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PART THREE of New Identities, by Ian Armstrong

PART THREE



Tarrant, Cally, Dayna, and Vila had convened in a restroom near the underground base’s main control room. Vila had wasted no time in checking the cabinets for alcohol, but in vain.
“Pity,” he sighed ruefully, “If ever there was a time for a stiff drink, this is it.”
“For once, Vila, I’m inclined to agree with you,” observed Tarrant, “However, given the situation, it’s probably best we all keep clear heads.”
“Even Avon?” Vila shot back.
“His head’s anything but clear,” snapped Dayna.
“All the more reason for us to remain calm and try to think rationally,” replied Tarrant, sounding so unlike himself that Vila almost did a double take.
“Remain calm… think rationally,” echoed Vila, in a mocking tone, “I like this new Tarrant. Whatever happened to barging in headfirst, gun drawn, eyes closed?”
“Tarrant’s right, Vila,” said Cally, her voice as soothing and gentle as always, “And so is Dayna, unfortunately. We can’t rely on Avon, not until we see how he takes all this. And so, we must rely on ourselves. We must support each other, help one another, work as a team, if we want to survive.”

“Well said, Cally. But every team needs a leader. And I nominate myself,” said Tarrant, in a suitably commanding voice.
“Probably just as well you did,” remarked Vila, “No votes at all would have been embarrassing.”
“As it happens,” interjected Cally, before Tarrant could reply to Vila’s quip, “I also think it might be best to allocate the responsibility of arbitration and final decisions to just one of us. If Tarrant wants to shoulder that responsibility, so be it.”
“And it’s fine by me,” said Dayna impatiently, “If it means we can get on with doing something, instead of standing around here talking.”
No-one had noticed a shadow of doubt flicker across Tarrant’s face, on hearing Cally’s take on leadership. But now he looked confident and ready to take charge,
“What’s it to be, then, Vila? Me or you?” he asked.
Dayna laughed drily. “I’ll assume that question was rhetorical,” she snorted.
“Assume what you like,” replied Vila feebly. “Fine, Tarrant, you’re in charge. Just don’t lead us all to disaster. We’ve had enough of that for one day.”
“More than enough,” agreed Tarrant, “Alright, I’m only going to suggest the obvious anyway – that we get out there and find this ship that Servalan talked about.”
“I doubt it even exists,” bemoaned Vila.
“Quite possibly not,” replied Tarrant. “But it would seem to be our best bet.”
“There is another option.”

All four of them whirled round at the sound of that familiar cold, harsh voice, to see Avon standing in the doorway.
“Avon!” cried Vila, with obviously fake delight, “Please don’t tell us you’ve had an idea.”
“As it happens, I have,” replied Avon calmly, ignoring Vila’s sarcasm.
Tarrant had an even more caustic remark brewing than Vila’s, but Cally replied before he could speak.
“What is it, Avon?” she asked simply, in a neutral tone, as if nothing untoward had transpired.
“I’m sorry, Cally,” interjected Tarrant, “The last thing we ought to be doing is listening to anything this fool has to say. I certainly don’t want to hear it.”
“Fine,” replied Avon diplomatically, “I’ll be in the control room, if anyone does want to talk.”
He retreated in as low-key a manner as he had entered.
“That was harsh, Tarrant,” said Cally reproachfully.
“Not harsh enough,” Dayna snapped.
“He needed to hear it, Cally,” Tarrant replied.
“And we need to hear what he has to say,” urged Cally, “It could be vital.”
“I’ve listened to Avon enough for one day,” muttered Tarrant.

He knew that Cally was right, but he was loathe to admit it, “Actually, I suggest we get some rest first, then take stock. We’re all in shock. We need to… we need to…” - tired, confused, and shaken, he ran out of words, and slammed a nearby table with his fist, in frustration. Cally placed a hand gently on his arm.
“You’re right, Tarrant. All of you get some rest. But I suggest I talk with Avon in the meantime, find out what he’s suggesting… then we can discuss it collectively.”
Tarrant sighed.
“Fine,” he replied, “But I need to lie down and sleep for a bit.”
“Sound advice,” replied Vila, “I like your leadership style.”
“Let’s check out the living quarters then,” suggested Dayna, and she headed to the exit, followed by Tarrant and Vila.
Cally watched them go, her thoughts elsewhere. Then, after a moment, she followed them out of the room.

