Archive of Our Own

Vila Restal started awake, the turmoil of his entire life disallowing any but the most necessary of rests. Avon was still asleep, still wrapped around him, his body offering Vila the same safe haven Vila had offered Avon so often in the past. But it wasn’t safe, it was constricting, and the only thing less comfortable than clean sheets and a close-held, sleeping Avon was the thought of Avon awake.

He needed to sleep, needed desperately to focus on a thousand things he could think of that needed doing, and the probably million things more that he didn’t know about. And Avon, damn him, was still sleeping the sleep of the innocent.

Vila couldn’t imagine why.

Because Avon, the bastard, had gone and done it again. Vila had been certain, absolutely dead bloody certain when he’d returned to this house earlier that Avon would probably be kind to him. Certain to his core that Avon didn’t hate him yet, for all that this revolution business had got so out of hand. But he’d never expected this. Avon had done things to Vila’s body that Vila had never even dared imagine, and while all of that had felt so wonderful, it had only served to emphasize the emptiness that lay ahead of him. Blake and Avon gone off somewhere, Blake not even knowing what he had, hurting Avon out of ignorance just as Avon had hurt Vila this last year, because Blake didn’t love Avon enough. Did Blake care at least as much for Avon as Avon did for Vila? Maybe Avon could survive that.

Memory surged in his exhausted body, making him feel a bit sick. He had shattered inside when Avon put his tongue into him, opening him up and making him wet for the tenderest, most passionate fuck he had ever endured. Avon cared, Avon felt bad about all this mess too, and none of them could deny that. Vila had lain there so emotionally raw that he was terrified of the next words that would ruin it all again. Because he knew, with utter certainty, that Avon couldn’t be trusted where Roj Blake was concerned. Just don’t say goodbye when you leave, Avon. Please, don’t say anything….

It wasn’t even Avon’s fault. Well, it was; fickle bastard had to have his cake and eat it, while Vila… Vila rubbed at his gritty eyes, wondering when this upset puzzle would ever get righted, wondering if, when it did, he would be somewhere on the board. And if he was? If Blake was too? It didn’t bear thinking about, so of course it was the only thing his mind kept coming back to. A whole bloody revolution had happened—twice—in less than six weeks, the once-segregated domes turned inside out. In the face of this whole class revolution and all the sweating fear, heartache and pain of his kin, the only thing Vila’s mind kept coming back to was this snooty Alpha he loved too much.

He didn’t know yet how many Deltas had been killed, or when the incidental killings would stop. A multitude of hostile Alphas had been nicely rounded up, were stashed five and six to a temporary holding cell—and still more room in there than we lived in every day, the insidious vengeful voice whispered inside him, scraping at still-fresh wounds. There was a pile of black-clad bodies five klicks away outside, awaiting burial, burning or the rains. Vila couldn’t see much point in keeping mutoids alive, especially since Avon had already told him Blake had promised that he would get rid of the bloody vampires. That pile might be growing for a long time to come, and remembering Jess’s husband Mac, his infant niece Riva, and everyone else he’d lost in far too many raids, Vila took some solace from that.

There were plenty of Alphas who didn’t seem to be trouble-makers, who were being left to live their lives—as long as they stayed out of the way. Terrifying to Deltas, all of them were, simply through the force of their disdain. How many plans for yet another counter-revolution might be brewing behind their chilling, angry eyes?

And still there was Avon, who began to stir next to him on the bed. Vila reached out, stroking his hair, shushing him as he would a child and praying for just a few more minutes’ reprieve before he had to hear the new lies, Avon’s new assurances that mightn’t be any more substantial than the old. Avon who would be gone very soon, slipping out with the night an hour before lights-up to run off with Blake. The thought soured his stomach for more than personal reasons.

Avon’s first-level systems were running without a hitch, keeping a firm leash on the Alpha-level computers, execution of their electronic instructions monitored by members of his own kin who Avon had personally educated in the last year whilst they’d all been trapped together on the Delta levels. They could probably tell if something went wrong. There was no chance that they could fix it. The Deltas did need the Alphas, at least until they got their heads filled with knowledge, and the only person Vila could trust to help them was Avon. Power and air were now in Delta, rebel-held hands at every level, from the cabling to the junction boxes to the damned “reset” buttons in Beta substations, just like Avon had outlined in his plan.

Avon stirred beside him, drawing his attention as a sun its planets. The light was too dim to make out more than the outline of his mate’s body under the covers, but that was enough. All Vila needed was the image of Avon in his mind’s eye to start scrabbling for reasons to forgive him again. And there were a few reasons that actually had some weight to them. Avon had helped so much—but it didn’t matter a damn, and Vila’s forgiveness was probably the last thing Avon needed. Avon was going to go away soon, and Vila in his place would have done the same. He was better prepared than any of his kin to live amongst a whole dome full of Alphas, but the thought of having to actually do it made his skin crawl. He felt schizophrenic already, and Avon was less equipped to live in this new society than he was.

The shock in Avon’s eyes had been sickening, as he’d looked around at one family laid over another, one whole lifestyle laid over another so that the filth and grime and ignorance of Vila’s kind looked even worse than it really was, which was horrible anyway without Alpha surroundings to heartlessly reflect it and Alpha eyes to judge it. But Vila had seen that other knowledge, that Avon knew it was his Alphas who had created that squalor his family was forced to suffer, and that Avon’s Alphas were failing the same test of judgment.

Vila frowned in misery and gnawed on his lower lip. Maybe Avon had changed, maybe the shock had traumatized Avon into becoming a new, better man for it all. Maybe Vila could even help that trauma, get Avon to come with him back down to the Delta levels in the morning. He had to go, had to see who was there and personally make sure that at least most of the new provisions were reaching the lower levels. There were so few Deltas who had any experience of the shallowness of Alphas—just those people who had known Avon. And so many Deltas, like it or not, were so bleedin’ intimidated by the sheer enormity of the excess up here that they were already slinking back down to their homes like cockroaches when a light flicks on, scurrying into crevices that were, if not any more safe, at least more familiar.

God, he needed Avon’s brains now, needed him to help handle the technical side of all this, needed Avon’s… loyalty, and his emotional support—and his love damn the man, and he was more terrified of not getting that than he was of whether this whole insane uprising would succeed. Of course, the chances of either working out were probably running dead even. Avon would have to decide, he’d have to, and Vila had done everything he could to prepare himself for the worst. Take some satisfaction that you’ll go down in history, Vila lad, he told himself. A long-lived hero if you win, and a fast-dead lunatic if you lose.

Unceasingly, his mind kept coming back to Blake. Probably something else he and Avon shared, that. The grapevine being what it was, it was a safe bet that most Deltas didn’t have a bloody clue what the man’s crimes were, and Vila could lighten that list of accusations a bit, could even do so in good conscience. Blake hadn’t known how it was in the Delta warrens; his real crime had been getting caught up in the running of planets, not that Vila could understand the allure of the job. He’d been doing it less than two days, and had a belly full of it already. Blake had let himself get isolated from the people he was supposed to be helping, and with the number of people clamouring for Vila’s attention, Vila could empathize with the distraction.

And Blake? Well, amid all this mess he had still found time to pity Vila. That had come through loud and clear when they’d sat down together an afternoon ago. Blake had acted as if he hadn’t wanted to talk about the affair with Avon, even after that arrogant, time-wasting pissing contest between all of them yesterday, in Avon’s family living room. In front of half his family. By the time he’d put his gun on the table and all those details were acting themselves out on the stage of his mind, by the time Blake’s words forced him to remember what had started on the Liberator long before that stupid trip to Control Central, Vila had wanted to scratch the bastard’s eyes out. But doing that wouldn’t have made Avon stop loving Blake. Pretending he could simply keep them from crossing each other’s path again was more stupid than Vila Restal would ever claim to be. Spinning fairy castles in the air, that was, now that Avon had access to his precious computer systems. There was something about Blake beyond his foppy ideals and his politics that left bodies in his wake wherever he went, perhaps something about his very Alpha-ness that wouldn’t let Avon go. It was sick and twisted, and damned if Avon didn’t need something like that in his life.

And, damning Blake to the worst, most isolated prison planet in all the galaxy, Blake was right about Avon. Avon couldn’t live here, surrounded by Alphas who despised him and Deltas he disdained, so Vila had solved everyone’s problem but his own by freeing Blake and shoving Avon off with him.

Vila jumped out of his skin when a hand touched his arm, heart pounding hard enough to hurt his ribs. “God, Avon!” he cursed, clutching at his chest.

“Calm down, Vila,” the dark voice whispered, a hand tugging at his shoulder. “Why are you still awake?”

“I was thinking.”

“Oh no,” Avon demurred, “I seriously doubt that. Worrying yourself sick over all this, I’d hypothesize that’s what you’re really doing.”

“Want to know what I’m really doing?” he demanded, sulking, all his strength drained by the confrontation of an hour ago, nothing but ugly honesty left. “I’m wonderin’ why I’m such a masochist that I’ll lie here and wait for you to get up and leave.”

“So, you remember the word.”

“I’m living the word, Avon,” he snapped. “Don’t know how I couldn’t be a masochist, loving you. I just want to know,” he demanded, covering as much of the rending pain in his heart as he could manage with fresh, reliable anger, “why I couldn’t fall in love with someone who was a nice person, that’s what I want to know!”

“Now I’m not even a nice person?”

“Oh come on, Avon, nice people worry about other people. Nice people think about other people.”

“I worried about you.”

“You forgot about me!” he yelled, remembering only after to shush his voice in this Alpha museum. “There were only four entrances left unsealed, Avon. Did you even know that? And those were guarded like a Federation vault. I asked, got messages from some lackey of Blake’s that things were proceeding as quickly as possible, while we starved. And you didn’t even notice!”

The lights came up slightly in the room, Avon’s eyes as dark and reflective as obsidian pinning him. Avon didn’t seem angry, and Vila almost wished he was. “I noticed, Vila. I wondered what you might be doing that left you so busy you didn’t contact me. I spent more hours than you might guess in the computer centers, building that code your people are running now, the code Blake delayed implementing.”

“You spent more hours than I’d have guessed letting him fuck you, too,” Vila spat, feeling a spark of viciousness, fanning it, urging it to a higher, warming flame. He was so cold.

Avon’s eyes widened, and while Vila wanted to believe it was guilt muting the expression on Avon’s face, he couldn’t muster that much fantasy.

“You’re right, of course,” Avon said quietly. “I can’t deny it. But Vila, I—”

“Shut up, Avon.” He sniffed hard, unwilling to wipe his nose on real linen sheets.

“Why?”

“Because I told you to,” he grumbled. “I bought you your way out, the least you can do to pay me back is be quiet!”

“So you’re sure I’m going.”

“Aren’t you?”

“Do you want me to?”

What a stupid question. “If that’s the only way to put an end to all this mess then yes, I want you to.” I want you to love me, you idiot. I want you to not want him anymore.

“Well.” Dry again, the voice was emotionless as dust. “Far be it from me to go against the decision you and he have already made for me. Husband.”

Oh damn, that tore it. Vila leapt up and grabbed his clothes, unable to pretend for another second that he’d see Avon again. “Don’t you accuse me with that word, Kerr Avon-bloody-Restal. You were the one who married me, and you were the one who ran off the next day.”

“Where are you going?”

“Downstairs. I’ve got work to do.” He was proud of his voice, proud that the quaver was completely gone. It was the way of it, and a man just couldn’t argue with things like that.

“Everyone’s asleep, Vila.”

“No, Avon,” he snitted, “Everyone’s not asleep. Your bloody Alphas are, but we Deltas’ve got people who needed to be fed.” He wasn’t going to admit it to Avon, but he needed sleep; he just wasn’t going to be able to get it here. Vila was better off in his stolen offices pumped up on stimulants, or sleeping with his head on that damned huge desk.

He was better off anywhere but here.

Avon didn’t try to follow him, and a part of him was glad for that. It was hard enough on everyone, and maybe Avon had learned some little thing about not going out of his way to make things harder still. Unlike Vila himself, it seemed. He’d given up on Avon and left himself with a bigger mess than the one he’d started with. He wondered what he should do for an encore. Turning himself over to the organ banks seemed like a pretty good idea….

He went Downstairs first, to check in with the Cunningham clan leaders, the ones entrusted with getting the food and water down, and distributed fairly. A simple, straightforward bunch they were, and perfect for a supply job; they knew the other Deltas would kill them to their last member if they got caught thieving from their own. After that he made a straight line for the governmental administrative section, barely a shadow slipping along night-dimmed corridors. He didn’t want to see an Alpha right about now.

Of course, his wants hadn’t gotten him a bloody thing so far and this was no exception. Rachel Shel was reviewing files in the anteroom, her Gamma guard dozing in the corner. Liberal bleeding heart she was, but blimey they needed Alphas like her; she didn’t seem to have an off switch. The fact she’d done much the same thing in Blake’s administration made Vila want to retch.

“Restal, what are you doing here?”

“Work to do,” he mumbled, trying to sidestep her.

“Work, eh? Has no one mentioned to you how helpful a decent rest is in the creation of results?”

“You’re one to talk, Rach—Shel.” Damn Alpha snottiness, what was a given name for if not to be used? He could hardly tell her that, not when she so meticulously afforded the title to Deltas as well. He cracked his jaw on a yawn, belatedly remembering to hide it behind his palm, and forced his voice to careful Alpha tones. “I’ve yet to walk in here and find you gone.”

“Perhaps so, Restal,” she said, smiling and shaking her head, “but I’m the slightest bit better fed and healthed than you. Come along, take a minute to get your thoughts together while I fetch you a cup of tea.”

Tea. Avon had vowed it was a courtesy when people forced that watery crud on him, and Shel seemed to think it had magical healing properties. Avon had also shown him how to hide the taste behind milk and sugar, promising him that in time it would grow on him. Vila made a face at the woman’s retreating back and plodded into his office. The leather sofa beckoned. He sank down into its noisy cloying invitation and settled his head against its back. Just for a moment. Shel bustled in and pushed the cup into his hand, holding out two little blue pills. “Vitamins. If you won’t eat or sleep, you must at the very least supplement yourself.”

Tiredly he nodded. She could be slipping him poison and he wasn’t sure he’d care. He swallowed them under her courteous eye, sipped at the tea without blanching and set it aside on the real wood end table. Real wood. He was asleep before he knew it.

Shel frowned slightly, shook her head and collected the tea cup. She supposed that slipping mickeys into a man’s drinks was the slightest bit unethical, but after the first revolt and now this, she was beginning to think sedation was the only way to slow a Delta down.

Determined they were, stubborn and streaked with an effervescent energy few Alphas deigned to share. Their hatreds seemed to drive them beyond their fears, while an Alpha’s hatred only fed his. This Vila Restal had been one of Blake’s people while Blake had been exiled. That was high praise even if the two seemed at odds now. Well, no matter. Alphas could learn something from these uneducated, dirty people, if only they would pause long enough to see and hear and think. If this little man was a useful example, this second coup had been a bit long in coming.

Of course, first she had to keep this one on his feet, and only sleep would do that. She glided silently out of Restal’s office, shutting the door behind her.

• • •

Avon lay stretched beneath the sheets for a long, dead time after Vila bolted. Stupid to follow him when there was nothing new to say. Stupid to torment the man further. Oh yes, he understood that quite clearly, something the Deltas had force-fed him until he could vomit it back up without thinking, until it was almost as much a part of him as his ego: when there was nothing else one could do, then one did nothing and learned to live with it.

The ancient china clock chimed from its sitting room shelf. Vila had left the bedroom door ajar on his exit. Mistakenly, Avon hoped. Nonetheless that tiny chiming note might as well have been a death knell. Blake, no more than thirty minutes away from him now, would be liberated from his prison cell in just over an hour, and what poetic justice that might be. Let him escape that identical hole a second time and the man would develop even greater delusions of godhood. Well now, that wasn’t a very kind beast to unleash on an unsuspecting galaxy.

Nonetheless it was the truth. And another truth far more damning than one man’s deluded apotheosis was that Avon, a very reluctant disciple, could not resist a last opportunity to see him. He rolled out of bed and began dragging on clothes. Slipping out through the kitchens and the service entry, he scurried through the darkened halls with the ease of too much recent practice, gritting his teeth even now at the vulgarity of it. He’d be getting more practice later, when he returned by this same path.

As an Alpha and Vila’s mate he could hardly afford to be printed, and circumventing the various security systems lost him precious time. What prickling irony that, parted from his computer link-ups, he was compelled to use the tricks Vila had taught him. No matter, one method was as good as another, and if he left no ghosts in his wake at least Vila would be proud of his effort. It was a small recompense indeed, hard-won and hard-given. When he arrived in the appropriate deportation cell block he had barely ten minutes to spare.

The corridor was dim, his shadow passing barely discernible on the cold gray walls. He snuck up on Blake’s holding cell, irrationally fearing this meeting, and there was Blake, crouched on a cot apparently deep in thought, a thin blanket wrapped around his hunched shoulders. His profile was arresting, and Avon cursed himself with every oath of his youth as well as all the new ones he’d picked up from the Deltas.

Standing there feeling all those moribund, pitiless emotions that had so cruelly trapped Vila, he wondered why his upbringing hadn’t spared him this. He’d always told Vila, only a fool followed his heart when his head offered a better option. And yet here he was, standing in this empty corridor staring at Blake, who’d managed to extricate himself yet again from almost certain death. Perhaps that was it, he decided fancifully; perhaps he was obsessed merely with Blake’s ability to survive against such laughably high odds.

“You’re alive because I love you,” he murmured, pleased by the shock his voice sent through the big body.

“Avon, I wasn’t expecting you until I reached Brighton. Vila told you, then?”

“He told me.” More than you wanted him to, I’d venture. “Did you hear me?”

“What?”

“You’re alive because I love you. You are aware of that, aren’t you?”

“Avon—”

“Admit it, Blake,” he said tiredly. “If I can suffer to live with the knowledge, then surely you can, too.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I am referring to the fact that Vila’s family might have killed you. Damn you, they should have killed you for what you haven’t done for them. In the name of emancipation, you have shortened the already insufferable shackles of their servitude.”

Blake swept up to the cell gates huge and unrelenting, as if the bars that separated them couldn’t contain him. He leaned his elbows along the duralloy, looking as calm and composed as if he’d just sidled up to a bar. “Now is hardly the time for philosophy, Avon.”

It occurred to him that for once Blake was a captive audience. He smiled, and leaned against the wall. “Oh, I’d say it was an excellent time. After all,” he nodded toward the bars, “you’re not going anywhere just yet.”

The quiet, enquiring stare faded after a moment and Blake checked his chrono. He offered a small smile. “By all means, Avon. Continue.” He settled more comfortably and offered his attention.

