Deadman Switch (3 page)

Behind his lips, Aikman clenched his teeth, and for a second some of his hatred for me shifted to Randon …

“Excuse me, Mr. Kelsey-Ramos,” I spoke up, before Aikman could find a response he might later regret. “If you wouldn't mind too much, I'd rather stay here this evening. I'd appreciate the opportunity to get a good night's sleep in real gravity.”

Randon turned to eye me, the sense of him one of approval. He'd made his point—had boldfaced his authority for the others—and now was perfectly ready for me to make my excuses and back out. “Yes, I remember you never slept very well aboard ship,” he commented. “All right, then, you're excused.” He shifted his attention back to Aikman and DeMont, who were looking as if we'd just pulled the rug out from under them. As we had, of course, just done … and even though I knew I shouldn't, I couldn't help enjoying their discomfiture just a little bit. “My apologies, gentlemen,” Randon continued briskly, “but it appears it'll just be you two and me after all. Well, then. Give me a few minutes to change into something more appropriate and I'll be back. Oh, and I
will
take those records, I guess—my financial expert may find himself bored tonight.”

Tight-lipped, Aikman reached down and pulled a cyl from the computer. His hand was shaking noticeably with emotion as he did so. “We'll see you in a few minutes, Mr. Kelsey-Ramos,” he said, his voice fighting hard to remain civil as he handed the cyl over.

Randon nodded and we left. In the elevator, several floors from the lobby level, he finally turned to me. “Quite a show, Benedar, eh?” he said with a smile.

I swallowed. “Indeed, sir. I really don't think it was a good idea to bait them the way you did, though.”

He dismissed the comment with a wave of his hand. “The fastest way to get through a corporate mask is to give the person wearing it a good, hard push,” he told me off-handedly. “I'm sorry if you felt offended in there, but you have to admit you're a very convenient lever to push with.”

A tool with useful properties. “I'm also reasonably capable of reading people without the need to push them,” I reminded him, annoyed despite myself. “The whole purpose of me being here—”

“Is to use your wonderful powers of observation to spot things that I miss,” Randon cut me off with a patient sigh. “Yes, I know. I've heard my father go on and on about your vaunted Watcher mind-reading tricks.”

“It's not mind-reading—”

“So then let's have it, eh? What did you see down there that I missed?”

I clenched my teeth. “They don't like you,” I told him. “They aren't sure yet whether you're a clever manipulator or a pompous fool, but they're prepared to dislike you either way.”

“That
one's pretty obvious,” Randon snorted. “Also obvious is that Aikman, especially, dislikes you even more than he dislikes me. I was thinking more along the lines of something a bit more subtle. Are these really the full records for the Whitecliff shipping route, for instance?” He waved the cyl.

I thought back over the conversation, over the shifting senses of the two men during it. “There was no lie in either of them,” I told Randon. “Whatever you have there, it was given in good faith.”

“I'm sure it was,” he shrugged. “Also self-evident, I'll point out. Falsifying records isn't a job given to middle-levelers like those two. Not if the corporation's smart, anyway.”

“How do you know they're middle-levelers?”

“You don't think HTI would waste any of their high-level people running back and forth playing zombi escort, do you?” he snorted. “Come on, Benedar—that's simple logic.”

My stomach tightened. Zombi. Dehumanizing with a label. “Yes, sir.”

He gave me a hard look. “You're not going to go all queasy on me when we reach the Cloud, are you?”

“I'll be all right by the time we reach Solitaire,” I assured him.

I hadn't exactly answered his question. He noticed, but let it pass. “I hope so,” he said instead. “If HTI's going to try and obstruct us, it'll be the people running the Solitaire office who'll be behind it. I'll want you running at full power by the time we face them.”

I gave a neutral nod, hearing the anticipation in his voice.
He grew into a young lion; he learned to tear his prey; he became a man-eater. The nations came to hear of him; he was caught in their pit; they dragged him away with hooks to Egypt …
“Yes, sir,” I murmured. “I'll be ready by then.”