* * *



She found Avon back in the main control room, where mere moments ago they had been held at gunpoint by Servalan and her guards. Cally had watched the image of the Liberator exploding on the monitor screen, knowing that she was viewing both Servalan’s death and, most probably, their own – for Liberator had been their home, their fortress, and their only sure means of escape from this barren but dangerous planet.
“I will miss it,” she thought to herself, and images flashed through her mind of the friends she had made and lost on board that ship – Jenna, Gan… Blake. All gone. And now the Liberator too. She knew that night was falling outside. It seemed appropriate.

Avon too appeared to be lost in thought, brooding perhaps on his plan of escape.
“The others have gone to get some rest, Avon,” she explained. “Once they’ve had some sleep, they will listen to you.”
“I’m inclined not to wait for them,” replied Avon sardonically, “However, even I have to accept that roaming the surface of this planet alone is not a good idea – and at night it would be suicidal.”
“So, you do need us, after all?” smiled Cally.
“For just now – yes,” replied Avon matter-of-factly, “And, for what it’s worth, what I said on board the Liberator I said to protect you. I knew I was probably walking into a trap.”
“But you still went.”
“I did.”
“Because it was Blake?”
“It had to be done,” said Avon cryptically.
“Don’t you think that I would have done the same, if I thought Blake was down here?”
“I knew that you would. That was my point.”

Cally smiled, sure that at last she understood. She watched him for a moment, as he avoided her gaze.
“We haven’t lost everything, Avon. We still have each other.”
“I’ll remember to point that out to Tarrant when he wakes up,” replied Avon drily.
“I wasn’t talking about Tarrant,” said Cally quietly. For the first time, Avon returned her gaze, and she saw in his eyes the quiet desperation of a man who so badly wanted to survive, and who so desperately feared he would not. A man too afraid to acknowledge love.
“I know,” replied Avon, simply.
“I’m going to get some sleep,” Cally smiled, “I suggest you do the same.”
She squeezed his arm gently with one hand, then turned and left the room.
Avon watched her go, knowing that she was right – he desperately needed sleep.

He turned to face the transparent box of flickering lights beside him. “Orac,” he intoned.
“What is it now?” asked Orac fussily, “I am busy with the task you assigned me.”
Avon smiled slightly and replied wearily, “Nothing. Continue searching.”
“I will do so,” said Orac tetchily, “Without, I pray, any further unnecessary interruptions.”
“Thank you, Orac,” said Avon politely. He stretched, rubbed his eyes, and then exited the control room.

* * *



Six hours later, they had all reconvened in the rest room – all except Vila, who was dreaming that the Liberator had crash-landed on a planet populated only by women.
Tarrant and Dayna stood on one side of the room, looking tense and hostile, while Avon leaned against the wall on the other side of the room, looking relatively – and infuriatingly – indifferent. Cally, by necessity, occupied the middle-ground. She was by no means unsympathetic to Tarrant and Dayna’s feelings about Avon. But she knew that that they stood a better chance together than separately, and that any one of them would reach the same conclusion as she had done, if they were thinking objectively.

The problem was, of course, that they were not necessarily thinking objectively at all. It was, after all, merely a few hours ago that Cally herself, along with Dayna and Vila, had witnessed Avon threatening to shoot Tarrant in cold blood if he didn’t get his way, on the flight deck of a ship that no longer existed precisely because he did get his own way. Cally knew that Tarrant was only 23 years old – still young enough to be putting his actions down to being ‘hot-headed’, if he so chose to do.
Of course, one would expect greater self-restraint and discipline from a Federation Space Captain, but Cally realised that Tarrant had struggled hard to reconcile his military training with his impetuous nature. However, even if he hadn’t been young, a desire for revenge against Avon would be understandable. She watched him closely. She could not read thoughts, but she could sense emotions. She felt his anger, but still there was no telling how this was going to play out.

