10

NEEDS OF THE FEW

The beginning is always the same. There is deafening noise and the floor under him is shaking. His vision is blurred and his whole body is hurting. He cannot move his hands. He sees a man's face, snarling at him, but he doesn't hear the words. And then he sees her, falling. Falling, falling in complete silence, and becoming smaller and smaller as she falls into some incomprehensible emptiness. With her eyes closed, without a scream, just falling silently into the unknown grey space below.

At first he wouldn't tell me about it. He came to the flight deck while it was the Liberator's 'night' and I was alone there, on watch. I greeted him with a smile, but I immediately sensed that he was not well. Of all the crew members, there is an emotion which I only pick up from Blake. Perhaps it can be described as stubborn will fighting hard to remain in control and suppress the surge of panic; the panic springing from the sense of the self which is never whole, never completely in possession of itself, perennially gleaning its original constituents from among hypnopaedic instructions, trigger signals, implanted false memories and half-recovered real ones, nightmares, dreams, drug-induced illusions. There is a voice in him which must always force this panic to retreat, keep it at bay, repeating not now, not now, there is no time to deal with it now, I will deal with it later.

He asked me to advise him about a medication he should take. All he said was that he needed to black out – a night, at least one, without any dreams; or at least without any that he would remember in the morning.

I looked into his eyes, and I touched his arm gently.

'Blake, the Federation blanked you, they used drugs to suppress your memories, and with them, invaluable portions of your being. Surely you don't want to do the same to yourself?'

He shook his head stubbornly. 'I don't even know if it's a memory. It could be just a... recurrent nightmare. Whatever it is, I cannot afford to examine it now, not with all this going on.'

'All this going on' was a reference to a mission we had embarked on in agreement with Avalon. Her rebel group held an important captive, one of the top-ranking officers of the Federation Security Service, Dal Boroven, and Avalon succeeded in negotiating an exchange. It was agreed that sixty-seven political prisoners held in the Federation base on planet Cassion would be released in return for him. Avalon insisted on releasing that particular group of prisoners because all of them were awaiting execution. However, the Federation could hardly be trusted to handle this deal fairly; this was why Avalon contacted Blake and asked him to use the Liberator to transport the hostage to the rendezvous point, take over the prisoners, and make sure the exchange goes safely. The teleport facility and other advantages of the Liberator, she explained, would be of great help with that. Blake agreed.

When Boroven teleported to the Liberator, escorted by Avon and Jenna, the first thing I sensed about him was fanaticism. There was a man who wasn't greatly preoccupied with his own survival, more willing to die than to act against his convictions. At the same time, I felt that inside he was hard and stiff, that he could be calculating and insensitive to the suffering of others. Although he was now a member of the Federation's upper echelons, probably spending most of his time dining at official banquets and partaking in decision-making and political intrigues, I sensed that not so many years ago, he had had a different office, and committed acts of great cruelty.

He was assigned a cabin aboard the Liberator, and Avon modified the door lock so that it could only be opened from the outside. Blake told me that it was then that it started. He stood at the door of the cabin, addressed the captive and explained to him that he would be treated fairly and exchanged soon. Some inexplicable feeling of uneasiness began to creep over him even as he spoke: looking at the Federation official, studying his face, Blake felt as if something, buried in a dark place inside him, presumed death but in fact still alive, was now desperately clawing, struggling to be unearthed. He suppressed the anxious feeling, pronouncing it irrational, and completed his speech.

It was on that night, he explained to me, that the nightmares began.

And the last thing he needed during this important mission, he said, were nightmares. He needed focus, he needed a clear mind. I listened thoughtfully to his story. What he didn't mention, but what we both surmised, was that somehow the encounter with Dal Boroven had triggered a memory – one of those which were still blocked due to the mind-wipe therapy.

'Dreams convey to us important messages from the deep layers of our being,' I said to him. 'Even when they are terrifying, it is still essential that we try to understand their meaning.'

'Is this one of your people's sayings?'

He smiled ruefully, looking less tense now. I smiled back at him.

'Perhaps it will help if you tell me about it?'

He sat on the flight-deck couch, looking at his hands. He touched his wrist, and I noticed there was an old scar there.

'It's about Aran. My sister. For three nights in a row, the dream is always the same... only changing in minor details. I see her falling, deep down. I don't know where it's taking place. There's nothing but greyness below.'

I tried to tread lightly on painful memories.

'You told me that your brother and sister were killed on Ziegler 5, at the time of your first arrest.'

