Deadman Switch

"That was a long time ago," Kutzko interjected... but behind the supportive words I could sense his own hidden doubts. He, too, had grown up being taught that same Patri version of the Final Revolution. "You can't blame—"

"The Watchers?" Aikman cut him off. "Tell that to the people of Bridgeway who lived under the rule of Aaron Balaam darMaupine and his God. They know what happens when religion becomes more than just a hobby."

I felt a surge of anger. To equate religion with a hobby—

With an effort, I forced the indignation down. Resentment kills the senseless, and anger brings death to the fool... "As it happens, Mr. Aikman, I have heard that theory before," I told him. "It gives the Patri and colonies a good excuse to dislike and even persecute religious practice. Now tell me why it is you hate me."

His face went rigid, and for a half dozen heartbeats the bridge was filled with a brittle silence. "You don't need me to answer that," he said at last, very quietly. "You demonstrate it every time I have to be in the same room with you."

"What, because he understands people better than you do?" Kutzko scoffed.

Aikman sent him an ice-edged glare. "Tell me, Shield—you who know so much about the law—have you ever read the Patri Bill of Rights and Ethics? Read it, I mean, not just heard of it?"

"Yes," Kutzko told him stiffly.

"Do you remember Article Nine? The right against self-incrimination? Good. Then tell me how such a right can exist in the presence of a Watcher."

Kutzko's forehead furrowed slightly. "That right is supposed to be for judiciaries and trial proceedings—"

"No!" Aikman snapped. "It is the most basic of human rights, the right to the privacy of one's own thoughts." He glared at me. "You have no right to do what you do, Watcher. As far as a strict reading of Patri law goes, you don't even have a right to mingle with the rest of society." He held up the cyl, pointing it at me like a needler tube. "And if I can't keep you locked away from normal people forever, I can sure as putrid smert make sure you stay away from the people of Solitaire."

He stepped around Kutzko, headed for the bridge door. "What about Calandra?" I asked. "She has the right to keep her life if she's not guilty."

"The dead have no rights," he shot back. "And zombis are already dead."

I clenched my teeth, feeling a quiet panic bubbling up within me. With Calandra's life hanging by a thread, I couldn't afford to be trapped here in the Bellwether, away from the only people who could help. But there was only one way I could think of to stop him... and it would only add more fuel to his hatred of Watchers.

So be it. "Mr. Aikman," I called as he opened the bridge door, "if you file that document, I'll have no choice but to tell Mr. Kelsey-Ramos what you did this evening."

Mid-way through the door, he paused. "And what might that be?" he demanded without turning around.

"It was you, not HTI, who called the governor's mansion and told them that Calandra would be with us."

He still didn't turn; but I didn't need to see his face. The stiffening of back and neck muscles was all the proof I needed that my guess was indeed correct. "You told them Calandra would be along," I continued, "and that she was a Watcher and a condemned felon."

"She is," he almost snarled over his shoulder. "She has no legal right to be out of her cell, let alone out of the ship."

"I doubt Mr. Kelsey-Ramos would see it that way," I pointed out. "He might consider it an interference with his mission to collect information here... in which case he might well have you removed from the Bellwether for the remainder of the trip."

Again, the tightening of muscles told me I'd hit close to the nerve. In the corner of my eye I could see that Kutzko was watching closely... and that he hadn't caught either of Aikman's reactions. "And you can't afford that, can you?" I continued. "HTI wants one of their people aboard to keep track of what Mr. Kelsey-Ramos does, and you're it."

"Dr. DeMont will still be here," he countered, striving for off-handedness. "And you can't use the Deadman Switch without a Patri legal rep aboard."

"Cameo's full of Patri legal reps," I reminded him. "Many of whom don't have any loyalty whatsoever to HTI."

Aikman didn't reply, and after a moment of silence Kutzko stepped over and extended his hand. Without looking at him, Aikman dropped the cyl into the open palm. "It doesn't matter," he said, still with his back to me. "In a week she'll be dead. And there's not a putrid thing you or anyone else can do to stop it."

"We'll see," I told him, trying to sound more confident than I felt.

Perhaps he sensed that; or perhaps he knew much better than I what I was up against. "Oh, she'll be dead, all right," he bit out, the confidence in his voice as genuine as the gloating. "And if you don't stay out of my way, I may even arrange to have you as official witness to her execution. Remember that the next time you think about invading my privacy."

He left. "Probably makes friends wherever he goes," Kutzko commented wryly. But I could sense that some of the sarcasm in his voice was merely there for cover. Beneath it—

Beneath it, and in his eyes, was a kind of uneasiness I'd never seen in him before.

"Legal reps are often like that," I shrugged, deciding to ignore the uneasiness I was reading. If what I'd just done really bothered him, he'd bring it up in his own good time. "Just remember that we only have to put up with him for a few more days; he's stuck with himself permanently."

Kutzko snorted. "He's welcome to it. I wonder if he's like this with everyone."

"I doubt it. Not everyone has a Watcher with them."

Kutzko's uneasiness took on a tinge of guilt. "Yeah. Well..."

"What are you going to do with that?" I asked, gesturing to the cyl in his hand.

"Give it to Mr. Kelsey-Ramos, of course. Why?—you wanted to keep it our little secret?"

I shrugged. "I did sort of imply that if Aikman surrendered the cyl we'd keep his squalling to the governor to ourselves."

"You shouldn't make promises you can't keep," he growled. "I have to report this, and you know it."

I just looked at him, and after a minute he sighed. "Oh, all right—I'll gloss over that part if I can. Though I'll bet HTI will be madder at Aikman than Mr. Kelsey-Ramos will—getting Paquin thrown out of the reception meant she was here when the saboteurs tried to get in."

I hadn't thought of it that way, but he was right. God has ensnared the wicked in the work of their own hands... "Good point," I agreed.

Idly, he rolled the cyl across his palm. "I suppose I'd better get this to Mr. Kelsey-Ramos."

I nodded. "When I left him he was in Schock's stateroom getting ready to start sifting through the HTI cyls," I offered.

"Okay." He hesitated. "Gilead... does Aikman have a real case?"

"In other words, can I really read minds?"

He grimaced. "Maybe I should ask how much of people's minds can you read."

I sighed. "I've been working for Lord Kelsey-Ramos for eight years," I reminded him. "If I could read anything more than emotions and surface impressions, don't you think I could easily have stolen the Carillon Group out from under him by now?"

"Even knowing you'd have to answer to God for doing it?" he asked pointedly.

"Aaron Balaam darMaupine felt God wanted him to establish a theocracy on Bridgeway," I countered evenly. "He would have held onto his power a lot longer if he could have read the minds of those who eventually betrayed him."

"Point," Kutzko agreed, some of the tension in his sense easing. "Old Balaam's Ass did crumble pretty quickly once the Patri woke up to what he was doing."

I winced to myself at Kutzko's careless, even automatic epithet. DarMaupine's humility name had been an easy one for the Patri to turn against him: Balaam, the Old Testament prophet who'd had to be told by his own donkey that an angel of death was waiting for him in the road ahead. It was probably the only scriptural passage that even the most rabidly unreligious in the Patri and colonies knew. "Yes, he did," I agreed. "The original Watcher elders didn't unlock any hidden power of the human mind, Mikha. They just learned how to truly see the universe around them."