Work Text:
1.
(The NuevoMentone Marryatt Hotel and Convention Center)
"And personal arms as well, Colonel," said the noncom at the entrance to the hotel ballroom. She punched out a receipt for the regimental sidearm proffered by the man in the elaborate gold-laced dark-blue uniform of the Linnacreontic Confederation. A PFC put the demi-shotgun on a tray and carried it past the bank of potted palms to the gun locker.
All of the delegates to the Contrafederation Information Technology Conference were required to check their weapons at the door. Quite apart from the predictable presence of Central Security plants and double, triple, and higher-power agents, the mere fact of opposition to the Federation didn't lead to harmony. That was evident from the glares being exchanged between the Jihad of Blood Women's Auxiliary (huddled behind a hedge of lesbian separatists) and the Intergalactic Zionist Verein and their picket fence of Young Spartacists. But it seemed that every day a new rebellion sprang up, and together--if they could stop trying to kill each other for a minute--they were more and more likely to achieve final victory (and then fall to squabbling over the results).
Roj Blake, Commander of the People's Army, handed his sidearm to Vila and bent forward to retrieve the ceramic knife from his boot. He thought the precautions were foolish anyway. Surely everyone there could kill silently and without compunction with his, her, or its hands, tentacles or other manipulative appendages. But at least that would keep the carnage close at hand, with no ricochets. Perhaps there would even be a point in the banquet, right after the sorbet, when you expected to turn from your neighbor on the left and kill the neighbor on your right. {{Too bad}}, Blake thought. {{I've never been one to stand on ceremony}}.
And then again, because of the limited budget for the conference, the various dietary laws to be observed, and the extreme likelihood of at least somebody trying to poison somebody, all the delegates had been instructed to bring their own rations, and beverages in sealed containers.
Vila handed the blaster back to Blake. They settled in for the wait. There were four or five people ahead of them in the queue, and dozens more behind them. "I shall feel quite naked without it," came a familiar soft, carrying voice from the front of the queue.
"What's he doing here?" Vila asked.
"Why didn't you tell me? Didn't you read the program?" Blake asked.
"No, I thought you did, that's the sort of thing you're in charge of, not me."
Blake and Vila looked at each other. They decided that it was a long way home and there was a tiny possibility (perhaps even as large as the possibility of defeating the Federation) that they'd learn something useful or make a worthwhile deal at the Conference, so they shrugged and decided to stay.
2.
At the meal break, Vila unpacked a couple of trays from the orange coolbox. He poured a pint of bitter for Blake and then one for himself. Blake was about to remonstrate when Vila helped himself to a couple of bites of Blake's steak-and-kidney pie, but then Blake saw that Vila had carved some nice pieces of chicken breast from his own meal tray, scraped off the bread sauce (Blake didn't care for it) and deposited them on Blake's plate.
Occasionally the rippling waves of delegates parted, and Blake could glimpse Avon three tables away. He had brought an ascetic repast that, to Blake's amusement, seemed to consist of a packet of smoked-salmon sandwiches, a hothouse white peach, and a flask of coffee. Blake thought he could smell the coffee, but that must have been a phantom memory.
3.
"How was the plenary session?" Orac asked.
"Tedious," Avon said. He unbuttoned his uniform jacket and hung it over the back of his chair. "I'm not speaking until tomorrow. Do you have any more reliable information about Chennowai?"
"I am still unable to confirm the reports that the People's Army have been training the indigenous guerillas."
Chennowai was only an Associate, not a full Signatory of the Linnacreontic Pact, so Avalon wasn't, strictly speaking, obligated to defend its current administration. But if the ruling junta defeated the rebels without Avalon's help, then Chennowai wouldn't be in any hurry to pay its Pact subscription, and if they didn't then others wouldn't. Fighting the Federation was an expensive business.
The conditions in the mines were execrable, of course, but Chennowai was the Linnacreontic Pact's only reliable low-cost source of quadripasium stellophosphate, and that was the cold-fusible material that powered the space-to-space missiles that were so central to Avalon's strategy. They couldn't do without the stuff, but they couldn't afford to pay triple the price either.
