Deadman Switch

by Timothy Zahn

  “In other words, as a protection from invasion,” Rybakov snorted. “As I said.”

  Eisenstadt glanced at Freitag. “Again, not necessarily, Governor,” Freitag said. “It’s possible that they’re maintaining the Cloud in order to protect us.”

  Rybakov opened her mouth, a retort ready … closed it again as her sense turned suddenly thoughtful. “Uh-huh,” she said at last. “Well, that’s hardly a flattering thought—rather reduces our role here to something like pets or valuable wildlife.”

  “Or an equally valuable scientific study,” Eisenstadt offered. “That might explain, too, why they hid their sentience from us for so long.”

  “Perhaps. Hardly an improvement over being pets, to my mind.” She frowned into space for a moment. “Didn’t they say at your first contact that they didn’t have any interest in studying us?”

  “What they actually said was that they had no desire to learn any more about us,” Eisenstadt corrected her. “If they already had seventy years of such studies behind them, they would hardly need any more.”

  Rybakov snorted gently. “Again, a strictly truthful statement that nevertheless manages to mislead. I don’t like the pattern I see forming here.”

  There was considerable irony in such a complaint coming from a professional politician, but Eisenstadt had the sense to pass up the obvious barbs. “At least they seem reluctant to tell out-and-out lies,” he shrugged. “Don’t forget, too, that they’ve already demonstrated respect for human life. When that shield—what was his name, Gilead?”

  “Mikha Kutzko,” I supplied. A pang of guilt poked in under my concentration; I’d hardly thought at all over the past few weeks about what might be happening with him and the others on the Bellwether.

  Eisenstadt nodded. “When Kutzko did his little experiment to see how fast the thunderheads could learn, they could presumably have tried to kill him instead of going after his needler.”

  “Protecting their scientific experiment,” Rybakov said sourly. “—yes, I know, Doctor, it’s better than being considered enemies,” she added as Eisenstadt started to speak, “Anyway, the issue of thunderhead perceptions is low on the priority list at the moment. What’s important is how we’re going to deal with the Invaders. Any ideas, Commodore?”

  Freitag waved a hand uncomfortably. “I’ve done a couple of preliminary scenarios, but none of them is especially promising.”

  “What’s the problem, the speed they’re making?”

  “Basically. You have to remember that they’re doing twelve percent lightspeed; that’s thirty-six thousand kilometers a second. None of our weapons has the slightest chance of even tracking something that fast, let alone connecting with it.”

  “What about shooting at them from the front?” Rybakov asked. “We know what their course is, after all.”

  “Wait a moment,” I objected. “Isn’t this a little early to be thinking about shooting at them? We haven’t even tried to talk to them yet.”

  All three looked at me; Rybakov with impatience, Freitag with an almost guilty impatience, Eisenstadt with genuine regret. “The problem, Gilead,” the latter said, “is that their speed also pretty well precludes any kind of communication. We’d have to use high-density pulses, fired from close range the instant they passed, and signals like that are notoriously sensitive to the sort of electromagnetic fluxes they’ve got operating.”

  “But surely they know how to compensate for that,” I argued. “I mean, they must have some way of watching ahead of them, at the very least.”

  “I’m sure they do,” Freitag said, his discomfort putting gruffness in his voice. “But they’ll be watching out for cometary masses, not pulsed radio signals. And besides …” He seemed to brace himself. “It might not be a good idea to tip them off that we’re even aware of them. It would lose us any advantage of surprise we might still have.”

  I looked at him, feeling the blood draining from my face. Look at them, lurking to ambush me, violent men are attacking me, for no fault, no sin of mine … “You can’t do that,” I said quietly. “It would be nothing less than mass murder.”

  “It’s called survival,” Rybakov said sharply.

  “Since when?” I demanded. “This isn’t some sudden, split-second assault we have to react to—they’re not even going to be here for, what, ten years?”

  “More than that,” Freitag grunted. “Somewhere along the line they’ll have to flip their ships over and start decelerating; depending on what kind of thrust their engines can handle, it could be anything from twelve to twenty years before they arrive.”

