Title: Sojourn: Part 2 – Mindblank
Author: JadeHeart
Located/Archived: If anyone would like it, please ask me first!
Creation Date: 1994
Fandom: Blakes 7
Rating: M
Timeline: A few years after the end of the TV series.
Original Characters: Kitra and Griffen are mine.
Summary: Fate brings the players from the past to gather again.
Disclaimer: I do not own the idea/outline/characters of Blake's 7, this belongs to the original creators, nor am I making any profits from this.
Chapter 2
"Nothing. He just doesn't remember anything." Vila said mournfully as he sat down.
"I told you it would be unlikely that he would. You know he's been conditioned." Kitra didn't sound too sympathetic.
Vila had been treading very warily around her since their unexpected departure to return home. It was only once they had arrived back at base that she explained to him very slowly and carefully, and in no uncertain terms, to never do such a thing again or he would be dead, and she was speaking metaphorically. He often forgot that she wasn't quite human and his mind was still reeling from his near brush with death, even if he had been unaware of it at the time.
"So what do we do?" he asked her, still hoping for some assistance from her. Since arriving back, she had told him that Tarrant was his problem and it was up to him to deal with it. So far he had had no luck.
"If he's not going to remember, you'll have to kill him." she stated flatly.
Vila paled at that. "I can't do that!"
"Vila, do you never think!" Kitra said in exasperation, the force behind her voice making him start nervously. He still expected her to pounce on him at any moment. "We can't just let him go!"
"He was unconscious getting here! He doesn't know where he is. We just need to put him under again and drop him off on any planet." Vila tried to steer her away from that last final statement.
"Don't be a bigger fool than you already are!" she spat at him. "What's the first thing he's going to do? Report to Federation Headquarters, tell them he was kidnapped by some people, one of them specifically named Vila, who was insisting that he was someone called Del Tarrant. And what do you think his superiors are going to do? Just leave it? Someone went to a lot of trouble to wipe his memories out and that someone is probably still around, and that is someone you don't want poking around to see where you are! And I don't need your problems! Why don't you ever listen to what you're told?" She narrowed her eyes. "He dies."
"No!" Vila said sharply, grabbing her arm, risking it. He saw her inner lid flick back to reveal the slitted pupil and the muscles in her arm tense but he held on, looking her in the eye pleadingly. "Please, Kitra. Help me. We've got to try something."
"Like what?"
"I don't know! But there's got to be something we can do! Something to jog his memory maybe? Orac, do you have any bright ideas?"
"Your rudimentary theory has some slight merit in this case. If there were some way of enforcing memories of incidents, people, and so on, from Tarrant's previous memories into his mind, with some form of appropriately corresponding sight, sound or emotion, there may be some chance of triggering the repressed memories and breaking the mind blocks." was Orac's reply.
"Could we do that?" Vila asked Kitra. "I've got most of the same memories as he has from what we did, that sort of thing. Do you have some machine that we could use? Some way of using my memories to try and trigger his?"
Kitra shook her head. "Not a thing. We're not that well equipped here."
"Kitra," Griffen said from the couch where his globe lay. "You could do it. You don't need a machine."
She glanced across the room at him. "You would have to remind me."
"What does he mean?" Vila asked her, looking at the two of them.
"Nothing." she answered shortly, pulling away from him.
He held on tighter. "Come on, Kitra! Look, I'm begging you. If you know of someway to help Tarrant can't you at least try? For me? Just this once? I swear I'll never ask another favour from you again. You can even keep my share of the profits from now on. I won't ask for anything!"
Kitra looked into his pleading face and couldn't deny him any longer. She knew he needed to do his utmost best to help Tarrant. Whatever Vila thought of Tarrant personally, whether he liked him or not, they were almost like family. After everything they had been through together that was to be expected.
She sighed. Family was important - whether they were family by blood or not. And he was willing to give up all his wealth. That was more telling than anything else. She shook her head in resignation. For his sake she would have to try, however distasteful it was for her.
"Alright, we'll try. I don't know why I let you talk me into these things, Vila. One day you're going to get me killed."
"I don't generally have that problem. You should talk to Avon about that one." Vila replied dryly, a smile spreading over his face at her acceptance.
"Okay, start talking," she said as she sat down next to Griffen, with a glare at him. "Tell me about the people you met, what they looked like, how they acted, what their relationship with Tarrant was, everything. I want people and incidents that would have evoked any type of strong emotional reaction in him at the time, or even maybe after. I need to know what sort of emotion he was or might have been feeling at each instance."
