The Cause of Death (19 page)

It didn't occur to Zahida until she was through the gate that she could have stopped, shown the Thelm's Hand, and been waved through amid a flurry of respectful salutes--but that would have slowed her up, and she had no desire to risk running into some guard who wasn't particularly impressed by the mere sight of the Thelm's Hand.

No, you'd rather run the risk of a bullet through your back.
She instantly felt a terrible itching sensation along her spine-shields, and hunched her head forward to reduce the target area--but no shots came whistling past her. Maybe the guards were too stunned to respond. Maybe they had received orders not to interfere with whatever happened and were taking that a bit too literally.

She drove as fast as she could toward the point where the foundering craft looked likely to put down if it didn't crash first.

Then the weapons fire began--but it was not aimed at her. The low
pat-pat-pat
of a medium-caliber electromagnetic slug thrower was coming from off to her left. She turned her head to look and saw streaks of fire in the sky. It was unguided tracer fire, one slug in ten treated with a special coating that flared on contact with air. Fortunately, the gunner hadn't come close to hitting the lander so far.

No doubt the High Thelek had ordered some underling to "welcome" the humans, with a wink and a flap of the ears to convey what sort of welcome he wished. That subordinate would have ordered
his
subordinate to give the humans "the proper sort of welcome," and
his
subordinate might order his people to "keep the humans out of trouble," and
his
subordinate might instruct his underlings to "see to it the humans were kept from ever causing trouble," until at last some security force squad leader came right out and ordered his gunner to shoot down the human ship with a gun meant for some other job. The investigators, if any, would trace the sequence of orders and discover it was all a most unfortunate mix-up, with each underling misinterpreting his orders and taking more drastic action than was intended.

And, of course, the electromag guns in the spaceport would all vanish almost before the human vehicle had finished crashing--and if anyone checked, it would turn out to be a long-scheduled plan to decommission surplus hardware, and merely a coincidence that they were removed at about the same time as the unfortunate accident. And, yes, they had been test-fired that day as part of the decommissioning process, and if a few stray rounds had somehow gotten mixed up in the wreckage, that meant nothing at all. Besides, it was a wholly unsuitable weapon for bringing down a spacecraft; therefore, it must have been an accident.

It took Zahida no longer than the time required for the first burst of tracer fire to streak across the sky to get that far in her thinking. It was all business as usual, the way the game was played.

Everyone would
know
that the High Thelek had ordered that the human ship be shot down. But that did not matter, so long as it was nearly impossible to
prove
that he had done so, and so long as he made it possible for everyone to
pretend
that he hadn't done so. As long as there was some chain of logic, some line of reasoning, however flimsy or improbable, that made it remotely conceivably that he had nothing to do with the crash, that would be enough. What was it Great-uncle Bindulan had written to her?
We have lost our every shred of honor by striving to preserve all
appearance
of honor.

But what honor, O High Thelek, in murdering those whom your lord has summoned to assist him?

But the humans hadn't been murdered. Their ship had not crashed. Not yet.

She heeled the steering over hard to the left, and headed straight toward the sound of the guns.

* * *

The cabin of the
Lotus
was a place of jolting shocks, weird, low, far-off noises and echoing silences that should not have been there. The cabin was still in vacuum. Hannah had been too busy to open the vent valves to allow outside air in. Besides, she didn't
want
the ship to suck in any of the clouds of smoke and swirling gas she could see through the viewport. She had enough problems without being blinded in the bargain.

With the cabin in vacuum, all the sound that came to her was what the headphones in her helmet passed along, plus whatever sound was conducted, dimly and muddily, through the vibration of her pilot's chair.

The alarm lights flashed silently, the ship bucked and shuddered and shook without a sound, and loose bits of the
Lotus
banged and flapped against the outer hull in all but perfect quiet.

Somehow, they had made it this far. They were only a kilometer up and about as far from their touchdown target. With just a little more luck they would--

"Jink to starboard! Incoming fire!" Jamie called out.

