~oOo~

I can't sleep or eat, I don't want to think, and I'm not allowed to drink, so I wander back to the flight deck. Maybe I'll be able to sleep there, I usually can.

S'wonderful, really. Zen and Orac are pretty well running the ship at the moment, the humans aren't any use whatsoever. Zen's blinking away to himself and making sure we don't run into anyone nasty - yeah, like there's so few of them in the galaxy, aren't there?

I sit and feel sorry for everyone, especially myself. I just want things to go back some way, to what they were before this whole Control thing and Gan's death and most of all what's happened to Blake.

Odd thing is, I still like him.

I remember one of the last white nights... hell, not that there was much to it. He'd had a few bad moments after a rougher-than-normal battle with our unfavourite Space Commander, so I'd sacrificed one of my second-best bottles of ersatz gin, and we'd sat in one of the rec rooms and drank it all while watching the stars on one of the secondary screens. Not exactly as exciting as the latest Federation viscasts, but at that stage I think we'd had enough excitement for a while, even Blake.

By that stage, I knew he was pretty well over the mindwipe, had most if not all of his memories back in some sort of order. Well, I thought so anyway.

"So why do you keep going back for more, then?" I asked, not really expecting to get an answer, certain not to get one I'd ever really understand.

"You did, didn't you?"

"Yeah, but there's a difference. I'm crooked right to the bone, aren't I? A few creative touches with a mindprobe isn't going to change what's in the blood, and they never bothered to really take purely criminal brains apart. Not like the politicals."

"Not like me, you mean."

I waved my glass in some sort of salute. "So ..?"

He stood and walked over to the viscreen, staring out for a minute without speaking, shoulders slightly bent, rubbing his lip with a finger.

"Ever seen a screening of Servalan's investiture as Supreme Commander, Vila?" he said finally.

"No, actually, and I can't say I'm desperate to see it either. How boring was it?"

He smiled slightly. "You wouldn't like it. No drinking, no floor show and no pretty girls." He sipped at his drink, and his eyes seemed to darken. "If you do get to see an older copy of the tape, you can see several people in the background who are simply - mysteriously - not in later versions. Edited out completely. Bran pointed them out to me one time, it was almost a challenge to see who could find the most. All high-ranking officers or councillors who later became undesirables in the eyes of the President or the Supreme Commander and disappeared, both from real life and from any and all records."

I nodded gravely. I didn't have the faintest idea what this had to do with us here on the Liberator, but then I don't usually have any idea what drives Blake, so I never argue. Well, not much.

"They took the records and wiped out whole lives, Vila." His voice turned even colder than Avon's worst, but cold with something that wasn't anger or pain. Sort of in-between, and sort of something I hope I never have to feel. "Like they wiped out whole lives in my mind, even my own. They changed you - they erased me - and left us with the memory of that nothing. Are you so surprised I want to save others from that?"

"Well, no, but haven't you done your share? For that matter, haven't we all done your share?"

"Perhaps you have, at that, but I haven't. Vila, you and I are now free of them, more or less." His lips twisted. "Given time, it will be more. Given enough time, we'll be completely free. Other people are not."

"And that has to be your problem?" Hell, I almost sounded like Avon then.

Blake shrugged. "It has to be someone's."

All very good and noble of him, I know, but I still didn't understand. And I couldn't help thinking at the time how much easier life would have been if it had had to be someone else's. For all of us, and especially for Blake.

I remembered him saying we'd be free. Well, we'd all thought he was free of it. We'd all bet our lives on it, over and over and over. Till now.

I think back over everything we've done while thinking that Blake was free and whole and in his right mind. I think back over the last two days and what he did while I shut my eyes and pretended he was still in his right mind. I think forward to what we're going to do, once Blake's back in what Orac says is his right mind. At least, we hope it will be his right mind.

I feel sick again. And I haven't touched the swampwater for hours.

~oOo~

*The eradication therapy is proceeding according to schedule. Only three sessions remain, but these may be extremely traumatic.*

Oh great. Orac now says we're approaching the bad ones. I ask Orac what could possibly be worse than what we've already been through. Then when he answers, I wish I hadn't asked.

*We are approaching the deepest levels of conditioning. The last three sessions will involve the point in time when Blake's resistance was overcome. This will necessarily mean a greater level of stress.*

Avon is there - like Cally, he seems to be there nearly all the time now, even though he looks even sicker than I feel, and I feel sicker than I would after six days in Space City. He looks up with narrowed eyes. "You mean, where they broke him."

*That is correct.*

"Is it absolutely necessary that someone monitor? Blake is not going to like having spectators to that."

*There is no shame attached.*

"I agree. Blake may not."

*Surely he will see that it is even more imperative now. The next session is critical, and you, Avon, will be monitor.*

Jenna comes in just in time to hear that. "How nice." She manages a weary flash of spite. "I hope Blake appreciates it."

Avon glances at her. "If you have any desire to take my place -" he says, just as tired.

"Or mine," I add as quickly as possible. I may be tired, but not too tired to pass up an offer like that.

Orac fizzes and does a neat imitation of artificial explosion. *Will you all stop attempting to subvert my instructions!* he snaps. *Either you wish me to complete this process, or you wish to do it in your own totally inadequate way. Kindly cease wasting my time and Blake's and decide!*

"Enough, Orac." Avon checks the time, then sighs and takes his place on the second table. "Vila, you're not needed now."

"Surprised you needed me at all," I mumble, and Avon looks up, eyes narrowing a little. "Never do, unless there's a lock to pick."

Avon gives one of his just-short-of-melodramatic sighs and sits up again. "Think of this as a rather more complicated lock than usual, Vila, and stop feeling sorry for yourself."

