by Tony Attwood
‘... but I wanted to know what was going on. I checked and double checked. There was nothing else to do.’
Avon thought again. It made little sense. In the distance the night animals were beginning to make themselves heard as sunlight faded. He could see Korell walking back to the ship carrying several crates, followed by two androids equally loaded down. Avon looked at Orac solemnly. He really did need some information.
‘Nothing arrived? No ships – apart from your mysterious sphere?’
‘Nothing. Just one freighter take off, plus the flyers on the far side of the dome. After that it all went quiet.’
The work progressed rapidly. The androids raided the other ships for the items Orac specified, and followed the master computer’s instructions for putting the whole thing together. Avon took control of the delicate control-disk work and general reprogramming of the solid state circuitry and tarriel cell link ups. Vila opened doors and lockers, sometimes overtly because Korell requested it, sometimes covertly because Avon was still seeking the interfering device, and sometimes in the vague hope that he might find something interesting.
Korell continued to run her slack regime. After a week of the preparations Avon could have taken off in what was, by then, a fairly fast ship with Orac to guide the navigation computers, and, if he really wanted him, Vila as a galley hand. But he didn’t leave, and Korell seemed secure in the knowledge that he wouldn’t.
Avon concentrated his mind in a way he had not had to do for some time. For years it seemed his brain had been going rusty. True, once or twice he had had to outwit some clever opponents – people who relied not just on force but on brain skill. But mostly he had faced crude fighters like Servalan. It seemed so long ago that he had had to solve a real problem that was not of his own making. He put his mind into a rigorous routine.
After two weeks Avon finally made his move. The approach was elegant and yet simple. Korell, as a social technologist, worked on a set of assumptions as to what Avon would do and took counter measures accordingly. So Avon instructed Orac to generate long lists of human activities which were possible on Gauda Prime. Avon then numbered them and instructed the ship’s computer to generate random number series. As soon as a number was generated which matched one of Orac’s activities he undertook that action. He went for a walk in the forest in the pouring rain. He held a long and pointless conversation with Vila on the subject of theft. He asked Orac for guidance on the question of certain obscure mathematical formula long since abandoned in computer logic. He started doing physical exercises but gave them up when he realised he needed them. He built a weather forcasting unit. He measured the daily growth of fifty randomly selected trees. And on the fifth day he carried Vila’s kit for him when he went to open a series of doors at Korell’s bidding.
‘Of course,’ Vila announced, ‘I respect a person who sees my value. Korell, she has a job, she sees a man who can do it, and off we go. She gets the job well done, and I...’
‘That way?’ Avon interrupted.
Vila was too deep into his self congratulation to notice he was lost. ‘The directions send you down corridor 24 to intersection F4. That,’ Avon told him with a wave of the hand, ‘is corridor 24.’
Vila accepted the course correction with a grunt and a nod, and returned to his monologue. ‘Blake knew my value too. I always got on with Blake. "Blake," I used to say, "give me a door to open and I’ll do it. Don’t worry about the danger, if I can be of help, then just let me know."’ As he rambled on his voice changed subtly. It became more lilting. He spoke with a flowing ease that totally left him when faced with reality. It was that, and his inability to deal with people in real life, that had sent Vila into a life of crime. Vila loved mankind and desperately wanted to be able to cope with it. Avon could cope only too easily, and because of that despised everyone he met.
Avon pulled himself away from his own thoughts and found Vila still rambling. ‘Dayna, she knew it too. Always fancied me, Dayna. Of course she never admitted it in public, but deep down inside she saw the value of my talents, my gentlemanly manner...’
‘F4,’ announced Avon, wondering how much more of this he was going to have to take. He made a mental note to have a word with Orac about removing all options that involved Vila. Vila stopped and unfolded the plan. Korell had marked a row of lockers along the wall of the corridor as requiring Vila’s special skills and he set to work on them at once. Avon passed over the implements needed. There was nothing else to do.
