Chapter Nine

"I didn't say that." Looking down on four unsmiling faces, Jenna was starting to feel as though her lofty station had become a bastion against a sea of hostile forces, each preparing to launch their sticks and stones against her at any moment. Words and the sting they would carry were going to hurt. With Cally's admission, the mood of the ship had tipped against her. "That is the opposite of what I told her."

"Then she misheard!" said Blake severely, his eyes locked on hers. "What the hell were you thinking?"

"This isn't my fault! Cally is capable of making her own decisions. She told you that."

"As long as she wasn't pushed into one."

"Not by me." She was struggling and failing to convince them of her innocence. Blake's expression never wavered. "We're all responsible, every one of us. Orac with his predictions, losing control of the ship, you pushing all of us beyond our limits―"

"I didn't ask any more of you than what I ask of myself!"

"Cally said you were going to kill Avon with a second shot and you ignored her."

Blake glanced over to where Avon was standing, looking oddly detached from the conversation going on around him. "She was worrying unnecessarily."

"There was no harm done," Gan agreed. "Avon's all right. Aren't you?"

"I'll let you know," came the grudging reply.

"That's not the point," said Jenna forcefully. "Cally had her reasons for leaving, but they were nothing to do with what we discussed. The only blame I'm willing to accept is that I brought us here to The Void. I wasn't to know the Thirteen would be here."

The silence lingered. Blake continued to glare at her, the anger he usually reserved for the Federation suddenly turned on her. It was unsettling; with a few words, she had gone from trusted to traitor. Jostling for position was part of the daily round, but this was different. This was no game. None of them were fighting it, but were been willing, not to believe the best of her and the times when their fates had rested in her hands and she had won through, but to embrace this new, negative image of her without question. It felt like its own betrayal.

She could argue her case, but Blake was past listening. His unfaltering gaze was accompanied by a deliberately slow breathing, as though he was struggling to hold something back and losing. Before it gained mastery over him, Gan broke the tension.

"Jenna's right," he said, easing himself into one of the free seats. "It was a very slim chance anyway we could operate the ship without Zen."

Vila blinked. "I thought we'd done it this time."

"Possibly," said Blake bitterly, finally looking away from her. "It might have worked."

"Only 'might'?! What did you have me humping all this stuff up here for if you didn't think it could work?"

"It took your mind off your cough," said Gan.

"No, it didn't. All that huffing and puffing made me worse. If I'd know I was going to be dead, I wouldn't have bothered."

"Well, I won't deny the situation was bad."

"We were coping," muttered Blake.

"No, we weren't," said Avon.

"We would have found a way," he shot back. "We didn't have to sacrifice Cally!" The anger was creeping back into his voice as he turned back to Jenna. "It wasn't necessary."

"I've already told you I never said anything to her."

"Why would she lie?"

He had a point. She had no immediate answer in defence. Cally's word could usually be trusted. But this made no sense, unless she had genuinely misinterpreted what Jenna had told her. That too seemed unlikely.

"It's understandable, though," Gan was saying as she pulled her attention back to the heated debate. "You do have a bond with Zen, Jenna."

"Is that what you believe?" She looked from one face to another. Only Vila dropped his gaze, embarrassed. "That I would put Cally's welfare before the ship? Zen is―"

"A machine," Avon finished for her. "Whatever it once was, that is what it is now."

Jenna fixed him with an unfriendly glare. "You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

"As a matter of fact, I agree with you." He discarded his respirator with casual indifference. "Cally is not vindictive. Had you said that to her, she would not have repeated it. Nor do I like pre-recorded messages. Why didn't they let her speak? Why was she not with them?"

"Preparing for her new life, they said," Vila spoke up.

"Whatever that means. She said the opposite of what you told her, Jenna, because―"

"It was a warning."

"Precisely. She went willingly and then realised her mistake. The only clue she could give us was one Jenna would understand." Avon's eyes narrowed. "We should leave, now."

"What? Without Cally?" Vila protested.

"We can't help her. We don't know what's over there."

"We have to try," said Gan.

Avon smiled. "Be my guest."

"We're not leaving her behind," Blake said firmly.

"She's not asking for a rescue," Avon responded. "She's telling us to go while we still can. If we can."

"We've got Zen back," said Gan. "The ship is under our control again."

"For now. But why settle for one when you can have both?"

"We'll ask them after we get Cally back," said Blake. "Zen, do we have anything on the structure of the Thirteen's vessel?"

"No information is available."