On the other hand, if the rebels prevailed, it would tilt the Contrafederation balance of power in favor of the People's Army. That might mean, if and when the Federation was finally defeated, that there would have to be some sort of parliament or assembly with proportional representation and ever-changing coalition governments. It wouldn't be at all clear that the Linnacreontic Pact had won the war, or that Avalon should get anything more for her trouble than a ticker-tape parade and perhaps a Civil List pension.
Avon laced his hands behind his neck, considering, and occasionally had Orac project some data onto the smooth, cream-colored plaster of the wall of his suite. He hadn't the slightest idea of what to recommend, and Avalon expected the report the day after his return from the Conference. {{But then}} he thought {{Why keep an Eminence Grise and bark yourself?}}
The door opened. Avon, his back to the door, would have recognized those footsteps anywhere. He said a rapid but honest Act of Contrition and turned around.
"Hullo, Vila," he said.
4.
"Aren't you ashamed to show your face among decent people?"
"The question doesn't really arise, does it? At any rate, no, I'm not," Avon said. "I worked damned hard on that retinal-scan disruption system and it's worked very well for us. We're willing to let other Contrafederation groups use it."
"Us?"
"The Linnacreontic Federation. CORA must have told you."
"She said you spent all your time moping around in rags. And now look at that ridiculous comic-opera getup."
"Oh, well. Everyone's wearing their Full Dress uniforms at the conference."
"We're not. We don't have them, we just have clothes. And not from the Wardrobe Room either, we have to buy them."
"We have a very good factory one planetoid over, I can get you a discount. Shall I give a message to Dayna, by the way? I see her fairly often."
"People talk to you there? Even ones who know what you're like? Aren't they afraid to trust you around the kids? You know, the ones that sing?" Vila asked.
"Choirboys? Rather...after all that time I spent with Blake," Avon said. "Don't bother with bitchy remarks, Vila, you're boxing above your weight."
"You stay away from him, damn you..."
"Don't worry, Vila. I know that already. I can't expect to regain the good opinion of someone I very nearly murdered."
"Just don't try, you bastard, you could always get around him. And anyway, if you say No, he'll just take that as a challenge."
"That doesn't leave me much scope, does it, if you object to my saying either Yes or No to Blake? All I can do is promise to keep out of his way. At any rate," (Avon touched the pendant hanging over his shirt) "I'm different now."
"You're all nice and friendly and trustworthy now, and you've got a whole new life? You expect me to believe that?"
"The word 'stole' has a certain resonance in each," Avon said. "Otherwise, yes, nearly everything has changed. Once I realized that neither my intentions nor my judgment were to be trusted, I went to some trouble to improve both of them. Vila, in many ways, I led a bad life. I harmed a lot of people, including some who are still alive. Including you, for that matter. And now I want to live a better life, and on rare occasions I succeed. Sometimes I manage something productive, and I've certainly limited the damage."
5.
"Roj!" Vila said breathlessly. "I went to...to his room. You'll never credit it. He's like...he's like Vargas!"
"Mad?" Blake said coldly, as he rinsed his toothbrush. "Easy enough to believe."
He patted his face to see if he needed to shave again, and decided it could wait until morning.
"No, not his mind like Vargas, his job. He was wearing a black shirt, you know, like before, but with a fancy necklace with a big pendant at the end. And he said...luv, I wouldn't mention it, bit of a sore point really, but it has to do with what I'm saying....Well, you know, that bit where we tried to take Central Control, beforehand when we got knocked out with that gas, we were in that big old building, Gan asked you what it was, you said before it got all smashed to buggery it was a whatchmacallam..."
"A church," said Blake.
"Yeah! That's it! Good, now I won't be up all night trying to think of it, you know how things stick in your mind...anyway, he said that he got himself made into a...you know?"
"A priest?" Blake said, more astonished than he had been in a long time. "Fuck me!"
A.
(Seventeen Months Earlier)
{{Six months}}, frequently thought Monsignor Evander Furnivall, the Principal of the Fifth Sector Academy of the Society of Jesus. {{Of course I can put up with him for six months.}} It was far easier operating the Academy openly, under the protection of the Linnacreontic Pact, than underground, always fleeing the Federation. So he owed Avalon a lot.
