It takes talent to fly a dead show

Lady Fortune

2008-06-14T19:53:20Z

Lady Fortune

O Fortuna! The rise and fall etc. of Servalan. Written for majoritython, working from the prompt Fortune and Her Wheel.

Lady Fortune

One

When President Conol’s private guard stormed the Commissariat for Pacification and Public Order, Sleer was waiting crouched and head-bowed behind her magnificent desk. As the door buckled and burned, she rose from her chair, arranged herself and her feathers, and stood with arms stretched out, fingertips light upon the black glass. She had been here before; she would be here again.

The door broke, falling like a palace of cards. A dozen troops streamed in, forming a semi-circle around her. Sleer smiled at them, in turn, patient and forgiving as a goddess.

And watched them all waver, more or less.

Two

Conol came to see her in captivity. He liked her caged, but didn’t know what to make of her, and didn’t know what to do with her. “Did you honestly believe you could go around unrecognized? Somebody must have helped you! Who helped you?”

So far, he has gone away unanswered—

“Or are you mad?”

—but returned often. Unable to resist. She was irresistible.

“Servalan!”

She lifted her eyes, huge and dark in a sun-starved face. Gestured him closer. Only a whisker between them. “Let me tell you all about it,” she breathed. “Let me tell you all my secrets.”

Three

Residence One may be more comfortable than prison, Madame is heard to remark these days, but it has certainly faded since she was sole occupant. Since she was ‘Madame President’.

In the banqueting hall, the President bores his allies with complaints. She sits regal and untouchable at her end. When Conol stops to drink, Servalan dabs white linen against scarlet lips, then drops the cloth upon the floor. Two guests and three guards dive to retrieve it for her. When she speaks, wineglasses and allies and enemies and candlesticks quiver, to a man.

“Poor Conol. Always so tired, these days.”

Four

One sultry night, they walk together beneath the cold stars of which she was once Empress. Bodyguards follow them: two young men – discreet, anonymous, loyal.

She takes him to a secret garden. Red roses soften the air. He tells her that he worships her. She clasps his head between her hands, kisses him. The young men obey her signal.

All these boys, she thinks, as they drag the body away – they are her own. They know her for what she is; they know she will use them, but never waste them. It is very like love, she thinks. Only honest.

Five

The day President Servalan took office again, she stood alone before the Presidential Palace, and swore an oath to serve and rule, to judge and protect. She looked pale and vulnerable before her black-clad guard.

But it was not an unequal partnership. If they kept her here, if they never wavered, they knew she would take the stars back for them. And if not...

She had fallen before. Yet here she was again.

Servalan stood upon the threshold. Her office was made of light and air, black glass at its heart. Beautiful, she thought, and turned the handle once more.

Gongs

2005-08-19T20:42:02Z

Gongs

Just a simple soldier, following orders.

Gongs

Written for the 2005 FC Labor Day party, on the themes of Minions, and Room 101. Possibly the nastiest thing I've ever written. Is it postable?

***

1

Each time you do it, you tell yourself, Never again, I’m never doing that again – but they know all about that. They stick you in a room with a ton of paperwork, and they leave you alone and after a month or two or more you’re just about ripe for a change of scene.

His office was somewhere on the outside ring; you know those rooms up there... No? Doesn’t matter, they’re just like everywhere else. When I went in and we got the saluting over and done with, he said, “I’ve got a little job for you, off-station,” and winked and started the brief. The aircon was broken and there was a steady drip of water coming down the wall, just on the edge of my hearing, drip drop, drip drop, drop drop drop... An hour or two of that and I was up for anything – you really can’t tell these days where the red tape stops and the torture starts. Anyway, didn’t I sign up to see the stars?

2

Arlen – the real Arlen – was one of those pieces of shit you always find floating round sewers. Shipped guns in past the blockade. Had a sideline in shadow – that never wins you friends – and was playing all the sides off against each other. By the time I landed, everyone was out baying for blood; the only question was who’d get there first. I offered extraction, but it was the ID I was after, so we took a little stroll down a side street and only one of us came out the other end. That’s death for you. Fast and furtive; my speciality. Thanks, but, really – no need for applause.

It took a day or two to attract the right attention, but soon enough I had him all hot and panting at my heels. Christ, though, he took his time with that bounty hunter routine. Fucking amateurs; fucking melodrama. And I was shitting myself all the way back down to his base that my cover wasn’t good enough. Arlen, you see – the real Arlen – was forty-three and a man. They still managed to miss it. You plan for competence. Fuck knows why.

3

Well I got to see stars all right. When I came round it was all over, and didn’t the squad think that was fucking funny?

Frankly I just wanted to get out of there because by that time the place stank – blood, sweat and tears – and I had the mother of all headaches from where that bastard had hit me... But, duty calls and I stayed on till they were all lined up with their toes tagged, nice and tidy, and then I emptied a blaster right into the face of that pathetic fucker who’d knocked me out. Squad wasn’t laughing so much after that. Got to secure the chain of command.

So that was that, and if you’re looking to define ‘sordid’, I think we’ve just about covered it. Stupidity with a side order of mistrust. Five little heroes, all in a row – and that poor bastard, carted off stuck in his own personal hell. There’s some talk of a medal, but I’ve never been one for jewellery and, besides, when would I get to wear it? Because here I am, folks, stuck in one of those rooms, and thinking, Never again, I’m never doing that again, and knowing that I will, and I have to ask you, what exactly is the fucking point?

Headshots

2004-11-22T13:01:00Z

Headshots

Half the lesson is the death of an enemy.

Headshots

‘You know,' he added gravely, 'it's one of the most serious things that can possibly happen in a battle - to get one's head cut off.’

Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass.

***

Eyes flicker, open, blink at the light. Throat constricts, gags. And then the chest heaves, hauling in air, like a child's first gasps for breath in its first moments of life.

Hand stretches out - clutches at the ground, feels grass and earth. Eyes focus, look ahead, see the sky, the ceiling of trees.

And the face comes into view: pale skin, dark hair. And the eyes... intelligent, humorous, ageless.

‘So you finally made it. About time.’

Gasping, trying to form words, the many questions that are in my mind.

‘I know, I know. What, where, when and who. There's probably a 'how' as well, if we're honest.’

I pull backwards, drawing myself up, and see the uniform. He sees my eyes widen and shakes his head.

‘Don't pay any attention to this. I imagine you've used it as a disguise often enough yourself. If I was really one of them I wouldn’t have come back for you.’

‘What's happened to me?’ I force it out through dry, cracking lips.

‘It's very simple. You died.’ He smiles helpfully.

I shake my head and look away. ‘This is not a good time for jokes...’

‘No, it isn't.’ His quiet, serious tone makes me look up. He pulls himself down opposite me, holding my eye. ‘You'd better listen, and listen hard.’ And he explains.

***

‘They shot you and they burnt the body. You’ve spent two months reconstructing yourself.’

It takes a little time to convince me, as you can imagine. Immortality.

‘There’s just one small catch...’

***

What can I do with this, this gift? What can the rebellion do with this on its side? It could make us invincible... We get up, start to go.

‘One thing.’

He turns to look back at me.

‘I don't know your name.’

He smiles like jewels. ‘Call me Adam.’

***

Invincible... But when the first of the three shots hit, the shock was profound, and it felt like death really had finally caught up with me.

‘Half the lesson is the death of an enemy, the other the death of a friend...’ I thought I’d learnt that lesson. Dear God, how wrong can you be?

Wholesale

2004-11-22T13:00:01Z

Wholesale

Every ship needs its own tailor.

Wholesale

Crossover fun for astrogirl2, kalypso_v, and anyone else enamoured of a certain EG...

I

It was not my intention, when embarking on this little adventure, to engage in egregious treachery - of course, it never is. But - as I have found myself saying far too frequently in recent years - one has to make the best of a bad situation.

The irony is that I had not wanted to work for Starfleet Intelligence in the first place. It was only increasing pressure from Sisko that persuaded me otherwise - and I should add that I considered the whole outfit well beneath my more subtle talents. I most certainly had not wanted this particular mission, taking me, as it did, deep into what I now had to consider hostile territory. Six weeks behind enemy lines was quite enough - even if it was a twisted sort of homecoming - and I was surprised at how glad I was to see the station registering on my shuttle's sensors.

Then, without any warning, the wormhole opened - like a gateway to the gods - something exploded, and everything went black.

I opened my eyes to a bright light, the most shocking headache, and not the faintest idea of where I was. I let out a deep sigh, and felt a twinge along my ribcage. Something had obviously been damaged, but I had no recollection of where or how. Then I heard movement next to me, the sound of a communication channel being opened, and a soft female voice said, 'Blake, he's conscious.'

Just in the range of my hearing I caught the response. 'I'll be right down, Cally.'

'Cally?' I'm sure it was my uncertainty in saying an unfamiliar name that allowed a faint tremor to creep into my voice, but I didn't like the sound of it nonetheless. I tried to sit up, but it seemed that I was pinned down. I tensed automatically. I do not particularly care to be held prisoner.

'Please, don't upset yourself. I promise you we will not keep you restrained for much longer.'

She leaned over me, and I caught a first glimpse of her. And then she startled me immensely. We do not mean you any harm, she - said?

A telepath? Where was I?

***

As is customary in any first encounter I have with a stranger, I avoided giving away as much information about myself as I possibly could. Blake was clearly a perceptive man, but he was not a natural questioner, and he obviously baulked at interrogating somebody injured. Consequently, I managed to evade even his most direct questions with ease, by appearing more disoriented than I actually was.

I did, however, manage to pick up quite a bit. As I recounted, in a faint voice, the sorry story of an ordinary tradesman out on a business trip whose shuttle had suddenly malfunctioned, I was able to learn that I was on board a ship called the Liberator, that it had a crew of five, that these people were human - to whom even the word 'Starfleet' was meaningless - and that this man had seen nothing like me before.

Humans who had not heard of Starfleet, and who did not recognize a Cardassian when they saw one? I had heard of people going back in time - could that be what had happened? Lost in thought, it was a few minutes before I realized that Blake was staring at me with undisguised amazement.

'I'm sorry,' he said. 'It's just that... well...'

'I quite understand,' I said in the most unthreatening manner I could muster.

'Well,' he said, crisply back to business, 'We've got Orac - that's our computer - trying to work out what brought you here.'

'Some sort of temporal or spatial anomaly?' I hazarded.

Blake frowned. 'Doesn't sound very likely,' he said.

'Where I come from,' I replied, 'It happens all the time.'

***

True to her word, Cally released me from the restraints as soon as she had checked no damage would result from letting me sit up. I spent two more days in bed, at her insistence, and then put in my first appearance on the flight deck. The suspicion and even open hostility which greeted me from certain quarters should have put me on alert at once. I can only blame my disorientation and the fact that I was still recovering from what, it transpired, had been quite a serious concussion for my failure to register the significance of this reception sooner. These were paranoid people - and with good reason.

Vila was welcoming enough, but I recognize a fellow dissembler when I see one. The pilot, Jenna, made pointed remarks about the wisdom of allowing new arrivals free range about the ship; this seemed to upset Cally, which rather set me against Jenna. The third man, within two minutes of my arrival on the flight deck, started interrogating a small box - which I learnt was Orac - on how to 'get rid of me'. It seemed that Avon did not trust strangers - or, indeed, acquaintances - as a matter of principle.

I had been about a fortnight on board - and still Orac was no closer to understanding how I had got here and, more importantly, how to get me back - when it became apparent that something significant was shortly about to happen. Blake and Cally had spent several days closeted away together. Vila's alcohol consumption had been steadily increasing. Avon's temper became, if it were possible, shorter and less predictable.

Left to my own devices, I began exploring the Liberator; the strong room proved an interesting find - as did the extensive wardrobe - and it's always useful to know where to find the life capsules. One of the other benefits of my voyage of discovery was that I was able to piece together bits of overheard conversations - or, more usually, arguments - and I soon realized that Blake was planning some sort of mission, and somewhat amateurishly, by the sound of things. My own, unvoiced sympathies lay completely with Vila's more loudly expressed opinions; on the day big itself we sat side by side behind the teleport console while the other four played at heroes and heroines. I had to disguise my particularly quick operation of the teleport controls - which almost certainly saved Jenna's life - as a lucky guess as to which buttons would work. I saw little point in broadcasting the fact that I had already a firm grasp of the principles underlying Liberator's technology.

My 'lucky guess' made me something of a minor hero, particularly with Jenna, and certainly eradicated any lingering mistrust on her part. Neither Cally nor Blake had seen any reason not to trust me from the outset. But our little escapade left it clear to me that I needed more information about the situation on board the ship, and just exactly who it was Blake was fighting. There was one obvious source of information, and one obvious way of accessing it; nevertheless, getting Vila drunk proved more of a challenge than I had anticipated. We had more in common with each other than either of us would like to admit - we were both intelligent, evasive, frequently under-estimated, and desirous of remaining safely under the cover of our carefully constructed personas for as long as was reasonably possible. It took me the best part of a week after the mission to persuade him that I really was harmless and he could let down some of his guard.

By the end of our session together, I knew a great deal about Vila's opinions on life, the rest of the crew, theft as a vocation and - more pertinently - I had acquired a significant amount of background information on the Federation and Blake's rebellion. You cannot begin to imagine my dismay upon learning the full details of the political situation in this particular universe - and the unpromising part which my rescuers played in the picture.

It has been my observation that revolutionaries make better martyrs than victors. One almost suspects they prefer it that way. With the one - admittedly big - exception of the Bajoran Resistance, my experience of these sorts of disputes told me that, in general, bets should be placed on the galactic military dictatorship rather than the under-resourced but plucky freedom-fighter. I most certainly had no desire to remain in a front-row seat as this particular iteration of the good fight drew to its inevitably bloody conclusion. It was without doubt time to return as quickly as possible to somewhere which I could more easily - if not completely accurately - call 'home'. And I would be spending the interval manning the teleport with Vila.

II

Perhaps if I had not just heard Orac's conclusion that it could conceive of no way in which I could be returned to my own time and place, I might have been in a better frame of mind for the scene with Avon which immediately followed. And perhaps then I would have felt rather differently about the best course of action to take in order to protect my interests in my new and unwanted home.

I say 'scene' advisedly: throughout my time on the Liberator Avon had demonstrated a decided talent for insisting on his indifference to the people around him, and then generating situations in which he could declaim, perform, and generally conduct himself as if life were one dramatic incident after another. On this occasion he happened to intrude upon what was a particularly fraught moment for me, and his presence was less than welcome.

Orac's pronouncement left me in turmoil. Even after Tain died, even after the war started and Cardassia was occupied, I had kept alive in me a spark of hope that one day my exile would end and I would go home. It was one of the few things that had persuaded me to carry on as the years dragged by and I remained stranded on the station. But this news was devastating.

Although the exigencies of my career had demanded a certain detachment from everyday society, Cardassians are not naturally solitary. Indeed, the lack of sufficiently challenging interaction was one of the more trying aspects of my banishment. Bajorans, of course, avoided talking to me if at all possible. Humans, with the intermittent exception of Dr Bashir, seemed to exist only on the most superficial of levels. It was only my occasional exchanges with Dukat, even filled, as they were, with mutual loathing and contempt, that constituted anything approaching decent conversation.

The thought that I was now trapped in permanent exile among humans with no chance of ever seeing my home again was most distressing. Even worse, this was a most unfriendly environment, and I had inadvertently fallen in with what I believed was likely to be the losing side. Quite apart from any sense of nostalgia for my own time and place, my current situation offended my pragmatic sensibilities.

Wrestling with my predicament, I had not heard Avon come in, and was startled when he spoke.

'I take it you've not had good news about your return home?'

I jumped slightly and looked up at him. 'No,' I said shortly.

'Pity.' He moved towards me and, with one of his ostentatiously choreographed movements, swept his arm across to take Orac's key and put it in his pocket.

'You seem to have been remarkably adept at exploring the capabilities of the Orac computer,' he said.

'I've often heard you say that it makes an excellent tool - '

'If you know how to use it. I find it striking that while, after nearly three years, several people in this crew have not managed that, you seem to have acquired the skill within the space of a few short weeks.'

'Well, I'm a quick learner - '

'I wonder what else you've learnt.'

I blinked at him. 'I beg your pardon?'

He came to stand up close to me, face to face. 'All that time you've spent on board the ship when the rest of us have been on Blake's futile little missions. All that time closeted away pouring drinks down Vila. How much do you know about the Liberator's systems now, Garak? How much information do you have about each one of us?'

'Really, I doubt that would prove the most entertaining or productive way to spend my time. Why should I care to find out information about any of you?'

'How about to sell us out to the Federation?'

'Well, what a marvellous idea!' I said. 'That hadn't even crossed my mind. Thank you for the suggestion.'

He glared at me furiously.

'I'm joking, of course,' I added.

'Were you? We don't know anything about you. You appear out of nowhere, ingratiate yourself on board, tell us nothing about yourself - '

'There really is very little to tell - '

'Whatever story of yours Blake has been foolish enough to believe, I think you're lying.'

I turned away from him. 'I don't have to listen to this - '

'Oh yes you do,' he shot back, and grabbed my arm. In retrospect, I think that even he would have agreed that he had made a mistake. I do not like being manhandled, and the combination of Avon's persistence and my own preoccupation was most unfortunate. I slid my hand into my inside jacket pocket, pulled him towards me and stabbed him, upwards, in the heart.

His eyes widened and he looked at me in disbelief. A rather banal expression, I thought, for one's last moments.

'No,' I repeated, 'I don't.'

Then I let go, and he slid to the ground, dead.

I looked down at the body. How desperately unprofessional, I thought. I could not remember the last time I had killed out of sheer exasperation, which is, I suppose, testimony to Avon's particularly infuriating nature. There are very good reasons why one plans one's executions with great care, not least the matter of the disposal of the corpse. Then there were the witnesses - Orac and Zen - to be silenced, the evidence to remove, the fabrication, if necessary, of an alibi... Really, this had the potential to turn into a most dreary state of affairs.

III

Avon's disappearance was met with no small degree of consternation on the part of my remaining fellow crew-mates. Gathered together on the flight deck, we mulled over what could have caused his sudden and unexpected departure. Vila was simultaneously relieved and taken aback. Jenna was of the opinion that Avon would not be missed, unlike the currency from the strong room which had apparently accompanied him in the life capsule (a nice touch on my part, I thought, bringing a certain verisimilitude to what were otherwise rather farcical proceedings). Cally and Blake seemed to take the matter very personally.

'I can't believe he's gone,' Blake said, shaking his head. 'I mean, he'd threaten it all the time, but I just assumed that was part of the act.'

In contrast to Avon's characteristically dramatic departure, the news of my now permanent resident status paled somewhat into insignificance. 'Thank God we still have someone who knows his way around the computers,' Blake muttered in passing. Cally, with quiet generosity, commented that she understood how it felt to be exiled for good among aliens.

The low-key nature of my transition from guest to full crew-member troubled me not at all; indeed, it was a source of great satisfaction. Acceptance, trust - under different circumstances I could have felt quite at home. As it was, I wasn't fooling myself that my indiscretion would go undetected for much longer. I had bought myself only a little time; but I was fairly certain that it was enough.

***

The last time I had attempted an operation such as this, I was under the influence of psychotropic drugs. I prefer to think that it was the effect of these rather than any diminution in my own talent which led to my failure. Fieldwork - like tailoring - requires precision, concentration, and patience. Both careers had come to me naturally - the second, I admit, with great ambivalence on my part - but I had approached the first with an unconditional acceptance of its routines that bordered on the fanatical. By the time I became... unemployed, my skills had been honed to expert level. One does not forget one's core competencies easily (even if their main object of late has been to develop a maximally efficient way to cut cloth). As a result, this operation proved an overwhelming and most gratifying success.

Precision was required to monitor the movements of my targets. Concentration enabled me to master and then control the ship's systems in a matter of days. Patience was necessary to ensure I did not make my move too soon. One must add to this heady mix my own particular talent for persuasion; had I not been able to convince Orac that its best options for self-preservation lay elsewhere than with the current crew, I could not have made the necessary external contact undetected.

Those of us whose business is betrayal rarely allow ourselves the luxury of self-reflection, least of all while we are at work. With three of the crew securely imprisoned and shortly to awaken to mild nausea from the sedatives, I was beginning to feel I was on the home stretch. But taking out the final person proved not only the most difficult part of the process (she was, after all, the only one who was not an amateur), it also caused me a rare stab of remorse.

I came up behind her quite silently, as she crouched in the corridor, waiting to make her move on me. Within seconds I had her pinned on her back on the ground. She gazed back at me with caged, impotent rage.

'Why have you done this?' she whispered. 'We only ever wanted to help you.' We trusted you, she added, in my head, and I'm not sure that the fingerprints she left will ever be erased.

'I'm sorry, Cally,' I said, in a rare example of complete honesty. 'But I have to protect myself.' Then I smashed my fist across her face and she was unconscious. The Liberator was mine.

***

I issued instructions for the orbit to Zen, then put the final touches to the program on which I had been working. It had proven less difficult than I had anticipated to integrate some of the systems from my shuttle, and I now had a transporter which I could operate from the flight deck. Moreover, the addition of technology from another civilization had served to make the Liberator an even more attractive prize.

I put through a message on a secure channel, requesting permission to beam my guest over. The confirmation came through instantly. I operated the controls, and three figures coalesced in front of me. Two bodyguards, black-clad and helmeted; she, standing in front of them, was flawless in white silk.

'Supreme Commander,' I purred. 'You look quite divine.'

She cast her huge eyes hungrily around the flight deck, before settling them on me.

'Just one moment...' I murmured, and reached out to straighten one infinitesimally thin shoulder strap. I smoothed my hand down the dress, which now flowed perfectly from shoulder to hemline, then stood back to admire.

'Divine,' I breathed.

She raised one immaculate eyebrow, as if trying to decide whether I had overstepped the mark.

'The Liberator, Supreme Commander,' I reminded her, and gestured around me, at the flight deck, at the treasures and the captives beyond. Her price. Mine was exactly the same it had ever been. 'All yours.'

Her mouth twisted into a wide smile, perfect and predatory.

'Do you know,' she said, 'I think this could be the start of a beautiful friendship...'

