The Cause of Death Read online

  But of what use to the Thelek were the humans? Brox looked to Thelek Saffeer, and it was if he could read the answer in his face, as sharp and legible as words on a datapad: The Thelek planned to use the humans as a tool to further humiliate and isolate the Thelm. The Thelm, Brox had learned, was pinning his hopes on the humans. Let them raise those hopes. Let the hopes distract the Thelm from pursuing other options, on the off chance there was some way out for the Thelm and Hertzmann that the Thelek had not blocked. And then let the humans fail, as fail they must, and dash those hopes altogether.

  And, once they had failed--then would come the unfortunate accident.

  But the Thelek, of course, said nothing of such matters. "I am glad to know my honor is beyond question," said the Thelek, in the aggrieved tones of one accused unjustly.

  That was the amazing thing to Brox. The Thelek truly did believe his honor was unstained. In his mind, dealing in half-truths, deceptive implications, and misleading assumptions was quite proper so long as he did not tell out-and-out lies.

  "But I return to my point," the Thelek continued. "Circumstances have changed--for we now know more about your mission here."

  "I see," said Agent Wolfson, in a carefully neutral voice. "What is it that you now know?"

  The Thelek laughed in triumph. "That you yourselves do not know what it is!"

  Neither Mendez nor Wolfson spoke, or moved in any way. The absolute failure of the two humans to respond was, in itself, a most eloquent response. Perhaps this was why the Thelek had told Brox to attend, because he knew that Brox had trained to read and interpret human expressions, and could report his findings later. If so, then he would have much to tell the Thelek. The Thelek had scored a hit, and no doubt.

  "You could not possibly know," the Thelek went on, "based on the message that you received. And it is time, past time, for you to learn the truth--for it is far, far past the point at which you could do anything to change the situation. And, for no other reason than because it pleases me, I will tell you that I know what will happen to you next.

  "You will be met in your room by Grand-Niece-To-Traitor Zahida Halztec. She is there now and quite unaware that I am in Hotel Number Two. She will take you to a meeting she has been working with such diligence to arrange with the Stannlar Allabex and Cinnabex, and the humans Georg and Marta Hertzmann. Niece-Traitor Zahida believes she has kept the meeting very secret, but now you see the success of that."

  And so much for all of the covert monitoring I arranged, thought Brox. Now they will know to be even more careful, to check for Kendari-style listening devices and the like. But it was too late to stop the Thelek.

  "Once you have arrived at this secret meeting, they will very sadly explain that Georg Hertzmann is not guilty of murder. They will tell that you are not here to arrange his transport home to serve out his sentence in a human prison." The Thelek paused, and smiled, and his ears fanned out wide, and blushed pink with pleasure. "They will tell you that he is, in fact, the adopted son of the Thelm, and heir to the Thelmship--something else the Niece-Traitor has failed to mention. The problem is that he is also guilty of a crime--of treason, in fact. He is guilty of failing in his duty. And his duty, my dear humans, was to follow the strict and unyielding law that requires him, absolutely requires him--to kill his father."

  The two humans did not respond--at least not in words. But their stunned silence told Brox all he needed to know.

  Even the Thelek could read humans at least well enough to know that he had scored again, and scored greatly. "Furthermore," he went on, "there is a time limit involved, and time is growing short. He must be the cause of death for Lantrall, Thelm of all Reqwar, before sunset at the Thelm's Keep four days from now--or else he must die in the Thelm's place. You were sent for in order to witness his execution."

  And Brox knew the rest, and felt sure the humans could guess it. And when Hertzmann dies, thought Brox, staring at the triumphant High Thelek Saffeer, there will be none left who can stop Saffeer's ascent to the Thelmship.

  It was the goal that, he, Brox, had been working for all this time. It would be the moment when he won, when the humans were denied a triumph, when history would mark the first step toward the Kendari claiming this world.

  But in that moment, Brox looked upon the Thelek triumphant, all masks pulled aside to reveal the vortex of scheming ambition that was all there was of Caldon Saffeer.

