Illusions and Realities

Part 3 - Outcomes

Chapter 29

The woman who called herself Jocasta sat calmly and watched him as he seated himself on the opposite side of the table. It had been a long and cold walk back with the snow thickening all the time and the wind flexing its winter muscles. Blake felt as if every sinew had been scraped, but though the woman opposite had kept up with him easily in the struggle through the weather she showed no sign of fatigue. He felt a vague sense of resentment about that as he returned her direct gaze. A faint smile fleetingly curled the corners of her mouth, as if she saw his thoughts; but she said nothing, just waited patiently for whatever was to come.

She had been sitting here for some time and yet that patience seemed untouched. Maybe she had used the intervening period to get some sleep Blake thought enviously. He had spent the time in viewing more of the matrix, an activity that had not improved his temper but which had given him much food for thought. Now, tired though he was, he needed answers more than he needed sleep.

Behind him he heard the door open and close, and on the edge of his vision he saw Cally and Grant position themselves against the wall. The woman opposite looked at each of them in open appraisal, then, without a word, she turned her eyes back to him and waited.

Blake continued to look at her for a long moment, saying nothing, trying to decide how best to approach her. At first he had taken her stillness for anxiety but that faint smile banished the notion; now as he as he searched that calm, expressionless, face he realised that it was simply habitual. Like Carnell she gave nothing away, but only now as he sat with her did he realise just how much anxiety Carnell had projected despite the controlled expression. Jocasta really did give nothing away, and he realised that he was facing the ultimate professional. That knowledge seemed to drive his fatigue away, sharpening his mind in a very unexpected way.

There was, after all, nothing threatening about her that he could detect. No sense of malice or steel, no hint of danger; just this strange, controlled, calm. She was a beautiful woman but in a remote, statue like way, with long, red-gold hair wrapped around her head, a pale delicate skin and an ageless face. For some reason he was reminded of Cally. Despite the stress of current events she projected an air of contentment that seemed like serenity.

Those blue-green eyes, however, gave lie to her Madonna like appearance, because just one look told him that behind them lay the power of a large and active intelligence. They held a look that seemed to have seen to the ends of the universe and beyond and that was still questing; a look that mirrored a restless, curious, and very powerful mind. For a moment he wondered what she and Carnell had made of each other, somehow he felt that this woman would have been more than a match for that artic-eyed man.
“I have been watching your matrix. At least some of it.”
He made the opening gambit in a quiet unthreatening voice. She said nothing, only a small tightening of the muscles around her mouth betraying any reaction at all. Blake was suddenly sure she was suppressing a smile. The idea both annoyed and intrigued him.

He tried to mirror her unemotional demeanour and kept his voice as disinterested as possible in the circumstances.
“A great deal of effort has gone in to it, I can see that, but there are aspects that puzzle me; perhaps you can explain them?”
She shifted in her seat slightly, tilting her head back a little as if to get a better view of him.
“Indeed, what is it that puzzles you?”
H er voice matched her face, calm and reflective with no hint of anxiety or concern. There was a strange resonance in it that intrigued him for no reason he could explain. He put the realisation to one side for later consideration and returned to the matter in hand, the strange events of the matrix.

For a moment he paused, marshalling his words carefully,
“They are so variable. Some, a few, are quite rational and intelligent, I have some feeling for what they are trying to do and how they might work. Others, well they seem to have been painted by quite a different hand. They lack… logic.”
“Only logic?”
This time she didn’t suppress the smile, but let it drift up across her face to warm those far seeing eyes. The look struck a chord with something deep inside him and he struggled with the sudden desire to make her smile again. He recognised the feeling and pushed it away realising, perhaps for the first time, just how dangerous this woman was.

With an effort Blake pulled his mind back to the matter in hand, concentrating on her words not the voice; they jolted him somewhat by the unexpectedness of them and he tried to hide his surprise. Even so some of it seeped into his voice.
“You think they lack something else?”
She watched him calmly,
“ For the most part they are absurd, childish, as you are quite well aware. Very revealing of the people who constructed them of course, and the one who caused them to be constructed, but unlikely and implausible.”
After a moments pause she dropped her voice a little and added almost conspiratorially,
“They also lack insight into the man, but it would be unkind to tell Carnell that I said it. Though even he must suspect it by now.”

