In the nightmare, Avon stood on a hilltop overlooking a narrow valley, surrounded by a primitive tribe of hairless aliens with a greenish cast to their skin. He was disgusted to observe that he looked as primitive as they, clad in rough, homespun trousers, a headband to restrain long, shaggy hair, and handmade sandals. He was tanned and lean and fit looking, and he carried a spear as if he knew how to use it.

Tension ran through him in the dream, making his heart throb with it, as he watched distant running figures approach the valley, led by an equally threadbare, shaggy haired Roj Blake. Even in the dream, pain laced through Avon at the sight of him. Not even in sleep could he escape Blake and his memories.

Behind Blake and his queue of followers thundered a creature out of hell, a gigantic, four-legged behemoth, leathery skinned, with a vast, gaping mouth and a howl that turned one's blood to ice water. As Avon watched helplessly, too far away to help, Blake and his crew led the beast to a concealed pit, and the beast crashed through the covering of woven branches, roaring fearfully. Too close to the edge, Blake all but fell, hanging trapped at the edge of the pit, struggling to climb to safety but the beast shot out a long, probing tongue and curled it around Blake's leg, trapping him. Avon could hear his cry of pain all the way up the hill as the rebel leader was pulled inexorably toward the hungry maw.

"Noooo!" Avon heard his own scream as he began to race down the hill, knowing even as he ran that he would be too late. As he watched, helpless, Blake was drawn into the monster's mouth and Avon halted, submerged in black despair.

In the perverse way of dreams, Avon suddenly found himself trapped inside the beast with Blake and he blinked in stunned surprise as Blake turned, a Blake with a scarred eye and a bloodstained tunic, a Blake with a bitter and reproachful look for Avon. As Avon bent over the collapsing figure, Blake's hands caught him by the arms, dragging him to his knees at the rebel's side.

"Avon," Blake gasped, his breath hissing out in a death rattle. "I have always trusted you...from the very beginning." His fingers dug into the lax flesh of Avon's arms. "Avon...I was waiting for youuuuu." His voice trailed away and his face went limp with death.

"NO!"

This time the shout roused Avon from the nightmare and he struggled free of the tangled blankets, rubbing a hand across his sweat streaked face, and bolted upright, looking around in considerable disorientation as two sets of memories fought for dominance. It had all been so real. He knew he had seen that monster before. Where?

But the present reality put an end to his search for ghosts as he remembered Blake's base on Gauda Prime. He could never forget it, even as it revealed itself to him in varying dreams, though none had produced the confusion recent ones sent through him. He remembered Blake and the beast--but it had never happened. Shaking his head, he staggered across the room and poured himself a drink of water, gulping it so fast that some of it spilled and ran down his chin to drip onto his bare chest. It was bad enough already. Must he remember things that had never been?

As he heard voices approaching, he stiffened, setting aside the glass and forcing composure to his face as he heard them coming, his crew he could not be rid of; Soolin questioning, Tarrant complaining, Vila pacifying. Dayna...well, Dayna was dead. If nothing else, it meant she was safe. She could be hurt no longer.

"...just another of Avon's nightmares," Vila's voice carried though he was speaking softly. Sounds magnified in these chambers, and sometimes a whisper would carry a vast distance and toss an unexpected bit of conversation into a sudden silence. Vila always seemed to find it unnerving.

"Go back to bed, Tarrant," Vila continued in that calm, placating voice he had taken to using to keep the others in line. Tarrant, still wallowing in Blake-ish guilt for his misunderstanding of the situation at Gauda Prime, allowed himself to be so manipulated, as long as it involved nothing really important, and Vila, flown with success, was riding for a fall that he had not yet foreseen. But now he added, "You know Avon won't want you there."

"I don't want to be there," Tarrant objected. "I'd simply value one night's uninterrupted sleep."

"Complaining won't give it to you," Soolin countered. She did not sound as cool and indifferent as she had before Gauda Prime, but then GP had changed them all. Avon seldom allowed himself to think of that or to wonder what it might mean, but he was aware of it.

Tarrant didn't reply and Avon pictured him trudging back to his chamber in irritated frustration. Just as well. He did not feel up to dealing with Del Tarrant.

"You look in on Blake," Vila went on, apparently to Soolin. "He needs his rest. I don't think anything this side of a solium flare would rouse him, but you never know. Run along and see how he is."

"One day, Vila, you will push it too far," she responded, but didn't argue further.

Avon stiffened. Vila's voice had dropped when he had mentioned Blake's name, but Avon had heard him anyway. He suspected he would have heard it had the name been whispered on the planet's surface in the middle of a thunderstorm. Sometimes it felt like the very rocks called it to him. "Blake...Blake...Blake..." He was surrounded by accusations, not the least being his own subconscious mind that would not let him sleep at night.

"Avon?" Vila's voice was tentative and faintly sympathetic; he never dared outright sympathy, and Avon did not know if that was out of concern for him or out of resentment for Malodaar. The shuttle incident was never mentioned between them, but sometimes there were shadows in Vila's eyes, and Avon knew the reason for them without being told.

"Leave me alone, Vila," Avon returned. He was uncomfortable with the others now, especially Vila. Blake... No. He had not seen Blake though the others told him Blake lived and recovered. He did not want to see Blake. He was not entirely sure he believed them, and even if he had been willing to take the risk, it was clear that Blake did not wish to see him. Slowly recovering from the wounds Avon had inflicted on him on Gauda Prime, Blake was cared for as best they could by the others here in their bolthole, the best one they could find when the ship they had stolen had proven defective--or booby trapped. Landing on a remote world, unsettled and uninhabited, they had taken shelter in a series of underground caverns that had at one time been part of a Federation base. Orac had reinstated enough power for them to survive, and Blake was kept warm and sheltered. Their ship was beyond repair, but Orac, in the fullness of time, would locate rescue for them. They were not yet ready. The others had voted and decided that until Blake was on his feet, they would stay here. Avon was not asked to participate, and he doubted he would have done so if asked. He wanted no part of any plans for the future. Just now he wanted one thing and that was to be rid of them. Over four years of wanting that same thing proved that he was unlikely to get it, but at least he could keep his distance from the others for now. As for Blake, as long as he wanted no part of Avon, Avon was safe from him, and he was safe from Avon.

But it hurt. Never one to admit such things even to himself, Avon had finally been forced to realize that the agony that stirred his mind while he slept and brought the dreams all tied to Blake. Avon chose to take it no further than that, but he knew, though he never brought the realization out into the cold light of day, that Blake was right to hold him at bay. He had betrayed Blake, betrayed their friendship. He had never admitted that there actually was a friendship between them, but the dreams insisted upon it.

There were endless visions of himself and Blake, sitting talking like old friends, comfortable with each other. There were scenes of peril, Blake missing and returning battered and dirty to receive a hug from Avon in his relief, incidents of the green skinned natives interacting with himself and Blake, familiar scenes as if he knew them well, could almost remember their names. But it had never happened.

Was he insane then? Was that what the dreams told him? Was that why the others tiptoed around him as if he were fragile glass, ready to shatter at a breath? Did they fear he had slipped from overstress to insanity and that was why he had shot Blake? Perhaps they were right, and the memories that had no basis in fact only proved it. So he avoided the others, holding them at arms length, but they were accustomed to that and did not seem to realize that he was beginning to doubt his own sanity.

He knew he had come close to a breakdown before. When Anna lay dead in his arms, when he pursued Vila through the stripped down shuttle over Malodaar, when he stood face to face with Roj Blake and heard him called traitor. But those kind of incident could affect anyone. Put even an insensitive clod like Tarrant into those positions and he might have come close to the edge too. Avon might not welcome the memories of those incidents and the way they haunted him in dreams, but he could understand them. What he could not understand was a whole world and people he felt he should have remembered and did not.

Sometimes the insane created their own imaginary worlds inside their heads. Avon had always been based in reality, no matter how grim the reality had become. But not now. It frightened him. It almost frightened him enough to make him ask Vila to stay, to sit with him while he slept. But even insane there were limits and admitting dependency upon Vila was one of them.

"Won't leave you alone," Vila said stubbornly, rinsing out Avon's glass and pouring something into it from a flask he had carried with him. "Here. Put yourself around that. You look like you need it."

Avon's face denied the need, but he drank the liquor anyway, gasping as it burnt its way down. "Where did you get this?" he demanded when he could speak. "Did you make it this morning?"

"It tastes like it," Vila agreed. "But it's all I could find here. Orac says it's safe."

"By safe, I presume you mean it is not poisonous. I doubt it is safe for your liver." He put down the glass unfinished, but he was grateful for the warmth that seeped through him.

Vila pocketed the flask without sampling it himself and Avon had to concede that Vila had not shown any signs of drinking since they had landed here. With this as his only recourse, it might be understandable, but Vila had displayed no discrimination in the past.

"Aren't you having any?" he asked with a sarcastic curl to his mouth.

"I don't drink," Vila returned. "Not any more." He was serious. He meant it but was not disposed to explain. Avon was curious, but to ask questions was to be involved and he had already asked one too many. He merely looked at Vila, who waited for the question and then sighed faintly when it did not come.

Avon went over and splashed water on his face. He hoped Vila would take the hint and leave, but Vila didn't.

"Don't you want to know why I'm not drinking then?" the thief prodded him, standing his ground.

"Not particularly."

"It doesn't matter. I'll tell you anyway. It's because I'm in charge." He paused dramatically, waiting for Avon to contest his challenge, but Avon didn't. It didn't matter, did it? "Well, I am," Vila went on. "The way Tarrant's acting, he's like Bl--like Blake at his worst," he finished defiantly, refusing to back down. "Blaming himself for everything. Maybe it's tied in with Zeeona too. That hardly had time to hit him before we went to Gauda Prime. We were too busy and everything happened all at once. Now we've nothing but time to think--and he's thinking of Zeeona. And Dayna. If Dayna--if she was here, I think she could help Tarrant, but she isn't. And none of the rest of us can. Maybe you could, but you won't."

"Tarrant is not my concern," Avon returned flatly.

"Nothing's your concern," Vila snapped. "Except Blake. Ever think of taking your turn sitting with him, Avon?"

Oh now, that wasn't fair. That stung. Avon had heard Vila speaking to one of the others, saying softly, "Blake doesn't want to see him," and knew that Blake could only mean him. He could understand it, but it hurt to have Vila rub his nose in it. Everything that had happened had pulled all the scabs off Avon's many wounds and he felt raw and sore inside, unable to defend himself against this kind of attack. He stood there helplessly, avoiding Vila's eyes.

Vila froze. He crept slightly closer and stared at Avon. "He's getting better, Avon," he insisted with more sympathy than he had displayed so far.

Avon turned away refusing to respond Vila's heavy sigh. "This discussion serves no purpose, Vila," he said. "I do not wish to see Blake and he does not wish to see me, so further attempts to mend fences is a waste of time not befitting someone who claims to be in charge."

"What makes you think he doesn't want to see you?" Vila persisted.

"Were I in his position, I would be the last person welcome, Vila," Avon explained patiently as if to a halfwit. "But in any case, I heard you say so to the others. Now go away."

"That was right at first," Vila protested. "Changed his mind, hasn't he?"

"If he has, then he is a bigger fool than I ever thought." Avon stalked over to his bed, got into it and closed his eyes.

"It's you who's the fool," Vila cried. "Or maybe it's you who's the coward. Always thought it was me, but I was wrong, wasn't I? Blake can't come to you, Avon. He's not well enough to get up yet. But you can go to him."

"I won't."

There was a little silence. Avon hoped Vila would believe him asleep, though anyone who would interpret the rigid tension of his body as sleep was a bigger idiot than the little thief. Vila made no such mistakes. "Tomorrow, Avon," he said as if laying down the law. Then he turned and let himself out.

Tomorrow. Well, tomorrow, they would have to carry him into Blake's room bodily. Avon tried to relax, but his body was vibrating with tension. It took him hours to drop off into sleep.

The little green people and the friendly Blake awaited him there.

*** *** ***

Roj Blake awoke early. His sleep came in snatches these days, punctuated by twinges of pain in his abdomen when he turned or shifted in the night, and after each such awakening, he lay and tossed and turned until he could return to sleep. Lately he was sleeping better but the pain could still rouse him.

To make it worse, he was dreaming a lot. He would have understood it if his dreams had always included the debacle on Gauda Prime, but that was rarely a part of the nighttime parade. Oh, it happened but not as often as he had expected. Instead, he saw a different picture, a strange planet with a tribe of natives who seemed quite friendly, and, more surprisingly, Avon, friendlier than Blake ever remembered, at least back on the Liberator. He was at a loss to explain it. The last thing his subconscious mind should dredge up was dreams in which he and Avon were good friends. And the Avon of the dreams was a friend. Blake dreamed of instances where he and Avon had talked companionably for hours, once even discussing Anna Grant. There were dreams of him and Avon enjoying a water fight in a small lake, shared laughter, story telling around a campfire while the natives listened avidly. It could have been an interlude in his past, so vivid was it--but he knew it had never happened. It must be wishful thinking. Not surprising perhaps when he had pinned all his hopes on Avon and then felt them come crashing down when Avon had arrived braced for betrayal and had shot him without waiting for an explanation.