"He didn't want me to help, did he?" I'm surprised by how much that still hurts, even after Blake apologized. "You heard him."

"Yes, I heard. More than you did, apparently."

"Look," and it spills out all of a sudden. "I may only be a Delta, and not as brave and noble and all that as he is, but I'm as good as you and Jenna. I'm the only one who's been - well, maybe not where he has, but closer than you or Jenna ever were. I didn't deserve that from him."

Avon looks at me for a moment, then smiles suddenly, brilliantly, as if I've said something stupid. "Quite right," he says. "You didn't."

I have a feeling I've either been insulted... or I missed something.

"I do not see the need for an audience," he says sharply.

"Who says we'll be watching you?" I snap at him, oddly cheered by the fact that I can. This really does scare me, maybe even more than when I had to... no, let's be honest. Not more than when I had to. I feel for us all, and god knows I feel for Blake, but I still feel for me most of all.

Orac begins another of his speeches about what Blake must and must not know and believe, and Blake begins to shiver and strain against the forcefield. Avon, his hands closing on the sensors, tenses up, his breath catching as if he's the one in pain... which is fair enough, I mean when it was me it was me in pain as well as Blake, not that I'm claiming that it was at all the same, but pain is pain, if you know what I -

Then it all goes wrong.

"Renou... no. Not that..." Blake's voice sounds thin and cracked, even sicker than I feel, like everything that makes him - well, Blake - is draining away. Guess that's what they did when they...

"Avon!" Hell, I hadn't even felt Jenna push past me - she's at Avon's side, trying to hold him down, but he shoves her away so hard she almost falls, twisting away from whatever it is that's going on in Blake's head. "Vila, help me!"

"No. I can't... den- no! No - can't - can't..."

Cally's trying to soothe Blake, even though she must know he can't hear or see her.

"Denounce..."

"NO!" Avon lurches up, pulling away from Jenna, the sensors ripping from his head. "Orac - Orac, no!"

*Do not interfere!*

"Orac, stop it, stop now! He's too close!"

Blake shudders and his head falls back, eyes wide open and blanker than the void I remember. "Denounce..." Softer still, choking in his throat. "I denounce..."

"ORAC!" Avon half-falls from the table, only Jenna's grip holding him up.

*It is too late. Leave him!* The tinny voice sounds almost savage.

Avon is leaning on the edge of the table, gasping for breath as if he'd half-drowned in a vat of unsweetened treacle. He's dead-white, his eyes huge and black and as savage as a land-shark in a rage, and if I didn't know better than to see them, I'd swear there are tears on his face.

After a minute, he straightens and swings himself back on it. "Hook it up again."

"What? Avon -"

"Hook. It. Up." He's shaking even worse than Blake, and I hope to god he doesn't realize it. "Orac, prognosis!"

*The therapy is continuing as expected and is nearly complete. Your reintegration would serve no purpose at this point, and I must insist you do not keep interrupting. Blake, listen to me -*

"No. No... yes." And that's when Blake's voice breaks. "Yes. I denounce... Carl Idrian..." he whispers. "Mat Janyn... Jennet Dean... Babeth Foster... Davien Janyn... Alva..."

"Who are they?" I ask, then wish I hadn't from the looks the others all give me.

*Surely it is obvious. They were members of the Freedom Party at the time -*

"- of his arrest." Jenna looks nearly as sick as Blake.

*You did not betray them, Blake.* Orac speaks as pedantically as ever, and Blake - still muttering that awful list of names of people we'll never know - doesn't even seem to hear him. *You must understand that.*

"I denounce..." The whisper is fading. "Renounce... myself..." He shivers again, cries out once and goes limp.

"Enough!" Avon snaps. "Orac, abort the session. That is an order!"

*It is in any case finished,* Orac spits right back. *For the moment. And, I might add, with reasonable success despite the lack of rational assistance from all of you. You may sedate him, Cally.* Stupid smug brain-in-a-box. Even scared witless for Blake, I can't help thinking it's lucky Orac doesn't have eyes and so can't see the glare Avon's scorching him with.

Slowly, Cally picks up the tranquillizer pad and places it on Blake's forehead; slowly her fingers trail down his face as she watches his eyes close.

"Vila, you can give Avon some of that drink - there."

It's not swampwater - or not just swampwater, I'm sure there's soma in it. When I open my mouth to protest, Cally simply looks at me, and I remember that Avon's finished his term and can get as drunk as he wants, if he wants. I've still got... oh no. Not like that. Not like that, I can't, I'm sorry, I know Avon will kill me, but I can't...

*It is my opinion that the final sessions will not be as traumatic now,* Orac says suddenly, and I suddenly want to kiss his little plastic hide. *The deepest level of memory erasure appears to have been concerned with this enforced denunciation of his followers. Certainly the sessions will be unpleasant for the humans involved -*

"So what's new?" Jenna mutters. "Blake had better appreciate this, beloved leader or no, or..." Her voice trails away.

"Exactly." I can hear Avon trying for detached and sarcastic, as usual. He rubs his sleeve across his eyes, takes one more deep breath and glances at me. "You're obviously thinking of something else, Vila," he says. "Do we want to hear it?"

"Just occurred to me." I wave a hand at Blake, now deep in a sleep that's got to be better for being dreamless. "Those people. Us. One day, we could be nothing more than names on another list he's forgotten to order. You thought of that?"

"Actually, no."

"I wish I hadn't, I don't like the idea."

"Nor do I." Jenna shivers. "But Vila is right, you know. If the Federation gets to him again, that is just where we might end up."

"True. But just think, it might be worse."

"Oh thank you, Avon. How?"

He looks back at Blake, and speaks almost normally, as if we're discussing the weather we don't have here on board. "He could be the name on the list - and you could be the one to be made to forget."

~oOo~