She said nothing more, just sat looking at him with an air of expectancy. Blake struggled to keep the confusion from his face and voice;
“Then why? If you put so much effort into them, planned so carefully, invested so much in the whole venture, why? Why these irrational, implausible absurdities. Why permit their inclusion? Why not rewrite them. Avon is not a fool, he might believe in their reality while he was in them, while you were drugging him and providing other reinforcements, but once he was free of that he would begin to wonder. Surely you knew that?”
She continued to smile silently, tilting her head to the one side and her brows rising as if in query. Blake was suddenly certain he knew the answer, and it was not what he had been expecting at all. He looked at her in stupefaction for a moment before exclaiming,
“That’s what you wanted, what you planned! “ His eyes narrowed as the events he had seen revolved again in his head, he spoke more slowly, “That was their purpose.”

Her smile widened,
“Of course.” She shrugged slightly “It is true that Carnell allowed his somewhat melodramatic sense of the theatrical to overcome his judgement more often than he would believe. But then that is one of his most recurring failings. And I admit that Chalco indulged his sense of humour in some instances, possibly more than was wise. But it is as you surmise. Avon was never intended to believe in them for long. Though Servalan thought otherwise of course, but then why shouldn’t she? It was what she wanted to hear, and they chimed with her beliefs about the world, her needs even, so on the surface they seemed to do what we told her they would.”

“Is Servalan so gullible then?” Cally spoke for the first time. Her voice matched the other woman’s, calm and tinged only with curiosity.
Jocasta shifted slightly to include Cally and Grant in her smile,
“The powerful are no less gullible than any one else, some times more so if what they are being told offers them the hope of yet more power.” The smile brightened as if in amusement at their uncertain expressions and her voice underwent a subtle change,
“It’s called face validity and you would be surprised just how easy it is to fool most people if you can maintain that. If a thing or event looks as if it obviously does something particular on the surface then, for most people, that is what it does.”
“In what way?” Cally again.
Jocasta cast her a quick considering look,
“It may be different for Auron’s, I admit, as Carnell will have told you we don’t know that much about them. But for humans it works like this. Two people who are not well acquainted meet and ask each other about their health and current fortune, now to the uninitiated it appears that their exchange is a genuine request for, and provision of, information; but those who actually understand what is happening know that it is no such thing, it is merely a ritualised exchange where no information is sought or passed. But it is easy to persuade the outsider that it is what they see, because it looks so obviously the case.” She sat back again, “Propaganda makes heavy use of face validity, it helps to make things seem simple when they are not, and honest when they dishonest.”

Jocasta concentrated on Blake again,
“What we constructed was so obviously what we told Servalan that it was that she believed it. Avon looked as if he was becoming what she wanted him to be so she never looked below the surface.What doubts she might have had were strangled by her desire for it to be so, and her certainty that we would not dare to cross her.”
“But you didn’t want him to believe it?” Blake prompted.
She paused for a moment as if thinking about her response for the first time,
“No, we didn’t think it would suit our purposes. Nor did we find her objectives palatable; they went against our own creed. We meant Avon no harm, but in the short term we had no choice but to harm him. It was necessary to seem to comply with Servalan’s wishes, but that didn’t mean that we had actually to comply.” She smiled at him, “face validity can be very useful if you know how to use it.”

“And those illogical, childish absurdities?” Blake asked.
“They provided Avon with his way through Servalan’s machinations, while protecting both him and us, in the short term at least. We had studied all the information on him that was available, we had watched his interaction with Servalan at Terminal, we had even managed to speak to someone who had worked with him in the days before the theft, but even so we had too little information about him to make events as sophisticated or subtle as we would have liked; and I admit that far too many were crude. He may suffer for that. But they will serve their purpose. He has an unusual intelligence, powerful and wide ranging, we are sure about that. He is also curious, logical, and yet in some ways very intuitive. We knew that much about him, and we understand people like that very well indeed. So I am also sure that he has a driving need to know, to understand.”