“Well?” Tarrant virtually had to call across the room, there was so much space between himself and Avon.
“Well, what?” Avon replied in an innocent tone.
“Don’t play games with us, Avon,” warned Dayna, her hand straying to her gun, “We’re really not in the mood.”
Avon grinned, nodded, and stood up straight.
“Perhaps you have a point,” he conceded. It occurred to Cally that beneath his bravado, he was most likely embarrassed, ashamed, and struggling to figure out how just how to deal with the others.
“I suggested there was another way off this planet – other than the ship Servalan mentioned, that is,” Avon went on, “And I believe there is.”
“Go on,” said Tarrant curtly, intrigued and hopeful, in spite of himself.
“It’s obvious, if you think about it,” said Avon.
“Of course it is,” responded Dayna sarcastically. Avon ignored her and continued.
“Servalan appears to have been quartered here for some time. And, as we know, Terminal is in the middle of nowhere. It’s highly unlikely she was simply dropped off here. She’d need a means of getting off the planet if she failed to capture the Liberator.”
“That would be the other ship that she told us about, surely?” said
Cally.

“I doubt it,” replied Avon evasively, “In any case, I asked Orac to do a detailed underground scan of the planet, and he confirmed what Zen’s detectors suggested before I teleported down.”
“Which was…?” asked Tarrant, with forced casualness.
“That there’s a second base, about twenty miles from here.”
“And you didn’t think to mention that before?” asked Dayna.
Avon sounded mildly apologetic.
“It didn’t seem relevant. And, as you’ll recall, I asked you not to follow me down.”
“Oh, yes, I think I do recall that,” said Tarrant sarcastically. “Something about killing us if we did.”
“Quite,” acknowledged Avon, “Anyway, there it is. A second base. And according to Orac, we can reach it from here via an underground rail track. I suspect that’s where Servalan’s ship is.”
“And should we expect anyone to be guarding it?” asked Dayna, in a mocking tone.
“I imagine that not only is the ship guarded, but that the base is still fully staffed,” replied Avon.
“Who would do that?” asked Cally, in surprise, “I mean, what would be the point?”
“Back-up of some kind,” Avon theorised - mentally noting, with quiet satisfaction, that for the time being at least he appeared to have them in the palm of his hand. “The base appears to be larger than this one.
The plan was probably for Servalan to test fly the Liberator, then teleport down to the other base – let’s call it Base A to our Base B – to debrief her forces and figure out her next move. Only, of course, the ship exploded, Servalan exploded with it, and now they’re all sitting there twiddling their thumbs and trying to figure out their next move.”
“But why haven’t they sent anybody over here?” asked Tarrant.
“To be perfectly honest, I haven’t the faintest idea,” replied Avon, “Unless…” he trailed off with a dramatic pause.
“Unless what?” demanded Dayna impatiently.
“Unless they’re just waiting for us to go to them,” suggested Avon, “After all, it would seem there’s nowhere else to go.” It was not an encouraging thought.

* * *



Avon’s guesswork was both right and wrong. ‘Base A’, as he’d dubbed it – the main base - was indeed staffed. But Servalan was not dead. The reason why no action had yet been taken was that Servalan had spent the night comatose. Her rapid escape from the doomed ‘Liberator’ had been made via its teleport system – a teleport system that by rights ought not to have been working by that point.
Servalan was unaware that she owed her life to the Liberator’s flight computer Zen, which had diverted all resources to ensuring that the teleport remained functional. By another stroke of good fortune, the system’s ongoing deterioration meant that its most recently used coordinates were no longer in its memory, causing it to default to the coordinates used previously by Tarrant and Cally when they teleported down to the planet surface in pursuit of Avon. From there, it had been a relatively simple matter to contact Base A and ensure that she was rescued before any Links had a chance to eat her – though there were whispers amongst the Federation personnel on the base, following Servalan’s arrival there, that the Links had had ample opportunity to eat her and had thought better of it.
Whatever the case, the teleport had saved her life. But it had been a rough ride: Zen may have succeeded in keeping it online, but something evidently hadn’t been working properly. Servalan felt as if her insides had been scrambled, and she had taken to her rest quarters with as much dignity as her haste would allow. She had then slept intermittently, and her head throbbed. But at least she was alive.