The lockers contained thermal lances, the cores of which were built from a compound of herculanium and radium shielding, obviously helpful in the redesign work the androids were undertaking. Korell’s requests were always reasonable.
They started the walk back, both laden with lances. Vila continued his reminiscence. Gan, Jenna, Cally, Soolin, they had, it seemed, all respected him, and recognised his value. The women had secretly admired him. Only when he recalled that they were now all apparently dead did Vila begin to get morose, and wonder if there was some more adreneline still on the base.
Suddenly Avon stopped dead in his tracks his eyes on his left wrist. Vila looked back in amazement and rapidly retraced his last few steps.
‘You know I have never taken you for a collector of old junk,’ he announced.
‘Quiet,’ said Avon still looking at his wrist. On it was a teleport bracelet from the ship Avon and Blake had flown together – the Liberator. It was useless since the ship had been destroyed two years previously through the recklessness of one of Avon’s attempts to find Blake. But it was not as a communicator that the bracelet was attracting Avon’s attention. The device also measured radiation, and it was showing a surge at that moment, flashing a dull red where normally it indicated green.
Avon told Vila. ‘Then let’s move,’ the thief replied already several steps down the corridor. ‘I’ve had enough radiation sickness for one lifetime.’
‘It’s not that sort of radiation,’ Avon announced tersely. ‘Ifs a much lower waveband. Open that door.’ He was pointing at a standard corridor opening, a sliding door set into the smooth wall. It was painted with the green and brown of a stores room. Vila had opened a whole series of these already. Most of them contained vacuum attachments and cleaning fluids for the androids. With a touch of the hand plate and the gentle pressure of a by-pass hand probe that Vila kept in his pocket the door slipped sideways.
Inside was the tiny room Vila had expected. It contained a collection of boxes, piles of old junk, remnants of weapons now long since past their use, and decaying spares for laser tubes, and of course, vacuum attachments. There was hardly enough room to actually get inside. Avon checked his bracelet once more. ‘In there,’ he announced. ‘Start moving it Vila.’ Knowing that protest was useless Vila began to move items from inside the room out to the corridor. As the junk came out Avon checked it through. It took Vila only ninety seconds to put his foot into a can of cleaning fluid that he knew would be in the room somewhere. Someone had taken a perfectly ordinary store and filled it with rubbish. Vila didn’t really want to know why.
‘Stop,’ shouted Avon, and then carefully lowered his voice. ‘What have you just moved?’
Now actually inside the room, Vila was randomly pushing everything he could find through his legs. Gingerly he turned round and looked down. There, just behind him, was what could only be described as a black box. Its shiny surface gave no hint of its operation or its intention. But the location of the handles on either side gave Vila a strange notion of having seen it before.
‘Orac?’ he questioned aloud. He knew it couldn’t be, but it looked just like a miniaturised version.
‘No – but built by the same man.’
‘But why would Ensor bother with a second version? He already had Orac.’
‘Because Ensor was selling Orac to the Federation. When we found Ensor he was dying, and badly needing medical help. That help was part of the deal he set up with the Federation...’
‘... whic
h Servalan intercepted. She was never going to save the old man.’
‘Ensor knew that whoever owned Orac could read all the information passing through computer systems in the Galaxy. All the confidential computer traffic. And Ensor also knew that anything he did after that would be readable by Orac. So he needed another machine.’
‘Another Orac.’
‘No, that would have just led to one machine reading the output of the other without either of them having secrets.’
There was a sound from the doorway behind them. They spun round as Korell joined in the conversation. She was, of course smiling, and relaxed. ‘Ensor died, Blake got Orac and the secret of Ensor’s other computer was lost,’ she said. ‘One to you Avon. I didn’t expect you to find the location –but then I didn’t know about the old communicator bracelet on your wrist.’
‘And I didn’t know about this computer, at least not at first.’
‘But Orac knew,’ Korell went on, ‘because Orac helped Ensor work on the plans of the alternative computer. During the long voyages with Blake and his friends, you must often have felt in need of company, and since the crew were not up to your standard you conversed with Orac.’
