The Cause of Death Read online

  "I doubt that water will be very comfortable for you," Cinnabex replied. "But better cold and discomfort than detection. Please proceed."

  "Right." Georg decided to move before he had a chance to think better of the idea.

  The ravine shallowed to almost nothing as it merged with the creek. Georg moved forward to the last little bit of cover the banks afforded, cranked his night vision up to max power again, and popped his head over the top. Scrubby growth, weeds, brush, and small trees crowded up against both banks as close as they could, shouldering each other aside to get at the water source. That meant good cover for Georg--but also for his pursuers. There could be fifty Reqwar Pavlat lining the banks of the creek, and he wouldn't be able to see them.

  He considered asking Cinnabex to use her detection gear again, but rejected the idea. Better to rely on his own less powerful but more discreet equipment. Georg lowered himself into the ravine and crept forward as quietly as he could toward its mouth until the water was over his boot tops. The stinging cold flooded down around his feet. He waded out into the center of the fast-moving stream and found a spot with a good-sized boulder standing up out of waist-high water.

  "As I understand it, your camouflage suit's heat-dump process is far more effective if the entire garment--and its wearer--are completely immersed," said Cinnabex.

  "That's what we're going to do. Full immersion. Give the whole suit a chance to dump through its whole surface area for a full five minutes."

  "Might I ask how you are going to breathe in those minutes?"

  Georg laughed silently. "I have a real high-tech device that ought to do the trick," he said, and pulled a long, flexible tube out of a pocket on the left shoulder of the suit. He placed himself upstream of the boulder, turned himself to face downstream, and sat down in the water, cursing the cold under his breath. He braced his feet against the big rock, shoved the tube into a valve in his suit's mask, and lay down in the cold, cold water.

  The fast-moving current made it almost impossible to hold his body underwater, and at first he took in nearly as much water as air through the breathing tube. After a certain amount of floundering around, he managed to find a rock he could wedge his left arm under to hold him beneath the surface and got the end of the breathing tube far enough above the water's surface for him to take in air more or less reliably.

  Only once he had those details organized did he get around to activating the heat-dump system--and only when the heat dump started releasing its stored energy through the suit, warming it dramatically, did he realize how cold he had gotten in just a few moments under the chill water.

  The heat dump seemed to take much longer than five minutes--and the last minute or two seemed longer still, as the last of the excess heat energy drained away from the suit and the surrounding cold soaked back in around Georg's skin. At last the heat-dump system signaled completion.

  He resisted the urge to spit the tube out and pop his head back up above water the moment the process was done. Instead, he moved slowly, quietly, looping the tube around to one side of his head so he could keep breathing through it while he lifted only the top of his head above water. The moment his eyes cleared the surface, he froze.

  "What is it?" the tiny voice whispered in his ear. Somehow, even tucked away in its container, the Cinnabex component sensed that something was wrong.

  The sound of rushing water was all around him, and loud enough to mask the sound of his subvocalizing underwater. He pushed the breathing tube far enough out of his voice to mutter a reply. "Many Pavlat," he whispered, using as few words as he could. "Crossing creek, hundred meters south. Taking up posts both sides." Then he used his teeth and lips to pull the tube back into position. He was going to need it for a while longer--but he couldn't stay in the water too long. Cinnabex's component didn't have much breathing air left.

  In any cold-blooded, rational analysis the component as a living being was expendable--but the component was also his link back to Cinnabex, and any hope of outside help.

  And he was going to need outside help. That much was clear. He watched as the last of the Pavlat vanished from sight into the brush on both banks of the creek. "Cinn--any new useful info?" he murmured into the throat mike.

  "Stand by," Cinnabex answered. "I have managed to generate at least partial decrypts and localizations for some transmissions. Mainly by a process of elimination, they have decided you must have headed east and are concentrating search strength in that direction. The commander ordered that guards be posted on the creek, on the assumption that you'd have to cross it, but the guards protested that the vegetation on the banks was too thick, making it impossible to keep watch. Therefore, the guards are being placed on both sides of the creek, about every one hundred thirty meters apart, sixty-five meters back from the vegetation belt that follows the creek downhill and south."