'This was what Bran Foster told me. Surely, he told me what he believed was true. But after that, I never obtained any other information that would support that claim. Allegedly, some resisters were transported to Ziegler 5 shortly after my arrest and executed on arrival. I could never confirm that Conla and Aran Blake, my brother and sister, were among them.'

'Do you think that what you see in your dream is how your sister really died? This greyness you mention, it doesn't seem real. It could be just a symbol for something.'

'It could be.'

Finally, he had his way and I gave him the drug he asked for. It didn't help. The next night, he was visited by the same ghost again.

It is now more real, more vivid. More and more details are added: pain in his body and his face, and something blurring his vision; handcuffs cutting into his wrists; unsteady floor underneath him and deafening engine noise filling his mind and making clear thinking impossible. He and Aran, gazing at each other. Blood in the corner of Aran's mouth. Aran's hair, blown by strong wind. A man in the black uniform of the Federation security, snarling at him. Still, all these details are unimportant, irrelevant, and really frustrating, because what torments him is that he doesn't understand what happens to her.The images and sensual impressions unfold, always in the same order, but he cannot get to the bottom of it, grasp their significance, the underlying meaning which would connect them into a whole. Each time, they lead inevitably to the inexplicable horror of her fall. But the most important details – the reason she is falling into that abyss, whatthe abyss is at all, and what he must do to prevent it – keep eluding him.

I had to talk to Avon, had to confide to him at least a part of what Blake was going through. I asked him – given the situation we were in, the important hostage aboard the Liberator, the risky exchange we were going to carry out – to pay close attention, to take more than his usual share of responsibility, because Blake, what with all the sleepless nights and nightmares even drugs couldn't suppress, may not be able to handle it all by himself.

I knew I struck a chord with Avon when I said that he should help for the sake of our safety, in order to increase our chances of survival. He was preoccupied with his new experiment – modifying one the Liberator handguns in some way which wasn't altogether clear to me – but he listened to me carefully and said he would do what I asked.

Now he begins to feel dread the moment her face appears in the dream. He knows that she mustn't be there: something unimaginable will happen to her unless he somehow wishes her away, alters the dream, does something that would make her disappear from that scene. Somehow, he has to impose his will upon the dream, tell himself that she is somewhere else, safe and well. He never succeeds. Again and again, she appears to him the same way, with greyness behind her, and her hair blown by strong wind. She shakes her head, looking at him, but he doesn't know what it means. Finally, knowing how the dream will end, feeling helpless to change it, he braces himself for it, hoping vainly the scenario will change by itself this time. It doesn't. She is falling, and he knows it is something horrible, something that mustn't happen, and yet she is falling quietly, quietly, and her eyes are closed as if she were falling asleep.

The Auronar say that when you're drowning in deep water, sometimes there is no use fighting it. Sometimes the only solution is to allow yourself to sink, all the way to the bottom; then, once your feet have touched that solid ground, perhaps you can push yourself back to the surface.

I knew Blake had to sink all the way down, understand the visitations; if they were memories, he had to recover them completely. There was no other way. The nightmares were getting worse, and couldn't be suppressed or ignored. Jenna told me she passed by his cabin one night and heard a scream.

I decided to undertake research myself – because I knew he would argue that there was no time for that right now. I understood his attitude. I did feel myself that the fate hadn't presented us with Orac and Zen and all the resources of the Liberator so that we would indulge in examining personal grievances or seeking retribution, but so that we would be able to help the hundreds and millions who suffered. Still, there is no healer but a wounded healer: and there are times when the healer succumbs to his own wounds, when they impair his capacity to tend the wounds of others. Although Blake wouldn't recognize it, I knew that he needed to tend to his own wounds right now.

I began by asking Orac to look for any files in which the names Roj Blake and Dal Boroven appeared together. The first search results didn't yield much, but they suggested I might be on the right track. There were traces of traces, documents referring to other documents, confirming that six years ago, at the time of Blake's first arrest, there had indeed existed a connection between the two men. Orac said the search might take a long while, because the original files I was looking for were apparently classified and encoded, and they might even turn out to be completely erased. I decided to attempt a more direct inquiry.

As I opened the door to Boroven's cabin, wondering how to approach him, a myriad of thoughts raced through my mind. What had been his office six years ago, and his share of responsibility for what the Federation had done to Blake? How could I compel him to talk about it, and how to avoid provoking spiteful and obstinate silence? A mistake we too often make is to assume that our enemies perceive facts the same way we do, and that their value judgment concerning certain actions is the same as ours. In reality, it is not so: what we unreservedly perceive as a hideous crime, they may perceive as sacrifice in the line of duty; an unpleasant, but necessary service to the society; a dishonourable act which they still consider justified because it had, in their view, served a good purpose. I knew that, locked away in such a belief system, the heart could easily harden and become impervious to the suffering of another; and that not too rarely, the same hardening threatened us who were involved in the rebellion.

