Timothy Zahn - Deadman Switch

"You'll comply, or I'll have you up on charges of illegal restraint," he said coldly. "I don't need anyone's permission to file legal papers."

Gielincki never had been the type to take threats well. Slowly, deliberately, she turned to look up at him. "Aboard this ship," she said, her tone even colder than Aikman's, "you need Mr. Kelsey-Ramos's permission to do anything. If that offends your democratic sensibilities, you're welcome to go elsewhere."

Aikman glared at her a moment longer. Then, without a word, he spun around and stomped back toward us.

Kutzko still blocked the door, and he made no effort to move. "Of course, if you leave the ship," he said casually, "that cyl has to stay here. We don't have any proof that it's really only a legal document."

Aikman's forehead darkened. "If you're accusing me—"

"Mr. Aikman," I interrupted.

"Shut up, Benedar," he snapped.

"I think perhaps I can help resolve this impasse," I persisted.

That earned me a needle-pointed glance. "How?—by reading my mind? How convenient that you're here. How convenient, too, that there's nobody to corroborate whatever you decide is the truth."

I felt my face flush with anger. "I don't lie about the things I see," I bit out. "I have to answer to God for my actions, you know."

His lip twisted. "Oh, yes, of course. It all comes back to God for you, doesn't it?"

"You have a problem with that?" Kutzko put in.

Aikman looked at him, then turned his attention back to me... and abruptly, his sense cooled, his frustrated rage changing to an almost icy bitterness. "Tell me, Benedar, did your Watcher schools bother to teach you any history while you were learning how to invoke God as justification for everything you did? Do you know what finally destroyed the Earth, for instance?"

"It was the increasing economic and political stresses of the last half of the twenty-first century," I told him evenly. "The final disintegration came from a combination of minority demands and unrest, plus a surge of anger over the costs of the StarWay project."

"Yes, that's how I would have expected a Watcher school to tell it," he sneered. "This may come as a shock, Watcher, but it wasn't economics or politics that destroyed the Earth. It was religion. Religion that started a thousand fanatic brush wars. Religion that kept terrorism going long after most of the strictly political problems were on their way to being solved. Religion that tore apart every society from East to West and back again."

"That was a long time ago," Kutzko interjected... but behind the supportive words I could sense his own hidden doubts. He, too, had grown up being taught that same Patri version of the Final Revolution. "You can't blame—"

"The Watchers?" Aikman cut him off. "Tell that to the people of Bridgeway who lived under the rule of Aaron Balaam darMaupine and his God. They know what happens when religion becomes more than just a hobby."

I felt a surge of anger. To equate religion with a hobby—

With an effort, I forced the indignation down. Resentment kills the senseless, and anger brings death to the fool... "As it happens, Mr. Aikman, I have heard that theory before," I told him. "It gives the Patri and colonies a good excuse to dislike and even persecute religious practice. Now tell me why it is you hate me."

His face went rigid, and for a half dozen heartbeats the bridge was filled with a brittle silence. "You don't need me to answer that," he said at last, very quietly. "You demonstrate it every time I have to be in the same room with you."

"What, because he understands people better than you do?" Kutzko scoffed.

Aikman sent him an ice-edged glare. "Tell me, Shield—you who know so much about the law—have you ever read the Patri Bill of Rights and Ethics? Read it, I mean, not just heard of it?"

"Yes," Kutzko told him stiffly.

"Do you remember Article Nine? The right against self-incrimination? Good. Then tell me how such a right can exist in the presence of a Watcher."

Kutzko's forehead furrowed slightly. "That right is supposed to be for judiciaries and trial proceedings—"

"No!" Aikman snapped. "It is the most basic of human rights, the right to the privacy of one's own thoughts." He glared at me. "You have no right to do what you do, Watcher. As far as a strict reading of Patri law goes, you don't even have a right to mingle with the rest of society." He held up the cyl, pointing it at me like a needler tube. "And if I can't keep you locked away from normal people forever, I can sure as putrid smert make sure you stay away from the people of Solitaire."

He stepped around Kutzko, headed for the bridge door. "What about Calandra?" I asked. "She has the right to keep her life if she's not guilty."

"The dead have no rights," he shot back. "And zombis are already dead."

I clenched my teeth, feeling a quiet panic bubbling up within me. With Calandra's life hanging by a thread, I couldn't afford to be trapped here in the Bellwether, away from the only people who could help. But there was only one way I could think of to stop him... and it would only add more fuel to his hatred of Watchers.

So be it. "Mr. Aikman," I called as he opened the bridge door, "if you file that document, I'll have no choice but to tell Mr. Kelsey-Ramos what you did this evening."

Mid-way through the door, he paused. "And what might that be?" he demanded without turning around.

"It was you, not HTI, who called the governor's mansion and told them that Calandra would be with us."

He still didn't turn; but I didn't need to see his face. The stiffening of back and neck muscles was all the proof I needed that my guess was indeed correct. "You told them Calandra would be along," I continued, "and that she was a Watcher and a condemned felon."

"She is," he almost snarled over his shoulder. "She has no legal right to be out of her cell, let alone out of the ship."

"I doubt Mr. Kelsey-Ramos would see it that way," I pointed out. "He might consider it an interference with his mission to collect information here... in which case he might well have you removed from the Bellwether for the remainder of the trip."

Again, the tightening of muscles told me I'd hit close to the nerve. In the corner of my eye I could see that Kutzko was watching closely... and that he hadn't caught either of Aikman's reactions. "And you can't afford that, can you?" I continued. "HTI wants one of their people aboard to keep track of what Mr. Kelsey-Ramos does, and you're it."

"Dr. DeMont will still be here," he countered, striving for off-handedness. "And you can't use the Deadman Switch without a Patri legal rep aboard."

"Cameo's full of Patri legal reps," I reminded him. "Many of whom don't have any loyalty whatsoever to HTI."

Aikman didn't reply, and after a moment of silence Kutzko stepped over and extended his hand. Without looking at him, Aikman dropped the cyl into the open palm. "It doesn't matter," he said, still with his back to me. "In a week she'll be dead. And there's not a putrid thing you or anyone else can do to stop it."

"We'll see," I told him, trying to sound more confident than I felt.

Perhaps he sensed that; or perhaps he knew much better than I what I was up against. "Oh, she'll be dead, all right," he bit out, the confidence in his voice as genuine as the gloating. "And if you don't stay out of my way, I may even arrange to have you as official witness to her execution. Remember that the next time you think about invading my privacy."

He left. "Probably makes friends wherever he goes," Kutzko commented wryly. But I could sense that some of the sarcasm in his voice was merely there for cover. Beneath it—

Beneath it, and in his eyes, was a kind of uneasiness I'd never seen in him before.

"Legal reps are often like that," I shrugged, deciding to ignore the uneasiness I was reading. If what I'd just done really bothered him, he'd bring it up in his own good time. "Just remember that we only have to put up with him for a few more days; he's stuck with himself permanently."