Deadman Switch

Chapter 7

It took me over twice as long as the meeting itself had run to describe my observations of it, and when I was finished Randon was impressed.

Though not yet quite willing to admit it out loud. "Interesting," he said thoughtfully, gazing up at Calandra and me as he stretched out a bit more at his stateroom lounge desk. "Very interesting indeed. I'd picked up most of the high points myself, but confirmation is always nice to have. So what exactly do you think they're hiding?"

I glanced at Calandra, got a little confirmation of my own, and shrugged. "No way to tell, sir," I told him. "Also, please bear in mind that they may not be hiding anything specific. It could just as easily be a matter of them not wanting to make things easy for you."

He snorted. "Oh, that part of the group psyche came through in gigapix. And I still think they're hiding something."

"Probably," I conceded. "I just thought I ought to mention all the possibilities."

"Turning the other cheek again, huh? Well, I suppose we'll just have to wait until Schock finishes his tapment check on the cyls and we can get a look at them." He flared briefly with an almost overwhelming impatience, but he knew perfectly well that Schock couldn't plug the cyls into the ship's computer and download them without checking them first. If HTI had encoded some bookbugs or tapsnakes into any of the information, putting them into the Bellwether's system would be an invitation to disaster. Not only could we wind up losing all the HTI data, but a sophisticated enough tapsnake could conceivably open every other file aboard ship to HTI scrutiny and remote manipulation via the phone system.

There were effective methods to prewash suspected cyls, but they took time. So with an effort Randon forced down his impatience and shifted his attention to Calandra. "So. Having heard Benedar's analysis, do you have anything to add?"

"Not really," she said evenly. "I agree that they're hiding something, probably having to do with either their shipment records or trip quotas or the correlation between the two."

Randon frowned. "Why do you say that?"

"Because it was around those subjects that the tension seemed to peak," she explained. "And they were the only subjects that affected all three of the managers in the same way."

Randon looked at me. "Did you get that, too?"

"I picked up the tension increase," I acknowledged. "I can't confirm that it was all three—Karash was off to the side with Schock at the time—but the other two certainly reacted strongly when you hit those topics. Oh, and that guard—the one put there to distract me?—he also made a particularly bad jolt at the same time."

"That one's coincidence," Calandra shook her head. "The guard wasn't in enough control of himself to turn things on and off that way."

"You sure?" I asked.

"Yes. However, I was able to watch Karash, too; as I said, she reacted the same way Chun Li and Blake did."

Randon grunted. "Um. Interesting."

For a minute the room was silent. I watched Randon closely, trying to detect any subtle changes in his attitude toward Calandra. But if there was anything there, it was buried by the myriad of other things on his mind.

The moment of introspection was ended by the whistle of the phone. Picking up his control stick, Randon waved it toward the instrument. "Yes?"

The picture came on: Brad Seqoya, one of Kutzko's more massively built shields. "Seqoya, sir, at the gatelock. Thought you'd like to know that Mr. Aikman's just returned."

Randon made a face. "Thank you, Seqoya. On his way to see me?"

"Probably, sir. And he didn't look too happy."

Randon's sense took on a slyly amused edge. "All right, I'll be ready for him. Anything else going on down there?"

"Nothing much, sir. We had a Billingsgate rep and his customs escort here half an hour ago to pick up the molecule factory shipment, but nothing since then."

The amused edge disappeared, Randon's sense hardening into distaste. "One of our people went down with them, I hope."

"Yes, sir, as per orders."

Randon nodded, trying to clear his mind and not entirely succeeding. One of the laws governing Deadman Switch usage was that even passenger ships had to carry their share of cargo when entering or leaving Solitaire system, and there had been no exception made for the Bellwether. To me it seemed the only decent thing to do: if the toll for our passage was going to be a man's life, the least we could do is make that life count for as much as possible. But Randon didn't see it that way. To him the dead man was a zombi, hardly counting as a human being any more, and it irritated him immensely to have all these strangers traipsing in and out of his ship picking up packages. Aikman, I'd been told, had tried and failed to find any free space in the Rainbow's End receiving center where we could unload the cargo all at once... but given the way Aikman felt about us, I didn't entirely believe that story. "How much stuff is left down there?" Randon asked the shield.