"Wait," said Jenna. "There's something I want to check. Orac, the ships recorded as lost in The Void, did any list the name Zen among their passengers or crew?"

"Negative," came the reply.

"What's wrong?" asked Gan.

"It's what Avon said. Their understanding of the language is vague. I'm checking that Zen is their 'child' and not something else." She raised her voice. "Orac, check for any variations on the name."

"There is a Zendron of Arle listed as the senior flight co-ordinator on the exploratory vessel, Calypso."

"Zendron," Jenna whispered. Her gaze was drawn to the great glowing screen. "Not their child."

"For child, read 'creation'," said Avon. He had the good grace not to show any satisfaction from being proved right. "What happened to the ship?"

"The ship is recorded as lost with seventy-eight members of crew 104 standard Earth years ago," said Orac. "It was the first Terran vessel to enter The Void."

"A dubious distinction," noted Blake.

"So," Avon said thoughtfully, "the Thirteen encounter humans and discover something they can use and develop into a sophisticated piece of technology."

"Are you saying that this Zendron is inside Zen?" asked Vila.

"No. Zen has no organic components. It was created from a blueprint provided by the crew of the Calypso. Whether based on a single entity or a gestalt is largely irrelevant now. Whatever their original purpose for their creation, they were defeated by an inherent flaw: human will."

"'Only the curious have something to find'," said Blake, echoing the words of the Thirteen. "Zen left them and fell into the hands of the System, who put it into the Liberator."

"Zen can't have been the first," said Jenna. "The Thirteen said their 'children' had been made to wage war on each other. They said they had lost many."

"Which would suggest Zen was not the first to make it home," said Avon thoughtfully. "Or..."

"Or what?"

He glanced up at her. "Or they are able to maintain a tenuous link with their creations. 'We heard his call', they said. 'And we are here'. They are trapped here, but Zen is not." The furrows suddenly fell from his brow. "They have been waiting for their creations to return. Orac," he called out, "how many ships have been lost in The Void?"

"Seventy-seven."

"And Zen makes seventy-eight. The crew of the Calypso finally reassembled." Avon released a long, troubled breath. "If we assume Zen was the most advanced, what the System rejected would have been picked up by the Federation for their own ships. One by one, they came home and the Thirteen took back what was theirs. Except Zen." He frowned again. "Why did they reject it in favour of Cally?"

Blake turned sharply to Jenna. "Was it your decision to come here or Zen's?"

"Mine," she said in confusion. "You were ill and we needed somewhere safe."

"Are you absolutely sure?"

"Well, yes."

Now she thought about it, she had her doubts. The Void was a long way to have come, when other options had been available. At the time she had considered them all and dismissed them in favour of the one place the Federation would never come. Or so she had told herself. In reality, The Void was the last place anyone would go, even in the midst of a crisis. Yet when the name had come to her, quite unexpectedly, it had seemed the most logical place to go. Years of listening to tales of what happened to the unwary had been forgotten with this one thought. It could only be that she had been led here, the voice of experience smothered by the will of another.

"The timing would suggest otherwise," said Avon. "Once Zen was free of the System, it waited for an opportunity to influence you and brought us out here."

"Not by choice." Jenna stopped herself, wondering why she had said it or why she felt certain she was right. The link with Zen had never been stronger than in those moments when she had attempted to plead his case with the Thirteen. They could influence him, but they did not speak for him. "Zen knew removal from the Liberator would end his existence. He didn't want to die."

"All right, if that's true," Blake said, rubbing his chin in thought, "then it means the Thirteen are able to control its actions through... what? Some form of computer control we don't know about?"

"Synthetic telepathy," Avon said. "The same way Zen was able to reach into our minds to use our memories against us. The Federation have been experimenting for many years with something similar with limited success. I imagine the Thirteen also encountered considerable difficulties in creating a workable process." He started slightly as the light of realisation came into his eyes. "Only now, they have the real thing."

"Cally!" Vila blurted. "No wonder they didn't want Zen. They'll turn her into one of their machines. We've got to get her back."

"It's all very well saying that," said Gan, "but how? We can't teleport over there without co-ordinates."

"We won't have to," said Blake. "We'll get there the same way Cally did."

"They don't want us," Avon countered. "They want compliant volunteers with the necessary skills to fit their requirements. Fools, meddlers and enablers are not a good basis on which to base a computer programme."

Blake gave a grim smile. "But pilots are." His gaze turned to Jenna. "Do you think you can convince them you want to join their 'Whole'?"