"What are you going to do?" Vila queried, curious as to how she intended to break the mind block.
"I'm going to try projecting those images and emotions into his mind. That's all I can do." was her answer.
Vila puzzled on this for a moment. "You're a telepath?" Vila said, surprised as he had seen no evidence of this ability in her before.
She shook her head. "No, I'm an empath."
"Eh?" he said, blankly.
"We don't have time, Vila. Just start talking. Orac, flood the medical unit with anaesthetic and knock our 'guest' out, will you? Then ventilate it enough for us to get in to put him out properly."
"It is done."
She sat on the bed next to Tarrant's unconscious form. Placing two fingers lightly on his forehead, she closed her eyes and concentrated.
Images rushed from her mind to his, falling quickly, one after the other, each accompanied by varying emotions from love, hate, pain, guilt, lust, envy; all the emotions, both good and bad.
She kept up the bombardment over and over again, finishing each time with the final confrontation on Guada Prime. Vila's memories only covered up to the time he himself was shot. How the others fared afterwards he didn't know, but Kitra hoped that Vila's emotions were pretty much what the others were experiencing and it would be enough to stir up Tarrant's memories of that time. Reaching the end once more she continued the flow again.
Vila sat quietly, gnawing on a fingernail. He could see sweat beginning to bead on Kitra's forehead although she hadn't moved or made any sound since she had begun more than an hour ago. Although she wasn't moving physically he could almost feel the effort she was putting into this endeavour mentally.
He still didn't fully comprehend what it was she was doing, but it was their only hope now of restoring Tarrant's memories. If this didn't work, he would have no choice but to abide by her decision and that would be to kill Tarrant, and Vila knew that it would have to be him to do it. Tarrant was his problem; to resolve or destroy. He didn't want to think of that unnerving possibility and so instead prayed to what ever gods may exist that she would be successful.
She ran the sequence again, letting it flow smoothly from her mind to Tarrant's. The memories seemed to simply fall into a void, to be swallowed up in the emptiness, not even creating a ripple in the darkness.
She was coming to the end of Vila's final memory when suddenly, instead of ceasing at Vila's fall, she felt her mind swept up in a new stream. She saw a blond female dressed in grey spin around as she was shot. Then she felt as though she were running, heard in her mind a voice call out 'Avon!', and then felt agonising pain shoot through her side, and she screamed.
From his corner, Vila saw her brow suddenly crease in a frown and her outstretched hand trembled slightly. The tension in the room seemed to rise. Then suddenly she threw her head back as her body arched and she cried out as if in pain as she was literally flung across the room to land in a heap against the far wall.
"Kitra!" Vila cried, hurrying to her side. She had her hands to her head, moaning. "Kitra, are you alright? Did it work?"
"Don't know," she gasped out, looking up at him. Her face still registered shock and pain, and her eyes were feverish bright. She closed them with another moan, struggling to get to her feet, using the wall to support herself.
"Oh, my head! It hurts!" and her voice was filled with pain also. One hand still clutched her head and her eyes were squeezed shut.
"What happened?" Vila asked, reaching out to draw her away from the wall and hold her upright.
"Tarrant took hold of the memories. He played it out, how he was shot on Guada Prime. It happened too fast, I couldn't get out. He caught me up in it."
He supported her as she pressed her hands to her temples to ease the pain still throbbing through her mind.
"Then it worked!" Vila said, feeling joyful for the success.
She shook her head, wincing as that sent pain shooting through her. "Not sure. It could have been a fluke, just a leakage through the mind block. It may not have done anything else. You can't trust in it. Oh, gods! I'm going to pass out!" She swayed dangerously for a moment.
"What can I get you? Do you need some medication?" Vila queried, worried about her.
"No." she murmured, taking small unsteady steps with his assistance. "Nothing in the med unit can help me. Need to sleep."
"I'll help you back to your room." he said, letting her lean more of her weight on him.
She could barely stay on her feet as they made their way through the corridors, and more than once had to stop as the pain became too much and it seemed she would collapse. Vila didn't really understand what was wrong. Cally never seemed to have any problems with using her telepathy, certainly she never experienced any pain like this. He managed to get Kitra to her room and laid her down. Her eyes were screwed tight and she moaned softly. He suddenly had an idea and rushed back to the medical unit, grabbed what he wanted and ran back to her room.
