Title: Lay Not Up
Version: 1.0, posted 4/12/05
Rating: PG
 
Disclaimer: Not mine. (See full disclaimer on previous page.)

Summary: Blake finds that before he can make use of a treasure, he has to lay claim to it.
Timeline: Set in late S1 or early S2, sometime between the episodes Bounty and Shadow.
A/N: This was written for Marian Mendez as part of the Blake ficathon. Her request list appears after the story, so as to avoid spoilers. My thanks to Nicola Mody, Kathryn Andersen, and especially Sally Manton for beta help.


Lay Not Up

by Mistral Amara


Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust corrupts, and where thieves do not break through and steal: for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
                    --Jeshua ben Joseph


When the door snicks shut behind them, Blake knows that they're trapped. He doesn't say anything; Avon and Vila will figure it out soon enough. For now, he'll let them have this moment--just a moment--to bask in the pleasure of what they've come for. Of what they think they've come for.

And bask they do. His companions are mesmerized by the sight of so much wealth in one place, and small wonder if they are. It's a treasure house, a fortune out of the ancient tales; some emperor might have spent a lifetime amassing it on the backs of slaves. Raw gems, cut gems, precious metals, a dozen kinds of currency; rare woods, trade goods, anything that someone somewhere might find beautiful or desirable is represented here, stacked on the shelves or piled in the reinforced chests. The three of them couldn't carry a fraction of it away, but Blake is only here for one thing, and he'll have it, no matter how long he has to stay locked in here to get it. But as he watches Vila fingering an emerald-studded bracelet, Blake feels a heaviness deep within him. It's very like regret, and he wishes that he were somewhere else.

"Vila," he says, "The door's locked. Can you open it?"

"What?" Vila frowns. "How'd that happen? Never worry, it's a simple pneumatic door. Even Avon could open it. You could, if I showed you how." He fiddles with a panel for a couple of seconds, and the door whooshes open.

There's another door behind it.

*

The new door defeats Vila's best efforts. It presents itself as a blank slab across the lesser door's opening. The hinges and locking mechanism are on the other side of the six-inch solid preostone walls; there's no way to get to them. The door itself is a herculaneum-steel alloy, too heavy and tough to cut through, even if they had the tools.

"A vault door," Avon says through clenched teeth. "You knew it had a vault door, didn't you?"

Blake doesn't answer.

"It's all right," says Vila, though his voice betrays his worry. "There's air vents, and the others will come and get us out. Won't they?"

"Somehow," Avon says, "I don't think our being rescued is on the agenda."

Vila protests. "They wouldn't just leave us here!"

But Avon's eyes are on Blake. He sees too much, Avon does; always sees the things Blake hopes to keep hidden, sometimes even from himself. But this time Blake isn't hiding anything. "No," he says. They aren't coming. "Jenna has her instructions. She's taking Liberator to Sauros IV, to provide support to the rebels there."

"That's not fair," says Vila, wounded. "She was my friend, first."

Avon doesn't smile; you can't call that bitter twist of the lips a smile. "It would appear," he says, "that Jenna's loyalties have been .  . . reassigned."

*

Blake settles in to wait while the others search for another way out. It's Avon, of course, who bows first to the inevitable; only a fool puts a back door into a treasure vault. He sits cross-legged on the floor, opposite Blake. "So," he says. "Here we are."

"Here we are," Blake agrees. "Just us and a President's ransom."

"Oh, a dozen Presidents, at least. Have you found any worth ransoming?"

Blake gestures at the wealth all around them. "What's the matter, Avon? Isn't this enough 'reality' for you?"

"For me? Perhaps. For us? Never in a million years. You would never let it be."

"You mean because I'd spend it on the rebellion? Of course I would. Wealth is a tool; it has no value beyond what we do with it."

"Don't be stupid. Wealth is power. Give away the wealth, lose the power."

"And you want me to give it to you."