  Brox found himself wondering if making Saffeer into the Thelm of all Reqwar would be such a good idea after all. Saffeer was the sort of being who could never be truly satisfied. And that begged the question: When all his schemes were complete, when his ambitions were achieved--then what would he want next? And from whom would he take it?

  SEVENTEENTHELM

  Cinnabex drew her forward end to its full height and swiveled her forward sense cluster to face each being around the table in turn. "I thank you all for coming," she said. "Affairs are coming rapidly to a head. There is a great deal our newly arrived visitors must learn quickly."

  That much was certain. Jamie felt starved for information--and also a little bit betrayed. How had the High Thelek known what was going on? Jamie and Hannah moved forward through all the events he had predicted, like characters in a dream knowing what came next but unable to do anything about it.

  Zahida had indeed been waiting for them in their room. She had summoned them to a meeting she had arranged with precisely the attendees that the Thelek had predicted. Jamie could almost imagine that the High Thelek could have told them what the seating arrangements were going to be.

  The idea of a nighttime meeting in a warehouse had instantly summoned a thousand positively ancient cliches into Jamie's mind. The decrepit old structure at midnight full of dark, hulking, abandoned machinery. Broken windows, the sound of water dripping from some leaking pipe that was hidden in the shadows.

  The reality was a meeting that started right after dinnertime in a clean, well-lighted, well-maintained building. They were in a large, high-ceilinged warehouse space that took up nearly all of its interior. A small windowless office space had been built against one wall of the main room, and its one door stood slightly ajar.

  It was clear why their meeting place had to be in so large a building: The warehouse was where the Stannlar lived when they were in town, and, after all, Stannlar were big.

  Jamie found himself wishing he could have taken the time to savor the moment, the experience of seeing two Stannlar right in front of him. Few humans ever saw even one. And in a sense he was seeing more than two--for there seemed to be a constant stream of components of all sorts emerging from their Consortia, going off on various errands, then reentering the Stannlars' main bodies--and, unless Jamie wasn't keeping track of their movements as well as he thought, a few of the little starfish-shaped ones were shuttling back and forth between the two main bodies of the Consortia. It was a disconcerting sight.

  He shifted his attention to the Hertzmanns. Georg Hertzmann--tall and handsome, with a studiously neutral, even stoic expression on his face. Even to Jamie's eyes, he seemed awfully young to be at the center of all this. And if Hertzmann had been found guilty of treason, why the devil was he allowed to attend secret meetings at night?

  How could Hannah and he possibly accept that any human being could be found guilty of not committing a murder, then witness his execution, and finally return to Center as if nothing had happened? No. The best interests of the human race included protecting its honor, and to leave Georg Hertzmann to that fate would heap dishonor on all humanity. And Caldon Saffeer ascending to the Thelmship would not likely be good for Reqwar or human involvement on Reqwar.

  Jamie glanced over at Hertzmann's wife, Marta Hertzmann. Her expression was defensive, defiant, angry--and she was doing a completely hopeless job of hiding her own fear. How exactly did she fit into things?

  "Before we go any further," Hannah said, speaking in Lesser Trade Speech, "we have to tell you that the Thelek knows everything." She quickly describ
ed their meeting with Saffeer and Brox, and how accurately the High Thelek had predicted what would happen next. No one around the table seemed particularly surprised by any of it.

  "You can bet it's that Kendari Inquirist," Zahida said. "Brox is good. He's very good, and he's developed a lot of contacts--and my guess is he's also just done a lot of good research work."

  "I also have to say they had listening devices in our room," Jamie said dourly. "We tried to be careful--we were careful--but it's at least possible we gave them some sort of lead, enough for a really good Inquirist to work with."

  Hannah laughed bitterly. "I don't see how we could have, given how little we knew--how little we still know--about what's going on."

  "That was a large part of the decision not to brief you immediately," said Zahida. "There seemed no point in giving Brox more material to work from."

  "But the bugging, the surveillance, is at an end now," said Cinnabex.

  "You put that much faith in the Thelek's promises?" Hannah asked in surprise.