Kitra breathed a sigh of relief as a cool patch was laid on her arm. She cracked her eyes open a fraction to see Vila standing by the bed.
"Pain killer, with a relaxant," Vila said with a smile to her. "Thought it would help."
"Thank you," she whispered. "It does." She took a deep breath and spoke again. "I'm going to sleep for quite a while. Don't be concerned if you can't wake me. Griffen understands." She focused on him with some difficulty. "Lock Tarrant up and keep an eye on him. Don't trust him. We don't know if any good's been done or what to expect. Okay?"
"All right," Vila agreed. She just looked at him. "All right!" he said again, more forcefully. She still didn't look as though she believed him but he could see she was getting weak again.
"Get Orac to check on him," she added, closing her eyes. He could see her body relax as she slipped into sleep.
"Vila? Is that you?" the voice questioned in disbelief.
"Tarrant?"
"What's going on, Vila? Will you open this door!" a thump from the other side emphasised the point.
"I don't think I should just yet." Vila said cautiously, taking heed of Kitra's warning. Tarrant certainly sounded angry.
"Vila, if you don't open this door, when I get out I'm going to personally smear what little brains you have over it!" Another thump, stronger this time.
"That's Tarrant, all right," Vila muttered resignedly, palming open the door. Kitra was really going to kill him this time.
Tarrant stood glaring on the other side. "Just what the hell are you playing at? And where are we?" he snapped, glancing around.
"Come on." Vila said, turning away and beckoning Tarrant to follow him. "It's a long story and I think you'll want a drink after it."
"I can't believe it." Tarrant said, staring into space. "Four years."
"Well, the consolation is that you didn't even notice those years. Where as I was frying for three of them!" Vila said, handing him a drink.
"What of the others?" Tarrant asked, accepting the glass.
"Dayna's dead." a voice came from the doorway behind him.
Tarrant spun in his seat, hand going to his side where a gun would have hung, as he faced the girl standing in the doorway, drawn gun pointed at him.
"Kitra!" Vila said quickly, standing and moving over to her side.
She glanced sideways at him. "Don't you ever do as you're told?" she said.
"It's alright. He's Tarrant again, back to normal. It worked. Honest." Vila tried to reassure her.
She walked further into the room, Vila hovering anxiously at her side. "Are you alright?" he asked.
"I have an headache. It'll pass."
"Anything I can do?" he asked, hoping to placate her. He didn't see any signs of her being in a killing rage and he hoped he could prevent it coming to that.
"A drink would be nice."
Vila rapidly filled a glass and handed it to her, which she accepted with a 'thank you' and sat down. The gun remained pointing at Tarrant.
He flashed one of his charming smiles at her. "So you're Vila's mysterious partner?" he said.
"I wouldn't have used the word 'mysterious'," was her noncommittal reply.
"Well, he said you were the one responsible for my getting my memory back."
She shrugged as she took a sip of the wine. "Let's just say I simply gave you a nudge in the right direction."
"A nudge that laid you out for nearly two days," Vila put in dryly, hoping to give Tarrant the hint that what she had done for him had been at a rather high cost to herself. Vila also knew that he now had a debt to her as she had done it for his sake and not hers.
"I guess that makes me indebted to you," Tarrant said.
Kitra leant back. "Don't worry. I'll collect some day."
Tarrant looked more closely at her and found he had to look away from her flat stare as he found it unnerving. He had felt hunted before, many times whilst travelling with Vila and the others. He knew that feeling too well. He cleared his throat before speaking again.
"You said Dayna's dead. What makes you think so?"
"From what Vila told me. The rest of you were shot once the Federation had broken into the base on Guada Prime. Dayna was shot by a traitor before that happened. Obviously the other troopers weren't carrying standard issue guns or you would all be dead. Dayna wasn't so lucky."
Tarrant could do nothing but agree with her logic and felt a pang of sorrow for Dayna's death. He had had no opportunity to grieve for her in the past four years. It was long overdue.
"And the others?" Before he began his grieving he wanted to know for how many it would be.
"Presumably they could be still alive, scattered across the galaxy as you two were. Why the Federation didn't just kill you, I don't know. Rather foolish of them."
Tarrant smiled grimly. "You would have done differently?"
"Of course. You never leave an enemy alive. It would have been much more practical to have killed you all outright. I don't see the point in leaving you alive with the possibility that you might escape and cause trouble. Much simpler to just kill you."