This time, it's Avon who doesn't reply, and Blake is left with a puzzle that has nagged at him ever since the London. Why does a man of Avon's intelligence and perception care so much for riches? And he does care. This is not one of the man's studied poses; there is no faking the kind of raw hunger that limns Avon's face when he eyes the treasures piled around them.

And this is what Blake doesn't understand. It's not greed; he's seen greed before. Nor is it a thirst for power, whatever Avon might say. The purpose of power is the control of others, and Avon has never shown that degree of interest in anyone else. Still, there must be a key to understanding Avon's love of wealth, and Blake is determined to find out what it is. The rebellion may depend on his understanding the men and women with whom he shares the fight.

It's easy for Blake to understand why Vila covets wealth; the thief's magpie-like acquisitiveness is a predictable reaction to a lifetime's deprivation. Yet Vila never holds on to money for long. He trades it for the things that bring him comfort: food, drink, clothes, the company of others like himself. Vila clearly understands the micro-economics of commerce. But Blake must think on a larger scale; must get Avon and Vila to think on that scale, as well.

He looks across the room, where Vila has given up his search for a way out and is sifting glumly through a chest of Federation credits with one hand, rubbing his stomach with the other. It's been a while since any of them have eaten.

Blake gets up and starts rummaging through the shelves. "You're wrong, Avon," he says. "The power of wealth consists in its use. Locked away like this, it has no value at all. You can't eat it, drink it, wear it, defend yourself with it." He finds nothing of interest and moves on to the next set of shelves. "Hanging on to accumulated wealth is more trouble than it's worth. It doesn't do anything but make you a target for thieves and con artists. Money should be put back into the economy, used to improve people's lives." He keeps searching; he knows it's got to be here somewhere. At last he finds a waterproof pack wedged behind a cache of silver ingots. He opens it and pulls out a fistful of ration bars--protein, carbohydrates, fats, fiber, vitamins, minerals. There's bottled water, too.  It's nothing compared to what they could get in Liberator's galley, but it's everything needed to sustain life.

"Now this," he says, passing around the rations, "this is treasure."

*

Once they've sated their hunger and thirst, there's not much to do. It isn't long before Vila's nervous habits start to manifest: first the fidgeting, then the rambling monologues, then when those are ignored, the hushed, injured mutterings, culminating in little snatches of whistling and song. Blake does his best not to let Vila get on his nerves, at least not to let it show; but when Avon pulls a fluffy golden fur off a shelf and suggests, not entirely kindly, that Vila go find himself a corner to sleep in, Blake feels an undeniable sense of relief. Within minutes a soft, rhythmic snoring fills the air.

"It would appear that some treasures do have uses other than cheap commerce," says Avon. He pulls out another fur and arranges it as a cushion for himself.

"Oh, what I have in mind isn't cheap," says Blake. And it isn't: he dreams of rebel bases, networks of informants, shipments of arms. He dreams of bribes and payoffs and black-market purchases, of buying help where he can't beg or borrow it. It takes resources to topple a government. What's in this room will only make a healthy start.

Avon eyes him narrowly. "You can throw all the money you like at your rebellion, and you still won't have counted the cost. It's lives you'll be spending, and they won't all be willing ones." He laughs; a tight, bitter laugh. "But that doesn't concern you, does it?"

"Are you really worried about the cost in lives, or just that one of them might be yours?"

"I admit that I'd prefer to stay alive. But one man makes no difference to the end result. Which will you care more about, I wonder? Spending one life you know, or thousands that you don't?"

Blake fights down the angry reply that threatens to derail the conversation. He searches for something more moderate. "I feel the pricks of responsibility without your help, Avon," he says finally. "I don't need you to be my conscience." Are you sure? interrupts a voice in his head. He fights that down, too. "Yes, people may die--people will die. But some things are worth dying for. Freedom is one of them."

"There's just one thing wrong with your scenario. Your martyrs won't get the prize they're dying for. No Heaven, no Valhalla, no Elysian Fields. You can't buy freedom for a dead man."