Only as he fell did Blake realize how it must have sounded to Avon, especially since Avon had been primed by Tarrant's warning. The boy hadn't understood, there had been no time to tell him, and Avon, always ready to believe in betrayal, had listened to him, unwilling to take the risk of trust. But bitterness chased Blake into the darkness, and when he astonished himself by reviving to find the blonde girl who had been with Avon sitting with him in an unfamiliar cavelike room, resentment toward Avon was his first emotion, even beating out surprise.

Soon Soolin had Vila and Tarrant in here with him explaining how they had managed to break out of their cells on Gauda Prime and how in searching for the rest of his companions, Vila had discovered Blake in one of the cells, where he had been treated and left to heal on his own. It was apparent a medical schedule was maintained, but there had been no attempt to heal him quickly. It might have been deemed a waste for someone who was to be executed anyway. Vila insisted that they could not leave without Blake, and when Soolin had observed that it would cut their chances of escape, Avon had said flatly that they were taking Blake, and Tarrant had backed him.

Fleeing in their stolen ship, they had ordered Orac to rig the computers to make their pursuers believe that the vessel's departure was legitimate. There had been no pursuit. But once in space, it became evident that their escape had been much too easy. The trouble came slowly at first, but the further they went the more they realized that the ship had a problem. Tarrant, evidently a very gifted pilot, had nursed the vessel along as far as possible, aided by Orac, but eventually had been forced to search for a suitable planet to land. Suddenly there had been no time and they were lucky the only planet within range was also habitable by humans, though it was deserted. The landing was not an easy one.

"For a good pilot, my reputation is getting bad," Tarrant observed with a wry grin. "My last two landings have left the ships in pieces."

"But us alive," Soolin reminded him. "And you did put us down near the only shelter on the planet."

Blake had looked around the room he was in; three of the walls were bare stone and earth and only one, the corridor wall, was manmade. "What is this place?" he asked.

"It was a Federation base before the Andromedan war," Vila explained. "Orac got that much out of what's left of the computers here. During the period of regrouping after the war, this base and a lot of others this far out were abandoned. It was after that the pacification program was begun and there was no need to reopen this place. It was too far from the main starlanes and with the fleet strength down, they simply left it alone."

"Won't we be tracked here?"

"No chance," Soolin replied complacently. "Orac reports that the ship was free from tracing devices, and we took a random course when we left GP. If the fleet was at full strength they might find us, but I think we've got a grace period. Orac monitors the activities of Space Command for us."

"Not without protest, I'll wager," Blake remarked, smiling slightly as he recalled his experiences with the recalcitrant computer.

"A lot of protest," Vila agreed. "Avon had to threaten to dismantle him to get him to agree."

Blake tensed at mention of Avon's name, as he had earlier when he had been told it was at Avon's insistence he had been rescued. Before he could stop himself, he said, "I don't want to see him."

The others exchanged meaningful glances, and Vila nodded. "All right, Blake." It was only later that Blake realized that Avon probably wanted to see him no more than he wanted to see Avon and that if he had not insisted on his ban, the others would have needed to make excuses for Avon's continuing absence.

But that had been three weeks ago. During that time, Blake had spent a lot of time with the other three, learning to know Soolin and Tarrant and renewing his acquaintance with Vila. There had been no trace of Avon, though once or twice, Vila or Tarrant had brought Orac by. Orac had not changed at all, and in a universe where everything seemed back to front, that was a truly reassuring note.

But Blake was beginning to be curious about Avon. After the first day or so, the others had started talking about Avon, and the picture they painted had finally convinced Blake that Avon did not deserve the hostility as he was displaying. Avon had changed, and if he was not quite mad, he had certainly become close to it, a fact to which Blake was all too willing to testify. With all the pressure Avon and the others had been under, perhaps it was no wonder that things would get out of hand so quickly, and as the others talked, a reluctant sympathy began to develop, first for them and finally for Avon himself.

Vila was an inveterate talker and even had Blake wanted to shut him up, it was doubtful he would have succeeded. Vila needed to let it out and he did, and so Blake heard about Anna Grant's death, the destruction of the Liberator, the loss of Cally, the events over Malodaar. Blake was shocked, but he saw what almost amounted to a pattern forming and wondered once or twice if some puppeteer hadn't been running the crew of the Liberator. Once he accused Orac of manipulating them for its own studies, and while Orac denied it, the computer was fascinated with the possibility and set to work to investigate it. Blake suggested such an overall pattern might have been worthy of Servalan, but Orac could find no record of anything but a string of negative results that were seemingly unconnected.

It made him regret his earlier refusal to see Avon, and while he had not quite managed to forgive Avon for shooting him, he had begun to believe that he might eventually do so. He doubted he could succeed without Avon's actual presence and a chance to discuss the incident however, and if Avon knew of his earlier ban, his arrival was the most unlikely event Blake could think of. He rather suspected he would have to go to Avon, and since his few attempts to get out of bed had produced only a few tottering steps under the supervision of Tarrant or Vila, he doubted that would be at any time in the immediate future.

The longer he and Avon went without confronting each other, the harder it would be, especially for Avon, and while he was not as sympathetic toward Avon as he might once have been, a tentative easing of his hostility had begun to creep in. Part of it was due to the dreams, which showed him another possible reality. It had never been--at least he could not remember it--but might it not be possible?

Blake could not help thinking of his base and his people and wondering how many of them had managed to escape, but the years since he left the Liberator had embittered him and he found it difficult to remember the man who had once insisted on freedom for the rabble. The rabble, he had learned, were not particularly grateful for his efforts, and time had tarnished the golden dream. Once he would have lain here impatiently, eager to get back to work, but now he welcomed the respite and when Vila, expecting him to be eager to go out and save the galaxy, tried to counsel patience, Blake found himself unable to respond with the eagerness the thief expected. After the first few times, Vila had stopped mentioning it, a strange look in his eyes, and Blake wondered if the thief, never very keen on the Cause, was actually disappointed in him.

Blake thought about the dreams a lot. They were safer than anything else, though their view of Avon was not safe. Wistfully Blake thought of the dream Avon, a man who had learned he could trust Blake enough to lower his guard around him, not completely because that was not Avon's nature, but more so than he had ever done in reality. It had been a friendship Blake cherished.

It had never happened. Even with the gaps left in his memory by his programming, Blake knew he could never have forgotten something like the incident on The Top of the World. It would have been a prized interlude, and he suspected that, given something like that to fall back on, he would have made a concerted effort to return to the Liberator after Star One instead of choosing to let himself disappear. If he and Avon had developed a bond like that, Blake would never have shattered it.

His Cause was no longer the obsession it had once become, but it had been strong enough then, strong enough for him to risk the deaths of millions of people in order to prove his belief in it. Under the impetus of such an obsession, might he have abandoned even such a friendship as he saw in the dreams? Could he have blocked it out? He tried a few tentative questions of Vila, to see if there had been any such incident, but Vila had looked vague and blank when Blake persisted as if he didn't understand what Blake was pushing for.

So Blake dropped it. He would have welcomed the chance to discuss it with Avon, but the chance never came and the more Blake thought of it, the more he was convinced it was just a dream. The Avon in the dream would never have shot him. The Avon in the dream would have welcomed any possibility of an explanation from Blake, would have given less credence to Tarrant's wrong conclusions. No. Even changed as he was by the blows life had dealt him, that Avon would have waited for Blake's response. It was nothing but wishful thinking.

The door slid open to admit Vila Restal carrying a breakfast tray. The thief paused in the doorway and cast a nervous glance over his shoulder, and Blake, intrigued by the first sign of the old timid Vila since he had revived, smiled and said, "What is it, Vila, are you hoping to sneak in here and poison me before anyone wakes up?"

Vila let the door slide shut. "Noises," he said ominously. "This place is haunted."

"Have you seen any ghosts?" Blake asked with sudden good humor. He had heard noises from time to time too, but they were the easily explained noises that come with the running of machinery and the fact that they were underground. Acoustics in this place were strange too--sometimes when the door was open, he could hear the odd echo and know that the rock formations were somehow transmitting the distant voices of the others. Once in awhile he would be able to understand an actual snatch of conversation but usually it was just a remote mumble and Blake no longer heard it consciously except in the wee hours of the night whilst trying unsuccessfully to sleep. Then he would lie there wondering who was up and stirring.

"You don't usually see them," Vila replied darkly setting the tray on the stand beside Blake's bed. "But you know they're there."

"We've been here three weeks and they haven't harmed us yet," Blake reminded him, levering himself up with wary caution so as not to put too much strain on his healing wounds and swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. When this only produced a slight weakness, he felt a surge of triumph that was magnified when he realized how hungry he was this morning.

In noting his progress, Vila forgot his preoccupation with ghosts and goblins and things that go bump in the night. "You're better," he pointed out. "How did you sleep?"

"Better than the night before," Blake realized in some surprise. "A lot of dreams and I woke a few times, but better than before."

"Dreams, eh?" Vila asked sententiously as if he were a consulting medic. "I have them too. Things I haven't thought about for years. Adventures in the juvenile detention center, things like that. Hardly ever about Malod-- about anything unpleasant."

"It's strange, isn't it?" Blake asked in agreement between mouthfuls of his breakfast. "I'd have expected nightmares too, but most of my dreams aren't nightmares. They're remarkably pleasant. I'd almost exchange them for the reality." Not completely though. Having lived with tranquilized dreams for several years, Blake was determined to meet reality head on, even if it proved unpleasant. At least he'd know it was true.

"Do you want that roll?" Vila asked. The old food processor on the base worked reasonably well most of the time, testifying to the abruptness with which the base had been abandoned, but occasionally something putrid would emerge instead of the expected meal, and the sight of this morning's delicious breakfast was acting on the thief.

Blake snatched it up before Vila could reach for it. "Yes, I'm going to eat it," he said and did so while Vila watched him in ill concealed disappointment. "Do you seriously believe this base is haunted?" he asked more to avoid any discussion of their current situation than because he really believed it.

"I've heard things when everyone else was asleep," Vila said darkly. "Once I went to see if someone was up. But all of you were sleeping and I could still hear voices muttering far away."

"A trick of the acoustics," Blake suggested. "Maybe it was only Tarrant snoring."

"Nobody could confuse Tarrant snoring with a muttering sound," Vila disagreed, pushing aside Blake's empty tray and dragging up a chair with one foot. "Maybe we're not the only ones here," he concluded dramatically.

"They haven't bothered us then."

"Yet." Vila looked at the walls of stone and earth that surrounded them. "I don't like it underground."

"It's no different from space, Vila, and you never minded Liberator."

"It is different. Liberator wouldn't fall on your head and crush you. Mark my words this place is haunted, see if it isn't. Mind you, they haven't been unfriendly yet and they haven't caused any trouble, like moving things about and getting into the equipment. Avon would have fits if Orac's key started vanishing or if the lights started going on and off." He fell silent rather abruptly. "I hope I haven't gone and given it ideas."

Blake laughed, clutching automatically at his stomach though the pain was less today. "Don't make me laugh, Vila," he protested.

Vila's expression was a comical one of mock hurt. "I was serious, Blake," he declared.

"I'd like to see the day when you were serious."

"You have, then," Vila persisted. "I'm in charge here, remember. This is my base. I have to be serious. If this base is haunted, it's my job to find the ghosts and find out what they want."

"Vila Restal, ghost hunter." Blake marveled at the concept. "Perhaps you should recruit Avon. No self respecting ghost would dare appear to him."

He caught himself, amazed at how easily he had fallen into the old patterns when talking about Avon. He knew it wasn't over yet, because if he had truly fallen back into the old ways, he would not be forever catching himself up short. It was unfinished and it bothered him. "Vila," he began.

"I think it's time to wake Tarrant," Vila said brightly and began edging toward the door.

"Wait right there. I want to see Avon."

Vila looked at him unhappily. "Blake, I..."

"You're in charge, Vila. You said so. Make him come in here. He and I must talk. The longer we wait, the harder it will be."

He half expected Vila to back down and admit that he wasn't in charge after all, but Vila surprised him. He stiffened his spine and met Blake's eye with a determination that had been rare back on the Liberator. "I'll do what I can. I've tried, Blake. He heard you didn't want to see him at first, and now I think it would take something like a neutron blaster to get him here. He's still hurting, Blake. Shooting you hurt him as much as it hurt you and I think you're better able to handle it. He knows he did the wrong thing and he's never been any good with guilt and regret. He pretends it doesn't matter, but it does. I think he's afraid you'll tell him you never want to see him again and that you hate him. Even if he pretends he doesn't care about any of us, he does. I've known Avon a long time. He's afraid to take the chance. But I'll do what I can. Maybe I can, well, manipulate him in there."

