Deadman Switch

Off to the side, Duge Ifversn snickered gently. Kutzko glanced at him, looked back at me. "Two for two," he conceded. "I don't suppose you'd like to take a crack at guessing what we all had for breakfast?"

"You'll excuse me if I find something more useful to do with my time," I said dryly. Still, I did feel better. "Thanks, Mikha."

He understood. "No charge. Don't forget Mr. Kelsey-Ramos wants to see you."

"I'm on my way. See you later."

—

I made my way back through the Bellwether's corridors, simultaneously hoping I wouldn't be so late that Randon would be angry but still be late enough that Aikman would already be gone.

I was halfway lucky.

"About time," Randon growled as I buzzed and was admitted into his stateroom. "Where have you been?"

"Cameo," I told him. I nodded at Aikman with all the courtesy I could muster. He merely stared at me in return, not acknowledging the gesture. "I told Captain Bartholomy where I was going," I added.

A flicker of a

"What were you doing in Cameo?" Aikman asked shortly, vague suspicion radiating from him.

"Business," I said, deliberately vague.

"More a mercy trip, actually," Randon put in, looking up and favoring Aikman with a thoughtful gaze. "Benedar thinks our outzombi may have been framed for her crimes."

If Randon had hoped for a sharper reaction from Aikman, he was disappointed. Aikman's lip twisted, his sense that of a man whose worst expectations had been realized. "Because she says she was?" he asked pointedly, turning a cynical glare on me. "Or simply because Watchers aren't supposed to do naughty things like murder?"

I started to reply, but Randon beat me to it. "You knew she claimed to be i

"Well, yes," Aikman said, some of his truculence fading before the unexpected iciness of Randon's reaction. "But so what? Convicted felons are always claiming that—what else can they do? If the Outbound judiciary thought she was guilty, I'm willing to take their word for it."

"Yes, well, we may be able to do a bit better than that." Randon shifted his attention to me. "What did you find out?"

I gritted my teeth, still feeling an echo of shame at my failure. "They won't help us."

He frowned. "Why not?"

"Some local law, apparently—"

"Local law, indeed," Aikman snorted. " 'No Solitaran citizen, regardless of crime or levied punishment, will be removed from the jurisdiction of Solitaire system for purposes of navigation, piloting, or piloting assistance on any interstellar craft.

In spite of myself, I was impressed. "That's the one, all right," I confirmed.

"I'm sure it was. It happens to be the backbone of the original agreement between the Solitaran colonists and the Patri." His sense was distinctly gloating. "And there are no exceptions. None."

"Every law has exceptions," Randon said tartly.

"Not this one. Not even the governor can override it, Patri appointment or no."

"But why?" I asked.

"Why do you think?" he snapped. "Because they don't want their world to become a zombi reservoir, that's why."

It was obvious, of course, in retrospect, and I felt like an idiot for not catching on earlier. If something went wrong with a ship's outzombi, the Solitarans were far and away the most convenient population from which to draw a replacement. Possibly too convenient a population... and I could well understand the original colonists worrying about that.

"It would never happen," Randon insisted. But beneath his sureness there was a shading of doubt. "The Patri wouldn't let Solitaire become a zombi farm."

"Persuade the Solitarans of that," Aikman countered. "In the past couple of decades there've been at least a dozen threats to the law, any one of which would have set a dangerous precedent."

"I take it they didn't weaken?" Randon asked.

Aikman smiled tightly. "One of the ships was able to beg a replacement zombi from Whitecliff. The rest eventually had to execute one of their own crewers to get out."

My stomach tightened. "And the Solitarans let that happen? How can they justify letting an i

"I

"All right, that's enough," Randon cut him off. He wasn't interested in letting Aikman harass me in his presence; but at the same time I could also sense a subtle decrease of tension within him. Relieved that I wouldn't be rocking any official boats over Calandra now?

If so, he was in for a disappointment. "I haven't given up yet, Mr. Kelsey-Ramos," I spoke up.

He looked warily at me. "Oh? How so?"

"There must be at least ten other ships in Solitaire system at the moment, sir," I pointed out. "If someone aboard one of them should happen to commit a capital crime, perhaps we can persuade the Solitaire judiciary to release him to us."

"In two weeks?" Aikman snarled. "Where the hell is your brain, Benedar?—you really think a court can make a life/death decision like that in just two weeks?"

"It's been done before," Randon reminded him coolly.

Aikman knew better than to really glare at Randon, but the look he threw him was pretty close. "I don't know why I'm even sitting here arguing all this," he gritted out. "The whole thing is nothing but an exercise in futility. Like it or not, Calandra Paquin is guilty of murder; and a hundred judiciaries reviewing the case a hundred times won't change that."

"Then I'm wasting my time," I told him, fighting to hold onto my temper. To have to face such deep hostility and not be able to return it in kind... "On the other hand, it's my time to waste, isn't it?"

"And speaking of wasting time," Randon put in, "I have no intention of letting this argument waste any more of mine. Benedar, you're authorized to have Captain Bartholomy put a tracer on the local news services, see if anything useful comes up. And don't forget the ring mines—most of the people on the Rockhounds are non-Solitarans, too." He glared briefly at both of us, and I could sense that for now, at least, the subject was closed. "Now. We've been going over the itinerary HTI's got pla

Which wouldn't be much, of course. All of the real hardware for the extraction and refining of Solitaire's immense mineral wealth was out in Collet's rings, with Solitaire itself hosting little more than basic administration and rest/recreation areas. "Yes, sir. When will we be meeting the governor and local officials?"

He cocked an eyebrow at me, and I knew he could tell that my thoughts were still with Calandra's problem. "Governor Rybakov will be throwing a semiformal di

I flushed. "Yes, sir."

"Good. Then the day after tomorrow we'll be heading out to Collet for a tour of one of the Rockhounds that HTI has contracts with."

The day after tomorrow... and it would, I knew, be at least a four-day trip out to Collet. Four days, out of a visit that was supposed to last only two weeks. "And will we be returning to Solitaire after that tour?" I asked carefully.

Randon's eyes bored into mine. "Not unless we have a good reason to do so."

I bit the back of my lip. So that was it. The day after tomorrow... and I had less than two days in which to find someone to die in Calandra's place. "I understand, sir."