Other People's Problems

2004-11-22T12:25:16Z

Other People's Problems

Unlikely heroes in unlikely places.

Other People's Problems

First published in Star Four.

***

Cally switched to automatic, lowered the lights and leaned back in her flight seat. Usually she liked the night watch, when quiet descended on the ship, only interrupted by the gentle purr of the engines, the ship's heartbeat. Yet tonight she was troubled - conscious that something at the back of her mind was worrying her...

She let her thoughts revisit the events of the past few days, looking for the source of her concern. Their escape from the System had been close, more luck than design. At almost every stage they had been outflanked by the Altas and their fire power, and if it had not been for the actions of the inscrutable machine that they had inherited from Ensor they would not have escaped...

'Ensor...' Cally whispered to herself, something jangling again in her mind, demanding attention, yet remaining just out of reach...

As she tried to grasp the elusive thought, images of the System intruded: the bleak, metal corridors, the faceless guards, the mournful slaves who had helped with their escape.

Cally's whole life had been devoted to liberty: to the expression of the self in the face of authority. Why else did she fight the Federation? Why else had she left Auron? The submission, the crushing of the individual was her great grief, her great sorrow. She was glad that they had destroyed the System, glad for the people of those three planets who now had the opportunity to lead their lives as they wanted...

And yet...

'Slavery...' she murmured, the word conjuring many associations for her: her sense of being trapped on Auron, her never-lessening horror at the amorality of the Federation's treatment of its subjects...

She made the connection. A woman, two children.

'Maryatt!' She jumped up from her seat, ran to the Orac computer and pressed down the activator. 'Orac, I need you to track down the records of a senior Federation medic called Maryatt, and his whereabouts of his widow and children. And hurry, Orac.'

The little machine came to life, complaining hotly, but Cally wasn't listening. How could she have forgotten? The images of that woman and her two little girls flicked back into her mind. It was true that they had been lurching from crisis to crisis since first visiting Cephlon: first Ensor's hijack of the ship, then the illness of the others; the long flight to Aristo followed by the panicked systems review triggered by Orac's prediction; and then the attack by the System... 'But I should have remembered,' she whispered to herself, tapping her fingers against Orac's casing.

It took a few minutes before the machine responded to her request. 'Space Surgeon Rev Maryatt has been listed as killed in the line of duty, with all honours. His wife and two children have relocated to the Southern Dome, and are receiving all due support and pensions. I trust that this information is sufficient and that I can now return to more important matters...'

Cally's hands dropped to her side, her relief almost tangible. It would be Blake, of course. She may have forgotten, but he clearly hadn't. She was smiling as she returned to her seat, her mind finally at rest.

***

Days earlier...

Working one-handed took time, time he wasn't sure he had left. He had about an hour left before he had to present himself, as ordered, for retraining therapy. Moreover, it could not be long now before the fact of his suspension was passed down the appropriate channels, and his computer access was blocked. He felt a little unusual gratitude for the interminable slowness of bureaucracy as he accessed the right files, changed the necessary codewords, turned Maryatt from a traitor to a hero, and his bereaved from slaves back to citizens.

In truth, he was surprised that the files had not yet been altered. Blake must have known what would have happened to Maryatt, and then to his family. And yet he had done nothing...

'But then, you always were just talk, weren't you, Blake?' Travis murmured, and flicked off the screen. 'It's always a little harder to act.'

Decline and Fall

2004-11-22T12:22:34Z

Decline and Fall

Everyone needs a shoulder to cry on.

Decline and Fall

She wept for hours as we headed back to base; deep, shuddering sobs of immeasurable grief.

Tarrant consoled and cajoled, took her hand and promised her how we would make Servalan pay for everything she had done.

Soolin was silent but practical, administered sedatives, and listened to his entreaties and her tears; attentive but distant.

I hovered ineffectually, clutched at a bottle and fretted as she told us the whole sorry, sordid tale. We already knew that he was dead, but she told us about her joy at seeing him again, her increasing wonder at the chance she had to revisit and reawaken an affection that had until then remained unspoken and impossible - and then, indistinctly, she explained how she had betrayed her lover.

At this point Avon, who had been sitting at his console with head back and eyes closed, stood up abruptly, and disappeared into one of the isolation booths. We none of us missed the significance of his sudden retreat, and Dayna was reduced to fresh tears. It was a comparison none of us would have welcomed.

***

I tackled him once we were back at base, hammering at his door until he surrendered and let me in.

'You could at least have tried to be sympathetic.'

No reply.

'It wasn't her fault.'

'Try telling that to Justin.' He sneered. 'I forget, though - he's dead.'

'You don't have such a good track record yourself, you know.'

'Since when have you been my conscience?'

'Since you decided not to bother with one anymore.'

He sighed, bored with the conversation. 'Get out, Vila.'

So I did. Who was I fooling? I wasn't Cally. Only she had known how to handle Avon at his most intractable.

***

I shuffled back towards my own room, but found myself pausing outside Dayna's. She was sure to need someone to talk to. Who else was going to do it? Tarrant was well meaning enough, but probably wouldn't think of it. Soolin avoided anything beyond the most superficial interaction with all of us. Avon would never be my first choice psychotherapist. And Cally was dead.

I tapped at the door and gently called her name.

A brief silence, then movement from inside; someone approached the door, and it slid open. She looked shattered; her face lined with fatigue. She smiled weakly, and tried to look pleased to see me.

'Vila.'

'Just thought I'd see how you were doing.' I wished I were anywhere else. There was nothing that I could possibly say or do that would bring her any consolation.

'Come in.' She moved sideways to open up the doorway to me.

I felt my eyes widen slightly in horror, but she didn't notice. Now I really was caught. I shuffled forwards and into her room. It was much the same as her cabin had been on Liberator - casually littered with clothes and with electronic gizmos from the lethal toys that she loved to play with; and, in the centre of her desk, framed and essential to the room, a large photograph of a man I knew was her father.

I sat gingerly on the edge of the bed. This was awful. Maybe she did want to talk, but I would have given anything to have been out of that room and away from having to make the effort of connecting with another person. The following conversation was going to demand more from me than I really wanted to give.

'Do you want a drink…?' she murmured, gesturing towards a table lined with bottles.

I shook my head. She sat down opposite me, and what I feared was going to be a long silence began, until she broke it abruptly.

'Have you spoken to Avon?'

'Briefly.’

'What did he say?'

It struck me then how strangely eager we all were for Avon's approbation; how much pleasure we received when he looked kindly on us - how devastating it was when he reproved.

'Not much.'

She frowned. What did she expect? Forgiveness? Why did she want it - why did she hope for it? Why did we continue to fool ourselves that we would each somehow be the one who would provoke from Avon an outburst of emotion or irrationality, a gesture that he cared even slightly about our individual lives and fates? Not even Cally could manage that.

'I suppose that's all I should expect…' she murmured, looking sadly about the room. 'All that I deserve…'

This was what I had been dreading. The part of the conversation where I had to console her, to try to make her feel that somehow the world wasn't the shitty fuck-up that we both knew it was. I doubted I would be convincing. I leaned forwards and gently touched her knee.

'Don't talk like that, Dayna.'

The tears were rolling down her face again. 'I killed him, Vila. I did it. And worse, I let myself be used… I let her use me…'

I reached for her hand. 'It's not true, Dayna. You can't blame yourself for what happened… She manipulated you… did stuff to you…'

Platitudes. Meaningless words that I knew and she knew were worthless. Her tears flowed on relentlessly. If only Cally were here, I thought, as I did almost every hour of every day.

'Avon got it right,' she went on. 'Justin trusted me and I betrayed him.'

Damn the man, I raged internally. As if this poor girl didn't have enough to cope with as a result of this fiasco, she got to have Avon's own guilt-trip forced onto her. Selfish, self-centred, thoughtless bastard…

Dayna was in full swing now. 'Of all the people I could have betrayed him to, how I could I let myself sell him to her? How could I have been so weak, so pathetic…?'

Time to be a little hard with her.

'Dayna, I can't have you talking like that. You cannot blame yourself for what happened today…'

She cut across me angrily. 'What the hell do you know about it?' she snarled. 'You really put yourself on the line every day, don't you, Vila? You sneak around this base hoping that if there's a dirty job to do someone else will pick it up for you – what the hell gives you the right to come in here and lecture me...?' She started to sob again, yanking her hand away from mine to cover her face.

I let her cry for a while, then she began to grab for tissues, take deep breaths, go through the motions of displaying control.

‘I’m sorry. That was completely uncalled-for.’ She gave an apologetic smile. I shrugged to show it didn’t matter. ‘I really appreciate you coming here, Vila. That’s real courage, I suppose.’

Real courage. How completely undeserved. I had come to see her because it was worse to lie in bed thinking that she was unhappy and that I’d done nothing about it than to put my head round the door for a sketchy five minutes and force myself to speak a few meaningless, comfortless sentences.

‘...I think that I’d better get some sleep...’ she was saying. I stood up. ‘Thanks again, Vila.’

‘If there’s anything you want, anything I can do...’

‘I’ll be fine,’ she said firmly. She corralled me towards the door and out.

***

Yes, she’d be fine, eventually. She’d wake up one morning and somehow it wouldn’t feel so bad anymore because she would be back in neutral. Like us all, she would try to excise the rawness and the bitterness; and, when she found that they couldn’t be cut out completely, she would force them down until she could go through life if not functioning normally, then with sufficient control to prevent her breaking down and screaming at the bloody unfairness and injustice and filthiness that constituted our petty existence.

I went into my room, leaning on the door once I’d closed the base behind me. I looked round me - it wasn’t much to show for thirty-eight years - and then I was hit with a profound understanding why it was that, despite our years of shared history, we passed by each other day by day like strangers; why it was that Dayna cried alone tonight, why it was that after almost a year Soolin still felt like a newcomer, why it was that Avon was increasingly distant and remote. I felt again the intense isolation at the heart of human life: we look to each other for help and support, but finally we will crawl away from others, unwilling and unable to make that final connection; in the end we stand and we fall alone.

I went over to the table and cracked open another bottle.

The Last Days of Roj Blake

2004-11-22T11:46:15Z

The Last Days of Roj Blake

Sinking in the trial.

The Last Days of Roj Blake

First published in ttba.

***

I The Presidency

'he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus...'

When even Cally expressed concern, I knew I had to reconsider my approach. Retreat, reformulate, re-pitch. I did this all the time on the Liberator and it always worked. I see no reason why that should not be the case here on Earth, although it is maddening that at this stage I still have to throw everything over to the others for debate. This really is no way to run a government.

I outlined the terms of the petition and told them that I was giving its suggestion serious consideration. Avon laughed in my face - which I had expected.

'Your capacity for self-delusion continues to stagger me, Blake. So this is what's to become of your Glorious Revolution, is it? You replace an unelected president with - an unelected president.'

'This petition comes from representatives from domes across the planet - '

'Keep your justifications to yourself,' he shot back. 'They have no possible interest for me.'

I remember this man when we stood side by side after a three-day pitched battle here in the smoking ruins of the Capitol. As the sound of my shot died in our ears, and I looked down at the body of President Curtis, I felt a great stillness envelop me, an overwhelming sense that we stood at a turning point in history. I turned and looked at Avon, his face filthy and exhausted from days of fighting, his gun suddenly slumped to his side. His jaw was hanging open in disbelief and I felt that he knew the same exhilarating, terrifying sense of freedom that I did. The old world had passed, and it was up to us to make the new one. Then he collected himself, twisted his mouth into a smile, and flashed me his customary, mocking look.

'Congratulations, Blake. I never thought I'd get the chance to say it, but it looks like you won after all.'

Then we laughed, threw aside our guns, shook hands, and I knew that all was well and all would be well.

It's amazing the change six months can bring. I looked at his face - scornful and hostile - and I was filled again with the disappointment that invariably pervades all my dealings with Avon.

I turned away from him to speak to Jenna. I had not missed the quick inhalation and surprised expression with which she had greeted my statement.

'You're concerned, Jenna,' I said warmly.

She leaned back in her chair. 'Avon does have a point, you know. It took civil war to get Curtis out of power, and now you're suggesting we put another dictator back in - '

'The Presidency is not synonymous with dictatorship, Jenna. This is just a means to get some sort of working government back in place. Earth is collapsing into chaos. Someone needs to be able to make decisions and implement them.'

'Just some one?' she shot back. 'Whatever happened to democracy and consensus? Who's to stop this new President just seizing power again?'

'Come on, Jenna!' I said, with my most disarming smile. 'This is me we're talking about, not some corrupt official with his hands in the coffers and a vested interest in the status quo.'

She shook her head, but gave me a smile.

Avon's precious contempt lanced across the room.

I ignored him, but it had the desired effect on Jenna. Rattled, she fell back on the dogged stubbornness which she always shows when she is uncertain of what decision to make, stuck out her chin, and said, 'I think this is something we need to think very hard about.'

Cally, who had been prowling the room since I first broached the topic, came to a halt at my elbow. 'Jenna is right,' she declared. 'Avalon, at least, needs to be consulted. This is not a decision we alone can make - if we should make it at all.'

'Tell me why you're worried, Cally.'

I very much wanted to hear what else she had to say. Cally has a substantial amount of credibility with what was the resistance here on Earth. Her achievements and contribution during the civil war have given her a reputation second only to mine, and one which transcends the fact that she is not native to this planet. When Avon and I were shooting our way through to Curtis, it was Cally who led the attack which secured the State News Bureau. Hers was the voice that told Earth that the resistance had won and the Federation was finished. People don't forget that. I have to take her misgivings seriously.

'I'm surprised I need to explain, Blake,' she said with a frown. 'The Presidency is a symbol of the past. It represents everything we fought against, everything we wanted to remove from Earth - '

'Cally,' I said passionately, 'surely you know that I understand that better than anyone.' I glared around this set of individuals, who were meant to be my lieutenants, and who were increasingly nothing more than obstructive. 'Do you think I'm unaware of the irony?'

Avon's voice cut through like a knife. 'And so we go back to this discussion once again. We rode this moral merry-go-round after we destroyed Star One. Was your agonising then over the justice of bringing civil war to the domes simply another of your more dramatic set-pieces? Frankly, it's a little late now to be opening your eyes to the reality of the situation.'

It took a supreme effort of will to remain calm. Anger has always been counter-productive. 'I have never closed my eyes to reality. Good God, Avon, what do you think I fight for?' I said with as much quiet conviction as I could manage. 'All I have ever done is work for the benefit of the people of Earth. Do you think I would lose sight of that now?'

Jenna, I was pleased to see, looked mollified. Avon was still sneering.

Cally, I saw out of the corner of my eye, was impassive.

'It's late,' she said abruptly, 'and this is something we need to think about - not argue about.'

'I quite agree,' I said quickly. 'Let's call it a night.' She would come round. She always did.

At the far end of the table, ignored by all of us until now, Vila raised his head, propped it on one hand, and poured himself another drink with the other. 'I've got a really bad feeling about all this,' he slurred to no-one in particular.

II The Plan

'a lean and hungry look'

I caught up with Cally as she made her way out of Blake's bunker and into the street.

'Where the hell are you going?'

I stepped around her before she could stride off into the darkness. Night had set in - real night, not the artificial darkness that had been the norm under the domes. A single lamp on a level above cast a harsh white light on us; the bulb in another at street level sizzled with an electrical scent.

'I'm going home, to bed.'

She shook me off, walked on. In the half-light, the way ahead was unclear. Not even here in the centre, where Blake held court, was there a guarantee that power could be maintained all the time.

'You can't just leave it like that!' I grabbed her arm.

'Like what?' She twisted her head and tried to fix me with her stare.

'Cally,' I sounded savage, 'don't tell me you fell for Blake's touching homily about how he's only got everyone's best interests at heart?'

She frowned. 'I trust Blake's judgement,' she said carefully.

'Well I don't.'

'It's a temporary measure, Avon,' she fired back, 'nothing more. We restore order, and then Blake stands down.'

'You don't really believe he'll do that!'

She walked away from me slowly, and looked up at the sky - and I knew I'd struck a nerve. Eventually she turned back. 'I often wonder how it must feel to people who have been brought up in the domes to be able to see the sky.'

It wasn't something I'd given much thought to, if I were being brutally honest. 'How is this relevant?'

'Look up, Avon.'

I shook my head in irritation, but did as she asked. The moon was full but the sky was clouded. The domes had been badly damaged during the fighting. As an emblem of Federation control, they had quickly become a focus for the sort of mindless violence that appears to grip crowds as soon as they're given the chance. Blake hadn't seen any problem in it, arguing that the domes were a better target for people's anger than each other - and I rather suspected that he liked the symbolism. Of course, it was sheer stupidity. It was senseless to open up the population to the elements. Winter was coming on, and the weather was getting colder in corridors and levels that had once had their climates completely controlled. No wonder the natives were getting restless.

'Yes, Cally, the sky is still there. Now can we get back to the matter at hand?'

She smiled at me and I had to work hard to hide my irritation.

'I was brought up on a planet without domes. On Saurian Major I lived most of the time outdoors. I can't imagine what it must be like to feel rain for the first time, or hear a thunderstorm and watch lightning. These events must seem extraordinary, almost out of control. Rather like everyday life.'

'They are not completely inexplicable phenomena,' I said dryly.

She gave me an indulgent look. 'Poor Avon,' she murmured. 'Unable to imagine what it must be like to be ordinary.'

'Are you coming to your point?' I ground out. Cally's tendency to pontificate on the mysteries of the universe had always been trying.

'Freedom always brings uncertainties. When we let go of the strictures of the past, we find ourselves facing choices - and choice is always frightening. I always thought these first few months would prove a challenge, perhaps even more than winning the war.'

'Exactly - a moral challenge. And Blake's showing he isn't up to it - '

She gave a scornful laugh. 'Don't try to manipulate me, Avon. You're not very good at it.' She stepped closer to me again, suddenly serious. 'What's really worrying you?'

'He's going to get us all killed.'

'You've been saying that for years,' she pointed out. 'It hasn't happened yet.'

'Cally, Blake's taking the easy option. He's flattered by the offer of the Presidency, and he sees it as a short cut to his political ends. But it'll be a disaster.'

'Why should it be? Maybe he's right - maybe we're facing unique problems and we need to do something drastic to deal with them. Look about you, Avon.' She gestured down the dismal street. 'We're falling apart. What are we meant to do? Wring our hands and hope it all works out?'

'I don't see how bypassing the rule of law and installing Blake as President will solve those problems.'

A flicker of delight crossed her face. 'Are you actually arguing in favour of democracy, Avon?'

'That's hardly likely.'

'Then why this sudden interest in who should govern?'

'Because if Blake fails - which, by the way, I think is very likely - we'll be in a much worse situation than we are now.'

'You mean you'll be in a worse situation,' she shot back. 'How could I have been so stupid? For a moment I really believed you had something else at heart than your own self-interest.' She started to stride off again.

'Listen to me!' I caught up with her again. 'I won't pretend to you that I give a damn what happens to the huddled masses. But for once their concerns coincide with mine. You must know what will happen - Blake will become President, nothing will change, and there'll be another revolution: bloodier and more bitter than the one we've already had. Disenchanted people make bloodthirsty mobs. Blake's setting himself up to fail, and when he goes down he'll take us and most of Earth with him.'

She didn't answer.

'Is that really how you want this brutal mess to end, Cally?'

She shook her head.

'Blake has to understand that what he's doing isn't going to lead to anything other than disaster.' I gave her a sideways glance. 'And really it would be the ultimate irony if I found myself in front of a firing squad with him.'

She laughed wryly, patted my arm. 'You've handled Blake very badly, you know,' she said.

It was raining, I realised. I shivered a little, since the jacket I was wearing wasn't really made for this sort of weather. Maybe I hadn't acclimatised to life outside the domes as well as I thought.

'So will you deal with him?'

She hesitated.

'If you don't, then I will.'

She raised an eyebrow. 'And what precisely would you do?'

I looked away from her and down the dark street. 'I'll do whatever it takes.'

III The Execution

'the evil that men do'

It had been a while since I'd received one, but the note was left in the usual place. What does Blake want? - that he couldn't have mentioned in front of the others.

I'm a thief, I'm a scapegoat... Oh! and I can pour another drink.

The bottle made a companionable gurgle of agreement.

I stared through the corner of the glass at the piece of paper. No matter how much I drank, it remained on the table, disconcertingly there. I've lost count of the number of these little summonses over the years:

'Come to the flight deck, Vila.'

'Put down that drink, Vila.'

'Get your bag of tricks, Vila.'

My bag of tricks. Now reduced to one. Cheers.

I miss my old drinking pals - Orac, Zen. The teleport console.

'TELEPORT, VILA!'

I had a lot in common with Orac.

Did you, Vila?

Of course I did. We both saw things with an uncanny clarity.

(Paper's still there.)

And what did you both see, Vila?

Our future. But I bet he was still surprised when he went before me.

To absent friends?

Cheers, Orac.

You know, I'd almost got used to being ignored. My quiet retirement. Just the occasional trip out for supplies. In the rain. As always. I miss those heated suits, even if silver wasn't my colour. No matter what Zen said. Ha ha. Oops! Bit of spillage. Waste not. Almost blotted Blake's note. That'll be an heirloom, that.

Ooh! All of a sudden, 'Let there be light,' said Blake. And there is light. Very bright light. Unnecessarily bright, in my opinion. But no-one ever asks my opinion. Why would they? I don't ask for my opinion. I might be right. Ah, dark again. Cheaper and more convenient. Time to go then.

One for the road, did you say? Don't mind if I do. Of course, it's not the same since the alcohol ran out. We're back to that uncanny clarity again. Which is why I appear to be putting off going outside. Come on then, best foot forward. But which is my best foot?

Shut up, Vila. The chair can't be that comfortable now, and might be a lot less comfortable if you keep Blake waiting. Into the rain with you.

Unfortunately, the architect of the dacha I'm living in is no longer with us. Nor is the former owner with whom I had a brief but frightening conversation. The chief attraction of the building is that it is located conveniently far from anywhere that needs guarding. Normally, this gives me a reassuring, if slight, reduction in anxiety. Tonight, it gives me a long walk. In the rain. I did mention it was raining? Still, at least I have an excuse for shivering when I arrive. You need an excuse? Always have an excuse ready, even if no-one's going to listen.