I learned the next morning that Randon's baiting of Aikman and DeMont hadn't ended with my departure, but had merely changed its form. From the bleary eyes of the two shields he'd taken along I gathered that they'd returned to the hotel considerably after local midnight; from the fact that Aikman and DeMont dragged their way to the
Bellwether
nearly an hour after we'd arrived I gathered that Randon had employed one of his father's old gambits. Lord Kelsey-Ramos had been notorious in his youth for the technique of celebrating his opponents into a frazzled mess, and it was clear that Randon had inherited both the stamina and vodkya tolerance required to play such a game.

A dangerous and rather childish game, to my way of thinking … and yet, in retrospect I can't help wondering if perhaps there was more behind it than Randon's grim determination to be in control. Because if Aikman and DeMont hadn't been late—if I hadn't already been in my stateroom preparing for departure when they arrived—I almost certainly would have been right there at the gatelock when they and the spaceport authorities arrived.

They, the authorities … and the two human sacrifices they delivered to the ship. Our two zombis.

I
T WAS THE MIDDLE
of ship's afternoon two days later, and I was playing singleton chess in a corner of the crew lounge, when we reached the Cloud.

Without warning, oddly enough, though the effect sphere's edge was supposed to be both stationary and well established. But reach it without warning we did. From the rear of the
Bellwether
came the faint
thunggk
of massive circuit breakers firing as the Mjollnir drive spontaneously kicked out, followed an instant later by a round of curses from the others in the lounge as the ultra-high-frequency electric current in the deck lost its Mjollnir-space identity of a pseudograv generator and crewers and drinks went scattering every which way.

And then, abruptly, there was silence. A dark silence, as suddenly everyone seemed to remember what was about to happen.

A rook was drifting in front of my eyes, spiraling slowly about its long axis. Carefully, I reached out and plucked it from the air, feeling a sudden chill in my heart. We were at the edge of the Cloud, ten light-years out from Solitaire … and in a few minutes, up on the bridge, someone was going to die.

For in honor of their gods they have done everything detestable that God hates; yes, in honor of their gods, they even burn their own sons and daughters as sacrifices
—

A tone from the intercom broke into my thoughts. “Sorry about that,” Captain Jose Bartholomy said. Behind his carefully cultivated Starlit accent his voice was trying to be as unruffled as usual … but I don't think anyone aboard the
Bellwether
was really fooled. “Space-normal, for anyone who hasn't figured it out already. Approximately fifteen minutes to Mjollnir again; stand ready.” He paused, and I heard him take a deep breath. “Mr. Benedar, please report to the bridge.”

I didn't have to look to know that all eyes in the lounge had turned to me. Carefully, I eased out of my seat, hanging onto the arm until I'd adjusted adequately to the weightlessness and then giving myself a push toward the door. My movement seemed to break the others out of their paralysis—two of the crewers headed to the lockers for handvacs, while the rest suddenly seemed to remember there were glasses and floating snacks that needed to be collected and got to it. In the brisk and uncomfortable flurry of activity, I reached the door and left.

Randon was waiting for me just outside the bridge. “Benedar,” he nodded, both voice and face tighter than he probably wanted them to be.

“Why?” I asked quietly, knowing he would understand what I meant.

He did, but chose to ignore the question. “Come in here,” he said instead, waving at the door release and grabbing the jamb handle as the panel slid open.

“I'd rather not,” I said.

“Come in here,” he repeated. His voice made it clear he meant it.

Swallowing hard, I gave myself a slight push and obeyed.

There is a unique smell that accompanies death. I don't mean the actual, physical odor of decomposing flesh, but a wider scent that extends somehow to all the other senses as well. I'd smelled it twice before: once at my grandfather's deathbed, where all the hospital disinfectants in the air were unable to disguise it; once at the scene of an accident where the victim was conscious to the end. Both times, for hours afterward, I had tried to separate out the sensations I had felt into pieces that I could understand … and both times I had failed. There was a fear of the unknown involved, certainly, combined with a sense of the profound mystery surrounding the departure of a human soul from this world. But there was more to it than that, and neither my own intellect nor those Watcher elders I took it to could ever totally solve the puzzle.