He was awake when I entered, reading one of the disc-texts we had left in his cabin to help him pass the time. To my astonishment, he replied to my initial question right away: yes, he'd had contact with Blake at the time of his first arrest. Following my instinct, I asked him whether he had been an interrogator then. Again, he replied yes.

He appeared civil and willing to talk. I was so eager to learn the information that might be helpful to Blake, that I dropped my guard, lowered the gun I had pointed at him, and made a few trusting steps towards him. It was a mistake.

Being a former interrogator, he was versed in reading other people's psychic disposition, and he tricked me precisely by telling the truth. When his assault came, I wasn't prepared. He pushed me and banged my head and hand against the wall so hard that I dropped the gun. We fought over it and wrestled, but finally he overpowered me. Holding the gun to my back, he ordered me to walk in front of him.

Although the Liberator was an alien ship, it had at least one thing in common with the ships constructed by the Terrans and Auronars: in all of its major corridors, there were signs pointing towards the launch area for the life support capsules. I sent a telepathic message to all the crew members that Boroven had escaped, and was heading in that direction.

When we reached the entrance to the launch area, Blake was already there. I noticed that he wasn't armed. He must have been in his cabin when he'd received my telepathic call, and then ran straight here, reckoning he wouldn't have time to go to the flight deck first to arm himself. He was leaning against the entrance door: he appeared worn out, but resolute.

'The game's over, Boroven. You cannot pass. The doors is locked with the computer code I have just entered. No one knows it but me. And you can't blast the herculanium door with a handgun, either... Hand over your weapon and I'll just take you back to your cabin. You will suffer no consequences.'

'Rubbish!' Boroven snapped. He was now using me as a shield, holding me tight with one arm and pointing the handgun to my temple with the other. He tightened his grip on my neck. 'Enter the code, or she's dead.'

For a moment, Blake stood motionless, his face like a mask, showing nothing. Even I wasn't able to sense his feelings. Then he licked his lips and said, 'No.'

'Wh - ?' Boroven mumbled a half articulate question, a 'what' or a 'why'. Taken aback by Blake's reply, he gripped me even more tightly.

'You've heard me well. I'm running an important mission for the rebellion. Its outcome cannot be jeopardized because of the life of one person. She is expendable. You kill her, you still lose.'

Boroven's confusion was apparent: he staggered backwards, and his hand holding the gun became unsteady, as though he wasn't certain whether to point it at Blake or at me. I took advantage of that: I freed myself from his grip and pushed him aside. Blake rushed forward and took hold of Boroven's right hand, grappling with him to get the gun.

The next moment, I heard a shot fired from the Liberator's handgun, but it wasn't the one in Boroven's hand. Neither Blake nor I were hit. It was Boroven's body that slipped limply to the floor.

'He isn't dead.' That was Avon's voice, coming from a side corridor. He came closer. The gun in his hand was the one I'd seen him working on several days ago. 'It was a stun blast. I've modified one of the Liberator's guns so it can fire stun blasts as well as regular ones. With a hostage on board who mustn't be killed, I thought we might have some use of it. I was right... as always.'

But Blake was hardly listening. He ran up to me and hugged me tightly, tightly, almost crushing me in his arms.

'I had to say that, Cally, I had to fake it,' he whispered. 'There was no other way.'

I touched his lips with my fingers to show him that no words were needed. 'I'm alright. Blake – I understand what was at stake. This man is now worth the lives of sixty-seven of our comrades. You had to say all that was necessary to prevent his escape.'

'All that was necessary... and more.' That was Avon's voice, attuned to its most sarcastic note. Blake and I turned towards him. 'It is an ancient theatrical rule, isn't it', Avon went on, 'that the performance is always best when the actor strongly identifies with his role.'

'What's that supposed to mean?' Blake snarled.

'It means,' Avon replied with a mocking smile, 'that you weren't faking it. On the contrary, for once you were completely honest with us... perhaps for the first time since we've assembled on this ship.' He turned to me. 'He didn't say it just to confuse Boroven. He does consider us expendable. We are just units in an operation of political arithmetic, don't you see, and it all comes down to concluding that number sixty is bigger than number one. He always calculates that way, and always fights to the last drop of other people's blood.'

I looked deep into Avon's eyes. 'You are mistaken.'

'Am I?' He flashed a wolfish grin at me. 'Or is it just that you're a perfect follower?'

In the aftermath of that scene, I was surprised when the com unit chimed in my cabin, several hours later, and I heard Avon's voice.