And so, she greeted the new day with a smile – a smile, admittedly, that had as much warmth in it as the planet’s frozen and barren surface.
She had lost the Liberator, but then so had Avon and Tarrant. It was time to consider her next move.
She flicked open her intercom.
“Madam President?” said a voice at the other end.
“Tell Carnell to meet me in my office in 10 minutes,” she commanded, sounding like her old self again. As indeed she was.

* * *



Servalan was seated behind her desk, wafting an orchid under her nose, her familiar inscrutable smile etched on her face. The office was makeshift temporary quarters, but for those stationed on the base it may as well have been the Presidential Palace, such was the imposing aura of the woman who occupied it.
Only Carnell seemed unaffected. Two guards stood to attention on either side of the doorway, and their commander was positioned directly behind Carnell. But Carnell slouched easily in his chair, across the desk from Servalan, matching her smile for smile.

“You assured me, did you not, that nothing could go wrong?” Servalan teased, like a cat toying with a mouse.
“With respect, Madame President,” replied Carnell suavely, “Only a fool would assure you that nothing could go wrong. And I am not a fool.”
“Indeed?” queried Servalan sweetly, sounding unconvinced.
“Indeed,” continued Carnell, unflappable as ever, “I assured you that the chances of anything going wrong were slim, extremely slim – and that nothing was expected to go wrong. One cannot, of course, ever rule out the unpredicted: the random factor.”
“Which, in this case,” replied Servalan, “Was that I stepped on board a ship that was falling apart.”
“Something of which even Avon seemed unaware,” pointed out Carnell. He shrugged, “It was extremely bad luck – for us.”
Servalan’s eyes flickered downwards, and her smile became coy.
“No, Carnell – not for ‘us’.”

Carnell swallowed hard, his smile frozen on his face, his eyes alert. For once, he had misjudged the tone to take. He thought quickly. His plan, beat for beat, had proceeded exactly as he’d predicted it would. The technology had proven its worth on its test run, with the late and unlamented Dev Tarrant. And his plan to lure Avon to Terminal by dangling Blake’s name as bait had proven astute and correct. As had his predictions of how things would play out from there. The destruction of the Liberator had been beyond his – or anyone’s – capacity to predict. No rational mind could fail to acknowledge that.
Servalan, meanwhile, stood, walked round her desk, and was now standing behind Carnell, one hand resting lightly on his shoulder.
All too late, Carnell was forced to admit to himself that he might not dealing with a rational mind. And that the time for thinking was over.
“Because, you see, Carnell,” Servalan continued, “There is no ‘us’.
There is only me. And I have no more need of you.”
“Madame President, if I might….”
Servalan placed one finger lightly over Carnell’s lips, leaned down close to him, and whispered in his ear.
A strange look crossed Carnell’s face, somewhere between surprise and relief.
A moment later, he was dead.

Servalan withdrew the knife from his back, straightened up, walked round her desk again, and resumed her seat.
“I shall deal with Avon first,” she announced to the guard commander. “All facilities on the auxiliary base can be remotely controlled from here, is that correct?”
The guard commander nodded, still shocked by what he had witnessed, and trying to find his voice.
“Then shut it down,” ordered Servalan.
“Everything?” croaked the guard, “Even the records?“
“Everything,” interrupted Servalan, “Shut down life support, seal the exits. That base is now their final resting place. Avon came there anticipating a new life. Instead, he’s going to die there.”
The commander nodded, impressed by her ruthless lack of emotion, and grateful that her ire appeared to have expended itself on Carnell.

* * *



“I’m not getting in that!” said Vila, staring, aghast, at the rust-ridden rail car and the seemingly ancient rail on which it sat.
“Does it even work?” said Tarrant, dubiously.
“Only one way to find out,” replied Avon, “Orac should have the power on any second now.”
There followed an awkward silence, as the subterranean gloom gathered in on them. Vila was beginning to miss the upper levels. For all that they were stranded, at least they had been stranded somewhere warm and seemingly secure.
Dayna shivered.
“Get on with it, Orac!” she muttered. She wouldn’t admit it out loud, but she was feeling much the same as Vila, albeit not as scared. Dayna had no doubt about her ability to fight her way out of a corner, should they be ambushed down here.