Roj Blake had the advantage in this confrontation. It was obvious as simple maths that where people were concerned, Blake could encourage them to action with the same deft expertise as Avon his computers. But people left trails, evidence of their tampering. “Tell me, Blake, exactly whose idea it was that your escape was a better choice than any other?”

“What—oh. Mine.”

“Mmm. Of course. I’ll take it as a sign of your trust in me that you shared that dark secret.”

Blake leaned forward, eyes intent and so mesmerizing, Avon wanted to fall into them. “Don’t make it worse, Avon. It isn’t something I’m proud of. But, needs must be done. A lesson I’ve learned well, as you know.” He leaned back and the spell was broken with a wave of a big hand, prestidigitation at its finest. Avon felt completely out of control. “Vila will figure it out eventually, anyway, and when he does it will be better for all of us if I’m a safe distance away. He’s very clever, and I’ve noticed he holds a grudge far longer than he used to.”

“Sobriety does that to him.” Avon couldn’t help the barb, it just slipped out. God, but he hated Blake for making him so comfortable that he would happily slander his—his—his mate, then. At least he could admit it in the privacy of his own mind. His mate, his informal spouse, his lover. Blake’s nemesis. That thought brought a smile with it. “To give him his credit, starvation was probably the greater impetus.”

“Whatever it is,” Blake said non-judgmentally, “I doubt it will benefit him in the long run. If he survives this blunder, that is.”

“Blunder?” The old anger boiled up; he had merely to blink in exchange for an image of Vila’s sister suffocating her infant. He stepped closer. More carefully this time, he whispered, “Blunder? They were starving, Blake. You cut their already meager supplies. And if that weren’t enough to justify their tiny blunder, you permitted the murders to begin again. Oh yes,” he sneered, thinking that perhaps the bars were protecting Blake from him, rather than him from Blake, “I’m sure they would have been much better off had they remained down in that cesspool to which you relegated them.”

“And you think they’ll be better off now?” Blake challenged. “Come now, Avon, you know what those Deltas are up against! If I had to compromise to survive, just think what—”

“But you learned your lesson too well, Blake; you no longer compromise merely to survive. You compromise for convenience, for people’s opinions, for your following.” Just as I did, creeping around those corridors like Vila in the night, for you, for the miniscule attention you doled out, he thought, vitriol burning in him. I compromised far more than any of us did. “The deposed president asked for considerations, you give them to her in spades. The military threatened retaliation, you conceded their right to their precious mutoids. An Alpha administrator demanded increased amenities or threatened a work strike, you happily diverted needed resources from the disadvantaged classes to satisfy an overfed bureaucrat’s whims. And who lost, President Blake? Certainly not you. Perhaps, oh fearless leader, some small measure of attrition was in order.”

“Oh, Avon,” Blake retorted, exasperation pushing his fingers through the thick curls of his hair. “You have been by my side since the moment I was released from that prison, yet you can stand there and make that accusation of me? Where has your mind been these last weeks!”

Avon fought the urge to look away from that accusing stare. Blake’s ability to turn the tables in any confrontation was what made him the leader he was. That Avon so resented his position as follower could hardly be this man’s responsibility. “My mind was on the programming, Blake, and on the engineering staff you bade me run. My mind was on apportioning food and medical supplies to the Deltas, Blake, for Vila.” He hoped the implication might sting, but doubted it would. “And speaking of Vila, why did you feel compelled to give him every detail of our recent liaisons?”

Blake drew himself up, looking affronted. “If you must know, it had a great deal to do with the gun he was pointing at me.”

Avon waved the excuse aside; guns pointed at one were part and parcel to the business of rebellion. “Not even that is excuse enough for such… pornographic description.”

Blake frowned, obviously concerned. “I admit, I was angry when he and I spoke, but I hardly painted florid pictures of my time with you. I offered Vila nothing of our personal lives that he didn’t demand. Even at that, I’d have called it prurient interest had it not upset him so.”

“You hurt him needlessly, after you’d already hurt him and his people through your ignorance. What gave you the right to do that?”

“I believe you did,” Blake said drolly, “when you dragged me into this triangle. I’m not at all clear what agreements you may have had with him, but I would have preferred to know about them before you enlisted my cooperation in breaking them, Avon.”

“What!”

“Well, that whole scene when Vila and I first converged on your home would never have had to happen, if you’d had the decency to inform me you were previously committed. Though to Vila… I missed something integral about that liaison.”

It was past time to turn promises into practice. It was past time to tell the truth. “Vila took me home to his family after you and the others were captured,” he said quietly. “There was, quite literally, nowhere else to go; the spaceports were sealed from us, any computer use on my part would have been identified by Orac and my location given up to Servalan, and the rainy season was approaching. It was the Delta domes or certain death.”

Blake’s brows drew together in confusion. “Surely Vila wouldn’t make you trade your body for your safety.”

“Hardly,” he replied, hearing his voice as if from miles away. “Vila risked his life for me in an effort to conceal me from the Federation. He… took care of me as best he could. He asked for nothing in exchange, and at first nothing was exactly what I gave him.” Memory washed through him, baptising him in a devotion so strong it threatened to drown his identity, so strong it threatened to wash away the dam that contained all his love for Blake. Avon didn’t worry; he was learning, slowly, painfully, that chance would be a fine thing. “We were more than a year in the Delta levels, Blake. I grew to care for him a great deal.” Feeling the heat rush to his face, feeling on trial for every action, mistaken or no, he forced the words out. “I made choices.” Choices, perhaps, that were no choice at all…. But Vila had offered him outs and Avon hadn’t taken them. “Vila was correct when he said we were married. I accepted his offer the very evening before the first revolt.”

“Well,” Blake said drily, “that explains his anger at us both, then. When he said you were married yesterday—” he paused, reflecting, “—was it only yesterday? Good God, how time crawls when all hell has broken loose.” Avon’s head reeled with that bit of obvious trivia. Only yesterday? The day before, if one wanted to be technical. Could forty hours with Vila negate a month in the cradle of his upbringing, surrounded as he was by parricidal Alpha elites? Could that month overwrite a year of compelled programming in the Delta warrens, and could that year have erased the preceding four which hadn’t managed to wipe out the previous thirty-one—a hand clenched bruisingly on his upper arm and chill metal kissed his cheek. “Are you all right, Avon?”

He cut off a laugh before it could begin, and smiled blindingly instead. What a perfectly ridiculous question, under the circumstances. “I’m all right. And you’re missing the point. He was angry with you yesterday not because of me, but because mutoids stormed through his streets dragging living, kicking relatives away to be harvested for their body parts.”

“I told you I had no idea that was occurring.”

“Yes, and I believe you. So, incidentally, did Vila. And that, Blake,” he announced, filling his voice with all the hauteur of his grade, “is your failing as a leader. You should have known. You should have had some idea what the conditions were for the people you purported to liberate.”

“As you should have known? Avon, you never once spoke with Vila. You never even mentioned your relationship with him to me. Why? Why?”

Avon was becoming clear that discussing Vila with Blake was a losing proposition. But he could hardly have gone traipsing back to the Delta warrens to say a merry hello to Vila when Blake’s semen was likely drying on his belly. Or even more likely, in his arse. Certainly not when his preoccupation with Blake was so profound. That would have required a greater self-honesty than Avon was capable of.

“I thought that might be your answer,” Blake said, more in sorrow than in anger. “You’re a deviant, Avon, one who has unfortunately had an opportunity to live openly as one. But you can’t do it up on the Alpha levels.”
With you, Blake? Or with Vila? How is being a Delta more despicable to us than being a queer?
“And you wouldn’t live on the Delta levels at all,” Blake went on. “So whilst you flounder in indecision you’re tearing that poor fellow up when he has far more important work to do.”

“Do you never tire, Blake,” Avon asked tiredly, “of judging the people around you?”

“I’d say I tire of that as quickly as you tire of using them, Avon.” Blake shook a remonstrative finger at him, a finger that had traced his nipple, warred with his tongue and fucked his mouth while a far more potent phallus had fucked him elsewhere. “So much could have been avoided if you’d been less distracted.”

Avon refused even the intimation of shared blame. He had poured his mental energies into reprogramming, rewriting code, reallocating time, money, energy and resources… not that it had done a bloody-damn bit of good. All of it had been delayed by the power of Roj Blake’s signature and voiceprint. “I imagine I’d be more of a help to Vila than I was to you, Blake,” he challenged. It was true after a fashion, if only because Vila would eventually listen to him more than Blake would.

“I think you might be too, Avon, and Vila is certainly going to need your help more than I did.”

That stung, stung him to the core that playing wife to the Delta fifth-grade Vila Restal was a more valuable place for him than playing—what, favored fucktoy to the rebellion’s Fearless Leader? What exactly had he been, all this time?

He shook off the self-recriminations, unwilling to accept them from Blake. Oh, what a siren song Blake could sing when he put his mind to it. From that mouth Avon so cherished, with its hinted smiles and quiet, inclusive whispers, Blake could talk a planet right out of its orbit. Simple laws of physics and biology had no hold over this man. Obviously not, if Blake had convinced Vila to give him up. And Vila, vectored in too many directions at once with no hope of an easy course, tired and hungry and emotionally trampled, was far too susceptible to Blake’s “logic.” The fact it was Avon’s boot-prints all over the Delta fool made the scenario that much more bitterly pathetic.

Of course, the logic was unavoidable. There was a list of potential enemies, probably lined up in holding patterns on approach to this solar system, a list longer than Vila’s list of grievances. Servalan. Any one of several military generals with delusions of grandeur. Now-leaderless space fleets off-planet. James Jonathan Farney, the current don of the Terra Nostra. Rejonale, the deposed shadow dictator, or even the recently deposed president; she might think she could realize that damned post, though what she knew about freedom of the people could be contained in a thimble. “So you’ll be assisting him too? Making your own list of those who might express too much interest in the power vacuum he has generated, until this social upheaval has time to stabilize itself?” he challenged.

“It’s something I’m giving serious consideration.”

Oh, what a lovely way of saying nothing. Blake was so very, very good at that. “I feel better already,” he jeered. “Do you really take me for as much of a fool as you took Vila? You wouldn’t give up this planet when you’re still so very close to—” Blake was saved from Avon’s fury by the time with which he had been so concerned, earlier. Feet pounded up the hallway, voices he recognized calling Blake’s name. It was always Blake…. He drew his weapon automatically, stepping back into the shadows ’round the corridor bend just as Drake, the ever-present aide, skidded into view in yet another of an endless line of fruit-colored ensembles. No doubt in deference to this daring pre-dawn escape he’d chosen subdued plums this time. Avon felt the demented urge to peel and pit the man.

Instead he stepped into view and brandished his gun. “Why not simply sound an alarm, if you want everyone to know you’re coming?” he said drily as the man began frantically digging through his pockets for his own weapon. Avon put his gun away in disgust. “Oh, spare me and get him out of there,” he snapped, stepping away from the cell. He wondered if anyone here knew about Blake and himself. He wondered what would happen if he told them… but no, the odds of Blake denying the whole thing were simply too high for his ego to risk.

Another familiar, nameless face jumped to do his bidding, albeit for all the wrong reasons. Jiggling something over the lock pad he simpered, “Roj, we thought we’d lost you for sure this time.”

“Come now Hal, none of that. The Cause will survive long after I’m gone.”

“Don’t count on that, Hal,” Avon muttered. He checked his chronometer and groaned inwardly. Vila could chew his way out of a detention cell faster than this idiot could open the lock with sonics, good light and a cheering section. The man actually paused in his work to stare at him.

“Eh?”

Avon rolled his eyes in disgust. “Well Blake, you seem to have things well in hand. I’ll just run along.” He turned on his heel and took three steps up the corridor when Blake yelled,

“Avon, wait!”

He paused. “For what?”

The lock gave way with an audible click and Blake strode out of confinement. “How will I contact you?”

They were simple, concise words, devoid of unrecognizable accent, Delta idiom or off-planet meaning. Nonetheless Avon couldn’t parse them into, ‘Come with me now, I can’t manage without you.’ He tried to, several times, before opening his mouth. “What?”

“How will I contact you? You’re in a position to do great things, my friend. It’s not every man who belongs to the inner circle of virtually every revolution in existence.” White teeth flashed cold light that chilled Avon from skin to bone. He had thought resisting Blake’s entreaties would be difficult. He had committed himself to stand firm against the force of Blake’s demands for his company. He had certainly expected to at least receive demands. Now, with nothing to lean against, he was abruptly in danger of falling flat on his face—literally and figuratively.

“I am not your spy,” he spat, feeling venom seethe in him. That Blake wouldn’t even ask him to come with him burned far more deeply than any caustic insult might have. “I came here only to see that you left, and now that you are doing so I want nothing more to do with you or your damned dementia of heroism.”

“But Avon,” Blake urged, “you must keep me informed. You’re a key participant in this whole movement.”

He feigned surprise, still reeling from his beloved’s distraction. And why in Hell had Blake demanded that Vila tell him the escape plans if not so they might leave together? The sickening truth was only just becoming clear. He was another in a long vanguard of pawns. Nothing more. Was this what Vila had felt, trapped and hungry and alone in the Bowels? “Am I?” he asked, voice breaking with rage. “Why is it no one mentioned this to me earlier?”

Blake glanced from Avon to the tiny knot of Alphas and back. “Avon, now is hardly the time for a display of temper.”

Avon looked over Blake’s shoulder and right into the intelligent, curious eyes of strangers. “You’re right, of course,” he hissed through clenched teeth. “Now is simply the time for farewells.”

Blake again glanced at his chrono, then over his shoulder. “Avon, I’ll contact you soon.” He spread his hands slightly, entreating. “But for now, I believe it’s time I made good my escape.”

“You’ve wasted too much time already, damn you,” he snarled, fury goading him. The decision had been taken out of his hands yet again, and he was left with nothing. It was difficult to be proud of his commitment to resisting Blake, when Blake urged him only to stay with Vila. Hard to respect himself when he wanted nothing, now, more than to break his promise to his mate and force Blake to take him. “Now get out of here, and take your sycophants with you.”

Blake checked his chrono once more and backed a step away. Avon felt the resistance as if they were physically tied together. “I’ll be in touch soon.”

“Don’t try it, Blake. And don’t push you luck any further. Vila has already given you more latitude than you deserve.” Plum was sidling up behind Blake, obviously itching to clear his throat, tug an imaginary forelock and beg the man to escape before it was too late. But too late for whom? “Go,” he whispered. “Just go.” With that he turned again and hurtled with barely-controlled fury down the echoing corridor, hating himself for doing so, hating Blake for letting him.

• • •

The next thing Vila knew, a woman he was sure he should recognize was smiling gently down at him. One firm, long-fingered hand squeezed at his shoulder. “Wha—?” he blinked owlishly. His head was stuffed with mildewed wadding and he could barely see past it. Thinking was out of the question. The room that surrounded him was opulent, rich colours and textures and bric-a-brac that made his fingers itch to steal something. Anything. Where was he?

“Restal? How are you feeling?”

He swallowed against the glue in his mouth and tried again, “Wha—”

“You’re certainly slow to awaken,” the woman said, “not that I should blame you. But wake you must, Restal. There are several people I think you should meet and they are due here in less than thirty minutes. You’ll want to shower, of course—there’s a bath down the back hall—and change. I took the liberty of hiring a valet for you, a young Beta gentleman who is urgent in his desire to support your rebellion.”

Rebellion? “Oh, shit—” For a few blissful moments he’d forgotten all of it, everything. He’d been as free of obligation as a newborn babe and reveled in it.

“Not quite awake even now, Restal? Ben Gaff, that nice Gamma attendant you provided me with, is fetching coffee for you even as we speak.”

“He’s a guard, Shel,” Vila snapped, swallowing again and levering himself to a sitting position on the couch. “Wish to bloody ’ell you’d at least act afeared of ’im.”

The woman positively tisked. “I believe we have more than our fair parcel of fear with this upheaval, Restal. Now come along, coffee should be waiting in my office.”

He rubbed his gritty eyes with the heels of his hands, basking in the unrelenting dark behind his closed lids. “What timez’it?”

“Just after nine.”

Just after—tears welled up against his will, wetting his dry eyes and surprising him with the pain they brought. Avon was gone and oh damn, it hurt. It hurt him to his very core, and there was nothing he could do about it. He couldn’t even afford the luxury of grief, so he rubbed harder at his eyes to dispel the incriminating tears… and put his husband behind him. Vila stood up, turning his face away from Rachel Shel and his entire past with Avon. Avon was as gone as any poor hapless victim of hunger or mutoid raids, and the only way to live on was to leave the dead behind.

Pain was a powerful stimulant. He was wide awake and dry-eyed when moments ago he’d been as dumb as his retard cousin Dev. “Who’ve I got ter meet then, Shel?”

“I took the liberty of inviting several high-level officials—non-politicals, you needn’t fear an assassination attempt.” Until she mentioned it, Vila hadn’t even considered one. “The minister of light and power, the minister of agriculture, a junior minister of technology, a few others of similar rank or interests. They formed a mid-level echelon of Blake’s recent attempt, and in particular I believe they are concerned with the presence of armed Deltas at their installations. I believe they will participate with your desire to redistribute resources on a more permanent basis, if you can offer them certain guarantees of safety.”

Oh wonderful. Blake’s people? And now they were supposed to listen to him? “Shel, what am I supposed to say to them? Why are they coming here?”

“Speed is of the essence, Restal. You cannot consolidate power without the help of Alphas like these.”

“Who says I want to consolidate?” he demanded, petulant. He’d slept for hours, right through Avon leaving even, and still he was tired to the pit of his soul.

“Do you want to succeed?”

His granda’s image loomed large in his mind, swearing at him and hacking with the effort. “Well… yeh.”

“Then you want to meet with these people, and you want to encourage them to understand your point of view. I generated an outline from Kerr Avon’s programming comments, memos and other general annotations. It should cover most of the issues they will want to address.”

Vila refused to flinch at hearing his lover’s name. It was the way of it. Avon was gone, no matter what legacy—or bloody mess—he’d left behind. “And when am I supposed to get clued in, wot between bathing and being dressed and gettin’ back here?”

Her face crinkled in confusion. “Restal, it is your plan.”

He stared at her. What a bloody terrifying thought, that all the things he, Avon and his family had cooked up below in the Bowels were now “his” plan. The weight of it tugged with gravitational force, beating him down and forcing his temper. The only thing that checked it was the shocking knowledge that he knew every detail of what she was talking about. He wanted to kill something.

• • •

Vila returned early that night to the Waylz family home. Even with Avon out of the hologram he’d decided that the place was nice, his family needed a home Above to live in and he’d bloody well steal it if he had to. Those hours of sleep on his office couch had done him good; he could still see his hand in front of him and all he had on his plate between now and dawn was depression and hours of uninterrupted sleep. He could hear children playing, laughing—that woman, Nanny, was still about, smoothing the way for them all. It hadn’t occurred to him before how much Deltas would need intermediaries like the Betas. He wondered how he might court more of them to their side.