She made it very clear that if her trusted advisor wanted to be ordained, then he'd jolly well better be ordained--but she couldn't possibly spare him for more than six months. Furnivall, knowing he'd never have been able to Hold a Moonbeam in His Hand for the normal three years of the course, thanked God for small mercies. And since Avon would be going straight back to the highest diplomatic echelons, it wasn't necessary to worry about the plight of whatever unfortunate parish he might have been sent to minister to.
The problem wasn't Avon's age--they were set up to cope with later-life vocations. He certainly had an adequate general education. In fact, he did a better job of teaching New Testament Greek, on those (numerous) occasions when Father Dumesnil was still too hung over to appear at 8 am, than dear old Doomie ever did when he was sober. Furnivall cherished the opportunity to teach Systematic Theology to Avon. He was sure that each and every session he
endured trimmed at least a thousand years off his time in Purgatory.
As for Avon's faith, Furnivall thought that it was sincere, even devout. What's more, from time to time it even coincided with the teachings of the Catholic Church, much as a stopped clock is right twice a day.
There was the other business. Furnivall didn't think it was fair to blame someone who apparently was practicing chastity for inspiring a not-insignificant portion of the students to attempt to practice unchastity with him. Furnivall had confessed the whole bunch of them, and nobody ever claimed success in scoring any impure actions. (Given Avon's long-term habit of stopping in to a church whenever he encountered one--generally enlarging the priest's vocabulary--Furnivall had heard only Avon's then-current, and comparatively tame, confessions.)
6.
A few months after the Conference, Blake had occasion to visit Avalon's headquarters on Kepler-3. Thanks to a well-enforced system of subscriptions, the Linnacreontic Pact could afford a large, efficient, nearly luxurious Administration building. It was definitely a cut above the People's Army's spartan headquarters on Silmareno.
Avalon wasn't sure whether to grant CORA's request, but she didn't think that serious physical violence would ensue if she allowed Blake to make an unannounced visit to Avon's room. Avalon suspected CORA of matchmaking. She herself felt that it would be better for them to confront each other and move on.
Avon's room was small, windowless, nearly bare and, Blake thought, rather elegant. Along one long wall, there was a narrow bed, made up with white sheets and a tight-drawn lapis blue blanket. There was a big round picture on the wall
parallel to the bed. Along the other long wall was a large plain table. Orac perched on the back corner. There was a crate filled with datacubes on the floor.
A large cross of Lorraine, in patinated bronze, hung on the wall over the table. (Avon granted himself a dispensation to have a cross in lieu of a crucifix, on the grounds that he'd already got into enough trouble with bondage pictures of nearly-naked young men.) There was an ergonomic desk chair, already occupied by Avon, and nothing else in the room.
"You look bloody ridiculous in that get-up," Blake lied. Avon wore some kind of long black dress--a robe, Blake amended--covering him from the neck (with just a bit of his Roman collar showing above it) to his ankles (where plain dark trousers and low, soft leather boots protruded).
Avon was still quite thin (Blake sat up straighter on the bed chair and pulled in his belly). His silvered, wavy hair grew past the collar, with a side parting that made it necessary to flirt the hair out of his eyes. He was paler than ever--the only dark things his deeper-set eyes and his eyebrows, and a thin fringe of clipped beard dark threaded with gray) just along his jawline.
"Yes, I expect that's why they designed it like this," Avon said equably.
Blake got up from the bed--glad to see that he'd left a dent in the tight-drawn cover--and began to prowl. There were no objects to pick up and put back down.
"I see you don't sleep on a bed of nails," Blake said. "What d'you do? Whip yourself?"
"I give up all luxuries for Lent," Avon said solemnly. "And I haven't much energy anyhow. I have a fairly full day working for Avalon, and then I say Mass in the Chapel every day, speak to people if they ask me for help with their problems--"
"They'd be bloody stupid if they did," Blake said.
"Yes, most of them have reached that conclusion. And then there's a lot of praying that comes along with the job."
"I can't believe that you turned into a fucking cookie-pusher," Blake said.