On the horizon I can just make out the city lights across the fields. It's remarkable just how long consumer goods can go on burning. One of the major drawbacks of living in a post-apocalyptic society is the unreliability of the public transport service. People just don't leave vehicles unattended any more. Still, why shouldn't my feet ache along with the rest of me. Taxi!?

***

I now wish that the walk had been just a little longer. Drier, perhaps, but... I need a drink. Okay. That changes things. For the better? (It's stopped raining, at least.) I knew it. Didn't I say? (Didn't I?) But, her? Calm down. Pour yourself a little drink.

For some reason, it took me twice as long to walk there as it did to get back. I went in through the tradesman's entrance as befits my elevated status as one of the heroes of the Liberator, and he had had the decency to leave me a towel. But not a drink. That was worrying. It meant he needed me alert. Now. Or at least eventually, when someone (anyone) might have come to tell me what was going on. In the meantime, I waited in that familiar, cell-like anteroom. The only crumb of comfort being that no-one but Blake knew that I was there. Comfort!? Well, anonymity. The next best thing.

Some people hate waiting. But not me. Waiting is just fine. It's the doing at the end of it that gets me. Every time. Well, almost every time. This time, it got him.

Okay. I got bored. I'll admit it. There were two other doors into this room. And I knew Blake would take me through one of them. So I'd never find out what was behind the other. I was only going to have a little look. Keep my hand in. When everything is being torn apart and incinerated, there is little demand for my more subtle approach. A skilled professional needs to maintain certain standards. What I was not expecting was... Another drink. Don't rattle the bottle, Vila.

They were arguing. After their set-to in the street, I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised to find them there with him. I recognised the voices of course, even at the other end of the corridor, and through the upholstered door. Why do all governments seem to go in for upholstered doors? It certainly doesn't help the sound-proofing, I can assure you.

'You've written an acceptance speech? And when precisely were you intending to consult us about this?'

'Consult you? Why do I need to consult you?'

'Because we put you here, Blake. You seem to have forgotten that - '

'I hadn't realised you saw yourself as a kingmaker - '

'Then perhaps you should start listening to me.'

'You stopped listening years ago.'

'You never said anything worth hearing.'

'I knew when I set eyes on you that you couldn't be trusted with victory, Avon.'

'Of course, I'd forgotten we're expected to leave our lives in your trustworthy hands.'

'No; I'm building a life for every one of these people we've been fighting for all these years. Don't you see?'

'I've always seen, right from the very beginning. And for all its reassuring words, that speech is an acceptance of absolute power - although I doubt it could corrupt you any more.'

The unmistakable metallic tang of a sidearm being drawn.

'Blake!'

'Killing has been your solution to everything, hasn't it, Blake?'

'Killing you will be hardest of all, Avon. Cally, come here. You don't want to be caught between us.'

'I'm not. Not now. I'm sorry, Blake.'

From the sound of the gasp, I'd say she stabbed him. Now, there wasn't much coughing and gurgling, so she'd missed his lung and probably punctured the heart. He'd gone in moments. As had I.

I still have a really bad feeling about all this.

IV The Aftermath

'the glories of this happy day'

I'd been asleep for maybe a couple of hours, when I was woken by a persistent tapping on the door.

'Oh for fuck's sake...'

I scrabbled around in the darkness for my torch and banged my head against the wall.

'Fuck it!'

Then I heard Vila's whine from outside. 'Jenna, hurry up! Come on, it's not safe out here - '

I couldn't believe it. 'What the hell are you doing here, Vila?' I said through gritted teeth as I opened the door and saw him hopping around.

He pushed past me. 'You've not got anything to drink, have you?'

'If that's what you woke me up for, I'm going to throttle the life out of you.'

Well, it wasn't what he'd woken me up for. Fumbling with the cap of my last bottle of black-market gin, he finally got the story out. This being Vila, it was fairly garbled and self-involved, but eventually I understood what he was trying to say. That Blake was dead.

I sat down slowly on the bed, feeling the life ebb out of me. 'Blake...' I whispered into a hand which had come up involuntarily to cover my mouth. I'm not a sentimental woman and I've seen a lot of death - caused a lot of it - and I didn't think anything could hit me hard, not any more.

I suppose it would become tedious if we could no longer surprise ourselves. It was the worst shock of my life.

The first time I see him - unconscious. An easy target, I think. The first time he speaks to me - naive. He won't last long, I tell myself.

'Jenna? You okay?'

Vila's face came into focus. And so did I.

Shoving him aside, I rushed across the room, and started pulling out equipment from a locker.

'What're you doing?'

'That bastard,' I hissed. 'He's not going to get away with this, Vila. I'm going to make sure he's dead before the morning.' And I carried on dragging out the pieces of a transmitter.

'Er, Jenna - '

I turned on him. ’Either help me or get out!'

He swallowed. 'I'll stay, if that's okay.'

I shoved some cabling at him. 'Then get that fixed up.'

He bent over his job - for about two minutes. 'Look, I don't mean to be stupid, Jenna, but a radio's not much of a weapon, is it?'

'It is if you want to make sure Avon won't be able to walk round the streets safely. As soon as this is fixed I'll have news of what he's done blasted across the whole damned city.'

He stopped work. 'Er, do you think that's such a good idea? I mean, won't that make people a bit, well, jumpy?'

I ignored him.

Passionate, vigorous, charismatic. 'Maybe some dreams are worth having,' I say, and as I hear myself I can't believe I'm talking like this again.

'I think you should stop for a bit, Jenna; think it through. Maybe we should talk to someone - Avalon, find out what she thinks - '

'If you want to go and look for Avalon, Vila, I'm not stopping you.' My voice sounded muffled. I concentrated on the cables, which seemed to be increasingly blurred before my eyes. I was only vaguely aware of Vila getting up and the door snapping shut after him.

Curtis' body is sprawled on the floor. I look over at Blake, and he comes across and scoops me into an embrace. 'We did it, Jenna!'

My hands were shaking and I told myself it was because the heating had gone off three weeks ago and the flat was freezing. With trembling fingers I put in the final connector, and started turning dials to get ready for transmitting the news to the people that Blake was gone and Avon had killed him.

The battery was dead. I started to weep.

***

I was still sitting there on the floor when Avalon came in, Vila behind her. She didn't bother with niceties.

'I hope you've not done anything stupid.'

I wiped a weary hand across my eyes. 'I've not done anything.'

'Thank Christ for that. There's enough trouble on the streets as it is. The last thing we need is for people to think it's gone out of control at the top.' She looked round. 'Where's Cally?'

'She's with Avon - ' Vila started.

'Then we need to move quickly - but carefully. People listen to Cally - she's a serious threat.'

'A threat?' I mumbled.

She bent down in front of me, something close to compassion flickering across her face, and gripped my shoulders. Her voice came through the fog surrounding me, controlled but forceful. 'Jenna, I know you're in shock right now, but you have to pull yourself together. Avon's already got Cally on side - God knows how - and he isn't going to hold back on account of your feelings. We need to broadcast something, yes - but we've got to pitch it right.'

I nodded my head, numbed to anything but my desperate grief and the need for revenge.

Vila piped up into the silence. 'Look, there's something you'd both better know. Avon didn't kill Blake - Cally did.'

Nothing else could shock me, and Avalon didn't bat an eyelid. 'That doesn't change anything.'

V Over Again

'the noblest of them all'

I look out of the window into the night. This house is well into the countryside, but I can easily pick out the city. It is restless, its yellow light splintering the darkness, an ominous haze around it. Between it and here lie miles of empty, unlit fields, silently reproachful. I think, as I do nearly every day, just how unlike Auron this place is. Behind me I can still hear the sound of Jenna's voice, but I have long since stopped listening to the words. They are finely judged; they ache of love and loss and betrayal, and as I feel her grief I realise I share it.

'I can't believe I'm getting the blame for this.'

I turn around in time to see Avon kill the comm with a savage jab.

'You should probably leave that switched on.'

'I thought we were going for a little chat but, oh no, you have to stab him.'

'He was going to kill you at the time,' I point out mildly.

Avon doesn't answer and I look back outside. The stars are out; unfamiliar constellations. I fought in many places across Curtis' empire, looked up at a myriad of nights from countless landscapes, checking my weapon and marking time as I waited for another raid or mission to begin. Perhaps I have spent too long looking at alien skies. Perhaps it is time to go home. After all, I left Auron to bring revolution to Earth. And I have succeeded.

Beside me, Avon is getting anxious.

'Cally, we've got to get moving.'

I ignore him.

Curtis was a gangster, a criminal who ruled Earth through fear and suppressants, and his empire through bloodshed and shadow. I did not fight four years of guerrilla warfare to replace him with more of the same. I believed in Blake; I wanted him to succeed. Even these last few days, I told myself that he would not just seize power, that it would only be for a short time, just long enough to secure the victory we had won.

Oh, Blake, we were so close to success. In all my worst nightmares, I never dreamt that you would become the enemy.

'Cally, will you snap out of this?'

Earth is not safe yet. There are still people out there who see the space Blake's death has left as nothing more than an opportunity. I will not let them profit from this. His death will mean more than that. It must.

'Look,' I say, and point out of the window. Across the black fields, six points of light are shifting towards us. 'They're coming. It's time to make our move.'

***

We arm ourselves with silent and quick precision. Avon is very good at this now. I watch as he checks the power level on his gun. We will leave the building from the back and make our way through the grounds to see just how many have come before we attack.

Suddenly, the window next to us shatters, showering the room with glass. The wall behind us explodes, and we are plunged into darkness.

I'm thrown against the wall and I bang my head. It's a few minutes before I can speak again.

'Avon!' I hiss.

There's no answer. All I can do is hope he'll be at the back of the house when I get there.

I stagger through the house, brushing my hand against the wall to guide myself. At the back door I dispatch the waiting sentry with a knife to the throat. There's no sign of Avon. I step into the garden. Outside the night air is sharp and biting. It is pitch black. I press myself against the wall and start to inch my way round to the front. Peering round the side of the building, I can see three trucks. Black shapes are moving round, and I can't quite tell how many. Eight? Ten?

A crack of a branch makes me look to my right, and I see Avon making a run for it past the furthest truck. A figure rises out of the darkness and a shot is fired, and I see Avon's arms flail as he crashes backwards onto the ground. I stand up and shoot, and the figure falls down dead.

Then another shot is fired. It's a moment before I connect it with the sudden pain in my chest. I try to push forward, away from the house into the darkness. Again, a shot - and my left leg buckles beneath me.

The grounds are suddenly bathed in harsh white light. I hear Avalon shouting orders, then Jenna yelling, 'He's dead!'

Behind me, I hear Vila's voice: 'Home...' Home. Above me I see a set of strange stars and I am sad I shall die so far away. But what grieves me the most is ahead, into the future - where I shall not be - where I see a succession of butchers and criminals and murderers each replacing the other, over and over again. I brush my fingers across my chest, and there is blood on my hands.

I came to Earth to bring revolution - and I have succeeded.

Under the Influence

2004-11-22T11:44:45Z

Under the Influence

Who watches the watchers.

Under the Influence

First published in Star Four.

***

Earth teemed. A seething crush of humanity that pulled and pushed me in any direction it saw fit. How shallow and unprofound one’s everyday dealings, the majority of one’s interactions. How easy to give way, to be pressured, to be forced, to allow oneself to go with the flow.

Faces flit in and out of one’s realm of perception, ever-changing and yet relentlessly similar. Across the city’s grey backdrop, a cast of a million bit-part players flickers disjointedly – on the subways, through the underpasses, in and out of the apartments and offices the swell moves on and on. Only with the face down and the eyes half-focused can you force a pathway through.

Earth: the centre of civilization; the pinnacle of a career – the crucible in which a thousand dreams are forged and destroyed every second of every day.

***

‘Earth faces a danger, greater than any war from outside. The danger it faces is within.’

***
The first time I saw him he was curled on the floor, his arms clasped around his chest for protection. As I entered, he raised his head to look at me. The bruising was severe; his face puffy and eyes red. He looked no worse than is usual at this stage.

‘You will answer my questions promptly and truthfully. Failure to co-operate will result in punishment, co-operation will be rewarded. Do you understand?’

He blinked back, mouth forming into some question. A ‘what’? A ‘why’? Who knows?

‘You will answer my questions promptly and truthfully. Failure to co-operate will result in punishment, co-operation will be rewarded. Do you understand?’

He was dazed now after this barrage of information - probably the most anyone had said to him in two days. That was the point.

I sat down behind my desk. ‘Perhaps you would care to join me?’ I indicated the chair opposite.

He pulled himself upright with some effort, and made his way over unsteadily to the chair, not quite allowing himself to slump into it. I always found these remnants of self-respect somehow touching. Once he was there I operated the control on my desk and the restraints snapped round his wrists and ankles, pinning him in place. He looked up angrily.

‘We don’t want you injuring yourself,’ I said.

He shook his head in disbelief and contempt.

‘Which reminds me,’ I added, and flicked another control, putting an electric current through him. ‘You didn't answer me. You will answer my questions promptly and truthfully. Failure to co-operate will result in punishment, co-operation will be rewarded. Do you understand?’

He nodded slowly. ‘I understand,’ he mumbled, as his trembling subsided.

‘Good! I'm glad we’ve got that clear. Obedience is an under-rated quality that goes too often unrewarded. Myself, I think it becomes a man immensely. But… you wouldn’t agree, would you? Obedience is something you haven’t been able to master, have you? Never mind its concomitant qualities. Duty. Loyalty. Respect.’

His eyes flashed. ‘Duty? Loyalty? To what? An administration that drugs its citizens, denies them their rights and then tortures them? Respect?’

‘What do you respect then?’

‘Everything this administration fears and despises. People. Their right to think, to speak freely.’

‘Their right to die in bomb blasts set off by fanatics?’

‘They were legitimate targets. This is a war.’

‘And your people are not targets, I suppose?’

‘We go into this in the full knowledge that there are only two ways out. We will die, or we will be free. What we cannot allow is for this regime to carry out illegal acts against its citizens, what we cannot allow is tyranny to remain unchecked…’

I cut in sharply. ‘I’m not interested in your half-baked ideological rants. I’m interested in your repentance.’

‘Not a chance.’

I smiled, and stood up, moving round until I was very close to him. He held my gaze fast. ‘You know,’ I said, ‘not many people are as lucky as you are. Not many people get the chance to choose redemption.’

He sneered.

I turned on the lamp, scorching my fingertips just a little on it – damn, those things are hot. ‘Please understand – you still have only two ways out. You will die, or you will break. The choice is yours.’ I aimed the light at his face. ‘Good night.’ And then I left.

***

‘Some people will claim that I have been brainwashed. Let me deny this completely. I was arrested whilst taking part in an illegal meeting – a meeting of fanatics, whose intention was to hurt and to kill innocent civilians. I did not break – I learnt that I was wrong.’

***

In truth, I hadn’t expected him to be so young. Given his reputation, the impact he’d had, I expected someone older. He wasn’t a child, by any means, but not yet thirty, his files had said. Face-to-face, he still looked youthful. Maybe that’s what fervour does for you.

I didn’t switch off the lamp again as soon as I entered. He’d had it shining on his face for the past eight hours – another two minutes wouldn’t make that much of a difference. I busied myself at my desk. He looked at me, eyes half-shut, but the loathing behind them was clear.

‘Good morning.’

He licked his lips and glared back.

‘Did you sleep well?’

‘What do you think?’ he rasped.

I released his arms, and he slumped forwards, rocking slightly. His fingers twisted round on themselves anxiously. I switched off the lamp and he sighed deeply in relief.

I flicked through my papers. ‘Now, where were we? Ah, yes. Yesterday you told me your misperceptions about the administration. I take it you haven’t, er, seen the light yet?’

‘Very funny.’

I stuck a charge through him. ‘Don’t attempt sarcasm. Remember what I told you yesterday. Obedience, duty, loyalty – and respect.’

He glowered at me.

‘You know, what you said yesterday troubled me. Clearly you must believe you’re right, because otherwise you wouldn’t go to such lengths, be willing to sacrifice yourself – and your people. Or else you’re delusional…’

‘What I said is right.’

‘Now, I find right and wrong to be such subjective terms. So dependent on perspective.’

‘That’s your problem. I know that I’m right.’

I looked surprised. ‘Oh, so you just know that you’re right! How pleasant for you to have that insight! Have you never considered the possibility that you might be wrong? Are you that much of a megalomaniac? Perhaps you shouldn’t be here at all. Perhaps what you really need is psychiatric treatment…’

‘You’re twisting my words.’

‘Just following them through.’

‘Everything you people say is twisted. Is that all you can do? Pervert? Destroy? Is there nothing noble about you? Nothing human…?’

Another burst of current stopped him. ‘I told you yesterday I wasn’t interested in your ranting.’

‘You just can’t bear to hear it,’ he whispered.

‘On the contrary. It intrigues me. You believe you’re right to murder soldiers. We’ll accept that – for the moment. But to be prepared to sacrifice your own people, your friends, on the grounds that you’ve had some revelation that the rest of us don’t understand? How do you persuade yourself of that?’

He didn’t answer, just glared back. His arms were back on the sides of the chair again, and I took the opportunity to strap him back down. His face became apprehensive.

‘Persuasion is what it’s all about, you know. You’ve been persuaded one way. I know that you can be persuaded to think again.’

‘No way,’ he snarled.

Flicking a switch, I started up a klaxon. I stood up, shook my head, and left the room.

***

‘In the course of my campaign of terror, I have committed many crimes. I persuaded many people that my beliefs were right, and as a consequence many of them died. I planned and carried out the murder of many soldiers, whose only crime was to be loyal to the administration and to protect its citizens. It is with deep shame that I admit these crimes, and offer my sincerest apologies to their families, their wives and children.’

***

‘Feeling better?’

He didn’t answer, just curled round on himself more tightly. When the guards had eventually come in to turn the noise off, they’d brought him his first solid meal in four days. It had, of course, been full of toxins.

‘You should come and sit down.’

His progress was slower than it had yet been, his attempts at dignity pathetic. He fell back into the chair. I didn’t restrain him this time, as I needed his hands free.

‘I’ve brought a document.’ I threw it onto the desk, and picked up a pen. ‘It outlines your crimes against the administration, it explains how you were misguided, and it encourages others to follow your example. You will sign it and you will read it out for public broadcast.’

He shook his head from side to side, once each way.

I moved round the desk, picking the papers up.

‘That wasn’t a request. You will sign this, and you will read it out. It’s just a matter of time.’

He started to laugh, a strange, dry sound. ‘I have all the time in the world.’ His eyes danced.

I placed the document on his lap, offered the pen. ‘You’ll never make it. Sign.’

He gazed down briefly and then twisted his head to look up at me. ‘You know,’ he rasped, ‘I pity you.’

I raised an eyebrow.

‘You’re just as much a prisoner of this as I am. This debases you, as much as it debases me. But the difference is, I remain free. You can beat me, you can poison me, you can lock me up forever – but you’ll never change my mind. It’s my own, and you can’t touch it.’ His head fell back, his eyes closed.

I moved in very close to his face. It was exhausted but somehow beatific. I lowered my voice to muffle my tone. The prisoners aren’t the only ones monitored here.

‘Sign it, for God’s sake,’ I whispered. ‘Then we can all go home.’

Very slowly he opened his eyes. His lips were cracked, his voice hoarse, but he was smiling. ‘Never.’

***

I signed the order passing him upwards that afternoon. When I saw him again it was more than two months later. He shuffled towards me along the corridor, flanked by two orderlies. His head had been shaved, and his temples and forehead were marked with a series of round, regular bruises. I paused as he passed me, and his head turned, coming to focus on me only slowly. There was no flicker of recognition in his eyes - there was no flicker of anything at all.

‘Hello,’ I said quietly.

He looked at me blankly. One of the orderlies poked him. ‘Answer the doctor.’

‘Pleased to meet you,’ he slurred. Firm, forceful arms pushed him away from me, down the corridor - out of sight and out of mind.

***

Six months later, I see him again. Not in the flesh this time, but on pressing the remote control. His face is on every channel – a special broadcast, everyone will see it.

‘And so I renounce my previous convictions as misguided and misinformed. I urge everyone who has been persuaded by me before to listen once again. I was wrong…’

And his eyes... The light of passion is in them again. He believes every single word. That conviction, that ardour, all his strength and charisma – why waste it when we can use it?

In the silence of the night, I hear the sound of footsteps on the stair, the thumping at the door, the shouts of those bringing terror and my own cries, of fear. You can’t beat the system the system only beats you we're all cogs in the wheel all parts of the machine you can't leave you can't change the way it is you can only survive… As prayers go, it lacks something. As a reassurance, it doesn’t convince. Perhaps I should sing a new song to the Lord: please God, don’t let them hear me thinking, please God, don’t let them hear me thinking, please God don’t let them see me...

Run, Anna, Run

2004-11-22T11:21:51Z

Run, Anna, Run

What a difference a day makes.

Run, Anna, Run

My brother always seized his chances; the little girl in his shadow hungered for this quality, so different from her own caution. He lurched through life from spectacular success to dramatic failure; a seemingly endless cycle of triumph and tragedy. I, in contrast, took my time, inching my way through the multiple choice, thinking ahead and through the game.

In time, I came to see this prudence as autonomy; a solitary source of pride in an increasingly compromised life. Everything around me I shrouded in complexity but, I believed, through it all I walked my own path: the lives of others were mine to control but the course of mine was my own to determine. In this dangerous pursuit of self-sufficiency, my precision and foresight protected me, and I was rarely surprised. For those who direct the game, nothing can be left to chance.

I did not, then anticipate to find myself with only two options. I could live the life I had always lived - of greyscale compromise and endless sacrifice or - learning from my brother - step blindly into the dark, uncertain of success or of failure, but taking the chance that had come to me so unexpectedly.

In the end, as always, it all came down to who was holding the gun.

***

I am sitting on the bed watching the light from the level outside flicker on the wall opposite; one, two, one two, a syncopated beat. These irregular rays have been cast on this room for almost an hour, since the main city lights began to dim, warning that the curfew is approaching.