Hannah hit the port attitude jets hard, shoving the
Lotus
sideways. "What kind of fire?" she demanded.

"Mag gun," he said. "Iron or steel shot, probably. Whoever is doing the shooting isn't very good."

"Glad to hear it," she said.

"I think the smoke we're dumping has him a little--"

WHUMP-bang! WHUMP-bang!

The sounds shuddered dully through the fabric of the ship, through the pilot chairs, and into their suits. Hannah was surprised to discover she did not react at all at first, and allowed herself a split second or two of wondering if she had crisis fatigue; too many life-and-death dangers, one after another, had simply used up all her supplies of adrenaline. But a half heartbeat after that thought, the cabin was filling with smoke, her pressure suit suddenly wasn't anywhere near as stiff, and exterior sounds--loud, unpleasant sounds--began to stage a return. Dim and seemingly far off at first, then louder and louder, came the roar of air into the cabin, the hooting and shrieking of alarms, and an ominous clanking noise from the overhead bulkhead.

"The patches blew inward!" she shouted, as if Jamie hadn't noticed, or couldn't figure it out for himself. "What about that gunner on the ground?" she cried out.

"I think he's lost us in the smoke for the moment."

"Good! Let's not give him too much of a chance to find us. Are we over any part of the landing field?" She couldn't see a thing through the viewports--in fact she could barely see the viewports, or her own displays.

"Stand by," Jamie said, studying his screens. "Yes! Tactical shows us over the field--nothing but empty stresscrete under us."

"All right, I'm putting her down." She brought the ship back to vertical, throttled back on the main thrusters, and used the attitude jets to kill all of their horizontal motion, leaving them settling slowly toward the ground, only eight hundred meters below.

Hannah reached out, flipped the landing gear deployment switch--and instantly another hooting alarm joined the chorus. A big red light over the switch lit up with the words NEGATIVE DEPLOY.

Hannah flipped the switch on and off three or four times, but the light and the alarm didn't shut off--and she didn't hear the familiar and reassuring sound of the four landing legs extending out and down.

"No landing gear! No landing gear!" she called out. She checked the thruster-power indicator. It showed only about two minutes of power at current rate of expenditure--and less than that if they went into a hover and tried to get the gear extended. They were going down, and there was no way around that.

There was a way to do a no-gear landing. The lander itself might not be usable after such a stunt--but the
Lotus
wasn't going to be worth much after this flight anyway. The question was whether she was pilot enough to make a no-gear landing work.

"Coming out of the smoke again!" Jamie announced. "Whoever is on that gun will be able to see us in about five seconds!"

And if he doesn't kill us in about ten seconds, we'll die in the crash in about ninety seconds
, Hannah told herself.
Unless I get a lot better at this, and do it fast
.

Just then, the gun started firing again.

* * *

Zahida drove straight for the gun emplacement, trying hard not to think about what the electromag gun could do to her car--and to her.

A camera. She should have brought some sort of camera, to record everything and transmit it all to a remote recorder. She should have brought her own gear, and made sure the High Thelek's flunkies knew that she had it.

That's what pocket comms are for
, she reminded herself. She drove one-handed, the car veering all over the landing field, as she pulled out her comm unit, and tried to think who or what to call that would be able to set up to record voice and image, and have the presence of mind to do it fast.
And someone you'd be willing to subject to the danger of holding evidence against the High Thelek
.

It was no good calling emergency services--like everything else in his territory, e-services were controlled by the High Thelek. Any recordings they made of the call would vanish at once, without anyone even having to issue an order for someone to misunderstand.

She would have to bluff, and bluff hard. Fake the call.

Thap thap thap thap thap thap. Thap. Thap thap thap thap thap
. Streaks of light from the tracer rounds flew out straight over her head, heading toward the crippled ship behind her.

The gunner was firing again, in shorter bursts. She didn't dare take her eyes off the her driving long enough to look behind, but she swiveled her ears back and refocused them to tune out the sound of the gun firing and the bullets whizzing. She listened intently behind, but there was no sound of a crash or an explosion. Either the gunner was still scoring clean misses, or else the human ship was tough enough to absorb the further punishment of mag-gun fire.

