The Cause of Death (24 page)

"I thank you, my son," said the Thelm. "It is good to see you. We have not been together since you, ah, tried to depart."

"No, sir. I wished to come to you, but under the circumstances, it would have been neither wise nor possible for me to attempt it."

"No, of course. I understand. And so, now, I come to you. I wish for us to speak together."

Georg gestured to a room at the end of a corridor. "I am glad. I think we would be more comfortable through there, sir."

"Thank you," said the Thelm, and led the way, as protocol required.

If the room was "more" comfortable than the rest of the building, then that comfort was relative. The room was empty, but for a single, severe, straight-backed human chair, and a single Pavlat-style stool. It was obvious the room had once been some sort of gallery display space, and was walled almost entirely in glass. The room was brightly lit, so that the occupants would be plainly visible to anyone outside. That was, after all, the point, but nonetheless, it left the Thelm distinctly uncomfortable. An odd reaction, considering that the whole point of Georg's choosing to live there had been to make the Thelm feel safer.

The Thelm set himself down on the stool and gestured toward the human chair. "Please," he said, "sit."

Georg did so, and looked up at him intently. But protocol required that he speak no more, unless the Thelm spoke in a way that required an answer, and Georg had always been most careful about protocol. But there was, of course, a way around the rules. "I bid you speak, if you wish it, and say what you like," said the Thelm.

"Father, I am sorry," Georg replied on the instant. It was clear the words had been at the ready within him, perhaps for a long time. "I have failed you, and caused you endless trouble."

"Nonsense. It is we, our people, who have caused all the trouble, our own and yours as well. It is not only off-worlders who view some of our customs as misguided, even barbaric. And I should have been forethoughtful enough to see the looming danger. But when I took you as my adopted son, I intended none of this. I had three other sons by birth, all older than you. I did not foresee that all three would--would . . ."

He stood up, unable to speak further, unable to sit still. Georg began to rise hurriedly, but the Thelm gestured for him to sit. "Please," he said. "Stay where you are. Don't go bouncing up and down simply because I wish to stand."

Georg paused a moment, and then settled himself back down. "As you wish, sir," he said. The room was silent for a moment. "Sir, if I might speak further--"

"Yes, yes, please! Speak! Talk to me! We might not have many more chances, you and I. Don't fuss about protocol. Not inside the family."

The family
. Lantrall was struck by a disturbing thought. His other sons gone, his wife long dead, the heiress-apparent some great-great-niece of his wife, completely under the thumbs of the High Thelek--aside from Georg Hertzmann, aside from this strange, quiet, brave, determined, well-meaning, intelligent, naive half boy half man--aside from this
human
--the Thelm realized that he had no real family at all.

This odd alien, so close to a Pavlat in appearance and so different. The strange coloration and hair patterns, the unsettlingly mobile face muscles, the motionless ears, the unsightly and fragile knob of flesh they called a
nose
there in the center of the face, the hands with the lower thumbs missing, the feet each with one toe too many. And yet, this, this
creature
was his son, in every legal and moral sense of the word. And stranger still, he felt closer to Georg, more fully in the proper relation of father to son, than he had with any of his sons by birth.

Georg hesitated, then spoke. "I--I only wished to express my sorrow at the loss of your three--three
other
sons. The aircar accident that took all their lives was a terrible tragedy."

"It was idiotic," said the Thelm, sharply. "They should never have all gone on the same hunting trip, let alone in the same aircar, precisely
because
Irvtuk's show-off piloting could place us all in this intolerable situation, just as it has done. I know your human phrase, 'do not speak ill of the dead'--but the fact remains that the dead have done ill--very ill--by us. That aircar crash altered the fate of this entire world, in ways of which we cannot yet be sure. And yet, by all reports, all three of them behaved as if there was nothing at stake but their own lives."

"Nonetheless, sir, I grieve."

"Do you? You know as well I do that none of them liked you much, or approved of your adoption. Thought it was all some foolish bit of symbolism and nothing more." The Thelm surprised himself by talking so angrily, but then wondered why in the world he was so surprised. His three sons by birth had grown apart from him long ago, had come to view him as nothing more than a means to an end, a card to be played when the time was right--and that time had been coming soon when they died.
That
was the true reason he had made the grand and unexpected gesture of adopting an off-worlder, an alien. Georg Hertzmann did not see Thelm Lantrall as a useful tool, a valuable token that could be exchanged at a profit; but instead viewed him as a leader with the daring to waken his people and his world, to move them forward out of the slumberous shadows where they had been for far too long.
Of all my sons, only Georg ever saw me as a father
.

"Whether or not they believed it was mere symbolism, Father, I know that was not the reason."

"Of course not," said the Thelm. There was a moment's awkward silence. So many things they should speak of, and so many things that neither dared to say. But there were things,
useful
things, he could report. "I come with news. When you were first, ah, prevented from departing, I ordered that word be sent to your government. Far too late, I learned that, either by design or by incompetence, the message was translated and sent by a clerk who scarcely spoke Reqwar Pavlavian, let alone any form of English. It was badly garbled. Nonetheless, UniGov dispatched two agents of their Bureau of Special Investigations."

"The BSI? But there's nothing here to investigate."

"True enough. We did not ask for BSI agents. But that is what we were sent. And, I might add, it seems highly doubtful that the agents could possibly discern the actual reason they were summoned from the message."

"Why
were
they?"