I am waiting in a small room that is like a hundred thousand others in this sealed and suffocating city; low ceiling, beige walls, the noise of strangers in enforced proximity above, below, around.

I am startled by the buzzer on the communicator; we talk in staccato, transmitting information in bits and pieces.

'Have you got the visas?'

'I got them.'

'We'd better get moving then. Where are you?'

'There's a problem - '

'What? What's happened?'

'I've been shot...'

It only takes a second for the world to lurch out of control.

'Anna, are you still there?'

Stalling for time, I repeat myself. 'Where are you, Avon?'

'Level 19 West, corner of 13th and 2nd.' His voice catches.

'Can you move?' He doesn't answer straight away. 'Come on, Avon! We can't hang around!'

'Yes; yes, I can move.'

'There's a service lift on that block. Take it two levels up. There's an alleyway there, behind the lift. Wait for me there. I'll be - ' Look at my watch, calculate time and distance ' - ten minutes.'

He doesn't think to ask how I know the city's secret places. 'Anna, the curfew's about to start - '

'Just wait.' And I cut the connection.

So this is the point, where the choice is made; to pull him in, or to go with him. It only takes a second, perhaps I've known for a long time that this is my only chance of escape.

I run out of the room and down the stairs, taking them two at a time. On the ground floor, I crash through reception, and the concierge yells after me that the curfew is about to start...

He is on the line contacting the security services about the curfew breaker within a few seconds; when they come they decide to search the premises and find that one room is being used by a prostitute, and arrest her and her client; they arrest the concierge too for allowing his property to be used in this way, and he ends up spending six months in jail.

...but I am out of the doors and onto level 32 North West, thinking it's safer to take the lift but faster to run, seeing the lights getting lower and knowing I have only two minutes before I really am on the run - so I do run, passing the lift where a fat little man is waiting...

The man is a lawyer, well respected and with a good practice. He goes back to his apartment, has an excellent dinner with his wife, and retires the following year to a comfortable plot on the east of the city.

...and towards a secondary stairwell I know where, here on level thirty-one, I once stabbed a girl who was going to break my cover to some men who were, thanks to my activities, desperate enough to kill me slowly and bitterly.

Three and half minutes gone. Level twenty-two. Last flight of steps, metal, my feet clattering on them. They're not good to run down, two steps are too much, one step's slightly short, and my calves are starting to ache from the awkwardness. I push open the door that lets me onto level twenty-one, at the intersection between 16th and 7th. Five blocks down, and three west. He should be there by now. Four minutes gone.

Zigzagging across the level's better since though it slows me down it means I'm ducking in and out of sight. These corridors are residential, row after row of apartments, three piled up above each other on each city level. Decent beta grade accommodation; fifteen, twenty stops from the centre of the city on the subway. A stop every other corner; east-west odd numbers, north-south even numbers. The city's well-planned - has to be, to fit this many people in.

But this time of day, the sub's not running and the levels are empty. Beta grades arrested on sight breaking curfew. Someone like me... well, I've spent a lot of time outside. And I've got clearance - though there'll come a point tonight when I can't use it any more, when I'll be outside for good. Two and a half minutes left. Turn south. Got a good clear view down the level - should see any trouble a mile off.

Reach the corner where he called me; there's the booth. Someone in there, shouting - they having as bad a night as me..?

She is so distressed at what they have said to each other that she stumbles out of the booth, unaware of what's going on around her, and walks straight into a trooper making a routine sweep along Third. She's arrested for breaking curfew and, since they always need more mutoids, ends up in the service herself.

...not my problem.

At the alley now; it's hidden, tucked away beside the service lift. Halt at the entrance, breathing ragged, leaning my left arm on the wall.

'Avon?'

Voice wavering from the running. Maybe from fear.

'Avon?' More urgency this time. Figure moving towards me. See his arm clutched across his chest. Starting to think how the hell I can get us out of here unseen, or if I should even try, maybe patch it up, wait here till curfew ends and then get out -

'You! Hold it there!'

Turn my head to look round. Should've expected it. Can't run through a city under curfew without attracting attention - god knows I've relied on that enough to pull in people running from me - but where the hell are all the stupid troopers when you need them, the ones that can't fucking fire straight? Normal circumstances I'd be glad of these two on my side.

'Come out of there.'

Raising my left hand to show I've heard; licking my lips which are ash dry, ignoring the gasp of pain of the man behind me, stretching my right hand, hidden in the shadows, to my side to reach for - a gun that isn't there...

I am never unarmed, I am never unarmed; god help me, if I get out of this alive I'll never fuck up like this again...

If they come closer, they'll see not just me but him. Can't protect both of us.

Suck breath into lungs still hurting from getting here and step into the street, ignoring the voice behind whispering my name.

'Put your hands on your head and walk towards us.'

Obedience suits civilians. They told us that in basic training, and right now I look like a civilian. Raise my arms as instructed, move towards them. Two blasters are trained on me, on my heart.

Obedient civilians are what we expect. Civilians who belt out with one arm and send a trooper flying and then break into a run are not. I've no illusions; I haven't got a chance. And I do it anyway.

'Stop! Stop right there!'

Shoot a glance over my left shoulder, see him take aim and...

Later, his written report having finally reached the desk of an undistinguished looking yet politically significant individual, he is called to account for the events of the evening; impressing his superior with his answers he is moved into intelligence; on his first solo mission he is shot in the leg and bleeds to death in a squalid room near the docks on Io.

...my fingers trembling touch the red rose unfurling across my white shirt, and I am out of time...

'Stop.'

***

In the dark, where you and I could be without deception, in that timeless place where the only mark of time is the counting of heartbeats, there is only you and I.

'Do you believe in fate?'

Brushes the hair from my face. 'I'm surprised you're even asking me that.'

'Sometimes you surprise me.'

'Only sometimes?'

'Have I offended your sense of mystery? Often, then.'

'Thank you.'

'Well, do you? Believe in fate?'

Smiles crookedly. 'I think we make our own fortune.'

***

The light flickers haphazardly on the wall; one, two, three, four. As the curfew approaches and the city darkens these uneven rays have become mesmeric.

This is a small room like many, many others in this regular, regulated city; a hundred thousand pens full of citizens.

The buzzer on the communicator sounds harshly; the conversation that follows is like code in its brevity. He has the visas, but he is shot. He is shot, but he can move. He can move, so takes the directions. He takes the directions, the call is over.

The decision takes only a second. This is the escape that has been longed for, no other chance may ever come my way ever again. But there's no guarantee we'll get out of this alive.

I pause for a second, then turn to the cabinet, open the drawer, take out my gun, and hide it in my jacket.

Then I run out of the room, crashing down the steps - and I slip, sliding down four steps before regaining my balance.

Limping through reception, I hear the concierge call out to me that the curfew is about to begin and I smile back at him.

'I'll get there in time,' I say...

He thinks for a moment about calling the security services, but doesn't. Walking through his premises later, he realizes the woman in room 29 has a client in there, and contacts security then. They arrest the woman and the council member who is paying her, and the concierge is awarded a Civilian Commendation.

...and run out towards the lift since although it is slower, it is under cover, and I can rub my ankle back into action - and now I'm standing by a fat little man waiting for the lift who is a lawyer, judging by the flash on his jacket pocket. He lets me in first. 'Hurrying to get indoors?'

'Yes, yes.'

'What level d'you want?'

'Twenty-one.'

'That's cutting it fine!'

'You're telling me.'

He hits the button for me as I work on my ankle, and I see that the lift is going to stop at four other levels before it gets to mine.

'You should be OK. Well, here's my stop.'

Level thirty. What sort of lazy bastard takes a lift down two levels? He waddles out and I decide that if the lift is stopping everywhere I should cut my losses and start running...

The lawyer heads back to an excellent dinner with his wife, and dies - probably happy - of a heart attack during the night.

...as I pass him he shouts, 'Good luck!' cheerfully, and I duck into a secondary stairway to run down nine levels of metal steps that are not quite steep enough for me to run down them comfortably, and within three levels I can feel a pain shooting up from my ankle. I can't do anything for it now, I've just got to concentrate on getting to where Avon is as quickly as possible. Seeing the painted sign on the wall for level twenty-one comes as a relief, and I push the door open, coming out on 16th and 7th. Five minutes gone.

Five blocks down, and then three to the west. I'd rather zigzag across the level but not sure I've enough time to get there. So I'm running south straight down 21/16, a long line of triple-stacked beta-grade apartments. Lights on behind blinds, everyone safely inside. Only people outside at this time of day are people like me. Seems like I've spent my whole life outside. Corner of Third, turn west.

Running like crazy past a long line of apartments. Swing round the corner, one minute left, see the booth where he called me, someone coming out of it...

She wipes her tears from her face, and stops to watch a woman run past her. Then she heads up 21/13 towards her parents' apartment, missing a trooper making a routine sweep and heading west along Third. She talks all night to her sister, and wakes in the morning feeling better. She registers her change of address, starts over.

...got a view of the street ahead, but a bad view, a bad view, he's there on the street, and there are two troopers heading towards him...

He left the alley, he left the fucking alley; I told him I was coming, I told him to wait, did he think I wasn't coming? Only thirty seconds late.

One arm across his chest where he's shot; he's barely fucking standing, barely holding that gun straight and those two troopers look pretty fucking sharp; Jesus, you get the dregs when you need back-up but not now, not when it would be useful. Avon, you need proper training to take these two on, just put the gun down and your hands up and leave this to the experts.

Gun in my hand now and firing as I'm running; one of them down now but the other, the other one has his shot out a split second before I can get out mine...

Hospitalized for two months afterwards, and then invalided out of the service, he finds it hard to adjust to civilian life, having signed on as a twenty-year man at fifteen. Eighteen months later, bloodstream full of shadow, and living in a one-room flat in the delta levels, he cuts his wrists.

'Avon!'

I run past the two bodies, fall down next to him, breath ragged, not as bad as his...

...scarlet's unfolding like petals across his shirt, his features slackening and I can't stop him slipping, slipping away...

'Stop.'

***

In that timeless place, where we count the beats and deceive ourselves, this is where if we could we would be something other than just you and I.

Watches me lie next to him. Abruptly: 'What would you do if I died?

'That's a strange question, my love!'

'What would you do?'

'What do you want me to say?'

'Don't avoid the question.'

'I wouldn't let it happen.'

Strokes the palm of my hand. 'You can't control everything.'

'I can control enough.'

***

The light flickers, one, two, one, two; the buzzer sounds; there is a cry for help. I am still, my choices made a long time ago.

Take your chances, my love. I - it seems - have a date with destiny. Chance would be a fine thing.

Lady Lazarus

2004-11-22T10:59:15Z

Lady Lazarus

The domed city is a city of spooks.

Lady Lazarus

First published in Sleer as Folk.

***

I have done it again,
One year in every ten
I manage it

Sylvia Plath

Now

Resistance, I hear now, can be collusive. This is counter-intuitive, perhaps - or worse: the discursive manoeuvre of an idea itself coerced into collusion, emptied of integrity, flailing for air in a moral vacuum where the singular truth is choked by diverse lies. But collusion and resistance have always seemed the same to me. Treading the muddy waters that lie between the high life and the low life, I have learnt to spot the secrets that lie beneath the claustrophobic confidence of the chattering classes, the slippery polish of the politicos, the trivial rationalizations of the intelligentsia.

Resistance, I believe, crawls along the edges of the open spaces, or else it lies in ambiguity - of the word or the look that can mean one thing and signify another. Complicity! I hear the men of the Resistance rage; Treachery! - but I have never earned the certainty that comes from purity of principle. Chesku grips my arm and the spirit, as ever, resists; the flesh, which can be suppressed, has been conditioned to give no outward sign.

With the furtive anxiety of the born sycophant he sets down his glass and pushes me forward to present me to his new patroness.

'My wife,' he breathes.

'How charming!' she exclaims.

'We've met,' I mutter; but caught up in their appreciation - he for her, she for herself - neither are listening.

Around us, our closeted society slithers and chatters, and I see it, as ever, with double vision: hosts and parasites, high life and low lives. And she, more glittering and brilliant than any other, is no less ghosted than the rest of them - but I am the most secret, the most elusive of all our society's spooks. For ten years she has waxed and I have waned until now it seems to me that I am defined only through negation, through being what she is not. Sometimes it seems to me that I am made of air.

Ten years earlier

Eyes half-closed, the grey ceiling of the barracks above her blurring through strained vision and unwept tears, Cadet Grant lay on her bunk, surveyed her future, and wondered if she should live. Around her she could hear the gentle noise of other people settling, and tried to let their murmurs and restless movements lull her to sleep. On cue, as if to remind her to whom she owed her continued survival, she heard the sudden soft sigh of Servalan, settling in the bunk below and, instead of sleep, despair washed over her.

The morning had brought a strange death, the final extinction of what she had until the very end refused to admit was a forlorn hope. And yet – to her surprise - she had survived; although liminal, ghostly, only performing the actions of a living being. Performance, she realized now, was nothing new for her.

She closed her eyes and pressed her head into the pillow, the nails of her right hand digging into her upper left arm, something she had taught herself years ago. The physical pain distracted from the other source of pain and, after a few moments, she felt her body relax. But as she slid into sleep, she thought of her mother, as she had last seen her, and of her lover, being taken away. In the final moment before sleep overtook her, it came to her that they had both looked at her in the same way - in shock, and in accusation.

It was meant to be a warning... I wish you had understood. It was the only way I had left to let you go...

The morning of the day before

Servalan jumped slightly as the datafiles crashed on the canteen table beside her, then frowned and pursed her lips as she saw that her coffee had spilt over the edge of the cup.

‘Well, what the fuck was that all about then?’ Cleis said cheerfully, as she clambered into the seat next to her. ‘Christ knows what Kasabi’s on, but I don’t think it can be legal.’ She dumped her tray on top of her files.

Cleis had a lot of good qualities, Servalan reflected - loyalty and physical courage coming to mind - but sometimes it was an effort not to show one’s distaste. Excellent bodyguard material, but useless for, say, diplomatic occasions. Durkim, on the other hand, fretfully dabbing up the spilt coffee, was almost the exact opposite. Serious, dedicated - perhaps a little over-anxious - he would make an excellent adjutant.

Unaccustomed to self-reflection, it did not cross Ilse Servalan’s mind that not many second years at the FSA routinely planned the composition of their staff. If she had given this a moment’s thought, it still would not have troubled her. Servalan knew - even if her tutors had not recognized it yet - that she was a unique student.

Durkim sighed. ‘Well, whatever she was talking about, I can’t see any way I’m going to pass an exam on it.’

‘Crap,’ Cleis said firmly. ‘You work harder than any of us. Well, except her.’ She jerked her head towards the end of the table.

Servalan turned to look. The slight figure at the end of the table was engrossed in reading a view screen which she had propped up on a dish in front of her.

Perhaps now is as good a time as any to test my theories about you, Anna.

She took a sip of her coffee. Cleis, she realized, was talking to her.

‘What did you think of the lecture, Ilse?’

Servalan put down her cup as elegantly as was possible with institutional crockery, and said thoughtfully, ‘I’m not sure that I thought it was... appropriate.’ She looked at Grant again. ‘But I’d like to know what the class philosopher made of it.’

Cleis, her instructions issued, promptly picked up Durkim’s empty drink carton and threw it down the table. It bounced off the screen of the viewer. Anna blinked.

‘Grant!’ Cleis shouted.

With a sigh, Anna moved the carton, closed the viewer, and looked down the table. ‘What?’

‘We want to talk to you!’

A little wearily, Anna stood up and went towards them. Servalan looked her over. She seems so... ordinary. You would never guess. That’s what’s so insidious.

‘Well?’ Anna said, putting her viewer down on the table.

‘What the hell was Kasabi on about this morning?’ Cleis said.

‘Got too technical for you, did it?’

‘Fuck off. She’s meant to be teaching us military history. Battles, victories, and stuff. Tactics. Not jargon.’

‘It’s not jargon,’ Anna said patiently, ‘it’s theory. Look, it’s perfectly simple. What you so eloquently described - “battles, victories, and stuff” - that’s just one way of writing history. But any account like that is as interesting for what it leaves out as for what it puts in. So, when you read something like... say, a report from Space Command,’ she was warming to her theme now, Servalan noticed, ‘you have to ask yourself, “What’s going on here? What’s being left unwritten, left obscure? What’s this account trying to justify?”’

Throughout this mini-lecture, Servalan had been allowing her eyes to widen little by little, her mouth to curl more and more in astonishment.

Anna stopped suddenly. ‘At least,’ she concluded, ‘that’s one interpretation.’

‘It sounds a very odd interpretation to me,’ Servalan said mildly. ‘Why would Space Command need to justify itself? Perhaps you could enlighten us further, Anna?’ The use of her first name was a deliberate insult, implying, as it did, an equality of grade between them that was arguable - or even superiority on Servalan’s part, which was also arguable, given the Grants’ recent history.

Anna kept her cool. ‘There is a political tradition on Earth - Ilse - which accords authority to the civilian Administration as well as to the Armies of Federation.’

Well handled, Anna, Servalan thought. Kasabi has trained you well. ‘Of course,’ she mused out loud, ‘we might expect such an opinion from someone with a family history like yours.’

That got a reaction. Anna flushed angrily. ‘Not everyone finds it necessary to flaunt their connections to advance in life, you know.’

‘And I think that’s a great pity. Perhaps if more discrimination were used in deciding who should be admitted to the Academy, we might not be forced to listen to the lies Kasabi was promoting this morning.’

Anna gave a short, contemptuous laugh. ‘Your grandfather was a beta grade who got a field commission, Ilse, and you know it. You can try to pull elite rank on this pair of provincials,’ she jerked her head at Cleis and Durkim, ‘but you don’t impress me.’

‘And yet your family, for all their long history, has shown an appalling lack of judgement in recent years. Why was it again that your father resigned from the High Council, Anna?’

Durkim looked with sudden interest down at his cutlery. Cleis whistled under her breath.

‘Fuck you, Ilse,’ Anna eventually ground out.

So this is the weak spot...!

‘It always struck me as somewhat pathetic,’ Servalan continued, concealing most of her delight, ‘that the best your father could do to ingratiate himself with the authorities was to send you here. I imagine your brother made a more impressive cadet but, well...’ She left the rest unsaid. ‘You may be bright, Anna, but I really don’t think I’ve met anyone less well-suited to the army than you. You should have stayed a civilian. Gone to the University.’

And from the look on your face, that was exactly what you wanted to do. Does family mean that much to you, Anna?

She picked up Anna’s viewer and offered it to her, effectively dismissing her. ‘The civilian administration is a thing of the past, Anna. Space Command’s the future.’

‘Over my dead body,’ Anna shot back. She wrenched the screen from Servalan’s hand and strode out of the canteen.

Servalan watched her thoughtfully and, after a few moments, got up and followed her, hurrying to catch up.

‘Anna, wait.’

Anna swung round angrily. ‘Fuck off, Ilse - I have nothing to say to you.’

‘I, however,’ Servalan replied, taking Anna firmly by the arm and manoeuvring her away from the crush of the corridor, ‘have a great deal more to say to you.’

That evening

‘Have you gone mad?’ Kasabi said later, eyes flashing as she glared at the younger woman curled up on the bed.

‘Maybe I over-reacted -’ Anna admitted.

‘Over-reacted...? Anna, do you know how much trouble you could have caused? I’ve warned you about Servalan. And so you get into a pathetic little argument defending the rights of the elite families! That has got to be a joke!’

‘She insulted me!’

‘When are you going to get it into your head that it doesn’t matter? These pointless arguments! This has nothing to do with real life, Anna; nothing to do with what we’re doing!’

‘She insulted my father!’

‘I’ll say it again, Anna - it doesn’t matter. This family pride - it’s ridiculous. It’s something from the past. What’s it got to do with real people? A tiny bunch of elites flit through life playing petty little power games - and everyone else can rot. You have got to leave this behind you!’

Anna turned away from her in angry frustration.

‘You know better than this, Anna. She was baiting you. She was hoping you’d let something slip - ’

‘Oh, give me some credit! I gave away absolutely nothing - ’

‘She is dangerous, Anna - ’

‘Now I think you’re over-reacting - ’

‘And I think that you’re under-estimating that girl. She’s ambitious, Anna, she’s clever, and she is ruthless.’

‘Then you should have fucking recruited her instead!’ Anna shot back.

Kasabi slapped her once, hard, across the face.

After a very still moment, Anna curled her legs up under her further and wrapped her arms around her knees. ‘Well,’ she said eventually, forcing a brittle smile. ‘That went well.’

Kasabi sat down next to her on the bed, and tried to take her hand. Anna clenched her arms more tightly about her.

‘I’m sorry,’ Kasabi said at last, and was unsurprised that Anna did not answer. She stroked a finger along Anna’s hand, which was twitched away - but she reached back and repeated the movement until it was accepted.

‘There’s something I... need to tell you,’ Anna said, indistinctly.

‘You’ve not done something else, surely?’

‘No, no, nothing like that.’

‘Then what, Anna?’ She caught the girl’s hesitation, and gently but firmly at last got her to release one of her hands into her care.

‘Something... happened to me once. Something that... will explain a lot.’ She faltered.

Kasabi felt that she was on the edge of something of profound significance. ‘Tell me, Anna,’ she said. ‘You can trust me.’

Buried at the deep point, at the centre, is the moment of definition. When I disinter it, nails scrabbling at the layers left by the years, and I find the place that the child that I was once upon a time inhabited, I find to my surprise that I have come no distance at all. As it loses its hold on me, I can see how the passage of time - the accretion of experience - has acted as a narcotic, numbing emotion, providing the means to intellectualize and so to distance. I see now how my precocious perception atrophied, became retarded maturity.

Buried at the deep point, then, half-suffocated, lies the definitive truth. There are times that I convince myself that I have staked it through the heart, but always it comes back to life, worming its way to the surface, gagging for air.

My recollection had always been that this occurred during a holiday from school but, later, checking the files to see the date that my brother escaped, I found that it could not have. This accounts for why I was so sure that, despite the presence of my parents, the interview did not take place at home. I had assumed it was an attempt on my part somehow to distance the scene of the crime from the family home - such a concern being central to everything I did afterwards - but now I suspect that it took place somewhere at my school, in one of the rooms to which students did not normally gain admittance.