  George swore to himself. He shouldn't have done the cool-down. If he had just crossed the creek immediately, he might have kept a good quarter kilometer ahead of the search parties. Of course, that wouldn't have done him much good if his camo suit had overloaded and initiated an uncontrolled heat dump. There hadn't been any good choices--and hadn't been for a long time.

  Georg watched silently as the last of the Pavs crossed over. He waited until he couldn't see them, until the undergrowth had completely muffled the sound of their passing. If he couldn't hear them, then maybe they couldn't hear him.

  "All right," he said after a moment, "I can risk talking a little here, with the water noise, but I won't want to chance even subvocalizing once we're out of the water. We have to move, and soon. They're expecting me to try to cross the creek and head east, and they're watching from outside the vegetation belt. I'm going to head back to the west bank of the creek, hug the inside of the belt, and move south, back toward the way we came."

  "The odds against success are extremely high," Cinnabex replied.

  "Yes," Georg agreed. "Can you suggest an alternate option with better odds?"

  "No," said Cinnabex. "But I regret that I must insist on our previously agreed dispersal plan."

  In other words, Cinn was assuming Georg would be captured or killed. And it might well do great political and legal harm if the Pavlat learned that Cinnabex had been trying to help Georg escape. "All right," Georg said once again, though precious little at all was all right about anything. "Let's do it fast before your component runs out of air or I freeze to death."

  Georg levered himself up out of the water to a sitting position--and almost fainted dead away. It was shocking to realize how much of his strength and endurance the cold water had taken out of him--and, perhaps, how little he had left even before he had gone in the water. He shook his head to clear it, then, moving slowly and cautiously, got to his feet while staying as hunched over as possible, doing all he could to keep a low profile. His arms and legs were stiff and cold, and he found himself shivering uncontrollably, his teeth chattering so loudly it seemed impossible that the Pavlat could not hear the sound. He longed for some of the waste heat he had just gone to such trouble to lose.

  He moved downstream in the water past the entrance to his ravine, then scrambled up on the western bank of the creek. Once hidden by the foliage, he allowed himself a few brief seconds to recover, then set to work.

  He knelt and pulled out the container holding Cinnabex's component. He set it down on the ground and watched as the lid opened itself one last time.

  The component lost no time in climbing out of the container, the thin wires that connected it to the hardware inside trailing after it. It stood up on two of its six legs, and faced Georg, looking up at him through the leg-eyes of its two uppermost legs. "I must speak now, before I detach myself from the comm gear," it said, Cinnabex's voice coming to him through his earphones. "I must speak, and you must listen."

  Georg knew what was coming, and knew there was no chance of agreement--but also knew how much he owed Cinnabex, and how very much Cinnabex had earned the right to be heard.
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  "Go on," he whispered.

  The starfish drew itself up to its full twenty centimeters of height and faced Georg as Cinnabex's voice chimed in his ear. "The only way--the only way--for you to survive this crisis, and achieve your goals, and, perhaps, save this world from collapse, will be if you do what the Reqwar Pavlat require. You must weigh your honor, and your beliefs, and your oaths, against all that will be lost if you persist in your present course. Go on as you have, and our project will be canceled, all our work wasted--and the very survival of Reqwar's terrestrial ecology will be set at risk." The starfish paused for a moment, then gestured with two of its arms, a remarkably good imitation of a human shrug. Cinnabex had always been good at that sort of thing. "That is all. Now I must detach myself, and go. You know what to do with the container. You have about six minutes."

  "I know," said Georg. "Thank you, Cinnabex, for everything. Thank you, and good-bye."

  "May it instead be but farewell. Let us think on the time when the rest of me greets all of you once again."

