Deadman Switch (29 page)

“What are you afraid of?” I asked him.

“I already told you. Blasphemy. To even suggest that God is nothing more than a group of sentient plants—”

“No one's suggesting that,” I insisted. “All we're saying is that the thunderheads may be what you hear when you're meditating.”

“Is that all?” he asked with probably as much sarcasm as the man was capable of. “You just want to prove that God isn't speaking to us?”

“But if He's not—”

“If He's not, there are still benefits to be had from the act of meditation,” he said stubbornly. “As well as from our fellowship here.”

I eyed him, mentally preparing myself. For years I'd watched Lord Kelsey-Ramos appeal to logic and self-interest to persuade people to his point of view; now, it was my turn to try. Fleetingly, I wished he was here to do it for me. “I realize that, sir—don't forget that I had the chance to observe some of those benefits first hand. But that's not what's at issue here. The question is whether Halo of God doctrine does, in fact, conflict with the real universe … and if it does, you know as well as I do that you can't hold it back.”

“Not forever, no,” he said evenly. “But perhaps for awhile.”

Calandra snorted. “And what would that gain you? Unless you plan to get out from under your creation before the whole thing collapses.”

The corners of Adams's mouth tightened in anger. “I did not ‘create' the Halo of God,” he bit out. “Not for my own gain, not for anything else. It happened far more spontaneously than that, among a great many people.”

“Then why be afraid of the truth?” I asked.

He looked back at me, and his gaze hardened. “You think it's for myself that I'm worried? I'd have thought a Watcher would understand me better.”

I waited, and after a moment he sighed. “All right. Assume for a moment that your theory is right, that Dr. Eisenstadt's people have proved God isn't actually speaking to us here. How long do you think it will be until someone makes the obvious generalization?—that
all
manifestations of God must be similarly in error?”

It wasn't, unfortunately, a scenario that could be totally dismissed. “Those who've experienced God's presence in their own lives will know better.”

“And what of those who are young in their faith?” he countered. “I've seen what the subtle pressures of this society can do to them.”

But as soon as the sun came up they were scorched and, not having any roots, they withered away …
“You can't protect them forever,” I said.

“I know that.” He hesitated. “But perhaps I
can
protect them until their roots are a little stronger.”

“Protect them,” Calandra asked quietly, “with a lie?”

A muscle in Adams's cheek twitched. “I'm sure they'd understand. Afterwards.”

“Do you really believe that?” Calandra demanded, a hard edge to her voice. On her face I could see her struggle with all the memories she would have preferred to have left buried. “Well, I don't. Because I lived on Bridgeway under Aaron Balaam, darMaupine. Do you know what happened to his followers after his theocracy was overthrown?”

Adams winced in sympathetic pain. “They were scattered. Those who weren't tried as accomplices and imprisoned.”

“That's right,” she nodded. “And there's a curious thing about that. Those accomplices—the ones who were closest to him, the ones who knew what he was doing—many of them have kept their faith. Such as it was.” The hardness in her gaze faded into a sort of bitter sadness. “Most of the others, the ones he lied to … we didn't.”

For a long minute the quiet background conversation of the techs at their stations and the hiss of wind whistling between the bluffs were the only sounds in the hollow. Adams gazed out at the thunderheads, his sense a no-win struggle between the logic of the situation and his desire to protect his people. “When we first met,” I reminded him gently, “you told us you appreciated our honesty. If you really meant that, you have to offer that same honesty to your followers. And to yourself.”

He closed his eyes, and I could see moisture at the edges of the eyelids … and I knew that he was seeing the beginning of the end. “It would probably be best,” he said at last, the words coming out with difficulty, “if there were at least two of us present. To try and confirm between us … what it is we hear.”

Eisenstadt was far from happy at the prospect of letting still another outsider in under his tight-locked security umbrella, and he again came very near to vetoing the whole experiment right then and there. But as a scientist he could hardly argue against the reasonableness of having more than one interpreter present, and in the end he gave in. Adams suggested Shepherd Joyita Zagorin be the other Seeker, and a Pravilo aircar was sent to bring her from the Myrrh settlement.