In any event, the family were there - with the exception, naturally, of my brother, whose absence had provoked the meeting in the first place. Sitting directly on my left was my father, masking his terror through the performance of outrage; next to him sat my mother, as pale and unfocused as ever.

The focus of my own attention was, of course, the man in uniform sitting at the desk in front of me. The exaggerations of childhood transformed him in my mind into a dark and sinister figure, but reappraising him now with more knowledge of his kind, I suspect that he was just a young man on his first significant case. To me at that time he seemed omnipotent. And indeed, although his powers were not supernatural, I had guessed correctly that he had the only power that mattered - of life and death - over us all.

‘Tell me, Anna,’ he said, ‘when did you last see your brother?’

I glimpsed, at the corner of my eye, my father’s knuckles whitening as he gripped more tightly the arm of his chair.

Children are more perceptive than adults usually allow. They are also in the habit of deflecting these adults from the truth. Very carefully, I answered, ‘He left home for the Academy months ago.’

He looked back at me coolly. ‘That isn’t what I asked.’

‘That’s when I last saw him,’ I said quickly, and then gasped in surprise at the ferocious slap my father delivered to my face. He was not a man easily given to violence.

‘This isn’t a game, Anna,’ he snapped, and I was sharp enough then to realize that this was mostly for the benefit of the officer. It still hurt. ‘If you have any information about your brother, tell the Commander directly and truthfully.’

‘Thank you for your assistance, Councillor,’ the officer said, perhaps a little dryly. ‘I believe Anna understands how grave a situation she is in.’ He turned to address me again. ‘You do understand, don’t you, Anna?’

I nodded.

‘Of course you do. I know from your school reports,’ and he waved a file at me, ‘that you’re an intelligent girl. But let me explain my situation to you. I know when your brother left Earth. But I don’t know how. And that worries me, Anna, because is means that other people - other traitors - can leave Earth the same way.’ He paused. ‘You do understand that your brother is a traitor, Anna? I know how fond of him you are. But you understand, don’t you, that just because you love someone, it doesn’t mean that you should lie for them? Lying is wrong, Anna, and it has consequences. Do you understand that?’

Again, I nodded.

‘Good girl. Now, let me tell you what else I know. I know that just a few hours before he left Earth, your brother contacted your family home. This was just before you came back to school. Now I’m going to ask you a question, Anna, and I want you to remember what I said about lying. It’s very important that you understand that the consequences for lying could be very severe. So tell me the truth, Anna: did you speak to you brother then?’

I looked back at him fearfully. He gave me an encouraging smile.

‘Yes,’ I whispered, and I don’t know if I’ve ever been so afraid of the truth.

‘Good girl! See, that didn’t hurt too much, did it?’ He smiled again. ‘Now, you weren’t the only one to speak to him, were you?’

‘No,’ I said, hoping that if it was said quickly it would hurt less.

‘Who else did he speak to, Anna?’

‘For God’s sake,’ my mother whispered, ‘she’s only ten years old - ’

‘Be quiet, Marina!’ My father turned to the officer. ‘My apologies, Commander. My wife is over-wrought - it’s been a difficult time for her, as I’m sure you can imagine.’

The officer inclined his head in acknowledgement of the apology and turned quietly back to me. ‘Anna, who else spoke to your brother that day?’

I sat in shock for an age, staring across the desk at the man’s crisp black uniform, and the silver insignia, which has always seemed to me to be like an arrow shooting a target. I thought faintly to myself that maybe, if I didn’t answer, he might give up and go away.

In the event, it was my father who broke. ‘For Christ’s sake, Anna, answer the question!’

Impaled between the officer and my father, I was left without words. I started to cry.

‘Anna,’ murmured the officer, ‘who else spoke to your brother?’

‘Answer him, Anna!’

I could only whisper my reply. ‘She did,’ I said, twisting my head slightly towards my mother, but looking down at the floor. When eventually I dared to raise my eyes, it was to see the glow of success on the officer’s face, the ruin inscribed on my father’s And my mother... my mother, still distant, still pale, but with a tear rolling down her cheek. That was the last time I saw her. I remember feeling somehow cheated. Nobody said that the truth had consequences too.

Buried at the deep point, then, is the moment of definition, when I was formulated in a phrase, the moment when I formed and understood my own nature. This is the moment - the act - that defines and pre-determines everything I do. Everything else - dutiful daughter, devoted student, attentive lover - has been performance, no more than layers to be peeled back and leave what remains exposed for what it is.

The room had gone dark while Anna had been speaking, grey settling over the colours of the bedspread, the piles of books, the abandoned plates from the earlier meal, the distance between the couple on the bed. Kasabi made no move to turn on a light. Eventually she said, ‘They made you denounce your mother...’

Anna stretched on the bed. ‘No-one made me do anything.’ She reached for the cigarettes, and lit one. The spark illuminated her face, defined her features and their shadows, for one, quick moment. ‘I could have kept quiet, played dumb - ‘

‘You know as well as I do that if those people want you to talk, then they’ll make you talk.’

‘Not a child, surely...’

‘I didn’t think you were so naïve any more,’ Kasabi said softly. ‘Have I taught you nothing in two years? Anna, these people are without scruples. They are inhuman.’

‘But still...’

‘Still nothing.’ She spoke urgently, pressed the girl’s hand. ‘This is exactly why we fight, Anna. These people - they pervert everything. They take love and they make it a crime. You aren’t the guilty one here.’

‘I feel guilty...’

‘That’s how they want you to feel - as if the fault’s yours, not theirs.’ Kasabi’s eyes flashed with anger. ‘And it is theirs - because they have to have power, because they need us to be regimented and boxed in and controlled... It’s rotten, Anna. And it has to go, all of it, it has to go.’

‘I suppose...’ Anna whispered, her face hidden behind the haze from the cigarette.

‘You’ll have to be surer than that.’

Anna collected herself. ‘I know,’ she said, nodding. ‘I’m sure.’

Kasabi started to laugh. ‘You know that you’re the best recruit I’ve had in years - and I’m counting your brother there, Anna!’ she said. ‘You’re more subtle, cleverer. I think you can do great things for the resistance.’ She released Anna’s hand, but only so that she could raise the girl’s chin to look at her more clearly. ‘I don’t offer you an easy option, Anna. I think you’ve always known that, god knows I’ve never tried to hide that from you. But I do offer you the truth. You understand that, don’t you?’

‘I understand,’ Anna replied, very quietly, holding her gaze. ‘I understand.’

That night

Servalan waited in the darkness with patient certainty and, as she had predicted, it was not long before she heard footsteps clattering down the stairwell. She switched on her torch and said,

‘Anna.’

The girl jumped and swung round.

‘Hurry up,’ Servalan continued. ‘You may be used to this sort of thing, but it’s all too self-consciously clandestine for my taste.’

Anna glared at her, and then reached into her pocket. ‘Here,’ she said, handing over the recording. ‘There’s enough in there for a conviction, I should think.’

Anna’s hand, Servalan noticed as she took the small packet from her, was trembling.

‘If it’s any consolation, you’ve done the right thing,’ Servalan said, and put her own hand on Anna’s arm. It was shaken off, viciously.

‘Don’t you dare lecture me on what’s right,’ Anna whispered. You’ve got what you want, and that’s an end to it. I never want to speak to you again - about ethics, about anything.’

Servalan put her hand back on Anna’s arm, more firmly this time. ‘I’m afraid it’s not as simple as that, Anna.’ She tightened her grip, pulling the other woman round to face her. ‘Surely you didn’t think you could make amends for what you’ve done so easily?’

‘Make amends...?’

‘You disgust me, Anna,’ Servalan said, with sudden and venomous sincerity. ‘What do you imagine your beloved father would think of your little affair? What about the military authorities?’

Anna, she saw with satisfaction, had gone very pale. The flesh on her arm, underneath Servalan’s grip, had started to go red. Servalan pressed more tightly. ‘What’s on this recording won’t just ruin Kasabi, Anna. How much more disgrace do you think your precious family can with stand? A daughter cashiered from the service? Do you know how long a sentence you’re facing?’

‘Ilse, whatever you want - ’

‘I should let you rot.’ She punctuated the last word by throwing Anna back against the wall. ‘Whatever I want? Is that really what you have to offer me, Anna?’

Anna remained gratifyingly silent.

‘Well,’ Servalan said, regaining control. ‘I think you should carry on as you were.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘With your associates. I’d like to know more about them.’

Anna laughed in disbelief. ‘Ilse, after tonight I can’t go anywhere near the resistance - they’ll know what I’ve done!’

‘Then you’d better tell them something very convincing, hadn’t you?’

Anna pushed her hands through her hair.

‘You can go now, Anna. But I’ll remember what you said - “whatever I want”. I’m sure I’ll think of something else, very soon.’

A successful evening, she reflected, watching Anna make her shaky way out. Once she delivered the recording - edited, now, to protect her source - to the Academy authorities, she would have made her mark most effectively. And as for Anna...

A bodyguard, an assistant - but what I was lacking was a source of information, someone living on the margins who can tell me about the places I can’t afford to go to myself. Loyalty was not just a matter of affection. Sometimes there were much better ways to tie someone to you. Anna, Servalan suspected, was going to be an asset. A long-term asset.

Two months later

Ready.

Using a gun had never come naturally to her, but Anna had been working on it.

Aim.

Given the precariousness of her current situation - and the demands that she anticipated would be made on her in the future - she had no intention of going through life unprotected.

Fire.

‘Have you seen this?’

Missed. You could only concentrate on one thing at a time, and she had not heard Servalan approach. Controlling her irritation as best as she could, Anna took her time setting down her weapon before taking the news file Servalan was waving at her.

‘If this is another story about a remarkable victory on the part of Space Command, I feel I ought to say that your collection is beginning to take on the appearance of an obsession.’

‘Just read it, Anna.’

Almost demurely, Anna dropped her eyes and began reading. Gradually, her expression shifted from studied boredom to frank disbelief.

‘When did this happen?’ she said abruptly.

‘Last week, apparently. They had a news blackout, but now they’re appealing for information.’

‘They don’t know what happened?’

‘Only that when the interrogator turned up for the morning session, the cage was open and Kasabi had flown.’

Anna finished the article, handed it back, and then silently picked up her gun again.

‘This is something only the resistance could have pulled off.’ Servalan added. ‘I sincerely hope, Anna, that I won’t find out that you had anything to with it.’

‘No,’ Anna answered. ‘You won’t.’ She gazed back steadily as Servalan looked at her carefully.

‘Why do I get the feeling you’re taking pleasure in playing with semantics?’ Servalan said eventually.

Anna turned back to face the target. ‘I’m not an idiot, Servalan. You know what I... I know that I owe you.’ She fired, hitting the bull’s eye dead on.

‘I’m glad you remember that,’ Servalan murmured. She nodded at the target. ‘You’re getting better at that. I imagine I’ll find that useful one day.’

‘Your wish,’ said Anna bitterly, ‘is my command.’

Now

This, then, is how and why she owns me; because she realized that even at twenty I had mortgaged myself, that I owed interest on an old debt - and she used this knowledge without compunction. Kasabi was willing to pay outright the full price for being true to herself - I, alas, am not made of such stern stuff. Or perhaps I do myself an injustice. I suspect the truth of the matter is that I was never a revolutionary in the first place. Perhaps, after all, I have been true to my nature - it’s just that my nature is flawed.

I disentangle myself from Chesku and make my way towards her. If I were free to pick my own metaphor for our encounters, I would choose something other than the obvious one of a game of chess, with her the queen and me the pawn, but it clearly pleases her. She was never what one could call an intellectual.

Her heavy perfume corrodes the air between us. She is dressed in white, with feathers. I remember a story I read when I was young, of a swan which is killed for the amusement of children. I think how well her dress would look drenched in scarlet.

We always play endgame, and tonight is no different.

‘Anna, I’m so glad to see you.’

Check.

‘You called, I came.’

Block.

‘You are always so obliging.’

Mate.

I light a cigarette to mask her scent, and sigh deeply as I draw on it. ‘What is it this time, Servalan?’

She nods her head slightly, and I barely catch her breathe, ‘Him.’

I glance across to where she is looking. The son of a high councillor. I had noticed him earlier, chain-smoking, very bored. I don’t ask what she wants me to do with him, since she could only have one plan for the son of a rival. As I make my way across to him, I try to recall all that I have heard about him and, by the time I have reached him, I have remembered more than enough to be able to use his correct title. Propriety, you must understand, is very important.

‘Dr Avon, are you enjoying the party?’

He looks back at me and murmurs something blandly polite. He seems to like small talk about as much as I do.

‘I hear you’ve just received an interesting commission from the Central Bank,’ I continue. ‘I hope we’re not tearing you away from something terribly pressing.’

‘Well, there’s always something to think about.’ I watch him cast a cool gaze over me, taking in my bare arms, my low neckline. ‘So, Madame Chesku,’ he says, in a tone which does not even attempt to avoid patronizing me. ‘What do you do with your days? Beyond prepare for occasions such as this, I mean.’

He thinks I’m some sort of society wife - which is what I look like. ‘Well, Dr Avon,’ I say, stopping just short of simpering, ‘I’m professor of military history at the FSA.’

His eyes widen, and I see the sudden, startled respect. So he values intelligence.

He collects himself. ‘That’s very impressive,’ he says, ‘for someone so young.’

‘Well,’ I reply, ‘I’m extremely good at it.’

He smiles, very suddenly, and with almost disarming charm. It’s not just intelligence, then, that he values, but arrogance.

‘Your cigarette has gone out,’ he says, and reaches in to relight it. His hand brushes against mine, and he stops suddenly and looks at me with confusion. In that moment it seems to me that he already knows one lesson I could teach him, that half a life - the life of the mind - is better than no life at all. And I suspect it will not be long before he has learnt what else I know - that love has no connection with patience or kindness, or faith or hope. Love is always and only treason.

I slide my fingers round his throat and start to press.

‘You really are... quite lovely,’ he murmurs.

‘Thank you.’

Out of the ash I rise
With my red hair
And I eat men like air.

Chesku’s hand upon my arm, Avon’s eyes undressing me, and she, she, always my ambition. I resist, I collude, I endure. Beware.

Five Days

2004-11-22T09:40:32Z

Five Days

Perspectives on self-sacrifice.

Five Days

First Day

I operated the teleport to put him down, got a fix on the homing device, and let him know that it was all working properly. After that we maintained communication blackout as we had agreed - in fact, he would have destroyed his teleport bracelet. If they found that on him, it would give his identity away immediately.

Avon and I had discussed the best way of putting his plan into action in some depth. He took me into his confidence to an extent that he had never done before, and I have to say that I was mildly flattered - although there really wasn’t much competition. Cally refused point blank to have anything to do with the whole thing, and neither Vila nor Dayna would have been much use. Anyway, whatever his reasons, after months of being scathing about my abilities, Avon suddenly decided that my opinion was welcome.

My main concern would be that his arrest would look too contrived. It’s all too easy to get yourself captured when you don’t want to, but you can’t just walk into Central Security and demand to be taken to their interrogators without arousing some suspicion. We had decided that much the easiest way was for him to be picked up after the curfew hanging around a sensitive government building, and then attempt to resist arrest - but not so much that they would shoot him. A few well-aimed punches on a couple of troopers should do the trick - though they would pay him back for it afterwards. Fill his pockets with a few explosives and we’d have ensured that he would merit the attention of the more senior interrogation staff.

There is nobody for whom I would do what Avon is doing now. Nobody has rated so highly in my life that I would subject myself to torture just to pay back their death. Not my parents, certainly not any of my girlfriends, not even Deeta - though from what I gather these days he wouldn’t need my help anyway. Is this my own tragedy? Have I cared for people so little in my life that I am unable to point my finger and say ‘You are the one for whom I would give up everything’? What sort of person does this make me?

I mentioned this briefly to Dayna when she came to take over at the teleport.

‘I still can’t believe that he’s prepared to go to such lengths,’ I told her.

‘He must really have loved her, I suppose.’

‘I’ve been in love with people. But I wouldn’t calmly subject myself to torture just because I once liked the colour of someone’s hair, or she was good in bed.’ I winced inwardly as I heard myself speak. As ever, it came out as crass bravado rather than what it really was - an attempt to get some reassurance that I wasn’t as shallow as I had started to suspect I might be. No wonder people think that I have no finer feelings.

‘I think it probably goes a little deeper than that, Tarrant.’

‘Possibly. Perhaps he isn’t doing it for love anyway. Perhaps it’s just revenge.’

‘Now that I can sympathize with.’

‘Can you really? What about your finely-tuned sense of self-preservation, Dayna? Would you honestly have yourself tortured if you knew that at the end of it you could kill Servalan?’

‘I wouldn’t be afraid to.’

‘That isn’t the same. I know you wouldn’t be afraid to. But would you be able to plan it out the way Avon has?’

‘Maybe not. But that doesn’t make my desire for revenge any less than his.’

Cally had come in and heard these last few remarks, and it was she who spoke now. ‘You are misunderstanding Avon’s motives, Tarrant. He isn’t just driven by revenge. He’s driven by guilt. He blames himself that Anna died, and he is putting himself through all this in the hope that he will no longer feel guilty at the end of it.’

‘But you still refuse to help him, Cally, even though it might make him feel better?’ That was from Dayna.

‘I am refusing to help him because in attempting to wipe out his own guilt he is going to commit murder. That is not Avon’s right. He can be driven by his own conscience, but he should not be the judge of someone else’s.’

‘Well, his conscience should be much clearer by the time Central Security have finished with him.’ I felt that it might be prudent to get Cally off this subject. Ever since Avon had questioned the importance of going to Auron there had been a lot of bad blood between him and Cally. Now, I had never quite worked out the precise relationship between Cally and Avon, but I could characterize the current status quo. Hostile. Ever since we had left Karn and resumed our course for Earth, Cally and Avon had been arguing bitterly about Avon’s plans once he got there. Well, I say argued. Mostly Avon glowered and Cally harangued. But whatever the case, I couldn’t face a rehash of their dispute now.

‘How long is it now, Tarrant?’ Dayna wanted Cally off the subject as well.

‘He’s been down about eight hours. I stopped getting a signal from his bracelet almost straight away, but the homing device is still going.’

‘Are you sure that they’ll leave that switched on?’

‘Certain. They’ll be hoping someone’s coming to get him so they can arrest them too.’

‘How long do you think it’ll take?’

‘I’ve no idea, Dayna. Maybe they’ll bring Shrinker in straight away - maybe he’s on holiday for a fortnight.’

‘Surely not even Avon could last that long?’

I felt the inexplicable rush of jealousy that I always got whenever any of the others spoke of Avon as if he were superhuman, and snapped back, ‘If he wants out, he only has to reach for his neck. He has a way out at any time. It’s not like he’s alone.’

‘I bet it won’t make it any easier, though. And I hate this waiting.’

‘We’ve only just begun, Dayna. Give me a call when you get tired. I’m going to bed.’

Back in my cabin I kicked over a chair on the way to bed. Avon has that effect on me.

Second Day

Actually, I offered. He was looking increasingly tense, and kept forgetting what he was doing. Very unlike Avon. But then I suppose that the circumstances were very unlike anything I’ve seen him cope with before. I asked him if he wanted me to set it up. He looked genuinely surprised.

‘You don’t have to.’

‘I know. But I’ll still do it - if you want me to.’
He raised an eyebrow and looked at me quizzically for a moment, as if trying to work out an ulterior motive.

There wasn’t one. I just felt sorry for him, and wanted to help.

‘All right then. Thank you.’

Gratitude even! I suppose that makes it all worthwhile. Anyway, that’s why I’m down here in this cave, fixing lights and setting up photographs - because I momentarily felt sorry for Avon as he went about planning a murder. I know he calls it an execution, but that’s just the same thing, isn’t it? Whatever you call it, you’re still ending a life.

Cally was furious with me. ‘This is cold-blooded murder, Vila. He’s after revenge, nothing more, nothing less. He may pretend it’s justice, but it’s barbarous. I don’t know how you can help him.’

‘Don’t talk like that, Cally. It isn’t like that at all.’

‘What is it like, then?’

‘This man, Shrinker, he’s not a saint, you know. He’s murdered plenty of people himself, tortured them to death. I bet Avon’s just one in a long line of people who’d give their back teeth to shoot him. And I bet Avon will be more humane than Shrinker ever was.’

‘That is not a justification, Vila.’

‘Maybe not, but we’re hardly the ones to judge whether killing someone is right or not.’

‘What exactly do you mean by that?’

‘Can you honestly say that you’ve never killed anyone, Cally? All that time on Saurian Major, and then here with Blake? Have you never fired a gun to kill? And what about Star One? We were all prepared to see it destroyed, even knowing how many people would die. You set some of the bombs yourself.’

‘We did not destroy Star One, as I recall, Vila.’

‘But we were ready to. Even knowing the effect it would have, none of us told Blake that it was wrong, that it was murder.’

‘That is a different case entirely, Vila.’

‘So murder is only murder if you can see the victims?’

‘That isn’t what I mean. We wanted to destroy Star One because it would bring freedom.’

‘A greater good?’

‘Yes.’ She said it with deep conviction.

‘And who are we to say that Avon isn’t serving a greater good?’

‘Avon is motivated by revenge and guilt. Personal reasons - not any sort of greater good.’

‘Avon wants to kill a man who tortured his girlfriend to death. I’d probably want to kill him if I was in Avon’s place.’

‘You wouldn’t though. That’s the difference.’

‘Only because I lack Avon’s willpower. There’s no way I’d let myself be interrogated again willingly. But I’d want to kill Shrinker, just the same.’

‘Then you are a lesser man than I thought you were, Vila.’

‘One day Avon’ll kill for you and I’ll remind you of this conversation, Cally.’

‘I would never want him to kill in cold blood on my behalf. Never.’ She looked furious.

Time to back down. ‘Don’t be angry with me, Cally.’

She smiled finally. ‘Well, you must follow your own conscience, Vila. If you are happy to help him, then there is nothing more that I can say.’

‘Let’s leave it at that.’

