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This is a poor use of my valuable time, Orac complained.
Liberator had taken to swinging by any of the galactic-wide network of beacons that she came near, downloading a million or so public access messages each time. Many were coded and Orac had been set to work sorting through them and identifying any of interest, much to its disgruntlement.
Avon snorted. “Valuable? After all, what do you have to do when you’re not answering our questions?”
I formulate hypotheses, collect and generate data and draw conclusions, as I am programmed to do.
“You don’t pass any of these conclusions on to us,” Avon commented.
Because there is no benefit in doing so.
“Well, if they are that useless you can go through these messages instead,” Blake commanded.
It was about half an hour before Orac announced, One message received for Roj Blake.
That was unexpected.
“Play it,” Blake suggested.
Addressing Roj Blake. Can a single political party fairly represent the heterogeneity of the Federation?
“Is that it?” Jenna demanded.
“It’s a good question,” Blake said. “Orac, trace the message from the beacon.”
The message is not traceable to an external source.
“At least try.”
The message is not traceable to an external source.
“All right,” Blake said. “If I send a message back will the external source be able to trace it?”
Your message will not be traceable by an external source.
“You’re not proposing to reply?” Avon said
“Why not? It’s a question that deserves an answer.”
“Does it?”
He didn't reply and Avon said no more.
Avon poked his head round the door of one of the rooms they used for general purposes. “Ah, you’re here. It’s late.”
“Oh, it is! I got distracted working on this.” Blake smiled at Avon. “Sorry to keep you waiting.” Their liaison was sufficiently new that he didn’t want to imply he was taking the man’s company for granted.
Avon came over to look at the screen. “How many pages?”
“Five so far. It’s a complex issue.”
“I hope she wanted an entire research paper.”
Blake glanced at him. “She? I assumed it was a man.”
“Of course you did. I, on the other hand, assumed that it’s either Servalan or one of her people, fishing for useful information.”
“Then they’re out of luck,” Blake said. “There’s nothing in here I wouldn’t say publicly.”
That gave him an idea. “We could do a lecture series, publish it via the beacons.” He laughed at Avon’s expression. “Maybe not right now. Let’s get known for some more direct action first. But tomorrow I’m going to give this enquirer a proper answer.”
Blake woke with his alarm, alone as usual. Avon never stayed the night. He had a sense of anticipation; they’d picked up messages from a beacon yesterday and Orac might have finished decoding the relevant material. He could get his mail translated as a priority but it wasn't urgent and he didn’t like drawing too much attention to it. A day’s lag wasn’t a problem since they only exchanged maybe three messages a week.
When he opened his door he saw to his surprise Avon, striding back down the corridor towards him.
“Blake,” he said without preamble, “I think we need to talk.”
Blake stood aside to let him into his sitting room. “Something wrong?” Everything had seemed fine the night before.
“Potentially,” Avon sat down. “Orac decoded your latest billet doux.”
Blake felt a twist of nerves. “And?”
“And I got it to show me the whole correspondence. You’ve been talking about the ship and crew.”
Maybe he shouldn’t have, but… “It was only as an example. We were discussing how informal power structures develop. I didn't use any names.”
“You think that your correspondent doesn't know who’s on Liberator?”
“If he knows that much, there's no harm done. I haven't given away any secrets.”
“You still don't have a clue about who you’re talking to, do you?”
Blake shrugged. “It doesn't matter. He- they- have some intelligent ideas. The Revolution needs a solid theoretical underpinning and it's not getting one whilst we spend our spare time playing Space Monopoly and arguing about who’s choosing what’s for dinner.”
“So you think I have no intelligent ideas?”
“You might have plenty for all I know,” Blake said, “but if so you don't discuss them with me. ‘What's the risk and what's in it for me’ is what I get from you. You've never yet asked how an action fits in with our long term aims, for instance, or how much violence against civilians can be justified or any of the other things I've been talking to our correspondent about.”
“Because those questions don’t need asking. We do what we have to in order to keep our ship, stay ahead of the Feds and make some credits on the side. She's simultaneously feeding your sense of self-importance with this pompous garbage, and undermining your actions.”
Blake sat down opposite Avon. “And that’s why I need someone outside to talk to, someone who hasn’t been infected with your cynicism. We're going to fight the Federation, Avon, and change things, not just run away.”
He sighed at Avon’s cold silence. “Look. I don't believe they mean us harm, but I accept that there's no proof of that. I'll be more careful about what I say. Satisfied?”
“No. You know nothing about this person. You haven't even asked for the most basic details and yet you answer all their questions with gay abandon. It's not a matter of being more careful. You shouldn't be talking to them at all.”
“Be fair, Avon. That's not your decision to make. I'm finding this correspondence extremely useful and I'm not going to stop because you can't see the benefit of it.”
