Deadman Switch (22 page)

It was like the warm touch of the sun on chilled skin; and I was eagerly soaking it in when Calandra stirred next to me … and as I turned my attention to her the whole comfortable sensation vanished like a soap bubble.

“You all right?” I murmured, keeping my eyes on those across the table from us. “What's the matter?”

Her tension was a subtle thing, well under her control. But it was no less real for all that. “It's this place,” she whispered tautly. “These people. Don't you feel it?”

I frowned, stretching out again. Nothing. “No.”

She glanced me an odd look. “The sameness,” she murmured, shivering. “The placidity—don't you understand?”

I shook my head. “All I feel here is peace and contentment.”

Her tongue flicked across her lips. “It reminds me of Bridgeway.”

A cold chill ran up my back. Bridgeway … and Aaron Balaam darMaupine. No. No, it couldn't be. “Are you saying—?”

To Calandra's left, I sensed Zagorin preparing to speak to her. “Later,” Calandra hissed, and turned her attention in that direction.

I took a deep breath. It couldn't be, I told myself. Calandra was simply misreading the peace here as something overly malleable; the strong leadership as something sinister. Surely Adams had nothing of darMaupine's insane ambitions in him.

Surely not … and yet, darMaupine had managed to hide his intentions from the Watchers of his era. Many of whom had been far more discerning than I.

After a moment I returned to my meal, and as I ate I continued to chat and smile with those around me. But the friendliness was guarded … and the food had lost much of its earlier flavor.

Dinner was followed by a worship service and then by a short fellowship hour; and so by the time Shepherd Zagorin led us from the meeting house it was full night outside.

“Beautiful view,” I commented to Zagorin, nodding at the star-filled canopy overhead as we crossed the square. “It's been a long time since I've seen a night sky like this.”

Zagorin nodded. “I know what you mean—I lived in Cameo before I joined the Halo of God. I've sometimes thought that even without the rest of it, the stars alone would make life here worthwhile.”

Something caught my attention, off to our right … “Something's out there,” Calandra said sharply, peering into the darkness. “An animal?”

Zagorin followed her gaze. “No, there aren't any animals that size on Spall,” she assured us. “Probably one of our people meditating.”

“What, at this hour?” I frowned.

“God takes calls around the clock,” Zagorin reminded us dryly.

I swallowed, my mouth oddly dry. “Tell me, Shepherd Zagorin … what's it like?”

Even in the darkness I could sense Calandra's disapproval of the question. Zagorin, on the other hand, gave the distinct impression she'd expected me to eventually ask. “You mean, what's it like to be in direct contact with God?” she asked.

I nodded. “Do you actually hear Him speak? Or is it more like just a sense of His presence?”

She hesitated. “It's really sort of midway between the two,” she said slowly. Prepared for the question or not, it was clearly not an easy thing to put into words. “It's a … well, a
presence
is probably the best way to describe it. A presence above and beyond that of humankind, circling us and filling us.”

“And speaking to you?” I asked.

I felt her wry smile. “I'm sure He's speaking,” she said. “Whether or not we know yet how to listen properly is another question.”

Almost exactly the same words Adams had used at his failure to get guidance as to what to do about us. “But there
are
words to it?” I asked. “Or is it more like emotions or abstract thoughts?”

“For some of us, it's all three,” she shrugged. “There's no obvious pattern—God seems to have chosen to speak to each of us differently. We don't know why.”

Who has ever known the mind of God? Who has ever been his adviser?
“Does it come clearer with experience?” I asked her.

“Usually, but there are those among us who were gifted at hearing Him from the first.” She hesitated, just a bit. “As well as some for whom no amount of practice seems to help.”

I heard something in her voice … “Such as the man who's out there now?” I suggested, waving toward the movement we'd seen.

I could sense Zagorin's surprise, and the wry acceptance that followed it. “You Watchers do live up to your reputation, don't you?” she said. “I wonder how you'd be at hearing God.”

