– Да, человек смертен, но это было бы еще полбеды. Плохо то, что он иногда внезапно смертен, вот в чем фокус!
– Михаил Булгаков, «Мастер и Маргарита»[1]
"Vila, I know you are here; come out."
Avon was treading quite noiselessly upon the metal surface of the deck; his voice, rather scared and pathetic, was the only help for Vila to figure out where he was at the moment. The sweat was running down Vila's face and back in dozens little rills. He was trying hard to breathe as quiet as possible, sit in his hiding hole as quiet as possible, not to move one limb, not to utter one sob… not to think about what might happen next.
"Vila, I know how they did it, but I need your help. Please help me…"
His voice wasn't so full of horror and disgust to himself, like before. It was calm, now, a little tremulous, perhaps, but very cold and determined. That was frightening Vila the most.
"Vila…?"
That squeak seemed to have come from a more distant point in the room than the previous one. Vila should have probably felt some relief, but he didn't. There was no relief. No hope. No warmth.
He didn't want to die like this.
Come to that, he didn't want to die at all.
But the only choice Vila had was between two deaths, and that choice would never be to get shot by an old friend, or someone he had naively taken for a friend a long, long time ago.
Vila heard the sound of the door getting opened, and then shut. He exhaled convulsively, allowed himself a small sob, and crawled out from the hole in the wall, which had been made by Vila himself a minute earlier in a desperate attempt to lighten the shuttle. It was too spaceless in that hollow, like a cage, tiny and cold; so it was no wonder Vila had been not able to breathe properly while sitting inside it. And he did really want to take at least one good, deep breath before the end.
He drew some air into his lungs…
"Vila," Avon's quiet voice came from around the corner on the left.
Vila jumped up and backwards, but immediately stumbled and fell to the floor. Avon turned a corner, thus entering Vila's field of view, and stepped towards him, the gun in his hand pointing in the exact direction of Vila's chest. His face was tense and numbed; his mouth was open a fraction, allowing to see the strainedly clenched teeth. "Stand up, Vila," he said, almost a whisper.
"Or what, you'll kill me?" Vila hollered, staring franticly at Avon's face.
"Or you will die lying on the floor. Even for you, it should lack dignity."
"You care for my dignity, then; how charming!"
"We haven't got much time, Vila. According to my approximate calculations, we have less than three minutes. Let's make our farewells now." Avon's voice now seemed frighteningly soft, somewhat tender, even; one could suggest it was a mockery of some especially perverted sort. But no, he was genuinely warm, almost expecting Vila to embrace him, which was making the situation even more surreal.
"What, are you expecting me to forgive your sins or something so that you can shoot me without the pricks of conscience? Well, that's not gonna happen!"
Avon sighed, like he was wounded in his deepest affections. "I'm sorry, Vila. If we had more time…" And raised the gun.
Vila started crawling back, twisting his feet rabidly and gasping for air. "No! No! No!"
Avon tilted his head slightly. "What are you doing, Vila?" No, he was not deliberately trying to make Vila's mental state worse, he wasn't doing this for fun, he was scarcely meaning to hurt him in that way at all; it was the mere curiosity, really, nothing more.
Vila was quite out of breath, but he managed to let out the words: "Trying to get as far from the airlock as possible to give you more troubles dragging my body!"
Avon smiled at that. "Goodbye, Vila."
There was a shot, the sound of which was completely drowned out by the grinding and yelping of the shuttle about to be torn apart; so what could be said of Vila's last breath, his last struggling inhale? No living soul heard it, but when the air, unobstructed, left his lungs, it seemed to Avon that he saw, he spotted the very last glimpse of life in Vila's eyes.
Avon allowed himself to stare into those eyes for a few moments.
It's perfectly logical. It's either we both die, or he dies alone. Only one rational solution. One available option. Simple. No doubts permitted.
All right, down to business. The time was short.
He loaded the body onto his shoulders, and turned around. He took two steps, very careful, and turned left. Then he took one more step. The door was right there, a couple of paces away…
Something glittered in the corner of his eye.
Avon looked at it automatically, and then his glance froze, his eyes widened, his grip waned. The sudden realisation burst into his mind, leaving havoc behind itself. "No…"
The body dropped down on the floor. Avon kneeled and touched the little clean cube, his hand shaking badly.
No, no, it can't be, I can't have done, please no…
He didn't want to check, didn't want to prove his worst fears, but he did it regardless. He tried to push it. And then found out that the thing was too heavy, a hundred kilos, probably. He tried again, with both hands this time, he pushed tooth and nail, and managed to move it two inches forwards.
Yes, the weight of the cube should have sufficed.
He sat down, leaning awkwardly on the floor, reclined against the cold wall, and closed his eyes. Then opened, gazed upon the dead body lying within his grasp. Vila…
He closed his eyes and turned to the numbers. Numbers had always been the comfort for him, the reassurance; now the numbers were saying that he would die in half a minute, give or take seven seconds.
It was still not too late to throw out the body and get to Scorpio in one piece. Just get up, do it while there's still time left, get up and get rid of the extra weight, you want it, you want to live, you want to live SO JUST DO IT.
Avon laughed. Even now (or perhaps especially now), in the last moments of his life, he couldn't bring himself to laugh heartily, to take an ironic look at his past deeds, and just have one good laugh. No, his laughter was fitful, full of sore and insanity. He hardly knew what he was laughing at, frankly.
No, he didn't get up. Instead, he drew Vila's body closer, seated it by his side, and laid his hand on Vila's flaccid shoulder. He looked at the motionless face, peered into open eyes, and then laughed again.
He didn't notice when they crashed. For a very short instance, he saw the world shifting rapidly, things wiggling in his sight – it was his body suddenly thrown up under the ceiling. Then he fell down again, and the hit punched all the air out of him. He was not realising what was going on, and he didn't understand what was bound to happen when his eyes detected a small cube coming down right at his head.
"Well? What have you found?" demanded Servalan when one of the soldiers entered the room.
"Orac is intact," followed the answer. "It has been taken on board your ship at once."
"And what about the bodies? Have you found the bodies?"
"Yes, the corpses of Kerr Avon and Vila Restal have been found."
"Where are they?"
"Still there."
"Extract. Wait," she added when the soldier spun around. "Leave the body of Vila Restal where it is, I don't need it. But get me Avon."
"Yes, Madame."
Vila Restal was left to lie there, inside the demolished shuttle. There was no disappointment in his lifeless eyes, no sorrow, no hope. Nothing but sheer dread.
The others never came. Liberator hung in orbit for a few hours, and then just turned and flew away from there, indifferent and solemnly silent in the vacuum.
Avon had rather posh burial. Servalan bought him an expensive wooden coffin, and he was put into earth in clean clothes, his disfigured face covered with a black veil; he was lying in the box, hands crossed on his belly, looking peaceful, as though he died in his bed, calm and stern, with no regrets oppressing his thoughts.
And Vila was left to rot inside this frame of the shuttle, until it fell apart and merged with the sand.
That was all he was given, that was the end of his road.
That was his burial.
[1] "Yes, man is mortal, but that would be only half the trouble. The worst of it is that he's sometimes unexpectedly mortal — there's the trick!" (Russian) – Mikhail Bulgakov, "The Master and Margarita"