by Timothy Zahn
I could only hope he would be as enthusiastic when he found out what the idea was … and what carrying it out was going to cost.
Chapter 33
THREE WEEKS. TWENTY-ONE DAYS.
The number hovered before me like a personal specter, its presence a black poison in the background of every waking thought. An emotional expression of the solid walls and locked door of my tiny cell; a maddening reminder of my utter helplessness.
And every morning, the number taunted me by growing one smaller.
There were a great many scriptures that dealt with patience; a similarly impressive number dealing with faith and hope. I quoted every single one of those verses to myself during those long hours, grabbing through the hurricane of growing anger and frustration for something solid to grasp onto.
It didn’t seem to help. I tried to tell myself that it was doing some good, that without their comfort I would have sunk into a mind-crippling despair. But lurking at the edge of my mind was another, more sobering possibility: that it didn’t help because Shepherd Adams had been right, that I had indeed become too entangled with the rewards of the secular world to find strength in the spiritual realm. It was a frightening and debilitating thought, a dark nightmare shadow which seemed to begin and end each day.
And finally—when it seemed as if I couldn’t take the fear and forced solitude a single day longer—finally, on the afternoon of the fourth day, my cell was opened and I was escorted under guard to the Rainbow’s End starport. The starport, and the waiting Bellwether.
“It took every string I could find to pull,” Lord Kelsey-Ramos commented, offering me a steaming mug as I sat down across from his desk. “Including that favor the governor owed us,” he added, “though I can’t say she was all that happy at having to pay it off.”
“I appreciate it, sir,” I said, carefully taking the mug with fingers that still trembled with vague reaction. The heat was soothing to my hands, the smell flooding my mind with memories of home and safety. It was exactly the medicine I needed, and even as I sipped at the drink I could feel the fears and doubts of the cell beginning to recede.
“I was glad to do it,” Lord Kelsey-Ramos said, frowning slightly as he gazed into my face. “I’m just sorry it took so long—on Portslava I’d have had you out in half an hour.”
“Four days was soon enough, sir,” I assured him, trying to sound as if I meant it.
He wasn’t fooled. “It looks to me like we just barely made it,” he said pointedly.
I sighed, giving up the pretense. “It was harder than I’d expected,” I admitted. “A lot harder. Just the thought of those ships heading toward their deaths—and me locked away where I couldn’t do anything about it …” I shuddered, and took another sip of my drink.
“Um,” he grunted. “Interesting. You know, I’ve always thought that too much of that empathy you religious types pride yourselves on might be a handicap at times.” He pursed his lips. “On the other hand … I wonder if maybe not all of it was really you.”
I frowned at the suspicion in his sense. “Are you suggesting,” I asked slowly, “that the Pravilo might have drugged me?”
The flicker of surprise showed that hadn’t been what he’d been suggesting at all. “I suppose that’s not impossible,” he nevertheless conceded. “I doubt that Admiral Yoshida would go that far to keep you out of his face for these last couple of weeks, but some eager subordinate might have thought it would make a nice early birthday present for him. I was thinking more of the thunderheads, actually.”
A cold knot formed in my stomach as, abruptly, something like a hazy curtain seemed to vanish from in front of my memory. The overall sense of tension and struggle Calandra and I had noticed on Solitaire—of course; that was precisely what I’d just spent four days struggling against. Or rather, a highly magnified form of that sense. Magnified from scientific tool or side effect into a weapon … “Yes,” I said, voice wavering slightly—with disgust, dread, or anger, I couldn’t tell which. “Yes, it was them. It had to be. They were attacking me. Deliberately attacking me.”
“Don’t let it throw you,” Lord Kelsey-Ramos growled, his voice rich with suppressed anger of his own. “After spending seventy years patiently leading us to this point by our collective nose, they’re hardly going to look kindly on someone who’s trying his best to upset their plans.”
“Then they’re going to have some readjusting to do,” I gritted. The pressure was still there, I could see now, resting up against my consciousness like a dull toothache. But now that I knew its origin and purpose its power over me was gone.
