The Cause of Death (6 page)

He checked his wristaid, and tried to figure out what time it was, really. His wristaid had picked up the shipwide links and automatically defaulted to the standard shipboard timekeeper, which had already converted to the Reqwar's day/night cycle and timekeeping, localized on the capital region of Thelmhome and Thelm's Keep. But his body was still on Center City Standard, the time kept in the Bullpen. He was not entirely sure if, right at the moment, it was day or night, or yesterday, or today, or even tomorrow back home--wherever home was, for him, at this point. California? Center City? BSI Orbital HQ?

But whatever time of day it was, whatever
day
it was, time was the one thing he didn't have to waste. He soldiered on with his reading.

Atmosphere: Oxygen 17%, Nitrogen 81%, CO
²
, water vapor, and trace inert gases 2%.

. . . Landforms: Five small-to-medium island continents, ranging from Greenland-sized to Australia-sized, all associated with coastal islands . . .

. . . Native life on the planet has evolved to a state roughly comparable to the very early Cambrian fauna era of Earth, more or less on a par with the Burgess Shale fauna: relatively sophisticated macroscopic multicelled life-forms have evolved in a large number of genuses, each with relatively few species . . . Plants and animals have colonized most regions of the world ocean, but native life has yet to establish any sort of foothold on land. However, imported life-forms, especially plant life, are well established on all the main continents and many of the smaller islands. These are, for the most part, lightly modified and bioengineered variants of species found on the Pavlat home world . . .

Well, that at least jibed with what he had read from other sources. He had found that some sources repeated sections almost word for word from other references, while other sections were wildly different or contradictory. Never mind. He'd find out soon enough which bits were correct.

There was something comfortable about the grind of studying. It was all very much like crunch time back at Stanford.
Except a failing grade here doesn't just ding my grade point average
, he reminded himself.
It might get me killed
.

That thought provided all the incentive he needed to keep going. For one thing, he definitely needed more information on the particular breed of xenos they would be dealing with. Unfortunately, the sources on the Pavlat weren't much help in a lot of ways.

Pavlat: A species of deceptively humanoid appearance, sporting much the same body plan as humans: bipedal and upright, with their arms and hands all but completely evolved away from their previous locomotive functions and available for lifting, carrying, manipulation, etc. The Pavlat are generally taller and thinner than humans, and with a thicker, more leathery skin. They have six fingers on each hand, arranged more or less human-style, but with an additional opposable outer thumb. However, they have only four toes on each foot. It is unclear whether the "missing" toes are fused with other toes or simply fail to develop.

There is some variation in coloration, but the Pavlat are mainly bluish-grey in color, with the face, the ventral area of the torso, the palms of the hands, and the bottoms of their feet tan or light brown. Their faces are longer and more angular than humans', but the mouth and eyes are arranged as per the human model. There is no nose; instead, there are breathing holes just behind the large and fanlike ears. The ears themselves generally lie flat, but are even more maneuverable than a cat's. Ear position is an important signal of a Pavlat's mood.

As with their general bodily appearance, Pavlat biology is deceptively similar to human biology. The similarities mask vast and subtle differences that have shaped traditional Pavlat culture in many ways, some obvious, and some quite surprising. . . .

Jamie scored
that
section at about 85 percent right, based on his own quite limited experiences with the denizens of Little Pavlavia in Los Angeles. At least the article warned that first impressions could be deceptive--but it would have been nice if it had gone a bit further and tried to explain exactly
how
the similarities were deceptive. Interestingly enough, nearly all of the information seemed to be from human sources, with no data provided by third races. Maybe the other Elder Races didn't know much about the Pavlat either.

Communities on Earth like Little Pavlavia in Los Angeles merely provided the
illusion
that humans understood the Pavlat. The Pavlat on Earth had done a fairish job of assimilating themselves--and of keeping their reasons for leaving the Pavlat world very murky indeed.

He remembered from his days in Bindulan's store how complex codes and oaths of secrecy seem to cover everything. The humans that lived in and around Little Pavlavia had a few standard jokes about them, told with more affection than otherwise.

"How can you tell if a Pavlat is keeping a secret?"

"It's breathing."

"How can you tell when a Pavlat has told a secret?"

"It's stopped breathing."

If there was a hint of menace in that punch line, it wasn't out of place. The Pavlat did not deal gently with those who betrayed a trust, or a secret. It had taken a good long time for the Los Angeles cops to work out a way to deal with the Pavs, and the situation still wasn't altogether satisfactory.

Jamie rubbed his eyes and got back to work, slogging through the endless data files.

As with any widely dispersed intelligent species, the Pavlat have developed any number of cultures, each more or less adapted to the local climate and other conditions. However, it is safe to say that nearly all Pavlat cultures are strongly hierarchical, and are based in large extent on a complex and dense web of family connections, and a tightly interlocking system of obligations and privileges . . .

Jamie read on, until long after the words didn't make any sense anymore.

* * *

It was morning in Los Angeles. Bindulan Halztec got Jamie's message over breakfast--or what a
human
would call breakfast, merely because it was the first meal of the day. In most Pavlat cultures, Firstmeal was something much more--it was the main social and ceremonial meal of the day, when visitors came to call, and supplicants came asking boons, and family business was resolved.

Except, of course, that Bindulan was eating alone, in his very human-style kitchen, dressed in his ill-fitting but quite comfortable human-style coveralls, and puttering about the place very much in the style of an elderly but spry human widower.