Randon and I entered the bridge … and for the third time in my life I found the smell of death.

Captain Bartholomy and First Officer Gielincki were there, of course: Gielincki because it was technically her shift as bridge officer, Bartholomy because he wasn't the type of man to foist a duty like this off on his subordinates. Standing beside them on the gripcarpet were Aikman and DeMont, the former with a small recorder hanging loosely from his hand, the latter with a medical kit gripped tightly in his. Flanking the helm chair to their right were two of Randon's shields, Daiv and Duge Ifversn, just beginning to move back … and in the chair itself sat a man.

The
Bellwether's
sacrifice.

I couldn't see anything of him but one hand, strapped to the left chair arm, and the back of his head, similarly bound to the headrest. I didn't want to see anything more, either—not of him, not of anything else that was about to happen up here. But Randon was looking back at me …

The days of my life are few enough: turn your eyes away, leave me a little joy, before I go to the place of no return, to the land of darkness and shadow dark as death …

Taking a deep breath, I set my feet into the gripcarpet and moved forward.

Daiv Ifversn had been heading toward Aikman as we entered; now, instead, he turned toward us. “The prisoner is secured, sir, as per orders,” he told Randon, his face and voice making it clear he didn't care for this duty at all. “Further orders?” Randon shook his head. “You two may leave.”

“Yes, sir.” Daiv caught his brother's eye, and the two of them headed for the door.

And all was ready. Taking a step toward the man in the chair, Aikman set his recorder down on one of the panel's grips, positioning it, where it could take in the entire room. “Robern Roxbury Trembley,” he said, his voice as coldly official as the atmosphere surrounding us, “you have been charged, tried, and convicted of the crimes of murder and high treason, said crimes having been committed on the world of Miland under the jurisdiction of the laws of the Four Worlds Of The Patri.”

From my position next to Randon and Captain Bartholomy, I could now see the man in profile. His chest was fluttering rapidly with short, shallow breaths, his face drawn and pale with the scent of death heavy on it … but through it all came the distinct sense that he was indeed guilty of the crimes for which he was about to die.

It came as little comfort.

“You have therefore,” Aikman continued impassively, “been sentenced to death, by a duly authorized judiciary of your peers, under the laws of the Four Worlds Of The Patri and their colonies. Said execution is to be carried out by lethal injection aboard this ship, the
Bellwether,
registered from the Patri world of Portslava, under the direction of Dr. Kurt DeMont, authorized by the governor of Solitaire.

“Robern Roxbury Trembley, do you have any last words?”

Trembley started to shake his head, discovered the headband prevented that. “No,” he whispered, voice cracking slightly with the strain.

Aikman half turned, nodded at DeMont. Lips pressed tightly together, the doctor stepped forward, moving around the back of the helm chair to Trembley's right arm. Opening his medical kit, he withdrew a small hypo, already prepared. Trembley closed his eyes, face taut with fear and the approach of death … and DeMont touched the hypo nozzle to his arm.

Trembley jerked, inhaling sharply. “Connye,” he whispered, lower jaw trembling as he exhaled a long, ragged breath.

His eyes never opened again … and a minute later he was dead.

DeMont gazed at the readouts in his kit for another minute before he confirmed it officially. “Execution carried out as ordered,” he said, his voice both tired and grim. “Time: fifteen hundred twenty-seven hours, ship's chrono, Anno Patri date 14 Octyab 422.” He raised his eyes to Bartholomy. “He's ready, Captain.”

Bartholomy nodded, visibly steeled himself, and moved forward. Unstrapping Trembley's arms, he reached gingerly past the body to a black keyboard that had been plugged into the main helm panel. It came alive with indicator lights and prompts at his touch, and he set it down onto the main panel's front grip, positioning it over the main helm controls and directly in front of the chair. “Do I need to do anything else?” he asked Aikman, his voice almost a whisper.

“No,” Aikman shook his head. He threw a glance at me, and I could sense the malicious satisfaction there at my presence. The big pious Watcher, forced to watch a man being executed. “No, from here on in it's just sit back and enjoy the ride.”