Timothy Zahn - Deadman Switch

Defeat had a bitter taste. "No," I shook my head wearily. "I'd hoped there might be something else there... but there isn't. We really are nothing but overgrown insects to them. They're playing with us—have been playing with us, for seventy years now. And if the Pravilo gets their way on this one..."

Adams turned his head to gaze through the security fence. "Perhaps they aren't simply being blind or greedy," he suggested quietly. "Perhaps they don't see any safe alternative to cooperation at this point." He hesitated. "The thunderheads' lasers—did they really burn the light elements out of the rings?"

I saw what he was getting at. "Yes, but Lord Kelsey-Ramos told me that it took them literally years to do it. At least ten, probably closer to twenty. The individual lasers aren't all that powerful, really—they seem to have come about mainly as a means for stirring up their insect protectors when a predator approached. It wouldn't be all that effective a weapon against us."

"They fused the end of a needler with it," he pointed out.

"Melted a few drops across the opening," I corrected him. "And it probably took the entire Butte City population to do it. Agreed, a direct confrontation would carry a certain risk. But I can't see the Patri knuckling under solely because of that."

Adams snorted gently. "Then you're right: it has to be either blindness or greed."

I nodded. "My guess is greed."

For a minute we sat there silently. I found my eyes turning upward, toward the glistening white clouds drifting serenely across the blue sky... and in my mind's eye the clouds became Mjollnir-equipped rocheoids. Massive chunks of death, moving into their appointed places in front of the approaching ships.

Ships that would probably never even know what had happened to them.

"You can't give up," Adams said.

I turned back to find his eyes on me. "I don't want to give up," I retorted. "But I've tried everything I can think of, and I'm out of ideas. Even if the thunderheads were willing to tell us how to talk to the aliens, there's no guarantee we could get a dialogue going fast enough to figure out what the conflict is between the two races."

"Still, if the aliens could tell us their side of things, you can bet the thunderheads would open up and give us their version," Adams pointed out.

"For whatever good that would do," I shrugged. "Whatever the morality of the situation turns out to be, the fact remains that siding with the thunderheads keeps us the ring mines. I don't think the thunderheads would let the Patri forget that."

"As if the Patri would need reminding."

"Right." Carefully, I got to my feet, the muscles in my legs protesting as I did so. "Thank you for your time, Shepherd Adams, and for your willingness to risk your life in this."

He waved a hand, figuratively brushing the gratitude away. "What will you do now?"

"I don't know." I looked toward the Butte City. "Go talk to Dr. Eisenstadt or Lord Kelsey-Ramos, I suppose. Keep nagging people until they get tired enough of me to do something."

He smiled. " 'For a long time he refused,' " he quoted, " 'but at last he said to himself, Even though I have neither fear of God nor respect for any human person, I must give this widow her just rights since she keeps pestering me, or she will come and slap me in the face.' Is that it?"

"More or less," I said. "Except that unlike the judge in the parable, they don't really have to put up with me any longer than—"

I broke off as my phone twittered. I frowned as I pulled it out, wondering who could possibly be calling me. "This is Benedar," I identified myself.

"Gilead, this is Eisenstadt." The scientist's voice was tight. "Where are you?"

"Out near the fence, talking with Shepherd Adams," I said, stomach muscles tightening. "What's wrong?"

His sigh was just barely audible. "You'd better get back to the ship right away. There are some Pravilos here... with a warrant for your arrest."

The prison cell was simple, small, and unadorned—a sort of sardonic parody, I thought more than once, of my cubicle in the Carillon Building back on Portslava. Without the magnificent view, of course. Or even a reasonably good intercom system.

"As near as I can tell, it's sort of a forced misunderstanding," Lord Kelsey-Ramos said, his image on the display fuzzing just enough to make it exasperating to try and read. "What's happened is that someone labyrinthed a writ through the central judiciary on Portslava, ordering the Pravilo to detain you here on charges stemming from your running off with Calandra Paquin. Total nonsense, of course, given what's happened since then, but until we can backtrack it there's not a lot I can do about it."

I nodded heavily. "I don't have to guess who's behind it, do I?"

He grimaced. "Not really. I've talked to Randon and we both agree it was almost certainly this smert-headed Aikman you kept locking horns with. Something of a farewell present to you, I expect."

I frowned. "Farewell present? He's gone?"

"Left about a week ago. Took a new position on Janus, the HTI people tell me."

"How very convenient for him," I murmured.

"How, indeed," Lord Kelsey-Ramos said grimly. "Don't worry, though—we'll track him down."

I sighed, a bitter taste in my mouth. "Don't bother, sir. He's not worth it."

Lord Kelsey-Ramos glared at me. "You'll forgive me, I trust, if turning the other cheek isn't part of my philosophy."

"It's not that, sir," I told him. "It's just that he really isn't worth the effort. You can get me out of here just as fast through normal channels as you could by chasing him down, and even hauling him back here wouldn't do anything but give him the chance to gloat in my face."

"Give you the chance to gloat, don't you mean?"

I shook my head. "No, sir. You see, he's already lost his original battle—I've kept Calandra away from the Deadman Switch. He can't make me watch her die, the way he wanted to... so instead he's arranged for me to be locked away and helpless while the alien fleet dies in her place."

Lord Kelsey-Ramos made a sour face. "I understand. Yes, it could easily take the three weeks we've got left to sort all of this through to Portslava and back." He studied my face. "Unless, that is, I make an all-out fight of it."

I shrugged. "What would be the point? I've already done everything I can think of to get the Patri to change their minds about talking to the aliens first. Whether I sit here or in the Butte City encampment makes no real difference."

Lord Kelsey-Ramos sighed. "I'm sorry, Gilead. If there was any way I could help, I would."

"I know, sir," I assured him. "You've done all you could, too."

"Yes." He paused, his sense turning inward. "It's interesting, you know," he said in a meditative voice. "Ever since I took over Carillon I've pretty much had things my own way—been the man making the decisions, both the good ones and the bad ones. This commission takes me back to earlier days."

"Days you'd rather forget?" I suggested.

His gaze came back to me. "I like having power, Gilead—I admit that. No one gets to my position who doesn't. What I hate about this commission is being saddled with a share of the responsibility for actions which I haven't really had any power to influence."

Something in his voice... "Are you saying," I asked carefully, "that the Pravilo had already made up their minds to destroy the aliens, no matter what the commission recommended?"

"Oh, come on—you don't think Aaron Balaam darMaupine originated the echo council, do you?" he growled. "Sorry to be crude, but there it is. Of course the Pravilo had already decided the Invaders were a threat; the commission's only real choice was to either rubberstamp that opinion for them or else prove conclusively that the Invaders weren't dangerous to us. I imagine you know all about proving a negative."