Lord Kelsey-Ramos cocked an eyebrow. “Well, we’ll see about that, won’t we?” he said. “So, let’s hear this plan of yours.”
I took a deep breath, my anger at the thunderheads fading into the distance … leaving a tinge of uncertainty in its place. Perversely, what had seemed like a gold-plated idea while I was alone in my cell was tarnishing almost visibly under Lord Kelsey-Ramos’s unblinking gaze. “To begin with,” I said, deciding to go with the least arguable part first, “I’ll need to talk to the thunderheads again. The only way this is going to work is with their cooperation.”
Lord Kelsey-Ramos blinked, his anticipation turning slightly sour. “These are the same thunderheads who’ve just spent four days trying to drive you into a nervous breakdown?” he asked pointedly.
“Yes, sir,” I nodded, “because I’m going to show them why their plan isn’t going to work. And why cooperating with me is literally their only chance.”
For a long moment he gazed into my eyes, and I could see him measuring his knowledge and trust of me against the obstacles that stood arrayed against us. I held my breath; and the trust won. “All right,” he said at last. “I presume you’ll need a Halloa for that. I’ll have Captain Bartholomy get the earliest possible lift clearance from the tower and we’ll head out to Spall.”
“Am I allowed to leave Solitaire?” I asked, a bit startled.
“As long as you’re with me, you are,” he said. “You’ve been released into my custody, the only stipulation being that you stay within Solitaire system.”
A significant fraction of the weight resting on my back seemed to lift. I’d been very much afraid that I would once again have to steal a ship—somehow—and escape Solitaire on my own. Now—
Now, unless I could shake him later, I would have Lord Kelsey-Ramos along with me the whole way. Sharing fully in the dangers, and in the legal consequences if it didn’t work … or perhaps even if it did. “Well, then, let’s get going, sir,” I said.
He nodded and waved his control stick at the intercom; and as he did so, I felt all the eased weight settle back in again. Along with perhaps a bit more.
Chapter 34
WE REACHED SPALL SIX hours later—the middle of the night there—and put down at a freshly-built landing area about fifty kilometers from the Butte City. An aircar and Pravilo escort were waiting as Lord Kelsey-Ramos, Kutzko, and I disembarked; twenty minutes later, we were at the encampment.
To my surprise, Dr. Eisenstadt was waiting for us, obviously alerted in advance that we were on our way. “Lord Kelsey-Ramos,” he nodded, getting up from his desk as we entered. “Good to see you again. Gilead; glad you’re out of prison.”
“Thank you, sir,” I nodded back, hiding my irritation with Lord Kelsey-Ramos for dragging Eisenstadt into this. We hardly needed his help or his permission to go talk with Shepherd Adams; all his presence here was going to accomplish would be to get his name on the Pravilo’s list when this was over and they went looking for my accomplices. “With your permission, Dr. Eisenstadt, I’d like to go and talk to Shepherd Adams—”
“Yes, Lord Kelsey-Ramos told me what you’d need,” he nodded briskly, slipping past me toward the door. “If you’ll all come with me, Adams is just down the hall.”
He led us out again into the hall, and I again had to fight to hide my irritation. We weren’t in such a hurry that we couldn’t have simply gone ou
t to Adams’s house and talked to him there—all we needed now was to bump into someone working late who might ask awkward questions.
Eisenstadt had at least had the sense to put Adams nearby, in one of the abandoned dorm-type rooms that the housing boom outside had made superfluous. He was dozing on a cot, and as we filed quietly in and Eisenstadt turned the lights up to a dim glow he awoke. “Hello?” he called tentatively, rolling over and propping himself up on one elbow.
“It’s Eisenstadt,” Eisenstadt identified himself as Adams blinked his eyes back to focus. “I’ve brought you some visitors.”
Adams nodded greetings to Lord Kelsey-Ramos and me in turn, his sense more one of worried tension than real surprise. “Has something gone wrong?” he asked, his eyes coming to rest on me.
“Possibly just the opposite,” Lord Kelsey-Ramos grunted. “Something may actually be going right. Gilead?—this is your show now.”