There was no insult or challenge in the comment that I could detect, merely genuine interest. “We're not likely to be here long enough to learn your methods,” I reminded her.

“It isn't all that hard,” she told me, beginning to warm to the idea. “I could probably teach you the rudiments in a couple of hours.”

“We won't have time,” Calandra put in. Her voice said to drop the subject.

Zagorin caught the tone, too, and reluctantly gave up. “Well, if you change your mind—either of you—just let me know. So. Shepherd Adams's letter implied you'd be heading out from here in the morning. Will you be coming back at nightfall?”

I shook my head. “Probably not. We have a lot of territory to cover, and we've only got three days to do it in.”

She very much wanted to ask me what exactly we were looking for, but politeness won out. “All right. I'll have the computer figure out the likely power you'll need for three days and have the sucon rings loaded into your car. We also have a couple of fold-down shelters on hand—if you've got room for them, they'll certainly be more comfortable than sleeping in the car.”

I tried to remember whether or not a spaceship's standard survival pack included that kind of shelter. “If you can spare them, we'd certainly appreciate it,” I agreed. “But if you're using them—”

“It's no problem,” she assured me.

I thought back to Calandra's fears that the Seeker communities would be hostile to outsiders. I would have to remind her of that sometime. “In that case we accept,” I told Zagorin with a nod. “Thank you very much. Tell me, what do you know about the territory east-southeast of here?”

“Not very much, I'm afraid. It gets hillier out there—that'll be obvious a kilometer or so after you leave Myrrh—with some genuine mountains and buttes cropping up here and there. You'll find thicker vegetation about where the hills start up, too, though it shouldn't be too thick for you to drive through.”

I sensed Calandra's sudden interest. “Thicker vegetation of the same type as around here?”

“Mainly,” Zagorin said. “There's also more variance in species, especially the larger types like thunderheads.”

“More plentiful ground water?” I hazarded.

She shrugged. “I really have no idea. It could just as well be something in the soil or in the plants themselves, for all I know.”

Calandra's guarded interest was beginning to fade, and I had to privately agree that we'd reached a dead end on this one. Still, the assumption that a smuggler's fusion drive would do
something
detrimental to nearby plants seemed reasonable enough; and even if we didn't know exactly what type of damage we were looking for, the more plants that were around getting scorched the easier it ought to be for us to spot that scorching. “What about animal life, then?” I asked Zagorin. “Any predators big enough for us to worry about?”

“In the middle of God's kingdom?” she asked, gently reproving. “No.”

Beside me, I sensed Calandra's grimace. “Of course,” I murmured. “Well, then …” I paused, groping for something else to say.

“Here we are,” Zagorin spoke up smoothly into the gap. “I see the Mustains aren't home yet—will you be all right inside alone, Calandra?”

“No problem,” Calandra assured her. “They prepared my room and showed me where everything was before dinner.”

“Good. I trust the Changs did likewise for you, Gilead? Good. Well, then, if you'll both excuse me, I'll need to get back to my office and get that power-use calculation done. Sleep well, and please let me know before you leave in the morning.”

We assured her we would, on both counts. Exchanging good-nights with her, we watched as her dimly lit silhouette headed back toward the lights of the meeting house.

“Predators in God's kingdom, indeed,” Calandra murmured from beside me as Zagorin's footsteps faded away. “How silly of you to even ask.”

“Let's be a little less sarcastic, shall we?” I growled, annoyed by the condescending tone in her voice. “Try to remember they're doing us a favor.”

“Yes, well, you'll forgive me if I get uneasy relying on people whose brains don't fit right, won't you?” she shot back.

“Since when—?”

“Come
on,
Gilead. They come all the way out here just so they can worship Solitaire's Cloud? What would
you
call them?”

I sighed. “So you think that's what their meditations are picking up, too?”

“What else could it be? The option is that they're all suffering from hallucinations or genuine mass insanity. Unless you want to suggest that this really
is
the heavenly kingdom?”

