Deadman Switch Read Online Free PDF Page A

death, by a duly authorized judiciary of your peers, under the laws of the Four Worlds Of The Patri and their colonies. Said execution is to be carried out by lethal injection aboard this ship, the Bellwether, registered from the Patri world of Portslava, under the direction of Dr. Kurt DeMont, authorized by the governor of Solitaire.
    â€œRobern Roxbury Trembley, do you have any last words?”
    Trembley started to shake his head, discovered the headband prevented that. “No,” he whispered, voice cracking slightly with the strain.
    Aikman half turned, nodded at DeMont. Lips pressed tightly together, the doctor stepped forward, moving around the back of the helm chair to Trembley’s right arm. Opening his medical kit, he withdrew a small hypo, already prepared. Trembley closed his eyes, face taut with fear and the approach of death … and DeMont touched the hypo nozzle to his arm.
    Trembley jerked, inhaling sharply. “Connye,” he whispered, lower jaw trembling as he exhaled a long, ragged breath.
    His eyes never opened again … and a minute later he was dead.
    DeMont gazed at the readouts in his kit for another minute before he confirmed it officially. “Execution carried out as ordered,” he said, his voice both tired and grim. “Time: fifteen hundred twenty-seven hours, ship’s chrono, Anno Patri date 14 Octyab 422.” He raised his eyes to Bartholomy. “He’s ready, Captain.”
    Bartholomy nodded, visibly steeled himself, and moved forward. Unstrapping Trembley’s arms, he reached gingerly past the body to a black keyboard that had been plugged into the main helm panel. It came alive with indicator lights and prompts at his touch, and he set it down onto the main panel’s front grip, positioning it over the main helm controls and directly in front of the chair. “Do I need to do anything else?” he asked Aikman, his voice almost a whisper.
    â€œNo,” Aikman shook his head. He threw a glance at me, and I could sense the malicious satisfaction there at my presence. The big pious Watcher, forced to watch a man being executed. “No, from here on in it’s just sit back and enjoy the ride.”
    Bartholomy snorted, a flash of dislike flickering out toward Aikman as he moved away from the body.
    And as if on cue, the body stirred.
    I knew what to expect; but even so, the sight of it was shattering. Trembley was dead —everything about him, every cue my Watcher training could detect told me he was dead … and to see his arms lift slowly away from the chair sent a horrible chill straight to the center of my being. And yet, at the same time, I couldn’t force my eyes to turn away. There was an almost hypnotic fascination to the scene that held my intellect even while it repelled my emotions.
    Trembley’s arms were moving forward now, reaching out toward the black Deadman Switch panel. For a moment they hesitated, as if unsure of themselves. Then the hands stirred, the fingers curved over, and the arms lowered to the Mjollnir switch. One hand groped for position … paused … touched it—
    And abruptly, gravity returned. We were on Mjollnir drive again, on our way through the Cloud.
    With a dead man at the controls.
    â€œWhy?” I asked Randon again.
    â€œBecause you’re the first Watcher to travel to Solitaire,” he said. The words were directed to me; but his eyes remained on Trembley. The morbid fascination I’d felt still had Randon in its grip. “Hard to believe, isn’t it?” he continued, his voice distant. “Seventy years after the discovery of the Deadman Switch and there still hasn’t been a Watcher who’s taken the trip in.”
    I shivered, my skin crawling. The Deadman Switch had hardly been “discovered”—the first ship to get to Solitaire had done so on pure idiot luck … if luck was the proper word. A university’s scientific expedition