Deadman Switch (48 page)

He gave me an odd look. “We got contact with an alien race, we
didn't
get into a war, and Calandra's going to get a new trial. How
should
it have worked out?”

“You don't understand.”

“So explain it to me.”

I took a deep breath. “I started this whole thing, Mikha. I lied and stole and betrayed people's trust right and left—I shredded half of my ethical standards, first for Calandra and then for the Invaders.”

“And, what, you want more of the credit?”

“You're missing the point,” I said bitterly. “Lord Kelsey-Ramos and Dr. Eisenstadt are up to their chins in trouble with the Pravilo, the Halo of God has been pretty well destroyed as a religious community, Shepherd Adams
died
out there, for heaven's sake … and I'm not even going to get a slap on the hand.” Tears rose to my eyes; angrily, I blinked them back. “In every case, someone else has had to pay for my actions.”

I expected a quick and possibly glib reply. I got, instead, a long silence. “You know,” Kutzko said at last, his voice unusually reflective, “my parents used to talk like that. Used to say that we were here in life to suffer. Oh, not in those words—they talked about it as building character and patience and stuff like that. But that's what it all came down to in the end: that suffering was how you proved you were doing what you were supposed to.” He nodded toward the thunderheads. “Now, the way
I
like to look at things is to count up what got accomplished and then compare it to whatever extra it cost. And I'll tell you right now, Gilead, that except for Adams, you accomplished a blazing lot for practically nothing.”

I glared at him. “You don't consider Lord Kelsey-Ramos and the Halo of God worth all that much, do you?”

“I said whatever
extra
it cost,” he reminded me with strained patience. “You know full well that Lord Kelsey-Ramos and Eisenstadt are too important for any of this to stick to them; and if you weren't so bent on feeling sorry for yourself, you'd admit you didn't do anything to the Halloas the thunderheads wouldn't have done by themselves in a few months. They
had
to make contact with us pretty blazing soon if they wanted us to tackle the Invaders for them—they were probably waiting until we'd just have enough time to do the job but not enough to stop and think about it.”

I gritted my teeth in irritation. Irritation, and the slightly galling knowledge that he was in fact right. “It still doesn't seem fair,” I said, just for something to say.

“It's not,” he agreed easily. “But since when do you care about fair?”

I blinked in surprise. “Since always.”

“Since never,” he retorted. “You don't want fair, Gilead—you've
never
wanted it. Anyone can get fair—the Patri judiciary can usually manage
that
much.”

“Oh, really,” I said sarcastically. “Well, in that case, perhaps you'd be kind enough to tell me what it is I do want.”

He shrugged. “You're the religious one. You tell
me
what you're supposed to be giving out.”

I glared at him again; but it was a glare without any power at all behind it. He had me, and we both knew it. “Compassion,” I muttered. “Mercy. Forgiveness.”

He spread his hands. “There we go,” he nodded. “Nothing like a little heathen argument to sharpen your focus.”

“Oh, thank you,” I growled. “Thank you very much.”

He grinned, then sobered. “You know, I think I've finally figured it out. Remember that stuff about being the salt of the earth?”

You are salt for the earth …
“Yes,” I said.

“Well, you're not salt—you aren't, anyway. You're more like a catalyst.”

I snorted. “‘You are catalysts for the earth.' It loses a little in the translation.”

“No, I'm serious,” Kutzko insisted. “Sure, you got through this thing pretty clean; but look at all the people who wound up doing things for others along the way.” He held up gloved fingers, began ticking them off. “I mean, there was Adams; there were Lord Kelsey-Ramos and Eisenstadt; there's the Halloas. Not to even mention what all this is going to do to the Deadman Switch.”

I stared at him. “What about the Deadman Switch?”

“I mean the Halloas taking over for the zombis, of course,” he snorted. “Or didn't you think the Patri would notice that Adams did as well out there as any zombi could have?”

“They
did
notice it, and he didn't do nearly well enough,” I retorted bitterly. It was one of my own secret hopes, too … or rather, it
had
been, before I'd seen the commission's reaction to it. “The commission made it perfectly clear that no one's going to be interested in hauling ten or fifteen people on runs into Solitaire when they can do it with two prisoners instead.”