And an hour later, all was ready.

They sat side by side at the edge of the thunderhead city, looking up through the tangle of sensor leads attached to them as Eisenstadt ran through his instructions one final time. “… And remember, nothing fancy this time around,” he told them, trying mightily not to let his complete skepticism over this whole thing show through. “Concentrate on expressing our goodwill to them, and see if you get any kind of similar feeling in return.”

“Don't you want them to ask about recently dead thunderheads?” I murmured to him.

A flash of annoyance. “Let's take this one step at a time, Benedar, all right?” he muttered back.
“If
the sensors show evidence that this trance state of theirs has anything unusual to it,
then
maybe we'll try to go for some specifics.”

And if not, I heard the rest of his thought, there was no point wasting any more time than necessary listening to gibberish from religious fanatics. Fleetingly, I considered making some kind of comment; but there really wasn't anything to say. The only thing that would make a dent in his skepticism would be clear and positive results.

I could only pray there would be some.

Adams nodded. “We understand,” he told Eisenstadt. He took a deep breath. “Silence would be helpful to our concentration.”

Eisenstadt took the hint and shut up, and I watched as Adams and Zagorin closed their eyes and slipped into their meditative trance.

The last time this had happened in my presence I'd missed seeing the actual transition. This time, paying close attention, I still almost missed it. One moment Adams was sitting quietly, his breathing slowing as all emotion seemed to drain from his sense; the next, it was all somehow different.

“It's started,” I murmured to Eisenstadt. At his other side, Calandra added her agreement.

Eisenstadt nodded. “Kiell?” he called softly over his shoulder.

One of the techs stirred in his seat. “Well …
something's
happening,” he said, his tone vaguely troubled. “The readings started looking like normal rest mode, but now …”

“But now what?” Eisenstadt prompted, his sense wavering between irritation and genuine interest.

The tech never got the chance to answer. Abruptly, Adams and Zagorin straightened simultaneously where they sat, and both sets of eyes came fully open. Open … but with a disturbing glaze to them. “Greetings to you,” the two Seekers said in unison, both voices the same husky whisper. “We are the—” something I couldn't catch. “We welcome you to our … world.”

F
OR A LONG MOMENT
we all just stood there. Eisenstadt was the first to move; and, predictably, it was to me he turned, an uncertain thunder in his expression. “If this is some sort of game, Benedar …”

The reflexive accusation died midway, and he swallowed hard. Even to him, it had to be clear that this was no trick. The odd blankness in the two Seekers' eyes, the subtle contorting of their faces, the abnormal timbres in their voices—none of it could have been faked. “It's no game, sir,” I murmured. “They're in contact—somehow—with the thunderheads.”

Eisenstadt exhaled between his teeth in a snake-like hiss. Adams and Zagorin were still sitting as they had after delivering their message, faces and bodies frozen as stiffly as normal human muscles could handle. Waiting for Eisenstadt's response … “Aren't you going to say something?” I prompted him quietly.

Eisenstadt's jaw tightened. “I … greet you as well,” he managed. A touch of annoyance crossed his face as some of the initial shock faded and he abruptly realized that he was now speaking for posterity. And not doing a particularly memorable job of it. “I am Dr. Vlad Eisenstadt, representing the Four Worlds of the Patri and their colonies,” he continued, somewhat more firmly this time. “Who, may I ask, have I the honor of addressing?”

A moment of silence. Then Adams and Zagorin spoke, again in that oddly hoarse whisper, and again in unison. “My identity can … not be put into this … kind of speech. We are …” The voices faded.

Eisenstadt leaned forward slightly, cocking one ear forward. “I'm sorry; what was that?”

“They can't answer,” Calandra spoke up, a slight wavering to her voice. Her face—what I could see of it—looked both awestruck and more than a little shaken. “Their faces—watch their faces and the way their throats contract. Whatever the word is, they simply can't pronounce it.”