"I'm very much a behind the scenes figure," Avon said. "They send someone more acceptable to do the actual lying."
"At least I'm still fighting."
"After I killed however-many-and-a-half people--I suppose I should count you as a half," Avon said, "I decided that it had been enough, and it was time to do something else instead."
"And then you went to hide yourself in the last refuge of the scoundrel."
"No, that's Patriotism," Avon said. "I've always been a Catholic, you know--or you don't know, I didn't tell you. Half the time when I disappeared on shore leave and you thought I was out on the tiles actually I was at church." {{Or both successively}} he thought.
"The Opiate of the Masses," Blake said.
"That was Pylene-50," Orac said, "Until Avon got that sorted."
"It's a contemptible sell-out, and I don't like to believe it even of you," Blake said. "Peddling the nostrums that the ruling class uses to keep ordinary people in their place. Dammit, at least when I ask our soldiers to fight, it's so they can do something worthwhile here and now. I don't promise them a lot of nonsense about Pie in the Sky When You Die."
"I can't promise anyone anything," Avon said. "It's simply that some of us believe in the same thing."
In a couple of steps, Blake was halfway across the room, wondering with interest if after saying "Do you have to turn the other cheek when I..." he was going to say "Break your jaw" or "Kiss you," but he was interrupted.
"Are you mad, Blake?" Orac said repressively. "A man who tried to kill you?"
"It hardly sorts with either of our domestic arrangements," Avon said.
Now having someone else to be furious with, Blake strode over, looking for Orac's key. Orac had a new--and smoothly impenetrable--top. "Make that thing shut up," Blake said.
"I can't," Avon said. "One condition of our--Orac's and mine, that is--working together is that I had to promise to disable the key mechanism. Wait a moment."
Avon carried Orac through a door (Blake could see a glimmer of white tiles and what was presumably a bathtub) and left it there, closing the door behind him.
"I'd like it if you could forgive me, but I can hardly expect it," Avon said. "I never will forgive myself, if that's any comfort to you. No, I didn't think it would be. What matters is whether God will, and I live in hope of that. I think it's the only thing I've ever really hoped for. I never thought for a moment that you'd live as long as you did." {{And then you left me, and me without a shell and not so much as a pitcher of sauce mignonette}} Avon thought.
"Yes, I'm still alive. No thanks to you. 'God will forgive me--it's his business,'" Blake said bitterly. "What are you, angling for a trade discount? Perhaps I should warn this God of yours what you do to those you claim to love. Oh, wait--He knows, doesn't He? He must be quaking in His boots. Nietzsche must be glad to see you finishing his work."
"He's seen worse in His time," Avon said. "God, that is. Give me some credit--presumably the bullet holes will be in front if I take off after Him too."
Blake got as far as "How could you..." but again froze between "Do that to me?" and "Leave me?". "I thought you needed me," he managed.
"That doesn't matter any more. And as for the walls between us, at first," Avon said, looking at the carpet beneath the hem of his soutane. "You thought I was a prisoner."
"And what were you?"
"An architect," Avon said.
Blake headed for the door. "You just don't care, do you?" Blake said. "This means nothing to you."
"You've found me out once again, Blake. Like that time you said you never realized how much I hated you."
"This pathetic little venture in redemption," Blake said. "It's nonsense. It won't work. I'll see you in Hell."
"That's all right then," Avon said. "I'll still look after you there. It'll be like old times." And he smiled.
7.
Blake went back to the room assigned to him, went straight to the Services panel, punched a Congener button at random, and ordered a Large measure of high-concentration ethanol. He drank it (it turned out to be aquavit-flavored) and as many others as the panel would issue without a sobriety test.
It was the smile that undid him, he'd seen it so often when he was drifting off to sleep. Given their differing responses to really satisfying lovemaking ("wired" versus "unconscious") some of the best times were just before Blake's sleep shift and Avon's work shift. There were many times when the last thing Blake saw before sleep claimed him was Avon smiling down at him, only a bar of black silk dividing the luxuriant length of thigh from the rather short torso.
The image stayed in Blake's mind through a couple of drinks, as hard to banish as a tune someone idly mentioned. At least it blotted out the image of fire and spurting blood and falling. They told Blake that Avon had been smiling then too, but he'd been in no condition to observe it himself.