The rail car suddenly hummed into life. Lights flickered on its control panels, and its main beams lit up the tunnel. Avon pressed a button on the driver’s door, which slid open. Tarrant stepped forward, brushing past Avon, who took a deferential step backwards.
Tarrant seated himself at the driver’s controls, casting an expert eye over them.
“Not something I’ve driven before,” he announced, “But it looks simple enough.”
“Good,” replied Avon, “Then I suggest we get moving.”
“To where?” asked Dayna, “Surely we’re not going to drive straight into that base. What if they’re waiting for us?”
“The rail car’s simply a back-up,” Avon replied, “But it’s also a back door to this base, so it needs to be watched. I suggest that Tarrant, Cally and I go above ground and try to reach the other base on foot, while Dayna and Vila stay behind, to keep an eye on things.”

Tarrant was inclined to argue but knew he couldn’t think of a better plan.
“Fine,” he said, grudgingly, “Just don’t expect me to take orders from you, Avon.”
“You rarely do,” replied Avon quietly.
“Dayna?” said Cally, in a gentle voice, intended to diffuse the tension.
“Are you happy to stay behind?”
“With Vila?” replied Dayna, “Who wouldn’t be?”
“I’ll take that as a ‘yes’,” said Vila plaintively, “And what about me?” he went on, “Isn’t anyone going to ask if I’m happy about staying behind?”
“Would you prefer to come with us?” asked Avon.
“No,” Vila replied quickly.
Avon grinned and gave Vila a mock-friendly hug.
“Then you’re happy to stay behind, aren’t you?”
“It’s not the same thing,” observed Vila, but he knew the argument was lost, as always.

“Let’s get on with it,” said Tarrant, “It must be daylight by now.”
He headed back to the elevator from which they had emerged, followed by Avon and Cally.
Dayna lingered, her eyes on the far end of the tunnel.
“See anything?” asked Vila.
Dayna shook her head,
“Only darkness.”
“That figures. Story of my life,” replied Vila, in a mournful voice.
Dayna sighed. She was anticipating a long and extremely boring day in Vila’s company.

* * *



One hour later, however, she and Vila were frantically trying to reactivate the base’s computer system, lights, heating, and ventilation. “Orac!” yelled Vila, “Do something! What’s happening?”
“I should have thought that was perfectly obvious,” snapped Orac irritably, “The base’s computer system has been shut down remotely.” “Who by?” asked Dayna.
“By the other base, of course.”
Dayna groaned, “Of course!”
“They must have caught the others,” cried Vila, panic-stricken.
“Unlikely,” replied Dayna, “They can’t be anywhere near the other base yet, it’s too far. Unless a long-range patrol caught them. In any case, they already know we’re here.”
“Good point,” acknowledged Vila, “Why bother hunting us down when they can just suffocate us? Orac, how long before we run out of air?”
“At the present rate of oxygen consumption, no more than one hour. I would suggest you talk less and think more.”
“All the doors are sealed, and you can’t open them, you useless pile of junk!” Vila shot back.
“I did not say I cannot open them. I said that it will take time to decipher the security codes, in order to gain access to the other base’s computer systems.”
“How much time?” asked Dayna.
“Approximately one hour,” replied Orac.
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” Vila shouted at the little computer.
“It is not within my capacity to ‘enjoy’ anything. I suggest that if you are looking for an alternative escape route, you might consider the most obvious solution.”
“Which is?” Dayna queried eagerly.
“The underground rail track that connects the two bases, of course,” replied Orac witheringly.

Vila’s face lit up, but Dayna looked deflated by Orac’s reply.
“I’ve already thought of that, Orac. But the power won’t be working down there either, will it? Nor even the elevator to get us down there.” Vila’s face fell again.
“Had you thought to ask me earlier,” replied Orac haughtily, “I could have told you that the rail track operates on a different computer system, and is still operational.”
Vila’s face lit up again.
“And the elevator?” he asked.
“There is, as you have might have reasoned yourself, a stairwell leading down to the rail track from this level, rendering the elevator unnecessary.”
“Beautiful!” cried Vila, and planted a kiss on Orac, whose lights flickered rapidly in agitation.

