|
Gan: | And if you can stomach doing business with the Terra Nostra. |
Blake: | We're going to use them, Gan, not do business with them. |
Avon: | A subtle distinction that escapes me for the moment. |
Blake: | Don't tell me you have a moral objection to using their organization
to infiltrating Earth? |
Avon: | Of course not. |
Gan: | Well, I have. |
Blake: | Think, Gan. Think what they've got - men, material, information. Think
what we could do with a fraction of what they control. |
Gan: | No, you think Blake. Think what it is they control - everything dirty,
degrading and cruel, on just about every colonized world. |
Blake: | Earth is all I'm interested in. |
. | ... |
|
Vila: | Blake's wrong. |
Cally: | I know how you feel, Vila. |
Vila: | I don't mean about leaving me behind. I've wanted to visit Space City
ever since I was old enough to read the graffiti in the Juvenile Dentention Wards.
But I'm not talking about that. I don't care about that. |
Cally: | No, of course not. |
Vila: | I don't. |
Cally: | Am I arguing? |
Vila: | I'm talking about his great plan to enlist the help of the Terra Nostra. |
Cally: | He plans to buy their help. |
Vila: | Alright, buy their help. It still won't work. |
Cally: | Well, you should have spoken before. |
Vila: | Who listens to me ever? Does anyone ever listen to me? I'm telling you it's
going to be a disaster. |
Cally: | Relax. |
Vila: | You don't know them. |
Cally: | Well, I know Blake. |
Vila: | He thinks of himself as a hard man. Hard? He's strictly a fluffy-cheeked
amateur compared to those boys. |
Cally: | I think Blake can look after himself. |
Vila: | He's led a very sheltered life. |
Cally: | What? Blake has led a sheltered life? |
Vila: | Look, he was an alpha grade on Earth. A highly privileged group, the alphas.
He wouldn't last 5 mins among the delta service grades where I grew up. And it's the
service grades where the Terra Nostra really operates. Without anesthetic usually. |
. | ... |
|
Avon: | In effect, we want to buy cooperation and expertise from the Earth based network. |
Largo: | Well, why are you telling me all this? |
Jenna: | We don't know who rules the Terra Nostra. Possibly you don't either. But you do know
how to get our proposition to them. |
Largo: | A go-between. |
Avon: | Naturally we would be prepared to pay for your services. |
. | ... |
|
. | [Avon picks up the stones after Largo says the Terra Nostra doesn't exist] |
Largo: | They're beautiful stones. I'm a bit of a collector, in a modest way. I could make
you an offer. |
Avon: | They have a sentimental value for me. |
Largo: | Oh, family heirlooms. |
Avon: | No, I'm just sentimental about money. [to Blake] We're wasting our time with him. |
Blake: | Yes, I think so. [snaps his fingers, holds out his hand. Avon slams the bag of jewels
into it.] |
. | ... |
|
Blake: | Okay, we've wasted enough time. Let's get back to the Terra Nostra. |
Gan: | Back? We only just managed to get away from them. |
Blake: | We chose the wrong approach, that's all. |
Gan: | Is that all? I thought maybe we'd chosen the wrong people to get involved with. |
Avon: | We chose the wrong approach? |
Blake: | I chose the wrong approach. Does it matter? |
Avon: | Yes, it does. |
Blake: | Alright, Avon. You were right and I was wrong. You said persuasion wouldn't work
and it didn't. So now we use force. |
Avon: | Force? Yes, of course. Law makers, law breakers. Let us fight them all. Why not? |
. | ... |
|
Gan: | The drug in return for their help? Blake, that would make us pushers. |
Blake: | Well, maybe we won't keep our end of the bargain. |
Gan: | And that will make us cheats. |
Blake: | That will make us winners, Gan. That's the only excuse for fighting. |
Jenna: | It's too good a chance to miss, Gan. |
. | ... |
|
. | [One more time Cally is taken over my aliens - this one an other dimension
intelligence trying to work through Orac, whose signals go through the alien's dimension, the same dimension in which Cally's
telepathy exists. Yes, I know.] |
Blake: | How is she? |
Avon: | The same. I left the girl with her. |
Blake: | Have you run the dianostic checks again? |
Avon: | Still nothing. There's no physical explanation for her condition, unless somehow
it's locked up in here and I don't see how that can be. |
Blake: | She is an alien. |
Avon: | She is more human than I am. |
. | ... |
|
Avon: | Ironic, isn't it? We were hoping to use the Terra Nostra to attack the federation,
only to discover that it is already being used to support it. |
Vila: | Where are all the good guys? |
Blake: | You could be looking at them. |
Avon: | What a very depressing thought. |
. | ... |