Cally and Tarrant had almost given up hope of finding anything when they entered what looked to be some form of medical centre. Why they gave it more consideration than the rooms before it Cally was never sure, perhaps somewhere in the maze of corridors they had come to the conclusion that they should expect the worst. Not an unreasonable conclusion in the circumstances.

The couch that occupied the centre of the room was ordinary enough but the equipment arranged around was not. Cally felt a shiver of unease as she looked at it, long repressed memories of her capture on Kentero stirring suddenly. It didn’t look like an interrogation system but they could not be sure. Whatever it was she hoped that it hadn’t been intended for them, or for Avon. Tarrant said little but she could see the fear darkening his eyes, though no hint of it showed in his voice when he asked her what she thought it was.

They were still standing by the couch examining the strange paraphernalia around it when the chime of a teleport bracelet cut through their speculations.
“Tarrant, Cally, answer me please. Can you hear me?”
It was Dayna, and she sounded worried, Cally felt her stomach twist.

Tarrant raised his bracelet and answered immediately,
“What is it, Dayna?”
Her voice came through clearly losing none of the tension vibrating within it,
“There is a problem with the ship, we think it’s under control now but we can’t be sure yet.”
They exchanged a horrified look, getting stranded on this odd world, either with or without Avon wasn’t something that held much appeal.
Cally raised her own communicator,
“What’s happened Dayna?”
They heard Dayna sigh before she spoke,
“That cloud we passed through on the way here, it contained some form of enzyme. Its been attacking the ship,” the sigh was heard again, “it did a lot of damage before we realised there was a problem.”
Tarrant cut in impatiently,
“What do you mean attacking the ship?”
“What I said,” Dayna sounded equally impatient, “it has been eating into everything it touched, leaving a sticky slime behind. Liberator is a mess. Autorepair is running at very high levels even now.”

Tarrant gazed with wide unbelieving eyes at his bracelet as if he could see the pitted hull reflected in its surface; then he looked up and across at Cally his brows drawn in thought. She took up the questioning,
“How bad is the damage Dayna?”
“According to Zen terminal if not stopped. Structural damage was imminent, the autorepairs were being overwhelmed and the power drain alone could have destroyed us.”
“What does Orac say about it?”
“We can’t access Orac, we can’t find the key, it may be that Avon has taken it with him.” Anxiety replaced impatience in her voice, “Have you found him yet?”
“No.” Cally thought quickly, “Dayna what’s happening now, how long have we got?”
“Well, we think we found a way around it but it hasn’t been a comfortable experience.”
“But how much damage is there now?”

Tarrant broke in again his frown deepening,
“We haven’t time for more details now, is the Liberator still in any danger?”
“We think that it has been brought under control” Dayna replied, “ Zen estimates that most of the hull enzyme is now destroyed, the rest will be soon. Autorepair is running at a high level but it is sustainable. We will be able to move in safety very soon; though we won’t be able to run very fast and using the force wall or the neutron blasters will be out of the question for several more hours.”
“Is there any sign of other ships in the vicinity?” Cally asked.
“No, luckily for us,” they could hear the relief in Dayna’s voice.

Tarrant and Cally exchanged an equally relieved look, even so discussing Liberator’s current status on an open link was probably not a good idea, Cally didn’t think they should take chance and hurried to stop any more conversation.
“That’s enough for now. We will look for Avon for a little longer. Let us know if anything changes.”
“Yes, but try and stay in touch this time will you?”
“Yes, alright” that was Tarrant, “ stay alert and monitor the detectors, let us know the moment you sight another ship, whatever it looks like”
“Of course.” Dayna’s voice was frosty as she cut the link.
Tarrant looked at Cally,
“Avon may have cost us the ship in his rush to get here”, his voice was full of anger and more than a touch of fear.
Cally shook her head,
“It will be alright I’m sure, Zen can take care of the ship. Our concern is Avon, the sooner we can find him and get back to Liberator the better.” Tarrant nodded and they both moved back towards the door.

