Deadman Switch

Chapter 24

After what the physician had said about the effects of the drugs Zagorin had been given, I wondered privately whether trying to talk to her now would wind up being a waste of time. Those fears, at least, proved groundless. Zagorin was awake, alert, and coherent, and though she was clearly tired she was willing to help.

Except that in her case, good intentions merely paved the road to nowhere.

"I'm sorry, Dr. Eisenstadt," she said tiredly, for probably the fifth time. "Believe me, I would be happy to tell you everything, if only to get this over with. I just don't have the words—I don't have them, period. The contact was like—" She waved a hand vaguely, let it drop back to the bed beside her. "The feelings, the sensations..." Her face contorted with the effort, but again she was forced to give up.

Eisenstadt stared at her a moment longer, his sense going through contortions of its own as he struggled to hang onto his patience. "Opinion?" he growled, turning to me.

"She's not just being uncooperative," I assured him. "She really can't find the right words."

"Perhaps a dose of pravdrug would help her vocabulary," he suggested, throwing her a darkly sour look.

"I doubt it," Calandra spoke up, her first words since we'd entered the room. "The problem isn't vocabulary. There's some sort of blockage in her ability to speak."

Eisenstadt frowned at her. "You mean a mild aphasia? Nothing like that showed up on her brain scans."

Calandra shrugged fractionally. "It may not be totally physical in origin. Perhaps it was a side effect of the way the thunderheads used her speech center to talk to us."

"Perhaps." Eisenstadt stroked his chin thoughtfully, his sense suddenly suspicious. "Or maybe it was done deliberately."

I looked at Zagorin, saw her own sudden tension there. "Why would they do something like that?" I asked Eisenstadt. "If they didn't want to talk to us—"

"Oh, they wanted to talk, all right," he grunted. "But if you were paying attention, you may have noticed that they didn't exactly give us a gigapix of useful information. Certainly nothing we didn't already know or couldn't easily find out. Maybe there was something they didn't want us to know, but that they couldn't hide from their co-opted mouthpieces."

I felt the first stirrings of a

"Oh, it occurred to me, all right," he countered. "Did it ever occur to you that they could just as easily be hiding some massive plot against humanity?"

"What?—here in the middle of nowhere?" I snorted.

He eyed me coldly. "You and Ms. Paquin have already stated you believe the thunderheads are creating tension in the people of Solitaire. Our communication with them so far has been entirely on their terms and under their control; now, you tell me that—intentionally or otherwise—they're hanging onto that control even after the communication is ended."

Coincidence, I thought. Coincidence, or else simply the normal misunderstandings and gropings that should be expected in a first contact between two such different species. "If you assume the worst of people," I murmured, "you'll often get it."

"Maybe," he conceded stiffly. "And I'm sure you religious types would rather err on the generous side than take the risk of bruising someone's pride. But we can't afford that kind of naivete here." His glare flicked to Calandra, came back to me. "Part of my job—and yours—is to make sure the thunderheads aren't a threat, to humanity in general and the Solitaire colony in particular. You can cooperate with me in that or you can get out. Understood?"

"Yes," I said between clenched teeth. Deep down, I had to admit it wasn't an unreasonable attitude for him and the Patri to take. In some ways, that made it worse. "All right, then," he said. "So. Somehow, Ms. Zagorin can't talk about her little visit with the thunderheads. We know there's no physical brain damage, or at least none of the kind usually associated with aphasia. That leaves us either something very subtle or else something psychological. Opinion: would hypnosis help? Either standard or drug-induced?"

I looked at Calandra. She chewed her lip briefly, then stepped up to the bed. "I'd like to try something less drastic first, if I may. Shepherd Zagorin, I'd like you to try to relax and think back through the contact, remembering it as fully as you can. Words, impressions, emotions—whatever comes to mind. Don't try to talk about them; just remember."

I turned to explain to Eisenstadt, saw that he'd already caught on to what she had in mind. "Go ahead," he nodded to Zagorin.

She clenched her teeth momentarily. "All right." Closing her eyes, she settled herself back against the pillow. Calandra reached over to take her left hand as I moved to the other side of the bed and took her right. Zagorin's skin was warm, the muscles slightly tense, and I could feel the faint throbbing of her pulse. "All right, now, Joyita," Calandra said, her voice calm and soothing. "You're sitting down by the thunderheads and going into your meditative trance."

A sense of the normal. "Everything's going as usual," Calandra continued. "And now—suddenly—it's different."

Surprise—a touch of fear—recognition of a heretofore only vaguely sensed personality. "Yes," Calandra confirmed my own reading. "For the first time you're really in communication with the presence you've felt during previous meditations."

"It's strong," Zagorin whispered, eyes still closed. "So very strong."

"Overpoweringly strong?" Eisenstadt asked.

A pause. "N-no," Zagorin said hesitantly. "But..." She trailed off.

"She broke contact easily enough when Adams was in trouble," I reminded Eisenstadt. "Remember that they were in a very passive state at the time of the contact—your tech described it as almost a coma."

He considered. "You're saying it was more a matter of their weakness than it was of any inherent thunderhead strength?"

"I don't think they can take over unreceptive minds, if that's what you're worried about," Calandra said.

"I'd agree," I nodded.

Eisenstadt's lip twisted in a grimace. That was indeed what he was worried about, and he wasn't entirely convinced otherwise. "We'll get back to that later," he said. "Go on."

Calandra turned back to Zagorin. "You've made contact, now, Joyita. The thunderheads are talking to Dr. Eisenstadt through you and Shepherd Adams. Can you hear the conversation? Either end, or both?"

An oddly reticent eagerness flicked across Zagorin's sense. Eagerness, combined with... it felt almost like urgency. "They very much want to communicate with us," I murmured to Eisenstadt.

"Uh-huh," he grunted. "So again: what's taken them so long?"

"Quiet," Calandra ordered us. "Joyita, is there anything else? Something they want to tell you?—or that they're trying to hide from you? Something besides what's being asked?"

"I... don't know." Zagorin's face contorted with concentration. "There's something there. Something important. But I can't... I can't remember it, exactly."

"Something having to do with the dead thunderhead we're looking for?" Eisenstadt asked.

Confusion, frustration. "I... don't know."

Eisenstadt muttered a curse under his breath. "This isn't getting us anywhere."

"Maybe," I said. "Maybe not." I caught Calandra's eye. "You ever play Process of Elimination at Bethel?"

She frowned at me, then her expression cleared. "Yes, I see. Can't hurt to try."

"What can't hurt?" Eisenstadt growled.

"It's called Process of Elimination," I told him. "It was originally a Watcher children's game, but I know the method's been used in serious therapy, too. What we're going to do is to name several topics and see if any of them sparks a response."