"Servalan's got Orac," Vila said as soon as the guard had finished chaining him back to the bedpost. He scooted off his knees into a half-sitting, half-sprawling position.

"So that's why she sent for Avon," Dayna said.

"That's not all," Vila added. "We've left Gauda Prime. We're headed for Earth."

"Earth? But she's been questioning me about the underground on GP and our ties to other resistance groups. Is this computer that important to her?" Rashel asked.

"As much as I hate to admit it, Orac is probably the most sophisticated computer in the galaxy," Vila said. "Just ask him, he'll tell you himself. He can control other computers. With Orac and Avon to help her, Servalan could do almost anything."

"As if things weren't bad enough," Rashel sighed.

"What do you mean?" Vila asked. He thought things were already pretty bad, but she seemed to mean something specific.

"I'm late - nearly two months late."

"Late? What's late?"

"My, uh, my ... ." Dropping her voice, Rashel started to stutter out an answer, but Dayna interrupted and told Vila in plain language just what was late."

"Oh. Does that mean what I think it does?"

"It might. It would explain why my interrogation's been so gentle compared to everyone else's. But if I am pr-pregnant, why hasn't she killed me?" Rashel just barely managed to hold back her tears.

"Maybe she just wants to get all the information she can out of you first," Dayna offered.

"But she hasn't tortured me or drugged me," Rashel pointed out. "She hasn't done anything that could hurt the baby - if I am pregnant."

"Blake's son would be one helluva pawn," Vila reasoned.

"Son? It might be a daughter," Dayna said.

"No." Vila shook his head. "Roj Blake would sire sons."

"Sexist," Dayna muttered.


The routine settled down again. Avon spent most of his time in therapy, where he was an uncooperative patient, or in Servalan's quarters. She always sent Vila away when Avon came, so Vila and the others had no way of telling what was happening there. Avon, of course, refused to talk about it. Vila's duty as Servalan's scullion increased. He suspected that she didn't plan to bother with a trial for him and he'd be unofficially enslaved when they returned to Earth. Dayna and Rashel's interrogations decreased. The next few days were fairly quiet ... until Deva died.

The lights on the diagnostic screen went black. Sirens roared, hissed, and whistled. Deva's body collapsed and lay still. After several long minutes, a guard came in, examined the body, and called for a doctor.

Vila was waiting on Servalan at the time, but the others told him about it when he got back. Vila stared up at the empty bed, or tried to. It was difficult to see from his angle. He glanced up at Tarrant's bed with its brightly lit diagnostic screens. "Avon, those screens are computer run, aren't they?"

"What?" The question had startled him. He'd grown used to his fellow prisoners' ostracism.

"I said, are those screens run by computer?" Vila repeated.

"Yes, of course. The entire ship is."

"Could you disrupt them? Rig them so it looked like Tarrant died?"

"Wouldn't it be easier just to kill Tarrant?" Avon asked dryly.

"Answer the question," Vila demanded.

"Yes. If I weren't wearing this - stylish garment," Avon said.

"If we could get you out of that strait-jacket, though, and you messed up the computer that controls the diagnostic screens, that would bring the guards in to investigate, wouldn't it? And we could jump him, grab his keys and his gun. We could escape," Vila suggested, beginning to get excited by his own plan.

"You forget I am chained to the bed," Avon pointed out. "I wouldn't be able to reach Tarrant, even if I did get this jacket off."

"But if we could handle the jacket and the chains, you could manage the computer?" Vila asked.

"Yes, of course," Avon said in an insulted tone. Vila dared doubt his cybernetic proficiency? "But so many ifs ... If it were possible, we would have already done it."

"Not necessarily," Vila countered.

" Not necessarily?" half the people in the room repeated.

"Vila, do you mean to sit there and tell me you could have escaped at any time and we've just been staying to keep Servalan company?" Dayna complained.

"No. Er, not exactly. I think I can get out of the cuffs. But it'll hurt - that's why I haven't tried yet. Besides, we didn't have any way to get off the ship before."

"And we do now?" Tarrant muttered.

"Servalan's got a private boat - a pinnacle - all stocked up, ready to go. It's -"

"Pinnace, Vila," Tarrant interrupted.

"Huh?"

"It's called a pinnace," the space academy graduate corrected.

"Well, whatever you call it, it's big enough to hold the lot of us. And clean. I just scrubbed the bloody thing yesterday."

"It's worth a try, I suppose," Avon said. "After all, if we fail, maybe Servalan will put us out of our misery."

"If Avon is responsible for our successful escape, then you're not likely to let me kill him?" Rashel pointed out.

"Er, it would be bad manners," Vila hedged.

