Deadman Switch by Timothy Zahn Read Free Book Online Page B

Outbound, how do we get the Bellwether back through the Cloud?”
    I looked at Schock. Somehow, I hadn’t gotten around to thinking that far ahead. “Well … we could send another message to Whitecliff at the same time, couldn’t we? Ask them to send us another felon to take Calandra’s place?”
    â€œThey won’t do it.” There was a positiveness in Randon’s tone, a clear sense that this one wasn’t just a theoretical position for argument’s sake. “The authorities won’t allow more than two zombis to a ship, except under extremely unusual circumstances. You would have to be able to prove that Paquin was innocent before they would even consider sending us a substitute.”
    â€œHow can we prove anything like that until we have the trial records?” I growled. “It’s a storage loop argument.”
    â€œYes, it is,” Randon agreed. Not apologetic, not really angry: just agreeing. “I’m sorry, but the system simply isn’t set up to allow convicted felons to slide through the net at this stage.”
    Or in other words, Calandra’s life wasn’t worth enough to him to buck established channels. Lord Kelsey-Ramos would have had the courage to do that—
    But Lord Kelsey-Ramos wasn’t in charge here. Randon was.
    I took a deep breath. Rarely had righteous anger hit me with such a surge of emotion, and I had to fight to try and think through the haze. “All right,” I said at last. “If I can … if I can find us a substitute zombi before we’re ready to leave, will you, as master of this ship, grant Calandra a temporary stay of execution?”
    Randon eyed me thoughtfully. “One life worth more than another? Hardly what I’d have expected of you.”
    Hardly what I would have expected of myself. I said nothing, and after a moment he nodded. “All right, Benedar, you’ve got yourself a deal.” He hesitated. “I don’t have to remind you that you have to remain within legal bounds in obtaining this zombi for us, do I?”
    The warning felt surprisingly like an insult. But perhaps the knife twist in my stomach was coming entirely from my own conscience. If I could offer a life in trade for Calandra’s, was it so big a step to trading a life for profits? “I understand, sir,” I said, my mouth dry. “Thank you, sir.”
    I turned to go. “Benedar?” he called after me.
    Steeling myself, I looked back. “Yes?”
    His gaze was almost physical in its intensity. “You’d better be right about this.”
    I swallowed. Truth? said Pilate. What is that? “Yes, sir,” I told him quietly, and left.

Chapter 5
    I T TOOK ME A long time to fall asleep that night. So long, in fact, that I was still awake at one-thirty when the Mjollnir drive kicked off and the Bellwether was once again space-normal.
    There was something eerie about lying alone in the still of the night, I’d long ago learned; something that turned even the most ordinary of daytime noises into something darkly ominous … and the distant thunggk of the Mjollnir circuit breakers was hardly an ordinary noise.
    For a long minute I just lay in the darkness, suddenly weightless, listening to my heart pounding in my throat and straining to hear anything more. If there was something wrong—if somehow we’d lost our path through the Cloud and been brought out too early …
    From the rear of the ship a faint drone became audible, increasing gradually in volume and pitch, and beneath my bed I could feel the faint answering tremor as the living-ceramic deck of my stateroom angled to keep itself perpendicular to the acceleration vector. A measure of effective weight returned, and increased, and it was clear that the Bellwether’s voyage was progressing normally.
    If such a word as “normal” could be used about a voyage piloted by a dead man.
    I gritted my