jenna just looked at him. {{There's something he's not saying}} Jenna thought. {{Well, he must have a plan of some sort, he always does. I believe him, thousands wouldn't.}}
Blake's heart and step were heavy as he prepared to face those he had betrayed, for however noble a motivation.
Blake materialized in the middle of a crowded plaza, not in a warren of bureaucrats' cubicles. Looking up, he could see a dais, decorated with a gigantic poster of himself. On the dais, Cally, who had arrived two hours earlier, was part-way through her speech of fraternal greetings to the Destinean people.
In front of her, on the lid of one of the Liberator coolers, was the Neutrotope, visible yet protected in a perspex cube. Her voice faltered slightly when she sensed Blake's presence.
{{Blake, how COULD you?}} she sent. {{Maybe you shouldn't hang around with Certain People if their moral outlook is going to rub off on you.}}
Then someone recognized him from the poster, and the press of the crowd pushed him up to the dais, where the deafening cheers and delighted embraces of a dozen dignitaries made him feel, if anything, worse about the whole mess.
19.
As usual, Blake felt better about things the next morning. He decided that things had worked out even better than he had hoped--he still had the thirty pieces of silver and hadn't actually betrayed anyone. He helped Gan to roll out the Funnel and then got on the tannoy.
"Everyone on deck, now," Blake said.
Avon shook his head, already chilled by the evil omens. The confluence of two portents that always filled him with dread: Blake's happy, excited voice, in the end stages of a plan he was at last ready to share with the crew, and a weekday that began with a consonant and ended with a "y."
The crew, variously yawning, munching toast, and dusting the flight deck consoles, examined the Tachyon Funnel.
"Zen, provide a complete description of Maskelyn 9-B," Blake said.
+Planetoid, located at Grid Reference 2043 in the Eighth Sector, uninhabited, not suitable for support of humanoid life, diameter of....+
"Thank you, Zen, that will be all," Blake said. "Now patch me through to Space Command headquarters."
Most of the crew gasped (Avon dropped his head into his hands).
For a moment, the Main Screen was filled with an eerie sight: a huge orb the color of a nice cup of Darjeeling. Then, as Servalan sat back a little, there was a titter as the rebels realized that she had been caught at the moment of maximum vulnerability, halfway through painting on her eyeliner, using the communications screen as a mirror.
"Blake here...Gan, roll that over in front of the camera, thank you...Servalan, I am now in possession of the Ultimate Weapon. If you surrender now, then you will avert significant destruction on my route to inevitable victory."
"Surrender?" Servalan said. "Merde," she and Avon said simultaneously, although for somewhat different reasons.
"I shall now demonstrate the effect of the Tachyon Funnel on the uninhabited planetoid Maskelyn 9-B, in the Eighth Sector," Blake said triumphantly. "As your sensors no doubt tell you, Liberator is in the Fourth Sector, yet at my command this planetoid will be not merely destroyed, but annihilated."
"Errr, I don't really think you can say that," Jenna told him. "It's, well, you know, it's the same thing twice."
"When you observe that I am able instantly to destroy an entire planetary body from four sectors away, I will give you exactly five minutes to surrender. And after the five minutes have elapsed, my next target will be Space Command headquarters itself."
20.
Servalan laughed. "Where'd you get it?" she asked. "The Coser.com bankruptcy sale?"
{{Curses}} Blake thought. {{Foiled again...}}
By an unlucky chance, the video that Egrorian left in the edit deck happened to be "Auron's Least Wanted." Cally was rather miffed, although in her case the apparent ten extra pounds added by TV was a blessing.
Intellectually, Blake was sorry about her hurt feelings, but he couldn't really empathize. He was still brooding over the--tongue-lashing, could one say? Or GBH of the pineal gland?--she had given him.
21.
Cally's lips were sealed, but since Avon was in telepath range he soon got the whole story anyway.
Three days later, he and Blake shared the Second Watch. "That wasn't exactly a triumph, was it?" Blake said bitterly. "Now I suppose you'll never let me hear the end of it."
