"You plan to board it, Avon?" Cally asked.
Jenna frowned. "There could be a lot of dead bodies inside."
"Entering a tomb?" Vila looked horrified. "You're mad."
"You've heard Zen: the air is clean," Avon said. "If there are bodies, the recycling system must have filtered all putrefaction out."
Vila glared at him. "How do you know that machine's got it right?"
Avon walked over to the weapon storage wall. "Zen's scanners can be trusted. I'm going to take a look." He took a gun and held it out invitingly.
"Cally?"
Nodding, Cally walked over to him and accepted the gun. Avon took another for himself.
Jenna watched with growing anger. So Avon was already exploiting Cally's dependence! And what right had he to take over command in Blake's absence? His obvious competence made it all the more galling.
She reached for the communicator button. "Blake, are you well enough to come to the flight deck? We've come upon a drifting spacecraft. Avon wants to go over to investigate it."
"Thank you, Jenna," she heard Avon mumble darkly.
"Oh, well... if the capture of Blake doesn't interest you - I just thought you might like to be there."
"I'm not concerned about Blake at present. I have to attend to something more important."
"Really?" Travis raised his one eyebrow. "More important that the acquisition of sixty million credits?"
"Far more imp....." she paused. "Sixty million credits? Explain!"
"From the sale of a new wonder cure that Blake's escorting to the Medicomplex at Kun Rea."
"Cure, what cure?" she said absently.
"It's called hyinamel and...." he stopped as Servalan's cheeks paled.
"Did you say hyinamel?" she said urgently. "Travis," Servalan's voice was strangely unsteady, "Travis..." she checked herself with an effort and after a few seconds spoke normally. "When is this interception to take place?"
"I'm leaving now. I've been trying to contact you for days to see if you were interested in coming along, but no-one knew where you were," he shrugged, "at least if they did know, they wouldn't tell me."
"I'll join you," she said decisively, "give me five minutes."