Timothy Zahn - Deadman Switch

Eisenstadt nodded. "When Kutzko did his little experiment to see how fast the thunderheads could learn, they could presumably have tried to kill him instead of going after his needler."

"Protecting their scientific experiment," Rybakov said sourly. "—yes, I know, Doctor, it's better than being considered enemies," she added as Eisenstadt started to speak. "Anyway, the issue of thunderhead perceptions is low on the priority list at the moment. What's important is how we're going to deal with the Invaders. Any ideas, Commodore?"

Freitag waved a hand uncomfortably. "I've done a couple of preliminary scenarios, but none of them is especially promising."

"What's the problem, the speed they're making?"

"Basically. You have to remember that they're doing twelve percent lightspeed; that's thirty-six thousand kilometers a second. None of our weapons has the slightest chance of even tracking something that fast, let alone connecting with it."

"What about shooting at them from the front?" Rybakov asked. "We know what their course is, after all."

"Wait a moment," I objected. "Isn't this a little early to be thinking about shooting at them? We haven't even tried to talk to them yet."

All three looked at me; Rybakov with impatience, Freitag with an almost guilty impatience, Eisenstadt with genuine regret. "The problem, Gilead," the latter said, "is that their speed also pretty well precludes any kind of communication. We'd have to use high-density pulses, fired from close range the instant they passed, and signals like that are notoriously sensitive to the sort of electromagnetic fluxes they've got operating."

"But surely they know how to compensate for that," I argued. "I mean, they must have some way of watching ahead of them, at the very least."

"I'm sure they do," Freitag said, his discomfort putting gruffness in his voice. "But they'll be watching out for cometary masses, not pulsed radio signals. And besides..." He seemed to brace himself. "It might not be a good idea to tip them off that we're even aware of them. It would lose us any advantage of surprise we might still have."

I looked at him, feeling the blood draining from my face. Look at them, lurking to ambush me, violent men are attacking me, for no fault, no sin of mine... "You can't do that," I said quietly. "It would be nothing less than mass murder."

"It's called survival," Rybakov said sharply.

"Since when?" I demanded. "This isn't some sudden, split-second assault we have to react to—they're not even going to be here for, what, ten years?"

"More than that," Freitag grunted. "Somewhere along the line they'll have to flip their ships over and start decelerating; depending on what kind of thrust their engines can handle, it could be anything from twelve to twenty years before they arrive."

"Which means that everyone involved will have plenty of time to weigh the alternatives," Eisenstadt told me soothingly. "I presume, Governor, that 'everyone,' in this case, will be people other than us?"

Rybakov nodded. "The Patri will almost certainly want to set up a commission to examine the situation and make recommendations." She turned to me. "Your job, Benedar, will be to continue assisting in the thunderhead study. That is, if Dr. Eisenstadt still needs you."

"I do," Eisenstadt said. Almost too quickly. "Both he and Ms. Paquin are proving indispensable."

Rybakov shrugged, striving for off-handedness but not entirely succeeding. "Fine. Let me know when either of them becomes superfluous. Well. Thank you, Doctor; Commodore. I congratulate you both on your work in this, and I'm sure the Patri will find a way to put their appreciation into more concrete form. Good day to you all; Dr. Eisenstadt, keep me informed on your work."

Freitag parted company with us outside the governor's mansion, heading for his office at the main Solitaran Pravilo HQ, as Eisenstadt and I headed back to Rainbow's End and the shuttle awaiting us there. I waited until we were aboard, out of earshot of drivers and crewers, before asking Eisenstadt the obvious question. "What did the governor mean, that you should let her know when either Calandra or I became superfluous?"

"Oh, there've been some further legal rumblings about you two," he shrugged, trying hard to sound unconcerned. "Same sort of thing as before."

"You mean that Calandra's execution should be carried out?"

"Mainly," he said. "There's also some noise that you ought to be charged for your role in her escape. Completely ridiculous, especially given the importance of what it was you two stumbled onto poking around Spall."

I thought about that a moment. One of the immediate implications— "Then the Patri are still planning to keep all of this a secret as long as possible?"

He nodded, throwing me a lopsided smile. "Uh-huh—and that's very much to your advantage right now. As long as they're reluctant to bring any more people than absolutely necessary into this, you two are by definition the only Watchers available. As long as I need you, Rybakov's not about to take you away."

"Yes, sir," I murmured. To our advantage, certainly... and even more to the Patri's. No public knowledge meant no public opinion... and no public opinion meant they could plot the aliens' destruction with complete impunity. Though a thousand fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, you yourself will remain unscathed... "Yes, sir," I said again. "I understand."

For the next three weeks nothing much happened. Eisenstadt talked with the thunderheads once every couple of days, Calandra and I watching each contact and trying to learn how to read and interpret the aliens' sense as they spoke through Shepherd Zagorin. Eisenstadt didn't learn all that much from the conversations, and now that I was looking for it I realized that Governor Rybakov's comment had indeed been correct: the thunderheads really did like making strictly truthful statements that were nevertheless misleading. At one point Eisenstadt got mad enough to consider calling them on it, but eventually decided not to. It could, after all, be merely an odd quirk of their psychology, in which case objecting would accomplish little and probably be insulting in the bargain.

Of the approaching fleet they would say nothing at all, no matter how many creative ways Eisenstadt found to rephrase the questions we wanted answers to. Eventually, he gave up asking, but only after he managed to obtain assurances that they would cooperate in guiding the observation ships the new Patri commission would undoubtedly be sending out.

The commission itself arrived, bringing with them a pair of Pravilo ships, a selection of highly sophisticated sensor and photographic gear, and—I heard—upwards of a dozen zombis. The thought of the latter made me wince, and I wondered how I was going to handle living in the same camp with a full-fledged death-cell prison. But my worry turned out to be for nothing; instead of joining us, the commission opted to set up their headquarters a few hundred kilometers away in one of the now-abandoned smuggler bases. Settling in for a long, leisurely study, apparently, and unwilling to spend it in what was still something of a makeshift camp.

It made me wonder what kind of people had been chosen for the commission; but after a little reflection I decided it might actually be a hopeful sign. Business and political leaders who liked their comfort might be less inclined to shoot first and sift the rubble later than would a group drawn strictly from the Pravilo's military strategists. Indeed, after a meeting at their encampment, Eisenstadt told me that despite Freitag's expectations to the contrary, the question of whether the Patri should try to open up communication with the fleet was indeed on the commission's agenda. It was, I had to admit, as much as I could have hoped for.