A Christmas Canto

Blake was dead, to begin with.

Probably.

He'd heard it on the highest - if not the most reliable - authority, hadn't he? And it wasn't as if the Supreme Commander/Empress/ whatever she had been at the time (he had a problem remembering every time her self-bestowed titles changed) had had any reason to lie. At least not about that.

So Blake was dead.

Probably.

He dragged his thoughts away from that fraying circle again, and back to the confused tangle of outer world affairs, and the niceties of using a pack of violent, treacherous, vainglorious warlords while keeping them from cutting each others throats and his...

To fight the Federation - to fight Blake's fight - he would have to deal with these creatures. A thin thread of mockery twisted through his thoughts - that he, of all people, was playing politics and dancing with diplomacy - but he pushed it aside and tried to concentrate. Concentration wouldn't come, and finally he pushed the papers aside and left for the upper levels where the others were.

The lower corridors were badly and unevenly lit. None of them liked the lower levels of Xenon, some even lower than that room, but they could be used for storage, and for the times he preferred to be alone.

"And you prefer it too often now." A soft breath of thought, almost like Cally...

He stopped, forced that thought away with practiced ease, and went on again, through the oddly winding, oddly shadowed pathways that veered off uncomfortably into darker passages leading downwards again or nowhere at all, always cold and strangely awry, like the madman Dorian's mind. Avon paused, unthinking for half a minute, feeling... for a moment, almost feeling someone there. Someone who...

No. It was gone and he turned away towards the stairwell and the light.

The illumination in the crew lounge was warm, almost flickering, as soft as firelight. Vila had obviously been describing something to the other three, waving a glass of something probably as virulent tasting as it looked. Soolin, curled up on the nearest chair, watched the weaving glass with expressionless caution and moved out of the way of splashes; Dayna sat on the carpet, fiddling with something that might have been decorative or deadly, or both; Tarrant was sprawled on a couch, long legs propped on a table, gazing down into his jade-green drink with limpid eyes and the look, somewhere between indulgent and condescending, that he kept for Vila's more creative flights of fancy.

"Well," he looked up at Avon's arrival and smiled a little too graciously, "welcome back, Avon. We were beginning to wonder if you'd sealed yourself down there."

"Horrible place." Vila shuddered. "Don't know why we have to keep those levels open anyway."

"No one is making you go down there, Vila." Dayna spoke with abstracted good humour, still twisting glittering filaments around her long fingers. "Afraid of ghosts?"

"'Course I am, the last one we met was nasty."

"Well, there are no ghosts on Xenon," Tarrant said lazily. "Even Dorian wouldn't bother haunting somewhere as dull as this."

"I don't mind dull."

"We know. But I do. Come on, Avon." Tarrant waved a hand at the empty seats opposite. "Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow, we... oh," his voice took on innocence like an insult, "I forgot. None of us know what we're doing tomorrow, do we Avon? Except you. Maybe. And you're not about to tell us - again."

"So we're doing it ourselves," Vila said with hard-edged cheer. "Christmas."

"Chris- oh, one more of your self-proclaimed holidays. No, Vila."

"Yes, Vila. Tomorrow's going to be Christmas, whether you like it or not."

"As I recall, from that over-enthusiastic but refreshingly fact-free study you undertook, Christmas was annual. Not just held whenever people felt like eating too much and getting drunk."

Vila grinned crookedly. "You say that as if it's something bad."

"And it is no more than an empty name now, a meaningless word. You do not even know what date it should be held on."

"Neither does anyone else."

"So tomorrow's as good as any other day," Dayna said.

"Well," Soolin added, "it's actually the present High Admiral of the Galactic Fleets' birthday, and the anniversary of the Benevolent Annexation of the Inner Worlds. Oh yes, and on Earth it's a compulsory Day of Thanksgiving for the many joys of life under Federation rule. But for some reason, we don't feel like celebrating those."

Tarrant nodded. "Since you're not about to suggest anything more interesting - are you?" his eyes glittered with something not quite hostile, "the rest of us will do our best to bring some of these fine old traditions to life for Vila."

"Will you." Not a question. "As you wish. Just remember that to Vila, a tradition is anything he talked - us - into more than twice."

"Us..? Careful, Avon," Vila crooned. "You nearly said his name again."

"Him," Tarrant added, "being your late and loudly unlamented leader, correct?"

"Unlamented by some, perhaps." Vila's mood changed suddenly, and he turned his face away. "Leave it, Tarrant, you wouldn't understand."

"It would be hard for me to do so, if I had to depend on Avon to explain. But cheer up, Vila," holding out the bottle, "at least you still have us."

"I have," Vila lifted his eyes, and stared straight at Avon without expression, "haven't I?"

Avon was silent for a moment, then shrugged. "Just ensure that you are all fully recovered within two - oh," with a sweet, feral smile, "very well, three days. And don't expect me to become involved."

Vila shrugged. "Never noticed that you did by choice. Let me guess, you have work to do."

"If we are to survive, we must have allies. Five against the galaxy..." He stopped, seeing the look in the thief's eyes. "It did not work for him, Vila, it will not work for us. I do not intend to follow that path." He inclined his head slightly, coldly mocking. "But don't let me interrupt your festivities."

He turned and walked out.

"Can anyone think of a way we can make him join in?" Tarrant said after a moment. "Short of at gunpoint, that is."