  "Hardly," Allabex said. "We put our faith in Stannlar jamming equipment." She extended a pair of pseudopods toward the BSI agents. Jamie took what appeared to be a featureless golden coin about three centimeters across. Hannah received a similar coin. "Keep those about your person. Ingest them, tape them to your torsos, wear them as pendants, implant them. Do so however you wish, but keep them close to you, and they will ensure that, whatever device the Kendari or the Thelek's people point at you, it will fail to pick up anything."

  "Never mind about the ingesting part," Georg said with a small flash of humor. "I keep having to remind Allabex that things like that might work for Stannlar, but not for humans. I keep mine in here," he said, patting the breast pocket of his tunic, "and it works just fine."

  Jamie realized that, somehow, a line had been drawn, sides had been picked, and everyone here was simply assuming the BSI agents were on their side. It might even be true. And while he was entirely prepared to believe that the Stannlar coins would block any Kendari bugging, he was going to assume until it could be proved otherwise that the gadgets would also serve as convenient listening devices for the Stannlar themselves. So long as he didn't say anything he didn't care about the Stannlar twins hearing, it wouldn't matter.

  Hannah pocketed her coin with a smile, then got down to business. "Before we go any further--or anywhere at all--my partner and I need to know more. A lot more. We've been getting bits and pieces of the situation. We need someone to start at the beginning and explain what is going on around here."

  Marta Hertzmann opened her mouth to speak, and Zahida did the same, but it was Cinnabex who spoke first, cutting off the other two in deferential tones. "Perhaps it would be best if this were explained by one outsider to another," she suggested. "Georg has already told us he would prefer to let someone else do the talking on this point. Marta, of course, has strong emotions about the case, which might make it difficult for her to explain things with enough objectivity. Lady Zahida is also quite close to the situation, both in terms of the politics, and, forgive me, in terms of the ah, biology. I mean no offense."

  Zahida shrugged, imitating the human gesture, and sat again. "I am not offended. It might even do some good for me to hear a xeno perspective on this."

  "Go ahead if you want to," Marta said, in far less gracious tones, and took her own seat again.

  "Excellent," said Cinnabex. She turned back to Hannah and Jamie. "I suggest we start with the biological background to the problem. Georg has remarked to me more than once that humans and Pavlat are almost too similar in outward appearance, similar enough that all parties constantly make the mistake of assuming that the two are more alike than they are."

  Cinnabex nodded to Allabex. "My split-clone and I are convinced that the primary cultural difference is rooted in a few seemingly trivial biological differences, most especially that regarding the birth ratio between males and females."

  "What in the stars could that have to do with my husband facing execution for not committing murder?" Marta demanded.

  "Stannlar like to take the long view of things," Georg said evenly.

  "There's taking the long view--and there's going too far," Marta replied in a half mutter.

  Cinnabex went on smoothly. "Birth ratio, we believe, has everything to do with Georg's predicament. Both species usually have one birth per pregnancy, and pregnancies are usually widely spaced. However, there are differences. In human births, males and females are born in roughly a fifty-fifty ratio. Of equal significance, the life expectancy between various human populations varies widely, but, within each population, there is an all-but-inviolate rule: No matter what the average life span for the overall population, women on average live slightly longer than men. One other feature of human biology is of interest. Humans can suffer mental deterioration due to age--and this affects both sexes in more or less similar numbers. However, this is the exception, not the rule. It is quite common for old men and women to retain clear minds and sharp memories until death."

  That not particularly fascinating bit of news had Zahida sitting bolt upright. Glancing at her, Jamie sensed that they were on the edge of something big, something at the center of it all.

  "I should emphasize that in all this I speak in generalities, and there are exceptions to all these statements." Cinnabex paused, and swiveled her forward eye pair about the room. "But consider how profoundly a change, even a slight one, in any of these biological facts would have altered human cultural and political development. If women outnumbered men five to one, would marriage customs be the same? Would the common tradition of the eldest son inheriting all power, wealth, and property on the death of the father have developed if male births were rarer, or if males lived half as long as females?"

  "Wait a moment. Did you say the eldest son inherits power and property?" Zahida asked. "What do the daughters get?"

  "Basically, nothing, under those rules," said Hannah. "But it only really mattered back when most countries were ruled directly by kings. They aren't, anymore."