“Yeah, but you're assuming Adams's forty-five-minute limit is all you can get,” Kutzko reminded me. “Don't forget that he had some medical problems to begin with—
and
he didn't have all that many contacts on his scorecard. You may not know it, but Zagorin's already done two hours at a stretch without getting into trouble, and there's no reason why that's the end of the line, either.”

I sighed. “Except that the commission isn't interested, no matter
where
the end of the line is. Replacing the Deadman Switch would mean putting Solitaire navigation—or at least the navigator training—into the hands of people they consider to be religious fanatics. They won't accept that; I know, I saw their faces after my testimony.”

He grinned. “Yeah, but you didn't see their faces after
my
testimony.”

I frowned. “And just what did you testify to?” I asked cautiously.

“Oh, nothing special,” he said, his sense all smug innocence. “I just made sure they got a description—a blazing
good
description—of how the thunderheads picked up Adams's body and tried to attack you with it.”

And even as the memory sent a cold shiver up my back I saw that he was right. A zombi sitting peacefully and obediently at the Deadman Switch was one thing; a zombi moving about the bridge was something else entirely. A ghastly horror, straight out of mankind's deepest and darkest fears. “Yes,” I agreed, taking a shuddering breath and trying to force the image away. “I can understand why that would … bother them.”

“Bother
them?” He snorted. “Try terrified them out of their minds. By the time I was through they were falling all over each other getting study groups set up. It might take a year or two, but the Deadman Switch is finished—count on it.”

Death, where is your victory?
“I guess it's not a bad list, at that,” I murmured, almost reluctantly.

“Awfully generous of you,” Kutzko said dryly. “I'd say
not a bad list
covers it pretty well. Sort of gives you a different angle on things, doesn't it?—unless, that is, you're the type that's stuck on being a candidate for martyr.”

Martyr.
I listened to the sound of that word as it echoed through my mind.
Martyr.
A noble, honorable way to serve humanity … or a hypocritical and cowardly way to escape from that same service. Which motivation, I wondered, had been behind my willingness to give my life aboard the tug?

I still had no answer for that question … but now, I saw with sudden clarity that I didn't, need to. Kutzko was right: my job was not to concentrate on the suffering or the sacrifices, but on my service to those around me.

And with Lord Kelsey-Ramos busy pulling strings with the Pravilo to keep me out of prison, it was pretty clear who those people would be. At least for now. “Martyr, huh?” I commented to Kutzko as I stood up. “Anyone ever tell you that tact isn't your strong point?”

“Oh, all the time,” he admitted cheerfully, getting to his feet with me. “Why do you think I picked a job where I get to carry a weapon around? That was a pretty fast trip out of the doldrums, if I do say so myself.”

“It sure was,” I agreed. “You don't make a bad catalyst yourself.”

“Don't start that,” he said, mock-warningly. “I gave up religion a long time ago, remember?”

“Sure,” I said. And smiled to myself as, together, we headed down the ridge.

Timothy Zahn is a
New York Times
bestselling and award-winning science-fiction author of more than forty novels, as well as dozens of novellas and short stories. He is best known for his Star Wars novels, which have been widely credited with rejuvenating the Star Wars book franchise. Zahn is known for his engaging writing style, pithy dialogue, compelling plot lines, intricately detailed alien cultures, inventive alien technology, and the complex morality of his characters.

Born in 1951, in Chicago, Illinois, Zahn holds a bachelor's degree in physics from Michigan State University and a master's degree in physics from the University of Illinois. It was while working toward his PhD in the late 1970s that Zahn began focusing on writing science fiction. He sold his first story in 1978 and, two years later, began to write fulltime.

In 1984, Zahn won a Hugo Award for his short story “Cascade Point.”. That same year he also published
Blackcollar
, the first installment of his Blackcollar series. He launched the Cobra series two years later with
Cobra
(1985), and published the celebrated Thrawn trilogy, which gave the Star Wars narrative new life, throughout the 1990s. His YA Dragonback series, of which
Dragon and Thief
(2003) was named an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, includes six books published between 2003 and 2008.

Zahn is especially beloved among the Star Wars fan community for his contributions to the Star Wars books. His best-known Star Wars titles, the Thrawn trilogy
,
were voted onto NPR's list of the top 100 science-fiction and fantasy books of all time.

Zahn lives in Oregon with his family.

Zahn's school portrait from 1957, when he was six years old.

A yearbook photo of Zahn playing the cello in his high school orchestra in 1969.

Zahn's high school senior class picture from 1969.