VilaThis guy's gonna need careful handling. You want someone with tact. I mean, you know me.
Vila
Blunt, always speaking my mind, I'm just the sort to upset him.
Well, you'll just have to try not to, won't you.
Vila
You should take one of the girls, Avon. Hey, why not? A girl might...you know, interest him. He's probably forgotten what they look like.
Vila, if I didn't know you better, I would think you were trying to get out of this.
PPinder
I'm pleased to make your acquaintance, ma'am.
Vila
[to Avon] I think he's talking to you.
Thank you, Pinder, go back to your place. I fear language doesn't come easily to him. He thinks mostly in symbols.
Vila
Doesn't he have symbols for men and women?
Now, then, Avon. What would you say if I offered you mastery of the galaxy?
Oh, I would say thank you.
Vila
For a whole galaxy? Oh, come on, Avon, show the man some gratitude.
Vila
What's the matter with you?
I was thinking about Pinder, and the way he said "pleased to make your acquaintance, ma'am".
Vila
Is that worrying you? Listen, if it'll set your mind at rest, I never thought you were a woman.
He said it as though it were a phrase he had been taught.
Vila
Maybe Egrorian gives him lessons in etiquette as well as judo.
Or maybe he has been taught that that was the way of addressing a stranger. Servalan, for instance.
Vila
Servalan? She wouldn't do any deals with Egrorian. He's like us, outside the Federation.
We know how much she would like to get her hands on Orac.
Vila
Not enough to hand us a weapon like the tachyon funnel.
No. That's why this time, Vila, I think we have to play this one very cagily.
Vila
Late seventies. Why?
After you'd gone, I got Orac to do us one last service. This is a printout from Central Records, all that's known about Egrorian.
Yeah, very interesting. After he vanished, they started finding the bodies. He was never a simple scientist, Avon.
Vila
What was he?
Power mad from his earliest days. He was at the center of a conspiracy to take over the Federation.
This is the man who says he wants to spend the rest of his life in the advancement of science.
The other interesting thing is Pinder.
Vila
What about him?
He was a mathematical prodigy, apparently. He was eighteen when he disappeared with Egrorian...ten years ago. Now, I'm not a mathematical prodigy, but it seems to me that makes him twenty-eight.
You really are an excessively cautious person, and so mistrustful.
That is because Orac has read your security file on Central Records.
Disconnect the funnel, Pinder. Lies! All lies! Base and perfidious slander! I never conspired... I, I swear this is nothing but a tissue of falsehood and calumny designed by my enemies to blacken my reputation. If Servalan has read this, I hope she...
Why do you mention Servalan?
What? Well, she was the head of Federation when these fabrications were compiled.
Didn't you hear she was dead?
Ah, yes. But then I was told she had assumed a new identity. One never knows what to believe these days. Anyway, this is, this... this is a load of distortion and rubbish, and when I return to earth, I will hound down those responsible, and...
Vila
Break their arms?
I suggest we get on. The tachyon funnel is disconnected. Place Orac here. Orac, what was the subject of my degree thesis at Belhangria University? Orac, what was the subject of my degree thesis at Belhangria University?
Your paper e stroke nine on stroke six zero four four was on particle physics and dealt specifically with the properties of rissions. It was marked Beta plus, Egrorian.
PPinder
Only beta plus, Egrorian?
Pinder, you're to be seen and not heard, remember?
If Orac has a fault, it is a tendency to give more information than is requested.
Vila
Or less information than requested.
But seldom just the information that is requested.
That degree was subsequently rescinded for gross misconduct.
You needed a figurehead. He was it. Or am I wrong?
You are right. But then figureheads aren't too difficult to come by. Any idiot can be one.
Heh. On your feet, Vila. This could be your big moment.
Any idiot within reason, that is.
You going to tell us what we've got planned, Avon?
Vila
We know what we've got planned. Running away is what we've got planned.
A strategic withdrawal is what we've got planned.
Vila
There's a difference?
Oh, yes. A strategic withdrawal is running away -- but with dignity.
Vila
So lay in a course and let's get the dignified hell out of here.
That isn't the plan anymore, though, is it Avon?
I think we can do better.
Vila
Does that mean safer?
In the end, winning is the only safety.
Vila
It doesn't mean safer. I didn't think it would.
It means I think we can find ourselves another figurehead, someone we can use to unify and expand the Rebel Alliance.
More or less. He is strongly identified with rebels, you see, and very popular with rabbles. They will follow him, and he will fight to the last drop of their blood. [smiles] Idealism is a wonderful thing. All you really need is someone rational to put it to proper use.
So where do we find this useable idealist?
According to Orac, he is on a frontier planet called Gauda Prime.
Yes, I know it. It's a bad place to be. No self-respecting idealist would be found dead there.
I imagine that is what HE is trying to avoid: being found dead anywhere.
Look, are you going to stop playing games and tell us who it is, Avon?
Vila
It's Blake, isn't it? You think you've found Blake.
Orac, what proof do we have that Blake is on Gauda Prime?
That is where his trail ends.
The chain of cause and effect amounts to a trail, if you can follow it.
Vila
I can't even follow you.
Everything has an effect on everything else around it. It is not easy to trace one line through the pattern of infinity. But in this case, I have. Blake is on Gauda Prime.
Oh, yes. And the answer to your next question is, yes, I would have left Blake where he was and said nothing if things had gone according to plan.
Oh, I must try and work that into the conversation when we meet him.
Vila
If we meet him.
Vila
You tell me what a line through the pattern of infinity is, and I'll tell you whether I'm convinced or not.
When we reach the appropriate coordinates, I can simulate the necessary signals to open the silo and allow this flyer to enter.
Vila
No it isn't. Sooner or later, we're going to drop into one of these holes in the ground, and never come out.
Sooner or later, everyone does that, Vila.
Blake's 7 · 357 quotes
