Deadman Switch

Chapter 29

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.

And so the commission sent out their ships, and I returned to my duties and let thoughts of the alien fleet sink into the distant background of my mind... and so was totally unprepared when, two weeks later, it all crumbled at my feet.

—

Eisenstadt and Zagorin had had one of their—as usual—largely futile conversations with the thunderheads that morning; now, in late afternoon, the Butte City was deserted except for a pair of Pravilo guards keeping a fairly casual eye on the fenced corridor leading from the encampment. It was a good time to just sit and observe the thunderheads with a minimum of distractions, something I'd been doing a fair amount of lately. Ultimately, my goal was to learn to read them the way I did human beings; but like everything else connected with the thunderheads, this project seemed to be at a standstill. There were a great many subtle signals I could draw from the whitish shapes—movements, color changes, even the hint of soft, high-pitched sounds—but putting them together into anything more meaningful than simple awareness/unawareness was still far beyond my capabilities. It was frustrating in the extreme, but as long as they seemed determined to evade vital questions I had to keep trying.

Especially if—I was honest enough to admit—it could make Calandra and me that much more valuable to Eisenstadt.

The shadows from the dipping sun were crawling up the sides of the buttes, and I was just wondering if I should give up for the evening when the breeze brought me the faint sound of approaching tires.

I frowned, wondering who else would be coming out here at this hour. The Pravilo guards were standing together, looking down along the corridor... and abruptly, both stiffened with sudden alertness.

My heart seemed to skip a beat. Danger?—no. Sudden alertness, but neither man had made any move toward needler or phone. Sudden alertness... as in formal, parade-ground ceremonial. Some important official, then, on an unscheduled tour? It seemed likely; and if so, he and his shields might not be pleased to find me hanging around. I gritted my teeth, wondering if I would have time to make a discreet withdrawal before the approaching car blocked my exit; and then it was too late. The front of the car nosed into view and came to a stop, and two men climbed out... and I caught my breath. Even at that distance, with their faces too silhouetted against the sky to make out, their stances and movements were far too familiar to be mistaken.

The taller of the two was Mikha Kutzko... and the shorter was Lord Kelsey-Ramos.

I stared at them, feeling my mouth drop open as my brain fluttered like a stunned bird. Lord Kelsey-Ramos, here? I'd been told that travel to and from even Solitaire had been heavily restricted lately, let alone travel to this part of Spall. And for him to be allowed into the Butte City itself...

They were talking to the Pravilo guards now, and one of them pointed through the gathering shadows to me. Lord Kelsey-Ramos nodded his thanks and together he and Kutzko started across. Abruptly, my brain cleared enough for me to remember my manners, and I scrambled to my feet. "Lord Kelsey-Ramos," I nodded, fighting hard to keep the surprise out of my voice. A lot got through anyway.

"Good to see you too, Gilead," Lord Kelsey-Ramos said dryly. His voice was good humored, even friendly... but behind the facade was something grim. Something very grim indeed. "Wondering how I managed to run the Patri blockade of Solitaire system?"

I glanced at Kutzko, got cool formality in return. Apparently he still hadn't entirely forgiven me. "I imagine, sir," I said to Lord Kelsey-Ramos, "that you called in some of your high-level favors—no," I interrupted myself, the obvious answer filtering in through my still-sluggish brain. "You're on the commission studying the incoming fleet, aren't you?"

He smiled, a smile that didn't even dent the grimness in his eyes. "I've really missed having you around, Gilead—you so seldom waste my time with the need for long explanations. Yes, I have indeed been honored with one of the seats on the panel."

"I congratulate the Patri on their fine choice, sir."

"Thank you," he nodded. "Though in all fairness I should remind you that I had a good head start on getting my name in front of the proper people—with the Bellwether stuck here and every query I sent coming back with vague and clearly censored answers, I knew that something unexpected was happening." He half turned to look at the sea of thunderheads. "But I never guessed it was anything like this..."

"What's wrong, sir?" I asked.

He turned back to face me. "The commission has finished the first phase of its study, Gilead," he told me, a quiet ache in his voice. "The decision's been made to destroy the Invaders."

I stared at him. "What?" I whispered.

He shook his head wearily. "I'm sorry. I tried to find an alternative—I tried blazing hard. But there just wasn't anything that would work. Not in the time available."

"What 'time available?' " I demanded. "They won't be here for years—surely we can find a way to communicate with—"

"We don't have years. We have four to six months."

My argument froze in its tracks. "Months?"

He nodded. "Admiral Yoshida's experts have gone over the Invaders' engine efficiencies at least five times, from five different directions. They estimate that in four to six months the Invaders will be shutting down their drives, turning their ships around, and reconfiguring for a long deceleration phase."

"But if they'll be slowing down—?"

"Oh, they still won't actually get to Solitaire for seventeen years," he shrugged. "But once they're in deceleration mode... well, there's no need for their drives to be angled at all away from their line of motion."

