Deadman Switch (2 page)

He broke off, took a deep breath. “And now I've got to stay here and duel with O'Rielly and the HTI board instead. Thanks to you.”

“You could ignore my advice,” I reminded him. “You've done so before.”

A touch of dark humor came back into his face, as I'd expected it would. “And usually wished I hadn't,” he pointed out wryly. “Besides which, what's the point of hiring a Watcher in the first place if I'm not going to listen to him?”

“People have done stranger things to themselves, sir. Often even willingly.”

His eyes flicked past me, to the door of my—to his mind—painfully plain cubicle. “And more often done those strange things to others. Not willingly.”

Punishing the parents' fault in the children and in the grandchildren to the third and fourth generation …
“The training really hasn't been a burden, Lord Kelsey-Ramos,” I assured him quietly. “There's a great deal of beauty in God's universe—beauty that you may never even notice, let alone be able to appreciate.”

“Does that beauty make up for all the ugliness that's also there?” he asked pointedly. “Does it make up for the fact that you have to strip a room practically bare to get a little relief from sensory overload?”

To one he gave five talents, to another two, to a third one …
“I do what I can with what I've been given,” I said simply. “In that way, at least, I'm no different than you.”

He pursed his lips. “Perhaps. Someday you'll have to tell me—to
really
tell me—what it's like to be a Watcher.”

“Yes, sir.” I never would, of course. He didn't really want to know. “If that'll be all … ?”

“Not quite.” His face tightened slightly, his sense that of a man preparing to deliver unwanted news. “I concede that you're right, that I can't afford to traipse off to Solitaire right now. But
someone
ought to go, if for no other reason than to let them know Carillon will be taking things firmly in rein. It seems to me that the obvious person for that job is Randon.”

He clearly expected a negative reaction, but I had none to offer. At twenty-five, Lord Kelsey-Ramos's son still had a lot to learn about life, but he knew enough about how to handle people—his own and others—to make a reasonable ambassador to a conquered firm. “I presume you'll be sending a financial expert along with him?” I asked. “In case their records need looking over?”

“Oh, I'll send a whole slate of experts along with him—don't worry about that. Still, even experts often miss important details … which is why you'll be going, too.”

I took a careful breath, feeling my heartbeat increase. “Sir, if it's all the same with you—”

“It isn't,” he said firmly, “and I'm afraid I insist. I want you there with Randon.” He hesitated. “I realize the whole idea of the Deadman Switch bothers you, but I'm sure you can handle it this once.”

Solitaire … and the Deadman Switch. For a moment I nearly told him no, that this time the price was too high. But even as I opened my mouth, the quiet reminder of why I was working for him in the first place drained the defiance away.

As it always seemed to do.
Punishing the parents' fault in the children and in the grandchildren to the third and fourth generation …
“All right, sir,” I told him instead. “I'll do my best.”

T
HE CARILLON GROUP NUMBERED
several small courier ships among its modest fleet, and I naturally expected our group would ride one or more of those to Whitecliff, transferring at that point to one of HTI's freighters. But Lord Kelsey-Ramos would have none of that. This was his personal triumph, and he had no intention of having us ride someone else's ship into Solitaire like hitchhikers or afterthought cargo.

Which consideration made it almost inevitable that he would saddle us with the
Bellwether.

From his point of view, it was a generous favor, of course. His own personal craft, the
Bellwether
was a genuine superyacht, with all the luxury and heavy-duty status that that implied. Unfortunately, the size and sleek lines carried their own hidden costs: the size meant the
Bellwether
could do only eighteen hours at a stretch on Mjollnir drive before having to go space-normal to dump its excess heat; and the sleek lines meant it then took up to six hours to cool down enough to continue on.

Which meant that instead of the twenty-three-plus light-years per day a heavily radiation-finned courier ship could cover, we stodgered along at barely eighteen. Which meant the hundred-odd light-years to Whitecliff took us nearly six days to cover, instead of a courier's four and a half.

Which meant HTI's representatives in Alabaster City were primed, ready, and waiting when we arrived.