Avon took both of Blake's hands in his. "'It was worse than a crime, it was an error'? No, I shan't call you on that, I rather like finding out that the idol has feet of clay." He twisted his hands, lacing their fingers together. "Indeed, I feel signs of a developing foot of clay fetish. Nor is that the only re-evaluation that has occurred recently. You know, sometimes something happens that forces you to revise your whole view of the past, and with that out of the way, to change your plans."
Lead us not into temptation:
We can find it all by ourselves
1.
Blake moved cautiously through the silent, apparently dead ship, pausing only to check to see that Avon was following and to get Vila to stop sitting on whatever he was sitting on and hurry along. Blake would have preferred to bring Cally on this mission, but it was that time of the month when she was at highest risk for possession, and you really never knew what was going to happen.
Last month, Gan in particular took it in bad part when Cally slithered around on her belly, or what would have been her belly given greater convexity, hissing "Your mother sucks cock in Hell!" (This is a phrase which contains two "s"s and thus even the most captious will admit it can be hissed.) But under Liberator etiquette, the crew no more mentioned what had been done during a bout of possession than one Japanese salaryman would tell another that he looked bloody stupid dancing on the table with a lampshade on his head.
Soon they found the first of the limp bodies, fallen as if there had been a spindle-prick sixteen years earlier. The romantic perfection of the scene--Avon started looking around for someone he fancied kissing--was marred only by the occasional snore or patch of drool.
Levett opened her eyes, saw six strangers (or, as she realized when she blinked, three strangers in double-exposure), and drew her weapon and snapped off three shots. Fortunately, she was still feeling muzzy, and there was no result other than a shower of gravel from an abandoned fishtank on the mantelpiece.
2.
Dr. Kendall explained that this particular McGuffin, like the fabled Maltese Falcon, bore with it the curse of fabled wealth that could burn through duty, loyalty, and honor. Then he solemnly entrusted it to Blake, the first total stranger who had happened to turn up while Dr. Kendall was out like a light.
{{So light, to hold so many people's fate}} Blake thought, as he took the Neutrotope case. {{In fact, if I'd bought a gateau that weighed this little, I'd go to another bakery the next time.}}
Dr. Kendall thought that Blake looked properly serious, but in fact he was wracked with guilt, or rather the anticipation of guilt--he hadn't done anything wrong yet.
3.
"Pity someone's gone and given that wotzis to Blake," Vila said, slapping the requested spanner into Avon's palm. "And we're stuck here, fixing up their rotten ship. It's their ship, I dunno why they can't do it. I could have got the safe open, easy as winking, and then I'd be the one who got rich."
"Oh, Blake isn't going to sell it," Avon said. "The more fool he. That wouldn't be noble enough...you and I would know what to do, right enough." He tightened a fitting in the control panel, then darted forward and kissed Vila full on the mouth. Avon returned to looking imperturbable while ratcheting away at the gadgets before Vila could decide whether to make something of that. "You're a genius, Vila."
"Told you."
"I mean, whoever would have the face to demand a warranty card for stolen merchandise?"
"Kind of folk we know, they're more likely to kill you than go to Small Claims Court."
"But only if one stands around long enough for writs to be served, whereas we have a spaceship capable of Standard by Twelve."
4.
{{Yes, that is how I reasoned it would look}}, Avon thought, as he logged off the Blue Peter Website and destroyed all traces of accessing the "Build Your Own Neutrotope!" episode. Once he had seen the drawing, he was sure it would be easy enough to knock something together using a tungsten lamp, and bed it down in a fishing tackle box.
He took a torch from the Ortega's control room and headed for the supply room. He flicked the torch around the dark room, mildly spooked by the elongated shadows and their contrast with the warm beam of light, until he found the light switch.
Avon helped himself to a few useful components, then tried to shut the supply cabinet door. He couldn't do it, because a hand and arm dangled from the top. Avon craned his neck to see. His first thought was that perhaps your Ortega crewman likes kipping on the supply cabinet--lovely bit of plumage, that!--but this vague hypothesis was falsified when the body, in the shape of a large c-clamp, crashed down to the floor. Evidently, then, rigor mortis had not passed off.
5.
