Deadman Switch

Chapter 9

They were still there when we arrived: two men in the official capelets and unofficial hauteur of customs officials, sitting at the gatelock guard station under the watchful eye of the Ifversn brothers. Outwardly, they were mad as hornets at being kept from their duties.

Inwardly, they were badly worried.

It didn't keep them from putting on a good act, though. We'd barely gotten inside the outer lock when the elder of the two was on his feet, glaring at Randon with a fair counterfeit of righteous fury. "Mr. Kelsey-Ramos," he snarled, "I want you to know that if you don't call off your shields immediately and let us get about our duties I will be forced to file official and formal charges against you, them, and the master of this ship."

"I'm sure everything will be straightened out in just a few minutes," Randon assured him, giving a good imitation himself of being impressed by the outburst. "Excuse me a moment, and I'll go find out just what the trouble is."

We passed them and headed on into the ship. Calandra and Seqoya were waiting at the door to the first room, the latter looking much more justified than he'd sounded on the phone. "Well?" Randon demanded, throwing a glance at Calandra and then shifting his attention to Seqoya. "What did you find out?"

Seqoya gave him a grim smile. "Something very interesting, sir: our visitors out there don't exist."

Randon frowned. "Explain."

"The customs duty officer at the spaceport doesn't know them," Seqoya said, ticking off massive fingers. "Neither does their central coordination office in Cameo itself. Neither do any of the customs officials, inspectors, or workers that I was able to track down and talk to."

Randon cocked an eyebrow at Kutzko. "Interesting, indeed. How do they explain this?"

"I haven't confronted them with it yet," Seqoya said. "I thought you might want to be here when we did."

Randon nodded. "All right, let's try it." He hesitated, then turned to Calandra. "You have anything to add?"

"You probably won't need to check their equipment," she said quietly. "They didn't seem at all protective of it. But you'll need to search the younger one's capelet—left shoulder, I think."

For a moment Randon looked at her as if she was joking. Then, pursing his lips, he gave her a brief nod. "Call a shield to take her back to her stateroom," he instructed Seqoya, "then meet us back at the gatelock."

Seqoya nodded and stepped to the nearest intercom. Glancing once more at Calandra, Randon led Kutzko and me back to the gatelock. "Sorry to keep you waiting, gentlemen," he said briskly to the two men. "If you'll be so kind as to remove your capelets, I think we can clear this up right now."

There was no doubt about it: Calandra had zeroed in precisely on target. Both men's faces froze for a second, and the younger's left shoulder actually twitched. The elder recovered first. "Why?" he asked.

Randon didn't bother answering. Behind us, Seqoya ambled back into the room; catching his eye, Randon nodded toward the two men. "Capelets," he instructed. Seqoya nodded back and kept ambling, an almost lazy glint in his eye. The others saw it, too, and by the time he'd reached them both had their capelets off.

"Thank you," Randon said politely as Seqoya collected them. "Now, if you'll just sit back and relax, we'll take a look and see what we can find—"

We all heard the footstep behind us at the same time; and for the four shields recognition and reaction were virtually simultaneous. In a single catlike leap Kutzko was between the intruder and Randon, his and Seqoya's needlers out and tracking past my shoulder. The two Ifversns were just a shaved second slower, their weapons coming to bear warningly on the customs men. Heart thudding in my throat, I spun around and dropped to one knee.

For a moment no one moved or spoke. Randon recovered his voice first. "Hello, Mr. Aikman," he said. "You shouldn't sneak up on people like that. It's bad for your health."

Slowly, the panic frozen into Aikman's face melted, and he lowered the foot that had ended up in midair. "I'm sorry," he managed. "I didn't mean to startle you."

"You certainly won't do it again, anyway," Randon said. "May I ask what you did mean to do?"

Aikman's eyes flicked past us to the customs men, his emotional balance already coming back to normal. "I heard there was some trouble at the gatelock," he said evenly. "I came to see if there was anything I could do to help."

Randon gazed at him for a few heartbeats, then nodded. "Certainly. The first thing you can do is tell me if you recognize those men over there."

Again Aikman looked, and I could sense him brace himself. "No," he said.

"He's lying," I told Randon quietly.

Aikman spun to face me, a wave of hatred washing toward me like the burning wind from an explosion. "And who are you," he snarled, "to pass judgment on another man's mind—?"

"He's a Watcher." Randon's voice was quiet, almost calm... but there was a steel underlying it that cut off Aikman's tirade in midsentence. "And if it comes to that," Randon continued, "who are you to lie to me?"

Aikman licked his lips briefly, the sense of him abruptly becoming cautious. "I may have seen them before," he admitted grudgingly. "I certainly don't know them personally—"

"Seen them at HTI?" Randon asked.

Aikman's jaw tightened. "Perhaps. I couldn't say for sure."

"I see." Randon nodded. "Well, they've probably changed jobs since you knew them. Happens all the time—people leave low-level corporation jobs for careers with customs."

Aikman ignored the gibe. "What charge are you making against them?"

Randon cocked an eyebrow. "Impersonation of customs officials, for starters. Along with attempted entry into a private spacecraft and probably one or two others as we think of them."

"They have false IDs, then?"

A touch of uncertainty edged into Randon's sense. "Not exactly, but no one knows—"

"Not exactly? What does 'not exactly' mean?"

Randon glared at him. "It means that, yes, their IDs check against the customs records, but none of their allegedly fellow workers has ever heard of them."

"That won't hold up for ten minutes before a judiciary." Aikman was on his own territory now, and he knew it. "An ID record is both necessary and sufficient proof of employment in an official capacity." A grim smile quirked at his lip. "Do you know what the penalty is for illegal detention of customs inspectors?"

Across the room, Seqoya cleared his throat. "Is it anything like the penalty for attempted sabotage?"

We all turned to look at him. In one hand was the younger man's capelet, looking slightly mauled; in the other, a small floppy rectangle that glinted in the light. "What is it?" Randon asked, stepping over for a closer look.

"Not exactly sure, sir, but it looks a lot like the insides of one of our computer data scramblers—see that number on the sicet, there?"

"Probably a scrubber," Kutzko said, giving it a quick glance and then returning his attention to the prisoners. "It's a scrambler gadget for putting into someone else's system."

Randon favored the prisoners with a long, cold gaze, then turned the look back on Aikman. "Any further comments, counselor?"

"Yes," he said calmly. "Do you have any proof that they came here with intent to sabotage?"

"Why else would they be carrying something like this?" Randon snorted.

Aikman's eyes flicked to the prisoners; and the younger picked up on the cue. "We use it to read samples of scrambled data on suspect ships," he said, voice just the right shade of indignation. "Samples that we can then take back and use to decode the scrambler scheme."