So here I am, in a cave with only one way out - the bracelet on my wrist. I found the cave, I checked it for suitability, I set up the lights, I enlarged and put up the only picture that Avon has of the love of his life. He was very reluctant to hand it over to me.

‘I haven’t let go of this since before the London.’

‘I won’t damage it, Avon.’

‘You’d better not. I want it straight back.’

‘Don’t you think that you should leave it here when you go down?’

‘Why?’

‘They’ll take everything from you. You know that, Avon.’ Concentration going again. It’s not like he hadn’t been arrested before - he’d gone through the routine just like the rest of us. But he wasn’t operating properly. I just hope he’s keeping his head now. I wouldn’t have lasted two hours, never mind two days.

‘I suppose they will.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Keep it, will you? Until I get back.’

‘I’ll look after it, Avon, don’t worry.’

And now I’m looking up at her, the never-met but ever-present Anna Grant. Blonde and pretty, petite and feminine, Avon's one true love, and from the message she had written on the back of that photo she felt the same way about him. Would she have subjected herself to torture for Avon’s sake? I’ll never know that, I suppose. I’ll never meet her. But she has been a constant presence on the Liberator, ever since we first heard about her from Blake. After Albian, Avon appeared in a totally new light. To be honest, I’d never given thought to the fact that Avon could be love. It seemed so out of character. Of course, he wouldn’t discuss her at all. But Anna was there, we were all aware of her, and our view of Avon had been irrevocably changed.

And Anna has been an even more demanding presence in these past few weeks. She has exerted a real pull over all our actions. Cally hasn’t forgiven Avon yet that he saw Auron as a lesser priority than Anna. No prizes for guessing that’s why she’s been so hard towards him recently. She has been relentless in needling him, criticizing him, even just insulting him outright. He’s kept his temper well on the whole, especially with all the stress he’s been under. It’ll pass. It always does. Avon get all this out of his system, and Cally will come round, and then we’ll go back to the way we were. I don’t know what Avon plans to do after this is over, but I hope it involves plenty of rest and plenty of booze. He’ll need it, and I’ll never say no.

Third Day

He clearly has no idea that I can feel just about everything that they do to him. Three days it has been, and I have not slept either, and I have felt all his pain and his fear and his despair. I have not been able to leave my room for the last few hours because I am unable to focus on anything else, and I saw that Vila was starting to get suspicious. I do not want anyone to know what he is going through - and what I am vicariously experiencing.

I hope that this satisfies him now. I hope that he feels his conscience is clear and that his revenge is finally accomplished and that he will now stop this relentless self-persecution and let himself rest.

It won’t happen, of course. He will find something new to persecute himself about. If your character is that way disposed, then it doesn’t just change because the circumstances have.

How bitterly we’ve argued, and how angry I was with him. That hesitation, when we knew that Auron was dying, and I could see in his face that he really didn’t care, that all he wanted was to carry on to Earth and finish what he had started. Maybe it was hard for him to wait a little longer once he had finally made the decision to go - but they were dying. And he didn’t give a damn. No wonder I was angry.

And yes, I can sustain my rage with him through all this. Through every blow that falls upon him and everything that they are doing to him and all that he is doing to himself, I can grit my teeth and remember how he wanted to leave my people to die and think ‘this is a kind of justice.’ When they stop and leave him alone, all I can feel from him is her name, Anna, across time and across space, as if she were the only focus that he has, the only way that he can make sense of the world. And under it all, there is the grief, the sense of loss, the aching for something that is no longer there and that never be there again. I can understand that. But do I have to pity him for it? He didn’t show pity to me.

Those arguments that we have had, we have each said some terrible things. I have said things to him that have cut him to the quick, ruthlessly exposing his self-deception. He has responded with attacks on my ability to feel - so ironic and thus so more effective coming from Avon. Will we ever be able to forgive each other? I would mourn him as a friend. Would he mourn me? I think that he might, but he would never allow it to cloud his judgement, or his actions.

Is that what my anger is really about? That I cannot drag from him an irrational response even to save my planet, whereas he will subject himself to torture for nothing more than the memory of her? Not even to save her life - just to exorcize her ghost he will go against all that is natural to him and risk injury and even death in one magnificent, carefully-executed gesture. So well-planned, so meticulously thought-out - even in spontaneity he manages to show self-restraint. But at the heart if it that action, so unlike him - a selfless giving of himself totally to her and for her. Is that what love is, the only force that can make us act out-of-character, even out-of-the-ordinary?

He told me shortly after we met that he did not see why he had to be irrational to prove that he cared. If I never spoke to him again, it would hurt him, but he would deal with it and continue to function. Is that how it has always been? Have the people around him always had to inflict pain on him in an attempt to gain some proof that he felt anything for them? Am I falling into the same trap? Acceptance is the cornerstone of friendship - knowing the other person for what they are and accepting that that is what you get and it cannot be changed. No, that’s not quite right. You should not want it to change. How can you call yourself a friend to someone if you wish that they were different?

And so now, as ever when we argue, I feel that I owe him an apology for judging him by my standards, when he has never claimed that he could live up to them, and for being so angry when he does not. He only asks to be taken on his own terms, that is all that he can promise, and within those very limited boundaries that he has set himself, I don’t think that he has ever let me down. To wish that he would change is to do him an injustice. Blake could never understand that, could never grasp that there might be codes of conduct beyond his own that might have equal validity. And Avon’s code of conduct was so repellent to Blake. They were doomed from the very beginning never to see eye-to-eye. The eternal opposition - liberal against conservative, idealist against pragmatist, the champion of the rights of the people against the ultimate individual. Who can say which if them is right? How can the individual survive without security and freedom to pursue his own goals? But if, in the fight to secure that right, we crush that right - what has been the point of the struggle? I cannot answer these questions, I can only do what I think is right. So I will try to accept you on your own terms, Avon. But they are not terms by which I could live my life.

Fourth Day

They actually let me get some sleep earlier, and I was so exhausted that I crashed out on the floor where they’d dumped me. When I woke up I pulled myself onto the bed and I’ve been lying here since then, maybe four or five hours? I’m still tired. It’s the endless questioning that is so grinding - the constant demands for my name, what I was doing, why I was carrying explosives. I haven’t told them anything, of course. Not yet.

And this is nowhere near as bad as the first time I was arrested. I was an innocent then, used to a comfortable way of life and the privileges of rank. I was really unprepared for the fact that once you are inside one of these places they can do whatever the hell they like with you. When they picked me up then, the gunshot wound in my shoulder was still pretty bad. I naively thought I would get to see a doctor. Well, I did - but not until I had plenty more injuries for him to take a look at. Those weeks have blended into one long series of nightmarish images, like a surreal film, and all shot through with sudden bursts of pain as they put pressure on my arm, or just hit me again. Then I thought that I’d get to see a lawyer, or maybe get to contact someone from outside... it was about two months before my family were told that I was still alive and were allowed to see me.

That whole time was so frightening, so utterly unlike anything I’d known before that the shock of it nearly finished me off. This time, I’m in control - at least, I think I am. It’s all going to plan, but before I fell asleep earlier I was convinced that Anna was in the room with me, talking to me and holding my hand. It must be lack of sleep, or hunger, or both - but it was damn unsettling. I can’t let my mind wander, not when I am this close to Shrinker. If I can just hold on for a little longer, it will all be over at last... if I can just hang on...
For God’s sake, it’s only been, what, two or three days? I think so, but time is completely meaningless around here. You hang on from minute to minute, hoping that they’ll leave you alone for just a little longer and then, when they finally arrive, you close your mind and think of nothing but the fact that eventually they have to go away...

Your mind is worst enemy here. Not only does it start to play tricks on you, but it’s always ready to feed your paranoia and terror. And it’s funny how it focuses on one thing and doesn’t give you any relief from it. Last time I was arrested, I became obsessed with not being able to shave. They pick up on this sort of thing very quickly, and use it wear you down. After a couple of weeks I was willing to sell my whole family for a razor. It’s what it symbolizes - the outside world, normality, civilization... anything but the four walls of the cell and the pain and the interrogator’s voice. And when they finally hand you one over... you’re so grateful, you’ll do anything for them... Not my most edifying performance.

Anna was here again just now. I felt someone sit down next to me, and suddenly I could smell her perfume and I opened my eyes and she was there looking straight at me, the same as she always was. I reached out my hand and she took it and started to talk to me, to tell me that everything was all right, that it wouldn’t be much longer, just whispering at me until I fell asleep. I said that the mind played strange tricks on you. I know that she's dead, but it seems the most natural thing in the world that she would be here now, to see me finally pay my debt to her.

The first time that I saw Anna was at a function that my father was hosting when he was running for reelection to the High Council. It was a particularly tedious affair, and I was trapped in conversation with the awful wife of some businessman whose support my father was trying to elicit. I heard someone announced, and looked across the room and saw Chesku, and up-and-coming politician who had established himself within my father’s camp, and whom I found utterly distasteful because of his unsubtle sycophancy. Even now he was hanging onto my father’s every word and making a fuss of my stepmother. I was on the point of looking away, when I saw Chesku turn to introduce someone to my parents. It was Anna. I’ll never forget that tableau - my parents leaning forward to meet her, the whole group centring, as it always did when she was there, around the small but magnetic woman whose arm Chesku was clutching. I made my apologies to the businessman’s wife, and hunted down Merrick, my father’s aide, and a fount of gossip and society knowledge.

‘Who is she, Merrick?’

‘Her name’s Anna Grant. She’s the daughter of Tev Grant, an old sparring partner of your father’s from the early days. There’s a son as well, I think, yes, Del his name is.’
‘I don’t care about the son. What’s she doing with that cretin Chesku?’

Merrick grinned. He liked Chesku slightly less than I did. ‘Now that's the real tragedy. They’re engaged to be married, I’m afraid.’

‘You’ve got to be joking.’

‘I’m afraid not. A satisfactory arrangement on the part of both families, by all accounts.’

‘And on Chesku’s part as well, I should think.’

‘You father’s delighted about it. Chesku’s shaping up nicely as heir to the throne. Maybe you should have gone into the family business after all.’

‘You know very well that I’m not interested in politics, Merrick.’

‘Well, it might be good politics at least not to chase the fiancée of your father’s protege.’

‘Maybe.’

It didn’t stop me introducing myself, of course. I couldn’t let her go, especially not to Chesku. I only traded a few words with her that evening, just enough to let her know my name and that I existed. It was in the next few weeks that I made my presence felt. I took a sudden interest in Chesku’s career, engineering opportunities to meet Anna. I found out where she was living, and took to dropping by when Chesku was out. Chesku was rather touched at first, I seem to recall, even thanking me for taking care of his wife-to-be when he was too busy to do it himself.

It was three months to the day after I had first seen her that we kissed for the first time, and then our affair started and went on right up to her death. The only day that I didn’t get to speak to her privately and tell her that I loved her in all that time was the day she married Chesku, and by the end of the reception I wasn’t in a fit state to talk to anyone. Del dragged me home and, despite my having drunk so much, I remember what he said to me distinctly. He told me that he knew we were having an affair, that no-one else did as far as he could tell, and that he didn’t care what we did so long as it made Anna happy. Then he added his first threat, ‘If she comes to any harm because of you, Avon, I’ll tear you heart out.’

Harm her? I was unable to. I worshipped her. I would have torn limb from limb anyone who hurt her myself. It was all I could do most of the time to stop myself hitting Chesku whenever he touched her. It was while she was away with him just after their wedding and I had nothing better to do than think about her and him together that I first conceived of my fraud. You have to understand the effect that Anna had on me. Before I met her, my life was empty - just my job and a sense of being adrift and nothing else. Anna warmed my soul, she made life worth living - she was its purpose. It was because of her that I planned the fraud, threw away my life and career, so that we could be together and we could be free. And it was because of me that she died. Anna trusted me and I got her killed. My gift to her after all she had given me.

I told a lie just now when I said that the only day that she and I didn’t speak to each other privately across the course of her affair was her wedding day. There were a few other days as well, when she was under arrest and I was half-dead, and she died before I got the chance to speak to her again. The thought of her - desperate, in pain, alone - is more than I can bear. It’s the thought that comes to me most, in the middle of the night when I can’t sleep, and I wish I could rip through the fabric of time to be able to reach her and save her, or even just to tell her one last time that I love her. That’s why I’m here, now, going through all this again so that if she really is watching she’ll know that even though I couldn’t reach her, she was always in my thoughts, and that she is still the only purpose in my life...

Waking up again, or at least drifting back to consciousness, I can feel another presence. Not Anna, this time. There’s only one other person it could be...

Cally, I’m sorry we’ve rowed so much. I’m sorry that I didn’t leap to your side and rush the ship off to Auron in a blaze of self-righteous glory. Much more Blake’s style than mine, wouldn’t you say? Whatever you may like to think, I was never one for gestures. But I was right, wasn’t I? It was a trap, and we all nearly died. But I came down with you, and tried to look after you, and I made sure that the gene stock was safe.

I don’t blame you for being angry with me. But you are wilfully misunderstanding my motives in coming back to Earth. You who have lost your home and your family, can you not find in your heart a little compassion for me, and for my own loss? I loved her so very, very much, Cally.

I hear footsteps in the corridor. They stop outside, and I hear the door start to open. I pull myself round to see who’s coming in. It’s someone I haven’t seen before, a man with a beard. Oh God, let it be Shrinker. I’ll keep going forever, if needs be, but I can’t guarantee that I’ll be able to stay sane for much longer.

The man’s talking to me. ‘They tell me you haven’t been co-operating...’

Fifth Day

It can’t be much longer, surely. Five days we’ve been here now, five days he’s been down there. I have been prowling round the teleport bay now for two hours, occasionally toying with my new gun, mostly just watching the controls, willing the signal to stop.
Cally came in ten minutes ago and offered to take over. I was quite surprised.

‘I thought you didn’t want anything to do with all this.’

She shrugged. ‘It’s out of my hands now. There’s no point in you three overdoing it when I might as well sit here too.’

‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘I’ll stay, though. Something just tells me that it won’t be much longer.’

‘I had that feeling too.’

‘Really?’ I know that she’s telepathic. Could she be clairvoyant as well?

She caught my look and smiled. ‘Nothing like that, Dayna. I just felt that I ought to be here when he comes back.’

‘I’m sorry that you’ve quarrelled so much.’

‘So am I.’

The tension between them had been awful. The solidity of the relationship between Avon and Cally was something that I had come to rely upon, after the death of my father and Lauren, and having to leave Sarran so suddenly. I didn’t see them as parental figures, they’re both a little remote for that, but they worked well together, and that was reassuring. Seeing them fight so bitterly deeply upset me. I suppose Avon asked for it to some degree, refusing to go to Auron, but Cally really overdid it. She was so hard on him once we had resumed course for Earth. I’ve never seen anyone maintain such a tight grip on their temper as Avon did. I think he realized that she was mostly upset about Auron, but Cally really went at him. The day before he went down he was talking to Tarrant on the flight deck, finalizing a few details. They were talking about how long it was likely to take. Tarrant was guessing about four days, Avon was putting it closer to seven. Cally had come in and heard this last exchange.

‘Of course, Tarrant,’ she said, ‘the longer it is, the happier Avon will be.’

That went right over Tarrant’s head, as usual, and he replied with a puzzled look and a slight laugh, ‘I hardly think so, Cally.’

‘You’re missing the point, then,’ she retorted. ‘The longer he’s down there the more he’ll have cleared his conscience.’ She looked at Avon then. ‘Because that’s all this is, isn’t it, Avon? An attempt to flush out your conscience.’

Avon sat with his arms folded, completely stony-faced. Tarrant opened his mouth to say something, but he seemed to click that perhaps there was another layer of argument going on and closed it again.

‘You could reflect on some of your other crimes while you’re down there,’ Cally added.
Avon stood up to leave.

‘Coward,’ she hissed. I saw his eyes flicker for just a moment at that, but wasn’t quite sure whether it had hurt him or just made him fleetingly angry. ‘Prepared to face torturers but not how you feel,’ she added. ‘Is this the best that you can do for her? A pointless gesture of overblown self-pity?’

He rounded on her at that and this time he genuinely was angry. ‘You know nothing about it,’ he snarled.

‘I know more about it than you wish I did,’ she shot back.

He moved in on her, and for one horrible moment I thought he was going to hit her. Tarrant jumped up, but Avon just drew in a deep breath and pulled himself back. He wasn’t any less angry, just more in control of his responses. ‘How can you possibly understand?’ he whispered. I could barely hear him. ‘You’ve never fitted in, Cally. You want to be one of us, but you’ll always be outside. You’ll never know how it is to feel the way that we do, how it is to be human.’

Cally hit him across the face.

Avon rubbed his cheek and laughed briefly. ‘Well now,’ he murmured, ‘if that wasn’t a pointless gesture of overblown self-pity, I wonder what it?’

‘Damn you, Avon.’

‘I’d say the same to you, Cally. But it wouldn’t be worth it.’

‘I think you’ve said enough.’ Tears were forming in her eyes and she turned and ran out. Avon sat down heavily.

There was a moment’s silence, then Tarrant cleared his throat. ‘I think maybe you owe Cally an apology, Avon.’

I looked up to the heavens. ‘Oh, just shut up, Tarrant.’

Avon smiled at me, but didn’t say anything.

‘Well, I think someone should make sure that she’s all right.’

‘Why don’t you go?’ I snapped.

‘All right!’ He held up his hands. ‘I’m just showing concern for a fellow crew member.’

‘Then go and show it where it’ll be welcome.’

He shook his head as if the world had gone crazy and left. I turned to Avon. ‘Are you all right?’

He looked mildly surprised, as if it were odd that I should ask the question. ‘Of course.’

‘She said some pretty unpleasant things.’

‘So did I,’ he muttered.

‘She went too far. I’ve never seen her like that before.’

‘Cally has many different sides. But underneath them all is her passion for the truth. And a predilection towards violent responses.’ He touched his cheek gingerly.

‘The truth can hurt.’

‘As I think she has just found out.’

He was being unusually reflective. I decided to risk just one more question. ‘What about you, Avon? Are you afraid that the truth can hurt?’

‘Well, I don’t often give much thought to truth, Dayna.’

‘What do you give thought to?’

‘Security.’

‘What about this plan of yours then? That’s hardly going to put you in a secure position.’

‘Security isn’t just physical, Dayna. It’s a state of mind as well.’

‘So you’re looking for peace of mind?’

He smiled briefly to himself, then said, ‘Something like that.’ His gaze fell downwards and I got the message that the discussion was closed. I stood up to leave. I ought to look in on Cally as well. There was something that I had to add, though.

‘I hope you find it,’ I said. ‘Your peace of mind.’ He didn’t reply, but then I wasn’t expecting him to...

‘It’s stopped.’ Cally’s voice dragged me back from my thoughts.

‘Have you got a fix?’

‘I’m doing that now. Get Tarrant down here.’

I reached for the communicator and called to Tarrant and Vila to come down, then started to fasten on my gun belt. Tarrant appeared.

‘Are we ready to go?’

I nodded, then turned to Cally. ‘Have you got the fix?’

‘Nearly,’ she murmured.

‘We need to hurry, Cally,’ Tarrant pointed out unnecessarily.

‘Thank you, Tarrant, that’s very helpful.’

Vila appeared clutching a glass and a bottle of something noxious. ‘Is - is it time?’ he asked nervously.

‘Yes,’ I answered, giving him an encouraging smile.

Tarrant leaned over the teleport control. ‘Come on, Cally.’

‘That’s it!’ she cried. We breathed a collective sigh of relief, and I took a teleport bracelet from the rack. Tarrant was fixing up his gun as I checked I had all my weapons, and then followed me across to the teleport bay, grabbing a handful of bracelets.

Cally looked up at us. ‘Ready?’ she said.

One last check of guns and bracelets. ‘Ready,’ Tarrant replied. ‘Let’s go.’

A Life Closed Twice

2004-11-22T09:32:38Z

A Life Closed Twice

Who is Anna, who is she?

A Life Closed Twice

I would not be able to tell you at which point the trap slid its jaws silently around my throat and left me with no way out. Even the panic overtook me slowly, biding its time, until I only gradually became conscious of the permanence of the sickness in my stomach, and the overwhelming conviction that disaster was just around the corner. It was the sensation achieved in dreaming, as you try to complete some unspecified, intricate task, a feeling of imminent danger, of the brittleness of every moment, of the fear that the next movement you make will send everything crashing down around you.

And then, the anticlimax; the realization that against all odds I had got away with it, that I had escaped. I will not add 'with my life', because that is peculiarly inaccurate, but at least I can say 'alive'. It was not what I had hoped for; not what I had convinced myself was possible, even if the rational part of my mind, throughout the whole ruthlessly inevitable series of events, had always been whispering in the background that I was a fool, and that we had never had any chance of escape.

But even if I can't say how or when I managed to weave myself so tightly into this terrible, self-spun web of deceit, I can tell you exactly the point at which I made my decision, a moment of perfect clarity of thought and Road to Damascus certainty of purpose; it was after we had kissed goodbye and he left the hotel room - I knew then that when he came back I would go with him for sure, and face whatever consequences would be thrown at us.

Only he didn't come back. That was something I really hadn't expected. I trusted to his cleverness, his meticulousness - and it let me down! In my more wry moments I think that perhaps it's the closest that I'll ever get to being jilted at the altar, although most blushing non-brides don't end the day going into hiding with a price on their heads. But mostly, three years on, I still find it almost impossible to think of that day without grief - in its purest sense. I do feel as if I were bereaved that day. I lost everything - my identity, my job, my home, my name. And him.

***

It was still night in the city when he woke me. I heard his voice, quiet, but urgent.

'Anna.'

I rolled round. 'What is it?'

'I have to go out now.'

'What?' I opened my eyes, slightly confused.

'The visas. I have to meet the dealer in an hour.'

I was fully awake then. 'When will you be back?' Even then, that late, I have to be honest, it danced across my mind that I must make sure when to have him picked up...

'Just before daylight. No later than six.'

'I'm afraid for you.' It was involuntary, but was it honest? By this point, I could no longer tell whether I was saying what he wanted to hear, or what I really thought. Perhaps they had become the same thing.

'No need.'

'I should come with you. I can handle a gun much better than you.'

