Death Sentence

by Roger MacBride Allen

  But it was obvious they both had news. Who should go first? Hannah decided that as the senior agent present, she had more of a need to know everything soonest. "All right," she said. "You get the first slot. What have you got?"

  "Fallogon knows everything," said Jamie. "Or more accurately, he's deduced just about everything. Practically everything about our mission, down to the Adler taking damage when the Sholto did. He knows we're after either the message or the decrypt key. He was hoping we had the key, because they have another copy of the message. I did my damnedest to keep from confirming it all, but he barely bothered to ask me if he had figured it all out correctly. There's more, but that's a start. Oh, plus here's a real shocker. Whenever Bulwark of Constancy takes time out from being catatonic, he or she or it or whatever is certifiably, homicidally, insane--and not much of a conversationalist. What have you got?"

  But Hannah didn't get the chance to answer. "You both here. Good. Both you come," said a deep-throated voice behind her, speaking in thickly accented Lesser Trade Speech. "Fallogon want you both."

  Hannah resisted the temptation to curse in every language she knew. "What I've got is plenty--maybe," she said. "It might be nothing at all. But obviously it's going to have to wait." She turned to face the guard who had found them. "'Lay on, Macduff,'" she said to the guard, "'and damn'd be him that first cries, "Hold, enough!" '" It seemed unlikely that the guard's English was any better than his Lesser Trade Speech, but it did no harm to quote the classics.

  Five minutes later Hannah was standing alongside Jamie, Fallogon, and Taranarak, watching the aircar that was supposed to get them back home lifting off into the sky. At least it would serve to take their guards back to base. Fallogon had announced to the guards that he would be flying the humans home, and, needless to say, no one argued with him.

  Once they were aboard Fallogon's aircar, even Hannah and Jamie were willing to accept the arrangement. Two of the saddle-seats had been pulled out, and a basic but comfortable rear-facing bench seat wide enough for two humans had been installed instead. They both sat down on it gratefully.

  Their host gestured with his left strongwork arm and the car took off. Hannah craned her neck around to peek into the forward driver's compartment. The guard/pilot was sitting there, watching the aircar's automatic systems do the flying for him.

  "The flight is short," said Fallogon, "and there is much to discuss. For what it is worth, I can assure you that there are no listening devices or recording systems in this vehicle. Our talk will remain among the four of us."

  "Forgive me, sir," said Jamie, "but that assurance is not worth a great deal precisely because you are one of the four--and also one of the Three, if you can forgive a very small joke."

  "I can forgive it," Fallogon replied evenly. "But we all seek the same thing."

  "An explanation for the loss of the Adler and the death of Special Agent Trevor Wilcox III?" Hannah asked sharply.

  Fallogon made a small gesture of dismissal with his closework hands. "We need not concern ourselves with cover stories," he said.

  "If there has ever been a law enforcement service in this galaxy that did not concern itself with the murder of its own officers or agents by a foreign power, then that service cannot have survived for long," said Hannah. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jamie looking at her in shock and surprise, but she paid him no mind. She had to stay focused on Fallogon.

  "You come very close to implying that I ordered the death of Trevor Wilcox," Fallogon said in a low and dangerous voice.

  "No, sir. I imply no such thing. You would have no motive for such an act. You did not do it. But it is quite obvious that there are competing centers of power on this world and that they work at cross-purposes."

  "What evidence do you have that he was murdered?"

  "None that I wish to discuss at this time," said Hannah.

  "Which I take it to mean in this company," said Fallogon. "But you also claim the loss of the Adler. I dispute that claim. My people tracked a vehicle with a thrust signature that was quite similar to that of the Sholto and precisely the same as the recently recorded thrust signature of the Adler, flying well aft of the Sholto in a manner that was obviously an attempt at maneuver-masking."

  Hannah hadn't expected them to be able to get good enough data to get a thrust signature. And maybe they hadn't. It could easily be a bluff. But what did that matter? What good did it do to pretend any longer? But still, she could not quite bring herself to come straight out and agree that he was right. "That which has been lost can sometimes be found again," she said. "If the brief summing-up I got from Special Agent Mendez is accurate--then you are very much hoping that is true not just for ships, but for documents that have gone astray."

  "Are you all talking about the message sent with Wilcox?" Taranarak asked. She looked at Fallogon. "Has it been found?" she asked.

  "Be silent for now," Fallogon said to her. "We are not dealing with your area of expertise." He turned back to Hannah. "Things are near the breaking point," he said. "We are past the point of playing games and scoring points with clever gambits. This planet is like a sealed and pressurized container that is exposed to heat. Such a vessel might be very near its failure point and show no outward sign of trouble. Only in the moment that it bursts open are the stresses revealed, and only then are the contents of the vessel released. As I explained to young Mendez, the sense of order and control on this world is illusory. If we can restart the research into the longlife treatment, the stress and pressure will be vastly reduced. We will be able to hold together long enough to restore and revive our society. Therefore, I must ask you the same question Learned Searcher Taranarak just asked of me. Has it been found? Do you have the decryption key?"