"Doesn't she remind you of someone?" Vila put in to Tarrant pointedly, who glanced over to him before nodding agreement.
"Yes," he replied, thinking of Avon. He took another sip from his drink. "So you think the others are alive?"
"Unless they've died in the ensuing years."
"So you could find them?"
She shrugged. "Who knows? It's taken a long time to track you down. Nearly a year. The other two aren't going to be any easier, I don't imagine. The Federation has been covering its tracks very carefully. We're following the tiniest leads that appear and, as in your case, we sometimes have to work backwards and try to piece together the smatterings of information Orac can pick up."
That had been another pleasant surprise for Tarrant, to find not only Vila alive but also to have Orac here in good working condition. He was not generally a superstitious person but he could not help but feel that some higher power was manoeuvring things to bring them all together again. Although, it wouldn't be all if Dayna was dead as it was believed. But that did leave the other two. Two more possibilities.
"So have you got anything to work on at the moment?" he asked.
"I had a word with Orac just before I came in. He's back to following a lead that he thinks may lead to Soolin. It's about as vague as yours was, but it's the best he's got. There's been a great deal of upheaval over the past few years. The government has been purged a couple of times and I can take a pretty good guess on whose orders. Files and data have been destroyed or lost very conveniently. It's making Orac's job that much harder."
"So we just have to wait till he can come up with something definite." Tarrant said, glancing down in resignation. He had never been good at waiting.
"No," she said, startling him. She stood up and holstered her gun. "On the contrary, we work." She placed her glass on the bench before turning to look back at Tarrant. "I run a business, and there are no freeloaders. I understand you're supposed to be a pretty good pilot?" She flashed him a dazzling, seductive smile that stunned him. "Care to show me?"
"But what do you really know about her?" Tarrant insisted, following Vila into the sitting area.
"I know enough, Tarrant," Vila repeated once more, automatically heading for the wine. He retrieved a bottle and two glasses and poured. "She saved my life, and she's never asked for anything in return."
"She makes you work for her! How can you say she hasn't asked anything of you?"
Vila shook his head, "No, she made an offer, and I accepted. She wasn't going to do anything to me if I had refused. She didn't even know who I was at that time."
"I don't like it!" Tarrant paced. He had been awake and working with them for nearly a week now. They had gone out on a few jobs in that time and he had to admit that Kitra was very organised and good at what she did. He had found that he was a little jealous of how well she and Vila appeared to work together. Of course, they had been a team for a while now but Tarrant didn't like feeling like the 'new boy' on the block. It irked him.
Vila watched him over the rim of the glass. He didn't understand why Tarrant was still going on about Kitra and what her ulterior motives must be. He liked Kitra, always had. Kitra had helped him. So what was Tarrant's problem?
"Tarrant, stop worrying! She's fine. If she had wanted to do anything to us she could have at any time. Why would she have gone to all the trouble of breaking your conditioning if she was just going to throw back to the Federation? You were already in the Federation!"
"It just seems too convenient!" Tarrant spun around to glare at Vila. "Meeting you, finding Orac, being able to help me. How could she do that? If it was that simple to break the conditioning there's no way the Federation would have let me out!"
"Believe me, whatever she did to help you was not easy!" Vila said forcefully. "I saw what she went through; it looked like it nearly killed her."
"But we know nothing about her! You've been with her for nearly a year and you don't even know what planet she's from, has she any family, where she was educated, how she became a smuggler, nothing! She got to be a Federation agent!"
"Is it really that important to know those things?" They both turned to look towards the door to see Kitra standing there. How long she had been there they didn't know. She was able to move so quietly they frequently were surprised by her appearance.
Tarrant's jaw set in a stubborn line. "Yes, it is. We've been on the run a long time, and there are others besides the Federation that would think they could profit in some way if they had their hands on any of us."
"I think you're over-estimating your value. There's been a lot of time gone by since you were the top of the Federation's most wanted list. You're old news."
"Even if we are, it's not exactly safe for us to be wandering around blithely through the universe."
"True," she acknowledged, "but we are hardly doing that at the moment. You could hardly call a couple of jobs in one sector advertising your presence."
"So, what about you?" Tarrant asked, "What do you get out of this?"
"Me?" she shrugged, "Peace and quiet from Vila now that he's found you." She looked at him with narrowing eyes. "Although I'm beginning to wonder if it was worth it."
