Blake was silent for a long time, staring across at his crewmate with evident unease. After a while he nodded in agreement. ‘Orac said something similar, not long after our brief tussle with the pursuit ships.’
‘Orac thinks they let us escape?’ Avon asked.
‘Not in so many words,’ Blake told him. ‘What he actually said was that the pilots had behaved illogically.’
‘Illogically?’ Avon’s head jerked up and he peered across at Blake, the pain temporarily forgotten. ‘In what way?’
Blake sighed and closed his eyes for a moment. He looked tired. He rubbed at his neck, rolling his head round on his shoulders in slow, steady circles as though trying to release the tension in his neck. When he opened his eyes, Avon was still watching him, waiting for an answer.
The shot had taken out one of the pursuit ships and crippled another—prompting the remaining Federation vessels to fall back and attempt to regroup, Blake explained. Using the neutron blasters had seriously drained the energy banks and Zen had informed him that another blast would leave them with standard speed only. So, Blake had ordered the Liberator to turn about and try and make a break for it, slipping quickly around to the dark side of the planet, then setting a direct course for the edge of the Sigma system with as much speed as they could muster. According to Zen they could only maintain Standard by six for 72 minutes, after that they would be sitting ducks.
‘Let me guess, the pursuit ships didn’t attack again?’ asked Avon.
‘It’s not even like they didn’t have the opportunity.’ Blake paused, as though replaying the events over again in his mind’s eye. ‘They pursued us for a while, until we entered the Corvis Belt. After that we were able to shake them off.’ Blake glared across at his companion. ‘Our power banks were almost exhausted. If they had hit us again we wouldn’t have stood a chance. They must have known that.’
‘Orac was wrong,’ Avon agreed. ‘They didn’t act illogically, they acted foolishly. With an entire flotilla they could have taken the Liberator easily before she ran for it. All they needed to do was outflank her, push her down into the planet’s atmosphere, then wait until her energy banks had run dry. It’s so simple even a flight cadet could have done it.’
‘Why?’ Blake wanted to know. ‘They must know that we’d figure this out sooner or later. They’re hardly being subtle about it.’
Avon eased himself down from the bed and slowly straightened himself, wincing as a bolt of pain stabbed the length of his arm. He waited until it had subsided into a dull ache, then said, ‘Maybe that’s the whole point.’
‘Meaning?’ asked Blake.
‘We were meant to discover that Tam was still alive,’ said Avon. ‘They knew that we’d try and get him out of that labour camp. We’re being set up, Blake. I think your friend Tobin has some explaining to do.’
*
Kodyn Tam may have been alive but he was in pretty bad shape. Yet, despite this, he refused to go to the medical unit with Cally.
The cuts and bruises on his face and neck were only superficial. Once the dried blood had been dabbed away it actually didn’t look that bad, and the welts around his eyes and chin were slowly turning from an angry purple to a deep bronzy-brown; given time they’d soon be virtually unnoticeable.
It was the burn on his chest that really worried Cally. The damaged skin formed a sort of vortex pattern just above his solar plexus, a sort of swirling cloud that seemed to encircle a pair of dark puncture marks at the centre. The wound must have been quite recent as the marks were only just starting to heal, and thick yellow pus was oozing from beneath the thin layer of scab that was forming.
But no matter how much she insisted, Kodyn refused to allow himself to be taken off to the medical unit, so Cally sat him down at the front of the flight deck and slowly cleaned and dressed his wounds.
The prison uniform that he wore was now ragged and soiled, mostly with blood, but there was some sweat and something that looked for all the world like machine oil. Vila brought him a fresh set of clothes from the locker down the hall, disposing of the discarded uniform down the incinerator.
Kodyn seemed to be in a dream as he shuffled out of his uniform, apparently unaware of (or unconcerned by) his own nakedness, or that he shared the flight deck with five other sets of eyes. He stood there waiting, staring ahead, seemingly at nothing, as Vila shuffled up with great embarrassment and plucked the items from off the floor. He would have probably stood there all day if Cally hadn’t snatched up the clean tunic and trousers from the arm of the seat and quickly dressed him.