‘Ensor must have removed the ability to recognise what it was that was going to be unreadable to Orac. After all, if Ensor expected Orac to be in the hands of the Federation he didn’t want Orac telling people who had just paid him a million credits that Ensor had another machine, even if it wasn’t as powerful as Orac. So Orac believed that Ensor had worked on the alternative but never finished the work. The information would therefore be classified by Orac as useless. So here we have a computer which Orac cannot read. And it cannot read Orac.’
‘Right,’ Korell agreed. ‘That’s why I needed you and Orac. This machine cannot even talk to the computers on this base to find out where everything is stored. It has just been my way of undertaking statistical research without Orac knowing. And I hate to disappoint you, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with Machine Induced Neural Deviance.’
‘What’s his name?’ asked Vila always practical and anxious to escape any conversation about MIND, which he knew he would never follow.
‘Caro,’ Avon told him. ‘And he is it.’
‘Does it speak?’
‘Of course I can speak,’ announced Caro. It was a voice identical to Orac’s.
‘I don’t think I can take two of them,’ said Vila.
‘You won’t have to,’ Avon told him. ‘Caro has no purpose apart from keeping secrets from Orac.’ He looked straight at Korell. There was a deeper meaning to his words that Vila could not grasp.
‘Not quite true, Avon,’ Korell replied. ‘Orac has the unfortunate habit of refusing to undertake some tasks it considers too menial. Caro has Ensor’s voice, just like Orac, but not his personality. Orac can pass problems to Caro – it doubles the power.’ Korell walked across to the machine and removed a key from the top.
‘Avon!’ This time the voice came from his wrist. Avon touched the bracelet.
‘Yes, Orac?’
‘A Federation ship landed in the docking bay next to this ship ten minutes ago.’
‘Incredible,’ said Vila. ‘I could have spotted it earlier looking at the sky.’
‘So why didn’t Orac tell us?’ demanded Avon. He stared hard at Korell.
‘Just one of Caro’s little extras,’ Korell replied unruffled. ‘Caro can stop Orac’s full functions, without Orac even being aware of it.’
‘You thought I’d use Orac to help me leave the planet once we started putting the new ship together?’
Korell smiled and said nothing. Vila meanwhile was getting worried. He had moved out into the corridor, looking for the inevitable attack. For a moment he darted back into the small room with a hurried appeal for an adjournment of the debate to the other side of the Galaxy.
Avon however refused to move as he took a hard look at Korell. ‘You must have known they would come.’
‘Believe me, my judgement was that we would be away just before interest was aroused. But I did have to make predictions without Orac. If you want to be convinced that I’m not with the Federation you can wait here and find out. Or we can try for the ship.’
As Avon and Korell remained calm Vila approached panic. In fact he was almost ready to run to the freighter on his own. Only cowardice kept him back.
Avon turned and led the way to the main control room. There instead of making for the main door he switched on the viewing screens on the central panels, resting his hands on the back of the controller’s chair momentarily, studying the pictures. Outside, two figures could be seen leaving a small craft which had landed in the clearing on the far side of the stranded freighters. They were hesitantly making their way to the Dome.
‘Servalan,’ said Avon. ‘As you anticipated.’ He looked at Korell and glanced down at Caro. ‘Is it still switched off?’
Korell indicated that the machine was still inoperative as Avon switched on his communicator. ‘Orac, if we take off in the freighter now can we outrun the ship that has just landed?’ he asked.
‘No,’ came the simple reply.
‘Then we steal theirs,’ suggested Vila.
‘Not possible, Vila,’ Orac told him. ‘The spaceship alongside will only respond to a combination of voice and hand prints used in a pre-designated sequence.’
Vila was hurt. ‘I’ve broken through those before,’ he told the computer.
‘But never in less than four hours, and I suggest that you will not have four hours alone on that ship.’
‘All right plastic face. What do you suggest?’
‘Surrender.’
