Date: Thu, 26 May 1994 23:09:10 +1000 Reply-To: Highlander TV show stories Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: kat@WELKIN.APANA.ORG.AU Subject: Winning is the Only Safety: First Death (part 1/4) With thanks to the author of Treklander, John F. Moore, for showing it could be done, I present... Winning is the Only Safety First Death (part 1) by Kathryn Andersen The sweet sickly smell filled his nose, his mouth, his lungs. He breathed in the stench of death. He tried to move, but there was a heavy something on top of him; to open his eyes but they were caked shut with... something. With blood? Was he buried alive? He shoved in sudden desperation at the thing above him, and it moved slowly away. He rubbed at his eyes and blinked. Cold and dark. Night and stars. An edge. A pit. A pit full of corpses. Buried alive. Buried alive. He nearly had been. They had taken him for a corpse and tossed him in an open grave along with the others, and only the lateness of the hour and the incompleteness of the task had stopped them finishing the job - and finishing him. His hair stood on end. He sat up. His guts heaved and he added vomit to the smells of excrement and blood around him. He stood up on wobbily legs, and clawed his way out of the pit, away from the slaughterhouse smell. The open grave had been dug by the edge of the trees, as far from the base as possible and still be in the open. Not that there was much open. The base was deliberately buried in the middle of one of the vast pine plantations that covered this part of the planet. Two things were uppermost in his mind; first, to get away; second, to get out of these filthy clothes and wash from the skin out. Then, maybe then, he could afford to think about what happened. But for now, he would walk, crawl if need be. But not go back, not for any reason. *** Miles away, the thief whimpered as the flyer wobbled again. He had stolen it even though he didn't know how to fly it - not as well as the others would have. The controls were fairly simple, but either he had stolen a defective model, or he had the controls adjusted wrongly. But a wobble in the flight was better than being caught by bounty-hunters in the woods. He gave off as much body-heat as the next man, and he hadn't forgotten what Avon said about the bounty-hunters' heat detectors. Avon. And the others. Not to mention Blake. They were dead. When it all started going wrong he'd hit the floor and played dead - too much shooting going on for any of those troopers to wonder if any of the bodies *wasn't* a corpse. He'd made himself scarce before the clean-up squad had come to sort out the bodies. It was getting dark, they might not have finished before nightfall. No point hanging around - just pick up Orac and leave. Avon wasn't going to be needing the computer any longer. He'd apologised to Avon's corpse when he'd taken the activator key from his pocket - Avon always carried Orac's key with him, even when he'd hidden the computer itself. After he'd stolen the flyer, he'd tried to turn the computer on, but it hadn't seemed to be working. Broken. Maybe he could sell the parts for scrap. Or find someone who could fix it. But first he had to get off this planet. He didn't know where he was running to - he was just running. *** He was concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other. He was still filthy. The black leather didn't show the stains, but it was stiffening from the blood. The studs on the jacket gleamed dully in the bright moonlight. He had not found even a stream to wash in. He didn't want to think, but his mind droned a dismal tune to the rhythm of his footsteps. It went: *They're dead. They're dead. They're all dead.* Then it did a little variation on the theme. *It was a trap. You know it was a trap. They're dead. They're dead. They're all dead. They're dead. They're dead. They're all dead. You should be dead too.* It had been what he was expecting, and his last ironic grimace had been at the thought that he too would be a companion for Blake's death, an atonement to make up for his mistake in shooting the wrong betrayer. That their deaths would be linked after all. He shouldn't have survived. What Fate had laughed and spared him? *They're dead. They're dead. They're all dead.* It was almost a relief when he heard the aircar. Doubtless a bounty-hunter who tracked him by his body-heat. He leaned against a tree to wait. What was the point in running? They were all dead. He had nothing. No ship, no Orac - not even its key, for someone had taken it from his pocket - no rescue party waiting in the wings. The last time he'd had nothing was on the London, being transported to Cygnus Alpha, penal colony of no return. He'd been a different man then. His computer fraud failed, Anna dead by torture (or so he thought then) he still meant to fall on his feet whatever the circumstances; and survive. What had he said to Blake? "An intelligent man can adapt." And Blake had set off on his mad scheme which failed, but Blake in his usual bumbling way had stumbled into good fortune and they'd made off with the Liberator and Blake fought his crusade - until the Andromedan War. Then Blake vanished, a chimera that had eluded him. Oh he'd adapted all right. Adapted from an embezzler to a leader of the revolution. Kerr Avon, wanted rebel. Ha! But he couldn't adapt to betrayal. The last time he'd felt like dying... that cold cellar with Servalan's gun caressing his neck, and Anna's body at his feet - Anna who he killed with his own hands, Anna who he would have laid down his life for, Anna who hadn't died under torture, Anna who had betrayed him. The flyer had landed not too far away. The carpet of pine needles muffled the sound of footsteps but the bounty hunter found him soon enough. His gun was drawn, and he pointed it straight at the computer technician's heart. "What have we here?" Avon said nothing. "Had a fight with the missus, eh?" The man laughed at his own joke. He was dressed in brown leather, armed like a bandit, and a knife was sheathed in one boot. The man came closer, relaxing a little when he saw that Avon wasn't armed, and raising an eyebrow when he saw the state Avon was in. "Quiet one, huh? Did she tear out your tongue too?" Avon just stared at him. His heart turned over. "Or maybe she tore out your heart?" the man tut-tutted. That was too much. Avon straightened, and dived for the bounty hunter's legs, knocking him down. The man's first shot went wild, but he held on to the gun. Avon pulled out the knife from the boot, and stabbed him in the side, just as the man brought his gun to bear, and shot him, point blank. Apart from the pain, all Avon felt was relief. ........... end of part 1 ............... Feedback please! --- _--_|\ Kathryn Andersen / \ Hawthorn -> Melbourne -> Victoria -> Australia \_.--.*/ -> Southern Hemisphere -> Earth -> Sol -> Milky Way Galaxy v Maranatha! =========================================================================