And suddenly I understood. "In other words," I said slowly, "their exhausts will be aiming forward, where they'll vaporize anything we throw at them. So if we don't destroy them now, we won't have another chance until they get here. Is that it?"

A muscle in his cheek twitched, a deep and genuine pain twisting through his sense. "It's a war fleet, Gilead!—the more Yoshida's experts study it, the more they're convinced of that. If we let them get to Solitaire, the colony is lost—pure and simple."

"We have seventeen years to prepare—"

"It wouldn't matter if we had a hundred years—there's no way we can fight that many ships in face-to-face battle."

I locked eyes with him. "There are less than half a million people on Solitaire. They could surely be relocated somewhere else."

He didn't flinch from my gaze. "Just clear out of the system, then? Is that what you suggesting?"

"Why not?"

"Two reasons." He held up two fingers. "One: it would mean abandoning the ring mines."

A cold knot formed in my stomach. Yes, of course—it had to have been something like that. "So for a few million tons of metal we deliberately murder thousands of—"

"And two," Lord Kelsey-Ramos cut me off firmly, "it would mean abandoning the thunderheads, leaving them to face the Invaders alone. Now tell me where the ethical path lies."

My righteous anger faded, replaced by uncertainty. If you have resident aliens in your country, you will not molest them. You will treat resident aliens as though they were native-born and love them as yourself—for you yourselves were once aliens in Egypt... "I don't know," I had to say. "All I know is that mass murder isn't it."

Lord Kelsey-Ramos sighed. "Deep down, I'd have to agree... but intellectually, I just don't see any alternatives. It would probably take all the time we have until turnover just to figure out the raw mechanics of sending messages to the Invaders, let alone finding a common language to talk to each other in."

"Wait a minute," I said as a sudden thought occurred to me. "What about the thunderheads? Maybe they know how to talk to them."

"Maybe," Lord Kelsey-Ramos agreed. "And if you can get them to give you either a method or a language, I'm sure the commission will be interested. But we've asked them about it ourselves at least a half dozen times, and they've so far completely ignored the request."

I grimaced. "They know something about it—I'm sure they do."

"I agree," Lord Kelsey-Ramos nodded grimly. "But if they won't say anything, there isn't much we can do about it."

"But then how can we assume they're the threatened party?" I argued. "All right—suppose the ships are, in fact, a war party. Who's to say it isn't the thunderheads who brought it on themselves?"

Lord Kelsey-Ramos eyed me. "And if they did, what do you propose we do about it? Take sides with the Invaders against the thunderheads?"

Frustration welled up within me, settled into a bitter pool in the pit of my stomach. Blessed are the peacemakers... "I don't know."

For a long minute we stood there in silence. Then Lord Kelsey-Ramos stirred, looking up at the buttes towering above us. "Interesting place, this," he said, almost conversationally. "Unique, too—we've been over the satellite photos of Spall with a fine mesh and there's nothing even remotely like this city anywhere on the planet."

"The thunderheads have many human-comparable senses," I told him mechanically, my thoughts still on the terrible vision of mass murder hovering before my mind's eye. "They told us they like having this kind of close-packed community when it's possible."

"Uh-huh," he nodded. "And what is it, do you suppose, that makes it possible here?"

The vision of carnage vanished, and I looked at Lord Kelsey-Ramos sharply. There was something new in his sense; something part of, yet distinct from, the overall grimness there. "What is it?" I asked quietly.

"Suspicion," he said. "Nothing more—for the moment, anyway. My question wasn't rhetorical, incidentally."

I looked around the Butte City. "I really don't know, sir," I admitted. "It's somewhat sheltered from violent weather, but that's about all I can think of."

Lord Kelsey-Ramos nodded, turning to eye the slope that Calandra and I had climbed the first night we'd camped here—years ago, it seemed. "The transcript of your pravdrug interrogation mentioned that you'd found a line of heat-treated places going up one of those slopes," he said, pointing. "Show them to me, will you?"

"Certainly. This way..."

I led him and Kutzko over to the base of the proper slope and pointed out the lowest of the spots. "We thought perhaps they marked where thunderheads had once been," I explained. "They apparently needed several stages to get one of their seeds all the way to the top of the butte."

"A watchman," Lord Kelsey-Ramos nodded. "Yes, I remember that speculation from the transcript. Has it occurred to you since then to wonder why a physical watchman should be of any use to beings who can leave their bodies and travel about at will?"

I frowned. It hadn't occurred to me, as a matter of fact. "To watch for the approach of threatening weather?" I suggested hesitantly.

"I think that unlikely," Lord Kelsey-Ramos shook his head. "Most creatures tend to do things along the line of least energy expenditure, and I can't see them going to that much trouble for something they don't have any control over."

"Do we know they don't have any control over their weather?" I countered. "I would think that the heat from a massed set of organic lasers might make it possible for them to—I don't know; perhaps at least alter storm tracks somewhat."

Lord Kelsey-Ramos looked hard at me, and abruptly his sense sharpened. "What?" I asked, my heart jumping in sympathetic reaction.