‘That’s brilliant. The best computer in the Galaxy and he tells us to give up.’
But Orac was persistent. ‘Servalan is unsure of what is going on here, and she is obviously not here officially. Otherwise she would bring a full fleet with her, not just one craft. I picked up no computer talk between other ships of her fleet. With her uncertainty, she is likely to keep you on the planet until she works out what has happened and how she can profit by it. I would suggest that in another two days we shall be able to outrun Servalan’s ship. You, Avon, and you Korell, can certainly keep Servalan talking for two days. Vila, I suggest you tell her everything at once. Your lies are at the best of times implausible and Servalan may quickly get bored.’
And with that Orac shut down, as the main door of the Plantation dome opened to reveal the woman that Avon knew he must one day kill.
3
Orac’s analysis of Vila was by and large correct. There were in fact a number of aspects of social life which Vila found slightly beyond him. Not that he was prone to admit his shortcomings in public; but during moments of stress he would reflect upon the sad nature of a universe that kept throwing him into situations that he really found distasteful and, by and large, impossible to deal with. Sitting in a control room with a variety of weapons pointed at him by unmoving mutoids whilst undergoing questioning from the one-time President of the Federation, did not help his problem.
Vila knew with a distressing certainty that Servalan had started the questioning with him because he was the one most likely to blurt out the truth. She had not threatened him. She had shown no anger, nor had she even suggested she was in a hurry. But then the questioning had only been going on for ten minutes, and after the first fifteen seconds Vila had told most of the truth. At the same time it had not escaped his thoughts that although Orac had given the advice to surrender it had singularly failed to inform Avon how to arrange the escape in two days’ time. The galaxy was, he decided, making less sense every day.
Vila kept talking whilst his mind raced away. He told Servalan of the shoot-out he had witnessed in this very room. He told her of his escape outside, and of his return. The only thing he failed to mention was Caro. No one had told him not to mention Caro, but it had seemed like a good idea when he started talking. Now he knew he couldn’t hold out much longer.
‘And no
w,’ Servalan was saying, her voice deep with sarcasm, ‘the final survivors of Blake’s 7, the greatest freedom fighters who have ever taken on the Federation, are going to give in.’ She threw her hands back, and opened her eyes wide in mock admiration. Her gown, as always totally inappropriate for the occasion, ruffled under her chin. The long sleeves accentuated the mockery of her gesture.
Vila gulped and said nothing.
‘Tell me why.’
‘Because we have got nothing more to fight with, and nothing to fight for. And I was already sick of fighting two years ago, anyway.’ Vila began to speak more quickly, turning in his chair to try to keep Servalan in view as she moved around the room. A mutoid came and pushed a laser rifle into, his neck, making contact a few centimetres above the jugular vein. Vila took the hint and sat still. ‘What more reason do I have to have Servalan? I was never the leader – you know that. It was Blake and Avon; not me...’
‘So at last you have persuaded Avon, and now Avon listens to the advice of Vila?’ Servalan’s sarcasm grew with every word.
‘Yes... No... What does it matter? I give up, Servalan. If you want to know what Avon thinks, go and ask him yourself. If you want me to say something, tell me what you want me to say and I’ll say it. Or I’ll say something else. Whatever you want.’
To his overwhelming relief Servalan raised her right arm elegantly and clicked her fingers. It was a favourite gesture, emphasising the crudity of her power. The mutoid at his neck lowered her gun and walked across the control room to the door. She touched the panel and it slid back, allowing her to move quietly into the corridor and out of Vila’s sight.
‘Just one final thing, Vila, before Avon joins us.’ Vila’s stomach tightened. This was going to be the killer punch. ‘What is Caro?’
Trying to steady himself Vila attempted to speak. A strangled squeak emerged. He tried again. ‘Orac got dented, so Avon built a replacement. Calls it Caro,’ he said.
‘So Avon fancies himself as a rival to Ensor as a computer builder now. And I suppose this is what you hope to bargain for your life with, is it? Orac plus an Orac replacement?’
