Deadman Switch

by Timothy Zahn

  It would indeed help, I could tell. Rybakov’s tension level decreased noticeably as she decided he was serious. “It came as most things do in politics,” she growled at last. “I owed a favor; it was collected.”

  “What kind of a favor?”

  “None of your business,” she said evenly.

  Again Randon glanced at me. I shrugged in return—all I could tell was that it was something personal, and that it probably really was none of his business. “May I ask, then, who it was who collected on the favor?”

  “I’d rather not say.”

  “It had to be someone from HTI, of course,” Randon continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “Chun Li?—or was it Blake or Karash? Or one of the middle-level people doing the managers’ dirty work for them?”

  “I’d rather not say,” Rybakov repeated, more emphatically this time.

  “Blake,” I murmured.

  Both sets of eyes turned to me: Randon’s with an almost smug satisfaction, Rybakov’s with a mixture of anger and resignation. “You sure?” Randon asked.

  “It was the name she reacted to,” I told him.

  “Ah.” He shrugged. “Well, it can’t always be the unobvious one, can it?”

  Rybakov seemed to brace herself. “And now … ?”

  Randon raised an eyebrow. “And now what? As I said, Governor, I don’t intend to either press charges or make this matter public. As far as I’m concerned, it’s an internal matter between the Carillon Group and one of its subsidiaries. We’ll deal with it from Portslava.”

  “I see.” Again, she seemed to measure his words. “May I ask, then, whether or not you’ve had a chance to examine the records HTI was so anxious to recover?”

  It was as if someone had flipped a switch. Abruptly, the sparring-level tension in the room jumped an order of magnitude. A mutually held secret, I decided, reading the identical emotion in both of them. A secret neither of them really wanted to discuss. “My financial expert and I went over them last evening,” Randon told her after a brief pause.

  The muscles in Rybakov’s face tightened still further. A shared secret, for certain. “And what do you plan to do about it?” she asked quietly.

  “That’ll be up to my father and the rest of the Carillon board to decide,” he said, his voice heavy with condemnation. “And probably the High Judiciary, as well.”

  Rybakov’s face darkened with anger … but it was anger tinged with the awareness that she was standing on a warm ice bridge. “Before you pass judgment, Mr. Kelsey-Ramos,” she said, “you should do me the courtesy of listening to my side of the story. And perhaps trying to understand the dilemma Solitaire as a whole is in.”

  He cocked his head slightly to the side. “I’m listening,” he invited.

  She glanced pointedly in my direction. “Perhaps this is something best kept between the two of us.”

  Clearly, Rybakov wanted to get rid of me. Just as clearly, Randon wasn’t going to have any of that. “I already told you that my financial expert knows,” he reminded her.

  “Who presumably is better able to see the financial and legal consequences,” she retorted. “As well as just the—” She broke off.

  “As well as the ethical ones?” Randon finished for her with a snort. He turned to me, and I braced myself for whatever was coming. “We’re talking about smuggling, Benedar,” he told me. “The illegal transport of metals out of Solitaire system.”

  The mental bracing did little good. For a half dozen heartbeats I still just stared at him, totally stunned. “But that’s impossible,” I managed at last. “How do they—?”

  And then it hit me, a delayed-action kick, and my mouth went suddenly dry. “They … kidnap people for the Deadman Switch?”

  “What, is that so hard to believe of our fallen human race?” Rybakov snorted cynically. “I thought you religious types were always weeping and wailing about how wicked we all are.”

  Randon’s eyes flicked back to her. “You were going to tell me your side of it,” he reminded her.

  She glared at him, softened a bit. “Try to understand, Mr. Kelsey-Ramos, that I’m caught between two diametrically opposed requirements here. I’m sworn to uphold Patri law within Solitaire system, yes; but at the same time I’m under a less formal but no less pressing obligation to keep the supply of metals flowing from the ring mines. There’s no easy way to reconcile these two goals.”

