Playing at Grown ups

A Pink Dormouse Production

Chapter Seven

Vila

Marianne was late. He had tried to reach her on the communicator, but she was obviously still out of range.

After all the grief she gave me about being on time, she’s the one who hasn’t shown. I hope she’s not in trouble ’cos I definitely don’t do daring rescues these days. He felt slightly conspicuous hanging around the town square but as he had no small currency units with which to buy a drink...

Having acquired the relevant amount of currency, he headed for the nearest bar, figuring Marianne would check for him there when she did turn up. It was better lit than the Sprocket and Piston and surprisingly busy for the time of day. A large screen was showing local news items which most of the patrons were ignoring. He settled down with his drink where he could observe both the entrance and the screen: if anything had happened, he assumed there would be a report broadcast eventually. The programme ended and was replaced by a series of short promotional and public service items.

"Shift up, I don’t want to miss the show." Vila looked at the stranger and decided to comply. He wondered what could be so interesting that virtually the entire bar wanted to watch.

"And now," the vidscreen announced, "we bring you our regular Weekly War Report." Vila stared at the screen in astonishment.

"Not from round here, are you?" It was the same man who had spoken to him before. Vila shook his head. "It’s great this, the Federation had been putting out broadcasts of their activities for months then the Rebel Alliance got in on the act. Our lot get hold of both sets of recordings, dice and splice them, run a commentary over the top and there you go. Apparently they’ve syndicated it to half a dozen systems already." Vila made a mental note to vehemently oppose any plans to initiate such broadcasts on Astbury.

"Hold on, since when did any rebel group have ships like that?" Now this guy thinks I’m mad, oh well: that’s normal. "So I’ve bin a bit out of circulation, okay."

"’Bout four months ago, rumours started circulating that Blake had been gunned down. He’d not been heard of in a long time but suddenly every two-credit terrorist wanted to do something in his memory. Some of the more organised ones captured shipyards, arms depots, chemicals plants and other things they could actually use. Then a bunch announced that they were Blake’s people, I reckon a few of them might have even met him once. They organised the rest of them into some sort of cohesive force, pooled resources, tried to squash the wilder rumours about Blake. You really don’t want to know what some people were saying..."

I can prob’ly guess though...

"So the first strikes hit pretty hard, the Federation gets one or two good hits in in retaliation and then the publicity machine really took off." Vila studied the action on the screen.

"But how do they know whose side anyone’s on? Most of the ships look like they’re Federation."

"Don’t suppose the Feds care that much if they wipe out the odd one of their own. Rebels seem to have some sort of method of distinguishing though: at least most of their recordings come with indicators of who’s who."

Wonder what happened to Orac? If he’s stuck with ID-ing battleships he’ll be in a really foul mood with them all. There was a particularly spectacular explosion on the screen, Vila winced and decided he’d rather be elsewhere.

"Not leaving already? We haven’t had any interesting stuff yet."

"I’m s’posed to be meetin’ someone. She doesn’t like being kept waitin’." Vila left, trying hard not to look as if he was running away. He spotted Marianne walking into the square.

"Where the fuck have you been?"

"Trying to find parts for the comms system- it’s playing up again. I think we need Avon to have another look when we get back."

Avon

He was rapidly running out of displacement activities. All the circuit diagrams, blueprints, journal articles and random jottings were now stored in the filing cabinet that Dariel had sent over the previous day. The entire flat was spotless and he had even found frames for Cally’s three extant sketches; there were a lot of things he wished they still had from the old days but he was glad of the few items Vila had managed to salvage somehow. He flattened out the worst of the creases in each one then looked for the best spot to hang them.

Maybe it would be better to consult with Vila first. He’s due back tomorrow, after all. He arranged the framed pictures on the mantelpiece then sat down and tried to concentrate on the research paper he had been given earlier...

The knock on the outer door startled him into the realisation that he had been staring at the same page for almost an hour. He crossed to the inner door at the top of the stairs.

"Who is it?"

"Dariel. Had you forgotten we had a lunch meeting?"

"Not exactly." He holstered his gun and activated the remote-lock mechanism for the outer door. "Leave your men down there and come on up."

"Always the cautious one, Avon." Coming from someone who went nowhere unaccompanied, that was probably a compliment; Dariel did as instructed though. "What kept you?"

"A paper I was asked to informally review prior to submission. I used to work with a former collaborator of the author and I am very interested in his work. He hopes to present the paper at a congress of independent research institutes."

"If he is to present it in person, I shall see that he has protection. Now what else is distracting you?"

"Well... I expected to hear from Vila yesterday."

"You two have not been apart for long since you arrived, I understand. No need to worry though: Marianne is one of the best, I would not employ her otherwise. Her one fault, if one could call it that, is that sometimes she cares too much about doing the right thing. Lunch now, I think."

Marianne

"Stop pacing, Vila. Not only is it irritating, it’s downright unnatural for you."

"Sorry." He sat down at his console. "It’s just that I’m worried about Avon."

"How come? Things are okay between you guys, aren’t they?"

"Oh yeah, good as ever. I just feel bad about not contacting him when I said I would."

"Relax. He’s probably too busy working on Dariel’s computers to notice what day it is."

"It’s the first time I’ve been away more than one night since we left the others. He’s more together now than he has been in years but he’s not right even so. I need to be there in case he gets his missin’ memories back."