"Oh, probably something over half, sir," Seqoya told him.

Randon grimaced, nodded. "You'd better give customs another call and remind them all this stuff has to be out before we leave for Collet tomorrow. Either they get the appropriate people here to pick it up, or else they find some storage space for it. Otherwise we leave it on the pad when we lift."

Seqoya smiled faintly. "Yes, sir. I'll get right on it."

Randon waved the control stick to break the connection and tossed the instrument on his desk. "You two'd better get out," he grunted. "Unless you want to face Aikman in a bad mood."

There was a touch of sly satisfaction beneath Randon's words. "I'd expected him to be at the meeting today, sir," I commented carefully. "Was there some trouble?"

"Oh, no—just a long errand I trapped him into." He shrugged. "After all, I could hardly have him walking in on the HTI meeting and letting everyone know they didn't have all the Watchers covered."

That thought hadn't even occurred to me. "I see."

"I wish I could see their faces when they find out who she is," he said, smiling to himself. "Anyway—" he picked up his control stick again and keyed it, and the door behind us opened. "Take her back to her stateroom," he instructed Daiv Ifversn as the latter stepped into the doorway.

I looked at Calandra as she turned silently to go... and for the first time I could see the stirrings of an almost grudging hope within her. "I'd like to stay for a moment, if I may," I said to Randon.

He glanced at me, nodded to Ifversn. "Go ahead," he told the other.

They left; but before I could figure out how to phrase the question, Randon saved me the trouble. "All right, I'll concede the point," he said. "You're a useful person to have at business confrontations; and you and she together are considerably more than twice as useful. Is that what you wanted me to say?"

"More or less, sir," I admitted.

He gave me a tight smile. "I haven't grown up a Kelsey-Ramos without picking up some of my father's tricks. Probably would've made a good Watcher myself if I'd cared to."

And though I have the power of prophecy, to penetrate all mysteries and knowledge... "I'm glad we're able to serve you," I said instead. "Will you be wanting both of us along at the governor's dinner reception tonight?"

He threw me a knowing look. "Still trying to make her more valuable to me alive than dead?"

His sense showed none of the rancor the words might have carried. "All people are worth more alive than dead," I returned, keeping my tone light.

He snorted, taking it in the serious but nonthreatening way I'd intended him to. "So you say. You might have trouble proving it. Anyway. You're in charge of getting Paquin ready for the reception tonight—you know what kind of clothes and whatnot women are expected to wear at such things?"

"I can handle it, sir."

"Good. Don't stint, either—there's no point in playing a game like this halfway. Well, go on—get out before Aikman gets here."

"Yes, sir," I nodded. "Thank you."

I passed Aikman on my way down the corridor. From even that brief touch of his sense I was glad I hadn't stayed around.

—

Kutzko was just where I'd expected to find him: loitering around the exit-corridor storage closets, where he was within easy reach of both the gatelock and the slightly more extensive storage areas where our duty cargo was stored. "All hail the conquering hero," he greeted me. "How'd Mr. Kelsey-Ramos like it?"

"What, our report on the meeting?" I shrugged. "He wasn't as attentive as Lord Kelsey-Ramos would have been, but then he's new to this. He seemed impressed enough."

"I'd say so, yes," was his dry rejoinder. "Considering the order just came through that she'd be coming to the reception tonight." He grinned with a mock-evil-tinged dreaminess. "Can you imagine what the assembled dignitaries would say if they knew they were hosting a zombi?"

I could, and it made me wince. "Mikha, I need a favor."

"Sure. What?"

I hesitated. "I need a complete listing of capital crimes under Solitaire law."

His eyebrows raised a couple of millimeters. "You looking to start a new hobby?"

"It's for a friend," I told him, matching his dry tone. "I also need to know if there are any places in the system—the ring mines for instance—where Patri law might possibly take precedence."

"Solitaire law covers the entire system." He shook his head, eyes boring into mine. "This unnamed friend wouldn't by any chance be our outzombi, would it?"

I hadn't really expected to fool him. "It would, yes," I admitted. "I'm trying to get her a new hearing back on Outbound."

Understanding came into his face. "And having the hearing take place after she's dead kind of defeats the purpose?"

I nodded. "Unfortunately, in order to keep her alive I have to find a replacement for her."