  “When it’s a matter of people’s lives-—” I broke off as, in her eyes, sour contempt mixed with a sense that she’d indeed been right about not wanting to tell me about the smuggling. The righteously self-blind Watcher, unable to see the Broad Scheme Of Things …

  “In case you haven’t noticed,” Rybakov told me, “the decision’s already been made that Solitaire is worth people’s lives.”

  “Condemned criminals’ lives,” Randon corrected her. “Not those of innocents.”

  She glowered at him. “All right, then, fine. You and your Watcher friend want to play God? Tell me how you’d go about stopping smugglers from moving in and out of a system this size.”

  Randon and I eyed each other. “At the risk of stating the obvious,” Randon said, “what is Commodore Freitag doing about the problem? Between parties, that is?”

  Rybakov snorted gently. “So you noticed the commodore’s fondness for vodkyas, did you? That’s part of the problem right there.”

  I remembered back to our brief meeting with Commodore Freitag at the governor’s mansion … to my sense that the man wasn’t nearly as slowed down as he’d appeared. The same tolerance to vodkyas Lord Kelsey-Ramos had often used to his advantage … “Your father enjoys parties, too,” I murmured to Randon.

  He eyed me thoughtfully, and I could see he’d picked up on what I was saying. “The same way?” he asked, making sure.

  “Very similar, at least.”

  “Um.” He looked back at Rybakov. “What size force does Freitag have to work with when he isn’t partying?”

  “Two Pravilo destroyers and thirteen or fourteen insystem corvettes,” she said. “A shade on the light side for covering two planets and a gas giant ring system, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I would indeed,” he admitted. “Hasn’t he tried to get a larger force?”

  “Roughly twice a month. So far the ships aren’t available. Or so the excuse goes.”

  A sour look flicked across Randon’s expression. “As if, you mean, someone high up in the Patri didn’t want him to have any real chance of stopping the smuggler trade?”

  She held his gaze steadily. “You said it. I didn’t.”

  I cleared my throat. “Excuse me, Governor,” I spoke up as they both looked at me, “but you said the force covers two planets?”

  “Solitaire and Spall,” she said shortly. “Double planet, remember? Or aren’t you religious types able to count anything that doesn’t come in threes, sevens, or twelves?”

  “Spall?” Randon frowned. “Since when is Spall inhabited?”

  “Oh, there’ve always been a handful of scientific parties poking around up there,” she shrugged. “The theory being that every planet has some value to it, I guess.” Her sense abruptly hardened. “Though at the moment Spall’s primary value seems to be as a dumping ground for Halloas.”

  Randon threw me a glance. “As a what?”

  Rybakov waved a hand in a brushing-off gesture. “Oh, the Halo of God’s leaders decided they were getting too much interference with their God-reception down here, or some such nonsense, so a couple of thousand of them pulled up and headed to Spall where they could meditate in peace. We don’t especially miss them.”

  Randon pursed his lips, and behind his usual ambivalence toward religious matters I could sense a clear distaste for Rybakov’s blatant prejudice. “I’m sure the feeling is mutual,” he told her coolly. “How long have they been up there?”

  “A couple-three years, some of them,” Rybakov said, her interest in this topic sliding rapidly toward zero. “They seem to be settling in t
o stay—they’ve got their primitive settlements scattered all over the planet.”

  “Perhaps they plan to apply for colony world status,” I murmured.

  Rybakov snorted, but I could see that the same idea had occurred to her, too. And that she didn’t like it at all. “Never in the lifetime of the Patri,” she said flatly. “Mr. Kelsey-Ramos, we’re getting a little off the main subject here. Even if the Pravilo didn’t have to keep an eye on those religious fools on Spall, it would still be hopelessly inadequate to patrol Solitaire and the ring mines, which would still leave me in the position of having to enforce an unenforceable law. So before you start laying blame perhaps you’ll tell me what you think Carillon can do to change that.”

  “I don’t know what my father will decide,” Randon said evenly. “But you can rest assured that he won’t settle for a business as usual that allows innocent people to be kidnapped and murdered.”

  Rybakov’s face twisted sardonically. “I can hardly wait to see what the supremely ethical Lord Kelsey-Ramos comes up with.” Abruptly, before Randon had figured out whether or not she was being insulting, she got to her feet. “But until that day of miracles, I still have a government to run. Good day to you, Mr. Kelsey-Ramos.”