“I see.” Avon stood up to leave. “Let's hope we don't live to regret it.”
Blake could have caught up with him but instead he stayed in his seat, watching the door close.
He didn't want to argue with Avon but sometimes it seemed as if they were on ships flying in opposite directions. It was frustrating; he’d much rather talk to Avon than to his mysterious correspondent, but he couldn’t make the man engage with his plans and hopes for the future.
“How do you make the Revolution relevant to a non-participant?”
Keeping the conversation to himself hadn't worked. Blake sent the decoded sentence to the main screen and waited until they were all looking at him.
“You're a 30 yr old married Beta housing administrator,” he said to the room. “You've never been outside your Dome. You've got a slightly larger than average apartment, a cheap games machine and an upgraded gym pass. In another three years, if you both stay out of trouble, you can apply for a child permit. Your secret desire is to visit Mars but you doubt that you'll ever afford it. You don't know much about politics but you watch the news and you like Servalan’s style.”
He paused. “This question is about what we can do - the five of us, Liberator, our allies - to make you care about what we do and what we stand for.”
“Kill Servalan,” Jenna said immediately. “They’ll notice that.”
“That’s an option,” Blake said. “Anything else?”
“Why are we bothering with Betas?” Vila said. “They’re all comfortable enough as they are. They don’t want a revolution. Deltas, they’re the ones who might come out for us.”
“And a fat lot of good they’ll be if they do,” Avon said. “They’ve got no power, no intelligence and no principles.”
At least they were engaging with the question. “We can't afford to ignore any grades,” Blake said. “Start with this Beta. How do we shake up their world?”
“I've no real idea what life on Earth is like,” Cally said. “But you said they were drugged- do they know that?”
“I didn't know,” Blake said. “What about you, Avon?”
“There were rumours,” Avon sounded reluctant to discuss it. “I didn't know for certain. We were all far too naive back then.”
“Not us,” Vila said. “Deltas knew about the drugs all along, but nobody listened to us.”
“Because you're all devoted to conspiracy theories,” Avon said.
“What other things do the Feds lie about?” Blake asked. “Vila, you seem to be the expert.”
“They fix the elections. But even Alphas must know that.”
“Assume not all of us do,” Blake said. “Anything else?”
“Atmosphere,” Jenna said. “People still believe they’ll die if they stay outside the Domes for long, even though the radiation levels are minimal now. It's a convenient way to control the population.“
“Good.” Blake said. “Drugs, elections, radiation levels. It's a start.”
“And what are you planning to do now? Fly past Earth and broadcast your proofs to all the ignorant Betas down there? Get them out protesting on the streets to be shot by the military? Nobody on Earth can stand up to the Federation. At best you'll just get them killed.”
“I know that, Avon. This is preparation. There will come a time when we need to trigger Dome uprisings. You're right that now is not that time.”
He thought that might appease Avon but he was wrong. The man’s frown had deepened.
“Is that your opinion, or hers? It’s bad enough to be dragged around after a fanatic without discovering that the fanatic is being manipulated by an anonymous controller with an unknown agenda.”
Blake tried not to bridle at ‘fanatic’. “So what's your alternative?”
Avon looked straight at him. “Is that a serious question?”
“Yes,” Blake could feel the heat in his cheeks. “If I'm willing to listen to a complete stranger with good ideas why wouldn't I listen to you? You're the genius, or so you would have us believe. Tell me what you've got!”
“Very well,” Avon walked over to scoop up Orac. “I presume you'll let me have 24 hours. Your correspondent had twice that.”
“Of course.” Blake wasn't sure that he understood what was going on, but it seemed that Avon was getting involved at last. He could hardly object to that.
It was evening on Liberator. The ship sliced through empty space, the flight deck empty apart from Blake, who stood facing Zen's flickering screen. The others had scattered as usual after their evening meal, but Blake had come up here instead of the rec room or his own quarters.
The twenty four hours had been up some time ago but Avon hadn't been seen all day. Blake had compiled a response to his interrogator but hadn't yet sent it.
He turned, smiling, as Avon came in, Orac under one arm. It was good to see the man bright-eyed and engaged, even if there was no answering smile. Instead Avon spoke without a greeting.
“Earth’s a lost cause. Dome dwellers are complacent and deliberately uninformed, and with the overwhelming Fed military presence on planet they couldn't act even if they chose to.”
“That's pretty much what you said yesterday. Have you anything new for me?”
“No.”
“What do you mean, no? You didn't look?”
“There's nothing significant where the potential rewards outweigh the risks.” He put Orac down on its table and patted the perspex. “There are a few possible contacts in there, but nothing that will satisfy your lust for action. You, Liberator, us - we simply aren't equipped to be revolutionaries. You'll just kill us trying.”
Blake stared at him. “I thought you were going to help.” It sounded plaintive even to him.