"We wanted diplomatic witnesses to the execution," the Thelm said bluntly. "To see that all was carried out according to proper law and ritual, so that there could be no later complaint. And to negotiate the proper procedures and rituals for escorting, ah, the remains home, and to perform that escort duty. But, I am pleased to report, that is all beside the point. We did not ask for law-enforcement agents, but that is what we received--and, despite the best efforts of the High Thelek and his friends, they actually survived their landing at Thelmhome Spaceport."

"It was a bad day for you--for us--when the High Thelek managed to claim the fealty of the spaceport," Georg said.

"Agreed. But at least that little transaction forced him to tip his hand. We knew from then on to watch him--and knew from then on that he was watching us. But to return to the present issue, I have been advised that there is at least some chance that these agents, with a non-Pavlat viewpoint, might be able to find a way out of our problems."

"Father Lantrall, with all due respect,
I
have an outside, non-Pavlat perspective, and a very strong incentive for finding a way out of all this--and
I
haven't come up with anything. I don't dare hope that someone else can find a way."

"Point taken. But allow me the luxury of hoping on your behalf."

"Yes, Father Lantrall. Of course. I meant no offense--but quite honestly, I do not see what magic answers they might bring."

"We shall see. In the meantime--there is another matter. A thought that recent events brought to my mind. With all the protection and security provided to you, there was one safeguard that I failed to employ. I will employ it now."

The Thelm hesitated a moment, suddenly not sure how Georg would react--and just as suddenly realizing that how Georg reacted mattered a very great deal to him. He almost did not dare take the risk. But no. It was too late to go back. Besides, he felt quite urgently the fatherly impulse to protect his child, and he had no other way to do so. Even if the gesture was pointless, or even ghoulish, it was all he could offer.

He reached up to his neck and lifted off a chain made of fine threads of specially treated silver, steel, and bronze, symbolizing beauty, strength, and wisdom woven together. The metal that gleams, the metal that shields, and the metal made by skill, craft, art, and experience.

The pendant hanging from the chain was a stylized Pavlat hand, held open with both the inner and outer thumbs spread wide, in the traditional gesture of benevolent protection. The hand itself was carved from a piece of the hull metal from the first Pavlat ship to land on Reqwar.

It was meant to be a far grander and more impressive Hand than the ones Zahida Halztec had convinced him to give to her. The cases were different in any event. Thelm Lantrall had granted to Zahida the
authority
to extend the Thelm's Hand. He had not placed Zahida herself under that protection.

However much the Hand he now held was meant to impress, in plain cold fact it was a rather ugly little trinket. It was the weight of overblown symbolism, the provenance of the material from which the Hand itself was made, and the fact that it was given from the Thelm's flesh-and-bone hand that gave the object whatever value it had.

No. That was not true. Not at all. The value it had was that it might save Georg's life. If it did that, if there was even the
chance
that it could do that, then it could be the most ugly, overblown, intrinsically worthless object on the planet, so far as the Thelm was concerned.

He held the chain high over his head and spoke in a loud, clear voice that, somehow, was not as certain or as powerful or as confident as he intended.

"Be it known and published throughout this world that I hereby extend, directly and personally, the Protection of the Thelm's Hand over Georg Hertzmann, adoptive son and heir of Lantrall, Thelm of all Reqwar. Whosoever harms this same Georg Hertzmann, or compasses harm against him, shall be judged as having harmed the Thelm and shall pay the full and heaviest penalty for that crime."

Even to the Thelm, the grand words of ritual seemed faintly absurd when there was no one there but the two of them. But the words of the pronouncement had meaning and value, and were legally binding in the moment they were spoken.

All that remained was to place the chain around his son's neck and speak the final words. "Arise, Georg Herztmann," he said. Informality was all very well for a family chat--but not for the Extension of the Hand. If Georg had remained sitting, then the Thelm would have been obliged to bow or even kneel slightly in order to place the chain properly, and that would never do.

Georg stood, and Thelm Lantrall placed the chain around his neck. It was only then that he remembered that Georg already wore a pendant--the Pax Humana Hand. There was something comforting about that idea--two hands, one Pavlat, one human, one extended to protect, the other offering help. If only it were that simple.

The Thelm moved back a step or two before intoning the last words of the ritual. He spoke with greater conviction than he had a moment before, a conviction that he truly felt. "Now it is done. Now none will dare to harm Georg Hertzmann, so long as Lantrall, Thelm of all Reqwar, shall live."
Except, of course, those responsible for enforcing the sentence already handed down against you for the crime of which you stand convicted.
There was nothing the Thelm could do to protect Georg from
that
peril. Perhaps placing the Hand on his adopted son could do nothing but ease Lantrall's own guilt and shame, if only by the merest trifle. But if the High Thelek got impatient for Georg's death, or, if, by some miracle, a way out
was
found, then perhaps putting Georg under the protection of his Hand would have some practical use.

Georg bowed low, straightened up, and looked upon his adoptive parent. "Thank you, Father Lantrall," he said, a storm of unreadable emotions playing across that strange and alien face. But his feelings, and the Thelm's, were unimportant. None would dare to harm Georg Herztmann without the law's consent so long as Lantrall lived. That was the main thing.

And therein lay an irony so deep, so vast, that no possible single emotion could do it justice.

FIFTEEN
MINDER

Jamie Mendez leaned across the windowsill and glared out the hexagonal window of Room Four of the Biped Wing of the Standard-Grav-Standard-Air Floor Number Two of Hotel Number Two.

He looked down across fabulous downtown Thelmhome. He was not impressed. Thelmhome was a small, tired, worn-out place. Somehow the entire city looked as if it needed a coat of paint. Thelmhome was immediately adjacent to Thelm's Keep, and to about twenty other things and places with the word "Thelm" in them.