Blake sat on Liberator's Flight Deck alone, his hand resting lightly on the Neutrotope's carton. {{It is a far, far better thing}} he thought, {{No it isn't, in fact I'm being a right bastard, but what can I do? One planet full of decent, honest people who trust me and who I am abominably betraying, set against a Universe of people who are freed at one bold stroke. The ones who would have died in a prolonged war will never know how their lives were spared. And the starving people of Destiny probably won't know my name to curse it, for sacrificing them. At least they won't know who killed them. But they won't die in vain, because the defeat of the Federation is within my grasp at last. And that's worth anything and everything that it might cost.}}
6.
"This may interest you, Cally," Avon said over the ship-to-ship communication system. "Evidently the first victim--Rafford--wrote something down before he died. The numbers 54124. Does that have any associations for you? Coordinates, perhaps? Or a book title? It can't be an opus number, even Mozart didn't write that many..."
"Can you copy it exactly and send the copy over?" Cally asked.
The image was much easier to read than Avon's normal awful handwriting, and for a moment Cally basked in that. Then she rotated the image on the Main Screen a few times. "Can you send me over a copy of the crew manifest?" she asked. "And what do you mean, the first victim?"
"Someone else turned up dead," Avon told her. "I was in the storeroom looking for...for a repair component."
"What did you do?"
"Oh, nothing. I was going to lug the guts into the neighbor room, but after all, if they don't find him in a fortnight, they'll nose him out when they cross the lobby."
Avon disconnected the line to the Liberator and sent messages to a few old friends who might know someone with a large bank balance and a desire to put a rare, mint condition Neutrotope on the mantelpiece (or, more likely, in the gloat-vault along with the stolen daVincis and suchlike).
It didn't take long for an auction to develop. That had the pleasant effect of forcing the winning bid up to three and a half million credits. Avon pushed his sleeve back far enough to expose the white cuff and wrote down (with a felt-tip pen, not blood) the relevant information. "Yes, that's close enough...I can get there by shuttle...Sarran Hilton...Very good...Room 2943...Agent Bartholomew, yes. Twenty-one hundred hours."
7.
Cally strode to the teleport bay, her jaw set determinedly, one of the orange car fridges in her hand.
"Ready for teleport now," she told Jenna.
After Cally got vanished, Jenna put her feet up and poured a little more tonic into her drink. "And then there was one..."
{{I'd best get over to the Flight Deck, in case anything turns up.}} She sipped at her drink, temporary monarch of all she surveyed. {{It's as much my ship as anyone else's...more so than Cally's or Gan's, or God knows Vila's.}}
She poured a little more vodka into her drink. {{For all the appreciation I ever get, they must think I'm some sort of glorified air hostess, not so glorified come to think of it. I really should just naff off and leave them to it.}}
+Information...one pursuit ship approaching, current distance 2500 spatials+
"Thank you, Zen. Is the deflector shield up?"
+Deflector shield operational.+
Jenna looked down, discovered that her pacing had brought her to Vila's combat position, and pressed the button.
On main screen, the pursuit ship dissolved. "Auto Paint, add another stripe on the fuselage," Jenna ordered. {{Oh bugger...v&t all over the console...}} She went to the cabinet beneath the fascia and mixed another drink. {{Avon's gadget worked...well, he must be good for something. Anyway, I don't think I'd care to cross him. You'd go along placidly for ten years or so, and he'd track you down, and then one day you'd come home to find that he's seduced your husband, charged three million credits to your gold card, and hooked up the lawn sprinkler to the septic tank.}}
"Zen, status report on snack availability in Flight Deck cabinet."
+Cheese toasties, three; mirin and kombu crisps, five packets; Maltesers, two+
{{Christ, Vila must have finished off the pretzels again, I'll flatten him when I see him.}} Jenna opened the cabinet, took out some crisps, and wondered whether Avon could fix up a little delivery robot to bring the snacks and drinks. {{If Vila weren't around, there'd be enough pretzels for...I don't know, maybe a thousand years.}}
8.
Cally's eidetic memory had absorbed the crew manifest at a glance, so she knew which cabin to approach by stealth, in the depths of the midnight shift.
She unstuck the long strand of blonde hair from the doorlock, reminding herself to put it back afterwards if the cabin was empty. Cally slid the tumblers open by mind-force (as a loyal Rebel's Union member, she hated to do bargaining unit work while Vila was around), and avoided the bucket of water poised over the lintel.