'It's easier to dodge the curfew alone. And before you offer - it's me he's expecting.'

'I don't think that you need bother to be courteous.'

He just smiled, that half-curl of his upper lip, the smile that never touched his eyes, except for me.

'What I'm trying to say is that you could be out of your depth, my love.' I stopped, unsure what point I was trying to make to him, cripplingly conscious of the conflict I had between keeping my target close and my desire to protect this extraordinary person who had turned my world upside down. 'This man you're buying the exit visas from,' I eventually carried on, 'do you trust him?'

'Trust him? Of course I don't trust him!'

'Well then!'

'Trust is only dangerous if you have to rely on it.'

I laughed at that, a quintessential Avon platitude, clever-sounding and utterly meaningless. 'That's very profound, my love,' I said. He had not liked my gentle mockery at first, but as the months wore on he had started to be able to laugh at his own pomposity.

'As long as I know I can't trust him, there's no problem.'

And then suddenly I felt myself on the edge of something genuinely profound. I was no longer interested in playing at one of our clever, epigrammatic conversations - I only cared about the truth, in knowing for sure what he thought of me, and hoping that in forcing this admission from him, I would get insight into my own mind, and into what I should do with this whole ungodly mess. I could hardly form the words, but I said it. 'Do you trust anyone? Do you trust me?'

He didn't hesitate, and his answer was very quiet, but full of conviction. 'Oh yes - I'm afraid I do.' He leaned forward, and took my hand, and I began to tremble. But we kissed only very briefly before he pulled away regretfully.

'I have to go.'

'I know.'

'I'll see you... in about four hours.'

'Yes.'

'I love you, Anna.'

'I love you too.' And when did that cease being simply a response and become an actuality? I couldn't look at him, and only heard the door closing softly after him. I think it was that sound, the sense of something coming between us, that finally cracked me, and I knew with terrible certainty that as deeply entangled in the run as I was, I could not end it. I had made my decision. Bartolomew was finished. Anna was taking her life back into her own hands.

***

When I first received the files on Avon I wasn't interested. It was clear to me straightaway that Avon was not political; and so I didn't perceive him as needing my attention. A common criminal, if that's what he was, was the business of the police, not Central, and certainly not the job of Central's best agent. My concern was security; security of the State, security of its citizens. Yes, I was an idealist when I joined the Service. It's always idealists that they coax into intelligence work. A more cynical person would be just too disgusted to do some of the things I've done, betray some of the people that I've betrayed. It's only if you can convince yourself that you're doing it for a good reason, like protecting the way of life of other people, or preventing terrorist atrocities against innocent citizens, that you can actually take a run right through to the sordid end. And by the time you're no longer an idealist (and that doesn't take long), you're in too deep; you have too many secrets; the web is already tight around you. I was damned years before I met Avon.

It was my boss, Hunter, who persuaded me to take the run. I call him Hunter still through habit. There really is no need to use his pseudonym, he's been dead since the rebels' abortive coup. Well, let's give out some of those secrets that have already cost me so much! My boss was Moor Curtis; yes, that's right, the President, that urbane, cultivated, murderous man whom we all mourn now that his successor is in place. It makes sense if you think about it. Who else would the most successful agent answer to but the most successful politician? We all had our patrons at Central. But I picked the winner, and he stayed the winner for six years. Eventually he lost. They usually do.

I told Hunter that the run was pointless. I could tell just by looking at his files that Avon wasn't political, that it was all a waste of time. Hunter wasn't having any of it.

'You only have to look at his parents, Bartolomew! His mother was shot in '68 for planting bombs at the Council Chamber.'

'He was six at the time! That's hardly going to make him a terrorist himself!'

'It makes him a candidate. Maybe he's suppressed his need for revenge up until now.'

'That's crap psychology and you have no evidence for it at all, Hunter.'

'No evidence? Have you read his psych profile?' He flung the file across the desk at me and started reciting the contents at me, obviating my perfunctory scan of its interior.

'He's secretive, cynical, something of a loner. Just read them, will you? He's exactly the sort of lunatic to start planting explosives under politicians.'

'Like mother, like son?' I sneered.

'Quite possibly.'

'He doesn't fit any of the criteria for an activist. He hasn't been a member of any proscribed groups; his student record is spotless; his professional record is exemplary... Admittedly, there are some footnotes here that say he might have criminal tendencies, but that is not my concern. You want him under surveillance, get the grunts onto him. I've got enough work without taking on petty crooks as well.'

'I want you on this, Bartolomew. I want this man out of the picture.'

I was startled by the vehemence of his reply. 'Why are you so set against him?' Then it clicked. 'Oh, hold on. You said 'parents' before. Look at his parents, you said. It isn't his mother, is it? It's his father you're worrying about.'
Hunter at least did me the courtesy of looking shifty before completely denying it. 'Don't be ludicrous.'

I wasn't convinced. I knew for a fact that over the past eighteen months Hunter had become increasingly uncomfortable about the growing influence and prestige of his erstwhile right-hand man, High Councillor Marcus Avon. Knowledgeable sources, and I was certainly one of those, were whispering that it was only a matter of time before the High Councillor made a bid for the Presidency.

'If you think you can get to Marcus Avon through his son, then you're a fool, Hunter.'

He smiled. 'You should have a little faith in me.'

I ignored him. 'Anyway, it's still not my concern. You want Marcus Avon's son trailed for your own ends, fine. But we agreed that I wouldn't do any more of your personal runs. Get one of the bimbos from Central onto it. He'd probably enjoy it more.'

'I want you, Anna.' He didn't often use my real name. 'You're the best. By far.'

'You should know by now that flattery isn't going to get you anywhere.'

'It's not flattery.'

'I agreed to marry Donne Chesku so that you could keep an eye on Marcus Avon's camp. And now - just let me get this clear in my mind - you want me to cosy up to my fiancé's patron's son? Anna Grant's going to have some difficulty explaining that one away!'

'You'll think of something.'

'I won't do it, Moor,' I repeated firmly.

He leaned back languorously in his chair, and stretched out his arms in a gesture of incomprehension. 'Why are you so anti?' I wasn't fooled by his apparent mildness. Moor Curtis was a dangerous, vicious man.

'Why are you so insistent?'

He leaned in, suddenly intense. 'Marcus Avon is a serious threat to me, Anna. Now I could say that that makes him a serious threat to you as well, but you're not stupid. You'll survive a change of President. But for the moment, you're still working for me. And I want Marcus Avon discredited.'

'Of course you do. But he's completely clean. Cleaner than you.'

'His first wife wasn't.'

'That's common knowledge. As well as ancient history. You can't get mud that old to stick again.'

'But what,' he grimaced, ' - to stretch the metaphor beyond the bounds of decent English - if there were new mud? How about, to pluck an example out of the air, a son who is found to have links with the resistance? Don't you think that could go some way towards besmirching the High Councillor's gleaming reputation?'

I started to smile very slowly. Moor was a crafty old bugger. 'You haven't thought at any point that this poor sod has anything to do with the rebels, have you? What sort of details do you want me to forge?'

He grinned broadly. 'Well, that's what the run's for, isn't it, Anna? Get to know your man, then fake away. I want him implicated so deeply that he'll be locked up for life. Let's see Marcus come up from that smelling of roses.'

Hunter knew how to work me like a dream. I had exacted a promise from him months before that I would no longer take on a run that was of a partisan nature - a way of silencing my increasingly vocal conscience. I had spent the best part of a decade getting my hands dirty to secure power for Hunter, and now I wanted to feel that what I did was morally justifiable in terms of protecting the stability of the State. But Hunter wanted me on this one - and he got me. I took on the case because I thought it would be a challenge. I had never before run a target that I knew for sure was innocent, and I thought it would be fascinating, something different to do, away from the usual dreary process of treachery and torture that is the daily grind of the betrayal business. Some indication of how twisted my logic had become by this stage in my life. I wouldn't touch partisan cases on the grounds that they seemed unjustifiable - unless they piqued my interest. I don't think I even considered the immorality of the run, of setting up an innocent man - and I certainly didn't expect the outcome.

***

My first priority was to meet Avon as soon as possible. Chesku and I had just announced our engagement, so I insisted that he take me along when he next had to attend one of Marcus Avon's functions. He was keen that I should butter up his patron as much as possible. Poor Ches. He never was very subtle. Marcus was as charming as ever, but he had a classic case of a smile that didn't touch his eyes, and he gave me the creeps. I always checked the bottom of any drink he handed me for broken glass. It was an intensely tedious affair - Marcus was running for re-election to the High Council and was wining and dining a set of key business people. All talk of stocks and shares and closing markets. Nobody interesting in the room. Until I met Marcus's younger son.

At first I couldn't believe how easy it was to get Avon's attention. He approached us himself that evening as we were talking to his parents and asked to be introduced to me - I sensed a little coldness between him and Ches; Ches later explained that he'd felt the full whip of Avon's tongue on more than one occasion. As I got to know Avon better I could see what Ches meant - and I sympathized with Avon entirely.

My first impressions? An extremely handsome, conspicuously intelligent man in his early thirties who was trying his best not to look bored or to succumb to a palpable urge to insult everybody in the room - especially his father and his stepmother. Ches, however, did not merit exclusion from this. I spent the brief time that Avon was talking to us trying not to laugh as he took the piss out of Ches mercilessly. Avon quickly spotted this, and played up to me shamelessly - considering that he knew me only as Chesku's wife-to-be. I learnt very soon that this was not unique to the occasion. Avon appeared to approach the whole of life with a mixture of ennui, irritation, and barbed comments.

I thought initially that seducing Avon was going to be too easy for words - I just couldn't get rid of him! He always seemed to be turning up at my flat and bumping into me in the street. I took up his offers of dinner when Ches was away, which was fortuitously often; but Avon was always the same - courteous, charming, and utterly impervious to any advance I made towards him. The man was positively evasive. After about three months I was convinced he was gay - I had been throwing myself at him, for God's sake - and was genuinely just being polite to me out of some twisted sense of friendship towards Ches.

And then, one evening, Ches was away at some conference, and Avon had taken me to the theatre. We came back to my flat for a nightcap, but there wasn't much time before the curfew. I was trying to pour the coffee, too quickly, and spilled it all over the floor. I rushed out to the kitchen for a cloth, and heard his footfall behind me. I turned, and he was standing there, just watching me.

'Is something the matter?'

He didn't answer, just moved a little closer, and I could see that he was trembling, ever so slightly. In retrospect, I should have guessed that this time it was different for me. I didn't notice that I hadn't had the usual flash of triumph that I got at this point in a run. I was too busy shaking myself.

'I can't stand it any longer,' he said.

'Can't stand what?' I said, cretinously.

'Anna, from the very first second that I saw you, I...' he stopped, looking utterly aghast.
I moved a little closer, took his hand, and pressed my lips against his face. 'You don't have to say anything,' I whispered. 'You don't need to.'

***

So it all started. I began an affair with Kerr Avon, four weeks before I was due to marry Donne Chesku. We met as often as we could, constantly when Ches was away on business, and I got to know Avon completely. I learnt all about his job at the University, the research projects he was involved in, the classes that he taught, the students that he supervised. I discovered that he liked Beethoven but thought that Mozart was maudlin; I knew that he had a weakness for black and white pre-Atomic films; I found out that he adored the food at a tiny, exclusive restaurant just off the Central Plaza. All trivialities, you might think, but they were the grist of my work. It was all coincidental, but I also found out that at least four of his students were regulars at meetings of proscribed political parties, as was the manager of the little cinema that we would go to at least once a week. And that the head chef at that expensive restaurant was married to the sister of a man who had been arrested during the Freedom Party crackdown. Tiny, inconsequential details, but they all started to add up rapidly, especially when I found out that Avon was seconded for one day a week onto some extremely sensitive government projects. I should add that, to his credit, he was extremely tight-lipped about these, and didn't discuss them with me. I had to ferret through my own sources to find out what they were. Not that I put this in my reports, of course. In these, Avon had told me what they were within a few weeks of knowing me. Those reports were masterpieces of manipulation and innuendo, and I was very proud of them. After a couple of weeks in my capable hands, Avon's file at Central was virtually shrieking 'traitor'.

Avon was terrifically discreet throughout the whole course of our affair. As his psych files had already told me, he was secretive, and he had no friends really close enough to notice his frequent disappearances at weekends and evenings. I was impressed by the superficiality of all his acquaintanceships. They were nearly as false as my own. We kept it all completely quiet. As we went off on our honeymoon, Chesku had no idea.

Del did. He cornered me the night before the wedding, looking serious, and coming straight to the point.

'You can still back out of this, Anna.'

I laughed at him. 'Why on earth should I want to do that? This is going to be the society wedding of the year, haven't you heard?'

'You can't fool me, Anna. You don't love this man, you shouldn't be marrying him. Especially...' He bit his lip.

'Carry on.'

'Especially when you're sleeping with someone else.'

I was only mildly surprised. Del had always been quicker than anyone else at guessing what I was up to.

'I assume you mean Avon.'

'I assume you've not got someone else in tow.'

'How did you know?'

He snorted. 'You may think you've been discreet, Anna, but you can't fool me. Every time I come round, who's there? Avon. I check your messages - '

'Do you now!'

' - and most of them are from Avon. And you only have to look at him when you're around. It's the worst case I've seen in years.' He sighed. 'I suppose the man has to have one redeeming feature - at least he has sufficiently good taste to fall for you. But Anna! What are you thinking of!' He grimaced.

I suddenly felt very defensive of my target. 'What precisely do you mean by that?'

'Well, he's rude, he's obnoxious...'

'Not to me.'

'But to just about everybody else!'

My irritation increased. 'You mean to you and your politics!' Del had taken a dislike to Avon, I was sure, mostly because Avon vocally and frequently despised Del's liberalism. Too many evenings, on my part, had been spent listening to the two of them bicker. It bored me - mostly, I must confess, because I couldn't join in. I had every sympathy with Avon's more cynical, conservative stance on issues like Delta education and welfare reform, but I didn't want Del to know this. Del always assumed that I shared his opinions. I couldn't risk planting any suggestion in his mind that I was a different person from the one he imagined me to be. He never realized how much danger he was in constantly by being so open about his politics and activities to me. I had protected Del from the worst consequences of his beliefs for several years. I wonder if he ever realized that most people had been jailed for the sort of things he said in public places.

With hindsight, I can see that it wasn't just the fact that I felt constrained to keep silent when Del and Avon started one of their arguments that upset me. I realize now that I felt genuinely grieved when I heard them quarrel. They were, after all, the two most important people in my life.

Del shook his head at my outburst. 'I don't want to argue with you about this, sweetheart. It's your life, and I really can't stop you doing whatever you want.' He took my hand. 'But you know that I can't help being protective of you. I don't want you to get hurt - and you're heading for meltdown juggling two men. Can't you give one of them up?'

I didn't answer immediately. I had known from the start that marrying Ches and sleeping with Avon was going to cause all sorts of difficulties, but Hunter wanted them both under observation. Ches was a direct line into Marcus's camp - and Avon was the direct line to Marcus himself. And Ches would remain useful after the run with Avon was long over. But it was delicate work, and I was beginning to think that I didn't have the nerve for it anymore. And the thought of giving up Avon...

'Anna?' Del drew me back from my thoughts.

'What?'

'Are you going to make a choice?'

I stood up, pulling away from him. 'I can't.'

'Anna, for what it's worth - kick Avon into touch. He's just going to bring you misery.'

I turned on him, almost hysterical. 'And what about Ches? That imbecilic, slimy, stuffed shirt? How happy do you think I'm going to be with him?'

Del was stunned by my reaction. 'Anna, why the hell are you marrying him?'
'It's too late to get out of it now, Del.' I could feel tears forming in my eyelids, and a suffocating grip around my throat. Was this what it was like to lose control? What was I going to do?

Del could not understand the extent of my dilemma, but he responded to my obvious distress. 'It's not too late. If it's your happiness at stake, it's never too late. If you really want to be with Avon - and that's your choice, though I can't understand it - then take your chance!' He moved close again, and I couldn't bear the strength of his concern and affection. Never in my life did I feel less worthy of it. 'If you don't, sweetheart, you could end up regretting it for the rest of your life.'

What could I say to him? The truth? That there was no point in making plans to be with Avon because he was as good as dead? That in just a few short months he would be either in jail or heading for a penal planet? To my own horror, I was starting to realize that there were some facts about this case that I was beginning to find unbearable.

***

I didn't move from the bed for some time after Avon left to get the visas. For some time I didn't know what to do next. My original plan had not even considered that this situation would arise, but I knew what my duty as a Federation officer demanded. I should contact HQ and get them to start bringing in his associates; his immediate, if small, circle of friends, his closest colleagues at the University, his brother and sister-in-law, the people I had marked down as his resistance contacts, even the man whose stall he bought coffee from every morning. I knew that I wasn't going to do it. None of it mattered any more. It wasn't that I cared in the slightest what happened to any of those people; it was just that, for me, the run was over. I had no desire to push it any further.

Eventually I got up and showered. I had about three hours before Avon got back, and I was so jumpy that I wasn't going to get back to sleep. I managed to kill an hour, standing under the shower and trying to obliterate as many of the thoughts that gnawed at my mind as I could. I just stood and let the hot water pour over me, bringing oblivion, trying to cleanse myself as best I could of all the guilt and anxiety of the previous eight months.

I dressed slowly, in dark colours. We were going to need to look as unobtrusive as possible if we wanted to make it through the city to the spaceport. Then I dug out my Service uniform. I had come straight from work to this hotel - I say 'work', it was my cover job in recruitment security. I had to have easy access to Central's files and resources somehow. I reached into the holster and drew out my Service pistol, small and compact, but it was weighty in my hand and I knew from experience that it was a powerful and reliable weapon. I was a good shot - much better than Avon. But then, I had spent half my life in the Service. Avon, because of his somewhat conspicuous talents, had been fast-tracked directly into University and hadn't done the standard year of military service beforehand. I suspected he was a terrible shot - one reason why I had been anxious about letting him go to buy the visas by himself. If the dealer decided to get aggressive, Avon could be out of his depth. I checked my gun thoroughly - it was fully charged, everything was in working order. I was going to have to dispose of it before we tried to go through the checkpoints at the spaceport, but I had no intention of wandering through the city unarmed. I tucked it into the belt of my trousers.

All there was left to do was wait. I couldn't lie down, I couldn't sit down. I prowled around the cheap little room, willing the door to open and Avon to walk through. My mind ran through what we would do when he got back. I didn't think about the problems that we would face, trying to get through the checkpoints with fake documents, spending the whole of our flight out of Federation space using aliases and hoping that no-one would catch up with us and that we wouldn't be sent back… So much was stacked against us that I didn't focus on the problems - I just thought of the fabulous amount of money that Avon had salted away, the freedom that we would finally have, away from Earth, away from Ches, away from Hunter and the sordid little life I had led on his behalf. Instead I had taken control, made a difficult choice, and decided that I wanted my life, and my love.

And then all I could think of was him; the hungry obsession of someone who has only just realized that what she feels is love, when throughout her life she has believed herself impervious or incapable. I understood then that I longed for him, that I loved him; and I wondered if there had ever been a point when I would have been able to take the run through to its logical conclusion.

Focussed almost entirely on my own internal thoughts, I only gradually became aware that outside the window it was getting light, and that the city was stirring. I felt my heart leap, and I had the first premonition that something was wrong. And then the confirmation - outside, the slow steady sound of a clock striking eight.

'When will you be back?'

'Just before daylight. No later than six.'

I wasn't the kind of person that panicked. There's no way I would have survived as long as did if I hadn't been able to keep calm. Avon was late - very late. There could be several reasons for this. His contact could be late. Was it not likely that he would have contacted me to let me know? He could have faced difficulties coming back across the city. Again, why hadn't he contacted me? He could have been arrested. But I hadn't give HQ the go-ahead to proceed with the arrests. The dealer could have got nasty - he could have been shot; and then I thought the unthinkable. He could be dead.

Was there a flicker of panic then, Anna? Could there even have been fear?

I stayed calm. What I needed was information - and I had an excellent source of that. I turned on the TV, straight to the news channel. And found myself looking directly at Avon and myself. His graduation photo. My ID card photo. An old shot, not flattering. A voice was informing me that we were classified as wanted, and that a reward would be given for information leading to our arrests.

Can you believe that my first reaction was relief? The reason was simple. That broadcast meant that Avon was alive and , for the moment, was free. That steadied me a great deal, enough to cope with the secondary realization that was starting to sink in. There was no way that we would be able to leave the city now. Our faces were being broadcast across the main news network; we would be priority targets at all the spaceports. The visas that Avon had gone out to buy were worth absolutely nothing. We were utterly trapped in a city that would be watching out for us.

And then I really was afraid. All my life I had been on the right side of the law; I had been on the side that dispensed justice. And I knew for a fact, knew from personal experience, that the justice which was dealt out was cruel and merciless. If I survived the week, I would be lucky. We didn't like traitors in our midst at Central.

Was there any way that I could salvage anything of this mess? I focussed on what was important. Our future, mine and Avon's, away from Earth, was lost. There was nothing I could do about that. Wherever we were going to be six months, a year from now, Avon and I were going to be following different paths. This was the hardest decision of my life - to realize that actively to pursue Avon, to try to be with him, which was what I wanted more than anything, would be to destroy him. I had to let him go.

But what could I do to protect us? My life was in danger, Avon's to a lesser extent. Avon's arrest was a certainty. I needed to get out of this alive, and to minimize the risk to Avon once he was arrested.

Protecting Avon was easier. I needed to access his file at Central and remove the earlier fabrications that made him look like a political activist. The fraud was fact - too many people would know about that. I didn’t have the technical wherewithal to cover Avon's tracks. Even if they still didn't have a clue how he'd done it, the money was gone, and a whacking great bank account was in place in our assumed names on Mithris. I could do nothing about that. But without the political material he would be facing straightforward embezzlement charges and maybe ten years. Taking into account that it was a first offence would probably reduce it to five. If I didn't clear out my clever little forgeries, he would be deported. Cleaning Avon's file was of paramount importance.

