Deadman Switch (10 page)

“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.

T
HE BRIGHTER OF THE
stars in Solitaire's sky were beginning to appear through the dusk overhead as we pulled up to Governor Rybakov's mansion, an imposing edifice that gave out a sense of dignified power that reminded me of the HTI conference room. From the mansion's double-wing design, I guessed it followed the typical Patri pattern for such places, including both office and entertainment facilities as well as living space for the governor. The windows of the ground floor to our left were ablaze with light, and through the half-tinting I could see the shadows of milling people.

“Nice place,” Randon grunted as the five of us filed out of the car. “Be interesting to have Schock run the budget sometime and find out just what percentage of Solitaire's income goes to their officials.”

“They've got money to spare,” I murmured.

He glanced at me. “I suppose they do,” he conceded.

Randon and Kutzko in the lead, we climbed the flaystone steps to the main portico. “Mr. Randon Kelsey-Ramos and party,” Kutzko told the liveried guards flanking the door. Stepping smoothly in front of Randon, he started to enter—

“Just a moment, sir,” one of the guards spoke up. “Is the lady in your party Ms. Calandra Mara Paquin?”

Beside me, Calandra tensed. Randon turned his head leisurely to look at us, turned just as leisurely back again. “Yes, I believe it is,” he acknowledged coolly. “Why?”

“I regret to say, sir, that I can't allow her to enter.” There was no regret anywhere in the guard's sense that I could detect. “Governor Rybakov's orders.”

“On what grounds?” Randon asked.

“On the grounds that she is a convicted felon, sentenced to death, sir,” he said stiffly, distaste at both her legal status and her Watcher background coming through his official decorum. “The governor does not wish to have such a potential danger within her house.”

There really wasn't any hope of appeal, and Randon knew it as well as the rest of us. But he was too pridefully stubborn to give up quite that easily. “She was assigned to my ship,” he told the guard. “Placed therefore under both my care and my legal jurisdiction. I'll take full responsibility for her actions and behavior here.”

“I understand, sir. I still can't allow her to enter.”

Randon locked eyes with the man for a long moment, then turned slowly back to us and nodded to Duge Ifversn, behind me in rearguard position. “Ifversn, escort her back to the ship,” he instructed the other. For a moment his eyes met mine, and I could sense him bracing for an argument. But there was no point to it, and I remained silent. “Turn her over to Seqoya and then come back.”

Ifversn nodded. “Ms. Paquin … ?”

Calandra turned away, not looking at me, and went with him. I watched them get back into the car, then looked back to find Randon's eyes still on me … his eyes, and an almost grudging touch of sympathy. I took a deep breath and nodded to him. Turning, he strode without a word between the guards and into the mansion.

Inside, we found ourselves in a high-arched hallway stretching probably half the length of the building itself. A greeter waiting just inside welcomed us to the governor's home and directed us to an open pair of double doors down the hall, while a second pair of guards relieved Kutzko of his puff adder needler clips and gave him a single clip of slapshots in return. It was standard security practice—guards usually preferred visiting shields to carry only nonlethal ammunition—and Kutzko surrendered to it with professional good grace.

The buzz of conversation was audible well into the hall … and as we reached the double doors it became instantly clear that Governor Rybakov wasn't merely going through the motions on this one. There were at east two hundred people milling around the ballroom-sized space, two hundred rich and influential people, judging by their clothing and deportment and the watchfulness of the unobtrusive shields shadowing many of them. Out of a total planetary population of perhaps four hundred eighty thousand—only half of whom lived in the Cameo/Rainbow's End corridor—getting two hundred of the upper class together in one place was a rather impressive accomplishment.