The noise was restful in its familiarity, but he sidestepped it. He didn’t want to see people, didn’t want his strings pulled by his mam or the children or anyone at all. Benton was in the kitchen though, and Vila exchanged a few polite words with the cook in exchange for a plate of food. His insides were gnawing through his backbone.

He took the covered plate, snatched a huge kitchen towel to ward off a spill on these floor carpets, and ducked down the hall into Avon’s room.

Whereupon he promptly dropped plate, towel and cutlery altogether, hearing the muted clatter as everything hit the floor. Avon was propped up in the bed, tape viewer in one hand and a computer keyball resting quietly under the other. “Vila!” Avon snapped, hurtling himself off the bed to save the floor. “Watch what you’re doing you clumsy oaf!”

“Avon…” a fist was squeezing hard around his throat while another giant hand held his middle, threatening to snap his spine in two with the shock alone. Avon was on his knees before him, righting the plate that had had the good fortune to fall smack atop the towel he’d brought.

“Yes, idiot? Get down here and pick up this mess.”

Something more basic than instinct compelled him to obey. “But—” he sputtered, fumble-fingered in his attempt to pick up the fork, “but—” Oh praise all that was holy and his granda’s ghost. “Wh- wh- what—” He dragged in a breath past the pain and tried again. “What the bleedin’ hell are you doing here?” Maybe it was stupid, but he needed to hear whatever Avon might say. He was even prepared to believe it.

Avon glanced up through his lashes, and everything went still between them. There was simple, raw emotion in his eyes. His look was warm, guilty and doggedly apologetic. “You know damned well what I’m doing here, Vila. Or what I was doing until you so rudely interrupted my work.”

“Eh?”

Avon squinted at him and huffed his disdain. “I don’t know why people should waste time filing activity reports if you so willfully fail to read them.”

“Eh?”

“Now that’s an intelligent answer. And a real step up from your last.” Avon’s chest rose and fell on a sigh. “You asked me what I was doing. I’ve spent my day wading through problem after problem, struggling with the prejudices and delusions of four different classes and all their varying grades and trying to come up with a social solution that will make this revolution of yours end well for the majority, just as you told me to. Fortunately for you and your rapid breeder clan, the majority in this society is Delta.”

Eh? He managed to merely think it this time as he stared unblinking at favored dream and worst nightmare. Avon was still here.

Avon rose with plate in hand and deposited it all on the table by the bed. “I must say, it will be a task of years. Fortunately for you, the Alpha tyranny was built on strong re-education techniques. What to teach, what to tell, for what to punish the curious and a nose for conspiracy that just might protect your ignorant hordes, if we can adjust it slightly. I believe that appropriate in-depth viscast can be generated for every class in a matter of weeks, with texts and tests to follow. Dump the social education cores, upload the anthropological and cultural materials, make the education as compulsory as any other Federation stricture and by your precious New Year even the Betas will understand why you act like drunken fools that night. Just as your Deltas will understand why Gammas may go into hiding in early November, and Betas will doubtless openly scoff at the lot of you for your superstitious beliefs.”

“And Alphas won’t?” It was the only thing he could think of to say.

Avon tilted his head back and actually laughed. “Oh, of course they will; they will simply hide their disdain behind that cool mask of superiority they all wear so well.”

Vila knew well what mask Avon was referring to. Though he had to admit, it didn’t seem much like a mask. It seemed more like a trait that went straight through to the bone marrow. Studiously, he ignored the fact that Avon hadn’t placed himself in any class. Everyone was “they” to him now.

“From whom did you steal those clothes?”

“Eh?” He couldn’t help it; the word just kept slipping out. “Oh. Shel found me a helper, some bloke who gets clothes, runs about doing odd jobs fer me whilst I’m down in the admin section.”

“Tell her she has acquired an excellent valet. These synthetics suit you.”

“Um, right. Avon?”

“Yes, Vila?”

“Why didn’t you leave with Blake?”

Avon stepped forward and reached out a hand, gently grasping his upper arm. “Let’s not discuss unpleasantness, eh? Just for one night.”

Vila was all for that, but his brain couldn’t stay ahead of his mouth. “Did you get there too late? Is that it?”

“No, I did not arrive too late and no, I am not going to discuss it.” The tone was firmer now, almost an order. “Don’t torture yourself and please, don’t torture me with your endless nagging.”

Vila was all for that too. Nonetheless his mouth opened and out popped, “Avon, you can’t just show up here and not tell me why. You can’t.”

Whatever he’d said, however he’d said it, Avon frowned and softened a little. “I went to see him. I arrived several minutes before his other little playmates, had a short conversation with him, and I left.”

“But—”

“—Vila,” Avon said, his voice whetting a sharp edge of anger, “I fully intended to come back before I ever left this house. Leave it.”

There was no reason he couldn’t relax just a bit and let Avon ease some of this burden while he was still here. For the moment, Vila could heed the warning and hold his tongue. “All right. I’m starving.” Avon raised an eyebrow and stepped aside, allowing Vila to retrieve his food, spread the towel over the counterpane and work his way through every last morsel.

By the time he’d taken his third bite, Avon stopped hovering over him and returned to the other side of the bed. The quiet tap-tapping of his hand on the keyball was—Vila didn’t know what to make of it, actually. He’d never heard Avon do it before. He peered over Avon’s shoulder at the numbers and weird scripts scrolling up the monitor, unable to make head or tail of them. “What’re you doing?” he asked.

“I told you, I’m programming new code for your ilk,” Avon replied, his voice rich and absent with intelligence. “This particular piece is something I may be quite proud of. Its function is to note discrepancies in delivery volumes versus the software-generated orders. It then traces the origins of the orders given that altered the shipments and attempts to identify the programming signature of the person or persons responsible. It should save your Deltas a great deal in pilfered supplies.”

“No, no,” Vila said, waving away details. He’d stopped listening somewhere around “I told you,” and besides, the thefts wouldn’t be software-driven. People would just nick what they thought they needed and have done with it. “Why are you programming with your hands like that?” Avon looked surprised. “Why don’t you do it with voice like everyone else?”

“Ah. Most importantly, Vila, ‘everyone else’ does not program orally. In fact, only a very few high-level programmers work that way. Personally, I find that numbers and mathematical constructs flow more easily non-verbally.”

“Oh. I see.” That made sense, he supposed. He set his plate aside and, just to make sure they were clean, swiped his hands down his trouser fronts. “Why not sub-vocals then?”

Avon let out an exasperated sigh. “It isn’t the sound, Vila; it’s the method. Now do be quiet and let me work, or else find a more interesting way of distracting me.”

Vila kicked his shoes off, their thud muffled to near-silence by the thick pile carpet on the floor. He stayed quiet, refusing to speculate on Avon just yet. He chewed on his lip, worrying the rat’s nest of problems he had, unable as yet to even decide which was the biggest. Eventually, the tap-tapping slowed and stopped, and he felt Avon’s attention on him like a medical probe, poking, prodding… he turned to meet inquiring brown eyes.

“What are you doing?” Avon asked. Politely.

“I was just thinkin’,” he murmured, caught again in the web of Avon’s confused affections.

“Yer wer wot? Jes’ thinkin’?” Avon smiled, obviously searching for Vila’s amusement. “You don’t want to hurt yourself, you know.”

A hand came up and sneaked around Vila’s neck, rubbing gently at the knotted stress there. The tenderness of it made him queasy with fear. “Oh shut up,” he replied, not meaning it. “Was thinkin’ about what to do next, about how to keep the Alphas under control and get them to work for us at the same time. About how to make the Deltas fit in a bit better on the other levels. About how to keep the ones without weapons from slipping back to the Delta levels; it’s hard for so many of them, you know.”

“You weren’t still mulling over my presence in my own home, then?”

“No, sorry. Too many other problems that just won’t go away.” Not like you.

“Ah. Well, if I might have your attention for a moment, I have something to say.”

“What?”

“I’m sorry, Vila.”

Eh? It would be more honest to ask, About what? There were too many wrongs to choose from. “All right.” He turned his face away. “Do you have any suggestions for—”

“I am sorry. I don’t know of too many ways to say it and I find it incredibly redundant to keep apologizing for the same inanities, but I understand your capacity to disbelieve.”

Vila dragged in a deep, shuddering breath. He didn’t want to do this, not when there was too much to do that was too hard already. “Running a revolution’s a tough job, Avon,” he whispered, trying to distract himself. “I c’n see why Blake went barmy.”

“Stop it.” Lips grazed his shoulder blade, raising gooseflesh on his skin. Then the words wafted over him, soft as a breath of air. “For this short time, pay attention to me.” The tension wound even tighter in him.

“We’re missing a whole pile of top elite muck-a-mucks, and I dunno wot to do about it. We can’t leave ’em out there plotting and scheming, and we can’t afford to hunt ’em down.”

Another kiss nudged his collar down an inch, flesh on flesh— “Stop it!” He lost his fragile hold on his oh-so-indestructible feelings, and jerked away from the loose embrace. “Just stop it! There’s things to do, work to be done, and I don’t have time—”

Avon shifted on the bed, the better to reach his lover and bury some part of his confusion and anger in Vila’s love. He desperately needed to honor the love this man had for him, because it was something he needed himself, something Blake denied him just as he had denied Vila in the past. Chastely, he pressed his closed lips against Vila’s, soothing him where words could not, the press of that quivering mouth against his own wringing faint emotion from his heart…. “Listen carefully, Vila. Understand this. I am so thoroughly confused by all that has happened, even I have no idea what I might do next. But I’m here now. I want you back in this bed and at least for the moment, I’m here. Tomorrow I’ll help you find the remaining dissenters in Blake’s party. There are only so many places they could be hiding, and without a doubt I know most of them. I love you.” He had never in his life imagined that kind words could come so easily, or feel so clean. Unlaced by venom and somehow unchained by class or judgment, the words rolled almost trippingly off the tongue, a gift of words to Vila only slightly less precious than the three he had kept repeating when they made love.

Vila felt the rage boiling up in him. He thought he’d been angry before, angry enough to want to turn Blake into a greasy arrogant spot on the floor, but this was different. How bloody much was he supposed to cope with? How much did Avon expect him to believe? “Why did you let the Raids start up again, then?” he spat, last feeble defense against this overgenerous affection.

“Vila,” Avon’s tone remonstrative, tskking a naughty child for and overactive imagination, “You know better than that.”

“I know you knew about them,” he hissed, “when you were fighting with Blake in front of everybody, you knew.”

“Yes, I knew. I knew because I stumbled across that information in a pile of printed reports less than an hour before your filthy hordes surged up like sewage from every accessway in the dome. I was countermanding that order even as your uprising began. I swear it, Vila.”

The unmistakable honesty in Avon’s voice was too much for him. All of it was too much and he was splintering inside, wrapping his arms round his middle to hold himself in. Weeks it had been, and every second he’d had to pretend. Even in front of his family—especially then, where people who knew Avon best might guess the truth, he’d hidden his pain rather than betray his mate, and even though Avon had betrayed him already he couldn’t bring himself to do it back.

But that was past, and here was Avon with him and he didn’t even care why, or how long it would last or when Avon would leave him again. “We were Downstairs, Avon,” he hiccoughed, “an’ someone shouted raid and lord knows how many might’ve been taken because we didn’t even keep decent lookouts anymore! I’d never been so scared. I was sittin’ in front of granda’s house, cursing his ghost fer all he’d dropped on me, an’ I couldn’t even move because I just couldn’t believe it was happenin’. Finally I got my arse goin’, ran down an alley and stuffed meself up in an old ventilation locker. It was a tighter fit than inside me mam’s belly, an’ even when I ’eard boots trompin’ by, I still couldn’t believe it.” He sniffed, the sound loud in this clean safe room. Faintly, he registered the painful tightening of Avon’s arms on him and he twisted, gripping Avon back, burying his face in his mate’s shoulder and blubbering no better than a kid. “I thought Blake had got to you, that he’d tricked with your head and talked you into whatever he wanted, just like before—”

Avon stiffened as the words registered, and clamped down on his defensive anger. Vila was telling no more than the truth as he saw it, and the thief was hysterical, anyway. Easy to discount the words… even if he could hear the clear ring of truth in them. Vila gripped him tighter and the words continued to flow, sometimes discernible, sometimes lost between Avon’s flesh and Vila’s anguish.

“Everythin’ just… exploded down there, Avon. Pffft. We were all movin’, takin’ everything wot’s ours, then Blake an’ you an’ all these people, an’ yer house, Avon, all these things you had an’ you’d been stuck down there wiv nothin’, wiv me, and I thought you knew about the raid all along—” On and on Vila babbled, while Avon held him and felt his shirt growing damp with Vila’s flooding tears and running nose. He sighed, stroking long swathes down Vila’s too-thin back. “I’m sorry, Avon, but I need you right now.”

Avon understood perhaps better than Vila, what it was Vila needed: someone, anyone who wasn’t looking to him for the right answers, who wasn’t depending on him to do the right thing, give the order that would keep the most people alive, sacrificing others he would have wanted to know and mourning their faceless oblations.

“Knew I was only expedient, but when the raids started again, I thought you cared that little that you’d sit by and let it go on, because you were up here with him, because you’d got yourself back around your grade— Felt as if you were pullin’ the trigger yourself, Avon.” There were no more words, and Vila’s entire body was quaking in Avon’s arms.

“I’m here, Vila. It’s all right,” he crooned, remembering with an odd distortion how the children had taken to him down Below, how easily they were comforted by a smooth, even tone. “I’m glad you came, I’m pleased you led your Deltas up here. Things were off track and you have done yourselves nothing but good. You made the right decisions, Vila. All of them.” He rocked his blubbering lover in his arms, talking nonsense until Vila’s grip on him loosened, until Vila pulled back enough to display his tear-splotched face.

“I don’t want power, Avon,” Vila whispered, and Avon ached for him. “I never did, but it was th’ only way I could keep you safe, the only way to help the family. I don’t want these people depending on me, I don’t want your bloody Alphas tryin’ ta kill me, I don’t want a war. All I wanted was someplace where nothing wanted to hurt me more than I could bear. All I wanted was you.”

Vila sat there, the question burning in his eyes. “I’m sorry,” Avon whispered, then, bracingly, “go wash your face. Then come back here and try to get some rest.”

Vila scrambled off the bed and into the bathroom, probably as much to hide his embarrassment as to get clean, while Avon stretched out and stared at the ceiling. He too was trapped, buffeted by a shockwave of unwanted emotion much the same as Vila’s… right into the center of a power struggle that could well kill them all. A cone of light leapt into the room when Vila opened the door and came back to bed, and Avon said sternly, “I’m offended that you even thought that of me, Vila, though under the circumstances I won’t blame you.” He turned, answering Vila’s needs obliquely, as best he could. “Blind I may be, but I am no longer the man I was.” Vila sniffed hard and wiped his nose on the inside of his sleeve. Avon ignored both actions with an effort. “No one, not even Blake, could have convinced me to allow the raids to begin again.”

It was a mark of his contamination by these mangy Deltas that he was as proud as he was of Vila. More proud, perhaps, even than when he had seen the unflagging thief filled with bravado and the priorities of his people—the real oppressed, the people Avon had known and for whom he had come to develop a twisted sort of respect—Vila standing in the face of a Roj Blake he had never confronted so profoundly in the past. A century from now, he would look back on that confrontation between them and laugh, for Blake’s power and Vila’s strength.

He had believed, a few short months ago, that Vila’s sister Jess might be the strongest person he knew. But the thought occurred to him now that he had never really seen Vila at his lowest ebb, as Jess had been that lonely night. What a waste that such strength didn’t draw him as did Blake’s bright light.

“It’s no’ your fault, Avon,” Vila said, out of the blue. A hand snaked around his waist and Vila inched closer to him. “I’m sorry I’m sniveling like this, know how much you hate it. Sorry I love you more’n you love me. Sorry for all of it.” It stung, it bruised Avon deep in a heart he had only recently discovered.

“Stop it, Vila,” he chided, shaking the battered thief. “Stop it.” He remembered, suddenly, the insanity with all those children in the baths earlier… and then he remembered the bath empty after they had gone…. Avon made a rather radical decision. “Come along,” he said, wrestling his lover from the bedclothes and to his feet. “I’d like to give you something. We’d best make the most of it before the new programs shut us out entirely.” The damned sewage plumbing might not work after this, but Avon didn’t even care. He’d acquaint Vera with public lavatories and threaten to beat her if she returned with water collected from the toilets. And he’d have to tell Nanny not to bathe the children in the morning, something for which she would no doubt chastise him.

“Wot?” Vila asked abstractly, stumbling along as both exhaustion and responsibility resettled equally heavy weights upon him. He ached with fatigue. And Avon had managed yet again to reach inside him, tangle his guts around his heart and tug until the knots were all drawn tight.

“It’s a surprise,” Avon murmured, wrapping his arms around Vila, pressing his groin against the sweet smoothness of his lover’s arse. He pressed his lips against the soft column of Vila’s neck, nuzzling there. He started working at shirt closures and trouser fastenings. Vila tensed beneath his hands. “Wot kind er surprise?” Vila mumbled.

Avon felt it again, that painful tugging deep inside, for the hurt he had caused and might yet continue to cause; he couldn’t be sure, even angry as he was with Blake, that he wouldn’t come running if the bastard snapped his fingers or opened his trousers. “Oh Vila… it’s something you’ve never done before, love,” he whispered, lavishing all the precious words to ease away yet another layer of Vila’s burden and his own guilt. Meaning the words, even.

He dragged the shirt off and dropped it to the floor, let the trousers pool around Vila’s ankles and bent his knees, nudging them against the backs of Vila’s to get him moving. “Come along, it’s just down the hall.”

Vila stumbled to a halt so suddenly that Avon almost tripped over him. “I’m naked,” he protested, wriggling to squirm out of Avon’s grasp.

“I don’t care.” Not his father’s shock nor his mother’s predictable hysteria, not the houseman’s oh-so-subtle sneer and certainly not anything Vila’s kin might do or say mattered to him in the least. He tugged a shocked Vila to the open door and pushed him out of it, able to maneuver him up the hall now because the thief was too stunned to resist.

Vila let Avon steer him into a white-tiled master bathroom, and was then too stunned by his surroundings to offer any resistance. He hadn’t had time to look behind every door, and the only toilet he had seen was the one off Avon’s suite. But this… it was as big as their entire Delta flat. The floor was covered with shining tiles so bright and clean he wondered where he was meant to walk, and the bath… he and Avon could stretch out and sleep in it, with room to spare.

“You… you’re jokin’,” Vila breathed, when Avon started water gushing from golden taps.

