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They'd been stranded on this misbegotten excuse for a world for five planetary days now. How the length of this planet's solar orbit translated to a Liberator day, Avon was unclear. But it had been five Solestian days, of that much he was certain.
Five days of unrelenting grey skies, freezing drizzle, and very little in the way of shelter. If Avon did not end up with double pneumonia, it would be nothing short of a minor miracle. Stifling an incipient sneeze, the tech turned a vicious glare on his companion.
Blake was actually whistling. How anyone could sit on a wet rock in front of a smokey, smouldering fire, watching some obscure relative of the rodent family slowly cook in the anemic flame and still find the good cheer to whistle was beyond Avon's ken. And it made him long to choke the life out of the simple-minded bastard. Granted, the drizzle had subsided and the temperature had moderated slightly, but the rebel leader had to be at least as wet and chilled as Avon himself, yet he seemed to be having fun. According to Blake, who was suddenly remarkably knowledgeable about such things for a dome-bred Alpha, their visit to Solestia coincided with the planet's "early spring"--whatever that meant. That this fact seemed to intrigue the other man was annoying enough, but his incessant mumblings about lions and lambs were enough to drive a saint to violence.
Unable to contain his ire a moment longer, Avon spoke in a snarl. "Your freedom fighters seem to be singularly lacking in good manners, Blake. The critically important meeting you so carefully arranged with them was to occur four days ago. I think four days exceeds the limits of 'fashionably late.' When are you going to acknowledge this expedition for the failure it is, and allow us to leave this poor excuse for a habitable world?"
This tirade, like all its predecessors of the last several days, fell on apparently deaf ears. Blake leaned into the smoke, poked at the carcass to determine whether it was done, then cutting off a hind leg with a rather large knife, offered the greasy flesh to the seething tech.
With that, Avon's tenuous hold on his temper snapped. Striking at the larger man's hand, the tech knocked the bit of offensive flesh into the fire.
"Damn it, Blake," he all but shrieked, "don't you think this situation warrants at least some measure of concern? We're stranded on an inhospitable planet without proper survival gear, our contacts have never shown up, and for whatever reason, we seem to be unable to contact the Liberator, if she is, indeed, still up there. Surely that deserves more than a cheery whistle and a roasted...whatever."
At long last, Blake turned his attention to Avon, seeming to focus properly on the other man for the first time in days. "Do I take that to mean you want to go home?" Blake's brown gaze was probing and Avon was suddenly uncomfortable under the assessing stare.
"It means," the tech growled through gritted teeth, "that I've had enough of playing frontier explorer. I'm tired of being wet and cold, and sick to death of sleeping on beds made out of conifer branches." As if in punctuation to this complaint, Avon pulled one of the aforementioned twigs from where it had lodged in his collar and threw it into the fire. "It means I have had enough," he concluded, "and want to return to the Liberator, if such a thing can be arranged."
Blake continued to stare for several moments, then spoke again. "That's not what I asked you. I asked if you were ready to go home?" Again the probing stare that suddenly carried a challenge.
"I am ready to return to the ship," was the only reply Avon would make.
Shaking his head sadly, Blake turned his attention back to the carcass he was roasting. "Not good enough," he explained with a heavy sigh. "You still didn't answer the question."
"All right," Avon hissed. The very softness of his words reflecting the degree of his fury. "You win. At this point I'd say anything to get off this mud ball. I WANT TO GO HOME!!" The last words, while no louder than the ones that had preceded them, fairly vibrated with rage.
Turning innocent brown eyes and a beaming smile upon his seething companion, Blake replied, "Well, all you had to do was ask."
#
Avon awakened with a jolt that literally flung him from his bed. After a brief struggle to untangle himself from the grasping bed linens, he sat for a moment on the floor, completely bemused by the dream. There were several interpretations one could place on the nightmare--none of which was he particularly comfortable with. He finally settled on the least disagreeable: the dream was a warning against allowing Blake to pressure him into situations which he found unsettling or otherwise unacceptable.
The dream firmly placed in its proper perspective, Avon pulled himself to his feet and headed for the fresher unit to wash the sweat from his face. As he crossed the room, he ran still agitated fingers through his hair. When his questing fingers encountered something stiff and scratchy, striding footsteps slowed to a halt. It couldn't be...could it? Closer examination revealed the offending object to be a conifer twig of exactly the sort that had grown on the dream planet of Solestia.
But that had been a dream. Hadn't it?
the end
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