She was close enough to the gun emplacement to make out the gun itself, and the gunner and two or three other members of the gun crew.

"Stop!" she cried out. "In the name of the Thelm, cease fire!" The gun crew were working under dim blue lights that preserved their night vision. Zahida deliberately aimed her self-drive straight at them and brought her driving light up to maximum, in hopes of dazzling them, and, if nothing else, ruining their aim for a few seconds. She stopped the car.

The gunfire stopped, at least for a moment--but plainly just so the crew could look up and see what was going on, who was shouting at them. The gunner himself peered through the glare of her driving lights and turned toward her. He swiveled the gun around as well, so it was pointing straight at Zahida. Her insides froze, but she forced herself to give no outward sign. There was something in the stance, the facial expression of the chubby little gunner, that said he was simply in the habit of pointing the gun at whatever he was looking at--and likewise something in his face that told her he wasn't especially bright. Another member of the gun crew flipped on a light of his own and pointed it at her.

She grabbed the Thelm's Hand on its thick and heavy gold chain and pulled it from her pocket.
Foolish female!
she told herself.
You should have thought to put it on properly to make a grander appearance. No time for that now.
She took her powered-up pocket comm in the other hand and held it so the camera was pointed out, toward the gun crew. She stepped out into the space lit by her driving lights and held up the Hand, forcing them to see it. "In the name of the Thelm, stand away from the gun! Cease fire!" The gun crew froze, surprised, uncertain--but not sufficiently impressed to obey unthinkingly. She lifted the Thelm's Hand higher. By ancient right, law, and custom, whoever held it had the power to extend the Thelm's personal grant of protection. Once Zahida declared that the Hand had been raised over the human lawkeepers, harming them would be treated as causing harm to the Thelm himself.

Perhaps a bit of grand and formal talk would make up for her failure to wear the Hand properly. "Know that the Thelm himself gave unto me this Hand of gold and steel, and commanded me to place yonder ship, and those aboard it, under the direct and lawful protection of his Mighty Hand. Stand away from the gun!"

The four gun crew members nervously shuffled back. "Cease all hostile action against the ship now trying to land, and against those aboard!" she half shouted. "Let those aboard pass freely, and do not interfere with them." She looked over the four crew members, and picked the one who looked the smartest. "You!" she called out, and pointed her pocket comm straight at him. She wasn't recording or transmitting his image--but he couldn't know that. "Use your comm system and relay those orders, given in the Thelm's name by one who bears the emblem of the Thelm's Hand, to all the other security forces at this spaceport, and confirm receipt of the message with your headquarters." He hesitated for a moment, and she shouted again. "Do it! I command in the Thelm's name. And when you speak, speak in proper form, as one should when speaking the true words of the Thelm."

That
put some snap into his spine-shields. He stood up straight, pulled out his own pocket comm, made some adjustment to it, and spoke into it in a low clear voice. "This is Small Unit Guide Cantro Flen, Gun Crew 345. One who bears the Thelm's Hand commands me to relay to all units the order to cease all hostile action against the ship now trying to land and against those aboard. We are ordered to allow those aboard to pass freely, and not interfere with them. I request that Spaceport Central Security Office acknowledge receipt of this report."

He held out the comm unit for Zahida to hear the reply. "This is Spaceport Central Security Office acknowledging." Small Unit Guide Flen nodded, and slipped the comm unit back in his pocket. "I have done as you ordered in the Thelm's name," he said simply.

"Well done, Guide Flen," Zahida said, struggling as hard to hide her relief as she had to conceal her fear. "You have done the will of the Thelm, and so I shall report. Now I, too, must do his will. Fair evening and farewell." She bowed, very slightly, to them all, and quite deliberately turned her back on them to climb into her vehicle, start it up, and drive away. She pocketed her commlink once she was out of sight of the gun crew.