She was quiet for a moment her eyes turned down to the table as if assessing her knowledge of the missing man yet again. When she looked up there was a slight frown between her brows,
“Given what we know of him I believe he will not quit the area, certainly not the planet, until he has resolved those difficulties. It may be hard and painful working his way through his memories but he will still need to know. At least to understand his own actions, and I think that he is uncommon in that he doesn’t spare himself in that quest. In some ways, many ways, he is stronger than most people one meets because he has few illusions, even about himself, and he survives that state. He will survive this once he realises what has happened. We gave him plenty to think about, to wonder about. Even in the important incidents, those he must believe in, there are….. inconsistencies that will cause him to re-examine events. Not immediately but over time.”
She looked back down at the table smoothing her brow as she did so, her face taking on a mask as expressionless as any Blake had ever seen.
“ One side effect of the procedures will be dreams, vivid dreams.” Her voice was low and calm and after a second she looked back at up at Blake, “While he still has those I think he will be unable to leave or to put what he thinks has happened behind him.”

Grant edged forward.
“But why did you want him to? Wasn’t the whole point of this to give him no choice but to co-operate with Servalan?” his confusion was clearly written in his face.
Her smile dimmed a little,
“That depends on your perspective; do you think it is in our interests for Servalan to get access to those things that she expected of him?”
“Then why help her in the first place” he couldn’t hide his disbelief at this turn of events.
She met his eyes blandly,
“A small matter of logistics, we didn’t have a great deal of choice”

“We being Carnell’s mystery employers I presume” Blake took up the questioning again.
Her expression resumed its distant calm.
“You may presume whatever you like in the circumstances.”
Blake stared at her in doubt, uncertain what she was telling him but sure that it was important. She met his eyes unflinchingly but he could read no answers there.
“So you don’t want Avon to give her Liberator technology. Do you want it for yourself? If so why not just try and take the ship?”
Her expression became even more distant,
“Oh no, we don’t want it, but we would much rather that the Federation didn’t have it, certainly not now.”
“What is so important that they don’t have it now”
She looked at him tolerantly but with a shade of disbelief.
“The Federation as it was has gone, but enough of its’ rump remains for it still to be dangerous in certain circumstances. However even that remainder is faltering. Soon it will find it difficult to hold even what it still possesses and it will slowly decay, contracting back completely to the system immediately around Sol. Then internal elements will start the process of redevelopment even there. The process will be gradual but unstoppable if Servalan doesn’t get the technological advantage she craves. Provided that she can be prevented from getting that the Federation will go the way of all such empires in time. A relatively short time. That seems to be in everyone’s interests wouldn’t you agree?”

Blake sat back in his chair and watched her closely, she showed no sign of unease but returned his gaze levelly. He felt a sudden desire to unsettle her, though, for reasons he couldn’t explain, he felt less of the physical anger he had experienced when talking to Carnell. He considered his words carefully,
“So what was it you wanted, not just Servalan’s credits surely?”
Her face barely moved, but he had the impression that her expression closed and that she withdrew in some way from him.
“Why should we not work for payment? I told you we had little choice in the matter.”
Blake smiled gently and rubbed his finger down the side of his chin,
“You will excuse me if I don’t believe you”
She retreated further,
“Your belief or otherwise does not change the situation.”
Blake’s smile widened but he let the remark lie unchallenged.

He rose to his feet and moved towards the door, as he drew level with Cally and Grant he spoke again without turning,
“Did you arrange for him to escape from the base?”
For a heartbeat or two he didn’t think she would reply and he was preparing to turn and face her when the response came,
“We both enabled and augmented his own efforts.”
“And I suppose you wouldn’t like to tell me how or why?”
She didn’t answer, but then he hadn’t expected her to do so.

***

They had returned to ship together, she Blake and Grant, leaving Jocasta in her quarters and under guard. They had said little about what they had just heard, each of them needing time to think. Vila had returned earlier and had brought them up. Blake had crossed to him and put a hand briefly on his shoulder before disappearing in the direction of his quarters. Cally had watched them all with concern, they were more affected by what they had seen than she had expected. Maybe she didn’t know them as well as she had assumed.