"Wha...wha....?" said the slight figure huddled beneath the blankets.
Cally unsheathed the blaster from her belt. "Sara," she said, "You got some 'splainin' to do."
9.
The light was behind Bartholomew, haloing his...no, her...hair and dazzling Avon's eyes so it took a moment for mutual recognition to occur. Instantly wrapped in one another's arms, each thought, "My darling! You're alive, you're alive!" but only one of them was willing to be corny enough to actually say it out loud.
It was a wonderful moment of dazzling happiness for Avon. The burden of guilt fell off his back like the bundle of sins in Pilgrim's Progress. If Anna was still alive, then obviously it couldn't be his fault for getting her killed, so there. However, it did occur to him for a moment that in that case she'd just sheered off and left him carrying the can.
He had missed her so much, and just as soon as he verified that the transfer to his bank account had gone through, he luxuriated in the well-remembered treasures of her body. He needed to make up for the long absence, and he needed to tire her out enough so that she wouldn't look inside the box until the next morning. By then, he'd be long gone, and good luck her trying to reverse the funds transfer--as soon as the money landed, it was immediately fissioned out to dozens of other bank accounts.
10.
"All arranged," Jeremy the Salvage Consultant told Blake. "The shuttle trip to his planet won't take above two hours from here. Must warn you, though, this is the bloke who puts the "tacky" in "tachyon funnel".
"This is business," Blake said. "I'm not here to make new friends."
"Oh, aren't you? Pout pout. I thought that now I was going to get my commission."
"You've counted it all, three times over," Blake said, nudging the black-handled magnesium briefcase with his foot.
"I meant my personal compensation," Jeremy said. "You look like you could offer a seven....or even eight...percent commission."
"Oh!" Blake said. "Well, I suppose if you keep negotiating I could make it rather larger. But they do say I drive a hard bargain."
"Rrrrrrr!" said Jeremy.
11.
Avon spent the shuttle trip back to the Ortega in contemplation. The significance of Anna--of Bartholomew--contacting him on a Federation frequency was hardly lost on him. It was clear enough what the Federation wanted with a Neutrotope: they'd use it as a weapon to subjugate Destiny. Well, he'd just have to be more careful next time, he decided, mellowed by various sorts of satisfaction.
And if Blake ever found out (Avon certainly wasn't going to volunteer the information, and Vila would probably emulate the great pharaoh Fattrapshut) the whole thing could be passed off as a coup against the Federation.
Avon had a lot to look forward to, now that he had given himself executive clemency from his self-imposed sentence of unremitting guilt. The downside was that he now felt there was less urgency in keeping himself alive now that it wasn't necessary to extend his life to make sure the full measure of penance was exacted. Well, he'd REALLY have to be more careful in the future.
12.
"Oh, I wish you could see my house," Jeremy said subsequently. "Twelve bedrooms, eight reception, three armaments, booze under lock and key, rumpus room down in the finished basement...Wonderful little place. The pity of it is, I'm so busy that I hardly ever get there, but each time I do, it restores me. It cleanses me! All my appetites...all my sins..."
Blake sighed to himself. That was the trouble with one-night stands. They always wanted to show you over their houses. He had spent a pleasant enough evening decorating Dorian's interior, but that was as far as his interest went. Why must it be assumed cocksucking and window treatments were a package deal?
Once they reached their destination, Blake was happy to let Dorian do the talking and hand over the gleaming, silvery-handled case. The transaction was quickly arranged, and Blake found it pleasant to relax on the veranda, sipping a Singapore Sling, as the packing and shipping went on in the background.
"Stay the night," the other party to the exchange suggested to his three guests.
"Sorry, must run," Dorian said. "Call me when you get that....well, you-know-what," he told his vendor, and "Call me," he told his new friend Roj, who checked his trouser pocket to make sure he had discarded the cocktail napkin with the number.
"How about the grand tour?"
"No, thanks," Blake said.
"I'll take you up on that," Gan said cheerfully. He'd seen the hunger in the older man's glance, and he was just as glad that Blake wouldn't come along to play gooseberry.
