Jacqui wrote: <Avon expects to be picked up/'rescued' ->

Well, MHO is that he *doesn't* - he knows he's walking wide-eyed into a trap, and that he will die (I love the line "Sentiment breeds weakness. Let it get a hold of you and you are dead," a beeeyootiful comment on what he's doing throughout).

After all, not only does he tell them to get out if he misses one call (which instruction they *could* ignore, and he knows it) but he's made damn sure that in twelve hours they will leave him *whether they want to or not* - "the ship will set course for Calipheron. You cannot override it." Twelve hours isn't all that long, you know ...

<otherwise why take Orac's key with him?>

Personally I think that was just habit (do remember, he's not thinking *at all* clearly even if he's had a sleep :-)) though you could argue that it's to prevent them getting Orac to override the above course instruction.

<(and the others have told him on more than one occasion - in 'Terminal' and RoD offhand, that they care for him - at least as a team member)>

Yeeeessss ... and he *really* appreciated it in RoD, didn't he? They butted into his private affairs and - albeit said butting in saved his life - he clearly resented it ("This has nothing to do with you -- any of you," "So shut up and let me do what I came to do.")

Again, MHO is that his decision to keep all of them - even Cally and Vila - out of the possibly-Blake business was partly inspired by the fact that he couldn't trust them all to (I-*his*-O, not at all humble) 'mind their own business'. He doesn't want them there if he *does* meet Blake again (given the amount of emotion on his face during that little 'talk', I don't blame him.)

And of course he doesn't want to risk all of them - and the ship - if it's a trap.

I think he expects to die on Terminal. His expression when he sees what he thinks is Blake clearly indicates (to me) that he *did not* have much if any hope that it was true. He knows what he's doing is suicidal (that's why all the precautions for the others) but he just can't ignore the one-off chance that he's wrong ... _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.