  “Which means that everyone involved will have plenty of time to weigh the alternatives,” Eisenstadt told me soothingly. “I presume, Governor, that ‘everyone,’ in this case, will be people other than us?”

  Rybakov nodded. “The Patri will almost certainly want to set up a commission to examine the situation and make recommendations.” She turned to me. “Your job, Benedar, will be to continue assisting in the thunderhead study. That is, if Dr. Eisenstadt still needs you.”

  “I do,” Eisenstadt said. Almost too quickly. “Both he and Ms. Paquin are proving indispensable.”

  Rybakov shrugged, striving for off-handedness but not entirely succeeding. “Fine. Let me know when either of them becomes superfluous. Well. Thank you, Doctor; Commodore. I congratulate you both on your work in this, and I’m sure the Patri will find a way to put their appreciation into more concrete form. Good day to you all; Dr. Eisenstadt, keep me informed on your work.”

  Freitag parted company with us outside the governor’s mansion, heading for his office at the main Solitaran Pravilo HQ, as Eisenstadt and I headed back to Rainbow’s End and the shuttle awaiting us there. I waited until we were aboard, out of earshot of drivers and crewers, before asking Eisenstadt the obvious question. “What did the governor mean, that you should let her know when either Calandra or I became superfluous?”

  “Oh, there’ve been some further legal rumblings about you two,” he shrugged, trying hard to sound unconcerned. “Same sort of thing as before.”

  “You mean that Calandra’s execution should be carried out?”

  “Mainly,” he said. “There’s also some noise that you ought to be charged for your role in her escape. Completely ridiculous, especially given the importance of what it was you two stumbled onto poking around Spall.”

  I thought about that a moment. One of the immediate implications— “Then the Patri are still planning to keep all of this a secret as long as possible?”

  He nodded, throwing me a lopsided smile. “Uh-huh—and that’s very much to your advantage right now. As long as they’re reluctant to bring any more people than absolutely necessary into this, you two are by definition the only Watchers available. As long as I need you, Rybakov’s not about to take you away.”

  “Yes, sir,” I murmured. To our advantage, certainly … and even more to the Patri’s. No public knowledge meant no public opinion … and no public opinion meant they could plot the aliens’ destruction with complete impunity. Though a thousand fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, you yourself will remain unscathed … “Yes, sir,” I said again. “I understand.”

  Chapter 29

  FOR THE NEXT THREE weeks nothing much happened. Eisenstadt talked with the thunderheads once every couple of days, Calandra and I watching each contact and trying to learn how to read and interpret the aliens’ sense as they spoke through Shepherd Zagorin. Eisenstadt didn’t learn all that much from the conversations, and now that I was looking for it I realized that Governor Rybakov’s comment had indeed been correct: the thunderheads really did like making strictly truthful statements that were nevertheless misleading. At one point Eisenstadt got mad enough to consider calling them on it, but eventually decided not to. It could, after all, be merely an odd quirk of their psychology, in which case objecting would accomplish little and probably be insulting in the bargain.

  Of the approaching fleet they would say no
thing at all, no matter how many creative ways Eisenstadt found to rephrase the questions we wanted answers to. Eventually, he gave up asking, but only after he managed to obtain assurances that they would cooperate in guiding the observation ships the new Patri commission would undoubtedly be sending out.

  The commission itself arrived, bringing with them a pair of Pravilo ships, a selection of highly sophisticated sensor and photographic gear, and—I heard—upwards of a dozen zombis. The thought of the latter made me wince, and I wondered how I was going to handle living in the same camp with a full-fledged death-cell prison. But my worry turned out to be for nothing; instead of joining us, the commission opted to set up their headquarters a few hundred kilometers away in one of the now-abandoned smuggler bases. Settling in for a long, leisurely study, apparently, and unwilling to spend it in what was still something of a makeshift camp.

