Deadman Switch by Timothy Zahn Page A

murderer.”
    He pursed his lips, then shrugged. “Okay, sure, I’ll do it. Give me a sign when you’re ready and I’ll try to make you a bubble to talk in.”
    I exhaled silently. “Thanks, Mikha. I really appreciate it.”
    â€œNo problem.” He studied my face. “Just one question: is Mr. Kelsey-Ramos one of the people I’m supposed to keep out of this bubble?”
    It was a question that had also been nagging at me. At the moment I had at least his tacit approval for what I was doing … but making an embarrassing nuisance of myself at a formal reception would evaporate that support in double-quick time. Unfortunately, I had no way of knowing in advance where the crucial dividing line lay. “There shouldn’t be a problem as long as I’m discreet,” I said as reassuringly as possible. There was no point in him worrying about it, too.
    â€œAnd if you’re not, I pretend I don’t know you?”
    â€œFair enough. Try to be gentle when you throw me out of the building.”
    He grinned lopsidedly. “I’ll bring Brad along and let him do it.”
    â€œOh, thanks a lot,” I snorted. “I’ll either wind up in orbit or in a burn-out trajectory.”
    His grin faded into seriousness, a seriousness that somehow made me brace myself. “You know, there is one other way to get the Bellwether a new zombi.”
    I gazed at him, feeling the cold-steel edge there. “Pick one up ourselves?” I asked carefully.
    He nodded in Cameo’s direction. “Even Solitaire’s got its quota of drifters and generally unwanted people. Some of them might be criminals from the rest of the Patri and colonies who finagled passage here and are hiding out.”
    â€œYou know I could never be party to something like that,” I said, my lips suddenly dry. “It would be murder.”
    â€œWhich the Deadman Switch isn’t?”
    I gritted my teeth. “Two wrongs have never yet made a right. Besides, you’d never get Mr. Kelsey-Ramos to go along with something like that.”
    He cocked an eyebrow. “Maybe. Maybe not. I’ll bet there would be a way to rig it to look like someone had stowed away and tried to seize control of the ship.” He paused. “You may not know it,” he added obliquely, “but Lord Kelsey-Ramos has been trying to find a second Watcher for his staff for a couple of years now.”
    An odd haze of unreality settled over me, a disbelief that I was even talking about this … “No,” I said firmly. “Absolutely not. If I can save Calandra legally, I’ll do it. Not otherwise.”
    â€œEven if the illegal zombi deserved death anyway?” he countered.
    All have sinned and lack God’s glory … “Even then,” I told him.
    For a moment we looked at each other. Then Kutzko shrugged acceptance. “If that’s how you want it,” he said. “If you’ll pardon my saying so, I think your sense of ethics is on the overdone side.”
    â€œPossibly,” I said evenly. “But any ethics you can throw out when they’re inconvenient wouldn’t be worth much as ethics, would they?”
    â€œI suppose not,” he said, and I could sense him backing away from the topic. “I suppose I should start getting my people ready for tonight.”
    â€œAnd I have to get Calandra some formal wear ordered, anyway,” I reminded myself aloud.
    â€œThere’s a catalog listed on the main Rainbow’s End phone list,” he offered. “I scanned through it some last night, and it seems pretty complete.”
    â€œThanks, I’ll take a look.”
    It was only minutes later, in the privacy of my stateroom, that the enormity of what had just happened hit me with delayed force. Not just that Kutzko, a man I thought a great deal of, had been willing to consider kidnap and murder … but that I had actually been on