“That is help, if you have the sense to see it. “
Blake's temper broke. “You never intended to support me. This was just a charade.”
“Don't be childish,” Avon said. “The facts don't coincide with your aspirations. That's not my fault.”
“Your aversion to danger doesn't make anything a fact, Avon. I want to know what you looked at, if you even looked at anything, and how you measured risk and reward.“
Avon shrugged. “Orac will give you the data. You don't need me here.”
“Fine. Then go away.” Blake snapped.
Avon walked out without another word.
Blake had to admit that Avon did seem to have looked. There were half a dozen ideas, ranging from raids on stations to infiltration of the security on certain planets to outright political campaigns. Effectiveness and risk- apparently Avon hadn't liked any of the ratios that he'd been presented with.
Some of the proposals looked pretty good to Blake. Not risk-free, but nothing they did would be. What mattered wasn't so much the individual ideas, though he was definitely going to implement at least three of them, but the evidence that Avon was good at this. He not only had the original inspirations but he knew how to persuade Orac to work on the details
And still he was choosing not to help. Blake pulled up the message he'd written previously, a careful study of the consequences of possible revelations of Federation Dome iniquities, and erased it. In its place he typed “If we get lost, is there anyone out there to take our place?”
“Orac, encrypt and send.”
That is not an answer to the query posed.
“Everyone's a critic today. Just carry out the instructions, Orac.”
Affirmative.
And now he had an apology to make.
“I’m sorry. I was unreasonable. You did the work.”
Avon said nothing. Behind him Blake could see a bottle of wine and two glasses on the table which emboldened him.
“So can I come in?”
Avon smiled slightly and turned inwards, leaving the door open which Blake took as invitation enough.
Sex was both longer and messier when Avon felt he had something to prove, Blake thought. He lay on his back, hand resting on Avon’s lightly haired stomach, and thought vaguely about the shower a few feet away and whether he ought to let the other man use it first.
Avon propped himself up on one elbow, looking down at Blake, which was unusual enough to get his attention.
He met Avon’s eyes. “We’re going to Beta Canis Majoris.”
“No.”
“It's not that dangerous,” Blake said. “Orac thinks it’s the best option of those you looked at. It puts our chance of success at over eighty three percent, and the odds of getting away if it goes wrong are even higher. And frankly, Avon, you don't get a veto over what I do. You can always stay on the ship.”
“So you'll consider my ideas but not my judgement?”
“You could put it that way, yes. Doing nothing is an option for you, but not for me. That makes our risk assessments different.”
“You're a fool,” Avon was dismissive. “You only listen to people who tell you what you want to hear.”
“I'm trying to keep this civil. Your work has been really helpful and I appreciate that.”
Avon snorted at that. “Butter won't change anything. You're still wrong and I won't take part in a foolhardy venture. It's a shame that you can't ask your special friend for her help.”
“You know why not.” They had agreed from the start that Blake would say nothing that might tip off an enemy about their plans.
Avon lay back down, fingers brushing deliberately across Blake’s thigh. Apparently he wasn’t that put out. “It’s frustrating. We should be able to trace her. There ought to be enough data by now but Orac still claims ignorance.”
It was a change of subject that Blake was prepared to go with. “Orac’s not infallible, though it likes to think it is. Maybe Zen could provide a second opinion?”
“Code breaking is hardly a ship’s computer’s field of expertise. Are you serious about tracking down your correspondent?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Blake asked.
“What they have to say might be considerably less to your liking if you know the source.”
“I’ll risk it.” Blake said. “I’d rather know for certain than watch every word in case we’re being deceived.”
He brushed his fingertips across the backs of Avon’s wandering fingers. “I’m going to Beta Canis Majoris, though.”
He could feel the jerk as Avon shrugged. “Then take Cally and Vila down with you. They are the disposable ones. I’ll operate the teleport for you, but I’m not going down to the surface.”
That would have to do.
“Where's that damned computer?”
Blake was soaked through with salt water. For a while there he'd thought that he was going to go under. There had been a public pool on his block on Earth but he'd never been a keen swimmer.
“The sea rose! It could have put that in the briefing!”
Avon pulled an image of the planetary system onto the screen in the teleport room. “That moon’s twice the mass of Earth’s. Didn't you cover tidal forces at school?”
“I'm not at school! It's not up to Orac to guess what lessons I might remember. Is it here?”
“I'll get it shortly. For now I think you should come to the flight deck.”
“Unless it's an emergency I'm going to change first.”
“Don't take too long.”
Since Avon seemed more edgy than the successful, if wet, mission warranted, Blake hurried. He could still feel the salt crust on his skin as he pulled on dry clothes. He supposed that he could shower later.
