Deadman Switch

And if I guessed wrong, I would wind up making her last days of life that much harder to bear.

Absorbed in my own thoughts, I withdrew most of my attention from the world around me... and was therefore almost startled when I suddenly realized that Calandra was begi

To a normal person, I supposed, it wasn't all that interesting a view. Once out of Rainbow's End itself, the few modestly tall spaceport buildings disappeared, replaced by the squatter structures that nearly always dominated underdeveloped places like this where land was cheap and plentiful. Beyond and between the buildings were scatterings of the giant, multi-trunked native plants that seemed to take the ecological place of trees on this world. Simple, quiet, and at first glance almost prosaic... but for Watchers, nothing about God's universe was really prosaic. For me, as for Calandra, the landscape outside was a rich and varied study into the spirit of a world.

A world of people, I quickly realized, who were still not at rest with their planet.

The tension manifested itself in a thousand different ways, through a thousand different details. Here, we passed a home whose owner was fighting to keep aloof from the planet, his property ringed with imported trees and bushes; elsewhere, there were the mute signs of others who'd given up such attempts but still hadn't found any peace. I'd felt all this the night before, and it was no less unsettling in the fall light of day... especially since I had no idea what it was they were all striving against. The Solitaran environment was supposed to be one of the most benign in the colonies.

"Perhaps it's the Cloud," Calandra murmured.

I looked at her, both startled and chagrined that she'd once again read my line of thought so easily. "The Cloud's not supposed to affect people," I reminded her.

"Unless they're already dead?" she retorted grimly.

I swallowed, the sharp-acrid reminder of what she was facing curling my stomach. "Point, I suppose. But a lot of researchers have studied the Cloud, and none of them has ever mentioned any effect on the living."

"How long have any of them been in it?" she countered. "Some of these people have probably lived here all their lives. Even then, you can see how subtle it is. Would the average researcher even notice it?"

"Unlikely," I admitted. It would almost certainly take a Watcher to see it... and according to Randon, we were the first Watchers to come here.

A slight movement across the car caught the corner of my attention, and I looked over to see Randon eying me in obvious question. "There's a tension overhanging this place, Mr. Kelsey-Ramos," I explained. "A feeling that the people living here aren't really comfortable with their world."

I could tell by the slight cringing in Calandra's sense that she half expected Randon to ridicule either our assessment or us or both. But he just sat there, occasionally turning to gaze thoughtfully out the window, as I tried to put into words what it was she and I had felt.

"So you think it's a side effect of the Cloud?" he asked when I'd finished.

"Or else the paranoia of knowing that their whole existence rests on human sacrifice—" I broke off at the strained patience in Randon's eye. "Or it could be something entirely different," I added. "At the moment all we know is that the tension's there."

He nodded absently, gazing out the window again.

"Any idea," he asked slowly, "how long a person would have to be here for this tension to manifest itself? A year? More? Less?"

"No idea," I shook my head. "You're wondering if that could be part of Aikman's trouble?"

Randon turned to Schock. "How long has Aikman been on Solitaire?"

Schock had his computer out; seated to Randon's other side, Kutzko was fingering the controls of his visorcomp. "Three years," Schock reported. "Station Chief Li, on the other hand, has been here for—bozhe moi!—for eighteen years, ever since HTI got the place going. Assistant Managers Blake and Karash twelve and four, respectively."

Randon nodded. "Yes, I remember those numbers," he said absently. Already, I could see, he was calculating how he might use this insight into Solitaire's planetary ethos to his advantage. The sense of him had altered subtly from the evening before, and I could tell he was rethinking his earlier conclusion that having a Watcher around was merely a crutch. And if he could think that about one Watcher...

I felt Calandra's presence at my side. She is far beyond the price of rubies... I could only hope Randon would come to see that, too.

Behind his visorcomp, I could see Kutzko's eyes still moving slightly as he read, and I knew what records he was checking. Tense security guards had a tendency to make their opposite numbers equally nervous. "Well?" I asked him.

"Shouldn't be a problem," he said. He didn't elaborate.

—

Like most of the rest of Solitaire, Cameo was built relatively flat, with the tallest buildings being only three stories high. The psychology of corporations regarding height and power being what it was, I wasn't surprised that HTI's headquarters was one of the latter, though I wondered on the way in what they could need with even that much room. The autopark guided the car to a VIP spot by one of the Elegy-style columns flanking the main entrance, and as we stepped out a man in a middle-level business capelet emerged from the wrought-styraline doors. A memory clicked as we approached him: HTI's president, O'Rielly, had been wearing an identical capelet clasp when Lord Kelsey-Ramos called to a

"Good day to you, Mr. Kelsey-Ramos; welcome," the man greeted us, nodding with the appropriate deference. His sense belied his words: we were considerably less than welcome here. "I'm Brandeis Pyatt of HTI Transport, Station Chief Chun Li's chief assistant."

"Good day to you as well," Randon nodded back. "I trust Mr. Chun Li is still expecting us."

"Yes, sir, he's waiting inside in the board room." Pyatt's eyes flicked once to me, recognition clearly there, as he turned to lead us inside. "If you'll follow me...?"

We walked in silence down a corridor lined with attractive stonework. A few employees and guards watched with varying degrees of interest—and varying degrees of distrust—as we made our way. Once, I remembered, I'd likened this trip to an ambassadorial visit to a conquered country; now, it was begi

Eventually, we reached an i

It was as if we'd suddenly been transported from Solitaire to a major corporation headquarters on one of the Patri worlds. Nothing in the hallway had prepared me for the vast expanse of space or the lavish display of furnishings, all of them that I could identify having been imported from off-world. A carefully orchestrated sensory bombardment, probably designed to both intimidate the visitor and heighten his subconscious estimation of HTI in the bargain. A thought occurred to me, and a quick check confirmed that the room could indeed be converted with only minimal effort from its current business setup to one more suitable for entertainment.

Seated around the massive formite-topped gemrock table filling out the room's center were two men and a woman I recognized from Schock's data cyl: Station Chief Wilmin Chun Li, First Assistant Manager Tomus Blake, and Second Assistant Manager Angli Karash. Between and around them at the table itself were scattered another half dozen aides and assistants; behind them, against the walls, other aides and guards stood or sat at auxiliary work stations.