Deadman Switch

Chapter 22

Shepherd Denvre Adams listened in silence until Eisenstadt had finished. He looked at me, at Calandra, at the sea of thunderheads beside us. "What you're suggesting," he said quietly, "is blasphemy."

Eisenstadt's lip twisted. "Look, I understand how you feel about this—"

"I doubt that, sir," Adams cut him off. "I doubt it very much. At any rate, I won't do it."

Eisenstadt threw a razor-edged glare at me, and I cringed at the raw frustrated anger boiling out at me. Just convincing him to give this a try had taken every bit of my persuasive powers, and he'd made it abundantly clear at the outset that it was going to be on my head if it didn't work out. Now, it didn't look like we were going to get even that far. "I wonder, sir," I said to Eisenstadt, "if Calandra and I could talk with Shepherd Adams privately."

"Why?" he demanded.

Calandra got the answer out first. "Because we do understand how he feels," she said.

Eisenstadt turned his glare onto her. Unexpectedly, though, the reflexive refusal he'd been preparing to give seemed to get lost somewhere en route. "You've got five minutes," he said instead. Turning his back, he stomped away to the central monitoring station.

"You can't convince me," Adams warned me... but there was more than a hint of uncertainty beneath his quiet defiance.

"What are you afraid of?" I asked him.

"I already told you. Blasphemy. To even suggest that God is nothing more than a group of sentient plants—"

"No one's suggesting that," I insisted. "All we're saying is that the thunderheads may be what you hear when you're meditating."

"Is that all?" he asked with probably as much sarcasm as the man was capable of. "You just want to prove that God isn't speaking to us?"

"But if He's not—"

"If He's not, there are still benefits to be had from the act of meditation," he said stubbornly. "As well as from our fellowship here."

I eyed him, mentally preparing myself. For years I'd watched Lord Kelsey-Ramos appeal to logic and self-interest to persuade people to his point of view; now, it was my turn to try. Fleetingly, I wished he was here to do it for me. "I realize that, sir—don't forget that I had the chance to observe some of those benefits first hand. But that's not what's at issue here. The question is whether Halo of God doctrine does, in fact, conflict with the real universe... and if it does, you know as well as I do that you can't hold it back."

"Not forever, no," he said evenly. "But perhaps for awhile."

Calandra snorted. "And what would that gain you? Unless you plan to get out from under your creation before the whole thing collapses."

The corners of Adams's mouth tightened in anger. "I did not 'create' the Halo of God," he bit out. "Not for my own gain, not for anything else. It happened far more spontaneously than that, among a great many people."

"Then why be afraid of the truth?" I asked.

He looked back at me, and his gaze hardened. "You think it's for myself that I'm worried? I'd have thought a Watcher would understand me better."

I waited, and after a moment he sighed. "All right. Assume for a moment that your theory is right, that Dr. Eisenstadt's people have proved God isn't actually speaking to us here. How long do you think it will be until someone makes the obvious generalization?—that all manifestations of God must be similarly in error?"

It wasn't, unfortunately, a scenario that could be totally dismissed. "Those who've experienced God's presence in their own lives will know better."

"And what of those who are young in their faith?" he countered. "I've seen what the subtle pressures of this society can do to them."

But as soon as the sun came up they were scorched and, not having any roots, they withered away... "You can't protect them forever," I said.

"I know that." He hesitated. "But perhaps I can protect them until their roots are a little stronger."

"Protect them," Calandra asked quietly, "with a lie?"

A muscle in Adams's cheek twitched. "I'm sure they'd understand. Afterwards."

"Do you really believe that?" Calandra demanded, a hard edge to her voice. On her face I could see her struggle with all the memories she would have preferred to have left buried. "Well, I don't. Because I lived on Bridgeway under Aaron Balaam darMaupine. Do you know what happened to his followers after his theocracy was overthrown?"

Adams winced in sympathetic pain. "They were scattered. Those who weren't tried as accomplices and imprisoned."

"That's right," she nodded. "And there's a curious thing about that. Those accomplices—the ones who were closest to him, the ones who knew what he was doing—many of them have kept their faith. Such as it was." The hardness in her gaze faded into a sort of bitter sadness. "Most of the others, the ones he lied to... we didn't."

For a long minute the quiet background conversation of the techs at their stations and the hiss of wind whistling between the bluffs were the only sounds in the hollow. Adams gazed out at the thunderheads, his sense a no-win struggle between the logic of the situation and his desire to protect his people. "When we first met," I reminded him gently, "you told us you appreciated our honesty. If you really meant that, you have to offer that same honesty to your followers. And to yourself."

He closed his eyes, and I could see moisture at the edges of the eyelids... and I knew that he was seeing the beginning of the end. "It would probably be best," he said at last, the words coming out with difficulty, "if there were at least two of us present. To try and confirm between us... what it is we hear."

—

Eisenstadt was far from happy at the prospect of letting still another outsider in under his tight-locked security umbrella, and he again came very near to vetoing the whole experiment right then and there. But as a scientist he could hardly argue against the reasonableness of having more than one interpreter present, and in the end he gave in. Adams suggested Shepherd Joyita Zagorin be the other Seeker, and a Pravilo aircar was sent to bring her from the Myrrh settlement.

And an hour later, all was ready.

—

They sat side by side at the edge of the thunderhead city, looking up through the tangle of sensor leads attached to them as Eisenstadt ran through his instructions one final time. "...And remember, nothing fancy this time around," he told them, trying mightily not to let his complete skepticism over this whole thing show through. "Concentrate on expressing our goodwill to them, and see if you get any kind of similar feeling in return."

"Don't you want them to ask about recently dead thunderheads?" I murmured to him.

A flash of annoyance. "Let's take this one step at a time, Benedar, all right?" he muttered back. "If the sensors show evidence that this trance state of theirs has anything unusual to it, then maybe we'll try to go for some specifics."

And if not, I heard the rest of his thought, there was no point wasting any more time than necessary listening to gibberish from religious fanatics. Fleetingly, I considered making some kind of comment; but there really wasn't anything to say. The only thing that would make a dent in his skepticism would be clear and positive results.

I could only pray there would be some. Adams nodded. "We understand," he told Eisenstadt. He took a deep breath. "Silence would be helpful to our concentration."

Eisenstadt took the hint and shut up, and I watched as Adams and Zagorin closed their eyes and slipped into their meditative trance.

The last time this had happened in my presence I'd missed seeing the actual transition. This time, paying close attention, I still almost missed it. One moment Adams was sitting quietly, his breathing slowing as all emotion seemed to drain from his sense; the next, it was all somehow different.

"It's started," I murmured to Eisenstadt. At his other side, Calandra added her agreement.

Eisenstadt nodded. "Kiell?" he called softly over his shoulder.

One of the techs stirred in his seat. "Well... something's happening," he said, his tone vaguely troubled. "The readings started looking like normal rest mode, but now..."

"But now what?" Eisenstadt prompted, his sense wavering between irritation and genuine interest.

The tech never got the chance to answer. Abruptly, Adams and Zagorin straightened simultaneously where they sat, and both sets of eyes came fully open. Open... but with a disturbing glaze to them. "Greetings to you," the two Seekers said in unison, both voices the same husky whisper. "We are the—" something I couldn't catch. "We welcome you to our... world."