  “Good day, Governor.” Randon keyed for the door, and as it opened I caught a glimpse of Kutzko waiting to escort her back to the gatelock.

  The door closed behind her, and I turned back to Randon. “I’m sorry if I embarrassed you back there,” I apologized. “The idea of smuggling out of Solitaire had never occurred to me before.”

  “It occurred to someone in HTI,” he grunted. “How to get around license limitations, in one easy lesson.”

  A memory clicked. “A short course other corporations seem to have taken, as well,” I said slowly. “Last night—the tension directed toward you at the governor’s reception? I would say they all knew you had the raw information that would let you figure out HTI’s smuggling connection.”

  He nodded sourly. “Makes sense. And they’re all worried stiff that Carillon will bring the Patri down on them instead of joining in the game.”

  I shivered. The thought of kidnapping another human being and deliberately killing him … “I wonder if there are any smugglers in the system at the moment.”

  “Probably.” Randon’s eyes narrowed slightly as he picked up on my tone. “Why?”

  “It could be the answer to our problem with Calandra,” I told him. “Almost certainly a smuggling ship will be crewed by non-Solitarans, and by definition they’ll already have committed murder at least once—”

  “Wait a minute,” Randon cut me off. “Let’s not jump overboard on this, shall we?”

  I stared at him for a long second. In the space of a single heartbeat his sense had totally changed. “What’s the trouble?” I asked carefully. “Carillon will be calling a halt to HTI’s smuggling arrangements, won’t it?”

  “That’ll be up to my father and the rest of the board,” he snapped. “Not to me.”

  For a minute we just looked at each other. Then, finally, he sighed. “Look, Benedar. I don’t have to be religious to agree that what the smugglers are doing is about as odious a business as I’ve ever heard of. But the minute Carillon or anyone else files that kind of complaint against HTI, their assets and activities will immediately be frozen. Immediately.”

  And at last I understood. “And since it’s HTI, not Carillon, who actually holds the Solitaire license … ?”

  He grimaced at the accusation in my voice, but nodded. “Carillon will be frozen out of Solitaire,” he finished my sentence. “For at least six months. Probably longer.”

  I bit the back of my lip. “Lord Kelsey-Ramos wouldn’t let that stop him.”

  And knew instantly I’d made a mistake. Randon’s forehead furrowed, his facial muscles tightening with a combination of anger and guilt and worry. “But my father isn’t here, is he?” he shot back. “I’m here, and I’m the one who’s making the decisions.”

  The words were limp, and we both knew it. He was out of his depth here; faced with a problem he hadn’t been prepared for, and his response was going to be to simply not make any decision at all. He knew it, and I knew it … and for that one moment he despised me for knowing it.

  I should have backed off right then, dropped the subject until he could discuss it without the weight of his father’s own history of decisive action looming over him. But my words were already on their way out, and I couldn’t stop them. “Then what about Calandra?”

  And in the face of what he clearly regarded, as pressure, I could almost see his mind slam shut. “What about her?” he almost snarled. “In a week she’ll sit at the Deadman Switch and die, that’s what. What do you want me to say?—that I’ll risk years of Carillon’s future for a condemned criminal?”

  “She’s innocent!”

  “So you say. Where’s the proof?”

  I clenched my teeth. “I’ve already told you: back on Outbound.”

  “Fine! So we’ll have the records examined. If she’s innocent I’ll see to it she’s posthumously exonerated.”

  I looked at him, tasting the sour acid of defeat. Look, I am sending you out like sheep among wolves; so be cunning as snakes and yet innocent as doves … Even Watcher training, I reflected bitterly, was no guarantee against stupid behavior … and in talking to Randon as I would have to his father, I had behaved stupidly indeed. If he couldn’t bring himself to make a decision on this, he was nevertheless determined to pretend he was making one. To himself, even more than to me.