“Please desist from physical assaults,” demanded Orac, “I am assisting as best I can under the circumstances.” Dayna couldn’t help chuckling,
“Poor Vila! Even Orac finds you repulsive.”
“Thanks,” replied Vila, in a wounded tone.
“There is one problem,” Orac continued.
“Only one?” Vila asked sarcastically. Orac ignored him.
“The door giving access to the stairwell utilises a manual lock. It is still locked, therefore, despite the power cut.” Dayna looked concerned. Vila fingered his pockets.
“Give me ten minutes with it,” he assured Dayna.
“But you don’t have your tools,” Dayna pointed out.
“This,” replied Vila, tapping the side of his head confidently, “and these,” he wiggled his fingers, “Are all I need”.
Dayna looked sceptical and was privately relieved to note Vila surreptitiously extracting what appeared to be various miniature lockpicking devices from his pockets.

* * *



They had been walking for several hours, in silence, when Cally suggested they stop for a rest – more because she suspected that neither Avon nor Tarrant was prepared to be the first to do so, than because she was unduly tired. Cally was accustomed to long-distance treks and surviving in harsh, unforgiving environments, thanks to her time as a resistance fighter on Saurian Major. Thoughts of that time, and of her first meeting with Blake, Avon, and Vila, came back to her now. She smiled to herself, despite their desperate predicament. She would have died on that planet, for sure, had it not been for Blake and the others. She owed her life to them. And she felt she’d been living on borrowed time ever since. But then, they all did. It was part of what bound them so closely together, despite their differences.

Avon and Tarrant had gladly acquiesced with Cally’s suggestion, and the three of them had found shelter in a small outcrop of rocks. Nobody suggested lighting a fire, despite the chill – there was the risk of Federation patrols, and the constant threat of attack by Links. Indeed, they had spotted some earlier on, but the Links had kept their distance – possibly part of the same group that had encountered Tarrant and Cally previously and come off the worst for it. Or maybe they just weren’t hungry.
Cally said nothing out loud to Avon, but he heard her voice in his head, “I need time alone with Tarrant”. The long hike had not dissipated the tension between the two men, and Avon reasoned to himself that whatever Cally wished to say to Tarrant, it was unlikely to do any more damage than had already been done.

“I’m going to scout about,” he announced.
“Don’t go too far,” Tarrant warned him, but was privately rather relieved, feeling, as he did, that the rest stop may have demanded some kind of showdown between them.
“I won’t,” replied Avon, in a neutral tone.
Cally and Tarrant watched him scramble down the rock slope, and start to wander around near the bottom, as if making sure to remain within their sight.
“You have to resolve this, Tarrant,” said Cally gently, and Tarrant suddenly understood why Avon had absented himself.
“I have to resolve this?” snorted Tarrant, incredulously. “How about an apology from Avon, for the mess he got us all into? That might go a long towards resolving things.”
“Would it?” replied Cally, “That is not Avon’s way, and you know it. But anyway, that’s not what I mean.”
“Then what?” asked Tarrant, genuinely baffled.
“You have to decide whether or not you really want to be a leader,” said Cally.
The words struck home. Tarrant smarted, his face flushed, and he felt anger rising in him.
“Who am I supposed to be leading? Avon? You?”
Cally acknowledged the implication, with a slight nod of the head. “Part of being a leader is being able to trust. And I know that you have never really trusted me, nor felt comfortable with me.”

Tarrant suddenly felt embarrassed. For all his bluster, he was a young man, and still an ardent romantic. It didn’t sit well with him to berate a woman, especially an attractive woman like Cally, with her gentle, implacable demeanour. But he couldn’t deny what she’d said. She made him uneasy.
“Well, let’s put it this way, Cally – on the Liberator, if we’d ever put the question of leadership to the vote, would you have voted for me?”
Cally smiled,
“Perhaps not. But I have always felt that we managed to get along quite well, the five of us, without a leader.”
“I don’t think that’s how Avon saw it,” replied Tarrant caustically. “Anyway, it’s all academic now. The Liberator’s gone. What would we be fighting over? This miserable rock?”
“We’re still a team,” replied Cally, “Fighting to survive and get off this planet. When I say that you need to decide if you really want to be a leader or not… well, I mean that you have to decide if it’s worth fighting to be the leader. Because you know Avon will oppose you, despite all his mistakes. We can be equal voices, as we have been before, but if there is to be a leader, Avon will not allow it to be anyone but him. He has made this very clear to you, to all of us. He lived in Blake’s shadow for too long, and taking orders did not sit well with
Avon. Not even from Blake.”
“Not even from Blake?” echoed Tarrant and laughed bitterly.

