by Tony Attwood
In the control room Avon rapidly started the ramjet firing sequence. ‘They are letting us go, Avon,’ Vila told him, despite all his resolutions on the way up. ‘Doesn’t that indicate something?’
‘That is the most worrying thing,’ Avon replied. ‘Korell, get this ship ready for take-off as fast as possible – but do not go up.’
‘Conscience?’ she asked. Avon looked puzzled. ‘You don’t want to injure those people.’
‘It is just that we are not going up,’ he said. ‘Ease up ten feet and then head straight for that building, preferably for the door.’
‘Avon...’
‘Vila, if you are so convinced of their friendliness you can try and explain what three Federation pursuit ships are doing coming into land at this very moment – without the slightest problem from the sophisticated devices your friends used to try to scare us off in the first place.’
‘I thought it funny when they welcomed us as Federation people and then welcomed us just as much when they found out who we really were. I don’t suppose you’ve had time to fix a plasma shield?’
‘No I haven’t. Which is why we are not heading up into the air.’
‘So where are we going?’
‘Straight through that doorway.’
‘But it’s not big enough to throw a whole ship through.’
‘If it really is a white hole then it will simply expand to accept us. We’ll soon know. Without shielding there is nowhere else to go. Get this straight, Vila. The whole planet is a trap and we walked into it.’
As Avon spoke, Korell was bringing the ship to readiness for a run at the building. On the ground the inhabitants of Skat were running left and right trying to escape the massive down draft that the ship made when taking off from a prone position.
‘Anyway, what is the point of being in an alternative universe?’ asked Vila above the fusion howl.
‘Answer that yourself,’ Korell told him. ‘You are in it.’
Below, the world was bleak and windswept. There was no sign of the grassy landscape, nor even the building they had just rammed.
Avon looked hard at the information coming from the panels surrounding him, then looked up. ‘Korell?’
‘It’s just possible that the push through the gate gave us an unexpected leap far in excess of anything the ship’s drive had on offer.’
‘Get us away from this planet and get a fix on the location.’
‘Avon, Korell...’ pleaded Vila. ‘What is going on?’
Korell locked the drive into position, and looked at the controls. ‘Vila, it’s like this. I haven’t the faintest idea what has happened. I don’t know where we are. I don’t know when we are. I’m fairly uncertain if we are still in our own universe. And I can’t even be sure that the normal laws of science apply out here. The universe has eleven dimensions. We could be locked at a tangent to any of them. Does that put your mind at rest?’
‘Oh yes, wonderful. So far since we approached that planet I’ve seen a living crumbling wall turn into a building which had a locked door that dragged me through it when it opened; been taken on a twenty-mile hike; put in a cage and sent through a white hole. And now you tell me you don’t know what is going on. If you want my advice...’
‘No,’ said two voices.
‘I’ll tell you anyway,’ said Vila.
‘I was afraid of that,’ Avon replied caustically.
‘What we should be doing is setting ourselves up so we can live out our lives, or what is left of them, in peace and tranquillity. You Avon should come clean and explain why you shot Blake, and what your next great scheme is and if it involves the death of me; and when you’ve finished that lot you can let me know why you were so sure that those people down there were Federation agents or whatever. As you pointed out in the past there were many times when they could have shot us if they wanted and they didn’t – they let us through.’
Avon was silent for a moment and then spoke quietly. ‘Vila, you were never very bright at the best of times, and this doesn’t seem to be the best of times.’
Before Vila could come back with further demands Korell gave a call.
‘We are two thousand spacials from Skat and according to the positions of all the stars that is still Skat.’
‘All right, let’s take another look. Go back down Korell.’
Vila objected. ‘Last time we went down the ship was nearly blown to bits.’
‘So would you rather rush around this galaxy without even knowing if we can get back to our own time through the white hole?’
Korell was less hopeful. ‘It’s unlikely the white hole still exists, after driving the ship through it.’
‘The building may have been destroyed,’ Avon told her, ‘but something must be left.’
Yet he was wrong. The descent to the planet was uneventful, and the new Skat nothing but barren rock. In vain they searched for any sign of the building. ‘In this galaxy, the building simply doesn’t exist,’ said Korell. ‘The original colonisers never came.’
‘It goes back further than that,’ Avon told her. ‘The weather conditions were never right to create the grasslands. This is a very different universe.’
Vila gave up. If this was another universe he didn’t fancy it, and was sure he could create a better version. He opened a locker to the side of his position and reached in for the container of para-hyrene. He found only thin air. Turning, he saw Avon holding the small phial. Vila tried to grab it, but Avon pulled back. In his other hand Avon was holding KAT. ‘When did you last use this?’
‘I haven’t,’ said Vila.
‘Very well,’ Avon replied equitably. ‘But you tested it on KAT.’
‘I gave KAT a drop to make sure it was the real stuff, after the first run into Skat. I didn’t fancy too many more of those.’ He made another grab for the container and Avon let him take it. Without speaking Vila left the flight deck for the solitude and alternative realities of his own room. In every respect he had had enough.
‘Mysteries galore,’ said Korell after Vila had gone. ‘I presume at least you solved the sygnum problem. You wouldn’t have left the planet so rapidly otherwise, no matter what the threat.’