  It made me wonder what kind of people had been chosen for the commission; but after a little reflection I decided it might actually be a hopeful sign. Business and political leaders who liked their comfort might be less inclined to shoot first and sift the rubble later than would a group drawn strictly from the Pravilo’s military strategists. Indeed, after a meeting at their encampment, Eisenstadt told me that despite Freitag’s expectations to the contrary, the question of whether the Patri should try to open up communication with the fleet was indeed on the commission’s agenda. It was, I had to admit, as much as I could have hoped for.

  And so the commission sent out their ships, and I returned to my duties and let thoughts of the alien fleet sink into the distant background of my mind … and so was totally unprepared when, two weeks later, it all crumbled at my feet.

  Eisenstadt and Zagorin had had one of their—as usual—largely futile conversations with the thunderheads that morning; now, in late afternoon, the Butte City was deserted except for a pair of Pravilo guards keeping a fairly casual eye on the fenced corridor leading from the encampment. It was a good time to just sit and observe the thunderheads with a minimum of distractions, something I’d been doing a fair amount of lately. Ultimately, my goal was to learn to read them the way I did human beings; but like everything else connected with the thunderheads, this project seemed to be at a standstill. There were a great many subtle signals I could draw from the whitish shapes—movements, color changes, even the hint of soft, high-pitched sounds—but putting them together into anything more meaningful than simple awareness/unawareness was still far beyond my capabilities. It was frustrating in the extreme, but as long as they seemed determined to evade vital questions I had to keep trying.

  Especially if—I was honest enough to admit—it could make Calandra and me that much more valuable to Eisenstadt.

  The shadows from the dipping sun were crawling up the sides of the buttes, and I was just wondering if I should give up for the evening when the breeze brought me the faint sound of approaching tires.

  I frowned, wondering who else would be coming out here at this hour. The Pravilo guards were standing together, looking down along the corridor … and abruptly, both stiffened with sudden alertness.

  My heart seemed to skip a beat. Danger?—no. Sudden alertness, but neither man had made any move toward needler or phone. Sudden alertness … as in formal, parade-ground ceremonial. Some important official, then, on an unscheduled tour? It seemed likely; and if so, he and his shields might not be pleased to find me hanging around. I gritted my teeth, wondering if I would have time to make a discreet withdrawal before the approaching car blocked my exit; and then it was too late. The front of the car nosed into view and came to a stop, and two men climbed out … and I caught my breath. Even at that distance, with their faces too silhouetted against the sky to make out, their stances and movements were far too familiar to be mistaken.

  The taller of the two was Mikha Kutzko … and the shorter was Lord Kelsey-Ramos.

  I stared at them, feeling my mouth drop open as my brain fluttered like a stunned bird. Lord Kelsey-Ramos, here? I’d been told that travel to and from even Solitaire had been heavily restricted lately, let alone travel to this part of Spall. And for him to be allowed into the Butte City itself …

  They were talking to the Pravilo guards now, and one of them pointed through the gathering shadows to me. Lord Kelsey-Ramos nodded his thanks and together he and Kutzko started across. Abruptly, my brain cleared enough for me to remember my manners, and I scrambled to my feet. “Lord Kelsey-Ramos,” I nodded, fighting hard to keep the surprise out of my voice. A lot got through anyway.

  “Good to see you too, Gilead,” Lord Kelsey-Ramos said dryly. His voice was good humored, even friendly … but behind the facade was something grim. Something very grim indeed. “Wondering how I managed to run the Patri blockade of Solitaire system?”

  I glanced at Kutzko, got cool formality in return. Apparently he still hadn’t entirely forgiven me. “I imagine, sir,” I said to Lord Kelsey-Ramos, “that you called in some of your high-level favors—no,” I interrupted myself, the obvious answer filtering in through my still-sluggish brain. “You’re on the commission studying the incoming fleet, aren’t you?”

  He smiled, a smile that didn’t even dent the grimness in his eyes. “I’ve really missed having you around, Gilead—you so seldom waste my time with the need for long explanations. Yes, I have indeed been honored with one of the seats on the panel.”