13.
"Old General Starkiller, eh?" Gan said, looking at the pin-up tacked to the office bulletin board and noting the resemblance. "Is he a relative of yours?"
"Oh, no," Egrorian simpered. "But I think he's awfully handsome!"
"De gustibus non disputandum est," Gan said.
"I just love you Arts types, we didn't stretch to the dead languages back at Bellhangria.... My word, you're a big boy, aren't you? Is everything else...in proportion?"
"Outsize," Gan said mendaciously. "It's caused problems. You can imagine."
14.
Egrorian's face darkened with fury. How dare they give him nothing but an attache case filled with cut-up newspapers, in exchange for the perfectly good third-hand video edit deck he had sold them as a Tachyon Funnel? Egrorian sighed with relief. If they hadn't tried to cheat him, then right about now he'd be feeling almost guilty about murdering them.
As the rebels prepared to launch their shuttle, Gan nearly stumbled over a small object on the floor. He hefted it, and discovered how heavy it was. {{That neutron-star material is jolly expensive}} Gan thought. {{Must be some sort of mistake. Best give it back to dear old Sammy.}} In the last moment before the airlock closed, he bowled the chunk of neutron star into the tunnel connecting the shuttle to the docking station.
Once they were well underway, Gan sipped at his Ovaltine, smiling reminiscently. Too bad he hadn't been able to predicted what would happen and bring a little gift. If they weren't running short, a teleport bracelet might have made a nice keepsake. An attentive visitor might keep Vila from taking him for granted. On the Liberator, Gan was compelled to suppress his inclination toward homagesexuality.
15.
Vila was waiting in the Ortega's docking bay when Avon debarked from the shuttle and offered a brief, ahistorical description of his side trip.
"Took her money and fucked her too!" Vila said admiringly.
"A small price to pay," Avon replied. "Blake hasn't asked for us back yet, has he?"
"Nope."
"Then he'll never know we were gone, if we're sensible about it."
"I don't feel very sensible," Vila said.
"Hundred thousand finders' fee, plus what you got from Dr. Kendall for the Brooklyn Bridge," Avon said. "Not a bad day's work."
"Oh, all right."
16.
Blake sighed. He didn't think he'd be able to stretch the "went the long way around the meteorite field" excuse any further.
"Jenna, set up a course for Destiny, Standard by Four."
"No faster?"
"No, ummm, better safe than sorry, eh?"
Jenna was going to tell him that Cally wasn't back yet from wherever she'd gone, but had called in regularly to report that she was safe, but Blake was already heading down the corridor to his cabin. {{Noplace like one's own cabin to have a good brood}} Blake thought.
17.
Cally checked the cushioning in the car fridge. It really, really wouldn't do at all for the precious cargo to get broken after all this carry-on.
{{Did I act with moral correctness?}} she asked herself. {{After all, there is life support in that escape pod, so there's a good chance that Sara will touch down while she's still alive, and that the capsule will withstand reentry and collision. Certainly that's a better chance than she gave her victims, or that she wanted to give her planet. And if she does make planetfall, I'm sure she'll be able to come up with some sort of story.}}
"Jenna," she braceleted, "I'm ready to come up now."
"Right-ho, Cally. By the way, your package from Thaarns & Noble arrived."
{{It must be an omen}} Cally thought.
Instead of greeting Blake or returning to her cabin, Cally went straight to the shuttle bay when she teleported back. She set up an alarm clock on the small instrument panel and composed herself through meditation so she could conserve her energies until the Liberator was within shuttle range of her objective.
18.
Blake bathed, shaved, dressed carefully, and ate a sturdy breakfast {{Most important meal of the day....}} until at last he walked to the teleport bay.
"Stay on alert, Jenna," Blake said, the empty Neutrotope case dangling in his hand. "Here are the coordinates for the Ministry of State. I suspect that I'll need you to bring me up in a hurry. I don't think they'll be best pleased to see me."
Jenna just looked at him. {{There's something he's not saying}} Jenna thought. {{Well, he must have a plan of some sort, he always does. I believe him, thousands wouldn't.}}
Blake's heart and step were heavy as he prepared to face those he had betrayed, for however noble a motivation.
