Blake swore as Vila completed relaying Grant’s message.
“Alright, identify somewhere close to hand where he can confine them and then have Orac make sure they stay there.”
He sighed as Vila signed off, would that give Grant time to make it to the sub control in time to meet Avon? Maybe not. He got no further than that as the communicator called his name again,
“Yes,” he snapped.
Till’s voice drifted to him, backed by the sound of the rising wind,
“There’s someone here who wants to see you, Blake. He says he’s an old friend.”
Blake’s eyebrows rose in surprise,
“Do you believe him?” he asked.
Something close to a chuckle came across the link,
“Well he and his companion certainly made things easier for us, so maybe he is. He was in that flyer we mentioned.”
Blake frowned, who the hell could it be?
“Does this friend have a name,” he said.
“According to him he’s got a several of them. The most recent one is Deva.”

“Deva!”
Blake stared at the comms link, how the hell had Deva got here?
“I certainly know a Deva but has he got any proof that he’s the one.”
The link fell silent as Till relayed Blake’s words. The he was back again repeating the other man’s response and obviously totally confused by the words,
“He says to tell you that Klyn sends her regards, but wants to know why you didn’t take time to say goodbye; that Servalan took Foster’s body and that Carrill wants to know if there is anything worth trading on Gauda Prime. It’s closer than sector nine she says. That make any sense to you?”
Blake smiled grimly at the link,
“Enough to risk bringing him in.” Then he realised exactly what Till had said, “Hold on a moment, who is this companion you mentioned, Klyn?”
There was the sound of the wind again, then Till spoke,
“No, he says to tell you that Soolin lost Avon but found him, and that she wants to come in from the cold.”
Blake felt a surge of something like relief,
“Bring them in Till, no weapons, but bring them in. I’ll meet you at the silo.”
As the sound of the wind was cut off Blake found himself suddenly and ridiculously hopeful, maybe this Soolin could persuade Avon to trust them.

***

Avon had made the computer sub control room without being obviously spotted, but he was aware that there were detectors on the base that might well have picked his signal out as an intruder; all he could hope was that no one was looking. If they had spotted him then surely he would have been approached by now? The alarms had ceased without any further sound of disturbance so presumably the attack was over, with luck people had other things to think about than counting personnel identifiers. He remembered Soolin’s theory that Blake had taken this base and smiled grimly to himself, one possibility discounted, Blake would never have been this patient.

But his failure to gain access to the computer made him think. The system behaved as if it was being by passed in some way, he could get through the top security levels but once he reached the main data systems it was as if everything was being streamed into a black hole. He had stripped off the front panels, with the intention of bypassing the interfaces and going straight to the central core, only to discover that the system was built without tarriel cell. That really was food for thought, all Federation technology had been tarriel based for more than thirty years, there had been no indication that that was about to change. Nor did other aspects of it conform to any Federation computer architecture he was aware of, and he knew them all, or even any outer worlds variant.

Very odd.

Avon sat back on his heels and stared at the circuitry, without tools he would have to work blind and though he had no doubt he could work it out he did doubt that he had the time. There was also the risk of triggering some form of warning, that was much higher if he were relying on intuition and guess work. He sighed, not much point in risking that.

Slamming his hand against the console in disgust he wondered where to go next. If he couldn’t get access here he was unlikely to do so in the main control room, even if he could get there undetected, so he would have to look for his answers somewhere other than the computers and in a more oblique fashion. That meant going back to the one place on this base he remembered, one place he didn’t want to go to, the tracking gallery.

For a moment he sat with his eyes closed, trying to visualise what he remembered of his journey there, and what he had seen of this base on the night they had escaped. The tracking gallery was probably on the same corridor as the main control room, and that was one place he hadn’t been on the night of the escape. Using that knowledge he could probably find his way there. Alternatively he could make his way back to the silo and try and leave the base, find his way back to Soolin and the flyer and look for somewhere to hide until it was safe to head for the port.

But he knew he wouldn’t do it. He couldn’t live with the uncertainty, the constant and unfamiliar wondering about who he was. No, he had come this far he wouldn’t leave without his answers; answers, or an ending, whichever seemed the most attractive when he met them.

Avon scrambled to his feet and stood for a moment staring at the open console and wondering which he would prefer; then he squared his shoulders, straightened his jacket and headed for the door.

***

Deva was much as Blake had last seen him, the woman on the other hand was obviously exhausted. Once the silo doors closed she turned to face Blake with weary red rimmed eyes, her shoulders drooped and her movements were slow but she retained an air of distant defiance that reminded him of Avon. He remembered what Jocasta and Carnell had told him of her, that her personality was similar to Avon’s, well if that was the case she would not take kindly to being ignored or patronised. He needed her help, and her goodwill, so he turned to her and inclined his head in her direction, smiling slightly and striving for the right tone of voice,
“That was some nice shooting out there. Avon was lucky, you obviously know how to use a gun.”
She met his eyes without hesitation,
“If I didn’t before I do now.” The words were crisp and challenging without a hint of self pity, only the twist of her mouth betrayed the fact that she wasn’t entirely comfortable with that fact.
Blake stared at her for a moment, taking in the tangled yellow hair, the pale strained face, the fragile look that suggested sudden weight loss; obviously her recent life had been hard. Though she might not want his sympathy she looked as if she could do with his understanding. So he just nodded in acceptance and let her sip the hot drink she had so willingly accepted.