“Yes, sir. I need to talk to the thunderheads,” I told Adams. “There may be an alternative to destroying the alien ships, but I’ll need thunderhead cooperation to do it.”
Adams frowned slightly at that, but nodded his willingness to assist. “All right,” he said, rearranging his legs into cross-legged position. “Give me a minute.”
He closed his eyes again, and I could see him reaching for the proper meditative state. “I gave him the prep drugs earlier this evening, incidentally,” Eisenstadt murmured in my ear. “First time he’s used them, but if they work the way they do on Shepherd Zagorin he should be fine. What is it you’ve come up with, Gilead?”
I kept my eyes on Adams, searching for an answer that wouldn’t be a true lie. “I think I’ve found a way to communicate with the aliens,” I said. “Maybe. Thunderhead?—are you there?”
Adams’s glazed eyes opened. Focused on me … and hardened. “You are Gilead Rac … ca Benedar,” he whispered harshly. “Our enemy.”
A shiver went up my back, and in my mind’s eye I saw the muzzle of Kutzko’s flash-welded needler … “I’m not your enemy,” I told him as firmly as I could through a suddenly dry mouth. “I seek only life and safety for all—including both you and your enemies.”
Abruptly, Adams gasped, his back stiffening. I jumped forward, searching his sense for clues as to what was happening—
And, moving with shaky clumsiness, he unfolded his legs and lunged at me.
I was caught utterly by surprise, my momentum still carrying me toward him as his legs straightened out to drive his body awkwardly forward; and even as I tried to throw my own arms up into some kind of defensive position, I knew I wouldn’t make it in time. His hands, curved into wiry claws, reached upward toward my face—
And dropped suddenly down again as the butt of Kutzko’s hurled needler caught him squarely beneath the rib cage.
The thunderhead screamed; a thin, eerily wavering sound of frustration or pain or fury. Curling against the pain of the blow, he scrabbled around for the needler; but he wasn’t even close before Kutzko was there, brushing smoothly past me to capture both of Adams’s wrists in his hands as he kicked the needler out of reach. The thunderhead screamed again, this time unmistakably with frustration; and the sound seemed to break Eisenstadt out of his stunned paralysis. “Adams!—break contact!” he barked.
“No!” I snapped. If we lost this chance— “Thunderhead!—if the alien ships die, so will you. Listen to me—please.”
Kutzko had manhandled Adams halfway back onto the cot. “You have no power ov … er us,” the thunderhead spat toward me. “Your rulers will destroy … the Invaders.”
“Yes, they will,” I shot back. “And then those same rulers will destroy you.”
“You lie—”
“Do I?” I cut him off. “Have they asked you what will become of the Cloud once the Invaders are dead?”
The glazed eyes stared at me, and I could sense the sudden uncertainty there. “No. They have not.”
“Any mention of the Cloud at all?” I pressed him. “Any discussion of travel in and out of Solitaire system? Any questions about the Deadman Switch and your role in its operation?”
“There’s been nothing of the kind,” Lord Kelsey-Ramos murmured from behind me; and I could hear in his voice that he, too, had suddenly recognized the significance of that.
I nodded. “Surely you realize, thunderhead, how difficult it is for us to sacrifice a life every time we wish to enter or leave this system. Don’t you think the commission negotiating such things with you would have suggested the Cloud’s removal as the price for our dealing with the Invaders?”
Lord Kelsey-Ramos touched my arm warningly. “Gilead, if what you’re implying is true, talking about it here could be extremely dangerous.”
How well I knew that … but it was too late to back out now. If the thunderheads were incapable of rational thought and decision, we were already dead. “It doesn’t matter,” I told Lord Kelsey-Ramos, putting as much confidence into my voice as I could on the chance that the thunderheads had learned to read such nuances of human speech. “They can’t stop it now. Certainly not alone. Their only chance is to cooperate with me.”