***

The flight deck was quiet, too quiet for Vila’s taste so he had settled in the teleport; no livelier but the exertions of the last few hours had left him disinclined to venture far from an escape route. He’s tried to persuade Dayna to stay with him but she had just given him a hard look and returned to her search for Orac’s key. Vila let her get on with it, it gave her something to do while they waited for Zen to repair the ship, and the others to find their missing genius. He had given up the search, if Avon had not intended them to find Orac's key then he was pretty sure it would stay hidden.

When the message came through from the surface he had a moment of elation. They had found Avon, they could leave this place and go somewhere salubrious to recover their energies! The elation didn’t last long, and what replaced it would forever rank as one of his biggest surprises and most unpleasant shocks. It seemed that in a day of nasty choices fate had yet another one waiting.

When Avon's voice came across the intercom telling him to get Liberator away Vila froze in disbelief because he had never really believed that Avon would let them abandon him.

As suddenly as it had come the link was broken giving Vila only the time necessary for the first, stuttering, syllables of protest. As the teleport fell silent he struggled to absorb the importance of what he had just heard. Run, Avon was telling them to run. The tone of his voice had left Vila in no doubt that he had meant it, that he really was telling them to go, and to leave him behind on Terminal.

Yet even as Avon’s voice died away some part of Vila’s brain was registering the strange choice of words, well strange for Avon. Then he was gone and Vila stopped caring about the words in his desperation to warn him about Cally and Tarrant. With shaking fingers he tried to re-establish contact with the ground without success, trying Avon’s bracelet communicator brought no better luck. Something about the total nature of the silence told him that his voice was not even leaving Liberator, that no one on Terminal could hear him any more.

Vila slumped back in his seat struggling to take in the events of the last few minutes. If Avon couldn’t hear him then either he was dead or a prisoner, and if either of those were the case then Tarrant and Cally might be in trouble too. He blinked at the empty teleport. So whatever it was it that had brought Avon to Terminal it had been a trap and the final urgency in Avon’s voice made it clear that that the danger was both real and immediate. Avon didn’t know Cally and Tarrant were on the surface, that they couldn’t leave.

Vila cursed silently, he knew that Tarrant and Cally should have stayed put, Avon always knew what he was doing. This must have been why he had been so insistent that they did not follow him. He must have known that it might be necessary for Liberator to go quickly, that they might need to leave him. Vila realised that he had been right and that Avon had indeed had good reasons for not wanting to be followed. He buried his head in hands and tried to think. Where did they go from here?

Even for Avon the events of this last trip had been unusual; never, even at the height of his power struggle with Blake, had he behaved as he had in the last hours before he went down to Terminal. Vila remembered his last words to them as he had stood on the teleport, the cold hostility of them. Avon had done his best to frighten them away, to stop them caring about what he was doing, to make sure that they let him go alone. Vila cursed again, they should have realised that it was something like that when he told them that he had arranged for Liberator to leave after twelve hours. What ever he had been up to he had been following a plan. They should have been more cautious. Avon wasn’t the foolhardy type so they should have known there would be a good reason, and the only one Vila could think of was the Federation, probably Servalan.

Vila turned to face Dayna as she entered the teleport at a run; her face showed the same shock he felt.
"You heard that?" he asked wearily.
"He can't mean it" she burst out, "He can't expect us to leave them!"
Vila shrugged,
"He doesn’t know about Cally and Tarrant does he? He obviously does mean us to leave him."
"No" Dayna's voice was almost a wail, almost childlike.
Vila frowned, trying to see his way through the conundrum of Avon’s behaviour.
"What ever the problem is it must be serious unless he has finally decided to abandon us and head for safer places, but if that is what he wants he has chosen a strange way of doing it.”
He grimaced as he considered his own words,
“Besides I can't see Avon giving up Liberator and Orac without a very good reason.”
He gave Dayna a wan smile, pretending he didn’t see the liquid brightness of her eyes or the glint of moisture on her cheek,
“When Blake was here Avon did a lot of very risky things because he wanted Liberator."
"We can't leave him" Dayna insisted "and what about the others? Have you contacted them?"
"Not yet" he replied "but we had better call them, maybe they will have some idea of what is going on down there."