Avon acknowledged the deduction. ‘The sygnum was there all the time in the grass,’ he told her. ‘It was the grass, as KAT later confirmed. We expected to find it as crystals because that is how we have always experienced it. But in its raw state it is quite different, and by and large harmless. To collect it you need a lawn mower – then you can make enough shielding to protect a fleet of ships.’
‘Or much more than that if you could drop through the white hole and find more Skats packed with lawns of sygnum. And I presume you saw, as I felt, that on walking through the doorway one is lifted off the ground. As if it were important that you don’t make contact with both sides of the door at once.’
Avon sat down and stared at the monitors. ‘I took something that was from one side of the doorway – the grass – and sent it to the other side. The result was an explosion. So,’ he continued quickly, almost bored by having to restate the obvious, ‘you have white holes from one time-space continuum into another. Plus all the shielding you could ever need. And then you decide not to let anyone come near you. And that leaves the question – what are you afraid of?’
‘Levarll told us that his ancestors found that they were not the first to get through the white holes. They therefore knew the story of the sygnum would get out – if not through this continuum, then through another. And the last thing their ancestors wanted was to draw attention to a beautiful planet by making it some kind of impenetrable fortress. So they just gave people a bumpy ride. Most give up, a few get through. Those who do get through can be dealt with by the gateway. Most will probably get hopelessly lost in other time-space zones. Vila and I had the good sense to jump back through the gateway in the opposite way to which we went in. You had the sense not to go in in the first place. But even so we have now ended up in another univers
e, which doesn’t make us too great on the escapology ratings. But you do have a penchant for non-urban environments. I wonder why.’
Avon looked away from the monitors and glanced at Korell. He said nothing and returned to the screens, typing out new instructions on the touch controls.
‘I know that withering look,’ Korell said. ‘Are you going to tell me where I am wrong, or do I have to guess?’
Avon remained silent.
‘All right,’ the woman said. ‘I’ll amuse you, Avon. I’ll talk through the problems. First, they welcomed us as honoured guests of the Federation, and then as honoured rebels. So who do they give allegiance to? Second, their ancestors worked for the Federation, but tried to keep information from the Administration on Earth. The knowledge of white holes is widespread, but I’ve never heard a rumour that their locations are known. Some people in the Federation could know about the locations, but if they do they probably use that knowledge for their own benefit. That would mean the ships you spotted were not here on official Federation business, but probably ruling Skat through the threat that if the Federation proper ever gets in life will be a lot worse. That would explain why ships are not shot down as they approach Skat, because that could attract the attention of Federation officials who are not actually in on the secret.’
Korell paused and thought. Avon’s silence indicated that she was not on the right track. She could acknowledge that she had no proof, but the explanation itself seemed logically sound and without some evidence to disprove it she couldn’t accept Avon’s attitude. She was either missing a clue, or an essential piece of information. She sat down to think. Something deep in her brain told her it was to do with the ground, the earth, natural, growing things. The trees on Gauda Prime, the grass on Skat...
For five days the ship stayed in orbit around the barren rock that Skat had become. Avon moved from the control cabin into the ship’s cargo bay and set up a workshop which would convert the grass-sygnum into material that could be used as part of the new shielding. The cargo bay on Revenge was large, some two hundred yards square, designed to carry the cargo that the freighter ship would have plied between the planets. Set in the roof were four single lamps which gave out strong, but not glaring light – very much to Avon’s liking. His suit got dirty again, but he didn’t change. He cut back on the sleep, knowing that every moment the ship was without shielding was another moment of vulnerability. He also cut communication down to a minimum.
At first the floor of the hold seemed to Vila, who did much of the fetching and carrying, to be covered in dirt and grass. But as time went by the amount of grass diminished and the small containers that Avon had put on the metal shelving around the edge of the hold began to be filled with a fine white powder. Avon worked without machines, for there were none on board that would suit his purpose, and could be seen grinding the grass into pulp in trays with a makeshift pestle and mortar, before taking the containers carefully down to the drive room where the fusion process engines continued at the lowest level, providing just enough power to keep the ship in its orbit. That power was also just enough to generate the heat that Avon needed to turn the paste into crystals.
As the process developed Vila began to find that, apart from the occasional bit of clearing up and physical labour, he was required less and less in the hold. Having had one bout of para-hyrene he refrained from entering that other world again. He talked with KAT but the talk got boring. Even the cocktails KAT suggested were beginning to pall a little.
At length, with no other conversation around and no other tasks to perform Vila began to talk to the main ship’s computer. The machine answered always without any sign of personality – giving responses in a flat monotone. That was to be expected – no one would bother to give a freighter computer a personality. But it didn’t stop Vila.