  "But Reqwar is," said Jamie. "What is the Thelm, if not a king?"

  "That is a key and vital point," said Cinnabex. "But I call upon my split-clone, Allabex, to speak of the Reqwar Pavlat."

  Cinnabex settled back, while Allabex raised herself up a bit, and directed her speech generators, forward eyes, and main ears at the assembly.

  "Thank you, Cinnabex," said Allabex. "The prime thing," she began, "is to remember we talk of the Reqwar Pavlat, the Pavlat that inhabit this world of Reqwar. Genetically, they are virtually indistinguishable from the Pavlat of other worlds. Culturally--forgive me, Lady Zahida, but they are throwbacks."

  "Believe me, I know that much," said Zahida. "That's why I left here in the first place--and why I wasn't too happy when the family said they needed me to come back."

  "Very good. Your attitude means I won't have to try so hard to be polite about things. As Cinnabex said, both cultures have a lot of traditions and ways of doing things that can be traced back to pretechnological times. Reqwar was founded, a very long time ago, by Pavlat who wanted to go back to the old ways, even pretechnological ways. They banned certain technologies--including certain types of medical assistance and pretty much all forms of genetic engineering. That's the main reason for Cinnabex's, Georg's, Marta's, and my coming here, of course. The Reqwar Pavlat don't know how to restore their ecosystem, so we're here to do it for them."

  Allabex looked around the table. "There are also bans on quite straightforward and simple medical processes that are used on other Pavlat worlds to, shall we say, adjust the natural state of affairs."

  "You hear that phrase a lot on Reqwar," Zahida said bitterly. "The 'natural state of affairs.' As if being natural was always for the best. A good many deadly poisons are entirely natural."

  "So they are," said Allabex absently. "But the point is that, the technical and cultural adjustments made on most Pavlat worlds were long since undone on Reqwar."

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p; "Can someone explain how that plays into the current situation?" Jamie asked.

  "No problem," Zahida said bitterly. She held up one hand, extended both thumbs, and counted on three of the four remaining fingers. "There are three big effects of banning modern medicine. One, male births are about three times as common as female births. Two, males live about fifty percent longer than females, if you don't count violent deaths and accidents, which kill off a large fraction of young males. And three, without treatment, males that live past about one hundred and twenty Pavlat years always go senile, in a very slow and gradual way. Females never go senile."

  "A very clear summing-up," said Allabex. "There are simple medical procedures to select gender before birth, to extend the lives of females, and to prevent the onset of senility. All three processes are listed in the large number of illegal medical procedures on Reqwar. They are not practiced at all in the general population here.

  "However, any basic statistical analysis of the upper orders, the nobility, on Pavlat makes it plain that both female life extension and male senility prevention must be quite common, though done very quietly. You will find that both male and female members of the upper classes are often very cautious about revealing their ages--for fear that they will be accused of using proscribed medical practices."

  Jamie mentally reviewed his briefing materials, and noted that the current Thelm was something like 130 Pavlat years old. No one, of course, would ever admit it, but the inescapable conclusion was that he must have been taking antisenility treatments. Maybe he's even been taking them without knowing it, because he doesn't want to know. Maybe some ultraloyalist in the kitchen has been putting the treatment in his whrenseed tea without telling him. It would be awfully convenient to keep oneself ignorant about a thing like that.

  Allabex spoke. "Any analysis of human traditions concerning ascension to power and inheritance will show the rules are not meant to protect individuals, but to preserve property and power, and retain them in the family. The Reqwar Pavlat rules are quite different, but have the same effect. There is a surplus of males. Even among the ruling families, they are treated as 'cannon fodder,' to use an unpleasant term. There are endless border squabbles, turf wars, incursions, raids, and so on between the various ministates that aren't supposed to exist, but do. There is a great deal of banditry in the rural areas, and the battles against the bandits produce a more or less constant level of casualties on both sides. Young males are expected to show bravado and daring, to demonstrate their manhood and courage by seeking out dangerous sports and activities. The accident that wiped out the Thelm's sons by birth was by no means unusual. Dueling is popular."