“So I was right, you never have had a decent bath. Now don’t be upset. You are witnessing what I promise you will be one of the last such extravagances. And for fuck’s sake don’t start crying again.”

Vila couldn’t help it. “Yer weren’t lyin’, wuz yer?”

“Lying? No, I am sorry and while I won’t promise you anything at all I will nonetheless continue to repeat myself until you finally manage to retain the knowledge in what passes for your brain.”

“Nah, Avon, not tha’. The…” Vila looked toward the bath and reverently back into Avon’s eyes, “the water. I know we’re gettin’ more downstairs already, but I didn’t think you’d make the Alphas give anything up. But yer gonna, aren’t yer?”

Avon wondered, at times like these when Vila so obviously expected the worst, why Vila even liked him, much less loved him. “I shall certainly help you,” he said. “I’ve a debt to repay to our entire family, haven’t I?”

“Well yeh, you do,” he replied, his voice perfectly matching the look on his face, “but I ne’er fot you’d really do anythin’ abou’ it.”

It figured. Avon sighed and gently tugged him toward water fragrant with lilac and steaming invitingly. At the bath’s edge he paused, frowning slightly. “You might consider paying more attention to your accent. While I have grown accustomed to it, the Alphas you deal with will consider it a sign of reduced intelligence—or worse,” he blanched at their priorities, “poor breeding.” It hadn’t occurred to him that elocution classes might benefit the Deltas as much as remedial education.

“You must be joking,” Vila replied, suddenly quite posh. “I’m so frightened when I’m sitting there surrounded by those people I’m lucky to get a word out, much less a badly pronounced one.”

Avon smiled; he hadn’t considered that, either. Stripping off his clothes, he deposited the lot in the laundry door—another luxury that would pass, for a time. Perhaps if he placed priority on a financial compensation method for Alpha service providers, the Alphas would be so grateful for their returned help that they’d not miss the other luxuries like human body parts. His stomach turned at the sour joke; best not to share something that macabre with Vila. Better, instead, to enjoy this quiet moment while it was available to them. He heeded his own advice, forced his thoughts away from work with an effort, and tugged Vila into the hip-deep water.

Vila was surprised at his discomfort with all this luxury. He’d expected to take to it as easily as he had to any other decadence he had stumbled upon, and he couldn’t decide if it was Avon or his fear of drowning that distracted him. Probably a bit of both, he surmised, wriggling toes beneath the surface and trying to let go some of his nervousness. He eyed the anchor he could make of the water tap, if necessary.

“What, exactly, are you doing over there, Vila?”

Vila glanced about himself. He was hardly far away; as it was he could barely manage to look casual while still avoiding contact with Avon and keep himself within comfortably easy grabbing reach of the tap.

“Where’m I meant to be, then?”

Dark brows climbed high on Avon’s forehead. “You aren’t ‘meant’ to be anywhere. If I might suggest, however,” he murmured, spreading his thighs and making the water come alive with ominous ripples, “here would be a good place.”

Vila gulped. Not even anything to hold onto, where Avon was leaning; the sides of this thing were slick and smooth as glass. “Uh….”

Avon frowned. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he muttered, goading himself into it. He could stand up in this bloody pool, there was nothing to be afraid of in a huge vat of unbreathable liquid that if he fell and hit his head or something would suck him down under like a mutoid’s claw— Screwing up his determination, he did as he was told and inched along the slippery surface, turned his back to Avon and settled down low in the water. Ripples lapped at his chest and he gritted his teeth.

“Better?” Avon asked stiffly.

“Um.”

“Then perhaps you’ll unbury your fingers from my thighs.” Vila reddened with embarrassment and unclamped his hands from their death grip on the only things available. “Really, Vila, what is wrong with you?”

“I dunno,” he muttered, feeling inordinately stupid. “Just—never been surrounded like this. Not sure I like it.”

“Ah.” The voice fairly purred with promise. “Permit me to show you what there is to like.”

Something soft and furry crawled over his ribs beneath the water, making him startle away with a grunt and a splash until he identified the creature: Avon’s hand, stuck in some sort of fabric mitten. Criminy, he’d have a heart attack if he wasn’t careful.

“Vila!”

“‘M sorry, Avon, truly. It’s just—”

“I don’t want to hear what it is. This is a luxury that will soon be gone and you’ll damned well enjoy it,” he ordered irritably.

Maybe it was that more than anything else that calmed him. He grinned in spite of himself and leaned back against the pillow of Avon’s body. Avon wouldn’t let him drown or be sucked down that big hole in the middle or any other hideous thing his overactive imagination supplied him with. Avon, for reasons known only to Avon, was feeling generous tonight and seemed more than willing to take good care of him.

When the mittened hand returned he sighed a little, sinking further into the cradle of Avon’s body. That glove actually felt good now that he knew what it was, as it caressed his belly and stroked his chest. It swirled over his left nipple with growing intent. Vila’s eyes popped wide open; Avon was seducing him. He wriggled back a little, feeling for the other man’s response. Feeling the complacent smile spread across his face when he found it.

“What’s so funny?” Avon whispered delicately. The silence seemed precious, cocoon-like, with Avon taking care not to break it.

“Nothing,” he whispered back. “You. Me. Us.” He dragged his hand through the silk water. “This. Fuckin’ revolt, people still fighting in the alleys, more than half the bloody Gammas hidin’ behind locked doors and not reporting for their work yet, and if we don’t find a way to pry them out and haul supplies there’ll be a shortage of food for the Betas and you know what’ll happen then. No idea which end is up or who’ll still be alive tomorrow, and you and I are having a bath that smells like flowers. Isn’t that funny to you?”

The hand moved down his belly unerringly toward his groin, and he spread his legs. “Now that you mention it—”

“Oh, shut up, Avon. That’s wonderful.”

Avon chuckled in his ear. A tongue circled the outside of it, making his entire body shiver. “Finally, after only thirty minutes of arguing, you have seen my point of view.”

“You always said I was slow.” He lifted his hips, sliding his burgeoning cock through the loose tunnel of gripping fabric.

In fact, the event was almost painfully slow. Avon introduced creme soap to every reachable inch of his skin. If he arched just so, they could kiss without too much discomfort, tongues dallying as they fought for the territory of the other’s mouth. Avon petted him, doted over him, and he was beginning to understand the sublime beauty of a bath full of warm velvet water. The silk coursed over his skin, gentle currents floating every which way with each movement of Avon’s hand or any responsive twitch of his body. The electricity teased inside him, sparking along his nerves, bringing him up, up… “Avon?”

“Shut up, Vila.”

Vila reached a hand behind himself instead, returning what was so wonderfully, obviously, affection. It was lovely, and easy, and eventually that tender offering of pleasure spilled over into orgasm, Vila’s body still and tense as water splashed quietly around him. He whimpered with each jerk of pleasure, the sound echoing in his ears like the roll of thunder in some foreign sky. He was amazed it could be so easy, so wonderful.

Some tiny part of his brain worried over what Avon was apologizing for this time and decided it didn’t much care. Instead, as his strength returned he shifted sideways, stole the glove from Avon’s hand and returned the favor with the same quiet ease. Avon’s eyes were open when he came, clouded with pleasure and staring straight at Vila. Another gift Vila didn’t understand and refused to question. No matter what happened, he could no longer doubt that Avon cared for him.

Gentle hands nudged him back to his old seat and they lay stacked together, every last drop of tension drained away by this decadent, silken heat. It could have been hours since they’d crawled into this water. Days. Vila didn’t care.

Avon rested his chin on the top of Vila’s head, wondering just how long he could protect this from outside influence. Vila had fallen asleep with an idiot smile on his parted lips, looking far too much the fool and still appealing, for all that. A polite rap sounded at the door, answering his question for him; there was no sanctuary here. Vila lurched awake, sloshing water every which way in a panicked attempt to scramble out of the bath. Avon gritted his teeth and clutched at Vila’s hand until his determination soaked through the inbred Delta fear, if the pain wouldn’t. The owner of that autocratic knock could only be his mother. “Go away,” he snapped, drawing his mortified lover toward him with warm hands and even warmer smile.

“Kerr, I do apologize for any interruption, but we must talk,” she murmured, and he was certain that Vila, with all his years around ‘snooty Alphas’, could recognize the covert command in that too-cool tone.

“Go away!” he snapped again, his rising fury overwhelming the quiet, luxuriant intimacy of which there had been sweet fuck-all in the Delta levels.

“Avon, we oughtn’t to be here,” Vila whispered. “This is your family’s house an’ I know how Alphas c’n be, all right? Let’s just leave it….”

Vila denied himself many things because it was natural for him to do so. Avon denied him many more things because it was easy to do so. But not this time. This time, they were going to fucking well do what they both wanted, and nothing and no one was going to stop it. “No. No, Vila.” Raising his voice high enough to assure that the icy bitch couldn’t miss a word, he enunciated very clearly, “I can assure you that any deviant behavior intended has already been performed, and we are quite simply soaking in the bath! I swear, mother, if you interrupt us again I’ll give you a personal tour of the Delta warrens!”

He would regret that tomorrow. He was sure he would. But tonight as he heard the rushing, padded, oh-so-very-Alpha footsteps running away from the door, all he could do was throw back his head and laugh at the tragic comedy his life had become, and most especially at the shock on Vila’s face.

“Ayvon!” he hissed, “what the bleedin’ hell d’yer fink yer doin’?”

“I’m protecting this, Vila,” he said fiercely, still smiling. “I’m protecting this one time, this one miniscule bath and not even you will keep us from enjoying it.”

“Who said I was tryin’, eh?” Vila asked, his heart in his face so painfully plain to see. “It’s just… well, she’s yer mam, an’ whether you like her or not’s got nothin’ to do with it.”

“It has everything in the world to do with it. That is one of many differences between Alpha and Delta, and one your relatives would benefit from learning. Family unity simply because of a genetic relationship is a foreign social construct where Alphas are concerned.” He wrapped his arms around a ribcage narrowed with hunger and worry. “Deltas create a binding family contract because your survival requires it. Not so with Alphas. Alphas, by class definition, have no subsistence needs. None. They need nothing from each other because the government provides what it teaches us is valuable. And so, they offer nothing. “

“I don’t understand. You can’t all just be rich.”

“Yes, Vila, we can. Delta poverty gave us that, too. You see, the Alphas have not been taxed since roughly a generation before the Delta domes were sealed. That puts it just over a hundred-forty years ago that you and your relatives were so thoroughly cut off from the rest of civilisation that my strata of society were able to stop viewing you as human.” Not that they would have had much trouble ignoring that fact even before that. “No doubt, the vote to relieve Alphas of that tedious burden of taxation went hand-in-hand with a need to ‘regulate’ the rabble who mightn’t understand what incredible benefits they would reap from this release of Alpha energies for intellectual and scientific pursuit.”

Vila nodded. “Yeh. Granda’s granda was born about then.”

It seemed impertinent to mention that Avon’s grandfather had been a young man at that time; a Delta lifespan was a short one by comparison, without aid of advanced medicine and walking organ banks. “As part of the altered tax structure and because tyranny needs happy scientists, Alphas were then endowed. Subsidized, you’d call it,” he added hastily before Vila started making jokes.

“They’re not gonna take to doing their fair share, then.”

“Oh, I don’t know. We may yet be surprised.”

“Surprises,” Vila snorted, his voice dripping sarcasm. “I love Alpha surprises.”

“You loved this bath, didn’t you?”

“Mmhmmm. Avon? You remember those first days in the Delta Domes?” Vila whispered; the quiet had reclaimed the room.

“I try not to.”

“Well, I remember ’em. Hard work, more than you or Blake ever made me do, terrified my family’d figure out everythin’, sharing a bed with you while you pretended you didn’t know what it was for—oh, Avon, you’ve done a lot since then.”

Had he, really? What a ridiculous question, given that humility had never been a problem of his. “Not enough.”

Vila shrugged noncommittally, and when he spoke his voice was imbued with sad despair. “It never is, is it?”

The question struck far too close to home and Avon fended it off as gently as he could. “You, practicing philosophy? Whatever for?”

“No good reason, I c’n tell you that.”

The shadows had slipped back into their lives against Avon’s every attempt to hold them at bay. There was nothing to do but admit defeat, and it was conceivable that things would look different tomorrow. He was placing no bets on that, but it was at least… possible.

• • •

When Vila awoke at dawn, Avon was gone. He suffered a brief moment of panic, but it faded with sleep. If Avon was gone gone, there was nothing to be done about it. Avon hadn’t had to stay last night, he hadn’t had to do anything he’d done. He cared, and Vila found he preferred a crust of bread to an empty belly.

He cleaned up, dressed and headed for the kitchen. Avon was reading a vidpad, drinking strong-smelling coffee. “Good morning, Vila,” he said without looking up. Vila walked around the counter to peer over his shoulder, but the text was scrolling too quickly for him to keep up. “I doubt it was intentional on your part, but freeing the press may have been a good idea. This news looks as if it’s been written by undersecretaries and Betas. Of course, you’ll not be able to keep this up for long. Bottleneck the information through a well selected review team. Release primarily that which supports your position and suppress the rest.”

Vila didn’t understand, and didn’t much care. “Could I have some coffee?”

“Certainly.” Avon continued to read as he reached for the warmer and filled a china cup.

Vila frowned at the fragile thing. Right when he’d got used to having nothing of value, he was stuck in so much priceless crap he was afraid to turn around. “Um, is there anything I could take with me? I’m late.”

Finally, Avon’s eyes turned from the vidpad. “For what?”

Vila resisted the urge to shuffle his feet. “I’m not sure. I mean,” he hastened at Avon’s burgeoning glare, “I don’t know what my administrator has planned today. Government people yesterday. A meeting of Gamma mer—mercan—shop suppliers who say they’re on our side and can do somethin’ about those who aren’t working. She said something about viscasts with military people, as well, but I’m too afraid of them to even think of it. People want to make deals for everything from the food to the spaceports. Actin’ like I own ’em, to keep or give away as I like. Avon,” he said as the overwhelming complexity of it bludgeoned him once more, “I don’t even know half of what they’re talking about. I don’t know what they’re asking for and I never did know who it belonged to.”

“Well, it no longer belongs to the Alphas alone,” Avon said with a calculated grin. “You and yours are doing well, Vila, so stop whinging. Just don’t pause to judge yourselves; you can’t afford the lost momentum.”

“Avon? Please, not this early in the morning. I’ve got too much on my mind already.”

Avon merely nodded. “Perish the thought.”

“Hah, bloody hah. Oh, and there’s a family meeting. Proxies mostly, since so many of us are still spreading out to get a firmer hold up here. You c’n come, if you like.”

“It seems a waste of my time, when I have no independent vote. What would you have me do today?”

Vila paused, taken aback. “Um, where should I put you?”

“If that’s an example of your negotiation strategy, you are in a great deal of trouble.”

“C’mon, Avon. Just tell me what you want to do and leave it.”

“All right.” Avon leaned back, opened a panel and retrieved a disposable cup, and emptied Vila’s coffee into it. “I’ll be in the computer center for the better part of the day. There are a number of functions I can’t complete via remote. I’d like to see what I can do to bring additional programs online, and I need to develop a better understanding of the medical stores up here if I’m to get them to Cally for distribution to various clinics. I hope to make a copycat program and disseminate it world-wide, so that no one dome receives medical supplies substantially ahead of the others.”

“That’d make for one hell of a black market,” Vila said, nodding his understanding.

“Yes. I’ll also take a moment to investigate your administrator. Rachel Shel is a bit too tolerant for my tastes.”

“Wot, Shel? She’s all right.”

“How do you know?”

“Because she was with Blake’s people too, Avon. She isn’t a spy or anythin’, if that’s what you’re saying.”

“That she worked for Blake hardly exonerates her in my eyes, thank you. Now, your certainty is due to… what, Delta intuition? You’ll forgive me if I prefer hard facts.”

Vila shrugged, and took his coffee. It wasn’t like those computers had the truth stored in them. They only had what people gave them, and the people who had programmed them were Alpha elites. Now there was a thought… “I don’t suppose you could make some sort of list of the really big criminals?”

“Blake already did that, so don’t waste your time with it. I’ll break his classified access codes for you, instead. You might find something useful there.”

As a gift, it was mind boggling. He wasn’t sure he should risk believing it, which thought led him to a whole list of other thoughts he couldn’t afford to believe. He dropped his eyes to the thermo. “Uh… I have to go.”

“What’s wrong this time, idiot?”

“Nothin’, Avon. Just a revolution to keep moving.” Vila could think of nothing to say that wouldn’t start him babbling about finer feelings and things he had no time for. Things, probably, that Avon still wouldn’t want to hear in the cold light of morning, anyway. He had to get out of here. Fingers touched his cheek as he turned, and he froze.

“Why won’t you look at me?”

“Because I don’t know what to say to yer. Because I don’t know if it’ll be the last time I see yer.”

“Ah.” The fingers slid away. “There is that.” The sigh finally drew his eyes to Avon’s parted lips, to a quiet unreadable gaze.

“So will you be around, later?” he asked, cursing himself for the words.

This time, it was Avon who looked away. “I think I will. But I can’t promise anything; I simply do not know.”

Vila swallowed hard against the tightness in his throat. ‘No’ would have hurt too much, and ‘yes’ would have hurt more, because Vila wouldn’t have believed it. Somehow, the uncertain truth wasn’t so bad after all. “Well. Fair enough. Be seein’ you, Avon.”

He thought of nothing but his matey all the way to his offices. When he entered the throng of Delta runners, people carrying voice and vote for their family leaders, the din chased finer thoughts away until there was nothing left but work to do.

• • •

His own people were sorted out before breakfast and he wished that all these other prats could be so easy. Rachel Shel brought him some sort of buttery bread that he resisted dunking into his coffee while she stood there. His skin began to crawl as she stared. “Um, wot?”

She cleared her throat gently. “Your first visitor is Símone Wye. Late yesterday afternoon she asked that you attend a meeting at the presidential palace, and I took the liberty of declining for you. She has agreed to travel without mutoids, but ah…” she trailed off. Vila still didn’t even know who the bloody bitch was.

“Go ahead, spill it then. What’s she expect?”

“As I understood her request, an exchange of… hostages.”

“Who the fuck is she, demandin’ anything in the first place?”

“Ahem. She is the elected vice-president of Federated Earth.”

Vila felt his eyes saucer and rounded on Shel. “Wot! The bloody fuckin’ vice-president is comin’ ’ere?”

Shel nodded, taking a wary step back. “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t convince Wye to send president Morgan in her stead; Morgan is, understandably, suspicious of any revolt since Blake acquired her seat on the council.”

“Uh…” a bloody vice-president. What the fuckin’ ’ell was he supposed to say to a bloody fuckin’ vice-president?

“Restal… Vila,” she said gently, drawing him up short. “Wye is not a member of the establishment no matter what you might suspect, and you’ll need allies in the Council.”