"But those remaining will be free! The sacrifices made will not have been in vain."

"Won't they?" But Avon's eyes have that flinty, detached look that Blake has come to recognize, a sign that he's run out of patience with Blake's 'bleeding-heart idealism'. Continuing to push Avon past this point will only make him more hostile. The conversation is over for now.
 
Avon stands and stretches, yawning. He makes his way to a cabinet filled with exquisite pots of all kinds--large, small, enamelled, inlaid with gold and platinum and ebony, encrusted with jewels. He opens the cabinet front and brushes his fingers over them gently, finally choosing a large, wide-mouthed vessel with a tight-fitting lid. It's enamelled in firework bursts centered with matching semi-precious stones. He holds it up and grins at Blake.

"We'll need a chamber pot," he says.

*

The food and water is running out. Blake wants to wake Vila up to share out the last of it, but Avon forestalls him. "Let him sleep as long as he can, Blake. He's claustrophobic. "

"And you care?"

"Of course I care. I care that I don't have to listen to him complain."

So Blake sets aside Vila's portion, and he and Avon share the rest. They don't talk, but the silence is a conversation all its own.

Blake uses the time to consider ways to make his case to Avon. He thinks about his encounter with Sarkoff, looking for a clue there. If Vila uses wealth as a defense against poverty, Sarkoff used his possessions as a defense against the despair that self-knowledge, knowledge of his own impotence would have brought him. But that couldn't apply here. Avon might not be the most introspective of men, but Blake can't imagine him ever considering himself helpless, not while he still has use of his mind and his hands.

As if to confirm his thoughts, Avon reaches out and drags a small chest of cut jewels and trinkets towards himself. Sorting through them, he selects various sizes of gems and arrays them on the floor in rows: nearest to Blake he puts larger rubies in various cuts--emerald, teardrop, round, pear--and a row of small round diamonds. Nearest to himself a row of sapphires like the rubies, and the small round ones are topaz. He considers his handiwork for a moment. "No," he says, "the royals should be more distinguished." He dips into the chest for a pair of cameos and replaces the center rubies; he replaces the center sapphires with solitaire rings. Satisfied, he picks up a diamond and a topaz and offers them, one in each closed fist, to Blake. Blake points, and Avon opens the fist. It's the diamond.

"Ah," he says. "White. I should have known." He puts the gems back in their positions. "Your move."

*

The glittering armies wage war back and forth across the floor, feint and retreat, attack and counterattack, gambits accepted and declined. As the game progresses, Blake knows by the set of his opponent's jaw, by the studied economy of movement as his hands thrust the pieces across the board, that Avon is playing to win; knows too, somehow, that he mustn't let him. This isn't one of the casual games they've played before, no pastime to keep hands and minds occupied during long dull watches on the flight deck. This is a test.

But a test of what, Blake has no idea. Is it a test of intelligence? Endurance? Determination? Of his willingness to sacrifice his men to achieve the win? Or his ability to conserve resources? Uncertain of what his goal should be, at last he makes an error, small, but telling. His defense begins to unravel. An hour later, Avon has him checkmated.

He waits for Avon to gloat, to dissect his failure and prove how this demonstrates his incompetence to lead a rebellion. But to his surprise, Avon merely collects the pieces and lays them out again. This time, he gives Blake the sapphires, while he takes the rubies.

They begin again.

Dissatisfied with his previous performance, Blake resolves to ignore his doubts and uncertainties. He thinks only of winning, and counters every challenge of Avon's with a challenge of his own. He wrests an attack out of every defense and a defense out of every attack, and before he quite realizes what is happening, discovers that he's forced Avon into a draw. Not a win, but still a victory of sorts.

This time, it's Blake who lays out the pieces for the next round.