"You've become devious, Vila."

"Had to, didn't I?" Vila plucked up the tray from its stand. "Why don't you see if you can get dressed today. Soolin unearthed a mobile chair in one of the storerooms and you can use it to get about and rest when you're tired. I think you're sick of this room."

"Heartily sick of it. I can dress myself but I don't have anything."

"You can do like the rest of us," Vila replied, pointing at his solid black attire. "Federation uniforms. All that was available here, though Avon found some civilian garb in his size. Trust him to manage that. I think Soolin's outfit belonged to a mutoid once. But we can't be choosy. She brought some things that should fit you." Vila pointed to the closet with his free hand. "Want help?"

"I'll manage. Where's the chair?"

"Just outside in the hall. It's power controlled."

"Shall I come looking for Avon then?" Blake asked, the question intended for himself as much as it was for Vila.

But Vila took it seriously and paused, his hand on the button to open the outer door. It slid open and in the sudden silence, both of them could clearly hear the distant muttering sounds that Vila had complained of earlier.

"It sounds like underground water to me," Blake commented. "I'd say this place was built to take advantage of an underground river since a viable base would need its own water supply. See if you can find me a blueprint of the base and I'll go over its structural specs. It will give me something to do."

Vila looked relieved. "I'll have Avon and Orac dig it out of the computer," he volunteered, adding more thoughtfully, "And I'd wait a bit before you come looking for Avon. Let me give it a try first."

Blake found the suggestion restrictive. If Avon came primed to the meeting, Blake would be denied Avon's natural, instinctive reaction and he found he wanted that. He could deal with Avon more honestly if he could observe Avon's gut reaction to the meeting. So he temporized thoughtfully. "We'll see. I'll dress now and have a rest. You do what you have to do, and get me those plans."

Vila eyed Blake suspiciously, nodded and went out.

Cautiously Blake slid off the edge of the bed and put weight on his feet.

*** *** ***

Tarrant and Soolin exchanged speculative glances and moved into the corridor from the rest room as the distant muttering sound started, eyes narrowed and considering. "Vila says it's ghosts," Soolin pointed out, her eyes twinkling slightly.

"Vila has a big imagination," Tarrant returned. If truth were told, he was not comfortable with the sound either, but he didn't want to show it. "Maybe we should track it down."

"Have you heard it before?" she asked, pulling out her clipgun and checking the charge. Though Vila had discarded his gun once they had confirmed that the base was deserted and Tarrant only wore his when he was on watch, Soolin's and Avon's never left them. Human nature, Tarrant decided, though the thought of Avon with a gun had made all of them a little uneasy at first. Then, one day, an unexpected noise from an empty room startled them all and Soolin's gun flew into her hand as she went to investigate. Turning to Avon, since he was weaponless at the moment, Tarrant was astonished to see Avon's hand frozen over the weapon, still undrawn.

"If you don't mean to use it, I'll take it," Tarrant had said in an undertone, and Avon, obviously startled, raised his empty hand and stared at it blankly before he pulled the weapon deliberately. His grip was less than steady and Tarrant looked with dawning realization as Avon made himself come to terms with a weapon. He had shot Blake and hadn't been required to use one since then. Now, he was clearly remembering the incident and just as clearly finding it unpalatable.

Soolin checked the room professionally while Tarrant was coming to his conclusions and when she emerged she was holstering her weapon. A stack of books on a chair had toppled over and there was no trace of footprints in the dust of the deserted room to suggest that someone had been hiding away and done it by accident.

Vila and Avon had converged on the books and both of them had come away with a stack of them, and once they were done, Tarrant hunted through them himself, finding several pre-Second Calendar histories which he had enjoyed in his room at night, but not even they could distract him from the sight of Avon unable to draw his gun. If someone was really here on the base, or hiding nearby, Avon would be a dead loss, and that was Tarrant's fault.

"I don't think it's anything real," he replied to Soolin's question, "But I've heard it a time or two and I'm not sure what it is. Some kind of acoustical feedback maybe." Soolin frowned. "We've been assuming this place was deserted after the Andromedan war when the Federation was consolidating what remained of its power, but maybe we've been going about it wrong. Do you think that there could be...something here that, well, drove them away?"

"If so, it's taking its time." Tarrant didn't care for the idea. He felt exposed and vulnerable here suddenly and he resented it, for this place had felt a safe haven until now. "Vila will have us all jumping at shadows before we're through."

"I'll jump at shadows any time," she said. "It's better than assuming nothing is wrong and waking up with your throat cut."

"Cheerful this morning, aren't we? I have a better idea. We'll ask Orac."

"Avon isn't up yet. Remember he had a disturbed night and he won't be in the best of moods."

"We're accustomed to that. Besides, Avon might have left Orac in the control room. We'll go see, and I can pick up my gun in the process."

She fell into step with them and they headed for the base's control center.

They found Orac where they had expected it, but the activator was conspicuous by its absence. Tarrant gave Orac's casing a frustrated swat, more annoyed than if Orac had not been there at all. Over the past few weeks, he had managed to rein in his continual irritation with Avon, knowing he'd had a large part in the debacle that was Gauda Prime, but guilt and regret were rapidly fading as Avon seemed sullen and remote, occasionally surprising them with a scathing remark. He felt sorry for Avon and for Blake, and knew it was partially his fault, but weeks of attempted atonement had done little to alter the situation and, unlike Blake, who Vila said made a habit of it, Tarrant preferred to work past his guilt. It was more than time.

"It's not much good to us, is it?" Soolin had been more patient lately, but this morning was not one of her better times. Soolin functioned best when there was something to do, and here the only tasks were routine base maintenance and sickroom duty, neither of which appealed to her. Tarrant didn't much like sickroom duty either, but he was fascinated by Blake.

After all the times Liberator and Scorpio had gone off looking for Blake, it seemed unbelievable that they had finally found him, though the events following the finding should not have surprised him. Avon had gone steadily downhill after Cally died, and Tarrant suspected he and Dayna and Vila stayed with him only out of momentum. Vila and Avon might have been friends once, but toward the end, all traces of it seemed to have vanished. Here on this base, Vila was unbending again and displaying concern for Avon, but Avon did not respond to it. He spent his days working with Orac, improving the security of the base and planning their eventual escape. Once he had been heard to remark that this might make a good base from which to pursue the rebellion, ending that, of course, he had no interest in it. When Tarrant had slowly raised his head and given Avon a knowing look, he had received a scornful list of complaints about his supposed inadequacies, to which he had chosen not to respond. But he didn't know how much longer he could keep his temper under control.

The echoing noises seemed to have stopped. Tarrant cocked his head, listening. Nothing. Maybe it had to do with the wind on the surface. He resolved to make a trip up sometime during the day and see what the weather conditions were like.

Vila joined them abruptly, as if he had been running. "There you are," he said unnecessarily. "I went by your quarters, Tarrant, and you were gone. Have you seen Blake?"

"Not this morning. Why? Is he worse?"

"He's gone," Vila replied.

"Gone!" burst out Soolin. "You mean--"

"I told him about that chair you found and showed him some clothes and when I popped back, the chair was gone and so was he. Have you seen Avon yet this morning?"

Tarrant began to grin. "So Blake's gone looking for him?"

"I wouldn't smile about it if I were you," Soolin argued, edging toward the door. "You know what Avon's like. And he's armed."

"Small threat that is," Tarrant muttered. "I've seen him with a gun."

"You haven't seen him with Blake," countered Vila stubbornly. "I don't think it's a good idea, Tarrant. Maybe we should go after him."

"He may not have gone after Avon," Tarrant suggested, failing to convince even himself. "He might have wanted a look at this base."

"No, he wanted a look at Avon."

"Then let him have it. The rest of us will have no peace until they've come face to face. Avon won't seek out Blake, so it's up to Blake."

"Avon might not be quite sane," Soolin objected. "I think I should stop them."

"No, leave them," Tarrant insisted. He wasn't certain why he was so determined for them to meet unless the thought of a possible reconciliation could absolve him from his own responsibilities in the matter of the shooting, but he thought it was best to leave the two of them to it. His certainly made Soolin pause, but Vila stared at him with narrowed eyes, no longer concerned with concealing his intelligence and playing the fool.

"You'd better be right about this, Tarrant," he said threateningly.

"I hope I am," he said seriously. "I hope I am.

*** *** ***

"Avon?"

The quiet voice startled Avon as he turned to the door of his quarters, but he concealed his surprise and presented Blake with a smoothly blank face, hiding the sudden turmoil of emotions that churned through him.

"Blake," he returned. Alive, I see."

"No thanks to you." It was obviously an automatic response, but Avon could detect no trace of regret in Blake's voice. For a moment he did not reply, simply drinking in the sight of Blake, a living Blake, though he was too pale and too thin, dependent on the wheelchair for the moment, and looking much older, with a good deal of grey threading through the dark curls. The scarred eye was disconcerting as if he was facing an impersonator who had created such an obvious difference as a distraction, but Avon knew he was stalling for time. This was the real Blake. He could see it in Blake's eyes, feel it in the aura of the man who had haunted him for two years after Star One, who had pulled at him and driven him, and finally forced Avon to shoot him. He should have known better than to expect that to end it all. Their deaths were linked, and life was Avon's persistent companion and enemy these days. He had never even lost consciousness in Blake's base, though he had been struck by at least one stun bolt. Dazed and torpid, he had stood his ground over Blake until the troopers had dragged him away by main force.

Now Blake was here, and Blake was not looking friendly. Avon should have expected that--he had expected it, there being nothing else valid to expect, but his raw sensibilities were not prepared for the sudden flood of pain at the realization. Blake had come here to condemn him, and Avon, who did not have it in him to plead for forgiveness, was reduced to standing before the man he had nearly killed, staring at him helplessly. He struggled to keep the pain from his eyes, suddenly remembering the Blake of his dreams, a man who would have sensed Avon's pain no matter what control Avon put over it and who would probably have come charging over to shake some sense into Avon and hugged him for good measure. A part of Avon that he had long believed dead felt a sudden greedy hunger for that bit of human warmth and comfort, and refused to admit his need for it.

"No thanks to me," he agreed flatly.

Blake stared back, defiant and unyielding, then his face relaxed fractionally. "Do you want to tell me what that was in aid of?" he asked, propelling the chair into Avon's quarters without invitation so the door could slide shut unimpeded. "Did you come there to kill me, Avon?" His voice was genuinely curious, as if he had detached himself from the more personal aspects of the whole thing--such as three large holes in his middle--and was concentrating on it as a theoretical question. Avon took it to mean that his motivations were important only in that they explained a certain perplexing puzzle, and his resentment grew.

"As it happens, no," he said in a careless, throwaway tone. "I came there to find you, but I found a fool. 'I set all this up,' you said. The ideal response from a bounty hunter to a wanted man."

"Oh, is that it?" Blake asked scornfully. "A little misunderstanding? You're very quick with the trigger, Avon. I told you once I always trusted you. I can see I'll need to revise that."

"What the hell did you expect, Blake?" Avon demanded, his temper beginning to elude him. "I didn't know how you'd changed in the time we'd been apart. You'd always demonstrated a remarkable susceptibility to programming. I had to go slowly, to learn the truth. I had people dependent on me. You forced Vila and Cally upon me and the others came along. I wanted to find you--to give them back to you, so I could finally be free of you, damn you. But you'd changed, even more than I expected. The old Blake would never have doubted that I had changed as well. But that never occurred to you, did it? I needed more security than, 'I was waiting for you.'"

"Oh well, I'm sorry, Avon." The sarcasm cut like a knife. "I didn't realize your intellect had slipped so far. You never needed everything spelled out to you in the old days. You came to be free of me, you said. It appears you nearly found a permanent way to manage it."

Avon glared at him. "It would, had I considered it that way. I was told you betrayed me. I don't take kindly to betrayal. You should have remembered that, Blake. You were still around when I encountered Tynus. My 'old friends' are safe from me as long as they do not threaten me."

"It's more than my life is worth to be one of your old friends, then, Avon," Blake said sternly. "Apparently more than Vila's as well."

Avon went rigid as if Blake had slapped his face. "Vila is not your concern," he hissed, for all the world like a snake about to strike.

"Vila wouldn't agree with you. He hasn't given up on you. I can't imagine why."

"Perhaps you never understood Vila," Avon returned, knowing his defense of Vila was as much an attack of Blake as a display of loyalty to the thief. "You certainly never valued him properly. But then your 'followers' often enough met untimely ends even back on Earth. You alone survived not just once but twice. Convenient. I'm sure Gan never had a chance to consider that before he died."

"Damn you, that's not fair! What happened back on Earth was beyond my control."