Vila hadn’t gotten as far as that. He was still picturing some short-haired power-hungry psychotic who looked amazingly like Servalan, as bloodthirsty as she was cruel. And he was beginning to notice that he needed some sort of tally to know who the “establishment” was, who his friends supposedly were, and where his enemies might be.

Vila began to feel sick. “This hostage thing, it’s just a formality you say?”

“In my opinion, yes.”

“You really believe that?”

“Yes,” she said again, “I do.”

“All right, then. Give her whoever we have to. But Shel, make sure we’ll get ’em back. Because if we don’t, we’ll kill her and whatever friends she brings along with her.”

• • •

Avon was home that night, though the other Alphas had disappeared. He and Avon didn’t make love. Vila ate while Avon worked, listening to the lulling tap-tapping of electronics. He put his plate on the bedstand with a promise to himself that he’d get up, in just one minute, and put it away, be a proper Alpha-impostor and not leave his mess behind him.

He woke up near half-light, frightened and disoriented. The quiet tap-tapping behind him was the first sound he identified, and with it memory flooded in. “Avon? Isn’t it morning?”

“Almost, yes,” his mate replied, distracted. The tapping of keys never slowed. “You’d best be going. Get yourself something for breakfast on your way out.”

“Didn’t you sleep?”

“No,” the voice replied, still distracted by whatever morass of intelligence it had sunk into. “I’ll sleep later. Get to work.” Vila slipped out of bed, trying not to disturb Avon. Whatever it was must be important, keeping him up like this. He looked for his discarded plate only to find it missing, glanced to Avon in disbelief. But Avon’s eyes were half-closed as if in trance, both hands holding keyballs. The meeting of computer and man made his skin crawl.

He left with all the speed he could muster, showered at the offices and was ensconced behind his desk before even Shel arrived.

It was late afternoon before he had his first real break. He watched Shel usher a group of educators out the door and threw his recorder on the desk. He was hungry, cross-eyed with the fatigue of numbers and details and people wanting things, and his arse was numb from sitting so long in the chair. Before he could decide what to do about it, however, Avon’s voice wafted in so cool and professional, inquiring after Shel’s health as if they were friends. It was odd, really, to see Avon being such an Alpha again. Odd, and more than a bit sexy. “Avon!” he called, trotting for the door. “What’re you doing here?”

“I had taken an hour for a meal and noticed your own mealtime was approaching, so I thought I’d bring you something and discuss the problem of the clinics you wanted. A number of issues have arisen that I’m sure you won’t like, but will have to live with.”

“Oh,” Vila said, disappointed. Stupidly, he’d hoped Avon just wanted to see him. He looked at the carrier bag. “What’s that, then?”

“Lunch.”

“Well,” he said, trying not to sound like a kid who’s just lost its lolly, “come on in then.”

“Thank you.” Avon nodded to Shel as he passed her desk and pushed the office door shut behind him. Vila, back to the door and headed for the couch, was shocked enough to squeal when the weight barreled into him, shoving him against his desk with force. “Shut up, idiot,” Avon hissed, while hands imprinted themselves everywhere.

Vila was too shocked to be aroused. “Avon, quit it!”

“Why?” Sultry voice whispered, hands quested under his tunic, warm fingers pinching a nipple while his lover’s groin ground against his arse.

“Um, uh—” He couldn’t think of a reason, once those hands found his bare skin. He knew there were good ones, but— He wriggled out of Avon’s grasp, wanting to hit him. “Because you did this to Blake, that’s why!” he hissed.

“And Blake liked it,” Avon assured him, face flushed, lips parted with rising arousal. “So I thought you might like it even more.”

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Avon was acting crazy, an Alpha was right outside the bloody door and the door in question wasn’t even locked.

Avon advanced on him and he couldn’t make his feet move, couldn’t drag his hands away from their fierce grip of the desk’s smooth wood edge. There was fire in Avon’s eyes, lecherous intent Vila had rarely resisted… this was the first time he’d tried, in fact. Arms as straight and ungiving as prison shackles penned him to the left and right. “Nothing is wrong with me, Vila,” Avon whispered. His tongue flicked, moistening the tip of Vila’s nose.

“Then why the fuck are you acting like this?”

“Because,” and from somewhere guilt slithered into Avon’s voice, a sound so soft and stillborn it tore at Vila’s insides for the care that drove it out, “Because there is nothing I did with Blake that I am not very happy to do with you.”

Vila gulped. “Oh. Oh.”

Minutes sang by, shrilling like wind in his ears as Avon systematically disarranged his clothing, touching him, pulling his balls with easy care, and when Avon slid to his knees in front of Vila, the agonizing, silent restraint made him want to scream. Avon’s mouth devoured his cock, swallowing hard around the too-sensitive tip, lips inching up to the root while Vila gripped the desk and watched his lover’s cheeks hollow, watched the dark, fine lashes fan across white skin. Avon’s eyes were open. Vila felt the cum pool in his balls. Even as his body thought it the gentle tugging on his balls hardened, fingers tightening, holding off climax with calculated force. “Ow!” he hissed, not really meaning it, driving his fingers through the wealth of Avon’s hair to drag him up, to let himself fall down, to meet Avon halfway and sprawl out over him on the floor, grinding against his exposed cock, feeling the slick heat of its silk against his own. He couldn’t get close enough no matter how he tried, but he tried very hard indeed, wrenching Avon’s trousers down, grappling with him, hands worming under him and clenching bruises into his lover’s arse. Avon hissed at the pain; Vila, repentant, relaxed his hold until he saw the white teeth flash in a feral smile. “No, don’t stop that. Occasionally I enjoy my sex as hard as you can provide it.”

“I’d think you always like it hard,” Vila grunted, bearing down with his hands and his hips, mashing their cocks together as the imperative of climactic glory goaded him ever onward. He ran his fingers into the crease of his lover’s arse, shocked to utter stillness when he encountered the slickness of lubricant. “Avon?” he whispered.

Dark lashes lifted, darker eyes pierced him with passion. “Yes, Vila?” Avon replied, in poor parody of cerebral calm.

He stared down at his lover for long seconds, soaking in all that affection, every hair and inch of skin on his body tingling with the fine thrills of love and sex. “Turn over.”

“Get off me, then.”

No sooner said than done, and seconds later they were together again, Avon’s face to the carpet, Vila’s cock blazing a hard-won trail into the tightness of his lover’s arse. “You all right?”

“Of course I’m all right,” Avon snapped, his hips snapping up in sharp-pleasured affirmation. “Hurry up!”

Vila buried himself in Avon, filling his hand with Avon’s weeping cock, filling his entire body with Avon’s lust, feeling the dull smack of his balls against Avon’s pale white arse as he thrust and thrust again. It seemed like seconds before the muscles of Avon’s arse clenched at his cock, milking it as wet silk poured into his cupped fingers. Vila was so close to the peak, wanted to fall over it and follow Avon anywhere. He arched his neck, driving hard and as deep as he could get into the hot welcome, pouring out his love and his cum until there was nothing left in him.

Eventually he slid off Avon and rolled away, too sated to even tug his clothing back into place. He heard Avon moving beside him, watched light and shadow play across his closed eyelids and finally forced his eyes to open. Avon was standing, almost dressed again, staring down at him with a fond smile. Vila loved him so much in that moment, he felt tears threaten at the sweet ache of it. “Now now, Vila,” Avon chided, kneeling beside him. “For godsakes don’t get maudlin or I’ll believe I made a mistake in judgment.”

“Oh shut up, Av’n,” he muttered, reaching a finger to delicately remind his tingling, softening cock what a treat it had just got. “That was—that was—”

“A feat of priapism beyond even your overactive imagination?” Avon supplied, arrogant satisfaction creeping into his tone.

“Oh, better’n even that. The best fucking greatest, Avon.” Avon’s look sobered and softened, and Vila realized belatedly that he was recalling the past, one happy moment amidst the shit and fear and pain in the Delta warrens. “Um, sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.” Avon leaned over him, mouth open, tongue voracious, and Vila let himself be plundered as solicitous fingers tugged his trousers closed and refastened his tunic. As quickly as he’d started it all, Avon withdrew and planted himself in the leather wingback chair. From Vila’s position on the floor Avon looked arrogant, at home and utterly replete. Vila could sympathize. He rolled to his belly and forced himself to his knees, working hard to get the energy to regain his feet when Avon said calmly, “Fetch the food, Vila.”

Order was restored. Vila did as he was told, unpacking a picnic pack and digging into the meal, hungrier than he had imagined. Avon silently took up a fork and tucked into his own portion, and they ate in contented silence. “I don’t suppose,” Vila offered as he chased the last bit of dessert cream around the container, “you’d like to make a habit of this?”

“If it were a habit, it would hardly be a surprise, now would it?”

Vila conceded the logic with grace. “So what made you do it?”

Avon shrugged, and dug in his jacket for a flimsy. “I was busy last night, and I expect to be busy tonight. I believe you’re too overtaxed to take care of yourself and I thought you might appreciate a little… attention.” The word took on a world of meaning, when Avon said it like that.

“That’s me, Avon, attention-starved all the way. So whenever you think I’m looking particularly famished, or even a bit peckish actually, you feel free to just drop right in. This fuckin’ revolution can wait fer an hour.”

“Fourteen minutes.”

Vila started guiltily, then offered a cheeky grin. “It’s the quality that counts, innit.”

“Yes, well, you’ll keep that in mind if you don’t see me until tomorrow evening, won’t you? I doubt I’ll return home tonight.”

Vila leaned forward, confident for no other reason than Avon being such a wonderful lover. “You’re telling me you’re not disappearing, right?”

“Tonight, Vila, I am not disappearing. That promise I can make you with certainty.”

“And I’ll see you tomorrow evening, if not sooner.”

Avon nodded, and sank a little lower in the chair, putting his booted feet up on the table. “Yes.”

Abruptly, Vila felt the urge to lunge for his lover and did so, straddling his thighs and kissing him with all the love he felt and not an ounce of lust; he’d spent that for the moment. Avon’s hands settled on his waist, fingers spreading wide in easy support while their mouths merged wetly. “Right, then,” Vila said, trying to be a good little revolutionary and do right by all his kin as he stared into his lover’s quiet, mirror eyes, “what’s on that flimsy?”

Avon frowned. “An excuse, idiot. The clinic preparations are going well, Cally has acquired a well-defended transport vehicle and will be helping to organize key stations planet-wide, and software will be implemented for disbursement of supplies within the next few days.”

Vila looked at him, measuring this Avon against the man he’d sneaked into the safety of his family fourteen months ago, filing the report without giving it much attention and focusing on the one bit he disliked. “I forgot for a minute that you needed excuses, Avon.”

Avon, to his credit, looked chagrined.

• • •

Another day slid by, then another and another still, until this second Delta revolt was a week in the past. Vila, his nails reasonably groomed, his hands reasonably clean, his eyes feeling like pokers were being shoved into them because he’d kept them bright and open wide through too many meetings, rested his head on the polished wood desk as the door closed behind his visiting dignitary of the hour. Why was it that, when everything was boiled down to shoe leather, all that was left in any class was business and ego? Merchants worried about having nothing to sell. Betas worried about nothing to buy, and Gammas worried about no money to buy it with. The Deltas were a bit overwhelmed by the problem and were beginning to pinch what they wanted. The only time people worried more about station than about profit was when they were talking to someone beneath them; Vila figured he’d been made an honorary Alpha just so these people would be able to stomach negotiating with him, and he despised it.

Well, that was fine with him, since he was makin’ a few of them honorary Deltas. Alpha prisoners (hostages, Vila’s granda had called them, but he couldn’t afford to even think the word too loudly up here) had been transported to the Delta levels since early morning. Bloody idiots would be as lost down there as rats in a maze, if they slipped away from their guards.

There were so many pieces to keep up with.

He’d been up here just long enough to understand how diverse an undertaking overthrowing a government was. His granda had forgotten a few pieces when he and the others had planned this thing in such supposedly meticulous detail. How, for example, did you get an army out of its own bunkers? Just inspecting an incoming spacship for a military presence took more people than he had to spare; holding the planet would have to be enough, for a while, and he’d hope that others in space were picking up the slack.

Thank all that was holy, a whole heap of Blake’s followers had come over to this rebellion’s side. Seemed they didn’t care so much for the revolutionary as for the revolution, which suited Vila just fine. He had to have help. He had to trust someone. Even if they had followed Blake… of course, so had Avon.

By this time of evening, he was completely useless. Rachel Shel and people like her tried to keep him organised and safe, and without them he’d be a dead man already. But come nine or ten o’clock it was all a jumbled circus in his brain, this day’s meetings melting into yesterday’s, and a line of people that seemed to stretch from the Earth to the sun.

A week was a good thing, though. Avon had said that if they could keep control for a month they might have a chance. Keep it for three and the odds would be in their favor. Blake, Avon had oh-so-carefully implied, had done the Delta image some small good, and had laid the solid foundation on which the Restal legitimacy now rested. Vila might have preferred quicksand, or cold hard vacuum to owing Blake any debt, but Blake’s people understood the workings of the elite classes, so Vila accepted what he couldn’t change since it helped him anyway, and pretended to like it.

Strapping on his weapon as he stumbled toward the door, he wondered who might be around to shadow him home tonight. He hoped it was Jak, as he and his cousin hadn’t had time for three words since this mess had begun. He wished he didn’t need a nursemaid, but his face and his genetic ident were becoming known by powerful people. Everybody insisted he was becoming a target for assassination by anybody with a gun and a hand-scanner, so guards were the family order of the day. He ought to think it was progress, that anyone thought he was powerful enough to need killing. Instead, all he could do was feel an imaginary laser sight boring through his back.

He arrived at the Avon-Waylz-Restal home just before eleven. The place was emptier this time of night, with over a dozen kids forced into bed and quiet, if not asleep. His mum was in the living room, watching an advert, her face dumb with disbelief. He paused to say hello and slag her for getting caught up in the viscast.

“Is Avon about?” he finally asked.

“In the kitchen,” she said, her voice a near-whisper. The oppressiveness of the Alpha levels wore on the old people.

So Avon was here again tonight. Avon had returned to this house every night before twelve, the fingerpads of both hands going rough and callused from too much manual computer operation. Vila sighed, absently rubbing his thumbs over his own collection of calluses. For all Avon’s hard work and continued presence, though, Vila was worried about beginning to depend on him again. He appreciated Avon’s continued presence, he languished in his mate’s affections, he needed Avon’s love. But he had thought it dead three times in six weeks, and didn’t have the strength to watch it end again. “Avon?” he called in the hall, announcing himself. Avon was at the table, keyball under one hand, a monitor flicking colors like drug dreams across the screen.

“Have you eaten this evening?” his mate asked, eyes glued to the monitor.

“Had something today, yeh.”

“Well get something else, I despise the feel of your ribs poking against me.”

There was a covered plate on the worktop, and Vila cast a furtive look round. “Wot’s this?”

Avon glanced up, exasperated. “It’s dinner. You’ve asked me that every single night, and I have grown bored with the stale dialogue.”

“Sorry. I just…” he trailed off, not knowing what to say.

“Vila, I don’t mind playing your ‘wifey’ when all the task entails is removing food from a well-stocked storage unit and throwing it on a plate.”

“Oh.” He cast around for safer topics. “I don’t suppose you can get those damned public vids to quiet down, or something?” he asked around a mouthful of meat.

“What’s wrong with them?”

“They’re making me crazy, Avon.” And they were. Avon had managed a deal with people Vila had never heard of, and now the very first “re-education” vids were playing in a constant loop on all public systems.

“Making you crazy?”

“C’mon,” he whined. “Those voices all sound dead. They’re droning on and on. You’re sure those people making them aren’t planning on boring everyone to sleep and taking over for themselves?”

Avon spared him a withering glance. “I had dinner with them three weeks ago on Blake’s behalf, Vila. We had generated a plan that roughly approximates this one, but with different information. Whether you appreciate the psycho-sociology behind them or not, those viscasts will opiate your masses with information, a far better cure for fear than the Federation’s drugs ever were.”

Avon seemed more and more casual with the use of Blake’s name as each day passed, as if distance alone were wearing emotion thin. Vila shoveled another forkful into his mouth, chewing meditatively. The thought had ambushed him that Avon might be seeing Blake on the sly; Blake’s damned ship had never left the Brighton spacepad, and Blake was still at large, still on-planet, and still a threat in every way Vila could imagine the word. But he hadn’t been willing to ask. If he looked at it from the right direction, he was almost willing to say it’d be all right with him if Avon was having it off with Blake, for with Vila Avon was dedicated to seeing the Deltas’ needs satisfied, supportive in an absent-minded kind of way, and tenderly affectionate when they made love. Which they were doing almost as often as they ever had in the Delta dome.

So, he wasn’t going to spoil a good thing by asking. He just wasn’t. “Avon?” Avon puffed out a breath of air in reply. “Have you seen Blake lately?”

The hand on the keyball stilled, the lights playing along the screen freezing to cast a sickly white shadow over the planes of Avon’s face. “Why do you ask?”

“I’d rather you said you weren’t going to tell me, than lie to me about it.”

“Yes, I’ve seen Blake, and no I have not had sex with him. We met for roughly ten minutes two days ago, after he contacted me. He requested information of me, and he gave me an information chip he said might prove beneficial.”

“Uh huh.” Vila’s heart was pounding. He could feel the sweat beading along his spine and on his forehead. “Did it?”

“Not yet,” Avon said, his voice still flat and even, as calm-sounding to Vila’s ears as his own.

Vila nodded, pursing his lips. “Oh. Um, if you see him again, warn him that if we catch him we’ll lock him up. You’ll tell him that, Avon?” Vila asked, his voice as polite and formal as he could have ever hoped for.

Avon, eyes still staring blankly at the computer screen, nodded once. “Yes,” he whispered, “I’ll tell him. If I see him again.”

He’d have to thank Avon for that last; it was so very kind of him to say it like that. “Um.”

“Yes, ‘um’,” Avon said hollowly. “Perhaps it would be better if you shot to kill and put him out of everyone’s misery.”

Vila felt a chill wash through him at the deadness of Avon’s words. “Eh?”

“If you prosecute him in Delta fashion, you’ll lose more Alpha support than you could possibly afford. If you execute him after a Delta trial you’re signing your own death warrant, and that of your entire class as well.”

Vila’s heart paused for a mind-numbing second, then started again double-quick. He wanted to clutch at his chest. “I’ll figure that out when I get there.” He wanted out of this, now. “Right, then, I’m for bed. Long day, and all.” He set the half-empty plate on the worktop, unable to force any more food past the rising tide of bile in his throat.

“Shall I join you?” Avon asked, still so careful.

“Um, yeh. Y’know, whenever you like. No rush.”