Blake materialized in the middle of a crowded plaza, not in a warren of bureaucrats' cubicles. Looking up, he could see a dais, decorated with a gigantic poster of himself. On the dais, Cally, who had arrived two hours earlier, was part-way through her speech of fraternal greetings to the Destinean people.
In front of her, on the lid of one of the Liberator coolers, was the Neutrotope, visible yet protected in a perspex cube. Her voice faltered slightly when she sensed Blake's presence.
{{Blake, how COULD you?}} she sent. {{Maybe you shouldn't hang around with Certain People if their moral outlook is going to rub off on you.}}
Then someone recognized him from the poster, and the press of the crowd pushed him up to the dais, where the deafening cheers and delighted embraces of a dozen dignitaries made him feel, if anything, worse about the whole mess.
19.
As usual, Blake felt better about things the next morning. He decided that things had worked out even better than he had hoped--he still had the thirty pieces of silver and hadn't actually betrayed anyone. He helped Gan to roll out the Funnel and then got on the tannoy.
"Everyone on deck, now," Blake said.
Avon shook his head, already chilled by the evil omens. The confluence of two portents that always filled him with dread: Blake's happy, excited voice, in the end stages of a plan he was at last ready to share with the crew, and a weekday that began with a consonant and ended with a "y."
The crew, variously yawning, munching toast, and dusting the flight deck consoles, examined the Tachyon Funnel.
"Zen, provide a complete description of Maskelyn 9-B," Blake said.
+Planetoid, located at Grid Reference 2043 in the Eighth Sector, uninhabited, not suitable for support of humanoid life, diameter of....+
"Thank you, Zen, that will be all," Blake said. "Now patch me through to Space Command headquarters."
Most of the crew gasped (Avon dropped his head into his hands).
For a moment, the Main Screen was filled with an eerie sight: a huge orb the color of a nice cup of Darjeeling. Then, as Servalan sat back a little, there was a titter as the rebels realized that she had been caught at the moment of maximum vulnerability, halfway through painting on her eyeliner, using the communications screen as a mirror.
"Blake here...Gan, roll that over in front of the camera, thank you...Servalan, I am now in possession of the Ultimate Weapon. If you surrender now, then you will avert significant destruction on my route to inevitable victory."
"Surrender?" Servalan said. "Merde," she and Avon said simultaneously, although for somewhat different reasons.
"I shall now demonstrate the effect of the Tachyon Funnel on the uninhabited planetoid Maskelyn 9-B, in the Eighth Sector," Blake said triumphantly. "As your sensors no doubt tell you, Liberator is in the Fourth Sector, yet at my command this planetoid will be not merely destroyed, but annihilated."
"Errr, I don't really think you can say that," Jenna told him. "It's, well, you know, it's the same thing twice."
"When you observe that I am able instantly to destroy an entire planetary body from four sectors away, I will give you exactly five minutes to surrender. And after the five minutes have elapsed, my next target will be Space Command headquarters itself."
20.
Servalan laughed. "Where'd you get it?" she asked. "The Coser.com bankruptcy sale?"
{{Curses}} Blake thought. {{Foiled again...}}
By an unlucky chance, the video that Egrorian left in the edit deck happened to be "Auron's Least Wanted." Cally was rather miffed, although in her case the apparent ten extra pounds added by TV was a blessing.
Intellectually, Blake was sorry about her hurt feelings, but he couldn't really empathize. He was still brooding over the--tongue-lashing, could one say? Or GBH of the pineal gland?--she had given him.
21.
Cally's lips were sealed, but since Avon was in telepath range he soon got the whole story anyway.
Three days later, he and Blake shared the Second Watch. "That wasn't exactly a triumph, was it?" Blake said bitterly. "Now I suppose you'll never let me hear the end of it."
Avon took both of Blake's hands in his. "'It was worse than a crime, it was an error'? No, I shan't call you on that, I rather like finding out that the idol has feet of clay." He twisted his hands, lacing their fingers together. "Indeed, I feel signs of a developing foot of clay fetish. Nor is that the only re-evaluation that has occurred recently. You know, sometimes something happens that forces you to revise your whole view of the past, and with that out of the way, to change your plans."