‘You’re boring, you know that,’ Vila told the machine. The computer did not reply, as he knew it would not. It only gave specific information on specific requests. It did not even seek to explain itself. ‘Worse than Orac,’ Vila concluded. As he explained to the machine, ‘Orac had opinions – even if they were pompous. You have nothing. You don’t even have a name.’ The machine remained silent, its lights showing only the standard red ‘alert’ light. ‘I’ll give you a name,’ Vila told it. The computer did not seem impressed. Vila leaned across and pressed the ‘learn’ contact. A second red light appeared. ‘From now on you will respond to the name...’ He paused. What name? How do you go about naming a computer? Vila tried hard to focus his mind, but no thought sharpened up. He took another sip of his drink. His mind wandered. He thought of Korell, currently resting on her bed. He thought of Avon endlessly slaving away to get the ship prepared. But for what? His thought drifted uneasily through the five turbulent years since he had been found guilty and sentenced to deportation for life on Cygnus Alpha. He thought of all the people he had been with since then. Gan, Jenna, Cally, Tarrant, Dayna, Soolin, and of course Blake. Blake: the great champion of the Freedom Party dedicated to fighting the Federation’s overwhelming power. Eventually even the official vidnews broadcasts recognised their existence, frequently reporting that ‘one of the infamous, so-called “Blake’s Seven” had been captured’ – or arrested, killed, maimed, destroyed, eaten alive or whatever suited their propaganda purposes that day. Blake’s Seven, and in five years there had been seven deaths. Now there was nothing but the memory of seven dead friends.
An idea came into Vila’s head followed by a smile. ‘Computer, my old friend,’ he said, ignoring for the moment the previous names he had called the machine. ‘I have a name for you. You will only respond to this name, and not to any other name in future, and that order cannot be countermanded. You have a name. Your name is – Blake.’ And that, thought Vila, should cause a bit of anguish to pass through Avon’s mind, next time he had to ask the computer for help.
Vila pondered his action and took another drink. He looked at the machine – at Blake – and pulled his thoughts together. One of KAT’s better ideas for sifting out wine that tasted intoxicating but didn’t impair judgement seemed to be working. Vila should have been half drunk, but felt only inspired by the alcohol. ‘Blake,’ he announced. ‘You need a personality. I can’t give you Blake’s personality, or else you would send us tearing around the Galaxy trying to defeat the Federation all over again. And,’ he added realistically, ‘because I don’t know that much about programming, I’ll give you the instructions verbally. You will obey the instructions I give you on how to behave on all – I repeat all – future occasions. No contrary instructions can be given.’ Vila was starting to enjoy this. He began to stroll up and down the empty flight deck. As he gave instructions he gestured with his arms, his voice getting more lyrical, his language more flamboyant. Soon he began to feel a sense of real power, but his brain was clear enough to instil a sense of realism. He knew if he went too far Avon would find ways of bypassing the instructions, and all would be lost. Vila had to take the matter carefully, add a little day by day... He warmed to the idea.
Avon wasted no time resting once he had finished the main work of preparing the sygnum. He banged on Korell’s door and demanded her presence in the control room with him. He was covered in a mixture of grass and white powder. ‘You look terrible,’ Vila told him. ‘Still, I suppose you have the consolation of knowing that if anyone fires a plasma bolt at you it will bounce off.’
Avon ignored the remark and turned to Korell as she entered. ‘What have you found, or have you been sleeping the past five days?’
Korell was unruffled. Vila looked at her afresh. It seemed that whatever clothes she wore they looked as if they were exactly the right choice for her. Today she appeared in a velvet jacket and faded blue trousers. ‘I have a galaxy with some communication traffic but not as much as there should be. A definite increase in communications towards the first sector...’
‘Earth!’
‘Quite probably, Vila, although in this universe nothing is certain.’
‘There’s virtually nothing around here. No sound of the normal Federation computer talk. Very little sign of interstellar movement generally, and absolutely nothing on Skat.’
‘Good,’ announced Avon. ‘Take the ship down and land. Vila and I will need about three hours outside the ship to fix the shielding completely.’
‘Not again,’ pleaded Vila. ‘Not down there. I know it was all clear last time, but I don’t really want another buffeting. Can’t you fix the thing in orbit?’
Avon smiled, and turned gently towards Vila, one hand raised, a finger pointing. He hesitated for one moment, and then spoke. ‘Vila, you’re right.’
‘Am I? If you say so I must be wrong.’
‘We shall fit the shield in space. Get a suit on.’
‘A space suit?’
‘You could try an underwater diving suit, but I’m not sure it would work.’
‘I’m not putting that space suit on again, and that’s final.’
Avon took on the attitude of a kindly uncle dealing with a rather unintelligent nephew. ‘Vila, if you go outside into space, in orbit, without a suit, you will not be able to breathe.’
‘I know that. That’s what I am saying. I’m not going outside.’
‘Fine. Sit down. Korell, take us down.’
‘Computer,’ announced Korell. ‘Give me a descent path to an open plain on the planet’s surface.’
There was silence.
Vila coughed. ‘I, er, gave the computer a name,’ he said diffidently. ‘It seemed a shame not to have a computer with a name.’
‘What name?’
Vila told him. Avon’s face remained blank. It was impossible to read his thoughts. Korell just laughed, and repeated the order. ‘It is on your screen, Korell,’ the computer replied.
Avon and Korell looked up at the computer simultaneously. Vila tried to look the other way. ‘You can take over controls yourself, or you can return the ship to my control and leave yourself free for other tasks.’