"Or a reason to want him to?" Soolin crooked an eyebrow at him.

"The spectre at the feast he may be, but he is our spectre." Tarrant shrugged. "And I've never seen him drunk, but the mental picture is appealing."

"Have you, Vila?" Dayna spoke idly.

"Once or twice, yeah."

"Must have been a sight. When?"

"First time we did this Christmas bit. And," Vila frowned, "possibly the second. Don't recall any other time... he's got a harder head for it than you'd think."

"And my bet is he's a mean drunk." Soolin sat down opposite him.

"No... pretty good, actually. Not exactly a happy drunk -"

"That I can believe."

"But sort of mellow. It worked, you see," he went on mournfully. "Christmas. The first time. The six of us... probably 'cause Blake and Ca-Cally," he gulped, and avoided everyone's eyes, "and Gan, they all loved giving. And Jenna, and me, and Avon, we all loved getting." He looked up at Tarrant's crack of laughter. "S'true. Avon always joined in for that part of it. Probably wanted Blake to give him the Liberator."

"Which he did in the end."

"But Avon never knocked back any other stuff. Blake always had the knack of knowing what he'd - what we'd all - like..."

"You do miss him," Soolin said almost gently. "Blake."

"Yeah. I do. I miss Blake, I miss Cally and I miss Blake's and Cally's Avon."

"I see." Tarrant looked at him curiously, then held out the bottle. "And sometimes I wish I'd even met Blake's and Cally's Avon. Have another drink."

~b7~

Avon had taken over Dorian's huge bedroom when they first took the base, for all of three nights, but for some reason he didn't care to think about, sleeping there proved impossible; it was now used for storing anything they never used but that Vila didn't want to discard. Avon had moved into a smaller, very bare room that - by no coincidence - was closer to the outer doors than the others' rooms and - by even less than no coincidence - did not have a communication screen. Just a small, barred window, through which he could see black sky and two palely glittering stars.

He turned down the lights and sat on the bed, staring down at his hands. Christmas... damn Vila. Damn Vila to every perdition he could think of. Had he thought straight and soberly for a month, he could hardly have come up with something less convenient and more awkward. And too close to uncomfortably painful.

"Presents," he muttered, as much to break the silence as for any other purpose. "And drink. Simple pleasure for simple minds, and all just now because -" He broke off, unwilling to think past that 'because', unable not to.

He realised that he was rubbing his hands together, slowly but with a fierce pressure, as if trying to rub the skin away.

None of it mattered now.

None of it matters.

He pushed away the question of what did matter. Pulling off his jacket and tossing it on a chair, he picked up Orac's key and crossed to the little computer sitting idly on the desk.

"Well, Orac?"

The familiar hum broke the silence. "How many times must I remind you -"

"That 'well' is not a question. At least a few more times before this is over. Has you heard any more from Zukan yet?"

"Unfortunately, all too much." The warlord of Betafarl, the most important - and irritating - of those they had decided to approach about an alliance, had proved both slow to respond and inclined to suspicion. His stream of questions and conditions had taken up rather more of Orac's time and patience than expected, even by Avon. "And in far more words than at all necessary. How long must I waste my time on this?"

"For as long as it takes. What was his answer?"

"He is considering the proposal but wants more details, more proof, more names. He wants to come here."

"No." The word was jerked out of Avon, in animal instinct. For a hairsbreadth moment, he felt someone at his back - no. No one there. Just shadows that pooled in the corners and gathered at the doorway.

"Do you want me to relay that to him?" Orac said with something uncannily like a sniff.

"What? No. No, I'll have to consider..." He sighed. "Give me the worst, then - no. First, what of the other matter?"

"You mean Vila's instructions on tomorrow's frivol -"

"No. I do not. As you know full well."

"Very well, what of it?"

"Orac..."

"There is nothing new to tell or I would have done so. I have traced him from Jevron -"

"So he was there. That much was true."

"To Despal Minor. There the trail ends again. And given that you are demanding an inordinate amount of my attention for the petty details of the conference, I would suggest that there are better uses of what little is left than -"

"No, Orac." He laid one hand on the smooth casing. "You will keep searching as instructed. And anything about him takes absolute priority."

"It will not always be possible to ensure the others do not learn of this."

"It will. You will see to it. It is nothing to do with them."

"They may disagree."

"They will not disagree, because you will not discuss it with them. Is that clear?" Without waiting for an answer, he pulled out the key and half-dropped, half-threw it into a corner, the clatter hollow in the silence, oddly echoing like light, cold laughter. He tensed... forced himself to relax...

And then recalled that he had asked for the details of Zukan's message.

Stop it. He closed his eyes, one part of his mind blankly confused, the other as skittish as the local felines. Something in the air tonight - worse than usual - and there'd be nightmares as payment, or memories as bad as nightmares. Vila and his damned Christmas, of course. I should stop it. Order it stopped. Make them...

And then they'd ask why. Or he would. Not that I have to answer.

Not that there's anything to answer.

Opening his eyes again, he looked around for the key, and stilled, breath catching.

The darkness by the door seemed to contract and swirl and form into the slender blue-clad shape of a woman. A woman whose face he hadn't thought of in years.

Avon smiled. Somehow, he wasn't even surprised.

"Jenna."