  “I congratulate the Patri on their fine choice, sir.”

  “Thank you,” he nodded. “Though in all fairness I should remind you that I had a good head start on getting my name in front of the proper people—with the Bellwether stuck here and every query I sent coming back with vague and clearly censored answers, I knew that something unexpected was happening.” He half turned to look at the sea of thunderheads. “But I never guessed it was anything like this …”

  “What’s wrong, sir?” I asked.

  He turned back to face me. “The commission has finished the first phase of its study, Gilead,” he told me, a quiet ache in his voice. “The decision’s been made to destroy the Invaders.”

  I stared at him. “What?” I whispered.

  He shook his head wearily. “I’m sorry. I tried to find an alternative—I tried blazing hard. But there just wasn’t anything that would work. Not in the time available.”

  “What ‘time available?’” I demanded. “They won’t be here for years—surely we can find a way to communicate with—”

  “We don’t have years. We have four to six months.”

  My argument froze in its tracks. “Months?”

  He nodded. “Admiral Yoshida’s experts have gone over the Invaders’ engine efficiencies at least five times, from five different directions. They estimate that in four to six months the Invaders will be shutting down their drives, turning their ships around, and reconfiguring for a long deceleration phase.”

  “But if they’ll be slowing down—?”

  “Oh, they still won’t actually get to Solitaire for seventeen years,” he shrugged. “But once they’re in deceleration mode … well, there’s no need for their drives to be angled at all away from their line of motion.”

  And suddenly I understood. “In other words,” I said slowly, “their exhausts will be aiming forward, where they’ll vaporize anything we throw at them. So if we don’t destroy them now, we won’t have another chance until they get here. Is that it?”

  A muscle in his cheek twitched, a deep and genuine pain twisting through his sense. “It’s a war fleet, Gilead—the more Yoshida’s experts study it, the more they’re convinced of that. If we let them get to Solitaire, the colony is lost—pure and simple.”

  “We have seventeen years to prepare—”

  “It wouldn’t matter if we had a hundred years—there’s no way we can fight that many ships in face-to-face battle.”

  I locked eyes with him. “There are less than half a million people on Solitaire. They could surely be relocated somewhere else.”

  He didn’t flinch from my g
aze. “Just clear out of the system, then? Is that what you are suggesting?”

  “Why not?”

  “Two reasons.” He held up two fingers. “One: it would mean abandoning the ring mines.”

  A cold knot formed in my stomach. Yes, of course—it had to have been something like that. “So for a few million tons of metal we deliberately murder thousands of—”

  “And two,” Lord Kelsey-Ramos cut me off firmly, “it would mean abandoning the thunderheads, leaving them to face the Invaders alone. Now tell me where the ethical path lies.”

  My righteous anger faded, replaced by uncertainty. If you have resident aliens in your country, you will not molest them. You will treat resident aliens as though they were native-born and love them as yourself—for you yourselves were once aliens in Egypt … “I don’t know,” I had to say. “All I know is that mass murder isn’t it.

  Lord Kelsey-Ramos sighed. “Deep down, I’d have to agree … but intellectually, I just don’t see any alternatives. It would probably take all the time we have until turnover just to figure out the raw mechanics of sending messages to the Invaders, let alone finding a common language to talk to each other in.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said as a sudden thought occurred to me. “What about the thunderheads? Maybe they know how to talk to them.”

  “Maybe,” Lord Kelsey-Ramos agreed. “And if you can get them to give you either a method or a language, I’m sure the commission will be interested. But we’ve asked them about it ourselves at least a half dozen times, and they’ve so far completely ignored the request.”

  I grimaced. “They know something about it—I’m sure they do.”

  “I agree,” Lord Kelsey-Ramos nodded grimly. “But if they won’t say anything, there isn’t much we can do about it.”

  “But then how can we assume they’re the threatened party?” I argued. “All right—suppose the ships are, in fact, a war party. Who’s to say it isn’t the thunderheads who brought it on themselves?”