"Was it indeed? Maybe you played word games with the Federation like you did with me. How hard would it have been, Blake, to have answered a straight question with a straight answer? 'Is it true?' I asked you. Is that so hard to deny? Or would your answer have been yes?"

"I never betrayed you, Avon. I swear that."

"Your lack of betrayal has come too close to fatality too many times, Blake. I am not impressed."

"Obviously." Blake lay a hand protectively over his healing wounds. He looked down at his hand then raised his eyes to Avon's. "I see this was a mistake. I should have known better than to expect that you'd regret what happened."

"Oh, yes, I do regret it, Blake," Avon returned. "I regret the whole thing. You weren't worth Dayna dying for. Now get out of here. You've outstayed what limited welcome you might have had."

Blake turned the chair so abruptly that it jarred his wound and he had to bite back a cry of pain. Avon heard it and started forward involuntarily, only catching himself at the last minute. Folding his arms across his chest implacably, he fixed his eyes on the middle distance and waited. When Blake had controlled the pain, he activated the chair and the door swooshed open before him. Long after it had slid shut, Avon was still standing there frozen in position.

Damn the man! Even after all this, he still had an affect upon Avon, and Avon resented it furiously. So much easier to remain free and uncaring and to go one's own way unfettered by commitment. Blake had always demanded a commitment for his Cause and Avon, who had managed to avoid belief in the cause with remarkable ease, found that a commitment to the man was far harder to resist. He had come up with excuse after excuse for searching for Blake, the need, at first, to fulfill his bargain and take Blake back to Earth, later the intent to deliver his crew to Blake and be rid not only of them but also the onus of carrying on Blake's blasted crusade in his absence. He had almost become Blake in this past year, and it had not worked. Now, remembering the man who had just left, he wondered how close Blake had come to becoming him. Though Blake had always been harder than Avon had expected, he had never been so unyielding as he had this time. Avon looked at the closed door and struggled against an irrational urge to kick it.

Maybe it was time for him to set Orac to the task of finding him a ship. He owed the rest of them no more than their safety. Once free, he could direct Orac to free them as well, apart from him. That way he would not have to watch any more of them die, or turn on him, or threaten him, ever again. He would find a bolthole somewhere, a place where no one could touch him. If such a place existed...

He tried to block out the images of the dream Blake. How different the reality from the dream. How impossible to believe that the two could ever be reconciled. How foolish to hope that they might. He slammed his fist down on the tabletop so hard he broke the skin and for a moment he stood there, watching the blood and almost savoring the pain before he went to wash the wound and bandage it.

We should both have died, Blake. It would have been easier that way.

*** *** ***

Uneasily Vila prowled around the base. Having decided against his better judgment that Tarrant was right and that an encounter between Avon and Blake might clear the air, he gave them time to meet and discuss what needed to be discussed, then he went along to Blake's quarters, but Blake was not there. Gathering his courage, he headed for Avon's room, but when he pushed the buzzer for admittance, Avon called, "Go away." He sounded so final that Vila, who had faced death so often in such a short time that little had the power to faze him, decided some chances were too great to take. Heaving a sigh, he abandoned Avon for the moment and went in search of Blake.

He finally found him two levels up, in the observation room that looked out over the surface of the planet. Here near the base, it was bare of all but the most rugged plantlife, a terrain of jagged hills surrounding empty little valleys, some carved deep by long ago rivers. The soil was a dusty yellow and the hills were red where the topsoil had eroded away leaving wicked scars as if the planet were bleeding. Blake had dimmed the lights and Vila saw him only as a silhouette against the flexiglas viewport, his shoulders slumped with misery or weariness, or both.

"Blake?"

"Vila," Blake acknowledged his presence without turning, and he sounded both angry and defeated as if he had fought as long as possible and resented losing but saw no other alternative.

"You ought to be in bed." Vila felt a sudden ache of sympathy for the man, who might have deserved a lot of things but who had not quite deserved being shot and who did not deserve whatever Avon had done to him now. Vila knew that Avon regretted the shooting, that it was eating him up inside. That was obvious to anyone of the meanest intelligence, let alone to someone as crafty as Vila, but he also knew that Avon was not the type to show it, especially to Blake. Had Blake been conciliatory, Avon might have managed an apology, but Vila doubted Blake had been. He hesitated, torn between comforting Blake and shouting at him in frustration.

"Just leave me here, Vila," Blake returned in a lifeless voice.

"Fat lot of good that'll do, Blake. What did you do, go in and start flinging accusations around? Avon on the defensive is hardly likely to make peace with you."

Blake turned then and even in the dim light, Vila could see traces of tears on his cheeks. Disconcerted, the thief hesitated, for once at a loss for words, though tears would come more easily to a convalescent. Then Blake dashed them away with an angry hand. "I dream about him. Avon. I dream about him every night, and we're friends, Vila. We're on a primitive world someplace, and we trust each other. It feels like it actually happened, but it didn't. I'd remember if we'd been gone from the Liberator for months, wouldn't I? I'd remember if Avon and I had become close friends?"

"It's just a dream, Blake," Vila said sadly. "We're all dreaming a lot. It might be a release of pressure, or it might be something in the air. You and Avon weren't gone missing for months. I'd remember it too, and I don't."

"It's the damned contrast," Blake snapped out. "In the dream he was always there for me. I was hurt once--a giant flying reptile attacked me--and he risked his life to save me, climbing out on these great granite spires above a vast abyss. And he stayed with me even when the wista came, until we could reach the cave safely."

Vila frowned because these sounded like real memories, not the stuff of dreams. "The wista?" he prompted softly, unwilling to break Blake's stream of remembrances.

"It was as big as a scoutship, with a mouth that would have swallowed the teleport bay on Liberator without difficulty. It came out when the moons were full and ate people indiscriminately. The Greens were terrified of it."

"I'd have been terrified of it too," Vila agreed with a rueful grin. "What did you do, Blake, decide it had to go?"

Blake looked up startled. He had been deep in his memories. "The Greens were afraid," he recalled. "They only wanted to hide. They weren't accustomed to working cooperatively. It was every man for himself. I--decided to intervene."

"Surprising," muttered Vila. What was all this? It seemed far to real for dreams.

"Avon was furious with me," Blake went on, and before Vila could decide if he meant then or now, Blake added, "He didn't want me to be at risk. He argued around it every way he could, but it was always to protect me. To protect me, Vila. Isn't it a joke, when the first chance he got, he shot me."

"Not without encouragement on your part, Blake," Vila burst out, reluctant to allow Avon to take the full blame for Gauda Prime. "All it would have taken was a simple explanation. He was riding the edge and you tipped him over. What did you do now? Go in there and throw it in his face?"

"He threw it in mine," Blake returned. Then he shook his head. "No, it was more of a joint effort. I've forgotten how to talk to him, Vila. I genuinely wanted to make peace with him. After listening to you and the others, I realized how I must have sounded."

"Did you tell him that?"

"He hardly gave me the chance."

"Oh, come, Blake, you're slipping. You never had any difficulty getting your meaning across to Avon in the old days."

"You've said he's changed," Blake defended himself, then as if he realized the problem with that argument, he plunged on, "Changed to be even more unpleasant."

"No," Vila disagreed, though the memory of Malodaar mocked him. "Or not only that. Unpleasant, yes. But he might not be quite sane, Blake. So much went wrong maybe none of us are. Sometimes when I think of Malodaar, I want to hate him, but lately I can't manage it any more. I'm angry at him but I can't quite hate him."

"I'm not sure I can manage that, Vila."

"No? It would have been easier for you if it had been any of the rest of us who shot you, wouldn't it?"

"The rest of you wouldn't--"

"Wouldn't we?" Vila grasped the arms of the chair and turned Blake so he was facing him directly. "I came almost as close as Avon did. Don't you think I came to GP expecting betrayal, Blake? Don't you think I was used to it by then? The only reason Tarrant didn't have a go at you was because it wasn't a personal betrayal for him, though it was pretty near. He'd heard so much about you that you disillusioned him thoroughly. He won't tell you himself but the woman he loved died in a particularly nasty way right before we came after you, and then he lost...Dayna there. He and Dayna were always close. You might have been the last straw--but you were Avon's. His betrayal had to come first."

"I never betrayed Avon," snapped Blake.

"He didn't know that."

"Well, it's over. It happened and we can't take it back. Avon doesn't want to take it back. I'm not sure it's worth the risk."

"If you made peace with him, Blake, there wouldn't be a risk." He shook his head. "No, there'd always be risk because life's like that, especially life when you're around, but Avon always protected you before, even when he was loudest about wanting rid of you. Did you know when you and Cally went into the base on Star One and we lost touch with you, Avon insisted on staying down there and trying to find his way in after you? We offered to bring him up but he wouldn't come. I know he saved your life more than once. It shouldn't have been hard for you to reconcile with him on GP. But you made it hard."

"I'm the one with a hole in my belly but it's my fault?"

"Yours, and Avon's and Tarrant's, and the Federation's, if we're assigning blame. I always thought blaming people for things over and done was stupid, but why listen to me. I'm only Vila, and I'm a fool." He heaved a vast sigh. "I used to be Avon's fool."

"I'd say you still were."

"No. Avon doesn't want me now. He doesn't want anybody--except you, and he thinks he can't have you. How much of that--" he gestured vaguely in the direction he assumed Avon's room to be--"do you think was because he wants to make peace with you and doesn't know how."

"None of it. I think you're wrong, Vila."

"You care about him even after everything that's happened, Blake. Why is it so hard to believe that he can't care too."

"Avon never cared."

"Oh yes, that's the safe thing to believe. You never took the safe way before." Vila heaved an impatient sigh. "Except maybe around Avon. We all took the coward's way around Avon, didn't we? Something about him drew us, like moths to the flame, and the risk was always worth it, but we had to be cautious. Maybe we were too cautious. Maybe we worried too much about how he'd react and denied him something he always needed." Vila felt he was getting in over his head, letting Blake see more than he'd shown him before, but Blake was soaking up the words in their own right and forgetting that it was Vila, the fool, the clown, who was speaking them.

"I had to fight the Federation," he said at last. "Something in me drove me to do it and never let me go. But I wanted to do it with Avon at my side. I had to go carefully or he'd find a bolthole. I had to give him the freedom to do that if he chose, even if it meant he actually left. He wouldn't have stayed if he hadn't had that freedom."

"But maybe he wanted you to want him to stay?"

"He would never have respected me if I'd shown weakness, Vila."

"I don't think letting someone know they're valued is weakness."

"Avon might think it is."

Vila opened his mouth to argue then fell silent abruptly. "Blake! Something moved out there."

Blake spun his chair around and they stared out at the desolate planet, looking for a trace of activity. The only thing that moved was the wind, stirring plants and raising little dust clouds. "I don't see anything," said Blake at length. "What do you think you saw?"

"Something at the corner of my eye. I didn't get much of a look, but it looked like something bulkier than one of those nasty bushes waving about." He had an uneasy feeling that it had been something on two legs, but there wasn't a trace of it now. Nervous, he raked the terrain with his eyes, hoping to find something harmless to dispel his growing uneasiness.

"Well, there's nothing out there now. This base has perimeter defenses, doesn't it?"

"This base has every defense Avon could activate plus a few new ones he and Orac cobbled together just to be on the safe side." Vila shivered. "Maybe this place is haunted."

"Haunted, Vila?" Blake grinned, remembering their earlier discussion. "We haven't been harmed yet. A ghost isn't supposed to have a physical body. How could a ghost hurt you?"

"It could give me a coronary," Vila countered. He didn't like the idea that he had seen a ghost out there, but the alternative was almost worse. There was something strange about this place. "Maybe whatever it was drove the Federation off. Maybe it's some kind of nasty alien, out to suck our blood."

Blake chuckled, relaxing slightly as if Vila's nervous speculations reassured him more than anything else since they'd come here. Vila wished he had meant it that way. "No one's blood has been sucked yet, Vila."

"No, but maybe they're waiting to work us up into a nice healthy state of terror. Maybe they don't suck blood. Maybe they feed on fear."

"Strange that none of us have been really made afraid, then, Vila. You're a bit on edge now but you're half enjoying your theories. Besides, if they want us to feed on fear, you'd think they'd give us frightening dreams instead of such pleasant ones."

Vila's eyes widened as he considered Blake's facetious suggestion. "Maybe they do give us dreams, Blake. Maybe they feed on dreams so they make us have lots."

"What have your dreams been about, Vila?"

"Nice things," Vila replied promptly. "Kerrill, mostly, and some of my really big scores back on Earth and Freedom City when Avon and I broke the bank."

"Nothing that didn't happen before?" Blake asked.

Vila saw where that was going. "Oh, this and that," he replied, unwilling to give away the few dreams that had been pure wishful thinking such as Cally's survival at Terminal and a different outcome on Egrorian's shuttle. But there had been nothing so complex as Blake's dreams of natives and monsters and a friendly Avon. Odd that Blake would be given a blow by blow story line of something that had never happened while Vila's unreal dreams were merely that, unreal dreams. Blake's seemed like a continuing viscast.

