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.
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.
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...
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.
Or less information than requested.
But seldom just the information that is requested.
That degree was subsequently rescinded for gross misconduct.
(regarding ejecting weight from a shuttle to make it light enough to reach orbit)
Not enough! Not nearly enough! Dammit, what weighs seventy kilos?
Orac (just as Vila is leaving): Vila weighs seventy-three kilos, Avon.
Vila, are you here? I need your help.
Avon (In "calm and reasonable" voice): Vila? Vila? Vila? Vila, are you here? I need your help. (Vila is curled up, hiding, in a small compartment) Vila, I know you're here, come out. Vila, I know how they did it, but I need your help. Please help me. (He stubs his toe on something on the deck, pauses to look at object)
Avon (to himself): Plastic. High tensile plastic. Vila? (He tries to kick the object out of the way. It doesn't budge. He drops to his knees, thinking out loud) Couldn't possibly be that heavy. Unless there's something in it, and there isn't. Unless it's very tiny, in which case it wouldn't have...the weight! (He puts the gun away, and shouts) Vila, I really do know how they did it! It's a speck of neutron material, but I need your help to shift it! (He picks up the plastic object he handed to Vila earlier, which is conveniently nearby, and uses it to push the heavy object) Vila, help me! Vila, you have got to help me, come on! (Cut to Vila, still motionless in the compartment)
Vila! Vila, where are you? (With much difficulty, he pushes the object to the airlock and in. He manipulates the airlock controls and runs to the flight deck of the shuttle)
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?
We know what we've got planned. Running away is what we've got planned.
A strategic withdrawal is what we've got planned.
Oh, yes. A strategic withdrawal is running away -- but with dignity.
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.
In the end, winning is the only safety.
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?
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.
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.
You tell me what a line through the pattern of infinity is, and I'll tell you whether I'm convinced or not.
A formal application was laid before the High Council on Earth within the last thirty days. I could get you the exact date --
SSlave
Uh, I don't wish to interrupt, Master --
SSlave
I wasn't talking to you.
You were attempting to override a superior system. Be silent. [continues] -- the exact date, if you wish. But the importance of the application lies not in its exact date, but in its general requirements.
That the citizens of Gauda Prime put their house in order. Law must be established before the benefits of law can be restored.
It is the day of the bounty hunter. [cut to close-up of Vila] Thieves, [cut to close-up of Dayna, pan to Soolin] killers, [cut to close-up of Tarrant] mercenaries, [cut to close-up of Avon; he smiles] psychopaths, are as unwelcome now as the farmers once were. [Scorpio's alarm goes off.]
SSlave
Well, nothing is actually wrong, sir, yet.
Explain the alarm, Slave. [Alarm cuts out.]
SSlave
I had to get your attention, Master, and I was forbidden to speak unless spoken to.
All right, you're spoken to. What is it?
SSlave
I beg to advise you, Master, that we're approaching the planet Gauda Prime. And Scorpio is under attack! [An explosion rocks the flight deck.]
When we reach the appropriate coordinates, I can simulate the necessary signals to open the silo and allow this flyer to enter.
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.
What on earth happened to you?
Oh, most of it wasn't on Earth. Not what happened to me.
AArlen
Do you want him killed?!
No, of course not! When he knows as much about this as you do now, he'll join us, like you did.
AArlen
He passed the test, then.
DDeva
These stupid games you insist on playing, Blake, will get someone killed eventually.
I have to test each one myself.
DDeva
No, you don't have to! I set up systems for that. I broke the security codes on their central computer. I got us access to official channels, information, everything we could possibly need! You don't need to be involved at all.
All right, I find it difficult to trust. It's a failing, I admit--!
DDeva
And any one of our people could select the people you've collected. You don't need to do the bounty hunter routine, either!
DDeva
Do I have a choice?
Oh, there's always a choice, Deva.
DDeva
Not for me, there isn't. I said I'd follow you, and I will, until the Federation's finally destroyed. But if you're killed, where does that leave us?!
With a base, the beginnings of an army!
DDeva
All of it useless if you're not there to lead it.
You worry too much, Deva.
AArlen
It might be an idea for somebody to start worrying about the one we just lost.
AArlen
I didn't notice that slowing him up.
That's true. Relax, Deva. Nobody's indispensable.
He sold us, Avon. All of us. Even you.
Blake (starting to move forward): Avon, it's me, Blake -
Stand still! (Blake stops) Have you betrayed us? Have you...betrayed me?
Tarrant doesn't understand!
Avon, I was waiting for you...(Blake steps forward, Avon shoots him three times. Dying, clutching Avon's arms) Avon...