Dayna hurried round the console and sat behind the teleport controls. Leaning forward she hit the communications button and called
"Tarrant, Cally, can you hear me".
Vila opened his mouth to tell her that no one could hear, but he didn’t get the chance, something had apparently changed;
"Yes" came Tarrant's voice " more problems?
"Liberator repairs are progressing well but Avon has just called in Tarrant. He has told us to leave, to get away as quickly as we can."
"What!" Tarrant exclaimed.
"Dayna," Cally's voice came across the communications link " what exactly did he say?"
Vila answered for her.
"Just that we were to leave. Now, to go and to keep going,"
the urgency in Avon’s voice came back to him and he shivered.
Cally's voice continued calmly
"Can you put up the forcewall and clear the neutron blasters for firing?”
“Maybe but I’m not sure, Avon said maximum speed but we can’t manage that yet” Dayna replied.
“ Then wait for a while. Look out for other ships, we will try and locate Avon."
"Right!"

Vila leaned across to cut the link but even as he closed the communication channel the teleport locator began to move, fixing on Cally and Tarrant's position. Then the unmistakable whisper of the teleport field began. Dayna rounded on Vila in speechless anger.
"It isn't me Dayna," he protested "I'm not doing anything, honest".
She came to stand by him and watched helplessly as the switches moved and the relays blinked.
"It can't do that!" she exclaimed.
With a sinking feeling Vila remembered that it could, under certain circumstances.
"Well it looks like it is," was all he said.

Pushing Vila aside Dayna tried to cancel the recall, but the automatics refused to surrender to manual operation. She and Vila fixed their eyes on the platform as the field grew.
Tarrant and Cally materialised their bracelets raised.
"What the hell!" Tarrant exploded
"Put us back Vila." Cally cried her voice harsh in anger and anxiety " Now!"
"We can't" Dayna shouted hammering helplessly at the console, " The controls aren’t responding"
Tarrant and Cally strode across to the control console and the four of them watched in amazement as the teleport locator continued to move. Cally looked at Vila who just stared silently back. They had seen this happen before and, with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, Cally realised that the computers had initiated a random sweep of the area around Avon's last known co-ordinates.
"It has begun a random pickup search pattern" she said, "We had better be ready for anything".
With that she turned away from the console and drew her weapon levelling it at the teleport station.

Tarrant and Dayna stared at her wordlessly for a long moment, then Tarrant drew his own weapon and moved to stand beside her. Tension crackled in the air as they waited. The same thoughts chasing through their heads, what was coming next? Servalan? Increasingly it looked like Servalan was involved, but how? Why would Avon risk throwing himself, them, into her path unnecessarily? They waited with muscles tense and trigger fingers taut. With every heartbeat they expected to see black clad troopers appear. But as the search continued no one else materialised. Finally the sound of the teleport field died away.

They looked at each other in silence as the systems completed the sweep and shut down. The levelled guns dropped as the silence lengthened, then Dayna turned to the console and tried to regain manual control. Desperately Vila tried to open a link to Avon but all he got was the same echoing silence. Finally he slumped over the console and stared at the unresponsive teleport in disbelief. Nothing would respond, whatever they did the systems stayed locked on automatic, they no longer had any control over the teleport.
"What do we do now?" Dayna’s voice was tight and anxious.
"Talk to Zen, or Orac," Tarrant replied grimly and turned towards the flight deck. Cally followed him.

Tarrant had barely made it into the corridor when he felt a change in the ship, turning quickly he caught Cally's horrified look and knew that she had felt it too. Liberator was turning, and that could only mean that they were breaking orbit. Cally reached for the intercom in desperation,
"Zen maintain orbit!" she instructed.
There was no reply. Dayna following closely behind with Vila turned to Tarrant
"What is going on?" she demanded.
Tarrant just shook his head then he turned and ran for the flight deck. The others followed.

Never before had they been so aware of just how big Liberator was, the corridors that separated the teleport from the flight deck stretched like an endless maze before them. Knowing the key to it didn’t seem to make the route to the centre any faster. Urgency added speed to them all, even Vila, and their footsteps rang a ragged up-tempo and staccato beat on the echoing floors as they charged across one intersection after another, round this corner and that. All the time they could feel the shift in the floor beneath their feet as the ship turned away from orbit.