*

Eventually Avon tires of the game. Blake doesn't know whether he's passed Avon's test, and Avon doesn't offer any clues. They sit in the silence, doze, wake, doze again. The room is close, stifling. It reminds Blake of a Federation cell, for all that it's many times larger. He wonders if this is anything like as hard on Avon as it is on him, if the other man even feels the oppressiveness of the walls that crowd in on Blake so relentlessly. Doubts wriggle into Blake's mind like serpents. Perhaps he's miscalculated. Perhaps he'll never understand Avon. Perhaps his plan had failed before he'd begun.

He does his best to squash the doubts; he studies Avon for signs of stress. Perhaps he's imagining it, but there seems to be a tiredness around the other man's eyes, a faint pallor to his skin. It's just possible that Avon is starting to fray around the edges. It comes as something of a relief to Blake to know that he's not the only one.

In his corner Vila stirs; even he can only sleep so long. He grumbles his way out of his makeshift bed and blinks at the surroundings, then heads unerringly for the food and rips open a packet. "Is this all that's left?" he complains. The others don't tell him that they've left him the largest share. Since it's all there is, it doesn't matter.

Vila eyes Avon disconsolately as he chews. "So," he says. "We're still here, then?"

"Your talent for grasping the obvious remains undiminished," says Avon.

"At least I can see what's in front of me," Vila replies.

"Meaning?"

"Meaning that if you were half as smart as you think you are, we wouldn't be here in the first place. Meaning you got caught. Meaning Blake's the one who got you off the London and me off Cygnus Alpha, and if that means we owe him something, well, I can live with that. Spare me your stubborn Alpha pride."

"My pride? Is that what you think this is about?"

"What else? Go on, Avon, tell Blake what he wants to hear. I'm tired of this," says Vila. "I want out."

"You want out, do you? If I tell him what he wants to hear, the only out you'll get is out of the frying pan and into the fire."

"Oh, stop trying to be clever. Nobody here cares."

"I suppose you'd rather I were a fool," says Avon, but there's surprisingly little bite in it. He sighs. "Very well, Blake. I will concede the point. Wealth is only worth something if you can spend it. But," he adds, before Blake can claim victory, "if we weren't locked in this room, we could spend it, and it's your own fault that we're trapped here."

He's not wrong. "All right, then," says Blake. "What would you do with it?"

"I know what I'd do," volunteers Vila. "I'd buy my very own Rest Center. No, I'd build one, a hundred times better than anything the Federation ever came up with! Forget Sensory Ecstasy Hours, I'd have Sensory Ecstasy Weeks, and invite all my friends. We'd have only the very best food and drink, served up to us by gorgeous Alpha women who've fallen on hard times. Do 'em good to work for a change. Er . . . no offense."

Blake laughs. Vila's wish for simple creature comforts is unimaginative, perhaps, but his enthusiasm covers a world of sins. "No offense taken." He turns to Avon. "Well?"

For a moment, Avon seems reluctant to speak. He reaches down to toy with one of the sapphires. Finally, he shrugs. "I'd disappear. Buy a new name, a new face, cover my tracks. Make my way to one of the outer worlds, one the Federation won't get around to annexing for decades. Use the rest to build myself a business--computer security, perhaps, or importing and exporting trade goods. Either way, I'd have eyes and ears everywhere, to warn me if anyone came sniffing around. The Federation would never get its hands on me again."

And there it is, at last, the key that Blake's been seeking. It's safety Avon wants, a shield against Federation interference, and he thinks that money will buy it for him. Blake knows it won't, but he'll never convince Avon of that; he'll have to find another approach.

But before he can come up with it, Avon surprises him by offering him one. "All right, Blake," he says. "We know what you want to do with it--bring down the Federation, make the galaxy safe for downtrodden humanity everywhere. A noble gesture." He flashes a mock smile. "But let us suppose for a moment that your crusade is over. Suppose that there are no more evil oppressors to be defeated. What would you do with your treasure then? What does Roj Blake want?"

The question catches him off guard. What does Roj Blake want? Since recovering his memory, his only thought has been to destroy the monstrous regime that took it from him. He bites his lip and looks at Avon. "I don't know," he admits. "The Federation took my dreams and replaced them with dreams of their own."