I'd half expected them to try and hide their preparation, but they apparently knew better than to try and play stupid. Instead, they'd opted for the opposite response: laying the honey on with a sealant spreader.

It started practically before we'd even gotten our feet on the ground, with the spaceport director himself greeting us at the
Bellwether's
gatelock as we disembarked. He bubbled a message of greeting tinged with nervous awe, led us through an artificially brief customs ritual, and then escorted us across the terminal to the connecting hotel. The three best suites, we found, had already been reserved for us, as had the most secure meeting/privacy room on the lobby level. Randon left a message with the hotel registrar to be transmitted to the local HTI office, and we retired to our rooms.

Even then, the HTI people showed their expertise in such matters, giving us a half-hour to relax and readjust to groundfall before arriving at the hotel.

They were sitting at one end of the polished gemrock table as we entered the privacy room: two men, one dark and almost too young, with a slightly overformal black and burgundy capelet draped carefully over his tunic; the other older and graying, with a sense of long tiredness hanging on his shoulders as visibly as his physician's white capelet. On the table before the younger man sat an open computer, humming faintly. “Good day to you,” Randon nodded as they rose to their feet at our approach. “I'm Randon Kelsey-Ramos of the Carillon Group; you must be our HTI hosts.”

“Good day to you as well, sir,” the younger man said with a nod that was as formal as his capelet. His dark eyes flicked to me, the sense of him shifting from stiff and grudging politeness to animosity as he did so. “I'm Sahm Aikman—HTI legal affairs department,” he continued, eyes shifting back to Randon. “This is my colleague, Dr. Kurt DeMont—” he gestured, the muscles of his hand as taut as the rest of him— “who handles the various medical aspects of the Solitaire run.”

DeMont's eyes came back to Randon from their uneasy study of me and he nodded his own greeting. “Mr. Kelsey-Ramos,” he said gravely. His eyes shifted again to me, and I sensed a surge of boldness peek through, as if he were considering speaking to me directly. But caution and protocol prevailed, the boldness withered, and he remained silent.

All of which would have been abundant proof, if I'd needed any, that the message O'Rielly had sent here had included the fact that Randon might be bringing his father's Watcher along. But they weren't quite sure yet …

“Pleased to meet you,” Randon said, nodding acknowledgment of the introductions. He, too, had picked up on their interest in me; equally clear was the fact that he intended to draw out their uncertainties as far as he could. “May I say, first of all, that I appreciate your getting all the accommodations trivia out of the way—it certainly made life easier for my aides.” He waved vaguely in my direction; like magic, both sets of eyes shifted to me. The gesture shifted smoothly, Randon's hand ending up pointing at the computer sitting on the table. “You've brought me copies of your records?”

“Uh, yes, sir,” Aikman said, shifting gears with visible effort, his attention lingering on me for a second after his eyes had gone back to Randon. Standard business etiquette said that entourages like me were to be ignored in direct address until and unless they were formally introduced, and Randon's deliberate failure to do so was beginning to irritate him. “I thought we could take a few minutes to go through them now, if you're willing.”

“You have
all
HTI's records here?” Randon asked.

“Oh, no—just those involving shipment through Whitecliff,” Aikman said. “The complete records are of course kept only in the Solitaire office.”

“Ah,” Randon nodded. “Well, then, I think I'll pass. Not much sense in spending time studying one corner of the painting when I'll get to see the whole thing in a couple of days, is there?”

A flicker of surprise touched both men, followed immediately by annoyance in different degrees. I gathered the local HTI office had gone to some effort to gather the records into easily digested form, and Aikman in particular was clearly put out at Randon's casual dismissal of all that work. “As you wish, Mr. Kelsey-Ramos,” he said, managing to keep his voice civil. “In that case—”

“What I'd rather do,” Randon interrupted him, “is see what kind of night life Whitecliff has. I presume it
does
have some?”

Another flicker of surprise. DeMont recovered first. “Oh, certainly,” he said. “Nothing like what you're used to on Portslava, I don't suppose, but enjoyable in its own way. Here in Alabaster City, particularly, we have a wide mix of different entertainments.”