“Of course.” Avon watched Vila leave the room, no detail missed. It was plain to see in the turned-down head and furtive eyes, in the shallow breaths and quiet voice filled with false bravado. Vila was panicking, nearly hyperventilating—and Avon felt much the same. What had possessed him to tell the truth like that? The answer was obvious, so plain and transparent even Vera Restal would recognize it: an acknowledgment of exactly what Vila felt for him, the very acknowledgment he would have begged for from Blake and would not have received. Damn them both, they were forcing an integrity on him he resented and despised. That Vila deserved the truth was emphatically not a good enough reason to give it to him. That Blake had never lied wasn’t a good enough reason to keep feeling this, this—the computer let out a whine and Avon jerked, stung, setting the overwhelmed keyball gently on the table while jumbled information on the monitor streamed past his eyes. He wanted, needed to resort to violence. Perhaps he’d have his chance tomorrow, if he kept his rendezvous with Blake.

He gave Vila ten more minutes of privacy because such was never afforded in the warrens, and because he needed the time to regain some semblance of self-control. He entered the bedroom silently. Vila was pretending to sleep, an oval lump beneath the covers. Avon stood close, watching the feigned twitches, the eyes that moved and darted beneath closed lids. He suppressed a sigh. If Vila needed to pretend, Avon would pretend with him. He disrobed and climbed in beside his mate, wondering at how uncomfortable this bed seemed, tonight.

The ceiling offered its expected revelations as he lay there in the silence, occasionally embellishing his pretense with sighs or mumbles so that Vila might be reassured, thinking back on how sound traveling through unbaffled Delta walls had defined every detail of a man’s life to any who might listen. Sometime later he slept, and dreamed of all the ceilings upon which he had meditated, and all they had not revealed.

When he woke it was well before lights-up, and even with Vila snuffling softly beside him, all he could think of was seeing Blake. He feared this meeting as much as he anticipated it, but he could not, he would not let the event pass him by. Two days ago, when he had met with Blake and a small entourage of six, he had been assaulted yet again by the man’s presence, as if Blake were a drug and proximity the medium. He had wanted nothing more than to kick those incessantly buzzing insects out of the room and have sex on the nearest sturdy piece of furniture. Blake’s charisma, his innate appeal, had diluted Avon’s righteous anger at Blake’s blunders. Not even his urge to defend his Delta family could stand in the face of that consuming hunger for Blake.

Beside him, Vila mumbled and swallowed noisily in his sleep. Guilt, and an irrational need to gorge himself before he was confronted with the banquet of Roj Blake made him turn to Vila. He nudged and prodded until Vila’s buttocks were snuggled against his groin, stroked and urged the relaxed, pliant flesh until the mumbled noises of pleasure sounded alert enough that Vila might just be capable of consent if asked, then slid his cock into the warm sheath of the thief’s body.

He was unable to contain his gasp of pleasure. Blake had not permitted him penetration, yet Vila had pleaded for this. Blake had dissuaded and deferred, had done any number of things to keep him from this.

Moving slowly, permitting Vila to catch up—and wake up—he thought back to his first private reunion with Blake, over forty days ago now. Avon had been molten with lust, filled hard and thick with anticipation, while Blake had been so cool, so very, very Alpha. And Avon had wanted to hit him.

Avon sighed, and wormed that last bit closer to Vila. He had wanted to hit Blake quite a startling number of times since. How could he feel so very much for someone he’d spent a year believing he hated? He had little faith in fireworks, and explosives always spent themselves. If he could just have enough uninterrupted time with Blake, this need would exhaust itself, leaving only the cold ashes of passion that could then be buried and forgotten. In his arms he held proof of that lie, Vila’s passion-infused profile as appreciative, as intent as it had been in the beginning, as it would be in twenty years, or fifty.

He had so few betrayals left to him where Vila was concerned, but lying here with him while thinking of Blake felt particularly traitorous. Sighing, forgiving Vila yet again for not being Roj Blake, he slid a hand to his mate’s groin to hurry pleasure along. When Vila’s cum ribboned over his fingers, when his own left Vila’s arse slick and moist, he slipped out of Vila, out of bed and, eventually, out of the house without a word.

The morning hours stretched tediously by, and when finally it was time to leave for the rendezvous he hesitated, teasing his love for Vila by pretending to consider breaking the appointment. But he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, and in half an hour he was entering a house he had never seen, three hundred klicks from anywhere Vila might have gone today. It was a typical two-story Alpha home, tasteful, discreet. The foyer widened past the second entry, revealing a staircase and front hall, with several doors all standing open. The place felt suspiciously empty, and he drew his weapon.

“You can put the gun away, Avon, it’s only me.”

The rumbling, tired voice sent a chill through him. He spun around to witness Blake framed by the door to a formal sitting room, and chided himself for thinking he could ever slake his hunger for this at someone else’s table. “And where are your minions, oh Fearless Leader?” But he knew they were alone before Blake opened his mouth, and he damned the man for it.

“They’re all out doing my bidding, Avon,” Blake replied drily. “Is that what you wanted to hear?” Blake leaned a broad shoulder against the door’s frame and crossed his arms. Avon couldn’t keep his eyes on the man’s face. Blake had dressed for him; he must have, with snug trousers, flowing shirtsleeves and tall boots that were all the rage this season—heaven forfend that war interrupt winter fashions—and oh, Avon wanted him.

“I think I’d have preferred to hear that they were all waiting for us in the sitting room,” he said, his insides beginning to churn with suppressed tension. Yes, call it tension, for now, until the oh-so-gallant reflex makes a mockery of that.

Blake’s forehead crinkled, and he smiled knowingly. “Sorry, Avon, I couldn’t find a handy chaperone on my way out.”

“A pity.” How many times was he required to make his stand? How many times was he supposed to say no? Obviously, he realized with no little chagrin, more than once. Well, the first was meant to be the hardest. He prided himself on the stillness of his voice. “I have a message for you: if the Deltas catch you, you’ll be imprisoned again. This time, Vila won’t help you escape.” Avon was hard pressed to appreciate Vila’s effort the first time, now that he and Blake were alone again, and the temptation yet again to break his vow to Vila was so very great.

The words wiped the warm smile away, and Avon mourned its passing. “I should be used to prison by now, don’t you think? After all, though I’ve no idea how much of my life I’ve spent in them, they do seem a bit like home.”

The thought occurred to Avon that he considered people “home,” now that the Deltas had succeeded in tenderizing him. If that were the case, was Blake his castle and Vila his mythical rustic cabin in a wood? How very banal. He shook off the introspection to find Blake inspecting him, and tried hard to sneer.

“Avon, please, no fighting. I need the chip, if you’ve brought it for me, and then we need to talk about us.”

Us? The way his pulse pounded at even the intimation was pitiable. “Perhaps I should give you the information and go.”

“And miss one of my rare apologies you value so much?” Blake shook his head strongly and turned toward the sitting room. “No, that won’t do at all.”

Avon followed, feet dragging like lead, staring at Blake’s buttocks and the way his thigh muscles rippled when he walked. Avon adjusted himself in his trousers, damning his body for its constant betrayal of his brain, and tugged sharply on his tunic. At the very least, he didn’t have to flaunt his condition.

The sitting room was austere, any art removed from its walls, real wood tables devoid of valuable trinkets, barely more than a shell of effects that defined the class but not the individual. The lights were down, adding a funereal effect to a place obviously abandoned weeks ago.

There was a decanter of wine on the side table. Avon veered straight for it, poured a glass and drained it in three long swallows. It was a full-bodied red with a rich bouquet. He poured another glass, wishing instead for the raw alcohol of the Deltas that cleansed the palate by removing the first few layers of skin on the way down. He needed fortitude—or an excuse—and would have been happy to find either in a bottle, but this particular bottle was as inadequate to the task as he was. He emptied the second glass almost as quickly as the first, then dug in a concealed pocket for the information Blake wanted. Names and locations, genetic fingerprints and likely locations of dissidents Avon cared nothing about. Flipping the chip through the air he said, “I hope that is all you’ll need, as I won’t be providing more in future.”

“Thank you, Avon.”

“You’re welcome,” he replied, all nods to polite Alpha society firmly in place. “Why haven’t you left the planet as you should have days ago?”

Blake waved the question away. “Unfortunately, something has come up that I’m not at liberty to discuss. I’d much prefer to talk about you for a moment.”

“Must we?”

“Yes, I think we must.”

Then, of course, they would. The room afforded only three seats: the chair by the door was too obvious, the chair behind the desk too formal. Bravely, he took a seat on the other end of the sofa and swiveled to face his more problematic lover with a businesslike air. “Let’s make this brief, shall we? Say what you’re going to say and have done with it.”

Blake stared for a long silent moment, and Avon had the disturbing sense he was being dissected, each layer observed, catalogued and filed away. “I’m sorry.”

‘I’m sorry,’ I said to Vila when I meant ‘I am not in love with you.’ Avon didn’t want to hear anymore. “Well, this has been fascinating. I really must be off—”

He had half-risen when a hand strong and warm with the pulse of life gripped his exposed wrist. “Sit down, Avon.” He sat, skin tingling, refusing to even look Blake’s way. Terrified of what he might do if he did. “Vila and I had a rather lengthy conversation, none of which I wanted to participate in given the state of the revolution and my relationship with you.” Vila would have, Avon knew. He felt himself colouring, all the things Vila might have said spinning and crashing like dropped cutlery inside his head. Married me… slept together… fucked me… taught the family… laughed… worried… did the dishes… learned to fear for people… finally matured beyond my breeding…. Did Blake appreciate how Vila had broken him in? Avon couldn’t ask. “He certainly offered me a new perspective on a number of things, Avon.”

“Yes,” Avon said, willing his voice to cool, calm lines, “just as you offered him a new perspective on some things as well.”

“Yes, well,” and Blake’s voice sounded embarrassed, a caressing music to his ears, “that was a stressful time for all of us, and I was inexcusably indiscreet. I’d be all too pleased to apologize for that as well. Be that as it may, I need to understand something, Avon. I didn’t have an opportunity to ask you before, but… it really was ‘marriage,’ wasn’t it? To you, I mean. Vila wasn’t the only one who thought it?”

Feeling something wither inside him, he managed a feeble, “Yes, it was.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me? Of all the things I had the right to know, this was one of them. And it would have made such a difference.”

It would have at that, Avon knew, and perhaps that responsibility was hardest of all for him to bear. If he had told Blake, Blake might have paid more attention to Vila and in turn been compelled to pay attention to the Delta caste as a whole. If he had told Blake, Blake would have demanded that he act as some sort of liaison between Delta and Alpha, given his unique position of being, somehow, both. Blake would have even found a politic way of saying that. If he had told Blake, he would have had to face it himself, an Alpha joined to a Delta in something more binding, more treacherous even than flesh, and far more damning in the eyes of his peers: commitment.

Avon was a man tortured on a rack of his own devising. Stretched taut between two men, having made the decision to keep his feet firmly planted on Delta ground, he nonetheless could not release his grip on Blake. Why had he kept silent about his relationship with Vila? Such a simple question, really, and only the hard-won honesty he had learned from his exposure to Deltas permitted its answer. “Because if I’d told you the truth, you would have found whatever excuse you needed to avoid those paltry sexual intimacies with me. And I couldn’t stand that, not after more than a year in the Delta warrens.” His voice cracked, and he paused for it to clear. He remembered that first moment, when he and Vila had found Blake’s prison cell, when the door had opened and he had gone temporarily insane with some twisted combination of love, affinity and lust. “I saw you in that cell from which we freed you and it all came flooding back. You no doubt remember my… zeal.” He glanced Blake’s way, was caught by the compassion in dark eyes. That depthless compassion was one thing Vila Restal and Roj Blake had in common. “I was an Alpha again, divested of every Delta concession I’d been forced to make. You were my lover again before we had even touched. And I needed that, Blake, for I had already suffered far too much for your ideals.” It was only when they’d actually had sex that first time, an infinity of days after the revolt, that Avon had learned he was Blake’s lover, and that the difference was as sharp and emasculating as a knife. Wifey. He hadn’t been able to escape that even up here.

Roj Blake watched Avon’s revelation with a heartwrenching awe. Kerr Avon was beginning to understand himself, and that insight drew Blake more than ever before. The man Avon had been aboard the London was barely recognizable in the man before Blake now: just the inner strength, the beautiful profile, and the cold, haunted eyes. If he didn’t reach out for this moment, he would regret it all his days. “Avon, I wish we had more time—”

“But you don’t,” Avon supplied with a voice so weary, Blake wanted automatically to nurture, to share the weight of that responsibility as well. “You never will have time, will you.”

Such finality in the words. Blake’s hand twitched to reach out for him, to offer him what comfort he could, perhaps the only transient hope left to them. “I do what I can, Avon,” Blake replied, not pretending to misunderstand.

Avon nodded tightly, dropping his head to the sofa back. It rolled naturally to one side, and Blake found himself melting into the sad, intelligent depths of Avon’s eyes.

“I should doubt that, but I do not. Unfortunately, ‘what you can’ has proved to be less than I want or need.”

The door was closing as Blake watched, and try as he might he couldn’t bring himself to force it open. Seconds ticked by, tolling more loudly and shaking him more deeply than any funeral bell. Avon’s eyes cleared by slow degrees while Blake sat there without speaking, without even breathing. Finally Avon looked away and the door snicked shut between them. Avon rose as gracefully as ever, and the slow defeat in his movements made him somehow all the more attractive. They had so very little time alone together, and if he let Avon leave now he would regret it until the end of his days. But he stood, hearing the call of his duty, to the Cause, to Avon and even to Vila Restal, and stepped past Avon toward the door. As soon as he passed from the room impulse turned him. Avon collided with him and they were gripping each other as tightly as children in the dark, wrenching bone, bruising muscle in an effort to define and shape some ghost-image of the fervor and passion that had passed between them.

Blake knew even in this moment that if he permitted his hand to stray, everything would change. Unfortunately, his hand was guided by his newfound respect, and when Avon abortively tried to pull away, Blake let him.

There would be plenty of time for regret later; right now, he had to put Avon’s information to good use and save the new president’s life.

Hours later Blake was making his slow, careful way to the administrative section, disgusted with himself and his inner circle. His people had been less than amused with his plan.

That’s assassination, Blake! Danforth said, his voice as close to hostile as his background permitted.

Like watching a viscast, he could see himself shaking his head, negating the accusation. If his people are found at the points of attack, Danforth, then he is the assassin. We would merely be launching a preemptive strike.

But Blake, he’s only killing a Delta. That’s hardly a fair comparison…. Blake had turned round in a circle, seeing hesitation on the faces of some, nodding agreement on others.

And these were his closest people. It was no wonder Vila Restal had led his friends up here to call for an accounting.

He used his own code to gain entry at the rear of the building, a rarely-used door that Avon might have noticed, but few others. His code key got him past security point after security point, until he was pushing open the solid oak door that lead to his old office’s antechamber. Rachel Shel looked up from her computers, and her eyes widened in startled recognition. “Good evening, Rachel,” he said civilly. “I’d heard you had been assisting them this past week.”

She recovered quickly and pushed away from the desk, moving to the center of the room. “I was assisting the cause of freedom, Blake, just as you have no doubt continued to do.”

“I am trying, yes.” He was very, very tired. First Avon, then the stripping away of quite comfortable blinders by his own trusted few, the near-failure of the counter-attack and still, Restal to see. “Forgive me, Shel, but it’s been rather a full day. Will Vila be back anytime soon?”

She eyed him suspiciously, obviously looking for the telltale lump of a hand-weapon under his tunic. “I am unarmed.”

The short puff of breath could hardly be called a sigh. “His days are almost as long as mine, Blake. Of course Restal will be back.”

Blake nodded toward a padded leather chair. “May I?” he asked, then moved to drop heavily into it without waiting for an answer. Shel was still watching him. “He made a mistake, you know, taking the presidential chair. Too many opposition groups who wouldn’t come to the table a Delta had set.”

Vila stepped silently into the office outside Rachel Shel’s, and froze as the hairs everywhere on his body tried to stand on end. He felt touched by electric current, fearing to move and risk being earthed. His brain translated his intuition for him and the feeling got worse; Blake was in there, just beyond the door that stood slightly ajar. No two people in the universe owned that voice.

“Thus far these Deltas seem to have goals almost identical to those plans you first presented, and as you must surely know they put themselves in grave peril by cooperating with our party.”

“It wasn’t as if they had a choice, Shel.”

“But they did,” Shel’s voice transmitted clearly, if a bit thinly. Vila slipped closer. “Did you know that to date, not one Alpha has been killed?”

“The reports I heard weren’t nearly so kind.” Blake sounded so tired, Vila almost forgot to be pissed at him.

“No doubt. But you know my position here. You know my computer access. I’ve processed every name, done independent follow-ups until I feel certain about this fact; the Deltas’ legendary furies have been diverted toward mutoids.”

The silence grew thick with introspection. Vila crept that last inch forward, dropped to his knees, pulled his gun just in case, and peered around the door. “Deltas aren’t a murderous people, not from the very few examples I’ve seen.”

“I believe we concur. Now tell me, Blake, what you’re doing here.”

“I need to speak with Vila Restal,” Blake said. “He has no idea what havoc he has created.”

“It looks much like the havoc you created yourself,” Shel replied, and Vila catalogued the look on her face as affectionate. It figured. For fuck’s sake, didn’t anybody else hate Blake?

“But it’s hardly the same. I know what I’m doing, and they—”

“Obviously disagree.”

Blake smiled a bit at that, and Vila cringed. “I was going to say, ‘take risks that are too large and endanger themselves unnecessarily.’ Did you know that Botan tried to have almost half the Restal family killed today? There were people converging on this very building, and more making their way to the Waylz family home.”

Vila was afraid they’d be able to hear his heart banging on his ribs. Assassinations? Here? Already? Where was Avon?

Shel leaned her arse against the desk. “You stopped it?”

“Of course I stopped it. I had to, if not because I owed Vila and the Deltas, which was reason enough, then because it would have been too easy to pin the murders on me, and we would then lose whatever support we might hope to gain from the Delta grades.”

“I don’t know why you expect their support. You’ve done them a great deal of harm.”

“No more than the Federation before me.”

“And that is to be your legacy?” she snapped. “Then keep it to yourself and leave others to do the work of bringing this system into the future. Save your rhetoric, Blake, and look at him, and the people he brought with him. When they returned by themselves they were dirtier, more emaciated, and angrier than when they arrived with you six weeks ago.” Vila realized, awed, that he’d never seen Rachel Shel angry before. He rather enjoyed it, from his hiding spot. “And you called them friends at the time! Remember that friendship now and do all of us some good.”

Blake’s voice sounded abruptly tired, as if it were an effort to keep his lips moving. “They can’t do any real good, and we both know it. And when they fail by themselves, they’ll take every Alpha who helped them down with them.”