"I wonder why I get the big production," Blake mused.

"Maybe because you've been sleeping more than the rest of us." It made sense, even to Vila, but it wasn't nearly interesting enough as a theory.

"Perhaps," Blake returned thoughtfully.

Vila gave the outside view one more quick scan but saw nothing threatening. "Do you think we should tell the others I saw something?" he asked.

"Yes. We'll put Orac on it. If there's anything to be found, Orac will find it even if it's an unfamiliar life form. It will give Orac something to do."

Vila grinned at the thought of Orac's reaction to that, but as they turned and headed back for the lift to return to the section of the base where they'd been staying, he knew nothing had been resolved.

*** *** ***

Avon stayed in his room for some time, but to stay there indefinitely would have given Blake victory, so eventually he went out with the excuse of finding a meal and retrieving Orac. But when he reached the command center, Tarrant and Soolin were there before them and he checked in the doorway before collecting himself and striding forward.

"Avon. Good morning," said Tarrant smoothly. "I wonder if you could spare Orac for a few minutes. I have a question to put to it."

"If it is as important as all the rest of your questions, I am sure Orac would prefer that you not disturb it."

"It's about the noises we've been hearing," Soolin put in quickly. "We've all heard them, and while they might only be echoes coming down through the rocks, it would be better to make sure."

Protection was a valid motive, and Avon was willing to admit it. "Noises?" he asked. "I have heard nothing." The odd echo in the rocks was only in his head, wasn't it? Perhaps it was real, and that encouraged him, even if the sounds should prove threatening. He took the activator from his pocket and put it in place. "Orac, the others have been hearing strange noises," he announced. "I require you to identify them to put an end to their neurotic little worries."

"They are not neurotic worries, Avon," Orac replied promptly. "They are real sounds."

"Indeed? And you never thought it worth mentioning?"

"They have not proven a threat. I would naturally report a threat to myself, but there has been none."

"Then explain what we are hearing." He saw Tarrant catch that slip and faint amusement light his eyes momentarily before he turned a blandly inquiring look in Orac's direction.

"What we are hearing would prove to be several different things," Orac returned. "Part of it is simply structural noises, the settling of the base, water dripping in underground tunnels magnified by passing through differing strata of rock. This base is old and has not been maintained in the past several years. It is inevitable that the neglect lead to stress and metal fatigue and simple breakdown. While the base is structurally sound at least for the present, it was starting to decay before our arrival."

"You said that was only part of the sounds," Avon persisted. "Explain."

"At this time, I have no explanation. There is an energy here I have been unable to isolate. It is not threatening and it may be a type of life form native to the planet."

"Wonderful," Avon replied. "Did it never occur to you to mention this to me?"

"You did not ask."

Rage rushed through Avon and he would have liked nothing better than to smash Orac, but most of his anger was a result of his meeting with Blake, and Orac was still too valuable to destroy. "In future, you will inform us of any traces of life forms here that might prove inimical to our survival. I want you to concentrate on this potential life form and identify it. You claim to be the greatest computer in the galaxy, a rather grandiose boast. I require you to prove it by solving this problem. I wish to learn if we are in any danger and if a cumulative effect will be harmful. Also start looking for a ship. If we are threatened, we may need to leave here at a moment's notice."

"You are interrupting my work."

"I'll interrupt your work with a blaster if you don't do as he says," Soolin snarled. She could always be counted on to react to danger.

"Really, such primitive tactics are not required."

"Tarrant, we saw something!" Vila burst out, erupting into the room followed by Blake in his mechanical chair. When he saw Avon, he checked just inside the room, but did not withdraw. As Avon stiffened, he caught the sense of Vila's words and turned to the thief with something like relief.

"Saw something?" he demanded. "Exactly what did you see?"

"Orac's life forms, evidently," Tarrant threw in. "What was it, Vila? Surely not hairy aliens."

"Aliens, maybe, but not hairy. Two legged, I saw that much, but it was smaller than we are, and it--well, it glowed."

"Glowed, Vila?" Blake asked skeptically. "You didn't mention that before."

"I wasn't sure, but now that I think of it, I'm sure it glowed and it was that I noticed, not just movement."

"Vila Restal could actually be correct," Orac cut in. "It would be within the parameters established for a potential alien presence on this planet."

Blake turned to the computer in disbelief. "You mean you know about it," he burst out, outraged. "And you didn't tell us."

"Interesting, isn't it?" Avon asked. He didn't quite meet Blake's look, but he directed the question toward him. "Orac has been keeping secrets."

"You mean Orac's been got at?" cried Vila, taking a few uneasy steps away from the computer.

That was something Avon had not consciously considered before. "Is it true, Orac?" he demanded. "Have you been holding out on us?"

"No, it is not true," said Orac with undue haste, perhaps as if it feared it had found itself on the wrong end of Avon's gun. "My functions have not been interfered with."

"We have only your word on that," Blake reminded the computer.

"I am incapable of lying."

"I should doubt that," Avon disagreed. "As Blake says, we only have your word, and that is not good enough. I will require proof."

"Identification of the life forms will take time," Orac replied in a haughty voice. "I am shutting down now. Kindly do not disturb me while I complete my work." Though Avon knew better than to believe computers had emotions, Orac sounded furiously resentful as if it's integrity had been called into question.

He retrieved Orac's key and pocketed it, then something made him take it out again and set it on the table. He had a sudden memory of the dream Blake smiling and wondered if he had done it to make peace with this less satisfactory Blake in hopes of finding the other one beneath the surface. Foolish. Wasting time on such sentiment was a ludicrous misuse of his time. But when Blake's face softened fractionally, Avon was glad he had done it.

Vila, who always noticed more than Avon had been willing to admit, grinned suddenly and spoke up brightly. "I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm hungry. What do you say to breakfast?"

"I say it's one of your better ideas," Tarrant agreed so quickly that Avon turned and studied him through narrowed eyes. If Tarrant was beginning to show signs of perception, it would require him to rethink his opinion of the young pilot as well.

So quickly that Avon was not sure who had done the maneuvering, they were all seated at the table with plates of food in front of them. Vila had worked the processor with a deft skill, producing only one plate that had to be discarded as the asthmatic machine did its best with the limited resources that still functioned after all this time.

Blake was placed across the table where Avon could not avoid his eyes, and he was distinctly uncomfortable, realizing that the fact he and Blake had been able to deal together briefly over Orac's secretiveness did not mean that anything had been resolved between them. One time he looked up and caught Blake's eye accidentally and he noticed that Blake's eyes looked swollen and slightly reddened. Appalled, Avon looked quickly at his plate. Had Blake been crying! Had it been because of their altercation earlier? If so, why did it disturb him so much? Avon could not remember Blake in tears before, except in the dream, where it had never been sign of weakness. The loss of one of the natives, one whom Blake had been close to, had hit him hard, and it was inevitable that he react to it.

It wasn't real! Damn it, he would have to be more careful, or soon he would be confusing dreams with reality. He must be losing his mind to do that. The Blake who had been his friend was the Blake who appeared in his dreams, not the man who had slashed him with words in his quarters an hour ago. Now Blake sat here calmly, eating a light meal, avoiding Avon's eyes for the most part, speaking to the others when spoken to, smiling slightly when Vila offered his theory that the being he claimed to have seen must have been a ghost.

But the tension between the two of them ran through everything and it was all Avon could do to swallow his food. It was far better than the 'sludge' he and Blake had eaten at the Top of the World, but...

He was doing it again! Enough of this! Pushing aside his plate far too abruptly, Avon stood up so quickly his chair went over backwards with an appallingly loud clatter that caused the others to stab him with their eyes. Feeling rather like a specimen on a pin, Avon glared at them impartially and turned away. "I have work to do," he announced in the general direction of Blake and let himself out of the room.

*** *** ***

Blake stared after Avon in some dismay. Seeing him here in the company of the others proved only that Avon was uncomfortable with them too, not only with him, that Avon was very disturbed, whether about Gauda Prime or about everything that had happened to him was impossible to say. Though he had expected his resentment of Avon to continue, he found that in that instant when Avon sprang to his feet, a look of desperation in his eyes, the resentment became quite manageable. He had not forgiven Avon yet, but he had begun to believe it might be possible. He also suspected that Avon needed his help, and, buoyed by the memories of the Avon in his dreams, he heard himself say, "I'd better go after him."

"Feeling suicidal, are you, Blake?" That was Tarrant, and the question was intended both as a warning that Avon would be difficult and as concern for both of them, something he might have denied if confronted. But this wasn't Tarrant's problem except that he had triggered it on GP. This was Avon's problem, and Blake's, and only the two of them together could work it out.

"No, he's crusading," Vila contradicted, recognizing the mood. "Let him go. Somebody's got to help Avon before it's too late."

"I'm afraid it's already too late," Soolin disagreed. "I've never seen Avon like he's been since he shot Blake."

Blake halted in the doorway and turned to face her. "How do you mean, Soolin?"

"It's as if somebody tore off all the protection he'd wrapped himself in and it took his skin with it." She looked surprised at this flight of fancy but stuck with it. "He's bleeding, Blake. All his defenses are forced right now. He's overcompensating because he can't manage it without. Go easy as you can. I won't quite say I like Avon, but I respect him, and if you destroy him, then better to have left him on Gauda Prime. At least the Federation might have given him a clean death."

Her words cut through Blake like lasers, like the charges from Avon's gun. Gauda Prime had happened, and Blake wasn't the only one wounded there. He had known that but he'd forgotten it. The man he'd known on the Top of the World would never have shot him. Primed by the dreams to expect that, he had got the real Avon instead, changed and twisted by the past few years, lashing out like a wounded animal. Blake reached deep into himself and found compassion for Avon. After they'd made peace, he could learn to forgive, even if he could never forget. But first, he must come to terms with Avon.

Coming to terms might be easier than finding him. Blake was rapidly becoming exhausted on this, his first day out of bed, and though the mechanical chair did all the work, Blake was accustomed to lying down not sitting up. The stress of the moment didn't help either. Drained and weary, he propelled the chair through the base, checking for Avon. Vila hadn't had time to bring him a layout of the place, but he found a computer screen and called one up, discovering that it consisted of four levels, the lowest a storage section where some supplies still remained. The next level was mostly dormitories and the level they used most held officer quarters, the rooms they had taken, and other base functions, such as the control center, computer section, operations room, communications, and the medical section where Blake slept. The level above contained most of the weapons storage plus an underground hangar which would hold several small fleets of pursuit ships.

The computer room seemed too obvious, and the logical solution was the room that overlooked the valley, not a level on its own but one small area above the rocket level. If Avon remembered Vila's comments about seeing something there, he might have come up to have a look, though Vila had not explained where he had seen something, had he? Avon would not have known to look outside, but something drove Blake up and he resisted his need for bed and took the lift to the highest level.

Avon was there before him, standing at the window, his forehead pressed against the glass, one hand resting flat on the transparent surface, the other clenched into a fist at his side. His shoulders were quivering slightly as if he were crying but when he heard Blake's almost silent approach and spun around, his eyes were dry. Tension vibrated through him like the surface of a drum, and he braced himself, his shaded eyes as dark as if they held bits of the nighttime sky.

When he spoke, it was not an accusation but a kind of desperate plea as if he needed answers so badly that he was willing to admit the need, even to Blake. "How do you know, Blake?" he demanded. "How do you know what is real?"

That was so far from what Blake expected that for a moment he was helpless, opening his mouth for the easy answer that didn't come. Then he pulled himself together, regarding Avon with sympathy, his resentment largely gone. "What is it, Avon? What is it that makes you doubt its reality?"

"You," said Avon unhelpfully. "I'm seeing two of you, and I can't tell which is which. The one shouldn't be, but I keep remembering. Oh, yes, I remember far too well. And it's all lies, Blake. Nothing but lies."

"I've never lied to you, Avon," Blake burst out, dismayed beyond words at Avon's vulnerability. Avon caught himself and stared at Blake, pulling himself together with a painful effort.

"Well now, I wouldn't say your actions toward me have been characterized by sterling honesty."

At the accusation, Blake felt his anger rise but he caught himself as he realized it was merely a smokescreen. Avon always attacked when he feared he had given too much away. When he was calm and in control and everything was going well, Avon had no trouble dealing with Blake. It was only when his emotions were involved that he chose to attack. As he had done at Gauda Prime?

Blake felt an unexpected rush of warmth flood through him but the outcome of that particular display of emotion was still painful and he could not open up as much as Avon needed. Instead he opted for curiosity. "Two of me, Avon? You said you were seeing two of me? What do you mean by that?"

