Blake leaned heavily on Avon's shoulder as they entered the brightly lit medical unit. Not a word had passed between them since coming back to the ship, only an icy, pregnant silence. The spectre of the alien invasion and Travis's death hung over them like a dark, threatening cloud. Blake's face was ashen, and he held his injured shoulder.
"Avon, we have to save the human race," Blake's voice was hoarse and strained but still contained the passion, Avon would say madness, that drew millions. "We have to fight the aliens, hold them off until the Federation gets here." It was the only thing on his mind, the need to fight the enemy, to blast them into oblivion, just as he had wanted to do with the Federation.
Avon stared at him a long few seconds before rummaging through a drawer and taking out a tissue regenerator and a cloth support. With clinical detachment, he pulled aside Blake's shirt and applied the regenerator to the wound.
He said, "I don't take orders from you anymore, Blake. We're finished." There was great weariness in his dead voice, as if he was ill, in body, mind and soul, just as he had been on the flight deck. A man overwhelmed. His face was as pale as Blake's was.
Blake gritted his teeth and he tried not to wince. Avon did not have Cally's gentle, practiced touch. "Then why did you save me? Why didn't you leave me die?"
A half-grimace, half-sneer twisted Avon's lips and his eyes were pits of darkness as he glared at Blake. This man had always tried to manipulate him, putting him on the defensive rather than treating him as an equal, but no more. "That was self-interest. The aliens might have used your body in a plot to take over the Federation. After this is over, I will take you back to Earth. If we survive your mess. Then the Liberator and the crew is mine."
Blake bristled and grimaced in pain. "What do you mean my mess?"
Avon turned off the regenerator, dropping it on the table with a clatter that sounded strangely like something dropped that could never be picked up again. When his head lifted to face Blake, it was full of fury and the bright lights of the medical unit seemed to glow with the fire of Avon's anger.
"Would you prefer stupidity? Insanity? Obsessive delusion? If you had used your brain just once, we could have stopped this. But instead, you had me running around removing the bombs you had Cally plant." He was breathing heavily, almost as if he couldn't get the words out fast enough, like the torrent of anger he had released on the flight deck before this whole thing started.
His voice was flat, but there was explosive energy behind every word. "Even AFTER you discovered the aliens on the base. And AFTER I told you about the minefield that was built to keep them from entering this galaxy. But you decided to let the aliens in, didn't you? Destroy the minefield along with Star One. It would have fit your agenda perfectly. Cause more trouble for the Federation." He spat the words out like burning acid splashing on the target of his rage.
Avon kneaded his wrist and stared at Blake, expecting the man to refute him, to bully him and declare that everything he did was justified, but there was only silence. The empty medical unit had become an empty tomb, ready to bury the dead.
But Avon was not finished, there was too much pent up anger. " You disgust me, Blake. If it weren't for you, I would have checked the defence field and discovered Travis had turned off one of the sections and had time to turn it back on. "
His lips formed in a sneer. He was a man who had eaten something repugnant and was spitting it out. "You have the gall to try to lecture me about saving the human race? You're a hypocrite, Blake. If the aliens get through the defence field, you are as much to blame as Travis. The only person the human race needs to be saved from, is you." He threw the sling at Blake, wishing it was something heavier. "Put this on yourself."
Blake caught it, grimacing slightly. "You're right. I was wrong. Stupidly wrong. But I thought I was justified. If I had known…"
"Your pathetic excuses don't work on me, Blake. You can fool the others but I've never doubted you were a fanatic. You wade in the blood of others to achieve your aims and you sold all of us when you thought you could buy a victory for your precious cause at Control. Well, no more. I am not going to let you betray me again, Blake. If you do, then it will be your last time. I promise you that."
Blake shook his head as he slipped his arm into the sling, his voice soft, knowing. "You could never kill me or let me die, Avon and you know it. You never could."
"Don't flatter yourself."
"Then why do you keep flinging your arms around me all the time?"
"You're delusional."
"Do you want me to list the times?"