He grimaced, eyes drifting over my shoulder to Adams. For the first time, I could tell, he was truly seeing what it was he’d committed himself to, and it was more than he’d bargained for. And indeed, which of you here, intending to build a tower, would not first sit down and work out the cost to see if he had enough to complete it? “If you’d like, sir,” I told him quietly, “you and the others can leave. I can handle this part alone.”
For a moment he was tempted. But only for a moment … and when he brought his gaze back to me, it was alive with the cold fire I’d seen there through a hundred corporate battles back on Portslava. “We’re wasting time,” he said firmly.
I nodded and turned back to Adams. Kutzko had released his wrists now, but still hovered nearby, ready for trouble. “They made no such request, thunderhead, did they?” I asked. “Would you like to know why not?”
For a moment the glazed eyes stared into space, a look I’d come to associate with a quick consultation among the thunderheads. Then the eyes refocused on me. “It is impossible,” he whispered flatly.
“Why?” I countered. “Once the Invaders are gone, our rulers have no need for the Cloud—and since you yourselves are obviously the source of it, it follows immediately that they’ll have no more use for you.”
“We will fight,” the thunderhead hissed.
“And you will lose,” I told him bluntly. “Even if you could somehow destroy all of us here—which you can’t—the mechanism for your destruction is already in place, and already triggered. When the Invaders are destroyed, it will automatically activate.”
Eisenstadt took a step forward to where he could look into my face. “What are you talking about?” he demanded. “What mechanism?”
“I’m talking about a group of compressed-air bombs,” I explained, mentally crossing my fingers that the scheme I’d dreamed up would sound reasonable to him. If it wasn’t—and if he called me on it—the whole structure I was trying to build here would come crashing down around my head. Too late, I wished I’d made him stay back in his office. “The Pravilo has scattered them around Spall in the major weather corridors. They’re filled with algae that’s been specially tailored to alter the local soil acidity. Drastically alter it.” I looked back at Adams. “Within a year—two at the most—there won’t be a single native plant or animal alive here.”
I held my breath; but if the plan had any glaring flaws Eisenstadt didn’t spot them. “You mean … we’re talking genocide here,” he breathed. “No. No—that’s simply unthinkable.”
“I’ve seen the records of the deliveries,” Lord Kelsey-Ramos said heavily—and so sincerely even I could barely hear the lie there. “They’re already in place—and they’re equipped with automatic timers.”
“Probably already set,” I nodded, picking up on the cue. “Give the Pravilo a couple more weeks to get ready, a day
or two to destroy the Invaders and confirm they’re all gone, and maybe two more weeks to quietly get all the top people out of the system in case you decided to retaliate. Four or five weeks—no more—and it’ll begin.”
There was hatred in Adams’s eyes. Blistering, alien hatred … but for the first time, there was also fear. “They will not escape,” he whispered.
I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter. Even if you could kill everyone on Solitaire, it’s a price the rulers of the Patri would be willing to pay to finally have free access to the system. Human pride alone would dictate that you be punished for the way you’ve manipulated us all these years.”
There was a strange pain—a very alien pain—in Adams’s face. “What alternative do … you offer?” the thunderhead asked.
I took a deep breath, almost afraid to believe it. The first, most critical piece was now in my hands. “I’ve told you already,” I said. “I offer life for all. It has to be for all—you see that, don’t you? As long as the Invaders are alive, the Pravilo can’t touch you, because with the Cloud gone they would be facing a war fleet with full Mjollnir capabilities.”
The thunderhead seemed to consider that. “Yet if the Invaders … live, they will soon be here,” he pointed out.
I nodded, consciously relaxing my jaw. It was a thought that had frequently occurred to me. “We’ll have seventeen years,” I reminded them. “Enough time for us to talk to them, perhaps work out a deal between you.”
Beside me, I felt Lord Kelsey-Ramos stir uncomfortably, and it wasn’t hard to guess what he was thinking. The Patri had already rejected the idea of talking to the aliens; if I forced them to do so anyway, they would not be pleased. Another thought that had frequently occurred to me … “Well?” I prompted the thunderhead. “Will you cooperate, or not?”
