Timothy Zahn - Deadman Switch

And there was nothing I could do to stop him.

Like the corridor, the Butte City was only dimly lit, but there was enough starlight filtering between the cliffs for me to pick out the three forms standing near one of the gaps. Calandra and her two Pravilo escorts. My own escort trailing along behind me, I headed over.

She saw us coming, of course, and identified me well before there was enough light for her to properly see my face. "Hello, Gilead," she called softly. "Come to look at the stars?"

"Not really," I said.

Her silhouette stiffened slightly as she heard the tightness in my voice. "What's the matter?"

I hesitated, suddenly very conscious of the strangers listening in. "Could Ms. Paquin and I have a minute alone?" I asked my escort.

"I guess that'd be okay," he said genially. Pulling out his phone, he keyed in a code, and the lights that had been strung around the Butte City brightened to the level of a fashionably dim room. "Take all the time you want," he added. Signing Calandra's escort to follow, he stepped back around the thunderheads.

"What's the matter?" Calandra repeated when they were out of earshot.

I related my conversation with Eisenstadt and Randon. The words felt like molten lead in my mouth. "I see," she said when I'd finished. Her eyes were focused somewhere past my face; her sense was dread combined with a strange calm. "Well... we knew it was just a matter of time."

I clenched my teeth hard enough to hurt. "I haven't given up," I told her. "Neither have the others."

She shook her head. "You might as well. It's over."

"Calandra—"

She silenced me with a look. "I never asked for this," she reminded me quietly. "Never asked you to get involved with this crusade—begged you, in fact, not to. Please, Gilead—just let it go."

They have filled this place with the blood of the innocent... "And let them trade an innocent life for money?" I demanded.

She sighed, and her eyes closed briefly. "The powerful have always built their wealth on the lives of other people," she said tiredly. "You of all people should know that—the Carillon Group has certainly done its share. Solitaire just happens to be a more blatant example than most."

"There ought to be room for both wealth and ethics in a civilized society," I ground out.

She shrugged. "The last person to try running a government that way was Aaron Balaam darMaupine. Want to trade?"

I glared at her. "I can't let this happen."

"You can't stop it." She took a deep breath. "But if it helps any... you've already done more for me than I could ever have hoped."

She turned slightly, her eyes turning upward to the stars. "You remember the parable of the talents?"

To one he gave five talents, to another two, to a third one, each in proportion to his ability... "How could I forget it?"

She nodded. "Me, too. The teachers at Bethel really drummed that one into us. You ever wonder—late at night—whether you were living up to their expectations?"

I swallowed. "No more than a hundred times a year."

"Same with me," she said. "I'd pretty much given up even trying; but it was always there anyway, somewhere way in the back of my mind. I guess I soothed it by assuming that when I was older I'd find something great to accomplish. Now, of course... I won't be getting much older."

I bit at the back of my lip, and wished I knew how to comfort her. "I'm sorry," was all I could think of to say.

She looked at me. "Don't be. Don't you see?—this crazy quixotic quest of yours has given me more of a memorial than I ever dreamed of having. You and I, Gilead, have literally changed mankind's history."

I looked at the sea of thunderheads, vague ghost-white shapes in the dim light. "I suppose so. Though whether we were here or not, it was only a matter of time before someone made contact with them."

She snorted. "Someone like who?—the Halloas? Come on; they were perfectly content to sit here thinking they were walking around on heaven talking directly to God. They'd never have made the connection by themselves."

From heaven God looks down, he sees all the children of Adam, from the place where he sits he watches all who dwell on the earth; he alone molds their hearts, he understands all they do... "Imagine the impression on mankind's history if that had been true," I murmured.

"The thunderheads hardly conform to the popular concept of angels," Calandra said, a touch of humor glinting through the solemnity.

I smiled in return; and right then it hit me, like a brilliant flash of lightning. From heaven God looks down... "God in heaven, Calandra," I breathed. "That's it. That's it!"

She stared at me. "What—?"

"Come on!" Grabbing her hand, I almost literally pulled her toward the Pravilos still waiting nearby. "I need a phone—quickly," I called to them.

We met them halfway, and a phone was handed to me. "How do I get Dr. Eisenstadt?" I asked, fumbling with the instrument with trembling hands. It was so blatantly obvious—

One of the Pravilos keyed in the code, and a minute later Eisenstadt's face appeared on the tiny display. "Hello?"

"This is Benedar," I identified myself. "Where is Commodore Freitag?"

He blinked, clearly taken aback by the unexpected question. "On Solitaire, I presume."

"Call him," I said. "Get him here." I glanced at the Pravilos, looking as puzzled as Eisenstadt did. "And after he's on his way, better keep this whole place incommunicado. We still haven't proved Aikman didn't have an information source here, and this cannot be allowed to get out."

"What can't be allowed to get out?" he growled, starting to grow irritated. "Calm down and—"

"We need a non-Solitaran criminal," I cut him off. "Right? And the best candidate for one is a smuggler. Right?"

"Y-y-yes," he said slowly. "Except that you said Freitag wasn't interested in a solution to the—"

"In a partial solution," I corrected him. Couldn't he see it—? "He wants to take all the smugglers in a single sweep, before any can slip through the net."

"And you know where they all are?"

"No!" I all but shouted at him. "But the thunderheads do!"

Beside me, Calandra whispered something startled and yet oddly reverent sounding... and Eisenstadt, for the first time since I'd met him, was speechless.

It wasn't quite that easy, of course. The thunderheads had no way of distinguishing legitimate ships and settlements from smuggler ships and bases, for one thing, and it was quite a job explaining to them how to use human maps and skytracks. But with patience and computer wizardry on Freitag's part and stamina on Zagorin's, the job was eventually done.

A week later, Freitag had his clean sweep.

—

I learned later that no fewer than five smuggler ships were caught in the Pravilo's grand net, as well as four rather cushy bases buried in the wilds of Spall. Unraveling all the entanglements—some of which were rumored to stretch as far afield as Janus and Elegy—and bringing all those involved before the appropriate judiciaries would take months or even years. But for the leaders of one crew, caught red-handed with a kidnap victim still aboard, the Solitaran judiciary authorized the use of pravdrugs. From those five men, two were chosen whose clear and willing guilt was matched only by their complete ignorance of the group's business contacts.

Guilty, but at the same time useless to the Pravilo investigation... or in other words, perfect candidates for filling Eisenstadt's request for a zombi.

I expected the judiciary to take at least a week to make it official. It took, in fact, barely five days.

—

I'd expected the second time would be easier. Or perhaps merely hoped it would.

It wasn't, of course.