Timothy Zahn - Deadman Switch

"Neither," I retorted, feeling uncomfortably on the defensive. To even suggest I could be so easily seduced by the secular world was utterly absurd, even insulting. "And anyway, that's beside the point. The point is that unless we can find an alternative, the Pravilo is going to snuff out a great many intelligent lives."

He nodded, but I could see that the issue of my path was merely being shelved, not abandoned. "So why won't they let you talk to the thunderheads?"

With some effort, I forced myself back to business. "They probably would, actually, if that's all I was going to do," I told him. "But I'm going to have to do more than just talk. I'm going to have to reveal to the thunderheads that we know a secret about them."

Adams's frowned. "What kind of secret?"

"One that shows they aren't the poor, picked-on victims they've been pretending to be. That they deliberately drew us to Solitaire system in hopes of embroiling us in this dispute with the aliens."

"Interesting," Adams murmured. He pondered for a moment. "You don't think revealing that will make trouble?"

I shook my head. "The thunderheads almost certainly know by now that we know it. And in the two weeks since Lord Kelsey-Ramos figured it out they haven't shown any signs of being particularly worried." Which, if that was true, meant that its use as a lever might well be vanishingly small. But there was nothing left for me but the grasping of such straws.

For another moment Adams gazed at me, his sense a kaleidoscope of indecision and thought and the weighing of possibilities. Then, abruptly, it cleared; and he nodded briskly. "All right. Are you ready?"

The quickness of the decision surprised me. "Well, yes, but you aren't. We'll need to get some of the drugs they've been using to prepare Shepherd Zagorin."

"And you have access to these drugs?" he asked pointedly.

"I can get them," I insisted. "We can't risk the kind of trouble you had the first time."

"Why not?" he countered. "I lasted several minutes then, and with my rebuilt heart and cerebral circulatory system I shouldn't be in even that much danger this time."

I felt my stomach muscles tightening up. I couldn't ask him to do this—not now, not unprepared. But he was right. The first batch of rocheoids were already being prepared, and the schedule called for the rest to be finished within another month. The longer we delayed, the less likely anything we learned would be able to stop the holocaust. "All right," I sighed at last. "There shouldn't be anyone at the Butte City at the moment."

"I'm glad to hear it," he said dryly. Laying his fork trowel aside, he shifted to cross-legged position and closed his eyes.

I felt a rush of heat to my face, feeling like an idiot. Of course there was no need for us to physically go to where the thunderheads' bodies were. Sitting down in front of Adams, I took a careful breath and tried to clear my mind of extraneous thoughts. Adams slipped into his meditative trance... reached what seemed to me to be the proper point... "Thunderheads?" I invited.

The response was immediate. "I am here," Adams whispered hoarsely. "What do you wish?"

I braced myself. This was it. "I wish information," I said. "I'd like you to teach me how to communicate with the aliens who are approaching this world."

Eisenstadt had made the identical request before; and, as with that time, there was a long moment of silence. I kept my eyes on Adams, watching for any signs of physical distress. "There is no way to talk... to them," the thunderhead answered at last.

Predictably, the same answer as last time. "Then perhaps we humans will choose to leave this place," I told him. "Perhaps those in authority over us will decide they don't like being lied to and manipulated by others."

I'd half expected the thunderhead to feign innocence; but perhaps I'd underestimated the creatures' sophistication. "Your race has gained much from... this place," he said through Adams. "You seek certain miner... als for your machines. They are worth lives to you. You will stay and fight for... what you want."

"I'd advise you not to underestimate the strength of human pride," I warned him. "You see, we now know all about your natural defense strategy, with the stinging insects and all. We know that you're playing the exact same game with us, right down to luring us here by creating the mineral wealth of Collet's rings for us."

"We do not create," he said calmly. "Semantics," I snorted. "Perhaps you'd prefer the word enhanced. Regardless, we know all about it. Must have been quite a project: an entire planetful of thunderheads focusing their organic lasers on the rings for years at a time, slowly boiling off the lighter elements and leaving the heavier metals behind."

"Such an accusation... is utterly fantas... tic."

I shook my head. "I agree it's wilder than most of the theories that have tried to account for the heat-treating of the rocks out there, but once Lord Kelsey-Ramos made the connection it was a trivial matter to show that the heating was done by the same set of wavelengths as the melted spots on that ramp in the Butte City."

There was another long silence, and I had the distinct impression that the thunderheads were a little taken aback. For all their remarkable natural abilities, their lack of any kind of technology severely limited their knowledge of the physical sciences. To their minds, the analysis I'd just described—a very straightforward one, I'd been told—probably sounded identical to magic. "Well?" I prompted after a moment.

A sense of firmness touched Adams's face. "You will stay and fight for... the minerals in the... rings," the thunderhead repeated.

I bit at my lip. This was getting me nowhere. "Will you at least tell me why they're coming?" I asked him.

"They are invaders."

The stock answer. "Yes, so you've told us," I said, feeling my frustration level beginning to rise. "But why are they coming? What quarrel do they have with you that they're willing to spend a hundred years coming through your Cloud to get to you?"

"They are invaders."

I focused sharply on Adams. Something in his voice on that last sentence...? "Thunderhead, we haven't got much time left," I said, watching Adams closely. The contact was beginning to get to him. "We can't simply kill the aliens in cold blood—we just can't. Don't you understand how unethical such a thing would be for our species?"

Adams's glazed eyes turned up to me... and suddenly I felt a chill run up my back. There was a hard edge to his sense, something I'd never before seen in a thunderhead contact. "You are defenders," he whispered; and even with a whisper's usual lack of tonal cues I could hear the contempt there. "You will destroy them be... cause that is your nature. That is why you are here."

I gritted my teeth hard, anger and frustration combining into a violent urge to somehow lash out at the thunderhead. But I couldn't. A nerve was twitching in Adams's neck, and I could see the palpitation of the carotid artery, and there was nothing I could do except swallow my fury and break off the contact. "We are human beings," I gritted out. "We go where we wish, do what we wish. As you will find out. Adams!—break contact."

For a second I had the horrible feeling that the thunderhead was going to refuse to allow it, that he was going to let Adams die as a demonstration of thunderhead power. But a second later the stiffness went out of Adams's back, and he was free.

I watched him closely, finger resting lightly on the Emergency button on my phone. But the worrying turned out to be unnecessary; compared with the last time, this recovery was practically instantaneous. Within a minute his breathing and eyes had returned to normal and he was able to sit up straight again. "So," he said at last. "It didn't work."