  "Farewell then," Georg said, resisting the absurd urge to reach down and shake the component by its nonexistent hand.

  The component folded its four uppermost legs back, and deftly detached the wires connecting it to the compartment. Then it swung its legs forward again and dropped down to stand on all sixes for a moment. It raised its two side legs and extended them to give those leg-eyes maximum binocular vision.

  One of the eyes glanced up at George, and the little creature started back a handbreadth, as if surprised to see him there. Detached from the rest of Cinnabex, the component had already forgotten everything, lost everything. It turned its back on Georg and headed out into the brush. The creature's survival instincts would drive it to find some place safe to hide--but there was no place it would be safe from the enzymes set loose in its body when it detached itself from the comm system. The enzymes would start to dissolve the little creature's organs within a few minutes, killing it. Those enzymes would continue their work past death, dissolving the creature's body entirely, leaving nothing but a puddle of unidentifiable organic goo that would quickly seep into the soil.

  It was a standard security precaution, and quite sensible when dealing with an expendable component organism, but it still didn't sit right with Georg. A wave of guilt and shame washed over him. Cinnabex had been right to ask the price of his honor. Was the death of this little bit of Cinnabex merely the first small down payment?

  Georg pulled his hunting knife from its sheath and stabbed at the soft ground, then clawed the dirt out with both hands. He quickly had a thirty-centimeter-deep hole big enough around to hold the container. He shoved it in, filled in the hole, and flattened the loose dirt with his hands, then spread leaf litter and other debris around the disturbed area. He knew the odds were extremely high that the Pavlat would find it, but it didn't hurt to make an effort. The real point of burying the thing was to dampen the series of small self-destruct explosions that were due in about three minutes' time. If the Pavlat did open the hole, they would find nothing readily identifiable as Stannlar technology.

  I'll have to think up what to tell them it was, once they catch me and start asking questions, Georg told himself. He realized the implications of that thought, then shrugged, stood up, and started to move south. I'm going to get caught, he told himself. No sense pretending otherwise. No sense at all.

  But there was no need to make it easy on them, either. He moved as quietly, as stealthily, as he could, back down into the Thelm's Valley, toward the fate he had tried so hard to escape.

  ". . . do what the Regwar Pavlat require."

  The words echoed in his skull, and he battled against them. No. Not when he wore the insignia of Pax Humana hanging on a chain around his neck, the pendant bouncing gently against the skin on his chest with every step he took. Better, far better, to die, no matter what the cost.

  Georg Hertzmann headed south, through the thinning darkness, toward the last morning of his freedom.

  TWOLOSS

  BSI Special Agent Jamie Mendez sat at the worktable in his cubicle. He listened to the deathly silence that had engulfed the big central operations room of BSI Orbital HQ--the Bullpen. There were at least a dozen other agents on duty in the Bullpen, but the room was utterly quiet. All eyes were on the maintenance robot as it went about its task, removing the last of the dead man's personal effects from the desk he had barely had time to occupy.

  Jamie had to work for a moment to remember the dead man's name. Cho, that was it. Charles Cho. He had only lasted a month, and now he was dead.

  Jamie tried not to remember that he himself had been assigned to the Bullpen a mere eight weeks before, or that Cho had been exactly the same age he was. But Jamie never had been much good at kidding himself.

  "At least he finished his assignment," said a voice from behind him. It was his partner, Senior Special Agent Hannah Wolfson, standing by the entrance to his cubicle.

  "Just before it finished him," Jamie replied. It was the first time Jamie had seen the maint robots clearing out a dead agent's effects. It was, he had no doubt, far from the first for Hannah. "Makes you start to wonder who'll be next, doesn't it?" he asked.

  "Don't start thinking that way," Hannah said sharply.

  Because the next stop from there is wondering if I'll be next, Jamie thought. And the odds weren't all that long, either. He knew what the casualty rate was among new agents.

  The robot finished its doleful task, and wheeled toward the main exit. The silence lifted from the Bullpen. Papers rustled. Chairs squeaked, and voices started up again. A commlink chirped.

