The Cause of Death by Roger MacBride Allen Read Free Book Online Page B

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?"
    "In a way," Jamie said. "It's really a pretty weak connection. Hertzmann is there with his wife and daughter. They're not there rescuing anybody, or arbitrating a war, or that sort of thing. Georg Hertzmann and his wife belong to Pax Humana, but they're on a business deal, with some Pax Humana money behind them."
    Hannah nodded. "I'm not all that surprised. The Paxers do more of that than rescuing or war-stopping. Those sorts of jobs are expensive , and PH has to do a lot of fund-raising, lots of business deals to support their work."
    Jamie looked at Hannah thoughtfully, almost accusingly. "You don't like them much, do you?"
    Hannah set down her fork and shifted in her seat a bit. "I don't have anything against them," she said, "but no, I'm not as for them as much as I gather you are. They are brave people, and they do good work. A lot of them are genuine heroes. But not all of them are heroes, and not everything they do is heroic--no matter how hard they work to make the outside world and themselves believe it. Besides, the only reason Pax Humana can live up to all those proud mottoes about being willing to die, but not to kill is because there are outfits like BSI that will use force when necessary."
    "What are you talking about?"
    "Well, there are two angles to it. First off, there were a lot of times when some bunch of xenos were up against PH, one way or the other, and heard about their being willing to die but not