  That question was clear and limited enough that Hannah was willing to take the risk of answering it. "No," she said. "We do not have it or know where it is, or even know if it still exists."

  "Have you no leads? No clues?"

  Hannah was about to say no to that as well, but she didn't get the chance. "Our investigations continue, sir," Jamie said. "We do not wish to go further than that."

  That signal was clear enough. Jamie didn't want her to answer. Either Jamie hadn't had the chance to tell her everything he had learned over dinner, or he had spotted some other clue that she had missed--or else he was playing some other sort of game. But Jamie Mendez had learned the hard way some time before about saying too much too early. It didn't matter. Her partner was trying to keep her from saying "no." So she didn't.

  Fallogon seemed annoyed. He stared at Jamie while addressing Hannah. "I must say, Special Agent Wolfson, that your junior partner is not afraid to speak back to his betters. Is it wise to work with someone quite so given to rashness?"

  "There is a human saying, sir, that one should not judge a book by its cover. And I have had many occasions to learn that I should trust Agent Mendez's judgment."

  She glanced toward Jamie, and was startled by the expression on his face. She had expected something like a slight nod of thanks or a calm neutrality. Instead what she saw was distracted surprise. Jamie had just thought of something, realized something.

  Fallogon did not notice. "Very well," he said. He glanced out the window. "We are approaching our destination. It has been a long day for all of us. We will continue this tomorrow, after you have had a chance to discuss matters among yourselves. And I should advise you to include Learned Searcher Taranarak in your conversations as much as possible--for I have no doubt you will be dealing quite a bit with her area of expertise. I will arrange for you to have free access between your portable quarters and her home."

  "That will be most helpful, sir," said Hannah, glad for a reason to be courteous and appreciative. She wasn't comfortable rubbing Fallogon the wrong way for as long as they just had. "We thank you for it."

  Fallogon shrugged. "I assure you, it is for my bene--"

  There was a sudden flash of light, then another, and finally a third. Then, a heartbea
t behind, as the slower-traveling sound reached them, a roaring blast, then another, then a third, smaller, sharper, harder explosion. Hannah looked down to their gondola, and to Taranarak's house--or rather, to the pillars of fire where they had once been.

  Their own car lurched sideways and slewed around to a new heading before boosting out of the area on full power, thrusting almost hard enough to knock Jamie and Hannah into the Metrannans' laps. "It's an attack!" Fallogon shouted.

  Hannah kept her attention on the ground. She could see that a third and smaller pillar of fire was all that remained of the aircar that had been meant to carry their party. It looked as if it had been hit in midair by some sort of missile and then crashed. The guards inside it must surely be dead.

  And if Taranarak, Jamie, and she had been in that aircar, the one they were supposed to be in, they would have been dead too.

  The driver of their own vehicle boosted to a higher altitude and took off, headed due south, away from the flaming ruins of their quarters, their transport, and Taranarak's home.

  TWENTY-THREE

  GAMBLE BLUFF GAMBIT

  Jamie gritted his teeth and hung on for dear life as the aircar bounced and jounced along the sky. It didn't have the same glass-smooth acceleration compensators as their gondola--and their nice comfortable bench seat didn't come with seat belts. But then the ride steadied down as the driver guard took over from the automatics.

  Fallogon was the first to regain his composure. "Agent Wolfson, I have an important question," he said in a calm but urgent voice. "Your ship--the Sholto--does it have a self-destruct system?"

  "What? Ah, yes. Of course." Any ship that might carry sensitive data or information did. Jamie was surprised Fallogon had even bothered to ask.

  "Powerful enough to do damage to surrounding structures? I think it likely that your ship might be a target of the same attackers that just struck. I am concerned about the safety of the Free Orbit Station."

  Hannah hesitated before she answered. "Yes. At least it's possible. The standard spaceside destruct system was replaced with a far more powerful unit just before we left. We, of course, switched to the groundside destruct system when we disembarked, and it is active now. It should just melt or wreck sensitive gear. It shouldn't be possible to activate the spaceside destruct--but the wiring and mods were done in a terrible hurry. It is possible they were cross-connected--or that the groundside destruct could touch it off."

  That sounded incredibly unlikely to Jamie. He knew Hannah well enough to have a sense of when she was bluffing. Gunther's team wouldn't have and couldn't have cross-connected the two systems. Most likely Hannah was just thinking fast and had something else on her mind. Quite possibly it was nothing more than the fact that, even if just the groundside destruct system were activated, it would render the Sholto permanently inoperable. Probably Hannah just didn't want to be stranded.

  For his part, Jamie had just learned some things that very much made him want to get back to the Adler as quickly as possible. Maybe Hannah had as well, and saw no reason to stop Fallogon from helping that happen quickly. "Do you truly believe that such an attack is possible?" Jamie asked. "And if so, why worry about our self-destruct system when we've just seen a bomb attack? Why wouldn't they try to hit our ship the same way? After an explosion as big as the ones we just saw, it won't really matter so much if the ship's self-destruct system blows."