Tarrant glared back at her. "That's hardly an answer. We have no idea of anything about you. You may have bamboozled Vila, that's not hard to do, he's pretty gullible, but you're not going to fool me so easily. I want to know just who the hell you are and what you can do. And I want the truth!"
"The truth is sometimes nothing more than a state of mind."
"Stop talking in riddles and get to the point!"
"Tarrant..." Vila said warningly, but a sharp glance from Kitra stopped his words.
Her gaze centred back on Tarrant where he stood. "So you want to know more about me?" her voice was dangerously low, almost husky. "Well then, perhaps we can satisfy your curiosity."
She walked around behind the couch, a half smile on her face. "You see, I'm not exactly what you would call 'human', Tarrant. I know you've met aliens before. After all, Cally was an alien also. She was from Auron. They are very human, in every way, except for their telepathic abilities. You know I'm not telepathic, but empathic. Not an overly useful function, and more often than not more of a hindrance than a help. So you know I'm also an alien, but I don't think you really have any idea just how much so. I'm a Talurian and we are definitely not 'human', except in the general physical sense."
She moved across to the bar, ignoring Vila standing behind it. "On Taluria we evolved through genetic modification performed in our ancient past. They mixed genes from humans and...felines."
She was now facing him across the table. "See these?" she said, stretching her gloved hand out in front of her. "Have you not wondered why I wear gloves so often? It could hardly be because I have cold hands."
As she was speaking she tugged each finger of the glove loose and slipped it off. "I wear them to hide my hands, so I can do certain things. Like this," She raised her hand suddenly to eye level and talons sprang from her finger tips.
Tarrant felt himself jerk back in shock. The smile never left her face. "They are very convenient, you know," she said, lowering her hand and looking down at it as she turned it this way and that. "That's how I can manage to pick locks. I don't need to worry about carrying cumbersome tools with me. They are very strong and don't break easily." She flexed them, and Tarrant felt himself flinch as he watched those deadly claws retract and then reappear as she continued to speak. "And they are a much more effective weapon. I can kill a person very easily with these and they never know it's about to happen."
She began to walk across the room to the doorway. "But that's not the only advantage I hold from my heritage." Stopping, she turned to look at Tarrant again. "I have a few others. You see, felines are more instinctive than primates, and we have retained many of those instincts. The thrill of the hunt, the search for prey, is still strong within us. You don't want to get in the way of that.
"Do you want to know what else I can do?" The room was plunged into darkness as she palmed the lights off. "Can you see in the dark, Tarrant?" Her voice came out of the blackness.
Tarrant stood stock still. "What exactly are you trying to prove?" he said, turning his head, trying to pin point where she was.
"Merely that you are the one at a distinct disadvantage here." Her voice appeared to come from the other side of the room. "Why don't you move around, Tarrant? Are you saying that you can't? That you can't see? It really isn't that dark in here, you know," Now her voice appeared to be somewhere in front of him. "I can move around this room quite easily. I wouldn't bump into a single item. I could pour a glass of wine without spilling a drop," and he heard the clink of glass touching glass. "Or I could open your jugular before you even realised." The hiss of her voice was behind him near his ear and a sharp point was pressed against the skin under his chin. His head stretched back in response to that pressure and he could feel his own pulse moving the talon up and down. "You could die here, Tarrant. Or anywhere. I could always kill you in the dark. For darkness is MY daylight."
The point was suddenly gone from his throat and the lights came on to show her standing opposite him. Vila stood at the doorway, obviously being the one to turn the lights on. She threw a side long glance towards him but didn't say anything. Tarrant took a deep breath and her eyes came back to his face.
"Look closely, Tarrant, look very closely," She stepped toward to him. He refused to flinch back from her approach although he could still feel the phantom pressure on his neck. He looked down at her face and she raised her eyes to meet his. As he watched it appeared that a veil lifted from across her eyes and he found himself looking into two golden eyes with slitted pupils that narrowed in the light.
"I am far less 'human' than you could know. Never forget that." she whispered to him softly. And the veil dropped down and her eyes appeared normal once more before she turned from him.
She walked over to the bar where she picked up a filled glass whilst Vila moved to Tarrant's side holding out another. "I did try to warn you." he said, with a small shrug. "Have a glass."
Tarrant nodded and took the drink, immediately downing half of it.
Vila watched critically before saying. "Here, take the bottle instead."