But Avon had backed off again. "A little time in your company is enough to dispel the illusion, Blake. That other you never existed. I should know better than to react to it as if it were real." Then the struggle caught up to him again and he sagged against the wall, looking defeated. "I can't tell the difference," he admitted in a voice Blake had never heard from him before. "I always held on, Blake. Even when the others thought me mad, I held on, I fought to survive, to keep going. I told myself it was stress, not madness, and most of the time, I believed it. But then I shot Anna and watched her fall and took her in my arms and I knew that nothing mattered, not Anna, especially not me. I took off my bracelet, Blake, in front of Servalan, and she planned to kill me. I didn't care. That was the first time."

His voice faded and Blake could find nothing to say, waiting almost breathlessly for Avon to go on. "The first time you...doubted your sanity?" he asked gently.

"The second time was on the shuttle. Egrorian's shuttle. Orac suggested Vila met the required weight and I stood outside myself and watched myself hunt him down. Vila. The only one I had left." Blake noticed Avon did not call him a friend even then. "Nothing mattered. Given a choice between Vila and myself, the answer was obvious. Should have been obvious. But I heard myself calling him and it was not me. It was as if someone inhabited my body. I didn't recognize myself...." His voice shuddered away into silence and Blake reached out cautiously to touch him, to offer comfort, scarcely able to believe it was Avon who was pouring out such confidences.

Avon saw the hand coming and froze as if it were a snake or a weapon, and Blake aborted the gesture regretfully. Avon never took his eyes from Blake's hand as it withdrew and came to rest on the arm of the wheelchair. Then he said sadly, "That would have been the other Blake."

Really frightened for him now, Blake said softly, "What do you mean, Avon?"

"He would never have hesitated."

"Maybe no one shot him," Blake countered, but he tried to keep the sting out of the words. "Maybe he hadn't learned caution."

"Don't patronize me, damn you. You know it's not real."

"I don't know anything about it, Avon. I want to help, but I don't know what you expect of me."

"I expect you to be Blake. But I don't know which one. The real one--no. I can't face the real one. The other one--he would have known--would have known--"

"I'll do what I can, Avon," Blake offered. "But I'm me. I'm not the other one. I don't know what you mean. Do you mean the way I was on Liberator?"

But Avon turned away, staring sightlessly out the viewport again at the valley. "It isn't real," he breathed.

The others had told him Avon might not be sane any more, but Blake had never expected such a graphic display. He wasn't strong enough for this; the emotional turmoil was driving him toward collapse and he knew he must rest soon, but he couldn't leave Avon now and the communications device in this room had not been reactivated to call for help. How could he get through to Avon? How would he have done it on Liberator? How would he have done it at the Top of the World?

At that question, he caught himself, stunned as he always was by the evident reality of the memories. That gave him an idea. It was so real to him, and they were all having dreams. Maybe Avon's dreams were as real to him as Blake's were, and Avon, emotionally drained, his barriers crumbling, lacked the resources to deal with it.

"It's just dreams, Avon," he said softly. "We're all dreaming here. None of it is real, but I understand. I have dreams too, dreams about you. They almost seem more real to me than Gauda Prime. Don't doubt reality because of the dreams."

"It isn't just the dreams," Avon countered, though his tightened muscles relaxed fractionally as Blake offered him a possible solution. "I remember, Blake. I remember when I'm awake. I remember things that never happened."

"So do I."

Avon eyed him doubtfully, and the fragile hope in his eyes unnerved Blake. He hoped he wasn't feeding Avon lies, trying too hard to help when he didn't really understand the problem. Sighing gently, he went on. "I find myself remembering the way you were when we were there, and then I remember Gauda Prime and it hurts all the more because you were my friend." He would never have admitted such a thing to Avon if Avon hadn't needed help so badly. But instead, Avon's eyes narrowed as if he suspected Blake of perpetrating some complex scheme to harm him.

"When we were where, Blake?" he demanded urgently.

"In my dream, it was called the Top of the World."

"Yes," hissed Avon, trying to back away and coming up against the window. "Now I see. She did this. A drug induced and electronic dream? I wonder, did I ever leave Terminal, or is this simply a continuation. Servalan interfered with my mind, Blake. With my memories. I saw you there, but she said you were never there, that you were dead. I...believed her. Odd, when I had never believed a word she'd said before, when she had just admitted to manipulating my mind. I believed her--because if it was true, if you were dead, it was over. You were safe, beyond her reach, and I was safe because you couldn't hurt me any more. I should have known it was all too easy."

"It's never been easy, Avon. But this is real."

"You'd say that, wouldn't you."

"I'd tell you the truth. I am telling you the truth. Do you remember, Avon? Do you remember the Greens? Do you remember Dannal trailing along in your wake, willing to do anything for you? Do you remember me running before the wista after we dug the trap? Do you remember the pool?" He saw the stunned realization in Avon's eyes and began to wonder. Parts of the memory were still missing, but it couldn't have happened. Vila would have noticed if they had been gone for months.

"All that proves, Blake, is that we have been given the same dream."

"No!" Blake burst out fiercely. "It happened, Avon. I don't understand how it happened or why we forgot it, but it was too real. No dream has that many details. No dream is ever as real as that. No dream ever makes so much sense. Usually dreams shift and things change, and the ludicrous seems believable. But all this fits together. Don't you see, Avon. Reminded of the Top of the World, it hurt all the more that you'd shot me. That's why I was so angry this morning when we met."

"Oh, is that why? Because you're as mad as I am? It can't be real, Blake."

"But you fear it. You have the memories. Now the gates are opened, they're pouring out. Maybe Vila's glowing aliens removed some block in our heads."

"That's farfetched, Blake." But Avon frowned, caught up in speculation, actually considering it. Then he shook his head. "It doesn't matter, Blake. Even if that happened once, it was long ago. Too much has happened since then, too many things have changed. It would be impossible to turn everything around." He began to pull the tatters of his walls around him as if drawing a curtain. "You've tried, Blake. I give you credit for that--or did the others put you up to it?"

"It was my idea," he insisted. "Don't back away, Avon. We've got to make sense of this."

"Oh, we've got to make sense of this, have we? Why? To prove that once upon a time, we had a jolly little adventure on Top of the World--and it meant so much to us that we promptly forgot it and the others didn't even notice we were gone. It must be programming, Blake. If you can't see that, I can."

"It's not programming, Avon. And if it is, why only affect us? Why not Vila too? Or even the others?"

Avon had no answer for that, but his face had grown cold and hard again, all trace of his earlier vulnerability vanished. Maybe he had convinced himself that programming, not insanity made the Top of the World seem so real to him. But Blake knew there had to be more. Programming would not leave them with such obvious gaps in reality. Programming would be more believable, at least in the beginning.

But maybe the programming, if that was what it was, had not allowed for Vila Restal, prepared to discount it simply because Avon and Blake had never been gone from Liberator long enough to have experienced the adventure. Blake could get around everything but that, and he knew that if he could accept the reality on faith, Avon would never be able to do so.

"I think we should ask Orac about this," Blake pressed on. "At least Orac could tell us if we had been programmed. The medical unit here seems well enough equipped." He frowned. "This place was abandoned quickly."

"The war with the Andromedans," Avon began then fell silent. "Or Vila's aliens? Orac will tell us about that as well." His voice held threat and Blake knew that Orac had better be on its toes--what a revolting idea--or else it would fall on the wrong side of Avon, which was a very bad place to be.

"We'll find out," Blake agreed. He sagged in the chair wondering if he had the strength to manage the hand controls to get back to bed.

Avon's reconstructed walls were not as effective as he must have hoped for he suddenly stared at Blake as if seeing him for the first time and frowned. "Look at you. Only a fool would drive himself so close to collapse. Before the others suggest I've done you further injury, I'll take you back to bed." He pushed the chair toward the lift without waiting for Blake to reply. "Of course you were always that way," he went on. "I remember how you'd go hunting kvelits when one of the Greens..." His voice trailed off as he caught himself again and Blake realized how difficult it must be for someone like Avon, who preferred things straightforward and clear cut and unemotional to be reminded constantly of something he could not verify, and to discover himself accepting it as reality. "I know," he said quite naturally. "They didn't know what to make of me."

"I've never known what to make of you either," Avon confessed in a voice that held traces of the Avon from the Top of the World. Blake smiled faintly. That Avon did exist, he was simply deeply buried. Maybe Blake could ferret him out somehow. If nothing else, he had convinced himself it was worth the effort.

*** *** ***

Though Vila looked worried and continued to pace about the room as if doing so could alter the facts, Soolin decided to make the most of an opportunity, so she went over and inserted Orac's key. "Orac, I have a question for you."

When the computer did not respond immediately, Tarrant stopped pushing the remains of his breakfast about on his plate and grinned. "Maybe you should threaten it with your gun again, Soolin."

"That will not be necessary," Orac huffed. "State your question quickly. I am busy."

"Tarrant and I were wondering if you could find out exactly why this base was evacuated. We thought it might have been these aliens you mentioned instead of simply the Andromedan War."

"That will take time. Withdrawing from a base for such a reason will no doubt be concealed in the records. When the information is available, I will inform you. Until then, do not disturb me. I am already wasting too much time on your petty concerns."

"Seems to me your safety is as much at stake as ours, Orac," Vila put in, abandoning his pacing and joining her beside the computer. "If I know my Avon, he won't like it if you hold back anything that affects Blake's safety."

"You mean Avon's safety, don't you, Vila?" Soolin asked skeptically.

"No, he means Blake's," Tarrant agreed with Vila, surely something unique. Vila grinned faintly as he realized it. "I don't understand Avon's reaction to Blake, but after talking to the man as much as I have the past weeks I'm beginning to get a glimmer. He seems diminished, somehow, and it's more than just the shooting, as if he'd learned to be cynical once he and Avon were apart. But there's still enough left of whatever it is that makes a leader for me to feel it. You've felt it too, Soolin. I've seen you come out of his room with a strange look on your face once or twice."

"He irritates me," she responded promptly, unwilling to admit to being drawn to Blake. It was true that the man had something, even battered and half defeated as he was now, but Soolin preferred noninvolvement, having learned the hard way that involvement hurt. She could understand why Avon was the way he was, but she preferred to keep herself under a tighter control. Avon claimed to need no one, to feel for nobody but himself, but he didn't entirely convince her, even at his coldest. He didn't want to care, but he did, and it tore him apart. Soolin chose to avoid involvement altogether remaining cool and distant and amused at the struggles around her, until she met Avon and the others. She still maintained her distance, but lately she had begun to understand the tightrope that Avon walked. Knowing that Blake had caused a lot of Avon's inner conflict, she had studied the man as he lay recovering, and it wasn't until just now when he had announced that he was going after Avon that she began to understand how he could draw people to him and make him followers. She might be able to follow someone like that.

"No he doesn't," Vila argued. "You want to like him, but it's not your way and you're annoyed at yourself because he got to you."

"What are you trying to be, a puppeteer?" she demanded, annoyed still further by such perception from Vila of all people. Maybe there was more to Vila than met the eye, in fact she was certain of it.

"No, he's right," Tarrant agreed, shoving back his plate and standing up. "I feel it myself. I keep going to see him when there's no reason for it. Maybe I hope he'll absolve me for GP, I don't know. But I can understand why Avon looked for him."

A sound in the doorway made them turn and they saw Avon standing there. He looked strange, his face drawn and tense, his eyes almost hollow, but Soolin didn't see the flash of madness that had gleamed out of his eyes when he had jumped up so abruptly and fled the room.

"Soolin, come with me," he said in a voice that brooked no argument.

"Is it Blake?" she asked.

"Yes. He's worn himself out and I want to run some checks on him." He scooped up Orac and went out without looking back, and Soolin exchanged doubtful looks with Tarrant and Vila before she followed him.

Blake was back in bed, changed into his nightwear again, and he looked far too pale, much too fragile. He opened his eyes when Avon entered and Soolin was stunned to see open fondness for Avon in his look. She might have expected tolerance, but not affection, and once again Blake drew her against her will.

"You've been up too long," she said sternly. "We should have paid more attention."

"Avon said I was a fool," Blake replied, his voice weak with exhaustion. Something in his face indicated that he believed it an endearment and cherished it, though Avon looked stern and unfriendly as usual.

"And I was right," he agreed flatly. "Orac," he went on as Soolin busied herself making Blake comfortable and attaching monitors so the computer could get a proper reading, "I want you to assess Blake's condition and state what treatment is needed at this time."

Orac made a disgusted sound that amused Soolin--if Orac had been human, he would have thrown up his hands in exasperation at this new distraction. But Avon would not be gainsaid, and Orac's lights blinked busily as it studied the rebel's condition. Finally Orac said huffily, "Really, such continual interruptions are unnecessary. Blake needs a vitamin solution and he needs rest. I would recommend that he rest quietly until tomorrow and that when he gets up, he limit his time out of bed until his strength can withstand it. Is that all?"

"No, it is not all, Orac," Avon went on. "I want you to assess Blake for signs of programming, and to do the same to myself." He cast a sideways glance at Soolin as if to dismiss her, but she was curious now, and busied herself over the electrodes.

