Deadman Switch Read Online Free PDF

had been nosing around the edge of the Cloud for days, trying to figure out why a Mjollnir drive couldn’t operate within that region of space, when the drive had suddenly and impossibly kicked in, sending them off on the ten-hour trip inward to the Solitaire system. Busy with their readings and instruments, no one on board realized until they reached the system that the man operating the helm was dead—had, in fact, died of a stroke just before they’d entered the Cloud.
    By the time they came to the correct conclusion, they’d been trapped in the system for nearly two months. Friendships, under such conditions, often grow rapidly. I wondered what it had been like, drawing lots to see who would die so that the rest could get home …
    I shivered, violently. “The Watchers consider the Deadman Switch to be a form of human sacrifice,” I told him.
    Randon threw me a patient glance … but beneath the slightly amused sophistication there, I could tell he wasn’t entirely comfortable with the ethics of it either. “I didn’t bring you here to argue public morals with me,” he said tartly. “I brought you here because—” he pursed his lips briefly— “because I thought you might be able to settle the question of whether or not the Cloud is really alive.”
    It was as if all the buried fears of my childhood had suddenly risen again from their half-forgotten shadows.
    To deliberately try and detect the presence of an entity that had coldly taken control of a dead human body …
    â€œNo,” I managed to say.
    Randon frowned. “No what? No, it isn’t alive?”
    Trembley’s dead hands moved, changing the Bellwether’s course a few degrees down the twisting and ever-changing path to Solitaire … and suddenly I felt very ill. “I mean, no, I can’t do it.”
    A slight frown creased Randon’s forehead. “Look, Benedar, I’m not expecting miracles—”
    â€œI can’t do it,” I snapped at him.
    All heads on the bridge turned to me. Even Randon seemed taken aback. Even were I to walk in a ravine as dark as death I should fear no danger, for You are at my side … Taking a deep breath, I forced calmness into my mind. “Mr. Kelsey-Ramos, the man there is dead. He’s dead.”
    â€œHe was a condemned traitor,” Aikman put in, malicious enjoyment at my discomfort coloring his tone. “He was responsible for the deaths of over twenty people on Miland. You feel sorry for him?”
    I met his eyes, but didn’t bother to speak. He couldn’t understand—wouldn’t want to even if he could—how much more grisly the zombi was for me than it could ever be for him. To sense overwhelmingly the fact that he was dead; and at the same time to see evidence of life …
    â€œWho was Connye?” Randon asked.
    Aikman shifted his attention to him. “Who?”
    â€œTrembley mentioned a Connye, just as Dr. DeMont injected him,” Randon said. Annoyed though he might be at me for refusing his order, he still had no intention of letting an outsider like Aikman take free shots at me. “Was she one of the people he killed?”
    Aikman shook his head. “She was one of his accomplices.” His eyes went back to me. “She was executed on an earlier flight into Solitaire, incidentally.”
    I clenched my teeth. “Mr. Kelsey-Ramos … with your permission, I’d like to leave.”
    He studied me a moment, then nodded. “Yes, all right. Perhaps on the trip back you’ll be better able to handle it.”
    I nodded, acknowledging his statement without necessarily agreeing with it. “I’ll be in my stateroom if you need me,” I told him.
    â€œYou might take a minute to stop by the other zombi’s cell first,” Aikman added as I turned to go.
    I paused, looking back at him. Again the hatred of me … but this time