'Cally, it's Avon. Orac has just announced the search results for the question you asked… I think you'd better come.'

He was alone on the flight deck, sitting on the couch, with Orac's casing on the table in front of him. 'Play it from the beginning, Orac,' he instructed.

'A visual message from Dal Boroven to Dr. Havant, classified CC-H-51-303, archived in the Central Clinic, Earth Dome No. 024, dated 10/7/251 NC. The message commences.

The face of Dal Boroven, six years younger, appeared on one of the Liberator's auxiliary screens.

'Dr. Havant – further to your inquiry on Aran Blake, sister of Roj Blake, and the exact circumstances of her death. You have explained to me you need a detailed report for the purpose of creating effective memory blocks. Given that this matter is no longer in the hands of the Interrogation Division, I can now give you a full account of the events.

'Along with this message I enclose the files pertaining to her arrest. However, I can tell you right away that you will find nothing of import there. She wasn't a member of the Freedom Party; she had no significant information to divulge, and was detained for the sole purpose of exerting pressure on her brother Roj Blake. Prior to that, Blake had been interrogated for five days, but had remained uncooperative. On the morning of the sixth day – it was October 2nd – I made a decision to confront him with his sister...'

They have boarded the Federation military flyer, which must now be several thousand metres above the ground. The floor they're lying on is shaking and the engine noise is deafening. They must be flying through the mist, or above rainy clouds, because through the wide open cabin door nothing can be seen but greyness.

He and Aran gaze into each other's eyes, both unable to speak. He wishes he could think of something encouraging to tell her, but at the moment, he can hardly breathe. A short while ago, without any apparent provocation, the two guards aboard the flyer pushed him to the floor and punched his face mercilessly until he nearly lost consciousness. A stream of blood is still running down his nose, and he has to breathe through his mouth. His right eye is swollen and he can hardly see with it. Now he cannot see with either of them because they are filling with tears.

They want to know about the two other rebel groups to which his own has been connected: Bran Foster's and Kasabi's. The names of the members, their hiding places outside the domes, their ways of exchanging messages, their meetings. If he talks, he knows all these people will be killed. Just like thirty of his comrades, his entire rebel cell, were butchered by Travis's guards. He knows he mustn't allow it to happen again. For five days, whatever the Federation interrogators did to him, he kept repeating it like a litany. Until this morning, when they've confronted him with Aran.

What makes his heart ache, more than anything else, is that she is heedless of any danger threatening her, and completely focused on him. Visibly shaken, she stares at the injuries covering his face; she leans forward as though she wanted to hold him or touch him, but her hands are cuffed behind her back. Then the sadness in her eyes is replaced by apprehension, as one of the guards gets behind her and pulls her body backwards.

The guard holds her arms while the interrogator slaps her face, hitting her hard on the cheeks and ears. Talk, Blake. Where is Bran Foster's hiding place? How do his men go in and out of domes? Where do Kasabi's people meet? Another slap and yet another one, until Aran cries, please stop, please don't hit me any more, please. Another slap and yet another, and each like an iron nail driven into his heart.

Now they push her halfway out of the flyer, her head and torso are outside, the rough wind is blowing her hair in all directions, filling her eyes with tears. There is blood in the corner of her mouth. She grimaces with the effort of trying to lift up her body, bend it towards the flyer cabin, visibly horrified that if she relaxes her muscles she will fall.

The interrogator grabs his hair and jerks his head back, forcing him to watch, and then he snarls into his face through the maddening engine noise.

'Do you think I'm faking, Blake?Do you think I won't do it?'

Aran is looking at him desperately, shaking her head, but he doesn't understand what it means. Does it mean no, Roj, don't tell them anything? Or no, don't let them do this to me? Or simply no, this cannot be happening?

He will never know. She falls through the mist and grey clouds in complete silence, and the only screams he hears are his own.

'... looking back, I concede it was a tactical mistake, a momentary error of judgment on my part. I am aware how much it cost us. With her alive, perhaps we could have managed to exert sufficient pressure on Blake and make him disclose the information he knew. Admittedly, with a deviant like Blake one never knows...'

Too upset to continue, I stopped the recording and pressed the com link to Blake's cabin. 'Blake!' I called. 'Blake, come in!' There was no response.

Boroven was locked again in his cabin, but he was now in a very different mood. He didn't even seem surprised when the door opened and Blake entered, pointing the gun at him; he didn't seem surprised that Blake's eyes were cold, unimaginably cold, colder than the space the Liberator was travelling through.

'So you've remembered,' he said calmly. 'I was wondering whether you would. Dr Havant did a very good job on you, didn't he? It is amazing how long those memory blocks have managed to hold.'