"That will take time. Define the parameters of suspected programming."

"I want to know if there is any type of program given separately that would induce identical dreams in two people."

"Dreams. Fascinating." Orac did not sound as if he thought it so. "In what detail?"

"In great detail as if a period of several months were covered realistically, enabling the subjects to remember events which never happened."

"Initial recommendation is that the subjects cease comparing notes on the dreams and report them to me separately." Orac was interested, and so was Soolin. She could imagine Avon's reaction to dreams so clear that they proported to be memories. He would dread being unable to tell fact from fiction, and she suspected that Blake, with a history of programming already, would resent it fiercely. Though he was almost asleep now, she saw a gleam of it in his eyes.

"Reconnect the electrodes," Orac instructed her. "When Blake sleeps, I will monitor it. It might be possible for me to examine said dreams, especially if they are programming. However, I would tend to doubt programming so extensive that comparisons could recall exact details, especially since the two of you were never captured together except briefly on Gauda Prime during which Blake was too unwell to risk programming."

"What about...Terminal?" Avon asked reluctantly. "Servalan had me down there. She also pretended to have Blake, but later insisted it was a drug induced dream. Is it possible that she did have Blake and did the programming then?"

Blake roused a little at that. "She didn't have me, Avon. I was working with Deva almost immediately after Star One, and while they might program any gaps out of my memory, they certainly couldn't have stopped all my people noticing any time unaccounted for."

"In any case," Soolin suggested, though she knew Avon didn't want her involved in this, "If you had been programmed at Terminal, why wait all this time for the programming to kick in? If it's dreams you're having, join the club. I've had more dreams since we came here than I can remember in my whole life."

"Pleasant ones?" asked Blake, easing himself into a more comfortable position.

"Very pleasant."

"But nothing to make you doubt it was just a dream?"

"No. There were a few incidents from my life and I remembered them, but the other dreams were only that. They never happened."

"Very well, I will begin my study," Orac announced. "First I will monitor Roj Blake's dream state. It is possible that the energy I have detected here can have some influence on REM sleep. I will induce that state in Blake and monitor the results. After that has been completed, I will hear your dreams, Avon."

"It is imperative that you also check for programming," Avon insisted with a tinge of desperation in his voice. Soolin suspected he sought some tangible cause for the memories, whether programming or alien intervention, to prove his sanity was intact.

"I'll stay here and monitor, Avon, if you'd like," she volunteered.

He nodded abruptly and became the Avon she was most familiar with once more. All vulnerability and concern gone, he turned a cold face upon her and left without speaking.

"He's upset."

She turned quickly to find Blake watching her. "I thought you were asleep."

"Not yet. Perhaps I'm too tired to sleep."

"You need rest. Orac, can you assist."

"Wait." Blake put out a staying hand toward Orac. "Don't be too hard on Avon," he continued. "All this has made him doubt himself. Two sets of memories that would not reconcile are disconcerting enough when you think them simply vivid dreams. When you learn someone else shares them..." His voice trailed off. "I was glad he shared them. It gave me some reassurance." He grinned engagingly. "And something to work toward. But Avon doesn't take reassurance from the unexplainable."

"Nor from anything else I can think of," she agreed, "Except perhaps your survival. Now go to sleep."

Blake smiled faintly and let himself drift. Orac's lights blinked as it set to work. When Blake was asleep, Soolin drew up the room's one comfortable chair and picked up the volume of pre-Federation history that Tarrant had left in the room. Not exactly light reading, but better than sitting here watching Orac talk to itself. She wondered how long it would take.

*** *** ***

Realizing the sense in Orac's instruction that he and Blake not compare notes, Avon went to his quarters, activated the computer and began to write a description of the dreams as best he could remember them. Amazing bits of detail came in, how he and Blake had been about to teleport to the planet Sarken for some R&R and instead found themselves stranded on a world far away, peopled by primitive natives, the Greens, who, terrified by the arrival of large, potentially dangerous strangers, proceeded to attack them. An acid-like secretion in their fingertips had immobilized Avon and Blake had challenged the natives to save him. After that, it had taken time for the natives to accept him and Blake, and at least as long for the two of them to realize that they were effectively stranded here, unable to contact the Liberator, unable to locate any outposts of civilization.

Away from the ship and from Blake's Cause, Avon and Blake had begun a tentative friendship, which grew stronger the longer they remained at The Top of the World. The gigantic wista, which attacked the natives when the twin moons were full, was the only serious threat in the place and it wasn't long before Blake was plotting a strategy to destroy the monster and make life safe for the Greens. In the process, he meant to civilize them, an entirely laughable procedure in Avon's opinion. Yet his growing closeness to Blake prevented him from opposing Blake's plans and he often found himself drawn in. He remembered nights spent telling stories around a campfire in the caverns where the Greens lived. Much of their time was spent hunting for food because the Greens were primitive enough not to have gone beyond the hunter-gatherer state, with no real agriculture.

Parts of his memories were vague and uncertain, especially something about the beings the Greens called The Masters, but that might come in a later dream. But he remembered individual tribespeople as if they had been real, Dannal, the brightest of them, who had attached himself to a reluctant Avon and dogged his footsteps. Oddly enough, Avon remembered that he had been remarkably tolerant of Dannal. Lamak, the headman, had been Blake's favorite, but Lamak had died saving Blake from the wista. Others too, came to mind, each with their own personalities, and Avon frowned as he listed as many of them as he could recall.

But the most vivid parts of the dreams and his memories involved his interaction with Blake. The two of them, the only humans on the planet, had been forced to spend virtually every waking moment in each other's company, and while that was not a situation that would have generally endeared anyone to Avon, in his dreams he was remarkably tolerant of Blake. He was so relaxed around the Blake of his dreams that he suspected he would not have shot Blake at all if the dreams had begun before Gauda Prime. Freed of constraints--and of the audience of the Liberator crew, Avon had unbent to Blake in ways he'd never dreamed possible, deriving great satisfaction from the process. Deprived of his Cause, Blake replaced it with the civilizing of the Greens, but it was not so all consuming as his earlier obsession and whatever had drawn Avon and Blake to each other from the first had a chance to bloom unimpeded.

The dream Avon had frolicked with Blake in the pool, talked to him about his childhood and even spoken to him of Anna Grant. Blake had been a comfortable companion, intelligent enough to be worthy of Avon's attention, challenging enough to keep their interactions from becoming boring, stubborn enough to frustrate Avon and keep him on his toes. Their arguments had mostly been about Blake's determination to rid the Top of the World of the wista, a foolish risk in which he would play a large part, and Avon, who found the idea of being stranded alone among primitives only marginally worse than being stranded alone without Blake, continually reminded him of his responsibility to the natives in order to keep him safe. Blake had seen through it, of course, but it had not stopped him, and he had been lucky to survive the experience.

Avon stopped keying in his memories then for he discovered he had none after the wista's death, other than the appointment of his shadow, Dannal, as the new chief. Odd that the dreams would end so abruptly when everything else had been consistent in their reality. Avon frowned, then, saving the data, he shut down the system and went in search of Vila.

*** *** ***

Vila had spent the morning looking over his shoulder wherever he went in fear of glowing beings who might suddenly pop into sight and hurt him, though he wasn't sure what would happen and why it had waited so long. If Orac was right that there were intelligent beings here, Vila found the idea of staying here very unattractive, but they had no means of escape.

He had to admit that this place hadn't hurt him so far, and that it had given him nice dreams. But there was more to life than nice dreams, and for all he knew, the aliens might have been lulling them into complacency so they could do something nasty at their leisure. Maybe they'd suck away their consciousness or eat their brains or something nasty like that. Vila shivered. Whatever it was, he didn't want to stay around to find out.

So it was that the self proclaimed 'leader' of the base jumped almost half a meter when a hand came down on his shoulder as he sat nervously trying to make sense of a book he'd retrieved from the pile they'd found in one of the rooms.

"Avon!" he burst out when he realized who had touched him. "Don't do that. I thought it was the aliens, come to suck out my brain."

"Hardly, Vila. You need have no worries on that score."

Vila's face darkened. "Think you can insult me, do you? Well, I won't have it. I told you I was in charge, didn't I?"

"Not for long."

Vila hid a grin. All along he had been waiting for Avon or Blake to challenge his assumption of leadership and been dispirited when neither of them had bothered, but from the way Avon was looking now, Vila doubted it would take much longer. There was life in Avon's eyes again, though it was a wary and tremulous life, half afraid to risk the light of day. Maybe, just maybe, Avon was coming back, and Vila didn't want to show his elation too soon, for so many things might go wrong with his ideal scenario that he didn't want to get his hopes up.

"So you say," he returned darkly. "What d'you mean, creeping about and giving me heart failure anyway?"

"Sarken, Vila. Do you remember the planet Sarken?"

Vila considered it. They had been to so many planets that many of them had run together, but that name rang a bell in his mind. "Sarken," he mused, trying to pin it down. "Sarken...Sarken. Oh yes. That's the place with the teleport malfunction."

Avon tensed, focussing on Vila with an almost obsessive stare. "Teleport malfunction?" he echoed, as if trying to pin it down in his mind. "Yes. You and Blake teleported down to the planet but you disappeared and you were missing..."

"You said Blake and I had never gone missing," Avon accused, recalling the incident now. "But we were only gone a few moments," he objected.

"You were gone four bloody hours. We scoured every inch of that planet and couldn't find a trace of you, then you were back, and you were both funny afterwards, at least right at first."

"I recall the planet. Blake insisted on shore leave and I went against my better judgment. The teleport put us down after scrambling our atoms for four hours." His eyes narrowed. "Or longer."

"It wasn't longer, Avon. We were there and we knew how much time it was. Orac was fascinated. He ran some tests on you afterwards and said there were conflicts that he could not resolve, but we all put it down to the teleport problem. You had the thing apart half a dozen times making sure it didn't happen again."

"In my dreams, Blake and I were teleported to The Top of the World, a primitive planet where tribesmen dwelt atop a gigantic mesa. We were there for half a year."

"You didn't look any different when you got back," Vila argued. Why would Avon insist that his dreams were real? He didn't understand it and it worried him. Frowning, he leaned forward to study Avon's face. "Blake's dreaming too. Is he dreaming the same thing?"

Avon nodded reluctantly. "Orac is running tests," he admitted, and Vila was surprised, for Avon had never been one to confide unnecessary details, and now he was giving Vila far more information than the situation called for. Perhaps he was so desperate for verification that it didn't matter what he said to Vila.

The thief took a deep breath and asked uneasily, "Are you all right, Avon?"

At once Avon closed up again, favoring Vila with an unfriendly glare. "Orac will ask you questions about the Sarken incident," he said. "Try to remember anything about it that you can."

"How can I do that when I don't even have a brain for the aliens to suck out?" Vila countered.

To his delight, that won him a faint smile, but Avon squashed it immediately and went out without another word. But Vila sat back, aliens forgotten, and considered Avon. Now that he had something to focus on, he seemed to be getting better. If something had happened during those hours he and Blake had been missing on Sarken, it would explain a lot of things, such as Avon's reactions at breakfast. Vila hoped so. He vowed to get hold of Soolin and question her at the first opportunity.

*** *** ***

Tarrant was bored. Nothing much seemed to be happening on the base. Soolin was closeted with Blake and Orac running tests, Avon was in his quarters doing some computer work and Vila was mooning around looking for ghosts. It was up to Tarrant to investigate Vila's possible sighting of an alien. Vila might claim to be in charge, but Tarrant had been trained for command and he knew that being in charge meant getting things done. So he armed himself and kitted up for a trip to the surface.

He met none of the others on the way there which suited him fine. He had left a message on the main computer to explain where he had gone in case he had trouble, and so, prepared for possible threat, he left the shelter of the base and stepped out into the crisp and dusty air of the planet.

The only sounds to shatter the silence were the wail of the wind and the rustle of the dusty bushes as they were whipped back and forth. Tarrant braced himself against the near gale and set out, looking for footprints. After the first moments, he knew it was useless. The ground was too hard to take tracks and the surface dust was whipped around so much that a footprint would last only seconds before it was obliterated. Frustrated, he checked his portable scanner for life signs. He had adapted it as best he could to register energy forms, and though no expert, he knew enough for that. At first he picked up nothing, but then a reading began to show.

Tarrant headed in that direction. He wished he had a way to contact the base, but they had found no hand-held communicators and they no longer had their Scorpio teleport bracelets. He could have gone back for reinforcements, but now that he was here, he was determined to go on.

It wasn't very far. Walking around the shoulder of a hill, he saw a glow of golden light. As if sensing his presence, it damped down, but he had seen it, not one form but perhaps half a dozen, with the requisite number of arms and legs, all glowing brightly. Now, though he stared, he had only a sensation of flickers of light out of the corners of his eyes, as if he had squeezed them tightly shut and saw afterimages against his eyelids.

