Timothy Zahn - Deadman Switch

Eisenstadt stared at him. "A war party?"

"I don't see what else it could be," Freitag nodded.

I suddenly noticed my hands were clenched tightly at my sides. "Couldn't they simply be colony ships?" I asked, moved by something I only vaguely understood to give the strangers the benefit of the doubt.

Freitag looked at me. "Does it matter?" he asked bluntly. "Whether they want territory or a fight, the end result is still the same.

"Solitaire is under attack."

"...The ships, fortunately, are only about half the size we'd originally estimated," Freitag said, splitting his display to show both an actual photo as well as a computer-scrubbed rendition. "Nearly forty percent of the size and mass is taken up by this umbrella-like thing, apparently a scoop-and-shield arrangement that magnetically grabs interstellar hydrogen and funnels it into the drive—those four nozzles on the underside—while simultaneously protecting the passengers from any atoms and micrometeors that the fields missed. The main body of the ship is back here—" he indicated it—"hanging about a kilometer beneath the drive section."

"Held there by what?" Governor Rybakov asked coolly. All things considered, I thought, she was taking this with considerable composure.

"A cable, we assume," Freitag told her. "Unfortunately, the Kharg's cameras weren't good enough to resolve it. That gives us a lower limit for its strength, though, and it's considerable."

"How considerable?" Rybakov demanded. "Beyond Patri capabilities?"

Eisenstadt shook his head. "I've done some checking and we could duplicate it. Tricky and expensive, but possible."

The tension in the governor's sense eased a bit. "At least they've got similar technology," she murmured. "I suppose we should be grateful for small favors."

Freitag and Eisenstadt exchanged glances. "Perhaps, Governor," Freitag said cautiously. "But don't forget that these ships have been running, probably constantly, for something like eighty-five years—and without putting in at a port for maintenance, I might add. That implies a tremendous technological consistency; and for them to be willing to ride the things in the first place implies an equally impressive confidence in that technology."

"Although we don't really know the ships are manned, do we?" Rybakov countered. "They could just as easily be robots. And as far as your assumed consistency is concerned, remember that we also don't know how many ships they had when they first started out. These one hundred ninety-two could conceivably be just the tail end of a fleet that originally numbered in the thousands."

"Unlikely," Freitag grunted. "Easy enough to check, thougli—all we have to do is search their backtrack for derelicts or debris."

"Provided the thunderheads will cooperate in such a search," Rybakov said, turning her gaze on me for the first time. "Which is why I wanted Benedar to be in on this conference today."

I gazed back at her... and it was only then, faced with the contrast in attitudes, that I suddenly realized just how much Eisenstadt's original antagonism toward me had diminished over the past few weeks. "I'll help in any way I can," I said evenly.

She almost grimaced, her sense a mixture of distaste and determination reminiscent of when she'd come to Randon to retrieve her illegally issued customs IDs. "I understand you've been keeping an eye on these Halloas Dr. Eisenstadt is using to talk to the thunderheads," she said.

"Yes," I nodded. "Though at the moment there's only one Seeker there to keep an eye on."

"And...?"

I shrugged. "So far things seem to be going all right. Shepherd Zagorin is exhibiting some subtle changes, but they seem to be mainly adjustments to the thunderhead presence. There's no indication that they're subverting her or anything like that."

Rybakov glanced at Eisenstadt; peripherally, I saw his nod of agreement. "For the moment we'll assume you're right," she went on. "So. If they're so cooperative and friendly, explain why they didn't tell us about the Invaders sooner."

I winced. "We don't actually know they're deliberate invaders—"

"You can practice turning the other cheek on your own time," Rybakov cut me off. "Just answer the question, and save the moralizing for your religious friends."

"I was answering it, Governor," I told her, fighting back my own irritation. "I was trying to suggest that the thunderheads may not have said anything about them because they themselves may not see it as an invasion."

She snorted. "Ridiculous. What do they think they're coming for, a picnic?"

Eisenstadt cleared his throat. "It's possible they've examined both the ships and their passengers and concluded they won't be wanting Spall," he said. "We think it likely they did the same with us before they first started guiding us through the Cloud."

"The fact remains that, unlike the Invaders, they let us in," Rybakov countered. "Or are you going to suggest the Invaders were offered the same Deadman Switch approach and were turned down?"

"The Invaders may not have Mjollnir drive," Eisenstadt pointed out. Just as I was doing with the aliens, he was clearly trying to give the thunderheads every possible benefit of the doubt. "We won't know until we can take better pictures and see if the ships are equipped with the necessary hull lacings."

Rybakov grimaced. "All right, then, let's try it from another direction. According to the report you filed when you first asked for a Solitaran zombi, the thunderheads were offering to show you the Cloud generator. They lied about that; what's to say they aren't lying about other things, too?"

"Yes, well, we wondered about that too," Eisenstadt said, embarrassment seeping through his professionalism. "If you go back and check the tapes, you find that the thunderheads promised to take us to the origination—their word—of the Cloud. 'Origination,' my dictionary tells me, is something that gives origin to, or something that initiates. I assumed at the time that they meant the generator of the Cloud; what I gather they actually meant was the reason for the Cloud's existence."

"In other words, as a protection from invasion," Rybakov snorted. "As I said."

Eisenstadt glanced at Freitag. "Again, not necessarily, Governor," Freitag said. "It's possible that they're maintaining the Cloud in order to protect us."

Rybakov opened her mouth, a retort ready... closed it again as her sense turned suddenly thoughtful. "Uh-huh," she said at last. "Well, that's hardly a flattering thought—rather reduces our role here to something like pets or valuable wildlife."

"Or an equally valuable scientific study," Eisenstadt offered. "That might explain, too, why they hid their sentience from us for so long."

"Perhaps. Hardly an improvement over being pets, to my mind." She frowned into space for a moment. "Didn't they say at your first contact that they didn't have any interest in studying us?"

"What they actually said was that they had no desire to learn any more about us," Eisenstadt corrected her. "If they already had seventy years of such studies behind them, they would hardly need any more."

Rybakov snorted gently. "Again, a strictly truthful statement that nevertheless manages to mislead. I don't like the pattern I see forming here."

There was considerable irony in such a complaint coming from a professional politician, but Eisenstadt had the sense to pass up the obvious barbs. "At least they seem reluctant to tell out-and-out lies," he shrugged. "Don't forget, too, that they've already demonstrated respect for human life. When that shield—what was his name, Gilead?"

"Mikha Kutzko," I supplied. A pang of guilt poked in under my concentration; I'd hardly thought at all over the past few weeks about what might be happening with him and the others on the Bellwether.