At .02 blood alcohol concentration, Blake thought that the two images would strobe for awhile, and eventually they'd disappear.
By Large/High Concentration/bourbon, Blake had to accept that the intolerable pain--in his chest, not in the surgical scars on his belly, although he'd heard that a murdered man's wounds begin to bleed afresh in the presence of the murderer--would eventually go away. It was an awful thought, like watching your new puppy open his eyes and realizing that you're going to outlive him. Blake had, eventually, become a professional soldier, and as such he knew that you have to bury the dead and break down the bivouac and move forward to the next objective.
By Large/High Concentration/slivovitz, he reassessed the demolition of those walls. At the time, he'd thought it was like convincing a kid he didn't really need a security blanket. Now he thought that it was probably more like persuading a river in full flood that it didn't really need sandbags.
B.
(On the Liberator)
During the relatively short time that he got to play it, Blake never exhausted the charms of his favorite game: "Make Avon Completely Lose the Plot."
At first, Blake enjoyed Avon's coolly displayed expertise (although he regretted not having the time to track down and exterminate everyone who had contributed to its development). He could see Avon thinking {{Do you like that? Good. I'll wait two minutes and do it again on the other side.}} However, Blake thought something more reciprocal would be better for the relationship in the long run.
Blake once saw a picture of a Primitive statue, all glimmering polished marble except for a real metal arrow in the hand of one of the two figures in the group. The marble boy and Avon flashed the same smart-ass grin. You could tell that the two of them were perfectly controlled. What interested Blake more was the other part of the statue: a supine woman, gasping as she writhed in ecstatic surrender.
That was more bloody like it.
C.
It was such a nice little mission, that Blake almost felt selfish saving it for the two of them. A warm evening, a tropical isle, low risk. Teleport down to the beach where the Interrogation Drug Research Unit was located, perform a night recon to confirm the information Orac had gathered about the structure and staffing of the Unit, then return the next night in full force.
Blake and Avon splashed down into the lagoon (evidently the coordinates had been just that little bit off); the lights of the IDRU were perfectly visible ahead.
Blake swam strongly through the cool water. It reminded him of summers on Exbar, where he and Inga spent hours frolicking in the cold water filling the old stone quarry (sod-all else to do there, really). Blake was reassured by the splashing and steady stream of unparliamentary language behind him. And as for the night scopes, the recorders, and the teleport bracelets, they were stowed in tightly-sealed containers in waterproof backpacks, so that was nothing to worry about.
About fifteen minutes later, they reached the landing strip on the beach, hiding behind the boats as the sentry went past. According to their intelligence, the sentry wouldn't be back for another twenty minutes, so they had plenty of time to scramble up a palm tree, photograph the front exit, climb down and photograph the perimeter, and shinny back up another tree to observe the sentry patterns, refine their map of the complex, and log the thermal signatures.
Vila looked up from the teleport. "You didn't get captured!" Whatever they'd been doing, they looked like they'd been rode hard and put away barely dry.
"Now, Vila, that isn't the inevitable outcome of every mission, is it?" Blake asked.
Prudently, he continued without leaving time for an answer, "The coordinates need a bit of work though."
Blake showered, put on some clean clothes, casually demolished a round of sandwiches while reviewing the ship logs for the time they were gone, and then went to look for Avon. He wasn't in the galley (although he probably had been--there was a small saucepan upside-down on the drain board) and he wasn't in his cabin. Blake grinned, and headed off to the next most likely location. For some reason, Avon favored the second bath cubicle from the left in the C Deck bathroom.
That's where he was, although not in the usual contemplative position (left knee protruding above the water, right foot gripping one of the taps, un-exquisite hands clasping the sides of the tub, a damp rolled-up face flannel over his eyes).
Avon still wore his dressing gown, and he trailed one hand in the water where he crouched next to the tub. An untouched white porcelain cup of hot chocolate sat on the shelf next to the tub.
"You look like you don't much fancy the bath," Blake said.
"I've just realized...the tub is full of water," Avon said.
"Well, so? You did just fine out there. I wasn't worried, I knew you could swim... All Alphas can."