Checking the scanner, he noticed that the energy was registering at the same level it had before. So they were still here. If they could render themselves invisible, perhaps they had been walking among them on the base all along.

No one had been hurt. Though Tarrant felt the urge to draw his gun as a sign of his authority, he left it in his holster. If these beings had walked among them and failed to hurt them, Tarrant didn't mean to greet them with force. Though he felt an uneasy urge to race for shelter immediately, he stood his ground and said, "I mean you no harm." He felt rather silly speaking to the empty air, but at his words, a quiver flickered across the scanner register as if there was a reaction.

"We didn't know you were here before," he went on. "My name's Del Tarrant. We've taken shelter here until one of us is well enough to travel. If we've invaded your territory, it was unintentional, and if you want us to go, we'll do it as quickly as possible."

No response, only the flickers he had felt before. Maybe they couldn't understand him. "Is there any way we can communicate?" he asked.

So slowly that at first he thought he was imagining it, one of the beings began to glow again, emerging right in front of him. It was much more humanoid than he had expected, an upright biped with two eyes, a nose and a mouth in the same places humans had them, but there were no visible ears, and though the body gave no sign of wearing clothes, no sex organs were visible. It had narrow hands and feet and its head was longer and thinner than a human head. It came no higher than Tarrant's chin.

Sounds came to him suddenly, a high, melodious ringing sound, like wind chimes, and he realized the creature was talking to him. No, he couldn't understand that. He wondered if Cally, as a telepath, might have done better, because surely telepathy must transcend language, but Cally had always seemed to speak Terran when she sent to him, so perhaps that wasn't true.

"I can't understand you," he admitted reluctantly. "Can any of you speak my language?"

The being raised a hand and seemed to point away from the base, then back to Tarrant. "You want me to go that way?"

Again the gesture, but this time the creature's hand caught his arm. Tarrant tensed as he felt a vibration run through him as if he were operating a high power drill but there was no pain. The creature pulled at him lightly, without sufficient force to drag him along, and Tarrant realized he still had the option to withdraw. But now he was curious. "All right," he agreed. "I'll come with you."

As if his words were understood, the other beings burst into full light again around him. There were seven of them all told, varying in size from the one who had first appeared down to two small ones that came no higher than mid chest. The small ones seemed more active than the bigger ones, prancing around him with every evidence of eagerness, and he thought they might be children. One of them reached for his hand just as a human child might and he let it be taken, feeling again the queer vibration. Wishing he could let the others know what he intended, he allowed the aliens to lead him away. He hoped he wasn't making the biggest mistake of his life.

*** *** ***

When Blake awoke, he found Avon bending over Orac conferring with the computer in low tones. Someone had removed the electrodes from his head and chest, and he felt refreshed, though not quite ready to get up again. For awhile he lay passively, doing a mental check of his injuries, and he found that while he was still tired, he was more alert than he had expected, and that his wounds were not quite as tender as before. If he didn't move at all, he could convince himself that he had suffered no injury.

That drew his attention back to Avon, who must have dismissed Soolin when he came in. Avon's face was intent as he and Orac speculated over some theory involving a teleport malfunction, and Blake was content to watch him. He had dreamed again, this time of the death of the wista and the realization that Lamak, the headman of their tribe of Greens, had died saving his life. He could recall Avon telling him to grieve for Lamak but to honor him for what he had done, and then holding Blake as he wept for the loss of the little native. It was almost impossible to imagine the man who had shot him so sympathetic, but he had seen vulnerability on Avon's face when, driven to desperation, Avon had admitted that he was having trouble dealing with what he considered two realities. Now Avon's eyes were narrowed in concentration, and Blake half expected Avon to shut him out again, retreating into himself.

Suddenly Avon's eyes lifted to meet Blake's, and though he went wary as he realized Blake was awake, he didn't shut himself away. Holding Blake's eyes, he said, "I wanted you to know that I'm...sorry about what happened on Gauda Prime."

"So am I," Blake replied. "I know that I could have been more precise in explaining what I was about, but I was so used to you knowing what I thought before I thought it that I expected you to understand I meant no harm. It was foolish of me."

"A part of me did know," Avon returned. "But it was much the same as what happened earlier today. What I expected was so different from what seemed to be happening that the two would not reconcile. I had learned to expect betrayal, even when the source seemed impossible."

He dropped his eyes and Blake remembered Anna Grant. If she could betray him, then Blake could betray him. Nothing could be taken on trust. But Avon was here now, actually finding the words to apologize.

He went on carefully, "That does not mean we have a solution for all our problems, Blake. I would prefer to leave the others with you and find the bolthole I've long wanted."

"But you won't," Blake returned with more confidence than he really felt.

"Not immediately, no. There is a problem to be solved and I have never liked an unsolved problem."

Blake hid a smile. So now Avon meant to use the mystery of their unexplained memories as his excuse to stay. Never mind that he might want to stay; he would never admit it, though the Avon at the Top of the World would eventually have done so. This Avon had gone so far beyond that that it was impossible to judge which way he would turn. Blake doubted he knew himself. He wasn't quite able to shield himself any more, and whether or not his automatic barricades would ever spring into place again, Avon meant to hold them in place voluntarily. That was why he had never come to see Blake and that was why he was holding his distance now.

"Have you learned anything more?" Blake asked, unwilling to push Avon too far. He'd been given a reprieve, not just by his survival but by the unlikely memories, and he might have time to mend his fences with Avon if he went about it carefully.

"You do 'remember' that we were stranded at the Top of the World when we attempted to teleport down to Sarken?"

Blake frowned, then nodded. "Yes, but I also remember that the others said we were gone 4 hours and that afterwards it seemed as if we had been gone only moments."

"The fact that we were gone at all adds some validity to the memories. If the others missed us for 4 hours, it is possible that we fell into Federation hands then and were programmed."

"I don't think we were so thoroughly programmed in a mere 4 hours. I can see no purpose in such programming in any case. Why program us for friendship? Surely that would be the last thing the Federation would want between us. More likely they would have tried to drive a wedge between us."

"I agree, and so does Orac, which incidentally says we have not been programmed, at least not in any way it can identify. It suggests that there has been some attempt at memory suppression which is now breaking down."

Blake sat up carefully, propping a pillow behind his back, gratified when Avon helped him adjust it, though Avon's face didn't change. "Now that is interesting, Avon. It sounds to me that something happened to us, maybe the things we remembered, and someone chose to suppress those memories. But whatever it is that makes us dream here broke down those barriers and released the memories in dreams. We haven't remembered all of it yet, because if we did, we might learn why we forgot it, but we're getting there. Every night I see a bit more."

"Orac compared your dream with incidents I recorded and there is a perfect match, allowing from the different viewpoints. It's likely programming would be similar in generalities and some major instances but that the correlation for unimportant details would be weaker."

"That makes a lot of sense. I wish I could remember returning to the Liberator, but all I remember is that we feared trouble with the teleport after you'd modified it to find me on Zil's planet." He tried to recall the incident but many of the details had faded.

"Vila, in his infinite 'wisdom' says that you and I behaved strangely after that incident. He was just here offering his advice, such as it is." Avon glared at Orac as if the whole incident was the computer's fault. "Vila's latest theory, which I do not necessarily believe, is that both of us remembered the Top of the World subconsciously, and that the present reality was so divergent from what we had come to expect that we grew steadily more resentful of each other."

"That's why you said you wanted rid of me at Star One," Blake burst out.

"According to Vila."

It made as much sense as any other theory, but Blake knew better than to push it. Maybe it had helped to create the final misunderstanding on Gauda Prime, if each of them remembered deep inside that there had once been something more. Each incident that contradicted what had grown up between them must have seemed a further betrayal.

"I'd accept it as a working hypothesis, Avon. What else does Orac have to say?"

"I am quite capable of speaking for myself," snapped Orac. "Memory suppression takes many forms and can be done by the human subconscious mind. In this case, an external influence seems most likely. Fascinating. The more I research the incident, the more intriguing it becomes. Not only were your memories removed, but your physical appearance was altered. When you returned to Liberator your clothing was not worn, your hair was short, you were not tanned; in short, you looked exactly as you looked when you had gone."

Avon tensed at that. "Ergo, we were never gone."

"You were gone. At the time, Cally ran medical checks on the two of you to determine if any harm had come to you. None had, or further, more extensive tests would have been carried out. But there were minute differences in your body chemistries. They were within nominal limits, so they were ignored. It might be possible to examine the data from that time and find a correlation to your experiences."

"What you're saying is that whatever took our memories has a great deal of power," Blake put in, absently rubbing his abdomen.

"And considerable cheek. Pawns, Blake. We were pawns in some larger game."

"Game?" Blake echoed. "That sounds familiar."

Avon's eyes narrowed. "The Masters," he exclaimed. "You remember, Blake. The Greens feared them, refused to discuss them. Even Dannal would not be budged about them, though the general consensus among the Greens was that the Masters had brought us."

"The Masters bring and the Masters take away," Blake mused, frowning. "We're still forgetting something, Avon. Whatever it is might be the basis of the entire blockage."

"Blake is correct," Orac agreed. "At this point, I recommend hypnosis, to break past the final barricade."

"There's no guarantee that will work," Blake disagreed. "It never did when I tried to regain my memories after the Federation programmed me. There are still things that never came back, though a few of them appear in dreams since we came here." He closed his eyes a moment, remembering a close friend who had died when Travis ambushed them. Jord had been like a brother, and for years, Blake had completely forgotten him, just as he had forgotten his experiences at the Top of the World. No one should have to face such tampering with his mind, and Blake resolved once again to bring about the downfall of the Federation, and replace it with a government that would feel no need to wipe the minds of its citizens.

Avon eyed him consideringly. "Do I see the rebirth of devotion to your Cause, Blake?" he asked warily.

"I don't know about you, Avon, but I resent my mind being tampered with. Maybe the Federation didn't do this to us--the scope of it seems a bit beyond their abilities. But the Federation wouldn't hesitate to try it, given half a chance." He sighed. "Don't worry, I don't intend to rush out and start the fight yet. I think I've learned a few lessons."

"I should like to believe that."

"You might try to restrain me from over-enthusiasm," Blake ventured tentatively.

"Someone must, but I have not yet decided whether or not it will be I." Avon turned back to Orac. "You plan hypnosis? When?"

"Tomorrow. You must be the subject since Blake's physical weakness makes him less than ideal. I will require the others to monitor the experience."

Avon drew back, evidently reluctant to experience it. Blake would not have enjoyed it either, and it would be even harder for Avon to surrender control to Orac. But it was the only way to uncover what had happened, and Blake saw resolution harden his face. "I should prefer to dispense with the monitors," he argued.

Orac didn't bother to argue back. It merely sat there blinking away and Avon turned away in disgust. "I do not like this, Blake."

"I think you like the idea of someone tampering with your mind even less."

"That goes without saying." Avon frowned, glanced at his chronometer. "I wonder where the others are."

Blake realized that Avon was uncomfortable with him. He didn't want the others here, he was just talking at random, something completely unlike him. This whole experience had been traumatic for him, so much he had almost lost his mind over it. He was still fragile and Blake, who would have liked Avon to sit and talk with him, catching up on their experiences since Star One, knew enough of Avon's experiences not to remind him of those times. "They'll be along," he said with a calm he didn't really feel. "I wonder how the Greens are doing without us."

"Well now, Blake, your last concern there was that your leadership would take away their right of self determination."

"True, Avon. But I'm still curious. I'd like to know how Dannal is managing as chief."

Avon shuddered elaborately. "I can just imagine. He had all of Tarrant's worst qualities, come to think of it. Reckless and foolhardy with never a thought of danger. I would like to believe he has learned to plan ahead, but it seems inconceivable to me."

It did to Blake too, but the little Green had been so proud of his badge of office and so determined to do well that he just might have made it. "He might have learned restraint from you."

"He showed little enough sign of doing so while we were there."

"Responsibility can work wonders, Avon."

"Ah yes, I often noticed your heroic restraint," Avon retorted, but there was a companionable note to his voice, similar to his tones at the Top of the World."

"I tried," Blake replied, hoping it would prolong the argument.

"You mean you were very trying," Avon retaliated, a gleam in his eyes. Suddenly he looked much younger. "I often remarked on it not only to Dannal, but to Vila and Cally and anyone who would listen."

Unfortunately the unguarded recollection of Cally must have hurt Avon making him withdraw again, his eyes narrowing. "If there are to be further tests tomorrow, I will leave you to rest now," he said and started for the door.

Blake wanted to call him back, to let him know somehow that he understood, but it seemed best to take this slowly. There had been some progress but to push it would inevitably lead to withdrawal, so he nodded agreeably. "I'll rest. It seems I was too ambitious and my body is shouting at me to sleep."

It was an unfortunate remark, reminding Avon of the shoo