  "We would be foolish indeed to assume that whoever blew up your mobile quarters, Taranarak's house, and that aircar won't strike again. However, I doubt anyone is lunatic enough to risk using a bomb on a spacecraft docked at Free Orbit Level Station. They will assume you three are dead. They will have no need to attack your ship. But they may wish to search it. And if they do that, and attempt to open the hatches--well, you see the problem."

  Fallogon thought again. "We have the advantage of their believing you three are now dead--but virtually all the other advantages are with the attacker. And whoever it is clearly has access and resources. We are going to have to think very carefully--and very fast."

  "Sir, if all you say is true, and it certainly seems to be, then it is essential that we return to our ship at once and protect it," Jamie said. If for no other reason than we don't want to be stranded here waiting for your civil war to start up again.

  "You must do more than merely return to your ship," said Fallogon. "You must leave the planet--and it should now be obvious that it will be very difficult for us to protect you, let alone for you to protect your ship."

  "Why?" Taranarak said, finding her voice for the first time since she witnessed the destruction of her home. "What is the reason for all this? Why kill us and blow up our homes?"

  "Because someone apparently still believes you have a chance of producing the longlife treatment and does not want you to succeed." Fallogon thought for a moment, then touched a stud on a small panel by his chair and spoke in Metrannan. "I have told the driver to use full emergency speed and detection avoidance and to get us to the Groundside Station liftpod center as soon as possible, and to arrange for a habitable liftpod to be prepped and ready when we get there."

  "What's a liftpod?" Jamie asked.

  "It is a small wholly automated reactionless-thrust spacecraft customized for the fastest possible transit between Groundside and Free Orbit Station. Liftpods are used for emergency medical evacuations, movement of urgent cargo, and similar things. They are far more expensive to operate than the Elevator cars--but using one of them now will be much less expensive than having a hole blasted through Free Orbit Level Station."

  "You mean that's it?" Jamie asked. "We're leaving now? We've been on-planet less than a day."

  "And in that time you have, in effect, been put on trial for your lives and been the target of a violent assassination attempt committed by someone who didn't worry about killing my guards in the process. I will see to it that they learn to worry about that in the near future. But I think you have had demonstration enough that this is a dangerous place. Beyond those points, I can assure you, with near-absolute certainty, that the decryption key is not on this planet. There is no sense in offering yourselves as targets--and endangering those around you--while you waste time searching for what is not here."

  And no sense in your keeping a destabilizing influence around one heartbeat longer than you have to, thought Jamie. "I see the force of your arguments," he said. It seemed quite likely to him that what was really going on was that Fallogon had invented the whole theory of the bad guys--whoever they were--poking around the Sholto. Probably the real story was that Fallogon had concluded that they didn't have the decrypt key. Therefore, they could be of no help to him. Very shortly after reaching that conclusion he had been handed a most compelling reason, or perhaps excuse, for getting the two troublesome humans out of his hair and on their way home.

  He turned to Hannah and spoke again, still in Lesser Trade. "It looks as if we have wasted the trip," he said. "All of it for nothing." It was an odd sort of bluff. He was certain--well, almost certain, or at least reasonably sure--that he had found something big. Very big. But until he had a chance to think and to talk things out with Hannah, he saw no reason to tell Fallogon anything at all.

  For all Jamie knew, Fallogon himself could have ordered the bombing attack. Jamie had no doubt that Fallogon was capable of it. The only real question was whether he would kill his own people. Perhaps he faked the death of the guards in the other aircar--or perhaps he sacrificed them for the sake of making it all that much more convincing.

  "If you have gained nothing," said Taranarak, "then I have lost everything. My home has been destroyed! They sought to kill me as well."

  Fallogon looked at her evenly. "Yes, they did," he said. "Or at least so it appears. But as you have been scheming and conspiring to depart for Center with these humans since the moment you learned they were inbound toward our planet, I wonder if appearances could be deceiving. Perhaps Tigmin and Yalananav were thrown off the scent by the manner in which thos
e emergency rations got aboard the Sholto. I was not. But I would suggest that anyone willing to climb aboard a spaceship with a pair of alien security agents is not likely to be overly sentimental about her home. They will depart aboard their ship. You will travel with them. None of you will be permitted to return and incite further trouble. I will not be fool enough to throw away the chance to be rid of you all when it is offered to me."

  It was Taranarak's turn to be shocked and afraid. She gasped. Her eyes widened, her outer arms gripped the handrails of her saddle-seat, and her closework hands clasped themselves together. "I--protest!" she managed to say at last.

  "Your protest is noted. Your protest will have no effect whatsoever on my decision. Now, if you will all excuse me, I am the head of security, and there has just been a major attack on the city. I have a great deal of work to do." And with that, he unfolded a portable desk from beside his seat, activated a display screen, put on a commset headphone, switched on a hush field, and set out to ignore his passengers altogether for the remainder of the flight.

  Jamie stared at him in bewilderment. It was an astonishingly rapid change of attitude. Exactly how many parts had he seen Fallogon play that day? And what, exactly, was the game he was playing? And on which side--or sides--was he playing? Then he realized there was far more consistency than he had seen at first. All he had to do was see everything through the lens of whatever would get the longlife treatment back.