Damocles

Chapter 2 Echoes of the past

His first look at Residence One took his breath away. It had snowed and the old house and its parks and gardens could have been a picture from another time. The ice rimed the gabled roofs and columns and patterned the glass, real glass, sealing the windows. The late afternoon sun had flamed the ice ruby and citron giving the house a strangely warm and welcoming appearance. An invitation to step into the past.

Except that it wasn’t old of course. Servalan had had it rebuilt in the first months after the war, though God alone knew why. Blake had to keep reminding himself of what it had cost at a time when survival had been uncertain, if he hadn’t then he would have been totally seduced by the house’s spell. Even the shadows that danced across the grass couldn’t detract from its welcoming air.

He was tired when he arrived; there had been little time for rest or reflection since his meeting with Servalan. The days since his formal inauguration had been one long round of entertaining. Hours of laughing, congratulatory dinners for his friends and wary, getting to know you dinners for his detractors. When he wasn’t eating, talking and smiling he was studying files, mountains of them, the past fifty years of Federation history. Files on friends and enemies, files about the dead and even some still living; some surprising, some shocking, others disturbing. A few were all of those things and more.

A small number were both threatening and dangerous. At some point he would have to decide what he was going to do about those.

Days became weeks and weeks became months. Problems arose and were resolved or postponed, some interrupted his sleep, and a few stirred the dreams that still flickered on the far edges of his memory; after those he became tired and irritable, then depressed. But the house always welcomed him back with its aura of fires and hot drinks and summer gardens; he loved it. Yet the shadow of it’s previous owner was always there at the back of his mind.

He had been master of Servalan’s house half a year before he ventured down to the cellar.

***

It was a strange place, this cellar, unlike most of the house it was a true survival from pre atomic times, and the smell of age seeped from its walls. Coming down the staircase was like journeying back in time. But it was dry, even though the air beneath the vaulted ceiling was cold and musty. On the far wall was a rack of wine bottles each one deeply shrouded in dust, he promised himself that one day he would investigate those and discover what treasures Servalan had stored up.

The wall he was looking for was easily found, it divided two areas of the vault, but the chains fastened to it were incongruous; this had never been a dungeon and the manacles were obviously a later addition. For a moment Blake wondered what games Servalan had played that she had them fitted here, somehow he had not thought that of her. When time permitted he would make it his business to find out how they came to be here, and whom they had restrained.

Of course he couldn’t do the digging himself, but he gave the instruction with a feeling of unease. Not that it mattered, Servalan had made sure that others knew of her gift to him, and that he knew it. So he had no choice, whatever waited at the end of her twisted rainbow he had to seek it out.

***

The box was easily found.

Like the cellar it was old; but the contents, like the key, were not. Those contents were unexpected; locations, instructions, codes, and another molecular key. Twisting the latter in his hand, wondering where this would lead to, the feeling of unease stole over him again; no prize of Servalan’s gift could be without its strings.

He took it upstairs anyway, placed it on the desk and stared at it. For all her composure when they had met she couldn’t have wished him well, so whatever this led to it was not likely to be anything he wanted to find.

Blake sighed, tracing the outline of a carving on the lid, he rubbed the dust away and then he could see that it was a sword. Was that incidental or did it have some meaning, a warning maybe? Servalan’s humour was likely to be cruel or macabre, or both, therefore the carving almost certainly held some meaning.

With another sigh he put the box into his personal safe and tried to forget about it.

***

It was on the second anniversary of his inauguration that he realised he couldn’t delay any longer.

He had been at the consecration of the memorial to the dead. Laying a wreath on the marble step he had looked up and caught sight of Jenna’s name etched in the stone. Memories shook him and he had suddenly known that it couldn’t be finished until he knew why Servalan had given him the box.

Maybe it was co-incidence that three people had mentioned the ex-president to him at the inevitable dinner later that evening, though only one had mentioned his meeting with her. Perhaps he had imagined the curiosity in the looks cast at him when her name was spoken.

Perhaps he had also imagined the coldness in the voice that asked him about others who had known her.

“Their names aren’t there Blake, why is that?” Grant sounded almost hostile.
“Whose names?” he had prevaricated.
“You know very well who I mean, Avon and Vila. Surely Vila at least deserved a mention. The crew of Scorpio aren’t listed either. Why?”
“You know why.”
He tried to keep the anger from his voice, to sound only calm and reasonable, but he didn’t quite manage it. He took a deep breath and wearily met Grant’s eyes
“You know why,” he repeated quietly.

Anger flitted across Grant’s face,
“So Avon tried to kill you, I accept that. But the man hadn’t been himself for a while, that seems to be pretty clear. He’d been carrying the weight of the rebellion almost alone while you were gathering your army, why would he betray you?”

Blake took a deep swallow from his glass casting a quick look around, no one else was near enough to hear their conversation. Given the event most people would think they knew what two old comrades would find the need to say to each other at such a time, few would chose to intrude on that. Even so he moved closer to Grant before he answered,
“Why else would he shoot me? And just as the Federation attacked us! No Grant, that was too much of a co-incidence. I don’t know why Avon decided to throw his lot in with the Federation but it's obvious that he did. The others must have known about it, even Vila.”
He looked down at his drink,
“I don’t like the idea, but there is no other explanation. They came, he shot me and then they disappeared. What else could it mean?”