Eisenstadt pursed his lips, considering. “With your permission, then,” he said, “we'll continue to call you by our name for you: thunderheads. Unless that word should be used to distinguish between you and your physical hosts. They
are
just hosts for you, aren't they?”

A pause; and when Adams and Zagorin spoke again, I could hear a slight hesitation in their voices. “Not hosts. Bodies … homes … fortresses. Safety. Life.”

“Ah,” Eisenstadt nodded, a bit cautiously. “Yes—bodies.” He considered. “You mention safety. What kind of safety do these bodies provide you?”

Silence. To me it was obvious that Eisenstadt was fishing for details about the thunderheads' defenses. Perhaps it was obvious to the thunderheads, too. “I don't think they're going to answer,” I murmured after a minute.

“Afraid to?” he asked. “Or just a lack of vocabulary?”

I considered. “Afraid or distrusting, I'd say. The sense here is different than it was when they were trying to find a way to describe their body-homes, so I don't think it's a vocabulary problem.”

He grunted and turned to Calandra. “You agree?”

“That the senses were different in the two instances, yes,” she nodded. “Whether the emotion behind it should be interpreted as fear or something else, I don't know.”

“I thought you Watchers were supposed to be able to read anybody you wanted to,” he grumbled.

“Anybody human,” she corrected him softly. “At the moment … they aren't.”

The muscles in Eisenstadt's cheeks tightened … and abruptly his sense, too, changed. “Yes, well, maybe you religious types believe in demonic possession,” he said, almost briskly. “But I don't. You—Smyt—swivel Adams around a little so that he and Zagorin can't see each other.”

I frowned as Smyt and one of the other techs moved to obey. “Sir, there's no way they can be cueing each other. The synchronization is just too close.”

“We'll see about that, won't we?” Eisenstadt said coolly. For just a minute, I realized, he'd been caught up in the same sense of awe and wonder as Calandra and I over what was happening; but that minute was over, and now the scientist in him had reemerged, hard-headed and skeptical. “What kind of readings are we getting?” he added over his shoulder to the techs at the monitors.

“Weird ones,” one of them reported. “Heart rate, blood pressure, and cell metabolism index are way down. Neuron and brainwave patterns—” he hesitated. “Frankly, Doctor, I don't know how to read this. There are strong elements of mental hyperactivity—localized at highly unusual sites—but there are also elements of deep sleep.
Really
deep sleep—just barely this side of comatose. By all rights, they should both be flat on their backs, snoring away.”

Eisenstadt chewed at his lip. “Does any of it correspond to other known forms of meditation?”

“Not that I can tell. Of course, the records we've got here weren't designed to be an exhaustive listing.”

“Sir,” another tech put in, “it looks like their metabolic rates are still going down. Gradually, but noticeably.”

“Potentially life-threatening?” Eisenstadt asked.

“I … don't know. Possibly.”

Eisenstadt nodded, a slightly sour expression on his face. “You—thunderheads—are you still there?”

Adams's and Zagorin's faces contorted slightly in unison. “Where is
there?”

“I meant are you still … in contact with us.” Eisenstadt took a careful breath, his emotional resistance to accepting all this at face value fighting visibly against the recognition that we could be running up against a time limit. “We'd like to learn more about you—sharing knowledge of us in return, of course. Part of the study we would like to do—”

“We have no desire to … learn more about you.”

Eisenstadt floundered a second, his line of thought bent by the interruption. “Yes. Well. Part of the study we would like to do would involve a dead thunderhead and a procedure called dissection. Would it be possible for us to have—?”

“There is no death.”

Eisenstadt took a careful breath. “Ah … yes. Perhaps I didn't make myself clear. What we'd like—”

“Body-homes may die. We do not.”

“Yes—that's what I meant,” Eisenstadt tried again. “It's one of your body-homes that we'd like to study. If you could indicate an unused one for us and give us permission—”

“You may have a drone to … study.”