Blake's hand was quite steady, his gun pointed between Boroven's uplifted eyes. He didn't speak.

'I see that you have come to take revenge. Well... go ahead. I would rather die than be a part of your criminal scheme.' Boroven attempted to keep a self-satisfied smile on his face; but beads of sweat on his forehead and the movements of his throat, attempting to swallow something invisible, belied his taunting words. As time dragged and Blake wasn't moving, he broke and cried: 'It was you, scum! You did it! You killed her, not me! You had a chance to save her, and you didn't!'

Blake holstered his gun, went out and closed the door.

He leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. For a moment he was swept by deep, deep hatred, deep as the abyss into which Aran had fallen that day. He saw himself pushing Boroven to the ground, kicking him, fisting his face to a pulp, smashing Boroven's skull against the floor, firing a barrage into his stomach and chest.

For a moment; but he knew that moment wasn't really him. It was a wave, like the waves on the sea, a wave that washed over him, covering him completely, and then the wave withdrew and only he remained. It was two years earlier, when the memories first started coming back of what the Federation had done to him, that he realized he must never, under any circumstances, allow himself to enjoy inflicting pain or violent death on another human being.

Many days later, he would tell me about his encounter with Boroven. He would tell me about the wave, and how he was able to separate it from his real self; but at that moment, while Avon and I were racing down the corridor to get to him as soon as possible, neither of us could tell for certain what Blake was going to do.

'Blake,' I cried, breathless, 'you mustn't kill him. Remember why we need him alive. I know how you feel, but you mustn't - '

'I won't kill him,' Blake replied quietly. And then his eyes snapped open and he looked at us in sudden realization. 'You know – ?'

Avon explained to him about the Federation Security file Orac had traced down for us. I could sense anger surfacing in Blake again, only now it had a different target.

'Yes, I know what you're going to say,' he snarled at Avon. 'That if I was able to sacrifice my own sister for the rebellion, there's no telling how far I'll go with the rest of you. That yesterday I almost did the same to Cally. That I am not human. That an individual, a relation, a friend, mean nothing to me. This is what you want to say, isn't it? Well, damn it, go ahead and SAY IT!'

Avon stood there quietly and never diverted his gaze, nor shook in the least at the thunder of Blake's voice. Cold and impenetrable, even for me; yet beyond his reserve and arrogance, I sensed a hint of something else... something different.

'I am sorry about your sister,' he said softly. Then he turned and left.

I know that for a man like Blake, harder than even the most severe physical pain, harder even than witnessing the death of his loved ones, are the situations which demand making terrifying, impossible choices. The situations which sometimes arise, and seem to have been designed by Hell itself; for in such situations, whichever choice we make, it is bound to tear apart the fabric of our very soul. This is when we become our own most severe judges, impervious to any appeals from the defence or mitigating circumstances, and inevitably rule that what we have done deserves the maximum penalty.

How we carried out that prisoner exchange would have to be a separate story. The moment Boroven was outside the Liberator, and the released resisters were aboard, all hell broke loose, just as we knew it would. Four pursuit ships were on our tail; four more intercepted our course, emerging from behind a satellite which they had used as cover. It took all of Jenna's piloting skills, Avon's detector shield, the Liberator's maximum speed and most of its energy reserves, to get us out of there alive and in one piece - though the Liberator's outer hull and all of its drives did suffer a great deal of damage.

Now the Liberator is full of life, full of people who still find it hard to believe they have escaped death. I feel so grateful for this miracle. It feels so good to be a part of it, to know that we have helped so many, saved so many human lives. I believe that Jenna and Vila, too, and even Avon, must feel at least a part of what I feel, feel how good it is to know we have done this; they must recognize, at this moment at least, that Blake's struggle is worth it.

Many of the prisoners are injured and in need of medical care. Many are starved, resembling living corpses, weak and exhausted. There is a woman who cannot fall asleep; a young man who still hasn't spoken a word. Overwhelmed by their pain, Blake spends most time in the med unit, instructing, supervising, tending the wounded himself, sometimes just listening to those who have a need to talk about what they had gone through.

Meanwhile, his own pain and the torment of guilt remain in the dark inside him, abandoned, unattended. Again that stubborn voice has taken over, saying not now, not now, there is no time to deal with it now, I will deal with it later.

I leave the hustle for a moment and withdraw to my cabin. I close my eyes and, in the lore of my people, invoke healing and inner peace for Blake, my comrade, my brother. Then I whisper a prayer, wishing that one day, soon, he may find it possible to lay the ghosts to rest, and finally forgive himself.