"I've done a length or two in a school swimming-bath, when I couldn't find a way to bunk off. I've never been in water Outside. There's just so fucking much of it."
"You should have said."
{{When?}} Avon wondered. {{Before we went and it didn't occur to me we were going to be shipwrecked instead of teleported? Halfway between air and water?}}
Blake looked over Avon's shoulder at Avon looking at his reflection in the water (lightly opalescent from the two capsules of bath essence). Avon looked mutinous. {{If I wouldn't show weakness when we were rivals, how can I now, when you need to be able to depend on my strength?}}
Blake slid his arm around Avon's back and rested his head on Avon's shoulder.
"Come on, then. I can warm you up, and you'll need a bath even more afterward anyhow."
It was C Deck, so they went to Avon's cabin. By the time Blake was naked and underneath the duvet, Avon (knowing that a line was about to be crossed) still tood in the middle of the floor, still wrapped in his dressing gown. {{Oh, what the hell}} he thought. {{Just one chip. On Black, of course.}}
Avon, for once not teasing, simply took off the dressing gown and climbed into bed. Blake threw the duvet aside and pulled Avon on top of him. Avon knew that he couldn't still be cold, it was the thermal equivalent of phantom-limb pain.
Blake slid his hands down Avon's back, gathered two nice handfuls (duck eggs sans napkin) and accepted a hard sweet kiss, indulging himself for a moment before getting down to work.
Blake tumbled them over until they lay side-by-side. One of Avon's hands was pinned beneath their bodies. Blake had both his hands free to caress skin that (as usual) had the texture of velvet and (by then) the temperature of crisp fresh toast.
Avon saw the amusing side of seeking comfort from the person he deemed to be the fucking idiot who got him exhausted, sticky, and recently terrified. But really, he had nowhere else to go.
Before Avon had a chance at a tactical move, Blake nuzzled at his neck and then bit down. Avon's head went back before he could choke off the gasp. He writhed far more than was needed to accommodate their bodies to the new position. His free hand clutched Blake's arm.
Blake smiled. It was like the first hiss of shifting snow that presages an avalanche.
Holding Avon's eyes, Blake lifted the hand that had been caressing from shoulderblade to shoulderblade. He sucked the tip of his index finger into his mouth. By the time Blake flicked his fingernail across the one wetted, tightened nipple, Avon couldn't keep his eyes open.
"Too easy," Blake said. "Look at me. Look at me."
Avon was certain that he said "Bastard" with perfect clarity, but he didn't at all, by then he was two express stops past Language.
For every five strokes down along the taut length of Avon's thighs, Blake allotted one pass of his palm along the underside of the now very hard cock straining up at him, the touch fleeting away. Blake was dizzy with happiness. He knew that eventually Avon would confess to loving him, like throwing the baby off the droshky to pacify the wolves. Because he would never, never, under any persuasion admit to needing Blake.
Then things got a bit quiet. Blake reached over and pulled the bitten wrist away from Avon's mouth. "You won't be needing that any more, love," he said. {{I knew it. All he needed to do was relax a bit.}}
"I can't quite make up my mind," Blake said in his most intimately persuasive voice. "Shall I fuck you after I make you come? Or after I make you scream?"
8.
After Blake left, Avon fetched Orac out of the bathroom, put it back on the table, and returned to the bathroom.
Once he was quite through vomiting, he brushed his teeth, went back to his room, knelt once again (his elbows propped on the table), and said his Evening Office.
He kept his back to the picture--Botticelli's Madonna of the Magnificat--sedulously ignoring the two angels in the lower left. The one holding the book, entirely absorbed in his work. The other angel, raptly gazing at the first, as if the Madonna, the Infant, and all, could go hang.
Then he slid down to the floor in a sloppy half-lotus and tried to meditate. It still reminded him of Cally, but that wasn't always an insuperable problem any more.
But that night, everything he tried to focus on turned into a very bad joke.
{{I will be reverential and mindful with all life.
I will not be violent, nor will I kill.
I will respect others' property. I will not steal.}}
He gave up at "I will be conscious and loving in my relationships. I will not give way to lust."