“Yes, port cities tend to be that way,” Randon nodded. “Though I certainly wouldn't like to think I'm too much of a snob to enjoy something new. You'll both be my guests, of course?”

Aikman and DeMont exchanged glances. Clearly, Randon wasn't fitting into their expectations, and they weren't entirely sure how to handle him. “We'd be honored to serve as your guides, Mr. Kelsey-Ramos,” Aikman said diplomatically.

“Excellent,” Randon said with a smile. “I'll have to bring a couple of my shields along, too, of course. Company policy, I'm afraid.”

“Understandable,” Aikman nodded. “Well, then, whenever you're ready—”

“Oh, and Mr. Benedar will be coming, too,” Randon said blandly, gesturing a hand toward me. “I'm sorry; I've been remiss, haven't I? Mr. Aikman, Dr. DeMont—Gilead Raca Benedar.”

It was a game on Randon's part, of course—nothing more or less than a way to suddenly spring my name and Watcher status on them and force a reaction. Certainly he had no interest in trying to carouse through Alabaster City's night life with someone he considered a religious fanatic hovering disdainfully in the background. My own interest in playing that role was equally microscopic.

But Aikman and DeMont didn't know that. “Mr. Benedar,” Aikman said in acknowledgment, his formal stiffness turning abruptly rigid. “Mr. Kelsey-Ramos … with due respect for your position, I'd like to suggest that it would be best if your associate remains behind.”

“Oh?” Randon asked, almost innocently. “Is there a problem, Mr. Aikman?”

Aikman locked eyes with him. “To put it bluntly, sir, Watchers aren't especially welcome in Alabaster City.”

Randon met his gaze steadily. “I understood the Watchers have a settlement here on Whitecliff.”

“I'm sure he'd be welcome there,” Aikman countered. “But not anywhere else on the planet.”

For a long moment the room was silent; silent with heavy discomfort from DeMont, with almost calm calculation from Randon, with black hatred from Aikman.
I lie surrounded by lions, greedy for human prey …

An icy shiver ran up my back. I'd encountered hatred before—Watchers who left their settlements couldn't avoid running into it these days. We'd been barely tolerated before Aaron Balaam darMaupine and his followers had come on the scene; now, two decades later, feeling against us was still running high. There was hatred everywhere—unthinking hatred, frightened hatred, even inherited hatred. But Aikman's hatred was different. Cold, almost intellectual, it had far less actual emotion simmering beneath it than it ought to have had.

God had given mankind intellect, one of my teachers had once said, and the Fall had given him prejudice; and there was no human force more dangerous than a combination of the two.

Randon broke the brittle silence first. “I seem to remember, Mr. Aikman,” he said, choosing his words deliberately, “that one of the chief cornerstones of the original Patri Articles was the banning of religious discrimination in the Patri and in all future colony worlds. I was unaware that policy had been repealed.”

The words were indignant enough; the emotions beneath them far less so. Randon's father, I knew, would have felt automatic anger at such a brazen display of discrimination, but Randon's own world view wasn't set up that way. To him, I was less a human being than a tool with useful properties. But that didn't prevent him from using my humanity to score a few points in this psychological trapshoot he had needled Aikman into playing.

Not that Aikman needed much prodding. “We have a fair number of emigres from Bridgeway,” he countered harshly. “They haven't forgotten what darMaupine nearly did there. Neither have the rest of us.”

“That was over twenty years ago,” Randon pointed out coolly. “Mr. Benedar was all of eleven years old when darMaupine's experiment in theocracy was brought down.”

“I'm not responsible for his age,” Aikman said, the first hint of caution beginning to break through the anger as he abruptly seemed to remember who this young man was he was arguing with. “I'm also not responsible for the concept of guilt by association. I merely state the relevant facts.”

“Then I take it you've not forgotten the most relevant of those facts, Mr. Aikman,” Randon shot back. “I'm in charge of this man … and the Carillon Group is in charge of HTI. Which means
I
make the decisions on this trip.”