By the time they made the flight deck Tarrant could also feel the slight rising vibration of the drive units that signalled Zen’s preparation for an increase in speed. As the others tumbled in behind him he slid to his position calling for Zen to change course, to regain Terminal orbit, but the computer remained silent. A single glance told him that an automatic course was set taking them away from Terminal at a speed of Standard by three, fast enough to put a significant distance between them and Avon very quickly. There was very little time left to change it, the ship was already more than fifty degrees through a lateral turn, it would soon be completed and then they would accelerate. Cursing he tried to override the automatic course setting, to take back manual control but nothing responded.

Tarrant raised his eyes to Zen's display
"Zen, give me manual control", he demanded again his voice harsh with a mix of anger and fear that even he couldn’t have explained.
This time the computer responded.
MANUAL CONTROL IS CURRENTLY UNAVAILABLE,
the expressionless voice echoed across the flight deck.
"What!" he exclaimed.
"Tarrant" came Vila's voice from behind him, " we're leaving Terminal".
All eyes turned to the viewing screen. As the turn was completed Liberator broke free of orbit and headed out past the artificial world and towards the darkness of inter system space. The engines smoothly increased power and the force of the acceleration was enough to reduce the image of Terminal to a small and rapidly diminishing dot, as they watched helplessly it vanished completely to be replaced by star filled void.

Dayna turned to the computer in frustration,
"Zen change course back to Terminal!"
Zen was silent. Tarrant gave up trying to regain control and turned to face the silent computer.
"Zen what is going on? Where are we going?"
Still there was no answer.
"Zen answer me, state our course and speed" he insisted.
Still nothing.
“Zen respond!” Cally demanded.
EMERGENCY PROTOCOL HAS BEEN IMPLEMENTED, Zen answered
"Emergency protocol" Dayna exclaimed staring at Tarrant " what emergency protocol?" She turned to face the computer again " Zen, what protocol, explain!"
PROTOCOL IS CODED, NO FURTHER INFORMATION CAN BE PROVIDED AT THIS TIME
Zen at least sounded calm.
“Zen, what is happening?”
That was Vila. Cally and Dayna stared at him both recognising the understanding and resignation in his voice.
NO FURTHER INFORMATION WILL BE AVAILABLE UNTIL STAGE ONE OF THE PROTOCOL IS COMPLETED. MAXIMUM SPEED CANNOT BE ACHIEVED WITHOUT SERIOUS DAMAGE TO LIBERATOR. THEREFORE SPEED WILL BE RESTRICTED TO STANDARD BY THREE WHILE REPAIRS ARE COMPLETED

Vila collapsed onto the forward couch.
"That sounds like an Avon special, he's done a deal with Zen. I bet Orac is in on it too!" there was both resignation and sadness in his voice.
"But why?" Dayna exclaimed, "he didn’t know this was going to happen." She looked at the others, “Well did he?”
Vila looked at her balefully,
"I don’t know and I have feeling I might not like it when I do, if I ever do."
"Explain yourself Vila!"
T hat was Tarrant at his most peremptory.
Vila sighed and turned away.
"He fixed it, Avon fixed it," he raised his eyes to Cally's and spoke to her as if the other two weren't there,
"He wasn't taking any chances was he? We were going to do what he told us to whether we wanted to or not. Just like Blake."
Cally simply shook her head and went and sat beside him.

He leant back and looked at Zen,
"And you conspired with him didn’t you? Not that I expect he gave you much chance to argue either."
Dayna sank down beside Vila and Cally
"What do you think is going to happen now?" she asked
"Avon told us before he left, we are going to Kaliferon” Vila replied. Mentioned a message didn’t he? Maybe that will tell us more".
He remembered another time and another message with a sigh and looked back at the computer.
"Zen, did Avon leave a message for us"
THERE IS A MESSAGE, IT WILL BE AVAILABLE IN FOUR HOURS TIME
"Four hours" Tarrant exploded " I want some answers before that."
Zen did not reply.

Vila sighed.
"Wonderful, now all we need to do is find Orac's key?"

***