"Damn."

"After we've escaped, Rashel, I will settle my debt with you," Avon promised.

"There's only one way to settle a blood-debt," Rashel warned.

Avon gave her no answer.


"Ugh. What's that on your hand?" the guard asked he handcuffed Vila.

"I, uh, spilled something as I was serving the commissioner's dinner," Vila explained hastily. "She slapped me for it good and proper."

The guard ignored Vila's complaint of Sleer's disciplinary action and shoved him roughly back toward the convalescent dormitory. Vila knelt without being told and stayed meekly still as his cuffs were chained to the bed.

Vila waited until the guard's footsteps died away, then muttered, "Well, here goes nothing." He twisted and turned, contorted and flexed, swore and folded his hand into itself as small as he could. For ten minutes Vila struggled with the cuffs, sweat and blood lubricating his hands as much as the margarine. Finally, he exhaled, and slid out of the cuffs, leaving them chained to the bedpost behind him.

Still in leg-irons, he hobbled over to Avon's bed and pulled a knife out from under his shirt. Silently, he cut the restraints on Avon's strait-jacket. It was tough material. It took a while to cut.

"Waste of a good knife," Rashel muttered as Vila cut Avon free.

"Undo my chain, then free the others," Avon ordered.

"Whose plan is this, yours or mine?" Vila demanded indignantly.

Avon didn't deign to reply as Vila set about picking the lock on Avon's manacles with the knife tip. The thief struggled for several minutes, nicking himself a few times.

"You've cut yourself," Avon noted.

"These? Just nicks. Nothing serious," Vila said.

Avon's right eyebrow rose. Normally Vila was a coward, complaining about every least thing. But when he was concentrating on a lock, he was a different man altogether. "I meant your wrists."

"Oh. Nothing we can do about them now."

"We're in a sickbay," Avon reminded him. "There must be some sort of bandages in here."

"Sickbay. Of course!" Vila jumped up and hurried (as quickly as his leg-irons would permit him)to a locked medical cabinet on the wall. Breaking the cabinet's glass door open with the knife hilt, he opened and looked for ... "Medical instruments!" Vila exclaimed gleefully.

Grabbing a handful of the delicate precision instruments, Vila returned to Avon and had the lock undone in a few minutes.

"Get the others," Avon ordered. "I'll start working on the computer."

"Not yet," Vila protested. "These aren't my usual working tools. It'll take a bit. Don't start yet."

Avon nodded. He walked about, stretching his stiff arms and legs, then went over to examine the diagnostic screen. Vila set to work on Rashel's fetters.

"Are you ready yet?" Avon asked Vila impatiently a few a few minutes later. "I think I've got this thing figured out."

"Almost," Vila stalled, as he clicked open the lock on Dayna's chain. "Let me just get my leg-irons and I'm done."

"I'm starting now. You'd better be done by the time this goes off."

"You think you've got this figured? What if you make a mistake?" Tarrant asked. "I'm still hooked up to this thing."

"We'll have to get you out of the bed ... but not yet. Not until I say. Are you able to walk?" Avon asked brusquely, almost as an afterthought.

"I don't know," Tarrant answered, suddenly feeling more than a little nervous about this escape attempt and the threat it presented to his personal safety.

"Dayna, Rashel, be ready to help him. Carry him if necessary," Avon said.

Avon applied some of Vila's confiscated medical instruments to the screen's circuitry. "Vila, stand by the door and hit whomever comes in."

"Me?"

"Good point. Dayna, you take the door. Vila, come over here and help Tarrant out of bed. All right, lift him out of bed ... now. It's going to sound like November Fifth in a few seconds," Avon prophesied.

For a long moment nothing happened, and Avon started to worry. Then the screen went blank and the alarms went off. Rashel and Vila supported Tarrant, trying to help him walk. Avon joined Dayna at the door. They waited.

"What's the matter?" Tarrant complained. "Don't they care I'm dead?"

"Apparently not," Avon quipped. "They do seem to be taking their time."

"Shh," Dayna whispered. "They're coming."

The door slid open, and a guard walked in, unhurried. Dayna took him down before he had a chance to make a sound. Swiftly, she slit his throat, then grabbed his weapon.

"Let's go," Avon said, turning to the right.

"The pinnace is this way." Vila pointed to the left.

"Servalan's cabin is this way," Avon countered.

"We don't have time for revenge. Let's get the hell out of here," Vila urged.

"Orac is in Servalan's cabin. With it we can disrupt the ship's computers and stop them from looking for us. Without it they'll catch us before we've gone half a spacial." Without looking to see if they were following him, Avon led the way off to the right.

"I hate it when he's right," Vila complained.