The Cause of Death (2 page)

The container popped open, and the top half swung open, hinging on the side away from Georg. There lay the purple starfish--or, more accurately, the Stannlar component that, to human eyes, resembled a six-legged purple starfish. Georg had known it was in there, of course, but this was the first time he had actually laid eyes on it since Cinnabex had handed him the component transport container.

This small part of Cinnabex was most decidedly an
it
, the way a bit of trimmed-off fingernail or an extracted tooth would be an
it
. But this purple starfish was still part of the whole, connected remotely to Cinnabex's main body. Slender wires, attached to tiny electrodes on the creature, were connected to the transport container and its built-in transmitter and receiver. The main portion of Cinnabex was linked to this small part in such a way that the starfish sent and received the same pseudosynaptic signals that it would have experienced when snuggled up with the thousands of other components that made up Cinnabex's main body.

"Aim the inside of the container's upper half at the area you wish to have scanned," said Cinnabex through the headphones. "Remain concealed as much as possible while you are doing so."

Georg did as he was told. The inside of the container's lid must have served as a sort of parabolic antenna, with Pax alone knew what sort of detectors tucked away inside it. "Getting anything?" he asked.

"Far too much," Cinnabex replied. "There are all manner of Pavlat up there. They have more weapons and detectors than I could list in any reasonable amount of time."

"Right," said Georg, hunkering down a bit lower. The container closed itself, and he absently stuffed it back in his breast pocket. So. He wasn't being chased, or hunted, or tracked. He was being herded, being
driven
toward the Thelm's servants, waiting to gather him in. The Pavlat behind and below him were like the beaters at a shooting party, flushing out the prey, urging it toward where the men with the guns waited.

"Change of plans," he announced. "We move sideways, then look for a chance to double back into the valley. We lie low in daylight and make another try by some other route tomorrow night." He knew how long the odds were against his plan--but what choice did he have? Moving forward, up toward the pass, could at best be no better than surrender--and might be no better than suicide.

But suicide--no,
not
suicide, the acceptance of inevitable death at the hands of another--would be better than some other possibilities. Suppose--suppose they
did
catch him, and, somehow, forced him to do their will?

Later. Worry about it later. If he
had
a later.

Georg studied the terrain immediately around him. The patch of scrubby growth that hid him was in a slightly bowl-shaped depression, not more than twenty centimeters deep. When the rains came, it would serve as a catchment that held water in place long enough for the plants to make use of it and grow.

But if water flowed into this catchment, where did it flow out? There! It was nothing more than a notch in the eastern side of the depression, leading to a shallow sort of trench. But it led east, and down, and it would provide some small measure of cover. Keeping himself hunched over and his profile low, Georg got moving. To his delight, he discovered that the trench rapidly deepened and widened as he moved along, with other dry runoffs joining it.

Soon it was nearly waist high, and the scrubby brush on either side of the wash grew thicker and lusher, providing almost solid cover on both banks. Georg recognized two or three species he had been studying. It was good to see them growing and healthy, out in the wild, even if he knew it couldn't last.

The genetic time bomb that would kill all the living things around him was not merely ticking--in fact, it had already gone off. The whole reason that he and Cinnabex and Allabex were on-planet was to undo the damage that had already been done, or, failing that, at least to try to keep things from getting worse.

He risked straightening up a bit as he moved along what had grown into a full-blown dry creekbed. Plainly, there was running water there in the rainy season. Even now the dirt and gravel underfoot was damp, or even puddled-over in places. He couldn't have asked for a better piece of cover, or a better avenue to lead him right where he wanted to go.

He was starting to think there might even be some hope in his future. Get out of the Thelm's Valley, find some way off this planet and back to Pax Humana HQ, then wangle a way off-planet for Marta and Moira--though Marta would probably have managed that by herself by then.

"We might actually get out of this, Cinnabex," he said.

"The odds are strongly against that, friend Georg," Cinnabex replied. "The odds of your escaping are growing worse by the minute. Your odds of surviving--and of our venture succeeding--will be far greater if you turn yourself in and agree to abide by local law and custom."

"'Local law and custom,' " Georg echoed. "That's an amazingly prettied-up way to describe it."

"Very well. Call it a duty incumbent on you as a result of the honor bestowed upon you. Call it what is expected of you. Call it what law and tradition demand."

"Tradition. That's always the reason people use when they want to act without thinking."

"Tradition is the voice of experience," Cinnabex said, rather stiffly. Georg felt vaguely and unfairly disappointed to hear Cinn make such a typical Elder Race remark.

There was an outcrop of rock that half blocked the wash. Georg had to pick his way over it slowly and cautiously, and did not reply at first. His back was tired from running half-hunched over, and the last thing he needed was to cramp up. He decided to take a short break. He found a place to sit down and lean against a rock for a moment, and said, "Just because something is a long-standing tradition does not make it right. And traditions can change, even if it sometimes takes very heavy pressure to make them change."

"I grant those points," said Cinnabex. "But they will not have much bearing if you are dead. You must be alive in order to change things."

"Not necessarily. Dying in a good cause can often do a cause good."

"A clever phrase, and it might even be true. However, the death can only do good if others hear about it," Cinnabex replied.

"That will be your job if I don't make it," Georg responded. "Get word back to Pax Humana, to Center, to Earth, of what happens to me."

Cinnabex was silent for a moment. "Forgive me, friend Georg, but one would almost think that you
want
to die."

Georg laughed bitterly. "No," he said. "Far from it. But if I
do
die, I see no reason for my death to be wasted."

"But even if I do send word to Earth, what good would that do? How could it change things?"

"I know, I know," George said, nodding absently. "Humanity is very weak, and very unimportant, and has little influence.
But things change
. Humanity will grow stronger in the councils of the sentient races. The other races will find themselves obliged to care about what we care about."

"That is extremely long-range planning for a short-lived race," Cinnabex said drily. "And it is optimistic almost to the point of being delusional. Such great shifts in power simply do not happen quickly--and almost never happen at all."

Georg grunted, but didn't reply. Better to focus on the matter at hand. He stood up and started making his way through the shallowing ravine. Soon, he could hear running water up ahead.

He paused as he came to where the ravine petered out, ending in a still pool of water that was a sort of inlet to a small stream flowing along at right angles to the ravine they had been following. Even in the height of the dry season, it was about five meters wide and a half meter or more deep.

"Is your component's transport case waterproof?" Georg asked, patting the container in his breast pocket.

"It can be fully sealed for short periods. But, of course, my component needs breathing air and ventilation for cooling. It cannot stay closed down for long."

"Five or ten minutes all right?"

"That is acceptable. Might I ask what you are intending to do?"

"Lie down in that creek," Georg replied. "I want to give my camo suit a chance to dump some heat." Among its many other functions, the camouflage suit absorbed and stored the wearer's body heat. It did so to keep the wearer from being spotted by animals that could see in infrared--but it also hid the wearer from technological infrared sensors.

However, the suit's heat absorbers could only hold so much converted heat energy before they were forced to shed it, one way or another. If the absorbers ran too long, they would overload and explode. The best way to dump the excess heat was in cold running water. It would also chill down the whole heat-masking system, so it would run better and for hours longer before it would need another heat dump.

"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.