It frightened Vila, to watch the anger he’d been so pleased with draining out of her like water. “I know,” she muttered, “and I know no more than you how best to keep this all moving forward. I am also very concerned that without an Alpha influence to unify this cause of ours, we may yet see tyranny rule, and then the Delta grades will truly be left without hope.” She shook her head, eyes downcast not even meeting Blake’s look. “They have, after all, seriously diminished the mutoid population.”

Vila wondered what she meant, and when he figured it out he could barely keep the terror tamped silently inside. That proposition seared him even more than the fact that someone had tried to kill him today. Deltas turned to mutoids. Worse than being dead, worse than being paralyzed on a table while doctors took your body parts and left you screaming. Worse than a thousand generations alive and hungry in the Bowels—he shut off that line of thinking with the hard-won skill of his forebears. If it was too awful to imagine, then you just didn’t think about it.

Besides, he had an old friend to arrest.

• • •

When Avon returned home after midnight that evening, he prodded Vila awake. “A gift, Vila,” he said, sitting down heavily to tug off his boots. His eyes were burning with fatigue.

The rustling behind him made him wary. Vila was sitting up, which meant Vila would probably be interested in conversation. Avon had nothing he wished to discuss. He was as bad as Vila, chasing after things that were likely unattainable… but Vila had never chased him. The thought hit him between the eyes, bruising his ego and shaking him to his core. Vila had followed him, Vila had protected and concealed him under threat of pain and death. Vila had begged, pleaded, done all manner of things for Avon that Avon had in his turn done for Blake, but Vila had never chased him. Good God, he had stooped to something that even a Delta wouldn’t do.

“Wha’?”

“Shut up, idiot,” he spat.

“Ayvon,” Vila whined, “you’re the one who woke me up. What did you want?”

Much less pleased now that Vila was actually awake, Avon retrieved the chip and flipped it at Vila. “That. Read it, memorize it, and destroy it before you leave here in the morning. Do not risk letting it fall into the wrong hands.” He considered. “Or any hands, for that matter.”

“What is it, for the third time.”

“Blake’s personal codes. You should have access to anything he stored in any accessible memory. You’ll definitely have access to his correspondence, messages, flash communications… all of it.”

“Oh.”

Avon turned, wanting to be angry, but it seemed like too much work. “Is that all you have to say?”

“No. I know what it means, for you to give me something this important to Blake. And I know you’re givin’ it to me because you know I won’t do anything to hurt it.” Premonition stalked him, and abruptly he wanted this conversation done and gone.

“Fine, then. Goodnight.”

“It’s not that simple, Avon,” Vila said, and Avon waited for the hammer to fall. “You know how much I love you, right?”

“Yes, Vila. Now go to sleep.”

“Stop it! I have something that has to be said, and you’re gonna have to listen to it. I love you, but you made me learn that what I have to do isn’t always gonna be exactly what you want. So now when I have to I’m willing, at least a little, to risk whatever you might try and throw at me, but please Avon, don’t make the price too high, because I’ve already done it anyway and there’s nothing you c’n say to change my mind—”

“Get to the point, won’t you?” Avon asked, pretending boredom for all he was worth. “I shall be asleep before you do, at this rate.”

“We locked Blake in the Bowels.”

Avon felt as if he’d been kicked in the gut. He couldn’t draw breath to form a question. Finally he managed a feeble, “What?”

“We locked him in the Bowels with the rest of the Alpha prisoners.”

“Surely not with them,” Avon breathed, imagining the rage those particular demagogues would be far too happy to vent.

“Oh. No. In fact, I put him in Granda’s place. Figured there was a bit o’ room there, an’ tha’ we could keep a better eye on him with the immediate family.”

Which included the dozens of cousins, Jak the enforcer who would probably take pride and joy from beating Blake to a pulp.… He turned, trying to browbeat Vila with judgment. “Did you do that to avoid the messiness of killing him yourself?”

“No, I did not!” Vila defended, turning his back and inching to the very edge of the mattress. Avon wanted to shove him off it with one well-placed foot. “I’m not killin’ him, and nobody else is either. That’s why I put him under Restal protection, until I figure everything out.”

“He’ll be long dead by then, Vila,” Avon said, making his voice cold with disdain. He wasn’t even sure why he was angry; certainly, he had no idea why he needed to punish Vila now.

“Shut up, Avon,” Vila said tiredly. “All we’re tryin’ to do, other than keep the armies from wipin’ out everybody down there, is get the Alphas to see what they’ve done, to give ’em some idea of how unfair it all is.”

Of course it was unfair, but Vila surely knew better than that naive imagining. A part of him wanted to just reach out and hold Vila, nurture him and lavish affection on him until Vila’s jealousy faded, at which time Vila would release Blake from that purgatory below. “Vila,” Avon said, trying hard to be reasonable, “the Alphas built these domes. I can assure you, they do have some idea what they did. They, like anyone, would just prefer not to face it.”

“Somebody’s got to face it, Avon. And there’s plenty of Deltas left downstairs to show ’em. Hell, I can’t get ’em to come up. They don’t know what to do up here.”

“I’m not surprised,” Avon parried, habit making the words flow. “They didn’t know what to do Downstairs, either.”

“Oh good, it’s the middle of the fucking night and you need to make jokes. Don’t know why I love you so much, sometimes. You’re more trouble than any ten are worth, you make me so crazy I don’t know which end is up. Can’t believe you gave me Blake’s code like you did, and now you’re bitching at me for nothing….”

Avon sighed, forcing himself to set all matters of rebellion aside for a night. He hadn’t slept in forever, and rest would probably benefit him more than anything. Besides, if Blake was really under Vila’s protection, he was safe. The Restal clan had given the whole Delta population hope for a brighter future and an open doorway to life Upstairs. A person would have to be more of an idiot than Deltas were to bite that hand.

“Come now, Vila,” he said, reaching out and digging his fingers into Vila’s arm, “you have excellent taste in partners and everyone knows it. Why don’t we just try sleeping for a bit, and see what answers the morning brings us.”

“If we’re not gonna fight, then I’d rather we fucked,” Vila said, switching gears with oiled precision.

Funny, what the mind dredged up, and at the most opportune of moments. He remembered a dig amidst bare flesh, threadbare blankets and too much laughter. Oh, a right little sexpot, are you? Vila had said. Get an extra libido for your birthday, did you? He had never, ever found his mate’s enthusiasm wanting. “Well,” he drawled, wondering where his exhaustion had run off to, “I suppose I can manage that.”

• • •

Four days later, Vila was on that same transport lift that he’d used every trip Downstairs, but this time it had more light in it, and more hope. He made a point of smiling politely at nervous-looking Gammas, and made meaningless chit-chat with a Beta kid who probably didn’t realize he was a Delta and certainly not the bloke who’d started all this. All the grades were uncomfortable at this unpoliced mingling, but the people moving around seemed to be coping. The lift emptied as each level or destination was reached, until he was left with his insufferable bodyguards and two women who looked rather nice in frilly print suits. What lovely revelation, that he hadn’t realized they were Deltas either.

He was exhausted, of course. He had neither slept nor seen Avon in two days, having spent all his time plugged into a computer womb sensing reams and reams of Roj Blake’s personal logs, instructions, diaries. After the first two nights of deflecting Avon’s unsubtle prying, Vila had given up and moved into the womb, giving Avon strict instructions to read the bloody mess himself and stop trying to second-guess a Delta mind. Deltas have more than one guess at a time? Avon had retorted quickly, and Vila smiled still to remember it. He loved Avon so much more infinitely, that Avon would give them things to smile about in their last days together.

Four days of information absorption…. Vila wondered where Blake had found the time to log all that stuff. But the information Blake’s code had revealed put purpose in his steps, and he jogged through his old neighborhood with barely an eye to appreciate the changes taking place already.

His granda’s house was too aberrant to miss, though. Spotless from floor to ceiling, it practically gleamed. Vila hadn’t known there was anything under the dirt that would reflect light. Fresh color coated a once-grimy wall, and dented canisters were neatly stacked on a stained blanket in the middle of the room. Where in the hell had Roj Blake found paint down here? Jak was sitting balanced on the back legs of a rickety old chair outside the front door, and he rose when Vila approached.

“Vila melad, how’s everythin’?” he asked, looking almost cheerful.

“Well as c’n be expected, Jak. I appreciate yer lookin’ after this’un. Couldn’t trust nobody but family, not til I wuz sure.”

“Yeh. No problem, Vila. Tell yer the truth, I’m likin’ it down ’ere more’n bein’ surrounded by all those Alpha gits Upstairs.”

“They can’t ’elp it none, Jak. They wuz brought up tha’ way.”

“Yeh, I know.” Jak stuck his hands in his pockets, a look of resentment creeping over his face. “Strewth, not all of ’em are so bad.” He hooked his thumb over his shoulder. “Woter yer gonna do wiv this ’un, then? Gotcher plan all worked out, then?”

Vila shrugged, trying hard to remain noncommittal until after this meeting. “Hafta talk to ’im first, then I’ll see.”

“Yer seems like yer doin’ all right, Vila.” Jak frowned, and leaned closer. “Has yer got that Avon o’ yers straightened out, finally?” Jak of all people had seen Avon’s turnaround, had watched Avon do as he was told and make sure Vila was fed, had been sleeping in a room next door to Avon’s and probably knew more than anyone how much Avon was trying to make up for everything—and Vila wanted to hug Avon. Middle of a revolution, and Avon wasn’t just making up with him, Avon was making up to the whole family. That couldn’t have been easy, to let Vera nag him and Jak push him around Upstairs in that palace of a home. “Wiv Avon, yer never knows, duz yer Jak?” Vila punched him on the arm and stepped through the amazingly clean doorframe. He hadn’t realized it was even that color….

“Been a right busy lad, have you, Blake?” he called, making his voice carry to every room, his accent as pure Alpha as he could get it.

Blake sailed in like a ship on a wind, looking the picture of health with shirtsleeves flapping. “Vila. Do sit down.”

“Thanks.” He dragged a plastic chair from by the table and straddled it. “How’s my family treating you?”

Blake shrugged. “As well as can be expected. Perhaps a bit better than that, actually. They’ve been quite cooperative with respect to my refurbishing efforts.”

Vila couldn’t help it; he laughed. Avon had been such a self-righteous prick the first few weeks, and Blake already trying to teach Vila’s kin decorating tips. “Couldn’t convince any of ’em to counter-revolt, eh? What did you do, get bored?”

“Hardly, Vila. Your family took this opportunity to enlighten me about how life really was for them, under my presidency. I took the opportunity to listen.”

Vila nodded, thinking that he’d probably stumbled onto the right choices all the way round. “They’re good people, Blake.”

“I know.”

It was time to get down to business. “So, I found some people who could do my job better than me, and I left them to do it ever since I locked you up down here. For four days I sat in a computer womb and I listened to all your notes. Summaries, plans, intentions. You really did want to do it right, didn’t you Blake?”

“Of course I did, Vila. What did you think?”

Vila made a point of looking around. “With me and my family down here starving to death, with no food and less water, with young mums’ milk drying up and no word from Upstairs, we didn’t have anything to think. People were dying down here, Blake. And with the raids…” he waved that one off before they could get stuck in it again. “Simple fact is, it got worse down here after we broke you out of prison. It got worse because you made it worse.”

“It must have seemed that way, but I really didn’t—”

“Blake,” Vila snapped, exhaustion having done away with his patience, “You only need t’ say one thing to me. You need to say you made mistakes, because you did. We all did. Incidentally,” he added, dredging up his very most harmless smile, “I listed a few of ’em in your logs in case you forget. So hurry up and face reality, Blake, so I can hand you the keys to my office and get the fuck out of it.”

Blake, bless him, didn’t look hungry for power. Vila knew that look, better than he’d ever wanted to. Blake just looked confused. “What?”

“I may be cut out to run the family business, Blake—few hundred people who c’n be relied on to keep their own in line, whose thinking I understand. I’m even good at that, but that’s a lot different from a planet and a galaxy. I could fuck this thing up worse’n even you, if I keep at it much longer.”

Blake’s eyes went glassy and unfocused. Vila was getting tired of waiting for the man to think so hard about every little word; he didn’t have time for this, and even if he did he hated waiting.

“This is a radical change from your feelings of five days ago when you arrested me. What led you to this conclusion, Vila?”

Vila shrugged. “It was Rachel Shel, when you were talking to her. I knew she was right when she said people were going to roll right over us because we were Deltas. If we tried to keep the power seats the fighting could go on for a generation or more, and I don’t know that an ongoing war’s much of a step up from living down here. So I thought, if you, um, negotiated with us, made a few concessions to our demands like, and let quite a few of us live Upstairs and kept the levels unsealed so people could mingle a bit, and gave everybody just some basic education and enough water, then you could sort of kick us out of the spotlight and be a bigger hero for it.”

“Vila, there are so many things you haven’t considered—”

“The hell there are,” Vila snapped. “Don’t you sit there thinking we Deltas don’t have a brain in our heads when you know it’s a lie! We’re just as smart as you lot are, and if—”

“Where would you live, upstairs?” Blake demanded.

The test. Always, these bloody Alphas were going to test him. Vila checked his temper and passed. “Well, your records said that a lot of people were running away after you took over, migrating off-planet to get away from the fallout of the fighting, an’ because they think the economy is going to collapse. Seems plenty more left after we Deltas came back upstairs. I thought maybe everyone else could stay where they were, and Deltas could take over the empty houses.”

“Own property, you mean?”

Vila bristled. “Do Alphas own property?”

“Some do.”

“Then some Deltas should own property, too. The rest, however it’s done is how we’ll do it. Blake, every level is better’n down here, but I know there’s work to be done that no one else’ll do. Plenty of us would still live Downstairs, and plenty more would come Downstairs to do our work to keep things running. We don’t want to sit on our hands and we’re happy to do our part.”

Blake considered while Vila tried not to fidget or fall asleep. “And the Terra Nostra? It works through its association with the old government and with the lower levels—Gamma, Delta. What about them?”

Vila shrugged, trying not to look guilty. “I don’t suppose we could cut ’em off right away, seein’ as they give lots o’ people what they want.”

“And seeing as they bring in desired income and luxuries to the Delta levels?”

Vila swallowed. “Well, yeh. Besides, they’d start killing us if we tried to stop ’em.”

Blake nodded thoughtfully. “Certain evils must be endured for a greater good, mustn’t they.”

Vila, staring at Blake who was going to come out on top of the heap yet again, couldn’t agree more. “Yeh.”

“All right then, you mentioned the economy. Let’s discuss that for a bit, shall we?”

Vila waved the questioning away. “Blake, I’ve been up for days, and I’m givin’ you everything you want. More, even, than you expected. Just tell me what you think of the idea.”

Blake shrugged and scratched at his chin. “It’s an elegant plan, Vila. Simple, result-oriented, expedient. I’m impressed.”

“Yeh,” Vila muttered, “but d’you think it’ll work?”

He jittered while he waited for Blake to think it through. Finally, Blake said, “It could. It would take a little time, but it could work very well indeed.”

“And you’ll agree to the conditions? You keep some o’ my people around you, close, some of my family. You learn to tell people what you’re planning, so they’ll wait for you to do what you say instead of thinkin’ you’ve forgotten about them. You get yourself and the people who follow you off the Alpha levels at least once a week, so you’ll remember how everyone else lives.” Vila pursed his lips in frustration, that people as smart and as educated as the Alphas could be so bloody thick. “You can’t see what it’s like for people from up there in your—” he searched for some of Avon’s words, “pristine, cloistered environment.” Blake raised his eyebrows and Vila bit back a sneer. Always underestimating everyone, were the Alphas. “And you get teaching services Downstairs, viscasts at least, that’ll run the same programs on all the levels.”

“At least from the standpoint of education, Vila, I think you’re being unrealistic. What would be far too basic for an Alpha might be equally far too complex for even a Gamma.”

Vila resisted the urge to pound his fist into the table. “That’s not your concern, Blake,” he said stiffly. “You just teach everyone to read and write, and you make the other stuff available somehow. After that, each level can fend for itself.”

“They’ll integrate, you know,” Blake ventured.

“Yeh, I know. Isn’t that the point? You leave a little room for that to happen, and you’ll have the Deltas behind you. Then it’ll be up to you to play the classes against each other so everyone stops fighting.” And Vila knew Blake could do that well enough.

Blake leaned forward, pretending to be so cool and undecided, Vila guessed he’d swallowed the whole idea without even chewing. “Where will you be during all this?”

Vila rubbed his nose and bravely resisted scuffling his feet. Now they’d finally gotten to it. “If the Deltas are going to follow you, Blake, then I need to let my family step back out of the light a little, and I need to get myself completely out of it for awhile. I thought maybe I should go off-planet, just for a bit.”

“It may prove wiser for you to set an example for them to follow, here.”

Staying around Upstairs, when Avon’s family was sure to come back with an exterminator for their Delta vermin any day, now? When Blake was a free man with Avon at his right hand, going to all his important meetings having those closed-door fucking sessions, again? Blake thought it would be better for him to witness that, and let Avon tear Vila’s heart right out of his chest how many more times before he wisened up? “Um, no,” he said, swallowing on a suddenly dry throat. “I think it’s better if I’m gone for a bit. Anyway, I need a vacation. I never did take to work much, as you know, and that’s all I’ve been doing for over a year. Besides, there was something I noticed when I was reading through all your personal things. You said you thought you knew where Orac was?”

Blake’s eyes widened in surprise. “Did Avon give you access to everything?”

Vila frowned, muttered, “I dunno. I guess so.”

“Well.” Blake’s brows climbed up under his curls, and Vila tried not to look guilty. He wasn’t, he knew, but when Alphas looked at him like that he always felt the urge to check his pockets for accidentally pilfered possessions.

“Yes, well, I noticed how you wanted to try and steal him back and get rid of Servalan once and for all.”

“We may be mis-using the term ‘get rid of,’” Blake said, a bit earnestly Vila thought. “I can’t condone outright assassination.”

“Good, because I wouldn’t be any good at that, anyway.” He took a breath for courage, then stepped over the cliff that would let him fall right off this rock and back into the relative peace of space. “It was the stealing bit I was mostly interested in.”

Blake stared at him for a second, then a grin slowly spread across the whole of Blake’s face. Finally, through outright laughter, Blake said, “Oh, Vila. You always did have such talented hands.”

Vila tentatively returned the smile, thinking how hard it was going to be to say goodbye to Avon, and how easy it was going to be to get out from under all this responsibility. It was for the best. Avon would be happier, and maybe the time away would make things hurt less when—if—he came back. It would be worth it. The New Government would have a better chance, the Deltas would have a better chance all round, and Vila would always have the affections Avon had given him, on the Delta levels and these precious days Upstairs. Nothing could take that away.

He’d have to remember that.