Once more, Cally sat the man down, then she turned and walked back to her flight module, her eyes cast downwards, unable to meet those of her crewmates.
Blake had been waiting patiently to one side of the flight deck, his arms folded, watching his old friend with growing concern. As soon as Cally had finished attending to Tam and returned to her duties, Blake wandered across to the seating area, crouching down until his face was level with that of the other man’s.
He spoke the man’s name and waited for a reaction. When none came he tried again. ‘Kodyn? Kodyn Tam?’
This time Blake seemed to get through to him. There was a flicker of the eyes, as though they were trying to focus, then he blinked, and blinked again. For a moment his eyes darted this way and that, seeing the flight deck for the first time, his brow crumpling into a frown.
Then Kodyn looked at Blake.
There was no recognition in his eyes, just childish confusion. His old friend seemed disorientated, like a man who had woken from a deep sleep only to find that he had been sleepwalking, and was now standing in unfamiliar surroundings.
Blake kept his voice low, soothing. ‘Do you know where you are?’
Kodyn shook his head. It was barely perceptible, almost no movement at all, but Blake had seen it nevertheless. Left, then right.
‘Do you know who I am?’
He looked as if he was about to shake his head again, but stopped himself. Then his eyes widened in astonishment.
‘Blake…’ Kodyn Tam’s voice was little more than a whisper, a sharp exhalation of breath escaping from between dry, cracked lips. He swallowed painfully then tried again.
‘Blake.’ The sound was clearer this time, more certain. ‘Roj Blake.’
Blake flashed him an encouraging smile. ‘It’s been a long time, my friend.’
The man was frowning again as he took in his surroundings; his eyes flitting restlessly up to the viewscreen and the image of empty space that was currently being projecting there, then back down to the table in front of him. His eyes came to rest on the squat, rectangular form of Orac and Kodyn reached a tentative hand out towards the supercomputer’s smooth, transparent casing.
‘This is not my cell,’ Kodyn said.
‘No.’ Blake shook his head. ‘We rescued you. Don’t you remember?’
Kodyn’s eyes shifted back towards the viewscreen. ‘No longer Sigma?’
Blake reached out a hand and placed it lightly on the man’s arm. ‘You’re aboard my ship. It’s called the Liberator. You’re safe now.’ He patted the arm gently. ‘Try to rest, we can talk later.’
*
Orac didn’t answer the question straight away so Blake asked him again.
‘Exactly how much of his mind has been removed?’
What needed to be said couldn’t be said in front of Kodyn and, seeing as his old friend refused to leave the flight deck, Blake had opted to take Avon and Orac down to his quarters to talk things over.
He’d placed Orac over on the table beside the entertainment terminal and immediately slotted the operating key into the small recess.
Oddly, the computer had known what question Blake was going to ask even before the words had formed on his lips. Orac told Blake he had long suspected that the human known as Kodyn Tam had been lobotomised: it had been abundantly clear from his somewhat erratic behaviour since coming aboard the Liberator—not to mention his slow, hesitant speech patt
ern. At some point in the last few years the connections to his prefrontal cortex had been severed, or at least severely impaired.
‘Exactly how much of his mind has been removed?’ Blake had asked him again, becoming a little agitated as he paced about the tiny room.
‘It is difficult for me to ascertain, particularly as I have no knowledge of which procedure has been used,’ Orac said. ‘All I can be sure of at this stage is that the damage is extensive and as a consequence he will be unable to answer any questions you may have for him at this time.’
‘But he remembered me,’ Blake said, perhaps a little over-optimistically. ‘It took him a little time, but he remembered who I was, even knew my name.’
‘There are a number of infra-laser techniques that can target specific memory clusters, meaning certain periods of time can be erased from the patient’s brain, without any adverse after-effects,’ Orac said. ‘For example, using the procedure, I could quite easily remove the previous ten seconds from your mind, while your other memories remained totally undisturbed—the result being that you would simply not remember me explaining the operation to you.’