But there had been no time for thinking about that, she had shown Grant back to his cabin then gone to consult with Dayna who was functioning as their interface with Kearne’s people. It was from Dayna that she learnt that Illyan still hadn’t returned, and that Kearne thought they had seen the woman Soolin, still free in the plantations, but not Avon. More food for thought.

She stood at Dayna’s shoulder and watched the planet below them, a dark hostile looking place even at this distance. Zen was still scanning for Avon but there had been no sign of him. Plenty of other people moving around but none of the signals matched Avon’s profile. Cally was still sure that he was alive, but she was feeling the first stirring of doubts at her own certainty.

Kearne had left Till to continue the search and was currently seated on Dayna’s right, he was drinking one of Vila’s less dangerous concoctions and watching the viewer with slightly narrowed eyes. Cally was suddenly reminded of Gan, Kearne was a big man too and he also had the same quality of appearing completely at ease with himself and his surroundings.

Tarrant was at the pilot’s position, and after an initial greeting kept his attention on the displays. There was no sign of Jenna.

“Is it that bad Cally?” Dayna’s voice cut through her thoughts.
“What?”
“The matrix. I saw a bit of it, the end.” Her voice seemed to falter for a second and she looked away. Then she smiled a half smile and looked back up at Cally, “Is the rest the same?”
Cally nodded wordlessly.
“Well it seems to have affected Vila more than I would have expected. He has barely said a word since he came back, and when I offered his a drink he glared at me.”
“Yes, I think it has disturbed him more than he expected.”
“Well its not nice seeing yourself die, even if it’s not you.”
“No, but maybe its worse seeing yourself wishing you were dead.”

Dayna looked surprised,
“Vila? Wishing he were dead, is that what he saw?” There was a hint of concern, as well as disbelief, in her voice.
“I think so.” Cally’s eyes didn’t leave the image of the planet.
Dayna gave a strained laugh,
“I can’t imagine that.”
“No I don’t expect that you can.” There was no expression in Cally’s voice.
Dayna shot her a sharp glance,
“What could make Vila feel like that? I mean he was sad when he left Kerrill behind but I don’t think he wished he were dead. Vila is an optimist.”
“Is he? I’m not so sure.” Cally was still speaking with that strangely blank voice and her eyes hadn’t left the viewer.
“So what did he see, in the matrix?”
“A view of himself that he didn’t like. One that he is afraid might still turn out to be true.”
“Why?” Dayna sounded confused.

“Not many people grow up the way you did Dayna, certainly not in the Federation.”
Kearne chipped in. He looked at her almost indulgently,
“Your father was a basically good man and he loved you. Whatever else he did, he gave you a sense of your own value. Not everyone is given that, or finds it for themselves, and then they have to find their worth in other people’s eyes. That means they are vulnerable to other people’s assessments of them, amongst other things.”
He shifted in his seat, and his eyes drifted back to the screen,
“Federation families are more often dysfunctional than not. The authorities prefer it that way, it makes people easier to control.”

Dayna opened her mouth to demand to know what he meant, but closed it again as footsteps sounded in the corridor. Jenna appeared.
“Where’s Blake?” she asked.
“Gone to his cabin.” Cally told her. “He wanted to meet everyone here in half an hour’s time. He should be here soon.”
“Hopefully Till and the search squads will have completed the sweep of the area where we think Avon may be soon.” Kearne put in.

“We may even have found out where Illyan has gone by then.” Tarrant put in.
“Still no sign of him?” Jenna asked.
“No,” Tarrant sounded smug, “looks like he’s jumped ship.”
“But why?” Jenna demanded.
Tarrant shrugged,
“I don’t know. Maybe he was in on whatever Lille was up to.” The smug note disappeared. It still rankled that that Lille had proved to be so untrustworthy; and the fact that she had, so obviously, played him for a fool cut much deeper.
“I don’t think so.” Cally put in.
“Then where is he?” Jenna demanded again.
Cally turned as if to reply but was silenced by the clump of boots in the corridor. Blake and Grant arrived, and Illyan was forgotten for the moment.