“But why Blake?” Grant wasn’t letting go. “Isn’t it just as possible that he made a mistake, that he got careless and they followed him to you. I mean it was only weeks before that he had been trying to set up that alliance.”
“Which conveniently failed, you remember,” Blake broke in. “He’d had the antidote to the pacification drugs since Helotrix so why hadn’t he done anything with it before?”
He took a deep breath and stared down at the surface of his drink again,
“No, Avon was always self interested; the Federation must have finally offered him enough to change sides. Vila and the others followed him. Alright, maybe they didn’t have a choice, I don’t know, but it seems obvious that they accepted the Federation’s protection. Why else haven’t they been found? If they are innocent there is nothing to stop them coming forward and telling their story, now is there?”
Grant looked at him for a long moment then shrugged,
“I don’t know. But it seems most likely that they are dead.”

Blake stared around the room. The military were all wearing decorations and the civilian guests were in their sober funeral clothing, the weight of the event was wearing at his nerves and he wanted to be gone. He certainly wanted to be away from Grant,
“Possibly,” he sighed, “but the only thing we know is that they betrayed the rebellion to the Federation,” he waved a hand as Grant opened his mouth to speak, “ now you might be right about that, maybe the others didn’t know what Avon planned, but until we know the how’s and why’s, I don’t think including them on the monument would be appropriate.”
He gave Grant a hard cold stare,
“Or do you want to explain to these people why traitors are listed alongside their heros. Some of them lost friends and family because of Gauda Prime Grant, how are you going to explain it to them?”

Grant held Blake’s stare for a moment before he let his eyes drop away,
“No perhaps you’re right.” He looked around him, “Sooner or later something will come to light.” He turned back to Blake, “We can reconsider the matter then, can’t we?”
Blake ignored the slight hint of challenge in Grant’s tone.
“Yes of course.”

That night he told his private secretary to make the arrangements.

***

As the planet came into view all he could think about ‘was why here?’ Whatever could have brought Servalan to this desolate spot, and could there be anything here that would be of interest him? From orbit at least there was no sign of anything on Malodaar that would attract any sane person.

Getting access was easy enough, the molecular key opened the main doors and the questions and answers got him past the internal security systems. The first shock came when he entered the main block and what looked to be some form of laboratory area. Sitting on a bench was Orac.

For a moment he couldn’t believe his eyes, how could Orac be here? Contrary to all expectation Avon hadn’t brought the computer to Gauda Prime, or if he had no one had found it. Somehow Blake couldn’t believe that Servalan had had Orac in her possession all this time, any more than he could believe that she was handing it over to him now. Except that Orac was dark, no sign of life, if that was the correct term, at all. Was that why she had led him here, to hand over a worthless prize?

Only when he got closer did he realise the trick, it wasn’t Orac at all, though to someone who had never seen the real thing it would be convincing enough. But why was a copy of Orac sitting on a shelf here? With a sigh he turned away, only Servalan could tell him that, and she wasn’t going anywhere, so it could wait.

Slowly they combed the base, finding nothing that could explain her sending him here. The tension growing within him as they searched was almost unbearable, because he was sure that there was something. Whatever game Servalan was playing the point eluded him, but he was sure there was a surprise waiting somewhere. So they searched on finding nothing unexpected.

Until the last door.

They kept him back until they were sure there that it wasn’t a trap and then they stood aside, waiting in silence. He didn’t want to do this, they didn’t want him to, but they all knew that there was no other choice. Servalan had sent him here and he had to know why. The atmosphere of the base seemed to close in on him as he approached the doorway, memories stirred and were pushed away. The feeling of dread grew and he struggled to keep it out of his face, clenching his hands at his side to stop the shaking.

Crossing the threshold took all his willpower.

The room was an anticlimax. Plain metal walls and floors, and five unmarked capsules. Blake felt his heart race as he recognised them, statis units. He stood for a moment and stared, then slowly crossed the floor to the first. Reaching out he touched the shell, relaxing as he realised that it was faintly warm. These were preservation, not cryogenic, units; whatever was in them was already dead. He moved slowly to the head of the capsule searching for the locking panel, a hesitant finger reached for the release and the canopy slid back with a small sibilant sound. Blake found himself looking down into a once familiar face.

Vila.

***

They took the bodies back with them, Vila and the three he hadn’t known. The fifth capsule was empty.

He would have liked to leave them behind, just as she had left them. Leave them to the quiet of the deserted base until the power ran out and darkness descended on them. But he couldn’t, and she had known that he couldn’t. Not that there was much that the bodies could tell any one; other than the manner of their deaths. Federation weapons, and that would surprise no one.

No, they had to go home.

They would be cremated quietly with as few questions or formalities as possible. None of them had relatives remaining, he had already made sure of that, so there would be no campaigns to prove their innocence. Their files would be quietly buried like the remains of their bodies. He didn’t anticipate any problems.

Of course it was the empty capsule that most worried him, the body that wasn’t there. That was what Servalan had brought him here for, what she had been telling him. It wasn’t over yet.

What did she know? How had she come by the bodies anyway, and why had she preserved them in that way? Had she been on Gauda Prime? An unpleasant thought. He would go and see her, and she would answer him, he would remind her just how much she was in his power and she would answer him. No one would think anything about it, it was only natural that he would want to know how the ex president came to know the location of the traitor’s remains, given his history with one of them.

No, they wouldn’t be surprised. It was only natural that he would want to know if she could lead him to the man who had shot him, the man who had betrayed the rebellion.

It was only natural that he would want to know if she could lead him to Avon.

***

NEXT