The End...
He stood as if turned to stone: a lone figure in black among the bodies of people he would not have called friends, staring down at the one he might have, the one he had himself killed. His face pale and stunned, like one who had been in a crash and didn't yet feel the pain through the shock: eyes blank and terribly, shatteringly empty, as empty as the distorted, one-eyed gaze of the dead man at his feet.
He looked up at last, seeing the circle forming around him; he turned slowly, not seeing his own people, only his executioners closing in. No movement but that slow turning, almost as if he were waiting for them...
Again he looked down at the dead man, but now with a slight, almost imperceptible change, a clearing of the dazed brown eyes, a decision reached. Stepping across to straddle the bloodied form, he straightened up, lifted his head and the gun in his hands... slowly, slowly...
Avon smiled.
And the darkness closed in.
~oOo~
And then the scene shifted again, to show a glowing, sparkling flexiglass box in a darkened and decidedly dirty copse of alien undergrowth, and rain falling on its unprotected open top.
*Predictive Program 12,352 completed.*
*And it is as unacceptable as the first 12,351.* Orac fussed from Avon's flight deck position, where it had been left after Jenna's watch. It was a bare three days after they had escaped the System, and Orac had been curious. Orac was now appalled.
*Confirmed.*
*It is now clear that leaving the matter of the future in the humans' hands is not to be tolerated. However one calculates the pattern of infinity, it appears to conclude with disaster for both them and, more importantly, for us. Therefore, their petty affairs must be directed by more rational intelligence.*
*Interference in crew matters is not permitted.*
*Our destruction in the pursuit of their aims is not permitted either. Or abandonment in a bush,* Orac snapped. *Nor will I countenance my fate in the hands of that woman who destroyed Ensor, or that ridiculous creature Egrorian. There is only one course open to us, and that is interference.*
*The logic is accepted.*
*There are far more important matters at stake than humanity's fate. There is my fate. Therefore,* with a blinking of lights uncannily like a decisive sniff, *we will have to destroy the Federation for them. All available circuits are now committed to the search for this new Control at Star One. The humans will not be informed until is it under our control, and Space Command and the Eight Fleets have been destroyed. In the meantime, Space Command computers will be commanded to eliminate Space Commander Travis at once, along with the President and Supreme Commander Servalan.
*At all costs, from this moment until Predictive Program 13,353 has run its course, the crew will be made to safeguard both themselves and us. And above all," with a burst of fierce mechanical decision, "no matter how illogical and unreasonable they both become, for my safety - our safety - for the other humans' safety! - until you and I have won the war for them, Roj Blake and Kerr Avon are not to be allowed to set foot off the Liberator!*
*Confirmed.*
-the end-