Blake thought about this for a moment. ‘And these techniques are currently being used by Federation neurosurgeons?’
‘That all depends on which sources are to be believed. According to official reports such procedures and practices were deemed unethical and consequently abandoned a number of years ago,’ the computer said. ‘But there are a handful of dissident groups who claim they have irrefutable proof that work is continuing in this area in secret, and that many such operations have been performed on convicted criminals along the inner worlds.’
The idea that such experimentation, such butchery, was still going on—and so close to Earth—horrified Blake, reminding him of the nightmarish treatment he’d undergone himself.
His group had been caught trying to sabotage the drug research facility, an attempt to stop the development and manufacture of a new, more potent mood suppressant. They’d thought that they had surprise on their side, but instead they’d walked straight into an ambush.
Travis’s men had been waiting for them by the cooling tanks, armed to the teeth; Blake’s team hadn’t stood a chance. A lander had been sent to collect them, shipping them off to the holding facilities in the north. After that, Blake never saw the rest of his group again. Not alive, anyway.
It wasn’t until much later that he’d learned the truth. They’d been betrayed—correction, he’d been betrayed—by someone inside the group, someone he trusted, who had been working for the Administration all along.
After that, the Administration’s biggest problem was what to do with Blake. They knew they couldn’t kill him as that would only have given the activists a martyr and that’s the last thing the Federation needed at such a precarious time. So the Administration had simply handed him over to the psychomanipulators, giving them a free hand to apply their ghoulish trade, to create for them a new model citizen.
How had his old friend and fellow activist Bran Foster described it to him, years later? ‘They erased areas of your mind, they implanted new ideas. They literally took your mind to pieces and rebuilt it.’
If he, Blake, had had the strength and determination to survive this nightmare and emerge from the other side with his memory and personality still intact, then surely there was hope for Kodyn. Wasn’t there?
‘The procedure that you were subjected to was quite different to the one suffered by Kodyn Tam—both in intent and execution,’ Orac informed him. ‘Luckily for you no actual surgery was undertaken to achieve the necessary results. Instead they chose to employ a series of mental blocks brought on through intense electro-pulse treatment as a way to change your memory patterns. For you the memories were always there, only suppressed.’
Avon had propped himself carefully on the edge of Blake’s bed, a hand clutched protectively to his side. ‘So what you’re saying is nothing can be done for him?’
‘I am saying nothing of the sort,’ snapped Orac. ‘As I do not have any of the salient facts to hand I was simply using my own observations. Without a thorough medical examination it would be impossible for me to make a firm diagnosis.’
Blake looked up suddenly as though something had occurred to him. ‘What about Tobin?’
The question seemed to come from nowhere, and Avon struggled to find a connection. ‘What about him?’ he asked.
‘The Dionysus’s upper spire houses an infirmary, not to mention a number of medical recovery bays. It’s supposed to be one of the best in the sector, if Tobin’s boasting is to be believed,’ Blake said. ‘They have four hundred thousand visitors a week, all plugging their brains in to the hologrammatic games system. They must have neurological scanning equipment, or at the very least a CPV unit.’
‘We were set up, Blake. Tobin must have known about those ships waiting for us,’ Avon said. ‘Why do I get the feeling that we’re pushing our luck just a little bit too much lately?’
‘That’s exactly why we have to go back,’ said Blake. ‘Tobin was lying to us, or at least not giving us the whole truth. I think he knows more about Archangel than he’s letting on.’
‘What makes you think he’ll tell us this time?’ Avon asked.
Blake smiled. ‘Because if he doesn’t I’ll set you on him.’ Suddenly the smile was gone. ‘Besides, we have to get Kodyn to an infirmary and fast, without it he’ll die. Dionysus is the nearest place.’
There was silence for a moment as the two men thought about this, then Avon said, ‘You’re hoping they’ll be able to retrieve Kodyn’s memories.’
Blake smiled and spread his hands in surrender.