Tarrant and Cally entered the silo as Blake exchanged smiling greetings with Deva,
“Blake we are running out of time,” Cally spoke into his mind. “We need to reach Avon before he realises he isn’t going to get access to that computer. Orac is holding him off but it has no tarriel cell so he cannot guarantee that Avon will not be able to bypass the precautions. Orac has already admitted to being surprised by how devious Avon is being in his attempts!”
“Yes, I know.” Blake replied ignoring Deva’s look of surprise. He turned to Soolin,
“Avon is in the computer sub control room, we are trying to prevent him from getting access to the computer, what will happen if he does get access? Do you know?”
She shook her head slightly,
“No, I don’t know, not any longer. He’s not the man I knew any longer and I don’t know a lot about the man he’s turning out to be, they didn’t tell me.”
Her eyes dropped to her cup,
“It seems that there was rather a lot of things they didn’t tell me.”
Blake looked at her for a moment before speaking deciding whether he believed that or not, on balance he thought that he probably did.
“And if he fails to get access, have you any idea what he will do then?”
This time she shrugged as she looked up at him,
“Not really, but I think he might decide to try and find the tracking gallery.”

“Why would he do that?” Cally asked,
Soolin looked at her with sudden interest,
“You are the Auron aren’t you, the one they killed.” The words seem to come out before she was aware of them.
Cally winced slightly at the term but then nodded, “yes I am Cally.”
Soolingave her a hard and narrow eyed look,
“He missed you.”
She sounded faintly resentful, even accusing, and both Blake and Tarrant stared at her in astonishment,
“Your death hurt him….somehow,” she went on. She looked down into her cup, “it’s one of the things I regret.”
Cally nodded in apparent acceptance of her feelings,
“Then help us make contact with him. It’s the only thing you can do to help him now, you know that.”
“Yes,” the word was grudging.
Cally moved closer to Soolin, as if inviting her to confide,
“So why will he go to the tracking gallery, what does he expect to find there?”
Soolin was quiet for a moment then she shrugged again,
“Answers maybe, or possibilities.”

“To what?” Blake demanded.
Soolin sighed and took another swallow of her drink, as if buying time to think,
“He isn’t sure what he believes any longer. Part of him thinks that it happened as he thinks he remembers it, part of him thinks it’s all a lie. But he wants it to be a lie so he won’t really accept that it is. I think that he knows that his memory has been tampered with but he isn’t sure how or when, he suspects that the confrontation in the tracking gallery didn’t happen as he thinks it did but he still isn’t sure how it was different, or even if it happened at all. On one level he knows that if his memory has been tampered with at all then one or all of you may still be alive, but at the same time he has difficulty accepting that you are not dead.”
“So he will go to the tracking gallery looking for certainties?” Cally prompted again.
Soolin shook her head,
“No, he will know that there aren’t any there, but he will be looking for clues for where the answers lie, which of the options he knows are available is the more likely.”

Blake thought about that for a moment, remembering his own painful awakening from illusion, the difficulties in accepting what he assumed was reality was no such thing,
“He’ll look for some sign of what he can accept as real and what he can’t. Things that are not quite what he remembers or things that he remembers too well to be likely.” It was a statement not a question.
Soolin nodded in weary agreement,
“Yes.”
“Such as?” Tarrant said.
“That depends on the person involved,” Soolin replied. “From what I know of Avon it will be a lot of things some that wouldn’t occur to most people.”
She saw Tarrant’s raised brows and sighed,
“He habitually collects information about the world around him, notices things, details, and analyses them. Avon navigates the world by his own analysis of events not by what people tell him. So he’ll look to see whether things are where they should be given what he remembers, but also how they look from different angles, if spaces are too large or too small, if the equipment is racked the same way, if the alarms sound the same as they did, if the shadows are cast at the same angles by the displays.”

“Things that people creating an illusory world might have got wrong, or treated inconsistently.” Deva joined the conversation. “ Particularly if they are not used to being in high stress or life or death situations. Make’s sense to me.”
Cally looked at him with approval and nodded.
“Agreed,” she said. Then she turned back to Soolin, “and if he sees us. What will he do then?”
Soolin shook her head,
“I don’t know. If he sees you he might well believe you are a fake. If he sees Blake or Tarrant then he might believe that it was all a dream, or he might believe that Blake has indeed betrayed him. Either way it’s probably better that you find him before he finds you.”
“And if he sees you?” Blake asked.
She smiled sadly.
“I don’t know. I’m still alive so I think he trusts me, but he went to some effort to leave me behind when he headed here. He isn’t sure whether I am Soolin and my memory has been altered too, or if I’m not and I was forced to collude with Servalan, or even whether I was a willing accomplice.”

Tarrant turned his most brilliant smile on her,
“If he thought the latter you’d be dead.”
“Probably.” She agreed.
Whatever else she was about to say was drowned out as the base alarms sprang back into life.
Blake stabbed the communicator,
“Grant what the hell is going on?”
“Someone, just triggered the main alarm systems in the tracking gallery. Blake I think it was Avon! But I can’t be sure the security systems are out.”
Blake swore and turned to Cally,
“Well we’ve no choice now. We have to face him.”
Eyes wide with worry she nodded,
“Agreed.” She turned to Soolin again, “Is he armed?”
Soolin’s brows rose,
“What do you think?” catching Blake’s thunderous look she shrugged as casually as she could manage, “Well he armed was when he left me. Two weapons at least, he might have collected more since then.”

Cally looked at Blake with concern,
“We have no choice Blake, we don’t know what Avon will think, but we can’t risk him opening fire on the others.”
“Companions for his death Cally?” Blake asked quietly.
“Yes. Unless we find him first and make him understand.” She replied.
Blake nodded and looked from her to Tarrant and back again.
“We have to do it, we can’t risk anyone else.”
“I agree.” Cally said simply.
Tarrant stared at her for a moment then nodded silently.
“Warn everyone to stay away from the tracking gallery and the command corridor.” Blake threw the command over his shoulder to Till as he strode from the room.

Deva and Till stared in confused concern as the others also turned and left.