“Why do you laugh?” asked Cally innocently.
“No reason,” replied Tarrant.
“Perhaps at the irony?” she went on, watching him closely.
“What irony?” he replied weakly, already regretting his outburst.
“Because you’re Blake’s son,” said Cally, simply.
For a moment, Tarrant considered feigning shock, but quickly realised it was pointless. He had always suspected that Cally knew. Despite her telepathic power to project her thoughts into the minds of others, she claimed not to be able to read minds. Tarrant, however, had never really believed her.
“Avon seemed to think that Blake had bequeathed the Liberator to him. Something I rather doubt,” Tarrant reflected, “But if we’re going to talk about inheritance, then it should surely have come to me.”
“But Avon doesn’t know you’re Blake’s son,” Cally pointed out.

“Would it have made any difference? In fact, most likely if he’d known he’d have kicked me off the ship at the earliest opportunity. Anyway, how can you be sure he doesn’t know?”
“I think he would have said something,” replied Cally, after a moment’s thought.
“To all of us? Or just to you?” said Tarrant, with an edge to his voice.
“Avon and I are not as close as you think,” said Cally, shaking her head.
They both fell silent for a moment, watching Avon listlessly wandering amongst the rocks below, no doubt lost in his own thoughts.
“Did you hope to meet Blake, when you first joined us?” asked Cally.
“Of course,” Tarrant nodded, “I’d have found the Liberator, one way or another. Then Star One happened, and there it was. I was in command of a ship in the fleet. We were on the edge of the battle, but I made sure to get close to the Liberator, then boarded her, and told my crew to rejoin the battle.”
“I thought you’d been smuggling?” said Cally, with a mischievous glint in her eye. She had already divined the truth about him.
“A little fabrication,“ Tarrant looked abashed, ”I thought it might go down better with Avon and the rest of you. Deeta did a fair bit of smuggling, before his bounty hunting days. I based my story on his. Avon seemed to accept it at face value.”
“Maybe,” smiled Cally, “Anyway, I think ever since you found the
Liberator you have been asking yourself the same questions.”
“Which are?”
“Do you want to follow in your father’s footsteps, by fighting the Federation. And if so, must you be a leader, as Blake was, and captain the Liberator, as Blake did?”
“Well, at least that last question needn’t trouble us anymore,” replied Tarrant, with facetious cheerfulness, “Thanks to Avon.”
“But we may survive, we may remain together, and there may be another ship. These are all things to think about.”

Tarrant suddenly felt very weary again. He’d been living on his wits for what seemed like years, living in the hope of meeting his mysterious and legendary father, only to have discovered in the past few hours that Blake was apparently dead. And now he had to decide whether he really wanted to take charge of this desperate venture to escape Terminal, and to assume the burden of leadership, even assuming he could persuade the others to go along with him.
He glanced down at Avon, anxiously, conscious that they had been sitting here too long, and that they needed to get going.
“What do you think I should do?” he asked Cally, aware even as he said it that the doubt in his voice hardly reinforced his credentials for leadership.
Cally had her answer ready for him. She had long anticipated this conversation.
“You are Blake’s son, Tarrant. But you are also your own man. You have to work out for yourself who that is.”
Tarrant nodded. He looked at Cally gratefully, feeling that the air of distrust had cleared between them, and surprised by how light-hearted he suddenly felt.
“Thank you, Cally,” he said, quietly.
Cally smiled, reached out and squeezed his hand.
“You will do the right thing, Tarrant. I have no doubt.”
Cally got to her feet, followed by Tarrant, and they both began to make their way down the slope towards Avon.

continued in PART FOUR here