  Hannah pulled out her link and glanced at it. "That's me," she said. "Kelly wants to chat. Gotta go."

  "That's always good news," Jamie muttered, still staring at the newly blank worktable in the empty cubicle. How long until another new recruit landed there? It looked exactly the same way Jamie's own cubicle had looked the day he arrived. He suddenly had a very clear insight into why most agents did everything they could to personalize their work areas with pictures and mementos. No one wanted their space to look that blank.

  Jamie shook his head, blinked, and realized that his own commlink hadn't chirped. He pulled it from his breast pocket and confirmed there was no summons on it.

  What could Commandant Kelly have to say to his partner that she couldn't say to him?

  * * *

  "We need to talk, Hannah," said Commandant Kelly, glancing up at her as she came in. Kelly closed the file she had been studying and gestured Hannah toward a chair. "Close the door."

  That means bad news, Hannah told herself. Kelly made a point of keeping her door open to all her agents, of sitting where she could be seen through the doorway, of keeping no secrets that didn't need to be kept. But Hannah did as she was told and pulled the door shut, blocking out the sound of a Bullpen that was struggling to get back to work, to pretend that the day an agent died was just a normal day.

  Well, given the run of bad luck they'd been having the last few months, it was a normal day. That was the grim reality of the situation. Hannah sat down in the visitor's chair.

  Wilhelmina Kelly pushed back from her desk and leaned back in her chair with a weary sigh. She was a small, slightly heavyset woman, a purebred Australian aborigine, with lively, compelling eyes that framed a strong-featured face. Her outsized chair and desk, left over from her ego-obsessed predecessor, made her look even smaller. Hannah knew better. There wasn't anything Kelly wasn't big enough to handle. At least, nothing so far.

  "Tell me about your new partner," Kelly said abruptly. "Evaluate him as an agent."

  Sometimes Kelly was like that, just jumping right in without any preliminaries. No words of mourning for Cho, no expressions of sorrow. Duty and the job came first.

  Hannah cleared her throat and spoke in as professional and dispassionate a tone as she could. "Special Agent Mendez is very new, very determined, potentially very good. His research has been first-rate, and on any
thing to do with weapons and tactics he's way ahead of me. In another areas, he shows lots of potential, but he's still making lots of mistakes."

  "What kind of mistakes?"

  "Jumping in too fast, acting on the basis of assumptions he hasn't confirmed, allowing enthusiasm to outstrip caution."

  "In other words, acting just like a promising young agent who doesn't have much experience yet."

  "That's about right."

  "How has it been working with him the last couple of months?"

  "I'm not used to working with a partner," said Hannah, "but I know that's the point of your pairing me with him--to see if partnering makes sense for BSI agents."

  "And does it?"

  "Yes," Hannah said, almost surprised by her own certainty. "We work well together. I'd be happy to continue working in a partner system--if he was my partner."

  Kelly swiveled about in her chair, and glared out the two-meter-wide viewport that was one of the very few privileges that the commandant's rank conferred. The planet Center was a gleaming ball of green, blue, and white far below, and the jet-black of space was spangled with a glory of stars. Earth's own sun was one of those tiny dots of light, all but lost among all the others. An almost perfect metaphor for the situation in which humanity found itself--insignificant and all but unnoticed in a galaxy that held all the myriad Elder Races.

  "Look at that," Kelly said. "Just look at all that--and tell me how the devil we're supposed to police it."

  "How do you patrol infinity?" Hannah asked.

  "That about sums it up," Kelly said, and they both stared out the viewport for a moment.

  All criminal cases with human involvement outside Earth's home system, and/or all criminal cases with nonhuman sentient being involvement. So read the charter of the Bureau of Special Investigations. No doubt the people who had written it, ninety-odd years ago, had known then that the assignment was impossible. Every day that passed proved that--and showed how necessary it was to try to do it anyway.