Kutzko's eyes defocused a bit. "So you want a list of capital crimes to see who we could stick with that honor. And you want the ring mines because that's where we'll be leaving the system from?"

"More or less." For the moment, there seemed no reason to mention how limited the pool of potential zombi candidates actually was. "Can you do that?"

"No problem," he assured me. "Now: what's the other favor you want?"

"What makes you think there is one?" I countered.

He smiled slyly. "Oh, come on, Gilead. The blazing Solitaran penal code you could find on your own."

I sighed. "Sometimes I wish you'd been born stupid," I told him. "Okay. At the moment we're scheduled to leave tomorrow, which means the reception tonight will probably be my only chance to talk directly to Governor Rybakov. And I have to talk to her—privately or reasonably so."

Again, that knowing look. "And you want me ready to run interference?"

"Basically, yes."

He paused, considering, and I could see that he was weighing the risks of possibly winding up square in the middle of this whole mess. "You really think she's innocent?" he asked at last.

I nodded. "I do. The more I see of her, the less I think she could be a murderer."

He pursed his lips, then shrugged. "Okay, sure, I'll do it. Give me a sign when you're ready and I'll try to make you a bubble to talk in."

I exhaled silently. "Thanks, Mikha. I really appreciate it."

"No problem." He studied my face. "Just one question: is Mr. Kelsey-Ramos one of the people I'm supposed to keep out of this bubble?"

It was a question that had also been nagging at me. At the moment I had at least his tacit approval for what I was doing... but making an embarrassing nuisance of myself at a formal reception would evaporate that support in double-quick time. Unfortunately, I had no way of knowing in advance where the crucial dividing line lay. "There shouldn't be a problem as long as I'm discreet," I said as reassuringly as possible. There was no point in him worrying about it, too.

"And if you're not, I pretend I don't know you?"

"Fair enough. Try to be gentle when you throw me out of the building."

He grinned lopsidedly. "I'll bring Brad along and let him do it."

"Oh, thanks a lot," I snorted. "I'll either wind up in orbit or in a burn-out trajectory."

His grin faded into seriousness, a seriousness that somehow made me brace myself. "You know, there is one other way to get the Bellwether a new zombi."

I gazed at him, feeling the cold-steel edge there. "Pick one up ourselves?" I asked carefully.

He nodded in Cameo's direction. "Even Solitaire's got its quota of drifters and generally unwanted people. Some of them might be criminals from the rest of the Patri and colonies who finagled passage here and are hiding out."

"You know I could never be party to something like that," I said, my lips suddenly dry. "It would be murder."

"Which the Deadman Switch isn't?"

I gritted my teeth. "Two wrongs have never yet made a right. Besides, you'd never get Mr. Kelsey-Ramos to go along with something like that."

He cocked an eyebrow. "Maybe. Maybe not I'll bet there would be a way to rig it to look like someone had stowed away and tried to seize control of the ship." He paused. "You may not know it," he added obliquely, "but Lord Kelsey-Ramos has been trying to find a second Watcher for his staff for a couple of years now."

An odd haze of unreality settled over me, a disbelief that I was even talking about this... "No," I said firmly. "Absolutely not. If I can save Calandra legally, I'll do it. Not otherwise."

"Even if the illegal zombi deserved death anyway?" he countered.

All have sinned and lack God's glory... "Even then," I told him.

For a moment we looked at each other. Then Kutzko shrugged acceptance. "If that's how you want it," he said. "If you'll pardon my saying so, I think your sense of ethics is on the overdone side."

"Possibly," I said evenly. "But any ethics you can throw out when they're inconvenient wouldn't be worth much as ethics, would they?"

"I suppose not," he said, and I could sense him backing away from the topic. "I suppose I should start getting my people ready for tonight."

"And I have to get Calandra some formal wear ordered, anyway," I reminded myself aloud.

"There's a catalog listed on the main Rainbow's End phone list," he offered. "I scanned through it some last night, and it seems pretty complete."

"Thanks, I'll take a look."

It was only minutes later, in the privacy of my stateroom, that the enormity of what had just happened hit me with delayed force. Not just that Kutzko, a man I thought a great deal of, had been willing to consider kidnap and murder... but that I had actually been on the verge of considering it myself.

And my knees began to shake.