The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate being made of a single pearl, and the main street of the city was pure gold, transparent as glass …
“If it is, the accepted description is way off,” I conceded. “You know, it just occurred to me … on the way into Solitaire system Mr. Kelsey-Ramos asked me to try and see if I could sense whether or not the Cloud was alive.”

“And was it?”

Even now, the memory of what I'd been asked to do made me shudder. “I couldn't bring myself to try,” I had to admit. “My point was whether the question itself might imply the Solitaran officials are starting to notice the Seekers' success with their meditation.”

“You mean we're back to the old knot about just what the Cloud really is?” Calandra asked thoughtfully, interested in spite of herself.

“And maybe whether or not we can locate its source,” I pointed out slowly. “Because if there
is
a source and we can find it … it can presumably be shut off.”

Calandra chewed at her lip. “So you're suggesting that maybe the Patri aren't just tolerating the Halloas, after all? Or letting them spread out over Spall just to get rid of them?”

“Triangulation, maybe,” I said doubtfully. “I don't know, though. How do you gauge the strength of a meditation contact?”

She shrugged. “Don't ask me. This is
your
crazy idea, not mine.”

I glared through the darkness at her. “Oh, right. Your crazy idea was that Adams is organizing the Seekers to follow in Aaron Balaam darMaupine's footprints.”

She actually winced, her irritation coloring into embarrassment. “I only said the sense here was similar,” she muttered. “There's too much placidity here. Too much comfort. Too little curiosity—don't you think they ought to care at least a
little
about the ecology of the planet they're living on? To me that says they're letting their leaders do their thinking for them.”

“Sorry, but those all sound contradictory to me,” I told her, feeling a twinge of remorse. I knew darMaupine and Bridgeway were a sore spot with her; I shouldn't have hit her there. “And I don't see any signs of that kind of twisted ambition in Adams, either.”

She shook her head. “It doesn't matter. Whatever Adams has planned for the future, I'm not going to be around to see it.”

I reached out and put my arm around her shoulders. “Yes, you will,” I said with as much assurance as I had. Plus as much more as I could fake. “Don't forget we've now got
two
potential targets to go for: a smuggler base, and the origin of the Cloud.”

She snorted. “Oh, great. And if we're
really
lucky maybe we'll find the origin with a smuggler base built on top of it. And an iridium mine next door.”

The sarcasm displaced some of the depression, as I'd hoped it would. “That's the spirit,” I told her lightly, trying to push it a bit more. “Hey—if we find a rich enough mine, we'll just go ahead and buy out Lord Kelsey-Ramos's interest in Carillon. Then Randon can scream at us all he likes.”

Again she snorted. “You'd better get to bed—you're starting to hallucinate.”

I nodded. “Sure. You, too; we'll want to get an early start in the morning.” Besides which—I didn't add—a good night's sleep would do a lot to quiet at least the worst of her fears.

“Yeah.” She hesitated. “Gilead … I still think you're a suicidal fool to be doing this. But … thanks.”

I found her hand, squeezed it reassuringly.
For he hides me away under his roof on the day of evil, he folds me in the recesses of his tent, sets me high on a rock. Now my head is held high above the enemies who surround me …
“It'll all work out,” I told her.

“Sure,” she sighed, not even trying to pretend she believed me. “Good night.”

“Good night.”

I waited until she was inside, then trudged along the edge of the square to the house where I'd been given a room. Trying to bolster Calandra's spirits like that, I hadn't realized just how tired I really was. But it was all catching up with me now: the nighttime flight from Solitaire, the debilitating ride across Spall, the continual strain of having to lie with a straight face. Not to mention simply having to contemplate the enormous task looming before us.

The lights were out as I approached the Changs' house, for which I was grateful. Pleasant though I'd found the family earlier, the last thing I wanted at the moment was to have to face them. However paranoid Calandra might feel about the Halo of God, my own respect for both the Seekers and their goals was only increasing … and along with it was similarly growing a quiet dread that our presence here was somehow going to be used to destroy them.