He walked past the rec room hearing the familiar relaxed chatter as usual after they'd pulled something tricky off. Only Avon was on the flight deck when he arrived, at the pilot’s console. The ship was already far away from the Beta Canis Majoris system.
“What’s up?”
Avon came down from the console to stand next to the main screen. “You will recall that you ordered Orac to download and decode the messages from the Ida 833 beacon?”
“Yes, of course.” It had only been a couple of days ago.
“That’s a lot of bandwidth, enough to slow even Orac down. So it turns out that Orac transferred the data to Zen’s seemingly limitless storage.”
“Does that matter?”
“It means that Zen has access to the summary data. Zen, show onscreen the total number of messages Orac passed to you from the download from Ida 833.”
A very large number appeared on the main screen.
Blake frowned at it. “And?”
“And after Zen gave me that figure, I told it to block all access to the data for thirty minutes and then I went back to my quarters and asked Orac how many messages it had downloaded directly from Ida 833. This is what it said.”
For a moment Blake thought the figures were identical, but the last digit was one less.
“So Orac miscounted a message somehow?” Blake was struggling to work out the significance of the numbers that Avon clearly thought important.
“Possibly. Much more likely, I think, that an extra message was inserted between the download and the transfer to Zen.”
Light was beginning to dawn. “My correspondent? But how could he possibly do that? As far as I know Orac can’t be tampered with remotely. Why wouldn’t he just leave a message at the beacon?”
“Shall we ask Orac? I’ll be back with it in a minute.”
Alone, Blake stared at the numbers, failing to reach enlightenment. He was fairly sure that Avon suspected the answer, but the man was never that good at straightforward explanations.
“Right.” Avon put Orac down on its table and inserted the key. “You added a message to the Ida 833 data, didn’t you?”
Affirmative.
“Did anyone tell you to do so?”
Negative.
That made no sense. “So who wrote the message, and why?” Blake demanded.
There seemed to be a pause before the computer spoke. More data was necessary to fulfil primary programming objectives.
“Meet your esteemed correspondent,” Avon said to Blake. “Apparently it’s currently investigating aspects of human political behaviour, and manipulation thereof.”
“It lied to me?”
I am not programmed to lie. All data provided was accurate, Orac said. I am not responsible for the incorrect assumptions that were made.
Blake was still too stunned to figure out what the implications might be.
Avon broke the silence. “Well, you've got your answer. Orac’s intent was scientific rather than hostile. Its insights were useful to you and there’s no real harm done.” He seemed to have cheered up.
“It doesn’t have insights,” Blake said. “It’s a machine and I was deceived.”
“You thought its questions had value,” Avon pointed out. “They helped you develop your theories, you said. Has that changed?”
“Of course it has!” Blake snarled. “That thing has made a mockery of my beliefs.”
“By asking you questions about them?”
“By pretending to think they matter!”
“Ah,” Avon said. “You thought you had a disciple.”
“I can do without your gibes right now. You're as toxic as that machine.”
The hot water hit Blake's shoulders and back. He closed his eyes but the usual sense of comfort wasn't happening this time.
He'd been prepared for his correspondent to turn out to be an enemy. After all he'd benefited from the conversations and given away nothing so if it had been a trap it had failed. Whether he had been talking to friend or foe, what he'd said, the time he'd spent working on answers to the questions, it had all been important and it had carried him along for weeks of revolutionary thinking and planning. It had been inspirational.
And it had all meant nothing, just a computer pushing his buttons for data. He turned off the shower and threw himself face down on the bed. He felt empty and despondent. Not even his opponents cared about what he believed.
The door opened and closed again. Avon had used the override. Blake didn't lift his head.
“I've modified its instructions,” Avon said. He sat down on the bed. “It won't pull a stunt like that again.”
“How long have you known?”
“I didn't.” Avon sounded surprised. “I was sure it was Servalan. Checking the message numbers was just one of many shots in the dark that I'd tried. When Orac was implicated I assumed someone else was using it.”
A hand rested on the small of Blake’s back. “No gibes, I promise. I saw the same messages that you did. If I didn't spot they were computer generated then there's no way that you could have done.”
Consolation from Avon? Blake rolled over. “You told me it was a waste of my time.”
“True.” Avon ran fingers across his wet chest. “I'm not a fan of revolutionary theory. But there are other ways to oppose the Federation. They'll be stung painfully by your raid today.”
“The one you opposed.”
“Perhaps I was over cautious.”
Blake pushed himself up on his elbows. “You'll help?”
“I might. If the risk to reward ratio is adequate. And speaking of adequate rewards…”. His hand moved downward. “Have you sulked long enough?”
“No gibes, you said.” Blake shifted towards his touch. “Yes, I suppose so.”
There were times when action was definitely more important than theory, and not just in rebellions. The computer's perfidy against Avon’s support; maybe, Blake thought, the Revolution had come out ahead today after all.
The End