  It meant that anything I could say now would be useless. But I still had to try. “As I understand it,” I said carefully, “you’ve postponed our departure until tomorrow morning—”

  “If you’re heading where I think you are, you can blazing well forget it,” he cut me off. “We’re not going hunting for smugglers.”

  “No, sir. But if I can find one on my own—?”

  “Not even if you deliver him to Governor Rybakov gift-wrapped,” he growled. “How clear do I have to make it to you?”

  I stifled a grimace. “It’s clear enough already, sir,” I told him stiffly.

  “All right. Then get out—and try to remember why you’re along on this trip in the first place.”

  I was back in my own stateroom before the hot flush left my cheeks. As cunning as snakes … but even as I flopped down on my bed, the beginnings of a new idea began to take shape in the back of my mind. All right; I’d been forbidden to hunt down a smuggler on my own. But if I could give just the right push to just the right person …

  I thought about it for several minutes, considering possibilities, trying to recall every nuance of sensation I’d gleaned from the governor’s reception the previous evening. It was worth a try … especially since the option was to give up and let an innocent woman die.

  And surely if Randon was presented with a substitute criminal, he wouldn’t refuse the chance to let Calandra live. Surely he wouldn’t.

  Chapter 12

  I GOT PAST TWO layers of bureaucratic blockages on the strength of the Kelsey-Ramos name; but at the last one my luck ran out. “I’m sorry, Mr. Benedar,” the Pravilo lieutenant in the outer office informed me. “Commodore Freitag has an extremely full schedule today. If you’d like to make an appointment, I’ll check and see when he can fit you in.”

  “I’m afraid it can’t wait,” I shook my head. “I’ll be leaving for the ring mines tomorrow morning with Mr. Kelsey-Ramos—”

  “Then you’re out of luck, aren’t you?” he cut me off. “I’m sorry.”

  “The commodore will want to see me,” I told him, lowering the temperature of my voice a few degrees.

  The lieutenant, unfortunately, was used to such maneuvers. “Then he’ll be sorry he missed you, won’t he?” he said coolly. “Good day, Mr. Benedar.”

  I pursed my lips. “Will you at least take a note in to him?” I bargained. “If he doesn’t want to see me after he’s read it, I’ll lea
ve quietly.”

  He considered telling me that he had the power to make me leave quietly regardless; but by now he was sufficiently intrigued to take a minor risk. “All right,” he said, a touch of challenge in his voice.

  I scribbled a note on the pad he offered me and then folded it. “For the commodore’s eyes only,” I said, handing it over.

  The lieutenant cocked a sardonic eyebrow at me. “Certainly, sir,” he said. Getting up, he tapped a key to datalock his desk and crossed to the commodore’s office door behind him.

  I held my breath; but I didn’t have to wait even as long as I’d expected to. Less than a minute later the other was back. “Mr. Benedar … ?” he invited from the open doorway.

  This was it. Steeling myself, I walked past him into the office.

  Commodore Freitag was seated at an almost neurotically neat desk, situated in what I guessed was probably the geometrical center of the room. “Mr. Benedar,” he greeted me, almost lazily, not getting up from his chair. “Thank you, Lieutenant; you may go.”

  The other nodded silently and closed the door behind him. “I appreciate you seeing me on such short notice, Commodore,” I said.

  Freitag cocked a sardonic eyebrow. Probably where the lieutenant had picked up the gesture. “On Solitaire, Mr. Benedar, appreciation takes the form of tangible favors.”

  I gestured at my note, in front of him on the desk. “And my offer doesn’t qualify?”

  “That depends, doesn’t it? ‘My name is Gilead Raca Benedar. I know what you’re trying to do about the smugglers, and I think I may be able to help.’ Not particularly specific.”

  “It wasn’t meant to be,” I shrugged. He had, I noted, quoted the note from memory. “It also seems that on Solitaire specifics are handled face to face.”

  Steepling his fingers, he leaned back in his chair. “Well, we’re certainly face to face now,” he said. “Why don’t you start by telling me exactly what it is I’m supposedly doing about these alleged smugglers?”

  “Given your limited resources, you’re doing the only thing you can do: going to high-level social events and trying to root out information while you pretend to be enjoying yourself.”