"Maybe nothing," he said slowly. "Maybe everything. Coordinated use of their organic lasers... interesting." He thought for a moment longer, then shook his head fractionally, putting whatever it was into mental storage for later. "Anyway. For now, back to the original topic: the thunderheads' watchmen. According to Dr. Eisenstadt's reports, the way the thunderheads located the smuggler ships and bases was by finding isolated groups of humans for you. Correct?"

I nodded. "I remember them specifically mentioning that inanimate objects such as ships weren't detectable to them in that state."

"Right. Word for word, in fact, with the report."

"Dr. Eisenstadt seemed to think it was reasonable enough," I told him, wondering where he was headed with this. "If they could see everything around them while out of their bodies, there wouldn't be much need for the bodies themselves to have developed duplicate senses."

"Agreed," Lord Kelsey-Ramos said. "Eisenstadt speculated that it was some kind of 'life-force' that they pick up—our souls, if you wish," he added, obviously expecting me to make the identification if he didn't. "It occurred to me that perhaps we were once again being too generous with something the thunderheads were saying. As you pointed out, they themselves told you they couldn't see inanimate objects; but it was our assumption that it was only inanimate objects they couldn't see."

And finally, I got it. "You think there are animal predators around that they also can't detect?"

"It would seem reasonable," Lord Kelsey-Ramos shrugged. "Given the thunderheads' organic lasers, a predator would almost have to be able to sneak up on them."

I frowned at him, reading his sense. "This isn't just speculation, is it?" I asked carefully. "You've done some checking on this already."

Lord Kelsey-Ramos gazed upward at the buttes again. "There's a small weasel-like animal that seems to have a taste for thunderhead flesh," he said. "Often hunts in packs of up to thirty family members. I wonder how clearly a group like that could be seen from up there."

"Thunderhead eyesight is pretty good," I told him, a shiver running up my back. In retrospect it was obvious that the balance of nature on Spall would include predators for the thunderheads to cope with... but the fact that the thunderheads had again deliberately obscured important information set my teeth on edge. "So when the watchmen on each of the buttes see a pack approaching... the others get ready to fight?"

"Kutzko?" Lord Kelsey-Ramos invited. "This is your specialty. What do you think?"

Kutzko looked slowly around the area, eyes measuring. I read his sense, realized the idea was new to him, as well. Lord Kelsey-Ramos had apparently been playing this one very quietly indeed. An indication that he was very worried... "It's a good setup," Kutzko said at last. "Only four approaches, none of them very wide, and with a layered defense in place at each."

"Layered defense?" Lord Kelsey-Ramos frowned.

"Yes, sir." Kutzko pointed. "See, near each gap, how there's a group of five to seven thunderheads positioned slightly upslope? In standard military placement, those would be forward sentries, responsible for stopping any lone weasel or small group who'd managed to slip in past the topside sentry." He waved toward the larger mass of thunderheads. "Then, for larger groups—which the topside sentry would presumably have warned them about—there's a good potential for concentrated firepower from the main community. See how the shorter ones tend to be at the edge, the taller ones at the middle? Again, reminiscent of a standard kneeling/standing arrangement."

I licked my lips. "Many of the shorter ones are drones," I told him. "Extra bodies, not originally sentient."

Kutzko nodded. "So much the better. They can still probably be used to fight from, and are expendable if the weasels get in that close."

"In other words," Lord Kelsey-Ramos said, something dark in his voice, "the thunderheads understand warfare."

Kutzko shrugged. "Not necessarily. Evolution often hammers this sort of strategic ability into a species."

"Except that these are intelligent creatures," Lord Kelsey-Ramos growled. "And this city isn't part of their standard living pattern."

"Yes, what about that?" I asked him. "Out in the wild, they don't have anything like this arrangement to protect them."

"They also don't cluster together in large groups that could as easily attract predators," Lord Kelsey-Ramos pointed out. "Perhaps the thick vegetation that they encourage to grow around them is supposed to discourage attacks."

"I wouldn't think so," Kutzko disagreed. "Especially since having all that stuff in the way would also interfere with their lasers."

"Mmm." Lord Kelsey-Ramos thought for a moment; and again, I could see his sense harden as some new and clearly unpleasant thought occurred to him. "What are you doing tomorrow morning, Gilead?" he asked abruptly.

"As far as I know, nothing special," I told him cautiously. "I don't think Dr. Eisenstadt has a contact session planned."

"Good. I'll pick you up at nine—be ready." He motioned to Kutzko, turned to go... hesitated. "Oh, by the way," he added, sounding almost embarrassed, "I've sent a request to Outbound for the transcripts of your friend Paquin's trial."

"Oh... thank you, sir," I said, surprised and oddly ashamed. With all the focus on the thunderheads and alien fleet, I'd almost forgotten what the original point of all this had been.

"No problem," Lord Kelsey-Ramos grunted. "Just keep in mind that I can't make any promises. Well, I'll see you in the morning. Good-night, and sleep well."

Sleep well. With a hundred ninety-two alien spacecraft streaking toward destruction... "Yes, sir," I sighed. "Good-night."