"It's not very pleasant being forced to live someone else's dreams, is it?"

No, it's not. And suddenly, he understands the real problem. Avon's dream is within his reach; it's right in front of him. And Blake is telling him he has to give it up, give it up in service of Blake's goals, sacrifice it to a war they may never win. And he must give it up; no matter what, Blake won't abandon the fight. Perhaps it might help if Avon thinks that his isn't the only dream being sacrificed, if he sees Blake giving up a dream, too. But what was Blake's dream? He can't remember.

"I wanted something once," he says. "I wanted . . ." But it's gone, just out of reach. He thinks back, searching for some fragment of desire, something that made him happy, that he wanted more of. He remembers trips off-world in his youth, seasons with his uncle Ushton, visits to frontier planets with his engineer father. There's something there. It feels right, familiar. "I think I'd like to live on an agricultural planet."

"You, a farmer?" Avon is skeptical.

Blake shakes his head. "No, not a farm. I'd have a repair shop. Help the farmers keep their machinery running, maybe help out with the harvest. And I'd have a little patch of garden for my own. I could grow tomatoes, cucumbers. And an apple tree. Pick my own apples right off the tree, and eat them. There's no food as good as food you've grown yourself; Dome food is slag and ash by comparison."

Nostalgia creeps over him and he finds himself warming to his subject. "Being out on the land, seeing the change of seasons--it's a sense of renewal that you don't get inside the domes. Every day something is different--the color of the sky, the scent of the air, the cry of a bird. A man, a free man, can feel his life means something, that he's more than just a cog in a machine. That's what I want, Avon. I want to be free. I want everyone to be free. But as long as the Federation exists to oppress one single human being, I'll never be truly free." He looks Avon right in the eyes. "And neither will you."

For a long moment Avon doesn't react at all, and Blake wonders if he's gone too far, pushed too hard. But he's made his move, and it's too late to back down now. He waits, letting the silence put on the pressure for him.

But Avon seems immune to any pressure. When he eventually does react, it's to flick a glance towards Vila, who nods encouragingly. Avon frowns, and turns back to Blake.

"All right, Blake," he says. "Use your treasure to fund your rebellion. I won't touch it. But anything I acquire . . ." He pauses and indicates Vila, ". . . anything we acquire on our own is ours to keep. You have no claim on it."

It's acquiescence rather than true agreement, and not what Blake had hoped for, but it will do for now. "So long as you don't risk the ship and crew or our mission to get it."

Avon nods. Satisfied, Blake reaches into his pocket for a teleport bracelet and thumbs the call button. "Jenna," he says. "Have Zen open the vault door."

"Right," comes the crisp reply. "It's about time." Within seconds the door is being cranked open.

Blake finds that a small part of him is reluctant to go back to business as usual. He turns to Avon. "Thank you," he says.

"Don't thank me," says Avon. "This isn't about your doomed crusade; I've no interest in becoming one of your martyrs. If you want to thank someone, thank Vila."


Puzzled, Blake complies. "Thank you, Vila."

"You're welcome. What'd I do?"

"You," Avon says, wrinkling his nose, "are in dire need of a bath." He turns and heads down the corridor towards the crew quarters. Vila sniffs the air unhappily and does the same.

Blake bursts into laughter as he watches them go.

He still doesn't know how he passed Avon's test. He's sure there will be other tests in the future. But for the present, he's ahead in the game, and he'll keep on playing. Today, somehow, he's won Avon's cooperation, but there are other prizes to be won still. He won't be satisfied until he's won Avon over to the cause of freedom, until Avon agrees that the Federation must be brought down.

And perhaps, someday, he'll even win the confidence and loyalty that Avon guards so jealously.

That would be treasure, indeed.



-End-

A/N: Marian requested Blake, Avon, and Vila in a 'cave' story with fur, jewels, and no permanent damage to the characters.
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Last updated 4/12/05