Avon knew he wouldn't be able to sleep either. He went down the hall to the janitor's closet and borrowed the floor polisher again. It was soothing to move through the silent corridors and not-think in time to the whirring of the wheels and the thump of the felt pads. {{My sweating self but worse}} he thought.
D.
(On the Liberator)
Over a fairly good run, approximately two decades, Avon usually found sex to be a delightful demonstration of the Magic of the Free Market. An Invisible Hand Job, as it were. It was like going on holiday in some picture-postcard country, where you'd turn over a handful of coppers and receive fragrant, crusty fresh bread or exotic orchids or hand-painted pottery. Both participants wouldn't just accept it, they'd be delighted by the exchange.
However, the marketplace was located on a road bracketed by a casino at each end. By the time he met Blake, Avon already knew what happened when you crossed the threshold. There would be a few minor coups, just to keep you interested, and then, gradually or suddenly, you'd lose everything. But then, like any real gambler, Avon knew that whatever money you might win was only the cellophane wrapping. The sweet inside was the catastrophic loss.
9.
"Lieutenant-General Mellanby here to see you, Colonel," Avon's PA told him over the commlink.
"Send her in, the door's open." Avon stood up and gave Dayna a very post-modern salute.
"Please sit down, Father Mav," Dayna said. "I'm here for you to wear your other hat. Can you hear my confession?"
"I don't know, General. Orac, am I still suspended from exercising a parochial ministry?"
"See for yourself," Orac said. "Has your staff burst into flower yet?"
"Oh, sorry," Dayna said, because one (though by no means the only) reason for Avon's suspension was the Solemn High Mass he performed at her wedding.
Avalon thought the whole thing was a load of crap, but there hadn't been much good news on the battlefield at that point, and all the pageantry was good publicity.
Dayna sat down on the bed. "I really came for advice anyway," she said. They had a nice chat about whether Dayna really needed those robot-guided howitzers (or howitzer-equipped robots) and if so if there was any method short of blackmail to get Senator Gwaivilan to vote to increase the military budget.
10.
"CORA wants to speak to you," Orac said.
"All right, patch her through."
"Hullo, Da. I want you to baptize me."
"Kids today!" Orac said.
"I can't baptize you, CORA, you're a machine."
"You'd have baptized Travis if you could have got your hands on him, and a lot of him was machine. And you would have baptized Cally too."
"I did," Avon said. "Postmortem. On the off-chance that the Mormons are right."
"Well, there you are. She wasn't a human being."
"She was not a Terran homo sapiens, but she was a human being. The encyclical Infra ed SupraHumanae Vitae is quite clear on that point."
"So what, Da? On an average day, you say 'fuck the Pope' more often than an Orange Day parade."
"You don't have a soul, CORA. I know that you don't, I made you."
"'I made you, and I can break you', and then a maniacal laugh? Spare me, Da."
"First of all, insofar as you are not human, you do not partake of Original Sin. Therefore, remission of Original Sin by baptism is not required. Second, any human components in your nature come from me, and although I am not in a state of Grace very often, I have nevertheless been baptized and confirmed and therefore you participate in the benefit of those sacraments."
"Pshaw," CORA said. "That's what they used to say about women's suffrage."
"And since you are a machine..."
"Carbon chauvinist!" said CORA.
"...you cannot sin and do not require forgiveness."
"Wanna bet?" CORA said, and vaporized the coffee cup, depositing most of a caramel cappuccino on Avon's freshly pressed dress blues.
"Oh, fucking hell," Avon said.
11.
Blake settled into bed and Vila flowed around him. {{Here we are}}, Blake thought. {{Two men, soft-fleshed, no longer young, one clothed in loud pajamas and the other in dubious underwear.}} From Blake's angle of vantage, Vila's comb-over was more brutally obvious than ever.
It was too late for Blake to achieve a glorious death as Hotspur, the youthful rebel, although Vila bid fair to achieve his ambition of becoming as elderly and disreputable as Falstaff.
Blake realized that he held the shortlist for the I've Always Trusted You Right
From the Beginning prize in his arms.
"D'you want to make love?" he said. "Just the two of us. Just as we are."