"Being flung together in the heat of battle, once, hardly constitutes flinging my arms around you numerous times. Go back to school and learn to count." Avon's eyes flashed with fiery anger.
"But holding me afterwards? How do you explain that?"
"An oversight. If I had known you would misconstrue it, I would have let you fall." There was such hardness on his face, like that of a statue.
"You could never do that to me, Avon."
"Don't mistake automatic reflexes for anything else, Blake.
The injured man winced, absently hugging his sore shoulder harder. The rejection was a dagger plunging straight through to his heart. He didn't want to believe the words, but Avon never lied, not directly, and he had made his feelings very clear on the flight deck, and now. "You really do hate me, don't you?"
"In the unlikely event that we survive this, we're through, Blake."
"So you finally get what you've wanted all along?"
"The ship and to be free of you? Yes, and this time, no accident of luck will stop me."
" Why take the time to bring me back to Earth? Why not just drop off on the next planet?"
"I don't have time to answer any more of your inane questions. The alien fleet is waiting." Avon moved to the exit.
Blake knew then that Avon both loved and hated him. And he realized what a fool he had been to drive Avon to that state. What sliver of trust Avon had in him had been dashed by the lies and deceit he felt necessary to make him do what he thought was right. It was a poor reward for that trust and now it was gone. He had a sick feeling that one day his own actions would come back to haunt him and he would be made to pay for the betrayals he thought were justified.
He was a hero but he was a poor excuse for a friend. Avon was a man who had been betrayed by too many in the past. He was a man who needed a friend and but because of him, Avon had come to hate heroes and hate him.
"Avon."
Avon stopped at the door and turned to him with an expressionless face.
Blake said, "Tell the others I asked you to hold the aliens off."
A sneer formed on Avon's lips. "A lie to the very end, Blake?"
"I deserve that. But they won't do it for you. You know that. They will do it for me."
There was a touch of a smile on Avon's lips. "Not very bright, but loyal."
"If I didn't know better, I would think you liked them."
"I need a crew."
"And you never needed me, did you? Why didn't you get rid of me, Avon? You could have many times. It would have been safer for you."
"I don't have time for this." Avon turned to go again.
"Avon."
Avon didn't know why but he stopped and turned around again.
Blake said, "I know you don't believe me, not after everything..."
Avon's dark stare bore straight through him and stopped any further words. There was only time for regrets. Avon turned his back on Blake and left.
Blake stared at the empty space, all that remained of their relationship, and felt sick. Avon was right, he had made this mess. If anyone died because the aliens got through, if anyone believed he would betray them, it was his own fault.
The others never wanted to be dragged around risking their lives on suicidal schemes. They'd made it very clear over Control. They had limits. He didn't. He didn't have the right to make them fight his way when they didn't want to. How many times had they complained and argued with him? Until he was sick of Vila's whining voice. The man never shut up.
No. That wasn't fair. They had every right to express their opinions. Even if they were against his. He should have remembered that. They had the right to dictate their own lives.
He should never have acted like a god, forcing the others to do what they didn't want to. That was what he was supposed to stop the Federation from doing. At least that's what he had told them.
Blake shook his head. Avon was right. How did his vision go so wrong? How had he become the very thing he hated?
Not anymore. It was time to let them all go.
He knew that no matter what Avon said, as long as he was injured, Avon would never leave him. Avon did care about them all. His actions showed that even if his words didn't.
But Avon also hated him, those actions were also very clear in the times he had sought to escape the ship but was dragged back by circumstance. It was very clear in his scathing words said with so much venom on the flight deck.
Avon rarely shared his emotions directly but when he did, it was because he could no longer hold back the tide. Avon really hated him. He knew that without a shadow of a doubt now. Not enough to kill him or to abandon him with nothing but enough to never want to see him again.
It was time to let Avon go his own way. As a friend, finally as the friend that Avon needed him to be, for the first and last time, he had to let him go. But he knew something else. Avon would come back when Blake needed him. To rescue the man he had always considered a fool. Because Avon had always been his friend even though he had never been much of one to him.