Every once in a while, Bindulan realized just how un-Pavlat his behavior had become. A human, a youthful human, seeking him out, no doubt for guidance on some matter. It had come to that: He had immersed himself so deeply in human ways that the
humans
came to him for advice.

That realization brought him up short. He had, after all, come to Earth, come to Los Angeles, to
escape
the Reqwar Pavlat way of doing things, to turn his back on their medieval habits, the way they clung to traditions that might have made sense long ago but were now little more than formalized brutality, savagery made respectable.

But even so, those ways were
his
ways, his people. And even if he had put distance between himself and those traditions, he had not abandoned his people.

And yet, there, on Earth, without even being fully aware that they were doing it, the expatriated Pavlat community had set itself up as a distorted mirror image of the very society it was rejecting.

Bindulan had been the patrician's scion of a very important family, and so, as a matter of course, he had become patrician to Little Pavlavia, even as he established himself as a mere grocer of no pretensions at all, a lowly shopkeeper with a well-earned reputation for being very close with a dollar or a UniStar--or any other unit of currency. Somehow, he had played both roles, side by side, both to the same audience, and none had ever questioned it.

He poured himself another glass of whrenseed juice, carefully mixed in the proper amounts of salt and sugar, and stirred it thoughtfully for a moment. Then he sat down in front of his comm screen and opened Jamie's message.

It took a remarkably long time to decrpyt, several seconds at least, long enough that Bindulan had time to decide it must be a long and involved video message, full sound and vision. He was startled indeed to discover it was a remarkably short text message, but with very heavy, slow-to-parse encryption--and then was startled anew, more than startled,
shocked
, as he read its contents.

Jamie Mendez, a BSI agent, bound for Reqwar! And assigned to the Hertzmann case, of all things. Not a word concerning that incident--no, not incident,
scandal
, had made its way into the normal local news reports, of course--but the Pavlat community knew all about it and was absolutely abuzz. No two Earthside Pavlat could meet without sitting down to discuss the matter in detail over a glass or two of whrenseed. Bindulan remembered his own freshly made whren, reached for it, and took a large sip, hoping it would calm him down, serve to settle his thoughts.

Every word of the too-brief message shouted out to Bindulan that Jamie Mendez had not the slightest idea that he was headed straight for the center of the quagmire, toward the twin black hearts of intrigue and murderous tradition that had driven Bindulan--and nearly every other Pavlat on Earth--out of Pavlat society in the first place.

The boy was writing to ask for advice, for guidance. The message had come reply-paid. Good. Very good. For Bindulan had extended a loan to Qal Frenzic's new endeavor. No doubt Bindulan would see his money again in due time, but it did mean that his finances of the moment simply would not allow him to send any QuickBeam messages on his own credit.

He paused for a moment to realize how highly he must think of Jamie, human or no, even to have considered the thought of paying himself. Even the shortest of QB messages would likely amount to more than all the wages Bindulan had paid Jamie for a full summer of hard work. Never mind that Jamie was human. Little Pavlavia was full of
Pavlat
to whom he would never
consider
extending so large an assistance.

But what to say? Well, the proper guidance in this circumstance was crystal clear--even if there was not the slightest chance of Jamie
taking
the advice Bindulan was bound to offer. James Mendez would go to Reqwar and do his duty, as honor required.

But honor also required that Bindulan warn and advise Jamie when asked, just the same.

He glanced down at the reply-paid section of the screen, noted the amount authorized--and saw that, fortunately enough, there were no restrictions whatsoever on how he
spent
the amount. If he wished to send further messages elsewhere, there were sufficient funds to do so. He should take advantage of that.

Very well, he would send the advice that honor required to Jamie. But that message would be brief, very brief. That would allow him to send a longer and more detailed message--in fact, a command--to where it would do Jamie--and Reqwar, perhaps--the most good.

He sat, sipping his whrenseed, and thinking, slowly, carefully, methodically, how best to spend the BSI's money to accomplish his own goals.

FIVE
PAXERS

Hannah set down her fork for a second, shut her eyes, and leaned back in her chair, the image of contentment. "Good food," she said, opening her eyes to look over at Jamie. "Say what else you may about the BSI, but you'll have to admit they stock the galleys on their ships pretty well."

"Granted," said Jamie, as he tore another piece of garlic bread off the loaf. "I didn't know anyone made ready-to-eat meals this good."

Hannah shut her eyes and smiled again, just for a second. One day had passed aboard the
Hastings
, and another; long enough for a sense of a routine to form. Part of that routine was dinner. The other meals she had to insist on, and almost literally drag Jamie away from his work--but, at least for both nights so far, for dinner he came willingly.

After only a handful of missions together, she had yet to puzzle out everything about her extremely junior partner, but she was starting to get a handle on him. One thing she knew for sure already was that he was a hard worker, and a quick study who took things seriously.

And the issue she was about to bring up just might get unpleasant very fast. She would have just as soon avoided the topic, but the job required that they both face it. She judged it was the time to do it. But there wouldn't be any harm in approaching the matter indirectly.

"We still haven't gotten any reply from Pax Humana back on Center," Hannah said, as casually as she could, serving herself another healthy slice of lasagna. "But I have managed to pull together some pretty intriguing information about the job that Hertzmann is on Reqwar to do. What I haven't come up with is anything that links it directly to Pax Humana. Do you have anything on that?"