Deadman Switch

He was right. The list consisted of just four crimes: multiple murder, murder of a police or Pravilo officer in the commission of a Class I crime, death of a kidnap victim, and treason. "This is it?" I asked, checking the paper's other side.

He shrugged. "You're not going to find many other capital crimes anywhere else in the Patri and colonies, either," he reminded me. "And at least one of these has only been made a capital crime since Solitaire opened up. Like Governor Rybakov mentioned earlier, people really don't like the death penalty much."

I nodded heavily. "I know. Well... thanks anyway."

He studied me. "So what are you going to do?"

"Not much I can do. I'll try talking to Governor Rybakov tomorrow morning, see if she can suggest anything."

"Yeah, I heard she was expected. Probably not going to be in the mood for handing out favors, though."

I thought back to the woman's obvious prejudice against religion... and about the fact that Randon was prepared to accuse her of complicity in industrial sabotage. "I can only try."

Kutzko grunted. "Well, maybe Mr. Kelsey-Ramos will see his way clear to helping push—"

He broke off, eyes flicking over my shoulder as the bridge door opened behind me. I turned to look—

Just in time to see Aikman come to a sudden halt as he belatedly spotted us. "Ah—good evening," he managed, his sense gone suddenly taut. In his hand was a cyl, a cyl his first reflexive twitching of fingers tried vainly to conceal. "I was looking for the captain; I see he's not here. Excuse the interruption."

He turned to go, stopped abruptly as Kutzko took a long step around me to cut off his exit. "That's okay, Mr. Aikman—we were about finished, anyway," he said easily. "What did you need the captain for? Maybe I can help."

"No, that's all right," Aikman insisted. His eyes flashed at me... but on top of the usual hatred there, I found a strong current of nervousness. "I just needed—"

"To call someone?" Kutzko interrupted him genially. "That's right—there's a block on outship calls from your stateroom, isn't there?"

Aikman's forehead darkened in anger. "There are laws against illegal restraint—"

"There are laws against aiding industrial sabotage, too," Kutzko cut him off, his voice hardening. "What's that?"

"What's what?" Aikman asked cautiously, thrown momentarily off-balance by the question.

"That." Kutzko took another half step forward, and his pointing finger abruptly became a darting hand that smoothly plucked the cyl from Aikman's Startled fingers.

"Give me that!" Aikman snarled, making a snatch for the cyl. For that one brief instant his sense was less that of a human being than it was of an enraged animal, and I felt my muscles tense up as I took an involuntary step backward.

Kutzko's didn't even flinch as his free hand deflected Aikman's grab. "Easy, Mr. Aikman," he warned, voice calm again. "Looks like some kind of tamper-resistant datapack," he commented, peering at the cyl's ends. "Shall we plug it in and see what it is?"

"It's an official legal document," Aikman bit out. "For transmission and filing with the Solitaran judiciary. You break the seal by reading it here and you'll void it."

"Then you'll just have to write it up again, won't you?" Kutzko said coolly. "Unless you'd rather just tell me what it says?"

For a long minute the two men stood motionlessly, facing each other like an echo of the ancient gladiators. The sense of defiance surrounding Aikman bent first. "It's a request for a judicial restraint order," he ground out. "I want the outzombi barred from leaving this ship; and I want him—" he nodded his head sideways at me—"also barred, for collusion with a condemned felon."

Kutzko's eyebrows went up in polite surprise. "Collusion?"

"Yes, collusion," Aikman's said sarcastically. "It's a legal term—I doubt that you've had much acquaintance with such things. Except possibly as a defendant somewhere."

Kutzko considered taking offense, decided it wasn't worth it. "I know more about law than you might think," he said. "You want to tell me how collusion applies here?"

"Oh, come on, Shield Chief, let's not let company loyalty blind you to what's going on here," Aikman snarled. "Why do you think Benedar got Kelsey-Ramos to take your outzombi to the HTI meeting this morning?"

"Suppose you tell me," Kutzko invited him.

"Because he's preparing her for an escape, of course, Showing her the lay of the land—helping her to meet the powerful of Solitaire who might be duped into hiring a parasite Watcher, the way Lord Kelsey-Ramos was."

There was a lot in all of that to strain Kutzko's temper, but he held on admirably. "You have any proof of that?" he growled.

"He doesn't need proof," I said quietly. The flicker in Aikman's sense confirmed that I had indeed read his intentions correctly. "If he can even get that restraint order accepted for consideration, it'll be a couple of days before anyone can track through it and find it's nothing but unsupported i

Kutzko nodded understanding. "Uh-huh. By which time we'll be out of here and on our way to the ring mines."

Reaching forward, Aikman plucked the cyl from Kutzko's unresisting hand and stalked across the bridge to Gielincki, who'd been wisely staying out of it. "Officer, I want you to file this document with the Solitaran judiciary in Cameo," he told her, thrusting the cyl in front of her face.

She made no move to take it. "I'm sorry, Mr. Aikman," she said, eyes still on her displays. "You'll need to get permission from Mr. Kelsey-Ramos before I can do that. If you'd like, I'll call his stateroom."

"You'll comply, or I'll have you up on charges of illegal restraint," he said coldly. "I don't need anyone's permission to file legal papers."

Gielincki never had been the type to take threats well. Slowly, deliberately, she turned to look up at him. "Aboard this ship," she said, her tone even colder than Aikman's, "you need Mr. Kelsey-Ramos's permission to do anything. If that offends your democratic sensibilities, you're welcome to go elsewhere."

Aikman glared at her a moment longer. Then, without a word, he spun around and stomped back toward us.

Kutzko still blocked the door, and he made no effort to move. "Of course, if you leave the ship," he said casually, "that cyl has to stay here. We don't have any proof that it's really only a legal document."

Aikman's forehead darkened. "If you're accusing me—"

"Mr. Aikman," I interrupted.

"Shut up, Benedar," he snapped.

"I think perhaps I can help resolve this impasse," I persisted.

That earned me a needle-pointed glance. "How?—by reading my mind? How convenient that you're here. How convenient, too, that there's nobody to corroborate whatever you decide is the truth."

I felt my face flush with anger. "I don't lie about the things I see," I bit out. "I have to answer to God for my actions, you know."

His lip twisted. "Oh, yes, of course. It all comes back to God for you, doesn't it?"

"You have a problem with that?" Kutzko put in.

Aikman looked at him, then turned his attention back to me... and abruptly, his sense cooled, his frustrated rage changing to an almost icy bitterness. "Tell me, Benedar, did your Watcher schools bother to teach you any history while you were learning how to invoke God as justification for everything you did? Do you know what finally destroyed the Earth, for instance?"

"It was the increasing economic and political stresses of the last half of the twenty-first century," I told him evenly. "The final disintegration came from a combination of minority demands and unrest, plus a surge of anger over the costs of the StarWay project."

"Yes, that's how I would have expected a Watcher school to tell it," he sneered. "This may come as a shock, Watcher, but it wasn't economics or politics that destroyed the Earth. It was religion. Religion that started a thousand fanatic brush wars. Religion that kept terrorism going long after most of the strictly political problems were on their way to being solved. Religion that tore apart every society from East to West and back again."