"I thought that was a permanent condition from the drugs they had him on."
"So did I originally, but the timeframe is jus’ too perfect. It starts right about when we- I’d say broke up but we weren’t havin’ a relationship in the first place were we?" Marianne raised her eyebrows quizzically. "Most of the time on Xenon he was sleeping in my room nearly as often as not, it wasn’t like when we were on the Liberator and could go weeks without anything happening, but we never really saw it in that way if you know what I mean. Anyway that gold scam failed: I’d told him all along it was a set-up but the only time he bothered listenin’ to me was when he was negotiatin’ our cut. So we got back to the base an’ I just lost it wi’ him; he didn’t fight back or anythin’- jus’ walked away. An’ that was it. Everything went downhill even faster from there an’ he was getting more an’ more unpredictable so there never seemed to be a right time to talk about it an’ make up.

"I’ve spoken to a couple of people who know about these things- don’t tell Avon, by the way- and they agree with me; the drugs affected his memory in some way but it’s him that’s keeping it locked up."

"So why worry about it now? What’s going to happen to trigger anything?"

"We’re effectively missing. You know how people Avon cares about tend to get killed- usually directly ’cos of him. If we can’t get a message through he’s going to be awfully twitchy by the time we get back." Marianne smiled.

"Not many months ago you were denying most emphatically that Avon cared about you."

"Yeah well I can’t really avoid noticing it. He’s much easier to live with now he doesn’t feel like he has to take responsibility for everything. Hey you never know, I might beat all previous survival records."

Marianne studied something on her console screen,

"There’s a communications beacon coming into range soon. I might be able to transmit a data stream to get a text-only message to Avon. I can’t encrypt it as well as I’d like so you’d better come up with something that will make sense to him but won’t mean anything to anyone else who might pick up on it."

"I think I can manage that," said Vila with a wicked grin.

Vila

He nipped up to the attic briefly to dump his travel bag in their bedroom then rushed back down to the bar.

Avon was playing pool with Dariel, watched by two bodyguards. He’d obviously been shopping again as he had acquired a new pair of thigh high boots with at least a dozen buckles each and a pair of trousers made from what appeared to be black buckskin. They certainly looked good on him: Avon had started getting up at what Vila thought a most uncivilised hour to use the SCorps’ gym. Vila could see certain attractions to such behaviour (mostly of the voyeuristic variety) but then he got enough exercise from working behind the bar and running errands for all and sundry. He headed over to the pool table.

"Hey, Avon." Avon turned away from the table; wrapped his arms around his partner; and kissed him passionately, oblivious to three sets of eyes trained on the pair of them across the pool table.

"So you missed me then?" Admit it, you bastard, can’t be that difficult surely. Well if you want to shove your tongue down me throat instead...

"Find a room!" Evidently Dariel was impatient to continue with the pool game. Avon tore himself away from Vila.

"You’re two games down, I think I’ll press my advantage and give Vila time to recover from his trip."

"Oh it wasn’t that bad. Finish your game and I’ll tell you all about it."

He lay across the bench seat, his head in Vila’s lap. (The boots weren’t designed for sitting in for any length of time but then who said fashion had to be practical?)

"So, other than the comms failure, everything went perfectly smoothly?"

"Course. You didn’t need to worry. Anyway, I know I’m safe with Marianne."

Avon frowned. There was something familiar and faintly disturbing about Vila’s words.

"’S okay, Avon. Marianne’s more attached to the Sappho than you ever were to the Liberator; she’s not going to take it anywhere she can’t get it out of. And she’s got an even stricter honour code than they have in the SCorps so it’s completely against that to let anything happen to me."

Avon winced; he was very uneasy with the direction the conversation was taking but, without knowing why, he was unable to object.

"Found out something interestin’ while I was away too. Blake’s the figurehead that’s uniting the anti-Federation forces."

"A pity he isn’t alive to appreciate it."

"Oh they probably wouldn’t find him nearly so useful if he was: dead leader’s can’t be captured, see, an’ no one seems to know who’s really running things these days. They seem to be doing some pretty serious damage though an’ they’re making sure everyone knows about it."

"I’d like to meet this great leader sometime…"

"Would you?" Vila sounded genuinely worried.

"Not right now, Vila. We can wait until they prevail then send a letter of congratulation and hope they invite us for dinner."

"Good." Avon had no intention of becoming involved with any more irrational idealists but it was prudent to check Vila’s stance on the subject occasionally. He reached up and latched onto one of Vila’s wrists, pulling it down level with his face...

"Will you two behave- some of us are trying to concentrate on our game here. Honestly, we were only away for five days." Avon looked up at Marianne and stopped sucking Vila’s fingers just long enough to reply.

"Five days can seem like a very long time."

Whatever witty reply Marianne was planning was cut off by Vila’s comment of,

"Goin’ to the bar, Avon?"

"If you insist." An idea dawned: he sank his teeth into the wrist he was holding, gave his lover a smouldering look then swung himself onto his feet and headed in the relevant direction. "Same again all round, please. And a twenty per cent tip if you carry everything over to the table for me." He slipped into the men’s room just as Vila exclaimed,

"Would you look at that!"

Avon leaned against the wall behind the door and waited.

"That distracted them nicely." Vila closed the door and leaned against it. "You do realise how much trouble I could get into for participating in acts of public indecency in my place of work?"

"On this planet I doubt anyone would find it unusual, much less care. Elsewhere I suspect the penalty would be suitably high."

"I always knew you would be a bad influence on me. Can you kneel in those boots?"

"Quite easily." Avon proved it, keeping his eyes fixed on Vila. I must break this dependence on him. Bad enough that I went to pieces when he was away but being so impatient now he is back... Could be worse- I could have suggested that he- better not think about that... No need to be rough, I was getting round to it... Oh fuck I want him so much...

On to Chapter Eight

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