The Cause of Death

by Roger MacBride Allen

  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.

  There was no point in trying to confirm that the orders given in the Thelm's name were being obeyed. There was no end to the tricks and the deceptions that Flen could have committed while pretending to obey. His call could have been as phony as her own commlink camera stunt. He could have called a quick-witted accomplice who had the sense to pretend to be the all-points channel and give a false acknowledgment.

  She looked up into the darkening sky, toward the incoming ship--and instantly wished she hadn't. It was in even more trouble than she had thought.

  THIRTEENFIRE

  Jamie barely noticed when the guns stopped firing. They had too many other problems to worry about. Hannah had just explained the landing plan in as few words as possible. He had a half dozen urgent questions to ask, but there was no time for any of them. He could see the thruster-power reserve indicator sliding down toward zero just as well as she could.

  "Okay, double-check all your seat restraints," she said. "Make good and sure you're strapped in."

  Jamie did as he was told, tugging on all the belts and buckles, wondering just how much good they would do. "Belts okay," he reported.

  "Good," said Hannah. "Ready?"

  "Yeah, all set." A lie, of course. How could anyone get ready for a thing like this?

  "Here we go," Hannah said. "Just pray that it all works." She throttled the main thruster down, and let the Lotus drop faster toward what would be her final landing. "Stand by for evac hatch jettison," she called out. She flipped yet another safety cover off yet another for-emergency-use-only control, armed the system by twisting a knob, and then stabbed her finger down hard on the jettison button.

  BLAM-BLAM-BLAM-BLAM and four fat triangular sections of the control cabin's hull, spaced at ninety-degree intervals from each other, suddenly blew off and were arcing away into the gathering darkness to crash onto the landing field. One jettisoned section contained the main viewport, and Jamie suddenly found himself with nothing but his pressure suit between him and the wind whipping past outside, howling and roaring at the frail and dying spacecraft that was going down for the last time.

  They needed all four evac hatches blown off for a very simple reason. With no landing gear to hold the ship upright, they knew the Lotus was going to topple; but they didn't know which way. With all four hatches gone, the odds were good that at least one hatchway would be clear enough for them to get out.

  The ship continued its powered fall, dropping straight down at a steady rate that conferred an odd stateliness on the crippled ship, even though they were still moving far too quickly for anything like a survivable crash landing. At a bare hundred meters altitude, Hannah throttled up as hard as she could to max power, and the engines screamed to life one last time. Jamie watched the altimeter and braced himself for an impact that didn't come--at least, not at once.

  The Lotus came to a halt a bare eight meters above the ground. Hannah immediately throttled down hard to hover, before the ship could pogo back up into the sky. The ship lifted by only the slightest amount, not more than a meter or two. Hannah held the Lotus there, floating all but motionless, just above the ground, dumping the last of the system's thruster power, rather than risking its being released on impact in the form of a large and unpleasant explosion.

  The ship hung there, hovering, for a handful of seconds that seemed like hours--hours in which yet another system could fail, or another faceless enemy could take a potshot at them, or something else could go wrong with their snakebit arrival.

  One last alarm began to beep, then to blat, and finally to howl. Warning panels flashed on in blood-red letters, blinking with the warning THRUSTER POWER DEPLETION. The main engine cut out, then lit again just for a moment before dying completely. Then the Lotus dropped, and dropped hard, smashing stern first into the landing field with a resounding crash and a horrible shriek of metal tearing itself apart.

  The tortured little ship hung there, teetering on its rounded base, for a second, for five seconds, for ten, until Jamie thought it was going to stay that way, balanced upright, for good and all. But then came another bang as something gave way, and the elongated cone that was the Lotus began to topple over backwards.

  The ship fell slowly over with a long, horrible, grinding, crashing noise that seemed to go on forever, gathering force and speed as it went, until finally the cabin level smashed into the ground with a deafening roar. Jamie and Hannah were flat on their backs. The forward evac hatch, where the main viewport had been, was suddenly over their heads. Cracked and grimy sections of the landing pad's concrete were visible through the two side hatches. A geyser of dust and debris and bits and pieces of wreckage engulfed the cabin, mixing with the clouds of smoke and gas and steam billowing out from a half dozen wounds on the ship.

  "Time to go!" Hannah called out, and Jamie needed no further urging. He undid his restraints and half fell, half climbed down from his perch and climbed down onto the control panels and displays that now formed the floor of the cabin. He stumbled backwards through the smoke and dusk to the rear lockers of the cabin, knelt, and pulled them open, stopping for a moment to kick clear a pile of debris that was jamming one locker door.

  He pulled out the emergency packs, the weapons packs, and the two small personal packs and dumped them at his feet, then turned around to see Hannah's feet just disappearing out of the forward evac hatch, directly overhead, the only one of the four that was completely clear of wreckage. Her head reappeared a moment later, and her arms reached out for the big, awkward, heavily padded containers. Jamie grabbed them by their handles, one after another, and heaved them up to her.

  "That it?" she asked after the last one came up.

  "Yeah," said Jamie, then turned and looked at the open lockers. "
No. Just a second." There were two or three other smaller packs in there. They had probably been sitting in the emergency lockers since the Lotus was shipped from the factory. He had no idea what they held, but whatever was in them was meant for use by humans and to be useful in an emergency. He grabbed whatever had a strap he could throw over his arm or shoulder and scrambled up out of the evac hatch, Hannah hauling him up and out onto the hull.

  The moment he was clear of the evac hatch and out on the chewed-up hull of the ruined Lotus, Hannah started throwing the equipment and emergency packs away from the ship. Jamie tossed the last two packs clear. They proceeded to scramble down off the ship, working toward the blunt nose of the lander and sliding down from there. Hannah was ahead of Jamie and hit the ground first. She made a beeline for the closest of the scattered packs, scooped up a bunch of them, and started running away from the Lotus.

  Jamie scooted down the last section of the ship's nose, sitting down and moving feet-first, steadying himself by leaning back and putting his hands down palm first on the hull. He made his way far enough toward the nose to slide down the rest of the way and drop to the ground. He landed heavily, clumsily, falling backwards, banging the back of his helmet against the lander's nose. He scooped up all the packs Hannah hadn't grabbed, and started trotting off after her, struggling to arrange the various straps and handles as he moved.

  He instantly discovered that a sealed pressure suit made a lousy runner's outfit. Still, he was glad to have it on. The clouds of undoubtedly toxic smoke and dust were still swirling around everywhere, and he had no wish to breathe any of it.

  He ran after her, making the best speed he could, gaining on her slowly. He caught up with her, matched pace with her long enough to grab the pack that was the most awkward for her, then upped his pace again and passed her.