Timothy Zahn - Deadman Switch

"Except that it turns out Spall isn't as uninhabited as we'd all thought," I said, shaking my head. "They've got scientific groups poking around all over the planet... and also a group of permanent settlers called the Halloas."

Something either in the name or in the way I said it... "A... religious group?" she asked cautiously.

I looked at her. Behind her eyes, I could almost see the memories of her childhood with the Watcher's Bethel settlement passing through her mind. Bittersweet memories... "Yes," I confirmed. "Apparently treated with the same contempt every other religious group gets. Possibly one of the reasons they left Solitaire."

She winced. More bittersweet memories. "Are you planning to make contact with them?" she asked.

I heard the reluctance in her words. "We have to," I told her firmly. "We'll need supplies, transportation, the likeliest places for smugglers to have dug in—things only the Halloas will be able to provide."

"And what makes you think they'll cooperate?"

I shrugged. "Faith. And the hope that they'll recognize the rightness of what I'm doing."

To that she made no answer. Sitting next to her in the relative gloom, I watched the spaceport pass by outside the car. And tried to plan out just what I'd say to the ground crew when we reached our ship.

—

"Okay, now, here's the main control bank." The crew boss pointed the panel out to me, his words slightly distorted by the pepperstick hanging out one corner of his mouth. "Lot of stuff here you can ignore—these Crickets were built for rock hunting, but all the fancy grappling equipment's been taken off."

Though it could undoubtedly be put back on if necessary. Like everything else I'd run across on Solitaire, even these minor shuttle ships had apparently been chosen with an eye on their possible use in the ring mines. Just one more reminder of how thoroughly the mines—and the wealth from them—permeated every aspect of Solitaran life. "And my course settings?"

"Idiot-simple," the boss assured me. "That box there is a set of course cyls. Just plug in the one you want—right there—and hit the button here." He tapped it. "Not till you clear atmosphere, of course—up till then the cat'll have override jurisdiction and all you'll get is a loud beep and a nasty 'nostic on the status display." He grinned.

Beside me, Calandra stirred. "Not too many options, are there?" she murmured, indicating the small number of course cyls in the box.

"Not a lot of places to go in the system," the boss shrugged. "You got four Rockhounds, you got six ring research platforms, you got Solitaire. What else is there?"

"How about Spall?" I asked.

He snorted. "What, you mean Halloa Heaven? Who'd want to go there?"

"We do," I told him, putting some firmness into my voice. I was, after all, supposed to be the one in charge here. "I have to drop my friend here off before continuing on to Collet."

He frowned slightly, his sense suddenly becoming uncertain. "I thought this was supposed to be a one-man trip," he said. "I mean, that's what we've got her serviced and stocked for—"

"Minor change in plans," I cut him off. "And I seem to recall the Bellwether's captain specifying double safety margins for the supplies."

A surge of professional pride overpowered the uncertainties. "Oh, sure, there won't be any problem like that—I mean, Spall's just five or six hours away."

"Good," I nodded. "Then if you can dig us up a course cyl for Spall, we'll be ready to go."

"Yeah, well—yeah, sure. Let's see..." He scratched his chin thoughtfully. "I guess the tower banks'll have a complete set on file. It'll take a few minutes, but I could send someone over and have them make you some copies. Or if you can tell me where exactly you'll want to land, I could have a copy of that particular one fed to you while we get you loaded into the cat."

"Don't we have to go to wherever Spall's launch catapult is?" I frowned. "Or do they have more than one?"

"They don't have any at all," he shook his head. "People who go there pretty much land anywhere they want. All you have to do when you want to leave is gimp your way up a couple thousand meters and then kick in the fusion to get you to ram speed. Uses more fuel than with a cat, 'course, but not as much as you'd think."

The thought of using a fusion drive that close to a planetary surface... "What does it do to the landscape?" I asked.

"Not much good," he conceded. "Doesn't matter much, though—practically the whole planet is desert, anyway. So; you want one cyl or the whole batch?"

I glanced at Calandra, thinking fast. It would be handy to have a complete set—aside from having a wider range of choices, it would help spread the search around when my web of lies eventually fell apart. On the other hand, a list of reference points or even place names wouldn't do us much good by themselves. "Would the nearest convenient place to the main Halloa settlement be okay with you?" I asked her.

Once again, she deciphered my train of thought with ease. "A list of all the settlements would be better," she said. "You do have maps of Spall programmed in, don't you?" she added to the boss.

"Oh, sure. For all the good they are—cartographers haven't exactly fallen over themselves getting the place fine-gridded out. Tell you what; I'll have the tower feed you course cyls for the six biggest Halloa places, okay?"

I raised my eyebrows questioningly. "Yes, that should be satisfactory," Calandra nodded.

"Okay," the boss said, relief in his sense as he brushed past us to the control panel. From a box next to one of the contour seats he scooped a handful of blank cyls and laid them out neatly in a row on a grip next to the computer feed. "You put them in here," he said over his shoulder, demonstrating with the first. "When it beeps, you replace it with the next one—"

"I am familiar with the procedure," I told him mildly. "Thank you."

"Yeah." He straightened, took one last look around the cabin at the displays and indicators. "Well, everything seems ready. Just sit down and make yourselves comfortable, and I'll get the crew started on loading you into the cat. And I'll get the tower going on those cyls, too."

"Thank you," I said again. He shifted the pepperstick to the other side of his mouth, gave us each a brief nod, and left.

"Now what?" Calandra asked nervously as the door was sealed behind us with a hollow thud. Her aura of calm, adopted for the boss's benefit, was gone without a trace.

"We sit down and make ourselves comfortable," I told her, trying to keep my voice light. "And we try to think optimistic thoughts."

She snorted. Turning her back on me, she chose one of the twin control seats and began strapping in. I followed suit with the other seat, noting that my suggestion about optimistic thoughts didn't seem to be working for her.

Not really surprising. They weren't working for me, either.

Six hours later, we began our final approach to Spall.

It had been a quiet trip. Both of us had tried to get some sleep, with varying degrees of success; neither of us had felt much like talking. Calandra, I could tell, was still unhappy with both me and the situation, her worrying underpinned by a low-level anger that wasn't showing much sign of subsiding.

I could hardly blame her. Once away from Solitaire, with my adrenaline-fueled tension fading as it became clear we had indeed gotten away, I had started having second thoughts myself. Two people, setting off to search an entire planet—it was so utterly ridiculous I couldn't believe I had actually considered it a rational scheme. And yet, that was all we had left. Two people against a world, with nothing but faith to go on... and my faith very possibly having to do for both of us.