And my own protection? I knew what I had to do. I needed Hunter. It could only be his decision to have me posted as wanted. Only he knew about the run in its fullest details and only he knew how close it was to conclusion. Somewhere along the line he had decided that I had changed sides, probably before I had even decided it myself. I had to persuade him otherwise.

I took out my communicator, and had the presence of mind to deactivate the homing circuits. My call could not be traced, as long as I kept it pretty brief.

It was a hand-held device; his face flickered into focus, his expression inscrutable.

I feigned confusion. 'Good morning, Hunter.' I smiled. 'Perhaps you'd like to explain why I'm cutting such a dash on the news this morning?'

He blinked, licked his lips. I was reminded of a lizard; still, watchful, deadly. 'Where are you, Anna?'

So it wasn't Bartolomew any more. 'Why are you so keen to see me arrested, Moor?'

'When did you change sides, Anna?'

'I don't know what you mean, Moor. I was winding up the run this morning, then I turned on the news…'

'If you've nothing to hide, why am I unable to trace this call?'

'You've put me in a difficult position, Moor. I've had to run this project close to the edge for it to be so successful, and now you've lost your nerve on me. That may suit you fine, but you don't have half the city's troopers looking for you.'

'You're the one who's lost her nerve, Anna.'

'What in God's name has given you that impression…?'

'I've had reports in from Central. You could have wound this run up weeks ago.'

So the knives were already out in Central. Someone had seen an opportunity to advance their own career. That's what happens when you spend too long distracted from your job and fucking your target.

'And you're going to fall for this petty piece of internal back-stabbing..?'

'I don't like a traitor.'

'Moor, we have worked together for more than ten years…'

'I'm not going to protect you, Anna.'

I bit back my anger and kept my cool. 'Have it your own way, Moor. But you're not going to get me either.'

'We'll see.'

I cut the connection and threw the communicator at the wall. 'Fuck it!'

Keep calm, Anna, keep calm. If you lose it now, you lose everything. I stood up, and picked up the communicator. Sturdy equipment they give you at Central. It had survived its encounter with the wall.

I looked in the mirror, and felt something approximating hope. The photo that was being posted around the city was about five years old - I was very careful not to be photographed. God knows why they hadn't used one from my wedding, only a few months earlier. They'd been plastered all over the gossip columns, much to my fury. But this gave me a head start. I looked older - the difference between late twenties and mid thirties - and my hairstyle was different. Still obviously blonde, though.

I went into the bathroom and pulled out my cosmetic bag. A girl can never be over-prepared. Twenty minutes later I was a redhead.

Then I changed back into my Service uniform - surely the best protection against being stopped in the streets. I pulled my pistol out of my trousers and put it back in place. In uniform I could go out armed - that could only be an advantage. I looked around the room. There was nothing else I had to take. I had one last chance of escape, and for that I needed to make one trip across the city. If it came to nothing, then there was always the gun.

***

Ches was the sort of man who thought it was charming to go for your honeymoon to the Moon. The Moon is a large rock. It is not romantic. I was trapped there for two weeks with a man that I found increasingly repulsive. The first thing I did when I got back to our apartment on Earth was have a shower.

Ches left the next day for a week's fact-finding trip to Perlith. That suited me fine. I rang Avon, and we arranged to meet.

He opened the door to his flat in a barely suppressed state of excitement. He virtually pulled me indoors and we didn't speak for some time.

Eventually I went into the kitchen and made some coffee. Avon followed me in.

'I have something to tell you.' He looked nervous but, again, excited, as if he had a confession to make.

'You're really a woman.'

'What?' He looked confused for a moment, then laughed. 'Not quite.'

'That could be interesting.'

'I have something to show you as well.'

'This is my lucky day.'

'Come into the study.'

'This had better not be etchings, Avon.'

He pulled me after him into his study, and started to switch on his computer.

'This is the point where I find out you don't have an interesting job,' I remarked.

He frowned. 'I don't have an interesting job. That's part of the problem.'

I leaned over his shoulder. 'What do you mean?'

'Wait and see.'

I watched as the screen flickered and data rushed past my eyes. Avon was speaking.

'While you were away, I got to thinking. What if we could leave Earth…'

'We can leave Earth. But where else is there to go?'

'Anywhere. We could go anywhere.'

I shook my head. 'Avon, you seem to have forgotten a few basic facts of life. Jobs. Money. The small matter of my husband.'

'I haven't forgotten. That's exactly what I'm getting at.'

He turned his chair round to face me, and pulled me down gently so that I was sitting on his knee. He started to caress my face. Something was about to happen, something I hadn’t taken into account when I started this run.

His voice was quiet, even apologetic.

'You know that I would do anything for you, Anna. Anything.'

'That's just something people say, my love.'

'Not me.'

'What have you done?'

He smiled broadly. 'Not done. Doing.'

'For Christ's sake, will you just tell me?'

He picked up my note of anxiety and touched my cheek again. 'Watch the screen.'

I watched. Avon moved from beneath me and I sat in the chair. He started to pace the room.

I watched the screen. Names of companies. Amounts of money. First Federation Bank. Offworld accounts. I turned to Avon, who was now leaning against the wall, biting his lip.

'How much?'

He shrugged. 'Five million.'

'Five million...' I mouthed. Then, 'Are you mad?' I yelled, and I had the distinct impression that control had slipped away from me - of my voice, of my reactions, of the whole damn run. My mind started working on overdrive. Avon was a target, he was going to be arrested and jailed. I was on the point of having half of Central's agents rushing around to pick up his closest associates in one of the biggest busts the department had ever seen. But this far he had always been an innocent man. Now he was actually guilty of a crime - a crime he was committing on my behalf. At the back of my mind, something whispered, 'It never seemed real, did it, Anna? You never really thought that you were destroying an innocent man. And now you've made him a guilty man…'

Surely I didn't feel responsible?

I brushed this aside. If Avon had decided to commit fraud on my behalf, that was his choice. My responsibility was to make Central aware that a crime was taking place.

He had moved near to me and was leaning over. I closed my eyes, unable to bear him so close.

What was happening to me?

'I'm not mad, Anna,' his voice was saying, but I could barely focus on this as he brushed his lips against the side of my neck and his hand reached out to touch my arm.

I pulled away before I lost it completely. 'I need to think about this,' I mumbled, getting out of the chair and stumbling from the room.

He followed me into the kitchen, where I was standing with my hands pressed to my mouth. He didn't touch me - thank God.

'It's a shock, I know - ' he began.

'A shock?'

' - I couldn't believe what I was doing myself. But you'll get used to the idea. Very quickly. Five million credits has that effect.' He laughed.

Then he did touch me, very gently, and made me face him.

'This is our chance, Anna. There's nothing for us on Earth. You're trapped with Chesku and I'm - ' he stopped.

'Say it,' I murmured, caressing his hand.

He looked down from me. 'I can't live without you, Anna.'

'You knew how it was from the moment you met me. You knew I was going to marry Ches.'

'You can't pretend that's what you want,' he burst out. 'You've said so yourself. Anna, for God's sake, this is our chance. We can get away for good, have everything we could ever want...'

I shook my head. 'This is some sort of dream, Avon. You can't just steal five million credits and waltz off…'

'I can. Don't you understand? I can do it. These programmes I'm running - they work. I'm telling you, in four months we could be leaving Earth for good. We'll be so rich, Anna. There's nothing we won't be able to do.'

He is so convincing, I thought. I had read his files, I knew exactly how gifted he was. Could it really be the case that he could pull this off?

What was I thinking of? This man was a target - he was a job. This fraud was a gift to Moor - there's nothing dirtier than financial scandal. Marcus Avon would be destroyed by this.

'I've got to think about this,' I muttered again, heading for the bedroom and picking up my clothes. He followed me and watched me get dressed.

'It's all in place, Anna. All you have to do is say yes and come with me.'

'I'll call you tomorrow with my decision.'

Chez Chesku I made up my mind. Away from Avon it was easier to see that I was fooling myself if I thought that I would be able to leave Earth with him. He was already marked, and the vultures at Central were just waiting for the word. All I had to do was give that word, whenever I chose. Right now, though, I had to contact Hunter and let him know the score - that we were in for a much bigger triumph over Marcus than we had even imagined.

His eyes positively lit up.

'When can we hit Marcus with this?'

'Not yet. I need a much better idea of what the son is doing. And I'm not satisfied that the resistance connection is sufficiently established. A few months yet.' That was a lie. Avon's file was sufficiently dirty to have him deported as it stood. But if Hunter wanted the fraud…

I wasn't convincing myself. The fact of the matter was that I had just bought Avon enough time to carry out the fraud successfully. He will be more deeply implicated if you let it run, I told myself as I cut the connection with Hunter, and all you have to do is say the word and he'll be brought in. And then the thought flickered through my mind, dangerous and so tempting - and you never know, Anna - he might just pull it off.

***

I was the agent who broke the Freedom Party originally. I think most of Bartolomew's reputation stemmed from that particular coup. No-one could identify me, no-one could trace from the carnage that Travis left behind to the agent who had infiltrated them. It contributed to my legend - the all-seeing, all-knowing unidentifiable figure who could be anyone around you. But it was so easy to crack the Freedom Party and yet remain unknown. I simply didn't go anywhere near them. I became friendly with a young agent, in his early twenties and far too naive for his own safety, and seduced him. His name was Lew Ellis, and he was very quickly besotted with me. I played the usual games, very much as I did with Avon, keeping on and on patiently and slowly at his defences until he believed we were the love story of the century. Then I told him I was Bartolomew, and that I wanted to groom him as my successor, starting with a top level run. He ate out of my hand - it was a nice combination of sexual and professional flattery. Not many men are sufficiently self-effacing for that not to be effective. I placed him within the Freedom Party, and he sucked it dry - give him his due, he was very good at his job. But the poor fool, it didn't even cross his mind that since he knew who I was, I wouldn't let him live indefinitely. I didn't protect him when the crunch came. He was killed with the rest of the rebels when Security busted them. I heard that he died protesting that he was one of theirs. I think of him from time to time. He was terribly good-looking, all dark eyes and long lashes, something of a foretaste of what was to come, I suppose. But he was way out his of class with me. It was his parents I felt sorry for. He was stripped posthumously of his Service status and listed a traitor, and they were forced to leave Earth as a result.

Just a few of many little lives that I've destroyed in my time, and I'm not proud of it. Nor do I feel guilty, at least not during the daylight hours, but I was proud that I broke the Freedom Party. They stood for all that I despise - a rampant, foolish ideology that seeks to destroy all that is stable in our society and replace it with - what? Well, they never seem to get that far. Just something about brave new worlds. I can see these new worlds. They are chaotic, they are untamed, they are a disaster for the little people, who won't thank them for it as they starve and die in the ruins of what had once been their comfortable homes. Bread and circuses, that's all the people want.

Which makes it something of a paradox that for about a year I was in close contact with Blake on the Liberator. Not as Anna, good God, no - Anna Grant is dead. No, as Sula Chesku, vehemently opposed to the Federation's increasing expansionism, wanting to see a more stable Administration in place on Earth, and offering unique information as the wife of a senior politician. This is all true, of course. The biggest mistake Moor Curtis ever made was to listen to Space Command and start expanding the Empire. Too much power in the hands of the military, too much influence to that pernicious bitch who ran the show and is now free to do whatever she wants as President. Contacting Blake gave me the chance to do all I could to prevent Servalan's ambitions from being realized. I might have been unsuccessful, but at least I tried. And I'll get her. Very soon now, she'll be begging me for mercy.

It would be false and unconvincing if I tried to claim that there were no other motives for establishing a link with Blake. How could I possibly have resisted it? I needed to know where Avon was, what he was doing, anything that Blake could tell me - though I was very subtle about it all. Avon knew nothing about Blake's contact, even with Sula Chesku. The name would have stood out a mile, and Avon would have thought of only one person as 'Councillor Chesku's wife'. And I was too afraid of him; I still am. I know that if Avon ever learns that I'm not dead, he'll guess what I did to him. How else could I have survived? And if he ever realizes the extent of my treachery, what will he do to me? But the need to know... oh, it was just too strong. I couldn't bear the thought of him somewhere else, doing things that I knew nothing about, leading a life without me. I had to know.

***

'Ches,' I whispered, and he turned from the door of the apartment.

'Who is it?'

I stepped into the light of the corridor. I had been hiding in the block for the best part of two days, waiting for Ches to get home from one of his never-ending business trips. I'd been unable to find out anything about Avon, and was frantic with worry, and with the fear that I might be caught before speaking to Ches.

'It's me, Ches.'

He frowned and pulled my arm. 'Get inside, quickly.'

I hurried inside, into the apartment that we had shared until two weeks ago he had confronted me with evidence of my affair and I had told him where to stick his lousy marriage. Hunter hadn't been pleased. Maybe this had been the seed of his doubts about me. But Ches had demanded that I never see Avon again - and that would have stopped the run dead - I had told myself, and swore to Hunter.

'What do you want, Anna?' He wasn't looking at me. This was the key to Chesku. Whatever his faults, the man was smitten with me. I switched into the right personality. With Avon I could be self-possessed, intelligent, witty. With Ches I was cloying, feminine, helpless.

'Please, Ches. I need your help.'

'And why should I help you? Last time we spoke, you said you didn't want anything more to do with me.'

I took his arm, and he finally looked at me. I had him.

'I've made a terrible mistake, Ches. And I'm paying for it now. Ches, I didn’t understand what was going on. If you don't help me, I might be arrested. Please help me!'

He touched my hair. 'Why did you dye your hair?'

'I thought it would help me get to you without being arrested. It seemed to work. Was it a good idea?'

He smiled. 'A very good idea. How resourceful you are, Anna.'

Patronizing bastard. I smiled back, through hastily summoned tears. 'Will you look after me, Ches?'

He embraced me suddenly, and I felt his breath hot on the back of my neck. I managed not to flinch as he kissed me. This was the price I was going to have to pay for survival.

'I'll protect you,' he whispered. 'You know I will.'

He disappeared later that day, instructing me to remain indoors, telling me he was going to sort everything out. I reflected that too much of my life recently had been spent waiting for men to come back for me.

After a few hours he returned, eyes bright.

'I've worked something out, Anna. Or should I say Sula?' He handed me a pile of documents. Identity cards. Travel permits. Passports. Two tickets to Io.

'What does this mean, Ches?'

'You're dead, Anna. As Anna Grant. You've been listed as killed resisting arrest. I'm taking up a post on Io, and you're coming with me, as my second wife. As Sula Chesku.'

'How have you arranged this, Ches? You'd need friends high up to get this done, and I don't see Marcus being very helpful...'

'Your little fling with his son made Marcus a somewhat inappropriate patron. But I have new friends now, Anna. Powerful friends. It'll all make sense when we get to Io.' He took my hand. 'A new life together, Anna. I wouldn't have believed it was possible. Perhaps this was the best thing that could have happened to us.'

I took him into my arms so that he couldn't see my face.

That night, I left the bedroom and went into Chesku's office. I had not forgotten that I had unfinished business as far as this case was concerned. As I waited for the machine to kick into life, I reflected on my death. It had not failed to cross my mind that there were people for whom the news of the death of Anna Grant would come as a shock. Del, for one, would be devastated. I couldn't bear to think how stricken he would be when he heard. My poor brother, who always felt that he had to protect me when it was only ever the other way round. Who would look after him now that I wasn't watching his back? I hoped that now he would leave Earth and take his chances somewhere else. I had thought for a long time that the only thing preventing Del from joining the resistance somewhere was that he felt duty-bound to stay near me on Earth.

And what about Avon? How would the news hit him when he heard? Where would he be? Under cover? In jail? I didn't even know whether they had picked him up or not yet. For a moment my nerve gave way, and I could feel tears start to run down my cheeks. I rubbed my eyes, and tried to concentrate on the task at hand. There was nothing I could do to prevent Avon any grief at the news of my death, but I could still protect him from the fallout from the worst of my actions.

I typed the passwords for Central Security's main network, then entered my own ID code:

> chameleon

The message flashed back:

> access denied

And that was when my resolve finally snapped and I wept hot, bitter tears of rage and frustration and loss into my shaking hands.

***

I reached Io zombified, still uncertain of Avon's fate, and sickened by my own. Ches was constantly at my side, his presence oppressive, suffocating. I had to feign pleasure and excitement when I just wanted to cry.

We reached our apartment, a Government building. Ches had used his patron to help him reach the dizzy heights of Deputy Governor of Io. It was quite a pleasant place, if you like that sort of thing. I couldn't quite imagine myself hosting political soirees and simpering to Chesku's colleagues, but that seemed to be the function that Ches wanted me to fulfil.

As we entered the main reception room, I saw that someone was waiting for us at the far end, and I felt Chesku's hand grip my arm tightly. He almost sprinted across to greet our visitor who, I realized, was a woman, dressed in a stunning white dress, strikingly set off by her cropped black hair.

Ches was bleating. 'Sula, allow me to introduce Supreme Commander Servalan.'

She took my hand. 'Delighted,' she lied.

I felt the faintest glimmer of a smile reach my lips for the first time since I had died, two months earlier. Servalan's reputation at Space Command had reached even that most Earth-orientated of departments, Central Security. Perhaps this was someone I could get on with. 'Likewise,' I replied.

She flicked her immaculate lashes at Ches. 'Donne, she is charming. Perhaps you could allow us a little time together.' It was not a question. Ches stopped short of tugging a forelock as he backed out of the room.

Servalan watched him go, then smiled. I had the first inkling that all was not well.

'I feel that I owe you a great deal,' she said, unexpectedly.

'I can't imagine...'

'Can't you, Anna?'

So this was Chesku's patron. Probably a wise choice. Chesku was good at backing the right people. I continued, 'Surely it's more likely that I owe you a great deal.'

She patted my hand. 'Indeed you do, Anna. Indeed you do. But you have done me several particular services.'

'I don't quite see what you're getting at. We've never met before today.'

'Indeed no. But you have been much in my thoughts - Bartolomew.'

I turned away, chilled. 'I think you have made a mistake...'

'I don't think so. Do you think that I wouldn't know the identity of the President's key agent?'

Fair point. 'I suppose not. But you'd also know that I no longer hold that honoured post.'

'Of course you don't. That is also because of me. Do you think that I would continue to have the President protected by such a capable individual as yourself? You always advised him so strongly against expanding the Empire. But really, Anna, you should learn to watch your opponents.' I heard her voice come much closer, mellifluous, terrifying. 'Moor is isolated now, Anna. All by himself. He really shouldn't have listened to that agent of mine who told him how untrustworthy you had become.'

'He's still the President, Servalan.' I shot back.

She smiled briskly. 'And I am at his right hand, a loyal servant of the Administration. Maybe he shouldn't have paid so much attention to all those rumours that Marcus was thinking of bidding for the Presidency.'

I went cold. 'Was that all lies?'

'Marcus had been in my thoughts for some time, Anna. I was well aware that he could become a threat. It only took a little prompting to make you and Moor think the same way. And now, thanks to you, Marcus will soon be out of the way, and Moor is even more reliant on Space Command. As I say, you have done me some quite particular services.' She smiled dazzlingly.

I sat down heavily, my mouth rank with the taste of defeat. Too comfortable in my position of influence, I had been utterly outclassed. And there was another matter to be settled. 'And Marcus' son?' My voice caught in my throat.

'Ah yes. The younger Avon.' She smiled indulgently. 'You proved such a disappointment there, Anna. I thought you were a professional.'

'You didn't meet him,' I murmured.

'Nor shall I, I should think. His trial is going very badly, I hear.'

I glared at her, through tears. 'You're a vicious bitch.'

She laughed happily. 'That may well be so, Anna. But I know all your secrets - I own you. Don’t forget that.'

***

I watched the trial - or at least the judgement and the verdict - on the news channel in our apartment on Io. Here on the Inner Worlds we were obsessed with news from home. The Avon fraud case was one of the biggest scandals to hit Earth's elite society since - well, since the arrest of Ilith Avon, estranged wife of Deputy Marcus Avon, more than two decades earlier.

I watched Marcus, who was ashen throughout the proceedings. It was the face of a man who could see his personal destruction being played out in front of him, whilst he was unable to do anything except sit and look on - A great hope fell. There was no noise, The ruin was within. Moor would be pleased, I reflected; although he didn't appreciate the precariousness of his position, now that he was completely in the hands of the Supreme Commander. Perhaps he should have trusted me after all.

I watched as the charges were read out. One count of fraud, one of possession of and intent to use forged documents. One of murder - that came as a surprise. He seemed to be more adept with firearms than I had given him credit for. Then the charges that I had to steel myself to hear. Association with proscribed groups. Intent to subvert the proper process of law. Disloyalty to the State. Subversion. And intent to transfer official funds to illegal groups. Avon was shaking his head as all these were read out.

I watched the judgement machine give the verdict. It was no real surprise, and I had had three months to prepare myself for it. Clearly Avon had too, as he remained completely immobile as he was pronounced guilty on all counts. But he obviously wasn't ready for the next bit - the sentence. He fainted.

All this I watched, divorced from the proceedings by a week's flight time and a vast sense of anticlimax. I had got away with it after all, but this gave me no sense of joy at my own survival, nor even a sense of grief at the loss of my lover. I was frozen - out of time, in stasis. The world passed me by and I reacted automatically, if at all. This was the darkest time, when I moved through parties and dinners and meetings as if following the steps of a formal dance; responding appropriately, smiling, talking, enduring the touch of Chesku's hand on my flesh, Chesku's eyes following me at every moment.

And then, unexpectedly, like the first murmur of a warm breeze in winter, the news filtered through of a new ship that was terrorizing ports and destroying outposts. The name 'Blake' was muttered, a legend was being born. And then I heard other names whispered, and my heart leapt in joy and in fear.

I began to thaw. I was able again to articulate to myself what I believed, how I felt. I knew that the tide was beginning to change, and I saw that I would be able to steer it. When Moor paid the price for his short-sightedness and Servalan at last took control, I saw that she had made a mistake in keeping her enemies close. I began to understand that I was not finished, that I still had the power to alter events, to guide them, to shape them the way I wanted. It was time for Anna Grant to get back to work.

***

When he finds out what I did to him, what will he do? Will I have the time, the opportunity, to say, 'I was wrong; I'm sorry; I tried to save you; I love you'? Will he forgive me?