Three hours later Vila ascended, mind swimming in too many details, too many agreements he wasn’t completely clear on, and so tired he knew he wouldn’t be worth anything til after lunch tomorrow, when he met Blake to draw up all the agreements and let him pick Deltas for his “integration” staff. But he felt good, too. He’d have a few more days with Avon, and he knew Avon cared enough to give him those days without question, when in exchange he was letting Avon go without a hitch. Avon wasn’t stupid.

Whistling, feeling giddy, he barged into the Avon family home and demanded of his mum, “Where’s Avon?”

“Wot?” she asked, not even looking up from the children. “Thought he’d gone to catch you up. He left fer the Bowels almost twenty minutes ago.”

Vila groaned. It just wasn’t fair.

• • •

The smell inundated Avon first and hardest, conjuring up every judgment he had ever cast on the Delta levels. It did look a bit different—the filth was better lit than it had been almost two months ago.

The smell of “their” house was cloying, worse somehow because it was so familiar, and like Nanny’s sharp voice might evoke the eternal moment of youth, so this odor evoked Vila Restal’s laughter, the sex they had shared and the love that had grown from too much pain. He steeled himself to climb the stairs where he knew Jess would be with her newborn.

He had done comparatively little parenting of late, more content to steer the adults into appropriate childrearing behaviors than to do it himself. He was far too busy anyway, and his Delta family seemed to accept that excuse. So how he ended up rocking Jess’s little boy in his arms was something of a mystery to him. Kerr, Vila had said the child was named. Avon had never had a namesake.
“Vila said you won’t come Upstairs,” he told Jess, “and I thought I might better convince you than the rest of the family that there is nothing to fear there.”

She frowned, and he remembered her fine dark brows against his fingertips, the pain he had feared neither of them could survive. “I know, Avon. I jus’—I wouldn’t be comfortable up there.”

“Everyone else is,” he argued calmly. “Vera has settled quite easily into my home. The children have abundance and variety the likes of which they never dreamed.”

Jess just shook her head, resolute. “I don’t think I’d be able to turn around in a house with so many things in it. Jak told me how it was, all that finery. Walls all white and smooth….”

“Then come and be with us,” he urged.

“I just can’t.”

“Why?”

A sadness welled up from within her that made her somehow more fine, more beautiful than he had ever before remembered, and she said in a thin, frail voice, “If’n I go Upstairs, Avon, I’ll see my Mac. He’ll be walkin’ about, parts of him in other people’s bodies, an’ I’ll look in their faces an’ I’ll think, is that ’im? Is he in there somewhere?”

What a chilling thought. He wondered then, nauseatingly, whether his own mother had spare parts in her, parts stolen from a living, thinking Delta being. Abruptly he needed to be sick.

Jess was there, hands curling under the baby to lift him from Avon’s arms. “Avon? You all right?”

“No,” he said, controlling his vomitous urge by force of will, “I am not all right.” He looked into her eyes, turning that horror outward and harnessing it. “You cannot think like that, Jess. Mac is dead, he passed months ago and you cannot think him alive in any form. You know that.”

“Yes I can,” she whispered, and her eyes filled. “I can’t stop thinkin’ it, and I won’t go up there, Avon. I won’t.”

He felt himself growing angry for his loss of control, with Jess for reminding him of events too painful to bear. Hardly breathing, hearing the encroaching, approaching sounds of an entire mutoid battalion. Heat suffocating him as Jess suffocated her baby to keep life quiet, to protect the family crowded in the sepulcheral gloom.

Avon could hardly blame her. Much as he had learned he loved Vila, sleeping in a bed he shared with a man and a Delta was wearing on him. Each day he returned home he wondered when his mother would picket the door, or when it would dawn on the neighbors why this one particular Alpha-occupied home was overrun with Deltas. At times like those, he didn’t want to live Upstairs either.

Some time later he left Jess to her solitude and headed for the home of the deceased Ewan Restal. That was where Blake was, where he had been for four full days. Avon had known Blake’s exact location, was reasonably confident he could have slipped in and out without being observed, and he had restrained himself. Each day it had been easier, and he had vowed to continue it until he had something to say. Vila’s absence had given him too much time to think, and he now had a great deal to say, indeed. He waved a hand at Jak, who glared warningly at him before letting him pass, and looked about the living room of old Ewan’s home. Even devoid of Deltas, it was a small place. Suddenly, wrenchingly, the room was full of Blake.

“Wotcher doin’, old’un?” Avon asked, feeling the press of these warrens as he never had before. Not even in those first unreal days had he felt so claustrophobic. Blake took a seat in the hard-backed armchair Ewan had preferred, surrounded by the decay of poverty, and shone out from it.

“Speak Standard, Avon,” Blake said, the words cool. Speak Alpha, that was what Blake meant. Separate yourself from the slovenly mess about you by relying on your breeding—

His face itched, felt clammy, and he touched his palm to his forehead. He was almost surprised when it came away wet. His newly replaced leathers had been a mistake, though he couldn’t remember a heat this oppressive outside a bolthole shed. “Speak with an upper-class accent, you mean?” he asked, carefully modulating his voice.

“I mean, stop hiding behind something you aren’t.” His voice was husky, obviously overused, and Avon wondered if he’d been trying to convert the Deltas.

“And you know me so well,” he said absently.

“Yes, Avon,” Blake said, crossing his arms over his chest, “I know you well enough,” and Avon was shot with a vertigo that compelled him to reach for the wall. Blake’s example might have been him, fourteen months ago: separate, aloof, disdainful of something about which he knew nothing, surrounded by angry people whose intentions or aptitudes he had not plumbed.

“Why haven’t you carved your niche yet, Blake? Created order from chaos?” Avon would have been amused to find Blake trying to foster insurrection between Delta family members. Easier to tell an electron not to orbit an atomic nucleus.

Blake shrugged noncommittally. “Because I have great faith in Vila. Besides, it’s taken me this long to clean this place up.”

Avon glanced around, stunned by what his senses had failed to register; the room was clean. Avon turned his head and mixed his accents. “Tha’ true, Jak? He do this by ’imself?” he asked, unwilling—unable, perhaps—to cut the observing Delta out of this confrontation.

“Mostly, yeh.”

“What else has he done?”

He could hear the shrug of disinterest in Jak’s voice. “Told us wot it was like Upstairs fer ’im. Asked us a bunch o’ questions. Been a real chatty Cindy.”

Jak’s voice was disinterested, Avon noted, but not hostile. Jak had been hostile with him for weeks…. Old Ewan Restal’s ghost hung oppressively in this room, and suddenly he was catapulted back over a year, to the first time he had entered it. The crowd of people, the smell of dirty bodies and weed smoke overflowed his mind just as they had threatened to overflow this room.

“I’ll let yer away wiv lyin’ ’bout the Bitch Queen bein after yer, cos yer was protectin’ yer mate, an’ that’s right an’ proper. Now though, yer definitely tellin’ the truth ’bout him bein’ yer mate?…. Soon as yer make it official, yer’ll be out o’ the Bitch Queen’s reach, fer as long as yer need.” Make it official. Vila reddening, shuffling over with such apologetic terror in his eyes as almost forty people looked on. Vila kissing him with such timid, false passion.

Compared to that first kiss with Blake almost two months ago, he and Vila may as well not have been in the same room. But what about the last kiss with Vila? Had that not been worth so much more than the first? Yes, but if his love for Vila had grown, then surely Blake’s love for him might grow as well—or so his mind had argued as it shared silent communion with the ceiling these past two days Vila had been gone. The only difference, so trifling really that it barely deserved mention, was that Vila loved only one thing so deeply.

He thought of the baby boy he had held in his arms only minutes ago, and remembered again the still body it was destined to replace. The haunting sight of Jess’ tear-filled eyes as she cupped her sweaty, grubby palm over the mouth of her infant daughter rose, in memorial. He could see all those people’s faces, silent-of-necessity and turning away as the innocent flailed and thrashed under her mother’s hand. As dreadful as that had been, it paled in comparison to the long night less than four months past, when he’d sat in the moribund, decrepit mourning-silence of Jess’ room with the sure and certain knowledge that Vila had been ‘harvested.’ That nightmarish image could horrify him still, of Vila paralysed with drugs and fear and pain as he watched his own body vivisected for its organ value….

Something moist touched his hand and he looked down at the droplet, wondering at the sweat pouring off him. Vaguely, he catalogued the look of worry spreading across Blake’s face. From the distance he could hear Jak’s carefully cool, “Avon?”

“Did you know, Blake, that I once thought Vila taken in a mutoid raid?”

“No,” Blake’s voice echoed. “No, I didn’t.”

Avon nodded, the memory superimposed over this room. “His brother-in-law was lost in that raid, and I heard nothing of him for a night. I thought he was—” Avon couldn’t say it. A hand clamped hard on his shoulder and he looked up, catching Jak’s angry eyes on him. Except that Jak didn’t look angry. Jak looked like a concerned family member who could, like Vila, forgive a lunatic any sin. Avon certainly felt a bit insane. “Dead,” he said, borrowing on Jak’s strength. “If I hadn’t been so relieved and our lovemaking not so precipitous in its heat, Vila would have had my virginity then,” and not you passed silently between them, “and I now believe I would have preferred it that way.”

Blake cast a watchful eye on Jak, who had no reason in the world to forgive Blake an indiscretion, and said, “I can understand why you would feel that way, Avon,” and more harmlessly still, “I’m sorry.”

I’m sorry, Vila had said for trapping him down here and keeping him alive. I’m sorry, Avon had said for not loving Vila enough, then. I’m sorry, Blake said now for a multitude of shortcomings, and Avon recalled why he so preferred computers to people. But even computers had their drawbacks. They couldn’t love like men did. They certainly couldn’t fuck like Vila or Blake could. They couldn’t commit so deeply to a person as Vila had, nor to an ideal, as did Blake. Avon remembered the wedding, and the Toast old Ewan Restal had given to embrace the potential of a New Year. We’re never ter forget, wot makes us better than the animals or the mutoids, nor ever ter feel shame fer wot we are. We’re not so stupid as ter think less o’ a man fer wot ’e does ter feed the family, or fer wot ’e chooses ter believe or fer who ’e chooses ter love. It’s wot we ’ave inside an’ wot we do fer others that makes us Men. An’ so we never ferget the motto, the words to prick our conscience when it’s so easy ter ferget that we’re all just the same. Join wiv me now in a toast, kith an’ kin, a toast ter the Incomin’ Year an’ ter all o’ us. “Fer a’ that, an’ a’ that, A man’s a man, fer a’ that.”

How Ewan Restal had found the words of a long-dead, contraband poet and breathed such vitality into them was beyond Avon. But he had been granted his epiphany, surrounded by noisy, uncouth Deltas in a drunken moment of exuberant revelry.

It seemed epiphany was not relegated to class. Let the neighbors stare, no matter who it was he loved. Let people sneer or threaten, he was still the man he was. He could live on the Alpha levels, an outcast sexual deviant in plain sight of his peers and judges, could do it without batting an eye. A man’s a man….

He looked across at Blake, shocked by the gentle concern in the man’s eyes. Blake wouldn’t be able to live openly; he had other priorities, some of which Avon could even respect.

Vila Restal would happily have betrayed kin and countrymen, would have given up any riches or any security in exchange for Avon’s paltrily meted love. Avon felt the wide, sudden attack of a smile on his lips. Vila was a fool, for that. And Roj Blake was not; Blake had his Cause, had a rebellion to run, and a man had to choose the battles to lose so that he might win the ultimate prize. Yes, one had to choose one’s battles, and Kerr Avon was a man who loved men. Blake would have no choice but to give up this battleground for his precious cause, and a just cause needed idealists like Roj Blake more than Avon needed him.

“Avon!” It was only when the word was yelled that he realized it had been said several times. In Blake’s voice, no less.

“Yes?” he asked, quite calmly.

Blake leaned forward, effectively removing Jak from any nuance of what he might say. Avon, almost against his will, bent to cooperate in the conspiracy. “Avon,” Blake whispered, “if I asked you to stay here, with me, would it make a difference?”

“I doubt my staying here would make a difference to you at all,” he replied, avoiding the question.

“You’d be mistaken. I—you know I don’t need you to run this thing, yes? You believe me when I tell you that?” Blake asked.

Slowly, reluctantly, Avon nodded. He didn’t like it, and resented even more that Blake was so certain as well, but he believed it.

“Good,” Blake said, satisfied. “Then you know I’d be asking for myself, because I need you…” Blake’s trailed off, and Avon wondered if his innermost feelings were so transparent.

It bolstered his pride to see the dependence in Blake’s eyes, the need for someone who might be ever-constant against whim, distraction or obsession. He wondered again if this was what Vila had felt, when Avon had offered him a drop of kindness after so much inattention. If so, then perhaps Avon had redeemed himself enough… just, perhaps, as Blake did now. “What would I do if you asked me to stay, Blake?” he said, gently because there seemed too little air in his lungs. “Let’s not put it to the test, shall we?”

The words were, astonishingly, easy to say. Watching those bright eyes darken was a bit harder. He leaned back in the chair, breaking the fragile thread between them for the last time.

Blake eventually said flatly, “Why did you come here?”

“Why, Blake? Not, as I am finally learning, for you.” He stood and began pacing, filled with a new energy he just might turn to some good. “I read your logs,” he said, chewing on a thumbnail, turning before he struck a wall to launch himself toward the one opposite.

“I understand they’re becoming quite popular,” Blake said drily.

Avon ignored him. “Why didn’t you mention to me that you’d located Orac?”

“Because I feared Servalan was baiting a trap with him. I couldn’t afford to be caught in it.”

“You couldn’t afford to leave this bloody planet at all,” he snarled, intent now. Servalan. Servalan had gotten him into this, and the aroma of revenge was just beginning to reach his nostrils through this Delta stench. “But we can’t afford be without Orac, either.”

“‘We,’ Avon?” Blake asked.

“Save your suspicions and please save your fantasies. Of course I could find uses for that computer, but it’s certainly capable of multilevel thinking.”

“You want Orac.”

“Why sound so disbelieving, Blake? Did you think I’d let a machine of that complexity and genius remain in enemy hands? In her hands? Just remember,” he added tightly, “whose fault that was.”

“I’m sure I’ll never forget it.” Blake sounded amused now, self-contained once more and almost condescending, but Avon had no time for that.

“The Liberator, however, I am keeping. I told you that when we returned to this bloody planet in search of your mythical control central, and I paid for her with a year of my life. He rounded on Jak, who stepped a hasty pace back. “Jak, find a comlink and locate Vila.”

“Um, nobody’s supposed to bother ’im unless the Bitch Queen’s coming in battle armor.”

“Yes, Jak,” he said drily, “I know he was engrossed in a… project, but he was due home this morning and with any luck he’s there now. Find him.” Jak left the room and the sound of Blake’s forced laughter finally penetrated.

“What’s so funny?”

There was genuine amusement in Blake’s eyes, and irony. “Have you considered what Vila might think of you streaking across the galaxy alone?”

Peripherally, Avon had indeed thought of it. But perhaps it was best to give everyone a rest. Vila had a people to lead, Blake had a galaxy to save, and Avon needed a break. “I hardly think—”

“He’s already going, Avon.”

Avon stopped cold. “What?”

“We spent the last several hours making arrangements for him to steal the computer for us.” Blake’s eyebrows raised, his eyecorners crinkling in amusement. “There is, however, a slot open for an assassin. Do you think you could find it in your heart to remove Servalan before she causes us any more trouble?”

Avon wished that once—just once—a plan he devised hadn’t been conceived and implemented by every single bloody person around him already. And then it struck him. Space, Vila, distance between himself and Roj Blake until he and Vila cemented their bonds or bored each other to death….

It always came back to Vila. Well, he decided with a smile, turning away from Blake because that was the way things had to be, that made it all worthwhile.

Epilogue

Avon stepped onto the Liberator’s flight deck, feeling freer here than he had in his own home… even freer than he had felt anywhere on Earth. Jenna Stannis had been briefed, of conditions both political and personal. He understood that it was just after she’d stopped laughing that she had volunteered to pilot the ship. He checked his chrono: more than half an hour until she arrived. Avon might have wondered if she wasn’t meant to be Blake’s insurance, but he didn’t really care. He had no intention of reneging on his promise to Blake. If Orac had a remote communication link accessible only by Avon when it was delivered back to earth—well, that was fine too. The others would be picked up later in the week, after Jenna, Vila and he had done inner system flight checks. Zen seemed a bit twitchy and both Avon and Jenna wanted to be sure of the computer before they were under way.

Avon glanced at Vila, who was sipping a demure glass of adrenalin and soma on the couch. Integrity was heady stuff.

“Vila.”

“Yes, Avon?” He sounded far too dopey with relaxation.

“How much of that concoction have you had? I do not intend to spend my time with a drunken fool. Being trapped with a fool is bad enough.”

Vila turned then, looking at him with quietly adoring eyes, and lifted his glass. “This is the first one. I’m just happy to be back here.”

“Ah.” Avon wondered if he should be embarrassed, but couldn’t be bothered. He joined Vila and took his glass from him, testing the contents for the first time. “Not bad, really.”

“Y’see,” Vila said cheekily, “It’s just as I’ve always suspected. Scratch an Alpha and you find a human being underneath.”

“Scratch this Alpha, Vila,” he challenged, “and you may get more than you bargained for.”

Oddly enough, Vila didn’t seem to appreciate the entendre. He sobered quite abruptly, in fact, and clasped his hands between his knees until the knuckles turned white and bloodless. “Been meaning to ask you something before we get underway.”

“Yes?”

Vila seemed to be screwing up his courage, and Avon, who knew exactly the depths and breadths of that facet of the man, braced himself. “Are you sure?”

Brown eyes speared him, begging for honesty. Avon was here on the bloody ship with him, drinking from his liquor glass, and Vila couldn’t let well enough alone. Not that Avon could blame him overmuch, given his various infidelities both sexual and platonic. So Avon forgave him for it just this once, and made contingency plans. If he couldn’t compel Vila to stop asking stupid questions within a month, he’d threaten to stuff him out an airlock. In two months, he would do it. In the meantime he would continue to offer the truth. “Am I sure? I don’t know, Vila. I believe I am. I imagine I’ll prefer your constancy to Blake’s excuses. Certainly, I’ll appreciate that you have no one and nothing else on your mind.”

Vila stared at him, and he sat trapped in a web of disquieting honesty. He felt the tug of those chains Vila had woven around him, but he no longer feared them. Eventually Vila’s cheeky grin crept back out, his eyes promising all manner of rewards. “You sayin’ I’m completely besotted with you, then?”

“No,” he replied, smiling, sliding over to press his thigh against his mate’s and lifting Vila’s drink in toast, “I’m saying you’re too stupid to think more than one thing at a time.”

Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,

Stains the white radiance of Eternity…

P.B. Shelley