Timothy Zahn - Deadman Switch

And at last I understood. "And since it's HTI, not Carillon, who actually holds the Solitaire license...?"

He grimaced at the accusation in my voice, but nodded. "Carillon will be frozen out of Solitaire," he finished my sentence. "For at least six months. Probably longer."

I bit the back of my lip. "Lord Kelsey-Ramos wouldn't let that stop him."

And knew instantly I'd made a mistake. Randon's forehead furrowed, his facial muscles tightening with a combination of anger and guilt and worry. "But my father isn't here, is he?" he shot back. "I'm here, and I'm the one who's making the decisions."

The words were limp, and we both knew it. He was out of his depth here, faced with a problem he hadn't been prepared for, and his response was going to be to simply not make any decision at all. He knew it, and I knew it... and for that one moment he despised me for knowing it.

I should have backed off right then, dropped the subject until he could discuss it without the weight of his father's own history of decisive action looming over him. But my words were already on their way out, and I couldn't stop them. "Then what about Calandra?"

And in the face of what he clearly regarded as pressure, I could almost see his mind slam shut. "What about her?" he almost snarled. "In a week she'll sit at the Deadman Switch and die, that's what. What do you want me to say?—that I'll risk years of Carillon's future for a condemned criminal?"

"She's innocent!"

"So you say. Where's the proof?"

I clenched my teeth. "I've already told you: back on Outbound."

"Fine! So we'll have the records examined. If she's innocent I'll see to it she's posthumously exonerated."

I looked at him, tasting the sour acid of defeat. Look, I am sending you out like sheep among wolves; so be cunning as snakes and yet innocent as doves... Even Watcher training, I reflected bitterly, was no guarantee against stupid behavior... and in talking to Randon as I would have to his father, I had behaved stupidly indeed. If he couldn't bring himself to make a decision on this, he was nevertheless determined to pretend he was making one. To himself, even more than to me.

It meant that anything I could say now would be useless. But I still had to try. "As I understand it," I said carefully, "you've postponed our departure until tomorrow morning—"

"If you're heading where I think you are, you can blazing well forget it," he cut me off. "We're not going hunting for smugglers."

"No, sir. But if I can find one on my own—?"

"Not even if you deliver him to Governor Rybakov gift-wrapped," he growled. "How clear do I have to make it to you?"

I stifled a grimace. "It's clear enough already, sir," I told him stiffly.

"All right. Then get out—and try to remember why you're along on this trip in the first place."

I was back in my own stateroom before the hot flush left my cheeks. As cunning as snakes... but even as I flopped down on my bed, the beginnings of a new idea began to take shape in the back of my mind. All right; I'd been forbidden to hunt down a smuggler on my own. But if I could give just the right push to just the right person...

I thought about it for several minutes, considering possibilities, trying to recall every nuance of sensation I'd gleaned from the governor's reception the previous evening. It was worth a try... especially since the option was to give up and let an innocent woman die.

And surely if Randon was presented with a substitute criminal, he wouldn't refuse the chance to let Calandra live. Surely he wouldn't.

I got past two layers of bureaucratic blockages on the strength of the Kelsey-Ramos name; but at the last one my luck ran out. "I'm sorry, Mr. Benedar," the Pravilo lieutenant in the outer office informed me. "Commodore Freitag has an extremely full schedule today. If you'd like to make an appointment, I'll check and see when he can fit you in."

"I'm afraid it can't wait," I shook my head. "I'll be leaving for the ring mines tomorrow morning with Mr. Kelsey-Ramos—"

"Then you're out of luck, aren't you?" he cut me off. "I'm sorry."

"The commodore will want to see me," I told him, lowering the temperature of my voice a few degrees.

The lieutenant, unfortunately, was used to such maneuvers. "Then he'll be sorry he missed you, won't he?" he said coolly. "Good day, Mr. Benedar."

I nursed my lips. "Will you at least take a note in to him?" I bargained. "If he doesn't want to see me after he's read it, I'll leave quietly."

He considered telling me that he had the power to make me leave quietly regardless; but by now he was sufficiently intrigued to take a minor risk. "All right," he said, a touch of challenge in his voice.

I scribbled a note on the pad he offered me and then folded it. "For the commodore's eyes only," I said, handing it over.

The lieutenant cocked a sardonic eyebrow at me. "Certainly, sir," he said, Getting up, he tapped a key to datalock his desk and crossed to the commodore's office door behind him.

I held my breath; but I didn't have to wait even as long as I'd expected to. Less than a minute later the other was back. "Mr. Benedar...?" he invited from the open doorway.

This was it. Steeling myself, I walked past him into the office.

Commodore Freitag was seated at an almost neurotically neat desk, situated in what I guessed was probably the geometrical center of the room. "Mr. Benedar," he greeted me, almost lazily, not getting up from his chair. "Thank you, Lieutenant; you may go."

The other nodded silently and closed the door behind him. "I appreciate you seeing me on such short notice, Commodore," I said.

Freitag cocked a sardonic eyebrow. Probably where the lieutenant had picked up the gesture. "On Solitaire, Mr. Benedar, appreciation takes the form of tangible favors."

I gestured at my note, in front of him on the desk. "And my offer doesn't qualify?"

"That depends, doesn't it? 'My name is Gilead Raca Benedar. I know what you're trying to do about the smugglers, and I think I may be able to help.' Not particularly specific."

"It wasn't meant to be," I shrugged. He had, I noted, quoted the note from memory. "It also seems that on Solitaire specifics are handled face to face."

Steepling his fingers, he leaned back in his chair. "Well, we're certainly face to face now," he said. "Why don't you start by telling me exactly what it is I'm supposedly doing about these alleged smugglers?"

"Given your limited resources, you're doing the only thing you can do: going to high-level social events and trying to root out information while you pretend to be enjoying yourself."

He was good. His face didn't show even a trace of his surprise at my statement. Not the surprise, nor the fact that I was right. A non-Watcher would have missed it completely. "You read far too much into a man's weaknesses," he said mildly.

"Do I?" I countered. "You were in far better control of yourself last night than you should have been from your outward appearance. More to the point, you were much too alert for a man who was supposedly only there to indulge in the governor's supply of free vodkyas."

For a long minute he eyed me in silence. "I've never met a Watcher before," he said at last. "Not too many of you venture out of your private settlements these days, do you?"

"It's especially easy for a Watcher to tell when he's not wanted," I told him evenly.

"And being religious types, I suppose, you'd rather roll over and die than fight back at that kind of prejudice?" he snorted.

But I say this to you: offer no resistance to the wicked... "Fighting back often does the fighter more damage than his opponent," I said. It was an almost automatic response, echoing back from my childhood days. I'd never yet decided if I truly believed it. "I understood that you were pressed for time, though...?"