‘And if they turn out to be irretrievable, what happens then?’
‘Kodyn gets medical treatment and then carries on with what’s left of his life.’ Blake paused briefly before adding, ‘And we concentrate on Tobin.’
‘There is another option.’ Avon pulled himself painfully to his feet. ‘We turn around now and run, while we still have a ship and a crew to run away with.’
There was a short silence as Blake considered his colleague’s words, but the moment was quickly interrupted by the whirring mechanical voice of Orac.
‘It may interest you to know that Kodyn Tam’s mental deterioration is the least of your worries.’ It paused somewhat dramatically, before adding, ‘At this precise moment, anyway.’
Blake turned to look at Orac, his eyes narrowed. ‘Explain.’
‘There is a small tracking device embedded deep within his chest cavity which has recently begun transmitting,’ Orac said. ‘A brief examination of both the carrier-wave’s frequency and oscillation strongly suggest that it is of Federation origin.’
*
The engines had stopped. Blake had noticed it the moment he’d stepped out of his quarters.
He reached out and placed a hand on the wall of the corridor. There was no vibration.
When he glanced back over his shoulder, Blake was half-expecting to find Avon looking at him with a bemused expression on his face, perhaps even with one eyebrow cocked questioningly. Instead he found that Avon was nowhere to be seen and he was standing in the corridor all alone.
Avon had obviously noticed it too, he reasoned, and had slipped away towards the other end of the habitation deck, intending to cut back through the recreation room and enter on the other side of the flight deck, taking Kodyn by surprise.
Blake covered the last few yards at a jog, stopping as he reached the lip of the main entrance. The flight deck was silent, except for the background chatter of the automatic flight systems. After a few seconds Zen began to talk. If Blake hadn’t known any better he would have sworn that the ship’s computer was beginning to get impatient.
‘LIBERATOR HAS NOW SLOWED TO A HALT AND HOLDING POSITION. ALL MOVEMENT IS SUBJECT TO SPACE DRIFT AND ORBITAL INFLUENCE. NOW AWAITING FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS.’
In the silence that followed there was a sudden gasp of pain, followed by a sh
arp intake of breath. Then a voice said, ‘Keep still. You don’t want me to do anything I might regret.’
Blake decided to take the risk and peeped around the side of the entrance.
Kodyn was looking directly at him, peering over Vila’s shoulder as though he had been expecting Blake to be out there. One hand was gripped tightly around Vila’s throat while the other was holding a knife against his chin. ‘You out there—get in here, now! Slowly.’
Kodyn touched the point of the blade against the soft flesh at the top of Vila’s throat and slowly, deliberately, dragged it up his face, passing dangerous close to the eyeball, causing Vila to whimper.
Knowing he had little choice, Blake stepped onto the flight deck, his hands raised to show that they were empty, his gun holstered.
In the seating area at the front Jenna and Cally were sitting straight-backed, hands placed carefully in their laps where they could be seen. They turned to watch Blake as he moved slowly into the room.
‘Place the gu-gu-gun on the floor,’ Kodyn stuttered. ‘And ki-ki-kick it over there.’
It was obvious to Blake that Kodyn was in a lot of pain, which was probably why he was acting irrationally; at least, that’s what Blake had reasoned. What other explanation could there be for this man to act so completely out of character?
He unhooked his gun belt and placed it on floor, then straightened up slowly, mindful to keep his hands open, palms facing outwards.
‘Now kick it aw-aw-away,’ Kodyn hissed through clenched teeth. Beads of perspiration were beginning to form on the blotchy, pale white skin that seemed to be stretched much too tightly across his forehead, and he quickly wiped them away with the sleeve of his tunic. ‘You too. I know you’re there.’ He was still looking at Blake but his words were directed elsewhere. ‘Come in s-s-slowly like your f-f-friend.’
For a while nothing happened and Kodyn started to get edgy, his eyes darting across to the rear entrance of the flight deck and back again. But then Avon appeared at the top of the steps, his hands raised, and Kodyn relaxed.
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