Timothy Zahn - Deadman Switch

"That's not quite it," Kutzko interrupted me. "If you're going out to meet the Invaders you're going to need to get hold of a zombi."

Lord Kelsey-Ramos looked at me, my feelings about the Deadman Switch running visibly through his mind. "He's right, you know," he agreed carefully. "Depending on how long you'll need to stay out there, you may even need more than one."

"And you'll need someone to guard them," Kutzko added. "As well as to... use the hypo on them. Which is why you need me along."

"Thank you—again—for your offer," I told him. "But I don't think we're going to need any zombis." I nodded past him toward Adams.

He glanced over his shoulder. "What do you mean?" he frowned.

"He means," Eisenstadt said, "that the thunderheads have just confirmed something we've suspected for quite a while: that they can physically operate a Halloa in a trance as fully as they can a regular zombi."

Kutzko muttered something startled under his breath, and Adams's eyes widened. His thoughts busy with the dangers and uncertainties ahead, that aspect of his communication hadn't yet occurred to him. "God save us all," he whispered.

Lord Kelsey-Ramos looked at Eisenstadt. "I believe Shepherd Adams is still officially assigned here," he said. "We'll need your formal permission to take him with us."

Eisenstadt nodded. "Yes, I'll need to record something for you. Let's go back to my office—all the proper protocols are there."

It took them nearly half an hour to get the permission recording done exactly according to standard format... and in their concentration neither man noticed that I slipped out for a few minutes to one of the labs down the hall. By the time Lord Kelsey-Ramos had what he needed, I was back... with what I needed safely hidden away in an inner pocket.

An hour later we were back aboard the Bellwether, heading at top acceleration for the rings of Collet. Where we would find out whether the inspiration that had come to me in my Pravilo prison cell was actually going to work.

And where I would very probably die.

The Pravilo commodore read the page through twice before finally raising his eyes to look at us. "You put me in a rather awkward position, Lord Kelsey-Ramos," he said. I listened carefully, but though there was considerable annoyance beneath the courtesy in his voice, I could hear nothing that sounded like suspicion. "I respect your position here; at the same time, I'm sure you're aware of how close to the wire Project Avalanche is running. Handling guided tours is pretty far down the worklist."

"I understand that, Commodore," Lord Kelsey-Ramos said, his tone managing to combine understanding sympathy and firm resolve. "I'm sure you understand in turn that when I put my name on a recommendation, I like to know how well the orders are being carried out."

He had not, in fact, signed the commission's official recommendation, but the commodore probably didn't know that. "Yes, sir," he nodded, "and I'd really like to accommodate you. But as I said, we simply don't have the people to spare."

"Not even a clerk or desk worker?" Lord Kelsey-Ramos persisted. "Come, now, Commodore, I'm not asking for a full Pravilo honor guard or anything like that. I have my own launch and my own pilot—all I'm asking is for you to give me a security clearance and someone to point out the high points as we go along."

The commodore grimaced and reached for his control stick. "Lord Kelsey-Ramos, I really don't have time for this. You want a clearance?—fine; I'll have one made out for you. But you and your launch had better stay out of our way. We've got thirty tugs buzzing around out there, and you so much as near-miss one of them and you're out."

"I understand," Lord Kelsey-Ramos nodded. "Don't worry; we don't intend to spend much time in the current work areas. My primary interest is with the rocheoids that have already been fitted with Mjollnir drives."

The officer's forehead creased slightly at that, but there were too many other matters clamoring for his attention for him to bother with an odd comment from a civilian. "Fine," he grunted, tapping a few keys and pulling a red-stripped cyl from its slot. "Replace your launch's ID beacon with this," he instructed, handing it across the desk, "and don't pull it out until you're ready to leave the area—if you do, it'll erase."

"Thank you," Lord Kelsey-Ramos said, taking the cyl. "What about a guide, now?"

I held my breath. We didn't really want a guide—didn't want any witnesses around when I hijacked the rocheoid—but Lord Kelsey-Ramos had persuaded me that it would be strongly out of character for someone in his position not to demand some kind of official escort. He'd toned down the request as far as he reasonably could, and I could tell the Pravilo commodore had noted that. Now if the latter would just push the protocol a little from his direction...

He did. "Again, sir, I'm sorry," he said, "but the best I can do is offer you my aide for a couple of hours."

Lord Kelsey-Ramos nodded. "That'll be quite satisfactory, Commodore," he told the other. "Is he available right now?"

"If you want him to be," the other shrugged, waving his control stick at the intercom. "Grashchik? Finish up whatever listing you're on and pull the overview file. Got some visitors here for you to give a brief tour to." He got an acknowledgment and waved the intercom off. "It'll be just a couple of minutes."

"Thank you." Lord Kelsey-Ramos glanced behind the commodore, to a real-time schematic of the entire Project Avalanche area. "Tell me, how close to schedule are you running?"

"Dead on, sir," the other said, an obvious note of pride in his voice. "The original plan was for the rocheoids to be able to fly six days from now; we figure we'll be ready in a little over five."

I felt my stomach tighten. Five days—just five days. Deep down, I'd hoped that the project would be behind schedule, that there would be a little more time for us to prepare ourselves before we had to do this. But that hadn't happened. Today—right now—was the time.

I glanced over to find Lord Kelsey-Ramos's eyes on me. I nodded fractionally, got an acknowledging nod in return, and he turned back to the Pravilo officer. "Since time is of the essence, Commodore," he suggested, "why don't we go on back to the Bellwether and get the launch ready to go? Your man can meet us there."

The other nodded, almost absently, his mind already on more important matters. "Whatever you want to do, sir," he said. "Grashchik will be there in a few minutes."

Lord Kelsey-Ramos nodded. "Thank you, sir," he said... and I could hear the grim determination lurking beneath the words. "We'll be ready for him."

—

Visually, Project Avalanche was a disappointment.

Not surprisingly, I suppose. The image I'd started with—two hundred mountain-sized rocheoids floating in formation with a hundred workships darting around between them—that picture had pretty well disappeared from my mind as soon as it occurred to me that it would be far more efficient to leave the rocheoids wherever they originally were in orbit and to simply move the Mjollnir-lacing equipment back and forth through the rings as needed. Still, traces of the image had lingered, reinforced perhaps by the fact that the last fifteen rocheoids were being fitted simultaneously from this one orbital station.

But even those fifteen rocheoids turned out to be scattered over a thousand cubic kilometers of space; and the tugs and workships attending them flew for the most part on cold nitrogen maneuvering jets. Even in the middle of it, it was hard to imagine anything at all unusual was happening out here.

Which was, I suspected, exactly the way the Pravilo wanted it to look.

"That's the one, over there," Lieutenant Grashchik pointed through the launch's viewplate toward our target rocheoid. "If you look carefully, you can see the attached tug just below center, on the dark side of the terminator line."